Ion Storm is an infamous development studio, but you can't attribute said infamy to a lack of trying. With some of the industry's best talent at the time, the auter-based studio's output was mixed, to say the least. From vehemently disregarded like John Romero's time-skipping FPS, Daikatana, to the positive-but-ignored reception of Tom Hall's ambitious-Final-Fantasy-like Anachronox, and of course the duology of console-constrained sequels Deus Ex: Invisible War and Thief: Deadly Shadows, only one of Ion Storm's games would manage to be both critically and commercially successful: Deus Ex. Very few games claim to have the influence and popularity that Deus Ex enjoys, much less maintaining that reputation for over two decades. Often hailed as a prophetic harbinger of things to come narratively while celebrated for gameplay that would come to redefine the medium, the game is a mixture of many different elements that come together nearly perfectly. I've played very few games that, despite whatever flaws they may have, feel perfect in the way that Deus Ex does, nor come together so cohesively.

Part of this Ion Storm's approach to level design, one which they'd abandon for future games due to the technical limitations of consoles. Calling Deus Ex an open world game would be stretching the truth, but the game presents you with multiple extensive hub worlds (to the degree that the fanbase struggles exactly to define when a level begins or ends) that are dense in objectives both mandatory and optional. There are no waypoints, no handholding, just mission objectives and clues you can find by exploring the maps. Exploring these maps is fun particularly because of how open ended the mission objectives are. The first level, Liberty Island, is perhaps the pinnacle of open-ended game design. Do you want to storm the front gates, or scale the back of the building and break in? You could always take the route to Harley Filben to get the key, but that route is more dangerous. Once you're inside, do you try to save Gunther, and if you do, do you give him your weapon? These sorts of choices, both mechanically and narratively, allow for the player to tailor their playstyle however they want, because the level design allows for it. Every level contains multiple secret nooks and crannies, sometimes featuring useful goodies, sometimes showing entire secret areas crucial to accomplishing side objectives. The open-ended nature of Deus Ex, something even a lot of modern games struggle with, is part of why the game remains so impressive today. Each playstyle, whether it be lethal, non-lethal, or entirely stealth based is largely equally viable, with multiple augmentations that stem towards benefiting. Sure, it's probably easier to cut down enemies with the one-hit Dragon's Tooth laser sword, but self imposed challenges are encouraged, as the game keeps track of how you play and characters will comment on how violent or stealthy you are. The gameplay mechanics do feel slightly simplistic compared to later immersive sims or even later Deus Ex games, but they're still surprisingly intuitive, fun, and challenging (though the game is really not that hard, even on hard mode). I really like how the early game encourages you to play like a cybernetic Jason Voorhees, lurking in the shadows before leaping out at an unsuspecting foe. You're able to fully customize your ablities from augmentations, to skill point division, to weapon choice, weapon mods, etc. Needless to say, Deus Ex is a game where player freedom matters to an extreme degree, more so than most games, from level design to game mechanics.

While these problems feel minuscule at most, I will say that even on hard mode, the game feels like it gives you too many passes. You can hack the computers of important NPCs in positions of power from the very first time you find one with the appropriate skills, aside from some annoyed remarks, no one ever tries to stop you. You can just do obviously concerning things in front of NPCs who would, in future Deus Ex games, become aggro'ed instead of just standing there. This isn't a serious flaw by any means, but it's one of the few moments where player freedom seemingly means lack of player consequences, and I think the game would be more challenging in a beneficial way had that been implemented. I also find the shipyards level pitifully boring and somewhat frustrating to navigate due to the level design taking a sharp drop off, but it's mediocre at worst and ultimately not a long section of the game. Area 51 has some interesting ideas but feels like a similar drop.

Although Deus Ex's gameplay was praised and is highly influential to this day, it's the narrative that people usually connect with the most in the modern day. Deus Ex has a reputation for being near prophetic; an early 2000s prediction into the plights we currently face as a society. Deus Ex is not exactly unique in this regard - many writers from this era made many similar predictions - but it is one of the few video games of this era, even nowadays, to be so thoroughly well-researched with care and effort to make sure the very real facts that line its fictional plot have some basis in reality. The game's scenario writing is intricately plotted, somehow making the ridiculous high concept of "what if a ton of conspiracy theories were entirely true" able to be taken entirely seriously, and even when it's corny it doesn't remotely detract from the experience. While most of the characters aren't particularly deep, they feel very realistic within Deus Ex's world setting, and my allies and enemies alike are burnt into my mind as some of gaming's most iconic. Speaking of the world setting, it's so ridiculously well-defined and written that it feels hyperreal at points. The Unatco bulletin boards feel exactly like something I'd see on the news or any government entity's social media page. It's fleshed out to the point where the writers wrote fake excerpts of in-universe novels that convey much of the game's themes (and even included excerpts of real-life books too, which is beyond cool). The game is also highly politically intelligent, and while I don't always agree with all of Spector's sentiments here, I can't argue that the majority of Deus Ex's political theories aren't well-reasoned or thought out. Every character has their own ideologies and, if the player chooses, they can ask them more and even engage in debates with a few characters, which can lead to interesting revelations. On top of all of this, the game manages to be a globe-trotting adventure with a narrative filled with tension and intrigue, and I was hooked from beginning to end. The endings are a bit polarizing among fans but I like how all of them are unquestionably negative and there's not really a "good choice" among them. I do think they're a bit abrupt and end pretty inconclusively - I would have liked to see the results of your actions. Favorite quote: "God was the dream of a good government".

Although Deus Ex fits pretty squarely into the cyberpunk genre, aesthetically it's a fairly grounded representation. Outside of patrol bots scouting the streets, the majority of the time it looks like something you'd be able to go outside and see for yourself. Focusing largely on downtrodden, poor areas, the most extravagant you'll ever see is Hong Kong, which even so is only livelier due to the different style of lighting. Deus Ex is a game plunged into eternal nocturne, with well-lit areas exclusively reserved for indoor areas and this does a great job of making the player feel small, lost in the game's nighttime atmosphere. The disregarding of past technology (conveyed thematically in Gunther and Navarre, whose mechanical augmentations are outclassed by JC's nanoaugs) as tech gets both more efficient and inaccessible leads to a future that seemingly has regressed in many ways. The character designs are quintessentially early 2000s, with JC heavily resembling Blade and characters such as Navarre looking straight out of the leather-clad Matrix. It's easy to look back on designs with a condescending "its of its time" tone, but I do genuinely think they look distinctive and cool. Graphically speaking, Deus Ex isn't exactly a stunner even for 2000, with its large environments being blocky and sparsely detailed, which I find excusable due to the difficulties of rendering large outdoor environments on PCs where the recommended amount of RAM was 128 megabytes. Animations are somewhat stiff (especially player animations, which to be fair, are rarely seen) and character models aren't exactly extremely detailed, but the game manages to convey its aesthetic through this anyways. That's not saying the game looks bad by any means, overall it still looks quite solid by the standards of the time, and areas like Hong Kong really showcase how beautiful the game can look at points with its bright colors and greater detail due to a more condensed environment. I also think the game has a fairly unique approach to facial animations which do look a lot more realistic than the puppet-flaps of Half-Life or the complete absence of System Shock 2. Ultimately, I do not think the low-key aesthetic exactly demands an extravagant visual presentation, but what they managed to accomplish on Unreal was quite solid, if slightly behind its peers in ways that are often excusable.

Full transparency, I've been obsessively listening to Deus Ex's score for weeks now since beating the game. Lead primarily by composers Alexander Brandon and Michiel van den Bos and building off of their similarly excellent work on Unreal, I feel the need to compare the game's soundtrack to Ennio Morricone's score to The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly, not because it sounds similar even in the slightest but rather because it has a similar feeling of transcendence. A lot of games go for a more low-key ambient style when trying to approach atmosphere and while there's nothing wrong with that, Deus Ex's emphasis on melody over soundscape distinguishes it and feels very distinctive in comparison. The amount of effort put into making sure each area has a dedicated theme (as well as sub themes for conversations, combat, special rooms, etc.) begins to get a little absurd and there's a ton of variety in not only tracks but musical style. From the angelic vocals in New York City to the Asian themed composition and rhythmic bass in Hong Kong to the screaming alarms of Paris' combat theme to the utter emptiness of the Hong Kong canals, there's something new every time while still tying together into a unified sound and cohesive tone. I can't say I'm a huge fan of the game's club/bar music but that's fine, because they still fit exactly what I'd expect in a club or bar, so I consider it effective nonetheless. Deus Ex's soundtrack is also somewhat dynamic, as the aforementioned tracks do switch up depending on whether you're in combat or talking to NPCs, but its not nearly as in-depth as something like System Shock. Still, the variety is much appreciated. It's a near perfect soundtrack that I struggle to find a single poor aspect of. It melds with the game's presentation perfectly and the fact that it's homaged by future games in the series proves that the music is part of what has stayed with people over the following decades.

Deus Ex is not a perfect game, it's somewhat too easy and there are one or two somewhat questionable levels, but it's one of those games where each of its core elements come together so cohesively that it's hard to find serious fault. It's open-ended level design, emphasis on real and genuine player choice mechanically and narratively, nuanced and complicated storytelling, well-researched political themes, low-key aesthetic and transcendent soundtrack make it an absolutely magical game that feels like no other. I don't care if its "dated" or that it can be somewhat of a pain to get working on modern PCs, it's a game that regularly goes on sale for less than a dollar and should be at the very top of anyone's to play list.

The original Resident Evil is a great game, but it is a little rough around the edges. Although it has aged rather well, a remake was warranted. However, how does one remake Resident Evil, especially after a relatively short period? You hire Shinji Mikami as director, of course. After all, who would know more about Resident Evil than the original's director? Capcom intended for REmake to be a darker, scarier, and overall more realistic interpretation of the original, and I'd say they leaped above and beyond expectations, creating what I'd argue is the best survival horror game of all time.

The plot, originally written by Kenichi Iwao and Yasuyuki Saga, is relatively unchanged, so I won't be going into specific details. If you've played the original, you know what to expect here. The original game had quite a good story, but it was marred by haphazard execution. Said execution is mostly improved here. Plot reveals are set up much better and character motivations are explored in more detail. There is a genuinely interesting mystery here and if you're not familiar with the original you'll find yourself invested. Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield are still somewhat flat protagonists, but it's more than made up for by the supporting cast. Barry Burton, Rebecca Chambers (my favorite), and Albert Wesker are all great additions to the cast and remain memorable over two decades later. The only outright new plot element is Lisa Trevor, and while I will not spoil the mystery surrounding her, she adds to the story's emotional core in an effective way.

While the central narrative involving the STARS members is certainly good, I found the environmental storytelling much more interesting. The bottles of alcohol lining a scientist's bedroom. The swaying zombie corpse hung from the banister. The letter to a lover, pleading her to forgive him. It feels like you've stepped into a world where you don't belong, that you're intruding on the personal lives of everyone who used to be here. It feels like this whole area used to be filled with people, but they all just up and left. It helps to flesh out the world in a masterful way.

Capcom was not simply content with remaking Resident Evil with better graphics and narrative tweaks. Instead, the entire game has been redesigned from a gameplay perspective, forming the ultimate survival horror experience. Not only do you have to struggle with limited health and ammunition, but also kerosene. In REmake, zombies do not die. When defeated, their corpses will reanimate later on as a crimson head, which is faster and stronger than the average shambling husk. To prevent this, the player must burn the corpses using kerosene. However, there isn't much of it, and not every corpse can be burned. In addition to carefully planning which zombies are worth killing, one now has to consider the potential dangers of doing so, which adds yet another layer of strategy to a game already so mechanically complex. The game is also incredibly difficult but in a way that comes off as ridiculously satisfying. When I died, it is because I had poorly planned a run rather than Capcom pulling out some unperceivable trick. You can't take very much damage, and enemies deal a lot, which helps make every encounter terrifying as even the lowliest zombie can end potentially 20 minutes of progress. If you play your cards right, and properly plan for any potential encounters, you will eventually become a survival machine that can handle any encounter, though the game does not lose its difficulty even then. Puzzles are also moderately improved. While they may not be particularly challenging they are creative and are satisfying to complete. They add to the sense that you are not just exploring the Spencer Mansion but slowly unwrapping its layers.

Another thing I enjoy is the playable characters. Unlike most games, where choosing a protagonist tends to only affect the story, there is an inherent gameplay difference between Jill and Chris. Jill may be more of a glass cannon, but she has two extra inventory slots, which goes a long way. Chris on the other hand is a bit tankier, but he is missing two slots and this makes backtracking to safe rooms a more frequent endeavor. Jill also has a lockpick which can be used to open simple locks throughout the mansion. Instead, Chris has to locate a limited number of old keys to open these doors, putting additional strain on your resource management. Chris, needless to say, is the game's hard mode and should be reserved for second playthroughs. Nevertheless, I still find his campaign particularly rewarding and I enjoy how Capcom went out of their way to make sure each character played differently.

REmake is a visual masterpiece. From the art direction down to the technical elements, every single visual element of this game works perfectly within intention. The dark, cobwebbed corridors of the mansion are beautifully rendered via pre-rendered backgrounds, providing significantly more detail than the GameCube's hardware could ever hope to provide in real-time. The backgrounds are impressively dynamic and layered, too. Dynamic lighting bounces off the walls and 3D models pass beneath pre-rendered elements. Even when rendered at 1440p, the effect remains convincing. Character models are detailed and while facial animation isn't mindblowing it's better than a lot of games at the time. Monsters are realized with disgusting fidelity and remain disturbing even today. REmake is probably the best-looking game on the GameCube and reaches levels of realism unparalleled by even other 6th generation visual masterworks like Silent Hill 3.

The soundtrack, rearranged by Shusaku Uchiyama, features the same songs from the original game redone to better fit the tone. Although I don't exactly know if I'd say they're better than the originals, they're more fitting for Mikami's differing vision. It adds to the more realistic atmosphere while still keeping the musical themes that made the original's score so iconic. Which one is overall better will be up to personal taste, but I find REmake's score to be at least on par and a perfect complement to the visuals.

The original game's voice acting is infamous for being hilariously bad, ruining a lot of the tension in cutscenes. Naturally, REmake being a more realistic interpretation of RE1, redubbed the voice lines to be more natural. The voice acting in REmake is still not great, though it is an improvement. There is not a single line of dialog that is nearly as bad as the original's, but it can still be spotty at points. Joe Whyte, Ed Smaron, and Hope Levy do a decent job with their roles despite occasional iffy line delivery. I found that Heidi Anderson-Swan, Jill's actress, was the least convincing with her performance. I wouldn't call her bad necessarily but she could have been cast better. Peter Jessop gives the game's best performance, portraying Wesker as a truly manipulative and evil man. Overall, not bad, but not fantastic either.

The only major criticism I have isn't of the game itself, but rather, the PC port of the HD Remaster. It's a bit of a mess. Firstly, the port is unnecessarily demanding on lower to mid-end hardware, leading to an inconsistent framerate on those machines. Secondly, despite supporting 120 FPS, the game forces your monitor to output in 60 hertz in fullscreen mode, causing screen-tearing. The game also has no borderless fullscreen mode, meaning that when alt-tabbing, the game has to not only defocus the game but also change the refresh rate back to your monitor's default. This is incredibly inconvenient. Some music tracks even play faster than they're supposed to. These issues can all be fixed with relative ease, but shouldn't exist in the first place. Nevertheless, the PC port is the only way you can currently experience this game in 60 FPS or greater, so it's worth it if you're willing to spend 20 minutes downloading some fixes.

Shinji Mikami's Resident Evil Remake is a survival horror masterpiece. Everything that matters in this game is done perfectly. From the atmosphere to game design, to horror, to visuals, it accomplishes it all. It even expands on the story in a meaningful way, which I greatly appreciate. Insanely difficult, incredibly terrifying, and unfathomably gorgeous, REmake is a game everyone needs to play.

Probably the best version of the original Resident Evil to date. This was a labor of love from everyone involved and it's surreal to see Capcom put so much effort into this yet not port the game to any modern platforms. Deadly Silence comes jam-packed with content, containing not only the original RE1 with its two campaigns but also a Rebirth mode that features revamped balancing, difficulty, and puzzles that take advantage of the DS's hardware. The new balancing provides more ammo and more enemies, making it a more action-heavy experience, which is different but not unwelcome. The new puzzles are all reasonably gimmicky but it is shocking how well they fit the tone of the game without feeling too out of place. There are occasional first-person knifing segments which are probably the most gimmicky aspect of the port, but still provide a surprising amount of fun and challenge. It even has a Mercenaries-style side mode which, while I didn't dive into it that much, seems to be a fun distraction for a while.

Something you'd think wouldn't have improved is the graphics, which Capcom has rather tastefully updated. 3D models have been overhauled to have better points of articulation and generally more detail, providing a moderate boost to realism but without clashing with the unchanged pre-rendered backgrounds. Speaking of presentation, it's impressive how much of RE1 remains in this port fairly uncompromised. Audio quality is naturally compressed (especially noticeable when playing with a nice pair of headphones) but sounds reasonably well most of the time, except for a stray voice line here and there. The FMVs are all here and accounted for, and while compressed to the point of ugliness (a black and white sequence early on even has unintentionally added color due to the compression!) I think it's impressive that they managed to include all of them. It's a shame, however, that the intro sequence is the censored version, which is an odd choice considering the game is still rated M and the first zombie cutscene is uncensored.

Despite the odd censorship, I think Capcom has done a very admirable job porting RE1 to the DS in what is potentially the best port of the game thus far. I'd highly recommend Deadly Silence to Resident Evil fans who need a new spin on the PS1 classic, as well as DS users who are looking for a horror experience for their classic handheld (just make sure to play on classic mode for a first-time playthrough!)

System Shock 2 has to be one of the richest games I've ever played. What does that mean? It means that in every single category, System Shock 2 excels at something. While the game isn't perfect by any means, it has easily rocketed to one of my favorite experiences. The game's design is so mechanically deep, with multiple different routes you can go down as a player. Soldier acts as a canvas for you to fully customize your playstyle, whether it be a combat expert who goes into every encounter guns blazing, a hacker who can manipulate security systems and turn turrets against their masters, to a psychic god who can manipulate their environment around them. Going for a weird mixture of all three, I found the game never limits you with the build you want to make, each one is equally viable. Even disregarding this, the game's mechanics contribute heavily to a highly immersive and most importantly - scary - atmosphere. There's nothing scarier than seeing a mutilated cyborg midwife bolting down a corridor only to have your pistol break on you when you try to fire. Very few games have given me that "holy shit oh god oh god" reaction on such a visceral level. Combat feels surprisingly good in this, thwacking hybrids with a wrench while sprinting at them feels fantastic and the gunplay has a surprising amount of oomph. What makes the game special among other things is the environmental exploration and how the level design feels entirely natural. Never once does the game ever feel like you're exploring levels, but rather lived-in environments that people used. This increases immersion tenfold and it's impressive how seamless everything feels, especially regarding backtracking. I will say that hunting for restoration bays doesn't feel nearly as nerve-wracking as they did in the first game, since they're usually immediately available to the player with a few exceptions.

The game isn't perfect, however, and that comes down to some of the weapon balance. Some of the weapons just aren't very good, such as the laser pistol, whose advantages of theoretically infinite ammo are outweighed by its small damage output even against mechanical foes. The laser rapier, a weapon that would burn fear into even the strongest of enemies in the original game, is significantly less effective in this one, with its high skill requirements betraying its general lack of usefulness. The hacking is also far inferior in this game. While not necessarily amazing in SS1 either, in SS2 it feels like random chance with little skill whether you succeed or not. It's not a massive problem since leveling up your hacking ability and using certain augmentations can make your chances better, but I would have preferred something with mechanics for me to learn and master, rather than just brute-forcing past them with stat upgrades. These are minor problems at the end of the day. System Shock 2 has to be one of the most mechanically satisfying games I've played in a long time.

System Shock has never been a franchise that prided itself on story, but rather its excellent worldbuilding. With the first game pioneering the now commonplace audio log, it only makes sense that the sequel would continue to improve upon that formula. Like the first game, SS2 primarily delivers its story content through these logs, following the lives of the members of the Von Braun before their inevitable demise at the hands of The Many. These accounts are detailed, well-acted, and even terrifying. You get to hear first-hand accounts of people in the process of transforming into lumbering hybrids, staff begging for their lives as their mutated boss blasts them into pulp, and the last survivor of the Hydroponics deck chronicling his observations while awaiting his eventual consumption within the body of the many. Such a richly detailed and dense world does not go to waste here, and the player even follows the same characters via these logs and even gets to see the results of the events described, such as finally watching two lovers escape on the Von Braun's last escape pod after hours of searching for one another. Every single item in the game, even a simple beaker, has a thorough explanation and worldbuilding, and small details like that help make System Shock 2 feel more alive. While I mentioned the series is typically somewhat light on a conventional scenario, the plot twist midway through the game is simply brilliant and I didn't see it coming at all. The ending is terrible and entirely atonal to the rest of the game, but it is simply the ending and doesn't prevent the rest from being taken seriously.

System Shock 2's visual presentation is a bit of a mixed bag, but it has some highlights. Looking Glass Studios' Dark Engine was a pretty antiquated beast even back then, and Irrational Games couldn't quite overcome its limitations. Even for 1999, the game's character models are truly horrendous, with games like 1998's Half-Life featuring much more lively and detailed models. Weapon models are beyond basic, featuring little detail, and are visibly more polygonal than other games. Environments flip-flop between being insanely detailed and a tad too basic, but when the game fires on all cylinders, it can far eclipse its contemporaries in this category. The pulsing masses of annelids on the walls and other animated textures are a nice touch for sure, but the lack of blood decals after combat does take away a slight bit of oomph from the combat. The game's sometimes lacking detail is made up for somewhat by Irrational's choice to target a somewhat comic book-esque art style, and the strong monster designs and environmental concepts do shine through. The midwives and hybrids that stalk you through the Von Braun are genuinely terrifying creatures, with intelligent use of body horror and sound design to evoke fear whenever they may appear. Even the robots are terrifying, mostly due to the danger they present to the player. The character portraits are somewhat variant in quality but generally add to this style.

System Shock 2's audio design is the stuff of gaming legend, primarily directed and music composed by Eris Broseus. Irrational put a lot of focus on this area of the game and it paid off - it's part of why the game is so scary. The game makes fantastic use of surround sound, and hearing a mumbling hybrid or psychic monkey far off in the distance while hacking a storage crate is frighteningly realistic. From the broken radio screams that midwives make when struck, to the hybrids' pleas for death, the game's gruesome palette is written by the audio. The soundtrack is often described as "unfitting of a horror game" but I couldn't disagree more. While the intense breakbeat fitting of a laser tag arena might seem unfitting, the high tempo of the music and pounding beats perfectly match the panic that the player experiences while being chased by the screaming hordes. Med Sci 1 and Hydro 1 are perfect breakbeat tracks, while still conveying tones of dread and panic. Even so, the game still has plenty of more conventionally scary ambient music, such as Hydro 2, which has a spaced-out ambiance that naturally fits the outer space setting of the game. It honestly makes me wish more game composers put more small rhythms into their ambient tracks rather than just drones, even if I still greatly appreciate good drone music. While I do miss the dynamic soundtrack of the first game, System Shock 2 has one of the best soundtracks in late 90s gaming, and Brosius and his team of composers deserve all of the praise for creating something both creative and terrifying.

System Shock 2 is often seen as a landmark title in the world of video games and I'm beyond happy to discover that those assessments are truthful. Its game mechanics, methods of storytelling, detailed worldbuilding, player freedom, art direction, audio design, and soundtrack are beyond worthy of praise and deservedly are the stuff of legends. Even if the game suffers from occasionally iffy weapon balancing, questionable hacking mechanics, and a thoroughly unsatisfying ending, these flaws feel almost negligible in comparison to the monolithic quality of the rest of the game. It's a worthy successor to the already outstanding original game.

John Woo's Hard Boiled is a phenomenal action film with masterfully choreographed action sequences, engaging and fun characters, and a unique dreamlike atmosphere. The idea of making a video game sequel to it, then, sounds ridiculous only on a surface level. All of these elements, at least in theory, threaten to make something that's at least interesting. That's exactly where Stranglehold comes in, the self-purported sequel to the seminal action film, developed by Midway Chicago with Woo's blessing and involvement. Does the American developer do the Hong Kong film justice? I don't think so, but that doesn't mean it's entirely worthless either.

Stranglehold's biggest boon is the game design, which allows you to do all kinds of cool moves. Diving, flipping, and even carting around the levels is fun on a primal level and for the most part the level design accommodates for that. It typically doesn't restrict you without some sort of point (there's an entire boss fight where they force you to work around a constrained arena, which is fun) and it's surprisingly challenging. Tequila Time (which is just a fancy name for bullet time), isn't just a get out of jail free card for damage, but an actual mechanic that must be learned. Treating it like a gimmick will result in death more often than not. The special moves are also quite fun, whether it be a berserk mode, a Sniper Elite-style instakill sniper mode, or a screen-clearing bullet dance. The gameplay isn't really anything special, by this point two Max Payne games had released and none of the concepts Stranglehold introduces feel fresh or unique, but they are largely well executed and its hard to complain too much when I'm sliding towards a group of enemies on a food cart. Like other reviewers have mentioned, the game's second level has to be one of the worst pacing killers in gaming history. The first level begins as the perfect tutorial, only for the second level to turn into an extremely tedious, overly long and poorly designed hunt for drug tables that of course, culminates in an overly long, unchallenging, and dull turret section. It's everything that the 7th generation of gaming is often unfairly stereotyped as, brought together into one level. Thankfully after that the rest of the game is largely smooth sailing, but it still suffers from flaws such as difficulty spikes and bullet-sponge boss fights that are largely uninteresting. Nevertheless, it does at least generally capture what it would be like to play through a John Woo film, and it deserves some commendation for that.

While Stranglehold is often quite fun, that's not what makes it a disappointing sequel to Hard Boiled. Rather, Stranglehold on a narrative level feels entirely disconnected from it. That's not to say the game needed to be a direct sequel to the film, but rather that it should have had anything to do with it at all. While you do indeed play as Inspector Tequila and the main antagonist is the father of the film's antagonist, that's where the similarities end. Stranglehold's scenario feels like you could have thrown any character ensemble in and it would be the exact same, just with Chow Yun-fat at the lead. There's none of the fun character dynamics or memorable heroes and villains of the original film and everything feels particularly stock. Viewed on its own terms, it's not exactly exciting either, feeling like any generic action film with no memorable characters, narrative stakes, or creative scenario writing. Yung Gi is sort of a fun character, and Tequila occasionally has some funny quips, but it doesn't carry any of what made Hard Boiled not just fun, but narratively gripping.

The presentation is sort of hit or miss, carrying many appealing aspects but once again failing to capture the atmosphere of Hard Boiled. Hard Boiled was a dreamlike, jazz-infused, diffused vision of Hong Kong which Stranglehold completely fails to capture without offering up a unique atmosphere of its own. It feels disappointingly contemporary, not offering any unique elements of the late-2000s. In essence, it lacks atmosphere, but that doesn't mean it always looks totally uninspired. The casino level has some fairly nice art direction across the board but for the most part the rest of the game is mostly generic aesthetically. Grey corridors, bloom-laced beaches, none of which look bad necessarily but fail to make an impression. Graphically speaking I feel Stranglehold is simultaneously quite impressive while also looking very behind the curve. The game looks very flat, and that's because the lighting is quite poor. Areas simply lack proper shadowing and look washed out and lifeless. Facial animation is actually very expressive, but character faces themselves look like potatoes more often than not. Texture quality is often absurdly low and this can really stand out when its stretched across a large wall. I do want to give Stranglehold some slack however, and that's because of its extensive destruction system which allows you to blow every single part of its environments to smithereens. This necessitates environments being fairly detailed, and watching it all fall apart is exciting. It's impressive just how extensive it is and is the closest the game comes to feeling like Hard Boiled. Due to being developed primarily for systems with less than a gigabyte of RAM, I find it somewhat excusable that Midway had to pair back visual fidelity in order to achieve this. Stranglehold certainly isn't a looker, but I'll give it some slack for it's impressive destruction system.

What I don't find excusable is its lackluster PC port. The game only offers you two adjustable graphical options, both being simple toggles for dynamic shadows and decals. The lack of proper visual options or scalability means that toning down visual settings for older computers would result in minimal performance gains, while also meaning you can't crank the visuals up much further than the console versions on more powerful computers. The lack of any anti-aliasing or anisotropic filtering at all means the game often looks blurry and shimmery without forcing it externally. Hell, the PC port doesn't even properly support widescreen resolutions without a mod, which should tell you all you need to know about its quality. The only good thing is that the framerate is uncapped, which is actually pretty nice, especially when most Unreal Engine 3 games were capped at 62 FPS by default. All of these issues can be fixed fairly easily with mods, but shouldn't have been problems to begin with.

The soundtrack left me wanting as well. Hard Boiled's original score was dominated by jazz and drum machines, and outside of small homages, Stranglehold's score is mostly made up of extremely generic 2000s action game music. I struggle to even describe it because it is fairly generic and unimpressive, failing to build an atmosphere or push the player forwards. The main theme is nice with its Asian flutes and vocals, but that's about all that stood out to me. A huge disappointment considering how important music was to that original film's presentation and characters.

If I'm to be completely forward, Stranglehold is not a good sequel to Hard Boiled. It doesn't understand what made that original film tick in terms of writing, atmosphere, or presentation, seemingly thinking that the film was defined solely by its action. As a standalone third-person shooter though, it's pretty enjoyable in its own right. Aside from a terrible second level, the gameplay might not be special but it is very entertaining and the game is short enough to where it doesn't quite overstay its welcome. The amount of cool moves you can do while tearing everything to shreds in the game's mostly solid levels is well worth the $10 price of admission, especially for fans of John Woo's filmography and style of direction. However, the game lacks atmosphere, its soundtrack is bland, the story is drag-and-drop generic, and it's presentation is somewhat understandably lackluster given its technological goals. It's a fun distraction for a few hours, but it isn't exactly a hidden gem either.

Say what you want about Resident Evil Resistance; It's a below-average, if not downright bad multiplayer title that feels underbaked, underdeveloped, and unbalanced. Despite that, Resistance at least felt like it had effort put into it. The graphics were solid and it had some semblance of a budget. It wasn't a good game, but it did feel like a somewhat-earnest effort from developer NeoBards Entertainment. NeoBards returns for a second attempt at bringing Resident Evil into the competitive multiplayer space. Resident Evil Re:Verse being greenlit at all is a surprise considering Resistance's lack of popularity, but it's clear it came with some consequences, such as a far lower budget.

Re:Verse, then, feels like a mobile game that Capcom licensed to some random developer, not a major title released on PC and consoles. While I can't say I had no fun whatsoever, the fun I had with the game was from my friends and I laughing at its expense, not because of anything quality or interesting NeoBards created. The gunplay doesn't feel downright terrible, but it feels slapdash and, for lack of a better term, "uncalibrated". Re:Verse in its entirety can feel that way; the movement, the character abilities, the maps, et cetera, all feel like they're from a thrown-together pre-alpha pitch to get publisher approval, not a full game you'd download and play with friends. Everything feels barely reworked to fit the criteria of a multiplayer environment, and the maps themselves, taken from prior RE games, just feel lazy. Each character has a different loadout and abilities, but there's no balance. Some characters are just obviously better than others and when there aren't really "counter characters" there's quite literally no reason to use certain characters outside of being a fan of them. Re:Verse does at least present the interesting concept of dead players becoming BOWs, with their level determined by kills before death. There's a huge disconnect in usefulness though - the basic fat molded is practically useless against any player of half-decent skill, and after a certain point I would immediately self-destruct just to get back to the game. On the other hand, the super tyrant can stunlock other players, which makes him extremely useful. This disconnect leads the BOW system to only be fun if you're doing well and just becomes a burden if you had a bad run. Gameplay issues aside, the game has a severe lack of content, too. There are only three maps: the RPD from RE2's remake, Dulvey from RE7, and the cemetery from Village, the latter of which was added in a post-launch update. While there are a decent amount of characters, nearly half of them are generic "literally whos" from Chris's squad in Village. While it's fine to have one of them, it's a totally missed opportunity to fill in the rest with fan-favorite characters like Rebecca, Barry, or even Wesker. It even looks cheap; the game has absolutely zero production value at all. While the graphics options feature the usual bells and whistles that RE Engine games tend to feature, even maxing the game out results in a title that looks cheap and unimpressive. You're given the choice between two aesthetics: the usual realism the series tends to offer, and a comic book filter. Neither is good and both have drawbacks - the comic filter looks garish and terrible, and the filterless mode makes Re:Verse's asset flip nature more apparent. Combine that with very little in the way of an original score (the match theme is just a slightly dynamic version of Looming Dread from RE2make) and you have a game that feels like it was put together in a few months.

Resident Evil Re:Verse was infamously delayed over a year past its original release date and to what gain? I played the game's open beta back in 2021 and felt lukewarm, albeit charitable. I gave its general lack of polish and content some slack due to being an incomplete game. Playing the finished game in 2024 only to find out it's hardly any different at all was massively disappointing albeit not surprising. On some level, I am rooting for NeoBards. I can't imagine that neither Resistance nor Re:Verse turned out how they would have liked had they been given better circumstances and Capcom is likely equally at fault for how these games have turned out. It seems that with Silent Hill F they are being given the opportunity to make a game that isn't microtransaction-laden multiplayer slop, and I'm willing to give their unproven skills in that field a shot. I do know, however, that I will not be playing any new multiplayer games from the studio anytime soon.

Looking back it's easy to undersell how popular Metroid was in the late 1980s. For a series often reputed as one of Nintendo's less successful franchises, the original game didn't just make a splash, but a crater, selling nearly 3 million copies by the mid-2000s. While a sequel was inevitable, it's strange that it would be released not only half a decade later, but on a remarkably less "prestigious" system. While both titles were developed by Nintendo R&D1, Metroid II: Return of Samus seems to have been developed by a largely different team, which explains why it feels so different compared to its immediate predecessor.

Metroid II differs most obviously from its predecessor in one major way: linear level progression. Linear should be used lightly, because you are still likely to get very, very lost if you are not paying attention. Unlike the original game, where you can largely explore most areas to your heart's content, Metroid II gates its areas behind progression, meaning the game feels much less free-flowing. Do not confuse this for the game turning into a standard platformer, as the bug hunt the player must undertake still requires active exploration to find all of the hidden metroids. As innovative as Metroid 1 is, Metroid II one-ups it in terms of refined game design, removing much of what could often make the original game very annoying. The gamet/geega/zeb enemies which were such a pain in the original game, while present, are far less unforgiving and never encountered in areas where they can end an entire run even in a worst-case scenario. The game's power-ups still require some searching, but they're never in areas that I feel the player wouldn't be able to discover on their own, unlike the original game's varia suit for example. Newer abilities such as the spider ball allow for greater navigation and it turns the entire environment into your playing field. The progression of the metroids from smaller creatures to beings that could tear you limb from limb with the flick of a wrist is an appropriate scale of challenge, but the last evolution in particular is perhaps too wasteful to take down (and yet, still entirely mandatory). This leads to a far more refined experience which, while perhaps not as creative or innovative as the original game, fixes a lot of its flaws and isn't nearly as frustrating. Nintendo hasn't quite nailed down the formula yet, though, as there are still some rough spots that hamper the experience. Some of the levels are a bit overly large, and while you don't exactly get lost per se, it takes far longer to traverse them than it should. The final area also requires grinding if you weren't an expert with your missiles beforehand to defeat the strongest metroids, but the missile drop rate hasn't actually been increased so you just spend a lot of time moving in between screens repeatedly to spawn them back in. Despite these rough spots, it's still largely a positive direction for the series and easier to come back to in the modern day.

Visually, Metroid II is a step forward and a step back at the same time. In terms of graphics, the game features superbly detailed spritework far beyond what the original game could offer on better hardware. Remember how Samus was sort of an amorphous blob in the original? Now you can see the individual rivets on her sprite, and her animations look far more "realistic", too. Essentially everything has had this graphical facelift, and understanding the typical level of visual fidelity Game Boy games reach, it remains mighty impressive. My main issue is that Metroid II, somewhere along the line, lost the atmosphere that the original game had in spades. Metroid's world was very colorful, which is not exactly something the Game Boy can convey and therefore not exactly a valid criticism, but there's far less variety in SR388 compared to Zebes. While there's occasional vegetation and quite a bit of sand, SR388...just isn't a particularly interesting place to explore. Gone are the space pirate lairs, the burning pits of Norfair (although the game still has lava), the sci-fi labs of Tourian, et cetera. It's all just replaced by rock, rock, and more rock. While the general idea is that the metroids are sucking the planet dry of its fauna and flora, it means that late-game areas meant to convey this don't feel much different from the earlier areas "full of life". On the flip side, the designs for the new metroid forms are very cool and it's interesting to see the effort Nintendo put into designing an entire evolutionary tree for their fictional species.

Metroid II's score was composed by Ryoji Yoshitomi, taking over from Hirokazu Tanaka in the original game, and the soundtrack must be one of the most disappointing aspects of the game as a whole. Tanaka's score for Metroid was atmospheric and memorable, fitting each area perfectly while providing iconic melodies that worked just as well on their own. Metroid 1's score feels like a living organism, and this is something Metroid II tries to achieve in a different way, but fails. While it's not without its successes - the melancholy yet beautiful title theme is worthy of great praise and the triumphant surface theme is an ear worm - it's largely weak attempts at atmospheric sound design that fall flat due to both repetitive composition and the limitations of the Game Boy's sound chip. While there is only so much you can do with the hardware provided, the jittering beeps sound more like Samus dialing a phone number rather than the ominous murmurs of SR388's creatures. The theme for the Chozo ruins is grating on the ears, as the bumbling Abbott and Costello-esque track feels like you're slamming your head against your Game Boy. While I do appreciate the moments where Metroid II uses silence to enhance its atmosphere of a dying planet, the score itself does very little if anything to add to that, and at points often detracts from it.

Metroid II: Return of Samus is sort of a two-step forward, one-step back situation. Its further improvements and refinements to the Metroid formula are much appreciated, and the game manages to fit a more linear structure without sacrificing the Metroidvania gameplay we've come to expect from the series. It's far less frustrating than anything Metroid 1 throws at you, though it is less innovative, something the game can't really be faulted for either. Unfortunately, somewhere in that five-year transition, the immersive atmosphere that Metroid was famous for left in favor of stone corridors and cacophonous music. Despite this, Metroid II is still a significantly better game than the original, and one that is worth playing for fans of the genre.

I couldn't find out a place to put this in the review, but I will add as a postscript that I think it's impressive how Nintendo managed to give Samus some poignant character development without having her speak a single word. Her refusal to kill the infant metroid despite causing the genocide of the entire species speaks volumes about her and the fact that this was achieved on an 8-bit handheld system is insane. It's a sweet and rewarding moment for beating the game.

Resident Evil is a universe ripe for exploration via genres other than survival horror, so it only made sense that after the explosive success of the original trilogy a spin-off title with a different genre would be commissioned. Director Hiroyuki Kai decided to make a light gun shooter, but instead of focusing on a tightly-designed on-rails experience, he decided to blend it with the survival horror formula that the series had been known for. Unfortunately, the team at TOSE was unable to pull this off, creating what many people consider to be possibly the worst game in the franchise.

The game's story, written by Noboru Sugimura and Naoyuki Sakai, is rather silly and poorly told. Say what you will about the narratives of the previous entries, the problem mostly lay in somewhat haphazard execution, rather than the scripts themselves. In Survivor, the narrative's problems exist on a conceptual level as well. You play as an unnamed man who, after a helicopter crash, wakes up on an isolated island overrun by a T-Virus outbreak. Suffering from severe amnesia, he believes he is a man named Vincent Goldman, an Umbrella executive that the game makes sure to let you know is unbelievably and cartoonishly cruel. Vincent had been performing inhumane experiments on kidnapped children, inflicting as much pain as possible to almost literally extract fear from their brains, which is used to manufacture T-103 Tyrants. Of course, our protagonist is revealed to not be Vincent, rather he is Ark Thompson, a private detective sent to the island at the request of Leon S. Kennedy. This plot twist could be seen coming from a mile away and any sort of mystery it could have possibly added is just wiped away by how obvious it all is. It's already hard enough to believe that this doofus is a detective, let alone a cruel scientist.

Well, the story is always secondary in Resident Evil, right? The main focus is usually the gameplay and how it creates the horror that we love to experience. Being a light gun shooter, I expected Survivor to be more "horror-themed" than actually scary, but I didn't expect it to be so dull. The game isn't a traditional light gun shooter; instead of being an on-rails experience, the player is allowed to roam freely and even avoid enemies altogether. This sounds like an interesting concept until you realize that they ridiculously simplified the mechanics, due to the Namco GunCon controller only having 4 buttons. The game tries to add variety by allowing you to take different paths, but at no point can you backtrack to see what you missed, making it feel overly linear despite TOSE's poor attempt at the illusion of free choice. Puzzles are ridiculously simplified. All they amount to is finding a key in one room and unlocking something in the next. I understand that RE puzzles were never Silent Hill-level mind-benders, but these can barely even be qualified as puzzles. The actual shooting doesn't manage to feel satisfying either, especially when the camera continuously jerks around when any fast-moving enemies are encountered. Movement is very awkward too. The "run" and "move backward" options are mapped to the same button that makes you move forward, so it's kind of confusing how to trigger one or the other. There isn't any strafing so all movement must be done manually, which isn't necessarily a major problem as much as a minor annoyance. All of these problems would be eliminated if TOSE just made it a normal light gun shooter a la The House of the Dead, but the insistence upon trying multiple things means it fails at all of them when it could have excelled at one.

The game is also a bit of a visual nightmare. Most of the assets are from previous games, which looked pretty good in those due to the camera's distance from models, but up close, they are a blocky pixelated mess. The environments are very basic and lack detail, which would be fine if it was released earlier on in the PlayStation's lifespan, but this was released in 2000, right as the PS1 was breathing its dying breaths. Considering Silent Hill was released the previous year and looks worlds better, this isn't acceptable. Cutscenes are also hilariously poor, with characters animating like stick figures, with horrible cinematography that sometimes obscures characters for whatever reason. Like the previous three games, Survivor uses full-motion video for some of its cutscenes. Previous games used either live-action film or CGI animation to show sequences that the PS1 was simply incapable of rendering believably. Survivor, on the other hand, might as well not even have them. The FMV cutscenes use the same assets as the in-engine cutscenes and all animate the same, so it's pretty confusing why they decided to go through the effort of pre-rendering them all when they look no better.

Resident Evil is infamous for its voice acting, so Survivor living up to that infamy isn't exactly a bad thing as many think it adds to the franchise's cheesy b-movie charm. I think it's worth noting, however, that Survivor's voice acting is miles worse than even the original Resident Evil, and has just as many hilarious lines. Such examples include "I AM NOT VINCENT. I AM ARK!!" "Am IIIIIIIII, Vincent?" and "VINCENT. YOU. ARE. A. MURDERER.". It's generally hilarious stuff and I can't complain about it considering the series pedigree.

If there's any bright spot in this otherwise tedious game, it's the soundtrack composed by Shiro Kohmoto. It's a bit formulaic, lacking in any genuinely memorable tunes, but it does build a half-decent atmosphere and sounds mostly in line with RE2 and RE3's OSTs. It's just more of the same, but it works, which is more than can be said for the rest of this game.

Resident Evil Survivor is an awful game and a sorry excuse for both an RE title and a light gun shooter. The game cannot commit to its premise, the story is silly and unengaging, it's dull to play, and is just generally ugly to look at. Clocking in at only three hours of playtime, I can imagine it being a rather disappointing purchase back in the early 2000s. I suppose if you're a die-hard RE fan it's not the worst way you could spend an afternoon, but that energy is probably best spent playing something else. Both RE fans and fans of the genre should stay away.

Entertaining gameplay loop, I love that it's a much more rigid platformer than, say, Mega Man, every move needs to be planned and you need to play carefully because jumping, for example, cannot be canceled and you need to commit to every action. The level design is generally pretty good and there's much room for you to use your movement to the best of your abilities. I love the individual abilities and how each has its purpose and different enemies they're good against. I will say though, the difficulty progression is kind of fucked, Frankenstein's level is smack in the middle of the game and I easily spent the most time there, the other two following levels are way easier and it doesn't feel as natural as it should.

Visually I think the game looks generally fine, I love the art direction's musky castles and old Universal horror movie monsters for bosses. The Mummy, Frankenstein, and Dracula are bosses, and hell the Creature from the Black Lagoon is a regular enemy, which appeases the film student in me. I think the character sprites are detailed and animate fluidly, but the environments are a bit messy, many backgrounds look like a clusterfuck of messy tilework with little cohesion. The soundtrack is amazing though, each level tune is an earworm that I found myself humming throughout the day, it's just passionate 8-bit glory, Wicked Child was probably my favorite of the bunch.

Overall, a very solid platformer that benefits from a great gameplay loop, fun levels, and a fantastic soundtrack, but occasionally unfair difficulty spikes and messy graphics do drag it down a bit.

The Stanley Parable is a game that I had heard a lot about. Less so about the actual game, and rather the experience itself. Sure, I was aware of some of the surface-level gags, such as the two doors and the Adventure Line, but otherwise, my assumption was that it was just another YouTuber game that would eventually fade into obscurity. A good friend of mine purchased the game for me for my birthday, so I decided to give it a shot.

Now, it's hard to describe The Stanley Parable without spoiling it. Mechanically, all it involves is wandering around and clicking on random objects while The Narrator describes whatever you are doing. I will not go into more detail than that. What I will say, however, is that the game is one of the most impressive efforts I have ever seen in both video game writing and programming. Galactic Cafe really pushes the aging Source engine to its limits, with fantastic scripting and dynamic maps adding to the supposed mystery of this game. It's really quite surreal, how this game starts off fairly unassuming yet continuously peels back to form a greater mystery. The Narrator is of course, hilarious as always, and without saying much, he has greater vocal range than you would assume. I would also highly recommend not looking up anything about the game, or any walkthroughs, as the game is best experienced when you find everything out on your own.

If you're at all interested in surrealist and otherwise innovative gaming, The Stanley Parable is definitely something to check out. The only criticism I could see is that the price tag of $15 is a little steep for the amount of content (It took me around 4 and a half hours to 100% the game), but considering the age of this game, I would imagine it goes on sale quite often.

Deus Ex is one of my favorite games. From its open-ended gameplay, to its intricate narrative, and its transcendent soundtrack, any flaws it has are, to me, superseded by its many qualities. Naturally, any prospect of a direct sequel excited me. The reception for Deus Ex: Invisible War went from rather positive at launch to increasingly negative the past two decades and after giving it an honest chance, it's plain to see why. Despite most of the original staff returning, key creative roles are different (director, lead designer) and it's fairly obvious as Invisible War launched the franchise in an entirely new direction that thankfully future games wouldn't repeat.

The gameplay is the biggest problem here. What made Deus Ex so engrossing on a design level was the unprecedented amount of player choice it offered, even putting a lot of modern games to shame. Invisible War purports to have a similar degree of choice, but it cuts down on it to such an insane degree that it might as well not have any. Levels are much smaller, which vastly limits your approach to completion. You never have anything like the original game's Liberty Island where there are numerous different approaches to completing an area (even though Liberty Island does return) - you'd be lucky to get two choices. Sure, there's a vent or a laser grid that can be disabled, but it's a far, far cry from the original. It also doesn't help that gameplay styles are so severely constricted in this game. Stealth or nonlethal options are so heavily disincentivized by the game's own systems that playing it like a standard first-person shooter is not only more fun but much more effective. In Deus Ex, if you snuck up on an enemy and hit them on the square of their backs, it would be an instant takedown. In Invisible War, this mechanic is gone, so attempting the same will just alert the enemy instead, meaning that headshotting them with the pistol is just easier and more efficient. The stun prod also takes much longer to take down an enemy than in the original, which means, once again, any tactical advantage it once had is practically sapped from it. Another remarkably stupid change is the universal ammo system, which means every gun whether pistol or rocket launcher pulls from the same ammo pool. Not only is this a needless oversimplification that even Xbox players would likely find baffling, but it makes the game more difficult since if you run out of ammo for one gun you run out for all of your guns. The removal of skill points also means that player customization is much simpler and different playstyles are once again discouraged. To Invisible War's credit, though, the biomod system is actually sort of interesting, being entirely modular. This means you can swap augmentations at will provided you have enough biomod canisters, and you're given plenty throughout the entire game to make experimenting viable. It's the only source of playstyle customization the game actually gives you and it's a nice breath of fresh air in a game that otherwise feels like a straightjacket. I also like how the game fixes the only gameplay complaint I had with the original - NPC reactions to player actions. Guards will aggro when you hack ATMs in front of them, and they'll react appropriately to seeing dead bodies on the floor. This is the only real improvement Invisible War has over the original, but it is notable, for what that's worth.

Few games can claim to be as thoroughly researched and well-written as Deus Ex, and Invisible War certainly doesn't fit into that category. Despite one of the writers returning, Invisible War entirely lacks the nuance, believable characters, deeper sociopolitical themes, or effective worldbuilding of the original, throwing in a dash of character assassination into the mix. For starters, one of the best parts of the original was the memos you could read throughout the game, which fleshed out the world to insane degrees while also feeling entirely convincing. Invisible War does technically still have these, but not only do they show up in lesser frequency but they're much less detailed too. It feels like they're there simply for the sake of it. This leads to a level of detachment from Invisible War's world setting and the progress that's been made since the first game. The most infamous decision was making all of the original game's endings simultaneously canonical, which is hacked and pasted together with glue and construction paper, feeling unconvincing and clumsy. None of the original characters are very interesting or memorable, they don't have the charming personalities of Deus Ex's cast nor is there much that sets them apart from one another. For example, Billie Adams is supposed to be your best friend from the academy, but there's no chemistry at all to make this believable. It doesn't help that protagonist Alex D is a bumbling idiot with seemingly zero idea of the world around him. While JC Denton was meant to be a player insert without a defined personality, he still had knowledge of the world around him and his interactions felt more genuine as a result. Alex on the other hand has to ask questions he would already reasonably know, and it feels like it only exists to serve the player, ignoring the ways Deus Ex did it far more intelligently. The most unbelievable part is how Invisible War treats its returning characters. Chad Dumier and Nicolette DuClare were terrorists with good intentions, desiring to overthrow the tyranny of Majestic 12. Like most of Deus Ex's characters, they were highly characterized by ideology. In Invisible War, these two characters now run the modern incarnation of the Illuminati, presumably having changed drastically after the Collapse. Not only does the game seemingly not actually go into any detail as to why these characters developed so drastically, but they might as well be entirely different characters. While peoples' perceptions of the world can definitely change due to major world events, I can't imagine Chad and Nicolette not only doing a 180-degree ideological turn but also rebuilding the entire thing that they lost so many lives fighting against. It's a ridiculous concept and easily my least favorite part of the plot. The game has a faction system that allows Alex to side with a myriad of different groups by doing their specific faction quests, but none of this amounts to anything narratively because the faction you align with (if any) can just be arbitrarily decided by the player at the end of the game, so there's little consequence to your choices.

Deus Ex was a respectable game visually speaking. Its enjoyably low-key cyberpunk aesthetic and solid (if unremarkable for their time) graphics created a visually satisfying game and one that I had no complaints about within that department. Invisible War ups the ante to Unreal Engine 2, but relative to the advancements in technology in the past three years, I find its visual presentation underwhelming. It's not a bad-looking game by any means, there are appealing aspects both in terms of art direction and technology, but I find it mediocre overall. Aesthetically, Invisible War is set far into the future, forgoing the grounded look for a future more in line with Star Trek. While not inherently a problem, the game's aesthetic is this weirdly washed-out, teal, steel corridor look which blends with so many other different sci-fi games. Ion Storm's conception of the future is generic, standard, and uninteresting. It extends to the hardly creative locations (neither are DX1's, but that game isn't going for the same degree of science-fiction) and the uninspired character designs. Hooded religious figures, goggled military men, and tight spandex suits don't inspire much in me. I'm all for developers playing with extreme color palettes, but the game is so washed out without it fitting any thematic purpose, such as a game set in the apocalypse having a similar palette to emphasize desolation. Graphically speaking, Invisible War does feature higher-quality assets and improved tech such as bumpmaps, but they somehow look worse. Characters have wide-eyed stares and mouths which have visible seams when animating. Textures, despite bumpmaps, are far lower quality than the original game and even have visible compression artifacts (almost certainly because of the Xbox's RAM constraints), lacking the detail texture option many Unreal Engine 1 games had. There's practically only one stock character face for each gender/race, and while the original game often had repeat NPCs they at least all looked distinct from one another. Despite the more advanced technology, the game's environments don't feel more detailed than the original's more often than not. Outdoor areas certainly look commendable enough, but all inside areas are bland and sparse. The lighting system looks great, however, and it's clearly something Ion Storm wanted to show off for better or worse. Every light source projects dynamic shadows across the entire area and it's honestly kind of stellar if somewhat over-the-top, reminding me a lot of Doom 3. It's probably why, among other reasons, maps had to be so much smaller to accommodate the Xbox, but I do enjoy looking at it for what that's worth.

It would be nice if the PC port was any good, though. Invisible War is a notoriously unstable game and even with the practically required Visible Upgrade mod, the game still frequently locked up on me during loading screens. It got to the point where I was quicksaving before exiting even small areas, holding my breath to see if the game would crash "the right way" or not. Seeing as the game handles level loading by deliberately crashing itself and relaunching in the new area every single time (which has the consequence of often running multiple game windows), this leads to moments where the game just crashes and freezes entirely, without loading the new areas. It also has the consequence of making loading screens way longer than they need to be, which feels especially sluggish in a game where areas are so small. There's a lot of veritable technical jank in this game, such as the framerate being uncapped by default yet physics objects speeding up above 100 FPS. The game will run at any framerate your PC can handle, but it never actually feels smooth to play, with a seemingly persistent judder to the experience. The port also lacks basic features, such as anisotropic filtering or key remapping for core gameplay functions. Certain things such as lack of widescreen support are somewhat excusable due to age, but others are just behind what other PC games were offering at the time. That in and of itself wouldn't be horrible had the game not been so unstable.

Deus Ex has, in my opinion, one of the best soundtracks ever featured in a video game. Invisible War takes an entirely new direction, forgoing the original game's focus on melody for an entirely ambient score inspired by Looking Glass Studios' Thief games. It's a major step down, but I can't say it's entirely ineffective either. Alexander Brandon is an incredibly talented composer and even if his work isn't memorable or even particularly creative here, it still capably supports the game's atmospheric needs. The theme for Heron's Loft in Seattle was a highlight, conveying a certain depressive yet comforting tone, reflecting the squalor the tenants lived in. Each area's dedicated themes fit them perfectly fine, and I never once had any complaints tonally. Some of the tracks are even rather relaxing. The direction that Ion Storm went musically wasn't strictly a bad thing, but it lacks memorability and doesn't properly build connections between the player and the environments, despite still being suitably immersive. Games like Resident Evil 7 have largely ambient, unassuming scores that still manage to create a soundscape that blends seamlessly with the environment. Invisible War certainly takes a shot but it doesn't become so immersive that it feels real nor is it melodic enough to cause earworms. A big missed opportunity was to have a dynamic soundtrack like the original game, with dedicated themes for general ambiance, combat, and conversations. The game suffers from a lack of combat music, which makes enemy encounters feel flat and lifeless comparatively. Variety was the spice of life in the original and it's just not here. I did like the inclusion of real-life industrial band Kidneythieves in the game's soundtrack as it did inject some life into what is an otherwise sort of anemic score even if it's kind of embarrassingly emblematic of the game's release year. Brandon at his worst is still Alexander Brandon, it's very competent and works well enough, but I understand his comments about it "not being right for Deus Ex".

Deus Ex: Invisible War is not a downright painful experience. It's hardly awful and on a surface level appears simply, unmemorably mediocre. Peel back the layers and you'll find a game whose systems hardly work, whose mechanics feel as constrained as a straightjacket, whose narrative feels cynical at best and often ridiculous, whose visuals have aged worse than the original, and whose stability is frequently an issue. Although I started the experience thinking that it "wasn't that bad", by the end I was entirely confident in branding Invisible War a downright bad game. While I understand publisher mandates and time constraints ended up hampering development rather significantly, it doesn't change that many strange decisions on Ion Storm's part were entirely unnecessary if not often detrimental. I'm surprised Deus Ex as a franchise even made it past this dud of a game and I'm glad that the next two games would, for their faults, at least return to the spirit of the original that got me invested in the first place.

The Thing starts pretty interestingly but about halfway through begins to quickly lose steam. A lot of the fantastic ideas the game started with (managing a squad of different talents, the trust system, the potential for any of your teammates to be assimilated, the cold system) just aren't super important midway through the game anymore and it transitions into a very average third-person shooter for the time. It's not bad at any point (except for the awful boss fights). Still, it just eventually descends into TPS tedium and thing creatures even become a secondary enemy type compared to the human soldiers. The story has a few interesting concepts (like someone willingly infecting themselves) but otherwise feels kind of disappointingly nonexistent past the halfway point. Visually, the game is pretty on par with what was expected at the time. Environments are sufficiently detailed and there seems to have been a decent amount of thought put into the actual layout of each building. Character models look a bit behind the times, resembling Half-Life models but with slightly more geometry, but the high-resolution textures lend them a bit more realism. The cinematography, admirably, has more thought put into it than most games of the era. All of this goes out the window, however, midway through the game, when the creative environments and level layouts eventually decent into bland metal corridors with very little variety, hardly even letting you see the snow. The game could also heavily benefit from any sort of soundtrack to enhance the atmosphere, with the game only resorting to short little stingers during dramatic moments. This game had a lot of potentials and starts strong, but it just kind of fizzled out and maybe needed a sequel to fully refine the genuinely good ideas the game has.

Hotline Miami 2 is a good example of how bigger isn't always better. The story is much more expansive, there are more playable characters, more weapons, more levels, better graphics, more music, et cetera. All of what I've just mentioned are legitimate improvements and all make Hotline Miami 2 a blast to play. However, there is one aspect that has been made bigger to a fault: the level design. Levels are much larger and as a result, there are plenty of times where you can get killed by an enemy you never saw. This is generally not a massive problem, after all, you can use the shift key to look forward and the bigger focus on firearm combat allows you to do the same. There are certain levels though where this is a big issue, such as the boat and the Hawaii levels. Other than that though, everything else has been improved. Hotline Miami's unique style is more detailed and the soundtrack is once again amazing. The addition of multiple playable characters makes the gameplay and mask system even more diverse and unique. The story and character writing are excellent, elaborating on the events of the original game without ever fully explaining it, expanding the universe without ruining its mystery. Overall, the game is still great, but I think the original is better due to the tighter level design and an overall better selection of levels.