kavreb
407 Reviews liked by kavreb
I absolutely despised this game. The story was terrible, the gameplay was mediocre at best, and the AI was either atrocious or ridiculously unfair. I have a hard time believing that this was made by the same people that made the fantastic Killzone 2 and 3. Those games were incredible! Shadow Fall was just disappointing from start to finish. Easily one of the worst games I have played through on the PS4.
The game that killed the Killzone franchise for the ensuing decade and counting is little more than a glorified tech demo for the then brand new Playstation 4 with some truly phenomenal visuals, its gameplay feeling like a simple afterthought, a formality to carry out without taking too much effort away from the polishing of the visual fidelity.
It's not that they didn't try on paper: instead of the all-out Call of Duty urban combat of 2 and 3, Shadow Fall opens with a few open ended sections where enemies start out in a passive unalerted state, allowing for variation and improvisation in your approach, consistent with the protagonist's role as an elite covert operator. The problem is that you're almost never given the chance to actually engage in stealth to begin with, as the game is incredibly stingy with suppressed weapons, they are misplaced around the world, (serving more as optional secrets more than a core mechanic), are fairly ineffective to start with and, worst of all, the AI is not designed with stealth in mind, going into full alert the moment an enemy becomes aware of your presence.
A perfect microcosm of this is the first real level after the (awfully boring) prologue: you land in a rocky woodland area and need to complete a number of objectives in whatever order you choose, almost Crysis-style. You quickly realize, however, that it's impossible to silently dispatch enemy sentries because, aside from what you can grab off dead enemies, the only weapon you have is a railgun/submachine gun hybrid which not only combines a pretty weak automatic with a slow and ineffectual sniper rifle, but is incredibly loud, meaning you need to either go in with a knife when possible (read: when only two enemies are clustered together) or be prepared to cause an alert and face endless enemy respawns until you find the alarm console and turn it off. What kind of "shadow marshall" goes into a stealth mission with nothing but a railgun which doesn't even use the same ammunition that the enemy guns do, and requires locating one of the sparsely located ammo pickups in order to remain supplied?
There are a few suppressed SMGs hidden in a basement at one of the objectives, but to make matters worse, you can only carry one weapon aside from the aforementioned hybrid, which you can never drop. As as result we are back to Killzone 2's problem of never using most of the weapons in the game because you simply cannot afford to drop your all purpose assault rifle to carry around a very situational sniper rifle, shotgun or, most situational of all, a rocket launcher.
Killzone 3 had figured out that having three slots, one for light infantry weapons, one for heavy ordnance and one for one handed weapons, and diversifying them by adding tools like the shotgun pistol, was the way to go, a lesson among many that Shadow Fall forgot.
Many of the missions see you standing around for long stretches of time, sometimes riding in ridiculously long elevators or literally waiting in line while a seemingly endless sequence of people get waved in by guards before you. It's incredibly tedious, as are the puzzle missions you will get roped into, which will require running around swapping and retrieving glorified spark plugs for far too long.
The level design feels like it was handled by someone who was unaware of being creating levels for a cover-based shooting game. Some firefight, most criminally some major set piece ones, feature almost no cover at all, and what little there is is either very fragile or too small to be effective. There is nothing more annoying than crouching behind cover and still being shot because your hitbox is too large for whatever you are sitting behind, and this sill happen far too often.
One could argue that the scant cover exists to incentivate the use of the shield mode for the support drone, only you'll be required to use it to deactivate enemy shields so often that you won't have a lot of time to use it for much else, and that when it even works properly (more often than not on my hard mode playthrough on a fully patched copy of the game, the shield spawned halfway through the floor, making it completely useless).
Shadow Fall also succeeds in the paradoxical task of having levels that are both incredibly linear and often very confusing to navigate. Aside from one or two more open ended ones, everything here simply consists of moving from point A to B, but the signposting is so poor that you will often get lost wondering where you're supposed to be going. Thankfully you can summon a waypoint to somewhat tell you in which direction to head, though that's often less helpful than needed.
The music is an unbelievable letdown: gone is the lyrical intensity of Guerrilla Games veteran Joris De Man's score from previous games, in favor of droning, unmemorable and tonally incoherent background noise by the composer of a lot of games whose music you don't rmember, like God of War Ascension, Army of Two 2 and Rise of the Argonauts. Why the shift, considering De Man was back for every other Guerrilla project since, we'll never know, but it sure hurts the experience.
One last mention goes to the story: stupid by Killzone standards, which is quite an accomplishment. After the destruction of the planet Helgan at the end of Killzone 2, Helghast refugees are given half of the planet Vekta, the home of the people whose army destroyed their homeworld. Half the Vektan population is forcefully evicted to make room for the refugees. What could possibly go wrong?
It's in this sort of farcical world state that the story further degenerates into pure nonsense, with key characters introduced and never mentioned again (Scolar Visari's daughter, now leader of the Helghast refugees on Vekta, for one). Pretty much the only good takeaway is the character of Echo, Visari's granddaughter, who is voiced unsatisfactorily and doesn't distance herself very much from the old and trite sniper girl videogame trope, but whose byplay with the (otherwise bland) main character offers what little good there is to salvage from the plot.
Shadow Fall is disappointing under every respect: it's a frustrating mess to play with poorly designed levels, a frustrating weapon limit, bad music and a bad story. Avoid, unless you intend to play it for completion's sake.
It's not that they didn't try on paper: instead of the all-out Call of Duty urban combat of 2 and 3, Shadow Fall opens with a few open ended sections where enemies start out in a passive unalerted state, allowing for variation and improvisation in your approach, consistent with the protagonist's role as an elite covert operator. The problem is that you're almost never given the chance to actually engage in stealth to begin with, as the game is incredibly stingy with suppressed weapons, they are misplaced around the world, (serving more as optional secrets more than a core mechanic), are fairly ineffective to start with and, worst of all, the AI is not designed with stealth in mind, going into full alert the moment an enemy becomes aware of your presence.
A perfect microcosm of this is the first real level after the (awfully boring) prologue: you land in a rocky woodland area and need to complete a number of objectives in whatever order you choose, almost Crysis-style. You quickly realize, however, that it's impossible to silently dispatch enemy sentries because, aside from what you can grab off dead enemies, the only weapon you have is a railgun/submachine gun hybrid which not only combines a pretty weak automatic with a slow and ineffectual sniper rifle, but is incredibly loud, meaning you need to either go in with a knife when possible (read: when only two enemies are clustered together) or be prepared to cause an alert and face endless enemy respawns until you find the alarm console and turn it off. What kind of "shadow marshall" goes into a stealth mission with nothing but a railgun which doesn't even use the same ammunition that the enemy guns do, and requires locating one of the sparsely located ammo pickups in order to remain supplied?
There are a few suppressed SMGs hidden in a basement at one of the objectives, but to make matters worse, you can only carry one weapon aside from the aforementioned hybrid, which you can never drop. As as result we are back to Killzone 2's problem of never using most of the weapons in the game because you simply cannot afford to drop your all purpose assault rifle to carry around a very situational sniper rifle, shotgun or, most situational of all, a rocket launcher.
Killzone 3 had figured out that having three slots, one for light infantry weapons, one for heavy ordnance and one for one handed weapons, and diversifying them by adding tools like the shotgun pistol, was the way to go, a lesson among many that Shadow Fall forgot.
Many of the missions see you standing around for long stretches of time, sometimes riding in ridiculously long elevators or literally waiting in line while a seemingly endless sequence of people get waved in by guards before you. It's incredibly tedious, as are the puzzle missions you will get roped into, which will require running around swapping and retrieving glorified spark plugs for far too long.
The level design feels like it was handled by someone who was unaware of being creating levels for a cover-based shooting game. Some firefight, most criminally some major set piece ones, feature almost no cover at all, and what little there is is either very fragile or too small to be effective. There is nothing more annoying than crouching behind cover and still being shot because your hitbox is too large for whatever you are sitting behind, and this sill happen far too often.
One could argue that the scant cover exists to incentivate the use of the shield mode for the support drone, only you'll be required to use it to deactivate enemy shields so often that you won't have a lot of time to use it for much else, and that when it even works properly (more often than not on my hard mode playthrough on a fully patched copy of the game, the shield spawned halfway through the floor, making it completely useless).
Shadow Fall also succeeds in the paradoxical task of having levels that are both incredibly linear and often very confusing to navigate. Aside from one or two more open ended ones, everything here simply consists of moving from point A to B, but the signposting is so poor that you will often get lost wondering where you're supposed to be going. Thankfully you can summon a waypoint to somewhat tell you in which direction to head, though that's often less helpful than needed.
The music is an unbelievable letdown: gone is the lyrical intensity of Guerrilla Games veteran Joris De Man's score from previous games, in favor of droning, unmemorable and tonally incoherent background noise by the composer of a lot of games whose music you don't rmember, like God of War Ascension, Army of Two 2 and Rise of the Argonauts. Why the shift, considering De Man was back for every other Guerrilla project since, we'll never know, but it sure hurts the experience.
One last mention goes to the story: stupid by Killzone standards, which is quite an accomplishment. After the destruction of the planet Helgan at the end of Killzone 2, Helghast refugees are given half of the planet Vekta, the home of the people whose army destroyed their homeworld. Half the Vektan population is forcefully evicted to make room for the refugees. What could possibly go wrong?
It's in this sort of farcical world state that the story further degenerates into pure nonsense, with key characters introduced and never mentioned again (Scolar Visari's daughter, now leader of the Helghast refugees on Vekta, for one). Pretty much the only good takeaway is the character of Echo, Visari's granddaughter, who is voiced unsatisfactorily and doesn't distance herself very much from the old and trite sniper girl videogame trope, but whose byplay with the (otherwise bland) main character offers what little good there is to salvage from the plot.
Shadow Fall is disappointing under every respect: it's a frustrating mess to play with poorly designed levels, a frustrating weapon limit, bad music and a bad story. Avoid, unless you intend to play it for completion's sake.
Played on PS5 via PS Plus
Also Available on PS4
Playtime: 7-8 Hours
Completion Date: August 7, 2022
No Spoilers
Note: This review is only the review of the single player mode of Killzone: Shadow Fall.
Killzone: Shadow Fall is a first person shooter developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.(Sony Computer Entertainment at the time of the game's launch.)
As a Playstation fan, as someone who likes if not loves most of the exclusives, the PS4 launch exclusives Killzone: Shadow Fall was always in the back of my mind, something I wanted to return to. Thanks to PS Plus, i finally played and beaten the main story of the game.
I never played the Killzone trilogy, except their demos so my knowledge about the universe is not big. But let's try to start with the story. After an event called The Terracide, Planet Helghan becomes uninhabitable. This causes the Helghast race to come to Planet Vekta, Helghast gets half of the planet while Vektans gets the other half. Their parts gets separated by a giant wall.
This wall protects peace for a small amount of time. But of course, war is on the horizon. And as a part of a super spy/soldier organization called Shadow Marshal, we play as Lucas Kellan and try to stop Helghasts evil plans.
I intentionally did not give you too much detail, especially about the prologue. Because while it's cliche, i think the story starts strong. But after the first chapter, we get introduced to a bunch of good, bad and in between characters, without much explanation or exploration of their backstories, lifes and overall characters.
The game does yet another cliche and this time predictable plot twist towards the end and then it ends very abruptly. The ending is really stupid. I couldn't believed it. Nothing gets resolved, we get nothing about what will happen in this world next, it just ends. It's like they were out of time.
Story is not good, ok. What about the characters? Even worse. Our main character, Lucas Kellan voiced by Gene Farber is a nobody. He is not a person, he is a robot. Again, he has a very good scene in the first chapter, a human scene, but then he shows his true, robot self.
Our boss, Thomas Sinclair voiced by David Harewood is a promising character. Harewood does a good job. But this character definitely needed more screen time and more depth. Echo, voiced by Jamie Gray Hyder is another wasted potential. Echo is in that grey zone of being good and evil. But does the game spend anytime to deepen the character? Unfortunately, no.
There are more characters than these 3, but they are really really bad. There are like 3,4 villains. All of them has like 15 minutes of screen time, max. And every single one of them is horrible. Oh my god. So the story is bad and characters are ugly. Where is the good? Well, it's right here, in the gameplay.
Killzone: Shadow Fall has 2 core mechanics. Exploration and combat. Let's start with combat. It's an FPS, so there is lots of shooting. There is stealth but i felt it was way too hard and not rewarding. But the gun play, is good.
The guns looks interesting, there is nothing too interesting but they all look good and they play good. Their sounds are good, their feel is right. And some guns has interesting secondary fire modes. For example, our main weapon in the game is a close to middle ranged assault rifle. With a button press, the weapon transforms and becomes a long ranged rifle that shoots out something like a sound wave that pushes back and kills enemies.
I really like this transforming weapons system. I just wished more weapons had it. I think in the entire game, i have seen 3-4 different weapons that can transform. Or course there are many other normal weapons as well.
We also have a little robot called OWL. It can do multiple things. The most useful ability to me was it's exploration focused ability that let's you create a zipline and fastly travel from one place to the other. But it can also stun enemies, attack enemies and it can make a shield for you to stand behind and take cover.
You change these OWL abilities using the touch pad which was a nice use Dualshock 4/Dualsense. We will come back to the technical side later. Let's quickly talk about exploration.
Killzone: Shadow Fall is not an open world game. But, it has big areas that asks you to complete multiple objectives and you can do them in any order you want. Especially in the first few missions, this freedom feels great. The second half of the game has less of these types of missions and more classic FPS missions with close quarters encounters.
Speaking of the mission design, the first 4 chapters of the game were excellent in my opinion. Interesting set pieces, really nice locations and the great gun play was making me really happy. But in the second half, it felt like the developers lost their imaginations and just did a normal, very basic FPS game.
Locations are very important in this equation. The first half had big green forest-y areas, an abandoned spaceship and a highly technological city. While the second half has factories and slums.
One final thing about exploration, there are collectibles. Documents, audio logs and newspapers. They have some cool stuff but they are not necessary to understand the story. And they add very little to the lore.
So yeah, i enjoyed the gameplay overall. Really enjoyed the first 4 chapters, the other 6 chapters were not that great mainly due to the locations being boring and that open areas leaving themselves to very close, linear levels.
Technical side, so yeah. This game doesn't have a native PS5 version, i played the PS4 version with backwards compatibility. It worked great. Don't know if it is 30 or 60 FPS but it was smooth with no major frame drops. The game looks beautiful, even today. Again, especially the first 4 chapters. And in the music department, i didn't hear anything special.
In the end, Killzone: Shadow Fall is an above average, fun to play but hard to remember FPS game. The story is cliche and predictable, characters are very two dimensional and boring and the second half of the game feels rushed because of linear levels and boring locations. But, the combat is great, there are nice weapons, the first half of the game has great open areas, set pieces and locations and finally, the game looks beautiful and plays really good as well.
If you want to play an FPS and you don't have any other options, i recommend it. But if you don't like FPS games or if you have better options in your backlog, you can definitely skip this.
Also Available on PS4
Playtime: 7-8 Hours
Completion Date: August 7, 2022
No Spoilers
Note: This review is only the review of the single player mode of Killzone: Shadow Fall.
Killzone: Shadow Fall is a first person shooter developed by Guerilla Games and published by Sony Interactive Entertainment.(Sony Computer Entertainment at the time of the game's launch.)
As a Playstation fan, as someone who likes if not loves most of the exclusives, the PS4 launch exclusives Killzone: Shadow Fall was always in the back of my mind, something I wanted to return to. Thanks to PS Plus, i finally played and beaten the main story of the game.
I never played the Killzone trilogy, except their demos so my knowledge about the universe is not big. But let's try to start with the story. After an event called The Terracide, Planet Helghan becomes uninhabitable. This causes the Helghast race to come to Planet Vekta, Helghast gets half of the planet while Vektans gets the other half. Their parts gets separated by a giant wall.
This wall protects peace for a small amount of time. But of course, war is on the horizon. And as a part of a super spy/soldier organization called Shadow Marshal, we play as Lucas Kellan and try to stop Helghasts evil plans.
I intentionally did not give you too much detail, especially about the prologue. Because while it's cliche, i think the story starts strong. But after the first chapter, we get introduced to a bunch of good, bad and in between characters, without much explanation or exploration of their backstories, lifes and overall characters.
The game does yet another cliche and this time predictable plot twist towards the end and then it ends very abruptly. The ending is really stupid. I couldn't believed it. Nothing gets resolved, we get nothing about what will happen in this world next, it just ends. It's like they were out of time.
Story is not good, ok. What about the characters? Even worse. Our main character, Lucas Kellan voiced by Gene Farber is a nobody. He is not a person, he is a robot. Again, he has a very good scene in the first chapter, a human scene, but then he shows his true, robot self.
Our boss, Thomas Sinclair voiced by David Harewood is a promising character. Harewood does a good job. But this character definitely needed more screen time and more depth. Echo, voiced by Jamie Gray Hyder is another wasted potential. Echo is in that grey zone of being good and evil. But does the game spend anytime to deepen the character? Unfortunately, no.
There are more characters than these 3, but they are really really bad. There are like 3,4 villains. All of them has like 15 minutes of screen time, max. And every single one of them is horrible. Oh my god. So the story is bad and characters are ugly. Where is the good? Well, it's right here, in the gameplay.
Killzone: Shadow Fall has 2 core mechanics. Exploration and combat. Let's start with combat. It's an FPS, so there is lots of shooting. There is stealth but i felt it was way too hard and not rewarding. But the gun play, is good.
The guns looks interesting, there is nothing too interesting but they all look good and they play good. Their sounds are good, their feel is right. And some guns has interesting secondary fire modes. For example, our main weapon in the game is a close to middle ranged assault rifle. With a button press, the weapon transforms and becomes a long ranged rifle that shoots out something like a sound wave that pushes back and kills enemies.
I really like this transforming weapons system. I just wished more weapons had it. I think in the entire game, i have seen 3-4 different weapons that can transform. Or course there are many other normal weapons as well.
We also have a little robot called OWL. It can do multiple things. The most useful ability to me was it's exploration focused ability that let's you create a zipline and fastly travel from one place to the other. But it can also stun enemies, attack enemies and it can make a shield for you to stand behind and take cover.
You change these OWL abilities using the touch pad which was a nice use Dualshock 4/Dualsense. We will come back to the technical side later. Let's quickly talk about exploration.
Killzone: Shadow Fall is not an open world game. But, it has big areas that asks you to complete multiple objectives and you can do them in any order you want. Especially in the first few missions, this freedom feels great. The second half of the game has less of these types of missions and more classic FPS missions with close quarters encounters.
Speaking of the mission design, the first 4 chapters of the game were excellent in my opinion. Interesting set pieces, really nice locations and the great gun play was making me really happy. But in the second half, it felt like the developers lost their imaginations and just did a normal, very basic FPS game.
Locations are very important in this equation. The first half had big green forest-y areas, an abandoned spaceship and a highly technological city. While the second half has factories and slums.
One final thing about exploration, there are collectibles. Documents, audio logs and newspapers. They have some cool stuff but they are not necessary to understand the story. And they add very little to the lore.
So yeah, i enjoyed the gameplay overall. Really enjoyed the first 4 chapters, the other 6 chapters were not that great mainly due to the locations being boring and that open areas leaving themselves to very close, linear levels.
Technical side, so yeah. This game doesn't have a native PS5 version, i played the PS4 version with backwards compatibility. It worked great. Don't know if it is 30 or 60 FPS but it was smooth with no major frame drops. The game looks beautiful, even today. Again, especially the first 4 chapters. And in the music department, i didn't hear anything special.
In the end, Killzone: Shadow Fall is an above average, fun to play but hard to remember FPS game. The story is cliche and predictable, characters are very two dimensional and boring and the second half of the game feels rushed because of linear levels and boring locations. But, the combat is great, there are nice weapons, the first half of the game has great open areas, set pieces and locations and finally, the game looks beautiful and plays really good as well.
If you want to play an FPS and you don't have any other options, i recommend it. But if you don't like FPS games or if you have better options in your backlog, you can definitely skip this.
Maybe the worst FPS I've ever played.
I know that I am 10 years late, but 10 years ago, Call of Duty Ghosts came out and was better than this game, even though Ghosts is one of the worst Call of Duty.
I know that I am 10 years late, but 10 years ago, Call of Duty Ghosts came out and was better than this game, even though Ghosts is one of the worst Call of Duty.
There are not many redeemed qualities about Killzone: Shadow Fall. It was a PS4 launch title and so people bought into this game to play something. Graphics are pretty good for being an early PS4 game but the game starts falling apart with its bland and boring approach to gameplay and level design.
Certain levels have a semi-open world feel to them where you can take different paths to reach objectives but for ultimately the game/levels are linear which is not a deterring quality for a game but for this particular one, the bland design really hurt the game. Gunplay is on the slow side and is fairly uneventful although some weapons are fun to use.
Despite this being a below-average FPS and Killzone game, I really hope to get back to it some day to complete/beat the game. I got pretty far near the end of the game but got sidetracked and never felt compelled to finish it.
Certain levels have a semi-open world feel to them where you can take different paths to reach objectives but for ultimately the game/levels are linear which is not a deterring quality for a game but for this particular one, the bland design really hurt the game. Gunplay is on the slow side and is fairly uneventful although some weapons are fun to use.
Despite this being a below-average FPS and Killzone game, I really hope to get back to it some day to complete/beat the game. I got pretty far near the end of the game but got sidetracked and never felt compelled to finish it.
Octopath Traveler
2018
I cannot explain how much I love this game. This game frustrated the hell out of me, but in a good way. It kept me coming back. I died a lot, but each time I died, I benefitted. Finding the perfect cast of characters for each boss and pulling off perfect strategy is so satisfying. There isn’t a bad character in the game, they are all great for their own skills. And though I wasn’t sure if I’d like the “second job” option, it became really fun really quickly. The game is an eye-gasm to say the least, it’s gorgeous to look at, not to mention the soundtrack that lives in my head rent-free. The voice acting is above and beyond. Needless to say, this game had a death-grip on me and I grew fonder and fonder of it the more I played it. Each character became very special to me. I know this is one of those ‘either you love it or you hate it’ kind of games to people but I can honestly say it’s one of my favorite games I’ve ever played.
Far Cry New Dawn
2019
Typical far cry but with annoying bells and whistles added. Useless as fuck story with exhausting dialogue from cartoon side characters. I never remember these fucking people because they're all the same. They say random nonsense like "shit balls bro!" Or "im scared TBH!". Annoying missions because half the enemies are bullet sponges and you need to collect a third world country amount of resources to get the cool shit.
Far Cry New Dawn
2019
one of the few times ill review a game i havent beaten but my god i got this for free from ps+ and i still feel ripped off this is just horrible
Far Cry New Dawn
2019
the enjoyable parts of this game are offset by how breathtakingly stupid it is. just such incredible dumb guy energy emanates off this thing like the orb of confusion. you are constantly under attack from dogs and highwaymen, the reload speed is almost comical in how lackadaisical it is and the writing feels like a post-apocalypse story written by a facebook boomer dad. if you ever wanted to shoot up young people with dyed hair who listen to hip hop music and also drive a Ford F-150 and cut me off without signaling, the game for you is finally reality!
Far Cry New Dawn
2019
Really a horrible experience for myself and a friend in coop. Just unbelievably bland and annoying, with a myriad of bugs and glitches that reduced our enjoyment. Systems designed to make you suffer through repetitive combat and missions to make small amounts of progress. The story is short and hollow, with most of your time being spent trekking from place to place or grinding out resources.
Far Cry New Dawn
2019
It is what it is: a half-size, half-baked sequel to Far Cry 5 that improves upon the original in some ways and shites all over it in others.
It was nice to revisit locations and catch up with characters from the previous game but there's really not much of a reason to play this if you didn't have a great time with Far Cry 5.
It's not terrible, but it's not terrific either. A few tidying of loose-ends aside, you don't really need to play this after finishing Far Cry 5 but if you're hungry for more and if you can get this game somewhere cheap, then maybe have a look.
Otherwise, probably best to give this one a miss.
It was nice to revisit locations and catch up with characters from the previous game but there's really not much of a reason to play this if you didn't have a great time with Far Cry 5.
It's not terrible, but it's not terrific either. A few tidying of loose-ends aside, you don't really need to play this after finishing Far Cry 5 but if you're hungry for more and if you can get this game somewhere cheap, then maybe have a look.
Otherwise, probably best to give this one a miss.
There was definitely a question on everyone’s mind when this game released…how did that shitty Indiana jones/tomb raider style game get a sequel? And even better…the sequel is better than the original.
After finding el dorado in the original game, Nathan drake is now on the hunt for the mysterious and legendary Shambhala! Ok his journey he meets Chloe Frazer, an old friend Harry Flynn, and the dangerous Zoran (I don’t want to spell his last name cause I know I’ll spell it wrong :/) and he is joined by Elena and sully. The journey takes him completely through Marco polo’s voyage and tests him to his very limits.
Especially the beginning, that is one of the most impressive moments of the entire series.
The gameplay is a major improvement from what it was in drake’s fortune. The gun combat is a lot better and improved, and climbing feels a lot more fluid. Puzzles also feel a lot more complex and challenging (but still not too challenging and probably a lot more interesting).
I’m really not looking forward to getting onto the third game and reviewing it but I may as well get it out of the way soon. Overall though this is a wonderful improvement to what the first game was. And in all honesty, I wish the third game could’ve perfected this game’s formula but alas…
Huge improvement, brilliant gameplay, excellent story, I fucking hate tanks
After finding el dorado in the original game, Nathan drake is now on the hunt for the mysterious and legendary Shambhala! Ok his journey he meets Chloe Frazer, an old friend Harry Flynn, and the dangerous Zoran (I don’t want to spell his last name cause I know I’ll spell it wrong :/) and he is joined by Elena and sully. The journey takes him completely through Marco polo’s voyage and tests him to his very limits.
Especially the beginning, that is one of the most impressive moments of the entire series.
The gameplay is a major improvement from what it was in drake’s fortune. The gun combat is a lot better and improved, and climbing feels a lot more fluid. Puzzles also feel a lot more complex and challenging (but still not too challenging and probably a lot more interesting).
I’m really not looking forward to getting onto the third game and reviewing it but I may as well get it out of the way soon. Overall though this is a wonderful improvement to what the first game was. And in all honesty, I wish the third game could’ve perfected this game’s formula but alas…
Huge improvement, brilliant gameplay, excellent story, I fucking hate tanks
I'm so happy this game exists. It feels like it was made by a bunch of people who grew up on Ratchet & Clank and joined Insomniac specifically to work on the series. A fantastic love letter to the franchise as a whole, made me tear up a few times even. I'm too tired from heat exhaustion lately to write any smart thoughts about it (or even play games regularly, to be honest, which is why I didn't marathon this whole thing on release), so I'll just say: Rift Apart is wonderful and completely lived up to the hype for me despite a few nitpicks. Best $600 game I've ever played!
EDIT: Aside from the butter smooth controls and out of this world visuals, one thing that really impressed me about Rift Apart was its writing. Despite the story not being anything particularly special, I think the script isn't getting the credit it deserves. This game tackles mental health issues, particularly anxiety, in a superb manner that impressed me a lot as someone who struggles with similar problems in day to day life. It's not just a good message for the kids playing it, but a mature way to breathe life into these characters and connect them with the audience. Feeling seen like this by an entry in my favorite childhood series was incredible. The narrative is earnest to a fault and completely without cynicism, which is certainly a far cry from R&C's dark, satirical beginnings, but much like how that game's edginess felt fresh compared to other mascot platformers in 2002, the overt positivity on display here hits just right when so much of modern media is either painfully grim or engineered to be wholesome in an artificial way.
EDIT: Aside from the butter smooth controls and out of this world visuals, one thing that really impressed me about Rift Apart was its writing. Despite the story not being anything particularly special, I think the script isn't getting the credit it deserves. This game tackles mental health issues, particularly anxiety, in a superb manner that impressed me a lot as someone who struggles with similar problems in day to day life. It's not just a good message for the kids playing it, but a mature way to breathe life into these characters and connect them with the audience. Feeling seen like this by an entry in my favorite childhood series was incredible. The narrative is earnest to a fault and completely without cynicism, which is certainly a far cry from R&C's dark, satirical beginnings, but much like how that game's edginess felt fresh compared to other mascot platformers in 2002, the overt positivity on display here hits just right when so much of modern media is either painfully grim or engineered to be wholesome in an artificial way.
Honestly not sure what more you could want from a Ratchet game. The whole cast, new and old, are fantastic. The story was fun, engaging and higher stakes than ever. The weapons complimented each other well and felt great. The use of the PS5's controller really adds to the experience in a way I wouldn't have even thought of.
The game looks super pretty as you likely know, but it feels great too. I had so much fun just roaming around and, well, playing. The dimensionator allows for enemies and references to previous games from over the years, as well as a plethora of new content that I personally loved. The game's direction too is top-notch with even the on-rails level being a delight for once!
I 100%'d the planets on my first playthrough but need to go back for a couple clean-up trophies (bears, jukebox, 1 weapon-specific) which is a helluva lot more than I'd usually do in a game. In fact, in my 17ish hours of playing the only issue I encountered at all were some voice lines being triggered at strange times, and even this was only half a dozen times at best.
Overall, I've no idea where they're gunna go after this, but I'm excited for it. Especially if Rivet is involved, she's dope :)
The game looks super pretty as you likely know, but it feels great too. I had so much fun just roaming around and, well, playing. The dimensionator allows for enemies and references to previous games from over the years, as well as a plethora of new content that I personally loved. The game's direction too is top-notch with even the on-rails level being a delight for once!
I 100%'d the planets on my first playthrough but need to go back for a couple clean-up trophies (bears, jukebox, 1 weapon-specific) which is a helluva lot more than I'd usually do in a game. In fact, in my 17ish hours of playing the only issue I encountered at all were some voice lines being triggered at strange times, and even this was only half a dozen times at best.
Overall, I've no idea where they're gunna go after this, but I'm excited for it. Especially if Rivet is involved, she's dope :)
Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart dares to ask a profound question: what if Tools of Destruction was good?
Fundamentally, this is the same approach taken by the PS3 and PS4 outings in the series: stripping out any pretence of social satire in favour of a modern Pixar/Dreamworks pastiche with almost overbearing earnestness, only executed with a degree of competence that those games sorely lacked. Rivet and Kit are cool characters who bring genuine pathos to the story through the discussions surrounding Rivet's prosthetic arm, though never enough to meaningfully put the brakes on this rollercoaster ride.
There's a few things holding Rift Apart back from greatness, and I think the lack of willingness to introduce friction of any kind into the experience is perhaps the major one. Drama amongst the cast is well-written and portrayed, but never lasts for long, and never affects the gameplay. Rivet and Ratchet both play identically to one another, and even play exactly the same with or without their robot buddies, making their partnership feel utterly superfluous in gameplay. You worked this out in the very first game, people!!! The shooting itself is fun and consistently pleasing, but one planet for each character aside, the dimension shifting gimmick never really evolves beyond a glorified grappling hook, and the arsenal all plays and feels very similalry, without any gun that makes me go "WOAH THIS IS SOME COOL SHIT" like the Visibomb did in the very first game.
Ultimately, Ratcher & Clank: Rift Apart is too determined to provide a smooth ride through it's extremely technically impressive worlds to really play with the interesting potential that's there, which is a shame, but it is also Gaming on the cutting edge. Ratcher & Clank is the ultimate showcase for the PlayStation 5: not just because it is jaw-droppingly pretty and silky smooth, but also because it represents the creative cost of a game with this much time and money behind it: all sharp edges sanded down into a completely smooth experience that leaves no mark on me.
Fundamentally, this is the same approach taken by the PS3 and PS4 outings in the series: stripping out any pretence of social satire in favour of a modern Pixar/Dreamworks pastiche with almost overbearing earnestness, only executed with a degree of competence that those games sorely lacked. Rivet and Kit are cool characters who bring genuine pathos to the story through the discussions surrounding Rivet's prosthetic arm, though never enough to meaningfully put the brakes on this rollercoaster ride.
There's a few things holding Rift Apart back from greatness, and I think the lack of willingness to introduce friction of any kind into the experience is perhaps the major one. Drama amongst the cast is well-written and portrayed, but never lasts for long, and never affects the gameplay. Rivet and Ratchet both play identically to one another, and even play exactly the same with or without their robot buddies, making their partnership feel utterly superfluous in gameplay. You worked this out in the very first game, people!!! The shooting itself is fun and consistently pleasing, but one planet for each character aside, the dimension shifting gimmick never really evolves beyond a glorified grappling hook, and the arsenal all plays and feels very similalry, without any gun that makes me go "WOAH THIS IS SOME COOL SHIT" like the Visibomb did in the very first game.
Ultimately, Ratcher & Clank: Rift Apart is too determined to provide a smooth ride through it's extremely technically impressive worlds to really play with the interesting potential that's there, which is a shame, but it is also Gaming on the cutting edge. Ratcher & Clank is the ultimate showcase for the PlayStation 5: not just because it is jaw-droppingly pretty and silky smooth, but also because it represents the creative cost of a game with this much time and money behind it: all sharp edges sanded down into a completely smooth experience that leaves no mark on me.