The Darkness is a faux-immersive sim/first person shooter developed by Starbreeze Studios based on The Darkness comic series and created using the same engine and similar styled gameplay as The Chronicles of Riddick: Escape from Butcher Bay/Assault on Dark Athena. I still need to play those games but I originally sat down and played this game because at one point I played The Darkness 2 on the Xbox 360. Having loved that game's "Supernatural mobster killing aesthetic". I decided I wanted to pick up the first game when I was younger, and having picked up and played this game I can safely say I FUCKING LOVED IT. Is it as tight controlling as the second one? No. But I love the story, I love the gameplay despite it's janks and truth be told this game is in my Top 20 at the very least. Let me explain:

The Story is about a mobster named Jackie Estacado who with two of his mobster buddies go to assassinate a construction foreman or something at one of Paulie's sites. Now Paulie Franchetti is both the don of the family as well as Jackie's adoptive father, whom adopted Jackie when he was an orphan to raise him up as a hitman in his family. Things go awry as both the police and other construction guys try to shoot the trio of hitmen. Jackie's friend die, and Jackie himself shoots his way to where the target is supposedly located only to find a trap from Uncle Paulie himself: A bomb strapped to the corpse of the target. Turns out Uncle Paulie wanted you dead in his weird sociopathic paranoia for "criticizing the way you do business" and he attempts to kill you. Now, it's Jackie's 21st birthday and he's not pleased, but he gets an extra surprise: an ancient power named "The Darkness" possesses Jackie and helps him slaughter his way through mafia hitmen left and right. With revenge in mind, Jackie decides to hit Paulie and his buddy, Police Captain Eddie Shrote where it hurts, their pockets. However there's one things that could throw a wrench in it: Jackie's girlfriend Jenny, the love of his life. What I really love about the story other than the excuse to massacre mobsters is that their love for each other, though awkward on Jackie's end feels real and in the short time you get to know Jenny you love her instantly and want her to stay alive with Jackie. In the short time you have together you could even choose to sit together on the couch in her apartment and watch To Kill A Mockingbird all the way through in a nice sentimental moment. Too bad Paulie and Eddie Shrote later blow up the orphanage where you two used to live at but then blow out your girlfriend's brains in front of you while your held back by the Darkness itself. It turns out to the surprise of no one The Darkness is an evil little manipulative bastard; but you don't swear revenge and go after the killers. No, Jackie can't live without Jenny and just shoots himself. He wakes up in a World War 1 hellscape where he shoots his way to a town and learns of The Darkness's history; it's as old as time itself, and bonded itself to Jackie's family via his ancestor Anthony Estacado during World War 1. You're encouraged to get the Darkness Guns before coming back to him and being pointed in the direction of the castle where The Darkness lives. It turns out that The Darkness is keeping Jackie alive in some sort of incubation period as he slowly heals him back alive. When Jackie comes to, he's back in New York City and it's determined that Eddie Shrote needs to die. Mobsters point him towards Shrote's apartment and after failing the hit, Jackie raids an abandoned Turkish Bath used by Shrote's corrupt police force to host Illicit goods. Jackie massacres his cops and steals a briefcase, and after consulting with mobster Butcher Joyce, they plant a bomb and set a deal within Trinity Church to assassinate Shrote. It's obviously an ambush and goes both predictably wrong and right. Jackie is hit with flashbangs and is strapped to a chair and tortured with a power drill before he uses the Darkness to blow up the briefcase and kill Eddie and his guys, but before he does he hears them talking about "Mother of God". He's now back in World War 1, and he raids the castle with Anthony to help Jackie confront the Darkness. Anthony dies, musing that The Darkness is as evil as it is because it went insane due to the evil and misdeeds of humanity. From there you sit in four chairs to rip The Darkness out painfully before embracing it once again in a strange form of control over it. However it presents a conundrum, the more you kill, the closer it gets to taking control of your soul. Jackie wakes back up and after consulting the other mobsters learns what "Mother of God" is: a boat used by Paulie's superiors, the Chicago Mafia Families, to smuggle drugs in and out of New York. Calling the boat over, he assaults the drug boat and takes it over causing Paulie to flee to the safety of his lighthouse mansion in fear of being killed by the Chicago families for being seen as a liability. Jackie assaults the mansion during a hinted at Solar Eclipse and lets the Darkness take control, slaughtering everyone in his wake before he offs the fat bastard who murdered his girlfriend. He finally wakes up in a dream, where he talks to Jenny one last time as they say goodbye to each other before it finally fades to black. My feelings on the plot is basically one word: Wow. I love it, it's fucking sad and moving, in a sense poetic, definitely beautiful in my opinion. This game's plot moved me, and unlike the whole cult thing in the second game this game strictly stays with the mafioso murder stuff and some of my favorite video game enemies are Italian guys with the names of Joey and Dino in see through socks eating spaghetti while bitching about the good old days. It balances both of these well in a game that's not too long but not too short and to me personally makes it an experience I will come back to time and time again, and I still feel the relationship between Jackie and Jenny is one of the best depictions of an actual human relationship, if not the best ever in my opinion.

Now the gameplay for some will be the main detriment and I can understand why. It feels a bit awkward sometimes, mostly with using the Darkness arm and trying to climb into certain spots. Speaking of Darkness arms, you have a certain number of powers: The Darkness arm allows you to control a little tentacle that can sneak around wherever you need to go, climbing on walls, ceilings and the like to either open up new path ways or murder people. You can also use your darkness arms to throw black holes that'll suck people up and kill them instantly, stab them violently or call upon "Darklings", which are little goblin creatures in certain spots to do a number of things from just attack them, blow them up, shoot at them with a minigun and etc. You'll also get Darkness Guns, which you can use to permanently kill people in the World War 1 dreams or if you have full Darkness power (from eating people's hearts, which you can use to get more of these abilities and upgrades of which I continued to do long after getting all the upgrades because the sound design is great) you can just shoot them with infinite ammo I think? Which reminds me, your main form of attack are normal firearms like dual wielding pistols and SMGs (which you just end up dropping one if they're empty), a shotgun, an M16/AK, and some other stuff I think? They're aren't that many types of weapons but I still think they're pretty good and pack a punch. Now while you're doing this, you also have to knock out any nearby light source or else your powers will retreat into you and you won't be able to heal until you get out. This leads to a tactical awareness of your settings which I like and when the gunplay comes together it comes together great, especially if you approach people up front and execute them in a cool animation. Again there's a little bit of jank here and there, and I don't blame anyone who doesn't like it but I personally feel that this system is superior to the second game's system. You can also explore the lower part of Manhattan via train stations and pathways while doing side quests for people. For the most part, there aren't any monetary rewards; doing these quests only lead to an achievement for doing them all and collectible phone numbers, which when put in a nearby pay phone you'll get for the most part a funny little voice line or two and a collectible concept art or something for the main menu. You can also find these in both the World War 1 Underworld as well. To finish off, there is certain interactivity with the enviornment. The romantic moment with Jenny earlier can choose to watch TV, in certain spots cartoons will play, you can turn on and off light sources and while this may not be the most interactive game (definitely not, I say Faux Immersive sim for a reason), you can still interact with the world in certain ways that while may be limited still bring a bit of character to it. In the sequel they would certainly restrict a lot of these elements which I personally view as a downgrade and a damn shame.

The Sound Design/graphic/everything else: The voice actors are great with The Darkness itself voiced by metal vocalist Mike Patton, and is the PERFECT choice to portray how evil yet cowardly the Darkness is; the range is phenomenal and I can't recommend enough. Jackie is of course another highlight, though not threatening I like the vulnerable awkwardness that Kirk Acevedo brings to the table (though I think I like The Darkness 2's characterization better but at the same time I'm not bothered in the slightest). Jenny is voiced by Lauren Ambrose who brings an innocence but tough vibe to her that I can't describe but I like. The other guys are voiced like Italian mobsters, and I think they do a fantastic job, especially Dwight Shultz who makes me hate Uncle Paulie more and more with each breath he takes. Everyone does a fantastic job, especially Gustaf Grefberg with the soundtrack, who mixes a bit of metal and orchestral music and it fits in perfectly with the vibe going on. Other areas of NY spring to life with heavily compressed music tracks that the guys doing breakdancing do in the Subway, with how George (one of the sidequesters) plays the Harmonica, I can't compliment the sound design enough; the actual world sound design is great from the weapons that sound punchy to the sound effects you get from when you violently rip out people's hearts to everything to be honest, everything's good. The only thing I could say looks strange is maybe the graphics? It does look a tad bit on the weird side, people's faces sometimes look a little too dead for my taste but for the most part I look past it. That being said, the Otherworld is fucking horrifying to be around and art wise is great, and the lighting is beautiful especially the last part killing Paulie where you look imposing standing over his soon to be corpse.

Now this game is a game I've played numerous times over the past decade or so that I've had it, and I recently watched a friend of mine play it on the hardest difficulty backwards compatible on Xbox One. To me that's the best place TO play it until it get's sold on PC (AGAIN PORT THE FUCKIN GAME JESUS, I will saw off a fuckin arm to get this game on Steam) but luckily you can play it on Emulator and I think runs well enough? I heard the PS3 version is a bit janky with frame rates but I'm not 100 percent sure because I didn't play it, and a friend of mine played it via PS3 emulator and said it ran great so I'm not sure. BUT what I will say is this game is a unique game, and I wish Starbreeze made more games like this. This game is in my Top 20 games at the least, and is worth a shot for anyone who wants to try it out; I sure as hell will and plan on playing it again real soon to get all the collectibles. I can't say enough good things about this game and all I want to do is ramble on more and more but I think I rambled on enough.

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception is a game created by Naughty Dog as the obvious third part in the Uncharted trilogy; remastered by the excellent Bluepoint Games for the Playstation 4 system. Now I'll probably have less things to say for this game than the others but I do have some thoughts, gonna start with the gameplay.

Having played through the game on Crushing for the platinum than wrapped up a couple years later, I find it amazing how much more balanced this game feels combat wise and how the set pieces were expanded even further. I remember going through the final bosses of the previous two games and thinking that I'd rather just off myself but I actually had a decent time with this boss and it felt like it was ACTUALLY fair this time instead of what amounted to be an enemy gauntlet in the first one and an invincible try your best and good luck run with the second, like it was an actual fight that you could counter and I was thankful as hell. The gameplay for the most part is the same as the last two games except a bit more optimized and feels a tad better; the arsenals is also a bit more expanded and again as I said the set pieces are more advanced; one of the more amazing ones was climbing around on a sinking cruise ship while water was flooding in and I felt that was done well. Another memorable set piece was near the end when you're chasing after a convoy of trucks on a horse and you jump from truck to truck to catch up to a kidnapped Sully. Of course I still suck at puzzles so I can't say much about it and for the most part it still is a third person cover shooter type game. I guess that's one of the reasons that I don't have too much to say compared to my reviews to the other games: Any flaws are ones that have already been said before or were fixed, that and the game doesn't make any real drastic changes or anything so if you enjoyed the gameplay for the previous two you'll enjoy the gameplay here. In fact for the original trilogy again I think this one is the most balanced out of all of them; but other than that I have nothing to say really.

My thoughts on the story are as follows: I appreciate the fact they tried to give Nathan more character depth than the other two games. You learn a little bit (but not a lot) of Drake's childhood, with one flashback dedicated to meeting Sully and another little bit of info that reveals that he used to live in an Orphanage and adopted the Drake name (with the rest of his childhood not being revealed until the fourth game in the series); and both of these events revolve around one woman: the main antagonist Katherine Marlowe. She's the leader of an ancient secret society that the original Francis Drake once was a member of and had used to work with Sully. In the beginning; Nathan, Sully, Chloe Frazier and her associate Charlie Cutter set up a sting operation to figure out where Marlowe is held up, and finds info related to an old voyage where Francis tried to find the Lost City of Ubar. After following clues to a French Chateau and a Syrian Citadel, they find a clue that leads to Yemen; however Charlies breaks his leg and both him & Chloe back out. Things only get worse as they go to Yemen and Nathan meets back up with his estranged wife Elena. Now here is where I have an issue with the plot, I don't hate interpersonal relationship drama in these types of games I guess but in the second game, this game and the fourth game I feel like they tend to recycle the same formula with the whole treasure hunting thing being a strain on their relationship which in a sense is realistic. I guess personally I felt playing this title it was a tad tiresome since it was already done before, but regardless things still go bad and Nathan is captured. After the bit with Nate's childhood orphanage is revealed; it's learned that Sully's location was discovered, things happen and a boat captain named Ramses has apparently captured Sully. Now here is ANOTHER problem I don't care about, whereas these chapters have some cool set pieces, it leads to the reveal that he never had Sully and I guess it was just a distraction, which I guess is fine but also felt like a complete waste of time to be honest. Whatever the case Ramses's ship sinks and Nathan somehow doesn't drown and washes back up in Yemen, where it's learned Marlowe captured Sully to lead her to the Lost City. Nathan and Elena sneak into the airport where they're about to fly off, and barely get Nathan onto the plane itself. They end up over the desert and after getting into a scuffle with one of Marlowe's henchmen in basically the most legendary setpiece in the entire franchise with all the stuff falling out the back of the plane, the entire thing crashes into the desert and crashes into the ground. Nathan survives and walks through the desert to try to find some semblance of civilzation and he miraculously does only to find more Marlowe goons. Eventually after killing them he's saved by a man named Salim, who warns him of the Lost City and how King Solomon basically doomed the people by trapping a Genie into the city. They eventually attack Marlowe's convoy and rescue Sully before a sandstorm hits; and with that Nathan and Sully go into the city alone. Inside, Nathan experiences hallucinations of Sully's death after drinking from a water fountain and realize that the curse to the city was that the water was tainted with hallucinogens. Nathan comes back to his sense and It's figured that Francis Drake was sent by Queen Elizabeth to harvest the water in an attempt to use it as a sort of weapon, and abandoned his mission before lying to her, and now Marlowe wants to use this stuff as a weapon for domination I guess. Eventually Marlowe dies in a sinkhole (taking Nathan's ring with her) and her henchman, Talbot, is defeated in a fight on top of the sinking city. Of course, he dies and Nathan/Sully meet up with Salim again and leave the sinking city. Some time later, Nathan and Sully meet up with Elena, Nathan puts on a wedding ring on Elena's finger again and they all ride off happy. Again, there are certain parts I like about this story with trying to give Nathan as a character more depth with a look at his childhood, giving off an aura of mystery. But I also feel like the whole strained relationship and the section where Nathan chases after Ramses is tiring and either not interesting or a waste of time story wise. That being said, I do like everything else it brings to the table and whereas it may not be as interesting as Uncharted 2's plot was, it was still good enough to personally keep my attention the whole way through. Also they didn't include mutant creatures this time thank christ, instead they're replaced by hallucinogenic Djinn creatures, though this I don't really remember anything about them in game so I don't know how better off that is.

This leads to the final part: Art/Sound/Graphics. Graphically at that point it was the best looking as it had ever been and mixed in with the art direction to go more "sandey" and as a result more hostile and threatening personally. The characters look even better and as the series progresses of course the graphics will look better as a result, and the environmental effects are great as well with little details like shooting the ground making the sand pop up into little clouds. The sound design is great as well and as always the voice actors/actresses in these games are amazing and pull of their work well.

I guess to finish it off, Uncharted 3 improves a lot of things from the second game one hundred percent. I definitely appreciate the gameplay changes, though I also feel it's less memorable than the second game and even the first game to an extent. I'll be honest relying off of memory to recount the game's plot was especially tough so I had to read up on the game's wiki and wikipedia even more than I did the last two games and to me that's kind of disappointing. But at the same time, the game is definitely worthy of closing out the original trilogy of the series, and is also worthy of getting played and I'm gonna say it again: PORTED TO PC. Everyone should be able to play the old games, and eventually the PS3/4 will die out sadly; a PC port is a good way to keep accessibility going on forever as well as making money off of it. That being said, emulators are good too. I guess to finish off the review, I'll post two clips of memorable things. One is a glitch I encountered playing on Crushing mode where I had a laugh, and the other one is a Subway Ad that was interesting for it's time.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Vs5P4TWr7Sg&ab_channel=gamemast15r

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tDH140dLq5M&ab_channel=Cregan4584

Destroy All Humans! 2 - Reprobed by Black Forest Games is a literal Destroy All Humans simulator where you...Destroy All Humans...too? Look I don't know I'm not funny, but I'll tell you what this game is actually funny. The original game to me is one of my favorite games of all time and when I saw the release trailer for the original Destroy All Humans remake I was excited for it...mostly because I was hoping they would make a remake of this game. And of course they did so I had to get it, which shoutout to my buddy Casey for getting it for me, you f u c k ing chud! Gonna go to the positives before I state my main problem with this remake.

The gameplay is fantastic, to me I love it but it's also reminiscent of a PS2 game because the remake almost faithfully recaptures basically every little piece of the originals. Basically if you played the remake of the first one you'll get more of the same except new stuff like added guns, a couple of new abilities, etc. It is basically an alien murder game and you go around completing main mission/side missions, destroying buildings, reading peoples minds for funny quips, leaving prank calls for the local police department, etc. You can go on foot and glide everywhere with either the jet pack or the hover board (which I'll discuss in a bit) as well as go into your UFO and destroy whole buildings from there. There's a lot to really unpack and I don't think I can do this game justice, but what I can say for the most part is that the game play aspect like everything else does what the original does but feels more smooth and controls a lot better in my honest opinion. And a lot of that is what struck me about this game compared to the original; it just feels more accessible compared to the original on PS2/Xbox. There were no hover boards in the original but now you can move faster, Psychokinesis now throws people all the way into the stratosphere, like the game feels great. I can't give enough props to this game for being what I believe a remake SHOULD be.

The plot basically sticks verbatim to the original PS2 version as well. You play as Crypto once again as the KGB blow up your mother ship for an unknown reason, and you have to figure out why they did it and whose controlling the strings so you can kill them. In between you run into alien fertility god cults, ninjas, parodies of James Bond, a seductive Russian spy, and all sorts of parodies and pastiches from old sixties culture. The beginning of the game says that this game is a product of it's time, and the truth is while it is with a lot of humor that might be considered tasteless now, I still think that this game is a hilarious satire that dunks on the stupidity of everyone while throwing out references left and right, fourth wall breaks, etc.; it might be just rose tinted glasses but truth be told I thought the original as well as this game was hilarious with everything it had going for it though I'd understand if other people really didn't dig it. To me it's still a great story, not mind blowing but it's a lot of fun to be had and you'll be traveling around the world [spoiler](mostly San Francisco, London, Tokyo, Tunguska and a moon base[/spoiler] compared to strictly just the United States in the first games. Some of my favorite side missions include setting up a satellite to "phone home", dealing with a parody of Mothra and getting rid of the eggs, hunting down a "Yeti", and the Arkvoodle Cult stuff.

The graphics/sound design/art design; it's made in the Unreal Engine 5 so it looks good graphically; I guess my only gripe is that in a way I kind of miss the old style that didn't make everyone look totally like a caricature but with the way this game handles it's satire honestly it fits so I can't really complain and they did the same with the first one. Also as far as I know the sound design is basically the same with the original PS2 game (though maybe with some stuff changed that I barely noticed) so if you like how the original sounded it'll mostly be the same.

The only bad thing I can personally say about this game: dear god this remake has glitches. For the most part they're just hilarious: one glitch I was replaying a level and I used the little Gojira pet you can choose before my game crashed. I came back on to the actual free roam and the little monster was still following me around shooting people; then eventually I don't remember if they died or not but when they did they clipped through a building and expanded in size to what the normal model in Takoshima looked like. Another example is you can body snatch a human and go to a nearby payphone to prank call or get rid of/bring police to your location; somehow I found one in Tunguska (The cold Soviet Union area) that had the voice lines of those from the first area in Bay City, and that was only one. Cars will randomly flip around for no reason, and sometimes missions will glitch out like the Mothra parody mission where you'll try to drop eggs in the volcano and the base will be open before suddenly closing or they'll say I pissed off Moghra when the meter was barely full. Frame rates will randomly drop sometimes and textures can take a while to load as well. It was a strange combination that honestly definitely needs to be patched to some degree. Otherwise that's the only bad thing I can truly think of.

If I were to say anything it would be this, I'm thankful that Black Forest Games has been remaking these games. I love the original two but truth be told if you go back and play them now while they're good some might find them a bit too old for their tastes, and these games (and the future of the franchise) honestly deserves more. And in a weird age of remakes where I personally feel certain games deserve it (this series, Demon's Souls, etc.) and certain games don't (The Last of Us mainly, though Dead Space while apparently great follows up) this game to me is what I felt a great remake should be. My hope is that while I wish the original games would be ported to PC (I will die on the port every game hill), that now that Black Forest has remade the first two they'll go through and remake the so-so Big Willy Unleashed and the franchise killer: Path of the Furon, and make them better. That being said, please patch the performance issues and glitches. I personally feel it's worth the money and sunk a lot of time into it but what you value the game at is really up to you. Again thank you very much to my dude Casey for getting this game for me for Christmas, but f u c k off you can't get my sister's number lol.

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

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an action adventure race to the ancient treasure Indiana Jones simulator originally released on the PS3 in 2009 before being re-released in the Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection on PS4. The game on PS3 was also hyped up for its inclusion of multiplayer; of which isn't included on the remaster for PS4 so I have absolutely nothing to say other than the beta was released with copies of InFamous as well as that the servers were terminated in 2019 so if you had a fascination with playing this game you can't anymore. I'm gonna start on the plot here:

The plot goes as follows: Nathan wakes up In Media Res in a destroyed train in a VERY snowy mountain area and tries to climb his way up before it flashes back to the present. It’s a couple of years after the first Uncharted game, Nathan is now single again while taking up a job from old friend Harry Flynn and (unbeknownst to Harry) old flame Chloe Frazier (who is one of the best parts of this game, in an already great game) to steal a lamp connected to Marco Polo’s expedition into China. After finding a lead at a museum in Istanbul, Harry leaves Nathan to be arrested by the police and is locked up for three months before Chloe and old friend Victor Sullivan free him. It turns out old Harry is working for the most Call of Duty-ass villain: war criminal Zoran Lazarević. What types of war crimes did he commit? Who knows, but you can tell this dude is fuckin out there based on the stereotypical accent as well as the anger in his voice. Now he wants an artifact called the Cintamani Stone, which Marco Polo was apparently carrying out on a boat. It also turns out that Chloe has been working with them as a mole, and will be helping Drake while staying undercover (and keeping their old fling going). Eventually Chloe and Nathan go to Nepal where Call of Duty villain number six has been raiding with his boys when he finds old ex-girlfriend Elena Fisher doing a documentary on his exploits in a VERY strange coincidence. Her cameraman dies and everyone’s captured with Chloe quickly switching sides to maintain her cover again. Nathan escapes and catches up to Zoran’s train and basically manages to blow it up. He wakes up again in train and climbs out of it, shooting through some goons and escaping before collapsing in the snow and waking up in a Tibetan village with a guide named Tenzin and meeting up with explorer Karl Shaefer. He tells Nathan and Elena about his failed expedition for the stone years ago and sends Nathan and Tenzan to the remains: what follows is discovering a similar plot twist as the last game: Nazis (which Karl was one of but killed his fellow explorers) also tried to claim this artifact and inadvertently awoke mutant creatures or something. They fight their way out back to the village where Zoran’s war criminal buddies start going to town war criminaling and a chase leads to a secret passage that leads to the ancient city of Shambala. Somewhere in here Harry Flynn is abandoned and dies from what I remember, and after leaving an injured Elena with Chloe, Nathan goes to confront Makarov’s sidekick alone. In what I regard is one of the worst boss battles I’ve think I’ve ever had the displeasure of playing on the hardest difficulty, Zoran becomes invincible and you have to shoot explosive sap growths next to him to weaken him which you do before he eventually dies after being murdered by the mutant creatures again. You all get out of Shambala alive and Chloe tells you to go back to Elena before telling Nathan that “You’ll miss this piece of ass” and by god who doesn’t (even though Naughty Dog said they would stop making Uncharteds, if they do make more have them center around Chloe please). Nate and Elena solidify their love once again and the story ends. So far what I’m going to say is that the plot is much more expanded and brought to life in this game than it was in the previous one but with some caveats. Roman and Navarro were barely noticeable in the last game, in this game the main bad guy Zoran is a stereotypical evil serbian war criminal which I swear could’ve been put in any Call of Duty game and he would fit with how evil and stereotypical he is, but he is to me the most memorable antagonist in the series next to Rafe from Uncharted 4. The main characters are great as usual (though I forgot some mentions of Sully in my expanded “By memory and some samples from Wikipedia and Youtube only of the main plot, my apologies), but with the most memorable dynamic being Chloe and Nathan. By god those two are great together and really bring the tension out. I also like how the stakes were ramped up compared to the first game with a literal military faction being the antagonist group faced against. I guess if I were to down one thing is that like the first game, the second game has similar mutant creatures derived from the sap. Whereas I don’t mind the creatures, I feel like they were both interesting in a sense and derivative basically. I guess from here I’ll move onto the next part:

For the soundtrack/graphics/art direction I can safely say that the soundtrack for the most part doesn’t have any bangers that you’d listen to in the car or anything like the first one but it’s fine as it blends into the game and amps up the tension without making it too pronounced and jarring. The voice actors do a fantastic job, with Claudia Black I personally feel being the highlight for bringing this dynamic with Nolan North as Drake. The graphics of course got better from the previous game and as such being an improvement over the first game with more detail to the character models as well as the environmental details. What I can say with the level design is that one particular area that I really enjoyed with the game is when you go to Nepal with Chloe. The streets look amazing, and the integration with the actual parkour mixed in with the war torn streets feel kind of seamless in the way you get through the level; though like always I’m not sure if it’s me particularly but the level design can be confusing as fuck with where to go in terms of these environments sometimes and I remember getting stuck until looking up a guide but that may just be because I’m an idiot. That being said, Uncharted has been good at making the climbing seamlessly blend into the environment, that being said Uncharted 2 and its environment definitely improves on this with the art design. Which I guess kind of blends in with the next part of the review: the gameplay.

The gameplay for the most part is basically the same but with little improvements here and there to the core design of it all. Bringing it back to the climbing, the climbing is a little bit more polished though dear god do I still fight the actual climbing aspect of it sometimes. If I could give an example of this, while finishing up the platinum for this game on PS4 I was trying to do the speedrun of Chapter 5 and I almost failed because numerous times instead of jumping where I needed Nathan to jump he would either reach up to grab something or just move to the right or left. Now to be fair, it feels A LOT more fluid than the first game, I also understand that parkour in these sort of games can be difficult considering there are so many ledges you could try to grab and having an input like this can lead to all sorts of combinations; I remember struggling many times in pretty much every Assassin’s Creed games for the most part and what I will say is that I get it 100 percent; I’m not an expert at these things and I understand it can be complicated. FOR the most part however, Uncharted 2 is a bit more responsive and fluid though these sorts of things still happen from time to time where you try to make a leap and it’s helped considerably by the fact that it isn’t open world. The gunplay is of course the standard stuff except the arsenal is a bit more well rounded; whereas the submachine guns and sniper rifles practically stay the same there are at least a couple of new weapons in each category and even a tranquilizer gun in the second level. The over the shoulder aiming looks much better as well, though what I will say with this game is if you’re looking for drastic changes you WILL NOT get that; it’s still a third person cover shooter with climbing mechanics. The crushing difficulty of course still isn’t balanced right like all the old shooters (to me personally), especially that final boss. This game is probably the worst I’ve ever played in the series so far on crushing difficulty, mostly just because of that final boss battle with Lazaravic. So the whole point of his boss fight is he’s invincible because he drank some magical tree sap, so you have to shoot these growths on the side of trees in order to weaken him while constantly staying on the move; the problem is this guy moves fast and WILL fuck you up over and over again. Now I played this game a couple of years ago so I forget some details but what I will say is that on crushing you will have a miserable time with this compared to the rest of the game and by the end I just wanted it to be done. What I ended up having to do was use this video in order to finally beat the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DEg1yY_L_Sg&ab_channel=DirtyToneuk

And even this took dozens upon dozens of tries. I’m sorry but THIS is not good gameplay, I don’t know why the programmers decided to do this but this was awful design (which in the later games fared MUCH better and improved significantly thank god) and the idea that in order to beat something you feel you actually have to exploit a glitch in the AI frankly is disappointing. I never want to hear Lazaravic yell “DRRRAAAAAAAAAAAAAKE” ever again because it is etched into the lexicon of my nightmares. Otherwise the only thing I can think of to explain is that the game definitely amps up on the movie aspect with some set pieces dedicated to walking around and exploring the environment compared to the last game (one piece in mind is around the later part of the game where you walk through a Tibetan village before heading off to find an expedition) and that this game was the start of them adding heavy enemies that walk slow, take a lot of hits and power bullets through you like nothing so keep that in mind and always aim for the head.

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves is an improvement in almost every way compared to the first one and honestly is a lot more memorable compared to Drake’s Fortune; though to me the little things that still weren’t great were also really obvious (mostly the final boss which I thought would be better than the first game’s when I played it, and oh fucking boy was I wrong). It has a story that spans multiple locations, sexual tension, memorable antagonists as well as more character depth brought out to each and everyone of them. Also playing this on the PS4, I don’t remember seeing anything in the way of bad remastering so all I can say is yet again Bluepoint did a great job and please bring the Nathan Drake Collection to PC at some point again. The only thing I can really put down that I can think of otherwise are two videos I uploaded of funny moments I encountered playing the game:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vQwEA7eOmuk&ab_channel=gamemast15r

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1qe6fBi60Qk&ab_channel=gamemast15r

So yeah, when people say this is one of the greatest games of all time I can understand why they say it. I definitely think the later games improve on everything even more than this one does but yeah it’s pretty fuckin solid, go play it if you can and PLEASE SONY I WILL DIE ON A HILL and say port all the old Sony games to PC please. Sorry for the ramble, I’m gonna try to finish off the platinum for Uncharted 3 within the next week or so if I find the time and until then see ya’ll later I guess.

Uncharted: Drake's Fortune is a game created by Naughty Dog and released as a Playstation 3 Exclusive as well as rereleased on the Playstation 4 for the Uncharted: The Nathan Drake Collection. It originally started out as the big PS3 generation project after finishing Jak 3 because they wanted to try something new. For the very few who might not know anything about Uncharted, I'm going to go into the story/spoilers next:

The game is basically about treasure hunters Nathan Drake and Victor Sullivan as they team up with reporter Elena Fisher to find the location of the legendary El Dorado on an unnamed island, following the path of Sir Francis Drake, Nathan's ancestor. To this end, they follow the clues whilst also dodging the likes of pirates led by Eddy Raja as well as criminal Gabriel Roman, who has also sought the treasure as a part of the debt Victor (who is kidnapped for most of the game) owes him for loaning huge loads of money; as well as his right hand man Atoq Navarro. As Nathan, you mass shoot your way through numerous pirates and mercenaries through Nazi U-boats to forts through to the tunnels of a monastery. It's learned that El Dorado was actually a gold sarcophagus, and that not only did the Spanish try to get to it but so did the Nazis; with that in mind you learn that the treasure is cursed and people start turning into mutants before killing each other. Eddie Raja dies to these mutants while Nathan learns that Sir Francis Drake did everything in his power to stop El Dorado from getting out. You fight your way through the Nazi bunker and Elena is kidnapped (though Sullivan is free) and they confront Roman/Navarro airlifting the Sarcophagus out. Navarro betrays Roman by making him open it before it turns out that the inside of it contains the titular virus that turns everyone into mutants. Navarro plans to sell it as a weapon of mass destruction to the highest bidder and goes to make his escape; Nathan follows behind before ultimately chasing Navarro down and killing him by sinking both him and the Sarcophagus to the bottom of the ocean. Everyone reunites, leave the island with treasure, and it finalizes the game with Nathan and Elena getting into a relationship.

With this in mind; the plot's good. It's not mindblowing, and it's not gonna have any life altering twists or much in the way of heavy themes. It's literally a treasure hunting movie in game form, and for the first game in the series as well as a testing concept honestly it's fine. The game's really about the journey and the payoff is good, that being said you can tell that Roman and Navarro are just kind of standard and boring antagonists; compared to the genocidal war criminal Zoran in Uncharted 2, Katherine in 3 and Rafe in 4, you don't really get much in the way of personality, ESPECIALLY Roman. I mostly forgot he existed, and the way Navarro was handled was to be expected and that's fine but I kind of still wish there was more. Eddie is by far the most interesting personality antagonist wise with his high octane energy and his goofy fucking persona and for the most part the game mostly focuses on the protagonists which is cool but yeah it could've been more fleshed out. Otherwise yeah, it's good and I like it; even if the game feels like a strange mixture of tone with everything going on.

The gameplay is also good, though you can tell that there are some things that Naughty Dog were still working out kink wise. There were numerous times trying to get this platinum that I would try to jump to certain areas or walk on ledges only to miss the mark by a millisecond and slide off the edge awkwardly to my death or miss a jump because the camera angle was strange enough to where Nathan makes little goofy jumps when he could've made that one easily. I think for the most part the actual climbing/parkour while good was also my least favorite part of the game. Sometimes figuring out my way through the game was as easy as a snap, other times I'd be confused wandering around for five minutes trying to figure out what the hell is happening and where to go. That being said, the set pieces are well made if not kind of average compared to the bombasticness of the other games; though another complaint, like every other Uncharted game (and most games in general like CoD), the crushing difficulty is definitely harder than dick but with that being said I don't feel like it's balanced? Like instead of strategically placing enemies around and maneuvering some stuff it was just turned into "Let's make the player take more damage and get less ammo" which can lead to some frustrating segments. Nothing was more frustrating than the final battle with Navarro shooting through multiple goons surrounding you at the same time in a small area and your cover gets shot up; I'm sorry but it's bullshit and not fun. That being said, gunfights for the most part are fun but simple: you shoot and run for cover while occasionally engaging in fisticuff combat when you run into an enemy in close range. The shooting is fine though the fist fighting can be sort of strange: for example two trophies have you doing the Steel Fist technique (Shooting them before killing them with one punch) and then the Brutal Combo (which involves pressing square once, waiting a second or two before rapidly pressing triangle and then square again for a kill and twice the ammo). The brutal combo is cool and all but until you get into the rhythm (or barely get into it), you're not really going to get much of anywhere with it and you'll most likely spend the game just tapping square repeatedly and/or shooting people. I'm ok with depth but the timing feels really off; with that being said the only things I feel the need to discuss are puzzles: I suck at puzzles so I ended up getting stuck on them half the time so I can't really say much. That being said; the game is simple and just stick to these things for the most part with no real in depth thing besides maybe a turret section set piece here and a water ski ride up stream there. It's simple and sticks to the point which is ok but feels weird compared to the others in the series.

Graphics/Art/Sound Design; the graphics were good for the time and remastered somewhat near a decade ago they still look good; they're not gonna be the most detailed of course but they look fine. On a rare occasion (I believe just a remaster issue) there would be a graphical glitch but nothing really crazy or anything and for the most part it's solid. I do think it's hard to tell sometimes where I'm supposed to climb in the game, with certain tells being confusing but at the same time it wasn't awful and it blended quite well with the environmental design which was good. For the most part you'll be seeing jungle environments sometimes surrounded by dirty metallic bunkers and crumbled old Spanish looking buildings which for the most part is cool; basically what you think this game would look like for this type of story it does. Nothing memorable on the soundtrack end really other than the main theme I guess but it plays into the background well enough just right that you don't really notice it. Overall it's not bad; not the most memorable and somewhat old looking but it feels fine and there's nothing wrong with it.

And to get to my final point and connecting to the last paragraph: it's a decent game in which you could kill a day playing (or a lot more trying to platinum the game), come out thinking you had fun and then not really remember much. I'm very much opposed to unnecessary remakes (Like I felt the Last of Us Part I wasn't really needed aside from it being the official steam port but nonetheless) and so I remember hearing that the studio behind the Last of Us remake initially wanted to make their bones on either this game or the original Last of Us. While TLOU was taken over by Naughty Dog and made into what it is now; the idea that this game could've gotten a remake leaves me kind of mixed. On one hand a lot of the elements could be improved between graphics and some other environment stuff, on the other hand I also don't feel it necessarily need it. What I can say is, I wish they'd just port the other games in the series to PC; if you have the drive to put 4 and Lost Legacy as a bundle collection on Steam why not the original trilogy and Golden Abyss? It just feels weird and disconnected, and on top of that Bluepoint Games did an excellent job porting the game to PS4 and even though I know it takes a lot of money and time to port it to different forms of media I feel like this game and others deserve to be preserved. It's a good game and a good bit of a fun time, and if you're playing the remastered version like I did as your first time playing through the game it's a good way to get into it. Just keep in mind compared to the others it's a bit on the janky side but I still feel it at least deserves one play; if not at least for the cinematic Indiana Jones style feel, which though it doesn't capture to the best like the other games do still does it well enough.

Night At the Gates of Hell is a single player first person shooter survival horror game created by Black Eyed Priest (who created the game Bloodwash) in the vein of an 80s Fulci Zombie movie; as to which like most of the Torture Star Video game label they got going on they nail it right in the head with that mark. I'm not going to go over the usual stuff because there are technically three games in one so to do the usual format would take too long. So I'm gonna discuss how I feel about each of the games.

The main game Night at the Gates of Hell is good; the plot follows a guy named David as he tries to find his way with a group of survivors out of the city to an island out in the ocean that's been labeled as "safe". I'm not gonna go for plot spoilers much except hell yeah Stan from Bloodwash is back! but generally speaking I enjoy the pace of the plot, as well as the story content; the story content is messed up in the old exploitation horror movie style and there were multiple times where I was grossed out as well as creeped out (especially that little bastard Charles); there were other times where I was legitimately scared and I will say that I'm not really a jump scare guy but some of these were actually pretty good and got me. The gameplay consists of collecting ammo and kitchen knives, carefully shooting your way through zombies/cult members either down a set path or through a semi openish area to figure out the next piece of a puzzle to go forward. Collecting those knives are important because you have no health meter, if you have nothing and either a cult member or a zombie grabs you you're dead. I'll say that for the most part except one or two areas you're not gonna be inundated in ammo, though there were at least two times where I had 8 or so knives I think? Not that I'm complaining really. Overall I like how it's done, and it's a tense way trying to figure out how not to die. By completing this version you'll unlock two extra modes: The Booty Creek Cheek Freak and Evil in the House of Dr. Fleshenstein.

The Booty Creek Cheek Freak is a much smaller affair but a lot more h o m o erotic and tongue in cheek which I thought was hilarious, the story isn't really there but it involves a myth that has the titular Cheek Freak coming out if you poop on the floor in the bathroom. The game has quotables and for the most part was straightforward and I really liked it. I guess the only part I could really complain about was the maze at the end where you have to collect the Cheek Freak's bones in order to flush it down the toilet. It wasn't bad, but the maze is confusing and if you aren't aware where the air freshener is at all times your cheeks will get clapped, though it's not frustrating where you're like pissed throwing stuff at a wall.

Evil in the House of Dr. Fleshenstein reminds me a lot in the way of a game I played last month called Traffic; mostly in the fact that this is basically a Call of Duty styled Zombies mode where you get points for killing zombies of which you use those points to restock on ammo, open doors and search for clues. It took me a while to figure out how to get the actual combination but to do so you need to collect the numbers in a certain order; I found the next step's part a bit quicker since the objects needed for the mannequins just sit there and be collected in any order. The plot is basically you're in a house, kill zombies, then kill Dr. Fleshenstein (which I won't spoil the reveal but it made me chuckle a bit).

Overall I enjoyed my time with the game, though I put 3.2 hours into it, beat all the modes and got all the achievements. If the 12 dollar price point for 3-4 hours or so doesn't mesh I would wait on sale but for the most part anything that has to do with PS1 aesthetics and Puppet Combo I enjoy. Only thing I can complain about is that CRT filter made stuff kind of difficult to see on top of the other graphic styles; so I ended up turning it off and going with 70s mode and PSX mode so I could see. Voice acting is goofy and shlocky for the most part and I love it. I guess to wrap it up, game is good and I think it's worth the hard earned cash. If you're looking for a scary, slow paced survival horror shooter and you have a night to kill I would suggest picking it up.

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

The Land of Pain is a game by indie game horror developer Alessandro Guzzo, whose only other game I've heard of is the spiritual sequel to this game called: The Alien Cube. I didn't know much going into this, I wishlisted it a long time ago because I'm a sucker for Lovecraftian Horror, then unwishlisted it because I lost interest; then my boy Melon played it and so I decided to give it another wishlist until ANOTHER friend of mine (Shoutout to Demenza's Gate (Shoutout to my dude, plug here: https://www.youtube.com/@DEMENZASGATE/videos) got it for me for Christmas. I have my thoughts on this game in the 2 1/2 hours I streamed it for a friend.

The Story here is an interesting one for me, and for the most part one of the only highlights of the game. You play as...well I don't know or remember, maybe they say it in game but I don't know. All I do know is, you play as a dude who goes to a cabin after his father passed to "take care of it". I'm gonna spoil some stuff here: After some chores, you wake up to a giant goofy metallic orb sitting in front of your cabin before you eventually get transported to another location. You break out of a cage in the middle of the woods only to discover that everyone's basically dead. You eventually learn over time through a somewhat genius twist that you've come to an alternate version of Earth and that these aren't just regular cultists/scientists. The beings that dwell here tried opening a portal to go to Earth before only to bring the elder god Cthulhu to their world. Wanting to break free, they've been trying to find a descendant to an ancient bloodline that helped repel Cthulhu and you just so happened to be it (though they've tried getting others since). You go through numerous areas of forest just to find the portal to get out. You succeed but then the cabin's burnt down and then you get kidnapped again by Cthulhu. Overall, I like the plot and I enjoyed the subversion that it gave. However, the plot for the most part is explained via notes, so if you didn't find that I'm not sure you would understand what's going on, and if that's the case I'm mixed on that part. Which leads to the next section.

The gameplay is a normal walking simulator affair for the most part. You walk around, solve some puzzles, read notes and etc. For the most part that stuff isn't bad though for certain puzzles I did get confused because it's not always laid out the best but for the most part it's fine. My least favorite part I feel are the chase sequences when you get chased by a shadowy whatever the f u c k monster thing; when you do get chased it falls into the common issues a lot of walking simulators have which is, the level design isn't always the best when it comes to these chases. One example: During the beginning, the first encounter I ran by and escaped it, got a puzzle solution and went to go back where the enemy automatically spawned right next to the exit. You can crouch but I never noticed it help much because their line of site seems to be from further back then you can tell and during that encounter I tried running around it in an arc only to get cut off. I'm cool with saying I suck at stuff but it just felt kind of tedious. Another encounter: The Mines. I try to exit it later on and the shadow thing patrols the entrance in a short loop, of which the only way I was able to escape was to jump over the fence from a high ledge in a way I'm not sure I was supposed to? So I usually just ended up dreading these encounters as they weren't particularly scary as much as it was frustrating. Other than that, gonna go to the final section:

The Sound/Graphic Design. The graphics are decent, lots of lush foliage and everything looks really good (though they get so big sometimes it's hard to navigate but nonetheless). I can't really say much of anything about graphics though the sound design can be funny sometimes. I noticed a couple of stock sound effects of horror stingers, the usual ones that people who don't have much of a budget use, and keep in mind there's nothing wrong with that! Game dev is hard work so I'm not gonna knock it and if anything I find it a bit charming. But with that in mind just get used to the stock effects. Also, there's no voice acting as much as there is just reading stuff so don't be surprised that for the most part it's horror stingers and paper noises.

I guess overall I'm really mixed on this one. I really liked elements of the story and the way I encountered it and was delivered I enjoyed it and I liked how certain things twisted a bit. Gameplay was standard but I was ok except the combat encounters and sometimes vague puzzles? I don't know, I guess I'll give it a positive but just know it's the usual walking sim with some annoying chase sequences: if you like those then it's perfectly acceptable and a nice 2 1/2-3 hour or so romp depending on if you get stuck on puzzles or use a guide. One of these days I'll have to check out the other game and see what I think.

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

Alisa is a survival horror retro throwback game created by indie developer Casper Croes, about an Elite Royal Agent named Alisa who with her partner chases down a thief who stole plans from the Emperor in an early 1920s fictional country inspired by France to a strange place in the woods, where she gets attacked and wakes up in a manor wearing only a doll dress. The game originally started as a Kickstarter Project, hitting its goal plus a bit over. Having looked at the page, the dude clearly had a vision going in and with what he got he executed a game that’s well made (though it’s sad some of the other stretch goals didn’t get met, as I haven’t seen a Full High Res mode or an extra side story mission though there was added content such as new dresses, items, and such in the developer’s cut). The game, while made by mostly a single dev on paper, was also worked on with his girlfriend who voiced the main character like the great soundtrack. For design/graphical stuff: they pulled it off really well. If you put me in front of this game and said it was made in the mid 90s I would’ve believed you. The sound design pulls straight up inspiration from RE, with the voice acting ranging from hilariously cheesy stereotypical french accents to weird american ones. The environment/enemy design is great with an interesting vibe that takes a clear Alice in Wonderland theme; I can’t complain about any of that. I’m going into story here:

The story starts out as stated above and more: You run into this goofy sock puppet named Pol, who sells you items in exchange for Toothwheels, this game’s version of currency. From what it seems of the plot, the main events happened because scientists unearthed a strange rock called “The Finger of God”, which of course looks like a finger and turns people into strange, inhuman machinery and/or figures while also driving everyone insane. One example of this is Dr. Pier Edmiston, the first boss who was locked up in a wing of the mansion where he turned it into a carnival funhouse. Another part of the game has you optionally helping a doll named Elise, who originally saved you in the beginning and needs your help getting her leg back. Eventually after going through a couple of areas including an underground water pool as well as the garden, you make your way to The Chapel where you run into the thief, and he tries to kill you while declaring himself the king. You take him down, build his bomb that he failed to create and plant it on the Finger of God. Pol comes out, or in actuality “The Doll Master”, a survivor of the experiments who’s been watching your every move and tries to stop you from escaping. You kill them, before you get one of three endings depending on factors I’ll get into gameplay section wise: The good ending in which you escape. In this ending it’s revealed that your partner faked swallowing his toothpick in the beginning, after which Alisa wakes up from her nightmare to read a note that says “The Truth about the Emperor’s Blueprints” before fading to black. The other two revolve around installing modifications, if you install less than six you barely escape and if you install all of them you become the true queen of the dolls. Some questions remain of course, like “What are the Emperor’s Blueprints”, “Why was your partner faking swallowing his toothpick”, “What is the Finger of God and where did it come from?" but truth be told, I kind of like that it didn’t answer everything? Like I enjoy having some vague mystery to it, though some elements I do wish were expanded upon, and definitely set up sequel stuff which hopefully we’ll get in the future. Otherwise it’s mostly environmental storytelling and not a lot of stuff I can really describe here.

Gameplay: You do your usual survival horror stuff, shoot and avoid enemies when need be but there’s one mechanic in the game that I find strange. As I mentioned, the puppet Pol is your main vendor, and you can buy all sorts of things from health kits to new guns & ammo. However, you can only buy these items by either finding toothwheels scattered about, or by killing enemies. This in itself creates a strange dichotomy where you are actively trying to kill enemies, but you don’t want to waste your ammo doing so. With this in mind, buying the Saber is a MUST so you can kill enemies in your path to get any and all currency, farming enemies when you can. However, these enemies don’t respawn, with previous rooms only being populated by new enemies after progressing the game. It’s a strange system, and one I have rather mixed feelings on because whereas in a way it does end up working out (after all your still encouraged to save ammo and not get hurt), you’re still kind of going out of the way to actively kill these enemies in a way that it doesn’t necessarily feel “survival horrorey” to me personally. I don’t hate it, it works but it’s strange. With these toothwheels, you can get certain endings by buying modifications. You buy anywhere between one and five and you get one ending; and if you buy all six you get the worst ending. Now I didn’t get these mods, but I know one of them is a cosmetic makeup kit, while another allows you to grab toothwheels from further away/auto aim, etc. These, like the dresses you can both buy/collect through the game, have different status effects that can help you in certain ways. Other things I know I want to mention is that in certain cases you’ll have little mini games (ex. Saving Elise’s leg means you have to go through three waves of enemies in a sewer area). I think one of the most jarring gameplay switches is when you end up fighting the thief towards the end of the game…while on a mechanical minigun horse in this really bizarre rail shooter segment; one of which I had great laughter one second before sort of fighting the strange controls that come with it. Another one to bring up is you get a pursuer enemy ala Mr. X from RE2 in the form of a floating ghost doll after encountering near the beginning. The enemies in this game vary in design and difficulty are creepy as hell and sometimes outright pants sh i t t ing (ex. A giant monkey with cymbals tries to kill you in a hallway late in the game). The puzzles can be kind of easy depending though one or two require you to take a picture with your phone to remember later or have trial and error. I think the most frustratingly tense for me was the RE style tribute puzzle, where the walls close in and you have to fiddle with a lock under a time limit and you CANNOT pause the game to look up how to solve it, nor can you exit and pause then go back to get your progress cause it WILL reset. I feel like I’m missing out a lot to explain cause there’s a lot of strange stuff yet clear love for the genre and the foundations that the old games built on that in a charming way even though there are frustrating segments it all kind of fits well.

Overall as a game it’s good, and deserves a play if you like old throwback survival horror with some caveats. There are going to be some weird oddities, some jank, some strange gameplay experiments (like a small stealth section, or minigames here and there); the most jarring piece being the weird economy system in the game. That being said, the game is 18 dollars. I got it during Christmas from a buddy of mine (Thanks Sab!), but with the 6 hours I took (with a guide of course cause I suck at puzzles even when they’re easy), and the 8 or so that he took, mixed in with NG+ and different endings that it’s worth your time. Check it out on sale. I apologize if it’s a scattered review, I’m working within Steam character limits. Here are some links if you want to look into it or the developer more:
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Alisa
https://www.caspercroes.com/
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/caspercroes/alisa-game

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

Spec Ops: The Line is a game developed by YAGER Development GmbH, previously known for Xbox Original Exclusive "Yager" (hah) and then later known for games like Dreadnought and The Cycle: Frontier, two games I've never played nor heard of. It was developed as the tenth entry in the Spec Ops franchise as well as a reboot and having NEVER played those other games I don't know how well those match up to them. However, I can tell you how this game matches up to other third person shooters in general and my thoughts are "It's pretty f u c king good". This game is VERY well known for it's violent "war is bad" story inspired by Heart of Darkness by Joseph Conrad (of which a favorite game of mine, Far Cry 2, also took inspiration from), and having both watched a friend of mine play this game, and then played it myself for my own merit I have my thoughts.

The story starts with Martin Walker and his squad mates Lugo and Adams landing down in Dubai to try to find out where the 33rd Battalion and their leader, John Konrad. You fight your way through insurgents (which CIA coverups) and the 33rd Battalion itself as you try to figure out what's going on. It's a simple story, but with interesting meta narrative and strange moral choices. Spoilers Ahead: One thing I enjoyed is that when you first start the game, you start out on a helicopter mini gun shooting people, of which when you later do this in Chapter 12 Walker questions as to why this shootout feels so familiar. Another revolves around a main conflict: In order to charge a gate in Chapter 7, you're forced to use White Phosphorus to clear out the 33rd Battalion surrounding it before you accidentally kill innocent civilians while using it. Lugo tells you it's an awful idea and that there's always a choice, whereas Walker tells him there is NO choices, of which of course the game won't let you move along unless you use it. This sort of thing is intriguing to me, blurring the lines between narrative and game in a sense and I enjoy moments like this when done well. There is the whole CIA thing mentioned where they commit horrible acts in order to get everyone killed and cover up that Konrad and the 33rd war crimed the city because of threat of retaliation and world war but while that sounds good it just sort of kinda feels like some side thing I forget about sometimes because the CIA guys aren't fleshed out. To me, the main characters you know are Walker and Konrad himself, whereas I feel your squad mates are ok but kind of just average? But your soldiers are supposed to be just that, average soldiers caught up in war so I kinda feel the need to give that a pass and since Walker is so focused on the mission it sorta makes sense that it doesn't really focus on them. The one thing I definitely wanna bring up is the final twist: Konrad's been dead the whole time, you imagined him up as an enemy to make yourself feel better for killing innocent civilians. This ultimately culminates in either shooting yourself or shooting him in your mind and having reinforcements come pick you up, where you can choose to go with them or kill them and retreat back into Dubai. Whereas I do like this twist, it feels underwhelming in a sense; there's foreshadowing stuff but it's also structured in a way where it's very artificial and delivered in a weird way? Like it works well, but it just doesn't do it to it's fullest potential. And that's something that was in the regular choices as well, whereas it doesn't really change anything in the story. It feels mixed to me because they don't have an impact on your character and there are no branching paths; but that is also kind of a highlight of the story because it was made to immerse you in the messed up atmosphere; I just wish it made an impact personally. Like they don't matter, because the situations will always be awful and it kind of speaks to Walker's mindset and his narrow minded perspective on always deciding his way as how he sees it. It's ultimately Walker's game, his story; you're just controlling him which in another meta narrative sense it reminds me of other war games where you go through, do your usual cleanup and then move along and nothing happens even if you used really messed up methods. In this game, you're similarly railroaded but it makes a point of it and whereas I'm mixed on that stuff in general it makes it's point really loud and fucking clear. Another thing that also interests me is that throughout the game you go through hell and the further you get into and the worse your mental state goes the worse your off your character is: your outfit and skin is burned, shot grazed with bullets, your executions become more bloodthirsty (what would amount to shooting them once in the beginning of the game would amount to smashing a dude's face with the butt of your shotgun in the latter). as well as the game's loading screen tips becoming more and more insane and demeaning towards your actions. Speaking of.

The game play is basically that of an average cover shooter Gears of War type, if you played or seen games like that you'll see what this game is about. It's short, you can beat it in six hours, and it's kind of average as a cover shooter. Like it's not bad, it's serviceable and it's not the highlight of the game obviously but it's fine. The only detail I can add really is that you can shoot certain windows of sand and that it'll stun or kill enemies. Also, when playing through myself as well as my buddy playing through the first time; you can command your squad to take out certain enemies and such and we didn't really use it too often? It's certainly useful in FUBAR modes and such but I don't know I didn't end up using it that much so it just felt kind of there.

The sound design/atmosphere of it is it's really brutal, it's good and feeding into the story like it's brutal, with miles of empty sand and destroyed buildings; it's depressing and oppressive and I hate it but I love it because of that. Again the details are great, and how your characters look over time as you go through this war is amazing, like I can't say anything bad about the atmosphere. The sound design is also good, with the notable likes of Nolan North and Jake Busey being the two big names behind it. The only one that doesn't fit in for me is Nolan North kind of? Like he's a bit too recognizable and takes me out of it but overall I can't complain about that, nor will I complain about the atmospheric music pieces of songs like "Nowhere to Run" by Martha and the Vandellas and Jimi Hendrix's "Star Spangled Banner". I think overall, the atmosphere/sound design really works well in tandem with the game's story and truth be told I have nothing to say other than that.

Final point, it's good! It's great in a meta narrative, story context where it kind of analyzes both war and it's trivialization and effects on people as well as it's examination between war video games and the player itself. It's a complicated combination that is both really good and hard to explain, and I hope I explained it the best that I can. With that in mind, I'd personally say wait for a sale, but if you're looking for a game to think about, play it cause it's short and good.

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

Play With Me: Escape Room is a point and click puzzle game about getting into a car crash with your wife after going out to celebrate your birthday and waking up in a room chained up, and you have to go through numerous different puzzle rooms in order to escape this death trap. See, you were kidnapped by the "Illusion Killer', and you play as Robert Hawk, a reporter, who has been reporting on the killer and his traps for a long time. That's the basic gist of the story, you basically solve difficult puzzles, read clues about previous victims (who were kidnapped because they weren't persecuted for their crimes as the justice system blows donkey d i c k. You also have a poison serum thing in your veins, and you have to go through in a time limit. This is where I'm gonna go into gameplay because WOW do I have issues with this game.

The gameplay is basically a puzzle room game, you go through about twenty different rooms trying to figure out solutions to get the puzzle for the keypad to get into the next puzzle room. Certain rooms are easy enough, with puzzles telegraphed in a way that makes sense; but that's CERTAIN ROOMS. Most of them I have no fu c k ing clue what the hell I'm doing, and even the clues they give are confusing as hell. If this is what it's like being in a trap from the Jigsaw Killer, I'm f u c ked if I ever get caught because I can't solve puzzles to save my life. Now you're thinking, why give the game a bad review if you suck at puzzles? Well I do suck at puzzles, but at the very least, I'd like to feel like I have a sporting chance and that I feel dumb as hell when the solution is actually found. But I don't, because some of these things are so convoluted, I don't even understand how to get it in the first place. So, there's a prison cell room near the end of the game, in this room you have to knock out some blocks with a hammer right? Cool, behind it is a bunch of random numbers. This game is full of trial and error so what you'll end up doing is that you'll be trying numbers in all sorts of different numbers in a bunch of different combinations. Here's another issue, sometimes the graphical render is so blurry you can't understand what the hell they're saying. What I ended up doing was in certain rooms, I just decided to give up and reveal the code via spoiler so I could get out of there. Some codes they give we're kinda iffy like they'd have for example: 875Cat right? But the won't register, so it's basically an 8 you have to type. And segwaying into another thing, you'll find computers that give secret info I guess according to a guide (which I used often because what the hell?), you're supposed to break out text command prompts but I could never really understand what I'm doing because I don't do text command prompts? See a part of me feels stupid for writing this all up, but the way a friend of mine put it, the puzzles should at least should be solvable and not overly convoluted with random s h i t you can't understand unless you're using a guide. Again, I suppose the puzzles in this game would make the Jigsaw Killer proud, but by the end I was just using a guide full force because I had no clue what I was doing. Also you're doing this in a time limit, so you'll need to race against the clock, pick up syringes to get your health back, and try not to die in certain rooms (whether it's wiggling your flashlight, or clicking on certain things before you can get certain items). One mixed thing I will say is that it does some meta stuff well, like for example: one room you have to lower the music volume in the settings all the way to open a door. BUT HOW WAS I SUPPOSED TO KNOW? One thing towards the end had me blow a candle out by literally blowing into the mic, the last example involves, get this, getting the secret ending by going to a hidden website hidden inside of one of the game's promotional trailers which leads to an story bit I'll discuss next. Other things I'll mention are you have to replace batteries for your phone and flashlight sometimes, puzzle solutions ARE randomized, you have to use your in game phone to take calls or texts to actually solve puzzles, and you can play goofy little games or change your ringtone (Ringtone 3 was the goofiest and gave me and my friend watching a chuckle). You can also collect teddy bears, "Signs of Illusion", and confession notes as well as newspapers and other code pages. So I may suck at puzzles, but I felt this game did it in a way that was a bit too much. Gonna go into the plot here:

The story is again about Robert Hawk, a reporter, and your wife Sara, a lawyer, going out on Robert's birthday to do stuff. You get into a crash and you wake up in chains and have to escape. You also learn about the Illusion Killer and how they target criminals who got away with their crimes which is cool, I like the SAW movies so I'm cool with this. In two separate instances you have to solve puzzles under a timer in order to save both Sara and Patrick offscreen for the best endings. Like the puzzles, there's a variation for each one living and dying as well as if you unlock the secret room in Room 10. If you unlock the secret room it's figured that you and Patrick are up to something fishy (which we kinda already guessed). Go through the rest, and you get locked in a coffin. Gonna throw some spoilers here: : If you save both Patrick and Sara, it turns out Sara is the Illusion Killer. That's right, one of THREE characters is the Illusion Killer, and what a shock we predicted it in the third room. There was also another prediction that Patrick and Robert are the killers, and if you got the secret ending, they were both trying to frame Sara for the murders so they can "continue their work" and will continue it again. What do I think of this story? About average really, and the twists are predictable because they only really introduced three characters anyways, so who else we're we supposed to think it is? So let me get this straight. If Sara was the killer, and they were trying to frame her, did they trap themselves there? Did she just decide to play killer to go along with this? Why did she dress up and do all this stuff if you were framing her? I feel like it would be more realistic for the police to just shoot her (like they do anyways in real life) and her yelling bout her innocence then give some sort of speech explaining why she was the killer when she wasn't? I don't know, maybe I'm looking too far into this but it feels like a plot hole. Basically, it's an average story which atmospherically it gels great with SAW, but without an interesting twist or at least a bonkers one. Basically, think the last Saw movie in terms of predictability and you got it.

Graphical Presentation/Atmosphere is decent, the atmosphere is really creepy and unnerving, you'll have bugs crawling across your screen and above your clicker making you think it's actually your PC when it's not which is cool. It's a dark, oppressive, and hopeless feeling which I like. Graphics are the usual hidden object artwork style which I like and think it's charming. The music is unnerving, and it works for the game as it didn't help us with our panic levels much. The one downside I could give is that you can tell that the production of the game is in a different country, with Sara and Patrick sounding completely different then Robert, who sounds like an American and is emotive; of course I understand that budget constraints and such can lead to dips in acting quality and I know whatever country these guys are from it might sound odd emoting in English, not me dissing on them it's actually of humorous; but it's noticeable.

Overall, I would only recommend this game for people with A LOT of patience, and the ability to think WAY outside the box. Otherwise skip it. The store page said: Slowly go mad thanks to a realistic system determining the mental state of your character. It worked.

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

Made Man: Confessions of the Family Blood is a third person action crime game created by SilverBack Studios about a war veteran turned mafioso named Joey Verola (voiced by Rick Pasqualone, aka Vito from Mafia 2) as he engages in criminal activities, Vietnam flashbacks, and rumored caskets of stolen gold. It was written as a collaboration between crime author David Fisher as well as Salvatore Bonnano, the son of the infamous mafia boss Joseph Bonnano of the Bonnano Mafia Family in New York. This game is a game that honestly, despite its very apparent flaws, I really enjoy despite it? I mean for fucks sakes I'm weak to crime games, especially one about the "AYYYY I LOVEADEGABAGOOL" kind of gangsters. I first played this during my "Mid 2000s crime game addiction" phase when I was younger and after giving this game (along with Sopranos: Road to Respect and a few others) to a buddy of mine (after I got stuck on Mission 13 and couldn’t figure out to shoot the tower wires), I repurchased it for my PS2 (of which there's also a PC Port) and decided to give it another spin in the last year or so, and here are my thoughts:

The story is...strange. I personally enjoy it for its back and forth noir styled time jumps but it can also be kind of confusing depending? I'll give a brief overview of each mission as well as when it takes place. Joey first runs out of Calvary Cemetery in New York City, talking to his nephew about his life in the family business as well as musings on his past and present circumstances while driving around new York. He first goes into his first job in the mafia in North Carolina.

Mission 1: A Little Business (North Carolina, June 7th, 1971)- Joey Verola’s old vietnam buddy Johnny “Eggs” Biando takes him along to unveil some “big plans”, and they go to Little Italy to meet up with Johnny Egg’s adoptive father: Philly “Pies” Lombardi. Philly thanks Joey for protecting Eggs in ‘Nam and hires Joey to “take care of some business” in North Carolina. He asks Joey to go down to North Carolina, buy a bunch of cigarettes and bring them back to New York to sell them at a better price, explaining that what most mobsters do to get money is “mundane stuff”. Obviously it doesn’t work out however, as a bunch of rednecks who work for “Weasel Walt” rob him of his truck and Joey goes through the back and fights through rednecks through junkyards and swamps, before he sees an attack helicopter and is transported in his mind back to Vietnam.

Mission 2: Johnny Eggs (Vietnam, July 11th, 1968)- This mission is mostly just a vietnam flashback where Joey goes through tunnels while shooting Vietcong while narrating about Joey’s backstory as someone who joined the war to get some sort of internal revenge for his brother Petey dying in Vietnam. He also runs into Johnny Eggs and snaps him out of him cowering, while protecting him and saving his life. They get rescued by a Huey chopper before fading back to real life.

Mission 3: A Little More Business (North Carolina, June 7th, 1971)- Joey fights back through more swamps against Weasel Walt’s boys before finally ending the mission on a sniper trying to shoot Joey from the helicopter. Joey asks why anyone would wanna kill a nobody like him before he shoots at the helicopter enough to make them fly away. Someone then takes Joey’s truck, AGAIN.

Mission 4: The Print Job (The Flower District, New York; July 15th, 1971)- Joey is spared after North Carolina, and after the feds surveillance on the Don’s counterfeit money operation is out and about, the Don closes the printing press down to get rid of the heat. Philly sends in Joey to grab the plates and bring them elsewhere for safekeeping when the “Feds” go berserk and start shooting at Joey and the other mobsters. Joey shoots his way through the factory and figures out that these “Feds” are working with the rival Corelli Mafia Family. Finally Joey gets out and Johnny Eggs conveniently shows up to drive him away from the factory before it’s hinted that Philly’s gonna usurp the don and take control of the family.

Mission 5: Calvary Cemetery (Calvary Cemetery, July 21st, 1989)- Joey goes back to Philly with the counterfeit plates and Philly gives him a verbal pat on the back. Joey relates to his nephew that he figured out the previous day that the gold from Vietnam was in Calvary Cemetery. His nephew asks what happened and Joey tells him that a bunch of mobsters ambushed him and his mafia cohorts at the cemetery in an attempt to take the gold away from them. He recognized some of them as having used to work with Philly and Joey gets to the hearse and tells the driver to go back to the coffin before more mob guys show up.

Mission 6: Family Matters (The Flower District, New York; August 16th, 1974)- It’s explained that the mob guys in the last level were working with the Triads before explaining that power struggles were always a thing in the mafia. He then talks of the time when Philly brought him along to take down the Don in a coup de at along with Johnny Eggs. Philly asks Joey to leave the don for him before Eggs sends Joey to stealth kill his way through the factory and open the bay doors on the other side. They shoot through more guys and get to the Don’s office, where Philly shoots him out of a window and then takes control of the family.

Mission 7: FBI (Little Italy, New York; October 23rd, 1974)- Joey explains that he proved himself to Philly and as a result gets trusted to do more and more over time as Eggs is kind of pushed out of the picture. It’s explained that the feds are watching them more and more from across Philly’s apartment and he sends Joey next door to “Send a message”. Joey goes next door to smash up the Fed’s recorder when Egg’s voice is heard on it talking about finding the gold and how “the tracks were hidden a little too well and so it’ll take time”. Joey smashes it up and the feds come back from plowing hookers, before Joey kills them all. It’s learned that the Corelli Family were paying corrupt federal agents to get to Philly, and Joey shoots his way out onto the rooftops and through apartments before walking down into the streets and slipping away unnoticed.

Mission 8: Jade (Chinatown, New York City; February 3rd, 1972)- Joey tells his nephew that Philly was pissed off at Joey for shooting up the feds and tells Joey he needs him to go get 50 grand that night to pay off the feds and make everything right again. He also mentions that Philly was pissed off about the triads, led by Jade Li. It flashes back to years ago as Philly sends Joey to go collect money from Jade that she refuses to pay up. Since her father died, she’s taken over and she ambushes Joey, tells him politely in business terms to fuck off and die and Joey has to shoot his way out of the resteraunt. This marks the beginning of the triads quote “Becoming a huge fuckin problem for the families”.

Mission 9: A Quick Buck (New York Arena, New York City; October 23rd, 1974)- The Nephew brings the story back to the previous point of Joey having to pay off the feds 50,000 dollars worth of cash. Joey tells his nephew about how later that night they decide to rob the arena because it was “on Corelli’s books” and that “some of them were Corelli born and raised” and that since they caused him trouble recently that they should pay up. Joey and his guys dress up in animal masks and start the robbery, getting only 30 grand from the first safe. They decide to go to the other ticket office, with Joey and some guy named Tommy shoot through dudes with Joey calling Tommy a “good guy who's been around the family around the same time he has”. Of course, Tommy catches a bada bing and his body bada booms to the ground later on. Finally finishing off at above 60 grand, Joey shoots through guards above the concert. Joey finally makes it to the garage where the driver, Vinnie, awaits him. Joey has a stand off against the Corellis before making his escape with Vinnie in the van.

Mission 10: Family Rivalry (Little Italy, New York City; May 5th, 1979)- Joey explains that the feds/Corellis were off their backs and that he couldn’t trust Eggs after hearing him on the wiretap to his nephew. He explains that with the rivalry between Philly and the triads that Philly wants to sit down with the other families to discuss a truce at a place called “Cha Cha Charlies” with the hopes that they could ally with each other and take down the triads. It turns into an ambush from the rival families and Joey/Philly make their way through the joint. Throughout the mission Joey describes Philly as a tough guy who did a lot of contract killing and was so fearsome that he wasn’t surprised that “the old Don kept him as close as he did”. It turns out Philly took Johnny and his mother in and raised Johnny as his own son because he couldn’t have kids with his wife. Johnny then picks them up again before praising Joey for his ability to help him survive.

Mission 11: Negotiations (Chinatown, New York City; April 3rd, 1974)- It’s explained that the other families didn’t side with the triads but that they thought Philly was weak for wanting to sit down with them so they figured they could take him out of the picture. Now the situation has escalated to a war with all of all the families as well as the triads. It flashes back to Philly sending Joey and the guys to send Jade Li a message so they don’t “make a monkey out of him any longer”. They go to her business only to engage in ANOTHER shootout with Jade’s men, getting ambushed by dudes in samurai outfits (LOL). To piss her off, Joey destroys Jade’s priceless artifact collection before personally meeting with Jade to discuss her payments. Jade gets pissed and sends him back to Philly with a message: she’s not paying them shit and that if she ever sees them again that it’ll be the last time. Philly doesn’t like that message at all.

Mission 12: Back in ‘Nam (Vietnam; July 21st, 1969)- Over the years the Family and the triads clash more and more over the gold from Vietnam. Joey tells his nephew about how he figured out the location of the gold, the day before he was listening to a radio broadcast of the 1969 Moon Landing and when asked about where he was that day he has a flashback to ‘Nam again. Eggs sneaks Joey into the mortuary to see the military putting gold away into caskets where he overhears “This one’s another Calvary”. The Viet Cong then ambush the area and Joey’s sent out to fight them while Johnny cowers in the corner again. Joey questions why the gold would be buried, before thinking that whatever the original plan was it went badly and something was changed. He describes his loyalty to his current mafia family and says that now “the gold belongs to them” as well; all while for most of the mission it’s just going through the base and shooting more vietnamese soldiers before ending the assault with a turret section. It’s also learned that Johnny Egg’s dad was a small-time mobster in Philly’s shadow and that he disappeared because he bad-mouthed Philly to his face. It ends with the assault repelled and a flash forward to the car ride again.

Mission 13: Unfinished Business (Wall Street, New York City; July 21st, 1989)- Discussing again how he found the location of the gold, and that he looked up a GI who died a day or two before the moon landing located in Calvary and that would be the gravestone that the gold is buried in. He then stops outside of a Wall Street firm with the intention of figuring out where Eggs is taking the gold, this place is Li Enterprises and yes they’ve been working with Johnny Eggs. He shoots his way through the lobby before heading up the elevators to try to get to Jade’s apartment. Jade doesn’t take kindly to this and sends more and more goons after him. After confronting her in her apartment, he chases her to the rooftops. Joey snipes out more triads before Jade attempts to escape in a helicopter, which he foils when he shoots out some support wires holding a tower and the tower falls before she’s able to climb up and get to her helicopter. Her last words while hanging on for dear life are to beg for her life and to tell Joey that Eggs is taking the gold to Pier 6 of the Brooklyn Docks. She then falls to her death.

Mission 14: Turf War (Brooklyn Docks, New York City; June 15th, 1979)- He goes all the way back down to the car, which is right in front of her building and somehow no one notices the crazy amount of gunshots or explosions right outside or the fact that Jade fell to her death? Who cares I guess. Joey and his nephew talk about how Eggs has been in bed with the triads for years and that he disappeared a while back after abandoning Joey during a job to pick up a shipment at the docks. It flashes back to this deal, and Joey describes how a lot of people left Philly’s family because they felt he was weak. It’s clearly obvious that Johnny Eggs intends to betray everyone but Joey goes inside to see that everyone has died and there’s ANOTHER ambush. Joey’s guys get shot up and Joey shoots through more mobsters, who turn out to be formerly friendly with Joey as members of Philly’s family. Eggs is gone of course

Mission 15: Calvary Part 2 (Calvary Cemetery, New York City; July 21st, 1989)- Johnny disappeared off the radar, and after Philly and some guys cleaned up the bodies and got the weapons wouldn’t reappear til way later. Discussing how Johnny was in Calvary, it flashes back to the second half of Joey’s shootout in the cemetery next to the hearse. He shoots his way through more mob goons while describing Johnny as someone with a bad temper and never shies away from a fight, and how one day he tried to fight a whole street gang and got sent to the hospital and he got the named Johnny “Scrambled Eggs” Biando (or Eggs for short) is because they thought he probably had his brains scrambled to take on a whole gang and Joey theorizes that after the fight that Johnny changed personality wise and became a coward. He eventually kills a guy who tries shooting him from the top of a building and when he staggers out, Joey recognizes him as the guy who tried to kill him from the helicopter back in North Carolina (called South Carolina here). He sees Johnny Eggs drive off with the hearse full of gold before it flashes to the present.

Mission 16: Chinatown (Chinatown, New York City; March 2nd, 1982)- Joey and his nephew talk about how Johnny wanted him dead in North Carolina but couldn’t pull the trigger himself. He then talks about how Johnny reappeared when Philly and the family were starting to get heavy weapons to go against both the other families AND the triad, turning the tide and winning the war. Representatives from the other families and the triads meet up in Chinatown to discuss how much of a problem the Lombardi Family has become. Setting up an LMG, Joey and the others set up shop right outside the meeting spot when Eggs comes in and tries to ambush Joey. The triads and the other families descend on them, and Joey mows down the representatives of the triads with the LMG before going in and killing the capos from the other families personally. He then heads back to Philly to let him know Eggs sided with the triads, and now Eggs is persona non grata; and that was the last he saw of Johnny before the present day.

Mission 17: Brooklyn Docks (Brooklyn Docks, New York City; July 21st, 1989)- Joey finishes up his talk with his nephew by telling him that he told him all of this stuff because he doesn’t want his nephew walking into the crime life blind and that the money belongs to Philly and the family, before telling his nephew to split if trouble comes around. Joey shoots his way through the docks and numerous goons before tracking down Eggs to a triad ship. Johnny breaks his legs escaping and begs for his life after Joey confronts him. Philly shows up and orders Joey to shoot Eggs. After Eggs dies, they escape before the cops show and the final shot shows Joey walking into a house with his nephew waiting outside in the dead of night; either Joey will get made or he will get wacked.

Overall, I like the story a lot. There are some points where I can point out some plot holes (like again at the end of mission 15, did no one notice Joey just shoot through an entire tall ass building of security?) to the fact that the hitman from Calvary Part 2 only showed up once before and I only recalled who it was from watching a video helping me recap events. But otherwise, I thought it was actually the main highlight of the game for me, and by the end I was glad to see the game finish decently enough. I figured I would write out the whole plot synopsis in case someone was interested in the story but didn’t want to watch a playthrough or play the game. Shoutout to Willzzy for his videos helping me recap some stuff I wanted to recap to give a full picture.

The Gameplay is the average part of the game, the serviceable part. The main point of this game is to shoot people, and so you have a number of weapons that’ll do the job from the pistol to the .50 cal pistol to Uzis, the shotgun, AK-47’s, M16’s and etc. The weapons honestly to me all feel good and they sound great like they actually pack a punch. I think one of the funnier parts to me gunplay wise is that you can dual wield shotguns and assault rifles like they aren’t gonna destroy your fucking spine if you shoot them both at once. Otherwise the game revolves around shooting people in the head and for the most part that goes along fine. I guess what I don’t like combat wise is that the cover system can be a bit iffy sometimes and everything is usually poking out? Like for example, I disliked Mission 12 the most because the final section you get a couple health kits here and there but an infinite amount of goons just keep spawning and spawning and your health can whittle to nothing in a couple of seconds and then the checkpoint system makes you do it ALL OVER AGAIN and there isn’t much cover at all and I basically got through it with luck. That happens a couple of times in the game, where the combat and the checkpoints to enemy ratio aren’t exactly balanced well but for the most part I got through the game without dying. You get health back via health vials, med kits, and body armor which are all over the place so it doesn’t really matter as well as the “Retort” system (which by the way has hilarious dialogue which yells shit like “TIME TO DIE FUCKO”), which if an enemy is crawling on the ground you can taunt him and shoot him to get your health back. You can also go into a worse version of Bullet time called where you can slow down and shoot people while running at them with infinite bullets. Sometimes you interact with certain objects but other than that all you do is shoot people, and sometimes you can throw grenades and molotovs but I don’t remember getting them enough for it to actually be useful.

The Audio/Visual department is as follows, as usually I don’t have a problem persay with the visuals though the audio is…wow it’s not great. Rick Pasqualone playing Joey does a great job and is the backbone of the game whereas the others…are serviceable to unintentionally hilarious. Whenever I hear Philly the first thing that pops into my mind is a frog, and Johnny Eggs sounds like every weasily mob character ever, and most of them aren’t mixed very well. To me the most infamous example is Mission 5, where two mobsters are bantering and joking over opera music and FOR FUCKS SAKE I CAN’T HEAR THE JOKE OVER THE MUSIC. It’s mixed like dog shit and there are numerous times where conversations won’t be mixed very well, the music will blare over each other, or people will be constantly talking over each other at the same time and I can’t figure out what’s going on. The music selection is decent, with Unkle’s Eye for an Eye playing as the main music theme and Nowhere to Run by Martha and the Vandellas playing in the first mission, as well as a couple other tracks here and there playing. Silverback probably spent their budget on getting music more than mixing the game’s audio well cause to be honest to me it was noticeable.

Final Thoughts are this: It has its VERY noticeable flaws but I actually kind of like it? It’s endearing to me, I love mobster shit too and it’s leagues above The Sopranos: Road to Respect that’s for damn sure. Every now and then I find myself coming back to this game for it’s flaws, it’s jank, and pretty much everything else. I’ve seen a few youtubers cover it but I kind of wish this game had more attention, but I’m not surprised it didn’t. In fact, it took me pestering a youtube buddy of mine to make his own video because he hadn’t heard about it before. I’m gonna plug his video right below here because it’s good and it offers a way more professional explanation than anything I could ever offer, as well as the fact he’s great and deserves more attention:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=7CYNy6kRqb8&ab_channel=thesummerofmark

If one wants to play this game, you can download it off MyAbandonware or buy a copy of it off Ebay (for both PC and PS2), but I’m gonna throw my copy down here for those who want it (and will later delete the link if it’s not available anymore.

https://archive.org/details/made-man_202310

This copy should have everything unpacked and ready to go, just keep in mind the highest graphical fidelity is like 1280 I believe? If you do anything higher, all of the next and in game textures WILL NOT show up, and it’ll just be a strange skybox. And if I have anything else to add to this review I will edit it and post stuff later on but for now I’m exhausted and I’m gonna leave this game to that.

Until Dawn is an "Interactive Drama Horror" game created by Supermassive Games (using Guerilla Game's Decima Engine) of Killzone HD and LittleBigPlanet DLC fame before this became their MAIN claim to fame, and truth be told the quality of this game really shows. Originally created as a PS3 exclusive with the PS Move peripheral, it changed to a third person PS4 exclusive after debuting at a game show and becoming massively popular with the audience and truth be told it was A LOT better for it. I remember personally hearing about this game and being excited because I was huge into Heavy Rain and wanted another horror based "movie game", and so when I first picked up my PS4 in 2017 I got this game, Yakuza 0 and Bloodborne. However, I didn't really touch it for years and every time I tried I stopped myself because truth be told, I wanted to play this game with people for my first playthrough, and my family both wasn't interested and mostly sucked at games and I couldn't get enough people gathered to want to do it. Six years later in 2023 however I somehow was able to convince some buddies to join me and beat this game and Jesus Fucking Christ were we awful at it. We literally managed to get everyone killed except one of the main characters Sam; one of my friends who played Mike played him as the biggest douche on the planet; and another friend played as Chris, built up his budding romance with Ashley only to choose the cowardly way out and shoot her during a russian roulette styled scene as a shock to everyone else. Emily of course got killed because no one liked her, I eventually decided to say fuck it and got Ashley killed, it was a fun time and it was something that this game was BUILT for. I believe the popularity of couch coop was the reason why in the later Hidden Agenda, Dark Pictures Anthology and then this game's spiritual successor, The Quarry, have couch coop elements whereas this game does not. I wanna go into gameplay and describe elements of it.

The gameplay is phenomenal, though I'm weak for movie games in general. The whole style of the game is basically you walk around certain set pieces while looking at clues, talking to people and either making certain dialogue choices or actual physical movement choices (With QTE's so if you like quick time events have fun) which can change the path the story takes no matter if it's small or large. Certain decisions can ripple into different outcomes, for example bringing up a friend of mine who played Chris, when the "Killer" tied them up russian roulette style and forced Chris to choose between shooting himself or shooting Ashley, he shot Ashley. Other than being a dick, this led to the romance utterly failing and when the real threat of the Wendigo shows up (of which I'll discuss in the next paragraph or so), she left him to die. Other choices I can remember off the top of my head is going down to the basement as Sam while turning on the power with Josh and getting a baseball bat out of a certain container leads to it being available one of the next times if you choose to wail out on the killer. The relationships fluctuate all the time and can really change how certain people react to you and how certain events later play out. HOWEVER, with this in mind, of course the game will pigeonhole you into certain set pieces regardless to keep the pace up with the story (for example, I escaped the basement of the lodge from the killer as Sam, ran down and hid in an elevator. In the previous playthrough, one friend ran down the hallways instead of hiding, and both times you get drugged and knocked out). That being said however, I'm not sure of every single event and how every outcome comes about, mainly because it's such a SUPERMASSIVE GAME (hah I'm gonna go shoot myself now lol) that you can't really keep track of all the pieces. Just know that your choices matter. Segwaying into another gameplay piece, you can learn of certain outcomes by collecting Totems, of which there are five categories (and six totems per category) and are randomly scattered throughout the story and include premonitions of death, injury, fortune, and etc. Among this you're also able to find clues of the story going on in the background relating to The Twins, a mysterious man with a flamethrower and a mysterious event that happened in 1952; and they all piece together well enough to create something cohesive and interesting. Bringing it back a bit to the QTEs, some of these can be very unforgiving and if you're playing with friends that aren't well versed in it, it can be...frustrating. Certain people died because of how quick these go and some choices were fucked up because of the Motion Sensor events, which basically have you stay still and not move. It's recommended during these events you have a table nearby and just plop the controller down on it during these situations because if not it can be a bit sensitive and fail and were probably my least favorite of all of these. One last thing here, in between each chapter you talk to a therapist character played by Peter Stormare and you get choices on your phobias/fears, how you feel about the characters and such and it affects how certain things play out (like what mask the killer wears, what weapons are used, certain jump scares, etc). Overall though, I enjoy the gameplay and had a blast playing it, though the part I'm sort of mixed on is the story.

The story starts out as a prologue of one year before when a group of students play a mean prank towards a girl named Hannah who had a crush on a jock named Mike. She runs out in the cold in embarrassment and her twin sister, Beth, chases after her and it all ends in both of them falling down a ravine and tumbling to their death after a man with a flamethrower attempts to save them (or kill them depending on if you know the story beforehand). You can't change this outcome, and it goes to a year later. Everyone is affected by it and feels shame, sadness or both and on the urging of their brother Josh come back to celebrate again to the same cold ass cabin in the woods on the mountain. Little by little, everyone is separated and events unfold; Mike and his girlfriend Jessica canoodle in a cabin nearby only for Jessica to be kidnapped with Mike going on to try to save her. The others are at the main cabin and fall into a strange Jigsaw styled killer game where they're all hunted; the cable car is sabotaged, Josh is "killed", "Ghosts" are spotted and everyone is taunted about their role in the disappearance of the twins. While most of them are dealing with the main Jigsaw killer style hunt, Mike follows Jessica's trail (which can end in her death if you're not quick enough) and find the abandoned sanitorium. The flamethrower guy and two wolves are there, and you can discover clues of Miners that were trapped in a cave in back in the fifities (it brings it back to the main plot I promise). Eventually they all come back to the main cabin and after Chris/Ashley are forced into a russian roulette styled game it's revealed that there was no killer and that Josh faked his death and set up this elaborate ruse to embarrass them like they embarrassed Hannah that previous year. My thought of this twist is that we found it to be kind of obvious, and truth is that we saw it coming from a mile away (not the fake part though, although to me it kind of ruined the twist a bit, even if it was thematic). It's then revealed what the main threat is: The Wendigo. Remember I mentioned the flamethrower guy and the mining cave in? In 1952, a cave in occurred and miners started eating each other, and later on ruined the nearby Sanitorium (with details revealed in the Until Dawn VR Spinoff "The Inpatient" which I won't play cause it's expensive though if it's ported to Steam I'd play it there). The flamethrower guy was thought to be dead and has been trying to trap all the Wendigos in the Sanitorium as a makeshift prison to make sure no one gets trapped again. One by one your survivors can die by these freakish spider/humanesque creatures, Josh gets taken away (and can be killed later) and everything culminates in a final showdown at the lodge where you blow up the lodge just at the break of Dawn and rescue arrives (of which you go to find a nearby radio tower with Emily/her current boyfriend Matt to call for help earlier in the game). One thing I forgot to mention is that you know the therapist character played by Peter Stormare? All in Josh's head, and it's sad seeing him fall into a spiral of mental anguish before eventually being murdered by the Wendigo (of which Hannah was turned into one after digging up and eating her twin sister's corpse, although Josh I believe can turn out to be alive in a post credits stinger?), the credits roll showing the fates of your characters and their thoughts while getting interviewed by police. My feelings on the whole "Wendigo" twist are mixed, though it's hinted at well and is decently done, I felt like the whole "Oh yeah the killer is fake, BUT WAIT THERE IS AN ACTUAL THREAT" was kind of lackluster and I was kind of disappointed, but overall I liked the story and what was delivered.

The final part of the review is Sound/Art Design and graphical presentation. It's on the Guerilla Game's Decima Engine so it looks fucking good, and unlike Hidden Agenda I don't feel like I'm staring into the eyes of a lifeless corpse most of the time (unless it's literally a corpse or a Wendigo lol) so that's phenomenal. The art style is cold, dark and oppressive which works cause it's on a mountain, and the sound design is great as well. They brought a bunch of interesting actors together from Hayden Panettiere as Sam, Rami Malek as Josh, Peter Stormare as Josh's pretend therapist Dr. Hill, Larry Fessenden as the flamethrower guy and overall the rest of the cast are great and believable.
I think the only part that I didn't like is that some of the dialogue is kind of cringeworthy and you can tell this was written nearly ten years ago with constant teenagerisms like saying "Hashtag Unfriended" after finding out that the "killer" ransacked the only way out and other weird quips and such. It's not on the level of say something like the newly released Forspoken but it was noticeable enough to make fun of it; otherwise everyone does great and plays their archetypes VERY well, though some aren't as memorable as others (like you barely play as Matt) mainly because the way the story is plotted doesn't give some of them enough time to shine.

Overall I liked this game a lot, and even though I haven't platinumed it yet I plan on platinuming it over the many days (hopefully making it my last January platinum), it's a fun time with buddies as well as solo (though I prefer playing it with friends to be honest), and the runtime can take about 8-10 hours depending on your choices so if you're gonna play this I'd suggest spreading it out over one or two days to give yourself time to relax. It's a fun game with a creepy horror atmosphere and I'm gonna finish this review with these notes:

Number 1: I put this at four stars because of some of my feelings on plot beats and character dialogue, but truth be told this could also be a very easy 4.5 as well. I'm not sure if we could call this a "classic" game yet (or at all), but if I were to give it a designation compared to a lot of other games it's at least a "Personal classic".

Number 2: Jesus Christ Sony/Supermassive, please for the love of god I know I harp on this shit a lot but PORT THE FUCKING GAME TO PC. Almost all of the other Supermassive movie games are, this game sold well and it would be popular enough to at least guarantee a decent amount of sales as it was considered a "Sleeper Hit". And if you're looking to throw out some VR stuff "The Inpatient" would be cool just to give some background info on the main game itself.

Number 3: If you want to see the development cycle, once you beat the game you can see behind the scenes stuff but also I'm gonna post some youtube links down below of the PS Move port stuff, a wiki link and also after I platinum this game I'm gonna try to record the behind the scenes stuff via capture card and put it on one of my youtube channels before editing the review and posting the links below.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Gm35otCvlqU&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=czzrjlHPKfQ&ab_channel=Emulators%26GameplayHD

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ppmjf8rAOyg&ab_channel=PtoPOnline

https://until-dawn.fandom.com/wiki/PlayStation_3_Beta

As always if I think of anything to add then I'll edit this review, but otherwise yeah it's good, if you have a PS4/PS5 you could either pay 20 dollars to get it digital, probably more or less physical and even free on PS5 if you have PS Plus. Try it out if you haven't already.

NOTE: It's 2024 and they announced a PC port for this game as well as a remaster for PS5. The remaster is a given but FUCK YEAH A PORT FOR PC!! FUCKING FINALLY DOOD!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2172010/Until_Dawn/