GRYITH
2014
After beating Spider-Man again I thought I’d turn back the clock and play this, and I can very solidly say that they saw Infamous 2 from Sucker Punch and they saw Saint’s Row 3 from Volition, and Insomniac said ‘hey, what if we did both of those’, and so they did. What came out was a game with the writing of Saints Row 3, the traversal of Infamous 2 and, least surprisingly, the combat of Ratchet and Clank.
I’ll do a quick rant about some observations on insomniac’s movement system evolution before talking about the game proper. One particularly interesting thing is using this as a direct connector between Infamous 2 and Spider-Man, at least with the movement systems. Every move you can do to get around in Infamous is in this game, but Insomniac went ‘nope too slow, not flashy enough’ and swapped climbing walls for bouncing off every other object, and they decided that the rail grinding in that game would be the primary movement mechanic now, thereby making it faster and smoother than Sucker Punch’s system. They then took what they did here, replaced rail grinding with web swinging, and bar swinging with web-zip, and put every single move from this game’s movement system into Spider-Man (they even directly re-use a lot of animations, just take a look at the front flip and wall riding animations as easy examples), and then gave Spidey even more movement options and abilities, as well as smoothing out the movement experience. Interestingly though, for spider-man they didn’t have there be a threat if you fail to take advantage of the movement system. Here, if you stop, you’ll quickly be swarmed or shot, in Spider-Man, if you fail, you just get embarrassed, but in my dark living room that doesn’t really mean much. I think they sacrificed this threat because Spider-Man’s movement is a lot more involved and input/timing heavy than here, so having enemies on top of that (which it admittedly does in the latter third of the game) would make it a bit much to handle in an open world setting. Ironically this makes spider-man a step forward in terms of complexity and depth but a step back to what was available in Infamous in terms of challenge.
Anyway, on this game; The story is. Non-existent, but the writing is fun enough to pull it through. It strikes that perfect balance that Saint’s Row 3 and 4, as well as Borderlands 2 does where the script is pandering and goofy but in a heartfelt and charming way, as opposed to just feeling cold and calculated in it’s pandering like, say, Borderlands 3 and Saint’s Row (2022) do.
In combat Insomniac takes a lot of cues from their previous Ratchet and Clank games with a variety of fun, interesting and meaningfully different weapons that I really had trouble choosing between, I do wish there was more of a variety of enemies to use them against, and the lack of enemy and environment variety in combat makes things feel stale sometimes, but the design of areas and arenas really takes advantage of the movement, which really heightens what you can do in combat. It’s a shame that the only other time Insomniac has used movement that’s as interesting as this is in Spider-Man, and even then it barely factors into combat, and the only other time they use it in a shooter is in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and even then it just flirts with jump pads and grind rails in some combat scenarios. It’s probably because they took this fast paced movement mixed with a shooter concept directly from this game’s biggest inspiration, Infamous 2, but seeing as it doesn’t look like we’re getting a new Infamous game any time soon, it’d be nice to see Insomniac, who largely do it better here than Sucker Punch did in Infamous 2, take on the torch.
I really liked this, but it feels like it’s close to greatness, only just missing the mark. Perhaps in the upcoming Spider-Man 2 Insomniac can finally figure out how to make an interesting open world (they got pretty damn close in rift apart) and go even harder on the gadgets from the first spidey game (make them combine with the hand to hand combat better and make them more aesthetically fun instead of just ‘web bomb, electric web, web drone, impact web’, you can do more there), and if they give that game the combination of the traversal and combat systems that they do here, it could be FANTASTIC.
Insomniac just seem cursed to make ‘really good’ games, always only just missing greatness.
I’ll do a quick rant about some observations on insomniac’s movement system evolution before talking about the game proper. One particularly interesting thing is using this as a direct connector between Infamous 2 and Spider-Man, at least with the movement systems. Every move you can do to get around in Infamous is in this game, but Insomniac went ‘nope too slow, not flashy enough’ and swapped climbing walls for bouncing off every other object, and they decided that the rail grinding in that game would be the primary movement mechanic now, thereby making it faster and smoother than Sucker Punch’s system. They then took what they did here, replaced rail grinding with web swinging, and bar swinging with web-zip, and put every single move from this game’s movement system into Spider-Man (they even directly re-use a lot of animations, just take a look at the front flip and wall riding animations as easy examples), and then gave Spidey even more movement options and abilities, as well as smoothing out the movement experience. Interestingly though, for spider-man they didn’t have there be a threat if you fail to take advantage of the movement system. Here, if you stop, you’ll quickly be swarmed or shot, in Spider-Man, if you fail, you just get embarrassed, but in my dark living room that doesn’t really mean much. I think they sacrificed this threat because Spider-Man’s movement is a lot more involved and input/timing heavy than here, so having enemies on top of that (which it admittedly does in the latter third of the game) would make it a bit much to handle in an open world setting. Ironically this makes spider-man a step forward in terms of complexity and depth but a step back to what was available in Infamous in terms of challenge.
Anyway, on this game; The story is. Non-existent, but the writing is fun enough to pull it through. It strikes that perfect balance that Saint’s Row 3 and 4, as well as Borderlands 2 does where the script is pandering and goofy but in a heartfelt and charming way, as opposed to just feeling cold and calculated in it’s pandering like, say, Borderlands 3 and Saint’s Row (2022) do.
In combat Insomniac takes a lot of cues from their previous Ratchet and Clank games with a variety of fun, interesting and meaningfully different weapons that I really had trouble choosing between, I do wish there was more of a variety of enemies to use them against, and the lack of enemy and environment variety in combat makes things feel stale sometimes, but the design of areas and arenas really takes advantage of the movement, which really heightens what you can do in combat. It’s a shame that the only other time Insomniac has used movement that’s as interesting as this is in Spider-Man, and even then it barely factors into combat, and the only other time they use it in a shooter is in Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart, and even then it just flirts with jump pads and grind rails in some combat scenarios. It’s probably because they took this fast paced movement mixed with a shooter concept directly from this game’s biggest inspiration, Infamous 2, but seeing as it doesn’t look like we’re getting a new Infamous game any time soon, it’d be nice to see Insomniac, who largely do it better here than Sucker Punch did in Infamous 2, take on the torch.
I really liked this, but it feels like it’s close to greatness, only just missing the mark. Perhaps in the upcoming Spider-Man 2 Insomniac can finally figure out how to make an interesting open world (they got pretty damn close in rift apart) and go even harder on the gadgets from the first spidey game (make them combine with the hand to hand combat better and make them more aesthetically fun instead of just ‘web bomb, electric web, web drone, impact web’, you can do more there), and if they give that game the combination of the traversal and combat systems that they do here, it could be FANTASTIC.
Insomniac just seem cursed to make ‘really good’ games, always only just missing greatness.
It's such a shame that one of the best movement systems and most interesting combat systems in years is wasted on this boring world and dull story. I spent 80-90% of my time with the game just running around doing side content, and it was when I realised that that I decided to delete the game.
2018
I feel a little more positively toward it, but there's just not much that jumps out to me, I expected more, especially from the story, how did this win so many awards?
Anyway, The devs of this game must have the Midas touch, not because this is gold, but because this is surprisingly mid as hell.
Anyway, The devs of this game must have the Midas touch, not because this is gold, but because this is surprisingly mid as hell.
2022
It's such a good time for quick gimmicky action games that absolutely slap... But have awful writing. This is very similar in that respect to Neon White, the other big indie fast paced gimmick shooter of the year. The Doom inspiration is so obvious it isn't worth mentioning, but for the most part this surpasses the label of 'doom clone'.
Over the last couple of years there's been a few games that have tried the 'FPS rhythm shooter' formula over the last few years, and I've played a lot of them, but they've always felt like they're missing something. This game finally hits the mark with a simple and easy to use inventory system, music that's easy to keep track of the best for, a variety of weapons that interact with the beat timings in different ways and enemies that are responsive and interesting.
The only problem I have is with level design, I spent maybe 75% of my time with the game at 16X multiplier, and then 10% was me losing my grip on the timing momentarily, but the remaining 15% was just losing combos because enemies can't find me, are too far away or I've accidentally run from them, I don't think this is a problem with enemy design more than the levels being not ideally designed to keep killing them as quickly as is required by the combo system, and it leads to some frustrating moments.
However, I was expecting next to nothing from this, and it's become one of my favourites this year, easily top 10, I just wish it was longer as I easily beat it in under 4 hours; at least it has challenge modes to come back to.
Over the last couple of years there's been a few games that have tried the 'FPS rhythm shooter' formula over the last few years, and I've played a lot of them, but they've always felt like they're missing something. This game finally hits the mark with a simple and easy to use inventory system, music that's easy to keep track of the best for, a variety of weapons that interact with the beat timings in different ways and enemies that are responsive and interesting.
The only problem I have is with level design, I spent maybe 75% of my time with the game at 16X multiplier, and then 10% was me losing my grip on the timing momentarily, but the remaining 15% was just losing combos because enemies can't find me, are too far away or I've accidentally run from them, I don't think this is a problem with enemy design more than the levels being not ideally designed to keep killing them as quickly as is required by the combo system, and it leads to some frustrating moments.
However, I was expecting next to nothing from this, and it's become one of my favourites this year, easily top 10, I just wish it was longer as I easily beat it in under 4 hours; at least it has challenge modes to come back to.
I've just finished an extended 10 hour demo of this game. Between Elden Ring, Lies of P and this, we're spoiled this year for soulslikes, and those are just the great ones (too bad thymesia was... Not great).
I've got a really strange relationship with this title. In my previous job I worked doing some of the marketing copy for it before it was announced, now in my new job I'm playing it early for editorial and news content, in a completely unrelated capacity. In both of those roles this game seemed super interesting, with unique visuals with an interesting art mechanic, well-refined soulslike gameplay with its own unique twists, and fun and engaging writing reminiscent of The Stanley Parable.
The great thing is that it has the Mets narrative and commentary about the commodification of nostalgia and IP without sacrificing having the deep world and location-based lore that this genre is known for.
I can't wait to play this game as soon as the full release comes out, and it's one I can easily recommend.
I've got a really strange relationship with this title. In my previous job I worked doing some of the marketing copy for it before it was announced, now in my new job I'm playing it early for editorial and news content, in a completely unrelated capacity. In both of those roles this game seemed super interesting, with unique visuals with an interesting art mechanic, well-refined soulslike gameplay with its own unique twists, and fun and engaging writing reminiscent of The Stanley Parable.
The great thing is that it has the Mets narrative and commentary about the commodification of nostalgia and IP without sacrificing having the deep world and location-based lore that this genre is known for.
I can't wait to play this game as soon as the full release comes out, and it's one I can easily recommend.
2022
Snore.
2022
’That really hurts. But if you want to kill the mother of god, you'll need a better weapon.'
IMMORTALITY is one of the best games I've ever played, it is truly unique, it is everything I love in both game and film (combining both in an unholy synthesis that goes beyond any other FMV), whilst being a deconstruction of everything wrong with how we culturally treat both film and video games. The gameplay is novel and interesting, and once I realised I didn't have to use my mouse at all, the movieola-style interaction really came into its own, like I was in some alternate version of the movie Blow Out.
Immortality will not be for everyone, some may compare it to point and click games, or 2d puzzle games, or the work of Lynch or Jodorowski, but no comparison can truly prepare you for what this game has to offer, the only thing I can think to really compare it to is Silent Hill 2, and even then only loosely. Again, not everyone will want this, or enjoy it, it doesn't give you a clear objective other than 'find out what happened to Marissa Marcel', and for some that won't be enough, but for others (like myself) this oddity is exactly what I needed. This has energised my passion for both games and film, and has well and truly blown me away in every conceivable way. This is the first time a video game has been posed as 'for adults' and actually felt like something made for mature and fully developed people only, this isn't a gate keeping thing either, compare the likes of GTA and Outlast, posed for adults but also clearly for teenagers who want to feel adult, against this; a surrealist, slow burn character study and esoteric look at corruption in entertainment. It even does something I normally consider a cardinal sin, the presentation of sex as inherently gross or taboo, but considering the religious preoccupation of the narrative and the role sex and sexuality, especially as it relates to gender and the film industry, plays in the narrative, it completely works, even in the more shocking moments. Not only is this a comment on problems the film industry has had for decades, it looks forward to the games industry, comparing the medium of last century to the medium of this century, and asks us to not let the same thing happen in games (looking at you Activision, blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, etc)
However, there are some technical bugs, sometimes inputs can get confused by the game, and there are some sound issues with sounds playing when they shouldn't (and not stoping without a game restart) and the audio track for clips more than sometimes not playing at all unless you hit pause, wait, and then hit play. But these are bugs that won't severely hamper your experience of this phenomenal achievement.
I haven't even scratched the surface of my thoughts about this game, but I'd easily hit the word limit of Backloggd if I attempted to get it all out, I'll be thinking about and digesting this one for a long time.
P.S. I was not expecting this to be a horror game, but this unnerved and genuinely frightened me more than any game in recent memory, it did a lot of things no game in recent memory has done.
IMMORTALITY is one of the best games I've ever played, it is truly unique, it is everything I love in both game and film (combining both in an unholy synthesis that goes beyond any other FMV), whilst being a deconstruction of everything wrong with how we culturally treat both film and video games. The gameplay is novel and interesting, and once I realised I didn't have to use my mouse at all, the movieola-style interaction really came into its own, like I was in some alternate version of the movie Blow Out.
Immortality will not be for everyone, some may compare it to point and click games, or 2d puzzle games, or the work of Lynch or Jodorowski, but no comparison can truly prepare you for what this game has to offer, the only thing I can think to really compare it to is Silent Hill 2, and even then only loosely. Again, not everyone will want this, or enjoy it, it doesn't give you a clear objective other than 'find out what happened to Marissa Marcel', and for some that won't be enough, but for others (like myself) this oddity is exactly what I needed. This has energised my passion for both games and film, and has well and truly blown me away in every conceivable way. This is the first time a video game has been posed as 'for adults' and actually felt like something made for mature and fully developed people only, this isn't a gate keeping thing either, compare the likes of GTA and Outlast, posed for adults but also clearly for teenagers who want to feel adult, against this; a surrealist, slow burn character study and esoteric look at corruption in entertainment. It even does something I normally consider a cardinal sin, the presentation of sex as inherently gross or taboo, but considering the religious preoccupation of the narrative and the role sex and sexuality, especially as it relates to gender and the film industry, plays in the narrative, it completely works, even in the more shocking moments. Not only is this a comment on problems the film industry has had for decades, it looks forward to the games industry, comparing the medium of last century to the medium of this century, and asks us to not let the same thing happen in games (looking at you Activision, blizzard, Ubisoft, EA, etc)
However, there are some technical bugs, sometimes inputs can get confused by the game, and there are some sound issues with sounds playing when they shouldn't (and not stoping without a game restart) and the audio track for clips more than sometimes not playing at all unless you hit pause, wait, and then hit play. But these are bugs that won't severely hamper your experience of this phenomenal achievement.
I haven't even scratched the surface of my thoughts about this game, but I'd easily hit the word limit of Backloggd if I attempted to get it all out, I'll be thinking about and digesting this one for a long time.
P.S. I was not expecting this to be a horror game, but this unnerved and genuinely frightened me more than any game in recent memory, it did a lot of things no game in recent memory has done.
2021
An audiovisual GEM that absolutely will stay in my mind for a long while, that sadly doesn't do much that's very unique in the gameplay, but what it does do it does really well! It's got a great story and great pacing, and did I mention how amazing it looks and sounds?
2022
The PT-inspired horror puzzle game is a genre that never seems to run out of steam, and every one of them, whilst similar, are always pretty great, and this is no different. I don't think this will take up much space in my memory but I'm glad I spent a couple of nights playing through it.
2018
IT'S DUSK!!!
IVE BEEN PLAYING IT FOR LIKE 3 YEARS AND STILL JUMP INTO IT!!
THE DOOM CLONE SO GOOD IT SURPASSES THE LABEL!!!!
IVE BEEN PLAYING IT FOR LIKE 3 YEARS AND STILL JUMP INTO IT!!
THE DOOM CLONE SO GOOD IT SURPASSES THE LABEL!!!!
2004
Imagine fatal frame but in a historical setting and instead of the combating being arcade-style shooting it's a melee combat system and magic spells. I really liked some of what it did with the story and how the playable characters played into each other's stories, but generally this is pretty derivative and doesn't have much to offer to anyone but me (who is constantly craving more survival horror).
2020
I LOVE STYLISH FAST-PACED ACTION GAMES SO MUCH, THEY ARE MY LIFE-BLOOD LEAKING FROM MY SEVERED HEAD, I HAVE NO TIME TO USE IT ANYWAY.
I am sad about how little time it took me to beat this, but it is genuinely challenging and god damn does it look good, it's just a shame that it suffers from 'being a roguelike' disease and that I just play too many games like this.
I am sad about how little time it took me to beat this, but it is genuinely challenging and god damn does it look good, it's just a shame that it suffers from 'being a roguelike' disease and that I just play too many games like this.
Not only does this just have better and more varied gameplay than Umbrella Chronicles, The fact it's just a light-gun remake of RE2 gives it a certain charm, even if the cutscenes are absolutely hideous. Also, why the hell is the camera moving around so much.
2016
This did not come out in 2016, this came out this year, it has to have, this is so far ahead of the entire military FPS genre, the movement is so fun, from the doing and sliding as the BT to the fast, wall running, double jumping action of the pilot; and the character animations on the BTs, it's giving Valve, it's next-level.
It is, however, still just a military FPS. The story would be snore worthy without the amazing level design and gameplay. And it doesn't help that it peaks about two hours in. Big those first two hours are some of the most cool I've played in ages.
The tutorial tests you and sets the difficulty level based on your capability during it, something more games should do, the the first level wastes no time getting you into everything in a rocky mountainous area that lets you really experiment with the movement and combat systems. Then it kicks things into third gear with the factory level, where you make your way around on panels that are gradually being built up into buildings, adding multiple levels of threat and tactical consideration, climaxing with a holographic fight on all of the buildings you've just seen get built. From there you go straight into one of the best levels I've played in a game all year. The time switching mechanic in the third level of this game is so good it puts the entire rest of the game to shame, in the half an hour that it's featured in the game it's so well utilised, fully realised and incredibly impressive that it genuinely boggles my mind that they just... Get rid of it. It fits an entire games worth of mechanic development into just one level, with the most interesting story sections and setpeieces of the entire game, the final setpiece of this level really wows.
In fact, it's so good up to this point that the entire rest of the game feels just... Fine by comparison.
Still worth playing.
It is, however, still just a military FPS. The story would be snore worthy without the amazing level design and gameplay. And it doesn't help that it peaks about two hours in. Big those first two hours are some of the most cool I've played in ages.
The tutorial tests you and sets the difficulty level based on your capability during it, something more games should do, the the first level wastes no time getting you into everything in a rocky mountainous area that lets you really experiment with the movement and combat systems. Then it kicks things into third gear with the factory level, where you make your way around on panels that are gradually being built up into buildings, adding multiple levels of threat and tactical consideration, climaxing with a holographic fight on all of the buildings you've just seen get built. From there you go straight into one of the best levels I've played in a game all year. The time switching mechanic in the third level of this game is so good it puts the entire rest of the game to shame, in the half an hour that it's featured in the game it's so well utilised, fully realised and incredibly impressive that it genuinely boggles my mind that they just... Get rid of it. It fits an entire games worth of mechanic development into just one level, with the most interesting story sections and setpeieces of the entire game, the final setpiece of this level really wows.
In fact, it's so good up to this point that the entire rest of the game feels just... Fine by comparison.
Still worth playing.
2008
I think maybe there's just a problem with the even numbered entires in this series, don't get my wrong this is MILES better than 2, but it's also not as good as 3, but maybe a little better than one, I'd have to think about it more; this is however... Good. I liked Nero he's fun enough, Dante is great but the levels he's used in are not as good as Nero's but he's less fun to play as, it's just a bit of poor positioning all 'round really.