Willing to give this game another look after playing on mouse and keyboard, but ultimately it's just not on the same level as every other game in the franchise. Which is crazy because the production values for things like facial animations, motion capture, voice acting, and overall cutscene direction are really damn good, not really feeling dated in the slightest since it's release. The game is just a little frustrating in how much it does LESS satisfying than it's predecessor. This game did NOT live up to it's full potential.

The campaign for this wasn't nearly as offensively skint as some people have made it out to me as. I think there is definitely a clash of design ideals though, with the best moments being the classically styled missions where setpieces are happening and the implications are big. The open ended missions are a novel idea but aren't done in the same quality that they were in MW1 or MW2, and tying in the Warzone elements to them kind of eliminates immersion a fair deal. Plus, this game loves to jump between perspectives. I believe by the end of the game you wind up having played 6 or 7 characters, where I feel like maintaining a minimum amount of perspectives makes for a stronger CoD campaign.
Multiplayer is great. I love CoD multiplayer and I'm not apologizing it. There could be something to be said about the laziness of just reincorporating maps from an earlier game as the primary pool, but I'll take anything over some of the godawful maps from MW2-2022 like Border or that Raceway. Since all the current map designers suck I'm happy to play what's proven. Also I can't comment on the gameplay on too granular of a level because I don't dive into meta or technique like that but it feels very top notch regarding animations and feel. The new loadout system is pretty neato as well, with the perks feeling a lot more controllable while at the same time making you feel more specialized
Zombies is fun. It can be stressful if you want it to be, or a simple, carefree timekiller if you decide to forgo the difficult stuff. Progression is basic, the missions aren't mentally draining, and it's just the kind of peak ADHD simulator I can lose a couple of hours on with a couple of friends
I suck at Warzone

Good Picross. The mega and clip puzzles in this version are particularly devilish. Really had to stretch my brain to logical limits to fully complete it

Somehow the weakest Picross game I’ve played. Something about the large majority of the puzzles being similar anime girl faces gives the puzzles a distinctly samey feel that really drills home the dull nature of Picross. I fucking love Picross so that’s definitely something that strikes me as irksome. That alongside baby music and character art that really just feels weak and you have an underwhelming package that does the Picross name an injustice.

A fantastic remake that is insanely hard not to recommend over the original release. A shortlist of downgrades would be the overall difficulty being pretty easy, the camera angles of the interior and city scenes being pretty same-y and boring for the most part in comparison to some of the wild forced perspectives from the original, and a couple of tracks feeling decidedly weaker than their PS1 counterparts. That being said, the positives are far outweighing my complaints. Most songs are redone fantastically, giving a bit extra weight to the more emotional tunes. The combat overall is way more usable, allowing you to stop time with the hold of a trigger to determine your targets a little more decisively rather than just mashing to victory (when the game is still a little difficult at least). Ally spells are much quicker to watch through, putting more time and focus on the actual action of the combat and maintaining control of the player. Elements of the leveling and crafting systems are much less abstracted giving the player an actual idea of what they're doing from the outset of the game instead of having it be a sorta mess that'll make players feel alienated with missed opportunities and accidental skill allocations. Load times (on my PC) were non-existent. The new fast traveling is as fast as it gets with the player assuming control before the screen fully fades from black. I hadn't played the PSP version but I really like the audio track from it and am shocked that characters like Leon (a whiny 12 year old cat boy) managed to have a non-cringe performance. There's a lot to love in this remake, again with most asides just being a push for modernity getting in the way of that classic feel. What I will say distinctively as a negative is that the four fields segment later in the game feels way weaker, and each of the fields' gimmicks were replaced in favor of a much less impressive gimmick. It's a headscratcher why I'm just hunting enemies instead of having a unique battle style where I'm trying to prevent them from pulling a giant lever, and another field where the gimmick is LITERALLY to just walk in a straight line. NO idea why there was a switchup, but fortunately the gimmicks in the 2 following dungeons are definitely more pronounced and well thought out than in the original.
I'll say they had the opportunity to improve the story and they didn't. This goes two ways; is it better to stay faithful to the original idea as a testament to being a note for note remake, and be a lamer narrative, or should they take the opportunity of returning to a beloved game 25 years later to deliver a more satisfying story? Who knows. I understand their direction but can't help but imagine some sort of alternative ending where there's actually a little more intrigue in the assault on Phynal.
I'm not much of a JRPG buff but The Second Story was always my favorite growing up. I'm glad to say that this remake does it justice and I can fully recommend it over the original product, AND I can actually play it natively on my PC. I think Gemdrops did a fantastic job and I think I might be more swayed to play more of the franchise just riding off the high of my enjoyment of this game. Solid work.

A personal blast from my past that doesn’t hold up as well without my rose tinted glasses. The things it does right in terms of overall presentation and providing an illusion of depth in the systems quickly gets overturned by some unfortunately inconsistent pacing for the story and a combat system that really doesn’t feel like it’s to be mastered, in favor of simply being brute forced. The character interactions, music and visuals all have a lot of quality and charm to them, but there’s distinct elements that take me out of the experience. Spells casted by party members completely break the flow of combat by forcing the player to watch the whole spell cast, interrupting whatever momentum or groove they could have been getting into. The skill system is half cooked, with a lot of solid consideration but also skills that are such no brainers (like Perserverence) that they should just be removed entirely because every player with a brain is gonna go for them. As well as skills like Flip actively ruining the combat (fortunately it can be manually disabled, but it’s just lame to have something so useless and situational). Finally the story ramps up in the transition from the first to second disc, and provides a lot of really interesting story a la Star Ocean 1, but unlike 1, The Second Story ends with a pretty straightforward, un-twisty conclusion that is literally described to the player by an NPC earlier with not divergence from the plan. Plus, while the 4 locations you visit to get the stones necessary to invade Fienal are super unique and pretty, it is ultimately a macguffin hunt with little actual story beats occuring, and the final attack on Fienal feels like it was in dire need of some form of story shakeup mid way to keep it engaging, instead of just being a final zone to slay some bosses and grind for levels in between. That all being said, it’s an absolute vibe of a game, and has a lot of odd quality of life features that seem well ahead of their time. It’s trope-y, it’s repetitive and a little frustrating to play but it’s ultimately worth a go-through as it’s still a nifty package with a lot of heart. But I ultimately expect to be returning to Backloggd in a week or so to completely decry this version of the game in favor of the remake.

I didn't hate this but it's very so-so. Retreading reused environments from the base game and not doing much satisfying for the story just left me with a big sense of whatever. The additional cult stuff is kinda cool but this entire series already is entirely built on weird cult stuff...

While it has a slew of improvements to the overall combat, arsenal and animation sets through advancements in physics and motion capture tech from the first game, the level design and written story both take a definitive step down from the tight-laced insanity from Max Payne 1. One step forward, one step back

The entire internet told me this was terrible and now I know it was an arcane gatekeeping tactic to keep me away from playing something I would enjoy. C'mon, internet!

A very good platformer with excellent music and personality seeping out of every pore. The gameplay is really tight and the badge mechanics are well fleshed out the entirety of the game. The biggest issues for me is that the game's final challenges don't really feel as monumentally brutal as others in recent Mario games, almost feeling like a cakewalk for seasoned gamers. Also, the Wonder Flower sequences are good, but they never really hit the same highs that are represented in the second level. Plus, the level design, while good, lacks a little something when looking at the bigger picture. I do truly recommend this game though, and give a huge commendation to it's integration of it's online features. Trying to impromptu cooperate with random players ghosts gave me a sense of community that was unprecedented, especially with how well it worked from an infrastructure standpoint. Really give this a play as early as you can, because no one can tell when the online playerbase will fizzle out

I've always associated this game with it's gameplay from what I heard about it. While it's third-person, always aiming shooting is pretty fun, the narrative and feel of the game really stitched the package together. Albeit, the game does feel a little too easy on the default difficulty, so this rating shouldn't be taken as an end all. But man, Fugitive mode sure is easy-peasy. Given that I played on that difficulty, a big complaint I have is that I never really felt incentivized to explore the weapon-set besides out of self-obligation. Ammo was plenty and enemies were made of glass. I really feel that my only difficulty was with one combat encounter near the end, and a couple of trip mines and bottomless pit deaths that claimed me very handily. I will say regarding the story, I didn't know just how confident Max was in this game. He's a really cool character to see in action, I love his cock-sure, can-win attitude even if it is stained with depression and regret. A fun dynamic that's done extremely well, because Sam Lake is that dude

While some things are definitely more snappy or streamlined compared to the first Dead Space, DS2 feels a little too unfocused for me to consider a worthy successor. There’s plenty of elements that might be considered a step forward from a gameplay perspective, like the speed of aiming, melee attacking and actions like kinesis and stasis, but in doing that it does start to sacrifice the original game’s sense of identity. Add to that the lack of a really strong setting like the Ishimura, and instead a cityscape where you’re just kind of bumbling through vents, elevator shafts and getting whipped by monsters or debris a dozen blocks away. The events that link different environments together don’t feel very well considered, and even then, the variety of environmental design through most of the game is rather lacking. Ultimately it’s a really well made game with lots of (insane) eye candy particularly towards the end of the game, but the experience just doesn’t live up as a whole to the first. Maybe with a remake they could MAKE IT WHOLE. eh?

For a 2008 game the quality level of so many aspects of it are really well done, almost ahead of the curve in relation to plenty of other developers of the time. I really like the character performances in the voice and their body animations. The world itself is super cool, with the environments and mechanical aspects of everything having a fresh and consistent look for the most part. It's a really lived in world that feels like it's oozing with unspoken lore. I'd say there's a couple of missteps with this game, like being just a little too damn easy (even on Hard mode!) and some of the middle chapters feeling a little meandering. That's okay, for all the setbacks that'd make me consider giving this game a 4 or lower, it's also a PC game from 2008 that I had to do no fiddling with at all to get working on my modern rig, ran at 1440p 144hz with no issue AND didn't crash on me when I alt-tabbed. It's definitely more of a console or controller game but as a diehard keyboard and mouse user I didn't feel like I was under-considered, save for some mildly clunky menu management. This is by no means an all-time favorite for me but it's just a super well put together package that I can't help but root for

This game’s sense of visual direction should be noted by lots of non-rhythm game developers. It has a really strong sense of color, sensible usage of post processing and great camera angles. My biggest complaints about the visual experience is that the members of the Beatles are basically always some level of smiling, and that for 3 chapters you’re playing in Abbey Road. Both of those complaints are probably counterintuitive considering it’s trying its best to be accurate to reality, and the Abbey Road sessions still give way to some of the most imaginative sequences in the game.
Personally this is my favorite UI design in any of the Rock Band games. The overall look of the gameplay elements like the highway and score counter really compliment the on screen visuals super well with their understated colors.
I think my favorite moment is the haziness applied to the visuals with the I Want You So Bad/She’s So Heavy outro. The hard-boiled look perfectly matches the song’s sound and the combination of sight and sound hits a truly perfect combination that almost gives the player a contact high. Slamming the door shut with a hard cut to black and kicking you to the results screen is pretty damn cool.
Lots of moments can be brought up similarly to the one mentioned, but simply put this is peak presentation in all of rhythm games. Harmonix was on top of their game and looked like they had a blank check from EA to pursue their vision, which was met damn near flawlessly. The only problem this game has is one outside of its preset restrictions, being that it’s all Beatles songs. Thats great from a hardcore Beatles fan and music enthusiast perspective, but their library lacks in the technical ability that some other bands that are prominently featured in the Rock Band and Guitar Hero franchises bring to the table. Literally the only reason I’m not giving this Beatles themed video game a 5 out of 5 is that it’s too good at being only Beatles themed. Crazy, right?

A great game to appreciate from the confirmed perspective of a small dev trying to get his creative nut off. Mouse and keyboard focused platforming is executed really well and the time trial challenges really gave me an appreciation for the tight but reliable movement mechanics. The biggest problem this game has is simply being too short, and the overall level design not compensating for the lack of limits the gameplay incorporates for your character. But it's cheap too, easily within it's punching weight for the asking price. Pick it up, support the dev, and pray that you seem him working on even more great stuff in the future