Atomic Heart has had one of the odder receptions in recent memory for me. Like, despite appearing to have an overall pretty positive reputation, it also seems as though just about every time I see it brought up online it's usually in a very negative context. I feel that's because crapping on it has kind of become the average internet user's way of virtue signaling. At first it was due to the war in Ukraine, but since a lot of mainstream media has since quieted down on that and everybody has sort of forgotten about it (uh, hey, that's still going on you guys), now it's the result of the ballerina twins. A bit strange considering what a small part of the game they actually are. "oH nOeS, tHe RoBoTs HaVe TiTtiEs!" is such a hollow, obviously disingenuous criticism coming from the same people who the biggest complaint they have concerning Resident Evil Village is that it didn't give them enough new Lady Dimitrescu wank material, and whose typical Bayonetta review reads like "nggghnn, sexy tall dominatrix librarian mommy, pls step on me!!! 😫😫😫💦💦💦". Y'all's hypocrisy is astounding.

Of course, I don't think too many are capable of forming all that intelligent opinions on these types of games anyways. I mean, you have those who will swear up and down this is an immersive sim, while there are currently movements out there trying to convince everyone that BioShock 2 and Infinite are a misunderstood masterpiece and a bad game respectively. Which neither of them are. AH is essentially an early 2010s-era BioShock copycat along the lines of what Singularity was back in 2014, only from a studio far less seasoned than that of Raven Software. You wouldn't be able to tell that though given the shockingly high production values that bring to life this wild ride of science gone wrong set inside an alternate history universe where Russia won WWII and became the No. 1 superpower on Earth. The graphics are as stunning and highly detailed as the sights they're creating are imaginative and deeply strange. Easily ranking among the best of 2023 visually in terms of quality and the creativity of the actual imagery itself. There's also another phenomenal soundtrack full of bangers from Mick Gordon that are sure to make their way into people's regular listening playlists alongside the tracks from Doom Eternal.

Not as aurally pleasing is the writing, however. The plot itself is fine, but the dialogue contained within is very much a product of this post-MCU landscape we presently find ourselves stuck in where everything has to be funny. The protagonist is that snarky, sardonic type who's always ready with a sarcastic quip for any situation. Normally, I would understand the general annoyance most claim to be feeling over this aspect, as I myself would have preferred a more serious and vaguely horror-esque tone similar to the vibe from that original trailer, were it not for the fact that I know if James Gunn's name had been anywhere on this then those whining now wouldn't have been able to put down the pizza rolls their moms made for them and trip over the piles of soiled superhero undies and dried cum socks littering their bedroom floors fast enough to reach a keyboard so they could make a Tweet or post on Reddit proclaiming this to be the height of modern comedy. Also, it's odd how you won't hear a single Russian accent when using the default English voice acting.

With the presentation largely knocking it out of the park, it's in the gameplay where the developer's inexperience shows. The gunplay and movement aren't as fluid as their obvious Levine-ian inspirations. It can cause some irritation in certain boss battles as a few of these usually massive foes can cover distance remarkably fast and/or fire of an insane amount of attacks in rapid succession to the degree where it's basically impossible to get out of the way of damage even with a fully upgraded dash dodge move. Ultimately, that's about all I have a problem with. Sure, it's a bit linear early on and it takes a while to get used to your initially small inventory alongside the emphasis on melee combat that's really only effective when using charged attacks in the beginning, but when you get deeper into those skill trees and craft the stronger weapons it quickly turns into a blast of energetic battles against hordes of multiple enemy types at once with the occasional fun unique puzzle thrown in along the way. Some particular highlights for the latter include finding the right pose for robots next to hanging bodies so that their shadows cast grisly pictures on blank canvases behind them, rotating a 3D diorama to guide a ball through a physics-based maze, and completing a game of retro classic Snake for amusing good measure.

I think the most important thing to understand in order to be able to enjoy this is how the upgrade system works. You’re actually not meant to buy every power right away. I did that and found myself severely underpowered by the time I reached the first giant robot boss. Rather, it's best to focus on a single skill tree or two at a time before moving onto the other options. That's goes for your arsenal as well. Instead of crafting enough firearms to supply a small army you're encouraged to cannibalize weaker guns and bludgeons for the resources to build more powerful alternatives, and that's with looting every crate and desk drawer you come across for materials. Really highlights how pointless that weapon wheel is. Even if you were to fill the radial out you wouldn't have any carrying space left on your person for health items or bullets. Why all of this is okay is because you're given the freedom to totally respec whenever you want right down to the attachments added onto your tools for slaughter acquired from optional "testing ground" dungeons in the open-world segments, with everything previously invested being returned to you in full to reallocate elsewhere. It's a flexibility I wish more games offered. If you truly desire to max out everything entirely, there's a new game+ for that featuring a handful of interesting modifiers for the hardcore challenge seekers.

Atomic Heart is a thrilling romp through foes both monstrous and mechanical that's positively brimming with originality and personality, on top of greatly exceeding any expectations one could reasonably have for a developer's premiere outing. The biggest hinderance to my enjoyment were the minor technical shortcomings present here on "last gen." Such as having to sit through long load times after each death and textures getting blurry in the larger environments, requiring a console restart to return to form. If it weren't for that I could see my score increasing by another point/half-star. So those on PS5 and Series X can take comfort in the fact that the experience will only be better for them. Regardless, considering this is the level at which they released just their first title ever, Mundfish has definitely established themselves as a name worth keeping our eye on in the future.

8/10

I've just completed the first full week of content for this currently ongoing, live community experience that will reportedly take place over the next 6 months.

I think we can all agree that out everything that was announced as part of Konami's revival of the Silent Hill property, Ascension was among the most intriguing. Largely because none of us really knew for certain what it was supposed to be. Some kind of online Telltale-esque adventure series? A semi-interactive streaming TV show? It was a mystery even right up till the very day it released, leading to quite a confusing and frustrating launch for many (myself included) as they tried to figure out the basics of how they were expected to use the bloody app. A process the little tutorial video that greeted everyone sadly did not help much with. Looking back, I highly doubt a single person, no matter how skeptical, expected a final product so poor that it would legitimately and without exaggeration beat out the likes of Daedelic Entertainment's Gollum and Skull Island: Rise of Kong as the worst gaming had to offer in 2023, but that's exactly what we've received.

Essentially, the best way to describe Ascension is as a gradually unfolding, player-driven cinematic narrative that presents frequent opportunities for the audience to influence where the tale will go in the future via decision polls featuring a trio of options the viewer can vote on. Sounds kind of cool and compelling, right? Unfortunately, there are several things wrong with developer Genvid's take on this concept that completely annihilates any sense of fulfillment one could have gotten from it. Shockingly, the critical issue you'll hear mentioned the ​least by the swarm of angry participants is just how bad the writing is. Dialogue is terrible, conversations are unnatural as a whole, and the plot (which newcomers can watch prior episodes of at any point in order to catch up) literally begins right in the middle of a pair of tragic events with no context as to who the people involved are, what the deal with their respective cults and families is, or why we should care in the slightest. Naturally, this creates a big problem when it comes to casting our ballet in determining the ultimate fates of the various protagonists. Each choice is clearly marked to show that if chosen will lead those affected down a path to either suffering, damnation, or redemption, which not only removes the faintest shred of moral ambiguity, but without the aforementioned reasons to be invested it's impossible to give a single, solitary crap how they'll end up, defeating the entire point of this whole mess!

The issue its detractors DO complain about though is the monetization, and yes, it's as bad as you've probably heard. You see, rather than tallying the results of the voting periods by the simple and fair method of seeing which outcome the majority of individuals picked, they are instead determined by whichever one had the most "influence points," an in-game currency you can buy with IRL cash, poured into it. I will say that Genvid has provided means for players who understandably don't want to open up their wallets to grind for this necessary "IP" in the form of repeatable minigames, alongside daily and weekly goals. Some of which, such as lockbox and codebreaker, are genuinely fun and feel right at home in the Silent Hill franchise (others are of the generic match-3 or more variety). They even updated it recently so that those of us committing to the strictly free route have access to a larger selection of these optional diversions. Unfortunately, the bulk of content on this front and their subsequent rewards are sadly locked behind the $20 season pass, and it's just easier in general to amass a greater amount of this virtual wealth through using your real-world money on the direct microtransactions. Something the devs lied in an interview about and said wouldn't be possible by the way. So people who don't pay will always be less influential in the decision-making portion of the package than those do. Not to mention they won't ever have an opportunity to get their hands on a special "Golden Moment" as they are solely reserved for the biggest spenders. An idea that vaguely, if not blatantly reeks of NFT-esque scumminess.

Buying outcomes isn't the only use for accumulated IP, however. It can also be redeemed for tickets that can win your customizable avatar, that otherwise serves no purpose, a role in an upcoming scene. This would be a more enticing prospect if the assortment of interchangeable body features and clothing weren't so meager, causing the user-created characters to appear wildly out of place next to the regular cast. You will get the occasional freebie thrown out by the randomized reward system to help fill your wardrobe, but if you truly want to flesh out your collection of outfits and hairstyles to hopefully make an OC who doesn't look too stupid onscreen then you'll have to spring for the season pass and acquire the greater variety of appealing cosmetics contained within. Yet another ploy to try and separate you from your hard-earned dollarydoos...

Four paragraphs already and I haven't even got to the technical problems. The biggest motivation for watching the streams live, outside of the amusingly desperate (yet nonetheless boring) pre- and post-shows attempts to build hype and do some damage control that bafflingly drone on for longer than the actual 5 to 10-minute episodes themselves, is the multiplayer quick-time gameplay sequences. Your inputs in these non-canon segments don't have any effect on the regularly reused animated action running in the background, but the collective success or failure of everybody involved does impact the level of hope for whatever lead is featured that night. An element you'll want to stay on top of, as apparently it will be a factor in whether or not they ultimately survive this nonsense. Therefore, it's frustrating when these moments straight-up don't function properly. My first chance getting to play one of these was marred by the fact that despite the community's reported success, ol' boy Karl's hopefulness decreased anyways. Ain't that some ish? Had another time where nothing to interact with was ever displayed onscreen. Then there's the continuous glitch where the server fails to register/save how you've invested your influence points and resets things like it never happened, and the frequent annoyance of having to usually close and reopen the app in order to get the stream to work in full-screen mode.

I must also take a second to bemoan the loss of the public chat, a sorely missed source of stupid hilarity. It got shutdown almost immediately after being flooded with utter ridiculousness and totally justifiable ​bashing of the experience, not even living to see the second showing if I recall correctly. I'm fully convinced that the latter of the two is the sole reason it still hasn't been brought back as of this writing. While the ability to use text may be gone possibly forever(?), that hasn't stopped trolls from spamming the feed with incessant emojis and the other similar items remaining at their disposal . Scrolling through an absolute wall of the "shady" and "no way" stickers whenever members of the development team draw the short straw and have to act as spokespeople to and attempt appeasing the disappointed masses is always funny.

To summarize, this is a buggy, money-grubbing disaster where the story that's supposed to serve as the driving force is so poorly told that it doesn't make sense to the degree of borderline incoherency, and the scariest thing about it is how it tries to dig around in your pockets and couch cushions for loose change. It may also confirm my biggest suspicion/fear upon seeing projects such as Silent Hill f that Konami is going to be slapping the iconic horror juggernaut's name on projects with no real connection to its established lore, as outside of a small theory I've found referenced in a few places it's unclear how this connects to the larger fiction of the series, if at all. We haven't even really seen much of the surprisingly fittingly designed monsters outside of the QTEs yet. I will admit, we are currently still very early on in the event's projected lifespan and as I plan to tough it out until the conclusion, should circumstances improve and shift my opinion for the better or there be updates worth talking about I will write a follow-up piece with a new score to reflect this. Until that happens (and it probably won't) consider this my definitive review, because as much as the fanbase loves to complain about Homecoming, Book of Memories, the pachinko machines, and Bloober Team being handed the reigns of the SH 2 remake Ascension is unequivocally the worst thing to happen to the Silent Hill franchise to date.

1/10

As a huge proponent of video game preservation, especially in the form of making it as easy as possible to play older titles on modern hardware, this is exactly the type of thing I ​love to see. What we have here is a PS1/Dreamcast offering that's been ported to the eighth and ninth generation of PlayStation consoles with a little bit of up-rendering, a rewind feature similar to the one found in Duke Nukem 3D's Xbox 360 release, and the ability to create and load save states straight out of an emulator. The reason I find all of that so cool in this particular instance is because this is a game nobody was exactly clamoring to see get resurrected in a such a manner. It has zero historical significance, likely only received this treatment because of brand recognition, and will appeal solely to weirdos like myself who actively enjoy getting their hands on these types of niche, retro relative obscurities. I genuinely wish this would happen to more of the strangely intriguing, yet largely inconsequential and forgotten efforts of yesteryear.

Why wasn't there a demand for this to be dug up from the past, though? Well, to be quite frank with you it's because it isn't that great. Demolition is a vehicular combat sim with some serious balancing issues. A portion of the racers are simply flat-out better than the rest due to more effective special abilities and smoother handling on the battlefield, and it's hard to have much fun with the options that leave you at a blatant disadvantage. Also, the need to rely almost exclusively on your most powerful attacks to do any real damage forces you into hit-and-run strategizing while you wait for your weapons to charge and power gauge to refill, which causes skirmishes to go on long after their initial amusement has worn off as foes constantly recharge their shields unless you cheese the AI into sticking around your general vicinity.

However, while these flaws would provide an unavoidable deathblow for basically any of its alternatives, the property this option is attached to imbues it with an undeniable charm. The maps are all set on iconic locations found in the galaxy far, far away and each feature plenty of entertaining interactable elements. The selectable characters themselves are comprised of a handful of exciting or just plain goofy choices, including Boba Fett hovering around on his jetpack and a dude riding a freaking rancor, and cleverly manage to pull a variety of recognizable ships from both the OT and prequel trilogies in a very lore appropriate way. You could accurately argue it's nothing greater than a bunch of pure fanservice in lieu of actual, meaningful quality, but it's still enough for me regardless to recommend that at the low price of merely $4.99 any hardcore Star Wars devotee willing to not take things too seriously grab this, pop in some cheat codes to unlock everything, and just screw around to see what all it has in store, preferably with a buddy, even if for the silly FMV cutscenes alone.

6.5/10

Silly little zombie hack ‘n’ slasher. Kind of like the video game equivalent of a B-movie. Unfortunately, not the self-aware type that really revels in its schlock, but rather the more straight-faced variety that still tries to take itself pretty seriously. Naturally, the series caught my eye as a horny kid. I'm glad I never got to play it back when I was 13 though, because even if my mom would have let me buy them and I wouldn't have been too embarrassed to take them to the store clerk at the counter, these cheap Japanese budget titles would've only left me disappointed with how they fail to deliver the tantalizing thrills their names and box art promise. While main protagonist "Aya's" bra straps certainly hang erotically down off of her bare shoulders giving the impression that it could fall to the ground at a moment's notice, you won't find a single sexy cutscene or camera angle to arouse you further. For shame for tricking teenage boys like this, Tamsoft. For shame.

Fun fact: if you live outside of Japan then this was probably released on the same day as Bikini Samurai Squad (which you can check out my review for here, if interested) where you're at. The original 3-year gap between the two releases these offerings had in their developer's home country likely made it a bit easier to hide from consumers how they basically just recycled all the assets from the aforementioned Xbox 360 iteration for this Wii outing. A couple of character models feature slight differences, but for the most part the exact same levels and enemies have been carried over and reused.

The value that comes from the sheer novelty of slicing through the undead by waggling your Wiimote cannot be overstated, however. You won't be carefully directing swings of your blade Skyward Sword style so much as you're merely flicking your wrist up and down, yet when paired with the need to push the analog stick in different directions to create combos you get a surprisingly engaging, thoroughly amusing combat system. Simplistic though the enemy encounters may be. It also might not have the flashier moments of its predecessor (no giant zombie orca boss fight here 😔), but the four playable ladies each have their own brief "what if?" campaigns to get through and the local co-op ensures there's enough entertainment to keep you playing. Heck, it's even easier to forgive the subpar, low-quality graphics this time around considering that's how the majority of the platform's third-party library looks.

While Dead Rising: Chop Till You Drop continues to be the best zombie game on Nintendo's now second bestselling home console that I've played thus far, this stands out as a solid alternative due to the brainless, cheesy fun it can provide. Plus, thanks to the inclusion of things such as pop-up tutorials that explain the deeper mechanics or requirements for taking out stronger monster types (a feature sorely missing in its Microsoft exclusive sibling) and the strength of its new physically interactive method of controlling the action, "Slayers" narrowly manages to outshine its precursor found on the more impressive hardware.

7.5/10

I get it. This is a mid-to-low-tier, bargain bin PS2 game released on the 9th generation of consoles with a severe lack of technological polish and about two decades too late to cash in on the craze of the Peter Jackson trilogy. All stuff that is deeply unacceptable in this day and age. Yet, between the budget-caliber Prince of Persia​ knockoff platforming and surprisingly compelling moral decision-making, I remained invested enough to see the journey through to one of its possible conclusions and even have some fun with it despite the bugs, occasional infuriatingly designed segments, and at times remarkably unfinished graphics.

The real star of the show, though? Undoubtedly developer Daedelic Entertainment's rendition of Middle-earth. It carries just the right mix of the mature, dark tone and look of the Jackson films paired alongside hints of the more fantastical, whimsical nature found in the Rankin/Bass animated adaptations. It did a better job of recapturing the magic of this world that I've missed for me than the live-action Hobbit movies. They also got the titular character himself very right. Really encapsulating what a sad, tragic, pitiful, and strangely sympathetic creature he is. The tale itself, outside of getting a little outlandish even for this fantasy universe in its final act, is a neat little prequel expansion on the protagonist’s history prior to the books. Choosing between which of his two warring split personalities to side with at critical junctures doesn't radically alter where the adventure ends by the time the credits roll due to canonical lore reasons, but still adds some cool little personalized wrinkles to the path up to that point regardless that I really enjoyed seeing.

Having said all that, it nonetheless remains hard to recommend that people look past its incredibly negative reception and try it out for themselves, as only an extremely small portion of players of whom I just so happen to be able to count myself among will be able to look past the significant number of aspects that don't work like they should or were intended to, and find the traces of good buried underneath. One takeaway everyone will receive however, is that we need more Lord of the Rings games. We need more that explore unique characters or corners of the novels, and feature different gameplay styles than that of your usual hack 'n' slash or RTS efforts the way this tried to do. You see, the biggest disappointment of Gollum is that it exhibits truly good, intriguing ideas, but fails to capitalize on them in ways that are fully satisfying or completely functional.

6.5/10

Alright, now this where we start getting into some serious sick weirdo territory... 

You mean to tell me there are people out there who actually enjoyed Postal enough to be willing to purchase an expansion pack in order to play MORE of it?! Don’t get me wrong, as you can tell from this review (which I highly recommend reading beforehand), I am somebody who sees merit in the main game. It was a one and done experience for me though, and it certainly wasn’t something I took a great deal of pleasure in. Heck, the only reason I touched the content included here at all is because it came bundled with the “Classic and Uncut” edition I got for free off of GOG.

While I’m sure the changes to the multiplayer and addition of co-op for the campaign had/have their appeal, Special Delivery’s big selling point is undoubtedly the four new levels. This is where the first hints of the comedy that would come to define the property moving forward can be seen, and they rear their edgy little heads in the form some particularly tasteless themes for the original stages. It may seem kind of simpleminded to criticize an add-on for a title about being a mass shooter and a brand that prides itself on having a controversial sense of humor for being “tasteless,” but as you shoot up locations such as a department store, a homeless camp, a disaster relief effort, and a retirement community it’s not hard to see why its settings are especially problematic.

The number of unarmed, helpless civilians running around appears to have been GREATLY increased compared to the seemingly reduced amount of hostile targets, and the whole thing feels like it’s just being played for one big joke. Gone are the appropriately dark, unsettling vibes and atmosphere. In their place are unfunny repetitive one-liners (the amount of times you’ll hear “wHaT yOu DoN’t SeLl PoStAl?” in the department store…) and sight gags. I’m not necessarily offended by Running with Scissor’s insensitivity, more simply irritated that they would release something this juvenile and stupid as a means of building onto a more serious effort that I personally gave a fair bit of credit to. They did amuse me once at least when I passed by a shed at the old folk’s home and a parade of muscular naked men, presumably gigolos there to bang the old ladies, poured out. It was good for a single chuckle, so an extra star for the surprise penises I guess.

5/10

When it comes to the Postal franchise, the image most people have of it are these satirical shooters full of crass, crude adult humor with just enough ridiculously over-the-top ultraviolence to offend parents and prove inappropriate for the teenaged audience they carry the greatest appeal towards, without actually being anything to seriously worry about. While that is the path the property has taken from its second entry onwards, many would rather pretend its dark, twisted origins had never happened. Make no mistake, you’re not some comical anti-hero who can urinate on command here. You’re the unequivocal villain as you step into the warped mind and role of a mass shooter.

The game carries a suitably disturbing tone. At the start of each stage an excerpt from the deranged ramblings of the psychopathic protagonist’s journal is thrown onscreen accompanied by artwork straight out of a survival-horror title. During the moment-to-moment gameplay there’s no energetic rock music to pump you up for the action (or more accurately, the slaughter). There’s only the ambient noise and natural sounds of the environments you’re in mixed with the screams of your victims. You’ll hear the occasional one-liner tossed out as well, some of which I believe were intended to be humorous (“Stop shooting you sick b*stard! I’m already dead!”). I personally found it hard to take any amusement from them though, as my thoughts were too busy being an uneasy simultaneous combination of appalled fascination and repulsion at what I was doing. Running with Scissors wants you to feel uncomfortable while playing this.

I’ve experienced plenty of offerings like The Last of Us: Part II that have tried to leave you horrified at the violence they make you engage in, but none of them have proven as effective at that as this. The most interesting part is you don’t even have to kill everyone if you don’t want to. You’re only required to take out a certain percentage of the armed hostiles who are actively attempting to bring an end to your rampage before you can access the next level. There are usually a ton of passive, defenseless civilians running around you can gun down, but there is legitimately no benefit or reward for doing so outside of whatever sick thrill the more demented among us may get from doing so. You can’t stop them from occasionally wandering into your line of fire though, and with the way some scenarios are designed it’s as if the devs are constantly tempting you to engage in your most inhumanly evil impulses. Don’t be surprised to catch the intrusive thoughts asking you questions like “why not lob a Molotov into that line of people waiting to buy tickets at the movie theater? Why not launch a rocket into the middle of that passing parade? It’s just a game after all…”

There are a wide variety of movies out there which cover similarly harsh subject matter, such as A Clockwork Orange or Wes Craven’s original The Last House on the Left, and are difficult to watch because of it. Postal feels cut from that same cloth. It’s definitely more exploitation than arthouse, and as an interactive piece of entertainment it possesses undeniable faults. The obvious foremost being that due to the nature of the content it’s not very “fun” in the traditional sense, alongside smaller flaws including how it’s too easy to cheese the AI by standing right outside of their range of awareness while peppering them with bullets. Still, it manages to be noteworthy and carry a not insignificant amount of value regardless however, by standing as the closest representation of that class of cinema the video game medium has to offer.

8/10

By far one of the weirder, if not the weirdest, Microsoft exclusives. Seriously, you think about Xbox and it’s hypermasculine shooters like Gears of War and Halo that come to mind. This though? This is a kid-friendly throwback to the collect-a-thon 3D platformers of the N64 era, right down to the limited ability to move the camera. Professional critics and regular gamers alike are pretty dismissive of it because of that, and I don’t really think that’s fair. Super Lucky’s Tale may be pathetically easy, save for some sloppier level design near the end and a strangely difficult final boss who even gave me a bit of a fit before I could take him down, alongside sporting an incredibly childish theme in an effort to appeal primarily to the youngest players among us, but it is genuinely good at what it sets out to do.

It’s not perfect by any means. Stomping on enemies’ heads is always an annoying process thanks to hard it can be to judge how high that double jump will actually take you, sometimes resulting in you receiving damage yourself instead. Yet, there are some truly worthwhile ideas here. I loved how each world acts as a hub with its own individual stages with set goals to complete, rather than being wide open zones full of challenges or tasks that need to be hunted down. It nicely streamlines everything so there’s no guesswork when it comes to figuring out where you can grab another collectible in order to unlock the next area. The included 2.5D sections and silly puzzle minigames also add a nice amount of variety. 

Simply put, if you enjoy 3D platformers, you’ll (probably) like this.

8.5/10

I’ve held off on playing this for a long time. The first The Last of Us is easily one of my favorite games ever made, but like everyone I’ve been aware of what a massive hotbed for controversy this sequel is. I even had the source of many’s frustration spoiled for me, knowing full well the reason Ellie sets out on her quest for revenge and what her ultimate decision is by the time the credits roll in advance. The only information missing was the extremely crucial why behind the latter. The thing that’s stopped me from getting the answer to that question before now is how hostile discussion around “Part II” can get, alongside simply not wanting to risk experiencing something that could potentially have a negative affect on the love I carry for the world and characters Naughty Dog had created 7 years prior. Well, with discourse seemingly having reached the best it’s going to be for a while I decided to finally step out of the blissful comfort zone of my ignorance on the matter and at last discover what all the bloody friction is about. What I found has made it easy to understand why so many were/are left exasperated and dissatisfied with the adventure, as this is a VERY imperfect follow-up to a title that’s as close to perfect as a video game has ever come to being.

A big dilemma I believe the devs likely encountered in relation to the gameplay while making this was trying to figure out how to expand and improve upon a predecessor that was basically flawless at what it set out to do and within the confines of what it needed to achieve on that front. You can really see that early on. The opening hours are more or less what I expected; a slow, largely uneventful start as the narrative goes through the process of establishing the conflict that will serve as the driving force moving forward. There is the occasional exciting set piece in the form of moments such as a thrilling solo sprint down a snowy mountain while being chased by a rapidly growing horde of the infected, but for the most part it’s just walking forward while listening to conversations and it’s not hard to wish you had more to do in these instances than merely pushing up on the analog stick. Upon reaching Seattle where the bulk of the proceedings take place though, after breaching the gates of its quarantine zone you’re treated to a rather wide, sprawling area of the city reminiscent of Uncharted 4’s Madagascar section to explore at your leisure with plenty of optional activities to engage in outside of your main objective. Enemy encounters are pretty basic in design and strictly limited to the handful of interior locations you can visit, but it’s a nice unexpected surprise nonetheless that also shows off the massive potential a full open-world Naughty Dog project has. That’s unfortunately where the experimentation ends however, because you’re quickly thrown back into the more traditional linear levels for the rest of the runtime where the only new mechanics are stuff like a dedicated dodge button against melee attacks and the ability to hide in tall grass, leading to this entire segment feeling weirdly disconnected from the whole.

That means those hoping for true innovation beyond what II’s forerunner offered will be sadly disappointed. Yet, it does make a pretty good case for why more of the same is far from a problem here. Clashes against human and inhuman foes alike become more interesting and complex via the increase in their scripted nature, usually taking place in exhilarating settings including an underground transit system lit only by the dim red glow of burning road flares (a particular highlight). Their intensity cannot be overstated either as the intelligence of the AI paired with your limited supplies can spell your doom if you aren’t smart in your approach, and right when you think they can’t get any more challenging that’s when the dogs that can track your scent are introduced. Brutal. The stages also maintain a hint of the grander scale from the introductory chapter as well, providing frequent opportunities for the curious to get off the beaten path a bit and poke around in nonessential buildings, which always reward with helpful items and the occasional hidden scenario you won’t see otherwise.

Honestly, I think the biggest issue the package has is its length, or is at the very least directly related to that. On top of overstaying its welcome by some margin, the willingness of the developers to stretch out the journey for as long as possible severely hurts the plot. There’s a point in the game, two or more actually, where they could have ended the story without sacrificing its overall moral and everything would have been fine. Don’t get me wrong, a portion of people would have still been mad regardless, but their number would be significantly lower than what it consequently ended up being instead. I’ll try to remain as spoiler-free as I can. The first instance occurs when Ellie performs an act of particular savagery to learn the location of her target. She walks away from it visibly shaken, and in a better universe Naughty Dog used the moment to say something about the violence we’ve witnessed before closing the curtain on the tale. Shockingly enough, the instance evidently didn’t actually have much of a profound effect on her at all as minutes later she’s right back to talking about her desire for reprisal and continuing on with her mission, which later finds her committing something even more heinous that she again takes nothing away from despite appearing to realize the weight of it at first. My first thought was that this was the creators attempting to ensure players didn’t walk away with the perspective that they blew their hard-earned money on a product that was too short and that it would maybe make those last few cutscenes hit a touch harder as a result. Turns out, that couldn’t have been farther from the truth as a crazy thing happens when you come face-to-face with the woman Ellie’s hunting in a tense standoff. Basically, the game restarts.

If I had to guess, I would say Druckmann and crew knew their choices for the script’s resolution would be contentious, so they decided to force a mandatory replay where you see through the eyes of the villain in an effort to make us like her. Unfortunately, not only is this a total momentum killer due to when it occurs, but you’re essentially beginning from scratch again as ”Abby” has to acquire/learn her own set of tools and skills. What’s worse is that it felt like a direct insult to my intelligence. I didn’t need to like her. I understood and empathized with the reason behind why she did what kickstarted this whole shebang. I saw it as another one of the superbly befitting gray aspects of TLOU’s world. I eventually began to come around to the idea of this shift in protagonists when it looked like the writers were setting up a scene that would mirror the one that set Ellie on her murderous crusade and deliver a powerful, poignant lesson involving not passing your pain onto others by refusing to let cycles of violence continue. That’s not the route they took either, however. It isn’t until after you’re returned to the part where the two opposing forces meet that you enter the final leg of the journey, causing the side-character they spent the last three in-game days introducing to come off as somewhat wasted.

Normally, I wouldn’t necessarily be complaining about the amount of content, especially considering its progenitor’s multiplayer was cut, if when I finally arrived at the resolution it wasn’t so ineffective and unfulfilling. All I was left with afterwards was the question of why? What was truly gained by not wrapping the tale up 3-5 hours earlier? A greater degree of excessive padding? A bleaker, less satisfying conclusion? Not to mention you’re constantly subjected to ever-increasingly graphic depictions of horrific brutality the deeper you progress that seriously dilutes the overall message so that it lands without much impact. Having covered my opinions on all that, while the mishandling of the narrative definitely sours my view of this successor to an outright masterpiece, I can’t sit here and proclaim it as completely devoid of any value. The mix of combat, scavenging, and light (lite?) exploration is still an absolute blast and from a technological standpoint this is a staggeringly impressive feat. Those seamless transitions between gameplay and cutscenes will never not blow my mind. The production values in general are beyond outstanding with photorealistic graphics, incredible facial animation, and Hollywood A-lister quality acting. Plus, it’s just rare to receive a triple-A release this provocative and surprisingly expansive, even if it is ultimately exhausting and inconsistently written. As with anything this divisive, despite so strongly documenting my attitude over the course of this review the number one recommendation I or anyone else can give you is to try the game out for yourself in order to form your own stance on it, as what is offers will effect everyone differently. Kind of a lame way to bring a close to a read this big I know, but let’s pretend I’m doing it as a means of cleverly parodying its topic, shall we?

7.5/10

The forgotten God of War. One of the products of Sony’s push to bring some of their biggest franchises to mobile devices back in the mid-to-late 2000s. This may be the most impressive cellphone game of all time when you consider the era and technology it came out on. They definitely got the right people together. David Jaffa and the team at Santa Monica were involved in the project to make sure they got the feeling correct, and developer WayForward were commissioned to do the graphics which led to the same kind of top-notch animations that they made a name for themselves with in their Shantea series, while also blowing any other Java/J2ME romp completely out of the water visually. Betrayal’s entire existence is the result of a collaborative effort between a handful of talented studios and it really shows. There’s actually a fantastic video from underrated YouTuber “Minimme” that I highly recommend checking out if you’re interested in learning more about who all had a hand in the title’s creation and what their roles were.

Don’t let the platform fool you, this is a bona fide, unadulterated God of War experience and it’s absolutely incredible how well they were able to condense the formula down into a 2D format. The main focus is of course on carving your way through hordes of classic monsters from Greek mythology with all of the blood and gory QTE finishers you would expect fully intact. I was consistently amazed by the fluidity and smoothness of combat. Familiar tools such as Medusa’s Gaze and the Army of Hades return alongside the Blade of Artemis to round out your arsenal for slaughter beyond merely the iconic Blades of Athena, and naturally you upgrade them with red orbs collected from chests exactly like you would in its home console brethren. There are even platforming sections where you dodge spinning blades and other booby traps while ascending various towers. The only thing missing is a sex mini-game, and before you say that could never have been included here allow me to be the first to tell you you’d be surprised just how raunchy these Java phone games could get. Leisure Suit Larry had at least three of them that I know of for crying out loud!

Now, I’m aware this may sound perfect, but unfortunately there are issues that are a result of it definitely being a product of its time. The keypad controls mean you have a simplistic one-button combat system that can get repetitive pretty fast. Luckily, that’s somewhat offset by the fact that this was designed to be played in very brief spurts. It also means that swapping between your other weapons is a pain, particularly where the magical items are concerned. After firing them off once you immediately have to cycle back to and reselect them should you want to use them again. It makes it so you’ll never want to change to anything besides the Blades of Athena, which is honestly all you’ll need anyways as upgrading them twice allows you to decimate even the stronger enemy types with ease. By far the most damaging flaw though is the lack of sound. You’ll hear some music in the main menu, but the actual gameplay is entirely silent and a little background noise would have gone a long way towards making the adventure more exciting.

Because of all that, it’s truly hard to say that every GoW fan needs to go out and play this. All the plot, which is set between the first and second entries, has to offer is yet another small footnote to the list of reasons behind why the gods of Olympus hate Kratos, so it’s not as if you’ll be missing out on some serious chapter of the franchise’s lore by continuing to skip it. That having been said, it nonetheless irks me to see so many people in comment sections and forums posting stuff like “wHy DiD tHeY eVeN bOtHeR mAkInG tHiS?” or trying to dismiss it as some totally worthless, outdated relic utterly devoid of value in our present time period. This was a labor of love from a collective of clearly passionate creatives who poured themselves into making something that legitimately pushed the limits of the software, and it remains fun enough even now that I can still see myself breaking it out whenever I need something to entertain me for a few minutes.

7/10

A relatively obscure Metal Gear adventure that at one point only Verizon Wireless customers could get their hands on. Even when it was later made available to those who went with other service providers, it was as a digital exclusive for the N-Gage so if you look around online it seems not many people have played this. Oddly enough, being ported to Nokia’s ill-fated cellphone/handheld gaming console hybrid might be the sole reason it hasn’t been completely lost to time. It took some work, particularly for someone like me who isn’t very computer savvy, but after getting the EKA2L1 emulator running I was finally able to try out this lesser known entry in the franchise for myself and can hopefully give you a good idea of what it’s like.

The goal here of developer Ideaworks Game Studio was to bring the Metal Gear Solid experience you could get on home consoles back then, which at that point the latest mainline releases were the PS2 titles, to mobile devices with as few caveats as possible. Something I think they did a fantastic job of doing. With full 3D visuals and the traditional fixed-camera angles, it pulls off the series’ distinctive, instantly recognizable look with shocking fidelity. It may not be exactly graphically stunning, but that ends up not being too big of a problem as its appearance calls to mind that of the charming PS1 original’s. Mechanically, there’s everything you would expect from first-person aiming to hanging off railings and leaning against walls to peek around corners. The fact that they managed to tie so many of these actions to a single input with minimal issues is pretty incredible. Granted, I was playing with a keyboard which I imagine is a lot smoother and more responsive than an old school keypad. Regardless, it’s all seriously impressive stuff. 

Yet, while feature-wise it doesn’t feel dumbed-down even slightly, it’s when you dive into the actual content that the simplicity begins to show. The little Shadow Moses wannabe you traverse is fairly small and I was able to complete the whole affair in just over an hour-and-a-half not rushing. The enemy AI is pretty basic as well, barely offering up a threat and their numbers are so tiny you can usually walk through most areas with next to no effort. I was also able to brute-force my way to defeating the final and sole boss encounter by trading shots whilst standing entirely out in the open and relying on my reserve of 4 rations to let my health bar outlast his.

Now, none of that is necessarily terrible per se, but means things may not prove exciting enough for everybody to justify hunting this down for a side-story of debatable canonicity at best since it’s never been featured in any officially recognized encyclopedia or database of Metal Gear lore. A shame, because it’s a decent tale. Told without the property’s typical cinematic flair and strictly through text codec calls as there’s no voice acting, but providing a nice bridge between the first and second Solid nonetheless. One that contains plenty of the themes from Sons of Liberty, dealing with topics such as virtual reality and concepts like AI designed to seduce people. Yeah, I’m sure that will never happen…

Overall, Mobile is more along the lines of an extremely enticing tech demo rather than the true fulfillment of our wildest and probably highly irrational dreams of the series on cellphones, but the sheer novelty of witnessing full-fledged MGS gameplay in this manner and format cannot be overstated. It leads to an amusement factor that is sure to delight anyone similar to myself who takes pleasure in seeing what was being attempted back in this almost seemingly unrestrained era of experimentation in retro cellular technology. As for the tactical espionage action juggernaut’s fanbase? Well, I’d say strictly its most hardcore devotees would find this truly worth digging up, but all might get a slight kick out of it with an open mind.

7/10

Ah, Sons of Liberty. One of the most noteworthy titles of the sixth console generation, a top contender for the majority of the fanbase’s favorite entry in the entire series, and nigh universally considered to rank among the best games ever made. Oddly enough, it might also be the perfect litmus test to determine whether the larger scope of what the Metal Gear franchise has to offer is for you or not. Y’see, there’s a small group of people out there who, despite loving the first Solid, found this to be the point where the property as a whole simply stopped being for them. Their reasoning? The writing. 

While critically acclaimed and its most direct predecessor not exactly shying away from going over the top itself, the storytelling does take a turn for the excessively gonzo in this follow-up and it’s not like the plotting in subsequent releases got any less polarizing from here on that front. You fight immortal vampires who can walk on water, people get possessed by ghosts lingering in transplanted limbs, and there’s a subplot involving a certain otaku hacker that feels like something out of a bad stepson/bro porno. Really reveals how ridiculous all those complaints about the Matrix-style antics in the cutscenes of The Twin Snakes are. I mean, this literally opens with Snake doing a backflip somersault off of the George Washington Bridge to land on a tanker passing underneath. So yeah, that remake isn’t exactly the tonal anomaly its detractors claim it to be…

The tale is ultimately redeemed for many by the strength of its deep, poignant thematic material, which covers topics such as censorship, misinformation, and governmental attempts to use both to control public opinion in the digital age. Stuff that has only gotten more relevant as the years have gone by, but personally aren’t enough to keep me from counting myself among the portion of players who view SoL as the point where the narrative first seriously jumped the shark. And this is coming from someone who is more forgiving of the most heavily criticized elements than the majority of others typically are. The disdain for Raiden as the protagonist because he’s “weak” and “whiny,” for example? I totally don’t buy into it all. The guy is pretty likable and it’s hard to think of him as a wimp just because he’s inexperienced when he still manages to kick an insane amount of butt by the time the credits roll. Not to mention his inclusion makes the overall world of Metal Gear feel more expansive in a cool way. Honestly, I imagine part of the hate (outside of the general anger at a lack of Snake) is simply misplaced frustration at his girlfriend. Don’t get me wrong, I actually understand why she’s having trouble with aspects of their relationship, but could she legit have not found a better opportunity to constantly pester him about it than right when he’s in the middle of trying to rescue the President from a group of terrorists?

It’s a shame that the utterly outlandish qualities and willingness of the characters to dive into every little detail of their personal dramas at inappropriate moments causes the plot to come up short considering what a huge element of the brand that is. It’s not enough for me to turn my back on the title as a whole however, as it’s hard to fault the actual gameplay much. I’m someone who prefers to play stealth games aggressively taking out guards before they’re aware of my presence rather than waiting around to memorize the blind spots in their patrol patterns, particularly in offerings like this one where you’re regularly required to revisit prior locations, so additions such as first-person aiming are a godsend! Kojima even managed to give you the tools for an effective offense without compromising the underlying motif introduced in this outing of pacifism that encourages the player to resolve situations non-lethally and would become a staple moving forward. A variety of systems and items were created here that make it completely possible to avoid killing anyone, including the bosses (not that it has any affect on their fate already predetermined by the script though).

I also just love the new setting! It may not have the personality or atmosphere of Shadow Moses, but its layout is a massive improvement. Admittedly, that is because they sort of took the easy route of making it basically one big circle. Yet, I’ll accept that as it severely reduces the tedium of backtracking and the sheer variety of one-off scenarios you’ll encounter prevent the surroundings of the adventure from ever coming off as simplistic or repetitive. If you look back at prior Metal Gears up to this point, you’ll notice a cycle of Kojima taking previous set pieces and recreating them with refinements and at a grander scale. Something he does in Solid 2 to a degree as well, but evidently the gaming auteur realized there wasn’t much else he could do differently with those old ideas so he started finally cooking up fresh concepts à la underwater swimming areas and thrilling sniper sections where you provide cover for a moving ally that kept me enthralled in the moment-to-moment action.

This captures almost perfectly how I’ve always wanted a Metal Gear to play, right down to little touches like the map that pops up on the pause screen. You may find the overall yarn encapsulating the highly enjoyable interactive portion of the package to be exasperating to the degree that it effectively dashes your enthusiasm for the rest of experience entirely the way a minority of players have. Especially since it becomes borderline unintelligible in the final act and it director’s penchant for lengthy cinematics/codec calls mean you’ll be sitting through extended stretches of it. I’m not saying there aren’t still those classic MG segments that will leave you wondering whether or not their creator is some kind of sadist either (that darn shell 1-2 connecting bridge…). Those otherwise serious faults end up turning into quibbles when faced with the fine tuning of the mechanics and plethora of excellent QoL features though. Earning Sons of Liberty a well-deserved seat alongside the crème de la crème of the stealth-action tactical espionage action genre. In my eyes at least.

9/10

Man, the early 2010s were really the peak of mobile gaming. The F2P model hadn’t yet totally dominated the marketplace, so you could pay $6.99 for experiences like this that are still technologically impressive today and aren’t burdened with energy systems or locked content designed to aggressively lure you into buying microtransactions. Gameloft in particular were churning out some bangers back then and their Spider-Man titles were especially solid.

Total Mayhem is a brawler with some fun combat and outstanding visuals for the hardware. I honestly can’t think of any modern app I’ve seen over the last few years that has had this much effort put into their level design. Now, admittedly the basic enemy types don’t provide much of a threat so the simplicity of the standard encounters can cause things to get a little button-mashy and dull unless you’re playing on the higher difficulties. As a result, I got far more out of the occasional platforming segments stages sometimes offer up, which add an appreciated bit of variety. The real star of the show though are undoubtedly the boss battles. These thrilling clashes against a host of familiar faces from the web-head’s iconic rogues gallery are grand, exciting, introduce their own unique mechanics, and can be quite challenging. They alone are worth hunting this down for.

It’s a shame that hunting it down is what you’ll legitimately have to resort to, as this is another unfortunate victim of cellular tech’s constant, rapid evolution. Like so many gems before and sadly also after it, this has been pulled from all digital storefronts so there’s no conventional means of getting your hands on it. Instead you’ll have to risk scouring shady sites for a safe, modded secondhand APK. A process that proved more troublesome than usual for yours truly, because even when I finally managed to find an APK that didn’t immediately crash on my device at the main menu there was no sound during the actual gameplay! Luckily, that ended up not being a huge issue, as based on some YouTube videos I looked up afterwards it turns out the voice acting is… um… not great…

While the game is definitely coasting by pretty hard on the strength of “wow, I can’t believe I can play this ON MY PHONE!” it’s still worth a look for the wall-crawler’s hardcore fans. Certainly those such as myself who stumbled onto its existence long after it had been removed from the App Store/Google Play and have been curious about what they missed ever since. The moment-to-moment action which makes up the bulk of the adventure won’t blow you away and is perhaps made too easy by your overpowered spider-sense letting you get out of the way of regular damage in an instant, but upgrading your abilities with orbs God of War-style and collectible artwork to uncover will keep you entertained until you reach the next big supervillain fight. Honestly, the worst thing it has going against it may be that it’s based on those awful “Ultimate” comics. Yuck…

7.5/10

A one-man indie studio project where the developer tried to make the most of his limited resources by crafting a throwback to the survival horror titles of the 5th generation. On paper, this isn’t really anything all that different from what Puppet Combo has done. The thing that ultimately distinguishes Back in 1995 from the works of Benedetto Cocuzza though, is that its vision is nowhere near as effective. 

Director Takaaki Ichijo unfortunately failed to create a compelling horror scenario. While genre hits such as the legendary Silent Hill have shown that it’s possible to turn otherwise everyday, normal locations into realms of total terror, any potential for fear that could have been here ends up lost in face of bland environments that are too well-lit and a remarkable lack of atmosphere. Not to mention the first and most common enemy type you’ll encounter literally looks like a floating almond with stickman arms, and foes in general are pathetically easy to avoid by just casually walking past them the majority of the time. So there’s no sense of danger or threat to keep you on edge.

It arguably doesn’t even do that good of a job at being a PS1-era callback either. There are certainly tank controls, fixed camera angles, save points, and plenty of locked doors, but it seems that its creator might surprisingly be misremembering the classics of yesteryear as worse than they actually are. For starters, with exception to maybe Bubsy 3D (albeit for very different reasons), I can’t think of a PS1 game that looked this bad! Say what you will about the limitations of 32-bit hardware, but devs were usually crafty enough back then to deliver some mesmerizing sights regardless by imbuing the textures on those polygons with a lot of little details that truly brought them to life. There’s nothing like that in this. Instead, you’re almost exclusively subjected to overly bright white rooms full of mundane chairs, filing cabinets, and air conditioners with no life or verve to be found. Then there’s the combat where Ichijo apparently wanted to pay homage by way of hyperbole. He harkens back to the clunkiness of old by making your melee swings play out in a ridiculously exaggerated slow motion that can cause you some serious problems should you happen to get backed into a corner by the faster moving monsters, whose speedy attacks can interrupt your character’s sluggish animations and make any form of retaliation incredibly difficult on your part.

There are also the technical issues to consider. Which include a remarkable lack of the I in AI, alongside floors and baseboards that are constantly distorting or bending out of shape as they reach the corners of the screen while you walk. The former causes what should be big, tense moments to fall hilariously flat on their faces. Case in point, after getting my hands on the game’s shotgun a cutscene informed me that a massive creature had just spawned for what I imagine was intended to be a thrilling boss fight. As I prepared myself for a grand battle the grotesque monstrosity immediately got hung on a nearby table, allowing me to completely ignore it as I leisurely strolled out of the door without firing so much as a single bullet. Another instance saw me stumble into a room with two of the hulking beasts where I adopted my typical strategy of paying them no mind while I steered myself towards the nearest exit, only stopping to grab a random note that was laying around. Upon finishing reading it I was blown away to find that my pursuers had somehow forgotten all about me and were lackadaisically wandering back to their original locations despite being hot on my heels a mere second beforehand.

Now, under normal circumstances I would typically be more forgiving of all the stuff I’ve complained about, given the fact that this was made basically by a single person and with what I’d estimate was a shoestring budget. Especially since it’s short, unchallenging, and thanks to a lack of a transfarring option I was able to net two easy platinum trophies across PS4 & Vita for the price of one. A crazy thing happens when you reach what appears to be the story’s natural conclusion, however. Before you know it you’re thrown right back to the beginning of the game. You might think this is another case of the adventure not quite functioning as it should and immediately exit out, but stick around and you’ll discover that key aspects of the journey have changed in some significant ways. The lighting is appropriately darker leading to a more befitting tone, the level design improves dramatically, and the brains behind the project himself breaks the fourth wall to explain every questionable decision you spent the last 1-2 hours encountering right down to the meaning behind them. The actual gameplay during this part is little more than a brief sprint back through areas you’ve already visited, but it’s in this moment you realize that Mr. Takaaki could have legitimately given the world a decent recreation of retro survival-horror and instead blatantly chose not to in favor of delivering some pretentious meta-commentary that wouldn’t have missed the mark so much if he had simply made the overall package good in the first place. A perfect example of one’s artistic intentions to release something with deeper meaning that the norm getting in the way of the actual experience itself. Ultimately, leaving me to feel like I wasted, admittedly quite a small amount of, my time on something that simply wasn’t worth it in the slightest, even at the relatively low price of $9.99.

4.5/10

Seems like every now and then someone tries their hand at throwing AI zombies into the middle of a competitive multiplayer shooter. It’s an enormously intriguing idea, but so far nobody has been able to pull it off successfully due to primarily being the brainchildren of small studios with low budgets and no marketing. As a result, you’ve likely only ever discovered these titles long after the minuscule playerbases they were maybe able to establish dried up while doing some dumpster diving on Steam.

What better way then to make this compelling concept finally take off than by having a big, well-established property like Resident Evil take a stab at it? Capcom has been weirdly determined to wring a PvP experience out of the property as of late, after all. Showing yet again the studio’s baffling ignorance in regards to what type of outings the fanbase is actually interested in. Unfortunately, their take is just as cheap and fundamentally flawed as the janky, schlock shovelware it takes inspiration from. Which is why its servers are just as empty. 

I was able to find a grand total of 1 single match in time with this disaster, and on top of the lobby not being full, an embarrassing fact for a game that’s a mere 3v3, my word was it no fun. The shockingly subpar graphics, blisteringly fast movement (the speed at which you can travel while prone is unintentional comedic gold), horrendous UI that doesn’t even effectively convey your health, and maps cluttered with crap can make it difficult to decipher what’s going on in the heat of the moment leading to frustrating deaths followed by irritatingly lengthy respawn times. Consequently, the aiming feels loose and unwieldy, and the features that should have helped with this such as iron sights and cover prove detrimental by turning you into a more stationary target.

The zombies aren’t even put to good use. Each player is sporting some kind of transmitter backpack that basically turns all the creatures into window dressing by causing them to ignore everyone unless their device is destroyed. Now, this no doubt sounds as if it would create an interesting way to potentially kill members of the other team, but the TTK is so quick you’ll usually end up killing opponents by yourself anyways while trying to target that specific point on their backs. Mix that in with the incredibly limited number of modes that simply boil down to whether you want respawns in a round and rotating objectives or not, and you’re left with a particularly dreadful multiplayer offering. Easily among the worst I’ve personally ever had the displeasure of playing, however briefly that was.

Nobody is online anyhow though, so should you inexplicably decide to pick this up the single-player portion will be where you’ll be spending the majority of your time. Believe it or not, it might legitimately be worse. You essentially get a string of 24 or so missions not connected by any story that basically act as bot battles with no bots to simulate human opposition. It’s strictly you, the zombies, and not an undead repellent piece of technology in sight. It starts off pretty boring as the basic rotting adversaries present little resistance, but rapidly grows frustrating as new monster types are introduced that absorb more damage. The whole thing devolves into a mess of getting swarmed and attacked from all sides in the cramped environments by bullet sponges. I ultimately couldn’t bring myself to finish it. The reward of a handful of lame cosmetic patches for my avatar and a silver completion trophy weren’t enough motivation for me to continue suffering through to the final stages.

I hope that one day a developer will be able to deliver on the massive potential the prospect of engaging in multiplayer matches while AI versions of the reanimated dead roam the maps has. Sadly, what on paper looked to be the most promising attempt to date may instead crushingly be the poorest. At least with the other efforts out there their failures can be attributed to modest origins. Umbrella Corps however, comes from one of the biggest companies and has ties to arguably the most popular survival-horror series in the entire industry. For it to be this haphazard, slapdash, and altogether inept is nowhere near as forgivable. The most egregious, offensive part of all? Capcom still has the audacity to charge the morbidly curious $19.99 for entry. Nah, screw that.

3/10