I'm going to start this review off by saying there will be spoilers because as a collector of trophies on Playstation I played this around the time it came out and also platinumed the game. I think what spurned this was former director John Garvin's twitter rant about the critical reception of the game which I'll state my opinion here:

"1. it had tech issues like bugs, streaming and frame rate;
2. it had reviewers who couldn’t be bothered to actually play the game
3. And three, it had woke reviewers who couldn’t handle a gruff white biker looking at his date’s ass"

Number one was absolutely correct, there were some bugs and glitches in game, but with that in mind it never really bothered me necessarily. If anything it led to some funny moments, like shooting me into the air after riding my bike. Some were annoying like this dialogue repeating on one of the missions:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=B3arCu-hKRQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r

Now glitches in mind, yeah I'm sure that did lead to an iffy reception but that can be fixed.

Number Two's point was that reviewers didn't play the game, but truth be told you don't have to play the game all the way through or even for that long before you start to discover the game's problems.

Number three implies that people don't like the main character because he looks at his wife's ass. As a heterosexual myself I can confirm that absolutely no one fucking cares. If anything I wish Deacon would shut the fuck up every now and then but I mean I don't hate him for it. Wherever this came from your blowing smoke guy. Now I'm gonna tell you why from my personal experience this game is a mixed reception.

I'm going to start off with gameplay wise. The gameplay isn't bad, from what I remember you ride your motorcycle around, rescue survivors, take over outposts from either "Freakers" (this games version of zombies), etc. So I'll start by saying this, it's not an awful game loop, it's adequate enough and I can say it plays fine. But it's not something that I haven't seen before, and that's ok because that's every game now so whatever. But it's basically done everything almost every other game has done, which I feel is also the design philosophy that leaks into the story as well. Like you can tell playing the game that it takes A LOT of influence from Sons of Anarchy, The Walking Dead, The Last of Us, the zombies from World War Z ESPECIALLY because they basically behave exactly the same which I will say is one thing this game gets right, the hordes are terrifying but besides that for right now I'm gonna get to spoilers so feel free to ignore this part.

My fundamental issue with this game, unoriginality aside is how that unoriginality affects the story. There's this whole build up of how you're trying to go find your wife and you don't know if she's dead or not, and to me this could lead to the at least somewhat unique lesson of "letting go", finding something new. Hell I remember this one mission in the second act where Deacon and his best friend Boozer start beating the shit out of each other because of Deacon's obsession with finding his wife and his inability to let go. And I thought that was at moment that I thought was going to go somewhere. But if I remember correctly the very next mission Deacon calls up his buddy and says "Yo I forgot my wife had top secret clearance and that her lab was down here and I think I'm gonna go find her" and Boozer's all like "You fuckin go champ I believe in you" and it's just a further kick in the crotch of something that I felt could've been interesting only to throw out the "Move on from your trauma" thing into "Oh your wife is miraculously alive and there's a whole third of the game to go". After the second act story wise I'll even admit I kind of clocked out story wise because I felt like it was a complete tonal shift, they had something and they fucked it up. So they just kind of put together this story that I felt was surgically removed from other media and put onto this one carcass and brought back to life as a zombie with a different look. I mean the end of the game itself isn't bad, it's a happy one I suppose with a sort of hint towards a sequel which honestly I still don't mind if it was made. Bend is a smaller studio that I totally believe punched up on their weight (and their games have been mixed results tbh) but I believe with enough dedication and the right moves a sequel to this could be the AAA game that they were looking to make. But as a game itself it's mixed. So far it has:

-Cookie Cutter story with random elements and bungled plot devices
-Gameplay that's satisfying, though not original
-Main character is a dude who constantly talks and never shuts up, which is ok sometimes and other times I wish he'd stop

Other things I wanna throw out there are realistically refilling the gas every five seconds is annoying and that I think there was this weird love triangle between this one chick Rikki, Deacon and her lover who is a woman? Which I'm not sure if I'm right but I felt like that was kind of odd and also dropped real quick when "oh his wife is alive". Also the post credits stinger or what have you has this "Oh the government agents you've been talking to? Sentient freakers who have powers" and that would make for a real interesting sequel. The hordes are terrifying and the studio pulled that off great. The stealth missions with said government agents can blow a fat one too. I mean other than that, and the bugs and also the fact that the antagonists are one note (Skizzo especially reminds me of OG Loc and frankly felt like he would've been better off as a one shot side quest where he gets eaten or something).

Overall, I don't hate this game, I find it average and middle ground which is what most reviewers felt. In a rebuttal to John Garvin, Bend Studio came out and defended their teams work and even the co-director, Jeff Ross, said that they were punching above their weight with a small team.

https://twitter.com/JakeRocket/status/1601246603675041793

And you can tell that it needed more time, more manpower. But even with the mixed review, they did decently with what they had. I've played other Bend Studio games, like Resistance: Retribution which was decent and I want to play through Siphon Filter and soon next year I'm gonna platinum Uncharted: Golden Abyss. Hell I'm even disappointed in a sense (But not surprised) that Sony nixed Days Gone 2 and even more sad that they nixed the idea for an open world Resistance game (though again not surprised). From the studio that made Bubsy 3D, and with such a small team they did ok with what they had and I hope they continue to improve on their work.

I'm glad that even with the critical reception it got that it was successful. I'm happy to see a fanbase love the game for what it is even if I didn't. And I'm glad it got a PC Port, and I'm really thankful that other Playstation Exclusives are getting a PC Port. Now if they could only port the older generation Playstation Exclusives that would be nice too (looking at Bloodborne being my MVP of course).

So after a while of playing through the Resistance series, I decided that I would go through the Killzone series (and continue my edgy mid 2000s shooter thing with maybe Gears of War sometime after I beat this series) and since I beat Killzone 2 recently I figured why not review the first game in the Killzone series. But first I want to say, I got this version from the Killzone Collection on PS3, which is on the same disc as Killzone 2, and platinumed it in half a month? If you want a tip for platinuming this game somewhat easily, since you have to play it on the hardest difficulty, the PS2 cheats still work so use the Powerful Weapons cheat and you can kill most things in one shot.

https://www.ign.com/wikis/killzone/PS2_Cheats

Now I'll start with this, Killzone was created by Guerilla Games straight after Shellshock: 'Nam 67 and since then it's only stuck to two series under Sony Interactive: Killzone and Horizon. You can kind of tell that this is one of Guerilla's first BIG games because fucking Jesus Christ it's janky. On the upside it has an interesting sort of world and I enjoy the idea of paralleling actual history into the lore of the world in game (like I believe in Level 6 there's actually a D-Day reference where you and other ISA fight against Helghast landing on a beach and storming it). On the other hand, there are times where it just feels...iffy gameplay wise. What do these two points have in common? For one interesting thing, another thing kinda comes in and smacks you in the head. It has a lot of interesting things, like the world is interesting, graphically it's somewhat solid (though that grey filter goddamn), and I like how they split the campaign into four characters (though only two play somewhat differently).

The story basically is this: there's a traitor in the ISA who sold out your planet to the facist Helghast faction, and what you have to do is follow Jan Templar, Shadow Marshall Luger, Heavy Weapons guy Rico, and undercover operative Hakha to do...something? I don't remember a lot but that's the main gist.

Now playing as Templar and Hakha are the same fundamentally, except Templar is an ISA commando shooter guy and Hakha is a Helghast undercover agent commando shooter guy. The second most interesting of the bunch is Rico, the heavy shooter guy who has a big ass gun you can use to mow down people. The most interesting person you can play as is Luger, who is more stealth based, can crawl into certain spaces, etc. Not that it totally matters because it all boils down to shooting people that are in your way, it's just with each campaign you just have certain alterations and paths (ex. Two campaigns you have to go one way to avoid lasers, another campaign there are no lasers), and each campaign starts where they start in the story (ex. Templar is the very beginning, Luger starts from Chapter 3 I believe, Rico on Chapter 4 and Hakha on Chapter 5). The main difference between them at the end is how they respond to the the hammy traitor general's speech (Hakha's being my favorite because it's kind of a comparison on the fact they're both traitors to their side).

Graphically, Guerilla's always been kind of a powerhouse in that, that's their strength. Great graphics, gameplay hit or miss, and the world is hit or miss. Like this game looks fine for 2004 (though the comparisons to Halo are sorely mistaken, this isn't even trying to reach Halo's thing like Haze or Resistance: Fall of Man sort of did), other than the grey filter of which I got tired of. And overtime they've gotten better, I mean look at Killzone 1 compared to Killzone 2 (which looks fuckin good, minus the grey filter) and then compare that to Horizon which is Fucking gorgeous. Though bringing in my last super positive point is that it has an interesting world and lore, even if the story is simple and shoulder shrug worthy.

The gun combat is the basic stuff, you shoot people, they go BAHHHHHH and they fall to the ground in comic ragdoll form. Though when I played it, I remember it feeling kinda iffy, like it lacked a punch with most weapons and sometimes even a bit spongey and the bullet spread is all over the place. Also the alternate fire modes are always nice, can't usually complain about those. Off the top of my head at this moment writing this review, that's all I really remember off the top of my head?

Point being it's a rough game, you can tell Guerilla was just kind of starting out making these games. Honestly, just please keep this in mind going through with this game. If you're curious about it go for it, though do yourself a favor: Please don't compare this to Halo. It's not Halo, it never was. Just think of it as a first person shooter, a somewhat generic feeling one but still. And what I will say is that if you're not feeling it, that's fine. Killzone 2 is also on PS3 and that might be better for you to start in (and for god's sake unless your a masochist, ignore Liberation).

I don't really know how to start this off really, but I guess if I were to start it off I would do it by just being matter of fact. I disliked this game very much, I wanted to like it a lot but it ended up disappointing me.

Killzone: Liberation is a sequel of sorts to the story of the original Killzone on the Playstation Portable. You play as Jan Templar two months after the events of the first game, and as far as I'm aware the plot has to do with Jan trying to rescue hostages from Helghast general Metrac (and his right hand man Cobar) while also trying to figure out who the traitor is within ISA ranks (again) who is helping out the Helghast with their invasion on Vekta. Rico and Luger from the original Killzone return to help out, but other than that I don't remember too much because one, the game was only released with 4/5ths of the plot.

That's right, only four fifths of the game is available to the normal user, because the final chapter was released as free DLC on the game's website which you could download on your PSP. I'm unsure what happened with that but I believe it's lost now? Regardless, even though it's a shame that it's lost, as I wish most if not all lost media (game and otherwise) should be found; the game's gameplay to me was frustrating enough to where when I did the fourth chapter where I killed General Metrac I just said thank fuck and turned off the game.

See the gameplay is a top down game (which is ok) shooter, which even though it controls kind of funky at first you do get used to it and the combat feels ok...at least for the first chapter or so. My frustrations begin at the beginning of Chapter 2.

Chapter 2 from what I remember they start deploying these little asshole spider bomb things that crawl at you and WILL instantly kill you unless you shoot at them from a distance and kill them as soon as possible, or you get lucky and they blow and you roll away last minute. I think one of my main issues with this is that in game, you don't get too much ammo depending on your weapon and your auto aim can go all over the place (especially aiming grenades holy shit). There's been more than a couple times where I wanted to slam my head on my desk because of deaths where I didn't even feel like I did anything wrong. And the further you go along game wise the more spongey the enemies get; most enemies if not all will take an entire magazine or perhaps even two to get the job done. You also get pretty much one gun and you have to balance between the several different grenades (mostly smoke and regular grenades, most of the others didn't really do much in terms of usefulness and I only used C4 for specific objectives).

Now of course, there are upgrades to carry more grenades and specialty items, problem is in order to do this you need to do the challenge levels apparently outside of the main game, and I'm gonna be honest with you this is fine but most of them are the same repetitive missions and maybe I'm just an awful piece of shit gamer but I'd rather get shot then continue to play more of this game's challenges just to level up, so I brute forced it through the game and of course suffered through it.

I think for me the most egregious part of the game was one of the bosses, Cobar's tank. See you're put into an enclosed area with a giant spider tank shooting missiles everywhere, of which you have limited missile launcher ammo to not only destroy the missile launchers on the tank, but the turret as well (which is fine, it pissed me off but whatever). When it gets to the spider bombs however? Suck my dick, my balls, the sweat underneath my balls, eat my shit, go fuck yourself. That's when my patience really started to wear thin, not only because the absurd difficulty spike, but wrestling with the controls and the auto aim sometimes makes it to where you don't even hit the fuckin target, you move like one inch to the left by accident and you miss it entirely with the top down controls. I probably sound like a whiny bitch who sucks at games and maybe I should just be better. Maybe you'd be right, but truth is the gameplay killed all enjoyment of it and by the fourth chapter the only thing I thought was "I just want to beat this game so I can get to the final boss" which I was basically screaming when I died repeatedly at the final boss and had to repeat it again and again from the very beginning. Another thing to segway into are that the checkpoints can be atrocious and there are times where you can lose lots of time and progress (sometimes 10-20 minutes personally figuring in the sponge combat).

I guess wrapping this up before I think of any more details, I really wanted to like this game. A top down Killzone game sounds like it would be great if done well, but of course Guerilla's track record before Killzone 2 was honestly a bit spotty and I believe that this was the ultimate lead up to this spottiness. Of course the environments look great, the voice actors are back, you can tell that this is a continuation of Killzone 1 with lots of similar locations (like the dreaded swamps), music, etc.

Another positive thing is that the opening cutscene looks fucking great, and even though I dislike this game I hope one day Sony decides to remaster this game, add the 5th chapter and along with the rest of the Killzone games put it on PC or bring it to the newer generations even if it's for free underneath that PS Plus stuff if they're afraid they won't cover the costs of a remaster. I'll say this, I bought this game and transferred it to my PS Vita when the whole "Shutting down the Playstation 3 Store" thing was going on, so it looked REALLY good on my handheld console. I'm not sure how it would look on emulator, and it looks like ass watching it on youtube but it looks good overall. That being said, I dislike this game and I don't really wish to ever play it again and that's a shame.

EDIT: To those who like this game, there's a PS4/5 digital re-release now

https://store.playstation.com/en-us/product/UP9000-CUSA37874_00-UCUS986460000000

So you could grab it and download if you really want. I don't think it comes with the DLC, and maybe one day I'll give it a try again (against better judgement) just for the platinum lol.

So I'm gonna be honest, this game was a very mixed bag for me. I originally heard about this game through a news article about it and I love true crime shit so I was like, oh boy maybe this whole Zodiac game thing will be interesting; maybe it'll have some sort of fictional take on the Zodiac killer or maybe it'll be a sort of theory based clue solving like Sherlock Holmes vs. Jack the Ripper did with who they thought was Jack the Ripper. I'm going to go in based on the plot here first and discuss my feelings on that before going onto the game play.

Spoilers: You play as Robert Hartnell, a reporter whose obsession with the Zodiac Killer led to a breakup with his girlfriend Monica and now you're in some sort of strange dream therapy where you and your therapist try to figure out who it is to clear your obsession, and it sort of is based on that? Like they have this whole lead up thing where you go through certain crime scenes in your dreams like Lake Barryessa and reconstruct the scene based on what happens, and through certain dialogue choices with your therapist, subtle clues in your home environment and not so subtle clues with the weird mannequins in your attic where you reconstruct them based on the victims and choose whether or not you want to stab them or help them move on as well as helping yourself. See because that stuff, you can kind of tell that there's this whole build up to "Either you or your father was the Zodiac Killer" thing and truth is we can kinda see that from miles away. With this weird plot and the spotty game play I thought I was gonna give it a negative review but some of the dialogue in the last ten or so minutes, made me feel like I realized (unless I'm wrong) that this is moreso a character study based on trauma and helping your character sort out his own childhood s h i t. Now whether or not you're the Zodiac Killer or your dad is based on the flashbacks is unclear I believe unless you get a bad ending but I got the good ending where I move on from my trauma and send my ex-girlfriend a letter of reconciliation. Before then I was just confused with what the game was doing and where it was going, and truth be told the game isn't the best at delivering this stuff, nor is this some Game of the Year hidden genius thing. But as mixed as the story was, and even though I wished some plot beats were delivered earlier/better (or maybe I'm just an idiot who knows), I ended up coming out of it with a somewhat positive feeling on it.

The gameplay however is...definitely not the best. The whole gameplay is this, you wake up in your house, pick stuff up and click on things, go to the attic maybe and do some more of that, go to your therapist, pick some dialogue choices which are vague at best then go into a dream where you find clues, avoid the Zodiac Killer, piece them together and then find the cipher at the end to rinse and repeat these repeatedly. It's not the worst loop but it can be kind of predictable even though the game is on the shorter side. And playing on the Zodiac Killer setting (where there's a killer who can chase you, there is an option to turn off the killer chase however), the killer himself is kind of a joke? You see this goofy f u c k walking around or doing a light jog, you go out of your way to hid behind small objects and the detection is kind of spotty? Like there were times where I hid in certain spots and he saw me, then I could hide behind a small bush literally right next to the guy (and keep in mind if he were to look to the right then he could see you entirely). You're also run like your 80, you have arthritis and you have a smoking problem. Though truth be told, not that I'm necessarily complaining, there's no real setback to dying by the Zodiac's hands; and if there was I'd be kind of annoyed in a sense because I don't mind random predators (I love Alien Isolation) but I can't really even hear the guy and again you run like you're a smoker so it's kind of an iffy chase thing, and the whole map design to me doesn't help because you can't make certain maneuvers in order to hide or to even lose the guy sometimes.

If I were to give an overall tl;dr feeling on the game it would be this. Gameplay is hit or miss but mostly miss, and the story his hit or miss right in the middle. It's an interesting game, and I find unsolved crimes to be fascinating to me, but truth is it's not the best game out there. If you have a small afternoon to kill time and play a game get it on sale, I got it for 1.29. Gonna recommend cause since it was on sale it's not the worst game, it has interesting ideas even if it bungles some of them.

From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/

First thing I will say point blank is that gameplay and graphically it feels WAY better than the first Killzone did and I think that's great. It took me a bit of time to get used to it and at first I'll be honest I wasn't feeling it but then it actually started to click. This game is a marginal improvement over the other two in most aspects and for that I totally and completely get why people LOVE this game and herald it as the best in the franchise (or at least out of the ones I played so far, though that's not saying much persay), and that's the E3 2005 trailer aside which from what I understand overhyped the game a bit even if it didn't look like actual gameplay anyways.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EnZJSse_9Pw&ab_channel=SnazzyAI (shoutout to Snazzy for the 4K upgrade goddamn).

However, it does have some issues, but first I wanna go out of my way to give some positives here.

I'll start with graphics because that's the easiest thing to talk about with this game. Guerilla knows their shit with how to make their games look phenomenal, which truth be told they only got better with over time and truth be told to me it looked like a late lifespan PS3 game. I can't really say much else about this off the top of my head other than I also again don't care much for the grey mid to late 2000s grey filter BUT it does kind of fit the atmosphere of a planet run by an oppressive facist regime so I guess I'm cool with it. I can't say anything else graphics wise without repeating myself so yeah it looks great.

Gameplay wise it's good too! Weapons feel weighty but not really sluggish, you can actually aim down sights which is nice unlike the previous game, like for the most part everything about the gunplay was improved immensely, and that most of them feel powerful. If I were to critique something about any of the guns is that I don't particularly care about the flamethrower really, it doesn't necessarily feel right, if anything it feels like I'm kind of missing my target but again I think it has to do with the guns being more weighty and I didn't use it much anyways so I wasn't bothered. One thing I didn't like is that they put in Sixaxis mandatory stuff for the game (in order to turn wheels mostly, place bombs and to help aim your sniper rifle).

Again I don't really have too much to say at this moment, as doing so would just make me repeat myself over and over again. To sum up, graphics and gameplay is good. Soundtrack is also good, though nothing I would go home and put on the stereo or something like it helps serve it's purpose well.

Now my main critique is the story/characters/and dialogue of which there's A LOT more I can say. Going based off memory after thinking about it a bit, the story starts off after Killzone and Killzone: Liberation; the ISA are now invading Helghan to capture Scholar Visari, the leader of the Helghast. The invasion is led by Jan Templar from the last two games, who commissions your squad (led by Rico from the last two games) to help out with the invasion. You play some dude named Sev, and along with two other generic military dudes go through the motions of shooting Helghast and blowing stuff up. Along the way you run into the Helghast counterpart to Templar, Colonel Radec. Some electric arc things destroy the first convoy, leading to the discovery that these things were made from a refinery outside of the city. You go there, your people get kidnapped, you and Rico go in, people get shot and die. Then afterwards, they attack the main ISA sky convoy where Templar is, Templar gets shot trying to protect nuclear launch codes before sacrificing his ships to crash into the electric whatever the fuck to destroy the ultimate electric weapon thing before Visari decides to go to DEFCON 1 and just nuke his own city while hanging out at the palace like a crazy bastard. You and your squad squabble amongst each other, fight your way to the palace, before fighting and kill Radec in an extended fight involving multiple waves of goons and a final boss who's a definite asshole with his cloak. He dies, you go to arrest Visari, he goes on a giant dictator rant before Rico guns him down and that's where the story ends. For me it's a bit of a mixed bag because whereas I enjoy the pacing, it being short and sweet at 10-11 Levels; the characters are....less interesting.

I'll say from the first couple of missions the dialogue is....just fuckin wow. I don't know how to put it but these guys are stereotypical military douchebags, like I don't know how to describe it so I'm gonna put a clip down that I got from a playthrough cause I didn't have a recording device on hand.

https://www.youtube.com/clip/UgkxtYDiqquTCCVFNjA3b6-uz78Ff9D7T2gD

Now keep in mind, this is the funniest banter I encountered. I don't remember most of the other quotes but truth is I don't really need to because most of it is generic dude bro bullshit. Your playable protagonist isn't interesting but he's notable with the fact that I don't hear him talk much (or I don't remember hearing him talk much so that's a plus) and neither are the other two Randoms whose name I don't recognize. The real person to pay attention to is Rico to be honest, at least how they dealt with him. Now, personally I'll start with I don't think it's too out of character for him to be this much of a loose cannon, in fact the first half to 3/4s of the game I didn't notice too much that was out of character so whatever. The real tension comes within the last three missions, where he gets inpatient, gets one of your squad buddies killed, and then gets hyper aggressive for the remainder of the game and basically goes against orders by killing Visari instead of taking him alive for trial, leading to him being martyred and the Helghast going ballistic. Do I think that's stupid? Yeah. I'm kind of torn though whether not it feels believable or if the dude is just kind of a trope and this whole thing was pulled out of his ass but to be honest I'm leaning towards the former with the whole "Fuck Helghans" aspect from the first game and the death of his buddy Templar. Templar is kind of one note, not interesting, and without Luger there to serve as a foil (no mention of her in the game) and no Hakha to serve as a foil for Rico (no mention of him either), it kinda falls flat in that regard. That leads to the final two characters to mention:

Colonel Radec, who for the most part is one of the more memorable characters in this game just due to his design alone, I don't personally think he was as cool as everyone tried to make him sound, I guess I can see why they made him the series mascot but for the most part he served his purpose as sociopath general who loves murder and serves his master obediently. Visari on the other hand, Jesus H they really leveled up the ham on this fucker cause he goes ALL IN on the crazy dictator speech that he's actually to me the most compelling character in the game even with the limited screen time he has.

Now with that I guess I should address one last thing: the multiplayer. They shut down the servers in 2018 I believe but thanks to a game preservation group PSOne, the unranked multiplayer servers are back online for those who want to take a chance and play again. So far I've played twice, both saturdays over two weeks and whereas I didn't stay for long I had a good time with it. Just keep in mind if you're gonna trophy hunt for the game, you can't get the trophies for the multiplayer wise as of 2022 still so no platinum on my end. However, one day I hope to go through and mop up the remaining single player stuff with the off chance that maybe they'll bring back trophy support online (though I highly doubt it).

And finally again, obligatory rant at the end of every playstation exclusive review (or game stuck on consoles). I know it's not gonna get you millions of dollars but Sony please port your old games to PC, keep history alive. And if they don't, luckily ya'll can just get the PS3 emulators up and running I know but I'd like to see these games remastered and ported some day along with all the other franchises stuck on old systems.

I guess if I were to tl;dr this I'll say this: Gameplay/Sound Design/Graphics good, Story isn't the most memorable but is paced well and didn't feel like a slog, and characters were one note, boring and cliched on the protags side with the Helghans being the more interesting part. Multiplayer is back online, just look up PSOne.

Gonna start off by saying this game isn't perfect; gonna start with the bad and then move onto the good. I'll start the bad off with this; I have no clue what's going on in the story, truth be told it wasn't really memorable to begin with and I suppose most Build Engine shooters don't really have these giant narratives, it mostly just ends up being "Kill s h i t, here's an excuse" which is cool but if you're going in expecting a plot, good luck.

Next up is the AI, specifically for your teammates. Your teammates are dumber than a sack of d i c k s tbh, sometimes just for comedic effect. The amount of times these dumb a s s holes decide to jump off a cliff or a tall building is hilarious, and luckily there's no mission failed for it since they always reappear later on anyways. And controlling them is...I don't really notice a difference between the "Aggressive" and "Defensive" options, they just kinda wing it which is strange because I kinda take this to be a Tactical FPS game. As for enemy AI specifically, I don't really have any complaints except with the Drones in Dubai, those I hope get curb stomped because they're annoying as hell and It was hard for me to even spot them sometimes.

As for weapons, the only complaint I have is that the Shotgun for some reason every now and then wouldn't work. No clue as to why tbh.

And finally, I'll finish the bad and start with the good here. The level design sometimes is a bit obtuse, mostly in Dubai where it's massive (unlike my p e n i s) compared to other games in the build engine. Like it's amazing how impressive in scale this level is and how cool the other levels are. That being said, I'll just admit that I suck at navigation and at least for Dubai I just ended up noclipping to the end after having no clue as to what I was doing. I also wasn't a fan of the stealth section where you sneak out of your cell but eh I guess.

Weapons feel great for the most part, the sound design for them is immaculate, honestly can't complain about the rest of them for the most part. It feels good to shoot and when you pull off taking out a room full of generic military goons you feel like you actually know what you're doing. And truth is I feel like that's where the strength lies, and it carries the game on it's back.

I also want to point this out, the game is free. You can literally just pick it up and play and if you don't like it you don't ever have to feel like you wasted any money, it's great. So with it being free, I don't really feel like I have much in the way to nitpick it because I didn't invest much of anything other than hard drive space to play it. It's also short, I clocked in at 4.5 hours so honestly I can't really complain about the brief length of time either cause I prefer smaller games to games that outstay they're welcome.

Pros:
Impressive level design
Sound design is great
Shooting feels very rewarding
It's free
Can choose between wanting to be more "Action heroey" or "Tactical shooter"
Short run time

Cons:
Characters and plot not memorable but that's hit or miss with these games anyways
Level design, while impressive, can be confusing (looking at you Dubai)
Friendly AI sucks
The drones can eat my s h i t (looking at you AGAIN Dubai)

Overall this is all I can think of for this game, it's good and I enjoy it. An 80 Percent rating is pretty accurate in my opinion but again it's also free so if you're a fan of Build Engine shooters I don't see why you wouldn't pick up this game. Just be aware that it should be polished up a bit.

From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/

First thing: Expect Some Spoilers

Second Thing: I'll say is this, in the 8 or so hours I've played with this game (mainly just doing main/side quests with a few other things here and there) is that it's a fun time. I enjoy it, It knows that it's basically just Grand Theft Auto 2 but with horses and ♥♥♥♥ and therefore it doesn't take itself too seriously with it's referential humor (for example the stereotypical Monty Python black knight is there of course), it's take on goofy concepts (like flinging "round earthers" into the sky via trebuchet to see the shape of the Earth), and it's general throwback vibe gameplay wise. It knows what it is and is enjoyable for those who like games like that.

The worst part about this game is just general jankiness here and there, for example once or twice I would have to escape somewhere with an NPC and they would just keep walking into the back of my horse instead of actually getting on and then I would be busted. Other times I would ride a wagon and with the little stamina they give those, albeit realistic, the guards will always ride on you and damage your shit immediately. Whereas I understand that's called challenge, there would be times where I would just keep riding in circles in order for wanted posters to respawn so I could take them down (though to be fair I haven't tried bringing them to Pimp A Horse though when I tried bringing a tank through it I was told I was poor even though I had thousands of dollars worth of gold so it could just be I'm an idiot). Besides little shit like that, and a main quest shooting targets while blindfolded I had a lot of fun over these few days and if you can handle some weird jank here and there I honestly would recommend it as it's fun as hell. Also for the tank I'd say get the Da Vinci DLC too that was fun. Also hiring bards to ride on my horse while I do stuff I guess was a nice funny take on the radio station aspect of other open world crime games.

Pros:
It has some funny humor
Soundtrack slaps harder than dad does
Fun gameplay

Cons:
Some jank here and there

I'm sure there's some stuff I forgot to mention but honestly give this game a shot, especially if it's on sale.

From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/

Terminator: Resistance is a first person shooter/semi-open world apocalypse simulator made by Teyon, whose only game that I know of was the awful rail shooter Rambo: The Video Game. FIlled with frustrating game design, the fact that this game exists felt like an impossibility, a strange miracle akin to Jesus being shot out of the poop cannon. Alas, it was a success, a pretty damn good one as well and reading the mixed to unfavorable reviews confused the hell out of me and made me question what kind of stuff the reviewers were smoking cause I actually really liked this title. I don’t really know how I knew about this title, but my guess is a buddy of mine wishlisted it, and then I saw it and was like “Awww hell yeah” and gave it a wishlist. For the review, I’m definitely going to give a shoutout to my buddy Steve, aka SuperPunchGod for buying me this game a couple of years ago for christmas. I originally played the game in 2021, but decided to give it another spin after the release of the Annihilation Line DLC that came out.

The plot starts out with Jacob Rivers as a member of the resistance, whose entire division was wiped out by Skynet and their Annihilation Line in 2028. He’s rescued by a mysterious stranger, and Rivers is able to escape with a group of survivors that consist of future love interest Jennifer and her little brother Patrick. However, through various trips in trying to get to safety it’s learned that his division was wiped out by an Infiltrator, a new unit developed by Skynet that seemingly NO ONE wants to believe is actually a real thing that could be used. I don’t remember too much from the plot, mostly because there’s a lot of predictability in the tropes it uses, what I do remember is that you eventually run into Resistance leaders Jessica Baron (another love interest whose not so great) and the legendary John Connor, whom you work for to find a scientist who was exiled after a mishap. After a bunker was wiped out along with the stranger who saved Jacob, Connor informs Jacob that the stranger was actually Jacob from the future sent to protect him from the Infiltrator, who comes from a future with a potential resistance victory. Eventually Connor and Rivers team up to attack the main core of Skynet and succeed in knocking them back a few notches; however this results in Skynet being able to send back Infiltrators to cause the events of T1, T2: Judgment Day and the events of this game. Endings result from choices made in game, such as romance options as well as the final choice: Do you want to get sent to the past to continue the loop or stay with Jennifer and Patrick to look forward to a brighter future? Again, this isn’t the full recap cause I had to jog my memory hardcore so shoutout to Wikipedia, but what I can say is that the plot is okay and the characters are decent for the most part. The standouts are the legacy characters and while the rest of it is sort of forgettable, the parts where they throwback to the old movies really elevate the experience to me. Other than that, the only thing I can say is that the hospital mission in the beginning is a pretty scary experience and also helps elevate the game’s standing.

The gameplay is akin to a combination of Far Cry (past 3) and Fallout 4 in terms of combat and its sort of RPG system. You level up a skill tree that consists of inventory space, explosive skills, crafting skills, basically everything that an open world game of its type would have. The guns are cool as hell, and vary from laser rifles and miniguns; to pistols, uzis and shotguns (which aren’t useful against the Terminators themselves). You can loot downed robots as well as the environments for parts so you can help craft all of these tools that’ll help. Some things that are useful are the Termination Knives, which help you stealth kill terminators in a nearby vicinity as long as they’re not looking in your direction. What I can at least say however, is that I guess if I were to look past my rose tinted glasses I can see why some people would give this aspect mixed reviews. The gameplay feels like a sort of cacophony of different systems from different games that have been done better there but for the most part it’s okay. The lockpicking from the Bethesda Fallout games are here (which I’ll say if it isn’t broken then don’t fix it) as well as a hacking game that consists of you playing Frogger with varying levels of difficulty depending on your skill tree. What I can say though is that with all of these, it works well enough that most people can play it just fine. The gameplay is more akin to something to be played in a casual way, and not some in depth game where you have to learn the systems and how to exploit it. The game also has a sort of semi-RPG system with dialogue choices, two romance options (one which is so painfully obvious to avoid it’s not even funny) and multiple endings. In this regard, the only problem that I have from this aspect was that a late game side quest confused me due to wording that felt like one outcome was going to happen but another thing instead and it affected my ending.

The art design and atmosphere is something that clearly a lot of love was poured into it. From the environments looking straight out of the prologue from Terminator 1 with the oppressive, gray skies to the futuristic aspect of the Terminator models, everything about this game screams love and perks out the Terminator fan service within me. You’ll find old haunts from the movies like Club Tech Noir, Big Jeff’s Burger, Robert Patrick’s likeness being used for a dead resistance soldier, shot for shot remakes of scenes from the old movies (only the future scenes of course), and even certain weapons like the Uzi make an appearance. All of this makes me cream my pants, and I can’t get enough of it because sometimes it’s okay to be a simp for fan service.

Sound Design is also pretty solid; the weapons sounds are phenomenal and sound either punchy or come straight out of the movies it feels like. Almost everything about the sound design is top notch in this regard, though I’d say that the voice acting could be a tad bit better. Realistically, mostly everyone did a decent job so I can’t really complain about that side of the fence. However, I’d like to say that the voice acting of main character Jacob Rivers (aka Generic White Dude 5) sounds like he’s trying to do an impersonation of a tough guy and just comes off kinda tame and generic. Obviously, with everything you can kind of tell that Teyon didn’t exactly have a huge budget to really 100 percent polish everything in the voice acting department, however even though Jacob is a standout snorefest I never really felt like it took me out of the moment?

Overall my thoughts are that it’s a pretty tight casual budget game with a lot of love for the franchise put into it and it clearly shows. It’s not a classic game by any means, in fact if I were to review it based on a score out of ten then it would be somewhere around a seven. Certain things could’ve been tightened up from certain predictable plot points, certain voice acting bits, stiff character models. But the game has a lot of heart and I can’t really say anything bad about it other than I wish that the Infiltrator Mode was more than just a one hour long mission. I’d say that this game was definitely the start for a sort of redemption arc for the developers, and I’m really excited for that new Robocop: Rogue City game that the developers have been cooking up. It has a really interesting concept and something tells me that it’ll improve even more from the formula that Terminator: Resistance came out with. Time will only tell, but my recommendation is to definitely give this game a try, and I’d also recommend the Annihilation Line DLC that while is a bit more difficult, definitely has more of that fan service to the eighties action franchise we all love.

From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/