Recent reviews by Jaaabrocon

Dota 2 is the single worst abomination of a game ever devised by mankind, or else it is perhaps mankind's most maliciously clever torture instrument. If you have absolutely any self respect, any decency, any love for humanity or yourself whatsoever, you will stay as far away from this game as physically possible. I would not wish it upon my worst enemies.

Dota claims to be a game that rewards skill, that through a combination of effort, experience, skill, and talent, you can personally influence the outcomes of games and claw a victory from the jaws of defeat. Absolutely nothing could be further from the truth. Dota 2 has the single worst matchmaking system in the history of video games. There are only two types of Dota games: Games where you are paired with people vastly above your skill level, and paired against actual knuckledragging neanderthals, and games where you are paired with the neanderthals against people vastly above your skill level. In short, Dota only offers games that you are guaranteed to lose, and games you are guaranteed to win. No matter how skilled you are, no matter how good or poorly you play, you will never change the outcomes of these destined games.

See, Dota wants its players to have a 50% win rate. One way to do this might be to design a matchmaking algorithm that is good at pairing you against players of roughly equal skill level, that way you can feel like you're challenged and have an impact on the game. Of course, it's actually much MUCH easier to simply throw you into a game that valve knows you have a 100% chance of winning, or a 100% chance of losing. This way, they can guarantee their nice clean 50% win rate across the entire player base. This is exactly what they have done. Dota doesn't HAVE a matchmaking system, it has games with destined outcomes which you have zero control over whatsoever.

Do not be fooled by the marketing. This game does not offer even the smallest atomic trace of enjoyment whatsoever, it is an endless perpetual misery machine built only to rob human beings of their sanity. If you are considering dota, don't. Run while you still can. Once this excruciating disease of a game catches you, it's over. You'll convince yourself that in THEORY, it could be fun! You just have to keep searching, surely ONE of these games will pair you against people of equal skill level! Do not be fooled. Should you truly, truly hate someone, send them this game. But for your own personal sake, turn away now. This way only broken destitute dreams lie, and cold uncaring developers.

With only a single jumpscare in the beginning to weed out the weak, and absolute psychological trauma throughout, Cry of Fear is the scariest game I have personally ever played. It will scare you as a viewer, it will scare you as a gamer, it will scare you as a human being, and with the sole exception of the initial beginning jumpscare, Cry of Fear knows it doesn't need loud noises to do this. Sometimes, fear is the silent enemy the size of a two story building, slowly walking its way toward you over a long distance, and the luck of discovering him before he reaches your location. Fear is the choice between Health, Light, and a Weapon when you can only choose two, and the dark of the forest is black as pitch. Fear is what you make of it, and this game will show you the way.

It's difficult to put into words the sheer quality contained within this deceptively simple-looking masterpiece. It may be free, it may have started out as a mod for Half Life, but don't be fooled. Cry of Fear is both my favorite Horror Game of all time, and one of my favorite games period. Since playing it, I've found myself innoculated to the entire horror genre of games a whole. No game has scared me quite like Cry of Fear has, and I flit from horror game to horror game now in an attempt to recreate the feeling. But in a word, what truly sold me, among some of it's other incredible qualities:

Dedication.

Going back through the game again with Developer Commentary enabled, you really begin to understand what a passion project this game was. Team Psykskallar mapped out locations in their own hometown and remade them faithfully in game. There is one particular audio track near the end of the game, during which it is storming, which mentions that the lightning sounds in game were recorded from actual lightning storms which the team captured outside their building.

It might not seem like much, but in the days of over-produced cookie cutter Triple-A garbage that comes out year after year, The passion Team Psykiller showed just to get a simple audio recording for background noise impressed the hell out of me.

I could talk about this game's "Fear Factor" (which is substantial, and has easily stood the test of time). I could talk about the gameplay (the inventory system is particular is genius), I could talk about the story (which even after the first playthrough will still make you feel uncomfortable), but in the end, all you need to know about Cry of Fear is the amount of passion that went into this game. It is a game few can handle, it is a game made with love, and if you are looking for a game that will scare the life out of you without breaking your eardrums, look no further.

Good Luck.

A genuine contender for my favorite video game of all time. I love Team Fortress 2 for the same reason I hate DOTA 2, the community of people that play the game. I think you would be hard pressed to find a more wonderful community of players in any video game, and its these incredibly dedicated and talented people that make TF2 the shining jewel that it is, along with some of the best damn game mechanics no one has successfully been able to copy yet. Team Fortress 2 is completely unique. It couldn't be made again, and it never will be. That is part of why it has to continue to exist, because if it is lost the video game community will have lost something that will never again be remade.

That is why it is all the more unfortunate that my review of this game has to be negative. Once upon a time, Valve Software was the apex predator of the video game development world. Every game a masterpiece, every effort a success. But the success of Steam, and the general ADHD nature of the company, causes Valve to have a predilection for abandoning its creations even while they are still fruitful. I'd love for Valve to return to video game development one day. But honestly? I'd settle for them just giving even the slightest modicum of attention to one of the greatest video games ever made, and solving a bot crisis that they promised to solve over two years ago. I would like to play Team Fortress 2 again. But unfortunately, bots prevent that from being possible. When Valve solves the problem, just as they promised to years ago, my review will once again change to being the positive one that Team Fortress 2 deserves.