I am really struggling, at this point, to come up with anything to say about the Spyro series every time I get around to playing one of these. I don’t mean for this to imply that I think Spyro: A Hero’s Tail is a bad game, truthfully I think it's probably my favorite since the first game, very much better than Enter the Dragonfly and definitely a more refined experience in comparison to Ripto’s Rage and Year of the Dragon. It expands on the different breath types introduced in EtD by actually having puzzles involve them, and by giving each type their own attributes, the lightning breath in particular I loved because of its extended read and stun affliction. It also, I don’t think exactly fixed or improved, but defined the other playable characters sections; in YotD they really just felt like extensions of Spyro’s gameplay with slight deviation in move set, creating a feeling of almost bloat, and while again I don’t feel like this feeling as been shaken off, I think it's more manageable here because these sections are different enough to feel distinct and add a little bit of variety. But outside of that there is nothing this game does that makes it particularly stand out, there is just nothing, it's not interesting; and frankly, the series has felt this way for a couple of games now. I genuinely have nothing to say, I hate to do another short review so soon but that's the reality here; and while me feeling burnt out has of late when it comes to this whole backlog journey I have been doing for nearly a year and a half now might be playing a part in my opinion of this game, I don’t think that changes the fact that this game is just ok at best. Again, it is not bad by any means, just nothing of note. With that though, this will probably be the last review, and game, that I do for the next couple of months. My summer job is going to be very time consuming and I don’t anticipate me having any time to play anything, but who knows, maybe I will be able to squeeze one or two out, we’ll see.

This game is straight up awful, I don't know how people think it's better than Super Chargers. They nerfed all of the old characters to the point were the are practically useless on any difficulty above easy, attacks that used to do upwards of 200 damage coming from fully maxed out skylanders now do less than 20, and they did this so that they could show off how powerful the custom skylanders are, which is just the worst type of power creep. The imaginators themselves are just awful too, all the parts are just reused assets from previously existing models, the attacks that are offered for them are not interesting because they lack the personality of the core skylanders, and they just look bad too. The levels aren't too far behind either, with the best levels in Imaginators being comparable to the worst of the other games; it doesn't help them much either that by far the best levels in the game, The Lost Imaginite Mines and Cursed Tiki Temple, are locked behind two of the most expensive figures in the series, costing over $1000 for both. It also, somehow, has less levels than Spyro's adventure; it tries to make up for this with the sensei realms, but those are just glorified elemental gates and offer nothing of substance. The story, if you can call it that, is dreadful. It has complete disregard for all of the lore and stories from the previous games and just haphazardly reuses assets and characters from the previous games. It also just feels like a scrapped episode of the Netflix show, which this is 100% an advertisement for, if the main three characters you interact with being the core cast from the show wasn't enough of a dead giveaway. The only decent thing this game has to offer are the sensei characters; personally I think they are some of the most fun and well designed characters in the series, shame their trapped in one of the most miserable games of all time. I don't want to blame Toys for Bob too much here though, it's clear they wanted Super Chargers to be the last game in the series, and that Activision forced them to make a tie in to the Netflix show, but they still could have tried a bit harder to make something at least halfway decent. At least they would go on to make Crash 4, which I hear is pretty good.

I have never been a big hunting person, but I thought it would be fun to go through and try out all of the old Cabela's licensed games just for the fun of it. Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge was not the first licensed game from Cabela's, but it was the first released on consoles; so this is where I decided to start.
The game is exactly what it says on the tin, it is a hunting simulator where you track and hunt big game animals. It is surprisingly in depth for a licensed video game in the early 2000s; there are animal callers and scents that you can equip to draw game towards you, at least I think that is the intention; you need to bring the right type of clothing to both blend into the environment and survive the weather conditions; you can bring along a tent to camp out to regain stamina and wait out the night, and there is a day and night cycle, which I find really novel in a PS1 game. But those are really the only good things I have to say about the game, everything else is either just okay or just not well designed. The guns feel okay, the sound good, but that's it there are no reload animations and the view models are a pixelated blur. The graphics, while standard for middle market releases of the time, do not help because the draw distance is incredibly short and it makes the animals almost impossible to see if the aren't right in front of you. The game tries to compensate for this by having giant red dots mark where animals are, but this doesn't really work either cause the dots don't tell you how far away the animal is so you could end up traveling all the way across the gigantic maps only for your target to disappear out of bounds, which they can do for some reason.
Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge is an alright experience, but when it comes to hunting simulators, you are better off playing a more recent one like Way of the Hunter or Hunting Simulator 2.

Despite having an entire different title, and being part of different hunting game series, Ultimate Deer Hunt serves as a sequel to Coresoft's previous Cabela's game: Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge. It is almost the exact same experience as the first game, the same type of equipment, guns, character selection, and practically the same locations, though they are technically different locations. The only big difference that sets it apart from its predecessor is that here, instead of hunting a variety of big game animals, you are hunting different breeds of deer, bucks, and elk. Personally I found this way less interesting and kind of frustrating to me. Each location in the first game was occupied by several species that are from that region; here, however, it's just deer; and if you are someone who really loves hunting and can differentiate breeds of deer good for you, but personally I can't, and so it feels very repetitive to me after the first two areas. This complaint also affects the gameplay itself; you are punished for killing game that you don't have tags for, which is completely fine and is expected from a realistic simulator; but when all the animals in the area are just deer and I can't tell them apart, getting fined $400 and getting kicked back to the main menu gets really annoying. other than that, some quality of life improvements have been made; the player moves slightly faster and the cross hair on scopes can be adjusted. Outside of that it is really just the same game as the first, just with more deer.

I would like to preface this review by saying that I think Dead Space is a fantastic game, and it does a lot of things really well, but I can't help but feel that it wears its influences on its sleeve a bit obviously, as well as not fully understanding what made those influences great. But I first want to start with the good, cause like I said, I think it's a fantastic game when looked at and played in a vacuum.

The atmosphere is what is considered to be the games strong suit, and I think I can agree for the most part. The USG Ishimura is probably up there as one of the best settings in a horror game; the nature of being on a gigantic mining ship in the far off future lends itself to easily alienating the player. The halls of the Ishimura are long and lined with air vents that build dread with the sheer potential that something might come crawling out of them; the scattered bodies of former crew mates and their deranged ramblings written in blood on the walls serve as a grim reminder of the situation at hand; and the moments where you are outside the ship in space, where you can catch a brief glimpse into the vast emptiness of space, leave the player with a feeling of overwhelming sense of isolation. But, like I mentioned earlier, Dead Space wears its influence on its sleeve, and I think that is most apparent here in the games world. It is extremely similar to both Doom 3 (yeah I know) and Prey 2006, all the way down having anti gravity mechanics and weird, alien, fleshy stuff overtaking the facility as you progress; and I can't help but feel like those games did what Dead Space does but better. Doom 3’s first person perspective allows for much more immersion into the environment, and Prey just goes all in on all the weird and trippy stuff Dead Space only flirts with. Dead Space also makes the mistake of never leaving the player alone; the atmosphere works well in Doom and Prey because there is ample time for the player to digest the environment and create their own fear. Dead Space has a constant need to explain and guide the player on absolutely everything, there is no getting lost or ambiguity in the game's objectives, either a NPC tells you exactly how to solve a problem or the game literally gives you a line to follow on your map. I am not going to pretend like Prey and Doom aren’t linear games, but they at least give the player the freedom of discovery, and that is just something Dead Space doesn’t allow.

As well, I think combat suffers from a similar problem. Again, I think when looked at on its own, it is great. The necromorphs are terrifying in looks and varied in design, they all have different ways of attacking the player which leads to the player needing to prioritize threats beyond just which enemy is closest to you, a problem that I think even the Resident Evil games struggle with. The necromorphs physical design also plays really well into the dismemberment mechanic; the dismemberment is a direct evolution of Resident Evil 4’s combat where enemies would respond accordingly to where they were shot, the difference here is that instead of just staggering the enemy, you completely sever their limbs off, and it is as glorious as it sounds. Crippling an enemy by shooting off its leg with the plasma cutter, or cutting down a whole group of enemies with the line gun is endlessly satisfying and only got more enjoyable as the game went on and acquired more weapons and faced bigger necromorphs, but where I think this fails in comparison to to the likes of RE4 is that the player is too powerful. RE4 struck a balance between a power fantasy and helplessness by having a combination of highly resilient enemies and pretty standard firearms; yes the guns were satisfying, and yes Leon could supplex and roundhouse kick enemies to timbuktu, but he could die just as easily because he couldn’t move and shoot, and because of the sheer number of ganados. Here in Dead Space, however, Issac can move and shoot, and while the enemies are about as aggressive as in RE4, the weapons are far too powerful. Being able to knock an necromorph on their ass with the force gun over and over again makes them feel like a joke, and having the ability to freeze enemies in place at the click of a button kind of dissolves any tension the combat encounters had. There was never a time where I felt out of control; I always had enough ammo, always had enough med packs, and, while I didn’t always have a full stasis meter, I always had it when I needed it. Don’t get me wrong though, I still think the combat was really well done and was by far my favorite part of the game, I just think it fails to understand what made its primary influence so great, as well as failing at creating meaningful tension.

There are also a couple things that I left out but still feel are worth mentioning; the sound design is great, if it did one thing right from RE4 it was definitely the sound design; The story was very intriguing, and while I personally haven’t done any research into its meaning, I can tell that it has something to say and was presented in a thoughtful way; and lastly the game just looks gorgeous; I know that it wasn’t built using ID Tech 4, but it is very reminiscent of that engine and is probably why it still looks great today (it also may be why Doom 3 and Prey kept coming to mind while playing).

Dead Space Is a game that has aged gracefully, it is truly incredible how this game's mechanics are still enjoyable and comparable to games coming out today. And although I personally think it is rather derivative of its influences, I can’t ignore the fact that it is still fun as all hell; and hey, I am very analytical when I play games, but if you’re not like me you probably won’t notice all the little flaws that I did.

I didn’t like Spyro 2. Not entirely, but I do feel like it sours the taste of the first game. For every step forward, and for every improvement, Spyro 2 takes an equal step backwards, and with that step, a new inconvenience is born. It all just culminates in an experience that just feels lacking, especially when compared to the incredible framework set up by the first Spyro game.

Firstly, I want to start with the good, which there is a lot of, despite what I may have made it out to seem. Both the story and that story’s presentation have been greatly improved. In my review of Spyro 1 I noted that the player could go the whole game without knowing who the main antagonist is and why they were the bad guy, strictly because the game spends I don’t think even an actual minute telling the player or getting them acquainted with the world. In this game, however, the antagonist Ripto just might be the most memorable thing here; his voice acting and little animations give him so much life and stage presence. On top of that, unlike Gnasty Gnorc, Ripto actually shows up repeatedly throughout the game, in both cutscenes and boss fights, making him feel like a much more prominent threat. As well, the worlds Spyro visits are way more fleshed out and, for the most part, feel way more alive; there are NPCs who are fully voice acted and that are unique to the world you are exploring, some have side quests for the player to complete that add to the liveliness of it all, and each level has its own little isolated conflict that makes them all feel unique and memorable, outside of just aesthetics. My favorite example of this are within the Breezebuilder and Zephyr worlds; it seems that both of these worlds are in some kind of war between each other, so in one world the player will have to fight off the Zephyr inhabitants and help the Breezebuilders get their war ships back up and running, while in the other you help the Zephyr inhabitants clear their valley of the invading Breezebuilders.

On the non-aesthetic side of things, several quality of life improvements have been to how the game is played and navigated. Off the bat, the useless dodgerolls have been removed entirely and have been replaced with a hover move; the hover move is functionally a double jump, but is only available when Spyro is in a full glide. Normally, double jumps cause a problem of making platforming too easy and making it seem trivial; this hover ability is a great compromise because it still allows the platforming to be precise and require skill, while also giving that slight bit of wiggle room that those gliding sections from Spyro 1 desperately needed. As well, the fairies no longer require the player to interact with them and open a bunch of menus in order to save, now they just automatically save whenever Syro is near them. A map has been added too, allowing you to view the general outline and structure of whatever level you are currently in to better help with navigation; though the game does not tell you this, and would only know about it if you dug around in the options menu and found the button that turns it on. I went the whole game without knowing it was there, but I don’t think it is that big of a deal as the levels are pretty linear and flow very well, much like the first game. Finally, if you are missing one or two gems in an area and just can’t seem to find them, Sparks will pull a point straight in the direction of where those last few gems are; this, along with all the other quality of life features that I mentioned, was something I thought was added with the 2018 remakes, but I am very happy and surprised that it is here.

Sadly, this is where my praises of Spyro 2 end, as the rest of this game ranges from being the exact same as the first game, to some of the most infuriating and stupid design choices I have seen in a game. I mentioned earlier that this game has side quests, and it does. It has a whole lot of them actually, about three to four per level. There are so many of these side quests that I’d argue that they aren’t even side quests and are just the main gameplay. They clog up levels by having you do stupid mini games that are either so easy a baby could do it, or make me want to throw my controller across the room with how bad they are; they are like way less interesting versions of mini games that would normally be found in a Mario Party game. By far the worst one in this whole game is the one where you have to catch these crystal popcorn that come out of the ground, while also racing Hunter to see who can get ten of them first. This doesn’t sound all that bad until you start doing it and realize that Hunter not only has some godly form of clairvoyance that lets him immediately know where one is going to pop out of the ground, but also that he can turn on a dime, something that Spyro can very much not do. This ends up making a level that really shouldn’t take more than ten minutes, take over thirty because you have to deal with the most BS AI I have ever seen. While not as bad as this one was, all of the other side quests suffer similar issues of just being annoying and ultimately destroy the immaculate pacing that the first game had; having you repeatedly start, stop, read text boxes, and do mini games, rather than naturally progress through levels and solve puzzles that are organically weaved into the environment. What’s even worse, is that these quests are mandatory; the orbs that serve as the rewards for these quests are needed in order to progress, and eventually fight Ripto. Not all of the orbs are needed, but you still need at least forty of them, which means many of these mini games are gonna have to be done.

On top of this, there is a decent amount of backtracking; nothing too egregious, or even necessary, but still once again sully the satisfying flow and pacing of the first game’s design. In the first game, every collectable could be obtained in the first go in a level; this is still the case for about 85% of this game, but there are a couple of levels that require a revisit once a new ability is gained in order to 100%. This is just entirely unnecessary and, again, only serves to waste the players time, as well as actively discouraging going for 100%; even more so when you realize that levels reset when you revisit them, meaning you have to do the same objectives again just to grab one orb. It is just baffling to me that Insomniac can go from completely understanding what makes a game fun to 100%, so actively making me not want to spend any more time than I have to.

For all its faults, however, Spyro 2 is still an overall fine experience. The moment to moment gameplay is still the same as the first; running around, gliding, collecting gems, and torching enemies. The worlds are still just as whimsical and enjoyable as the first, if not more so with all the new characters and what not. And despite the absolutely awful minigames and weird backtracking, that great sense of flow and cohesion can still be found at points in the game. I may not have entirely liked it, but I can still see its strengths and understand why others really enjoy it.

Hitman: Contracts is a much more refined experience compared to its predecessors; where Codename 47 served as a blueprint, and Silent Assassin a exploration of the limits of that blueprint, Contracts took what was learned from that exploration and stripped it down to only what worked. The outcome of this is what very well might be the best campaign this series has to offer, so far at least. It offers a level of depth, matched with a level of efficiency, that is unmatched by the prior games; it is exactly the type of experience that you would want from a Hitman game.

I think the best word to describe Silent Assassin is BIG. The game is borderline bloated; the levels are of a daunting size, the amount of options the game gives the player are overwhelming, and the overall run time is the longest in the whole series, World of Assassinations online notwithstanding. But despite that, there was still a lot of good that Silent Assassin did; particularly the complexity of the levels and freedom of approach are innovations of note. Contracts’ challenge was to take those innovations, and condense them down into an experience that isn’t as overwhelming to tackle; and I think it did an absolutely fantastic job doing so. Contracts gives the player roughly the same amount of information per mission as Silent Assassin did, if not slightly less, but the map size has been greatly reduced, making for a much more player friendly trial and error stage. As well, the smaller levels lead to much more dense areas that offer more of the creative problem solving that Silent Assassin introduced. A lot of these strengths can be seen through the remade levels from Codename: 47; the majority of the Contracts levels are remade or remixed versions of the best levels from the first game. The objective is usually the same, and the process of going about it is generally similar, but the levels have been expanded to include more elements of player freedom. Traditions of the Trade makes its triumphant return here, and serves as a great example of this idea. Instead of spawning you at the front of the hotel with no weapons, the game spawns the player to the left with a briefcase sniper rifle, this immediately opens the door for many possibilities. If the player remembers how the level functions from Codename: 47, they can take the rifle to the right side of the building and take out the guard on the balcony of the room one of the targets is in, making that kill way easier. As well, while I didn’t find it, I am almost positive there is a way to get the rifle past the metal detector and into the building because there is a hole in the roof of the swimming pool where the second target usually is; compare this to the way more linear nature of the first game’s iteration of the level. This is just a taste of what the refinement that Contracts offers, as this level is pretty tame in its changes when compared to the more extreme reworks of the other levels, as well as the few original levels.

I still do think there is a bit of an information problem, however. Not to say that the game doesn’t give the player enough information, it gives maybe slightly less than Silent Assassin, which is fine; the problem I had is just with how busy levels are and how much information they drop on the player. For the majority of the missions this is not a problem, as they are again remade versions of Codename: 47 levels, meaning that the player should have some background information as to how the mission functions. But for the few original missions, while they are really good, there is a lot of information to process because of how dense they are. The Beldingford Manor mission was probably the biggest offender of this. This level is full of winding mazes and secret passageways that make for a very complex and intricately designed level; and while I think this mission is very good, arguably the best in the game, it took me hours upon hours just to digest all that this levels has to offer, and left me feeling more overwhelmed than it did accomplished. Though I do understand that this very well might just be a me problem, so take the criticism with a grain of salt. That being said though, there is one level that I think is objectively bad, and that is the remake of Plutonium Runs Loose from the first game, Deadly Cargo. The objectives of this mission are actually simpler from its original incarnation, all you have to do is get on the boat and kill the target rather than kill him and defuse the bomb, but the method of going about it is entirely different. In the original, you had to sneak your way onto the boat by killing one of the crew members and taking their uniform; in this new one you have to infiltrate a swat team that is staked out in one of the warehouses in harbor, and then kill the target as they’re assaulting the boat. The game never hints that you have to infiltrate the swat team, the most it does is tell you that the police have locked down the harbor, and I guess this is supposed to be the hint, but I don’t understand how you are supposed two and two together with that little amount of information. As well, this solution entirely goes against the philosophy of player freedom that the other levels, and the whole previous game had been building. Again, the rest of the game is wholly a masterpiece in its own philosophy; this one level is just a giant sour spot on an otherwise fantastic game.

Overall, Hitman: Contracts is a fantastic game that breaks down and refines the Hitman formula into an experience that not only is much more manageable when compared to its predecessor, but also offers a new level of depth with that approach. While it does have some slight miscommunication problems, those issues are entirely overshadowed by just how fantastic the rest of the game is. I highly recommend and am eager to see how or if it is topped by what comes next, because I think it will be very hard to do so.

Metal Gear 2 is a major step up from both its predecessors. The sheer scope of the game is extremely impressive for the time; the giant interconnected map, the drama of the story, the creative puzzles and problem solving, and the overall presentation far exceeds that of Metal Gear 1 and Snake’s Revenge, although the later wasn’t all that outstanding in any of those fields to begin with. As well, it really feels like Kojima came into his own with this project; even for somebody like me who hasn’t played any of the future games, and only knows bits and pieces from internet osmosis, Kojima’s signature style can clearly be seen. It genuinely felt like Kojima cared much more about this project, much more than he did the first game; and whether it be because he was much more invested in this entry, or that he just wanted to one up Snake’s Revenge, it has culminated in an experience that is worth any players time, even non die hard Metal Gear fans.

The first Metal Gear’s narrative was nothing to write home about, it was simple and really only served to progress the game forward; in comparison, Metal Gear 2’s story is like The Godfather. Characters are actual characters and not plot macguffins, the player becomes invested in their personal stories and wants to see them make it to the other side, or their demise in the case of the antagonists. But even then, the game’s antagonists are honestly sympathetic at times. The returning Dr. Madnar and Gray Fox are both stand out examples of this; they both have similarly tragic but understandable backstories that led them to where they are, but are still very clearly villains who have done heinous things. Additionally, in what was probably the biggest surprise this game had, each of the characters play into the games overall thesis of war and the never ending cycle of violence. All the characters have been shaped by war in some way, like how Gustava was separated from her partner by the Berlin Wall, or how Snake himself has some form of PTSD from the Outer Heaven Uprising that keeps him from just quitting the operation. Hell, there are even children NPCs that can be found roaming the facilities of Zanzibar Land who have been displaced by NATO’s war efforts against Big Boss and his team of mercenaries; to which later Big Boss calls them the next generation of soldiers to fuel the machine. Mind you, this is all from a game that came out in the year 1990, on a computer system that has all been but forgotten to time; this was during a time where narratives in video games didn’t ever go past “save the princess” or “kill the bad guys”. This story was so far ahead of its time it's almost absurd. Not to say that the story is perfect, or even all that serious; many of Kojima’s “isms” do slightly detract from the story's overall impact; some of the dialogue is particularly campy, and Dr. Madnar breaking the fourth wall by name dropping the MSX and Konami are a bit distracting, although it is rather funny. Additionally, the cinematics are much more dramatic and lengthy, which I assume is emblematic for the rest of the series going forward, as is everything previously stated. But it is not just the presentation that took a major leap forward, the game design is also just leagues better from the first entry.

Both Metal Gear and Solid Snake function quite similarly in terms of progression; the player is dropped into a large, interconnected map where they must collect key cards, weapons, and gadgets to move forward. But where they differ is in the players' agency. For the most part, the challenge in Metal Gear’s design was learning enemy patrol patterns and then maneuvering around them so as to not get caught, which is fine, but it is the only form of interaction the player has; the player does have weapons they can use, but using them will set off the alarm, and the gadgets are all used for puzzles. It is a one sided interaction. Solid Snake fixes this issue by not changing, but rather evolving this design concept. For starters, the enemy patrol patterns are way less complex, but in turn, have become harder to recognize; but that doesn’t really matter all too much because a new map has been added that lets the player see where enemies are and where they are headed. Combine this with the larger maps and the ability to crawl under certain walkways, cracks in the wall, and under crates; the player has much greater control over how they navigate through each area; and when the player does inevitably trigger the alarm, it actually feels like a mistake made by player, rather than the jank of the game. Additionally, Snake’s array of gadgets that he collects are far greater; almost all of the items, outside of a small few, have utility functions outside of their associated puzzle. The camouflage mat is a particular standout, letting the player create their own cover to hide under on the go, letting the player be a bit more risky with their movements. On top of that, the keycards have been ever so slightly altered; they are still numbered and the player has to still equip them to open a door, but now for every three that the player collects, they can then be combined into a colored card that functions as all three of those keys, making the repeated opening and closing of doors when backtracking more convenient and player friendly. On that note, backtracking might be the only criticism I have in regards to this section. The greater majority of the game is paced very well, it is only the last third of the game that has some unnecessary backtracking, but that is a minor negative drop in an otherwise fantastic sea of design.

I would like to close by mentioning the fact that I played Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, as well as Metal Gear 1 and Snake’s Revenge, in the Metal Gear Master Collection Volume 1 that was released last year. I will probably not be returning to this collection for future entries in this series, not because the collection is bad, but because I already own original copies of each of the games on their original hardware, and I think it would be better to play them that way. So with that, I wanted to say that I think the collection is a great value for anybody looking to get into the series. The emulation of the two MSX titles, the NES port of the first game, and Snake’s Revenge are all great; the quality of life features such as save states and virtual manuals really make these the definitive versions of these classic titles, though I wish you didn’t have open a browser on my Xbox to just look at the manual. I would highly recommend all of these original titles, as well as the Master Collection as the format to play them, although you could probably skip Snake’s Revenge and miss nothing.

I am going to be entirely honest with you, I did not finish Prince of Persia 3D. Not because I didn’t want to, there is some good in this one that I think makes it interesting. Overall, it is just a clone of the PS1 Tomb Raider games; the controls are also better I'd say, with lots of customization options for both controller and keyboard, the graphics hit that late 1990’s Quake 2 style graphics that I personally really enjoy, and the music is pretty damn good. The level design, from what I played at least, is ok; again very reminiscent of some of the more ok levels from like Tomb Raider. The combat too is just serviceable, functionally being the same as the duals in the original duology, but in 3D with some fancy particle effects. The reason I quit, however, is because I could not get this game to run properly for the life of me.

To make a long story short, PoP 3D’s development was a dumpster fire, riddled with inner company drama and a bad case of an older developer not understanding newer design principles. For that reason, the game didn’t sell well, and has been abandoned by its current IP holder, left to rot in the annals of the internet. So, currently, the only two ways to play this game is to either get a physical copy for the Dreamcast release of the game, or try to find a pirated copy of the original online. I choose the latter, as the prior was just not an option for me. I was fine with this at the beginning, as I have a little bit of prior experience with emulating games. But, as I soon found out, this was nowhere near as simple. It took me nearly a month to finally get the file I took off of a sketchy website to finally work, something about the format of the file not being right, and not having the proper programs installed to run it; things that I just do not understand. Eventually though, I did get it to boot up, but I quickly found out that the game was just a broken mess. Firstly, the cutscenes didn’t work; secondly, the frame rate moved at a snail’s pace; and finally, the input lag was unbearable. No cutscenes is something I can work with, just look up the scenes on Youtube and you get the same effect. But a shitty framerate and input lag? That is not something that can be ignored; and let me tell you, I tried, I really tried to fix it. I went to every corner of the internet that had even the smallest info on Prince of Persia 3D, which frankly isn’t a lot of places, but nonetheless I did, and I found nothing. The one place that did have a ROM hack to fix these issues didn’t even end up working because apparently the files were not compatible with my version of the game. Hell, I even tried editing the program compatibility to run at a lower resolution and FPS to see if that would work, but all I ended up doing is just breaking the game further.

So, I have given up. This one bad game is not worth the amount of gray hairs it has given me, and I am not willing to teach myself a whole bunch of computer mumbo jumbo just to get a crappy PC game from 1999 to work on my laptop. Maybe if I had just put down the money and bought a Dreamcast, and tracked down a copy of this game for it, I would be singing a different tune, but it is just not worth the effort to play what is just a bad Tomb Raider clone. If you can somehow miraculously get this game to work, I will applaud you, but as for me? I am done trying to get this dumbass game to work. I’ll go spend my time playing something that actually works.

After a couple months of messing around with Dead Space's spin offs and extended universe, I have finally reached the actual sequel for the game I played all the way back in January, and I must say, the wait was well worth it. The team over at EA Redwood Shores, now Visceral Games, identified the few shortcomings of the first Dead Space game, and rectified them, creating one of the most true survival horror experiences that I have played in a while. Honestly, it felt more akin to the roots of the genre than I think even the Resident Evil remakes did when I played through those. A lot like the series signature plasma cutter, Dead Space 2 is a tight, clean, efficient experience; it wastes none of the player's time and is extremely tense throughout its entire run time. Though, I do think some of the parts that make it such a tense experience are where a lot of its downsides come from.

In my review for the first Dead Space, I mentioned how I felt the game struggled with creating a terrifying atmosphere, as well as being somewhat bland with its environments and overall aesthetic. These complaints stemmed from the fact the game refused to leave the player alone, always having someone talking directly to Isaac, or by not leaving any ambiguity and leading the player directly to where they need to be; this not being helped by the very bland looking environments that looked like scraped concept art for Doom 3. So, I am very glad to say that they improved on both of these aspects quite a lot. Firstly, Isaac talks now. I never would have thought that simply having the player character talk could be so integral to creating tension, but it is. By giving Isaac a voice, the developers dissolved the need for the other characters to be constantly hounding the player with objectives, and trying to force agency where there is none .Now there is clear and effective agency because Isaac is his own person who can express personal wants and create his own objectives; no longer does he feel like an errand boy to the other characters, instead he actually feels like the main protagonist. As well, by having Isaac be more independent, there is much more room for the fear to build, and for anticipation to fester. There are now long stretches of time where the player goes without any sort of meaningful interactions with NPCs, meaning that they are going to be alone with their thoughts way more often, which is the key to creating good horror. To add to the fear factor, the game's environments are so much more varied and creative than that of the Ishimura. The game’s setting is a giant city colony orbiting Jupiter called The Sprawl, think the giant ship from Wall-E, but way bigger. Throughout his journey, Isaac stumbles through every possible corner of The Sprawl; from the medical wing that he wakes up in, a (formerly) bustling entertainment complex, an absolutely terrifying elementary school sector, a decadent Unitologist church, a sprawling mine and cave system, to, what is most definitely my favorite area, the quarantined remains of the Ishimura. All of these environments are so much different from the last, each offering new aesthetics paired with challenges that are appropriate to the area. A few of my favorites would be how the new velociraptor necromorphs use the church’s daunting collection of pillars to play mind games with the player and flank them; the necromorph babies and children that wander the halls of the school, and how the Ishimura is just this imposing scar throughout its entire chapters run time, filling the player with memories of dread with every familiar area they come across. As well, the general pacing of each chapter feels so much smother; gone are the individual levels of the first game that start and stop with a tram ride, in their place is now a much more Resident Evil 4 style structure that flows into itself very well, letting the world feel interconnected and not like individual parts. The RE4 comparison doesn’t stop there, however, as I think the developers finally got what made RE4’s combat so great.

Again, to reference my review of the first Dead Space, I described that game's combat as an imitation of Resident Evil 4’s, but without the understanding and nuance that made it so great. I think I can confidently say now, though, that they not only understand it, but made it their own thing. The first Dead Space took the surface level ideas of focusing on location based damage and a wide arsenal of weapons, and kind of did only that. The stasis concept was neat, but definitely not fully explored, and while the focus on cutting off enemy limbs is really cool, it is functionally not different than a headshot. Dead Space 2, however, fully expands on both of those ideas, while also fully embracing the RE4 style sense of momentum that made that game such a classic. RE4 does a lot of things right, but what it does obscenely well is creating a sense of forward momentum; it is hard to describe what I mean by forward momentum, but I think the best way I could is that the make the player constantly push forward, and that is the same feeling Dead Space 2 invokes. The player is constantly pushing through hoards of necromorphs,and through set piece after set piece at lightning speed, constantly keeping the player engaged and on their toes. I got physically exhausted my first time playing RE4, and I get the same feeling here; my heart rate is through the roof every waking minute. Stasis has now been revamped so that it can also launch, as well as freeze and carry them. Because of this, there is a much bigger focus on using the necromorphs severed limbs as projectiles in order to save ammunition. This creates a whole new layer of thinking for the player, on top of prioritizing targets based on who they perceive as more deadly, the player must also think about which enemies have the easiest limbs to cut off so that they don’t have to use up ammo, completely flipping the dynamic of the game on its head, and leading to really intense combat encounters. As well, ammo pickups have been made more scarce in order to encourage this playstyle. This is a great addition that really makes the game stand apart from both its inspirations, and even newer games. But like with every game, there are still some less than favorable aspects that accompany it.

While the combat is way more dynamic and way more exhilarating, some of the enemy placements and spawns are just baffling. There are a sizable number of encounters that have the necromorphs just appear behind the player out of thin air, and while I am sure that they had some animation that showed them coming out of a vent, in the heat of combat when I am facing an entirely different direction, with my back to the end of a hallway that I new was clear a second ago, it feels really cheap. I think this could have been made slightly better if maybe each of the necromorphs had more distinct sounds, or at least some sort of doppler like effect that would let the player know if one was coming. Alas, no, the player just has to suffer. But really that is my only complaint, because other than that it is a fantastic game that is well worth anybody’s time. The atmosphere is great, the combat is phenomenal, the story is very intriguing, though I don’t want to discuss it for spoilers and what not. As well, the voice work in this game is very well done and really helps to make deeper connections with the characters; I am also very glad to see they kept with the very diverse dialects and accents from Extraction, that was something that I thought made the universe of Dead Space feel a bit more real. Again, highly recommend.

I want to be entirely straightforward about the nature of this review; this is not a review of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, this is a review of The Second Encounters HD remake and subsequent Xbox 360 port. I will not be going over the design of The Second Encounter, instead I want to discuss my gripes with the HD remake, and then the weird oddities of its console port. With that being said, this is by far the worst way to play what is probably my least favorite Serious Sam experience. I am already not the biggest fan of The Second Encounter, and the issues that stem both from its remake and port job only serve to make it a worse experience.

I will not regale you with the copious amounts of versions, re-releases, and ports that make up the Serious Sam franchise. The only important bits to know for the sake of this review is that the original Serious Sam games, The First and Second Encounters, were released in 2001 and 2002 respectively, and then were both remade come 2009 and 2010. These remakes, appropriately, remade the first two entries in the then new and fancy Serious Engine 3, and with that process came a complete new look. Weapons and enemies had brand new models, textures were upscaled to match the standards for the time, and add some nice new gibs and animations for some of the enemies. Of course, I am probably not touching everything these remakes set out to do, but that is the gist. The problem I have with these remasters is that, in the process of making everything, quite literally, shiny, Croteam severely messed up any sense of art style and cohesion that these games had. The First Encounter gets off slightly easier because the Egypt aesthetic is consistent throughout, so while it is still very shiny and plastic look to it, like every model and texture looks like they have a cheap RTX filter on them at all times, it at least isn't a complete aesthetic shift every couple of levels. The Second Encounter has both the aforementioned Botox injection, and the drastic aesthetic shift; the latter isn’t that big of a deal in the original versions of the game, but here, with the horrible upscaled textures and really shiny everything, it is much more jarring. On top of that, The Second Encounter features levels that take place in massive outdoor areas, but because every surface looks like it was freshly polished near minutes before Sam got there, all of the plants and grass that look normal in the original, look drastically unnatural. As well, a lot of the weapon models were taken directly from the original Xbox port and then upscaled, which does not look good. These models were made for lower resolution textures, and so they also look slightly out of place. But that is all aesthetic criticism, there are some technical critiques I have.

This port does carry over a lot of the bugs that are present in the original PC release, such as enemies getting stuck on walls and terrain, but the port does have some of its own dedicated bugs. Firstly, and the one that was most baffling, is that the AI pathfinding is absurdly broken. It's not that noticeable at first, but as soon as the player reaches the alleyway fight in City of the Gods, it makes itself apparent. In the larger, more open combat arenas, such as the before mentioned encounter, almost all of Ziggurat, and especially in The Grand Cathedral, enemies just start bolting off the complete opposite direction of the player, or worse, the strafe around them. I can not tell you how much ammo was wasted due to these bugs, it is almost impossible to hit enemies that fall victim to these bugs, and it completely destroys the combat structure the game is so dependent on. I am unaware if this bug is present in the PC version, but I never hear it brought up when this game is in discussion, so I can only assume it is a problem in this port. As well, being a PC to console port during the 7th generation of consoles, there are some slight performance issues, and some sluggish controls. There is some slight texture pop in with some of the bigger maps, and some frame drops when a big amount of enemies are on screen, and the load times are just painstakingly long. They make dying so much more of a pain because you are just sitting there on the loading screen scorned by whatever got a cheap shot at you from around a corner. The controls aren't that bad, I have definitely played worse, but they fail in comparison to the smoothness of the original Xbox port. They are very choppy and feel like it's trying to emulate mouse movement. Additionally, the two methods of swapping weapons are not the best; the player can either use the shoulder bumpers to linearly cycle throw weapons, or use the D-pad to open up a weapon wheel to specifically select one. These aren't bad options, but they really should be swapped, like how they are in the 2017 Fusion release of the game, because the Xbox 360 D-pad is probably the worst D-pad out there, and using the bumpers takes way too long during high octane combat encounters.

And that's really it. I would not recommend playing either the original 2010 release of The Second Encounter HD, or its Xbox 360 port. If you are interested in this series in any way, I would highly suggest you either check out the classic release of the game, the original Xbox port, or the modern 2017 Fusion build that is available on PC and all modern consoles, there is no reason to go back and play this version, if only to say that you have like me.

Whenever a game is given the title of black sheep by its fan base it is usually with a negative connotation, Hitman: Absolution being no exception. While personally I think the term doesn’t deserve or inherently equate to that notion, I struggle to make an argument for it in the case of this game. As my previous reviews of the four Hitman games up until this point have documented, the series has had such a strong uphill momentum with its advancement and expiration of its ideas and mechanics, culminating with Blood Money being an absolute masterclass in that field of design. But with this peak in design came the immortal dilemma of every long running series; do the developers stick with their guns and what they know, risking being labeled as monotonous and safe? Or do they stake out in a new, bold direction, potentially alienating fans by delivering a product that is different from what those fans have come to expect? I don’t believe there is a definitive answer to this, because there is hard evidence to the pros and cons to both paths. In the case of Absolution, however, it is very clear that Io Interactive went with the latter, and in the process, have become the textbook example of the subsequent negative outcome. That being said, there are some new additions that I feel would be great features in a game that more resembled the older games, rather than this more linear direction.

As mentioned, Io’s answer to their dilemma was to try something new, something more palatable. In interviews leading up to the games release, and in interviews since, they made it clear that their intention was to move away from the old Hitman formula that they felt was to abstract and could leave players confused, and instead implemented a design philosophy that more resembled popular games from that time like Gears of War or Call of Duty, that being linear experience that focused heavily on cinematics and set pieces. As well, while I can’t confirm this, I would assume the remaining developers who did work on Blood Money prior probably had some feeling like they had done all they could with the old style, contributing to the desire to move forward with the new. The result is a game that feels like it is eating itself from the inside out. Every design choice directly contradicts another and either makes it irrelevant, or breaks the gameplay flow in some way. One of the games newest features that it relies on heavily is the instinct system, this system is a consumable resource that the player can activate by pressing the bumper on the controller. The instinct ability lets the player utilize the disguises in each of the missions; this time around, if the player is wearing a disguise that other NPCs are wearing they will immediately become suspicious, the player must then use instinct to be able to walk past them without triggering alarms. This new change completely destroys any interest the player has in the disguise mechanic. The disguises in the older games worked because the player would put them on and then become near invisible to all NPCs, so long as they weren’t actually doing anything obviously suspicious; here though, the player must use instinct or else the disguise will flat out not work. On top of that, the only way to gain back instinct once it is used is to either complete objectives or challenges, or by just killing people. Challenges far to cryptic to be able to be done on a first playthrough, objectives complete themselves most of the time but are too far between each other, and killing random people goes entirely against the core idea behind this series; this leaves the entire instinct mechanic as a unnecessary hindrance on the overall experience, and the disguise practically forgotten about because the player quickly realizes they are more trouble than they are worth. The levels that suffer the most from this are definitely the three or so that take place in the Dead Factory. These missions are sprawling with guards, and almost nothing but guards, meaning the player just has to pray to god that they have enough instinct to get past all the security checkpoints. As well, the game's whole level structure is entirely upside down and makes zero sense half the time.

The best way I can describe this Aboslution’s levels is that they resemble shitty Splinter Cell levels. Again, they are extremely linear and are split up into checkpointed sections, which is not bad by any means, many games use this structure very well, Splinter Cell being one of them. The problem is that this is not a format the Hitman formula can fit in. Hitman thrives off having its levels be independent ecosystems that function without any player input, that way the player can study and exploit their patterns. Absolution has maybe one or two levels that I can think of that even somewhat resemble this idea, that being the opening sections of both Shaving Lenny and Skurky’s Law, outside of these two small parts the game is entirely reactive to the player. The example of this that pissed me off the most was that some enemies just straight up didn’t have patrol patterns and were completely static, only moving if the player did something to move them. While this was sometimes present in the older games, there was always a way to get around them by interacting with the level in some way, or they were at least isolated enough that the player could distract them with a coin or silenced gunshot to draw them away. In Absolution that is just not an option, these guards are often in highly populated areas and are directly in front of some important thing like a checkpoint exit or mission vital interable thing, meaning there is no clever way of getting around them without using instinct, which the player will probably not have much of because of how fast it drains. Additionally, there are plethora of new combat mechanics and skills 47 can do, such as a mark and execute mechanic straight out of Splinter Cell or Max Payne 3, but combat is still practically a death sentence, just like in the old games, once again highly discouraging the use of the new mechanics. Not to mention that the before mentioned mark and execute bullet time thing eats up a lot of instinct, further discouraging the use of it. These are only two examples of the many ways this game shoots itself in the foot, but despite that are a few things I enjoyed about, and that I think could be great implementations in future entries.

Firstly, the Glacier 2 engine looks fantastic, while I am not a fan of the weird grainy filter they put over the game, when it’s not noticeable, the game looks great. The guns also actually feel good to use for once, to the point that I almost wish the game took a more Max Payne direction with its design, leaning more into action rather than stealth. While the story wasn’t great and was full of so many plot holes and questionable decisions, the performances from the cast and the overall presentation was very enjoyable. The game's villain, Dexter, was a particular delight every time he was on screen, despite being dumb as all hell. Finally, the ability to lean against walls and ledges was a fantastic choice and really made stealth feel a lot smoother and slightly more cinematic somehow. I hope this feature returns in 2016. With that, Absolution ends the original Hitman run with a whimper, it is a game I can only really recommend out of pure morbid curiosity; I can’t even recommend the online mode as the servers were shut down years ago. It is a game only worth playing for the sheer fact that you can say you did.

There is nothing that I can say that really does justice to this masterpiece of a game. It is so deeply embedded in the idea of personal experience that anything that I try to pass off as objective would be doing the whole game’s meaning a disservice. I could say that the game refocuses the core gameplay back on the stealth aspect of the series from where Metal Gear Solid 1 took a more set piece focused structure; I could say that the game finally justifies itself being in 3D with how it very effectively utilizes verticality and its first person perspective; I could say how I think Kojima’s writing style really matures in this one, compared to the more blunt and in your face style that the prior games had, here being much more subtle and intricate while still holding on to that grandiose nature; and I could say that MGS2 is one of the most unique experiences I have ever had in this medium. But the entire game is built on the premise of building your own memories, and creating your own conclusions, so I feel a bit out of place in trying to chronicle my experience rather than just keeping my experience to myself. So, with that, I think I'm just going to leave this as a cop out review and let my thoughts about this game settle for a while, because there is truly a lot to digest. Though, I think that is probably the only objective thing I can say about Metal Gear Solid 2; that no matter who you are, you will undoubtedly find something deeply meaningful in this game, one way or the other.

I liked Prince of Persia: Warrior Within. I liked quite a lot of it. There was a great deal of improvement from Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time to this one, mainly within the realm of controls, combat, and environmental design. As well, it really hit my blindside with the direction the developers decided to take for the game’s structure, it is not something that would typically expect, or even see, from a 3D platformer that would be released during this game’s time period. But, despite the areas that Warrior Within impressed and improved in, there are an equal number of extremely glaring issues that plague this otherwise fantastic game. These issues are definitely indicative of a rushed development, which is a real shame, because maybe with a bit more time these kinks could have been ironed out, and a truly great game could be uncovered.

To start with the good, the combat introduced in The Sands of Time has refined. The sword fighting, parkour mix that game had going on, while good, suffered the problem of being very repetitive. The Prince had access to all of his combat moves from the get go, so there was no sense of progression and difficulty scaling with that aspect, and the enemies didn’t really challenge these abilities in any sort of evolving way, everything was very static; this then lead the player to adopt a playstyle that abused the whatever the best move they had discovered was, typically the wall rebound or vaulting slash. Warrior Within fixes this by greatly expanding the number of different combat moves The Prince can perform. Pretty much any combination of buttons will perform some kind of different attack, and when added with the acrobatic moves like the wall run or rebound, the possibilities just skyrocket, to the point that it is very likely that the player will still be discovering new attacks even into the late game. Thankfully, the enemies too evolve with this move set. Each one is distinct and had their own attack pattern and little quirks that really change up how the player approaches encounters, like how the ninjas will dodge practically every swing that is thrown their way, or how the weird frog things explode upon taking enough damage; very much a far cry from the one note enemies of the previous game. Additionally, the further the player progresses in the game, they begin to unlock new abilities that use the sand tanks, no longer just being used for turning back time. These abilities range from being able to slow down time to a crawl except for The Prince, a giant AOE sand blast that can be used as a get off me tool, and a sort of rage mode that lets the player go absolutely ham on everything around them. These sand abilities add a lot of depth and intrigue into the combat, as well as creating a great feeling of progression that The Sands of Time sorely lacked. While this is all great in its own right, it is also how these new abilities interact with the new environments that really drew me in.

Foregoing the linear nature that the series had come to know, Warrior Within opts for pseudo open world structure, something that I was 100 percent not expecting. While the game still flows between area to area rather linearly, there is a much heavier emphasis on exploration and back tracking. The player will find themself going through the same areas multiple times in order to get to where they need to be, but don’t worry, just because they are the same areas doesn’t mean they function the same. One of this game’s new features is the ability to travel between past and present time periods via the many time portals that can be found throughout the map. The player will come across each of these portals and their respective chambers as they play through the game, but it is up to the player to figure out how to effectively use them in order to explore around and find secrets. In correlation with this new structure, the game’s map and areas are all interconnected and weave into each other fluidly, little to no loading screens can be found moving from place to place, save for the occasional death or cutscene. Of course, these new areas are also filled to the brim with traps and platforming sections that really halt the player and challenge their skills. They aren’t too dissimilar from what was seen in the prior game, The Prince’s moves, for example, are a one to one carbon copy from The Sands of Time, with the only new addition being that dangling ropes can now be used to extend the wall run. But while that hasn’t changed, the obstacles have, they have been made far more difficult in order to compensate for the new sand abilities, and I am all here for it. I vividly remember thinking that The Sands of Time would really benefit from having some sort of time slow down ability that would allow the platforming to be more difficult, and that is exactly what I got. The advent of, I'll call it bullet time for now, allows for traps to be much more deadly, with spinning blades and crushing walls being extremely fast, and requiring a deadly amount of precision and timing on the players end, all with the safety net of using a sand tank in order to make it slightly easier. But all of these new layers and improvements aside, the game is still riddled with issues that, while thankfully are not on the game design side, are sadly on the technical side.

I mentioned earlier that I believe this game had a rushed development, and I firmly believe this because the glitches and bugs that I encountered come directly from simple oversights that could have been remedied by simply having more testing done. From what I can gather, there are two big glitches, both of which I encountered, and a couple of smaller, less significant ones. The first one happens pretty early on in the game, after the player fights the first boss. The Prince kills the boss and then the player goes about their merry way following the path before them, eventually they come across the next time chamber, but the portal is already active, so they just walk right in and continue as normal. This is until they reach the next major area where a cutscene that is supposed to play, doesn’t, leaving the player trapped in this room because the exit wasn’t opened like it was supposed to. If this hypothetical player is anything like me, they would then reload a save to see if they had simply missed a trigger, only to find that upon resetting, they are no longer playing as The Prince, but instead The Sandwraith, something the player isn’t supposed to see until much, much later. The only way to undo this glitch is to load two or three saves back, so if the player has been saving over their saves, they are screwed and just have to start the game over from the start. The second big glitch happens in the exact same area at the end of the game. In order to get the secret ending the player must find all of the health upgrades throughout the game, so before I entered the last boss, I was doing a Metroid style round up of all the ones that I missed, something that the game was clearly encouraging. This was all going smoothly up until I had to go grab the very first upgrade that is housed in one of the earlier areas, the area that the first boss is fought in. I went back, grabbed it, and then had to proceed down the intended route because the bridge had given out and I couldn’t go back the way I came, but when I got to that very same area from earlier, the path way was open, like you would expect, but there was an invisible wall keeping me from grabbing the ledge to it, effectively soft locking me in this room because there was no other way out, the only solution was just to reload a save and settle with getting the bad ending. Both of these glitches are entire playthrough killers, if I hadn’t been creating new save files the first one would have made me quit, and I was very close to when the second one happened. I can only assume that these two glitches are linked in some way, given that they occur in the exact same areas and are pretty much the same issue. There is nothing that can seemingly be done about this, as even the HD version on PS3 houses the same issue, so it is unfortunately just a cruel reality of this game.

Outside of those two gigantic problems, some other issues I took with the game was that the auto targeting during fights was a bit too strong, making it very hard to strategically not fight some enemies because of low health or some other reason. The map the game provides too is also awful, it gives little to no information about where you are or how to get places, and serves no real purpose other than telling the player where they are, and where their objective is. With these issues in mind, though, I still think the game is objectively great and honestly a bit ahead of its time. It is similarly troubled like its older sibling, but rather than its problems stemming from poor game design choices, they come from a lack of polish and time, pun somewhat intended. If The Sands of Time gets to have a remake, this game certainly does too.