gamemast15r
2011
This review contains spoilers
Infamous 2 is an open world action adventure “slightly less edgy 2000s superhero simulator” developed by Sucker Punch Studios as a sequel to their 2009 hit Infamous, as well as a Playstation 3 exclusive. Dev time for the game had gone relatively smooth for the most part on the sequel, technology had been implemented more for cutscenes, more people on screen and a mission creator while the devs focused on a new sunny setting compared to Empire City of the first game: New Marais. Honestly trying to comb through for dev history feels kind of pointless as everything seemed to have gone pretty smoothly and normally, so If I find anything cool research wise I’ll make sure to put it in the links below. However, I remember this game fondly, I could even say more so than the first Infamous; if the first one was the one that introduced me to the PS3, then this game was one of the games that made me want to get it, end of discussion.
I remember seeing this game everywhere and getting hyped for everything it had to offer from Karma playthroughs, to transfer game rewards to my most excited and hyped feature: UGC Missions. I remember as a kid I would scour through Youtube finding playthroughs of all the UGC missions amongst other things and just being excited to potentially create my own story missions and stuff. Alas however, budgets killed the hope of ever getting a PS3 until a little while after my first job. What I can say about this game is if I remember correctly, looking back on my Trophy Log I started playing this after the first game (which was my first PS3 game ever), and I think I was in the middle of hopping in between this and Yakuza 3? I would have to go about and check to see what’s true and what’s not in that regard but I’m pretty sure that was the timeline. I played this game first as a continuation of the good playthrough before years would pass. I would be attached to other games, new communities, and waiting for the right moment before I decided I wanted to beat the original two on Evil playthroughs. That came true when I decided to just do the first one early in June/July before I went on a trip to the UK and Infamous 2 started right around the time I had gotten back. Having just platinumed the game last weekend, I figured I’d write a review on why this game is one of my personal favorite PS3 exclusives of all time.
The plot is as follows: a bit of time after the events of the first Infamous, Cole and Zeke meetup with an NSA agent named Lucy Kuo in Empire City. Lucy reveals information that one Dr. Sebastian Wolfe, the man who created the Ray Sphere, can help him fight The Beast with another invention he’s come up with. For those who don’t remember, at the end of the first game, Kessler reveals to Cole that he’s been put through these trials specifically to fight The Beast, a seemingly unstoppable harbinger of doom that’s destined to become a reality and cause the fall of humanity. However, before Cole & the Gang can Jungle Boogie the fuck out of there, The Beast starts his roaring rampage in Empire and in a guided tutorial of Cole’s abilities, a fight commences which results in The Beast being pushed back (but destroying the old city) but with Cole drained of the majority of his powers.
Later arriving in New Marais, shit has already erupted within itself. New Marais is being held hostage by Joseph Bertrand, the leader of a fascist militia (creatively named The Militia) who currently quarantined the city under martial law and established an anti-conduit regime. They raid Wolfe’s lab, which results in the discovery of the RFI (or the Ray Field Inhibitor), which is only able to be powered using Blast Cores. However, Wolfe is kidnapped by this militia after the lab is blown up (with blast shards lying everywhere); and after finding leads to his location, a breakout results in Wolfe later being killed and Kuo being kidnapped instead. Searching for leads on Kuo’s locations results in a multitude of characters being introduced: Laroche, who is the leader of the rebellion going against Betrand and Nix, a conduit whose personality revolves around destruction and chaos whose powers include black napalm sludge (reminding me a lot of Sasha from the first game in the process). This is where the beginning of the Karma System really comes into play: Kuo is considered the Good Path who preaches options that limit casualties, while Nix is more on the line of chaos and destruction. The first big choice is presented: Gather the rebels to raid the Plantation where Kuo is being held prisoner, or follow Nix’s option where she straps bombs to a trolley and sends it rolling into the plantation, but the results mean that civilians die.
Whatever route you take, you break Lucy Kuo out of the prison but as a result, a bunch of Ice people also break out of this prison as well. To be encountered later, not only does Cole help Lucy to control her powers but goes out to the swamps with Nix to learn her backstory: Bertrand gathered a Ray Sphere built by Wolfe (both members of the First Sons at this point) and sacrificed a lot of people to give himself superpowers, leading to Nix taking the path she has over the fact that her family died. Either way, you work with both of them to destroy the Milita’s grip over the city, culminating in a raid on Fort Philippe (another karma moment) which can have Cole exchanging powers using a giant machine with either Nix or Kuo. Either way, whoever you choose will further alienate the other side but gives Cole some extra powers either involving Ice or Napalm depending on Karma. Another attempt to take down Bertrand leads to the reveal of his superpowers: he’s the leader of the army of mutants you’ve been taking down as well. His plans involve terrorizing the people with these mutants to have them support Betrand and the Militia.
Attempts to find Betrand in the northern districts leads to fights with the Ice people, which turn out to be Vermak 88, a group of South African mercenaries hired by Betrand and given ice powers after being experimented on. The process has led to them all going insane, and as a result a war is led on everyone in their vicinity. Along the way, bonds grow stronger or break depending on the Karma, but a near trap by Betrand and Zeke’s intervention/saving you leads to Cole apologizing and forgiving Zeke for his actions in the first game. This has been sorta semi-hinted throughout, but for those unaware of the first game’s plot, this title does a pretty good job and keeps spoilers to an absolute minimum other than The Beast. Regardless, one last ambush against Betrand (the reveal being he used the mutants and is trying to ship conduits all over the world to incite a genocide against them after being disgusted with himself) leads to a giant monster chase and everyone banding together to take him down once and for all. A bunch of men, multiple hours and seven chainsaws later, Betrand’s mutated corpse is cut up and taken off the streets while The Militia are weakened heavily.
Other subplots go on as well, such as Zeke’s infection (along with Laroche I think?) with The Plague, spreading due to Cole’s activation of the Ray Sphere in the first game as well as the gathering of new blast cores leading to Cole obtaining new powers with each one. However (in an actual cool way of displaying The Beast’s inevitable arrival), the Beast starts out 1,500 miles back in Empire City and has been slowly making his way down while Cole & the Gang try to find their Blast Cores to power up the RFI. Slowly over time, The Beast makes his way down before you’re able to find them all and Zeke in a sort of ingenious display of intellect and balls, decides to just nuke the fucker. Does it work? Well, sort of? They nuke The Beast right while they’re outside of the city, but are unable to fully take him down as he only disappears and reforms later on. Cole later raids Betrand’s ships to sink them before conduits are able to be shipped out to warring nations all over the world when John from Empire City appears in a red suit. Now people in the know, know that John died when Cole either destroyed or activated the Ray Sphere back towards the end of the last game. So how is he alive? He doesn’t explain yet, but it’s clear to most of us that he’s probably The Beast. After leading Cole to a conduit dying of the Plague, and saving her life, The Beast’s motivations are revealed. The Beast has been trying to save everyone from the Plague activated from Ray Sphere radiation, but he’s only able to activate conduit genes inside of certain people to grant immunity. Each time it’s used however (if I remember correctly), “normal” people die to power up these conduits, and so John’s argument is to sacrifice most to save the chosen few.
Cole gets all of the blast cores and gathers the RFI to learn the truth of what the Ray Field Inhibitor really does. Going with the “Inhibitor” name, it ends up nearly killing the conduits as its point is to kill the Beast by sapping away its powers. However in the process, it’ll basically kill all of the conduits on Earth. So the choice is now, save a few and sacrifice the majority or the other way around? What happens depends on your ultimate choice, and surprisingly your karma doesn’t really matter here sadly. You can kind of flip flop if you want to, be good but ultimately choose evil or vice versa. Regardless, whichever one you go with leads to untimely consequences and a twist.
The twist being that the one who'd normally side with will flip: If you choose the Evil Approach and work with The Beast to save the conduits but kill humanity, Kuo will join up out of being afraid to die while Nix and Zeke defect to join the Rebels. This happened because The Beast killed Nix’s “Babies” (a bunch of mutants who she trained to be her family) and just wants revenge. The results involve everyone dying, with Nix being slain by Cole and his amp; while Zeke is zapped repeatedly over and over again in a way that to me, signifies how brutal and far gone Cole has become, having murdered his best friend and being unable to turn back. However, John is tired of his conquest now, and doing what he thinks is right, transfers all of his powers to Cole while John fades into oblivion. The ending results in humanity being on the brink of extinction, Cole becoming The Beast and making his way from place to place, bringing chaos while also saving any and all conduits he finds.
The good ending is the canonical and opposite approach however: everyone gathers together from the Militia and Rebellion, to Nix and Zeke to fight against The Beast while Kuo defects and disappears. However, everyone almost dies here, including Nix who sacrifices herself to damage The Beast while Cole charges the RFI. Cole finally activates it and the results are that everyone perishes except Zeke; while humanity is saved, conduits all around the world are dying. Even people in different countries who haven’t even activated their powers perish but the Plague disappears and Cole’s heroism is rewarded by a monument and title of “The Patron Saint of New Marais”. However, when Zeke takes Cole’s body out to sea for burial, a piece of lightning strikes, forming a question mark over the ship as it fades to black.
My feelings on the game’s plot is that while the Karma System feels ultimately shallow in the end, that it’s a pretty solid way to end the Infamous duology with the themes. If Infamous 1 was the origin story, the sequel is Cole’s growth to doing what’s right (or wrong). In fact, everyone's character development is a lot better in this game, ESPECIALLY Zeke. In the first game, Zeke was a buffoon whom I hated because of how much of a self centered dick he was. In this game, he’s actually a lot more likable and works to regain Cole’s trust back to become a better person. Nix is kind of stereotypically evil in her responses which is okay sometimes, but becomes kind of tropey, not that I was bothered by that. Kuo is pretty cool and level headed, I like her a lot and by the end I can honestly see her character making the choices that she did through the plot of the game, even if it came out of nowhere. I guess overall, I don’t have much in the way of issues with the plot other than some holes but I can get into that in the next paragraph.
Another thing I want to mention is that like I said before, the game is good at negating spoilers and only hinting at things that happened. No references to the Kessler twist is brought up aside from a reference during the nuke mission and a few Dead Drops commenting on certain similarities. Another thing I like is that depending on the Karma brought over (or not brought over), whatever Dead Drops you get has altered dialogues about your choices from the first game. I think that stuff has amazing detail, and I like how it’s delivered. The Dead Drops don’t give you much in the way of new plot, but provide background items such as John’s connection with Lucy and Sebastian Wolfe, comments on Cole’s actions in Empire City, Bertrand’s time in the First Sons, Vermak 88’s involvement with the Militia, amongst other things. The background events from TVs reveal events on what’s going on with the government, there’s just a lot of flavor text I enjoy. The only thing I don’t understand is the obvious plot hole: If Cole’s heroic and canon actions means all conduits die, why are there sequels? I don’t really know or understand this but whatever I guess? It seems like the games were meant to end here, but money brought the sequels into play.
The gameplay is quite similar to the previous title: you parkour around the open world city, fight enemies with special powers (depending on Karma), drain electricity for health and energy, pick up blast shards to upgrade your powers and gain XP, complete missions and side quests, completing UGC Missions (User Generated Content) if they’re available, along with interacting with special karma events for a bit of a boost. Starting again with powers and transportation, for the most part it’ll still consist of special powers (such as the glide power) along with parkour. For the most part it’s still the same, tapping the X button the climb the side of buildings and the ability to glide across electric wires are still there amongst pretty much everything from the previous games. If I were to add something NEW that the game put in for transportation is probably the piping that is placed on the side of buildings that when jumped on, Cole boosts himself up electrically to slide himself up to the roof faster. The free running in this game feels a lot smoother than in the first game due to whatever system improvements they improved, however you’ll still have times where your character tends to gravitate towards certain objects and areas you’re not trying to go towards, and if you’re nearly dead or in combat then it can be frustrating to deal with.
However, one thing that helps is a specific power, though sadly you only get it way later in the game: Electric Tether. You can choose to switch between several different powers on the fly, and though I don’t remember what the electric tether replaces at the moment (maybe Kinetic Pulse? The ability to levitate vehicles and objects?), it’s fantastic for being able to reach further distances for faster and smoother parkour moments, almost like one of Spider-Man’s webs or something. Of course, being able to get more powers in this game, you have the ability to switch them on the fly and in this sense, you’re able to figure out what sort of build you want. Do you want the usual electric bolts? Do you want a burst fire electric bolt? A slower, but more powerful version? You can mix and match these sorts of powers, though most of these you can only unlock using XP and/or completing certain karma ranks/in game events (like hitting four enemies off of a roof at once as an example). If there’s anything I can give this game praise for, is that the amount of variation is pretty good, though I noticed that they forgot about the psychic mind reading stuff from the first game. However, sometimes switching out these abilities (holding down on the D-Pad and pressing the buttons you want to switch powers around) can feel kind of cumbersome.
If we’re going with Karma from earlier, as said before certain powers are locked behind certain karma ranks (such as Thug, Outlaw or Infamous and Guardian, Champion and Hero). You’ll be able to get these ranks by doing the actions that correspond, such as saving people or arc restraining criminals for good while the opposite is bio leeching everyone and killing indiscriminately. What I can say is that for the most part, the karma systems are very forgiving in how it’s implemented and I’ve killed numerous people by accident before but still stay in the good ranks and vice versa if that’s what you’re looking for. Of course, if you’re trying to go out of your way to be a hero or a bastard, then eventually you’ll get there. Some other ways you could do this is by completing designated karma moments during main missions (the only way to truly rise the ranks as some of it is blocked off early, as an example choosing whether to swap powers with Kuo or Nix gives you different powers and advantages), completing specific karma side missions or regular side missions in a karmic aligned manner (which isn’t always possible) or you could alternatively just grind them in designated UGC missions (though you’ll get limited XP) if you’re able to get the servers online. What I can say with the Karma is that it’s not really an in-depth system, it’s very in your face and blatant with how it makes its choices, sometimes making it feel a little bit shallow. That being said, it’s not the worst thing and sometimes I don’t really want some in-depth Karma system like the Metro games as an example and that’s ok.
The blast shards are back and gathering a bunch of them leads to your electricity capacity being raised in small bits. One pretty cool thing if you played the first game is that if you collected half the shards in Empire City, you’ll carry them over along with a level one karma of your playthrough into New Marais (if you so choose of course). Another thing I’d like to bring up as an improvement, unlike the first game, they patched out the “die instantly getting caught on random objects” glitch which I’m VERY thankful for because that was annoying to deal with. As such, the environment is also a bit more forgiving with water (essentially because New Marais is surrounded with it). While it’s instant death in deeper waters, more shallow waters (in the flooded areas) means you’ll still get damaged of course, but you don’t die instantly and it gives you a chance to escape.
Combat also feels a lot better melee wise, moving on from the fists leads to this game’s AMP, which is a giant metal stick capable of annihilation if upgraded all the way. If you upgrade it, then you’ll be able to reach 50% and 100% special attacks, in which pressing triangle leads to a special animation which can either finish off an enemy when they’re hurt or just wipe one out in general. However, if there’s a downside to combat in this game is just the factions this time are a lot less interesting: it mainly boils down to the Militia (the main faction in the first area and a group of southern fascists), Vermaak 88 (a south african mercenary group with ice powers who covers the northern area) and mutants, which can be seen mostly in swampy areas or in random situations. There aren’t a lot of cool gangs with their own personality, and while I understand that these factions are in here for a story based purpose, half the time I forgot who Vermaak 88 was and they’re essentially the coolest looking in the entire game. They also fight with different tactics: mutants just tend to swarm, the Militia act like an actual military while Vermaak tends to jump everywhere with Ice and stay on the move (which by the way, fuck their shotgun enemy type in the ass I hate that bitch).
I guess to finish off on gameplay stuff, at least with UGC stuff and hard difficulty mixed with trophies, UGC missions are needed to get one or two trophies I think? If you care about those, it’ll be a bit more difficult to do them now because Sucker Punch migrated servers for an eventual sunset in the future, so in order to do them now you’ll have to figure out something with the internet. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a solution so I can’t help with that sadly. One thing I can say is good trophy wise is that now, unlike the first game, you don’t need to unlock all the Karma powers. What this means is that if you already did it once for the good playthrough, you can essentially speedrun the evil playthrough and solely do the missions only and while they may be a tad more difficult without certain powers (on Hard Difficulty, that’s how I’d recommend it), the open world nature means there are more ways to escape and heal if need be. If I failed to bring some stuff up, my apologies as the game is for the most part other than a key few differences, the same as the first game except they feel a lot better; and honestly if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it is a good, sound mentality..
Speaking of sound, I’ll start with the voice acting audio wise by saying I still prefer Jason Cottle’s gravelly Cole Macgrath than I do Eric Laden’s. That’s not to say that it’s bad or anything because it’s not, in fact I often didn’t even think about the voice actor change. However, it’s strange they were able to get Caleb Moody back as Zeke from the first one, and not Cole’s original voice actor. I have no clue as to why this is, maybe it was a monetary thing or maybe it was just they wanted someone more youthful? Who knows, what I can say is that Caleb Moody does fantastic playing Zeke as someone who is more mature and regrets his mistakes from the previous game. Those are my main two standouts, though keep in mind everyone does a good job, from bringing Phil Lamar back as John from the first game to Michael Ensign as Sebastian Wolfe’s savory British voice and Dawn Olivieri as Kuo. Environmental stuff with New Marais is cool as ever sound design wise, with the favorite being grinding the electric wires on top of buildings and the weapons sound like how they feel, pretty damn good.
Music wise is pretty good too, the music being split into the Blue and Red side for Good and Evil Karma respectively; having only replayed the evil section recently I’d say that Closing Time is probably my favorite on that karma as it has a sort of jazzy flavor to it mixed in with the orchestral trappings. Fade Away by The Black Heart Procession on the Good Side (and Credits sequence I believe) sounds sad as hell, and is probably my actual favorite piece in the entire game period, accentuating the bittersweet ending to the Infamous franchise. La Roux sounds like something RL Burnside would make if he was doing video game music, and Shoot the Messenger sounds distinctly like a jazzy noir flick. In fact, to say that the whole soundtrack is southern flavored is an understatement and honestly fits the game like a fucking glove.
The graphics being Playstation 3 are predictably going to look like Playstation 3 graphics, however being me I can’t really complain on that end because I’m usually cool with stuff like that. Models look upscaled and have a bit more detail compared to the previous game, some models are just changed entirely however, especially Cole himself who honestly looks more youthful in comparison to Infamous 1. Funny enough speaking of Cole’s model, while I prefer how he looks and sounds in the first game, you know he almost had full on hair and weird looking track pants in the beta? Funny shit, I’ll post a link of a low res trailer below but thank god they didn’t go down that route. Enemy models are pretty interesting for the most part, with my favorite being how disgusting the creatures you can fight end up looking? Vermaak 88 is cool too as a gang, and Militia is ok I guess but I’ll be honest, I preferred how the gangs back in Empire City looked as they all felt distinct and just more…interesting I guess? That’s not to say that all of Empire City is better in every way of course.
In fact, while I love the dark and edgy vibe of Empire City of the first game, if I could give criticism it would be that having played both games back to back (sorta) that it feels like the developers smushed some jelly or something sometimes, like some weird filter stuff that I didn’t care for. In this game, with the brighter aura surrounding the city of New Marais thankfully they took that stuff off for the most part. Speaking of New Marais, while I prefer the city of Empire sometimes, the contrast between the two games speak to me as a sort of tonal character arc: the dark and gritty origin story while this game speaks more to Cole becoming the hero (or villain) that he’s meant to be fully and having a sunny and colorful, but dark backdrop in the form of the New Orleans expy is honestly an excellent choice. Whether fighting through the old buildings of the aging city against the Militia or trying not to electrocute yourself in the harrowing and kind of scary flooded section of the city makes it arguably more memorable than most areas in the first game. There are still comic book scenes of course, but the game definitely employs a lot more cutscenes as well to reflect the budget. Graphically and atmospherically, Infamous 2 is a game that improves upon its visuals in every way as a sequel should, even if I prefer some of the original some times.
Infamous 2 as a game to me, while still feeling a bit behind in some areas, represents what quality of Playstation Exclusives are, and in some ways is the high bar that modern generations haven’t been able to reach. That’s not to say there haven’t been bangers: Spider-Man, Bloodborne, hell even The Last of Us came out a year later and I’d say that’s the most popular one ever. But I feel that since the PS3 generation, there’s been a bit lacking in terms of truly original and creative content that truly excites me personally. The basics of Infamous for the most part were improved in every way, and if I were a head guy at Sony Interactive Entertainment then these would be some of the first PS3 games I would port to PC (as they should be). However, this being what I consider to be the pinnacle of the franchise, Sucker Punch would later take a dramatic shift in terms of quality and memorability (although the Festival of Blood DLC was pretty solid).
The sequel that took place after this, Infamous: Second Son, while decent enough, kind of killed the momentum of the series that truthfully, kind of died with Cole. Maybe that’s what should’ve happened? The ending of the second game said that all conduits died, and there are enough plot holes in Second Son that make me wonder about should’ve been? I don’t know, it’s hard to say. That’s not to say Sucker Punch hasn’t had a great track record in general, as since this game and the next sequels, they came out with the phenomenal Ghosts of Tsushima. Sometimes though, I wonder about what’ll be in the series future, especially because they announced no new Infamous or Sly Cooper titles. That and even the UGC stuff, while barely functional, was recently announced that maintenance would occur to have them move to a different server before an eventual sunset. However, during my evil playthrough they never came on once, and I’m not going to go through fifteen different INS server options to figure out how to bring them back. However, as far as I know they haven’t been fully shut down completely so I’d say if you wanna get the platinum, try to go for it now while you have the chance. And as a final thing, I hope SOMEONE at Sony definitely considers a remaster and a port, and if you don’t wanna put in UGC then get the best of missions perhaps as a sort of added content? I don’t know, but I don’t feel like ignoring our past will do us any good, not only as it’s a piece of gaming history but arguably because there are people out there that still love this game like I do. If there’s at least one person that loves something, then it’s at least worth the time and effort to keep the legacy going by any means necessary.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_2
https://www.suckerpunch.com/upcoming-infamous-2-ugc-maintenance-and-legacy-franchises/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17G-JZvbmmY&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6F_phv10gY&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IqJU_npcA&ab_channel=hRDLA
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous_2
I remember seeing this game everywhere and getting hyped for everything it had to offer from Karma playthroughs, to transfer game rewards to my most excited and hyped feature: UGC Missions. I remember as a kid I would scour through Youtube finding playthroughs of all the UGC missions amongst other things and just being excited to potentially create my own story missions and stuff. Alas however, budgets killed the hope of ever getting a PS3 until a little while after my first job. What I can say about this game is if I remember correctly, looking back on my Trophy Log I started playing this after the first game (which was my first PS3 game ever), and I think I was in the middle of hopping in between this and Yakuza 3? I would have to go about and check to see what’s true and what’s not in that regard but I’m pretty sure that was the timeline. I played this game first as a continuation of the good playthrough before years would pass. I would be attached to other games, new communities, and waiting for the right moment before I decided I wanted to beat the original two on Evil playthroughs. That came true when I decided to just do the first one early in June/July before I went on a trip to the UK and Infamous 2 started right around the time I had gotten back. Having just platinumed the game last weekend, I figured I’d write a review on why this game is one of my personal favorite PS3 exclusives of all time.
The plot is as follows: a bit of time after the events of the first Infamous, Cole and Zeke meetup with an NSA agent named Lucy Kuo in Empire City. Lucy reveals information that one Dr. Sebastian Wolfe, the man who created the Ray Sphere, can help him fight The Beast with another invention he’s come up with. For those who don’t remember, at the end of the first game, Kessler reveals to Cole that he’s been put through these trials specifically to fight The Beast, a seemingly unstoppable harbinger of doom that’s destined to become a reality and cause the fall of humanity. However, before Cole & the Gang can Jungle Boogie the fuck out of there, The Beast starts his roaring rampage in Empire and in a guided tutorial of Cole’s abilities, a fight commences which results in The Beast being pushed back (but destroying the old city) but with Cole drained of the majority of his powers.
Later arriving in New Marais, shit has already erupted within itself. New Marais is being held hostage by Joseph Bertrand, the leader of a fascist militia (creatively named The Militia) who currently quarantined the city under martial law and established an anti-conduit regime. They raid Wolfe’s lab, which results in the discovery of the RFI (or the Ray Field Inhibitor), which is only able to be powered using Blast Cores. However, Wolfe is kidnapped by this militia after the lab is blown up (with blast shards lying everywhere); and after finding leads to his location, a breakout results in Wolfe later being killed and Kuo being kidnapped instead. Searching for leads on Kuo’s locations results in a multitude of characters being introduced: Laroche, who is the leader of the rebellion going against Betrand and Nix, a conduit whose personality revolves around destruction and chaos whose powers include black napalm sludge (reminding me a lot of Sasha from the first game in the process). This is where the beginning of the Karma System really comes into play: Kuo is considered the Good Path who preaches options that limit casualties, while Nix is more on the line of chaos and destruction. The first big choice is presented: Gather the rebels to raid the Plantation where Kuo is being held prisoner, or follow Nix’s option where she straps bombs to a trolley and sends it rolling into the plantation, but the results mean that civilians die.
Whatever route you take, you break Lucy Kuo out of the prison but as a result, a bunch of Ice people also break out of this prison as well. To be encountered later, not only does Cole help Lucy to control her powers but goes out to the swamps with Nix to learn her backstory: Bertrand gathered a Ray Sphere built by Wolfe (both members of the First Sons at this point) and sacrificed a lot of people to give himself superpowers, leading to Nix taking the path she has over the fact that her family died. Either way, you work with both of them to destroy the Milita’s grip over the city, culminating in a raid on Fort Philippe (another karma moment) which can have Cole exchanging powers using a giant machine with either Nix or Kuo. Either way, whoever you choose will further alienate the other side but gives Cole some extra powers either involving Ice or Napalm depending on Karma. Another attempt to take down Bertrand leads to the reveal of his superpowers: he’s the leader of the army of mutants you’ve been taking down as well. His plans involve terrorizing the people with these mutants to have them support Betrand and the Militia.
Attempts to find Betrand in the northern districts leads to fights with the Ice people, which turn out to be Vermak 88, a group of South African mercenaries hired by Betrand and given ice powers after being experimented on. The process has led to them all going insane, and as a result a war is led on everyone in their vicinity. Along the way, bonds grow stronger or break depending on the Karma, but a near trap by Betrand and Zeke’s intervention/saving you leads to Cole apologizing and forgiving Zeke for his actions in the first game. This has been sorta semi-hinted throughout, but for those unaware of the first game’s plot, this title does a pretty good job and keeps spoilers to an absolute minimum other than The Beast. Regardless, one last ambush against Betrand (the reveal being he used the mutants and is trying to ship conduits all over the world to incite a genocide against them after being disgusted with himself) leads to a giant monster chase and everyone banding together to take him down once and for all. A bunch of men, multiple hours and seven chainsaws later, Betrand’s mutated corpse is cut up and taken off the streets while The Militia are weakened heavily.
Other subplots go on as well, such as Zeke’s infection (along with Laroche I think?) with The Plague, spreading due to Cole’s activation of the Ray Sphere in the first game as well as the gathering of new blast cores leading to Cole obtaining new powers with each one. However (in an actual cool way of displaying The Beast’s inevitable arrival), the Beast starts out 1,500 miles back in Empire City and has been slowly making his way down while Cole & the Gang try to find their Blast Cores to power up the RFI. Slowly over time, The Beast makes his way down before you’re able to find them all and Zeke in a sort of ingenious display of intellect and balls, decides to just nuke the fucker. Does it work? Well, sort of? They nuke The Beast right while they’re outside of the city, but are unable to fully take him down as he only disappears and reforms later on. Cole later raids Betrand’s ships to sink them before conduits are able to be shipped out to warring nations all over the world when John from Empire City appears in a red suit. Now people in the know, know that John died when Cole either destroyed or activated the Ray Sphere back towards the end of the last game. So how is he alive? He doesn’t explain yet, but it’s clear to most of us that he’s probably The Beast. After leading Cole to a conduit dying of the Plague, and saving her life, The Beast’s motivations are revealed. The Beast has been trying to save everyone from the Plague activated from Ray Sphere radiation, but he’s only able to activate conduit genes inside of certain people to grant immunity. Each time it’s used however (if I remember correctly), “normal” people die to power up these conduits, and so John’s argument is to sacrifice most to save the chosen few.
Cole gets all of the blast cores and gathers the RFI to learn the truth of what the Ray Field Inhibitor really does. Going with the “Inhibitor” name, it ends up nearly killing the conduits as its point is to kill the Beast by sapping away its powers. However in the process, it’ll basically kill all of the conduits on Earth. So the choice is now, save a few and sacrifice the majority or the other way around? What happens depends on your ultimate choice, and surprisingly your karma doesn’t really matter here sadly. You can kind of flip flop if you want to, be good but ultimately choose evil or vice versa. Regardless, whichever one you go with leads to untimely consequences and a twist.
The twist being that the one who'd normally side with will flip: If you choose the Evil Approach and work with The Beast to save the conduits but kill humanity, Kuo will join up out of being afraid to die while Nix and Zeke defect to join the Rebels. This happened because The Beast killed Nix’s “Babies” (a bunch of mutants who she trained to be her family) and just wants revenge. The results involve everyone dying, with Nix being slain by Cole and his amp; while Zeke is zapped repeatedly over and over again in a way that to me, signifies how brutal and far gone Cole has become, having murdered his best friend and being unable to turn back. However, John is tired of his conquest now, and doing what he thinks is right, transfers all of his powers to Cole while John fades into oblivion. The ending results in humanity being on the brink of extinction, Cole becoming The Beast and making his way from place to place, bringing chaos while also saving any and all conduits he finds.
The good ending is the canonical and opposite approach however: everyone gathers together from the Militia and Rebellion, to Nix and Zeke to fight against The Beast while Kuo defects and disappears. However, everyone almost dies here, including Nix who sacrifices herself to damage The Beast while Cole charges the RFI. Cole finally activates it and the results are that everyone perishes except Zeke; while humanity is saved, conduits all around the world are dying. Even people in different countries who haven’t even activated their powers perish but the Plague disappears and Cole’s heroism is rewarded by a monument and title of “The Patron Saint of New Marais”. However, when Zeke takes Cole’s body out to sea for burial, a piece of lightning strikes, forming a question mark over the ship as it fades to black.
My feelings on the game’s plot is that while the Karma System feels ultimately shallow in the end, that it’s a pretty solid way to end the Infamous duology with the themes. If Infamous 1 was the origin story, the sequel is Cole’s growth to doing what’s right (or wrong). In fact, everyone's character development is a lot better in this game, ESPECIALLY Zeke. In the first game, Zeke was a buffoon whom I hated because of how much of a self centered dick he was. In this game, he’s actually a lot more likable and works to regain Cole’s trust back to become a better person. Nix is kind of stereotypically evil in her responses which is okay sometimes, but becomes kind of tropey, not that I was bothered by that. Kuo is pretty cool and level headed, I like her a lot and by the end I can honestly see her character making the choices that she did through the plot of the game, even if it came out of nowhere. I guess overall, I don’t have much in the way of issues with the plot other than some holes but I can get into that in the next paragraph.
Another thing I want to mention is that like I said before, the game is good at negating spoilers and only hinting at things that happened. No references to the Kessler twist is brought up aside from a reference during the nuke mission and a few Dead Drops commenting on certain similarities. Another thing I like is that depending on the Karma brought over (or not brought over), whatever Dead Drops you get has altered dialogues about your choices from the first game. I think that stuff has amazing detail, and I like how it’s delivered. The Dead Drops don’t give you much in the way of new plot, but provide background items such as John’s connection with Lucy and Sebastian Wolfe, comments on Cole’s actions in Empire City, Bertrand’s time in the First Sons, Vermak 88’s involvement with the Militia, amongst other things. The background events from TVs reveal events on what’s going on with the government, there’s just a lot of flavor text I enjoy. The only thing I don’t understand is the obvious plot hole: If Cole’s heroic and canon actions means all conduits die, why are there sequels? I don’t really know or understand this but whatever I guess? It seems like the games were meant to end here, but money brought the sequels into play.
The gameplay is quite similar to the previous title: you parkour around the open world city, fight enemies with special powers (depending on Karma), drain electricity for health and energy, pick up blast shards to upgrade your powers and gain XP, complete missions and side quests, completing UGC Missions (User Generated Content) if they’re available, along with interacting with special karma events for a bit of a boost. Starting again with powers and transportation, for the most part it’ll still consist of special powers (such as the glide power) along with parkour. For the most part it’s still the same, tapping the X button the climb the side of buildings and the ability to glide across electric wires are still there amongst pretty much everything from the previous games. If I were to add something NEW that the game put in for transportation is probably the piping that is placed on the side of buildings that when jumped on, Cole boosts himself up electrically to slide himself up to the roof faster. The free running in this game feels a lot smoother than in the first game due to whatever system improvements they improved, however you’ll still have times where your character tends to gravitate towards certain objects and areas you’re not trying to go towards, and if you’re nearly dead or in combat then it can be frustrating to deal with.
However, one thing that helps is a specific power, though sadly you only get it way later in the game: Electric Tether. You can choose to switch between several different powers on the fly, and though I don’t remember what the electric tether replaces at the moment (maybe Kinetic Pulse? The ability to levitate vehicles and objects?), it’s fantastic for being able to reach further distances for faster and smoother parkour moments, almost like one of Spider-Man’s webs or something. Of course, being able to get more powers in this game, you have the ability to switch them on the fly and in this sense, you’re able to figure out what sort of build you want. Do you want the usual electric bolts? Do you want a burst fire electric bolt? A slower, but more powerful version? You can mix and match these sorts of powers, though most of these you can only unlock using XP and/or completing certain karma ranks/in game events (like hitting four enemies off of a roof at once as an example). If there’s anything I can give this game praise for, is that the amount of variation is pretty good, though I noticed that they forgot about the psychic mind reading stuff from the first game. However, sometimes switching out these abilities (holding down on the D-Pad and pressing the buttons you want to switch powers around) can feel kind of cumbersome.
If we’re going with Karma from earlier, as said before certain powers are locked behind certain karma ranks (such as Thug, Outlaw or Infamous and Guardian, Champion and Hero). You’ll be able to get these ranks by doing the actions that correspond, such as saving people or arc restraining criminals for good while the opposite is bio leeching everyone and killing indiscriminately. What I can say is that for the most part, the karma systems are very forgiving in how it’s implemented and I’ve killed numerous people by accident before but still stay in the good ranks and vice versa if that’s what you’re looking for. Of course, if you’re trying to go out of your way to be a hero or a bastard, then eventually you’ll get there. Some other ways you could do this is by completing designated karma moments during main missions (the only way to truly rise the ranks as some of it is blocked off early, as an example choosing whether to swap powers with Kuo or Nix gives you different powers and advantages), completing specific karma side missions or regular side missions in a karmic aligned manner (which isn’t always possible) or you could alternatively just grind them in designated UGC missions (though you’ll get limited XP) if you’re able to get the servers online. What I can say with the Karma is that it’s not really an in-depth system, it’s very in your face and blatant with how it makes its choices, sometimes making it feel a little bit shallow. That being said, it’s not the worst thing and sometimes I don’t really want some in-depth Karma system like the Metro games as an example and that’s ok.
The blast shards are back and gathering a bunch of them leads to your electricity capacity being raised in small bits. One pretty cool thing if you played the first game is that if you collected half the shards in Empire City, you’ll carry them over along with a level one karma of your playthrough into New Marais (if you so choose of course). Another thing I’d like to bring up as an improvement, unlike the first game, they patched out the “die instantly getting caught on random objects” glitch which I’m VERY thankful for because that was annoying to deal with. As such, the environment is also a bit more forgiving with water (essentially because New Marais is surrounded with it). While it’s instant death in deeper waters, more shallow waters (in the flooded areas) means you’ll still get damaged of course, but you don’t die instantly and it gives you a chance to escape.
Combat also feels a lot better melee wise, moving on from the fists leads to this game’s AMP, which is a giant metal stick capable of annihilation if upgraded all the way. If you upgrade it, then you’ll be able to reach 50% and 100% special attacks, in which pressing triangle leads to a special animation which can either finish off an enemy when they’re hurt or just wipe one out in general. However, if there’s a downside to combat in this game is just the factions this time are a lot less interesting: it mainly boils down to the Militia (the main faction in the first area and a group of southern fascists), Vermaak 88 (a south african mercenary group with ice powers who covers the northern area) and mutants, which can be seen mostly in swampy areas or in random situations. There aren’t a lot of cool gangs with their own personality, and while I understand that these factions are in here for a story based purpose, half the time I forgot who Vermaak 88 was and they’re essentially the coolest looking in the entire game. They also fight with different tactics: mutants just tend to swarm, the Militia act like an actual military while Vermaak tends to jump everywhere with Ice and stay on the move (which by the way, fuck their shotgun enemy type in the ass I hate that bitch).
I guess to finish off on gameplay stuff, at least with UGC stuff and hard difficulty mixed with trophies, UGC missions are needed to get one or two trophies I think? If you care about those, it’ll be a bit more difficult to do them now because Sucker Punch migrated servers for an eventual sunset in the future, so in order to do them now you’ll have to figure out something with the internet. Unfortunately, I was unable to find a solution so I can’t help with that sadly. One thing I can say is good trophy wise is that now, unlike the first game, you don’t need to unlock all the Karma powers. What this means is that if you already did it once for the good playthrough, you can essentially speedrun the evil playthrough and solely do the missions only and while they may be a tad more difficult without certain powers (on Hard Difficulty, that’s how I’d recommend it), the open world nature means there are more ways to escape and heal if need be. If I failed to bring some stuff up, my apologies as the game is for the most part other than a key few differences, the same as the first game except they feel a lot better; and honestly if it’s not broken, then don’t fix it is a good, sound mentality..
Speaking of sound, I’ll start with the voice acting audio wise by saying I still prefer Jason Cottle’s gravelly Cole Macgrath than I do Eric Laden’s. That’s not to say that it’s bad or anything because it’s not, in fact I often didn’t even think about the voice actor change. However, it’s strange they were able to get Caleb Moody back as Zeke from the first one, and not Cole’s original voice actor. I have no clue as to why this is, maybe it was a monetary thing or maybe it was just they wanted someone more youthful? Who knows, what I can say is that Caleb Moody does fantastic playing Zeke as someone who is more mature and regrets his mistakes from the previous game. Those are my main two standouts, though keep in mind everyone does a good job, from bringing Phil Lamar back as John from the first game to Michael Ensign as Sebastian Wolfe’s savory British voice and Dawn Olivieri as Kuo. Environmental stuff with New Marais is cool as ever sound design wise, with the favorite being grinding the electric wires on top of buildings and the weapons sound like how they feel, pretty damn good.
Music wise is pretty good too, the music being split into the Blue and Red side for Good and Evil Karma respectively; having only replayed the evil section recently I’d say that Closing Time is probably my favorite on that karma as it has a sort of jazzy flavor to it mixed in with the orchestral trappings. Fade Away by The Black Heart Procession on the Good Side (and Credits sequence I believe) sounds sad as hell, and is probably my actual favorite piece in the entire game period, accentuating the bittersweet ending to the Infamous franchise. La Roux sounds like something RL Burnside would make if he was doing video game music, and Shoot the Messenger sounds distinctly like a jazzy noir flick. In fact, to say that the whole soundtrack is southern flavored is an understatement and honestly fits the game like a fucking glove.
The graphics being Playstation 3 are predictably going to look like Playstation 3 graphics, however being me I can’t really complain on that end because I’m usually cool with stuff like that. Models look upscaled and have a bit more detail compared to the previous game, some models are just changed entirely however, especially Cole himself who honestly looks more youthful in comparison to Infamous 1. Funny enough speaking of Cole’s model, while I prefer how he looks and sounds in the first game, you know he almost had full on hair and weird looking track pants in the beta? Funny shit, I’ll post a link of a low res trailer below but thank god they didn’t go down that route. Enemy models are pretty interesting for the most part, with my favorite being how disgusting the creatures you can fight end up looking? Vermaak 88 is cool too as a gang, and Militia is ok I guess but I’ll be honest, I preferred how the gangs back in Empire City looked as they all felt distinct and just more…interesting I guess? That’s not to say that all of Empire City is better in every way of course.
In fact, while I love the dark and edgy vibe of Empire City of the first game, if I could give criticism it would be that having played both games back to back (sorta) that it feels like the developers smushed some jelly or something sometimes, like some weird filter stuff that I didn’t care for. In this game, with the brighter aura surrounding the city of New Marais thankfully they took that stuff off for the most part. Speaking of New Marais, while I prefer the city of Empire sometimes, the contrast between the two games speak to me as a sort of tonal character arc: the dark and gritty origin story while this game speaks more to Cole becoming the hero (or villain) that he’s meant to be fully and having a sunny and colorful, but dark backdrop in the form of the New Orleans expy is honestly an excellent choice. Whether fighting through the old buildings of the aging city against the Militia or trying not to electrocute yourself in the harrowing and kind of scary flooded section of the city makes it arguably more memorable than most areas in the first game. There are still comic book scenes of course, but the game definitely employs a lot more cutscenes as well to reflect the budget. Graphically and atmospherically, Infamous 2 is a game that improves upon its visuals in every way as a sequel should, even if I prefer some of the original some times.
Infamous 2 as a game to me, while still feeling a bit behind in some areas, represents what quality of Playstation Exclusives are, and in some ways is the high bar that modern generations haven’t been able to reach. That’s not to say there haven’t been bangers: Spider-Man, Bloodborne, hell even The Last of Us came out a year later and I’d say that’s the most popular one ever. But I feel that since the PS3 generation, there’s been a bit lacking in terms of truly original and creative content that truly excites me personally. The basics of Infamous for the most part were improved in every way, and if I were a head guy at Sony Interactive Entertainment then these would be some of the first PS3 games I would port to PC (as they should be). However, this being what I consider to be the pinnacle of the franchise, Sucker Punch would later take a dramatic shift in terms of quality and memorability (although the Festival of Blood DLC was pretty solid).
The sequel that took place after this, Infamous: Second Son, while decent enough, kind of killed the momentum of the series that truthfully, kind of died with Cole. Maybe that’s what should’ve happened? The ending of the second game said that all conduits died, and there are enough plot holes in Second Son that make me wonder about should’ve been? I don’t know, it’s hard to say. That’s not to say Sucker Punch hasn’t had a great track record in general, as since this game and the next sequels, they came out with the phenomenal Ghosts of Tsushima. Sometimes though, I wonder about what’ll be in the series future, especially because they announced no new Infamous or Sly Cooper titles. That and even the UGC stuff, while barely functional, was recently announced that maintenance would occur to have them move to a different server before an eventual sunset. However, during my evil playthrough they never came on once, and I’m not going to go through fifteen different INS server options to figure out how to bring them back. However, as far as I know they haven’t been fully shut down completely so I’d say if you wanna get the platinum, try to go for it now while you have the chance. And as a final thing, I hope SOMEONE at Sony definitely considers a remaster and a port, and if you don’t wanna put in UGC then get the best of missions perhaps as a sort of added content? I don’t know, but I don’t feel like ignoring our past will do us any good, not only as it’s a piece of gaming history but arguably because there are people out there that still love this game like I do. If there’s at least one person that loves something, then it’s at least worth the time and effort to keep the legacy going by any means necessary.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_2
https://www.suckerpunch.com/upcoming-infamous-2-ugc-maintenance-and-legacy-franchises/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=17G-JZvbmmY&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t6F_phv10gY&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=89IqJU_npcA&ab_channel=hRDLA
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous_2
This review contains spoilers
Spider-Man: Miles Morales is an “exaggerated black teen swagger” simulator and open world superhero game developed by Insomniac Games as both an interquel between the first Spider-Man game and the upcoming sequel, as well as a PS5 Launch Title and the story of how Miles Morales became Spider-Man in his own unique way. Development of this game was compared in sorts to Uncharted 4’s standalone expansion pack, Uncharted: Lost Legacy, and truth be told that’s kind of exactly what it is, and the Ultimate Edition’s price was around 49.99 so to me it all kind of lines up (my memory is shaky though so if I’m wrong I apologize). It’s been speculated that development time took around 3-4 years and a prequel book, Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales – Wings of Fury, was released around two days before the game debuted on November 12th, 2020 as a Launch Title next to the Demon’s Souls Remake (and the Remaster for the previous game if that counts? It came with a code at least to play it on PS5). My history with this game is short and simple to be honest, being an exclusive game collector I pre-ordered this game and Demon’s Souls for the eventual day I would be able to find a Playstation 5 in the open market during the drought around the time COVID hit. Being stuck in a job I didn’t like, spending my money on frivolous stuff while living with my parents became one of the only things I enjoyed, and as such I spent my time beating other games while searching for a PS5. While I eventually did get one, I didn’t end up touching this game until October of 2021; this was only after a buddy of mine gave it a shot to try it out and I only sat down because I wanted to get a platinum as well as the fact that I was depressed and I needed something to distract myself. This was around the same time that I had platinumed Dark Souls 2, Astro’s Playroom and Infamous 2 as well so I was in another deep period where I needed to lose myself. After beating the game twice (once on normal and once on Hard for the trophy), I came out of the game still feeling empty due to depression but I had enjoyed myself a bit.
The plot is something you would expect as a spin-off, and here are my thoughts on it along with a sort of recap. Taking a while after The City That Never Sleeps DLC from the previous game, Peter and Miles are in the middle of transporting a prison convoy to the newly rebuilt Raft Prison, destroyed from the previous game. However, a breakout occurs and amongst the many individual prisoners to come out is the Rhino, one of the previous Sinister Six members who ironically enough tried to hunt Miles down at the docks. A chase ensues that destroys property and causes general mayhem until Miles is able to defeat him using his new “Venom” bio-electricity stuff. Here’s a thought about that so far? Why is this power named Venom? Will this tie into the next game or is it just something they named just because? I predict it’ll tie into something but here it kind of feels odd knowing my knowledge ahead of time. Besides the point, Rhino is defeated by Miles, protecting an unconscious Peter and leaving the supervillain to the security group of Roxxon Incorporated. If that doesn’t reek of bad ideas, I don’t know what is but regardless, Peter tells Miles that he’s going to have to protect the city by himself as Pete’s going to be going overseas with his girlfriend MJ to Symkaria to help her report on the civil war there.
All alone now, a series of events occur including a group of strange purple tech goons breaking into Roxxon Incorporated trying to steal something called Nuform, a christmas party with his friends (Ganke and Phin) and mother as well as an encounter with his Uncle Aaron, who somehow knows Mile’s identity as Spider-Man. Regardless, Rios Morales (Mile’s Mom) intends to campaign to fight back against Roxxon’s influence in their neighborhood and yet again with a giant speech involving one of Mile’s family members, is attacked yet again by a strange group, this time the purple goons who named themselves The Underground. Luckily this time, Mile’s mom doesn’t end up as a kebab but Miles almost does (or at least, his reputation) after intercepting the Underground who themselves are intercepting Nuform again, this time being moved in an armored transport. The attack leads to the revelation that his buddy Phin is The Underground’s leader, named The Tinkerer.
A series of investigations lead to a startling truth: Phin’s brother Rick used to work at Roxxon, and he created Nuform. However the unintended side effect was becoming ill, and Rick was murdered by the CEO of Roxxon himself, Troy Baker (sorry, Simon Krieger, my bad lol). An attempt is made to sneak back to the site of the sabotage where Rick died to get a phone with his Uncle Aaron (known as The Prowler) when shit gets fucked up and nothing can be obtained from the raid. However, Aaron encourages Miles to infiltrate The Underground with Phin and get the scoop on any intel. The intel ends up being that she’s planning on destroying the Nuform Reactor in Roxxon Plaza in a terrorist attack to expose the corporation’s plans. However, I don’t personally feel like she thought it through because corporations have enough money to know how to spin events like that, so she’s kind of setting herself up for failure? I don’t know that’s my take. Another thing I want to throw out here before continuing the synopsis: Simon Krieger (sorry, Troy Baker, my bad lol) is that he’s fucking boring as an antagonist. I understand as a sort of interquel with the other Spider-Man games that they needed a throwaway villain of sorts to really push Miles as a character and that’s cool. But I feel there are more interesting ways, or villains at least out there to really help push Miles into that zone. Could I do better and write the plot? I don’t know, probably not but Troy Krieger just feels like a stereotypical evil corporation guy; what about his evil makes him interesting? He doesn’t need to be a sympathetic villain, he can be played cartoonishly evil like he is here, I was just wishing for more to him is all. Also one last thing, Phin and the Underground attacked Roxxon Plaza earlier while Mile’s mom was in the middle of a campaign, and I understand that she’s changed and marred by anger towards her brother’s death. However, the fact that she did that KNOWING Mile’s mother was there and invited her to a christmas party? Kind of an asshole, and not a great friend unless I’m forgetting some context that was played in the game.
After an event leads to Miles having to expose his identity as Spider-Man, Phin and Miles become more strained than ever before. Trying to reconcile, they’re instead captured by Roxxon and Rhino, Troy Baker’s personal new henchman. Escaping their prison however, it’s learned that The Prowler is actually also working for Roxxon. Stopping Rhino from murdering Phin, Miles is thanked with getting knocked the fuck out. Being brought home, Rios learns of her son’s role as Spider-Man and is kind of okay with it; however it’s also learned in the previous encounter that Roxxon plans to sabotage the Nuform Reactor to destroy all of Harlem in case The Tinkerer succeeds. Nice! Regardless, the endgame is coming up and Uncle Aaron decides to lock Miles up AGAIN, but this time to stop him from being killed. However, an ass beating encourages Uncle A to let Miles slide and “do the right thing” so to speak.
Miles and Phin fight to stop her from blowing up the reactor, however shit gets crazy and Phin comes to her senses after their fight, sacrificing herself (and almost Miles) by having him release all the Nuform energy into the air. She dies and he falls to the ground in near death, his identity being exposed to all. However, and this is one way I will give the game major props, the community that he’s helped form around him in Harlem protects him from people giving interviews. The community and becoming one’s own person are two themes that take place in this game that I feel really does it justice, I don’t remember the names of a lot of the people in Harlem but I remember the cutscenes, the interactions with the Bodega owner and the deaf potential love interest, and everything comes back. Having saved the city all on his own, Miles essentially has proven to himself that he IS the Spider-Man that he’s always wanted to be, and having the backing of Harlem all but validates him in this effort.
The ending follows up weeks later, Uncle Aaron agrees to testify against Troy Krieger for his crimes and Roxxon is hit with a whole lot of lawsuits. Funny enough, everything happens to go well in spite of Phin’s homegrown terrorist attack. Miles has saved the day, and Peter comes back to congratulate him on his newfound Spider-Man identity before going off together once again to stop crime. Post Credits reveal however that Norman Osborn has ordered a scientist, one Curtis Connors, to release his son Harry from the stasis.
Again, I like this story a lot and I’ll say that there’s a lot of merit for this game to exist. This game is not only an in-universe coming of age story of sorts for Miles, but to me personally a sort of message to the fans that say “Miles isn’t Spider-Man” or “Miles isn’t THEIR Spider-Man”. It doesn’t have to be your Spider-Man, but he IS Spider-Man, no doubt about it. You can form your own feelings on whatever, that’s on you; but to sit there and say that he’s not what he wants to be doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day he effectively proved it to himself and that’s what matters. The whole Be Yourself tagline of the game is an effective part of this that maybe hammers it in a little much, but sometimes a little less subtly is okay to get the point across. If Harlem can effectively identify Miles as their Spider-Man, and kids around the world can identify with his version then I don’t see what the harm is. It’s just a shame that some of the villains seem one note and that Phin as The Tinkerer; while an interesting take on an old, crabby white dude, kind of frustrates me as a villain in her selfishness. That’s probably the point, and that’s cool but I can still not like it the same.
There isn’t much new to say about the gameplay other than what was in the previous game to be honest. All the fundamentals are still there, it’s still the same combat though Miles has a few extra moves and different side mission content. For gadgets, you’ll still unlock upgrade tokens by doing various missions across Manhattan. These include the standard web shooters, the Holo Drone, the Remote Mine, and Gravity Well of course but also include Venom Blast (the irony?) which uses bio-electricity (whatever the hell that means) to disable goons, camouflage to go invisible during stealth and combat temporarily. These are all decent and compared to what Peter has, makes Miles his own unique version of Spider-Man as a fighter.
Some of the side content where you unlock tokens include the usual collectibles like Time Capsules and Postcards, which in itself is an old scavenger hunt created by Mile’s father to celebrate Mile’s 16th birthday in a sad but positive way. There’s also the Spider-Training, which unlike Taskmaster’s Tasks in the previous games, are more used for Peter to train Miles and we’re also pretty decently easy as far as I remember. You can raid like Underground Caches and Roxxon Labs. These labs, when all the side objectives are completed, earn extra tokens and for the most part are pretty easy to deal with for most things. Other than that, and a couple other side objectives that give story and character context, for the most part you’ll be doing what every Spider-Man does: solve crimes. Instead of tapping into the police scanner like Peter did, Miles' buddy Ganke created a “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” app where people can leave tips and pinpoint the direction where crimes are located for Miles to bust up. I feel like the best thing about these missions compared to the OG Spider-Man is that if you wanted to replay the campaign in the previous game, it would mean restarting save points or a new game in general whereas in this game you can thankfully just go to a menu and replay old missions if you wanted to go back for any reason. It’s a feature I wish was in the past game, as well as hoping it’s in the new one as well.
As for outfits and such, they’re all for the most part pretty cool and unique, each one with their own set of buffs for using them. Certain ones are unlocked already and some have to be unlocked by doing various content but truth be told, I always stuck with the Spider-Verse one even if I didn’t watch the movies because the whole choppy frame thing they have with the outfit is honestly pretty fucking cool. Other than that, much of it is pretty much the same as the last game, like the ability to fast travel through the subway or scroll through the social media stuff on the main menu to see the city’s reactions to the plot unfolding. Overall, it’s more Spider-Man 2018 but with new stuff and honestly I don’t need much in the way of new additions to enjoy the content as it was already fantastic to begin with.
The audio design in this game is pretty good, it definitely feels youthful in it’s presentation, like the same people who created the Spiderverse films took out time to make sure the score surrounding this game fit the tone they wanted for Miles Morales and his escapades. There’s the usual orchestral flair you’ll get in these games, and a lot of them do a pretty good job and being bombastic and making you feel stuff. However, there’s also a bit of a trap and I swear to god an electronic mix (sort of?) sometimes that makes it feel like it’s own unique thing compared to the other titles and honestly, I fucks with it. John Paesano did a fantastic job creating this sort of soundtrack that not only sounds catchy as hell but blends into the background that catches your attention in a sort of subtle way. There’s nothing wrong with having standout tracks that you feel are fire as hell, but for me oftentimes I’ll appreciate when it blends seamlessly and really pushes the game’s personality out. To accompany these orchestral tracks, there are a couple of rap tracks by Jaden Smith and Lecrae, whose lyrics describe the feelings that Miles most likely feels in the moment. I love me some rap tracks, these are okay even if they don’t always hit me but I’m sure someone out there loves them and that’s ok too. Commonly you’ll most likely be hearing Be Yourself while swinging through New York, or something at least that sounds like that and thematically for the game, it makes sense.
Voice acting is pretty solid too, Nadji Peter to me is the standout as Miles Morales with both his youthfulness and his willingness to do the right thing, but others do pretty solid too. Troy Baker does a decent job playing…Troy Baker I guess? Not to diss, I keep forgetting the name of his villain even if I’m writing about it because of how bland the character is, so Troy Baker’s voice is the only thing I recognize. Jaqueline Pool is a name who I don’t recognize, but the way that she plays Rio Morales embodies the character for me. Ike Amadi also stands out as Aaron Davis, Mile’s uncle and as such, truth be told everyone in this game does a nice job bringing their characters to life. You’ll also get a couple of people coming back from the previous title too, such as Yuri Lowenthal as Peter, Fred Tatasciore as Rhino and Travis Willingham as Wilson Fisk but for the most part (other than Rhino), they’re relatively minor parts of the game. I guess to finish this off, yeah the shit’s good and I can’t complain about this part, even if sometimes it feels like I’m a bit too old for the soundtrack and such, there’s something about the game that makes it feel wholly Miles that it doesn’t matter how old I am. Also to top it off, the actual sound design surrounding New York City is good too, but I can’t really feel much of a difference from the previous Spider-Man game and that was good so overall, good shit here.
Graphically what can I say about this game that hasn't already been said before? As a PS5 launch title, it looked absolutely fucking stunning in every way shape and form. Some of the stuff still carried from the OG Spider-Man as far as I remember, like the buildings repeating itself when looking inside sometimes but honestly, I didn’t care much. I know a lot of people get up in arms between the “Beautiful Graphics” mode and the Performance Mode stuff but truthfully, I couldn’t really tell the difference as it looked pretty good in 30 FPS regardless. Details on models in the game are pretty solid, and I didn’t encounter much in the way of glitches other than one where I knocked a goon into a post and he clipped through and started twerking or some shit. In a way, I don’t really feel like I have much to say here other than it looks good so just take my word for that. The only real knock to me personally still is just Peter’s new model looks painfully...bland? I don’t know, I prefer the PS4 version and it’s just my personal opinion, not a diss on the guy himself.
As for atmospheric vibes? There’s something about the game’s overall presentation between the snowy but surprisingly friendly weather, the extra addition of colors, the emphasis on community bonding that really makes this game feel unique in its own way. This game was built for Christmas, or at least the feeling that I used to have as a child before those feelings eventually died due to adult worries and such. You also have a few new easter eggs here such as a street renamed to Boseman Way, for the actor Chadwick Boseman, who played Black Panther who sadly passed away due to disease. You can also find the grave of Jefferson Davis, Mile’s police officer dad who died in the attack in the first game while Stan Lee gets his own statue outside of the diner where Peter and Mary Jane hung out as well. There’s even a cameo of Peter and Otto Octavius during a science fair flashback that’s pretty cool as well. Regardless, I believe this is probably the most unique feeling I’ve ever seen in a Spider-Man game pretty much….ever I believe? Either way, it’s all comforting and surprisingly heartwarming, though maybe that’s just due to the lack of snow I’ve seen in real life (shoutout to my G, Global Warming! You’re a real one for that!).
Final thoughts are as follows; it’s a smaller and deeply personal title that showcases Mile’s growth in a way that I enjoyed. Granted, you could definitely tell it was a smaller game in both the length and the way that it went about using certain characters (Troy Baker’s character was a definite throwaway villain that I felt to be boring); I can understand that at the end of the day they needed some smaller fish to feed Mile’s character arc. Regardless, it was a solid title and I’m glad that I got to sit down and play it as my first Playstation 5 game, and if there are people wondering if it’s worthy of playing? Yes. You should definitely consider picking it up. After they released Miles Morales (as well as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart), the main projects that Insomniac sat down and worked on as far as I’m aware is the upcoming Spider-Man 2 which I am HYPED for as one of the last platinum titles I’m going to get this year, but also PC ports for both Spider-Man: Remastered, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. From what I’ve heard, Insomniac Games teamed up with Nixxes Software for the title and did a fantastic job porting them all to the PC (though Rift Apart has some hiccups apparently) and I must say I’m happy as hell that it’s the case. While I’m sad that the older Playstation titles aren’t getting the Remaster/Port love that they deserve, the fact that these games are on PC and available everywhere for anyone to purchase is a good thing. Usually the game on sale runs for about early to mid thirties price range and if there’s a good time as ever, it’s to pick it up on sale. However, I think regardless of if it’s on sale, it’s worthy of your money and time and you will get your worth out of this game; just come in with the expectations that it’s definitely going to be a smaller game (about half the length of Spider-Man PS4 or a tad less I think?), with not as much grandiosity to it as the earlier and probably later Peter Parker titles.
Links:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/games/brian-horton-describes-work-on-marvels-spider-man-miles-morales (Research)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManMilesMorales (Research)
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man:_Miles_Morales (Research)
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man:Miles_Morales-_Wings_of_Fury (Research)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Miles_Morales (Research)
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21295683/insomniac-spider-man-miles-morales-sony-ps5-length-confirmed (Research)
https://www.marvel.com/articles/games/brian-horton-describes-work-on-marvels-spider-man-miles-morales (Research)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIMpsbGyO5Y&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFUOOiiC6k&ab_channel=FullAlbum (Soundtrack)
The plot is something you would expect as a spin-off, and here are my thoughts on it along with a sort of recap. Taking a while after The City That Never Sleeps DLC from the previous game, Peter and Miles are in the middle of transporting a prison convoy to the newly rebuilt Raft Prison, destroyed from the previous game. However, a breakout occurs and amongst the many individual prisoners to come out is the Rhino, one of the previous Sinister Six members who ironically enough tried to hunt Miles down at the docks. A chase ensues that destroys property and causes general mayhem until Miles is able to defeat him using his new “Venom” bio-electricity stuff. Here’s a thought about that so far? Why is this power named Venom? Will this tie into the next game or is it just something they named just because? I predict it’ll tie into something but here it kind of feels odd knowing my knowledge ahead of time. Besides the point, Rhino is defeated by Miles, protecting an unconscious Peter and leaving the supervillain to the security group of Roxxon Incorporated. If that doesn’t reek of bad ideas, I don’t know what is but regardless, Peter tells Miles that he’s going to have to protect the city by himself as Pete’s going to be going overseas with his girlfriend MJ to Symkaria to help her report on the civil war there.
All alone now, a series of events occur including a group of strange purple tech goons breaking into Roxxon Incorporated trying to steal something called Nuform, a christmas party with his friends (Ganke and Phin) and mother as well as an encounter with his Uncle Aaron, who somehow knows Mile’s identity as Spider-Man. Regardless, Rios Morales (Mile’s Mom) intends to campaign to fight back against Roxxon’s influence in their neighborhood and yet again with a giant speech involving one of Mile’s family members, is attacked yet again by a strange group, this time the purple goons who named themselves The Underground. Luckily this time, Mile’s mom doesn’t end up as a kebab but Miles almost does (or at least, his reputation) after intercepting the Underground who themselves are intercepting Nuform again, this time being moved in an armored transport. The attack leads to the revelation that his buddy Phin is The Underground’s leader, named The Tinkerer.
A series of investigations lead to a startling truth: Phin’s brother Rick used to work at Roxxon, and he created Nuform. However the unintended side effect was becoming ill, and Rick was murdered by the CEO of Roxxon himself, Troy Baker (sorry, Simon Krieger, my bad lol). An attempt is made to sneak back to the site of the sabotage where Rick died to get a phone with his Uncle Aaron (known as The Prowler) when shit gets fucked up and nothing can be obtained from the raid. However, Aaron encourages Miles to infiltrate The Underground with Phin and get the scoop on any intel. The intel ends up being that she’s planning on destroying the Nuform Reactor in Roxxon Plaza in a terrorist attack to expose the corporation’s plans. However, I don’t personally feel like she thought it through because corporations have enough money to know how to spin events like that, so she’s kind of setting herself up for failure? I don’t know that’s my take. Another thing I want to throw out here before continuing the synopsis: Simon Krieger (sorry, Troy Baker, my bad lol) is that he’s fucking boring as an antagonist. I understand as a sort of interquel with the other Spider-Man games that they needed a throwaway villain of sorts to really push Miles as a character and that’s cool. But I feel there are more interesting ways, or villains at least out there to really help push Miles into that zone. Could I do better and write the plot? I don’t know, probably not but Troy Krieger just feels like a stereotypical evil corporation guy; what about his evil makes him interesting? He doesn’t need to be a sympathetic villain, he can be played cartoonishly evil like he is here, I was just wishing for more to him is all. Also one last thing, Phin and the Underground attacked Roxxon Plaza earlier while Mile’s mom was in the middle of a campaign, and I understand that she’s changed and marred by anger towards her brother’s death. However, the fact that she did that KNOWING Mile’s mother was there and invited her to a christmas party? Kind of an asshole, and not a great friend unless I’m forgetting some context that was played in the game.
After an event leads to Miles having to expose his identity as Spider-Man, Phin and Miles become more strained than ever before. Trying to reconcile, they’re instead captured by Roxxon and Rhino, Troy Baker’s personal new henchman. Escaping their prison however, it’s learned that The Prowler is actually also working for Roxxon. Stopping Rhino from murdering Phin, Miles is thanked with getting knocked the fuck out. Being brought home, Rios learns of her son’s role as Spider-Man and is kind of okay with it; however it’s also learned in the previous encounter that Roxxon plans to sabotage the Nuform Reactor to destroy all of Harlem in case The Tinkerer succeeds. Nice! Regardless, the endgame is coming up and Uncle Aaron decides to lock Miles up AGAIN, but this time to stop him from being killed. However, an ass beating encourages Uncle A to let Miles slide and “do the right thing” so to speak.
Miles and Phin fight to stop her from blowing up the reactor, however shit gets crazy and Phin comes to her senses after their fight, sacrificing herself (and almost Miles) by having him release all the Nuform energy into the air. She dies and he falls to the ground in near death, his identity being exposed to all. However, and this is one way I will give the game major props, the community that he’s helped form around him in Harlem protects him from people giving interviews. The community and becoming one’s own person are two themes that take place in this game that I feel really does it justice, I don’t remember the names of a lot of the people in Harlem but I remember the cutscenes, the interactions with the Bodega owner and the deaf potential love interest, and everything comes back. Having saved the city all on his own, Miles essentially has proven to himself that he IS the Spider-Man that he’s always wanted to be, and having the backing of Harlem all but validates him in this effort.
The ending follows up weeks later, Uncle Aaron agrees to testify against Troy Krieger for his crimes and Roxxon is hit with a whole lot of lawsuits. Funny enough, everything happens to go well in spite of Phin’s homegrown terrorist attack. Miles has saved the day, and Peter comes back to congratulate him on his newfound Spider-Man identity before going off together once again to stop crime. Post Credits reveal however that Norman Osborn has ordered a scientist, one Curtis Connors, to release his son Harry from the stasis.
Again, I like this story a lot and I’ll say that there’s a lot of merit for this game to exist. This game is not only an in-universe coming of age story of sorts for Miles, but to me personally a sort of message to the fans that say “Miles isn’t Spider-Man” or “Miles isn’t THEIR Spider-Man”. It doesn’t have to be your Spider-Man, but he IS Spider-Man, no doubt about it. You can form your own feelings on whatever, that’s on you; but to sit there and say that he’s not what he wants to be doesn’t matter, because at the end of the day he effectively proved it to himself and that’s what matters. The whole Be Yourself tagline of the game is an effective part of this that maybe hammers it in a little much, but sometimes a little less subtly is okay to get the point across. If Harlem can effectively identify Miles as their Spider-Man, and kids around the world can identify with his version then I don’t see what the harm is. It’s just a shame that some of the villains seem one note and that Phin as The Tinkerer; while an interesting take on an old, crabby white dude, kind of frustrates me as a villain in her selfishness. That’s probably the point, and that’s cool but I can still not like it the same.
There isn’t much new to say about the gameplay other than what was in the previous game to be honest. All the fundamentals are still there, it’s still the same combat though Miles has a few extra moves and different side mission content. For gadgets, you’ll still unlock upgrade tokens by doing various missions across Manhattan. These include the standard web shooters, the Holo Drone, the Remote Mine, and Gravity Well of course but also include Venom Blast (the irony?) which uses bio-electricity (whatever the hell that means) to disable goons, camouflage to go invisible during stealth and combat temporarily. These are all decent and compared to what Peter has, makes Miles his own unique version of Spider-Man as a fighter.
Some of the side content where you unlock tokens include the usual collectibles like Time Capsules and Postcards, which in itself is an old scavenger hunt created by Mile’s father to celebrate Mile’s 16th birthday in a sad but positive way. There’s also the Spider-Training, which unlike Taskmaster’s Tasks in the previous games, are more used for Peter to train Miles and we’re also pretty decently easy as far as I remember. You can raid like Underground Caches and Roxxon Labs. These labs, when all the side objectives are completed, earn extra tokens and for the most part are pretty easy to deal with for most things. Other than that, and a couple other side objectives that give story and character context, for the most part you’ll be doing what every Spider-Man does: solve crimes. Instead of tapping into the police scanner like Peter did, Miles' buddy Ganke created a “Friendly Neighborhood Spider-Man” app where people can leave tips and pinpoint the direction where crimes are located for Miles to bust up. I feel like the best thing about these missions compared to the OG Spider-Man is that if you wanted to replay the campaign in the previous game, it would mean restarting save points or a new game in general whereas in this game you can thankfully just go to a menu and replay old missions if you wanted to go back for any reason. It’s a feature I wish was in the past game, as well as hoping it’s in the new one as well.
As for outfits and such, they’re all for the most part pretty cool and unique, each one with their own set of buffs for using them. Certain ones are unlocked already and some have to be unlocked by doing various content but truth be told, I always stuck with the Spider-Verse one even if I didn’t watch the movies because the whole choppy frame thing they have with the outfit is honestly pretty fucking cool. Other than that, much of it is pretty much the same as the last game, like the ability to fast travel through the subway or scroll through the social media stuff on the main menu to see the city’s reactions to the plot unfolding. Overall, it’s more Spider-Man 2018 but with new stuff and honestly I don’t need much in the way of new additions to enjoy the content as it was already fantastic to begin with.
The audio design in this game is pretty good, it definitely feels youthful in it’s presentation, like the same people who created the Spiderverse films took out time to make sure the score surrounding this game fit the tone they wanted for Miles Morales and his escapades. There’s the usual orchestral flair you’ll get in these games, and a lot of them do a pretty good job and being bombastic and making you feel stuff. However, there’s also a bit of a trap and I swear to god an electronic mix (sort of?) sometimes that makes it feel like it’s own unique thing compared to the other titles and honestly, I fucks with it. John Paesano did a fantastic job creating this sort of soundtrack that not only sounds catchy as hell but blends into the background that catches your attention in a sort of subtle way. There’s nothing wrong with having standout tracks that you feel are fire as hell, but for me oftentimes I’ll appreciate when it blends seamlessly and really pushes the game’s personality out. To accompany these orchestral tracks, there are a couple of rap tracks by Jaden Smith and Lecrae, whose lyrics describe the feelings that Miles most likely feels in the moment. I love me some rap tracks, these are okay even if they don’t always hit me but I’m sure someone out there loves them and that’s ok too. Commonly you’ll most likely be hearing Be Yourself while swinging through New York, or something at least that sounds like that and thematically for the game, it makes sense.
Voice acting is pretty solid too, Nadji Peter to me is the standout as Miles Morales with both his youthfulness and his willingness to do the right thing, but others do pretty solid too. Troy Baker does a decent job playing…Troy Baker I guess? Not to diss, I keep forgetting the name of his villain even if I’m writing about it because of how bland the character is, so Troy Baker’s voice is the only thing I recognize. Jaqueline Pool is a name who I don’t recognize, but the way that she plays Rio Morales embodies the character for me. Ike Amadi also stands out as Aaron Davis, Mile’s uncle and as such, truth be told everyone in this game does a nice job bringing their characters to life. You’ll also get a couple of people coming back from the previous title too, such as Yuri Lowenthal as Peter, Fred Tatasciore as Rhino and Travis Willingham as Wilson Fisk but for the most part (other than Rhino), they’re relatively minor parts of the game. I guess to finish this off, yeah the shit’s good and I can’t complain about this part, even if sometimes it feels like I’m a bit too old for the soundtrack and such, there’s something about the game that makes it feel wholly Miles that it doesn’t matter how old I am. Also to top it off, the actual sound design surrounding New York City is good too, but I can’t really feel much of a difference from the previous Spider-Man game and that was good so overall, good shit here.
Graphically what can I say about this game that hasn't already been said before? As a PS5 launch title, it looked absolutely fucking stunning in every way shape and form. Some of the stuff still carried from the OG Spider-Man as far as I remember, like the buildings repeating itself when looking inside sometimes but honestly, I didn’t care much. I know a lot of people get up in arms between the “Beautiful Graphics” mode and the Performance Mode stuff but truthfully, I couldn’t really tell the difference as it looked pretty good in 30 FPS regardless. Details on models in the game are pretty solid, and I didn’t encounter much in the way of glitches other than one where I knocked a goon into a post and he clipped through and started twerking or some shit. In a way, I don’t really feel like I have much to say here other than it looks good so just take my word for that. The only real knock to me personally still is just Peter’s new model looks painfully...bland? I don’t know, I prefer the PS4 version and it’s just my personal opinion, not a diss on the guy himself.
As for atmospheric vibes? There’s something about the game’s overall presentation between the snowy but surprisingly friendly weather, the extra addition of colors, the emphasis on community bonding that really makes this game feel unique in its own way. This game was built for Christmas, or at least the feeling that I used to have as a child before those feelings eventually died due to adult worries and such. You also have a few new easter eggs here such as a street renamed to Boseman Way, for the actor Chadwick Boseman, who played Black Panther who sadly passed away due to disease. You can also find the grave of Jefferson Davis, Mile’s police officer dad who died in the attack in the first game while Stan Lee gets his own statue outside of the diner where Peter and Mary Jane hung out as well. There’s even a cameo of Peter and Otto Octavius during a science fair flashback that’s pretty cool as well. Regardless, I believe this is probably the most unique feeling I’ve ever seen in a Spider-Man game pretty much….ever I believe? Either way, it’s all comforting and surprisingly heartwarming, though maybe that’s just due to the lack of snow I’ve seen in real life (shoutout to my G, Global Warming! You’re a real one for that!).
Final thoughts are as follows; it’s a smaller and deeply personal title that showcases Mile’s growth in a way that I enjoyed. Granted, you could definitely tell it was a smaller game in both the length and the way that it went about using certain characters (Troy Baker’s character was a definite throwaway villain that I felt to be boring); I can understand that at the end of the day they needed some smaller fish to feed Mile’s character arc. Regardless, it was a solid title and I’m glad that I got to sit down and play it as my first Playstation 5 game, and if there are people wondering if it’s worthy of playing? Yes. You should definitely consider picking it up. After they released Miles Morales (as well as Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart), the main projects that Insomniac sat down and worked on as far as I’m aware is the upcoming Spider-Man 2 which I am HYPED for as one of the last platinum titles I’m going to get this year, but also PC ports for both Spider-Man: Remastered, Spider-Man: Miles Morales and Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart. From what I’ve heard, Insomniac Games teamed up with Nixxes Software for the title and did a fantastic job porting them all to the PC (though Rift Apart has some hiccups apparently) and I must say I’m happy as hell that it’s the case. While I’m sad that the older Playstation titles aren’t getting the Remaster/Port love that they deserve, the fact that these games are on PC and available everywhere for anyone to purchase is a good thing. Usually the game on sale runs for about early to mid thirties price range and if there’s a good time as ever, it’s to pick it up on sale. However, I think regardless of if it’s on sale, it’s worthy of your money and time and you will get your worth out of this game; just come in with the expectations that it’s definitely going to be a smaller game (about half the length of Spider-Man PS4 or a tad less I think?), with not as much grandiosity to it as the earlier and probably later Peter Parker titles.
Links:
https://www.marvel.com/articles/games/brian-horton-describes-work-on-marvels-spider-man-miles-morales (Research)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManMilesMorales (Research)
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man:_Miles_Morales (Research)
https://marvel.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man:Miles_Morales-_Wings_of_Fury (Research)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man:_Miles_Morales (Research)
https://www.theverge.com/2020/6/18/21295683/insomniac-spider-man-miles-morales-sony-ps5-length-confirmed (Research)
https://www.marvel.com/articles/games/brian-horton-describes-work-on-marvels-spider-man-miles-morales (Research)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ZIMpsbGyO5Y&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hoFUOOiiC6k&ab_channel=FullAlbum (Soundtrack)
2021
This review contains spoilers
Flesh Water is a “dead body disposal” simulator and side scroller developed by the Euphoric Brothers (known as Faris and Ghepo), known especially for the series of games named the Garten of Banban, of which they created four titles in the series, along with other smaller games such as Human Apocalypse, Egghead Gumpty, and another side scroller horror game called He Needs His Medicine. I don’t really know much about these guys other than their previous titles (and how Flesh Water is remarkably different from the likes of Banban) and some Wikia page that outlines some drama that I’m not sure is true, nor do I care to look into it because that’s not what I’m here for. My personal engagement with this game comes from the fact that my dude, Mr. Bad Ghosts showed it to me as he was scouring for games to potentially cover amongst many and I thought “Eh you know, this looks pretty interesting, I want to give it a spin”. There’s also the other game he showed me by these guys, the previously mentioned He Needs His Medicine that I want to try out and stream for another friend of mine some day and so I felt like it would be appropriate to throw out my thoughts here first.
The plot to Flesh Water is pretty simple (spoiler warning): you play as Liz (a woman who has a condition where she’s mute), along with your coworker Chloe are sent one last time to an old, soon to be abandoned aquarium or something as a part of their pet feeding service. For the most part, you’ll generally clean up around the place (on orders from the manager Mark), take out the trash and such before fulfilling one final task: dumping a dead body into the pool out back. This is where you’ll get one of a couple of endings, depending on the chemical and whether or not you pick up the gun. You pick up the “Yellow Bottle” and after bringing the body over a makeshift couch boat to the other side, and shutting down the nearby control room, one of many things could happen. Either you picked the wrong chemical and the body got burnt, leading to Chloe attempting to kill you as a sacrifice (which depending on whether or not you use the gun may or may not succeed) leading to one or the other surviving and getting out of there); you could get eaten by the fish by choosing another wrong “Yellow Bottle”, or you choose the right one and you both get to leave. It’s simple, but for me I wanted to know more about the background events. How did this monster come about? Who owned it? What company is it where they feed dead bodies? Who was this “other team” that was “discharged”? It’s short and sweet but leaves me wanting more answers about the world that they’re in.
With this game being a free indie game that only lasts a couple of minutes, for the most part you’ll just be walking to certain areas, picking stuff up and opening doors. You’ll press a button sometimes here and there but as a narrative game, you’re mostly just focused on doing what Chloe asks of you. It’s simple, and it works fine for what it is. I know some people complain how when they go for another run for one of the other endings that it’s scripted nature is repetitive and unskippable, I didn’t really mind because you can get the other endings in less than an hour anyways but I guess I can see why people would get upset at that.
The sound design will be a rather short section, since your main character doesn’t talk, the only voice you’ll be able to hear is the one from your coworker Chloe. Her voice acting is believable and the mixing here is pretty good. All the sounds from the footsteps, to the sounds of cleaning the walls to opening doors sound solid and I have no complaints about any of it really. There isn’t anything in the way of music, unless you count quiet droning ASMR you would hear in any sort of abandoned facility with air vents.
The atmosphere around the game, while only taking place inside of the abandoned pet store feels dark and oppressive. Taking the course over one night, the only form of lights you’ll see are the ones inside the confines of this pet shop, and even then you get dim lights that only hit up the most important spots. Graphically as a side scroller narrative horror game it’s minimalistic and pixelated, dreary even with dark colors. The one thing that came out of this side of the coin is that for some reason, the environment it gives off mixed with certain story beats makes me feel like it’s in a strange universe of its own, one where the atmosphere is ALWAYS like this. You only get brief glimpses of the monster in certain instances, but you don’t really get too much of a bead on its size either, making it that much more threatening and ominous as to where it’ll be or when it’ll come out.
The final thoughts are that it isn’t bad at all, it’s a small and enjoyable (most importantly FREE) indie game that while doesn’t always feel like it makes out on it’s full potential, gives a good enough glimpse into a strange world that left me potentially interested in more. The game literally took thirty or so minutes for me to get all the endings that I was looking for, and will most likely take everyone else around the same time or maybe more or less. Again, the devs released a bunch of different games after this one, mostly Human Apocalypse and the Banban series of which I know absolutely nothing about. If you’re interested in a small indie horror game and your budget is tight, consider giving this one a try and see what you think.
Links:
https://www.euphoricbrothers.com/about
https://www.youtube.com/@EuphoricBrothers/videos
https://twitter.com/euphoric_bros?lang=en
https://itch.io/profile/euphoric-brothers
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/euphoricbros
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi9xQaR7l5EMW2yY3fnYL6w (Shoutout to Ghosts for the Rec)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot to Flesh Water is pretty simple (spoiler warning): you play as Liz (a woman who has a condition where she’s mute), along with your coworker Chloe are sent one last time to an old, soon to be abandoned aquarium or something as a part of their pet feeding service. For the most part, you’ll generally clean up around the place (on orders from the manager Mark), take out the trash and such before fulfilling one final task: dumping a dead body into the pool out back. This is where you’ll get one of a couple of endings, depending on the chemical and whether or not you pick up the gun. You pick up the “Yellow Bottle” and after bringing the body over a makeshift couch boat to the other side, and shutting down the nearby control room, one of many things could happen. Either you picked the wrong chemical and the body got burnt, leading to Chloe attempting to kill you as a sacrifice (which depending on whether or not you use the gun may or may not succeed) leading to one or the other surviving and getting out of there); you could get eaten by the fish by choosing another wrong “Yellow Bottle”, or you choose the right one and you both get to leave. It’s simple, but for me I wanted to know more about the background events. How did this monster come about? Who owned it? What company is it where they feed dead bodies? Who was this “other team” that was “discharged”? It’s short and sweet but leaves me wanting more answers about the world that they’re in.
With this game being a free indie game that only lasts a couple of minutes, for the most part you’ll just be walking to certain areas, picking stuff up and opening doors. You’ll press a button sometimes here and there but as a narrative game, you’re mostly just focused on doing what Chloe asks of you. It’s simple, and it works fine for what it is. I know some people complain how when they go for another run for one of the other endings that it’s scripted nature is repetitive and unskippable, I didn’t really mind because you can get the other endings in less than an hour anyways but I guess I can see why people would get upset at that.
The sound design will be a rather short section, since your main character doesn’t talk, the only voice you’ll be able to hear is the one from your coworker Chloe. Her voice acting is believable and the mixing here is pretty good. All the sounds from the footsteps, to the sounds of cleaning the walls to opening doors sound solid and I have no complaints about any of it really. There isn’t anything in the way of music, unless you count quiet droning ASMR you would hear in any sort of abandoned facility with air vents.
The atmosphere around the game, while only taking place inside of the abandoned pet store feels dark and oppressive. Taking the course over one night, the only form of lights you’ll see are the ones inside the confines of this pet shop, and even then you get dim lights that only hit up the most important spots. Graphically as a side scroller narrative horror game it’s minimalistic and pixelated, dreary even with dark colors. The one thing that came out of this side of the coin is that for some reason, the environment it gives off mixed with certain story beats makes me feel like it’s in a strange universe of its own, one where the atmosphere is ALWAYS like this. You only get brief glimpses of the monster in certain instances, but you don’t really get too much of a bead on its size either, making it that much more threatening and ominous as to where it’ll be or when it’ll come out.
The final thoughts are that it isn’t bad at all, it’s a small and enjoyable (most importantly FREE) indie game that while doesn’t always feel like it makes out on it’s full potential, gives a good enough glimpse into a strange world that left me potentially interested in more. The game literally took thirty or so minutes for me to get all the endings that I was looking for, and will most likely take everyone else around the same time or maybe more or less. Again, the devs released a bunch of different games after this one, mostly Human Apocalypse and the Banban series of which I know absolutely nothing about. If you’re interested in a small indie horror game and your budget is tight, consider giving this one a try and see what you think.
Links:
https://www.euphoricbrothers.com/about
https://www.youtube.com/@EuphoricBrothers/videos
https://twitter.com/euphoric_bros?lang=en
https://itch.io/profile/euphoric-brothers
https://store.steampowered.com/developer/euphoricbros
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCi9xQaR7l5EMW2yY3fnYL6w (Shoutout to Ghosts for the Rec)
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
1999
This review contains spoilers
Blue Stinger is according to the internet an “Action Adventure” video game developed by Climax Graphics as an exclusive for the SEGA Dreamcast, the last in SEGA’s lineup in consoles before they shut down their console series and stuck to developing games for their competitors in the future. However, in their final stretch they helped either develop or publish some pretty good bops such as Sonic Adventure, Shenmue, Crazy Taxi, Skies of Arcadia, and Jet Set Radio; the list only getting bigger and bigger. They also commissioned some smaller hits or games that kind of slid under the radar: this game I feel is one of those games. Originally created as a debut launch title for the Dreamcast, it originally started as a title by Shinya Nishigaki, whom wanted to create a “tribute to western action movies” on the SEGA Saturn before it was requested for development to be switched to the Dreamcast instead (and it kind of shows). Early plans for the game included AI companions and a third character that could be switched too. The devs originally worked as Climax Entertainment’s CGI department before branching off into their own company for this game. While the game missed the Japanese Dreamcast Launch, it hit the U.S. just in time for the North American launch with Sonic Adventure, House of the Dead II and Soulcalibur. My history with this game is rather limited; I purchased this game for around 60-70 dollars on Ebay because it was listed as a “survival horror exclusive” for the Dreamcast. I picked it up after talking with a buddy of mine about Dreamcast Exclusives and I kind of went down a rabbit hole, picking up games like Blue Stinger, Illbleed, The Ring: Terror’s Realm, D2 and a couple of other games for the express purpose of sitting down and playing one day. Earlier in the year, I decided to beat one game per console per year, and after narrowing the games down with another buddy, they picked this game for me to stream for them.
Blue Stinger is the story of an 80s action B-Movie dressed up in chunky graphics and dressed up on a cheese platter. It starts with a flashback to sixty five million years ago, a giant meteor crashes on Earth and destroys all life on the planet, eviscerating the dinosaur population. Millions of years later, Dinosaur Island is formed after an earthquake sinks the entire Yucatan Peninsula, leaving a patch of land and the Kimra Biological Organization swoops in to claim ownership. Eighteen years later however, a giant light shoots down over Dinosaur Island, forming a dome sealing everyone off from the outside world and Eliot Ballarde, a member of the Emergency Sea Evacuation and Rescue (ESER for short) whose vacation with his buddy Tim is interrupted by this giant dome and attempting to figure out the source of the issue, makes his way over to Dinosaur Island to rescind the dome. Along the way he meets the gruff captain of the S.S. Anna, Dogs Bower, who tags along with Eliot before they meet the final member of their team: Jeanine King, a member of the KISS Security Force on Dinosaur Island, who introduces herself by saving the lives of both men. How does Eliot respond? By incessantly hitting on her while she kind of slyly ignores it, to which Dogs responds by going on strange and hateful rants. Here’s my thing with the three characters: if I were to describe Eliot in one word it would simp because by god does he simp for Jeanine. While it’s not the worst thing, in fact I feel like the right wing’s love for it is sad because I’m down to simp for a bad bitch and I don’t care who knows it, it just kind of feels like that’s his entire personality in the game. Dogs is the meme character of the game, someone who at first came off with cool dad vibes before just increasingly becoming worse and worse with hateful sounding stuff (a subplot revealed that Dogs is Jeanine’s father, and they had issues after her mother divorced and/or died. I guess my main issue with this is that the way they talk, I didn’t even understand if there was conflict or if Dogs was just a weird misogynist). Jeanine just kind of responds in a manner that feels like she’s ignoring both men while maintaining a charming attitude to it all. I chalk this up to the strange writing and translation, and what I can say is that it feels kind of outdated with both the dialogue and how the dialogue is delivered. That’s not to say the game’s writing isn’t fun with the cheese sometimes, but it’s also just kind of strange with how it goes about delivering their writing.
Regardless, Jeanine sends them out against all odds on a series of errands ranging from opening up the Hello Market (for reasons I forget), to reactivating the Power Plant to bring power back to certain shuttles, to breaking into the nearby Kimra Lab to find intel (which involves Dogs changing into a santa outfit and Eliot nearly getting infected with the same virus as the rest of the mutants), before finally going to the source to stop the mutant contagion (after picking up Jeanine’s sniper rifle from her apartment). The one thing connecting all of it together is a floating alien ghost named Nephilim, a spirit who took the form of a small statue Eliot’s buddy carried with him that can teleport through walls. The creature’s role in the story is sort of minimal, giving vague details and hints about what's going on without actually talking or better yet, doing any work.
Regardless, the true culprit of the outbreak is revealed: the meteorite contained a creature named Jascony, an ultra evil alien Kaiju fucker who had a lifeform (nicknamed Dinosite) attached to it. This blob lifeform can mutate humans and animals at will into grotesque creatures that get worse and worse as time goes. Also, the entirety of Dinosaur Island is Jascony’s fucking egg apparently, and it’s due to hatch any moment, but not if Nephilim has anything to say about it. The gang reunites Nephilim back to the impact zone, where it’s learned that the alien ghost thing also has a Kaiju body buried somewhere. According to Wikipedia, Nephilim is actually the ghost of the second meteorite who opposes Dinosite; and that originally it destroyed the original dinosite while Dogs and Eliot kill off a “clone” of Jascony. My issue is, I had no fucking clue that it was a clone, nor did I know that Nephilim did anything other than engage in a kaiju fight and lose, mainly because either I missed something or It wasn’t explained well. Simply put however, Jascony is put down, the outbreak is done and Nephilim thanks the heroes while flying into space, the final post credits scene being the ghost turning into a dinosite meteor and launching into space.
What are my thoughts on Blue Stinger’s plot? Fuck if I know to be honest, it’s rather confusing in a lot of ways even if it’s interesting in others. Dinosaur connections? Cool. Giant Aliens? Cool. Mutants? Why not? But a lot of things surrounding the plot are kind of wonky, and could’ve done better with more explanation or just better explanation in general. The dialogue is goofy and strange with its tone, and whereas sometimes it felt like a mixed affair to me, I appreciate the jarring tone it delivers.
The gameplay for Blue Stinger is a little bit of an unusual affair, at least retrospectively to me personally. You’ll still play it like a normal survival horror game as you kill or avoid creatures, manage your resources and solve puzzles as you make your way from story beat to story beat. However, I personally feel it’s unique in the fact that as far as I’m aware, it’s one of the earlier third person over the shoulder survival horror games that have been created (again, I could be forgetting one title or something out there). That doesn’t mean there aren’t faults to this game however. I’ll start with the combat by saying there’s the usual affair of collecting ammo to use for weapons you can either find hidden around the map or buy from local vending machines, each gun or melee item being unique to each different character. The two main characters you’re allowed to play as are Eliot and Dogs (though apparently Jeanine was considered for a third before they had to scrap it), and some examples of unique weapons that each one could use are the basic pistol, a shotgun, an emergency ax and a napalm launcher for Eliot and the Gatling Gun, Karate (you have to buy the shirt first though), the Super Bazooka for Dogs just to name a few. The two also have different health bars, which is a good thing considering you can switch from one person to another in a semi-instant if you’re close to dying as one character.
Small note I want to add here, having played on the Dreamcast itself, when you switch between the two characters the VMU (or memory card) on your controller will show a little chibi animation based on the character you’re playing as. It doesn’t have anything else VMU wise like minigames so other than that, it’s not much to worry about to be honest. Now according to the Blue Stinger wiki, there are about 15 weapons for Eliot and 8 for Dogs, with Eliot being the more well rounded character while Dogs is more of the tank and their weapon loadouts are matched accordingly.
Again, a lot of these weapons come out of vending machines (a hilariously capitalist concept lol), however everything you buy in game seems to be inflated to all of high hell economically because jesus christ some of this shit is expensive. In fact, everything in this game is expensive from weapons to food items like steak being worth 2,400 dollars (though it does boost your health bar) and honestly it makes me wonder what the hell happened in order for inflation to hit that bad in this game’s economy. As such, unless you seem to play the game normally or commit to a good run (by beating certain objectives and/or the game in an allotted time limit and hitting up certain events), you’ll have to get by grind killing mutants you see in game, who drop off a decent amount of change you pick up. In this way, it reminds me of Alisa as it seemingly encourages you to go out of your way to kill these things in order to support your ammo/food supply. A definite recommendation is that if you get enough money (it helps if you find certain bank cards and cash them in at the Hello Market Bank for thousands of dollars), you should buy an Emergency Axe for Eliot. You knock off a couple of mutants or two with this axe (be careful as the reach isn’t great so you’ll have to run up right next to them) and you could make enough cash to buy some soda (in this game called Hassy Drinks) to heal yourself. I’m a bit mixed on this option, as while this game doesn’t really need to be harder than it has to be and I know it’s considered an “action” game but It felt like it should’ve stuck more with survival horror. While combat for the most part isn’t the worst thing and in fact can feel decent sometimes, I want to add that be careful when you eat/drink because they’re invincibility frames are different. If you take a Hassy and you get hit by an enemy in the middle of the animation, you don’t get any frames or health and you’ll end up losing the item due to it being in the middle of movement. Eating burgers or a hot dog is SLIGHTLY better, but varies from “barely any time” to “a decent amount of time” depending on the item…except in the case of the final boss. This final boss can suck my dick and lick my balls, and perhaps even go into the sweat underneath because by god it’s one of the more frustrating ones.
So basically I already described the lead up being a 3 minute 45 seconds wait, there’s no save feature added after this protection section, AND THEN there are unskippable cutscenes right? Okay, clearly final boss time right, how bad can it be? It’s not bad in terms of strategy or anything, it essentially boils down to getting out the rocket launcher (save as much ammo/buy as much as you can, trust me) and moving back and forth after firing a rocket/reloading the launcher while trying to move out of the final boss’s attack range. My problem with this is that the hitboxes feel genuinely unfair and bipolar as fuck. Places where I think I wouldn’t get hit, I’d get hit randomly one time and then I would be safe the next time (tip: avoid the middle section) and compounded on top of the fact that the two characters you play as walk incredibly slow (looking at Dogs with his goofy ass spongebob walk) make the odds feel stacked against you. This is just with the fire, but the fire helped fuel the rage inside me as I dealt with that on top of the potential stun lock occurring in the second phase of the fight and the fact that at the beginning of each phase there seems to be a random chance that the stun lock will occur because you spawn right in front of this fucker. I’d say after the fifth time it became less of a skill issue, and more of bullshit programming and I don’t say this lightly because I SUCK at video games and I’m more than willing to say when I’m just not playing by the game’s rules. And again when you die? Game over, go to the menu, reload your save, and OH SHIT HERE’S THE NEARLY 4 MINUTE PROTECTION MISSION AGAIN. It’s fucking sloppy game design, and because of this encounter alone I nearly brought the score down for me in general.
Rant aside, with combat comes controls, and they fare actually somewhat decently? I say somewhat because the Dreamcast Controller is a bit like the N64 one, where it’s kind of a behemoth except this time the thumbstick is on the left side instead of straight to the center (thank fuck). I don’t remember all the buttons, I don’t remember if they said something about it in game but I can at least say that the instruction manual has the controls here (which I forgot to look at and read so my bad) so I guess here’s the general gist:
X is for the melee button
R button then that’s when you’ll fire off bullets (They’re separate instances so just keep that in mind so you don’t accidentally shoot when you mean to swing your melee weapon)
A is basically the interact button, to open stuff talk to people and whatnot
B Button is to cancel and to swim (I’ll get to this in a second)
Y Button is to also fire your gun
D-Pad along with the regular thumbstick helps you move around
Pause is to…well pause lol.
Also to address swimming, I didn’t figure out how to swim until I found a forum post (which I’ll post at the end) where it described the controls for swimming. So here’s what I figured out:
B pressed rapidly is to swim in a direction. In order to sink a bit down you have to actively stop moving and just let whomever is swimming sink, and if you want to swim up then you have to actively press B when not moving. I guess there wasn’t a better way to do it with the controller set up but by god, is it really clunky trying to move underwater while dodging enemies like giant killer fish. The shit sucks, and luckily while it doesn’t take up a huge portion of the game (an estimated 5% I think according to guesses on the forum or other places), it still kind of blows going through them, especially the long stretch during the final act and so I would’ve preferred just not having the mechanic at all. Apparently you can shoot the pistol as Eliot underwater (shoutout to Snarboo on the forums for explaining all of this), but truth is I didn’t feel like it was worth the time or bullet management and took the chance of awkwardly finagling out of an enemies path.
It’s not bad as I’m reading it out now but I had also bought a bootleg controller a while ago so I didn’t totally realize like a fuckin’ doof that there were extra buttons and shit I don’t understand while I was playing the game so it took me a bit to figure all that out. I’ll at least say, I wish there was a dodge button because holy shit when fighting enemies in game you’ll get surrounded and jumped really quickly if you’re not in an open area and this happens a somewhat decent bit in the game. This isn’t helped by the camera, which isn’t the greatest in the slightest. It’s not the worst I’ve encountered (in fact I heard the Japanese cameras were WAY worse according to an IGN review I’ll post below) but I still got it snagged a couple of times on background items where I couldn’t see the enemy properly in order to gauge my fight or flight. It especially got frustrating actually entering a room, as sometimes if there are enemies nearby (especially when you’re in smaller spaces like the hotel later on in game), you’ll have to deal with the awkward camera hanging over you as you get jumped by a bunch of mutated wasp and caterpillar fuckers. This camera angle, mixed with the fact you can’t just turn around and leave the room as soon as you enter, necessitating you to move forward and then turn back (in which case the enemies give off some hits), means that in the smaller areas you can get janked out pretty quickly. Luckily I saved the game a lot, though even then there were times where I felt I would get unfairly jumped and when that happened, I just pulled out a rocket launcher and cleared the room with one or two more enemies quickly.
Certain enemies respawn (like the mutated humans) while thankfully the annoying little assholes such as the mutated butterflies or whatever die permanently (and don’t give money anyways) so it’s essential if you can to kill them first. In certain areas in the later half of the game you will be able to pick up Life Hooks, which cost 500 dollars in certain vending machines but guarantee you won’t get a game over if you accidentally fall to your death. I managed to pick up a lot and didn’t worry about buying more until right at the very end climbing the tower, so the worst thing that you’d have to worry about is how little margin for error sometimes you’ll have before you fall. This is especially egregious when you’re coming back from the Kimra Labs to the Brain Department when the roads look like they got hit with an earthquake, and there are times where I fell into a tiny little crack in the sidewalk (that one could easily walk over) and clipped through the entire ground to my death in an incredible display of physics.
This is a perfect time to talk about saving, which you’ll be able to do by commonly finding what they call KISS Rooms. While they’re not used for kissing, they commonly have vending machines for health and ammo (in random quantities), a red save machine and an area to download the map. The saving for me was sometimes strange and seemingly glitched out a couple of times. I would save once, and then it would save it to the older save even if I didn’t highlight over the older save, and then I would do it again in the same spot and go back to normal; not sure if that was just a me thing or what but if you play make sure to double check your saves before turning off the game. The map one was probably one of my least favorite things? I know this game was before the time of modern day maps, but I’ll be honest while I downloaded the maps I didn’t exactly try to look at where I was because it didn’t exactly help me anyways, and in fact confused me even more. This definitely helped in the sense of being able to memorize the map on my own because I essentially had to, but I really wish that the game would’ve at least added a bit more detail to help orient me? Or maybe I’m just a bitch at video games lol.
Speaking of being a bitch, here’s where I’ll go out of my way and say I suck at puzzles. I was also streaming this game for a friend, so I essentially went full time with a guide for pacing purposes so I don’t feel I can really criticize the puzzles if I didn’t try to figure this out myself. With this in mind, a lot of puzzles you can solve are environmental wise but you’ll also have to look at the item in your inventory to figure out certain puzzles. Some notes I have here are: The freezer section is kind of confusing but produces different results: if you put the temperature as 5000 you should be safe but have it too warm and you experience a different result through the maze. I remember this area in Hello Market, and actually I respect the hell out of this part because the variation in the puzzle actually affects your environment and can lead to different results (unlike everything else in the game), even if it is just essentially more difficult. Another note I had down here was that the 1224 Christmas security code is confusing, as I wasn’t able to determine where you’d be able to find the solution to this code nor do I remember where it was so I could just be wrong here. The last thing I’ll put down is that there are a couple of time limits here and there where you’ll be rushed to do certain activities in order to save someone (or later on, yourself). Most of the time these are generous, but at the same time you don’t want to dally around and you’ll want to actually figure out where you’re going and finish it as quickly as possible. I say this because of certain endgame rewards (which I’ll post a guide in links for later), for example if you save the manager at Hello Market, talk to the scientist lady later in the game amongst other things, then as a new game plus reward you’ll be given a shit ton of soda so you essentially don’t have to worry too much about grinding for health. If you speedrun the game in less than 4 hours, you’ll get infinite ammo for every weapon you pick up (or just play the good run on the game three times or more). Overall, it’s not the greatest stuff and arguably it’s mixed to some degree in terms of quality; and speaking of being mixed.
How does the sound fare? If you go to my favorite area in the whole game, the Hello Market,
you’ll hear a christmas styled musical tune that honestly to me fucking slaps. I’d also argue that the rest of the soundtrack is pretty decent, having an almost Tim Burton’s Batman sound to it; however I think the issue is that it plays all the time and is mixed to be fucking loud or a bit too quiet sometimes (at least with dialogue0. Now I didn’t notice how repetitive it was compared because I was too busy struggling with not dying, however it does play all the damn time and there isn’t really a slow paced track or a quiet moment in the game. I understand that this is considered an “Action Adventure” game more than an actual survival horror game, however the music loses effectiveness a little while into the game due to this issue and eventually it just all kind of blends into the background for me. Even though it’s actually pretty decent, as most SEGA games have a great soundtrack, it’s also kind of inferior compared to other games that I’ve heard though that’s a high bar considering the likes of Shenmue, Yakuza, Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. The other parts of sound design I would consider to be important is environmental and voice acting. I’ll say that the environmental sounds aren’t bad either, they all sound like you think they would sound, the guns are actually pretty punchy in terms of weapon sound making shooting feel good even if it feels like it goes way too fast. I think if there was a sort of downside to the sound design it would be the voice acting, not that it’s bad at all mind you! It really depends on the vibe you're looking for. It definitely reminds me a lot of old Resident Evil games or cheesy pulp movies, between the goofy dialogue and the delivery of the lines. The actors for the main characters, Ryan Drummond (Eliot) and Deem Bristow (Dogs) have a bit of a shared history with playing opposite characters in Sonic Adventure (with Ryan being Sonic and Deem being Eggman) and I think they do a decent job that I can’t complain about, though the one that was the most recognizable to me was Lani Minella, who voiced both Jeanine in this game but also seems to be the most active voice actress in the game? She’s been in games like The Last of Us, God of War: Ragnarok, the Dead Space remake and even starred in Sonic Adventure 2 as Rogue the Bat I think, according to IMDB. Either way, they do a decent job even if some of the lines were probably lost in translation, and other than that I don’t really recognize anyone on the acting side to be honest.
Graphically speaking the game has the old chunky graphics that I fucking adore, the models aren’t as detailed as a game like Shenmue would be but I’d say that they’re sort of in the middle. If I were to say anything about most of the character models is that they’re for the most part fine; you have your monsters that look imposing and scary to fight while the models for the “normal” people look pretty decent, though seeing as this game was a Dreamcast launch title it looks like it’s only marginally boosted up from the previous console they created, the Sega Saturn. If I were to single any model out, I personally felt that Eliot kind of looks like a marionette of sorts (and walks like one too to be honest, him and his goofy clown shoes because he acts like one too lol, which by the way apparently the game was developed with motion capture which is hilarious considering the goofiness of it) as well as Jeanine (and other models strangely) seem to have a lot of what the kids would call “Cake”. Obviously I understand that the early graphics means that they were just clipping shapes into each other and calling it that instead of forming body parts, and that’s perfectly ok and I’m not judging, I just think it’s funny. As for the environmental set dressing, you’ll encounter mostly cold and metallic areas filled with gray pipes and steel walkways, a vibe I could only really describe as the love child between an old vehicle repair place and a sewage plant. You’ll be going through a lot of locations like this, a power plant here or a sewer system there; though there are varying locations like the Kimra Biological Lab (a straight up RE style mad scientist place) or my favorite location and where I think you’ll spend at least 40% of the game: Hello Market and the surrounding areas. Located in a small section between the docks at the beginning and the “Brain Department”, the gang’s headquarters; surrounding Hello Market is an isolated capitalist fever dream.
The prices on food are exuberant suggesting a horribly inflated economy, the flashing neon lights light up every facet of this district, hotels and bars litter the streets as said before the christmas music just goes on and on, clashing directly with the environment surrounding it considering it’s literally a small island in the middle of the sea with no snow or anything in sight. It’s a strange yet familiar place, two clashing tones that honestly make it the most memorable location in the entire game and the one place that I breathe a sigh of relief to when I eventually make my way back to it multiple times during my playthrough. Again, just to reiterate my point, graphically if you like old and blocky polygons that look better than something the Playstation 1 and other consoles at the time could provide then this isn’t going to be an issue for you; I guess the only issue I have with this is that while I understand that having these cold environments can help lead to a sense of alienation (an example would be the USG Ishimura from Dead Space) and improves the horror bit of the atmosphere; the constant music being thrown at you clashes with the tone and also I find these sort of environments to blend in and and ultimately make me not really want to go back to most of them any time soon.
Finishing off here, Blue Stinger is one of those games where when I first sat down and played it, it had all the ingredients that made me think “wow, this game fucking rocks, I don’t know what the reviews are on about”. From the graphics, to the hoaky plot that could come out of a Resident Evil game, to the stellar soundtrack, and even most of the gameplay. However, after half way in, that’s when the game’s cracks started to form and showed its jank, a jank which I felt became too much for me, and by the end? It was way too much and I just wanted it to be over with, and I don’t like saying that about video games, as the way I view it they should be something you sit down and relax to. I’m not sure if I’d ever play it again either. Maybe one day if I need to record footage for a friend’s video or if a couple of friends want to try it out. Regardless, after Blue Stinger, Climax Graphics would go on seemingly to make two games. One of these games is illbleed, one of the rarest Dreamcast games ever and one of if not the most expensive game I’ve ever purchased at 300 something dollars (never again) and an arcade game named The Maze of Kings, which I’ve never heard of nor played. Shinya Nishigaki, who helmed this game as well as Illbleed, seemingly championed an Xbox Original Remake of both Blue Stinger and Illbleed, would later pass away and so did the ports. Since then, there’s been absolutely nothing going on in the way of remakes or sequels or even remasters. In my opinion, even though I sadly didn’t care for this game, I hope that Blue Stinger (and illbleed) gets the same remaster treatment from SEGA that they did with Shenmue because game preservation should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. And as for a sequel? I don’t know, does the game really need one? My guess if they did another one is that it would take place in space but truth is it feels kind of wrapped up and ok the way it is. Regardless, my time with Dinosaur Island has come to a close, and sadly I feel that the future has closed on it as well. I don’t know if it would be worth sitting down and beating, but even with its issues I still think survival horror enthusiasts should give it a chance, even just to see what it’s like.
Links:
https://hg101.proboards.com/thread/10137/game-club-199x-blue-stinger?page=5 (Swimming reference link)
https://blue-stinger.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Stinger_Wikia (Knowledge on what’s going on with the plot)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BlueStinger (Knowledge on what’s going on with the plot)
https://www.ign.com/articles/1999/09/09/blue-stinger (Review reference on camera angles)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_Graphics (Bits of research material)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Stinger (Bits of research material)
https://www.mobygames.com/group/13786/launch-title-dreamcast-north-america/ (Dreamcast Launch Titles)
https://medium.com/shinkretro/dreamcast-game-01-blue-stinger-17684379671b#:~:text=The%20late%20Shinya%20Nishigaki%20 (Bits of research material)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/196791-blue-stinger/faqs/2696 (The guide I used to play the game)
https://www.cheatcc.com/articles/cheatcc-blue-stinger-cheats-codes-guides-walkthroughs-and-cheat-codes-dreamcast-dc/ (Secrets/Unlocks Guide)
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/blue-stinger/amp/
https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3504246/dreamcasts-blue-stinger-campy-messy-attempt-breathe-new-life-survival-horror/
Blue Stinger is the story of an 80s action B-Movie dressed up in chunky graphics and dressed up on a cheese platter. It starts with a flashback to sixty five million years ago, a giant meteor crashes on Earth and destroys all life on the planet, eviscerating the dinosaur population. Millions of years later, Dinosaur Island is formed after an earthquake sinks the entire Yucatan Peninsula, leaving a patch of land and the Kimra Biological Organization swoops in to claim ownership. Eighteen years later however, a giant light shoots down over Dinosaur Island, forming a dome sealing everyone off from the outside world and Eliot Ballarde, a member of the Emergency Sea Evacuation and Rescue (ESER for short) whose vacation with his buddy Tim is interrupted by this giant dome and attempting to figure out the source of the issue, makes his way over to Dinosaur Island to rescind the dome. Along the way he meets the gruff captain of the S.S. Anna, Dogs Bower, who tags along with Eliot before they meet the final member of their team: Jeanine King, a member of the KISS Security Force on Dinosaur Island, who introduces herself by saving the lives of both men. How does Eliot respond? By incessantly hitting on her while she kind of slyly ignores it, to which Dogs responds by going on strange and hateful rants. Here’s my thing with the three characters: if I were to describe Eliot in one word it would simp because by god does he simp for Jeanine. While it’s not the worst thing, in fact I feel like the right wing’s love for it is sad because I’m down to simp for a bad bitch and I don’t care who knows it, it just kind of feels like that’s his entire personality in the game. Dogs is the meme character of the game, someone who at first came off with cool dad vibes before just increasingly becoming worse and worse with hateful sounding stuff (a subplot revealed that Dogs is Jeanine’s father, and they had issues after her mother divorced and/or died. I guess my main issue with this is that the way they talk, I didn’t even understand if there was conflict or if Dogs was just a weird misogynist). Jeanine just kind of responds in a manner that feels like she’s ignoring both men while maintaining a charming attitude to it all. I chalk this up to the strange writing and translation, and what I can say is that it feels kind of outdated with both the dialogue and how the dialogue is delivered. That’s not to say the game’s writing isn’t fun with the cheese sometimes, but it’s also just kind of strange with how it goes about delivering their writing.
Regardless, Jeanine sends them out against all odds on a series of errands ranging from opening up the Hello Market (for reasons I forget), to reactivating the Power Plant to bring power back to certain shuttles, to breaking into the nearby Kimra Lab to find intel (which involves Dogs changing into a santa outfit and Eliot nearly getting infected with the same virus as the rest of the mutants), before finally going to the source to stop the mutant contagion (after picking up Jeanine’s sniper rifle from her apartment). The one thing connecting all of it together is a floating alien ghost named Nephilim, a spirit who took the form of a small statue Eliot’s buddy carried with him that can teleport through walls. The creature’s role in the story is sort of minimal, giving vague details and hints about what's going on without actually talking or better yet, doing any work.
Regardless, the true culprit of the outbreak is revealed: the meteorite contained a creature named Jascony, an ultra evil alien Kaiju fucker who had a lifeform (nicknamed Dinosite) attached to it. This blob lifeform can mutate humans and animals at will into grotesque creatures that get worse and worse as time goes. Also, the entirety of Dinosaur Island is Jascony’s fucking egg apparently, and it’s due to hatch any moment, but not if Nephilim has anything to say about it. The gang reunites Nephilim back to the impact zone, where it’s learned that the alien ghost thing also has a Kaiju body buried somewhere. According to Wikipedia, Nephilim is actually the ghost of the second meteorite who opposes Dinosite; and that originally it destroyed the original dinosite while Dogs and Eliot kill off a “clone” of Jascony. My issue is, I had no fucking clue that it was a clone, nor did I know that Nephilim did anything other than engage in a kaiju fight and lose, mainly because either I missed something or It wasn’t explained well. Simply put however, Jascony is put down, the outbreak is done and Nephilim thanks the heroes while flying into space, the final post credits scene being the ghost turning into a dinosite meteor and launching into space.
What are my thoughts on Blue Stinger’s plot? Fuck if I know to be honest, it’s rather confusing in a lot of ways even if it’s interesting in others. Dinosaur connections? Cool. Giant Aliens? Cool. Mutants? Why not? But a lot of things surrounding the plot are kind of wonky, and could’ve done better with more explanation or just better explanation in general. The dialogue is goofy and strange with its tone, and whereas sometimes it felt like a mixed affair to me, I appreciate the jarring tone it delivers.
The gameplay for Blue Stinger is a little bit of an unusual affair, at least retrospectively to me personally. You’ll still play it like a normal survival horror game as you kill or avoid creatures, manage your resources and solve puzzles as you make your way from story beat to story beat. However, I personally feel it’s unique in the fact that as far as I’m aware, it’s one of the earlier third person over the shoulder survival horror games that have been created (again, I could be forgetting one title or something out there). That doesn’t mean there aren’t faults to this game however. I’ll start with the combat by saying there’s the usual affair of collecting ammo to use for weapons you can either find hidden around the map or buy from local vending machines, each gun or melee item being unique to each different character. The two main characters you’re allowed to play as are Eliot and Dogs (though apparently Jeanine was considered for a third before they had to scrap it), and some examples of unique weapons that each one could use are the basic pistol, a shotgun, an emergency ax and a napalm launcher for Eliot and the Gatling Gun, Karate (you have to buy the shirt first though), the Super Bazooka for Dogs just to name a few. The two also have different health bars, which is a good thing considering you can switch from one person to another in a semi-instant if you’re close to dying as one character.
Small note I want to add here, having played on the Dreamcast itself, when you switch between the two characters the VMU (or memory card) on your controller will show a little chibi animation based on the character you’re playing as. It doesn’t have anything else VMU wise like minigames so other than that, it’s not much to worry about to be honest. Now according to the Blue Stinger wiki, there are about 15 weapons for Eliot and 8 for Dogs, with Eliot being the more well rounded character while Dogs is more of the tank and their weapon loadouts are matched accordingly.
Again, a lot of these weapons come out of vending machines (a hilariously capitalist concept lol), however everything you buy in game seems to be inflated to all of high hell economically because jesus christ some of this shit is expensive. In fact, everything in this game is expensive from weapons to food items like steak being worth 2,400 dollars (though it does boost your health bar) and honestly it makes me wonder what the hell happened in order for inflation to hit that bad in this game’s economy. As such, unless you seem to play the game normally or commit to a good run (by beating certain objectives and/or the game in an allotted time limit and hitting up certain events), you’ll have to get by grind killing mutants you see in game, who drop off a decent amount of change you pick up. In this way, it reminds me of Alisa as it seemingly encourages you to go out of your way to kill these things in order to support your ammo/food supply. A definite recommendation is that if you get enough money (it helps if you find certain bank cards and cash them in at the Hello Market Bank for thousands of dollars), you should buy an Emergency Axe for Eliot. You knock off a couple of mutants or two with this axe (be careful as the reach isn’t great so you’ll have to run up right next to them) and you could make enough cash to buy some soda (in this game called Hassy Drinks) to heal yourself. I’m a bit mixed on this option, as while this game doesn’t really need to be harder than it has to be and I know it’s considered an “action” game but It felt like it should’ve stuck more with survival horror. While combat for the most part isn’t the worst thing and in fact can feel decent sometimes, I want to add that be careful when you eat/drink because they’re invincibility frames are different. If you take a Hassy and you get hit by an enemy in the middle of the animation, you don’t get any frames or health and you’ll end up losing the item due to it being in the middle of movement. Eating burgers or a hot dog is SLIGHTLY better, but varies from “barely any time” to “a decent amount of time” depending on the item…except in the case of the final boss. This final boss can suck my dick and lick my balls, and perhaps even go into the sweat underneath because by god it’s one of the more frustrating ones.
So basically I already described the lead up being a 3 minute 45 seconds wait, there’s no save feature added after this protection section, AND THEN there are unskippable cutscenes right? Okay, clearly final boss time right, how bad can it be? It’s not bad in terms of strategy or anything, it essentially boils down to getting out the rocket launcher (save as much ammo/buy as much as you can, trust me) and moving back and forth after firing a rocket/reloading the launcher while trying to move out of the final boss’s attack range. My problem with this is that the hitboxes feel genuinely unfair and bipolar as fuck. Places where I think I wouldn’t get hit, I’d get hit randomly one time and then I would be safe the next time (tip: avoid the middle section) and compounded on top of the fact that the two characters you play as walk incredibly slow (looking at Dogs with his goofy ass spongebob walk) make the odds feel stacked against you. This is just with the fire, but the fire helped fuel the rage inside me as I dealt with that on top of the potential stun lock occurring in the second phase of the fight and the fact that at the beginning of each phase there seems to be a random chance that the stun lock will occur because you spawn right in front of this fucker. I’d say after the fifth time it became less of a skill issue, and more of bullshit programming and I don’t say this lightly because I SUCK at video games and I’m more than willing to say when I’m just not playing by the game’s rules. And again when you die? Game over, go to the menu, reload your save, and OH SHIT HERE’S THE NEARLY 4 MINUTE PROTECTION MISSION AGAIN. It’s fucking sloppy game design, and because of this encounter alone I nearly brought the score down for me in general.
Rant aside, with combat comes controls, and they fare actually somewhat decently? I say somewhat because the Dreamcast Controller is a bit like the N64 one, where it’s kind of a behemoth except this time the thumbstick is on the left side instead of straight to the center (thank fuck). I don’t remember all the buttons, I don’t remember if they said something about it in game but I can at least say that the instruction manual has the controls here (which I forgot to look at and read so my bad) so I guess here’s the general gist:
X is for the melee button
R button then that’s when you’ll fire off bullets (They’re separate instances so just keep that in mind so you don’t accidentally shoot when you mean to swing your melee weapon)
A is basically the interact button, to open stuff talk to people and whatnot
B Button is to cancel and to swim (I’ll get to this in a second)
Y Button is to also fire your gun
D-Pad along with the regular thumbstick helps you move around
Pause is to…well pause lol.
Also to address swimming, I didn’t figure out how to swim until I found a forum post (which I’ll post at the end) where it described the controls for swimming. So here’s what I figured out:
B pressed rapidly is to swim in a direction. In order to sink a bit down you have to actively stop moving and just let whomever is swimming sink, and if you want to swim up then you have to actively press B when not moving. I guess there wasn’t a better way to do it with the controller set up but by god, is it really clunky trying to move underwater while dodging enemies like giant killer fish. The shit sucks, and luckily while it doesn’t take up a huge portion of the game (an estimated 5% I think according to guesses on the forum or other places), it still kind of blows going through them, especially the long stretch during the final act and so I would’ve preferred just not having the mechanic at all. Apparently you can shoot the pistol as Eliot underwater (shoutout to Snarboo on the forums for explaining all of this), but truth is I didn’t feel like it was worth the time or bullet management and took the chance of awkwardly finagling out of an enemies path.
It’s not bad as I’m reading it out now but I had also bought a bootleg controller a while ago so I didn’t totally realize like a fuckin’ doof that there were extra buttons and shit I don’t understand while I was playing the game so it took me a bit to figure all that out. I’ll at least say, I wish there was a dodge button because holy shit when fighting enemies in game you’ll get surrounded and jumped really quickly if you’re not in an open area and this happens a somewhat decent bit in the game. This isn’t helped by the camera, which isn’t the greatest in the slightest. It’s not the worst I’ve encountered (in fact I heard the Japanese cameras were WAY worse according to an IGN review I’ll post below) but I still got it snagged a couple of times on background items where I couldn’t see the enemy properly in order to gauge my fight or flight. It especially got frustrating actually entering a room, as sometimes if there are enemies nearby (especially when you’re in smaller spaces like the hotel later on in game), you’ll have to deal with the awkward camera hanging over you as you get jumped by a bunch of mutated wasp and caterpillar fuckers. This camera angle, mixed with the fact you can’t just turn around and leave the room as soon as you enter, necessitating you to move forward and then turn back (in which case the enemies give off some hits), means that in the smaller areas you can get janked out pretty quickly. Luckily I saved the game a lot, though even then there were times where I felt I would get unfairly jumped and when that happened, I just pulled out a rocket launcher and cleared the room with one or two more enemies quickly.
Certain enemies respawn (like the mutated humans) while thankfully the annoying little assholes such as the mutated butterflies or whatever die permanently (and don’t give money anyways) so it’s essential if you can to kill them first. In certain areas in the later half of the game you will be able to pick up Life Hooks, which cost 500 dollars in certain vending machines but guarantee you won’t get a game over if you accidentally fall to your death. I managed to pick up a lot and didn’t worry about buying more until right at the very end climbing the tower, so the worst thing that you’d have to worry about is how little margin for error sometimes you’ll have before you fall. This is especially egregious when you’re coming back from the Kimra Labs to the Brain Department when the roads look like they got hit with an earthquake, and there are times where I fell into a tiny little crack in the sidewalk (that one could easily walk over) and clipped through the entire ground to my death in an incredible display of physics.
This is a perfect time to talk about saving, which you’ll be able to do by commonly finding what they call KISS Rooms. While they’re not used for kissing, they commonly have vending machines for health and ammo (in random quantities), a red save machine and an area to download the map. The saving for me was sometimes strange and seemingly glitched out a couple of times. I would save once, and then it would save it to the older save even if I didn’t highlight over the older save, and then I would do it again in the same spot and go back to normal; not sure if that was just a me thing or what but if you play make sure to double check your saves before turning off the game. The map one was probably one of my least favorite things? I know this game was before the time of modern day maps, but I’ll be honest while I downloaded the maps I didn’t exactly try to look at where I was because it didn’t exactly help me anyways, and in fact confused me even more. This definitely helped in the sense of being able to memorize the map on my own because I essentially had to, but I really wish that the game would’ve at least added a bit more detail to help orient me? Or maybe I’m just a bitch at video games lol.
Speaking of being a bitch, here’s where I’ll go out of my way and say I suck at puzzles. I was also streaming this game for a friend, so I essentially went full time with a guide for pacing purposes so I don’t feel I can really criticize the puzzles if I didn’t try to figure this out myself. With this in mind, a lot of puzzles you can solve are environmental wise but you’ll also have to look at the item in your inventory to figure out certain puzzles. Some notes I have here are: The freezer section is kind of confusing but produces different results: if you put the temperature as 5000 you should be safe but have it too warm and you experience a different result through the maze. I remember this area in Hello Market, and actually I respect the hell out of this part because the variation in the puzzle actually affects your environment and can lead to different results (unlike everything else in the game), even if it is just essentially more difficult. Another note I had down here was that the 1224 Christmas security code is confusing, as I wasn’t able to determine where you’d be able to find the solution to this code nor do I remember where it was so I could just be wrong here. The last thing I’ll put down is that there are a couple of time limits here and there where you’ll be rushed to do certain activities in order to save someone (or later on, yourself). Most of the time these are generous, but at the same time you don’t want to dally around and you’ll want to actually figure out where you’re going and finish it as quickly as possible. I say this because of certain endgame rewards (which I’ll post a guide in links for later), for example if you save the manager at Hello Market, talk to the scientist lady later in the game amongst other things, then as a new game plus reward you’ll be given a shit ton of soda so you essentially don’t have to worry too much about grinding for health. If you speedrun the game in less than 4 hours, you’ll get infinite ammo for every weapon you pick up (or just play the good run on the game three times or more). Overall, it’s not the greatest stuff and arguably it’s mixed to some degree in terms of quality; and speaking of being mixed.
How does the sound fare? If you go to my favorite area in the whole game, the Hello Market,
you’ll hear a christmas styled musical tune that honestly to me fucking slaps. I’d also argue that the rest of the soundtrack is pretty decent, having an almost Tim Burton’s Batman sound to it; however I think the issue is that it plays all the time and is mixed to be fucking loud or a bit too quiet sometimes (at least with dialogue0. Now I didn’t notice how repetitive it was compared because I was too busy struggling with not dying, however it does play all the damn time and there isn’t really a slow paced track or a quiet moment in the game. I understand that this is considered an “Action Adventure” game more than an actual survival horror game, however the music loses effectiveness a little while into the game due to this issue and eventually it just all kind of blends into the background for me. Even though it’s actually pretty decent, as most SEGA games have a great soundtrack, it’s also kind of inferior compared to other games that I’ve heard though that’s a high bar considering the likes of Shenmue, Yakuza, Crazy Taxi and Jet Set Radio. The other parts of sound design I would consider to be important is environmental and voice acting. I’ll say that the environmental sounds aren’t bad either, they all sound like you think they would sound, the guns are actually pretty punchy in terms of weapon sound making shooting feel good even if it feels like it goes way too fast. I think if there was a sort of downside to the sound design it would be the voice acting, not that it’s bad at all mind you! It really depends on the vibe you're looking for. It definitely reminds me a lot of old Resident Evil games or cheesy pulp movies, between the goofy dialogue and the delivery of the lines. The actors for the main characters, Ryan Drummond (Eliot) and Deem Bristow (Dogs) have a bit of a shared history with playing opposite characters in Sonic Adventure (with Ryan being Sonic and Deem being Eggman) and I think they do a decent job that I can’t complain about, though the one that was the most recognizable to me was Lani Minella, who voiced both Jeanine in this game but also seems to be the most active voice actress in the game? She’s been in games like The Last of Us, God of War: Ragnarok, the Dead Space remake and even starred in Sonic Adventure 2 as Rogue the Bat I think, according to IMDB. Either way, they do a decent job even if some of the lines were probably lost in translation, and other than that I don’t really recognize anyone on the acting side to be honest.
Graphically speaking the game has the old chunky graphics that I fucking adore, the models aren’t as detailed as a game like Shenmue would be but I’d say that they’re sort of in the middle. If I were to say anything about most of the character models is that they’re for the most part fine; you have your monsters that look imposing and scary to fight while the models for the “normal” people look pretty decent, though seeing as this game was a Dreamcast launch title it looks like it’s only marginally boosted up from the previous console they created, the Sega Saturn. If I were to single any model out, I personally felt that Eliot kind of looks like a marionette of sorts (and walks like one too to be honest, him and his goofy clown shoes because he acts like one too lol, which by the way apparently the game was developed with motion capture which is hilarious considering the goofiness of it) as well as Jeanine (and other models strangely) seem to have a lot of what the kids would call “Cake”. Obviously I understand that the early graphics means that they were just clipping shapes into each other and calling it that instead of forming body parts, and that’s perfectly ok and I’m not judging, I just think it’s funny. As for the environmental set dressing, you’ll encounter mostly cold and metallic areas filled with gray pipes and steel walkways, a vibe I could only really describe as the love child between an old vehicle repair place and a sewage plant. You’ll be going through a lot of locations like this, a power plant here or a sewer system there; though there are varying locations like the Kimra Biological Lab (a straight up RE style mad scientist place) or my favorite location and where I think you’ll spend at least 40% of the game: Hello Market and the surrounding areas. Located in a small section between the docks at the beginning and the “Brain Department”, the gang’s headquarters; surrounding Hello Market is an isolated capitalist fever dream.
The prices on food are exuberant suggesting a horribly inflated economy, the flashing neon lights light up every facet of this district, hotels and bars litter the streets as said before the christmas music just goes on and on, clashing directly with the environment surrounding it considering it’s literally a small island in the middle of the sea with no snow or anything in sight. It’s a strange yet familiar place, two clashing tones that honestly make it the most memorable location in the entire game and the one place that I breathe a sigh of relief to when I eventually make my way back to it multiple times during my playthrough. Again, just to reiterate my point, graphically if you like old and blocky polygons that look better than something the Playstation 1 and other consoles at the time could provide then this isn’t going to be an issue for you; I guess the only issue I have with this is that while I understand that having these cold environments can help lead to a sense of alienation (an example would be the USG Ishimura from Dead Space) and improves the horror bit of the atmosphere; the constant music being thrown at you clashes with the tone and also I find these sort of environments to blend in and and ultimately make me not really want to go back to most of them any time soon.
Finishing off here, Blue Stinger is one of those games where when I first sat down and played it, it had all the ingredients that made me think “wow, this game fucking rocks, I don’t know what the reviews are on about”. From the graphics, to the hoaky plot that could come out of a Resident Evil game, to the stellar soundtrack, and even most of the gameplay. However, after half way in, that’s when the game’s cracks started to form and showed its jank, a jank which I felt became too much for me, and by the end? It was way too much and I just wanted it to be over with, and I don’t like saying that about video games, as the way I view it they should be something you sit down and relax to. I’m not sure if I’d ever play it again either. Maybe one day if I need to record footage for a friend’s video or if a couple of friends want to try it out. Regardless, after Blue Stinger, Climax Graphics would go on seemingly to make two games. One of these games is illbleed, one of the rarest Dreamcast games ever and one of if not the most expensive game I’ve ever purchased at 300 something dollars (never again) and an arcade game named The Maze of Kings, which I’ve never heard of nor played. Shinya Nishigaki, who helmed this game as well as Illbleed, seemingly championed an Xbox Original Remake of both Blue Stinger and Illbleed, would later pass away and so did the ports. Since then, there’s been absolutely nothing going on in the way of remakes or sequels or even remasters. In my opinion, even though I sadly didn’t care for this game, I hope that Blue Stinger (and illbleed) gets the same remaster treatment from SEGA that they did with Shenmue because game preservation should be at the forefront of everyone’s mind. And as for a sequel? I don’t know, does the game really need one? My guess if they did another one is that it would take place in space but truth is it feels kind of wrapped up and ok the way it is. Regardless, my time with Dinosaur Island has come to a close, and sadly I feel that the future has closed on it as well. I don’t know if it would be worth sitting down and beating, but even with its issues I still think survival horror enthusiasts should give it a chance, even just to see what it’s like.
Links:
https://hg101.proboards.com/thread/10137/game-club-199x-blue-stinger?page=5 (Swimming reference link)
https://blue-stinger.fandom.com/wiki/Blue_Stinger_Wikia (Knowledge on what’s going on with the plot)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/BlueStinger (Knowledge on what’s going on with the plot)
https://www.ign.com/articles/1999/09/09/blue-stinger (Review reference on camera angles)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Climax_Graphics (Bits of research material)
https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/Blue_Stinger (Bits of research material)
https://www.mobygames.com/group/13786/launch-title-dreamcast-north-america/ (Dreamcast Launch Titles)
https://medium.com/shinkretro/dreamcast-game-01-blue-stinger-17684379671b#:~:text=The%20late%20Shinya%20Nishigaki%20 (Bits of research material)
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/dreamcast/196791-blue-stinger/faqs/2696 (The guide I used to play the game)
https://www.cheatcc.com/articles/cheatcc-blue-stinger-cheats-codes-guides-walkthroughs-and-cheat-codes-dreamcast-dc/ (Secrets/Unlocks Guide)
http://www.hardcoregaming101.net/blue-stinger/amp/
https://bloody-disgusting.com/editorials/3504246/dreamcasts-blue-stinger-campy-messy-attempt-breathe-new-life-survival-horror/
2022
This review contains spoilers
How Fish is Made is a "surrealist philosophical fish flopping” simulator developed by Johanna Kasurinen, Jeffrey Tomec, and Martin Halldin as part of the FutureGames education” in Sweden according to the game itself. The only other thing I know about this game is that it’s picked up steam (no pun intended) within the last year and that Hideo Kojima himself gave this game a thumbs up and a recommendation on Twitter. I originally picked it up after seeing AlphaBetaGamer had played through it a year ago, but I decided I didn’t want to try it just yet because of a growing backlog. However, I said screw it and tried it out after beating Blue Stinger on Dreamcast while streaming for a friend of mine, and truth be told after completing that game I NEEDED something more chill. I wouldn’t say this game is exactly “chill” but it is a simple game, only in gameplay design however as the narrative this game has gone for is strange but in a fascinating way.
The Story is a bit of a confusing one, but there sort of is one nonetheless. You play as a random fish that fell down a hole, in which another fish asks whether or not you're going to go UP or DOWN. The gameplay aspect sets in as it mostly consists of flopping towards your inevitable choice and the consequences thereof while also talking to the fish around you for their input and feelings. However, the game really excels at questioning decision making: Do you follow what everyone else thinks? Do you go with what your mind is telling you is the right call? Does it even matter to begin with? What is the right decision? There are no enemies in this game, the only enemy being the potential future that you choose for yourself. It's something that I feel like I'd have to ponder over for a while, but what I am going to do is link a review that I think is a better in depth explanation on themes that makes sense to me, as I more so don't know how to discuss what I feel has already been discussed before by multiple people smarter than me. I also enjoy how each fish that you encounter has their own unique personality, especially the fish with the parasite tongue (an actual scientific thing that happens, where the parasite removes the tongue so they can claim the nutrients the fish eats) which goes into this hilarious yet strange peppy ragtime-esque music video with absolutely no voices or singing and just subtitles in the background. I’m going to link a review that I think makes a lot of plausible sense and I encourage ya’ll to check it out, but to finish off with the parasite thing from earlier, there does seem to be a small theme tying into the larger one: the ability of people to follow what others say and their aggressive behavior at taking away the ability for someone to make decisions for themselves.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Rachlol209/recommended/1854430/
If I were to mention one thing about the game technically is that for the most part it runs well and you can play it with a controller, though it may not be 100 percent flawless in terms of clicking certain dialogue options. That and this game is a one playthrough game, there’s no saving of any kind and if you quit, you start at the beginning. Considering the game could be completed between 10-20 minutes I’m not really surprised.
The audio design from Martin Halldin is ominous; when you talk to the fish it sounds like deep simlish language that a lot of indie studios use to an unsettling effect. The background sounds consist of a sort of droning, and the sounds made by certain environments sound pretty real from the flop of the fish moving forward, to moving through puddles sounding like a straight up recording from an IPhone. There’s even this bit later in the game with muddled dialogue between a deeper voiced individual and someone who sounds like they’re about to cook a recipe in one part of the game that while I didn’t really catch when I was playing it, fit in kind of perfectly. The only thing I could really point out that’s kind of strange is the ragtime music number, which clashes with the rest of the depressing vibes but is actually a pretty catchy tune.
The graphical/visual design by Johanna Kasurinen (aka KASURAGA, who also did the narrative stuff) is a low poly freaky f u c k fest that I thoroughly enjoy; you end up going from metallic factory like conveyor belts to walls of flesh to Silent Hill Otherworld styled vibes that seamlessly blend into each other really well. The fishes that you encounter look pretty solid as well, somehow feeling like they express emotion yet at the same time not because…well they’re fish.
So what's the general consensus of this game? I genuinely feel that if you're into short narrative games that this might be one that could tickle your fancy, and it's not a really big game either. I had played the game three times, one I played a bit then accidentally closed and the other two are for the main two endings that you'll go through. Regardless, I think it’s a pretty solid title that makes you think on choices and your destination in life and that if anyone is into these sorts of games that genuinely you should check it out. I also wanna throw out that it’s pretty cool how passionate the community is about this game because I’ve seen forum posts where they jokingly argue about whether UP or DOWN is the correct choice and I don’t know, there’s something respectful and wholesome about it that I really like.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7KMtJhyhI&ab_channel=JeffreyTomec
https://kasuraga.itch.io/how-fish-is-made
https://twitter.com/wrong_organ
https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Tomec
https://twitter.com/byKASURAGA
https://twitter.com/siarate
UPDATE: A new free update just got released, and it's an interesting one. Thematically I'm not sure what's going on yet but it's a weird Katamari Damacy vibe. I'm kind of struggling to figure out whether it's about staying in a dead end job\situation (fitting into the whole theme of choices) of sorts or if it's just a strange tie-in to their next game. Speaking of, wishlist the devs new game: Mouthwashing.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The Story is a bit of a confusing one, but there sort of is one nonetheless. You play as a random fish that fell down a hole, in which another fish asks whether or not you're going to go UP or DOWN. The gameplay aspect sets in as it mostly consists of flopping towards your inevitable choice and the consequences thereof while also talking to the fish around you for their input and feelings. However, the game really excels at questioning decision making: Do you follow what everyone else thinks? Do you go with what your mind is telling you is the right call? Does it even matter to begin with? What is the right decision? There are no enemies in this game, the only enemy being the potential future that you choose for yourself. It's something that I feel like I'd have to ponder over for a while, but what I am going to do is link a review that I think is a better in depth explanation on themes that makes sense to me, as I more so don't know how to discuss what I feel has already been discussed before by multiple people smarter than me. I also enjoy how each fish that you encounter has their own unique personality, especially the fish with the parasite tongue (an actual scientific thing that happens, where the parasite removes the tongue so they can claim the nutrients the fish eats) which goes into this hilarious yet strange peppy ragtime-esque music video with absolutely no voices or singing and just subtitles in the background. I’m going to link a review that I think makes a lot of plausible sense and I encourage ya’ll to check it out, but to finish off with the parasite thing from earlier, there does seem to be a small theme tying into the larger one: the ability of people to follow what others say and their aggressive behavior at taking away the ability for someone to make decisions for themselves.
https://steamcommunity.com/id/Rachlol209/recommended/1854430/
If I were to mention one thing about the game technically is that for the most part it runs well and you can play it with a controller, though it may not be 100 percent flawless in terms of clicking certain dialogue options. That and this game is a one playthrough game, there’s no saving of any kind and if you quit, you start at the beginning. Considering the game could be completed between 10-20 minutes I’m not really surprised.
The audio design from Martin Halldin is ominous; when you talk to the fish it sounds like deep simlish language that a lot of indie studios use to an unsettling effect. The background sounds consist of a sort of droning, and the sounds made by certain environments sound pretty real from the flop of the fish moving forward, to moving through puddles sounding like a straight up recording from an IPhone. There’s even this bit later in the game with muddled dialogue between a deeper voiced individual and someone who sounds like they’re about to cook a recipe in one part of the game that while I didn’t really catch when I was playing it, fit in kind of perfectly. The only thing I could really point out that’s kind of strange is the ragtime music number, which clashes with the rest of the depressing vibes but is actually a pretty catchy tune.
The graphical/visual design by Johanna Kasurinen (aka KASURAGA, who also did the narrative stuff) is a low poly freaky f u c k fest that I thoroughly enjoy; you end up going from metallic factory like conveyor belts to walls of flesh to Silent Hill Otherworld styled vibes that seamlessly blend into each other really well. The fishes that you encounter look pretty solid as well, somehow feeling like they express emotion yet at the same time not because…well they’re fish.
So what's the general consensus of this game? I genuinely feel that if you're into short narrative games that this might be one that could tickle your fancy, and it's not a really big game either. I had played the game three times, one I played a bit then accidentally closed and the other two are for the main two endings that you'll go through. Regardless, I think it’s a pretty solid title that makes you think on choices and your destination in life and that if anyone is into these sorts of games that genuinely you should check it out. I also wanna throw out that it’s pretty cool how passionate the community is about this game because I’ve seen forum posts where they jokingly argue about whether UP or DOWN is the correct choice and I don’t know, there’s something respectful and wholesome about it that I really like.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4P7KMtJhyhI&ab_channel=JeffreyTomec
https://kasuraga.itch.io/how-fish-is-made
https://twitter.com/wrong_organ
https://twitter.com/Jeffrey_Tomec
https://twitter.com/byKASURAGA
https://twitter.com/siarate
UPDATE: A new free update just got released, and it's an interesting one. Thematically I'm not sure what's going on yet but it's a weird Katamari Damacy vibe. I'm kind of struggling to figure out whether it's about staying in a dead end job\situation (fitting into the whole theme of choices) of sorts or if it's just a strange tie-in to their next game. Speaking of, wishlist the devs new game: Mouthwashing.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2021
lure is a short "Japanese Horror Fishing" walking simulator developed by indie devs Blue Moon Games. I don't know too much about these guys as they're probably fresh in the game but they consist of Michael Fischetti and Jason Di Benedetto working as devs from Adelaide, Australia; and other than that they have a Twitter, (sorry it's X now, whoops) profile and I believe the game was a recommendation maybe from Horror Games Community? I don't remember, but basically it's a free game I got from somewhere basically, and because of this I decided to pick it up as I stream games for a friend once every week and after having completed Blue Stinger on Dreamcast I figured I wanted a couple of small and chill games. This is one of those small chill games.
The plot is simple: you're a homeless person who is hired by an old man to fish in the ponds surrounding a Shinto Shrine in exchange for free cash. What follows is a surprise jump scare, which is a cool little twist which I'm not interested in spoiling because it's such a short game that it's not even worth it. The gameplay literally consists of walking, being given a fishing rod and going back and forth a bit to this old man and talking to him; so basically it's just walking and pressing the interact button. The game to me to me personally feels like a small proof of concept, not of a larger game but of the talent of the developers who probably made this for a short indie jam or something (mid review edit: was made for SCREAM JAM 2021 but it was a missed deadline and as such they wanted to release it anyways). As such, it worked and gained my interest for something more expansive in this developer's future.
The graphical design is great, and the retro PS1-style aesthetic is one that I will ALWAYS simp for, and truth be told I'll stand here and say that personally I feel like this is one of the better examples of this that I've ever seen. I don't know how to explain it, but it's a very crunchy look that I just kind of enjoy, though I wish the old man had a LITTLE bit more detail in his character model. The sound design is minimalist, it's not really prevalent and there's no voice acting other than ambiance and such as far as I remember.
Overall thoughts, yeah it's good but a shortie; I could see Youtubers definitely getting a small kick out of this for content and again as a short proof of concept? I like what the developers are doing. If you want a game you could literally beat in five minutes or less, consider checking it out.
Blue Moon Games Promo Links:
https://twitter.com/bluemoon__games
https://bluemoongames.itch.io/
https://bluemoon.games/
https://www.youtube.com/@bluemoongames5667/videos
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot is simple: you're a homeless person who is hired by an old man to fish in the ponds surrounding a Shinto Shrine in exchange for free cash. What follows is a surprise jump scare, which is a cool little twist which I'm not interested in spoiling because it's such a short game that it's not even worth it. The gameplay literally consists of walking, being given a fishing rod and going back and forth a bit to this old man and talking to him; so basically it's just walking and pressing the interact button. The game to me to me personally feels like a small proof of concept, not of a larger game but of the talent of the developers who probably made this for a short indie jam or something (mid review edit: was made for SCREAM JAM 2021 but it was a missed deadline and as such they wanted to release it anyways). As such, it worked and gained my interest for something more expansive in this developer's future.
The graphical design is great, and the retro PS1-style aesthetic is one that I will ALWAYS simp for, and truth be told I'll stand here and say that personally I feel like this is one of the better examples of this that I've ever seen. I don't know how to explain it, but it's a very crunchy look that I just kind of enjoy, though I wish the old man had a LITTLE bit more detail in his character model. The sound design is minimalist, it's not really prevalent and there's no voice acting other than ambiance and such as far as I remember.
Overall thoughts, yeah it's good but a shortie; I could see Youtubers definitely getting a small kick out of this for content and again as a short proof of concept? I like what the developers are doing. If you want a game you could literally beat in five minutes or less, consider checking it out.
Blue Moon Games Promo Links:
https://twitter.com/bluemoon__games
https://bluemoongames.itch.io/
https://bluemoon.games/
https://www.youtube.com/@bluemoongames5667/videos
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2016
This review contains spoilers
Postal: Redux is a “mass murder” isometric shooter developed by notorious game developer Running with Scissors, known mainly for the Postal series, some of the most infamous games ever created. So of course a remake of their first ever game wouldn’t be too far fetched and was in development I believe around the time the Paradise Lost DLC was released for Postal 2 in 2015. Being a full remake in the Unreal 4, it has new additions as well as some changes while being faithful to the premise of the original. It was also surprisingly later ported to both the PS4 and the Switch of all things, fun fact. So how did I play this? I originally picked it up YEARS ago, specifically 2017-2018 because Postal 2 was the first full fledged game I had ever played on Steam, and as a huge fan of the series, why not pick up the remake to the first game? I played it sparingly, starting on April 9th 2017; finally finishing off the game last night because I was bored. All in all, it’s a short title but took me years to play through it, and here's why.
So what is the plot of this game? You don’t get much of a hint to the plot outside of loading screens and a cutscene or two. However, from what I can understand/research (Thank you TV Tropes/Postal Wiki), you play as the Postal Dude who believes that the Air Force has released a sort of plague upon his town, and as the only “sane” man, he feels he has to liberate everyone from the Air Force’s plans. What does this mean? Mass Shootings of course, killing everyone in his path to stop whatever is happening. In between each loading screen is a sentence or two, usually some edgy stuff about killing that clearly goes to show that this dude isn’t mentally there. After you go through the base game (and alternatively the free DLC packs which includes six extra levels), you end up at a church, where you witness a man beside a grave that’s being lowered into the ground. Afterwords, the Postal Dude levitates and passes out; only for him to then wake up in an Asylum, as the voice of Corey Cruise (from Postal 3 and Brain Damaged) plays the Psychiatrist who reads over the Dude’s diagnosis and declares that he probably “went postal” from the strains of being life. As far as I’m aware, that’s it; the main change I know of is that the final level in the original was apparently supposed to be a failed school shooting before the guy passes out. My thoughts on the story when first trying it out, I knew it wasn’t exactly going to be like Postal 2 but legit this is the darkest the franchise has ever been; there is no ironic humor like the other games, it’s pure edge and I’m glad the ending was changed. I assume due to the ending that the game just takes place in the Postal Dude’s head while the real world around him (in Postal 2 and on) falls apart. This is especially prevalent when while I was looking stuff up, it turns out that Rick Hunter (the VA for Postal Dude), is apparently labeled in the voice files as Demon, furthering the Dude into insanity though that was for the original Postal. Of course, this is all just my take due to research and piecing together bits and pieces of madness mantra from the loading screens so who knows. Overall, it’s ok though it’s not some genius art piece, nor does it intend to be; plus this game isn’t brought up into the others at all (though it does feature some in lore stuff like Krotchy Dolls and the like as Easter Eggs) so it could just be non-canon?
The gameplay is simple: shoot everyone (or almost everyone if you leave the civilians alone for an achievement) on a static map while picking up weapons/health items off of the ground before running to the exit and moving onto the next area. Weapons vary from the starter machine gun and shotguns, to rocket launchers and flamethrowers. Grenade types vary from actual grenades to mines and firebombs as well; apparently there are secret weapons that can be obtained with cheats but I don’t know as I haven’t tried them out. Also, after shooting people you can execute them, and whichever weapon you have equipped will be used to finish them off though this doesn’t provide any benefits as far as I’m aware. That’s just it, there’s no real interactivity other than that; though I will point out that in certain buildings there will be NPCs that spawn whether it’s another armed cop/soldier or an unarmed civilian. There’s also a cooperative mode which I have yet to play (though it hosts a new ending) and a sort of challenge mode where you try to rack up a high score. I guess the truth is, there’s not much else I can say about this other than there are difficulty levels.I guess I could throw in how to get cheats: press T in game and then type in certain phrases and you’ll be able to unlock stuff. I’ll find a list of codes and post them as that’s how I unlocked the Hatred guy for the screenshot and for verification but otherwise a short and one note game and it works just fine.
So what is the art design and the sound design like for this game? I’ll say that the art design is pretty damn solid. Each level in the game for the most part is a solid painting of sorts, updated with a new coat that feels a lot more…full. Though I’ve heard some people say they prefer the original because its more minimalist nature feels a lot more oppressive. I argue that while that may be the case, it doesn’t stop the game from feeling eerie anyways in its atmosphere. Regardless though they’re all the same maps (minus a few added in) but with a little more flair added to them. Another thing I like is the contrast between the PC with certain environment pieces, like you always run at a solid pace while other things like a church bell as an example runs at a lower frame rate, which to me continues the dreamlike nature of the game. The sound design for the most part is ok, the voice actors are decent with the main Postal Dude and the Psychiatrist at the end being played by veteran Postal actors Rick Hunter and Corey Cruise, who do a pretty good. There isn’t much in the way of voice acting otherwise (unless you count the unlockable Hatred PC) that doesn’t consist of screaming and dying but they’re all decent and don’t break immersion. If I were to find a fault with any of them, I’d say it’s that sometimes the weapons feel weak (or at least the machine gun and the shotgun) but they work just fine otherwise and in an ironic sense provide a level of detachment from the Postal Dude’s reality.. Finally, the soundtrack (contained in the loading screens) itself is grimy and unsettling and feels like it comes out of a nightmare hellscape, sometimes consisting of loud noises and percussion and other tracks (like Home) consisting of ambient whispers and screaming.
Final thoughts are that it’s decent, content aside; whereas in some ways I can respect Hatred’s ability to be over the top with the awful dialogue and camp, I feel like this game is better at conveying the horrors of someone who's gone mad and conveys the mood in a bit more of a subdued manner (if you could call this game that). The gameplay might feel a bit stale and repetitive, but I feel in terms of sheer remake standards that whatever the first Postal felt like, it did decent at capturing that feeling, updating everything while keeping it as faithful (as I could see anyways) to the original. I wouldn’t recommend it for casuals, nor would I play this game often due to the content; but one day I’d come back to wrap up the achievements and go through coop for the exclusive ending and at a usually low price of 8.99 or 3 dollars on sale, it’s not bad to pick up for around 3-5 hours of content.
https://postal.fandom.com/wiki/POSTAL_Redux
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Postal
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2531841727
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068702768
https://postal.fandom.com/wiki/POSTAL_Redux/Cheats
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
So what is the plot of this game? You don’t get much of a hint to the plot outside of loading screens and a cutscene or two. However, from what I can understand/research (Thank you TV Tropes/Postal Wiki), you play as the Postal Dude who believes that the Air Force has released a sort of plague upon his town, and as the only “sane” man, he feels he has to liberate everyone from the Air Force’s plans. What does this mean? Mass Shootings of course, killing everyone in his path to stop whatever is happening. In between each loading screen is a sentence or two, usually some edgy stuff about killing that clearly goes to show that this dude isn’t mentally there. After you go through the base game (and alternatively the free DLC packs which includes six extra levels), you end up at a church, where you witness a man beside a grave that’s being lowered into the ground. Afterwords, the Postal Dude levitates and passes out; only for him to then wake up in an Asylum, as the voice of Corey Cruise (from Postal 3 and Brain Damaged) plays the Psychiatrist who reads over the Dude’s diagnosis and declares that he probably “went postal” from the strains of being life. As far as I’m aware, that’s it; the main change I know of is that the final level in the original was apparently supposed to be a failed school shooting before the guy passes out. My thoughts on the story when first trying it out, I knew it wasn’t exactly going to be like Postal 2 but legit this is the darkest the franchise has ever been; there is no ironic humor like the other games, it’s pure edge and I’m glad the ending was changed. I assume due to the ending that the game just takes place in the Postal Dude’s head while the real world around him (in Postal 2 and on) falls apart. This is especially prevalent when while I was looking stuff up, it turns out that Rick Hunter (the VA for Postal Dude), is apparently labeled in the voice files as Demon, furthering the Dude into insanity though that was for the original Postal. Of course, this is all just my take due to research and piecing together bits and pieces of madness mantra from the loading screens so who knows. Overall, it’s ok though it’s not some genius art piece, nor does it intend to be; plus this game isn’t brought up into the others at all (though it does feature some in lore stuff like Krotchy Dolls and the like as Easter Eggs) so it could just be non-canon?
The gameplay is simple: shoot everyone (or almost everyone if you leave the civilians alone for an achievement) on a static map while picking up weapons/health items off of the ground before running to the exit and moving onto the next area. Weapons vary from the starter machine gun and shotguns, to rocket launchers and flamethrowers. Grenade types vary from actual grenades to mines and firebombs as well; apparently there are secret weapons that can be obtained with cheats but I don’t know as I haven’t tried them out. Also, after shooting people you can execute them, and whichever weapon you have equipped will be used to finish them off though this doesn’t provide any benefits as far as I’m aware. That’s just it, there’s no real interactivity other than that; though I will point out that in certain buildings there will be NPCs that spawn whether it’s another armed cop/soldier or an unarmed civilian. There’s also a cooperative mode which I have yet to play (though it hosts a new ending) and a sort of challenge mode where you try to rack up a high score. I guess the truth is, there’s not much else I can say about this other than there are difficulty levels.I guess I could throw in how to get cheats: press T in game and then type in certain phrases and you’ll be able to unlock stuff. I’ll find a list of codes and post them as that’s how I unlocked the Hatred guy for the screenshot and for verification but otherwise a short and one note game and it works just fine.
So what is the art design and the sound design like for this game? I’ll say that the art design is pretty damn solid. Each level in the game for the most part is a solid painting of sorts, updated with a new coat that feels a lot more…full. Though I’ve heard some people say they prefer the original because its more minimalist nature feels a lot more oppressive. I argue that while that may be the case, it doesn’t stop the game from feeling eerie anyways in its atmosphere. Regardless though they’re all the same maps (minus a few added in) but with a little more flair added to them. Another thing I like is the contrast between the PC with certain environment pieces, like you always run at a solid pace while other things like a church bell as an example runs at a lower frame rate, which to me continues the dreamlike nature of the game. The sound design for the most part is ok, the voice actors are decent with the main Postal Dude and the Psychiatrist at the end being played by veteran Postal actors Rick Hunter and Corey Cruise, who do a pretty good. There isn’t much in the way of voice acting otherwise (unless you count the unlockable Hatred PC) that doesn’t consist of screaming and dying but they’re all decent and don’t break immersion. If I were to find a fault with any of them, I’d say it’s that sometimes the weapons feel weak (or at least the machine gun and the shotgun) but they work just fine otherwise and in an ironic sense provide a level of detachment from the Postal Dude’s reality.. Finally, the soundtrack (contained in the loading screens) itself is grimy and unsettling and feels like it comes out of a nightmare hellscape, sometimes consisting of loud noises and percussion and other tracks (like Home) consisting of ambient whispers and screaming.
Final thoughts are that it’s decent, content aside; whereas in some ways I can respect Hatred’s ability to be over the top with the awful dialogue and camp, I feel like this game is better at conveying the horrors of someone who's gone mad and conveys the mood in a bit more of a subdued manner (if you could call this game that). The gameplay might feel a bit stale and repetitive, but I feel in terms of sheer remake standards that whatever the first Postal felt like, it did decent at capturing that feeling, updating everything while keeping it as faithful (as I could see anyways) to the original. I wouldn’t recommend it for casuals, nor would I play this game often due to the content; but one day I’d come back to wrap up the achievements and go through coop for the exclusive ending and at a usually low price of 8.99 or 3 dollars on sale, it’s not bad to pick up for around 3-5 hours of content.
https://postal.fandom.com/wiki/POSTAL_Redux
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Postal
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2531841727
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2068702768
https://postal.fandom.com/wiki/POSTAL_Redux/Cheats
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2007
This review contains spoilers
Dead Head Fred is an action adventure open world-ish video game with horror aesthetics developed by Vicious Cycle Software, whose work I didn’t really know of but consisted of works like Robotech: Battlecry (a game I sorta played as a kid that I thought was mediocre) and Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard (another mediocre third person action game that’s a satire on the likes of Duke Nukem). Funny enough, other than the fact that independently I have some friends coming over to play Matt Hazard soon (which I didn’t know they were developed by the same company), it seems that Matt Hazard and Dead Head Fred were really their only independent “franchise starters” (as far as I know), as well as most of the games that the company had developed seemed to be mixed reception tie-in titles made to get a quick buck feels strange. The title apparently got started as a Rayman-styled platformer with some little block motherfucker named Geo, whose ability to switch the shape of his head to solve puzzles and fight enemies would later form the basis for the concept for Dead Head Fred, which publishers felt was “more edgy” and wanted this more than the other game. With this in mind, the devs went back to the drawing board and decided on a noir theme based on movies like Miller’s Crossing, Evil Dead, Who Framed Roger Rabbit?, and other movies with either a fantastical horror theme or a noir setting. Apparently they were thinking of developing this for the Gamecube before moving this to the PSP, but when I tried looking up the source of that it was a Wayback screenshot and I couldn’t find anything about that. Developers later stated in a sort of post mortem that they were hoping for a potential Playstation 2 and Xbox Live Arcade port later down the line if that was ever in the cards but it’s safe to say that it definitely WAS NOT. However, the game was released as a Playstation Portable exclusive (and later playable on PS Vita via PS3 store purchase transfers) and having heard of this game multiple times but never seeing anything about it as a kid and being one of many games I raced to buy when they threatened to close the PS3 store, I bought it on a whim with many others and haven’t touched it in years. So how is this game? What is it like?
Well I can at least start with the sad fact that the gameplay is a mixed bag for me. I appreciate the game’s open(ish) world with off paths you can go through that aren’t even related to the main story path. The game’s gimmick of switching heads (choosing between nine different ones) for different circumstances and puzzles (such as using the zombie head to suck up gas, air and other things to float or put into other objects, the Golem head for pushing heavy objects around or the scarecrow head to catch on fire without hurting yourself) are a pretty solid idea and enjoyable enough for the most part (except a part I’ll get into later). Out in the open world you’ll be able to loot certain containers, chat to characters to pick up side quests, some back to certain areas with new heads to open up side content with extra loot and play unexpected minigames such as fishing, cockfights (including having your very own chickens hanging out in your Freak Farm house barn as a sort of raise/reward system for these fights) and playing pool, and using some of the rewards in these quests to either sell and make cash, or for other uses down the line such as turning in certain objects for certain quest holders (in fact, recommendation: after meeting Jeanne Rossini at the Bongo Club and once you get the giant stone head from raiding the Montezuma casino, leave it and go to Old Hope Falls near the pawn shop and pick up a bunch of pearls by the lake. Bring this back to the homeless guy by the gas station, who’ll make a pearl necklace and then bring that back to Jeanne for 700 dollars, trust me as you’ll need to buy the radioactive suit for the nuclear power plant later in the story that's 1,750 dollars). As stated, you’ll gather money for doing these quests (which range from “collect this amount of stuff” to puzzling quests like “find this woman’s wedding ring, which says it’s near a cafe of sorts but is actually in a back alley down the street up on a ledge but the game doesn’t tell you that” sort of stuff) to buy items such as clothing (the Italian Suit, the High Roller and the aforementioned radiation suit) as well as health pickups.
So here’s the part that I want to address about the gameplay that I don’t like that much and actually dragged the game down for me a good bit: combat. In the beginning it’s kind of okay because you have three heads that you can use, and it’s recommended to switch between heads to counter certain enemies and make your life a whole lot easier. However, you end up losing two and you’re stuck with the Jar, which is cool except for the fact that afterwards the first boss is coming up: Juju Judy. I was stuck on this boss not only because I didn’t know what to do (both because I’m dumb and also the fact that I thought the objective was optional) but also because they spawn a bunch of zombies that can’t be countered with the jarhead, and Judy shoots out fireballs that’ll knock off your health. Mix that in with being ganged up on by the aforementioned zombies as well as the fact your health could get knocked down really quick meant that I had to juke it by hanging out where she couldn’t hit me at a nearby gate, hit the zombie a bit then back off when they break out the unblockable orange counter attack. Maybe others didn’t have an issue with this but I did, and while this sort of concept got easier over time as the game went (starting from the city) and you unlock new heads, it doesn’t help that the game’s combat feels sluggish (even with the variation of attacks and enemies), like smacking a boxing bag that kind of hits you back in the face after slugging it once or twice. Speaking of slugging, the game’s combat overall feels like this and made me never want to touch this game again. I think what makes this part even worse is that the publishers kind of pushed for there to be more combat, which I understand cause PI’s can get into fights sometimes but in this case it either should’ve just had more time to flesh out a better combat system or just hadn’t had one at all. However, what does make this a bit better are the head upgrades, which I would definitely recommend the healing one with the Jarhead as it fills up your health over time faster, and it was very useful when I needed it. However, the heads can be upgraded by acquiring gold worms through various means (I didn’t explore this avenue but I mostly got them from boss fights). However, even getting these worms can sometimes suck, I at least know you can pick up different colored worms around certain parts in the open world and I always sucked at the worm collecting game, which involves filling the bar but not holding down the Square button too hard, which I don’t care for cause I don’t end up filling the bar or I end up ripping the worm in half so I lose regardless. I feel like I’m missing out on something, whether it’s another talking point or ingredient that would make the combat feel better; maybe I suck? I don’t know but the gameplay didn’t reallty do it for me despite all of the uniqueness surrounding the game.
The plot revolves around a singular mystery: What exactly happened to Fred’s head? That’s the thought when you wake up after a freak science experiment from the mad Dr. Steiner, a scientist who works for local mafia boss Ulysses Pitt. Turns out you’re a guy named Fred who was murdered and had his head chopped off, only to be resurrected back to life (in a green jar with only the brain and some eyes) for the sole purpose of taking down the titular mob boss himself. After Fred gets reacquainted with life and missing memories as a result of his death, Steiner is kidnapped by Pitt and his goon Lefty (who is questioning the doctor about what happened to the dead body of Fred himself), whose left leg was literally replaced with a Thompson machine gun. Making his way through the castle and dealing with some of Pitt’s undead goons, Steiner gives you a hint while you’re looking through a wall that he’s being taken to the nearby Creepy Hollow forest, and held by the Headless Horseman himself. After escaping Steiner’s castle, you meet two distinct characters: Sam Spade, a hunchback gravedigger who has a fascination for heads and will be your defacto “Head” upgrade guy and JuJu Judy, another henchperson of Pitt who engages in both necromancy AND has the hots for Fred. After a frustrating boss battle, Judy disappears and Fred travels to Creepy Hollow, where he rescues Steiner from the Headless Horseman himself. In between these two events of course, Fred acquires a couple different heads for use later in the story.
Fred heads back into the town of Hope Falls, New Jersey to inquire about what the hell happened to himself in the past and meets his old girlfriend, Jeanne Rossini; after trying to convince her that the mannequin head talking to her IS Fred, she doesn’t believe you and tells you that if you want to convince her that you’d have to tell her something only her old flame Fred would know. However, through her you do learn of Fred’s old partner, Benny, who resides in Zombie Town, having become a routine alcoholic since you died (in between taking down another one of Pitt’s lieutenants and learning of the mannequin head, used to talk to humans without freaking them out with the talking jar). Trekking through Zombie Town, Fred eventually finds the bar that Benny resides in, before being captured by Judy again for the second and final round. Unfortunately all the rounds were on her because Fred collapses a fuckin house on that bitch, and she dies whispering to Fred about a tape before dying (but not before hitting on him some more). Fred goes back into the bar and talks to Benny, who promises to meet him at the old agency in Old Hope Falls once he sobers up, and at that meeting he learns that not only did Benny betray you after Pitt paid off his gambling debts (which he regrets as he thought Pitt would only talk to Fred to try to pay him off), but over the course of the last act or so that your murder revolves around the death of Vinni Rossini, Jeanne’s father and that you were hired to help solve the old man’s murder. After finding Jeanne again and playing a mean sax solo (or as she would put it, playing the “Gobble Pipe”, heh you can’t make this shit up), you two reunite and make amends, and also learn after investigating Rossini’s death (via messing with his head and reliving the corpse’s memories) that Fred had filmed the old man’s death on video tape. He also learns that he bought the property that Rossini died on, so that Pitt wouldn’t be able to scrub up any evidence.
Fred travels to the Freak Farms and after engaging in a parody of the Hatfields and McCoys, Fred finds the old property to find the video tape, only to learn that the hidden video tape isn’t there. However, Fred does find an old casino chip for the nearby Montezuma Casino, and hoping that the tape is there he races off to cash in his chips. After fighting through all the goons and recovering the tape, Fred learns that Pitt has kidnapped Jeanne and wants to use that as leverage to take the tape back. Fred however decides, “Fuck all that shit, all of your money is going to burn first” and royally fucks over the mob boss’s finances, before deciding to take down his big business: the Pitt Nukular Plant. Traveling through the radiation infested swamps, Fred ends up at the power plant and infiltrates it from the inside, destroying the plant in its entirety as well as defeating Lefty in combat, turning him into a radiated kaiju creature. With only one place left to go, Fred heads over to Pitt’s HQ to take Jeanne back and take Pitt down once and for all. Facing Kaiju Lefty again, the monster is defeated with a bunch of trickery involving conveniently placed green slime outside of the monolith of a tower as well as doing the Stevie Wonder method and blinding the fuck with a searchlight. Fighting his way up the tower (encountering both an amusing museum to Pitt himself as well as a frustrating gauntlet of fighting all of the enemy types in single lobby), Fred encounters Pitt, who seemingly sends him down to his death via elevator, before it’s learned that the Jarheaded bastard is actually alive and is hanging out on the outside of the building. Climbing back up, Fred almost frees Jeanne before she accidentally alerts Pitt to his presence, and they almost make a deal for Fred’s severed head back, which Pitt has been keeping as a namesake as Fred wants Steiner to reattach that too. However, this is all ruined by even bigger Kaiju Lefty, though the battle on the roof ends after the both of them fall off. Sad without his head but glad Jeanne is safe, they both walk out to find Pitt still alive, at least temporarily before Pitt’s rude demeanor pisses off the Kaiju and he gets eaten alive. The story ends with the head being missed, having been kicked into a sewer by some guy, and Fred recounting his life after the plot, including his getting a part on a medical drama including quirky doctor stuff (as a reference to John McGinley’s acting on Scrubs).
So what are my thoughts on the plot? It’s simple, and it’s goofy but in all honesty it’s a lot of fun, and it mixes both supernatural stuff and mobsters so for me? I’m all in, and I generally enjoyed my time with the game. If I could point out the biggest plot hole, it would be why the hell didn’t Pitt just kill Jeanne after Fred plainly announced his intentions over the phone to burn all of his money and take over his business? I guess cause it would give Fred no choice but to kill Pitt in revenge but the lack of reality (I know, in a fantastical like game lol) did kind of poke a hole for me in the final act of the game. Other than that? Again I have no complaints, for the most part everyone did a decent job, though I’m surprised they only used Judy twice and didn’t bring her back for a third and final time. Regardless though, the writing is witty and humorous, sometimes a bit cheesy but with a sort of self-aware flair that one can tell is basically a parody. Other than that, again it’s simple and enjoyable and I don’t really have much in the way of complaints for this end other than that they were going to try to make this game a franchise at one point. However, other than the lack of Fred’s real head, the game seems to wrap up fine on it’s own merits as a self contained story so even without that bridge into the future it’s pretty good.
The sound design is great and the voice acting is solid. Everyone brings a solid performance to the title; John McGinley does a fantastic job as pissed off and headless private investigator Fred Neuman with all the sarcastic quips. I didn’t think “oh it’s that one guy from Scrubs”, I thought of him as “Oh shit, that IS Fred” and to me when an actor embodies a character so well to the point that you don’t think about it? It’s amazing, even if he doesn’t do any special accents or anything. Jon Polito as mafia boss Ulysses Pitt is great too, with a similar sort of “Miller’s Crossing” performance that just screams “weasley but angry” and he pulls it off fantastically. Other actors take on multiple roles at once and pretty much do a great job for the most part, like Jack Roth as both Doctor Steiner and Vinni Rossini (though this voice sounds like a bad impression of an older mob boss, though it adds to the charm) or Barbara Goodson, who does both Juju Judy as well as other smaller characters. Everyone does a good job on this end and I can’t complain about anything because I didn’t notice a bad performance in the slightest on this end. The soundtrack is also pretty great, Jason Graves and Rod Abernathy did a great job bringing a sort of grungy sounding yet smooth private detective feeling sound in their work, as well as bringing out the theme in each individual place that Fred is at. If I were to list off favorites, I would say the main theme, Steiner’s Castle, Hope Falls and the Freak Farms solid. The rest do a good job blending into the background of whatever area you’re in and I can’t speak enough positives about the sounds. I guess if I were to give any critiques to the sound stuff, sometimes in relation to the combat it doesn’t sound very punchy or satisfying knocking out some enemies but then again even in that way it feels fine.
The art and world design is also just as good as the sound, everyone looks unique in their design. Fred and his multitude of Dead Heads all fit the fun style they're looking for, and the jar with only a brain and eyes attached make for a memorable and surprisingly emotive look. Sam Spade as this sort of graveyard caretaker with a hunch, Benny with his giant cranium head, Pitt with his herpes looking face, Lefty wit the entire left side of his body looking like he just spent the entirety of his younger years inside of a McDonalds and had a stroke because of it, it’s oozing with style and whoever designed the world in this game did a great job. The horror aesthetic style they also have, with numerous designs based on haunted castles, to Evil Dead inspired creepy forests, to radioactive zombie towns and redneck farms make every place feel different, basically it’s great at looking like a shithole (and Hope Falls is in New Jersey so it makes sense LOL). The graphics aren’t bad at all for the PSP/Vita, though I always hated going into the Tiki Worlds because it would look like someone smashed multicolored vaseline across your visor and expect you to navigate whatever the hell that is. I’ll also go out of my way and say it’s very impressive being able to fit a sort of semi-open world like they do (with loading screens of course) onto the PSP like they did; while I’m sure it’s been done before and would be done later (with the personal classic GTA: Chinatown Wars), it’s still cool although a bit confusing to navigate wherever the hell you’re going sometimes. Overall, I love the 40s retro aesthetic, and in all honestly it reminds me of another cult classic and a personal favorite of mine: Stubbs the Zombie, with its horror based themes as well as that game’s olden vibe mixed in with grandparent slang and in-jokes based on the decades.
To finish off my thoughts on Dead Head Fred: while I appreciate the game’s aesthetics, it’s atmosphere, it’s wit and humor as well as the unique presence, I felt like ultimately the combat is what dragged down the game for me. Whilst I’m always willing to cut developers some slack due to what goes into actually making a game, there were multiple times in this game where I was honestly frustrated and just wanted the game to end due to how often they relied on this combat as a crutch. It was a lot worse in the beginning, it got better over time but to me, the gameplay is the most important part of any game. If it’s good (doesn’t matter if it’s something intense like Sifu or a walking game like What Remains of Edith Finch as examples), then it makes the process of wanting to continue to play it way more enjoyable. I wanted to enjoy this game, but I didn’t as much and that makes me sad because I love literally everything else about this. I’m not sure I would ever play the base game ever again personally on PSP or the Vita, however I would probably play it on PS4/5 again for the trophies if it ever popped up on the store (with titles like Killzone: Liberation or Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror). I would love to see the world continue however, whether it’s with a remake (with improved combat please, don’t be like the MediEvil remake which feels like a slog), or a movie adaptation or what. It had a lot of promise, and though I didn’t care for a lot of what the game had to offer, it’s unique in it’s own way and I can’t help but give credit and admiration where it’s due.
Links:
https://www.mtv.com/news/gaqw2k/interview-actor-john-c-mcginley-of-dead-head-fred
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadHeadFred
https://web.archive.org/web/20110716220627/http://www.viciouscycleinc.com/developer_diaries/diary.cfm?ID=13
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/disciplines/postmortem-vicious-cycle-software-s-dead-head-fred
https://music.apple.com/us/album/dead-head-fred-original-soundtrack/263025773
https://english-voice-over.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred_(2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csNPgtrQalU&ab_channel=NoirStation
https://www.ign.com/wikis/dead-head-fred/Castle_Steiner
Well I can at least start with the sad fact that the gameplay is a mixed bag for me. I appreciate the game’s open(ish) world with off paths you can go through that aren’t even related to the main story path. The game’s gimmick of switching heads (choosing between nine different ones) for different circumstances and puzzles (such as using the zombie head to suck up gas, air and other things to float or put into other objects, the Golem head for pushing heavy objects around or the scarecrow head to catch on fire without hurting yourself) are a pretty solid idea and enjoyable enough for the most part (except a part I’ll get into later). Out in the open world you’ll be able to loot certain containers, chat to characters to pick up side quests, some back to certain areas with new heads to open up side content with extra loot and play unexpected minigames such as fishing, cockfights (including having your very own chickens hanging out in your Freak Farm house barn as a sort of raise/reward system for these fights) and playing pool, and using some of the rewards in these quests to either sell and make cash, or for other uses down the line such as turning in certain objects for certain quest holders (in fact, recommendation: after meeting Jeanne Rossini at the Bongo Club and once you get the giant stone head from raiding the Montezuma casino, leave it and go to Old Hope Falls near the pawn shop and pick up a bunch of pearls by the lake. Bring this back to the homeless guy by the gas station, who’ll make a pearl necklace and then bring that back to Jeanne for 700 dollars, trust me as you’ll need to buy the radioactive suit for the nuclear power plant later in the story that's 1,750 dollars). As stated, you’ll gather money for doing these quests (which range from “collect this amount of stuff” to puzzling quests like “find this woman’s wedding ring, which says it’s near a cafe of sorts but is actually in a back alley down the street up on a ledge but the game doesn’t tell you that” sort of stuff) to buy items such as clothing (the Italian Suit, the High Roller and the aforementioned radiation suit) as well as health pickups.
So here’s the part that I want to address about the gameplay that I don’t like that much and actually dragged the game down for me a good bit: combat. In the beginning it’s kind of okay because you have three heads that you can use, and it’s recommended to switch between heads to counter certain enemies and make your life a whole lot easier. However, you end up losing two and you’re stuck with the Jar, which is cool except for the fact that afterwards the first boss is coming up: Juju Judy. I was stuck on this boss not only because I didn’t know what to do (both because I’m dumb and also the fact that I thought the objective was optional) but also because they spawn a bunch of zombies that can’t be countered with the jarhead, and Judy shoots out fireballs that’ll knock off your health. Mix that in with being ganged up on by the aforementioned zombies as well as the fact your health could get knocked down really quick meant that I had to juke it by hanging out where she couldn’t hit me at a nearby gate, hit the zombie a bit then back off when they break out the unblockable orange counter attack. Maybe others didn’t have an issue with this but I did, and while this sort of concept got easier over time as the game went (starting from the city) and you unlock new heads, it doesn’t help that the game’s combat feels sluggish (even with the variation of attacks and enemies), like smacking a boxing bag that kind of hits you back in the face after slugging it once or twice. Speaking of slugging, the game’s combat overall feels like this and made me never want to touch this game again. I think what makes this part even worse is that the publishers kind of pushed for there to be more combat, which I understand cause PI’s can get into fights sometimes but in this case it either should’ve just had more time to flesh out a better combat system or just hadn’t had one at all. However, what does make this a bit better are the head upgrades, which I would definitely recommend the healing one with the Jarhead as it fills up your health over time faster, and it was very useful when I needed it. However, the heads can be upgraded by acquiring gold worms through various means (I didn’t explore this avenue but I mostly got them from boss fights). However, even getting these worms can sometimes suck, I at least know you can pick up different colored worms around certain parts in the open world and I always sucked at the worm collecting game, which involves filling the bar but not holding down the Square button too hard, which I don’t care for cause I don’t end up filling the bar or I end up ripping the worm in half so I lose regardless. I feel like I’m missing out on something, whether it’s another talking point or ingredient that would make the combat feel better; maybe I suck? I don’t know but the gameplay didn’t reallty do it for me despite all of the uniqueness surrounding the game.
The plot revolves around a singular mystery: What exactly happened to Fred’s head? That’s the thought when you wake up after a freak science experiment from the mad Dr. Steiner, a scientist who works for local mafia boss Ulysses Pitt. Turns out you’re a guy named Fred who was murdered and had his head chopped off, only to be resurrected back to life (in a green jar with only the brain and some eyes) for the sole purpose of taking down the titular mob boss himself. After Fred gets reacquainted with life and missing memories as a result of his death, Steiner is kidnapped by Pitt and his goon Lefty (who is questioning the doctor about what happened to the dead body of Fred himself), whose left leg was literally replaced with a Thompson machine gun. Making his way through the castle and dealing with some of Pitt’s undead goons, Steiner gives you a hint while you’re looking through a wall that he’s being taken to the nearby Creepy Hollow forest, and held by the Headless Horseman himself. After escaping Steiner’s castle, you meet two distinct characters: Sam Spade, a hunchback gravedigger who has a fascination for heads and will be your defacto “Head” upgrade guy and JuJu Judy, another henchperson of Pitt who engages in both necromancy AND has the hots for Fred. After a frustrating boss battle, Judy disappears and Fred travels to Creepy Hollow, where he rescues Steiner from the Headless Horseman himself. In between these two events of course, Fred acquires a couple different heads for use later in the story.
Fred heads back into the town of Hope Falls, New Jersey to inquire about what the hell happened to himself in the past and meets his old girlfriend, Jeanne Rossini; after trying to convince her that the mannequin head talking to her IS Fred, she doesn’t believe you and tells you that if you want to convince her that you’d have to tell her something only her old flame Fred would know. However, through her you do learn of Fred’s old partner, Benny, who resides in Zombie Town, having become a routine alcoholic since you died (in between taking down another one of Pitt’s lieutenants and learning of the mannequin head, used to talk to humans without freaking them out with the talking jar). Trekking through Zombie Town, Fred eventually finds the bar that Benny resides in, before being captured by Judy again for the second and final round. Unfortunately all the rounds were on her because Fred collapses a fuckin house on that bitch, and she dies whispering to Fred about a tape before dying (but not before hitting on him some more). Fred goes back into the bar and talks to Benny, who promises to meet him at the old agency in Old Hope Falls once he sobers up, and at that meeting he learns that not only did Benny betray you after Pitt paid off his gambling debts (which he regrets as he thought Pitt would only talk to Fred to try to pay him off), but over the course of the last act or so that your murder revolves around the death of Vinni Rossini, Jeanne’s father and that you were hired to help solve the old man’s murder. After finding Jeanne again and playing a mean sax solo (or as she would put it, playing the “Gobble Pipe”, heh you can’t make this shit up), you two reunite and make amends, and also learn after investigating Rossini’s death (via messing with his head and reliving the corpse’s memories) that Fred had filmed the old man’s death on video tape. He also learns that he bought the property that Rossini died on, so that Pitt wouldn’t be able to scrub up any evidence.
Fred travels to the Freak Farms and after engaging in a parody of the Hatfields and McCoys, Fred finds the old property to find the video tape, only to learn that the hidden video tape isn’t there. However, Fred does find an old casino chip for the nearby Montezuma Casino, and hoping that the tape is there he races off to cash in his chips. After fighting through all the goons and recovering the tape, Fred learns that Pitt has kidnapped Jeanne and wants to use that as leverage to take the tape back. Fred however decides, “Fuck all that shit, all of your money is going to burn first” and royally fucks over the mob boss’s finances, before deciding to take down his big business: the Pitt Nukular Plant. Traveling through the radiation infested swamps, Fred ends up at the power plant and infiltrates it from the inside, destroying the plant in its entirety as well as defeating Lefty in combat, turning him into a radiated kaiju creature. With only one place left to go, Fred heads over to Pitt’s HQ to take Jeanne back and take Pitt down once and for all. Facing Kaiju Lefty again, the monster is defeated with a bunch of trickery involving conveniently placed green slime outside of the monolith of a tower as well as doing the Stevie Wonder method and blinding the fuck with a searchlight. Fighting his way up the tower (encountering both an amusing museum to Pitt himself as well as a frustrating gauntlet of fighting all of the enemy types in single lobby), Fred encounters Pitt, who seemingly sends him down to his death via elevator, before it’s learned that the Jarheaded bastard is actually alive and is hanging out on the outside of the building. Climbing back up, Fred almost frees Jeanne before she accidentally alerts Pitt to his presence, and they almost make a deal for Fred’s severed head back, which Pitt has been keeping as a namesake as Fred wants Steiner to reattach that too. However, this is all ruined by even bigger Kaiju Lefty, though the battle on the roof ends after the both of them fall off. Sad without his head but glad Jeanne is safe, they both walk out to find Pitt still alive, at least temporarily before Pitt’s rude demeanor pisses off the Kaiju and he gets eaten alive. The story ends with the head being missed, having been kicked into a sewer by some guy, and Fred recounting his life after the plot, including his getting a part on a medical drama including quirky doctor stuff (as a reference to John McGinley’s acting on Scrubs).
So what are my thoughts on the plot? It’s simple, and it’s goofy but in all honesty it’s a lot of fun, and it mixes both supernatural stuff and mobsters so for me? I’m all in, and I generally enjoyed my time with the game. If I could point out the biggest plot hole, it would be why the hell didn’t Pitt just kill Jeanne after Fred plainly announced his intentions over the phone to burn all of his money and take over his business? I guess cause it would give Fred no choice but to kill Pitt in revenge but the lack of reality (I know, in a fantastical like game lol) did kind of poke a hole for me in the final act of the game. Other than that? Again I have no complaints, for the most part everyone did a decent job, though I’m surprised they only used Judy twice and didn’t bring her back for a third and final time. Regardless though, the writing is witty and humorous, sometimes a bit cheesy but with a sort of self-aware flair that one can tell is basically a parody. Other than that, again it’s simple and enjoyable and I don’t really have much in the way of complaints for this end other than that they were going to try to make this game a franchise at one point. However, other than the lack of Fred’s real head, the game seems to wrap up fine on it’s own merits as a self contained story so even without that bridge into the future it’s pretty good.
The sound design is great and the voice acting is solid. Everyone brings a solid performance to the title; John McGinley does a fantastic job as pissed off and headless private investigator Fred Neuman with all the sarcastic quips. I didn’t think “oh it’s that one guy from Scrubs”, I thought of him as “Oh shit, that IS Fred” and to me when an actor embodies a character so well to the point that you don’t think about it? It’s amazing, even if he doesn’t do any special accents or anything. Jon Polito as mafia boss Ulysses Pitt is great too, with a similar sort of “Miller’s Crossing” performance that just screams “weasley but angry” and he pulls it off fantastically. Other actors take on multiple roles at once and pretty much do a great job for the most part, like Jack Roth as both Doctor Steiner and Vinni Rossini (though this voice sounds like a bad impression of an older mob boss, though it adds to the charm) or Barbara Goodson, who does both Juju Judy as well as other smaller characters. Everyone does a good job on this end and I can’t complain about anything because I didn’t notice a bad performance in the slightest on this end. The soundtrack is also pretty great, Jason Graves and Rod Abernathy did a great job bringing a sort of grungy sounding yet smooth private detective feeling sound in their work, as well as bringing out the theme in each individual place that Fred is at. If I were to list off favorites, I would say the main theme, Steiner’s Castle, Hope Falls and the Freak Farms solid. The rest do a good job blending into the background of whatever area you’re in and I can’t speak enough positives about the sounds. I guess if I were to give any critiques to the sound stuff, sometimes in relation to the combat it doesn’t sound very punchy or satisfying knocking out some enemies but then again even in that way it feels fine.
The art and world design is also just as good as the sound, everyone looks unique in their design. Fred and his multitude of Dead Heads all fit the fun style they're looking for, and the jar with only a brain and eyes attached make for a memorable and surprisingly emotive look. Sam Spade as this sort of graveyard caretaker with a hunch, Benny with his giant cranium head, Pitt with his herpes looking face, Lefty wit the entire left side of his body looking like he just spent the entirety of his younger years inside of a McDonalds and had a stroke because of it, it’s oozing with style and whoever designed the world in this game did a great job. The horror aesthetic style they also have, with numerous designs based on haunted castles, to Evil Dead inspired creepy forests, to radioactive zombie towns and redneck farms make every place feel different, basically it’s great at looking like a shithole (and Hope Falls is in New Jersey so it makes sense LOL). The graphics aren’t bad at all for the PSP/Vita, though I always hated going into the Tiki Worlds because it would look like someone smashed multicolored vaseline across your visor and expect you to navigate whatever the hell that is. I’ll also go out of my way and say it’s very impressive being able to fit a sort of semi-open world like they do (with loading screens of course) onto the PSP like they did; while I’m sure it’s been done before and would be done later (with the personal classic GTA: Chinatown Wars), it’s still cool although a bit confusing to navigate wherever the hell you’re going sometimes. Overall, I love the 40s retro aesthetic, and in all honestly it reminds me of another cult classic and a personal favorite of mine: Stubbs the Zombie, with its horror based themes as well as that game’s olden vibe mixed in with grandparent slang and in-jokes based on the decades.
To finish off my thoughts on Dead Head Fred: while I appreciate the game’s aesthetics, it’s atmosphere, it’s wit and humor as well as the unique presence, I felt like ultimately the combat is what dragged down the game for me. Whilst I’m always willing to cut developers some slack due to what goes into actually making a game, there were multiple times in this game where I was honestly frustrated and just wanted the game to end due to how often they relied on this combat as a crutch. It was a lot worse in the beginning, it got better over time but to me, the gameplay is the most important part of any game. If it’s good (doesn’t matter if it’s something intense like Sifu or a walking game like What Remains of Edith Finch as examples), then it makes the process of wanting to continue to play it way more enjoyable. I wanted to enjoy this game, but I didn’t as much and that makes me sad because I love literally everything else about this. I’m not sure I would ever play the base game ever again personally on PSP or the Vita, however I would probably play it on PS4/5 again for the trophies if it ever popped up on the store (with titles like Killzone: Liberation or Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror). I would love to see the world continue however, whether it’s with a remake (with improved combat please, don’t be like the MediEvil remake which feels like a slog), or a movie adaptation or what. It had a lot of promise, and though I didn’t care for a lot of what the game had to offer, it’s unique in it’s own way and I can’t help but give credit and admiration where it’s due.
Links:
https://www.mtv.com/news/gaqw2k/interview-actor-john-c-mcginley-of-dead-head-fred
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DeadHeadFred
https://web.archive.org/web/20110716220627/http://www.viciouscycleinc.com/developer_diaries/diary.cfm?ID=13
https://www.gamedeveloper.com/disciplines/postmortem-vicious-cycle-software-s-dead-head-fred
https://music.apple.com/us/album/dead-head-fred-original-soundtrack/263025773
https://english-voice-over.fandom.com/wiki/Dead_Head_Fred_(2007)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=csNPgtrQalU&ab_channel=NoirStation
https://www.ign.com/wikis/dead-head-fred/Castle_Steiner
2018
This review contains spoilers
Marvel’s Spider-Man is an open world superhero action game developed by Insomniac Games as an exclusive for the Playstation 4 console and distributed by Sony Interactive Entertainment. Before I go into the origins of the game through the research, I wanted to tell you really where I was when this game came out. I remember seeing the E3 trailer debut in 2016 as I had just gotten out of High School that year, a time in my life that I extremely loathed and had just gotten into working. I didn’t really think too much about this game persay, I was more so into my edgy games back then (still am now of course), but I had remembered how I played Spider-Man 2 on Gamecube and Ultimate Spider-Man and other superhero games as a kid and had a sort of nostalgic feeling towards these type of games. I wasn’t as invested in exclusives as much back then, and having just gotten a job that’s when I truly delved into buying up consoles for games I’ve wanted to experience; I would later experience Infamous in 2017 as my first PS3 game ever with a sort of world building and tone that I heavily enjoyed. For a while that’s how this kinda went, I just forgot about this game, didn’t care as I had bought games like Until Dawn, Bloodborne, and Yakuza 0 before starting to officially build up my childhood. But still a piece of my childhood felt missing, for all the old games that I got I felt like I had missed something, especially with the MCU hype train around and with all my nerd friends going on about the recent spoilers and potential future of the franchise. This was at a time when it felt fresh and interesting to me as I had kind of ignored it and had a limited world view during my high school years, so when E3 popped in 2017 and showed the demo at the construction site (which was before I got my PS3 of course), I was a bit more on the hopeful and interested side but kind of shrugged. I didn’t really care about it much at all from then on until one day I was in Florida on vacation, and I decided to pick it up at a Target on the first week or so of release, then came back home and played it. All I had thought about was “How would this compare to Spider-Man 2’s web swinging?” and “How would this compare to Ultimate Spider-Man’s story beats?” or “Will this be just as good as Batman: Arkham’s combat?”. This was at a time when the recent Spider-Man games were mostly either based on movies and were considered pretty awful, or kind of one off multiverse games that I didn’t really care for.
What does this all mean exactly? It means that Insomniac had a lot to prove here, and went considerably against the grain compared to the constantly rushed games of previous years. Having read up on its history, it started after Sunset Overdrive (a game which I don’t like in a lot of ways) was released. Meetings had occurred between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Insomniac Games about developing a game based on a Marvel property. A lot of workshopping went back and forth, and it was decided that this would be its own original story with the approval of all involved. What ended up coming out was one of the best exclusives on the Playstation 4, one of the most acclaimed games based on a licensed property and I believe that it’s one of the best Marvel games of all time. There was also a prequel comic: Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover, that was released sometime around the game’s release but I never read it myself, so I’ll post the TV Tropes page in the comments section below. Truth be told I don’t really know much else about the game historically that could be really interesting, nothing crazy as far as I’m aware either as the game was rather successful and I feel the way that it was being built mixed in with the popularity of the Marvel formula almost guarantees instant success. However, what I can say personally is that the game does enough stuff that’s different from the usual formula and tropes of Spider-Man that it’s for the better. I ended up platinuming this game over a period of seven or so months including waiting for the DLC to release and finally wrapping up the New Game + stuff out of boredom for all trophies acquired.
The beginning is a bit of a cold open, a police raid on Fisk Tower to apprehend crime boss Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk, a behemoth of a man who controls the New York Underworld. A traversal through the headquarters leads to a battle between what seems to be a human tank and the eventual defeat of Fisk. However, what leads in the void is a power vacuum that leads to one of, if not the worst crime wave that’s happened in the city’s history that goes on for a while. A group of men in demon masks and suits begin to take over Kingpin’s property, all while mayor Norman Osborn runs in the background. Things aren’t how they seem however as a bank robbery by Herman Shultz, aka The Shocker, lead to the realization that the leader of the Inner Demons, named Mr. Negative, threatened him into committing robberies for them. Other villains like Tombstone, a biker gang leader/drug trafficker, works for Mr. Negative to build vehicles for them; meanwhile Taskmaster, a mercenary with the ability to copy other’s moves through sheer memory, puts Spider-Man through a series of tests that push him to the limits all for the purposes of studying him and defeating him for a mysterious organization that’s never revealed. This is only the side content however, as the main content hits the peak after Mr. Negative and his demons attack an awards ceremony for police officer Jefferson Davis (who helped Spider-Man thwart a Demons attack earlier), hosted by Norman Osborn, in an attempt to assassinate the mayor himself. However, while Norman manages to get out alive, Jefferson on the other hand does not. This is where I should bring up five different characters, each one important to Peter Parker/Spider-Man in their own way and are whom I consider the pillars of the game and are the other parts that are balanced in congruence with the story.
The son of Jefferson Davis, Miles Morales, falls into a slump after the death of his father; Peter’s Aunt May (who runs a F.E.A.S.T. shelter, led by Martin Li, a popular philanthropist) brings Miles on both to help the young man out and as a sort of parallel to Peter himself. Both Peter and Miles had their father figures killed by senseless violence, and Aunt May hopes to try to do the same for the boy as she did for Peter, and Peter starts a sort of mentor figure role for the young man. Those are two of the pillars, the other three include Peter’s ex-girlfriend: Mary Jane, who felt that Peter smothered her and didn’t let her help or engage in anything dangerous due to the factor of her safety. She helps throughout the story in her own way, gathering the intel and sneaking into certain locations to take pictures to expose the criminal activities. The relationship between Peter and Mary Jane are at first full of conflict and awkwardness, but over the time in the story lead to a growing respect and a willingness to work togethers as true partners, instead of just Spider-Man carrying all the weight. Yuri Watanabe is a police captain who works together with Spider-Man as a connection with the police force during the crisis ensuing and provides emotional support as well even though her presence is more up front in the DLC. The last one is one of the most important characters in the entire plot: Dr. Otto Octavius. I’ll disclose that role later on in the review but in the beginning, he’s Peter’s mentor and science partner whose attempting to work in creating artificial limbs leads him down the obvious path to villainy, not helped by Norman Osborn, his old business partner/fellow scientist who does everything in his path to screw Otto over in an attempt to strong arm him into working for Oscorp (which I don’t think is possible to be a public official and run a corporation but whatever).
Whilst at the awards ceremony, it’s revealed that Mr. Negative is actually Martin Li, the head of FEAST who clearly has an agenda against Osborn, going on a homegrown terrorist campaign in an attempt to ruin him. After he is apprehended and sent to The Raft, a giant prison located in the river known to hold super-villains, a giant breakout occurs and chaos ensues. Li escapes, but so do villains like The Vulture, Scorpion, Electro and Rhino break out as well. All of these guys have issues with Spider-Man but after confronting them all on the roof of the prison their leader is revealed: Dr. Octopus, aka Otto Octavius. Peter barely survives and starts an outbreak of “Devil’s Breath”, a biological weapon that infects a whole bunch of people and causes grounds for Norman Osborn to issue martial law, hiring mercenary Silver Sable and her group to help enact his plans.
Aunt May is revealed to be infected with Devil’s Breath and is working on limited time, and after some bombastic set pieces (a dual fight between Electro and Vulture is one of the highlights of the entire game and I believe was revealed in E3 as an example), each of the members of the Sinister Six, the group led by Li and Octopus, are arrested and brought in. It’s revealed down the line that the two have formed together in their mutual hatred towards Norman Osborn. Li was experimented on as a child by Osborn, and as a result of the failed experiment he gained both his abilities and a lifelong hatred of the CEO/Mayor after his parents died as a result. It was also revealed that Devil’s Breath is the result of a series of unsafe experiments meant to save Osborn’s son, Harry (an old friend of Peter who supposedly went overseas) from a life threatening disease after Mary Jane infiltrates Norman’s penthouse. In an attempt to gain the antidote to Devil’s Breath, Peter gets his ass squashed by his nigh bald headed mentor and Otto escapes with both the antidote and Norman as a hostage.
Miles sparingly appears in this game, I mean he appears but his role isn’t as prominent other than a stealth section in the latter part of the game but isn’t as important to the plot as much. This game spends the time developing the beginning of Mile’s legacy, his motivations and his character as he fights the lack of his father figure and his looking up to Peter. Everything comes to a head as he’s bitten by a genetically enhanced spider that MJ brought from the Osborn lab she snuck into. After healing up, Peter goes to the top of Oscorp Tower to fight Octavius, whose hatred for Norman supersedes his relationship with Spider-Man and it’s learned that he knew Peter’s secret identity the whole time. Feeling betrayed by his mentor, Peter unleashes his strength and brutalizes Otto to a pulp before leaving him for the police. This final section is to me what really seals the game for me, as choosing between saving Aunt May with the cure and synthesizing a vaccine for everyone else, Peter chooses to be selfless and accepts the death of the only mother figure he had left.
The finale reveals that both Mary Jane and Peter have started their relationship anew (with a cameo from Stan Lee of course), this time with a newfound respect for each other’s abilities and a willingness to work as equal partners. Miles gains spider powers and shows Peter, who also reveals his secret identity as Spider-Man. Yuri (for now) still remains the captain of the police force while Otto is in jail. However, the final stinger in the credits reveal that the lab in the Penthouse that MJ snuck into has a secret button in the back, which shows a young man revealed to be Harry Osborn, stuck in a tube full of green liquid and black goo, which reacts to Norman’s hand as it touches the surface.
I love this game, I’m mixed on the non Spider-Man missions but the characters are great and fleshed out, I appreciate the respect building between MJ and Peter (though I rolled my eyes at the break up angle, I just don’t like those kinds of plot lines). As I said before, Miles doesn’t really show up too much, but his importance as a background character shouldn’t be understated as the parallels between his father’s death and Uncle Ben’s for Peter along with the burgeoning powers show the birth of another Spider-Man (and he IS Spider-Man by the way). They’re both likable and work well with Peter himself, who has his funny moments but has moments of vulnerability too. Nothing shows this more than the final scene between himself and Aunt May, which perfectly embodies the qualities of what a hero should be: selfless and willing to put others ahead of himself. There isn’t a lot I can say about this plot and characters that others haven’t said before but better, and I did the best I could juggling them all even though I missed some spots, but the writing and the plot are fantastic. Insomniac did a good job with this and the character development of everyone, and even the main villains of Mr. Negative and Otto Octavius, both did heinous acts but both show depth in different ways: villainy through trauma, and blindness by hatred. Like I said, I can’t say enough good things about this, however the DLC on the other hand I have mixed feelings on.
The City that Never Sleeps is a DLC storyline that takes place AFTER the base game, and whilst there’s a lot of things I genuinely enjoy about this content, there’s some stuff I don’t like about this game. The gameplay is exactly the same as the original with side content structure involving new villains, but the only thing I don’t care for in this regard is that when you boot it up that it takes place in a different instance of New York, where I would’ve rather it have been seamless (though it makes trophy stuff easier with different instances). Other than that it’s pretty solid, and the plot only has one thing in it where I was mixed on it but I’ll address that later on but for now, I’ll go into recap mode. After the events of the base game, the criminal underworld is left with a giant void in power, a void in which the Maggia (Marvel Comic’s version of the Mafia, only named the Maggia because the actual Mafia had a stranglehold over newsstands and therefore not wanting to offend them, Marvel switched some names around. Look it up, it’s fascinating stuff) is more than happy to take control. I love some mafia styled content so I LOVE this aspect of the game, and the story is split into three separate chapters but I’m going to make this a brief recap. Spider-Man tries to stop one of the Maggia from stealing a painting when he encounters Black Cat who steals a USB hidden inside of one of the paintings. After a while of chasing her down, it’s learned that the man who hired her, Hammerhead (one of the heads of the Maggia and one of my favorite criminals in Marvel period), is coercing her into doing this by “threatening her son”. With Black Cat’s role in the comics as Spider-Man’s foil, one thing I kinda knew was going to be a bluff is that there’s this blatantly obvious hint that Peter is the father when really the role that the both of these people have in each other’s life kinda made me figure out this was a ruse to manipulate him so that angle kind of made this DLC get knocked down a bit. However they team up together after learning that this USB contains the fortunes of all of the families combined (a really stupid move for mafia families to do this lol) and they both go to raid a vault that Hammerhead owns in order to find “her son” but obviously it’s a betrayal as she locks Spider-Man in the vault and escapes with the USB. There is no son, and Hammerhead orders her death in an explosion, one which Spider-Man arrives too late as her apartment already exploded to smithereens. However, her body wasn’t found so there’s hope she’s still alive, and it moves into the next section: Turf Wars.
After the last section, the Maggia groups go to war against each other and Hammerhead is clearly in the lead. A raid with Spider-Man, Yuri and her police only lead the former two alive, leading to a mean streak and the beginning of an arc. I’m going to go out of my way to say this: this isn’t Spider-Man’s story, or anyone else’s but Yuri’s I feel, as the rest of the DLC starts to establish her future as a villain possibly in Spider-Man 2, or at least it should considering all of the hints. Besides the point, she develops a hatred for Hammerhead with the death of her officers and Peter tells her to take time off. Hammerhead steals weapons from Sable International however and ups his game even more, attacking police head on and kidnapping the other heads of the Maggia. Eventually, Yuri goes mad as it’s also revealed that she has a history with Hammerhead as well, and that the police massacre was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Attempting to execute the other mob dons on Live TV, it’s revealed he stole one of Sable’s special projects: Project Olympus. This ends up being…an experimental exo-suit; however Spider-Man stops the scheme and foils Yuri’s assassination plot on Hammerhead, who later ends up in the hospital but is revived with a taser by one of his goons. This begins the last section: Silver Lining; which starts off as Yuri has gone off the grid and has murdered numerous Maggia gangsters and Silver Sable herself comes back to take down Hammerhead for stealing her stuff as the equipment that he stole is supposed to be used in the civil war back in her home country: Symkaria. I’m going to stop here and just be honest: I guess it’s possible that a lot of supervillains would want to be a cyborg but I don’t really like Hammerhead becoming a giant mobster in a mech suit? I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right for me personally, but I guess it’s not out of the realm of comic logic. Stuff happens however, and after a battle Hammerhead kidnaps Sable, and Black Cat comes back to give Peter a USB containing the weaknesses of Hammerhead, having painfully and obviously faked her death. Truth be told, Spider-Man rescues Silver Sable and they work together to take down Hammerhead using his weakness: the metal plate in his head is weak to heat. After beating him, Sable leaves back for Symkaria and so does Mary Jane, who wants to report on the happenings over there. With this in mind, Peter trains Miles to protect New York on his own as he wants to join his girlfriend over there in her reporting. As I said earlier, towards the end it turns into a shoulder shrug for me, I love mafia stuff but truthfully I wish it kind of focused more on Yuri and her turn to being a villain for me personally but that’ll probably show up in the second game. To finish off here before going into gameplay for the game in general: the DLC has some extra content from looking for bombs to helping a cop look for the stolen paintings Black Cat’s father, Walter Hardy, hid around the city to the equivalent to Taskmaster’s missions: Screwball, who is a social media lover/psychopath, she starts up challenges for Spider-Man to obtain social media fame. It’s not a bad choice persay, though I found Screwball to be kind of annoying? I don’t know, nothing could live up to Taskmaster but it is what it is and that’s ok to be honest.
The gameplay for Spider-Man is rather simple, but effectively smooth and feels great; as Spider-Man’s power you get to swing on webs through New York, solving crimes by beating the shit out of criminals with police (lol), getting an assortment of collectibles and beating main/side missions in the open world. The fluidity of the web swinging feels amazing and ranks up there with Spider-Man 2/Ultimate as some of the best, if not THE best, mobility in my personal opinion which makes it feel even better considering unlike the other two games can actually swing in between certain objects (such as a water tower) or just zipping to the top of certain surfaces by pressing the L2+R2 buttons as to not lose momentum. Wall running and parkour are for the most part seamless though there are times where the wall running feels a bit odd to me but everything works in part to help you keep momentum. Of course there are fast travel points with the subway systems but I didn’t use those as everything just felt more natural and made sense using the swinging that was given to you.
Beating up criminals of course has random crimes pop out in the open from rooftop arms deals to segments specific to story bits like prisoner groups, or members of Mr. Negative robbing bank trucks; all of these feel good in-line with the combat given to you. This combat of course, like a lot of good open world combat games, takes heavy inspiration if not outright copying certain bits from the Batman: Arkham series (kind of like Shadow of Mordor/War did). You build up your combo via chained hits, special gadgets and doing it all while not getting hit in order to build up a sort of “Focus” meter, which when built up could be used to heal yourself or to permanently knock out an enemy in the middle of combat. Like Batman, a notification will appear warning you on who/when someone will be attacking you as well, and depending on the spider costume (unlockable through doing side quests and getting tokens) you’re wearing you get benefits helping you in combat like the Noir costume stopping enemies calling for backup or the Negative suit unleashing a shockwave of negative energy. While I only wore certain outfits (Raimi Spider-Man and comic Spider-Man for the win) for the cosmetic benefits, each of these outfits offer something fresh that could be used in the middle of combat, though like the Raimi suit, none of the free ones or the DLC ones offer much in the way of an advantage though you could play through the entire game without these so your playthrough isn’t dependent on certain suits. The gadgets in this game are pretty cool too, ranging from webs that’ll automatically knock someone out of the game by shooting an enemy to a wall with force, to trip mines that when people walk over it that it’ll web them to a surface to the Suspension Matrix, which keeps people in the air temporarily, setting them up for special attacks. It feels really good when you’re able to chain a bunch of these gadgets together to get an amazing combo and knock everyone out flawlessly, but it’s even crazier seeing people on Youtube chain stuff together and I also feel it’s relatively easy for almost everyone to do this sort of stuff with ease too. Regardless, though it’s not some sort of groundbreaking and fresh new combat system that feels like Arkham, it feels pretty damn good and the truth is that’s all that really matters. Other than that, it’s a simple gameplay loop whose combat is only as flashy and complicated as you want it to be, at least combat wise and I’ve seen people go fucking nuts on youtube with insane combinations.
The collectibles don’t just help unlock suits however, doing the collectibles/side quests help fill in a lot of the backstory for this new Spider-Man world (for example, Taskmaster’s side missions not only gives tokens but beating this side quests hint at someone hiring him to keep their eye on Spider-Man and through each activity you can actually see him watching you do the mission), divulge some lore pieces (like the Harry side quests involving a special side project going into Peter’s past with Harry Osborn, and old friend who he hasn’t heard from in a while), or are just doing the every day Spider-Man activities (one mission in particular just blatantly references Gta 4 with name drops of Niko, Roman and DeShaun (from The Lost and Damned DLC) and it’s strange but I love Gta 4 so whatever) and it all feels unique and interesting, a familiar but fresh interpretation of the Spider-Man universe and the city reflects that as well. You’ll find familiar landmarks such as the Avengers tower, a statue of Stan Lee (RIP), Uncle Ben’s grave site, a theater that in a meta context had a marriage proposal from a guy to his girlfriend before that got sadly got upended due to certain issues, Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Santorum, there’s all sorts of references to the greater Marvel universe that for the first time in a long time I’m actually really excited to see what or if there’s a greater Marvel universe that’s being planned or if it’s just Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine (though either way even if it doesn’t that’s ok too considering the superhero fatigue going on).
The gameplay section ultimately is going to be a bit on the short side, because it’s not an overly complex game and it’s not the most in-depth stuff to describe that requires pages upon pages, but it’s a pretty damn good system. The only times that I ever really sat down and felt that the gameplay was a bit on the iffy side was during the stealth sequences with Miles Morales or Mary Jane where you have to sneak around in a linear format with little stealth prompts to cause distractions. These sections, while they play just fine, are also the worst part of the game and frankly make you wish just to get back to the action like it should’ve been for the entire game. Nothing wrong with varying stuff up, but I felt like the gameplay loop of Spider-Man was fine on its own, that it didn’t need the stealth sections and that what they did throw in there we’re average, akin to a shoulder shrug.
The graphics looked fucking amazing back then, and still does now. Honestly when they decided to “Remaster” it, I was kind of surprised because of how good it looked before I came to my senses and remembered that it being remastered was not only to make the first game on the same console as the exclusive sequel-prequel Miles Morales, but also people like money and if the rumors of a Horizon: Zero Dawn remake are actually true I’m not even surprised that this came out. Sure it has its fair share of goofy moments, like looking inside of buildings from the outside reveals that it’s literally just a bunch of small rooms mapped together to make it look believable and managing to get out to the yachts will reveal a flat NPC, or the fact I somehow ended up under a subway station under the map (in the PS4 version) but the truth is everyone and everything looks great (side note, still not a fan of the Remastered Peter Parker but I guess everyone has their own feelings on it lol). I’ve played through lots of different versions of New York from previous Spider games to True Crime: New York City to god knows what else, but it feels like a good New York atmospherically. The sound design is also pretty good in that regard, with voice acting top notch as usual with hits like Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker (which apparently there was pushback on because he voiced the main character in Sunset Overdrive), William Saylers as Otto Octavius, I can’t really say that there’s a sort of standout performance as everyone just feels effortless in their role and it all seamlessly fits together. The soundtrack is good too, John Paesano did a good job at capturing the whimsical web-swinging music or breaking out the intense music when stuff is going bad. Overall, like usual I don’t really have anything bad to say with this as I’m easily pleased with this sort of thing and if you’re into good looking games this’ll be one of many that still look good even now.
To wrap up the review, it’s obvious that the game’s good and that I’m sucking it’s dick. Because it’s good, I would definitely say that you should pick it up, even if you’re not into superhero games or anything related to that for media in general (which I wouldn’t blame you for considering the oversaturation of it now). Since the release of this game, Insomniac has been a VERY busy company while developing games, so busy in fact that it’s basically become the most prolific company along with Naughty Dog as the top tier of Playstation Studios. Since this game released in 2018 they released Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5/Steam (happy for the Steam version though I never played the remaster on any console), Spider-Man: Miles Morales on both PC/PS5, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the oncoming Spider-Man 2 as well as one of the next games in their new Marvel Games Universe (which I thought was gonna consist of a bunch of different games from different devs but I was wrong I think): Marvel’s Wolverine (which is rumored to be like God of War 2018 and Ragnarok in terms of gameplay style and scope). All of this without apparently going through crunch, and if this is true they run a tight ass ship and I’m happy to hear; most of the time I bitch at the end about “PLEASE REMASTER/RE-RELEASE THESE GAMES ON PC FOR PRESERVATION”.
I still will do that, but not for Spider-Man or it’s future releases because I have no doubt these will be put on PC. However, if they could remaster the rest of their back catalog (mostly seems to be Ratchet & Clank/Resistance/Spyro and hell any of their catalog which is bigger than I thought it would be) and maybe put them out somewhere I would be very grateful (especially cause they’ve been working with Nixxes, who makes great ports as opposed to Iron Galaxy with The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam). It seems that the future with this company is great, and I hope to see that continue on for the future. In any case, I’ll finish out this review with the fact that I’m going to Platinum/Review Spider-Man 2 once I’m done with it so I’ll be writing up one for Miles Morales here soon.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_(2018_video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManPS4
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MarvelsSpiderManHostileTakeover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFxcUzE9rUE&t=22s&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfdJnPb5CyQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kEHCMSkGU&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymU4sYlue9c&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeokpGh6Qaw&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQm5yMQrMM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNhm6LG8U&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
What does this all mean exactly? It means that Insomniac had a lot to prove here, and went considerably against the grain compared to the constantly rushed games of previous years. Having read up on its history, it started after Sunset Overdrive (a game which I don’t like in a lot of ways) was released. Meetings had occurred between Sony Interactive Entertainment and Insomniac Games about developing a game based on a Marvel property. A lot of workshopping went back and forth, and it was decided that this would be its own original story with the approval of all involved. What ended up coming out was one of the best exclusives on the Playstation 4, one of the most acclaimed games based on a licensed property and I believe that it’s one of the best Marvel games of all time. There was also a prequel comic: Spider-Man: Hostile Takeover, that was released sometime around the game’s release but I never read it myself, so I’ll post the TV Tropes page in the comments section below. Truth be told I don’t really know much else about the game historically that could be really interesting, nothing crazy as far as I’m aware either as the game was rather successful and I feel the way that it was being built mixed in with the popularity of the Marvel formula almost guarantees instant success. However, what I can say personally is that the game does enough stuff that’s different from the usual formula and tropes of Spider-Man that it’s for the better. I ended up platinuming this game over a period of seven or so months including waiting for the DLC to release and finally wrapping up the New Game + stuff out of boredom for all trophies acquired.
The beginning is a bit of a cold open, a police raid on Fisk Tower to apprehend crime boss Wilson “Kingpin” Fisk, a behemoth of a man who controls the New York Underworld. A traversal through the headquarters leads to a battle between what seems to be a human tank and the eventual defeat of Fisk. However, what leads in the void is a power vacuum that leads to one of, if not the worst crime wave that’s happened in the city’s history that goes on for a while. A group of men in demon masks and suits begin to take over Kingpin’s property, all while mayor Norman Osborn runs in the background. Things aren’t how they seem however as a bank robbery by Herman Shultz, aka The Shocker, lead to the realization that the leader of the Inner Demons, named Mr. Negative, threatened him into committing robberies for them. Other villains like Tombstone, a biker gang leader/drug trafficker, works for Mr. Negative to build vehicles for them; meanwhile Taskmaster, a mercenary with the ability to copy other’s moves through sheer memory, puts Spider-Man through a series of tests that push him to the limits all for the purposes of studying him and defeating him for a mysterious organization that’s never revealed. This is only the side content however, as the main content hits the peak after Mr. Negative and his demons attack an awards ceremony for police officer Jefferson Davis (who helped Spider-Man thwart a Demons attack earlier), hosted by Norman Osborn, in an attempt to assassinate the mayor himself. However, while Norman manages to get out alive, Jefferson on the other hand does not. This is where I should bring up five different characters, each one important to Peter Parker/Spider-Man in their own way and are whom I consider the pillars of the game and are the other parts that are balanced in congruence with the story.
The son of Jefferson Davis, Miles Morales, falls into a slump after the death of his father; Peter’s Aunt May (who runs a F.E.A.S.T. shelter, led by Martin Li, a popular philanthropist) brings Miles on both to help the young man out and as a sort of parallel to Peter himself. Both Peter and Miles had their father figures killed by senseless violence, and Aunt May hopes to try to do the same for the boy as she did for Peter, and Peter starts a sort of mentor figure role for the young man. Those are two of the pillars, the other three include Peter’s ex-girlfriend: Mary Jane, who felt that Peter smothered her and didn’t let her help or engage in anything dangerous due to the factor of her safety. She helps throughout the story in her own way, gathering the intel and sneaking into certain locations to take pictures to expose the criminal activities. The relationship between Peter and Mary Jane are at first full of conflict and awkwardness, but over the time in the story lead to a growing respect and a willingness to work togethers as true partners, instead of just Spider-Man carrying all the weight. Yuri Watanabe is a police captain who works together with Spider-Man as a connection with the police force during the crisis ensuing and provides emotional support as well even though her presence is more up front in the DLC. The last one is one of the most important characters in the entire plot: Dr. Otto Octavius. I’ll disclose that role later on in the review but in the beginning, he’s Peter’s mentor and science partner whose attempting to work in creating artificial limbs leads him down the obvious path to villainy, not helped by Norman Osborn, his old business partner/fellow scientist who does everything in his path to screw Otto over in an attempt to strong arm him into working for Oscorp (which I don’t think is possible to be a public official and run a corporation but whatever).
Whilst at the awards ceremony, it’s revealed that Mr. Negative is actually Martin Li, the head of FEAST who clearly has an agenda against Osborn, going on a homegrown terrorist campaign in an attempt to ruin him. After he is apprehended and sent to The Raft, a giant prison located in the river known to hold super-villains, a giant breakout occurs and chaos ensues. Li escapes, but so do villains like The Vulture, Scorpion, Electro and Rhino break out as well. All of these guys have issues with Spider-Man but after confronting them all on the roof of the prison their leader is revealed: Dr. Octopus, aka Otto Octavius. Peter barely survives and starts an outbreak of “Devil’s Breath”, a biological weapon that infects a whole bunch of people and causes grounds for Norman Osborn to issue martial law, hiring mercenary Silver Sable and her group to help enact his plans.
Aunt May is revealed to be infected with Devil’s Breath and is working on limited time, and after some bombastic set pieces (a dual fight between Electro and Vulture is one of the highlights of the entire game and I believe was revealed in E3 as an example), each of the members of the Sinister Six, the group led by Li and Octopus, are arrested and brought in. It’s revealed down the line that the two have formed together in their mutual hatred towards Norman Osborn. Li was experimented on as a child by Osborn, and as a result of the failed experiment he gained both his abilities and a lifelong hatred of the CEO/Mayor after his parents died as a result. It was also revealed that Devil’s Breath is the result of a series of unsafe experiments meant to save Osborn’s son, Harry (an old friend of Peter who supposedly went overseas) from a life threatening disease after Mary Jane infiltrates Norman’s penthouse. In an attempt to gain the antidote to Devil’s Breath, Peter gets his ass squashed by his nigh bald headed mentor and Otto escapes with both the antidote and Norman as a hostage.
Miles sparingly appears in this game, I mean he appears but his role isn’t as prominent other than a stealth section in the latter part of the game but isn’t as important to the plot as much. This game spends the time developing the beginning of Mile’s legacy, his motivations and his character as he fights the lack of his father figure and his looking up to Peter. Everything comes to a head as he’s bitten by a genetically enhanced spider that MJ brought from the Osborn lab she snuck into. After healing up, Peter goes to the top of Oscorp Tower to fight Octavius, whose hatred for Norman supersedes his relationship with Spider-Man and it’s learned that he knew Peter’s secret identity the whole time. Feeling betrayed by his mentor, Peter unleashes his strength and brutalizes Otto to a pulp before leaving him for the police. This final section is to me what really seals the game for me, as choosing between saving Aunt May with the cure and synthesizing a vaccine for everyone else, Peter chooses to be selfless and accepts the death of the only mother figure he had left.
The finale reveals that both Mary Jane and Peter have started their relationship anew (with a cameo from Stan Lee of course), this time with a newfound respect for each other’s abilities and a willingness to work as equal partners. Miles gains spider powers and shows Peter, who also reveals his secret identity as Spider-Man. Yuri (for now) still remains the captain of the police force while Otto is in jail. However, the final stinger in the credits reveal that the lab in the Penthouse that MJ snuck into has a secret button in the back, which shows a young man revealed to be Harry Osborn, stuck in a tube full of green liquid and black goo, which reacts to Norman’s hand as it touches the surface.
I love this game, I’m mixed on the non Spider-Man missions but the characters are great and fleshed out, I appreciate the respect building between MJ and Peter (though I rolled my eyes at the break up angle, I just don’t like those kinds of plot lines). As I said before, Miles doesn’t really show up too much, but his importance as a background character shouldn’t be understated as the parallels between his father’s death and Uncle Ben’s for Peter along with the burgeoning powers show the birth of another Spider-Man (and he IS Spider-Man by the way). They’re both likable and work well with Peter himself, who has his funny moments but has moments of vulnerability too. Nothing shows this more than the final scene between himself and Aunt May, which perfectly embodies the qualities of what a hero should be: selfless and willing to put others ahead of himself. There isn’t a lot I can say about this plot and characters that others haven’t said before but better, and I did the best I could juggling them all even though I missed some spots, but the writing and the plot are fantastic. Insomniac did a good job with this and the character development of everyone, and even the main villains of Mr. Negative and Otto Octavius, both did heinous acts but both show depth in different ways: villainy through trauma, and blindness by hatred. Like I said, I can’t say enough good things about this, however the DLC on the other hand I have mixed feelings on.
The City that Never Sleeps is a DLC storyline that takes place AFTER the base game, and whilst there’s a lot of things I genuinely enjoy about this content, there’s some stuff I don’t like about this game. The gameplay is exactly the same as the original with side content structure involving new villains, but the only thing I don’t care for in this regard is that when you boot it up that it takes place in a different instance of New York, where I would’ve rather it have been seamless (though it makes trophy stuff easier with different instances). Other than that it’s pretty solid, and the plot only has one thing in it where I was mixed on it but I’ll address that later on but for now, I’ll go into recap mode. After the events of the base game, the criminal underworld is left with a giant void in power, a void in which the Maggia (Marvel Comic’s version of the Mafia, only named the Maggia because the actual Mafia had a stranglehold over newsstands and therefore not wanting to offend them, Marvel switched some names around. Look it up, it’s fascinating stuff) is more than happy to take control. I love some mafia styled content so I LOVE this aspect of the game, and the story is split into three separate chapters but I’m going to make this a brief recap. Spider-Man tries to stop one of the Maggia from stealing a painting when he encounters Black Cat who steals a USB hidden inside of one of the paintings. After a while of chasing her down, it’s learned that the man who hired her, Hammerhead (one of the heads of the Maggia and one of my favorite criminals in Marvel period), is coercing her into doing this by “threatening her son”. With Black Cat’s role in the comics as Spider-Man’s foil, one thing I kinda knew was going to be a bluff is that there’s this blatantly obvious hint that Peter is the father when really the role that the both of these people have in each other’s life kinda made me figure out this was a ruse to manipulate him so that angle kind of made this DLC get knocked down a bit. However they team up together after learning that this USB contains the fortunes of all of the families combined (a really stupid move for mafia families to do this lol) and they both go to raid a vault that Hammerhead owns in order to find “her son” but obviously it’s a betrayal as she locks Spider-Man in the vault and escapes with the USB. There is no son, and Hammerhead orders her death in an explosion, one which Spider-Man arrives too late as her apartment already exploded to smithereens. However, her body wasn’t found so there’s hope she’s still alive, and it moves into the next section: Turf Wars.
After the last section, the Maggia groups go to war against each other and Hammerhead is clearly in the lead. A raid with Spider-Man, Yuri and her police only lead the former two alive, leading to a mean streak and the beginning of an arc. I’m going to go out of my way to say this: this isn’t Spider-Man’s story, or anyone else’s but Yuri’s I feel, as the rest of the DLC starts to establish her future as a villain possibly in Spider-Man 2, or at least it should considering all of the hints. Besides the point, she develops a hatred for Hammerhead with the death of her officers and Peter tells her to take time off. Hammerhead steals weapons from Sable International however and ups his game even more, attacking police head on and kidnapping the other heads of the Maggia. Eventually, Yuri goes mad as it’s also revealed that she has a history with Hammerhead as well, and that the police massacre was only the straw that broke the camel’s back. Attempting to execute the other mob dons on Live TV, it’s revealed he stole one of Sable’s special projects: Project Olympus. This ends up being…an experimental exo-suit; however Spider-Man stops the scheme and foils Yuri’s assassination plot on Hammerhead, who later ends up in the hospital but is revived with a taser by one of his goons. This begins the last section: Silver Lining; which starts off as Yuri has gone off the grid and has murdered numerous Maggia gangsters and Silver Sable herself comes back to take down Hammerhead for stealing her stuff as the equipment that he stole is supposed to be used in the civil war back in her home country: Symkaria. I’m going to stop here and just be honest: I guess it’s possible that a lot of supervillains would want to be a cyborg but I don’t really like Hammerhead becoming a giant mobster in a mech suit? I don’t know, it just doesn’t feel right for me personally, but I guess it’s not out of the realm of comic logic. Stuff happens however, and after a battle Hammerhead kidnaps Sable, and Black Cat comes back to give Peter a USB containing the weaknesses of Hammerhead, having painfully and obviously faked her death. Truth be told, Spider-Man rescues Silver Sable and they work together to take down Hammerhead using his weakness: the metal plate in his head is weak to heat. After beating him, Sable leaves back for Symkaria and so does Mary Jane, who wants to report on the happenings over there. With this in mind, Peter trains Miles to protect New York on his own as he wants to join his girlfriend over there in her reporting. As I said earlier, towards the end it turns into a shoulder shrug for me, I love mafia stuff but truthfully I wish it kind of focused more on Yuri and her turn to being a villain for me personally but that’ll probably show up in the second game. To finish off here before going into gameplay for the game in general: the DLC has some extra content from looking for bombs to helping a cop look for the stolen paintings Black Cat’s father, Walter Hardy, hid around the city to the equivalent to Taskmaster’s missions: Screwball, who is a social media lover/psychopath, she starts up challenges for Spider-Man to obtain social media fame. It’s not a bad choice persay, though I found Screwball to be kind of annoying? I don’t know, nothing could live up to Taskmaster but it is what it is and that’s ok to be honest.
The gameplay for Spider-Man is rather simple, but effectively smooth and feels great; as Spider-Man’s power you get to swing on webs through New York, solving crimes by beating the shit out of criminals with police (lol), getting an assortment of collectibles and beating main/side missions in the open world. The fluidity of the web swinging feels amazing and ranks up there with Spider-Man 2/Ultimate as some of the best, if not THE best, mobility in my personal opinion which makes it feel even better considering unlike the other two games can actually swing in between certain objects (such as a water tower) or just zipping to the top of certain surfaces by pressing the L2+R2 buttons as to not lose momentum. Wall running and parkour are for the most part seamless though there are times where the wall running feels a bit odd to me but everything works in part to help you keep momentum. Of course there are fast travel points with the subway systems but I didn’t use those as everything just felt more natural and made sense using the swinging that was given to you.
Beating up criminals of course has random crimes pop out in the open from rooftop arms deals to segments specific to story bits like prisoner groups, or members of Mr. Negative robbing bank trucks; all of these feel good in-line with the combat given to you. This combat of course, like a lot of good open world combat games, takes heavy inspiration if not outright copying certain bits from the Batman: Arkham series (kind of like Shadow of Mordor/War did). You build up your combo via chained hits, special gadgets and doing it all while not getting hit in order to build up a sort of “Focus” meter, which when built up could be used to heal yourself or to permanently knock out an enemy in the middle of combat. Like Batman, a notification will appear warning you on who/when someone will be attacking you as well, and depending on the spider costume (unlockable through doing side quests and getting tokens) you’re wearing you get benefits helping you in combat like the Noir costume stopping enemies calling for backup or the Negative suit unleashing a shockwave of negative energy. While I only wore certain outfits (Raimi Spider-Man and comic Spider-Man for the win) for the cosmetic benefits, each of these outfits offer something fresh that could be used in the middle of combat, though like the Raimi suit, none of the free ones or the DLC ones offer much in the way of an advantage though you could play through the entire game without these so your playthrough isn’t dependent on certain suits. The gadgets in this game are pretty cool too, ranging from webs that’ll automatically knock someone out of the game by shooting an enemy to a wall with force, to trip mines that when people walk over it that it’ll web them to a surface to the Suspension Matrix, which keeps people in the air temporarily, setting them up for special attacks. It feels really good when you’re able to chain a bunch of these gadgets together to get an amazing combo and knock everyone out flawlessly, but it’s even crazier seeing people on Youtube chain stuff together and I also feel it’s relatively easy for almost everyone to do this sort of stuff with ease too. Regardless, though it’s not some sort of groundbreaking and fresh new combat system that feels like Arkham, it feels pretty damn good and the truth is that’s all that really matters. Other than that, it’s a simple gameplay loop whose combat is only as flashy and complicated as you want it to be, at least combat wise and I’ve seen people go fucking nuts on youtube with insane combinations.
The collectibles don’t just help unlock suits however, doing the collectibles/side quests help fill in a lot of the backstory for this new Spider-Man world (for example, Taskmaster’s side missions not only gives tokens but beating this side quests hint at someone hiring him to keep their eye on Spider-Man and through each activity you can actually see him watching you do the mission), divulge some lore pieces (like the Harry side quests involving a special side project going into Peter’s past with Harry Osborn, and old friend who he hasn’t heard from in a while), or are just doing the every day Spider-Man activities (one mission in particular just blatantly references Gta 4 with name drops of Niko, Roman and DeShaun (from The Lost and Damned DLC) and it’s strange but I love Gta 4 so whatever) and it all feels unique and interesting, a familiar but fresh interpretation of the Spider-Man universe and the city reflects that as well. You’ll find familiar landmarks such as the Avengers tower, a statue of Stan Lee (RIP), Uncle Ben’s grave site, a theater that in a meta context had a marriage proposal from a guy to his girlfriend before that got sadly got upended due to certain issues, Dr. Strange’s Sanctum Santorum, there’s all sorts of references to the greater Marvel universe that for the first time in a long time I’m actually really excited to see what or if there’s a greater Marvel universe that’s being planned or if it’s just Spider-Man 2 and Wolverine (though either way even if it doesn’t that’s ok too considering the superhero fatigue going on).
The gameplay section ultimately is going to be a bit on the short side, because it’s not an overly complex game and it’s not the most in-depth stuff to describe that requires pages upon pages, but it’s a pretty damn good system. The only times that I ever really sat down and felt that the gameplay was a bit on the iffy side was during the stealth sequences with Miles Morales or Mary Jane where you have to sneak around in a linear format with little stealth prompts to cause distractions. These sections, while they play just fine, are also the worst part of the game and frankly make you wish just to get back to the action like it should’ve been for the entire game. Nothing wrong with varying stuff up, but I felt like the gameplay loop of Spider-Man was fine on its own, that it didn’t need the stealth sections and that what they did throw in there we’re average, akin to a shoulder shrug.
The graphics looked fucking amazing back then, and still does now. Honestly when they decided to “Remaster” it, I was kind of surprised because of how good it looked before I came to my senses and remembered that it being remastered was not only to make the first game on the same console as the exclusive sequel-prequel Miles Morales, but also people like money and if the rumors of a Horizon: Zero Dawn remake are actually true I’m not even surprised that this came out. Sure it has its fair share of goofy moments, like looking inside of buildings from the outside reveals that it’s literally just a bunch of small rooms mapped together to make it look believable and managing to get out to the yachts will reveal a flat NPC, or the fact I somehow ended up under a subway station under the map (in the PS4 version) but the truth is everyone and everything looks great (side note, still not a fan of the Remastered Peter Parker but I guess everyone has their own feelings on it lol). I’ve played through lots of different versions of New York from previous Spider games to True Crime: New York City to god knows what else, but it feels like a good New York atmospherically. The sound design is also pretty good in that regard, with voice acting top notch as usual with hits like Yuri Lowenthal as Peter Parker (which apparently there was pushback on because he voiced the main character in Sunset Overdrive), William Saylers as Otto Octavius, I can’t really say that there’s a sort of standout performance as everyone just feels effortless in their role and it all seamlessly fits together. The soundtrack is good too, John Paesano did a good job at capturing the whimsical web-swinging music or breaking out the intense music when stuff is going bad. Overall, like usual I don’t really have anything bad to say with this as I’m easily pleased with this sort of thing and if you’re into good looking games this’ll be one of many that still look good even now.
To wrap up the review, it’s obvious that the game’s good and that I’m sucking it’s dick. Because it’s good, I would definitely say that you should pick it up, even if you’re not into superhero games or anything related to that for media in general (which I wouldn’t blame you for considering the oversaturation of it now). Since the release of this game, Insomniac has been a VERY busy company while developing games, so busy in fact that it’s basically become the most prolific company along with Naughty Dog as the top tier of Playstation Studios. Since this game released in 2018 they released Spider-Man: Remastered on PS5/Steam (happy for the Steam version though I never played the remaster on any console), Spider-Man: Miles Morales on both PC/PS5, Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart and the oncoming Spider-Man 2 as well as one of the next games in their new Marvel Games Universe (which I thought was gonna consist of a bunch of different games from different devs but I was wrong I think): Marvel’s Wolverine (which is rumored to be like God of War 2018 and Ragnarok in terms of gameplay style and scope). All of this without apparently going through crunch, and if this is true they run a tight ass ship and I’m happy to hear; most of the time I bitch at the end about “PLEASE REMASTER/RE-RELEASE THESE GAMES ON PC FOR PRESERVATION”.
I still will do that, but not for Spider-Man or it’s future releases because I have no doubt these will be put on PC. However, if they could remaster the rest of their back catalog (mostly seems to be Ratchet & Clank/Resistance/Spyro and hell any of their catalog which is bigger than I thought it would be) and maybe put them out somewhere I would be very grateful (especially cause they’ve been working with Nixxes, who makes great ports as opposed to Iron Galaxy with The Last of Us Part 1 on Steam). It seems that the future with this company is great, and I hope to see that continue on for the future. In any case, I’ll finish out this review with the fact that I’m going to Platinum/Review Spider-Man 2 once I’m done with it so I’ll be writing up one for Miles Morales here soon.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spider-Man_(2018_video_game)
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt5807780/trivia/?ref_=tt_trv_trv
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/SpiderManPS4
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/Literature/MarvelsSpiderManHostileTakeover
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dFxcUzE9rUE&t=22s&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SfdJnPb5CyQ&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a_kEHCMSkGU&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ymU4sYlue9c&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CeokpGh6Qaw&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KOQm5yMQrMM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vstNhm6LG8U&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://marvels-spider-man.fandom.com/wiki/Marvel%27s_Spider-Man
This review contains spoilers
Destroy All Humans!: Big Willy Unleashed is a “Soylent Green is made of people” simulator/spin-off (?) of the main series developed by Locomotive Games as a Wii Exclusive. Apparently according to an interview with Ken Allen, a senior game producer on the title; it started off on the PSP, but after it was deemed “non profitable”, they moved development of this spin-off over to the Wii because of technological and profit reasons. Apparently they also had a PS2 port they were in the middle of making too before that was canceled due to lack of system memory and the fact that the game just looked worse on the older system than the Wii. Because of this, it was mainly developed for the Wii and as such was released in Early 2008 while the official mainline sequel, Path of the Furon, was released in December of 2008. I can’t really find much in the way of “Why” this game was developed but if I find any sources for that I’ll put them down, but if this documentary was something to go off of, THQ attempted to hire Pandemic to make a third game on a shorter budget and in nine months but was declined and afterwards they looked towards internal THQ studios, mandating a spin-off and a sequel.
The people they had in mind for it were Locomotive Games, who had their work cut out for them on developing this title as their first and only Wii game from trying to figure out motion controls, paying fees to the Big Boy brand for the likeness to their statue for the Big Willy statue, and issues between development members over features and development time. They had also previously developed games like Jet Moto 3 (under the name Pacific Power & Light) and an old childhood game I remember: Power Rangers Dino Thunder. Seeing that had me in a strange delight because I remember playing that game on Gamecube (though it’s probably not great now of course) and I’ve always wanted to play this game but I never had the funds as a kid to buy the Wii or the game itself until I later grew up and got a job. Once I got that, as a fan of the series and as an exclusive collector I knew I had to buy a copy of this series. However, over the many years it had accumulated dust and I moved on to buy 50,000 other games and held a focus on different titles; however, once I played both of the Destroy All Humans! Remakes I felt it was the time to at least give this game a shot as my Wii game of the year (as I made a promise to myself to beat one game per console I owned this year).
The plot of this game is built around an interesting meta concept: when you kill someone in a video game, where do the bodies go? Oftentimes, dead people just fade into nothingness as you turn the corner due to technical engine limitations, but in this case they decided to build a whole game around it to hilarious intent, which is even referenced in game.
“Pox: Crypto, what do you think happens to the corpses of all the humans of whom you suck out the brain stems?
Crypto: I always figured they just faded away when I went around the corner.”
Oh no, in this game it turns out that Orthopox-13 created a whole fast food franchise named Big Willy’s in order to get rid of all of the evidence of the Furon Invasion whilst also making a profit on the side. The food at Big Willy’s are made of food, and the game that surrounds the concept consists of 70s pastiche references, parodies, double entendres, and more fourth wall breaks. Big Willy’s is under attack by Patty Wurst (a reference of course to both the food and the multi-millionaire dollar heiress Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped by revolutionaries in the Seventies), who with her revolutionaries go out of their way to expose the crimes of Big Willy’s Furon owners; whilst Crypto and Pox are dealing with this (with a plot thread involving Pox’s last love for a rich girl fueling his hate for Patty) they also deal with side plots including a Furon Efficiency Expert giving tests, a human with an Ion Detonator messing up Crypto’s assassination missions and Pox’s use of disco to brainwash the human populace. Once Patty Wurst is eliminated in her giant tank using a giant Big Willy statue mech, it’s revealed that her boss is Colonel Kluckin’, a parody of Colonel Sanders from KFC and the main antagonist who rivals Pox and his “Big Willy” with the Kluckin’ restaurants. Fearing for the unveiling of his 500th Big Willy restaurant, Pox insists on going to Fairfield to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.
Farfield’s plot thread is mainly about a gang of roller girls who work for Colonel Kluckin’ led by one Mindy Peters, who try to take down the Big Willy franchise through stealing their recipes and planting bombs. Other side plots include Natalya (the russian spy lover from the second game) trying to give you a call to tell you about something in the middle of another assassination mission only for the human to strike again and fumble your hit, another trial involving the efficiency expert and more disco shenanigans. After a bit of meandering, Crypto and Pox come up with the idea of taking the guise of the Corncob King, Mindy’s boyfriend, and luring her out in public to eliminate her. Eventually Pox just decides to say fuck it and just burn every building down to the ground in a “freak weather accident”, of course except for his “Big Willy”.
Now here’s where I’m going to address my thoughts on the first half as well as address the plot and it’s length in general. Harbor City does an interesting job of getting your attention and moving you along from place to place as you try to stop Colonel Kluckin’, but there is a bit of meandering in terms of missions and such. Harbor City consists of multiple assassination attempts on Patty that just kind of go nowhere and it feels kind of the same for Fairfield besides a few points here and there. That’s not to say stuff like this doesn’t happen in the other games, it’s just that they tend to do stuff in a way that pushes the plot forwards a lot more or at least makes it interesting, in which case this is kind of…not so much. Which is also strange considering the short length this game takes compared to the others, I completed this game I think in about 5 hours or so, which is way less than what the other two games had and it doesn’t really feel like there’s a lot of substance to certain set pieces, which is sad considering it’s kind of an ingenious plot with really cool ideas.
So for the third part of the game you travel to a place called Fantasy Atoll, a parody of the Fantasy Island series, which is owned by Mr. Pork and Ratpoo (Ratpoo as a name is honestly fucking hilarious in hindsight). I don’t even remember why Crypto and Pox go there to be honest, I think it’s to follow a signal from Kluckin’ but truth be told it’s kind of a distraction from the main plot that follows Pox’s obsession for getting a new body after the memories of the past flame made him fall weak to Mr. Pork’s promise of “a new body”. What culminates is a fetch quest (literally named fetch quest, which falls into the category of “Not as funny if you still go along with the tedium of something even if you’re making fun of it” as you gather parts for his new body, trying to turn it into a kaiju monster attraction for other guests. It’s a trick of course, and Colonel Kluckin’ sends soldiers to ambush everyone on the ship as Crypto protects Pox’s physical body and the scientist nearby before everything goes to hell and Pox is sent flying to another side of the island. After finding his body and calling Furon tech support in a somewhat humorous but frustrating mission, Crypto/Pox finally kill Mr. Pork (after learning that his necklace protects him from damage) by brainwashing his servant Ratpoo into grabbing him and jumping into the large volcano (named A’Rkvudal here funny enough for fans of the lore) before finally finishing him off on his Hate Boat, a giant war ship which requires you to take out shields before dropping torpedoes into one of four sides of the ship in a somewhat difficult mission. Before flying out to Kluckin’s last known location, Vietnahml, plot threads include a disco party involving kidnapping people to form a group called “The Village Humans”, the Furon Efficiency guy challenging you to another test and Pox finally believing Crypto about the human interrupting their assassination missions.
Then comes the final part: Vietnahml. Crypto arrives with Pox to help their proprietor Trahn (played by Nolan North, it’s one of those old “have white people play asian people stereotype” roles that shouldn’t be taken seriously but can still be offensive) fight against Colonel Kluckin’ and his Khmer Beige rebels by wiping out a convoy and then infiltrating their base and destroying parts of their operation. However, eventually Crypto ends up captured and it’s revealed that Trahn is both a double agent (with the convoy from earlier being sent to kill Kluckin’) and that Kluckin’ really loves your plan and has been doing the same thing, and wants to team up. Problem is though, he uses the brain stem in his food and the Furons need it for their DNA so that’s out of the picture. After escaping and rescuing his “Big Willy” (lol), and saving his UFO from being torn apart by scientists working with Kluckin, Crypto and Pox destroy the base once and for all. Afterwords Trahn attempts to kill Crypto on a bike with a shield and throwing explosive chickens but dies and it culminates in a final mech battle between Crypto in the Big Willy and Kluckin’ in the statue of a Vietnahmlese robot rock god or something. Kluckin’ dies and the Furons live, though Pox gives up on the fast food industry with the competitiveness of it all and after being given the profits from “A shrimp boat and a mentally disabled war veteran”, Crypto persuades Pox to join him into going to a business venture in Vegas, setting up (but kind of contradicting) the third Destroy All Humans game coming up, Path of the Furon. The game then ends on the credits sequence with a YMCA dance from Crypto, but if you followed the side plot stuff you’ll get no disco mission, but you will learn that the Furon Efficiency Expert is actually a con artist who you chase down and kill before the original clone is locked up in a prison and that the human with the Ion Detonator who keeps ruining Crypto’s hits turns out to be both his and Natalya’s son.
Overall, my feelings on the plot are that it has a lot of cool ideas, but that I don’t think are always expanded upon in the right way or format. Not a lot of it is fleshed out as much as it should be but it’s serviceable enough; what really carries this game is the humor and tone, which isn’t very serious and include references to everything from “the previous two games” to certain music artists to lots of immature sex jokes (“my Big Willy” of course being one of the top cracks) which I have a severe weakness for when done right and this game made me chuckle a couple of times doing it. The only other thing I can think to add in this is the inclusion of Vietnahml: I think it’s an ingenious idea to have the whole fast food thing come from dead bodies, and what produces the most dead bodies? War, specifically in this case a giant parody of the Vietnam War. Personally, I’m not offended by it’s inclusion in this game, even with a deceased grandfather who served in the war but I can see certain people not being okay by the pisstake on the war itself so if you’re one of those people that is in there as a warning. Again though its length, and its pacing feels kind of weak in certain aspects and truth be told even though Fantasy Atoll is my favorite location, my not knowing why we were even there was kind of indicative of how kind of barebones stuff feels. I like it, and it’s one of if not the best part of the game but I wish it was way more developed than it actually was.
The gameplay, being on the Wii, has its fair share of pros and cons on the game’s quality. The whole point of the game series is the namesake, to Destroy All Humans right? So you’ll be able to go around, murder humans with an assortment of weapons both on foot, in your flying saucer and in the Big Willy mech and for that I applaud the game for adding more in what could be considered a limiting experience. On foot you have weapons such as the four main weapons: the Zap-O-Matic being the electric gun, the Disintegrator can follow the namesake and vaporize enemies with ease, the Anal Probe can one shot enemies and have their brains pop out and the Ion Detonator is basically your remote controlled grenade launcher. Other weapons you’ll get are the Zombie Gun and the Lightning Ball, along with the shrink ray; the problem with these weapons is that while the first and last gun are cool and unique, the Lightning ball felt kind of useless whilst the other two are just kind of unceremoniously thrown into your lap by text prompts after beating missions and if you’re not paying attention to the screen when they tell you this, you won’t even know you have the weapon at all unless you scroll through it on accident. For the Shrink Ray even, you unlock it by completing the final mission and as such, using it will shrink people, vehicles, animals and props down to smaller sizes; however I didn’t even know how to use it because the text appeared on screen but it said it was locked in my inventory. After looking it up on the internet, I learned that in order to use it I had to open up the cheat menu and turn it on to have it appear in my inventory. I’m not sure if this was due to the potentially rushed nature of the game, but it’s not a great way to introduce any weapon into the game just by throwing a sentence on screen and I felt it could’ve used some actual practical in game examples, even if to just let people know that these weapons exist. To finish off this section, there are other abilities like PK (the ability to pick people/objects up into the air), throwing stuff with PK (which requires you to thrust your controller forward (heh)), hypnosis (which distracts everyone around you), body snatching (which allows you to hop into a human being and control their body undercover for a while) and transmogrification (which allows you to break down objects into ammo) and all three of the latter abilities require you to complete a small mini game where you click the A button on all the little circles floating around the screen. If you take too long, more circles will spawn but I just kinda spammed the A button and flinged it all around the place and I completed it quickly more often than not. However, that doesn’t stop the overall gameplay package from feeling iffy in certain regards.
Even on foot stuff, the motion controls in general are a mixed bag for me, sometimes they actually worked well and I went on for a specific amount of time and didn’t even notice any issues in this regard. However, a lot of the time I wasn’t in that weird Zen-like state; sometimes trying to move the camera with the nunchuck/motion thing to the left was kind of frustrating and after a while my right wrist would hurt. Aiming the weapons can sometimes be a little jank due to this motion as well, though truth be told, I’m not used to the Wii and I personally believe it’s adapted to the game the best it can be. However, I didn’t really want to go around and engage in it much due to the motion controls, and overall that kind of hurt the experience for me personally. The camera/motion movement was the biggest chore in this regard; with one mission in particular being the bane of my existence in this game: Customer Service. In this mission you have to walk around, zap some satellites then finally defend a building from being attacked by the military. Fair enough, in the OG games this would be cake but in this game you have constantly spawning military planting bombs, which you have to precisely aim on this bomb and toss it (which the throw doesn’t go far in this game compared to the others and kind of hurt my hands a bit) but pile that on in an enclosed beach with people shooting at you right next to the building, the camera flinging me all over the damn place and military boats hitting you with missiles and a limited amount of time to throw the bombs away before they blow up the building and fail the mission? I legitimately got infuriated at the lack of gameplay cohesion in this enclosed space and nearly fucking screamed, the only saving grace being that my death would let me spawn right next to the building but if I failed I had to do the entire mission all over again including getting to the mission in the first place. Other than that mission, it was kind of a struggle but for the most part the on foot stuff was fine, though the lack of being able to read minds for funny quips had me sad and disappointed considering that was one of my favorite things to do in the other games. Also like the other games, going into water will hurt/kill you and it’s even worse in this game as stepping into a puddle will lead Crypto into having a convulsion and instant death which made the first mission in Fantasy Atoll trying to get instructions to the visitor center a bit of a trip with the lack of ability as moving people around via motion controls either gets them killed really quick via accidentally slamming them into things at full force or them also drowning in puddles.
The UFO has the usual three as well: Death Ray, Sonic Boom and Quantum Deconstructor (which each three has its uses being for average destruction on both ground forces/buildings, ground forces mostly and a giant nuke) in every game as well as one more weapon: the Electro Cone, which when you bring down to the ground will vaporize all ground forces in your vicinity in an excellent display which is amazing. The ability to abduct people for DNA and drain vehicles for health are still there as well, though the controls to abduct took me a while to figure out and draining vehicles requires precise aiming on top of a prop or vehicle which led to my death countless times. If I were to give any thoughts on the UFO, it is that the motion controls make it kind of a slog for the most part to actually move around. Moving it around requires you to move your Wiimote stuff left or right, with pushing forward making it go down and backwards making it go up as well; this mixed in with the camera sometimes being finicky and the health drain needing to be accurate can sometimes lead to missing stuff entirely leading to death or alternatively picking something or someone else up entirely. The main thing that popped out to me as genius is the fact that the cloak in the game, instead of making the UFO invisible it just turns it into a blimp which I think is actually a pretty clever stealth mechanic in public, at least aesthetically.
The Big Willy statue, the newest addition into the series, also has the least amount of depth in game and I rarely used it during my time. While cool as hell, it only has four or five functions: one is to grab people by pressing the back trigger and A and you can either grab people to eat their brains for health or pick up objects. Throwing them was kind of a mixed bag requiring you to hold the back trigger and A again at a precise time to actually throw it, and oftentimes I either slammed the prop down onto the ground for a small ranged attack or just accidentally dropped it. Health for the most part in this wasn’t bad, and Big Willy can take a lot of damage (heh) but it’s still tiring trying to fight with the motion controls. The only other weapons for this are laser eyes, vomiting acid which clears ground enemies, or farts which I never used because like the other weapons I didn’t even know this existed until after I beat the game.
And finally, a lot of these weapons require upgrades; however they work a bit different compared to the original games. This game has more of a “Use this weapon and it’ll upgrade itself” system. You’ll still collect pieces of tech out in the open world and via missions but the truth is that the more you use a weapon or power ability in certain ways (like Body Snatching for 25 minutes along with other prerequisites lead to an upgrade), the more effective it’s become. You don’t buy these abilities on your own, but to make them more effective I had to do a tad bit of grinding with certain prerequisites in mind but after some progress was made I dropped it and by the end, I acquired 75% of all of the upgrades by the time the game ended. Other things I want to point out are that when in your a cutscene, be careful of pressing the back trigger (or B Button) as if you do you’ll skip cutscenes (unless you want to do that in which case, ok) and I tended to hit it by accident trying to rest my arm in the middle of everything. By completing the game/side quests and putting in certain codes, you’ll also get a cheat code screen; some of these are just skins for Crypto and the Saucer/Blimp but others include the usual infinite health and ammo, but also stuff like everyone turning into a zombie, or zombies becoming radioactive and killing enemies quicker, the ability to body snatch animals in your environment, and etc.
As for the graphics and sound design stuff, I’ll start with the sound design here as there’s a bit of a mix up between certain sources. Instead of the actors J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Horvitz as Crypto and Pox respectively, they instead went with actors Sean Dennelan (whom I know nothing at all about) and Daryl Kurylo (whom I only know from the first Yakuza game on Playstation 2, one of my all time favorite games ever). As such, Crypto’s voice, while not bad, has changed and it’s clearly obvious that it’s not the same actor but the entire time playing the game I didn’t know that Horvitz wasn’t in it, so Daryl did a pretty good job at imitating Horvitz’s voice work. The reason for this ranges from the original actors wanting percentages of game sales but SAG stuff (funny with the times now) led to that falling through and Richard Horvitz saying that THQ lied about what consoles it would be on as a negotiation tactic to try to pay the actors less money. Regardless, everyone did a decent job on the acting side and I never felt my immersion break once which is pretty good. The soundtrack is ok for the most part, it takes place in the 70s so there will be tracks like YMCA and Disco Inferno but truth be told I don’t think there was much in the way of licensed stuff, probably due to the game’s smaller budget so I’m not surprised it didn’t fully embrace that aspect. Finally, the sound design is actually pretty solid as well, I never once noticed any sound glitches or any noise that felt weak or anything so that’s all good on that front.
Graphically however, the game as I said suffered under budget constraints and you can tell. First is that the game doesn’t look great for the most part, to the point that the original PS2 games look WAY better and they were on the previous generation. This is from what the sources would say due to the fact that the Wii assets were originally from the PSP, so instead of remaking the assets, it was just transferred over to the Wii as is. Due to this and the budget, other things suffered as well, especially lip syncing which was noticeable as immediately as I entered the game. This was something that was in the conflict between development teams as well, but in the end was cut out presumably due to time and money again. Most of the environments look ok, but don’t really become their own until the latter half of the game when you’re in Fantasy Atoll and Vietnamhl (mostly due to the amount of people they have fighting on one screen, especially considering they barely have ragdoll physics in general), though even then I noticed that probably due to limitations that most of the game except Fantasy Atoll is just flat surfaces with no verticality in terms of actual land. In fact, most of the maps are just small as hell in general, which is understandable though sad to see, and I feel what disappoints me the most in this field is the fact that the first half of the game just feels uninspired and unoriginal compared to the other games; Harbor City just reminds me of a sunnier Union City from the first game while Farfield just straight up feels like Rockwell and as such because of it, I felt it was rather dull in that regard. I guess the only thing I can really say about this is that I naturally understand that as a Wii game it was bound to take compromises in this regard, it’s going to look worse and have more limitations (including repetitive Crypto animations during cutscenes, ESPECIALLY his thrusting animation) and I also kind of chalk it up to “it is what it is I suppose”, I just wish stuff was better in these regards, even though I’m not really a graphics guy.
Overall, my thoughts on this game are exactly what the fans and critics thought of it when it came out: it was very mid. I enjoyed the plot for the most part, and the twelve year old humor that still makes me giggle, for the most part you can play the game well enough with the control schemes, the Big Willy mech is a fun addition and for a Destroy All Humans title on the Wii it’s pretty impressive for what it is. However, at the end of the day while frustrating in some regards, it’s also a sort of inoffensive spin-off title for the Wii that kind of misses in certain departments. As I said in my Destroy All Humans 2! Reprobed review, it’s a so-so game and truth be told as I haven’t played Path of the Furon yet, to me it’s the worst one in the entire franchise, though that isn’t necessarily bad. However, this is one of those times where even though I’m tired of everybody and their grandmother getting a remake (now Assassin’s Creed 4 is getting one? Why?), just to keep a consistency, I’d love to see Black Forest Games go back and remake this title, but actually expand upon it in terms of gameplay and plot because there’s a lot of ideas in this game that are actually really cool. Would I ever play this game again? I don’t know, maybe just to show some friends what playing this game is like, or maybe if I’m stranded somewhere with just my Wii I’d consider it, but the truth is I’m way more likely to go back to the second and sometimes the first one more than this so I don’t know. It’s not a bad Wii or Destroy All Humans game, but I’d be ok with a remake and if there isn’t one, then there are other Destroy All Humans games or even Wii games in general that feel better to play than what we have here, though if you really want to try it it’s a short 5-7 hour game and could probably be bought on Amazon between 5-30 dollars USD.
Links:
https://www.gamespot.com/games/destroy-all-humans-big-willy-unleashed/cheats/
https://web.archive.org/web/20090113205258/http://wii.ign.com/articles/847/847320p1.html
https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/08/04/destroy-all-humans-psp-cancelled
https://www.gamerguysreviews.com/2020/11/aliens-stole-my-wii-interview-with.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYUQUHidN8I&t=1886s&ab_channel=GamerGuy%27sReviews
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DestroyAllHumansBigWillyUnleashed
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestroyAllHumans/comments/ppqrj4/the_history_of_destroy_all_humans_big_willy/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1078189/
The people they had in mind for it were Locomotive Games, who had their work cut out for them on developing this title as their first and only Wii game from trying to figure out motion controls, paying fees to the Big Boy brand for the likeness to their statue for the Big Willy statue, and issues between development members over features and development time. They had also previously developed games like Jet Moto 3 (under the name Pacific Power & Light) and an old childhood game I remember: Power Rangers Dino Thunder. Seeing that had me in a strange delight because I remember playing that game on Gamecube (though it’s probably not great now of course) and I’ve always wanted to play this game but I never had the funds as a kid to buy the Wii or the game itself until I later grew up and got a job. Once I got that, as a fan of the series and as an exclusive collector I knew I had to buy a copy of this series. However, over the many years it had accumulated dust and I moved on to buy 50,000 other games and held a focus on different titles; however, once I played both of the Destroy All Humans! Remakes I felt it was the time to at least give this game a shot as my Wii game of the year (as I made a promise to myself to beat one game per console I owned this year).
The plot of this game is built around an interesting meta concept: when you kill someone in a video game, where do the bodies go? Oftentimes, dead people just fade into nothingness as you turn the corner due to technical engine limitations, but in this case they decided to build a whole game around it to hilarious intent, which is even referenced in game.
“Pox: Crypto, what do you think happens to the corpses of all the humans of whom you suck out the brain stems?
Crypto: I always figured they just faded away when I went around the corner.”
Oh no, in this game it turns out that Orthopox-13 created a whole fast food franchise named Big Willy’s in order to get rid of all of the evidence of the Furon Invasion whilst also making a profit on the side. The food at Big Willy’s are made of food, and the game that surrounds the concept consists of 70s pastiche references, parodies, double entendres, and more fourth wall breaks. Big Willy’s is under attack by Patty Wurst (a reference of course to both the food and the multi-millionaire dollar heiress Patty Hearst, who was kidnapped by revolutionaries in the Seventies), who with her revolutionaries go out of their way to expose the crimes of Big Willy’s Furon owners; whilst Crypto and Pox are dealing with this (with a plot thread involving Pox’s last love for a rich girl fueling his hate for Patty) they also deal with side plots including a Furon Efficiency Expert giving tests, a human with an Ion Detonator messing up Crypto’s assassination missions and Pox’s use of disco to brainwash the human populace. Once Patty Wurst is eliminated in her giant tank using a giant Big Willy statue mech, it’s revealed that her boss is Colonel Kluckin’, a parody of Colonel Sanders from KFC and the main antagonist who rivals Pox and his “Big Willy” with the Kluckin’ restaurants. Fearing for the unveiling of his 500th Big Willy restaurant, Pox insists on going to Fairfield to make sure everything goes off without a hitch.
Farfield’s plot thread is mainly about a gang of roller girls who work for Colonel Kluckin’ led by one Mindy Peters, who try to take down the Big Willy franchise through stealing their recipes and planting bombs. Other side plots include Natalya (the russian spy lover from the second game) trying to give you a call to tell you about something in the middle of another assassination mission only for the human to strike again and fumble your hit, another trial involving the efficiency expert and more disco shenanigans. After a bit of meandering, Crypto and Pox come up with the idea of taking the guise of the Corncob King, Mindy’s boyfriend, and luring her out in public to eliminate her. Eventually Pox just decides to say fuck it and just burn every building down to the ground in a “freak weather accident”, of course except for his “Big Willy”.
Now here’s where I’m going to address my thoughts on the first half as well as address the plot and it’s length in general. Harbor City does an interesting job of getting your attention and moving you along from place to place as you try to stop Colonel Kluckin’, but there is a bit of meandering in terms of missions and such. Harbor City consists of multiple assassination attempts on Patty that just kind of go nowhere and it feels kind of the same for Fairfield besides a few points here and there. That’s not to say stuff like this doesn’t happen in the other games, it’s just that they tend to do stuff in a way that pushes the plot forwards a lot more or at least makes it interesting, in which case this is kind of…not so much. Which is also strange considering the short length this game takes compared to the others, I completed this game I think in about 5 hours or so, which is way less than what the other two games had and it doesn’t really feel like there’s a lot of substance to certain set pieces, which is sad considering it’s kind of an ingenious plot with really cool ideas.
So for the third part of the game you travel to a place called Fantasy Atoll, a parody of the Fantasy Island series, which is owned by Mr. Pork and Ratpoo (Ratpoo as a name is honestly fucking hilarious in hindsight). I don’t even remember why Crypto and Pox go there to be honest, I think it’s to follow a signal from Kluckin’ but truth be told it’s kind of a distraction from the main plot that follows Pox’s obsession for getting a new body after the memories of the past flame made him fall weak to Mr. Pork’s promise of “a new body”. What culminates is a fetch quest (literally named fetch quest, which falls into the category of “Not as funny if you still go along with the tedium of something even if you’re making fun of it” as you gather parts for his new body, trying to turn it into a kaiju monster attraction for other guests. It’s a trick of course, and Colonel Kluckin’ sends soldiers to ambush everyone on the ship as Crypto protects Pox’s physical body and the scientist nearby before everything goes to hell and Pox is sent flying to another side of the island. After finding his body and calling Furon tech support in a somewhat humorous but frustrating mission, Crypto/Pox finally kill Mr. Pork (after learning that his necklace protects him from damage) by brainwashing his servant Ratpoo into grabbing him and jumping into the large volcano (named A’Rkvudal here funny enough for fans of the lore) before finally finishing him off on his Hate Boat, a giant war ship which requires you to take out shields before dropping torpedoes into one of four sides of the ship in a somewhat difficult mission. Before flying out to Kluckin’s last known location, Vietnahml, plot threads include a disco party involving kidnapping people to form a group called “The Village Humans”, the Furon Efficiency guy challenging you to another test and Pox finally believing Crypto about the human interrupting their assassination missions.
Then comes the final part: Vietnahml. Crypto arrives with Pox to help their proprietor Trahn (played by Nolan North, it’s one of those old “have white people play asian people stereotype” roles that shouldn’t be taken seriously but can still be offensive) fight against Colonel Kluckin’ and his Khmer Beige rebels by wiping out a convoy and then infiltrating their base and destroying parts of their operation. However, eventually Crypto ends up captured and it’s revealed that Trahn is both a double agent (with the convoy from earlier being sent to kill Kluckin’) and that Kluckin’ really loves your plan and has been doing the same thing, and wants to team up. Problem is though, he uses the brain stem in his food and the Furons need it for their DNA so that’s out of the picture. After escaping and rescuing his “Big Willy” (lol), and saving his UFO from being torn apart by scientists working with Kluckin, Crypto and Pox destroy the base once and for all. Afterwords Trahn attempts to kill Crypto on a bike with a shield and throwing explosive chickens but dies and it culminates in a final mech battle between Crypto in the Big Willy and Kluckin’ in the statue of a Vietnahmlese robot rock god or something. Kluckin’ dies and the Furons live, though Pox gives up on the fast food industry with the competitiveness of it all and after being given the profits from “A shrimp boat and a mentally disabled war veteran”, Crypto persuades Pox to join him into going to a business venture in Vegas, setting up (but kind of contradicting) the third Destroy All Humans game coming up, Path of the Furon. The game then ends on the credits sequence with a YMCA dance from Crypto, but if you followed the side plot stuff you’ll get no disco mission, but you will learn that the Furon Efficiency Expert is actually a con artist who you chase down and kill before the original clone is locked up in a prison and that the human with the Ion Detonator who keeps ruining Crypto’s hits turns out to be both his and Natalya’s son.
Overall, my feelings on the plot are that it has a lot of cool ideas, but that I don’t think are always expanded upon in the right way or format. Not a lot of it is fleshed out as much as it should be but it’s serviceable enough; what really carries this game is the humor and tone, which isn’t very serious and include references to everything from “the previous two games” to certain music artists to lots of immature sex jokes (“my Big Willy” of course being one of the top cracks) which I have a severe weakness for when done right and this game made me chuckle a couple of times doing it. The only other thing I can think to add in this is the inclusion of Vietnahml: I think it’s an ingenious idea to have the whole fast food thing come from dead bodies, and what produces the most dead bodies? War, specifically in this case a giant parody of the Vietnam War. Personally, I’m not offended by it’s inclusion in this game, even with a deceased grandfather who served in the war but I can see certain people not being okay by the pisstake on the war itself so if you’re one of those people that is in there as a warning. Again though its length, and its pacing feels kind of weak in certain aspects and truth be told even though Fantasy Atoll is my favorite location, my not knowing why we were even there was kind of indicative of how kind of barebones stuff feels. I like it, and it’s one of if not the best part of the game but I wish it was way more developed than it actually was.
The gameplay, being on the Wii, has its fair share of pros and cons on the game’s quality. The whole point of the game series is the namesake, to Destroy All Humans right? So you’ll be able to go around, murder humans with an assortment of weapons both on foot, in your flying saucer and in the Big Willy mech and for that I applaud the game for adding more in what could be considered a limiting experience. On foot you have weapons such as the four main weapons: the Zap-O-Matic being the electric gun, the Disintegrator can follow the namesake and vaporize enemies with ease, the Anal Probe can one shot enemies and have their brains pop out and the Ion Detonator is basically your remote controlled grenade launcher. Other weapons you’ll get are the Zombie Gun and the Lightning Ball, along with the shrink ray; the problem with these weapons is that while the first and last gun are cool and unique, the Lightning ball felt kind of useless whilst the other two are just kind of unceremoniously thrown into your lap by text prompts after beating missions and if you’re not paying attention to the screen when they tell you this, you won’t even know you have the weapon at all unless you scroll through it on accident. For the Shrink Ray even, you unlock it by completing the final mission and as such, using it will shrink people, vehicles, animals and props down to smaller sizes; however I didn’t even know how to use it because the text appeared on screen but it said it was locked in my inventory. After looking it up on the internet, I learned that in order to use it I had to open up the cheat menu and turn it on to have it appear in my inventory. I’m not sure if this was due to the potentially rushed nature of the game, but it’s not a great way to introduce any weapon into the game just by throwing a sentence on screen and I felt it could’ve used some actual practical in game examples, even if to just let people know that these weapons exist. To finish off this section, there are other abilities like PK (the ability to pick people/objects up into the air), throwing stuff with PK (which requires you to thrust your controller forward (heh)), hypnosis (which distracts everyone around you), body snatching (which allows you to hop into a human being and control their body undercover for a while) and transmogrification (which allows you to break down objects into ammo) and all three of the latter abilities require you to complete a small mini game where you click the A button on all the little circles floating around the screen. If you take too long, more circles will spawn but I just kinda spammed the A button and flinged it all around the place and I completed it quickly more often than not. However, that doesn’t stop the overall gameplay package from feeling iffy in certain regards.
Even on foot stuff, the motion controls in general are a mixed bag for me, sometimes they actually worked well and I went on for a specific amount of time and didn’t even notice any issues in this regard. However, a lot of the time I wasn’t in that weird Zen-like state; sometimes trying to move the camera with the nunchuck/motion thing to the left was kind of frustrating and after a while my right wrist would hurt. Aiming the weapons can sometimes be a little jank due to this motion as well, though truth be told, I’m not used to the Wii and I personally believe it’s adapted to the game the best it can be. However, I didn’t really want to go around and engage in it much due to the motion controls, and overall that kind of hurt the experience for me personally. The camera/motion movement was the biggest chore in this regard; with one mission in particular being the bane of my existence in this game: Customer Service. In this mission you have to walk around, zap some satellites then finally defend a building from being attacked by the military. Fair enough, in the OG games this would be cake but in this game you have constantly spawning military planting bombs, which you have to precisely aim on this bomb and toss it (which the throw doesn’t go far in this game compared to the others and kind of hurt my hands a bit) but pile that on in an enclosed beach with people shooting at you right next to the building, the camera flinging me all over the damn place and military boats hitting you with missiles and a limited amount of time to throw the bombs away before they blow up the building and fail the mission? I legitimately got infuriated at the lack of gameplay cohesion in this enclosed space and nearly fucking screamed, the only saving grace being that my death would let me spawn right next to the building but if I failed I had to do the entire mission all over again including getting to the mission in the first place. Other than that mission, it was kind of a struggle but for the most part the on foot stuff was fine, though the lack of being able to read minds for funny quips had me sad and disappointed considering that was one of my favorite things to do in the other games. Also like the other games, going into water will hurt/kill you and it’s even worse in this game as stepping into a puddle will lead Crypto into having a convulsion and instant death which made the first mission in Fantasy Atoll trying to get instructions to the visitor center a bit of a trip with the lack of ability as moving people around via motion controls either gets them killed really quick via accidentally slamming them into things at full force or them also drowning in puddles.
The UFO has the usual three as well: Death Ray, Sonic Boom and Quantum Deconstructor (which each three has its uses being for average destruction on both ground forces/buildings, ground forces mostly and a giant nuke) in every game as well as one more weapon: the Electro Cone, which when you bring down to the ground will vaporize all ground forces in your vicinity in an excellent display which is amazing. The ability to abduct people for DNA and drain vehicles for health are still there as well, though the controls to abduct took me a while to figure out and draining vehicles requires precise aiming on top of a prop or vehicle which led to my death countless times. If I were to give any thoughts on the UFO, it is that the motion controls make it kind of a slog for the most part to actually move around. Moving it around requires you to move your Wiimote stuff left or right, with pushing forward making it go down and backwards making it go up as well; this mixed in with the camera sometimes being finicky and the health drain needing to be accurate can sometimes lead to missing stuff entirely leading to death or alternatively picking something or someone else up entirely. The main thing that popped out to me as genius is the fact that the cloak in the game, instead of making the UFO invisible it just turns it into a blimp which I think is actually a pretty clever stealth mechanic in public, at least aesthetically.
The Big Willy statue, the newest addition into the series, also has the least amount of depth in game and I rarely used it during my time. While cool as hell, it only has four or five functions: one is to grab people by pressing the back trigger and A and you can either grab people to eat their brains for health or pick up objects. Throwing them was kind of a mixed bag requiring you to hold the back trigger and A again at a precise time to actually throw it, and oftentimes I either slammed the prop down onto the ground for a small ranged attack or just accidentally dropped it. Health for the most part in this wasn’t bad, and Big Willy can take a lot of damage (heh) but it’s still tiring trying to fight with the motion controls. The only other weapons for this are laser eyes, vomiting acid which clears ground enemies, or farts which I never used because like the other weapons I didn’t even know this existed until after I beat the game.
And finally, a lot of these weapons require upgrades; however they work a bit different compared to the original games. This game has more of a “Use this weapon and it’ll upgrade itself” system. You’ll still collect pieces of tech out in the open world and via missions but the truth is that the more you use a weapon or power ability in certain ways (like Body Snatching for 25 minutes along with other prerequisites lead to an upgrade), the more effective it’s become. You don’t buy these abilities on your own, but to make them more effective I had to do a tad bit of grinding with certain prerequisites in mind but after some progress was made I dropped it and by the end, I acquired 75% of all of the upgrades by the time the game ended. Other things I want to point out are that when in your a cutscene, be careful of pressing the back trigger (or B Button) as if you do you’ll skip cutscenes (unless you want to do that in which case, ok) and I tended to hit it by accident trying to rest my arm in the middle of everything. By completing the game/side quests and putting in certain codes, you’ll also get a cheat code screen; some of these are just skins for Crypto and the Saucer/Blimp but others include the usual infinite health and ammo, but also stuff like everyone turning into a zombie, or zombies becoming radioactive and killing enemies quicker, the ability to body snatch animals in your environment, and etc.
As for the graphics and sound design stuff, I’ll start with the sound design here as there’s a bit of a mix up between certain sources. Instead of the actors J. Grant Albrecht and Richard Horvitz as Crypto and Pox respectively, they instead went with actors Sean Dennelan (whom I know nothing at all about) and Daryl Kurylo (whom I only know from the first Yakuza game on Playstation 2, one of my all time favorite games ever). As such, Crypto’s voice, while not bad, has changed and it’s clearly obvious that it’s not the same actor but the entire time playing the game I didn’t know that Horvitz wasn’t in it, so Daryl did a pretty good job at imitating Horvitz’s voice work. The reason for this ranges from the original actors wanting percentages of game sales but SAG stuff (funny with the times now) led to that falling through and Richard Horvitz saying that THQ lied about what consoles it would be on as a negotiation tactic to try to pay the actors less money. Regardless, everyone did a decent job on the acting side and I never felt my immersion break once which is pretty good. The soundtrack is ok for the most part, it takes place in the 70s so there will be tracks like YMCA and Disco Inferno but truth be told I don’t think there was much in the way of licensed stuff, probably due to the game’s smaller budget so I’m not surprised it didn’t fully embrace that aspect. Finally, the sound design is actually pretty solid as well, I never once noticed any sound glitches or any noise that felt weak or anything so that’s all good on that front.
Graphically however, the game as I said suffered under budget constraints and you can tell. First is that the game doesn’t look great for the most part, to the point that the original PS2 games look WAY better and they were on the previous generation. This is from what the sources would say due to the fact that the Wii assets were originally from the PSP, so instead of remaking the assets, it was just transferred over to the Wii as is. Due to this and the budget, other things suffered as well, especially lip syncing which was noticeable as immediately as I entered the game. This was something that was in the conflict between development teams as well, but in the end was cut out presumably due to time and money again. Most of the environments look ok, but don’t really become their own until the latter half of the game when you’re in Fantasy Atoll and Vietnamhl (mostly due to the amount of people they have fighting on one screen, especially considering they barely have ragdoll physics in general), though even then I noticed that probably due to limitations that most of the game except Fantasy Atoll is just flat surfaces with no verticality in terms of actual land. In fact, most of the maps are just small as hell in general, which is understandable though sad to see, and I feel what disappoints me the most in this field is the fact that the first half of the game just feels uninspired and unoriginal compared to the other games; Harbor City just reminds me of a sunnier Union City from the first game while Farfield just straight up feels like Rockwell and as such because of it, I felt it was rather dull in that regard. I guess the only thing I can really say about this is that I naturally understand that as a Wii game it was bound to take compromises in this regard, it’s going to look worse and have more limitations (including repetitive Crypto animations during cutscenes, ESPECIALLY his thrusting animation) and I also kind of chalk it up to “it is what it is I suppose”, I just wish stuff was better in these regards, even though I’m not really a graphics guy.
Overall, my thoughts on this game are exactly what the fans and critics thought of it when it came out: it was very mid. I enjoyed the plot for the most part, and the twelve year old humor that still makes me giggle, for the most part you can play the game well enough with the control schemes, the Big Willy mech is a fun addition and for a Destroy All Humans title on the Wii it’s pretty impressive for what it is. However, at the end of the day while frustrating in some regards, it’s also a sort of inoffensive spin-off title for the Wii that kind of misses in certain departments. As I said in my Destroy All Humans 2! Reprobed review, it’s a so-so game and truth be told as I haven’t played Path of the Furon yet, to me it’s the worst one in the entire franchise, though that isn’t necessarily bad. However, this is one of those times where even though I’m tired of everybody and their grandmother getting a remake (now Assassin’s Creed 4 is getting one? Why?), just to keep a consistency, I’d love to see Black Forest Games go back and remake this title, but actually expand upon it in terms of gameplay and plot because there’s a lot of ideas in this game that are actually really cool. Would I ever play this game again? I don’t know, maybe just to show some friends what playing this game is like, or maybe if I’m stranded somewhere with just my Wii I’d consider it, but the truth is I’m way more likely to go back to the second and sometimes the first one more than this so I don’t know. It’s not a bad Wii or Destroy All Humans game, but I’d be ok with a remake and if there isn’t one, then there are other Destroy All Humans games or even Wii games in general that feel better to play than what we have here, though if you really want to try it it’s a short 5-7 hour game and could probably be bought on Amazon between 5-30 dollars USD.
Links:
https://www.gamespot.com/games/destroy-all-humans-big-willy-unleashed/cheats/
https://web.archive.org/web/20090113205258/http://wii.ign.com/articles/847/847320p1.html
https://www.ign.com/articles/2008/08/04/destroy-all-humans-psp-cancelled
https://www.gamerguysreviews.com/2020/11/aliens-stole-my-wii-interview-with.html
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xYUQUHidN8I&t=1886s&ab_channel=GamerGuy%27sReviews
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/DestroyAllHumansBigWillyUnleashed
https://www.reddit.com/r/DestroyAllHumans/comments/ppqrj4/the_history_of_destroy_all_humans_big_willy/
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1078189/
2019
This review contains spoilers
Amid Evil is a FPS “Boomer Slasher” game developed Indefatigable and published by boomer shooter gods New Blood Interactive for PC and apparently the Switch. I can’t really say too much on the origins of this game, other than the Wikipeeds said that the two devs were childhood friends and they were involved in the development of the Rise of the Triad remake in 2013, a game that I played for a bit before I stopped due to personal issues. However, this mod apparently started as a DOOM mod before evolving into what it is today, and takes A LOT of inspiration from the likes of Hexen and Heretic, old FPS games with more magical and fantasy based demon murder. How I found this game was simple, I saw DUSK and when the same guys said we’re publishing this game I got it on a whim during early access cause I’m weak for boomer shooters.
The plot is short and simple: you play as a champion summoned to purge the “Evil Force” from sacred lands; and that’s basically what you do. There’s no real plot other than going into strange arcane places and murdering demonic creatures, though at the end you ascend to the “Haven of the Ancients”, a special realm for worthy champions that has a pool of prophecy which shows everything on fire which is nice. It’s more of a sequel thing and that’s fine, not everything needs to have this big expounding of lore and history (though like other old FPS games you can find hints written on the walls if you want to follow along with it). There’s not much to go on unless you go to the Wiki but for the most part like a lot of old school first person shooters it’s minimalistic.
The Sound/Art Design is pretty fantastic; I’ll start with the art design and graphics because this game hits one of my weak spots: retro graphics. It’s not like say DOOM engine or BuildEngine, it’s Unreal Engine 4.27 apparently so it’s like high definition retro graphics? Or maybe it’s not, I’m not sure because from when I played it, it had some pixelation but not enough to be looking like the older games or even like DUSK, which looks more like Quake than anything else; one steam review I read had it say “The grass in Amid Evil is somehow both 2D and the thickest, lushest grass I’ve seen in a long time” which is pretty accurate considering the style that it’s going for, some unique combination of old and new looking that I can’t complain about and I’m sure looks even better with all the high res settings and such. The environmental designs surrounding the graphics look amazing, each place is unique on its own with places ranging from mountain caves with lakes to floating libraries in space to desert looking gladiatorial to my favorite: The Void being the final episode. TV Tropes described it as a combo of MC Esher and Salvador Dali on drugs, I don’t know art but what I can say is the first thing that popped in my mind, even if impossible, is Non-Euclidean Geometry, which is basically space and shapes unable to be seen by the human eye. Now that’s not realistic to gameplay but it’s such a strange labyrinthian structure that I can’t help but marvel at its aesthetic design. The soundtrack is decent too, varying from what sounds like gregorian chants with aggressive strings to synthwave sounding stuff composed by Andrew Hushult. Overall, everything on this end is pretty solid and can’t complain either.
The gameplay is the standard FPS old school affair, you go from place to place unlocking certain doors with keys while using the standard weapon types (the rocket launcher replacement is cool as hell as it’s a planet launcher, which is hilarious cause there’s a little detail where you can actually shoot Earth and blow it up, though it doesn’t do anything in game obviously) to fight a variation of enemies on the map (whose AI are actually pretty good and don’t just sit in place and will actively follow and try to kill you, forcing you to think tactically) and also finding secrets (like secret dev rooms, messages, an in-joke within New Blood about Big John and Dopefish, etc.). If there was one thing that I could say really pops out is that there’s a decent bit of detail, like using the Axe and the special soul power (unlocked by killing multiple enemies and stealing their souls) underwater will shoot you off like a propeller even if it’s moreso just a quicker way of gibbing enemies. Again you have sprinkles of lore around scattered on walls for those that are interested, there’s a decent bit. Also connecting all of these levels is a hub called “The Gateway of the Ancients) which is a bit on the bigger side and leads to all seven episodes; one thing I will say can be a bit on the frustrating side (which I’m used to) is that for the most part the levels are big, and you can find your way through them but the size can also lead to confusion on where you’re supposed to go sometimes. Overall, not much I can say about this other than if you like old school first person shooters you’ll get more of the same from here, but it also feels pretty damn good.
This review is a shorty for a couple of reasons, one I played it last year so it’s been a while and two, there’s not a lot I feel I can say about retro fps games other than, “I like them a lot”, when done right. This game is done really well and I can’t really say much else other than if you’re looking for a 7 ½ to 8 hour FPS retro game that you should get it, 20 dollars isn’t a bad price for it either. I decided I’d write up a little review recommending this as August 18th marks the release of its DLC, the Black Labyrinth and I’m definitely looking forward to it!! Ya know, when I can afford to pay it after I take care of rent and such. Of course other things they’ve released in the meantime is a VR port, and a free DLC called Ancient Alphas which is just a couple of old alpha maps you can try if you like.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-lJK4yqRE&ab_channel=AndrewHulshult (Soundtrack)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AmidEvil
https://amidevil.fandom.com/wiki/AMID_EVIL_Wiki
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot is short and simple: you play as a champion summoned to purge the “Evil Force” from sacred lands; and that’s basically what you do. There’s no real plot other than going into strange arcane places and murdering demonic creatures, though at the end you ascend to the “Haven of the Ancients”, a special realm for worthy champions that has a pool of prophecy which shows everything on fire which is nice. It’s more of a sequel thing and that’s fine, not everything needs to have this big expounding of lore and history (though like other old FPS games you can find hints written on the walls if you want to follow along with it). There’s not much to go on unless you go to the Wiki but for the most part like a lot of old school first person shooters it’s minimalistic.
The Sound/Art Design is pretty fantastic; I’ll start with the art design and graphics because this game hits one of my weak spots: retro graphics. It’s not like say DOOM engine or BuildEngine, it’s Unreal Engine 4.27 apparently so it’s like high definition retro graphics? Or maybe it’s not, I’m not sure because from when I played it, it had some pixelation but not enough to be looking like the older games or even like DUSK, which looks more like Quake than anything else; one steam review I read had it say “The grass in Amid Evil is somehow both 2D and the thickest, lushest grass I’ve seen in a long time” which is pretty accurate considering the style that it’s going for, some unique combination of old and new looking that I can’t complain about and I’m sure looks even better with all the high res settings and such. The environmental designs surrounding the graphics look amazing, each place is unique on its own with places ranging from mountain caves with lakes to floating libraries in space to desert looking gladiatorial to my favorite: The Void being the final episode. TV Tropes described it as a combo of MC Esher and Salvador Dali on drugs, I don’t know art but what I can say is the first thing that popped in my mind, even if impossible, is Non-Euclidean Geometry, which is basically space and shapes unable to be seen by the human eye. Now that’s not realistic to gameplay but it’s such a strange labyrinthian structure that I can’t help but marvel at its aesthetic design. The soundtrack is decent too, varying from what sounds like gregorian chants with aggressive strings to synthwave sounding stuff composed by Andrew Hushult. Overall, everything on this end is pretty solid and can’t complain either.
The gameplay is the standard FPS old school affair, you go from place to place unlocking certain doors with keys while using the standard weapon types (the rocket launcher replacement is cool as hell as it’s a planet launcher, which is hilarious cause there’s a little detail where you can actually shoot Earth and blow it up, though it doesn’t do anything in game obviously) to fight a variation of enemies on the map (whose AI are actually pretty good and don’t just sit in place and will actively follow and try to kill you, forcing you to think tactically) and also finding secrets (like secret dev rooms, messages, an in-joke within New Blood about Big John and Dopefish, etc.). If there was one thing that I could say really pops out is that there’s a decent bit of detail, like using the Axe and the special soul power (unlocked by killing multiple enemies and stealing their souls) underwater will shoot you off like a propeller even if it’s moreso just a quicker way of gibbing enemies. Again you have sprinkles of lore around scattered on walls for those that are interested, there’s a decent bit. Also connecting all of these levels is a hub called “The Gateway of the Ancients) which is a bit on the bigger side and leads to all seven episodes; one thing I will say can be a bit on the frustrating side (which I’m used to) is that for the most part the levels are big, and you can find your way through them but the size can also lead to confusion on where you’re supposed to go sometimes. Overall, not much I can say about this other than if you like old school first person shooters you’ll get more of the same from here, but it also feels pretty damn good.
This review is a shorty for a couple of reasons, one I played it last year so it’s been a while and two, there’s not a lot I feel I can say about retro fps games other than, “I like them a lot”, when done right. This game is done really well and I can’t really say much else other than if you’re looking for a 7 ½ to 8 hour FPS retro game that you should get it, 20 dollars isn’t a bad price for it either. I decided I’d write up a little review recommending this as August 18th marks the release of its DLC, the Black Labyrinth and I’m definitely looking forward to it!! Ya know, when I can afford to pay it after I take care of rent and such. Of course other things they’ve released in the meantime is a VR port, and a free DLC called Ancient Alphas which is just a couple of old alpha maps you can try if you like.
Links:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nm-lJK4yqRE&ab_channel=AndrewHulshult (Soundtrack)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/AmidEvil
https://amidevil.fandom.com/wiki/AMID_EVIL_Wiki
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is an open world “Fuck me in my asshole, I’m actually going to shit if I get instant killed one more time” fantasy game developed by Nintendo both as a Wii-U console exclusive as well as later on ported to the Nintendo Switch. This is one of those games I feel most everyone knows about, but I’ll throw out some info tidbits I found online and summarize my experience leading up to playing this game. Development for this game started straight after Skyward Sword was released for both the Nintendo Wii and the Wii U (and later re-released as an HD Port for the Switch itself) and apparently took inspirations from Shadow of the Colossus and The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, of which I could only confirm from Wikipedia so no clue if it’s totally reliable but if so, I could also see it. I could also see influences from Dark Souls in my opinion (though I’ll relate why later on). However, according to both the ‘Pedia (take with a grain of salt perhaps) and the Wiki, along with the fact I’m always unsure if my sources are incorrect, that this game was meant to shake up the franchise in its entirety, wanting to include more non-linearity after getting positive reception on stuff like A Link Between Worlds as well as the idea to use physics puzzles and removing a Spider-Man like grapple shot (which I would’ve LOVED to have seen in this game). The scale grew bigger and bigger, and what was supposed to be a 2015 release turned into 2016 and then finally released in 2017 to magnanimous approval from everybody and their grandmother.
The Legend of Zelda series is a series that’s well known to pretty much everyone as one of the most famous IPs ever, if you haven’t ever played the games you’ll sure as fuck remember the theme song; but the truth is I’ve always had this nostalgic love for the series though I’ve only ever played the very beginning of Wind Waker on Gamecube loads of times because I didn’t know what else I was doing. Fast Forward I still haven’t played Wind Waker even though I own a copy of that and Skyward Sword for the Wii, when my sister eventually gets a Nintendo Switch for christmas with a bunch of games around the 2017-2018 mark I believe? One of those includes Breath of the Wild, and having heard it was god’s gift to Earth and one of the best video games of all time, and after being badgered to get a switch so I could play games with her, I pick myself up a switch too with Smash Bros Ultimate and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3. Though I would play some games every now and then, I didn’t really pick up the Switch much due to my main consoles being the PC and the PS consoles; throughout the years I’d beat Deadly Premonition: Origins and Luigi’s Mansion 3 (two switch games that I still have to write up a review about) along with get a couple of others but I never touched this one because “big open world game, don’t have time”. However, I wanted to knock off at least one game per console this year, and so I decided that this year I would beat this game with the DLC, and it even strengthened further when everybody I knew (including my sister) got Tears of the Kingdom and raved about it. Starting it off was difficult but eventually one of my friends (shoutout to the pimp Wrathne, thank you for your help) backseat gamed my ass and helped me along before I eventually took a trip overseas and finished it in their living room funny enough (didn’t take the trip cause of the game, just something I wanted to do anyways to be honest, though that's why I wasn't able to review it immediately).
So how do I feel about this game? Truth is, very mixed; I like certain aspects of the game and I respect a lot of what it does, and I’ll admit that when it works I end up liking it a bit. However, there’s a lot here that I don’t like, specifically the combat and the gameplay. When you first start off in the Great Plateau, it feels fine. You get used to cooking food, weapons that can break instantly, doing shrines, using your Sheikah slate, climbing your environment, etc. What I can say is that I can certainly see the Shadow of the Colossus stuff with this game, the loneliness as you ride your horse in this big open world that is almost empty save for pockets of survivors and try to survive the post-post apocalypse? Can’t even say at this rate, but for the most part a lot of the stuff works. Cooking and combining ingredients trying to find the best recipe to tackle your next objective is great and these ingredients are in abundance throughout the entirety of Hyrule, shrines for the most part are inoffensive but because I suck at puzzles I break out the guides, I don’t care for the stamina bar (as if you run out of it, whether it’s from flying or swimming you’ll get fucked up and probably die and it feels artificial as hell) while I’m trying to climb towers (which like Far Cry and other games reveals portions of the map) much. However, in this case I’ll say that with both the shrines/towers that one thing I like about this game is that despite these sort of holdbacks, it’s fascinating to see using your tools available that you can conquer them with a bit of ingenuity (for example, I barely upgraded my stamina and got all the towers due to experimentation from climbing nearby mountains in big chunks while taking breaks before gliding down) so it’s nice to see a game that can feel a bit like an immersive sim in regards (don’t shoot me for throwing the term out there please) in the amount of ways you can figure out a solution. However, speaking of the shrines, if you’re not a god in this game already you’re going to need to go out of your way to grind out these puzzle shrines as they not only give you extra loot but they give spirit orbs, and if you get four of these spirit orbs and bring them to a Goddess statue you can choose to upgrade your health or your stamina bar. This will feel like a necessity considering the difficulty curb of the game’s combat and obstacles.
As said earlier, it feels fine when starting off in the tutorial area but once you get the paraglider and fly down? You WILL get fucked up as the difficulty soars in a way that I don’t really like or feels fair. A lot of these enemies can fuck you up, some of them in even one hit due to an arbitrary number next to weapon. Hell in a lot of cases even with these weapons, if you hit them with it, a lot of times it doesn’t feel like they die, like it’s kind of spongy. I don’t really like this practice in a lot of games, as it feels cheap and inconsistent though unlike games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey or Borderlands it at least doesn’t throw a bunch of stats and arbitrary numbers in your face via UI (other examples of this is comparing gear ala Horizon or the newest God of Wars) and at least keeps that simple. Regardless though I fucking hate it, not only do I hate this sort of combat style, I actively think it brings the game down in quality. Remember that Dark Souls comparison from earlier? I don’t mean it in the sense that “Ohh game is difficult compare to Dark Souls hahaha” but like it feels like it could be straight out of it from the lock on, to the boss meters, I don’t know how to explain it because I’m a plebian but it feels like it’s there, and whilst I play the Soulsborne games and love them, I’m not interested in a Zelda Souls game (though obviously I’m ok with there being strategies to actually fight these guys/weaknesses and such, I just don’t like their damage output). Regardless though it’s here, and you can find yourself getting outnumbered and outgunned pretty quickly so upgrading your health/stamina feels like a necessity in order to even stand a chance at the beginning of the game. This leads into another personal thing I don’t always really care for, I don’t care for grinding and I don’t feel like it should be a necessity to actually get anything done; this will be the majority of your game time as you go around and grind out these shrines or ingredients (which aren’t just needed for cooking, but if you want to stand a chance in the Volcano, Desert or Cold regions you will need to upgrade certain outfits as the divine beasts are in these areas and your health will plummet really fast if you don’t get these outfits or eat large portions of food every couple of seconds). You can also do side quests for rewards (like rupees), but I found the majority that I saw of these are basic fetch quests with no real substance to them so I avoided them (though I like that you don’t need to do them at all for some arbitrary level up bullshit so again, thank you Nintendo for not being like Ubisoft and their recent output). However, I decided to take the easy route and instead just grind out Snowball Bowling, which you get 300 rupees for every strike and let me tell you something, grinding this out isn’t fun either though I can’t really blame anyone but myself I suppose for wanting to get quick cash to buy outfits needed to survive and by the end of it I really wanted to curb stomp Pondo for his what should be legalized gambling scheme.
To upgrade these outfits (which by the way I only found out they exist from my buddy Wrathne, shoutout to you for backseat gaming and making my experience actually playable and less frustrating), you’ll need to find and unlock all four fairy fountains, which not only provide you with instant revives in case you die (collecting the fairies surrounding the fountain I mean) but also unlocking these shrines can have them upgrade the stats of your armor so you stand more of a chance of not dying. Again, it’s a lot of grinding and frustrating, arbitrary steps that I feel that I shouldn’t need to take just to survive. For some people, this loop is great and I respect that; however it’s not something I enjoy. I’m going to post links to some grinding stuff that I found, as well as outfit locations down below but my final thought on this is how the fuck was I supposed to know these things exist without getting help? That actually frustrated me, I understand it’s an open world, but either I missed out on the clues for these outfits entirely or there is nothing and other than potentially wasting hundreds of hours figuring out the solution (of which I don’t have the time), I’d prefer if somehow someone just gave a vague hint of “oh you’ll need something to wear in order to survive up in certain climates, maybe this place has something?”, or maybe I’m just dumb and I need handholding or something but again if I didn’t have a backseat gamer I would’ve been stuck and frustrated.
The next thing I want to point out that I don’t care for are the Divine Beasts, especially the one in Gerudo Town (the one I surprisingly did first, also the most difficult) due to their overly complicated puzzle nature that I can’t figure out in the slightest but other ten year olds can (which I’m not hating, I think it’s amazing that kids can beat this stuff to be honest). For me, Gerudo one was just a giant cluster fuck of dislike from me, from the annoying sand seal chase to the puzzle to the actual final boss; for the chase it feels like a frustrating balancing act in which I either overshoot the circle going too fast or I’m not fast enough and it’s a pain in the ass balancing this and aiming for the beast’s legs. Keep in mind, I’m also an old man shouting at the clouds I guess so if you like it that’s ok, but these are all kind of annoying to deal with though the others are easier in scale. So what are Divine Beasts used for? Well, if you complete all four then you lower the final boss’s health down to half and make the final fight in the game a lot easier to manage, and that’s another point I’ll give the game credit for.
You don’t have to put in all this work, you can get booty stomped on the way out sure but you can literally go straight from the tutorial to the final boss of the game at Hyrule Castle and duke it out if you really know what you’re doing. It’s a strange thing, I don’t care about the gameplay for the most part but as much as I roll my eyes at “Expansive open worlds” the amount of freedom in this is insane, as well as the amount of details that I both know as well as know that I missed. In fact, the level of detail can be frustrating sometimes, like lightning effects while there’s rain can destroy you if you wear anything metal from weapons/shields (which I only discovered defending myself from a Yiga assassin in a lightning storm..) to trying to use a bomb arrow in the volcano region will just result in you blowing yourself up instantly due to the hostile temperatures. In fact, for this note I specifically wrote down “Fuck the lightning shit, that can suck my dick”, because it got rather frustrating sometimes. In fact, trying to remember each and every little thing to write up this review is impossible, so I want to apologize in advance for missing both probably basic shit that I will miss, because this game is so massive in scope that it’s baffling. In fact, before I finish on my DLC thoughts, my feelings on weapon degradation? I didn’t hate it in Far Cry 2, and generally I don’t have a problem with it like other people though if you do, that’s perfectly ok. I also missed out talking about the horses and the Amiibo functionality; horses you can find in the wild and if you sneak up on them and tame them, then bring it back to a nearby stable you can name it and bond with it as well as call them nearby, and if you have the right Amiibo functionality (or if you’re like Wrathne and just bought cards) then you can use them once per day to unlock anything from extra food/materials to overpowered weapons and armor (helping you but kinda breaking the game but fuck it, I don’t care) to special outfits I’m not sure you can unlock in game to being able to summon Epona and Wolf Link (though Wolf Link disappears if you fast travel, RIP sadly). Also collecting Korok Seeds and bringing them to a certain NPC will expand your inventory to include more Bows, Shields and weapon slots but if you attempt to bring the guy EVERY seed on the map you will get…special Korok poop as a gag reward? There’s lots of rewards for doing every shrine or certain collectible tasks so keep an eye out for that I suppose.
To finally finish this section, I’m going to bring up the DLC gameplay wise and ask the question: Is it worth the money? Well it really depends. Most of it is just DLC outfits (IGN guide link below) that may or may not give certain benefits cosmetic wise but sure as hell look cool and require going through steps to get some of them, referencing the past like Dark Link, having the titular mask from Majora’s Mask, etc. Overall, this stuff wasn’t bad, and felt decent enough for the most part collecting, with even the tie in quest to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 delivering some gear if that’s really your thing. However, the two main DLC quests are the Champion Ballads and the Master Sword Trials; I’ll start by saying that the Champion Ballads, whilst difficult, is doable and I actually managed to finish it twice, once for me and once for my home E, Wrathne. Honestly the most difficult parts in this DLC, only playable after getting all the divine beasts, are the first area with the instant kill but you can instantly die section, fighting the Molduga for one of the Gerudo trials, and the final Divine Beast. Overall however, it’s really just more puzzle trials and in exchange you get the ability to use your Divine Powers (unlocked from beating the Divine Beasts in the first place) and when you beat the final boss, you get ... a motorcycle? I mean I won’t complain, it’s a lot faster than your horse but in order to fuel it you have to feed it monster parts or something which is cool. The master sword trials on the other hand? If you had made your way through the Lost Woods next to the volcano region, and solved your way into the forest, while also having thirteen hearts or more to pull the Master Sword out of the ground (which in itself is a good weapon to have as with the weapon destruction, most will disappear but this one only goes temporarily once used up and comes back later) then you’ll unlock this trial. Put it back into the slot and you’ll be asked to go through 50 or so rooms of combat with absolutely nothing but what you can scrape up out of the rooms, and let me tell you this. Fuck no, I tried once but if you’re into everything being difficult then you’ll love this because you cannot save except every once in a while according to the guides and if you die? Game over, start from the very beginning and lose all your progress. What’s the reward for this? Your master sword apparently goes from 30 damage to 60 damage. Cool, but not worth my time in my opinion; but if you’re resilient enough and want to try it out god bless.
The plot is a rather simple one, but complex in the background. In the Zelda timeline, which has been hypothesized by fans around the world as to what game takes place in what timeline and how/when (which was later ironed out and released by Nintendo into an official timeline between three separate ones), this game takes place after all three of them merge. In fact, this game takes place millenia after those three timelines, longer than 10,000 years or so and long enough that machinery like Guardians (made by some race called the Sheikah) used to roam the kingdom apparently so if you’re wondering if you really need to know the older games to know this one, you don’t. Little mentions will pop up as an “Ayy I know this” moment here and there but it’s not at all a big forefront which is good for me because I hate trying to catch up sometimes.
Regardless, again you play as Link as you wake up in an area called the Shrine of Resurrection on the Great Plateau, a floating piece of land around 100 years after a mysterious event named “The Calamity” brushed through the kingdom. Link wakes up not knowing what the hell is going on, and kind of roams around until an old hunter gives him tips and tells him to unlock some shrines in exchange for a glider to get out of the area. However, after you do all of this a part of the backstory is revealed: This old hunter is actually the former king of Hyrule, King Rhoam, also Zelda’s father who reveals that this Calamity (or Calamity Ganon) was prophesied to come back and in preparation, the Kingdom brought about four champions (from the Zora, Rito, Gorons and Gerudo races), as well as unlocking some magical force within his daughter and hiring you to protect her at all times in order to help seal away this great evil. However, bad shit happens and Calamity Ganon wakes up real early causing some apocalyptic event; all the champions get slayed, Link nearly gets murked and Zelda stays within Hyrule Castle to fight against Ganon’s influence for the next hundred or so years. Rhoam tells you to meet up with Impa, a Sheikah elder who is supposed to give you the next clue on what to do, and if you follow this, then she’ll tell you that you need to salvage the Divine Beasts from their corruption and use it to weakon Ganon in its state. Truthfully that’s kind of it for the basic plot, you could choose to go straight to Ganon and fight or you can put in the effort to weaken him (getting involved in hijinks like cross dressing to infiltrate Gerudo Town, a place known for its aversion to males as Ganon always comes back as a Gerudo), and if you follow the Captured Memories you can get a post credits scene which I’ll describe here in a bit.
Before going into the final section, I would highly recommend going after the Captured Memories, as they not only unlock more of the backstory but they really flesh everyone out and feel impactful as a result, specifically in the relationship between Zelda and Link. They are fucking adorable here, and even though Link is a silent protagonist I can actually feel how their fondness for each other grows, how they take care of each other, and how Zelda is a likeable doofus who not only has self doubts about her importance in the fight against Ganon but also how she tries to get Link to eat a frog. I’m not sure if there’s a lot of ways I can truly describe everything but the characters in this game are charming and have their own unique personalities, I personally believe that this is Zelda’s story of not only overcoming adversity but becoming more than just what other people tell you that you should be.
Regardless you can go to the Lost Forest and take the Master Sword, but after potentially activating the Divine Beasts back, Link goes to confront Ganon once and for all in the ruins of Hyrule castle surrounded by corrupted guardians and weird goblin looking bodyguards. After Ganon is defeated, he transforms into Dark Beast Ganon and races out of the castle to try to destroy everything. However, Zelda gives him “The Bow of Light” or something and after hitting Ganon in certain spots, the evil is vanquished and the spirits of the King/the Champions disperse, leaving Zelda and Link to rebuild the future of Hyrule.
If you did the Captured Memories, you get a post credits scene not only showing Zelda declaring the rebuilding of the kingdom, and the presence of the rare blue flower, the Silent Princess shows up in a field, one that Zelda has been trying to preserve for the longest time. I only noticed this little detail after Wrathne pointed it out as another character building moment, one that I interpreted as Zelda finally coming to grips with her future, her place in it, as well as confidence in herself to fulfill her goals. Again I’m not an intellectual, so I’m sure I could’ve said it a lot better or in a much more cohesive way, and if someone describes it in a way that’s better I might update this section, or I might not. Either way, to finish off the story section, I like it a lot; there’s a lot of emotional vulnerability in its simplicity, there’s no complicated web of lies or conspiracies or whatever but it’s a journey about overcoming your obstacles and it goes to show how simplicity can really work in a game’s favor. There’s a lot of heart, and truth be told the plot and the remaining atmosphere were the main reasons that I stuck to the game, even if it sort of blended in meta narratively with the gameplay (which I felt was way too much of a struggle sometimes).
The shortest section, as always, will be the Art Direction/Soundtrack/everything else involved in the game. The art direction is great, Hyrule is varied in it’s landscapes from it’s beautiful and windy grasslands, to it’s hostile and cold mountains (my favorite being the creepy Lost Woods and that freaky fucking tree), everything in this world is unique in its design and its effect on it’s gameplay and while I don’t want to break out fancy terms like “IT FEELS LIKE A LIVEABLE AND BREATHABLE WORLD” and whatever nonsensical shit everyone likes to throw out there it does make it memorable, which when mixed in with the Shadow of the Colossus-like atmosphere it’s pretty good. Keep in mind that’s not for everyone, one of my coworkers thought it was a worse version of Shadow of the Colossus but I didn’t truly mind this aspect as it kind of fit, though the emptyish open world can be kind of lacking sometimes. I’m not sure how to describe my feelings there, but I’d say it’s mostly positive; however when you do see people it’s quite hilarious because according to a Twitter post (or X post? I don’t fucking know anymore) from someone, every NPC in the game is built off of custom Mii’s, which is hilarious and I didn’t notice until someone pointed it out after hacking Tears of the Kingdom (which uses a lot of the same systems that this game does). Also to finish off this section, having played the series fully for the first time, I didn’t know races like the Rito or the Zora were in the other games but without knowing that each one provides their own interesting culture pieces that make them unique and interesting.
So overall, the art direction and world design are pretty solid on my end, though I kind of flutter around on the NPC scarcity sometimes but I feel in due time I’ll probably forget about that entirely, the sound design is where I feel like I have the most issues. Not with the voice acting or lack thereof, not in the actual weapon sounds, not in the soundtrack or even most things; as always the sound design is amazing but my actual issue with it is that I wish there was more of it. Granted you don’t need to constantly repeat the same Zelda theme over and over again, but by god I wish there was more music other than two memorable ones (other than the Zelda theme is the Revali theme, which I only heard sampled by a guy named JuneJissle as a beat remix, will post in links). I’m not Anthony Fantano so I can’t really sit here and describe to you the music stuff and the instruments, nor am I some fucking Picasso artsy guy, but if you’re worried this game won’t have interesting stuff in this regard than you won’t have to worry about this section. It’s not going to be some hyper realistic graphical set piece but it’s unique in its own design in a way that only Legend of Zelda can do and for the most part that’s all you really need. As such, the composers Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata and Hajime Wakai did a great job making their ambient piano pieces for the game.
So to wrap up on what happened after the game got released/final thoughts; Breath of the Wild was one of those games that shook the world when it first released, and influenced everything from Genshin Impact to Elden Ring, bringing the whole “Dark Souls for Kids” thing back to full circle. This game is the one game I personally believe blew the switch up, and after this game was released there were spin-offs like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (a hack and slash prequel game) to Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (a remake of a 2D gameboy Zelda game) and more to fill in the Zelda gap left between this game and the development of it’s sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (which originally started out as a DLC ala Saints Row 4 before it’s scope demanded it become a sequel). This game would for years to come be one of the greatest games of all time to most everyone; however I’ll state my obvious feelings here. I don’t like this game like everyone else, in fact I feel like this game is just further reinforcing the change in the landscape of gaming in general. It’s not a game for me, I’m an old man shouting at the clouds, I suck at this game and no matter how much I tried to meet the game to its level it just didn’t do it for me. That being said, it’s ok and if you view this game as a 10/10 that’s a totally valid feeling and I’ll respect it, it sits with The Witcher 3 in my regard with this feeling: I can see it but I don’t feel it. However, I will admit that even with this, the game now runs concurrently with a positive memory in my head now: I went overseas to a different country to visit a bunch of my friends and having beaten this game in my friend’s living room I’ll always associate that with my positive memories; however I also tried the sequel in the same friend’s living room and it’s safe to say that whilst I won’t be buying Tears of the Kingdom for a decent amount of time, that it feels a lot better gameplay wise to this game in every way and that I would deem it superior in this regard and would rather recommend that game over this game. I doubt I’ll ever play this game again, maybe I will who knows, but I’m glad that I did give it a try because though the grinding sucks and nowadays it feels like standard open world cookie cutter stuff to a certain degree, I have a strange appreciation for this game, one of respect but general mid feelings for. However, I also heard that this format is how the main series will be going forward for a long time, and if that is the case then I probably won’t be too invested long term because regardless of my Tears of the Kingdom feelings, I haven’t played it long enough to beat it or gain a true opinion on it and the older I get, the less time I have and I don’t want to play more of Breath of the Wild-style gameplay in this way. I don’t know, I guess I’m just having some weird old people mid life crisis at the ripe age of 25 lol. To finalize my thoughts, even though there's a lot of positives, the review was going to be a straight three out of five, but I feel like everything else surrounding the gameplay and even pieces of the gameplay brought it up to a 3 1/2. There will be times where I kind of bounce back and forth mentally between a 3 and a 3 1/2 mark but keep in mind that regardless of my review, again I respect how other people love this game. I guess I'm just an old man screaming at the clouds and this game isn't for me. Who knows maybe I'll like Tears of the Kingdom more, though regardless because of this game I wanna hit up and cover Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on Gamecube as my game of the year for that console just to see how a lot of things differ. So in the meantime, I guess sorry for the paragraphs and I'll see ya later, also final shoutout to Wrathne again for the help you cool as fuck playa.
Links (no pun intended):
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/75175050 (Farming White Chuchu)
https://gamerant.com/botw-fireproof-lizards/ (Farming Fireproof lizards)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Smotherwing_Butterfly (Farming Smotherwing Butterfly)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Great_Fairy_Fountains (Fairy Fountain Locations)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_tOIQv5lWok (Chuchu Farming Location)
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/zelda-breath-of-the-wild-guide-walkthrough/2017/6/1/15723316/botw-shrine-map-location (Shrine Locations)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7P2Lk5A-c64 (Hidden Shrine thing)
https://www.gosunoob.com/zelda-breath-of-wild/heat-lava-resistance-armor/ (Flamebreaker Armor to survive in Volcano Region)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVVcvs1WGlM&ab_channel=OnehandedMan (How to get into Gerudo Town)
https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Gerudo_Secret_Club (Follow this for the Desert Voe outfit, though it’s apparently in Tarrey Town too)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkw9oQeRlE (Hidden Mechanics Video)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Snowball_Bowling (Snowball Bowling)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zCam0cZcU18 (More Snowball Bowling)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=clNEiG3zsqE&pp=ygUZYm90dyBzbm93IGJvd2xpbmcgZmFybWluZw%3D%3D (Even more Snowball Bowling)
https://www.zeldadungeon.net/breath-of-the-wild-walkthrough/hyrule-castle/#c14_5 (Hyrule Castle Walkthrough)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/DLC_Side_Quests (DLC Side Quests)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fvXvQpKBj7Y (Details and Easter Eggs)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6DMevgbyw (More Details and Easter Eggs)
https://www.thegamer.com/legend-zelda-breath-wild-easter-eggs/#lurelin-village-outset-island (Even more Details and Easter Eggs)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NezKA3r8XFA (JuneJissle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFf8rQjFSd4&ab_channel=junejissle (More JuneJissle)
https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/5/22215263/breath-of-the-wild-npcs-are-miis-nintendo-legend-of-zelda-switch (Mii NPCs)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild (For potential stuff I missed)
The Legend of Zelda series is a series that’s well known to pretty much everyone as one of the most famous IPs ever, if you haven’t ever played the games you’ll sure as fuck remember the theme song; but the truth is I’ve always had this nostalgic love for the series though I’ve only ever played the very beginning of Wind Waker on Gamecube loads of times because I didn’t know what else I was doing. Fast Forward I still haven’t played Wind Waker even though I own a copy of that and Skyward Sword for the Wii, when my sister eventually gets a Nintendo Switch for christmas with a bunch of games around the 2017-2018 mark I believe? One of those includes Breath of the Wild, and having heard it was god’s gift to Earth and one of the best video games of all time, and after being badgered to get a switch so I could play games with her, I pick myself up a switch too with Smash Bros Ultimate and Marvel: Ultimate Alliance 3. Though I would play some games every now and then, I didn’t really pick up the Switch much due to my main consoles being the PC and the PS consoles; throughout the years I’d beat Deadly Premonition: Origins and Luigi’s Mansion 3 (two switch games that I still have to write up a review about) along with get a couple of others but I never touched this one because “big open world game, don’t have time”. However, I wanted to knock off at least one game per console this year, and so I decided that this year I would beat this game with the DLC, and it even strengthened further when everybody I knew (including my sister) got Tears of the Kingdom and raved about it. Starting it off was difficult but eventually one of my friends (shoutout to the pimp Wrathne, thank you for your help) backseat gamed my ass and helped me along before I eventually took a trip overseas and finished it in their living room funny enough (didn’t take the trip cause of the game, just something I wanted to do anyways to be honest, though that's why I wasn't able to review it immediately).
So how do I feel about this game? Truth is, very mixed; I like certain aspects of the game and I respect a lot of what it does, and I’ll admit that when it works I end up liking it a bit. However, there’s a lot here that I don’t like, specifically the combat and the gameplay. When you first start off in the Great Plateau, it feels fine. You get used to cooking food, weapons that can break instantly, doing shrines, using your Sheikah slate, climbing your environment, etc. What I can say is that I can certainly see the Shadow of the Colossus stuff with this game, the loneliness as you ride your horse in this big open world that is almost empty save for pockets of survivors and try to survive the post-post apocalypse? Can’t even say at this rate, but for the most part a lot of the stuff works. Cooking and combining ingredients trying to find the best recipe to tackle your next objective is great and these ingredients are in abundance throughout the entirety of Hyrule, shrines for the most part are inoffensive but because I suck at puzzles I break out the guides, I don’t care for the stamina bar (as if you run out of it, whether it’s from flying or swimming you’ll get fucked up and probably die and it feels artificial as hell) while I’m trying to climb towers (which like Far Cry and other games reveals portions of the map) much. However, in this case I’ll say that with both the shrines/towers that one thing I like about this game is that despite these sort of holdbacks, it’s fascinating to see using your tools available that you can conquer them with a bit of ingenuity (for example, I barely upgraded my stamina and got all the towers due to experimentation from climbing nearby mountains in big chunks while taking breaks before gliding down) so it’s nice to see a game that can feel a bit like an immersive sim in regards (don’t shoot me for throwing the term out there please) in the amount of ways you can figure out a solution. However, speaking of the shrines, if you’re not a god in this game already you’re going to need to go out of your way to grind out these puzzle shrines as they not only give you extra loot but they give spirit orbs, and if you get four of these spirit orbs and bring them to a Goddess statue you can choose to upgrade your health or your stamina bar. This will feel like a necessity considering the difficulty curb of the game’s combat and obstacles.
As said earlier, it feels fine when starting off in the tutorial area but once you get the paraglider and fly down? You WILL get fucked up as the difficulty soars in a way that I don’t really like or feels fair. A lot of these enemies can fuck you up, some of them in even one hit due to an arbitrary number next to weapon. Hell in a lot of cases even with these weapons, if you hit them with it, a lot of times it doesn’t feel like they die, like it’s kind of spongy. I don’t really like this practice in a lot of games, as it feels cheap and inconsistent though unlike games like Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey or Borderlands it at least doesn’t throw a bunch of stats and arbitrary numbers in your face via UI (other examples of this is comparing gear ala Horizon or the newest God of Wars) and at least keeps that simple. Regardless though I fucking hate it, not only do I hate this sort of combat style, I actively think it brings the game down in quality. Remember that Dark Souls comparison from earlier? I don’t mean it in the sense that “Ohh game is difficult compare to Dark Souls hahaha” but like it feels like it could be straight out of it from the lock on, to the boss meters, I don’t know how to explain it because I’m a plebian but it feels like it’s there, and whilst I play the Soulsborne games and love them, I’m not interested in a Zelda Souls game (though obviously I’m ok with there being strategies to actually fight these guys/weaknesses and such, I just don’t like their damage output). Regardless though it’s here, and you can find yourself getting outnumbered and outgunned pretty quickly so upgrading your health/stamina feels like a necessity in order to even stand a chance at the beginning of the game. This leads into another personal thing I don’t always really care for, I don’t care for grinding and I don’t feel like it should be a necessity to actually get anything done; this will be the majority of your game time as you go around and grind out these shrines or ingredients (which aren’t just needed for cooking, but if you want to stand a chance in the Volcano, Desert or Cold regions you will need to upgrade certain outfits as the divine beasts are in these areas and your health will plummet really fast if you don’t get these outfits or eat large portions of food every couple of seconds). You can also do side quests for rewards (like rupees), but I found the majority that I saw of these are basic fetch quests with no real substance to them so I avoided them (though I like that you don’t need to do them at all for some arbitrary level up bullshit so again, thank you Nintendo for not being like Ubisoft and their recent output). However, I decided to take the easy route and instead just grind out Snowball Bowling, which you get 300 rupees for every strike and let me tell you something, grinding this out isn’t fun either though I can’t really blame anyone but myself I suppose for wanting to get quick cash to buy outfits needed to survive and by the end of it I really wanted to curb stomp Pondo for his what should be legalized gambling scheme.
To upgrade these outfits (which by the way I only found out they exist from my buddy Wrathne, shoutout to you for backseat gaming and making my experience actually playable and less frustrating), you’ll need to find and unlock all four fairy fountains, which not only provide you with instant revives in case you die (collecting the fairies surrounding the fountain I mean) but also unlocking these shrines can have them upgrade the stats of your armor so you stand more of a chance of not dying. Again, it’s a lot of grinding and frustrating, arbitrary steps that I feel that I shouldn’t need to take just to survive. For some people, this loop is great and I respect that; however it’s not something I enjoy. I’m going to post links to some grinding stuff that I found, as well as outfit locations down below but my final thought on this is how the fuck was I supposed to know these things exist without getting help? That actually frustrated me, I understand it’s an open world, but either I missed out on the clues for these outfits entirely or there is nothing and other than potentially wasting hundreds of hours figuring out the solution (of which I don’t have the time), I’d prefer if somehow someone just gave a vague hint of “oh you’ll need something to wear in order to survive up in certain climates, maybe this place has something?”, or maybe I’m just dumb and I need handholding or something but again if I didn’t have a backseat gamer I would’ve been stuck and frustrated.
The next thing I want to point out that I don’t care for are the Divine Beasts, especially the one in Gerudo Town (the one I surprisingly did first, also the most difficult) due to their overly complicated puzzle nature that I can’t figure out in the slightest but other ten year olds can (which I’m not hating, I think it’s amazing that kids can beat this stuff to be honest). For me, Gerudo one was just a giant cluster fuck of dislike from me, from the annoying sand seal chase to the puzzle to the actual final boss; for the chase it feels like a frustrating balancing act in which I either overshoot the circle going too fast or I’m not fast enough and it’s a pain in the ass balancing this and aiming for the beast’s legs. Keep in mind, I’m also an old man shouting at the clouds I guess so if you like it that’s ok, but these are all kind of annoying to deal with though the others are easier in scale. So what are Divine Beasts used for? Well, if you complete all four then you lower the final boss’s health down to half and make the final fight in the game a lot easier to manage, and that’s another point I’ll give the game credit for.
You don’t have to put in all this work, you can get booty stomped on the way out sure but you can literally go straight from the tutorial to the final boss of the game at Hyrule Castle and duke it out if you really know what you’re doing. It’s a strange thing, I don’t care about the gameplay for the most part but as much as I roll my eyes at “Expansive open worlds” the amount of freedom in this is insane, as well as the amount of details that I both know as well as know that I missed. In fact, the level of detail can be frustrating sometimes, like lightning effects while there’s rain can destroy you if you wear anything metal from weapons/shields (which I only discovered defending myself from a Yiga assassin in a lightning storm..) to trying to use a bomb arrow in the volcano region will just result in you blowing yourself up instantly due to the hostile temperatures. In fact, for this note I specifically wrote down “Fuck the lightning shit, that can suck my dick”, because it got rather frustrating sometimes. In fact, trying to remember each and every little thing to write up this review is impossible, so I want to apologize in advance for missing both probably basic shit that I will miss, because this game is so massive in scope that it’s baffling. In fact, before I finish on my DLC thoughts, my feelings on weapon degradation? I didn’t hate it in Far Cry 2, and generally I don’t have a problem with it like other people though if you do, that’s perfectly ok. I also missed out talking about the horses and the Amiibo functionality; horses you can find in the wild and if you sneak up on them and tame them, then bring it back to a nearby stable you can name it and bond with it as well as call them nearby, and if you have the right Amiibo functionality (or if you’re like Wrathne and just bought cards) then you can use them once per day to unlock anything from extra food/materials to overpowered weapons and armor (helping you but kinda breaking the game but fuck it, I don’t care) to special outfits I’m not sure you can unlock in game to being able to summon Epona and Wolf Link (though Wolf Link disappears if you fast travel, RIP sadly). Also collecting Korok Seeds and bringing them to a certain NPC will expand your inventory to include more Bows, Shields and weapon slots but if you attempt to bring the guy EVERY seed on the map you will get…special Korok poop as a gag reward? There’s lots of rewards for doing every shrine or certain collectible tasks so keep an eye out for that I suppose.
To finally finish this section, I’m going to bring up the DLC gameplay wise and ask the question: Is it worth the money? Well it really depends. Most of it is just DLC outfits (IGN guide link below) that may or may not give certain benefits cosmetic wise but sure as hell look cool and require going through steps to get some of them, referencing the past like Dark Link, having the titular mask from Majora’s Mask, etc. Overall, this stuff wasn’t bad, and felt decent enough for the most part collecting, with even the tie in quest to Xenoblade Chronicles 2 delivering some gear if that’s really your thing. However, the two main DLC quests are the Champion Ballads and the Master Sword Trials; I’ll start by saying that the Champion Ballads, whilst difficult, is doable and I actually managed to finish it twice, once for me and once for my home E, Wrathne. Honestly the most difficult parts in this DLC, only playable after getting all the divine beasts, are the first area with the instant kill but you can instantly die section, fighting the Molduga for one of the Gerudo trials, and the final Divine Beast. Overall however, it’s really just more puzzle trials and in exchange you get the ability to use your Divine Powers (unlocked from beating the Divine Beasts in the first place) and when you beat the final boss, you get ... a motorcycle? I mean I won’t complain, it’s a lot faster than your horse but in order to fuel it you have to feed it monster parts or something which is cool. The master sword trials on the other hand? If you had made your way through the Lost Woods next to the volcano region, and solved your way into the forest, while also having thirteen hearts or more to pull the Master Sword out of the ground (which in itself is a good weapon to have as with the weapon destruction, most will disappear but this one only goes temporarily once used up and comes back later) then you’ll unlock this trial. Put it back into the slot and you’ll be asked to go through 50 or so rooms of combat with absolutely nothing but what you can scrape up out of the rooms, and let me tell you this. Fuck no, I tried once but if you’re into everything being difficult then you’ll love this because you cannot save except every once in a while according to the guides and if you die? Game over, start from the very beginning and lose all your progress. What’s the reward for this? Your master sword apparently goes from 30 damage to 60 damage. Cool, but not worth my time in my opinion; but if you’re resilient enough and want to try it out god bless.
The plot is a rather simple one, but complex in the background. In the Zelda timeline, which has been hypothesized by fans around the world as to what game takes place in what timeline and how/when (which was later ironed out and released by Nintendo into an official timeline between three separate ones), this game takes place after all three of them merge. In fact, this game takes place millenia after those three timelines, longer than 10,000 years or so and long enough that machinery like Guardians (made by some race called the Sheikah) used to roam the kingdom apparently so if you’re wondering if you really need to know the older games to know this one, you don’t. Little mentions will pop up as an “Ayy I know this” moment here and there but it’s not at all a big forefront which is good for me because I hate trying to catch up sometimes.
Regardless, again you play as Link as you wake up in an area called the Shrine of Resurrection on the Great Plateau, a floating piece of land around 100 years after a mysterious event named “The Calamity” brushed through the kingdom. Link wakes up not knowing what the hell is going on, and kind of roams around until an old hunter gives him tips and tells him to unlock some shrines in exchange for a glider to get out of the area. However, after you do all of this a part of the backstory is revealed: This old hunter is actually the former king of Hyrule, King Rhoam, also Zelda’s father who reveals that this Calamity (or Calamity Ganon) was prophesied to come back and in preparation, the Kingdom brought about four champions (from the Zora, Rito, Gorons and Gerudo races), as well as unlocking some magical force within his daughter and hiring you to protect her at all times in order to help seal away this great evil. However, bad shit happens and Calamity Ganon wakes up real early causing some apocalyptic event; all the champions get slayed, Link nearly gets murked and Zelda stays within Hyrule Castle to fight against Ganon’s influence for the next hundred or so years. Rhoam tells you to meet up with Impa, a Sheikah elder who is supposed to give you the next clue on what to do, and if you follow this, then she’ll tell you that you need to salvage the Divine Beasts from their corruption and use it to weakon Ganon in its state. Truthfully that’s kind of it for the basic plot, you could choose to go straight to Ganon and fight or you can put in the effort to weaken him (getting involved in hijinks like cross dressing to infiltrate Gerudo Town, a place known for its aversion to males as Ganon always comes back as a Gerudo), and if you follow the Captured Memories you can get a post credits scene which I’ll describe here in a bit.
Before going into the final section, I would highly recommend going after the Captured Memories, as they not only unlock more of the backstory but they really flesh everyone out and feel impactful as a result, specifically in the relationship between Zelda and Link. They are fucking adorable here, and even though Link is a silent protagonist I can actually feel how their fondness for each other grows, how they take care of each other, and how Zelda is a likeable doofus who not only has self doubts about her importance in the fight against Ganon but also how she tries to get Link to eat a frog. I’m not sure if there’s a lot of ways I can truly describe everything but the characters in this game are charming and have their own unique personalities, I personally believe that this is Zelda’s story of not only overcoming adversity but becoming more than just what other people tell you that you should be.
Regardless you can go to the Lost Forest and take the Master Sword, but after potentially activating the Divine Beasts back, Link goes to confront Ganon once and for all in the ruins of Hyrule castle surrounded by corrupted guardians and weird goblin looking bodyguards. After Ganon is defeated, he transforms into Dark Beast Ganon and races out of the castle to try to destroy everything. However, Zelda gives him “The Bow of Light” or something and after hitting Ganon in certain spots, the evil is vanquished and the spirits of the King/the Champions disperse, leaving Zelda and Link to rebuild the future of Hyrule.
If you did the Captured Memories, you get a post credits scene not only showing Zelda declaring the rebuilding of the kingdom, and the presence of the rare blue flower, the Silent Princess shows up in a field, one that Zelda has been trying to preserve for the longest time. I only noticed this little detail after Wrathne pointed it out as another character building moment, one that I interpreted as Zelda finally coming to grips with her future, her place in it, as well as confidence in herself to fulfill her goals. Again I’m not an intellectual, so I’m sure I could’ve said it a lot better or in a much more cohesive way, and if someone describes it in a way that’s better I might update this section, or I might not. Either way, to finish off the story section, I like it a lot; there’s a lot of emotional vulnerability in its simplicity, there’s no complicated web of lies or conspiracies or whatever but it’s a journey about overcoming your obstacles and it goes to show how simplicity can really work in a game’s favor. There’s a lot of heart, and truth be told the plot and the remaining atmosphere were the main reasons that I stuck to the game, even if it sort of blended in meta narratively with the gameplay (which I felt was way too much of a struggle sometimes).
The shortest section, as always, will be the Art Direction/Soundtrack/everything else involved in the game. The art direction is great, Hyrule is varied in it’s landscapes from it’s beautiful and windy grasslands, to it’s hostile and cold mountains (my favorite being the creepy Lost Woods and that freaky fucking tree), everything in this world is unique in its design and its effect on it’s gameplay and while I don’t want to break out fancy terms like “IT FEELS LIKE A LIVEABLE AND BREATHABLE WORLD” and whatever nonsensical shit everyone likes to throw out there it does make it memorable, which when mixed in with the Shadow of the Colossus-like atmosphere it’s pretty good. Keep in mind that’s not for everyone, one of my coworkers thought it was a worse version of Shadow of the Colossus but I didn’t truly mind this aspect as it kind of fit, though the emptyish open world can be kind of lacking sometimes. I’m not sure how to describe my feelings there, but I’d say it’s mostly positive; however when you do see people it’s quite hilarious because according to a Twitter post (or X post? I don’t fucking know anymore) from someone, every NPC in the game is built off of custom Mii’s, which is hilarious and I didn’t notice until someone pointed it out after hacking Tears of the Kingdom (which uses a lot of the same systems that this game does). Also to finish off this section, having played the series fully for the first time, I didn’t know races like the Rito or the Zora were in the other games but without knowing that each one provides their own interesting culture pieces that make them unique and interesting.
So overall, the art direction and world design are pretty solid on my end, though I kind of flutter around on the NPC scarcity sometimes but I feel in due time I’ll probably forget about that entirely, the sound design is where I feel like I have the most issues. Not with the voice acting or lack thereof, not in the actual weapon sounds, not in the soundtrack or even most things; as always the sound design is amazing but my actual issue with it is that I wish there was more of it. Granted you don’t need to constantly repeat the same Zelda theme over and over again, but by god I wish there was more music other than two memorable ones (other than the Zelda theme is the Revali theme, which I only heard sampled by a guy named JuneJissle as a beat remix, will post in links). I’m not Anthony Fantano so I can’t really sit here and describe to you the music stuff and the instruments, nor am I some fucking Picasso artsy guy, but if you’re worried this game won’t have interesting stuff in this regard than you won’t have to worry about this section. It’s not going to be some hyper realistic graphical set piece but it’s unique in its own design in a way that only Legend of Zelda can do and for the most part that’s all you really need. As such, the composers Manaka Kataoka, Yasuaki Iwata and Hajime Wakai did a great job making their ambient piano pieces for the game.
So to wrap up on what happened after the game got released/final thoughts; Breath of the Wild was one of those games that shook the world when it first released, and influenced everything from Genshin Impact to Elden Ring, bringing the whole “Dark Souls for Kids” thing back to full circle. This game is the one game I personally believe blew the switch up, and after this game was released there were spin-offs like Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity (a hack and slash prequel game) to Legend of Zelda: Link’s Awakening (a remake of a 2D gameboy Zelda game) and more to fill in the Zelda gap left between this game and the development of it’s sequel, Tears of the Kingdom (which originally started out as a DLC ala Saints Row 4 before it’s scope demanded it become a sequel). This game would for years to come be one of the greatest games of all time to most everyone; however I’ll state my obvious feelings here. I don’t like this game like everyone else, in fact I feel like this game is just further reinforcing the change in the landscape of gaming in general. It’s not a game for me, I’m an old man shouting at the clouds, I suck at this game and no matter how much I tried to meet the game to its level it just didn’t do it for me. That being said, it’s ok and if you view this game as a 10/10 that’s a totally valid feeling and I’ll respect it, it sits with The Witcher 3 in my regard with this feeling: I can see it but I don’t feel it. However, I will admit that even with this, the game now runs concurrently with a positive memory in my head now: I went overseas to a different country to visit a bunch of my friends and having beaten this game in my friend’s living room I’ll always associate that with my positive memories; however I also tried the sequel in the same friend’s living room and it’s safe to say that whilst I won’t be buying Tears of the Kingdom for a decent amount of time, that it feels a lot better gameplay wise to this game in every way and that I would deem it superior in this regard and would rather recommend that game over this game. I doubt I’ll ever play this game again, maybe I will who knows, but I’m glad that I did give it a try because though the grinding sucks and nowadays it feels like standard open world cookie cutter stuff to a certain degree, I have a strange appreciation for this game, one of respect but general mid feelings for. However, I also heard that this format is how the main series will be going forward for a long time, and if that is the case then I probably won’t be too invested long term because regardless of my Tears of the Kingdom feelings, I haven’t played it long enough to beat it or gain a true opinion on it and the older I get, the less time I have and I don’t want to play more of Breath of the Wild-style gameplay in this way. I don’t know, I guess I’m just having some weird old people mid life crisis at the ripe age of 25 lol. To finalize my thoughts, even though there's a lot of positives, the review was going to be a straight three out of five, but I feel like everything else surrounding the gameplay and even pieces of the gameplay brought it up to a 3 1/2. There will be times where I kind of bounce back and forth mentally between a 3 and a 3 1/2 mark but keep in mind that regardless of my review, again I respect how other people love this game. I guess I'm just an old man screaming at the clouds and this game isn't for me. Who knows maybe I'll like Tears of the Kingdom more, though regardless because of this game I wanna hit up and cover Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker on Gamecube as my game of the year for that console just to see how a lot of things differ. So in the meantime, I guess sorry for the paragraphs and I'll see ya later, also final shoutout to Wrathne again for the help you cool as fuck playa.
Links (no pun intended):
https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/189707-the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/75175050 (Farming White Chuchu)
https://gamerant.com/botw-fireproof-lizards/ (Farming Fireproof lizards)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Smotherwing_Butterfly (Farming Smotherwing Butterfly)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Great_Fairy_Fountains (Fairy Fountain Locations)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=_tOIQv5lWok (Chuchu Farming Location)
https://www.polygon.com/platform/amp/zelda-breath-of-the-wild-guide-walkthrough/2017/6/1/15723316/botw-shrine-map-location (Shrine Locations)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7P2Lk5A-c64 (Hidden Shrine thing)
https://www.gosunoob.com/zelda-breath-of-wild/heat-lava-resistance-armor/ (Flamebreaker Armor to survive in Volcano Region)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pVVcvs1WGlM&ab_channel=OnehandedMan (How to get into Gerudo Town)
https://zelda.fandom.com/wiki/Gerudo_Secret_Club (Follow this for the Desert Voe outfit, though it’s apparently in Tarrey Town too)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=jtkw9oQeRlE (Hidden Mechanics Video)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/Snowball_Bowling (Snowball Bowling)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zCam0cZcU18 (More Snowball Bowling)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=clNEiG3zsqE&pp=ygUZYm90dyBzbm93IGJvd2xpbmcgZmFybWluZw%3D%3D (Even more Snowball Bowling)
https://www.zeldadungeon.net/breath-of-the-wild-walkthrough/hyrule-castle/#c14_5 (Hyrule Castle Walkthrough)
https://www.ign.com/wikis/the-legend-of-zelda-breath-of-the-wild/DLC_Side_Quests (DLC Side Quests)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=fvXvQpKBj7Y (Details and Easter Eggs)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=7p6DMevgbyw (More Details and Easter Eggs)
https://www.thegamer.com/legend-zelda-breath-wild-easter-eggs/#lurelin-village-outset-island (Even more Details and Easter Eggs)
https://www.youtube.com/shorts/NezKA3r8XFA (JuneJissle)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YFf8rQjFSd4&ab_channel=junejissle (More JuneJissle)
https://www.polygon.com/2021/1/5/22215263/breath-of-the-wild-npcs-are-miis-nintendo-legend-of-zelda-switch (Mii NPCs)
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TheLegendOfZeldaBreathOfTheWild (For potential stuff I missed)
This review contains spoilers
Uncharted: Golden Abyss is a prequel developed by Bend Studio as a Playstation Vita exclusive released in early 2012, showcasing an adventure that happened before the first Uncharted game. Now I don’t know too much about this game except a couple of things: it was directed by John Garvin (of Days Gone fame), it contains the most PS Vita motion controls of all the exclusives (that I’m aware) and that it remains an exclusive to the PS Vita after Bluepoint apparently left it out of The Nathan Drake Collection due to the lack of narrative connection to the original Uncharted trilogy. I’m not 100 percent sure how true that is but AGAIN it’s a goddamn shame, as the game deserves better as it’s actually a pretty decent title despite all of the Vita gimmicks. Again, the game needs to be remastered or ported, or if everyone and their grandmother is going to go on about remakes, why not remake this so that the gimmick controls (of which there are many) aren’t hard to map on the PS4/5 controllers. I’m gonna head straight to the gameplay here, because it’s the most jarring part of the entire game.
Where the gameplay section of the review is going to begin is the constant PS Vita mechanic tie in. Dear god, the amount of interactivity is insane and in a lot of cases are both annoying as fuck and pretty ingenius. For example, some of the ones I don’t like: in Chapter 11, you end up sliding down a river and in order to dodge the rocks you have to move your actual PS Vita left and right which can be a pain in the ass depending on your difficulty and your reaction time; it doesn’t really feel great to do and only gets worse the higher the difficulty is as you could die instantly and restart from the top of the river again. Trying to aim your guns and your camera can also be annoying to do as you’ll try to aim for an enemy (or take a picture with the camera for the collectible stuff) and you PS Vita actually moves the motion controls in game which I always found to be annoying even if it was only a tad bit and I would constantly have to fiddle around to make sure I got the shot just right. Try to pick up certain weapons or collectibles and you touch the screen in the wrong area and you’ll end up jumping upon a nearby ledge or something. Another thing I don’t appreciate is that the higher the difficulty the harder it is to do the onscreen QTEs, which get especially annoying during the final two boss battles against the main antagonists. However, that being said I don’t really hate the Vita gimmicks, I understand as a console launch for the game that you kind of have to show what the Vita is made of and Uncharted is a popular franchise to get people to play it; it’s just there are times where it can get annoying. However, there are interesting ways in how it does its stuff; I appreciate how easy it can be to do the climbing now as you can flick your finger across the screen to certain parts and Nathan will just automatically move and jump to where you want. It’s not always perfect mind you, but it’s nice for those who feel the Vita console is a bit stocky in terms of holding and you don’t wanna press the buttons all the time. I also appreciate how with certain clues/collectibles you use your fingers to solve the puzzles or clean off certain artifacts; and in another strange way I also like how during one of the cutscene chapters you need to hold your Vita underneath a light source in order to illuminate a puzzle. That being said though, I feel like while this is cool and all it can be kind of eye rolling after a while, a bit much and in the idea of a future port (which I doubt will ever come about) for the game will be a bit of a problem unless they just edit or cut out certain parts or alternatively remake it possibly.
As for the actual gameplay itself minus the Vita gimmicks? It’s not bad, it’s basically the same as all the other Uncharted games; you pick up weapons, shoot goons and race for treasure (which they all tie into some sort of card game app called Uncharted: Fight for Fortune….which I’m pretty sure is dead or canceled so don’t even worry about that, though if you could earn these cards IN those games I wouldn’t even suggest it) as you pick stuff up (optionally with a really cheap treasure map DLC which tells you the approximate location of every treasure or just go the smart/cheap route and use a Youtube guide) and exchange witty banter. The controls (minus the gimmicks) are straight up like the Uncharted games on console, which is a good thing, especially when pared down on a small console which can feel sort of weird but I think Golden Abyss manages to pull that off well. Only issue I really had was that I had to turn up the actual turn speed for myself a bit because I couldn’t aim for people fast enough at first, though it was later turned down a tad bit. For the trophies, grinding out the treasures by killing people on the hardest difficulty was kind of a pain in the ass though mostly in Chapters 2-3 as you could only really get those treasures by killing armed goons and there aren’t much in the way of goons so I had to grind for them when I first met Chase. Other notable things I want to mention is that in certain places I’ll try to climb up and it’ll kick me back down to the ledge I was at so I had to climb back up again as a sort of strange glitch, but that was kind of a rarity I didn’t experience in my second playthrough on Crushing. That’s another thing, though there are parts where I wanted to call the game a stupid asshole for their enemy placements, the harder difficulties in this game aren’t actually THAT bad minus a few things so I feel the Crushing trophy if that’s what you’re going for is for the most part obtainable. One of the worst spots I’ve had to deal with however was in Chapter 26, after Sully breaks his leg he decides to be the biggest fucking moron and just charge the enemies, which is a problem considering you’re in a small area and they have weapons/grenades that’ll eviscerate you AND you have to protect him. It’s only a small section but I still loathed going into that small section more than the QTE boss fights. Also, in Chapter 29 there’s a glitch where enemies can despawn in front of your eyes if you run back to get ammo instead of pushing forward, breaking that section because enemies spawn behind a bridge and you need them in order for the bridge to fall down so keep that in mind. Lastly, to finish it off before transferring to the story mode: this is the first and only Uncharted game that I’ve seen Nathan Drake be able to pick up a fucking minigun and it’s hilarious as hell to see this guy pick up something that not even five bodybuilders could wield like that.
The plot follows Nathan Drake before the event of the first Uncharted game, taking on a job for one Jason Dante to investigate some old ruins next to a Uranium mining company site with his partner, Marisa Chase. At the site, they find evidence of Spanish travelers who have been searching for an ancient city: Quivera, the city of gold. Partnering up with Chase after things go haywire due to Dante’s dealings with revolutionary general and former dictator Roberto Guerro, which later involves being kidnapped and brought to Guerro’s prison camp before they escape. After a bit of bonding, Chase reveals to Nathan that her grandfather spent his life researching the ancient city and the Quiveran civilization, and they escape from the camp with a betrayal from Dante. They use both the amulet and Chase’s grandfather’s research and are able to find a Sete Cidades (an old christian sect dedicated to finding these cities of gold) retreat in a different old tomb. Climbing through, they find the Sword of Stephen (which has a series of pieces that Nathan charcoal rubs onto some paper) as well as the corpse of Chase’s grandfather, originally held by the guide to the group with evidence that the leader, De Niza, misled spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado. Dante shows up to take this sword, only for Guerro to betray him while kidnapping Chase. After chasing them through the tomb, they get away with Chase, while Nathan and Dante argue over Dante’s greed and tell Nathan to “run back to Sully”. Nathan does indeed run back to Sully for help, and they find the location of a temple believed to hold the ancient city of Quivera; and they both shoot through loads of Guerro’s men along with mercenaries that Dante hired. Soon, Nathan infiltrates the ancient city and rescues Chase from Guerro’s men before delving deeper into the city to find the frightening corpses of old Quiverans. Thinking it might be a birth defect at first, they go further into the city only to learn that the city of gold was build next to a Uranium deposit, actively making it radioactive and untouchable, with De Niza having turned out to kill Esteban (his guide) and the others and misled Coronado so that no one could get their hands on this “cursed gold”. Dante arrives, intending on following his greed and selling the gold regardless of who dies and after a painful QTE, he’s left behind in the city to get sealed in. Marisa and Nathan go to activate explosives right outside the city and proceed to bring down nearly the entire cavern and after fighting through more goons, Nathan brings down Guerro in another QTE before saving Chase from death and then being saved themselves by Sully before Nathan/Chase consummate their relationship and move on from the adventure.
So far, the story feels to be standard fare but I still find it to be more interesting both character and plot wise than Drake’s Fortune would be. It’s not the greatest, it’s kind of average but it still has some stuff that compelled me; the first thing that popped into my mind is the radioactive gold city, which I felt was pretty good foreshadowing on the game’s end with all the uranium mining subplot. A lot of the lore you can also find in the background with the collectibles, which unlike the other Uncharted games are actually a lot better because they give contextual clues to the actual mystery at hand if you’re looking for extra story to connect pieces together. I also enjoyed that piece of twist because it wasn’t like what the other three games in the original trilogy did, which was mainly just mixing supernatural creatures into the mix and instead providing something a bit more grounded in reality, and with a twist I didn’t expect. There’s interesting character development for Nathan too who goes from a standard “treasure hunter loot guy” to someone who actually cares about the historical finds and such which is in turn spurred on by Chase. This segways into my feelings about the supporting cast: Chase is actually pretty decent and I liked her for the most part, though it’s obvious she’s a stand-in for Elena that won’t ever be brought up again (aside from a sticky note reference in Uncharted 4) and since this is a prequel I preemptively knew that she wasn’t really gonna pop back up ever again after this game. The two main antagonists are entertaining and memorable enough, they’re not Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 or Rafe from Uncharted 4 but they’re decent for who they are: stereotypes. Guerro of course plays the dictator general who's trying to gather funds for another revolution (love the military angle though, reminds me of Uncharted: Lost Legacy with that), and he’s overall a basic dick in his goals. The other antagonist is Jason Dante, Nathan’s old buddy who is a stereotypical greedy fucker with an italian accent who wants to gold all to himself and cares only for profit. Of course, Sully is Sully so we’ll always remember him and at the end of the day he’s still going to be entertaining and the banter will be amusing. Other things that come to mind playing this is that there are two memorable gags: one involves “Cutting the ropes'' which Guerro’s men always seems to be fond of doing through most of the game and a gag that plays on Crushing Difficulty, where when you investigate Esteban’s corpse they pop out and jump scare Chase’s actress, who gives everyone shit for being in on it. I’ll post a link down there if you want to see it yourself, but overall again while it’s not the most memorable story I think it’s a lot better than people gave it for despite it’s spin-off nature and some of its plot points.
The graphics for the game looks pretty good, the backgrounds are beautiful and I feel that Bend really tried their best to hone in and make something special for this game. The models looks good, weapon sounds are great (though the Moss 12 fucking sucks to be honest) and overall it’s a package I can’t complain about. The soundtrack is pretty tight even if I swore I heard these tracks from the other earlier Uncharted games (and possibly some new ones), so the whole Uncharted atmosphere is there. Richard McGonaggle and Nolan North are back as Sully and Drake so that’s always nice, and the rest of the cast do their job portraying their characters with Jason Spisak being the outlier here are a hilariously weasel-like Jason Dante, though often times he’s a stereotype of what a Jersey Italian could even be like (he also voiced Marty in Mafia 2 and the punchable Skizzo in Days Gone, another Bend Game, if you’ve heard his voice before). Overall, not too much to complain about in this department, as always.
Final thoughts, is this game good and worth your time? I’d say yes, it is good despite some of its flaws with gameplay motion gimmicks and such, I had a lot of fun with it despite it’s frustrations in certain parts and while I felt coming into it that I was going to be miserable due to the fact I suck at playing handheld game systems without a Switch-style game dock or an actual console port, it’s actually one of the easier games to get into the series for. HOWEVER, actually getting this game nowadays will be expensive; I got my Vita for 250 or so dollars and the game itself for a whopping 50-60 dollars a couple of years ago during COVID when I learned that they were going to be shutting the PS stores for both Vita and PS3, and while that hasn’t happened yet more than likely it will at some point. If you have it in you to pay lots of money for the Vita and the game itself (don’t forget the memory cards for the Vita, which in itself is a good chunk of cash as well), it’s not a bad title and could be considered one of the best Vita exclusives along with Killzone: Mercenary (frustrations with corrupted saves aside). That being said however, I’m going to HARP on this hard: this game needs a remaster or a remake or something. I don’t care that it’s just a spin-off, media like this should be able to be experienced by as many people as possible, even if it’s just a PC release (which by the way where’s the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection release on Steam you fucks?) or a PS Digital release (though physical copies are preferred). So the Tl;dr answer is yes, yes it is worth your time though you’ll need to sink a decent bit of money in order to be able to play this game so unless you had disposable income like I did at the time or it eventually gets ported/remade or there’s an emulator on PC where you can play this for free, good luck with that.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted:_Golden_Abyss
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UnchartedGoldenAbyss
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWJHO-cto8 (Behind the scenes motion capture)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHgAEb_Vn4 (Blooper)
Where the gameplay section of the review is going to begin is the constant PS Vita mechanic tie in. Dear god, the amount of interactivity is insane and in a lot of cases are both annoying as fuck and pretty ingenius. For example, some of the ones I don’t like: in Chapter 11, you end up sliding down a river and in order to dodge the rocks you have to move your actual PS Vita left and right which can be a pain in the ass depending on your difficulty and your reaction time; it doesn’t really feel great to do and only gets worse the higher the difficulty is as you could die instantly and restart from the top of the river again. Trying to aim your guns and your camera can also be annoying to do as you’ll try to aim for an enemy (or take a picture with the camera for the collectible stuff) and you PS Vita actually moves the motion controls in game which I always found to be annoying even if it was only a tad bit and I would constantly have to fiddle around to make sure I got the shot just right. Try to pick up certain weapons or collectibles and you touch the screen in the wrong area and you’ll end up jumping upon a nearby ledge or something. Another thing I don’t appreciate is that the higher the difficulty the harder it is to do the onscreen QTEs, which get especially annoying during the final two boss battles against the main antagonists. However, that being said I don’t really hate the Vita gimmicks, I understand as a console launch for the game that you kind of have to show what the Vita is made of and Uncharted is a popular franchise to get people to play it; it’s just there are times where it can get annoying. However, there are interesting ways in how it does its stuff; I appreciate how easy it can be to do the climbing now as you can flick your finger across the screen to certain parts and Nathan will just automatically move and jump to where you want. It’s not always perfect mind you, but it’s nice for those who feel the Vita console is a bit stocky in terms of holding and you don’t wanna press the buttons all the time. I also appreciate how with certain clues/collectibles you use your fingers to solve the puzzles or clean off certain artifacts; and in another strange way I also like how during one of the cutscene chapters you need to hold your Vita underneath a light source in order to illuminate a puzzle. That being said though, I feel like while this is cool and all it can be kind of eye rolling after a while, a bit much and in the idea of a future port (which I doubt will ever come about) for the game will be a bit of a problem unless they just edit or cut out certain parts or alternatively remake it possibly.
As for the actual gameplay itself minus the Vita gimmicks? It’s not bad, it’s basically the same as all the other Uncharted games; you pick up weapons, shoot goons and race for treasure (which they all tie into some sort of card game app called Uncharted: Fight for Fortune….which I’m pretty sure is dead or canceled so don’t even worry about that, though if you could earn these cards IN those games I wouldn’t even suggest it) as you pick stuff up (optionally with a really cheap treasure map DLC which tells you the approximate location of every treasure or just go the smart/cheap route and use a Youtube guide) and exchange witty banter. The controls (minus the gimmicks) are straight up like the Uncharted games on console, which is a good thing, especially when pared down on a small console which can feel sort of weird but I think Golden Abyss manages to pull that off well. Only issue I really had was that I had to turn up the actual turn speed for myself a bit because I couldn’t aim for people fast enough at first, though it was later turned down a tad bit. For the trophies, grinding out the treasures by killing people on the hardest difficulty was kind of a pain in the ass though mostly in Chapters 2-3 as you could only really get those treasures by killing armed goons and there aren’t much in the way of goons so I had to grind for them when I first met Chase. Other notable things I want to mention is that in certain places I’ll try to climb up and it’ll kick me back down to the ledge I was at so I had to climb back up again as a sort of strange glitch, but that was kind of a rarity I didn’t experience in my second playthrough on Crushing. That’s another thing, though there are parts where I wanted to call the game a stupid asshole for their enemy placements, the harder difficulties in this game aren’t actually THAT bad minus a few things so I feel the Crushing trophy if that’s what you’re going for is for the most part obtainable. One of the worst spots I’ve had to deal with however was in Chapter 26, after Sully breaks his leg he decides to be the biggest fucking moron and just charge the enemies, which is a problem considering you’re in a small area and they have weapons/grenades that’ll eviscerate you AND you have to protect him. It’s only a small section but I still loathed going into that small section more than the QTE boss fights. Also, in Chapter 29 there’s a glitch where enemies can despawn in front of your eyes if you run back to get ammo instead of pushing forward, breaking that section because enemies spawn behind a bridge and you need them in order for the bridge to fall down so keep that in mind. Lastly, to finish it off before transferring to the story mode: this is the first and only Uncharted game that I’ve seen Nathan Drake be able to pick up a fucking minigun and it’s hilarious as hell to see this guy pick up something that not even five bodybuilders could wield like that.
The plot follows Nathan Drake before the event of the first Uncharted game, taking on a job for one Jason Dante to investigate some old ruins next to a Uranium mining company site with his partner, Marisa Chase. At the site, they find evidence of Spanish travelers who have been searching for an ancient city: Quivera, the city of gold. Partnering up with Chase after things go haywire due to Dante’s dealings with revolutionary general and former dictator Roberto Guerro, which later involves being kidnapped and brought to Guerro’s prison camp before they escape. After a bit of bonding, Chase reveals to Nathan that her grandfather spent his life researching the ancient city and the Quiveran civilization, and they escape from the camp with a betrayal from Dante. They use both the amulet and Chase’s grandfather’s research and are able to find a Sete Cidades (an old christian sect dedicated to finding these cities of gold) retreat in a different old tomb. Climbing through, they find the Sword of Stephen (which has a series of pieces that Nathan charcoal rubs onto some paper) as well as the corpse of Chase’s grandfather, originally held by the guide to the group with evidence that the leader, De Niza, misled spanish conquistador Francisco Coronado. Dante shows up to take this sword, only for Guerro to betray him while kidnapping Chase. After chasing them through the tomb, they get away with Chase, while Nathan and Dante argue over Dante’s greed and tell Nathan to “run back to Sully”. Nathan does indeed run back to Sully for help, and they find the location of a temple believed to hold the ancient city of Quivera; and they both shoot through loads of Guerro’s men along with mercenaries that Dante hired. Soon, Nathan infiltrates the ancient city and rescues Chase from Guerro’s men before delving deeper into the city to find the frightening corpses of old Quiverans. Thinking it might be a birth defect at first, they go further into the city only to learn that the city of gold was build next to a Uranium deposit, actively making it radioactive and untouchable, with De Niza having turned out to kill Esteban (his guide) and the others and misled Coronado so that no one could get their hands on this “cursed gold”. Dante arrives, intending on following his greed and selling the gold regardless of who dies and after a painful QTE, he’s left behind in the city to get sealed in. Marisa and Nathan go to activate explosives right outside the city and proceed to bring down nearly the entire cavern and after fighting through more goons, Nathan brings down Guerro in another QTE before saving Chase from death and then being saved themselves by Sully before Nathan/Chase consummate their relationship and move on from the adventure.
So far, the story feels to be standard fare but I still find it to be more interesting both character and plot wise than Drake’s Fortune would be. It’s not the greatest, it’s kind of average but it still has some stuff that compelled me; the first thing that popped into my mind is the radioactive gold city, which I felt was pretty good foreshadowing on the game’s end with all the uranium mining subplot. A lot of the lore you can also find in the background with the collectibles, which unlike the other Uncharted games are actually a lot better because they give contextual clues to the actual mystery at hand if you’re looking for extra story to connect pieces together. I also enjoyed that piece of twist because it wasn’t like what the other three games in the original trilogy did, which was mainly just mixing supernatural creatures into the mix and instead providing something a bit more grounded in reality, and with a twist I didn’t expect. There’s interesting character development for Nathan too who goes from a standard “treasure hunter loot guy” to someone who actually cares about the historical finds and such which is in turn spurred on by Chase. This segways into my feelings about the supporting cast: Chase is actually pretty decent and I liked her for the most part, though it’s obvious she’s a stand-in for Elena that won’t ever be brought up again (aside from a sticky note reference in Uncharted 4) and since this is a prequel I preemptively knew that she wasn’t really gonna pop back up ever again after this game. The two main antagonists are entertaining and memorable enough, they’re not Lazarevic from Uncharted 2 or Rafe from Uncharted 4 but they’re decent for who they are: stereotypes. Guerro of course plays the dictator general who's trying to gather funds for another revolution (love the military angle though, reminds me of Uncharted: Lost Legacy with that), and he’s overall a basic dick in his goals. The other antagonist is Jason Dante, Nathan’s old buddy who is a stereotypical greedy fucker with an italian accent who wants to gold all to himself and cares only for profit. Of course, Sully is Sully so we’ll always remember him and at the end of the day he’s still going to be entertaining and the banter will be amusing. Other things that come to mind playing this is that there are two memorable gags: one involves “Cutting the ropes'' which Guerro’s men always seems to be fond of doing through most of the game and a gag that plays on Crushing Difficulty, where when you investigate Esteban’s corpse they pop out and jump scare Chase’s actress, who gives everyone shit for being in on it. I’ll post a link down there if you want to see it yourself, but overall again while it’s not the most memorable story I think it’s a lot better than people gave it for despite it’s spin-off nature and some of its plot points.
The graphics for the game looks pretty good, the backgrounds are beautiful and I feel that Bend really tried their best to hone in and make something special for this game. The models looks good, weapon sounds are great (though the Moss 12 fucking sucks to be honest) and overall it’s a package I can’t complain about. The soundtrack is pretty tight even if I swore I heard these tracks from the other earlier Uncharted games (and possibly some new ones), so the whole Uncharted atmosphere is there. Richard McGonaggle and Nolan North are back as Sully and Drake so that’s always nice, and the rest of the cast do their job portraying their characters with Jason Spisak being the outlier here are a hilariously weasel-like Jason Dante, though often times he’s a stereotype of what a Jersey Italian could even be like (he also voiced Marty in Mafia 2 and the punchable Skizzo in Days Gone, another Bend Game, if you’ve heard his voice before). Overall, not too much to complain about in this department, as always.
Final thoughts, is this game good and worth your time? I’d say yes, it is good despite some of its flaws with gameplay motion gimmicks and such, I had a lot of fun with it despite it’s frustrations in certain parts and while I felt coming into it that I was going to be miserable due to the fact I suck at playing handheld game systems without a Switch-style game dock or an actual console port, it’s actually one of the easier games to get into the series for. HOWEVER, actually getting this game nowadays will be expensive; I got my Vita for 250 or so dollars and the game itself for a whopping 50-60 dollars a couple of years ago during COVID when I learned that they were going to be shutting the PS stores for both Vita and PS3, and while that hasn’t happened yet more than likely it will at some point. If you have it in you to pay lots of money for the Vita and the game itself (don’t forget the memory cards for the Vita, which in itself is a good chunk of cash as well), it’s not a bad title and could be considered one of the best Vita exclusives along with Killzone: Mercenary (frustrations with corrupted saves aside). That being said however, I’m going to HARP on this hard: this game needs a remaster or a remake or something. I don’t care that it’s just a spin-off, media like this should be able to be experienced by as many people as possible, even if it’s just a PC release (which by the way where’s the Uncharted: Nathan Drake Collection release on Steam you fucks?) or a PS Digital release (though physical copies are preferred). So the Tl;dr answer is yes, yes it is worth your time though you’ll need to sink a decent bit of money in order to be able to play this game so unless you had disposable income like I did at the time or it eventually gets ported/remade or there’s an emulator on PC where you can play this for free, good luck with that.
Links:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Uncharted:_Golden_Abyss
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/UnchartedGoldenAbyss
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=NIWJHO-cto8 (Behind the scenes motion capture)
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=mLHgAEb_Vn4 (Blooper)
2016
This review contains spoilers
Downfall is a "Where’s my wife?" point and click horror game developed by Harvester Games, the same dev who developed The Cat Lady previously, a game I viewed as an art piece that deals with mental health/depression. In my research, Downfall originally started as a 2009 indie game, before it was retooled into an entry in the “Devil Came Through Here” trilogy released after Cat Lady. If you were curious about the original, the steam version also comes with the 2009 version of the game, though I didn’t touch it this time (though maybe one day).
I’ll start off with the story: you play as a man named Joe Davis (for those who remember he makes a cameo in Cat Lady as the neighbor towards the end as well as a huge Stephen King fan) who goes to the small hotel of Quiet Haven with his wife Ivy for a quick getaway. However, after a rather gut wrenching argument (after being given different beds as a sort of symbolic gesture of growing apart), you wake up to find that she disappeared, and Joe resolves to find her. The game clearly has reverence for Silent Hill (specifically the second one) from a reference to their “special place”, to the name Quiet Haven sounding flipped for Silent Hill and even the finding wife part, the developers we’re an obvious fan of the game (as are most of us) and it clearly influenced the game’s direction.
Before the hotel though, there’s a prologue where you play as Joe when he was a kid where he first met Ivy (with foreshadowing of her illness of course) on the same day where his younger brother Robbie died opening up a random cache of grenades hidden in a construction site, dying in an extremely graphic yet strangely funny tone (only due to the circumstance of random grenades). Flash forward and Joe meets Ivy in the future where they get married before the relationship takes a rocky road and this romantic getaway trip was supposed to be a rekindling of sorts. After the disappearance comb through the hotel, dealing with all sorts of gore as you’re told you have to kill off a “monster” named Sophie, or more specifically four different versions of her, each of which are symbolic of Ivy herself and her various characteristics and insecurities, which later come ahead as it’s revealed that she has extreme self conscious issues and an eating disorder, none of which we’re truly explained persay during the game or given much depth as far as I’m aware but not everything needs that I suppose.
Going throughout the hotel and its various floors you’ll find characters such as The Manageress (a seductive woman with eyes for Joe), Dr. Z (a mad scientist who’s trying to revive a corpse Frankenstein style), Agnes (the corpse who later comes to life and you play as her a couple of times), as you seek to kill each of the Sophies and rescue your wife. There are also two returning characters from Cat Lady: Susan Ashworth (towards the last five minutes or so) and The Queen of Maggots, the overarching main antagonist of the trilogy.
With this in mind, a lot of things are revealed: since Joe’s brother died, his mom killed herself and the dad blamed Joe for the entire mess; this mixed with Ivy’s anorexia sent him spiraling into madness. In real life, Joe was actually “The Sixth Parasite”, and had gone insane trying to help his wife. The getaway trip wasn’t real, Dr. Z (who was a nazi in the original version) is his therapist (only learned from Cat Lady), and that he had actually been killing people as the Axeman murderer (who was chasing Joe through the game). The ending depends on certain dialogue you choose throughout the game (which are tallied in skulls, 27 in all. If you have all 27 it’s the best, between 0-27 it’s normal and 0 is the bad ending) and for the most part while most of the dialogue feels stressful and like you make the wrong choices each time, I ended up getting the good ending with the help of a guide (also in general just be a decent human being and you should be ok I think).
How does it feel in the grand scheme of things? For me personally, it’s unsure because while I haven’t played the original game it felt like that game could’ve been a sort of fan homage project which then got lots of stuff sort of retro-fitted in. That being said, it works for the most part but I feel like there’s a couple of times where you could tell it was sort of Frankensteined (the irony of it with Dr. Z of course) together with semi-obvious symbolism, with the interconnected Cat Lady stuff being the most jarring stuff. The characters for the most part are ok, Agnes being a standout for her bubbly personality (though my friend who I streamed for hated her at first). The coffin sequence is also a standout for how dark it gets though the appearance of a certain actor’s history did take me out of it a bit once I learned what they did in real life but I can’t say that’s the dev’s fault.
Here is where I’ll go into gameplay style and the rest of it, as it’s rather short; it’s mostly just the point and click fare, with numerous dialogue options to determine the ending later on; you collect objects for later puzzles, which are a tad bit randomized on each playthrough but are simple enough to solve. Basically if you liked Cat Lady’s gameplay, there’s more of it. Graphically the game has the same sort of style that The Cat Lady does, lot’s of dark and shadowy imagery, maybe with a tad bit wider range of colors as well as surreal looking 3D animations as you walk to and from certain areas in the game. The voice acting ranges from person to person with most of the voice cast being Youtubers or friends of the main dev, so it may not be the best and most immersive as the mic quality tends to change too (with the childhood voice acting being one of the stranger parts to me). However, this didn’t detract at all from the game’s quality and strangely enhanced the surrealist nature of it all to be honest. The music also, like The Cat Lady, slaps though can be used in the strangest locations leading to an uneven tone that confused me more than unnerved and sounded like it should’ve been in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines instead.
Overall, how do I feel about Downfall? After having this for years along with The Cat Lady, I could say that compared to the former that I like this a tad bit less. Whilst not a lot of things could live up to the former, as its own thing I feel like it’s kind of mashed together and doesn’t have the same impact that it should emotionally or thematically. I could see glimpses of heartwarming stuff I REALLY liked (the emotional scenes between Joe and Ivy of course) but some moments are kind of distracting, derivative or unintentionally funny (like kitchen cooking with out of place music) and overall it's hard for me to describe my feelings for this game other than mildly positive, even setting aside the original quality of The Cat Lady along with steam characters are limited as usual. However, that being said I still like this game and think that it’s worth a play, even if only to at least get the general gist of how you feel about it's thematic handling, and it was also a lot shorter for me so that helped (just keep in mind it’s definitely violent, has a lot of depressing themes and could have some triggers). One day I’ll sit down and try to record behind the scenes stuff and post the links but for now here are some things to look into.
https://www.walkthroughking.com/text/downfallredux.aspx
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Downfall2009
https://devilcamethroughhere.fandom.com/wiki/Downfall:_Redux
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
I’ll start off with the story: you play as a man named Joe Davis (for those who remember he makes a cameo in Cat Lady as the neighbor towards the end as well as a huge Stephen King fan) who goes to the small hotel of Quiet Haven with his wife Ivy for a quick getaway. However, after a rather gut wrenching argument (after being given different beds as a sort of symbolic gesture of growing apart), you wake up to find that she disappeared, and Joe resolves to find her. The game clearly has reverence for Silent Hill (specifically the second one) from a reference to their “special place”, to the name Quiet Haven sounding flipped for Silent Hill and even the finding wife part, the developers we’re an obvious fan of the game (as are most of us) and it clearly influenced the game’s direction.
Before the hotel though, there’s a prologue where you play as Joe when he was a kid where he first met Ivy (with foreshadowing of her illness of course) on the same day where his younger brother Robbie died opening up a random cache of grenades hidden in a construction site, dying in an extremely graphic yet strangely funny tone (only due to the circumstance of random grenades). Flash forward and Joe meets Ivy in the future where they get married before the relationship takes a rocky road and this romantic getaway trip was supposed to be a rekindling of sorts. After the disappearance comb through the hotel, dealing with all sorts of gore as you’re told you have to kill off a “monster” named Sophie, or more specifically four different versions of her, each of which are symbolic of Ivy herself and her various characteristics and insecurities, which later come ahead as it’s revealed that she has extreme self conscious issues and an eating disorder, none of which we’re truly explained persay during the game or given much depth as far as I’m aware but not everything needs that I suppose.
Going throughout the hotel and its various floors you’ll find characters such as The Manageress (a seductive woman with eyes for Joe), Dr. Z (a mad scientist who’s trying to revive a corpse Frankenstein style), Agnes (the corpse who later comes to life and you play as her a couple of times), as you seek to kill each of the Sophies and rescue your wife. There are also two returning characters from Cat Lady: Susan Ashworth (towards the last five minutes or so) and The Queen of Maggots, the overarching main antagonist of the trilogy.
With this in mind, a lot of things are revealed: since Joe’s brother died, his mom killed herself and the dad blamed Joe for the entire mess; this mixed with Ivy’s anorexia sent him spiraling into madness. In real life, Joe was actually “The Sixth Parasite”, and had gone insane trying to help his wife. The getaway trip wasn’t real, Dr. Z (who was a nazi in the original version) is his therapist (only learned from Cat Lady), and that he had actually been killing people as the Axeman murderer (who was chasing Joe through the game). The ending depends on certain dialogue you choose throughout the game (which are tallied in skulls, 27 in all. If you have all 27 it’s the best, between 0-27 it’s normal and 0 is the bad ending) and for the most part while most of the dialogue feels stressful and like you make the wrong choices each time, I ended up getting the good ending with the help of a guide (also in general just be a decent human being and you should be ok I think).
How does it feel in the grand scheme of things? For me personally, it’s unsure because while I haven’t played the original game it felt like that game could’ve been a sort of fan homage project which then got lots of stuff sort of retro-fitted in. That being said, it works for the most part but I feel like there’s a couple of times where you could tell it was sort of Frankensteined (the irony of it with Dr. Z of course) together with semi-obvious symbolism, with the interconnected Cat Lady stuff being the most jarring stuff. The characters for the most part are ok, Agnes being a standout for her bubbly personality (though my friend who I streamed for hated her at first). The coffin sequence is also a standout for how dark it gets though the appearance of a certain actor’s history did take me out of it a bit once I learned what they did in real life but I can’t say that’s the dev’s fault.
Here is where I’ll go into gameplay style and the rest of it, as it’s rather short; it’s mostly just the point and click fare, with numerous dialogue options to determine the ending later on; you collect objects for later puzzles, which are a tad bit randomized on each playthrough but are simple enough to solve. Basically if you liked Cat Lady’s gameplay, there’s more of it. Graphically the game has the same sort of style that The Cat Lady does, lot’s of dark and shadowy imagery, maybe with a tad bit wider range of colors as well as surreal looking 3D animations as you walk to and from certain areas in the game. The voice acting ranges from person to person with most of the voice cast being Youtubers or friends of the main dev, so it may not be the best and most immersive as the mic quality tends to change too (with the childhood voice acting being one of the stranger parts to me). However, this didn’t detract at all from the game’s quality and strangely enhanced the surrealist nature of it all to be honest. The music also, like The Cat Lady, slaps though can be used in the strangest locations leading to an uneven tone that confused me more than unnerved and sounded like it should’ve been in Vampire: The Masquerade - Bloodlines instead.
Overall, how do I feel about Downfall? After having this for years along with The Cat Lady, I could say that compared to the former that I like this a tad bit less. Whilst not a lot of things could live up to the former, as its own thing I feel like it’s kind of mashed together and doesn’t have the same impact that it should emotionally or thematically. I could see glimpses of heartwarming stuff I REALLY liked (the emotional scenes between Joe and Ivy of course) but some moments are kind of distracting, derivative or unintentionally funny (like kitchen cooking with out of place music) and overall it's hard for me to describe my feelings for this game other than mildly positive, even setting aside the original quality of The Cat Lady along with steam characters are limited as usual. However, that being said I still like this game and think that it’s worth a play, even if only to at least get the general gist of how you feel about it's thematic handling, and it was also a lot shorter for me so that helped (just keep in mind it’s definitely violent, has a lot of depressing themes and could have some triggers). One day I’ll sit down and try to record behind the scenes stuff and post the links but for now here are some things to look into.
https://www.walkthroughking.com/text/downfallredux.aspx
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Downfall2009
https://devilcamethroughhere.fandom.com/wiki/Downfall:_Redux
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2009
This review contains spoilers
Infamous is an open world action adventure “mid 2000s edgy superhero simulator” developed exclusively for the Playstation 3 by developers Sucker Punch studios, known previously for games series such as the Sly Cooper franchise before and afterwards Ghosts of Tsushima, which is apparently poised to become the developer’s next hit franchise if it’s to be believed. From what’s to be believed about the development history, it was created to be a huge change of pace from Sly Cooper, which was traditionally a more child friendly heist game to something new and fresh, pitching numerous games before settling on something they called “True Hero”. This was supposed to be an Animal Crossing styled game where you could make choices that affect the world around you; this morphed into something that took heavy influences from comics such as DMZ and Batman: No Man’s Land as well as The Dark Knight Trilogy for it’s dark and gritty aesthetic, morphing the series to what it’s known today. My personal experience with this game is that I played it once at a Gamestop in one of those kiosks they lock the PS3 in, and this was one of the only games that looked interesting. Trying out a mission that they had, I was extremely impressed with how you could grind on the rails, the environment around you, and how I felt the Reapers as a gang looked cool as hell. From then on I was a fan even as an Xbox 360 kid, from watching playthroughs to even buying the damn walkthrough and reading it sometimes when I was bored because I was lonely and had no friends as a kid. Finally one day on a whim, I decided that I would pick up a PS3 and whereas I don’t remember all the games I had when I first got it, I remember getting PlayStation All Stars Battle Royale, Yakuza 3 and this game.
Infamous starts out with a “shock” (bad pun intended); you see a normal, New York City styled location named Empire City in the thralls of a normal day, that is at least until you press the start button. The power goes out throughout the city and as a normal civilian you see a giant electric dome encompassing an entire city block while a voice checks someone for their pulse, ending it with “Lookin’ good, Cole”. From here you wake up as Cole himself, burnt to a crisp and waking up right in the center of the explosion with everything having gone to hell around you. Your best friend Zeke calls you worried sick, explaining that “terrorists” have exploded stuff all around the city, however you know something is up when you get zapped with electricity and feel absolutely no pain, and in another instance lightning starts striking around you, killing police in the vicinity. You run across the bridge nearby falling unconscious as your nurse girlfriend, Trish, comes to your aid. This tragedy has taken the lives of a lot of people, including Trish’s sister, and that’ll later come back into play. A plague later struck and chaos emerged, with crime getting worse and the military establishing a quarantine on the entire city when his power emerges and he's able to be controlled at least two weeks later and he’s able to control it. I love this introduction, it’s a great way of establishing the setting at hand, and leaving a little bit of mystery as to what’s going on, while leaving a couple of hints that it’s deeper than it seems to those that aren’t fully aware of what’s happening in the plot.
From here, the next mission is made to establish one of the main features in Infamous: the karma. A man proclaiming himself to be “The Voice of Survival” pops up on the TV after hacking the signal and says that food is going to be airdropped into the district square. Cole and Zeke pop over, and Trish plans to meet you there. After climbing up a nearby statue and cutting down the food, the Reapers, a local gang consisting of people in red hoodies with skulls on them, attack and plan to steal it for themselves. Cole uses his powers to fight them off when you’re presented with your first choice: you could either zap a few people and make them run away and leave you with the food (which is the Bad Choice) or you could let the people take some (which is the Good choice). However yet again, The Voice of Survival pops up on a nearby billboard and throws the responsibility for the outbreak on you; regardless Trish leaves Cole, heartbroken over her sister’s death and everyone around him except Zeke starts an active mob against him. Cole doesn’t remember much about the explosion, except that he was running around trying to deliver something for someone as a courier but that’ll soon become clear. Zeke decides you two need to escape through the bridge at the bottom of the city, and when you two meet up and attempt to break through quarantine it ends up with almost every civilian dead except Cole and Zeke again and Cole meets someone new: an FBI agent named Moya, who recruits Cole for a job: her husband, a fellow agent named John White, had attempted to infiltrate an organization named the First Sons, a group working on a project known as the “Ray Sphere”. If he finds John and the Ray Sphere, she clears his name and gets him out of the quarantine; while not exactly trustworthy he has no choice if he wants to get out of the city alive.
Basically from here is where I quickly summarize plot points to make it to the end quick; from here you end up attempting to reconcile with Trish by helping her save people, take back the city from their respective gangs by doing side missions, attempting to assist Zeke in getting laid and helping Moya find traces of her husband via dead drops (leading to story bits once you collect all of them) and through covert activities. Eventually you restore the Neon District’s power supply and fight Sasha, the leader of the Reapers, who has taunted Cole about his former girlfriend Trish and is claiming that he loves him. You’ll also at one point (before the Sasha fight) run into a strange man in a white robe named Kessler, who shoves his hands onto your head in an ambush to show you horrible visions before disappearing entirely; this’ll all work out in the end to a twist I actually really like, and all of this’ll also all come to ahead later so bear with me, but after a battle with her she gets kidnapped by the shadowy First Sons and you land in the Warren District, controlled by the homeless vagrant Alden.
You continue through various missions until Cole, Zeke and the police end up capturing Alden; though before or after this mission depending on your Karma you either finally reconcile with Trish or she ultimately rejects you for being a bastard. Nonetheless, after the mission where Cole, Zeke and the Police try to protect Alden from being reclaimed by his Dust Men brethren (the Dust Men being a group of heavily armed homeless men with guns and suicide bombs), you’ll begin to truly notice Zeke’s arc if you haven’t before. Zeke’s arc once you get into the Warren consists of jealousy, stupidity, and greed; he got captured once before because he wanted to be a hero like you and tried to sneak into a place to find info for you, and in this mission he abandons protecting Alden to play hero outside in the courtyard, which somehow leads to his escape. Though in this case I’ll defend Zeke’s actions here, though for the wrong reasons. Everyone guarding Alden is a trained cop, and if he hadn’t abandoned his post he probably would’ve been killed alongside everyone else, especially for his lack of training so even if it was for the wrong reasons it’s still understood (though I could’ve misread things here). I’ll even point out that though I love the story and the environment, some of the characters are kind of trope-y. To me, Zeke is a caricature of what a nuanced character should’ve been, someone with flaws who instead kind of comes off as a douchebag who throws a temper tantrum over his jealousy of Cole’s powers instead of recognizing the situation he’s in. I’m not saying that there aren’t people like him, it’s just that the way he feels characterized personally in the game is just one I don’t really care for. A lesser offender is Trish, who stereotypically treats you like trash a bit but can be reconciled with the fact that her sister died and she’s still trying to deal with the reality that even though you were the love of her life, it doesn’t help the fact that you are technically the reasons she died. Regardless though, Zeke is the main offender and when you two attempt to take control of the Ray Sphere in his possession, he eventually betrays you for this game’s main bad guy: Kessler, who promises him that he will be able to give him the powers that he’s been seeking after Zeke attempts to activate the Ray Sphere and kills thousands of more people only for it not to work; again it’s kind of a “fucking seriously?” moment and doesn’t make him feel redeemable in the slightest. After he betrays you to Kessler, you escape Alden’s giant tower before learning of the oncoming gang war between the Dust Men and the First Sons over Alden’s “birthright”. You fight Alden in a boss battle on the bridge and after you defeat him you learn that his “birthright” was that his father used to lead the First Sons, and that he was destined to be the heir until Kessler came out of nowhere and overthrew him, leaving Alden homeless and on the streets as a child.
Fighting through the Historic District is the most poignant and memorable part of the game to me, with each act having it’s strengths but with this final act being the most significant of them all; you work with John White (who turns out to be NSA, not FBI) and learn that Moya isn’t his wife and that he doesn’t even know her, Cole has been being used this entire time while trying to search for the Ray Sphere. Of course this was predictable for me as well, Moya’s demeanor has never really been anything other than that of someone using her plaything to do what she wants so that was also kind of predictable. While you fight the First Sons and Kessler, he kidnaps Trish and kills her in a karma choice gambit, with your karma determining whether or not she’s proud of you or disowns you entirely; and all the while he contacts you a bit about your progress as a person, with ominous premonitions on “preparing you” for something, with Trish being only one test. Zeke attempts to contact Cole as well to apologize but rightfully gets the cold shoulder for being a selfish bastard and after cutting Moya off, John and Cole finally find the Ray Sphere as it’s about to be brought out to sea. From here you get one of, if not the most important choices in the game: activate the Ray Sphere one last time or destroy it; activating it gets you more power and more people die while destroying gives you nothing, but either way John dies in the Ray Sphere blast and the entire dock goes into the ocean. With this, Kesslar challenges you to a final battle at the original site of the blast and several things are learned after defeating him, with the attempted help of Zeke who wants to redeem himself but gets thrown across the crater.
If you had followed some of the foreshadowing hinted throughout the game (ex. Sasha calling you Kessler and telling you she loves you, Alden comparing you and Kessler as “one in the same” which could be mistaken for a comparison, the John White Dead Drops, and some other clues I didn’t catch thanks to TV tropes) everything went down like this. Kessler was the one who hired you to bring the Ray Sphere to a certain location to “open the package”, leading to the events of the game. Sasha and Alden are connected to Kessler because Sasha used to date him and Alden used to be the heir of the First Sons and we’re eventually planning on overthrowing him together before Sasha got thrown out and turned to drugs (where her toxin is later used out of torture as another test of Cole’s character), the Dead Drops hinting at “Kessler” activating the Ray Sphere and “some kid” was located next to it, the strange visions and even the “Voice of Survival” being killed on live tv after fulfilling his purpose (which was to turn everyone against Cole). Kessler is actually Cole MacGrath from the future, a future where instead of fighting a world ending being known as The Beast, decides to run away with his family, having married Trish with Zeke as his best man. However, by the time he wanted to fight back it was too late, everyone died and the world was near the end after the Beast had chased Kessler across the planet. With one goal in mind, Kessler traveled to the past in order to change several moments: turning people against you in quarantine, killing Trish, showing you these visions, scolding and taunting you; these were all to prepare you for an even greater threat looming in the horizon. After Kessler dies, Cole comes to reckoning with his powers and prepares for what’s ahead, with the final ending (either Cole ruining the city and making it worse or helping Empire City heal) determined by your karma (shoutout to the evil version being corrupted with toxic veins covering your body), with Cole finally lamenting that he’ll probably always be alone in his path as almost everyone close to him has betrayed him or died, and that anyone can turn on him at the drop of the hat if he makes one mistake.
Overall what do I think of this story? I liked it a lot; there was some weak mischaracterization on some people, with only one character I didn’t really feel fit much (that being Zeke), and while not everyone was super fleshed out, I actually thought most of them we’re interesting and I wanted to know more about them. I liked Cole as a character, his gravelly voice mixed in with his frustration at the situation and the love he has for his friends make him a flawed but memorable character and thought Kessler was memorable and that twist with the foreshadowing was fantastic. I enjoyed Sasha’s toxin power being sort of a parallel to her being a toxic person (with her relationship with Kessler being hinted as toxic), and the plot dealing with the hunt for the Ray Sphere was compelling. I’ve heard arguments on whether or not the Karma system was good or not, with arguments against it saying that it wasn’t “nuanced” enough. I don’t necessarily mind, I see where they’re coming from but sometimes I prefer it to be blatantly obvious good or evil, as I don’t always want to have to constantly think about every possible unknown factor in a game to get the ending I want. Even then, depending on what you plan on doing if you’re going for a Good playthrough you’ll have to balance combat with the environment around you making sure you don’t get hurt anyways, which leads into the next section: the gameplay.
The gameplay consists of what is usual in an open world action game of this type; you go around and fight gang members and/or police, obtain collectibles, complete missions along with side quests, and generally climb around the city to your heart's content. What I’ll start with here is your main power/transportation: your main power is electricity, which means shooting lightning bolts out of your hands along with other powers which include a force field, healing people or leaching the life out of them for a energy refill, a sort of force push, amongst other powers that you unlock over time with story moments and experience point unlocks. Your powers won’t last for long however if you use anything other than the default lightning bolts so you’ll have to recharge through numerous environmental elements such as neon signs, circuit breakers, destroyed cars, light posts and pretty much anything that contains electricity which actually feels really good and ties into the environment neatly. There’s also a bit of a strategic element to this factor, as draining these elements bring your health back up in a jam if you need it from the damage you take, and can actually be kind of stressful in a strategic kind of way if you’re retreating. Keep in mind that your health comes back naturally over time, but it’s a lot quicker to just drain something though after you drain it, depending on what it is it either takes a while to come back to full power or it doesn’t come back at all. The powers are varied enough that it feels pretty solid for whichever approach you take, and feels pretty powerful eviscerating an area full of goons trying to wipe you out.
Another aspect of this is parkour; Cole has been free running and climbing and as such that is your main and only way around the environment. There is no fast travel and no vehicles, it’s only you and your movement. In spirit it’s a great concept, and when pulled off properly it works great; with this in mind there are upsides and downsides. The main upside is that it’s not really restrictive like the Assassin’s Creed games were at the time, you move by tapping X and continuously tapping it as you climb the buildings and you move the directions that for the most part feel pretty fluid. However the parkour in this game is very…particular as well; you’ll sometimes try to climb certain places and miss your mark entirely because Cole decides to go a different direction, and sometimes Cole just refuses to walk into a small area a particular way because there’s an invisible wall that pushes him back and so you have to kind of finagle yourself into the area via jumping over it or running around it which pretty much works the problem out though sometimes trying to get certain blast shards leads to dying if it’s near the water (because water and electricity equals death).
Then there’s the environment mixed with the combat; the amount of times I died because I was beating some guy up next to a car from full health is strange, same with killing a guy who morphs into an empty barrel which somehow kicks me in the head and kills me instantly it’s pretty frustrating in an unintentional way (though it could be explained due to a smaller team and budget). Also grinding the rails and across telephone lines feels pretty solid, though it takes time to truly master hopping from wire to wire as the physics of motion can really make you overshoot or miss entirely if you don’t do it early enough or if you don’t slow down. Overall this aspect is pretty solid for the most part, everything kind of fits together minus the strange parkour sometimes but it can be done pretty well, surprisingly so even on the hardest difficulty (which I did for the plat of course) which wasn’t really frustrating due to the open ended nature of the game compared to something like Uncharted’s difficulty. However, the hard mode also gives you less XP which means you’ll have to hit up some spots to grind out enemies for a long time or knock everything out in one go and go into certain missions underpowered. This can be especially frustrating considering what powers were upgraded beforehand to fight against some of the special enemies (or the deadliest enemy in the game: Turrets).
Each gang has their own special gang members, or conduits, that set themselves apart from the normal run and gun soldiers. The Reapers have giant white hoodie fuckers that teleport everywhere and can be a general nuisance, whilst the Dust Men have guys who shoot out little garbage crabs and also wield a rocket launcher to the First Sons having guys who can grow a bit taller and stomp you out. However with this in mind, I like the variation of each gang and how it makes them unique, and truth be told outside of side missions I wish I could see these guys try to stomp each other out more. Speaking of which, feeding into the XP thing: Missions/Side Missions. Other than the main forty story missions, the world mostly consist of you going around on side errands, some of which are unique to the mission and have karma moments and some repeat; like draining listening devices off of buildings or escorting certain NPCs and shocking them when they try to escape to just killing them off. What I can say is that if you’re trying to go for all the powers, especially on Hard, you won’t be able to get enough XP to unlock all the upgrades unless you grind enemies for a while; and when you beat these missions they both barely give you XP as a reward and on top of that they remove most of the gang influence from the territory making it so that it’s harder to find these gang members to grind. It’s kind of a frustrating process to deal with and as such if you’re going for the platinum you have to keep an eye out for that sort of thing, however if you’re a casual player then it’s not a really big deal.
Collectibles such as the Blast Shards don’t give you much XP either, with 350 overall to collect and I believe around 5 XP with each one you’ll get about 1,750 XP for all of them, and that’s not really enough to cover much in the way of upgrades. However they are useful for two things: upgrading your power meter so you can use more and for when you play Infamous 2; if you collect half the blast shards then you get a whopping TWO extra blast cores. Overall, this side it’s not too bad; it feels good to use the powers and strategy to fight and when you do it really well it feels amazing, it’s just some of the other things that can be kind of iffy to deal with. Also, there isn’t much in the way of replayability after these missions and extra objectives (including stunts, which require you to perform certain tricks for XP as well as a trophy) so it’s a bit of an empty world otherwise and I wish there was something more substantial but for what we got I guess I can’t complain too much here.
The atmosphere/soundtrack/sound design/art design are pretty top notch for the most part if I were to say myself. The atmosphere is as said earlier inspired by gritty superhero comics and movies; and you could blatantly tell due to a lot of the main colors being gray and black, a hostile environment that is basically drained of its life, which made me feel uneasy playing it (especially in areas where I haven’t unlocked the power yet. Empire City to me is definitely a living and breathing character on its own (with some of the details such as walking through small puddles shocking the area around it and maybe killing someone if they walk on the same puddle as you being a cool detail), though more of a shell or a husk of one that is slowly fading into oblivion. Though plenty of games feature cities that are gritty and near collapse, I can still remember pretty much almost every part of the game’s map, mixed in with the sky being either pitch black, blue or red depending on your level of karma at the end of the game. The art design of the characters really fits with me as well, with everyone struggling to survive and looking mostly tattered (though Zeke just looks like Elvis so I don’t know how I feel there), and the gangs? Oh god the gangs in this game look great, from the flashy Reapers gang wearing those red hoods to the camouflage the Dust Men have hiding within the trashy environment of the slums to the militarized First Sons organization that looks straight out of a post apocalypse movie. The comic book aesthetic in the cutscenes really play to that strength as well, with pretty much every cutscene being straight out of a graphic novel which when mixed with the voice acting is pretty solid. Compared to Infamous 2’s version of Cole, I happen to like Jason Cottle’s version of Cole MacGrath a lot more due to it’s deep and gravelly voice; he also does his role as Alden Tate pretty well too in comparison that I couldn’t tell the difference between the two roles and thought it was different altogether. Other standouts include Caleb Moody as Zeke, October Moore as Trish and one of my favorites: Phil Lamar as John White. Everyone does a pretty solid job voicing their roles and not once was I brought out of the moment playing the game by strange voice acting choices. Sound Design is also fantastic, with the lightning effects making your attacks really sound punchy, noises all sound like what they’re supposed to be, and truthfully I can’t really complain about anything sound wise. To finish it off, the soundtrack is pretty solid too, nothing that I’d listen to on the way to work but it’s pretty good at bringing you into the moment and not letting go, with a lot of dark ambience mixed with fast paced drums, which was made using environmental object sounds and using them with other, more traditional instruments. I feel that all of these things kind of line up with each other in a way that really makes it unique, if not in general than at least to me.
To finally answer the questions. Is it good and is it worth playing? Yeah, I personally think so. It has a couple of flaws here and there, some mix ups that could’ve been done better but overall I liked it a lot when I first played it and I still feel the same way I did all those years ago when I first played this on the Gamestop Kiosk for the first mission and down to playing it for real as my first Playstation 3 game ever. Following the first title there were sequels, comic book tie ins and a movie that was announced before nothing ever came of it ever again; still though this game, whilst not perfect, lives on in my heart as something that may be a tad flawed here and there but fills me with a time full of nostalgia every time I sit down and play it. I think if anything, the only true downside to this game is that, yet again, it hasn’t been ported to PC and is currently stuck on the Playstation 3 platform or on PS Plus if you really feel like paying all that money out the ass to stream the game. I’m glad I was able to sit down and finally wrap up the platinum after so many years from starting it as my first PS3 game, and eventually I plan to sit down and platinum Infamous 2 before writing up retrospectives on the other games in the series. And as for what happened a bit before/after the game was released? A rivalry with Prototype, a similar open world action game featuring a dark and gritty storyline that apparently had a challenge involving drawing the opposition's main character in lingerie after a challenge by Yahtzee which…interesting. That and more Infamous sequels, 1 of which was great, and the other one not so great, but that’s just the way things work sometimes, along with spin-off games and even comic books, which inspired the series to begin with along with a place in games such as Playstation All Stars Battle Royale and even the PS3 version of Street Fighter X Tekken. I doubt they’ll come out with another Infamous game anytime soon but truth be told I miss this series, and hope that they at least decide to re-release these games on Next Gen/PC ports (even the mixed feeling Second Son arc as I’d call it) because these games had something, a lightning in a bottle (no pun intended this time) feeling that not a lot of titles can really bring back for me.
Links;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv1AHs6-cfE&ab_channel=F4m1LyGuy10
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/InFAMOUS
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous#Behind_the_scenes
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1458923/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous:_Post_Blast
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous_(comics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_(video_game)
https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/05/22/the-origins-of-infamous.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Punch_Productions
Infamous starts out with a “shock” (bad pun intended); you see a normal, New York City styled location named Empire City in the thralls of a normal day, that is at least until you press the start button. The power goes out throughout the city and as a normal civilian you see a giant electric dome encompassing an entire city block while a voice checks someone for their pulse, ending it with “Lookin’ good, Cole”. From here you wake up as Cole himself, burnt to a crisp and waking up right in the center of the explosion with everything having gone to hell around you. Your best friend Zeke calls you worried sick, explaining that “terrorists” have exploded stuff all around the city, however you know something is up when you get zapped with electricity and feel absolutely no pain, and in another instance lightning starts striking around you, killing police in the vicinity. You run across the bridge nearby falling unconscious as your nurse girlfriend, Trish, comes to your aid. This tragedy has taken the lives of a lot of people, including Trish’s sister, and that’ll later come back into play. A plague later struck and chaos emerged, with crime getting worse and the military establishing a quarantine on the entire city when his power emerges and he's able to be controlled at least two weeks later and he’s able to control it. I love this introduction, it’s a great way of establishing the setting at hand, and leaving a little bit of mystery as to what’s going on, while leaving a couple of hints that it’s deeper than it seems to those that aren’t fully aware of what’s happening in the plot.
From here, the next mission is made to establish one of the main features in Infamous: the karma. A man proclaiming himself to be “The Voice of Survival” pops up on the TV after hacking the signal and says that food is going to be airdropped into the district square. Cole and Zeke pop over, and Trish plans to meet you there. After climbing up a nearby statue and cutting down the food, the Reapers, a local gang consisting of people in red hoodies with skulls on them, attack and plan to steal it for themselves. Cole uses his powers to fight them off when you’re presented with your first choice: you could either zap a few people and make them run away and leave you with the food (which is the Bad Choice) or you could let the people take some (which is the Good choice). However yet again, The Voice of Survival pops up on a nearby billboard and throws the responsibility for the outbreak on you; regardless Trish leaves Cole, heartbroken over her sister’s death and everyone around him except Zeke starts an active mob against him. Cole doesn’t remember much about the explosion, except that he was running around trying to deliver something for someone as a courier but that’ll soon become clear. Zeke decides you two need to escape through the bridge at the bottom of the city, and when you two meet up and attempt to break through quarantine it ends up with almost every civilian dead except Cole and Zeke again and Cole meets someone new: an FBI agent named Moya, who recruits Cole for a job: her husband, a fellow agent named John White, had attempted to infiltrate an organization named the First Sons, a group working on a project known as the “Ray Sphere”. If he finds John and the Ray Sphere, she clears his name and gets him out of the quarantine; while not exactly trustworthy he has no choice if he wants to get out of the city alive.
Basically from here is where I quickly summarize plot points to make it to the end quick; from here you end up attempting to reconcile with Trish by helping her save people, take back the city from their respective gangs by doing side missions, attempting to assist Zeke in getting laid and helping Moya find traces of her husband via dead drops (leading to story bits once you collect all of them) and through covert activities. Eventually you restore the Neon District’s power supply and fight Sasha, the leader of the Reapers, who has taunted Cole about his former girlfriend Trish and is claiming that he loves him. You’ll also at one point (before the Sasha fight) run into a strange man in a white robe named Kessler, who shoves his hands onto your head in an ambush to show you horrible visions before disappearing entirely; this’ll all work out in the end to a twist I actually really like, and all of this’ll also all come to ahead later so bear with me, but after a battle with her she gets kidnapped by the shadowy First Sons and you land in the Warren District, controlled by the homeless vagrant Alden.
You continue through various missions until Cole, Zeke and the police end up capturing Alden; though before or after this mission depending on your Karma you either finally reconcile with Trish or she ultimately rejects you for being a bastard. Nonetheless, after the mission where Cole, Zeke and the Police try to protect Alden from being reclaimed by his Dust Men brethren (the Dust Men being a group of heavily armed homeless men with guns and suicide bombs), you’ll begin to truly notice Zeke’s arc if you haven’t before. Zeke’s arc once you get into the Warren consists of jealousy, stupidity, and greed; he got captured once before because he wanted to be a hero like you and tried to sneak into a place to find info for you, and in this mission he abandons protecting Alden to play hero outside in the courtyard, which somehow leads to his escape. Though in this case I’ll defend Zeke’s actions here, though for the wrong reasons. Everyone guarding Alden is a trained cop, and if he hadn’t abandoned his post he probably would’ve been killed alongside everyone else, especially for his lack of training so even if it was for the wrong reasons it’s still understood (though I could’ve misread things here). I’ll even point out that though I love the story and the environment, some of the characters are kind of trope-y. To me, Zeke is a caricature of what a nuanced character should’ve been, someone with flaws who instead kind of comes off as a douchebag who throws a temper tantrum over his jealousy of Cole’s powers instead of recognizing the situation he’s in. I’m not saying that there aren’t people like him, it’s just that the way he feels characterized personally in the game is just one I don’t really care for. A lesser offender is Trish, who stereotypically treats you like trash a bit but can be reconciled with the fact that her sister died and she’s still trying to deal with the reality that even though you were the love of her life, it doesn’t help the fact that you are technically the reasons she died. Regardless though, Zeke is the main offender and when you two attempt to take control of the Ray Sphere in his possession, he eventually betrays you for this game’s main bad guy: Kessler, who promises him that he will be able to give him the powers that he’s been seeking after Zeke attempts to activate the Ray Sphere and kills thousands of more people only for it not to work; again it’s kind of a “fucking seriously?” moment and doesn’t make him feel redeemable in the slightest. After he betrays you to Kessler, you escape Alden’s giant tower before learning of the oncoming gang war between the Dust Men and the First Sons over Alden’s “birthright”. You fight Alden in a boss battle on the bridge and after you defeat him you learn that his “birthright” was that his father used to lead the First Sons, and that he was destined to be the heir until Kessler came out of nowhere and overthrew him, leaving Alden homeless and on the streets as a child.
Fighting through the Historic District is the most poignant and memorable part of the game to me, with each act having it’s strengths but with this final act being the most significant of them all; you work with John White (who turns out to be NSA, not FBI) and learn that Moya isn’t his wife and that he doesn’t even know her, Cole has been being used this entire time while trying to search for the Ray Sphere. Of course this was predictable for me as well, Moya’s demeanor has never really been anything other than that of someone using her plaything to do what she wants so that was also kind of predictable. While you fight the First Sons and Kessler, he kidnaps Trish and kills her in a karma choice gambit, with your karma determining whether or not she’s proud of you or disowns you entirely; and all the while he contacts you a bit about your progress as a person, with ominous premonitions on “preparing you” for something, with Trish being only one test. Zeke attempts to contact Cole as well to apologize but rightfully gets the cold shoulder for being a selfish bastard and after cutting Moya off, John and Cole finally find the Ray Sphere as it’s about to be brought out to sea. From here you get one of, if not the most important choices in the game: activate the Ray Sphere one last time or destroy it; activating it gets you more power and more people die while destroying gives you nothing, but either way John dies in the Ray Sphere blast and the entire dock goes into the ocean. With this, Kesslar challenges you to a final battle at the original site of the blast and several things are learned after defeating him, with the attempted help of Zeke who wants to redeem himself but gets thrown across the crater.
If you had followed some of the foreshadowing hinted throughout the game (ex. Sasha calling you Kessler and telling you she loves you, Alden comparing you and Kessler as “one in the same” which could be mistaken for a comparison, the John White Dead Drops, and some other clues I didn’t catch thanks to TV tropes) everything went down like this. Kessler was the one who hired you to bring the Ray Sphere to a certain location to “open the package”, leading to the events of the game. Sasha and Alden are connected to Kessler because Sasha used to date him and Alden used to be the heir of the First Sons and we’re eventually planning on overthrowing him together before Sasha got thrown out and turned to drugs (where her toxin is later used out of torture as another test of Cole’s character), the Dead Drops hinting at “Kessler” activating the Ray Sphere and “some kid” was located next to it, the strange visions and even the “Voice of Survival” being killed on live tv after fulfilling his purpose (which was to turn everyone against Cole). Kessler is actually Cole MacGrath from the future, a future where instead of fighting a world ending being known as The Beast, decides to run away with his family, having married Trish with Zeke as his best man. However, by the time he wanted to fight back it was too late, everyone died and the world was near the end after the Beast had chased Kessler across the planet. With one goal in mind, Kessler traveled to the past in order to change several moments: turning people against you in quarantine, killing Trish, showing you these visions, scolding and taunting you; these were all to prepare you for an even greater threat looming in the horizon. After Kessler dies, Cole comes to reckoning with his powers and prepares for what’s ahead, with the final ending (either Cole ruining the city and making it worse or helping Empire City heal) determined by your karma (shoutout to the evil version being corrupted with toxic veins covering your body), with Cole finally lamenting that he’ll probably always be alone in his path as almost everyone close to him has betrayed him or died, and that anyone can turn on him at the drop of the hat if he makes one mistake.
Overall what do I think of this story? I liked it a lot; there was some weak mischaracterization on some people, with only one character I didn’t really feel fit much (that being Zeke), and while not everyone was super fleshed out, I actually thought most of them we’re interesting and I wanted to know more about them. I liked Cole as a character, his gravelly voice mixed in with his frustration at the situation and the love he has for his friends make him a flawed but memorable character and thought Kessler was memorable and that twist with the foreshadowing was fantastic. I enjoyed Sasha’s toxin power being sort of a parallel to her being a toxic person (with her relationship with Kessler being hinted as toxic), and the plot dealing with the hunt for the Ray Sphere was compelling. I’ve heard arguments on whether or not the Karma system was good or not, with arguments against it saying that it wasn’t “nuanced” enough. I don’t necessarily mind, I see where they’re coming from but sometimes I prefer it to be blatantly obvious good or evil, as I don’t always want to have to constantly think about every possible unknown factor in a game to get the ending I want. Even then, depending on what you plan on doing if you’re going for a Good playthrough you’ll have to balance combat with the environment around you making sure you don’t get hurt anyways, which leads into the next section: the gameplay.
The gameplay consists of what is usual in an open world action game of this type; you go around and fight gang members and/or police, obtain collectibles, complete missions along with side quests, and generally climb around the city to your heart's content. What I’ll start with here is your main power/transportation: your main power is electricity, which means shooting lightning bolts out of your hands along with other powers which include a force field, healing people or leaching the life out of them for a energy refill, a sort of force push, amongst other powers that you unlock over time with story moments and experience point unlocks. Your powers won’t last for long however if you use anything other than the default lightning bolts so you’ll have to recharge through numerous environmental elements such as neon signs, circuit breakers, destroyed cars, light posts and pretty much anything that contains electricity which actually feels really good and ties into the environment neatly. There’s also a bit of a strategic element to this factor, as draining these elements bring your health back up in a jam if you need it from the damage you take, and can actually be kind of stressful in a strategic kind of way if you’re retreating. Keep in mind that your health comes back naturally over time, but it’s a lot quicker to just drain something though after you drain it, depending on what it is it either takes a while to come back to full power or it doesn’t come back at all. The powers are varied enough that it feels pretty solid for whichever approach you take, and feels pretty powerful eviscerating an area full of goons trying to wipe you out.
Another aspect of this is parkour; Cole has been free running and climbing and as such that is your main and only way around the environment. There is no fast travel and no vehicles, it’s only you and your movement. In spirit it’s a great concept, and when pulled off properly it works great; with this in mind there are upsides and downsides. The main upside is that it’s not really restrictive like the Assassin’s Creed games were at the time, you move by tapping X and continuously tapping it as you climb the buildings and you move the directions that for the most part feel pretty fluid. However the parkour in this game is very…particular as well; you’ll sometimes try to climb certain places and miss your mark entirely because Cole decides to go a different direction, and sometimes Cole just refuses to walk into a small area a particular way because there’s an invisible wall that pushes him back and so you have to kind of finagle yourself into the area via jumping over it or running around it which pretty much works the problem out though sometimes trying to get certain blast shards leads to dying if it’s near the water (because water and electricity equals death).
Then there’s the environment mixed with the combat; the amount of times I died because I was beating some guy up next to a car from full health is strange, same with killing a guy who morphs into an empty barrel which somehow kicks me in the head and kills me instantly it’s pretty frustrating in an unintentional way (though it could be explained due to a smaller team and budget). Also grinding the rails and across telephone lines feels pretty solid, though it takes time to truly master hopping from wire to wire as the physics of motion can really make you overshoot or miss entirely if you don’t do it early enough or if you don’t slow down. Overall this aspect is pretty solid for the most part, everything kind of fits together minus the strange parkour sometimes but it can be done pretty well, surprisingly so even on the hardest difficulty (which I did for the plat of course) which wasn’t really frustrating due to the open ended nature of the game compared to something like Uncharted’s difficulty. However, the hard mode also gives you less XP which means you’ll have to hit up some spots to grind out enemies for a long time or knock everything out in one go and go into certain missions underpowered. This can be especially frustrating considering what powers were upgraded beforehand to fight against some of the special enemies (or the deadliest enemy in the game: Turrets).
Each gang has their own special gang members, or conduits, that set themselves apart from the normal run and gun soldiers. The Reapers have giant white hoodie fuckers that teleport everywhere and can be a general nuisance, whilst the Dust Men have guys who shoot out little garbage crabs and also wield a rocket launcher to the First Sons having guys who can grow a bit taller and stomp you out. However with this in mind, I like the variation of each gang and how it makes them unique, and truth be told outside of side missions I wish I could see these guys try to stomp each other out more. Speaking of which, feeding into the XP thing: Missions/Side Missions. Other than the main forty story missions, the world mostly consist of you going around on side errands, some of which are unique to the mission and have karma moments and some repeat; like draining listening devices off of buildings or escorting certain NPCs and shocking them when they try to escape to just killing them off. What I can say is that if you’re trying to go for all the powers, especially on Hard, you won’t be able to get enough XP to unlock all the upgrades unless you grind enemies for a while; and when you beat these missions they both barely give you XP as a reward and on top of that they remove most of the gang influence from the territory making it so that it’s harder to find these gang members to grind. It’s kind of a frustrating process to deal with and as such if you’re going for the platinum you have to keep an eye out for that sort of thing, however if you’re a casual player then it’s not a really big deal.
Collectibles such as the Blast Shards don’t give you much XP either, with 350 overall to collect and I believe around 5 XP with each one you’ll get about 1,750 XP for all of them, and that’s not really enough to cover much in the way of upgrades. However they are useful for two things: upgrading your power meter so you can use more and for when you play Infamous 2; if you collect half the blast shards then you get a whopping TWO extra blast cores. Overall, this side it’s not too bad; it feels good to use the powers and strategy to fight and when you do it really well it feels amazing, it’s just some of the other things that can be kind of iffy to deal with. Also, there isn’t much in the way of replayability after these missions and extra objectives (including stunts, which require you to perform certain tricks for XP as well as a trophy) so it’s a bit of an empty world otherwise and I wish there was something more substantial but for what we got I guess I can’t complain too much here.
The atmosphere/soundtrack/sound design/art design are pretty top notch for the most part if I were to say myself. The atmosphere is as said earlier inspired by gritty superhero comics and movies; and you could blatantly tell due to a lot of the main colors being gray and black, a hostile environment that is basically drained of its life, which made me feel uneasy playing it (especially in areas where I haven’t unlocked the power yet. Empire City to me is definitely a living and breathing character on its own (with some of the details such as walking through small puddles shocking the area around it and maybe killing someone if they walk on the same puddle as you being a cool detail), though more of a shell or a husk of one that is slowly fading into oblivion. Though plenty of games feature cities that are gritty and near collapse, I can still remember pretty much almost every part of the game’s map, mixed in with the sky being either pitch black, blue or red depending on your level of karma at the end of the game. The art design of the characters really fits with me as well, with everyone struggling to survive and looking mostly tattered (though Zeke just looks like Elvis so I don’t know how I feel there), and the gangs? Oh god the gangs in this game look great, from the flashy Reapers gang wearing those red hoods to the camouflage the Dust Men have hiding within the trashy environment of the slums to the militarized First Sons organization that looks straight out of a post apocalypse movie. The comic book aesthetic in the cutscenes really play to that strength as well, with pretty much every cutscene being straight out of a graphic novel which when mixed with the voice acting is pretty solid. Compared to Infamous 2’s version of Cole, I happen to like Jason Cottle’s version of Cole MacGrath a lot more due to it’s deep and gravelly voice; he also does his role as Alden Tate pretty well too in comparison that I couldn’t tell the difference between the two roles and thought it was different altogether. Other standouts include Caleb Moody as Zeke, October Moore as Trish and one of my favorites: Phil Lamar as John White. Everyone does a pretty solid job voicing their roles and not once was I brought out of the moment playing the game by strange voice acting choices. Sound Design is also fantastic, with the lightning effects making your attacks really sound punchy, noises all sound like what they’re supposed to be, and truthfully I can’t really complain about anything sound wise. To finish it off, the soundtrack is pretty solid too, nothing that I’d listen to on the way to work but it’s pretty good at bringing you into the moment and not letting go, with a lot of dark ambience mixed with fast paced drums, which was made using environmental object sounds and using them with other, more traditional instruments. I feel that all of these things kind of line up with each other in a way that really makes it unique, if not in general than at least to me.
To finally answer the questions. Is it good and is it worth playing? Yeah, I personally think so. It has a couple of flaws here and there, some mix ups that could’ve been done better but overall I liked it a lot when I first played it and I still feel the same way I did all those years ago when I first played this on the Gamestop Kiosk for the first mission and down to playing it for real as my first Playstation 3 game ever. Following the first title there were sequels, comic book tie ins and a movie that was announced before nothing ever came of it ever again; still though this game, whilst not perfect, lives on in my heart as something that may be a tad flawed here and there but fills me with a time full of nostalgia every time I sit down and play it. I think if anything, the only true downside to this game is that, yet again, it hasn’t been ported to PC and is currently stuck on the Playstation 3 platform or on PS Plus if you really feel like paying all that money out the ass to stream the game. I’m glad I was able to sit down and finally wrap up the platinum after so many years from starting it as my first PS3 game, and eventually I plan to sit down and platinum Infamous 2 before writing up retrospectives on the other games in the series. And as for what happened a bit before/after the game was released? A rivalry with Prototype, a similar open world action game featuring a dark and gritty storyline that apparently had a challenge involving drawing the opposition's main character in lingerie after a challenge by Yahtzee which…interesting. That and more Infamous sequels, 1 of which was great, and the other one not so great, but that’s just the way things work sometimes, along with spin-off games and even comic books, which inspired the series to begin with along with a place in games such as Playstation All Stars Battle Royale and even the PS3 version of Street Fighter X Tekken. I doubt they’ll come out with another Infamous game anytime soon but truth be told I miss this series, and hope that they at least decide to re-release these games on Next Gen/PC ports (even the mixed feeling Second Son arc as I’d call it) because these games had something, a lightning in a bottle (no pun intended this time) feeling that not a lot of titles can really bring back for me.
Links;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tv1AHs6-cfE&ab_channel=F4m1LyGuy10
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/InFAMOUS
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous#Behind_the_scenes
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt1458923/fullcredits?ref_=tt_cl_sm
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous:_Post_Blast
https://infamous.fandom.com/wiki/Infamous_(comics)
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Infamous_(video_game)
https://www.gameinformer.com/b/features/archive/2013/05/22/the-origins-of-infamous.aspx
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sucker_Punch_Productions