...did we all play the same game?

'cause generic soundtrack aside, i don't even need to hesitate - this is superior to quake ii in just about every way. sure, there's no rocket jumping, but that hardly matters in a corridor shooter; what's important is gunplay and Q2 wishes it had weapons half as good as these. the shotgun? nailgun? the fucking bfg that shoots black holes? get the hell out of town and don't let me see you here again

...that praise being said, i'll be damned if it doesn't put its shakiest leg first

unlike quake ii, the start here isn't slow because of its shooting - that feels fantastic from the get go - instead it's the aggressively invasive 'story' that's constantly trying to pull you from the action. let me shoot. the fucking. aliens! that's all i wanna do, man!!

"nah nah - i hear you", calls tim willits, newly appointed president of the Carmack Fan Club, "here, you can shoot again - in a turret section! and after that, ohoho, mission briefing!! and then - two more vehicle segments!!!"

with one swift motion i knock that shit out of his fucking hands. then i scream, "I JUST WANT TO SHOOT THE STROGG WITH MY SHOTGUN. THAT'S LITERALLY ALL I WANT TO DO. I DON'T GIVE A SHIT ABOUT YOUR SET PIECES (besides the mech one - that was pretty cool) OR YOUR SPACE MARINE STORY - I DON'T EVEN CARE THAT I COULD PERSONALLY WALK FASTER THAN MY CHARACTER WITH WEIGHTS STRAPPED TO MY LEGS. THE GUNS FEEL GOOD, TIM. PLEASE JUST LET ME USE THE FUCKING GUNS!!!!"

i think he took that bit about space marines harshly given the events that transpired shortly after, but all of my prayers had been answered nonetheless! no longer was i walking back and forth through areas i'd already visited just to report to some dumbass military man that the elevator got unjammed or steve blum #3 successfully completed filing his tax returns; i was actually playing the game - uninterrupted

when quake 4 gets its shit fully together after the first 1/3 or so, it shifts from stop-and-go into maximum overdrive. there's zero bad weapons, enemy types continue to vary enough (not to mention there's actually a couple decent bosses - a rarity for shooters) and ironically even the mission objectives become significantly more engaging when they're things you're doing and not just details off sgt. pvt. blum's shopping list

environments start looking a lot cooler too. Q2 toyed with body horror in small doses, but ravensoft went all-in here. call me simple, edgy, whatever - i think giant entrails breaching through space corridors and limbless (but still alive and wiggling) bodies being used as power supplies are pretty fucking rad. say what you will about id tech 4 - doom 3 looks fantastic and this is no different. hands down the most underrated shooter engine

misguided start aside, this is the best fps (barring quake 1, obviously) that i've played in a considerably long time. can't wait to receive matthew kane's next orders in quake 5!

wait fuck

went into this completely blind; didn't even know it wasn't a quake sequel. also tried the original version first, which definitely made for rough initial impact

quake ii kicks off in a way that i can lightly describe as "complete dog shit". for some ungodly reason, Club Carmack decided it'd be a nice idea to start players off with the worst pistol and shotgun combo known to mankind (even complete without muzzle flash if the og release is your preference). the fun doesn't stop not starting there, though, because then you pick up the grenades and boy oh boy - my personal favorite aspect about them is how they take 35 years to throw, which makes them only remotely viable either around corners or as a tool to very slowly kill yourself with

it was during the entirety of this first level that i thought to myself, "why does this suck so much fucking dick? who enjoys this? can john carmack really be trusted to call steve jobs an idiot for designing a mouse with one button when he actually thinks quake ii is fun?" then i got the one-two punch: the super shotgun and the chaingun

suddenly - enemies died from being shot. i no longer needed to constantly pop from cover to reliably fight hitscan baddies spongier than those seen in 'chasm: the rift' (which, ironically, is a quake clone). things only went up from here - especially in level 3 where the 90 or so grenades i'd been eagerly not using were finally given purpose via a launcher that didn't have 600 frames of startup. i'd say this is when the game really begins

...and barring the last stage - which definitely gets to a point of feeling sluggish due to its over-eagerness in spamming the most aggravatingly tanky two-legged enemy in the game - it doesn't let up. every later earned weapon (that isn't the rocket launcher) continues to feel pretty fantastic. the BFG in particular took me by surprise with its insane splash and chain damaging. you can fire this thing at one enemy and it'll clear out an entire fucking room. it's awesome and thanks to it using the same ammo as the standard laser rifle, there's no shortage of opportunities to let it loose

i'm not much for movement tech in my fps, but the levels here were designed in ways where i was pretty eager to push myself even on that front. lotsa opportunity to master bunnyhopping and circle jumping. i even skipped some chunks of levels with a few well-placed rocket jumps. fun stuff and it made me just a little more interested in giving quake 3 another shot

sonically and atmospherically, everything's obviously downgraded from q1 due to the lack of trent reznor (note: "HUH" is still intact (phew)) but the sonic mayhem soundtrack isn't totally unwelcome. i'll certainly take a competent albeit standard metal ost over the mick gordon-branded djent slop that this genre is so overly saturated with now

i've yet to play any expansions, but i did try a smidge of the n64 stages and found them to be really charming. kinda surreal to see a take of this game with so much color in it. definitely gonna get back to that, but for now i think i'm just gonna go straight for quake 4

"wait - you haven't played quake?"
~almost everyone who i've gushed about this to game in the past few days

a little about me: i'm partial to industrial grit, my favorite doom games favor grimly edgy atmosphere over 80s thrash worship, i'm a big NIN fan and the downward spiral is one of my top 5 favorite albums. so this should be a no brainer, right?

well - yeah, actually. that's exactly right. throughout my playthrough all i could continually ask myself was, "why the fuck didn't i play this sooner?" and rightfully so. i think the reason quake has eluded me for so long is because its holistic reputation is eclipsed at this point by a diehard multiplayer community that i frankly don't give a shit about. i'm not much of a multiplayer enthusiast for anything - let alone tech-y arena shooters - and honestly i probably would've continued ignoring this absolute fucking masterpiece if not for my pressing curiosity towards trent reznor's involvement

that'd have been a huge mistake; quake is easily the best boomer shooter i've ever played

this is where i could talk about how i adore the weapons and their balancing, the general focus on straightforward maps with powerups everywhere, the difficulty being largely driven by how easy it is to kill yourself in tight spaces - or even the god tier ambient score that has just the right amounts of otherworldly screams and metallic chords strewn about - i COULD go into those things and we could be here for a considerable amount of time - but instead of doing any of that, i'm just going to say that the shambler is one of the greatest enemy designs in any fps. in fact, my feeling towards quake 1 can be summarized roughly with my thoughts on the shambler; he's absolutely perfect. i love this giant, dopey, teethy foreskin man in all his fleshy (not furry - fuck you) glory. and i haven't even begun to MENTION his timbs yet

my mans butters be outright otherworldly

very competent, but not much else. on one hand i appreciate the high-tension, almost dungeon-crawl nature of the levels. you're trained very early on to understand that every corner, item pickup, hell - even secret room is liable to be a deathtrap. kinda reminds me more of a 2000s shooter than a boomer one with its slower pace, which i'm not opposed to

on the other hand... every enemy being a sponge gets pretty fucking tiring at points and resultantly your weapons tend to feel like peashooters (especially against anything running on all fours). there's limb dismemberment, which sells the overwhelming strength that some monsters clearly hold over you - and it can be used to literally disarm the especially tanky ones - but also feels a little undercooked as it's usually a better idea to just shoot someone's head off anyway

level design's a mixed bag. i'm not a fan of the whole "take a wild guess and shoot a hole in the wall" philosophy, but none of the 'puzzles' are too out there to figure out. environments kinda suck though. i found myself enjoying the quake knockoff-y industrial areas the most and really, really was not too fond of episode 2's bland egypt theme (or its shitty platforming). definitely not much of a looker overall

it's pretty clear why some people love this game and some hate it. the generic setup is made a hell of a lot more standout by its relentlessly troll-heavy design, but if you're not a fan of that then there's probably nothing here for you

if chasm: the rift were a person it'd be this scandinavian guy i knew when i was 13 who frequented 4chan and constantly veiled himself in irony as a substitute for personality

it's not hard to understand why sony abandoned epidemic's original title for its western release; this is a massive improvement over kileak in almost every way (primarily because it isn't aping iron angel of the apocalypse anymore)

first, the almost: narratively it tries harder, but i'd be lying if i said that was to any greater outcome. cutscenes are pretty whatever and the localization is so piss-poor that it's often hard to tell what's going on or why you should even care to begin with

the core gameplay though? it's actually fun this time around because levels aren't entirely composed of 1x1 corridors and 4x4 squares! enemy fire is avoidable now and your mech feels equal parts weighty and satisfying to maneuver. the new ability to jet-boost through halls and around corners especially makes backtracking a nonissue and has a certain slickness to it that i'd compare to something like f-zero or wipeout. excluding deaths i logged about 3-4 hours and i could easily see that being cut down to 30-60 minutes on replays due to this mechanic alone

ammo and energy are also handled better - mainly because weapon energy recharges and boost juice occupies its own meter. can't say the boss fights are any more captivating as they're all still solvable by standing still or circle strafing while firing, but they serve more as a health/ammo check than anything else and i'm alright with that

i can't help but wish kileak's body horror elements were improved upon instead of completely abandoned, but i'll still take this over it any day. can sincerely recommend to anyone looking for an unconventional, mech-based fps

...proof that drip and swag are all that matter in this world

make no mistake - i'm not just linking back to another review of mine for the sake of drawing attention to some obscure gem i happen to like. no - kileak just happens to be a complete and utter ripoff of iron angel of the apocalypse (or tetsujin in japan) by synergy inc. what the fuck is iron angel of the apocalypse? what the fuck is kileak?? why would one rip off the other??? all of these are valid questions you probably don't have that i will be answering anyway

i hardly believed it myself at first. but after booting it up and playing a couple stages, all i could think was "this is like if tetsujin ran smoother at the cost of its entire personality". and by golly - that's exactly the case!

y'see, tetsujin dropped in 1994 on the 3DO. i'd wager about three people in total played it outside of japan. maybe three and a half, but that's pushing it. anyway - like synergy inc, genki was a 3DO developer that released 'burning soldier', an fmv-based rail shooter just a couple months after tetsujin. so given that both companies had a thing for videos, cg and guns i don't think it's a stretch of the imagination to infer that some of the fellas over at genki played and got a spark of inspiration from synergy's negative framerate nightmare crawler

the similarities here are shameless. instead of controlling a mech that's ascending a tower you're operating a mech that's... descending a tower! enemies are laid out in alike fashion (though they tend to fight back more) and levels are totally corridor-based, only ever allowing you to strafe more than a few centimeters when inside the box-shaped spaces that link halls together. even the fmvs are nigh identical in how they're placed throughout the levels - being triggered either by interacting with certain objects or through codec-esque calls while walking around. see this for yourself

to kileak's credit, it does have significantly greater enemy variety (not saying much), better controls and runs at a pretty stable 60fps. on the other hand, it's just not fun. kinda hard to get invested in a shooter where you can infinitely stock ammo for weapons that have infinite range. literally 80% of the enemies in this game can be killed before even being encountered. this even applies to some bosses. shout out to the final one btw - i think i killed him before he even fired off a single attack. made me laugh pretty hard and in fairness, gave me more enjoyment than the rest of the game

anyway this is painfully mediocre and a pale imitation of something cooler. don't bother unless you're like me and you feel some irrational need to play the sole tetsujin-like

i had higher hopes than most. i don't mind the visuals (most of the time), the bosses or the chaos powers. what i do mind is the sheer lack of energy that carries this whole game

superstars is the negative extreme of what a sonic detractor perceives the series as. there's little to no thought or challenge throughout. you're just constantly going with the motions and holding right - sometimes left - occasionally making some precise jumps - but then it's back to going through the motions

almost every zone bleeds together design-wise. the camera really doesn't help - it's too damn close. i have no desire to revisit and explore the majority of these zones because:

a.) i have no fucking idea where i'm going in them half the time

b.) spatial awareness is unimportant anyway because there's no real upside to being on the skilled path vs the baby road

there's stage gimmicks everywhere, but they largely amount to wasted momentum. the game's constantly moving onto new thing after new thing at a pace more rapid than the tiktok algorithm, but for every attempt at variety there's little to no commitment or follow-through. almost every idea feels half-baked. case in point: one of the final stages being a half-assed shmup segment; or THE final act just being the second-to-last but backwards

ironically the bosses were the highlight for me. they're the only points throughout where you're forced to stop and think for a moment. there's a few annoying ones, but generally they reward efficiency and offer more opportunities for damage than they initially let on. i'd say that's a success as far as sonic fights go

what kills me here is i don't think that sonic team's heart is really in the wrong place - trip's a great newcomer and it's nice to see mostly original zones, but i really hope the next outing isn't so painfully safe. this series is always at its best when it's being bold and confident - neither of which i can call superstars in any capacity

also ditch that garbage ass soundfont pronto

i've had a rocky relationship with this one to say the least

it may go without saying, but i'm the kind of person who thoroughly adores absolutely everything about this game's initial concept and presentation. i didn't grow out of my 'edgy phase' - it wasn't one. this shit's cool as fuck. it was cool as fuck 20 years ago, it still is today and it will be forever

shadow the hedgehog is a game carried by ideas, but they're executed to mixed results. this permeates the plot, script and gameplay. nothing's completely unscathed

narratively, it's incredibly ambitious - especially for such an obviously rushed game. the route structure is somewhat insane, even if the endings do split into 3-4 similar templates - almost all of which have really awkward line deliveries (shout out to 'journey to nihility' though - that one goes hard)

scriptwise... man, it's a mess. black doom is the biggest issue. he's effectively a caricature of a shounen antagonist who never shuts the fuck up. conversations tend to be pretty stilted across the board, but this dude just amps it to fucking 13. i contemplated dropping a half star here just because of how annoying his presence was during the final episode. in fact, i better stop fucking talking about black doom or else this game might be a 2/10 by the time i'm done

...on the contrary, shadow himself is thankfully as strong of a character as ever and the ability to constantly jump between routes really suits his whole mysterious/badass/what-the-fuck-is-he-thinking demeanor. that said, his stages could easily give you a positive or negative impression depending on which of those paths you end up on

personally, i started with the pure dark route... then after a neutral-only palate cleanser, pure hero - this was a fucking mistake! depending on your whims as a player your first run could consist of varied but mostly straightforward objectives, or menial tasks such as combing through multi-pathed environments for torchs to light and killing exactly specified quantities of enemies (it'll be a cold day in hell when i replay lost impact)

at his best, shadow disappoints as the star of a sonic game but actually excels as a shooter more akin to gamma's role in sa1, boasting faster movement and a solid variety of weapons that all feel fun to shoot - which is especially important because this game wants bullets to rain constantly, as it actively rewards killing enemies of both alignments, encouraging the ambivalent carnage no matter which route you're aiming for

in fact - i feel like this game would've likely gone over better with some fans if its A-ranks were stricter in places. you can basically hold forward and pass any normal mission with flying colors, but beyond that there's tons of room to optimize runs via effective usage of shadow's chaos blast and especially control powers. definitely a missed opportunity here!

with a few more months in the oven, some slower bits axed and some added speed to shadow's spindashing, homing and walljumping, this'd be a classic for sure

as it stands, it's pretty confused. i've come to enjoy the chaos quite a bit, but i'd only recommend it to someone who wished gamma had more of a presence in sa1. if you go in expecting sa3, then everything's all over before it can even start

the soundtrack, however, i can - and will - recommend to literally anyone with or without a pulse

pretty easily the most bafflingly received 3d sonic i've played. i find it unfathomable this is the one that's so polarizing - even to the point of frequently being compared to its successor for some inane reason

sure, the slipperiness takes getting used to and there's some occasionally janky hit detection... but what else?

i suppose there's something to be said about the more impersonal and back-to-basics narrative. it's a far cry from the sheer ambition sa2 put on display just two years prior, but i don't think that's necessarily a bad thing. heroes instead opts for being a straightforward, fun, gamey-ass video game

what's presented here is what most sa1/2 detractors claim to wish those games were - almost nonstop, high class speed stages. seaside hill? grand metropolis? frog forest? egg fleet? these are some of the best zones in the series - and casino park is EASILY the coolest take on that running theme without question. what, you gonna tell me you prefer casinopolis? are you stupid?

i'm not gonna deny there are stinkers in the mission count - the chaotix variant of mystic mansion is fucking abysmal, team dark's enemy rush segments are especially tedious and racing for chaos emeralds frankly feels like complete dog shit no matter who you're controlling - but these sections all amount to a footnote in contrast to what heroes does right - everything else

sick final boss as per usual too. neo metal is so fucking cool and "what i'm made of" is easily a top 5 crush 40 track

...speaking of top tier crush 40 tracks

feels like i played this alongside my six year old self. we did it lil' buddy, we finally beat the one game we had no chance in hell of finishing without a gamecube memory card

as with sa1, there's really no point in arguing about this series since the detractors have long made up their shitty minds. sa2's an interesting beast though because it manages to excel just as much as its predecessor... in very different ways!

the speed stages are great, albeit nothing like sa1's. maybe you prefer these more linearly driven, setpiece-focused levels, but i might be partial to having a spindash that can blaze me across entire courses in a matter of seconds. i like going places i shouldn't and being rewarded for it. there's some of that here, but it's not nearly the same. that said, there's no city escape or final rush in sa1 so we'll call it a draw

treasure hunting is improved tenfold. i definitely prefer the newly limited radar system (it makes finding shards early super satisfying) and the overall increased difficulty. especially after knuckles' previous story was an absolute cakewalk. rouge is basically knuckles on hard mode and i generally prefer her side more for that. love her music too, though i wish it was more lyrically driven to better contrast knuckles

shooting's a more mixed bag. tails reps one of the best stages but also most of the worst. eggman on the other hand for the most part lives up to gamma's gameplay well enough - especially once he gets his booster. there's def a sense of flow to these that i feel a solid chunk of people don't give deserved credit because they just wanna go fast and grind rails

...which is a sentiment i don't completely identify with because i feel sa2 is more than the sum of its parts. the narrative is genuinely great and actively shifts moods and gameplay styles accordingly. you're always listening to a banger, you're never on the same sort of stage for more than a few minutes at a time - and you're always pushing closer to one of the greatest fuckin' finales you'll ever find in video games. the quality of direction really skyrocketed here. the last episode's preview alone completely solos every single scene in sa1

one strange oddity though: there's a surprising lack of shadow gameplay here. maybe the devs weren't so confident in him as a newcomer and didn't expect him to be such a hit?

if they knew what was good for them, sonic team would've just made a whole ass game where you play as shadow the hedgehog...

EDIT: after careful deliberation (replaying the shit out of everything) i've decided that i have 0 significant issues with this game. i'm not even standing by what i said about the speed stages before. they're all fuckin' fantastic and i think i might actually prefer these to sa1's (granted i need to spend some more time with that game too for confirmation)

on top of all of what i've said - i've still barely scratched the surface of the chao world content and that on its own is pretty impressive for being in an already tightly-packed game to begin with. how the fuck did this get made in two years?

i also learned last night via the extra video that city escape was inspired by sonic team constantly receiving parking tickets while living in san francisco. that's worthy of some merit on its own

and maybe this is cheating to mention since it's largely battle rerelease content, but i don't care: the multiplayer is some of the most fun i've ever had with a 2-player game

you know what - fuck it, 10/10

EDIT 2: got all 180 emblems. basically a perfect game

you'll never believe the secrets this school is hiding!!

i put so much of that shit in my head i started opening doors while standing on different y-axes and shit

aside from that and the 3-4 times where i started clipping out of the map (which softlocked me every time) this was pretty functional. i liked the part where i wandered aimlessly until i found a pair of pliers at the bottom of a swimming pool (which were apparently sharp enough to cut - and repair - metal grates with)

love how shamelessly x-treme this tries to be. the sprites are fun too. i'd be stoked if i got this bundled with my wendys as a kid

for decades gamers have pondered one of the world's most esoteric psychological dilemmas: "is war bad?"

i've never played haze or spec ops: the line, so i couldn't tell you for certain. but after running blindly through the cover of smoke and peripherally seeing my allies get split to shreds by machine guns and mortar strikes, i'm thinking it might be

turns out being historically accurate and recreating actual battles is enough to convey just how hellish war really is. top it off with simple-but-effective squad mechanics and weapons that can't hit shit unless your enemy's already pinned down - you've got a horror game in disguise

good stuff, randy pitchford. i'm sure you won't completely fall off in 4 more years - or masturbate to children

JOHN CARMACK'S
ABOUT TO MAKE
YOUR WRIST HIS BITCH.

Suck It Down.