Arizona Sunshine is a classic VR title that introduced a lot of great things to VR. Arizona Sunshine 2 isn't a title I expected to release, so when it was announced I was quite surprised. How would an OG VR game feel in a post HL:A world?

Arizona Sunshine 2 ended up being more of the same from the original with a few added features, mainly some modern QOL options, revamped reloading, melee combat, and of course Buddy the dog.

QOL: The original AS released in a time when VR hadn't been figured out yet, so this is a huge step up in terms of general feel. Items no longer clip through walls, weapons have weight, and the world is more interactable overall. All of these changes make the whole experience far more engaging and immersive, elevating it to modern VR standards. It's far from perfect though, especially compared to VR titans like HL:A and TWD:S&S.

Reloading: In the original AS, reloading was insanely fast and easy to understand. You simply would move your gun to your waist and that's it. No grabbing clips and having to cock the gun, just a simple flick of the wrist. What was probably implemented as a quick and easy system to develop was actually one of AS1's best gameplay mechanics. In AS2, reloading has been entirely revamped in favor of realism. It's far from the worst reloading I've ever had to deal with in a VR game, but it is certainly far worse than in AS1. This isn't some phenomenal, realistic zombie game like TWD:S&S, this is an arcade zombie shooter. Having to perform multiple inputs to reload when there are 50 zombies chasing behind you is far less enjoyable than simply flicking your wrist and having a full clip. Truly a baffling design change.

Melee Combat: By far the best addition. There are many different weapons to choose from and while they all operate the same, they all manage to feel distinct. Slicing off zombie heads feels fantastic, you can tell a lot of work went into making it feel just right. Now it's definitely not a perfect melee system, TWD:S&S is far better, but it is certainly satisfying and fits perfectly into an arcade zombie shooter.

Crafting: Probably the most forgettable addition. You can find crafting resources all over the game and will occasionally run into a crafting table where you can craft various explosive items... and that's it. You can't craft ammo or healing items, things that are far more important. Not to mention you can only hold a maximum of 2 grenades, and for that you'll have to sacrifice holding a healing item. Crafting isn't a bad idea at all, but not allowing you to craft ammo is insane.

Story: The story in AS1 is light and took a backseat compared to the gameplay, and it's pretty similar here. There is a bit more emphasis on it this time around, but it's still nothing major. I don't really have any problems with the story, it's not gripping or anything, but it's not trying to be. My main problem comes with the dialogue. In AS1 the dialogue was certainly immature and filled with pointless swearing, but here in AS2, it's somehow far worse. Every few seconds this guy is spewing potty humor to the point where I genuinely felt embarrassed for the writers and voice actor. It really does feel written by a child, it baffles me how this got approved.

Buddy: An interesting addition that wasn't necessary, but I'm glad he's here. Buddy helps in combat, grabs keys, holds guns, and can wear hats. You can pet him as well, but that goes without saying. My only gripe with him is that he won't help in combat unless told to. You have to press a face button, aim at a zombie, and then he'll help. Would make far more sense if he would just spring into action as soon you start fighting.

Co-op: Probably the best thing they could've added, as I highly doubt I would've picked up either games without the co-op aspect. Unfortunately it's not very fleshed out and has many issues, but it brings so much more enjoyment that I can look past the problems.

Bugs and Performance: This was a nightmare to play on the HP Reverb G2. Crashing on just about every chapter, sometimes resulting in a full computer restart. I finally switched over to the Quest 2 using Link and it was certainly better, but come on, I should be able to use my headset of choice without issues. Bugs were abundant, such as weapons disappearing, Buddy vanishing, and having a co-op player spawn on the other side of the map or on the other side of a locked door. The lack of QA here is quite obvious and I hope these issues are fixed before the game is abandoned.

Overall, Arizona Sunshine 2 was an enjoyable experience, although a very obnoxious one. I hope Vertigo Games learns from this and can make something truly great on their next try.

7/10

Impressive of Bethesda to make a game where their gameplay staples are worse in almost every way to Fallout 4

The thing that gets me the most is that the Settlements system is so bogged by skill tree gating (the skill tree in this game is god awful, like jesus christ) and the abundance of different materials, which need to be crafted into other materials, which need to be crafted into other materials, which needs habitable planets with animals/flora in order to collect them, of which there aren't many. Add on to the fact that you either have an outpost limit or a supply link limit AND that theres no in-game benefits, theres no real incentive to do any of it at all. Genuinely madman stuff. It'd all be great if it had even an ounce of the complexity of a dedicated logistics game, but its just the FO4 system with ten times the bloat.

Also MAN do the companions need to shut up. All of them speak some incessant line if you dare do anything basic like pick up an item. It's so awful that the thought of having anyone on my crew, as a companion, was terrifying.

There is so much more to this like the weapons lacking variety - I guess they thought the rarity system would compensate for it? - but also not feeling great to handle? Like seriously, genuinely struggling to find any positive for this game here. I came at this with the lowest expectations, its not like I was intending to get disappointed by it. Just wanted
the comfy gameplay loop of FO4 except a bit more refined, but they dont even come close.

I have had a lot of difficulty choosing a score for this, but I think that even though it's far from perfect, it deserves a 10/10. I am totally engrossed in this world and it still hasn't worn off after 60+ hours. At 40 hours, I only thought it was an 8/10. At 50 hours, I raised it to a 9/10. But after 60 hours, I'm confident that this is a 10/10. Yes, the loading screens are annoying, but they don't hurt the game for me that much, especially after 60 hours they just fall into the background. There are bugs, but nothing has been game breaking and with a game this massive, it's bound to happen. The main story is pretty weak overall and that's one of my major reasons for wanting to cut a point, but in the grand scheme of things the main story is a very small portion of this game, and even then it's not terrible, it has its memorable moments.

Starfield is a game that I wanted to try just because I knew the next major Bethesda RPG would be an event in gaming, I've never even played The Elder Scrolls or Fallout. I was expecting to find an interesting and silly little game to stream to my friends, which turned out to be one of the most memorable, amazing experiences I've had.

I'll be cherishing Starfield for years to come and I hope that after the dust has settled, its acknowledged as the fascinating masterpiece it truly is.

Didn't like this one as much as I had hoped to. The soundtrack is amazing, the graphics are phenomenal for the Wii, and there are some really interesting ideas in here, but it just doesn't hit the mark.

My biggest problem comes with how you control Mario. Coming from Odyssey to Galaxy is like going from being a professional athlete to learning how to walk. Mario is so painstakingly SLOW. He barely has any moves and even simple things like falling off of a small ledge grind you to a nearly complete stop. The spin move is such a boring, generic idea that is expanded upon so much in Odyssey with Cappy that this feels like a very early idea that somehow stuck with the project in its simplest form. I know the levels are designed around these movement limitations and it was likely done this way because of the Wii Remote being such a weird controller, but playing it today with a modern controller shows just how rough it is. Mario controls like a guided missile underwater for some reason, very tedious.

The level design is good at times, but can definitely feel a little lazy. This is by far my least favorite style of Mario. He is not meant to be on these tiny little planets, he's meant to be in far larger environments. The game is at its best when you are just on the ground in a larger environment, but unfortunately that's pretty rare. When you are on planets where you are meant to go all around the surface, the controls and camera really struggle for some reason.

The camera is not controllable by the player for the vast majority of the game, usually only allowing for a weird first person view instead of any real control. I'm sure this was because the Wii remote didn't have a second stick, so the rare camera control is done by the D-Pad. You'd imagine that the game would have a very smart camera and many scripted sequences, and while yes there are many scripted camera sections, it is very jarring when they aren't there. You'll be heading in one direction and instead of following Mario, the camera will just show you what is behind you instead of where you are going, which can definitely lead to some falls. It's just disappointing how frustrating the camera can be, a problem that 3D Mario struggled with until 3D Land.

The enemies and boss fights are pretty good. Enemies have a large variety and different ways that they can be defeated. Boss battles are kind of hit or miss, some are really great where as others are insanely easy or just boring.

Many obvious Quality of Life features are not present, such as the game booting you back to the observatory when you get a bonus star, even if you were in the middle of getting a different star. There's a level where you have to go around collecting pieces of a star, very simple stuff, but it can take quite a few minutes to do. If you somehow fall and die, all of the star pieces will go back to where they were and you have to do everything all over again. I could understand that if I ran out of lives, but come on, it's not like the game doesn't already have checkpoints. There are various other small problems, but you get the idea.

The Hub world is an interesting idea, but heavily lacking. The best hub world in Mario is definitely Peach's Castle in 64. Peach's Castle is such a good hub world because it's so large and fun to explore, you never know what you are going to find next! The Hub in Galaxy is the complete opposite. It's small and has very few interesting things to see. Instead of feeling like an fun place to explore and run around in, it feels like a menu that has NPC characters to talk to. The Hub starts off mostly shrouded in darkness, but will power up as you collect Grand Stars. This is a good idea in theory, but it doesn't feel very impactful. The only thing you really gain from powering up the Hub are more levels. You could say the same thing about Peach's Castle, but there you also got new, interesting areas to explore.

Galaxy features many optional stages. There are three types, ones that you unlock by feeding a hungry Luma with starbits, ones that you unlock from simply playing the game, and comets. The first two are perfectly fine, but comets have a slight issue. You cannot choose when you would like to play a specific comet level, as they will randomly come in orbit of a planet. It sounds like it could be a fun mechanic, randomly approaching you with a slightly more challenging level. The problem arises when you don't want to play these levels, they are optional after all. I wanted to play all of the normal levels on a specific planet, having already completed the other two planets in the observatory. As I clicked on the planet to start the second level, I was greeted by the comet in orbit. I tried the comet level, came to the conclusion that I didn't really want to complete it, and went back to the observatory. You'd think that skipping over an optional level would be as simple as clicking a button to dismiss the comet, but there is a bit more to it than that. I had to leave the observatory, slowly make my way to the other side of the Hub, talk to a luma, tell him to move the comet, pay him for his services, then walk all the way back. After playing through the second level, I was ready for the third, only to be greeted by the same comet again, having to redo all of those steps. It's not a huge problem or anything, but it definitely is a prime example of bad game design.

Story is a weird topic for Mario games. It's usually very simple, bowser captures peach blah blah blah, but sometimes it's made a bit more interesting, throwing in a new setting or maybe Bowser is up to something else along with his regularly scheduled Peach capturing. Galaxy goes for a wildly different approach, being far more dramatic with a lot more world building than previous and future titles. Bowser does capture Peach in this game, but his real goal is to create an entirely new galaxy. Mario is saved by a new princess, Rosalina, who is very mysterious. You are slowly given pieces of a pictures book as you complete sections of the game that further develop and give depth to Rosalina. I'm sure to many people this sounds great, but it's just not for me. Mario does not need a big story with super dramatic cutscenes, it just feels kind of ridiculous. He's a plumber fighting a big turtle, and it's just a weird decision to try and make it so epic. I hear that Galaxy 2 takes the same story and dumbs it down a bit, which I think I'll prefer. I believe Miyamoto is right about story in games when it comes to Mario.

Overall, Super Mario Galaxy is a game that surprised me with just how many faults it has, especially with the high amount of praise it continually receives. I know it sounds like I hated this game, but I still enjoyed the experience and I'm glad I finally gave it a shot.

7/10