Enjoyable first playthrough. Got the Liberator of Rubicon ending. I know there's a lot of additional story to unlock with NG+ and NG++ but I'm a little more burned out on this than I usually am after a first playthrough of a non-Elden Ring FromSoft game, so I probably won't return to this for a while.

Very cool game though. Never played an Armored Core before, and I found this really engaging and addictive. I got into the build strategy more than I thought I would, but while most people who play this game emphasize creating a variety of different builds for different situations, I spent more time trying to hone and perfect one build that suited my preferred play style (fast and maneuverable with lower health and defense), and which could carry me through the whole game. For the most part, I was able to do this without issue. Only in the endgame did I find myself facing bosses that my main AC ("POST BOY") could not really handle. I had to put together a massive overpowered tank build ("BIG NASTY MAN") to take down Ibis, who was just too fast for me to reliably dodge, but who was fragile enough that a tank could dish out damage fast enough to kill her before she could kill me. I struggled a lot with Arquebus Balteus and tried a large variety of builds that all failed, before settling back into a slightly modified POST BOY with his standard hand weapons both replaced with pulse weapons, his plasma missiles replaced with regular missiles, and slightly sturdier legs that could handle the extra burden at the expense of a tiny amount of speed. I found this difficulty spike really frustrating honestly. It took me hours to beat Arquebus Balteus while no other boss took me more than about 5 attempts (except Ibis who took more like 10). But I will say finally beating that son of a bitch was almost as satisfying as finally killing Orphan of Kos in Bloodborne. I saved a video of my victory, and I have watched it multiple times.

Anyway, this is really good. I feel like my rating may increase if/when I dip back in for the NG+(+), we'll see.

Not quite as great as Dimension of the Machine, but still an improvement on the base game. Corpse Run and Darkest Depths are especially awesome designs with good environmental storytelling. The last boss is frustratingly difficult but I honestly love the way it (spoiler alert, I suppose) incorporated enemies from Quake 1 to tie the Q1 and Q2 stories together. Not 100% sure the explanation they settled on makes the most sense, but it feels right.

Final Quake 1/2 rankings:

1. Q1: Dimension of the Machine
2. Q1 (base game)
3. Q2: Call of the Machine
4. Q2 (base game)
5. Q1: Dimension of the Past
6. Q2: The Reckoning
7. Q1: Scourge of Armagon
8. Q1: Dissolution of Eternity
9. Q2: Ground Zero

After being pretty underwhelmed by most of the Quake 1/2 expansions so far, this one kind of blew me away. Dimension of the Machine has some extremely good map design that takes full advantage of Nightdive's enhanced Quake 1 engine, both in terms of the visual grandeur and the sheer size of them. Each of the 5 worlds has its own distinct theme and feeling, and there is some really great environmental storytelling in them, far beyond what id ever did in the base game. There are even some heavily implied story connections to Quake 2, a very bold move considering they were obviously never meant to be in the same universe. Makes me pretty excited to see if they expand that idea in Quake 2's Call of the Machine expansion.

Blacksmiths > Cultists > Astrologers > Machinists > Stonemasons