Recent reviews by xJacb

I actually DO recommend this game for thos who haven't played it, especially for its super cheap price relative to other games of its quality. But for those who are returning after a long time, I wouldn't recommend picking it back up, at least until the Deep North update releases in 2026. Why? Because the Mistlands and Ashlands SUCK. Seriously. The Ashlands is so cool, the enemies have awesome designs, the weapons are fun to use and a fire biome was sorely needed. BUT, the combat is so tedious, so boring, and so punishing. It's a constant uphill battle trying to simply move from point A to B, because you get swarmed.

And as for the MIstlands......don't get me started. The Dvergers and the new weapon types are the only good thing about it (and admittedly both are really good additions), but everything else about that biome is awful, and unfun to play.

Again, overall this game is incredible, and if you've never hear of or played Valheim before, definitely pick it up. But I have to make this review negative because of how much I was disappointed by the game doing its best to STOP me enjoying the new biomes. Especially Ashlands, because it's so close to being amazing, but I can't help but be infuriated by the constant irritations of the enemies never leaving you alone.

One of the most incredible story-driven games I have ever played. It's a perfect follow up to Resident Evil 7 and uses so many story elements from it that it enhances the experience of it's predecessor upon a second playthrough, now knowing things that Village unveiled. Almost all of the sections are fun, creative and fresh, and the puzzles are well integrated into the gameplay. I don't understand why Redfield went through another design change, but his place in the story is enough to enjoy his role, but not so much that it takes away from what is supposed to be Ethan's story.

Ethan is a well done character. As a random dude in RE:7 thrust into a world he had no hand in creating that persevered to the very end. His death too (though is he actually fully dead? I doubt it) was a gut punch that actually gave me pause, the emotions of the characters were very well conveyed at the end. My only gripe with him is that he's a bit dense for someone that canonically solves all these complex puzzles. I think the community gives him a bit too much of a hard time about it, because most people wouldn't be of sound mind in his situation either, but why did he just go along with everything the Merchant, Heisenberg and Dimitrescu said about Rose? The whole point of the game is getting her back and Ethan essentially hands her to Miranda by putting her parts in the altar. But besides that, the characters are all awesome and engaging, especially Heisenberg and of course, Lady Dimitrescu. I'd be interested in how the story would have played out if Ethan had teamed up with Heisenberg upon his offer. The hints dropped about Heisenberg throughout the story leaned towards him being a potential ally, but Ethan throws it away saying 'You can't have my daughter!' despite him pretty much giving her to Miranda as I said before. Another example of Ethan not being the smartest, but at least we got an incredible boss fight with Heisenberg out of it.

Something that improved from RE:7 was the variety of enemies. The last title featured the bosses, Molded, and that's about it. Village has only a slight bit more variety, with the bosses, sub bosses, Lycans, the zombie maid things, Heisenberg's cyborgs, and variants of most of them, but it's spaced out enough to spice up the combat when it starts to get repetitive.

However, not everything improved between 7 and Village. I do wish there were a couple extras in the game that had other perspectives, like what RE:7 did with The End of Zoe and Not a Hero DLC, but even without that, there were a lot of extra modes in 7 that added a lot of replay ability; Village lacks that for the most part. The Mercenaries is a fun mode, and it's certainly a blast to go back through the main story to complete all the challenges, use infinite ammo, etc, though a couple more small mode would have been a welcome addition

Overall, this game deserved it's GOTY nomination at the Game Awards, and should've won it in my opinion, but at least it won the Steam Awards GOTY. 9.5/10

Unbalanced, repetitive, pointless grind, boring, laggy.

This game has a lot of flaws that keep it from standing out among other Halo games. It's just another Halo multiplayer, except this time there is no incentive to play beyond levelling up a lacklustre battle pass at a painfully slow pace. There isn't even an XP progression system, and there are no player ranks/levels. The cosmetics store too is a joke; who wants to buy a boring armour bundle for £20? I would rather have paid a full £50-60 for a fleshed out XP progression system that feels like something to strive for, with a permanent challenge library (on top of daily and weekly challenges, those are a good addition) that rewards players with cosmetics/XP Boosts and such. Much better than predatory systems like this that get justified by the fact that the game is free to play. At the end of the day though, I'm not interested much in the cosmetics, but there's already just nothing to do with the game. There are 3 multiplayer playlists right now, that's it. And casual 4v4 is unbearable because the Sidekick (pistol)
is terrible and unsatisfying, so for me that becomes 2 playlists. There are precious few 4v4 maps, and with Forge absent for an unspecified time, that probably won't change for at least a few months. I already get bored of playing certain maps because there are so few that it takes not much more than an hour to experience every map/mode combination. However that could also be thanks to poor weighting of those modes, perhaps I haven't played some modes due to a lower chance of getting them in a match. Outside of gameplay, the menus are boring and I don't feel the same urge to browse through my stats that I felt in the other games, mostly because you CAN'T. Even Halo 5 had this; do better.

The gameplay itself is perfectly fine if you're someone who was fortunate enough to not have experienced Halo 5's multiplayer. For me, I noticed countless little bugs and issues that are exactly the same as they were in Halo 5 (so much for the Slipspace engine being mostly built from the ground up), such as ghost melee, theatre bugs, duplicate killfeed messages, etc. But those are at least all minor things that can be ironed out in the next few months. What I can't ignore is the absurdly terrible audio cues. In ranked/competitive, there is no radar and, while a good change from Halo 5's launch, makes it so that to identify nearby enemies you need other cues, which are noticeably absent. Too often I'll turn around to see an enemy in my face (that takes a second to register in my head as an enemy since 343 made the godawful decision to remove red vs blue in multiplayer) without hearing a single footstep or clamber or even breath. This needs to be amended very soon if I am going to be playing this game for much longer than the honeymoon phase.

Other small cons:

~Activating an Overshield or Active Camo should not have a windup, it was frustrating in Halo 5 and that hasn't changed here
~Fireteams are very buggy, multiple times I have had to restart my game because I can't join a friend, or because only one of our games says we are in a team. Invites also don't show up, like anywhere
~Absolutely no ability to view the stats of random opponents or teammates after games (you can't even view your own), no way to message people directly via Steam or Xbox Live
~Game crashes rather too often during matches and I/my teammates get penalised for it
~Carrying the flag (flag-running) in CTF feels very clunky with the reduced speed of sprint/reduced momentum without thrusters
~Melee is too powerful, it kills too easily when at half shields and it's too easy to use as a get-out-of-jail-free card
~THe weapon sandbox is littered with new additions that fell almost pointless, especially the Bulldog shotgun, which is an awful weapon and in no way replaces the classic Halo shotgun

Some positives though, and there are admittedly a lot compared to Halo Reach, 4 and 5:

~Very clearly this game has been made with PC in mind, it's not a clunky port and it's a lot smoother on MnK than expected
~Playing with bots and training modes is a very good addition for new/offline players, they are a lot smarter that Halo 5's AI and hopefully this means that when Forge releases we will be able to make maps and modes using enemies and AI. That would be incredible and would extend the lifespan of the game by a lot
~Competitive weapon balancing is well tuned for the most part
~It's very satisfying to get kills with precision weapons, apart from the pistol
~Game runs well, even for my graphics card with 3GB of VRAM
~Grenade hitmarkers being absent from competitive makes a big positive difference in the pace of a match
~Round-based Oddball and Strongholds matches are an improvement as it allows for upsets and comebacks
~Music and OSTs are amazing and bring back the Halo feel that the oldest games nailed
~The Halo Championship roadmap looks promising, big esports teams are involved and well integrated into the game (albeit through the use of paid cosmetics that I wouldn't buy with a gun to my head), if done right the scene could truly take off

Overall the game needs a lot of work before I could play for an afternoon without getting bored or the urge to quit and play something else, but the base is there and it's definitely possible to create an incredible Halo game from what's here. Do I think 343 have it in them to deliver? Not after Halo MCC and Halo 5, but I would be happy to be proven wrong. Finally there is a chance, however small, for Halo to be on top once more