this really hit my soft spot. i think its far from perfect and nowhere near other survival horror games that i love but the atmosphere compels me to not hate it. the atmosphere is absolutely the star of the show here with the terrifying ambiance and dreary lighting of the USG Ishimura. this gave me an experience that ive only had with 2 games off the top of my head: doom 3 and silent hill. i was constantly checking behind isaac and being overly cautious of potential dangers around corners that were usually nonexistent. i love it when games make me feel this way, it's so fucking awesome. the slow movement of isaac and speeding enemies add to the fear that the game bakes deep into you.

though, like silent hill, the game floods you with more ammo than you need (at least on medium difficulty). i was constantly full of ammo for ALL guns. i actually considered selling all of my weapons except for the plasma gun. RE4 is an action survival horror game that does ammo economy better than Dead Space which is definitely more action survival horror than i expected. thankfully thats the only downside for the combat that i can think of. while i feel like some encounters are too easy with fewer enemies than i'd want (sometimes id even want the game to throw more than just charging enemies at times), but these are more like disappointments than dislikes.

the level design is also more of a disappointment to me. dead space is a very linear game. you go through hallways to get to a room to then enter another hallway, it's all basically a long corridor. this works though since the game's atmosphere keeps it tense. whats disappointing to me is how the game puts a hub into each level but doesnt ever set it up for isaac to explore the level at his own pace. it's pretty much always hub room with multiple locked doors except one, those locked doors will open up eventually as you complete hallway after hallway of the level. it's more of my preference, which i understand. i cant have every game be the spencer mansion or RE2's police station. but damn i really think this game would've been better if the levels were open-ended like that. if it was like that, i don't think it'd even hurt the pacing of enemies, mechanics, and story.

the story is pretty mediocre. there's a lot of stuff happening in the background that you'd only know from reading and listening to logs found throughout the ship. it's a slowburn where you crash onto a ship where a fight for survival turns into a fight against monolithic undead flesh monsters. though it feels more like a plotline at first, completing objectives with story excuses and sprinkles of what's happened. it's not a terrible story, it's very much acceptable and with some nice twists but i'd be lying if i didnt say that i saw most of them coming. what's lame about the story and writing is just how much of it is "isaac, go do this. NOW!!!" It feels so directed. It's not necessarily handholding but it doesn't feel like a story that's unraveling organically and instead feels like a stage director nagging you from backstage with what's going to happen next.

anyways, it's a cool game that has me excited to play the sequel and weirdly intrigued to play the third one eventually. here's to wishful thinking for the remake, which, honestly, im not too mad about happening since the pc port for this game kinda sucks. the mouselook is janky, lots of textures are low-res, and audio can bug out occasionally. I wished that the port was better, the game rocks so much that i want more of a remaster than a full-on remake for the game. remakes are a trendy thing for AAA games to do these days, everybody knows that, but there are a bunch of remakes happening that feel unnecessary.

tangent aside, this was a ranty informal review of dead space. the game's good but leaves some more to be desired if you expect every survival horror to be like classic resident evil or RE4. the atmosphere is compelling while the story isn't, but the combat helps negate that by being intense and anxiety-inducing. now before i play dead space 2, i think ima check out the callisto protocol or just go play some armored core. god exists and proof of that is armored core 6: fires of rubicon.

i have no fucking idea how this game is so timeless that it can also be one of the greatest VR games ever. the tensity and chaotic feelings with the combat are still there, and even amplified at times when seeing a horde of ganados right in front of you. my palms havent been this sweaty since i played silent hill 1. it's such a treat to play this that im pissed to have to give credit to facebook since it's their platform the game's on and they also published the game. they even updated textures and models for some items its almost like the corporate entity put love into the game. being on the game cube, ps2, ported to pc, ported to the fucking Nokias and smartphones, reimagined by a fan with the RE4HD Project, remade for modern audiences in 2023, and having been re-engineered into a VR game shows that RE4 is a classic people can't get tired of. a design and loop so ageless that it originally reshaped the industry but also inevitably came back in newer forms.

i hate sounding like one of those VR-bros or whatever but RE4VR is something that can only be experienced in VR.

a cool slaughter-to-the-beat fps that's all about style. i havent played many rhythm games, but hellsinger nudged me into looking at them some more. except osu!, im not that big of a loser. hellsinger's got combos to build up a fury stack, so this game's equivalent of a combo meter like DMC or Ultrakill's style bar, but it actually benefits you to score as high as you can. you get little buffs between hit streaks like explosive attacks for example, but it's really the music that keeps you going for higher scores. each attack on a beat deals the highest damage that an attack can dish out while also giving you more fury to your fury meter. so not only do you want to be as stylish as you can because thats the fun way to play, it's also the best way to play if you want to stay alive and kill enemies. great combat, although the movement is a bit too slow for my tastes, and great music (serj tankian provided vocals for the final boss fight!!). hellsinger's a good way to spend a weekend because of it's 4 hour run time but it doesnt overstay its welcome. i enjoyed my time with the game and was satisfied when it ended. i dont think i'll go back to beat my scores, i'll just reminisce on the game if i ever think about rhythm shooters.

this game is some shit i wished i made. i enjoyed just about every bit of this trip and all the lil freaks i had to meet along the way. i really enjoyed the puzzles, i thought they were decent challenges and were better than the combat. the combat is alright, the worst part of it is how the levels seemed to be designed before the combat was implemented or even considered to be added. i wished the marketing for this game was better so that it didn't get the flak that it got, big mistake to make it seem like it had more action than it really did. It's not for everybody, but i definitely fit into the niche it's going for.

i saw some people compare the early game to myst so now i know i have to get to those games sooner

this is basically just a lost doom game that somebody found and released with some modernization and a light coat of paint. if doom 3 or doom 64 didnt please you, this can be your head canon doom 3. its strengths are the visuals and level design. the enemies all stand out from one another and the sprite-ification of their models looks really good. the blood is also some of the best blood in a video game. walls will be painted red, new seas of blood will cover the facilities you traverse. combat is pretty standard, it's what to expect from a boomer shooter but its done pretty well to be fun with the vast arsenal of satisfying weapons. overall a good boom shoot, though im not entirely sure if i'd call this a must-play for the genre.

i really wanted to love god of war 2018 (GoW18) but it's riddled with terrible design choices that only happen in modern AAA games or games that for some reason want to be like that. i first want to ashamedly admit that this was my first god of war game and since I've always heard about the combat in god of war that was what i was looking most forward to. in that department, the game almost gets it right. many of the moves you can do with the axe and blades feel very cathartic. the weight of the metal is tangible with how hard kratos swings his weapons. my favorite part is when im able to launch enemies up into the air, calling back to the combo action of old action hack'n'slash games like the dmc games or the original god of war titles. but that's pretty much where the good ends. the camera in this game is absolutely terrible for the enemy encounters. many times you'll find yourself getting swarmed and getting hit from almost always behind the camera. it's so antagonistic to put such a claustrophobic over-the-shoulder camera in a game where you fight hordes of enemies. this is made worse when fighting faster, more dangerous enemies like the valkyries. yes, the valkyries are optional, but why should that excuse the terrible camera? enemy variety is also another issue with the combat. lots of the enemies amount to just being different colored humanoids that deal different elemental damage that corresponds with their color. green = poison, red = fire, blue = frost. most enemies can be dealt with in the same manner: brutal violence. though i do appreciate how you're incentivized to switch to the blades when dealing with helwalkers and to be more patient with the revenants. even if they are a pain in the ass. in the end, i found that the combat was my favorite part of the game. when it worked, it WORKED. it was so satisfying comboing specials, parries, axe throws, atreus' arrows, and every other attack i could into a tornado of death. the worst part to me is the level design and exploration.

GoW18 will not shut up about how you should explore the game's beautiful locales. yea, i really dig what you did with the place santa monica. jormungandr surrounding the lake of nine, thamur's giant corpse, the fiery mountains of muspelheim, the environments don't hold back. sucks that they're all either gorgeously dressed hallways or vast empty planes. the game is pretty much a hallway or rock-climbing section, then a bigger area with enemies, and maybe a puzzle with some "secrets" strung along the way. a couple of secrets were decently hidden, but they're mostly just go opposite of the direction to progress. then there are some larger areas that are just large for being big. these areas are gigantic, the most notable being the lake of nine. its sense of scale is awing, but it also makes exploration in the early game such a drag. for some reason, the devs thought it would be a smart decision not to allow fast traveling to every found fast travel point until you reached a certain point in the game. if you're gonna give fast travel, go all the way. please don't make me boat across a lake for hours to the point where the npcs run out of dialogue to entertain me. and to make it worse, when i do get full fast travel, ive still got to travel across the lake by boat because, honestly, that may be faster than the fast travel system.

the fast travel system is abysmal. sure it was cool to walk on a branch of yggdrasil, the world tree, for the first time when fast traveling but having to do that EVERY time i fast travel is just plain annoying. why do this? is it to pad out an already decently long game? there's no reason to do this. i get making me have to walk on yggdrasil if the npcs have dialogue but if i just need to get from point a to point b and there's no new dialogue, just let me fast travel between places. i dont want to run around in a circle in silence every time i want to fast travel!

continuing on mechanics that really just had me scratching my head is the implementation of a crafting and loot system. having an upgrade system for character progression is good, i like that, but why make it this unnecessary crafting system when finding that upgrade as an item in the game world is just as good, if not better? why is there crafting in god of war? oh yea, it's a AAA game made in 2018. AAA gaming bingo: open world, crafting, rock climbing, "cinematic mature" story, color-coded loot... BINGO! we have a winner! kratos seems to also be having a fashion dilemma. he can wear full-on breastplate, his usual shoulder pad, some pauldrons, and varying wristbands and waistcloths if he wants to. again, not a concept i hate. it's some cool variety, progression, and player expression. however, the armor boils down to picking which armor makes kratos the highest level he can be. think of destiny's light level system: its like that in this game where the higher the level loot you use, the higher the level you become so you can fight higher leveled enemies. that is just HORRENDOUS. especially for a singleplayer rpg where grinding isn't a part of the gameplay loop. a traditional leveling-up system would have been way better, i mean theres already xp in the game. or why not make the levels of enemies tied to the level of your weapon, making exploration more incentivized and also so that there's not a stupid light level armor mechanic thing? why make players believe the armor system is flexible when all that matters is if the big number in the top right of the screen goes up?? at least finding different weapon abilities and even runes/enchantments didn't bother me entirely. i found those to be fine since they actually had an impact on the gameplay and playstyles as compared to the armor.

i guess the last thing to talk about would be the story and writing. it's alright for the most part, even reaching good or close to good at times. kratos and atreus have some great bonding moments that feel almost genuine at times. but they also have a lot of weird quick bonding moments that don't feel genuine. the writing has some odd pacing. sometimes it takes its time, but then it'll hastily speed things up in an instant, making some moments feel inorganic. at least the characters are mostly well-written. i enjoyed seeing a lot of the interactions between characters and hearing the dialogue between a lot of them, mimir has some great banter and stories. all the gods have great personalities, too. whether they're rowdy or more reserved, they all had unique voices that made them stand out on their own. speaking of the gods, i think this game actually does a solid job at presenting norse mythology. It's almost like they did some proper reading on the stuff the game's based on and have the gods appear more like they are in the prose edda and poetic edda. i feel like most people associate thor nowadays as marvel's cocky semi-goofy brick head who's all about being the good guy. same with odin being good since he's thor's father. the truth is how they're presented in GoW18. the aesir, and a whole lot of other people/creatures in norse mythology, are selfish greedy bastards. they couldn't care less for midgard's inhabitants. thor really was a bloodthirsty giant killing drunkard, usually killing giants if they did a little bit of trolling or if he simply felt like it. odin is also just as greedy and thirsty for knowledge as he is talked about in GoW18. odin really was a police-state-esque figure who meddled in the lives of everybody and everything, paranoid at what he didn't know. im just mostly glad that they didn't present the norse gods as some black-and-white entities since they really are more of a gray area when it came to morals (though i'd be lying if i didn't say there was some black-and-white morality sprinkled throughout the mythology).

overall, GoW18 has me so conflicted. i see glimpses of an amazing game, but that's stripped away from me because of the terrible design philosophy that so many AAA studios have become enamored with since ever. i want to attribute this design philosophy to naughty dog with uncharted, but i could be wrong. games becoming "mature" don't have to be so terrible in gameplay and cinematic in their stories. we don't need another "games grew up" situation in the industry. we just need fun games with a good story if possible. i mean resident evil (2002) has engaging gameplay and cinematic cameras. doom eternal is violently fun and cinematically ridiculous. max payne is all about having fun shootouts like if you were in a john woo flick. in terms of generic AAA games, this is on par with its peers but not atrociously incompetent. it could have been amazing if designed differently, but here we are with the current state of the AAA design philosophy.

i think i'll eventually get to GoW Ragnarok, but that'll probably be in 200 years when it's not costing an arm and a leg.

max payne holds up remarkably well to this day. the combat is still cathartic, the story is still as engaging as it is ridiculous, and the visuals hold up in a weird half-realistic, half-low-res-impressionistic sort of way. while the combat isnt as visually explosive as say f.e.a.r. or later entries in the series, except for the later half or quarter of the game, the gunfights are still a ballet of hellfire and brass. it's good fun that anybody who loves action and adores hong kong blood operas will enjoy. im so happy remedy entertainment exists as a company, even if they made that one tv show pretending to be a game. i really hope the remake does the game justice and will be a great companion piece to the original. even if a remake is mostly unnecessary because of fan patches, fixes, etc.