Recent reviews by Justice

The Super Animal World update is a lotta fun. Great place to socialize between matches!

And maybe laugh as you see the guy you just got eliminated by pop into the lobby just after you.

It pains me to say this… but you have now officially missed the boat. If you haven’t played the game: it’s too late to start. If you have played the game and haven’t played in a long time, it’s too late to return.

I have many fond memories with the destiny series. Even going all the way back to the beta in 2014 on my PlayStation 3. The series has been something of a social getaway for me when I first started 11 years ago.
I remember spending long hours grinding strikes, playing crucible, roaming on Patrol with friends to find secrets. I remember the ARG for Sleeper Simulant! I remember the Red War and “laser tag”. I remember the era of “Oops! All Handcannons”. I have a lot, and I mean a LOT of memories and hours between PS/Steam/Battle.NET. But unfortunately the fun’s over. It’s like the MCU Endgame. If you weren’t along for the 10 year ride from any meaningful jump-in point before: it’s too late to jump into the MCU now. The “big moment” has passed and the subsequent content is…mid at best, but usually awful.
It’s been a fun ride, Destiny. I don’t regret the time or money I spent. I’d do it all over again. But I can’t - in good faith - recommend it now.

Game's alright vanilla, but it's actually LIT with mods! There's already some really good, game changing mods out there. With the Source Code being released to the public in Internet Archive: things will only get more wild from here. Here's to hoping we get Cataclysm: In Space, am I right?

The days of wandering and world-hopping freely without a care are over. Too many griefers and Quest Kids around.
But that doesn't mean the game isn't fun. Just stick to your groups and you'll be fine.

Game...fixed??
--------------------------
Recommended? Yes(*). It's not perfect but it's darn close!

This game is the Gold Standard of monetization. There's NOTHING in this game you can't earn through hard work and a little luck. More devs needs to make monetization like this game and Super Animal Royale.

The "Game Feel" is /unmatched/. It's an amusing balance of feeling absolutely unstoppable yet fragile. "Mayfly with a Minigun" so to speak! Dying in 1-3 hits is extremely common - but doesn't feel cheap. Weapons feel punchy, weighty, and impactful. Stratagems feel like GOD'S WRATH at your fingertips - and you're going to need them!

Objectives are also designed in a way that most players outside of difficulty 9 or 10 (we'll get to that later) are trying to complete as many activities as possible for MAXIMUM loot. And speaking of which: Loot feels /great/. There's maybe only a tiny handful of weapons that are genuinely awful. Most gear is on a scale between "good" and "fantastic".

But as for the cons? They're rather specific and strange.

I /swear/ it seems like every other update they break optimization. Sure, they do always iron out the bugs but it's a strange trend that every major update makes the game run like dogwater for about 3 weeks. No idea what that's about???

The other issue is more like a warning; There's no reason to play Difficulty 9 or 10. Don't do it. You'll only come across elitist clowns who will Team Kill you for the strangest reasons. Like "I want to hold the Super Sample" levels of childish. And your reward for tolerating wannabe elitists on a brutal difficulty? A few extra currency per completed mission. Seriously: just stick to 7 or 8. It's maximum fun and carnage without the clowns.

This game feels like a lost Dreamcast game and I absolutely love it for that.

If you're wondering what it is: It plays kind've like Phantasy Star Online 2 with the visual style and some exploration queues from PSO1. The game's pretty fun either offline or online so feel free to have fun your own way. The developer's really been working hard on it too so don't feel too nervous about the whole "open beta" thing. There's something new basically every 3-4 weeks.

And don't let the pretty ladies (and gentleman) fool you. Game's got hands and will slap you down if you aren't careful.

The studio is literally insane. Don't bother wasting your time. And it's a shame because there's genuinely nothing like this game.

But my roommate just lost 800hrs and $80 of cosmetics because they teabagged a TTV who teabagged them first. Apparently they're not the only ones who got randomly banned today because some TTV got their goon squad to mass-report. It's all over the Reddit as of time of writing. I mean I know this dev team already has an issue with listening to TTVs too much but this has gone WAY too far.

Add on top of that: the appeal process was a joke, a sham. They said their reasoning was due to "toxic behavior"....because they teabagged a single time? Even though the TTV did it first??? There were literally no warnings or infractions on their account before this. When they explained this to the support team, they then said: "Well we noticed you run duos a lot with someone of a similar name (that's me!). Maybe they were cheating?"

Like DAWG. My account is probably as old as some of the employees at Embark and my record is /spotless/. I have NEVER cheated - neither has my roommate. So when they realized that, they tried to flag VLC as a cheating app?? Like bro it literally plays music?? In the end: the support team said: "Well you got 25 reports on you from this match so you must've done something wrong" and blocked all communication.

So yeah. Not supporting this. Was /going/ to play Arc Raiders but now I don't want anything to do with this delusional company and their equally insane players. The fact that you can get banned because some scrawny puke with 100 followers got their feelings hurt is absolutely insane. Like, how did we seriously get to this point??

The game is actually GOOD, however...

I'm having 'nam flashbacks of the early days of Paladins here. With there being no meaningful way to earn substantial in-game currency : buying a single character can take an entire SEASON of CONSTANT playing. Additionally there are some questionable balance choices this game has made since day one. And just like the early days of Paladins: the characters who are notably strong - some even busted (looking at you, Marasai...) - are all characters you have to buy. And it feels like any vanilla character who performs too well gets beat down with the nerf bat (RIP Sazabi). There are other situations that are a problem too such as six-stack stomps, quitters, etc. But these problems only really seemed to arise as people began to wake up and smell the exploitation.

But all is not lost!
We said very similar things about Paladins when it first came out. After Hi-Rez did a heel turn and fixed their game up: it has and is doing rather well! Plus, there IS a good game under here. The movement, shooting, and level traversal all feel very good. MOST maps are actually pretty well done, but there are a few segments of some maps that are pretty awful (IE: Harbor City and Canyon Base's "Point B" segments). But I think every game has that one map people dread, so it's fine. Not to mention the customization in this game is actually pretty nice! There's nice player skins, trinkets, stickers, profile banners, avatars, and pilot voices (which are per-unit! Wow!) you can choose from. Some of these voices are a BIG surprise. I'm not saying what one notable one is...but that voice belongs to a legendary warrior race~

I think with some more maps, units, a more meaningful way to earn currency, and less spiteful game balance: this game could really take off. But as of right now? In it's current condition? I cannot recommend playing it.

The game is arguably 20 years late...but perhaps it's right on time.


The game is a love letter for all classic Sonic fans! Everything about this game is fresh - even the returning acts. There's new twists on old levels, power-ups, and stage gimmicks - as well as many MANY new additions. It's a superb game that you're only robbing yourself by not playing.

This is the main Sonic Saturn game we never got!

1.0 and I STILL hate this game.
I hate this game with an upmost burning, passionate hatred more volatile and intense than a thousand Suns all scorching the Earth till it's nothing but a seeping hot ball of plasma.

This game...THIS GAME....

First let me start by the things that are less opinion-focused and more factual. The way things are rendered in this game are stupidly outdated. Things like Foliage and small structures that act as concealment don't even render properly outside of 250 meters - where a lot of engagements outside of buildings tend to take place. So you might think you're being a true ninja-sniper-assassin-bush-wookie by crawling on the ground being sneaky-like, but to others, you look like a complete nimrod dryhumping a freshly cut lawn in the open. This is a problem from way back in 2005 where the running gag was that the guy running the GeForce 5500 would be at an advantage due to the fact that the player is unable to see foliage. Why is this a thing in 2018?

The movement in this game feels very stiff and unintuitive in some aspects, but very arcadey and unrealistic in others. On one hand, vaulting feels very slow and feels more like a curse than a blessing. After all: why vault when you can simply jump over 90% of the vaultable surfaces? The vehicles control SO badly that they might as well not even be in the game. You could barely nick a bump in the road and be spun out, even though you're not turning on the wheel or hitting the gas. And since there is no vehicles with armor or at least better cover, there's almost no point in getting into these noisy death traps on wheels. But hey! At least you can peel out like in Mario Kart if you hold the brake and floor it at the same time, amirite?

Let's not forget the netcode. It's just...very "ugh" to get shot by some dude teleporting all over the place or shooting some guy several times only for them to turn around and shoot you, then die moments later themselves. With how much cash this game is raking in, there is ZERO excuse by this point for connectivity to still be this frustratingly bad at times.



Okay so here's where the more opinion-focused stuff comes out so you can agree or disagree as you see fit.

The weapons are just...not fun at all, honestly. I don't feel any genuine giddiness when I pick up a weapon that has a reputation for being powerful or reliable in real life. I get that they were aiming for a more realistic vibe in this game (which they overall did not succeed), but couldn't they sacrifice just a little bit of fun? This game is trying so hard to be serious and gritty that there's just no room for joy.

Second of all, this game is about 80% random. Who you're matched with/against, where the circle will be, where your drop plane comes in from, what weapons will be in what buildings, where the circle will shrink to, and SO much more is flat-out random. I mean I get it, like items in Smash Brothers, having a bit of RNG can help tip the odds in favor of a player that is less skilled to fend off a veteran player and perhaps even win. But people also forget that this can also stack the odds in the opposite direction as well with the veteran being more akin to a god amongst men. Since the game has RNG oozing from nearly every pore and crevasse, things like an MMR system wouldn't really do any good as there are far too many variables involved to calculate.

And lastly, again, the map design is so outrageously bad that I feel like a teenager could come up with better map layouts. Again, like I stated before, the maps have so little reliable cover that it really only adds to the whole RNG/Luck aspect of the game. If someone gets the jump on you, you're already dead. There's nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, and no way of knowing when it'll happen. To piggyback on the weapons, the firearms have very similar sounds that only the most dedicated, sweaty tryhards will actually be able to distinguish each individual firearm. Because of this, you won't really know what exactly you're up against until it's far too late. Trees in the game are pathetic toothpicks, houses are typically death traps in many scenarios, and don't get me started again on foliage and cover. The maps are just too wide open.
From a nitpicky immersion standpoint, there's nect to no flow between landmarks. Apartment buildings are in the middle of open fields with no roads connecting to them, houses are on top of mountains with no normal way to get to the top, the military base looks more like an industrial park with some red stars slapped on for that "true KGB effect", cities will have one - maaaybe two - roads through the center with houses seeming to be copy/pasted in a row because...reaons. Erangel just doesn't feel like it could possibly be a real place where people once were. Heck, it doesn't even feel like an arena. It just feels like some guy lazily copy/pasted the same assets over and over in some places, slapped on some roads and passed it off as a map. It's ugly, lazy, and inexcusable.

Lastly I have to say that I dislike how I feel like I get absolutely nothing for my troubles in this game. You get literally, or next to nothing for reaching landmark positions like top 50, top 25, top 10, top 5, top 3, or actually winning. And for a game where matches can drag on as long as half an hour, that's a whole lot of time wasted running around looting buildings just for some guy who's purposefully downloading video games on his Xbox to slow his connection to shoot you while in his underwear and claim first place. Even so, the things you get aren't particularly helpful or exciting. What's the point of a cool hat or hairdo when you'll be wearing a helmet? What's the point of a cool shirt when it'll be covered by body armor? People may have mixed opinions on it, but I feel like that's one aspect that Fortnite Battle Royale got right. By sacrificing a little bit of realism for some fun, they use shields instead of armor. That way you get to keep your signature look and cosmetics actually have some level of fulfilling meaning. But it's not like that matters because the cosmetics in this game are a joke anyways. There's nothing cool, quirky, funny, or anything that has any level of personality in this game. It's generic to the max.

I hate this game's guts and everything it stands for. I only reinstalled it to play 1.0 in hopes of SOME level of change. Instead I just booted up a game that may have been better optimized, but is still a wreck all the same; 1 out of 5