51 Reviews liked by dashKC


watched my gf play this. 10/10 because it made her happy :)

It's crazy how big this game seemed to me as a kid when I watched people play it (I was definitely less than 11 years old then, way too young for this game's subject matter)

It's sleazy and pretty varied fun, but I don't really see any big reason to play it. Saints Row 4 is bigger, funnier (I think I laughed twice from the written jokes in the 3rd) and probably plays better. Go play that.

This isnt a game about an adventure, this is a game about emotions. I've never had felt so much emotions playing a game. The game makes you feel exactly what the characters are passing throught, sadness, angry, hate, pain, everything that Ellie and Abby lost, you feel like you have lost too.

This is not a game. This is a outstanding experience.

just as good as botw but I hate that your crafted and combined stuff resets when you die (I was in a sort of cave full of water and my boat fucking despawned because a stonetalus shot me) it kinda ruins some of the aspects of this feature for me which is bad since it's a prominent mechanic that will be used almost everywhere

the other thing is that many armor pieces just got reused which made me a little sad lol the designs always look good so I expected some more new sets

aside from that the new content in basically every aspect we knew is amazing, fun and addicting like the predecessor

a must have for switch owners

Society peaked at January 13th, 2017.

Fun game for what it is but it has too many glitches on ps5

This is a solid game, with a few major issues that unfortunately hold it back. Compared to wario land 4, it really feels like it lacks the snappiness that game had. It just generally feels slower, but the requirement to stop and shake every moneybag you come across just slows things down more. The escape sequences aren't nearly as exciting either, as they all give you ample time and don't have much exciting going on. Motion controls just don't feel needed here, and slow things down more. There's also autoscroller submarine stages that are really boring. However, most of the regular level design is pretty good, but the shortness of levels often left me feeling like there should have been more to it. The game just felt too short overall. Normally I don't mind a condensed, short game, but it seemed lacking here. The music is a mixed bag, there's some great tracks, and some generic tracks and ones with pretty poor soundfonting. It's very inconsistent. The visuals are great, with no caveats. The animation is fluid and full of personality, and I'd love to see another attempt at hand-animation for this series.

To summarize, Wario Land: Shake It is a fun platformer with great visuals, but suffers from being too short and very inconsistent while lacking the series's trademark sense of speed.

I don't want to be a hater, but this really wasn't it. I am a Sonic fan, I don't believe in the stupid ""Sonic Cycle"" and I think everyone just parrots their favorite youtuber's opinion instead of playing it for themself.

To start positive, here's what I liked:
1. Cyber Space stages - These were a blast. Weird, remixed versions of old stages reminiscent of Generations. Each one had a section that would immediately make you go "OH IT'S THIS STAGE!!" and it was really fun.
2. (Half of) the Soundtrack - The Cyber Space stage music kicks ass. They're either cheesy classic techno with soulful 90's style vocal lines or modern styles of electronic music, DnB, dubstep, future bass and they're all so catchy and groovy They perfectly capture the high energy, high speed essence of Sonic. The boss themes also excel at matching the vibe of Sonic, though these are more about the attitude. Heavy, chugging guitar riffs with the corniest AIM away message lyrics and screams. It's so good. They fully embraced the cringe and own it.
3. The concept of open world Sonic - Some of the islands really had me down for the idea of open world Sonic traversal. I could see why this is appealing, and as someone who normally hates big open "you can climb those mountains" style games, I was actually kind of loving it. Briefly. Then I played more than an hour.

The more time I spent with the game, the more the issues kept piling up. I can't really even concisely list them because they all sort of bleed into each other. I was just finding myself constantly asking "Why would you make it like this?"

Why am I punished for being Sonic?
Moving around goes from fun and novel to frustrating and annoying very quickly. Hitting a hill or random pebble in the environment too fast causes you to lose complete control of Sonic as you go into trick mode and can't move. You run over a boost pad that you couldn't see because of the draw-in and it sends you in the opposite direction and LOCKS YOU INTO A 2D SECTION THAT YOU CAN'T ESCAPE, forcing you to do a series of platforming that winds up placing you halfway across the map from where you were trying to go.

Why such a strong emphasis on combat?
For some reason there's a skill tree that I maxed out in the 2nd map and for the rest of the game the skill points were completely worthless, so I had no incentive to do extra platforming challenges or explore. The skill tree also contains hardly any movement skills and is essentially combat abilities. I do not care about combat in Sonic. This isn't why I play these games. When I get to a new island and I have to defeat world bosses to play the platforming stages I lose all desire to play the game. Certain enemies completely steal your camera control, even when you're running full speed away from them. Every single time it just caused me to run off a cliff and force me to retrace my steps to get back to where I was.

Why are there stat points?
I understand increasing health and attack. Easy upgrades that you can place in the map to incentivize exploration. And I was fine with these. The speed stat also makes sense, but why can you only increase it one level at a time? With a max level of 99, I was mashing A for a FULL TWENTY MINUTES last night, leveling my speed from 20 to 90. The health and power all upgrade at once, you turn in your heart and seeds once and you get levels for however many you had. Why not do the same for speed? And why even include the max ring stat? You get such a massive speed boost when you're at max rings, so why would I actively choose to carry more than 400? If I can carry 800 rings that just means I have to farm rings for twice as long to get my speed boost back. It's not only pointless, it's actively a DETRIMENT to players to level it up!

Why is there even a story?
I'm not expecting Citizen Kane from a Sonic game, but I had absolutely no clue what was happening at any point in the game. I don't need much. Forces was great, I knew why I was going to the stages I was going to, the writing was corny and funny and perfectly fit a Sonic game. With Frontiers, I felt like there was some sort of media tie-in that I missed, a comic series or youtube series explaining ANYTHING, and the game just expects that you already know it all! Like, they are saying things like "You know what the Koco are" and I'm sitting there going "no the fuck I don't lmao" I was actively watching and paying attention but at a point I broke and just alt tabbed and passively paid attention. I gave up. I don't care. Why am I supposed to feel something for Sage when she said 10 sentences and you don't even learn her name until the last 2 hours.

I don't know. If this was any other developer I would say that the sequel is probably going to kick ass. They could improve on the mountain of grievances I had and make the core concept really shine. But this is Sonic Team. They've been making the same mistakes for decades. I can only hope the next Sonic is back to stage based gameplay and the open-world aspect is dropped. But with the praise and sales this got, I'm not holding my breath.

This game is an achievement that the rest of the industry will need at least an entire generation to catch up to. The boldness in its storytelling combined with the pinnacle of acting in a video game is something to behold. This is probably my favorite game to talk about because of its complexities. Not to mention my favorite ending to a game. If I had to pick one, this is the game that changed how I think about interactive media.

A technical mess, uninspired and an unnecessary reboot (low-key miss the old characters and the ridiculousness of the fourth entry), but is it bad? I don't think so. It's actually good fun! The humour just about lands, especially in a series of LARP-ing quests which were brilliant. A huge amount of content over a decently-sized map ranging from deserted canyons to sprawling malls. Plenty of collectibles, plenty of action, plenty of destruction. It's a Saints Row game, probably not the one people wanted but there you go!

This is is so godamm beoutiful and i dont even like realistic games. Also this is the first game where the characters talk like real people

In lieu of a review, I will simply say this: a late level in Pushmo is, exactly, the little Mario sprite from 1985. There are some gizmos added about, yes, but nothing about the layout is altered, and an entire puzzle was plucked from it! What kind of wonderful brain must you have to look at old Nintendo pixel art verbatim and see a layout for a multi-layered 3-dimensional puzzle? To reveal something hidden in plain sight for decades?

Even if it's just from concept alone this is a special achievement in design.

What a truly incredible experience from start to finish! My mind was just so blown by everything. The story was great and had several unexpected twists, the gameplay was so smooth and so satisfying, and I loved each and every character, too. Probably the best game I have ever played. Wow. Just, WOW! 10/10 for me without a doubt.

I'm cool with y'all leaving .5 star reviews because it immediately identifies which of you are some baby back broke bitches who are crying about a game you had no intention of buying in the first place. Nobody is forcing you to buy it. You're not some valiant soldier bravely laying down your life to defy Sony. You're just a chud feigning for internet points. If you simply think the price is too much thats fine, just don't buy it or wait for a sale, like an adult.

As far as an actual review for the game - this is a pretty excellent remake and anyone saying it's a simple "Graphical uprez" is being disingenuous or willfully ignorant. Nearly every model/asset has been completely remade and the revamped facial animations are a game changer. Scenes that I've seen countless times before are now able to carry even more weight, thanks to the industry leading animations. The nuances and subtle details conveyed in these performances are staggering, and quite literally something you will not find in any other video game except for TLOU2.

Same goes for the new lighting, as Naughty Dog continues to prove that they also have the best lighting artists in the business. Lighting is such a weird topic to discuss though, because the majority of debate with gamers usually comes down - vibrant colors = good lighting. Or they just throw buzzwords around and talk in circles. Like people who say the 2013 version had better lighting because it "...makes the world dead but also alive..." (Real quote) So I'll just say my stance on the lighting is that TLOU Part 1 and 2 are eons ahead of every other game and I refuse to argue about lighting with morons who have never lit a film set, or a game scene.

Now for the whole "iTs ThE SaMe GaMePlAy" folks out there... no. You are, objectively wrong. AI has seen a massive overhaul from the original, and no amount of out of context twitter clips with accessibility mode maxed out will take away from the fact that on the harder difficulties, both this game and part 2 have some of the most advanced enemy AI in gaming. The partner AI has also been greatly improved and there were several instances where I noticed they were far more active in trying to hide/avoid detection than they used to be. Those changes ARE a substantial upgrade to the game, and I promise you if you go back to the OG it will not feel the same. The gameplay animations have also been beefed up, with some new execution/death animations, updated bow handling, and far more reactive glass, debris and other destructible objects. Stalkers also function like they did in part 2 which is HUGE because I always thought the OG stalkers were really weirdly designed and didn't make much sense.

Now, does the game have a dodge or dedicated jump? No. Does Joel need those? Also no. This game was designed around neither of those things being there and I like the fact that it feels a bit different from part 2. Joel is not the same as Ellie, so they should control differently (this man is in his 50s btw) and I found myself playing Part 1 SIGNIFICANTLY different to how I approach Part 2, which I think, is pretty cool. I played on survivor, and far more bricks, bottles and fists were thrown than I think I did in all of part 2. And these combat/stealth scenarios are still excellent and intense, and I sincerely hope anybody calling them outdated has never enjoyed a game made by Ubisoft.

Now thats' not to say everything has aged as well as the combat scenarios, because the puzzles are definitely not as good as the ones in part 2. But they take like 2 seconds to complete so its not like it really slows anything down. I did also notice a few minor bugs and graphical mistakes like LODS popping too early, but they aren't major and shouldn't be hard to fix.

In the end, Part 1 is easily the best way to experience the game. If you haven't played it before, its certainly worth the $70, and if you have played it before, that's up to you to decide its worth. For me, it was worth every penny, and the storytelling and combat still hold up as some of the best in gaming.

The Last of Us as a franchise is in a bit of a weird spot now, as it's getting a lot of content, but its also super trendy to shit talk it online. It is a bit unfortunate that the best in the business have to deal with incessant screeching from people who called TLOU2 woke for "Making Ellie gay", but I suppose it just is what it is. When you're the best, those behind just wanna see you fail. I'll just be here enjoying this banger lookin like Robert Pattinson in the meantime - [https://i.kym-cdn.com/photos/images/original/002/059/024/d2c.png]