burnoutenjoyer
251 Reviews liked by burnoutenjoyer
While the main next-gen console version of the game is considered to be an all-time classic and helped revolutionize the online FPS genre, the lower-powered hardware versions were completely different games. While they share the same name, you wouldn't know these were Call of Duty games if you played them and no one told you.
Modern Warfare for the DS loosely follows the plot of the main game but instead takes liberty with its own unique levels and design choices. Obviously, we are working with barely better-than-PS1-level hardware here. n-Space really had to be creative and make entirely new games, mostly "themed" around the franchise. The game is still in first-person view, and you can switch between two different weapons. By default, you always start out with a pistol and another firearm. You can pick up weapons with the touch screen (a hand icon) and use that as your main weapon will not have any extra ammo available when you run out unless you die. When you die, you start out with your default weapons again and lose whatever you picked up, but your ammo is refilled. Weapons in this game feel decent, but the slowdown from the DS being pushed too hard (especially when enemies pop in) makes aiming a bit sluggish and janky.
Aiming with the touch screen feels fine. Using the D-pad or face buttons to strafe isn't an issue either, but using the R or L button to fire can give you massive hand cramps even with larger DS systems. Most everything is controlled by the touch screen. Double-tap to bring up the ADS (Aim Down Sights), switch to grenades, and tap the weapon icon to reload. There are a few quality of life things that n-space did think of, such as when you reload, you go back to ADS if you are in that mode already, and spriting pulls you out of ADS mode. My issue with ADS is that while it's more accurate, there's a delay in bringing it up on screen, and that delay can cost you your life. When enemies pop in and the slowdown happens, it won't respond to my double-taps fast enough, and I would constantly bring up the ADS and back out a few times caused by the delay. It's not game-breaking, but very annoying.
There are two mini-games when setting explosives and defusing bombs. I found the pipe puzzles annoying, and following the wires to defuse bombs isn't really fun or challenging. These were just thrown in here to make use of the touch screen. Honestly, who wants to solve puzzles while playing Call of Duty? It's weird and just doesn't fit. It really breaks the flow of combat. The enemy AI is also pretty dumb. Enemies just stand there and shoot at you; don't take cover or move out of the way. This is literally an on-rails shooting gallery and is insanely linear. Levels are way too long, and some objectives have unfair checkpoint placements or none at all. Objectives range from collecting something to planting a bomb or just shooting everything in sight. I found the scripted mounted machine gun levels pretty fun, but the AC-130 level (similar to the console version) is awful and boring. You can barely make out any enemies, and you can't use larger weapons against smaller enemies. There are only a couple of buildings to blow up, and you just mow down dozens of enemies over and over again in almost complete silence. It was a bad level, for sure.
The visuals are decent for what the system can do. They are definitely sterile and boring to look at, with no artistic flair. The game tried capturing the hyper-realism of the consoles, and the DS just can't quite do this. It's a very brown and beige-looking game. There's no personality put into this game. It feels like a copy-and-paste FPS that you could attach any name to. Multiplayer is the same as single-player, but with another person. It's not very exciting, and your friends will get bored fast. I appreciate n-space for trying to capture the excitement of the console versions on the limited hardware, but it needs something else. Better enemy AI, less linear-feeling levels, more interesting scripted levels, and fewer storyboard-cut scenes. It's a great first start, but it has a lot of work before it becomes a staple DS shooter.
Modern Warfare for the DS loosely follows the plot of the main game but instead takes liberty with its own unique levels and design choices. Obviously, we are working with barely better-than-PS1-level hardware here. n-Space really had to be creative and make entirely new games, mostly "themed" around the franchise. The game is still in first-person view, and you can switch between two different weapons. By default, you always start out with a pistol and another firearm. You can pick up weapons with the touch screen (a hand icon) and use that as your main weapon will not have any extra ammo available when you run out unless you die. When you die, you start out with your default weapons again and lose whatever you picked up, but your ammo is refilled. Weapons in this game feel decent, but the slowdown from the DS being pushed too hard (especially when enemies pop in) makes aiming a bit sluggish and janky.
Aiming with the touch screen feels fine. Using the D-pad or face buttons to strafe isn't an issue either, but using the R or L button to fire can give you massive hand cramps even with larger DS systems. Most everything is controlled by the touch screen. Double-tap to bring up the ADS (Aim Down Sights), switch to grenades, and tap the weapon icon to reload. There are a few quality of life things that n-space did think of, such as when you reload, you go back to ADS if you are in that mode already, and spriting pulls you out of ADS mode. My issue with ADS is that while it's more accurate, there's a delay in bringing it up on screen, and that delay can cost you your life. When enemies pop in and the slowdown happens, it won't respond to my double-taps fast enough, and I would constantly bring up the ADS and back out a few times caused by the delay. It's not game-breaking, but very annoying.
There are two mini-games when setting explosives and defusing bombs. I found the pipe puzzles annoying, and following the wires to defuse bombs isn't really fun or challenging. These were just thrown in here to make use of the touch screen. Honestly, who wants to solve puzzles while playing Call of Duty? It's weird and just doesn't fit. It really breaks the flow of combat. The enemy AI is also pretty dumb. Enemies just stand there and shoot at you; don't take cover or move out of the way. This is literally an on-rails shooting gallery and is insanely linear. Levels are way too long, and some objectives have unfair checkpoint placements or none at all. Objectives range from collecting something to planting a bomb or just shooting everything in sight. I found the scripted mounted machine gun levels pretty fun, but the AC-130 level (similar to the console version) is awful and boring. You can barely make out any enemies, and you can't use larger weapons against smaller enemies. There are only a couple of buildings to blow up, and you just mow down dozens of enemies over and over again in almost complete silence. It was a bad level, for sure.
The visuals are decent for what the system can do. They are definitely sterile and boring to look at, with no artistic flair. The game tried capturing the hyper-realism of the consoles, and the DS just can't quite do this. It's a very brown and beige-looking game. There's no personality put into this game. It feels like a copy-and-paste FPS that you could attach any name to. Multiplayer is the same as single-player, but with another person. It's not very exciting, and your friends will get bored fast. I appreciate n-space for trying to capture the excitement of the console versions on the limited hardware, but it needs something else. Better enemy AI, less linear-feeling levels, more interesting scripted levels, and fewer storyboard-cut scenes. It's a great first start, but it has a lot of work before it becomes a staple DS shooter.
The Need for Speed series has been seriously confused and hurting since Most Wanted. While Shift was a simulator, the other ones in between have been either subpar or bad. Hot Pursuit revives the classic entry with the Burnout team behind the wheels, and this feels more like Burnout than Need for Speed, however. Using the Paradise engine Criterion did a good job making the game both look pretty and giving us a Burnout feel with real-world cars. These are slick cars ranging from Mustangs to Maseratis.
As the name would suggest it’s about cops versus racers, and each opponent gets a set of four weapons. Cops get EMP, Helicopter, Spike Strip, and Road Block. Each is pretty self-explanatory, but this feels like a glorified version of Burnout’s Road Rage mode. Racers get the same, but instead of a helicopter, and roadblock, they get a Jammer and Turbo which is an extra boost of NOS. Now you can earn turbo by doing crazy stuff as well.
The world map is also classic Burnout style with each icon labeled for racer or cop and there are previews, time trials, and special events for each side. There is also the Autolog which is a social networking type setup. Your friend’s best scores will be posted, and you can post screenshots and videos of your races. If a friend beats your score you can jump right into that race and try to beat it. While the single player is fun it’s the online stuff that makes the game shine with all the weapons. The single player feels predictable and stale compared to multiplayer because it feels like this game was made with multiplayer in mind. You earn bounty and have to hit certain goals in single player, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen in racing games already.
Once you race everything feels fine, but the steering tends to suffer drastically depending on road conditions and the car. Despite awesome damage modeling, the cars all feel pretty much the same, and the sense of speed is so fast that you don’t notice speed differences. This also concludes the repetition because once you unlock all weapons it’s just the same events over and over again, and some people may never even finish the single player due to this. The game can also look pretty good at times, but in other ways, it doesn’t.
The chaos comes from the fact that in multiplayer you never known what anyone is going to do. You can see a roadblock ahead and get your shot lined up to dodge it, but just then someone deploys a spike strip right in your face and you hit both losing a crap ton of health. You can take off again and try to shake off a helicopter, but then get hit by an EMP. It’s the same with racers, but this can also feel a bit unbalanced since racers biggest weapon is the jammer so cops can’t use their weapons for a few seconds. It all depends on the players’ skills and how they race really.
Despite the repetition and lack of weapons, the game works, but also notice all the Burnout references? There’s hardly any Need for Speed in this game despite the real world cards and the Hot Pursuit title. This is just a weird mix up of game identity, but it’s probably better a Burnout feeling than an old crappy NFS game rehashed. Criterion already had the engine built for something like this, so I expect to see a sequel in the near future. I do recommend this is Burnout fans more than NFS however, but old school Hot Pursuit fans will dig this completely.
As the name would suggest it’s about cops versus racers, and each opponent gets a set of four weapons. Cops get EMP, Helicopter, Spike Strip, and Road Block. Each is pretty self-explanatory, but this feels like a glorified version of Burnout’s Road Rage mode. Racers get the same, but instead of a helicopter, and roadblock, they get a Jammer and Turbo which is an extra boost of NOS. Now you can earn turbo by doing crazy stuff as well.
The world map is also classic Burnout style with each icon labeled for racer or cop and there are previews, time trials, and special events for each side. There is also the Autolog which is a social networking type setup. Your friend’s best scores will be posted, and you can post screenshots and videos of your races. If a friend beats your score you can jump right into that race and try to beat it. While the single player is fun it’s the online stuff that makes the game shine with all the weapons. The single player feels predictable and stale compared to multiplayer because it feels like this game was made with multiplayer in mind. You earn bounty and have to hit certain goals in single player, but it’s nothing we haven’t seen in racing games already.
Once you race everything feels fine, but the steering tends to suffer drastically depending on road conditions and the car. Despite awesome damage modeling, the cars all feel pretty much the same, and the sense of speed is so fast that you don’t notice speed differences. This also concludes the repetition because once you unlock all weapons it’s just the same events over and over again, and some people may never even finish the single player due to this. The game can also look pretty good at times, but in other ways, it doesn’t.
The chaos comes from the fact that in multiplayer you never known what anyone is going to do. You can see a roadblock ahead and get your shot lined up to dodge it, but just then someone deploys a spike strip right in your face and you hit both losing a crap ton of health. You can take off again and try to shake off a helicopter, but then get hit by an EMP. It’s the same with racers, but this can also feel a bit unbalanced since racers biggest weapon is the jammer so cops can’t use their weapons for a few seconds. It all depends on the players’ skills and how they race really.
Despite the repetition and lack of weapons, the game works, but also notice all the Burnout references? There’s hardly any Need for Speed in this game despite the real world cards and the Hot Pursuit title. This is just a weird mix up of game identity, but it’s probably better a Burnout feeling than an old crappy NFS game rehashed. Criterion already had the engine built for something like this, so I expect to see a sequel in the near future. I do recommend this is Burnout fans more than NFS however, but old school Hot Pursuit fans will dig this completely.
Resident Evil Village: Kind of feels like wasted potential considering how great of a comeback Resident Evil 7 was for the franchise. Village isn't a bad game, but it's kind of stupid and a worrisome possible step backwards for the series. Perhaps this is a nonissue for a while, though, because clearly Capcom's content to just remake the guaranteed hits rather than experiment with a sequel.
This is my second time playing through Village, and I had somewhat positive memories for the game with my first round. For posterity's sake, I'll add that playing this game at release, I was basically using it as a tool to not fall asleep during a multi-day designer drug bender, and it seems my memory wasn't to be totally trusted (who would have thought). Now, I can see there are obvious problems, here.
Ethan is kind of a non-character to me and has been since being introduced. Gordon Freeman is silent because it was cheaper and easier that way, but Valve got to say that it adds immersion because, with silence, you are Gordon Freeman; Ethan Winters is very similar except for that he actually says what you're thinking, which is harder to design. This is kind of nice, having your character mirror what you wanna say when he goes, “Eat shit!” to a boss. This isn't overdone, either, they keep it sparse.
Ethan's only traits are his level-headedness and tenacity. He won't stop until the job is done, the guy's a Terminator. There are no moral dilemmas or flaws and I think we'd all agree he's pretty shallow, but I still like the guy. His voice actor does a great job, especially during a segment near the end. Ethan's probably the best part of this game.
So man, is it brutal what they do to him, here. Ethan Winters is a punching bag and it's so overdone that when he loses his hand and just “glues” it back on with a health potion, you should immediately never worry about the guy again. He'll clearly be fine and survive whatever torture the writers throw at him; I guess they needed to get their rocks off by having him immediately lose some fingers and get stabbed in almost every single cutscene.
The plot is stupid. Chris Redfield could have saved Ethan a lot of mental anguish with a simple phone call, it's one of those stories. Very contrived to not explain himself early on, then indefensible to not explain things (or even try) once Ethan finds him later. It's only very late into the game that Chris says “Alright Ethan, I guess I owe you an explanation,” when Ethan has already cleaned up three fifths of the mess. Oh, do you? I think you owe me some dry cleaning money and a couple of fingers, asshole.
The entire titular "village" is killed off almost immediately before you learn anything about the people there except for that they're annoying pricks. A waste of location.
There's an effort to tie RE 7 and 8 into the RE franchise other than just having Chris Redfield there, and I don't think this was necessary. I actually kind of liked how in 7 you are just on your own dealing with some whacky Louisiana bullshit until seconds before the credits roll where they shoehorn in Chris. Oh, here? The guy who established Umbrella showed up a while ago! He got inspired by the baddie you're gonna kill!! Who cares? It's shown seconds before the final boss and has zero impact, especially considering what else is happening then.
I wish they had gone in a different direction really badly. Again, wasted potential to me.
Best parts: Ethan's positive attitude, the game looks beautiful (once fixed), the House Beneviento basement (felt like a totally different game, wish we got more of this, love that the monster “talks”), Lady Dimitrescu's... everything (her castle felt like a poor, rushed retread of 7, though), and literally everything The Duke does and says (brother for life).
Worst parts: The horrible FOV and vignette effect that need modding to respectively increase and disable as the game is nausea-inducing unless fixed, Chris' poor communication skills and massive shootout extravaganza, charging for dumb-as-shit DLC (Trauma Pack) that would only get worse for the eventual remakes (Treasure Map/Upgrade Tickets), and Denuvo.
I sort of recommend Resident Evil Village, but wait for a sale and don't expect the best.
This is my second time playing through Village, and I had somewhat positive memories for the game with my first round. For posterity's sake, I'll add that playing this game at release, I was basically using it as a tool to not fall asleep during a multi-day designer drug bender, and it seems my memory wasn't to be totally trusted (who would have thought). Now, I can see there are obvious problems, here.
Ethan is kind of a non-character to me and has been since being introduced. Gordon Freeman is silent because it was cheaper and easier that way, but Valve got to say that it adds immersion because, with silence, you are Gordon Freeman; Ethan Winters is very similar except for that he actually says what you're thinking, which is harder to design. This is kind of nice, having your character mirror what you wanna say when he goes, “Eat shit!” to a boss. This isn't overdone, either, they keep it sparse.
Ethan's only traits are his level-headedness and tenacity. He won't stop until the job is done, the guy's a Terminator. There are no moral dilemmas or flaws and I think we'd all agree he's pretty shallow, but I still like the guy. His voice actor does a great job, especially during a segment near the end. Ethan's probably the best part of this game.
So man, is it brutal what they do to him, here. Ethan Winters is a punching bag and it's so overdone that when he loses his hand and just “glues” it back on with a health potion, you should immediately never worry about the guy again. He'll clearly be fine and survive whatever torture the writers throw at him; I guess they needed to get their rocks off by having him immediately lose some fingers and get stabbed in almost every single cutscene.
The plot is stupid. Chris Redfield could have saved Ethan a lot of mental anguish with a simple phone call, it's one of those stories. Very contrived to not explain himself early on, then indefensible to not explain things (or even try) once Ethan finds him later. It's only very late into the game that Chris says “Alright Ethan, I guess I owe you an explanation,” when Ethan has already cleaned up three fifths of the mess. Oh, do you? I think you owe me some dry cleaning money and a couple of fingers, asshole.
The entire titular "village" is killed off almost immediately before you learn anything about the people there except for that they're annoying pricks. A waste of location.
There's an effort to tie RE 7 and 8 into the RE franchise other than just having Chris Redfield there, and I don't think this was necessary. I actually kind of liked how in 7 you are just on your own dealing with some whacky Louisiana bullshit until seconds before the credits roll where they shoehorn in Chris. Oh, here? The guy who established Umbrella showed up a while ago! He got inspired by the baddie you're gonna kill!! Who cares? It's shown seconds before the final boss and has zero impact, especially considering what else is happening then.
I wish they had gone in a different direction really badly. Again, wasted potential to me.
Best parts: Ethan's positive attitude, the game looks beautiful (once fixed), the House Beneviento basement (felt like a totally different game, wish we got more of this, love that the monster “talks”), Lady Dimitrescu's... everything (her castle felt like a poor, rushed retread of 7, though), and literally everything The Duke does and says (brother for life).
Worst parts: The horrible FOV and vignette effect that need modding to respectively increase and disable as the game is nausea-inducing unless fixed, Chris' poor communication skills and massive shootout extravaganza, charging for dumb-as-shit DLC (Trauma Pack) that would only get worse for the eventual remakes (Treasure Map/Upgrade Tickets), and Denuvo.
I sort of recommend Resident Evil Village, but wait for a sale and don't expect the best.
there is not a word in the english language to describe how vehemently i adore this game
There's no way. I thought you guys were all joking, but no it's actually THAT bad! RIP
Celeste: Farewell
2019
Si los capítulos y retos finales de Celeste ya mostraban síntomas de agotamientos, Celeste: Farewell trata de arreglarlos con un par de objetos excelentes (los peces y las medusas). Pero la configuración misma de los niveles ha dado un inmenso paso atrás. Ya no se trata de ser inventive ni de dominar el dash, ahora todo se reduce a hacer exactamente lo que tienes que hacer y no equivocarte ni un milímetro. La sección final es una prueba de resistencia que puso a prueba tanto mi frustración como mi valoración entera de la obra. Si lo único que tienes que ofrecer al final de todo es dificultad extrema y técnicas de speedrunner, entonces tu juego ya se ha quedado sin ideas.
En un vídeo de Patricia Taxxon sobre Celeste oí no hace mucho que la dificultad en los juegos podría entenderse como añadir picante a un plato, y me pareció una analogía bastante buena. Aquí sería como si alguien hubiera echado un bote entero de wasabi que, en vez de aumentar gradualmente, se limitara a hacerte toser entre cada cucharada.
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If the final chapters of Celeste already showed signs of exhaustion, Celeste: Farewell tries to fix them with a couple of excellent objects that do wonders for me-the fish and the jellyfish. But the design of the levels has taken an immense step backwards. It's no longer about being inventive or mastering the dash, now it's all about doing exactly what you have to do and not getting an inch wrong. The final section is an endurance test that tested both my frustration and my entire assessment of the game. If all you have to offer at the end of it all is extreme difficulty and speedrunner techniques, then your game has officially run out of ideas.
In a video about Celeste I heard not long ago that difficulty in games could be understood as adding spice to a dish, and I thought that was a pretty good analogy. Here it would be as if someone had poured a whole pot of wasabi that instead of gradually increasing would make you cough a lot with each spoonful.
En un vídeo de Patricia Taxxon sobre Celeste oí no hace mucho que la dificultad en los juegos podría entenderse como añadir picante a un plato, y me pareció una analogía bastante buena. Aquí sería como si alguien hubiera echado un bote entero de wasabi que, en vez de aumentar gradualmente, se limitara a hacerte toser entre cada cucharada.
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If the final chapters of Celeste already showed signs of exhaustion, Celeste: Farewell tries to fix them with a couple of excellent objects that do wonders for me-the fish and the jellyfish. But the design of the levels has taken an immense step backwards. It's no longer about being inventive or mastering the dash, now it's all about doing exactly what you have to do and not getting an inch wrong. The final section is an endurance test that tested both my frustration and my entire assessment of the game. If all you have to offer at the end of it all is extreme difficulty and speedrunner techniques, then your game has officially run out of ideas.
In a video about Celeste I heard not long ago that difficulty in games could be understood as adding spice to a dish, and I thought that was a pretty good analogy. Here it would be as if someone had poured a whole pot of wasabi that instead of gradually increasing would make you cough a lot with each spoonful.
I finished Metro Exodus about one year ago I think, and maybe this is just because I don't remember it well, but I think this is the best part of the game. The lineal level design is much more reminiscent of Metro 2033/Last Light, and tbh I like the linearity much more than the open levels Metro Exodus has. The first section where you need to clear this stinky basement with a flamethrower was just incredibly immersive.
Tunic
2022
In some ways, Tunic is one of the smartest and most beautiful experiences i've had in a game in a long time, but the reality of actually playing it leaves something to be desired for me, but never enough to outright diminish just how exquisitely crafted the world and the game 'experience' feels. The atmosphere of this game is outstanding and though a tiring comparison, does feel reminiscent of dark souls with how you venture out as a lost and lowly 'face' without much purpose only to discover your grand purpose and fulfil your destiny. Also the vibe of the world, the isolated feeling and looming ambience are spot on and the ultimate goal of the game is not unlike dark souls or hollow knight, but similarly you have control over how things play out.
Fundamentally, the game's runaway success is the instruction booklet both as a feature and as a piece of art in itself. The art inside of this little booklet is stunning, evoking a feeling of old school game manuals, text guides and retro game magazines like nintendo power. The delicately handcrafted nature of the art combined with the cryptic application of the information it divulges into tunic's own game systems is ingenious and a masterpiece by itself. Its rare to see an idea so original and so well designed and applied to the game experience, from finding your place in the world with its intricate maps and diagrams, to uncovering uses for items and upgrades as you have to decipher this kind of alien language and make pictures make sense. This is best done in the first half of the game where I felt particularly isolated and confused, as the way the manual intricately teaches you the game and helps you along as a constant companion allowed me to develop an attachment to the game and its mechanics in a way I had never seen before, its just so smart.
I don't have many problems with the cryptic nature of the game or how it seeks for the player to uncover things for themselves, I think I just find it more difficult than a lot of people and it doesn't come naturally to me. Also, once you put the guide down and start actually interacting with the game after you understand its basic mechanics, I find that the game is an actively lesser experience. This is why I find the 'idea' of the game better than the game itself, as once that guide is down and you're set off on your adventure, I realised how little depth there actually is in the gameplay. Now, this is an indie game developed largely by one guy and I need to give credit to that because that's incredible, what an amazing achievement. However, I do find playing this a bit of a chore, most secrets are found by lazily walking against walls in an isometric perspective once you realise how many hidden paths there are. In the beginning, this is dope, when you find out how the world interconnects through its hidden bridges and shortcuts, again not unlike the first half of DS1, but eventually it became tragically tedious as I constantly found myself circling the edges of an area to try and find my way to a chest or secret - usually successfully, but not in a way that felt all that fulfilling.
I also take some issue with the game's combat, which feels somewhat stale and derivative and less interesting than some of its counterparts, there's also such a short range on attacks meaning you need to be right up against an enemy to hit them and a general 'heaviness' to the overall feel of combat, with almost every action in combat feeling slow and clunky. The depth of field is a cool cinema effect that adds to the games' aesthetic and adds layering to the world, but in combat i'd rather it were toned down since I just find it overwhelming and frustrating since it blurs everything including enemies, attacks and projectiles, making translating what is on screen tricky at times - its particularly noticeable during the siege engine boss fight. I also find dodge rolling quite sluggish and ineffective a lot of the time since the long animation means you're vulnerable for a lot of it and enemies will lock onto you mid-roll and hit you with an attack even after you roll behind them - you will dodge through an enemies' first attack perfectly only for their entire body to turn 180 degrees instantly and hit you again, its not heinous or anything but it makes dodging feel worse than just putting your shield up and makes combat feel less dynamic and engaging as a result.
Stylistically I think this is awesome, evoking the wonder of old school exploration games and top down zelda games while also putting its own spin on things. I think I preferred death's door for the most part but tunic's general atmosphere is unmatched, with a beautifully calm and delicately ambient soundtrack and a cute and charming low-poly artstyle. The cover of this game doesn't do it justice at all I don't think, they should have used the type of art taken from the game manual, its not what I expected at all. I didn't know much about this game going in but I was positively surprised by how it turned out, since I was expecting something more akin to ocarina of time but instead it takes more influences from zelda games pre-ocarina. I understood the developer's intentions a lot I think, since I felt the need for the player to uncover things for themselves and experience a feeling of wonder, it just doesn't always work for me since I value really strong, faster-paced gameplay (DS1 being an exception) and an engaging narrative told through gameplay and cutscenes - instead, tunic favours a slower-paced feeling of patient discovery and a story that encourages putting the pieces together and then interpretation, but instead of the souls' approach of finding things out largely through visual storytelling and lore-soaked environments, tunic leaves a lot of it to pages in a manual and an indecipherable language that is cool, it just doesn't do much for me. That said, exploring the inside of the ziggurat and seeing the foxes trapped inside obelisks and deciphering what might have happened to this fox 'civilisation' is intriguing enough by itself.
I do find the game falls off pretty hard in the last third for me, I genuinely would have preferred if it just ended after you got the keys since by that point I was ready for it to be done and I don't think the last third adds all that much since you're kind of just retracing steps, but in terms of pure 'vibes' its definitely a really humbling moment and meaningfully changes how you see the world. In terms of what it sets out to achieve I do think its successful and a great achievement as an indie game, but it leaves a lot to be desired in the gameplay for me personally, I think there's lots of games that have done this kind of stuff better but the art, soundtrack and that manual system invigorated me, that stuff is worthy of the highest praise on its own.
Fundamentally, the game's runaway success is the instruction booklet both as a feature and as a piece of art in itself. The art inside of this little booklet is stunning, evoking a feeling of old school game manuals, text guides and retro game magazines like nintendo power. The delicately handcrafted nature of the art combined with the cryptic application of the information it divulges into tunic's own game systems is ingenious and a masterpiece by itself. Its rare to see an idea so original and so well designed and applied to the game experience, from finding your place in the world with its intricate maps and diagrams, to uncovering uses for items and upgrades as you have to decipher this kind of alien language and make pictures make sense. This is best done in the first half of the game where I felt particularly isolated and confused, as the way the manual intricately teaches you the game and helps you along as a constant companion allowed me to develop an attachment to the game and its mechanics in a way I had never seen before, its just so smart.
I don't have many problems with the cryptic nature of the game or how it seeks for the player to uncover things for themselves, I think I just find it more difficult than a lot of people and it doesn't come naturally to me. Also, once you put the guide down and start actually interacting with the game after you understand its basic mechanics, I find that the game is an actively lesser experience. This is why I find the 'idea' of the game better than the game itself, as once that guide is down and you're set off on your adventure, I realised how little depth there actually is in the gameplay. Now, this is an indie game developed largely by one guy and I need to give credit to that because that's incredible, what an amazing achievement. However, I do find playing this a bit of a chore, most secrets are found by lazily walking against walls in an isometric perspective once you realise how many hidden paths there are. In the beginning, this is dope, when you find out how the world interconnects through its hidden bridges and shortcuts, again not unlike the first half of DS1, but eventually it became tragically tedious as I constantly found myself circling the edges of an area to try and find my way to a chest or secret - usually successfully, but not in a way that felt all that fulfilling.
I also take some issue with the game's combat, which feels somewhat stale and derivative and less interesting than some of its counterparts, there's also such a short range on attacks meaning you need to be right up against an enemy to hit them and a general 'heaviness' to the overall feel of combat, with almost every action in combat feeling slow and clunky. The depth of field is a cool cinema effect that adds to the games' aesthetic and adds layering to the world, but in combat i'd rather it were toned down since I just find it overwhelming and frustrating since it blurs everything including enemies, attacks and projectiles, making translating what is on screen tricky at times - its particularly noticeable during the siege engine boss fight. I also find dodge rolling quite sluggish and ineffective a lot of the time since the long animation means you're vulnerable for a lot of it and enemies will lock onto you mid-roll and hit you with an attack even after you roll behind them - you will dodge through an enemies' first attack perfectly only for their entire body to turn 180 degrees instantly and hit you again, its not heinous or anything but it makes dodging feel worse than just putting your shield up and makes combat feel less dynamic and engaging as a result.
Stylistically I think this is awesome, evoking the wonder of old school exploration games and top down zelda games while also putting its own spin on things. I think I preferred death's door for the most part but tunic's general atmosphere is unmatched, with a beautifully calm and delicately ambient soundtrack and a cute and charming low-poly artstyle. The cover of this game doesn't do it justice at all I don't think, they should have used the type of art taken from the game manual, its not what I expected at all. I didn't know much about this game going in but I was positively surprised by how it turned out, since I was expecting something more akin to ocarina of time but instead it takes more influences from zelda games pre-ocarina. I understood the developer's intentions a lot I think, since I felt the need for the player to uncover things for themselves and experience a feeling of wonder, it just doesn't always work for me since I value really strong, faster-paced gameplay (DS1 being an exception) and an engaging narrative told through gameplay and cutscenes - instead, tunic favours a slower-paced feeling of patient discovery and a story that encourages putting the pieces together and then interpretation, but instead of the souls' approach of finding things out largely through visual storytelling and lore-soaked environments, tunic leaves a lot of it to pages in a manual and an indecipherable language that is cool, it just doesn't do much for me. That said, exploring the inside of the ziggurat and seeing the foxes trapped inside obelisks and deciphering what might have happened to this fox 'civilisation' is intriguing enough by itself.
I do find the game falls off pretty hard in the last third for me, I genuinely would have preferred if it just ended after you got the keys since by that point I was ready for it to be done and I don't think the last third adds all that much since you're kind of just retracing steps, but in terms of pure 'vibes' its definitely a really humbling moment and meaningfully changes how you see the world. In terms of what it sets out to achieve I do think its successful and a great achievement as an indie game, but it leaves a lot to be desired in the gameplay for me personally, I think there's lots of games that have done this kind of stuff better but the art, soundtrack and that manual system invigorated me, that stuff is worthy of the highest praise on its own.
The game that set the bar for what a licensed superhero game could be. The dedication to create such an atmospheric and faithful rendition of the Batman universe will forever mark this game for greatness. The innovative combat system this game pioneered would also become a template for many games that followed, and it remains an engaging and challenging system to use and learn to master. Add in the predator missions that play into the fantasy of the Batman with a number of tools to use to beat each challenge, and you arrive at a gameplay framework that delivers on every aspect of what it feels like to play as the Batman.
Where the game falters though is the boss battles against iconic Batman villains. When they aren't boring or unengaging, they are reskinning a normal enemy, which is downright tragic. The game also struggles to maintain momentum going into the final act, and that lackluster conclusion is an unfortunate black mark on an otherwise great game.
Arkham Asylum reinvented what it means to adapt comic book superheroes to video games, and even when it has since been surpassed, it is important to remember just how much this game got right the first time around. It still remains a fun an engaging experience, and one that any existing or prospective fan of the source material should definitely play.
Where the game falters though is the boss battles against iconic Batman villains. When they aren't boring or unengaging, they are reskinning a normal enemy, which is downright tragic. The game also struggles to maintain momentum going into the final act, and that lackluster conclusion is an unfortunate black mark on an otherwise great game.
Arkham Asylum reinvented what it means to adapt comic book superheroes to video games, and even when it has since been surpassed, it is important to remember just how much this game got right the first time around. It still remains a fun an engaging experience, and one that any existing or prospective fan of the source material should definitely play.
This review contains spoilers
Cyberpunk 2077 / Phantom Liberty Review
There are three things that cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion excel at and those are its major characters, its art direction and its setpieces, everything else works well enough but isn’t outstanding. I’m happy I got around to playing this now in its patched and re-released state, because if it was released in this state when it was actually supposed to, I think a lot of people would not only be more fair on it, it would probably be regarded as one of the greatest first person rpgs ever, a reputation it is steadily earning but it still sours people with how its launch went down and how it has still got a lot of rough edges. But I have to hand it to cd projekt, they got extremely ambitious and wanted to create something special, something different, something people would remember for a long time - and in my mind they did just that even with its rough edges, largely unimaginative gameplay and mild inconsistencies.
I’ll get the negatives out the way because I want to focus on what I loved about cyberpunk but frankly, I do not love cyberpunk’s open world all that much; its too small to feel worth exploring and didn’t motivate me to sink my teeth into it but it is simultaneously big enough that you’re forced to spend a long time just trying to get around when its simply not that fun and pads the game out somewhat. Up until you can get the dash and a double jump or charge jump, walking and running around is slow and boring especially since there’s not much to see or do besides admire the aesthetic, shop and interact with a bar or club once and never do it again because there’s no point. Driving is fine but just feels kind of tacked on, most vehicles feel too bulky and slow or too slippery and finicky to control. Shooting / combat is the main focus of cyberpunk’s core gameplay and definitely the most fleshed out and interesting part of it since there’s a lot of variety and a nice range of weapons and builds to play with, any of which can be used at any time with no restrictions or necessary optimisation. You could probably do this whole game melee and with only a few exceptions, you’d likely have no trouble, you can hard focus on a particular weapon / style as I did with the shotgun, or you can get a taste for everything and not suffer for it, its well executed. With this being said though, enemy ai is often plain dumb and the difficulty is never particularly challenging or balanced on normal since its largely a breeze + when it IS slightly more difficult, it feels kind of artificial because it means they just throw tons more enemies at you or have enemies zip around and just delay their inevitable death, same could be said for enemy hacks which just feel like a mild annoyance rather than a real challenging gameplay obstacle. There’s some noticeable dissonance in cyberpunk between the constant fear and stakes being held over V’s head / the trauma that V undergoes in cutscenes and the cakewalk shooting sequences which consist of a gallery of meat puppets that you can mow down with little more than a gust of wind. There’s times that style of gameplay works though, like making me seem like a badass in johnny’s sequences and during particularly driven story moments, but its often such a breeze that I feel like going stealthy or playing a hacker when you’re up against such pissant enemies would bore me to tears. I can think of two fights in this entire game where it was particularly difficult and one is because there’s infinitely spawning enemies and one is the final boss so, stands to reason I guess? There are times where the gameplay gets interesting and tries something new which I appreciate, such as scanning through braindances to find clues for your jobs, which I think work quite well and add to the immersion of a technologically advanced universe - but it could have been done more often and with more variety in honesty.
Which brings me to the story, the highlight and driving force behind everything in this game’s world, something cd prokect clearly put a ton of time and resources into, even hiring two a-list celebrities (keanu & idris) to work with and help promote the title and its expansion. All that work does pay off because when we’re talking the main story beats, the game at its finest moments, yeah its pretty fuckin’ preem alright. Not very gonk at all. Without going off on a complete tangent, what I will say is Jackie Welles is in this game for what, 2 hours? I love him so much, he is my choom for life, an absolute king and his death hit me like a truck and actually made me shed a tear. Not only that, while knowing my V was going to be a street punk with dreams of becoming a boss in the crime business, I never expected my ideal path would be so strongly swayed by Jackie’s irreplaceable friendship and shared dream of the ‘major leagues’ we were both reaching for. I never forgot my roots and wanted to fulfil our dream which I ended up getting, bittersweet as it felt without him by side. But just as important is Johnny, your ride or die partner, love him or hate him Johnny is not going anywhere and as a result, the game teeters on an edge narratively, wherein if Johnny does not work, the game does not work, he is purely that important. I had my doubts, I like Keanu as much as the next person but I never understood the worship of the man, but then after seeing him in stuff like the matrix, john wick and point break, I have a feeling this might be the best performance of his career and shows how he has honed his talent. Sure Johnny is just an asshole stuck on you like a leech, a professional cynic bitter and angry at the world, but Keanu and the writers make him so much more, they make you understand him. Johnny is a killer but so are you, he fucks people over and inevitably, so do you, V will have something in common with him whether you like it or not. He will question you, berate you, stare you down during ordinary encounters and judge your every move because he’s sharing the same body but has little control over the choices you make. But then, when you get down to it, I don’t think he even knows what choices he’d make in the same position, part of him just enjoys the chaos and he practically says so himself. While he’s a cliche in part as the anti-establishment rockerboy, Johnny actually breaks a lot of stereotypes and preconceptions as the story humanises him and forces you to see from his perspective. Aspects of his come off as childish and immature, but then he comes out with lines that make me question myself if im doing the right thing or being played and he demonstrates a far deeper understanding of the world and how it works than I once thought. Just seeing Johnny appear mid-conversation or mid-cutscene, knowing nobody else can see him, is so good, there’s something special about knowing you’re not alone at any time, even at your lowest, in your most humiliating defeats, Johnny is there with you and most of all, he will come around to genuinely want to help you. In the beginning he wants you gone but can’t get rid of you, so he too comes to understand you and it forms a bond, an unusual and one of a kind bond that nobody else could ever truly understand, its awesome stuff.
The relationship between V and Johnny is so good infact, that it feels almost like so many eggs in one basket that the other baskets become nearly empty, side quests and side characters like the fixers you’ll run into and folk you do gigs for won’t scratch the same itch, they are often hollow quest givers and faces, which is a shame. But there are exceptions, and like all of cyberpunk, at their best, they are outstanding. Judy, Rogue, Reed, Songbird and of course my man Jackie all won me over completely, showing emotional richness, flaw and vulnerability that build character and form deep connections and personal relationships. The strongest of V’s relationships form with some of the lowest or most hard up of society because V is going through the same shit and I think that’s great. In its main story beats there is tons of payoff, political intrigue and moral choices to be made and almost all of them hit. But they feel somewhat hindered by a relatively lifeless free-roam world, overly familiar looting & checklist formulas and an overload of random side jobs, gigs and errands that bloat the game out while you wait for the good stuff and rarely feel worth the reward. In my opinion, cyberpunk didn’t actually need to be open world, in a way, I think i’d like it even more if it was just a linear action rpg with a hub saferoom or something from which you can start missions, but what we got is far from bad, I just think you could save on all that time and double down your dev team on the already great story missions.
As for the art design and aesthetic, its all executed beatifully and many of the visual and action-packed setpieces it will throw at you are works of art. From konpeki plaza to the arasaka parade and the many gorgeous sequences in phantom liberty, there are some hugely impressive sequences that play out throughout the game. Phantom Liberty in particular involves a few moments of covert espionage and deception that rival some of the best movie scenes in just how intense and beautifully, intentionally crafted they feel. While the cyberpunk aesthetic and its key facets play an important role in gameplay from scanning your environment to hacking on the move to literally implanting cyberware into your body, the actual relative story & in-world implications of the advanced tech and dystopian ramifications of corporate greed are surprisingly few and far between. This is a story helped along by its timeline & setting, but not one that is hugely driven by it and while it can appear complex what with its own in world jargon / slang and detailed environments jam-packed with repressive imagery and corpo ad spaces, its honestly not that conceptually deep overall. The characters, their motivations and your own player choices are the driving force behind cyberpunk narratively, not so much the world you find yourself in, much as the game tries to drive the nail in with dialogue, journal entries and text logs that kind of hamfist the notion of ‘this place is a shithole and we’re all bad people’. Like alright, I get it!
Cyberpunk is actually very depressing huh! Where’s the hover skateboards mate? (kidding).
All in all I really enjoyed my time in night city and would come back for more, which is mainly because of the characters and the playstyles over wanting to spend much more time in the world, nice as it can be to soak in the incredible architecture & environments. This is a beautifully designed experience artistically and its dlc expands on it even more with phantom liberty offering some of the deepest and most intense final moments and personal decisions i’ve seen in a game to date, featuring a complicated moral dilemma and a gripping tale of loyalty and doing the right thing. There is one thing reed said in this dlc that stuck with me, mentioning Welles and the choice I made and it really made me think - infact, a lot of lines in this game make me stop and think and that’s rare because most of the time I just want to blow shit up. Infact, sometimes I want to be done with blowing shit up so that I can get back to the story, because its that fucking good!!
Cheers for reading this one was a bit of a ramble lol.
There are three things that cyberpunk 2077 and its expansion excel at and those are its major characters, its art direction and its setpieces, everything else works well enough but isn’t outstanding. I’m happy I got around to playing this now in its patched and re-released state, because if it was released in this state when it was actually supposed to, I think a lot of people would not only be more fair on it, it would probably be regarded as one of the greatest first person rpgs ever, a reputation it is steadily earning but it still sours people with how its launch went down and how it has still got a lot of rough edges. But I have to hand it to cd projekt, they got extremely ambitious and wanted to create something special, something different, something people would remember for a long time - and in my mind they did just that even with its rough edges, largely unimaginative gameplay and mild inconsistencies.
I’ll get the negatives out the way because I want to focus on what I loved about cyberpunk but frankly, I do not love cyberpunk’s open world all that much; its too small to feel worth exploring and didn’t motivate me to sink my teeth into it but it is simultaneously big enough that you’re forced to spend a long time just trying to get around when its simply not that fun and pads the game out somewhat. Up until you can get the dash and a double jump or charge jump, walking and running around is slow and boring especially since there’s not much to see or do besides admire the aesthetic, shop and interact with a bar or club once and never do it again because there’s no point. Driving is fine but just feels kind of tacked on, most vehicles feel too bulky and slow or too slippery and finicky to control. Shooting / combat is the main focus of cyberpunk’s core gameplay and definitely the most fleshed out and interesting part of it since there’s a lot of variety and a nice range of weapons and builds to play with, any of which can be used at any time with no restrictions or necessary optimisation. You could probably do this whole game melee and with only a few exceptions, you’d likely have no trouble, you can hard focus on a particular weapon / style as I did with the shotgun, or you can get a taste for everything and not suffer for it, its well executed. With this being said though, enemy ai is often plain dumb and the difficulty is never particularly challenging or balanced on normal since its largely a breeze + when it IS slightly more difficult, it feels kind of artificial because it means they just throw tons more enemies at you or have enemies zip around and just delay their inevitable death, same could be said for enemy hacks which just feel like a mild annoyance rather than a real challenging gameplay obstacle. There’s some noticeable dissonance in cyberpunk between the constant fear and stakes being held over V’s head / the trauma that V undergoes in cutscenes and the cakewalk shooting sequences which consist of a gallery of meat puppets that you can mow down with little more than a gust of wind. There’s times that style of gameplay works though, like making me seem like a badass in johnny’s sequences and during particularly driven story moments, but its often such a breeze that I feel like going stealthy or playing a hacker when you’re up against such pissant enemies would bore me to tears. I can think of two fights in this entire game where it was particularly difficult and one is because there’s infinitely spawning enemies and one is the final boss so, stands to reason I guess? There are times where the gameplay gets interesting and tries something new which I appreciate, such as scanning through braindances to find clues for your jobs, which I think work quite well and add to the immersion of a technologically advanced universe - but it could have been done more often and with more variety in honesty.
Which brings me to the story, the highlight and driving force behind everything in this game’s world, something cd prokect clearly put a ton of time and resources into, even hiring two a-list celebrities (keanu & idris) to work with and help promote the title and its expansion. All that work does pay off because when we’re talking the main story beats, the game at its finest moments, yeah its pretty fuckin’ preem alright. Not very gonk at all. Without going off on a complete tangent, what I will say is Jackie Welles is in this game for what, 2 hours? I love him so much, he is my choom for life, an absolute king and his death hit me like a truck and actually made me shed a tear. Not only that, while knowing my V was going to be a street punk with dreams of becoming a boss in the crime business, I never expected my ideal path would be so strongly swayed by Jackie’s irreplaceable friendship and shared dream of the ‘major leagues’ we were both reaching for. I never forgot my roots and wanted to fulfil our dream which I ended up getting, bittersweet as it felt without him by side. But just as important is Johnny, your ride or die partner, love him or hate him Johnny is not going anywhere and as a result, the game teeters on an edge narratively, wherein if Johnny does not work, the game does not work, he is purely that important. I had my doubts, I like Keanu as much as the next person but I never understood the worship of the man, but then after seeing him in stuff like the matrix, john wick and point break, I have a feeling this might be the best performance of his career and shows how he has honed his talent. Sure Johnny is just an asshole stuck on you like a leech, a professional cynic bitter and angry at the world, but Keanu and the writers make him so much more, they make you understand him. Johnny is a killer but so are you, he fucks people over and inevitably, so do you, V will have something in common with him whether you like it or not. He will question you, berate you, stare you down during ordinary encounters and judge your every move because he’s sharing the same body but has little control over the choices you make. But then, when you get down to it, I don’t think he even knows what choices he’d make in the same position, part of him just enjoys the chaos and he practically says so himself. While he’s a cliche in part as the anti-establishment rockerboy, Johnny actually breaks a lot of stereotypes and preconceptions as the story humanises him and forces you to see from his perspective. Aspects of his come off as childish and immature, but then he comes out with lines that make me question myself if im doing the right thing or being played and he demonstrates a far deeper understanding of the world and how it works than I once thought. Just seeing Johnny appear mid-conversation or mid-cutscene, knowing nobody else can see him, is so good, there’s something special about knowing you’re not alone at any time, even at your lowest, in your most humiliating defeats, Johnny is there with you and most of all, he will come around to genuinely want to help you. In the beginning he wants you gone but can’t get rid of you, so he too comes to understand you and it forms a bond, an unusual and one of a kind bond that nobody else could ever truly understand, its awesome stuff.
The relationship between V and Johnny is so good infact, that it feels almost like so many eggs in one basket that the other baskets become nearly empty, side quests and side characters like the fixers you’ll run into and folk you do gigs for won’t scratch the same itch, they are often hollow quest givers and faces, which is a shame. But there are exceptions, and like all of cyberpunk, at their best, they are outstanding. Judy, Rogue, Reed, Songbird and of course my man Jackie all won me over completely, showing emotional richness, flaw and vulnerability that build character and form deep connections and personal relationships. The strongest of V’s relationships form with some of the lowest or most hard up of society because V is going through the same shit and I think that’s great. In its main story beats there is tons of payoff, political intrigue and moral choices to be made and almost all of them hit. But they feel somewhat hindered by a relatively lifeless free-roam world, overly familiar looting & checklist formulas and an overload of random side jobs, gigs and errands that bloat the game out while you wait for the good stuff and rarely feel worth the reward. In my opinion, cyberpunk didn’t actually need to be open world, in a way, I think i’d like it even more if it was just a linear action rpg with a hub saferoom or something from which you can start missions, but what we got is far from bad, I just think you could save on all that time and double down your dev team on the already great story missions.
As for the art design and aesthetic, its all executed beatifully and many of the visual and action-packed setpieces it will throw at you are works of art. From konpeki plaza to the arasaka parade and the many gorgeous sequences in phantom liberty, there are some hugely impressive sequences that play out throughout the game. Phantom Liberty in particular involves a few moments of covert espionage and deception that rival some of the best movie scenes in just how intense and beautifully, intentionally crafted they feel. While the cyberpunk aesthetic and its key facets play an important role in gameplay from scanning your environment to hacking on the move to literally implanting cyberware into your body, the actual relative story & in-world implications of the advanced tech and dystopian ramifications of corporate greed are surprisingly few and far between. This is a story helped along by its timeline & setting, but not one that is hugely driven by it and while it can appear complex what with its own in world jargon / slang and detailed environments jam-packed with repressive imagery and corpo ad spaces, its honestly not that conceptually deep overall. The characters, their motivations and your own player choices are the driving force behind cyberpunk narratively, not so much the world you find yourself in, much as the game tries to drive the nail in with dialogue, journal entries and text logs that kind of hamfist the notion of ‘this place is a shithole and we’re all bad people’. Like alright, I get it!
Cyberpunk is actually very depressing huh! Where’s the hover skateboards mate? (kidding).
All in all I really enjoyed my time in night city and would come back for more, which is mainly because of the characters and the playstyles over wanting to spend much more time in the world, nice as it can be to soak in the incredible architecture & environments. This is a beautifully designed experience artistically and its dlc expands on it even more with phantom liberty offering some of the deepest and most intense final moments and personal decisions i’ve seen in a game to date, featuring a complicated moral dilemma and a gripping tale of loyalty and doing the right thing. There is one thing reed said in this dlc that stuck with me, mentioning Welles and the choice I made and it really made me think - infact, a lot of lines in this game make me stop and think and that’s rare because most of the time I just want to blow shit up. Infact, sometimes I want to be done with blowing shit up so that I can get back to the story, because its that fucking good!!
Cheers for reading this one was a bit of a ramble lol.
Control
2019
I found Control to be kind of mid. And I don't know if I should blame the game or myself for it. Remedy's universe seems to be really interesting, but the game itself is less so. When I was in about 3/4 of the game a friend tells me I was supposed to read the stuff I found along the way. I guess that's what explained many things and what makes the game actually interesting, but how was I supposed to know? I get that they didn't want to obstruct the gameplay for people who where there just for the shooting, but if reading and caring about the story is supposed to be such an important part, I don't see why they didn't put any effort in making it clear to the player that it is important. I do like games where I need to put from my part to learn about it and stuff, but I need to know what the game expects of me. If reading really was important, I would have made it an essential part to read to be able to progress in the game, and it almost seems like a coward move to just let you skip everithing to go shooting and be able to progress normally. The least I would ask for is for there to be a deliberate message saying something like "To get the best experience from control, you need to explore the world, put attention on the details and read the entries of your journal", or maybe it would also help if when you grab a readable it opens it automatically instead of needing to akwardly go to the menus and search for the one that you just grabbed (it is very easy to have the "pulse x button to open entry" to go before you manage to press anything.
If you play the game like purely a shooter, like I did since I didn't know what to expect, it is an alright game. Below average probably. The shooting is pretty much as basic as it gets. Just walking and shooting with some extra powers that are not really that creative nor fun to use. Upgrades that do not really add much to the experience, they actually even make it worse since you need to keep looking at numbers that do not really change your playstyle in any meaningful way, and do mini side-challenges that are not at all fun to do. Hitsgan humanoid enemies, noting really interesting either in that department.
The graphics are cool, the first two hours. After that, it becomes really, really repetitive and that repetition not only affects the visual style, but the level design too, since with how similar the areas look and how complex the layout can get, it is sometimes really difficult to tell where you need to go. The visuals are also really inconsistent in the cinematics department. Sometimes you have these very cool and almost mystic cinematics with a strong color direction, and then you have fallout-type dialogues with other characters, which really contrast with the previous mentioned cinematics.
So, what is the point of the game? After completing it I can't really tell. In the end (kind of spoilers) there's a section which I think that tries to criticize the the Laboral environment? Maybe that is kind of the point of the game, but I don't really know since the game was so worried that I would get bored after 1 minute of not shooting enemies. I think that if this game was a more directed experience that focuses on the themes on the story and makes you able to understand (at least a bit) of the universe instead of mindless boring shooting it would be a much better game. And as I said in the start, is it my problem or the game's problem that I didn't put enough attention at the universe to be able to understand it? I think is a bit of both I guess, but the experience I had was mediocre so that's how I'm rating this game.
If you play the game like purely a shooter, like I did since I didn't know what to expect, it is an alright game. Below average probably. The shooting is pretty much as basic as it gets. Just walking and shooting with some extra powers that are not really that creative nor fun to use. Upgrades that do not really add much to the experience, they actually even make it worse since you need to keep looking at numbers that do not really change your playstyle in any meaningful way, and do mini side-challenges that are not at all fun to do. Hitsgan humanoid enemies, noting really interesting either in that department.
The graphics are cool, the first two hours. After that, it becomes really, really repetitive and that repetition not only affects the visual style, but the level design too, since with how similar the areas look and how complex the layout can get, it is sometimes really difficult to tell where you need to go. The visuals are also really inconsistent in the cinematics department. Sometimes you have these very cool and almost mystic cinematics with a strong color direction, and then you have fallout-type dialogues with other characters, which really contrast with the previous mentioned cinematics.
So, what is the point of the game? After completing it I can't really tell. In the end (kind of spoilers) there's a section which I think that tries to criticize the the Laboral environment? Maybe that is kind of the point of the game, but I don't really know since the game was so worried that I would get bored after 1 minute of not shooting enemies. I think that if this game was a more directed experience that focuses on the themes on the story and makes you able to understand (at least a bit) of the universe instead of mindless boring shooting it would be a much better game. And as I said in the start, is it my problem or the game's problem that I didn't put enough attention at the universe to be able to understand it? I think is a bit of both I guess, but the experience I had was mediocre so that's how I'm rating this game.
Horizon Chase Turbo
2018
This game was made by idiots who don't understand that cars aren't coated in flubber, can't bump THROUGH other cars, and that race rracks should be wider than a hiking footpath AND not riddled with multiple blind hairpin turns into nothing. AND TO HELL WITH WHAT THEY DID TO THE BATMOBILE.
Disco Elysium
2019
Now this is a game I'm entirely on the fence about. On one hand I think how the game is structured in tandem with the unique interactive mechanics and its overall non-linearity is downright brilliant (with a few hiccups, of course) And on the other hand I absolutely despise the unsatisfying and rushed finale that literally renders most of what you do in the game completely pointless.
Alright, so the beginning stretch of this game can be tad bit confusing and overwhelming but after sinking in a few hours and getting accustomed to all the mechanics and skills it's very easy to get hooked in and fast. The different skills aka the various parts of your psyche that affects the dialogues and how you interact with the world is unarguably the best part of this game. Depending on what part of your psyche you put the most points in you will get VASTLY different outcomes of little tasks like getting a hanged body down from a tree, while also affecting your abilities to pick up on certain leads. Which ultimately ends up giving the game a lot more variety and replay value than it'd initially have if it stuck to the more linear and rigid story telling formula of most other CRPGs. Also the way all the seemingly pointless and insignificant side quests loop back into main quests in the most unexpected way imaginable is done competently and can lead to a lot of "ah ha" moments. I also appreciate the fact that despite the game being entirely reliant on texts the dialogues are delivered in a digestible manner with everything fully voice acted and the voice acting is surprisingly top notch. At first when I was trying to read through every single line of text I thought the dialogues felt dense but that's objectively the wrong way to go about playing the game as you're punished for picking too many options. Once you start playing the game as it is intended you start to appreciate how well written the character interactions are with a lot of genuinely funny banters that don't feel forced. But there is something else entirely that can actually interfere the with the game's pacing and it's the constant DnD skill checks which forces you to do a lot of backtracking and chore-ish tasks just to have a higher chance of succeeding and even then you can fail. Which I can see being the main contributor behind putting off a lot of people and rightfully so and it's objectively a bad game design approach when most people playing the game save scum repeatedly to get past them.
Now onto my main gripe with the game and it's the ending. The finale is flat out terrible with absolutely zero thought put behind and it contradicts the whole investigation this game revolves around. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, it's the whodunnit. It's entirely detached from everything you do throughout most of the game, from every lead you gather throughout your entire investigation. And to address all the idiotic copium takes I see defending this god awful ending like "oh no but it's supposed to be meta! it fits the themes! it was never about the murder mystery", The game quite literally frames itself as a murder mystery that is LITERALLY your entire objective throughout the whole thing and the game failing to deliver a proper satisfying conclusion shouldn't be above criticism, it's objectively bad and if you can't see that you lack critical thinking skills. Also if there ever was a game that would benefit from having several different endings that vary vastly from one another it'd be THIS but what the game delivered was the exact opposite an extremely linear final segment which contradicts the rest of the game's open-ended nature.
Disco Elysium is a game that has a lot of never-before-seen unique mechanics in a narrative game with a lot of entertainment value but all of it is bogged down by a HORRIBLY botched ending.
Alright, so the beginning stretch of this game can be tad bit confusing and overwhelming but after sinking in a few hours and getting accustomed to all the mechanics and skills it's very easy to get hooked in and fast. The different skills aka the various parts of your psyche that affects the dialogues and how you interact with the world is unarguably the best part of this game. Depending on what part of your psyche you put the most points in you will get VASTLY different outcomes of little tasks like getting a hanged body down from a tree, while also affecting your abilities to pick up on certain leads. Which ultimately ends up giving the game a lot more variety and replay value than it'd initially have if it stuck to the more linear and rigid story telling formula of most other CRPGs. Also the way all the seemingly pointless and insignificant side quests loop back into main quests in the most unexpected way imaginable is done competently and can lead to a lot of "ah ha" moments. I also appreciate the fact that despite the game being entirely reliant on texts the dialogues are delivered in a digestible manner with everything fully voice acted and the voice acting is surprisingly top notch. At first when I was trying to read through every single line of text I thought the dialogues felt dense but that's objectively the wrong way to go about playing the game as you're punished for picking too many options. Once you start playing the game as it is intended you start to appreciate how well written the character interactions are with a lot of genuinely funny banters that don't feel forced. But there is something else entirely that can actually interfere the with the game's pacing and it's the constant DnD skill checks which forces you to do a lot of backtracking and chore-ish tasks just to have a higher chance of succeeding and even then you can fail. Which I can see being the main contributor behind putting off a lot of people and rightfully so and it's objectively a bad game design approach when most people playing the game save scum repeatedly to get past them.
Now onto my main gripe with the game and it's the ending. The finale is flat out terrible with absolutely zero thought put behind and it contradicts the whole investigation this game revolves around. Without delving too deep into spoiler territory, it's the whodunnit. It's entirely detached from everything you do throughout most of the game, from every lead you gather throughout your entire investigation. And to address all the idiotic copium takes I see defending this god awful ending like "oh no but it's supposed to be meta! it fits the themes! it was never about the murder mystery", The game quite literally frames itself as a murder mystery that is LITERALLY your entire objective throughout the whole thing and the game failing to deliver a proper satisfying conclusion shouldn't be above criticism, it's objectively bad and if you can't see that you lack critical thinking skills. Also if there ever was a game that would benefit from having several different endings that vary vastly from one another it'd be THIS but what the game delivered was the exact opposite an extremely linear final segment which contradicts the rest of the game's open-ended nature.
Disco Elysium is a game that has a lot of never-before-seen unique mechanics in a narrative game with a lot of entertainment value but all of it is bogged down by a HORRIBLY botched ending.
I was never really a big fan of mechs, but now, now I understand it.
Portal 2
2011
Valve just get it, I don’t even like puzzle games but Portal is different - literally and figuratively. It just sucks me in. Its not one thing though, it is many things, all stacked up on top of each other. Portal 1 is really good but felt like a short demo into what could be done with the portal mechanics and the game engine, Portal 2 on the other hand is the magnificent culmination of that - i’ve not even technically finished it yet, i’m just wrapping up single-player and i’ve not even touched co-op or any mods yet, but it is a near perfect game through and through.
Even when I am scratching my head through portal 2’s challenging puzzles, there’s a constant drive that I feel that is the kind of rush that only great games can deliver. Plus even when i’m struggling and getting a bit frustrated, I can appreciate great design and recognise when something is just me. Many of Portal 2’s resounding successes are down to valve’s state of the art, perfectionist approach to game design which puts the player first at all times, orchestrates the pace like an award-winning conductor and strives to give this constant, enrapturing satisfaction. Not to mention the eccentric and often dark sense of humour which has aged remarkably well as well as the excellent art direction and dynamic audio that seems to ‘follow’ the player through their various tasks and interactions with the environment. The banter between glados and wheatley in particular is so good that you could make an entire tv show out of just them talking and it would work.
One thing I loved about portal 1 and even moreso here is the distinction between the flat, futuristic, cold testing areas and the industrial underbelly that you explore. I also find it impressive how a game that is about as linear as it gets on the surface doesn’t actually feel all that linear, something you could also say about half-life. The reason being because there’s no real cutscenes, everything is from your perspective and everyone is going to have a different experience of the same set of sequences. Sometimes exploring an idea that you don’t expect to be the solution ends up being the solution because trial and error is part of the experience, sometimes I would really struggle to figure something out, other times it would just click. Even playing around and experimenting with ideas feels good in portal because it has such an interesting and unique core mechanic, there’s really not much else like it, then its combined with all sorts of fun new additions like the light bridge, gels and excursion funnels to form the basis for what could honestly be a near endless stream of clever puzzles. But that would definitely get repetitive, portal 2 never is, no one puzzle is too alike to another and when an idea is explored well enough, it takes a backburner.
It makes me excited to see what more the community have done with these things because as always, valve embrace player creation with their tools and though they rarely ever develop games anymore, their philosophy and spirit lives on through the passionate modders that never stop putting out great stuff. But when you give valve’s devs the tools and let them design the levels from scratch, something hits differently, its like having your meal prepped by a professional chef, its something else man.
Other things that I love about portal & portal 2:
• A protagonist that doesn’t say a word (just how it should be), can you imagine if they talked while solving puzzles or gave advice like its god of war ragnarok or something, fucking hell…
• Stephen Merchant, Ellen McLain & JK Simmons absolutely killing their performances
• This dynamic, ever-changing feeling of progression where you’re descending, then ascending through the facility and feeling lost in this immersive world (even though its practically impossible to actually be lost)
• Finally, the fact that the game makes you feel so fucking smart. Like i’m no genius at all but there’s parts in this game where I was just like yeah, i’m the goat, i’m the puzzle king (usually right before getting royally humbled)
Just deserving of all of its praise really isn’t it, plus its going to be immensely replayable and I just know i’m going to be able to get so much out of this game even after I finish single-player. Its mad how i’ve only just played it now, but perhaps even madder that its 12 years old and not even aged a day.
Even when I am scratching my head through portal 2’s challenging puzzles, there’s a constant drive that I feel that is the kind of rush that only great games can deliver. Plus even when i’m struggling and getting a bit frustrated, I can appreciate great design and recognise when something is just me. Many of Portal 2’s resounding successes are down to valve’s state of the art, perfectionist approach to game design which puts the player first at all times, orchestrates the pace like an award-winning conductor and strives to give this constant, enrapturing satisfaction. Not to mention the eccentric and often dark sense of humour which has aged remarkably well as well as the excellent art direction and dynamic audio that seems to ‘follow’ the player through their various tasks and interactions with the environment. The banter between glados and wheatley in particular is so good that you could make an entire tv show out of just them talking and it would work.
One thing I loved about portal 1 and even moreso here is the distinction between the flat, futuristic, cold testing areas and the industrial underbelly that you explore. I also find it impressive how a game that is about as linear as it gets on the surface doesn’t actually feel all that linear, something you could also say about half-life. The reason being because there’s no real cutscenes, everything is from your perspective and everyone is going to have a different experience of the same set of sequences. Sometimes exploring an idea that you don’t expect to be the solution ends up being the solution because trial and error is part of the experience, sometimes I would really struggle to figure something out, other times it would just click. Even playing around and experimenting with ideas feels good in portal because it has such an interesting and unique core mechanic, there’s really not much else like it, then its combined with all sorts of fun new additions like the light bridge, gels and excursion funnels to form the basis for what could honestly be a near endless stream of clever puzzles. But that would definitely get repetitive, portal 2 never is, no one puzzle is too alike to another and when an idea is explored well enough, it takes a backburner.
It makes me excited to see what more the community have done with these things because as always, valve embrace player creation with their tools and though they rarely ever develop games anymore, their philosophy and spirit lives on through the passionate modders that never stop putting out great stuff. But when you give valve’s devs the tools and let them design the levels from scratch, something hits differently, its like having your meal prepped by a professional chef, its something else man.
Other things that I love about portal & portal 2:
• A protagonist that doesn’t say a word (just how it should be), can you imagine if they talked while solving puzzles or gave advice like its god of war ragnarok or something, fucking hell…
• Stephen Merchant, Ellen McLain & JK Simmons absolutely killing their performances
• This dynamic, ever-changing feeling of progression where you’re descending, then ascending through the facility and feeling lost in this immersive world (even though its practically impossible to actually be lost)
• Finally, the fact that the game makes you feel so fucking smart. Like i’m no genius at all but there’s parts in this game where I was just like yeah, i’m the goat, i’m the puzzle king (usually right before getting royally humbled)
Just deserving of all of its praise really isn’t it, plus its going to be immensely replayable and I just know i’m going to be able to get so much out of this game even after I finish single-player. Its mad how i’ve only just played it now, but perhaps even madder that its 12 years old and not even aged a day.