What a neat little game.

Honestly, an absolute Banger, especially considering it's a 1983 home release. Jetpac never garnered much attention it seems. It's not in any top sellers list from 1983 and with garbage like Atari Pac-Man as competition this is just unfortunate. Being only available on the Commodore VIC-20, BBC Microcomputer System and the ZX Spectrum probably didn't help much.

This is a bummer, because I really think the game's a little gem. Tight controls, simple and rewarding gameplay, very charming visuals and fantastic enemy variety for the time. There are like 6 different enemy types, with different behavioral patterns and individual sprites. That shit must have blown some 1983 minds. You even have four different spaceships to assemble, all looking unique. I know this sounds almost comical today. But back in the day, this was the kind of stuff that kept people hooked. To find out if there is a fifth spaceship to assemble. There isn't, but that's not the point.

My main gripes are the lack of music (which is probably due to hardware limitations, but I can't be sure since I'm not a ZX Spectrum nerd) and the busted scoring system. Scoring in Jetpac is essentially a non factor since any stage can be played indefinitely, there is no time limit. The respawn pattern of some enemies can be easily exploited, and they can be easily killed for an infinite amount of points.
Now I still tried my hand at an honest high score, I reached 168,845 points, in case anybody want to see me in Jetpac.

Give it a go, it's a fun little diversion for a few minutes of free time.

Trailblazing, such a jump from Halo CE, Bungie outdid themselves, milestone for storytelling in action games and so on and so forth. Anyway.

This game is fucked up on legendary. Anybody that thinks Halo CE is bad on legendary, no. Fuck no. Halo CE on legendary is like a walk in the park. Halo 3 Legendary and onward is like playing modern triple A games on easy by comparison. What the fuck were they thinking. Here is one of the most influential shooters since Doom, also we are about to tear your ass up like confetti.

I was going to write an actual review, like for the other games, but I have tunnel vision on this one. No joke, legendary turns Halo 2 into a puzzle game, in which you need to solve every encounter with the correct mix of strategy and luck. Sometimes this can be really fun and rewarding. Then there's Gravemind.

I don't want to complain too much. This game was barely crunched out the door, knowing this it's almost insane how good the game is. These building blocks would later form the greatest highest difficulty setting in video gaming, next to Dante Must Die.

Give it a go, I can wholeheartedly recommend the anniversary edition. It looks and plays great, some visual clarity is lost, but overall I'd call it an upgrade.

The definitive Halo experience, especially on legendary.

It's amazingly paced on legendary. Back to back banger missions, only broken up by rainy walks through New Mombasa, accompanied by an amazing soundtrack. There's nothing I could write that could possibly describe the amount of effort which went into every single encounter in this game. Every room, every enemy placement, every weapon and ammo drop deliberately placed to absolute perfection.

This game has a level of polish and detail which is all but extinct nowadays, and all this back in 2009. Berton, Bakken, Miller and Pfeiffer pulled out all the stops on this one. Cramming everything that makes Halo great into a 3-4 hour campaign, that never lets off the throttle. Joseph Staten made sure ODST fit perfectly into the story, all the while providing interesting and new concepts.

The game only tumbles twice, in my opinion. Once at the beginning with the brain-dead tutorial and during the last mission. The last mission just looks a little unfortunate at the tail end of an almost flawless experience. It underdelivers on the pacing, stakes and difficulty. This being said, it's a fine mission and people are too obsessed with endings anyway.

Play this game. You won't be disappointed.

It's a weird feeling playing Halo 4 again after 12 years and realizing it's pretty okay.

Maybe it was the absolute travesty that is Halo 5 Guardians, maybe it's the huge disappointment which is Halo Infinite, or maybe it's the fact that the last time I played Halo 4 was on an actual CRT. (Cathode-ray tube television. Don't worry about it, kids.) But I can't help but feel it's quite alright. Not perfect by any means, but you know, actually kinda good. 

I'm currently going through the series on legendary again and while this one is, in my opinion, the easiest by far, it works perfectly on that difficulty. If you always felt it moved too fast from location to location and had pacing issues, play it on legendary. This is like a perfectly paced Halo campaign on legendary, no joke. 343 really knew when to spice things up and then loosen up a bit with a much easier vehicle section. 8 Missions also feels just right to me. 10 is always at least 1 too many for my liking. Although ODST is still King when it comes to length, for my money.

Now then, let's get the narrative stuff out of the way. I was so ready to hate every single part of it, and it can't compare to Halo's best, of course. But I was pleasantly surprised to find most of the dumb shit I remember to be part of Halo 5. Yes, they are kinda forcing that dumbass out of place romance between Cortana and Chief, but it's not front and center on this one. It lurks in the background where I can shut my eyes and ears to ignore it decently enough. Why they went with the narrative in 5 the way they did is honestly baffling to me. It wraps Chiefs and Cortanas relationship up quite nicely. (Spoilers) Chief, always ready to make that ultimate sacrifice if need be, Cortana constantly disturbed and afraid by her impending doom, but then deciding to make that ultimate sacrifice to save Chief's life. That's what we all thought, at least before Halo 5 released and dumped all of that in the garbage. It's a role reversal between the two. Chief the Human with doubts and fears pressing on despite incomprehensible odds, while the cold calculating machine is terrified and afraid of death. Cortana was obviously somewhat rewritten, which fits nicely into the rampancy plot line, but Chief is the same as he ever was in my opinion. So, characters intact as far as I'm concerned. The supporting cast is decent, definitely a step-down from previous entries. The Didact as a villain is fine, he's okay, could be better. While he clearly pulls the strings from the beginning, he's introduced too late and has fanfiction-levels of strength. While I'm not too fond of him, he gets the job done.

In terms of gameplay, there's less to complain about than I thought. Halo 4 feels good, the old weapons are intact and look fine. I really like some of the redesigns, while others are just okay. I don't hate any, although the Promethean weapons are kinda lame. It must have been hard, honestly. Halo has like one of the best weapon rosters in gaming. How do you add to that? Well you don't honestly, but 343 tried. The new weapons are a mixed bag to be sure. While most Promethean weaponry are just remixes of familiar classics, the truly new weapons are all kinda bad. The Rail gun is a Sniper Rifle but bad. The beam rifle just replaces the covenant sniper rifle. The Storm rifle is the least fun weapon in any video game. The saw is the second-worst gun in the game, the suppressor takes worst gun in the entire series for me. Seriously, even the enemies on legendary have trouble killing you with the fucking thing. Lastly, the sticky detonator is fine, you find it like twice, and it has 4 rounds total before you're back to scrounging for a good weapon. Sprint is here to stay. I'm a Halo 3 MP guy, so I don't look too fondly onto the addition since Reach, but I can tolerate it. The Armor Abilities are a mixed bag, the new additions are middling. The Hard light Shield, the Vision and the Autosentry are fine, their uses are just situational and don't spice up the gameplay that much. Camo and Hologram are actually broken on legendary if used correctly. I'm forgetting some, but that's not a good sign, seeing that I finished the game a couple of hours ago. Almost forgot, the new grenades suck at dealing damage, but are great for area denial.

Halo 4's rogues' gallery is notorious at this point, but honestly I really like it. There are 4 Covenant type enemies with different types, Grunts, Jackals, Elites and Hunters and 3 new Promethean enemy types, Crawlers, Knights and watchers, also with different types. That's 7 enemy types in total, which is quite a lot for Halo. We all know however it's not the quantity, quality is what makes a good enemy. While I really enjoy fighting the Crawlers and Knights, the Watchers are always a chore. They have waaaaay too much health in legendary, and I'm never a fan of the "reviving fallen enemies type" enemy. The Crawlers are really fun to headshot and are constantly hounding you. (hehe) The Knights are the most controversial enemies, however. Yes their shields are a little bit too strong and yes the sniper variant one-shots you almost instantly on legendary. They're not perfect by any measure, but adding to Halos enemies is though, and I think of them as a decent addition. Once you figure out the different variants, they become a blast to strategize around. Promethean shotgun melts 'em real good, but don't get too close to the Close-Quarters variant, you'll regret it.

This is getting too long as it is, so let's wrap up with visuals and audio. I knew the game sounded great, I love how the weapons sound in this game. OST is a banger, as always. But I was surprised to find out I also like how the game looks. I was distinctly remembering finding the visuals too bright and the enemies indistinguishable from the backgrounds. This wasn't the case at all during my playthrough. In fact, I played a Reach mission right after this, and it looked so muddy, and it has this gray filter over it. Headshotting grunts was suddenly kinda uncomfortable, since their heads blended into their bodies. Which wasn't an issue at all in 4.

I was very positively surprised by Halo 4s campaign and I think it should be reevaluated. If you haven't played it in a while, I say give it another go.

Honestly, I don't know what all the fuzz is about.

I get that a lot of people started out with Wotlk, and the nostalgia factor is therefore very strong with this one. But I think you have to be coping at least somewhat to think that these patches were the best ones to ever go live.

This expansion is like the awkward-teen-phase of wow for me. They tried alot of new stuff with wotlk, throwing new things at the wall, to see what sticks. It's undeniable that this expansion, more than any other shaped what WoW would become. This factor alone gives the original devs some leeway in terms of criticism in my opinion. You can clearly see the team wrestle with some of the more problematic aspects of the genre and the formula. Trying to find new ways to improve both, I really believe they gave a fuck at the time.

This all being said, I think the expansion is middling at best. While I can appreciate the story and lore from start to finish, the raid tiers are really what kills it for me. Wotlk is stuck between Classic and Modern WoW. While the Class-Design has leaped forward, providing interesting and diverse types of gameplay for different classes, the Boss-Design is still stuck in the past. The Raids provide generally little challenge. The most dense and difficult encounters are The Lich King and Yogg-Saron (Hard mode), both the Endbosses of their respective Raids. Every other encounter felt barebones to me. However considering the time in which they released Wotlk this might be an issue specific to playing the expansion in the modern era. I did most of my WoW playing between Cataclysm and Legion, which means that I was always used to more complex and difficult encounters. I lack the experience to grasp the difficulty these encounters presented at the time of release.

Which gives me a perfect segway into the Classic Wotlk Servers by Blizzard Entertainment/Activision supervised by Microsoft. They're gargabe, absolute trash. Having game-breaking bugs and glitches which were present in the original is one thing, but introducing new ones is flat out embarassing. The WoW Token and Chinese Bots have completley ruined the economy, GDKP is a travesty and every Server is filled with elitist, who have been playing the game since 2008 and are still somehow wiping on Professor Putricide.

If you wanna dive into WoWs teenage years, I can't recommend the "official" servers. Warmane is all I'll say.

The progenitor of the Survival Horror genre.

This game must've looked fucking crazy in 1992. Imagine looking at the barely interpretable environments of Wolfenstein 3D next to this fully realised Mansion, in which people obviously lived and died for that matter. While the graphics are obviously outdated now, they're still functional. Personally I find them quite charming, but I can see it putting people off these days. The character designs are the strongest part in my opinion. The enemies, while just amalgamations of shapes in different sizes and colors, can even look threatening at times. Emily and Edward just barely manage to not look ridiculous, so they don't drag down the horror factor.

Okay before I go on about all that other bullshit no one cares about, let's talk about Resident Evil.

I always knew Alone in the Dark inspired Resident Evil. It's the kind of trivia basically everybody seems to know about. What I didn't realise is that Capcom whole cloth ripped this game off. A hyperbole to be sure but it's more accurate than not honestly. AITD takes place in a mansion filled with monsters, you select if you wanna play as a male or female character at the beginning and it's mostly pre-rendered. The puzzles usually involve putting a McGuffin into an indentation, in order to open a door. There are readables scattered throughout the game, in order for you to catch up on the lore. There is an inventory system in place, which is limited and there are multiple weapons and matching ammo to find. Lastly the game ends with a escape sequence.
The craziest part is that there is no Item-Box, so if your inventory is full you just dump your excess items on the ground. Just like you would exactly ten years later in Resident Evil Zero. Needless to say it sucks in both games. Capcom had ten more years of game design experience and a game they took massive inspiration from already having made this mistake and they still managed to fuck that up. Those who disregard history are doomed to repeat it I suppose. Anyway Resident Evil Zero rant over.

Let's back up for a sec. Yes, there is an inventory system. Yes, it's lmited, but not in any meaningful way. There is really no resource management to speak of, because you can save everywhere and an unlimited amount of times. Save, find out what to do, reload, do what you just learned perfectly, repeat. This takes out a lot of the difficulty. Of course there is some jank and bullshit death, which was the style at the time, but it's pretty much all negated by the unlimited save function. Now AITD is showing it's point and click adventure game influence here, this isn't the only example either. Your actions aren't all bound to keys, most of them are selected in your the inventory. Just like someone would select what Guybrush should do, before clicking on something. Its work well enough honestly. The games this fascinating combination of the survival horror Resident Evil would later establish and the point and click adventure games of the 90s, which preceded it.

The level design and puzzles are fairly standard for today, but competent enough so that it held up for me. I played through the game without a guide and only got stumped once. It's lacks most of the 90s gaming horseshit, I've come to expect. The books and parchments usually offer helpful hints about the puzzles, so no guide needed. A cool little detail is that items, for the most part, reside in logical locations. For example the medkits are found in the bathrooms, a stew is found on the kitchen table and the rifle is locked up in the attic.

Speaking of guns the combat is clunky and obviously obsolete, but functional. It's actually possible to play through the game, without getting hit. In turn it's not really hard or interesting. Although the game offers a lot of options to avoid combat all together. I felt really clever for pulling it off, so bonus points for that.

Lastly the voice acting must have been trailblazing for the time. A diary containing the house owners descent into madness is fantastically written and performed. I can't think of any game around the era which could've come close. So AITD casually sets the standard for voice acting in videogames aswell.

Honestly I say give it a go, it's short and sweet. A little janky, but not at all uncomfortable.

It's impossible for me to get into the headspace of an MSX2 player from 1987.
I was still liquid at the time.
But now I am luckily solid, and so I played Metal Gear.
Ohhhhhhhhhhh boy did I play Metal Gear.

In my darkest, most cynical moments, I sometimes feel like Kojima really only had the one trick in the bag. Finally playing the original after playing and replaying most of the other Metal Gear games is a weird experience. So many little touches, mechanics, ideas and details litter this game which would come to fruition in later installments of the franchise. To say the later games retread covered ground is like saying "the sky is blue". Certainly accurate but there's more to it.

In interviews regarding Metal Gear Solid V Kojimas sometimes mentions that V was the game he wanted to make 30 years ago. This is something I can't see in Metal Gear, but I can certainly feel it. Something you could say about most Metal Gear games is that they are Stealth Action games with an uncanny amount of attention to detail and an anti-war/violence message.
(See link in case of confusion) https://pbs.twimg.com/media/EdJE_u7WsAAAGv_.jpg

All those things I just mentioned are certainly also true about Metal Gear. I can hardly imagine this game coming out while people just got done playing the hot new game Rock Man on their famicom. To say Metal Gear is complex and nuanced for its time is surely an understatement. Between the numerous mechanics and all new cutting edge stealth gameplay, what shocked me the most was the results screen. The beloved results screen makes its debut here. So do the special weapons in fact and the code name ratings. One of the items you're being rated on is straight up "Humans Killed", just in case you thought the anti violence message was not in place at this time.

Gameplay is perfectly serviceable, especially for the time. I find myself liking moving around the most. Navigating Snake is fun, like it always is. Stealth actually has some pretty interesting nuances. How enemies sight lines work being one of them. Figuring out they can only spot you on a specific line coming from their sprite is fun to find out and even more fun to abuse. Shooting is meh. The big highlight gameplay wise are the bosses. Bosses? Good? In Metal Gear? Nahhhhhhhh.
Find the right weapon for the job is a necessity. You are almost always outmatched, so finding the correct tool for the job and the right strategy to match feels like you won with your wits and not with the brute force of your arsenal.
(Kinda like in a Metal Gear game.)

The items and gadgets in the game are numerous, but mostly glorified keys. Thinking about it now, it's got some Metroidvania vibes going on. This wasn't entirely groundbreaking however, since the original Metroid released about a year prior. While the weapons and gadgets aren't all that interesting for modern standards, some of them have secret little secondary uses which aren't communicated to you at all. While it's fun finding those uses, it's a little less fun if finding this hidden mechanic is necessary for progression.

Elephant in the room time.

This game is bullshit. It's littered with 1980s gaming horseshit. Stand in this specific spot and use the radio frequency that one NPC told you about like 2 hours ago, fuck you. Stuff like that is all over this game. A lot of trial and error, so to speak. I actually got through most of the game without looking stuff up, but even I have my limits with this bullshit. Finding hidden rooms by blowing up random walls is a progress relevant task, multiple times. That shit's not for secrets, that's just mandatory my dude.
Oh, and don't forget, place your plastic explosives at Metal Gears legs in the following order:
R, R, L, R, L, L, R, L, L, R, R, L, R, L, R, R.
If you don't, Metal Gear won't take damage and you need 16 charges to destroy it, so don't mess up or show up unprepared. AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH

I like it doe.
It's got some strange charm which I can't quite put into words.
I hear the second one if way better, so maybe play that one.

I was so ready to dislike this game, just like I disliked the first game and almost everything else Naughty Dog had put out after CTR. Turns out, the game's pretty good.

It's a quantum leap from the first game. Granted, it's been 7 years, so improvements to the formula should be expected. But the word improvement does no properly describe how the gameplay went from boring slog to actual fucking video game.

You schmoove in this game, hard. Movement options have been expanded and feel good to use, the shooting mechanics are slick and perfectly complemented by the new arsenal. Crafting is actually interesting and engaging, holy shit. I personally hate crafting in almost any game, the whole concept just never clicked for me. In this game however, I like it. I'll need to play a little more of it to get exactly what the team did to make it work for me. Maybe it's the placement of the materials, maybe it's the level design which makes obtaining the resources for crafting fun and engaging, maybe it's the useful and fun to use items you can craft, or maybe it's all of the above. Point is, it works way better this time around. The stealth mechanics got a nice overhaul as well and work as expected, most of the time at least. I wanna give the permadeath game mode on the highest difficulty a spin to see how the mechanics operate when pushed to their breaking point. I can totally see the stealth suddenly taking a dive or falling damage getting calculated wrong and Ellie just drops dead. But during my time with the game so far, all of my deaths were firmly in the "my fault" camp. I'm the kinda guy who has the most fun when the gameplay is in full swing, and I'm able to utilize all mechanics to my heart's content. When the game pats me on the head and deems me worthy enough to experience it's mechanically engaging gameplay, I'm having a fantastic time. Unfortunately, this is not always the case.

Naughty Dog subscribes to the ebb and flow style of "pacing" (Pacing in video games is, in my opinion, almost entirely subjective). Most chapters will provide a complete package of setup, build up, climax and aftermath. This way players who play around 2 hours a day will get a continuation of the narrative, character moments, tension, engaging gameplay with full reign over the mechanics and a little bow on top tying the chapter neatly together. Now on paper this design philosophy makes perfect sense and the cold harsh truth is, most people who bought this game played the game this way. This style of pacing can be a bit of a drag when you play 5 chapters in a row, like ya boy, aka me. I still think designing like this can have merit, but I can't help myself to wish for a speedrun mode. A mode that takes out most of the walking/talking sections and skips all cutscenes.

Okay, so no more fucking around, no more dancing around the subject. Let's talk about everyone's favorite topic, the narrative of this game. Get your comments ready, Gamerbros. Narrative, writing and pacing are way better in TLOU2 than in TLOU1 and I'm sorry if me having this opinion is somehow offensive to you. On that note, if you want well-thought-out stories with deep and thoughtful writing, I'd suggest picking up reading because we're playing video games here, son. The first game's narrative had 2 good aspects for me personally, the characters and the consequences their relationship and decisions have on the world they inhabit. The setting in both games is hot garbage and not really thought out as far as I'm concerned. I would also dare to say it's a little played out and doesn't do enough to distinguish itself. But that's fine, no biggie, there is nothing new under the sun after all. What really carried the narrative of TLOU1 are the characters, specifically Joel and Ellie. Their relationship is of course the driving force of that game's narrative and it all works quite fine. Frankly, despite the bleak setting TLOU1 feels like a comfy feel good road trip in comparison to its sequel.

I gotta take a moment here as someone who has consumed way and I mean waaaaaaay too much fiction in his life to tell every person that decides to read this:
Ellie being the player character and Joel dying in the sequel was completely obvious to me about 3 hours into the first game. If this is somehow the reason you dislike the narrative, I think you should reevaluate why you play video games or consume media in general.

So the narrative is alright. I really like that the writing staff took the themes they were going for so serious and crammed every nook and cranny of the game full of imagery, metaphors, dialogue and relations which correlate to its main theme. The cycle of violence. One act of violence begets another, but so does one act of kindness. It's not groundbreaking, it's been done a million times, but I feel this theme finds a nice comfy home in this medium. Violence in media is nothing new, but video games have a special relationship with the concept of violence since the player is not simply observing the happenings on screen, they actively take part in them. Especially, putting the player on both opposing sides of the narrative was a great way to get their point across. I really liked getting to know the characters which had been my enemies for the first half of the game. The characters in general worked pretty well for me. Ellie for example is just a terrible person in my opinion, but she is a well written terrible person because, it's still possible to relate to her. Shades of grey and all that.

The Setting is still wonky as far as I'm concerned, and the script could've done with some brushing up here and there. Some plot holes here, some weird stupid decision in order to get us to the next location and or plot point there. But that's video game writing for you. I'm not saying it's unnecessary to strive for better writing, I'm saying writing for a video game must be a nightmare. "Oh my god why did the gameplay director change this, now I gotta compensate for that in the script AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH". The gameplay and narrative being woven together the way they are is nothing short of a job well done.

Visuals, music and sound design are a slam dunk. The vocal performers are fucking killing it. Everybody pretty much agrees here. No need to drag this out any longer.

It's pretty good.

5/5 for me in the first 3 hours.
Really loses steam in Episode 3 and 4. As someone who enjoys Doom ILs I had a blast going in and spending up to 2 hours on a single map, trying to move up the leaderboard inch by inch. Sadly after a while the mechanics started to stagnate and movement felt shallow. Every level felt the same for me after a while and by episode 6 I stopped having fun altogether. Unfortunatley the brain dead anime plot is also a huge turn-off for me.

Maybe I'll come back to this one.

I've always said that in order to reach new audiences videogame developers needed to be bold and make changes.

And let's be honest here, FromSoftware games were in dire need of some changes.

However by making these changes there's a possibility that some members of the core audience might be alienated.

This is a necessary step of progress.

Unfortunatley for me, I'm part of that alienated core audience.

I think this is a good game, great at times even.
But I'm 15 hours in and I just can't lie to myself any longer.

It's not for me. I've seldom been this bored while playing a videogame.

Hope everyone else on here has a great time with the game though.

I do think that changing things up like this was a good step for FromSoftware and I can't wait for their next project.

"Pacing" is a weird thing in videogames. I truly think despite the developers best efforts you can't truly craft a perfectly paced game. The player is too much of an X factor. They could be rushing through the game at a break neck pace or just stand around in a room for 2 hours, looking at the textures.

That all being said, Titanfall 2 probably has the best pacing of any first-person shooter I've played in the last 20 Years.

The movement mechanics mixed with the linear and vertical leveldesign creates a flow which is hard to describe with words. You can be constantly moving if you're good enough. Most combat encounters can be straight up skipped if you don't feel like it and just keep on moving. Despite this being a very linear game I always had a great sense of freedom when I was playing. I was constantly making micro decisions: Am I fighting or not, am I going this way or am I taking the high road, am I picking up this perk/weapon/grenade or not and am I fighting as a pilot or am I using my titan.

The gunplay feels fantastic, the guns are diverse enough to never feel stale and mixed with the lightning fast movement, hitting enemies feels super rewarding.

The plot is a simple little buddy road trip with your pilot and his new titan. It works, doesn't get in the way and there's some fun dialogue in here. Perfect for this kind of game as far as I'm concerned.

The set pieces are very fun although I would have prefered some more action in the platforming/movement department. The stuff that's already here is very good though.

It's a short game but for me personally it had just the right amount of playtime.

If you like any first-person shooters at all, this is a must play.