It’s been 2 months since the release of cyberpunk. It’s been a tough journey for CDPR after seeing a huge backlash following the release of a very buggy game and they do deserve the criticisms regarding the bugs, the horrendous performance especially on the base consoles. But unfortunately the criticisms didn’t stop there, soon enough there were thousands of videos and reddit posts absolutely shitting on the game claiming “its featureless” , “everything that was marketed to us has been cut” , “the game is bad and mobile games from the 2010s are better”. Criticisms and fault pointing for the sake of fault pointing is ludicrous and non-sensical. Now I am in no way defending CDPR for their bugs and the dumb as dirt AI and a fair few things missing , I am merely bringing up the facts and showing that The game does indeed have A LOT of those “cut” content features that people are screaming about in it and a lot of the claims made are simply hate infused nitpicks for the sake of shitting on the game.
Before we debunk a large chunk of these claims , we must first address the video these claims are based upon. The 48 minute demo released in 2018. This demo is one of the biggest reasons of hype and anticipation for the game, and for good reason, it shows us such a detailed world , so many mechanics and ways to play the game and most of all the sheer amount of choices.
I suggest you try to watch the demo footage first before reading further.Also im going to be tackling the most obvious ones first getting into the “real shit” later.
· “Jackie runs into the scav boss and tackles him to the ground” (near the end of the first mission) . THIS IS IN THE GAME. Just shoot the boss a couple time from the window and Jackie will indeed tackle him to the ground. But if you kill him outright obviously Jackie will not run into him. That’s just common sense, Jackie will not beat up a dead corpse.
· “The scav isn’t pushing the wheelchair”. This statement alone proves my point that people are shitting on the game for the sake of it. They removed this scav dude and added a stealth tutorial in place of it. That’s it.I don’t see no “game breaking cut content”, these things happen all the time during development . In the demo a scavenger is seen pushing a wheelchair ready for us to shoot down , in the retail version he is replaced by 2 scav dudes who walk by (not noticing the player and Jackie) for them to take down silently.
· “where is the reflex booster and that slow mo thing??” . For people who have played the game must be wondering why the heck did I put this in that there is slow mo in the game. I know.. I felt the same way. Now here CDPR removed the reflex booster “which gives players the ability to use kerenznikov” They instead made Kerenznikov a cyberware instead of an ability that requires a stim to activate. Most likely done to simplify things a bit and make the game more intuitive.
· “v doesn’t ask trauma team for a ride outta here” . Again a minuscule nitpick. I don’t even know what to say.. uhm fuck you cdpr I couldn’t ride the av? Nice.
· “No third person cutscenes” This was clarified way before the release by devs themselves. Excerpt from pcgamer*-*
“Marcin Momot, CD Projekt Red's global community lead, has commented on the apparent shift to first-person cutscenes. As he wrote on Twitter, "the decision made by the team to go 100% first person in u/CyberpunkGame is something that will benefit it greatly from gameplay and story-telling perspectives. That said, players will still be able to see their characters in the inventory screen, during driving sequences, in mirrors and, very occasionally, in some of the cut-scenes."
Link- https://www.pcgamer.com/cyberpunk-2077s-cutscenes-will-apparently-be-first-person/
This was posted in September 2019.
· “no loading screens was a lie” This is the most insane claim ive seen, the writer continues to say – “but instead of a loading screen they put elevators rides that takes several seconds, during these elevator runs you won't see the outside most of the time.”
What the fuck does this mean? This again IS FAULT FINDING FOR THE SAKE OF FINDING FAULTS .. I cant help but laugh a bit lmao.
· **“**Vendor interfaces suck and aren't a physical screen” Tbh I gotta back this one I really would’ve liked something physical but I can understand why they did it. The 2018 screen looks pretty flat and hard to read and surfing the implants would’ve been a nightmare. And the more I think about it , the more CDPR’s decision makes sense.
· **“**the car’s speedometer is a small rubbish ui element in the bottom of the screen” This is true but only for real cheap and unimpressive cars. Most cars DO have a speedometer display (it looks like a red led progress bar in most cars) although decidedly not as cool as the one shown.
· **“**the tech double barrel shotgun shown in the demo has an alt fire mode whereas the retail one doesn’t” The retail one doesn’t because it doesn’t need an alt fire mode. Hold the fire button long enough and a charged bullet that penetrates walls is fired(exactly what was shown in the demo) . It’s a way better system than the alt mode.
· **“**there is no engineering skill in game” Engineering is now technical ability same functions don’t see anything cut here. Again people angry at a name change.
· **“**No weakpoint detection in game like we saw with Royce in the demo” Weakpoint detection exists, it’s a mod for your kiroshi optics. Having a standard “ability” locked behind a huge perk tree would’ve been boring and dumb , that’s why many abilities have been turned into cyberware , way cooler and easier to obtain.
· **“**there is no thermal katana in game sucks fuck you” The thermal katana exists its just rare. I even put up a post on the main subreddit , mods refused to greenlight it, and no one saw it. People refuse to agree anything is good with the game.
https://www.reddit.com/LowSodiumCyberpunk/comments/l39uo8/the_thermal_goddamn_katana/
^my post
Now these were the most obvious and quite frankly easiest to debunk claims, Keep in mind there are many more just like these which I wont be talking about because they are very insignificant (for example- “v doesn’t ask trauma for a ride out of the scav base” or “ads don’t point to vending machines” just ask yourself how many times have you used a vending machine to eat food in a video game, it woulve been a useless feature affecting performance , “Jackie doesn’t get a car and we don’t see a scav looking at it before we get jumped” Replaced by another sequence during the night. Etc etc . Hell ive seen people bitch about how the weapons don’t show up all categorized into classes like in the tools of destruction trailer. Its. A. fucking. Trailer. With cinematics and shit to show off the weapons themselves my god.
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Its time to discuss the real shit, stuff like “where is the jacking into a network cool stuff” , “there is no player choice the game ends the same way and the missions do too” and “the backstories where are they? Where are my turning point life options thing”
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· “Network jacking in and stuff”
I would like to put an excerpt from another post I made-
“ Now i mentioned the 2018 demo before in which they showed us the "jacking into a subnet and enabling the quickhack backdoor" This sounds absolutely cool and fucking awesome but i understand why they removed it and simplified it. The major reason would have been that enemies not being able to hack you. If to quickhack others a backdoor must be opened beforehand that would mean none of the enemies would hack us unless they knock us down and hack us which wouldnt even happen often as the ai is subpar at best due to bugs and even if they could ,it would break the flow of gameplay too much! And honestly the netrunners are the most interesting enemies to fight tbh and without them the game would be pretty bland in its encounters.”
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· “No player choice”
I’ve seen so many people saying that it’s a linear game and there arent many ways to approach a mission and that either way the mission end in a similar way, To a certain extent they are right but the game isn’t linear at all. During my time playing this game ive seen 3 main missions that have A LOT of options and really fun ways to go about them. They are “The pickup”, “Automatic Love” , “I walk the line” , these missions are a masterclass in player choice and the number of ways to go about the mission , be it peacefully or guns blazing. (for the pickup, we can contact Meredith , get a cred chip ,do the mission peacefully, for automatic love we can explore around find how evelyn got busted up , leverage woodman and get the info out of him without fighting , the corpo v also has an unique dialogue which allows this. In I walk the line we can side with netwatch agent or the voodoo boys leading to aggressive and passive outcomes respectively. If we side with the agent and help him get rid of the top brass of the VDB’s. Pacifica during free roam later on is devoid of any voo doo boy netrunners and ganoons alike. )
That’s it for the missions unfortunately , many missions are linear so as to not break the general story progressions.
Now about the “Life paths”. I don’t understand why so many people were under the impression that CDPR made 3 different games for each life path. I don’t understand how that’s even possible? We would’ve had to wait fucking 18 years for the game to come out, and obviously no sane company would do that. But they should’ve done something more. It’s an interesting concept but vastly underutilized.
“The game ends one way” This is simply untrue, the vast side content can help unlock so many different endings and if we dont do the side content properly , say we leave panam hanging while we are going to save Saul, Saul dies and panam is mad at us , ending our relationship with her(so we don’t get her ending at all). Or if we make very frequent sexual advances on her , she wouldn’t fall in love with you later on (also no romance ig so that’s important :| )
Same is true for the chippin in missions.
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· ***“***The backstory choices” As for the backstory options , having the 2018 ones would’ve been really cool and amazing, but they decided to simplify things a bit and even teased this in the “2019 deep dive” video, so I don’t know why its such a shocker to people now?
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Lastly I would like to conclude by talking about the bugs, ai and the wrong comparisons**.**
In my opinion the game is getting such a bad rep solely and solely because of bugs, AI and performance issues. The bugs are insane, the game does falls flat when it glitches out and weird things happen but mostly for me its due to the crashes, this game has blue screened my laptop more times than i can count . The feeling of an “empty world” and “cut content” is because of BUGS and the trash Ai routines that’s it. When we see a car not overtaking another car parked on the road, we feel its cut content and the game is bad “2010 games were better”. Its all because of various bugs combining together and making a bit of a mess. Its not because it was cut and the devs intentionally removed the feature, it was because of the crunch , the management’s cat piss decisions. I even watched crowbcats video on this topic and all I saw was bugs bugs bugs ruining the game , I didn’t see many “under delivered promises” just comparisons to GTA and a fuck ton of bugs and vey very bad ai which is something the game SHOULD be criticised about but not so much in the cut content department.
Which brings me to the comparisons to GTA, can we stop this please? Its like comparing apples to oranges, GTA Is a third person action game with a linear story and a lot of side content. It was a trend setter, it defined how games with open worlds should be like but this philosophy is so flawed. Not every game that has cars and guns set in a city is a GTA clone! Cyberpunk is an RPG a really good one at that, comparing it to the other RPGS is only fair! Like skyrim , fallout , deus ex and the like. And imo it trumps most of them in many areas (even though it lacks in some but that doesn’t make those systems bad just meh)
I would like to end by saying,
“The game would have been received infinitely better if the AI and bugs were fixed which would’ve allowed people to keep playing until they saw all the things it had to offer and then they would see that a lot of the content advertised is in there waiting for us to explore it”
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p.s my first big post on reddit, go easy on me choom :)
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edit - changed some adjectives , got a bit worked up when i wrote this lmao and some lines didnt really give off the right message that i wanted to give, hope its better now :) Also added the link to my thermal katana post. Thanks for all the support and feedback!

If 2020 was good for anything it was gaming. I'm actually a student with a pretty busy schedule but I still managed to squeeze 16 games this year (only counting those that I finished!). While I wished it would be more than that, I'll take what I can. I decided I won't rank them, and instead just write a little about each one.
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Non-AAA games:
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Florence - the smallest game I played this year. I finished it in about 30 minutes on my phone. I usually don't play games on my phone, but I just had to check this out because it seemed pretty unique. My conclusion: It is pretty unique. It's a short narrative-based game, dealing with relationships, ambitions and disappointment. It has an incredible soundtrack, and a very simplistic style of gameplay that managed to connect with the narrative surprisingly well. It's like 2 dollars or something so if you're on a long ride somewhere I'd recommend giving it a try.
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Gone Home - I think this game started the whole "walking simulator" trend, with some people thinking it was game of the year and some people thinking it doesn't qualify as a game. I don't really care about the definition of a game, so I'm not going to get into that. I will say that I enjoyed it quite a bit. It's basically a 3-hour experience where you play a girl coming back to her family's house after a long trip abroad, only to find it empty, and then you go around reading stuff you find in order to understand what happened. The game gripped me enough for me to finish it in one go, trying to find and read anything I could to learn more about this house and this family. I think it excels in creating an atmosphere and building a narrative, and it had me absolutely immersed by the end. However, if you played others of this genre this might struck you as pretty simplistic, especially compared to the next one:
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What Remains of Edith Finch - This game took the concept of the "walking simulator" to the next level in my opinion. It not only had a gripping narrative, an incredible environment and great voice acting - it was one of the most original games I played, always finding ways to surprise me. You play the last remaining member of the Finch family, returning to her family house and learning about all of her relatives and the different ways they found their death. Each relative story is conveyed in some unique way - both visually and in terms of gameplay. In the best cases, the narrative and gameplay go hand-in-hand in a way I rarely seen in other games. This is also a pretty short experience and if you hadn't played it and have any sort of affection to these kind of games you should definitely give it a go.
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Life is Strange: Before the Storm - I love Life is Strange. Never knew how much I'm going to connect with a cringy American teenage girl written by adult French men but I did and it was incredible. If you were like me, than you'd probably find some things to like about Before the Storm, like I did. However, I don't know if I can really recommend it wholeheartedly - the characters are much less relatable than in the first game, and the narrative feels half-baked. They also decided to replace the time-bending mechanic with a "back talk" mechanic where Chloe uses her wits and sharp tongue (/s) in order to get her way. If there's something these games aren't known for it's sharp writing, so making it into a main game mechanic wasn't a great idea. It does have some good moments - especially the ones where you play DnD and put on a school play - and I think Chloe wasn't as annoying as I though she would be. The extra episode ("Farewell" I think it was called) is a very nice touch for fans of the first game, so I would recommend it. If you haven't played Life is Strange - try that instead. If you have played it and loved it then play the extra episode, and also maybe give this game a try if you just want some more of these characters and world.
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Outer Wilds (NOT The Outer Worlds) - I'm not sure but this might be my favorite game I played this year. From the get go this is right up my alley - an exploration-based, sci-fi puzzle game, incorporating physics, space travel and philosophy. But the real cherry on top here is this - the game takes place in a (mild spoiler alert) 22-minute time loop, and every loop you are free to go and explore anything you want. The thing that really blew my mind is that the ONLY thing you gain in this game is knowledge - not only about the world and narrative, but also of gameplay mechanics you weren't aware of. This is absolutely incredible, it feels like this game trusts my intelligence and my curiosity more than any other game I ever played. I won't spoil anything as this is a game you can really experience only once, but the moment everything clicked together and I realized what I had to do gave me a rush I experience very rarely in games and in general. Also, this game has an incredible soundtrack, and the way it is woven into the narrative makes it even more incredible. All I can say is - if this game sounds even mildly interesting to you, try it, and even if at first you feel confused and frustrated just give it a few more hours, because when it clicks it has the potential to be one of the best gaming experiences you ever had.
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Black Mesa - Half Life 2 is probably my favorite game of all time, and the entire Half-Life franchise is one very close to my heart since I was a kid. I remember first reading about the Black Mesa project, a remake of the original Half-Life game, somewhere around 2006, and was so excited that I could experience the first game with the incredible graphics of the Source engine. I would check their website weekly for updates, getting hyped on the images of updated environments and soundtrack samples, but eventually (I mean, it did take almost 14 years) my interest waned. When this game eventually came out (I mean, in its entirety, including Xen) the source engine was already dated by itself, and I was already pretty burned out. But I did decide to give it a go and boy am I glad I did. The updated graphics are pretty nice actually (The source engine still holds surprisingly well), but the real treat is how they updated the game design. It's not only a remake, it's a reimagining. They added in some of the incredible design philosophies from the later Half Life games that didn't really exist in the first one, and also managed to create a much more believable environment with so much attention to detail. Foolishly, I stopped playing this for a few months when I got to the Xen levels, due to the memory of them being tedious in the original game, but when I did get to it - it was incredible, probably the best section of the entire game. Oh and the soundtrack - absolutely amazing. All in all, I think this is the way to experience Half Life these days - while I still love the original, I realize it's harder for people who never played it to start with it when it's so outdated. It's incredible what a bunch of passionate people managed to achieve, even if it took them about 15 years.
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A Plague Tale: Innocence - This is a 3rd person, narrative-driven, linear action-adventure game, taking place in 14 century France during the plague. I feel like in the 2000's we had much more of these types of games, while in the last decade they have been replaced with more open worlds. Anyway, it felt pretty refreshing to play a solid adventure, with great voice acting, incredible atmosphere, great soundtrack and a decent story. The gameplay was fun enough, although it felt like a low-cost version of The Last of Us with the same approach to stealth and crafting (It did add a twist with the Alchemy abilities, though). What I found truly incredible was how this game was made using a custom made engine, and how good it looks, especially the rat technology. Yes - this game has rat hordes and they are incredible. The game was pretty gripping for the first half but became a little too predictable in the latter. The ending also feels a little rushed and filled with gibberish, but all in all it's a very nice little game, and I hope we will get more of these kind of games from this developer. The biggest problem with it is that I played it right before The Last of Us Part II, but more on that later.
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Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice - While this game has pretty high production values I still don't think it qualifies as a AAA-game considering the size of the team that made it. It's also a 3rd person narrative-driven action game, taking place in a Norse mythology-themed 8th century. It deals with mental illness in pretty innovative and emotional ways, and I thought it was pretty good. The facial animation and voice acting are god-tier, the writing is also top-notch and some gameplay scenarios had me absolutely terrified. I read a lot of people complaining about the combat here - I found it pretty intense and enjoyable, although I did wish there was less of it. Anyway, I think it's a really solid game and I definitely recommend giving it a try.
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AAA Games:
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Titanfall 2 - So I played this after hearing someone say the campaign feels like Half Life, and I was craving for some Half Life. I don't think the campaign feels like Half Life. It's much closer to other military\sci-fi shooters like Call of Duty in my opinion. However, it is miles above the competition in terms of innovation, with one level being absolutely mind-bending and mind blowing, and it also feels incredible to control with some of the best movement controls in an FPS I got to experience. The narrative is also surprisingly good for these type of games, so I would say I had a very good experience, and while it's not the next Half Life it's a great game in itself. I don't really play multiplayer games so I can't comment on that, but I hear it's also great. The campaign is short and sweet and if like me you only play it for that I think it's worth like 20$-30$ or something.
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Red Dead Redemption 2 - I didn't start it this year, but I finished it this year. While I like GTA, I think Rockstar are at their best with this franchise. They have some incredible writers and they are much more fleshed out with the introspective approach of these games as opposed to the tongue-in-cheek approach of the GTA games. The slower pace here is not for everyone, but it works for me. I love this world, I love these characters, and when I play it I want to be immersed, which is helped by the slow approach (at least in my opinion). Like everyone else, I started this game bummed that I'm not playing as John Marston, but finished it thinking Arthur Morgan is the best protagonist I ever played as. It's not like there aren't any problems - I think the main story goes on for too long: there was an entire chapter that just shouldn't have been there, and 2 epilogues is WAY more than I needed. The strictly linear approach to mission design was also a little annoying, but I didn't mind it too much as I don't think this game is supposed to be an immersive sim - they want to tell a story, so I don't really care how they choose to tell it. It did involve too much shooting which wasn't very engaging in my opinion. But even with these problems, every time I booted this up I had to take like 10 minutes of just soaking in the view before going anywhere. The world they created here is incredible, the writing is out of this world and the characters are some of the best I've seen in any game. This is Rockstar at the top of their game, and I hope they'll finish GTA 6 soon so they can go on to do the next thing which might be more in line with this style.
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Spiderman (PS4) - I'll keep it simple: when I started this game I remember thinking "hey, I forgot how fun video games can be". So yes, while I loved a lot of the games I listed here, most of them weren't purely "fun", at least not compared to Spiderman. I loved the movement in this game, I loved the combat in this game, I thought the story had no right to be as good as it was, and I think the length was exactly what I want from an open world game. I didn't even get tired of the side content like in so many other games. So even if this game isn't perfect, I had a ton of fun with it and would recommend it to anyone.
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Jedi: Fallen Order - The beginning of this game was a banger, and I though "great! an Uncharted-like Star Wars game!". Then it became a souls-like. Now, I never played a souls game, but it just felt like the wrong approach for a light-hearted Star Wars adventure. At first I was really annoyed with it, thinking that I shouldn't be dying so much in this type of game, and especially that I shouldn't be constantly worried about getting to a save spot and about losing all my XP if I get killed twice. But I pushed through. Slowly but surely I started to get the hang of things, and also started to gain more abilities and become more powerful. At some point, I realized I'm good enough to play this game like I wanted to - running around, fighting enemies and not worrying too much. I think in retrospective it actually works pretty well from a narrative perspective - you're learning to become a Jedi, and at first you're scared and defensive, but as you gain more experience you become more confident both narratively and as a player. So my mind turned around about this game, and I think it's actually pretty rewarding, and it was very bold of them to go with this style of gameplay. Besides that, this game takes you to some amazing-looking worlds, it has great voice acting and a nice little Star-Wars story. I also enjoyed exploring the map, even though it wasn't very rewarding gameplay-wise. By the end, this game not only got me to love it, but it rekindled my love for the Star Wars universe, after the last movie kind of killed it. Oh and only one word about the base PS4 version - if you have a choice, don't play it. It's buggy, has constant performance issues and long loading times. But I loved this game despite of that, which tells you a lot.
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Assassin's Creed Unity - This was where I dropped off the series. Up to that point I played every main game in the series at about the time it came out, but when this came out it was a combination of me having less free time, the series abandoning the overarching plot it started in the first game, and the game just being less interesting. I decided to get back on this series because I think it is unique in the periods and places it allows you to explore, so I jumped right back into this game. First of all - the world is incredible-looking. The recreation of Paris during the French revolution is amazing, and just walking around the city can be enjoyable. The animations and parkour is also the best in this series, I think, so I almost didn't fast travel the entire game. The story is meh, voice acting is okay, and it has way too many repetitive missions for its own good. I got fatigued from all the different side missions pretty early on, and it didn't help that a lot of them were pretty buggy. The main missions were better, especially the main assassinations which had multiple approaches, but it felt like if they cut some side content and lackluster RPG elements in order to flesh these out even more this game would be much better. I also think these games have incredible worlds that they hardly utilize - I feel like everything is a set dressing, and that the missions don't really make me more familiar with the city. The only exception is the murder mystery part - those were the only side missions I felt were organically connected to the world and the time, and it was the only time the game gave me some intellectual challenge. So if you like the concept of this series and want to give this a go - I would recommend going through the main plot, doing only a little bit of side content until you get the hang of it, and trying out the murder mysteries.
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Assassin's Creed Syndicate - This is basically the same as Unity. A really nice recreation of Victorian London, a really mediocre main story and too much side content. However, I would say they balanced it better here, and it is much less buggy and more engaging than Unity. I hate the concept of doing 12 repetitive side missions in order to "liberate" different parts of the map, as the completionist inside me can't let it go but it just feels like a chore. The main assassinations here are better than Unity, but still not up to their full potential. The thing I disliked the most is of how little significance the plot in this game is. My conclusion is pretty similar to Unity - a nice way to experience Victorian London, would recommend not trying to do all the side content. There's only one more thing - the DLCs. The murder mystery DLC (yes, this time they decided to make us pay more for it instead of including it in the game) is how I wished the entire game was. It was miles above the murder mysteries in Unity which I already loved - the stories were interesting, there was some actual challenge in piecing everything together, and it made me more familiar with London than anything in the main game. As for Jack The Ripper DLC - it felt like it had much more soul and was more interesting than anything in the base game. The plot was also much better. My conclusion is - if you manage to get the game + these DLCs for a low price, go for it, play the base game without doing too much side content and get to the DLCs before you're tired of the game cause they're the best part.
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Mass Effect 2 - This was a replay so I won't write too much. The Mass Effect trilogy is one of my all time favorites, and the way you can play the same Shepard through all 3 games is something still unmatched in any game series I ever played. After replaying the first one last year, I got to this one, which I remembered to be my favorite. A few things I noticed didn't age well - the combat encounters were mostly tedious, the level design in some of the side missions was uninspired, and there was much less interaction with the crew than I remembered. However, this game does an absolutely incredible job in building this universe and making us care about it. The first one set things up pretty nicely, but here you feel this universe is LIVED in. The characters are all written and acted very well, even if there wasn't as much interaction as I wished there was. And most of all, the final mission is still incredible, being such a huge payoff to everything you did so far, that you just end up craving for more. Oh and I noticed I end up making almost the same decisions as in my first playthrough, because there really isn't a way you can play as a non-paragon Shepard without being a huge a-hole, which kind of lessens the impact of my choices.
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The Game I Wasn't Very Patient About:
The Last of Us Part II - Well, I can't be patient when it comes to Naughty Dog games. Because It's still a pretty new game I won't write too much about it. I'll just say I wasn't disappointed - it achieved a level of polish I never saw in a game, with some of the best acting, animations, music and writing in any other game. The memory of A Plague Tale almost disappeared after playing this, because of how much more impactful this game was. I did have some problems with it, mainly that it wasn't as tight as the first game, but it also had much more ambitious goals and a larger scope. So I would recommend, especially since it's almost about to become a patient purchase (6 months is the threshold, right?).
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The Games I Didn't Finish But Did Play For Some Time:
Skyrim - I started this even before this year, and I'm still playing it. I don't treat it the same as other games. This is a game that once every couple of weeks I'll just jump back into and have some new adventure. I just love living in this world, and I find it to be a good way to chill between playing other games.
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Rayman Legends - Really fun, really fluid, I'll just jump in and do a level of two anytime I don't feel like playing anything too serious.
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So, to sum up - I'm glad I got to play so many games I enjoyed during last year, and I hope I'll get to play even more this one. I'm also trying to stop purchasing any new games - I have about 150 purchased games I haven't played through yet, so there really isn't any reason to buy something new. Happy gaming!

Recently, there's been a lot of arguments about how much VRAM you need, MSI Afterburner 4.6.3 Beta 4 added a functionality to track VRAM allocation, now this is still not true usage, it's impossible to tell how much VRAM a game is using on a per frame basis, but it's a much better number than a system wide measure and the results are pretty interesting, I tested older and newer games all at 4k with max settings to see how much VRAM requirements changed over the years at the same resolution, MSAA and TXAA where turned off, other forms of AA on. I played for a bit to try to get the number as high as possible and recorded the highest amount it ever allocated, or used an ingame benchmark sequence, but a lot of these games I only played through the beginning parts so it won't be fully representive of how much the game needs at the heaviest point, if such a point exists.
This doesn't mean these games require the amount it chose to allocate when running on a 3080, nor does it mean that it won't allocate more if it was running on 6800XT, or a 3090.
Windows was using around 0.3 to 0.5GB of VRAM without anything running, and it seemed to fluctuate in between randomly, however, the gap between the system wide allocation and per process allocation isn't exactly ("game" + "windows" = "total"), a lot of the time, when a game gave back VRAM the per process measure would drop, but not total system, so you would see afterburner measure like 6GB total allocated but only 3GB on the game process. This is the most telling as before with only system wide allocation metric it really does look like most games are eating up way more than they are even allocating.
Here's a gallery of all the screenshots I took, I tried to screenshot the parts where I ran into the highest allocation, plus some where it dropped later depending on the game.

2012 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Far Cry 3	1.3GB	Drove around, and then flew off a cliff, stayed a relatively constant 1.3GB
Max Payne 3	1.1GB	Played through the first and then the nightclub level, maxed out at 1.1GB
Mass Effect 3	0.9GB	Played through until Shepard leaves on the Normandy, maxed out at 0.9GB
Hitman Absolution	1.4GB	Used the ingame benchmark
Alan Wake	1.3GB	Played through the early parts

2013 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Bioshock Infinite	3.2GB	Played from the area before meeting Elizabeth, VRAM went from 2.7GB to maxing out at 3.2GB, and then dropped at the start of the next area in front of monument island, dropped as low as 1.8GB during the escape sequence and was at 2.6GB during the beach
Tomb Raider	2GB	Used the canned benchmark
Grid 2	1GB	During some cliff race
Crysis 3	2.5GB	Played from start until dropping down into the grass fields with the huge ass gun, fluctuated between 2.2GB and 2.5GB
COD Ghosts	5.1GB	COD games where always interesting, I tested the Santa Monica level, and at the start, it allocated an ungodly 5.1GB (for a 7 year old game), after the sequence where you defend the beach, it dropped to around 3.7GB, however, an interesting thing i discovered with nearly all cod games is that they seem to let some VRAM go when you alt tab out of the game, so I restarted the level, went to the same area, this time it was around 5GB, alt tabbed and the allocation dropped to 2.3GB, before rapidly climbing back up to 3.5GB, something about pausing and alt tabbing might be causing the game's garbage collection to trigger, but total system wide allocation would not drop.

2014 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Alien Isolation	1.3GB	Started the game and ran around the ship talking to people, was 1.3GB before dropping a bit to 1.1GB
Far Cry 4	3GB	Allocated over 5GB during the intro cutscene, but dropped before it ever loaded into the game, then going from the start to the first tower that you defend, was 3GB during a car chase sequence, dropped to 2.6GB later, system wide allocation was still at 6GB, so I quit the game, reloaded into the game, played through the same sequence, game allocation was the same, something about the prerendered intro cutscene caused the game to behave this way.
COD Advanced Warfare	8GB	Was as high as 8GB during a driving sequence before dropping to 4.4GB and then climbing up to around 5.4GB for the rest of the level, alt tabbing managed to bring it down to 2.7GB, but it would climb back up rapidly. This might mean that on a 4GB GPU the game would still run fine at the same settings and at 4k, and the
Watch Dogs	4.5GB	After finishing the first area inside the building, it went to around 3.7GB, however curiously, restarting the game, it allocated 4.5GB and kept it, despite loading from a save that was in the middle of the first mission.
Ryse: Son of Rome	3.5GB	The first area started at 3.5GB, was mostly consistent and didn't seem to want to go any higher

2015 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
The Witcher 3	4GB	Horsed around in Novigrad, and Toussant couldn't get it any higher than 4GB, if anything, it seemed to wanna stay below 4GB at all times.
GTA V	4.3GB	Was 4.3GB during the benchmark sequence, couldn't get it to that by just driving around. Reminder this is with MSAA off, 8x MSAA would eat up as high as 7GB, however I came upon a neat trick, alt tabbing didn't do anything, but turning on MSAA, and then turning it off, seemed to trigger some sort of garbage collection, dropped it to 3.5GB, but of course it would climb back up.
AC Syndicate	3.8GB	After the game's first sequence, leaving the area and going around the city dropped it from 3.8GB to 3.5GB.
Metal Gear Solid V	3GB	Went from meeting Ocelot to horsing around in the plains, there seemed to be a 3GB hard limit.
COD Black Ops 3	8GB	Was around 7GB for a level, and then on the next one, it was 8GB during a cutscene before cutting itself down to 4.5GB, couldn't get it higher than 8GB
Mortal Kombat X	2.5GB	During the benchmark

2016 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Rise of the Tomb Raider	7.5GB	During the benchmark sequence
Gears of War 4	5.34GB	This game actually reported the VRAM usage during the benchmark sequence itself, and was very close to what Afterburner was reporting, about 150MB lower, settings were ultra, not insane.
Dishonored 2	5GB	Got it to 5GB during the first part of the game after it started at 3.8GB
Watch Dogs 2	6.3GB	Drove around in the city, couldn't get it higher than 6.3GB
Doom	5GB	Tried a few levels in arcade mode, highest was 5GB

2017 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Resident Evil 7	8GB	Playing from the start until getting to the main house, maxed out at 8GB, before dropping down to 6.2GB, seemed to be an 8GB limit
Middle Earth Shadow of War	7.5GB	With the ultra hd texture pack installed, used the ingame benchmark
COD WWII	8GB	Climbed to 8GB while on the boat, but then it dropped when gameplay started, seemed to be in a loop of, keep climbing up to 8GB and then drop, alt tabbing dropped it to 4.5GB, almost identical to Black Ops 3
AC Origins	5GB	Used the ingame benchmark
Wolfenstein 2	5.3GB	Played through the early parts, was mostly consistent
The Evil Within 2	3.5GB	Played through the early parts, was mostly consistent, but it dropped on the next level

2018 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
AC Odyssey	6.2GB	During the benchmark sequence, standing in the middle of cities or at high points was mostly the same
Hitman 2	3.6GB	Ran around during the Paris level, got to a high of 3.6GB before starting to drop
Far Cry 5	3.5GB	Used the ingame benchmark
Shadow of the Tomb Raider	9GB	Used the ingame benchmark, with raytracing and no DLSS

2019 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Red Dead Redemption 2	8.2GB	During the benchmark sequence, in the city it went as high as 8.2GB, whereas it was around 5GB in the wilderness, testing ingame myself i did manage to peak at 8.2GB as well, and then I tried the turn MSAA on and off trick, but with MSAA on, I did run into VRAM stutters as the framerate dropped from 47 to 4, there was not enough VRAM left to turn on 4x MSAA at 4k, however turning MSAA back to off didn't lower the allocation, seemed to indicate the game truly needs 8.2GB at 4k. Note besides MSAA, every other setting was maxed, including tree tesselation, water physics, ultra volumetrics etc, I've seen a lot of reporting as high as 100fps at 4k in this game on a 3080 on "max" settings, which is not possible.
Resident Evil 2	7.5GB	Peaked at 7.5GB in the lobby of the RPD, going to any of the wings lowered allocation, so did other areas.
Control	8.2GB	Started from a save point, and ran to the maintenace area and got into combat, briefly spiked at 8.2GB but seemed to wanna stay under 8GB.
Mortal Kombat 11	4.4GB	During the benchmark sequence
Metro Exodus	4.5GB	During the benchmark sequence, short ingame test was the same
Gears 5	5.3GB	Same with Gears of War 4, it reported its own VRAM usage, was very inline with Afterburner's numbers, settings were at ultra, not insane
Modern Warfare	8.6GB	Played through the Piccadily level, maxed out at 8.6GB, the start of the next level was at 7GB, alt tabbing didn't work here though.

2020 Games	Max Allocation	Notes
Doom Eternal	8GB	I double and triple checked my settings, and played through beginning sequence where you kill the priest, but I couldn't get it to allocate higher than 8GB, but the area was infamous for causing stuttering on 8GB GPUs, maybe i'm missing something. Playing further it still wouldn't go higher than 8GB.
Death Stranding	5.3GB	Drove around on a bike, seemed very consistent, didn't wanna drop or go higher, DLSS was off.
Cyberpunk	9.3GB	Drove around in the city, ultra settings, no Psycho settings, and no DLSS. I wouldn't be surprised if I was edging towards VRAM stuttering since system wide allocation was 9.9GB
AC Valhalla	6.4GB	Used the ingame benchmark
Resident Evil 3	8GB	Tested various areas, seemed to peak at 8GB and then being cut down
Crysis Remastered	9GB	Seemed to wanna stay under 9GB, some other levels allocated lower amounts, like the last level.

This is gonna be a long post, so buckle in. Next month, the ROB the Robot episode of AVGN will turn ten years old. This is often cited as the turning point of the show, with many fans considering it to be the last episode before the slow deterioration of the show's quality. But despite the slew of criticism, the show still manages to press on, with Justin claiming a whopping 16 episodes are planned for release in 2021 beginning in March, leading up to episode 200. I, for one, still try to hold hope that the show can improve in quality. However, there have been a number of reoccuring issues with the show over the past ten years that I feel it'd be better off without. I've compiled my main grievances with the post-movie episodes into a list: the seven deadly sins of AVGN.
SIN #1: The 'Fan Request' Games
In the early years of AVGN, it was extremely rare for James to take game request ideas from fans. It seemed as if he produced a new batch of games to review from thin air every other week, either timing the game choice to an upcoming movie reboot like Rocky or Indiana Jones, or just pulling something random off the shelf. It seemed like he would only take 'requests' on special occasions, like Superman 64 for the 50th episode, or Action 52 after coming back from a 2 month break. He'd even go as far as to show the emails requesting those reviews on screen. But after the movie was filmed, things changed. The show changed from being self aware of what it was -- a guy in his apartment voicing his complaints with obsolete video games -- to a much more narcissistic and deluded mangling of the concept. We all know how "the fans" were portrayed in the movie: mindless drones who creamed their pants every time the Nerd was in their vicinity. This was one of the most embarrassing parts of the entire film, and unfortunately, that mindset carried over into the episodes produced after it. Now the point of the show had become "the Nerd 'warning' his fictional in-universe fans about shitty games, SHITTY GAMES". Suddenly, James couldn't stop talking about The Fans^TM in the episodes, between the petition to review Ghosts & Goblins (did he really have to mention that?) to the Wish List episodes being about 'the fans' wish list', it felt like the show was becoming entirely reliant on fan service.
By 2014, this had gone over the edge. James began reviewing the lowest hanging fruit games he could find, and claiming at the start of every episode with "I've gotten so many requests from muh fans to play this, so it's about time I get around to it. I mean, how bad could it be? After all, it was made in X year, well after the advent of qUaLiTy cOnTroL." Between obviously unfinished games like Big Rigs and Hong Kong 97, to games that were clearly not intended to be fun like Desert Bus or Crazy Bus, every episode had become painfully predictable and a bit hard to watch. The change in relationship with his viewers going from just a standard review show with a large audience to "It's my duty to protect muh fans from these shitty games!" was really fucking bizarre. I don't see why he feels the need to go for such easy targets when he's still barely scratched the surface of the terrible games of the SNES and Genesis era, let alone any of the consoles after that. Many of the most entertaining episodes were of games that were arguably decent like TMNT or Milon's Secret Castle. In fact, I almost prefer episodes like that because at least you know it's how he actually feels about it, rather than just giving us the opinions he thinks we want to hear. The game itself should not be funnier than the review of it. It seems like James has fallen into the trap of low-effort writing that relies way more on the game itself to be the joke rather than the clever remarks of the early days.
SIN #2: The Conspiracy Episodes
Whenever James makes this face, you know the episode is about to get fucking annoying. In the first 100 episodes -- or hell, any of them up until 2014 -- I never would have pegged the Nerd character as a schizophrenic. Sure he had anger problems, but that was the joke of the show, and the anger was pretty much always justified in reasoning and magnitude. But after the movie was released, there was a string of episodes that, instead of ending with a funny rant or destruction of a game, ended with a stupid drawn out "conspiracy theory". Now, while there have been episodes like Berenstain Bears and Polybius that are focused on conspiracies that exist outside the show that were actually quite good, it's when James feels like getting a little creative with it that it gets embarrassing to watch, especially when he starts doing that screaming which is not of anger, but that signature Rolfe-acting "emotion" which doesn't actually exist in real life where he tries to somewhat mix fear and shock over some non-issue while keeping a monologue explaining the problem going. Within a year, we had the Beetlejuice episode where he tried to claim the game was based on the star Betleguese, Hong Kong 97 where he argued the game "predicted the future" (did he really not know that British rule of Hong Kong had been scheduled to end in 1997 since the day they acquired the city??), and Seaman, where he famously went on for nearly five minutes about how Sega was planning on turning the planet into mindless slaves and enacting global annihilation... which was almost as hard to even type a description of as it was to watch the episode itself. Remember guys, YOU'RE NEXT! YOU'RE NEXT! It's so stupid and so unnecessary every single time. Yes they're all obviously jokes and not things he really believes, but, does he really think any of these moments are funny or entertaining at all? Who are they meant for? It makes me feel like I'm watching a show for little schoolyard children. It's embarrassing.
SIN #3: The Flanderization of The Nerd
In the early seasons, the Nerd was a smart, straight forward person. He spoke to the audience like adults and spoke to them in relatable terms. He'd tell charming antidotes (like the history class story at the start of Atari Porn) and took advantage of his great comedic timing to create quality episode after quality episode. The character's one in-universe flaw was the driving point of the show: his anger. However, the anger would only come out in justifiable moments. You'd never see him screaming for no reason, there'd always be a proper build-up to it, and the rants were actually funny so it was a satisfying pay off nearly every time. Despite being placed in situations like fighting fictional characters like Bugs Bunny, the character was still based in reality to a degree, and was the type of person you could actually imagine being that sorta weird, passive-aggressive loner by choice neighbor of yours who lives down the hall.
But as time went on, the character was changed to be less and less realistic. Almost as if James wanted to make it crystal clear that he himself was not the 'lame' Nerd character, which is ironic considering that character he played was way cooler and than the James we know now. In early episodes like Roger Rabbit, Wally Bear, and Ghostbusters, you can see the Nerd talking on a then-modern cell phone. This made sense because, well, there was no reason for him not to use a modern phone. He was living in the year 2007, just because the games he played were outdated didn't mean everything in his life had to be outdated. But, James grew to feel otherwise, and by the Nintendo World Championship and AVGN Games episodes, the Nerd had no idea what modern phones were and had to 'play' the iPhone game through a rotary. Likewise, despite him using a modern computer in the Atari 5200 video, he suddenly has no choice but to play the AVGN PC games through his Commodore 64. (This seems to switch often, as despite using a modern computer again in the Polybius episode, by Earthbound and Chex Quest he's sitting in front of the Commodore again.) Even stupider is when the show tries to pretend like James has no idea what modern games are. There were countless moments in the early episodes where James referenced games that were new at-the-time or even flat out reviewed them. The original Chronlogically Confused video from 2006 talked about a good number of PS2 games, and the Zelda Timeline follow-up video explicitly had the Nerd give his feelings on games like The Minish Cap and Twilight Princess which had both only come out a couple years prior. And if that's not enough for you, check out the Spiderman video where the Nerd plays the GBA Spiderman 2 game, released only a few months prior, on his brand new DS. If the Nerd could review a game from 2006 in 2007, why was it that later in 2013, with the Wish List episodes, he refused to go further than 2005 with the Sonic games, saying "this is as new as I'll go, sorry."
But the worst of all the changes made to the character is his childlike overreactions to things. It's a strange criticism to make about a show where the punchline to most episodes is an over-the-top rant, cussing and yelling at a 25 year old video game. But, there's a difference between actually funny moments like "Why are there no continues?" and the into-the-pillow scream that followed in Dick Tracy, and those moments of that strange indescribable fake emotion where he's repeatedly screaming "I GOTTA DO IT FOR NIIIIMOOOOYYYY", "I WANNA BE SEDATED BY A GAME BOYYYY" or "IT WAS SPELLED BERENSTEEEEEEIN". One is a realistic situation where the emotion could be genuine and is over a justified problem, and the other is just fucking annoying and grating. I find the Seaman and Mortal Kombat Sub-Zero episodes nearly impossible to watch because from beginning to end, they're filled with these childish moments. Did he really think "No wonder I haven't played this one before!" was a good line to end the MK review on? The sentence doesn't even make sense in that context. Worst of all, is the fact that this isn't just caused by James forgetting how to write, this is all entirely deliberate. Why do I say that? Because every once in a while, when it's an episode James cares about, he'll actually go back to how the character used to be. No joke. Compare the two 2017 episodes, Power Rangers and Polybius. In Power Rangers, he's doing that weird schizo scream for the Japanese Power Rangers theme, completely overacting during the "Over here! Alright!" part, and getting the character's motive wrong by purposely trying to find a game that makes him rage rather than having it just be a genuine response out of frustration and disappointment. In the later Polybius episode however, James starts the video talking to us like the adults we are in his normal voice, only yells in justifiable moments, and gives the game (despite the fact that it's fictional) a genuine chance to prove itself as either good or bad. This happens again in the Mega Man video, where James successfully writes lines for his 2006 clones that actually sound somewhat like things that he would have said at the time. It's not a perfect recreation, but it's a huge step in the right direction from NIIIIIIIIIMOOOOYYYYY. I truly have no idea what James is trying to do to the character anymore. My only guess is that this is some sort of long con game to make the future Nerd joke in the Christmas Carol episode actually come true, where he becomes a cringy old man that the Nerd of 2007 would be embarrassed by. But now I'm making conspiracies myself, so I'll move on.
SIN #4: Constant References To The Show's Age
What makes a show's viewers start to feel that the show is on its last legs more, than the show flat out saying it's running low on ideas several times? The first time I noticed this was in Episode 101, Spielberg Games, when James makes a shit joke and says "yeah, I know, it's getting old." Okay. Then why make the joke? If the show is supposed to be funny, why would you as a writer purposely include a joke you know isn't funny? Or in Schwarzenegger Games when he says "What a shitload of fuck, what were they thinking" with no emotion. If you know those lines are played out, why include them again, especially when you won't even pretend like they're not for the sake of the video? One of the worst examples is in the episode The Crow. The Nerd describes something in the game as "vaginal" and follows it up with "yeah, sorry, I'm running out of adjectives". This line just drives me insane every time I hear it. First, again, stop writing lines into your comedy show that you already know aren't funny. Second, I'm not sure James is aware that most people don't watch his show thinking "oh man I sure can't wait to hear toilet humor!", we watch because he has interesting opinions on games and a funny way of elaborating on them (or at least he used to). Third, if you're out of ideas for the show... come up with new ones or just end the fucking show!
There's a number of other dumb moments related to this issue that are much less intrusive. Like in the most recent episode, Bartman, when he criticizes The Simpsons for going on way longer than it should have, and then says "Okay, onto AVGN episode one hundred eighty something". While it is nice to hear James finally make a joke resembling self-deprication, it's pretty tone deaf, considering it's a very valid criticism that the episode that followed made no attempt at fixing. Or, how about when 2016 Nerd sees 2006 Nerd through the TV in Berenstain Bears -- because I guess the "time travel" by green screening yourself into your old apartment needed to be tried again that fast after the Mega Man video from six months prior -- and is very deliberate in mentioning that was his "first Halloween special, ten years ago". Who cares? Do the new episodes just exist to re-direct people back to the older ones? Sometimes, however, James likes to take this a little bit further...
SIN #5: Re-Used Material
There are an embarassing amount of times where James just straight up lifts lines and scenes from earlier, better episodes. Take for example, the Planet of the Apes video, which begins with a direct copy of the start of the ROB video. Well, no, excuse me, because this time, instead of having the camera zoom in on corners of his room while saying "And this fucking thing" repeatedly, now he does the same thing while saying "And this shitty thing" instead. Don't want James to exert his brain too much of course, especially with how much he's straining his voice this time around.
Even worse, James keeps doing this stupid bit where he straight up re-uses footage from older episodes to save on "muh time". In the Power Rangers video, he mentions how the show relied on pre-existing footage from some Japanese show for it's action scenes. Then he says, "well since they can re-use footage, I think I should do the same to help me get through this review", and shows a montage of reaction clips from older (and again, BETTER) episodes. How stupid is that? Again, I get the show is way past its peak of popularity, but if I wanted to watch the older videos, I'd watch the older fucking videos. Show me something new, quit giving us reasons to feel like the show has long passed its expiration date. And to make matters worse, he combines BOTH of these problems in the Mortal Kombat Rip-Offs video by ending the video by saying "I don't know what to do for the ending, so, I guess I'll have to rip-off some old AVGN episodes," and then displaying a clip show of edited 2006-07 video endings. How fucking cheap. If I were James, I would be doing everything I could to not to remind people of the old episodes so they don't have to remember how much better they were!
SIN #6: Needing An Excuse To Review Games On A Game Review Show
This is a more minor complaint, but why do so many episodes start with the Nerd being given some elaborate reason to play the game the episode is about? It's a game review show, I'm already expecting him to review a game! All these fake-outs are just unnecessary fluff that waste time. Take for example, the Superman 64 Returns review. Did anyone really think he was going to review Super Mario 64 at first? If he was going to revisit the game, why did he need some lame excuse like "it came back from space and is shooting lasers at my other games"? Why not just give an explanation like at the start of the Back to the Future re-review that he wanted to look at the rest of the game? Even worse is the Pepsiman episode. It starts with a title card and even a description of the game Yo Noid, something many of us have been waiting for him to review for years, but before he starts it up, it gets turned into the Pepsi Man game. Why actually tease something like that if we're not going to get it? Was there no other way to introduce the game? The stupidest of all might be the Trespasser episode, which I consider to be the worst episode of the show besides Seaman. So, he orders new Jurassic Park games in the mail, but gets a different Jurassic Park game, starts playing it, quits within minutes, takes a plane to "The Tropics", the plane crashes, he gets stuck on an island where he finds the game, and starts playing it again anyways? What was the point of all that? I'd say just get started with the review already... but from there it becomes one of the most boring videos I think I've ever seen on Youtube. Bottom line, while I suppose there are acceptable "reasons" to review specific games, it works way better when the reason is realistic, like doing Indiana Jones when an Indiana Jones movie is about to come out, instead of whatever that fanfic mess was at the start of Trespasser.
SIN #7: The Look and Sound
Many have cited the switch to HD and widescreen as one of the ways the show lost its old charm. However, I don't think that has much to do with it. The Bible Games 2 episode was shot in HD and 16:9, and still manages to feel no different from any of the other classics, in fact, I think it's one of the best episodes of the show. The problem comes with how "professional" he tries to make the new episodes look and sound. Some of the most iconic moments of the show were dictated by the soundtracks of their respective episodes. The Contra music playing during the 32X destruction, the Excitebike music during the Power Glove setup, the dramatic music from Batman Returns playing during the Nerd's huge ending rant from that episode about the controls. What happened to that? When's the last time you heard iconic music during an AVGN episode? The only game music I can recall them using is the Hydlide theme in Black Tiger, which was such a dumb choice considering what a bad song that was. Nowadays, with the exception of special episodes like Mega Man which get original compositions, James opts for stock royalty free music. I understand the show is likely trying to avoid copyright claims, but there's a bit of a logic problem there. First, the games he reviews have copyrighted music anyways, but we hear that just fine and the episodes are still monetized. And second, the older episodes still have ads on them too! So there's clearly not a problem there. Compare the classic 8-bit backing tracks of the NES Accessories video to the droning, boring sound of the Game Boy Accessories video. It makes a world of difference. Worst of all is the Trespasser video, which uses those Kevin MacLeod songs you always seem to hear playing in shitty GTA videos for children. Although it's meant to make the show seem more professional, it only does the opposite and gives off huge amateur vibes.
In terms of the visuals, the stale single-shot cinematography makes the show feel like a limp corpse. Why can't he ever get off the couch anymore? Even if he has "no time" to do complicated skits (or no room in that tiny replica set of the Nerd basement), can't we at least see a scene of him standing by the shelves pulling the game out, or hell, anything besides that one angle of the couch? Seeing it zoom out at the end of Bartman was actually shocking. Up until that point, I was almost convinced they had nailed the tripod into the floor in 2020. For a show that was as expressive and dynamic as it was in 2006 with episodes like Friday the 13th and Nightmare On Elm Street, there's no excuse why it should feel so lifeless now. But they often manage to even screw up the couch shot. Why do they feel the need to add field depth to the visuals by making the background blurred? I get the show exists entirely out of reality now, being filmed in a recreation of a former basement, and starring a man who isn't invested in games or the show at all anymore to the point that he outsources a large portion of the writing and gameplay to new guys, but it would be nice to at least keep the old look and feel of the episodes as true as possible. But by now, not even the character looks the same. After trying those thick rimmed rectangle glasses for a few years (which didn't suit him at all), he's taken one step forward by getting a slightly better pair of glasses, but two back with that insane shirt that reveals his out-of-character tattoo. The look, sound, writing, feel, and soul of the original 100 episodes are all but gone.
I do still think the future of AVGN could actually go somewhat well. I mean, anything is a step up from the episodes of 2015 or 2019. But they keep making these same mistakes over and over again. If they work to avoid these issues, I think we'll be a lot closer to the show we once loved. After Justin's AMA, I'm expecting a significant leap in quality for next month's Dark Man episode and the ones that follow it. Maybe they're already aware of these problems, and we've seen the last of them already. But if not, I'm hoping this post will make it to Justin like my last long rant did. I would love to see the show recover from the plague of horrible writing and management its been suffering from for the past ten years, and I think many of the rest of us would too, now matter how we feel about Cinemassacre after certain recent revelations. However, that entirely depends on the people making it, between James and Screenwave, finally figuring out what made the original episodes so lovable and many of the recent ones not so much.

There was a period of time during this pandemic where I was getting a little bit sick of spending more money for games, and there were some particular titles that really had me thinking about "the good old days". Looking to maybe spark some nostalgia during these horrid times, I delved into them, interested to see if my opinions held true or if these games were more so a product of their time.
To start...
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Grand Theft Auto 4
Original Rating: 9.5/10
Current Rating: 9/10
This game was the start of this whole trend for me, so it only makes sense to start here. Originally, this game was an absolute masterpiece to me. Every portion of the game felt so lived in, so vibrant. The story was an improvement from the previous games, the shooting was immensely better, and the entire game felt like the definition of Next Gen at the time.
Playing it now... I honestly feel like the game world is still one of the best I've ever explored. There are definitely bigger maps, and more realistic looking visuals, but none of them compare to GTA 4. Whether its the interactions between civilians, all the different locations you can actually enter and explore, the verticality, etc, it's absolutely stunning. The visuals still look fairly solid on PC, the gameplay holds up, and the game is still a joy to play. The only thing that really took a turn for the worse was the story to me. I forgot how much filler there was in the middle/end section. Too many odd jobs with various characters I didn't care about and didn't fit within the context of the story. Still a legendary game as far as I'm concerned.
​
Dragon Age: Origins
Original Rating: 8.5/10
Updated Rating: 7/10
This game was a strange one to go back to. DA:O came at a time where true WRPGs were few and far in-between. The industry was beginning the shift towards ARPGs and just never came back. DA:O came around and was a breath of fresh air. It ticked all the boxes you would want, a dark atmosphere, well written, RTwP combat, interesting companions, choices you can make in the story, etc. It really reveled in the fact that it was the successor to the NWN/BG/KOTOR type of BioWare games.
However, going back to it had something dawn on me. For as much as it does well, there is no aspect of it that is exceptional. It felt like a Greatest Hits compilation, but without any risk taking involved. The story felt fairly derivative, the combat was just simplified from BG and NWN, the visuals were solid but nothing special, the companions are interesting but fairly simple and tropey (give or take a few like Shale IMO), and the hubs are very derivative of previous BioWare games. Recently we've had games like Disco Elysium, Pillars of Eternity 2, Divinity Original Sin 2, and Wasteland 3 which all do the isometric, old school RPG so much better, and all provide their own unique takes which reveals Origins for what it is. An overall SOLID game that pushes the envelope in no meaningful way, and caught an audience at the right time.
​
Bully: Scholarship Edition
Original Rating: 7.5/10
Current Rating: 8.2/10
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Originally playing the game, I enjoyed it for what it was, but it definitely felt simplistic compared to the GTA games and some of the other games that I was playing at the time. I overlooked some of its aspects as I was looking for something different at the time. I still really enjoyed it, as the game really did manage to capture the feeling of an old high school American flick within a game, and provided a world that felt alive and felt unique.
Going back to this one, it aged so much better than it's contemporaries. The simplicity that it aimed for ended up helping the aging. While games like GTA:SA or Morrowind were more ambitious, the mechanics and technology at the time failed those games as the years have gone by. With Bully, the systems that it had with it's melee combat and its interactions and smaller towns were fairly fleshed out and well done. The characters and story hold up fairly well, if a bit too crude at times now (could be slightly more clever with a revision). Definitely an absolute gem of a game.
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Final Fantasy 7
Original Rating: 5.5/10
Current Rating: 8/10
This was a weird game when I was younger. I was spoiled by the CRPGs of old, and FF7 just felt constricting at the time. The fact that I couldn't customize Cloud, explore more of the world, make choices in the story, avoid combat encounters, etc, just made it feel... average to me. I didn't have a bad time, but it was just a standard game to me, and one that I dropped half way through.
Going back to it now, I've developed more of a taste for well done linear games. Going into FF7, I was worried that the aged visuals would impact my enjoyment. However, this time around, I was completely immersed in the experience. I couldn't drop the game for the first half, with the game constantly feeding you more events, more cutscenes, cool characters. My biggest problem today is that the second half of the game felt a lot more... barren than the first half of the game, and the technology really did hold back what could have been one of the most immersive games I had ever played.
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Baldur's Gate 1
Original Rating: 7.5/10
Current Rating: 5/10
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Being one of the first RPGs I played when I was younger, it was definitely an interesting experience. Lots of exploration, lots of builds, people to meet, and ways to ruin your character. The story was fairly interesting when I was young, and having side quests that were fairly fleshed out were new to me at the time. I didn't like the obtuse D&D system, as well as the empty space and some of the filler and growing pains involved in making it, but it was definitely a fun experience.
Now that my tastes have matured and I've played more games in general, the original BG is about as average of a video game as you can play. For as much as it does well, there's so much holding it back. The companions are drab, the story is simple and predictable, early game D&D just isn't that fun, and much of the game feels like a slog. While the sequel still holds up and will always be one of the greatest games of all time... the original feels like a tech demo. While it's still not a bad game, I'd definitely put it on the lower end of your backlog if you have one.
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Super Smash Bros Ultimate (Smash as a whole)
Original Rating: 6/10
Current Rating: 10/10
This rating is more just for the Smash series as a whole. Growing up, while I enjoyed playing with friends, I never really saw the appeal of the games solo. The characters all felt clunky with turning around actually taking time to perform unlike an anime fighter, combos weren't as satisfying, and the percentage system took a while for me to wrap my head around.
However, that all changed when I picked up Ultimate. Initially, I felt the same way as I always did. Movement feels floaty and slow, platforms get annoying, etc. Once I found Joker though, and I really took time to get used to the game... WOW, what a game. The amount of diversity of the roster, the amount of tricks you can pull off, the skill gap that exists without having stupidly complicated inputs, and the hilarity of team matches just had me addicted for months. Once I got used to the movement and timing my attacks, no other fighting game could ever compete. While lots of other games require you to learn all of the inputs and have a mastery of the basics to move forward, Smash offers a place where casuals and hardcore players can all have fun. It's more about the mind games and the footsies vs what you're going to do once you get them in trouble. The amount there is to learn to become good is staggering, yet the progress is so much more clear. A rare game that offers something for every level of gamer, and to me, the greatest fighter I've ever played, taking the title away from SF2 for me.
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I hope you guys enjoyed the mini write up. It was definitely interesting to go back to old games and series and see how my tastes and patience has changed throughout the years. There really is such thing as aging well/poorly, and it's not all just nostalgia or blatant disregard of older software.
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EDIT: Changed the DA:O summary as people have pointed out, I was wrong in exactly what I said referring to the likes of LOTR. The story does remain fairly derivative to me, but I was wrong in how I expressed it.
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EDIT 2: A 5/10 or 7/10 are not bad scores. For me, a 5 is average. Not overly good, but not overly bad. Can recommend it to fans, but with a disclaimer or two. Not going to be my first recommendation, but after exhausting options, it might be a good pick.
A 7/10 means that the game is really good. Arguably one of the better games of that particular year (top 50%), just doesn't make any GOTY lists or all time great lists. Good, not great, but still highly recommended.

Let me preface this by saying that I loved Cyberpunk 2077. It had an amazing story, incredible characters and has been the only game I've played in a long time that had me struggling to sleep because of that "just one more mission" feeling.
I played the game on a mid range PC, my GPU is pretty good (RTX 3060ti) and my resolution is 1920x1080. My settings were mostly ultra with medium ray tracing and cascading shadows turned down to medium. I experienced one crash in 60 hours play time, and it was partly my fault for spamming dialogue options too quickly during a fairly graphics heavy scene. My frames mostly sat at around 60-80FPS, the game looks fantastic and I had a blast playing it.
The following is my thoughts on the game and its subsystems, it's a long, rambling effort to show some of Cyberpunk 2077's issues, with some solutions I think could work to help the game mature into its best form. Each section is titled and has an opening paragraph/sentence and then lists a few key points of problems I noticed in my play through. Some of these points are known issues but many of them are things which haven't been discussed due to the poor way the game has been received since launch. BTW I kept it spoiler free, so no need to worry!

NPCs

Generally speaking, the NPCs who crowd the streets are serviceable at best, downright horrible at worst. They seem to have nearly no original dialogue outside of a few set NPCs and combined with the T-posing, synchronized crouching around danger and general blandness, they make the city feel somewhat hollow at times. I have to admit that NPCs and their reactions have given me some hilarious moments of game play, but it came at the cost of immersion. I feel like this may be an area of the game that may never achieve the level of detail players were hoping for, but it can definitely be improved.

• NPCs should not crouch at the first sign of danger, as if their watches were synced to an atomic clock. Most should flee, some should run for cover, there should a hysterical man/woman shouting "God help us!", but never this.
• There needs to be a much larger pool of dialogue and variations of actions for NPCs. Even a small pool of some reoccurring NPCs outside of side missions we can see throughout the game would be great. My example for how this could be done right would be from Red Dead Redemption 2, where we met Nigel, who was just a man looking for his friend Gavin. Stumbling across a unique crazed hobo yelling in the street, or an impatient corpo trying to skip the line for coffee, who we then see in a different neighborhood doing something completely different would add immersion and would be simple to implement.
• Multiple identical NPCs often appear side by side, sure the "crowds" look full, but this is a very lazy implementation of crowds. There should be a lot less identical NPCs being side by side on the street when you are next to them, some videos have shown dozens in the same instance.

Wanted System & Police

There is no way around this one, the wanted system is absolutely horrible. Police appear behind you no matter where you are, as soon as you break a law or just look at them the wrong way. Then if you run away they simply forget you exist.

• Police need a better AI system, this can't really be put any simpler way. I'm hopeful CDPR will be able to pull this off because it is one of the few things I classify as game breaking for a game like this.
• Car chases feel like they should be in this game. I'm not sure if CDPR intended to have them and just couldn't do it for whatever reason. But a city with police vehicles and a wanted system should have them. There should be cars, armored vehicles and drones chasing me depending on what I've done, but at no point during my play through were the police anything more than annoying because I got a 1-star wanted level for walking past them.
• Crimes committed in this game are basically limited to walking past police and shooting (or even just ADS) at civilians. There is no nuance to the wanted system or the police reactions and there needs to be.
• Police spawning behind you instantly (no matter where you are), is extremely lazy. How this was decided as the way to handle crime in this game is hard to comprehend. CDPR can fix this one easy, just spawn the police at the edge of render distance and have them make their way to the player.

Customization

For a game which was lauded to be the king of customization in modern RPGs, the options to actually customize your character are really not that great. Clothing is tied to armor, so if you want to be powerful you either run mods to up your armor stat, or look like you've just raided the lost and found at the nearest homeless shelter. The character creation process is quite good, but still loses out to many, many games made in the past decade as it only has preset options for body features which ultimately limit the possible characters you can create with the system. Weapons aren't able to be shaded, or add skins to. Vehicles and apartments are static and can't be changed. The list goes on and on...

• Characters should be able to change their looks, hair and tattoos at a minimum. This is a future in which people can change there bodies in the most extreme ways. I believe haircuts and tattoos would be a great start but it needs to go deeper to achieve what the lore of Cyberpunk deems possible.
• Clothing should be superficial only, or a transmog system should be implemented. I personally believe that the most elegant solution would be to tie the armor stat to the cyberware system in some way. Each body part already has a way to make it uniquely stronger, why not make it also determine how much each body part is armored? It's a lore-friendly solution. As it stands you can have armored military gear which provides less armor than a pair of hot shorts and a mesh tank top, it makes no sense.
• Vehicles and apartments should have a way to customize or upgrade them. Players want to feel their character progress, and part of that progression in a game like Cyberpunk 2077, is the ability to make their surroundings and possessions keep up with their characters current status in the world.
• Genital customization was superficial and doesn't really have a place in the game. Many players thought it would somehow tie into the cutscenes (or at least the sexual encounters) but it's just a set and forget feature (Other then when the mirror or inventory screen bugs out and your junk hangs out). I make the point because while it was implemented, it was marketed as a feature of a "mature" RPG game, and then promptly never used again.

Story

I will be brief in this section because I personally don't have much of a problem with the story. It was mostly well crafted and the characters who we meet along the way are memorable and interesting. The Panam quest was a personal favorite, and my new favorite in-game romance.

• The story as it stands was not long enough for the scope of this game. If we look at The Witcher 3, both the base game and even the Blood and Wine DLC are nearly twice as long. I spent nearly 80 hours in TW3's base game and still had numerous side quests to finish. I completed the main story of this game in around 20 hours, all the side quests by 50 hours. Maybe DLC will fix this eventually, but that could be a while away due to bug-fixes being CDPR's main concern right now.
• The life paths were not impactful enough to the story as a whole. From what I've read online this could have been cut content due to time crunch but either way, it feels like 1 act was not enough to make the life paths seem relevant, nor to make up for the short main story.

Crafting and Upgrading

Crafting and Upgrading items is quite oddly implemented in this game, and I do not like the way it has been handled. Crafting is tied to finding blueprints/schematics and then also the ability to craft certain items is limited to the player having unlocked the necessary skill perk to craft items of high rarity. Both upgrading and crafting suffers from needing obscene amounts of materials to make/upgrade weapons and armor.

• Cyberpunk 2077 requires you to put a huge numbers of attribute points into the Technical Ability tree if you want to craft endgame items. Currently level 50 is the maximum level a player can reach. To craft epic items, you'll need to use 12 of those attribute points to unlock the "Grease Monkey" perk, and 18 attribute points to unlock the "Edgerunner Artisan" perk which lets you craft legendary items. This means either 12 or 18 of your 50 attribute points will be used, just to craft items. This means you will lose the ability to put more of those APs towards improving you build in ways which actually matter. A better system would have been to let you create rarer items as your crafting "Skill Progression" level got higher (max is 20).
• Upgrading has a pretty severe growth curve for how many materials it requires every time you upgrade. The first upgrade is manageable if you have a decent amount of materials, but the ones which follow become ridiculously expensive in a very short time. Basically they should flatten the rate of growth for how many materials it costs to upgrade, or make it a set amount each upgrade and this problem is fixed.
• There is also a huge imbalance in the reward of crafting Vs. upgrading. In the endgame of my first play through I was using the Overwatch sniper in my build. I could upgrade it and gain ~10DPS each upgrade. If I crafted a new one, it would cost more upfront but with one button click I would get ~250DPS extra on my current roll. I have not done the math on which option is cheaper in materials but either way the system is imbalanced and needs to be refined.

The last thing I will say about upgrading and crafting is that the core game-loop of grinding materials should be rewarding when you upgrade or can afford to craft. As it exists currently it feels like both my build suffers because of the perks I lose just to be able to craft, and that upgrading is a huge grind which gets harder each time I do it.

Skills, Perks and Mods

The skill system is actually surprisingly good in my opinion. In fact it's a little too good at times. My main game when I'm not playing single player games is Destiny 2, so I come from a mind state that if anything is too broken eventually the devs will take it away from the players. Cyberpunk definitely falls into what I've heard referred to by the D2 devs at Bungie as power-fantasy.
It's actually easy to become basically impossible to kill in this game. For most of my first play through I ran a sniper, revolver and sword. My sniper let me clear entire encounters without ever taking damage, my revolver could be used in stealth mode to one shot everything whilst crouching and my sword would slice anything down that came close to me. My current build is using gorilla arms with 1800 armor stat. I can pretty much just let enemies shoot at me and take 1-2 damage from each hit while I do damage in the 1000s with each punch. I've seen builds of all kinds which are so far beyond broken it actually ridiculous, but it has been really fun to experiment with and has made the game more re-playable for me personally. I'd hate to see builds nerfed in this game. I only really have one suggestion here.

• The level cap at times feels too restrictive. I know I've just said the builds can be broken, but hear me out. If builds can be broken, then let them be broken! With just 50 AP, I can at best max out 2 attribute trees, and get a third to halfway. I struggled with points because Body, Reflexes and Technical ability are my main used trees, but I needed some perks from Cool for snipers and Intelligence for extra $$$ from access points. So throughout the game there was a balancing act I had to play with perks. I feel like putting the level cap at 75 would free up some of this perk-anxiety for those of us who want to be CyberGod 2077 in the endgame.

Inventory

So one of my biggest issues with the UI is the inventory system. It is over complicated and hard to navigate with how often it needs to be used. Despite that I don't have a lot of suggestions as I'm sure it will be refined as the game matures much the same way TW3 did.

• Items are hard to find. I have to hover over everything because the distinction between item rarity is just a colored line on the side of the item box, and items themselves look very much the same. Rifles all look like rifles. Mods all look like mods. Even after 60 hours in game I still find myself double checking what I'm selecting/selling/buying/deleting, which only increases my anxiety because...
• Items can not be locked to prevent accidental sale/deletion. This is a basic feature that should be in any loot driven game. It's important cause after multiple hours in game, you can get lazy and accidentally do something you didn't mean to do. A simple lock item feature, please CDPR!

Driving & Vehicles

I think the driving systems in game have been a bad point for a lot of players, problems with the AI, FPS drops, Pop-in textures and LOD render distances just to name a few. I feel it's important to understand that this game is not GTAV, and may not have ever wanted to be. Of course it is possible that the devs wanted to match the level of detail achieved by Rockstar in GTA, and just couldn't execute it due to time constraints, or they simply just didn't know how to. Another option is that driving in CP2077 is simply a mode of transport, they wanted it to look good while you drive through the city at high speed (which it does), but didn't really hope to achieve GTAV level of details in their road system. If we think of Roach (the only "vehicle" in TW3) and the places he ended up, it's not hard to think of why the driving system in CP2077 is lackluster. Never-the-less here are some things I feel that could be improved on.
- FPS drops while driving should be improved.
- Traffic should react to situations (blocking their path for example should elicit a response).
- Traffic systems should at least try to make sense, as of now the roads at midnight in the desert appear as rush hour traffic at a distance, green lights appear as soon as you get close to them and other cars/NPC drivers generally have almost no ability to do anything besides follow a path.
- Vehicles are expensive, some customization options would be nice (Paint, Rims, Head/Tail lights)
- Mini map should zoom out when you are driving to allow player to see upcoming turns for GPS paths.
- Pop-in and LOD should be completely reworked. Seeing 2D models when scoping a road far away is a necessary trick to use in game development, but for a city as well designed as this, it is beyond immersion breaking to see how it's being handled in real time, sometimes right in front of your face. If you are on the street and look down the road you can see cars spawning and de-spawning without ever actually approaching you. I get that time was strained before release but I really hope they can fix this.
Well there you have it, that is everything I wanted to get out about my feelings on the state of Cyberpunk 2077. if you stuck along till the end, thank you for reading. Feel free to drop a comment and discuss the game, that's why I'm here.

Last weekend, I decided to resume my month-old save in Grand Theft Auto V. About an hour in, I was reminded why I gave up on it.
For all its technical brilliance, GTAV is boring. It’s emblematic of the current industry trend – longer experiences at the cost of diluted engagement – but taken to such an extreme that it barely resembles its peers in the open-world genre. As a demonstration of Rockstar Games’ dedication to their craft, it’s exceptional. As a “game,” it fails miserably, sandwiching its ten-minute segments of mild entertainment between hours of travel time and busywork across an empty open-world.
Being more tech demo than game, I can understand why critics loved it. Given the hype leading up to its release, I can also understand why players loved it at launch. What I don’t understand is why it’s gone on to be the most successful entertainment product of all time. Yes, I see and appreciate its technical merits, but fail to grasp how scores of gamers would flock to purchase (and celebrate to this day) a thirty-hour experience that drip-feeds its entertainment in such agonizingly small and infrequent doses – an approach that, as far as I know, no other AAA developer would even try to get away with.
1. Open-world
Usually, open-world games have two main selling points that separate them from linear titles: exploration and freedom. In the case of Rockstar Games, another factor garners consumer interest – the design of the world itself. Few developers make Rockstar’s effort to fully immerse the player, and their output’s consistent acclaim from both critics and players demonstrates that at least relative to their competitors, they’ve succeeded. Even great open-world games, like Breath of the Wild or Arkham City, regularly break the player’s immersion to remind them that this is a game and, as such, they should play it. In GTA’s open-world, immersion almost always takes center stage.
However, what other developers understand (and why Arkham City and BOTW are great for their incomplete immersion, not in spite of it) is that they’re making games that take place in worlds, not worlds with games hidden inside them. BOTW, though leaving the player relatively free to explore the world at their own pace, fills its iteration of Hyrule to bursting with Shrines, Towers, Korok Seeds, and monster encounters. Arkham City is packed with enemies, side missions, and Riddler Trophies. There is almost always something to do in these games.
But in GTA, outside of missions, what can you do? Get a haircut? Do yoga? Sightsee? Bike? Play golf or tennis? All of GTA’s side options are utterly pedestrian. More often than not, I find myself driving down streets I’ve already driven down twenty times, flipping through radio stations, wondering why I’m doing this in a game when I could just as easily do it in real life.
Most frustratingly, GTA’s world isn’t even fun to explore. It’s a beautiful recreation of Los Angeles and is filled with details and funny posters, but there’s nothing really to find in it. Everything you’d expect to see is there, from a shipyard to a rich neighborhood to an airport. But beyond recreating exteriors, Rockstar has made no apparent attempt to make their world hold any interest for the player. You can’t go into most buildings. You can’t interact with NPCs except to harass them until they either run away or attack you. Random events are infrequent, repetitive and rarely benefit the player. The only side mission I attempted had me drive a damn tow truck.
It’s ironic. Rockstar has put so much effort into making the world of GTAV immersive, and yet that immersion crumbles almost as soon as the player attempts to interact with it, making me wonder why Rockstar tried so hard in the first place.
2. Progression
Progression is a vital part of any game, be it in the form of a narrative, character stats, unlocks, or a player’s skill. Tangible progression provides the player with feelings of accomplishment and encourages them to continue playing. Journey provides progression in the form of a scarf your character wears, which increases in size as you collect white orbs, allowing you to fly higher and longer. Zelda games increase your Heart Count with each defeated boss. FPS games like Doom, Wolfenstein, and Half-Life, expand your arsenal as you progress.
GTA’s progression is far more subtle, and as a result, far less satisfying. Every once in a while, you’ll see a bar pop up above your minimap. “Shooting: 80/100,” it says. Your shooting has improved somehow, but because most weapons already shoot with pinpoint accuracy, you wonder what this means. The game provides no explanation. I myself noticed no difference before and after levelling up various stats. The Stamina upgrade is probably the only obvious one, and considering that I drive pretty much everywhere, is irrelevant.
No matter. GTA makes it clear from the start that it’s about thriving in a hostile world, and stats have no bearing on that. The player should focus on working to become the self-made mogul the game seems to both disparage and make its ultimate goal.
However, GTA fails to provide the player with tangible, achievable sub-goals to achieve this. In Skyrim, you can save up to buy a house. Because you had to work for it, that accomplishment becomes your accomplishment. In GTA, Franklin is given a house, and so that accomplishment is only a reward for making it to that point in the story. In BOTW, you have to complete a ten-hour DLC with multiple challenges and puzzles to unlock the most impressive mode of transportation in the game. In GTA, you can pull up to Vinewood Hills at any point in the game and steal a car faster than you can probably handle. In the Far Cry series, you can spend earned currency to purchase new weapons with different stats/handling. In GTA, all of the weapons handle pretty much the same – compounded with there being few instances to use your arsenal, there’s no reason to expand it.
Even the goals that the player is made aware of, like purchasing properties, lack a clearly-defined path to accomplish them. Apart from heist missions and assaulting pedestrians for chump change, I don’t know how I’m supposed to make money. Not knowing when the next payday will come, I tend to save what money I’ve earned. And so, the only progress that spurs me onwards, the progress directly tied to my actions in game, is the progress I’ve made in the story. As I’ll discuss later, even that’s barely enough.
3. Gameplay
GTAV employs a stripped down version of Max Payne 3’s combat, removing the diving, killcams, painkillers, and limited inventory. What remains is the cover system, dot reticle, bullet time (depending on which character the player is using) and, annoyingly, the weapon handling. Max Payne 3 is a good game, mostly due to its atmosphere and soundtrack. But given that Max shoots with pinpoint accuracy and almost every weapon is capable of scoring a one-shot headshot at any range, the gameplay relies on its excellent presentation to make its shootouts entertaining.
GTAV has done nothing to remedy this. Most weapons still shoot with pinpoint accuracy, and headshots are still one-shot kills. Because the weapons fail to distinguish themselves, the player isn’t required to develop strategy or preference. Any weapon in your weapon wheel suffices no matter the situation, unless you’re fighting enemies at long-range, in which case the only weapon that you can use is a sniper rifle.
In any case, combat encounters are few and far between. I believe for most missions you’re given the weapons you need, and so your arsenal is intended primarily for the open-world, which presents few opportunities to use it, unless, of course, you seek an opportunity out.
Most crimes will earn you a Wanted Level, GTA’s iconic mechanic, which indicates to you that cops are looking for you and will shoot on sight. The more cops you kill, the higher your wanted level and the greater the force the game sends to take you down. You’d think this would lead to some crazy police chases and shootouts, but it rarely does. Fighting the police on foot is never a viable option unless you’re moving from one vehicle to another, because more law enforcement will come and eventually overwhelm you. Even if you’re dug into an area with good cover, shootouts inevitably become last stands.
Hopping into a vehicle and fleeing is your best bet, and even then, you can’t really escape the police by trying to outrun them. If you gun it, you’ll run into more police officers, who will renew and increase your wanted level. As such, the best strategy is to find an isolated area, and hide, which is about as entertaining as it sounds. I wish there was a way to “win” police encounters, either by killing a certain number of them or by going far enough away from where you committed the crime.
4. Story
This is entirely subjective, and so I won’t dwell on this for long. It seems to me that in building their world and story, Rockstar became overly ambitious, stuffing the narrative with statements instead of plot. The result is a wildly inconsistent, freewheeling satire that pokes fun at everything Rockstar dislikes about modern America, from tech company culture to torture, while its protagonists meander through its scattered ideas, serving either as the objects of the game’s satire or its observers.
In my opinion, this is a bad approach. Splitting the narrative over three characters already makes it difficult to tell a satisfying story while providing each protagonist with a compelling arc, but it doesn’t seem like that was ever Rockstar’s goal. Character moments take a backseat to smarmy social relevance, leaving Franklin hollow, Michael underdeveloped, and Trevor nothing more than an over-the-top caricature of the average GTA player.
Also, the missions are mostly terrible. The heists are fun (though restrictive), but there are so many missions in between where you go somewhere and look at something, or talk to someone, or move something, or bike, or do yoga. The mission where Trevor cases the shipyard might possibly be the single most mind-numbing game experience I’ve had this year. It’s like Rockstar thought “Hey, we’ve made this great shipping-container-moving-thing, but no player in their right mind would ever use it, so we’re going to force them to.”
I’m not saying every story needs to be action-packed, but it has to have and sustain conflict and drama, and shouldn’t abandon it at regular intervals to make its next point or show off its tech.
Closing
I don’t get GTAV. It’s not fun or engaging. It’s like going to the most beautiful restaurant you’ve ever been to, complete with velvet upholstery and chandeliers and flamingos and tall waiters with waxed mustaches, ordering a meal and receiving...a cracker. Just a regular old saltine cracker. You eat the cracker, and an hour later, they bring you another one. To pass the time, the waiter sits down across from you and lectures you on the evils of American society.
And yet, I’ve stuck with GTAV for almost 25 hours now. I’m over two-thirds of the way through the story, and though I’d be hard-pressed to say I’m enjoying myself, there is something relaxing about just cruising through Los Santos, soaking in one of the most impressive open-worlds ever made. It’s truly a shame that the food isn’t good, because the restaurant is a goddamned work of art.
tl;dr: GTAV isn’t fun

Hello guys. I have seen that a lot of people want the next GTA to be in the 80s. I guess it is a very hot topic. I have seen that someone posted a very long post on this subreddit why he thinks it is a good idea that GTA VI should be in the 80s.
So I decided to do the exact opposite and explain why I think the next GTA should be in current times and why it won't be boring.
Excuse me if I make some mistakes. English is not my native language. I will do my best.
So why do people want that the next GTA title should be set in the 1980s?
I have looked up what arguments people have previously brought up for 80s GTA. I want to counter argue them. If I miss some points feel free to comment them.
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• The great music of the 80s

Not everyone likes the typical 80s music. A lot of people like modern music. Music taste is highly subjective. The music in GTA is a very important aspect of the game. You spend a lot of your time in GTA driving in a car. A good set of songs is necessary to keep you entertained.
If GTA 6 would be in modern times they could add some 80s radio stations for the fans of this music, but they still could add some modern music so there would be something for everyone and a greater variety overall.
You also have to consider that we will probably have to stay in the 80s for a long time until GTA 7 comes out. I am already tired of the GTA 5 music because I have heard all of the tracks so many times. It would be even worse if all the music would be 30 years ago.
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• The Miami drug war

Yes, this is a good premise for a game. But there a lot of other things GTA 6 could be about. For example, about the modern drug cartels who want to do business in Vice City and try to take over the city.
I think it would be also interesting to know what happened to the Cuban and the haitan from vice city. Do they still exist? What did change between GTA Vice City and GTA 6?
It is a fictional game overall it does not have to be linked to reality
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• The current political situation that is hard to be satirized and quite depressing

Yeah, modern politics have basically become a GTA parody. However, I still think that this can be a huge opportunity, to parody how crazy our world has become. Also, do not forget in the GTA universe the coronavirus does not have to exist. They can do it like they did 9/11 and pretend it does not exist.
It also does not need to play a major role in the story like in GTA 5. They can just focus more on other things about the world like the individual relations between characters and the crimes.
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• We already had two GTA Games in a row in modern times. It will feel like GTA 5 just in Vice City. LS and VC are very similar.

GTA 6 can be different from GTA 5 and 4 regardless of the time it is set in. Lets be honest the difference between 1986 and 1992 wasn't that huge either. Neither the culture nor the music or everything else changed drastically.
But would you say that GTA San Andreas and Vice City feel like the same game?
No, because it is not only the era that defines how unique the game is. There are a lot of other things that you can change to make GTA 6 a unique expierince.
​

• Just a general feeling of nostalgia towards this time period

I don't get why a lot of people are so fascinated by the 80s, but ok that's just my opinion. They can still add some 80s references, 80s cars, clothing...
But do you really want a game in 80s Miami again. Me and I am sure a lot of other people are getting tired of 80s Miami. Everything about Miami has to be in the 80s. What is so bad about modern Miami?
​

• The fear that the futuristic vehicles from GTA online will be returning

I am pretty sure they won't. Rockstar is known for removing features from previous GTA Games. (Jetpack). It definitely won't be in the story mode and at the start of online mode.
GTA 6 can be a fresh start for online. Maybe they will mess it up again, but we will at least have one year of a somewhat enjoyable online mode before they add the flying bikes.
And who knows, maybe they will go another path with GTA 6 online. I am sure it will be successful either way.
​

• People are just tired of GTA making fun of the modern society

I can understand this point a bit. GTA has been always about parodying things. They will probably make fun of hipsters and influencers and stuff everybody is just tired of.
But trust me making fun about the 80s will maybe be refreshing at first but will quickly become annoying too.
They will make fun about communism and that everyone is partying, taking drugs and this type of stuff.
Also consider that they do not have to focus the story that much about this like in GTA V.
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• The unrealistic hope that some characters from GTA Vice City will return

Apparently a few people still think this. They won't return GTA Vice City is in the 3D universe and GTA VI most likely will be in the HD universe. The city itself as well as Gangs and vehicles can exist in both universes, but characters can only exist in one.
​
I also want to add some advantages that a GTA in modern times would have.

• Modern Cars

Cars are the biggest reason why I do not want GTA 6 in the 80s. We could still have 80s cars there would be just more variety on the street. The argument that there were cool cars in the 80s too is stupid. It still can't replace modern cars. It's like saying you can never eat chocolate in your life again but hey there are a lot of other cool desserts.
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• Smartphones

Yes most of the functionality of a smartphone could be replaced by a menu but it would be still cooler. And pulling out a brick phone out of your ass would be kind of weird.
​

• Longevity

Also a big reason. We will probably have to stick to GTA 6 for a long time until GTA 7 releases. If GTA 6 could in the present, they could add a lot of new things over the time and would not be limited by the time Perion. That is the reason why RDR2 online is not really that successful. I do not mean alien vehicles but stuff like modern fighting jets, modern guns, vehicles and stuff like this.
​
This aren't a lot of advantages, but I already wrote a lot of advantages in the counter argues.
Thanks to everyone who made it this far. I hope we can talk about it in the comments. At the end of the day this is just speculation only Rockstar can decide how GTA 6 will be. No matter what time period GTA 6 will be great.

Ms Lucy O’brien’s (referred to as Lucy) Days Gone review on behalf of IGN shows utter disrespect to the game’s creators. Considering IGN's reader base, it needs to be taken down immediately in order to stop damaging Days Gone further.
In her text, she shows numerous signs of struggles when playing Days Gone which hindered her ability to evaluate the game. Evidently, she couldn't follow the story or remember key moments. Gameplay was too difficult for her as well. As a result, she wrote down frustration instead of objective analysis and the text has lots of errors and problems. The game should be re-assigned to someone who is capable of playing it decently and then getting the most of it, goods and bads.
From a technical point of view, the text is vastly erroneous,

1. false description of game elements
2. misleading information
3. exaggeration of nuisances

The text also suggests that her understanding of Days Gone’s narrative and settings is very poor. She focuses on the wrong aspects and holds unreasonable and unrealistic expectations.
Among those she (wrongly) focuses on, the text is very shallow and superficial. She can’t identify the key elements in Days Gone’s design, much less evaluating them.
She often applies binary thinking to her judgement and resorts to extremes when trying to make a point which is mostly unfair. There’s little middle ground analysis or weighting between pros and cons, etc.
Disclaimer: In my opinion, Days Gone shows a lot of quality work and creativity but also has many flaws. Its great work deserves recognition to which Lucy fails. Rating it with 6.5 is underappreciation. I fell victim to these so-called “critic reviews” when the game first came out so I didn't play it until recently.
Lucy's full "review"

^{Days Gone Review
... For a gruff biker dude ..., Deacon St. John is an endearingly gentle and sweet-natured protagonist. His gruff charm and unassuming ‘I ain’t no leader’ demeanor ... in more frantic sequences.}

This is vastly misleading. Deacon doesn’t appear to be gentle or sweet overall; he only shows little of it during certain moments (e.g. when handling Lisa’s situations). For the most part, he’s a tough survivalist after 734 days gone. (Hell, even Boozer is softer than him when he tries to protect a dying dog which Deek puts down without hesitation.) “unassuming ‘I ain’t no leader’ demeanor” is really out of nowhere so I can’t further elaborate on it.
​

^{... Days Gone insists on tedious, barely interactive flashbacks of Deacon and his wife Sarah which play out like bad high school drama - her demand that he “promise to ride me as much as you ride your bike” at their wedding is a line that sticks in the mind -}

Sarah specifically tells Deek NOT to have such a wedding where he says the line. (She later surprises him by saying it herself.)
Besides, Days Gone does NOT “insist on” those flashback quests. These are only one type among the sufficiently large variety of quests.
Yes, they are barely interactive but it’s very reasonable: they took place when there’s no need for the Survival Wheel. If players could use it or take other actions, there’d be all sorts of funny videos on Youtube. It’s supposed to tell the story. Had these limited interactions taken away, they’d become long cutscenes.
Besides, many games adopt this technique during story-telling moments so that players aren’t entirely passive in receiving the message.
And no, the story between Deacon and Sarah isn’t grand, complicated or convoluted. It’s simple love which makes it realistic and relatable but it’s certainly NOT bad high school drama which is a bad label to their story.
​

^{and repeating missions which begin and end with a stationary Deacon spouting overly-long monologues about their love.}

The monologues are NOT about their love; it's about what's happened recently.
​

^{For the first half, this storyline at least forms a consistent emotional throughline ...,}

At least? Really? Are they really this bad that can barely meet Lucy’s standards? Look, there’s a big difference between high standards and disparaging.
​

^{... the focus shifts toward new characters and changing relationships with old ones, ...}

The overall focus seems to be that Deacon wants to find out if Sarah is alive. However, Days Gone is structured such that finding Sarah is actually a side quest so to speak; the main quest (for the first half) is to keep Boozer alive and sane. He ends up working for each camp leading to the emergence of different stories and characters. These stories carry weight but the focus doesn’t shift towards them.
I suppose changing relationships refer to Rikki being attracted to Deek while with Addy but this is hardly the case. The quest line doesn’t progress as such: they know each other because they rode together before (with Boozer as well), not because they had a romantic history (which they didn’t). Throughout the quest, she is still with Addy and only at the very end does Rikki show her affection to Deacon which isn’t reciprocated so it's hardly “changing relationships”. Most of their conversations only explain their history and friendship.
​

^{... there were a couple of times I had an extremely brief conversation with another character that would net me XP. It’s hard to be invested when its drama is so tied up in cold, numerical achievement.}

Some main quests are indeed very brief and give rewards soon afterwards. But exaggerating this issue as “so tied up in cold, numerical achievement.” is a false accusation.
Days Gone is story-driven in every sense. It doesn’t have extensive role-playing elements for players to develop, distancing itself from “cold, numerical” pursuit so that they can focus on stories and gameplay. It’s not like you need to earn much XP, credits or trust in order to progress.
It’s totally acceptable to be not invested in a game’s story but unacceptable to put a bad label on it based on the wrong premise.
​

^{... The human antagonists, on the other hand, are as interesting as cardboard cutouts: they’re virtually all roughly sketched bad guys who are bad for bad’s sake. One, who is introduced in the later stages, feels particularly redundant, ...}

Lucy’s “antagonists” are presumably Skizzo, Carlos and Colonel Garret (her redundant character).
Skizzo is an asshole but he’s not “bad for bad’s sake”. Despite his demeanor, he’s not entirely unreasonable: trusting Rippers is highly risky. It's just that Mike wouldn’t listen. It’s a clash between two ideals. Without Skizzo, Mike wouldn’t be as colorful. He likens himself to Deek which is not entirely wrong either: they do what they must to stay alive.
Noticeably, for the past two years, Skizzo has been “keeping everyone safe”. He is actually quite capable for that matter. It just turns out Mike’s dismissal of his aggressive thinking results in his full revenge. He isn’t bad for bad’s sake and he’s well-designed. Like Mike said, everyone’s got a problem there.
For Carlos, his backstory is brief and he is a bad guy. However, his storyline is also very brief: he is rarely mentioned and only during the end of the quest line are his identity and backstory unfolded. However, I’d argue his short storyline only makes him a bad guy but not an “antagonist”.
Colonel Garret is not a bad guy at all. His desire to restore human civilization and order is just. He adds another dimension among settlements by caring about the future. Though his ruling shows signs of dictatorship, there’s only little such development. He’s unwise to listen to Skizzo so easily considering his visionary thinking. With all said, he is not a bad guy, uninteresting or redundant and could barely be seen as an “antagonist”.
​

^{... Though you can’t hide bodies in Days Gone, enemies are spread out enough that you can stealth kill one and often leave a body in broad daylight without it being noticed. As long as they’re not facing you, they’ll rarely become aware of your presence.}

This is NOT true. If an enemy comes across a dead fellow on their patrol route, they will notice the body and be alerted even in nighttime.
Days Gone's stealth system is well-made and shouldn't be trivialized as such. Here're some examples of the good elements of it. Note that it can be both well-made and forgiving.

1. You can tag enemies but only with your binoculars. Doing so may expose you as you’ll be standing instead of crouching. And tagging is only possible if the reticle lands on an enemy that you can shoot through. Simply put, if an enemy is behind a wall, you won’t be able to tag them. Tagging is not automatic or risk-free, like in most games.
2. Survival Vision doesn’t automatically tag enemies but there’s a skill that allows you to only reveal their outline within Vision’s range.
3. Human enemies have 3 levels of alert, indicated by white, yellow and red icons visible only after being tagged. The level of alert falls gradually (shown on the icons) if you remain hidden long enough.
4. Even if an enemy isn’t the one shot by a silenced gun, if the bullet passes them in their close proximity, they will be alerted.

​

^{... This involves a several-mission-thread of sneaking into NERO-occupied areas and eavesdropping on them from behind obstacles or within long grass as they explain world lore, which is not particularly interesting and annoyingly repetitive if you fail ...}

When you fail a quest, normally you'll repeat it until you succeed. This process will be repetitive unless you give up.
The said lore has been widely adopted cliche so it's not interesting. That’s why the main narrative isn’t about it but about Deacon and other characters.
​

^{... Deacon can also unlock a focused shot ability ... It’s a somewhat inexplicable skill for a regular guy (that he served in the military is the somewhat shaky rationale, ...}

Not all game elements need to be “explicable”. This skill in particular is plausible to exist in Days Gone. It’s not something crazy or ridiculous. I think she should explore Days Gone's skill system as a whole before commenting on specific ones.
​

^{... Even with strong combat, things get boring after a while because Days Gone’s missions suffer from repetition across the board. ... These jobs tend to be variations on tracking down a traitor or rescuing a hostage or clearing out a camp, and all tend to play out in a similar fashion. A few dozen of hours of this same mission structure took its toll on me.}

In Days Gone, there’s quite a variety of quests to play out in different fashions. Only a few are required.

1. Hordes, a very unique type of quests requiring a vastly different approach than the others. They are very intense and horrifying.
2. Bike chases where your bike may be damaged or run out of fuel.
3. Rescue quests, requiring a headshot in the end so a full melee approach won’t succeed.
4. clearing ambush camps, which may feature helmet-wearing enemies so headshots take extra efforts. Additionally, they resist Freakers which may confuse you for stealth approaches.
5. clearing ambush camps occupied by Rippers, who are topless meaning headshot is always available, may burn themselves and run into you and don’t resist Freakers. This already delivers a very different experience from the previous item.
6. NERO checkpoint quests to boost your stats. While avoiding roaming Freakers, you need to find oil to fill up the power supply (both of which can’t be located easily). You’ll want to locate and destroy as many speakers before turning on the supply too. All this thematically aligns with Days Gone. This is already more interesting than simply killing something to get something, like in so many games.
7. No-contact stealth-compulsory quests. Many games only treat stealth as optional.
8. Random encounters
9. Fetch items
10. Search and burn nests
11. Listen to Deacon talk to Sarah’s gravestone. The significance is not Lucy could comprehend.
12. Listen to Colonel Garret’s theatrical speeches which are quite funny (but “barely interactive repeating missions with Colonel spouting long monologues” by Lucy’s standards).

Broadly speaking, almost all open world games have quest repetition in terms of structure. In the Witcher 3, most Contracts are of the “same mission structure” to “play out in a similar fashion”. It’s not structure that matters most; it’s the content and experience delivered. For Days Gone, I think the list is pretty long, even if you just look at the structures.
But the problem is why she spent so much time to an extent that she couldn’t bear.
She says she’s melee-based and considers the stealth system forgiving so the need for good guns shouldn’t be that much, meaning she only needed to purchase bike parts. Only two camps have good parts so she should’ve only worked for them. For a given camp, the highest trust level (3) is hard to achieve early on. But Level 2 will do just fine which isn’t hard to achieve.
She neglected to upgrade the bike early on so I presume she bought some wrong parts as well.
If that's the case, her problem is that she made some bad investment but complained about grinding it back.
​

^{... but Days Gone doesn’t really give you an indication of just how crucial it is to focus on speed and fuel upgrades to make getting around less of a chore ...}

This is INCORRECT. Every time you hop on your bike, there’s an icon and a number showing the fuel level. Also, that it runs low frequently is an obvious indication that upgrading it is crucial.
As to speed, firstly, early on, there aren’t many mandatory bike chases. Secondly, you can PARTIALLY upgrade speed, not just choose between fully or no upgrade. Thirdly, I personally don't think they are so difficult that fully upgrading speed is crucial. If she really needed a fully upgraded bike, that may suggest she struggled when doing these quests.
Importantly, Days Gone is a survival game. Everything is supposed to be a chore.
​

^{Unfortunately, I never discovered a rare or cool upgrade in the field, which would definitely have given me more of an incentive to explore.}

This is the de facto challenge worthy of extended discussion whereby Days Gone adds open world to survival. Briefly, the former encourages exploration but the latter suppresses it. In a sense, they are incompatible and hence the challenge.
​

^{... Tracking down NERO checkpoints in order to earn vital upgrades to your various stats - ... - is laborious, as they always required power to properly infiltrate. That means scouring the area to find a gas tank to fill a generator, occasionally replace a busted fuse, then rinse and repeat. It’s never a good sign when you hear your character remark on the repetition of a game mechanic – it suggests the designers are well aware that they’ve played a card too many times – and at several points, Deacon is heard to remark: “Okay lemme guess: outta fuel, of course.” “Hilarious!” I thought, as I went through the same routine for the eighth time.}

As explained, Days Gone features a pretty wide range of quests.
So after several times, she still didn’t know the power supply would be initially out of oil and still pressed the button. Now THAT’s hilarious.
NERO checkpoint quests are all optional. For the stat boost, you can just look for the box in NERO research sites. The sites DON’T require the said procedure.
She says she’s melee-based so not much Focus was needed. For Health, having played in normal, I personally deprioritized it because the “very forgiving” stealth mechanics allowed me to stealth kill many enemies, and Medkits and Bandages were not hard to find so mostly, Health wasn’t an issue.
Suppose she cleared all sites as well as 8 checkpoints (out of 11 available). That’s a lot of injections.
So Lucy needed a lot of injections. And she previously bitches about repeatedly running errands so she needed very good gear as well. She also made some wrong investment. All this suggests she struggled very much.
In general, it’s perfectly fine to struggle at some games and in some moments. Either you give up, or go through the process to make yourself stronger usually involving grinding. Grinding is tedious in general but for Days Gone in particular, it really isn’t grindy.
​

^{Elsewhere, dozens of Freaker nests scattered throughout Oregon, which Days Gone urges you to attack by blocking off fast travel access on certain infested routes until they’re cleared. These are satisfying at first - it’s a relief to drive down a Freaker-less highway - but eventually the sheer number of them without any real sense of variety from nest to nest made me lose interest ...}

Again, these are optional. If she lost interest in them, it’s a good sign she should’ve skipped them rather than let them hamper the experience.
​

^{Its repetition and excess are exacerbated by Days Gone’s fragile bike, which suffers severe damage from contact with just about any object, ... There’s a reason cars in GTA V, for example, can take unrealistic amounts of damage before they catch fire and explode; ...}

I don’t know if “suffers severe damage from contact with just about any object” was true for early versions of Days Gone. If it wasn’t, Lucy’s exaggeration could've turned off a lot of potential players. This is a serious matter.
Early on, the bike is fragile but when you progress, naturally, your riding skills will improve. Even if your riding doesn’t improve much, you still have bike upgrades to allow more tolerance. Therefore, overall, I personally don’t think it is that bad.
Regardless, together with fuel management, upgrades for different parts and aesthetics, the bike provides a theme-fitting and realistic transportation that very few games dare to implement (for fear of complaints about the inconvenience). Its multifacetedness makes it a mini role-playing system: fuel corresponds to stamina; bike health to character health; parts to character stats and aesthetics to face creation. This level of complexity just for transportation is more worthy of highlighting than shallow complaints about its health which is pretty manageable.
Lucy states there's a reason behind the high tolerance of cars in GTA 5. So too is the bike’s fragility. Deacon’s own bike was parted out at the beginning of the game so he can only use the crappy one given by Manny (leading to the entire bike upgrade system). More obviously, Days Gone is a survival game; the genre already legitimizes the need for resources for most game systems (e.g. Scraps for the bike’s maintenance).
​

^{There’s something ill-fitting about requiring a badass biker with a sweet bike to ride slowly and carefully to avoid scratching the paint.}

It’s not a sweet bike; it’s crappy given by Manny to make up for parting out Deacon’s own sweet bike.
There’s a large spectrum between scratching the paint and crashing the bike entirely. The bike is not THIS fragile that can’t tolerate scratches.
Importantly, you can drive fast without damaging your bike. It’s a matter of skill. I didn’t have much so I slowed down on narrow roads and sped up on open roads. As simple as that. It’s not binary between riding fast all the time or crawling all the time, or the bike being intact or utterly destroyed.
​

^{... Its gutted buildings are particularly dull, shells to house resources without much sense of history. Who lived here, and what happened to them? They left no trace, ...}

What happened to them? They’ve become Freakers! They’re still out there.
The outbreak happened just 2 years ago and everyone’s been trying to survive and human and non-human alike scavenge as much as they can, naturally ravaging every corner. So no, no history or traces because of destruction.
As mentioned, coupling open world with survival is challenging and it’s already commendable for a studio to try, not to mention the experiment turned out pretty well.
​

^{... Even areas populated by humans, like camps, feel curiously characterless. When an NPC in a camp does utter an incidental line, it’s likely one that you’ve heard multiple times before, and though there are optional conversations to be had with a camp’s various mechanics/cooks/bounty collectors, I found very few compelling enough to stick around and listen to ...}

No matter how good these lines are, they are bound to repetitions because of the technological limitation (it’s impractical to implant Siri to every NPC).
While conversations with those NPC aren’t compelling, the way they treat Deacon subtly reflects their attitude towards him, indirectly showing their uniqueness. For example, the mechanic in Wizard Island looks up to him.
​

^{Its world is also inconsistent. During missions, your bike’s fuel and damage gauges - ... - will often disappear as if suddenly unimportant, as will NERO-soldiers in a research area you’ve just finished scouting. These are small complaints, but they break the rules of survival that Days Gone otherwise doggedly lives by, and with them the spell of a cohesive, lived-in world.}

Only during MAIN missions are the gauges removed. And NERO-soldiers fly away, presumably out of Oregon, after the field research.
“they break the rules of survival that Days Gone otherwise doggedly lives by, and with them the spell of a cohesive, lived-in world.” is not “small complaints”.
One reason behind removing fuel and damage gauges during main quests is that managing the bike during main quests may be too demanding for some players. For example, some may struggle in bike chases. If they're tasked with managing the bike as well, they’d be unable to complete the quests.
Another reason is that it may break immersion for some quests if the players need to manage the bike like they normally would. Here’s an example.
​

^{I can’t help but wish there was a more rock-focused soundtrack to really complete the biker vibe.}

It’s ill-fitting to do so. Oregon is desolate. Every trip is dangerous. The atmosphere is lonesome. Consider this quest and imagine using a rock-focused soundtrack instead.
​

^Verdict
...

Verdict
When treating Days Gone, she’s irresponsible because she didn’t fact-check, disrespectful because she played absent-mindedly, and worse of all, imprudent because the creators’ reputation and the game’s sale can be damaged.

Hello Reddit community, I see lots of posts on here speculating about what the market is like in the GTA so I figured I'd share my (very long) account of what it was like selling and buying in this market over the last 6 months. Maybe it will come in handy for someone. I fully expect to get roasted for some bad decision I made, because that's what usually happens to me on Reddit. :)
This is extremely long.... Maybe I'm showing off, maybe I'm insecure about whether I did well or not, maybe I like writing, maybe I think this info could help other people. It's probably a combo of all 4, as well as other stuff. The read is probably worth it for someone who is about to buy or sell in Toronto, but it might not be worth it to anyone else. You've been warned. Ha.
TL;DR at the bottom if you want to skip the whole thing.
I figure I'll post in PersonalFinanceCanada as well as TorontoRealEstate, as both subs have helped me a lot in the past, and both seem to deal with this sort of content. Backstory: I work in an industry that doesn't really exist outside of Toronto, so living anywhere else has never been a discussion. That, coupled with the fact that we (my wife and I) absolutely love this city. We've both been here for over 20 years now. I know that isn't a popular opinion (to love Toronto) but in pre-pandemic times (and hopefully post, with a vengeance) we thrived on the restaurants, the live music scene, theatre... a lot of our friends are here... I realize there's a trend towards shitting on Toronto (even more than usual) lately, and we don't kid ourselves that we live in a city that everyone is just dying to get into. We don't kid ourselves that we're basically living in NYC, or even a version of it. But for us, it's about location, location, location, and that location (for us) isn't Mimico, or Ajax, or Whitby, or Hamilton. Different strokes, different folks.
Wife makes about 80k, I make about 120k. I bought a loft in Toronto in 2008 for around 350k with 80k down. Inb4 "must be nice to have rich parents" ... they never helped me financially. Paid about half of the mortgage off over the last decade. We had a kid a couple of years ago, decided the loft had been great to that point, but it was time to get a yard. Also the maintenance fees became ridiculous at the loft ($700/month, no security, no concierge, and rising every year). There are some who would say "yes but it also costs a lot to maintain a house". Not $8400 / year it doesn't, not even close, and if you're paying that much every year to maintain your house then something is very very wrong.
So the problem was, we wanted to sell our loft at a time when that market had softened, and we wanted to buy a semi-detached house at a time when that market had taken off. Decided to move forward nevertheless, let's see what happens.
Got pre-approved for a mortgage in July (840k max), ended up with a rate of 1.79 fixed, 5 years. I should mention, that was the final number we ended up with in November. You can do better now of course, and we could have done a bit better then, but our bank was working with us and at the end of the day we went with them. Additionally we received a $2500 cash bonus incentive for going with them. Five years from now, who knows. For whatever it's worth, they were amazing. I was dealing with two of them directly, I had a new question every day, I was extremely high maintenance, and they were extremely responsive, and polite. I realize this should be how it is, and that brokers can answer questions too, but I thought I'd mention it.
My hope was we could sell the loft for 950k. This would give us a "profit" of 750K, which would mean about a 600k down payment on the new place, after realtor fees, land transfer tax, lawyer fees, moving fees, and a fairly substantial (by our standards) cash holdback for all new furniture and some cosmetic renos on the new place if necessary.
Interviewed a few agents, based on friend recommendations. The best one wasn't the cheapest one. One was willing to take a hit on commission because we'd be buying and selling with them, but the one we wanted to hire wouldn't budge from 5 percent. I realize there are many, many posts that say that agents are wayyyyy overrated. I see both sides. If you're confident in your own knowledge of the market, then yes, all you need is a lawyer. We weren't.... My wife had never bought or sold, and I had only bought the one loft property over a decade ago. In short, we needed some hand-holding, or at least we thought we did, which is really all that matters. Also, as has been pointed out on this sub before... anyone who invested in the Toronto market over a decade ago will probably care slightly less about saving a percent on realtor fees, etc, because they made so much on their initial investment over the last ten years. It's gauche, and I do realize that money saved is money earned, but there you have it.
We liked a lot of things about this agent, but one thing I'll mention is that the staging and photography / 3D video services were "free". Of course that's in quotes because of course we paid for it in the commission, but my point is that our loft was staged absolutely beautifully. And photographed beautifully. The designer and photographer were by no means bargain basement. Anyway, as it turns out, it takes a lot of time and effort to get a place ready to be staged. Took us the entire month of August to get our loft ready. It's time well spent though, because really what you're doing is purging and packing, which are things you'll have to do for the move anyway. So it isn't wasted effort.
Rented a storage locker here in the city, and used the suv to move box after box to the locker. Sold a bunch of stuff on craigslist. Donated a bunch of stuff.
During this month (August), we were also looking at houses. Very exciting process... we were coming from a 1200 sq ft loft. Not small by any means, but when looking at 1800 - 2000 sq ft semis with backyards, well, it's an upgrade. I honestly had no idea what to expect in terms of what kinds of houses we'd be looking at.... Physically standing in... within our budget. Maybe our expectations were low, who knows. But we were pleased.
Went back and forth with the agent many times about whether we should sell first or buy first. She suggested that with a long closing, either is acceptable, and gave us the upsides and downsides to both srategies. I told her my fear was that we'd buy a house, and then we'd be unable to sell the loft, and/or unable to sell it for the price I wanted to get, due to how soft the condo market had become. She told me that she didn't think we'd have trouble selling the loft. Ultimately, the decision was mine. Not in a "it's your funeral" kind of way, but rather, there were pros and cons to both approaches, she had explained them, and now I had to do what I felt was best.
So, of course we took the more exciting path, and we put in some offers! Saw a couple of semis we liked (all while still purging our loft, pre-staging, pre-listing) and went after them. In one case, the house was listed for 1.2 and went for 1.4. We were unwilling to go higher than 1.35. Not because we didn't think it would go for more, but because we didn't think it was worth more. I realize they're worth whatever the market dictates, but to us, this was not quite a 1.4m Toronto home. It was beautiful, had parking (a must for us), backyard, good neighbourhood, but the basement was only half dug out. Not in terms of height, but rather, it was a usable finished basement that only went half the footprint of the house, and the rest was crawlspace.
I should mention that we had seen about ten houses by this point. And that the ones we put offers on probably received about 6 to 10 other offers. Both homes underlisted (listed for a price much less than what they wanted), and both had set a particular date as an offer night.
In the other case, the house was listed for 1.3 and we offered our max of 1.4. We had our own inspection done on this house, actually. They offered their own inspection documents (in fact, every house we looked at did). And it was a very recent inspection from a reputable company, as was typically the case. However, this house had a severely leaning front pillar, and I wanted my own inspection done. Other than the pillar it was an incredible house. Turns out the whole exercise was pointless, it went for 1.55. Soooooo not even close. Ha. The lessons I learned here: every house listed at 1.2 during this time period goes for 1.4. So, when I see 1.2, I should think 1.4. And I should not look at any house listed above 1.2. I see it often mentioned here that it's doesn't matter how far above "list" a house sells for, because people can list a house for one dollar if they want. All that matters is comparibles, trends in the neighbourhood, etc. Totally agree. And at that time, that was a listing trend so reliable you could set your watch to it. Likely still is.
Also, the inspection that I had done ended up highlighting the same issues as the one provided by the seller. There wasn't any big conspiracy where the seller-provided inspection omits things. No. As long as the inspection is performed by one of a handful of reputable companies (as the vast majority are) then it doesn't matter if the seller has it done, or the buyer, as long as it was done within a month or so of list. And if you both do it, you're wasting money. In fact, some of the inspections provided by sellers revealed so many problems, it seemed as though -- if anything -- the inspectors were out to get the sellers, not the buyers. Ha.
Nevertheless, for these two offers we made in August, it was exciting. Exciting to get the bank drafts for the deposits, to press all the buttons on the docusigns on our smart phones, and then wait for the call to tell us if we got it. I don't recall the exact details but I think in one case it was "can you go up any?" and we were unwilling to, and in the other case it was "you didn't get the house". I don't recall being a serious part of any real bidding war at any point, probably because I was unwilling to engage in one, and my max was my max, plain and simple. It will either get the job done or it won't.
By this point (end of August) we had our loft fully purged to the point where it was ready to be staged and photographed for listing. Our agent paid for the moving company to move in the new pieces of furniture, and the designer worked her magic. (As an aside, we liked the staging of our loft so much that we hired the designer to help us furnish our new home, as well as design a built-in for it). Place looked great. We decided we were going to list with a 90-day close, in order to give us a good amount of time to continue house hunting. We had seen many houses we liked that went within our budget, so we were pretty confident that finding (and landing) the right house was likely to happen in that timeframe.
Listed the loft for 50k less than we actually wanted for it. Set an offer date. Immediately had a number of showings booked. A day and a half later we had a bully offer (an offer which does not wait for offer night). 940k. We wanted 950 as our target number so we countered with that, they agreed, and the place was sold. Could we have made more if we'd let it go to offer night? Who knows. Maybe there would have been a mad rush on the place, or maybe the people who bought the loft were actually our buyers. It's a hard loft, not one of these condos that developers add the word "loft" to. So there is a bit of a romantic quality to it... it's beautiful, and the people who are meant to have it will fall in love with it. But it isn't for everyone. So who knows what would have happened on offer night.
Clock ticking now on finding somewhere to live! I should mention that our target neighbourhoods were (in no order) St Clair W, Bloor West Village, the Danforth, Leslieville, The Pocket, Dufferin Grove, Christie Pits, and Wychwood. So kind of all over. It seemed to us that there was slightly more value to be had in the east end of the city. We saw a house in "Playter Estates" that we really liked actually. It ended up going for our budget of 1.4, but we didn't actually bid on it because the neighbourhood wasn't quite us. It felt a bit too stiff, too "keeping up with the joneses", if that makes any sense.
The same day we decided to pass on the Playter Estates house, we looked at a house in "Magical Land". Ha. I mean, if any creepy Redditors wanted to figure out where I live they probably could with all this info, but I figure I'll stop short of naming my actual neighbourhood. Suffice to say it's one of the ones I listed earlier. And to creepy Redditor: please don't bother sleuthing, I'm not worth your time! :)
Anyway, driving into that neighbourhood was a breath of fresh air. Again, this part is all personal preference, but for us Magical Land had the exact right combo of: value (thin, at best, but compared to some other parts of the city... but sure, a bit of value). A bit of grit. Not much, but enough. The bars, cafes, great walkability, good schools, parks, safety.... Aging hipsters pushing strollers and walking dogs. Still up for wild nights out, but home by 2am instead of 4am, to relieve the babysitter.
I digress.
So, we'd found our ideal target neighbourhood and focused all of our attention there. Semi up for sale at 1.2, we had a look, we liked it a lot. A lot!!! But again, not 1.4 a lot. Not our max. Beautiful place but really not much backyard, and only room for one car parking (we have two). This was, again, to me, a 1.35m home. Suspecting it would probably go for 1.4, we put in our offer of 1.35 nevertheless. It went for 1.4. And oddly, we weren't offered a chance to go to 1.4 ourselves. We were just told "no". We were starting to get mildly discouraged. Not entirely discouraged, but mildly. That was our third house we had bid on and lost. What kept us from full discouragement was the knowledge that -- in two out of three cases -- we had not lost because we couldn't afford the house, but rather because we were unwilling to go to our max in order to get it.
Nevertheless it was a bit depressing. The sad phone call. By this point it was probably towards the end of September, and listings were starting to slow down a bit. At least, the type of listings we were most interested in. This seems like a good time to say that we had no regrets re: our agent. We'd probably seen about 15 to 20 houses by now. Bid on a few and lost. I realize that she was very handsomely compensated for her work, but she was, in fact, working. We weren't the lowest-maintenance clients. We had endless questions, thoughts, and suggestions, at all hours of the day and night, and she was always immediately responsive. We never felt pressured to make decisions. Never got any eye rolls when we'd ask her to draw up the paperwork on a 1.35m offer, after she told us it would go for 1.4. She got us a record price for the sale of our loft (mind you, the loft itself did most of that work, but I give her credit for the selling strategy and for the team she hired to stage and photograph it). She also recommended a great lawyer for us, which will become a factor soon enough in this saga. HOWEVER she didn't give us a present, which we though was odd. All of our friends received a gift from their agent at the end of the process, usually of significant value. It's unfortunate this wasn't the case with ours, after the amount of business we gave her.
So anyway, we had lost out on yet another house. People say that house hunting is an emotional experience, and I was seeing this first-hand. Not in myself so much, but my wife was getting bummed out, she was really picturing us in every house we bid on, imagining what it would be like living there, getting excited, etc etc. But it wasn't happening.
Next day, a semi comes up for sale one street over. 1.2m. We go to see it on a Saturday morning. This is, to us, a house worthy of our max. Freshly reno'd, big lot, great curb appeal, a beautiful street, 3 bathrooms, mudroom, 2 car parking, big deck, big yard (by Toronto semi standards), brand new basement reno, new deck, new front porch. Closing date is close enough to ours that we'd be able to make it work. They have an offer date set for the Monday but we decide to try a new approach: bully offer. Off to the bank I go yet again to get the deposit draft and we submit the offer. That evening we get the usual call from our agent, and she pretends to have a neutral voice but we can hear it right away: we got this one. And we did.
Similar to how we sold our loft to a bully because they gave us the number we actually wanted, we got this house by bully offering the number that the seller actually wanted. Because who knows what might happen on offer night. Would they get that number? Higher? Lower? Who knows. So why not lock up their target number. (of course, my opinion is that we would not have gotten this house had it gone to offer night, but I'm aware of my own bias here).
For whatever it's worth, their agent later told us that other agents had clients who had planned on doing the same thing (bully on the weekend) but didn't get their shit together in time. So it turns out my immediate rushed trip to the bank on the Saturday afternoon was worth it. We were able to act fast, because we now had enough experience in the market to know what to bid, and to be able to do it quickly and confidently. We've kept an eye on listings since (because we like pain) and there hasn't been a whole lot out there. We feel pretty lucky. I know that people always say "we lost those other houses, but that's because we were always meant to be in this one". I'm not sure about "meant to be" but I'm certainly happy with where we landed. There was a semi in our neighbourhood listed at 1.4 recently, and it was tiny. And I mean tiny. W. T. F., they cannot be serious in this case. So, either the trend has changed in the last 6 months and people are starting to list at the price they're actually hoping to get in a blue sky world, or prices have just kept... going... up. Doesn't really matter as we aren't in it to flip it anyway. Just interesting.
Also of interest, this whole thing sort of hinged, in a way, on the buyers of our loft being able to sell their condo, at a historically awful time to be selling a condo in Toronto. They did a great job staging it, and it was in a boutique building, listed at a reasonable price, but it wasn't selling. And they did the right thing, they dropped the price. Wasn't selling. Dropped the price again. Wasn't selling. At this point, we were within a few weeks of closing (both of my properties closed within days of each other, I bridged for two days). And our thought was: will our buyers be able to finance the purchase of our loft? They had bought with no conditions (as did we, as does everyone in Toronto, if anyone tells you you're crazy to buy with no conditions, then they have no idea what they're talking about when it comes to the market in Toronto). They had bought with no conditions, but that didn't mean this wouldn't somehow become our problem, anyway.
So I arranged a phone call with our lawyer, who was excellent. Very reassuring, and walked me though the various outcomes.
1) they'll probably sell the condo. The fact that they'd dropped their price several times and had set an offer date (the upcoming Monday) indicated that they understood the gravity of the situation, and the need to finance their purchase of our loft by closing. That said, she advised that I didn't need to rush to cancel insurance, utilities, etc. on the loft quite yet. If they wouldn't be able to close, I'd have to call all those places back and reactivate. So I was to get new insurance for the new home set up, but would advise them not to put in the cancellation order on the loft until I told them.
2) they don't sell their condo, and they secure their own (expensive) private financing so they're able to carry both properties themselves. From our perspective, this would be no different than if they sold the condo.
3) they back out of the deal with us. This was unlikely because it would put them in a bad spot financially, but if the market at the time gave them 200k less than they thought they'd be able to get a couple years from now, then maybe it'd be worth it to them to cough up 100k for backing out of the deal. In effect they'd be "saving" 100k by doing so. In this case, we'd get bridge financing to carry the new home and the loft, and we'd re-list and sell the loft again. Then we'd sue our current buyers for the deposit cheque, our bridge fees, the difference between what we get for the loft by selling it in december vs what we agreed upon with them originally, as well as any other added expenses (utilities, property tax, insurance etc). They would pay for 65 percent of our legal fees, and we'd pay for 35 percent (which is dumb). So if legal fees are, say 15k (our lawyer's example) then we'd be paying 5k (which is dumb, because absolutely none of this would be our "fault" ). However, because we'd keep their deposit cheque, we'd still be coming out well ahead. In effect, we'd make more money if they walked away from the contract, but it's a big headache and we shouldn't be rooting for this outcome, despite the extra cash.
She did also mention that they still have 3 weeks, which in real estate is an eternity, so she was pretty confident they'd sell the condo.
And they did, on the Monday offer date, for significantly less than they'd hoped for, but for an amount they were willing to work with. Phew.
So. We've been in the new house for a couple of months. So far, so good. The house is freshly reno'd in many respects, but we repainted, tore out lighting fixtures and had potlights installed all through the main floor, had the kitchen counters and sink replaced/upgraded, and are having a built-in fabricated and installed for the living room. Additionally I've done many, many smaller repairs and tweaks myself... I will spare you the details, as this has gone on quite long enough. All of the reno expenditures come out of the holdback amount we kept from the sale of the loft. The new furniture (which is still in the process of being delivered, slowly but surely) comes out of that holdback amount, as well.
TL;DR... sold a loft in Toronto in Sept for a record building price. Listed at 50k under target price, set an offer date, and sold to a bully offer. Used same agent for buying and selling, and paid her the full 5 percent. Saw about 20 houses, bid on four of them. Paid 200k over list price for the house we ended up buying, because every house was being listed at 200k under true market value. Probably still is. Got the house by submitting a bully offer ourselves, ahead of the offer date. Had a bit of a scare when it looked like our buyers might not be able to close, we spoke with our lawyer and she explained the various outcomes. They were able to close.