Recent reviews by LordBuckethead

Generally, Caliber is honestly not a bad game. I actually find myself quite hooked. But I cannot, in my good conscience, recommend a game with such a greedy microtransaction scheme.

For a Free-to-Play (F2P) game, it offers a lot. Fun Co-Op, PvP, and a unique PvPvE game mode. Each game mode is designed to pressure every player to work together - even a veteran player with a max-level premium operator would still find it difficult to solo a Point Sweep (PvE) map. Difficulty can be highly challenging (this is a major positive point for me!), giving a strong incentive to team-up with friends who can coordinate and cooperate. The game has an OK-ish difficulty scale-up level - such as power-ups, buffs, debuffs, enemy types, etc, so it's not a simple bullet-sponge-enemies system. The graphic is not state-of-the-art, but is already perfectly decent, equivalent to a ~2010s game. The operators are very well-researched and well-designed (e.g. operator equips matching magazines in their mag pouches). They use the real weapon's name as well, which is a plus for immersion. The maps, although limited, offers a good amount of scenario variety. Overall, the game offers a pleasant experience.

However, there are some highly questionable gameplay designs that have a relatively major impact upon my enjoyment of the game. First, the PvP mode does not reset your items on each round. Forcing you to resupply all your ammo in the beginning of the round. The catch is, the ammo box needs about 15 minutes to cooldown while each round only takes about 3 to 5 minutes. I see no point in such a quirk. Downed players in PvP can also still move around for a limited time period. This causes kills to feel significantly less rewarding and dampens the effect of kills on the team's effort towards victory. The 'downed but can move' mechanism is weird implementation of a Battle Royale mechanism in a fast-paced, CQB PvP. There are many other oddities that I cannot list here one by one. As someone who is used to play competitive PvP games, Caliber's PvP experience in general has been rather dreadful.

In PvE, my biggest gripe is the enemy's spawn point locations, lack of bullet penetration system, and the Rocketeer bot. Bots appear to be designed to spawn in the best-possible spot to flank the players. Considering the bots do not produce any footstep sounds, this often gives us no time to react. Rocketeer bots are even worse - they spawn with their incendiary RPG already aimed at us and fires almost immediately without even properly aiming. Bot spawn system need some serious rebalancing. And of course, bullet penetration is already some sort of a norm in modern-day shooter games. They actually do have a bullet penetration system - but guess what? You'll have to unlock an operator for it because it's an operator-unique skill! This dangerously creeps towards a slippery slope to splitting and selling game mechanics that are supposed to be an essential part of the game.

There are also some negative points that do not affect the gameplay, but causes a persistent cringe. First, the voice actors, including the narrator, are absurdly bad. Combine that with a very poorly-written script that sounded like a kid who watched one too many action movies. It's eerily analogous to those fake NATO radio chats that the Russians are spreading to prove NATO soldier's presence in the Ukrainian frontline. The AI's movements are also not great, moreover realistic. Last but not least, the mission storylines are often times completely illogical in a military operation sense.

Now let's address the elephant in the room: The microtransaction. I shall mention some of their worst atrocities here so that you can get a good picture on their insane greediness:
1. Their latest Battle Pass (the BOPE operator series) is divided into 4. Each quarter part is being sold for a full Battle Pass price in other games, so the total would be around USD 60 (my store is in a different currency so it's an estimation).

2. Each PvE round, with a +200% XP boost AND a premium account, only awards between 500 to 2000 credits (mostly 1000). Most of the credits gained would have to come from the Daily and Weekly quests (and the free Battle Pass if it's in season). An operator costs between 100.000 to 200.000 credits and EACH operator costs about 250.000 credits to reach max-level. And that does not include the prestige level. Prestige level 1 already costs 420.000 credits.

3. In a multi-item box, you can only choose between one to two items from it. To get the rest, you will have to pay about USD 5 each. Um, I PAID for the box and I still have to pay again to get all the content?

4. A skill in the skill tree can only be unlocked by leveling-up the operator with a corresponding skill. This means that if you have a certain build you would like to pursue, you have no choice but to unlock AND level-up the operator who owns the skills that you want all the way up to level 12 - that's about 100.000 credits not including the cost of the operator.

5. There are obviously 'good' and 'bad' operators. No, it is not about balancing - I understand balancing ~60 characters is challenging and time-consuming. The core design of the operator was clearly designed to make good and bad operators. In other words, not spending any money in the game will make you struggle against 'Tier S' operators in PvP...until you have farmed enough credits to get an operator who is also 'Tier S'. Grinding for a complete PvP-ideal build would be dreadfully long in the current pace.

Now, I am not against microtransactions in a F2P game - especially the ones that do not interfere with the gameplay such as in Warframe. To further support my point, you should know that I have spent a significant sum of money in Caliber because I legitimately enjoy the gameplay. However, Caliber's microtransaction system feels incredibly petty and irradiates a strong sense of laziness and money-milking. Lots of the contents are re-used or split into multiple parts. They have the audacity to split Battle Pass skin into two parts. You need part 1 and 2 to actually use the skin. That is just unbelievably, outrageously, petty.

Caliber has proven itself to be the ultimate embodiment of the gaming industry's greediness. The apex predator of those uninformed, innocent new players who are dipping their toe on online gaming - unaware that it contains psychological exploits that can lead them to an endless money sinkhole. Caliber's greediness is even worse than EA, and even worse than those Asian MMO games. I mean, even The Sims 4 still attempted to offer new contents in their exorbitantly-priced DLCs.

If you still would like to play Caliber, I would say go for it. Being a F2P game, bring 3 of your friends since the public community is unsurprisingly deeply toxic and overly-competitive. Even if you still succumb to the microtransaction, I'd still recommend the Starter Pack for a proper value. The game itself, I would say, can be valued at about USD 15. But do not wander too far off the microtransaction trail, or you would be an enabler of an unashamedly rapacious gaming company that is taking part in creating a dystopian future of online gaming.

PLAYERUNKNOWN'S BATTLEGROUNDS (PUBG) is a battle-royale, 100-players, open-world MMOFPS/TPS set on a massive 8x8km land. The game supports solo, duo, and squad (3-4 ppl) play. Gameplay is very straightforward, you hop off a plane, loot weapons, armors, and equipments from buildings, and survive the thrilling PvP bloodbath.

PUBG is obviously not the first massive battle-royale game out there, yet it stands on the pinnacle of its genre. As you may have known, PUBG has had a highly successful launch, securing a place on Steam's Top Seller game. If you're looking for a good battle-royale PvP, look no further. You've struck the gold.

My claim is not without reason. The following is PUBG's pros and cons in my opinion:

1. Extremely active and communicative developers. This is vital for an early access game. PUBG is being constantly updated every month. I would speculate that this is one of the major factors in PUBG's success. Other battle-royale PvP games are mostly in Early-Alpha for years and their devs are too focused on gathering as much money as they can from the current players without making any real development progress on the game - PUBG is exactly the opposite.

2. Great gameplay concept. No pay-to-win and no grind-to-win. Apparels are only cosmetics. The only thing you keep from playing PUBG is your skill. The PvP is thrilling and definitely fun to play with your friends.

3. Non-toxic community. Simply because there is no chat function. Switch your voice channel to team-only and you're good to go. I wouldn't recommend teaming up with strangers because of obvious reasons.

4. Highly demanding on teamwork and strategy. You can't just hop off the plane and recklessly run around the map no-scoping bozos. You have to plan out your movement very carefully and quickly since time is of the essence. Difficult decisions comes up often, especially in squad play (e.g. risk your life to revive your mate or run like hell to safety; Kill someone and give out your position to nearby players or stay quiet; Deciding your next 'safe spot', etc.) An enjoyable learning curve definitely exists - not too steep and not too lean.

5. A shooting game that applies semi-realistic weapon recoil, bullet travel time, and bullet drop is always appreciated.

6. Various vehicles, weapons, weapon mods, clothings, and equipments are scattered all over the battleground to aid you in your quest of survival. The weapon stats variety amps up the gameplay - It can be quite a challenge to engage in a firefight when you got the wrong weapon for the situation.

7. Although FPS is not recommended due to limited POV, the game supports both FPS and TPS.

8. Minor performance improvements can get quite noticeable after several updates. Devs truly are working on the optimization issue. We can look forward towards better performance in the future.

1. Currently, very performance-demanding. The game isn't optimized that well yet and runs on very unstable fps even on high-end rigs. The minimum 6 gigs of RAM is an absolute minimum - virtual RAMs can't help your 4-gigs-RAM PC. In terms of GPU, one of my friends that is using a GTX980 is suffering from <30fps and extremely slow loading progress. Another friend with a GTX1060 suffers from fps drops during rain/smoke.

As a response to comments' feedback for my 1st cons list: The game is still playable on all those mentioned GPUs. I just want you to know that the game is not optimized well. FPS drops, crashes, and screen freeze will sometimes happen even on high-end rigs. It happens randomly - I don't measure the frequency.

UPDATE: Although the game is still quite laggy, minor performance improvements are already noticeable after the latest updates. I no longer suffer from fps spikes with my GTX1080. Most performance issues are related to server lag instead of PC after June 27 update.

2. Server is lagging badly due to high player base. I would speculate devs didn't expect a huge sale boom and didn't have the resources to support all the players. As an example, you were running to cover when under enemy fire. You already reached the cover, but 2 seconds later, blood spurts out of your chest, you fell down to the ground gasping for air as your vision starts to blur. You scream for your squadmate to magically heal your bullet wound by rubbing the grass around you, but then...okay you get my point

3. Gameplay is monotonous. Similar to CSGO's Competitive and Dota 2, you only have one type of game. The unique experience relies on various encounters with the squad/enemy in-game.

4. Melee weapons are terribly inaccurate. Aiming also can be a bit off sometimes. Possibly caused by the server lag.

5. Controls are terribly not reactive. It takes some miliseconds for the game to recognize LMB/RMB/'Use' command. Or even failing to recognize the commands at all. It can take three, four RMBs to activate the scope. It's kind of annoying when the weapon refuses to shoot when I press LMB because of the input recognition lag. This is a vital issue for a PvP game - devs better fix this quickly.

As a response to the comments' feedback: I have to add that my statement about the terrible control is a rare occasion. Generally, 1, or 2 key inputs would be recognized. I would say having to press twice is much more common than 3/4 times like I said. But it does often take some miliseconds for the inputs to be recognized. My point is still valid: The controls are NOT reactive - horrible for a PvP game.

6. Vehicles flips too easily and difficult/too unrealistic to drive

7. Door and movement bugs seem to be quite prevalent lately. Whenever I move a step ahead, the game throws me back 3, 4 steps backwards. Seems to be affecting the entire server whenever it happens. Invisible doors also prevent players from entering a building, throwing us outdoors whenever we try to enter a building. Similar to fps spikes, these happen randomly.

Don't lose all hopes because of my cons list - remember that this is an early access game. I know some of the cons can be too much to handle and disturbs the gameplay, but devs are very active in updating the game. I dare to conclude that PUBG is currently the best battle-royale MMOFPS/TPS PvP game out there. The current state of the game is more than playable. Definitely worth purchasing even when it's not on sale.

Well that's all I have to say about PUBG. Hope it can be of help to potential buyers!

P.S: I already addressed my low playtime hours issue in the comments section. Please kindly read all the older comments if you believe my playtime hours is insufficient to write a review.

UPDATE: Never expected my review would go up top on Most Helpful for this game. So I've decided to not take down this review after having more playtime hours. I'll update it if there're any significant changes.

UPDATE 2: This review was made before the era of the 'stream sniping' and the microtransaction drama. I haven't played the game for a while so I lack proper first-hand experience to update my review. With that said, keep in mind that this review is outdated.

Note: As a comedy game, Guts and Glory attracts a lot of non-serious/meme/troll reviews. These (unfortunately) highly popular so-called reviews do not help people who are considering to purchase this game. Feel free to read mine if you're looking for a serious, informative review that helps you get an in-depth look on the game's worth.

Guts and Glory is a gore comedy, ragdoll physics, level-based-obstacle-racing indie game made by HakJak Productions. The gameplay in general is obviously inspired by the legendary web browser-based platform gore comedy game: Happy Wheels. In case you are not familiar with Happy Wheels' gameplay, it is basically a race to the finish line using various kinds of vehicles, with a twist. The 'race track' is usually entirely covered with traps, turrets, mines, and other ridiculous obstacles that will cut (or blow) your character to pieces. Happy Wheels itself thrived through community-made maps that allows map creators to challenge other players to finish their track - Guts and Glory also supports this feature.

A heads up for sensitive people: The core entertainment of the game is dark humor. Don't be shocked when a child character got mutilated by flying saws, flattened by cannonballs, or crushed by massive logs. Avoid this game if you will be offended or made uncomfortable by these kinds of jokes.

+ Players can create their own maps through Steam Workshop
+ Both funny and challenging at the same time. Guts and Glory makes failing a level a hilarious experience.
+ I read somewhere that the devs produced their own soundtrack. This is definitely worth mentioning since the soundtrack is quite enjoyable.
+ Unlike a lot of other early access games, you can play all that the game has to offer without any issues
+ Different vehicles offer different features and controls, offering extra gameplay variance e.g. Nitrous on cars and backflip/front flip on bikes
+ Funny, outrageous scenario for each level e.g. 'visiting' your neighbors by smashing through their houses with an ATV
+ Track challenges varies - not everything is about dodging arrows and cannonballs

- Clunky, unresponsive control. Probably made this way on purpose to support the comedy/meme aspect but I don't find it enjoyable
- Map creators might find it tedious having to upload their maps to Steam Workshop instead of being instantly accessible in-game. Compared to Happy Wheels, Guts and Glory's user-generated content receives much less attention. I assume this issue is caused either by lack of Steam users' interest to look around the Community (i.e. Library - Play - Quit kind of guy) or the difficulty of creating their own map compared to Happy Wheel's simplistic Flash Player platform design.
- Levels that are too difficult to finish can lock players from progressing further & enjoy variation. Although this is purely subjective, a 'Skip Level' option would be great, or simply unlock every level from the start.
- The Yang Family car trip level is taking way too long with minimum obstacles
- Checkpoints need to be re-calibrated with the level's obstacles. Put checkpoints before difficult obstacles, not before a long, empty road.


Note that these are based on assumptions because I have never made a map myself and I'm terribly inexperienced in creating my own map, thus please correct me if I said anything wrong.

Of course, as an early access, Guts and Glory still has a long way to go. They still need to add more content to keep the users engaged (I heard they're working on flying vehicles?) and I'm glad that the devs are still actively developing the game. If I may give a suggestion, devs should create a map editor template to allow users easily create maps by themselves and challenge their friends. Happy Wheels lives for a long time due to this user-generated system, I'm sure Guts and Glory can go for the same strategy.

For such cheap price, it's worth it to purchase Guts and Glory. Plus, it's also always nice to support indie game developers with good quality games. If you enjoyed Happy Wheels, you'll enjoy Guts and Glory. The hilarity of the gameplay definitely has more value than the price.

I hope my review can be helpful for you - thank you for reading!

The Crew is an open-world MMO racing game where you can play either as a street racer or a law enforcer (DLC) made by Ivory Tower in collaboration with Ubisoft Reflections. The gameplay, in general, is like one of those classic old-school Need For Speed i.e. Need For Speed Carbon, Need For Speed Underground, etc. You can drive around in a scaled-down map of the U.S. freely and visit mission activation points to race.

Although The Crew is a MMO game, the game does have a single player element in it, meant to be played concurrently with the online play or used as an introduction of the gameplay. The online gameplay works similarly with Need For Speed (2016) and Grand Theft Auto V - you will be put in a session with several other players and you can interact with them in races/free-run. You will also occasionally receive racing invitations from other players.

Pros
1. Lots of car variation. Again, similar to old NFS games, you have tons of choices of cars. You also can switch cars you own on-the-street using a 'mobile garage'.
2. Strong MMO aspect. Grinding for money, parts, experience, skill points, crew skills, etc makes the game worth a lot of hours.
3. Customizable driving elements - sensitivity, handling control, etc.
4. The Crew is going for the niche of arcade racing, so don't expect realistic driving experience like in Project Cars or Asetto Corsa. However, this connects to point (1) in the Cons list.
5. Beautifully made map - not necessarily in the context of quality, the map itself feels much more alive than other racing games and I really do enjoy driving around for no reason at all. The variation of the terrain is generally accurate of the real geographical aspects of the U.S. and is definitely a plus for the gameplay.
6. Massive map. Devs actually created the entire scaled-down map of the U.S. It can take quite a while to get from point A to point B. IMO, this is gold for an open-world racing game.
7. Environment is alive. Unlike the dead city in NFS series, you actually have pedestrians, commercial airplanes, planes watering a farm, etc. You can use train stations and airports, too. This is one of the reasons I enjoy driving around in the game.
8. Complete day-and-night cycle
9. Challenging races - your car's power in general can't be too far ahead of your opponents.
10. Big variation in the gameplay: classical circuit & sprint street racing, off-roads, stunt tracks, police chase (DLC), time limits, impromptu open world events, etc.
11. Detailed, color-customizable car interior
12. First-person POV available

Cons
1. I somehow feel like I'm driving a toy car in this game, especially when I drift. It's just weird and off in general. I fiddled with the settings quite a bit and managed to make it a bit more realistic, but it's still...too virtual? This is a highly popular complaint by other reviewers and I have to say I agree with them. The physics of the game is just ridiculous - both in driving and in the environment. I know the niche is arcade racing but they should at least keep a good balance between easy and realistic instead of going full-on 'toy car mode'.
2. Graphical quality is not that great and inconsistent. In some areas, you can notice that the environment texture is very crude but some other places do make quite a scenery. This gives me the 'immersion ruined' feeling since I'm very meticulous on graphical details. (Played on 4K Ultra settings)
3. The voice actors are seriously bad and cringy from the start, but the voice actors in Calling All Units DLC are much worse. I can't help thinking that they made an arbitrary decision to use one of their own staff as an emergency substitute for the original voice actors who are not available for the DLC making.
4. Cliche, boring storyline.
5. They clearly didn't put much effort in texturing the background characters, both cars and people.
6. Performance should be more optimized. Games with this level of graphical details shouldn't ask for that level of specs. This issue is extremely similar with Ubisoft's optimization issue with Watch Dogs 2 - crude graphics, but highly performance demanding.
7. This one is purely subjective, but I find the radio songs to be very, very annoying. I am aware most in-game radio tracks are from new artists looking to promote their songs, like in GTA V and Watch Dogs 2, I can still accept the quality of the tracks. But in The Crew, I lost all of my tolerance to bad music. I finally made my own Classical musics and Lorde - Royal playlist, which doesn't go well with racing games but apparently, I have no choice.
8. Cutscene camera was clearly designed to be bombastic, dramatic, and fast-cuts-style - this makes me nauseous.
9. I'm not a fan of 'powers' (EMP, UI disabled, etc)- makes the game too arcade-y in an extreme way and definitely a killer of immersion. If I want powers, I would play Mario Kart. I do not expect these kind of things from The Crew or NFS Hot Pursuit.

Neutral
Progress is a bit slow. Racing rewards are a bit too low for me and the mission points are too far apart. Some people prefer this method to keep them engaged in the game for an extended period of time. But as someone who don't have that much time to play games, this style doesn't fit me. This is a very personalized point, so you decide the value based on your own life schedule.

Is it worth the price? Yes Is the CAU DLC worth paying for? Yes. The base game itself offers a lot of hours of playtime with its massive content. If you enjoy arcade racing, The Crew is your ultimate-updated-graphics arcade racing game. If you enjoy old NFS play styles combined with a big variation of cars, The Crew can also be a great fit for you. As a comparison with one of its competitor, Need For Speed (2016), The Crew lacks the physics realism, storyline, and general cutscene quality, but it offers more cars and gameplay variance. I would also recommend this game for people who love driving around, exploring various geographical landscapes.

The CAU DLC's police chase content itself is already worth it. It's a great newly-added gameplay variance where you get to be the law enforcer and chase actual players. The police cars are also very cool to have and worth grinding for.
Sidenote: For people who are complaining about the DLC not being unlocked after purchasing it through Steam, simply play other missions for a while, restart the game, and it will fix itself

I hope my review can help you decide whether to purchase this game!
Thank you for reading.

Oh...Sir!! The Insult Simulator is a turn-based, comedy indie-game made by Vile Monarch. The gameplay is really simple: You have to form a grammatically correct sentence of insult using the randomly generated phrases/clause in order to mentally obliterate your opponent. It may sounds boring if I describe it, but those randomly generated phrases/clause are hilarious. If you're a YouTube dweller, you must have heard about this game before since it kind of boomed for a while back in its early release. Since the game itself does not have that many content to review, I'll just give you a short pros and cons:

Pros:
+ Definitely a fun local co-op (plays at the same PC) game to play in a party
+ I have to give the devs credits for the creative idea. This is a fresh, innovative, and well-executed game idea.
+ You will generate the most outrageous insult sentence that you have never thought of. My point is, this game has a great comedy aspect
+ Enriches your vocabulary, you can insult people like a thesaurus
+ Great balance between entertaining and challenging

Cons:
- Limited map and characters. It will get dull and repetitive after several hours.
- I do not know how difficult it is, and I have no experience in game developing, but the devs are a bit slow in adding new content to broaden the gameplay variation. They can lose momentum quickly if they failed to keep the player base engaged.
- Almost no replayability value. People who have watched the YouTube gameplay already knows all the funny jokes and lose interest in the game quickly.

In conclusion, this is game will be best in giving you the local co-op experience with people you know. There is really no point in going online and play with strangers or play with an AI IMO. Nevertheless, the price is really cheap, and it is right for the value. Challenge your friends for several rounds of this game if they don't know about this game yet and it'll be a blast.

Thank you for reading!

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is a team-based MMOFPS capture-the-checkpoint game based on massive maps. As you may have known, its sucessors are having a huge sucess. Battlefield easily became one of the iconic PC FPS game beside CoD and CSGO. BF: BC2 seriously blew my mind on both gameplay and graphics quality. As a 2010 game, I did not expect much from it. I got this on a massive sale and grabbed a few copies to send to my friends. I tested 3-4 levels of the SP and had some MP matches with my groupmates. Here are the pros and cons I pulled from it:

Pros:
+ Amazing optimization and graphics quality. Similar to its successors, this game is highly optimized. This means you can run BF games on bottleneck PCs with 60 fps. Graphics quality that is offered with this level of minimum specs are also amazing.
+ Classic Battlefield unforgiving & challenging shooting recoil. You can't point-and-shoot with laser-pinpoint accuracy like *cough*Call of Duty*cough*
+ Again, similar to its successors, the gameplay keeps a great balance between realism and entertaining arcade system. You can't run around no-scoping people with sniper rifles, but you sure won't get killed with 1 body shot like in Arma 3.
+ Servers & community are still active, most of them has x15 XP so you can rank up very quickly to unlock the weapons. A lot of people are still playing this game.
+ Bullet drop already exists, not as harsh as BF4 but it poses a challenge to snipers.
+ Tons of weapon choices
+ Steep, but enjoyable learning curve. Not as harsh as CSGO and not as lean as Call of Duty.
+ Definitely fun to play with your friends. Get them into a squad, turn your voice chat on, and go have a blast.
+ Perfect game to test the Battlefield experience. If you're afraid your money will go to waste on BF3/BF4/BFH/BF1, try this game first. Although the elements are very different, general gameplay is similar.
+ Haven't met any imperious server admins that enforces weird rules like in later BF games.
+ Classic BF destructible environment

Cons:
- Still K/D focused. Players are not really motivated to work with their team and solely focus on their own K/D. Players rarely bothers to capture a point and chose to sit on top of a hill with a sniper rifle instead.
- Too many veteran players. Some people simply don't get bored with old games and they stay here for years. Arrogant veterans are squashing new players with helicopters/snipers.
- Base-raping is hardly controlled. Veteran players can easily find a sweet spot to camp the freshly spawned players. You basically will not have any chance to fight back if someone does this. Some servers kill these people but they often find loopholes to base-rape e.g. destroying freshly spawned vehicle
- I personally don't fancy the shooting. It's a bit wonky and awkward compared to other FPS games. I'm a 16-years FPS veteran that usually learns the pattern of new FPS games very quickly and can gain a headstart. In this particular game, it is very difficult for me to adapt.
- Adding friends seem to be very difficult in this game. It took me days and multiple tries to have my friend request sent to my groupmates

In conclusion, BF: BC2 is definitely worth it. I wouldn't say that this game is better than its successors since I'm very meticulos with graphical quality and I despise downgrading games that I play. I would choose to play BF4/BF1 all day over BF: BC2. However, this is an especially great game for people with bare-necessities PC specs or considering to purchase EA Origin's BF1/BF4/BFH.

I hope my review can be helpful in your decision.

Thank you for reading!

Introduction
Elder Scrolls Online (ESO) is a hit-and-slash based MMORPG game based on the Elder Scrolls (duh) universe made by Zenimax Online (Thanks for the correction, Oni, metareaper, and flobish). Players will explore Tamriel and do quests given by NPCs across Tamriel. This game is focused both on PvE and PvP, each requires a lot of time to master and grind. Similar to its offline relative, TES V: Skyrim, ESO has a massive content in it and you can expect thousands of hours of gameplay. Quest's style is also similar to Skyrim. Instead of 'Kill 50 monsters' or 'Collect 100 chicken feets' like in other MMORPGs, ESO offers various kinds of immersive Skyrim-like tasks. Like 'Tail Dar'Van to the secret place' or 'Change A or B's sword with a flawed sword' or 'Assassinate Lord Quintus Jarol in his estate'. These quests involves stealth, lockpicking, pickpocketing, assassination, choice-driven outcome, and many other elements. In short, ESO is a story-driven MMORPG with rich content that offers the player a new way to interact with the game.

Common Misconceptions
1. Pay To Win?
Definitely not. Purchasing 'Crowns' - ESO's premium currency - will only cut down your grinding time. If you have the time to grind and enjoys the grinding process, there is really no benefit you can get from Crowns. ESO Plus members only gain a crafting bag, all DLCs, and 10% bonus XP. In my opinion, membership is quite useless if you have the Gold Edition. Crowns will also unlock special cosmetics like special mounts and pets. But again, they are just cosmetics. They have no advantage over the free items. However, I always encourage everyone to purchase premium currency and DLCs to support the developers. Purchasing Crowns is not completely useless. You can browse around the store to see what kind of benefit it offers over non-paying users.

2. Is this Skyrim Online?
No. This is set exactly 948 years (Thanks for the correction, Mr. Cracktus Jack!) before the events in TES V: Skyrim. This is the 2nd Era and even Talos has not been born yet, moreover the Dragonborn. A lot of people keep asking in-game "WHERE IS THE DRAGONBORN?! Or are we all dragonborns?". If you pay attention to the in-game calendar, it's 2E (Second Era). Skyrim is set on 4E (Fourth Era). This is definitely not Skyrim Online, but it is set on the Elder Scrolls Universe. You will still meet or hear familiar characters like Akatosh, Mara, Thieves Guild, The Dark Brotherhood, etc but this is not set in the same time with Skyrim. Expect MMORPG-compatible quests and storyline instead of complete similarity with Skyrim's gameplay.

Pros
1. Rich content. Tons of story, side-quests, items to unlock, hidden collectibles, crafting system, skills, characters, etc. Side-quests are mostly a bit cliche but that's compeletely understandable. You can't expect them to write thousands of well-written story. I do, however, have to give them credits for the great main quest's storyline.
2. Active and friendly community. As expected from a pay to play game, the community does not have a lot of toxic players and they are very helpful to new players.
3. Very large map. This means there are tons of exploration bonuses and sights to see.
4. Better fighting animations. Compared to Skyrim, it is not as crude. Not as smooth as Warframe but it is still better than Skyrim.
5. Not the best and latest graphics but it looks awesome and up-to-expectations from a 2014 game.
6. Almost no trollers. This is gold for a MMORPG. I can enjoy online play without the presence of people who intentionally ruin the gameplay.
7. Definitely fun to play with friends. This is not one of those solo-focused MMORPGs. Having 1-3 friends to play with will be very beneficial to your ESO gaming experience.
8. Helpful Add-Ons will cut down your grinding time
9. Grinding process is not boring. Again, they are not like those 'Kill 100 headcrabs' MMORPG.
10. Emotions made the social interactions very alive. I spent a lot of hours just messing around the city with various emotions (/kowtow, /lute, /bucketsplash, etc). People around me are surprisingly very supportive in creating a mutually entertaining random fun (e.g. flash mob, orchestra, mass-play-dead, etc)
11. If you're into Role-Playing (RP), there are a lot of RP guilds in ESO. I'm not into RP myself but I saw one of them in action once and I can say their dedication is amazing.
12. You can create up to 8 characters and you can share the items & money between them. IMO, this is another golden point. ESO offers a massive room for improvisations, practice, and testing. Devs did their best to balance out everything so you can try out every class/alliance/race in-game without having to pay a single dime. Grinding new characters will not be as difficult if you already have one well-off 'main' character.

Cons
1. Musics are not as epic as Skyrim and mostly 'meh' quality. This might not be important for some people but IMO this is a huge letdown, considering the fact that this has relation with Skyrim.
2. Very expensive crown store items. Want those cool-looking armors? Be prepared to pay ~$50 for each style. However, you can get them for free if you are patient in farming for the motifs.
3. A bit confusing for new players. There are way too many elements to learn and it takes a long time to know your way around. ESO needs a better tutorial system.
4. IMO, I agree with others that Bows are a bit underpowered. I have seen numerous discussions about underpowered bows in various zone chats so this seems as an issue that devs should address.
5. Stealth kills are a bit weird. You can only insta-kill using Dark Brotherhood's special Blade. Stealth damage should have more value. However, I agree with Oni that stealth wasn't meant to be a huge element in the game. Stealth system exists but it's just not well made.
6. Gathering resources seem to be severely under-rewarding. Stealing items from town markets and deconstructing them will give a lot more resources faster.
7. No Asia server.
8. Combat with same-level enemies takes way too long and this is the very first thing my fellow gamers noticed whenever they watch me play. It seems that I'm not the only one who thinks that the enemies are too tanky.
9. Crafting system lacks explanation. I had to watch kevduit's video on YouTube first before fully understanding it.
10. Kills mid-low spec PC. My friends have a laptop with specs above the minimum requirements, but they can barely play smoothly (2 - 30 fps). I understand this is a heavy-load game, but it would be great if they have more optimization options.

Conclusion
ESO is definitely a MMORPG to look at. I am not a huge fan of MMORPG myself since most of them are pay-to-win or have similar patterns of gameplay. ESO is unique. It looks awesome, it has worth-reading stories, and abundant content. I believe this is definitely worth trying. I am still not that far into the game when I write this review so I may update this review again one day. I hope this review can be helpful for you. Thank you for reading!

Overcooked is a Shared/Split Screen Co-Op cooking game made by Ghost Town Games. Its gameplay focuses on the co-op element and I can say this game is definitely a 'hardcore' co-op. This game requires an intense coordination with your 'cookmates', quick reaction, time management, and a huge amount of focus.

Skip this paragraph if you don't care about the story
Here's a bit of a lore to give you the idea of what's going on. Don't worry, these are all the intro of the game so they're not spoilers. Set in a "not so distant future", the world was coming to an end and a massive spaghetti meatballs monster is crushing the world. In order to survive, you need to cook onion and tomato salads to satisfy those delicious apocalyptic creatures. After you and your cookmates failed horribly, the Onion King sent you back to the past to train your cooking skills and save the world in the future.

You will now work in multiple different so-called kitchens in different environments, offering different challenges and foods to cook. Gameplay in general is 2-4 people playing as chefs, running around weirdly designed kitchens where they need to cook different types of foods to get enough money and achieve three stars. The kitchens are specially and well-designed by the devs to ensure you will coordinate with your friends. Some kitchen can be completely separated every several seconds, some kitchens only have one-person walkway, some kitchens have obstacles in them that will prevent you from moving around, some kitchens have mouses that will steal your food, etc.

In these specially designed kitchens, you need to cook different kind of foods like burgers and soups. The most common way to cook is: Take the ingredient - Boil/Fry the ingredients - Put it on a plate - Serve - Wash Dishes - Repeat. It may seems easy, but the kitchen and the overwhelming orders will create complete chaos (chaotic fun) if you don't coordinate well.

The main advantage of the gameplay is its 'reach'. Everyone can play this game as long as they are able to use a keyboard or a controller. To clarify my point, games like CSGO, Battlefield, Need For Speed, Dark Souls, and almost every game out there only attracts a very specific demography - male young adults. Co-Op Games like Overcooked, Gang Beasts, Monopoly, etc that successfuly created a friendly and fun co-op experience for all genders and ages are pretty uncommon to find these days. I saw several other reviews that gives this game a thumbs up because of 'My wife likes it' or 'My 7 years olds have a lot of fun with Overcooked' or ' My girlfriend loves this game' or other similar reasons. This is what makes this game so good - it has a co-op based gameplay that is fun for everyone and can be used to strengthen their players' bond with others. I personally also feel this benefit - I play this game with my sister who's not a gamer (she only plays PokemonGO and Reign) and she never plays any co-op or MP games with me before, yet we had a lot of fun playing Overcooked for hours.

But, I do have some things that I don't like from Overcooked. It's all of those splitting-kitchens, like the earthquake kitchen or the food truck kitchen. First of all, we thought it might be an interesting challenge to have the kitchen split every several seconds. But then, we realized there's really almost nothing to do when the kitchen separates. The intense yellings like 'I NEED MY TOMATOES NOW' or 'WHERE'S THE LETTUCE BURGERS OMFG IT'S ON FIRE' completely died out as soon as the kitchen splits. All we can do is chop stuff and wait until the kitchen's back. Or the worst part - wait until we can extinguish the other half part of the kitchen that's completely on fire. We both felt that it's a bit of a design 'flaw' - although it's not necessarily is - since it really 'killed' the co-op moments.

Overcooked is definitely one of the best split screen co-op games out there. You can enjoy it with your family, with your friends, with your soulmates or whoever. I highly recommend this game if you have some fun people to play with.

Thank you for reading!

Muddy Heights 2, without question, has attracted a lot of 'meme reviews', short-negative/positive-only reviews, and joke reviews. So I'll write a serious one to help out people who are currently considering to purchase this game.

Muddy Heights 2 is a short 'mini game' where you get to defecate from a rooftop and control your feces around with W/A/S/D/Spacebar. The main goal of the game is just to hit as many people as you can with your feces. You can either directly hit a person in the face or you can leave a slippery trail to tumble them down when they run over it. The more people fell down (or fainted?) caused by your feces, the more points you get. The more goals you achieve, the 'better' your feces will be (e.g. double jump, larger splatter, 'explosive' mode, etc)

The gameplay is very short - you'll get three levels to complete and that's it. For each level, you have certain goals you have to achieve in order to unlock the next level. Each level offers different possible humorous interactions with the environment - called 'secrets'. They will give you a word or a phrase as a clue and you'll have to find out that interaction by yourself. For example, you can derail the roller coaster and destroy the ferris wheel with it in the Theme Park level. The entire gameplay hours really depends on how smart you are on finding out those 'secrets' - if you're the type of person that always go after the 100% achievement. If you don't bother finding out all the secrets, you'll obviously finish and get bored of this game much quicker than what it has to offer.

Graphics are low-quality but very funny to see. The panic expression face are hilarious and the terrible animations made it funnier. Some of the interactions can be considered as a - excuse my language - 'WTF moment' and it's really worth it to find them.

As a humor-based game, this game has attracted a lot of gaming YouTuber to try them out - like PewDiePie, JackSepticEye, and Markiplier. I do not recommend you to watch their gameplay before purchasing this game. Spoilers will kill the 'WTF just happened' moments when you play the game. As Muddy Heights 2 is a short game, I personally do not want to miss out the initial natural reaction when I play the game.

Overall, it really depends on you whether this game is worth it or not. I saw a lot of negative reviews saying that this game isn't worth the price - so I took conclusion that not everyone enjoys these kind of games and not everyone find defecating from a rooftop as 'funny'. I personally think this game is worth the price. Even though the gameplay is very short, it gave me good tearful laughs and I enjoy the experience much better rather than watching others play it on YouTube.

As a gamer from an undeveloped country, I understand that not everyone can easily spend any money (even a dollar) on video games. If you do find it's not worth it to purchase Muddy Heights 2 - I highly recommend you to watch the gameplay from YouTube. Everyone deserves a good laugh - maybe Muddy Heights 2's gameplay can make your day.

That's all I have to say about Muddy Heights 2. I hope my review can be useful to you. Thank you for reading!

Dark Souls III is currently the latest game in the Dark Souls series. If this is your first Dark Souls game, you need to know that Dark Souls is well-known for its extremely hard difficulty, frustrating deaths, and slow grinding progress (because you'll lose everything if you fail to retrieve your dropped souls - or 'money'). In short, it's just completely merciless to the player. If you're a hardcore gamer that loves challenges, I heavily recommend this for you. Dark Souls is the type of game where the difficulty overwhelms the fun, so if you're a casual gamer looking to rekt some AIs easily and be a hero that saves the universe - don't buy this game. Know that your character will die a lot in this game. I mean, A LOT. So if you're the type of person that crushes things around you when you're frustrated, I also don't recommend this game for you to save your stuff.

Gameplay
You'll start with creating your character and choosing a class. And then, the slaughtering will start. Arguably overpowered enemies - usually in the form of monsters - will start popping out as you progress through the map and you'll gain 'souls' when you defeat them. You can spend your collected souls as soon as you find some kind of a 'checkpoint', usually in the form of a large area that consists of a blacksmith, a store, a bonfire (respawn point), and an NPC to upgrade your stats. You'll get to purchase weapons, armors, power-ups, stats, etc. in these checkpoints to give you a better fighting chance against the enemies. Each time you die, you'll drop ALL of your collected souls and you'll have to retrieve it the next time you respawn. If you die again, then you'll not be able to retrieve the souls you collected the first time you died. Only the last pack of souls will be dropped and retrievable. When you successfully dominates an 'area', you'll have to beat a boss fight to gain access to the next 'area'. Usually, the bosses are extremely overpowered and it'll take more than 10 retries to beat them. This is basically what you'll do the whole game. Walk - kill enemies - die - grind souls - die - purchase stuff - fight bosses - die - repeat.

Advantages
Graphics are way better than Dark Souls II. It's really nice to look at and overall, it's great. The main advantage of the game is the difficulty. Some of you, like me, may think "What? Who finds getting killed over and over again, getting frustrated, punching stuff around you, or even throwing your CPU out of the window because you are p*ssed off as 'fun'?". Well, people have different ideas of 'fun'. There are hundreds of thousands or even millions of players that loves the Dark Souls franchise. The overwhelming difficulty is what makes Dark Souls unique. Its PS4-only cousin, Bloodborne, also gained huge attention from gamers due to similar gameplay style. I personally don't find getting killed over and over again or fighting against overpowered enemies as 'fun' but I find the game greatly trains my mentality - it desensitized me from failure, which will be important in my pursue of success. But know this: this game is not all about death and failures. You'll learn how to fight with your brain instead of blindly slashing everywhere. Yes, Dark Souls is skill-based. You'll have to get used on using the roll, heavy slash, light slash, shields, bows, utiliteies, etc. if you want to be able to progress through the game. They are not easy at all to master.

Disadvantages
Storyline is confusing. It's best not to put your hope on the story-driven part. The game lacks explanation about the previous installment stories. You can always look at YouTube to catch up with the stories but IMHO, it's not a nicely written story. It's short, lacks details, lacks plot twists, and it's just way too 'mainstream and predictable'. As for the soundtrack, it's empty as usual. I expected epic songs for these kinds of games but apparently, they still think almost-no-soundtracks is good. The overwhelming difficulty itself is NOT a disdvantage - it is purely based on your gaming style preference. The second noticable disadvantage is the lack of new weapons in the shops. I may not have progressed far but when I meet a 'checkpoint', I couldn't find anything useful in there. I might have to enchant weapons and all but I haven't quite understood the mechanism. Should it be a disadvantage? I don't know. I might be too stupid to understand the whole mechanism in 5 hours or maybe the game itself lacks tutorials for new players that are not familiar with Dark Souls.

Final Verdict
It all depends on your gaming preference. Some people enjoy Dark Souls, some people don't. Make sure you look at the gameplay first on YouTube or whatever before purchasing this game just to make sure you won't waste your money. I personally like this game and recommend it for everyone regardless of your gaming preference because everyone needs to be desensitized from failures. But you might think it's not necessary because you already have a super safe life and a tremendous amount of parent's money. Just make sure you watch the gameplay first before purchasing it.