Turbo_Sven
BACKER
2013
For a game that spends a lot of time talking about the sacrifices that needs to be done in order to survive, it sure does nothing to explore the emotional trauma and ramifications that comes with it. After Lara makes her first kill she reflects on how suprisingly easy it was for two seconds and then goes Rambo on the entire islands population for the next 12 or so hours. It's hard to take the game seriously when it faintly dabbles in moral dilemmas while also going on a murder spree without batting an eye.
Now since I played this 9 years after release, I can safely say that while it on a technical level held up better than I expected, it still showed it's age just slightly. It had some perfomance issues as it struggled a lot to hold a steady framerate. The animations where also very janky and lacked the overall realistic polish that most modern games have today. I swear, during some segments it felt like someone was fast-forwarding Lara's animations as she was speeding through her animations like she was Sonic.
It's a decent game that doesn't do a whole lot out of the ordinary. It plays it pretty safe and delivers a decently enjoyable adventure. The characters are about as thin as Lara Croft's original waist from the 90's and only acts as objectives for you to save. It's a pretty basic game that tries to be deep and morally complex while at the same time being fueled by loud explosions and joyous violence that drowns out all attempts at deep emotional reflection. Don't think, just shoot and have fun.
Now since I played this 9 years after release, I can safely say that while it on a technical level held up better than I expected, it still showed it's age just slightly. It had some perfomance issues as it struggled a lot to hold a steady framerate. The animations where also very janky and lacked the overall realistic polish that most modern games have today. I swear, during some segments it felt like someone was fast-forwarding Lara's animations as she was speeding through her animations like she was Sonic.
It's a decent game that doesn't do a whole lot out of the ordinary. It plays it pretty safe and delivers a decently enjoyable adventure. The characters are about as thin as Lara Croft's original waist from the 90's and only acts as objectives for you to save. It's a pretty basic game that tries to be deep and morally complex while at the same time being fueled by loud explosions and joyous violence that drowns out all attempts at deep emotional reflection. Don't think, just shoot and have fun.
2023
A remake so good, it made me sad playing it, knowing that there's a good chance that I'll never play the original again.
I played through the game together with my girlfriend and so I can't really say anything about the singleplayer experience. But the game suffers from some performance issues so severe that I doubt the game runs much smoother in singleplayer. If you're not ok with playing a game that rarely manages to put out a stable 30fps, then maybe this peticular game is not for you.
Performance issues aside tho, it's a somewhat solid game that tries to walk in the same footsteps as it's predecessor, but doesn't fill the shoes all that well. The first Hyrule Warriors was better paced and the maps were better designed than in Age pf Calamity. In the first Hyrule Warriors the maps where designed with connectivity in mind where each road and outpost led to other roads and outposts. This brought a nice flow to how you moved around the maps. In Age of Calamity a lot of outposts are situated at dead ends with narrow passageways which disrupts the general flow of movement in the game and makes to maps unclear and difficult to navigate.
Overall it's a slightly lukewarm successor to the superior Hyrule Warriors that starts to drag quite a bit in the later half of the game, especially towards the end. To be honest, if it weren't for my girlfriends companionship I probably wouldn't have gotten through the entirety of it. Good company really does make any situation bearable, huh.
Performance issues aside tho, it's a somewhat solid game that tries to walk in the same footsteps as it's predecessor, but doesn't fill the shoes all that well. The first Hyrule Warriors was better paced and the maps were better designed than in Age pf Calamity. In the first Hyrule Warriors the maps where designed with connectivity in mind where each road and outpost led to other roads and outposts. This brought a nice flow to how you moved around the maps. In Age of Calamity a lot of outposts are situated at dead ends with narrow passageways which disrupts the general flow of movement in the game and makes to maps unclear and difficult to navigate.
Overall it's a slightly lukewarm successor to the superior Hyrule Warriors that starts to drag quite a bit in the later half of the game, especially towards the end. To be honest, if it weren't for my girlfriends companionship I probably wouldn't have gotten through the entirety of it. Good company really does make any situation bearable, huh.
2016
The best Hitman game I've played so far. Every map is an immense stage of intervowen opportunities that just begs to be further explored. The different mission stories are a nice narrative experience, although they can make the missions a bit to easy and hand-holdy. The sheer scale and replayability of the maps more than make up for the smaller selection of different scenarios. Out of all the maps, Sapienza was definitely my favourite. Such a beautiful, dynamic map with such fun and intricate avenues for assassinations. If Hitman 2 and 3 are anything like this one, then I have a lot of exciting assassination missions to explore, plan and execute.
Finally a good Mario Party game on the Switch! The last Mario Party game was passable at best with boring boards and frustrating minigames designed around annoying motion controls. This time around Nintendo has redeemed themselves. The mixture of boards/minigames from earlier titles brings a lot of the best from the entire franchise, while at the same time eliminating motion controls. It's a really nice balance of fun and nostalgia that will make you hate your friends. Which is all you want in a Mario Party game, isn't it?
This review contains spoilers
Rise of the Tomb Raider is a clear improvement over Tomb Raider (2013) in almost every way possible. It's a fun and wild action adventure that takes you through enemy infested soviet installations to ice covered tombs filled with simple but enjoyable puzzles. Only this time around it really doubles down on the stealth portion of the game, which the game's predecessor was severely lacking. This time you really get the opportunity to go full Siberian predator on you enemies, as you silently jump from branch to branch among the trees in order to stalk your unsuspecting prey. It's rare to be able to clear out an entire area without being spotted, since the enemy sometimes seems to be hard coded to find you no matter what. But you still have a much better chance to at least level the playing field a bit before guns are needed.
The gunplay is more or less the same as the last one, with just the addition of some new weapons for you to choose from. But the new and improved animations makes the combat feel much more weighted and impactful. The enemies no longer goofily flail about like bouncing ragdolls when they die. Now they feel like actual objects with weight behind them. Sure, the physics and animation is not as well crafted as in for example Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's a giant step in the right direction.
While the gameplay is vastly improved, the story still falls a little bit short. The main difference in my opinion is the characters. The characters in the first game was as bland and tasteless as McDonald's food. In Rise of the Tomb Raider they are a bit more fleshed out, with motivations that are part personal and interesting, and part cliché and boring. The writers also learned how to explore the central themes of their own story this time, to some extent at least. Last time they tried to do this gritty story about the hardships of survival and the moral lines that has to be crossed, without ever contemplating about the ramifications of actually crossing those lines. This time they actually do contemplate the actions and overall goals of their quest, but it's all based on the same cliches that usually plague these types of archaeological action adventure stories with supernatural elements. As in they usually just end up with the same conclusion: the powerful and supernatural artifact, that we have spent the entire journey trying to find, is ultimately better off left hidden to save the world. It's an improvement over the last game's story, but it's still a story that we have heard a thousand times already. Thank the gods that the gameplay at least got a huge improvement.
The gunplay is more or less the same as the last one, with just the addition of some new weapons for you to choose from. But the new and improved animations makes the combat feel much more weighted and impactful. The enemies no longer goofily flail about like bouncing ragdolls when they die. Now they feel like actual objects with weight behind them. Sure, the physics and animation is not as well crafted as in for example Red Dead Redemption 2, but it's a giant step in the right direction.
While the gameplay is vastly improved, the story still falls a little bit short. The main difference in my opinion is the characters. The characters in the first game was as bland and tasteless as McDonald's food. In Rise of the Tomb Raider they are a bit more fleshed out, with motivations that are part personal and interesting, and part cliché and boring. The writers also learned how to explore the central themes of their own story this time, to some extent at least. Last time they tried to do this gritty story about the hardships of survival and the moral lines that has to be crossed, without ever contemplating about the ramifications of actually crossing those lines. This time they actually do contemplate the actions and overall goals of their quest, but it's all based on the same cliches that usually plague these types of archaeological action adventure stories with supernatural elements. As in they usually just end up with the same conclusion: the powerful and supernatural artifact, that we have spent the entire journey trying to find, is ultimately better off left hidden to save the world. It's an improvement over the last game's story, but it's still a story that we have heard a thousand times already. Thank the gods that the gameplay at least got a huge improvement.
Without a single doubt the best total war game Creative Assembly has ever produced. The only reason for retiring this game is the release of the next and final installment in the trilogy. After 5 amazing years, with the game getting progressively better for each dlc and update released, it is finally time to lay this absolute beast of a game to rest. The king is dead, long live the king.
2009
One of the best co-op experiences out there in my humblest of opinions. It's one of the last split-screen enabled narrative co-op games before they sadly became a rarity, and it's a lot of fun both with a pal and without. Sure, it's not a perfect game and it does mark the point when the franchise started to lean a bit to much into the action genre. A lean which Resident Evil 6 would take to the extreme as it crashed and burned down into the gutter, forcing Capcom to make a heel turn for the better with Resident Evil 7: Biohazard. But that's a review for another time.
Resident Evil 5 is an actionfueled romp of a game that brings the usual campiness the franchise is kind of known for. Chris and Sheva make for a nice duo and Albert Whiskers is such a fun villain to watch. The gameplay does suffer occasionally from the usual QTE-gameplay that the Xbox 360/PS3 era peddled pretty hard. It also tries to dive into the exploitation of Africa, which is an interesting direction, but I feel like this particular game isn't well equipped to tackle the topic in the most nuanced way. But it doesn't really have to be either, since the main point is to just shoot some monsters with a friend and have a good time. And on that point it delivers.
Resident Evil 5 is an actionfueled romp of a game that brings the usual campiness the franchise is kind of known for. Chris and Sheva make for a nice duo and Albert Whiskers is such a fun villain to watch. The gameplay does suffer occasionally from the usual QTE-gameplay that the Xbox 360/PS3 era peddled pretty hard. It also tries to dive into the exploitation of Africa, which is an interesting direction, but I feel like this particular game isn't well equipped to tackle the topic in the most nuanced way. But it doesn't really have to be either, since the main point is to just shoot some monsters with a friend and have a good time. And on that point it delivers.
2023
The nightmarish atmosphere of the monster infested steel coffin that is the USG Ishimura is top notch. The moody lightning akin to a modern Doom 3 and the sound effects really makes you paranoid during the early stages of the game. The limb-severing combat is very satisfying and makes for some new interesting challenges when the classic headshot isn't the go to shooter weak spot anymore.
It does however get somewhat repetitive towards the later stages of the game. The overall structure of the gameplay loop and chapters doesn't offer a whole lot when it comes to variety. Every chapter can be summarized as: "go to a new section of the ship to do X, but to do X you need to do Y first." This structure works fine for a while, but after around 9-10 hours it's repetitiveness starts to wear you down. By the end I was starting to get a little impatient for it to be over, which is never a good sign.
Overall it's a decent game, but as a remake it is kind of lackluster. It doesn't really offer anything new to the table that the original didn't do already, which makes me question the need for a remake in the first place. I think my biggest mistake was that I played this right after the Resident Evil 4 Remake which in my opinion is the gold standard of how a remake should be done. The 'Dead Space Remake' however is not.
It does however get somewhat repetitive towards the later stages of the game. The overall structure of the gameplay loop and chapters doesn't offer a whole lot when it comes to variety. Every chapter can be summarized as: "go to a new section of the ship to do X, but to do X you need to do Y first." This structure works fine for a while, but after around 9-10 hours it's repetitiveness starts to wear you down. By the end I was starting to get a little impatient for it to be over, which is never a good sign.
Overall it's a decent game, but as a remake it is kind of lackluster. It doesn't really offer anything new to the table that the original didn't do already, which makes me question the need for a remake in the first place. I think my biggest mistake was that I played this right after the Resident Evil 4 Remake which in my opinion is the gold standard of how a remake should be done. The 'Dead Space Remake' however is not.
2014
It's a solid city builder game that can be quite difficult if you're not careful early on. The gameplay loop is satisfying as you actually get to see your little community grow and prosper in a very natural way. There's not a whole lot to do in the game so once you start snowballing, you're pretty much done. The population growth is very organic and nicely simulated as every citizen actually has to be born and grow up before they can be put to work. This can however make the game really tedious if you have a huge death wave early on, because then you just have to sit idly by for a long time as your population bounces back to normal again. Overall it's a good city builder game if you're looking for more of a challenge, but it lacks replayability in my opinion since there isn't a whole lot of different things to do. So every playthrough is probably going to be more or less the same in the end. Maybe I'll play it again in the future some time, who knows. All I know right now is that I'm done with the game and I'm satisfied with what it had to offer, even if it wasn't that much.
2020
A cozy little game that wrestles with death and regret whilst letting you soar the oceans in a soothing and sublime fashion. The game is incredible relaxing and the art style is just gorgeous. The gameplay loop is very satisfying and if you like management typ games, then you'll always have stuff to do. The writing is really good and all the lost spirit passengers you encounter throughout your journey are really memorable as each explore different aspects of pain, sorrow, regret, acceptance and ultimately, death itself. The game manages to create a very special feeling of sadness and emptiness whenever a spirit is brought to the great beyond. You genuinely do start to miss them while at the same time being happy that you got spend time with them at all. Which is kind of the point of the game, really. To cherish the time you have with friends and loved ones, while you have it.
The only complaint I have is that it does start to drag a bit in the late game when you're inventory is set for ten lifetimes and you're pretty much just killing time to activate the next quest. Otherwise this game is great and I would highly recommend that you give this a try. I miss it already, and I finished it just mere minutes ago.
The only complaint I have is that it does start to drag a bit in the late game when you're inventory is set for ten lifetimes and you're pretty much just killing time to activate the next quest. Otherwise this game is great and I would highly recommend that you give this a try. I miss it already, and I finished it just mere minutes ago.
A slight improvement over the original that mostly comes down to the fact that motion controls is now optional. And thank the gods for that! Motion controls were a fun idea but have, in my opinion, never been implemented well in any game. So the option to play the game with a normal controller is a more than welcome change. Although using the analog stick to swing your sword, instead of your arm, is a bit awkward.
The rest of the game is more or less the same as the original, warts and all. The game starts out fine and has a nice pace throughout the games three main areas with some interesting mechanics and dungeons here and there. The main problem with the game is the repetitive nature of it's overarching gameplay loop. The three main areas in the game are interesting and fun the first time around, but then you have to backtrack through all the areas again and again. Each time you return to an area the objectives become less fun and more arbitrary. It makes the experience frustrating and time consuming for the sake of a longer runtime. During the third act of the game I was honestly just powering through in order to finish the game already.
The idea behind the world design is really good in theory. Skyloft is one of the most beautiful and cozy hubworlds in all the Zelda games. And the idea of traveling through the cloud barrier to touch down on different areas on the surface is exhilarating. But the lack of interesting characters and side-quests, as well as the slow travel times (seriously, how did they manage to make the act of soaring through the sky so slow and boring?), make Skyloft a bore that you only really visit when it's necessary.
There is a lot of objectives (like fetch-quests) throughout the game that forces you to travel to the other areas of the game. Now the travel time between one area to the other is a frustrating slog. I don't understand why they didn't add a fast travel system to this version of the game. It would've at least made the arbitrary processes less annoying.
While the Switch version of Skyward Sword stands above it's original predecessor, it's not by a large margin. With the exclusion of motion controls Nintendo fixed one major issue but left all the other ones untouched. As a Zelda fan I enjoy large sections of the game and despise others. Overall it's a good game, although with some major flaws, and this version stands as the definitive edition of the game. It's a shame that the game itself is such an uneven experience.
The rest of the game is more or less the same as the original, warts and all. The game starts out fine and has a nice pace throughout the games three main areas with some interesting mechanics and dungeons here and there. The main problem with the game is the repetitive nature of it's overarching gameplay loop. The three main areas in the game are interesting and fun the first time around, but then you have to backtrack through all the areas again and again. Each time you return to an area the objectives become less fun and more arbitrary. It makes the experience frustrating and time consuming for the sake of a longer runtime. During the third act of the game I was honestly just powering through in order to finish the game already.
The idea behind the world design is really good in theory. Skyloft is one of the most beautiful and cozy hubworlds in all the Zelda games. And the idea of traveling through the cloud barrier to touch down on different areas on the surface is exhilarating. But the lack of interesting characters and side-quests, as well as the slow travel times (seriously, how did they manage to make the act of soaring through the sky so slow and boring?), make Skyloft a bore that you only really visit when it's necessary.
There is a lot of objectives (like fetch-quests) throughout the game that forces you to travel to the other areas of the game. Now the travel time between one area to the other is a frustrating slog. I don't understand why they didn't add a fast travel system to this version of the game. It would've at least made the arbitrary processes less annoying.
While the Switch version of Skyward Sword stands above it's original predecessor, it's not by a large margin. With the exclusion of motion controls Nintendo fixed one major issue but left all the other ones untouched. As a Zelda fan I enjoy large sections of the game and despise others. Overall it's a good game, although with some major flaws, and this version stands as the definitive edition of the game. It's a shame that the game itself is such an uneven experience.
My journey through the Tomb Raider trilogy has come to it's end, and it's been quite the adventure. The trilogy started out a little bumpy with Tomb Raider (2013), but then eventually found it's stride with Rise of the Tomb Raider, which was a vast improvement over it's predecessor. In the end it all ended on a high note with Shadow of the Tomb Raider which followed directly in the footsteps of it's predecessor with some slight improvements.
Overall, I would say that Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are equals, if it weren't for some small things that nudges Shadow of the Tomb Raider slightly above it's main competitor. The game does pretty much all that it's predecessor does, but with some small additions to the gameplay that add some more flavour and variety. The mud concealment mechanic for example doesn't really do much on a mechanical level, but it finally adds that ferocious jungle predator vibe that I was longing for in Tomb Raider (2013), but misleadingly never got. The biggest addition though is the underwater segments that are a bit of a double edged sword. It brings a new dynamic to the world which is often visually stunning to explore, but with some slightly cumbersome controls that brings the experience down a bit. Especially when you combine the controls with subpar underwater stealth segments that involve piranhas that are frustratingly enough one-hit kills.
So that's it for the Tomb Raider trilogy. As I said in the beginning of this review, which incidentally happens to also be the name of the trophy I got for completing the game; it was quite the adventure. Not perfect, but a nice adventure nonetheless (as long as you skip the first game).
Overall, I would say that Rise of the Tomb Raider and Shadow of the Tomb Raider are equals, if it weren't for some small things that nudges Shadow of the Tomb Raider slightly above it's main competitor. The game does pretty much all that it's predecessor does, but with some small additions to the gameplay that add some more flavour and variety. The mud concealment mechanic for example doesn't really do much on a mechanical level, but it finally adds that ferocious jungle predator vibe that I was longing for in Tomb Raider (2013), but misleadingly never got. The biggest addition though is the underwater segments that are a bit of a double edged sword. It brings a new dynamic to the world which is often visually stunning to explore, but with some slightly cumbersome controls that brings the experience down a bit. Especially when you combine the controls with subpar underwater stealth segments that involve piranhas that are frustratingly enough one-hit kills.
So that's it for the Tomb Raider trilogy. As I said in the beginning of this review, which incidentally happens to also be the name of the trophy I got for completing the game; it was quite the adventure. Not perfect, but a nice adventure nonetheless (as long as you skip the first game).
Being a standalone expansion to Marvel's Spider-Man from 2018, this game delivers more or less the same as it's predecessor. Which for me isn't a bad thing since I really liked the last game. Marvel's Spider-Man, in my opinion, gave us the quintessential Spider-Man gaming experience. So to get more of that sweet webslinging action is great in my book.
Though it would have been nice to see some interesting changes to the game to make it feel more like Miles Moralis' version. They did try to do this with the implementation of the venom mechanic and the camouflage. But the venom mechanic feels a little underdeveloped and I would have like it to be more engaging rather then being a simple damage boost to your attacks. The camouflage is nice but sadly not really utilized since there's not a whole lot of moments where you would actually need it. It feels more like a luxury gimmick that's tacked on to bring more Moralis flavor to the game.
All in all it's a good game! The gameplay is pretty much the same and the story is fine, but I prefer the story in the last game. If you enjoyed the last game and want to swing around the streets of New York again, then this is the game for you! But I would recommend waiting for a sale before buying it.
Though it would have been nice to see some interesting changes to the game to make it feel more like Miles Moralis' version. They did try to do this with the implementation of the venom mechanic and the camouflage. But the venom mechanic feels a little underdeveloped and I would have like it to be more engaging rather then being a simple damage boost to your attacks. The camouflage is nice but sadly not really utilized since there's not a whole lot of moments where you would actually need it. It feels more like a luxury gimmick that's tacked on to bring more Moralis flavor to the game.
All in all it's a good game! The gameplay is pretty much the same and the story is fine, but I prefer the story in the last game. If you enjoyed the last game and want to swing around the streets of New York again, then this is the game for you! But I would recommend waiting for a sale before buying it.
2018
More or less the same as the last game but with more maps to explore, which isn't a bad thing in the slightest. The story still feels very inconsequential and I haven't been paying attention to it at all. But that doesn't matter since the heart of the game is still its level design, which is just as great, intricate and expansive as in Hitman (2016).
My favorite maps were definitely Isle of Sgail, Mumbai and Whittleton Creek. Isle of Sgail had such a dark and gloomy aesthetic that really harkon to Stanley Kubrick's magnificent 'Eyes Wide Shut', which left me in awe as I moved through the social hierarchies to explore more of the increasingly vast castle. It's a beautiful map with a lot of interesting stories and fun possibilities.
Much of the same can be said about Mumbai which has a great level design and atmosphere, but where it really shines is in its connectivity between the different targets. The Kashmirian challenge comes to mind was such a fun new way of dispatching your targets to the afterlife. Whittleton Creek, though much smaller in scale and not as interconnected as Mumbai, was such a charming experience. I loved to explore the different houses in order to find vital intel as a new mission objective, which was interesting the first time but gets inreasingly repetitive with each replay as there isn't really any new way of going about it.
I didn't have the chance to play New York or Haven Island since IO decided to withhold the dlc maps for 'Hitman World of Assassination', which is somewhat frustrating. But I guess it gives me additional maps to enjoy when I eventually get to that game. So I will just have to wait a little longer.
My favorite maps were definitely Isle of Sgail, Mumbai and Whittleton Creek. Isle of Sgail had such a dark and gloomy aesthetic that really harkon to Stanley Kubrick's magnificent 'Eyes Wide Shut', which left me in awe as I moved through the social hierarchies to explore more of the increasingly vast castle. It's a beautiful map with a lot of interesting stories and fun possibilities.
Much of the same can be said about Mumbai which has a great level design and atmosphere, but where it really shines is in its connectivity between the different targets. The Kashmirian challenge comes to mind was such a fun new way of dispatching your targets to the afterlife. Whittleton Creek, though much smaller in scale and not as interconnected as Mumbai, was such a charming experience. I loved to explore the different houses in order to find vital intel as a new mission objective, which was interesting the first time but gets inreasingly repetitive with each replay as there isn't really any new way of going about it.
I didn't have the chance to play New York or Haven Island since IO decided to withhold the dlc maps for 'Hitman World of Assassination', which is somewhat frustrating. But I guess it gives me additional maps to enjoy when I eventually get to that game. So I will just have to wait a little longer.