Reseñas recientes de Arcy

I feel like this compilation is one of the greatest game compilations of all time, whether you get it on console or PC. It is my humble opinion that if you're a fan of FPS games playing through the Halo series at least once is essential, even if you're from the beforetimes of the older "Boomer Shooter" genre.

Halo is very near and dear to me, and was a definite inspiration to me when I was a wee lad. CE is probably one of the greatest shooters of all time, and even if you're not a fan of the far slower pace than what came before, there's still a lot here to love. The narrative and the worldbuilding propelled games; not even just FPS's, but games in general further along the path of creating truly fleshed out worlds and stories one can immerse themselves in while listening to some of the greatest game soundtracks of all time. Was it the first? No, but it was one of the most important. Is it high art? The Citizen Kane of videogames? Of course not. It isn't trying to be. But that doesn't take away from the truly involving narrative, world, or characters. Yes. The characters. I said that. Including Halo 4's Chief. Yes. I said that.

Yes, this game was more or less the deathknell of the 90's shooter of breakneck pace and nonstop chaos. Its focus was on immersion more than endless action, and for that many older FPS fans look down on Halo with derision. It's far slower, far less explosive, and far less crazy than your Bloods or Duke 3Ds. But blame the copycats, not the trailblazer. Halo became so very popular for a reason, and I think if you sneered when it became a phenomenon in the 2000's, this collection is the perfect chance to give it another crack. Don't expect the wildest gameplay of your life, but expect a thoroughly meticulated two-weapon-carry sandbox with fascinating factions and history, a dynamic combat loop where depending on your gear combats play different, with a world that will suck you in and have you wishing we could explore more of it.

There is some jank with these games on PC, one of my main issues is Reach with unlimited FPS makes objects look stuttery and it can be very disorienting. 343 is ironing out these kinks, and it's not like any of these issues is a dealbreaker, at least for me. If it's a bit too rough around the edges than maybe it won't be for you. On PC, the multiplayer sandboxes' have been drastically changed just by the mere addition of M+K control, so now precision weapons are far more kingly than even before. That's just an issue we have to accept is going to happen on PC, but it is a bit heartbreaking that Reach's DMR, which was already the best general weapon in MP to begin with, is that much more oppressive. Luckily there is an AR start playlist now, which helps to alleviate a good portion of my woes. All in all: An essential collection of amazing games whether you never played Halo, either because you come from before or after its heyday, or if you're like me, and fondly remember being cursed at in a Halo 2 lobby by drunk college students.

Some asides, which will cost me my Gamer Card:
-Halo 2 is dabest. Yeah it was rushed as ♥♥♥♥, its E3 demo was a complete farce, its horrifically unbalanced in Legendary, there are exploits galore, and its physics are the jankiest ♥♥♥♥ like, ever. But ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ the locations, encounters, narrative, and cutscenes are amazing, man, c'mon.
-Halo CE Anniversary is bleh. Keep it on the classic graphics. Too much clash with the original atmosphere.
-Halo 2 Anniversary is WOAH! Love its remastered look. Love the redone soundtrack even more!
-Halo 4's story is great. I said that.
-Stop calling Halo 3 the best thing ever! Gaah! Look I love Halo 3 to death straight 9/10 or perhaps even a 10/10 but frankly its narrative is just Halo 2's third act that was cut over time restraints! It's great don't get me wrong but can we PLEASE stop raking 343 over the coals and pretending Halo 3 is Jesus Christ: Superstar? The way it wraps certain things up is both anticlimactic and a bit too convenient (though admittedly Bungie wrote themselves into a corner). Is it amazing? Of course! Is it the next Air? No!
- One last controversial statement: The worst implementation of Sprint was in Reach. It made all the other abilities pointless because sprint was universally applicable and the rest of them were situational. It would have been better if Sprint was not an Armor Ability and rather just something you could do as part of the controls. Sprint is a non issue when the game is designed with it in mind. You can discard my opinion now.
-Only do Halo 2's legendary if you have nostalgia for doing it already ok

This is going to be brief.
I played 30 minutes.
It's amazing, and worth the price already.
It's already my favorite of the New Blood published retro-shooters and that is saying A LOT from the publishers of the amazing Dusk, Amid Evil, and Maximum Action.
I cannot wait to see people who can actually play videogames do speedruns of this.

Damn fine roguelite that has to be one of the best of the genre.

At first glance, Synthetik may look like a run of the mill twin-stick just with some procedural generation slapped on, but the second you start playing you understand why this game is exploding in popularity. You get 8 different classes in 4 roles, each with a progression system and build variety before you even start your run.

And when you do start your run, woo boy. Synthetik's combat is methodical, and you have to play smart. Running headfirst into a horde of enemies without a plan will mulch you, and each enemy fills a special role in the Machine Legion to kill you. However, there are a lot of ways you can play methodical and smart. You're not constrained to waiting behind cover. You can use the Assassin's cloak to get behind some enemies, backstab one tough guy and quickly dispatch two more. You can use the Breacher's explosives to dash in, deal a lot of burst damage, pump some shotgun pellets into the stragglers, dash out. Set up a turret to do the work as an Engineer. Dash around like a maniac with the Raider. There are a LOT of options, and thats just from the start.

The loot, particularly the weapons, while nowhere near the amount of craziness you'd find in say, Enter the Gungeon, are unique, and each weapon has variants with different effects on them. As you go along upgrading them, you can make them change from their base forms drastically . I, for one, enjoy taking my starting shotgun on Breacher, the Super Shorty, and running with it the whole run.

As a cherry on top, the visuals are great, the audio is great, and it comes with two player online Co-Op. Its perfect.

As an addendum, its my understanding Ssethtzeentach really helped shine a limelight on this game, and that's great. It warms my heart when content creators shine a light on games that can use the help. It's a good form of symbiosis in the gaming community that makes my bitter little soul smile.

I've had a good time with Gears 5 so far. This is more an "first impressions" review, but I'm glad this series is on Steam after I had to skip 4 because my XOne was busted and dusted by the time it came out.

The game's run completely perfectly for me so far, no slowdown, and the keyboard controls work fine. It's absolutely surreal to be using a PS4 controller for a Gears game, but thats the world we're in.

Gameplay is snappy, chaotic, and PVP is a blast but I suck beans at it. Horde is back, now with character abilities, and I actually think it adds some nice flavor to the gameplay, actually. 50 waves, and prepare to be there a long while. A new mode, Escape, is actually pretty interesting. I'd liken it to the Hunk mode from RE2, very limited ammo and you have to escape before you're poisoned or killed, with two other buddies backing you up. It's a lot of fun. Campaign is here, and honestly I'm pretty damn interested in the story so far! I always was interested in the Gears story though, and I know that makes me an outlier. But I think some people will find this interesting as well.

I do have gripes though. I am NOT a fan of the PVP Roster which they gutted for seasonal, limited unlocks with the "Tour of Duty" system. It seems way too grindy. I'm sure they'll tone it down but yeesh I don't see myself completing the vast majority of this stuff, and it sucks, because the roster basically NEEDS to be bolstered by this Tour system. I think its a cool idea at its core, but I'd prefer it to be toned down and maybe find some special way to unlock characters in past tours. Maybe they will, I can't say for certain yet. Another smaller issue is the online connectivity right now, it seems patchy and you might get kicked for no reason a few times, but I'm sure thats a pretty quick fix, so I can bear it.

Also I loathe that stupid Fortnite-esque Store. I definitely prefer it to lootboxes, but damn Coalition, 'no lootboxes' is not a high bar to clear, and definitely not something to wear like a badge.

All in all, good game. Glad Microsoft is really being buddy-buddy with stuff like Nintendo and Steam right now, they're definitely looking pretty alright. You know, for a massive corporation and everything.

Against my better judgement, I preordered this. Dunno what it was but I felt the need.

And boy, oh boy, did it not backfire. Remnant is one hell of a cool game, a hybrid between souls-like, third person shooter, and looter shooter, and so far I have enjoyed every damn minute of it.

Exploration is fun, character building is fun, the weapon attachments are fun, the combat is fun, scrounging for loot is fun. I never played a game that made me audibly get excited for a bog standard assault rifle.

The art and environments are great and the atmosphere is dripping with mystery, the enemies are varied and interesting, and as soon as some of my pals get it this is sure as hell going to be one of those games I can run through A LOT.

My only gripe is some of the bosses, the designs seem to rely more on mooks than the boss themselves, though admittedly thats how they give you your ammo. You may think they're more geared for group play, but what the hell, I can easily overlook it, and I've been able to solo them with a good few tries, anyway. I havent had to die and retry as much as fighting Gael on DS3 so far, thats for sure.

I bought this game during the Summer Sale wholly expecting a ♥♥♥♥-show. And it is a ♥♥♥♥-show.

But my god, its the perfect kind of ♥♥♥♥-show. Some people say its "so bad its good" but I don't think I'd even call it that. The fact is the game isn't bad.

Yeah, the voice acting is ludicrous, apparently both in English and Japanese. This game doesn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about that. It looks like it jumped straight out of the PS2 era, graphics and menus both.
It doesn't give two ♥♥♥♥♥ about story, or games as art. You're there to have nothing but a bunch of stupidly overpowered weapons and raze an entire army of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ ants and spacecraft that bump into eachother all while leveling an entire city.

And honestly? That's perfect. It's so over the top and unrelentingly dumb and it knows and revels in it. You will never get tired of tossing a grenade that is closer to a MOAB than a frag and destroying an entire skycraper covered in bugs. It is a game, catharsis realized, for when you just want to sit down after work or school and ♥♥♥♥ around, laughing all the way.

I originally struggled in Warframe. It was on my XOne way back in 2013. I didn't know what the hell was going on and felt like I was lost the second I stepped foot in the Orbiter. So I turned from it. Years later, about a year ago, actually, I tried it out again at the behest of a couple friends, and when I learned exactly what was what, the crafting, etc, I was in love.

My friend put it perfectly: Warframe's learning curve is a straight wall up. And when you get past that wall, all there is is grind. That's it. But it's an exceedingly fun grind, especially with friends, with different weird ninja-cyborg-people-things that all play different and with vast customizability.

And as a bonus, for a free MMO-Shooter-Ninja-Cyborg-People-Things-That-Kill-Clone-Men, the lore and story is actually really really intriguing.

It's free, so there isn't much to lose. If you got friends already into it, that wall is going to crumble in a snap. Try it out!

Don't buy Battleborn. You won't get any mileage out of it, with how dead it is.

Battleborn was a great game. Absolutely loved it. For the 65 hours I put in it I was in utter bliss. The last game to have hooked me like that was Team Fortress 2, and I have well over 5000 hours in that. It was a beautiful blending of genres that I doubt I'll ever have the privilege of enjoying again. The characters all offered unique playstyles, every single person who ever played a game had at least one character call out to them. Mine was Benedict, the jetpack wielding cocky jackass. But I loved virtually all of them, and even with a single character there were different styles of play, as in-match progression gave you different paths to change your character's weapon and abilities every game you played.

There was an amazing PvE campaign, and an equally fun PvP MOBA-like set of modes.

So what happened? Gearbox's ineptitude and honestly, at least partly, the gaming community at large. But let's face it. I can complain that the community didn't give BB a chance because Overwatch came out the same month. I can claim that Blizzard fanboys were the reason everyone called this completely unique experience an "Overwatch clone". They did, but that wasn't the game's killer.

That was Gearbox. Underadvertised. Misadvertised. And most importantly, advertised as a direct competitor to Overwatch.

You do not go against a Blizzard release. It was like if Bonaparte invaded Russia, only instead of Bonaparte it's just Randy charging forward with nothing but a deck of magician's playing cards.

What a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shame.

With the Summer Sale in full swing at the time of this writing, I decided to try to sell people on Monster Hunter World.
MH:W's current mixed reviews are pretty misleading, at least for the current build. Most negatives I see are:
- Disconnections (something I cant say I suffer from even when playing with my friend who has craptastic Guam internet)
- The Port (this issue seems to be resolved, at least for most people)
- Combat being bad (I vehemently disagree)

MH:W is an excellent game and an excellent breakout for the franchise on PC. Each monster has a defined personality and no two monsters feel alike, and unlike the previous games in the series its more of a hunt now than a boss battle. There's a monster that wear golden scales like a dress, another that inflates its neck and blows wind everywhere, one that toot-toots like a steam engine and runs you over, and each one is a blast to fight, sans Anjanath, who I hate, sorry.

Each you hunt gives you the materials for unique armor and weapon sets, and this is the core conceit of the game and franchise - It's a grind. That is the game. It may take you 100 hours just to reach High Rank, and then you grind for cooler stuff some more. If you're not willing to really sink your teeth in, nor have the time, this may not be the game for you. For people like me who can spare the time investment, its wonderful. You're always working for something better. There's always something better, right around the corner, keeping you chugging along, and the gameplay is just as addictive as the "one more hunt" loop you'll find yourself on.

Combat is not anime characters flinging massive weapons effortlessly. They are BIG HUNKS OF METAL AND BONE and they WILL have you know it. Massive wind-ups and endlag, risky attacks. The Greatswords and Hammers are large and brutal, and dodging isn't going to be Dark Souls. There's lighter weapons, say the Sword'n'Shield and Dual Daggers, where you hit a lot and quick if that's more your style, and even ranged weapons. Positioning and timing is key for any of them though, whether it be a Greatsword or Light Bowgun.

Speaking of, each weapon has so much charisma and different styles of play, that it doesn't matter what kind of games you play, or how you enjoy playing, one of the weapons is perfect for you. I definitely suggest you move about and try as many weapons as you can, but I assure you at least ONE will click. And when it does its beautiful. I can't tell you that any weapon feels weak. Each has its niche carved out and laid bare, and has its place in a hunt.

What are some of the negatives?
Biggest one? It takes a bit over an hour for the game to TRULY start. The cutscenes are pretty. The game is pretty. But we really don't need the simple story relayed to us in unskippable cutscenes that last forever and sometimes block co-op. We're here to kill big monsters, Capcom. Nobody is paying that much attention to the plot or the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Handler eating.

The weapon design should have really been a lot more unique. Sure, some end up looking special, but for many its only adding onto the base weapon, which is a real shame when you compare it to the older titles, where every weapon was completely distinct.

For certain resources, its a drag to refill if say, you run out of honey and need to shore them up. There's a decent farm system in play to get you those resources, but you should be paying attention so you aren't running low on any necessary items.

Other than that though, a glowing recommendation. This game convinced me to pick up MHGU on the Switch, and now I'm mad I missed out all these years. Happy hunting!

Stellar first impressions. I gave up on Chivalry ages ago, because the way the meta evolved became something I just couldn't find enjoyment in.
This game, however, rekindled my love for first person melee combat, and fighting feels very visceral. The progression system is flooded with ways to build your own personal loadout or "Mercenary" with not a microtransaction in sight. Excellently done, and a great step up from the games that came before.