One of my Favorite FPSs originally from 7th gen still holds up replaying it again for the most part. The gameplay is creative with the skillshot system and being able to use different combos with the leash amongst your arsenal of weapons that all have alternate charge firing modes unique to each and every single one of em to stand each other apart. While some wont enjoy it, The humor/dialogue is my kind of humor, so that's a bonus.

Only things holding it back is trends of shooters at the time, QTEs (including the final "boss"), a weapon limit for this kind of shooter (which is fixed with the overkill mode but you'd have to beat it first), Regenerating health which also screws with the flow of the combat, especially in the earlier parts of the campaign.

These are trends that they've took the piss out of in their promotional material in its 2011 original release with modern military shooters at the time, only to suffer the same problems that are mainly magnified because of how good the gameplay is with its skillshot/leash mechanics. Reminds me when Duke Nukem infamously took the piss out of Halos "power armor" only to suffer the same fate in DNF.

Speaking of which, since gearbox published this remaster, the only other thing thats advertised in this DLC, the Duke's World Tour, is half-assed to say the least. its enjoyable hearing duke again and him being plopped into someone else's story is funny, but its not worth the extra $5 as standalone DLC for a $40 game. I luckily got both in a bundle for $3. Some cutscenes are off with him not really lip syncing with grays (original protagonist) animations, due to them (most likely) plopped dukes 2011 DNF model into the game. Apparently it was worse before and had been fixed since then but somehow that inadvertently caused a bug that i also encountered on the PS4 version where gray couldn't speak in one of the final cutscenes which made it awkward.

Also, its a shame seeing no one playing the coop anarchy mode and the matchmaking is completely FUBAR, since it was a fun horde mode which relies on you and your squads skillshots than solely just your kills. While you can play it solo, its recommended to do two or more players so you can pull off some skillshots you cant really pull off otherwise.

Then there's Echoes mode which is basically short campaign sections of just straight up combat with a score limit/ranking with 3 stars, if you didnt wanna be bothered with the cutscenes or dialogue, and the more skillshots you pull off, the higher your score/more stars you earn, the higher you'll get up on the leaderboards. Fun for a little extra hrs on the game but its nothing to come back towards once you beat all of the echo levels with max stars.

To sum it up or TL;DR: I definitely recommend giving this a try on sale if you just wanna try the campaign and Echoes mode, Don't get the Duke DLC separately for $5, and if you wanna try anarchy mode you have to be willing to search for people online to play in a private match or solo it, otherwise you'll be stuck waiting for hours.

TL;DR: As a game its frustrating to play that HEAVILY gets held up by its presentation and its story.

This is sensory overload: the game, handheld camera that keeps following you is shaking, gunshots are ear deafening, screen tears when you get shot at and audio gets corrupt whenever explosions occur, its an insane experience from start to finish. The "too violent for TV" censorship (when it works, sometimes you pull off headshots, it just doesn't) does make it really feel like an abandoned snuff film tape or a live leak video. and it really does genuinely feels like a harken back to old style youtube with the shitty camcorder.

Presentation wise? IO knocked it out the park, luckily i didn't get nauseous or motion sick with the shaky camera on but i can see why most would playing through this.

The story just takes a bizarre sharp left turn, coming from recently beating K&L1, there's rarely any mentions of it. No mentions of The7 at all and they wont bother to delve into what happened after the ending(s) of Venezuela in the first game.

Takes place 4 years after Dead Men, With Lynch being medicated and making peace with a new GF named Xiu in Shanghai, and Kane wanting in on this deal set up by Lynchs contact Glazer, a grimy, sleazy, british gunsmuggler who thrives in the seedy streets of China, to smuggle some weapons into africa. Simple, right? As you can guess after Dead men, It goes horribly wrong thanks to lynch fucking up, yet again. Only this time in solo, instead of playing as Kane like in DM, you play as lynch, so now you're seeing this in his POV. Having him basically teach the ways and the ins and outs of shanghai, with Kane being a fish outta water. and unlike the last game on how he fucks things up when kane makes a deal, he royally fucks up from the beginning trying to teach a thug a lesson, only for this confrontation to go sideways and have an accident that gets an corrupt businessman, crimelord and government official to throw everything he has at Kane and Lynch. and it snowballed into a catastrophe which directly physically and emotionally scars him, and it actually slowly brings out his mental illness out once again after it had been medicated for the past 4 years.

Kane is no better, in a really loud as hell clip that plays when sitting idle on the main menu, you can see him, yet again, going back to his old ways of being a heister post Venezuela, and how all of his unnamed crew gets killed by the cops, showing how he needs this deal for his daughter. Which the last we've saw her, she despised his ass and cut all ties with him after she survived Venezuela as he mentions in one mission. Albeit, not as spiteful and sociopathic towards those around him as the last game as he's older and more matured (but not wiser), he's still greedy and keeps his eyes on the deal to get enough to retire and possibly the forgiveness of his daughter. But on the way, he does care for lynch in a weird way, even though it doesn't seem like they were friends at all during the last game. He even straight up tells Lynch if he really loves his girl, Xiu, lynch would have to stay far the fuck away from her, knowing how this path will go.

These 2 even make the same mistakes, almost following similar plot beats of Dead men, and even become self-aware that everywhere they go, people will die around em due to their massive fuck ups. Lynch even has a breaking point near the end which harkens back to the nature he had in dead men when kane tried to strike a deal with retomoto, only this time, its on purpose in a fit of Rage and tiredness and not a schizophrenic episode. Subconsciously knowing that they cant really take an "easy way" out with deals unlike Kane who keeps on trying to finesse him and Lynch out of the shitshow they're in.

The setting is a great choice all things considered, shanghai is a stark departure of the suburbs, skyscrapers, State penitentiary, nightclubs and the jungle environment of the first game. Not only the streets look filthy, grimy, looking depressingly sick, contrasting the flashing neon lights and blooming colors, but later when you get into an office building in the more "fancy" parts of shanghai, it still doesn't look all that well with the haze-y environment and smoke illuming the air, only exacerbated with the shitty 2000s camcorder. and the tone is much, much tighter and better than the first, where instead of a gritty crime drama having to deal with cops, guards, mobs and criminals into taking a sharp left turn into a shoddy quasi-spiritual successor to a squad based action game fighting a damn militia in the middle of Havana and Venezuela, you gradually escalate the situation from thugs to cops to swat/personal hitmen squads to the goddamn chinese military in a matter of hours. and it feels consistent, thanks to the found footage gimmick having the story taking place in a couple of days. in the first few missions, you can even sometimes see the last level just right behind where you spawn in. and have the same arsenal as you left the last level with. making it seamless. then the OST makes you feel some type of dread, be it juxtaposition with chinese pop songs during gunfights or actual ominous stingers that fit within a silent hill game. almost invoking the same feelings i had after beating a level in Hotline miami where the banging music stops and its just a drawn out noise, looking at the carnage you've caused around you.

Now, the gameplay.. this is a few steps forward but also few steps back, its a lot more streamlined than dead men, actually having a cover mechanic, the gunplay actually feels tighter than the first game, and best part, no useless squad mechanics that you'd forget about. Only time there's something close to it was a mission that had raid on a gang leader named Hsing. and even then the AI is just window dressing.

But of course, there are many mistakes in dead men that unfortunately also follow this game, like forced "stealth sections" which doesn't even count as stealth despite having silenced guns, which i wonder if IOI just couldn't fit it in on time because there's MULTIPLE of these and no matter how hard i tried, it was just dead set on you going gung-ho guns blazing from start to finish. The cover is not worth shit in this game, many pieces of cover is destructible just like in DM, which i get, but there are some that are solid as a rock, but have the worst cover spots possible, and i thought it was just me sucking ass, no, seen others complain about it too, it takes the piss even with medium difficulty. and unlike the first one, theres no dedicated execution like with kane's handy dandy dagger, nah, you take the enemies hostage as a bullet shield. Which i rarely used other than early and some later parts of the game. Don't bother trying it too much because you'll be shot on sight regardless. and there's a reason why i put an asterisk with the gunplay, while it is tighter and actually feels like a TPS should feel, instead of bullet tracers that hit bodies in DM with ragdoll physics (which is unfortunately absent in this), you have hitmarkers that reminds me of those old ass MLG MTN Dew doritos parody videos where there's a shit ton of hitmarkers from MW2 (2009), its a little distracting at best and at worst, as unreliable since the gun bullets does sway a little like the first game. and the fucken replacement for grenades, the gas canisters, can simultaneously save your ass when you throw them at enemies direction and blow them up by hitting the trigger, clearing a chunk of 'em but also can be death sentence because since it auto locks onto the canister, and you are in that vicinity and you shoot it, you're dead. instantly. while a good idea in concept, it shouldn't replace grenades, in the same way human shields replace melee executions. Not to mention, the CRASHES, it crashes on me thrice, 3 times just at randomly throughout the playthrough, oddly more times than the "janky" K&L1.

All of that being said, as an experience, its a guilty pleasure that just clicks if you can stomach the shaky cam, the visual effects gimmicks and the overall aesthetic. Especially when you get the LMG and it really just felt like sensory overload with the muzzle flash and the loud ass gunfire, having to have a turrent section to take down those within the building and also other helis trying to screw you over, that shit hits. the violence just feels raw thanks to the pixelated censorship (again when it works, its bipolar on whether or not it'll activate) just makes it feel a bit more disturbing in that aspect because what you can picture in your head is a lot worse than just a simple entry/exit headshot wound.

As a game, its a frustrating mess that's slightly* better than its predecessor in some areas, almost if not bordering on a competent third person shooter but a helluva lot worse in others.

The game is at least worth one shot if you're a fan of spider-man.

There's a good chunk of variety in suits, including suits from most of the spider-man movies, from 2010's "Amazing spider-man" duology to Kino like Raimi's Spider-man trilogy to of course the MCU costumes from 2016-recently updated No way home suits in the PC version. and other additions like the Toku-inspired Spidey suit, Spider-punk, Negative Spider-Suit, cel-shaded comic book-esque spidey, etc. Including being able to add in mods on the PC version, there's going to be an endless amount of variety to choose from, and you can choose your own "Suit ability" which ranges from increased damage, bulletproof, reflecting bullets, being able to regenerate your combat meter which can be used for health by pressing down on the D pad or whatever key you've binded to, or can use it to use instant takedowns.

The Swinging does feel great albeit far more simple than expected, i thought it would be a shit ton of combinations to swing around New york but, it just seems right trigger to run and swing, Dualshock's X or A depending on the controller to shoot little webs to move yourself forward or dust yourself off and boost yourself upwards when you fumble to the ground, and maybe RT and LT to leap into edges of buildings, or miscellaneous things on rooftops like water tanks. and you can do cools spins and rolls by holding onto Square or Xbox's X button after you level up a little bit. and the charge jump is back (though you need to unlock it) so you can easily to swing back into action. Im satisfied of what they come up with, especially animations but there's a lot more room for improvement in terms of button placement, especially when it comes to parkour or what movements you can pull off by swinging.

Leveling up is a breeze, almost too generous even with one of the suit mods granting you extra XP before even doing the final mission, to the point of having 4 left over skill points after maxing out all of the skill trees. Only thing to worry about if ever is the other miscellaneous things like research points, challenge tokens, base tokens, Backpack tokens, crime tokens and landmark tokens to buy new suits (except the movie ones and other additional ones come with this version) and gadgets to help along the way. and Even that's easy to do via roaming around the city and pick off bases here and there in wave arena styled fights against enemies, doing side missions, taking photos of landmarks, etc.

Just wish that tedious ass things weren't there, tedious shit that you likely have heard of (the eternal MJ and Miles "stealth" sections) or things like Sable's soldiers at the later half just wind up being so damn annoying, particularly those with the jetpacks and those who just deplete your health in nanoseconds with guns or laser rifles. Had gotten me to use the damn bulletproof suit ability because of how annoying it is, like i never died during any of the major boss fights yet i fucking die constantly to those. or those enemies with whiplashes where they can catch you mid air and slam your ass into the ground while everyone else is shooting you, leaving no chance to dodge and ruining your combat flow more than the jetpack sable mercenary goons.

The other usual shit that's usually in modern open worlds like collectibles or "ubisoft towers" (just like the name implies, towers that are required to uncover the map fully, infamous on being mediocre ubisoft open worlds) dont feel as boring or mind-numbingly dull as i would've initially thought thanks to the swinging mechanics but i can definitely live without them.

The story starts strong but then it does take a while to start up again but damn when it hits by the 2nd half, it goes full speed ahead. You'd know what's gonna happen if you've seen a spider-man story before, be it movies or comics so there's no surprises here but the execution is genuinely good, Puts the first 2 MCU spider-man solo films to shame just on the fact that they take shit seriously and not taking the piss. Particularly when it comes to peter's identity, where here its treated more emotionally vs with those films its just played up for laughs and makes peter look so fucken incompetent.

Its emotional, well acted enough to where it didn't make me go "wtf that's cheesy" (well main story anyways, i know about the screwball broad and i really didn't like her like many reviewers) and its intense, especially when (without spoiling it) the city goes to shit and its total chaos and you have to stop it. You go from maybe stopping a few criminals in car chases and robberies and drug deals to full blown riots and snipers everywhere NONSTOP. and when i say nonstop, i mean getting this close to another campaign mission marker then hearing another NYPD dispatch and going "Aw fuck, not again".

The boss fights were actually piss easy like I've said before, didn't die once during a boss fight and i almost did with the shocker and that's mainly due to me figuring out how to dodge properly, but after that, it was almost embarrassingly easy.

Same with the combat for the most part (except those damn laser beaming/whip lashing bastards that deplete your health before you can even blink) I found myself getting 100x combos with a generous window even with the usual goons, goons with guns and big grunts compared to the arkham series where the momentum and the combo meter is just gone in the second you slow down. and just like the swinging i thought you can be able to pull off more moves other than the usual punching, webbing enemies up, swing em around, etc., makes me miss some web of shadows type shit where you can just straight up surf on a dude, Maybe when Spider-Man 2 (Insomniac) comes with peter getting the inevitable Venom/symbiote suit, there's gonna be some gnarly combos. but its serviceable here.

Overall, There's nothing completely egregious about this game, its good but it can be better. Helps that i play it on PC, running buttery smooth on my rig for the most part at 60fps, making the combat helluva lot more responsive. Would've said this is serviceable and gave it a 3 and a half stars but The story, the animations, the lived in world where there's more NPCs here than there are in certain open worlds nowadays and Graphics bump it up to a 4. One of the better "modern" Sony (PS4/PS5 era) exclusives atm.

A good ass open world zombie survival horror that's one of its only faults is the story where i could care less about the characters.

Everything else including the parkour is great (tho you cant wallrun and most of the moves are locked behind a skill tree), i felt the climbing sections could be a pain in the ass and techland definitely knows you gonna try to cheese through em with the grappling hook, so in certain sections your guys "too exhausted" to use it.

if you played dead island the combat should definitely feel familiar to ya, except these weapons arent invincible and can easily break on you and you gotta repair them, except certain weapons like the guns or the dlc weapons like the chainsaw.

but by the time you repair em, you can easily get enough money/resources to buy a new weapon or craft one, especially with the added dlc. Which can definitely make the game piss easy by the end thanks to all the rifles and other weapons you can make with the permanent dlc blueprints you have in your inventory.

That aside, this is still a great ass experience, only hampered by story, and fucking connection issues that caused me to disconnect my friends session in coop. and the mouse cursor in the menu is fucked but you can make it better via mouse sensitivity.

This is my first game i wanted to play when i got a trial on game pass on pc, and its definitely a good ass game to start on, albeit some levels are genuinely bullshit (without spoiling, its basically those who ONE HIT YOU and it kinda fucks with the flow of the rest of the game)

Stories simple enough, you done get rescued by a drone in order to prevent a hostile criminal takeover by your former crew, but while i can predict one plot point, the ending and some levels were so bizarre and out of left field, i just ran with it. plenty of different enemies, references and scenarios like a b action movie you'd see on a shelf on blockbuster (or these days scrolling through netflix)

but yeah the combat for a beat em up is slick as hell and easy to pull off but hard to master seeing as how you slowly fill up the skill tree, pull off some john wick shit with not only hand to hand but also gun fu executions, be doing body slams, smash bastards heads into walls, suplexes, some martial arts shit and later on you'll get a revolver with different types of ammo and a rope to straight up pull em towards you. when you pull off this shit it makes you feel like a badass. only issue is, those one hit kill fuckers will interrupt your flow into a screeching halt. but yea other than that, the combat is so satisfying and the dev knew it because you can save the "highlight" of the level (basically hitting a combo or execution) as a gif on your PC to share online.

Overall, don't miss this game, especially on game pass, only 4gbs and mainly made by one dude whose a polish father, basically wind up making a more memorable experience than AAA titles as of late.

There is a reason why this is looked back on with rose tinted nostalgia glasses, this is arguably the PEAK of Need for speed.

Now lets get the negatives out the way, The drag races definitely do suck ass with the way traffic goes in front of you and its a tedious as hell trial and error process, its definitely the worst one of the 6 racing modes (Circuit, Sprint, Speedtrap, tollbooth, lap knockout and drag). it is definitely a slog to go through the blacklist requirements in order to beat each member, having to have increased amount of races won and milestones and bounty (the last one is easy just destroy shit in your path including police in pursuits). its customization is disappointing in the fact that its less expanded from the underground games. its open world is kinda pointless when you can just fast travel everywhere including into pursuits.

but other than those? it is definitely one of the best racing games, the cop chases are intense as all hell and you have to be on your toes in order to outrun and outsmart them. the driving and tuning options are A+ tier, most of the races are fun, the campaign might be cheesy but its played itself as a homage to a B car action movie in the 2000s in a good way (albiet dont expect much other than a handful of cutscenes and phone calls), and the final pursuit is the most intense shit ive seen in a racing game and nothing has topped it since.

Only sad thing is in order to play this you gotta download it off the internet since its abandonware and also download MW redux while you're at it because i was SHOCKED when i first booted it up and it looked awful and low res and its in 4:9 ratio, its horrendous, especially for my computer. but its definitely worth a playthrough, even with its faults.

It was boring as fuck at the start shooting the cog robots, a miserable slog during the underground sections and having to have horde modes with the fabricator in the campaign

but when the mech suits and certain old characters show up i actually had fun, that and the windflares which they show up a lot but there's a lot of intensity there. i don't mind the new characters but they're just.. there, and in comparison to OG gears they're written like its a saturday morning cartoon where i could give less of a shit about any of em. and i gave em a fair shot but nah, just aint doing it for me. and the fucking enemies, including the grenade fuckers are tedious as hell to fight. and guess what, we get another brumak boss fight but this time its worse because you got these discount glowing locusts on your ass while trying to shoot the glowing bits.

the only reason why i aint giving this a 2/5 in spite of being miserable is that its a functioning TPS that runs well on my pc, especially for a game thats exclusive to the microsoft store where i feared the worst. otherwise its a forgettable experience until the end sections where i was actually having fun with the (albiet easy) boss fight.

(Future Edit: Capcom has since removed GFWL entirely from RE5 with no need for a fan patch now, so my ratings changed to a 4 out of 5.)

Original Review: Was gonna be 4 stars but the damn bugs where enemies get stuck in one place were frequently annoying, Also this may sound like a crutch, but this is worth more playing co-op than solo. and Games for Windows Live is still on it and you gotta patch it out with a fan patch, otherwise its unplayable on steam. (Thanks Capcom.)

Idk if its the pc version but often i see bugs like enemies get stuck on walls (especially worse/more apparent in the lost nightmare dlc) or fuck up and shoot rockets and blow themselves up. and a really bad bug where it automatically kicks out the coop partner in one of the last acts of the final chapter.

Otherwise, RE5 runs like butter, graphics aged well for 2009, the story and characters (new and returning favorites) do have their charm, gameplay is fun and intense with the enemies wind up being tougher overtime. Going from a shit ton of zombies (including those throwing goddamn dynamite) you gotta make sure they're dead by stomping on 'em, every so often you'll get a zombie wind up having tentacles shooting out of its head and will screw you up until you kill it, and eventually armored zombies that'll shoot back so you gotta shoot 'em in the legs. Wind up becoming Gears of War-Lite with the cover system but not as fluid because of the RE controls which while i got used to 'em, they're not fit for that type of third person cover shooter combat. Most of the bosses are easy except the second to last level where they have some bosses like 2 minigun dudes can be bullshit. QTEs definitely get more hectic as time goes on, especially with the chases, which can be doable but then sometimes, just sometimes, they'll be bullshit, especially if you or your partner fucks up. and your weapon progression and upgrades, while rewarding (example: if you upgrade the main shotgun you get early in the game, you get to buy a powerful triple barrel shotgun), i can see why people might think of it as "grindy" to get all the weapons maxed out to get the hidden weapons.

The Lost in Nightmares DLC was short but sweet throwback to the spencer mansion and does tie into the main game (albeit very, very briefly) except the aforementioned bug where the bastards get stuck in the walls which kinda killed the momentum to a screeching halt.

RE5 is worth checking out, but its definitely more designed for coop oriented play in mind than solo.

This game was great. The story and the way it was executed was great, there were twists where i saw coming and i passed it off, only to look back on the little moment to moment set ups and had a "eureka" moment, including small little interactions felt like almost every moment had its purpose. Even the little tv shows which i thought would be just lil extra silly shit, was paralleling/metaphors of the actual story itself, making me WANT to watch them instead of just passing by 'em like it was nothing. Sure the story doesn't delve deep that "conspiracy" type of shit like MP1 did but it does make up for it with a pretty well rounded tragic romance story with Mona Sax that you know is not gonna end well with Max. It isn't afraid to take the piss out of itself either with tongue in cheek moments interspliced between Max's psychological episodes and the grander rabbit hole of a story, some even reference the first game without it coming across as a self-fellating comical parody in on itself. While writing this, I'm still thinking about a lot of payoffs and the parallels between max and those around him, its just that damn good.

The gunplay was a lot smoother with mouse & keyboard and high frame rate especially, the physics manage to give combat a lot more "oomph" to the combat, can easily toss out grenades during combat too unlike the first where you had to physically get the grenades out and throw em and switch back, makes for an even gung-ho combat experience. Even the dives/bullet times a lot more useful, the latter being relying on you having to get multiple combos in order for shit to slow down and the former being a lot more evasive and smoother than make combat into a screeching halt and puts ya at a disadvantage like the first.

it really took what made Max Payne 1 so good and made it even better.

Only problem i got with both of remedy's max payne titles is the janky as hell platforming that can be a total pain in the ass (less so in the 2nd but still exists) and this game you have to abuse the hell out of the "F5" key because this game will not give you checkpoints no matter what. But other than that, not much too complain about. The gunplay and the overall experience more than makes up for those frustrating moments.

This game being the finale of the Max Payne trilogy holds no punches and straight up cranks everything to the max, the gunplay is the best coming out of Rockstar which is a damn shame that GTAVs gunplay (which came out a year after this game) is absolute dogwater by comparison. the way you shoot, especially with mouse and keyboard is so smooth theres a reason why many call this a "point and click" adventure game. it even surpasses MP2 on how great it is. the shoot dodge feels a lot weightier than previous installments but i felt like i had used it 500x more despite that on how fun it is. and you can duel wield any 2 one handed weapons, so say, a deagle and a glock, a sawed off shotgun and a m1911, a revolver and an m9, and this is amazing since im a sucker for akimbo weapons in games, all while having only 1 assault weapon that you can carry, which sucks because you're limited in your arsenal compared to before but it makes switching weapons on the fly easier with max having his guns always up on the ready. Only other gripes about the combat is that you get into "last standing mode" when you're about to die and it takes one of your painkillers to execute, and its a royal pain in the ass since sometimes you'll die at a specific spot and you cant hit shit, and you cant restart checkpoint and have to see the death animation when you just wanna get back into the action. its a crutch that id get in easy mode but it is a hinderance in many cases. And the other crutch is that you no longer throw grenades but you can shoot them out the air and some chapters give you a grenade launcher, which are cool but damn do I miss going into bullet time and throw a grenade and pick off the rest. An underrated feature is the gore, I've rarely felt combat that had gnarly headshots like this one where the entrance/exit wounds make you suck your teeth in. one of the cutscenes showed me the corpses up close with one eye shot out and the others red and bloodied up and i was like "FUCK, i did that?", that plus the euphoria physics engine actually made this a good ass successor to MP2s combat when it comes to that front. Ragdolls would fly, body shots would have the enemy completely tremble, desperate to get up, and the slow motion cam when you kill the last one only adds to the weight of the bullets you're shooting. its peak gunplay and i wanting to have more and more of it, wind up feeling weird whenever i have to take cover to heal/reload. (i had gone through this playthrough on hard and its no pushover)

Enough gushing about the gameplay, the story is also great despite not being from remedy, it winds up having its own style of noir with constant visual noise representing max's state after the previous games and the tragedy of his wife and kid, his former friend turned traitor, his lover mona and everyone else around him. and this game runs with that, and winds up doing a character study on him rather than following up any conspiracies on the inner circle or deep state government shit. Though, now he's a part of another rabbit hole throughout the story in a "fish out of water" scenario and how brazil straight up makes the shit he discovered in new york look quaint by comparison. in fact many of shit max encounters in this game just seems to out place that he's pretty shook and disgusted about it. But the biggest thing about the story that makes it stand out from its own trilogy is that its a redemption story for max, no longer does he have to wallow in self-pity as the game progresses and drink himself to almost death, he winds up wanting to redeem himself. and max seeing the parallels of passo, his new partner that dragged him into this mess, and him starting a family with his wife, gives him the motivation to finally let go of his grief and guilt. Rockstar could've easily went with the betrayal route as the shocking twist as they do with many of their other titles but its refreshing to see them to not do that and rather do something a bit different and have it be the foundation of the story. and its also satisfying to see people in max's life not killed off unceremoniously after so many people died in his past. its like the inverse of not just past games stories of being overall completely dark noir with some moments of tongue-in-cheek, but also despite the usual rockstar's signature cynicism that can be traced to their other series like GTA, its a very bittersweet, raw, redemption story that needs to be played at least once. while Sam Lakes storytelling in the first 2 were peak, Dan Houser and his writing team is no slouch and this actually earns its place in this series despite it being tonally disconnected from the remedy MP titles.

Only thing that's preventing me from giving it a full blown 5 out of 5 stars is the PC port is riddled with bugs and crashes with DirectX11/DX10.1/DX10, bullet dodged myself into walls in DX9 mode and it screwed up so bad that it had everything including max and the enemies froze, and restarting check points only made it worse, forcing you to restart the game. and the infamous not being able to skip the cutscenes which would be annoying on repeat playthoughs.

That is the only thing preventing me from giving this a perfect rating, the pc ports fucked with crashes and bugs but the game itself is a 5 and probably one of my favorite third person shooters of all time, and One of my favorite Rockstar games, wanting me to go back for more.

Favorite Warcrime simulator.

WW2 CoD Campaigns really peaked with this and haven't been topped since, the brutality of the campaign is unmatched, NPCs will legit get killed off unceremoniously in front of you and you just have to keep going, whether its the japs BANZAI-ing you for the upteenth time or Fighting through the heart of the reich, This is one of the most hellish feeling war games out there. Doesnt help that i played on hardened (because fuck playing this on veteran with the constant grenade spam) and even that was tough, when an enemy snipes you, you're dead, no regen health, just GONE. This is one of the few cods that i actually hugged the cover for life while popping heads using the lean feature on PC. And i definitely abused the flamethrower for most of the American campaign, that was a lifesaver against all the damn japanese BANZAI-ing you and hiding in the trees. In fact, they do ambush the hell out of you plenty of times, they will NOT let you breathe for a single second. and i wouldn't have it any other way. Even the turrent level where you control the gunners of the black cat, a flying plane, managed to be one of the best turrent missions in any game because of how frantic it is having to take down merchant ships and kamikaze planes, all while rescuing sailors swimming towards you. And you cant save them all, it doesn't go into a game over screen, you're just have to face the fact that you cant save em all.

Even the american campaign ending felt more bittersweet than patriotic, you're just glad nobody else you're even half acquainted with is picked off by the end. The russian campaign definitely shows its strength and can tell this kickstarted the eerie, gritty vibes later treyarch games would inherent. This game is still special due to the fact that unlike Black ops games which favors the more bombastic hollywood action, this games atmosphere manages to feel more horrific than badass. Its still badass hearing some kickass beats (all while burning down japs with the flamethrower mind ya) but some orchestral tracks just really hammer the home the horrors of the war. including the main menu.

The gore/gibs physics also does wonders in this that unfortunately havent been replicated, Whilst the Black ops games are gory (closest one to this is BO3), the gib system by having chunks of gore flying out after hitting a head or body shot just works to the games favor. and its much more immersive than a mere hitmarker like in MP. Not just in campaign, Nazi Zombies too.

Speaking of which, This is definitely the most eeriest zombies by far. It truly fits like a glove in this game with the fact that you barely have shit to work with from the jump, no perks no nothing in Nacht der untoten, making you feel helpless compared to the later games (and maps like Shi no Numa/Der Riese) that you can breeze at least to round 50 easily. Even Verruckt you had to worry about super sprinters thanks to the speed and animations on the zombies coming at you at lightning speed, so on top of having to deal with being in an asylum with the creepiest atmosphere, you're also have to deal with that as well. Luckily perks are there to help you (well, juggernog giving you more health, Double tap having your gun fire 2x faster and Speed cola giving you speed reload, Not quick revive on solo, that shit aint gonna help you one bit.) You can play the other CoD zombies games or Shi no Numa/Der Riese casually, the first 2 nazi zombies maps on the other hand? Nope.

Multiplayer i haven't played too much compared to Cod4, MW2, BO1, etc. but it does have its rightful place here as well, taking what worked about Cod4's create-a-class and killstreaks system and putting its own WW2 spin on it. This does trump Cod4 in terms of overall multiplayer atmosphere and design, WAW is a lot bigger in scale in terms of maps, for what I've played, not to an exhausting extent like later cods like Ghosts but not super tight either, it gives you room to breathe and shoot from long range distances.

Overall, World at War is a classic that needs to be played on all 3 modes through & through (MP not too sure due to it being tainted by hackers and the only ways to play that is either fan clients or steam custom servers), and unlike the newer WW2 titles that just have this weird dissonance behind them where it just feels so damn wacky with its cosmetics, making you feel like a one man army at points or it really not capturing that feel of true WAR, only making this iteration all the more unique and age like fine wine as a result. it makes no qualms on what it is, complete and total brutality.

Certified Hood Classic.

This is the game that treyarch really solidified their craft. on all 3 modes.

Campaign has take you into the shoes of resident schizophernic and SOG operative Alex Mason and being interrogated about the numbers and what do they mean after being brainwashed by Former Red Army Soviets Dragovich and Kravchenko and Former Nazi Scientist Steiner, and how do they tie in with the soviets activating sleeper agents into releasing a deadly chemical weapon on the US during the cold war. You go through the hell of 'Nam flashbacks chasing Dragovich as mason on one side and do some CIA ops with Mason's Handler, Jason Hudson chasing bread crumbs on what the hell is with Nova 6 deadly gas and the Numbers broadcast on the other. Going back and forth between flashbacks of vietnam and the present cold war makes for a unique mash between political and psychological thriller with interspliced with a lot of dark moments. Now, its not complete war horror like WAWs campaign, but its still present in doses thanks to the vietnam flashback missions reminding you of the darker side of the war. (Specifically the level, "The Defector" where you're just hearing vietcongs cries after shooting them with a "dragons breath" incendiary loaded Spas-12.), and it has a lot more vehicle sequences, a LOT more. including riding a bike out of a prison break, T2 style. Flying helicopters and shooting down VCs. guiding a team while in a blackbird, pilot a boat with an MG and your squad firing rockets, Treyarch was really proud to show off their vehicle missions in this one, albeit they were far more "on-railed" compared to the tank mission in world at war.

This campaign goes for a more badass blockbuster approach like Infinity Ward did with MW2 (2009) around the same timespan of late 00's/early 10's than the more somber tone of World at War. In terms of Action, Gameplay (even adding a dive to prone "Dolphin dive" feature), Story scenarios and even the soundtrack going for a more "badass" approach, hamming up the rock from the last game but also bringing in shit like 'nam era music like "fortunate son" or "sympathy for the devil". Even hiring celebrities, like Ed Harris, Ice Cube, Sam Worthington (at the same time period where he just got off of James Camerons Avatar) and Gary Oldman comes back from WAW as Viktor Reznov. But this campaign still kept the "Treyarch" feel of having a relatively Darker tone despite all of that. Even in the Main Menu.

Treyarch CoDs always pull you into the tone the moment you boot up the game, WAW did this with its memorable menu theme despite the layout being the same as Cod4's, but this time? They've peaked with the main menu of their own damn game. Instead of the game having a standard menu, it boots up to you strapped to a chair, having your head look around not even registering on what the fucks going on, while the interrogator pestering you with questions you don't know the answers to because you haven't even boot up the campaign yet. You're hooked up with an IV pump and slow breathing. Having the tradition of showing historical war footage of 'nam, JFK, a speech to communist party of the soviet union by Leonid Brezhnev, nuke and missile tests, etc. on the TV's. and you can get up and look around the room and see a computer and can range from intel, to playing a virtual text based game called "Zork" and can unlock the "five" and dead ops arcade zombies maps. If all of that wasn't enough, you click on "zombies" and said interrogator is turned into a zombie and is banging on the glass, trying to get into that room and kill you, all while said footage switches to zombies and real footage of weird ass experiments, interspliced with campaign footage of scientists for their lives and Nova 6 gas rolling in. and unlike the normal menu, you CANT get up. you're stuck and the situation is FUBAR. And unfortunately they haven't gone anywhere near this level of detail in their next few main menus. nor has any game gone to this insane degree, closest i can think of in recent memory is the metro games but even thats more of a dynamic static menu rather than immediately inside the game from the jump.

The fact that i can go into autistic detail about the MENU shows how special this game is. and i havent even gone about the zombies or MP yet.

Multiplayer is substantially improved from world at war and is a trend setter on many things like customization, as in you can customize your soldier fully without having to rely on $30 bundles on the CoD store like newer cods, just play the game, earn cod points (no not MTX, just in game currency they made up at the time) and buy whatever you want. facepaints, reticles, camos (including the gold camo returning from Cod4 and better than ever) attachments, full blown weapons, grenades, tacticals and it even has unique gadgets like a camera, a portable radar, the signal jammer, shit that barely featured in most cods up until the rebooted MW, MWII, Vanguard and the now direct sequel to this, Black Ops Cold War, with field upgrades. Plenty of killstreaks around including a chopper gunner, a RCXD (which is exactly what you'd expect, an RC car with explosives), a blackbird (advanced UAV), guided missiles, a gunship with is a fully controllable helicopter, care packages that include the grim reaper (a launcher that can hold 4 rockets at once) and a minigun, attack dogs return, its legit a bombardment of batshit killstreaks that only gets more hectic throughout the series. The maps while not having the openness of WAW most of the time, does have the 3 lane structure that has made most of the maps here well designed. and there's a reason why they keep on recycling and milking summit, nuketown and firing range in all the sequels after this. Hate to say it now since they're in like 5 games at this rate, but they're easily recognizable and well designed (even though nuketowns literally a shitpost map that was originated as a reference to indiana jones and the kingdom of the crystal skull)

Then there's Zombies. This is where the mode officially solidified itself as its own mode and has been switched back and forth in the cod series alongside special ops/survival. Though a bit easier compared to its WAW counterpart thanks to it now expanding its play area to open spaces to train zombies (except Call of the dead, try getting to round 100 on that shit), its still got tricks up its sleeves, the introduction of alternate boss types/zombies. Now instead of dealing with hellhounds and regular zombies, you also have to deal with nova crawlers which when killed with weapons that shoot regular bullets, they explode blinding your ass for a split second, (explosives luckily dont have the same effect), the pentagon thief who steals your currently held weapon and runs away like a cunt (hence the title), Monkeys in ascension and shangri-la serving different pain in the ass obstacles, ones in ascension steals your perks if you dont kill them off quick enough and the ones in shang steals your power ups and even switches them, again, if you dont kill them quick enough, George A Romero in Call of the dead, a near invincible presence with a stagelight, whose a royal pain in the ass when you shoot him and cant cool him off in the puddles of freezing water, screeching zombies & napalm zombies that'll blind you and explode when you're near them respectively, also in shang, and to top it off, a damn cosmonaut that'll headbutt your ass and steals one of your perks on Moon.

Just from listing the bosses you have to kill, just shows how this mode grew from just being a mini tower defense game of killing nazi zombies. You have a total of 11 maps, 4 of those being remasters/ports of WAW maps, one of which being the aforementioned top down shooting minigame dead ops arcade which is even more bonkers than the actual mode, and 7 of them being maps featuring your old ragtag zombies gang from WAW's Shi no numa/Der reise (Dempsey, Nikolai, Richtofen and Takeo) Including a classic known as Kino der toten (nazi theater which originally was intended for WAW but couldnt make it due to time constraints), Ascension (a russian rocket test facility), Shangri-La (a mysterious temple in the Himalayas) and the Moon (Im not shitting you, you spawn at Area 51 then go teleport to a Nazi base on the moon.) but also Horror/Action based celebrities in a movie shoot gone wrong in Call of the dead (starring Michael rooker, Danny trejo, Sarah Michelle Gellar and Robert englund and the Aforementioned George Romero being the boss) and in "Five" you get to play as Robert McNamara, Richard Nixon, Fidel Castro and John F Kennedy fighting zombies in the PENTAGON. and to see that shit after beating the campaign is a huge whiplash nobody saw coming when this first dropped.

I haven't even mentioned the wonder weapons that have been expanded from just the ray gun and wunderwaffe to a thundergun that blows zombies away, a tactical grenade called "gersh device" that sucks zombies in a black hole in ascension/moon, a "Q.E.D." tactical grenade thats basically a swiss army grenade on doing a shit-ton of things on moon including getting free perks, a device that turns zombies into humans that distracts them (which sounds cool but kinda sucks when you get into higher rounds), an explosive sniper called the "scavenger", a gun that turns zombies into lil mini zombies that you can run at and kick and a gun called the "wave gun" that transforms between akimbo mini blasters that electrocute zombies into a big gun that can literally COOK zombies and make them pop mid air. We aint gotta talk about the winters howl from "five"/remastered verruckt though. It slows and freezes zombies, its a cool concept but just not good in execution.

That's not even mentioning the perks of Mule kick allowing you to carry 3 weapons, PHD flopper that'll make an explosion after you dolphin dive in a huge height and explosive resistance, Deadshot Daquiri which uh, helps with hipfire spread and on console helps with headshots and Stamin-up which increases your sprint drastically.

i can go on all day about BO1 zombies but you get the point. the mode has drastically went off on all directions and haven't been topped in terms of scale, ambition and content until Black Ops 3.

Overall, this game alongside World at War as Treyarch's finest work. They didn't have to go as hard as they did. but they went for it. and succeeded in flying colors.