Recent reviews by Lapis Lazuli Enjoyer

(Preface: it took me a while to figure out how to review this game on its own and not as part of CoD HQ. Take that for what you will).

This is, without a doubt, the most fun I've had with Call of Duty since, if I'm being brutally honest, Black Ops 2. The changes/reverts to movement and TTK along with tried-and-tested maps we already know we're gonna enjoy just make for a really pleasant experience. Paired together with Sledgehammer's shocking transparency with everything and a promised conversation about SBMM, and it's honestly a pretty good time to be a CoD fan.

Oh, you're still here? Noticed the thumbs down in the review? Let's get the elephant out of the room then.
It's USD$70 for what is essentially a really good QoL update. Granted, this makes for ultimately a far more pleasant playing experience than any game in the past few years, but absolutely nothing warrants this price tag.
I've been seeing arguments about how this game is far less of a ripoff if you hadn't bought MWII before, and I totally see that. If you didn't get MWII, this is a no-brainer in all complete honesty. That said, gaming doesn't exist in a vacuum, and given how much lower MWII's price got during sales, it's frankly bizarre to me how they thought this price tag was acceptable.

The way I see it, they've now got us in a zero sum game:
If you buy the game, you're sending the message that this pricing for the amount of content and innovations they're giving compared to last year's installment is acceptable, setting a precedent for how we move forward.
If you don't buy the game, you're sending the message that Activision swallowing their pride by rolling back on the changes made with last year's installment isn't good enough and they just shouldn't bother listening to the community.

I bought this game out of good faith as a CoD fan, because at the end of the day, through thick and thin, I do really enjoy playing this game. It certainly helps matters that until XDefiant comes out, there frankly isn't a lot of games like this that are this populated. Maybe I'm just getting old, but it's wild to me that there really isn't another massively active and supported TDM-focused game outside of CoD.

For how jarringly different and polarizing MW19 was, it's hard to fault it for its ambition and scale, and how for the first time since the OG Modern Warfare games, CoD became a serious part of the conversation again. Considering how Activision managed to slip back into complacency after the one-two punch of MW19 and Black Ops Cold War, I don't blame anyone for being disappointed in this installment and the franchise as a whole at all.

All that being said, if all you really care about is having a fun installment of CoD for the year and the price tag justifies that, this absolutely gives you what you want and more. It's entirely up to you how you want to spend your money and your time, and know I'm having a fantastic time with this game.
All my praise goes to Sledgehammer, and all my criticism goes to Activision.

I want to say I'm disappointed, but to say that would be to have had higher expectations for what is ultimately a tie-in game. In a sense, there's a bit of nostalgia involved for the era of mediocre-to-bad licensed games of the 2000s where we just don't get games like these anymore.

Before anything, I am a Steven Universe fan first and foremost. I've watched the show through twice and have followed it as it aired and been through all the discourse. Lapis Lazuli is my favorite character from the show, so take that for what it's worth if you feel any bias in what I'm about to say.

That said, it is *extremely* apparent that this is a mobile game. It's just a gacha mechanic away from being your average mobile RPG. Where Save The Light made an extremely basic game out of the JRPG template that served as a good entry point to the genre, this game streamlines it even further by restricting exploration to a room-by-room basis. The use of space that I praised Save The Light for is now gone in favor for a more basic Paper Mario-style game. It's difficult to really comment much on the game when there's barely much to it.

But likely, you aren't here for an RPG. You would have gotten Undertale or something if that were the case.
It says Steven Universe on the tin, so how does it work out as a Steven Universe product?

It's kinda here and there, honestly.
The premise is that this is the first story we have in Era 3, which happens after [SPOILERS FOR THE SHOW] right at the end of Season 5, and before the movie and Steven Universe Future. It's a neat premise that delves into themes later explored in Future where not everyone in the universe has gotten the message regarding the Diamonds, and many are outright rejecting Steven's proposed Era 3.
On this level, it's definitely kinda neat, but don't go in expecting anything consequential, as it's mostly a story to address questions you may have had regarding the events of the show and the ideology behind Steven and the other characters' decisions.

As a Lapis Lazuli fan, having her as a playable character was definitely the main selling point for me, but I was disappointed to find how easy the game was and how much it let me get away with solely focusing on levelling her and upgrading her skill tree. My party consisted of Lapis, Steven, Garnet and Peridot, the other 3 did nothing but assist Lapis where she was my main workhorse of the entire party. I won't pretend to be the most seasoned JRPG veteran, but as someone who's played Persona 5 and Final Fantasy X, at times this game felt insultingly easy. My Lapis-only tactics carried me through the endgame boss which was such a letdown, as I barely had to do much with the other characters.
It was a shame, for as much as I love Lapis Lazuli, I love the rest of the show in general too, and this game kinda just allowed me to get carried away with treating this as Lapis: The Game.

So my recommendation comes off as a little weird. It's not a particularly good game. It's pretty fun as fanservice, but a lot more could have been done. None of this is vital at all. But 3 years after Steven Universe has entirely ended, it gave me the warm fuzzies I missed so dearly from this show. If you miss this show and these characters as much as I do, this more than does the job.

(But definitely play Save The Light first, there's no reason not to, and it's by right the better game, though not by that much)

NOTE: I've played through the campaign and all the currently-released DLC all over the free weekend. I don't actually own the game and am not even sure how I'm even allowed to do this but oh well, here goes nothing.

First and foremost, your enjoyment of this game hinges entirely on how much you love these characters, and statistically speaking if you're not into this universe then you're at the very least somewhat familiar with these characters and stories. Had I not been as attached to these characters as I am, there would be nothing in this game for me at all, as just about everything that this game does has been done better elsewhere.
You want a linear story-based action game? Play Tomb Raider, The Last Of Us or Uncharted.
You want a socially-driven loot game? Play Destiny, The Division, or hell even an MMO like FFXIV or ESO (I heard New World's gonna be good).
This game kinda borrows a lot from all over the place and outside of the IP itself, it doesn't seem to do justice to any of its inspirations.

I personally played this game entirely for the story, and it has to be said, it is trying far too hard to be the MCU which is not even close to being a good thing. In the base campaign, Kamala is easily the best character by a long shot, and it's not even a coincidence, as the novelty of seeing these characters fully voiced, animated and playable is the selling point here. With every plot point and character, it feels as if I'm better off putting on a DVD of any of their given characters, where Kamala genuinely feels like the first time you saw Chris Evans or Scarlett Johansson or anyone play their character in the MCU. While the same can be said for Kate Bishop in the DLC, the stories after the main campaign definitely ease up on the pressure of abiding to the MCU. Once Clint Barton enters the cast, it almost feels like the game entirely switched writers with someone who should've been there from the beginning. And as much as I loved Kamala, Kate and Clint, they're all getting their own shows so this novelty is kinda left feeling kinda redundant.

Ever since the video of that cancelled Avengers prototype came out, the world kinda saw a coop Avengers game where you get to play with everyone's different strengths and riff off each other as peanut butter and chocolate, and I can only really confirm that to maybe be half true. Outside of the engine just not feeling particularly great for a fast-paced gameplay-centric action game, maybe only half of the cast feels truly useful. While my favorites to play are Black Widow, Kamala and Hulk, Iron Man almost feels useless in comparison, and both Hawkeyes feel like a direct counter to this game's emphasis on close-ranged combat and crowd control. Builds aren't varied enough to feel like it's effective to do anything other than mash X/Square/click at a mushy crowd of enemies, which hurts even more when you're using someone who's moveset revolves entirely around long-ranged attacks that don't do enough damage.
It's Batman Arkham with different characters, essentially.

And ah yes, the live service component. While personally being one of the few people to actually advocate for this model when done right (I'm a big Destiny 2 fan), I found myself having more fun ignoring this part even existed in the first place. In order for it to be at all rewarding or satisfying, the core gameplay must be fulfilling enough to do so, and I've already established that this game isn't exactly my cup of tea regardless of which character I choose. The reason games like FFXIV, Destiny and No Man's Sky were able to rise from the ashes was because fundamentally they were great games before their structure was at all introduced. With this game, I'm not entirely sure what kind of reboot would be able to save it without completely revamping the game from ground up, including the characters, their movesets, and how the engine feels to play. So even if the endgame was solid, even if the community was fantastic, even if there was always something new to strive towards and great game-changing loot, if the game doesn't feel good to play for even 20 minutes at a time then why bother?

I hate to be negative, I really do. I ultimately had a lot of fun with the game and the characters. However, every fibre of my being is extremely grateful I didn't have to pay a single cent for the time I spent.

So, this review is mostly focused on the skepticism and bad reports on the Steam version of this game. Regarding the game itself, to put it short, it's as good as everyone has been saying it is. As one of the world's most casual racing fans, this is the most fun I've had in a non-kart racer since Need For Speed Underground 2. For the asking price (RM95 in Malaysia), it scratches the itch of every kind of racing game just enough, when all that ran through my head was "I want game to go vroom". This game definitely lets you go vroom and has been for 2+ years, and now that it's on Steam I can finally get in on that.

First off, a lot of people have been complaining about the asking price. Again, it's RM95 in my country so I personally can't complain, I paid about that much for Gears 5 which I also loved but didn't get nearly as much playtime out of as this game seems to offer. Yes, you can pay tuppence for Xbox Game Pass and get full access to this game and many others. Yes, depending on your country, the asking price to buy this game outright here can be absurd for a game that came out in 2018. Whether or not it is worth fully owning the game on Steam is entirely up to you, the game doesn't seem to be any thinner for content since its original release and I personally justified it with Game Pass not being available in my country, my personal affinity for owning games as opposed to subscribing for access, as well as my subjective value for RM95. It's a big game that I was honestly ready to pay RM200+ for on Xbox One and nearly bought the console for it. I can't tell you what your money is worth, that is entirely for you to decide.

With technical issues, the thing is there were some really silly hurdles to even get in the game. It didn't work right out of the gate, with the game refusing to launch no matter how many times I verified it. Some people reported turning off Steam Overlay worked, some said turning off Discord Overlay, some updated their drivers, turned off MSI Afterburner or RivaTuner, or even the Xbox app in Windows 10. My fix came from first turning off BitDefender, then ultimately deciding to exclude the Forza folder so I can keep my computer protected. It's 2021 and I still don't understand games not working with protection software, but here we are. The game runs flawlessly otherwise, and the Xbox Live integration works about as well as it did for Halo MCC and Gears 5 (honestly, Xbox Live has been a non-issue for me on PC since GFWL stopped being a thing, and even then it was never gamebreaking for me in the days of Gears 1, Fallout 3 and Street Fighter 4 so YMMV).

A few hours into the game and now I'm running into absolute random crashes, with no clue as to what causes them other than them mostly happening if I dawdle in menus (i.e. pausing to go to the bathroom). The game freezes for about 20 seconds then closes to no fanfare or error message. Upon light investigation, I'm not the only person with this issue (even on the Microsoft Store version), but it doesn't seem prevalent enough to be a common widespread complaint.

Regarding performance, I'm running an RTX 2060 Super with a Ryzen 7 3700x, and the 110fps I'm getting on 1080p Ultra feels warranted. There are slight microstutters which I understand are also somewhat common amongst users, but it's not frequent enough to be remotely annoying, and it mostly happens in transitions like the victory screen once you cross the finish line or when you start a new race. Honestly, it feels far more than I can possibly bargain for for how it looks (this game is probably my only reason to upgrade from a 24" 1080p monitor hah).

So I don't know, there are people that complain for just about every game. All I'm able to tell you that with my personal regional pricing, for RM95 and 10 minutes worth of hoops to jump through, I got one of the biggest, best racing games according to many, and the first game to make me care for the genre since 2004. Especially when there are other more recent racing games that cost 3 times as much that offer maybe 10% of this game's content, I'd like to think it was pretty worth it.

I genuinely wonder if I'm playing a different game than everyone else. As it stands, I'm quite enjoying my time with Beyond Light, probably just as much, if not more, than last year's Shadowkeep.

The biggest elephant in the room is the sunsetting and vaulting of a LOT of previous content, which is probably the biggest grievance of the community. In my opinion, this is undeniably inexcusable if we want to refer to Destiny as an ever-expanding MMO the way Bungie is trying to market this. I won't try to argue with this, however, this doesn't necessarily mean that we are particularly dry for content. There's a very good reason why you see players with hundreds of hours sunk into this game since the expansion dropped (myself included).

If you buy this expansion, what you'd be getting is a 4 hour campaign which I would argue is among Destiny's better campaigns, a new subclass that can open up a brand new way of playing with the combat, one of the best raids in the whole game, a new location in Europa (which I have personally come around to big time), and what I feel a lot of people are kinda skimming over is a lot of the post-game content in the exotic quests. While the Hawkmoon quest is over before you know it, something like the Lost Lament quest feels like an entire campaign on its own. If you're judging this strictly on a time-per-dollar basis, the value is definitely there.

Destiny's always been hard to sell in the past, even harder now that half the game has been vaulted away, mostly because it's difficult to describe exactly what Destiny is and how much what it has to offer is worth to you. I can't even say "try the free one and see how you like it" because the vaulting has effectively turned the free model into a glorified demo.
For new players, I would suggest looking up recap videos of The Red War and the two expansions, maybe a little from further back, and see if you can get other friends on board with playing with you, then get this expansion to have a more complete experience if you're into it, then go back to the older ones if you're having a good time. If you just want a shooty good time then the free-to-play version will do you fine (I think), but if you want to buy into the larger world and the game's ecosystem, it lives and breathes on the people you play with. No amount of good content will make you enjoy a game in a bad community, no amount of bad content will keep you from a good community.

The year is 2020 and we have in our hands a HD remaster of a random licensed game based on a kids' cartoon, and it just so happens to be exactly the kind of platformer we need at this time.
To those who have played the original and still do, this remaster is definitely a beautiful new coat of paint, but you're still getting exactly the same game. It's a good thing, of course, as the original game has aged gracefully and it controls more or less the same (apparently some of the speedrunning community discussed how the physics only get as far as 99% close to the original??? No idea), but it's definitely not meant to be some kind of new experience beyond that, outside of the fun multiplayer mode, but realistically that's not what we're here for.

To those unfamiliar with this game, it came out around the time of Hillenberg-era Spongebob, which is almost universally considered to be the definitive era for the show, a lot of the current memes and most memorable moments coming from the first 3 seasons. At the time, this game was a gigantic celebration of exactly what it was that defined Spongebob at the time, from the characters to the sense of humor. Today, it stands as a time capsule to the absolute best of Spongebob. Not to say it ever really comes as close to feeling like a new episode from Season 3, but it takes on that identity very well.

The game itself is a more streamlined and simplified version of your Mario 64 or Banjo style collect-a-thons, by which I mean levels are typically structured in a linear pattern with minor red herrings to get Golden Spatulas - this game's equivalent to Stars, Jiggies or Shines. Controls are very tight and the value of each Golden Spatula is really well done, but I think the only aspect that hasn't entirely aged well is the difficulty, which can be seen as a non-issue as, after all, it's a game targeted at far younger audiences. While not as complex or difficult as Mario 64, it's definitely a fun romp to go through and watch all the fun antics of Spongebob, Patrick, Sandy, and the NPC citizens of Bikini Bottom along the way.

Outside of the tight gameplay and the attachment to a fantastic IP, the biggest reason this game has maintained active throughout all these years is because of the speedrunning community, which I highly suggest you check out some videos of. The second this remaster came out, the community went straight to work to break this game left and right, and I feel that's where the staying power is for a lot of the diehards of this game in particular. I've never personally gotten into speedrunning, so the value of the game was more or less over once I finished it in about 7 hours and I may pick it up again at some point when I feel like replaying it or getting 100%, but from what I've seen it looks like a good place to start with speedrunning, with what looks like one of the most active communities next to games like Goldeneye and Ocarina of Time.

I have personal attachment to this game in particular as well as earlier Spongebob and I definitely feel it warrants a purchase if you enjoy the show or 3D platforming games, with my only potential warning being that it's a little on the easy and short side for those who are in it for a new and deep platforming game. It's not exactly that, but let's be real, it's Spongebob at his finest. How can you go wrong?

My recommendation comes with some major caveats that you must absolutely be aware of.
The main one is that, it's a good game for what it sets out to do, and what it sets out to do may not exactly be what you want out of an RPG, action game, or a Final Fantasy game.
This game puts all its chips in you investing in the characters. My recommendation is for you to check out the Brotherhood anime on Youtube and see for yourself if these are characters you are going to enjoy spending 30+ hours with.

Secondly, a big point of contention at the game's launch on consoles was how bare it was with content. Windows Edition fixes a lot of this, but how much this adds to your experience all lies with how much you're on board with the story and the gameplay. If you're still not sold, I recommend the Playable Demo to give the combat a try and see if you're at least on board with that game loop.

A popular opinion was the DLC added too much to the point where the base game was rendered potentially half of the game, which indeed is a non-issue with this release of the game, but there are still too many issues with continuity and the order with which you play the DLC. Some incredibly important story beats are flat out left empty and unexplained unless you consume all the media, one includes the exact catalyst of the entire game's premise. Be warned, if you wish to take in this game's story and truly get invested into it, there's far more than this package that you need to consume.

Here's my recommendation:

1. Buy the full package with Episode Ardyn, also find a place to either rent, buy, or otherwise watch Kingsglaive.
2. Read FFXV Parting Ways (a quick Google search will get you what you want)
3. Play the first few chapters (I think 3?) until [REDACTED] is revealed.
4. Watch Kingsglaive.
5. Watch FFXV Brotherhood
6. Play until chapter 7, then play the first DLC.
7. Play until chapter 10, then play the THIRD DLC (there are potential spoilers though, so you can save this till chapter 14 if you absolutely want)
8. Play until chapter 12, then play the second DLC.
9. Finish the game however you want.
10. Watch Episode Ardyn's prologue on Youtube
11. Play Episode Ardyn
12. Read the Dawn of the Future novel when it comes out in June.

I recently played through the game a second time since playing the pre-Royal version on consoles and went through this very order (save for step 12 which I'm waiting with everyone else), and my mind has not changed since my initial sour feelings towards this game, but there's still a lot to love and I can at least empathize with those that love it. There is a *lot* of content for you to take in if you are on board with the story and characters. If you've checked out the anime and demo and you're into that, you're likely to have a massive time sink on your hands and will have a great time.

This port looks and runs fantastic too, but I'm on a computer I just built 2 months ago so your mileage may vary.

Phew, how do I review this game?
The short of it is that it's free so there's little reason for you to not give it a go and see for yourself if you'd like it, but if you wanna see how much it's worth investing in...

I've played Destiny since Taken King in D1 and have since had my ups and downs with it, mostly because it's a game that doesn't seem to advertise itself very well.
If you're into a cinematic traditional story-driven shooter like Halo, you're not gonna find it here. Yes, there are campaigns that last anywhere between 5-12 hours across all expansions, but in the long run they're more tutorials to the "meat" of the game than anything.
The best way to describe this game is an instance-driven looter shooter, or maybe even better yet, Monster Hunter in the form of an FPS. Instances encompass strikes (comparable to maybe a 15 minute level with a boss fight in the end), PvP, Gambit (an interesting PvPvE mode which is harder to explain than it really is so I won't even bother), and the aforementioned story missions, not including free roaming and the tons of side content and stories to take in this non-linear structure. It's a lot of fun, and Bungie completely nails probably some of the best feeling shooting you can find in video games, but the meat of the experience is doing these over and over again to level up and collect equipment over time.
The game urges you to find your own fun, and once I was at peace with having to set my own goals and know what I must set out to do, honestly I started to have the time of my life, and right now I can't put this game down.

Probably the more important purpose of a review for a free-to-play game like this would be whether or not you should spend money on the expansions, as they're the only things available to buy (outside of the microtransactions, which while completely optional, I'll leave to you to decide how to feel about them).
While I personally have not played Forsaken, it's considered by many to be the best campaign of the whole game, not to mention the amount of exotic quests, the most raids in a single expansion, and overall the most amount of content. In comparison to the current expansion Shadowkeep, this would be the way to go if you need content to play with right now, but it was all dripfed over the past year which started out exactly the way Shadowkeep has right now.

Shadowkeep as it stands is incredibly barebones, with content planned out and a story that rolls out throughout the seasons that will come by over the next year. It's difficult to recommend it in its current state, but buying it also means to invest in the current cycle of Destiny and to stay up to date with everything that will roll out as it comes along.

To put it short, Forsaken will give you the most amount of content, but Shadowkeep is the game that everyone is playing and is being updated as the year rolls on.
Regardless of which expansion you want to buy, if you want to buy both, or you just want to stay with the free version, you're getting a LOT of content, and thankfully Bungie's new model of "pay for what you want to play, not to stay up to date" also means that nothing is mandatory to viably party up with anyone in the game, which was my biggest pet peeve of Destiny from the beginning.
I hated that I had to buy Curse Of Osiris, Warmind and Forsaken in order to keep up and not be completely carried by the rest of my fireteam who was more committed to this game than I, but now that's not an issue in the slightest.

TL;DR Play the game for free, and if you still dig it and run out of things to do, decide whether you want to pay for the most amount of content, or you want to get in on the new exciting world of Shadowkeep.

Look, the graphics aren't great. The roster could be much better. The story is laughable. The aesthetics and all are just lacking tremendously in general. Not to mention the game gets incredibly janky and inconsistent.
Is it a good time? More than that, it's easily my favorite fighting game of the current generation. I'm not the biggest UMvC3 or MvC2 expert, but the tag mechanics and Infinity Stones are incredibly welcome additions to change up the game that makes every session of labbing feel fresh, neutral feels incredibly involved, and newcomers like Gamora and Ultron are just honest to god so much fun.

I beg of you to go into this game with an open mind, expect the polish to not quite be there in terms of graphics, aesthetics, and balancing, and honestly it's probably some of the most fun you'll have in a fighting game right now.