this is like a romhack of Tomb Raider, which I genuinely respect about it. It just kills you for not paying attention for even a second, I can't believe these games were huge releases in its day. While nowhere near as tight as Tomb Raider I and lacking the highs of Tomb Raider II, it's at least more consistent than TRII while having more diverse visuals than TRI.

Getting the PC version to work though, that feels like such a crapshoot. Sometimes it works perfectly and other times it refuses to open and in ways I can't easily replicate to try and figure out what the problem is. I absolutely don't recommend playing the PS1 versions of any of these games unless you love blurry textures and save crystals.

Truthfully I am mostly mild on this series, they are functional Diablo clones that are good to kill time with or for if you have a video on the background.

But they let me have a pet ferret, so alas, a 4 star it is.

Isn't a 5 star because it commits the faux-pas of the ferrets making squirrel noises. have you ever seen a ferret? they are nearly silent. They dook when they're happy, but that's a completely different sound to anything a squirrel does. I understand an audience expects an animal to make some kind of noise, so creative liberties are necessary. But I am a pedantic bastard so my ruling stands.

When it came out I REALLY hated this game, now having played Elden Ring I love DS3, it might be my favorite. I think the precision focus on great level design and interesting encounters is wonderful, the art direction is as good as always, and a lot of the bosses are so cool and fun to fight. The Ringed City is the only thing that didn't click for me, even though looking AT it is jaw-dropping. Sometimes I think From are deeply overrated but when I replay games like Demon's Souls and Dark Souls 3 I remember that when they are on, they are ON.

one of the greatest one-year wonders in football ever, peyton hillis. when i was first getting into football the browns were a team i wanted to get into because of how much i love the city of cleveland and the cavaliers. but my god, the browns are impossible to love if you weren't born into it. not only are they extremely bad and absolute masters at losing a shit-ton of games every year, they also are boring as shit to watch. my beloved lions have been quite bad, but also have had some absolutely exciting players that were must-watch television. the browns have had left-tackle joe thomas, and i'm not talking shit, he protected some really terrible quarterbacks in his hall of fame career, but that's a tough sell. nowadays the browns have incredibly exciting players like myles garrett, nick chubb, and david njoku, but too little too late, browns! peyton hillis was a random RB who had a monster year in 2010, helping an otherwise unimpressive 5-11 browns team beat defending super bowl champions saints and fraud bitch junk science peddler tom brady and the patriots. hillis only ever flashed this dominance briefly in the rest of his career, making him one of the most interesting one-year wonders in football history.

anyway, how do sicko browns fans watch them for as long as they have?

It says a lot to how fucking crazy Ninja Gaiden II is that someone new to the series could go from Sigma 1 to Sigma 2 and think, "Damn this game is way more bananas than NG1."

It's still NG so I can still have fun with it, but wow the shop system is so bad. Legitimately what were they thinking. Hayashi seems like a good producer but a lot of bosses that get through on games he directs are just bizarrely bad (Gamov, Statue of Liberty) and yeah, the twin armadillos are really stupid in NGII but they at least have more going on than "attack the hands of a big thing" boss fight.

If this is the only way you can play NG2, yeah it's not bad. If you have an Xbox One, NGII actually runs well on it and can be found at most game stores for about 13 bucks.

This game really brings to light the disparity between "vague storytelling" and "not telling the story at all." When I first played it I beat it without even understanding I had fought a final boss or achieved an ending state, with no understanding of what I had even accomplished. "That's the point, Gehrman says to kill beasts and not think about it!" Okay, that's stupid. Sounds like a cop out for shitty storytelling. Whenever people go on about how good the story or lore is, all I can think is "damn, wish they could have told us any of that." Half-Life has as equally vague a story but actually gives sufficient enough breadcrumbs to put the pieces together, Bloodborne is just esoteric for its own sake.

The combat, while From's deepest combat system ever, it is still woefully undercooked compared to any other competent action game. Bosses against beasts are a battle against camera tracking, NPC fights feel like they weren't playtested for even a second, enemies in From's oeuvre have just devolved into "fake out attacks and a string of 10 hits," the actual playing of BB is just not that great.

The art direction though is unparalleled. From has the best artists in the business and they are working their asses off on this game. This game has an allure a lot of other games don't, where friends will take a seat to watch you play just because it's such a visual spectacle. Although I can't agree with people who call this the masterpiece of all time, I can understand why they'd feel that way. If they port it to PC though I'm raising my score to a 4.