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let me preface this review by saying that i *really* did not like darksiders. i thought it was badly designed, the dungeons and bosses were medicore at best and infuriating at worst and the controls were a nightmare to navigate, especially when anything needed to be manually targeted. because of this, i avoided DS2 like the plague, thinking it would be more of the same.

however, i was very pleasently surprised to find that darksiders 2 is far more tightly designed, open, and fun to play then it's predecessor. the RPG elements and loot systems are satisfying to engage with and tickles the part of the brain that likes to see the numbers go up. the dungeons are far better designed, with interesting puzzles and fun traversal sections that are clear, but just obfuscated enough to still be a puzzle. i never felt like the game was tricking me or like i was battling some badly implemented part of it like i was in DS1. even the voidwalker (see: portal gun) is far more interesting in DS2 then it was in DS1, where it felt gimmicky and tedious to use.

however, there are still elements that are less then ideal in DS2. without spoiling story beats, there are sections where the game becomes akin to a third-person shooter with an over-the-shoulder camera, which feels clunky even when everything is working well. the controls and gameplay systems simply aren't setup for this kind of play style, and the parts where these gameplay elements surface are very much weak links in the strong chain that makes up most of the play time.

the story and art design can be very hit or miss for a lot of people, but i found the goofy mismash of Every Mythology Ever sprinkled with more then a little bit of comic book logic was pretty entertaining, and Death is a pretty entertaining character. Joe Mad's art may sometimes look like a self-replicating WoW character that succumbs to greeble, but i feel like it fits the big, dumb world of darksiders.

i encountered a few crashing issues when alt-tabbing after the first world, which was strange, as well as a progression issue during the second DLC campaign in a side-dungeon, but nothing major. the touted graphical upgrade for the Deathinitive edition wasen't really noticable in a huge way, but it was very much welcome, though i wish the shadows were better, because they often fall prone to super bad striping in close-up character scenes. i played for 70 hours on a GTX 970 and a 3.4ghz i5 4670k with 8gb of ram at 1920x1200 and only had a few stutters when loading due to the game being installed on a mechnical external drive instead of my SSD

in conclusion, i was super happy to play this game and was ashamed for avoiding it for so long. sadly, we might never get a DS3 because this was very much THQ's swan song, but Nordic Games (who now owns the rights to darksiders) says it might happen someday. next time, i'll keep my eye on it.

i've been playing doom since i was four years old in 1994 when my brother showed me the shareware version that came with our new computer. i've been hooked ever since.

at first, i was very cynical of this game, pre-release. why wouldn't i be? doom has had a hellish (heh) dev cycle with multiple versions canned for a variety of reasons, numerous instances of staff leaving id and overall a super bad scene from all evidence that was given. the e3 demo helped a lot to dissuade me from writing this off, but even then i felt uneasy. what if it's super rote? what if there is no soul?

i'm not sure how they did it, but id was able to bring back doom in the best way possible. this is a game that oozes confidence and knows exactly what it wants to be. it's not as groundbreaking for FPS as doom was back in 1993, but as it stands, this is my favorite FPS of 2016. now, it's important to note that this review is based entirely on the singleplayer campaign. i touched snapmap briefly and was left disappointed and the multiplayer felt very...standard and I wasen't impressed. so if you are comfortable with spending $60 on an extremely good single player campaign that lasts for around 10 hours, read on!

now, why is a remake of doom in 2016 possibly my FPS GOTY? let me count the ways:

1. the combat: while a fair chunk of the combat is regulated to closed-off arenas, the gameplay never feels anything less then super good and empowering as hell. doom approaches platinium games-level of fluidity and mobility, and the guns are super satisfying to use and have a, frankly astonishing, level of depth to them. i finished the game not even touching the rocket launcher, for example, only for a friend to tell me how much they used it and the scenarios it was super helpful in, and other friends have told me about other combat strategies they employ and each one of them is super different.

2. the personality and story: if you had told me that doom in 2016 would have lore and story that was legitmately interesting, i would have laughed in your face. but, again, i was proven wrong. while the story is nowhere near as good as something like The New Order was, it's an extremely entertaining and goofy story. i won't spoil anything, but there were moments where i caught myself laughing out loud at how bizarre, terrifying and ludicrous the UAC facility gets the deeper you go. also, the doomguy himself has an astonishing amount of personality just in the way he performs certain actions in the game. he never speaks, but we get a very clear sense of who he is and what he stands for, which is something that i never thought would be an element of a doom game.

3. the music and sound design: mick gordon returns from TNO and Killer Instinct to compose the soundtrack from doom and it is amazing. atmospheric and unsettling during quiet moments, loud and violent during not-so-quiet moments. the moment the soundtrack is released, i'll be getting it immediately. the sound design is also very well done, with super satisfying weapon discharges, grotesque demonic noises and the disturbing ambient hum of the UAC facility itself.

there is also an astonishing amount of replay value, with my 10 hour campaign not even scratching the surface of all the challenges, unlockables and secrets hidden in the game. this is absolutely a game to play through more then once!

this is a game that is worth every penny.

also, this was played on a i5 4670k with a GTX 970 4GB card and 8GB of ram and it was silky smooth on ultra settings except for the occasional hiccup every now and then from the crappy mechanical drive i had it installed on. i encountered very few issues, except for some annoying silent CTD's in Titan's Realm that I'm sure will be patched sooner rather then later.

it brings me great pleasure to tell you that doom in 2016 is extremely good.

It's a good game.

But it's not a good Fallout game.

The core gameplay revamping that makes the minute to minute play feel better really does work out, but the game loses something that I can't quite put my finger on. It really does feel less like an RPG and more and more like an FPS with light RPG elements.

The story is a joke and all of Bethesda's additions to the Fallout lore are really kind of....bad. A lot of the quests are lacking in depth. The dialogue system is a *complete* misfire and the writing is.....solidily average at best.

There are still plenty of moments in the game where you get that Fallout feeling but they almost feel accidential.

I do think it's still a great game with really good gameplay, a fun (albeit extremely buggy and broken) settlement/base bulilding system and some really cool sections like the Silver Shroud questline. But they are so rare.

Also, the power armor system is something that never feels great and the idea of seeing power armor as a vehicle is kind of crap compared to how the previous games framed them.

As for performance, I'm running on a i5 4670k and a GTX 970 with 8gb of RAM on Windows 10 and performance is mostly solid on max settings, with some heavy slow down in densly wooded areas if I'm looking through scopes or VATS'ing.

In conclusion, wait for the mod tools. Wait for the DLC. Wait for a price drop and good mods.

I'm going back to Vegas.

in 2009, telltale and lucasarts crafted a fitting conclusion to the monkey island series with Tales of Monkey Island and i personally think that if there is never another MI game ever made, Tales is a good way to end things on a high note. while the first two episodes are kinda hit or miss, the season starts to pick up steam with episode 3 and continues forth into a pretty great (and auctally pretty dark) conclusion with episode 5.

some of the jokes might be a bit dated in 2015 (OH I GET IT. YOUTUBE) but corny humor has always been a hallmark of the series, and at least it's nowhere near as bad as EMI's *relentless* references to 2000's pop culture.

if you like the monkey island series and want to see what Guybrush and crew are up to lately, i highly recommand it.

aside from that ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ vault puzzle that prevented me from finishing this game in *any* edition for YEARS, it's a super fun nostalgia trip that still holds up and makes me laugh.

it's a good game. but it's not a good Hitman game.

Absolution had some mighty big shoes to fill after the glory that was 2006's Blood Money, which is one of those games that is on a 'you must play this before you leave this terrible planet' list, and dosen't match up at all when compared side-by-side. Absolution is far more concerned with telling you a (really bad, silly, nonsense and kind of enjoyable at the same time) ~*cinematic epic*~ story as opposed to Blood Money's sequential contracts that tie into a bigger overarching plot.

however, all is not lost. Absolution is still really fun to play, it's great to look at (seriously, even in 2015 this game looks damn good and it's hyping me up for the next Deus Ex which is going to use it's engine) and the missions, when you aren't trying to get perfect silent assassin runs and scores, are super fun to play through and plan out. although, some of the later missions get a bit confusing with what exactly you are supposed to be doing, but that's just imo.

there is a *lot* of replay value here too, especially for the score-obsessed. Absolution's one big contribution to the Hitman franchise is the contracts mode, which allows people to play through maps, make challenges where you mark certain targets, kill them with certain weapons or in certain ways and escape sucessfully. the other big addition is the constant scoring system and leaderboards that is always measuring you up to your friends, which of course stimulates that competitive side of all of us.

all that being said, i do recommend it if you are willing to not measure it up to Blood Money. it's a fun game!

also keith carradine and powers boothe are REALLY good in it

a fantastic re-release for 2015 of the gamecube remake from 2002 for the original resident evil on playstation from 1996.

seriously though, while that sounds like the most cynical and lazy move capcom could ever pull, this is a legit fantastic version of a groundbreaking game with some serious work done to it. the game runs in the MT Framework engine now which means the looping videos that allowed ♥♥♥♥♥ real-time lighting from the gamecube is no more, replaced with modern lighting effects. some of the rooms in the game are even completely rebuilt from the ground up in service of the new lighting! the character and item models have gotten a *massive* boost in detail, with the character models in particular being redone from scratch.

however, some of the pre-rendered backgrounds in some areas look like total garbage with lots of image artifacts from being upscaled to a resolution that was unheard of in 2002, also, the pre-rendered cutscenes have *not* aged very well and seem to be just blown up to what ever resolution you are running the game in. there have also been some complaints about serious slowdown on more underpowered machines, which results in the game running in slow motion due to the way the engine works. i had only a few instances of slowdown on my card (GTX 970) but none of them seemed repeatable. so be aware of all that going in!

sound and music has also been upgraded to support 5.1 systems (i have no idea if the original GCN remake supported that or not) and it sounds *incredible* on a good set of headphones or on 5.1 speakers. also, the controls have been redone to offer a different take on the famous clunky controls, but some of my friends who are RE purists think it ruins the flow of the game and makes it too easy, so YMMV. support for widescreen resolutions is also accomplished in a curious way, with the camera panning up and down the original 4:3 assets to give an illusion of widescreen, not too disimilar to pan & scan in old moves on VHS. it's hard to articulate and you can switch between the original 4:3 aspect ratio and original controls at any time, so the point is moot anyway.

the gameplay is still rock solid once you get your feet wet, but it did take me a little while to find my balance in the game before i had a smooth flow going. basically, don't play as chris your first time through.

the script and dialogue is still pretty much pain-inducing. i wish part of the HD remaster included a second pass at the script and VO but you could argue that is part of the charm and to change that would change the feel of the game.

all in all, i highly recommand this remaster. now, to wish for capcom to make REmake 2..

ok, this game is janky as HELL. but my god it gets your hooks into you. a super long, super deep, super hard RPG that is impossible to put down. with a texture pack, it also looks great and has aged well. but MY GOD the controls are terrible, some of the quests are arcane and it's SO DAMN JANKY. but that jank gives it unbelievable charm.

grab the system pack here: http://forum.worldofplayers.de/forum/threads/1340357-Release-Gothic-%C2%BD-%C2%97-SystemPack-%28ENG-DEU%29

it's necessary to fix a lot of bugs and engine problems and makes gothic 2 play nice with modern systems.

if you can stomach janky european RPG's, this is probably one of the best RPG's i've ever played. seriously, it's right up there with morrowind in my eyes.

where the first TFU was based entirely around it's engine and tech to the detriment of it's gameplay, TFU2 is completely soulless and bland and dosen't even have gimmicks to save it from mediocrity. the tech is better and it looks nice at times, yes, but there is simply no reason for this game to exist and nothing it does justify's the purpose. it's a pointless, meandering exercise that feels like sinking into a cold bowl of porridge.

also the pc port is *busted* unless you force VSync in the control panel (on geforce cards at least, tested on a 970) and the framerate is locked at 30 until you install an unoffical patch. even then, i often had problems with music and sound randomly cutting out for minutes at a time only for it to come back out of sync with the game. it's not as bad as the TFU1 pc port which was a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insult, however.

seriously, avoid this. it's totally pointless.

after AC3 was a hot pile of garbage, it's refreshing to see AC4 embrace the bits of AC3 that worked and refine them so they feel even better to play. i enjoyed my time with AC4 and aside from some REALLY TERRIBLE missions that soured me on the game as a whole for a while (WHY WOULD YOU MAKE A MISSION WHERE I HAVE TO STEALTHILY MOVE A BOAT), it always came back to the super fun open seas and running around doin stuff.

the character of edward kenway is also SO much better then connor in AC3, in that he is a character and has personality and factors that drive him. his whole narrative arc and the people around him were always compelling, but sometimes i felt like they needed more fleshing out. the way AC4 handles the Templar/Assassin war and Edward's role in it is also really cool, to say nothing of the modern-day bits which i found super cool and kinda weirdly self-aware of ubisoft.

i spent somewhere around 100+ hours with this game and had a blast the entire time. the dlc that comes with the season pass/deluxe edition is also worth the money too, especially freedom cry.