I went into this game expecting a burglary simulator, what I got was more like DnD thief simulator. You do break into people's houses and steal their stuff, but just as often you'll do things like raid tombs infested with traps and monsters.

From a gameplay standpoint I would say the dungeon-y stuff reminded me of something like Doom or other retro FPS games, while the more stealth-focused levels reminded me more of modern Imsims that Thief inspired.

The more dungeon-focused levels lead to some really memorable atmosphere and imagery. I generally enjoyed exploring them, and atmospherically they're borderline horror at times which was pretty awesome. With this said, I'd be lying if I didn't say the most fun part of the game, gameplay-wise, wasn't the parts where you're just robbing places full of humans. I did enjoy the more dungeon-y stuff but some of it could get a little tedious, and it took too much of the game. I wouldn't want to remove them from the game, but maybe I'd loosen the loot requirements in those levels just so they don't take so long to finish.

The more stealth-focused levels where you're sneaking around humans were the gameplay highlight, but I'll point out that I do think that the AI in this game could be smarter. They feel a little oblivious towards other NPCs. Like, I'll accidentally make one guard suspicious and he'll be searching for me, and like 3 other guards will just pass right by without even noticing this. Sometimes they'll team up and work together but this felt inconsistent.

This isn't as much of a problem as it could be, as even one guard looking for you is a real threat in this game. Garrett's not a badass assassin, he's not a soldier, he's basically just some guy. One guy with a sword can kill him. For this reason I still think the stealth is pretty fun, despite the guards sometimes being a bit dense.

Pretty solid game, looking forward to playing Thief 2.

In my attempt to make David Lynch sick by thinking mean thoughts about him landed me in the hospital due to a fairly damaging seizure. I was in the hospital for like 3 days only thinking a happy thoughts about myself and stealing any sort of medical equipment I could find and I have about two bags full of hospital equipment now. Tonight I am back home and I will hook up all of the hospital tools and start thinking negative thoughts about David Lynch again. The 3 days should have rested me and tonight I will use these heartbeat monitors and toilet thing to have extreme negative energy.

I like many things about this game but there's a lot that rubs me the wrong way.

The game's constant tonal shifts between serious drama and complete ridiculousness are entertaining for a while. However, there comes a certain point where I started to expect crazy things to constantly happen and I just got desensitized and stopped caring.

The combat balance is kinda weird. You have a pretty consistent difficulty curve in the main levels where you run through and hit people, and I enjoy those, but the overworld combat stays at about the same difficulty for the entire game and it eventually gets pretty boring kicking the shit out of the same 4 delinquents over and over.

The main story content also doesn't throw those crafted levels at you often enough. You spend way too much time walking around, fetching shit and talking to people (that fucking homeless guy delivery quest).

I don't mind talking to people as much since the writing can be quite good but the game just doesn't throw the handcrafted levels at you often enough in my opinion.

The side content is diverse and often enjoyable and I like the minigames.

The game isn't bad and I see why people love it but there's a ton of pacing stuff that really prevented me from getting a great experience out of it.

Really overindulgent and wordy. I don't mind long cutscenes when I don't feel like they're wasting my time, unfortunately this game's cutscenes feel like they could've been about three times shorter and nothing of value would be lost. Most of the longest cutscenes are pointlessly drawn out exposition dumps where they overexplain the fuck out of literally every aspect of the game's world and backstory.

The previous games had this problem too, but this game suffers worse for it since at least the previous games sometimes explored interesting themes during the long cutscenes and exposition dumps. This game doesn't do that nearly as much. Most of the themes it uses are either undercooked (Snake's aging is pretty one-note and his personality and attitude towards people feels like a regression from how he was in MGS2), or reused (Literally everything involving the patriots, information control, and the advancement of technology is just a worse version of something they already did in MGS2).

It's also really fanservicey. This isn't always bad but the reliance on callbacks can be quite annoying and shallow. I particularly can't stand the bit where you press X to show things from the previous games to show what they're calling back to. At least we know they were listening to what people wanted, but there are too many moments that feel more driven towards pleasing fans than fulfilling any kind of artistic vision or swinging for something important to the developers.

It does have a pretty cool dour atmosphere at times (act 1 feels really gritty in ways that I really enjoy), but it's very inconsistent about this.

It's also harder to find the more ridiculous elements entertaining like they previously were since they're so much more in-your-face, drawn out, and kinda overwhelm anything else. It also feels like things are ridiculous in places where they aren't supposed to be, which is harder to find entertaining. It's not as if the previous games were subtle or focused but they handled this contrast a lot better.

The game's story is pretty much an absolute garbage fire but I like the gameplay. With this said, it doesn't do much that the previous games didn't also do. Sneaking around feels quite close to MGS3, with the main differences being crouchwalking and third-person aiming, which are sidegrades to me, and the weapon shop, which is a direct downgrade. I don't like how the designers can no longer control the pace at which you get new weapons and equipment. I pretty much had everything worth having before act 1 was over.

It's not a bad game (though you might not believe it from the amount of complaining i do here). I don't hate it, but it's definitely the worst game in the MGS series. It has most of the negative aspects of previous games. It has some of the good aspects, but it's really hard to recommend playing it over any of the other games in the series.

It's just kind of hard to recommend a game with such a huge emphasis on story to the point of having multiple sequences of cutscenes that last more than an hour on their own, while also having a story that I feel fails so extensively on so many levels.

This is my first AC game and I did really enjoy myself. I've been saying for some time that I'd like Fromsoftware to make stuff outside the Souls formula and this did not disappoint.

Firstly I'll mention my favorite parts. The boss fights were really fucking good. Like legit some of the best in video games. There's a late-game boss in particular I really enjoyed (people who have played that part probably already know which one).

Your mech is pretty enjoyable to control as well. I really enjoy the freedom of movement. It really lets them get crazy with some of the boss movesets too. They really took advantage of all three dimensions here.

I'll also mention that the customization is robust to a pretty insane degree. The emblem editor basically just lets you make any image. The number of weapons and parts is also pretty fun (though I would've liked it if there were more legs of each type). You can really transform how your character feels to play by changing just one or two things.

It's not all sunshine and rainbows, though. My first major issue is that it feels like the game never really gets harder. With the exception of one or two bosses, it felt like just about every enemy was roughly the same strength as the ones I was fighting at the very start of the game. These enemies weren't particularly difficult near the start of the game either, mind you! You can basically turn your brain off for the majority of enemies.

Fortunately there's usually at least one or two minibosses per mission, with a full boss every couple missions. These minibosses aren't always major tests of skill, but they do at the very least require me to be careful and pay attention, which is a step over the standard enemies.

I'll also mention that the game balance isn't the best. I do think people tend to overvalue balance, but in a game all about customization, it's more important than it would be in many other games. It's a little frustrating trying out and experimenting with weapons to find out what you enjoy, only to find that nothing is as effective as just using tank treads and two miniguns. To be completely fair, this is sometimes a non-issue as a result of the aforementioned low difficulty, but on a few of the boss fights where the game actually does start testing your skill, it can be kind of annoying how you can basically just use the same two mechs to kill all of them easily.

I did have my share of complaints but I actually bothered to finish the game twice which I fucking never do these days. It's a good game, there are just a fair few issues I'd like to see ironed out in a potential sequel.