burgerfall
122 reviews liked by burgerfall
Portal 2
2011
i spent 5 years trying to complete this game, because each time i stopped playing at some point and when i wanted to come back, i just played from the beginning
I got about 40% of the way through this port but I just can't do it. I don't even really know why, I just cannot physically stand to play any more of this port. Probably the worst way to play the first title.
Edit: It's definitely the art style. And the pace of the game. And the lack of optimization that the pixel remaster DOES have. Plus you can move diagonally in the pixel remaster and that's a big deal to me for some reason.
Edit: It's definitely the art style. And the pace of the game. And the lack of optimization that the pixel remaster DOES have. Plus you can move diagonally in the pixel remaster and that's a big deal to me for some reason.
A love letter to The Beatles and an incredibly cool experience for any Beatles fan. My friend and I sat down and played through the entire campaign in one sitting which basically follows The Beatles' actual career. Not only do the stages and songs themselves reflect their journey, but you get a bunch of behind-the-scenes videos of the actual Beatles sprinkled in throughout the campaign. It rules.
In 2021, Rockstar announced a group of remasters for the three games that put them on the map. Those remasters being the "definitive editions." Shortly after the announcement, they were released and they got absolutely destroyed by critics and fans of these games for being lazy, buggy cash-grabs. Over time, they did release updates that ultimately improved their performance making them a lot more playable than they were on release. Having played both the originals and more recently these "definitive editions," it seems they have fixed these remasters quite a bit, but they are still far from perfect.
Despite its imperfections, there is surprisingly a lot of good that this collection does. In fact, they are the reason I gave this collection the score I did. The first thing I can think of right off the bat is the addition of checkpoints. My biggest complaint when I was playing through the original versions were the lack of checkpoints. I couldn't count how many times I had to rebuy weapons and drive back to the missions across all 3 games. Just having checkpoints alone made playing these games MUCH more enjoyable than my inital playthrough of the originals on Ps4 (which they sadly took down). They also added a marker that tells you where you need to drive during missions. This feature is another major QoL improvement that greatly increased my enjoyment as I got lost quite a bit and would fail missions because of that. There is also the weapon wheel from GTA V, but personally, I just stuck with the old-fashioned way of going through my weapons. Regardless, it's still a nice feature to have.
Even with these positive changes, there are still reasons to dislike it. The graphics lack the charm the originals have, the games still have some glitches and aren't as polished as they should be, and the inclusion of checkpoints are misleading. While I didn't encounter anything gamebreaking, one thing I noticed is that enemies sometimes stand still for no reason at all and their behavior seems off. It didn't happen every time but it was frequent enough to catch my attention. There was also a weird jumping bug I encountered in San Andreas, but luckily it only happened once. While San Andreas has checkpoints, III & Vice City's "checkpoints" aren't really what they claim to be and more like a retry button. I didn't mind this too much as most of the missions in those games are pretty short, but it is highly misleading and comes across as incredibly half-assed & lazy. As for the graphics, they have made an attempt to alieviate that by adding a classic option in the Netflix version. It isn't perfect but its a step in the right direction. I just hope they port it and add more patches to the console versions too.
Compared to its inital release, its clear that Rockstar has fixed these versions to a significant degree, but ultimately they still deserved more love & care than what they got. Do I think this collection is worth $60? Absolutely not! It might have added a lot of positive QoL changes but the lack of polish alone is enough to avoid this at full price. I would recommend getting it on sale, especially since it does quite often. For new players and less skilled ones such as myself, its a good way to expirence these games. As for those who've played the originals, they might want to stick to them.
Despite its imperfections, there is surprisingly a lot of good that this collection does. In fact, they are the reason I gave this collection the score I did. The first thing I can think of right off the bat is the addition of checkpoints. My biggest complaint when I was playing through the original versions were the lack of checkpoints. I couldn't count how many times I had to rebuy weapons and drive back to the missions across all 3 games. Just having checkpoints alone made playing these games MUCH more enjoyable than my inital playthrough of the originals on Ps4 (which they sadly took down). They also added a marker that tells you where you need to drive during missions. This feature is another major QoL improvement that greatly increased my enjoyment as I got lost quite a bit and would fail missions because of that. There is also the weapon wheel from GTA V, but personally, I just stuck with the old-fashioned way of going through my weapons. Regardless, it's still a nice feature to have.
Even with these positive changes, there are still reasons to dislike it. The graphics lack the charm the originals have, the games still have some glitches and aren't as polished as they should be, and the inclusion of checkpoints are misleading. While I didn't encounter anything gamebreaking, one thing I noticed is that enemies sometimes stand still for no reason at all and their behavior seems off. It didn't happen every time but it was frequent enough to catch my attention. There was also a weird jumping bug I encountered in San Andreas, but luckily it only happened once. While San Andreas has checkpoints, III & Vice City's "checkpoints" aren't really what they claim to be and more like a retry button. I didn't mind this too much as most of the missions in those games are pretty short, but it is highly misleading and comes across as incredibly half-assed & lazy. As for the graphics, they have made an attempt to alieviate that by adding a classic option in the Netflix version. It isn't perfect but its a step in the right direction. I just hope they port it and add more patches to the console versions too.
Compared to its inital release, its clear that Rockstar has fixed these versions to a significant degree, but ultimately they still deserved more love & care than what they got. Do I think this collection is worth $60? Absolutely not! It might have added a lot of positive QoL changes but the lack of polish alone is enough to avoid this at full price. I would recommend getting it on sale, especially since it does quite often. For new players and less skilled ones such as myself, its a good way to expirence these games. As for those who've played the originals, they might want to stick to them.
Super Castlevania IV
1991
Controllable jumps and eight directional whipping actually takes a lot of impact out of traditional Castlevania platforming. At least IV is still pretty enjoyable, but I’m glad future games of the same style, both of the franchise and ones inspired by it, never went this far again.
Nocturne is such an immersive experience, I always feel a strong sense of isolation and danger at every moment and like I'm really fending for myself in that treacherous ruined world. It has my favorite turn based combat system of all time, which has so many possibilties that it makes every other JRPG I play feel slightly disappointing. With the way buffs work there's rarely ever a need to truly grind, if you bring a good strategy you can win, at least when doing the normal endings. There are countless memorable and epic boss battles with easily the most consistent lineup in the Megatens I've played. Everything about the game from aesthetics to concepts to soundtrack is just so metal and brutal and raw. Even when it's really putting me through my paces or beating me down again and again, I'm never too frustrated for long because another idea occurs to me and something awesome happens again. I first completed it on the remaster on TDE, and it probably goes without saying that this PS2 version has better moodier lighting. This run I skipped the Amala Labyrinth entirely and felt the vanilla content had a much better flow and variety to it, but TDE has some of the best boss fights and extreme difficulty too so it's worth trying it once. I just adore this game :)
It is still wild to me that this game happened. Sure it could've used more songs and Pro Drum support, but if you like The Beatles and Rhythm games this is just an amazing product.
if you complete this game do you become the fifth beatle. serious answers only.
Among the various consequences of late consumerism, there's that pretty incoherent thing that brought us all here which is "rating" art, it has its ups and downs on every moral aspect you could think of, but I think it's safe to assume that if you're on this website, you enjoy doing this to some degree.
There are movies I watched and albums I listened to that are so personal to their respective artist that bringing yourself to review them would actually feel incredibly disrespectful, and Cave Story Sex RPG 2007 is one of them.
Criticizing elements of someone's memories for the sake of it, or acting like a literal diary should resonate with you is contradicting and wrong on so many levels.
Would you ever read your little sister's diary just to tell her the writing fucking SUCKS and give it a light 1.5 ?
I'm not saying a piece of art like that cannot leave any impression on its audience (heck, it's not even supposed to have such a thing) and I'm glad video games allow people to express themselves in such direct ways but some experiences are better left wordless.
There are movies I watched and albums I listened to that are so personal to their respective artist that bringing yourself to review them would actually feel incredibly disrespectful, and Cave Story Sex RPG 2007 is one of them.
Criticizing elements of someone's memories for the sake of it, or acting like a literal diary should resonate with you is contradicting and wrong on so many levels.
Would you ever read your little sister's diary just to tell her the writing fucking SUCKS and give it a light 1.5 ?
I'm not saying a piece of art like that cannot leave any impression on its audience (heck, it's not even supposed to have such a thing) and I'm glad video games allow people to express themselves in such direct ways but some experiences are better left wordless.
"I am a sleeper, one among thousands. I bring you a message. dagoth ur calls you, nerevarine, and you cannot deny your lord. the sixth house is risen, and dagoth is its glory"
despite the doom and gloom about oblivion, it's morrowind that serves as the elder scrolls' greatest anomaly: an inflection point that swerved the series away from faceless maximalism, monolithic breadth, and randomized content. developed during a period of fear and uncertainty about the future of the company, todd howard sums up the philosophy behind the risk taking succinctly: "what's the worst that's going to happen?"
a meticulously handcrafted world you could feasibly traverse in real time, a multitude of elaborate static questlines, lessened emphasis on level scaling, fast travel relegated solely to in-world means, rich itemization, an enhanced dialogue system, smaller dungeons that approximate real spaces... to say the changes were significant is an understatement. while established pillars like the character creation format and learn-by-doing skill system remained largely in tact, nearly everything else was reimagined or reworked to fit a game that was, among many things, more local. where bethesda once crafted abstract worlds, here they'd take on the challenge of designing, establishing, and allowing you to inhabit an actual place
nine regions spiral inward, each housing numerous geographies, cultures and settlements; each with drastically distinct architectures informed by them. the mushroom towers of the telvani, carapace huts of gnisis or ald-ruhn, stone and thatched roof settlements of the imperials, yurts of the ashlanders, and crooked daedric ruins being but a few. where previous — and to a lesser extent subsequent — entries in the series drew from a standard palette of european history and high fantasy, morrowind takes great efforts to distinguish itself as something uniquely alien, largely thanks to artist, writer, and designer michael kirkbride
fittingly, you're a stranger — a foreigner, outlander, n'wah — tasked with observing and navigating the region, its factions and religions, and the splinter groups and fractured politics within them. if you follow the narrative throughline you'll be expected to gather some body of knowledge, but most of it is offered in the way of extracurricular research and after hours inquisition
it's a congruent approach that allows for as much or as little engagement with the absurd amount of subsurface lore and worldbuilding as possible. if you choose to delve you'll get stories full of contradictions, unreliable narrators, historical records, mythological yarns, rituals, poems, lusty argonian maids, and a guy who learned to wear heavy armour so well he could walk on his hands and fuck his wife without removing it. if you choose not to you can stick to the more utile texts like the red book of 3E 426 or dismiss everything altogether. you can go the whole game without knowing what a dwemer is, but you're covered: some folks don't know shit
really, you don't have to know or do anything. once off the boat you'll amble forward all sluggish and dim and likely spend most of your time wandering aimlessly, learning elaborate public transit routes, memorizing directions, and getting lost in vivec. while there's urgency to the main quest, more often than not it'll be sending you far and wide to hobnob, get the lay of the land, and delve into tombs and caverns
and therein lies the brick wall that fells many an adventurer: the combat. in a contentious swerve morrowind is the only game in the series that binds the success of basic attacks to dice rolls. your blade may look like it's passing through one of the dozen cliff racers that've chased you from sheogorad to the ascadian isles, but the outcome is up to chance — and chance is working against you in the early hours. on its face it's a bad decision; it inarguably feels worse than any other game in the series, but that's ultimately why it proves to be the correct one
morrowind has something of a hyperbolic power curve. odds are if you're new to the game you might make a build where rats are lethal, walking up a slight incline requires you to take a break, and your understanding of your weapon is fundamentally unsound in a way that shouldn't be possible. you're basically the biggest loser to ever grace tamriel, and after you meet jiub, sign your paperwork, and get lost finding caius cosades you'll probably find yourself poisoned, paralyzed, or worse. the beauty in this is how it enables a heightened level of contrast
by the end of the game you'll be soaring over the ghostgate adorned in Exquisite Shirts and Pants that eliminate fall damage and fatigue, wielding custom swords that siphon enemy agility ("malder's gait"), and hosting a gilgameshian hoard of artifacts so valuable you'll have to sell them to a crab just to get half the money they're worth. you'll become a living cartoon on some who framed roger rabbit or space jam shit, and the juxtaposition couldn't possibly be more satisfying — all because of those shitty fuckin dice rolls
morrowind is a journey, one that's as much about murking bureaucrats, finding a smoking hot telvani wife, getting called slurs, contracting a thousand diseases, and severing the threads of prophecy as it is being ""Nerevarine"" or anything else. for all its little flaws and idiosyncrasies it continues to creep up the list of my favourite games, and hell, I guess I love it
in the end after a hard fought victory I ended up back where I started: in caius cosades house, now stacked knee high with books, glass armours, boots of flying, sixth house trinkets, and a fire hazard's worth of odds and ends. in honour of my good friend the spymaster I decided to relax, hit the Good Skooma Pipe (Quality: 0.15), and get some rest...
I sure hope nothing weird happens with The Tribunal haha!!!
blows insane plume
despite the doom and gloom about oblivion, it's morrowind that serves as the elder scrolls' greatest anomaly: an inflection point that swerved the series away from faceless maximalism, monolithic breadth, and randomized content. developed during a period of fear and uncertainty about the future of the company, todd howard sums up the philosophy behind the risk taking succinctly: "what's the worst that's going to happen?"
a meticulously handcrafted world you could feasibly traverse in real time, a multitude of elaborate static questlines, lessened emphasis on level scaling, fast travel relegated solely to in-world means, rich itemization, an enhanced dialogue system, smaller dungeons that approximate real spaces... to say the changes were significant is an understatement. while established pillars like the character creation format and learn-by-doing skill system remained largely in tact, nearly everything else was reimagined or reworked to fit a game that was, among many things, more local. where bethesda once crafted abstract worlds, here they'd take on the challenge of designing, establishing, and allowing you to inhabit an actual place
nine regions spiral inward, each housing numerous geographies, cultures and settlements; each with drastically distinct architectures informed by them. the mushroom towers of the telvani, carapace huts of gnisis or ald-ruhn, stone and thatched roof settlements of the imperials, yurts of the ashlanders, and crooked daedric ruins being but a few. where previous — and to a lesser extent subsequent — entries in the series drew from a standard palette of european history and high fantasy, morrowind takes great efforts to distinguish itself as something uniquely alien, largely thanks to artist, writer, and designer michael kirkbride
fittingly, you're a stranger — a foreigner, outlander, n'wah — tasked with observing and navigating the region, its factions and religions, and the splinter groups and fractured politics within them. if you follow the narrative throughline you'll be expected to gather some body of knowledge, but most of it is offered in the way of extracurricular research and after hours inquisition
it's a congruent approach that allows for as much or as little engagement with the absurd amount of subsurface lore and worldbuilding as possible. if you choose to delve you'll get stories full of contradictions, unreliable narrators, historical records, mythological yarns, rituals, poems, lusty argonian maids, and a guy who learned to wear heavy armour so well he could walk on his hands and fuck his wife without removing it. if you choose not to you can stick to the more utile texts like the red book of 3E 426 or dismiss everything altogether. you can go the whole game without knowing what a dwemer is, but you're covered: some folks don't know shit
really, you don't have to know or do anything. once off the boat you'll amble forward all sluggish and dim and likely spend most of your time wandering aimlessly, learning elaborate public transit routes, memorizing directions, and getting lost in vivec. while there's urgency to the main quest, more often than not it'll be sending you far and wide to hobnob, get the lay of the land, and delve into tombs and caverns
and therein lies the brick wall that fells many an adventurer: the combat. in a contentious swerve morrowind is the only game in the series that binds the success of basic attacks to dice rolls. your blade may look like it's passing through one of the dozen cliff racers that've chased you from sheogorad to the ascadian isles, but the outcome is up to chance — and chance is working against you in the early hours. on its face it's a bad decision; it inarguably feels worse than any other game in the series, but that's ultimately why it proves to be the correct one
morrowind has something of a hyperbolic power curve. odds are if you're new to the game you might make a build where rats are lethal, walking up a slight incline requires you to take a break, and your understanding of your weapon is fundamentally unsound in a way that shouldn't be possible. you're basically the biggest loser to ever grace tamriel, and after you meet jiub, sign your paperwork, and get lost finding caius cosades you'll probably find yourself poisoned, paralyzed, or worse. the beauty in this is how it enables a heightened level of contrast
by the end of the game you'll be soaring over the ghostgate adorned in Exquisite Shirts and Pants that eliminate fall damage and fatigue, wielding custom swords that siphon enemy agility ("malder's gait"), and hosting a gilgameshian hoard of artifacts so valuable you'll have to sell them to a crab just to get half the money they're worth. you'll become a living cartoon on some who framed roger rabbit or space jam shit, and the juxtaposition couldn't possibly be more satisfying — all because of those shitty fuckin dice rolls
morrowind is a journey, one that's as much about murking bureaucrats, finding a smoking hot telvani wife, getting called slurs, contracting a thousand diseases, and severing the threads of prophecy as it is being ""Nerevarine"" or anything else. for all its little flaws and idiosyncrasies it continues to creep up the list of my favourite games, and hell, I guess I love it
in the end after a hard fought victory I ended up back where I started: in caius cosades house, now stacked knee high with books, glass armours, boots of flying, sixth house trinkets, and a fire hazard's worth of odds and ends. in honour of my good friend the spymaster I decided to relax, hit the Good Skooma Pipe (Quality: 0.15), and get some rest...
I sure hope nothing weird happens with The Tribunal haha!!!
blows insane plume