r1anmadden09

What can I say? I'm still playing this game, which means this series has such a tight grip on me that I can't let it go. After the disastrous CoO DLC, I had mediocrely low expectations for this one, and they were slightly surpassed. This expansion does not make a good first impression. The story is predictably lackluster, although better than CoO, but not by much. It is as polished as ever. Shooting things is as fun as it's ever been and the combat is still satisfying. The locations are beautiful and unique, but all this is to be expected. But the story is still incredibly vapid, taking about two hours, and it culminates in an incredibly easy final boss fight that (again) feels like it would've made a much better raid boss. The adventures are as generic and forgettable as they've been since launch, and the new strikes are well, modified story missions. I think you can see that Bungie has a problem with the amount of quality content, which I can't really understand. Because this expansion actually has a decently realized foundation. While I was playing through the story, I came across multiple things in the game world that I had no idea what they were, or what to do with them, as well as some public events that were blatantly too hard for me to do. It was refreshing to see Bungie tell its players, "we're not going to hand you everything" like they did in vanilla D2. Now we get into what the expansion does well, the mid/end game and open world. The new playable area is the first area that mostly realizes what these open worlds were originally supposed to be. There is a lot going on here. Enemies to fight, vehicles to capture, things to collect and discover, a good variety of public events that range from easy (patrols) to incredibly difficult. Escalation protocol, the new public event, has me excited because it's something to work toward. There are 7 stages and I have yet to get past the first one. That may not sound like a positive, but this game needed a challenge beyond the raid for players to engage in. There are some decent weapon quests that force you to spend some time to explore the world, collect things, do different activities, and fight different enemies. While they aren't hard, its a nice change of pace knowing that you're doing things working for a measurable goal. The weapon system needs improving. The current weapon system is not fun and needs to be fixed with either D1's system or something like Borderlands. But the current system has to go. There is nothing fun about having two simplistic, weak weapons with one fun weapon that you use sparingly. Also gear is boring and subclasses are boring make those fun again too. However, they did make a lot of improvements to exotic weapons to make them feel, you know, exotic. From simple buffs to overhauled perks that actually unlock some cool new ways to fight enemies by using the exotic perks in harmony with your subclass. It's a good improvement, but it needs more. More unique weapons along with some eventual subclass and gear changes would do wonders. I have already played this more than CoO and I'm having a much better time. Also, I think they made some changes to some of CoO's systems as well. I'm not sure, I hardly played that one. Then there's the PvP. I hate it. I've hated Destiny's PvP since day 1 of vanilla. All it's done is stifle Bungie's creativity. While they are making some positive changes to encourage players to play more, it still is not fun for me because it has no idea what it wants to be. It is not slow-paced, methodical, and balanced enough to be a competitive gunplay focused shooter but also isn't wild and crazy enough to be an ability focused game. It's stuck between two levels of boring where all anyone does is sit back and camp like the worst possible version of a team focused game, using one or two cheese weapons that dominate every other. Bungie needs to decide whether they want PvP to be the top priority, or be secondary to cool guns and amazing abilities. I hope they choose the latter. I have huge problems with this DLC. I want Bungie to pull their head out of their ass and live up to their full potential in terms **** story, amazing worlds, good mission design and variety, satisfying replayable content on top of the solid loot, gunplay, open world events, and weapons quests it already has. But I can't deny this DLC is making me want to play, and I've been having a decent time playing it alone or with friends. You can decide if you think its Stockholm syndrome or not.

While the music and the art direction were the main focuses of this game leading up to release, the game offers far beyond that. This game is a burst of joyous creativity and passion. There is no filler here. The whole game is the good part of the game, and that leads to a surprisingly little amount of frustration despite how hard it is. The music and visuals draw you in immediately and are a joy to look at and listen to. Dying didn't really seem like a punishment to me, as it meant more time to soak in all the sights and sounds. There is a tremendous level of care and detail here, even for its cartoonish look. Nothing feels or sounds out of place and it makes playing the game that much more enjoyable. Gameplay wise, the controls feel smooth and responsive. To me, they looked wonky in the early gameplay footage I saw, maybe I watched too much Dean gameplay, but while you're playing the controls are fine. The bosses are the star here. Even though some are more fun and interesting than others, they are all great and all challenging. No boss plays out like another and they force you to focus on every detail of their behavior in order to win. This is enhanced by a surprising amount of abilities that you can equip and experiment with. These two things kept the game fresh. However, some people might be turned off by this game. There is a big emphasis on trial and error. You will never one cycle a boss, and you have to dedicate at least 20 minutes to each one, at least on the later worlds. Me personally, I never raged, no matter how many times I died. I got frustrated and burnt out to the point where I made numerous stupid mistakes, and at that point was laughing at myself more than anything. But despite the difficulty, the game kept pulling me back, and when I landed the final hit on a boss, I was re-energized each time, and thought, "Let's do this **** again". Few things in gaming have been so fun and rewarding, yet ball bustingly hard as these boss battles. The complaints I have are pitifully minor, but I still want to mention them. The run and gun levels are overshadowed by the boss battles, which is more of a testament to how good the bosses are rather than how bad the platforming is. But I rarely wanted to do them. While they are fun, unique, and just as challenging as the bosses, this isn't the main draw of the game. The only point to these levels is to collect gold coins which are used to buy upgrades. Once you collect all the gold coins in a level, I don't see many people replaying the run and gun sections. I've seen a few people complain about bugs. I haven't had many problems. There were a few instances where I had the auto parry perk equipped and the auto parry procked but I still took damage from the projectile. Other than that, the game is near perfect on a technical level, at least for me. There are a few instances in boss battles where stuff comes down to RNG. Sometimes things just unfold in a crappy way and you get screwed over by it. However, this isn't anything that happens with much regularity and 99% of the time the failures are your own fault and can be fixed with a lot of persistence. This game is everything good about gaming. Simple yet deep, punishing yet rewarding, and above all else, fun. This is the most fun I've ever had getting my ass beat. Even though I probably won't play this game for 2000 hours like other games, there is no denying this is a great damn game, and Cuphead will no doubt be a gaming memory I'll keep with me for a long time.

Was super excited for this game before it came out, but didn't end up buying it right away. I just picked it up for free on Games with Gold last month, so my expectations were at a reasonable level. I have finished the story, done most of the side missions, and spent a decent amount of time with online modes. Overall, I think this is a solid game. There is great fun to be had in this game, even if it doesn't live up to the massive hype. The story is one of the weaker elements in this game. Aiden hardly shows any emotion throughout the campaign, and it started to give me the impression that he doesn't care about anyone around him, even though the game constantly told me he does. His actions frequently put his loved ones in danger, and despite attempts to make Aiden show remorse or question his actions, they aren't convincing, as the dialogue is average and his character is so stiff. He and everyone else is well voice acted though. The side characters are much more interesting and give the story much needed personality and energy. The villains are also disappointing. The simple revenge story quickly unfolds and becomes more about the city and the crooks within it. However, the final twist, while I certainly did not see it coming, made the main villain look like an idiot, as his motivations were pretty unspectacular and small minded. The storyline was decent and did its job well enough. I did enjoy playing through it though, mostly because of the open world and the mission design and variety. The open world, while nowhere near the size of GTAV, is amazingly detailed. Ubisoft, love them or hate them, knows how to make an open world. The NPC's also give the city surprising life, as the little ctos blurbs tell a story about each person as you walk by them, and give each pedestrian character. They also do more interesting things like play recreational activities, protest, sell you **** and freestyle rap. The things people say, rap, or sell do repeat a couple times though. The game has great animations as well. Aiden especially. He stumbles and shies away when you blow up a fuse box close to him. He sidesteps and puts his hands out to protect himself when almost getting hit by a car. It's pretty cool. The driving can be annoying, however, as the driving physics could've used a bit more polish, as they are incredibly inconsistent. Driving motorcycles always feel great, however, which is really weird. The combat is also great, as most missions give players the freedom to take any approach. There were too many auto-fails for my liking, (my ideal number would be zero), but the ones that don't auto-fail leave it completely up to you. I chose the stealth approach, which works better imo, which includes using lures, silence pistol headshots, and hacking the cameras to take advantage of enemy weaknesses before approaching. You can disable their phones so they can't call in help, explode grenades on someone's body, or mess with their radio so you can take them down without them noticing. Or if you want to take the loud approach, you can. The gun arsenal is familiar but fun nonetheless. You craft endless explosives using materials bought from pawn shops and slow down time using your magic focus ability. Hacking works well with both of these approaches as well. The hacking is simple and refined, and it allows for fast hacking even in the middle of intense combat. The cover system is also amazing. I've never had a problem with it. It's quick and snappy. The side missions, while plentiful, are mostly the same, as the typical Ubisoft formula of the same side missions repeated throughout the map is on display here as well. While they are fun (gang hideouts are the best) I wish they were most thematic, like the tombs from old ac games or stuff from far cry. But they aren't, so stuff in the world, including the scenery, starts to feel the same after a while of play. However, side missions do give you skill points, which you can use on a surprisingly great skill tree. The online modes were another surprise to me. They were some great fun. 1v1 hacking is great, and the fun is completely different depending on whether you're the one getting hacked or hacking someone else. One is frantic, the other is intense and nerve racking as you pray the other player doesn't find you. It's almost felt like a silly horror game the first few times I played, as I knew if the other player found me I was screwed. Online decryption is also great, where you and your team hold a file to finish decrypting it, while the enemy tries to steal it from you. This mode is super hectic, as there are some truly wild moments that happen here, from running over an entire team with a car to constant trading with the file while decryption is at 99%. The other ones are decent. Online tailing is fun if you don't want to try. Online free roam is eh, as there are a ton of restrictions like not being able to punch people.

Titanfall 2 is an outstanding game, and if you are a fan of the FPS genre, I recommend that you go out and buy this game. Apart from being exceptionally fun, EA listened to its fans and gave us more content and value as well as removing the season pass from Titanfall 1. As for the overall gameplay, it's even more fun and polished than the first one. Wallrunning still feels great and they gave us many more abilities and weapons to use. However, I was curious to see how the wallrunning and titan gameplay would work in a campaign mode. I was completely surprised, as it is one of the best campaign modes I've played in a while, and it is the best part of this game. The missions, while mostly linear, never feel boring or repetitive. There is much more than just running and shooting. You strategically use your cloak and wallrunning abilities to evade enemies and get the drop on them, which is really important when you're playing on hard or master. And to break up the gunplay sections, they include some extremely well designed and innovative quick timing and jumping puzzles as well as time travel mechanics. The two missions that stand out to me are Effect and Cause, where you have the ability to work your way through a facility by jumping back and forth between timelines, which is important because there might be a door shut or a fire blocking your way in one timeline, forcing you to quickly jump to the other. Switching timelines is seamless and can be done with the click of a single button. I don't want to spoil too much of the level. The other mission has you navigating through a facility making prefabricated homes. Precise timing and wallrunning is essential here, and there is often more than one way to reach the next objective. Things are not always clear to you and you have to work it out for yourself. The game ends with an awesome chase sequence where you are jumping from ship to ship with your titan. It's all in first person, so these moments can give you make you tense up a little. As for the story, it's nothing amazing, but it is certainly entertaining. The relationship between you and your titan is well done. He never feels too much like a human, or too much like an uncaring robot. You can choose your dialogue, and he'll take your comment extremely literally like a robot should, and then later, he'll crack a sarcastic joke and it just throws you off a little and helps you feel more attached to him. Overall, there is never a dull moment in the campaign. However, it is quite short. I beat it in about five hours, and it is a little too easy on normal. I actually played it again on master and it took me about 7-8 hours that time. I recommend playing it on at least hard. Multiplayer, while extremely fun, is not quite perfect. They do include a ton of new weapons, modifications, abilities, whole new titans, and skins for your pilot, guns, and titan. That is much appreciated. The maps are designed well just like the last game. Pilots can stay competitive against titans if they know how to traverse the map. However, they did make changes that I wasn't happy with. Titans in this game feel incredibly weak. They die extremely quickly compared to the last game. If you're playing attrition and you're on a **** team, the match can be a nightmare. The entire enemy team will be in a titan because your teammates don't want to help you do damage to them. When you eventually call in your titan, you can get surrounded and killed within a matter of seconds, even when you're using a titan that has max health like scorch or legion. It can be extremely annoying. I don't like how they made titans weaker. A good titan player in the first game had the ability to take on multiple titans at a time if he used his abilities well. Now, it seems much harder to do that, unless the enemy has no idea what they're doing. They took away burn cards, which I wasn't too upset about, but they replaced it with a special ability with a long cooldown. It's not a bad thing, it's just not as unique as burn cards were. As with titans, you can no longer customize a titan loadout, but you select from a wide range of premade titans with unique abilities. These titans are all fun and different in their own way, so I didn't miss the option to customize too much, especially since I'm sure they were trying to balance them. 1v1 titan matchups are as fun as ever, and if you're outnumbered you can use a new "core" ability that can nearly wipe out an enemy titan. Overall with multiplayer, if you like fun fast gameplay but also playing smart and strategic, you will love the multiplayer here. I hope this game eventually gets more sales, because it deserves it.

I'm gonna say right away that this is one of the best games I have ever played. It didn't matter that this was my first metal gear game ever. I loved every moment of it. Mechanically, the game is flawless. The controls, while difficult to get used to at first, are great once you know what you're doing. The gameplay is almost perfect. The number of ways you can go about completing objectives is endless. Its more than just stealth v. rambo. If you want to go with the stealth approach, you can utilize a wide variety of tools in your arsenal, like the inflatable decoy, to distract and freak out enemies as you slip by them. You can lure them out of your path by throwing spare magazines or knocking using your robotic arm. You can knock out or kill all of them using your tranq gun or awesome close quarters combat skills. If you want to go guns blazing, the game doesn't punish for doing this, even though doing stealth is easier and minimizes the amount of problems you face. Because of this, if you get noticed, you are encouraged to roll with your mistakes and make the best of it. And it may actually work, where in other stealth games you would be screwed. If you are noticed, you can call in all kinds of support from your helicopter than with mow through enemies giving you trouble, to bombardments, to your own soldiers. You can also bring 4 different buddies with you. There's D-Horse who can **** on command, which actually causes vehicles to spin out of control, something useful the game doesn't tell you. D-Dog you can sniff out enemies marking them for you, and also attack soldiers. D-Walker is a walking bipedal tank thingy, who I didn't really use a whole lot but he is a good all around type buddy. Then there's Quiet, who, to say the least, is dressed rather questionably throughout the game, 14 year olds will love it, everyone else will think it's weird and insulting. Aside from her appearance, she actually plays a pretty big role in the story and is an interesting character. So she isn't just there for prepubescent fan service. Speaking of the story, that's where the game loses a few points. The first chapter, while not perfect, is interesting enough to keep you entertained. Certainly not at a level where most metal gear fans expect a story to be. It doesn't always flow very well, I think because of it's "episode" structure and since the game is open world, where people (myself included) like to explore and **** around doing random things, which is extremely fun here. The first chapter of the story is fine. There aren't any of those iconic 4 hour cutscenes this game has become known for. Most of the exposition is delivered by either Miller or Ocelot giving you a mission briefing or summary. Which kind of **** because they actually drop some pretty important hints of future events in the story. Listen carefully after the Honey Bee mission, the Angel with Broken Wings, The Human Trafficker, and the one where you rescue two researchers. But in the moment, because of the nature of how boring it is just listening to someone talk, most people would tune it out. And because of how fun it is doing sideops and just exploring the huge sandboxes, by the time you get to the mission where it explains everything, most people would've forgotten that mission already. That's chapter 1, which is a decent chapter. Chapter two is pretty ****ty. Idk what kind of fight Konami and Kojima had over this game but goddamn it hurt this next act. It's where the game loses it's sense of direction. It's clear they cut a **** load of episodes out of the game, replacing them with earlier missions but with different modifiers like instant failure upon detection, or super hard, or starting with no weapons. Some of these can be infuriating like the one where you have to take down this sniper. They see you a millisecond after you pop your head up and kill you with one hit. Plus you have to finish most of these missions if you want to unlock the final missions. In addition, there was a whole additional chapter cut from the game as well, called "Peace". So I'm a little pissed at Konami for ruining what could've been the greatest game ever made. However, besides all those flaws, the game still manages to remain extremely enjoyable and fun, which is a testament to how good the rest of the game is. From the stealth/combat to the extremely in depth base/staff building, which is extremely in depth as ranking up your different units is key to unlocking new items. And holy **** there are a lot of things to unlock. Like power weapons to useful tools to even different uniforms which have different uses depending on where you are or what playstyle you have. There are endless ways to recruit staff as well. Completing missions will net you volunteers, but you can also extract them from the battlefield. I could go on and on about how awesome this game is, and how well everything works together. Reached my word limit.