GOTY 2021
Life kept me busy this year, so I didn't play as much as I would have liked.
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Campaign: What can I say? They pulled off an open world Halo game. It gives you just enough to do to feel like you're having fun, fighting back against the Banished one outpost at a time. But also not Ubisoft levels of too much open worldness. The addition of the grappleshot was so smart. While certainly not an original idea, it adds so much to your ability to explore and experiment in combat.
The story begins to forge a new path, while also respectfully closing the loop on Halo 5's story without having to directly deal with it. I think the tight, single location, handful of characters story goes a long way to bring the series back to its high points. And under 343i they FINALLY nailed the soundtrack. Wow, incredible music all around. All of the Forerunner bits were back to that ethereal, mysterious feel. Loved it.
Multiplayer: Great mechanics and play, god awful microtransactions.
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A new Forza Horizon, a new location, and all the same fun. The formula of these games continues to be refined, and is closer than ever to essentially being a PG Fast & Furious thing. The visuals are more stunning than ever. The Mexico locale is a joy to drive through like madman. I don't really have anything bad to say about it.
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A cool, quick Halo story. I'm not a big RTS person, but I sure did love base building for 20 minutes and then steam rolling the map in 10 minutes. The cut scenes done by Blur were PHENOMINAL. LIKE WOW. The soundtrack? Hella chill, loved slowed down Halo vibes. Overall pretty solid.
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The Hivebusters DLC was pretty cool! Looked absolutely amazing on Series X. A quick, over the top Gears story with new characters will always be welcome in my book.
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I played this and the first game back-to-back. Honestly, I think I liked the first more. The sequel had fewer cutscenes done by Blur, with more story telling done in game. I also didn't enjoy the music as much. That's not to say the music was bad, it totally fit what they were going for. But not nearly as chill as the first was.
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Kinda disappointed in this game. I don't mind that it's only semi-open world. But the draw distance for the open world sections really detracts from those areas. I'm not a fan of the football stadium motif for ALL of the gyms. They don't feel unique, even with the challenges/puzzles before the main match. And I'm REALLY let down by the music. The main theme SLAPS SO HARD, but the rest is multiple levels below that. And now that we can play mainline Pokemon games on our tvs, they really need voice acting, even if for only main characters/scenes. I fell off about halfway through the main game, even though I have the DLC too.
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