I originally heard about Dark Messiah through a personal recommendation from a buddy of mine, when we were talking about cool wizard games, with complex casting systems that make you really feel like you're mastering a school of magic. The only other games I can think of with magic systems that are actually interesting and have any modicum of depth to them would be Noita and Magicka, and loathe as I am to admit it, that club isn't getting any new members after my playthrough of this game. However, that's not to say the game doesn't have any tricks up it's sleeve.

A joke I heard once about the game that I keep unashamedly regurgitating, mainly due to how it perfectly encapsulates the gameplay loop, is that you DON'T play Dark Messiah like you're trying to larp as Gandalf, blasting giant spiders with fireballs and making orcs feel the wrath of God with a lightning bolt or two. Instead, you play it like you're Macaulay Culkin, using your admittedly limited arsenal of spells, combined with your quick wit and the sacred jank of the source engine, to lure unsuspecting necromancers into physics-based death traps. Crushing them under crates suspended above a flimsy wooden ceiling, freezing the floor by a big drop and watching them slide to their death, spartan kicking a goblin into a spike trap, or even just slamming a chair over their head to throw them to the floor, lining them up for an easy finisher.

As fun as it can be to kill fantasy monsters with unorthodox, slapstick methods, though, the game unfortunately doesn't have a lot going for it besides all that. The combat, especially outside of the magic system, is extremely bare-bones and you'll get tired of trying to win fights fairly really quick. There's also not much to speak of in terms of presentation or plot, other than the typical rpg schlock of "hurr le ancient prophesy durr your dad is the devil lmao durr" and all the funny looks you'll be getting from people that comes with that territory. At least you get a hot demon lady living in your head for the trouble, but I wish she'd stop coming on so strong. I know you want me, Xana, but now is not the time. Everything else, the characters, voice acting, world, music, monster designs, it's all servicable-for-rpg-standards at best and downright comical at worst. Though, I suppose that does compliment the already comical nature of the game.

All in all, however, in spite of it's flaws as a holistic gameplay experience and having quite possibly the least mechanical depth out of any Arkane game pre-Deathloop (most likely due to interference from Ubisoft), the beauty of sourcejank combined with the cartoonish nature of the combat encounters make for a unique gameplay experience I have yet to see repeated or improved upon, especially within the boundaries of a toolset provided to you by a fantasy world. Dark Messiah isn't going to blow you away, but you're sure as hell gonna blow those orcs away. Right off a cliff.

Now, I'm definitely not the biggest boomer shooter guy. I like to believe we've come a long way from circle-strafing around a bunch of dudes in a big arena, gunning them down one by one, like mowing a lawn while on 2mg of fentanyl. But to deny their significance to the genre, hell, the medium as a whole, or to suggest they're "outdated" or some other bullshit you'd hear some blue-haired zoomer spout, would be nothing short of asinine. They still deserve love, arguably more than they get, and DUSK is proof of that.

DUSK is a love letter to everything that's amazing about boomer shooters. A culmination of what has made the genre so timeless, in spite of the inherent simplicity of a game that would constitute such a categorisation. A Frankenstein of the bouncy and bombastic gunplay and platforming that made such games iconic.

Speaking of Frankenstein, what kind of internet nobody would I be if I were to forget the incredible setting of the game? Dave Szymanski really knocked it outta the park with this one. Travelling from middle-of-nowhere rural villages to sprawling military complexes RE4-style, and capping it off with a mysterious and ancient city of cultists, the world of DUSK is something truly never-before-seen. It certainly helps that a lot of the levels can be legitimately scary at times, with the introduction of new and unfamiliar monsters in dark, cramped hallways, unbefitting of the genre as a whole, but working perfectly to compliment the vibe of the game. Fuck wendigos, by the way.

The sound design for a few of the enemies could use a little work, but besides that, the unique blend of grindhouse and eldritch horror on display is a treat to behold, but not without its tricks, of course. The opening level starting with you being thrown into some dark, dingy basement with a couple of chainsaw-wielding rednecks, armed with nothing but a couple of farming tools, has got to be one of the most badass setpieces in the genre. Shit's straight out of a late '90s slasher movie.

And like any good slasher movie, a good game can be easily identified by its weapons, and DUSK is no exception. One-upping Arnie by John Wooing cultists with a pair of Winchester 1887s, sending some demons to God with a hunting rifle that kicks like a mule and hits like a truck, and don't even get me started on the sheer annihilation you can dish out with the riveter. The sound design for all of them is super punchy, and they all feel unique and serve a specific purpose. Really wish there was a bigger ammo pool for the hunting rifle though...

But, of course, it doesn't stop there. The flexibility to look up or down further than 180 degrees, enabling you to perform front/backflips and shoot things upside down in mid-air. Picking up and interacting with physics objects in the environment, such as the soap bar, neatly hidden away in most levels with the ability to kill anything in one hit. Bullet time powerups that allow you to bob, weave, blast-jump and air-strafe around bullets and baddies. There are so many cool little facets about DUSK that make it stand out from the competition, and that is what makes it so solid in my eyes; the skeleton of a boomer shooter encased in the flesh and blood of a truly interactive and intricately woven FPS experience.

With DUSK being a relative newcomer in a genre with as long and storied a history as boomshoot, and with memorable music being what keeps the memory of a game alive, even with all the good I've talked about it before now, the game wouldn't be spoken half as highly of were it not for the contribution of one Andrew Hulshult, a man whose name is so synonymous with the genre that he even took over from Mick Fucking Gordon of recent DOOM fame to work on DOOM Eternal's DLCs. After all, you're gonna have to REALLY kick it into high gear to outdo something like BFG Division, so how does Keepers Of The Gate compare?

Overall, DUSK is irrefutably one of the best shooters released in the last decade, maybe ever. Every piece of the puzzle is laid out neatly; the guns, the goons, the banging tunes, all of it comes together perfectly. The constant tension and adrenaline from Szymanski and Hulshult's intoxicating blend of balls-out action and rip-that-dudes-balls-off metal riffs make for a truly one-of-a-kind experience, and I cannot wait to see what they both do in the future.

"Waah! Waaaah! Ahahahaha! CRY SOME MORE!!" - Heavy

Team Fortress 2 is the greatest video game ever made.

Serious weapon balancing problems. A community with a mix of the best and worst people the world has to offer. Casual servers being plagued with hacker-bots, headshotting people from lightyears away with perfect accuracy. A lack of major updates, meaning a lack of fresh content, and what little has been added over the more recent years only serve to ruin the performance. Complete and total neglect from Valve, eroding all hope left in the community and discouraging newcomers. All this and more, and TF2 is still the king of multiplayer video games, no contest.

And with it being the greatest game of all time, it's no surprise that it started out as a fan mod of Quake; a strong runner-up for the best game ever, no doubt. Hectic and satisfying single-fire gunplay combined with bouncy, fluid and energetic movement features found in it's predecessor provided the framework for what would've been some of the most satisfying and in-depth gameplay and mechanics in a shooter.

And while some, including myself, may be upset by the lack of new weapons, what we've been given over the course of the game's first 9 years more than makes up for it. Each class has a healthy variety of different weapons and potential loadouts to experiment with, catering to whatever playstyle might suit you. Each and every weapon is functionally unique, even with as little as a slight stat change being an absolute gamechanger in the right situations, such as the Tomislav, Conniver's Kunai and Black Box.

Of course, all this talk of multiple playstyles to experiment with wouldn't mean much without the surrounding map design and aforementioned movement to support it. Every part of a solid TF2 map's geometry is tightly woven together to allow for some intense movement tech. Rocket Jumping, Bunny Hopping, Trimping, using Scout's multiple jumps, etc. allow for crazy routing to and from the frontlines, like Upward, Process, Sunshine, Badwater, and to a degree, Gravelpit. And even in spite of the browny-beigey colour palette and practically every map taking place in some sort of industrial facility, the layout and aesthetics of each and every one is iconic, feeling distinct and tailor-made to provide a different gameplay experience to the one preceding it.

Speaking of iconic, each class was perfectly designed to be easily recognisable, not only in general, but in the heat of battle. After all, a wise man once said a sign of a great character design is the ability to be identified by it's silhouette, and it's just as true here. All of them have a unique style and charming personality that can appeal to every kind of player, accompanied by the utterly gargantuan selection of cosmetics and goofy hats to add another layer to the experience, allowing for sub-par cosplays of your favourite characters, or perhaps just committing to a gag.

The Spy is a personal favourite. There's something uniquely satisfying about dominating the other team as the weakest class in the game, all while dishing out snarky one-liners and being more sharply dressed than the knife you just cleared through those unsuspecting free-to-plays with. By choosing to play him, you are actively telling the other team (and sometimes even your own, as much as you need their help) that you think you're better than them, and Spy has the tools that allow you to do that. The only real drawback is meeting the skill floor to play him effectively. That, and having to be french.

On that note, what better way to compliment some kick-ass character design than some equally kick-ass lore? Not only the official trailers for the game from Valve, but the Meet The Team videos, Expiration Date, the comic series (fuck Valve for not finishing it), all of it serve to create a world and cast of lovable lunatics with licences to kill truly unlike any other in all of fiction. Meet The Medic is some of the most bad-ass shit ever put on a screen.

And what would those incredible animations be without some equally amazing music to accompany it? Another case of Valve not recognising a good thing when they see it, TF2 has one of the most iconic soundtracks ever composed, and it's still utterly criminal that all of these bangers only play once at the main menu when you boot up the game, and never outside of that. I guarantee you, even if you've never heard of the game, you'll at least have heard one of the tracks before somewhere. Right Behind You, Drunken Pipe Bomb, and Medic!, just to name a few. And of course, who could forget the all-time classic, Rocket Jump Waltz. Rest in peace, Rick May.

As I alluded to briefly at the start of this review, however, the community is truly the greatest driving force behind the long life of this game. Workshop submissions, goofy animations in SFM and GMod, even feature-length movies, like the utterly mortifying Emesis Blue. The TF2 community is one that flexes its creative muscles more than any other out there, and while it has it's bad eggs, it still remains the mother of all omelettes.

The game itself, of course, is the greatest collaborative effort to this cause. Countless community servers, all with custom addons, maps, gamemodes, weapons and rebalances, all contributing towards a unique and thriving culture not found in any other game. Of course, community servers are largely cringe, unplayable shitholes, due to shitty moderation, insufferable chat filters, and being generally populated by the worst the game has to offer, as opposed to Valve official casual servers' generally mixed bag, but at least it's not plagued by those insufferable bots.

Warts and all, however, I still have to commend the game for it's ability to connect people. Perhaps this is a biased point, but I've made dozens of friends and had countless unforgettable moments through made possible only by this game. For every gibus-donning spanish kid with 3 hours who keeps getting stabbed by the same spy and not learning, there was a cracked Demo on my team with a cute kitty pfp who always had my back, whom I bonded with over some pubstomping. For every 400lb+ scorch-shot-phlog pyro main with furry porn games and neo-pronouns in their steam profile, there was a scout who missed all their shots on me while I stood still, proceeding to killbind out of embarrassment. You'll never meet the kind of people you see in TF2 while playing any other game, for better or worse, and that's a promise.

All in all, playing Team Fortress 2 has been a crucial part of my upbringing, and I couldn't be more thankful for it. The complete and utter rollercoaster of emotions this game has put me through, only exacerbated by maining Spy, and the history I've built with the people in my life through this game could have a book series written about it. I've yet to find a game that's as mechanically deep, rich in content (in spite of Valve's neglect), or that allows for nearly as many ways to play and interact with other people as this game, and while the fact that we may never receive a worthy successor to this game is somewhat depressing, it only serves to highlight how important this game is to people, what it represents, and the opportunities it has given countless people over the past 16 years and counting.

Team Fortress 2 is the greatest video game ever made.