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.

A great Pokemon spinoff game that became my favourite Pokemon game. It’s got everything from an enjoyable battle system that includes using the terrain to your advantage, recruiting different warriors, warlords, and Pokemon, some great music, and a great art style. The different battle fields resembling the kingdoms typing was great (except the capture the flag maps I despise those maps ESPECIALLY VIPERIA). I enjoy the characters and the many side missions you can complete after the main game finishes but I wish there was more variation. My one true qualm with the game is the fact that each Pokemon only gets one move. If Pokemon got two or three moves, this would instantly be a 5 star game.

- 27 hours played

It felt great to be back in Elden Ring. I adore this game but it was a one time playthrough. A very special playthrough yet I find the game is so vast that the idea of starting from scratch scares me. An expansion is the perfect reason to dive back in.

This is more Elden Ring. Shadow of the Erdtree is not going to convince you to love it if the base game wasn’t for you. What I got here was just more Elden goodness, new bosses, weapons and weird yet wonderful locations to explore. The art direction here is sublime. These places are just beautiful to behold. Often I would stop what I was doing and select the Sit down emote. Just leave my character there chilling whilst I myself relaxed and took in the majestic view. They also seemed to just go crazy with the colours in this dlc and each place had a vibe. The royal blue of the flowers in Cerulean coast. The yellow sky of Scadu Atlus. The red unwelcoming atmosphere of the Jagged peaks along with heavy lightning. Despite everywhere being close together each region of the map offered something different whilst fitting together cohesively. I also loved the verticality of the new map. This place was vast but it extended both up and down, as well as off into the horizon. It tantalisingly teased me, offering me a view of an explorable location yet not offering up a super obvious way of reaching it. The legacy dungeons were also great. Massive, twisting and packed full of content, bosses to fight and items to find. Shadowkeep especially, man that place was chefs kiss. This dlc also managed to blow my mind again just like the base game, when I exited a small side dungeon to find out I had exited onto a new unrevealed part of the map.

The main draw of these games for me is the boss experience and despite outcry online I adored these bosses. They are tough and they hit very hard but that’s the usual Fromsoft experience. Pretty much every boss has multi chain combos and very small openings for damage but they are very doable. The community seems to be lacking patience, calling for nerfs already when the dlc has only been out a week. Some bosses have attacks that seem wholly bullshit but when you spend a little time learning them, you realise Messmers multi thrust jumping spear attack can be entirely negated by dodging once into the spear thrust. Roll towards him. When you figure that out the fight goes from bullshit to a glorious dance and he no longer seems unfair. I’m not saying all these bosses are perfectly balanced because it wouldn’t be a Fromsoft experience if it was, but they are beatable and I think the nerfs were too quick to come.

Progression has changed here. For some reason I see a massive outcry online about this as well. Scadu tree fragments have been introduced and these are needed to level up attack damage and negation. As well as that of your spirit summons. Your base game level won’t help you much in the dlc as enemy scaling goes wholly off of this new system. I think people came into this expansion expecting to slap these enemies silly. When they got slapped they didn’t like it. The developers have so much to balance in this game. They have to consider every weapon or dual weapons, pieces of armour, 4 talismans, items used for buffs, Ashes of war and spirit summons. The best way to balance all of that variety in builds is to offer a flat buff to stats. These new items that increase your level can be found throughout the world through exploration. It’s an incentive to stick your nose in every nook and cranny of this gorgeous world. This system also offered a feeling of progression in the dlc. I entered this dlc at level 234. I need over 400,000 runes to increase my character one level. So instead of levelling up a small handful of times throughout the experience, I progressed 20 levels and it felt good. It’s always a satisfying feeling when your damage increases as you level up.

So I adored the visuals, bosses and general exploration of this expansion. Was there anything I wasn’t a fan of? Only two things and they affected my enjoyment very little hence the score. I sometimes thought despite how big these new areas were, outside of the first two areas there wasn’t much to explore. Some big chunks of the map were not hiding any ruins, dungeons or caves. Some big chunks would maybe just have a boss or a weapon to pick up. One area in particular offered new gameplay in the form of a forced stealth section but despite how massive that area was, outside of a boss there was nothing of note down there. Powerpyx claims there is 104 sites of grace in the dlc and on a blind playthrough I managed to find 96. So I didn’t miss much of this dlc. And like I said some of it felt big yet a little empty. I also wasn’t a fan of the repeated use of bosses from the base game. Fromsoft loves to do that but it doesn’t do it for me. I’ve beaten them once, don’t make me do it again and again.

Overall though this was a fantastic addition to an already amazing game. And the two pieces of content together just make this all timer even greater.

If this game has taught me anything, it'd be three things:

1. Don't believe everything you see in a fandom
2. Don't expect much from any kind of endgame with VN's
3. I will never escape my Sayonara Zetsubou-Sensei / Mr. Bungle obsession phase, for better or for worse.

I don't know what's worse:
- The fact that I had to grind for hours on end to get the recommended stuff for the endings
or
- The fact that the game grew on me, like some sort of drug-addled FPS Stockholm Syndrome.

Then again, this game is amazing, either by virtue of how ridiculous it is and the whole message behind it. I can't say that I've been changed and also traumatized for the better, but at least I now have the experience of completing this....

That counts as something, right? Right....?

My love of From Software begins with Dark Souls 1 and I think that the remaster is the best way to play it, solely for the improvements to performance in Blighttown. There are things to nitpick but on the whole its fine as a remaster.

There is very little to say about this game that hasn't already been said by a million reviews and video essays. Combat is great, the world is great, the lore is great, it arguably spawned Soulslike as a genre, its reach went much further than the previous game.

I don't however believe this game to be a masterpiece. As much as I adore it there is a very significant dip in quality after the half-way point. It can be blamed on From being rushed to release the game but everything after Ornstein and Smough lacks the polish and tightness of the first half of the game. I feel as though people just forget about how dull the Demon Ruins are, or how underwhelming the fight with Gwyn is.

I could replay up to Anor Londo over and over but beyond that I tend to burn out and stop my runs.

That's not to say I don't wholeheartedly love this game for being my introduction to the series and for having a world so thoroughly realised that lore videos still catch my eye every now and then.

This to me was the absolute low point of the Call of Duty series.

It was the first CoD I bought since MW3 in 2011 and it made me feel justified in ignoring the series up to that point. So much so, that I went through the hassle of get a refund via BattleNet.

The game looks atrocious, even back at launch it looked bad, I swear some of the textures here are the same we have been seeing since MW2 and Black Ops 1.

The time to kill is at its worst here, guns are all so inconsistent and it's as if the game wants to be a hero shooter but doesn't commit all the way. What the hell is going on with their solution to grenade spam too?

There isn't a campaign, that's not a negative in my opinion, but I can't even say "hey at least the campaign is fun". We can also blame this CoD for lighting the fire of Warzone.

All in all, looks and feels like a cheap F2P CoD clone. There is A LOT more I could say but I think it doesn't matter, the game is dead now anyway.

Ok, so I'm in the last room with one heart, and its right before the last boss fight. This has been my first run-through and has been really easy so far. Before I fight the final boss I scavenge for more hearts. Soon I find a chest behind a stone wall, but its ontop of a stair case so throwing a grenade at it is not so straight forward. So I jumped and timed my grenade to hit the stone wall. However, IT DID NOT EXPLODE WHEN IT HIT THE WALL BUT BOUNCED BACK AND KILLED ME. so mad I uninstalled and decided to tend to my family and never play any more games ever again.