Recent reviews by Mad Scientist Yo

I bought Overwatch 1 at $40 around launch, had it replaced with a game I don't want. They cancelled the whole reason for Overwatch 2 and will now make you pay for more half-baked 10 minute "missions". OW2 was pushed so they could remove a tank slot and increase the monetization options. If OW1 still existed and I could play it like I used to, I wouldn't be upset with OW2. They stole my game, slapped a 2 on it, and made it considerably less fun.

My favorite character, Roadhog, cannot live in a 1 tank world because he was designed as a bruiser/off-tank. Tried too hard for "balance" and completely ♥♥♥♥ on a game I used to enjoy.

As a kid I was a CoD enjoyer, too much even. CoD 4 was my favorite game, despite it's major flaws (necessity of stopping power, juggernaut, iron lungs, martyrdom, last stand, etc.). I stayed with the series until Black Ops 2, really MW3, where it was just too frustrating to play and I no longer enjoyed it. I switched over to PC and started playing CS:GO and absolutely loved it; although, that soft spot for CoD persisted.

I fully came back to the series for WWII as the annoying jetpack style was gone. Prop hunt was great, but the game wasn't. Then I got Black Ops 4 to play with friends. That didn't last long, the hero style shooters fell off for me after Overwatch poisoned the well. The first Modern Warfare remake comes out, play it, like it, but it doesn't last because I didn't like most of the maps or Warzone (janky Pubg was the only fun BR for me). Bought Cold War because the Beta was fun, literal waste of money as all the actual fun I got out of it was in the free Beta. Bought Vanguard, not fun. Then the hype starts building for a MW2 remake and it looks... good?!

Part of what made me really interested in MW2 2022 was that there wasn't going to be a CoD coming the year after. So this game was going to live for 2 years without completely dying as the next installment comes out. Dope. SIKE. We all know another CoD is coming Nov 2023. Now all of what we got for MW2 at launch comes under scrutiny. The game was buggy and broken. Parties wouldn't even work, joining games as a party was a crap shoot on who would make it. No map voting. Not a lot of maps, despite looking like a decent map list most of them are restricted to certain modes. If you were to compare this to the OG MW2, it shipped with 16, where the modern installment that has the benefit of 13 years of CoD to rely on had 10. Very few calling cards/emblems or at least a complete lack of UI describing those lists. The UI was atrocious for finding anything and it lagged constantly. Using a 3090 so it's not on my end. The in game UI for editing a class is dumbed-down so it doesn't give information for your changes, which huge win there for editing classes mid match; although, god forbid we learn how to load camos in that same UI. With the menu lag trying to switch a camo in between games could be impossible. Too little downtime between games. The unlock tree was explained extremely poorly and forces you to play with guns/attachments you don't want to use. The game felt unfinished, largely unfinished in terms of polish you would expect from a AAA, multi billion dollar, franchise. At first it was fine, "They'll fix it", we all decried. The community saw this as a labor of love, especially with no CoD coming in 2023, they had plenty of time to iron out their deficiencies. Over time they've tweaked some things and added as few maps as humanly possible while continuing to not fix major UX issues.

I don't want to have to restart my game every time there's an update. The ♥♥♥♥♥♥ DRM should be able to validate my update without having to completely restart, that's bad UX. I don't want to have to rebuild the shader cache if the update had nothing to do with textures/shaders. I love seeing that cache building and just stuck at 2% for 15 minutes then jumps to 90+, great visual feedback. When I launch the game I want to play it, if hoops are placed in front of me I'm already done playing the game. I shouldn't need Warzone installed, I don't want a bunch of pointless updates to download that are Warzone specific when I've never played WZ2. Make WZ a standalone game that's free and leave the actual game intact. The game takes up way too much space for assets and aspects of the game I don't want. Even MW 2019 on the awful Blizzard launcher had installation options. They probably never added it because they couldn't even release WZ at launch. Then what really chaps my cheeks is you had classic maps at launch, but were part of the WZ map, or maps for the big team modes. You couldn't slice it and give us a piece?

The game released, at $70 mind you, without any classic maps. No Rust, Terminal, Highrise, Estate, Afghan, Favela, etc. Nor DLC maps that were fan favorites. Yet Shipment comes back so the community get placated with camo grinds, that only lasts so long. MW2 2022 should have launched with almost complete feature parity from the 2009 version. How can we get UI right over 12 years prior just to make it practically unusable today. There's so much wasted and dead space throughout the UI, yet it's completely cluttered in other spots. The storefront obviously gets the most love. Why couldn't it at least release with MW 2019 maps? In my honest opinion, most of those were trash too, but I'd still say options are options. Have 40 maps and allow people to vote on the next map. If they don't want people voting on the same map over and over try adding more maps instead of removing a beloved feature. It's like Battlefield 2042 removing info from the scoreboard, stop letting those with bad ideas run these billion dollar IPs into the ground. Having the lobby practically disband after every match is a terrible experience for anyone who played prior to like 2016. "But if we don't soft reset the lobby how will our SBMM determine who you're going to lose to next game?"

SBMM is something a lot of people complained about (it really does hurt having casual fun), but where I see it as a complete failure is in groups. Some guys I play with are not great at FPS, I play a lot of FPS, people who are a "fair match" against me will completely ♥♥♥♥ on my friends. Is that fair or fun? No, not for them. Then they don't want to play after 2-3 matches of turbo sweats trying to match my energy. If you want SBMM put it in a ranked playlist, oh wait they didn't have that for months after the game's launch. Then you get all the ways to spoof the system; kill yourself a bunch of times, leave games, throw games, use a goofy loadout to intentionally downgrade your performance index, sit afk with a joystick forced one way or a weight on your keys. This is not a formula that begets a fun gameplay experience for most users. How many times have you played an objective based game mode and 4/5 of your teammates are allergic to the objective? The answer is countless whether you realize it or not.

I like using the drill charge, but hate getting killed by it; a classic conundrum. The drill mechanic is probably one of the reasons importing old maps could pose a challenge. I enjoyed most of the guns, at least before people really started figuring out the ultimate ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ combinations. I like the mic on after killing someone/getting killed. That's such a great addition and I know it's not new to this game. Aside from being called racial expletives, but hey, that's gaming. I despise what they are doing with skins, as I get older I find it harder to discern player from environment especially with graphics getting better that means camo actually works. A lot of terrible skins have been added to this and previous CoDs that completely break visual homology. Mother ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ Saw slides and jumps around a corner to kill me and it just looks so stupid. It's as if I'm playing on a custom server that has Master Chief speed hacking with a trail of hearts while his gun shoots dildos. It's ridiculous. Then if it isn't some ridiculous character it's a Messi/KD/Neymar calling me f*ggot or just some completely blacked out skin hiding in the shadows. It's like an even worse version of what fortnite does because skins can provide a legitimate advantage if you don't turn your brightness up to washed out levels.

I get the sense that those who make these games don't play them or have never played them; therefore, they will continue to make poor decisions that benefit the business more than the player. Vote with your wallet, don't buy this game or any that come after it.

There was so much of the formula already perfected, yet a wheel needs to be reinvented as a triangle.

Terrible game. I want to make open shots, it's bad enough I made my character short as ♥♥♥♥ to match my real height. Then the magic algorithm inside the black box that is 2ks ♥♥♥♥♥♥ simulation software just decides when it wants to screw you over or have you make impossible shots. I want consistency; if I fool the defense into getting wide open I should almost never miss. I'm tired of perfect releases missing or near perfect going in and out of the hoop. ♥♥♥♥ game. This version is so old you can't even get VC cause they shut all the servers down. Game is only ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ 5 years old. These 2k EA games are such loads of ♥♥♥♥, save your money from these scam games.

This game crashes all the time. Oh you had a good game? Lot's of blocks? Too ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ bad cause when you hit continue the game crashed and you have to play that whole ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game again. Game crashes as the game starts? Load it again and have to listen to the terrible commentary. So much wasted time having to play the same game several times over and sitting through timeouts and all the stupid cut-scene downtime. Oops characters disappeared. Oops everyone's shorts rolled all the way up revealing the model just has legs with no other textures. Oops the enemy player stepped on the ball to stop your dribble, that's a turnover buddy. Get fazed into a defender while shooting and get "blocked", no foul, you just missed. I got blocked by a opposing player shoving their hand up through the hoop. I get fouled every single time I go into the paint, I get the call 1/4th of the time. I got 2 hand shoved mid air while going for a dunk and it counted it as their block. I can get blocks from behind opponents, through their body, for no foul. I literally jumped for a block and missed the defender, as I was falling the game gave me a second jump mid air and sent me completely perpendicular to where I was going. All to slam into the defender, sending them to the line to help them catch up from the 20 point blowout ass whooping they're receiving. Nice realism. I love when my center runs off the court under the basket during transition so the other team gets a free pass inside. My teammates even run around (sometimes through) defenders so that I pass into a turnover. Commentators constantly say the wrong ♥♥♥♥. "Poor shooting night for him" after a miss; ignoring the fact that you've hit 4 shots in a row in that quarter. Such low effort. I've seen the ball bounce in and out of the hoop in ways that I don't think are possible; all for the sake of having your excellent shooter, with all the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ badges gold, miss. How can a product that's supposed to be AAA have these issues? EA doesn't give a ♥♥♥♥, they don't have competition. They release the same busted piece of ♥♥♥♥ every year. Literally charging $60 for a roster update and having an entire section of the game devoted to micro-transactions. Making bank on everyone's terrible decisions to buy their piss poor products.

I feel like EA should be forced to update rosters for the year the game comes out. It's such a scam to get a year old roster with a bunch of randomly generated rookies. Should be called 2k15 cause there's no updates if a player has a breakout year. Rudy Gobert is some hot garbage, even on D, that's some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥. He was a DPOY level presence in the paint in 2016. It really pisses me off people continue to support these obvious low effort cash grabs every year.

The forced career mode is terrible. I hate being called "Freq" (sounds like Freak). I put my nickname as "Shorty", but they'll still say Freq and all my brand deals will play off it as well. I love being a white boy born to a black family with a black twin sister. I think it's funny. What's not funny is only being able to play 8 games your rookie season and stick you at 55 ovr no matter what you've done (product of my character select being a 5'8" pg I guess even though I averaged 25+). How is it that the commentators are like "He's a 4 time all american", since ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ when?! How the ♥♥♥♥ am I supposed to get rookie of the year if I can't play enough games to get good enough to play more than 4 mins? Why am I forced to have such a busted looking girlfriend? You can't even get traded until you play 10 games. Why couldn't I just get traded at the start of the season? You can't force trades for your teammates either. You are at the whim of the almighty algorithm on who may or may not be on your team. Maybe I'm behind some soft wall because of having so few years in the league. (which would also be a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ idea, why can't I just play the ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game and enjoy MY career?) There's no options, it feels so on-rails. Which is why I hate when my guy suddenly can't shoot, or while I'm getting fouled on drives the refs don't call it, screens don't catch the defender anymore, tall guys fly towards me for blocks, or their players cannot miss, it truly feels like the game wants me to lose and will ♥♥♥♥ me over to make it possible. Most of my complaining may be a result of my lack of height screwing me over, but it's a game. If it's not fun, then what's the point of spending my time on it?

Game is a cesspool of toxic and selfish players.

I loved Chivalry but got tired of how janky it was. This game is considerably more polished and a better fighting experience; however, the maps were much better in Chivalry. I'd like to see more diverse and engaging objectives with better map progression in Mordhau, then it would be hands down the better game. Mordhau is almost built too much like Battlefield, I would prefer (others as well I assume) map progression like Chivalry. I already play this game a lot relatively and that would push me to play many many more hours.

Speaking of hours, why does it take so long to level? Each match has a fixed amount of xp/gold and you get a bigger chunk the higher you are on the leaderboard as far as I know. I pretty much only play frontline as I find it the most fun other than fist fight duels, and after 100+ hours I'm only level 39. It takes so much gold to get some of the cosmetics and while that makes sense to get people to earn it, making (what feels like) max 650 gold per 20-30 minute frontline game means it's gonna take hella hours to get those 80k cosmetics.

I also kind of dislike the class system, I'd rather not have perks and whatnot that modify damage. Blood lust is also a very powerful perk, but it doesn't feel like it breaks the game. Although it can completely screw you over in an engagement where your teammate runs in and dies to the guy you're about to kill... It's hard to balance weapons so the perks even the playing field in a way. Like the Zweihander is hella powerful and would be most player's choice of weapon, thankfully there is a cost to armor when choosing those kind of weapons.

There's a few small details I'd like to have as well. So I'd like to be able to see my score at the end of the game while the gold/xp stuff is being calculated. I'd also like a better kick system, having to go into the console to check the PlayerList and VoteKick is cumbersome. There is also no way to report people as far as I know. Sometimes it feels like weapons are much longer than they appear and some people even seem to jump at you mid swing to get the distance. Maybe I'm bad, maybe it's busted, maybe it's Maybelline.

I just complained a lot, but I think this is the best game in the genre in terms of the foundation it has, so with some patches and tweaks and most definitely more maps this game will have no competition when it comes to medieval battle games.

Fantastic

This is one of my favorite games of all time. Love the radio jams, the aesthetic of drifting a fake Nissan GTR/Toyota Supra down a mountain pass in the rain, the Chinese swearing mid dialog, the various collectibles, all the mini games, seeing your friends stats tracked for specific tasks (I dominate my friends list in every category), the DLCs are pretty fun, etc. I highly recommend the game and have bought it several times as gifts for others. I originally torrented this gem, but it was so good I've bought it 5 different times. I've beat it several times and have 100% of the achievements.

The worst part of the game? There isn't a second one.

Some would call it a game