Started to play this with a group of friends and, in typical D&D fashion, we could never decide on a good time where we’d all be available to play together again.

Aside from that, Baldur’s Gate 3 is a genuine masterpiece, although I don’t need to tell you this since it won like. every game award ever in 2023. I don’t think I can do this game justice with one of my own reviews so I suggest you just give this one a go yourself. Let the 50,000 trophies on Larian’s shelves for this game be a good reason to give Baldur’s Gate 3 a shot.

i can really tell that this game set the foundations for a lot of stealth-oriented games that would come out after its release, but standing on its own, manhunt is just pretty okay.
as you could guess, the stealth is very good, the gameplay does revolve entirely around it after all, although it does get kinda boring kinda quickly after you’ve done your 30th execution which boils down to hitting a wall or waiting for an enemy to pass by a dark area and then trailing behind them whilst holding the square button until you can brutally murder them. the game does keep it fresh by introducing new enemy types or “gangs” that have their own quirks that changes the way you should approach a level, but that doesn’t change how sick you’ll get of holding down the square button for 10 seconds behind each enemy in the game.
the story is. there, I guess? it exists mainly to just move you on and explain why different gangs are showing up but not much else. it’s not interesting in the slightest, although let’s be real nobody’s playing this game for the story, they’re playing it for the controversy.
I don’t get it. I mean I kinda get why this game was controversial but nowadays it really is nothing special. there’s no shock-value in the bloody and gory executions, likely due to heavy distortion and censoring with the VHS filter and just the PS2 models in general.
manhunt is just okay, and that’s fine. I’m glad it laid the foundation for games like the batman arkham series and the only good parts of any assassins creed game and maybe the octocamo in mgs4 but not really (but it kinda is if you deep it??)

note: DO NOT purchase this game on PC/Steam!!! i know for a fact that the game is broken to shit on there and you will have a better experience emulating this or playing it on actual PS2 hardware. as someone who emulated it, I faced zero major bugs aside from ones relating to my emulator settings, so MAKE SURE you do not pick up the Steam or Rockstar Games Launcher versions of this game!

update: the game sucks ignore this review lmao. recency bias is a real bitch

It’s just okay.

The gameplay isn’t nearly as bad as everyone was making it out to be. Yes, it is afflicted with the bullshit “2% fire damage” plague that’s affected most modern looter-shooters, but it hardly affects the experience at all. In all honestly I found that just choosing The Biggest Gun I had was the best choice, and the status effects they may have had never came into play. But speaking of which, the combat is surprisingly pretty fun! The game supports a variety of play-styles (and even helps you choose skills depending on how you play) and, while the objectives themselves might grow stale, the combat stays pretty fresh all throughout the game! Unfortunately, it is somewhat brought down by the boss fights which make a valiant attempt to make use of the gameplay mechanics but fail tremendously. They aren’t exactly bad but kinda boring, as most fights boil down to countering the enemy while spamming the fire button and dodging random character-relevant obstacles (except for two, one of which makes the bold decision to remove the countering part and another which throws every enemy and obstacle in the game at you at once and effectively turns the game into a third-person bullet hell). Keep in mind that I was playing on the hardest difficulty currently available in the game and I kinda just breezed through it? I was a very high level about halfway through and the loadout I used for the rest of the game was set pretty early on, and despite even that I felt the game wasn’t challenging at all. I died about 2-3 times? but that was usually due to me losing attention and getting bored of the repetitive boss fights. The game does give you an indicator of how hard a mission will be when you hover over its icon on the map, but it means absolutely nothing. I remember going into a mission that was labelled “Statistically Impossible” and had zero issue whatsoever so, take of that what you will. Onto a more positive note though, the movement / traversal is pretty good? I can only speak for Harley and Boomerang since I only played as those two and each character has their own specific method of traversal. But for what it’s worth, it’s just fun! Using the Speed Force to travel at high-speeds or to quickly ascend or descend and combing the two to make light work of long distances as Boomer, or grappling / swinging your way across the city and using momentum to reach high speeds as Harley, is just fun. There’s not much more to say aside from, it’s just fun.

Now for the controversial bit! The Writing. This being a spoiler-free review I won’t go into any plot detail but honestly this is just another case of The Twitter People crying about something that isn’t really that bad. It’s a Suicide Squad game anyway, you weren’t going to get the sort of thriller noir stuff Arkham is known for from the start. The best thing I can compare it to, ironically, is Borderlands, only without the over-reliance on dated internet culture and humour. Where the game really shines, however, is with the main 4 playable characters. There is so much chemistry between Boomerang, Deadshot, Harley and King Shark and watching them grow as a squad from absolutely hating each other’s guts to kinda-sorta tolerating each other by the end of the game is a real treat and I loved every moment I got to hear the 4 of them interact, wether it be during a story cutscene or random chatter between missions. But that’s where the good writing ends! The story itself is just barely serviceable enough and doesn’t really do much aside from move the squad from point A to point B. Any characters that aren’t in the core-four are incredibly shallow, even if they’re major characters in the plot, and lack any kind motivation or reason. But hey, the castings are pretty good so. props for that. I guess.

To finish off, Suicide Squad is about as average as a game can get. It’s got pretty fun gameplay that is let down by subpar and repetitive combat encounters, boss fights and escort missions. The playable characters are fun and likeable but everyone else is insanely forgettable and about as deep as the shallow end of a kids swimming pool. Would I recommend it? If you liked the Arkham games for the way they wrote the villains, or if you’re a freak who likes Destiny 2, go for it. As for everyone else, I’m sure the game will get better with updates and extra seasons with more content and QoL features but as for now, maybe wait a little longer before picking this up.