FreedomForever94
2004
Still the GOAT. Always will be.
2005
“We have Doom 3 at home”
But in all seriousness the similarities are glaring from the art style, enemy variety, level design and the various weapons which should be a good thing because I love Doom3
Unfortunately it’s a crappy console port with jarring frame rate drops that never make the game unplayable but came close several times and were annoying throughout. The load times in this game are also excessive. The checkpoint system is also frustrating with checkpoints before some unskippable cutscenes which can be a neausance on higher difficulties and I found myself hard saving a lot.
The game also suffers greatly from pacing problems with the first act being pretty slow and the game constantly shooting itself in the foot by adding drawn out boring turret/tank sections which just feel like filler and kill your enjoyment.
This review may sound overly negative but I can say I’m positive on this game. The second half of the game really picks up and you’ll be running though massive gauntlets of enemies. The shooting feels great and some guns really stand out like the nail gun, shotgun, hyper blaster and definitely the dark matter gun. Swapping weapons, circle stafe jumping and ducking behind cover is a ton of fun and all the weapons have good matchups against specific enemies. As a side note I’ve never taken more splash damage from my own grenade/rocket shots as I did in this game.
The art style and especially the dynamic lighting are gorgeous even if some of the textures haven’t aged very well. The sheer amount of blood and body horror also surprised me in a good way.
All in all it ends up being solid but frustrating because with better pacing and optimization on console this would be a game id be coming back to.
6/10
But in all seriousness the similarities are glaring from the art style, enemy variety, level design and the various weapons which should be a good thing because I love Doom3
Unfortunately it’s a crappy console port with jarring frame rate drops that never make the game unplayable but came close several times and were annoying throughout. The load times in this game are also excessive. The checkpoint system is also frustrating with checkpoints before some unskippable cutscenes which can be a neausance on higher difficulties and I found myself hard saving a lot.
The game also suffers greatly from pacing problems with the first act being pretty slow and the game constantly shooting itself in the foot by adding drawn out boring turret/tank sections which just feel like filler and kill your enjoyment.
This review may sound overly negative but I can say I’m positive on this game. The second half of the game really picks up and you’ll be running though massive gauntlets of enemies. The shooting feels great and some guns really stand out like the nail gun, shotgun, hyper blaster and definitely the dark matter gun. Swapping weapons, circle stafe jumping and ducking behind cover is a ton of fun and all the weapons have good matchups against specific enemies. As a side note I’ve never taken more splash damage from my own grenade/rocket shots as I did in this game.
The art style and especially the dynamic lighting are gorgeous even if some of the textures haven’t aged very well. The sheer amount of blood and body horror also surprised me in a good way.
All in all it ends up being solid but frustrating because with better pacing and optimization on console this would be a game id be coming back to.
6/10
2005
Really wondering how this game never got a sequel. I had played a little bit years ago but it got lost in my backlog. Finally picked it back up and restarted the other day and blasted through and I gotta say this is one of the best fps campaigns on Xbox. Cowboy vampire hunters vs the evil dead is such and awesome concept and the game takes advantage of the setting. Cowboys, skeletons, vampires and sexy dead girls galore. It’s just a lot of fun. The shooting feels really tight and enemies arms and heads can be shot off which never stops being satisfying. The guns are pretty typical, revolver, carbine, sniper rifle, rocket launcher, etc but the stand out is an awesome shotgun with a battle axe on the hilt which makes for one of the best melees in an fps. Enemy variety is a little weak but just good enough to keep things fresh. The vampire powers are cool and the binary choice system isn’t deep but can unlock you different powers depending if you choose good or evil. This definitely gives the game some replay value as well as two different endings depending on your choices. Level design varies between tight shootouts on trains and big open arenas that take advantage of both your leaning behind cover and your very floaty vampire double jump. There’s lots of verticality and the game pushes you into decisions of “do I want to take the high ground in the sunlight and lost my powers or push thru low in the darkness thru swarms of enemies?” This is just one example. There are a few meh turret sections and one wannabe Halo warthog section that isn’t outstanding but the main gameplay loop never got boring. The game took about 5-6 hours to clear and flew bye. The story is silly but the lore and aesthetic is what really gives it its charm. My biggest gripe is I wish there wasn’t so much hand holding thru the constant cutscenes showing you what to do and every time enemies spawn in. The make the game feel a bit choppy but they are skippable and they get more tolerable when you get into the flow of the game. I wish the Xbox version had co op but I definitely see myself coming back to this probably on Ps2 with a friend. This game’s definitely a gem
7/10
7/10
This review contains spoilers
Hellblade was a game I knew very little about outside of the general premise, setting and under the (incorrect) assumption it was a hack n slash game. It was not really what I expected. What I got was a gorgeous sometimes awe inspiring even interactive movie. The developers were definitely self fellating themselves when they made this. The game is extremely over written and pretentious to the point of exhaustion. The “gameplay” is divided into holding forward, walking around and looking at runes to solve “puzzles” and some combat. The combat is decent enough. It looks incredibly cinematic with no HUD but it’s not very deep and takes up only about 25% of the game. The rest of the time is cutscenes and light puzzle solving that all follow the same General formula and get stale very quickly. The setting is awesome and visually it may be the best looking ps4 game I’ve played. A stand out sequence being the sea of corpses and a battle with Fenrir the wolf in darkness. I’ll give credit where credit is due as the voices of Senua’s psychosis are a nice twist as they taunt you but can also guide you thru your quest and playing with headphones is ideal. Ultimately it’s more of an interactive overly serious and melodramatic movie than a video game. I can appreciate its artistic merits but it just wasn’t for me. I hope someone else can make a game because the Norse mythological setting is awesome and hasn’t been tapped into enough. Maybe the sequel can give more player control and be more engaging but I won’t hold my breath.
2006
Never got around to playing this back in the day but I was always somewhat interested. Finally blasted through it in one night. Took me a mere 4 hours to go thru the 8 missions of the game. Not much replay value just a few higher difficulties and a few collectibles I missed.
Pros: graphics look great for the time, all the guns feel great, good feedback hitting enemies, fast paced with constant ammo and health pick ups let you constantly push forward spraying and chucking grenades. Buildings, cars, glass, doors, walls are all destructible and there’s constant debris and smoke across the battlefields. Gun play feels great.
Cons: way too short, no replay value, levels are pretty repetitive, nothing to really set it apart from other shooters. The grenade throw motion sucks. Really would have benefited from some split screen or death match modes.
All and all I enjoyed my time but just another shooter that I probably would never play again but I’m glad I got thru it once.
Pros: graphics look great for the time, all the guns feel great, good feedback hitting enemies, fast paced with constant ammo and health pick ups let you constantly push forward spraying and chucking grenades. Buildings, cars, glass, doors, walls are all destructible and there’s constant debris and smoke across the battlefields. Gun play feels great.
Cons: way too short, no replay value, levels are pretty repetitive, nothing to really set it apart from other shooters. The grenade throw motion sucks. Really would have benefited from some split screen or death match modes.
All and all I enjoyed my time but just another shooter that I probably would never play again but I’m glad I got thru it once.
This review contains spoilers
Resident Evil Code: Veronica X (2001)-
First time play through was a long time coming. I’ve heard so much about this game. Some people never played it, some love it, some are mixed and some hate it so I was curious to see where I ended up on that spectrum.
This game is awesome (mostly) but some odd decisions and frustration hold it back from being a masterpiece.
Off the bat I’ll say the cutscenes/story in this game are probably my favorite in the series. It’s dialogue is goofy but it’s a RE game. The voice acting is overdone like always (especially Steve) but overall the story was very engaging and made the game feel big. This feels like the proper RE3. Wesker vs Chris grudge match, Claire and Chris reunited, islands self destructing, tyrants, etc it’s all good stuff. The game doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel as far as RE gameplay. It’s classic survival horror without pre-rendered backgrounds and with the ability to duel wield some weapons which is cool but doesn’t change much. The puzzles are challenging from the very beginning and only get harder by the time you’re playing as Chris later. Overall my biggest complaints is I feel the playtime coulda been trimmed a little, returning from the private residence all the way back to rodridgo is a bit excessive and some rooms/hallways are not super distinct so they can end up feeling very samey which can lead to some confusion and extra wandering around. There’s also some dumb stuff like the infamous moth hallway which is a real head scratcher, some areas you have to take damage essentially and the game seems to want to fuck the player over by having Claire and Chris share item boxes. Overall these complaints didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game much at all. It’s essential for any RE or survival horror fan. It very well could have been the best in the series if not for some boneheaded decisions. Oh and also I actually enjoyed all these boss battles and thought they were a good challenge overall with Nosferatu being my favorite. A remake of this game would go so hard.
8/10
First time play through was a long time coming. I’ve heard so much about this game. Some people never played it, some love it, some are mixed and some hate it so I was curious to see where I ended up on that spectrum.
This game is awesome (mostly) but some odd decisions and frustration hold it back from being a masterpiece.
Off the bat I’ll say the cutscenes/story in this game are probably my favorite in the series. It’s dialogue is goofy but it’s a RE game. The voice acting is overdone like always (especially Steve) but overall the story was very engaging and made the game feel big. This feels like the proper RE3. Wesker vs Chris grudge match, Claire and Chris reunited, islands self destructing, tyrants, etc it’s all good stuff. The game doesn’t do anything to reinvent the wheel as far as RE gameplay. It’s classic survival horror without pre-rendered backgrounds and with the ability to duel wield some weapons which is cool but doesn’t change much. The puzzles are challenging from the very beginning and only get harder by the time you’re playing as Chris later. Overall my biggest complaints is I feel the playtime coulda been trimmed a little, returning from the private residence all the way back to rodridgo is a bit excessive and some rooms/hallways are not super distinct so they can end up feeling very samey which can lead to some confusion and extra wandering around. There’s also some dumb stuff like the infamous moth hallway which is a real head scratcher, some areas you have to take damage essentially and the game seems to want to fuck the player over by having Claire and Chris share item boxes. Overall these complaints didn’t hamper my enjoyment of the game much at all. It’s essential for any RE or survival horror fan. It very well could have been the best in the series if not for some boneheaded decisions. Oh and also I actually enjoyed all these boss battles and thought they were a good challenge overall with Nosferatu being my favorite. A remake of this game would go so hard.
8/10
2022
HOT ASS