82 Reviews liked by AlanJay
Persona 5 Strikers
2020
God of War Ragnarök
2022
God of War Ragnarök
2022
God of War Ragnarök
2022
feels like the writers are actively working against the game. Every time I had fun with the game, I felt like it was despite the story and characters, not because of them. I’m sick of fucking condescending quirky dialogue filling AAA games now, it’s like watching the flanderization of an entire medium in real time. Just let me have fun with your god killing game! You can still be really fucking serious ™️ and sad ™️ in your story but at least fucking try to make your themes come together in a coherent way. The entire final act of this game hits with no impact at all, it all feels incredibly hollow. At least the combat is fun.
God of War Ragnarök
2022
God of War Ragnarök
2022
God of War Ragnarök
2022
Critical acclaim in this medium used to mean something. A game like Ocarina of Time, Metal Gear Solid 2 or Dark Souls would arrive and feel like they pushed the whole medium forward, now acclaim is easily banded out for any superficially impressive bore, such as The Last of Us and God of War: Ragnarok.
Or maybe I'm just a miserable jaded video game hater these days.
Or maybe I'm just a miserable jaded video game hater these days.
God of War Ragnarök
2022
God of War Ragnarök
2022
This review contains spoilers
I was hoping for a Last of Us 2 sense of dour self seriousness, with the scale of Shadow of the Colossus, a sprinkle of the challenging Baby Souls-like gameplay of Jedi Fallen Order, and the urgency of what a one-shot camera and 'Ragnarok' subtitle imply.
Instead, it's basically just Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy redo. Same kind of ragtag motley crüe. Similar late 2000s PC wallpaper aesthetic. Similiar kind of after school special writing and tone. Similiar repetitive gameplay. Same meta fakeout credits scene at one point.
My expectations aside, playing this just felt like a chore. The way the gameplay loop is set up. Get some dialogue about how killing is bad. Leap over a rock. Press O to shimmy through a wall. Swing a weapon to nonchalantly dismember some googly monsters while your companions tell you if you're on fire or not. Leave combat arena. Do a light puzzle, get a shiny do-dad. Repeat.
And sure, that's generally how video games go. But because of the slavish devotion to the one shot camera, the game has this very long, drawn out feel. The in-game walk n talks are expository dumps and always feels calculated and robotic, never naturalistic anf in step with the rhythm of the game. The fast travel feels that way too, always timed to end when the convo dies. And the game just feels like it's artificiality padded, all the little elemental puzzles in my way feel there to keep me around another hour. There's no fluidity to the combat.
This would he fine for me if the story was good but it's just as rigid and cliche as the game itself. No surprises. Every line that's walked feels like the perfect script one writes in their head when one imagines themselves after the therapy the plan to take one day. Kratos' authentic edge has been smoothed completely out. He says all the right things and feels all the right things. Atreus misbehaves but all in the good ways one would like their rebellious child to misbehave. Sure, he strays from the path, but he's quick to see the err of his ways and reign himself back in. Freya's rage toned down as well, and what could have been an interesting dramatic web to untangle becomes just another edge sanded away to make room for a simplistic stop the bad man story. The bad man being Odin, another character completely underwritten. There's just no edge to any of this. It feels utterly without consequence.
Instead, it's basically just Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy redo. Same kind of ragtag motley crüe. Similar late 2000s PC wallpaper aesthetic. Similiar kind of after school special writing and tone. Similiar repetitive gameplay. Same meta fakeout credits scene at one point.
My expectations aside, playing this just felt like a chore. The way the gameplay loop is set up. Get some dialogue about how killing is bad. Leap over a rock. Press O to shimmy through a wall. Swing a weapon to nonchalantly dismember some googly monsters while your companions tell you if you're on fire or not. Leave combat arena. Do a light puzzle, get a shiny do-dad. Repeat.
And sure, that's generally how video games go. But because of the slavish devotion to the one shot camera, the game has this very long, drawn out feel. The in-game walk n talks are expository dumps and always feels calculated and robotic, never naturalistic anf in step with the rhythm of the game. The fast travel feels that way too, always timed to end when the convo dies. And the game just feels like it's artificiality padded, all the little elemental puzzles in my way feel there to keep me around another hour. There's no fluidity to the combat.
This would he fine for me if the story was good but it's just as rigid and cliche as the game itself. No surprises. Every line that's walked feels like the perfect script one writes in their head when one imagines themselves after the therapy the plan to take one day. Kratos' authentic edge has been smoothed completely out. He says all the right things and feels all the right things. Atreus misbehaves but all in the good ways one would like their rebellious child to misbehave. Sure, he strays from the path, but he's quick to see the err of his ways and reign himself back in. Freya's rage toned down as well, and what could have been an interesting dramatic web to untangle becomes just another edge sanded away to make room for a simplistic stop the bad man story. The bad man being Odin, another character completely underwritten. There's just no edge to any of this. It feels utterly without consequence.
Forspoken
2023
Evil West
2022
Awful and essentially unplayable.
Such a shame that Deadly Premonition revisionism is so entrenched that even the creators thought being a technical shambles was “part of the charm” - the 360 original ran perfectly fine and was fantastic because of its ambition & heart despite its budget and technical shortcomings.
This? A cynical 10 frame a second travesty.
Avoid
Such a shame that Deadly Premonition revisionism is so entrenched that even the creators thought being a technical shambles was “part of the charm” - the 360 original ran perfectly fine and was fantastic because of its ambition & heart despite its budget and technical shortcomings.
This? A cynical 10 frame a second travesty.
Avoid
Ghostwire: Tokyo
2022
Quite possibly the best hand acting I've experienced in any piece of media.
I think it'd be disingenuous of me to write Ghostwire off as a Ubisoft-like even though it certainly falls into a lot of the same trappings as those games... I guess the compromise I'm most comfortable with is a Ubisoft-like but you know, back when they were good?
You're not immediately overwhelmed with stuff to do and the side quests, while occasionally repetitive have some absolutely stunning set pieces that rival moments in the main story.
The open world is quite bare sure, but I still combed every inch of Shibuya just to see. It's probably one of the best looking open world maps we've had in a long while. Traversing around feels good and there's always just one more cluster of spirits in the far distance encouraging you to explore that liitle bit further.
As far as game mechanics go there's nothing exciting going on. The combat is fairly shallow and it's very much a collect-a-thon game between gathering spirits, yokai, relics, tanuki and what have you. None of that stopped me from sinking 50+ hours into this thing so take from that whatever you'd like.
The story has absolutely no surprises whatsoever but there's a lot of heart to it. Akito and KK develop a nice friendship over the course of the game and Rinko is a welcome supporting character in a story that is, by design devoid of any human life. Hannya man... has a cool design. There's some nice emotional payoff at the finale as well.
A flawed game that i enjoyed very much.
(you can pet every dog you see and attempt to pet every cat so it's actually the most perfect game ever made and I'll hear no more about it!)
I think it'd be disingenuous of me to write Ghostwire off as a Ubisoft-like even though it certainly falls into a lot of the same trappings as those games... I guess the compromise I'm most comfortable with is a Ubisoft-like but you know, back when they were good?
You're not immediately overwhelmed with stuff to do and the side quests, while occasionally repetitive have some absolutely stunning set pieces that rival moments in the main story.
The open world is quite bare sure, but I still combed every inch of Shibuya just to see. It's probably one of the best looking open world maps we've had in a long while. Traversing around feels good and there's always just one more cluster of spirits in the far distance encouraging you to explore that liitle bit further.
As far as game mechanics go there's nothing exciting going on. The combat is fairly shallow and it's very much a collect-a-thon game between gathering spirits, yokai, relics, tanuki and what have you. None of that stopped me from sinking 50+ hours into this thing so take from that whatever you'd like.
The story has absolutely no surprises whatsoever but there's a lot of heart to it. Akito and KK develop a nice friendship over the course of the game and Rinko is a welcome supporting character in a story that is, by design devoid of any human life. Hannya man... has a cool design. There's some nice emotional payoff at the finale as well.
A flawed game that i enjoyed very much.
(you can pet every dog you see and attempt to pet every cat so it's actually the most perfect game ever made and I'll hear no more about it!)