I'm an old player. I've played for around 1000 hours since 2016. Im not that old but i have very fond memories of TF2. I was very young back then. Valve has made something unique, something that is almost akin to a rite of passage for a proper gamer. It's one of the few games that still lets you do almost anything you want, for better or for worse.

I am so happy and proud to have been part of the community. It's the most dedicated one i have ever witnessed, most likely on par with the communities of Lord of the Rings and the like. Valve used to care about the game, and Gaben himself did, once. Even if they don't now, you can see it in it's soul that it has love baked into the code itself.

Play tf2. And you wont be able to play anything else for a while. For me, it was 7 years until i was done. But the youtube videos, the sfms, the "meet the team".... THEY show what tf2 is about. The community. I personally seriously got into tf2 when i saw meet the pyro, late 2015.

Editing multiple months later. This was originally a positive review, but i've played a lot more ever since I wrote this thing.

I was right on most of what I said - specifically 2 things - Valve used to care about the game to the point where even the code resonates a form of love and that Tf2 gives too much freedom for it's own good. In the time i replayed this game, I realised I do not enjoy what tf2 IS but what it USED to be and what it EMBODIES.

The GOOD things about tf2 is it's community pressence, it's meme culture and the creativity it allows. What are the bad things about tf2? Everything else. Gameplay included. And sadly, community too.

Tf2 is a near 20 year old game at this point. It's lived for so long it saw itself be the peak of online gaming, then live on to become a villain (I.e. stagnant eras since 2017, bot crisis since 2019, less and less interesting videos as we speak, etc) and went back around to what it used to be - a great game with mediocre presence.

Balancing is terrible. Random crits, autobalance that actively TARGETS you if you're in a group/performing well and at best subpar new content that bloats the software and ruins the game in some cases by making everyone spy if the player is willing to buy some paints.

Furthermore, thanks to TF2 being an ancient relic of a game, it's reliant on community more than 99% of games. What does that mean? It means that when you start matchmaking you are essentially playing a roulette with roughly 5% chance of having fun. Then there's 20% chance of you joining a game full of racists who either support CP (Right wingers) or support murder of people they don't like for simply not having the same opinions (left wingers), 20% chance you join a friendly server (which, tell me ONE game where you can be kicked/be the bad guy for simply playing the game other than For honor and the stupid """honor""" code), 30% chance of you joining a game where EVERYONE is better than you and a 10% chance of you joining an infested bot server because ♥♥♥♥ you. "Hats don't determine skill" used to be true when i played a lot, back in 2017 but now the exact opposite is true. If you see a guy with a good unusual on the enemy team, you might as well surrender, especially if they are either playing Soldier, Demo or Medic.

For the "slow" among you, no i'm not saying quickplay was better, I wasn't even around to experience it, but I definitely prefer ANYTHING over this. 75% of my recent playtime is on ctf because unless TF2 becomes your forever game, you will NOT be good enough to have fun in this game. Your aim will always falter when you need it not to, your coordination and map knowledge will always be wrong when you need it to be reliable and even when you decide to play as a friendly, you will always join a game with the same lime green scout who GUESS WHAT! Plays the game as intended and doesn't care how you enjoy it. Or even better, a demoknight or medic do that instead, so you're directly contributing to your team losing by providing the enemy with either heads or uber.

More people partake in tf2's economy than the game of tf2 itself. The youtube sphere is laughable with one side being toxically positive and the other reminiscing about the good old days like 90 year olds. Hypocrites who praise valve and openly bully anyone who opposes them for crimes that the bullies themselves had commited (See zesty jesus controversy circa 2020). The game is actively growing worse and worse, like a corpse directly contributing to defiling a water source used by a village full of children (in this case, aspiring artists using TF2 as an outlet, like animators, comic artists, writers, music composers, etc.)

The game has nothing left to give. Every time i see someone with an unusual i know longer see someone who i aspire to be, i see someone who has dedicated a good amount of money and time into a game whose prime was 15 years ago. Let this thing die so you can play something that actually makes you better instead of regurgitate the same experience over and over and over, hoping for something new. You are actively killing your free time.

That being said, my previous points from my first review still remain true - Team fortress 2 used to be a great game and i used to have a lot of fun with it and maybe Valve itself loved it at one point. But let this game die before it's modern state becomes a stain in it's legacy. It introduced loot boxes nd we gave it a pass purely because it's valve and where has it got us - to a disgusting digital marketplace that multiple people treat as a new goldmine instead of a fun way to get items. Let this thing rest in peace, for it has nothing good to offer anymore.

KCD2 is Great. It enhances several of the aspects of the first game and irons out many of it's issues. The world is amazing and is begging to be explored. However, it did so at the expense of the company selling out and an overall unpleasant combat experience. I.e. story and combat issues. As such, considering this is also a very ambitious follow up to the original, which is an indie game, and has had outside support, I have to treat it more harshly.

Pros:
1. The combat is enjoyable. When it works. One good step up is that master strikes are preventable.
2. Hunting is actually REALLY fun and a major step up from KCD1. I could argue there is way too much wildlife if i wanted to nitpick, but i love it.
3. The majority of the content is actually pretty good and enjoyable. I loved it when I had my pizzle yanked, looking for latrines at Otto's castle.
4. At first, I was really annoyed with Godwin's segments thanks to them appearing in very dramatic times - but they're fairly short and i learned to appreciate them.
5. The world is REALLY well made and begging to be explored.
6. Actually some fairly good diversity when it does hit (only 25%). I liked the Roma camp and the fact that there's national diversity, with Hungarians, Cumans, Germans and Czechs. it's very realistic and very fun, truly European to have a French fight a Czech for a Croatian king in almost-Hungarian ground. Also Godwin referencing Greek mythology in the tunnel really stuck with me
7. Musa of Mali is actually a nice character, even with my grievances.

Cons: LONG LIST. MOST ARE PERSONAL BUT I THINK MATTER.
1: Combat overall sucks and is not at all realistic like most claim.
- Why are swords so common when Gnarly points out very early they're a noble's weapon? And why does every common bandit and lackey know how to do master strikes?
- Attacks take 50 billion years to be performed. Medieval duels could be decided within seconds but here you graciously raise your mace and take 40 years to place it down on your enemy's noggin.
-Masterstrike. From the moment combat is so slow and there's few ways to guarantee damage (since a lot of combos are bugged), no ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ wonder the Masterstrike will be spammed. What's worse, midway when i reached level 22 in the sword before Kuttenberg, I switched to mace. Dear god, please, why do non-swords not have meisterhaus? And why do enemies get access to unarmed master strikes but you don't? "It's not historical"? What's not historical about using a shield to block and your weapon to attack at the same time?
-Combos are bugged. I kept trying to do the Rosa, only to fail somewhere in the hurl of strikes - I wasn't the only one. Turns out, several combos can fail because the game fails to differentiate from follow ups to standalone strikes. As such, the only REAL combos in the game are from the sword, the Pommel strike and the Mittelhau.
-Polearms suck. For a "historically accurate" game, this is a cardinal sin.
2. Romance options are lacking and you are not rewarded for having them or staying loyal to Tess.
- No achievements for courting a fine maiden or staying a virgin. come on guys, such an easy achievement to have, even kcd1 had it. At least there's no achievement for railing capon i guess.
- You rarely get the chance to stay Loyal to Tess and it actually mean something. I like the canon of Divish having a son thanks to Henry though.
3. Diversity.
- Too many gay people, too many black people, too many jews
wahhhh waaaah im gonna complain a bout gays and blacks and jews waaaaaah, yes
I don't like the idea of queerness in my medieval game, when it was literally forbidden. Hans capon? SURE. SOME people might actually want to wife him up. It's an Rpg, I accept it. Black bartosch? Alright I guess, he's of minor nobility, I can suspend some disbelief. Then what, Samuel and John? Look, i'm fine with Capon and Erik X Istan because one is for gameplay and the other is actually really cool storytelling but there's just way too much that it invites bad actors that think Janosh x Adder are a thing or Rosa is a lesbian. I.e. it invites a certain lgbtq crowd that has a habit of rewriting history for it's own benefit, like it has already done with Greek mythology and history. It's just too much. I don't like this kind of goyslop in my game. I didn't mention it in KCD1 because they actually did it well and thoughtfully and Erik and Istvan are actually good characters.
- We have no records of Musa actually being in Bohemia, or any african for that matter. It's fiction. I would have let this slip were it not for other points.
- Too much jew slop. Samuel is an ok character but way too much playing the victim, with the Rabbi acting all cool and totally bros with Chrsitians, even accepting a blessing from Godwin when Jews and Christians are like Greeks and Turks. Incompatible. Had Samuel been involved without the Synagogue,which is also a fictional plot point even if used well with John, i would've been fine, but too much jewslop "we wuz genocided".
- We have no church interior bc ummmmm yes but we made half the game take place with jews that act high and mighty. Even if i stopped pretending to be racist, it's just not historically accurate and feels like virtue signaling. KCD2 would have been better without the jewslop
4. The game is just too huge.
This might just be a me thing, but I do not like open world games at all. I finish them or get burnt out and then have no wish to go back for achievements. It's genuinely incredibly annoying to try and get every single achievement and dear god i dont know how i did it. I still have to play hardcore though, but I won't. Too much of a good thing exists, and It was so bad in the first game i didnt even get 90% of the achievements.
-5 ♥♥♥♥ the pistole rabbit achievement.
6. Customisability is still very small.
7. I expected more from the Forge DLC.
Imagine being able to engrave the blades yourself, or make an axe with a guard or even be able to make polearms, or even handles yourself. The point is, the forge dlc is underwhelming - You get to make a base, which is cool, but all you do is heat,hammer, end, repeat. It's too easy and too simple. You should be capable of much more as a swordsmith - I recommend looking into Bladesong for an idea. I'm not even asking for anything grand, just a small UI of you inspecting the final product and selecting small misc changes, like engravings, handle changes, custom guards or blades, etc.
8. SPOILER: The good ending is BS.
Why should I let brabant walk away to get it? Why should I rescue Samuel when he brought his capture on himself like a dumbass jew? Why should I not kill Markvart? The only good thing is not torching the village. In general, it has the same idea as "Revenge bad" despite you killing Istvan. I agree on the why, but i do not agree that killing anyone should bar you from it, except maybe Markvart.

Overall.
It's a good follow up to KCD1, with a good story until the halfway point with major improvements in several fields and very good DLCs.
However, the drastic story changes midway through to a sloppy narrative to include a people not supposed to be included, a worse combat experience from KCD1 and the general burnout I had when I died and had lost hours of progress... Like, the game is good but I just do not like it.

Objective score, 8/10. Personal score, 5/10.