If subnautica taught me anything, he voiced the actual sub.

Halo CE, Halo 2, and Halo 3 are great. Then the franchise was purchased by 343 and everything since has been a soulless COD clone with a Halo skin… and a random RTS.

Image search pulls up Masters of Albion

Higher res shot:

I’m jealous of your optimism. I really hope the future aligns with your expectations, and not mine.

In our defense:

*gestures at the general state of our country*

So it’s blurred, but I definitely see the matching hue of Florida and Canada, which I’m interpreting as meaning the two are one in the same. I’m cool with being Canada’s shorts if y’all are willing take that shit show off of our shoulders!

Iirc (edit - apparently incorrect) Halo was the first to use left joystick as forward/backward and left/right strafe; and right joystick as look up/down and pivot left/right.

I even recall articles counting it as a point against the game due to its ‘awkward controls’ …but apparently after a tiny learning curve, the entire community/industry got on board.

“Dreamcast” is probably the single best gaming console name of all time, too.

Blind Guardian is pretty hit-and-miss: their shit lands somewhere on a spectrum of metal to renaissance-faire lol. Sacred Worlds is another one of my favorites.

All of Metallica’s S&M album is solid fucking gold, but the best (imo) song from it almost never gets the spotlight, so it’s tragically easy to miss: No Leaf Clover

Avenged Sevenfold isn’t symphonic metal, but they’ve got two songs that at least dip their toes in that water: The Stage, and Little Piece of Heaven.

Epica

If you know Epica you’re probably already familiar with Nightwish, but in case your not… well, Nightwish. Most of their music is more similar to Omega than the one I’m about to link, but this specific song is just so fucking weird, I love it: Scaretale. Definitely check out their other songs too!

Essence of Datum / Naxayras

You’d probably like Pelican - kind of ambient rock. Or Russian Circles, which is similar but more mellow.

Mohamed Shawky

Not familiar, and the only Mohamed Shawky’s I’m seeing on YouTube are a physicist and an athlete. Judging entirely by the name, I’m guessing it’s got some Arabic vibes, and the best I’ve got there is the first one I linked, Wheel of Time, mostly because of the intro… Antti Martikainen has some Arabic sounding songs - that dude’s music is ALL over the place… I recall one being a kind of Arabic metal that I could have SWORN was called “Ancient Worlds” but searching that isn’t coming up with anything. He does have Arabic hybrid sci-fi music lol. Skim that dude’s channel, and brace for a musical roller coaster.

Rivers of Nihil

Hmm, maybe try Lorna Shore, especially Pain Remains. Lorna Shore is WAY too throaty-howler-monkey-shit for me personally, but fortunately they’ve got instrumental versions too.

Nice mix of metal and violin.

Juuuuust in case you’re not already familiar with symphonic metal… It’s pretty fuckin great.

Halo 1, 2, and 3 all looked fine. Halo 4 and up all look like shit, cuz 343 made them shit.

Don’t be so judgy, bro!

lights fuse

Kinda reminds me of dinitrophenol (DNP), another miracle weight loss pill that converted stored calories to heat.

Works great up until it literally cooks you to death.

This new method of converting white fat to brown fat to heat sounds like it’s in that same neighborhood.

If it works, cool! But be cautious if you see a bottle of some shit claiming to do this at your local pharmacy.

Alumium came before that!

…shoulda just left it at that.

try using the console to set the speed to like 0.5 or even slower. When things speed up, the game physics goes nuts; slowing them down stabilizes them again.

Oh, good catch. Fixed.

Abiotic Factor

Hadn’t heard of that one… it’s like a survival builder set in Half Life 1 lol. Wishlisted!

Witcher 2’s controls are a bit janky, but it’s a solid game in and of itself for the story alone; if you can stomach some pretty bad mechanics to enjoy an otherwise decent product, I’d say start at #2.

Witcher 1 is… so bad it’s kinda comical. I’d just pull up a story summary of Witcher 1 on youtube and call it a day. If you’re a masochist, go ahead and give the actual game a whirl; but I’d recommend modding the snot out of it to at least make your character OP as fuck, allowing you to mostly skip the god-awful combat. But even then, the only selling point is the story, which again you can just pull up on YouTube.

That said, you can dive into 3 with zero knowledge of the previous two and be just fine. There are things that will go over your head, but nothing significant.

Once you get a hold on dodging/parrying/etc, you’ll feel like a damn ninja, especially on harder difficulties; but leading up to that, yeah combat is… OK. Also don’t miss out of experimenting with different builds - one of my favorites optimized using bombs, which later into it makes you a walking B-52 - fun build if you enjoy clearing trash via a wave of pure chaos, then mopping up the stronger guys by way of the sword.

And yeah, the whole package is what counts here: Witcher 3 is a fantastic all around game. It isn’t without it’s imperfections, but they are barely noticeable amidst the tsunami of ridiculously high quality you’ll be hit with from all the other features.