game of the year 2015

2015 was certainly a year. And videogames certainly came out during it. Ho boy.

TO DO:
Assassin's Creed: Syndicate - COMPLETE WITH UNITY MINI-REVIEW
Batman: Arkham Knight
Fallout 4
LEGO Jurassic World
Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
Pokémon Shuffle
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt

I'm over 25 hours into The Witcher 3 but I don't think I'm even half done so it'll be a while before we get more reviews so calm down


Pokémon Shuffle
A free-to-play/pay-to-win Bejeweled clone for 3DS, starring Pokémon.

+ You actually can get everything without paying a cent
- Hope you like grinding!
- "Competitions" are incredibly biased towards people who have had the game the longest, and then they get better shit than everyone else
- So you can't do shit in other events when you need a Fighting Mega, but holy shit you didn't get the Lucarionite
- Oh, this one requires a Fire Mega, but holy shit you didn't get the Charizardite or the Blazikenite
- Event Pokémon and Stones are unobtainable if you missed them until they decide to rerun the event (IF they decide to rerun the event)
- MOBILE players got a free Lucarionite, but I don't get shit despite having been playing the game for months before that version even came out
- Difficulty spikes for seemingly no reason at random points
- Timed stages can go FUCK themselves
- Amelia abandons you after the tutorial (I miss her)

8/10
because i can't stop playing it
every
single
day



Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
The second part of Metal Gear Solid V, set nine years after Ground Zeroes.
For those not keeping track, the Metal Gear timeline is:
>Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater (1964)
>Metal Gear Solid: Portable Ops (1970)
>Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker (1974)
>Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes (1975)
>Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain (1984)
>Metal Gear (1995)
>Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake (1999)
>Metal Gear Solid (2005)
>Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty (2007/2009)
>Metal Gear Solid 4: Guns of the Patriots (2014)
>Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (2018)
Anything else is non-canon. You can argue Portable Ops as non-canon, but it's pointless to do the same for Revengenace. Seeing as it's the latest point in the timeline, it can't contradict shit. Cyborg Raiden wearing a poncho and sombrero is fucking canon, and I will not accept any other answer.


Important note:
If you are a Metal Gear fan, and you really liked the cast of Peace Walker, I do not recommend playing Ground Zeroes or The Phantom Pain.
The story of these games is absolute garbage, and actively ruins many characters from Peace Walker. Cecile and Amanda are exceptions, due to being completely irrelevant, as well as Zadornov and Coldman, due to being, you know, dead. It also ruins a few from MGS3 and MGS1 for kicks.
The gameplay of the MGSV games is the best in the series by miles, but it's not worth putting up with the plot if you're already invested. If you're not invested, just play the game and skip all the cutscenes.


+ You can finally run around Mother Base and hang out with your soldiers
+ By which I mean pelt your soldiers with empty magazines while they just stand there and salute you
+ Your soldiers' codenames are better than in Peace Walker, as they get an adjective as well as an animal
+ However, soldiers you rescue who were on the Peace Walker squad retain their "just an animal" names
+ I legitimately shed a single tear when Ocelot gave me Miller's sunglasses
+ Ocelot reacts when you shoot him with your tranquiliser (he told me to put to sleep whomever I wanted on my team after all)
+ Ocelot reacts when you request a supply drop right on top of your head
+ THE BOX IS BACK
+ YOU CAN POP OUT OF THE TOP OF THE BOX AND SHOOT THE SHIT OUT OF NIGGAS
+ Can Fulton ANIMALS
+ You can go sneaking with one of four buddies: Snake's horse, Snake's dog, Snake's robot, or Snake's waifu
+ They finally explain what the fuck Shalashaska means
+ Open-world gameplay combined with Peace Walker's mission structure is how all Metal Gear games should be
+ The harder version of the "Vs Quiet" mission has her dressed like Sniper Wolf, which is a really nice touch
+ The first mission makes the loading screen the MSF logo instead of the Diamond Dogs logo, which is the best touch
+ The birthday scene is absolutely 10/10, especially Quiet's part (even if I had to YouTube it due to my birthday being nine months after the game came out)
+ The game looks great, even on 360
+ Legitimately amazing licensed soundtrack full of only the best in early '80s pop
+ Take on me take me on I'll be gone in a day or twooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo
+ Woah-oah here she comes; watch out, boy, she'll chew you up
+ Woah-oah here she comes; she's a maneater
+ WE'RE THE KIDS IN AMERICA
+ WOAH-OAH
+ I don't care if Monday's blue; Tuesday's grey and Wednesday, too
+ Thursday, I don't care about you; it's Friday, I'm in love
+ And you can set any one of these brilliant songs to play when your helicopter flies in
+ I don't even give a shit if Friday, I'm in Love was released eight years after the year the game takes place
- KIEFER SUTHERLAND IS NOT SNAKE I DON'T GIVE A SHIT
- "More serious tone" my fucking ass; the game begins with Meryl-ass Psycho Mantis summoning Fire Volgin to do whatever the fuck
- Then fucking Fire Volgin mounts his Fire Unicorn Pegasus and chases Ocelot and Snake on their own horse
- I'M NOT FUCKING JOKING ABOUT THIS SHIT THAT IS ACTUALLY WHAT HAPPENED
- BUT NO DAVID HAYTER COULD NOT EMOTE WELL IN THIS SERIOUS SCENE
- Snake's ponytail is fucking stupid
- "Punished 'Venom' Snake" is a fucking stupid name
- Miller has become a whiny emo
- Fuck Huey
- Meryl Mantis is fucking stupid
- Fire Volgin is fucking stupid
- Skullface is fucking stupid
- Skulls are fucking stupid
- "oh let's fucking absorb a shitload of ammo, kill you in one hit (if you're lucky you get two) and teleport around like who even gives a shit"
- All this parasites shit makes me miss nanomachines
- MGO character creation woven into the intro is a bit confusing
- "Tail" missions invariably become "stop and watch as a couple idiots meander for an hour"
- One time, D-Horse just wouldn't gallop for no reason (failing the mission for me since it was timed and all)
- The back of the box lies about how much harddrive space you need to install the game
- Every single item you get from the Day One Edition has its own download code
- Really fucking tired of sitting in the helicopter waiting for the missions to start
- Mother Base is pointlessly huge and tedious to navigate
- I hated when they'd bring me back to Mother Base after a mission, and I'd have to wait for a helicopter, wait for it to leave, and FUCKING HELL
- IT FEELS LIKE HALF THE GAME IS SPENT IN THE HELICOPTER WAITING TO START A MISSION OR LEAVE SOMEPLACE
- Patches added a glitch where your money just disappears and then everyone's mad at you for being in the red
- The game's main theme (a la Snake Eater, Calling to the Night, Heavens Divide) is absolutely terrible
- "YO-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII YO-HAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIIII"
- Nuclear isn't actually in the game
- How was I supposed to know to go into one specific room on one specific strut of Mother Base to find out the CRUCIAL PLOT DETAIL that Paz isn't dead?
- No wait, she's still dead; it's just ham-fisted symbolism
- Have to watch Paz pull out her own intestines
- The requirements to get the true final mission are never explained and no one online can agree on what they even fucking are
- Except, wait! The REAL ending of the game was cut entirely!
- If you complete a certain mission, Quiet leaves FOREVER
- And there's nothing to replace her at fucking all
- You can avoid this, though! All you have to do is unlock the Butterfly emblem and use it as your emblem! Which fucking no one would figure out on their own!
- APPARENTLY IF YOU REPLAY THE MISSION WHERE SHE JOINS YOU SEVEN TIMES AFTER SHE LEAVES, SHE REJOINS YOU
- IT'S TRUE MY UNCLE IS HIDEO KOJIMA

If the game had ended after Skull Face's death, it would have been much better, honestly. Keep the postgame "recover the Mammal Pod" and "recover Volgin's body" missions, but that's about it. Maybe more missions where you do mercenary work, since those are nice.
Keep the fact that Eli is really Liquid Snake more of a nudge and wink, exile Huey right fucking after finding the pod since he's an absolute fucker, and find a way to wrap up the whole Quiet storyline without preventing you from using the most useful party member.

I WILL SAY HOWEVER
The way this game explains things that happened in MG1 and 2 was kind of brilliant.
SPOILERS OF COURSE

So, the Snake you play as in this game is a random MSF soldier who has been created as a body double of Big Boss while the REAL Big Boss goes on to do the Outer Heaven/Foxhound thing.
This explains two things:
1: Miller, having found out about the body double well after the fact, felt betrayed and helped Snake to kill Big Boss in MG2.
2: The Big Boss who was killed MG1 was actually the body double from this game.
While the rest of the plot is absolute garbage, this one point is a 10/10 plot victory. I fully support this. If only they'd kept Big Boss voiced by Hayter in Ground Zeroes, and had "Ishmael" voiced by Hayter as well. R.I.P. David Hayter

Gameplay: 10/10
Graphics: 10/10
Soundtrack: 10/10
Voice acting: 8/10
Story: 3/10
A bunch of stupid bullshit that needs to bring the average down: 0/10

Average: 7/10
(rounded to the nearest half)

OFFICIAL SNAKE POWER RANKINGS:
1. Naked Snake
2. Liquid Snake
3. Solid Snake
4. Solidus Snake
POWER GAP
9,001. Venom Snake

OFFICIAL MASTER MILLER POWER RANKINGS:
1. Liquid Snake
2. Kazuhira Miller

R.I.P. Crawling Whale
2015 - 2015
You were truly the best of us.



Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell
This is the fifth entry in the Saints Row series, even if the next game will likely be titled "Saints Row Five".
Saints Row was a straight GTA clone with little in the way of a personal identity.
Saints Row 2 was also a GTA clone, but the side missions got pretty fucking wacky, ranging from a COPS knock-off TV show where you pretend to be a cop and kill people with heavy weaponry to missions where you drive a sceptic truck and spray faeces onto buildings, people, and cars. In spite of this, the main story of the game had a good number of serious moments, including a mercy killing.
Saints Row the Third took the praise for its predecessor to mean that it should be ALL WACKY ALL THE TIME The game still masqueraded as a GTA clone, but absolutely everything was ridiculous and over-the-top.
Saints Row Forever After IV dropped the pretense and just decided to be wacky as fuck. You're the president of the United States, aliens destroy Earth, you're trapped in a virtual simulation where you get superpowers. Probably for the best.
Saints Row: Gat Out of Hell is a side story starring Johnny Gat, making it the first game where you don't play as The Boss, a character of your own creation. This game has The Boss get abducted into Hell itself, and Johnny has to save him.

The game came out at $20, which is good, because it would have been ridiculous to release this at full price. Don't get me wrong, it's not a bad game. It just reuses so much shit from SR3+4 that it isn't even funny.

As a note, I somehow ended up with the "First Edition" when I bought the game for $10 from a pawn shop. Amazingly, the download code for the purple wings and the skull guy was unused.
Also, I didn't play any of the SR4 DLC, due to SR2's and SR3's DLC being a huge rip-off.

+ Only $20
+ The game automatically imports your SR4 character (or is just really good at guessing what I'd make)
+ The wings are pretty fun to play around with
+ Shitloads of references to past Saints Row games
+ Showtune
+ The various magic powers you get are nice, especially the vacuum stomp
+ The Seven Deadly Weapons are pretty fucking neato
+ Especially the chair
- But not the gluttony one (still have no clue how it works)
- The default shotgun (fully upgraded) is OP as a motherfucker
- Storybook shit is kind of distracting
- The narrator is A LOT louder than everything else
- Steelport again, again
- I still don't like Kinzie very much (would rather have had a Johnny/Piers bro-op desu)
- If it had to be guy + girl I guess I'd take the British lady
- No licensed soundtrack
- I mean, fuck, I would have accepted reusing SR4's soundtrack (mostly just for The Touch)
- There's an achievement for playing the game for 20 hours when there isn't even 10 hours worth of content
- The story progression is terrible (I have no idea how it works)
- Final boss fight is pretty bad

6.5/10
but only because it's $20
if it were a full-price retail game it would get a 3/10

looking forward to SR5 even if I have no clue how they'll do it

Literally the only new console game from 2015 that I've played is Fallout 4, and that was on PC.

I guess I played a bit of WWE 2K16 too but yeah.

Not a busy year for me.

The Witcher III: Wild Hunt
The The Witcher series is based on a series of books of the same name. The books' author is Polish, and games are made in Poland, too. I didn't play the first game (PC exclusive, and mine's a toaster), but I really enjoyed the second game.
The second game was mostly about politics and assassinations of kings and whatnot, which is apparently odd for a Witcher to be involved with. Witchers are humans who are engineered to fight monsters that normal humans can't.
This one is about finding Geralt's daughter in three separate regions, then dealing with the titular Wild Hunt.

I don't know how the developers intended the game to be broken down into acts, but let's say this is how it goes (avoiding major spoilers naturally):
Tutorial: Kaer Morhen (exposition)
Prologue: White Orchard/Vizima (exposition)
Act I: Velen (rising action)
Act II: Novigrad (rising action)
Act III: Skellige (rising action)
Act IV: climax
Act V: falling action
Epilogue: dénouement

The Velen/Novigrad/Skellige sections are far too long to be treated as just one act, and each has its own objectives and character arcs. It would also make act one more than three times as long as two and three, not even including irrelevant side quests.
On the other hand, you can technically do Velen/Novigrad/Skellige in any order. You're given all of those objectives right away, and you can beeline for Novigrad and do that right away.
The only catch with the plan is that you need 1,000 gold to get to Skellige, so you'd need to raise funds hardcore. And, of course, the monsters and such in Skellige are stronger than those in Velen or Novigrad.

There are a total of 16 free pieces of DLC for this game, ranging from cosmetic shit like costumes and hairstyles to actual quests. I'm downloading them all, and I will 100% forget which are DLC and which aren't, so they'll be counted toward the game's pluses and minuses. Be warned that the girls' alternate outfits automatically overwrite the originals. Ciri's and Triss's are superior to the originals (Ciri's especially), but Yennefer's is debatable.
There's also a season pass that I bought and will review later. Hearts of Stone is out now and will be the next review. It is supposed to be ten hours long. Then, later this year, Blood and Wine will come out. That one is supposed to be twenty hours long.

This game also marks the first time I've heard the word "cuckold" outside of the internet.

+ Absolutely beautiful characters and environments
+ Game world is huge but not a pain to navigate
+ The game actually explains all its shit and doesn't expect you to read a hundred or so real-ass books
+ Story tone is top-notch, even with some silly side quests (fighting for the honour of the maid Bilberry several times comes to mind)
+ The story's slow pace really lets its subplots and characters be fully explored
+ The made-up card game is actually pretty neat (great balance of luck and strategy)
+ Once you get a good deck going, it starts to get really fun/tense (and a decent moneymaker in more than one quest)
+ If story events kill off/remove a character you could play against to get a unique card, the game places the card near where they were before for you to grab
+ Potions are actually useful this time
+ You can slice guys in two and see the separate pieces on the ground
+ Most times you have to follow someone, they go at the pace you decide (you walk, they walk; you run, they run)
+ The finale of the Skellige fist-fighting quest is a shirtless fist fight against a fucking bear
+ When you're a high enough level, you can just punch wolves and bears to death
+ Wilhelm scream
+ Geralt's voice actor is perfect as always
+ Phillipa's voice actress is still perfect at being completely unlikable
+ Ciri is voiced by JO WYATT (aka the best voice)
+ Ciri actually plays very differently than Geralt in the sections where you play as her
+ A lot of characters are written so they're not obviously in the right or in the wrong (the Bloody Baron being a big example)
+ QUESTS WITH ACTUALLY AMBIGUOUS MORAL DECISIONS (rather than the standard "help an old lady cross the street or punch a baby" shit)
+ There is a quest where you can throw a baby into an oven, however
+ Level ups come at a very good pace; not too quickly or too slowly
+ I still really like how summaries in the quest log are written like Dandelion is telling the story to the reader
+ Whether or not you decided to kill Letho in the last game drastically changes a certain side quest (and affects whether or not you get another)
+ Doing the Morkvarg side quest before getting the main quest to find Skjall dramatically changes the quest and dialogue (since Morkvarg is already dead)
+ Look at this Chekhov's Gun-ass shit (I'd already forgotten about Uma, since it had been like fifty hours since it had been introduced)
+ Getting WASTED with the other witchers
+ SNOWBALL FIGHT
+ Look at this Chekhov's Gun-ass shit (I'd thought the game had forgotten about the swamp hags, but sixty hours later, here they are again)
+ Look at this Chekhov's Gun-ass shit (I'd already forgotten about the Goddamn owl, since it had been like fifty hours since it had been introduced)
+ Oh man all these side quests I'll be here for years
- It's a bit weird to get a side quest at level 3 and see the level recommendation be 33
- Quest log gets REALLY cluttered REALLY quickly because of this (it calms down after Novigrad, when you can actually do most quests, however)
- "Recommended level: level 14" fails to mention the much higher level monsters along the path who will tear you a new etc.
- I ended up with like a hundred of these passes to get to the big city they just give them out like candy
- You can have a happy ending with either Triss or Yennefer, but not Keira
- It's very easy to accidentally have to kill Keira when all you want is for her to NOT die
- It can be a bit hard to see in Witcher Vision at times (or low light in general)
- I found myself having trouble deciding what skills to put my level up points into after a while because I didn't particularly want any of them
- Sometimes the horse won't gallop for seemingly no reason (unsheathing a sword seems to fix it)
- Horse gets stuck on nothing sometimes (most common in Skellige)
- One time like sixty hours into the game Geralt's face had some kind of protrusion that should not have been protruding (fixed by saving and reloading)
- One time like ninety hours into the game Geralt refused to draw his sword or attack anything, couldn't save either (had to reload an earlier save)
- The default armour is by far the best-looking, but ends up being outclassed soon after you get to the second area
- "THIS IS WINTER'S BLADE FORGED IN AGES PAST BY DRAGON'S FIRE" and it's also worse than the unenchanted axe I got off a bandit's corpse
- Oh god the swamp hags I'll never sleep again
- Pre-rendered cutscenes are jarring as fuck when they suddenly swap the girls' outfits to their default
- Triss has buggy AI in the Now or Never mission
- One mission has you follow a guy who always walks faster than your walking speed but slower than your running speed
- HAVE to give the spy half your fucking reward money at the end of High Stakes, with no other option but to stand around and enjoy being robbed blind
- The Novigrad Closed City side quest is buggy as shit
- The Wandering in the Dark mission could have stood to be a bit shorter (a lot shorter)
- Load times could also stand to be shorter (especially frustrating after dying to a boss or flaming barn six or seven times)
- Getting kind of tired of hearing the same narration every time I load a save that isn't the most recent one
- Limited number of save slots

Game crashes:
1. Accessing the signpost near Roche's camp; crashed trying to load the fast travel menu (38-40 hours into the game)
2. Entering the big race through Novigrad on Cleaver's invitation; crashed right as soon as it loaded the start line (47-48 hours into the game)
3. Shopping; crashed right after buying meteorite silver ingot (73-74 hours into the game)
4. When I tried to restore an old save after making a MISTAKE (85-86 hours into the game)
All in Novigrad, oddly. I did the exact same thing after every crash, and it didn't crash a second time in the same place.

10/10
I normally hesitate to give games a perfect 10 right away, but this game deserves it. Perfection is unobtainable, but none of this game's flaws really detract from the overall picture. Sure, it's the first of the Xbone games I have to play, and Fallout 4 might be amazing (cough), but this is without a doubt my GOTY 2015. There's just so much shit, and it's all good shit. All the side quests feel well-written and interesting, all the characters fill their roles well, all of the voice acting is great.
The main plot is constructed in such a way that you immediately get a sense of who everyone is if you haven't had any prior experience with the series (but of course some appearances are more meaningful if you've already met them). Giving Ciri her own playable segments gives the player a chance to connect with her and want to search for her (it also doesn't hurt that she has the best voice).
Geralt is portrayed in such a way that playing him as either a "solve everyone's problems" or a "I only do this shit for money" character doesn't feel jarring. His lines are also written in such a way that mixing and matching based on how you yourself feel about a problem or character doesn't feel jarring, either.

This game is legitimately up there with Oblivion and New Vegas as a 10/10 WRPG. I might also throw Jade Empire in there.

This is a long game. The goals of the main story seem simple and focused, but things go off course when you have to deal with people who want shit from you. Add to this hundreds of side quests and a huge map to explore, and you've got a game that's going to take nearly 100 hours to complete.
I'd also recommend at least playing the second game before this one, so you're looking at around 150 hours or so.

if you're curious:
i fucked keira
i romanced triss
i friendzoned yennefer HARD

ending shit:

PLAYING HEARTS OF STONE NEXT
AND THEN I'LL REVIEW BLOOD AND WINE WHEN IT COMES OUT

The Witcher III: Hearts of Stone
The first of two major expansions to The Witcher III. You can either choose to start a new game at level 32, doing only expansion shit, or use your character from the main story.
Time played (after doing only the main game): 88 hours
Time played (after finishing Hearts of Stone): 107 hours
The developer claimed that Hearts of Stone would take ten hours to complete. I spent over an hour redoing some shit (more on that later), and about an hour-and-a-half doing quests from the main game, so their estimate of ten hours to complete was still under what I got out of it. A pleasant surprise, really.

+ The game lets you start a "Hearts of Stone only" save file that starts you at level 32 with a bunch of shit
+ Hearts of Stone quests are blue in the quest log to differentiate them from base game quests
+ Without a Trace rewards you for not listening to the objectives list
+ The heist quest was pretty fucking cool, and being able to choose your crew (sort of) was pretty neat (and the armour you get is both cool-looking and usable)
+ I fucking love being able to solve my problems by playing card games; makes me feel like Jaden fucking Yuki (chillin' out with the crew in the schoolyard)
+ Scenes from a Marriage was pretty creative (kind of reminds me of Psychonauts to be honest)
+ I felt more feelings at the whole Iris thing than at anything in the main game
+ Final quest was pretty fucking neato
- I legitimately thought the sandniggers had taken me to Arabia rather than a beach a hundred feet from Novigrad
- "Bring lots of money to the auction!" when you need less than a thousand gold to buy everything (and the "Hearts of Stone only" save starts you with 20,000)
- Vlodimir makes you look like a fucking tool at the wedding (wearing a Goddamn dress and giving you a tumblr hairstyle)
- The Wild Ones could stand to be a bit less wild
- The Wild Rose Dethorned achievement is buggy as shit (had to take advantage of the "Hearts of Stone only" save and do it all again, which took about forty minutes)
- The Master Armourer is still in fucking Crow's Perch why wasn't there a fast travel point next to the Goddamn armourer it takes forever to walk up there and back

Game crashes between finishing the main game and finishing Hearts of Stone:
1. Trying to access my inventory during the buggy as fuck Novigrad Closed City quest (89-90 hours into the game)
Again, Novigrad seems to be the place to go if you'd like the game to crash.

9/10
This is a very interesting questline. The first quest is a bit unremarkable, but each and every quest after that is creative and completely different than what was in the main game. The DLC has some issues (buggy achievements being the biggest), but it's really enjoyable. It provides more hours of gameplay than it promises, and it's well worth the price.

Can't wait for Blood and Wine.

LEGO Jurassic World
The millionth twice yearly LEGO game. This one takes us through all four Jurassic Park movies. I've actually seen all of them, which is completely out of character for me.
After the tutorial/prologue, you can continue with the story of the original Jurassic Park, or you can jump ahead to Jurassic World. You have to unlock The Lost World and JP3 by completing JP1 and TLW, respectively.
I'd have played LEGO Dimensions, but it's expensive as fuck, especially if you want to buy extra characters for it.
join us next year for lego marvel's avengers and maybe a second one if they're tenacious
update: lego star wars the force awakens has been announced but i haven't seen the movie sooooooooooooooo
update: i have now seen the movie (it was just okay)

+ The developer splash at the beginning is neat
+ Best title screen I've seen in ages; shows you a few little scenes around the park (wish there were a few more though)
+ Each movie has its own level complete screen background
+ Gyrosphere is sweet as fuck
+ They got the JW actors to record new dialogue for their characters
+ The dinosaur chases where you get to be the dinosaur are neat
+ It's just like all the other LEGO games
- It's just like all the other LEGO games
- The dinosaur chases where you get chased by the dinosaur nearly always have you run at the camera, which makes it frustrating to try and get shit in those sections
- Can't turn down just the music or just the loud as fuck dinosaur noises
- Dialogue ripped from the original movie sounds way worse than the new dialogue for the game and the later movies, to the point where it's really jarring
- The stegosaurus boss battle is incredibly annoying with only one player, since the AI just stands around doing nothing
- The game froze at the end cutscene for a level and I had to quit out and start the level over
- ERIIIIIIIIIIIIC
- ERIIIIIIIIIIIIC
- ERIIIIIIIIIIIIC
- ERIIIIIIIIIIIIC
- ERIIIIIIIIIIIIC
- Game bugged out at the beginning of the second level of JP3 and I had to restart the mission
- Brontosauruses move so slowly

7.5/10
It's a LEGO game.

Fallout 4
The second Fallout game made by Bethesda. The first two were isometric RPGs published by Interplay, but they folded and Bethesda lapped up the rights. Fallout: New Vegas (the best one) was made by Obsidian, which featured several former Fallout developers.
Interplay and Obsidian's games are consistent with eachother, and take place on the west coast.
Bethesda either doesn't understand what made Fallout what it was, or doesn't give a shit, and their games take place on the east coast. (those statements aren't related by the way)
i also refer exclusively to the united states aka the only country that exists
U S A
S
A
Fallout 4 takes place in Boston, which is nice, since it's probably the only place a videogame could ever be set that I've actually been to. wicked awesome and all that
Fallout 4 decides to forgo RPG cliches such as "having decent dialogue" in favour of a Mass Effect-ass dialogue wheel. Except where Mass Effect had six dialogue options, Fallout 4 has four, including such amazing choices as "HATE NEWSPAPERS".
This one's also got a season pass, but I'm gonna pass. They've upped the price of it somewhere along the line, and are adding more content than they'd planned. But here's the thing: I don't care about two-thirds of what's been announced so far. The first is $10, and is just robot shit to make your own robots. The second is $5, and allows you to capture Deathclaws and make them fight to the death in the arena. Both sound like a waste of money.
The third is a whopping $25. It's a full expansion with a new map based on Bar Harbour, Maine, and it actually sounds neat. I'll wait until it goes on sale, though, naturally.

I stopped playing for a few months at some point. When I came back to it, I decided to say "fuck it" and threw the difficulty down from normal to very easy.
Playing this game on normal after a certain point just makes it tedious. Every enemy ends up being a bullet sponge, even the basic raider enemies. God help you if you run into a legendary super mutant whatever. The game is FAR more enjoyable when you turn down the difficulty, and you won't go through a billion dollars worth of ammo in one encounter.

Think of this game as a sort of reverse Skyrim.
Skyrim removed attributes and relied solely on skills.
Fallout 4 removes skills and relies solely on attributes.
Both systems are ridiculous and insulting to my intelligence. I don't claim to be a fucking brain surgeon, but Oblivion's and Fallout 3/New Vegas's level up systems were fine. Both were better than the gutted system the sequel got.

Think of the story as a sort of reverse Fallout 3.
In Fallout 3, you were a son traversing the wasteland looking for his father.
In Fallout 4, you are a father traversing the wasteland looking for his son.
This kind of parity isn't unprecedented, since the first two games had similar setups.
In Fallout 1, you are looking for a water chip to save your vault's inhabitants.
In Fallout 2, you are looking for a GECK to create a more livable environment (after a long drought) to save your village's inhabitants.
LOOK FORWARD TO NEW VEGAS 2 WHERE YOU HUNT DOWN A MAN YOU YOURSELF SHOT IN THE HEAD IN THE INTRO

I once again ventured into a wasteland as GORDON. He is one of many Gordons linked telepathically, so he knows to hate certain people right away. Despite being the oldest of the Gordons by a couple centuries, he will now and forever be referred to as Gordon III. Gordon Prime was from Fallout 3, and King Gordon II was from New Vegas.
no gordons have ever been to california the idea is ridiculous
fallout started with 3 just like final fantasy started with 7

Gordon III's SPECIAL:
S 3
P 4
E 3
C 6
I 6
A 3
L 3
Yes, I looked up the perk chart beforehand. If I hadn't, he'd be completely different and I'd have started over a few hours in because I couldn't get the perks I wanted.

Spoiler:

+ Robo-butler actually calls Gordon III by his given name, unlike if he'd been named something stupid like Nick or Brandon
+ They removed the shitty fucking karma system from Fallout 3
+ You can make your Pip-boy and HUD any colour you like
+ The companions are legit great (for the most part)
+ You can romance ALL OF THE WOMEN AT ONCE
+ The companions' voice acting is spot-on, especially Piper, Curie, and Nick
+ Baseball stadium city was pretty creative and NOT retarded
+ The Silver Shroud quest is 10/10 quest of the year (unless you play as a woman because the voice actress is terrible for it)
+ If you save him, Kent will upgrade the Silver Shroud costume at levels 25, 35, and 45, making it the second-best non-power armour suit in the game
+ Nick Valentine's detective agency quest was great (I wish there were more)
+ My character and I just said "nice" at the exact same time after picking a lock
+ Weapon modding is pretty fuckin neato 
+ You can even rename your weapons; I named mine "The Motherfucker", "Cunt Destroyer", and "Pussy Pulveriser" (semi-ironically of course)
+ Creating your own settlements is also neat
- Except you get too many of them and they all demand your attention
- And settler controls DON'T
- FUCKING
- WORK
- 99% of quests are "go here and kill guys"
- Radiant quests can go fuck themselves
- Can't reorder quests in the quest log, or hide bullshit radiant quests that you never stop getting
- CUNT FROM CHILD VILLAGE RETURNS AND IS UNKILLABLE AGAIN
- FUCK
- ASS
- SHIT
- COCK
- The boxart is the same uninspired shit from Fallout 3
- No subtitles in the "war never changes" intro, despite the guy mumbling like his life depended on it
- Ron Perlman is not the guy who says "war never changes" (war never changes has changed)
- Niggers in pseudo-1950s American suburbs (AT LEAST TRY AND BE FAITHFUL TO THE TIME PERIOD IF YOU'RE DOING A 1950s-ASS INTRO)
- Mouth movements can be a bit creepy, especially in the intro
- Reused songs from Fallout 3 that I'm already sick of (I'll never get sick of bingo bango bongo though)
- Subtitles get stuck on certain lines of dialogue (GLAD I'M NOT DEAF)
- Dialogue options are nearly always "yes"/"no"/"yes but later"/"stupid question" (except when they're "yes"/"yes with angst"/"sarcastic yes"/"stupid question")
- The autosave always saves in a new slot, so good luck finding any particular save you'd like to go back to
- Companions say the same line of dialogue over and over until you talk to them and get them out of the loop
- Raider armour looks absolutely ridiculous
- I walked by a car and it was haunted so it bitch-slapped me with its front end and killed me
- Weapons and Pip-boy can turn invisible at random moments
- Some standard features have become perks (like reverse-pickpocketing a live grenade onto a guy)
- Acid rain is fucking bullshit and you know it
- Can only have one companion (New Vegas let you have a human and a robot/dog at the same time)
- Can't sleep in Piper's bed even if you made her fall in love with you
- Curie's not-human body could be better (the outfit/hairstyle and voice/personality do not match at all)
- The Blind Betrayal quest's dialogue is suspect, to say the least, in order to give it a possible perfect 100% happy ending
- Liberty Prime is a team-killing piece of shit
- "Legendary" enemies are fucking retarded, especially when a "Legendary raider" mutates for no reason
- Every enemy is a fucking bullet sponge
- Giant enemies are excerises in tedium, especially if you don't have a rocket launcher
- Spectacle Island is fucking bullshit-ass fucking shit-ass cock-fucking ass-fucking bullshit-ass motherfucking goddamn-ass bullshit-ass fucking goddamn-ass BULLSHIT

This game is where we draw the line between "I had fun with it" and "it's a good game".
Fallout 4 is not a good game, but I had fun with it. Even disregarding the many, many technical issues, the whole design philosophy of this game was retarded. Bethesda seem intent on taking the two most profitable RPG series and making them NOT RPGs. Levelling up means very little now. You get ten more HP, and one useless perk. There's hardly any sense of character development. Oh, how could I forget achievements at levels 5, 10, 25, and 50?!
The retarded "radiant quest" system introduced in Skyrim is back with a vengeance, and worse than ever before. More on that later. Both the radiant quests and almost all of the scripted quests boil down to:
1. Talk to guy and agree to quest (optionally ask for more money)
2. Clear a building of raiders, super mutants, synths, or ghouls (occasionally mirelurks) [more enemy variety than Draugrim, thankfully]
3. (Optional) Grab an item (or PLACE an item if you're lucky!)
4. Return to guy and get your money
it
just
works
Even Fallout 3 had more quests where you could talk your way out of violence. The dialogue might have been retarded (I told Eden to blow up the entire base and he actually did it the absolute madman!), but they tried.
Just give Fallout to Obsidian please

I do honestly wish I had created Piper's character to use in my Things that no one reads. Oh well maybe I can put her in in a few years once I've forgotten Fallout 4


Game crashes:
1. Trying to build my town; I LOST A SHITLOAD OF PROGRESS HERE (2 hours into the game)
2. Reloading a quicksave (23-24 hours into the game)
3. Trying to pause the fucking game and save (32-33 hours into the game)
4. Trying to rename a weapon (43-44 hours into the game)
5. Walking over to a corpse to loot it, next to some radiation barrels while Liberty Prime was scanning the MIT ruins (65-66 hours into the game)

bingo bango bongo i don't wanna leave the congo oh no-no-no-no-no
NOTABLE TRACKS:
Like every song returns from Fallout 3.
New:
Atom Bomb Baby (GOAT)
Keep a-Knockin' (great)
The End of the World (GOAT)
The Wanderer (GOAT)
Uranium Fever (GOAT)
Whole Lotta Shakin' Goin' On (great)
there are others but let's face it: they are not notable

the end of the world though
i was NOT prepared for my roof to suddenly leak right onto my cheeks

They really should have left out all the Fallout 3 tracks except Civilisation. I'm glad they didn't bring in any from New Vegas, because most of those were very Western or Vegas, neither of which would work in Boston.
Really wish you could choose which songs will play on the radio.
as a note:
DJ POWER RANKINGS
1. Mr. New Vegas
POWER GAP
2. Travis
3. Margaret
4. Tabitha and Rhonda
5. John Henry Eden
POWER GAP
6. absolute silence
...
...
...
9,001. Three Dog
three dog can go FUCK HIMSELF


Now let's talk about some Bethesda-ass quest design. I'm going to go through a few quests that stood out as particularly retarded, and explain why they are.

Diamond City Blues:
The premise is simple: you witness a fight between a man and a bartender over the man's wife. The man later comes up to you and admits that he's a cuck, and asks for your help to confront the bartender again. All is fine so far.
You get to the bar, and the man pulls a gun on the bartender. All is still fine. You can pass a speech check and talk him out of it, which is still fine.
So bartender man decides to make it up to both the man and you by telling the two of you about his plan to rob a rich man's son and a bunch of drug dealers. A bit shaky, but whatever.
Here's the bad part: Your options here are to accept the deal or kill the bartender. There is no option to say "woah man I don't want to do this". You cannot physically back out of this dialogue without comitting to murdering one man or murdering half a dozen men.
Here's something even stranger: My moralfag newspaper journalist companion, Piper, is perfectly fucking fine with killing the half a dozen men. 
ALL I WANTED TO DO WAS TO END A CUCKING
I DIDN'T WANT HALF A DOZEN MEN'S BLOOD ON MY HANDS

Feeding the Troops:
Radiant quests at their finest.
The idea of this quest is to get farms to give the Brotherhood of Steel some of their crops to help the war effort. Fine, whatever.
Except that the guy had me go to Tenpines Bluff three times in a row.
"yo dog give us crops"
"ok"
"wow great job now go and get crops from the place you just got crops from"
"sounds good"

Blind Betrayal:
MAJOR PLOT SPOILERS HERE DOG
It's revealed that Brotherhood of Steel Paladin Dance is actually a robot. The Brotherhood of Steel hates the idea of human-like robots, claiming they are no different than the nukes that destroyed the world - science going too far and creating something that will destroy the world.
You're tasked with destroying Dance, and are told where to find him. You go there, and you can either just straight-up kill him or convince him to live. Since he truly believes in the Brotherhood's ideals, he wants to be destroyed, unless you convince him otherwise.
Here's the stupid part:
If you leave Dance alive, when you leave, the elder is waiting for you. How he knew your location is a mystery. But you can convince him to let Dance live, in spite of every single thing he says and believes both before and after the quest contradicting his actions in this quest. It truly would have been better if you'd just returned with his dogtags and been able to say "yo he's dead dog", rather than talk at the elder until you get your way. If the elder truly has to confront you right there, make it a straight-up no excuses choice between Dance surviving and remaining a member of the Brotherhood.
The excuse for not having to write more dialogue for every Brotherhood member if Dance lives is fine, as a note.

in the end:
Oblivion = New Vegas >>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>>> Skyrim >> Fallout 4 > Fallout 3

WRPG ratings (simplified):
5/5: Oblivion, New Vegas, The Witcher 3, Jade Empire
4/5: The Witcher 2, Mass Effect, Dragon Age: Origins, Fable III, Deus Ex: Human Revolution
3/5: Skyrim, Mass Effect 2, Mass Effect 3, Dragon Age II, Fable, Fable II
2/5: Fallout 4, Dishonoured, The Lord of the Rings: War in the North
1/5: Fallout 3

yes fable iii was the best fable game fuck off

One last thing before I end this review:
Achievements have ruined me and the way I play games. If this game had come out on the Wii U or some shit, I would have plowed through to the Railroad ending and not given a single fuck (since the Minutemen's fort quest pissed me off). Instead, I used a flowchart to get all the achievements. I'm a terrible person.

6.5/10
i know that's higher than 2/5
it's not a good wrpg
it's a decent enough game

Man, Fallout 4 was the disappointment of the year for me. I won't add too much since you nailed most of it, but I really hated how plain pointless this game felt. The open world is boring with barely fuck-all of anything interesting to explore, the main quest can be finished in an afternoon, too few factions that are pretty boring anyway apart from the Brotherhood I guess. Having a voiced protagonist was a completely bad idea on top of the gutted and dumbed down dialogue system. Pretty much nothing to do in the city besides kill thugs, boring linear story where choices barely mean shit, way too many boring "important" unkillable NPCs that made me feel restricted in freedom more than anything, and to top it all off there's barely anything new in the series. Same enemies and shit we've seen in all the previous games (scorpions in fucking Boston? Seriously?).

I guess you're right about the game still being pretty fun despite all the problems. I enjoyed the verticality in the city, climbing dilapidated bridges and having shootouts across rooftops was pretty damn sweet. And I enjoyed a lot of the quests like that one where with the robots and the ship. Really though the game was ultimately just forgettable for me which is a crime for a Fallout game. I don't think I'll plan on touching the overpriced DLC either.

The voiced protagonist was my main concern going in, and I was pretty much right.

There are a bunch of ideas that could have gone somewhere, but they just didn't.
Like, the mayor of Diamond City is a synth.
Did you even know that? I wouldn't have if I hadn't read the wiki.
There's one throwaway quest where you get some information from him and give it back to the Institute. Wow.
His document says Piper is a threat, but you can't, like, tell Piper about it or anything.

The Institute in general was just so underdeveloped, and you become leader and nothing happens. The game's over.


You're also right about the enemies, which I hadn't even thought of.
I was directly comparing it to Skyrim, where every dungeon was a draugr dungeon.
For new enemies, Fallout 4 had what? Stingwings (weaker version of New Vegas's Cazadors), robots with tits, and the synths.
Reusing Liberty Prime just felt cheap, as well.



But I think I need to list some of the quests I actually liked, because I didn't really mention them.

The unmarked quest to get the FEV cure for Virgil was kind of neat, and had a cool atmosphere.
The Cabot House questline was neat, with the anti-aging serum and the insane asylum level.
The Silver Shroud quest I mentioned, but it's truly the best part of the game.
The Covenant quest was a neat idea, if a bit underdeveloped. Reusing the G.O.A.T. test from Fallout 3 was kind of stupid, though.
The missing person quest for Nick was great, but I wish there were more.

So that's, what? Five out of around eighty?


And I didn't say it in the review, but the Railway Rifle is the GOAT.

REVIEW UPDATE:

Pokémon Shuffle

They have ruined this game.
>Stages that cost coins to play
>When coins are a finite resource you need a shitload of to even beat some stages

>"Skill boosters" which are RNG-ass drops sometimes maybe from Pokémon
>And of course the best Pokémon take forever to upgrade

>More and more impossible stages
I've been stuck on Roserade for MONTHS, and the only thing that can get me past it would be to buy a shitload of JEWels and spam them after failing the stage over and over and over.

PAYWALL-BASED GAMES ARE FUCKING TRASH
GRINDING-BASED GAMES ARE FUCKING TRASH

YOU HAVE TWO OPTIONS IN THIS FUCKING GAME AND THEY'RE BOTH FUCKING GARBAGE

FUCK
THIS
GAME

at least i don't have to stay up until 2AM any more
FUCK

I'm in the same boat but with Vivillon. It's kind of incredible how difficult some levels are, and entirely out of the blue.

That electivire and groudon special that cost money are pretty BS, but I haven't spent any money in quite some time. I think I'm up to like 18,000 coins. Though right now I mostly just want to do timed levels to get things like Mewtwo, but timed levels are the absolute worst. I think I might give up on shuffle very soon.

You're absolutely right about timed stages. I've caught everything up through Mewtwo, and I really don't want to do the rest.
I grinded out S-ranks to get 180 for Dennis, and he's impossible.

And you need 400 S-ranks for Hydreigon. That is just ridiculous.
For comparison, you are on stage 220, and I am on stage 250.

Batman: Arkham Knight
Bam Ham Nig
Notably, the game's case chooses to completely ignore Arkham Origins. I get why, but it's still notable. The game itself does reference Origins, though.
This game goes even harder on the open world shit by adding the Batmobile. It works out really well. The ability to switch from driving the Batmobile to flying around Gotham is smooth and fun.
The original Bam Ham (Bam: A Ham Yum) was by far the best one. The level design was tight, and I ended up going back through every area every time I got something new, rather than waiting for the end like the other games.
Bam: Ham City was also a great game, and I don't really have any complaints about it. I just didn't feel the same sense of wonder and I didn't get excited about exploring everywhere.
Bam: A Ham or Gin was just kind of there. It was kind of a weak game, and I never felt too interested in what was happening. Having The Joker as the main villain again again was just stupid. I was looking forward to Black Mask being the villain, since he would be new and interesting and NOT THE FUCKING JOKER
I get that The Joker is the most iconic Batman villain, but seriously here, do we need three games in a row of him? Both series of Batman movies used him once each. That's fine; that's great, even. I loved how Batman Begins had Ras al Ghul as the main villain, and Bane was great in The Dark Knight Rises.
Hopefully The Joker stays dead this time. Please God.

I got the Walmart edition, which includes the Harley Quinn story pack and the prototype Batmobile. 
There's a season pass for this one as well, which I'm planning to buy. More most wanted missions, a Batgirl campaign, and some story missions as Catwoman, Nightwing, Robin, and Red Hood all sound neat as fuck. The price is pretty good as well. The challenge maps, Batmobile skins, and alternate costumes are icing on the cake. I'll give a little review of the expansions once I buy the season pass. I'll throw the Harley Quinn pack in with that set, so don't expect it tomorrow or anything.

+ You start with all the key items you got used to using in Ham City
+ You can just grab a guy taunting you from his cell and slam his head against the bars (I legit yelled "THAT'S FUCKING AWESOME" when I did that)
+ You can go into the evidence room and smash some glass to get new items
+ Riddler challenge rooms are always fun
+ The circuit races are sweet
+ The Riddler's voice, as always, is spot-on
+ Two-Face's bank robberies are fun
+ The voice imitation device is a really neat item for stealth purposes
+ The way The Joker comes back again is somehow not completely retarded
+ And he's voiced by Mark Hammil again, rather than the hack from Arkham Origins
+ The Arkham Knight's identity is telegraphed in just such a way that I didn't figure it out until just before the reveal
+ The on-foot boss fight against the Arkham Knight is pretty sweet
+ The entire ending sequence was really really neat
+ The Batmobile is fun to drive around in
- The Batmobile is not fun to blow up unmanned vehicles with
- Tank mode is on the left trigger, which I'm always trying to use to brake/reverse
- Batmobile is a little floaty, if you get what I mean
- Cobra tanks are the most retarded, unfun pieces of shit ever created
- The Arkham Knight tank fight can go FUCK ITSELF
- The Deathstroke tank fight is the same bullshit and you don't even get a fucking real boss fight against him
- Poison Ivy is supposed to be attractive, not man-faced
- Some side missions rely too much on "find this shit with no direction somewhere in Gotham City"
- Jesus, am I supposed to give a fuck about all these Riddler trophies?
- GIGANTIC missed opportunity for the biggest bait-and-switch since MGS2
- Can't freeroam as Catwoman/Nightwing/Robin, despite the fact that they are 100% functional characters in every way

Game crashes: 
1. Doubling back during a glide to go to a new quest objective just behind me (4 hours into the game)
2. Completing a side objective, then running back to the Batmobile (16 hours into the game)
3. Grappling away after completing a side objective, then choosing a new quest target (18 hours into the game)
4. Grappling up to a building, just fucking around (20 hours into the game)
5. Gliding while trying to find a side objective not marked on the map (22 hours into the game)

If cobra tanks didn't exist, I'd give this game a 9.5/10.
Since they do, though:
9/10

Asylum > City = Knight >>>>>>> Origins

Glad I'm not the only person who loved Knight. The Batmobile was a lot of fun, and the graphics and presentation were 10/10.

The lack of boss fights bugged me though. That Deathstroke finale was such a blue-balls move.

A proper Deathstroke fight was the only one I really wanted in the moment, since we did get one for the Arkham Knight.
I kind of liked Two Face just being treated like a normal guy in his encounter, though.

I didn't mention this, but I was really impressed by the way it looked when the rain hit the rooftops. It was a very good-looking game.

Arkham Knight DLC
With the season pass ($20), you get the following:
>5 half-hour story missions (Harley Quinn, Red Hood, Robin, Nightwing, Catwoman)
>1 mini-campaign starring Batgirl
>4 more Most Wanted mission sets (Mad Hatter, Ras al Ghul, Killer Croc, Mr. Freeze)
>A shitload of costumes (mostly for Batman, but some for Catwoman, Nightwing, and Robin)
>A shitload of Batmobiles
>Some challenge maps

Season of Infamy - Most Wanted Missions
Honestly, this was the one I was most looking forward to. I'll break it down villain by villain. You can do them in any order, so I'll list them in the order I chose to do them.
Notably, this DLC marks the first time the line launcher actually has a use in this game.

Mad Hatter:
In Arkham City, Mad Hatter's mission was a great fake-out and really well-done. Great idea, great execution.
In Arkham Origins, Mad Hatter had a side mission that went for surreal, but wasn't very well-made. Better idea than execution.

+ At least they don't make you hunt up and down for the missing officers
- The same easy bomb defusal minigame three times in a row?! Sign me up
+ But the final part of the case is worth the price of admission; one of the most visually interesting things I've seen in a game in a while
+ The subtitles make you think the people who wrote them are idiots at first, but then you realise they're actually brilliant (your/you're)
+ The GCPD interrogation tape between Cash and Mad Hatter is pretty good

Mr. Freeze:
The Mr. Freeze fight in Arkham City was legit one of the best boss fights of the last decade. You had to use everything you'd learned to take him on, especially on hard mode, where you had to hit him ten times, using ten different methods of attack.
As great as that was, I'm glad they didn't rehash it.

+ The two new predator encounter areas are really well-done
+ The race course made of ice was neat as fuck
+ The battle on the ice was great
+ The ending nails bittersweet pretty well without going too far to make it seem poignant or whatever
- Mr. Freeze can be a bit hard to hear

Killer Croc:
In Arkham Asylum, the Killer Croc boss fight was probably the worst part of the game. It was annoying and didn't fit the game too well.
In Arkham Origins, Killer Croc was the tutorial fight, so whatever.

+ It's always nice to see Batman and Nightwing team up; they've got great chemistry
+ The Killer Croc fight was actually pretty good
+ The storyline also worked pretty well
- It was a bit short, and I felt more could have been done with the atmosphere of a partially-underwater crashed blimp

Ras al Ghul:
In Arkham City, the Ras al Ghul fight was neat, but I remember it being a bit tedious.

+ Hospital detectivework was neat
- Finding the little window to throw the batarang through was not
+ Basically the only time a moral choice would have worked in a Batman game, and it was done very well

The side missions are a bit on the short side, but I enjoyed them. Short and sweet; not drawn-out like the million fucking Riddler trophies.


Harley Quinn Story Pack
I started with Harley because:
1. It was first in the list
2. It actually came with my copy of the game
It took half an hour to beat, but I fucked around a bit.

+ Harley's fighting style is fun
+ Harley's take on detective vision is a really neat idea
+ Some of the writing Harley's detective vision puts on the walls is pretty funny
+ Second stealth section with the man-eating plants was neat
- Harley cannot do silent takedowns, so her first stealth section ended up being more annoying than anything else
- Final fight against Nightwing is a bit anti-climactic

Red Hood Story Pack
The next one on down the list.
Out of all the story packs, it is most imperative that you beat the game before playing this one.
It took fifteen minutes to beat.

+ Completely different to the main game tonally (I would totally play a Red Hood game, but the novelty might wear off)
+ The stealth section is pretty neat and interesting
+/- The edgiest thing in the world
- Red Hood wants to be the quip master, but he's no Spider-Man
- The Black Mask fight was incredibly disappointing (at least he didn't get shafted as hard as in Origins)
- I wish it had been just a bit longer

Catwoman's Revenge
The next next one on down the list.

- Really bad at conveying what my starting objective even is
- Switch puzzle is easier solved through trial and error than the intended way
- The combat section is fucking stupid
The combat system is based on bouncing around from enemy to enemy, but the last section of this DLC requires you to NOT do this. If you go for takedowns or even just punching enemies, Catwoman will jump onto the electrified floor and kill herself. Not to mention the two laser beams running along vertically across the arena, which Catwoman will always beeline to.
Since the electric tiles close in on you, the way to beat this challenge is to get critical strike after critical strike. However, enemies must be countered, or they'll hit you, break your combo, and kill you. But, then again, you can't counter enemies, because that takes too much time and the floor will kill you.
This challenge crosses the line from "difficult" to "fucking bullshit".

I didn't beat this one. I gave up.

GCPD Lockdown
The next next next one on down the list, starring Nightwing.
It took twenty minutes to beat.

+ New stealth area is very well laid out
+ Combat sections aren't bullshit like, say, Catwoman's
+ Nightwing is just a fun character
Like, I kind of hope Rocksteady make a Nightwing game. Since he can't glide around and there's no Nightwingmobile, it would be more like Asylum than City or Knight.
Probably not going to happen, but I'd like it.

A Flip of a Coin
The next next next next one on down the list, starring Robin.
It took twenty minutes to beat.

+ First stealth area was very well-done
+ Second stealth area was a neat little puzzle
- Two-Face fight is really anti-climactic.

A Matter of Family
The real expansion, starring Batgirl.
It took an hour-and-a-half to beat.

+ Legitimately some of the best level and scenario design in the series
+ Final boss fight is fun (but nothing groundbreaking)
+ Great dialogue from thugs, the Joker, and Harley
+ Interesting plot that they don't club you over the face with
+ Great puzzles for learning the backstory of the area you're in
- You don't have any upgrades, so some fights take a while (no critical hits, takedowns at 8x combo)
- Absolutely no means to death with guys who are covered in electricity
- Barbara's voice worked well for Oracle, but I can't say I'm buying it for Batgirl

Like, honestly, though: if you liked any Arkham game, buy A Matter of Family. Even if you weren't big on Knight, A Matter of Family is worth it. There's no batmobile or anything.

The Witcher III: Blood and Wine
The second of two major expansions to The Witcher III.
Time played (after finishing Hearts of Stone): 107 hours
Time played (before starting Blood and Wine): 113 hours
Time played (before actually continuing the story of Blood and Wine after getting to the new map): 130 hours
Time played (after finishing Blood and Wine): 145 hours
The developer claimed that Blood and Wine would take twenty hours to complete.
I think I passed that by a bit.

I started this one a bit late because I was kind of worried that it wouldn't live up to my lofty expectations. Glad my worries were unfounded.

+ The new map is huge
+ The new colour palette for this map is beautiful
+ Shitloads of new side quests, including more GWENT (and fist fights and witcher contracts)
+ New side quests are interesting, unique, and engaging
+ Except for the bureaucracy bank mission, which is just funny
+ Entirely new gwent deck style (it's actually good once you get better cards)
+ The Mancomb fight can be won by out-insulting him (this is how you do references, not by rehashing stale memes and calling it a day)
+ "A silk kerchief, monogrammed 'D.L.C.'" oh you cheeky bastards
+ Bandit bases are really neato (and potentially very difficult if you attempt them too early)
+ You get to compete in a knight's tournament (as either Geralt of Rivia or as Ravix of Fourhorn) [you know I chose my nigga Ravix]
+ The Ravix armour is sweet as fuck yo (shame the Geralt armour is just boring)
+ The letter telling you about mutations has three different variations depending on who you romanced (small detail but I like it a lot)
+ Mutations give you a place to spend all those level up points you were just throwing into whatever
+ The new ice version of the Aard sign is SWEET AS FUCK BRO
+ You get a new vineyard that you can upgrade
+ Storage is shared between chests
+ Finally have a way to hang your paintings/display your cool weapons/armour that you've outleveled (the heist gear from Hearts of Stone comes to mind)
+ Equine Phantoms is one of the greatest quests ever
- Shame it's so far out of the way (I wouldn't have found it if I hadn't checked the internet to see if I missed anything)
- Dude look at that blocky-ass polygonal cat
- Encountered a new glitch where I couldn't drink potions with the d-pad for a while
- Collision issues with some bridges on horseback
- Centipedes are incredibly annoying to fight
- Armour dyes don't tend to look very good
- "Though you are of humble means yourself" (he says to the guy with fifty grand in his pocket)
- The duchess is absolutely insufferable at the end

HUGE SPOILERS FOR THE FOLLOWING +/- SECTION
DON'T READ BECAUSE IT SPOILS THE BEST PART OF ANY GAME EVER

Spoiler:

Game crashes during Blood and Wine:
1. Automatically returning to camp during the Big Game Hunter quest (125 hours into the game)

A great ending to the game. A beautiful new area, dozens of sidequests, and some great new characters and moments. A brilliant send-off to potentially the entire series, giving me exactly what I wanted.

10/10

From here, I can think of three possible sequels that won't happen, but I would want.
First is the obvious: more Geralt in a new area.
Second, I went over previously; Ciri being a witcher, which would make that particular ending canon. Really, I just want more Jo Wyatt in my life.
Third, a game about Regis in Nilfgaard. You'd be powerful as fuck, sure, but it could be great. Same shit as always, but leaning more toward the detective work than the monster slaying.

I just want another game. This game was so perfect, and I'm really sad it's over.