Recent reviews by [ARK] Sgt. 2-Star

Many have tried to emulate it, fully or partially, but none have succeeded. A game that was thought out fully in all ways, and represents the full potential of the military shooter genre as a paragon of it's own caliber.

A title released when it needed to be, and the final chapter in an anti-war series with a long and storied history.

Truly an iconic title made by Hideo Kojima; unparalleled in all ways. Stands the test of time consistently; time after time.

I only wish that the title was fully finished before release, and I hope that the MGO3 servers stay live long after the heat death of the universe.

Good detective puzzle title. The mechanic that allows the player to see crime scenes from multiple character's angles is quite clever. Someone thought "what if we could make the player a fly on the wall for an entire crime scene just before the crime happens?", and then made it a game.

Suffers from a few small clerical errors. When I say small, I mean SMALL errors, but said errors can lead to players becoming frustrated with getting answers wrong to a question when the question itself isn't asking the right question, or phrased correctly.

Big example: "Who followed the ghost texts' instructions to kill Sasha?" is not the right question that leads to the answer the developers were looking for, as the person who killed Sasha didn't actually receive any instructions at all, but acted in a near-blind crime of passion; versus the one other person who DID act on the specific instructions of the ghost texts', their actions didn't result in the death of Sasha because the crime of passion happened first, so therefore wasn't the answer the developers were looking for? The latter individual did follow the specific instructions to kill Sasha, so therefore they are the correct answer because the game DID NOT ask "Who killed Sasha?" It asked, "Who followed the INSTRUCTIONS to kill Sasha?"

A better question would have simply been, "Who killed Sasha?", Which would have then lead to the answer the game was looking for.

It's like asking, "Who dialed the number on the phone call?", when Person A dialed the phone and then tossed the phone to Person B before anyone picked up, but Person B is the person who ultimately ended up chatting on the line; Yet the game dings you for answering Person A, despite the fact that Person A **IS** the one who dialed. The game should've asked, "Who ended up chatting on the phone?" 2 + 2 = ?. If you said "4", you're wrong. I wanted you to say "5".

The game simply asks the wrong questions sometimes, but is otherwise an enjoyable experience.

My only other note is that the audio is oddly balanced, and sometimes leads to missing key pieces of dialogue because the dialogue volume dropped off a cliff for a brief moment, or worse, a piece of dialogue became completely unintelligible for a spell because a loud environmental noise blared over it. When it's loud, it might hurt your ears, and when it's quiet, you're gonna need hearing aids to tell what's happening on screen; but it's all happening at the "same volume", so there's no consistency or preparation for what type of ear drum treatment you're about to receive.

If the Multiplayer ever gets shut down, that'll be the day I get radicalized.

An all-time classic horror title. Also one of the first franchises to expose gamers to the idea of a diegetic HUD.

Suffers from strange mouse sensitivity issues. The fan-made "Mouse Fix" fixes MOST of it, but any gameplay instance where your sensitivity gets messed with will throw off your cursor WILDLY from where you might intend it. I started calling the floor goop that slows your movement "Speed Juice" because it quadrupled my sensitivity when I stepped in it.

If you're approaching Dead Space 1 (2008) after playing the other titles, give this one a little patience. Kinesis behaves somewhat sluggishly in DS1, and using torn limbs to damage other enemies didn't work for me entirely during my playthrough. Also the melee and stomping controls were improved drastically in DS2; As such, those mechanics in DS1 seem a little inflexible.

A classic follow-up to a classic first title. One of the best horror franchises around.

They made a number of huge QoL improvements for 2, as well as drastically upping the graphical fidelity, lighting quality, actor performances, and gameplay systems.

Also one of the first franchises to expose gamers to the idea of a diegetic HUD.

Dead Space 2 has been a huge inspiration for many horror projects, and is justly revered.

Like the first Dead Space; still unfortunately relies on cheap enemy spawns and untelegraphed environmental hazards around the mid-to-late-game to score cheap player kills.

Fantastic title with a lot of love and care placed into it's design, but if you can see past the hype, then you'll see an experience that is unnecessarily punishing to newer players and returning Helldivers fans who have limited free time; especially when compared to the first game.

In the first game, you could play for about 5 hours before having everything you needed to operate perfectly at higher difficulties. You could also opt to play higher difficulties without needing to work your way up to having them unlocked. I disagree with many of the progression changes from the first game, and I still disagree with the heavy reliance on Armor Penetration in order for something to be considered good, which has only gotten more complicated and become a worse problem in the 2nd game.

Unfortunately you have to learn to avoid majority of the game's weapon and stratagem content in order to be able to deal any kind of meaningful damage and have any sort of effect on your team's mission success.

I cannot recommend Helldivers 2 wholeheartedly due to:
* The tech progression being much more grind oriented compared to the 1st game.
* The weapon and stratagem balance being even more off than it was in the 1st game.
* Overall performance being pretty suboptimal. Most games I can hold a consistent at least 90fps with no drops; Meanwhile I have to cap Helldivers 2 at 45fps to get consistent performance.

Also, whoever on the dev team gave the Terminid Stalker from the 1st game a massive health pool needs to have their keyboard privileges revoked.

Very solid mystery horror. Sells it's thematics and theatrics very well initially, but drops the ball in the mid to late game after the player hits about the 15 hour mark.

Once you hit the 15 hour mark:
* The player has seen most of the game's content, and new content starts being locked behind oddly-specific achievements, instead of simply rewarding the player for successfully completing content just unlocked last run.
* The combat starts to all feel samey, as most enemies are just health sponges with no special effects to sell their aesthetic.
* The mysteries start to feel "railroady", as the player has likely experienced most of the endings to most of the mysteries, and they become more of a chore than anything else. I was surprised the first time when the scary thing happened, after the 17th run, it just feels inconvenient.

I like the game much more as a horror mystery, and much less as a rogue-lite, and unfortunately the game leans heavier into old rogue-lite tropes and methods of drip feeding content later into the player's playtime, which unfortunately betrays the horror elements, causing the hard work put into selling the world's aesthetic and writing to fall to the wayside in preservation of prolonged player engagement.

Worth $15 and about 15 hours of your time.

The game needs:
* More core content (Characters/Backstories/Old Ones/Mysteries/Events/Enemies).
* More endings and variety to the mysteries that's NOT timelines.
* To find ways to make the endings of mysteries more meaningful to the player; ie rewards/consequences.
* A complete revamp of enemy encounters so they are more than just a health bar.
* To make the lighthouse more terrifying. It is honestly a bit of a letdown at the moment.

My favorite rogue-lite community zombie survival game of all time. On Microsoft Store/Xbox, I've dumped just over 1k hours, and I don't plan on stopping.

I have three pieces of advice for new players:
1. Always keep these consumables on you: Health, Stamina, Ammo, Throwable, and Plague Cure. Everyone needs them.
2. Amp the difficulty until taking fights seems like a bad idea. Turn the difficulty up until having to make hard decisions becomes like breathing. You won't really enjoy the game until you do.
3. Play with friends; It's always better with friends.
4. The Staging Area Large-Slot is worth it. Source: Dude trust me.

I'm bad at counting.

Underneath all the confusion, there's a wondrously revitalizing message about hope and reconnecting against all odds. Approach with care, an open mind, curious eyes, and a itchy trigger finger put to bed, as a constant need for violence or action won't do you any good here.

After beating the game with a 50 hour playtime and only 4 deaths on Normal difficulty and no side-missions done, what I have to say is that this experience is best taken blind and as creatively as possible, but I have 9 small things to add for any new player to save you some spoiler-free trouble for the more directed areas of the game's experience:

* Sit still to see the bad things. Hold your breath when your blinky thingy turns orange, and walk away from where it's facing.

* Mads Mikkelsen's fights do not care if you use non-lethal or lethal. I understand that the game disincentivizes you from choosing lethal under any other circumstance, but this is the one case where it really doesn't care. You will spend much too long on his encounters if you restrict to only non-lethal methods.

* You will get stagger spammed on the 2nd Mads Mikkelsen fight resulting in a 1.5s TTK against the player if you don't stick closely to cover. This caused my 1st death.

* The red angry ones can only be stealth knifed. Hold your breath when the blinky turns orange and mash your interact key while walking towards it. (Stealth knifing is unlocked after the 3rd major boss fight.)

* If you have a marked fragile or sensitive package you need delivered, don't do it in a vehicle. Every little left or right adjustment (any A or D input, not matter how short or minuscule) will damage the package way beyond what any seasoned UPS driver would consider reasonable. Put it on one of the floaty carts, and tug it behind you on foot. This caused my 2nd death.

* At the end of the 2nd area, when it says "get creative", what it means is find an area to get pulled into active combat on purpose. As someone who'd never gotten pulled up until that point, this didn't occur to me until the game pointed it out after 5 minutes and a save load.

* When you reach the boss fight at Edge Knot City, whatever you do, do not let yourself get grappled WHILE the arena is changing. You will clip into a building and die immediately. This resulted in my 3rd death.

* For the final boss battle of the game, don't stick around on the ground for too long. If you see a golden circle building on the ground beneath you, it will 1-tap you, get out of it. This caused my 4th death.

* The end of the game is art but almost twice as long as full feature length film. Finish the game on a weekend when you have time to take it all in.

Despite the listed notes, it's been a long time since I've picked up a game and felt raptured almost beginning to end as ceaselessly as Death Stranding did for me. It is absolutely worth a good blind playthrough, and only gets more worth it when it's on sale.

Should've been an alternate mode in base-game Rainbow Six: Siege? Absolutely. Paid or free, regardless.

Worth $10 despite this? Absolutely. So far it combines some of the best thematic aspects of something like Alien Swarm with the tight controls and gameplay of Rainbow Six: Siege.

A win in my book, and a good title to play with friends.