monster hunter world (2018)

"monster hunter world" is the piss of the earth. the game has five levels, which is a huge letdown honestly. you got emerald hill zone, sandopolis zone, aquatic ruin zone, pumpkin hill zone, and lava reef zone. there's platforming and stuff but it doesnt really matter if you land the jumps or not??? mostly you're running around in circles (not loops sadly) gathering materials. this is the minecraft part of the game, before you start screaming at your tv. monster cruncher is full of wonder and mystery, until you become fully accoustomed to your surroundings and adopt the pro gamer mentality. then you awake from your long slumber realizing you've been tricked into playing yet another game as a service. once you're numb to the beautifully lush terrain, your eyes are glued to the minimap so you can see where all the minecraft lives. you can craft many things such as bombs, traps, and excuses for blowing off your friends and loved ones. you will have to use all of your resources wisely to survive! or you can brute force things instead! either way you will be stressed out whenever you fail, and sometimes even when you succeed!

there are 14 guns in the game and some armor, but there are no character classes. this is way less customization than "destiny," which has at least 20 guns and 3 classes. you can't be a "warlock" which is a crying shame. every weapon has about 10 moves you can do, but this is a huge trap. you're going to try to use every move creatively instead of spamming the stuff that comes out fast and is "safe on block" or "plus on frames" or whatever. monsters will either mosey along, or else they will do parkour on you skull. they have long heath bars which are not on-screen, so eventually you get bored of performing well at the video game, unlike a 5 minute dark souls fight. soon enough you just want the suffering to end, which is a sign that it's a good video game. if you only had to fight every boss once, that would own, because the novelty from each monster is gone instantly after the first encounter. a small guy will stun you with a polaroid flash; a t-rex will breathe fire; an ice dragon will drain your stamina; and a flying chimera will divebomb you. all of this is magical, until it totally isn't. there's multiplayer, though you're most applying buffs and trying not to trip over each other. it still has all the fun of a raid, because one weak link can let everyone down!

there are many serious issues we can think about in this game, such as whether the monsters are real, which weapons are for champions and which are for babies, and possible strategies for "deterritorializing" dinosaur island. you will only achieve the prestigious "high rank" once you find all 96 secret exits on dinosaur island, at which point your save file will get corrupted and ness from "earthbound" will lecture you about how he is "eating from the trash can [of ideology] all the time." just kidding, the plot sucks ass and you will have to fight all the monsters all over again, and some new ones much later. however this does force us to think about recursion, time loops, and numbness in gaming. rathalos, azure rathalos, rathian, and pink rathian are all pallette swap dragons with similar movesets. does this somehow feel worse than "final fantasy xii," which has like 12 different pallette swap wolves? yes, i agrue, because most of the time you are not playing "final fantasy xii." the endgame is to acquire the best armor, and you know a game is bad when that is the final goal. armor is both an expression of capitalist consumption and an emotional closing-off from others. to become the best hunter you must sacrifice your humanity itself...how droll.

-melty bong, the abyss gamer