This is one of the very few games that was genuinely infuriating to me because of how much potential it had after episode 1. I absolutely loved the first game because it was a nice balance between cliché teenage angst and unique characters/storytelling. This game however goes beyond clichés and uses stereotypes to tell its "story". I am Mexican and I loved the fact that the two main characters were also Mexican. But I rolled my eyes every single time this game tried to use a stereotype scenario to create conflict in the story. It came off as an ignorant attempt at portraying REAL issues that happen to Mexican-Americans. It was just disingenuous to see.

The first episode was arguably the best episode of all of these games and it had potential to tell a really unique story. Then episode 2 followed as the worst episode of all these games. The runaway aspect that was established early was good as well but man, they fumbled so hard with all of these characters being completely unlikeable or forgettable. I think being in control of Daniel instead of Sean in this story would have made for something more interesting but not by much. The whole religious cult chapter felt so out of place for this story too. The ending was also pretty abrupt and I felt like I wasted my time with this game.

I just could not believe that a game that started off so strong became awful really quick. I'm glad True Colors was really good and put this series back on track because Life is Strange 2 is the lowpoint of this series in my opinion.

I really don’t understand the love people have for this game. As someone who’s been playing Battlefield since BF2, this game was when the series started to get really bad.

WW1 gimmick really hindered gun variety, customization, and progression when compared to BF4 and BF3(and even Hardline). None of the maps were memorable or fun to play, the campaign is half baked at best, and the guns were just not fun to use.

Visuals is the only thing this game has going for it. Aside from that, it was a complete step back from previous games. I just don’t understand where the love comes from. BF peaked with 4 and came crashing hard ever since

For anyone that played this game when it first came out, I understand the negativity towards it. The Witcher 3 launch was very similar but it just didn’t have the hype behind it that this game did.

And just like the Witcher 3, I think CDPR knocked it out of the park with this game. Everything has been cleaned up in the next gen version of this game. I held off on playing this game bc of the performance issues and finally got around to it in 2022 and it is a great gaming experience. The story is fantastic, the characters are well written(especially Johnny and V’s interactions), skill tree is diverse, gameplay caters to many different styles, the side quests are unique and interesting(the crucifixion quest is arguably the most disturbing thing you’ll see in a game), and the world itself feels like a character. Night City has a charm to it that not many other games can say they have with their world.

It’s a shame that this game launched so poorly bc I feel that CDPR created a great follow up to Witcher 3. For anyone that dropped this game when it first launched bc of the problems or only experienced the game with the problems, I strongly recommend giving it another go. Everything has been fixed and there is free added content. The version of this game in 2022 should have been the version of the game that dropped in 2020

This game had crazy potential to be something big when it first dropped. It still kinda does but the the playerbase did this game in. There’s just simply not enough players on this game currently and the queue times are frustrating bc of that when it comes to ranked game modes. Casual play becomes a lobby full of bots. Every time I come back around to this game it gets worse and worse with the lobbies.

It sucks that not many people are on this game. Gun play is smooth, the Rogues are all unique in appearance and are surprisingly balanced(though there could be some tweaks with who gets some perks), almost every map is designed well, and the game can get addictive if you manage to string together full lobbies. The character models and skins is what initially drew me in with this game and I got invested with them in a similar way to Overwatch’s heroes.

But again, the playerbase is almost non-existent and HiRez seems to not care about this game enough to improve on it. It’s really fun and I hope some popular streamer can potentially revive this gem of a game.

Before I get into my thoughts on this game, I’d like to preface that I’m new to the series and played this game through the legendary edition. I played ME: Andromeda before this and I’m sure fans of this series would say that is the worst game to start with lmao. That game aside, I do not know anything about the story of the original trilogy. I am starting completely fresh and am unaware of any spoilers.

So I finally gave this game a shot bc of how much praise the series as a whole has. And tbh, I was a bit disappointed by the end of it. The world building is the best part of this game and is what ultimately kept me going. The lore as a whole is very intriguing. I also like how the choices between renegade/paragon actually matter. But everything else is just meh. Gameplay is clunky. The biotics aspect of this game felt more of a gimmick than an actual playstyle. I never once felt my biotic abilities to be consistently useful in fights, despite being the Adept build. This is where Andromeda shined with biotics simply due to having more mobility in gameplay. This game does not cater towards a mobile, fast playstyle which makes the use of biotics mostly useless outside of reviving and shield regeneration. You’re better off with a straight combat build. Most of the side missions felt hollow and unrewarding. Most of the characters were forgettable(except for Wrex and Captain Anderson). Bringing all of the companions into your crew felt extremely tacked on and rushed just for the sake of advancing the plot forward. Also, the voice acting does not do most of the characters any type of justice. The side planets you were able to visit never felt worth it to explore. The mako stuff was easily the worst part of the game. Driving that thing through sections of the game was just not fun. And the story felt very generic. They tried to get you to care about Saren towards the end but he was a generic villain for 90% of the game. Go here, shoot stuff, get this information, talk with the council, rinse and repeat. The story was just too cut and dry and there was never a point where it clicked with me.

Idk maybe I had too high of expectations going in bc of how much praise this series has. I’m sure I’d have a drastically different opinion if I played this back in 2007. It’s clearly a limited game for its time and was probably innovative back then. I can see why it has the fanbase it has but playing this game in 2022 was just not it.

This game is the epitome of wasted potential. The ideas that were thrown into this story and the concept of the world as a whole is very unique when compared to most other games. I was so invested in the world of this game. It’s clearly inspired by dystopian novels like 1984 and Brave New World(especially this one). However, everything just goes downhill after the great opening section of the game. It just never materialized and put all these good ideas into something meaningful.

I initially played the early access version of this game and was impressed by a lot of the improvements they made along the way. Then when the full game released, it still kinda felt like early access. Performance issues were widespread and the gameplay wasn’t much different.

I can’t emphasize enough the amount of good ideas that were put forth in this game when it comes to its story. As much as I was underwhelmed by how it played out, I was still so intrigued with the world and its characters by the end. There’s a lot to work with here. I can only hope a dev team with a bigger budget can borrow these ideas and create something that this game wanted to do. There is massive potential in the story elements that are in this game.

I tempered my expectations going into this game after being a bit disappointed with the first game. However, this game surpassed any expectations that I would’ve had. This is a fantastic experience that stands the test of time. Like ME1, I played the legendary edition version of this game. Might get into some spoilers so I’ll just say now that this game is a must play. I’d go as far to say that you can even skip the first game entirely bc this game stands so strong by itself. It almost has that Witcher 3 feel to it where you don’t need to play the previous titles for an amazing experience.

Story, characters, and world building is in a class of its own in this game. There actually feels like there’s life to it(which was severely lacking in ME1). The story is engaging from start to finish. The Illusive Man being the real villain that you’re forced to work with is such a genius dynamic to have in the game. He was a lot more intriguing than Saren. Makes the paragon/renegade decisions hold so much more weight. Doing Cerberus’s dirty work, discovering more about the Reapers, and getting everyone on board with your journey all culminated into a thrilling end game mission. Side quests were also just as good(most notably, the one with the scientist and the experiments done on his autistic brother that spoke the Geth language). Squad members are so much more interesting in this game and it makes sense with how you acquire them. Their loyalty missions add so much depth to these characters as well and it is extremely important to do these missions bc of how much it affects the Suicide Mission. I was really sad to find out that most of these characters are not your squadmates in the 3rd game. I halfway understand if people got upset about not having the ME1 squad in ME2 but this squad should have been the squad that carried over to ME3. The ME2 characters are just so much better. All the interactions and missions made me like them so much more than the ME1 squad(Garrus and Tali are exceptions of course).

Gameplay is very smooth also. ME1 was very clunky and was a horrible experience for those that like faster playstyles. ME2 didn’t really change the foundation much as it’s still a “cover and shoot” type of deal but it has a significantly different feel to it that I can’t explain. It just works so much better. Biotic abilities are also a lot more useful. There is a ton of gun/armor variety which is a welcome surprise. And the skill tree is good as well.

I cannot stress enough how great this experience is. ME2 is a must-play experience for anyone new to the series. If ME1 puts you off, either skip it completely and read up on important plot details or just run through it quickly bc this game made me understand why the Mass Effect series is so highly praised. This is one of the best gaming experiences that I have had.

I might be giving this game too low of a score but I’m going to stick with this for now bc of little things that brought down the experience for me personally. As a whole though, I think this was a satisfying end to an overall enjoyable trilogy. Starting the legendary edition with ME1 really didn’t sit well with me but ME2 and ME3 made me understand the greatness of the Mass Effect series.

I knew about the backlash ME3 received, specifically with its ending, when it first released. After now playing it for the first time, I think the hate was overblown and it was overhated to the point where some people made it seem like this is a bad game. It’s really not a bad game at all. I loved most moments that happened in this game and I wasn’t upset at the ending bc there’s only so far you can go with player choice. Especially if BioWare intends on continuing the Shepard saga. I got the perfect destroy ending and it seems like that would be the canon ending in the event that this gets followed up on. I loved it and didn’t feel insulted by it bc it made sense to me. Yes you lose EDI and the Geth with this ending but this entire series has been entirely about tough decisions and choices that come with sacrifices. To me, that made sense and I wasn’t upset at all. At some point there needs to be a concise ending and yes that means that you as a player will have some of your choice stripped away bc the writers have to tell and wrap up their story. As long as it’s done well, I have no issues with it and this game did it well imo. You have an ending that Saren would have wanted in synthesis, an ending that the Illusive Man wanted in control, and an ending that Shepard and Commander Anderson wanted from the start in destroy. I honestly don’t see the issue with this.

As far as the game as a whole is concerned, I think the gameplay in this game is the best out of the whole series. The tweaks made to movement and fighting were surprisingly smooth and worked well. I like that each game slowly broke away from the clunkiness that came with ME1’s cover and shoot style. Cover and shoot is still the foundation but there’s a lot more freedom when it comes to how you play. The gun/armor variety is also expanded and the skill tree is pretty much the same with some minor tweaks. Gameplay wise, this is the most fun in the series.

The story gave me the same feeling that I had with watching Avengers Endgame. I knew it was probably going to be a spectacle and was going to be an exciting finale for a long term story. I wasn’t disappointed. Seeing decisions made in ME1 and ME2 affect my ME3 story(especially with war assets) was great to see. Saying goodbye to some former squad mates was really tear jerking. Legion in particular hit me the hardest. You fight and end a whole side war for him to finally become a person but it’s bittersweet bc he has to sacrifice himself in order to see a dream become reality. 10/10 storytelling right there alone. Mordin’s death to cure the genophage was also really sad to see. Overall, I just really liked that the whole galaxy was at war and you needed to unite everyone against this one threat(again, very similar to Avengers and Thanos). This whole all out war aspect made the pacing feel like it was moving at just the right speed and I felt engaged all the way through.

I really only have 2 main issues with this game. #1 being that I HATED the changes they made to the journal and mission progression. I needed to use a mission guide for 80% of this game bc it did not direct you well in how you’re supposed to complete quests. ME2 had quest check marks to show you how far along you are in progressing the quest. It also told you where to go for every single one. This game however does not do this. It gives you a summary of what was said when you received the quest and that’s it. There were many times where I had to find out from a guide that I could not complete a specific side quest bc I either did not progress in the story far enough yet to unlock that planet/nebula or I had already completed it but just needed to buy an item from the spectre terminal. ME2’s journal and mission progression was a lot less confusing and I wish they would’ve kept it. My next issue is a personal one and depends on how you feel but I think ditching the ME2 squad and making them feel sidelined was a terrible idea. Jack, Miranda, Mordin, Grunt, Samara, Legion, Jacob, and Thane are all so much more interesting characters than the OGs from ME1(also, James didn’t add anything at all as a new character). Again this is just my opinion but I would have much rather had the ME2 squad be the ones kept as part of your crew. Having the ME1 characters in the crew just didn’t do it for me at all. Javik and EDI saved it from being a complete disaster though.

All in all, I would love to give this game the same score as ME2 bc I think I enjoyed it just as much. But again, my 2 issues are really just nitpicks but are issues nonetheless and is why I give it just 1 score lower. I think this game was overhated though when it initially released and I think that the legendary edition version I played made for a satisfying end to a fantastic trilogy of games. There’s no reason not to play this game if you played the previous 2. And it also might be a lot better than what you’ve heard about it.

This game is 100% aesthetic. If you like classic samurai movies, this game is a must play.

However, if the aesthetic fails to grab you then this game might feel very hollow. I beat it in roughly 5-6 hours and I wasn’t too impressed when it comes to gameplay. There are a variety of combos that are made available to you as you progress but they’re not as useful once you realize it’s just pressing an extra button for a spam combo that you were already doing. Gameplay just gets really redundant at a certain point and you’ll be going through the motions in combat about halfway in.

Spoilers below
As for the story, it’s a pretty simple one. Your sensei gets killed, you hunt the ones that killed him, and you find out that your character’s thirst for revenge is the reason your own village gets attacked and your loved one dies bc of it. At that point of the story, your character gets killed(unless you manage to defeat the insanely hard boss that kills you) and this is where I think the story becomes very interesting. You get sent to an afterlife type world called Yomi and fight ghosts and demons. Japanese mythology shines in this part of the game and it kinda made me wish the rest of the game was like this. It made for some cool environments and enemy types. I also liked that you have 4 different options for how your game ends. There’s some replay value from that and the unlocked difficulty once you initially beat the game.

Also, DO NOT use English voice acting. Take it from someone like me who actually prefers to watch anime dubbed in English bc it doesn’t bother me most of the time. But this game’s English voice acting is pretty bad and does not fit well at all. Just keep the Japanese voice acting as it was intended and read the subtitles.

There’s a lot to like about this game but there’s also a lot to not like. I’d say it’s worth your time to play regardless since it’s a 5-6 hour experience and if you like the aesthetic of 2D sidescrolling with a old 50s B&W film filter. Aesthetic alone is why I liked playing it but that’s about it.

I might be overly critical about this game but that’s only bc there is A LOT of potential here for something great. For everything that KCD does well, there are equally the same amount of missteps that can be corrected in a sequel. I’ll probably get into spoilers so I’ll just say now that this game is an acquired taste. You’ll learn to tolerate some things but you’ll also love a lot of what this game has to offer when it comes to immersion and story. I’d say it’s a must play simply if you’re into history and this time period. You should definitely play it if you want that experience of “zero to hero” type of rpg. However, this game might not be for you if you’re not willing to sit through long expositions by some of the historical characters and get invested in the info dumps that MANY of these characters give to you in conversations.

some spoilers below
The story of this game is partly why I say it’s an acquired taste. I think the way this game opened was brilliant. You start as just a blacksmith apprentice commoner in a village who is just living a regular life for the time. You learn some combat mechanics, get familiar with dialogue trees, learn about the skills and level up system, and even complete a few quests to start. This opening section throws almost everything at you that this game has to offer. It can be daunting at first but trust me, it’s a whole lot easier than it looks. This slow burn opening is then ramped up when the village gets attacked, mostly everyone dies, and now you’re on your own trying to start a new life and get revenge on the ones who killed your family. Very simple but executed very well imo. You as a player truly do feel that same sense of hopelessness as Henry in the beginning bc of how weak you really are. Combat, dialogue, or simply having enough coin for things are all difficult. You are at a huge disadvantage and I can see where this might put some people off early on but you are rewarded greatly for sticking through it. But once you get through this opening, the story gets really choppy from a pacing standpoint. A lot of the main quests in this middle section feel a bit all over the place and you kind of feel like your main objective of getting revenge seems to have taken a backseat. I think this worst culprit of this choppy pacing is once you approach the end. The monastery quest is the WORST in the game and you are given a ton of fetch quests during the siege mission at the end. Thankfully, this choppiness can be alleviated by many of the well done side quests. A lot of these side quests provide great context to the world you’re in and gets you immersed. It really felt like the devs took note of how Witcher 3 did side quests and put that type of care into them in this game. With that said, everything culminated to a underwhelming final fight and the game kinda ends abruptly. It just felt weird and held back for the sake of a sequel. I get it but as a player I felt like the game didn’t reward me with anything satisfying for getting invested in the story. Maybe it’s just me but I didn’t like the sudden stop to the story at all. Although I will say that the post credit scene with Henry and his father(the blacksmith “father”) was beautiful and very well done.

Now with story out of the way, let’s get to gameplay and just the overall rpg mechanics. Combat is hit or miss. Being weak in the beginning makes combat really hard to learn and once you do, it’ll still feel like a bit of a mess. 1 on 1, the combat works well for the most part. It’s a bit of a dance to get an advantage over your opponent. But once you start fighting multiple enemies(which happens a lot), the fighting is one of the worst that I’ve ever seen. You are autolocked to single enemies and can’t really see what’s going on around you bc of it. There were many times where I thought I was fighting 1-2 enemies but was blindsided by another 1-2 enemies that I am literally unable to look at bc of the lock on. It becomes a bit easier once you unlock certain skills but my god, they need to overhaul the entire combat system for fighting more than 1 person. Also, the weapons you equip largely all feel the same. Only time it feels different is if you’re using a longsword. Using a bow needs to be overhauled as well as it is mostly useless in combat situations and outside of hunting. Riding a horse is uhhh, weird and clunky. Stealth is kinda hit or miss too. Wearing less armor for noise reduction is great but sometimes enemies still will see you or hear you no matter what. And there are rare opportunities for stealth to even be a factor in this game. That one main quest where you have to scout a bandit/cuman camp really exposed the weakpoints of stealth in this game. You are given no opportunities to actually hide and the AI knows exactly where you are. There should be no reason why every soldier in the camp is following just me or wanting to approach me despite me disguising myself and acting normal. This just felt like you were purposely being disadvantaged despite utilizing stealth to its full extent to get an enemy away from camp and take their armor to blend in. Also, lockpicking and pickpocketing are HORRIBLE. They’re not fun to do at all and not really worth doing. All that aside though, I think the aspects of hunting, alchemy, haggling, blacksmithing, reading, and unarmed combat are pretty fun. Leveling up also feels fair and worthwhile. Finding treasures scattered around the map was pretty cool and trying to get certain pieces of equipment/weapons never got boring. I like how certain skills(and not just character level) are tied to being able to make full use of those weapons/armor and makes you actually need to play the game in order to use them. Although there could be a lot more variety in this area. None of the armor sets or weapons looked cool or different from the others imo. Also, the world felt mostly well crafted. All the important areas weren’t copy and pasted. If you want to just run around and explore, you might encounter some random events. Again, there are a lot of things done well but there’s plenty room for improvement as well.

There’s a lot more I could say but I just wanted to cover some of my main takeaways from the game. I had an enjoyable experience but I think it was bc I was able to tolerate some of the game’s pitfalls. I can tell though that this dev team worked extremely hard in making the game feel real and really ground you as a player into the reality of a medieval world. Plague Tale and this game are the only games I can point to when it comes to immersion in a medieval setting. Warhorse Studios clearly wants a sequel to this game and I hope that they are able to make one. I want to see what they can do with a bigger budget and heightened expectations. This game showed many bright spots and shined a bit of potential greatness that can be expanded upon. If the devs correct a lot of the shortcomings in KCD, I think the sequel will have the potential to be GOTY worthy. Potential is the key word to describe this game and I think that alone makes this game worthwhile.

This is quite possibly the best pure FPS story that I have ever played. This game holds up amazingly well in 2022 and I would highly recommend playing this if you never played the campaign.

I did initially play this game at release in 2016. However, I hopped straight into multiplayer but didn’t really put much time into it due to BF1 dropping around the same time. So I’m not going to comment much on the multiplayer but I will say, Apex did not change a single thing other than the titans being gone. Titanfall 2 was really ahead of it’s time multiplayer wise.

I cannot stress this story enough. You can get through it in one sitting tbh. I get that it’s short but QUALITY beats out quantity by a mile in this game. Platforming sections, smooth gunplay, fun titan loadouts, interesting story/lore building elements, and unique mission structure is how I’d describe the campaign. The bond you create with BT in such a short amount of time is really something special. Also, that time jump mission in particular is chefs kiss. That mission alone is one of the best levels overall that I’ve ever played.

Performance and graphics wise, I think this game still looks great. It’s 60fps on the series x.

What Apex did to correct some of this game’s shortcomings is the characters. This game probably would have been so much bigger if they made use of some of the characters that eventually made it on to Apex. Apparently Bloodhound was supposed to be in Titanfall 2 and I think that should have happened. The story of this game sets up so much intriguing lore but it’s kinda held back with the lack of unique characters. Aside from BT, there were flashes of potential with characters like Ash(who is now in Apex) and Viper. But there was nothing really substantial there. Had some early character concepts for the Apex champions had already been in Titanfall 2, I think it would have been so much bigger as a game.

This game really didn’t get the love that it should’ve in 2016. I was one of those people that initially dismissed this game back then. But I want to give this game it’s flowers in 2022 now that I revisited it. Play it if you haven’t(it’s on gamepass anyway) and I really hope Respawn makes a Titanfall 3 one day.

This game is a must play if you’re a fan of other point and click narrative driven games like Life is Strange or the Telltale games.

I think it presents a fresh and unique spin on the simple point and click foundation through its art style and how many different paths it can tell its story. Not everyone is going to have the same journey and I love that this game even allows you to play from specific parts of the chapters to see different routes. I think it’s neat that they even give you the choice of not saving or overwriting your previous choices just to see the different outcomes.

The story is obviously the selling point and I think it’s a well written one. Might get in to spoilers from this point on so be warned. Most of the characters are also well written and interesting. Jay obviously steals the show and I think the VA’s performance in portraying him is really good. Also, that “one” scene with Bear Holt and Jay was one of the most powerful scenes I’ve ever seen in a video game.

In my opinion there are only a few negatives I have with this game and they’re all based around certain narritive choices. 1st off, playing as Ash really halted the momentum that this game was building. It felt like it was a cheap way of slowing the game down and I would go as far as to say that this was “filler” content for the story. The only real impact of it was to just make a choice at the end(which btw, didn’t even make sense story wise for Ash to even reveal the secret location to Dante. So there was really only 1 logical choice). Another problem I had was how many loose ends were left untied by the end. Why did Dante’s wife hate him so much? There’s clearly more to Dante’s “black book” so why wasn’t it expanded upon? Why did Jim instantly recognize Sharon and Paul? Is there more to Jay’s real parents? And obviously, who shot Jim at the end? I get it, they probably want to make a sequel but I felt that a little bit too much information was introduced just for it to be left unexplained.

Besides all that, it’s still a really fun experience. This is one of the better narrative driven games I’ve played this year in 2022 and has a ton of replay value.

I can only speak for the recent console release and I do not know the state of the game back when it released originally on PC so I’m not gonna review it off that.

What I will say is that this game is miles ahead of Warband and I’d go as far as to say that this is their best work so far. The improvements all around are great and make for an enjoyable role playing experience that you would expect at this point. My only issue is that they are on the cusp of something great but not quite there yet. I had this same feeling with Warband as well. Things like diplomacy is something that I find extremely important in games like this and much like their previous titles, it feels really lackluster. There should be no reason why I can’t make alliances with other factions. Why can’t I temporarily ally with a rebel faction to help them expand? Or at least join them? Why can’t I ally with the enemy of a faction and have a joint war? Why can’t I negotiate with looters or bandits to form a type of organized rogue gang or even a whole minor faction to terrorize the major factions? Why can’t I hire them to terrorize other factions without directly declaring war? Why can’t I negotiate trade with a faction? The list goes on and on. I’d wish they would borrow some of Total War’s ideas with diplomacy options(instead of having to rely on mods) bc it makes the role playing experience that much better.

I also think that their system of companions needs a major overhaul. Having simple dialogue explaining their backstory, hiring them, and then not doing anything else with them is leaving a lot on the table for something good. They could easily implement something like loyalty missions that you’d have to do before you’re able to recruit them to your party. That would make each potential companion unique and make them stand out by more than just their skills. They can also make some companions extremely difficult or easy to recruit based on where your character is from or which faction you are friendly/not friendly towards.

I would also like there to be some implantation of naval combat, trade, or even just transportation. There’s large bodies of water and islands in this new map but it’s just empty space due to the lack of anything to do with ships. There could easily be island factions or at least villages/castles/towns on these islands.

This game does the exact same things as Warband but just better so I feel talking about the positives would be regurgitating the same points as many of you. This game is good and fun but it’s missing a lot of things that would make it truly great. Hopefully mods become available on console but we shouldn’t have to rely on mods. Maybe they are 1 or 2 more games away from creating something really special.