Now that a new Marathon game has been announced the Youtube Gaming Content Creator machine is now pumping out dogshit videos like "THE DISTURBING STORY OF MARATHON EXPLAINED" at an alarming rate. It used to be a bunch of the most irritating fucking losers you've ever met pining over Marathon's story...and I was one of them.

I'm not too steamed though because Marathon is awesome and more people need to suffer the nightmarish switch puzzle in Marathon 1 to understand what this weirdo series is all about.

Was excited to play a zombie parkour survival game but instead got a tutorial screen and crafting menu simulator with a story that NEVER EVER STOPS HAPPENING. Quick survey, you know the people you work with that casually game? Do they like this shit? Is just brutal time-wasting and barely functioning grab bags of mechanics really what they are into?

This game is trying so hard to be every game ever made that I can't actually discern what it does well. It looks amazing but it means nothing reads very well in this parkour game, and the parkour feels really messy and unwieldy, just generally cancelling itself out in every facet.

also can we do away with the protagonist commenting on every thing they see? At the beginning of the game when you find multiple dead bodies for an "end of the world" party, Aiden just will NOT stop explaining how sad and tragic this all is. I can discern with my own eyes if something is sad or not, I don't need Poindexter to explain how I should be feeling.

There is just so much from the first 3 hours that makes me realize just how much I'm not liking anything Dying Light 2 is doing. I really think games need to be simpler and get to the point quickly, because I genuinely don't know who I'd recommend this too. Yeah, this game has an absolutely bloated opening and turgid buildup to a plot you will be incapable of caring about. Fuck AAA.

Probably the Tomb Raider game I go back and forth on the most. Tomb Raider I is such a tight, beautifully crafted platforming game that it borders on perfection, and Tomb Raider III is more varied and eccentric while having some of the best setpieces in the entire series. Tomb Raider II has a lot of water levels and shooting guys, so much so it dilutes the parts of the game that are actually excellent!

The structure of the game is the biggest issue, as you spend half the fucking game not LOOKING for a key, but looking for where a key even IS. While not an uncommon adventure story trope, it doesn't take up half the adventure doing just that. The godforsaken boat levels on a first playthrough feel genuinely never-ending, like the game is prepared to randomly generate more of this boat on the fly, which is a shame because some of the boat levels are pretty fun! When you're not doing another box pushing puzzle they can have some great challenges and environments.

Its really a game that would benefit from having some brevity, which is interesting as Tomb Raider III's strength is in the quantity and breadth of ideas, but I digress. Some of the levels, like the Opera House, Diving Area, The Deck, and Catacombs of the Talion rate amongst my favorite Tomb Raider levels, half the game (ESPECIALLY the loathsome Tibetan Foothills) are just tremendous wastes of time.

By the end of the game things REALLY pick up in terms of variety and difficulty, but the slog getting there means repeat playthroughs of Tomb Raider 2 are an extremely hard sell, especially when EVERY OTHER GAME IN THE SERIES gets to the point so much quicker.

I am also not a fan of the shitty combat at all, and it's honestly head-scratching that anyone could be. Lara goes from killing 3 guys in Tomb Raider I to wiping out half the world's Henchman Population in this, as you shoot hundreds upon hundreds of goons who happen to be in the most hilarious of places, like a SHIPWRECK AT THE BOTTOM OF THE SEA. I'm not complaining about the absurdity, mind, as it is the lone positive these guys provide, as from a gameplay perspective I vastly prefer the Atlanteans from Tomb Raider 1 for how they tested movement more than how many health packs you had been storing.

Tomb Raider 2 is a very mixed bag to me, as in some regards the new gameplay additions are stellar, and some of the levels are peak Tomb Raider, but in others it definitely shows that it was rushed to get a sequel out. I can't condone people considering this the best one when Tomb Raider 1 and 3 are so much more compelling, but this is definitely worth playing IF you are into Tomb Raider.

Who has the funnier run? Edward or Logan from Syphon Filter?

I think the biggest thing that prevents this from being more easily playable is how it follows the early 90s adventure game creed of "murder the player any chance you get." surprisingly a lot of it is forewarned in a way King's Quest never gave you the luxury of. Yeah, that trap door in the attic is probably going to reveal a monster, better cover that up! Even though the game can be brutally slow to do anything, in a lot of ways it's approachable still, and very knowingly goofy in others while still maintaining effective tension because of how good the game is at killing you.

Edward taking a pugilist stance and punching out zombies with the loudest SMACK sound effect is one of the many examples of Alone in the Dark's brilliance.

I wish it used the mouse though, that's the big thing that kills me with this. It was the same with Grim Fandango before its remaster, but Manny didn't have to dodge monsters from beyond the veil. It has a learning curve and a shockingly unhelpful manual but it isn't impossible to get it down.

Also shout out to the voice acting, surprisingly well-done, charming deliveries. Emily's southern drawl is making me realize more women in games need to be from Louisiana.

I love early 3d models, monsters, southern gothic horror, scary houses, and pre-rendered backgrounds so I was made in a lab to like this game. I just can't believe it took me so long to get around to such an important piece of gaming history.

Spoony will never see the gates of Heaven for how he treated this game.

One of my all-time favorites, the peak of FMV adventure games in one of the weirdest, most fucked up packages. The acting on display is actually above and beyond what you expect from FMV games, and compared to Phantasmagoria 1's incredible display of the stupidest people of al time, Phantasmagoria 2 is entertaining from start to finish, and the endgame is a SLAM DUNK winner.

This game rules, Curtis is one of the top 10 best gaming protagonists, Blob Gang Rise Up.

One of the best Resident Evil games ever made, made possible by abandoning the boring-as-fuck worthless protagonists (except Leon) that have infested this series for years, the dumbass espionage stories and shitty villains for what makes this series really click: Some Guy's Scary House.

There is a primal urge in all of us to root around someone else's stuff, and thank god Re7 has created such a detailed and lavish location for us to go through the stuff of. The Baker Estate is brought to life in such incredible detail, the filth encrusting everything, the way light peers in through cracks in the windows, bugs scurrying all over the trash, it's one of the best horror environments ever made since...well, Resident Evil 1!

But a horror location is only as good as the character we have to explore it, as going through this beautiful decay as karate kicking Leon Kennedy would be fucking silly, RE7 breaks out the big guns to give us Protagonist Perfection.

Even though I love the Resident Evil series, I do not understand the love for characters like Jill Valentine and Chris Redfield whose defining characteristics might be their void of charisma. Enter Ethan Winters. Fuck, I love Ethan Winters. He is a swearing pair of hands who is scared, confused, and as the game progresses, pissed off at how annoying this all is. When people talk about him as the worst Resident Evil protagonist I have to wonder what the hell games they've been playing in this series, as Leon is the only other character with this much dumb guy energy that gives him the ability to fight monsters.

And what monsters have we given this ding dong to fight, as the Baker family and the molded are just wonderful, getting up close and personal, distorting in horribly monstrous ways, and refusing to die, shrugging off firepower and showing no regards to any bodily harm. I also love the molded, I don't get the disregard for them, as the first time one just slunk around the corner and got in my face I sure as hell let it be known, the way they move in such a way that they look like they are being puppeted with marionette strings. The way they maneuver towards you, seeming to get faster and more pissed off the more bullets you pepper into them, is VERY effective at making me piss myself.

This is easily the scariest game in the entire franchise, because of how small and vulnerable Ethan feels just carefully creeping through the Baker house, barely feeling like you have any room at all to run and fight, it is the most effective dis empowerment the series has ever played with, as Ethan truly feels over matched at every turn. It actually took me until 2020 to even be able to get past the section after the dinner scene where you have to avoid Jack, as it was so intense that I would reflexively alt-f4 the fuck out of the game the second he looked at me.

The first-person perspective gives the game a much more personal horror than ever before, and the sound work on display is bar none the best they've ever put in Resident Evil. the way you can hear bullets bounce around inside the shotgun as you run, the echo of the main hall, the clicks of locks and the menu, this is one of the most aesthetically pleasing games to the ears ever, which sounds insane, but you gotta believe me and play with headphones.

My only big complaint that prevents this from joining the 5-star pantheon is the pivot to "scary little girl horror" the game takes near the end. Which...look the game stays fun all the way through, but the Bakers were so much more engaging that it's a total head scratcher why Capcom stopped digging for oil and broke out one of the most tired cliches of all time.

Also what the fuck is up with them an tanker levels? Is there a guy on staff who was doing a hunger strike until they put a tanker in every fucking game? It's absurd. It's not enough to make me hate the game, but definitely enough to disappoint me that this is the pivot it took.

I also hate how Capcom seems like it can't resist their bad habits and in the DLCs do everything they can to erase the mystery and tragedy of the story by explaining shit away with TOO much detail. The tragedy of the Baker family was one of the saddest details in the game, of how a quiet but pleasant family slowly transformed into unkillable murderers, the idea that the molded slowly transformed while people were aware of the transformation, whatever the FUCK is going on in End of Zoe. Do yourself a favor and only play the DLC with Clancy as those are actually pretty decent, avoid Daughters, End of Zoe, and Not A Hero if you respect this story and want to continue doing so.

So a problem that Monolith has is that they'll make the stupidest game of all time almost unknowingly, like Condemned 2 and FEAR 2 are so fucking braindead moronic yet seem to think they're cooking, whereas FEAR 3, not being made by Monolith, really seems to have no doubt in its mind that it's built on the STUPIDEST premise ever and just rolls with it. It is SO much more charming than FEAR 2 because of how knowingly absurd the whole thing is, and as a co-op shooter it isn't too bad, you aren't going to play it though because who actually cares about FEAR 3 in 2023. I didn't care about in 2011!!

Such a catastrophic drop in quality that it almost defies logic. Reviewing this game is like being Kurt Russell in the Thing walking through the Norwegian base, trying to figure out exactly what went wrong. It seems almost inconceivable that a game as electric as F.E.A.R could produce a sequel that is so middling, preposterous, and a complete fucking bore but the same geniuses at Monolith who produced Blood II cracked their knuckles and got hard at work. I would love to just write "game stinks" and move on, but there is just too much wrong under the hood that we have to make repairs or this car is going to lock up on the highway and get someone killed.

The tragedy is how much effort clearly went into this game. It looked amazing to me back in 2009 and the graphics still produce a post-apocalypse city in some pretty fantastic detail. Weapon animations and enemy animations are still top-notch and there is more variety in levels here than before, but that in itself is a bit of a downgrade. It feels like they missed the forest for the trees in terms of what made F.E.A.R so good. In a way it's almost what made F.E.A.R really not NEED a sequel. It ended in such a perfect J-horror style: Nobody escapes the curse. It's all-consuming. As is the problem with the sequels to Ju-On and Ring, we have to walk back SOME of the curse to ensure this thing keeps printing money.

As much has been said about how incredible the combat in F.E.A.R is, I think an equal amount has been said for how calamitously they fucked up everything in F.E.A.R 2: the jam-like blood, environments get less blown the hell out in firefights, the actual slow-mo has so many bells and whistles on it it makes you kind of sick to use it. In their effort to shoot for the moon they ended up tunneling into the fucking Earth.

Also the ending. oh my GOD the fucking ending. It's SO stupid it defies belief. You almost kind of need to play it just to witness galaxy brained writing like this, even in 2009 as a sweaty teenager I had to replay the final level a couple times to truly grasp what had just happened, it's fucking baffling. It's SUCH a bad idea executed terribly, a legit AVGN "What were they thinking?!" moment. 2 stars.

When I was younger I used to be in the "why even bother with the horror elements" camp, but now? That's probably the best call they could have made, because that bit of idiosyncratic design gives this game something that separates it from the bunch. It gives the game this sense of having a very unique vision behind it, that Monolith had many, many, MANY ideas for this game and were not interested in cutting any.

There are legions of tactical first-person shooter games, most of them come across as tech demos, but there is one "science fiction j-horror karate kicking tactical shooter" and it's fucking F.E.A.R, and it is the best fucking shooter ever.

The only review that could ever do justice for F.E.A.R is just a clip that showcases any firefight in the game. That's the review. If you see that and aren't curious about playing it it's not the game for you. Any words waxing poetic on how good it feels to shoot guys in F.E.A.R is the classic "dancing about architecture" bit, words just fail to convey anything.

Anyway, I'm done talking about F.E.A.R now. Why? because I know you've played it. Why do I know that? Because you like good video games, of course you've played F.E.A.R.

I'll confess that I've only played about 20 minutes of this game, so I'm not really reviewing it for myself, but for my best friend who passed away in March. We lived together so we would hang out and talk about video games almost everyday and before he passed away THIS was his favorite game, full-stop.

It's hard to describe how much I miss chatting with him about Rain World, it made him passionate about game ideas he was programming and passionate about games in general, it was exciting to see him have that spark for making art again. It's cringey, but I wish I could message the developers and let them know how much it meant to my friend that this game even EXISTED, let alone that it was this amazing to him.

The last conversation I ever had with him he was telling me about the lore for Rain World, how he beat every piece of content in it just to learn more about the story, and to my surprise, I found in one of his journals pages of him deciphering the lore and studying it on his own for fun.

It'll be a long while before I'm able to play any of his favorite games again, but I'm going to rate this a 5 on his behalf anyway, as I have no doubt in my mind it's what he would have given it. I'll never know why he chose to leave, but I at least have this game that spoke to him in a way you wish all art could, and as much as I wish he was here to tell you why it's a 5-star game, you'll just have to take my word for it. This was a perfect game to him, and he had way better taste than me!

It's BRUTALLY, maddeningly difficult, on Steam getting a controller to play nice with it will take years off your life, and the depiction of Lara gunning down native villagers will have you tugging at your collar and making nervous glances towards the screen, but fuck it, this is easily the best Tomb Raider now that I've had time to replay it and think on it.

I think the main spice with this one is the variety, how it feels like a globetrotting adventure, as this game is LONG and dense, contains some of the most exciting set-pieces and challenges, and dials back the dumbass gunplay from II for more varied enemy encounters to make what is probably the most well-rounded game in the series. There are more movement options for Lara to make her feel more dynamic and expressive than before, and even the difficulty spikes are only really noticeable in the first few missions, as once you understand what's going on in TR3 you find yourself dying less.

The location variety is the big thing I'm thankful as fuck for, as I still have nightmares about that godforsaken boat you spend 5 levels on in Tomb Raider II. You journey around the world with notorious evil-doer Lara Croft and she has many different outfits in this game, such as the hard as fuck leather jumpsuit from the London missions, or her suddenly more practical arctic gear, it's just FUN to travel with her!! Even when she is being insanely evil, that's why we like her.

It makes me think of how badly the reboot trilogy dropped the ball by having Lara stuck in one location with a bunch of shit characters for 20 hours, when the real character ARE the environments and how hostile they are to Lara. So to have her spend all that time popping shots at goons from behind cover is such a colossal waste of the IP. Even Uncharted, the series that the Tomb Raider reboots are ripping off more than anything, understand this. Why do the reboots fail at that constantly? It's because they are made by the Gex team, so good game design is illegal at their studio. But that is beside the point.

Point is, Tomb Raider III is a ton of fun, I've spent hours on it and I will spend more, I think it's more diverse and varied than II while maintaining I's more platforming focused spirit, so if you are into Tomb Raider's gameplay loop you shouldn't let the difficulty of this one scare you off because I think it's LESS bullshit than some of the bullshit II throws at you, it just requires more patience.

And if you are still a "this game has aged bad" cretin, continue not playing these games or anything that doesn't fit neatly into a certain mold of design because you are fundamentally too incurious to have any interesting thoughts or criticisms about games and you are better off not playing anything, fuck you.