Tommy Rayzer

IGN and Metacritic must be getting paid a lot to give this game a 9/10 and an 87% respectively. But it says a lot that most of IGNs review talks about how good the story is. The game does deserve credit for that. The story and its cutscenes are very well done. The voice acting is also up there with the best in the business. Unfortunately that is where my praise ends. This game does not deserve to call itself Final Fantasy. Two of the biggest selling points of a FF game are its story and the world in which that story exists. FFXVI is not an open world game. It is not even open-ish. The gameplay loop looks like this. 1. Watch Cutscene. 2. Begin Level. 3. Move from point A to B. 4. Mash Square and Triangle when any enemies appear. 5. Watch next Cutscene. That's it. The entire game is that loop, over and over for around 50 hours. Lather, rinse and repeat. The game is a linear experience with dumbed down combat. One of the main aspects that makes a Final Fantasy game is completely missing. Such a let down. It is all the more crazy when you realise that IGN gives this game a 9/10 but the FFVII Remake only got an 8/10. Clearly they are brimming with integrity and impartiality. This game should be grouped up with the likes of Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League and Marvels Avengers. I cannot recommend this game to anyone.

Looks great but no solo play options means I am not going anywhere near it. I don't like being forced to play with others. Since you cannot always trust other people will play fair or smart or even work towards whatever the objectives are. Shame.

I am a lover of both Racing Games and the original Wipeout game. So when I found out about this I really wanted to like it. But my lord is it difficulty. Not just the tracks or the general gameplay but so many thingsake This game far harder than it needs to be. The racing itself is so extremely fast with a very low angle view meaning the track and corners come at you very fast giving you very little time to react to them. The track floor is often barely defined and at times see through. Meaning you have floods of colours distracting you from the race. Most tracks have jumps, almost all of which it is near impossible to tell where the landing is. It is taking me on average about 20 attempts before I can get certain jumps figured out. Apparently this game is meant to be difficult. But it is one thing to make a difficult game, but it is another to make one that is so hard to learn that it will put most people off even bothering to take the time to do so. I don't think this game was playtested very well. I would understand if the game has beginner type tracks that are much easier to navigate, or a slower class of ships so we gradually adapt to the insane tracks. But this game is balls to the wall from the first track and it's "slowest ship". It doesn't help either that whole you are working your butt off trying to stop grinding the walls around each corner every track is full of these booster floor sections that force you to go faster only to smash into the wall at the next rapidly approaching corner. Again I really wanted to like this game. But there is only so long that I can tolerate failing miserably at one track after trying it over and over.

Overall a fun time killer which you should find some enjoyment out of if you are a wrestling fan, particularly an AEW fan. While I have a few issues with it I would still recommended buying it if you like this type of game. Maybe get it while it's on sale. Unfortunately the problems are a little too numerous to justify 4 or 5 stars. Movement feels a little awkward and clunky. The roster and move sets are a little limited and there are a few other gameplay missed opportunities that others have already said. If you have played it you know. My biggest issue is the graphics. I read someone say that it could be worse, at least the graphics aren't pixels. It is 2023 so saying that it's good that the graphics aren't from the early 90's isn't a defence. When judging graphics you have to look at what others are putting out. If the gameplay itself wasn't quite decent then graphically this game might have risked getting compared with the likes of "Gollum" or "Rise of Kong". It is a shame to say it but the graphics of the game are 7-10 years behind current day standards. But I think it's important to note that this is AEW's first video game. They might have been around for a little while now but they are still in the process of putting down roots in this business, which involves expanding the product in a number of ways. This was their first go at a video game and I'd say they did a decent job. The game is certainly worth a go

The movie was a grim view on humanity to begin with. But my main issue, which will be of no surprise to anyone who has seen this movie is the beyond stupid ending. Here is why. 1. No one should ever play that sick of a prank on anyone. You are making them think that someone has abducted and murdered your closest friends and girlfriend. 2. The film ACTUALLY shows these people being killed and mutilated. So how it can go from that to "prank" is unrealistic. 3. What did they expect would happen when they set up a scenario that has someone kidnap, torture and murder his friends and girlfriend and then put him alone with this same man in a room? How would any sane person react if put in that situation? Hell even if someone had only murdered my girlfriend, that would be enough to push someone over the edge and react violently towards them. No one should have been surprised at his reaction which was, at least from his perspective, to kill the man who had already killed all his friends and girlfriend and who was most likely going to kill him too so there would not be a witness to these apparent crimes. They placed a person in a situation where he would have felt like he was in a fight for his life. He did what any person would do in that situation. 4. Considering that this room he was in was filled with the still alive people who were all in on this prank they all watched him attacking and killing this man and did nothing to stop it. In the real world every single one of them is an accomplice to murder and would all be going to prison, even just for being part of the prank as they orchestrated the events that lead to the killing. This is a movie made by some very sick minded people. If they were attemtping to create a shock ending then i guess they succeeded, but not in any good way.

As a long time fan of the franchise I wanted to like this movie very much. I do like it but that is all. It is good but far from great. Making an original character for the movie made no sense. He may not have been completely new in the sense that he is descended from an established character but given the sheer number of original characters in the MK franchise there was no need to add another. In fact I would argue that the Cole Young actor would have made a better Liu Kang than the person who played him in this movie. A golden opportunity was missed to make Sonya Blade the main character and focus of the film. Especially in this day and age where Hollywood things women should be the leads of everything. Sonya could have had a compelling story where she has to earn her Dragon mark instead of getting it given through family or destiny. That would have been interesting. Many big names of the franchise were killed off very early. I won't spoil it. The name might be Mortal Kombat but if you take that too literally there won't be anyone left to fight. Other additions to the story include Arkana, likely meant to represent a form of Ki or Chi, as in the energy everyone channels to use whatever superpowers they get. Each character had their own reasons for why they could perform Superhuman feats. Above all else Jax and Kano make sense the least. Kano can now somehow fire his Lazer beam from his eye itself and not the cybernetic attachment that he gets. Also Jax somehow has the ability to summon machine parts from thin air and make his arms bulky and powerful. As promised Scorpion and Sub Zero were executed far better than their embarrassing showings previously. Moreso for Sub Zero since we don't see Scorpion for most of the film. I would have preferred they resurrected him earlier on then he could have helped to defend Earthrealm. Sub Zero felt like a step above all other threats except for Goro, who's CGI was actually pretty good. The film as a whole feels incredibly rushed. We get 2/3 into the film without much happening. By this point our heroes are still training to unlock their Arkana. It was at this point I realised that we were not getting a Mortal Kombat Tournament in this film. That was a let down. The whole story felt forced. Shang Tsung shows up and threatens to destroy everyone. They fight. Things happen. The end.

Spoiler Warning I get that it can be good when a show gets us to feel emotional which can be a sign of great writing. While the show certainly has some of that in this instance the only emotion I come away with is crippling depression. Seriously what is the point of making a show, giving us a season of getting to know and love our main characters only for a familiar face from the game to show up right at the end and almost instantly kill everyone. No build up, no real reason for it, just kills two of our favourite characters, including the main character. Even if Lucy survives to live her dream of getting the moon she is there alone, with no friends and no David. The whole thing is just horrible and ruins the whole show for me. What was the point of everything that comes before it if it all comes to nothing? Imagine playing a video game that let's you spend hours and hours building up friendships, skills and stats etc only for the final boss to kill you and reset all your stats and progress to nothing. This is just my opinion of course but having the ending kill off most of the people we have grown attached to and then leave another sad and alone in this dangerous world ruins any good will the show earned before those events. The show leaves me with the worst sour taste I can ever remember a show giving me. The last time I had this feeling at the end of a show was Beserk's The Eclipse.

Forspoken feels as though they were going for an experience of inserting ourselves from the real world into the fantasy world showcased in the video game, instead of us playing as someone who already exists in that fantasy world. But they could not have given us a less relatable main character nor is it a character that even remotely reminds me of myself. They should have given us the option to create our own characters. The main character is the classic reluctant protagonist that has appeared in pretty much every badly written project of the last 5 years. Awful writing but a really not very likeable character don't make for a fun experience. But of course when the game performs very poorly in review scores no one will accept responsibility for creating a terrible game, we will just all be mysogynistic racists right? How much longer will they continue to hide behind this when it is only actually bad stuff that gets the bad reviews... I don't include graphical issues in my score since that can happen to any game and post launch patches often fix all this so I don't think the game is being treated fairly in that respect.

I am betting that my review is going to echo the sentiments of many. Short Version, Excellent atmosphere, visuals and sound design. But arguably the worst combat I think I have ever experienced. That and the painfully slow character movements really ruin this game. What were they thinking when they designed the combat system for this game? It feels like each encounter becomes a quick time event, meaning you hold left or right to dodge at the right time then mash R2 to fight back. The dodge mechanic is really only barely functional in 1 on 1 situations. Even then while they say "There is no timing window" that really is not the case. If you have recently swung and missed, the swinging animation may take too long for the game to register that you are pressing the dodge button and you get hit. If you attack at the same time as the enemy you both get hit. But the part where the combat system quite literally falls apart? When there is more than one enemy at a time, which happens a lot. This game only seems to be able to register dodge input from one enemy at a time, so you will only be able to dodge the enemy you are facing. Anyone from your sides or back will not cause your character to dodge. Plus the camera movement is so awful during combat scenarios that you will struggle to even see where the other enemies are. Each enemy encounter feels like it should have been placed into a turn based battle, something like what you get in FF7. Where you each take turns to perform actions. I could keep going on. Suffice to say that I quickly find myself hating each section where I can hear multiple enemies ahead. The GRP Glove, Essentialy Dead Space's Kinesis module is great when it works, which is almost never. It runs out of battery very quickly, and takes forever to recharge. Meaning in a group enemy scenario you will only be able to use it on one enemy before it runs out, and even then the control system to use it is awful. You have to aim your weapon, which focusses your camera on a single enemy, so if there is any more you can no longer see where they are coming at you from. Then you have to hit one key to activate it, hold that key then while still holding it move and aim your enemy at something which will hopefully kill it. It is so difficult to use that I rarely bother. Weapon combat is fine I guess. However you find that you don't get to use it as often as you like because once you start shooting all the enemies in the area will charge at you forcing you back into the God awful melee combat system. It is so sad that this one feature, which forms a very integral part of this game completely ruins the experience for me. The painfully slow and clunky character movement and combat completely take me out of the world that the game has created, meaning I am rarely feeling like I am enjoying this game or its visuals and atmosphere. Such a shame.