need to be honest here for clarity, i didnt get the true ending and i dont think im gonna go back to the game for awhile (date with paz mission sullied my hopes of unlocking true ending, genuinely what was kojima thinking)

i absolutely love peace walkers gameplay loop, its a watered down version of 5 in some capacity but i think the simplicity makes the game so much more charming. The aesthetic of PW is something im very inspired by, the hud/ui is particularly beautiful. I really appreciate how short the missions are in peace walker, even if it can make the overall experience more cheesy everytime theres a fight thats end with "continued in the next mission..." (its of my opinion that PW is allowed to be the cheesy game, atleast its not MGR)


What really manages to bog down the game is the boss fights, absolutely unhinged decision to scale up their health-bar for multiplayer when ur playing solo; the boss fights are so long and arduous and while i enjoyed them at first they only got more annoying as the playthrough went on--- i actually dropped the game at one point because a boss had a time limit and u needed super high damage output only acquired through grinding R&D to beat it (which i was not in the mood for >.<)

I am one of the belief that peace walker marks a point in the franchise where it seems like kojima wanted to tone down the
amount of active time spent in cutscenes, the briefing files in here represent that somewhat-- i'll just say im not a fan of it even if i do understand the reasoning

for my closing notes i wanted to say i think PW has the best combat/loop out of the mgs games. while the writing didnt impress me at any point, i really do love my lesbian war criminal strangelove..

very fun and engaging short experience (maybe a little psychologically terrifying too)... the gameplay mechanics all feel pretty fleshed out for the small amount of variation they have, bullet time is something ive never been too fond of in games but the way COTS does it speaks to me. I think that there is some due frustration to be expressed over the physics of the moving bullet, ESPECIALLY in the car chase level.. sometimes the shot just doesnt go where its supposed to go.
The jarring sound design, frantic cutscenes, and "ugly" graphics may be offputting to some-- the cutscenes certainly do flash by far too fast. but it is in these decisions where you can see the beating heart inside, i cant help but think thats beautiful

incredibly beautiful, my favorite level design in any sort of skater--type game. The story is unobtrusive but adds so much to the game's overall charm, letting the characters shine! I really appreciate how to the point the dialogue is, it feels like theres never a dull moment All-City. The combat is something i really wasnt sure about going into the game, but really impressed me with the flawless integration of movement and flow (my action game brain convinces me that the game should have a lock on but its w/e). The boss fight's are almost always great but even when theyre not it doesnt matter cause they only take 3-6 hits before getting knocked anyways (mario style)... if i have one complaint about them its that the final boss really didnt need the mandatory fixed cam. I think that the games aesthetic mixed with the perfect animation and design work makes the cities a joy to walk or skate/bike/rollerblade in. awe-inspiring game from any studio, let alone an indie one.

silent hill 2 is a game so un-apologetically driven by aesthetics and fucking with the players expectations. at many points in my playthrough i was shocked by how well team silent managed to unnerve me through pure atmosphere and the always insane environments (very awesome level design!!), with always good puzzles (a few too esoteric imo). Another shocking thing is that despite how inspired some titles are by silent hill theres still so many little things that make james sunderlands journey fresh and exciting.

A lot of people complain of SH2's bad combat system but i personally think its charming, and fits well for the title. Its so perfectly clunky and the animations are so smooth that they make up for any misgivings..

I think it is safe to say silent hill 2 could not be made at any other time period than when it released, the fmv cutscenes manage to look so uncannily beautiful paired along with an absolutely haunting industrial soundtrack; mixed with delightful ballads and guitar of course.
mary's undying love for her time spent with james resonates with me to a hurtful extent, all of the dialogue from this game sticks in my head for days at a time.

Maria is very t girl coded but dont tell anyone

its... alright. Disregarding the egregious pricing and short length of this title, There's something about the gunplay that ground zeros and subsequently the phantom pain has that makes me feel a little disappointed. on one hand, the menuing and overall aiming mechanics are snappy and fluid; its just that it never has fulfilled the same niche for my brain that mgs2-3 have. The story in ground zeroes feels so incredibly barebones with nothing to really go off of except name references to past entries and a small cipher mention. The funny thing is i have been playing peace walker more recently and the overall game experience is similar to the later metal gear games but it feels much more fluid despite being definitively more clunky than mgsV. One of my main issues is that i dont have much to latch on to here, there just isnt much going on and its not even that satisfying to play!! I wish i enjoyed the more open ended areas of the mgsV saga, but as it stands i am a little saddened by this entry in the series

conceptually one of the best games ive ever played, alan wake 2 is beautifully atmospheric, has a great narrative as well as possibly the best voice cast of all time; every word alan speaks is babygirl, what a man. Even if i dont think its that scary (it has some good scares) its certainly a dreadful and heartwrenching experience. despite having 2 protagonist’s, saga and wake’s story is always engaging no matter how weird and fucked up it gets. i cannot imagine a different route that the story couldve gone, saga’s journey through the densely wooded, almost calming cauldron lake trying to save her family without even knowing how while alan is in the dark place straight up tweaking feels like a very apt sequel idea (-someone who’s first remedy game is AW2).
Despite how incredible this game is, i feel as if the gunplay never reached the pinnacle i was hoping. its not bad by any means, i just feel like literally everything else in this game is better. Playing on normal, the enemies felt a little bulletspongey: one example being i thought i was doing the first boss fight wrong cause bro just kept getting back up.

bonus small little harper complaint: i got stuck a lot cause i wasnt sure where to go, but this is easily fixed if u dont have memory the equivalent of a large isopod

buy this game play alan wake 2 please please its inspiring its peak i promise

peak survival horror, scared me so bad i had to take breaks inbetween playing (for the first section of the game i was too scared to wander off and do side missions cause of how dreadful the atmosphere was) the ishimura as a ship is so beautiful and so terrifying to walk around in even with the lights on. it almost feels like the ship is more sentient than the necromorphs, a beating heart in the chambers signifying the final plight of those left to suffer at the hands of fake/real religion and such. only real complaint i could have is that a few of the characters dont feel fully fleshed out even if intentional. incredibly fun gameplay loop with every fight feeling like harper was on the brink of its life!! the use of lighting and fog in this game are jawdropping; the graphics feel like getting high for the first time if we're being real. and artistically? the use of ribbed design never gets to the point of it being too much especially with all the industrial vibe going around, just raw aesthetically and the sound design is just as good (if not better). CULT CLASSIC REVITALIZED PLAY DEAD SPACE

The best folk outsider art fps ever made. No game LOOKS like this, plays like this, or feels like this. It's wonderful

I recommend watching this video about his dev process because it's honestly very inspiring: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=lIjt1mKWn4o

This dude put all his hobbies into a game and it whips. It feels so personal and intimate with both its interests and the folklore it is inspired by, whisking you away on a fantasy journey unlike any other. We need more folk games, games steeped in history and personhood and the stories your grandmother told you about as a child.

i had to add this one for all the obvious reasons.

you ever play a game that changes your brain chemistry and how you think about and consume media for the rest of your life? lemme be clear, i played demons' souls first. i also MAD cheated in it with the item duplicating glitch. i also only played it because a friend guilt-tripped me into it. but dark souls is the one that changed the game (ahyuk).

i think about stories differently. i think about how a game feels to play, the intention behind it. i think about accessibility more. i think harder about whether the difficulty of anything is meaningful or not, and if it's really worth all the trouble of those first fifty-seven times that smough ends your bloodline with the sheer weight of his fucking ass.

there's not much else to say that you haven't already heard. i don't know if there are more video essays about anything than there are for dark souls, except video essays about majora's mask being a metaphor for the stages of grief. it's just a weird fucking game that changed the landscape of games forever, and i should like to grab lunch with miyazaki sometime right after i give him a bear hug and ask if he's good.

ok first off its incredible how 2 people (mainly) created this game, i just wish that it was far more cohesive
this is a game that is best described as the opposite of innovative, everything here is something u have seen before and its done in a sort of middling way.. it feels like a lot of the mechanics and ideas were cobbled together without any regard to how they flow. "we should add a railgun" "what about a minigun" theres nothing special here, very little flare is to be found in the environments; the characters suck so bad and the entire game ur being commanded around by a dude (okay well its not technically a dude but u catch the vibe, bro is named father) and u never get to see SEVEN (THE MAIN CHARACTER WHO IS A GIRL AND POSSIBLY TRANS .. canonically) in anything except for the cover. the most egregious attribute to be found here is the weapon balancing, theres just no purpose to using the smg or railgun or minigun whenever u can just stick to the grenade launcher pistols and shotgun, especially when the shotgun is fucking broken

one gigantic huge complaint i have is the writing, it sounds like something a middle schooler cobbled together and its filled with dialogue u would find in a modern marvel movie where they cast doubt on themselves after saying something silly
I WANT CHEESY DIALOGUE, just not like this,,, this is an example of a b-movie game; its alright.

i do like seven's design though its cute i wish she was in the game

i had beaten this game previously (like 2 weeks ago lol) and suddenly got the urge to play some vr missions after beating 3, did all the sneaking ones and was like "i should just replay the story". i think the sneaking in this game is somewhat simple but incredibly fun and engaging; the alert system (and clearing) are both cool and a bit punishing which leads to stealth being the clear choice. the way every single enemy and boss can be slept instead of outright killed is the best decision made in any game ever; i might have to replay again solely for a no kill run. the story is really incredible and even when on second playthrough keeps u engaged due to the sheer amount of dialogue to listen to... the attention to detail with the codec calls and overall level design is really really impressive.
i think overall the boss fights feel nice but the gimmicks of some of them are really annoying (i wish fortune was more than a spectacle sorta deal); something i will say is i love and hate the sniping section along the oil pipeline. the sniping is fun when u have pentazemin and absolute hell when u run out, but the area and thermal goggles are so beautiful that it makes up for it.
semi-related if u dont like raiden in this game ur actually homophobic hes literally just snake but with a whiny voice (i think its kinda cute)