Gaming

Don't you guys have phones? will live rent free in my head as one of the funniest on stage failures ever.

I kind of enjoyed Valhalla ... but maybe that's because I'd never played any other AC games in the past, so I didn't have any expectations to disappoint.

Overall, on the better side of mid. General gameplay and exploration was pretty fun, world was very detailed and beautiful. The AC parts seemed a bit shoehorned in. Hated the arbitrary parkour challenges, and really really hated the modern-day meta storyline. Kind of wish they'd just have let all the AC stuff go and just made a fun Viking game without any of that other bullshit. Still, I enjoyed playing it for quite a while. Maybe I'll play it again someday, but it's definitely not on my shortlist of replayable games I keep coming back to.

Word.

Borderlands 2 had my best game memories beating Vermivorous the Invincible with 3 friends, me playing as Maya. First of all getting it to spawn is tense.

Gay Tony died for this

It's going to get worse. Getting the people behind Fivem means it's going to go to the next level with VI. It's going to be Roblox meets the current GTA streaming RP stuff.

Blizzard is a corpse being puppeted.

It's just Activision. Has been for years.

The Bungie Halo era games had problems, sure, but overall were a masterpiece of a series. Everything since then has been ok at best, and borderline insulting at worst.

So much retconning, characters with zero arc, contempt towards the fandom, and build up with no onscreen payoff.

From what Halo Studios has announced regarding Campaign Evolved, and how they've dug in their heels in response to fan feedback, I wish I were as hopeful as you.

In my opinion, Halo should have always remained a Bungie property with connections to the Marathon universe, and neither series should have ever been a live service game.

Wait, what’s wrong with Super Smash Bros? Is it just the DLC characters?

Ever since Halo 2 dropped my best friend and I have co-opped each one in one sitting. Infinite is the first time in 2 decades that we couldn't get through an installment. Open world was fun but empty, and they tried to have it cover for a plot. The entire 4-5-6 "trilogy" is more disjointed than the star wars sequels. Story was not compelling, no emotional pulls. Halo was legit top tier sci fi and infinite felt like it was written by a committee ina meeting room. Just sad.

In my opinion, Pokemon peaked in gen 2. Why? Because every game after added new gimmicks that distract from the core gameplay instead of adding to it. What is the core gameplay? As the motto goes "Gotta Catch 'Em All". Gen 1 had 150 monsters for the player to find and catch. Gen 2 added time of day specific spawn rates and Pokemon that you could only get by breeding. And that is it. None of the further games made the monster collection any more interesting until Legends Arceus, a spinoff title. The future games added fashion shows and secret tunnels (at least, I don't think so. I have not played all of them).

Pokemon Home is, obviously, a game changer, but it is something outside the game and too little, too late for someone like me who fell off the franchise.

I am ashamed to say that Pokopia (on my sibling's Switch 2) is pretty great. It's a sublime, cozy exploration game, basically absent of battling so far.

Halo. We're never getting another real one.

Its why they're so afraid of ES6. They know they can't do it. What I don't know is does that make them better or worse than the studios who are trying to bring back old franchises

Planetside 2 at its peak was such a cool and unique experience. Shame it's withering and dying

100% agree. I was a Briggs veteran for a long time after the peak. My username (not this one) is in the RecordSmash official post recognising the 1158-player world record. The Daybreak takeover was concerning, but we pushed through.

But realistically I just "accomplished" everything I reasonably could have, and then they took my server away from me. My time with the game ended, but I have no regrets. What a phenomenal experience it was at the time.

Pokopia is great, though it was made by the dragon quest builders team, not game freak.

Otherwise, can't argue

But Minecraft's ecosystem makes it super easy to run any version you like best. Play the Minecraft you loved and ignore the latest versions if you don't like them. It's basically just a game engine anyway, the actual game is all the mods you install.

I bought FFXVI and both VII remake games on PS5 because I was still holding out hope that they could reignite the magic of the previous games. I mostly enjoyed them, but they didn't feel remotely like the Final Fantasy games of the past. XVI was more Game of Thrones than Final Fantasy, and the VII remake games were more XV/Kingdom Hearts than Final Fantasy.

I feel like the writing was on the wall as far back as X. There is very little variety in the combat, it's very much a hallway like XIII, the "world map" is a list of locations in the order you visited them, and there are multiple long stretches where you can't backtrack.

I've also tried playing Blue Dragon and Lost Odyssey in the hopes that they would scratch that same itch, but I haven't been able to bring myself to commit to finishing them. I haven't played Fantasian, but I've heard mostly positive things about it.