Monster Hunter: World is the eagerly anticipated follow up to the console version which released earlier in the year. Full disclaimer: I'm not a big Monster Hunter fan- I've played Generations on the 3DS and one on the PSP years ago and hated how clunky they felt. Does that change with World? ...Sort of.

Essentially Monster Hunter World (MHW) is a very simple premise: Kill or capture ever-increasingly difficult monsters for their body parts, from which you craft better weapons and armour. Rinse and repeat for hundreds of hours. However you have wide variety of weapon types to choose from (14 in total), each with its own special characteristics and preferred way to engage a monster.

Combat in MHW will feel slow and clunky if you're more used to high-speed action games like Devil May Cry. This means you have to be patient and exploit openings whenever you can. Many of the late-game monsters can easily kill you if you mess up so learning their movesets is really important. You also have a partner called a Palico (which is basically a cat) who fights with you and can bring some really useful tools to heal you, tank damage, or even steal items from monsters. Plus you can deck your Palico out in its own armour which are often incredibly ridiculous or cute.

The story is a mixed bag. There are some genuinely amazing moments but they're somewhat ruined by the irritating Handler and absolutely stupid multiplayer restrictions. For those not aware, if you want to go through the story with a friend you both have to separately make a quest, both 'discover' the monster, then have one player join the other. You can't just start the quest together if one of you hasn't seen the cutscene for a monster. It's incredibly irritating, particularly as almost every quest has a cutscene and the story is pretty long (approx 50-60 hours if you pace it). However, once you beat story you're free to run any quest you're high enough level for and you have a lot more freedom. Honestly, just get through story as quick as you can and then enjoy the real game- grinding Elder Dragons.

Visually MHW looks very good, although there are a few issues here too. One of the Elder Dragon fights has very noticable slowdown whenever he does certain attacks (and this is happening to people with high-end gaming rigs), plus some of the textures aren't particularly high quality either.

One of the best things about the game is how real the environments feel. Monsters will sleep, eat, and act as you would expect an animal to act. Smaller herbivore monsters will often try to run whenever a predator gets near. When two large monsters meet you'll often get a 'turf war', where both of them will fight and do huge amounts of damage to each other. It's amazing to see for the first time when the monster you were hunting gets annihilated by something even bigger! (RIP Great Jagras)

Overall I would recommend MHW but there are a few areas that badly need to improve:
- The multiplayer experience is littered with random disconnects and being unable to find sessions. Capcom are aware of this and trying to fix it. Slowly, the experience is improving but it's not fixed yet.
- Slowdowns/freezes. In addition to the Elder Dragon I mentioned above, the game likes to stutter/freeze occasionally.

Honestly, if you have a PS4 or an XBox One, you may be better buying that version, which also has all of the DLC monsters like Deviljho and Behemoth. If you don't have one of those consoles, the PC version is still very good and will be excellent once the bugs are ironed out.

If I had one bit of advice for new MH players:
Learn how to superman dive before Nergigante. Please. (2nd bit of advice: Once you're addicted to this, buy Iceborne)

Monster Hunter: World is the eagerly anticipated follow up to the console version which released earlier in the year. Full disclaimer: I'm not a big Monster Hunter fan- I've played Generations on the 3DS and one on the PSP years ago and hated how clunky they felt. Does that change with World? ...Sort of. Essentially Monster Hunter World (MHW) is a very simple premise: Kill or capture ever-increasingly difficult monsters for their body parts, from which you craft better weapons and armour. Rinse and repeat for hundreds of hours. However you have wide variety of weapon types to choose from (14 in total), each with its own special characteristics and preferred way to engage a monster. Combat in MHW will feel slow and clunky if you're more used to high-speed action games like Devil May Cry. This means you have to be patient and exploit openings whenever you can. Many of the late-game monsters can easily kill you if you mess up so learning their movesets is really important. You also have a partner called a Palico (which is basically a cat) who fights with you and can bring some really useful tools to heal you, tank damage, or even steal items from monsters. Plus you can deck your Palico out in its own armour which are often incredibly ridiculous or cute. The story is a mixed bag. There are some genuinely amazing moments but they're somewhat ruined by the irritating Handler and absolutely stupid multiplayer restrictions. For those not aware, if you want to go through the story with a friend you both have to separately make a quest, both 'discover' the monster, then have one player join the other. You can't just start the quest together if one of you hasn't seen the cutscene for a monster. It's incredibly irritating, particularly as almost every quest has a cutscene and the story is pretty long (approx 50-60 hours if you pace it). However, once you beat story you're free to run any quest you're high enough level for and you have a lot more freedom. Honestly, just get through story as quick as you can and then enjoy the real game- grinding Elder Dragons. Visually MHW looks very good, although there are a few issues here too. One of the Elder Dragon fights has very noticable slowdown whenever he does certain attacks (and this is happening to people with high-end gaming rigs), plus some of the textures aren't particularly high quality either. One of the best things about the game is how real the environments feel. Monsters will sleep, eat, and act as you would expect an animal to act. Smaller herbivore monsters will often try to run whenever a predator gets near. When two large monsters meet you'll often get a 'turf war', where both of them will fight and do huge amounts of damage to each other. It's amazing to see for the first time when the monster you were hunting gets annihilated by something even bigger! (RIP Great Jagras) Overall I would recommend MHW but there are a few areas that badly need to improve: - The multiplayer experience is littered with random disconnects and being unable to find sessions. Capcom are aware of this and trying to fix it. Slowly, the experience is improving but it's not fixed yet. - Slowdowns/freezes. In addition to the Elder Dragon I mentioned above, the game likes to stutter/freeze occasionally. Honestly, if you have a PS4 or an XBox One, you may be better buying that version, which also has all of the DLC monsters like Deviljho and Behemoth. If you don't have one of those consoles, the PC version is still very good and will be excellent once the bugs are ironed out. If I had one bit of advice for new MH players: Learn how to superman dive before Nergigante. Please. (2nd bit of advice: Once you're addicted to this, buy Iceborne)