>Playing Deep Rock Galactic
>Walk up to dwarf
>Yell "rock and stone"
>He yells "rock and stone"

it's the little things lads

People are quick to point out that this game hasn't aged well in comparison to Vice City and San Andreas but I think it's worth keeping in mind that this wasn't trying to be either of those and instead was basing itself off GTA 1 and 2. Those games are essentially just arcadey riot simulators and 3 is basically that in 3D which I think is worth something as open world games push towards being more complicated and merging with RPGs.

GTA 3 is open world sandbox games at their most basic. You boot it up and within minutes you're running around this surreal virtual city causing funny moment compilations. There's hidden items scattered around that you end up memorising, gang wars break out randomly, quick challenge missions and of course cheat codes to play with, it's "a video game" through and through. It isn't too deep and I'm getting a bit bored of it despite not being very close to the end but you run around shooting police because it's fun and I think that's all GTA 3 needs to be.

Not great but nice game. Has the energy of a newgrounds or cereal box game from the basic gameplay and budget graphics that I find really endearing. A bunch of the steam reviews mention they played this when they were a child and that just feels kind of sweet, like this is such a "played on my Dad's 2005 Windows XP computer, where the only other games were Lego Island and The Sims" type game and I like that.

It also doesn't feel like its wasted too much of my time. Other similar games like Vampire Survivors will advertise itself with "Over 50 hours of content!" but I think this kind of mindless, number go up gameplay just gets depressing after a few hours and I reached the end of this game's campaign just before that feeling was setting in.

i got it for 39p on steam and it's called 'Alien Shooter' that kind of sums it up honestly

The campaign feels like one of those fanmade sequel mods, like the ones for Half Life 3 made through Half Life 2. It's mostly just fanservice, a nothing-y plot and bizarrely designed gameplay. However those are developed out of a love for what's come before, this is more like if Valve released one of those officially and called it Half Life 3.

It feels somewhat designed with Warzone in mind as you walk through buildings that have random, armoured guys sitting round corners. But as a single player experience this doesn't carry either the tacticity you'd expect from this scenario in something like Rainbow Six or the rollercoaster pacing pushing you forward like other COD campaigns. The game has a kind of light-tactical feeling to it with things like mounting and being able to reload while aiming and that helps when tracking unpredictable human enemies who are just as powerful as you in the multiplayer, but when you use these same elements with AI that is just as basic as previous CODs, being essentially grunts to click on, I don't think it works.

There are also moments that lean into the kind of set pieces you'd expect from these campaigns but I found myself noticing the rails of this rollercoaster which kind of kills any excitement. It does this thing where you'll be running along before being stopped by a horde of enemies and you'll have to pick them off to progress which I'm sure happens plenty in the better campaigns but it happens a lot here, which along with frequent sections where movement is barely required from the player, had the thought "this is basically a rail shooter" pass my mind constantly.

I didn't play the campaign of the 2019 Modern Warfare but I get the sense from Modern Warfare II that this rebooted series wants to both create a tacticool 😎 shooter similar to Rainbow Six Siege and keep the action filled rollercoaster campaign of the original games and I feel these rub against each other. The original Modern Warfare 2 leans heavily into its over the top, action film style and is all the better because of it, while this just feels a bit empty and sad as you walk through set pieces with no music gunning down AI that's been put in the wrong game.

Immediately after finishing the campaign I played multiplayer with some friends and had a good time though! I mentioned briefly but that slight tacticity they wanted works well against players and it hits a nice balance where you play best if you're not sitting about camping but not rapidly throwing yourself at enemies.

Overall having a good time but man that campaign's rough.



Also I only briefly mentioned it but the writing really does feel like fan fiction for these characters, it's weird. A couple funny moments between Ghost and Soap are mixed in with a bunch of really cringe lines that it seems intensely proud of.