Recent reviews by Yangjo

Since Arrowhead (Helldivers developers) shot themselves in the foot,
it's time for the better Swedish game to rise from the ashes!

The Path of Redemption is here, now the
TRUE King of Coop will rise again!

Servers worked through an entire weekend. So...
I'm doing my part in the greatest nod to 80's Sci-Fi pop culture, with lots of unavoidable friendly fire, managed democracy, freedom liberating, Socialist Robotic ending, Monarchical hive bug squashing, and ragdoll inducing video game of 2024.

JOIN THE HELLDIVERS TODAY.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dhxApHG3nh8

Give mediums and lights destruction, and you'll have a very positively received game overlooking glaring balance issues. Without Heavies (non-meta abusing) that enjoy fun and massive destruction, the game just becomes any other generic FPS game. When the destruction kicks in, it becomes truly special.

The gameplay is unanimously enjoyed, but crazy amounts of review bombing from where the Developers are from. If you were to check the reviews for your own languages, you'll notice that the game rating showcases itself as "Very Positive" - as shown here: https://i.imgur.com/OVHa3XC.png If you're wondering what they're complaining about, it's primarily about the pricing in their currency, the time it took to finish development on the game, apparent lies to the Chinese playerbase, and the so called "lack of content." Some of these points I cannot attest, but the lack of content, I disagree. Since the content offered is varied and unique. 20 Unique maps, for a similarly priced game to Gang Beasts, which this game takes heavy inspiration to. If the pricing is unfair for the Chinese, then regional pricing does need to be adjusted.A simple party game beat-em-up, that you knock out your friends or opponents online. Toss them off the edge, or play objective based modes inspired by real sports, or mini-games to work together towards. The maps are all varied and unique in their own right. Unique gimmicks and hazards that gives each maps personality. The controls are easy to pick-up, but may take a couple games to get a hang of. Strong wind-ups of running punches, small jabs, jump kicks, slight kicks, or headbutts that while your character moves like a wobbly drunkard. Not too good at unarmed combat? There are plenty of physical weapons to harness, from ranged to melee: Tasers, crossbows, ice-guns, shovels, lollipops, and more. It's a super casual, extremely satisfying, fun arcade-y fighter. Play with some buds and you will guarantee a blast of laughter and fun.

• Standoff: (1-life 2v2v2v2, FFA, or 4v4)

Originally posted by author:

9 maps: The primary goal is to knock people off. Maps here provide hazards like a creeping gas, a chilling blizzard, a shaky bridge, a submerging submarine, a strong wind tunnel, chilly waters on a breaking glacier, fear of heights on a Fighter Jet, a gravity defying black hole, or an intensifying wavy floating bridge. All with the general premise of knocking out, and throwing off opponents. Each one gets more and more intense over time, becoming more difficult to recover onto the map. If you do get thrown off fully, don't fret, you can still influence the outcome of the match with some objects to throw at players while spectating.

• Team score: (4v4 Objective modes)

Originally posted by author:

9 maps: American Football, Soccer, Air Hockey, Candy Collection, Arcade Machine Fighting, Trebuchet Launching, Electrical-Ball Scoring, and Rail-Train Racing, or balloon safe-extraction. All with their little gimmicks, and the main premise of beating the hell out of each other. These have respawns if hazards do end you.

• Arcade: 10-life (4v4 mode)

Originally posted by author:

2 maps: A pool of respawns/lives for each team. Knock players out of a cabin into a blizzard, or throw players onto the tracks of an incoming train.

In comparison to Gang Beasts, the movement mechanics are much more streamlined and simplified. For example, Climbing is just a combination of two buttons. Grab + Jump while moving in the direction you want to climb towards. Whereas in Gang Beasts, you had to raise your arms, alternating both hands while grabbing, all while holding jump. You basically have to play QWOP in Gang Beasts just to recover after being thrown off. It would be a lot more difficult to master, which seems wrong for a Party Game. In map-design, this game is much more physics-influenced, varied, with accompanying toys/weaponry to play around with. More unique modes, and more ways to play than the alternative. It seems that Party Animals is just an upgrade in every single way.
With the positive, there are always some complaints. They are not enough to deter me into a negative review, but I believe they should be addressed. For the Australian players, there should be provided OCE servers. Offline functionality should be a feature as promised, as this game should not always be online. P2P-Fallback would be nice, if the servers ever did get shut down. The price of cosmetics seem a bit expensive during these hard times, & should be lowered. Also, a gacha system in a paid-game seems odd, and misplaced. In total, you can earn quite a few of the gacha rolls for free, but it is limited. You will only be guaranteed one legendary, IF you do fully progress and obtain all of the free currency and surprise eggs. That may feel a bit tedious, or long to endure. If it was possible to just earn egg-coins perpetually, with no limit, I would find it quite fair.

It would seem that most of the negative reviews are not about its gameplay. Despite any of these problems, I believe the pros heavily outweigh the cons. The game is well enough fun for its price, and has provided me the most amount of joy and laughter that no other party game has come close to. I extremely recommend the game for all the positive reasons above. The negative review's complaints are valid, but I don't think it should drag the game into obscurity. It's too fun for that, and it truly doesn't deserve it.

I loved MW2019's gameplay, animations, and weapon customization, but something held it back for me. Changes within this game include counters to the camping playstyle with some new gadgets, tools, and equipment, with drastic changes to map design or balance. However, don't fret campers, they took away some of the aggressive playstyle's arsenal with the harsh nerfs to sliding, continued inclusion of Dead Silence as a field upgrade, very loud footsteps, and the Ghost perk being a delayed perk based on your performance. Plus, Ground War modes still retain the hundreds of rooms, angles, and rooftops to camp in, but provided more routes to actually flank and back-cap objectives.

New additions like the separate 3rd person mode, are welcome. Future upcoming modes like the "Tarkov" mode, called DMZ, adds another trend-chasing mode like the Battle Royale (Warzone), that doesn't negatively impact the regular game. They're all separate modes after-all. With that, the suite of Call of Duty is ever growing in content and variety gameplay. Large scale, small scale, 3rd, or 1st person, tactical or fast-paced gameplay. It truly is a game made for everyone.

My personal major gripe with MW2019, which made me exhausted of the game very quickly, was the abhorrent map design. With that DRASTICALLY improved within MW2022, I have to give this game a recommend.

...But only if you can tolerate aim assist (hopefully there'll be an option for input based matchmaking upon release), unbalanced loadout shooter gameplay, and SBMM/EOMM. <--- That last one however, can be rectified with Ground War, Invasion, and Warzone/DMZ modes as they have laxxed matchmaking.

I've never been scammed harder in my entire life. Get out while you still can, as the Free-2-Play model is just a trick.

Everyone playing this game probably has some sort of weird Stockholm Syndrome because their game's content is held captive and vaulted by Bungie. Players are indulging in a sunk cost fallacy with how much the DLCs overall cost & time invested, but don't realize all their purchased content and gear will be vaulted anyways. It's an absurd paradox, that I don't see how people can continue to partake in. Power/Light level grind was always bull-*BLAM* to begin with. Especially when they would just boost everyone's light level every major expansion. Everything about the game is FOMO and illusionary, that I wouldn't doubt the Devs be magicians. They can make your money AND content disappear!

Bungie is so good at scamming, they were even able to get Playstation/Sony to buy them out for 3.5 Billion dollars (Look up Bungie's "World domination plan" and see Step 6.)[/url] When not too long ago, their quality control (Activision) was dismissed & blamed as the root of all MTX evil. They relocated to Steam, positive reviews flowed in, recycled content from Destiny 1 was churned out, and then It was later revealed that Bungie was the problem all along. If you like magic tricks, I wouldn't look into this too much. Just disregard this negative review! - I mean, you wouldn't like to know the secret behind a magic trick right? It'd just ruin the surprise : )

Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. Fool me 7 times, and I must be Destiny fan.

Edit: Around the time this review was posted, it was revealed that future content will no longer be vaulted, ALL DLCs will be currently free for a week, & the 30th anniversary pack is free to keep on Epic Games Store! I'm sure fans who paid for that pack don't feel upset, and I'm positive all previous purchasers of vaulted content don't mind that content may not be returning!
How nice of Bungie to ensure players that their future paid content won't be removed.

Also, don't mind how the Fortnite collab & the Free-2-Try DLC is just another trick to rope in new players to get caught in the cycle. Just keep in mind that FOMO is present, your gear will be vaulted, and that Bungie doesn't respect your time & money.

This is ONLY my negative reception, put into one MP review.

If it wasn't for the other game releases in holiday 2021 flopping, this game wouldn't have had a chance. The honeymoon phase is sure to be over soon. People will realize the lack of content and lack of substance the multiplayer has to offer. Will they realize that the new "engine" was all for naught? 6 years of development, for a half-baked video game. No Forge, and no Co-op day one. You're basically playing an early access title without the tag. Was the engine upgrade made just for an open world with 1 biome? One that I just can't hop back in and play after beating it once? A gloried open world, with no mission select, no weather effects day one, but seems all these features are "COMING SOON." To an extent, those who claimed Halo Infinite to be dead within weeks without a Battle Royale are correct, but for the wrong reasons. Terrible monetization, horrible netcode issues, melee not registering, and plenty other problems.

Content
For 6 Years of development, I would've probably expected a bit more. Tactical Slayer(SWAT) and variants of slayer do not count as "different modes" either. Free-for-all isn't a mode, it was a setting. This mistake, once again made with Halo 5; repeated again with Halo: Infinite. Despite this, Halo 5 had more content than this game does, and with less time it took. This game has no forge, no co-op, and not enough robust settings or game-modes for custom games. I could mention the map count being 10, but then fans would probably mention how previous Halo games would release with a similar number. The Forge (map-maker) that helped some of the previous Halo's flourish with content, is due within 8 months instead of the 1 month it took for Halo 5 to release it.

Monetization
The most obvious of all. The most egregious and scummy monetization I've seen of late. Prices are ridiculous for such lackluster cosmetics. 7 dollars for colors, 10 dollars for shoulder pads from a previous halo, and/or 20 dollars for bundles with very little substance, incorporating emblems to bloat it all up. No potential way to purchase individual items, FOMO within the daily/weekly shop rotation, and very few bundles available at once. Battle Pass only grinding to the amount they want you to progress. No way to earn premium currency, even in the Battle Pass. Although it may be ever-lasting, it was all but a trick for a more scummier Battle Pass. Weekly challenges limit your progression to a reasonable amount. Limit to XP gain, no individual performance rewards. Weekly ultimate reward for beating every challenge, with very little content to give. Lies/changes about progression long ago, where free players would've gotten more. Lies about the limited event providing cosmetics that were "accidentally" put into the store. Although they have radically changed the challenges, difficulty, and XP gain, and even put back those items they promised would've been in the event, lest you not forget what they once tried in the first place. it's not enough, there needs to be radical changes to the store. Better value for the prices, individual purchase options, and a reason for the "FOMO" to exist rather than artificially allowing it to exist this week. I get that it's free-to-play, it needs to keep the lights on, but I don't think this company is that starved of money.

Balance.
Balance has been touted and cheered about all throughout the fan-base, that this Halo has the best balance thus far! If this was really true, then why did balance had to be reconsidered between the flights and release? There's also definitely a bit of an issue if the Assault Rifle beats majority of the sandbox with movement and ease of use. Crazy to think that the AR was even better in the flights! Currently, all guns are balanced for range efficiency, and every scoped weapon has a "sniper-like glare." Guns had already been nerfed before the game released, like the Ravager, VK78 Comamndo, and Bulldog shotgun. Potentially more I've missed. With this, the ravager nerfed to complete uselessness. The radar was even changed before PVP was tested! Before it wouldn't even show you if you didn't sprint, but they changed it to a more classic "movement shows up on radar." How many weapons are useless in this sandbox? May it be little, but how many can outperform the Assault Rifle? If you find it pointless to scavenge weapons, then there might be a problem. The sniper nerfed severely compared to previous Halo's. Hipfire is inaccurate, forcing you to scope, and the firerate severely toned down. The sniper is basically only useful in the back, behind your team for support. The weapon that was king in Halo montages, gutted and unavailable for most maps. It's like they don't want an individual player to shine above the rest, and force Halo to be even more team oriented than it already is. This shows true with objective melee not one-shotting. Sure, I acknowledge that not all Halo's had one-shot kill melee with objectives, but Halo 5's objectives had you holding a pistol with it, didn't it?

KBM vs Controller
There's also the ongoing debate revolving aim assist vs Keyboard Mouse. Even if comparing inputs are asymmetrically balanced, advantages the two inputs have compared to each other do not arguably make this fair. Whether it'd be that grenades, long range fights, or turning around is better on KBM, or controllers have the upper hand in certain weaponry, close-medium range, or ease of use - I would not call this balanced. Even if the aim assist is nerfed from previous Halo's, the ease of use that controller has, is far easier to pickup than someone who's trained years homing their aim on KBM. This doesn't end there, the lack of proper Mouse support with granularity in sensitivity options, makes finding your exact sensitivity impossible. Also, the recent Raleigh Major only facilitated Xbox Series X's, no PCs, so KBM players in that tourney would've had to use whatever terrible support the console gave them. This should give you enough insight on whether or not a KBM player should even bother playing this game,as you're better off competing with a controller. Also, to counter this by saying that the game is a controller-game, is not a good argument. The game is now also on PC and supports KBM. Tournaments now allow KBM as an input method to compete with. They put all the effort to bring it to PC, just to support its primary input method, but apparently they only care for the controller audience? That it's supposedly an exclusively controller game? 343/Microsoft stated, "Halo is for everyone" so I expect everyone's preferences, disabilities, genders, and so forth be kept in mind and supported fully, right? They had one major stride for colorblind people with player outlines, but they forgot a bit more that I may not be fully versed in. They have a bit more work to do in this area, it seems. At the very least they can provide, is more playlist options for crossplay/cross-input options, and separate tournaments for KBM.

Optimization, netcode, options...
If it wasn't for the dynamic resolution, minimum and maximum framerate options, that tries its best in order to reach your desired FPS, it'd have very poor optimization. These options mask the reality that this 4v4 or 12v12 arena styled game with significantly smaller maps than a Battleifeld game, has worse optimization than those. (Excluding how terrible BF2042's optimization was.) The game's visuals are also not that impressive. Details lacking more compared to previous Halo's. Explosion effects and decals are less impactful. Radgolls barely last, and dead vehicles barely remain as long. No collision, terrible desync/delayed hit or melee registration, constant dying behind walls/cover. Triple keybind support and viewmodel adjustments, but forgot the granularity a Mouse needs to properly configure one's aim.

These issues may someday be fixed, but stay away until proven so. At least until Forge.

The only good port I can confidently give a positive review about within the Master Chief Collection. I think all the games are wonderful, very fun experiences, but the technical hurdles or problems along the way make the experience less than enjoyable. These ports have never been true to their original legacy counterparts, except this one, and it pains me that this may be people's first experience with the Halo franchise playing as a PC gamer. All the other games on release in the MCC have had noticeable bugs, issues, or problems somewhere. Whether it'd be issues with unlocked frame-rate and interpolation, issues with disconnects in Co-op, hit-registration not on parity with original games, or audio being muffled. However, with ODST's release, I'm happy to say that this is the most polished one yet being possibly the most true to the original legacy 360 version with PC improvements like variable/unlimted frame-rate.

By now, the framerate interpolation has been fully fixed. Halo 3: ODST will have not have awkward and bizarre "duplicate framerate" while on unlocked frames. This simply means you can play at unlimited FPS now without a jutter/jitter within your screen! The issue still remains within Reach and Halo 2 Anniversary MP (ONLY.)
Demonstration of the problem that still exists in Reach: https://youtu.be/HhxJ2m_2iB4?t=38

Audio has been seemingly restored fully, to original Xbox 360 quality, no more muffled audio, no more bad audio mixing. This is because Microsoft renewed the partnership with Waves Audio. The audio was also fixed in previous Halo MCC titles EXCEPT for Halo 1 Classic and Halo 2 Classic Graphics.
Source: https://www.halowaypoint.com/en-us/news/mcc-development-update-february-2020
Demonstration of audio being fixed in Reach: https://youtu.be/qp7jXfv7ClE
Before it was fixed: https://youtu.be/wwCjW1fIR_w

My personally biggest and most important thing that was fixed, that still exists in Halo 3, was this issue in Co-op: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYYihiIRc18

This issue to me felt very similar to Reach's framerate issue, but it was bizarre this only existed within Co-op if you were not the host. I noticed that when I played with my friends in co-op in ODST, this issue no longer happens to me, and I can confirm from others, they also no longer get this framerate interpolation issue. I had thought this would be fixed in the previous release, Halo 3, but when I went back to test it, the issue still remains. It also "feels" like movement input delay has been improved, but it may still exists due to the deterministic lockstep nature of the Campaign's netcode in co-op.

A ton of little improvements or quality of life fixes have been done. One of which being the centered crosshair view-model being adjusted to not have guns fill half your screen, and this is also much appreciated. It'd be nice for options to change this, and this will be coming in the later Halo release or major patches. Hit registration was finally fixed for Halo 3 with this release, and this was a problem for 6 years on the original xbox one release of MCC, let alone a few months leading up to ODST's release for PC.

Despite the positivity I have for ODST's port, as a whole, Master Chief Collection has been an "Early Access" game without the tag showcasing that. The only reason why it's not is because they are allowing each individual Halo title as "DLC" to sell each one separately for 10$ dollars, or buy the discounted 40$ dollar package. Alternatively, you could've gotten Halo: MCC in the Game Pass, and that would live up to the subscription as a "Service-type game." Buying the full package of the Master Chief Collection on Steam would be Early Access or Pre-ordering, as future games aren't released yet, and MAJOR patches only ever release with the next Halo release. Because major patches only ever happens with the next Halo game release, it feels like Early Access, with player retention lowering by then and players gravitating to the newest Halo release. What feels like good business practice with the Game Pass or buying individual Halo games you specifically only want within the Master Chief Collection, hides a scummy business practice of a pre-ordering, disguised early access, or service type game. Buy now, fix later when you're busy with the next Halo release. Perfect for the game pass, when Microsoft's first party titles, in my opinion, have all been lower quality, unfinished games. Halo does not work as a service type game, with features broken or missing upon launch, or some of the most basic PC features missing too.

With that in mind, the only game I can confidently and fully recommend was this one, because the full package was there and there are no noticeable issues. Although, the full package was only ever the Story mode (Co-op or Solo) and the Wave based mode firefight, so maybe that's why there aren't any noticeable issues. Also, you can't go wrong with this 5$ purchase.

A fantastic game about teamwork and cooperation with your buds, working together under pressure!

Very simple, easy to get a hold of, simplistic controls, and tons of fun.

This game makes me excited for future valve titles again.
A phenomenal experience that left me speechless throughout. A flat, non-vr version would completely ruin the experience, and would require intensive modding to completely change gameplay mechanics throughout.
My only wish is that there were more weapons to play around with, perhaps even melee.

I believe that'll soon be rectified when Half Life 3 releases. Whenever that'll be...