235 reviews liked by burnoutenjoyer


A really cool, short experience. Really janky but it is memorable. Specially that part where there is an enormous moon with an eye and a nurse says "It is commutable to know that when I look at the sky, there is someone looking back." (or something like that).

Point-and-click adventures are already as archaic as they are. They are probably one of the least evolved video game genres and have mostly remained unchanged over the last few decades. Beyond Shadowgate was one of the first graphical adventure games that became a big deal. You move your hero around, clicking on things, talking to people, and hopefully solving some of the many obtuse puzzles in the game.

Beyond Shadowgate has a very simple story ripped straight from a text adventure or an 80's low-budget cartoon. You are the hero, Prince Erik, who is framed for his father's murder. You start out in the dungeons, break your way out, and off you go to beat the real murderer. The beginning of the of the dungeon is a simple version of what's to come. You need to get out of the room, and here you need to figure out how to use your inventory, action icons, and consequences for not reacting fast enough. You will meet the Grim Reaper along with a gory animation if certain actions are done, or not done, on time, and these can be quite hilarious.

I understand that this was made back when point-and-click adventures were fairly new, but one thing I can never get past are the obtuse puzzles and lack of any hints. There is a good and bad ending, and to even get to those, you need specific items to access the final room in the game. These items are acquired by either finding them or purchasing their alternatives. Some items can be completely missed just by killing a specific creature or not talking to someone before another event is triggered. Thankfully, most of these items have multiples, so you will come across them in some form. Most of the game has Erik wandering around teasing people, and this is done by selecting the speech bubble icon and using it over something. You can see a description of something with the eye icon, and you can use items by using the hand icon. The inventory works for the limited buttons you have. There is a single column you can scroll through, and getting to the inventory requires multiple button presses.

There is a duck and punch button because these are required for combat. It doesn't come often, but each fight gives Erik a different amount of health. He has no health bar, and it's reset when the creatures die or you leave the screen. You can hold the punch button down, and this will lock the enemies in an animation loop of winging, and that's your opportunity to keep up the pressure. There are a couple of tough boss fights that require patience, but this is far from a good combat mechanic, and it doesn't need to be either. My biggest gripe is how slowly Erik walks, and there's no run button. Backtracking a dozen screens can take forever since each screen has a black screen before it while it loads. This is one of the downsides of being a CD-based game. 

There aren't a lot of characters to talk to, but the mood and atmosphere are well done here. The graphics are well drawn, and the music is fantastic. I think this is the best part of Shadowgate, but the voice acting is also surprisingly good as well, and there's a fair amount of it for a game of this age. I just wish this game could be completed without a guide, but it's nearly impossible without one. I got about 1/4 through the game and had no idea what to do. I wound up missing objects that blended in with the background, and I never would have found them without a guide. Even with a guide, I still missed items and objects that I would have had to restart the game for. At least there are three save slots, so you can go back and forth between them. 

Overall, Beyond Shadowgate is a relic of its time. Obtuse puzzles, no hints, and objects that blend into the background, as well as game-stopping walls if you miss an object, A couple will even require an entire game restart. The music and atmosphere are well done, and the death scenes are pretty gory and fun to watch. The voice acting is great, as is the music, and this is all thanks to the CD technology. However, the combat is pretty basic and cumbersome, as are the controls and inventory management. I say that with a guide, this game is well worth playing through, but just don't expect a memorable story.

I wonder if they even know what they did. You know who. That anonymous lower-level business advisory manager who worked at EA between 2017 and 2018. Watched what happened with No Man's Sky and Battlefront 2. Crunched the numbers, surveyed the right people, did the appropriate market research, and found out that most disturbing of truths our artform will likely never fully recover from. They figured out it's financially optimal to release a game before completion. Sure, some equations needed to be done to figure out the appropriate balance between the release date and pre-orders and on release performance and how long the game has been in development and how much marketing expenditure has gone into the release cycle and the estimated time before it's in a state considered 'good' by the populous, but the conclusion is there, and will never go away. Cyberpunk proved it even further. You can have two different 'release' hype cycles around your game, and still leave people with a good taste in their mouths, excited for more, even if you rush it out the door. It's just good business. I wonder if this person knew the damage they'd be dealing. Did it trouble them at all? Did they toss and turn a little before deciding to tell their higher-ups? Or did they not even think twice? We'll never know.

This is far from an egregious example of such. Shoddy and inconsistent frame rates and pop-in are the norm for many of our lazier AAA games, it's telling the completely stock-standard 21st Century Capcom in-app purchases are getting more of the press. People are numb to it, I am usually! In the truest essence of the human experience, I'm only so upset this time because it happened to me. I genuinely really want to play this game, it looks excellent, a truly distinct and singularly innovative piece of art. One of those rare things that can be described as 'next-gen' in a complimentary sense. So what do I even do? Do I simply purchase an unfinished product and support the active malpractice occurring here? I can't do that. Do I fall for the obvious 'second release' model and buy it when they finish it? I feel like I'm supporting the continuation of this practice if I do. Do I never buy the game? This is ethically the right call, but am I supposed to forever deprive myself of engaging with the work of artists I love because the system they work within is so awful? I don't know. The only easy answer is piracy, which in 2024 is both actively illegal and the only moral way to engage with a large proportion of all video games ever released. It's so depressing to genuinely adore the whizbang technical exploration of mega-budget pop art when 90% of current examples of such are visually miserable superhero movies and legitimately unfinished open world junk. This should be neither of those things, yet the circumstances of its release make me feel just as deflated. It's a cruel world out there sometimes.

The original Alan Wake is one of my favorite horror games of all time. Its gameplay may not hold up well today, but overall, the game is still solid. The atmosphere really pulled me in when the game was released, and here I am now, 13 years later, living in the PNW near where the first game was inspired. The story was full of mystery and suspense and always saw-sawed between being confusing and then suddenly making sense—always being a mystery. The story of light vs. dark and the definition of insanity play a big role in the world of Alan Wake, and that goes even further in the sequel.

Alan Wake II is pretty much an entire reboot on the surface. Taking some design questions from Remedy's previous entries, like Quantum Break and Control, they have integrated the series into their "Remedyverse" (you can borrow that one if you want!). The story has an entirely new way of being told via live-action cutscenes and in real-time. The new playable character, Saga Anderson, is introduced as an FBI agent who is investigating cult murders in the town of Bright Falls. She gets sucked into the story of Alan as he tries to write his way out of his own madness and destroy the main antagonist from the first game, Scratch. The story continues that constant teetering of not making much sense and then wrapping around multiple times to have it all click, but I highly recommend playing the first game (there's a remastered version out now) before playing this one, as there are many references. I also recommend playing Control first as well, as the stories are intertwined.

The game starts out so much different than the first game. Instead of a long, drawn-out, time-ccut scene of sunshine and beauty, you are tossed straight into something straight out of Silent Hill. You're a naked, bloated man running from cultists. It's a crazy way to start a game, and it shows the cinematic quality and effort put into this game. However, you control Saga first, and this is where the first half of the game starts. You jump between Alan and Saga, but their levels are unique on their own. Saga's side is more action-oriented and collectible hunting. There are three main large areas in the game. Watery, Bright Falls, and Cauldron Lake. Bright Falls is a main hub town that you can walk around in and also find collectibles. These range from cult stashes, breaking open locks with a screwdriver or boltcutters (found later in the game), Alex Casey lunchboxes, and nursery rhymes. These are all fun to find, and they all reward you with different things. The lunchboxes give you manuscript scraps used to unlock weapon perks; the rhymes unlock charms; and the cult stashes have various usable items in them. 

The combat itself is familiar from the original game, but it's more refined and feels like a solid third-person shooter. You still blast the darkness from vulnerabilities to make them vulnerable to your gunfire, but it's less frequent. Alan Wake felt like an action title and less like a survival horror due to so many enemies thrown at you at once. Like any survival horror game with guns, the best ones are locked away and require puzzle-solving skills to acquire them. Usually it's a three-digit code, and you need to figure out the clues in the room you are in. It's usually not super hard, and the answer is right in front of you. You just need to be observant. Weapons feel good to shoot, and while there aren't many, they feel unique. The pistol, shotgun (sawed-off, double-barelled, and pump variety), crossbow, revolver, and hunting rifle make up the majority of your weapons, but Saga and Alan's sides play differently even with combat. 

Alan isn't a fighter. He has much more limited ammo than Saga gets and usually only has the revolver and flare gun through most of the game. The shadows usually won't attack you if you side-step them, but in some cases, they require you to fight. He has less health than Saga, and his levels are mostly backtracking puzzle-solving-style affairs. This leads me to talk about the Mind Place. This is essentially an interactive pause screen that would normally be a menu with flipping pages. It's a room that loads instantly, and you advance the story here. Saga's Mind Place is more complicated and involved. She has cases on the wall, and as you discover things, you can place evidence on said wall, and when you find everything for that chapter, the case will be solved. However, solving these cases isn't required. You just need to place the main ones to advance the story. She also has a profiling section in which she can talk to characters in her mind. This gives her ideas when she is stuck and needs to move on further. There are also areas to listen to radio programs you found, TV shows, and manuscripts.

Alan's Writer's Room is similar, but you use it less often. Instead of profiling and cases to solve, Alan can switch scenes he finds through echos found throughout the levels. These are black-and-white orbs that shimmer, and you must align them with the camera to activate the scene. This is where a lot of the puzzle-solving comes in, and honestly, it is the weakest part of the game. Switching between scenes can become frustrating because you don't know which one you need to be in to access a certain area. When you switch scenes, rooms get closed off and new ones open. This also doubles down on the light-holding feature. Alan can absorb certain bright lights that open up a new path in that room. Some areas have up to three or four lights that need to be absorbed or put back in a certain order, and it can cause frustration. I didn't like this part of Alan's story. You can switch between Saga and Alan at any time with portals in certain levels and play any chapter in any order. Alan's side is mostly cinematic adventure stuff with a lot more storytelling than Saga's. Saga has larger areas to explore (three whole large maps), and Alan is mostly confined to one small area and kept inside various buildings in a more urban setting. 

Outside of the Writer's Room scene switching and the confusing mess some of the levels can be, the game is solid with a 15-20 hour play time. There is so much content in this game that it's hard to hate it. The visuals are state-of-the-art and push PCs and consoles to their absolute limits and beyond. On PC, Alan Wake II sports the latest ray-tracing and path-tracing tech and mesh shaders, which have been crippling the highest end of hardware. Unless you have a 4xxx series RTX card that can utilize the DLSS Frame Generation, you're going to struggle with ray-tracing. Even with DLSS on balanced and ray-tracing set to medium (and other settings optimized through guides online), I would dip below 60FPS at 1440p. Without ray-tracing, the game runs much better, but this is one of the few games where RTX actually makes the game a different experience. 

The game's horror elements are full of haunting atmospheres and fewer jump scares. There are a few, but they were done well and got me good. The monster designs are well done, but not overdone and made to be unbelievable. The game straddles reality and fiction just right to make this seem like it could really happen. The story really does a good job of making Saga and Alan worthwhile and memorable characters and delves deep into their backstory and psyche. Very few AAA games can do this right. Alan Wake II is not just one of the best games of 2023, but of all time. This is how you can do a sequel without making it a full-on reboot or changing very little. The entire game rides the middle ground on every level, which makes it nearly perfect.

Shadows of Rose: One buying the Winters' Expansion is almost assuredly buying it for this brief campaign. The third person mode for Village was something I had mistakenly thought was merely given away as an update; but no, it's tied to this campaign's purchase (ridiculous). I only had it on for my rerun of Village for a few minutes before Ethan's rapid, jerking motions when running bothered me enough to go back to first person. So that's a dud.
New Mercenaries characters? I am not a fan of the scoring shooter gameplay, so I personally don't see the value in it. Maybe one day, but I doubt it.
For me, the $20 asking price is basically for this: Shadows of Rose. Is it worth it? No, not really. But the optimist in me will admit there is some value here, especially if you were a big fan of Village.

When we meet grown-up Rose in the end of Village, she only gets two minutes of screen time to develop a character. All we really get to see is that, like her father, she has a drive and will gladly fight her own battles. She's adequately admirable in that brief time, but not really enough to make me ask for her own DLC... but that's fine, as long as it's good?

Just like Ethan was in Village, Rose is done dirty here. If when you hear your character is going to be interacting with the “memories” of something and you immediately say to yourself, “Sounds like incoming reused assets to me,” then congratulations: we're equally prophetic. Rose only gets to explore Castle Dimitrescu, House Beneviento, and a bit of the Village. So we, the player, won't get any new sights through Rose. Pretty disappointing.
Her journey is a personal one where she learns about her father. It's not the most interesting thing in the world, and really the biggest highlight for me was Capcom continuing their running gag of doing whatever they can to make sure you never see Ethan's face.

Rose's powers are the only new thing you'll be doing gameplay-wise (from Village), and all she really has is a stun. It's nice to use in the first chunk of the DLC, the only chunk that really reminded me of “classic” Resident Evil in that you're not given much ammo and need to make the on-the-fly call of whether you're running past this enemy or burning your ammo killing them. While it's a retread of Castle Dimitrescu, which was already a retread of the Baker house, I enjoyed this portion the most.
The second chunk is House Beneviento again and, like the first time around, this offers the scariest moments in the DLC. I really enjoyed the “Let's play with dolls” segment, it was spooky and clever and ramped up in difficulty well.
It ends with yet another retread, this time of Village's Call of Duty-esque shootout ending, just thankfully not as insane and now toned down. The final boss fight is the exact same final boss fight from Village, only now you can actually dodge and counter. Rose gets a special power attack for just this fight and you'll use it three or four times. That was... alright. Might be better if I hadn't just played through Village, though.

It's over in two and a half hours (give or take, I really explored and wasted time) and like Ethan's mold-infested body, it isn't very fresh.
I don't know if Capcom plans to make RE9 with Rose as the main character, but if this DLC was supposed to hype me up for that prospect, it failed. I don't hate Rose or anything, but this largely felt uninspired and unnecessary. I wish Rose got something proper and this certainly isn't it.

I don't recommend Shadows of Rose. It's too expensive for an experience you've largely already had. It's not total junk, but is simply another disappointment when it comes to Resident Evil Village.

70€ single player game + denuvo + mtx + atrocious perfomance + crashes

I've waited 12 years for this. I'm tired, boss. I'm tired of people defending all this shit.

Also, if you don't see how these mtx and the performance issues are two facets of the same issues, you're hopeless. They are both born of the same greed. They cut corners in optimisation and testing, resulting in the crap performance issues, due to the same greed that makes them milk idiots for mtx.

Graphic and feel of driving is unmatched and the game deserve 5 stars if it weren't that horrible AI which is by far the biggest problem in this game and series. AI is slow and stupid which makes racing it boring and 'catch the rabbit' type of race. Also lacks proper career mode and more single player content.

Dementium is one of the saddest stories on the DS. There are very few horror games on the system, and Dementium was a hyped-up train wreck all the way to release. Renegade Kid originally pitched Dementium as a Silent Hill game on the DS. They went to Konami to show off their FPS engine running at 60 FPS. It's an impressive engine and still is today, and it's a joy to play and experience, but Dementium's tricks end after about 30 minutes, and even the remastered version doesn't add much.

The biggest issue with the original game was the insane difficulty level and lack of checkpoints. If you died, you had to restart the entire chapter, and the game is made up of claustrophobic, deja vu-enducing labyrinthine corridors that require either a detailed walkthrough and guide or pure dumb luck. The enfuriating boss fights and repeated enemies will make your head scream, and most people won't get through the first few chapters before shutting the game off. I did it back when the game originally came out. The first half of the game consists of finding items to progress, and this constant backtracking is infuriating. Each floor of the hospital looks exactly the same, and each hallway is literally repeated on multiple floors. I passed the same hallway with slugs coming out of the walls and dropping from the ceiling grates in the exact same pattern dozens of times. The same closets with the same set of boxes stacked in the exact same position will repeat several times in a row in every hallway. The same three office layouts repeat ad nauseam. It's a lazy design of copy and paste, and the last of the landmarks makes backtracking an utter nightmare.

What becomes a horror game of keeping your own sanity quickly becomes apparent once you get to the first boss fight. Bosses flash red and become invulnerable for a few seconds after each shot. This is an incredibly stupid design choice. Let me blast these guys away, as you also have limited ammo early in the game, only to become Rambo by the final few chapters. Health is also finite, as whatever you find in each hallway is. Thankfully, it's plentiful, but later chapters become endurance races. The final chapters lack any type of puzzle solving or object hunting and just see you running through dozens upon dozens of hallways, just running from enemies, hoping you find the right door that's not locked. Almost every door in this game is locked, and the clues to the right door are the ones with bloody handprints. That's even not 100% true sometimes. The remastered version adds new checkpoints and save points throughout the game, but those still aren't enough. This game needs a save anywhere feature.

There are plenty of guns, such as a pistol, revolver, sniper rifle, assault rifle, and baton. They all feel good to shoot, and the shooting mechanics are very smooth and accurate. It's a crying shame it was put to waste on this mundane slog of a mess. The remastered version also takes advantage of the dual analog controls of the 3DS, which helps as well. The final chapter of the game is a stamina rush of every enemy thrown at you numerous times just to get to a final boss that can kill you very quickly. Prepare to run through this level numerous times in sheer frustration over terror. I like the idea of switching between a gun and a flashlight, but after a while, I ran from most enemies. The same five repeat through the entire game; the novelty of a DS shooter wears off very quickly.

Overall, the visuals and atmosphere are actually memorable. The music is haunting, and the darkness creeping in around you works. There are no jump scares, and the story is non-existent outside of a few scenes. You can't even determine what's going on in this poem through written text, as there's very little of it. It's a boring, frustrating mess of a game wrapped around a fantastic game engine and haunting atmosphere. It's a shame the remaster couldn't do more than upscale the textures and add checkpoints that barely help the difficulty.

I was waiting for this game ever since I stepped foot into RE4 2 years ago (on the better PS2 version). For some reason, RE5 feels like RE4.5 since it feels so similar and this was a big disappointment for me. Don’t get me wrong RE5 is phenomenal, but all the similarities can make avid RE4 players quickly bored and/or not so impressed. Rewind four years ago to that pre-rendered still of Chris Redfield during the RE5 announcement and look (or remember) how amazing it looked.

Well since it took so long to come out RE5 now looks on par with most next-gen games. It is one of the best looking games out right now, but what RE5 does that RE4 didn’t do was amazing cinematic cutscenes. RE4 had a lot of interactive cut scenes, but RE5’s are very cinematic (buy the collector’s edition and you’ll see the new camera technology they used to make these amazing cutscenes). There are fewer interactive cutscenes (press so-and-so button within 2-3 seconds), but everything else makes up for it. RE5’s controls and basic gameplay are exactly the same as RE4’s. Hey, if it ain’t broke don’t fix it right? There’s still the over-the-shoulder camera along with the whole laser sight and the whole wonky control scheme. While it still works it does feel dated and I wish there were a more Gears of War type control setup or even something more modern.


One of my main gripes is you attache case is a whole lot smaller and you can’t upgrade it like in RE4. Sure you have a quick select button, but I’d prefer more room for stuff thanks. You get nine NINE slots and they are quickly used up. Let’s say you have a vest, four different weapons, and four ammo types there’s no room for health (yes it’s still the stupid herb ordeal), grenades or anything else. This requires a lot more sacrificing, but thankfully your sexy buddy, Sheva Alamar, has nine slots as well so you can trade and exchange items with each other. Yes, there is a “buddy system” and I think in a zombie-ridden Africa the buddy system is great (don’t worry it’s not a “bodyguard” system like RE4 Sheva actually fights). Sheva’s AI is pretty good…sometimes she tends to try and shoot through you half the time and doesn’t like to keep up with you when you’re bombarded with enemies.


Rarely will you die from this but if you do you get mad. This is why RE5 is better-played co-op online or offline. This is great and even has a Left 4 Dead feel since you’re surviving zombie hordes while trying to stop…err…a really bad man from unleashing the new Uroboros virus around the world. Since this is a next-gen system the boss fights are bigger, badder, and tougher and boy do I mean BIGGER!!! You thought the El Gigante was huge on the GC, PS2, and Wii tries shooting up a 30-foot flying B.O.W. or something that’s the size of a naval freight ship. A few new elements are added to certain boss fights such as “key weapons” and these are only good for that fight. You may have a rechargeable flamethrower, RPG, or even a satellite gun kind of like the Hammer of Dawn in Gears of War. While all boss fights are a major challenge you can always do it in one try. There are a lot more weapons in RE5, but most of them are useless since they are slight variations of other weapons. It takes longer to completely upgrade weapons and you can only do this when you start the game, die, and in between levels. No there’s no creepy British dude with stuff under his coat selling you things. I found this change a bad one since it may hinder some people when they need a weapon before a certain point. Upgrades cost a lot more and thus makes unlockables harder to get.


Another great thing about being next-gen is the levels are now HUGE and the puzzles are challenging, but not confusing and scatterbrained. There are a lot of little goodies to collect and unlock. You can use points for achieving certain things (such as finding all BSAA emblems, beating certain levels etc.) to unlock figurines, filters, costumes etc. These add great replay value and can make the game more fun a second time. When you beat the game you get a Mercenaries mode (like in RE4) that pits you against tons of zombies you have to fend off. RE5 is an amazing game, but feels too similar for RE4 veterans and may hinder and bring down your expectations.

Sifu

2022

Fun fact: the kung-fu presented is based on the "Pak Mei" style (which derives from the legendary chinese master Pak Mei). Benjamin Colussi (a french coreographer and martial arts master) did the mocap and stunts for this game.

2 lists liked by burnoutenjoyer