Recent reviews by Darth Elmo

Titanfall 2 is a cult classic for a reason. It is the GOAT casual arena FPS, with a fantastic campaign, and plenty of multiplayer fun backed by the Source engine's movement and shooting mechanics. It's a shame we didn't get a third installment in the series, but understandable that Respawn pivoted to Battle Royale. Thankfully its servers have been saved by the janitor.

Rocket League is simple, does not change, and that's what makes it great. It's car soccer. It's easy to learn, hard to master, and understandable by everyone which makes it fun to watch. Hopefully Epic doesn't destroy it and it can stay popular for another 5-10+ years.

Apex Legends continuously adds to the Battle Royale experience in a way other BR games seemingly cannot, backed by strong gunplay and movement mechanics that only a Source engine game can provide, as well as enough gameplay systems and legends to provide depth. While the primary concern in any hero shooter is power creep and team composition, Respawn has managed to minimize the negative effects of adding new legends over the years by shaking up metas with new maps, items, weapons, and tweaks to the overall BR system. It is an entertaining (although niche) esport, and while there have been consistent struggles with input balancing, a cheating problem, the ranking system, and the microtransaction craze, Respawn seems to separate themselves from EA in the way they sustain and update the game. Ultimately, it seems unlikely that Apex will (or even can) have a sequel or engine upgrade anytime soon, as they have cornered themselves into using the 2012 fork of Source, and changing that would turn Apex into something completely different. Hopefully Respawn can maintain enough independence from EA that Apex can survive for another 5-10+ years.

Fragsurf has come a long way.

At its core, Fragsurf is a free movement shooter with super fast gameplay, immense depth in movement and combat, a retro vibe, a sharp learning curve, and years of history. It's another chapter in the undying story of Source-engine mods becoming their own games -- this time for my favorite gamemode, one I have 10,000+ hours in across CS:S, CS:GO, and CS2.

Its accurate re-creation of Source movement in Unity always had potential. v1 and v2 struggled to succeed, due to multiple possible factors such as Crayz trying to focus on too many things at the same time, including trick surf, surftimer, bhoptimer, and KZ (if you want that stuff, go to Momentum or CS:S). Add on the environment at the time with CS:GO booming, and of course the price tag, and Fragsurf became stagnant.

Now, with v3, Fragsurf has redeemed itself by focusing on the gamemode that named the game, combat surf. Surf feels amazing, gunplay is good, creating and porting maps is a breeze, and the game is free to play. The environment has changed, and at least as of right now, Fragsurf easily clears combat surf in CS2.

It took a few years, but the game is now in a state that Crayz and the community can and should be proud of. Having a dedicated space for combat surf/bhop free of outside influences and game-breaking updates is huge. Hopefully players rally around it and create something special.

Give it a shot. There's nothing else like it.

Counter-Strike 2 brings the same bomb defuse gameplay (and your skins) to Valve's newest engine, and remains the GOAT esport. Unfortunately, as a side effect of those precious skins, CS:GO has been nuked. In line with the tradition of every new CS iteration, it had a rushed launch and the first 2 years of the game are a matter of catching up to the previous title before stabilizing and advancing. The new game and engine are also much less friendly to the community servers and mods that first created and sustained it, and has (seemingly unintentionally) hurt the modding scene just like every other modern AAA title, bringing the golden age of Source engine modding to an end. That being said, the core gameplay remains solid and will probably still be the same in another 10-20 years, and it'll be interesting to see whether Valve's investments in AI Anti-Cheat pay off over time.

Team Fortress 2 is fun. Thankfully the cheating bot crisis has (for now) been solved.

This game is brilliant, considering it was a student project. The mechanics are awful, but that just makes the gut ripping and rib chopping even more hilarious.