Total ass. Why Capcom thought throwing this game to the B team was a good idea will always baffle me considering how much of a passionate following the original has. Mr. X should not have been a bigger threat compared to fucking NEMESIS. Don't even get me started on what they did to Jill in this game. One of survival horror's most badass female protagonists regulated to a shallow "I'm a female and can KICK ASS" character. I feel genuinely bad for anyone who paid 60 bucks towards this, it isn't even worth 40.

People give this game way too much shit nowadays, no doubt helped by the aftermath of it's disappointing "sequel" that gaslit everyone into thinking that this franchise always sucked.

But this game still rules for at least 3/4ths of it.

Yes, Duke 3D is likely the weakest game in the Build engine trilogy. But it's still a certified keeper. The character, feel, gameplay and just overall 80s late-night action-movie vibe this game has makes it unforgettable all these years later IMO. Episode 2 is easily the worst set of levels, but E1, 3, and ESPECIALLY episode 4 have some of the best levels I've played in a retro shooter, topped off as well by a still-kicking modding community that still puts out quality maps all these years later.

Biggest problem this game suffers from nowadays is just HOW to play it. Despite having a super solid 5th episode, the recent 20th anniversary port from Gearbox leaves a lot to be desired and just isn't a good port at all. Buy it on ZOOM platform (as it has all the official expansions the Gearbox port doesn't have for some reason) and load it up with Eduke32 and some widescreen mods for the best experience. Treat this game in a bubble, removed from all the disappointment that came after, you'll find this game is still a classic for good reason.

...did we all play the same game?

'cause generic soundtrack aside, i don't even need to hesitate - this is superior to quake ii in just about every way. sure, there's no rocket jumping, but that hardly matters in a corridor shooter; what's important is gunplay and Q2 wishes it had weapons half as good as these. the shotgun? nailgun? the fucking bfg that shoots black holes? get the hell out of town and don't let me see you here again

...that praise being said, i'll be damned if it doesn't put its shakiest leg first

unlike quake ii, the start here isn't slow because of its shooting - that feels fantastic from the get go - instead it's the aggressively invasive 'story' that's constantly trying to pull you from the action. let me shoot. the fucking. aliens! that's all i wanna do, man!!

"nah nah - i hear you", calls tim willits, newly appointed president of the Carmack Fan Club, "here, you can shoot again - in a turret section! and after that, ohoho, mission briefing!! and then - two more vehicle segments!!!"

with one swift motion i knock that shit out of his fucking hands. then i scream, "I JUST WANT TO SHOOT THE STROGG WITH MY SHOTGUN. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I WANT TO DO. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SET PIECES (besides the mech one - that was pretty cool) OR YOUR SPACE MARINE STORY - I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I COULD PERSONALLY WALK FASTER THAN MY CHARACTER WITH WEIGHTS STRAPPED TO MY LEGS. THE GUNS FEEL GOOD, TIM. PLEASE JUST LET ME USE THE FUCKING GUNS!!!!"

i think he took that bit about space marines harshly given the events that transpired shortly after, but all of my prayers had been answered nonetheless! no longer was i walking back and forth through areas i'd already visited just to report to some dumbass military man that the elevator got unjammed or steve blum #3 successfully completed filing his tax returns; i was actually playing the game - uninterrupted

when quake 4 gets its shit fully together after the first 1/3 or so, it shifts from stop-and-go into maximum overdrive. there's zero bad weapons, enemy types continue to vary enough (not to mention there's actually a couple decent bosses - a rarity for shooters) and ironically even the mission objectives become significantly more engaging when they're things you're doing and not just details off sgt. pvt. blum's shopping list

environments start looking a lot cooler too. Q2 toyed with body horror in small doses, but ravensoft went all-in here. call me simple, edgy, whatever - i think giant entrails breaching through space corridors and limbless (but still alive and wiggling) bodies being used as power supplies are pretty fucking rad. say what you will about id tech 4 - doom 3 looks fantastic and this is no different. hands down the most underrated shooter engine

misguided start aside, this is the best fps (barring quake 1, obviously) that i've played in a considerably long time. can't wait to receive matthew kane's next orders in quake 5!

wait fuck

went into this completely blind; didn't even know it wasn't a quake sequel. also tried the original version first, which definitely made for rough initial impact

quake ii kicks off in a way that i can lightly describe as "complete dog shit". for some ungodly reason, Club Carmack decided it'd be a nice idea to start players off with the worst pistol and shotgun combo known to mankind (even complete without muzzle flash if the og release is your preference). the fun doesn't stop not starting there, though, because then you pick up the grenades and boy oh boy - my personal favorite aspect about them is how they take 35 years to throw, which makes them only remotely viable either around corners or as a tool to very slowly kill yourself with

it was during the entirety of this first level that i thought to myself, "why does this suck so much fucking dick? who enjoys this? can john carmack really be trusted to call steve jobs an idiot for designing a mouse with one button when he actually thinks quake ii is fun?" then i got the one-two punch: the super shotgun and the chaingun

suddenly - enemies died from being shot. i no longer needed to constantly pop from cover to reliably fight hitscan baddies spongier than those seen in 'chasm: the rift' (which, ironically, is a quake clone). things only went up from here - especially in level 3 where the 90 or so grenades i'd been eagerly not using were finally given purpose via a launcher that didn't have 600 frames of startup. i'd say this is when the game really begins

...and barring the last stage - which definitely gets to a point of feeling sluggish due to its over-eagerness in spamming the most aggravatingly tanky two-legged enemy in the game - it doesn't let up. every later earned weapon (that isn't the rocket launcher) continues to feel pretty fantastic. the BFG in particular took me by surprise with its insane splash and chain damaging. you can fire this thing at one enemy and it'll clear out an entire fucking room. it's awesome and thanks to it using the same ammo as the standard laser rifle, there's no shortage of opportunities to let it loose

i'm not much for movement tech in my fps, but the levels here were designed in ways where i was pretty eager to push myself even on that front. lotsa opportunity to master bunnyhopping and circle jumping. i even skipped some chunks of levels with a few well-placed rocket jumps. fun stuff and it made me just a little more interested in giving quake 3 another shot

sonically and atmospherically, everything's obviously downgraded from q1 due to the lack of trent reznor (note: "HUH" is still intact (phew)) but the sonic mayhem soundtrack isn't totally unwelcome. i'll certainly take a competent albeit standard metal ost over the mick gordon-branded djent slop that this genre is so overly saturated with now

i've yet to play any expansions, but i did try a smidge of the n64 stages and found them to be really charming. kinda surreal to see a take of this game with so much color in it. definitely gonna get back to that, but for now i think i'm just gonna go straight for quake 4

Every time i play RE2R i like it less, RE2OG had an amazing gimmick of the A and B scenarios being completely different thing and the save file of Leon and Claire discs interacting with each other were if you picked some itens with Claire they wouldnt be available with Leon and so on, not only that but completely new events and bossfights, RE2R has none of that, in fact, the difference of scenarios and characters are only puzzle answers (the puzzles are the same, the only thing changin is the solution) some enemy's placement and weapons, and honestly i think this (and RE3R) have the worst DA implementation, by the mid game, every single enemy needed about 20 pistol rounds to kill it and it was just boring since the combat isn't the main point of the game, graphics, perfomance and sound design are pretty good tho

for years i've longed for a game with puzzle-like traversal that'd offer me the same kind of intense anxiety i'd feel while climbing a boss like malus in shadow of the colossus. if you're like me and you've slept on this - knock it the fuck off

tomb raider provides platforming nervousness in spades with ruthlessly unforgiving - but incredibly smart, well paced and rewarding - stage design. the way it constantly forces you to analyze level geometry, take risks and conserve (extremely limited) save crystals only amps up to greater and more sadistic heights as it goes. and it's goddamn brilliant

PLAY this fucking game. do not write it off based on your missed jumps in the first stage or the drab exterior. this shit WILL hook you in. and just for the record: the controls are perfect. don't even start with that

feels like i played this alongside my six year old self. we did it lil' buddy, we finally beat the one game we had no chance in hell of finishing without a gamecube memory card

as with sa1, there's really no point in arguing about this series since the detractors have long made up their shitty minds. sa2's an interesting beast though because it manages to excel just as much as its predecessor... in very different ways!

the speed stages are great, albeit nothing like sa1's. maybe you prefer these more linearly driven, setpiece-focused levels, but i might be partial to having a spindash that can blaze me across entire courses in a matter of seconds. i like going places i shouldn't and being rewarded for it. there's some of that here, but it's not nearly the same. that said, there's no city escape or final rush in sa1 so we'll call it a draw

treasure hunting is improved tenfold. i definitely prefer the newly limited radar system (it makes finding shards early super satisfying) and the overall increased difficulty. especially after knuckles' previous story was an absolute cakewalk. rouge is basically knuckles on hard mode and i generally prefer her side more for that. love her music too, though i wish it was more lyrically driven to better contrast knuckles

shooting's a more mixed bag. tails reps one of the best stages but also most of the worst. eggman on the other hand for the most part lives up to gamma's gameplay well enough - especially once he gets his booster. there's def a sense of flow to these that i feel a solid chunk of people don't give deserved credit because they just wanna go fast and grind rails

...which is a sentiment i don't completely identify with because i feel sa2 is more than the sum of its parts. the narrative is genuinely great and actively shifts moods and gameplay styles accordingly. you're always listening to a banger, you're never on the same sort of stage for more than a few minutes at a time - and you're always pushing closer to one of the greatest fuckin' finales you'll ever find in video games. the quality of direction really skyrocketed here. the last episode's preview alone completely solos every single scene in sa1

one strange oddity though: there's a surprising lack of shadow gameplay here. maybe the devs weren't so confident in him as a newcomer and didn't expect him to be such a hit?

if they knew what was good for them, sonic team would've just made a whole ass game where you play as shadow the hedgehog...

EDIT: after careful deliberation (replaying the shit out of everything) i've decided that i have 0 significant issues with this game. i'm not even standing by what i said about the speed stages before. they're all fuckin' fantastic and i think i might actually prefer these to sa1's (granted i need to spend some more time with that game too for confirmation)

on top of all of what i've said - i've still barely scratched the surface of the chao world content and that on its own is pretty impressive for being in an already tightly-packed game to begin with. how the fuck did this get made in two years?

i also learned last night via the extra video that city escape was inspired by sonic team constantly receiving parking tickets while living in san francisco. that's worthy of some merit on its own

and maybe this is cheating to mention since it's largely battle rerelease content, but i don't care: the multiplayer is some of the most fun i've ever had with a 2-player game

you know what - fuck it, 10/10

EDIT 2: got all 180 emblems. basically a perfect game

"wait - you haven't played quake?"
~almost everyone who i've gushed about this to game in the past few days

a little about me: i'm partial to industrial grit, my favorite doom games favor grimly edgy atmosphere over 80s thrash worship, i'm a big NIN fan and the downward spiral is one of my top 5 favorite albums. so this should be a no brainer, right?

well - yeah, actually. that's exactly right. throughout my playthrough all i could continually ask myself was, "why the fuck didn't i play this sooner?" and rightfully so. i think the reason quake has eluded me for so long is because its holistic reputation is eclipsed at this point by a diehard multiplayer community that i frankly don't give a shit about. i'm not much of a multiplayer enthusiast for anything - let alone tech-y arena shooters - and honestly i probably would've continued ignoring this absolute fucking masterpiece if not for my pressing curiosity towards trent reznor's involvement

that'd have been a huge mistake; quake is easily the best boomer shooter i've ever played

this is where i could talk about how i adore the weapons and their balancing, the general focus on straightforward maps with powerups everywhere, the difficulty being largely driven by how easy it is to kill yourself in tight spaces - or even the god tier ambient score that has just the right amounts of otherworldly screams and metallic chords strewn about - i COULD go into those things and we could be here for a considerable amount of time - but instead of doing any of that, i'm just going to say that the shambler is one of the greatest enemy designs in any fps. in fact, my feeling towards quake 1 can be summarized roughly with my thoughts on the shambler; he's absolutely perfect. i love this giant, dopey, teethy foreskin man in all his fleshy (not furry - fuck you) glory. and i haven't even begun to MENTION his timbs yet

my mans butters be outright otherworldly

If you are sad that bloober team is going to stomp on everything that Silent Hill 2 is all about with their eventual dogshit remake than don't worry because the best silent hill game made since 3 is right here! Enjoy this game while you can before people try and tell you it’s overrated or nothing but annoying people talk about it and get you mad

After losing my save when the game came out and putting off replaying back to where i was 2 years later i am happy i finally did it. I knew i would love it, i knew it would be amazing and still it blew me away.

This game is something special. I got into ff7 not too long ago, but it already feels like this series has been part of my life for years. OG FF7 and FF7 Remake are truely super fun games, but this one has been cooking so hard it became one of the best meals I've had in my life. I've not been bored after playing for more than 90 hours, which is truely unique for me.

My thoughts:
(+ = (mostly) positive; - = (mostly) negative)
++ Gameplay;
Everything has been improved from the previous game. More fun combat options, smoother gameplay and a wider variety of minigames. I enjoyed exploring all area's, doing all battles and even the tasks that are supposed to be boring/annoying were fun to me. There is sooo much to do, and it never feels forced imo. If the 3rd game is only half as good as this one, it'll still be a super enjoyable game.

++ Music;
Crazy new remixes and new original songs. Never got bored of it and everything fits the mood perfectly. Also for certain scenes it adds so much and gives hints about the story. By that I mean, the visuals might not be what it seems to be thanks to the music that's playing in the background. (which is a good thing)

+ Graphics;
All cutscenes are gorgeous, but during gameplay the light is sometimes overexposed.
All areas are unique, memorable and fun to explore. I like how heavy crowded some places are.

++ Story/Characters;
Let them cook. it's crazy how everything is familiar and new at the same time. This is how you do a remake. You still have the story from the OG game, but at the same time it'll give you so many new things and hints to keep you engaged. The ending was a bit confusing at first, but after looking at it again and again it only gets better and better. I've been watching hours of theories from Maximillian_Dood and it's crazy how much hidden stuff is in the game.


Recommend?
Yes, but play the Remake first. If you haven't play Crisis Core as well.
I'd recommend playing the OG as well to see all thats different, but it's not a must. Should be fine to play that after the remakes as well.

They have outdone themselves

Rebirth makes the original remake look like a demo LOL. I am simply blown away with this game by every aspect of it and crave to continue to play more even after finishing the story to clear up side stuff I missed. It is hard for me to comprehend how anyone can play this title and dislike it even if you are not a fan of certain story changes.

STORY

THERE WILL BE NO SPOILERS ABOUT ANYTHING.

This is where most fans divide with rebirth. To explain I will not talk about anything within the story but I will simply state my opinion quickly before moving on. To put it simply, when the story is the original it's as amazing as you remembered but when the story is rebirth’s you may or may not like it. Personally I love what is being done here with the expansion of characters and the world but I can also understand why hardcore fans of the original may not be a fan of it. Just enjoy it for what it is and come to your conclusion when we get the final game as everything will most likely be answered with that game. For me it's silly to blindly hate when we do not have the completed story in our hands. All in all I loved the story and certain changes that were done.


Graphics

The games world is simply breathtaking and honestly hosts some of the best town visuals I have seen period in gaming. You can move to literally any spot , look out in the distance and have art worthy of a picture. One thing that blew me away was how NOTHING would load in as if you were on a highpoint of an area you can literally look out to the distance to places you were just at or areas you may not have been to that you want to go to. Its things like this that take the immersion to a whole new level with this game that makes you cherish every moment you move around the world. However, there are some short fallings as some ground textures looked horrendous and a few textures that didn’t seem correct but overall the game is gorgeous. I played in performance mode to get that 60FPS boost so I did lose some visual performance but the game still looked amazing.


Characters

You love them all like I love them all.... Unless if you are Chadley.


Gameplay

Besides the sheer hugenous of the game what also caught me off guard was the amount of content thrown at you that was good. To explain, with open world titles side content can feel like a drag as it sometimes doesn’t offer enough to really keep you entertained enough to want to do it. With FF7 rebirth you will WANT to do everything as the side content is insanely addicting. Side quests can be hit or miss but mostly were a hit and all the mini games were very well done and fun to play. Each time you hit a new area of the game you most likely will want to do everything the map has to offer before continuing the story and I would highly recommend it as its very fun content and will give you lots of items to use for the next story portion. Furthermore, combat is just as fun with many synergies , spells and unlocks to mess around with making you want to change things up constantly. The biggest surprise for me was Queen’s blood as I fell in love with the mini game. It's a very simple card game that turns pretty complex with specific deck builds as you progress the story for it but Queens blood is insanely addicting and makes me really want an online mode for it. Finally, the combat simulation is back as just as challenging as the original remake but very fun to fight against summons. They really knocked it out of the park with its content and gameplay that almost makes you think this game isn’t real.

My only real complaint

Chadley is in the game.


In the end


FF7 Rebirth IMO is a masterpiece that should be played by all FF fans. While some story elements may not sit well with you there is no denying the masterfully crafted game they have created here. FF7 rebirth is an almost dream-like game that doesn’t happen often. I can only hope you all enjoy it as much as I did. There is a lot I didn’t get into as I really didn’t want to get into ANYTHING specific since for me seeing all the new content the game was throwing my way not knowing what it was going to be was such a blast so I wanted to refrain from talking about WHAT mini games and side stuff were here besides queens blood which you most likely have heard of by now.


THIS IS A MUST BUY AND 200% WORTH THE ASKING PRICE.