Recent reviews by AniMaL

The game does a very poor job of communicating to new players, but once you get into the groove of completing the daily bounties, grinding for weapons, going on strikes, fighting in the crucible, and leveling up for raids, it is incredibly satisfying to see your character become more powerful over time. Thankfully, I have friends from work that are helping me learn everything and it has made a world of difference and makes the game 10x more enjoyable.

Destiny 2 is a great game, it is what the first Destiny wishes it was, but I highly recommend that you go in with friends otherwise you might have a pretty frustrating experience (particularly in PVP when you are matched against players with exotic gear that is just flat out better than anything you could possibly have as a new player). And while the game is not pay to win, it is definitely grind to win if that makes any sense. As my character levels up I am having more fun with the game, but the "new/returning player experience" was/is pretty frustrating.

OVERVIEW:

SOTR is the third and possibly last game in the new TR reboot franchise and it continues to expand on the concepts of exploration and tomb raiding established in the previous two entries. However, SOTR has a greater focus on exploration and seeking out new tombs and crypts to conquer and much less on action than the previous two franchise entries. ROTR introduced open-world esque "hub areas" to explore and SOTR builds upon this formula by introducing a greater variety of side missions, interesting collectibles, and new platforming mechanics. For those that disliked the previous entries for being "too linear" and not having enough actual tomb raiding, SOTR will surely qualm their worries as there are many expansive and challenging tombs to explore with puzzles ranging in difficulty. In the the end, SOTR rounds out the series by refining its core concept of exploration and finally nailing it with a perfectly aimed climbing axe to the head.

PRESENTATION:

SOTR is the unsurprisingly the best looking game in series. The environments are the true star of the show here, many of which caused my jaw to drop and instantly enter into the game's fantastic in-game screenshot tool. And it does all of this while maintaining a solid frame rate. (Grade for presentation: A)

STORY:

The narrative has always been the biggest downfall of the reboot trilogy. The first game explored the influence of Lara's mentors on her life, ROTR focused on her family history, and SOTR focuses further more on her family backstory and Lara finally learning to cope with the consequences of her actions. Overall, the story is serviceable, and the lovable Jonah makes a welcome return, but it doesn't measure up to other games in the action adventure genre such as Uncharted 4, Horizon: Zero Dawn, or the Last of Us. It is just enough to keep the story going and to keep the player invested in Lara's character, but don't expect anybody to write any essays analyzing the subtext of the plot or its character motivations. (Grade for Story: B)

GAMEPLAY:

With a greater emphasis on exploration, this is undoubtedly the slowest paced game in the series, but the payoff still remains huge. The tombs are fantastic and the platforming is leaps and bounds ahead of its competitors (I'm looking at you Uncharted). The semi-open world map is populated with hundreds of interesting and rewarding trinkets to collect, nearly all of which have an impact on the story or can be used in crafting or character progression. Simply put, this is the best exploration in the series by far, this game is a completionists dream.
But for whatever reason, the gunplay in SOTR just doesn't seem as refined as in previous series entries, but it is good enough to keep the action going. SOTR also continues to expand on the stealth mechanics introduced in ROTR, allowing Lara to cover herself in mud and perform lethal take downs from trees. The stealth feels great and is undoubtedly the best part of the combat in SOTR. My only other nitpick with the gameplay is the "expanded" skill system. The previous entry in the series had a great balance between skill trees and each skill point felt valuable, here in SOTR many of the skills feel useless and the UI for the skill menu is needlessly complicated. Grade for Gameplay: (B+)

CONCLUSION:

SOTR provides a satisfying conclusion to a great franchise of action adventure games. The game does have a few technical issues on PC such as the sound randomly cutting out for a few seconds, or alt-tab related crashes which did hinder the overall experience. But the game rises above these shortfalls and provides a memorable and rewarding gaming experience. I only hope that we get to see more of Lara's adventures in the future.

SOTR Final Grade: (A-)

ROTR: (A-)

2013 TR :(B+)

"Do you feel like a hero yet?"

This line of dialogue has stuck with me for years after first playing The Line back upon release in 2012. The mediocre (yet solid) gameplay, is not this games main selling point. It is instead the games haunting story and meta commentary on both the characters and audience that has etched this game into the memory of my friends and I for years.

The Line isn't really a game you "enjoy" playing, but it is a superlative representation of the artistic cabalities that are unqiue to gaming's interactive medium.

This is a game every person should play, nay... NEEDS to play.

Grade: A

I haven't finished the game yet, I'm currently 13 hours into my run but I feel like I have more then enough experience with the game to articulate my opinion of it here.

Looking at performance first, during the first moments of the game I was very happy with my framerate running an overclocked gtx 1060. I was consitently between 60-80 fps while running the game maxed out. However, once you progress further into the game you will unlock much larger, open areas which cut your framerate IN HALF. And you will be spending alot of time in these large areas as they serve as your hub inbetween missions. Despite this, inside tombs and more contained linear sections, the game runs beautifully at 60+fps.

In terms of gameplay, ROTR is a complete upgrade from the 2013 TR reboot. It is literally everything that game did, but better. The game is much less linear then it's predecessor, allowing for exorbants amount of exploration (and tons of hidden collectables). The crafting system has been greatly expanded as well, forcing you to scour the environment for materials and rewarding those who stray from the beaten path. Probably my favorite addition to ROTR however, is the greater emphasis on stealth combat, which is endlessly satisfying.

All of ROTR's great gameplay mechanics are presented to you in a beautiful world with an interesting narrative which is heavily reminiscent of the third Indiana Jones Film. While the writing and characters don't share the same level of quality and finesse as those from the Uncharted series, Lara recieves some much needed character development and backstory which, combined with the interesting locales, kept myself continually engaged.

In the end, ROTR is simply great. It is a vast improvement over the already excellent 2013 reboot, with a stronger story, and a much greater emphasis on exploration and stealth combat. I cannot recommend this game enough as we don't get enough of these kind of grandiose Triple A adventure titles on PC, which are so often locked away as 'console exclusives'. Despite it's performance issues, ROTR surpassed my lofty expectations and obviously earns my seal of approval.

Performance - 7/10
Graphics - 9/10
Story - 8/10
Gameplay - 9/10
Fun (Obviously subjective) - 9.5/10

Final Grade - 9/10 (A)

Black Ops 2 is hands down the best multiplayer expierience cod has ever put forth (honorable mention goes to cod4). The guns are well balanced, the maps are all excellently designed in order to keep combat intense and fluid, and the buttery smooth movement system allows advanced players to simply outclass those with less experience.

This is a cod where skill truly does matter. While the guns are relatively easy to use there is still a high skill ceiling and many things to be mastered in Black Ops 2.

The campaign tries to introduce a non-linear form of storytelling and while most critics loved it I personally didn't find the campaign memorable enough to warrant multiple playthroughs. In terms of setpieces, characters, and overall feeling it pales in comparison to the excellent campaigns from World at War (my fav), and the first Black Ops.

Zombies is excellent although the vanilla maps (ie. transit/town/bus depot/farm) are really lacking and don't really represent what zombies is capable of being. I highly recommend buying the season pass (when it's on sale), if you are interested in playing zombies.

Overall Black Ops 2 is the complete package. It embodies an excellent, well-balanced, fun and addictive multiplayer, while also delivering a solid campaign alongside the excellent and very much refined Zombies mode. This game sure as ♥♥♥♥ gets my seal of approval, though I would highly recommend not buying it on steam since it is much cheaper on 3rd party sites such as ♥♥♥, green man gaming, and gaming panda.

Campaign - 7/10
Zombies - 9.5 (without dlc it's a 6/10)
multiplayer - 9.5

Final Score - 9.5/10

A criminally underrated entry into the arcade shooter genre, Call of Juarez: Gunslinger delivers valiantly on all fronts from it's immerisive pixel shaded borderlands-style graphics, it's tight, skill based gameplay, and it's riveting story. Gunslinger is one of my favorite fps games ever and is the best Western game I've played (never played red dead).

Really my only complaint with it is that it is so short, averaging only around 4 hours or less for the story mode, however I'll forgive this flaw since the game is so damn cheap. Plus the game has an arcade mode with leaderboards that are addicting as hell.

Please do yourself a favour and buy this amazing western shooter, it sure as hell earns my seal of approval

Final Grade: A

Amazing atmosphere, great/terrifying sounds, stellar visuals, an insane attention to detail, a horrifying alien monster make Alien: Isolation to be one of the best horror games I've ever played. If it weren't for the occassionally unfair alien ai, and frusterating (albeit immersive) save function I'd give this game an A+.

Final Score: A

Notice, this review will only be encompassing the multi[player aspect of Black ops 3 since I haven't yet touched the single player and I've never liked zombies.

First off, Black Ops 3 is a huge improvement over ghosts and advanced warefare, both of which made me rage and stop playing within the first 20 minutes. The gun play is fun. It feels like guns have a satisfying punch behind them, great sound design on guns overall. Treyarch decided to use the montra of "if everything is overpowered, nothing is overpowered" for gun balancing for black ops 3. All the guns can hold their own, and most importantly none of them are vastly more powerful then the others (the mp7 from mw3 is an example of previous bad weapon balancing).

This balancing makes it so that everyone is using a variety of weapons rather then just everyone using the mp7 24/7 (aka mw3).

The maps follow the standard 3 lane layout which makes for great consistent battles. Also, because of this map layout, I found myself memorizing the maps very quickly and I never felt lost. The mini-map is very clear and easy to read, foot steps are a little louder then they were in black ops 2, but not quite to the same "horse stomping" of mw3.

Now, onto the main reason why I think black ops 3 is the best cod in years, the movement.

The movement, unlike advanced warefare feels smooth and it actually works on a m/k. Not only that but movement is fun and chaining together wall runs feels great. So far my favorite moment in blops3 multiplayer was when I jetpacked up onto a tree pulled out my specialists bow and arrow, jumped off the tree and shot a dude in the head mid-air, causing his corpse to gib all over the place.

Personally speaking, ghosts and advanced warefare killed cod for me, the only thing keeping it alive was the occasional free for all in black ops 2. And I'm glad to say that black ops 3 is starting to revive the cod series for me, as when previous games murdered it, cut it half, violated its corpse, and threw it in a wood chipper for pigs to eat.

I started crying when the menu music started playing..... Haven't cried since The Last of Us and the damn intro music gets me teary eyed.

Where to start, I bought this game for 3 dollars two years ago, and I have gotten over 800 hours of gameplay out of it. This is a game that every PC gamer should own, no exceptions. It's difficult to learn, impossible to master gun play makes every kill feel like an achievement. Every winning clutch makes you feel like a boss, and every last-second defuse makes you feel like a more bad-ass version of Chuck Norris.

Once you get out of silver (equivilent of bronze league), you will get a small taste of the tacticle depth that csgo has to offer. There will ALWAYS be something new to learn, weather that be a new gun, map, strategy, smoke throw, popeflash, molotove spots, pre-fire positions, call outs, ninja spots, there is no end to the depth of counter - strike.

Pretty much any computer can run this game thanks to the beautifully optimized source engine. As long as you can take some critisism, and the occasional toxic teammate (highly recommend playing with a squad of friends), there is no reason on this Earth that you should not try Counter - Strike Global Offensive.