ViewtifulGaz
2018
I think I enjoyed this overall, but fucking hell was it a slog to get through the first 60-70%.
2004
I always remember hearing that Doom 3 was the black sheep of the family, and was more of a horror game than the rest. This really only holds true for the beginning portion of the game, and the rest of it was way more Doom like than I expected!
You just have to approach it with the mind of the Doomslayer.
My only real complaints are that the AI totally sucks, and will frequently spawn directly in your face to die immediately to a shotgun, and that all of the imp "Jump scares" are really annoying.
The weapons do feel lame at the start, but by the time you're in the midst of later combat, you totally forget about it.
The shotgun is also nowhere near as bad as everyone says, and it totally serves its purpose of making you run up to the enemies to kill them.
You just have to approach it with the mind of the Doomslayer.
My only real complaints are that the AI totally sucks, and will frequently spawn directly in your face to die immediately to a shotgun, and that all of the imp "Jump scares" are really annoying.
The weapons do feel lame at the start, but by the time you're in the midst of later combat, you totally forget about it.
The shotgun is also nowhere near as bad as everyone says, and it totally serves its purpose of making you run up to the enemies to kill them.
2007
Fucking hell, man.
Maybe this was good at the time, but going back to it now is hell.
The character moves like an old resi character, the platforming sucks and the combat is mostly just non-stop Izuna Drops (This is actually a good thing).
The Rachel bits were dreadful, and this was the point that made me quit for good.
https://twitter.com/ViewtifulGaz/status/1612124904106639361
Maybe this was good at the time, but going back to it now is hell.
The character moves like an old resi character, the platforming sucks and the combat is mostly just non-stop Izuna Drops (This is actually a good thing).
The Rachel bits were dreadful, and this was the point that made me quit for good.
https://twitter.com/ViewtifulGaz/status/1612124904106639361
A totally fine shooter that doesn't really do anything that made the first one good.
The level design very rarely creates exciting encounters, the enemies don't feel "smart" any more.
The melee moves very rarely have a chance to shine.
The story, and particularly the ending, are dreadful.
It's decidedly not scary at any point.
But, for the most part, shooting stuff is fun.
The level design very rarely creates exciting encounters, the enemies don't feel "smart" any more.
The melee moves very rarely have a chance to shine.
The story, and particularly the ending, are dreadful.
It's decidedly not scary at any point.
But, for the most part, shooting stuff is fun.
2017
Came back to this after about a year and actually beat it (once) this time.
I still don't really get the appeal at all. Like playing Castlevania with the worst weapons and character controller you can imagine.
Except the kick. The kick is incredible and I wish the whole game was built around it.
I still don't really get the appeal at all. Like playing Castlevania with the worst weapons and character controller you can imagine.
Except the kick. The kick is incredible and I wish the whole game was built around it.
2017
I really didn't get on with cross cells for most of it, but the last 5-10 puzzles are great and totally brought back the dizzying highs of Hexcells.
Overall, it's bizarrely missing a lot of quality of life features that would make this a nicer experience (some of which are in his other games) and it's not as good as Hexcells... But if you liked Hexcells, you'd enjoy the end of this!
Overall, it's bizarrely missing a lot of quality of life features that would make this a nicer experience (some of which are in his other games) and it's not as good as Hexcells... But if you liked Hexcells, you'd enjoy the end of this!
2023
Hi-Fi Rush is a Kingdom Hearts.
Power of friendship, magic weapon, bad guys to good guys, pattern based bosses, idiot but cheerful protagonist.
Aside from that it's an okay character action game mixed with an okay rhythm game that manages to be better than the sum of its parts.
When it all comes together, it's sublime.
When it doesn't, it can get frustrating. The audio mixing can make it really difficult to stay on cue, or really easy to miss important sound effects in battle. The camera turns really slowly, which is bizarre. Visually, things get a bit cluttered too which, again, make it very easy to not be able to react to threats.
The combat flow is pretty standard character action game and gets much more interesting when you're given a parry. This does lead to some enemies getting block strings that that have a defined pattern that I don't think you can work out first time (unlike the pre-defined "duel" segments).
I played through on Hard mode, so I'm looking forward to jumping up a difficulty with my full game knowledge to see if it unlocks any complexity.
The story is all pretty standard shonen anime, but I thought the main gang of characters was really endearing and I'd be very up for seeing more from them!
In summary: It's a no brainer on Game Pass and it feels like a great deal at it's below-average RRP.
Power of friendship, magic weapon, bad guys to good guys, pattern based bosses, idiot but cheerful protagonist.
Aside from that it's an okay character action game mixed with an okay rhythm game that manages to be better than the sum of its parts.
When it all comes together, it's sublime.
When it doesn't, it can get frustrating. The audio mixing can make it really difficult to stay on cue, or really easy to miss important sound effects in battle. The camera turns really slowly, which is bizarre. Visually, things get a bit cluttered too which, again, make it very easy to not be able to react to threats.
The combat flow is pretty standard character action game and gets much more interesting when you're given a parry. This does lead to some enemies getting block strings that that have a defined pattern that I don't think you can work out first time (unlike the pre-defined "duel" segments).
I played through on Hard mode, so I'm looking forward to jumping up a difficulty with my full game knowledge to see if it unlocks any complexity.
The story is all pretty standard shonen anime, but I thought the main gang of characters was really endearing and I'd be very up for seeing more from them!
In summary: It's a no brainer on Game Pass and it feels like a great deal at it's below-average RRP.
Space poverty sim.
A big clunky mech game with loads of mechs and loads of customisation. It's a great time with friends. Walking around, strategising, bursting down big bad mechs.
On your own it is MUCH worse. The teammate AI is insanely bad... like, surprisingly so.
They'll frequently stand around and not shoot anything. They'll constantly walk in front of you (there is friendly fire).
Sometimes you'll ask all three of them to just please deal with one teeny tiny mech while you fight off 4 or 5 big motherfuckers and, after you emerge victorious with an arm, a leg and a hundred thousand dollars worth of guns missing you'll turn around and your teammates will have maybe shot the last enemies leg off.
Anyway, great with friends.
A big clunky mech game with loads of mechs and loads of customisation. It's a great time with friends. Walking around, strategising, bursting down big bad mechs.
On your own it is MUCH worse. The teammate AI is insanely bad... like, surprisingly so.
They'll frequently stand around and not shoot anything. They'll constantly walk in front of you (there is friendly fire).
Sometimes you'll ask all three of them to just please deal with one teeny tiny mech while you fight off 4 or 5 big motherfuckers and, after you emerge victorious with an arm, a leg and a hundred thousand dollars worth of guns missing you'll turn around and your teammates will have maybe shot the last enemies leg off.
Anyway, great with friends.
2023
I'm sure I'll come back a re-evaluate this later.
I think it was fine! Good in some places, great in a few! I'm not sure if anything in the game ever surpassed those first couple of hours from the demo.
There's some amazing set pieces that I'd be hype as fuck for in Kingdom Hearts or something, but felt a little TOO intense for everything else that was going on in XVI.
I really loved the combat at the start, but by the end you never have to engage with any of the cool mechanics any more like juggling, and it's just Zantetsuken into Diamond Dust into Gigaflare, Raging Fist counter, repeat.
It's weird that there's zero difference between spells or Eikon elements. It sucks that the core actions never change after the first couple of hours. The enemies are dumb as bricks, and some more mages to mix things up is sorely needed.
The pacing with the sidequests totally sucked throughout but really killed the momentum at some key moments; especially right before the final story quest.
Some of the core cast is great, most of the baddies are good (except the main one...), many others have no personality (Jill is a real disappointment, even in her big moments).
I thought I'd be totally buzzing for New Game+, but that makes you slog through a lot of stuff I hoped I'd be able to skip, and the combat is just super spongey.
Yeah! I dunno. For all the seriousness of most of it, the last hour or so is just a Kingdom Hearts ending.
BUT, big fan of Gav, so swings and roundabouts.
I think it was fine! Good in some places, great in a few! I'm not sure if anything in the game ever surpassed those first couple of hours from the demo.
There's some amazing set pieces that I'd be hype as fuck for in Kingdom Hearts or something, but felt a little TOO intense for everything else that was going on in XVI.
I really loved the combat at the start, but by the end you never have to engage with any of the cool mechanics any more like juggling, and it's just Zantetsuken into Diamond Dust into Gigaflare, Raging Fist counter, repeat.
It's weird that there's zero difference between spells or Eikon elements. It sucks that the core actions never change after the first couple of hours. The enemies are dumb as bricks, and some more mages to mix things up is sorely needed.
The pacing with the sidequests totally sucked throughout but really killed the momentum at some key moments; especially right before the final story quest.
Some of the core cast is great, most of the baddies are good (except the main one...), many others have no personality (Jill is a real disappointment, even in her big moments).
I thought I'd be totally buzzing for New Game+, but that makes you slog through a lot of stuff I hoped I'd be able to skip, and the combat is just super spongey.
Yeah! I dunno. For all the seriousness of most of it, the last hour or so is just a Kingdom Hearts ending.
BUT, big fan of Gav, so swings and roundabouts.
2023
A great time.
Incredibly fun movement which gets deeper as you progress, some very fun platforming, and just a pleasant wee thing overall.
The combat kind of blows, but you very rarely have to engage with it, and there's no map, but usually this isn't a problem.
The ending just sort of... ended, but I wasn't here for the plot anyhoo.
Incredibly fun movement which gets deeper as you progress, some very fun platforming, and just a pleasant wee thing overall.
The combat kind of blows, but you very rarely have to engage with it, and there's no map, but usually this isn't a problem.
The ending just sort of... ended, but I wasn't here for the plot anyhoo.
2022
Ach, I mean. It's like almost good.
A surprisingly finnicky character controller that you spend way more time fighting with over tiny jumps left and right than you do enjoying it doing big swings. Loads of little things just don't feel right.
Some awful checkpointing in what I played. Sometimes you'd get launched through a barrier that you couldn't go back through, immediately hitting a checkpoint meaning you have to start the level over if you happen to have missed any collectibles. Later on it swings the other way and you'll be doing a big detour to collect some stuff, before dying to a silly bit of platforming, making you do the easy detour over and over.
The music is nice and funky, but the loops feel like they're about a minute long and are repeated for every stage of the world you're in, driving you to totally insanity by the second stage.
There's fun stuff in here, and it feels well crafted, so I feel bad about not liking it... but boy did I not like it.
A surprisingly finnicky character controller that you spend way more time fighting with over tiny jumps left and right than you do enjoying it doing big swings. Loads of little things just don't feel right.
Some awful checkpointing in what I played. Sometimes you'd get launched through a barrier that you couldn't go back through, immediately hitting a checkpoint meaning you have to start the level over if you happen to have missed any collectibles. Later on it swings the other way and you'll be doing a big detour to collect some stuff, before dying to a silly bit of platforming, making you do the easy detour over and over.
The music is nice and funky, but the loops feel like they're about a minute long and are repeated for every stage of the world you're in, driving you to totally insanity by the second stage.
There's fun stuff in here, and it feels well crafted, so I feel bad about not liking it... but boy did I not like it.
2023
The logical continuation to the logical conclusion of roguelikes
2023
SPRAWL is, I guess, a Boomer Shooter.
Aesthetically it's pretty incredible what the one-man art/music team has done. It all comes together to create an excellent dirty Cyberpunk dystopia that you'll be wallrunning and shooting your way through.
The gameplay is very satisfying, but could probably do with a little more variation in encounters and UI.
The way the encounters and AI works, it rarely forces you to engage with the movement mid-fight.
A pretty fun selection of weapons, but few as satisfying as the starting pistols. So when enemies get a bit tanky for them, you just have to start abusing the hilariously overtuned shotgun.
Like most Boomer Shooters, the bosses are the weakest bit. Spending your last moments in a game all about dynamically moving around the environment in a flat room looking up at a big helicopter is a bummer of a finish.
Anyway, I did it in like 3hr30, so it didn't outstay its welcome!
Aesthetically it's pretty incredible what the one-man art/music team has done. It all comes together to create an excellent dirty Cyberpunk dystopia that you'll be wallrunning and shooting your way through.
The gameplay is very satisfying, but could probably do with a little more variation in encounters and UI.
The way the encounters and AI works, it rarely forces you to engage with the movement mid-fight.
A pretty fun selection of weapons, but few as satisfying as the starting pistols. So when enemies get a bit tanky for them, you just have to start abusing the hilariously overtuned shotgun.
Like most Boomer Shooters, the bosses are the weakest bit. Spending your last moments in a game all about dynamically moving around the environment in a flat room looking up at a big helicopter is a bummer of a finish.
Anyway, I did it in like 3hr30, so it didn't outstay its welcome!
2021
I hated this, man.
I played with my wife and we found every character in it SO incredibly annoying that we just didn't even care if they improved their lives. Fuck 'em. Especially that book.
I played with my wife and we found every character in it SO incredibly annoying that we just didn't even care if they improved their lives. Fuck 'em. Especially that book.
2022
I wasn't a huge fan of the combat, inventory management and backtracking - so, like, the survival horror bits - but that stuff is sometimes good, and everything else is incredible.