Recent reviews by Blunc

this game is taking over my life, ones pathing is fixed this game will be golden

5 minutes into the game and I can already tell its badly optimized, Story looks okay at best, only benefit you get by buying this game is a great set of backgrounds and emotes. If its on sale go for it

I run the most successful bakso business in this world!

Lost Ark has everything you would expect from a normal MMO, PvE with raids, dungeons and questing. PvP with instanced based arenas and open world fights and crafting, housing and more. This isn’t an MMO that lacks content, collectables are things to do at launch. Often times Lost Ark feels like there’s too much to do and you can easily get overwhelmed.

The TLDR about Lost Ark that I found is it’s a potato chip game. Meant to be played, like eating a snack. Not eating an entire bag of chips expecting to be full and satisfied but bit by bit enjoying the journey. But let’s move on and cover some of the basics about the game.

Lost ark features 5 classes with 15 subclasses each with their own unique skills and playstyle. (I think the first trailer has each class broken down, I’d cut that up otherwise they have trailers 9 seconds for each:

Warrior, heavy melee focused, and one could argue the meatheads of Lost Ark
Martial Artist another melee focused hand to hand combat style
Gunner as you can guess, range with weapons
Mage, typical magic ranged caster from any other RPG
And Assassin which are your quick and demonic rogue melee types
The visuals are what people notice first about Lost Ark, the top-down isometric view. This feels like Diablo and Divinity Original Sin 2 had a baby both in terms of camera position and partly gameplay.

In Lost Ark you’ll mainly use point and click for movement and targeting and it takes a bit to get use to. You’ll also have many hotkeys for items, consumables, mounts and so on which will feel familiar to World of Warcraft type MMOs. I would say if the top-down view and controls are jarring for you, don’t quit the game entirely as it takes time to adapt but this isn’t for everyone

You start out your character like any other MMO with a customizable character creator, picking your class and then an introduction tutorial. The first thing I didn’t care for in Lost Ark was gender locked classes, which the developers said later they would change. The character creator didn’t feel that special or unique, offering very little that was new or stood out. The tutorial, however, was very impressive giving you a solid course in combat and holding your hand making you understand the core components of the games fundamentals.

Speaking of the combat, before I played Lost Ark, I felt from watching videos and streams this was a button masher with very little skill, until I played it. I realized very quickly that wasn’t the case when I encountered good players in both PvE and PvP. Positioning, timing, rotations, consumables, understanding crowd control, interrupts and the list goes on and on.

Unlike your traditional tab target MMOs you won’t have to manage 30+ abilities with 2-minute-long cooldowns. The combat feels much more responsive and active with very little need to “auto attack” or wait your major ability to come off cool down.

The character builds blend a semi traditional skill tree with passive you can take as you increase the skill points of an ability. You’ll get 3 options at each stage with 3 stage total, giving you some customization in your build. But truthfully, most meta builds have been established and exported from the Korea server, so you have little flexibility in skills and spec if you want to be any good at the game.

Speaking of not being good at the game, At first, I was your typical button masher. Not reading my skills, auto attacking mostly, and having trouble with the most basic of dungeons. I went back to the drawing board started looking at online resource for builds and working on a rotation. I also used the in-game interface to setup multi spec builds, one for AoE massive fights, one for bosses and single target.

Then it became clear like other MMOs, the combat is like a dance. Go in for the attack, do a combination of 3 or so abilities and move out and repeat. Far from button mashing, you have to wait for key moments to time your ultimate and chain combination attacks or interrupting a boss within a split second for a clutch victory.

This is one of the core strengths of the game, it’s combat. There’s so much nuance to the combat it could take you a lifetime to master. Not to mention just as soon as you get a hang of one subclass, there’s 14 more to go, giving you endless amounts of replay.

Back to my original point about the tutorial and combat, you’ll complete this section and start your journey that is nearly entirely linear at the start of the game. You move from bread crumb to bread crumb, questing relentlessly and at certain intervals, the game teaches you new mechanics, systems, and currencies.

This is a catch 22 for me. One side, I love the hand holding and making sure you know where to go and what to do, on the other hand I felt I pigeonholed into doing questing for hours on end when all I wanted to do was experience PvP and group PvE.

Regarding the story which I will not spoil, it’s quite impressive. Smilegate does an incredible job at cutscenes, building up of the main bad guy and epic fights with massive over the top graphical conclusions. Sometimes it felt like Dragon Ball Z meets Lord of the Rings. There are incredible parts of the games initially story where I thought the quality and scope were that of a single player RPG. But you’re hit with major snags and slow points and so you get a roller coaster effect of excitement and boredom.

Even though there are slow points, I’d honestly recommend the game to anyone who enjoys typical RPG stories. But ultimately, I truly missed the freedom, exploration and choices of other games like Elder Scrolls Online or Star Wars the Old Republic which allowed you to explore at your own pace AND do activates outside of questing for hours. (SWTOR clips in here and ESO)

But don’t worry, it gets better, much better.

Once you reach level 26 and complete some of basic story elements you can compete in PvP instanced based combat 3v3 arenas or team elimination. And this is where the game truly shines. It’s a true competitive environment. Meaning, even at level 26, you get access to all the skills that other players have, and gear isn’t a factor. Let me say that again, there isn’t any gear, power level, gear cap, nothing that effects your performance other than your ability and competence.

This feels like the potential for e sport quality PvP though it’s not going to be for everyone. The PvP in Lost Ark centers around constant crowd control, movement, angles, and geometry. You have no real “heal” per say, only shields. Thus, each teammate will need to peel, defend, and help their team otherwise you’ll get dunked on. I got sucked into PvP at level 26. In fact, I pretty much stopped what I was doing because I like PvPso much that I couldn’t get enough of it. Typically, I was the weak link on my team, but I didn’t care. I was learning, competing, and having fun. Moreover, I didn’t have to spend 1,000 hours to farm gear, the ques were instanced, the game has such a robust population you never fought the same person twice. Need I go on?

Fight, Farm, Build and Explore Together in the standalone multiplayer expansion to the uncompromising wilderness survival game, Don't Starve.

I personally just use this game for daily drops, but then again the game is really good and should 100% give it a shot

L4D2 Mods can be really fun if you play with some friends.

Recommended mods

1 Back To School
2 Death Aboard 2
3 Day Break
4 I Hate Mountains 2
5 Deathcraft II
6 Urban Flight
7 Warcelona
8 Helm's Deep

The Forest starts off like the first episode of Lost, where you crash-land on an airplane in an uncharted setting with no technology. I have to admit, for as brief a cinematic as it was, the plane crash is a thrill and reminiscent of how Bioshock kicked off. Once you come to, you and your friends have free reign to navigate the island and do everything it takes to survive. You’ll immediately find this is easier said than done, as you encounter your first batch of other humans.

The enemies in The Forest are tribal warriors that will demolish you if you’re not careful. They vary from intelligent survivalists to frantic savages, to abhorrent monstrosities. Other than the ax you are given from the plane, you can also craft spears for fast attacks, bows for enemies far away, and even set your foes ablaze with a combination of your lighter and a can of hairspray. Enemies tend to fight in packs, so it’s paramount that you and your friends work together to dispatch them.

The main attraction of The Forest is ironically not the areas within the trees but instead, the massive caves spread across the island. You’ll find key items in these dark, expansive areas, like flashlights, chainsaws, and climbing tools for cragged rock. Past this, you’ll need to manage your hunger, thirst, and body temperature. Sometimes the best food available is the tribal warrior you just killed, making cannibalism seem like a normality for survival. Morality is truly out the window in this game.

For sanctuary, you can build a nice shelter with the resources scattered about your surroundings. Chopping down trees feels great, watching them fall with great physics and a subtle creaking sound as it plummets to the ground. Once your housing is built, you can save your progress. Unfortunately, I did encounter a universal crash and lost 30+ minutes of progress at one point, so an autosave feature upon entering/exiting caves would be welcome instead of the ear-splitting bats.

In the survival game landscape, I’d still put The Forest very high on the list of quality, as the game clearly benefitted from its long development time and player input. It’s always great to see a game emerge from Early Access and earn Overwhelmingly Positive reviews on Steam. If you have a group to play with, it’s easy to recommend The Forest at this point, even several years after its initial popularity, as it’s been a blast for me so far!

This is why you should play Terraria in 2022

If you haven’t already dug deep into Terraria, 2022 is the perfect time to start.

Thanks to more than a decade of constant development, Terraria has become an icon of online gaming. The open-world game has a polished gameplay loop around exploring, crafting, and challenging difficult boss fights. All of that takes place in a randomly-generated world that changes as the game progresses.

If you’re interested in picking up Terraria in 2022, here’s everything you should know.

What is Terraria?
Terraria is a procedurally-generated sandbox game built around exploration and combat. Players start with very basic tools and weapons with the goal of improving their strength to take on new areas. Terraria features a very in-depth biome system, which includes designated evil zones including a hell layer. Unlike similar games, Terraria features dozens of boss fights meant to challenge the player and gate progression.

A major selling point of the game is its massive amount of content. From its release in 2011 to 2022, Terraria has gone through over a decade of content additions and adjustments. There are dozens of ways to improve characters and thousands of items to collect and craft.

If the single-player content ever gets boring, Terraria fans can host online worlds to team up with friends and take on the world together.

Should I play Rainbow Six Siege if I like military simulators?
For better or worse, the Tom Clancy vibe is mostly gone from Rainbow Six Siege. It’s less dark and gritty and more vibrant and colorful, mostly for gameplay purposes. Siege is a first-person shooter at heart, the tactics and gadgets augment the shooter mechanics.

If you’re looking for a game like Squad or ARMA, Siege likely isn’t for you. It was always less of what you wanted in a game from the beginning and is rapidly becoming less of what you want over time.

Should I play Rainbow Six Siege if I like military simulators and have played before?
Yes! At its core, Siege is a great game, even if it isn’t bang-on the Tom Clancy branding. If you’re a fan of military simulators, Siege is likely going to be a little fast-paced for your liking, but if you’ve played before you know what you’re getting into.

There are still tons of tactics and gadgets to immerse yourself in — even if the darkness and grittiness that was there from the original games wasn’t all the way there at launch, and is rapidly fading.

Should I play Rainbow Six Siege if I like first-person shooters and am new to the game?

It’s hard to say yes here. Ultimately, Siege is a great experience but is not friendly to new or inconsistent players. There are massive maps, tons of gadgets, and dozens of unique interactions between the operators that aren’t explained well in supplementary content from Ubisoft.

New players are going to have dozens of hours of headaches before they feel like they really understand what’s going on. The players that have been playing Siege have been playing for upwards of seven years. That’s a lot of experience and work to try and bypass. It is unforgiving, and you’re forced to learn quick or be very bored with the game.

It’s impossible to recommend R6 to any new player that doesn’t have a lot of patience and a lot of spare time. If you’re a solo player it’s impossible. With friends it’s possible, but you’ll arguably have more fun in another game.

Apex wrapped 2021 as an extremely confident battle royale, and at time of writing it feels like the game's legends and weapons are superbly balanced. Some legends are weaker than others, but none are straight-up unplayable (with the possible exception of Crypto), and Respawn has been working to make characters with low pick-rates like Rampart and Wattson more fun to play.

Apex has settled into a strong rhythm with its updates, too. Every three months brings a new season, and with it a new character and new weapon to lend each season a distinct feel. At the end of each year we get a new map, though even existing maps will get smaller updates at a rate of one per season. Each half-season "split" will usually come with a themed event that pairs new cosmetics with a "town takeover" map change or, as of season 9, a new arena for Arenas.

There have been quiet months in the last year, sure but you're never far out from something new. The game's latest season, Escape, closed out the year with a stunning new map and the return of a beloved Titanfall 2 baddie, and has kept up the pace with festive train minigames and nautical themed events.

And yet, it's not all perfect in paradise. While Escape has largely avoided the rampant server issues of the season prior, a host of smaller issues have been cropping up over the season, with several significant bugs arriving with the last patch. The Rampage and Sentinel were temporarily removed last week after their charge mechanics became bugged and prone to exploit. Bangalore's newest MIL-SPEC skin was also removed after crashing the game during hero selection, and recent collection events have occasionally failed to pay out their rewards.

Loving Apex is sometimes painful. The game's roots in the Source engine are what gives it a near-limitless bag of mobility tricks, but that dated tech is also what leaves it feeling constantly on the verge of breakdown. Apex may never feel as polished as competitors like Fortnite and Overwatch. But when it's working right, it's a joy to behold.