Solid version of 'Tetris' on 3DS, while the loss of online features might hurt it today, they were a good inclusion for the time. The tuning of the game itself is pretty much perfect, presentation is solid, and it has a decent suite of modes. Marathon is rendered a bit redundant since clearing level 15 isn't the highest demand the game could ask of you, but it does unlock the standard endless mode one is after. Sprint and Ultra feel like the expected timed modes you find in any 'Tetris' game worth its salt and they're alright if a bit unimaginative. Battle and Battle Ultimate kinda suck though, the TetriBot is pathetic and doesn't hold up much of a fight at all, you're much better off doing some local play with friends for that sort of experience. The challenge modes are neat though and certainly worth ones time. Overall its fine, not as interesting as something like 'Puyo Puyo Tetris' or 'Tetris Effect' but I prefer the presentation quite a bit more over something like 'Tetris: Axis', but I suspect that title is more feature packed and therefor considered the ideal 3DS 'Tetris' release.

On the surface, there's something rather off-putting to me about 'Armored Core 2: Another Age' as a cultural artefact. The 'bigger is better' philosophy is garish in all periods of course, but the quaking ground the industry now stands on because of it makes it all the more foul to the taste. I confess this is the central reason I avoided 'Another Age' at first, my resentment of overly long games which pitch themselves as such almost purely for the sake of itself as a novelty deterred me and invoked my shameful reactionary purely because of the timely context I myself as a player and critic exist in. What I would not have anticipated is one of the more fascinating and, now in my view, important entries in FromSoftware's catalogue.

It's easy to perceive 'Another Age' as merely more 'Armored Core 2', so say we humour this perspective for a little while. On this platform, one will discover 'Another Age' a simultaneously invigoratingly inventive and suffocatingly boring experiment of a project, with equal ability to dazzle and push the technology and conceptualisation abilities of its predecessor as well as risk surprise top surgery with its insipid monotony threatening to really bore one's tits off. It's a bizarre experience to watch this game violently vacillate between the series' very best moments and very worst in its bountiful mission variety. On this easy perspective, one might also be aware of the mechanical succession to 'Armored Core 2', a game I held qualms with on the basis of difficulty and mechanical onboarding. 'Another Age' amends my previous notes here by being both significantly harder and, hilariously enough, longer. Unlike '2' I felt actively prodded by the structure of 'Another Age' to create a variety of ACs and engage with all aspects of the construction process in a way I found far more engaging and well rounded, it helped to notice the good manner to which the game introduces it's layers as this is the only expansion game other than 'Project Phantasma' where I did not load a save.

So concludes this little written experiment of 'Armored Core 2: Another Age' as simply more 'Armored Core 2', a far more inconsistent experience that is bolder in mission design as well as being, in completeness, more systemically and mechanically rich and satisfying, held down primarily by the fact that it is fucking hopelessly absent on a cohesive or conventionally compelling narrative context. 3/5, not enough fish, will hang myself in my cute dress later.

But this is reductive, so it's time for me to commit to my tradition in reviews and embarrass myself properly.

'Armored Core 2: Another Age' from an actual cohesive perspective is, without contest, the most experiential of FromSoftware's mecha titles. This doesn't mean it's the best, not even close, but it does mean it's dramatically more important than its exterior would suggest, and I can now fully understand where folks are coming from in their love of the title. There is, in critical space, some well earned admiration for the world building in previous titles achieved through cold dialogue and a practically inhuman structure. 'Armored Core 2: Another Age', because of it's excellent mechanics and demand for player engagement with its most important systems in AC building, because of it's borderline abrasive mission variety and broad curation of it's 100 mission catalog, because of it's completely barren, detached and decisively not cohesive narrative, this is the purest distillation of the 'Armored Core' experience that has presently been conceived. The emptiness, the boredom that was felt in this game's lows stopped being flaws for me to harp on in my annoying review and instead became an integral part of the experience that, in retrospect, I wouldn't have any other way. Never before have I felt so drearily detached from myself, from my behaviour in one of these games. The progression of the world building is limited only to the changing landscapes of metallic murder you travel to as the map expands, painting the world itself in physicality as nothing more than stages for violence, total background noise. This technique of environmental storytelling is, of course, very important to what would evolve stylistically in the city of Layered in 'Armored Core 3', but thematically, this absent separation of Raven from Place is deeply important to what is explored in that third generation. A legion of metal and smoke charging forward across the Earth in systemic automation, ignorant and disconnected from the environment itself they impose upon, doomed to face its retort beyond the rebooted setting's Silent Line. This all starts in 'Another Age', truly marking it as a deeply important play in my eyes. There's no 'plot', there's nothing real in 'characters', this is truly immersive experiential storytelling, there is nothing but a dissociative conflict of corporate interests which you numb yourself into accepting, a furious blend of steel and fire signifying only the greatest, grossest industrial heights of our systemic failure. This is a very unique kind of compelling, one that the series feels born for given the notes of it sprinkled in all entries, but 'Another Age' is the only title to truly slice it down to the bare nub of it's meaning, and for that, I passionately applaud it. Given how much FromSoftware's later work is championed for this kind of storytelling, I'm surprised to hear the sentiment of 'Another Age' having no story to be one so common, because with a small change in perspective one may realise that this bloated experiment is hollowingly rich with it.

Alright, let's get this out of the way, this game isn't amazing. Definitely the weakest FromSoftware game I've played but there are some things I like. For one, it's the mechanics of 'Armored Core' and gen 3.5 too, so obviously the game is fun. However, this is basically an Arena or AC on AC focused title, and to it's credit it is very good at this so long as you are loading a 'Nexus' save.
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EDIT: THIS IS WRONG, apparently you'll be locked out of getting certain parts for doing this so I may have really messed up, lol.
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This is by far the most 'expansion' one of these 'expansion games' has ever been as it's basically a great Arena mode with tons of fun opponents and matchmaking preferences that is to be added onto 'Nexus', due to having no shop and leaving new saves to slowly gain new parts by progressing in it and the totally vapid tutorials 'Armored Core: Nine Breaker' which eventually roll the credits on the game. This is really what brings in down, in the sense that this just feels like 'Armored Core: Nexus' disc 3 and is weird as a standalone release. Because doing tutorials for hours to actually beat it? It's as suffocatingly boring as it sounds, but the Arena itself is good fun with the new balancing if you have a nice AC to load with you.

So yeah, I can't recommend it as essential playing, but it wasn't the worst thing I've played.

Tempering expectations for 'Armored Core: Nexus' did not come easy for me. My adoration for how well served I had been by its predecessor 'Silent Line: Armored Core' left me in a position both wanting and not wanting more at the same time. That sounds fucking stupid I know so, please, indulge me.

I didn't get on great with 'Nexus' off the bat. As much as I now understand them to be so obviously superior, I wasn't a fan of the controls and found myself slipping up a lot because of how long it took for me to rewire my muscle memory. I found the missions to be samey and done-before, the UI totally balmy, the heat mechanic overly oppressive—as despite the game having otherwise some of the best customisation and quantity of parts in the whole series, heat can really straddle the selection of certain parts—and the story lacking much in way of a hook. It took me a while to appreciate the detached and unceremonious nature of which the humans had penetrated the Silent Line, the nonchalant emptiness as a feeling is excellently congruent with the aimless ascension-ism they have been characterised with previously. With how much generation 3 built up the location, 3.5 knocking it all down without a flinch is almost nauseating as you are quickly shuttled into the same grove we were just in a game ago. Same systems, same mechanics, same destruction sans ethics and reason, wasn't something supposed to change? Something other than the mission select screen into something for a PC game? There's an understated and yet all consuming nihilism that underpins so much of the first half of 'Armored Core: Nexus', it's not just that the tone is noticeably bleaker, it's the connotation of everything you're doing feeling so similar. I'd whinge about the mission design being hackneyed but that almost feels like the point, culminating in an utterly hopeless ending which some could see from a mile away, because IBIS' remark so clearly means practically nothing now in the face of the systemic issues driving humanity. Of course the corporations dig too far, of course it means an apocalypse, that's not a spoiler, that's me doing your pattern recognition for you.
I respect this bleakness, it's powerful, and I appreciate how the obviousness of the missions aided this feeling in a truly immersive way, but that does not mean some of these missions aren't rushed or just flat out confusing on why they're even in the game. 'Nexus' was made very quickly and you can feel it in a lot of places, like when the same desert mission where you destroy tanks is split into two for some reason? It feels like this is where a normal 'Armored Core' level would just have you resupply, or not even that if we're talking 'Silent Line', and you do them so quickly after the other that it feels the most glaring. Also, on this note, FromSoftware has—for lack of better phrasing—totally fucked up the Arena here. There are maybe 10 encounters with it you have across the story and about four of those fights are memorable, genuinely not sure what they were doing here, it's like the worst interpretation of what 'Master of Arena' was doing in 1999. This sounds harsh, so I'm hasten to remind that 'Nexus' does have its strong sorties that are very much worth playing, particularly its final one which uses the apprehension felt for the impending doom very well alongside a really excellent final encounter with a... potentially familiar face. Top the game off with an excellent final gameplay section which embodies the moment and you have an all time classic here.

The game is helped a fair bit by the fact that certain presentational elements have clearly been mastered by this point. The game looks and sounds great, cutscene animation in particular is much more well done and the music is fantastic. Kota Hoshino is absolutely deserving of his legend status in the fanbase with these thrilling techno and rock tracks. The qualities from the third generation of great sampling and catchy groves are still here but with much richer instrumentation and more impassioned compositions, simply excellent work.

'Nexus' also has a bonus disc which might be worth mentioning, basically containing a selection of remade developer favourite levels from older 'Armored Core' games. It's a fun novelty with some neat B-Sides, but can be a little annoying or bland at points. I would only recommend it if you're a fan but, as that's what I am, I enjoyed it. A sentiment which may be applicable to all of this, but this is still a very strong title which has left the story in a powerful position.

'Silent Line: Armored Core' is a fantastic expansion game and has made itself possibly my favourite entry thus far. If 'Armored Core 3' was an engaging and surprisingly poignant mecha romp then 'Silent Line' is more so, only now further developed in conciseness and creativity.

Mechanically this is practically the same game so I won't repeat my praises of FromSoftware's introduction to the third generation, but this does not at all mean that these games play the same. 'Silent Line' is noticeably more demanding but also features levels which support more frantic combat and makes some changes to building your AC. Starting with the latter mentioned alterations, left arm weapons have evolved into proper form here, and there is now a huge variety of left arm ranged options to choose from, not just howitzers and laser blades. As long as you customise your control method to make firing both at the same time feasible you can create some utterly deadly combinations which will be necessary for these new, much more challenging missions. There's such excitement in how much 'Silent Line' expects of you, treating with almost 200 new parts, many of which are hidden off the beaten path in levels, making the polyamorous marriage between systems, mechanics and level designs stronger than it ever has been. They all feed each other dearly.

'Silent Line: Armored Core' truly has one of the most finely tuned difficulty curves I've enjoyed in a good amount of time, every single fight feels more intense than the last barring a singularly disappointing exception I'll speak on later, and the kinda weirdly balanced Arena. The Arena this time is gated and paced similarly to how to was in 1999s 'Armored Core: Master of Arena', and those of you who read my review of that game will know that I very much approve of this, it's just that I found most of the encounters too easy. Lots of the builds felt samey or had weaknesses so universal that the cool quirks of their design just never got a moment in the sun before being obliterated, but other than that occasional hiccup it was just as fun as it's always been and the best way to stay on top of the economy since mission providers are extremely stingy with cash this time around. John Morbius was certainly a more formidable Nine-Breaker than Ace, and the three new maps are all great additions which I spent a lot of time on. Now, while the Arena might be a bit on the absent minded side at times, the main missions are laden with welcome skill checks to keep even those who demonstrated great talent in the base game from slacking off. The mid-late game has great tests of endurance and careful consideration of how one spreads their AP across a mission in a daunting decent in an underground lab the player performs asynchronously with another pilot, or movement in a frenetic assault on a base near the titular location where orbital lasers paint the floor you spring from. Mission variety is on complete focus, as while this game is much shorter, it is only made better by how precise its concerns are. Every mission feels like it would have been among the best of 'Armored Core 3' and while the environmental design is not as rich, it still plays as an elegant framing device and has some very strong moments. On the former point, as missions get closer to the Line the areas become bleaker, more barren, featuring less to be able to draw conclusions with. This makes the mystery of the Silent Line as a location much stronger, giving its eventual reveal the same appeal as the surface possessed previously in '3', the design of the unique enemies which come to defend it being almost otherworldly in appearance makes the player controlled AC feel alien in these settings, immersing you as the encroaching force, the invasive vulture, reporting to a nest of saccharine metals and short-standing concrete. This idea is played through to the end and it's very compelling, it would be easy to think of the extended time you spend away from the Line and even underground in places from 'Armored Core 3' as cop outs, but the missions themselves that take place in moments like that are backed by the same level of enthralling, memorable challenge and elegant narrative contextualisation that it would feel weak-sauce to make a negative point out of. The return to the Controller's lair in old Layered is such a haunting section, doubling down on the presentational twinkles from 'Armored Core 3' of a bleaker, more tested setting that have now truly gleamed into the representative qualities they were building up to be. The mission, in terms of structural design, is also strikingly bold in asking "what if instead of having two enemy ACs up the player's ass... we had... three? Wouldn't that be bossed up?" And for sure, it was awesome, though someone really needs to teach Ori how to get his Moon Salt to re-ascend an elevator shaft properly without getting his big metal knob stuck in the crevices on the way up. These levels aren't padding, they're pacing, this builds reverence and anticipation for the unexplored region of the surface world, FromSoftware know how to mediate this aspect to great ends here and it results in quite the enticing game.

Such as it is advanced and majestic, the Silent Line, it is to take no want of humanity, ostensibly. As the game goes on the player will unknowingly build a relationship with the series' best antagonist who shall remain unnamed for the sake of keeping this review spoiler free, but the key understanding is simply something excellent. By the end, it is to be realised that it was never the Silent Line which rejects humanity, but rather the other way around, for the systems of capital have dominated so much of this setting that they now almost entirely define human existence all up to a single point, that of the vultures themselves. This system, these visions of metal and smoke, it never wanted the prosperity that could be found in the Silent Line to be constituted by attributes relating to the inherent worth of its environment—capital doesn't see things that way—it was merely some new medium of conquest, of advancement, of capital aspiration. Humanity, dictated by the corporations, pushed forward toward it in a pattern, a pattern so deep that no reason could penetrate its cover of cruel and spotless steel, simply because they had to, simply because there had never—in their minds at least—been anything else. The antagonist surreptitiously places faith in the player controlled Raven, provoking them at various points to think about what these organisations you cater to might do in their ascendancy to power, calling out to them in the dying voices of their minions , trying to reach them in some way to maybe awaken the idea that one mightn't feel all too comforted by this pattern of endless violence when it's logical conclusion draws closer. By the end, toppled over in an unfortunately easy boss encounter, they tell the Raven that "the rest is up to [them]", this onus, just as it did with Klein in 'Armored Core 2' comes back to those who might have the power to truly change things if they themselves can change, the faith placed again in those who choose to awaken anew, away from all of this.

The capital submissiveness of the Ravens as a focus could very well be seen as a little trite at this point, but I don't feel that way, not only because the 'Armored Core' series is finding more poignant language to express these things, but also because this language is being treated to an intersection relating to industrialisation's relationship with our physical environment in capital's inability to appreciate our very own Earth—or, as implied, any other aspect of life—so far as it sits outside it's own mind game, and the game has levelled out to a point of self awareness that makes it hard to call pretentious. The idea of the Ravens as competitive vultures has been played for both drama and comedy at this stage, with a one very funny mission in particular having three of them—including the player—start senselessly ripping each other apart during what was supposed to be an light aim training exercise, hilariously being one of the harder two-on-one fights in a game with a bunch of tough encounters of that type.

I have such deep affections for the third generation of 'Armored Core', these two are absolutely some of the best games on the PlayStation 2, which is saying a lot given the legendary status of the machine and its library. I feel like these are the two entries that really had me get what makes 'Armored Core' truly special. One really has to wonder how FromSoftware do it, but at any rate, I'm very excited to see what 'Nexus' does with this ground to jump off... and its right analog stick.

Seldom is a game devoured by me quite like 'Armored Core 3', and this has left me feeling a little undercut on my task here. I can't remember the last time I beat a game this fast, let alone sat down for 16 hours across two days to do nothing but play it. Maybe I’m a depressed neet, or maybe this game is just goated, who can really say for sure? At any rate, upon reflection on my time with this cult classic there's honestly so little of FromSoftware's work here that I feel is worth criticising, and while all my game reviews have done an excellent job in making me feel totally useless, here I worry that this piece will be me grossly wasting your time beyond previous levels, dearest reader. That’s not supposed to be an insult to the game, mind you, just my writing ability. This is all because although 'Armored Core 3' is far from the most profound work in this fabled developer's catalogue, it has put the mecha series into an ascendancy which holds so much potential that it leaves me hungering for more in a way that I have never felt with previous entries, which is going to make this review seem more like me verbally gushing ceaselessly from every orifice because I’ve properly noticed the beginning of something great before it’s full form physically causes that phenomena to occur.

Now that I’ve overly drawn out the worst opening of my entire critical output on the internet, this is a good time to start by stating that mechanically speaking, this is the best title yet. Naturally. All but barring only one glaring balancing issue. The game is as smooth as the series has ever been, with a great selection of weapons and parts, as well as great potential for detailed builds in its welcome array of optional parts. The addition of ranged left arm weapons and the economic leniency underpinning the whole experience means I got into customising a variety of ACs in this game more than any other instalment. However, builds that involve overheating are just simply too strong. Most bossfights in this game are of course other ACs, not to mention the whole alternative progression of the Arena mode, many of which are simply left in the dust due to certain weapons which generate loads of heat. Paired with a flamethrower, these selections are hilariously overpowered and I simply refused to touch them unless I got into a battle that was really chewing me up quite badly. Such fights did not, however, include Ace funnily enough—despite everything I had heard about him—of whom ya girl sent to the own-zone in one short attempt. I'm definitely not proud, nor editing this review post publication to include me bragging, you don't have any evidence because I am a perfect princess. Other than that though, no notes, still an excellent combat system with tons of nuance and a great mechanic-system relationship.

From the offset of the game's very impressively animated opening short, the presentation of '3' is the most oddly distinct part of it to me given how much it controls and often looks like—superficially, at least—the Generation 2 titles, while still decidedly pulp there's an emerging angelic coldness to the tone of the game that is truly discerning the series from it's mecha peers. Choirs peering through like blinding white gleams of sunshine over the indifferent concrete monoliths of electronic beats, these textures cascade over peerless, aimless metal in one of the more elegant science fiction aesthetics of the Playstation 2. As a nice technical aside, 'Armored Core 3' boasts Dolby pro logic II surround sound which really brings the best out of the mix in music and SFX, resulting in probably the best sounding machine gun of any 2000s action game. FromSoftware's work here truly illuminates a vision of what 'Armored Core' was to be all this time, and while continuing to excel in the ludically thrilling battles the series has always done well, it is strange that I have so much more to praise about the artfulness found in the direction of 'Armored Core 3', but this really was, in my identifications, the true beginning of FromSoftware's iconic and hauntingly picturesque moments. Such a word by popular outlets limited only to their hack and slash titles, under-recognised is it in their older projects such as this, but the framing of some sections is so strong that I'd forget to even whinge about map reuse. In the final leg of the game, hurtling toward the final set of missions, a sortie sees the player taking on a goliath MT, captured in the reduction of the 4:3 tunnel vision, the metal beast sets above a sea of sand, wings outstretched. The moment you look up to lock it into your FCS, and the image is cast of the desperate glide across the wasteland Arena map—now devoid of the visual noise it once had, a clean, static battlefield of endless soft oranges and metal monoliths—is such a moment of spectacle for a game of 2002 that is to such ends rarely so elegantly and subtly framed even today. Still undeniably pulpy—an attitude heightened in effectiveness across time with it's safely played texture work and environment scales given the hardware—'Armored Core 3' is the elevation of the series in all presentational respects, resulting in a remarkably well paced and artfully keen experience.

Mission quality, variety and purpose here is far and away the best of the series thus far, in fact, I'd go as far as to say there are no letdowns. The worst a sortie gets in 'Armored Core 3' is forgettable, and even then not frequently. The variety of Areas have been sorted in conceptual factors by the separate sections of the game's new setting, the underground city of Layered. Yes, this is a reboot trying to retell the same story, but it does so with so much more specificity in world building. The 'Armored Core' of 97' was by no means bad at this element, with its cold writing, barren locations and dehumanised presentation, but '3' achieves such things with more compelling premise of an AI controlled, lulled civilisation, like 'Arx Fatalis' by way of 'The Matrix', and defined mission locations that give character to each descending level of Layered to better inform how life there truly comes together. This means each level possess an inherent attribute of environmental storytelling that is so accessible to inference; the highest level is a nature deck featuring what appear to be falsified ecosystems, hosting a few personal favourite missions such as the bossfight mentioned before as well as a thrilling thievery operation on a sunken ship. Beneath this layer though is the more residential city areas, banal transit places like highways and mazes of grey-guarded roads where one mission asks you to quite literally just be a big annoying robot to lure out security forces in your disruption of the vapid commute. The game skips the commercial and jets straight for the appropriately industrial in the lowest layers, giving a genuine and well textured feeling of progressing more forward to the predictable threat of the AI Controller gone amuck in the metal heart of the city.

While maybe a trite advancement in the narrative, the motivations of the AI antagonist are positively not so, perhaps those who played 'Master of Arena' will recognise the beat being revised here, but a creature of automation manufacturing jet fueled, commercially militant violence in the light of it's hopelessness at the prospect of humanity seeing anything other than the metal funnel they meander submissively in under-earth is so elegant a connection to the broader themes properly initiated in 2000s 'Armored Core 2' that it makes the enchanting final cutscene of '3' all the more a perfect closure, in brutally harmonic correlation with the instances of fellow Ravens turning against you when the winds of change that follow you brush past their tender feathers. Truly one of the studio's greats, and a daring stage set for the future.

I can't imagine what 'Armored Core 2' would be like for someone who skipped the expansions to the first game, but speaking as someone who didn't, this is about as standard as sequels come. If we are to assess this game without the 1997 and 1999 instalments in mind, it's a fantastic and thrilling breakthrough, but if this is not the case then it is merely a more polished more of 1999s 'Master of Arena'. Lucky it is, then, that I found FromSoftware's exit piece for the Playstation so moreish, because I felt no more provoked by this game than I have any of the previous, which is maybe why I sound so down on it in the introduction, so let us lighten up a little.

'Armored Core 2' has just as well a compellingly pulpy set up as any other entry, a mission to Mars! The new human solution to the industrial consequences which trapped all underground previously is a new colony setup on the red planet. Lax on regulation as an emerging setup is to be, this is where the Ravens come back into the picture, working on the corp offering the carrots each passing hour—you, no different in structural entrapment to any other forcefully integrated into the economic cesspit, a hopeless vulture with no agency. The brutal, nihilistic corvid. What proceeds is, in terms of levels, an almost remake of the first generation games, with many sections operating as straight up remastering down to the cutscenes, moving, say, the desert train mission of 'Armored Core'—where planes crudely nipped at you from angels that jank had refused elegance—to a personal favourite. But such good spirits had the understated tingle of a game running out of ideas, which is the real shame, for half of the levels in 'Armored Core 2' are far in away the best the series could offer by the turn of the millennium, but the other half are simply half hearted or seen before too recently. Mechanically, the game is stronger than it has ever been, with overheating adding a new layer to the carefully formed tapestry of AC building first weaved in those focused Playstation titles, the addition is just as considered, but so little of it's company is. Customisation has more here than ever, and yet, the game never challenged enough nor felt long enough to warrant such investigation on anything that hadn't been present in the prior generation anyway. A waste of good metal, since the effort here might be the strongest innovation setting this sequel apart from what came before.

On difficulty, as was perhaps illuminated earlier, '2' is a strange mecha duck. Still challenging yes, but also quite easy up until the abrupt shift in the second half which felt like the game coming back up to speed with the adversity felt in 'Master of Arena'. Now, here's a funny thought, have I really gotten that much better at 'Armored Core' between 'Project Phantasma' and '2', or is my almost immediate abandonment of tetrapods going into the first hour of this sequel and sharp dedication to a light sniping mech with little resistance or major effort from me compared to the last entries all the way through to the end maybe a sign that the balancing in this one wasn't amazing? This adversity I sought had nested itself very comfortably in the Arena mode of course, for what was an excellent but truly brutal experience. Of course it, like 'Phantasma' before it is loaded with small potatoes, quite literally small in the case of the child you murder in the first 10 placements, but when you get stuck on an Arena fight in the top half of the list it can be a real fabric chewer.

Now, while the missions of the game didn't take nearly as much focus as the previous, '2' still has a fair few pretty thrilling moments. So as Mars develops, authority makes itself known. The Frighteners work as an effectively intimating force ludically at first, with the Fortner's handing you off a guaranteed failure on a sortie and later an excellent 2 on 1 fight, but Klein, while loaded with some very daunt dialogue that does him a lot of favours, is a complete pushover. The final encounter itself is great for sure, with his final design being something truly otherworldly, but he stands no chance and could've definitely been a more gritty challenge, no matter how appreciable his noble end is.

With the end of the independent attempts at controlling Mars, whether they be some earnest attempt to end the libertarian dystopia or some grotesque market warfare, the red planet bleeds and it was all upon your hand as a Raven. Klein asks a sly question in "what is it that you wish for?", as the brutality of the status quo came back again and again to those who systematically helped enforce it. Victims too are the Ravens when it comes to the making of fate, the fence-guard of capital and its inherent material and psychological nature leaves them, cruelly, unable to wish. The bird flees change not because of anything genuine enough to be called visceral or cerebral, it flees because it does not know anything else.

'Master of Arena' made me feel a little silly for most of what I said about 'Project Phantasma', as I realise now there was little actual innovation I needed to find the mechanics and systems of the first generation 'Armored Core' engaging again. Instead, 'Master of Arena' boasts better pacing, mission quality and another simple but still compelling narrative dressing to make this easily the best of FromSoftware's output on the original Playstation.

Of the titular notion, the Arena mode in this game has become more eloquently entwined with the selection of missions rather than feeling like an odd side gig. I never resented that feeling but I wouldn't have ever guessed how much I'd appreciate a more directed and paced inclusion as we see here, motivation to do it felt far less intrinsic as it did in 'Project Phantasma', who's generous economy made it more a training ground than a side hustle. 'Master of Arena', eager to maintain an approachable figure to those not loading a memory card, solves this with it's more visionary integration, making the game more enticing to play for long stretches as well as keeping the designers from having to do much more number crunching.

The aforementioned missions the Arena dances with in 'Armored Core: Master of Arena' are of course, just like the previous expansion, well learned of the lessons of the previous, and thus are a small array of Generation 1's finest. There was only one which I found frustrating or overlong, and that was in a good way, which shall be talked about soon, but first is credit to be given to the presentational qualities of these maps. These Playstation titles have never had poor soundtracks by any means, but I heard a noticeable increase in the quality of the techno I was hearing here than the other entries, and while levels don't look drastically better than anything in 'Phantasma', there's far less forgettable blurs of small yet sparse areas found in the first entry, and the environments of most levels has something worth noting about it, be it some quirk of design or just a very sound atmosphere.

Attention must be given to the final act of this game which, good god above, has maybe one of the hardest things this studio has put to disc. At least you could skip Nine-Ball in the debut game, but this time there was no running away from what is maybe one of the hardest boss fights I've done in a good while. The Nine-Balls[s] and Seraph are an utterly grueling prototype of the FromSoftware endurance fight and they were the singular frustrating and overlong part of this game, but to be perfectly honest, it is—to put it academically—metal as fuck. Packed in with a neat twist reveal to spice up what has been a simple tale of revenge to a backdrop of the same, unmoved hyper-capitalist dystopia all the entries have been in at this point, the dialogue and voice acting are genuinely really awesome building up to the wild fight itself.

So that's Generation 1 wrapped up for me, not bad. This is the only entry I feel much interest in maybe returning to one day and that's definitely worth something. That was a lot of fun, hopefully Nine-Ball stays down for now, that would be nice.

An excellent expansion, with it's only major flaw being a lack of innovation. Perhaps that is a little harsh, but, while I did enjoy my time with this, by the end I've now tired a little of the standard combat in the PlayStation 'Armored Core' games. 'Project Phantasma' is easily more enjoyable than it's jumping off point though, and if you wanted more it will deliver greatly with a much more consistent array of levels, each more structurally interesting and layered than most of which consisted the original 'Armored Core'.

The narrative as well is far more put together, with better established, endearingly one dimensional characters like Sumika and Stinger, the latter of whom makes for some excellent boss encounters. It's still the same campy fun, though this time more coherent and dressed with more interesting missions. There is some very funny dialogue which gave me a nice giggle but I feel like it'll be a while before the plot and characters of these games really become appealing to me beyond this very 'video gamey' acknowledgment. Still, nothing wrong with that at all, but the almost eerie desolation of FromSoftware's environment work here does a sound enough job of putting me on level with the series' 'corporate death-valley' world concept that I find oddly intriguing in ways that make me feel as if it's a idea worthy of more than this.

The greatest success of 'Project Phantasma' is most definitely the inclusion of 'Arena' mode. Fighting other ACs was by far the most fun of the first entry and having a dedicated mode where you can contend with a hefty, diverse playlist of enemy AC fights in maps of your choosing which wont punish you for failure is not only great fun in a vacuum, but is bolstered by a satisfying leaderboard vertical progression climb and economic incentive, which makes it easier to have a stable means to getting new parts for your mech, encouraging experimentation. I didn't look up any recommendations for parts this time and while I stuck stubbornly with my tetrapods crawlies because I am bloody terrible at these games, I changed up my weapons and arms significantly more because the Arena not only demanded I do so, but lovingly handed me the wares I wished for.

On a final note, by no means is this review to suggest that 'Project Phantasma' is lazy. Not at all, even if it is mostly more of the same, additions like the Arena on the macro scale gives a change in pace and structure that does the game many favours even if it all still plays the same. On the micro scale, little things like how there's a small commitment to even the Arena maps having little gimmicks like being able to blow up warehouses that act as cover show that 'Project Phantasma' is made from great passions and learned experience from 'Armored Core', however it isn't an essential development. I have great confidence in recommending this to those who enjoyed the other 1997 game, but otherwise this doesn't do all that much. Good fun! Excited for Generation 2 :)

It seems like FromSoftware have always had a knack for building great combat gameplay loops. 'Armored Core' is a pulpy, fun and very challenging romp that I can't really write all that much about. That's not to imply there's much wrong with it, just that it's so simple I'd feel silly saying all that much about the game. So, in spirit and celebration—mostly—of that simplicity, the story is absurd and great for it, mech customisation has an astounding amount to it that feels satisfying to wrap your head around, and combat is really cathartic, fast and tense which is quite notable given that PlayStation games of this time don't normally give much in that respect. There's plenty of old-school design sensibilities—naturally, you get thrown into the 'tutorial' fight without being told the controls at all, so go consult a manual—but I was pleasantly surprised by how approachable the game became after it's cold opening. There are certainly some pretty terrible levels throughout the playtime but on average the worst you'll come across are ones which are just uninspired. Sometimes there's real standouts, like a tense fight on water or a battle against another AC Unit—the best parts of the game easily—but a lot of the time the memories of fighting very similar, weaker enemy robots in similar grey corridors or walkways all kinda blur into one. I do still, of course, admire 'Armored Core' a lot, and by no means would I recommend skipping it if you're getting into the series as I am, it's a compelling enough first entry. However, after playing the generational follow up expansion 'Project Phantasma'—which boasts a much more lenient economy to encourage experimentation in AC building earlier on as well as a dedicated 'Arena' mode to get really fun, on demand one-on-one fights against other AC's for quick cash—I find myself in no desire to ever really revisit this game again. Still, it laid the mechanical groundwork which gave us 'Project Phantasma' and the future games, and the stumbling that comes with that process is honestly what makes this game worth playing. Case in point: final mission. Wowwwww. Now, my control set up makes looking around pretty alright for me, but the weirdly brutal platforming section was just wild and honestly a little funny. The final boss, Nine-Ball, is thankfully optional because he too is utterly absurd. You can give him the old Anna Navarre treatment and run past him to the objective you have to destroy which will also complete the mission. I could just sit here and whinge about it but I didn't really find myself actively annoyed with this level, it's more just fascinating trying to decipher what FromSoftware's thought process was with this section of the game. Honestly the only part about the game's combat that had me making noises of irritation is that the aiming field has a habit of targeting enemies who are behind walls while you're trying to shoot something right in front of you, other than that, no notes. Robot game. Cool. Can't wait to play more of them since I'm having a much better time with 'Project Phantasma' already.

"At some point they cut away their own ability to see, to sense, to taste, to speak. And yet they kept cutting, until only those three threads remained, from millions that once thrummed here. Only their blindness, and chance, kept them from making those final three, fatal cuts."

'Citizen Sleeper' is a game of thorough design unity which, despite it's kinesthetically passive gameplay, uses often discomforting ludic principles to great effect in an effort to emulate and speak on a variety of socioeconomic discontents. It is a specific and enamoring game with a secure passion for it's values, making it possibly the best cyberpunk RPG since 'Deus Ex'.

The base mechanics of 'Citizen Sleeper' are the primary framing device which JumpOverTheAge use to get the player to connect and empathise with the character in control. Playing as a titular 'Sleeper'—a sort of humanoid machine with a consciousness placed in it—dice rolls for the skill checks of a given in-game day are dropped in a row at the offset of awakening. This dice check system is the central genius achievement of the game; the quantity and quality of dice is determined by the physical state of the Sleeper, if damage is taken or one exhausts themselves, suffering ensues in the form of not being able to preform a number of tasks in each day to rescue you from inevitable economic peril or progress in important quests, or perhaps not having the sufficient rolls to guarantee your safety in various tasks. The aforementioned hostile economy is, of course, an excellent supporting beam to a design structure principally about the interpersonal struggles of the capitalist workforce and where it intersects with our own physical bodies. This is a common cyberpunk motif, but it's the way that 'Citizen Sleeper' conjurers it ludologically that makes it so compelling and unheard of. I hope that the quote at the beginning of this review is a hint towards the fact that 'Citizen Sleeper' is a wonderfully written game, Gareth Damian Martin has quite a beautiful talent for waxing poetic about structuralism and the intersections between economics and our bodies in the game's dialogue, but—as is the case with other cRPGs revered for their writing such as the 'Fallout' of '97 or the 'Disco Elysium' of close temporal residing—I am hesitant to describe 'Citizen Sleeper' as 'novelistic' beyond the surface level view of the project from a distance, and to prescribe it this title is deeply misinformative. This is why I have focused so much from the outset on the mechanical framework, since they uphold the bulk of meaning for 'Sleeper.' As for them, the player is consistently placed in situations of nail-biting self sacrifice opposing self sufficiency, getting the opportunity to undertake a series of rather high strung days in the name of somebody else. I've played many games which apply a political litmus test later rather than sooner—the comedic ending of 'Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines' anarcho-communist route comes to mind as very transparent example—but rarely have I come across a game which goes at it the other way around. The positive consequences for selflessness are distinctly not materialist in the first half of 'Citizen Sleeper' and are instead more understandably human ones. It takes an actual material sacrifice to do something connective, a sacrifice that might leave one queasy in a decidedly self-concerned way. You could babysit your coworker's young child, he needs that time to work himself, but that's time spent away from being able to work yourself and practice the onerous financial journey to acquiring basic necessities to live at all—the highly pressing health care challenge of getting medication specific to the livability of a Sleeper. The player interfacing with such systems provides two greatly true assertions regarding the puissant nature of material incentive under capitalism. The first is as it relates more gravely outside the sphere of aspiration and closer to ones needs as a marginalised individual now given a new arbitrary barrier from the connection and service of 'the other' because of not being adequately given the rights of living as successors, empathising with the cruelty of the proceedings as well as disavowing an immature notion that economics are subject only to affect within themselves and the exterior living conditions of an individual when in actuality there are some where it is the very fabric of their own bodies which are put at risk by the system. The second is those results of the self sacrifice as showing how it is still possible to have genuine human connection under capitalism, an optimism which is smartly attended with the underlying and necessary scrutiny that while such a connection is made slightly deeper in some ways by the need for certain self sacrifice that comes with the interaction's existence, the economic system demanding that selflessness does so with an act of passive prohibition which must be abolished for a true coming together absolved of needed self-injury—lily-white in bliss absconded from paper chains or numbers-in-mind and mutual completeness—to be achieved.

To warn of spoilers, this does not stay the same through the whole game. On the furthest, broken end of The Eye that the player may go sits a communal farm of mushrooms. Unlike every other task in the game there is zero material reward here tied to the greater capitalist 'economy', instead, here is the first and only place where your labour is linked directly to the well-being of yourself and others directly. It's not a trap, you simply work to get yourself food from the farm, plant more for others, and connect with people, like Riko, it's loose authority. This place is an almost compartmentalised structure of it's own, ripped away from the one which had lost it's "ability to see, to sense, to taste" and "to speak" which has been devouring you alive for almost the entire game. No longer forever, is the battle between the antagonistic economy and your tired body, here you could live as a person, truly a person, until you die. And, if you're anything like me, that is what you may well do. Because I failed the final test 'Citizen Sleeper' gave me. There is a possibly final moment with Riko, days past immersed in the warmth of a system that was truly human, truly communal, a collective. In this moment, you will enter the cross between of the consciousness and the digital and meet The Gardener. There's a serenading of promises, promises of real peace. A collective consciousness in true heaven. Death. Riko will beg in a whisper barely conceived among the blinding divinity of these proposals. It was not an innate desire for this bliss that made me leave Riko and everyone behind, I believe. More likely it was cowardice. An underlying fear that all the beauty I had seen there was destined to be wiped out by the horror which surrounded it. Our internalised cynicism which makes us unable to fathom a world living beyond the capitalist choke-hold around us now is just fear playing shit-bag, and it has made me look like a true fool.

Small preface, this is a very old review of mine which I wrote but never ended up posting here, however, I wanna put it up for completeness sake. It probably isn't very well written, I'm too scared to check, sorry.

Remakes are, at face value, pretty conceptually uninspiring, however, Machine Games' 'Wolfenstein: The New Order' is rather exemplary in the art of creating one with purpose. id Software's 1992 classic was essentially absent in the ability to create compelling context for its own inventive gameplay, even in spite of the boundless potential of the setting, and so it is in narrative with which 'The New Order' justifies it's existence.

It has been said dozens of times at this point but, its true, a good phrase to describe Machine Games' work here is "surprisingly thoughtful." There is a concerted effort in world building in this project, most of which can be found in the environments. The architecture was what struck me first, an augury with towering signature Nazi minimalism realistically coating the large scale buildings of which encapsulate their vacuous obsessions of perceived 'grandeur' in empire-age-like constructs in shape of an ill-glorified past, a strikingly well thought out illustration of what a fascist future would be. It is small qualities—such as the differences in artwork found in the resistance base to the ones hung in the walls of Nazi establishments, the sharp attention to detail in the fascist aesthetic preferences now placed in paintings—that are the most interesting to talk about in how 'The New Order' tells its story.

I highlight tells with urgency because, I must stress, this game has a great story, in fact, a potentially outstanding one, but, it is told in a decidedly outdated fashion. The jarring jump from gameplay to black-boxed cutscenes is sadly just salt in the wound that is the fact that Machine Game's storytelling method here simply feels oh so 'seventh console generation.' This isn't to suggest that the cutscenes are bad, they're actually quite good—punched up with solid writing, camera and animation work, as well as having the luxury of getting to to be the primary vehicle for the game's aforementioned great narrative—but it saddened me that the main way that the game connected the players to these beautiful characters and harrowing world was simply not using the medium in a naturalistic way and opting for something more palatable to those who lack game literacy or engagement. In brief, this story, world and characters deserved better than the chunk of bog standard fps cutscenes they got, and juxtaposed to the subtleties I mentioned in the first paragraph, I couldn't help but wish for more by the time that the credits rolled, even if the existence of those subtleties to begin with elevate 'The New Order' above most of it's shooter contemporaries.

However, in what it achieves with this method, there's undeniable emotional investment to have here. The cast of marginalized peoples here are powerful, not just in their prerequisite antithetical nature to the Nazis, but also in what they are able achieve before the harsh conclusion of the game. The pacing is also excellent which goes well with the feeling of necessity given to each mission allowing the experience to flow together well. Speaking of good flow, uhhh, now seems like a nice time to transition into talking about the levels themselves! They're the best part of the game's design by far, there's good levels of distinction between them and there are enough standout missions to keep the whole runtime feeling worthwhile. The second half of the game is assuredly better at this than the first, mostly coming to the way certain levels carve a more perspicuous identity through a change in both vistas and how they are played through. The ones that stick out to me the most are the U-Boat takeover, Gibraltar Bridge, the Lunar Base and of course the return to both London Nautica and Deathshead's Compound. The latter two are obviously memorable for their boss-fight encounters, and deserve special mention for being both spectacles and mechanically satisfying. Both are simple, but sweet. The London Monitor fight having the player scurry under tunnels like a rat and peak out to stare down the dread inducing robotic titan created not only a nice change of pace, but a well used opportunity for mechanics to force a different style of combat that is well telegraphed. Deathshead himself is more so a theatrical endurance test conversely, but it's still engaging and satisfactory. Lunar Base and the U-Boat have the most straightforward combat setups but are elevated greatly by their settings, with the former being so ridiculously funny that I'm just going to assume anyone who didn't like it has a big stick up their behind. Finally, Gibraltar Bridge is my favourite level in the game, because, other than the boss-fights, it's sadly the only place I can point to that has a really meaningful alteration in how players can think about the core gameplay loop. Uh oh.

I've got to come clean, I'm not crazy about 'The New Order''s pop-and-stop shooting. It is by no means awful, but just painfully flat and only elevated by the context of which it occurs—both in narrative and level design. The generic fusion of stealth gameplay and standard cover based shooting just wasn't engaging for me outside of the levels I mentioned earlier, where Machine Games' found ways to either spruce it up or just execute it with admirable specificity. Gibraltar Bridge has players forced into taking a ranged approach to each encounter with an extra layer of verticality, which was a breath of fresh air to the constant pseudo-dynamic 'play it your way-isms' that permeated all other combat encounters to the point where no matter how I chose to approach a level, I always felt like I was doing it the boring way. There's a designed way to play Gibraltar Bridge, and it's more fun as a result. Oh, and it's very pretty, who knew a train accident could be so nice? Must have been the time of day.

Being good looking is an achievement for the studio given the clear limitations of the id Tech 5 engine, as looking too closely at some things will cause a player to observe some old generation oddities. Some things, namely paper objects such as letters or notes, are rendered into other objects which makes them look flat and pixelated up close but if I'm to make an actual worthwhile technical complaint the mixing of this game truly upsets me. Perhaps it was just my TV but the SFX are simply far too loud and the music is barely audible most of the time. Going back and listening to the OST outside of the game I'm really disappointed by this as the production on these tracks is solid and they really could have brought a lot to certain levels where my ears couldn't even detect them. Outside of that the game works well, however, and the detail is admirable given the technology.

I hope I've made clear that there's nothing critically wrong with 'Wolfenstein: The New Order', at worst its just uninspired, but the levels have a great deal of creativity to them, just such a story deserved better proceedings. Regardless, if you are like me, and what draws you to Machine Games' remakes are the world and it's potential for powerful ideas and characters, then there's no doubt that 'The New Order' is worth your time. The grip of the story is strong enough to push you through even it's most boring gameplay sections, and I look forward to the potential of 'The New Colossus', but ultimately, this first game had enough going for it, even if there was more it could have achieved.

Well done, Machine Games, lets see where this goes!

'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' is a significant step up from 'Human Revolution' in the ways that will count for most, but this game makes some serious blunders.

First, let's address the elephant in the room, this game is unfinished and has very problematic microtransactions. 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' ends abruptly with a jarring lack of consequence for a lot of the revelations and choices made, it's jarring and weird. Unsurprisingly, lead writer Mary DeMarle has said in regards to the unresolved nature of the many thematic and plot threads in 'Mankind Divided' that "if we had more time then perhaps we would have dealt with some of them differently". The flaws of this game's narrative, however, are so obvious and foundational that I don't feel my commentary on it will be impeded by this, but for sure it is a shame that Eidos Montréal did not get to finish the game they wanted to, it need go without saying but, yeah, fuck Square Enix and their undying priapism for profit margins. Speaking of which, the in app purchases, I have no patience for this stuff in full price games when they fall under the mantra of "it don't affect gameplay"—a total misnomer anyway, but I digress—let alone paying for mechanical upgrades and in game money which this game has. Obviously you can just ignore them but it's pretty insulting, and needless to say do not buy them, you will literally do nothing but destroy the balance of the game and deepen the pockets of some execs at Square. I can't believe I even feel as if I have to remind people of this but apparently, if the current suffocating trend of game business is anything to go off of, some of you aren't very good at this shit.

It might sound like I really don't like this game, but this is not the case at all, in terms of design this is a much smarter game than 'Human Revolution'. For one, levels play themselves quite a bit less, don't expect to be easy vents leading straight to objectives with obviousness so absurd that it defies all architectural reason. While retaining objective markers, automaps, and the streamlined progression system not present in the original 'Deus Ex', 'Mankind Divided' isn't as creepily handhold heavy as most mainstream games of its gravity while still being very accessible. It's not as stimulating as the original, or even contemporary immersive sims like 'Prey', but Eidos Montréal respects the players intelligence far more here, with open levels grown in sophistication; With more routes, more options, more augment opportunities, plenty more to discover and sometimes varying outcomes. This game really is super fun to play. I completed the game as a pacifist—nice to see that being an option again—and had a blast soaking in these detailed, well thought out levels and experimenting with the new, far more exciting augments. On augmentation, the system is far better in 'Mankind Divided', not just owing to the new additions—of which inspire much more potential to some emergent gameplay, Icarus Dash is amazing for finding new vantage and entry points, a real traversing treat—but also to the need to balance them with your energy levels so Adam doesn't overheat and melt his bum off. Sadly, most augments power usage is too low for the system to be nail biting in any capacity, but it's still nice to have the extra layer of things to consider when character building. The game plays just a smoothly as 'Human Revolution' with clean animations and responsive controls, as well as having some new base mechanics to make things feel much more consistent, such as mantling, a less scarce energy metre—no more sitting around like a twat waiting to clap someone across the bonce with your robo-arms while doing stealth!—and being able to run for more than two seconds before needing a take a break for a twix and a bottle of water. Balancing is all around much better, there's not really that many 'use this or you are stupid' augments other than maybe the conversation enhancer and Icarus Dash—I'm serious it rules so much—and the economy isn't as comically dire as 'Human Rev', meaning you'll actually have ammo for your guns most of the time! Without breaking the game! Lol!

So, this sounds like a wicked immersive sim, maybe not as mind blowing and bursting with emergent gameplay as an Arkane title, but still pretty great, right? Yeah! In a vacuum, this game is mechanically and systemically sound, but unfortunately it's the framework for what is a pretty woeful story.

I scolded 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' for being shallow in my review, for being nothing more than a pretentious posturing on transhumanism that didn't really create a great ground for debate. It was a game which vaguely criticised the augmented future in ways that were either totally incoherent or just flat out reactionary on what could barely be called philosophical ground while being ignorant of its immediate relation to other potential elements of our current society. To me, it's been a guidebook on how to not write speculative fiction, which is a shame because the characters and dialogue were totally solid. You know what's nuts? In a lot of ways, 'Mankind Divided' is way more thoughtful, has even better characters, dialogue and pacing, and yet has a premise which is such a deep conceptual failure that it overshadows everything. If it wasn't for the embarrassing screed that is David Cage's 'Detroit: Become Human', I'd consider this the worst allusion to the civil rights movement in science fiction. The ludic elements of the idea, with the being repeatedly stopped at train stations for excessive id checks or shot on sight by police if you stand too close to them too often, come across as silly when conscious of how poorly the topic is being handled across the whole experience, there's so little ways I can say it, This is so bad. The augmented oppression becomes an inescapable theme which makes the game impossible to take seriously, it fails as an allegory due to the obvious incongruities between the affording of agency, economic position, and physical capability the augmented poses in the game's narrative and the lack of which black people and immigrants in real life have historically received due to systemic racism, and beyond that, Eidos Montréal doesn't manage to say much about the idea or the events it is smashing together in it's metaphor. I do not believe 'Deus Ex: Mankind Divided' has anything valuable to say about the South African Apartheid, Civil Rights Movement or Post 9/11 Islamophobia it is so heavy-handedly interpolating and the writers should genuinely not have bothered. Truly embarrassing, utterly crass, from a series which once cut deeper than most were brave enough to on societal issues. Weirdly enough though, in spite of this excessive and misguided theme weighing over everything, 'Mankind Divided' at the very least mentions more societal issues with greater success than it's core thematic ambition, such as when a conversation with Chikane has the potential to have Jensen ask about his "honest" limp, where he speaks of the woes of a new workforce where augmentation becomes a necessity, suggesting a new horrifying, physical implication about worker exploitation in the transhumanist future if it continues to be dominated by those without the interests of the people in mind. That's great dystopian writing! That's an example of the kind of shit that would have made 'Human Revolution' amazing, an actual thoughtful comment about our society's direction! This, alongside another dialogue option with Delara where Adam speaks to the nature of how current governing infrastructure contributes to the synthesis of terrorism, is 'Mankind Divided' making Ion Storm's 2000s classic proud, they are the most politically charged things Adam Jensen says or witnesses in the whole game that actually have something insightful to say. I wish they weren't so few and far between, they make me wish that these writers—conscious of how dumb and disrespectful the whole 'cyber-racism' shit was—could get another shot, get to make another game where they investigated issues as fervently as they're clearly capable of!

But, well, that's just it isn't it? Will they get to? None of us know. As much as this game had massive problems I am truly saddened that it marks the end of 'Deus Ex' as of now. The Adam Jensen saga seems to me like a person standing up real tall but sporting really bad public speaking skills, with their heart being in the right place but ultimately being too incoherent and sentimental to say anything of value. But you can hear where there's something possibly great! You can tell they're getting somewhere, that maybe given another moment they could have said something brilliant, but before they could finish, they stuttered a bit and was suddenly shot by a Square Enix executive using the BestBuy preorder exclusive Silenced Longsword 202 ERASER Sniper Rifle.

That last description of 'stuttered' is entirely intended to be characterising the series as skittish in it's statements, not at all to suggest 'Mankind Divided' runs poorly, on PS4 it was technically flawless and apparently it can run on a Mac so it must be optimised by the god of the machine itself. Presentation wise, much like 'Human Revolution', 'Mankind Divided' is beautiful. It's gorgeous, lacking that charming 7th console generation piss filter, but still brilliantly composed visually. Sonically, too, mind, with Michael McCann, Sascha Dikiciyan and 0edit making a clean, mystifying and melancholy ambient score. The atmosphere is so enamoring that it kinda hurts, looking up at the daunting cyberpunk scapes, the story etched into every inch of crevice upon every surface, finally reminded after so long that 'immersion' isn't a made up thing. so utterly lost in the vibe that you can almost feel the wind, it’ll all keep your gaze helplessly locked as you think to yourself "ah, style over substance again."

'Dead Space' is an OK game that could be really great. There's very little about it that is actively offensive, the game is fun, looks good, and has enough unqiue ideas of it's own to be interesting for the runtime, but it feels a little forgettable due to how poorly it attempts to grasp an effective horror direction.

Presentation is where the game shines the most, textures, shadows and reflections still look great even if they lack the variety of, say, 'Mirror's Edge'. Designs all around are great, all the architecture has an almost 'space brutalist' quality to it, and all the tools as well as armour are very unique. The diagetic GUI is easily the best work here, it's clever and immersive, a truly natural evolution of the semi-transparent GUIs found in older horror games like 'System Shock 2'.

Speaking of, 'Dead Space' was supposedly intended earlier in conception as a sequel to 'Shock 2', until the developers saw Capcom's 'Resident Evil 4' and decided to make something similar, but in space. Now having finished the game, I'm pretty reinforced that this wasn't a great idea. 'Dead Space' is grotesque, violent and horrifying—much like Capcom's campy shooter—but isn't scary, which is a problem given just how seriously the game takes itself. 'Resident Evil 4' worked because it was self-aware and silly, when you have a game playing the relentless pace and excessive gore straight with the intention to scare it doesn't come across so great. Visceral Games amazing A/V work would make for a great atmosphere but it never gets the opportunity to breathe. There's no building tension or sense of pacing, it's all just endless limbs flying and screaming which eventually gets more numbing than unnerving, this coming from a person who is is normally really easily shocked with gore. It's not about how horrific your imagery is, but how you frame it, and the action oriented approach with tight controls makes 'Dead Space' play more like 'Doom' than 'Silent Hill'. This isn't to say the game is bad, it's just shallower and more boring than it could have been with some slower pacing, and this is probably why so much of it just seems to be white noise for my memory.

So while 'Dead Space' is a terrible horror game, as a shooter, it's pretty good! The physics and slow-motion mechanics are givens but the zero-gravity is really different and used in some super creative ways. The set pieces don't distrupt the core gameplay loop, actually enforcing core lessons from the design, and it's really nice to be have precision shooting demanded on humanoid body parts that aren't the head. The necromorphs are really fun to fight, but you really must play on hard mode. I played on it while only using the starting plasma cutter and it was still too easy to feel truly tense, so I can't imagine how it feels on the easier modes.

Narratively, the game is mostly compelling, but the characters are really aggressive and antagonistic to each other, and at times it's just beyond sensibility which can make them pretty frustraiting. The plot has some good enough intrigue to make the macguffin chase it turns into feel more consequential, but it's really let down by the protagonist. Isaac Clarke might have a name which assures us Visceral Games have good taste in literature but his motivations are basically void and his relationship with Nicole is hard to get invested in given how shallow and generic they both are.

I've heard people compare this series to Ridley Scott's film 'Alien', and having now played it's first entry I'm completely baffled. I'm starting to think people who make this comparison haven't actually seen the movie, because 'Alien' was all about stillness and subtlety, qualities which 'Dead Space' hardly possess! This doesn't make it bad, though! 'Dead Space' is a lot of fun and has great presentation, but it really did have more potential and I was pretty sad that it never reached the level of still tension that people said it would. For all these flaws—and the terrible PC port, please use a controller if you wanna play this lol—there's a lot worth seeing here, even if it could have been better.

I feel like I was born too late to be impressed by this game. You see, despite the obvious labour of love Eidos Montréal have put on display here, 'Human Revolution' bears many sins, the one of most weight sadly being that, unlike the original, it just isn't timeless. It's unfair, deeply unfair, because it's not reasonable to expect any art to be so, yet it has left me feeling more distant from this prequel than I ever wanted to be. I had an expectation set that 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' was likely to be a more dumbed down version of the original 'Deus Ex', but what is really fucked up is not just that this is a totally accurate description of what the game ended up being, but that Eidos Montréal almost escapes it. This game could have been great, but unfortunately I could only ever see myself being impressed by 'Human Revolution' if I had been playing it in 2011, when the immersive sim was practically dead and it would have become my beacon of hope for the genre. Between an amazing first half, some of the best presentation in the whole medium, great characters, a complete collapse of level design in the second half and a story which frustratingly postures rather than ever taking the many opportunities it opens to actually say something interesting, 'Human Revolution' left me the most conflicted I've felt about a game so far this year.

I've been on the dangerous record saying that the original 'Deus Ex' has the worst presentation of any old school immersive sim, as much as the game is undoubtedly engrossing, there aren't too many moments of stunning art direction, and while the tracklist had some bangers, the music never really effectively held consistent sonic textures which helped bring me into the setting as well as other titles from the time. I know this is likely blasphemy to some, but I certainly hope saying that 'Human Revolution' knocks it out of the park isn't. What a stunning video game. Very few games that come out these days look anywhere near as good as Eidos Montréal's depiction of Detroit or Hengsha. It's a perfectly constructed cyberpunk mood. McCann's score deserves every ounce of praise it has received and then some, with its hauntingly atmospheric synths and angelic vocals climbing up the dreary walls of the game's cities. Oh yeah, and the yellow tint actually looks kinda cool. The visual theming is really spot on, it does however have two major flaws. While looking cool, the prevalence of yellow is brought down by the fact that it is one of way, way, way too many references to the myth of icarus, an allusion the game flaunts as the axom for its really underwhelming message—which I'll get to in a bit—and the sharpness of all the designs—which again, yes, look cool as hell—breaks visual continuity a bunch. It's really hard to believe this game is a prequel with how technology is handled visually. Neither of these complaints prevent me from feeling confident in praising the visuals however, especially considering that the "glow of the sun" yellow is far from the most irritating way the game connects itself to Greek myth. This all, in combination with the absolutely fantastic voice acting and solid flow of dialogue makes it very easy to think that 'Human Revolution' is a very smart game, but sadly it is all style over substance here.

The overall design makeup of 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' feels like a very surface level reading of what the original game was doing. This is due to execution of level design as well as game systems and mechanics. Things start off really great, which is why I say the game could have been great, in the first five hours—barring the weirdly wanky "cinematic" opening—we see here a vision of what an early 2010s Deus Ex game could be. It's not as clever or ambitious in scope as the original, but it's accessible for those not into immersive sims while still maintaining the spirit of the genre. I cracked a big smile when doing the 'Lesser Evils' side mission where I had to break into the apartment of one Brian Tindall, seemingly through a one way gate locked by a keypad Adam wasn't skilled enough to hack, and I simply ran around the level to find some physics objects to stack some boxes and vault clear of the gate. Of course, this is pretty bog standard as far as emergent gameplay goes, but the lack of invisible walls was showing that this environment was put together with the right attitude. Sadly, this is about as close as the game gets to being as stimulating as the original. Proper levels do have possibilities for simplistic emergent gameplay, but what really needs to be considered is the way this game views the idea of a level being 'open ended.' The original 'Deus Ex' invited players to approach the environment in any way they chose as well as find ways to explore it to discover new alternatives. 'Human Revolution' does this but to a far less interesting extent. The removal of lockpicking as a mechanic means hacking becomes the only skill gatekeeping certain pathways—and, in one of the weirdest, most annoying choices Eidos Montréal made, is sometimes the only pathway. No I'm not kidding lol, it is super weird—and vents have become glorified shortcuts to objectives rather than strategic traversal tools. While this prevents the game from ever really intellectually stimulating like the original and occasionally makes it pretty annoying, most levels do have a variety of thoughtful access points, like openable windows, roof entrances, back doors, and vent shafts that actually makes logical sense. hidden inside walls which you can enter from the outside. It's like a popcorn immersive sim, because those access points are great icons of good design, but most other elements of traversal have been sanded down too much to really have the player think. Getting in is the interesting part, because when I'm actually sneaking through a building in 'Human Revolution', I don't make an infiltration route based on the game's simulation logic in my head, like a good immersive sim should be making me. Instead, the thought process is "lol where's the next vent hidden so I can just skip straight to where I gotta be because I know it will always take me to where's most convenient, I hope there's no mandatory hacking this time." This is the caveat of making your immersive sim more accessible, was it worth it? Maybe, given how many people were introduced to the genre and series because of this game, but it sure as hell don't see this game ageing well. The more superficial aping of the 'Deus Ex' formula is what will make or break the first half of 'Human Revolution' for you, that is, before the game completely shits itself in the second half. As soon as you leave Montréal, 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution'' goes from cool but kinda superficial cyberpunk immersive RPG to annoying, posturing stealth cover shooter. This collapse into more bog standard, less open ended levels isn't uncommon among the genre—I still love you, 'Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines', or, at least I try...—but no less saddening here. This did, however, make me realise just how overpowered guns are in the sandbox. Despite being an ex-cop turned security guard, Jensen is a master of all weapons right from the get go for some reason, unlike Denton—who, being just a cop—knew his way with a handgun but little else firearm related if the player didn't specialise otherwise. It makes sense for Jensen to be able to brandish a 10mm pistol decently, not have deadaim with a fucking plasma rifle from the get go. Get a red dot sight? A revolver? You beat gunplay. There are zero downsides to the upgrade and it makes it easier to dome your opps from across a high level research lab than sniping a guy from the same distance with rifle mastery in the original 'Deus Ex' ever was. I don't like playing this way, but it was so efficient that it took effort to not just resort to it. Oh and uh, speaking of standard combat, all that shit you've heard about the boss fights? Yeah it's all true, these are—no hyperbole—the worst boss fights I have ever played in a video game. Forced combat in an RPG like this is already pretty lame but it doesn't help that the fights themselves just play awfully. I was willing to forgive all this, these are mistakes immersive sims past which I love make, but there's another thing about 'Human Revolution' that's frustrating in how it could have been better, and that's the handling of the core views and values.

This is where Eidos Montréal solidified their prequel as more strikingly ostentatious rather than seriously intelligent. Transhumanism as a topic is just handled so badly here. Now, Ion Storm's classic was never subtle I'll grant you, but it escaped mockery by being both considered and relevant. Here's a little microcosm to look at, the opening shots of the games.
In 'Deus Ex' the first thing you see is the iconic—but pretty cartoonish—image of a statue, a huge hand over the Earth, sitting before two men aiming to rule the world. In 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution' you see a statue of Greek legend Icarus, coming up from his physio-typical legs to his fleshless wax wings, right before one man aiming to rule the world. Both these symbols tie into the games themes, 'Deus Ex' was a game about many things, the uncertainties of who really controls the future of our civilization? Who wants control? Why do they want it? Why is it that we crave the idea of god so much? Is it because we should want to be ruled over, because the fate of mankind is so impossible to dictate in a way which won't in some way harm a part of it? Is it because we have an integral want for something to recognise our existence? Look up at a hand over the world, see it embody both the socioeconomic and theological values that this predictive fiction has put on the table. As 'Deus Ex' became more and more prophetic, this handfisted symbolism only became harder to mock.
In 'Human Revolution', the Icarus statue symbolises that, um, transhumanism is just like that, you know with the wax wings! It might be bad, what if we fly too close to the sun and, like, bad things might happen because of it?? You know???
The myth of Icarus is really trite already in most media but it's made all the more damning by the fact that 'Human Revolution' doesn't really bring any interesting or relevant ideas about transhumanism to the table, I'd be less condescending if it did.
The best predictive art forms their dystopic visions from extrapolations of already existing societal flaws, 'Human Revolution' tries to do this, but it doesn't really work. There are hardly any tangible arguments against a transhumanist future in our current socioeconomic that the game decides to bring up in passing when it should be focusing on them more focally. The increase of the homeless in Detroit because they've been fired for refusing to modify their bodies to work more efficiently is pretty powerful, especially when you find the workers who have replaced arms with literal tools later on. And that's it, the way capitalism could impact transhumanism just ends there. Remember how one of the most powerful things the original 'Deus Ex' presented was economic disparity? You know, something directly related to the world at the time and today? Yeah, this is like the only place where something even remotely like that comes up. All anti-augmentation arguments are just stupid, vague moralistic stances about how it's 'not human' instead of anything that is tangibly, directly related to our real world. Just weird posturing which put me off the story by the end.

There is a lot to like about 'Deus Ex: Human Revolution', but ultimately, while I'm hopeful about what 'Mankind Divided' could do, I doubt the Adam Jensen story has the maturity to deal with the topics that made the original 'Deus Ex' so interesting to begin with. A 'baby's first' immersive sim with a pretentious story sounds bad, but at least 'Human Revolution' knows that if you're gonna be style over substance, keep some of your good ideas around and make sure it's really stylish. I respect the shit out of this game for trying in a time where games like it were dead in the dirt, but I can only wish that I had been there to see it in 2011, because Eidos Montréal's effort here doesn't hold up today, despite everything they got right.