an actually impeccable game -- as both a single-player experience, as a multiplayer phenomenon and as a platform for usermaps

darker and more dynamic than doom 2 -- the enemy roster trades off being able to command large, open playfields for having much more of an upper hand in close quarters. the player arsenal, in response, is more reflexive and freeform.

the renewed focus on melee enemies, cool powerups and close-quarters battling means the 4 episodes can get lots done with comparatively little

full 3d makes it a much more natural experience for new players, while also encouraging a level of intimacy with maps that is rarely seen (show a quake player a small sloped surface on the decorative trim of a hallway, and they will spend ten minutes trying to launch theirselves off it in the hopes of a secret. absolute mountain goat people)

it may seem like a confused jumble of a game, but it's a lot more well-rounded than people give it credit for!

People like to call this game a kicking simulator, but they don't realize the potential that kicking truly has. You can kick enemies off a cliff or down a flight of stairs. You can kick a barrel into an enemy to knock them down and open them up to a melee instant kill attack. Even beyond the kicking you can play with the physics in a lot of fun ways like cutting the rope on a chandelier and turning it into a wrecking ball, or casting an ice spell on the ground to make enemies slip and ragdoll all over the place. The game does struggle with boss fights and larger combat encounters, but the good parts really outweigh those. I will say the game was really unstable on my PC, but I don't know if that's just a side effect of trying to run it on modern hardware or if it was always prone to crashing.

in an era defined by the demand for remasters, remakes, updates of successful works, it'd be easy to insist you leave this one to the gamefreaks and just play the impeccable REmake instead

but you'd miss out. this game has an utterly unique look and feel -- rooms lit strangely and painted in sickly yellows, browns and greens, as if the house itself has gone rotten. rooms in REmake look like, well, rooms -- incredibly lit, atmospheric rooms. rooms in resident evil don't look like any room you've ever been in outside of a dream. the zombies shuffle and pivot jerkily and make funny noises, but that doesn't stop a lucky pair from stun-locking you to an instant death if you underestimate them. the music shifts between mocking you and terrifying you, because the fact that something's a bit camp wouldn't stop it from eating you alive

the first zombie scene hits hard in this game due to inconsistent details. the zombie's face looks more like just some old guy than a monster. the half-chewed head is so strangely clean, as if willing flesh was merely sucked from it, not chewed. go watch the FMV again, look at how oddly out-of-scale the zombie is compared to the tea room. guy looks like he'd be about 9 feet tall

absolutely play resident evil. the non-dual-shock director's cut has some cool features for returning players, but the original is just fine too.

(Winner of the "Guilty Pleasure Award" for the game I like but /v/ hates, speech below)

How fucking weird it is to write a speech about how much /v/ hates Demon’s Souls. Look, I know, I know, it’s a remake. The laziest form of re-releasing, just behind remastering, but it’s easy money for From Soft that I’m sure they’ll definitely put into Elden Ring when it eventually comes out, right?

Well looking at Bluepoint’s handiwork, it becomes immediately evident why this game is at the top of /v/’s shitlist. Nice designs don’t really mean anything when they’re generic and clashing with the original art style. The remake is just lacking the original game’s charm, and hell, some of us liked the jankiness of the game, it complimented the refreshingly new mechanics at the time.

Look, at this point, the 2009 game can be compared to a finely-printed vinyl record. One that took six hours to set up on some obscure record player that shipped from the asscrack of the world. It’s got some scratchiness to it, some grit in the sound, but it’s part of the experience, and one that you can’t beat. And while /v/, being the hipsters they are, can’t stand the idea of listening to their once-favorite album on a digital format, some people care more for the music than the experience itself. And you know, that’s just fine.

I’m laughing. I watch the ending CGI video play as the name “TETSUYA NOMURA” flashes onto the screen. I’m laughing hysterically. What the hell did I just play.

Dirge of Cerberus is not a Final Fantasy VII game. The story features returning characters and locations, but aside from that there’s really nothing really tying this back to Final Fantasy VII. To think the most popular and beloved rpg of all time led to…whatever this is.
To give credit where credit is due, there were some aspects of the story and gameplay that I enjoyed. The overall presentation and atmosphere is absolutely stellar in fact, but it’s definitely not enough to carry a game such as this one. Well, without prolonging this introduction any longer, here is the third part of my Final Fantasy VII series retrospective.

Unfortunately what’s ultimately holding back the gameplay isn’t how Vincent controls, but rather everything else in these damned stages. Vincent controls swiftly and smoothly and there is a flow to his movements, but levels are just too obtuse for their own good. There is some minimal exploration but it is extremely forced and usually just makes levels way more tedious than needed. You typically need to hunt down a cardkey to allow access to the next area which isn’t a bad idea on its own, but they’re always in a small offshoot room with a bunch of enemies that don’t enhance the level’s structure at all. Getting the cardkey is just delaying the inevitable level progression with annoying enemies and design. The developers must’ve just given up by the end of the game because you’re consistently thrown into these large areas where you have barely any time to react to oncoming bullets and no places to gain legitimate cover. It doesn’t help that these levels already feel needlessly long due to the terrible pacing. Sometimes in the middle of a level you’ll get a random lore dump for Vincent’s backstory for no reason. What is the point of this? Story developments are usually a reward for completing stages but here they just show up whenever the hell they want.
My one positive point here is the weapon customization. It’s actually handled pretty well; you have three main weapon types: machine gun, handgun, and rifle. You can easily switch between these three with the press of a button which is handy and you can individually customize each weapon slot with whatever you want.
The story is a classic Tetsuya Nomura mid 2000s weirdass story. Overall it’s pretty lackluster with a lot of things just seeming very pointless in the end. The main villains, the Tsviets, are cool at first because you’re curious about their backstories and motivations, but when they’re actually revealed it’s extremely boring and leaves no impact. They don’t even have backstories; they’re just experiments working for their leader because they have no other option. Okay? A lot of this is honestly similar to Kingdom Hearts in that regard but to a much worse extent. Characters with badass designs who look cool end up being underwhelming compositionally. The bad lip syncing similar to Advent Children doesn’t help this at all. Shelke’s character arc was probably the best part of the whole story since it was actually interesting. Vincent’s backstory is laid out in such a confusing Kingdom Hearts-style way where you end up not caring that much by the end. Most of the voice acting was pretty good though, especially Steve Blum doing his classic shtick as Vincent.
I wrote goddamn NOTES for this shit while I was playing. That’s how insane this game drove me; I couldn’t stop thinking about it. Now that I’ve finished the game I’m left with this conflicted impression of a game that was ultimately conflicted about what it even wanted to accomplish.

“Those who can’t come by themselves will absolutely come by my hand.
Original post @GACKT #GACKT #workout #dailyworkout”