gamemast15r
2002
This review contains spoilers
The Thing (2002) is a “Who Goes There Among Us?” simulator/action survival horror game developed by Computer Artworks as a video game sequel to The Thing, a horror movie created by John Carpenter as an adaptation of another book/movie (named The Thing from Another World) in the 1980s that while reviled in it’s time became critically re-evaluated as a masterpiece in recent memory. The origins of this game came about from a game that Computer Artworks created named Evolva, a game (which you can get on Steam, link below) that involved creatures that could evolve and change in many different ways and shapes. This had caught the attention of rights holders Universal Interactive Studios who decided they could possibly create a third person action game with one of their own IP, mainly The Thing. A demo was created and having created a presentation involving re-skinned Evolva characters fighting a Thing at Outpost 31, they were signed on to create the game. Eventually they would go on to release the game, which gave out generally positive reviews, with some criticism marked off in certain areas but would end up selling over 1 million units worldwide.
My experience with The Thing as a game is something that’s been very short. Before playing this game on my Xbox Original, I’d heard about it here and there and had been potentially interested in giving it a shot but I just didn’t really. I had picked up the game somewhere, probably at the local retro game store and had it in my giant Xbox OG backlog for the longest time. I had watched a review by popular Youtubist Grimbeard (review linked below) and had enjoyed that retrospective on the game, but hadn’t really played it until a friend of mine recently elected that I stream it for her as a part of a long list of games. However, I did watch the John Carpenter adaptation of The Thing along with its prequel movie...also named The Thing. I loved my time with the original movie, and while it had a lot of backlash back then I’m genuinely surprised and baffled about how anyone could find that movie to be bad. As for the prequel? Yeah, it had flaws, a lot of it being the CGI (which funny enough was originally practical effects until it was replaced during the editing process) but I still came out of that movie enjoying my time with it and also kind of baffled that people thought that was a bad movie? I don’t know, so far to me personally it was 2 for 2, so I went into this game wondering if it was going to be a 3 for 3.
The game starts out with two guys inside of a cold and abandoned kitchen in one of the facilities before they’re presumably slayed and assimilated by one of the Things. The actual plot starts out however three months after the events of the John Carpenter film. A group of Special Forces (named the Arctic Special Forces here), led by Captain Blake are sent in to investigate two separate outposts: both are from the main movies. Blake and his squad are sent to investigate the remains of U.S. Outpost 31 on the orders of his boss Colonel Whitely while another team is sent to investigate the remains of the nearby Norwegian Camp. Investigating U.S. Outpost 31 is full of fan service which I think is the perfect introduction, and whilst Blake and his team investigates they both introduce themselves and their roles (the medic, the engineer and the extra proficient soldier) as well as find the remains from the previous film (like R.J. Macready’s audio tape, Child’s dead body and the remains of the small UFO created by the Blair-Thing). Whitely orders Blake and his men to plant C4 all over the place and destroy the entire outpost. While Blake’s squad (Beta Team) gets airlifted back to base, Blake decides to go gung-ho against Whitely’s orders and investigate the disappearance of Alpha Squad over at the Norwegian campsite. The results are gruesome, and it’s revealed that the squad has been kind of picked off one by one with barely anyone on site. You’ll see more fan service remains of the Norwegian site from the original Thing movie as well, especially with the giant ice slab where the original Thing came out of. Eventually after exploring the camp site, Blake finds the Alpha squad leader Pierce and after gaining his trust with a version of the famous blood test from the movie, decides to re-establish comms with their boss Whitely though this doesn’t exactly go to plan. With the radio missing, Blake tracks it to a nearby warehouse though he encounters Pierce who believes himself infected. Not wanting to take any chances, Pierce gives himself a .45 Caliber one way ticket to heaven and Blake pushes on into the warehouse.
After saving an engineer and shooting his way through a horde of Things, he chases the mysterious figure with the radio down into the basement. However, he’s revealed to be the Norwegian Radio Operator (who is revealed to be one of the two people from the intro cutscene) and then turns into a giant Thing himself. After a painful boss battle which involves shooting and burning it in an incredibly small room, Blake finally kills the Operator-Thing and takes the radio before going deeper into the warehouse. Underneath Blake finds a massive facility, nicknamed the Pyron Sub-Facility. Established by Gen Inc., a biotechnology corporation whose research includes breeding and researching these “things”. Blake goes deeper into the facility and encounters (along with other survivors) Dr. Shaun Faraday, the head researcher of the team in charge of the research (cameoed by The Thing director John Carpenter). Blake escapes with Faraday, only to encounter Colonel Whitely with a unique group of Black Ops hanging out inside of the warehouse. Blake is shot with a tranquilizer dart and everyone travels to a facility south of the Norwegian outpost. It’s here where Blake learns that SOMEHOW, Blake has a sort of resistance to being infected by the Things. Here is where I’m going to stop and roll my eyes really quickly and comment: I’ve always felt that throughout the original movie and even the prequel that the Things aren’t virus based. They’re predators who pick people off one by one while assimilating them in an attempt to “cull the herd” so to speak. I never felt that it was a virus as much as an organism that functions beyond human comprehension other than painful assimilation, so the idea that Blake is immune to some sort of infection akin to Resident Evil feels a bit uncharacteristic to me. Nonetheless this was 2002 and my opinion means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme so whatever the case. Whitely attempts to have his cohort Faraday test himself with a strain of this “virus' ' named Cloud Virus B4, however Faraday turns him down due “instabilities” not making the Colonel the right subject for testing. This hypothesis is denied however and Faraday gets his statement shot down, literally filled with bullets and the John Carpenter cameo passes on into the afterlife. Turns out, Whitely has terminal cancer and was hoping that this Thing research could perhaps be a cure for this as well as hoping to turn this virus into a sort of biological warfare weapon to perhaps be sold on the black market (because that’s always a good idea).
Blake escapes his prison cell and mows numerous Black Ops soldiers as well as Things down before he learns that Whitely intends to distribute and infect the entire world with the Thing Virus, dampening any motion of mine to perhaps be sold as a black market weapon. Regardless Blake doesn’t like this, and proceeds to make his way to the military hangers to grab nearby C4, proceeding to blow up the cargo planes and halting Whitely’s plans for Thing-induced world domination. Fighting through numerous more facilities and blowing up a Weapons Research Lab underneath the airport hangers, Blake eventually chases his old boss topside where he encounters rigorous snowstorms and even more black ops groups before confronting his old boss at a Dome nearby. Setting Whitely on fire, this does absolutely nothing to him even though Things are allergic to fire because…why not? I don’t know, I guess it’s scary that now a Thing is immune to fire but also it feels kind of weird and again goes against the whole concept of The Thing. Regardless, Whitely gloats about how the plans were only delayed and that once an airlift team picks him up, the world is doomed to global exposure. Blake chases him down even further to the original excavation site where the UFO was originally discovered by the Norweigans. It’s at this point that Whitely finally transforms into a monolithic Thing boss, and Blake spots a helicopter landing nearby with a large machine gun strapped to the side. Blake tells the helicopter pilot to start flying so he can take down this monstrous bastard, and does so in a surprising turret section boss fight and blows up a bunch of nearby fuel drums which finally incinerates the Whitely-Thing into a crisp. The day is saved for now, with Blake and the helicopter pilot making small talk. Asking who the helicopter pilot is, he responds with “MacReady, R.J. MacReady. U.S. Outpost 31” and they both fly away into the proverbial sunset.
My thoughts on the plot for this game is as follows: I love the fan service for the game, the smaller scaled first half leading up to the secret warehouse base and I feel like this is pretty effective and cool smaller scale action horror. However, once you escape from the base and you get kidnapped it starts to turn into this weird mismatch of Resident Evil tropes involving evil corporations, taking over the world, “viruses' ' which AGAIN go against the lore of The Thing and feel sort of out of place. Like I’m not opposed to the whole corporation idea, but it doesn’t feel like it fits here. Other plot devices include “why would Whitely send his own military squads to these places' ' to begin with, like what was he trying to do? What’s the inciting plot here? He literally could’ve done nothing and his plan might have worked? It kind of feels like Blake was sent to discover the plot itself and not inadvertently running into the plot and though maybe I missed something and I’m dumb, I don’t feel like it was explained really well. How did MacReady survive? I read up somewhere that it’s possible that he got kidnapped by Gen Inc. and only recently escaped but how did he get a fucking helicopter? If he got captured why wouldn’t Whitely just burn down the base then? I assume Whitely got involved with the project to produce a cancer cure but when did this world domination plan take hold? Was this spur of the moment? In fact, how did the motherfucker shrug off fire towards the end when The Thing has always been notoriously weak to fire. One could say that he evolved due to this Cloud Virus stuff but there’s a lot of stuff that either hasn’t been explained or hasn’t been explained well enough and while a lot of the ideas that form around the game itself are pretty cool with some amazing set pieces, half the time I’m trying to figure out the plot the only thing I can think of is to ask more questions. Maybe you could get some answers reading up the computers you’ll find scattered around the game to give you bits of backstory but most of the time they never really added anything of note to the lore. Maybe I shouldn’t be looking into it too deeply but I feel like the plot could’ve used a major re-working, or maybe if some of these questions were answered I need to do more research and/or watch a “Video Game Explained” Youtube video? Who knows, it’s not the worst plot I ever witnessed but by god does it contradict the base movies and produce plot holes that are head scratching to begin with.
The atmosphere of this game is cold and unwavering in its hostility, quite literally as it takes place in Antarctica and figuratively as the vibes that it gives off is almost as good as the John Carpenter movie that it takes inspiration from. The feeling of running around in the dark, a giant snowstorm covering every inch of space that could be taken up on screen with the only thing that you can see involves light sticks stuck into the ground, the shape of other humans and/or things and the outline/light of nearby buildings are some of the best this game gets to a near perfect environmental mood, mixed in with exploring these abandoned facilities and questioning whether certain survivors are humans or mere imposters. This smaller scale that covers the first half or so of the game helps make this game a unique feeling experience…at least up until John Carpenter’s cameo. Once you get out of there, the whole switch to a military conspiracy and the focus on having human enemies really bring the game’s peg down a whole lot to what feels to be a standard third person shooter with horror elements. I’ll address this more on the gameplay section but it’s significant here because any sense of isolationist horror kind of goes out the window once you encounter the “generic madman wants to spread disease all over the world” plot that doesn’t really feel like it should be a Thing title and while it sometimes captures that old feeling in certain spots latter half, it struggles to recapture the essence of what the original movie was truly about despite a John Carpenter co-sign. That and it doesn’t help that the Thing transformations are scripted to an extent that when you go through the game once, you kind of know what’ll happen in new playthroughs IF you decide to play this game again. Overall I feel like it works, but I feel that a lot of the time it crumbles under it’s own weight to the point it feels like a semi-different game.
So how is the game graphically? The game is fine, it’s 2002 and I played it on the Xbox Original so of course it’s going to have 2002 styled graphics but honestly I can’t really complain about this. The models look pretty solid for the most part, especially the creature designs getting a freaky look that helps work in the game’s favor. In fact, the Thing designs are pretty intimidating for the most part and it translates the designs from the original movies into the game world pretty well. Whether it’s the little spider fuckers (which the wiki calls The Scuttlers) and the giant fleshy brain-looking masses they spit out of or the creatures that imitate humans (though you can tell they’re imitations if they only stare at you for a while), they’re certainly grotesque in nature and fit right into their universe. Fighting these things can actually be scary, especially if you’re surrounded and are the main saving grace to the horror aspect of the game whenever they actually show up.
The sound design to the game is actually pretty decent too, and contribute to the overall package for the most part. The voice acting, the sounds of gunfire and flames, the blood-curdling sounds of the Things themselves, the pattering of your feet on the snow; all of them are fantastic and immersed me into the game’s world despite the military cliche bullshit. Again, all the weapons sound amazing from the standard machine gun to the shotgun, the flamethrower and even the pistol sounding like they actually pack a punch with my favorite honestly being the shotgun. Again the pattering of the feet, the shouting of the wind as you run against it into nearby shelter, truthfully if there’s something that this game really excels at then I feel like it’s the sound design, with my favorite being those FUCKING KEYBOARD CLACKS BY GOD THEY SOUND SO GOOOD. Honestly, I have a weakness for keyboard clacking, especially from old ass computers and the shit is like ASMR to me. I don’t have anything bad to say about this and I’m not sure I could really ever say anything about this. To quote Todd Howard: “It just works' ', and normally this is also where I would go into the soundtrack and perhaps give the music some thoughts. Honestly, there is none and if you play it without music (though it might have some ambient stingers here and there) it makes everything a whole lot more intense when you’re playing, though if you want to put on your own music you rightfully could since again there isn’t really anything in the way of music except some song called After Me by Saliva, which in itself is a fine Nu-Metal song even if that’s not necessarily my genre. In all honesty, I find the inclusion of this song to be pretty funny all considering that it’s very much a song from the time period and it makes me chuckle a bit.
How’s the voice acting then? According to IMDB, the most memorable voice acting inclusions are John Carpenter himself as Doctor Faraday (NOTE: Apparently he didn’t voice his own character? I put an article down in the links section but my bad on this then) along with William B. Davis as the main antagonist, Colonel Whitley. This latter cameo I didn’t even notice until I saw him for the first time in game, and when it finally clicked I yelled out “Holy shit it’s the Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files!” which funnily enough took inspiration from the original Thing movie twice for different episodes and a series movie. William Davis’s voice is iconic, and truth be told I can’t complain about his performance at all because he always knocks shady government types out of the park even if he’s a stereotypical bad guy. As for some of the other actors, apparently Jim Ward is in here? I mostly know him as Rodney Betters from F.E.A.R. but other than that I don’t know. HOWEVER, even though I haven’t heard him at all before or after this game, Per Solli does a pretty good job playing this no-nonsense and gravelly badass soldier guy that he instills in Blake. Don’t get me wrong, it’s generic action movie hero cliche stuff but I feel like he pulls it off extremely well to where I can excuse it for the most part. Everyone else sinks into the background and helps immerse you and there’s no bad link in the cast that I can point out so that’s all an A+ from me.
The final question to ask here is how does the gameplay fare up in the long run? Does it accurately feel like a portrayal of what a Thing game should be like? I’ll go over how the game generally runs on Xbox first and then give you my honest thoughts towards the end. When you click to start a new game, there’s a difficulty selection that lets you choose how strong or weak your auto aim is with a flashlight radius. I like that aesthetically as a difficulty slider and I believe you can change in game (don’t quote me) though my honest recommendation is to go with easier settings. The actual in game controls are a bit more archaic compared to other games but I got used to them semi-quickly for the most part. The main things I remember are that the Joysticks are used to move, and I mean both of them with one used to move up and down and the other used for left and right. Luckily you can change this in your settings on the go if you’re not feeling the base controls they gave you but overall I felt like I was able to handle it, though I still had struggle switching through weapons and items which required certain buttons on the D-Pad that I both honestly don’t remember as well as felt a tad bit unintuitive. You can also crouch and go into first person shooter mode where you can’t move out of your spot except peeking out left or right (great for ganking turrets and soldiers later on) that are essential for burning and finishing off Things.
As for the gameplay itself: the game is a third person shooter where you run around completing objectives in a small-ish map while micromanaging a squad, conserving ammo and medkits, picking up items such as flares, flashlights and other items while fighting/burning things and eventually taking down monsters. The most important thing here in essence would be micro-managing this squad, of which there are three classes: Medic, Soldier and Engineers. Medics have an unlimited amount of health packs, the Engineers have the ability to repair pretty much basically anything that the main player can’t and the soldiers (which I don’t remember encountering that much to be honest) just have more health and are generally good for backup, though I’d say that the soldier class lacked in the wayside to the other two classes with nothing else in the way of special abilities. It’s not to say they’re useless, it’s just they don’t do anything extra that would make them memorable to me. These NPCs have their own moods, their own trust gauges and in concept could turn at any moment. Ways to build trust are to lead them out of the area, giving them weapons and ammo, healing them and using portable blood tests to show them that you’re not a Thing. A lot of them react to their environment as well, mostly in a bad way if they see scarier versions of Things, trapped in dark places or witness dead bodies, all of which messes with them negatively and if you don’t get them out of the area while they’re in the middle of a panic attack (which you can tell by how their body shakes in the squad menu) they could snap at any minute. I remember one time that I didn’t even know that something was happening, and a squad member turned and it got bad enough to the point where my last squad member shot himself, leaving me all alone. In cases like this, you could also give him an adrenaline shot and that’ll keep him calm in the moment for you to get him out of there or change the mood considerably. There’s also the trust meter: the more they trust you the more they’ll follow orders, and if they don’t trust you at all then they’re more than willing to try to kill you thinking that you’re one of the creatures. You can order them to do stuff like wait, follow, repair stuff (as engineer) and order to give you their weapon at the cost of some trust.
Of course, the thing (heh) about The Thing is that oftentimes it’s a game about paranoia. In concept, the game encourages you to keep tabs on your squad and see if any of them are Things while proving yourself to not be a Thing. It’s a game based on trust, but oftentimes it’s not very effective and it doesn’t matter. It’s been well known if you do your research and not go in blind that a lot of the game’s moments are scripted, and that no matter what there will be certain times where certain squad mates will turn into Things. While looking it up on the Wiki, there’s apparently a system where you can tell whether or not certain NPCs you encounter are full Imitations such as wearing outfits belonging to a class they don’t belong to or not speaking at all. They’re also supposed to follow around and go along with certain actions before eventually revealing themselves to be a monster. The problem is that if you know they’re scripted and you already play through the game then the surprise is done. I’ve seen and heard reports of people doing blood tests on certain characters mere seconds before they turn and the blood test comes back negative before OOOOH IMMA THING I’M HERE TO KILL YOU. That stuff is kind of lame though understandable due to technical limitations. My feelings on it is that this aspect is cool in concept though not totally realized, and the only encounter where I legitimately felt was an organic moment was the aforementioned suicide, and this was located near the warehouse in the Norweigan Base Camp near halfway towards the game. I left that building kind of shook and was surprised at how effective this was. I don’t know if this was scripted, and truth is I don’t want to know because if it wasn’t then essentially I didn’t have an organic moment at all through my entire playthrough. All the Thing-Imitations revealed themselves immediately to me even if they looked human, most of the time I didn’t even need to use blood tests and just gave them weapons and ammo and healed them, and only used adrenaline once or twice with the rarity you get them in game. It has some good moments that I can clearly see, though I wish it delivered more. Also keep in mind to be careful of giving your teammates too much because once or twice I brought them to the end of a level, gage them health and then went to the next but they either died due to explosion (thanks tunnels) or didn’t go with me at all.
So how does fighting these Things work? There are several different classes ranging from skittery little spider things (which you can just shoot to kill) versus every other Thing class. The strategy is basically always the same: shoot it repeatedly and bring their health from green to red before finishing them off with something fire related. Honestly the strategy is a pretty good one and I never got stale with it, oftentimes finishing them off with a grenade, a nearby placed explosive or a flamethrower that I acquired somehow. My main thing is I never gave my NPCs a flamethrower because they’ll just automatically use it and I’m not sure if Things are weak to fire to begin with or you HAVE to riddle them with bullets before finishing them off in game and it’s better not to waste any precious resources you have. Also another annoying thing, the main reason that I died in this game is due to getting burned alive, and a lot of those times it’s due to the close proximity of the environment. You’ll often be fighting Things in close quarters and so when you finish them off, you have to be careful or else you’ll end up burning yourself and your squad alive and I’d be lying if I said while realistic it can get frustrating trying to juggle all of that in a small space. Luckily you can pick up fire extinguishers to take out any fires though admittedly the range that they work can sometimes be hit or miss with most of the time working effectively. However, the range of the fire can sometimes be fucky, especially towards the latter half of the game. In the secret base where you get locked up, once you get out into an area where you have to burn a room full of Things so your squad can get passed I remember passing by the area like 5 feet and I still got burned through thick glass which was annoying as hell. Another random side tangent, some save stations you have to go to a nearby power node and repair it in order to power up a tape recorder. I don’t know if that makes sense or if it needs to be plugged in to work but I don’t feel like that makes any sense.
In fact, let me just go on record and say this now: the latter half of the game falters greatly compared to the first half. When they start introducing Black Ops soldiers it starts to suck from set pieces around them to the combat itself. The Black Ops guys never have Things among them, they can get into combat with them but you don’t see it often, there’s an overabundance of them and can get whittled down quickly if you’re not careful. Hell, the whole set piece where you’re breaking into a weapons factory underneath the airfield while dodging steam pipes and dealing with turret sections are the most frustrating thing going on with the game. Getting out is even worse having to constantly slow walk so you don’t get burned alive and even then sometimes the hitscanning gets you and your health goes down anyways. By the time I escaped the mineshaft and was chasing after Whitely in the snow I had absolutely NO health and had died multiple times trying to figure out a strategy to move pass before finally hitting up a small cave and getting around five medpacks. The only way to save is with the aforementioned save points and the only one before it was before the base exploding and the only one after it is when you finally confront Whitely in the dome which took place for me like a half-hour to an hour later. It started feeling less like a Thing game and more like a shooting gallery, and when I finally got to the final boss where I didn’t have to deal with instant kill sniper attacks and instead dealt with a turret section for a final boss I was so relieved because honestly it was painfully easy to do and figure out that it felt like a bit of an anti-climax to me. Speaking of frustrating sections: every single one of the boss battles barring the very last one sucks dick. Literally you’re stuck in a small ass room where you have to constantly move, shoot at everyTHING around you and then eventually finish it with fire. My main problems with this were that no matter what it felt like 75% of the time that you’d always get hit with the attacks anyways and with it being such a small room? Any time I tried finishing it off with a grenade I had to finagle it in such a way that I don’t get blown up in the blast radius which happened a decent bit. I can only repeat a boss battle so many times like this before I eventually just smack myself in the head out of sheer frustration and confusion. Also every time I’d die to these instead of reloading from previous save I’d have “restart level” or “main menu” so instead I’d have to go to main menu and reload the previous save from there, that’s annoying as hell and there should’ve been a continue from last save point option at least.
So my personal feelings on The Thing are as follows: It’s a fun game, and has a lot of promise as a sort of building block foundation for something even greater in the future. In fact, I’d say that the first half of the game was some of the most fun I’ve had in a survival horror game in recent memory. However, once it gets into the latter half with the military bases and the human enemies it starts to turn into a bit of a slog, one of which I was hoping to kind of get over as early as humanly possible. In fact, the finale of the game made the ranking slowly bog down from a 4 out of 5 to a 3.5 out of 5 due to the fact that the emphasis on the action instead of the horror just kind of killed it for me? That and the painfully obvious structure to the “Who’s the Thing” system felt kind of obvious, though that didn’t really detract too much from the game for me. Overall, to answer my question from earlier: is this game going to be a 3 for 3? I’d sadly say a 2.5 for 3 due to the fact that the action portions of the game, the structured reveal system, the explosion fire labs, the plot that felt like it could've come from Resident Evil, and the awful boss fights. It just didn’t do it for me once the first boss fight hit, but what I can answer is the old question: is this game worth playing? I’d say yes, but be patient with both the controls and the trial and error feeling segments of the latter half of the game. The call-backs to the original, the thrilling gameplay, fighting the Things while managing a squad, all of these things actually felt fun to me and made me want more of the first half of the game into its own title. It has so much potential for a grander sequel (and another attempt at a Thing game by Crackdown 2 developer Ruffian Games which link down below), which funny enough was actually in development before it was shuttered.
Bringing it full circle to what happened after the release of this game, Computer Artworks had attempted to develop a full on sequel to this game. The game would’ve had Blake and RJ Macready fly to a nearby refinery base in what could be described as a more “horror” based experience and would’ve included more Thing types, new locations which included an oil rig and an aircraft carrier, and a less structured way for The Things to reveal itself waiting to ambush. However, it seems it didn’t go past the pitching stage due to a giant workload such as this game and a title in the Alone in the Dark series and the game didn’t get past a proof of concept demo before being shuttered. It’s a shame because we haven’t seen much “Thing" content other than a canceled mini-series, a prequel movie and a re-release of an alternate version of Who Goes There? on Kickstarter which I contributed to a while back. Otherwise I haven’t seen much and that’s a shame, which didn’t help when Computer Artworks themselves went into Receivership and was forced to shut down. The sequel wouldn’t ever be picked up, but since then there’s been a few games that have sort of picked up the concept and ran with it. In fact, the best comparison I can find to a modern adaptation of The Thing isn’t really based in lore but in gameplay concepts, mainly Among Us. I’m surprised no one has attempted to run with it and create a Thing adaptation based on the modern Among Us formula, but I’m sure there’ve been other games and movies that took inspiration from the original movie for their own creations. Regardless, The Thing as a game I feel stands on its own as a decent movie tie-in game in a land full of games based on film IP that are horrible and while this game is flawed, it’s still a gem worth looking into.
Links:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/771430/Evolva/
https://www.gamerstemple.com/vg/games/000309/000309g109.asp
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/The_Thing_II_(video_game)
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Gen_Inc
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Shaun_Faraday
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Thule_Station
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Return_of_the_Thing_(mini-series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UkXxARRls0&ab_channel=GrimBeard
https://www.eurogamer.net/the-making-of-the-thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/computer-artworks-goes-into-receivership
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335473/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5424308/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/242760/discussions/0/5208960061405876499/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4W77VVTuk0
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Imitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylq3EJJVhlA&ab_channel=Cavador
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-thing-video-game-designer-artist-programmer-retrospective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRDK8p2nN90&ab_channel=BadGhosts (Plug for my buddy Ghosts who did a mini-review on it, good stuff)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheThing2002
My experience with The Thing as a game is something that’s been very short. Before playing this game on my Xbox Original, I’d heard about it here and there and had been potentially interested in giving it a shot but I just didn’t really. I had picked up the game somewhere, probably at the local retro game store and had it in my giant Xbox OG backlog for the longest time. I had watched a review by popular Youtubist Grimbeard (review linked below) and had enjoyed that retrospective on the game, but hadn’t really played it until a friend of mine recently elected that I stream it for her as a part of a long list of games. However, I did watch the John Carpenter adaptation of The Thing along with its prequel movie...also named The Thing. I loved my time with the original movie, and while it had a lot of backlash back then I’m genuinely surprised and baffled about how anyone could find that movie to be bad. As for the prequel? Yeah, it had flaws, a lot of it being the CGI (which funny enough was originally practical effects until it was replaced during the editing process) but I still came out of that movie enjoying my time with it and also kind of baffled that people thought that was a bad movie? I don’t know, so far to me personally it was 2 for 2, so I went into this game wondering if it was going to be a 3 for 3.
The game starts out with two guys inside of a cold and abandoned kitchen in one of the facilities before they’re presumably slayed and assimilated by one of the Things. The actual plot starts out however three months after the events of the John Carpenter film. A group of Special Forces (named the Arctic Special Forces here), led by Captain Blake are sent in to investigate two separate outposts: both are from the main movies. Blake and his squad are sent to investigate the remains of U.S. Outpost 31 on the orders of his boss Colonel Whitely while another team is sent to investigate the remains of the nearby Norwegian Camp. Investigating U.S. Outpost 31 is full of fan service which I think is the perfect introduction, and whilst Blake and his team investigates they both introduce themselves and their roles (the medic, the engineer and the extra proficient soldier) as well as find the remains from the previous film (like R.J. Macready’s audio tape, Child’s dead body and the remains of the small UFO created by the Blair-Thing). Whitely orders Blake and his men to plant C4 all over the place and destroy the entire outpost. While Blake’s squad (Beta Team) gets airlifted back to base, Blake decides to go gung-ho against Whitely’s orders and investigate the disappearance of Alpha Squad over at the Norwegian campsite. The results are gruesome, and it’s revealed that the squad has been kind of picked off one by one with barely anyone on site. You’ll see more fan service remains of the Norwegian site from the original Thing movie as well, especially with the giant ice slab where the original Thing came out of. Eventually after exploring the camp site, Blake finds the Alpha squad leader Pierce and after gaining his trust with a version of the famous blood test from the movie, decides to re-establish comms with their boss Whitely though this doesn’t exactly go to plan. With the radio missing, Blake tracks it to a nearby warehouse though he encounters Pierce who believes himself infected. Not wanting to take any chances, Pierce gives himself a .45 Caliber one way ticket to heaven and Blake pushes on into the warehouse.
After saving an engineer and shooting his way through a horde of Things, he chases the mysterious figure with the radio down into the basement. However, he’s revealed to be the Norwegian Radio Operator (who is revealed to be one of the two people from the intro cutscene) and then turns into a giant Thing himself. After a painful boss battle which involves shooting and burning it in an incredibly small room, Blake finally kills the Operator-Thing and takes the radio before going deeper into the warehouse. Underneath Blake finds a massive facility, nicknamed the Pyron Sub-Facility. Established by Gen Inc., a biotechnology corporation whose research includes breeding and researching these “things”. Blake goes deeper into the facility and encounters (along with other survivors) Dr. Shaun Faraday, the head researcher of the team in charge of the research (cameoed by The Thing director John Carpenter). Blake escapes with Faraday, only to encounter Colonel Whitely with a unique group of Black Ops hanging out inside of the warehouse. Blake is shot with a tranquilizer dart and everyone travels to a facility south of the Norwegian outpost. It’s here where Blake learns that SOMEHOW, Blake has a sort of resistance to being infected by the Things. Here is where I’m going to stop and roll my eyes really quickly and comment: I’ve always felt that throughout the original movie and even the prequel that the Things aren’t virus based. They’re predators who pick people off one by one while assimilating them in an attempt to “cull the herd” so to speak. I never felt that it was a virus as much as an organism that functions beyond human comprehension other than painful assimilation, so the idea that Blake is immune to some sort of infection akin to Resident Evil feels a bit uncharacteristic to me. Nonetheless this was 2002 and my opinion means absolutely nothing in the grand scheme so whatever the case. Whitely attempts to have his cohort Faraday test himself with a strain of this “virus' ' named Cloud Virus B4, however Faraday turns him down due “instabilities” not making the Colonel the right subject for testing. This hypothesis is denied however and Faraday gets his statement shot down, literally filled with bullets and the John Carpenter cameo passes on into the afterlife. Turns out, Whitely has terminal cancer and was hoping that this Thing research could perhaps be a cure for this as well as hoping to turn this virus into a sort of biological warfare weapon to perhaps be sold on the black market (because that’s always a good idea).
Blake escapes his prison cell and mows numerous Black Ops soldiers as well as Things down before he learns that Whitely intends to distribute and infect the entire world with the Thing Virus, dampening any motion of mine to perhaps be sold as a black market weapon. Regardless Blake doesn’t like this, and proceeds to make his way to the military hangers to grab nearby C4, proceeding to blow up the cargo planes and halting Whitely’s plans for Thing-induced world domination. Fighting through numerous more facilities and blowing up a Weapons Research Lab underneath the airport hangers, Blake eventually chases his old boss topside where he encounters rigorous snowstorms and even more black ops groups before confronting his old boss at a Dome nearby. Setting Whitely on fire, this does absolutely nothing to him even though Things are allergic to fire because…why not? I don’t know, I guess it’s scary that now a Thing is immune to fire but also it feels kind of weird and again goes against the whole concept of The Thing. Regardless, Whitely gloats about how the plans were only delayed and that once an airlift team picks him up, the world is doomed to global exposure. Blake chases him down even further to the original excavation site where the UFO was originally discovered by the Norweigans. It’s at this point that Whitely finally transforms into a monolithic Thing boss, and Blake spots a helicopter landing nearby with a large machine gun strapped to the side. Blake tells the helicopter pilot to start flying so he can take down this monstrous bastard, and does so in a surprising turret section boss fight and blows up a bunch of nearby fuel drums which finally incinerates the Whitely-Thing into a crisp. The day is saved for now, with Blake and the helicopter pilot making small talk. Asking who the helicopter pilot is, he responds with “MacReady, R.J. MacReady. U.S. Outpost 31” and they both fly away into the proverbial sunset.
My thoughts on the plot for this game is as follows: I love the fan service for the game, the smaller scaled first half leading up to the secret warehouse base and I feel like this is pretty effective and cool smaller scale action horror. However, once you escape from the base and you get kidnapped it starts to turn into this weird mismatch of Resident Evil tropes involving evil corporations, taking over the world, “viruses' ' which AGAIN go against the lore of The Thing and feel sort of out of place. Like I’m not opposed to the whole corporation idea, but it doesn’t feel like it fits here. Other plot devices include “why would Whitely send his own military squads to these places' ' to begin with, like what was he trying to do? What’s the inciting plot here? He literally could’ve done nothing and his plan might have worked? It kind of feels like Blake was sent to discover the plot itself and not inadvertently running into the plot and though maybe I missed something and I’m dumb, I don’t feel like it was explained really well. How did MacReady survive? I read up somewhere that it’s possible that he got kidnapped by Gen Inc. and only recently escaped but how did he get a fucking helicopter? If he got captured why wouldn’t Whitely just burn down the base then? I assume Whitely got involved with the project to produce a cancer cure but when did this world domination plan take hold? Was this spur of the moment? In fact, how did the motherfucker shrug off fire towards the end when The Thing has always been notoriously weak to fire. One could say that he evolved due to this Cloud Virus stuff but there’s a lot of stuff that either hasn’t been explained or hasn’t been explained well enough and while a lot of the ideas that form around the game itself are pretty cool with some amazing set pieces, half the time I’m trying to figure out the plot the only thing I can think of is to ask more questions. Maybe you could get some answers reading up the computers you’ll find scattered around the game to give you bits of backstory but most of the time they never really added anything of note to the lore. Maybe I shouldn’t be looking into it too deeply but I feel like the plot could’ve used a major re-working, or maybe if some of these questions were answered I need to do more research and/or watch a “Video Game Explained” Youtube video? Who knows, it’s not the worst plot I ever witnessed but by god does it contradict the base movies and produce plot holes that are head scratching to begin with.
The atmosphere of this game is cold and unwavering in its hostility, quite literally as it takes place in Antarctica and figuratively as the vibes that it gives off is almost as good as the John Carpenter movie that it takes inspiration from. The feeling of running around in the dark, a giant snowstorm covering every inch of space that could be taken up on screen with the only thing that you can see involves light sticks stuck into the ground, the shape of other humans and/or things and the outline/light of nearby buildings are some of the best this game gets to a near perfect environmental mood, mixed in with exploring these abandoned facilities and questioning whether certain survivors are humans or mere imposters. This smaller scale that covers the first half or so of the game helps make this game a unique feeling experience…at least up until John Carpenter’s cameo. Once you get out of there, the whole switch to a military conspiracy and the focus on having human enemies really bring the game’s peg down a whole lot to what feels to be a standard third person shooter with horror elements. I’ll address this more on the gameplay section but it’s significant here because any sense of isolationist horror kind of goes out the window once you encounter the “generic madman wants to spread disease all over the world” plot that doesn’t really feel like it should be a Thing title and while it sometimes captures that old feeling in certain spots latter half, it struggles to recapture the essence of what the original movie was truly about despite a John Carpenter co-sign. That and it doesn’t help that the Thing transformations are scripted to an extent that when you go through the game once, you kind of know what’ll happen in new playthroughs IF you decide to play this game again. Overall I feel like it works, but I feel that a lot of the time it crumbles under it’s own weight to the point it feels like a semi-different game.
So how is the game graphically? The game is fine, it’s 2002 and I played it on the Xbox Original so of course it’s going to have 2002 styled graphics but honestly I can’t really complain about this. The models look pretty solid for the most part, especially the creature designs getting a freaky look that helps work in the game’s favor. In fact, the Thing designs are pretty intimidating for the most part and it translates the designs from the original movies into the game world pretty well. Whether it’s the little spider fuckers (which the wiki calls The Scuttlers) and the giant fleshy brain-looking masses they spit out of or the creatures that imitate humans (though you can tell they’re imitations if they only stare at you for a while), they’re certainly grotesque in nature and fit right into their universe. Fighting these things can actually be scary, especially if you’re surrounded and are the main saving grace to the horror aspect of the game whenever they actually show up.
The sound design to the game is actually pretty decent too, and contribute to the overall package for the most part. The voice acting, the sounds of gunfire and flames, the blood-curdling sounds of the Things themselves, the pattering of your feet on the snow; all of them are fantastic and immersed me into the game’s world despite the military cliche bullshit. Again, all the weapons sound amazing from the standard machine gun to the shotgun, the flamethrower and even the pistol sounding like they actually pack a punch with my favorite honestly being the shotgun. Again the pattering of the feet, the shouting of the wind as you run against it into nearby shelter, truthfully if there’s something that this game really excels at then I feel like it’s the sound design, with my favorite being those FUCKING KEYBOARD CLACKS BY GOD THEY SOUND SO GOOOD. Honestly, I have a weakness for keyboard clacking, especially from old ass computers and the shit is like ASMR to me. I don’t have anything bad to say about this and I’m not sure I could really ever say anything about this. To quote Todd Howard: “It just works' ', and normally this is also where I would go into the soundtrack and perhaps give the music some thoughts. Honestly, there is none and if you play it without music (though it might have some ambient stingers here and there) it makes everything a whole lot more intense when you’re playing, though if you want to put on your own music you rightfully could since again there isn’t really anything in the way of music except some song called After Me by Saliva, which in itself is a fine Nu-Metal song even if that’s not necessarily my genre. In all honesty, I find the inclusion of this song to be pretty funny all considering that it’s very much a song from the time period and it makes me chuckle a bit.
How’s the voice acting then? According to IMDB, the most memorable voice acting inclusions are John Carpenter himself as Doctor Faraday (NOTE: Apparently he didn’t voice his own character? I put an article down in the links section but my bad on this then) along with William B. Davis as the main antagonist, Colonel Whitley. This latter cameo I didn’t even notice until I saw him for the first time in game, and when it finally clicked I yelled out “Holy shit it’s the Cigarette Smoking Man from X-Files!” which funnily enough took inspiration from the original Thing movie twice for different episodes and a series movie. William Davis’s voice is iconic, and truth be told I can’t complain about his performance at all because he always knocks shady government types out of the park even if he’s a stereotypical bad guy. As for some of the other actors, apparently Jim Ward is in here? I mostly know him as Rodney Betters from F.E.A.R. but other than that I don’t know. HOWEVER, even though I haven’t heard him at all before or after this game, Per Solli does a pretty good job playing this no-nonsense and gravelly badass soldier guy that he instills in Blake. Don’t get me wrong, it’s generic action movie hero cliche stuff but I feel like he pulls it off extremely well to where I can excuse it for the most part. Everyone else sinks into the background and helps immerse you and there’s no bad link in the cast that I can point out so that’s all an A+ from me.
The final question to ask here is how does the gameplay fare up in the long run? Does it accurately feel like a portrayal of what a Thing game should be like? I’ll go over how the game generally runs on Xbox first and then give you my honest thoughts towards the end. When you click to start a new game, there’s a difficulty selection that lets you choose how strong or weak your auto aim is with a flashlight radius. I like that aesthetically as a difficulty slider and I believe you can change in game (don’t quote me) though my honest recommendation is to go with easier settings. The actual in game controls are a bit more archaic compared to other games but I got used to them semi-quickly for the most part. The main things I remember are that the Joysticks are used to move, and I mean both of them with one used to move up and down and the other used for left and right. Luckily you can change this in your settings on the go if you’re not feeling the base controls they gave you but overall I felt like I was able to handle it, though I still had struggle switching through weapons and items which required certain buttons on the D-Pad that I both honestly don’t remember as well as felt a tad bit unintuitive. You can also crouch and go into first person shooter mode where you can’t move out of your spot except peeking out left or right (great for ganking turrets and soldiers later on) that are essential for burning and finishing off Things.
As for the gameplay itself: the game is a third person shooter where you run around completing objectives in a small-ish map while micromanaging a squad, conserving ammo and medkits, picking up items such as flares, flashlights and other items while fighting/burning things and eventually taking down monsters. The most important thing here in essence would be micro-managing this squad, of which there are three classes: Medic, Soldier and Engineers. Medics have an unlimited amount of health packs, the Engineers have the ability to repair pretty much basically anything that the main player can’t and the soldiers (which I don’t remember encountering that much to be honest) just have more health and are generally good for backup, though I’d say that the soldier class lacked in the wayside to the other two classes with nothing else in the way of special abilities. It’s not to say they’re useless, it’s just they don’t do anything extra that would make them memorable to me. These NPCs have their own moods, their own trust gauges and in concept could turn at any moment. Ways to build trust are to lead them out of the area, giving them weapons and ammo, healing them and using portable blood tests to show them that you’re not a Thing. A lot of them react to their environment as well, mostly in a bad way if they see scarier versions of Things, trapped in dark places or witness dead bodies, all of which messes with them negatively and if you don’t get them out of the area while they’re in the middle of a panic attack (which you can tell by how their body shakes in the squad menu) they could snap at any minute. I remember one time that I didn’t even know that something was happening, and a squad member turned and it got bad enough to the point where my last squad member shot himself, leaving me all alone. In cases like this, you could also give him an adrenaline shot and that’ll keep him calm in the moment for you to get him out of there or change the mood considerably. There’s also the trust meter: the more they trust you the more they’ll follow orders, and if they don’t trust you at all then they’re more than willing to try to kill you thinking that you’re one of the creatures. You can order them to do stuff like wait, follow, repair stuff (as engineer) and order to give you their weapon at the cost of some trust.
Of course, the thing (heh) about The Thing is that oftentimes it’s a game about paranoia. In concept, the game encourages you to keep tabs on your squad and see if any of them are Things while proving yourself to not be a Thing. It’s a game based on trust, but oftentimes it’s not very effective and it doesn’t matter. It’s been well known if you do your research and not go in blind that a lot of the game’s moments are scripted, and that no matter what there will be certain times where certain squad mates will turn into Things. While looking it up on the Wiki, there’s apparently a system where you can tell whether or not certain NPCs you encounter are full Imitations such as wearing outfits belonging to a class they don’t belong to or not speaking at all. They’re also supposed to follow around and go along with certain actions before eventually revealing themselves to be a monster. The problem is that if you know they’re scripted and you already play through the game then the surprise is done. I’ve seen and heard reports of people doing blood tests on certain characters mere seconds before they turn and the blood test comes back negative before OOOOH IMMA THING I’M HERE TO KILL YOU. That stuff is kind of lame though understandable due to technical limitations. My feelings on it is that this aspect is cool in concept though not totally realized, and the only encounter where I legitimately felt was an organic moment was the aforementioned suicide, and this was located near the warehouse in the Norweigan Base Camp near halfway towards the game. I left that building kind of shook and was surprised at how effective this was. I don’t know if this was scripted, and truth is I don’t want to know because if it wasn’t then essentially I didn’t have an organic moment at all through my entire playthrough. All the Thing-Imitations revealed themselves immediately to me even if they looked human, most of the time I didn’t even need to use blood tests and just gave them weapons and ammo and healed them, and only used adrenaline once or twice with the rarity you get them in game. It has some good moments that I can clearly see, though I wish it delivered more. Also keep in mind to be careful of giving your teammates too much because once or twice I brought them to the end of a level, gage them health and then went to the next but they either died due to explosion (thanks tunnels) or didn’t go with me at all.
So how does fighting these Things work? There are several different classes ranging from skittery little spider things (which you can just shoot to kill) versus every other Thing class. The strategy is basically always the same: shoot it repeatedly and bring their health from green to red before finishing them off with something fire related. Honestly the strategy is a pretty good one and I never got stale with it, oftentimes finishing them off with a grenade, a nearby placed explosive or a flamethrower that I acquired somehow. My main thing is I never gave my NPCs a flamethrower because they’ll just automatically use it and I’m not sure if Things are weak to fire to begin with or you HAVE to riddle them with bullets before finishing them off in game and it’s better not to waste any precious resources you have. Also another annoying thing, the main reason that I died in this game is due to getting burned alive, and a lot of those times it’s due to the close proximity of the environment. You’ll often be fighting Things in close quarters and so when you finish them off, you have to be careful or else you’ll end up burning yourself and your squad alive and I’d be lying if I said while realistic it can get frustrating trying to juggle all of that in a small space. Luckily you can pick up fire extinguishers to take out any fires though admittedly the range that they work can sometimes be hit or miss with most of the time working effectively. However, the range of the fire can sometimes be fucky, especially towards the latter half of the game. In the secret base where you get locked up, once you get out into an area where you have to burn a room full of Things so your squad can get passed I remember passing by the area like 5 feet and I still got burned through thick glass which was annoying as hell. Another random side tangent, some save stations you have to go to a nearby power node and repair it in order to power up a tape recorder. I don’t know if that makes sense or if it needs to be plugged in to work but I don’t feel like that makes any sense.
In fact, let me just go on record and say this now: the latter half of the game falters greatly compared to the first half. When they start introducing Black Ops soldiers it starts to suck from set pieces around them to the combat itself. The Black Ops guys never have Things among them, they can get into combat with them but you don’t see it often, there’s an overabundance of them and can get whittled down quickly if you’re not careful. Hell, the whole set piece where you’re breaking into a weapons factory underneath the airfield while dodging steam pipes and dealing with turret sections are the most frustrating thing going on with the game. Getting out is even worse having to constantly slow walk so you don’t get burned alive and even then sometimes the hitscanning gets you and your health goes down anyways. By the time I escaped the mineshaft and was chasing after Whitely in the snow I had absolutely NO health and had died multiple times trying to figure out a strategy to move pass before finally hitting up a small cave and getting around five medpacks. The only way to save is with the aforementioned save points and the only one before it was before the base exploding and the only one after it is when you finally confront Whitely in the dome which took place for me like a half-hour to an hour later. It started feeling less like a Thing game and more like a shooting gallery, and when I finally got to the final boss where I didn’t have to deal with instant kill sniper attacks and instead dealt with a turret section for a final boss I was so relieved because honestly it was painfully easy to do and figure out that it felt like a bit of an anti-climax to me. Speaking of frustrating sections: every single one of the boss battles barring the very last one sucks dick. Literally you’re stuck in a small ass room where you have to constantly move, shoot at everyTHING around you and then eventually finish it with fire. My main problems with this were that no matter what it felt like 75% of the time that you’d always get hit with the attacks anyways and with it being such a small room? Any time I tried finishing it off with a grenade I had to finagle it in such a way that I don’t get blown up in the blast radius which happened a decent bit. I can only repeat a boss battle so many times like this before I eventually just smack myself in the head out of sheer frustration and confusion. Also every time I’d die to these instead of reloading from previous save I’d have “restart level” or “main menu” so instead I’d have to go to main menu and reload the previous save from there, that’s annoying as hell and there should’ve been a continue from last save point option at least.
So my personal feelings on The Thing are as follows: It’s a fun game, and has a lot of promise as a sort of building block foundation for something even greater in the future. In fact, I’d say that the first half of the game was some of the most fun I’ve had in a survival horror game in recent memory. However, once it gets into the latter half with the military bases and the human enemies it starts to turn into a bit of a slog, one of which I was hoping to kind of get over as early as humanly possible. In fact, the finale of the game made the ranking slowly bog down from a 4 out of 5 to a 3.5 out of 5 due to the fact that the emphasis on the action instead of the horror just kind of killed it for me? That and the painfully obvious structure to the “Who’s the Thing” system felt kind of obvious, though that didn’t really detract too much from the game for me. Overall, to answer my question from earlier: is this game going to be a 3 for 3? I’d sadly say a 2.5 for 3 due to the fact that the action portions of the game, the structured reveal system, the explosion fire labs, the plot that felt like it could've come from Resident Evil, and the awful boss fights. It just didn’t do it for me once the first boss fight hit, but what I can answer is the old question: is this game worth playing? I’d say yes, but be patient with both the controls and the trial and error feeling segments of the latter half of the game. The call-backs to the original, the thrilling gameplay, fighting the Things while managing a squad, all of these things actually felt fun to me and made me want more of the first half of the game into its own title. It has so much potential for a grander sequel (and another attempt at a Thing game by Crackdown 2 developer Ruffian Games which link down below), which funny enough was actually in development before it was shuttered.
Bringing it full circle to what happened after the release of this game, Computer Artworks had attempted to develop a full on sequel to this game. The game would’ve had Blake and RJ Macready fly to a nearby refinery base in what could be described as a more “horror” based experience and would’ve included more Thing types, new locations which included an oil rig and an aircraft carrier, and a less structured way for The Things to reveal itself waiting to ambush. However, it seems it didn’t go past the pitching stage due to a giant workload such as this game and a title in the Alone in the Dark series and the game didn’t get past a proof of concept demo before being shuttered. It’s a shame because we haven’t seen much “Thing" content other than a canceled mini-series, a prequel movie and a re-release of an alternate version of Who Goes There? on Kickstarter which I contributed to a while back. Otherwise I haven’t seen much and that’s a shame, which didn’t help when Computer Artworks themselves went into Receivership and was forced to shut down. The sequel wouldn’t ever be picked up, but since then there’s been a few games that have sort of picked up the concept and ran with it. In fact, the best comparison I can find to a modern adaptation of The Thing isn’t really based in lore but in gameplay concepts, mainly Among Us. I’m surprised no one has attempted to run with it and create a Thing adaptation based on the modern Among Us formula, but I’m sure there’ve been other games and movies that took inspiration from the original movie for their own creations. Regardless, The Thing as a game I feel stands on its own as a decent movie tie-in game in a land full of games based on film IP that are horrible and while this game is flawed, it’s still a gem worth looking into.
Links:
https://store.steampowered.com/app/771430/Evolva/
https://www.gamerstemple.com/vg/games/000309/000309g109.asp
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/The_Thing_II_(video_game)
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Gen_Inc
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Shaun_Faraday
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Thule_Station
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Return_of_the_Thing_(mini-series)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0UkXxARRls0&ab_channel=GrimBeard
https://www.eurogamer.net/the-making-of-the-thing
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(1982_film)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)
https://www.gamesindustry.biz/computer-artworks-goes-into-receivership
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0335473/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/The_Thing_(video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5424308/
https://steamcommunity.com/app/242760/discussions/0/5208960061405876499/
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=w4W77VVTuk0
https://thething.fandom.com/wiki/Imitation
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ylq3EJJVhlA&ab_channel=Cavador
https://www.syfy.com/syfy-wire/the-thing-video-game-designer-artist-programmer-retrospective
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=iRDK8p2nN90&ab_channel=BadGhosts (Plug for my buddy Ghosts who did a mini-review on it, good stuff)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheThing2002
2023
This review contains spoilers
The Outlast Trials is a “Run Away and Hide with friends” simulator and first person horror game developed by former Ubisoft developers Red Barrel. Outlast as a series has been popular with the horror scene for years, even with it’s mixed reputation due to “Youtuber Clickbait” and “edgelord vibes” mixed in with the run and hide “can’t defend yourself” gameplay. While the first one was popular, the second one was a bit of a mixed bag for a lot of people. Regardless, the developers went ahead with the development of Outlast 3 along with a “smaller project in the universe”, with any Outlast 2 DLC being rejected due to “the structure” of it. This is all according to sources on the Wikipedia page so I can’t really verify anything with that. However, I remember the teaser a couple of years back for this game, and being confused about if this was Outlast 3 or not. A while later, they officially announced it as a multiplayer spin-off title and I wishlisted it without giving it a second thought until my buddy Casey (shoutout to you nerd) bought it for me for Christmas. Seeing as though I was mixed about the series formula for running and lack of defense, I was curious to see how the game went and surprisingly I’ve put in A LOT of hours to this.
The plot to the game is as follows: you play as a homeless transient in the 1950s, someone the Murkoff Corporation considers a “nobody”, who signed up for one of their special programs presumably to escape poverty. Instead of being fed and clothed in the traditional sense, you’re kidnapped and whisked away to the Sinyala Facility, where program director Eastermann drills some night vision goggles into your head and sends you to test out their “trials” for a special program they have. After being told to find and destroy your personal records, you meet Mother Gooseberry, a special pursuer with a sock puppet on her hand and a drill in its mouth. You destroy your records and get sent into the main hub, and from here you’re free to poke around, join groups, get into arm wrestling and chess competitions and customize your own room. There isn’t much else in the way of plot here other than what you gather through randomized documents you find around the actual missions themselves but they show Murkoff Corporations ties to the CIA, how their experiments began as a Cold War effort, and can even learn of certain Outlast characters like Rudolf Wernicke from the first and Sullivan Knoth from the second game. Once you beat all of the trials, you go to Program X and when you beat those trials, you go through one last sequence where you go through the first mansion but with several objectives. After you’re able to beat those and you escape one last chase, you leave the facility and gain your freedom…only to wake up either covered in blood in Cuba or delivering a car bomb in Vietnam. Honestly, it’s a bit smaller but I like discovering the little bits and pieces of the lore and think it’s a tremendous improvement on how Outlast 2 did its plot. The game is still in early access for now but I’m sure it has a lot more progress to go but I'm interested in seeing where it all goes.
What I’ll say about the atmosphere and sound design is that they both work in tandem with each other: the game is still as terrifying as always. It still has it’s edgelord sense of horror of course, you’ll frequently see big dudes with their c o c ks hanging out with a makeshift pickaxe trying to kill you, or an overly homophobic and racist cop who has a fetish for zapping people a n a lly. Blood and gore is all over the place and frequently the chase music will make you scream for mommy as I’ve had multiple times in my times playing this game. If you find the atmosphere and sound design scary like before, you still will, especially with the new gameplay.
The gameplay overall is a lot more in line with Outlast 1 than Outlast 2: there aren’t any wide open spaces, no sense of lack of direction and a lot more objective based. You can create your own character with the rewards you earn from playing in the trials and hook up with friends or randoms to tackle the trials together. There are improvements to the formula, with being able to throw bottles and bricks for offensive strategies or distraction along with health drinks, lockpicks to open up stashes, batteries to power up your night vision and antidotes to combat sanity. After a couple of levels you unlock special rigs (which can do anything from powering up your nightvision or healing your team) that recharges along with special perks you can buy and unlock with rewards earned in-game. A little side note, I'm surprised they haven't added a microtransaction store and I'm grateful for this as that sort of thing can be frustrating and annoying as hell. Every session you’ll go in with a specific objective, working with your team by sharing loot, kicking enemies off of each other, alerting each other to the locations of objectives. Communication is essential here, and can legit mean life or death. There will always be multiple pursuers, some overlapping into each other's areas which can get even more terrifying. The main pursuers are Mother Gooseberry and Leland Coyle (the racist cop) but you’ll also encounter regular chasers (in lore patients from Mount Massive) with all sorts of weapons as well as “The Gas Man”. If you get caught by him, he won’t hurt you; however, the hallucination chasing you will. This phantom is called “The Skinner Man”, and other than being a Slender Man clone apparently represents Eastermann. Regardless, the only way you can escape him is either through outrunning him or using an antidote or else your health will be whittled down. Luckily, it’s easy enough to do and the other chasers ignore you when your sanity is gone so that’s nice. You can also go insane if you run over gas mines, and there’s all sorts of traps to look out for from door traps which also make you go insane, floor traps which zap you if you walk over them and empty cans/glass which make noise and alert you to the other enemies.
Overall, my thoughts on this game are this: this is the scariest that the series has been. Cooperating with your team, the random patterns and rearranged layouts of the objectives, the minimalist storytelling, it’s all there and honestly it’s a lot better. I’m not gonna say it’s perfect, when you’re cornered without any stamina in a dark room it gets annoying when a chaser is trying to kill you and the game’s insistence on surrounding the objectives with chasers without moving them around can be both tense and really frustrating at times, if you die and fail you could lose anywhere from half an hour to an hour’s worth of time with nothing but potential documents to show. But there’s a lot to be had here, there’s more in the way of defense and it’s the most fun I’ve had with a multiplayer game in a very long time. I would definitely recommend if you’re looking for a good team based scare with friends, and while it’s in Early Access and I don’t review these kind of games, I’m looking forward to seeing what new content the game will hopefully deliver and will be more excited in that then the third mainline sequel in development.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/12/07/outlast-coming-to-switch-outlast-3-confirmed
https://redbarrelsgames.com/games/the-outlast-trials/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheOutlastTrials
https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/The_Outlast_Trials
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot to the game is as follows: you play as a homeless transient in the 1950s, someone the Murkoff Corporation considers a “nobody”, who signed up for one of their special programs presumably to escape poverty. Instead of being fed and clothed in the traditional sense, you’re kidnapped and whisked away to the Sinyala Facility, where program director Eastermann drills some night vision goggles into your head and sends you to test out their “trials” for a special program they have. After being told to find and destroy your personal records, you meet Mother Gooseberry, a special pursuer with a sock puppet on her hand and a drill in its mouth. You destroy your records and get sent into the main hub, and from here you’re free to poke around, join groups, get into arm wrestling and chess competitions and customize your own room. There isn’t much else in the way of plot here other than what you gather through randomized documents you find around the actual missions themselves but they show Murkoff Corporations ties to the CIA, how their experiments began as a Cold War effort, and can even learn of certain Outlast characters like Rudolf Wernicke from the first and Sullivan Knoth from the second game. Once you beat all of the trials, you go to Program X and when you beat those trials, you go through one last sequence where you go through the first mansion but with several objectives. After you’re able to beat those and you escape one last chase, you leave the facility and gain your freedom…only to wake up either covered in blood in Cuba or delivering a car bomb in Vietnam. Honestly, it’s a bit smaller but I like discovering the little bits and pieces of the lore and think it’s a tremendous improvement on how Outlast 2 did its plot. The game is still in early access for now but I’m sure it has a lot more progress to go but I'm interested in seeing where it all goes.
What I’ll say about the atmosphere and sound design is that they both work in tandem with each other: the game is still as terrifying as always. It still has it’s edgelord sense of horror of course, you’ll frequently see big dudes with their c o c ks hanging out with a makeshift pickaxe trying to kill you, or an overly homophobic and racist cop who has a fetish for zapping people a n a lly. Blood and gore is all over the place and frequently the chase music will make you scream for mommy as I’ve had multiple times in my times playing this game. If you find the atmosphere and sound design scary like before, you still will, especially with the new gameplay.
The gameplay overall is a lot more in line with Outlast 1 than Outlast 2: there aren’t any wide open spaces, no sense of lack of direction and a lot more objective based. You can create your own character with the rewards you earn from playing in the trials and hook up with friends or randoms to tackle the trials together. There are improvements to the formula, with being able to throw bottles and bricks for offensive strategies or distraction along with health drinks, lockpicks to open up stashes, batteries to power up your night vision and antidotes to combat sanity. After a couple of levels you unlock special rigs (which can do anything from powering up your nightvision or healing your team) that recharges along with special perks you can buy and unlock with rewards earned in-game. A little side note, I'm surprised they haven't added a microtransaction store and I'm grateful for this as that sort of thing can be frustrating and annoying as hell. Every session you’ll go in with a specific objective, working with your team by sharing loot, kicking enemies off of each other, alerting each other to the locations of objectives. Communication is essential here, and can legit mean life or death. There will always be multiple pursuers, some overlapping into each other's areas which can get even more terrifying. The main pursuers are Mother Gooseberry and Leland Coyle (the racist cop) but you’ll also encounter regular chasers (in lore patients from Mount Massive) with all sorts of weapons as well as “The Gas Man”. If you get caught by him, he won’t hurt you; however, the hallucination chasing you will. This phantom is called “The Skinner Man”, and other than being a Slender Man clone apparently represents Eastermann. Regardless, the only way you can escape him is either through outrunning him or using an antidote or else your health will be whittled down. Luckily, it’s easy enough to do and the other chasers ignore you when your sanity is gone so that’s nice. You can also go insane if you run over gas mines, and there’s all sorts of traps to look out for from door traps which also make you go insane, floor traps which zap you if you walk over them and empty cans/glass which make noise and alert you to the other enemies.
Overall, my thoughts on this game are this: this is the scariest that the series has been. Cooperating with your team, the random patterns and rearranged layouts of the objectives, the minimalist storytelling, it’s all there and honestly it’s a lot better. I’m not gonna say it’s perfect, when you’re cornered without any stamina in a dark room it gets annoying when a chaser is trying to kill you and the game’s insistence on surrounding the objectives with chasers without moving them around can be both tense and really frustrating at times, if you die and fail you could lose anywhere from half an hour to an hour’s worth of time with nothing but potential documents to show. But there’s a lot to be had here, there’s more in the way of defense and it’s the most fun I’ve had with a multiplayer game in a very long time. I would definitely recommend if you’re looking for a good team based scare with friends, and while it’s in Early Access and I don’t review these kind of games, I’m looking forward to seeing what new content the game will hopefully deliver and will be more excited in that then the third mainline sequel in development.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2017/12/07/outlast-coming-to-switch-outlast-3-confirmed
https://redbarrelsgames.com/games/the-outlast-trials/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheOutlastTrials
https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/The_Outlast_Trials
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2020
This review contains spoilers
Demon’s Souls (2020) is a remake of the first entry in the “Soulsborne” series (developed by FromSoftware) as well as a Playstation Exclusive/console debut for the Playstation 5 consoles. The original game was developed and released around 2009-2010 and had an infamous development cycle, known for almost being dropped and lingering in development hell. However, despite its seemingly limited success it helped cultivate an entire genre of video games based around difficulty, fractured storytelling and depressing atmospheres. From Dark Souls on, most of the games would be developed and released for every single platform available except for two: the original Demons Souls and Bloodborne. As much as I would want a remaster of the original to resurface, Playstation’s obsession with remakes came ahead and after a flurry of popular demand, Playstation Studios enlisted their star remaster/remake pupil Bluepoint Games to develop the title. With this in mind, they set out to create a remake worthy of the original and as faithful as humanly possible. What I can say is they only released one other remake (that being Shadow of the Colossus) but what I can say is that for the most part, they succeeded in creating a faithful recreation of the OG Playstation 3 classic. That’s not to say that stuff wasn’t changed (like re-recording voice lines and redoing motion capture), but they didn’t add canceled content like the “Sixth Archstone” or change much in the way of anything.
I haven’t had too much in the way of personal experience or attachment to the remake like I did with the original Demon’s Souls. However, I remember it like it was yesterday all those years ago when they revealed it at the Playstation 5 event back in June of 2020. This was around the time of COVID, we were all locked up in our houses and depressed about everything. Hell, barely anyone could even get a Playstation 5 around those years so what was really the point? Who knows, but as a Playstation Exclusive collector and Souls series fan, imagine the excitement when they announced that one of the debut games to the Playstation 5 would be a remake to one of my favorite games of all time. I nearly shat and came in my pants at the same time, and as a collector I desperately wanted a copy even if I didn’t have a console. I would get the console in summer of 2021 and afterwards I would pick this game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and I believe Returnal as my first three Playstation 5 games (maybe with some other titles but I’ll be honest I don’t remember). Regardless, it took me a while before I really decided to sit down and play it; I originally tried it in late 2021 but I was dealing with a depression state and was sidetracked with other things so I decided to postpone for a while. I would later try it once or twice, but I wouldn’t really dig my knuckles into the game until late last year, when my buddy SuperGodPunch (shoutout to Steve) asked me about helping him out a bit in game. This and the fact that I had planned to start my playthrough in 2024 as my first Playstation platinum of the year (as well as my first Playstation 5 platinum, though SAW accidentally beat me to it), I felt it was the perfect time to revisit the world of Demon’s Souls to see what had changed and to relive some old positive vibes.
The story is verbatim the same as the original Demon’s Souls, and as such my opinions on the game’s plot and world building remains the same, so if you want to read up on my feelings with that I’ll link my original Demon’s Souls review at the bottom. However, I want to give Bluepoint points here for their graphical updates on the game’s art style. Nothing will ever capture the strangeness that FromSoftware had originally developed, the sad and almost lofi feeling vibes to me personally that no other Souls game had cultivated sense. However, I feel that Bluepoint did a good job with their new coat of paint and bringing the world of Boletaria back to life again. Each world still feels as threatening and as beautiful as before, with some of these upgrades being straight up photo mode material. There are also new visual filters to play around with, though I didn’t really use any of them as I completely forgot they even existed so I can’t say as to whether or not they looked good, but I found an article that I’ll put below for the sake of giving it a look. The character models look pretty good as well, though some of them look a bit more freaky and hilarious looking like usual (looking at the Dredgling from World 1 and Patches the Hyena specifically for having a funny look). As with before, my favorite world designs will probably be the Boletarian Kingdom itself (World 1) and World 4’s grassy/rainy feeling. Like I said earlier though, it doesn’t fully capture the atmosphere of the original Demon’s Souls as to me that game felt perfectly unique in a way that I don’t think any other game could capture again. If the original is threatening and ominous yet cozy, then this remake is that but not as impactful. I mostly attribute this to my only feelings and experiences around the time of my grandfather’s funeral, and realistically I also know that most times you can never capture lightning in a bottle twice. Again, my review of the original is down at the bottom if you want to read that and get my feelings on it as it’s largely the same and not much has changed here except the graphics which look amazing.
The sound design is one of the main things that was changed other than graphics and certain gameplay tweaks. So how does the sound design compare to the original? Fine for the most part; however there were a lot of changes here. According to an article by Polygon (posted below), the original soundtrack was “digital only” and as such, didn’t capture the vibes that Bluepoint was going for I believe. To this end, they decided to re-record Shunsuke Kida’s original soundtrack with a full on orchestra and re-interpreted it their own way. To this end, I don’t hate it but I also didn’t really find anything unique and really interesting about it. I felt like the music certainly fit the game, coasted into the background and helped the atmosphere out a bit. However, nothing really popped out unlike the original and as such to me personally felt a bit forgettable and lackluster. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s a decent reimagining to go with the fresh new look, I guess it just doesn’t hit as hard as the original had and as such I feel like I would’ve rather had them keep that or just recreate it verbatim. That being said though, that’s just my take on it and I respect that they didn’t want to do that to potentially do a disservice. In fact, they re-recorded a whole lot of stuff, including bringing back all the old voice actors from the OG to re-do their lines for the newer one. Now the voice acting was pretty good in the original, and in all honesty I can’t really tell the difference. In fact, if I didn’t do research into this side of the game I would’ve straight up assumed that the game’s voice lines just re-use the old ones from the PS3 version but remastered. Either way, they all sound pretty much the same to me and the voice acting was phenomenal so that’s a plus! As for the actual sound design of the world, I don’t really have much to add in this aspect other than I can recognize that some audio cues probably changed from the original but other than that I didn’t really notice to be honest. I’m gonna chalk that up to Bluepoint’s almost near accurate and faithful design that I didn’t really notice much of a difference playing the game though I also haven’t played the original in a couple of years. Regardless, I can’t say much bad about this game sonically other than the soundtrack just doesn’t hit the same (though I still got the physical CD for it anyways cause I love Demon’s Souls).
So how does the gameplay fare to the original game? Honestly, it’s mostly the same. You’ll still get your rib cage kicked by fuckers like the Tower Knight and the Flamelurker, getting pissed as you die due to your own missteps or perhaps getting molested by those mindflayer fucks in the Tower of Latria. Co-op still plays the same, as does World Tendency and Soul Tendency, everything almost plays the same way. In fact, I forgot how much the original game could get frustrating with my rose tinted glasses, especially World 5 because I hate those fucking swamps. However, that being said they did have some new features and additions into the game along with some changes. One change I did notice ultimately is that they switched up the trophies from the original which THANK FUCK, grinding for those bladestones were some of the most frustrating parts of getting that platinum. Other choices involved improved drop rates, the removal of the duplication glitch (booooooooo!), a photo mode, new weapons and armor, fractured mode (and a new mystery surrounding it), the ability to re-create your character (I believe) and a forgiveness system, the addition of unlockable artwork/cutscenes, a new weight system, the ability to send items to storage, crystal lizards not totally despawning and I’m sure there are tons of others. I can’t speak much for the new additions of weapons and clothing other than it’s been a couple of years and if I didn’t know there were actually new additions then I would’ve thought they were in the original game to begin with. The only reason I know that some of them were new were due to interviews and the inclusion of the Digital Deluxe Edition.
However, they did add a photo mode which I’ve used to take a couple of pictures as well as the ability to pay in Souls to unlock the Fractured Worlds and mess around with personal character stuff (or switch out characters to make it easier). The Fractured World is a mode in which you pay a one time fee, and it automatically flips the world around so it’s a bit more disorienting and different. HOWEVER, that’s not the only new addition to the Fractured Worlds: there’s actually a secret door in game which you can only unlock if you do stuff in this Fractured Mode. Being in this mode and going through certain areas in certain world tendencies to find gold coins will help you unlock a door in World 1. This is similar to a mystery in the Shadow of the Colossus remake, in which you had to find some collectibles to unlock a mystery. Luckily there’s no trophy for this, but in the Demon’s Souls remake you have the chance to unlock the armor from the Penetrator boss so that’s dope as hell. There’s also a forgiveness system in which you can pay to have anyone you attacked and made hostile forgive you in case you messed up a quest so I appreciate the general improvement there. However, some changes I didn’t appreciate were the healing items to be given more weight (which is a pain in the ass), along with not being able to trade certain items with other characters. I know this is to make everything “fair”, to lessen cheating and to make everything more equal across the board and I respect it even if I don’t care for it too much.
Keep in mind that there is no cut content (that I’m aware of) like the sixth archstone from the original game reinstated into the game, or an easy mode to the game. I ultimately agree with this decision and Bluepoint’s outlook in general when it comes to keeping faithful to the original. For the easy mode, they said it “wasn’t their place” to do this and while I would’ve been okay with an easy mode personally, I’m a bit of a purist in terms of keeping with a creative’s vision (most of the time) and the Souls games have always been about the challenge. Personally, I think a Sixth Archstone would’ve been fantastic to go through and finally explore “The Northern Limit” (the cut snow level from the original) but the truth is we don’t really know 100 percent what would’ve been in it, where everything would’ve been placed and how it fit into the story. I would’ve loved to have seen it, but unless the employees were there or the creatives behind it were there to kind of guide how it should’ve been, sometimes there’s no point in reinterpreting another creator’s ideas like that. I feel like a hypocrite saying this, because I would love to see a mod that would add this stuff in eventually, but from what I understand the original FromSoftware creators were very hands off with this stuff so I feel it would’ve been a disservice to the expectations of the fans anyways.
What I’ll say about Demon’s Souls is that personally, I loved it and felt that Bluepoint did an amazing job recapturing a lot of the old feelings that the original game on PS3 did while also giving it a fresh coat of paint and upgrading it for modern audiences. However, with this in mind, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel even a tad bit underwhelmed by the game. It’s not anything the developers did themselves, in fact shoutout to Bluepoint again for making a fucking masterpiece of a remake as always. I personally feel that as I’ve grown older that the feeling of playing a Souls game was a flash in the pan, a time of excitement for discovering new worlds and experiencing a game I felt that I wouldn’t have ever tried before. However, I like vibing more than getting my skull crushed and my balls stomped by a video game, and as such I’m not sure that I would ever go out of my way to play the remake again, at least on PS5. If it gets released on PC (which please dear god Sony, give Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne a treatment for PC PLEASE). Whether I sit down and platinum another FromSoftware game or adjacent title, I also don’t know. Granted, I say all this now and I’d still probably pick any games up in the future because I’m a collector and I also love how FromSoftware does storytelling so I’ll probably eat my own shit later on this. However, that doesn’t mean I still didn’t love my time with this game and would happily recommend it just as equally as the original to anyone who would be willing to overlook some of the outdated decisions as well as the faithfulness to stick to some of these designs. I’m also personally happy that the game marks my 50th Platinum overall in my history, as I believe the original was my fourth or fifth platinum.
The game would debut as one of the first Sony Exclusives as well as games in general on Playstation 5 along with Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Bugsnax and another Sony Exclusive: Astro’s Playroom (which I still need to write a review on). However, the game would go on to sell over 1.4 million copies and be what I feel is a pretty successful title both commercially and critically, which sits at around a 92. One would question why the game had a whole digital deluxe edition (which I feel is the antithesis to a Souls game but hey what the hell do I know) but overall I haven’t heard any sort of bad thing about the game. Bluepoint themselves have since announced that they were working on their own creative IP, one of which I will be excitedly looking forward to as someone who's been a fan of their previous remasters and remakes. The only thing again that I would be disappointed about is the lack of ports for these remasters or remakes to PC, but I’ve bitched about that so much I’m sure it’s eye rolling at this point. Would I recommend this game? If you have a Playstation 5 then yes. If you’re a Souls fan, yes. Everything’s a yes, just be aware that it’s almost going to be verbatim to the original minus a few new additions and quality of life changes and that you’ll be playing a game from 2009.
Links:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lm0vjpHJJIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFZdtMQV3Y&t=655s&ab_channel=VaatiVidya
https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/1273554/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls_(2020_video_game)
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/09/16/demons-souls-ps5-gameplay-first-look/
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/10/29/21539158/demons-souls-ps5-remake-changes-sixth-archstone-world-tendency
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/demons-souls-ps5-fractured-mode-respec-world-tendency-details/1100-6483887/
https://www.denofgeek.com/games/demons-souls-remake-disappointing-fans-new-content/
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/11/demons_souls_ps5_easy_mode_was_considered_by_bluepoint_but_felt_it_wasnt_our_place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBK1F5RdiI&ab_channel=VersusMusicOfficial
https://kotaku.com/new-filters-radically-change-demons-souls-visuals-on-ps-1845645189
https://www.reddit.com/r/demonssouls/comments/11hvrdx/is_there_a_complete_and_detailed_list_of_the/
https://www.gameinformer.com/gamer-culture/2020/11/19/the-secret-door-of-demons-souls-has-been-solved
I haven’t had too much in the way of personal experience or attachment to the remake like I did with the original Demon’s Souls. However, I remember it like it was yesterday all those years ago when they revealed it at the Playstation 5 event back in June of 2020. This was around the time of COVID, we were all locked up in our houses and depressed about everything. Hell, barely anyone could even get a Playstation 5 around those years so what was really the point? Who knows, but as a Playstation Exclusive collector and Souls series fan, imagine the excitement when they announced that one of the debut games to the Playstation 5 would be a remake to one of my favorite games of all time. I nearly shat and came in my pants at the same time, and as a collector I desperately wanted a copy even if I didn’t have a console. I would get the console in summer of 2021 and afterwards I would pick this game, Spider-Man: Miles Morales, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and I believe Returnal as my first three Playstation 5 games (maybe with some other titles but I’ll be honest I don’t remember). Regardless, it took me a while before I really decided to sit down and play it; I originally tried it in late 2021 but I was dealing with a depression state and was sidetracked with other things so I decided to postpone for a while. I would later try it once or twice, but I wouldn’t really dig my knuckles into the game until late last year, when my buddy SuperGodPunch (shoutout to Steve) asked me about helping him out a bit in game. This and the fact that I had planned to start my playthrough in 2024 as my first Playstation platinum of the year (as well as my first Playstation 5 platinum, though SAW accidentally beat me to it), I felt it was the perfect time to revisit the world of Demon’s Souls to see what had changed and to relive some old positive vibes.
The story is verbatim the same as the original Demon’s Souls, and as such my opinions on the game’s plot and world building remains the same, so if you want to read up on my feelings with that I’ll link my original Demon’s Souls review at the bottom. However, I want to give Bluepoint points here for their graphical updates on the game’s art style. Nothing will ever capture the strangeness that FromSoftware had originally developed, the sad and almost lofi feeling vibes to me personally that no other Souls game had cultivated sense. However, I feel that Bluepoint did a good job with their new coat of paint and bringing the world of Boletaria back to life again. Each world still feels as threatening and as beautiful as before, with some of these upgrades being straight up photo mode material. There are also new visual filters to play around with, though I didn’t really use any of them as I completely forgot they even existed so I can’t say as to whether or not they looked good, but I found an article that I’ll put below for the sake of giving it a look. The character models look pretty good as well, though some of them look a bit more freaky and hilarious looking like usual (looking at the Dredgling from World 1 and Patches the Hyena specifically for having a funny look). As with before, my favorite world designs will probably be the Boletarian Kingdom itself (World 1) and World 4’s grassy/rainy feeling. Like I said earlier though, it doesn’t fully capture the atmosphere of the original Demon’s Souls as to me that game felt perfectly unique in a way that I don’t think any other game could capture again. If the original is threatening and ominous yet cozy, then this remake is that but not as impactful. I mostly attribute this to my only feelings and experiences around the time of my grandfather’s funeral, and realistically I also know that most times you can never capture lightning in a bottle twice. Again, my review of the original is down at the bottom if you want to read that and get my feelings on it as it’s largely the same and not much has changed here except the graphics which look amazing.
The sound design is one of the main things that was changed other than graphics and certain gameplay tweaks. So how does the sound design compare to the original? Fine for the most part; however there were a lot of changes here. According to an article by Polygon (posted below), the original soundtrack was “digital only” and as such, didn’t capture the vibes that Bluepoint was going for I believe. To this end, they decided to re-record Shunsuke Kida’s original soundtrack with a full on orchestra and re-interpreted it their own way. To this end, I don’t hate it but I also didn’t really find anything unique and really interesting about it. I felt like the music certainly fit the game, coasted into the background and helped the atmosphere out a bit. However, nothing really popped out unlike the original and as such to me personally felt a bit forgettable and lackluster. That’s not to say it’s bad, it’s a decent reimagining to go with the fresh new look, I guess it just doesn’t hit as hard as the original had and as such I feel like I would’ve rather had them keep that or just recreate it verbatim. That being said though, that’s just my take on it and I respect that they didn’t want to do that to potentially do a disservice. In fact, they re-recorded a whole lot of stuff, including bringing back all the old voice actors from the OG to re-do their lines for the newer one. Now the voice acting was pretty good in the original, and in all honesty I can’t really tell the difference. In fact, if I didn’t do research into this side of the game I would’ve straight up assumed that the game’s voice lines just re-use the old ones from the PS3 version but remastered. Either way, they all sound pretty much the same to me and the voice acting was phenomenal so that’s a plus! As for the actual sound design of the world, I don’t really have much to add in this aspect other than I can recognize that some audio cues probably changed from the original but other than that I didn’t really notice to be honest. I’m gonna chalk that up to Bluepoint’s almost near accurate and faithful design that I didn’t really notice much of a difference playing the game though I also haven’t played the original in a couple of years. Regardless, I can’t say much bad about this game sonically other than the soundtrack just doesn’t hit the same (though I still got the physical CD for it anyways cause I love Demon’s Souls).
So how does the gameplay fare to the original game? Honestly, it’s mostly the same. You’ll still get your rib cage kicked by fuckers like the Tower Knight and the Flamelurker, getting pissed as you die due to your own missteps or perhaps getting molested by those mindflayer fucks in the Tower of Latria. Co-op still plays the same, as does World Tendency and Soul Tendency, everything almost plays the same way. In fact, I forgot how much the original game could get frustrating with my rose tinted glasses, especially World 5 because I hate those fucking swamps. However, that being said they did have some new features and additions into the game along with some changes. One change I did notice ultimately is that they switched up the trophies from the original which THANK FUCK, grinding for those bladestones were some of the most frustrating parts of getting that platinum. Other choices involved improved drop rates, the removal of the duplication glitch (booooooooo!), a photo mode, new weapons and armor, fractured mode (and a new mystery surrounding it), the ability to re-create your character (I believe) and a forgiveness system, the addition of unlockable artwork/cutscenes, a new weight system, the ability to send items to storage, crystal lizards not totally despawning and I’m sure there are tons of others. I can’t speak much for the new additions of weapons and clothing other than it’s been a couple of years and if I didn’t know there were actually new additions then I would’ve thought they were in the original game to begin with. The only reason I know that some of them were new were due to interviews and the inclusion of the Digital Deluxe Edition.
However, they did add a photo mode which I’ve used to take a couple of pictures as well as the ability to pay in Souls to unlock the Fractured Worlds and mess around with personal character stuff (or switch out characters to make it easier). The Fractured World is a mode in which you pay a one time fee, and it automatically flips the world around so it’s a bit more disorienting and different. HOWEVER, that’s not the only new addition to the Fractured Worlds: there’s actually a secret door in game which you can only unlock if you do stuff in this Fractured Mode. Being in this mode and going through certain areas in certain world tendencies to find gold coins will help you unlock a door in World 1. This is similar to a mystery in the Shadow of the Colossus remake, in which you had to find some collectibles to unlock a mystery. Luckily there’s no trophy for this, but in the Demon’s Souls remake you have the chance to unlock the armor from the Penetrator boss so that’s dope as hell. There’s also a forgiveness system in which you can pay to have anyone you attacked and made hostile forgive you in case you messed up a quest so I appreciate the general improvement there. However, some changes I didn’t appreciate were the healing items to be given more weight (which is a pain in the ass), along with not being able to trade certain items with other characters. I know this is to make everything “fair”, to lessen cheating and to make everything more equal across the board and I respect it even if I don’t care for it too much.
Keep in mind that there is no cut content (that I’m aware of) like the sixth archstone from the original game reinstated into the game, or an easy mode to the game. I ultimately agree with this decision and Bluepoint’s outlook in general when it comes to keeping faithful to the original. For the easy mode, they said it “wasn’t their place” to do this and while I would’ve been okay with an easy mode personally, I’m a bit of a purist in terms of keeping with a creative’s vision (most of the time) and the Souls games have always been about the challenge. Personally, I think a Sixth Archstone would’ve been fantastic to go through and finally explore “The Northern Limit” (the cut snow level from the original) but the truth is we don’t really know 100 percent what would’ve been in it, where everything would’ve been placed and how it fit into the story. I would’ve loved to have seen it, but unless the employees were there or the creatives behind it were there to kind of guide how it should’ve been, sometimes there’s no point in reinterpreting another creator’s ideas like that. I feel like a hypocrite saying this, because I would love to see a mod that would add this stuff in eventually, but from what I understand the original FromSoftware creators were very hands off with this stuff so I feel it would’ve been a disservice to the expectations of the fans anyways.
What I’ll say about Demon’s Souls is that personally, I loved it and felt that Bluepoint did an amazing job recapturing a lot of the old feelings that the original game on PS3 did while also giving it a fresh coat of paint and upgrading it for modern audiences. However, with this in mind, I’d be lying if I said I didn’t feel even a tad bit underwhelmed by the game. It’s not anything the developers did themselves, in fact shoutout to Bluepoint again for making a fucking masterpiece of a remake as always. I personally feel that as I’ve grown older that the feeling of playing a Souls game was a flash in the pan, a time of excitement for discovering new worlds and experiencing a game I felt that I wouldn’t have ever tried before. However, I like vibing more than getting my skull crushed and my balls stomped by a video game, and as such I’m not sure that I would ever go out of my way to play the remake again, at least on PS5. If it gets released on PC (which please dear god Sony, give Demon’s Souls and Bloodborne a treatment for PC PLEASE). Whether I sit down and platinum another FromSoftware game or adjacent title, I also don’t know. Granted, I say all this now and I’d still probably pick any games up in the future because I’m a collector and I also love how FromSoftware does storytelling so I’ll probably eat my own shit later on this. However, that doesn’t mean I still didn’t love my time with this game and would happily recommend it just as equally as the original to anyone who would be willing to overlook some of the outdated decisions as well as the faithfulness to stick to some of these designs. I’m also personally happy that the game marks my 50th Platinum overall in my history, as I believe the original was my fourth or fifth platinum.
The game would debut as one of the first Sony Exclusives as well as games in general on Playstation 5 along with Spider-Man: Miles Morales and the likes of Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War, Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla, Bugsnax and another Sony Exclusive: Astro’s Playroom (which I still need to write a review on). However, the game would go on to sell over 1.4 million copies and be what I feel is a pretty successful title both commercially and critically, which sits at around a 92. One would question why the game had a whole digital deluxe edition (which I feel is the antithesis to a Souls game but hey what the hell do I know) but overall I haven’t heard any sort of bad thing about the game. Bluepoint themselves have since announced that they were working on their own creative IP, one of which I will be excitedly looking forward to as someone who's been a fan of their previous remasters and remakes. The only thing again that I would be disappointed about is the lack of ports for these remasters or remakes to PC, but I’ve bitched about that so much I’m sure it’s eye rolling at this point. Would I recommend this game? If you have a Playstation 5 then yes. If you’re a Souls fan, yes. Everything’s a yes, just be aware that it’s almost going to be verbatim to the original minus a few new additions and quality of life changes and that you’ll be playing a game from 2009.
Links:
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=lm0vjpHJJIU
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-kFZdtMQV3Y&t=655s&ab_channel=VaatiVidya
https://www.backloggd.com/u/gamemast15r/review/1273554/
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls_(2020_video_game)
https://blog.playstation.com/2020/09/16/demons-souls-ps5-gameplay-first-look/
https://www.polygon.com/interviews/2020/10/29/21539158/demons-souls-ps5-remake-changes-sixth-archstone-world-tendency
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/demons-souls-ps5-fractured-mode-respec-world-tendency-details/1100-6483887/
https://www.denofgeek.com/games/demons-souls-remake-disappointing-fans-new-content/
https://www.pushsquare.com/news/2020/11/demons_souls_ps5_easy_mode_was_considered_by_bluepoint_but_felt_it_wasnt_our_place
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=rQBK1F5RdiI&ab_channel=VersusMusicOfficial
https://kotaku.com/new-filters-radically-change-demons-souls-visuals-on-ps-1845645189
https://www.reddit.com/r/demonssouls/comments/11hvrdx/is_there_a_complete_and_detailed_list_of_the/
https://www.gameinformer.com/gamer-culture/2020/11/19/the-secret-door-of-demons-souls-has-been-solved
This review contains spoilers
Omerta: City of Gangster is a “What’s the Rumpus?” simulator/mafia simulation turn-based tactical combat game developed by Haemimont Games and released for the PC and the Xbox 360. I don’t know anything about the development of this game as information seems to be slim to zilch but the developers had previously worked on Roman city-building games as well as taking charge of development of Tropicos 3-5. In fact, that’s how I originally got into this game was hearing about how the guys developed Tropico 3 & 4 and loving my time with those games as a young lad and loving some Italian mobster shit, I had picked it up for the 360 back in the day. I hadn’t played it much other than Sandboxing a bit here and there before I eventually dropped it because it didn’t really do it for me like Tropico did because you couldn’t even build your own cities. I still have it locked up somewhere, but I decided later on at some point to pick it up on Steam for dirt cheap and give it a try. After playing Empire of Sin last year and still getting hooked on random Boardwalk Empire and Sopranos clips, I figured I’d give it a spin and throw my thoughts out there to see if it held up for me or it didn’t.
The plot, like most simulation games, is often simple and this one is no different; though compared to Empire of Sin it’s a little bit more involved. You play as Boss D’Angelo, who immigrated to the United States during the Prohibition Era (for the youngin’s, they basically banned booze and like all capitalism, opportunities were made illegally) from Sicily and tries to create a better life for himself and his friends from the ground up. He first gets coerced into working for Louis Castaneda, a capo underneath top boss Danny Corsini. However you’re eventually betrayed by Louis, protecting Danny from any retaliation as Louis wants to become the top dog. Working under Corsini, things go well for D’Angelo…that is until your brother also immigrates over from Sicily and becomes a federal agent. At first he doesn’t know and things go swimmingly before tension erupts over the Boss’s underworld position. He puts pressure on everyone in the city, and Danny decides that your brother needs to go. Against the criminal code, you assassinate the hitmen going after your brother and another war goes on until Danny proceeds to die. Now you’re the top dog, and the feds are putting the heat on you hard; however eventually you outlast the federal cases til’ the end of Prohibition and you retire as a rich man with the relationship with your brother mended.
It’s a bit of a simple plot but also a little bit more involved, something I actually enjoyed out of it. I could see this being a part of a television series of some sort just LIKE Boardwalk Empire with all the key players in the game and that was nice. It’s here where I’ll also mention that the DLC plotlines for the most parts are one-offs that take place within the story except The Japanese Incentive, which takes place right during your time working under Louis and has to do with a partnership with the Yakuza and a love triangle between D’Angelo, Yakuza Boss Hikaro Eda and his wife Mikoto. This is a separate campaign and as close as I was to the end, I wasn’t able to beat it due to glitches involving enemy spawns on the map. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back one day and figure that out but for now the game is done.
Speaking of gameplay, what is it compared to something like Tropico 3 & 4? No, not in the slightest. Well kind of, I don’t 100 percent know how to explain it other than this: you won’t be building anything like you do in Tropico and picking where you want stuff. Basically, you’ll start by creating your mob boss, giving them a name and choosing from a couple of pre-set scenarios for their origins which can affect their main stats. If you’re playing in the main story you will always be Boss D’Angelo as addressed but spiritually you can be “Timmy Fuchs” or whatever you like. Then you get into the game and there will be two different modes: the overworld section and the turn based combat sections. The overworld section is honestly to me the best part of the game, it’s where you’ll manage your henchmen, upgrade them, buy businesses, trade alcohol, and all the interesting stuff. You won’t be able to build any business any place, you’ll get a specific set amount of buildings where you’ll be allowed to build things like “Joints”, smaller businesses you can build to establish anything from a higher fear or liked rating to dirty or clean money or other bonuses or construction sites where you get bigger businesses that you can build but cost more. You build more businesses and acquire more money, money which you can use to bribe local snitches and such to give you the details on the rest of the district piece by piece. Over time you can hire more men to send out on jobs in both the overworld and through the job menu, where you can send them on random missions to do a variety of stuff from buying/selling booze, guns, laundering money or special missions depending on the scenario. If you get too much heat on you depending on your activities, I oftentimes wasn’t too worried because I usually had enough money on me to bribe them a lot of time, or you could perhaps snitch on a rival joint (of which there are independent joints) and get the cops to go after them. It’s honestly a simple system that can’t be boiled down to a steam review, and some people fault the game for not being complex. I don’t care, I enjoy simplicity because sometimes I’m really not in the mood for something in-depth. I think the most that it gets difficult is when you’re fighting another gang and I was only able to do that on the DLC, and sending people to get a car to commit 40 drive-bys for the chance percent hope that they vacate the business so that I could take over is honestly kind of a pain in the ass. Actually what I’ll say is that compared to the base game, the DLC actually has a lot more quality of life improvements such as the ability to hire guards, some real competition, adding certain businesses and the like.
My real peeve with the game is the turn based combat, which to me I just don’t feel feels great personally. It’s the basic turn-based combat where you’ll fight mobsters or cops, take cover, throw grenades and the usual stuff. I guess my main thing about this is that it’s just kind of tedious and doesn’t really feel good, and oftentimes I can’t really pin down why. I’ve seen some reviewers say that it’s because the amount of times you miss is too high, friendly fire is too much, that it’s repetitive, etc. I can’t really say too much about this because it normally isn’t my genre, and there are a lot of games that kind of play like this and have been more highly rated. I can’t give you a specific reason why other than I agree with all the above, and for a casual and chill time I also used WeMod cheats. However, there’s a downside to this: from what I understand the game gets REALLY glitchy. There were a couple of times where I would have goons that wouldn’t spawn, or there would be 100 something goons AND the last couple wouldn’t spawn. I was able to evade this for the most part through sheer luck, turning off certain cheats like infinite turns, and not using the Boss and instead using his henchman (of which some of them just suck, and some of them are pretty solid). It perhaps could be related to certain stats but I’m unsure. However, speaking of stats, I believe this is where the stats from the character creator come into play, and depending on the combat scenarios you win or other factors you can level up your character and gain perks like higher critical chance, the ability to save movement points for the next turn, and the like. I guess I’m just not into this aspect of the game and that’s sad. Maybe I’m just not used to the older styles, but who knows?
The sound design is pretty solid, and I’ll start with the music because I feel it perfectly captures that high energy twenties Jazz music that fits the vibe. You’ll hear the main menu theme a lot more often than anything else, but wasn’t really bothered about it and consider it akin to Tropico’s constantly looping caribbean and salsa music, which was pretty catchy and filled in really well. However, these tracks don’t seem to have names so get used to seeing titles like “Track 1” if you’re trying to find something specific. I’m also not seeing who created the soundtrack as I can’t find a name other than “Jack Carver'' but that could be the guy hosting the Youtube videos and that’s it so I’m unsure. Either way, it’s solid and can capture both the high and low energy vibes pretty well. Another thing that fits pretty well is the voice acting, which pretty much everyone plays their parts well, especially the Italian guys which I can’t get enough of. However, I can’t really give voice acting credits because I can’t seem to find any of those either so to wrap up voice acting: it’s solid and oftentimes I would be repeating some of these lines back to great effect. Sound effects are solid too from the gunshots, the car horns, the ocean waves and the bells ringing from the storefronts that all add to it.
Graphically speaking the game is fine, it’s a 360 title so it’s not going to be the most high definition stuff and even compared to Empire of Sin it’s very much low poly, but more consistent in it’s design unlike EOS. The overworld where you actually control the action looks great from when you’re looking down on the world below and seeing everything unfold. I think if there were a graphical low point it would probably be when you actually get into your turn based tactical gameplay, where everything looks okay but a little bit on the worse side. I don’t want to trash it too much, I’m sure this game was made on a low budget so that doesn’t concern me. How is the atmosphere on the other hand? Well it certainly captures the 20s Atlantic City vibe with the buildings of old, the pictures representing the various people you encounter, the colors being more muted in the menu but a bit more on the darkish side when in the overworld. You’ll see real buildings like the Boardwalk itself or the Traymore Hotel though I haven’t ever been to Atlantic City so I can’t really say what really looks 100 percent to the T, but even if it wasn’t I still feel it would fit what Atlantic City’s vibe would actually be. Overall, I can’t really complain much about this, it looks fine and that’s perfectly well enough.
Haemimont Games would later go on to develop Tropico 5 before seemingly being dropped from that series entirely. They would go on to develop some titles that I would recognize, though only from quick glances such as the action RPG Victor Vran, city-builder Surviving Mars and finally the tactical RPG Jagged Alliance 3. I only heard about the Jagged Alliance games through others so I can’t say anything about the quality of any of these games. However Omerta was one of those games where as much as I would appreciate the ideas that it had going for it, and as much as I maybe need to shrink back my expectations, it still isn’t the mafia simulator game that I’m personally looking for which is something like Gangsters except remade and with some new elements. I like certain bits and pieces of what it has but overall, it’s a painfully simple game with a monotonous feeling turn based combat that I’m sure some will be satisfied with and others wouldn’t. I was mixed, preferring they didn’t have the turn based combat but what can you really do? If you’re in the mood for a mafia game like this, you have patience and there’s a sale I would say why not give it a try? Just keep in mind that it’s kinda okay and that in itself is also okay.
Links:
https://omerta-city-of-gangsters.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OmertaCityOfGangsters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MgG92ZUZBw&ab_channel=Canalabandonadob
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHEm0j-0XIJibXs7yPzAziLxme0wZCzy-
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot, like most simulation games, is often simple and this one is no different; though compared to Empire of Sin it’s a little bit more involved. You play as Boss D’Angelo, who immigrated to the United States during the Prohibition Era (for the youngin’s, they basically banned booze and like all capitalism, opportunities were made illegally) from Sicily and tries to create a better life for himself and his friends from the ground up. He first gets coerced into working for Louis Castaneda, a capo underneath top boss Danny Corsini. However you’re eventually betrayed by Louis, protecting Danny from any retaliation as Louis wants to become the top dog. Working under Corsini, things go well for D’Angelo…that is until your brother also immigrates over from Sicily and becomes a federal agent. At first he doesn’t know and things go swimmingly before tension erupts over the Boss’s underworld position. He puts pressure on everyone in the city, and Danny decides that your brother needs to go. Against the criminal code, you assassinate the hitmen going after your brother and another war goes on until Danny proceeds to die. Now you’re the top dog, and the feds are putting the heat on you hard; however eventually you outlast the federal cases til’ the end of Prohibition and you retire as a rich man with the relationship with your brother mended.
It’s a bit of a simple plot but also a little bit more involved, something I actually enjoyed out of it. I could see this being a part of a television series of some sort just LIKE Boardwalk Empire with all the key players in the game and that was nice. It’s here where I’ll also mention that the DLC plotlines for the most parts are one-offs that take place within the story except The Japanese Incentive, which takes place right during your time working under Louis and has to do with a partnership with the Yakuza and a love triangle between D’Angelo, Yakuza Boss Hikaro Eda and his wife Mikoto. This is a separate campaign and as close as I was to the end, I wasn’t able to beat it due to glitches involving enemy spawns on the map. Hopefully I’ll be able to go back one day and figure that out but for now the game is done.
Speaking of gameplay, what is it compared to something like Tropico 3 & 4? No, not in the slightest. Well kind of, I don’t 100 percent know how to explain it other than this: you won’t be building anything like you do in Tropico and picking where you want stuff. Basically, you’ll start by creating your mob boss, giving them a name and choosing from a couple of pre-set scenarios for their origins which can affect their main stats. If you’re playing in the main story you will always be Boss D’Angelo as addressed but spiritually you can be “Timmy Fuchs” or whatever you like. Then you get into the game and there will be two different modes: the overworld section and the turn based combat sections. The overworld section is honestly to me the best part of the game, it’s where you’ll manage your henchmen, upgrade them, buy businesses, trade alcohol, and all the interesting stuff. You won’t be able to build any business any place, you’ll get a specific set amount of buildings where you’ll be allowed to build things like “Joints”, smaller businesses you can build to establish anything from a higher fear or liked rating to dirty or clean money or other bonuses or construction sites where you get bigger businesses that you can build but cost more. You build more businesses and acquire more money, money which you can use to bribe local snitches and such to give you the details on the rest of the district piece by piece. Over time you can hire more men to send out on jobs in both the overworld and through the job menu, where you can send them on random missions to do a variety of stuff from buying/selling booze, guns, laundering money or special missions depending on the scenario. If you get too much heat on you depending on your activities, I oftentimes wasn’t too worried because I usually had enough money on me to bribe them a lot of time, or you could perhaps snitch on a rival joint (of which there are independent joints) and get the cops to go after them. It’s honestly a simple system that can’t be boiled down to a steam review, and some people fault the game for not being complex. I don’t care, I enjoy simplicity because sometimes I’m really not in the mood for something in-depth. I think the most that it gets difficult is when you’re fighting another gang and I was only able to do that on the DLC, and sending people to get a car to commit 40 drive-bys for the chance percent hope that they vacate the business so that I could take over is honestly kind of a pain in the ass. Actually what I’ll say is that compared to the base game, the DLC actually has a lot more quality of life improvements such as the ability to hire guards, some real competition, adding certain businesses and the like.
My real peeve with the game is the turn based combat, which to me I just don’t feel feels great personally. It’s the basic turn-based combat where you’ll fight mobsters or cops, take cover, throw grenades and the usual stuff. I guess my main thing about this is that it’s just kind of tedious and doesn’t really feel good, and oftentimes I can’t really pin down why. I’ve seen some reviewers say that it’s because the amount of times you miss is too high, friendly fire is too much, that it’s repetitive, etc. I can’t really say too much about this because it normally isn’t my genre, and there are a lot of games that kind of play like this and have been more highly rated. I can’t give you a specific reason why other than I agree with all the above, and for a casual and chill time I also used WeMod cheats. However, there’s a downside to this: from what I understand the game gets REALLY glitchy. There were a couple of times where I would have goons that wouldn’t spawn, or there would be 100 something goons AND the last couple wouldn’t spawn. I was able to evade this for the most part through sheer luck, turning off certain cheats like infinite turns, and not using the Boss and instead using his henchman (of which some of them just suck, and some of them are pretty solid). It perhaps could be related to certain stats but I’m unsure. However, speaking of stats, I believe this is where the stats from the character creator come into play, and depending on the combat scenarios you win or other factors you can level up your character and gain perks like higher critical chance, the ability to save movement points for the next turn, and the like. I guess I’m just not into this aspect of the game and that’s sad. Maybe I’m just not used to the older styles, but who knows?
The sound design is pretty solid, and I’ll start with the music because I feel it perfectly captures that high energy twenties Jazz music that fits the vibe. You’ll hear the main menu theme a lot more often than anything else, but wasn’t really bothered about it and consider it akin to Tropico’s constantly looping caribbean and salsa music, which was pretty catchy and filled in really well. However, these tracks don’t seem to have names so get used to seeing titles like “Track 1” if you’re trying to find something specific. I’m also not seeing who created the soundtrack as I can’t find a name other than “Jack Carver'' but that could be the guy hosting the Youtube videos and that’s it so I’m unsure. Either way, it’s solid and can capture both the high and low energy vibes pretty well. Another thing that fits pretty well is the voice acting, which pretty much everyone plays their parts well, especially the Italian guys which I can’t get enough of. However, I can’t really give voice acting credits because I can’t seem to find any of those either so to wrap up voice acting: it’s solid and oftentimes I would be repeating some of these lines back to great effect. Sound effects are solid too from the gunshots, the car horns, the ocean waves and the bells ringing from the storefronts that all add to it.
Graphically speaking the game is fine, it’s a 360 title so it’s not going to be the most high definition stuff and even compared to Empire of Sin it’s very much low poly, but more consistent in it’s design unlike EOS. The overworld where you actually control the action looks great from when you’re looking down on the world below and seeing everything unfold. I think if there were a graphical low point it would probably be when you actually get into your turn based tactical gameplay, where everything looks okay but a little bit on the worse side. I don’t want to trash it too much, I’m sure this game was made on a low budget so that doesn’t concern me. How is the atmosphere on the other hand? Well it certainly captures the 20s Atlantic City vibe with the buildings of old, the pictures representing the various people you encounter, the colors being more muted in the menu but a bit more on the darkish side when in the overworld. You’ll see real buildings like the Boardwalk itself or the Traymore Hotel though I haven’t ever been to Atlantic City so I can’t really say what really looks 100 percent to the T, but even if it wasn’t I still feel it would fit what Atlantic City’s vibe would actually be. Overall, I can’t really complain much about this, it looks fine and that’s perfectly well enough.
Haemimont Games would later go on to develop Tropico 5 before seemingly being dropped from that series entirely. They would go on to develop some titles that I would recognize, though only from quick glances such as the action RPG Victor Vran, city-builder Surviving Mars and finally the tactical RPG Jagged Alliance 3. I only heard about the Jagged Alliance games through others so I can’t say anything about the quality of any of these games. However Omerta was one of those games where as much as I would appreciate the ideas that it had going for it, and as much as I maybe need to shrink back my expectations, it still isn’t the mafia simulator game that I’m personally looking for which is something like Gangsters except remade and with some new elements. I like certain bits and pieces of what it has but overall, it’s a painfully simple game with a monotonous feeling turn based combat that I’m sure some will be satisfied with and others wouldn’t. I was mixed, preferring they didn’t have the turn based combat but what can you really do? If you’re in the mood for a mafia game like this, you have patience and there’s a sale I would say why not give it a try? Just keep in mind that it’s kinda okay and that in itself is also okay.
Links:
https://omerta-city-of-gangsters.fandom.com/wiki/Main_Page
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/OmertaCityOfGangsters
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6MgG92ZUZBw&ab_channel=Canalabandonadob
https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLHEm0j-0XIJibXs7yPzAziLxme0wZCzy-
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2006
This review contains spoilers
Saints Row is a “gangbanging set trippin” simulator/open world crime game developed by Volition (rest in peace), who before creating Saints Row had developed the Descent series of games as well Red Faction 1 & 2 as well as the notorious Punisher video game. Saints Row had started its foundations as a Playstation 2 game titled “Bling Bling”. The game was announced at E3 2005 with the new name, Saints Row, as an Xbox 360 title with supposed PC and PS3 ports to follow later. These ports however were canned to focus more on the sequel, WHICH IT SHOULDN'T HAVE BEEN, but nonetheless they were. I remember seeing a beta trailer where the Saints were green and I had watched a mrsaintsgodzilla21 video where apparently a sequel to the aforementioned Punisher game was being developed with a lot of Saints Row mechanics in mind as an open world style game? I’ll put both of these down in the links below but otherwise development. As far as I’m aware though, I can’t seem to find anything in terms of crazy development stories so I believe the game went off pretty well other than switching from Playstation 2 to the Xbox 360.
I originally encountered Saints Row through playing it at my Mom’s friend's house. As a young child, I didn’t have an Xbox 360 or any next gen games so I was mainly used to playing the previous generation for the longest time. This same friend of my mother’s funny enough is where I also got introduced to my love of horror, because she gave me Condemned: Criminal Origins as an Xbox 360 game but that’s a different story. I had played Saints Row pretty much all the damn time when I was over there along with Grand Theft Auto 4 and I was always really excited to go over and play the game. Afterwards for the longest time, I hadn’t really played too much of the Saints Row series at all, in fact I think I had played Saints Row 2 before playing the first one again after remembering the game’s existence. I would repeatedly play it on and off once I got my Xbox 360, and would be one of my main go-to games for entertainment as I messed about offline. I ended up replaying this a little while ago for the first time backwards compatible via the Xbox One after Microsoft made the game compatible around 2018. I believed I had finished it last year or the year before, and so I’m writing this review now because my buddy BFD Survivor enlisted me for a future playthrough on Saints Row 2’s port for PC (after we fix the damn thing of course). Saints Row as a series would become mixed in my eyes but I can safely say to this day that this and the second game are some of my favorite open world crime games of all time, in fact they’re two of my favorite games of all time. This review isn’t going to be a supercritical one as much as it’s just going to be me sucking this game’s cock and verbalizing how much I truly enjoyed my time with this game, while maybe offering a critique here and there.
The plot begins with your created character (aka Playa; clever Volition, clever) as you walk down the streets of Saints Row, a district in the city of Stilwater. Stilwater is a city rampant with crime, drugs, prostitution, all the good shit you’d love in a city overrun with criminal issues. Passing by someone selling stolen watches and a hooker, a gang war unfolds in the district over unclaimed territory over a gang tag on a nearby wall between three gangs: the Vice Kings (Yellow clad gangsters led by the well connected record executive CEO named Benjamin King and involved in lots of prostitution which Julius used to roll with), the Westside Rollerz (a blue gang mostly led by white boys who love underground racing and are led by Joseph Price and his uncle, William Sharp, a wealthy financier, and Los Carnales (not THE Los Carnales, are a red-clad latino gang who deals with drugs and guns led by the Lopez brothers along with their colombian backers). It nearly ends badly for you, a bullet in the forehead by some lone Vice King dweeb when you’re saved by two people: Julius Little and Troy Bradshaw. Looking to stop the gangs once and for all from destroying their neighborhood, Julius tells “Playa” to come by the church in the middle of the district if they want to take back the neighborhood from the gangs. It’s here where they get “canonized”, and are thrown into the middle of a gang initiation which you could either win or lose depending on if you get stomped out while meeting some of the other lieutenants in the Saints, mainly Johnny Gat and Dex. After this you sort of get used to the basics: buy a gun, kill some Vice Kings, and take over some territory (while doing some optional objectives like strongholds or stealing hoes from other pimps). Afterwords, the district is yours and Julius comes up with game plans for every gang in the city: Johnny Gat is set on the Vice Kings (which Troy backs out of aggressively), Lin is sent to infiltrate the Rollerz (first time seeing her of course) and Dex is told to come up with a way to take down “the” Los Carnales.
The Vice Kings story arc starts off with meeting up with Johnny Gat and his girlfriend Aisha, who reports that her sister’s been kidnapped off the street, presumably by Vice Kings lieutenant Tanya Winters who heads up the prostitution ring of the gang. This culminates in Aisha and Gat coming up with a plan for a big fuck you to the Vice Kings. See, Aisha is actually an R&B artist (whose songs you can listen to on the radio stations) and she signed to Kingdom Come Records, Benjamin King’s record company. However extortion is at play and with the kidnapping of her sister, all bets are off the table so the two come up with a plan to fake her death by bringing her to the session before blowing up the entire building with a car bomb (with a nice little 2Pac “7 Day Theory” reference to go. That goes off surprisingly without a hitch, and Gat’s next plan is a very simple one: kill Tanya Winters, and emphasis is placed on how she slept with both Anthony Green (King’s bodyguard) as well as Warren Williams (a former rapper named EZ Money as well as the guy who managed Kingdom Come Records) behind Green’s back. This dynamic will come into play later but for now, but Gat tells the Playa to take over her brothel at Prawn Court, which will mess up the prostitution business King has going on. Prawn Court is conquered but no Tanya, and a cutscene that follows shows King’s inner circles (including Tanya) bitching about the Saints. King tells them all to calm down as he’s going to rebuild the record company and that he’ll put pressure on police chief Monroe to crack down on the Saints so they can retake the brothel. The cops crack down on the Saints, but after Johnny hears that the Vice Kings are attempting to retake the brothel, sends the Playa back to Prawn Court to kill the invaders. Afterwards, Gat calls to let him know that Tanya is holding up in the old Sunnyvale Gardens police station and to drop by the church later as they have “murdering to do”. This “murdering” plan doesn’t go too well as the raid ends in an ambush where Gat gets shot in the leg with a shotgun and is kidnapped by Anthony Green while the Playa has to jump out of the top floor window to survive.
The gang meet up at the church and Julius comes up with a plan for the Playa to pose as Tanya’s chauffeur so she can lead them back to where Anthony Green is holding Gat. It works and the Playa raids the condo where Johnny is being held, killing Anthony Green in the process and saving Johnny, though Tanya escapes AGAIN. Rendezvousing back to the church, Dex comes up with a plan to force the police to put pressure on the Vice Kings…by making Johnny and the Playa dress up as them and cause chaos. They do so, killing all sorts of people and destroying public property and bringing about news attention. There’s also this growing tension between Warren Williams and Benjamin King over their clashing ideologies: Warren just wants to kill and go for the throat while Ben is thinking about the long game with their political connections and they have an argument over what to do with the Saints again. To put even more pressure on the police/Vice King relationship, Johnny decides to blow up the cops working with the gang using RPGs looted from Anthony’s crib and the fallout (which includes blowing up Kingdom Come Records AGAIN) leads to Warren Williams and Tanya leading a coup against King. King fights his way out but barely survives, calling his old buddy Julius for help and the Playa is sent to rescue King from his own men. Warren also attempts to kill him in a drive-by but this ends up with Warren out of commission and betrayed by Tanya who kills him while he’s down, ascending to the Vice King’s throne. King and the Playa lure the rest of the Vice Kings to their death via police ambush before they lead an attack on the penthouse Tanya is in. In order to get the codes to get inside, they interrogate “eurotrash” clothing guy and Tanya’s fashion stylist Stefan before raiding and shooting Tanya out of her own office onto the streets below. Gat, the Playa and King split up with King thanking the Playa for their help and giving him the keys to the penthouse.
Quote of the Section: “Hope you don’t mind Hepatitis”.
The Westside Rollerz story arc begins with the Playa meeting up with Lin, whose first job is you stealing a shipment of vehicles and bringing them to a garage for a “special surprise”. This surprise involves tampering with them to where if they hit up a high speed then it explodes, and Troy joins up with you on this job to taunt them enough to activate their nitrous. The whole race goes up in smoke and the Playa leaves with satisfaction, though things still aren’t going fast enough for Lin. Lin’s next plan is simple: attack a Westside Rollerz mechanic named Donnie, who’s friends with the co-commander Joseph Price. However, this is a ruse so that Lin can save him so she can get introduced into the inner circle faster. The plan works, and Lin gets to meet with Joseph Price and his uncle William Sharp, who discusses some of their other plans. How the Playa is able to eavesdrop outside the house to hear about it all without any guards around I’m not sure, but Donnie lets loose info about a car shipment. The Playa protects this shipment from the gang, which forces them to find another way to get the parts. Fun fact, Steve Jaros (the lead writer) posted on Twitter or X or whatever the fuck that “The Buyers” ominously mentioned were apparently Shogo Akuji and the Ronin from the second game so fun stuff. The group decides to strip a bunch of different cars for parts instead, and the Playa fucks that plan up as well. However, Price and Sharp deduce that the Third Street Saints must be getting their info from somewhere, and who did they recently introduced into the circle? Lin. Lin calls the Playa and tells them that something is going down at a pool hall, but this turns into a Rollerz ambush which ends up in you getting knocked out, a bunch of dead bodies and you in the trunk of a car with Lin. The two hear Sharp talking to Donnie about loose ends and shoots both of them with a .44 before kicking the car into the river. Lin is able to set you free before dying, and the Playa escapes to cut off and kill William Sharp as revenge. Price sets up a meeting with his gang and organizes a convoy to raze Saints Row to the ground, however Troy intercepts the call and Julius goes with the Playa to raze them instead with a rocket launcher. Afterwards, Price calls demanding a final showdown and instead attempts to run over the Playa but fails. Chasing him down on the highway, the Playa finally kills Price and the Rollerz are smashed to nothing.
Quote of the Section: “I almost got ran over by a motherfucking truck, whatchu think?”
Los Carnale’s story arc (It’s not THE, Los means…fuck it) starts with the Playa meeting up with Dex who gives a rundown of the gang. Los Carnales is ran by Hector and Angelo Lopez and is backed by the biggest drug cartel in the world, so Dex wants to play it safe and cut out the profits. Two drug labs and a Carnales truck hijacking later (with plans to use it for some unknown purpose against the main drug plant) and the higher ups notice almost immediately. Hector instructs Angelo and their enforcer, the feared Victor Rodriguez, to launch an attack on Saints Row. The Carnales do that though Victor and Angelo soon leave while the rest of the gang is wiped out by the Playa. Afterwards, Dex gathers Troy and the Playa and reveals his plan: use the truck they hijacked to sneak into the main Carnales drug plant in a sort of Trojan Horse move in an attempt to take it over. It works, which leads to Manuel Orjuela (the Cartel representative) to question Hector’s speed in wiping out the Saints. This questioning comes to fruition when Dex brings the Playa to a Friendly Fire gun shop to pick up a sniper rifle to assassinate Hector during a meeting with the Columbians, intending to frame them as the perpetrators. The plan goes off again without a hitch, and Victor relays the news to Angelo who is in the middle of getting head from his girlfriend Luz. There’s also a little subplot around Manuel having his eye on Luz, intending to take her for himself but that’s not really followed up on too much. Dex, Troy and the Playa gather around for the next stage of the plan: Troy wants to kill Manuel but Dex wants to meet with him first then decide what to do. They attempt to meet up with Manuel at a strip club, but Victor is there and chases them all the way back to Saints Row before losing them entirely. Fun fact about this mission, Victor is invincible the entire way so don’t bother shooting to kill him.
Meeting back at the church, Julius is furious at Dex for attempting to meet with the Colombians without consulting him but Victor storms the church with goons. One violent shootout later and the legendary enforcer is dead, with Troy using his burning body as a lighter for his cigarette. Angelo is furious and intends to kill the Saints himself before slapping his girlfriend Luz over Manuel’s romantic interests and storms off. Julius later gets back from a meeting with Manuel with a proposal: the assassination at the shipyard led to a lot of drugs being confiscated by police. If the Saints can get the drugs back, the Colombians will drop Los Carnales and back them instead. Using a plan from Troy to blow a hole in the evidence room with a car bomb, the Saints raid the station while the Playa defends from the outside and they get the drugs back. After a handshake meeting between Julius and Manuel gets ambushed by Angelo who shoots up the place, Manuel gives them the location of the Lopez Mansion but tells them to “leave the senorita alone”. Dex and the Playa raid Angelo’s mansion to kill him before giving chase via vehicle, though Angelo escapes by driving over an open bridge. The final mission has Dex pulling up beside you at the church, telling you that Angelo plans to escape the city via the airport, and the two of you drive off to finish him off once and for all. The two manage to kill all of his armed guards as well as destroy his airplane, finishing him off once and for all. Luz arrives too late, having missed her flight arrives with constant questions before almost getting shot by the two. Dex gives him the keys to Angelo’s ride and tells him that Julius was right about him and they split off.
Quote of the section: “Bullshit, that was last year’s fall collection!”
After you take down all three gangs, Stilwater is finally yours. You’re promoted to right hand man and the Third Street Saints have become the most dominant gang in the city. However, Julius is pulled over by the police and disappears permanently, becoming the last time your character hears from him in game. A voice calls you up, a voice belonging to Chief of Police Richard Monroe. See he has his own game plan, and his is to use Julius as leverage against the Saints to make them do his dirty work for him. This dirty work involves assassinating mayoral candidate Marshall Winslow, himself a citizen hailing from Saints Row, for his boss. How do you do this? You literally hijack his campaign bus and leave it on some train tracks, leading to a fiery death and an explosion. If you’re paying attention throughout the entire game to radio ads you’ll learn of an upcoming election between (pretty sure) Democrat Marshall Winslow and Republican Alderman Richard Hughes where they attack each other viciously over various political beliefs. Of course, the chief of police decides to renege on his deal to let Julius go and tells the Saints that he’ll be in contact soon with more work. The Playa, Gat and Dex decide that enough is enough and that there’s no way the gang is going to be the police chief’s lapdog, so they decide to assassinate him publicly at Winslow’s funeral. This almost fails but ends with a whole bunch of dead police officers and the Saints escape away from the carnage. The final mission, just a cutscene really, involves Playa getting called to meet Monroe’s boss Hughes (with Julius supposedly meeting him there) on his yacht. Meeting up with him, Hughes thanks the Playa smugly for handing him the election and covering up any loose ends with the chief of police. Hughes has an “urban city renewal plan” that he plans to use to wipe out the Saints as the last gang in the city, having previously been criticized for displacing poor people. You’ll get a montage of the other characters in the game before Hughes decides to have you killed and here is where you’ll get three final reveals. Troy reveals himself to be an undercover cop and all of the previous hints become relevant in context (for example, his refusal to go after the Vice Kings, his knowledge of how police stations have evidence lock up, the constant questioning and even clues that you could piece together by reading the manual to the game). Julius is also revealed to be alive, and looks over the yacht at the river and looks at his watch before walking away. The final part has Hughes attempting to walk away as he tries to get his guards to kill the Playa before the yacht explodes in a fiery blaze, being the final twist in the game. No context, nothing; just a giant explosion and the feeling that Julius blew up the both of you.
Final Quote: “Can you hurry this up? I wanna go to Freckle Bitch’s.”
The plot to Saints Row is very much a “from rags to riches' ' sort of story, where you start out as a small fry and make your way up through the food chain as you wipe out each and every gang in their own storylines. The characters in this game are unique and memorable, and I don’t think a day will go by where I won’t think about iconic gangsters like the loose cannon Johnny Gat, the sophisticated gangster Benjamin King, the elder statesmen Julius Little or even smaller characters like Luz from Los Carnales, Stefan the annoying Eurotrash or Donnie from the Westside Rollerz. Each and every character adds a bit of flavor to the game that I appreciate, and culminates in a fun storyline that ends with a bang (literally). If I were to say anything about the campaigns it’s that I feel like the Vice Kings is the top one in terms of quality, with Los Carnales being my personal favorite and second one with quality. Both of them have their moments, their arcs and honestly connect to each other with little brick jokes that make it seem like it has a chronological order (Vice Kings first and Carnales last) that I just love. My least favorite is the Rollerz, mainly due to the fact that everything seems rushed and kind of out of order sometimes. The first two missions with the racing and car hijacking feels like could happen after rescuing Donnie, none of the missions feel particularly impactful aside from Lin’s death and truthfully I guess it just doesn’t interest me as well as I wanted it to. It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that it pales in comparison, and probably should be beaten first just to get it out of the way (even if I always go against Los Carnales first).
It’s a simple plot, not really filled with too many twists until the very last moment though a lot of this was due to development issues (though Troy being an undercover cop apparently was always a thing that was going to happen). For example, the only reason that Julius Little ended up becoming an antagonist was due to the fact that the animation for the cutscene ended up being shit, and so they had to reuse an Aisha animation where she checks her watch and this ultimately pushed the franchise into a different direction entirely. The character development for your character isn’t really huge in an emotional way as much as a financial way, though you do get a hint at your future snarkiness with classic lines like “I almost got hit by a motherfucking truck, whatchu think?” and “Bullshit! Those are last year’s fall collection!” referring to shoes that Luz is wearing. I don’t really know what else I can fill out here, there’s just so much personality to this game, little comedic moments wrapped around an actual serious gangster story where you take the central role in growing your small-time street gang into something much bigger. It’s a tale that’s simple but effective and one that I can appreciate with the little details as well as the sense of humor that it brings to the table, while also probably being the most serious that this franchise has ever been. Honestly, I miss this version of Saints Row even if I liked 2 and 3 a lot and I wish they would’ve gone back to this.
The gameplay is an open world crime based game where you can complete activities, shoot people, steal cars and engage in lots of customization and other activities that they don’t exactly spell out for you. What I’ll start with gameplay wise is the driving, which I’ll be straight up feels consistent and fantastic. It doesn’t feel as weighty and bloated as say Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5 would later feel, chasing some desire to be realistic with its behind the wheel escapades. I couldn’t give less than a fuck about that, if I’m going to drive a car in game then I want the handling to be smooth and when I actually make a drift that I don’t make a fat U-turn the other direction sideways and the Saints Row series I feel has almost always done a good job with that with pretty much any vehicle you drive. Keep in mind though, there aren’t any drivable boats, motorcycles or helicopters unlike the sequels so you’ll basically be going between “Cheap ass car”, “Cheap gangster ass car” and “Holy shit this is a ferrari” level of quality in cars (not just sports cars of course, they have Rolls Royces but they have their own names for copyright reasons). The gunplay is really simple, painfully so: you literally have a weapons wheel you hold B to open, and you use the right thumbstick to pick one of the weapons you want. There is no reloading sadly unless you’re idle or out of ammo but there is a melee button you can use to hit people with whether it’s a pistol whip or an assault rifle swing that knocks people dead in the face but that’s also it. There’s also melee weapons like baseball bats, knives you know the usual shit in these games that work just as well for low level goons. Best part about combat is how smooth everything feels, and the ragdolls are just the icing on top. You can consume all sorts of stuff from fast food at your local Freckle Bitch’s for health purposes or go to the liquor store to pick up booze and blunts, though the booze and blunts is more for the show than to add any benefits.
In order to do main missions you need to get respect, and respect can be obtained in many different ways: killing rival gangster is a sure way of doing it, so is customizing yourself and buying clothes and cars (obviously if it’s purple you get more of a boost to your respect) but the main way is to do side activities. Side activities range from Insurance Fraud, where you jump in front of cars in order to get a lot of bank to drug trafficking, where you ride alongside someone and protect them as they deal drugs from both cops and rival gangs to hitman and chop shop activities. They’re all varied and different enough to where if you have trouble with one, you can hop over to another activity and gain enough respect for multiple different missions if need be. If I remember correctly, during my playthroughs there were ones that I didn’t even touch at all. However, unlike the future Saints Rows, they go past 6 levels to 8 levels instead. There are no mid-rewards like Saints Row 2, it’s just one straight shot to the end for the final reward instead; however you don’t have to complete everything in one go thankfully so you can always come back later. Some of these rewards include losing notoriety faster (Drug Trafficking), reduced damage (Insurance Fraud), pimp outfits and the Pimp Cane shotgun (Snatch), and weapons in your weapon cache (Mayhem) along with others I’m sure I didn’t list. Other side activities that are smaller but have rewards include collecting CDs (which every ten or so gives you a new track created for the game) and tagging, which requires quick time events and rewards you with unlimited sprint for all of them. If you’re a completionist, it’s recommended to get all the activities done before you complete the story (or at least the drug trafficking stuff) because otherwise some of the rewards are pointless. Other smaller activities that don't really give you much in the way of reputation but can get you a quick buck involves taking hostages, which involves stealing a car with a passenger inside of it and holding them for a certain amount of time for a cash bonus with cops chasing you. Another one you can do is robbing shops: you can either break into the safe yourself and open it up with quick time events; if you rob it during the day you just get cash, but if you rob it during nighttime you can steal a box to put it in the trunk of a car to deliver to a fence to sell.
When you play the game, you originally start out with a beat up house (called a “Crib”) in the Saints Row district, where you can access any clothes bought or weapons in your cache and even money you collect from your various districts. When you take down each of the gangs, you own their cribs (like Benjamin King’s penthouse or Angelo Lopez’s mansion) for example and these are a lot more flamboyant and stylish. They aren’t like Saints Row 2 where you can buy up a bunch and customize them but they’re nice places to save your progress and drive cars out of your garage. You can also save at every stronghold you unlock in the game and that’s pretty cool too but doesn't really have extra features like cribs do. Not for customization, there’s a lot to work with here from character customization at the beginning (though you can always change it with plastic surgery at Image As Designed), you can buy clothes and change different colors (though finding a belt to work with an outfit can be a giant pain in the ass in my opinion), and repair/customize cars at the local garages which you can save for your crib for later. I won’t go too into detail on this as there’s a lot you can do with it but it all looks and feels incredible getting your own style down, whether you’re trying to look like somebody or if you’re trying to make the most cursed character alive. The only downside to this is that there’s no female characters to play as, so it feels kind of weird and inconsistent if you’re trying to create one character to play from the beginning to the end of the series.
The last main thing I’d like to bring up are homies: these are recruitable companions (lol) that you can either hit up on the cell phone (once you unlock them), or mostly whistle for on the street that will follow you on command. The ones on the street are the easiest, have their own weapons and the more of the story you go through, their weapons get better. There are also special homies, ones which you unlock either through completing certain side quests (like getting Will from completing Snatch in the Saints Row district, or Mr. Wong from the Chinatown hitman activities for example), while there are two you can unlock from calling certain numbers. If you call 555-2445 on your in-game phone (from the pause menu) you can get a homie named “Chicken Ned” who shows up with a baseball bat. You can also unlock Zombie Lin after you complete the mission involving her death by calling the business “Eye for an Eye”. I like these little easter eggs as they add a little bit of flavor in the game, and there are more easter eggs and callable numbers to boot. You can call up numbers like 911 for the usual response from paramedics and even get healing, calling Big Willy’s Cab sends a cab out to your way for a pickup (though you can also travel via trains at train stops), or call up random numbers you see in the city for funny voice messages and nothing else. There are also numbers you can call up to unlock cheat codes as well as little easter eggs you can find here and there like civilian suicide hotspots, the teddy bear full of money in the Lopez mansion, or just little references that add to the world of the game. Also, you can blow up trains and I think that’s fucking hilarious. That’s about it for the gameplay that I can think of but I’m sure there’s more I’m missing out on describing.
The sound design for Saints Row is something that’s painfully easy to describe, and I’ll start with the music here because the music slaps. Granted, I’ll sit down here and say that I have listened to all of it? No, in fact I mostly listened (and still listen) to KRHYME FM, and let me tell you something man that radio station has all the fucking hits. There are songs that I’ve discovered off of that soundtrack that I STILL listen to today, from Masta Ace’s Soda & Soap, DJ Mathematic’s Real Nillaz, The Alchemist’s & Lloyd Bank’s Bangers track. That’s not to say that there aren’t any other good radio stations, in fact I bounced a lot between KRhyme, TheKronic and Sizzurp and bumped tracks like Eric B. and Rakim’s I Ain’t No Joke, R.A. the Rugged Man’s Black & White, Mathematic’s Spotlite and a whole bunch of other tracks I don’t remember off the top of my head. In fact, I’m genuinely surprised that there were three separate rap stations, not that I would complain about rap, hip hop and R&B but I’m surprised they didn’t try to condense it down since apparently there are three tracks spread across at least two stations (from Aisha in-universe of course) and tracks from artists that come from the SAME ALBUM (Mathematics mostly) that are put on different stations. I think so at least, shit’s strange as hell. Other tracks you mostly get from unlocking them by collecting CDs as mentioned before (shoutout to David Banner’s Saints Row, one of the most addicting tracks to listen to in game) for exclusive tracks or Masta Ace’s Take a Walk (which you can only buy from Scratch That, a record store in game). I can’t and won’t speak for the other radio stations, though next time I play it I really need to try the drum & bass channel because I love me some drum & bass but besides the point, the culture of Saints Row is heavily influenced by the hippity hops and the rippety raps and I’m always weak for it, especially considering it came out in the mid 2000s.
What I’ll say about the sound effects and sound design is that they bring the game to life in a way that feels great and unique. I’ll start with guns because by god do the guns sound amazing; the shotguns feel impactful, the M16 has this smooth and buttery sound that I could probably listen to forever and would make me fall asleep in a strange way while the AK sounds crunchy and menacing. Pistols for the most part sound like starter weapons (except the GDHC which hot damn) but again they feel and sound like they have impact and if you want your weapons to sound great they need that impact. The noises that the submachine guns make sound pretty similar for the most part but are nice either way while the special weapons are great in the case of the Rocket Launcher, though I’ll say that I wish the McManus sniper rifle had a little bit more oomph to it? I don’t know, it’s not bad but It doesn’t always have the feel that I need, though the grenades more than make up for it to me. Cars screeches, footsteps, and the city surrounding you all sound bustling with life in a way that just feels and sounds good! I don’t know if I had really much else to say about the sound effects because I’d just be repetitive and stale at a certain point but what I can say is that the random pedestrians and some of their voice lines are also hilarious and are honestly so random but not crazy enough to be GTA levels of satire (which to be honest can be kind of annoying sometimes).
The voice acting for Saints Row is pretty impressive in all honesty, considering the presumably smaller budget compared to a titan like Rockstar Games was able to pull some impressive talents. Keith David plays Julius Little with a smooth and deep gravelly voice which oozes charisma; I'd basically let him narrate my sex tape (if I ever had sex that is LOL). Daniel Dae Kim is someone whom I didn’t know before Saints Row but he plays Johnny Gat so effectively as this sociopathic murderous gangster that I certainly knew who he was AFTER I played the game. Michael Clark Duncan plays Benjamin “Motherfucking” King and for those who don’t know him, he also played Kingpin in 2004’s Daredevil along with John Coffey in The Green Mile and his acting credibility is phenomenal whether he’s playing an innocent man or a cold and calculated motherfucker (rest in peace by the way, why do the good ones always pass man?). Michael Rapaport (whom GTA guys know as Joey Leone) plays Troy Bradshaw here and does it pretty well, sounding honestly like an undercover detective from the Boston area and he just kind of fits the mold and makes it feel believable. Mila Kunis plays Tanya pretty well too, and while it’s easy to recognize Mila from pretty much everything she’s in, she plays backstabber in this game pretty slick. I could go on and on and on about the voice acting but the truth is that I legit can’t think of a performance that was bad, or didn’t really fit or anything to those lines. They did a stellar job with this game and I hope these guys got paid handsomely for this as there was never a time where I WASN’T immersed. If they had a line that was supposed to make me laugh, I laughed. If it was supposed to be hardcore gangster shit, it was exactly that. Granted there won’t be any emotional crying or anything but that was never this game’s vibe to be honest.
Graphically speaking the game is honestly pretty good looking, with a lot of bright colors and smooth models compared to the bleak and ugly (but iconic) look of Saints Row 2. Cars look fresh as hell, the animations on the characters involve A LOT of ragdolls and honestly looks pretty good. In fact, everything just feels pretty consistently great and I feel that the game takes full advantage of the power of the Xbox 360. There’s a lot of unique and interesting models for different pedestrians that add to the liveliness of the city; from dudes in giant soda and hotdog mascot costumes to people actually dressed up like pimps and driving dinky little ass pimpmobile muscle cars. I’ve never really been great at describing graphics but again everything is just smooth and shiny, and when it’s not everything blends it in perfectly so it’s not visually unappealing. When I say it looks good, I don’t mean like Playstation 5 graphically amazing, that shit wasn’t possible back then. But stylistically it’s just pristine, clean yet dirty and gritty at the same time. Let’s take (not the Los LOL) Los Carnales territory for example; as a grimy ass cartel with huge stakes in drug trafficking, you could go from their gated community in Ezpata to their dirtier dock operations in Poseidon Alley and up to their industrial territory in Black Bottom. You’re probably thinking, “yeah no shit, it’s an open world game of course you can do that”. But there’s something so consistent about how you can have so many different environments blend in together so well to create a perfect city like Stilwater while also fitting the personalities of the gangs inhabiting it. Westside Rollerz for example, a bunch of rich white preppy boys who love Fast & Furious right? Of course they’re going to control the stadiums area, their little upper class suburbs and down into places like Chinatown because aesthetically that’s just how their gang would operate trying to copy something like Fast & Furious. The Vice Kings on the upper hand, while they have their territory in lower income neighborhoods (like their old turf in Sunnyvale), their leader Benjamin King has so much influence and power in the city that he’s basically taking over all the rich neighborhoods.
I could go into more obvious shit like how the top of the map and the bottom of the map are separated by wealth gaps, the rich being on top and all the popular metaphors and shit I couldn’t properly explain. However, for me this is moreso a place for me to gush about how atmospherically Stilwater just feels like the perfect sort of playground, everything just lines up perfectly for the gangs, the structure, the variation. It’s a place that FEELS like a place (and apparently was inspired by the likes of Detroit and other midwestern cities), where Saints Row 2’s atmosphere represents corporate gentrification that infiltrates the communities later on. If Stilwater in SR2 is coming home to realize everything’s changed, Saints Row the original feels like home. That’s just the environment of course, I also appreciate how in this game the gangs actually feel like street gangs and not just an eclectic bunch of different dudes from different races and such with extreme differences. I say that not as a diss to Saints Row 2’s gangs, because I actually really like them and how they pop out. But these gangs actually feel like gangs with different street styles with their pant legs rolled up, bandanas and the whole nine yards; like it actually feels faithful to what a gang would act like back then. This is an atmosphere I really enjoy in my gangster games, an atmosphere that was really popular in the early to mid 2000s that I honestly really miss. There’s a weakness that I have for what I dub the “G-Unit Era” with the flashy clothes, the backwards caps, the chains and all that shit. I love it, I can’t get enough of it; this is the kind of vibe that I wanted with the Saints Row reboot. I love the vibes from each of the gangs, their colors and identities are unique and make them feel special and natural in their environment. If you want a fun fact about the Saints themselves, they used to be green in their older iterations until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out and Voltition decided to switch to purple to make them more unique.
The last section I’ll put down is multiplayer, one which I haven’t played other than jumping into one empty lobby and walking around the warehouse as a curiosity. There were several different game modes, such as Co-op missions which only had two to three missions with a cap of two players and others like Team Deathmatch, Protect the Pimp is basically a VIP mode and Big Ass Chains for example I believe is like Capture the Flag? It’s the usual set of game modes and while I feel like there’s some unique Saints Row content I’d love to experience once or twice, overall it was one of those “shoehorned in multiplayer grabs” that kind of got abandoned after a little while if I remember correctly. It’s weird because they decided to do one for the sequel too for some reason before dropping it right after that.
Saints Row is a classic open world crime game that I honestly both thoroughly enjoy and I feel more than matches up with the reputation that the Grand Theft Auto series has developed. Both have interesting gang dynamics, multiple open world activities, a sense of humor that makes me chuckle, fun gunplay and overall is 100 percent a recommended time. I love me some open world crime games but I personally feel that the only games that have ever been truly able to match up with the GTA franchise in terms of quality are the first two Saints Row games. The Getaway was fantastic but the replayability and the hardcore feeling of the series made it a once and done deal, Driver is cool as a Hollywood car chase movie but doesn’t have that oomph for me, True Crime as a series is okay but a little bit janky in certain instances. People give the first Saints Row game shit for not being more humorous and over the top like the second game, or for having really frustrating difficulty spikes. I love this game, and always will and every once in a while I sit down and I replay this game because everything about the first game to me is immaculate as fuck.
As for the future (or now lack thereof) for the franchise, there was a lot of hope. The sequel to this game would become the most popular title in the franchise as both staples and the pillars of the entire franchise. The sequel would release on every console and catapult the series as a legitimate rival to Rockstar’s franchise, and soon after that came all forms of plans for the series which included canceled handheld games (which I’ll get to after Saints Row 2) as well as a canceled movie with 50 Cent. However, over time to differentiate itself from the semi-serious tone of Grand Theft Auto, Volition pivoted towards a goofier approach, one that worked with the third title but began to lose steam from the fourth one and on. One failed spin-off and a really shitty reboot later, and sadly Volition has closed. It’s a damn shame, because the truth is these guys made a really solid foundation for a fantastic future, one that was cut up and crushed due to budget constraints and a vision that seemed destined to fail. Overall, that shit sucks, especially considering the fact that there was a group at Volition (more like a duo) that had planned to repair the Saints Row 2 PC port (a port notorious for glitches and bad connections) after they found the source code as well as fixing it up in general with the “Gentlemen of the Row” pack. Again, I’m just going to lament here and say that I’m very much sad that the game’s source code wasn’t found, because the game is great and deserves to be ported to PC for all the fans in the series to play if they didn’t play it before.
Links:
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/saints-row/717127p1.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fPyaIZLws8&ab_channel=mrsaintsgodzilla21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1hDuC7dTPM&ab_channel=MafiaGameVideos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Row_(2006_video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SaintsRow1
https://archive.org/details/saints-row-dump (Behind the scenes stuff from Volition themselves)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udo3ZAuZOW4&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-heKzYYGC3I&ab_channel=mrsaintsgodzilla21
I originally encountered Saints Row through playing it at my Mom’s friend's house. As a young child, I didn’t have an Xbox 360 or any next gen games so I was mainly used to playing the previous generation for the longest time. This same friend of my mother’s funny enough is where I also got introduced to my love of horror, because she gave me Condemned: Criminal Origins as an Xbox 360 game but that’s a different story. I had played Saints Row pretty much all the damn time when I was over there along with Grand Theft Auto 4 and I was always really excited to go over and play the game. Afterwards for the longest time, I hadn’t really played too much of the Saints Row series at all, in fact I think I had played Saints Row 2 before playing the first one again after remembering the game’s existence. I would repeatedly play it on and off once I got my Xbox 360, and would be one of my main go-to games for entertainment as I messed about offline. I ended up replaying this a little while ago for the first time backwards compatible via the Xbox One after Microsoft made the game compatible around 2018. I believed I had finished it last year or the year before, and so I’m writing this review now because my buddy BFD Survivor enlisted me for a future playthrough on Saints Row 2’s port for PC (after we fix the damn thing of course). Saints Row as a series would become mixed in my eyes but I can safely say to this day that this and the second game are some of my favorite open world crime games of all time, in fact they’re two of my favorite games of all time. This review isn’t going to be a supercritical one as much as it’s just going to be me sucking this game’s cock and verbalizing how much I truly enjoyed my time with this game, while maybe offering a critique here and there.
The plot begins with your created character (aka Playa; clever Volition, clever) as you walk down the streets of Saints Row, a district in the city of Stilwater. Stilwater is a city rampant with crime, drugs, prostitution, all the good shit you’d love in a city overrun with criminal issues. Passing by someone selling stolen watches and a hooker, a gang war unfolds in the district over unclaimed territory over a gang tag on a nearby wall between three gangs: the Vice Kings (Yellow clad gangsters led by the well connected record executive CEO named Benjamin King and involved in lots of prostitution which Julius used to roll with), the Westside Rollerz (a blue gang mostly led by white boys who love underground racing and are led by Joseph Price and his uncle, William Sharp, a wealthy financier, and Los Carnales (not THE Los Carnales, are a red-clad latino gang who deals with drugs and guns led by the Lopez brothers along with their colombian backers). It nearly ends badly for you, a bullet in the forehead by some lone Vice King dweeb when you’re saved by two people: Julius Little and Troy Bradshaw. Looking to stop the gangs once and for all from destroying their neighborhood, Julius tells “Playa” to come by the church in the middle of the district if they want to take back the neighborhood from the gangs. It’s here where they get “canonized”, and are thrown into the middle of a gang initiation which you could either win or lose depending on if you get stomped out while meeting some of the other lieutenants in the Saints, mainly Johnny Gat and Dex. After this you sort of get used to the basics: buy a gun, kill some Vice Kings, and take over some territory (while doing some optional objectives like strongholds or stealing hoes from other pimps). Afterwords, the district is yours and Julius comes up with game plans for every gang in the city: Johnny Gat is set on the Vice Kings (which Troy backs out of aggressively), Lin is sent to infiltrate the Rollerz (first time seeing her of course) and Dex is told to come up with a way to take down “the” Los Carnales.
The Vice Kings story arc starts off with meeting up with Johnny Gat and his girlfriend Aisha, who reports that her sister’s been kidnapped off the street, presumably by Vice Kings lieutenant Tanya Winters who heads up the prostitution ring of the gang. This culminates in Aisha and Gat coming up with a plan for a big fuck you to the Vice Kings. See, Aisha is actually an R&B artist (whose songs you can listen to on the radio stations) and she signed to Kingdom Come Records, Benjamin King’s record company. However extortion is at play and with the kidnapping of her sister, all bets are off the table so the two come up with a plan to fake her death by bringing her to the session before blowing up the entire building with a car bomb (with a nice little 2Pac “7 Day Theory” reference to go. That goes off surprisingly without a hitch, and Gat’s next plan is a very simple one: kill Tanya Winters, and emphasis is placed on how she slept with both Anthony Green (King’s bodyguard) as well as Warren Williams (a former rapper named EZ Money as well as the guy who managed Kingdom Come Records) behind Green’s back. This dynamic will come into play later but for now, but Gat tells the Playa to take over her brothel at Prawn Court, which will mess up the prostitution business King has going on. Prawn Court is conquered but no Tanya, and a cutscene that follows shows King’s inner circles (including Tanya) bitching about the Saints. King tells them all to calm down as he’s going to rebuild the record company and that he’ll put pressure on police chief Monroe to crack down on the Saints so they can retake the brothel. The cops crack down on the Saints, but after Johnny hears that the Vice Kings are attempting to retake the brothel, sends the Playa back to Prawn Court to kill the invaders. Afterwards, Gat calls to let him know that Tanya is holding up in the old Sunnyvale Gardens police station and to drop by the church later as they have “murdering to do”. This “murdering” plan doesn’t go too well as the raid ends in an ambush where Gat gets shot in the leg with a shotgun and is kidnapped by Anthony Green while the Playa has to jump out of the top floor window to survive.
The gang meet up at the church and Julius comes up with a plan for the Playa to pose as Tanya’s chauffeur so she can lead them back to where Anthony Green is holding Gat. It works and the Playa raids the condo where Johnny is being held, killing Anthony Green in the process and saving Johnny, though Tanya escapes AGAIN. Rendezvousing back to the church, Dex comes up with a plan to force the police to put pressure on the Vice Kings…by making Johnny and the Playa dress up as them and cause chaos. They do so, killing all sorts of people and destroying public property and bringing about news attention. There’s also this growing tension between Warren Williams and Benjamin King over their clashing ideologies: Warren just wants to kill and go for the throat while Ben is thinking about the long game with their political connections and they have an argument over what to do with the Saints again. To put even more pressure on the police/Vice King relationship, Johnny decides to blow up the cops working with the gang using RPGs looted from Anthony’s crib and the fallout (which includes blowing up Kingdom Come Records AGAIN) leads to Warren Williams and Tanya leading a coup against King. King fights his way out but barely survives, calling his old buddy Julius for help and the Playa is sent to rescue King from his own men. Warren also attempts to kill him in a drive-by but this ends up with Warren out of commission and betrayed by Tanya who kills him while he’s down, ascending to the Vice King’s throne. King and the Playa lure the rest of the Vice Kings to their death via police ambush before they lead an attack on the penthouse Tanya is in. In order to get the codes to get inside, they interrogate “eurotrash” clothing guy and Tanya’s fashion stylist Stefan before raiding and shooting Tanya out of her own office onto the streets below. Gat, the Playa and King split up with King thanking the Playa for their help and giving him the keys to the penthouse.
Quote of the Section: “Hope you don’t mind Hepatitis”.
The Westside Rollerz story arc begins with the Playa meeting up with Lin, whose first job is you stealing a shipment of vehicles and bringing them to a garage for a “special surprise”. This surprise involves tampering with them to where if they hit up a high speed then it explodes, and Troy joins up with you on this job to taunt them enough to activate their nitrous. The whole race goes up in smoke and the Playa leaves with satisfaction, though things still aren’t going fast enough for Lin. Lin’s next plan is simple: attack a Westside Rollerz mechanic named Donnie, who’s friends with the co-commander Joseph Price. However, this is a ruse so that Lin can save him so she can get introduced into the inner circle faster. The plan works, and Lin gets to meet with Joseph Price and his uncle William Sharp, who discusses some of their other plans. How the Playa is able to eavesdrop outside the house to hear about it all without any guards around I’m not sure, but Donnie lets loose info about a car shipment. The Playa protects this shipment from the gang, which forces them to find another way to get the parts. Fun fact, Steve Jaros (the lead writer) posted on Twitter or X or whatever the fuck that “The Buyers” ominously mentioned were apparently Shogo Akuji and the Ronin from the second game so fun stuff. The group decides to strip a bunch of different cars for parts instead, and the Playa fucks that plan up as well. However, Price and Sharp deduce that the Third Street Saints must be getting their info from somewhere, and who did they recently introduced into the circle? Lin. Lin calls the Playa and tells them that something is going down at a pool hall, but this turns into a Rollerz ambush which ends up in you getting knocked out, a bunch of dead bodies and you in the trunk of a car with Lin. The two hear Sharp talking to Donnie about loose ends and shoots both of them with a .44 before kicking the car into the river. Lin is able to set you free before dying, and the Playa escapes to cut off and kill William Sharp as revenge. Price sets up a meeting with his gang and organizes a convoy to raze Saints Row to the ground, however Troy intercepts the call and Julius goes with the Playa to raze them instead with a rocket launcher. Afterwards, Price calls demanding a final showdown and instead attempts to run over the Playa but fails. Chasing him down on the highway, the Playa finally kills Price and the Rollerz are smashed to nothing.
Quote of the Section: “I almost got ran over by a motherfucking truck, whatchu think?”
Los Carnale’s story arc (It’s not THE, Los means…fuck it) starts with the Playa meeting up with Dex who gives a rundown of the gang. Los Carnales is ran by Hector and Angelo Lopez and is backed by the biggest drug cartel in the world, so Dex wants to play it safe and cut out the profits. Two drug labs and a Carnales truck hijacking later (with plans to use it for some unknown purpose against the main drug plant) and the higher ups notice almost immediately. Hector instructs Angelo and their enforcer, the feared Victor Rodriguez, to launch an attack on Saints Row. The Carnales do that though Victor and Angelo soon leave while the rest of the gang is wiped out by the Playa. Afterwards, Dex gathers Troy and the Playa and reveals his plan: use the truck they hijacked to sneak into the main Carnales drug plant in a sort of Trojan Horse move in an attempt to take it over. It works, which leads to Manuel Orjuela (the Cartel representative) to question Hector’s speed in wiping out the Saints. This questioning comes to fruition when Dex brings the Playa to a Friendly Fire gun shop to pick up a sniper rifle to assassinate Hector during a meeting with the Columbians, intending to frame them as the perpetrators. The plan goes off again without a hitch, and Victor relays the news to Angelo who is in the middle of getting head from his girlfriend Luz. There’s also a little subplot around Manuel having his eye on Luz, intending to take her for himself but that’s not really followed up on too much. Dex, Troy and the Playa gather around for the next stage of the plan: Troy wants to kill Manuel but Dex wants to meet with him first then decide what to do. They attempt to meet up with Manuel at a strip club, but Victor is there and chases them all the way back to Saints Row before losing them entirely. Fun fact about this mission, Victor is invincible the entire way so don’t bother shooting to kill him.
Meeting back at the church, Julius is furious at Dex for attempting to meet with the Colombians without consulting him but Victor storms the church with goons. One violent shootout later and the legendary enforcer is dead, with Troy using his burning body as a lighter for his cigarette. Angelo is furious and intends to kill the Saints himself before slapping his girlfriend Luz over Manuel’s romantic interests and storms off. Julius later gets back from a meeting with Manuel with a proposal: the assassination at the shipyard led to a lot of drugs being confiscated by police. If the Saints can get the drugs back, the Colombians will drop Los Carnales and back them instead. Using a plan from Troy to blow a hole in the evidence room with a car bomb, the Saints raid the station while the Playa defends from the outside and they get the drugs back. After a handshake meeting between Julius and Manuel gets ambushed by Angelo who shoots up the place, Manuel gives them the location of the Lopez Mansion but tells them to “leave the senorita alone”. Dex and the Playa raid Angelo’s mansion to kill him before giving chase via vehicle, though Angelo escapes by driving over an open bridge. The final mission has Dex pulling up beside you at the church, telling you that Angelo plans to escape the city via the airport, and the two of you drive off to finish him off once and for all. The two manage to kill all of his armed guards as well as destroy his airplane, finishing him off once and for all. Luz arrives too late, having missed her flight arrives with constant questions before almost getting shot by the two. Dex gives him the keys to Angelo’s ride and tells him that Julius was right about him and they split off.
Quote of the section: “Bullshit, that was last year’s fall collection!”
After you take down all three gangs, Stilwater is finally yours. You’re promoted to right hand man and the Third Street Saints have become the most dominant gang in the city. However, Julius is pulled over by the police and disappears permanently, becoming the last time your character hears from him in game. A voice calls you up, a voice belonging to Chief of Police Richard Monroe. See he has his own game plan, and his is to use Julius as leverage against the Saints to make them do his dirty work for him. This dirty work involves assassinating mayoral candidate Marshall Winslow, himself a citizen hailing from Saints Row, for his boss. How do you do this? You literally hijack his campaign bus and leave it on some train tracks, leading to a fiery death and an explosion. If you’re paying attention throughout the entire game to radio ads you’ll learn of an upcoming election between (pretty sure) Democrat Marshall Winslow and Republican Alderman Richard Hughes where they attack each other viciously over various political beliefs. Of course, the chief of police decides to renege on his deal to let Julius go and tells the Saints that he’ll be in contact soon with more work. The Playa, Gat and Dex decide that enough is enough and that there’s no way the gang is going to be the police chief’s lapdog, so they decide to assassinate him publicly at Winslow’s funeral. This almost fails but ends with a whole bunch of dead police officers and the Saints escape away from the carnage. The final mission, just a cutscene really, involves Playa getting called to meet Monroe’s boss Hughes (with Julius supposedly meeting him there) on his yacht. Meeting up with him, Hughes thanks the Playa smugly for handing him the election and covering up any loose ends with the chief of police. Hughes has an “urban city renewal plan” that he plans to use to wipe out the Saints as the last gang in the city, having previously been criticized for displacing poor people. You’ll get a montage of the other characters in the game before Hughes decides to have you killed and here is where you’ll get three final reveals. Troy reveals himself to be an undercover cop and all of the previous hints become relevant in context (for example, his refusal to go after the Vice Kings, his knowledge of how police stations have evidence lock up, the constant questioning and even clues that you could piece together by reading the manual to the game). Julius is also revealed to be alive, and looks over the yacht at the river and looks at his watch before walking away. The final part has Hughes attempting to walk away as he tries to get his guards to kill the Playa before the yacht explodes in a fiery blaze, being the final twist in the game. No context, nothing; just a giant explosion and the feeling that Julius blew up the both of you.
Final Quote: “Can you hurry this up? I wanna go to Freckle Bitch’s.”
The plot to Saints Row is very much a “from rags to riches' ' sort of story, where you start out as a small fry and make your way up through the food chain as you wipe out each and every gang in their own storylines. The characters in this game are unique and memorable, and I don’t think a day will go by where I won’t think about iconic gangsters like the loose cannon Johnny Gat, the sophisticated gangster Benjamin King, the elder statesmen Julius Little or even smaller characters like Luz from Los Carnales, Stefan the annoying Eurotrash or Donnie from the Westside Rollerz. Each and every character adds a bit of flavor to the game that I appreciate, and culminates in a fun storyline that ends with a bang (literally). If I were to say anything about the campaigns it’s that I feel like the Vice Kings is the top one in terms of quality, with Los Carnales being my personal favorite and second one with quality. Both of them have their moments, their arcs and honestly connect to each other with little brick jokes that make it seem like it has a chronological order (Vice Kings first and Carnales last) that I just love. My least favorite is the Rollerz, mainly due to the fact that everything seems rushed and kind of out of order sometimes. The first two missions with the racing and car hijacking feels like could happen after rescuing Donnie, none of the missions feel particularly impactful aside from Lin’s death and truthfully I guess it just doesn’t interest me as well as I wanted it to. It’s not that it’s bad it’s just that it pales in comparison, and probably should be beaten first just to get it out of the way (even if I always go against Los Carnales first).
It’s a simple plot, not really filled with too many twists until the very last moment though a lot of this was due to development issues (though Troy being an undercover cop apparently was always a thing that was going to happen). For example, the only reason that Julius Little ended up becoming an antagonist was due to the fact that the animation for the cutscene ended up being shit, and so they had to reuse an Aisha animation where she checks her watch and this ultimately pushed the franchise into a different direction entirely. The character development for your character isn’t really huge in an emotional way as much as a financial way, though you do get a hint at your future snarkiness with classic lines like “I almost got hit by a motherfucking truck, whatchu think?” and “Bullshit! Those are last year’s fall collection!” referring to shoes that Luz is wearing. I don’t really know what else I can fill out here, there’s just so much personality to this game, little comedic moments wrapped around an actual serious gangster story where you take the central role in growing your small-time street gang into something much bigger. It’s a tale that’s simple but effective and one that I can appreciate with the little details as well as the sense of humor that it brings to the table, while also probably being the most serious that this franchise has ever been. Honestly, I miss this version of Saints Row even if I liked 2 and 3 a lot and I wish they would’ve gone back to this.
The gameplay is an open world crime based game where you can complete activities, shoot people, steal cars and engage in lots of customization and other activities that they don’t exactly spell out for you. What I’ll start with gameplay wise is the driving, which I’ll be straight up feels consistent and fantastic. It doesn’t feel as weighty and bloated as say Grand Theft Auto 4 and 5 would later feel, chasing some desire to be realistic with its behind the wheel escapades. I couldn’t give less than a fuck about that, if I’m going to drive a car in game then I want the handling to be smooth and when I actually make a drift that I don’t make a fat U-turn the other direction sideways and the Saints Row series I feel has almost always done a good job with that with pretty much any vehicle you drive. Keep in mind though, there aren’t any drivable boats, motorcycles or helicopters unlike the sequels so you’ll basically be going between “Cheap ass car”, “Cheap gangster ass car” and “Holy shit this is a ferrari” level of quality in cars (not just sports cars of course, they have Rolls Royces but they have their own names for copyright reasons). The gunplay is really simple, painfully so: you literally have a weapons wheel you hold B to open, and you use the right thumbstick to pick one of the weapons you want. There is no reloading sadly unless you’re idle or out of ammo but there is a melee button you can use to hit people with whether it’s a pistol whip or an assault rifle swing that knocks people dead in the face but that’s also it. There’s also melee weapons like baseball bats, knives you know the usual shit in these games that work just as well for low level goons. Best part about combat is how smooth everything feels, and the ragdolls are just the icing on top. You can consume all sorts of stuff from fast food at your local Freckle Bitch’s for health purposes or go to the liquor store to pick up booze and blunts, though the booze and blunts is more for the show than to add any benefits.
In order to do main missions you need to get respect, and respect can be obtained in many different ways: killing rival gangster is a sure way of doing it, so is customizing yourself and buying clothes and cars (obviously if it’s purple you get more of a boost to your respect) but the main way is to do side activities. Side activities range from Insurance Fraud, where you jump in front of cars in order to get a lot of bank to drug trafficking, where you ride alongside someone and protect them as they deal drugs from both cops and rival gangs to hitman and chop shop activities. They’re all varied and different enough to where if you have trouble with one, you can hop over to another activity and gain enough respect for multiple different missions if need be. If I remember correctly, during my playthroughs there were ones that I didn’t even touch at all. However, unlike the future Saints Rows, they go past 6 levels to 8 levels instead. There are no mid-rewards like Saints Row 2, it’s just one straight shot to the end for the final reward instead; however you don’t have to complete everything in one go thankfully so you can always come back later. Some of these rewards include losing notoriety faster (Drug Trafficking), reduced damage (Insurance Fraud), pimp outfits and the Pimp Cane shotgun (Snatch), and weapons in your weapon cache (Mayhem) along with others I’m sure I didn’t list. Other side activities that are smaller but have rewards include collecting CDs (which every ten or so gives you a new track created for the game) and tagging, which requires quick time events and rewards you with unlimited sprint for all of them. If you’re a completionist, it’s recommended to get all the activities done before you complete the story (or at least the drug trafficking stuff) because otherwise some of the rewards are pointless. Other smaller activities that don't really give you much in the way of reputation but can get you a quick buck involves taking hostages, which involves stealing a car with a passenger inside of it and holding them for a certain amount of time for a cash bonus with cops chasing you. Another one you can do is robbing shops: you can either break into the safe yourself and open it up with quick time events; if you rob it during the day you just get cash, but if you rob it during nighttime you can steal a box to put it in the trunk of a car to deliver to a fence to sell.
When you play the game, you originally start out with a beat up house (called a “Crib”) in the Saints Row district, where you can access any clothes bought or weapons in your cache and even money you collect from your various districts. When you take down each of the gangs, you own their cribs (like Benjamin King’s penthouse or Angelo Lopez’s mansion) for example and these are a lot more flamboyant and stylish. They aren’t like Saints Row 2 where you can buy up a bunch and customize them but they’re nice places to save your progress and drive cars out of your garage. You can also save at every stronghold you unlock in the game and that’s pretty cool too but doesn't really have extra features like cribs do. Not for customization, there’s a lot to work with here from character customization at the beginning (though you can always change it with plastic surgery at Image As Designed), you can buy clothes and change different colors (though finding a belt to work with an outfit can be a giant pain in the ass in my opinion), and repair/customize cars at the local garages which you can save for your crib for later. I won’t go too into detail on this as there’s a lot you can do with it but it all looks and feels incredible getting your own style down, whether you’re trying to look like somebody or if you’re trying to make the most cursed character alive. The only downside to this is that there’s no female characters to play as, so it feels kind of weird and inconsistent if you’re trying to create one character to play from the beginning to the end of the series.
The last main thing I’d like to bring up are homies: these are recruitable companions (lol) that you can either hit up on the cell phone (once you unlock them), or mostly whistle for on the street that will follow you on command. The ones on the street are the easiest, have their own weapons and the more of the story you go through, their weapons get better. There are also special homies, ones which you unlock either through completing certain side quests (like getting Will from completing Snatch in the Saints Row district, or Mr. Wong from the Chinatown hitman activities for example), while there are two you can unlock from calling certain numbers. If you call 555-2445 on your in-game phone (from the pause menu) you can get a homie named “Chicken Ned” who shows up with a baseball bat. You can also unlock Zombie Lin after you complete the mission involving her death by calling the business “Eye for an Eye”. I like these little easter eggs as they add a little bit of flavor in the game, and there are more easter eggs and callable numbers to boot. You can call up numbers like 911 for the usual response from paramedics and even get healing, calling Big Willy’s Cab sends a cab out to your way for a pickup (though you can also travel via trains at train stops), or call up random numbers you see in the city for funny voice messages and nothing else. There are also numbers you can call up to unlock cheat codes as well as little easter eggs you can find here and there like civilian suicide hotspots, the teddy bear full of money in the Lopez mansion, or just little references that add to the world of the game. Also, you can blow up trains and I think that’s fucking hilarious. That’s about it for the gameplay that I can think of but I’m sure there’s more I’m missing out on describing.
The sound design for Saints Row is something that’s painfully easy to describe, and I’ll start with the music here because the music slaps. Granted, I’ll sit down here and say that I have listened to all of it? No, in fact I mostly listened (and still listen) to KRHYME FM, and let me tell you something man that radio station has all the fucking hits. There are songs that I’ve discovered off of that soundtrack that I STILL listen to today, from Masta Ace’s Soda & Soap, DJ Mathematic’s Real Nillaz, The Alchemist’s & Lloyd Bank’s Bangers track. That’s not to say that there aren’t any other good radio stations, in fact I bounced a lot between KRhyme, TheKronic and Sizzurp and bumped tracks like Eric B. and Rakim’s I Ain’t No Joke, R.A. the Rugged Man’s Black & White, Mathematic’s Spotlite and a whole bunch of other tracks I don’t remember off the top of my head. In fact, I’m genuinely surprised that there were three separate rap stations, not that I would complain about rap, hip hop and R&B but I’m surprised they didn’t try to condense it down since apparently there are three tracks spread across at least two stations (from Aisha in-universe of course) and tracks from artists that come from the SAME ALBUM (Mathematics mostly) that are put on different stations. I think so at least, shit’s strange as hell. Other tracks you mostly get from unlocking them by collecting CDs as mentioned before (shoutout to David Banner’s Saints Row, one of the most addicting tracks to listen to in game) for exclusive tracks or Masta Ace’s Take a Walk (which you can only buy from Scratch That, a record store in game). I can’t and won’t speak for the other radio stations, though next time I play it I really need to try the drum & bass channel because I love me some drum & bass but besides the point, the culture of Saints Row is heavily influenced by the hippity hops and the rippety raps and I’m always weak for it, especially considering it came out in the mid 2000s.
What I’ll say about the sound effects and sound design is that they bring the game to life in a way that feels great and unique. I’ll start with guns because by god do the guns sound amazing; the shotguns feel impactful, the M16 has this smooth and buttery sound that I could probably listen to forever and would make me fall asleep in a strange way while the AK sounds crunchy and menacing. Pistols for the most part sound like starter weapons (except the GDHC which hot damn) but again they feel and sound like they have impact and if you want your weapons to sound great they need that impact. The noises that the submachine guns make sound pretty similar for the most part but are nice either way while the special weapons are great in the case of the Rocket Launcher, though I’ll say that I wish the McManus sniper rifle had a little bit more oomph to it? I don’t know, it’s not bad but It doesn’t always have the feel that I need, though the grenades more than make up for it to me. Cars screeches, footsteps, and the city surrounding you all sound bustling with life in a way that just feels and sounds good! I don’t know if I had really much else to say about the sound effects because I’d just be repetitive and stale at a certain point but what I can say is that the random pedestrians and some of their voice lines are also hilarious and are honestly so random but not crazy enough to be GTA levels of satire (which to be honest can be kind of annoying sometimes).
The voice acting for Saints Row is pretty impressive in all honesty, considering the presumably smaller budget compared to a titan like Rockstar Games was able to pull some impressive talents. Keith David plays Julius Little with a smooth and deep gravelly voice which oozes charisma; I'd basically let him narrate my sex tape (if I ever had sex that is LOL). Daniel Dae Kim is someone whom I didn’t know before Saints Row but he plays Johnny Gat so effectively as this sociopathic murderous gangster that I certainly knew who he was AFTER I played the game. Michael Clark Duncan plays Benjamin “Motherfucking” King and for those who don’t know him, he also played Kingpin in 2004’s Daredevil along with John Coffey in The Green Mile and his acting credibility is phenomenal whether he’s playing an innocent man or a cold and calculated motherfucker (rest in peace by the way, why do the good ones always pass man?). Michael Rapaport (whom GTA guys know as Joey Leone) plays Troy Bradshaw here and does it pretty well, sounding honestly like an undercover detective from the Boston area and he just kind of fits the mold and makes it feel believable. Mila Kunis plays Tanya pretty well too, and while it’s easy to recognize Mila from pretty much everything she’s in, she plays backstabber in this game pretty slick. I could go on and on and on about the voice acting but the truth is that I legit can’t think of a performance that was bad, or didn’t really fit or anything to those lines. They did a stellar job with this game and I hope these guys got paid handsomely for this as there was never a time where I WASN’T immersed. If they had a line that was supposed to make me laugh, I laughed. If it was supposed to be hardcore gangster shit, it was exactly that. Granted there won’t be any emotional crying or anything but that was never this game’s vibe to be honest.
Graphically speaking the game is honestly pretty good looking, with a lot of bright colors and smooth models compared to the bleak and ugly (but iconic) look of Saints Row 2. Cars look fresh as hell, the animations on the characters involve A LOT of ragdolls and honestly looks pretty good. In fact, everything just feels pretty consistently great and I feel that the game takes full advantage of the power of the Xbox 360. There’s a lot of unique and interesting models for different pedestrians that add to the liveliness of the city; from dudes in giant soda and hotdog mascot costumes to people actually dressed up like pimps and driving dinky little ass pimpmobile muscle cars. I’ve never really been great at describing graphics but again everything is just smooth and shiny, and when it’s not everything blends it in perfectly so it’s not visually unappealing. When I say it looks good, I don’t mean like Playstation 5 graphically amazing, that shit wasn’t possible back then. But stylistically it’s just pristine, clean yet dirty and gritty at the same time. Let’s take (not the Los LOL) Los Carnales territory for example; as a grimy ass cartel with huge stakes in drug trafficking, you could go from their gated community in Ezpata to their dirtier dock operations in Poseidon Alley and up to their industrial territory in Black Bottom. You’re probably thinking, “yeah no shit, it’s an open world game of course you can do that”. But there’s something so consistent about how you can have so many different environments blend in together so well to create a perfect city like Stilwater while also fitting the personalities of the gangs inhabiting it. Westside Rollerz for example, a bunch of rich white preppy boys who love Fast & Furious right? Of course they’re going to control the stadiums area, their little upper class suburbs and down into places like Chinatown because aesthetically that’s just how their gang would operate trying to copy something like Fast & Furious. The Vice Kings on the upper hand, while they have their territory in lower income neighborhoods (like their old turf in Sunnyvale), their leader Benjamin King has so much influence and power in the city that he’s basically taking over all the rich neighborhoods.
I could go into more obvious shit like how the top of the map and the bottom of the map are separated by wealth gaps, the rich being on top and all the popular metaphors and shit I couldn’t properly explain. However, for me this is moreso a place for me to gush about how atmospherically Stilwater just feels like the perfect sort of playground, everything just lines up perfectly for the gangs, the structure, the variation. It’s a place that FEELS like a place (and apparently was inspired by the likes of Detroit and other midwestern cities), where Saints Row 2’s atmosphere represents corporate gentrification that infiltrates the communities later on. If Stilwater in SR2 is coming home to realize everything’s changed, Saints Row the original feels like home. That’s just the environment of course, I also appreciate how in this game the gangs actually feel like street gangs and not just an eclectic bunch of different dudes from different races and such with extreme differences. I say that not as a diss to Saints Row 2’s gangs, because I actually really like them and how they pop out. But these gangs actually feel like gangs with different street styles with their pant legs rolled up, bandanas and the whole nine yards; like it actually feels faithful to what a gang would act like back then. This is an atmosphere I really enjoy in my gangster games, an atmosphere that was really popular in the early to mid 2000s that I honestly really miss. There’s a weakness that I have for what I dub the “G-Unit Era” with the flashy clothes, the backwards caps, the chains and all that shit. I love it, I can’t get enough of it; this is the kind of vibe that I wanted with the Saints Row reboot. I love the vibes from each of the gangs, their colors and identities are unique and make them feel special and natural in their environment. If you want a fun fact about the Saints themselves, they used to be green in their older iterations until Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas came out and Voltition decided to switch to purple to make them more unique.
The last section I’ll put down is multiplayer, one which I haven’t played other than jumping into one empty lobby and walking around the warehouse as a curiosity. There were several different game modes, such as Co-op missions which only had two to three missions with a cap of two players and others like Team Deathmatch, Protect the Pimp is basically a VIP mode and Big Ass Chains for example I believe is like Capture the Flag? It’s the usual set of game modes and while I feel like there’s some unique Saints Row content I’d love to experience once or twice, overall it was one of those “shoehorned in multiplayer grabs” that kind of got abandoned after a little while if I remember correctly. It’s weird because they decided to do one for the sequel too for some reason before dropping it right after that.
Saints Row is a classic open world crime game that I honestly both thoroughly enjoy and I feel more than matches up with the reputation that the Grand Theft Auto series has developed. Both have interesting gang dynamics, multiple open world activities, a sense of humor that makes me chuckle, fun gunplay and overall is 100 percent a recommended time. I love me some open world crime games but I personally feel that the only games that have ever been truly able to match up with the GTA franchise in terms of quality are the first two Saints Row games. The Getaway was fantastic but the replayability and the hardcore feeling of the series made it a once and done deal, Driver is cool as a Hollywood car chase movie but doesn’t have that oomph for me, True Crime as a series is okay but a little bit janky in certain instances. People give the first Saints Row game shit for not being more humorous and over the top like the second game, or for having really frustrating difficulty spikes. I love this game, and always will and every once in a while I sit down and I replay this game because everything about the first game to me is immaculate as fuck.
As for the future (or now lack thereof) for the franchise, there was a lot of hope. The sequel to this game would become the most popular title in the franchise as both staples and the pillars of the entire franchise. The sequel would release on every console and catapult the series as a legitimate rival to Rockstar’s franchise, and soon after that came all forms of plans for the series which included canceled handheld games (which I’ll get to after Saints Row 2) as well as a canceled movie with 50 Cent. However, over time to differentiate itself from the semi-serious tone of Grand Theft Auto, Volition pivoted towards a goofier approach, one that worked with the third title but began to lose steam from the fourth one and on. One failed spin-off and a really shitty reboot later, and sadly Volition has closed. It’s a damn shame, because the truth is these guys made a really solid foundation for a fantastic future, one that was cut up and crushed due to budget constraints and a vision that seemed destined to fail. Overall, that shit sucks, especially considering the fact that there was a group at Volition (more like a duo) that had planned to repair the Saints Row 2 PC port (a port notorious for glitches and bad connections) after they found the source code as well as fixing it up in general with the “Gentlemen of the Row” pack. Again, I’m just going to lament here and say that I’m very much sad that the game’s source code wasn’t found, because the game is great and deserves to be ported to PC for all the fans in the series to play if they didn’t play it before.
Links:
http://xbox360.gamespy.com/xbox-360/saints-row/717127p1.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5fPyaIZLws8&ab_channel=mrsaintsgodzilla21
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=m1hDuC7dTPM&ab_channel=MafiaGameVideos
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saints_Row_(2006_video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SaintsRow1
https://archive.org/details/saints-row-dump (Behind the scenes stuff from Volition themselves)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Udo3ZAuZOW4&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-heKzYYGC3I&ab_channel=mrsaintsgodzilla21
2009
This review contains spoilers
SAW: The Video Game is a literal survival horror game simulator developed by Zombie Studios, whose notable previous works include Zork Nemesis, numerous Spec Ops games (minus The Line) and Xbox Original exclusive title “Shadow Ops: Red Mercury”. What do these titles all have in common? Fuck if I know about Zork but what I can say is that these guys would mostly go to develop tactical military games, and would also go on to collaborate with the literal U.S. Military to develop military recruitment video games. So what the hell do any of these have to do with SAW? The development originally started under Brash Entertainment, a company whose games released would include an Alvin and the Chipmunks game, as well as a game notorious amongst me and a buddy for being a horrible game, Jumper: Griffin’s Story. Their backlog isn’t exactly the greatest, but they had apparently been working with Twisted Pictures (the main developers of the SAW movies under Lionsgate) to create a SAW video game before SAW III was released. What followed though were a lot of changes: one of which included following the events of the first film while playing as multiple different characters. The development on their end would be transferred to Zombie Studios, while Brash took a publishing approach and went on to tease the game multiple times through teaser trailers and game expo appearances. They’d also brought in the original creators, James Wan and Leigh Wanell to help develop new traps and story beats. However, Brash went into financial bankruptcy later and the game went into development hell, before Lionsgate and Konami hashed out a publishing deal for a release while Zombie continued to finish development. It would release for the Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and even a PC port with modding support. However, I haven’t seen much in the way of shit for a PC port. I’ve seen bits and pieces about a PC port with people asking for steam keys, while others are insistent that it never existed on Steam like a Mandela Effect or something. The best place you can get it is on Abandonware, and there was only ever one mod released for the game so the activity around this title wasn’t that great.
However this didn’t matter, as I was always a huge fan of the SAW series, even as a youngin’. I was just getting into horror as a kid, having been introduced to it by the likes of Condemned: Criminal Origins and branching out into other horror movies and franchises. I had enjoyed SAW not necessarily due to the gore, but due to the enigmatic Jigsaw himself, a cancer patient who on the verge of death felt the need to give others life through tests that I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to solve. Hell, I even remember going to see Saw 3D (aka the supposed final chapter) at the time in movie theaters as a kid for my birthday. In my ever loving fandom to consume all SAW content, I had picked up SAW: The Video Game at some point on the Xbox 360, intending on giving it a full run and beating it. While I never got 100 percent achievements, I sure as hell got most of them which isn’t a surprise considering how honestly easy it was to platinum. However, some of the game's less intuitive puzzles got the better of me, and I had kinda given up beating it and later sold it. Loe and behold, COVID happens right? Then the Playstation 3 store decides they wanna shut everything down digitally, and wanting to make sure I picked up every game I wanted to before they shut down the patches (as apparently even patches for PS3 games were disappearing), I had picked up this game and the sequel for PS3 during the heights of my shitty construction job. However, I hadn’t touched it at all until a friend of mine recently went through my library of games and chose this as one of the games she wanted me to stream for her as she was a huge fan of SAW. A month or so later (having started right after Dino Crisis in December), I’ve not only beaten the game but platinumed it. As is the rite of passage, I have my thoughts on this game.
The plot to the game is a bit of a simple one but for those who need a little bit of background or haven’t watched any SAW movie, I got you. In the first SAW movie, Detective David Tapp (played by Danny Glover) is a cop who becomes obsessed with taking down the “Jigsaw Killer”, who puts many people to the test with only one survivor having been established during his hunt. During the movie, he and his partner Detective Sing gather a lead and end up at Jigsaw’s lair. What transpires is the exact opposite of a movie like Lethal Weapon: their gung-ho attitude gets Tapp slashed in the throat, Sing’s head is blown off by a shotgun trip wire trap and the “killer” gets away. He would later be discharged from the police force and would later attempt to take down Jigsaw at the end of the film, before being shot by one of Jigsaw’s “apprentices” (a test subject) and falling either to unconsciousness or death. The movies and games aren’t really canon so I say death but in the game, he was probably taken and healed before being let loose into another one of Jigsaw’s games.
I put “killer” in quotations because Jigsaw’s modus operandi has him putting people in “tests”, addressing some flaw in someone’s personal life and giving them the choice to either die or solve their test and as a result, learn from their mistakes for a second chance. Is this the best way of addressing someone’s personal issues? No of course not (and he’s a killer by proxy), but that’s what makes him a fascinating character. It also just so happens that Jigsaw is a dying cancer patient named John Kramer, whose life was hell after the death of his unborn child, his marriage collapsing and his cancer. Further on in the movies of course some of the people being tested are very flimsy but I’ve also chalked it up to his brain cancer progressing to his worst stage, while also having amazing planning skills and future foresight. Why do I put this all down? Why this game takes place in between Saw and Saw II (the movie versions of course) so I felt that context was necessary, or at least a little bit as for the most part they don’t really address much other than Tapp and Sing’s raid with a few characters thrown in from the first movie.
The game itself starts with Detective David Tapp waking up in one of the iconic “Reverse Bear Traps” inside of a musty ass bathroom, and the rest of the sequence revolves around unscrewing it and taking it off your head. Afterwards he spends his time roaming through what turns out to be Whitehurst Asylum, an old abandoned asylum which goes back at least two centuries and has a notorious history of budget cuts and general lack of safety as well as patient abuse. Going through, he comes across an atrium with a future game but first Tapp is ambushed and almost killed by two separate guys. Killing one in self defense, he later discovers the reason behind this ambush (and countless others in the future): Jigsaw implanted the only key to escape inside of his body, and so anyone and everyone wants him dead to this effect. From here, Tapp travels to the atrium and finds his first game: Amanda Young. See, he has to hook himself up and balance giving the both of them both poison and the antidote in order for some mechanisms to release. Behind Tapp’s game is simple: his search for the Jigsaw “Killer” and his obsession has led to several people being affected and as such, Tapp either has to save them or they die (kind of like Saw 3D in a sense). Tapp had harassed Amanda Young as she was the only survivor of Jigsaw’s games at a certain point, and as such makes her the first test subject (along with the fact she “got back into drugs”). I also want to point out that I’m a bit confused on the timeline (though the game isn’t canon so who cares I guess) as Amanda was supposed to be an apprentice right? So is she just pretending to almost die? Does Jigsaw have a backup plan? Is this before she gets recruited? Who knows, but the rest of the game involves Tapp traveling around the asylum, solving a random assortment of puzzles and saving other people.
She escapes with him but is kidnapped yet again by a dude in a pig outfit (creatively titled Pighead), and later on Tapp is kidnapped and strapped with a shotgun collar (which when placed against other dudes with shotgun collars, it’s either kill/run away or be killed as their proximity activates each other’s collars to explode). Regardless he runs into and saves Jennings Foster, a friend of his on the force who used his position as a coroner to frame another guy for a drunk hit and run to save his own skin. He also encounters both the grave of his dead partner as well as his wife Melissa Sing, who hates his guts and becomes so obsessed with her own hatred that she neglects their child. Later on he encounters Oswald McGullicuty, a reporter who helped coin “The Jigsaw Killer”, which Jigsaw says was perverting his message as well as dogpiling on top of Detective David Tapp, which effectively got him fired (as well as the fact he’s a general scumbag). Fun fact, this is a deep cut as you only find his name on news articles in the first SAW movie so credits to the developer where credit is due. Regardless he fucking dies after being an idiot, and Tapp moves on to save Obi, a mentally unwell arsonist who asked to be put into a game from Jigsaw. For those in the know, he would become a character in SAW II and his character motivations and revelations are more expounded upon then (maybe, I’m reading their pages on the SAW wiki and they don’t seem to match up lore wise to be honest). As for what the motivation was and his connection to Tapp? This one is the shakiest as honestly, other than the whole arsonist angle from SAW II the answer is literally: “I have no fucking clue whatsoever”.
Regardless, Tapp trucks on through multiple painful tests in order to save one last victim in a painful test: Jeff Ridenhour. For those who don’t know, he was the guy that Tapp and Sing saved from a drill trap during their police raid. The motive for Jeff’s game was due to his attempted suicide. However, after the fatal raid that led to Sing’s death, Jeff would get harassed nonstop by Tapp for any and all information on the Jigsaw and as such would attempt to kill himself again. Tapp would solve Jeff’s game, which involved matching several different symbols on TVs, which I’ll be honest was a frustrating game (I’ll go into it later). The rescue doesn’t go so well personally however as Jeff would basically tell Tapp to go fuck himself for the harrasment and would run off. Tapp would then commit to the final save of the night: saving himself. Delving deeper into the asylum would be a gauntlet of tests to his resolve which later culminates in a battle against Pighead (whom throughout the game you’ll see going rogue and killing people). Tapp eventually ends up killing the apprentice through the environment in a semi-difficult boss battle before making his way to the heart of Jigsaw’s lair: the library. It’s here after one last gauntlet that Jigsaw forces him to make a choice: will he seek Freedom and escape Whitehurst once and for all? This will also let out the other victims of Jigsaw’s game, OR will Tapp give into his obsession and go through the door with TRUTH plastered all over it in an attempt to take down Jigsaw once and for all.
Freedom is the canonical ending to the game as it’s followed up in SAW II: Flesh and Blood, as well as confirming Tapp’s death later in Saw V (the movie). It involves everyone escaping, and shows Tapp in his apartment building surrounded by Jigsaw evidence and newspaper clippings where victims thank Tapp for helping them escape, and he’s labeled a hero. However, Tapp hasn’t given up his obsession and losing his one chance to capture the notorious Jigsaw, he shoots himself as the credits roll up on the TV. The Truth ending however is the non-canon/bad ending, as it has Tapp chase Jigsaw through his lair before seemingly cornering him and beating him up outside on asylum grounds. However, this cloaked figure isn’t a HE as much as they are a SHE and it’s revealed to be Melissa Sing, his partner’s wife. Melissa was in her own game, which revolved around keeping Tapp alive and following the rules after Jigsaw kidnapped her son. While Tapp is shocked, she attempts to escape only to get her fuckin’ wig peeled back, and it results in Tapp finally going mad from the whole ordeal with no killer captured and his partner’s widow dead. The final piece of the puzzle shows Tapp strapped to an asylum bed, hallucinating being in another one of Jigsaw’s traps.
The plot to SAW: The Video Game for the most part is one that I found to be simple but enjoyable, something that felt true to form for the series as a whole. Though sometimes I felt the connections to Tapp to be strenuous, I enjoyed all the fan service moments between the numerous traps taken from the films, Tobin Bell coming back as Jigsaw, the ability to finally put Pighead down, like it all felt like it could actually be a game from the cloaked fucker himself. My main problem with the plot boils down to something I’ll point out later in the Atmosphere section of this review: realism or where it detracts. The movies generally have a couple of victims and traps, not seventy to eighty unnamed goons in one abandoned mental asylum. Jigsaw doesn’t talk to his victims live like in the game (for the most part), he leaves a video tape which describes the reasons that the victim is in the position that they are in. How are there so many traps and people here? How did Jigsaw even capture them all? Who is Pighead? There’s no clue to any identity or anything. It’s the little stuff like this that as a SAW fan, kind of takes me out of it a bit and makes me question certain aspects of the game’s background regardless of the game’s need to shove in enemies to fight and numerous puzzles to solve in order to keep the engagement high for players.
The gameplay is honestly perhaps the game’s weakest feature anyways sadly, and as a survival horror game doesn’t always add up properly. Playing as Tapp in the third person, you roam from asylum location to asylum location while getting into fights, looting stuff, dodging traps and solving puzzles. Let's start with the combat: it’s not great. Fighting someone tends to be a slog, especially with heavier weapons like bats or pipes. The wind up for this is so slow that other than getting trophies, I barely used any of these at all. In fact, the only way I could get them to swing properly is by either holding down or slamming down the Square or X button on the Playstation controller. This is a chore if the enemy is using their fists as you can get stunlocked and trapped into a corner unless you think on your feet. If you fight with anything, either use your fists or a smaller weapon as they’re both quicker and you’ll be able to stunlock them into oblivion which is a great thing. The one trophy that was annoying and difficult to do however was the Curb Stomp mechanic, which I was only able to get by repeating a checkpoint multiple times as the chances that you’ll knock someone over enough to stomp them out are very slim to probably barely. You can also get enemies killed by using your environment, such as reactivating shotgun traps or electric panels that shock nearby water puddles (or if it’s a shotgun trap guy, you simply run away until his timer goes off and his melon goes splat on the walls nearby). You can also find schematics (three different types in total) multiple times over the course of the game in order to create traps of your own, which are Stun (which clearly stuns), Gas and Explosive Traps. I’ll be honest, other than for getting the trophies (which are again painfully easy), or for the Pighead boss in the last stage of the game (which is honestly kind of painful to deal with), you’re not really going to use this unless you go out of your way to do it. I certainly never did, and barely kept remembering its existence. Hell, even going out of your way to use it is a pain in the ass, which involves holding down the aim button and pressing either R1 or R2 (which I had to look up on the internet).
The enemies themselves often come in two sizes: medium sized white guy and big hulking white guy. Either way they’re out to kill you and the only difference is usually what weapons they use along with the traps they’re in. I already brought up the shotgun collar trap, but there’s also people with Reverse Bear Traps, Venus Fly Traps and even guys with bombs on their hands who die and explode when killed. You’re told to use your environment to block doors and activate traps that’ll kill them from a safe distance, but oftentimes with the bomb guys I just stabbed them once and moved five feet to the left and you weren’t touched at all. Honestly, while the combat is mediocre it’s also kind of easy to deal with once you get the hang of it and in fact the game for the most part other than the puzzles is a pretty smooth sailing ride to begin with. It’s the puzzles and traps where everything becomes convoluted, and here’s what I mean.
How do you create these traps? You loot your environment for materials like leftover shells, wire, bleach, fuses and the like in order to have the components to activate and/or build these traps. You’ll also loot your environment to find “Health Hypos”, needles that will refill your health which caps out at 4. You can find these in the environment (mostly through unlocking medicine cabinets with a minigame), or on dead bodies and containers scattered around. Other puzzles that surround the environment include gear puzzles (depending on the location will include rare weapons like the Nail Bat and the Gun, or health items and components for traps) which involve connecting a set moving gear to another gear that doesn’t move. There are pipe puzzles (my least favorite), which include lining up to ends of a pipe and matching each individual circle within the center in order. Usually this is under the threat of death by gas or in Obi’s trap later, his own death. This shit fucking sucks, and I’m not great at these pipe puzzles so what I always ended up doing is just looking up the solution online while matching it up in-game as generally speaking the pipe puzzles are always set. In fact, let me just say that obvious game design has it getting harder and harder the more experienced you become with the mechanics. I feel that the puzzle difficulty past Oswald starts to grow into more and more bullshit levels of difficulty and start to feel tedious and old, especially with the repetitiveness. Other puzzles include electrical grid puzzles, which I’m pretty solid at but get bigger and more convoluted as it goes on and others I’m sure I’m forgetting about at the moment.
Other things I’ll mention are the fact that you always have to look out on the floor as walking over broken glass will drain your health with Tapp being barefoot for pretty much the entire game. There’s also a light mechanic where you can use your lighter to see in the dark (which is a huge portion of the game) but you can replace it with either a camera or a flashlight; avoid the camera as it’s useless and stick with the flashlight any chance you get. You’ll search through toilets (hope you don’t mind hepatitis) and acid barrels for certain keys as well, and I want to point out here that other than the late game difficulty spike that most of the puzzles in the first half to three quarters are pretty intuitive and easy to figure out on your own volition, and that’s coming from someone who blows fat cocks at puzzles. That being said, no shame in using a guide if you need it. I also find it pretty strange that there’s a companion mechanic, though it’s barely elaborated on as after each main trap most of the time the rescuee will follow you for all of five seconds before either dying or disappearing due to some excuse or another, to the point where I question why they have an NPC follow you for five feet only to go bye bye. Otherwise, truth be told I don’t really have much to say about the gameplay other than I encountered a glitch where a TV mysteriously appeared on the wall in front of me after walking away from it late game but that’s about it.
The sound design for the most part is pretty dope in all honesty, I can’t complain at all about it. The soundtrack isn’t there very much, it’s minimalist and not present but when you do get a couple of tracks here and there it’s a very tense soundtrack, created by someone named Alex Guilburt. You won’t get any “Hello Zepp” tracks sadly or variations of it, which fucking blows because I was hoping to hear the iconic tune at least ONCE during my playthrough though you don’t really get much in the way of any real twists unless you go with the Truth ending to the game. The Main Menu theme isn’t bad, a bit on the ominous side but feels like it could tangentially work itself into the movie franchise as an actual theme with the large percussion and heavy amount of strings used. The track labeled “Countdown” is fucking tense and make my clutch my own asshole as I was searching for the answer to whatever puzzle usually surrounded the area (mostly bombs or gas lol). As for the actual sounds in the area of the game, you’ll hear a lot of shaky cam sounds, crunching glass sounds great, the creaky doors are phenomenal. It all adds up to an experience that I can at least say sonically sounds like SAW. If I were to add criticism, I’d say sometimes the explosion sounds were a bit mixed (the smaller ones being particularly weak sounding) while other times using certain weapons felt weak and stale. The gear puzzles on the other hand trigger some sort of dopamine brain kick because honestly it sounds great. There’s a lot to love here with the Audio Design of the area and I can confidently say yeah this part’s pretty good. The only other thing I have yet to address is the voice acting.
Voice Acting on the other hand, I don’t know. I guess I could sum it up to average-ish? I mean for the most part the only voice actor who comes back from the main series is Tobin Bell, and he’s always fucking phenomenal as Jigsaw so I can’t say much of a bad thing about him in the slightest as he IS Jigsaw to me. The others on the other hand are okay, with the best one probably being Jen Taylor as Amanda. Earl Alexander isn’t bad and played Louis in Left 4 Dead fantastically, but here he just sounds a bit odd. Granted, it’s probably because it’s not Danny Glover and I’d be surprised if Zombie Studios would’ve been able to get him but truth is I guess he does alright for the most part. I didn’t recognize David Scully as Oswald either, because he apparently played Sergeant Johnson in the Halo series and that just shows the range that this guy has from badass alien killer to sniveling reporter. As for a lot of the goons you’ll be fighting? They all sound like they’re voices from the same one or two people and you’ll often hear a lot of the same voice lines after a while so everyone just kind of blends in to this symphony of “angry white guy who wants to kill Tapp to get out and live” that sounds okay. I don’t know, I don’t really have much to say about the voice acting other than “it’s okay” but my immersion wasn’t really broken so I guess I’ll just shrug to this.
The graphics to this game I’ll just come out point blank and say it: it’s not great. Having played this on Playstation 3, I obviously know it’s not always going to have the best high resolution models. Tapp has no resemblance to Danny Glover (probably because the game was made on a smaller budget), you’ll run into multiple dudes that look the same, and honestly sometimes the game is just too damn dark for its own good. The animations are stiff for the most part and I guess just overall I don’t know, it was just kind of an ugly game for me. Granted I wasn’t really bothered with that, as graphics aren’t really a huge sticking point to me so I didn’t give a shit. What I can say is that in the areas where you’re able to go outside, the former asylum looks a lot better environmentally wise than one can give credit for. The atmosphere I’ll say on the other hand is a bit of an astounding and mixed bag. I say it’s astounding because it’s such an uncomfortable and decrepit place (taking place in a former insane asylum) that you not only could see Jigsaw setting up a whole game here but the place is in literal shambles. You’ll find everything abandoned, walls that can be destroyed, broken glass shattered everywhere, dirty bathrooms, like the grunge is just perfect for the type of setting that any sort of SAW game would take place in and that mixed with the asylum’s former history (riddled in documents) showing a place of cutbacks, despair and frankly negligence towards all patients. What I’ll say is a mixed bag isn’t necessarily because of anything it did bad, but more so comes from a place of “I’m a huge SAW fan” and “I know this is a video game but it’s way too unrealistic”.
In the normal SAW movies, you’ll know Jigsaw went all out when you see the most elaborate traps; however in this game you’ll see a lot of the same stuff from the movies, plus recent games and dead bodies everywhere. Usually the victim count is kept low but you’ll be strolling through Whitehurst to find former games where dudes are ripped apart, sawed in half and such and I swear to god the count of dead bodies reaches higher than the fifties or more. How did Jigsaw kidnap this many people? How much money did he make in the movies to conceivably put all of these games into effect, all of these traps? The asylum IS FILLED WITH THEM. Did he plan this all out in advance? Is he just working with the U.S. Prison Industrial Complex to ship motherfuckers here by the truckload at this point? Jigsaw clearly almost always has a plan, so how was this game (figuratively and literally) even possible? Who knows, maybe I just need to shut the fuck up but this was a huge thought of what I was thinking while playing the game and it kinda took me out a bit.
SAW: The Video Game was an interesting ride going through my childhood once again. My fascination with the series since I was a kid still hasn’t gone away, as I’m still fascinated with the motives of the serial tester (?) as well as how the franchise went in the future. I would dip in and out of becoming obsessed and re-obsessed with the franchise but I didn’t really pick up on the series again until much more recently. Having saw Spiral: From the Book of Saw in theaters with my buddy Nick (shoutout), having watched JigSaw in a discord call with a bunch of buddies and then finally having watched SAW X in theaters as a bit of a treat to myself, it was I guess a bit of destiny that everything has kinda come together for me to start playing this game last year. I know at the moment I’m in the middle of trying to figure out my living situation, but with SAW XI apparently coming around this year with a quick turnaround (as the series is notorious for), it’s not a surprise that the next batch of games have SAW II: Flesh and Blood pushed into it as well. I enjoyed my time streaming this for my one friend, as well as it becoming my first Playstation platinum of the year so that's dope as hell!
The future after SAW: The Video Game was again a really quick turn around, with the sequel being pushed out literally less than a year later. Originally, Konami had plans to turn the SAW franchise into another horror series like Silent Hill, with recurring releases to keep the Konami cash flow going (until they went into optimized gambling, WHOOP WHOOP!). However, the critical reception went into the ground just like John Kramer would be in SAW III, except they didn’t try to resurrect his corpse for a third game. Zombie Studios would later create smaller titles that no one seemed to have cared about, such war crime Kinect simulator Blackwater and Blacklight: Retribution, an online multiplayer game that I’ve never heard about but I’m sure others have. The series of SAW in video game form however has been kind of iffy. Originally there were talks about Bloober Team creating a SAW game on a pitch for Lionsgate (which eventually turned into Blair Witch after Bloober decided they didn’t want to touch Saw with a ten foot stick) as well as discussions about new SAW games coming out for the “next generation” which let’s see how that would go, if it would even go well. Personally if I was gonna create a SAW game, I probably would make it a walking simulator of sorts, or something akin to Condemned: Criminal Origins. Konami would continue existing, something that I always have mixed feelings on due to their shitty use of their IPs. I guess here’s hoping that the new Silent Hill adaptations will work out?
Links:
https://screenrant.com/saw-game-playstation-xbox-jigsaw-ps5-xsx/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Saw
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1144553/
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/saw-glm
https://web.archive.org/web/20090405062724/http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/04/silent-hill-say-hello-to-your-new-brother-jigsawkonami-has-confirmed-an-earlier-cut-scene-report-that-it-has-bought-the-pub.html
https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/14348/
https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/9147/exclusive-game-producer-david-s-cohen-talks-saw-video-game/
https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/01/30/saw-announced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79tUra-8mwY&ab_channel=Konami
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Saw
https://www.ign.com/articles/bloober-team-saw-blair-witch-licensed-games-turned-down
However this didn’t matter, as I was always a huge fan of the SAW series, even as a youngin’. I was just getting into horror as a kid, having been introduced to it by the likes of Condemned: Criminal Origins and branching out into other horror movies and franchises. I had enjoyed SAW not necessarily due to the gore, but due to the enigmatic Jigsaw himself, a cancer patient who on the verge of death felt the need to give others life through tests that I know for a fact I wouldn’t be able to solve. Hell, I even remember going to see Saw 3D (aka the supposed final chapter) at the time in movie theaters as a kid for my birthday. In my ever loving fandom to consume all SAW content, I had picked up SAW: The Video Game at some point on the Xbox 360, intending on giving it a full run and beating it. While I never got 100 percent achievements, I sure as hell got most of them which isn’t a surprise considering how honestly easy it was to platinum. However, some of the game's less intuitive puzzles got the better of me, and I had kinda given up beating it and later sold it. Loe and behold, COVID happens right? Then the Playstation 3 store decides they wanna shut everything down digitally, and wanting to make sure I picked up every game I wanted to before they shut down the patches (as apparently even patches for PS3 games were disappearing), I had picked up this game and the sequel for PS3 during the heights of my shitty construction job. However, I hadn’t touched it at all until a friend of mine recently went through my library of games and chose this as one of the games she wanted me to stream for her as she was a huge fan of SAW. A month or so later (having started right after Dino Crisis in December), I’ve not only beaten the game but platinumed it. As is the rite of passage, I have my thoughts on this game.
The plot to the game is a bit of a simple one but for those who need a little bit of background or haven’t watched any SAW movie, I got you. In the first SAW movie, Detective David Tapp (played by Danny Glover) is a cop who becomes obsessed with taking down the “Jigsaw Killer”, who puts many people to the test with only one survivor having been established during his hunt. During the movie, he and his partner Detective Sing gather a lead and end up at Jigsaw’s lair. What transpires is the exact opposite of a movie like Lethal Weapon: their gung-ho attitude gets Tapp slashed in the throat, Sing’s head is blown off by a shotgun trip wire trap and the “killer” gets away. He would later be discharged from the police force and would later attempt to take down Jigsaw at the end of the film, before being shot by one of Jigsaw’s “apprentices” (a test subject) and falling either to unconsciousness or death. The movies and games aren’t really canon so I say death but in the game, he was probably taken and healed before being let loose into another one of Jigsaw’s games.
I put “killer” in quotations because Jigsaw’s modus operandi has him putting people in “tests”, addressing some flaw in someone’s personal life and giving them the choice to either die or solve their test and as a result, learn from their mistakes for a second chance. Is this the best way of addressing someone’s personal issues? No of course not (and he’s a killer by proxy), but that’s what makes him a fascinating character. It also just so happens that Jigsaw is a dying cancer patient named John Kramer, whose life was hell after the death of his unborn child, his marriage collapsing and his cancer. Further on in the movies of course some of the people being tested are very flimsy but I’ve also chalked it up to his brain cancer progressing to his worst stage, while also having amazing planning skills and future foresight. Why do I put this all down? Why this game takes place in between Saw and Saw II (the movie versions of course) so I felt that context was necessary, or at least a little bit as for the most part they don’t really address much other than Tapp and Sing’s raid with a few characters thrown in from the first movie.
The game itself starts with Detective David Tapp waking up in one of the iconic “Reverse Bear Traps” inside of a musty ass bathroom, and the rest of the sequence revolves around unscrewing it and taking it off your head. Afterwards he spends his time roaming through what turns out to be Whitehurst Asylum, an old abandoned asylum which goes back at least two centuries and has a notorious history of budget cuts and general lack of safety as well as patient abuse. Going through, he comes across an atrium with a future game but first Tapp is ambushed and almost killed by two separate guys. Killing one in self defense, he later discovers the reason behind this ambush (and countless others in the future): Jigsaw implanted the only key to escape inside of his body, and so anyone and everyone wants him dead to this effect. From here, Tapp travels to the atrium and finds his first game: Amanda Young. See, he has to hook himself up and balance giving the both of them both poison and the antidote in order for some mechanisms to release. Behind Tapp’s game is simple: his search for the Jigsaw “Killer” and his obsession has led to several people being affected and as such, Tapp either has to save them or they die (kind of like Saw 3D in a sense). Tapp had harassed Amanda Young as she was the only survivor of Jigsaw’s games at a certain point, and as such makes her the first test subject (along with the fact she “got back into drugs”). I also want to point out that I’m a bit confused on the timeline (though the game isn’t canon so who cares I guess) as Amanda was supposed to be an apprentice right? So is she just pretending to almost die? Does Jigsaw have a backup plan? Is this before she gets recruited? Who knows, but the rest of the game involves Tapp traveling around the asylum, solving a random assortment of puzzles and saving other people.
She escapes with him but is kidnapped yet again by a dude in a pig outfit (creatively titled Pighead), and later on Tapp is kidnapped and strapped with a shotgun collar (which when placed against other dudes with shotgun collars, it’s either kill/run away or be killed as their proximity activates each other’s collars to explode). Regardless he runs into and saves Jennings Foster, a friend of his on the force who used his position as a coroner to frame another guy for a drunk hit and run to save his own skin. He also encounters both the grave of his dead partner as well as his wife Melissa Sing, who hates his guts and becomes so obsessed with her own hatred that she neglects their child. Later on he encounters Oswald McGullicuty, a reporter who helped coin “The Jigsaw Killer”, which Jigsaw says was perverting his message as well as dogpiling on top of Detective David Tapp, which effectively got him fired (as well as the fact he’s a general scumbag). Fun fact, this is a deep cut as you only find his name on news articles in the first SAW movie so credits to the developer where credit is due. Regardless he fucking dies after being an idiot, and Tapp moves on to save Obi, a mentally unwell arsonist who asked to be put into a game from Jigsaw. For those in the know, he would become a character in SAW II and his character motivations and revelations are more expounded upon then (maybe, I’m reading their pages on the SAW wiki and they don’t seem to match up lore wise to be honest). As for what the motivation was and his connection to Tapp? This one is the shakiest as honestly, other than the whole arsonist angle from SAW II the answer is literally: “I have no fucking clue whatsoever”.
Regardless, Tapp trucks on through multiple painful tests in order to save one last victim in a painful test: Jeff Ridenhour. For those who don’t know, he was the guy that Tapp and Sing saved from a drill trap during their police raid. The motive for Jeff’s game was due to his attempted suicide. However, after the fatal raid that led to Sing’s death, Jeff would get harassed nonstop by Tapp for any and all information on the Jigsaw and as such would attempt to kill himself again. Tapp would solve Jeff’s game, which involved matching several different symbols on TVs, which I’ll be honest was a frustrating game (I’ll go into it later). The rescue doesn’t go so well personally however as Jeff would basically tell Tapp to go fuck himself for the harrasment and would run off. Tapp would then commit to the final save of the night: saving himself. Delving deeper into the asylum would be a gauntlet of tests to his resolve which later culminates in a battle against Pighead (whom throughout the game you’ll see going rogue and killing people). Tapp eventually ends up killing the apprentice through the environment in a semi-difficult boss battle before making his way to the heart of Jigsaw’s lair: the library. It’s here after one last gauntlet that Jigsaw forces him to make a choice: will he seek Freedom and escape Whitehurst once and for all? This will also let out the other victims of Jigsaw’s game, OR will Tapp give into his obsession and go through the door with TRUTH plastered all over it in an attempt to take down Jigsaw once and for all.
Freedom is the canonical ending to the game as it’s followed up in SAW II: Flesh and Blood, as well as confirming Tapp’s death later in Saw V (the movie). It involves everyone escaping, and shows Tapp in his apartment building surrounded by Jigsaw evidence and newspaper clippings where victims thank Tapp for helping them escape, and he’s labeled a hero. However, Tapp hasn’t given up his obsession and losing his one chance to capture the notorious Jigsaw, he shoots himself as the credits roll up on the TV. The Truth ending however is the non-canon/bad ending, as it has Tapp chase Jigsaw through his lair before seemingly cornering him and beating him up outside on asylum grounds. However, this cloaked figure isn’t a HE as much as they are a SHE and it’s revealed to be Melissa Sing, his partner’s wife. Melissa was in her own game, which revolved around keeping Tapp alive and following the rules after Jigsaw kidnapped her son. While Tapp is shocked, she attempts to escape only to get her fuckin’ wig peeled back, and it results in Tapp finally going mad from the whole ordeal with no killer captured and his partner’s widow dead. The final piece of the puzzle shows Tapp strapped to an asylum bed, hallucinating being in another one of Jigsaw’s traps.
The plot to SAW: The Video Game for the most part is one that I found to be simple but enjoyable, something that felt true to form for the series as a whole. Though sometimes I felt the connections to Tapp to be strenuous, I enjoyed all the fan service moments between the numerous traps taken from the films, Tobin Bell coming back as Jigsaw, the ability to finally put Pighead down, like it all felt like it could actually be a game from the cloaked fucker himself. My main problem with the plot boils down to something I’ll point out later in the Atmosphere section of this review: realism or where it detracts. The movies generally have a couple of victims and traps, not seventy to eighty unnamed goons in one abandoned mental asylum. Jigsaw doesn’t talk to his victims live like in the game (for the most part), he leaves a video tape which describes the reasons that the victim is in the position that they are in. How are there so many traps and people here? How did Jigsaw even capture them all? Who is Pighead? There’s no clue to any identity or anything. It’s the little stuff like this that as a SAW fan, kind of takes me out of it a bit and makes me question certain aspects of the game’s background regardless of the game’s need to shove in enemies to fight and numerous puzzles to solve in order to keep the engagement high for players.
The gameplay is honestly perhaps the game’s weakest feature anyways sadly, and as a survival horror game doesn’t always add up properly. Playing as Tapp in the third person, you roam from asylum location to asylum location while getting into fights, looting stuff, dodging traps and solving puzzles. Let's start with the combat: it’s not great. Fighting someone tends to be a slog, especially with heavier weapons like bats or pipes. The wind up for this is so slow that other than getting trophies, I barely used any of these at all. In fact, the only way I could get them to swing properly is by either holding down or slamming down the Square or X button on the Playstation controller. This is a chore if the enemy is using their fists as you can get stunlocked and trapped into a corner unless you think on your feet. If you fight with anything, either use your fists or a smaller weapon as they’re both quicker and you’ll be able to stunlock them into oblivion which is a great thing. The one trophy that was annoying and difficult to do however was the Curb Stomp mechanic, which I was only able to get by repeating a checkpoint multiple times as the chances that you’ll knock someone over enough to stomp them out are very slim to probably barely. You can also get enemies killed by using your environment, such as reactivating shotgun traps or electric panels that shock nearby water puddles (or if it’s a shotgun trap guy, you simply run away until his timer goes off and his melon goes splat on the walls nearby). You can also find schematics (three different types in total) multiple times over the course of the game in order to create traps of your own, which are Stun (which clearly stuns), Gas and Explosive Traps. I’ll be honest, other than for getting the trophies (which are again painfully easy), or for the Pighead boss in the last stage of the game (which is honestly kind of painful to deal with), you’re not really going to use this unless you go out of your way to do it. I certainly never did, and barely kept remembering its existence. Hell, even going out of your way to use it is a pain in the ass, which involves holding down the aim button and pressing either R1 or R2 (which I had to look up on the internet).
The enemies themselves often come in two sizes: medium sized white guy and big hulking white guy. Either way they’re out to kill you and the only difference is usually what weapons they use along with the traps they’re in. I already brought up the shotgun collar trap, but there’s also people with Reverse Bear Traps, Venus Fly Traps and even guys with bombs on their hands who die and explode when killed. You’re told to use your environment to block doors and activate traps that’ll kill them from a safe distance, but oftentimes with the bomb guys I just stabbed them once and moved five feet to the left and you weren’t touched at all. Honestly, while the combat is mediocre it’s also kind of easy to deal with once you get the hang of it and in fact the game for the most part other than the puzzles is a pretty smooth sailing ride to begin with. It’s the puzzles and traps where everything becomes convoluted, and here’s what I mean.
How do you create these traps? You loot your environment for materials like leftover shells, wire, bleach, fuses and the like in order to have the components to activate and/or build these traps. You’ll also loot your environment to find “Health Hypos”, needles that will refill your health which caps out at 4. You can find these in the environment (mostly through unlocking medicine cabinets with a minigame), or on dead bodies and containers scattered around. Other puzzles that surround the environment include gear puzzles (depending on the location will include rare weapons like the Nail Bat and the Gun, or health items and components for traps) which involve connecting a set moving gear to another gear that doesn’t move. There are pipe puzzles (my least favorite), which include lining up to ends of a pipe and matching each individual circle within the center in order. Usually this is under the threat of death by gas or in Obi’s trap later, his own death. This shit fucking sucks, and I’m not great at these pipe puzzles so what I always ended up doing is just looking up the solution online while matching it up in-game as generally speaking the pipe puzzles are always set. In fact, let me just say that obvious game design has it getting harder and harder the more experienced you become with the mechanics. I feel that the puzzle difficulty past Oswald starts to grow into more and more bullshit levels of difficulty and start to feel tedious and old, especially with the repetitiveness. Other puzzles include electrical grid puzzles, which I’m pretty solid at but get bigger and more convoluted as it goes on and others I’m sure I’m forgetting about at the moment.
Other things I’ll mention are the fact that you always have to look out on the floor as walking over broken glass will drain your health with Tapp being barefoot for pretty much the entire game. There’s also a light mechanic where you can use your lighter to see in the dark (which is a huge portion of the game) but you can replace it with either a camera or a flashlight; avoid the camera as it’s useless and stick with the flashlight any chance you get. You’ll search through toilets (hope you don’t mind hepatitis) and acid barrels for certain keys as well, and I want to point out here that other than the late game difficulty spike that most of the puzzles in the first half to three quarters are pretty intuitive and easy to figure out on your own volition, and that’s coming from someone who blows fat cocks at puzzles. That being said, no shame in using a guide if you need it. I also find it pretty strange that there’s a companion mechanic, though it’s barely elaborated on as after each main trap most of the time the rescuee will follow you for all of five seconds before either dying or disappearing due to some excuse or another, to the point where I question why they have an NPC follow you for five feet only to go bye bye. Otherwise, truth be told I don’t really have much to say about the gameplay other than I encountered a glitch where a TV mysteriously appeared on the wall in front of me after walking away from it late game but that’s about it.
The sound design for the most part is pretty dope in all honesty, I can’t complain at all about it. The soundtrack isn’t there very much, it’s minimalist and not present but when you do get a couple of tracks here and there it’s a very tense soundtrack, created by someone named Alex Guilburt. You won’t get any “Hello Zepp” tracks sadly or variations of it, which fucking blows because I was hoping to hear the iconic tune at least ONCE during my playthrough though you don’t really get much in the way of any real twists unless you go with the Truth ending to the game. The Main Menu theme isn’t bad, a bit on the ominous side but feels like it could tangentially work itself into the movie franchise as an actual theme with the large percussion and heavy amount of strings used. The track labeled “Countdown” is fucking tense and make my clutch my own asshole as I was searching for the answer to whatever puzzle usually surrounded the area (mostly bombs or gas lol). As for the actual sounds in the area of the game, you’ll hear a lot of shaky cam sounds, crunching glass sounds great, the creaky doors are phenomenal. It all adds up to an experience that I can at least say sonically sounds like SAW. If I were to add criticism, I’d say sometimes the explosion sounds were a bit mixed (the smaller ones being particularly weak sounding) while other times using certain weapons felt weak and stale. The gear puzzles on the other hand trigger some sort of dopamine brain kick because honestly it sounds great. There’s a lot to love here with the Audio Design of the area and I can confidently say yeah this part’s pretty good. The only other thing I have yet to address is the voice acting.
Voice Acting on the other hand, I don’t know. I guess I could sum it up to average-ish? I mean for the most part the only voice actor who comes back from the main series is Tobin Bell, and he’s always fucking phenomenal as Jigsaw so I can’t say much of a bad thing about him in the slightest as he IS Jigsaw to me. The others on the other hand are okay, with the best one probably being Jen Taylor as Amanda. Earl Alexander isn’t bad and played Louis in Left 4 Dead fantastically, but here he just sounds a bit odd. Granted, it’s probably because it’s not Danny Glover and I’d be surprised if Zombie Studios would’ve been able to get him but truth is I guess he does alright for the most part. I didn’t recognize David Scully as Oswald either, because he apparently played Sergeant Johnson in the Halo series and that just shows the range that this guy has from badass alien killer to sniveling reporter. As for a lot of the goons you’ll be fighting? They all sound like they’re voices from the same one or two people and you’ll often hear a lot of the same voice lines after a while so everyone just kind of blends in to this symphony of “angry white guy who wants to kill Tapp to get out and live” that sounds okay. I don’t know, I don’t really have much to say about the voice acting other than “it’s okay” but my immersion wasn’t really broken so I guess I’ll just shrug to this.
The graphics to this game I’ll just come out point blank and say it: it’s not great. Having played this on Playstation 3, I obviously know it’s not always going to have the best high resolution models. Tapp has no resemblance to Danny Glover (probably because the game was made on a smaller budget), you’ll run into multiple dudes that look the same, and honestly sometimes the game is just too damn dark for its own good. The animations are stiff for the most part and I guess just overall I don’t know, it was just kind of an ugly game for me. Granted I wasn’t really bothered with that, as graphics aren’t really a huge sticking point to me so I didn’t give a shit. What I can say is that in the areas where you’re able to go outside, the former asylum looks a lot better environmentally wise than one can give credit for. The atmosphere I’ll say on the other hand is a bit of an astounding and mixed bag. I say it’s astounding because it’s such an uncomfortable and decrepit place (taking place in a former insane asylum) that you not only could see Jigsaw setting up a whole game here but the place is in literal shambles. You’ll find everything abandoned, walls that can be destroyed, broken glass shattered everywhere, dirty bathrooms, like the grunge is just perfect for the type of setting that any sort of SAW game would take place in and that mixed with the asylum’s former history (riddled in documents) showing a place of cutbacks, despair and frankly negligence towards all patients. What I’ll say is a mixed bag isn’t necessarily because of anything it did bad, but more so comes from a place of “I’m a huge SAW fan” and “I know this is a video game but it’s way too unrealistic”.
In the normal SAW movies, you’ll know Jigsaw went all out when you see the most elaborate traps; however in this game you’ll see a lot of the same stuff from the movies, plus recent games and dead bodies everywhere. Usually the victim count is kept low but you’ll be strolling through Whitehurst to find former games where dudes are ripped apart, sawed in half and such and I swear to god the count of dead bodies reaches higher than the fifties or more. How did Jigsaw kidnap this many people? How much money did he make in the movies to conceivably put all of these games into effect, all of these traps? The asylum IS FILLED WITH THEM. Did he plan this all out in advance? Is he just working with the U.S. Prison Industrial Complex to ship motherfuckers here by the truckload at this point? Jigsaw clearly almost always has a plan, so how was this game (figuratively and literally) even possible? Who knows, maybe I just need to shut the fuck up but this was a huge thought of what I was thinking while playing the game and it kinda took me out a bit.
SAW: The Video Game was an interesting ride going through my childhood once again. My fascination with the series since I was a kid still hasn’t gone away, as I’m still fascinated with the motives of the serial tester (?) as well as how the franchise went in the future. I would dip in and out of becoming obsessed and re-obsessed with the franchise but I didn’t really pick up on the series again until much more recently. Having saw Spiral: From the Book of Saw in theaters with my buddy Nick (shoutout), having watched JigSaw in a discord call with a bunch of buddies and then finally having watched SAW X in theaters as a bit of a treat to myself, it was I guess a bit of destiny that everything has kinda come together for me to start playing this game last year. I know at the moment I’m in the middle of trying to figure out my living situation, but with SAW XI apparently coming around this year with a quick turnaround (as the series is notorious for), it’s not a surprise that the next batch of games have SAW II: Flesh and Blood pushed into it as well. I enjoyed my time streaming this for my one friend, as well as it becoming my first Playstation platinum of the year so that's dope as hell!
The future after SAW: The Video Game was again a really quick turn around, with the sequel being pushed out literally less than a year later. Originally, Konami had plans to turn the SAW franchise into another horror series like Silent Hill, with recurring releases to keep the Konami cash flow going (until they went into optimized gambling, WHOOP WHOOP!). However, the critical reception went into the ground just like John Kramer would be in SAW III, except they didn’t try to resurrect his corpse for a third game. Zombie Studios would later create smaller titles that no one seemed to have cared about, such war crime Kinect simulator Blackwater and Blacklight: Retribution, an online multiplayer game that I’ve never heard about but I’m sure others have. The series of SAW in video game form however has been kind of iffy. Originally there were talks about Bloober Team creating a SAW game on a pitch for Lionsgate (which eventually turned into Blair Witch after Bloober decided they didn’t want to touch Saw with a ten foot stick) as well as discussions about new SAW games coming out for the “next generation” which let’s see how that would go, if it would even go well. Personally if I was gonna create a SAW game, I probably would make it a walking simulator of sorts, or something akin to Condemned: Criminal Origins. Konami would continue existing, something that I always have mixed feelings on due to their shitty use of their IPs. I guess here’s hoping that the new Silent Hill adaptations will work out?
Links:
https://screenrant.com/saw-game-playstation-xbox-jigsaw-ps5-xsx/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Saw
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1144553/
https://www.myabandonware.com/game/saw-glm
https://web.archive.org/web/20090405062724/http://weblogs.variety.com/the_cut_scene/2009/04/silent-hill-say-hello-to-your-new-brother-jigsawkonami-has-confirmed-an-earlier-cut-scene-report-that-it-has-bought-the-pub.html
https://bloody-disgusting.com/news/14348/
https://www.dreadcentral.com/news/9147/exclusive-game-producer-david-s-cohen-talks-saw-video-game/
https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/01/30/saw-announced
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=79tUra-8mwY&ab_channel=Konami
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Saw_(video_game)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Saw
https://www.ign.com/articles/bloober-team-saw-blair-witch-licensed-games-turned-down
2009
This review contains spoilers
Demon’s Souls is a “world mending” simulator/fantasy action RPG developed by FromSoftware as an exclusive for the Playstation 3 and published by Sony themselves. I’m personally unsure how the development went but from what I understand, it originally started as a title in their notorious “King’s Field” series before eventually falling into disarray due to a lack of vision. The development had been an underwhelming failure, and nothing had seemed to work as well as anyone wanted it to. However, one man was supposed to have saved it all: a man named Hidetaka Miyazaki. This man was kinda told to go HAM and do what he wanted, as with the game being deemed a failure but still needing to ship out a product, they didn’t really give a shit about what had happened. However, Miyazaki’s involvement led to it being transformed into the beast it was today, not only due to transformed mechanics but also due to the fact that the uppers at Sony didn’t really give a shit (though the difficulty of the gameplay was kept hidden to make sure it wasn’t asked to be removed). What ended up being released was a game of historical scale within the gaming industry, one of which I didn’t experience until much later.
My history with the Souls series has always been a bit of a strange one and truthfully goes way back to my love of H.P. Lovecraft. I had gotten a Playstation 3 a little bit earlier, but I had then decided at the drop of a hat in 2017 that I wanted to buy a Playstation 4. I needed games for this console and had decided on buying three games: Yakuza 0 (because I love Yakuza), Until Dawn and Bloodborne, all Playstation 4 exclusives at that time. I had also gotten into Bloodborne because my sister had shown interest in the game as well so it was something we could try together and with it being an exclusive I had picked it up. I sucked at Bloodborne when I first tried it and it scared me but after a while I had grown to love it to pieces. From there I had gone on a little bit of a Souls kick, and had decided at the time to purchase copies of Demon’s Souls as well as the rest of the Dark Souls series. When I first started playing Demon’s Souls, it had been a strange moment in my life to be honest.
If I remember correctly, I was in the middle of girl problems and my grandfather had just died, and I had started playing Demon’s Souls as soon as I had gotten home from the funeral. In that state, everything had just hit me: the soundtrack, the satisfying combat, the world, the sadness of it all. It felt like bliss, as something I wanted to give a full playthrough. Over the next while I sucked at it, killed bosses, learned the tricks (as well as a duplication glitch), and was on my way to beating the game. A while later while balancing different consoles I had platinumed Bloodborne as my first platinum trophy and had decided to go on a Souls game run, not thinking I would turn into a trophy hunter AGAIN after quitting achievement hunting on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. My personal journey towards the Demon’s Souls platinum would take around a year and five months, but I’ll go into that during the end. For now, I want to tell you why this game deserves the love even in spite of some outdated design compared to the newer titles.
The plot of Demon’s Souls is one that’s a very miniscule one, but one deep and rich in lore. There is no in depth plot synopsis, but one that starts with your player character being one of many who penetrate a giant wall of fog that surrounds the kingdom of Boletaria due to a threat from “The Old One”. You’ll go through a series of areas before eventually either dying to the first boss (most likely) or getting punched out by The Dragon God (which happens if you beat the first boss, and you get to pick up a bunch of loot before dying). Waking up in The Nexus, your soul is bound to it as The Maiden in Black sends you on a quest to free the five different regions of Boletaria from their souls in order to gain power to lay “The Old One” back to slumber. Along the way you’ll learn that the cause of this was due to the current king, King Allant, bringing back the Souls Arts, which stems from the Old One’s powers and therefore caused the apocalypse to begin with. However, along the way you’ll run into helpful wanderers (Sage Freke for example, whom can help you gain new powers in exchange for boss souls if you rescue him), real bastards (like Patches the Hyena, a tricky fucker who likes to lure you into traps only to kick you to your supposed doom before apologizing and declaring that he didn’t mean to. He’s a fun recurring character throughout most of the Souls games), and beings of pure evil (DO NOT recruit Yurt, your people will die).
Overall, there are times where I can be a little bit mixed on the lack of info in terms of story building. What I can say however is that I’ve always loved how the Souls games spread their lore apart. You don’t 100 percent know what’s true, or even if an interpretation of an interpretation IS the right one. You’ll learn bits and pieces to fit together a puzzle but never enough to get something totally comprehensive, which I think in itself is pretty cool and sparks the imagination. I don’t mind going into a story knowing a whole lot more, in fact I’m a bit of a weird spoiler freak so people could tell me the plot to say a new movie and I’d still enjoy it the same as I would’ve without it. HOWEVER, I appreciate how it doesn’t tell you much and in a way I still think that the Souls Franchise and Siren are still the top two titles for me in which you don’t have much in the way explained while still holding your interest. The exact polar opposite to this effect would be Outlast 2, which didn’t explain shit except giving you the twist in ONE document and the game was a lot worse off for it. The characters are all interesting and enigmatic, each giving a flavor to the atmosphere of Demon’s Souls which I LOVED to death when I first played it.
In fact, let's go into the atmosphere here: it’s fantastic. It’s this oppressive yet mystical place, colorful yet dark in nature. Each location is a unique place all on its own, with its own separate vibes. The first world of Boletaria (aka the Archstone of the Small King) is sunny yet suffers in the aftermath of what looks like a warzone, with pieces of wall destroyed and bodies all over the place. Dragons fly over and attempt to kill you at various points and you can run into characters like Biorr or Ostrava, a knight who only wants to search for his father. The second world is dry and hellish, literally because you start out on a desert mountain and your journey into the depths of the caves only gets more and more terrifying. With all of the worlds, I’ll be the first to say that the second world (aka the Archstone of the Burrow King) is the most…eclectic. It has some of the scariest and most bullshit boss fights (scary being Flamelurker, and bullshit being the Spider and the Dragon God). This is also where you’ll most likely encounter Patches the Hyena first, suspiciously next to a giant fire beetle. It’s a scary place and I don’t enjoy the premise of being burned alive, though if I were to recommend a place to start any platinum world tendency runs, this is where I would suggest it is first. It has the least amount of stuff needed (if I remember correctly) while also allowing you to get most of the stupid shit done and out of the way first.
The third world (aka the Archstone of the Tower Queen) is a dark, decrepit and confusing place. Starting out in a prison tower, this maze feels like something out of a medieval Hellraiser movie, with prison cells filled with corpse husks walking around and begging for death. Iron Maidens and chains riddle these decrepit and dirty cell blocks, akin to the U.S. Prison System is guarded by Lovecraft-esque monsters who will suck the life out of you in one shot if they ever grab onto you. With each layer you ascend it only gets more and more creepy, though it’s far from the worst or the most hopeless world that Demon’s Souls has to offer. You’ll hear ghostly wails surrounding this field of towers, surrounded by smog and filled with bridges you could get knocked off of if not careful by angry gargoyles. The last world is literally just an ascent up another giant tower in order to fight the Old Monk, a goofy bastard with a tornado for a headpiece but that’s usually another player that’s been summoned. However the throne room that surrounds this arena is filled with chairs that, while you can’t climb, seem to build all the way to the top of some glorified throne room in some sort of Papal church design.
The fourth world (aka the Archstone of the Shadowmen) is the world I like the best aesthetically other than the first one. It’s still riddled with corpses, craters and creepy caverns but it also has this peaceful aura, a blue sky surrounded by floating sting rays that shoot crystals at you. Granted the friendliness and peace of this world is kinda counteracted by the rolling skeletons who could eat a fat fucking dick or twelve but still the serenity that this world has to the others is unparalleled. It’s a place filled with nature, with water, with all of these sort of things that I can’t say enough positive things about. However, the fifth world (aka the Archstone of the Chieftain) is both aesthetically and atmospherically the worst. Yes, it’s a giant poison swamp world filled with black, charred corpses and looking like Detroit in the late 80s with it’s homes looking like a bad insurance fraud scheme. However, all of this black also just kind of feels lazy and I think for the most part that most people would agree: the poison swamp areas in all of the Souls series suck the most. I’m never going to pretend to like this area, and will probably be the last area that I go to on all of my playthroughs.
However, even with the swamps not being my favorite I can’t say that it doesn’t add onto the oppressiveness of the worlds that you’ll roam in the land of Boletaria. I can at least say for the most part, each world has its own unique style that you won’t really forget once you go through them. It’s a beautiful land, and finally I want to speak on the Nexus itself. The Nexus is home, a home that’s rather spacey and confusing to navigate sometimes but that’s just how it is. If you were to climb all of the staircases you will meet the Monumental One, who will give you stuff depending on your story place and your character tendency. However, the main areas you will go to is within the small circle on the first floor. It’s here where you will see all five archstones of which you’ll travel to the many lands, encounter many of the characters that you’ve seen before on the quests. And let me just say, this place is immaculately designed and feels warm, it feels like home. The Maiden in Black’s peaceful presence to all of your friends (and some of your enemies, fuck you Patches) welcoming you. The magical floors on the bottom which feels both solid and floaty at the same time, it’s just an amazing feeling. Before I move onto the sound design, I’d like to bring up the graphics for the original here: they’re fine. They look like 2009, with most of the human models looking for the most part okay. It’s not crisp HD, if you want that then play the PS5 remake but most of the models look fine human wise. Monster wise they look terrifying which does it’s job correctly. I don’t know, I don’t really have much to say about the graphics except sometimes it looks a bit smeary but that’s not something I was really bothered by.
I’ll start on the sound design with the soundtrack: the soundtrack is amazing! I picked this shit up on CD a long time ago, and was able to do so after buying a buddy of mine a “Game of the Year” bundle for his PS3 while keeping the CD for myself. Shunsuke Kida did a phenomenal job creating a soundtrack full of memorable bangers. The intro cutscene music for Demon’s Souls will be one you hear often, while other tracks I loved were Tower Knight with the badass chanting (which just sounds like the boss laughing at you), Old Hero sounds like a somber Zelda-styled track which shows the former shell of what the boss used to be, Leechmonger is imposing in its use of strings even if the boss itself isn’t that great, while the Character Creation Theme is something that I honestly sometimes use to go to sleep. It’s peaceful and brings a feeling of serenity that not a lot of shit can do aside from the Silent Hill soundtrack or “The Horse with No Name” by America. The rest of the soundtrack just flows into each other pretty well or fits the game perfectly even if I wouldn’t exactly listen to these often (though to be honest, I mostly listen to hip hop/R&B so what can you do) but everything just fits and it’s great.
The last piece of the sound design is the literal sound design: how does everything fit/feel? Does it work well in context with the environment? Yes I’d say it does. Thrusting with the sword feels powerful and has this sharp sound which sounds like blood could be dripping out, while magic feels ethereal yet powerful (or not so much, depending on the spell). Footsteps sound pretty damn good, and enemies sound intimidating with their roars, their clunks and all of that shit. The voice acting is something that’s pretty good too! You know the feeling when you can’t recognize anyone in a movie or a play but you can tell they did a terrific job portraying the world that they live in? Yeah that’s what it feels like, filled with old english sounding dialogue and soft spoken yet sad sounding words. The only name I can sort of recognize from the IMDB is Christopher Fairbank though I genuinely don’t remember if I’ve seen or heard him in anything. Either way, all the sound design shit is fucking good and fits cohesively with the world so no complaints.
The gameplay is why Demon’s Souls (along with its successors) is truly known amongst gamers around the world however. Miyazaki had a goal set in mind for this: difficult but with the trade that it led to more satisfaction when conquering a goal. I have no real feeling about this as I’m the kind of dude who would use cheat codes in a single player game and still get good vibes but what I’ll say is that the game isn’t difficult just for being difficult. Sure, are there bullshit enemies and bosses? Yes, but I’d dare say that it’s in how the mechanics feel and work that really excel the title to the top of the list. It’ll never not feel satisfying rolling through an enemy’s attack at the exact precise moment (with something called an eye frame) and getting no damage before going in for a backstab from behind. But truthfully I’m getting ahead of myself, what is this game all about?
You start by creating your own character and choosing your own class (of which Royalty is considered the best one due to the fact that magic is overpowered as hell). You go through a couple different locations, killing enemies while dodging their attacks and picking up pieces of armor, health items (called Moon Grass here), weapons, projectiles and the like. Eventually you make your way to the first boss: the Vanguard Demon. This is where the game will break you for the first time as you will get skull stomped into the ground almost immediately unless you are on top of your shit. You may pass this boss but either way you will die and be sent to the Nexus. The game’s concept is about dying and surviving, learning from your mistakes and moving forward with a better understanding of what you need to do and how to do it. That’s not to say that you will get it the second time, the third time or even ten more times after that. But somehow, somehow, something will stick.
From the Nexus you will be introduced to three concepts: one is the Maiden in Black. When you kill enemies and gather souls (or beat boss battles), you can come back to the Nexus and present your souls to the Maiden in Black to level up. Here is where you kind of have to come up with a class, and learn a bit about what you need. You can’t equal everything out as you’ll still be a bit on the weak side so you need to be a master of some and put souls into some skills as much as you can. If, say you’re a magic user and you decide to put in souls for Intelligence and Magic use then it’ll power you in certain areas (with certain weapons and clothes also helping certain classes) but at the same time you’ll neglect others. One thing I do want to bring up here as a legit problem is probably the Item Encumberment, which was later dropped from Dark Souls onwards thankfully. However, in Demon’s Souls OG it can be a legitimate problem and you kind of have to keep an eye on it as unlike the Remake, I don’t remember you being able to send anything into the stockpile.
The next concept is NPCs and their quests, which you will encounter throughout the game as you explore the world's you roam. Each of these quests can end well or terribly depending on your decisions (or lack thereof). There are some NPCs you might not even run into unless you looked it up beforehand or did certain quests and events. Some you might just run into randomly if you’re not paying attention, but a lot of these quests gain certain rewards. Some of these NPCs could also be enemies later on that you’ll need to fight down the line. These could be as simple as upgrading materials, souls or as good as weapons and such. What I’ll say is for the upgrade materials are great, but within Demon’s Souls there are a lot of ranks. The higher it is, the more rare it is and these can only be found within certain parameters or by grinding what I call “loot lizards” (shiny fuckers which only spawn once or twice within every boss death if you kill them) and if you don’t get certain stones then you could be screwed out of a trophy for a run and there are A LOT of fully upgraded weapon trophies which you’ll need rare stones for. Luckily, by joining a Discord server and configuring your PS3 online, you’ll be able to join up and make trades with players if all goes well as I did.
The last concept here is exploring the worlds, of which there are five (with a six archstone broken and cut during in-game development). Each world has three to five sections in which you’ll explore, with each section ending with a boss to defeat. Some of these bosses have gimmicks (like the Fool’s Idol, which requires you to kill an NPC with exploration) or the Dragon God (which is a pain in the fucking ass and has gameplay akin to Metal Gear then an RPG) while some just require straight up combat. Either way, most of these bosses are unique and add personality to them and the world surrounding them. However, this is where I’ll introduce another concept: World Tendency. If you are revived from your Soul form (of which you’ll have 50-75% left health) and die in Human form in one of these worlds, then your world tendency goes down. Either way if you die, your souls are dropped and you have to run back to where you were and grab them: if by any means you can’t grab them and you die again then they’re lost forever. Unrelated you can also read (and rate) notes of various quality that could help you or get you killed that you or other players can put down as well as see the red shadows of other players who’ve died, warning you of potential traps. Now world tendency as a concept is neat: if you’re in Black World Tendency it gets more difficult but has exclusive events (needed for trophies) and more loot drops. However, getting back up to World Tendency is a real bitch if you don’t have any boss battles left and requires an online connection (either through the Discord Servers having special events) or through grinding out special demons/invaders. If I were to recommend something, I’d say each time you get your human form back, go to the Nexus and jump off a cliff. Then go back to the world and fight the next boss, rinse and repeat. By the time you’re done, you should have white world tendency and can unlock exclusive events to those tendencies. Afterwards if you have enough ephemeral eyes (or coop play with enough people), you can die and do that all over again until Black Tendency. Here’s the problem though: as cool as this concept is, it’s a pain in the ass and if you’re a completionist like me, that means you have to handicap yourself (or be REALLY good) for the entire game at 50% (or 75% if you have a special ring that’ll boost your health up).
The last concept I’ll bring up before I leave the rest to the player is cooperative play: it doesn’t play like Call of Duty with lobby searches. What it involves is this: if you’re summoning then you need to be in human form in order to recruit someone. You could do a random (either by random password or by better chance, no passwords) or a friend (through specific passwords); they pop in your game and can help you make progress through a certain world section. If you beat the boss they disappear, rinse and repeat to the next one. To become summonable on the other hand is a whole ‘nother ball game other than using passwords. To become a summonable helper, you need the Blue Eyed Stone: you need to be a phantom and set down the stone and you can be brought into the next world. There’s also the Black and Red Stones, in which you can invade another player's world as an enemy. According to the wiki, the Red Stones are summoned only and involve a battle for souls while the Black Stones are forcefully put into another player’s world. The Blue Stone comes from the Maiden in Black after defeating the Phalanx Boss, the Black Eyed Stone comes from killing a Black Phantom and the Red Eyed Stone involves killing the Maiden of Black and getting the bad ending at the end of the game. There are only two endings and it either involves killing her or not killing her so thankfully it doesn’t require crazy requirements.
A long while after having beaten the game and deciding to temporarily give up on grinding for the upgrade trophies, it was announced that a special group on Discord was reviving the servers for the original Playstation 3 game. I was ecstatic and jumped in as soon as I could, both reliving the classic again but also engaging with the community and making trades with others in order to get the trophies. The online wasn’t around (or at least it was abandoned) when I first started so getting to play with others and even invade them was a bit of a trip the next time around. I still to this day remember the last trophy I had gotten which I believe was the “Soldier’s Trophy”, for obtaining all of the weapons. I had obtained the platinum through the trade, and while for a moment I had decided that I would perhaps duplicate the weapons and give them back, I had just decided at that moment to just go butt ass naked and give everything back to the one (or maybe two? I don’t remember) people that had joined me to help them get their trophies and such as well. I had logged off of my profile and most likely my character forever, a journey completed in the original game with a sense of accomplishment. Demon’s Souls was a difficult platinum to get and not a lot of people got it, ESPECIALLY as their fifth game. I always held a place for the original Demon’s Souls in my heart and I always will; evidently so did the rest of the community surrounding the Souls game as the future of FromSoftware would show.
This future would propel the studio into a new direction entirely with the critical acclaim of Demons Souls. The financial success wouldn’t really land, only selling around 20,000 copies until demand in the west led to Atlus publishing it overseas. They would go on to release a couple of new titles here and there, but their main focus of financial success would reside in their mech games (like Armored Core) and future Souls games. Whilst Demon’s Souls was popular (especially in Japan), it was the success of the spiritual successor Dark Souls that would hit worldwide in 2011 with critical acclaim and a successful series of titles after that, including future Playstation exclusive Bloodborne (which would at first have narrative links to Demon’s Souls before being purged altogether, and would retain Miyazaki as director), the rest of the Dark Souls series, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (originally a Tenchu reboot) while creating the magnum opus of the series: Elden Ring. There was so much success in this formula that it would spin off into it’s own genre, labeled the “Souls-like” which would be used by games like Nioh, Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, and The Surge amongst many others. HOWEVER, the history of Demon’s Souls wouldn’t end there as during the Playstation 5 reveal event in June of 2020, with a release date later arriving in November of 2020. I hadn’t played it yet until Fall of 2021 during a depression slump before temporarily shelving it and moving my playthrough to the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. However, before I go I’m just going to say one thing: the fact that there’s absolutely no port of the original or remake of this game on PC (as well as Bloodborne!) fucking blows and I’m disappointed in Sony for not putting these games as I genuinely feel this shit would sell like hotcakes. Only place you can play this game now on PC is probably the PS3 emulator (RPCS3), of which I’ll put down the files I uploaded to Internet Archive below in the links list.
Links:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1537739/ (IMDB)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls
https://demonssouls.fandom.com/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls_Wiki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezcNxSfa3Tg&ab_channel=Jepedillo (Youtube OST)
https://downloads.khinsider.com/search?search=Demon%27s+Souls
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DemonsSouls
https://archive.org/details/demons_souls_rpcs3_iso
https://gamerant.com/demons-souls-crazy-development-stories/#western-audiences-weren-t-supposed-to-play-it
https://dondonrv.com/c/115/the-making-of-demon-s-souls
https://www.eurogamer.net/demons-souls-was-a-failure-before-miyazaki-stepped-up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjkdKKgmofA&ab_channel=LanceMcDonald
My history with the Souls series has always been a bit of a strange one and truthfully goes way back to my love of H.P. Lovecraft. I had gotten a Playstation 3 a little bit earlier, but I had then decided at the drop of a hat in 2017 that I wanted to buy a Playstation 4. I needed games for this console and had decided on buying three games: Yakuza 0 (because I love Yakuza), Until Dawn and Bloodborne, all Playstation 4 exclusives at that time. I had also gotten into Bloodborne because my sister had shown interest in the game as well so it was something we could try together and with it being an exclusive I had picked it up. I sucked at Bloodborne when I first tried it and it scared me but after a while I had grown to love it to pieces. From there I had gone on a little bit of a Souls kick, and had decided at the time to purchase copies of Demon’s Souls as well as the rest of the Dark Souls series. When I first started playing Demon’s Souls, it had been a strange moment in my life to be honest.
If I remember correctly, I was in the middle of girl problems and my grandfather had just died, and I had started playing Demon’s Souls as soon as I had gotten home from the funeral. In that state, everything had just hit me: the soundtrack, the satisfying combat, the world, the sadness of it all. It felt like bliss, as something I wanted to give a full playthrough. Over the next while I sucked at it, killed bosses, learned the tricks (as well as a duplication glitch), and was on my way to beating the game. A while later while balancing different consoles I had platinumed Bloodborne as my first platinum trophy and had decided to go on a Souls game run, not thinking I would turn into a trophy hunter AGAIN after quitting achievement hunting on Xbox 360 and Xbox One. My personal journey towards the Demon’s Souls platinum would take around a year and five months, but I’ll go into that during the end. For now, I want to tell you why this game deserves the love even in spite of some outdated design compared to the newer titles.
The plot of Demon’s Souls is one that’s a very miniscule one, but one deep and rich in lore. There is no in depth plot synopsis, but one that starts with your player character being one of many who penetrate a giant wall of fog that surrounds the kingdom of Boletaria due to a threat from “The Old One”. You’ll go through a series of areas before eventually either dying to the first boss (most likely) or getting punched out by The Dragon God (which happens if you beat the first boss, and you get to pick up a bunch of loot before dying). Waking up in The Nexus, your soul is bound to it as The Maiden in Black sends you on a quest to free the five different regions of Boletaria from their souls in order to gain power to lay “The Old One” back to slumber. Along the way you’ll learn that the cause of this was due to the current king, King Allant, bringing back the Souls Arts, which stems from the Old One’s powers and therefore caused the apocalypse to begin with. However, along the way you’ll run into helpful wanderers (Sage Freke for example, whom can help you gain new powers in exchange for boss souls if you rescue him), real bastards (like Patches the Hyena, a tricky fucker who likes to lure you into traps only to kick you to your supposed doom before apologizing and declaring that he didn’t mean to. He’s a fun recurring character throughout most of the Souls games), and beings of pure evil (DO NOT recruit Yurt, your people will die).
Overall, there are times where I can be a little bit mixed on the lack of info in terms of story building. What I can say however is that I’ve always loved how the Souls games spread their lore apart. You don’t 100 percent know what’s true, or even if an interpretation of an interpretation IS the right one. You’ll learn bits and pieces to fit together a puzzle but never enough to get something totally comprehensive, which I think in itself is pretty cool and sparks the imagination. I don’t mind going into a story knowing a whole lot more, in fact I’m a bit of a weird spoiler freak so people could tell me the plot to say a new movie and I’d still enjoy it the same as I would’ve without it. HOWEVER, I appreciate how it doesn’t tell you much and in a way I still think that the Souls Franchise and Siren are still the top two titles for me in which you don’t have much in the way explained while still holding your interest. The exact polar opposite to this effect would be Outlast 2, which didn’t explain shit except giving you the twist in ONE document and the game was a lot worse off for it. The characters are all interesting and enigmatic, each giving a flavor to the atmosphere of Demon’s Souls which I LOVED to death when I first played it.
In fact, let's go into the atmosphere here: it’s fantastic. It’s this oppressive yet mystical place, colorful yet dark in nature. Each location is a unique place all on its own, with its own separate vibes. The first world of Boletaria (aka the Archstone of the Small King) is sunny yet suffers in the aftermath of what looks like a warzone, with pieces of wall destroyed and bodies all over the place. Dragons fly over and attempt to kill you at various points and you can run into characters like Biorr or Ostrava, a knight who only wants to search for his father. The second world is dry and hellish, literally because you start out on a desert mountain and your journey into the depths of the caves only gets more and more terrifying. With all of the worlds, I’ll be the first to say that the second world (aka the Archstone of the Burrow King) is the most…eclectic. It has some of the scariest and most bullshit boss fights (scary being Flamelurker, and bullshit being the Spider and the Dragon God). This is also where you’ll most likely encounter Patches the Hyena first, suspiciously next to a giant fire beetle. It’s a scary place and I don’t enjoy the premise of being burned alive, though if I were to recommend a place to start any platinum world tendency runs, this is where I would suggest it is first. It has the least amount of stuff needed (if I remember correctly) while also allowing you to get most of the stupid shit done and out of the way first.
The third world (aka the Archstone of the Tower Queen) is a dark, decrepit and confusing place. Starting out in a prison tower, this maze feels like something out of a medieval Hellraiser movie, with prison cells filled with corpse husks walking around and begging for death. Iron Maidens and chains riddle these decrepit and dirty cell blocks, akin to the U.S. Prison System is guarded by Lovecraft-esque monsters who will suck the life out of you in one shot if they ever grab onto you. With each layer you ascend it only gets more and more creepy, though it’s far from the worst or the most hopeless world that Demon’s Souls has to offer. You’ll hear ghostly wails surrounding this field of towers, surrounded by smog and filled with bridges you could get knocked off of if not careful by angry gargoyles. The last world is literally just an ascent up another giant tower in order to fight the Old Monk, a goofy bastard with a tornado for a headpiece but that’s usually another player that’s been summoned. However the throne room that surrounds this arena is filled with chairs that, while you can’t climb, seem to build all the way to the top of some glorified throne room in some sort of Papal church design.
The fourth world (aka the Archstone of the Shadowmen) is the world I like the best aesthetically other than the first one. It’s still riddled with corpses, craters and creepy caverns but it also has this peaceful aura, a blue sky surrounded by floating sting rays that shoot crystals at you. Granted the friendliness and peace of this world is kinda counteracted by the rolling skeletons who could eat a fat fucking dick or twelve but still the serenity that this world has to the others is unparalleled. It’s a place filled with nature, with water, with all of these sort of things that I can’t say enough positive things about. However, the fifth world (aka the Archstone of the Chieftain) is both aesthetically and atmospherically the worst. Yes, it’s a giant poison swamp world filled with black, charred corpses and looking like Detroit in the late 80s with it’s homes looking like a bad insurance fraud scheme. However, all of this black also just kind of feels lazy and I think for the most part that most people would agree: the poison swamp areas in all of the Souls series suck the most. I’m never going to pretend to like this area, and will probably be the last area that I go to on all of my playthroughs.
However, even with the swamps not being my favorite I can’t say that it doesn’t add onto the oppressiveness of the worlds that you’ll roam in the land of Boletaria. I can at least say for the most part, each world has its own unique style that you won’t really forget once you go through them. It’s a beautiful land, and finally I want to speak on the Nexus itself. The Nexus is home, a home that’s rather spacey and confusing to navigate sometimes but that’s just how it is. If you were to climb all of the staircases you will meet the Monumental One, who will give you stuff depending on your story place and your character tendency. However, the main areas you will go to is within the small circle on the first floor. It’s here where you will see all five archstones of which you’ll travel to the many lands, encounter many of the characters that you’ve seen before on the quests. And let me just say, this place is immaculately designed and feels warm, it feels like home. The Maiden in Black’s peaceful presence to all of your friends (and some of your enemies, fuck you Patches) welcoming you. The magical floors on the bottom which feels both solid and floaty at the same time, it’s just an amazing feeling. Before I move onto the sound design, I’d like to bring up the graphics for the original here: they’re fine. They look like 2009, with most of the human models looking for the most part okay. It’s not crisp HD, if you want that then play the PS5 remake but most of the models look fine human wise. Monster wise they look terrifying which does it’s job correctly. I don’t know, I don’t really have much to say about the graphics except sometimes it looks a bit smeary but that’s not something I was really bothered by.
I’ll start on the sound design with the soundtrack: the soundtrack is amazing! I picked this shit up on CD a long time ago, and was able to do so after buying a buddy of mine a “Game of the Year” bundle for his PS3 while keeping the CD for myself. Shunsuke Kida did a phenomenal job creating a soundtrack full of memorable bangers. The intro cutscene music for Demon’s Souls will be one you hear often, while other tracks I loved were Tower Knight with the badass chanting (which just sounds like the boss laughing at you), Old Hero sounds like a somber Zelda-styled track which shows the former shell of what the boss used to be, Leechmonger is imposing in its use of strings even if the boss itself isn’t that great, while the Character Creation Theme is something that I honestly sometimes use to go to sleep. It’s peaceful and brings a feeling of serenity that not a lot of shit can do aside from the Silent Hill soundtrack or “The Horse with No Name” by America. The rest of the soundtrack just flows into each other pretty well or fits the game perfectly even if I wouldn’t exactly listen to these often (though to be honest, I mostly listen to hip hop/R&B so what can you do) but everything just fits and it’s great.
The last piece of the sound design is the literal sound design: how does everything fit/feel? Does it work well in context with the environment? Yes I’d say it does. Thrusting with the sword feels powerful and has this sharp sound which sounds like blood could be dripping out, while magic feels ethereal yet powerful (or not so much, depending on the spell). Footsteps sound pretty damn good, and enemies sound intimidating with their roars, their clunks and all of that shit. The voice acting is something that’s pretty good too! You know the feeling when you can’t recognize anyone in a movie or a play but you can tell they did a terrific job portraying the world that they live in? Yeah that’s what it feels like, filled with old english sounding dialogue and soft spoken yet sad sounding words. The only name I can sort of recognize from the IMDB is Christopher Fairbank though I genuinely don’t remember if I’ve seen or heard him in anything. Either way, all the sound design shit is fucking good and fits cohesively with the world so no complaints.
The gameplay is why Demon’s Souls (along with its successors) is truly known amongst gamers around the world however. Miyazaki had a goal set in mind for this: difficult but with the trade that it led to more satisfaction when conquering a goal. I have no real feeling about this as I’m the kind of dude who would use cheat codes in a single player game and still get good vibes but what I’ll say is that the game isn’t difficult just for being difficult. Sure, are there bullshit enemies and bosses? Yes, but I’d dare say that it’s in how the mechanics feel and work that really excel the title to the top of the list. It’ll never not feel satisfying rolling through an enemy’s attack at the exact precise moment (with something called an eye frame) and getting no damage before going in for a backstab from behind. But truthfully I’m getting ahead of myself, what is this game all about?
You start by creating your own character and choosing your own class (of which Royalty is considered the best one due to the fact that magic is overpowered as hell). You go through a couple different locations, killing enemies while dodging their attacks and picking up pieces of armor, health items (called Moon Grass here), weapons, projectiles and the like. Eventually you make your way to the first boss: the Vanguard Demon. This is where the game will break you for the first time as you will get skull stomped into the ground almost immediately unless you are on top of your shit. You may pass this boss but either way you will die and be sent to the Nexus. The game’s concept is about dying and surviving, learning from your mistakes and moving forward with a better understanding of what you need to do and how to do it. That’s not to say that you will get it the second time, the third time or even ten more times after that. But somehow, somehow, something will stick.
From the Nexus you will be introduced to three concepts: one is the Maiden in Black. When you kill enemies and gather souls (or beat boss battles), you can come back to the Nexus and present your souls to the Maiden in Black to level up. Here is where you kind of have to come up with a class, and learn a bit about what you need. You can’t equal everything out as you’ll still be a bit on the weak side so you need to be a master of some and put souls into some skills as much as you can. If, say you’re a magic user and you decide to put in souls for Intelligence and Magic use then it’ll power you in certain areas (with certain weapons and clothes also helping certain classes) but at the same time you’ll neglect others. One thing I do want to bring up here as a legit problem is probably the Item Encumberment, which was later dropped from Dark Souls onwards thankfully. However, in Demon’s Souls OG it can be a legitimate problem and you kind of have to keep an eye on it as unlike the Remake, I don’t remember you being able to send anything into the stockpile.
The next concept is NPCs and their quests, which you will encounter throughout the game as you explore the world's you roam. Each of these quests can end well or terribly depending on your decisions (or lack thereof). There are some NPCs you might not even run into unless you looked it up beforehand or did certain quests and events. Some you might just run into randomly if you’re not paying attention, but a lot of these quests gain certain rewards. Some of these NPCs could also be enemies later on that you’ll need to fight down the line. These could be as simple as upgrading materials, souls or as good as weapons and such. What I’ll say is for the upgrade materials are great, but within Demon’s Souls there are a lot of ranks. The higher it is, the more rare it is and these can only be found within certain parameters or by grinding what I call “loot lizards” (shiny fuckers which only spawn once or twice within every boss death if you kill them) and if you don’t get certain stones then you could be screwed out of a trophy for a run and there are A LOT of fully upgraded weapon trophies which you’ll need rare stones for. Luckily, by joining a Discord server and configuring your PS3 online, you’ll be able to join up and make trades with players if all goes well as I did.
The last concept here is exploring the worlds, of which there are five (with a six archstone broken and cut during in-game development). Each world has three to five sections in which you’ll explore, with each section ending with a boss to defeat. Some of these bosses have gimmicks (like the Fool’s Idol, which requires you to kill an NPC with exploration) or the Dragon God (which is a pain in the fucking ass and has gameplay akin to Metal Gear then an RPG) while some just require straight up combat. Either way, most of these bosses are unique and add personality to them and the world surrounding them. However, this is where I’ll introduce another concept: World Tendency. If you are revived from your Soul form (of which you’ll have 50-75% left health) and die in Human form in one of these worlds, then your world tendency goes down. Either way if you die, your souls are dropped and you have to run back to where you were and grab them: if by any means you can’t grab them and you die again then they’re lost forever. Unrelated you can also read (and rate) notes of various quality that could help you or get you killed that you or other players can put down as well as see the red shadows of other players who’ve died, warning you of potential traps. Now world tendency as a concept is neat: if you’re in Black World Tendency it gets more difficult but has exclusive events (needed for trophies) and more loot drops. However, getting back up to World Tendency is a real bitch if you don’t have any boss battles left and requires an online connection (either through the Discord Servers having special events) or through grinding out special demons/invaders. If I were to recommend something, I’d say each time you get your human form back, go to the Nexus and jump off a cliff. Then go back to the world and fight the next boss, rinse and repeat. By the time you’re done, you should have white world tendency and can unlock exclusive events to those tendencies. Afterwards if you have enough ephemeral eyes (or coop play with enough people), you can die and do that all over again until Black Tendency. Here’s the problem though: as cool as this concept is, it’s a pain in the ass and if you’re a completionist like me, that means you have to handicap yourself (or be REALLY good) for the entire game at 50% (or 75% if you have a special ring that’ll boost your health up).
The last concept I’ll bring up before I leave the rest to the player is cooperative play: it doesn’t play like Call of Duty with lobby searches. What it involves is this: if you’re summoning then you need to be in human form in order to recruit someone. You could do a random (either by random password or by better chance, no passwords) or a friend (through specific passwords); they pop in your game and can help you make progress through a certain world section. If you beat the boss they disappear, rinse and repeat to the next one. To become summonable on the other hand is a whole ‘nother ball game other than using passwords. To become a summonable helper, you need the Blue Eyed Stone: you need to be a phantom and set down the stone and you can be brought into the next world. There’s also the Black and Red Stones, in which you can invade another player's world as an enemy. According to the wiki, the Red Stones are summoned only and involve a battle for souls while the Black Stones are forcefully put into another player’s world. The Blue Stone comes from the Maiden in Black after defeating the Phalanx Boss, the Black Eyed Stone comes from killing a Black Phantom and the Red Eyed Stone involves killing the Maiden of Black and getting the bad ending at the end of the game. There are only two endings and it either involves killing her or not killing her so thankfully it doesn’t require crazy requirements.
A long while after having beaten the game and deciding to temporarily give up on grinding for the upgrade trophies, it was announced that a special group on Discord was reviving the servers for the original Playstation 3 game. I was ecstatic and jumped in as soon as I could, both reliving the classic again but also engaging with the community and making trades with others in order to get the trophies. The online wasn’t around (or at least it was abandoned) when I first started so getting to play with others and even invade them was a bit of a trip the next time around. I still to this day remember the last trophy I had gotten which I believe was the “Soldier’s Trophy”, for obtaining all of the weapons. I had obtained the platinum through the trade, and while for a moment I had decided that I would perhaps duplicate the weapons and give them back, I had just decided at that moment to just go butt ass naked and give everything back to the one (or maybe two? I don’t remember) people that had joined me to help them get their trophies and such as well. I had logged off of my profile and most likely my character forever, a journey completed in the original game with a sense of accomplishment. Demon’s Souls was a difficult platinum to get and not a lot of people got it, ESPECIALLY as their fifth game. I always held a place for the original Demon’s Souls in my heart and I always will; evidently so did the rest of the community surrounding the Souls game as the future of FromSoftware would show.
This future would propel the studio into a new direction entirely with the critical acclaim of Demons Souls. The financial success wouldn’t really land, only selling around 20,000 copies until demand in the west led to Atlus publishing it overseas. They would go on to release a couple of new titles here and there, but their main focus of financial success would reside in their mech games (like Armored Core) and future Souls games. Whilst Demon’s Souls was popular (especially in Japan), it was the success of the spiritual successor Dark Souls that would hit worldwide in 2011 with critical acclaim and a successful series of titles after that, including future Playstation exclusive Bloodborne (which would at first have narrative links to Demon’s Souls before being purged altogether, and would retain Miyazaki as director), the rest of the Dark Souls series, Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice (originally a Tenchu reboot) while creating the magnum opus of the series: Elden Ring. There was so much success in this formula that it would spin off into it’s own genre, labeled the “Souls-like” which would be used by games like Nioh, Lords of the Fallen, Lies of P, and The Surge amongst many others. HOWEVER, the history of Demon’s Souls wouldn’t end there as during the Playstation 5 reveal event in June of 2020, with a release date later arriving in November of 2020. I hadn’t played it yet until Fall of 2021 during a depression slump before temporarily shelving it and moving my playthrough to the end of 2023/beginning of 2024. However, before I go I’m just going to say one thing: the fact that there’s absolutely no port of the original or remake of this game on PC (as well as Bloodborne!) fucking blows and I’m disappointed in Sony for not putting these games as I genuinely feel this shit would sell like hotcakes. Only place you can play this game now on PC is probably the PS3 emulator (RPCS3), of which I’ll put down the files I uploaded to Internet Archive below in the links list.
Links:
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1537739/ (IMDB)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls
https://demonssouls.fandom.com/wiki/Demon%27s_Souls_Wiki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ezcNxSfa3Tg&ab_channel=Jepedillo (Youtube OST)
https://downloads.khinsider.com/search?search=Demon%27s+Souls
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DemonsSouls
https://archive.org/details/demons_souls_rpcs3_iso
https://gamerant.com/demons-souls-crazy-development-stories/#western-audiences-weren-t-supposed-to-play-it
https://dondonrv.com/c/115/the-making-of-demon-s-souls
https://www.eurogamer.net/demons-souls-was-a-failure-before-miyazaki-stepped-up
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LjkdKKgmofA&ab_channel=LanceMcDonald
This review contains spoilers
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is a prequel DLC/short expansion developed by Blue Castle Games (later Capcom Vancouver) and released as an exclusive on the Xbox Live Marketplace for around five dollars. As a short teaser, it was released around a month or so before the base game in 2010 on August 31st and would allow for players to not only get a taste for what the base game would end up playing like and allow for development of the two main leads, but would allow for players to unlock combo cards and level up (to a level cap of 5) to be transferred over to the base game for when it released. This release was evidently successful as it attracted over 300,000 downloads in the first week of release, though whether that was due to it being released free for Xbox Live players or if that included actual purchases is unknown. I don’t really remember my history with this DLC nor do I remember in what order I played Dead Rising 2 but if I remember correctly I might’ve played the original game on launch on the Xbox 360 back when I didn’t have Xbox Live (also back when I rented from the local game store in town). I wouldn’t end up playing Case Zero until 2013, when according to my achievements I’d play through some of it in August and then actually playing through the entire thing on December 1st of 2013 where I ended up getting all of the achievements for the game. Since then, I don’t remember much of when I played it again or if I even played it again until literally more than a decade later when I ended up playing it again on 1/7/2024 as a part of some Dead Rising retrospective series. Having played and beaten Dead Rising 2, Off the Record and 3 last year; I felt that I might as well hit up the rest of the series as a part of my “beat one game per console” goal, and I guess Case West (which I beat on 1/5/2024) and Case Zero count as my Xbox 360 games of the year though that could change at any point.
The plot to Case Zero starts with the aftermath of the Las Vegas outbreak, with protagonist Chuck Greene having fled with his daughter Katey out of the city and into the town of Still Creek. It’s immediately noticeable that Katey’s been bitten, specifically by her then undead mother (now probably just dead). Chuck gives her a bit of Zombrex before investigating the nearby gas station for supplies before being distracted by loud ass noises, which culminates in them witnessing more zombies pop out of the woodwork. His truck is stolen by some dickie douchebag and Chuck barricades himself and his daughter inside of the station. Resolving to do whatever it means to get out of Still Creek as well as find some Zombrex for his daughter (with the rest of his stash stolen in the truck). Chuck heads towards the smoke outside the town to find the remains of a destroyed military quarantine camp, and manages to find some Zombrex in an overturned ambulance. From here he overhears from a walkie talkie that a backup military quarantine crew will be there in 12 hours and seeing the remains of a motorcycle inside of a bin, he resolves to escape the town with his daughter and makes his way back to the gas station to begin his escape plan.
The game from here is honestly really simple, and short. You need to gather all five motorcycle parts around the map, being given directions from both survivor Bob as well as pawn shop owner Dick (if you buy his hints) and you walk around the small town to gather the parts you need. Once you do that (locations of all parts down in the Gameplay section), Chuck manages to repair his bike and injects Katey with another dose of Zombrex before encountering a nasty surprise: Jed. See, Jed is a hillbilly mechanic who has a love for “the hunt” and noticing that Chuck gave his daughter Zombrex, proceeds to attempt to murder her because the way he thinks about it, she’s a zombie anyways who hasn’t turned. Chuck proceeds to fight to the death with Jed, and after Jed stumbles and is smashed with the remains of a giant car, Chuck finishes the repairs on his bike. Grabbing Katey and hopping on the bike, the military proceed to surround the town and demand his surrender. This doesn’t work as Chuck manages to make his way out of town in a two minute chase sequence, before ending up in the desert. Turns out, the truck thief didn’t make it that far and died, so Chuck stops by and loots the truck of the Zombrex stash and personal belongings before splitting.
I like the plot for this game a lot, as it’s not a lore heavy “who did it” mystery or anything along those lines as much as it is a character driven story. It’s an establishing shot for Chuck Greene, and more specifically his world and values as he deals with the outbreak of zombies. His character moments in this game are something I actually really enjoyed, with a lot of heartfelt dialogue and bonding moments between him and his daughter. I think after playing this again, I’ve come out of this liking Chuck a lot more than I used to. It did the job successfully of making me want more, even if I already had more after playing the rest of the series. The only questions I had were “What happened to the survivors you rescued” and “How did Still Creek even get infected with zombies?”. Logically speaking, the first one was answered with “put into military quarantine” and the second one was answered in a tie-in comic book “Dead Rising: Road to Fortune City”, where it’s explained that Harjit Singh (the Sikh guy from Case West), threw a bunch of queens out of the window just to be a dick. Real fun stuff, and love me a bit of the extra lore. Overall, a nice small bite (no pun intended) DLC whose time I really enjoyed playing.
The gameplay in Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is something you could consider a small slice of the base Dead Rising 2 pie: of course there are survivors to rescue, a timer with objectives to do before a certain mark or else you get one of multiple endings, crazy combo weapons, a decent sized area to explore and psychopaths to hunt. Each and every one of those is there, but it’s just in a smaller way. Let’s take the size of Still Creek for example: the amount of space you’re allowed to roam in would maybe be almost as big if not the same size as one of the casinos in Dead Rising 2 if I were to make a guess. The town in itself doesn’t have every building unlocked of course, you kind of have to explore and parkour around the buildings to find your way into every entrance (and it’s kind of required if you want to get all of the survivors) and has just enough depth for a DLC of this scale to warrant some good shit points. Combo weapons you can only really get a couple of (like the Spiked Bat, the Molotov, the Pitchfork/Shotgun Boomstick combo, and like two others) by completing quests/combining them on your own when the flashing white circle around the blue labeled objects (you know the one with the wrench on them).
How the survivors work in this game compared to Dead Rising 2 and Case West are a little bit different: in Dead Rising 2 you get calls from Stacey when a survivor pops up and in Case West you kind of run into them and learn about certain things from environmental context clues. In Case Zero, one of the survivors named Bob will be hanging out on top of a building and unloading assault rifle bullets into the undead. Throughout the entire day, Bob will wave to you repeatedly in certain instances when he finds a survivor and you’ll have to climb up the building in order to talk to him and from there he’ll relay the quest needed to find the survivors. As for the main objective, it’s basically a free-for-all as you’re given the goal of finding all of the bike parts so you can repair it and get out of town with Katey. Most of them are located in random places (the gas right by the gas station, the engine in the alleyway next to the movie theater) while some of the other parts might require a bit of finagling through quests (like finding a key inside of the hotel to open a shed, or breaking into a nearby hunting sword to give it to a motocross rider to get a pair of bike handlebars). The last part of course is the wheel, and that will come from the pawn shop, which brings me to the next point.
The pawn shop, ran by Dick, is where you’ll end up having to pay money for information (as well as certain combo weapons, an extra zombrex for a survivor, etc.) if you’re unable to find all of these parts of your own volition as Dick “still needs to make a living”. Luckily, if you’re worried about where to find it, now you know. You just need to wait til the end of the day for Bob to give you the quest to find the Motocross guys. Again for the most part, it’s a small slice of what the base game would eventually give on a bigger scale and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing says this more than the boss battle against Jed, which is the second to last set piece in the game and the only psychopath you’ll be able to fight. However, keep in mind the level cap is to Level 5 so you won’t get a lot in the way of evasive maneuvers in order to fight him so the combat will probably feel a little bit more on the sluggish side as you swing and/or shoot at him while he grapples you, burns you with an acetylene torch and shoots you repeatedly. The game’s final chase sequence also gives you a first hand look at how the motorcycle will operate in the base game, which gives you a minute or two to escape the town along a certain route or else you’ll get one of the bad endings. Overall, if you like how Dead Rising 2 feels then you’ll feel right at home with this DLC, it’ll just be a stripped down experience for the most part, like tutorial baby steps.
Graphically speaking it’s about the same as Case West was: it looks like an Xbox 360 game but upscaled a bit on the Xbox One through backwards compatibility, with a little bit of vaseline smear looking shit to match up with it. However it honestly isn’t the worst thing and it looks like Dead Rising 2 so stylistically it’s perfectly fine. In fact, I’ll even say that atmospherically it’s pretty damn solid and a lot more interesting than what we ended up getting with Case West. It’s a VERY small area, but a small area with personality. Still Creek as a small town has this sort of old south western aesthetic mixed in with a modern light that could come out of a modern western movie. You’ll enter the local movie theater and see slot machines sitting there as one of the town’s only sources of income, climb up the broken fire escape to the old hotel to see a place that’s probably been abandoned or at least neglected for years. Go to the sheriff’s office and you’ll find whiskey’s all over the place and a shotgun, with a bulletin board that looks like a literal wanted poster (with easter eggs of course).
The survivors you find will either be outsiders from the town (like motocross bikers or a couple who went to nearby Las Vegas and barely escaped with their life as well as most of their earnings from the trip) to town civilians (pawnshop owner Dick as well as gun enthusiast Bob and his daughter Darcie. In a way, I wouldn’t mind seeing a future Dead Rising setting placed in a sort of environment like this down south as I think it would genuinely work, especially considering the small town is covered head to toe in zombies. Granted it’s not thousands of zombies, in fact I think Still Creek could probably barely hit 250 is my guess, but still a small town and a bunch of zombies in a closed off and claustrophobic area makes me think of a potential future. Either way, atmospherically I can’t really complain about my time in Still Creek.
The sound design for this game will also be a really small paragraph or so like Case West, as most if not all of the sound design most likely came from Dead Rising 2, or at the very least there wasn’t much in the way of uniqueness I could tell sound wise that was exclusive to Case Zero. Same thing with the soundtrack, there weren't really any tracks that popped out that probably weren't already in the base game or were memorable so I can’t say much to this regard. I guess if I was to address anything noticeable as something other than “It’s more Dead Rising 2”, voice acting wise Peter Flemming plays Chuck here and plays him in a way that I like a lot more than Dead Rising 2. In Dead Rising 2 he had a lot more dad jokes and while others would argue that it gives him more of a personality, I actually enjoyed his more somber and loving dad performance here as it felt a lot more authentic and real. The only other voice actors/actresses to note are Allyson Armstrong as Katey Greene (who plays her in the base game as well and sounds like a little girl so it works) but Brian Dobson as Jed the mechanic certainly gave off not safe inbred hillbilly vibes and it worked to make him a threatening presence towards the end of the game.
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero was one of those DLCs that I was genuinely surprised by replaying it again. I genuinely thought it was just going to be a one note and boring experience that I would get through once and then forget about it and never play it again. Will I ever play it again? I don’t know but what I can say is that I had a fun time. It was a decent and well balanced small taste of what the base game would eventually become, all while delivering a little inside look into the story of Chuck Greene and his daughter Katey and having it set in a town that I felt had a lot more personality atmospherically than Case West would deliver. I’ll just say right now that like Case West, I’m very much sad at the fact that this DLC is exclusive to just the Xbox Marketplace and isn’t released on the PC along with Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Truth be told, I feel like a remaster of all of these games would probably be in a good order (or at least a bunch of bug fixes and patches because Jesus H Christ they aren’t the best by any standards. However, like the future of Dead Rising in general, it seems that all hope was just kind of abandoned for the series and that none of these DLC seem likely to ever get a port.
For the time being though, after the success of the DLC came the release of Dead Rising 2 itself which ended up selling 2.2 Million copies in 2011 along with the success of the Case West DLC, which I didn’t find any sales or download numbers but critically speaking it was praised. Beyond that though was a history full of uncertainty and a lot of frustrations for the guys at Blue Castle Games, which would later be bought out by Capcom and turned into Capcom Vancouver. I’m hoping one day that Capcom will give the series the treatment it deserves but for now, who knows what will actually happen or not. I guess time will tell what the future will be, if there is any.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_2
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1744763/
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_2:_Case_Zero
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising2
The plot to Case Zero starts with the aftermath of the Las Vegas outbreak, with protagonist Chuck Greene having fled with his daughter Katey out of the city and into the town of Still Creek. It’s immediately noticeable that Katey’s been bitten, specifically by her then undead mother (now probably just dead). Chuck gives her a bit of Zombrex before investigating the nearby gas station for supplies before being distracted by loud ass noises, which culminates in them witnessing more zombies pop out of the woodwork. His truck is stolen by some dickie douchebag and Chuck barricades himself and his daughter inside of the station. Resolving to do whatever it means to get out of Still Creek as well as find some Zombrex for his daughter (with the rest of his stash stolen in the truck). Chuck heads towards the smoke outside the town to find the remains of a destroyed military quarantine camp, and manages to find some Zombrex in an overturned ambulance. From here he overhears from a walkie talkie that a backup military quarantine crew will be there in 12 hours and seeing the remains of a motorcycle inside of a bin, he resolves to escape the town with his daughter and makes his way back to the gas station to begin his escape plan.
The game from here is honestly really simple, and short. You need to gather all five motorcycle parts around the map, being given directions from both survivor Bob as well as pawn shop owner Dick (if you buy his hints) and you walk around the small town to gather the parts you need. Once you do that (locations of all parts down in the Gameplay section), Chuck manages to repair his bike and injects Katey with another dose of Zombrex before encountering a nasty surprise: Jed. See, Jed is a hillbilly mechanic who has a love for “the hunt” and noticing that Chuck gave his daughter Zombrex, proceeds to attempt to murder her because the way he thinks about it, she’s a zombie anyways who hasn’t turned. Chuck proceeds to fight to the death with Jed, and after Jed stumbles and is smashed with the remains of a giant car, Chuck finishes the repairs on his bike. Grabbing Katey and hopping on the bike, the military proceed to surround the town and demand his surrender. This doesn’t work as Chuck manages to make his way out of town in a two minute chase sequence, before ending up in the desert. Turns out, the truck thief didn’t make it that far and died, so Chuck stops by and loots the truck of the Zombrex stash and personal belongings before splitting.
I like the plot for this game a lot, as it’s not a lore heavy “who did it” mystery or anything along those lines as much as it is a character driven story. It’s an establishing shot for Chuck Greene, and more specifically his world and values as he deals with the outbreak of zombies. His character moments in this game are something I actually really enjoyed, with a lot of heartfelt dialogue and bonding moments between him and his daughter. I think after playing this again, I’ve come out of this liking Chuck a lot more than I used to. It did the job successfully of making me want more, even if I already had more after playing the rest of the series. The only questions I had were “What happened to the survivors you rescued” and “How did Still Creek even get infected with zombies?”. Logically speaking, the first one was answered with “put into military quarantine” and the second one was answered in a tie-in comic book “Dead Rising: Road to Fortune City”, where it’s explained that Harjit Singh (the Sikh guy from Case West), threw a bunch of queens out of the window just to be a dick. Real fun stuff, and love me a bit of the extra lore. Overall, a nice small bite (no pun intended) DLC whose time I really enjoyed playing.
The gameplay in Dead Rising 2: Case Zero is something you could consider a small slice of the base Dead Rising 2 pie: of course there are survivors to rescue, a timer with objectives to do before a certain mark or else you get one of multiple endings, crazy combo weapons, a decent sized area to explore and psychopaths to hunt. Each and every one of those is there, but it’s just in a smaller way. Let’s take the size of Still Creek for example: the amount of space you’re allowed to roam in would maybe be almost as big if not the same size as one of the casinos in Dead Rising 2 if I were to make a guess. The town in itself doesn’t have every building unlocked of course, you kind of have to explore and parkour around the buildings to find your way into every entrance (and it’s kind of required if you want to get all of the survivors) and has just enough depth for a DLC of this scale to warrant some good shit points. Combo weapons you can only really get a couple of (like the Spiked Bat, the Molotov, the Pitchfork/Shotgun Boomstick combo, and like two others) by completing quests/combining them on your own when the flashing white circle around the blue labeled objects (you know the one with the wrench on them).
How the survivors work in this game compared to Dead Rising 2 and Case West are a little bit different: in Dead Rising 2 you get calls from Stacey when a survivor pops up and in Case West you kind of run into them and learn about certain things from environmental context clues. In Case Zero, one of the survivors named Bob will be hanging out on top of a building and unloading assault rifle bullets into the undead. Throughout the entire day, Bob will wave to you repeatedly in certain instances when he finds a survivor and you’ll have to climb up the building in order to talk to him and from there he’ll relay the quest needed to find the survivors. As for the main objective, it’s basically a free-for-all as you’re given the goal of finding all of the bike parts so you can repair it and get out of town with Katey. Most of them are located in random places (the gas right by the gas station, the engine in the alleyway next to the movie theater) while some of the other parts might require a bit of finagling through quests (like finding a key inside of the hotel to open a shed, or breaking into a nearby hunting sword to give it to a motocross rider to get a pair of bike handlebars). The last part of course is the wheel, and that will come from the pawn shop, which brings me to the next point.
The pawn shop, ran by Dick, is where you’ll end up having to pay money for information (as well as certain combo weapons, an extra zombrex for a survivor, etc.) if you’re unable to find all of these parts of your own volition as Dick “still needs to make a living”. Luckily, if you’re worried about where to find it, now you know. You just need to wait til the end of the day for Bob to give you the quest to find the Motocross guys. Again for the most part, it’s a small slice of what the base game would eventually give on a bigger scale and there’s nothing wrong with that. Nothing says this more than the boss battle against Jed, which is the second to last set piece in the game and the only psychopath you’ll be able to fight. However, keep in mind the level cap is to Level 5 so you won’t get a lot in the way of evasive maneuvers in order to fight him so the combat will probably feel a little bit more on the sluggish side as you swing and/or shoot at him while he grapples you, burns you with an acetylene torch and shoots you repeatedly. The game’s final chase sequence also gives you a first hand look at how the motorcycle will operate in the base game, which gives you a minute or two to escape the town along a certain route or else you’ll get one of the bad endings. Overall, if you like how Dead Rising 2 feels then you’ll feel right at home with this DLC, it’ll just be a stripped down experience for the most part, like tutorial baby steps.
Graphically speaking it’s about the same as Case West was: it looks like an Xbox 360 game but upscaled a bit on the Xbox One through backwards compatibility, with a little bit of vaseline smear looking shit to match up with it. However it honestly isn’t the worst thing and it looks like Dead Rising 2 so stylistically it’s perfectly fine. In fact, I’ll even say that atmospherically it’s pretty damn solid and a lot more interesting than what we ended up getting with Case West. It’s a VERY small area, but a small area with personality. Still Creek as a small town has this sort of old south western aesthetic mixed in with a modern light that could come out of a modern western movie. You’ll enter the local movie theater and see slot machines sitting there as one of the town’s only sources of income, climb up the broken fire escape to the old hotel to see a place that’s probably been abandoned or at least neglected for years. Go to the sheriff’s office and you’ll find whiskey’s all over the place and a shotgun, with a bulletin board that looks like a literal wanted poster (with easter eggs of course).
The survivors you find will either be outsiders from the town (like motocross bikers or a couple who went to nearby Las Vegas and barely escaped with their life as well as most of their earnings from the trip) to town civilians (pawnshop owner Dick as well as gun enthusiast Bob and his daughter Darcie. In a way, I wouldn’t mind seeing a future Dead Rising setting placed in a sort of environment like this down south as I think it would genuinely work, especially considering the small town is covered head to toe in zombies. Granted it’s not thousands of zombies, in fact I think Still Creek could probably barely hit 250 is my guess, but still a small town and a bunch of zombies in a closed off and claustrophobic area makes me think of a potential future. Either way, atmospherically I can’t really complain about my time in Still Creek.
The sound design for this game will also be a really small paragraph or so like Case West, as most if not all of the sound design most likely came from Dead Rising 2, or at the very least there wasn’t much in the way of uniqueness I could tell sound wise that was exclusive to Case Zero. Same thing with the soundtrack, there weren't really any tracks that popped out that probably weren't already in the base game or were memorable so I can’t say much to this regard. I guess if I was to address anything noticeable as something other than “It’s more Dead Rising 2”, voice acting wise Peter Flemming plays Chuck here and plays him in a way that I like a lot more than Dead Rising 2. In Dead Rising 2 he had a lot more dad jokes and while others would argue that it gives him more of a personality, I actually enjoyed his more somber and loving dad performance here as it felt a lot more authentic and real. The only other voice actors/actresses to note are Allyson Armstrong as Katey Greene (who plays her in the base game as well and sounds like a little girl so it works) but Brian Dobson as Jed the mechanic certainly gave off not safe inbred hillbilly vibes and it worked to make him a threatening presence towards the end of the game.
Dead Rising 2: Case Zero was one of those DLCs that I was genuinely surprised by replaying it again. I genuinely thought it was just going to be a one note and boring experience that I would get through once and then forget about it and never play it again. Will I ever play it again? I don’t know but what I can say is that I had a fun time. It was a decent and well balanced small taste of what the base game would eventually become, all while delivering a little inside look into the story of Chuck Greene and his daughter Katey and having it set in a town that I felt had a lot more personality atmospherically than Case West would deliver. I’ll just say right now that like Case West, I’m very much sad at the fact that this DLC is exclusive to just the Xbox Marketplace and isn’t released on the PC along with Dead Rising 2 and Dead Rising 2: Off the Record. Truth be told, I feel like a remaster of all of these games would probably be in a good order (or at least a bunch of bug fixes and patches because Jesus H Christ they aren’t the best by any standards. However, like the future of Dead Rising in general, it seems that all hope was just kind of abandoned for the series and that none of these DLC seem likely to ever get a port.
For the time being though, after the success of the DLC came the release of Dead Rising 2 itself which ended up selling 2.2 Million copies in 2011 along with the success of the Case West DLC, which I didn’t find any sales or download numbers but critically speaking it was praised. Beyond that though was a history full of uncertainty and a lot of frustrations for the guys at Blue Castle Games, which would later be bought out by Capcom and turned into Capcom Vancouver. I’m hoping one day that Capcom will give the series the treatment it deserves but for now, who knows what will actually happen or not. I guess time will tell what the future will be, if there is any.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Rising_2
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1744763/
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_2:_Case_Zero
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising2
This review contains spoilers
Dead Rising 2: Case West is a story expansion DLC developed by the now defunct Blue Castle Games aka Capcom Vancouver as the last piece of content for Dead Rising 2 (along with Dead Rising 2: Case Zero) and released exclusively for the Xbox Live Marketplace. According to the Dead Rising wiki, the DLC was announced at Capcom’s Tokyo Game Show 2010 Press Conference along with the announcement that Blue Castle Games was purchased and turned into Capcom Vancouver. The main reasons that the development of the DLC occurred was due to both the sales of Dead Rising 2: Case Zero (around 500,000 sales apparently) as well as the fact that since they had a prologue that they might as well have an epilogue. In attempting to find and cite the actual sources for this, I ran into dead links to articles that don’t exist anymore so I can’t really say much in the way of how much is true for what.
What I can say is that I’ve always been a huge Dead Rising fan, having played the first three games NUMEROUS times both solo and with a buddy. However, I don’t remember having played the DLCs much; with Case Zero probably being the title that I’ve played the least in the main series. However, I’ve played Case West around three times or so, all of them with a buddy of mine named BFD Survivor (shoutout to Brandon, youse a big pimp yoooo). Once was probably around 2017/18, once in Summer 2022 for Brandon’s youtube channel and once literally last Friday 1/5/2024 as a re-recording for his youtube channel. As someone who's played through most of the Dead Rising games, I figured I might as well write down my thoughts on the DLC in general with the hopes that by the end of the year my review journey with the Dead Rising series will come to a close. Here are the thoughts on Case West, or at least the limited thoughts that I have in scope with the game’s size.
The plot to Dead Rising 2: Case West starts off where Ending A of Dead Rising 2 ends, with Chuck Greene and the zombified remains of Tyrone “TK” King grappling in the elevator as Katey and Stacey are flown out of Fortune City presumably. About to be eaten alive, Chuck is saved in the nick (no DR3 pun intended) of time by none other than world famous journalist Frank “I’ve Covered Wars You Know” West. Having shown up in the tail end of the game, he doesn’t know that Chuck was framed for the Fortune City outbreak and as such there’s a bit of a back and forth on that before the death of Rebecca Chang is relayed. Frank is shocked but tells Chuck that he was planning on investigating a nearby Phenotrans site with Rebecca, and extends an offer for Chuck to tag along to help him find proof that would clear his name from wrongdoing before injecting himself with some Zombrex. Having proceeded to fly out to this pharmaceutical base, they manage to find an air duct with binoculars and climb through. However, they proceed to bicker at each other before clumsily falling through the air ducts and straight into a pen where zombies are being held. They proceed to escape the shipping container and sneak their way into a shipping office nearby, and then do some dumb shit and announce their presence to two security guards with assault rifles. Intelligence inside, the dynamic duo kill the guards before a strange event occurs: the zombies are released from their pens, causing an outbreak within the facility. Frank’s source then contacts the two from a nearby computer with a trade: if they input security access codes and do what the source asks of them, then the source will give them any information they need including security footage and facility designs. Chuck thinks it’s all a big setup but Frank’s gut tells him otherwise and the two set out to give Frank’s source what it wants.
The two proceed to travel to different locations in the facility to put in the access codes before heading back to the shipping office, where the source promises to download the information that’ll help both Frank and Chuck. From here you can goof off and save survivors and the like but once you get back, the source will tell them that they need to break into the Director’s office in order to find the evidence that’ll clear Chuck’s name. They find the lab keycard which’ll help them and proceed to the office where they find names of prisoners, missing persons reports and blueprints of Fortune City’s Underground. Frank is a bit more on the naive side as he believes that the queens were made synthetically from a lab. He gets mad and throws his Zombrex (later picked up by Chuck), which ends up hitting a security laser and dudes show up to rock their shit. Taking down the security unit chasing them, Frank takes one of the dead guys' radios and impersonates them to get the two out of the lockdown. The two get back to the shipping office, where the source tells them that they have the evidence but being trapped in a secure lab, the source needs time to bust out. This gives them more time to fuck about and do whatever side quests they want to do before everything continues.
They wait in the office and get on each other’s nerves some more but the source is still stuck in the lab. Chuck comes up with the idea to cut the power and they proceed to find a detonator and some C4 before blowing up the entire power grid sky high. They then travel to the secure lab and this is where the revelations hit: the source is Isabela Keyes, the sister of Carlito Keyes and an accomplice during the events of Dead Rising 1. Explaining she was coerced to help Phenotrans or go to jail, she accuses Phenotrans of stealing her work on creating a cure as well as synthetics. The wheelchair lady (aka Marion) won’t allow it however and sends security to get the drop as Isabela escapes. One bad guy speech later and Isabela shoots the guards before an even bigger guard with a turban knocks her the hell out. Of course she does the dumbest fucking thing and slides the USB across the ground while yelling “TAKE THE EVIDENCE, THE WORLD HAS TO KNOW”, which promptly gets stomped on by the turban guy (aka Harjit Singh). Beating the shit out of him together, he is stunned before walking into a container full of the queens which sting him to death and kill him. The two proceed to go back and forth between Marion, who taunts them about the existence of a created cure (which either isn’t true YET or was retconned to Dead Rising 3) as well as another outbreak before walking off with the unconscious Isabela. Frank and Chuck argue between staying and finding this supposed “cure” and leaving before the facility explodes and the two end up outside of the facility with barely anything to show for their troubles. Frank takes some pictures while Chuck gets sad about the state of the potential cure. Chuck gives Frank his Zombrex back and tells him that “the world needs Frank West” as they overlook the destruction and it cuts to credits.
Overall, I liked the plot of the DLC. It’s a short one of course, but it’s nice bringing back Isabela and it set up the stakes for the future of the franchise with a new antagonist, the existence of the cure, and all the while bringing back two legacy characters with Frank and Chuck. I like the “grit their teeth” teamwork aspect the two heroes have to do as well, they get on each other's nerves to high hell but they work together as a team pretty well despite the personality differences. If I were to give a criticism, the whole thing with Isabela throwing the USB and shouting out the intentions behind it were REALLY stupid and it probably would’ve been better to have given the villains more agency with them perhaps pocketing the USB and stomping it themselves as if they knew Isabela was trying to escape. Overall, I can’t really complain and I enjoy this as a short epilogue of sorts to the Dead Rising 2 saga.
The gameplay for the most part is the same as Dead Rising 2, you’ll roam through a small building as you find and rescue survivors, kill zombies in creative ways and uncover the truth behind the Phenotrans facility and clear Chuck’s name. I’ll start with the survivors aspect, as it’s actually very simple and the easiest it’ll get until probably Dead Rising 4. Literally for the most part you end up finding survivors around the facility and you can do whatever quests they give which will unlock new areas as well as new combo weapons. Best part about them though is that literally you don’t have to escort them ANYWHERE, as they literally just walk off by themselves (presumably because they all work there and so they know what they’re doing for the most part). For killing zombies in creative ways of course you’ll still pick stuff out from the environment and you’ll be able to create a couple of new combo weapons such as a Laser Gun (with a laser sword and a lightning gun), a “Reaper” (katana and a sickle) and a sterilizer (a syringe gun with chemicals) amongst a couple of other new toys and a few old familiar ones you’ll find (like the Plate Launcher, the Hail Mary, the aforementioned Laser Sword and Dynameat amongst others). The new weapons are pretty cool and for the most part a couple of them moved over to Dead Rising 3 though it sadly seems (if I remember correctly) that some of them didn’t which sucks. You’ll also start the DLC from Level 40 or so, and slowly build your way up to Level 50 throughout playing through the content and farting around and as long as you keep it within the same save or so then you’ll basically reach Level 50 in no time.
Unlike Fortune City, there are no real vehicles other than short segway looking things so you’ll have to traverse the Phenotrans Facility on foot as both Frank and Chuck. Chuck plays exactly like he does in Dead Rising 2 and as such if you played Dead Rising 2 then generally you’ll know his moves and how he rolls. What’s different though is that no matter if it’s single player or online cooperative, you’ll always have Frank West as a coop partner. If you’re playing in Single Player, you can even order Frank around like other survivors (holding aim and pressing Y) to go places or even put on clothes which is pretty cool! If you end up playing as the co-op player to someone else in game (as I’ve done in pretty much every playthrough), then you’ll get to play as Frank West himself. For the most part, Frank West has most of his moves from the first game and even a lot of the animations (like using the broom for example) and just watching all of his old animations compared to Chuck’s is just pure fan service that I love as well as differentiating how the character plays compared to each other and it’s great. There’s even a couple of new sets of clothes that really stand everything out. The main two examples that come off the top of my head are Frank’s OG outfit from Dead Rising 1 (which I ALWAYS wear and wonder why it wasn’t in Off the Record) as well as an apparent Dr. Wily MegaMan outfit that I only knew existed because of the Dead Rising wiki (mainly because you have to get all the parts from different locations).
Another thing that’s cool is that photography, which returns from Dead Rising 1. I don’t really remember much of it persay, I know playing as Frank that there were PP stickers that you could find and that collecting them all would get you an achievement but there weren’t any PP bonuses as far as I could remember and that’s a damn shame because taking goofy photos was a lot of fun in the original game. For achievements you can also take down around 45 or so security cameras but other than Prestige Points and the aforementioned achievement nothing really popped up. The final thing I want to add here is something small and honestly kind of insignificant really: the final boss has three different health bars. The way they do it with the three stars signifying the three health bars, I’m surprised they didn’t bring this back for the future as every boss had around one health bar and that’s about it. I don’t know, it’s a small thing though and nothing really notable to write home about. Other than that, the gameplay again for the most part is really solid and aside from a few tiny things I can’t complain as it’s more Dead Rising and that feels great.
For the most part, I don’t have much to say about the sound design soundtrack wise. There isn’t really much of anything that’s particularly memorable with tracks except when they break out the Indian Music around the time that the Commander final boss shows up and in the credits sequence when they play it over some dancing zombie goof stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cGMgEowJs&ab_channel=Samantha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYky26YcBNM&ab_channel=TheMediaCows
As for the voice actors and actresses, as always I’m going to give TJ Rotolo a star on the video game walk of fame because he always knocks it out of the park as Frank for his massive dad energy level. Peter Flemming comes back as Chuck too of course and honestly there’s something about Frank’s presence that really boosts each other’s chemistry up significantly (especially the “Covered Wars Y’Know” meme which oh god if you’re gonna make me cum that’s it). I’ll also give Jacqueline Samuda a leg up as Marion because compared to Dead Rising 3, here she sounds threatening and ominous as a villain and just hams it up in the limited amount of time she has. Venus Terzo plays Isabela Keyes here as opposed to Kim Mai Guest in Dead Rising 1 or Veronica Milagros in the third game and while the performance is pretty solid, I never understood why the voice actresses constantly changed up. Otherwise, the sound design is pretty decent and basically sounds the same straight from Dead Rising 2 so I’m not sure what else I could bring up persay other than I like the fact that both Frank and Chuck have actual dialogue that isn’t just in cutscenes or when pressing the Y button to command people.
Graphically I think that the game looks fine, however considering it was released as an Xbox Live Marketplace exclusive and wasn’t released on PC at all, I’ll say that compared to the PC version of Dead Rising 2? The game looks a little less good. I played it via backwards compatibility on my Xbox One, so there was a bit of a blurry vaseline look that I wasn’t really a fan of persay. Other than that, there’s no real complaints on my end about the graphics because it still has that Dead Rising 2 style. As for the atmosphere and art design of the game, what I’ll say is that I understand that a Phenotrans Facility isn’t going to always be a unique and multilayered interesting place to explore. You’ll see a lot of science equipment, metal walkways, a whole lot of all of it in fact so I’m going to cut it a bit of slack for that. What I can say is that for the most part it does try to have SOME variation, even if it’s not a whole lot though it’s mostly in the living quarter areas of the facility. You can raid each of the individual rooms to find the former rooms of people who clearly had distinct personalities ranging from bougie fucker to redneck with a love of whiskey; and you can even find a Tiki Bar I believe on the top of one of living quarters to add a little bit of distinct flavor.
As for character models, again they all look fine and you’ll mostly see a lot of science personnel or military looking types though if I have to give credit, Frank looks FAAAAAAAAAANTASTIC in the new DLC, especially when you throw on the old outfit from the first game (which I always have and always will). Isabela looks pretty solid and Marion looks fucked up and evil (a lot moreso than she did in Dead Rising 3 to be honest, she actually looks like a villainous pharmaceutical company CEO with a giant ass gash on her face from the presumed zombie bite). However, I think the most distinct vibe for the entire DLC probably goes to the final boss of the game: Harjit Singh. Goddamn that dude is a vibe, being the Indian version of the hulk with the massive build and giant impact hammers. While he’s very much one note and doesn’t have a personality, his look in itself to me is the most iconic part of the expansion other than the return of Frank West itself.
Dead Rising 2: Case West is a more than fitting ending to the Dead Rising 2 saga, ending with a bit of a bang and a future that for the most part was wrapped up satisfactorily with Dead Rising 3. Frank West’s appearance in the DLC also gives the expansion a boost and probably provides the most exciting conclusion that would happen for a good while. As such, the reviews for the DLC were pretty solid and the sales for the title I’d like to say were pretty solid for the most part too. I remember personally being super excited to play it myself, mostly for the fact that I could play as one of my favorite fictional characters of all time: Frank West. Whilst for the most part I’ll admit the DLC didn’t really impact me as much as I would’ve liked for it to have persay, I still enjoyed my time with it and plan on giving it a spin at some point in the future again so I can get all the achievements.
From here, the history of what would happen with the Dead Rising series was simple: they went onto create Dead Rising 3. That game of course went through a whole lot of development hell from poor performance on the Playstation 3, and attempts to create new IP and branch out would result in a lot of shit from their superiors at Capcom Japan. This DLC was kind of the last shining moment, the one bright light before eventually the studio would struggle and fall out with their parent company over the next many years before eventually shutting down in 2018. This sucks a lot of dick as with the previous DLC, Case Zero and the Xbox Smartglass content from Dead Rising 3 it seems that the game will be forever lost to the sands of time without an Xbox Account and it fucking blows because all of this content should be made available for everyone who wants to play it. Of course though why would Capcom give a shit, mainly because the Dead Rising 2/Off the Record ports are kind of notorious for being thrown onto Steam and abandoned. If it means all the content is brought back into place, I would love to see a remaster of some kind here at some point because this franchise deserves love. I’m going to give the rest of the Dead Rising series a spin here I think during the year, which to be honest only includes Case Zero, a replay of the original, the Wii port to the original and the dreaded 4th one but we’ll get to that piece of shit when we get to it.
Links:
https://www.eurogamer.net/capcom-shows-dead-rising-case-west
https://gamerant.com/dead-rising-2-case-west-announced/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising2
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_2:_Case_West
What I can say is that I’ve always been a huge Dead Rising fan, having played the first three games NUMEROUS times both solo and with a buddy. However, I don’t remember having played the DLCs much; with Case Zero probably being the title that I’ve played the least in the main series. However, I’ve played Case West around three times or so, all of them with a buddy of mine named BFD Survivor (shoutout to Brandon, youse a big pimp yoooo). Once was probably around 2017/18, once in Summer 2022 for Brandon’s youtube channel and once literally last Friday 1/5/2024 as a re-recording for his youtube channel. As someone who's played through most of the Dead Rising games, I figured I might as well write down my thoughts on the DLC in general with the hopes that by the end of the year my review journey with the Dead Rising series will come to a close. Here are the thoughts on Case West, or at least the limited thoughts that I have in scope with the game’s size.
The plot to Dead Rising 2: Case West starts off where Ending A of Dead Rising 2 ends, with Chuck Greene and the zombified remains of Tyrone “TK” King grappling in the elevator as Katey and Stacey are flown out of Fortune City presumably. About to be eaten alive, Chuck is saved in the nick (no DR3 pun intended) of time by none other than world famous journalist Frank “I’ve Covered Wars You Know” West. Having shown up in the tail end of the game, he doesn’t know that Chuck was framed for the Fortune City outbreak and as such there’s a bit of a back and forth on that before the death of Rebecca Chang is relayed. Frank is shocked but tells Chuck that he was planning on investigating a nearby Phenotrans site with Rebecca, and extends an offer for Chuck to tag along to help him find proof that would clear his name from wrongdoing before injecting himself with some Zombrex. Having proceeded to fly out to this pharmaceutical base, they manage to find an air duct with binoculars and climb through. However, they proceed to bicker at each other before clumsily falling through the air ducts and straight into a pen where zombies are being held. They proceed to escape the shipping container and sneak their way into a shipping office nearby, and then do some dumb shit and announce their presence to two security guards with assault rifles. Intelligence inside, the dynamic duo kill the guards before a strange event occurs: the zombies are released from their pens, causing an outbreak within the facility. Frank’s source then contacts the two from a nearby computer with a trade: if they input security access codes and do what the source asks of them, then the source will give them any information they need including security footage and facility designs. Chuck thinks it’s all a big setup but Frank’s gut tells him otherwise and the two set out to give Frank’s source what it wants.
The two proceed to travel to different locations in the facility to put in the access codes before heading back to the shipping office, where the source promises to download the information that’ll help both Frank and Chuck. From here you can goof off and save survivors and the like but once you get back, the source will tell them that they need to break into the Director’s office in order to find the evidence that’ll clear Chuck’s name. They find the lab keycard which’ll help them and proceed to the office where they find names of prisoners, missing persons reports and blueprints of Fortune City’s Underground. Frank is a bit more on the naive side as he believes that the queens were made synthetically from a lab. He gets mad and throws his Zombrex (later picked up by Chuck), which ends up hitting a security laser and dudes show up to rock their shit. Taking down the security unit chasing them, Frank takes one of the dead guys' radios and impersonates them to get the two out of the lockdown. The two get back to the shipping office, where the source tells them that they have the evidence but being trapped in a secure lab, the source needs time to bust out. This gives them more time to fuck about and do whatever side quests they want to do before everything continues.
They wait in the office and get on each other’s nerves some more but the source is still stuck in the lab. Chuck comes up with the idea to cut the power and they proceed to find a detonator and some C4 before blowing up the entire power grid sky high. They then travel to the secure lab and this is where the revelations hit: the source is Isabela Keyes, the sister of Carlito Keyes and an accomplice during the events of Dead Rising 1. Explaining she was coerced to help Phenotrans or go to jail, she accuses Phenotrans of stealing her work on creating a cure as well as synthetics. The wheelchair lady (aka Marion) won’t allow it however and sends security to get the drop as Isabela escapes. One bad guy speech later and Isabela shoots the guards before an even bigger guard with a turban knocks her the hell out. Of course she does the dumbest fucking thing and slides the USB across the ground while yelling “TAKE THE EVIDENCE, THE WORLD HAS TO KNOW”, which promptly gets stomped on by the turban guy (aka Harjit Singh). Beating the shit out of him together, he is stunned before walking into a container full of the queens which sting him to death and kill him. The two proceed to go back and forth between Marion, who taunts them about the existence of a created cure (which either isn’t true YET or was retconned to Dead Rising 3) as well as another outbreak before walking off with the unconscious Isabela. Frank and Chuck argue between staying and finding this supposed “cure” and leaving before the facility explodes and the two end up outside of the facility with barely anything to show for their troubles. Frank takes some pictures while Chuck gets sad about the state of the potential cure. Chuck gives Frank his Zombrex back and tells him that “the world needs Frank West” as they overlook the destruction and it cuts to credits.
Overall, I liked the plot of the DLC. It’s a short one of course, but it’s nice bringing back Isabela and it set up the stakes for the future of the franchise with a new antagonist, the existence of the cure, and all the while bringing back two legacy characters with Frank and Chuck. I like the “grit their teeth” teamwork aspect the two heroes have to do as well, they get on each other's nerves to high hell but they work together as a team pretty well despite the personality differences. If I were to give a criticism, the whole thing with Isabela throwing the USB and shouting out the intentions behind it were REALLY stupid and it probably would’ve been better to have given the villains more agency with them perhaps pocketing the USB and stomping it themselves as if they knew Isabela was trying to escape. Overall, I can’t really complain and I enjoy this as a short epilogue of sorts to the Dead Rising 2 saga.
The gameplay for the most part is the same as Dead Rising 2, you’ll roam through a small building as you find and rescue survivors, kill zombies in creative ways and uncover the truth behind the Phenotrans facility and clear Chuck’s name. I’ll start with the survivors aspect, as it’s actually very simple and the easiest it’ll get until probably Dead Rising 4. Literally for the most part you end up finding survivors around the facility and you can do whatever quests they give which will unlock new areas as well as new combo weapons. Best part about them though is that literally you don’t have to escort them ANYWHERE, as they literally just walk off by themselves (presumably because they all work there and so they know what they’re doing for the most part). For killing zombies in creative ways of course you’ll still pick stuff out from the environment and you’ll be able to create a couple of new combo weapons such as a Laser Gun (with a laser sword and a lightning gun), a “Reaper” (katana and a sickle) and a sterilizer (a syringe gun with chemicals) amongst a couple of other new toys and a few old familiar ones you’ll find (like the Plate Launcher, the Hail Mary, the aforementioned Laser Sword and Dynameat amongst others). The new weapons are pretty cool and for the most part a couple of them moved over to Dead Rising 3 though it sadly seems (if I remember correctly) that some of them didn’t which sucks. You’ll also start the DLC from Level 40 or so, and slowly build your way up to Level 50 throughout playing through the content and farting around and as long as you keep it within the same save or so then you’ll basically reach Level 50 in no time.
Unlike Fortune City, there are no real vehicles other than short segway looking things so you’ll have to traverse the Phenotrans Facility on foot as both Frank and Chuck. Chuck plays exactly like he does in Dead Rising 2 and as such if you played Dead Rising 2 then generally you’ll know his moves and how he rolls. What’s different though is that no matter if it’s single player or online cooperative, you’ll always have Frank West as a coop partner. If you’re playing in Single Player, you can even order Frank around like other survivors (holding aim and pressing Y) to go places or even put on clothes which is pretty cool! If you end up playing as the co-op player to someone else in game (as I’ve done in pretty much every playthrough), then you’ll get to play as Frank West himself. For the most part, Frank West has most of his moves from the first game and even a lot of the animations (like using the broom for example) and just watching all of his old animations compared to Chuck’s is just pure fan service that I love as well as differentiating how the character plays compared to each other and it’s great. There’s even a couple of new sets of clothes that really stand everything out. The main two examples that come off the top of my head are Frank’s OG outfit from Dead Rising 1 (which I ALWAYS wear and wonder why it wasn’t in Off the Record) as well as an apparent Dr. Wily MegaMan outfit that I only knew existed because of the Dead Rising wiki (mainly because you have to get all the parts from different locations).
Another thing that’s cool is that photography, which returns from Dead Rising 1. I don’t really remember much of it persay, I know playing as Frank that there were PP stickers that you could find and that collecting them all would get you an achievement but there weren’t any PP bonuses as far as I could remember and that’s a damn shame because taking goofy photos was a lot of fun in the original game. For achievements you can also take down around 45 or so security cameras but other than Prestige Points and the aforementioned achievement nothing really popped up. The final thing I want to add here is something small and honestly kind of insignificant really: the final boss has three different health bars. The way they do it with the three stars signifying the three health bars, I’m surprised they didn’t bring this back for the future as every boss had around one health bar and that’s about it. I don’t know, it’s a small thing though and nothing really notable to write home about. Other than that, the gameplay again for the most part is really solid and aside from a few tiny things I can’t complain as it’s more Dead Rising and that feels great.
For the most part, I don’t have much to say about the sound design soundtrack wise. There isn’t really much of anything that’s particularly memorable with tracks except when they break out the Indian Music around the time that the Commander final boss shows up and in the credits sequence when they play it over some dancing zombie goof stuff.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=A2cGMgEowJs&ab_channel=Samantha
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HYky26YcBNM&ab_channel=TheMediaCows
As for the voice actors and actresses, as always I’m going to give TJ Rotolo a star on the video game walk of fame because he always knocks it out of the park as Frank for his massive dad energy level. Peter Flemming comes back as Chuck too of course and honestly there’s something about Frank’s presence that really boosts each other’s chemistry up significantly (especially the “Covered Wars Y’Know” meme which oh god if you’re gonna make me cum that’s it). I’ll also give Jacqueline Samuda a leg up as Marion because compared to Dead Rising 3, here she sounds threatening and ominous as a villain and just hams it up in the limited amount of time she has. Venus Terzo plays Isabela Keyes here as opposed to Kim Mai Guest in Dead Rising 1 or Veronica Milagros in the third game and while the performance is pretty solid, I never understood why the voice actresses constantly changed up. Otherwise, the sound design is pretty decent and basically sounds the same straight from Dead Rising 2 so I’m not sure what else I could bring up persay other than I like the fact that both Frank and Chuck have actual dialogue that isn’t just in cutscenes or when pressing the Y button to command people.
Graphically I think that the game looks fine, however considering it was released as an Xbox Live Marketplace exclusive and wasn’t released on PC at all, I’ll say that compared to the PC version of Dead Rising 2? The game looks a little less good. I played it via backwards compatibility on my Xbox One, so there was a bit of a blurry vaseline look that I wasn’t really a fan of persay. Other than that, there’s no real complaints on my end about the graphics because it still has that Dead Rising 2 style. As for the atmosphere and art design of the game, what I’ll say is that I understand that a Phenotrans Facility isn’t going to always be a unique and multilayered interesting place to explore. You’ll see a lot of science equipment, metal walkways, a whole lot of all of it in fact so I’m going to cut it a bit of slack for that. What I can say is that for the most part it does try to have SOME variation, even if it’s not a whole lot though it’s mostly in the living quarter areas of the facility. You can raid each of the individual rooms to find the former rooms of people who clearly had distinct personalities ranging from bougie fucker to redneck with a love of whiskey; and you can even find a Tiki Bar I believe on the top of one of living quarters to add a little bit of distinct flavor.
As for character models, again they all look fine and you’ll mostly see a lot of science personnel or military looking types though if I have to give credit, Frank looks FAAAAAAAAAANTASTIC in the new DLC, especially when you throw on the old outfit from the first game (which I always have and always will). Isabela looks pretty solid and Marion looks fucked up and evil (a lot moreso than she did in Dead Rising 3 to be honest, she actually looks like a villainous pharmaceutical company CEO with a giant ass gash on her face from the presumed zombie bite). However, I think the most distinct vibe for the entire DLC probably goes to the final boss of the game: Harjit Singh. Goddamn that dude is a vibe, being the Indian version of the hulk with the massive build and giant impact hammers. While he’s very much one note and doesn’t have a personality, his look in itself to me is the most iconic part of the expansion other than the return of Frank West itself.
Dead Rising 2: Case West is a more than fitting ending to the Dead Rising 2 saga, ending with a bit of a bang and a future that for the most part was wrapped up satisfactorily with Dead Rising 3. Frank West’s appearance in the DLC also gives the expansion a boost and probably provides the most exciting conclusion that would happen for a good while. As such, the reviews for the DLC were pretty solid and the sales for the title I’d like to say were pretty solid for the most part too. I remember personally being super excited to play it myself, mostly for the fact that I could play as one of my favorite fictional characters of all time: Frank West. Whilst for the most part I’ll admit the DLC didn’t really impact me as much as I would’ve liked for it to have persay, I still enjoyed my time with it and plan on giving it a spin at some point in the future again so I can get all the achievements.
From here, the history of what would happen with the Dead Rising series was simple: they went onto create Dead Rising 3. That game of course went through a whole lot of development hell from poor performance on the Playstation 3, and attempts to create new IP and branch out would result in a lot of shit from their superiors at Capcom Japan. This DLC was kind of the last shining moment, the one bright light before eventually the studio would struggle and fall out with their parent company over the next many years before eventually shutting down in 2018. This sucks a lot of dick as with the previous DLC, Case Zero and the Xbox Smartglass content from Dead Rising 3 it seems that the game will be forever lost to the sands of time without an Xbox Account and it fucking blows because all of this content should be made available for everyone who wants to play it. Of course though why would Capcom give a shit, mainly because the Dead Rising 2/Off the Record ports are kind of notorious for being thrown onto Steam and abandoned. If it means all the content is brought back into place, I would love to see a remaster of some kind here at some point because this franchise deserves love. I’m going to give the rest of the Dead Rising series a spin here I think during the year, which to be honest only includes Case Zero, a replay of the original, the Wii port to the original and the dreaded 4th one but we’ll get to that piece of shit when we get to it.
Links:
https://www.eurogamer.net/capcom-shows-dead-rising-case-west
https://gamerant.com/dead-rising-2-case-west-announced/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising2
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_2:_Case_West
2013
This review contains spoilers
Dead Rising 3 is an open world action-horror zombie game developed by the defunct Capcom Vancouver, formerly known as Blue Castle Games. Since the development of Dead Rising 2 and the expansion Off the Record, Vancouver had been hard at work developing the third entry of the Dead Rising series over the next three or so years. According to a video I found on the internet (link below), the development for Dead Rising 3 was filled with trials and tribulations between attempts at creating the game for Xbox 360 and the Playstation 3 (with the latter being notoriously difficult to create for), to development on other titles and IP being canceled by corporate leadership for being too costly, preferring to keep it safe. Microsoft had swooped in and made a deal with leadership to keep it as an Xbox Exclusive, and it debuted in E3 2013 to the world. I don’t really remember my personal history with it, but I do remember at the time that I was hyped for the game, though I came in a little while after the game was released on Xbox One because I was young and didn’t have the budget to buy the newest console at the time. However, for the longest time I used to play the game cooperatively nonstop with one of my buddies, BFD Survivor, and it became one of our go-to games to play for YEARS. This is probably the second time we’ve played it on PC I believe for his Youtube channel and I believe we’ve pretty much almost completed everything 100 percent just like the old days? This time I went through both the base game twice (once on Nightmare and once on Normal) as well as the DLC so I’ll make sure to go into those too!
The plot begins about 10 years after the ending of Dead Rising 2, according to the Dead Rising wiki. In this future, Zombrex Chips were mandated to keep track of the infected so they could be administered Zombrex at all times. However, the paranoia of government surveillance has led to groups of people going off the grid to flee from the government, with them being nicknamed “Illegals” and virtually hated by the populace of America. The game itself starts with Nick, who is out getting supplies for his group after an outbreak in Los Perdidos when he witnesses a giant plane crash (probably the one from the menu cutscene) smash into the nearby highway. Heading back to their camp at the nearby Diner, you meet up with a cast of characters: Dick (your coop partner), Rhonda (your boss), and Annie (an illegal). An argument between Rhonda and Annie about her illegal status and Dick leaning on a Jukebox leads to a zombie infestation, and Annie splits as Nick, Dick and Rhonda escape the chaos and go back to the old garage. Nick finds an old ZDC radio, which has a guy on the other end named Jamie Flynt (thanks Dead Rising wiki!) who’ll be the main guy who gives you missions throughout the campaign. Seeing a tv report about how a bomb will be dropped on Los Perdidos in six days, the group plan to head out to the highway to a “quarantine station” to be airlifted out of the city. They travel there only to be ambushed by a bunch of angry redneck bikers, and the death of those bikers leads to Nick’s first real exposure to the harsh reality of surviving: killing hostile survivors. This victory is short lived, as the three meet Nick’s old friend Diego right outside of the quarantine base. A couple of things are learned: the government is clearly lying about quarantine sectors, Nick and Diego are old orphan friends with strange matching tattoos, and that Diego is a member of the military who were protecting the visiting President in the city. He also notes that a plane is hidden south of the city inside of a warehouse which could be used to escape the city, however that news is dashed with Nick getting bitten in the hand. Now with a supposed infection, Rhonda sends him out to find Zombrex while the others make their way to the plane.
Riding out to the nearby morgue in Ingleton, Nick meets up with mobster Gary. Gary was sent to the morgue by his boss to find “some broad” named Nicole White, and promises to help Nick get the Zombrex in exchange for finding the body. Breaking into the funeral home/morgue (and past Otis Washington’s, a character from the first game, funeral in a little easter egg), they end up finding Nicole White’s body, whom Nick mistakes for Annie. However there’s no Zombrex, so Nick is resigned to die a painful death at the hands of Gary, who botches the shooting by tripping over a corpse like a buffoon. However, it’s revealed that Nick’s bite wound is strangely healing and thinking nothing of it, the two run the dead body over to a strip club to Gary’s boss. However, the body is NOT who Gary’s boss is looking for and running out of options, Gary asks Nick to find his friend Annie so he can bring her to his boss in exchange for plane fuel. Nick heads back to the group at the plane and it’s agreed that Nick should go find Annie to trade her in. Does this work? Not really. Nick is a softie and you can tell that he’s crushing on Annie because he immediately gives up any form of deception and instead helps the illegals with fighting back against the government. There’s a bit of a love triangle dynamic between Nick, Annie and another illegal named Red, who takes a bit of a liking to Nick after he’s shown some usefulness but with obvious tension due to his history with Annie. After a bit of time, Red and Annie send Nick on a mission to the police station to retrieve a hard drive full of information. This hard drive is revealed to be held by a sexualized police lady who works for General Hemlock, seen on the TV earlier announcing the evacuation of the city. A chase and a boss battle ensues and Nick tackles her out of the police station and lands on the street, head between her boobs. He gets the flash drive and heads back to Annie and Red, who have an argument about what they’re fighting for. A deal was made earlier for the plane fuel in exchange for help, and Red promises to fill his end of the deal.
Nick and Annie meet up back at the tower when Gary drops by for Sunday dinner and an ambush. Gary kicks Nick in the balls and attempts to bring Annie back to his boss, but the military then stop by for dessert and just kicks everyone in the slappy place to bring them back to the prison camp. This is all except for Nick for some reason, who Red wakes up and asks where the hell the others are. Red tells him about a military encampment inside of an old taxi company in Ingleton (right next to the strip club of course) and the two meet up to discuss a plan. Whether or not Nick dons a special forces uniform and sneaks in or just shoots his way in is up to you, but either way you break in to learn the truth: General Hemlock is working with Marion Mallon from Dead Rising 2: Case West on a special plan with the outbreak. Marion discusses her plans on finding a certain survivor while Hemlock has the President brought in and infected, intending to use her zombified remains as propaganda. With new intel, Nick breaks out the illegals and Gary, with illegals escaping in a van as Nick stops Gary from pursuing. Gary leaves in frustration to find Annie, and Red questions Nick on why the government would want him for millions of dollars. Where did that come from? Well, Red found a poster from the government which shows an offer for ANYONE who has a mysterious tattoo on their neck. Nick is confused and has no clue why anyone would want him, and Red shrugs his shoulders and sends him to find his plane fuel out in Central Storage. This is where you first encounter the “Hive Zombie” as I would call it, which is left suspiciously inside of the storage unit where the fuel is. Soldiers come to report that this is one of the special ones that Hemlock wanted, and they die a painful death. Why would one of these zombies be hiding inside where the fuel is? Foreshadowing.
Nick brings the fuel to Rhonda down at the warehouse before she mentions that Diego had a nervous breakdown and ran away to go to the museum. Knowing that the military wants the booty hole of any survivor with a tattoo, Nick gives chase and manages to knock him to his senses. It’s here while looking at the museum kiosks on the history of the zombie outbreaks where they learn that subsequent outbreaks seem to have been started by people…with numbered tattoos. This freaks them both the hell out, and they question their past and wonder what the hell is going on. Resolving to get the hell out, the two arrive back at the plane where Rhonda tells them about specific plane parts needed to get it all up in the air. Nick goes to the home of an airplane part collector to get the ones needed and brings them back, however Rhonda won’t go with them. There’s a lot of regret on her end with abandoning her ex-husband and she wants to make amends with him. Giving a tearful goodbye, Nick and the others also leave to find the illegals before the trio are ambushed by the military.
Nick and Diego wake up in a military lab and strapped to a chair, where it’s learned why anyone with a numbered tattoo is wanted: Marion wants to try to find the survivor with the cure in their genetics. She orders Diego zapped with a giant laser, however he turns into a ground zero for a plague in the lab as soldiers start dying left and right. Nick and Dick escape and bump into an old legacy character: Isabella Keyes. The sister to the one who started the original outbreak in Willamette, Isabella is VERY keen on getting the hell out of there with Nick, who can’t host the zombie worms. Escape plans fail as Marion attempts to take Nick, but Isabella is told the location of the plane and is promised to meet up there. The breakout attempt that follows results in Marion being knocked out by debris (and saved by Hemlock) and Nick escaping into the nearby riverbed area. He shoots his way past zombies and a group of bikers stationed at the subway before he makes his way to a karaoke bar, where Annie and Red were supposed to meet later. However, Gary has held her hostage and is waiting for his boss, before having a breakdown over the failure of his marriage with his ex-wife (named Rhonda of course), how he used to be a wrestler and about how working as a mobster sucks. Giggling a bit to himself after hearing Rhonda’s name, Gary freaks out and attempts to punch him and tells him that he’ll only help Nick if he does Gary a “huge favor”. You could attempt to kill him but the best ending requires you to go back to the garage to find Rhonda.
Nick finds Rhonda with an arm cut off and ostensibly tortured by the military to give up info on Nick and the illegals. With her bleeding out, he finds some medicine to stop the bleeding before creating a new makeshift flamethrower arm before bringing her back to Gary. The lovebirds reunite and Gary, having found a purpose in life, unlocks the door for Nick and walks away with his true love once again. Saving Annie from zombies that Gary threw in there, Nick and Annie reunite where she tells him that she’s single and that she’s glad that Nick keeps coming around. The two make their way back to the airplane, where they meet up with Red, who promises to find the other illegals. Annie and Nick meet back up with Isabella, who explains the Santa Cabeza incident mentioned in the first Dead Rising game, and Carlito’s backup plan with the orphans. Nick’s wound healed in the beginning of the game BECAUSE he is the cure, the tattoos mark Carlito’s orphan plan and the military has been trying to find them this whole time because of the cure. However, Red leads the three of them into a trap, intending on selling Nick to the military for millions of dollars bringing the obvious foreshadowing to a close. This ends in Red’s death by shipping container before more surprises emerge: Annie’s real name is Katey Greene, and Gary’s boss was Chuck Greene, who became a mafia boss after the events of the second game and found them through Gary and Rhonda. The son and daughter make amends before Chuck announces his surprise at Isabella’s survival since the events of Case West. Everyone attempts to leave, though there’s not enough room so Gary and Rhonda stay behind to save survivors.
Everyone attempts to hop onto the plane and fly out when they overhear Hemlock’s plan on the radio: the harvesting of the “Hive Zombies” as a superweapon for the government. Nick and Chuck decide that it’s a terrible idea and they go to stop the plan, and they end up seeing Hemlock throw Marion off of a building after being verbally insulted over his plans for military domination. This harvesting plan fails as most of the harvesting drones are destroyed, and Nick jumps onto one of them and proceeds to fight Hemlock and a military pilot. Crashing this small plane outside the city, Nick and Hemlock have one final fight which ends in Hemlock being kicked into the rotor blades nearby. With this in mind, Nick witnesses Annie flying the plane overhead and everyone escapes Los Perdidos to create a cure and distribute it. The post credits sequence reveals that Isabella started the outbreak in collaboration with Marion, attempting to find the Orphan and get them to reveal themselves, hoping to collect the cure and restore her family name as the savior of humanity. The plan succeeds and shows a flashback of Isabella destroying the footage before escaping the lab and making her way to the airplane.
The plot to Dead Rising 3 overall was something that I enjoyed, it wasn’t as good as the first one (a high bar to set) and while it wasn’t as memorable as certain events in the first game, I found it to be a lot more satisfying then what Dead Rising 2 ultimately offered by the end. I felt it wrapped up the overarching narrative points from the first couple of games (with some inconsistencies, such as insisting Isabella was shot and carried out when she was knocked out by a big Indian fucker) and concluded character arcs for almost every legacy character involved in the previous titles (with the exception of Frank sadly) as well as established Nick as a decent character. I liked his growth from someone who was more soft spoken and afraid into a hardened survivor who wouldn’t take shit from the General who took over the United States. With the whole “zombies as a weapon angle”, I also thought it delivered to the best ability there while also adding in some real world parallels that could very well be a thing in the modern age. Playing this game again with Zombrex chippings and “Illegals”, it very much brought to mind the old COVID days with the fervor over the vaccine (though obviously I’m all for vaccinations) and conspiracies involving government surveillance. I also like the tie-in to Carlito’s old plans involving the Orphans from the first game which felt like a dropped plot point which was quickly rectified. The homage to the history of the Dead Rising series in the museum was another high point for me, and learning of all the previous outbreaks was a pretty cool detail as well. I had heard some people deride the plot for being lackluster but honestly? I didn’t see it, it’s not the best plot ever but it wrapped up the overarching narrative that the series developed into a tight ending and I couldn’t really complain about this. If I were to have a complaint, it would be your radio operator’s role in the story, which is barely anything unless you have Xbox Smartglass and do the missions with it which is stupid as hell to keep an important narrative piece to an app that could disappear at any moment.
The plot for the Untold Stories of Los Perdidos are little short stories of course which explains certain aspects of the overall plot to the base game. The first DLC has you play as Commander Adam Kane (aka the boss you fight breaking everyone out at the base) as he lands in the city on orders from his superiors with orders to capture the President in the outbreak zone. Being the right wing patriot he is with his sights dead on “bringing a president whose soft on illegals to justice”. Real world parallels aside, your helicopter is blown up by a group of bikers and you crash land with two new goals: retrieve the black box in the helicopter that would expose the government’s mission and the “larvae container”, which you’re directed to use on any safehouse stashing illegals (which of course explains the safe house infestations), before clearing out the taxi company in Ingleton where they’ll eventually establish their base. From here you’re directed to find all the missing members of your unit as well as find the President, which eventually you do and you kidnap her to bring her back. She’s zombified and the breakout occurs from Nick, and after being ordered to destroy the black box from earlier (why he didn’t do it before then is unknown) he kills the zombified president after she escapes the grasp of another soldier. He then hides the black box and proceeds to confront the intruders to the base.
The second DLC you play as Angel, an illegal who has a drinking problem and an attitude due to the copious amounts of death surrounding her. An illegal buddy named Doug goes up to her and asks her to raid the crashed yacht down in Central City to try to find medical supplies before she’s asked to check in on a group of illegals residing in South Almuda. The actions of Commander Kane however have led to a lot of death with only one survivor named Winnie remaining. While she was out, the military attacked the High School where everyone was at so she went to defend it with her boy Doug-E-Fresh against the military war criminals. This sets up their main base in the base game: the communication towers, so Dougie Frasier and Angel travel there to clean out all the nearby zombies. Gathering food and weapons for the tower, Doug tells her about an ambush he’s planning for them and after killing a bunch of soldiers, they’re told that the Central Storage area is where they’re keeping any illegals remaining. It’s interesting how quickly a lab can be set up and taken down in the course of a couple days over Dead Rising 3 (or they’re just inconsistent with timelines I don’t know) as it’s a full ass lab here. Angel raids the lab and rescues the illegals before deciding to set up a fake diversion at the hotel in Central City, where her dead body will later be found in the main game (hence “Fallen Angel”).
The third DLC has you play as Hunter, the redneck biker boss Nick fights at the beginning of the game. It begins with Hunter breaking out of jail during the outbreak, having been locked up in the first place after being framed by a member of his own gang. After escaping and getting out, Cabela’s Big Game drives over to his old biker gang on the highway in order to find his former leader Torque, but instead gets Spider. See, Spider is a dickhead and after establishing that he’s the leader and some back and forth between the two, Spider tells him that he’ll listen to Hunter if he goes and gets some “special reserve whiskey” for him. Bringing the booze back, it’s an ambush and he’s shot and thrown into a dumpster by Spider’s three lackeys. Traveling down to Torque’s old bike shop, Torque tells him to grab motorcycles for him (to give him the “ultimate ride”) before sending him on a mission to murder Spider’s three captains. After wiping out all three captains (two of them running away or hiding behind goons in cowardice), he returns to find his old biker buddy near death. Furious, Hunter rides all the way to the old biker base and faces off against Spider in a battle once and for all. Killing Spider, his ascension is celebrated before Rhonda and Nick appear and the stage is set for the first psychopath battle in the base game.
The fourth and final DLC has you play as Brad Park, an agent of the ZDC who is near death in South Almuda after his zombrex chip malfunctioned. However, due to events that can’t be played on PC (only on the Xbox Smartglass app), Nick saves the man from near death and gives him Zombrex. Waking up later on, Brad is contacted by a doctor named Cora, who needs him to bring Zombrex to her over at a nearby hospital. Bringing a van filled with Zombrex that he finds behind a gate, the two devise a plan to figure out the reason behind the Zombrex chip malfunctions. To this end, she sends him to kill the Hive Zombies with a “Pacifier” weapon, which shoots the zombrex chips right out of them. Bringing them back to Cora, it’s learned that they’ve been purposely turned off so she sends him to find some hacker dweeb to track down a signal. The hacker dweeb decides to help out Brad because “Cora is hot” and enlists him on a series of errands. He later tracks a signal to the mayor’s mansion (for the third time in the DLCs), which the military guards with their life. A server trail leads to the discovery of the South Almuda trainyard lab, where Brad finds the aftermath of Diego’s death and evidence leading to the cooperation between Marrion and General Hemlock. Brad, disillusioned, cuts out his zombrex chip before investigating the taxi company to find proof. This of course brings us full circle back to Kane, who gives him the black box that he didn’t destroy and tells him that the President was killed on purpose before he shoots himself in the head. Armed with info against the government, Brad calls Cora and gets the survivors together (including Rhonda and Gary from the base game) before driving all the way up to the Diner from the very beginning to get airlifted out of the city by a ZDC helicopter, bringing the final chapter to Dead Rising 3’s story to a close.
My thoughts on the DLC’s story is a mix, because it has interesting ideas and concepts and actually ties in certain things really well into the base game. However, the only DLCs that have any real substance in my opinion is probably the first and last one. They have the most ties overall to the story, the government conspiracy and explain aspects of the background the best. My only issue is the build up to the last DLC requires an Xbox app that doesn’t exist anymore so there’s a lot of context that’s now lost unless you look up videos on Youtube on how you got there in the first place. You also get to see Gary and Rhonda from the base game escape the city, and everythings wrapped in a neat little bow. Angel’s DLC chapter is okay, it does have some interesting background information as well as showing the perspective of the illegals but I found that it didn’t really have much of an impact on me or the story other than Angel’s corpse being shown once. Overall, if it wasn’t for that one scene in the base game I wouldn’t have even figured this story needed to be told. The most boring one honestly was the Biker DLC, it did nothing for the overall narrative other than show some biker gang stuff and as much as I like biker gang stuff, I just wasn’t satisfied narratively enough to care. Also this DLC has the most tedious side objective with collecting different vehicles scattered in all of the districts that made it longer than it needed to be. I don’t hate these DLCs at all but I would’ve liked to have seen the previous iteration of downloadable content that had stuff involving Frank and Chuck from the previous two that they had planned out.
The gameplay for the most part is the same as the previous games: you’ll run and drive around creating weapons, killing zombies, solving cases and rescuing survivors all while unraveling the plot behind the conspiracy in Los Perdidos. However, compared to the previous games everything is a lot more easier and streamlined. Wanna create combo weapons on the fly? You can do that. Want to be able to hit up all the content and still have time left for the most part? You have that. You want survivors that don’t suck balls to move from one area to another? It’s there. I have no real complaints for the streamlining to be honest, I know a lot of other people would probably be a bit upset at the casualization of the series but in all honesty I feel like the way the game does it, it kind of works? I’ll say that if you’re looking for a really hardcore experience that you’ll be kind of missing out for the most part. You have Nightmare Mode, which forbids saving on the go and “deadlier” zombies and such but even then it was honestly kind of a cakewalk when me and my buddy went through it for the Steam Achievement, probably because we had played the previous Dead Rising games before and it kind of felt pretty much the same.
Leveling up of course is the same as the previous games, which requires you to kill zombies, complete quests and acquire collectibles hidden throughout the map. Luckily in this game it’s easy and you’ll probably be in the high thirties by the time you're done a first playthrough if you go around and wing it. You’ll have PP Trials which give you more than enough to pass even Level 50 (though a bit grindy), Depressing Stories (just dead bodies which set up a bad dad pun or two)/Frank West trophies for extra points, blueprints for combo weapons and vehicles; basically there’s more than enough to go around. The more you level up the more skill points you get to unlock certain sections on the skill tree which feels a bit more free to experiment considering the other games basically just did it for you before without your input. By leveling up your attributes you can also earn combo weapon blueprints, which you can get by finding them in the world as well as completing certain quests and chapters. A lot of the oldies appear like the spiked baseball bat, the beer hat, and the blamblow but you’ll get returning cameos like Adam’s Chainsaws as well as brand new ones like the Acid Jar, the Massive Bomb, Flaming Sword and the Z.A.R. that are pretty cool and unique as well as packing a punch. The weapons for the most part feel great and feel really creative and original, and you can create them all on the go as well as get them from Safehouse weapon lockers once you come from those. Another great thing is that everything you pick up will always be there, same with clothing and survivors that you’ve rescued from the bulletin boards.
You can also always go to a garage in each of the four districts to get any vehicle that you previously used or bought via DLC (though not food, you still have to pick that up on your own but can still mix on the go), which also reminds me. The world is a lot bigger than the previous two Dead Risings, filled to scale with hundreds if not thousands of zombies and barely any loading screens. I’m actually amazed at how big(ish) the game is compared to how troublesome the development and while navigating it can be kind of a pain in the ass due to obstacles it still feels like a natural step forward. As for the zombies, there are certain unique zombies like the football/prisoner bulk guys, the “hive” zombies that explode when killed and a couple of others but for this game it’s not really the uniqueness of the undead as much as the scale of undead that really shines here.
The last thing I want to keep in mind for the gameplay is that this was definitely an Xbox One title through and through, with the PC Port being a complete afterthought. For example, that Super-Turbo DLC where you can play as Chuck, Nick, Frank and Annie? Only on Xbox One. It had Kinect Features which obviously didn’t make it past the Xbox One which apparently made zombies aware of any noises. There was also Xbox Smartglass, which apparently enabled new missions (which tie directly into the last DLC by the way) and you could apparently call in airstrikes and flares and the like. All of this is cool and while the game doesn’t always need it, it should’ve been included with the PC port as basic features. It’s definitely on the strange side when playing The Last Agent, which shows Nick waking up Agent Brad Park which you didn’t do in the base game so there’s absolutely no context for this whatsoever. Also, the DLC I should say are basically small vignettes of sorts which give small backstories to mini-bosses or dead characters from the base game you see for all of five minutes. They’re not bad, they’re okay and give extra context to the world and can be 100 percent completed in a couple of hours each depending if you’re really into the game.
The graphics for the time as an Xbox One debut looked pretty damn good to be honest, and in a lot of ways it still looks pretty good high definition wise. Models are pretty detailed, zombies look terrifying, blood and gore is plentiful and cool. I don’t really have too much in the way to say about the graphical fidelity of the title other than for the most part it still looks pretty good and that I can’t really complain. It’s funny considering the history of development behind this game, which apparently included a disastrous PS3 port and trying to do too much with too little technology. The PC port apparently had some controversies, mostly involving the game being locked at 30 FPS. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t download the patch and I didn’t really notice much of a difference to anything but that’s probably because everything ran smoothly and looked fine for the most part. The only real issue I had with the PC port is that sometimes the texture pop-in would load a bit more slowly sometimes so things would look a little bit on the muddy side, but other than that I think the game looks fine from a graphics standpoint.
Atmosphere on the other hand…how does the atmosphere fare within the third entry? It differentiates itself from the colorful and brighter vibes of the previous titles with something that’s a lot more depressing. I’m talking about 2007 video games depressing, like barren smog covered dark shaded filters depressing. I’ll be honest I’m a sucker for darker and edgy stuff so normally I would totally vibe with this, and while I understand that it’s kind of going for a bit more of a darker and somewhat serious tone it doesn’t always mesh with me personally well. Like I never minded it persay, but I wouldn’t say I’m in love with it, especially considering the game has a decent bit of comedic moments in it too. It’s like a light shade of whiplash, but like not bad enough to where I noticed it all too much. I’m all for dark comedy, and whilst I can’t explain it all too well there’s just something about this game that didn’t always work for me, or at least in comparison to the previous games. Other than that it’s perfectly fine, as I mostly meshed with the game’s casual factor so I wasn’t too bothered.
I’ll start with the soundtrack portion of the audio; I literally don’t remember any music tracks that could be pointed out other than maybe a few things that have been used before in the series. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the Dead Rising series, the first two have standout tracks that I can competently say that I remember off the top of my head. This one doesn’t and I’m kind of disappointed, with the only track I even remember was a remix of Chuck’s theme for when he appears and I only noticed that when Brandon pointed that out. The soundtrack was apparently composed by the various likes of artists I’ve never heard before in my life such as: Celldweller, GIBS, Dave Genn, the accused Jeremy Soule and his brother and many others. Honestly I couldn’t remember a single track from the game other than maybe what plays in the pause menu or like certain stingers in cutscenes? There were like two tracks that played in the credits (one being Amo Americano by Gaston “Cenzi” Gabarro and the other one being some pop song sounding track) multiple times while waiting for them to end due to my buddy recording them for his channel and it was agonizing hearing only two songs repeating non-stop until the end. So music wise, I was kind of bored with this game to be honest.
The sound effects however for the most sound pretty damn good and punchy. Weapons sound like how they’re supposed to, with examples like the Acid Gun sounding smooth and liquidity to the Splitter gun having this metallic feeling that for some reason makes my a s shole pucker up with joy. Using vehicles in game sounds pretty great too, ESPECIALLY the combo vehicles like the Rollerhawg or the Party Slapper (the vehicle that sucks up zombies) that make this satisfying pop noise. I don’t really have anything bad to say about the audio design in terms of the weapons, vehicles, environment or anything in particular. I guess the only other familiar thing I could really point out is the voice acting, which for the most part is pretty decent. Andrew Lawrence as Nick Ramos plays the nervous and stuttering wreck who gets more confidence towards the end well while Daniel Roebuck sounds humorous as Gary, the apparently non-Italian sounding Italian gangster guy. If I were to say there was a specific voice performance I would say is the best it would probably be Arif S. Kinchen as Red, mainly because it just sounds so natural and charismatic. Everyone does a pretty decent job, nothing I could really go crazy for unless you count the Psychopath performances like Diane Delilo as the well endowed cop at the police station or Joe Egender as the stereotypical southern biker boss. Overall, the voice acting and the sound design is pretty solid.
Dead Rising 3 is what I consider to be the final culmination in the trilogy of Dead Rising, as they didn’t make a game past this point in my eyes. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but it’s the most easily accessible entry way into the series for curious onlookers of fans of the ideas that Dead Rising has to offer without the difficulty of the first game and the easier but still strenuous timer of the second game. In short, it’s dumbed down for the average consumer but it’s not without its own merits. In fact, I actually like how slow the timer is though that’s at the cost of wondering why they even put it in at all. Out of all the Dead Rising games, even though the first one is my favorite, this one is probably the one that I’ve played the most just due to this sheer ease of access. I eventually plan on writing up a review for Dead Rising 2: Case West and Case Zero before doing a final series recap on the piece of shit that ruined the franchise: Dead Rising 4. The future of Dead Rising after 3 was a murky one, with Capcom Vancouver becoming trapped in this never ending cycle of wanting to do new things. Pitches would go out for other titles such as a Dino Crisis game, a Ghost and Goblins reboot as well as their own attempts at IPs before being coerced into creating the dreaded DEAD RISING 4 after a gritty reboot “Last of Us” rival was shut down from Capcom, who disapproved of this turn from Dead Rising’s core (even with the approval of Microsoft themselves who approached them to begin with). This would ultimately result in the financial bankruptcy of the studio as well as the closure, which ended the legacy of Capcom Vancouver on a whimper, which I'll eventually go to later on. In the meantime, apologies for the late review and cheers to the end of 2023.
Links:
https://www.siliconera.com/capcom-vancouver-canceled-games-dino-crisis/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising3
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_Wiki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6glExmQadfY&ab_channel=DidYouKnowGaming
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot begins about 10 years after the ending of Dead Rising 2, according to the Dead Rising wiki. In this future, Zombrex Chips were mandated to keep track of the infected so they could be administered Zombrex at all times. However, the paranoia of government surveillance has led to groups of people going off the grid to flee from the government, with them being nicknamed “Illegals” and virtually hated by the populace of America. The game itself starts with Nick, who is out getting supplies for his group after an outbreak in Los Perdidos when he witnesses a giant plane crash (probably the one from the menu cutscene) smash into the nearby highway. Heading back to their camp at the nearby Diner, you meet up with a cast of characters: Dick (your coop partner), Rhonda (your boss), and Annie (an illegal). An argument between Rhonda and Annie about her illegal status and Dick leaning on a Jukebox leads to a zombie infestation, and Annie splits as Nick, Dick and Rhonda escape the chaos and go back to the old garage. Nick finds an old ZDC radio, which has a guy on the other end named Jamie Flynt (thanks Dead Rising wiki!) who’ll be the main guy who gives you missions throughout the campaign. Seeing a tv report about how a bomb will be dropped on Los Perdidos in six days, the group plan to head out to the highway to a “quarantine station” to be airlifted out of the city. They travel there only to be ambushed by a bunch of angry redneck bikers, and the death of those bikers leads to Nick’s first real exposure to the harsh reality of surviving: killing hostile survivors. This victory is short lived, as the three meet Nick’s old friend Diego right outside of the quarantine base. A couple of things are learned: the government is clearly lying about quarantine sectors, Nick and Diego are old orphan friends with strange matching tattoos, and that Diego is a member of the military who were protecting the visiting President in the city. He also notes that a plane is hidden south of the city inside of a warehouse which could be used to escape the city, however that news is dashed with Nick getting bitten in the hand. Now with a supposed infection, Rhonda sends him out to find Zombrex while the others make their way to the plane.
Riding out to the nearby morgue in Ingleton, Nick meets up with mobster Gary. Gary was sent to the morgue by his boss to find “some broad” named Nicole White, and promises to help Nick get the Zombrex in exchange for finding the body. Breaking into the funeral home/morgue (and past Otis Washington’s, a character from the first game, funeral in a little easter egg), they end up finding Nicole White’s body, whom Nick mistakes for Annie. However there’s no Zombrex, so Nick is resigned to die a painful death at the hands of Gary, who botches the shooting by tripping over a corpse like a buffoon. However, it’s revealed that Nick’s bite wound is strangely healing and thinking nothing of it, the two run the dead body over to a strip club to Gary’s boss. However, the body is NOT who Gary’s boss is looking for and running out of options, Gary asks Nick to find his friend Annie so he can bring her to his boss in exchange for plane fuel. Nick heads back to the group at the plane and it’s agreed that Nick should go find Annie to trade her in. Does this work? Not really. Nick is a softie and you can tell that he’s crushing on Annie because he immediately gives up any form of deception and instead helps the illegals with fighting back against the government. There’s a bit of a love triangle dynamic between Nick, Annie and another illegal named Red, who takes a bit of a liking to Nick after he’s shown some usefulness but with obvious tension due to his history with Annie. After a bit of time, Red and Annie send Nick on a mission to the police station to retrieve a hard drive full of information. This hard drive is revealed to be held by a sexualized police lady who works for General Hemlock, seen on the TV earlier announcing the evacuation of the city. A chase and a boss battle ensues and Nick tackles her out of the police station and lands on the street, head between her boobs. He gets the flash drive and heads back to Annie and Red, who have an argument about what they’re fighting for. A deal was made earlier for the plane fuel in exchange for help, and Red promises to fill his end of the deal.
Nick and Annie meet up back at the tower when Gary drops by for Sunday dinner and an ambush. Gary kicks Nick in the balls and attempts to bring Annie back to his boss, but the military then stop by for dessert and just kicks everyone in the slappy place to bring them back to the prison camp. This is all except for Nick for some reason, who Red wakes up and asks where the hell the others are. Red tells him about a military encampment inside of an old taxi company in Ingleton (right next to the strip club of course) and the two meet up to discuss a plan. Whether or not Nick dons a special forces uniform and sneaks in or just shoots his way in is up to you, but either way you break in to learn the truth: General Hemlock is working with Marion Mallon from Dead Rising 2: Case West on a special plan with the outbreak. Marion discusses her plans on finding a certain survivor while Hemlock has the President brought in and infected, intending to use her zombified remains as propaganda. With new intel, Nick breaks out the illegals and Gary, with illegals escaping in a van as Nick stops Gary from pursuing. Gary leaves in frustration to find Annie, and Red questions Nick on why the government would want him for millions of dollars. Where did that come from? Well, Red found a poster from the government which shows an offer for ANYONE who has a mysterious tattoo on their neck. Nick is confused and has no clue why anyone would want him, and Red shrugs his shoulders and sends him to find his plane fuel out in Central Storage. This is where you first encounter the “Hive Zombie” as I would call it, which is left suspiciously inside of the storage unit where the fuel is. Soldiers come to report that this is one of the special ones that Hemlock wanted, and they die a painful death. Why would one of these zombies be hiding inside where the fuel is? Foreshadowing.
Nick brings the fuel to Rhonda down at the warehouse before she mentions that Diego had a nervous breakdown and ran away to go to the museum. Knowing that the military wants the booty hole of any survivor with a tattoo, Nick gives chase and manages to knock him to his senses. It’s here while looking at the museum kiosks on the history of the zombie outbreaks where they learn that subsequent outbreaks seem to have been started by people…with numbered tattoos. This freaks them both the hell out, and they question their past and wonder what the hell is going on. Resolving to get the hell out, the two arrive back at the plane where Rhonda tells them about specific plane parts needed to get it all up in the air. Nick goes to the home of an airplane part collector to get the ones needed and brings them back, however Rhonda won’t go with them. There’s a lot of regret on her end with abandoning her ex-husband and she wants to make amends with him. Giving a tearful goodbye, Nick and the others also leave to find the illegals before the trio are ambushed by the military.
Nick and Diego wake up in a military lab and strapped to a chair, where it’s learned why anyone with a numbered tattoo is wanted: Marion wants to try to find the survivor with the cure in their genetics. She orders Diego zapped with a giant laser, however he turns into a ground zero for a plague in the lab as soldiers start dying left and right. Nick and Dick escape and bump into an old legacy character: Isabella Keyes. The sister to the one who started the original outbreak in Willamette, Isabella is VERY keen on getting the hell out of there with Nick, who can’t host the zombie worms. Escape plans fail as Marion attempts to take Nick, but Isabella is told the location of the plane and is promised to meet up there. The breakout attempt that follows results in Marion being knocked out by debris (and saved by Hemlock) and Nick escaping into the nearby riverbed area. He shoots his way past zombies and a group of bikers stationed at the subway before he makes his way to a karaoke bar, where Annie and Red were supposed to meet later. However, Gary has held her hostage and is waiting for his boss, before having a breakdown over the failure of his marriage with his ex-wife (named Rhonda of course), how he used to be a wrestler and about how working as a mobster sucks. Giggling a bit to himself after hearing Rhonda’s name, Gary freaks out and attempts to punch him and tells him that he’ll only help Nick if he does Gary a “huge favor”. You could attempt to kill him but the best ending requires you to go back to the garage to find Rhonda.
Nick finds Rhonda with an arm cut off and ostensibly tortured by the military to give up info on Nick and the illegals. With her bleeding out, he finds some medicine to stop the bleeding before creating a new makeshift flamethrower arm before bringing her back to Gary. The lovebirds reunite and Gary, having found a purpose in life, unlocks the door for Nick and walks away with his true love once again. Saving Annie from zombies that Gary threw in there, Nick and Annie reunite where she tells him that she’s single and that she’s glad that Nick keeps coming around. The two make their way back to the airplane, where they meet up with Red, who promises to find the other illegals. Annie and Nick meet back up with Isabella, who explains the Santa Cabeza incident mentioned in the first Dead Rising game, and Carlito’s backup plan with the orphans. Nick’s wound healed in the beginning of the game BECAUSE he is the cure, the tattoos mark Carlito’s orphan plan and the military has been trying to find them this whole time because of the cure. However, Red leads the three of them into a trap, intending on selling Nick to the military for millions of dollars bringing the obvious foreshadowing to a close. This ends in Red’s death by shipping container before more surprises emerge: Annie’s real name is Katey Greene, and Gary’s boss was Chuck Greene, who became a mafia boss after the events of the second game and found them through Gary and Rhonda. The son and daughter make amends before Chuck announces his surprise at Isabella’s survival since the events of Case West. Everyone attempts to leave, though there’s not enough room so Gary and Rhonda stay behind to save survivors.
Everyone attempts to hop onto the plane and fly out when they overhear Hemlock’s plan on the radio: the harvesting of the “Hive Zombies” as a superweapon for the government. Nick and Chuck decide that it’s a terrible idea and they go to stop the plan, and they end up seeing Hemlock throw Marion off of a building after being verbally insulted over his plans for military domination. This harvesting plan fails as most of the harvesting drones are destroyed, and Nick jumps onto one of them and proceeds to fight Hemlock and a military pilot. Crashing this small plane outside the city, Nick and Hemlock have one final fight which ends in Hemlock being kicked into the rotor blades nearby. With this in mind, Nick witnesses Annie flying the plane overhead and everyone escapes Los Perdidos to create a cure and distribute it. The post credits sequence reveals that Isabella started the outbreak in collaboration with Marion, attempting to find the Orphan and get them to reveal themselves, hoping to collect the cure and restore her family name as the savior of humanity. The plan succeeds and shows a flashback of Isabella destroying the footage before escaping the lab and making her way to the airplane.
The plot to Dead Rising 3 overall was something that I enjoyed, it wasn’t as good as the first one (a high bar to set) and while it wasn’t as memorable as certain events in the first game, I found it to be a lot more satisfying then what Dead Rising 2 ultimately offered by the end. I felt it wrapped up the overarching narrative points from the first couple of games (with some inconsistencies, such as insisting Isabella was shot and carried out when she was knocked out by a big Indian fucker) and concluded character arcs for almost every legacy character involved in the previous titles (with the exception of Frank sadly) as well as established Nick as a decent character. I liked his growth from someone who was more soft spoken and afraid into a hardened survivor who wouldn’t take shit from the General who took over the United States. With the whole “zombies as a weapon angle”, I also thought it delivered to the best ability there while also adding in some real world parallels that could very well be a thing in the modern age. Playing this game again with Zombrex chippings and “Illegals”, it very much brought to mind the old COVID days with the fervor over the vaccine (though obviously I’m all for vaccinations) and conspiracies involving government surveillance. I also like the tie-in to Carlito’s old plans involving the Orphans from the first game which felt like a dropped plot point which was quickly rectified. The homage to the history of the Dead Rising series in the museum was another high point for me, and learning of all the previous outbreaks was a pretty cool detail as well. I had heard some people deride the plot for being lackluster but honestly? I didn’t see it, it’s not the best plot ever but it wrapped up the overarching narrative that the series developed into a tight ending and I couldn’t really complain about this. If I were to have a complaint, it would be your radio operator’s role in the story, which is barely anything unless you have Xbox Smartglass and do the missions with it which is stupid as hell to keep an important narrative piece to an app that could disappear at any moment.
The plot for the Untold Stories of Los Perdidos are little short stories of course which explains certain aspects of the overall plot to the base game. The first DLC has you play as Commander Adam Kane (aka the boss you fight breaking everyone out at the base) as he lands in the city on orders from his superiors with orders to capture the President in the outbreak zone. Being the right wing patriot he is with his sights dead on “bringing a president whose soft on illegals to justice”. Real world parallels aside, your helicopter is blown up by a group of bikers and you crash land with two new goals: retrieve the black box in the helicopter that would expose the government’s mission and the “larvae container”, which you’re directed to use on any safehouse stashing illegals (which of course explains the safe house infestations), before clearing out the taxi company in Ingleton where they’ll eventually establish their base. From here you’re directed to find all the missing members of your unit as well as find the President, which eventually you do and you kidnap her to bring her back. She’s zombified and the breakout occurs from Nick, and after being ordered to destroy the black box from earlier (why he didn’t do it before then is unknown) he kills the zombified president after she escapes the grasp of another soldier. He then hides the black box and proceeds to confront the intruders to the base.
The second DLC you play as Angel, an illegal who has a drinking problem and an attitude due to the copious amounts of death surrounding her. An illegal buddy named Doug goes up to her and asks her to raid the crashed yacht down in Central City to try to find medical supplies before she’s asked to check in on a group of illegals residing in South Almuda. The actions of Commander Kane however have led to a lot of death with only one survivor named Winnie remaining. While she was out, the military attacked the High School where everyone was at so she went to defend it with her boy Doug-E-Fresh against the military war criminals. This sets up their main base in the base game: the communication towers, so Dougie Frasier and Angel travel there to clean out all the nearby zombies. Gathering food and weapons for the tower, Doug tells her about an ambush he’s planning for them and after killing a bunch of soldiers, they’re told that the Central Storage area is where they’re keeping any illegals remaining. It’s interesting how quickly a lab can be set up and taken down in the course of a couple days over Dead Rising 3 (or they’re just inconsistent with timelines I don’t know) as it’s a full ass lab here. Angel raids the lab and rescues the illegals before deciding to set up a fake diversion at the hotel in Central City, where her dead body will later be found in the main game (hence “Fallen Angel”).
The third DLC has you play as Hunter, the redneck biker boss Nick fights at the beginning of the game. It begins with Hunter breaking out of jail during the outbreak, having been locked up in the first place after being framed by a member of his own gang. After escaping and getting out, Cabela’s Big Game drives over to his old biker gang on the highway in order to find his former leader Torque, but instead gets Spider. See, Spider is a dickhead and after establishing that he’s the leader and some back and forth between the two, Spider tells him that he’ll listen to Hunter if he goes and gets some “special reserve whiskey” for him. Bringing the booze back, it’s an ambush and he’s shot and thrown into a dumpster by Spider’s three lackeys. Traveling down to Torque’s old bike shop, Torque tells him to grab motorcycles for him (to give him the “ultimate ride”) before sending him on a mission to murder Spider’s three captains. After wiping out all three captains (two of them running away or hiding behind goons in cowardice), he returns to find his old biker buddy near death. Furious, Hunter rides all the way to the old biker base and faces off against Spider in a battle once and for all. Killing Spider, his ascension is celebrated before Rhonda and Nick appear and the stage is set for the first psychopath battle in the base game.
The fourth and final DLC has you play as Brad Park, an agent of the ZDC who is near death in South Almuda after his zombrex chip malfunctioned. However, due to events that can’t be played on PC (only on the Xbox Smartglass app), Nick saves the man from near death and gives him Zombrex. Waking up later on, Brad is contacted by a doctor named Cora, who needs him to bring Zombrex to her over at a nearby hospital. Bringing a van filled with Zombrex that he finds behind a gate, the two devise a plan to figure out the reason behind the Zombrex chip malfunctions. To this end, she sends him to kill the Hive Zombies with a “Pacifier” weapon, which shoots the zombrex chips right out of them. Bringing them back to Cora, it’s learned that they’ve been purposely turned off so she sends him to find some hacker dweeb to track down a signal. The hacker dweeb decides to help out Brad because “Cora is hot” and enlists him on a series of errands. He later tracks a signal to the mayor’s mansion (for the third time in the DLCs), which the military guards with their life. A server trail leads to the discovery of the South Almuda trainyard lab, where Brad finds the aftermath of Diego’s death and evidence leading to the cooperation between Marrion and General Hemlock. Brad, disillusioned, cuts out his zombrex chip before investigating the taxi company to find proof. This of course brings us full circle back to Kane, who gives him the black box that he didn’t destroy and tells him that the President was killed on purpose before he shoots himself in the head. Armed with info against the government, Brad calls Cora and gets the survivors together (including Rhonda and Gary from the base game) before driving all the way up to the Diner from the very beginning to get airlifted out of the city by a ZDC helicopter, bringing the final chapter to Dead Rising 3’s story to a close.
My thoughts on the DLC’s story is a mix, because it has interesting ideas and concepts and actually ties in certain things really well into the base game. However, the only DLCs that have any real substance in my opinion is probably the first and last one. They have the most ties overall to the story, the government conspiracy and explain aspects of the background the best. My only issue is the build up to the last DLC requires an Xbox app that doesn’t exist anymore so there’s a lot of context that’s now lost unless you look up videos on Youtube on how you got there in the first place. You also get to see Gary and Rhonda from the base game escape the city, and everythings wrapped in a neat little bow. Angel’s DLC chapter is okay, it does have some interesting background information as well as showing the perspective of the illegals but I found that it didn’t really have much of an impact on me or the story other than Angel’s corpse being shown once. Overall, if it wasn’t for that one scene in the base game I wouldn’t have even figured this story needed to be told. The most boring one honestly was the Biker DLC, it did nothing for the overall narrative other than show some biker gang stuff and as much as I like biker gang stuff, I just wasn’t satisfied narratively enough to care. Also this DLC has the most tedious side objective with collecting different vehicles scattered in all of the districts that made it longer than it needed to be. I don’t hate these DLCs at all but I would’ve liked to have seen the previous iteration of downloadable content that had stuff involving Frank and Chuck from the previous two that they had planned out.
The gameplay for the most part is the same as the previous games: you’ll run and drive around creating weapons, killing zombies, solving cases and rescuing survivors all while unraveling the plot behind the conspiracy in Los Perdidos. However, compared to the previous games everything is a lot more easier and streamlined. Wanna create combo weapons on the fly? You can do that. Want to be able to hit up all the content and still have time left for the most part? You have that. You want survivors that don’t suck balls to move from one area to another? It’s there. I have no real complaints for the streamlining to be honest, I know a lot of other people would probably be a bit upset at the casualization of the series but in all honesty I feel like the way the game does it, it kind of works? I’ll say that if you’re looking for a really hardcore experience that you’ll be kind of missing out for the most part. You have Nightmare Mode, which forbids saving on the go and “deadlier” zombies and such but even then it was honestly kind of a cakewalk when me and my buddy went through it for the Steam Achievement, probably because we had played the previous Dead Rising games before and it kind of felt pretty much the same.
Leveling up of course is the same as the previous games, which requires you to kill zombies, complete quests and acquire collectibles hidden throughout the map. Luckily in this game it’s easy and you’ll probably be in the high thirties by the time you're done a first playthrough if you go around and wing it. You’ll have PP Trials which give you more than enough to pass even Level 50 (though a bit grindy), Depressing Stories (just dead bodies which set up a bad dad pun or two)/Frank West trophies for extra points, blueprints for combo weapons and vehicles; basically there’s more than enough to go around. The more you level up the more skill points you get to unlock certain sections on the skill tree which feels a bit more free to experiment considering the other games basically just did it for you before without your input. By leveling up your attributes you can also earn combo weapon blueprints, which you can get by finding them in the world as well as completing certain quests and chapters. A lot of the oldies appear like the spiked baseball bat, the beer hat, and the blamblow but you’ll get returning cameos like Adam’s Chainsaws as well as brand new ones like the Acid Jar, the Massive Bomb, Flaming Sword and the Z.A.R. that are pretty cool and unique as well as packing a punch. The weapons for the most part feel great and feel really creative and original, and you can create them all on the go as well as get them from Safehouse weapon lockers once you come from those. Another great thing is that everything you pick up will always be there, same with clothing and survivors that you’ve rescued from the bulletin boards.
You can also always go to a garage in each of the four districts to get any vehicle that you previously used or bought via DLC (though not food, you still have to pick that up on your own but can still mix on the go), which also reminds me. The world is a lot bigger than the previous two Dead Risings, filled to scale with hundreds if not thousands of zombies and barely any loading screens. I’m actually amazed at how big(ish) the game is compared to how troublesome the development and while navigating it can be kind of a pain in the ass due to obstacles it still feels like a natural step forward. As for the zombies, there are certain unique zombies like the football/prisoner bulk guys, the “hive” zombies that explode when killed and a couple of others but for this game it’s not really the uniqueness of the undead as much as the scale of undead that really shines here.
The last thing I want to keep in mind for the gameplay is that this was definitely an Xbox One title through and through, with the PC Port being a complete afterthought. For example, that Super-Turbo DLC where you can play as Chuck, Nick, Frank and Annie? Only on Xbox One. It had Kinect Features which obviously didn’t make it past the Xbox One which apparently made zombies aware of any noises. There was also Xbox Smartglass, which apparently enabled new missions (which tie directly into the last DLC by the way) and you could apparently call in airstrikes and flares and the like. All of this is cool and while the game doesn’t always need it, it should’ve been included with the PC port as basic features. It’s definitely on the strange side when playing The Last Agent, which shows Nick waking up Agent Brad Park which you didn’t do in the base game so there’s absolutely no context for this whatsoever. Also, the DLC I should say are basically small vignettes of sorts which give small backstories to mini-bosses or dead characters from the base game you see for all of five minutes. They’re not bad, they’re okay and give extra context to the world and can be 100 percent completed in a couple of hours each depending if you’re really into the game.
The graphics for the time as an Xbox One debut looked pretty damn good to be honest, and in a lot of ways it still looks pretty good high definition wise. Models are pretty detailed, zombies look terrifying, blood and gore is plentiful and cool. I don’t really have too much in the way to say about the graphical fidelity of the title other than for the most part it still looks pretty good and that I can’t really complain. It’s funny considering the history of development behind this game, which apparently included a disastrous PS3 port and trying to do too much with too little technology. The PC port apparently had some controversies, mostly involving the game being locked at 30 FPS. I’ll be honest with you, I didn’t download the patch and I didn’t really notice much of a difference to anything but that’s probably because everything ran smoothly and looked fine for the most part. The only real issue I had with the PC port is that sometimes the texture pop-in would load a bit more slowly sometimes so things would look a little bit on the muddy side, but other than that I think the game looks fine from a graphics standpoint.
Atmosphere on the other hand…how does the atmosphere fare within the third entry? It differentiates itself from the colorful and brighter vibes of the previous titles with something that’s a lot more depressing. I’m talking about 2007 video games depressing, like barren smog covered dark shaded filters depressing. I’ll be honest I’m a sucker for darker and edgy stuff so normally I would totally vibe with this, and while I understand that it’s kind of going for a bit more of a darker and somewhat serious tone it doesn’t always mesh with me personally well. Like I never minded it persay, but I wouldn’t say I’m in love with it, especially considering the game has a decent bit of comedic moments in it too. It’s like a light shade of whiplash, but like not bad enough to where I noticed it all too much. I’m all for dark comedy, and whilst I can’t explain it all too well there’s just something about this game that didn’t always work for me, or at least in comparison to the previous games. Other than that it’s perfectly fine, as I mostly meshed with the game’s casual factor so I wasn’t too bothered.
I’ll start with the soundtrack portion of the audio; I literally don’t remember any music tracks that could be pointed out other than maybe a few things that have been used before in the series. As someone who thoroughly enjoys the Dead Rising series, the first two have standout tracks that I can competently say that I remember off the top of my head. This one doesn’t and I’m kind of disappointed, with the only track I even remember was a remix of Chuck’s theme for when he appears and I only noticed that when Brandon pointed that out. The soundtrack was apparently composed by the various likes of artists I’ve never heard before in my life such as: Celldweller, GIBS, Dave Genn, the accused Jeremy Soule and his brother and many others. Honestly I couldn’t remember a single track from the game other than maybe what plays in the pause menu or like certain stingers in cutscenes? There were like two tracks that played in the credits (one being Amo Americano by Gaston “Cenzi” Gabarro and the other one being some pop song sounding track) multiple times while waiting for them to end due to my buddy recording them for his channel and it was agonizing hearing only two songs repeating non-stop until the end. So music wise, I was kind of bored with this game to be honest.
The sound effects however for the most sound pretty damn good and punchy. Weapons sound like how they’re supposed to, with examples like the Acid Gun sounding smooth and liquidity to the Splitter gun having this metallic feeling that for some reason makes my a s shole pucker up with joy. Using vehicles in game sounds pretty great too, ESPECIALLY the combo vehicles like the Rollerhawg or the Party Slapper (the vehicle that sucks up zombies) that make this satisfying pop noise. I don’t really have anything bad to say about the audio design in terms of the weapons, vehicles, environment or anything in particular. I guess the only other familiar thing I could really point out is the voice acting, which for the most part is pretty decent. Andrew Lawrence as Nick Ramos plays the nervous and stuttering wreck who gets more confidence towards the end well while Daniel Roebuck sounds humorous as Gary, the apparently non-Italian sounding Italian gangster guy. If I were to say there was a specific voice performance I would say is the best it would probably be Arif S. Kinchen as Red, mainly because it just sounds so natural and charismatic. Everyone does a pretty decent job, nothing I could really go crazy for unless you count the Psychopath performances like Diane Delilo as the well endowed cop at the police station or Joe Egender as the stereotypical southern biker boss. Overall, the voice acting and the sound design is pretty solid.
Dead Rising 3 is what I consider to be the final culmination in the trilogy of Dead Rising, as they didn’t make a game past this point in my eyes. It’s not a perfect game by any means, but it’s the most easily accessible entry way into the series for curious onlookers of fans of the ideas that Dead Rising has to offer without the difficulty of the first game and the easier but still strenuous timer of the second game. In short, it’s dumbed down for the average consumer but it’s not without its own merits. In fact, I actually like how slow the timer is though that’s at the cost of wondering why they even put it in at all. Out of all the Dead Rising games, even though the first one is my favorite, this one is probably the one that I’ve played the most just due to this sheer ease of access. I eventually plan on writing up a review for Dead Rising 2: Case West and Case Zero before doing a final series recap on the piece of shit that ruined the franchise: Dead Rising 4. The future of Dead Rising after 3 was a murky one, with Capcom Vancouver becoming trapped in this never ending cycle of wanting to do new things. Pitches would go out for other titles such as a Dino Crisis game, a Ghost and Goblins reboot as well as their own attempts at IPs before being coerced into creating the dreaded DEAD RISING 4 after a gritty reboot “Last of Us” rival was shut down from Capcom, who disapproved of this turn from Dead Rising’s core (even with the approval of Microsoft themselves who approached them to begin with). This would ultimately result in the financial bankruptcy of the studio as well as the closure, which ended the legacy of Capcom Vancouver on a whimper, which I'll eventually go to later on. In the meantime, apologies for the late review and cheers to the end of 2023.
Links:
https://www.siliconera.com/capcom-vancouver-canceled-games-dino-crisis/
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadRising3
https://deadrising.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Rising_Wiki
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6glExmQadfY&ab_channel=DidYouKnowGaming
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
1999
This review contains spoilers
Dino Crisis is a dinosaur survival horror game developed by Capcom, and released for the Playstation 1, SEGA Dreamcast and Windows. Directed by Shinji Mikami of “Resident Evil” fame, along with a team dubbed “Capcom Production Studio 4, he apparently wanted to “move away from fantasy elements into something “more real”, and cited Jurassic Park and Aliens as influences” according to EDGE Magazine UK (71): 40–43. I’ll be honest this certainly isn’t past the realm of fantasy for zombies, so I’m not sure what he was going for with that as while dinosaurs are real, the plot brought them back to the then current time period using stuff that could possibly be in fantasy (will explain soon). I’m not sure where I first heard of Dino Crisis, but I know that everyone who knows survival horror and Resident Evil will be bound to know what Dino Crisis is since their lineage is so close, so joined by the hip to each other. A lot of the same people worked together, it has a similar love for closed off environments, fixed camera angles and a lack of supplies except it just has dinosaurs. I played this on the Playstation 3 digital store, as back then they threatened to close down the store permanently and I had a lot of spending money and lived with my parents during the COVID era. So I went on a spree, bought all the exclusives and games I could possibly want and this one was one of them. I haven’t touched a lot of these games since, still waiting for what the right time is to actually play them. This came about because every Saturday I stream a game for a friend of mine (the same one who I streamed Christmas Massacre, Kowloon’s Curse: Lost Report and Eternal Evil for) and this one was the next one on the list she chose. With that in mind, I dug into the world of old survival horror and completed my first actual old survival horror game ever (unless you count Blue Stinger as the oldest but who knows) and came out with thoughts.
The plot overall was something that I could honestly consider something between kinda memorable and good, but not really memorable enough to really do a plot recap on (at least for now, but what I’ll say is if you want a plot recap, the wikipedia page is below). The reason I’m kind of copping out here is that honestly, the story didn’t really pull me in that much sadly, other than the main lead (Regina) being charismatic and charming, having a distinct look and a playful attitude. Regina as a protagonist doesn’t have much of a backstory if at all, just a special forces lady going in and stomping shit out and that’s cool enough for me in this case. The only other three characters of note are Rick, Gail and Kirk. Rick feels like the stereotypical comic relief and didn’t really do much for me as a character sadly other than providing the “mission comes last, we gotta get out of here” routine. Gail has the no-nonsense “the mission comes first” attitude which was cool I guess, and had enough vague wording that there was potential for another “Albert Wesker” turn thing, with the vibe that he knows way more than he’s letting on. Kirk is the stereotypical mad scientist villain, with notes scattered around about his anti-social douchebag behavior and general love for crossing the ethics while others comment about possibly poisoning him and other such stuff. In fact, the main thing that pops out to me about the plot is “The Third Energy”, Kirk’s pet project where he I believe uses pockets of time as an energy source and an accident occurred, bringing the dinosaurs to the modern day (I could be misrepresenting this, my apologies if I did). This data on his unlimited energy source, which the government wanted to have as a potential weapon against their opponents. This is what made the mission high priority and ultimately I like the idea of The Third Energy. I guess my main thing is that while there are certain things that make it stick out, the whole package feels kind of shallow otherwise. Who knows, maybe I’m just a dummy idiot fuckface and maybe one day I’ll change my words and do a recap but at the moment that’s just how I feel.
The one thing I will give this game credit for is the multiple choice stuff, and the attitudes that the characters take between them. Regina is definitely in the middle between Gail’s and Rick’s vibe, so it’s kind of a perfect display of the dynamic between the three and could make any choice you do make feel realistic to the lead herself. This also factors into the endings, of which there are three, the third having two different variations (leave with Rick, follow Gail or go to the heliport AND then find Kirk independent I think? The guide I put down there is a lot better with explaining). I got the best ending, which has everyone escape alive with Kirk captured, and the mission ends with Kirk working under the government yet again while the agents are ready for the next mission. It wasn’t ground breaking and over the top as the more popular cousin Resident Evil, and I don’t really think that it’s meant to be persay. The game feels like what could be a summer blockbuster movie, with certain ideas and themes being present that make it memorable but you don’t remember much other than the lead and killing dinosaurs. That’s fine, not everything has to be this in depth lore drop that a lot of other games have. What I think this game is more notable for are the improvements to the “survival horror” formula, and fucking god are there some interesting yet personally divisive concepts.
You know, I’m not even joking when I say that this game definitely puts the SURVIVAL in survival horror because I was struggling throughout the entire game. As per the usual survival horror stuff, you have to balance your health and ammo reserves, making space in your inventory while solving puzzles and picking up items to progress to the next area. I’ll start with the dinosaurs as I went into this game blind to the AI behavior that Shinji and Capcom cooked up. These fuckers are smart compared to zombies, you can’t always gank them around tables or surfaces as they’ll jump on top of the tables and follow you from room to room (though I think only one room?) to take you out. Some of the encounters open with just finding them in a room but some of them include quick time events, which aren’t always common but they’re there. Luckily this you just tap a bunch of buttons really quickly and it’s fine, there’s no specific set of buttons that need to be pressed. Afterwards most times you’ll have the choice to run away or actually fight them. I always chose to run like a bitch due to the lack of ammo and their resilience, which can have mixed success considering their AI is a bit too effective.
They’re fast as hell and really goddamn hard to kill and as such with the limited amount of inventory space you have it’s more than likely that you won’t be able to kill more than one or two with whatever shotgun ammo you have. The pistol is mostly kind of useless and only good for whittling down the dino’s health before finishing it off with another weapon or as an extreme backup. I don’t remember all of the guns but I think it might just be those two and the grenade launcher, which you’ll only find much later in the game. You can also find custom weapon parts around the map (mostly behind locked cabinets) that you can fit onto your gun for I guess stats boosts. Keep in mind I played on normal difficulty, and with how the AI reacts compared to the movement speed and such I also had a difficult time getting headshots to kill any of them. The guide I used recommended that I mix a lot of “Resuscitation” and “AN. Dart L” to create poison darts and to stockpile them for later in the game. I didn’t do that and instead got my asshole stomped plenty of times so it’s probably recommended you do that but to each their own.
So what’s the mixing like in the game? Well there’s two different kinds of health items, the normal ones like medium health kits for example and stuff you can only use combined with other items (like Intensifiers and An. Aid). From here you can combine them to create all sorts of stuff from med kits that give you even more health to the aforementioned poison darts though it doesn’t seem like you can create any ammo sadly. Another item/mechanic they put into the game is Hemostat, which stops blood loss. That’s right, you can bleed out in this game and what makes it worse is that you’ll be more easily tracked by dinosaurs WHILE you’re bleeding out so you’ll need to either wait it out a bit or stop the bleeding as soon as possible. Where do you get these items? Randomly throughout the environment of course, though if you find a bunch of plugs you can unlock color coded “Emergency Boxes”, which also functions as the game’s storage box. You can unlock these boxes all over the base, though you can only access certain colored boxes items from the same color. For example, say you unlock a blue box on the first floor and put a ton of ammo in it; and then you go down to the basement and you find another blue box as well as a red box. You can unlock the blue box and switch between the two locations and grab your stuff back (as each location has their own inventory) but grabbing stuff from the red box is its own separate thing. The one thing I really didn’t care about Dino Crisis with is the complexity of such things, in fact the needless complexity of such things. I kind of find this system to be cool as a concept but a pain in the ass in other ways, and it’s the same thing with door codes.
I’ll go into door codes/puzzles in the same sort of breath: in order to unlock certain doors you need to find DDK Input Discs along with the Code Discs, oftentimes in separate locations. They all have certain letters attached to them (like D for example) so it’s easy-ish to recognize but there were a couple of times where I’ll admit I got frustrated with the needless complexity of it all. Once you gather these DDK whatever the fucks, you have to go up to the door and decipher a code based on a phrase and take certain letters and numbers out of it. They explain it well enough the first time but I’ll be honest, after a bit I just broke out a guide and cheated because I didn’t really feel like going through all of that. Is that on me? Yeah probably, I suck at puzzles and some of the puzzles here are a bit of a mixed variety. Some puzzles like the colored generator plug puzzles are simple to get ahold of, while others like the crane puzzles can be a bit of a pain in the ass to figure. Granted, again I did use a guide again for this (located below) and it only appears twice I believe but it wasn’t my favorite to try to figure out without it. Otherwise my experiences with the puzzles for the most part were fine, can’t say much about that because again I did use a guide for some parts.
The last bit of gameplay I want to go with are choices: through certain parts of the game you’ll be given a choice between Rick’s method or Gail’s method of doing things. These branching patterns offer different experiences in terms of accessing different rooms earlier, varying in which path is quicker or slower and luckily generally don’t affect much of anything other than that. That is until the very last choice in the game, whether to escape or to chase down the doctor. There’s two different choices between Rick and Gail, but the third/fourth option involves choosing one of them, going down to the Helipad and then running into the doctor around a certain location (not sure if it’s randomized or not). Doing certain endings will unlock certain costumes (like the military costume for example) that don’t offer much in the way of bonuses as far as I’m aware but different looks on newer playthroughs. If you beat the game under certain circumstances (apparently under 5 hours of playtime, under 3 saves OR 0 continues) then you should unlock Operation: Wipeout, a sort of minigame where you have to kill a bunch of dinosaurs. In my playthrough I did 0 continues and ALMOST under 5 hours and I thought I only had to do one of them, so I’m unsure if I’m missing something or if I have to do ALL of them in order to beat the game but I guess it’s a little thing that’s cool for the Dino Crisis experts ya know?
What’s to say about the graphical design of Dino Crisis? It debuted on old Playstation and Dreamcast hardware so of course I’m going to love the shit out of it. I love old graphics, I’m a weak ass bitch and I’m biased as hell towards it so I won’t complain in any way whatsoever about the models of the characters or the environment. In fact, a 3D rendered engine with real-time environments was used for the game and honestly It looks pretty damn good with that. Character models mainly consist of either scientist looking types, the main special forces characters and the dinosaurs (though Regina’s special outfits have a unique enough look that throws the atmosphere out of whack a bit and generally makes me giggle). The dinosaur models are honestly terrifying, they do a good job (along with their behavior and sound effects) of filling me with dread any time I see them just due to their size and how they looked.
If I were to complain about anything I guess I’d say that for pretty much all of the game you’ll mostly see metallic rooms, office spaces, warehouses and corporate structures along with science labs. That’s great and all, it certainly brings about a certain vibe that the game is going for but in all honesty sometimes I kind of wish they had more variation a bit. Apparently (according to "Dino Crisis". GamePro. No. 132. September 1999. pp. 48–50) there were plans for a jungle scene but the lack of super detailed environments and engine limitations forced that to go into the scrapyard, though we do see jungles in the sequel that came out a year later. Atmospherically wise they stuck with the claustrophobic indoors, and other than the criticism I had earlier I feel like that was a good call, with the ominous environmental cues with blood smeared on the walls and dead bodies contrasting with the oppressively empty metallic nature of the science base. Basically what I’m saying is even though it’s not always my cup of tea, it nails what it’s going for even if it’s not the most memorable environment to go through.
The audio portion of this game is something that I have no complaints about for the most part: the soundtracks are very orchestral with a lot of ominous noises droning, fast paced string sections and the usual safe room music that’s memorable to anyone who plays the game (shoutout to Set You at Ease). Composed by Sayaka Fujita, Makoto Tomozawa & Akari Kaida; I think that for the most part it fits in well with the bombastic and cinematic action-horror atmosphere that the game is going for. Other than the safe room music, nothing else comes to mind really in terms of the most memorable tracks for me personally though I did notice that “Where’s the Survivor” reminded me of a much better Resident Evil: Director’s Cut “Mansion Basement” due to the use of brass instruments. This isn’t a diss on the Dino Crisis track, I just remember hearing it and it instantly reminded me of the mansion basement theme. Either way, the soundtrack is good and I won’t complain. However, I do want to point out one last thing about it: Why the hell is the soundtrack able to be purchased on Steam but not the base game itself? I feel like that’s such a weird slap in the face, like you’ll probably get some money back if you remaster Dino Crisis right and put it on PC for everyone to purchase.
Voice acting is also pretty decent for the most part, sounding a lot better and more cohesive than the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 even if the dialogue sometimes isn’t the most stellar. Adrian Truss is solid as the no nonsense Gail (as well as douchebag mad scientist Kirk) and Stephanie Morgenstern is great as the playful yet effective main character Regina but honestly the main person that popped out to me was Richard Yearwood as Rick. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing (though I don’t think it’s the voice actor’s fault) because sometimes the way Rick delivers stuff is hilarious but other times he kind of sounds a bit whiny for me. Otherwise everyone else kind of just fits in place and that’s perfectly okay. Environmental audio design wise it’s pretty solid too from the clanking of walking on metal, the sounds of opening doors, and the weapon sounds are all pretty good (though the dart gun sounds a bit underwhelming but it’s a dart gun, what can you do?). The dinosaurs themselves also sound very threatening and honestly terrifying at times which is funny because in that same EDGE magazine article from above Shinji Mikami apparently was disappointed with the cries of the dinosaurs? I mean if their cries openly fill me with dread I don’t see why there’s disappointment but then again I didn’t create the game so who knows ya know?
Overall, Dino Crisis to me is one of those games whose history I can sit down and appreciate, a concept whose impact can’t be understated. A survival horror game with dinosaurs? What’s not to love? Everyone loves this game, and I hear calls all the time for remasters, ports and remakes of the original game in the vein of the Resident Evil remakes. However, I don’t particularly like this game. I don’t hate it, in fact I hate saying that I didn’t care about it but there were a lot of concepts that I honestly didn’t care for, from the batshit insane puzzle DDSK Key shit to the somewhat frustrating difficulty of the actual dinosaurs itself. I feel like an idiot writing this, someone who's missing a piece of the puzzle to enjoyment of this game. However, my experience is my experience and I don’t think I can rightly say that I’d sit down and come back to this in the future. I guess consider this review as more of a personal one than an attack on its overall quality, and at the end of the day I’ll still commend people who love and enjoy the series as well as hope that this game along with the rest of the series get the revival that the fans deserve.
As for what happened with the future of Capcom, a whole lot of shit that I can’t describe in just one paragraph without a whole ass essay. However, the legacy of Dino Crisis itself again can’t be understated: a sequel would come around in the next year, passing the Y2K crisis and into the new millenia for a new sort of vibe. They would also come out with a light gun spin-off game: Dino Stalker, which I don’t hear too many people take care of as well as the franchise killer: Dino Crisis 3, an Xbox Original exclusive which basically curb stomped the franchise (and which I played and can personally say that I hated the half hour I played of it). Since then, there’s been whisperings of revivals, remakes and all the like as well as a blue ball tease in the form of Exoprimal, which flopped hardcore after gaining the attention of the community due to one of the characters looking exactly like Regina. Hell, even indie horror games like Dinobreak, The Isle and Compound Fracture are really getting into the survival horror dinosaur market so there is a niche for dinosaur horror that needs to be scratched. Even though I wasn’t a particular fan of this game, for the sake of the rest of the fans I hope this series gets the revival it frankly deserves as well as efforts into preservation via ports to PC and current consoles though I know that won’t be happening any time soon. Either way, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of the fuckers out there.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNPr6EfyJIg&ab_channel=Kain%27sGamingChannel (Youtube Soundtrack)
https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/dino-crisis-original-soundtrack-1999 (Soundtrack Downloads)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1568800/Dino_Crisis_Original_Soundtrack/ (Soundtrack Steam Page)
https://dinocrisis.co.uk/walkthrough/section5.html (Guide I used)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino_Crisis_(video_game)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/197128-dino-crisis/cheats (Unlockables)
The plot overall was something that I could honestly consider something between kinda memorable and good, but not really memorable enough to really do a plot recap on (at least for now, but what I’ll say is if you want a plot recap, the wikipedia page is below). The reason I’m kind of copping out here is that honestly, the story didn’t really pull me in that much sadly, other than the main lead (Regina) being charismatic and charming, having a distinct look and a playful attitude. Regina as a protagonist doesn’t have much of a backstory if at all, just a special forces lady going in and stomping shit out and that’s cool enough for me in this case. The only other three characters of note are Rick, Gail and Kirk. Rick feels like the stereotypical comic relief and didn’t really do much for me as a character sadly other than providing the “mission comes last, we gotta get out of here” routine. Gail has the no-nonsense “the mission comes first” attitude which was cool I guess, and had enough vague wording that there was potential for another “Albert Wesker” turn thing, with the vibe that he knows way more than he’s letting on. Kirk is the stereotypical mad scientist villain, with notes scattered around about his anti-social douchebag behavior and general love for crossing the ethics while others comment about possibly poisoning him and other such stuff. In fact, the main thing that pops out to me about the plot is “The Third Energy”, Kirk’s pet project where he I believe uses pockets of time as an energy source and an accident occurred, bringing the dinosaurs to the modern day (I could be misrepresenting this, my apologies if I did). This data on his unlimited energy source, which the government wanted to have as a potential weapon against their opponents. This is what made the mission high priority and ultimately I like the idea of The Third Energy. I guess my main thing is that while there are certain things that make it stick out, the whole package feels kind of shallow otherwise. Who knows, maybe I’m just a dummy idiot fuckface and maybe one day I’ll change my words and do a recap but at the moment that’s just how I feel.
The one thing I will give this game credit for is the multiple choice stuff, and the attitudes that the characters take between them. Regina is definitely in the middle between Gail’s and Rick’s vibe, so it’s kind of a perfect display of the dynamic between the three and could make any choice you do make feel realistic to the lead herself. This also factors into the endings, of which there are three, the third having two different variations (leave with Rick, follow Gail or go to the heliport AND then find Kirk independent I think? The guide I put down there is a lot better with explaining). I got the best ending, which has everyone escape alive with Kirk captured, and the mission ends with Kirk working under the government yet again while the agents are ready for the next mission. It wasn’t ground breaking and over the top as the more popular cousin Resident Evil, and I don’t really think that it’s meant to be persay. The game feels like what could be a summer blockbuster movie, with certain ideas and themes being present that make it memorable but you don’t remember much other than the lead and killing dinosaurs. That’s fine, not everything has to be this in depth lore drop that a lot of other games have. What I think this game is more notable for are the improvements to the “survival horror” formula, and fucking god are there some interesting yet personally divisive concepts.
You know, I’m not even joking when I say that this game definitely puts the SURVIVAL in survival horror because I was struggling throughout the entire game. As per the usual survival horror stuff, you have to balance your health and ammo reserves, making space in your inventory while solving puzzles and picking up items to progress to the next area. I’ll start with the dinosaurs as I went into this game blind to the AI behavior that Shinji and Capcom cooked up. These fuckers are smart compared to zombies, you can’t always gank them around tables or surfaces as they’ll jump on top of the tables and follow you from room to room (though I think only one room?) to take you out. Some of the encounters open with just finding them in a room but some of them include quick time events, which aren’t always common but they’re there. Luckily this you just tap a bunch of buttons really quickly and it’s fine, there’s no specific set of buttons that need to be pressed. Afterwards most times you’ll have the choice to run away or actually fight them. I always chose to run like a bitch due to the lack of ammo and their resilience, which can have mixed success considering their AI is a bit too effective.
They’re fast as hell and really goddamn hard to kill and as such with the limited amount of inventory space you have it’s more than likely that you won’t be able to kill more than one or two with whatever shotgun ammo you have. The pistol is mostly kind of useless and only good for whittling down the dino’s health before finishing it off with another weapon or as an extreme backup. I don’t remember all of the guns but I think it might just be those two and the grenade launcher, which you’ll only find much later in the game. You can also find custom weapon parts around the map (mostly behind locked cabinets) that you can fit onto your gun for I guess stats boosts. Keep in mind I played on normal difficulty, and with how the AI reacts compared to the movement speed and such I also had a difficult time getting headshots to kill any of them. The guide I used recommended that I mix a lot of “Resuscitation” and “AN. Dart L” to create poison darts and to stockpile them for later in the game. I didn’t do that and instead got my asshole stomped plenty of times so it’s probably recommended you do that but to each their own.
So what’s the mixing like in the game? Well there’s two different kinds of health items, the normal ones like medium health kits for example and stuff you can only use combined with other items (like Intensifiers and An. Aid). From here you can combine them to create all sorts of stuff from med kits that give you even more health to the aforementioned poison darts though it doesn’t seem like you can create any ammo sadly. Another item/mechanic they put into the game is Hemostat, which stops blood loss. That’s right, you can bleed out in this game and what makes it worse is that you’ll be more easily tracked by dinosaurs WHILE you’re bleeding out so you’ll need to either wait it out a bit or stop the bleeding as soon as possible. Where do you get these items? Randomly throughout the environment of course, though if you find a bunch of plugs you can unlock color coded “Emergency Boxes”, which also functions as the game’s storage box. You can unlock these boxes all over the base, though you can only access certain colored boxes items from the same color. For example, say you unlock a blue box on the first floor and put a ton of ammo in it; and then you go down to the basement and you find another blue box as well as a red box. You can unlock the blue box and switch between the two locations and grab your stuff back (as each location has their own inventory) but grabbing stuff from the red box is its own separate thing. The one thing I really didn’t care about Dino Crisis with is the complexity of such things, in fact the needless complexity of such things. I kind of find this system to be cool as a concept but a pain in the ass in other ways, and it’s the same thing with door codes.
I’ll go into door codes/puzzles in the same sort of breath: in order to unlock certain doors you need to find DDK Input Discs along with the Code Discs, oftentimes in separate locations. They all have certain letters attached to them (like D for example) so it’s easy-ish to recognize but there were a couple of times where I’ll admit I got frustrated with the needless complexity of it all. Once you gather these DDK whatever the fucks, you have to go up to the door and decipher a code based on a phrase and take certain letters and numbers out of it. They explain it well enough the first time but I’ll be honest, after a bit I just broke out a guide and cheated because I didn’t really feel like going through all of that. Is that on me? Yeah probably, I suck at puzzles and some of the puzzles here are a bit of a mixed variety. Some puzzles like the colored generator plug puzzles are simple to get ahold of, while others like the crane puzzles can be a bit of a pain in the ass to figure. Granted, again I did use a guide again for this (located below) and it only appears twice I believe but it wasn’t my favorite to try to figure out without it. Otherwise my experiences with the puzzles for the most part were fine, can’t say much about that because again I did use a guide for some parts.
The last bit of gameplay I want to go with are choices: through certain parts of the game you’ll be given a choice between Rick’s method or Gail’s method of doing things. These branching patterns offer different experiences in terms of accessing different rooms earlier, varying in which path is quicker or slower and luckily generally don’t affect much of anything other than that. That is until the very last choice in the game, whether to escape or to chase down the doctor. There’s two different choices between Rick and Gail, but the third/fourth option involves choosing one of them, going down to the Helipad and then running into the doctor around a certain location (not sure if it’s randomized or not). Doing certain endings will unlock certain costumes (like the military costume for example) that don’t offer much in the way of bonuses as far as I’m aware but different looks on newer playthroughs. If you beat the game under certain circumstances (apparently under 5 hours of playtime, under 3 saves OR 0 continues) then you should unlock Operation: Wipeout, a sort of minigame where you have to kill a bunch of dinosaurs. In my playthrough I did 0 continues and ALMOST under 5 hours and I thought I only had to do one of them, so I’m unsure if I’m missing something or if I have to do ALL of them in order to beat the game but I guess it’s a little thing that’s cool for the Dino Crisis experts ya know?
What’s to say about the graphical design of Dino Crisis? It debuted on old Playstation and Dreamcast hardware so of course I’m going to love the shit out of it. I love old graphics, I’m a weak ass bitch and I’m biased as hell towards it so I won’t complain in any way whatsoever about the models of the characters or the environment. In fact, a 3D rendered engine with real-time environments was used for the game and honestly It looks pretty damn good with that. Character models mainly consist of either scientist looking types, the main special forces characters and the dinosaurs (though Regina’s special outfits have a unique enough look that throws the atmosphere out of whack a bit and generally makes me giggle). The dinosaur models are honestly terrifying, they do a good job (along with their behavior and sound effects) of filling me with dread any time I see them just due to their size and how they looked.
If I were to complain about anything I guess I’d say that for pretty much all of the game you’ll mostly see metallic rooms, office spaces, warehouses and corporate structures along with science labs. That’s great and all, it certainly brings about a certain vibe that the game is going for but in all honesty sometimes I kind of wish they had more variation a bit. Apparently (according to "Dino Crisis". GamePro. No. 132. September 1999. pp. 48–50) there were plans for a jungle scene but the lack of super detailed environments and engine limitations forced that to go into the scrapyard, though we do see jungles in the sequel that came out a year later. Atmospherically wise they stuck with the claustrophobic indoors, and other than the criticism I had earlier I feel like that was a good call, with the ominous environmental cues with blood smeared on the walls and dead bodies contrasting with the oppressively empty metallic nature of the science base. Basically what I’m saying is even though it’s not always my cup of tea, it nails what it’s going for even if it’s not the most memorable environment to go through.
The audio portion of this game is something that I have no complaints about for the most part: the soundtracks are very orchestral with a lot of ominous noises droning, fast paced string sections and the usual safe room music that’s memorable to anyone who plays the game (shoutout to Set You at Ease). Composed by Sayaka Fujita, Makoto Tomozawa & Akari Kaida; I think that for the most part it fits in well with the bombastic and cinematic action-horror atmosphere that the game is going for. Other than the safe room music, nothing else comes to mind really in terms of the most memorable tracks for me personally though I did notice that “Where’s the Survivor” reminded me of a much better Resident Evil: Director’s Cut “Mansion Basement” due to the use of brass instruments. This isn’t a diss on the Dino Crisis track, I just remember hearing it and it instantly reminded me of the mansion basement theme. Either way, the soundtrack is good and I won’t complain. However, I do want to point out one last thing about it: Why the hell is the soundtrack able to be purchased on Steam but not the base game itself? I feel like that’s such a weird slap in the face, like you’ll probably get some money back if you remaster Dino Crisis right and put it on PC for everyone to purchase.
Voice acting is also pretty decent for the most part, sounding a lot better and more cohesive than the original Resident Evil and Resident Evil 2 even if the dialogue sometimes isn’t the most stellar. Adrian Truss is solid as the no nonsense Gail (as well as douchebag mad scientist Kirk) and Stephanie Morgenstern is great as the playful yet effective main character Regina but honestly the main person that popped out to me was Richard Yearwood as Rick. I’m not sure if that’s a good or a bad thing (though I don’t think it’s the voice actor’s fault) because sometimes the way Rick delivers stuff is hilarious but other times he kind of sounds a bit whiny for me. Otherwise everyone else kind of just fits in place and that’s perfectly okay. Environmental audio design wise it’s pretty solid too from the clanking of walking on metal, the sounds of opening doors, and the weapon sounds are all pretty good (though the dart gun sounds a bit underwhelming but it’s a dart gun, what can you do?). The dinosaurs themselves also sound very threatening and honestly terrifying at times which is funny because in that same EDGE magazine article from above Shinji Mikami apparently was disappointed with the cries of the dinosaurs? I mean if their cries openly fill me with dread I don’t see why there’s disappointment but then again I didn’t create the game so who knows ya know?
Overall, Dino Crisis to me is one of those games whose history I can sit down and appreciate, a concept whose impact can’t be understated. A survival horror game with dinosaurs? What’s not to love? Everyone loves this game, and I hear calls all the time for remasters, ports and remakes of the original game in the vein of the Resident Evil remakes. However, I don’t particularly like this game. I don’t hate it, in fact I hate saying that I didn’t care about it but there were a lot of concepts that I honestly didn’t care for, from the batshit insane puzzle DDSK Key shit to the somewhat frustrating difficulty of the actual dinosaurs itself. I feel like an idiot writing this, someone who's missing a piece of the puzzle to enjoyment of this game. However, my experience is my experience and I don’t think I can rightly say that I’d sit down and come back to this in the future. I guess consider this review as more of a personal one than an attack on its overall quality, and at the end of the day I’ll still commend people who love and enjoy the series as well as hope that this game along with the rest of the series get the revival that the fans deserve.
As for what happened with the future of Capcom, a whole lot of shit that I can’t describe in just one paragraph without a whole ass essay. However, the legacy of Dino Crisis itself again can’t be understated: a sequel would come around in the next year, passing the Y2K crisis and into the new millenia for a new sort of vibe. They would also come out with a light gun spin-off game: Dino Stalker, which I don’t hear too many people take care of as well as the franchise killer: Dino Crisis 3, an Xbox Original exclusive which basically curb stomped the franchise (and which I played and can personally say that I hated the half hour I played of it). Since then, there’s been whisperings of revivals, remakes and all the like as well as a blue ball tease in the form of Exoprimal, which flopped hardcore after gaining the attention of the community due to one of the characters looking exactly like Regina. Hell, even indie horror games like Dinobreak, The Isle and Compound Fracture are really getting into the survival horror dinosaur market so there is a niche for dinosaur horror that needs to be scratched. Even though I wasn’t a particular fan of this game, for the sake of the rest of the fans I hope this series gets the revival it frankly deserves as well as efforts into preservation via ports to PC and current consoles though I know that won’t be happening any time soon. Either way, Merry Christmas and Happy Holidays to all of the fuckers out there.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zNPr6EfyJIg&ab_channel=Kain%27sGamingChannel (Youtube Soundtrack)
https://downloads.khinsider.com/game-soundtracks/album/dino-crisis-original-soundtrack-1999 (Soundtrack Downloads)
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1568800/Dino_Crisis_Original_Soundtrack/ (Soundtrack Steam Page)
https://dinocrisis.co.uk/walkthrough/section5.html (Guide I used)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dino_Crisis_(video_game)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/ps/197128-dino-crisis/cheats (Unlockables)
2020
Empire of Sin is a turn-based tactical/empire building “gabagool” simulator developed by Romero Games, a studio created by DOOM creator John Romero. Originally coming from the mind of John Romero’s wife Brenda Romero, whose hobbies included creating her own historical board games. This desire to create the game had lasted for around twenty years, and after the studio was formed the two then decided to approach Paradox Interactive, whose history of publishing strategy titles led to a partnership formed for the development of this game. It’s debut started I believe in 2019 E3 during the Nintendo Showcase (according to sources, as though I probably watched this showcase I don’t remember this moment) and was later released December of 2020. My personal history with this game is limited, I honestly don’t remember if I watched the Nintendo Showcase but I do remember hearing “Mafia strategy game” and wishlisting it immediately. I was cautiously excited for the game, hoping that it would be an updated version of Gangsters: Organized Crime. It was not, and debuted with Mixed reviews (almost negative on Steam). However, I picked it up after waiting for it to go on sale I believe at some point and gave it a playthrough (with cheats activated of course, thanks WeMod) to just relax, having replayed it twice or so over the past two years. My opinion on the game is that the mixed reviews are correct, but here’s how I specifically feel.
The plot to Empire of Sin is a very simple one, it depends strictly on the boss you choose and their backstory. For example,. Al Capone’s campaign has a whole bit involving his old buddy Frankie Yale coming from New York and their tumultuous friendship. Angelo Genna has him taking care of his psychotic brother who only causes problems for him. One thing I will note is that the bosses you choose are an amalgamation of gangsters from both other locations in the same-ish era (ex. Dion O’ Bannion from Chicago, Stephanie St. Clair from Harlem, Elvira Duarte aka John Romero's Great Grandma I think?, etc.) to I believe fictional ones (Goldie Garneau). The second half of the game has to do with corrupt Bureau agents and a political war between a socialite with powerful connections and contention with the police chief. It’s not bad but the very basic gist of the game is to just take over the map anyways, which brings me to the ultimate part: the gameplay.
As the most important part of any tactical empire builder game, it’s important to note that the strategy aspect of the game has to be both fun and technically competent. I’ll start with the technically competent one: ehhhh kinda. Sometimes it runs perfectly fine and I can’t complain! Other times, like when I was playing Al Capone’s game, I would be told to, for example, go find Frankie Yale inside of some bar. However, I can’t do that because “the guards” won’t let me do that. I try to talk to the guards, sometimes the guards will attack and sometimes I’ll be able to talk to the guards, who will say “sure come in” and then I still won’t be able to go in. I kill them, still won’t be able to come in. The only way I’ve been able to move past this was if I were to view the inside of the building and then right click to move my guys inside but that’s kind of a hit or miss depending on the objective. Another time I would do a protection treaty with another group, and if another group was bought out but had bad relations and had declared war then the group you’re protecting would ask for your help. Click on the notification and not only does it say that this group is still alive and needs your help, but you won’t be able to close this pop up which requires a full game reset. Stuff like this didn’t occur too much but occurred enough to where after a while of playing it that I need to take a break after a bit.
As for if the gameplay is fun, I’ll go through a general description of what the game is like. First when you start up, you start as your boss and go through the tutorials of hiring specific goons (the limit is 16), from there you go to certain buildings which have random thugs and wipe them out in X-COM styled combat in order to take over the building and turn it into a racket. From there you choose between your four (or five depending on if you have DLC) rackets which vary in price depending on district conditions, and from there you grow your money in order to upgrade your rackets. Once you upgrade your main district hideout enough, you can choose between multiple different buildings for bonuses to those districts (ex. Boxing Gloves for an extra guard in that district only, a Mob Lawyer to lower police presence, etc). You can gain more of these by obtaining certain quest awards or using certain bosses (like Malting will boost your booze but can only be unlocked from a side quest outcome, or Al Capone’s Suit Shop which will boost the chances of police bribes being successful that’s unique to him only). You’ll get quests which offer semi open ended pathways which lead to different rewards sometimes (mostly money) while also dealing with a giant contention of other rival gangsters. Your specific gangsters (as well as your boss) form their own relationships with each other (off-screen) and can get perks and traits. For example, one thing I didn’t notice is that when I went AFK one time, I left all my people inside of a pub, where a whole bunch of them became alcoholics and gained negative traits. You can also gain traits and perks due to combat actions, and using perk points can upgrade their skill tree when you level them up.
In between dealing with rival gangsters, you’ll also have to deal with the game’s most important currency other than money: booze. Being the Prohibition Era and all, it’s important to establish a consistent stream of booze and supply. Different types of booze lead to different payouts and outcomes, but also lead to rival bosses trying to ride your s h i t. What I’ll say about the bosses aspect is that the way the game limits you, while it may be realistic can also be really annoying. At one point I found out the location of a rival boss's hideout, and I wanted to send a bunch of goons to go in and kill them, but I couldn’t because none of my territory surrounds them and “supply lines are cut off”. Like that hasn’t stopped people from sending in hitmen to kill bosses, and truth is I’d rather have the option to fail then get restricted like that because it’s really annoying. The only other things I can think of for the gameplay is that you’ll get certain weapons either as loot or through the black market/police contacts. It’s important to get the best hardware that you can possibly get as not only does it help with combat but also rival named goons could have really heavy firepower and could wipe you out quickly. Being a strategy game, there’s so much stuff involved with this game, between police attention/bureau raids as well as balancing diplomacy, random world events, there’s a lot of stuff in there that I know I’m probably missing.
The gameplay itself for the most part is fine, and I’ve gotten myself lost in the game’s mechanics multiple times. I personally had fun with the game, though I also messed about using WeMod Dev cheats because I wanted to have a game to chill and vibe too. However, even with the cheat codes, I can still sit there and respect certain aspects and vibes even if I’m not experiencing them due to my cheating. This game feels like a strange mix of complex and painfully simple, which depending on the type of player can be really frustrating or okay. Overall, it’s a decent time as well as a time sink, just have patience with how buggy it can be on the gameplay front at times. Also there's a very small Steam Workshop community that I Hope eventually gets expanded one day because that could add for some variation!
The audio to the game for the most part is fine, it’s not a super crazy atmosphere audio wise. The music I’ve noticed (or haven’t noticed) isn’t really there, but when it is it consists of old timey jazz stuff and whatnot. For the most part you’ll be hearing certain sound effects over and over: the chatter of the city, honking horns, etc. If I were to give praise to any of the audio design I’d say that the weapons sound pretty damn good, ESPECIALLY when someone breaks out a sniper rifle or a rifle of some kind, it just has that oomph, the impact if you will. Voice acting is barely there too other than the boss characters and the taxi driver for the most part. The voice acting jobs aren’t bad, they don’t take me out of the moment so I can’t complain but there isn’t really anything that pops up and makes me say “WOW” or anything you know? Overall, the audio stuff is serviceable and that’s ok.
Graphically I’ll say that the game is perfectly fine for the whole current/next gen era; everything for the most part looks smooth with details, or at least with as much detail as you can see from the top down. I think the only real criticism I can give in terms of the graphical fidelity is when you quit from the top down perspective and you start to go to the in-person meetings and the taxi cutscenes in the beginning and the end of the game. There’s something about the character models that just feel uncanny, which I can say varies from the lifeless eyes that the characters can have to the strange lack of facial movement. I’m not saying that this game needs Last of Us styled motion capture but playing as say Al Capone and talking to another boss and he just emotes like a muppet or something and it just feels strange. As for the atmosphere, I’ll give the game credit a lot more with this because it definitely screams the Roaring 20s pretty damn well with period matching clothing, weapons, slang and all that good shit that I can appreciate pretty damn well, and it again really fills that Boardwalk Empire feeling that I’ve been desperately craving. It’s not the most overwhelmingly crazy thing that I could go in depth into but it’s good set dressing.
Empire of Sin as a game however is kind of hard to recommend: it has a lot of the foundation that could make for a really interesting gangster strategy game from the combat potential to the overworld. However the game both feels like it has a lot of unseen potential as well as the fact that it’s honestly kind of a glitchy mess with a lot of the stuff. If I were to wrap up the review with one sentence, it’s that the mixed reviews that the game has really kind of fits. Every time I play this game I get some personal satisfaction out of it, filling my Prohibition era “Boardwalk Empire” fix that I desperately need every now and then; but I also get really frustrated with both the lack of depth and having to reload my save every five seconds because a part of the game decides to break. It’s gone to a point where I’ll still play the game, but I’ll play the game with cheats on only just because I’ll have more of a relaxing and fun experience with it. As for the price, I would only recommend it if you were to get it on sale and have a lot of patience with the technical state of the game. Historically as well, I’ve looked into other reviews of the game where I’ve heard stuff about promised DLC not being released with the expansion pack which I also think is a damn shame and if the game was just thrown under the rug like that, don’t ask people to pay for stuff and then you don’t deliver cause that’s bitch shit.
Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be a future for this game and that’s a shame, mainly because it seems that Romero Games has abandoned the title and moved onto creating both SIGIL 2 (a sequel to the unofficial DOOM episode and released for DOOM 2) as well as starting development on some unknown triple A first person shooter. Regardless, it seems that first person shooters are the main bread and butter and that this game will be left in the dust which is sad but not surprising. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get the Gangsters remake that we deserve but I guess for now if you’re looking for an actual strategy gangster game you can try for Omerta: City of Gangsters or go for the original Gangsters game on GOG. As for me, I’ll still give this game a spin every now and then with cheats, but just with the caveat that the game is extremely flawed and that I play this to kill time or when my Boardwalk Empire Youtube Clip addiction comes back.
Links:
https://www.destructoid.com/empire-of-sin-is-a-dream-game-for-john-and-brenda-romero/
https://www.engadget.com/2019-06-14-empire-of-sin-e3-demo.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqC0Pp6V6oc&ab_channel=ParadoxInteractive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjxT-iPFCgM&list=PL4hR-M4rl7udGYKCP2q0sgwMg1rxtLzAH&index=15&ab_channel=ParadoxExtra
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EmpireOfSin
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot to Empire of Sin is a very simple one, it depends strictly on the boss you choose and their backstory. For example,. Al Capone’s campaign has a whole bit involving his old buddy Frankie Yale coming from New York and their tumultuous friendship. Angelo Genna has him taking care of his psychotic brother who only causes problems for him. One thing I will note is that the bosses you choose are an amalgamation of gangsters from both other locations in the same-ish era (ex. Dion O’ Bannion from Chicago, Stephanie St. Clair from Harlem, Elvira Duarte aka John Romero's Great Grandma I think?, etc.) to I believe fictional ones (Goldie Garneau). The second half of the game has to do with corrupt Bureau agents and a political war between a socialite with powerful connections and contention with the police chief. It’s not bad but the very basic gist of the game is to just take over the map anyways, which brings me to the ultimate part: the gameplay.
As the most important part of any tactical empire builder game, it’s important to note that the strategy aspect of the game has to be both fun and technically competent. I’ll start with the technically competent one: ehhhh kinda. Sometimes it runs perfectly fine and I can’t complain! Other times, like when I was playing Al Capone’s game, I would be told to, for example, go find Frankie Yale inside of some bar. However, I can’t do that because “the guards” won’t let me do that. I try to talk to the guards, sometimes the guards will attack and sometimes I’ll be able to talk to the guards, who will say “sure come in” and then I still won’t be able to go in. I kill them, still won’t be able to come in. The only way I’ve been able to move past this was if I were to view the inside of the building and then right click to move my guys inside but that’s kind of a hit or miss depending on the objective. Another time I would do a protection treaty with another group, and if another group was bought out but had bad relations and had declared war then the group you’re protecting would ask for your help. Click on the notification and not only does it say that this group is still alive and needs your help, but you won’t be able to close this pop up which requires a full game reset. Stuff like this didn’t occur too much but occurred enough to where after a while of playing it that I need to take a break after a bit.
As for if the gameplay is fun, I’ll go through a general description of what the game is like. First when you start up, you start as your boss and go through the tutorials of hiring specific goons (the limit is 16), from there you go to certain buildings which have random thugs and wipe them out in X-COM styled combat in order to take over the building and turn it into a racket. From there you choose between your four (or five depending on if you have DLC) rackets which vary in price depending on district conditions, and from there you grow your money in order to upgrade your rackets. Once you upgrade your main district hideout enough, you can choose between multiple different buildings for bonuses to those districts (ex. Boxing Gloves for an extra guard in that district only, a Mob Lawyer to lower police presence, etc). You can gain more of these by obtaining certain quest awards or using certain bosses (like Malting will boost your booze but can only be unlocked from a side quest outcome, or Al Capone’s Suit Shop which will boost the chances of police bribes being successful that’s unique to him only). You’ll get quests which offer semi open ended pathways which lead to different rewards sometimes (mostly money) while also dealing with a giant contention of other rival gangsters. Your specific gangsters (as well as your boss) form their own relationships with each other (off-screen) and can get perks and traits. For example, one thing I didn’t notice is that when I went AFK one time, I left all my people inside of a pub, where a whole bunch of them became alcoholics and gained negative traits. You can also gain traits and perks due to combat actions, and using perk points can upgrade their skill tree when you level them up.
In between dealing with rival gangsters, you’ll also have to deal with the game’s most important currency other than money: booze. Being the Prohibition Era and all, it’s important to establish a consistent stream of booze and supply. Different types of booze lead to different payouts and outcomes, but also lead to rival bosses trying to ride your s h i t. What I’ll say about the bosses aspect is that the way the game limits you, while it may be realistic can also be really annoying. At one point I found out the location of a rival boss's hideout, and I wanted to send a bunch of goons to go in and kill them, but I couldn’t because none of my territory surrounds them and “supply lines are cut off”. Like that hasn’t stopped people from sending in hitmen to kill bosses, and truth is I’d rather have the option to fail then get restricted like that because it’s really annoying. The only other things I can think of for the gameplay is that you’ll get certain weapons either as loot or through the black market/police contacts. It’s important to get the best hardware that you can possibly get as not only does it help with combat but also rival named goons could have really heavy firepower and could wipe you out quickly. Being a strategy game, there’s so much stuff involved with this game, between police attention/bureau raids as well as balancing diplomacy, random world events, there’s a lot of stuff in there that I know I’m probably missing.
The gameplay itself for the most part is fine, and I’ve gotten myself lost in the game’s mechanics multiple times. I personally had fun with the game, though I also messed about using WeMod Dev cheats because I wanted to have a game to chill and vibe too. However, even with the cheat codes, I can still sit there and respect certain aspects and vibes even if I’m not experiencing them due to my cheating. This game feels like a strange mix of complex and painfully simple, which depending on the type of player can be really frustrating or okay. Overall, it’s a decent time as well as a time sink, just have patience with how buggy it can be on the gameplay front at times. Also there's a very small Steam Workshop community that I Hope eventually gets expanded one day because that could add for some variation!
The audio to the game for the most part is fine, it’s not a super crazy atmosphere audio wise. The music I’ve noticed (or haven’t noticed) isn’t really there, but when it is it consists of old timey jazz stuff and whatnot. For the most part you’ll be hearing certain sound effects over and over: the chatter of the city, honking horns, etc. If I were to give praise to any of the audio design I’d say that the weapons sound pretty damn good, ESPECIALLY when someone breaks out a sniper rifle or a rifle of some kind, it just has that oomph, the impact if you will. Voice acting is barely there too other than the boss characters and the taxi driver for the most part. The voice acting jobs aren’t bad, they don’t take me out of the moment so I can’t complain but there isn’t really anything that pops up and makes me say “WOW” or anything you know? Overall, the audio stuff is serviceable and that’s ok.
Graphically I’ll say that the game is perfectly fine for the whole current/next gen era; everything for the most part looks smooth with details, or at least with as much detail as you can see from the top down. I think the only real criticism I can give in terms of the graphical fidelity is when you quit from the top down perspective and you start to go to the in-person meetings and the taxi cutscenes in the beginning and the end of the game. There’s something about the character models that just feel uncanny, which I can say varies from the lifeless eyes that the characters can have to the strange lack of facial movement. I’m not saying that this game needs Last of Us styled motion capture but playing as say Al Capone and talking to another boss and he just emotes like a muppet or something and it just feels strange. As for the atmosphere, I’ll give the game credit a lot more with this because it definitely screams the Roaring 20s pretty damn well with period matching clothing, weapons, slang and all that good shit that I can appreciate pretty damn well, and it again really fills that Boardwalk Empire feeling that I’ve been desperately craving. It’s not the most overwhelmingly crazy thing that I could go in depth into but it’s good set dressing.
Empire of Sin as a game however is kind of hard to recommend: it has a lot of the foundation that could make for a really interesting gangster strategy game from the combat potential to the overworld. However the game both feels like it has a lot of unseen potential as well as the fact that it’s honestly kind of a glitchy mess with a lot of the stuff. If I were to wrap up the review with one sentence, it’s that the mixed reviews that the game has really kind of fits. Every time I play this game I get some personal satisfaction out of it, filling my Prohibition era “Boardwalk Empire” fix that I desperately need every now and then; but I also get really frustrated with both the lack of depth and having to reload my save every five seconds because a part of the game decides to break. It’s gone to a point where I’ll still play the game, but I’ll play the game with cheats on only just because I’ll have more of a relaxing and fun experience with it. As for the price, I would only recommend it if you were to get it on sale and have a lot of patience with the technical state of the game. Historically as well, I’ve looked into other reviews of the game where I’ve heard stuff about promised DLC not being released with the expansion pack which I also think is a damn shame and if the game was just thrown under the rug like that, don’t ask people to pay for stuff and then you don’t deliver cause that’s bitch shit.
Other than that, there doesn’t seem to be a future for this game and that’s a shame, mainly because it seems that Romero Games has abandoned the title and moved onto creating both SIGIL 2 (a sequel to the unofficial DOOM episode and released for DOOM 2) as well as starting development on some unknown triple A first person shooter. Regardless, it seems that first person shooters are the main bread and butter and that this game will be left in the dust which is sad but not surprising. Who knows, maybe one day we’ll get the Gangsters remake that we deserve but I guess for now if you’re looking for an actual strategy gangster game you can try for Omerta: City of Gangsters or go for the original Gangsters game on GOG. As for me, I’ll still give this game a spin every now and then with cheats, but just with the caveat that the game is extremely flawed and that I play this to kill time or when my Boardwalk Empire Youtube Clip addiction comes back.
Links:
https://www.destructoid.com/empire-of-sin-is-a-dream-game-for-john-and-brenda-romero/
https://www.engadget.com/2019-06-14-empire-of-sin-e3-demo.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YqC0Pp6V6oc&ab_channel=ParadoxInteractive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tjxT-iPFCgM&list=PL4hR-M4rl7udGYKCP2q0sgwMg1rxtLzAH&index=15&ab_channel=ParadoxExtra
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/EmpireOfSin
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Arrest of a Stone Buddha is a side scroller "lonely hitman" simulator developed by yeo, whose previous game before this was The Friends of Ringo Ishikawa. I’m not sure what the dev time was like on this game per say; however, my history with the game came from seeing it on a buddy's wishlist around Christmas in 2020. I didn’t know who yeo was before this, nor his other games in development. Influenced by the likes of French New Wave (Jean-Pierre Melville and Louis Malle) and Hong Kong Action (John Woo), I was heavily intrigued and wanted to try it; and with my birthday recently coming around my buddy Regent got me copies of this title and Ringo, so I decided to give this game a run and I have my thoughts.
The plot is a minimalist one: you play as a French hitman whose name is unknown as goes through the motions killing people and escaping. From here, it delves into conversations with his employer where they small talk life, after which you roam the streets of France wasting time before the next job, rinse and repeat over a month's time. I’m about to go “pretentious movie critic” here but between the emptiness/monotony of the open world segments, the lack of dialogue, the insomniac hitman; it’s just a journey of someone who's depressed with no direction in life, who doesn’t feel alive unless he’s on a job. In between jobs the guy just watches movies, gets clothes, drinks, picks up meds and visits his girlfriend and/or the museum. Even with a high octane life he has nothing, so the question is this: What is the purpose? Is there any? For this guy it’s just trying to distract himself, though eventually it comes to a close in the final scene, where you’re forced to hold a gun to your head and you have one or two choices: Pull the trigger or don’t. I didn’t and it ended with the hitman sobbing, living another day but what his life is after that is unknown.
While I’m sure a lot of art film fans will get a kick out of the post-modern display of being a miserable hitman, watching as time wastes away and only getting a kick out of jobs, the actual gunplay itself can be a miserable kick in the teeth. See the whole concept revolves around moving in one direction as goons with guns attempt to approach you and kill you. You walk at a slow pace, almost nonchalant and uncaring, as you let off rounds that take dudes down coming at you at max speed. What happens if you run out of bullets though? Do you pick guns up off the ground? No, you have to disarm them. See the combat feels like a randomized rogue-like puzzle of sorts: each run is randomized so sometimes they’ll get really close and sometimes they’ll hang back a bit as you slowly walk towards them and pray to god you don’t die trying to disarm them. Enemy spawns are random so don’t expect to master the game as much as flow with it and you have to both balance the amount of shots you have, the potential distance that they’ll get to you, and when they’re going to fire from both directions. The only real movements you can make in combat are to move left, right, duck, disarm and shoot. I had used the controller (with RB to hold up the gun, X to shoot, Y to Disarm as your main controls other than thumbsticks and the pause/select buttons) as the keyboard setup didn’t jive with me as much.
Most importantly, you’ll need quick reaction times. This is easier said than done balancing all of this PLUS your personal animations. Sometimes you’ll smoothly double tap everyone and it feels slick, while sometimes I’ve noticed instead of moving left or right that I’d get stuck mid-animation (you can do the arm cross shooting from action movies) instead of moving straight in a direction that I could never really react fast enough to disarm certain enemies and this would cost me time and I’d get shot. The game also has some glitches and/or hang ups that I didn’t appreciate in the slightest: when I was on the last level of the Yacht job, I had enemies who wouldn’t spawn into the map and would just hang out behind the invisible wall at the very beginning or very end of the level. If you had killed everyone before leaving except this guy AND had run out of ammo, it’s a guaranteed basic restart. A much more rare problem was that sometimes when I had brought a shotgun to the next screen, the game wouldn’t let me hold it up and shoot it while other times it did which isn’t a huge problem because I can disarm others but it was kind of annoying.
Overall keep in mind, YOU WILL DIE in this game and every difficulty should be considered hard. The three enemy types (and the only ones) you’ll be facing are the pistol goons, the shotgun goons and the rifle goons; the pistol and shotgun are the only weapons you’ll get as the rifle ones stay as far away from you as humanly possible and will always move away. I’d complain and say I’d like more weapon variation, but with how the game operates (such as enemies for 98% of the time waiting a bit before firing at you), the last thing I need is a machine gun or something high powered to kill me instantly. In its base form while difficult, it was also honestly kind of addicting to go for run after run even with hangups.
The Art Direction/Sound Direction follows along with the plot nicely. Graphically it’s an 8-bit sidescroller, but the atmosphere surrounding it is astounding. Reflecting off of the depressing nature of the hits, you’ll mostly see grays and washed out colors during your times roaming in France while on the jobs you’ll see a lot more colors and environmental variation which fits into the “I only feel alive killing people” mini-narrative they have going on. These backgrounds by Artem “Wedmak2” Belov go hard with the set dressing, with my favorite of them all being the autumn forest near the end of the game as something I would just get lost in.
The sound design is solid as well; there isn’t much in the way of it however. The gun sounds from the pistol and shotgun are impactful and sound phenomenal, straight out of an action movie almost with how powerful it is while the rifle sounds irritating, which really formulates how both afraid I was and how frustrating it gets during gameplay as well. As for the soundtrack: the soundtrack is done by a guy named “danny spider solitaire” mixed in with some royalty free tracks (both links below) and they just slap and REALLY solidify the experience between cool action music and really melancholy acoustic singing that I enjoyed heavily. To finalize the sound design, there’s no voice acting so don’t go in expecting it.
Arrest of a Stone Buddha for me was one of those fascinating titles that held (and still has) a strange grip on me, that I wanted to try one day but hadn’t bothered til' now. Playing through the game, my time ranged from “dude this feels sweet” to “Just shoot me now”. Truth is, out of 6 achievements I had only gotten two; one for beating the first level and one for getting one of the endings. Other achievements apparently consist of playing on hard and insane difficulty, which I WILL NOT do for a very long time if ever. I don’t know if I would play this again, nor do I know if I could recommend it to most people with the sheer difficulty. I would maybe recommend it under the guise that you have A LOT of patience for both the empty world and the game mechanics. This is the definition of an art film in video game format; anyone else I would say kind of steer clear from the title. This is the definition of an art film in video game format; anyone else I would say kind of steer clear from the title. The developer would go on from this game to create Fading Afternoon, which released in September and and has to do with an aging Yakuza that I would love to give a try one day.
Links:
https://www.jamendo.com/playlist/500476262/arrest-of-a-stone-buddha
https://spidersolitaire.bandcamp.com/album/arrest-of-a-stone-buddha
https://twitter.com/shin_yeo
http://by-yeo.ru/c
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot is a minimalist one: you play as a French hitman whose name is unknown as goes through the motions killing people and escaping. From here, it delves into conversations with his employer where they small talk life, after which you roam the streets of France wasting time before the next job, rinse and repeat over a month's time. I’m about to go “pretentious movie critic” here but between the emptiness/monotony of the open world segments, the lack of dialogue, the insomniac hitman; it’s just a journey of someone who's depressed with no direction in life, who doesn’t feel alive unless he’s on a job. In between jobs the guy just watches movies, gets clothes, drinks, picks up meds and visits his girlfriend and/or the museum. Even with a high octane life he has nothing, so the question is this: What is the purpose? Is there any? For this guy it’s just trying to distract himself, though eventually it comes to a close in the final scene, where you’re forced to hold a gun to your head and you have one or two choices: Pull the trigger or don’t. I didn’t and it ended with the hitman sobbing, living another day but what his life is after that is unknown.
While I’m sure a lot of art film fans will get a kick out of the post-modern display of being a miserable hitman, watching as time wastes away and only getting a kick out of jobs, the actual gunplay itself can be a miserable kick in the teeth. See the whole concept revolves around moving in one direction as goons with guns attempt to approach you and kill you. You walk at a slow pace, almost nonchalant and uncaring, as you let off rounds that take dudes down coming at you at max speed. What happens if you run out of bullets though? Do you pick guns up off the ground? No, you have to disarm them. See the combat feels like a randomized rogue-like puzzle of sorts: each run is randomized so sometimes they’ll get really close and sometimes they’ll hang back a bit as you slowly walk towards them and pray to god you don’t die trying to disarm them. Enemy spawns are random so don’t expect to master the game as much as flow with it and you have to both balance the amount of shots you have, the potential distance that they’ll get to you, and when they’re going to fire from both directions. The only real movements you can make in combat are to move left, right, duck, disarm and shoot. I had used the controller (with RB to hold up the gun, X to shoot, Y to Disarm as your main controls other than thumbsticks and the pause/select buttons) as the keyboard setup didn’t jive with me as much.
Most importantly, you’ll need quick reaction times. This is easier said than done balancing all of this PLUS your personal animations. Sometimes you’ll smoothly double tap everyone and it feels slick, while sometimes I’ve noticed instead of moving left or right that I’d get stuck mid-animation (you can do the arm cross shooting from action movies) instead of moving straight in a direction that I could never really react fast enough to disarm certain enemies and this would cost me time and I’d get shot. The game also has some glitches and/or hang ups that I didn’t appreciate in the slightest: when I was on the last level of the Yacht job, I had enemies who wouldn’t spawn into the map and would just hang out behind the invisible wall at the very beginning or very end of the level. If you had killed everyone before leaving except this guy AND had run out of ammo, it’s a guaranteed basic restart. A much more rare problem was that sometimes when I had brought a shotgun to the next screen, the game wouldn’t let me hold it up and shoot it while other times it did which isn’t a huge problem because I can disarm others but it was kind of annoying.
Overall keep in mind, YOU WILL DIE in this game and every difficulty should be considered hard. The three enemy types (and the only ones) you’ll be facing are the pistol goons, the shotgun goons and the rifle goons; the pistol and shotgun are the only weapons you’ll get as the rifle ones stay as far away from you as humanly possible and will always move away. I’d complain and say I’d like more weapon variation, but with how the game operates (such as enemies for 98% of the time waiting a bit before firing at you), the last thing I need is a machine gun or something high powered to kill me instantly. In its base form while difficult, it was also honestly kind of addicting to go for run after run even with hangups.
The Art Direction/Sound Direction follows along with the plot nicely. Graphically it’s an 8-bit sidescroller, but the atmosphere surrounding it is astounding. Reflecting off of the depressing nature of the hits, you’ll mostly see grays and washed out colors during your times roaming in France while on the jobs you’ll see a lot more colors and environmental variation which fits into the “I only feel alive killing people” mini-narrative they have going on. These backgrounds by Artem “Wedmak2” Belov go hard with the set dressing, with my favorite of them all being the autumn forest near the end of the game as something I would just get lost in.
The sound design is solid as well; there isn’t much in the way of it however. The gun sounds from the pistol and shotgun are impactful and sound phenomenal, straight out of an action movie almost with how powerful it is while the rifle sounds irritating, which really formulates how both afraid I was and how frustrating it gets during gameplay as well. As for the soundtrack: the soundtrack is done by a guy named “danny spider solitaire” mixed in with some royalty free tracks (both links below) and they just slap and REALLY solidify the experience between cool action music and really melancholy acoustic singing that I enjoyed heavily. To finalize the sound design, there’s no voice acting so don’t go in expecting it.
Arrest of a Stone Buddha for me was one of those fascinating titles that held (and still has) a strange grip on me, that I wanted to try one day but hadn’t bothered til' now. Playing through the game, my time ranged from “dude this feels sweet” to “Just shoot me now”. Truth is, out of 6 achievements I had only gotten two; one for beating the first level and one for getting one of the endings. Other achievements apparently consist of playing on hard and insane difficulty, which I WILL NOT do for a very long time if ever. I don’t know if I would play this again, nor do I know if I could recommend it to most people with the sheer difficulty. I would maybe recommend it under the guise that you have A LOT of patience for both the empty world and the game mechanics. This is the definition of an art film in video game format; anyone else I would say kind of steer clear from the title. This is the definition of an art film in video game format; anyone else I would say kind of steer clear from the title. The developer would go on from this game to create Fading Afternoon, which released in September and and has to do with an aging Yakuza that I would love to give a try one day.
Links:
https://www.jamendo.com/playlist/500476262/arrest-of-a-stone-buddha
https://spidersolitaire.bandcamp.com/album/arrest-of-a-stone-buddha
https://twitter.com/shin_yeo
http://by-yeo.ru/c
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2021
This review contains spoilers
Christmas Massacre is a "score attack santa slasher simulator" developed by Puppet Combo and released on PC and Playstation consoles (as Switch and Xbox aren't fond of the content). I don't have development cycles on Christmas Massacre itself, though having been a subscriber to the Puppet Combo patreon for a long time I can see posts that go back to 2019 where it apparently was transformed into Blood Maniac but then continued into the events of this game. Puppet Combo's release tactics and constant flow of new games can make it be a bit confusing sometimes in it's releases. I can tell you personally however that I've been following him for a decent while, and when he released Murder House and then Christmas Massacre around Late 2021, I immediately got my key and plugged it and set about streaming it for a friend over a day or so and found it fun. I didn't touch it until around two years later however, as I wanted to stream something for Christmas right after Kowloon's Curse and didn't think the game would take a long time.
The plot is as follows: You play as Larry in the prologue, whose barred from the christmas party at the orphanage by the nun for some reason, possibly due to abuse. Larry decides enough is enough and sneaks to the kitchen to steal a knife before slaying EVERYONE, from kids to other nuns. After his escape, it flashes forward years later, where an older Larry holds up inside of an abandoned house with a santa van outside and a talking christmas tree inside. Yes that's right, a talking christmas tree (named Gino apparently but Combo himself), who hilariously encourages him to go on murder sprees ranging from house parties to grocery stores to BDSM dance clubs. Hallucinations involving beating stoves and chattering teeth occur before the christmas tree gives you a final task, to go back where it all started: the orphanage. He decides to give you a flamethrower for this, you go in and burn everyone to a crisp and then go back to the house where the feds arrest you (with the tree apparently snitching on you). The final scene has you stabbing your way out of the asylum and escaping out into the world before it cuts to credits. It's a simple story and honestly plays out as long as a movie would, and I enjoyed the simplicity of it as well. The tone is played well, with it clearly coming across that Larry is deranged and his talking christmas tree buddy is hilarious with his constant demand for bloodshed.
The gameplay is simple for the most part: you get a small set of levels where the whole goal is to kill everyone in the fastest time possible and don't let anyone escape if they see you. You can choose between first person and third person, of which I choose first because it feels more accurate as well as a lot faster. At the beginning you'll be stuck with just stabbing before you get throwing knives and end the game on a flamethrower. My feelings on this relate to the level design itself as well: the grocery store level is a bit of a pain to navigate with your position in comparison to the exit so you really have to plan this one out for the S Rank. The flamethrower on the last level is a pain in the a ss too as you have a good chance of lighting yourself on fire and the hallways are incredibly small to begin with so you kind of have to both be meticulous and get kind of lucky at the same time. Other than that, you can also collect unlockable stuff like outfits and dolls. Other than those two complaints, the only complaint I really have to the gameplay is just that I wish there was more, from more unlockable outfits and perhaps player created custom maps to roam around but just as a singular game itself I find the gameplay to be an enjoyable time. You'll also have really short interludes in between levels where you can either roam to your next location (though you can fall off the map if you walk out of bounds) or inside of Larry's house. Overall, great stuff and it can honestly get addicting trying to get the S-Rank though I'm not sure if you get anything for it. If you're looking for an S-Rank, kill them all really quickly first and then gib their bodies, as the timer stops as soon as everyone drops and it leaves you with time to gib infinitely.
Graphics and atmosphere wise it's great, and I enjoy the PS1 aesthetic as always, though I'll say I encourage you to tinker with your settings in relation to the filters. The filters sometimes make it really difficult to see anything, and as much as I love the old look I'd prefer not to have everything smeared and looking like vaseline. Other than that the low poly textures are great, though sometimes certain textures (like the outside of the grocery store) can sort of warp depending on where and how you're looking at it and there's a glitch in the orphanage chapter at the end where the top most staircase on one of the sides leads you to looking down and seeing the entire map with the NPCs roaming around which haven't been fixed in two years. Atmospherically I feel it blends just the right amount of slasher holiday horror as well as the goofy nature of Larry's instability. This game isn't a case study on mental health, nor should it be taken as such as it has a talking christmas tree with huge pufferfish lips. I should also mention that the character models look appropriately 80s and that when you attack you could do anything from pop their heads off to throwing a knife at them and then they split in half, the gore detail in this isn't super detailed but there's enough detaching parts to make it really brutal. All the same it's a bloody good time, literally and figuratively.
The sound design is very squishy and feels satisfying with the kills, from the sounds of the throwing knives hitting someone to anything related to stabbing. The voice acting is non-existent except Gino the tree himself, who speaks in this really deep tone that sounds like someones trying to sound deep and it's a lot of fun. Everything else here is pretty much text or maybe a line or two spoken here or there that doesn't sound bad at all and blends in seamlessly. The soundtrack by Clement Panchout and Kacy "MXXN" Loucha bring this mixture between 70s pulp Dario style to lower pitched versions of christmas classic like "Silent Night" that just sounds creepy as hell and makes you shiver a bit. Other than that it's kind of a low drone when you're on the hunt and it adds to the tensity of it all.
Overall, I really like this title and Puppet Combo's work in general. The history of Combo after this had Stay Out of the House release on Steam, as well as plans for an upcoming Steam port for The Power Drill Massacre which I'm excited for. He also runs the Torture Star Label, which hosts other games like Night at the Gates of Hell, Deadly Night, Rewind or Die, Search Party and more. The output is insane and I can't keep track, and it's grown to the point where it even has novelizations of Babysitter Bloodbath, Murder House and Nun Massacre. Honestly, I just want more of everything, especially Puppet Combo ports (though I heard he doesn't do it that much because of profits issues? I'm not sure to be honest) as well as revivals of all of his cancelled or on hold projects and I hope he sees them through because they're honestly a lot of fun and a scary good time. Right now until Tuesday it's on sale for 5.59 and I'm sure will be on sale for the Steam Christmas Sale, my advice is this: if you feel you can enjoy 5-7 dollars for around an hour or two of content depending on replays and such then buy it. I personally don't regret it, but also keep in mind that it's a bit of a short game and I've seen speedrun 100 percent playthroughs take 30 or so minutes? Either way, if you're looking for a fun Christmas horror game, consider giving this title a shot.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/PuppetCombo
https://www.patreon.com/puppetcombo/posts
https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot is as follows: You play as Larry in the prologue, whose barred from the christmas party at the orphanage by the nun for some reason, possibly due to abuse. Larry decides enough is enough and sneaks to the kitchen to steal a knife before slaying EVERYONE, from kids to other nuns. After his escape, it flashes forward years later, where an older Larry holds up inside of an abandoned house with a santa van outside and a talking christmas tree inside. Yes that's right, a talking christmas tree (named Gino apparently but Combo himself), who hilariously encourages him to go on murder sprees ranging from house parties to grocery stores to BDSM dance clubs. Hallucinations involving beating stoves and chattering teeth occur before the christmas tree gives you a final task, to go back where it all started: the orphanage. He decides to give you a flamethrower for this, you go in and burn everyone to a crisp and then go back to the house where the feds arrest you (with the tree apparently snitching on you). The final scene has you stabbing your way out of the asylum and escaping out into the world before it cuts to credits. It's a simple story and honestly plays out as long as a movie would, and I enjoyed the simplicity of it as well. The tone is played well, with it clearly coming across that Larry is deranged and his talking christmas tree buddy is hilarious with his constant demand for bloodshed.
The gameplay is simple for the most part: you get a small set of levels where the whole goal is to kill everyone in the fastest time possible and don't let anyone escape if they see you. You can choose between first person and third person, of which I choose first because it feels more accurate as well as a lot faster. At the beginning you'll be stuck with just stabbing before you get throwing knives and end the game on a flamethrower. My feelings on this relate to the level design itself as well: the grocery store level is a bit of a pain to navigate with your position in comparison to the exit so you really have to plan this one out for the S Rank. The flamethrower on the last level is a pain in the a ss too as you have a good chance of lighting yourself on fire and the hallways are incredibly small to begin with so you kind of have to both be meticulous and get kind of lucky at the same time. Other than that, you can also collect unlockable stuff like outfits and dolls. Other than those two complaints, the only complaint I really have to the gameplay is just that I wish there was more, from more unlockable outfits and perhaps player created custom maps to roam around but just as a singular game itself I find the gameplay to be an enjoyable time. You'll also have really short interludes in between levels where you can either roam to your next location (though you can fall off the map if you walk out of bounds) or inside of Larry's house. Overall, great stuff and it can honestly get addicting trying to get the S-Rank though I'm not sure if you get anything for it. If you're looking for an S-Rank, kill them all really quickly first and then gib their bodies, as the timer stops as soon as everyone drops and it leaves you with time to gib infinitely.
Graphics and atmosphere wise it's great, and I enjoy the PS1 aesthetic as always, though I'll say I encourage you to tinker with your settings in relation to the filters. The filters sometimes make it really difficult to see anything, and as much as I love the old look I'd prefer not to have everything smeared and looking like vaseline. Other than that the low poly textures are great, though sometimes certain textures (like the outside of the grocery store) can sort of warp depending on where and how you're looking at it and there's a glitch in the orphanage chapter at the end where the top most staircase on one of the sides leads you to looking down and seeing the entire map with the NPCs roaming around which haven't been fixed in two years. Atmospherically I feel it blends just the right amount of slasher holiday horror as well as the goofy nature of Larry's instability. This game isn't a case study on mental health, nor should it be taken as such as it has a talking christmas tree with huge pufferfish lips. I should also mention that the character models look appropriately 80s and that when you attack you could do anything from pop their heads off to throwing a knife at them and then they split in half, the gore detail in this isn't super detailed but there's enough detaching parts to make it really brutal. All the same it's a bloody good time, literally and figuratively.
The sound design is very squishy and feels satisfying with the kills, from the sounds of the throwing knives hitting someone to anything related to stabbing. The voice acting is non-existent except Gino the tree himself, who speaks in this really deep tone that sounds like someones trying to sound deep and it's a lot of fun. Everything else here is pretty much text or maybe a line or two spoken here or there that doesn't sound bad at all and blends in seamlessly. The soundtrack by Clement Panchout and Kacy "MXXN" Loucha bring this mixture between 70s pulp Dario style to lower pitched versions of christmas classic like "Silent Night" that just sounds creepy as hell and makes you shiver a bit. Other than that it's kind of a low drone when you're on the hunt and it adds to the tensity of it all.
Overall, I really like this title and Puppet Combo's work in general. The history of Combo after this had Stay Out of the House release on Steam, as well as plans for an upcoming Steam port for The Power Drill Massacre which I'm excited for. He also runs the Torture Star Label, which hosts other games like Night at the Gates of Hell, Deadly Night, Rewind or Die, Search Party and more. The output is insane and I can't keep track, and it's grown to the point where it even has novelizations of Babysitter Bloodbath, Murder House and Nun Massacre. Honestly, I just want more of everything, especially Puppet Combo ports (though I heard he doesn't do it that much because of profits issues? I'm not sure to be honest) as well as revivals of all of his cancelled or on hold projects and I hope he sees them through because they're honestly a lot of fun and a scary good time. Right now until Tuesday it's on sale for 5.59 and I'm sure will be on sale for the Steam Christmas Sale, my advice is this: if you feel you can enjoy 5-7 dollars for around an hour or two of content depending on replays and such then buy it. I personally don't regret it, but also keep in mind that it's a bit of a short game and I've seen speedrun 100 percent playthroughs take 30 or so minutes? Either way, if you're looking for a fun Christmas horror game, consider giving this title a shot.
Links:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Creator/PuppetCombo
https://www.patreon.com/puppetcombo/posts
https://twitter.com/PuppetCombo
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Kowloon's Curse: Lost Report is a turn based action RPG/"Surrealist Sergio Simulator" developed by Studio [notes.] as a sort of prequel to an upcoming turn based horror RPG also called Kowloon's Curse. This free game acts as a sort of prequel to this game, which was originally posted on Kickstarter back in 2021. It's targeted date was around 2022 but is still in development as far as I know, and they put this out as a sort of teaser. My encounter with this game mostly came out of a friend of mine Qwarky showcasing it in some discords so shout out to the Qwarkster. Since then it's been on a list of games to stream for a friend, and this was chosen for the next game after Eternal Evil.
Let me just say that this review isn't going to be one of those normal reviews, as I don't have a plot synopsis for you nor would I even try to. It's a surrealist game with a lot of background lore, gangster antics, strange visions, and talking animals but it's something that I've really enjoyed in all of its confusion. The main background is that you play as Tony Manslaughter who works for a gangster named "The Inspector" with his buddy Sergio, a misguided mixtape rapper with a hair trigger and a LOT of insecurity as you make your way through a series of unfortunate events. The story itself is masterfully done in my opinion but the sidequests are amazing too, varying from helping aliens escape Kowloon City, recruiting people for a cult, and even breaking into people's homes after looking through online internet forums. The variation in content has kept me thoroughly engaged with writing that feels both top tier and hilarious as hell and I've always wanted to see what was coming up next. In fact, I wish there was a guide because I couldn't find everything in the game that the achievement guide pointed out, like an apparent fight club. The main person you'll be interacting with is your sidekick Sergio, an old childhood friend who is a total a ss hole but is pretty funny and delivers some banger dialogue, but keep in mind his aim sucks and you'll have to get used to that a bit.
The gameplay is a turn based limited open world RPG where you can walk around the three districts of Kowloon City, talk to a variety of strangers, engage in hidden side quests, browse the internet, and honestly so much more. I wish I could describe everything that the game has but it just involves a lot of exploration. From the beginning you can choose between three skills which amount to hacking, brute force, and philosophical rambling. You can further each of these skills for new attack trees in combat as well as certain dialogue choices, though you can also do certain dialogue choices to grow these (though you could also get them all maxed later in the second run if you choose to). What happens with the combat skills also depends on who you use it against in game, as certain attacks will work for certain people while not for others. Also here's a tip: when you get money, buy a whole lot of soda and follow the quest with the phone scammer as you'll get twice the money back for the soda as the enemies sometimes unfairly target you if you're with Sergio and your health can go down pretty damn quickly. What I can say about the combat is that normally I don't care for turn based stuff, but everything around this game holds it up successfully.
Here is where my most positive points come in: I LOVE THE ATMOSPHERE! It's like a strange dreamworld with PS1 styled graphics, dripping in slick ooze that could come out of the Yakuza series and a dreamlike corporate nature added to it. The only thing I can say about this game is that I wish there were more of it, because all I want to do every time I play this is to have more. There aren't too many games that can mix and match a whole lot of different tones while still keeping their identity solid and I feel like this game does that. The confusing nature of the city yet familiarity of it all helps add to this surrealist nature, mixed in with strange denizens like people in Roman Soldier outfits, creepy amoeba looking things or journalists that spell FAKE NEWS on the front of their shirt just add to the delight. All of these models are basically 2D flat surface models that you can actually talk to from right beside and they won't follow you and it's a weird thing, a lot of the chicks look like "anime waifu" types too but it adds to the humor of it all. One of my favorite fights in the game is the alcoholic, because you can literally just give him booze and the fight will immediately end and it feels like such a comedic punchline that I couldn't help but laugh.
The sound design is very minimalistic, you'll have city sounds and some dialogue stuff maybe but for the most part you'll be hearing this s e xy ass soundtrack delivered by Kowloon Sound Team. From the Title Screen theme which I could mistake for a Silent Hill track to Sergio's Theme which fuels this weird nightmarish beat (and amateurish rap) to the Station theme which just sounds like the beginning of an epic Yakuza fight. I can't say enough about this soundtrack except I bought it after my first play session because it's that good. It adds to the ambiance of Kowloon City and makes it a memorable place to roam in.
Overall thoughts are that this game is amazing, it's free and that even if you don't care at all for turn based combat, you NEED to try this. Studio [notes.] put out an epic prequel for whatever the hell they're cooking up in the kitchen and I'm simping for more. I'd let this game kick me in the rib cage violently and leave without giving me any s e xual pleasure and I would let them because I really enjoyed my time with this. In fact, as soon as I know how to find the new areas and content, I’ll probably hop back on just so I can get more. Honestly, I'd consider paying the developers for this game, that's how much value I believe is in this, but the fact they're putting this out for free shows that there's a lot of confidence in this product and it shows due to the quality. The developer released some other titles like apartment14b and Cold Abyss as well as their work on the actual Kowloon's Curse. Whatever these guys make, I want it in my veins. Play this game, I don't care what you have in your backlog or what new game came out. Just play this. Thanks dawg.
Links:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kowloon-s-curse-lost-report-physical-version#/
https://studio-notes.itch.io/apartment14b
https://studio-notes.itch.io/cold-abyss
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kowloonscurse/kowloons-curse
https://twitter.com/KowloonsCurse
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Let me just say that this review isn't going to be one of those normal reviews, as I don't have a plot synopsis for you nor would I even try to. It's a surrealist game with a lot of background lore, gangster antics, strange visions, and talking animals but it's something that I've really enjoyed in all of its confusion. The main background is that you play as Tony Manslaughter who works for a gangster named "The Inspector" with his buddy Sergio, a misguided mixtape rapper with a hair trigger and a LOT of insecurity as you make your way through a series of unfortunate events. The story itself is masterfully done in my opinion but the sidequests are amazing too, varying from helping aliens escape Kowloon City, recruiting people for a cult, and even breaking into people's homes after looking through online internet forums. The variation in content has kept me thoroughly engaged with writing that feels both top tier and hilarious as hell and I've always wanted to see what was coming up next. In fact, I wish there was a guide because I couldn't find everything in the game that the achievement guide pointed out, like an apparent fight club. The main person you'll be interacting with is your sidekick Sergio, an old childhood friend who is a total a ss hole but is pretty funny and delivers some banger dialogue, but keep in mind his aim sucks and you'll have to get used to that a bit.
The gameplay is a turn based limited open world RPG where you can walk around the three districts of Kowloon City, talk to a variety of strangers, engage in hidden side quests, browse the internet, and honestly so much more. I wish I could describe everything that the game has but it just involves a lot of exploration. From the beginning you can choose between three skills which amount to hacking, brute force, and philosophical rambling. You can further each of these skills for new attack trees in combat as well as certain dialogue choices, though you can also do certain dialogue choices to grow these (though you could also get them all maxed later in the second run if you choose to). What happens with the combat skills also depends on who you use it against in game, as certain attacks will work for certain people while not for others. Also here's a tip: when you get money, buy a whole lot of soda and follow the quest with the phone scammer as you'll get twice the money back for the soda as the enemies sometimes unfairly target you if you're with Sergio and your health can go down pretty damn quickly. What I can say about the combat is that normally I don't care for turn based stuff, but everything around this game holds it up successfully.
Here is where my most positive points come in: I LOVE THE ATMOSPHERE! It's like a strange dreamworld with PS1 styled graphics, dripping in slick ooze that could come out of the Yakuza series and a dreamlike corporate nature added to it. The only thing I can say about this game is that I wish there were more of it, because all I want to do every time I play this is to have more. There aren't too many games that can mix and match a whole lot of different tones while still keeping their identity solid and I feel like this game does that. The confusing nature of the city yet familiarity of it all helps add to this surrealist nature, mixed in with strange denizens like people in Roman Soldier outfits, creepy amoeba looking things or journalists that spell FAKE NEWS on the front of their shirt just add to the delight. All of these models are basically 2D flat surface models that you can actually talk to from right beside and they won't follow you and it's a weird thing, a lot of the chicks look like "anime waifu" types too but it adds to the humor of it all. One of my favorite fights in the game is the alcoholic, because you can literally just give him booze and the fight will immediately end and it feels like such a comedic punchline that I couldn't help but laugh.
The sound design is very minimalistic, you'll have city sounds and some dialogue stuff maybe but for the most part you'll be hearing this s e xy ass soundtrack delivered by Kowloon Sound Team. From the Title Screen theme which I could mistake for a Silent Hill track to Sergio's Theme which fuels this weird nightmarish beat (and amateurish rap) to the Station theme which just sounds like the beginning of an epic Yakuza fight. I can't say enough about this soundtrack except I bought it after my first play session because it's that good. It adds to the ambiance of Kowloon City and makes it a memorable place to roam in.
Overall thoughts are that this game is amazing, it's free and that even if you don't care at all for turn based combat, you NEED to try this. Studio [notes.] put out an epic prequel for whatever the hell they're cooking up in the kitchen and I'm simping for more. I'd let this game kick me in the rib cage violently and leave without giving me any s e xual pleasure and I would let them because I really enjoyed my time with this. In fact, as soon as I know how to find the new areas and content, I’ll probably hop back on just so I can get more. Honestly, I'd consider paying the developers for this game, that's how much value I believe is in this, but the fact they're putting this out for free shows that there's a lot of confidence in this product and it shows due to the quality. The developer released some other titles like apartment14b and Cold Abyss as well as their work on the actual Kowloon's Curse. Whatever these guys make, I want it in my veins. Play this game, I don't care what you have in your backlog or what new game came out. Just play this. Thanks dawg.
Links:
https://www.indiegogo.com/projects/kowloon-s-curse-lost-report-physical-version#/
https://studio-notes.itch.io/apartment14b
https://studio-notes.itch.io/cold-abyss
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/kowloonscurse/kowloons-curse
https://twitter.com/KowloonsCurse
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/