Portal 2 is a great expansion upon the already rock solid mechanics and intriguing gameplay and level design of Portal 1 alongside just pretty much taking what Portal 1 did and cranking it up to 11.

Better levels, a better story, an even better soundtrack, a longer length with new mechanics added like all the different types of paint and generally a more challenging experience with a very fair and natural learning curve.

Also people who say that this game's writing is "Reddit" are lame. This game's writing is clever and funny as hell. Portal 2 did that "reddit" writing way before it became popular and overdone and even nowadays trying to equate Portal 2 to something like Forespoken or shitty Marvel movies is such a force.

Portal is a series that I think almost everyone plays at least once and I think everyone SHOULD beat it at least once, there's really no other games even remotely like it.

Cold War is easily the best CoD game to come out post Black Ops II.

I totally understand why it got a ton of hate when it came out because of the fact that from a mechanical and technical standpoint, it was a complete stepdown from Modern Warfare (2019) but in terms of character and content, I think it's easily the most interesting and fully enjoyable package even with its complicated and rushed development during the height of COVID.

The obvious thing first, I am in love with this game's aesthetic. The 80's theme is so fucking cool and Cold War really takes it and runs with it, you can really tell when it comes to the design of a lot of the levels in all game modes of Cold War and also within the narrative of the campaign.

Despite the fact that it may be a bit short, I fucking LOVED the campaign. Each mission felt so distinct and unique, I loved making my own character with their own perks and having dialogue choices that change how events play out, similar to Black Ops II.

On top of that, the side content with the campaign where you had to decipher the codes to find Perseus was so fucking cool to me. I remember writing all these different strings of numbers and city names in my notebook physically to try and crack the code and it was genuinely such a memorable and engaging moment in any game I've ever played and it was totally optional. In general, doing different side stuff and replaying missions was so fun, I remember replaying the whole campaign twice to get all the Dark Ops challenges completed.

Most people would consider the multiplayer to be the weakest part of the game and to an extent I would agree. Cold War's movement system feels pretty similar to Black Ops 4, generally being pretty stiff and janky, especially compared to how buttery smooth movement was in MW2019. The gunplay, animations and overall polish wasn't as on point as the last game because of the older engine but I think despite all of this, mechanically, Cold War's multiplayer was really sound.

Besides Miami, Cartel and The Pines, there weren't really any offensively bad maps in the game, they all ranged from competent to being very good. I also really enjoyed the wildcard system in Cold War allowing players to really add more onto what kind of playstyle they wanted to rock with, even being able to do weird shit like have two secondary weapons.

The multiplayer had an actual working mini map, easily recognizable enemies, maps that weren't dogshit and DEAD SILENCE AS A PERK. I really can't say the same about MW2019 lol. Minus maybe the slightly longer time to kill, Cold War was the last classic feeling CoD game we ever got. I don't think that even games like CoD WW2 or Black Ops 3 matched that golden age CoD game feel as much as this game.

When Cold War first came out, I was really mixed on the zombies because I felt it was too easily and strayed too far from the original formula of Black Ops III which I thought and still think is the gold standard for zombies. However, over time I've come to accept that Cold War is totally its own thing and it does its own style of gameplay pretty well, I think all 4 maps in Zombies are really fun, especially Mauer Der Toten is my favorite, knowing everything in that map down to a T.

I would even argue that Cold War does some things better than previous zombies iterations. I really like how hectic late rounds are in cold war, zombies get super fast and they feel way less monotonous as late rounds in something like BO3 or BO2 zombies. The exfil system is a really nice alternative to end the game and get better rewards than having to die or do the Easter egg to complete the map and I also think Cold War has the best perk system by having no limit but having each perk you get become increasingly more and more expensive as you acquire more. This is just way more fun than choosing the same 4 perks every single game like in every single zombies game in the past, even BO4 because even that game had an obvious meta of what perks were the best.

Cold War was a bit of a mess at launch but in its final state, I think almost from an objective standpoint, it is the highest quality, most unique and offers the most amount of content compared to almost any other CoD game post 7th Gen.

Played since the alpha and loved it pretty much the whole time. Internet people can be a bummer but if you have a good group of 5 to go in with there's a ton of fun to be had. I still play intermittently; in fact I just got off a great five stack and this game is just as fun as ever, even if it's missing a bunch of the old maps and modes.

Here's hoping some of that Microsoft money revives it. I want to see it become Microsoft's MOBA; put Master Chief, Marcus Fenix, Alduin, Senua... could be a hell of a thing. In the meantime I'm just grateful Blizzard keeps the light on for those of us still enjoying it.

Abathur main for life.

Such a great game, throughout all three chapters.

Chapter 1 was a bit more simplistic but I think it worked in the games sake because I imagine it was intended to give the player a bit of breathing room to learn the basic mechanics of the game before the game gets crazy.

Chapter 2 was probably my favorite out of the three because of how variety there was in the different levels and the level design and flow of those levels were excellent, The Grainery, Infernal Machine and Escher Labs are examples of being genuinely perfect.

Chapter 3 upped the ante with how crazy and Lovecraftian the game gets and while I don't think the levels were as good as the second episode, its very close and all the levels in chapter 3 are all mostly very memorable and do a perfect build up from the last two chapters.

The game's sandbox and enemies are all very fun to use/fight, the only two enemies I think are kind of lame are the Grand Wizards (the red mages that shoot projectiles that track you) and the bone ball. An enemy that I loved fighting was the Wendigo though, I loved the mechanic with having to look down to find its footsteps and also hear its breathing while it gets close and if you shoot it, it reveals itself from being invisible, such good shit.

A lot of this game is what I wanted Quake to be when I played it more than a year ago, this game all across the board is near perfect and was so fucking fun to play.

A lot of fun, the last time I played this game was in 2014 on Xbox 360 and I feel like this game is a lot better than I remember it being.

The whole sandbox of the game feels really fun and useful, the levels are all mostly great, the aesthetic/art style is very unique and interesting, the music is sick and the story is pretty good overall.

Only complaint with gameplay is that some enemies near the end of the game can be a little bit too bullet spongey but that's about it.

This shit was ass lol

Unironically one of the worst stories I've ever witnessed in a video game in recent memory. It feels tonally a lot different than New Order, with this game completely relying on spectacle and shock value with no well thought out story beats to accompany it, like a bootleg Tarantino movie. So many annoying characters that really don't serve any significance to the story.

The gameplay feels really good in terms of the movement and guns but it really doesn't do anything significant to separate itself from New Order besides doing the bare minimum.

In my experience, this game was way shorter than it’s predecessor. I beat this game in 8 hours while The New Order took me about 14 hours to beat. Part of that could’ve been the fact that New Colossus felt way easier than New Order but generally there were less levels in New Colossus anyways. The levels for the length weren't anything amazing either, however the art style of some of the levels like the Manhattan level do look gorgeous.

On surface level this game seems fine but the more you even remotely think about it, the much worse this game gets.

I would give this game a much higher rating if the story wasn't so offensively bad and the game was generally longer.

I didn’t get around to playing Dishonored 2 for years, finally getting the opportunity to play the game a few years back, I remember walking away a tad disappointed. As time has gone on my disappointment has only gotten more extreme.

As usual, the art style is stellar, it’s cliche to say you can look anywhere and see a painting, but it really is the truth here, and the newer sunnier environments really show off how beautiful the game’s art style can be in the warm glow of a setting sun.

Gameplay is pretty much identical to the last game, though you now have two characters to play as, and both characters have new tools at their disposal as well.

Corvo is the same as the last game, same powers and everything, while Emily has a completely new set of abilities.

Firstly, I didn’t like a lot of Emily’s spells. They felt like gimmicky rehashes of Corvo’s abilities, which would be fine on their own but, to be honest I just find them all incredibly clunky and not much fun to use. This probably just comes down to playstyles but I found myself almost exclusively playing Corvo, who sadly doesn’t get ANY new abilities or additions.

Bone charms are randomized now. This is terrible, you get so many useless ones that do absolutely nothing for you, OR you get tons of useful ones. This is because you can craft new bone charms that are more powerful but to be honest I didn’t really bother with this mechanic, it requires you to break charms down to make new ones and you need to invest resources into it I really didn’t want to bother with. Charms were a good way to scale Corvo as the game went on and were really great rewards when you went out of your way to find them. Half the time in Dishonored 2 I’d track one down and receive “you heal more from food” for the 50th fucking time.

This is borderline nitpicky but the charm in this game is really lacking. Guards are way more boring this time around, not funny or interesting to listen to when they have dialogue, and most of it just frames them as hilariously evil idiots. Guards felt much more human in the last game, it was a real disappointing step down after how great they were. I will say I loved the Overseers at least, they had cool designs and great voice lines.

Map design was much more ambitious, sometimes to the detriment of the gameplay. I think this game was at its worst when you’re traveling the streets. The way guards are positioned and the general layout just makes them kind of a slog to explore. The smaller areas like the inside of Jindosh’s mansion or the hospital island are built much better meanwhile, and are the best parts of the game.

I have to complain about the witches and the Jindosh robots now. Witches are stupid and I hate them, they have annoying dialogue and tons of random mechanics that you really only figure out through trial and error like their bone dogs, or learning exactly where they’re sitting and teleporting. Guards that teleport are always an awful idea. The robots meanwhile seem very intimidating at first, but they can actually be taken down super easily, even if you’re doing a pacifist playthrough. Obviously killing a robot doesn’t count but it only bugs me so much because the game completely lacks enemies you can’t deal with nonlethaly, like the tall boys from the first game.

Speaking of nonlethal, they made it WAY easier. You can drop knock out, knock out enemies facing you if you catch them off guard, and these alone make things way easier. These are quality of life changes so I understand WHY they were done, but I still think they made things too easy. Perhaps drop knock outs shouldn’t work on alert enemies, or maybe they shouldn’t be silent take downs, I’m not sure but it’s ridiculous. Dishonored 1 nonlethal was all about getting behind enemies to choke them out, OR ignoring enemies and sneaking around them, now enemies are hardly a pain to deal with.

Lastly, I do not like where the story went, but this isn’t the fault of Dishonored 2 alone, Daud’s DLCs from the first game started this witch crap, this game was just where it all ended. The main villains in this game sucked and I did not care about any of the assassination targets. None of them had any decent buildup or presence.

Overall, Dishonored 2 is more of the first game with some cleaned up mechanics. I’m a bit of an old head and do not like some of these changes, but that is just me. Some people may have a lot of fun with Emily or may love the story. I dunno, it’s just not for me I guess.

I’m gonna warn you right now my bias is insane.

Anyway Doom Eternal is probably one of the best games ever made, an absolute masterpiece of an FPS that ID poured all their years of game crafting into.

Firstly I will discuss two major criticisms I’ve seen.

People think the game is too “video gamey”. What does this mean? Basically pickups float around waiting for you to grab them, there’s random monkey bars and climbable walls around, things are brighter and glow a bit to highlight where to go and what to do. I personally don’t really see the problem in this at all. While the game may not be as “realistic” as Doom 2016 I think I really do prefer this more colorful and fictional style. It really makes enemies, weapons, and the levels pop, and I really appreciate how weapons and enemies were slightly redesigned to maintain their classic looks.

I’ve seen complaints about the story. It’s absolutely true that Doom Eternal has a lot of cutscenes, some can definitely drag on for a bit. But most of them can be skipped completely, rendering this complaint nonsensical. The story is enjoyable too, not sure why you would even want to skip.

Anyway back to gushing, Eternal takes the gameplay of Doom 2016 and makes it much faster. The game adds things like the dash and blood punch along with frag and ice grenades and a “flame belch” as well. These attachments, working with the glory kill system and chainsaw, give you the ability to get all the tools you need at any time. Armor, health, breathing room, and ammo.

Enemy variety is stellar. From aggressive and fast imps, to walking tanks like the mancubus, to the DPS shredding doom hunters, you will need to target different weak points and constantly swap weapons to deal with threats.

On top of all of that the levels are crafted beautifully. Some of the most gorgeous and creative environments I’ve ever seen in any game. They’re so much fun to fight and explore in, and explore you will since there are tons of secrets scattered around.

The base game is pretty much perfect, most of my genuine criticism lies in the after-release attention this game received. Firstly battle mode was a complete blunder. I don’t know a single person that played it, and I genuinely think they wasted resources even working on it at all.

The two DLCs were also incredibly in many ways but they have confusing difficulty. AG1 is arguably much harder than AG2 for the most part.

Finally the master levels, only about 5 or so were actually made. I’m disappointed since they seemed to put way more effort into the final few and I don’t think they should have bothered. If they just focused on making harder versions without all the challenges and bonus modes tacked on, I really think they would have finished all of them.

Hoard mode was also disappointing. A very confusing system where you randomly gain weapons, and a scoring system that completely ignores comboing kills, preferring extra lives instead.

Despite those complaints, I’ve replayed this game about 20 times already and it’s still one of my absolute favorites. Play it. Experience perfection.