MGS2 is a hard title to write about because there are already like, several 800 page essays about the game and its themes on this site alone, I’m not even factoring in video essays and other sites and articles. So why am I writing this regardless? Well, the answer is quite simple, I can’t get this game off my mind even a week after playing it, and as possibly redundant this review could be, I need to get it out there.
Playing MGS2 for the first time, after seeing a playthrough in my earlier teens and wanting to try it myself for nearly half a decade, was cathartic. I could not be more glad that I finally got to try this. While I was pretty terrible at the stealth gameplay even on the lowest difficulty, just the satisfaction of making progress and exploring every little nook and cranny of the Big Shell made it for me. While it doesn’t have the heavy winter night atmosphere of Shadow Moses that defined the previous game, Big Shell is beautiful in its quaintness. It’s simple but has effective coloring and theming, and honestly how could anyone hate the almost tranquill outside areas with the bright skies, blue oceans, and crying seagulls?
I mentioned that I watched a full playthrough of this game several years ago, and I actually revisited it recently to see if it held up. While I still enjoyed it, it felt surreal seeing that even in 2018 many people didn’t like or respect the direction that MGS2 took with its heavier reliance on themes than sensibility. “Overshot” was the description that hit me the most. While, sure, there are things about this game that are fucking ridiculous (honestly despite my high praise for this game I do have choice words about the Liquid hand thing), I think the absurdity was intentional and defines MGS2. It’s not for everyone, which I understand, but it seems that even just a couple years ago 2 was given a lot of shit for its direction, whereas now I feel that it’s almost universally praised as a masterpiece.
Lastly what I wanted to touch up on was how much I despise the nihilistic circlejerk that surrounds this game’s final codec call. While in the moment it can be crushing and feel like something to make the player feel used, it’s like people completely ignored everything that happened after the final boss. Or even in the codec call itself, where Raiden pretty much says “nah, I’m good” despite everything he’s been told trying to devalue him and dispose of him after his “purpose” has been fulfilled. Both of Snake’s speeches afterwards are the icing on the cake. Honestly during the rewatch of them I did shed a few tears, it hits a lot harder when I’ve given more thought into it and it's an uplifting message that leaves the story on a high note after the brutality of the final codec. Snake essentially goes “hey, there’s a lot going on and misinformation will spread, but don’t freak out yet, you’re your own person and you get to decide what you do or don’t believe in,” how you could see all that and then only hyperfixate on “kojima predicted the internet and AI lol!” is not only ignorant, but blatantly disrespectful to everything else going on. There’s more meaning to MGS2 and its main gimmick was not just “predicting the future.” It’s about individuality and finding what we believe in. Becoming nihilistic and focusing on all the bad in the world is exactly what the GW wants you to think. Why can't some recognize that?
It was nice finally going through this amazing, amazing game firsthand. I’m taking a bit of a break before I tackle 3 because I wanted to dedicate more time to thinking about this game. It’s something that I don’t think will ever leave my mind anytime soon. There’s a lot I didn’t cover here, and it’s simply because many people have already said it or I don’t even know where to begin in wording it, but I am totally up for discussion if you’d like to ask.
Thank you for reading, and a happy new year.
Choose your own legacy.
It’s for you to decide.
it's up to you.

The most refined version of Football Manager on this current game engine.

It is the best game to play if you want to play as a football manager. The graphics are much better than last year, with more realistic animation and gameplay. Plus, it feels faster too. The new additions such as to the set-pieces was much needed and it works fantastic.

My only drawback is in some of the UI and licensing. I feel like Football Manager has grown so much in the past decade that it really should start acquiring licensing and they should start to remedy skins that have quality of life improvements to their UI.

Overall, I love FM and I'll continue to pour many hours onto this. Slightly anxious that my laptop won't be able to handle FM25 but we'll see then.

I feel like in the 2010s we were all playing stuff like this and being very smug about it, but by 2019 (and especially now), that kind of "clever mechanic + an art style + game feel" style of game, had started to feel a bit quaint and dated.

I dunno, this is ok. It's unique looking and the jazz sound design has its appeal.

I completed "Disc 1" and I'm not sure if there's more to it. The ending menu made it look like there were more "Albums" to unlock, but pressing play on the main menu just starts the game all over? Probably won't go back to it to figure it out tbh.

I loved this game, the entire thing is just self-indulgent fun with masterfully-crafted levels that make you feel like a speedrunner. Some lines were cring but it knows what it is & while nothing to write home about, it wraps up nicely and has it's moments, plus the gameloop is too fun for me to care. also it's OST is just great. I will one day return to get all red dev times and attempt the rush modes, but for now i'm extremely happy with my time with this game. and yes this game is the alt universe where spike spiegel ended up in heaven. Red best girl.

The main issue with Alan Wake, still, is that he's a pretty naff writer. Sure I wasn't expecting to be playing Thomas Ligotti Remastered, but this dude's schlocky narration just about dampens any tension otherwise well established when the world goes dark and strange.
As with Deadly Premonition, I enjoyed the overt Twin-Peaksian influence particularly on the setting. I only wish it strived for that level of eccentricity. Most of the characters play it straight, the only exception being Alan's buddy, Barry, who often veers into Disney sidekick territory. The supernatural forces at large feel ominous but the samey evil townsfolk feel disconnected from the actual goings on (also in the same way later editions of Deadly Premonition has thrown in baddies as an afterthought). The combat is also incredibly repetitive: most of the main game just has Alan running through samey drabs of woods and warehouses firing away at the same 3 or 4 guys.
However, as the remaster also includes the two extra 'specials,' I would like to mention that they add significantly to the otherwise underwhelming final act of the main game. Whilst narratively unadventurous, the specials' combat and level design are actually even more varied and interesting - making unique use of floating word barriers (the writer making his words a reality, get it?) and one particularly Silent-Hill-esque level set on a town sized ferris wheel.
Speaking of Silent Hill, as I always fucking do, Alan Wake has similar issues to that of the post Team Silent games, mainly in its lack of character, tension and pacing.
Despite that, this game is not quite as constricted to being a horror game, and probably should have ditched most of the combat sequences in favour of the investigative mystery thriller segments it usually PEAKS in.
Not as unique or groundbreaking as its long legacy would have you believe, but usually pretty fun.

This game is more movie than game in it's story telling. In a weird way though it is almost fitting that a pseudo mindbending video game about a horror novel author's manuscript was actually a film the entire time.

I am exaggerating, there are obviously the obligatory zombie-, but not actually a zombie, okay maybe they are just a zombie, but with an extra shield mechanic -shooter sections. There are also some decent, often optional "walking sim" parts with additional world building, lore or foreshadowing of the story. The game is serviceable just not for me, I am hating a bit, because I am honestly always disappointed when I choose to play a Video Game instead of watching a Film or a TV Show and then I feel like I would have gotten the same x10 out of rewatching a Lynch (or Nolan, he might unironically enjoy this) flick while playing a mindless zombie shooter on the side.
Like, my favourite part in the first chapter was some silly and short Twilight Zone -eseque video you can watch on a TV in the game. Why am I even playing a game at that that point I have to ask myself?

Starting off with the nod: "Stephen King once wrote that 'Nightmares exist outside of logic, and there's little fun to be had in explanations; they're antithetical to the poetry of fear." and after that immediately tutorialising how to break and defeat the first "Nightmare" you encounter, and thereby lessening the potential fear of the unknown a player could experience and contradictong that corny opening monologue is baffeling to me.
The animations, sound design and fx alone convey perfectly well that the lamp has an effect on the enemy, figuring that out by yourself would work perfectly fine in a nightmare mystery setting. Why are games this inconfindent in themselves and the player that tjey feel the need to take this small and kind of intriguing revelation away?

"For a moment the repressive feeling from the nightmare I had on the ferry returns" a near comical jumpscare flashes for half a second. The shortness, randomness and how on the nose the attempt at connecting Alan's narrated thoughts to the players emotions were, made this moment kinda silly to me. These Jumpscares keep coming throughout the game and keep getting longer, showing the player more information. And idk, to me that is honestly, at least in theory, an interesting concept to excuse the use of jumpscares, by the nature of the scare getting longer the jump would slowly cease to exist. But they don't really, there is still epileptic ass editing in those moments to compensate for the length I guess. So, to me at least, this minor recurring flash of imagery, which I'm wasting way too much time on in this review, is only an annoying, tension wasting horror gimmick that is halting the gameplay instead of the intriguing, itself slowly revealing narrative exposition it could have been.

Alan Wake gives me confidence to be a writer myself, a profession not even included in the top five artistic delusions I have, but this game bumped it up a bit. The writing in Alan's manuscripts is mediocre at best, there is no way this guy is such a legend that a small town has a life-sized cardboard cutout of him in a Bar.
Damn, is he supposed to be a mediocre cardboard cut out of an author and that is a blatan admission of that? But man self-awareness wouldn't make it any better.
In one of the manuscripts it says "..to describe the dark presence as intelligent would have implied human qualities on something decidedly inhuman" all this sentence is giving me is the implications that intelligence is a quality exclusive to humans. And thats just arrogant human exceptionalism in my book.

I dropped this game after like six+, kinda slogging hours and turned on Twin Peaks instead. If there is some plot-twist that nullifies my complaints about the story related stuff or the game somehow gets way more interesting, I honestly don't really care enough to sit through even a playthrough of it to find out and I did genuinely try that a couple days after, but then again choose to watch something else instead. [Played like a month ago, but I'll log it with todays date for visibility or some shit, idk if that is how it works]

was talking it over with a friend and we agreed that one of the smartest things this game does is to entirely elide questions of depiction and gratuitousness re: sexual assault and abuse by unfolding the violence almost entirely through threat, metaphor, and implication. the looming possibility is signalled by the very first interaction even, the encounter of our favorite skinny, vulnerable teenage girl Heather Mason with a bulking, growly strange man stalking her. the eventual unraveling of the "God" plotline obviously also scans as about sexual trauma, the violative experience of unwanted procreation without the explicit need for an assaulting figure (which of course ties into the parody of the Virgin Birth, again, not subtle but appreciated), and the central dynamic between Heather and men is defined by distrust, fear, and manipulation (the memo you read where even her benevolent father and blankfaced video game Good Dad Harry Mason confesses to wanting to murder Heather as a child is heartbreaking), while her relationship to the only other woman in the cast is defined by outright hostility engendered by their equally understandable if slightly manichean responses to unbelievable pain and suffering at the hands of a patriarchal and matriarchal figure, respectively. to really hammer it home the game pens you in to dark, cramped, filthy spaces right from the start, barely ever giving you an overworld to interact with: Heather Mason is not her father or James Sunderland, she's a 17 year old girl, railroaded through the terrifying world that the men of the series navigate more freely (this is also reflected in the games lack of traditional Silent Hill branching endings, at least on a first playthrough). maybe there's nothing interesting or new left to say about these games but i loved this so much i wanted to at least put something here to commemorate it

Don't hate me but, for me, it's the most inconsistent game of the original Team Silent run.
To start with some of it's many strengths, it's the best looking PS2 game I've ever played. The character models, monster and level designs and overall physics are highly impressive and ahead of their time. The atmosphere, particularly of the first title, is stronger here than ever. The game also boasts one of the franchise's scariest moments, involving a very particular mirror.

Some people's criticism comes from the fact that it takes half a game to actually get to the town of Silent Hill. But I would say the best half is the first, set at a shopping mall. The game's protagonist, Heather, is one of the most emotive and likeable in the series. The theme of transitioning into female adulthood is distinct in the design of this first half, as Heather battles monsters, some skinny, some overweight, phallic, bloody, long-legged and so on, through a shopping mall of various shops she no doubt visited in her teenage years. In the same way James of SH2 battles with his guilt and sexual frustration, Heather battles with body image, menstruation and emotional maturity.
The initial themes shift and arguably the game becomes less compelling when the second half becomes a straight revenge story, although there are some interesting points about the town's cult anticipating Heather's arranged birthing of god. There are even moments where Heather revisits some of the same locations from SH2, and as wonderful as they are, they go on for too long due to our familiarity. It also rehashes a boss battle from the first game, and is just as frustrating.
Regardless of the mixed feelings I have of the game, there's a lot to appreciate and it is still several tiers above even the best of the post-Team-Silent games.

After playing through Silent Hill 2 last October and the original Silent Hill in December, I decided to embark upon the final leg of my journey in the original trilogy. Silent Hill 1 I think emphasizes the power of the macabre while Silent Hill 2 emphasizes guilt and psychological struggles. So where did Silent Hill 3 choose to take me?

It's definitely a sharp contrast from Silent Hill 2, which had this gloomy and somber ambiance about it; Silent Hill 3 seemed much more visceral and angry, and as a result, it's constantly in your face about nothing seems right in this twisted sick world and how rejection is everywhere. The increase in graphical fidelity from Silent Hill 1 makes the Otherworld from the original seem almost tame; this other world is constantly growling and glaring crimson, prowling just around the corner, stalking you and assaulting you with screeching and thumping noise as you have to fend off yet another meat demon Yeti Kong while your strikes barely graze the creature. This effect gets even more grotesque and infernal as you progress, where there are even certain sections where the walls seem to bleed around you while static flares up with danger becoming omnipresent. I suppose what I'm trying to say is, that Silent Hill 3 is easily the most terrifying and acutely uncomfortable of the original trilogy; this demented universe around you is constantly rejecting your ever approach as you trudge through to you next destination, and hell feels just a slip away. This unrelenting assault on the senses will absolutely wear you down, and not even the first two installments of Silent Hill have really conveyed this to me to this extent. It really speaks volumes that this was the first of the games where I did not feel the need to take down every enemy around me, and in fact tried to actively avoid conflict as much as possible.

And more than that I suppose, it still manages to maintain that troubled visage that comes with all the Silent Hill games, only now that there's an active layer of anger felt from all the characters as they struggle to find their own meaning in a world that has mostly abandoned them and left them to their own devices. The game is great at setting up Heather as this troubled teenager trying to reconcile her past, present, and future, and her interactions with those around his characterize just how unwilling everyone is to let go of their troubles. The soundtrack of course, reflects this perfectly; my favorite track would still have to be Breeze in Monochrome Night, which starts off with the distant ring of dark bells and then leads right into a trippy, ambient synth alongside the cascading piano. The game understands that there's this haunting beauty to be found in this messed up psychologically damaging world, and it's such a vibe.

All in all, it's exactly what you would expect from a great psychological horror game, but unlike the original Silent Hill, those shiny new graphics have aged magnificently and will absolutely leave you wondering when the nightmare starts and ends. Not a single moment wasted as you deal with the consequences of 17 years ago; just sit back and watch the horror unfold.

Raw Danger! is the essence of video games unfiltered.

Let me give it to you straight: this is the stupidest video game I love. Early in a scene a character will try to climb through a hole. They stop a few centimeters away from some sparking wires. The camera uncomfortably zooms in on their face. 'Ugh, no. That's electricity!' our protagonist says annoyed. It's beautiful, honest, pure schlock. There are dramatic action sequences feature objects falling on your head. They like someone behind the camera is throwing props at an actor. It's great.

One particular trend of it's era were multiple playable protagonists, and Raw Danger! is no exception to this. The overall story spans a few days, but we see the events happen through various characters. One of the most marketed features of the game also shine through here. Actions done as one character can affect the story with another. Open a door here, and someone else will be able to take that path. Help someone, and later play through the section of the person you helped. When you see your characters from past episodes they'll even be wearing the stupid outfits you put on them. If you are playing with someone else, there will be many moment where both of you point at the screen with joy and exclaim 'Oh there is that guy!'.

Geo City itself is a character. The setting is 2010 how people in the mid 00's imagined it. The foundations lay on optimism, it's painted out to be a high tech architectural marvel. You would never describe this as sci-fi though, the everyday lives of its citizens are the same as they were before. There are cute convenience stores and boring beige office buildings. Little parks with pagolas in them. Here is an atmosphere here that you could take a 5 second gif anywhere and have a viral vibe in your hands. Put this setting anywhere from the last 30 years and it would fit. Only thing dating this game is nobody having a smartphone on them.

The game features some of the most idiotic villains you will ever see. Conversely, it also features the most realistic depiction of the police I have ever seen. One character is running away from a detective who just won't go down. He keeps being swept up by horrible disaster, only to reappear later like the terminator. Can't keep a pig down.

Raw Danger! is non-violent without falling into the creepy "wholesome" forced positivity hole. Some of the choices you can make are violent. Some people you can straight up murder. But there is little focus on this, you wouldn't refer to any of these characters as killers. I think its more apt to describe Raw Danger! as an action game with non-violent protagonists.

The goal for each level is simple: get to the exit. Characters are heading somewhere. But the moment to moment flow of the game is where the solemn beauty lies. Some dramatic scenes have music. Most of the soundscape is just the ambience of the ruins around you, the wind howling, the flood flowing, the rain falling. Sometimes you just stop under some cover to assess the situation you are faced with. Sometimes someone you are escorting is freezing to death, and you have to run back and help them. Maybe you have nothing to save them with, and you just slowly walk with them, hoping the janky pathfinding has as little work to do as possible. It's tense. While the level design controls these, these really strong, emotional moments mostly emerge from the gameplay systems in place, making a serene and strange dichotomy to the overall goofiness of the cutscenes. When the game is in your hands, the human heart beats.

Serene moments come sparsely though. The system of the game keep you moving from save point to save point, as your characters are constantly losing body temperature (BT), which reduces your speed. Get wet and the BT evaporates even faster. And boy it's raining hard, you will get soaked very fast. You have to earn the moments of rest, making them feel even more special.

One thing that makes this game very easy to play is how light all the systems feel. It's a game with many verbs. Usually this is very antipathic to me, but all the systems are very light in this. A lot of them feel more like allusions to a more complex system. You have limited inventory but its just a simple number based system, and you really dont need all the things you can find. You can give items to characters, and the game just applies its effect immediately, if it's health kit they get healed, if a piece of clothing they put it on. You can craft a few things if you want. Each character has a special ability that you can ignore if you want, but has some fun interactions if you figure out where to use them. It feels like an arcade version of survival simulation roguelikes. Enough to grasp the concept, not so much to have to read a two thousand word wiki guide to really understand it.

I think a lot of people like this game ironically because of the stupid cutscenes and jerk decisions you can make. Instead, I would like to inspire anyone reading this to love this game with an honest heart. It will give back as much as you put into it.