The Finals is likely the best example of a good live service, free to play game.

This is a game that genuinely offers something new at a time when it feels like all competitive FPS games are trying to converge into the same thing. The weapon/ability variety is fun and interesting, the game modes offer tension that feels missing from other payload/TDM game modes found elsewhere and the destruction in-game is genuinely amazing.

Despite being F2P, The Finals has a distinct level of polish that makes it feel extremely premium, and it's helped by the fact there are (so far) no pay to win microtransactions or predatory sales tactics found in similar F2P games. It has a generous battle pass each season and a cosmetic store, which offers some of the most unique cosmetics I've seen in any game.

The gameplay is smooth, responsive and rewards teamwork. However, luck is a big element too, timing an attack on a cash-out just right can allow you to steal a win from a team who may be objectively better than you. Reshaping the entire map also completely changes how games flow. A sniper is giving you a hard time from the top of a crane? Fire an RPG at the base and remove his advantage from the world.

As of season 3, the only issues that stand out to me are the balancing and the matchmaking.

Balancing is a tough one and I think this is one of those games where it will always be changing as they adjust other things around the weapons. Some weapons are utterly useless (FAMAS, M60, MP5) due to other weapons that fulfil the same role but are better, the same goes for some abilities. The weapon that stands out as the most egregious is the sniper rifle and I believe Embark know this as their newest map seems to be designed with broken sightlines in mind. Snipers completely ruin the flow of the match and have no direct counter apart from another light also using a sniper.

Matchmaking also needs improvement. It was at its worst mid-season 2 but has gotten better. In ranked modes it's not unusual to match with an AFK player, have a teammate who leaves, have teammates who appear to have never played an FPS before while your enemies are a pre-made all running meta weapons and one shotting you with sniper no scopes.

If you're willing to slog out those unfun matches with bad teammates then the good games do make up for it. This game is something very special and if the devs continue to look after it and engage with the community as they have so far then I think it will last a long time and be fondly remembered.

I ignored this game on launch, had zero expectations, picked it up for cheap after the big "fix" update on Steam and after 4 hours I uninstalled.

It's probably a good game. It's definitely a big game. The constant pinging of new missions, side activities, markers on the maps, lore, characters, etc. All of it fried my brain, I think I am getting too old for these kind of all consuming games.

The missions I did play were OK. The world building is fantastic however it looks a bit off, like the lighting wasn't properly tuned. Guns felt nice to shoot but lacked variety and enemies were too easy across the board.

Maybe if I have a month or two to spare in the future I may come back and give it another try.

This is my Steam review from 2016 after 100 hours. I still firmly believe all of it.

Fresh install gets stuck on the main menu loading screen indefinitely.

This is more of an FPS than an RPG, which is something I wanted from Fallout 4, but even though I don't care much for the RPG elements, the fact there are only 2 vital skillchecks, hardly ever an option of de-escalating a situation through diplomancy, and every door can be opened regardless of lockpick or science level because there's always a keycard in the exact same room, is just stupid.

The game looks awful, everything looks like polished plastic and the textures are muddy as hell, all the menus are just Fallout 3 reskins. Hair is one solid piece and facial expressions are incredibly robotic with lips often not syncing up to what's being said. The only positive graphical element is the particles, fire doesn't look great but the effect off lazers and plasma looks cool. Enemies are also balanced in a weird way, your most powerful weapon can usually take down a raider in a shot or two but then you come up against a raider that duct-taped a bit of piping to his chest and suddenly it takes 10 grenades and 4 magazines to take him down. The animations aren't exactly stellar either, everything from reloading to the cutscenes just don't look right.

The world is pretty boring, no interesting vaults to explore or unique areas. The best it gets is when you're in the middle of Boston, a few floors up looking out over the world and fighting enemies on the impromptu balconies of half destroyed buildings but even that's locked behind a few loading screens to get there. There isn't much point in exploring to begin with either considering you can just build stupidly powerful guns and that ammo never runs out if you follow the main plot.

The story isn't great, it's better than 3's which isn't exactly hard to do. You do reach a point where you're on the best of terms with each faction and they're all willing to help you out but it's made abundantly clear that after a specific point you have to side with one, it doesn't really make much sense to go beyond that point if you don't care about the story since you can jump between the factions and take as much help from them as you need.

The crafting system is okay, however the grind to find the smallest materials starts to outweight the enjoyment of building up a settlement rather quickly. I found the best way to enjoy it was to just cheat and give myself a stupid amount of building materials, although once you make your comfy settlement there isn't a whole lot to do with it, atleast nothing worth more than a curious glance over.

The game isn't very well optimised either, which is strange considering this game feels like what Fallout 3 should have been over 8 years ago, even stranger when you consider it's running on basically the same god awful engine. It runs well inside buildings but as soon as you step outside you can expect a ridiculous FPS drop. That's unless you fiddle with the settings to the point where the graphics suffer just so you can play the game at a bareable framerate in specific areas, despite it being fine in others.

Also shoutout to Todd's greed for raising the price of the season pass just to cash in on the idiots who'd buy it knowing it was going up in price purely because it was "cheaper".

Don't buy this game. Even mods can't save it.

From Soft's magnum opus.

I've played almost every modern FS game and DS3 stands high above all of them in my mind. Objectively, I think Elden Ring offers more but the quality is not as good and Sekiro's quality is better overall but the experience offered by DS3 is unrivalled.

I'm currently replaying this after returning to Elden Ring and it's like wearing an old pair of comfy shoes. The movement somehow feels better to me than ER, the rate of progression and unlocks is vastly more rewarding than any other Souls game. The world is beautiful and everything flows so nicely, starting at Firelink near the base of Lothric Castle and being able to see everywhere you will go, then looking back from those locations, will forever be more rewarding than new markers on a map. Irithyll to me is one of the best areas From ever made.

The enemy variety was at its best here too, so many interesting designs. The bosses are also the best in the series by a country mile. Only Yhorm stands out for being a gimmick boss but every other boss has a great balance of visual interest and genuine challenge. Pontiff Sulyvahn is probably my favourite boss fight in any From Soft game, it flows so well.

The soundtrack here is wonderful, I can pinpoint songs from DS1 that stick with me, but basically none from DS2/Sekiro/ER. DS3 meanwhile never misses, each boss song is such a perfect match, Vordt stands out as a great one, as does the Abyss Watchers.

The lore and characters you interact with are really great too, each one is very well fleshed out and you really get attached to those who come to Firelink Shrine. I love Siegward's journey in this game too.

I've always loved this game but after putting 100+ hours into Elden Ring and coming back to this, there is a night and day difference, DS3 just puts a smile on my face and challenges me in a way ER never did. Everything has a purpose and is designed so intentionally, the consistency of the game from start to end is just phenomenal and all I want to do is keep going back to play more.

The most valid complaint in my opinion is that this game is too easy relative to others in the series. I agree it's probably easier than DS1 however I chalk that up to DS1's rushed development cycle meaning half of that game is reused/underbaked with sudden difficulty spikes and it having far more gimmicky bosses.

if you want the campaign get it on gamepass and save yourself the money.

Most of my MP experience with Halo was splitscreen Halo 3 on the 360 and that was all. I don't really enjoy the slow TTK in Halo, the floaty low-gravity movement or arena-shooter map design but Infinite has really surprised me. The guns feel great to use, combat feels very fluid and although I'm still no fan of the slow TTK I enjoy feeling very big, wrinkly brained when I outsmart someone using a combination of equipment, nades and weapon swapping.
Tactical slayer is by far my favourite mode as it removes shields and lowers the TTK to a single burst of the combat rifle which feels more natural to play as someone who has put more time into games like CS:S/GO, CoD and Siege.

A complaint I have is the lack of variety. They are drip-feeding in new content but 343 are struggling with their battle pass and monetization when they should be focused on fixing big team battle which has currently been broken for nearly a week, adding new maps, improving desync/lag issues and generally building the foundation.
I find the maps in particular to be very weak, they aren't in any way memorable in a way that Sandtrap was in Halo 3, they don't feel particularly fun like Valhalla was, and they don't flow as well as they should for a game that really wants you to make use of its movement.

If I had paid €60 for this game I'd probably be bitterly disappointed at the lack of forge, custom servers, coop but given that I can get the campaign for €1 on gamepass and the MP is F2P I'd say it's a good deal.

The main reason I'm giving it a negative review is the performance - I'm running a Ryzen 1600 with a 1660 super, I can handle MP at 60fps, 1440p on low/medium settings. Campaign is very hit or miss. However hardly anyone else in my friend group is willing to play due to the poor performance even on systems that should be more than capable of running it. In one instance after the game crashed somehow the display drivers on the PC were either uninstalled or flatout broken. Most of my friends report hard crashes or PC reboots in every session. If they fixed this I'd say absolutely give it a go.

I can imagine this game will be something special in a year's time so maybe hold off until then.

Edit: April 2022
Yeah they still haven't fixed the performance, they added one new gamemode (then took it away), forge is still broken, custom matches don't work, the game is just dead in terms of actual updates. Can't recommend it at all.

Without sounding like a contrarian, smarmy, edgelord video game critic on YouTube, this game is genuinely AAA slop.

It's a game that would have done numbers in 2014, even for its original console release in 2017 this game seems woefully behind and boring. It's got the UI littered with popups at all times, half-baked stealth mechanics, protagonist who talks out loud about what objectives they need to complete, crafting, a map full of markers, collectibles, a tutorial/introduction that takes almost 2 hours and is 70% cutscenes, etc.

This is the kind of game you use to introduce someone to the concept of video games, a visually impressive, rollercoaster ride that is more fun to look at than to actually engage with.

The best thing I can say is that the PC port was OK for a Sony game.

The best version of GTA.

It has flaws, the combat is iffy, driving is divisive (I personally prefer it to V's), the story might try a bit too hard and the missions lack variety. However, the world here is the best Rockstar ever created for this series, it feels like a proper sandbox.

The physics here is what shines the most, getting into fist fights, running people over, crashing a car, all immensely fun. I love the soft-body destruction of the vehicles.

The story tries so hard to be gritty, it wears its inspirations on its sleeves and it is all the better for it.

The online experience had no bullshit either. Load up, here is the exact same world as single player, here have some extra weapons thrown in and unique vehicles. Nothing was locked behind a paywall and it was fun from start to finish.

Compared to what came before and after I would rather play this iteration.

My only other experience with MH before this was early Nintendo DS games which I remember enjoying.

However, MH: World felt like a game from 15 years ago, everything is clunky and unintuitive. I constantly see this game cited as a "must-play coop game", so that's why I got it.

However you've to play for an hour atleast to unlock coop and the coop system is incredibly restrictive, you can only summon other players for specific hunts, on specific maps and you're limited to a tiny play area. Every single time I thought I might have fun with this game it would throw up a new road block.

Ignoring the multiplayer element, I didn't find this fun at all. The enemy AI is robotic and unreactive. The game world feels messy and badly designed, traversal isn't intuitive or exciting. The nicest thing I can say is that there is good character customisation and weapon variety.

I just don't get the love for this game.

Overrated.

I remember enjoying this game on launch with its barebones content, but every time I would take a break and go back I would hate it more and more. It's absolutely stuffed with microtransactions and DLC bundles, many of which are required for a full experience today. Yeah it's dead cheap nowadays but on reflection this was one of the worst offenders.

The guns don't feel nice to use, increasing the difficulty just makes enemies more bullet spongey. The gameplay boils down to press F on this item, wait 5 minutes, press F again, wait 5 more minutes, press a bunch of times, shoot enemies in between pressing F.

It's most comparable to L4D of all games but because it doesn't commit itself entirely to the horde shooter elements and suffers as a result. The UI gives me a headache and whether with friends or strangers it never feels like the game offers much variety in how you tackle missions.

Nowadays its install size is unjustifiably large too.

Treyarch continues to be the least interesting CoD developer.

The story tries some new things but I really didn't care by the end.

Realistically though, we judge these games on the multiplayer and this multiplayer is awful. They never properly balanced sniper rifles so every match is nothing but one shot snipers, if you pick any other weapon type you're at a significant disadvantage. The perks, gear, killstreaks, etc. are all standard fare.

Map design doesn't stand out at all here either.
The biggest flaw is that the game came after 2019's MW which had a significantly improved engine with far better graphics, and significantly more fun gameplay. This was just a step back in every direction, a clear downside to their staggered 3 year release cycle.

I was never the biggest zombies enjoyer but whatever they have done to the game mode this time around is especially dull.

It's a good game for a while but is let down by two key areas.
I would recommend it on sale but not for any more than €30+.

It's basically RE:7 but bigger, larger map, more antagonists, more weapons, etc. It has most of the same characters though a different setting. The first thing I noticed was how amazing it looks, especially for a game under 50gb when it appears most devs either don't know how to or don't care to try and compress their games.

The opening hours are fun, unnerving and very interesting, it does draw you in, it's the typical formula of "you are trapped in this area, find puzzle pieces, kill enemies, avoid the main antagonist until a scripted boss fight". It's fun though the horror feels toned down compared to RE:7.

There are two reasons I don't recommend this game, first is the story and second are the boss fights.
RE:7's story was silly, it was this very realistically-rendered world contrasted with laughably bad, Goosebump's level writing where bosses would taunt you endlessly throughout a five minute fight while your character never responds, or where your character would watch part of their body get sliced off, quietly mutter "ow" then pay it no attention again. Village is exactly the same but I feel like they must have hired the junior writers from the last game because the dialogue is painfully bad, it honestly is hard to listen to. Ethan isn't relatable or likeable, Mia is annoying at best, all of the antagonists come across like theater kids rather than grounded villains. I'm not one to let story ruin a game but Village is unfortunately a game where you cannot avoid the story, similarly you can't avoid the boss fights.

Boss fights in RE:7 were bad but usually short. Boss fights in RE:8 are bad but incredibly long at normal+ difficulty. I hated every single boss fight, they all either had super obvious gimmicks that may as well have been quick time event style button prompts to win or the bosses were bullet sponges design to run down your suppliers and leave you re-loading your save so you can go buy more and re-try. The final boss fight was by far the worst, without spoiling it some attacks felt like they were impossible to dodge, the room felt too small to maneuver in and the lack of feedback from the boss to show whether or not your damage was effective made it feel like a grind. I died three times because despite stocking up on supplies as much as I could and re-trying I kept running out. Landing every single shot made no difference, the fight just goes on and on all while the boss espouses dialogue that rivals a James Bond villain, telling me she is going to kill me while not actually doing it despite have ample opportunity. At some stage I got sick of it, dropped the difficulty I had stuck to all play through and was happy to finish up in less than 5 minutes on my next attempt.

Another issue it copies from RE:7 is that it turns into an action-horror game by the end - why did they decide on this? Animations are slow, your character controls like a boat, you're hindered by this to increase tension in one on one combat sections and all of a sudden you have an assault rifle, unlimited ammo, a horde of enemies and the same awful controls, it doesn't work.

The most stand-out section of the game is when you're in the basement with the mannequin, I won't spoil it but the body horror and tension are unrivaled in the rest of the game however it ended too soon.

If it's on sale grab it for an interesting 10+ hour run but I would recommend 7 over this any day, even with all of its flaws. It starts strong but leaves you wishing for its end.