Video Game Review

Toxic Communities in Gaming: Is it Bad?

I’m going to be honest almost every game has a toxic community. To understand what toxic communities are, we need to first understand what it means to be toxic in games. Being toxic in a game is when someone or a group of people will go out of their way to make your gaming experience worse by using words against you or by their actions in the game. An example of people using words to be toxic is in between rounds or during the rounds they are insulting you non-stop to the point it becomes bullying, but it is not truly bullying because most people will do it back and it leads to an argument. An example of people being toxic in how they play the game is if someone on your team just follows you around giving your position away or trying to sacrifice you in survival games so that they can survive and win or just buy themselves some time.

So, with that being said let’s talk about the toxic communities in gaming. I will say that the talking aspect of being toxic has calmed down compared to what it was when I was a kid with kids telling me they would to expletive things to me and my family. Toxicity in gaming can make people stop playing for awhile or even forever. The real problem lies with the fact that being toxic is contagious and once someone starts being toxic to you, you reciprocate it and start being toxic to not only them but everyone else as well. This just gets people to spread it like wildfire.

With all of this being said everyone has been toxic in some way before, myself included. As much as people complain about it, it isn’t really that bad as some people see it. Everyone that plays games understands that everything said in these online environments doesn’t mean anything. Most of us grew up with much worse than what’s happening now. The most annoying parts are when they do something in the actual game, whether it;s giving your positioning away or targeting you in a survival game. People always are just trying to annoy you and make you angry, so the best way to deal with it is to just not care. Don’t take any of this to heart because if you do it might just make everything you do for the rest of that day worse. The only good thing toxicity in games does is that it will knock down some players off their high horse. It isn’t a terrible thing and isn’t a good thing. Toxic communities in gaming just makes a game annoying to play sometimes, but most players are toxic as well. So in the end, I do not think that Toxic communities are a bad thing, they are just annoying sometimes, but not bad.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is Coming?

Grand Theft Auto 6 is officially entered early development. I wouldn’t get to excited for the title coming anytime soon however. Grand Theft Auto titles take much longer than people think to develop. I would expect this game to come out no sooner than late 2022. The game seems to be a smaller size than what GTA5 was on initial release, but will have many updates as GTA5 online did. This is interesting to point out that this may be the first GTA that has DLC for the story mode. This would most likely be free of course, but would allow Rockstar to get this game out sooner and still keep people involved by adding more story missions that will keep people playing.

The game does have some interesting news about it. According to some insider information reported from “Liberty93,” a french fan site, GTA6’s story has been finished. This may seem like the game may be released soon, but the same thing happened with Red Dead Redemption 2’s story being complete, but then having many changes and tweaks to it after they “finished the story.” So again we probably have a lot of time yet before Rockstar’s next GTA title is released. Are you all excited for GTA6?

Call of Duty Season 3 is here!

First off, I know that lately my blog has been a lot about Call of Duty, but that is really the only video game news big enough for a blog dedicated to it. With that said let’s move on to Call of Duty. Season 3 is live and the battle pass has brought back Alex from the dead. Alex was a character in the campaign of Modern Warfare and is now a playable operator in the game. The battle pass also includes the first skins for vehicles.

Three “new” maps were added to the game. Aniyah Incursion is a copy paste map from the map that is in the game already called Aniyah Palace, but has been downsized to just the middle area of that map. The second is Tasik Backlot which is the map Backlot from COD 4. The final new map is the only actually brand new map named Hovec Sawmill, which is a prett.y small map similar to Shoot House in size. Two new weapons were brought in. The first is the SKS which is a semi automatic marksmen rifle and the second is the Renetti, which is a pistol that can become a three round burst pistol. These maps and guns are good in their own right, but don’t bring enough to draw players back to multiplayer for long with Warzone being the priority.

Warzone has had a decent change as well. Quads is now a game mode where you can play with 3 others to make a team of four. The weapons that naturally spawn around the map have changed too. The crates also offer new variants of guns. Season 3 has been alright so far and brings a lot of new things to the game in terms of aesthetics. The addition of more maps and some changes to Warzone bring this update a score of a 7/10 because it still isn’t enough to bring people back to multiplayer and Warzone versus just one or the other.

The World has Changed: My View Point

This blog isn’t going to be the normal video game review. This is purely going to be me explaining how I feel about everything happening in the world right now with the Corona Virus. My life has changed a lot since all of the quarantine began. Not being able to go out and just be around people I don’t live with has been a little rough because it is keeping me inside. I go outside and used to go to the local park to shoot hoops and just play a little basketball, but now I can’t anymore because they don’t want people at that park and have wrapped it with yellow do not cross tape. My college classes have all moved online and it is starting to feel more normal being able to talk to them via video chat.

It has also been more difficult with not being able to go see my family because of certain members of my family having poor and weak immune systems and me not wanting to bring the virus to them if I am carrying it. Besides that it hasn’t been bad especially since I play video games often. The release of new games like Warzone has been nice to keep me busy. I am worried that this won’t end soon and we will be living like this for up to four months. I hope that everyone else is doing okay and want everyone know that we will get through this. If you can help out someway do so and keep your physical and mental health in check. Try to make a routine in the day and at least dress yourself in the morning instead of not changing so you don’t get in a slump. Stay safe out there everyone and just check in on each other.

Warzone is here: My thoughts on it after two weeks

It has been awhile since I’ve discussed anything on this blog. This whole pandemic with the Covid-19 has really changed how we all live in some way or another, but that’s for another blog. Warzone is out though and it is amazing. I don’t know for sure if it is just great because it is a new battle royale and came out when we all have to be staying in or if it will have some longevity and last for awhile.

Warzone Battle Royale is keeping many people entertained including me. I have played it more than I would like to admit over the past two weeks. The money system in the game is great because it adds more reasons to fight other players instead of just hiding. You can earn money from finding it laying around the map, from players you killed, and from completing contracts. There are three types of contracts which will earn you and your squad money. You can get a bounty to hunt down an enemy player for money. Another way is called scavenger where you search for three crates to earn money. The final is a recon contract where you go to a marked location and capture a point which will give you money and show you where the next circle will be at.

The shop is a great feature in itself because you can buy armor there and a UAV along with buying your teammates back after they die. The game also features a second chance in terms of a 1v1 between you and another person who has died for the first time. If you win you spawn back in and if you lose your team can still buy you back. In the Gulag, which is where you do the 1v1’s, you will be fighting with a shotgun or a pistol and not any other guns. I wish it would have more of a selection of guns to use and maybe that comes in the future, but for now it is alright. The shop also allows you to buy a loadout drop in which you can select a custom class you created. These rops will also drop at certain times in the game.

Overall the game play is good except for the fact that some of the servers you get put into are slow and make everyone lag from time to time. I sure do love this at the moment though. The game is just getting bigger and bigger with more players joining every day. The fact that Warzone is free is probably a big reason for the amount of people playing it. I feel like they need to keep updating the weapons in the game and change a few things on the map every two weeks or so to keep things fresh. I give Warzone an 8 out of 10 because it is honestly great, but it has an issue with servers where the whole lobby lags. The rest is great and I hope it just gets better. Let me know what you guys think about it and if you are playing it.

The Past Decade of Call of Duty Ranked: Number 2 Might Surprise You.

Let’s be honest Call of Duty has had major success over the past decade and also some massive flops. For most gamers COD has been a part of their life at one point. I along with a friend will rank the past decade of COD games together to remain as impartial as we can.

Number 10: Advanced Warfare

Advanced Warfare was just the biggest flop of the decade. No one in the COD community wanted the exo suits that the game brought in. The game also brought in a pay to win aspect in the fact that getting certain weapon variants would make the player have the most overpowered guns, that you couldn’t get unless you got very lucky or almost bought a bunch of their crates. The exo zombies mode was also just very poorly put together and just had an overall weird feeling to it. Advanced Warfare just changed to much at once.

Number 9: Ghosts

Now we move on to Ghosts. Ghosts Multiplayer was just so stale. The game got boring after the first few weeks and the maps were not different enough for anyone to say that they had a favorite from that game. It is a shame that this game did bad, because the campaign was really good. The campaign is probably one of the best of the past decade. Then we move onto their survival game mode where it was an alien version of zombies that was just awful. It was an unwanted variant of zombies that ruined the players opinion on the franchise.

Number 8: Infinite Warfare

Infinite Warfare is a game that many people just kind of forget about. The whole in space concept and the return of exo suits just made it crash. The zombies in this game was okay, but nothing special. Just kind of a forgettable game.

Number 7: Black Ops 3

The first of the Black Ops series comes in at number seven. This Black ops had a terrible multiplayer with a weird assortment of weapons and just boring maps. The inclusion of wall-running brought something new to the series, but also made people hate it all together. The only thing saving this game from dropping lower was the zombies. The loyal fan base loved this game for the zombies and the continuation of the story.

Number 6: World War 2

WW2 is the start of the COD games that are good and don’t have much wrong with them. The multiplayer was a breath of fresh air after coming off of games that including jumping around with jet packs. The zombies was fun in its own right, albeit nothing special. This was just a good game overall.

Number 5: Black Ops

Black Ops was a great game and I mean great. This game was the start of something great for zombies fans. The maps were great in multiplayer, so good that the would be brought back to future games. The likes of Summit and Nuketown came from this game. The guns got so popular that they came out in future games as well. This was a great game, but others came later that beat it out.

Number 4: Black Ops 4

Black Ops 4 was the latest installment of the Black Ops series. The game had a great zombies as well and continued the story and had a map that put the best parts of previous maps together into one giant map. The multiplayer brought back so many maps that everyone loved in previous installments. BO4 also had its own battle royale that helped it grow a bigger following and add another mode for people to play.

Number 3: Modern Warfare 3

MW3 is a game that everyone and their mother know. It is a game that most of us grew up playing. The maps were insane and the campaign was insane. This game has a type of nostalgia that you just can’t get from many games. MW3 had some of the best gun/map combination ever.

Number 2: Modern Warfare 4

This game is the current installment of COD. Although it still hasn’t reached its full potential yet, it might just become one of the best games to come out. I may be biased because I am currently playing it and love it. The Spec Ops mode is refreshing to have a mission you can do with your friends. The Campaign was a master piece of missions that make it feel like you are there. There looks to be a battle royale being added as well which will make the game even better by adding another game mode, as long as it isn’t terrible.

Number 1: Black Ops 2

Now we move to our number one spot. WE may be biased because we played it for three plus years because the ones that came out after it were absolutely terrible. The zombies was outstanding once again and the multiplayer was perfect. Maps like Raid and Standoff were some of the best maps of the whole series. The last COD to offer many different camos like bacon and weaponized which almost everyone remembers. Maybe it’s just because the games after it were bad, but that’s what makes a game great, the longevity of it.

Lets us know what you thought of our list and what you would switch around and why.

Call of Duty Warzone Release

Call of Duty’s new battle royale (Warzone) is most likely to release this Tuesday, March 3rd or A week from them on March 10th. Either way this mode is long awaited for many fans as Modern Warfare has felt stale as of late. I also want to point out that all of these topics I am going to bring up are more rumoured and leaked, rather than factual. None of this is a proven thing, even though they are most likely going to be true.

First things first, the lobby size. Warzone is most liekly going to be a much bigger Battle Royale than we have seen. It is going to have a 200 player space lobby. That is double of what Blackout and Fortnite have. That large lobby size comes into play with the map size. It is rumored that the map will be huge and will consist of all the Spec Ops maps combined into one entire area. The concern behind this is that maybe the games will move too slow. With the bigger map comes more time spent getting to the next zone and a big part of your game is just running.

It is also interesting to see how big the update file will be considering if the map is all the spec ops maps combined then it will be a very large update file. That could cause the community to get a little bit angry, but as long as the servers stay strong and there aren’t too many bugs, then it will be good. The interesting things about Warzone will be what attachments are in the game and if all guns are in the mode as well. No matter what happens, I am excited for this update coming soon… Hopefully.

Is Assassin’s Creed Going in the Right Direction?

Assassin’s Creed is a franchise that has a very dedicated fan base that will play every game they put out. I am one of those fans. I have played Assassin’s Creed since I was a young kid. The main thing that draws in fans is that it has a very deep story and every game is connected to the main story line of the franchise of Templars fighting the Assassins. The first few games were amazing in terms of plot and the mechanics at the time. However, after those first few games the franchise took a turn for the worse.

In my opinion and others who I have conversed with, Black Flag is where it all started to go downhill. The game itself in terms of mechanics was fine, but the story of it was very different from the games before it. I won’t get into why many of us didn’t like Black flag too much. A summary of why people didn’t like it, is that Edward Kenway, the main character of the game, had no real reason to become an assassin and the way he did it went against everything an assassin stood for. That may not seem like such a bad thing, but for the dedicated fans it was a massive turnoff. There was also a variant of the game after called Rogue, where you played as a Templar in the same world as Black Flag.

The following two games were also massive failures for the franchise. Unity and Syndicate just didn’t have the character development the fans wanted and there were many issues with the mechanics. There were many many issues with these games. Their story just didn’t hit the right mark and early on both games had issues so bad that would make it so people could not even play the game or lose all progress after they had played it for multiple hours. These games start their own narrative in terms of the ongoing story. The overall glitches and lack of engaging story made many fans sat questioning if the franchise they loved so much was killing itself. These games were also rushed in terms of trying to push out the game before they fine tuned it. Sure updates fixed those glitches, but it still leaves a bad taste in your mouth after those first impressions.

Watch this video below for a more in depth idea of these past games in the franchise.

Now we move onto the two most recent games released by Ubisoft in the AC series. These are both huge worlds that have a complex story line that gets in the right mindset of what Assassins are meant to be. I love the more open world of Origins and Odyssey . Their stories do not connect as well with all the games before them, but they are not rushed products because after the failure of Unity and Syndicate, Ubisoft started to take two years or so to make their games. Origins and Odyssey give the player more control over how their character develops in terms of relationships and other decisions they make with other characters in the game. I like the story of each because of the character development and the fact that I enjoyed all of the games. These two games are very different then what initially attracted me to the franchise. I do like where they are going with giving the player more choices to make and have a deeper plot then before. I want more games like these that get even deeper into the lore of AC. I’m not going to give a rating for this because it is too much to put into one rating, but I will say I look forward to AC games more now then I did after Black Flag came out. Let me know what you think about Assassin’s Creed as a franchise.

Call of Duty Season 2 is Here!

Call of Duty Modern Warfare 4 Season 2 was officially rolled out this past Tuesday the 11th of February. This update was very large for just an update and it came with complaints as always. The size of the update was roughly 94 GB on PC, 68 GB on Xbox One, and 51 GB on PS4. The big update size left many players of the game upset that they had to wait a few hours just to play the new update. This new season brought along a new season pass and the return of the popular “Ghost” character from Modern Warfare 2. The update also brought two new weapons. The Grau 5.56 and the Striker 45 which are from the famous Grav and ump 45 from past games. There are tons of new game modse to play taht are out now and some that are coming. Some that have been out have been three person gunfight and gunfight, Snipers only.

Valentines Day also brought some cool changes to the game. Almost every mode had its name changed as an easter egg for valentines day. I recommend everyone go in and check the game out. This update has added great maps such as rust back along with another new multiplayer map that reminds me of what a Sam’s Club would be in war. Also there is a new Ground war map that adds to that game mode. The title screen also has gained a fifth spot for another different mode to play. Almost everyone believes that this is the games battle royale known as Warzone, and I agree. I think that we will be seeing a COD Battle Royale once again this year. Overall I give this update a 7/10 because of the download size of the update and the fact that it is just teasing us with that new game mode coming instead of just releasing it right away. It is great to see Rust back in COD along with more game modes coming out. Let me know what you think of this new update.

Dauntless, A New Top Free Game?

Dauntless is a free to play boss slaying game. It came out on PC in 2019 and is now on PS4. I have just begun Dauntless and have logged about 12 hours of game play on it. I would say that Dauntless is like Destiny and Dark Souls combined. Although no where as challenging as Dark Souls is in defeating bosses, Dauntless still incorporates massive boss fights into its main function of the game. I say it is like Destiny because it involves working and grinding to upgrade your armor and weapons as well as get new ones. Dauntless has over twenty different bosses to fight along with seven different weapons types to use against the monster ranging from swords and axes to repeaters(guns) and War Hammers. You can party up with three others to take on the Behemoths, as they are called in the game. You can also fight them by yourself if you want, although it will be much harder.

My opinion on this game so far is that it is well rounded and it makes time pass really fast. From what I’ve heard from other players, the developers are constantly adding new things into the game. That is great news to know that the game is still growing and getting things added in on a bi-weekly basis. I have had a fun time playing so far because of the constant change of bosses to fight. I am also the type of gamer to embrace the grind and love to work towards something instead of just getting it for playing the game lightly. There is one thing that worries me about this game though, and that is what happens when I finish the whole game and beat all the bosses. Is there going to be more added in in time before I stop playing the game, or will I just continue to play it because of wanting to continue to do boss fights. MY rating for this game so far is a 7/10 because I am thoroughly enjoying the game, but do not know if this game will continue to add more content to keep me and others in the community playing. I look forward to giving my full game report on Dauntless when or if I finish it.