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I abandoned Ghostbusters: The Video Game Remastered, why? To tell that, let me tell you why I started it. It was leaving PS Plus and I wanted to try out the game. But I had very little time left, it leaves in just 2 days. I played the game for a bit and while it's not bad, it just felt like a linear, shooter?
The game is definitely not bad and if I had more time, I'm sure I would have beat it. Maybe even go for the platinum. However, it's not a great game. Not even a good one. I would give it 5 or 6 out of 10 probably when I finished it and I just didn't want to rush a 5 or 6 out of 10 experience.
If you are reading this later and got your hands on the game somehow, I would recommend you to at least try it. Depending on your love of Ghostbusters, you might really enjoy this one.
The game is definitely not bad and if I had more time, I'm sure I would have beat it. Maybe even go for the platinum. However, it's not a great game. Not even a good one. I would give it 5 or 6 out of 10 probably when I finished it and I just didn't want to rush a 5 or 6 out of 10 experience.
If you are reading this later and got your hands on the game somehow, I would recommend you to at least try it. Depending on your love of Ghostbusters, you might really enjoy this one.
2001
Max Payne still impressed me today thanks to it's core combat mechanics and it's focus on story compared to the games around it's original release. However, while the combat mechanics are strong, second half of the game takes the fun away due to you not getting any new weapons and enemies turning into bullet sponges. It's still an above average game and you can definitely have fun with it. But I can't quite say that it's a "good" game.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Flesh of Fallen Angels
Obviously, I have played Max Payne many times on PC before. Especially in my childhood, it was the essential game that was installed on every single one of my friends. Everyone knew about this game and everyone played it. But, none of us finished it. I didn't as well. So I decided that it was time to tackle the game after all those years and properly finish it this time. Here is my experience playing on PS5.
Let's start with the story. The game opens with the titular character entering his home, finding his child and wife killed. He is an NYPD Detective so after that horrible night, he decides to go rogue and take revenge on those who killed his family.
Compared to the games of it's time, Max Payne is a story focused game. But compared to the games of this time, the story is mostly background information. There are lots of cutscenes made up of comic book panels and even some very meta jokes, not surprising, but the story never interested me enough.
Characters are non-existent as well. There are a lot of them but most of them are bosses you won't remember in a few days. So, story and characters are weak. What about the gameplay? That is, pretty strong.
Max Payne is almost entirely a TPS game. It's linear so there is not much exploration here. It doesn't have puzzles. There is light platforming but it's very light. And sometimes where you will go is not clear but there aren't alternative paths in levels. It's a pretty linear game.
Which is totally ok and I would even say works in the favor of the game because you go to a lot of different places and encounter lots of different set pieces. Yeah, this game does have set pieces. They are not in the quality of something like Uncharted obviously but even in today's standards, some of them holds up great. There are some that doesn't hold up as well.
Speaking of things holding up, we need to talk about combat. Because wow, it works. It definitely works. Shoot Dodge, Bullet Time, the feel of the weapons, it all works and it all feels great. It's also very, very fun. However, there is one big problem with combat that dragged down the score of the game for me and that is the second half of the game.
For the first half, you will feel great. New enemy types are being added, new weapons comes in, it's fun. In the second half, new weapons stops coming. So you got the same arsenal for the remaining game time. Which is around 2-3 hours. And while there are some new enemy types getting added, they are not good.
Late game enemies here are bullet sponges. And that's not fun. So while the combat mechanics of the game are great, enemy design and encounter design needed more work. I won't get to the technical stuff because that is the one area that won't hold up for any older title and it would not be fair to judge the game based on that.
I can say one good thing about it though and that is the atmosphere. The game is set in New York, during a huge snowstorm. And the atmosphere is pretty nice. I felt the coldness of the air. It was great.
One final thing I want to talk about is the PS4/PS5 version of the game. I would not recommend it. Because there are some tricky platforming areas where the analog controls are not handled properly and you might go crazy in those levels. And there is no quicksave. It's beatable on the standard difficulty, as you can see from me. But playing this on PC or Xbox which I believe also has quicksave support would be the better idea. However, if PlayStation is your only choice, it did not hinder my experience much. One last note, it took me 7 hours to beat the game on PlayStation. On other platforms with quicksave, it would probably be somewhere between 4-5. Just to give information.
Max Payne still impressed me today thanks to it's core combat mechanics and it's focus on story compared to the games around it's original release. However, while the combat mechanics are strong, second half of the game takes the fun away due to you not getting any new weapons and enemies turning into bullet sponges. It's still an above average game and you can definitely have fun with it. But I can't quite say that it's a "good" game.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Flesh of Fallen Angels
Obviously, I have played Max Payne many times on PC before. Especially in my childhood, it was the essential game that was installed on every single one of my friends. Everyone knew about this game and everyone played it. But, none of us finished it. I didn't as well. So I decided that it was time to tackle the game after all those years and properly finish it this time. Here is my experience playing on PS5.
Let's start with the story. The game opens with the titular character entering his home, finding his child and wife killed. He is an NYPD Detective so after that horrible night, he decides to go rogue and take revenge on those who killed his family.
Compared to the games of it's time, Max Payne is a story focused game. But compared to the games of this time, the story is mostly background information. There are lots of cutscenes made up of comic book panels and even some very meta jokes, not surprising, but the story never interested me enough.
Characters are non-existent as well. There are a lot of them but most of them are bosses you won't remember in a few days. So, story and characters are weak. What about the gameplay? That is, pretty strong.
Max Payne is almost entirely a TPS game. It's linear so there is not much exploration here. It doesn't have puzzles. There is light platforming but it's very light. And sometimes where you will go is not clear but there aren't alternative paths in levels. It's a pretty linear game.
Which is totally ok and I would even say works in the favor of the game because you go to a lot of different places and encounter lots of different set pieces. Yeah, this game does have set pieces. They are not in the quality of something like Uncharted obviously but even in today's standards, some of them holds up great. There are some that doesn't hold up as well.
Speaking of things holding up, we need to talk about combat. Because wow, it works. It definitely works. Shoot Dodge, Bullet Time, the feel of the weapons, it all works and it all feels great. It's also very, very fun. However, there is one big problem with combat that dragged down the score of the game for me and that is the second half of the game.
For the first half, you will feel great. New enemy types are being added, new weapons comes in, it's fun. In the second half, new weapons stops coming. So you got the same arsenal for the remaining game time. Which is around 2-3 hours. And while there are some new enemy types getting added, they are not good.
Late game enemies here are bullet sponges. And that's not fun. So while the combat mechanics of the game are great, enemy design and encounter design needed more work. I won't get to the technical stuff because that is the one area that won't hold up for any older title and it would not be fair to judge the game based on that.
I can say one good thing about it though and that is the atmosphere. The game is set in New York, during a huge snowstorm. And the atmosphere is pretty nice. I felt the coldness of the air. It was great.
One final thing I want to talk about is the PS4/PS5 version of the game. I would not recommend it. Because there are some tricky platforming areas where the analog controls are not handled properly and you might go crazy in those levels. And there is no quicksave. It's beatable on the standard difficulty, as you can see from me. But playing this on PC or Xbox which I believe also has quicksave support would be the better idea. However, if PlayStation is your only choice, it did not hinder my experience much. One last note, it took me 7 hours to beat the game on PlayStation. On other platforms with quicksave, it would probably be somewhere between 4-5. Just to give information.
Max Payne still impressed me today thanks to it's core combat mechanics and it's focus on story compared to the games around it's original release. However, while the combat mechanics are strong, second half of the game takes the fun away due to you not getting any new weapons and enemies turning into bullet sponges. It's still an above average game and you can definitely have fun with it. But I can't quite say that it's a "good" game.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an important game. It's the game thar put Ninja Theory on Microsoft's radar as well as many players' radar. It's a game that is loved by many even though it has some haters as well.
I think Hellblade is a great game, sorry, "was" a great game. I haven't seen a game betrayed by it's pacing this much in a looooong time. And it's so stupid, it's crazy to think that anyone at Ninja Theory found this structure for this game plausible.
Okay, let's start from the beginning with the story. Our story is set in the 8th century, somewhere up north. We play as Senua and she is on a journey to get to Helheim in order to save the life of the love of her life. The game doesn't give you much more than this when you start it but the story is uncovered slowly through the flashbacks.
In terms of presentation, Hellblade is really solid. Director Tameem Antoniades did a great job with the performances being really really good as well. Especially Melina Juergens who played Senua is the main component that holds everything together. She is so powerful yet so vulnerable at the same time, Juergens really blew me away.
However, when you come to the end of the game and you now know all of the story, it's not that good. Writer is also Tameem Antoniades but I have to say, his writing skills isn't very creative. The story here is very basic when you look at the big picture and the ending, well, it was a very big disappointment.
So, the story is not good but the presentation is pretty solid. Bundle that with great performances and I was overall feeling good about the story side of things.
The biggest problems comes with the gameplay. In Hellblade, there are 3 things we do. We walk, we fight and we solve puzzles. Let's start with the exploration and puzzle solving first. Exploration, what exploration? Hellblade is a very linear game and while there is a collectible type that gives a little bit more context to some characters and events, it's not enough.
I did not like the things those collectibles spoke about and I was not interested in them after a point. I collected all of them by the way and I don't think they were worth it. Puzzle solving on the other hand was fine, it was nice.
There are some chapter specific puzzle types but there are also "Illusion" puzzles, I think that's their name. These are featured in the game from start to finish. You have a locked door, there are some signs on it. You explore around and try to find that sign in the environment. That's how you unlock the door. Obviously sometimes there is more than one sign.
I know a lot of people that got bored with it but I think they were very clever with it's usage. Overall, I really enjoyed these puzzles. I had much bigger problems with some of the chapter specific ones. But I won't go into detail because of spoilers.
There is a third pillar to the gameplay, let's talk about that now. Combat. Combat in this game is pretty solid but when you play it in smaller chunks. The camera placement is great, you really feel your hits, enemies also gets knife cuts and stuff. So it's really really good. Especially in presentation again. There is not much variety in the combat but there is a bit of enemy variety at least.
Now I need to talk about the structure thing. Oh my god, this is so stupid. In the first half of the game, everything is great. You walk a bit, you fight a bit and you puzzle a bit. In the second half however, the game goes crazy and decides to throw in a bunch of puzzles and only puzzles. Then it throws a bunch of combat and only combat. I mean, why?
The first half had a great pace with every mechanic in the game being used but then the second half decides to go through the mechanics one by one until you die of boredom. There is kind of a story reason but the core story isn't that good like I said so the gameplay of the second half is ruined for something that's not even good.
I loved the game during the first half but hated it during the second half. It's, truly a mixed bag in that sense. Now let's get a little bit into the technical side of things and end our review.
Even if the game came out in 2017, I think it looks pretty good. Especially the animations are very nice. Combat animations looks crazy in a good way. But obviously the environment looks a little old these days. And as a linear game, you do feel like you are walking along corridors at many points.
When it comes to sound, Hellblade is quite impressive. It uses binaural audio to convey the sounds inside Senua's mind to the players and headphones are highly recommended. I played the entire game with headphones and it really does feel interesting and even nauseating at times. In a good way though because it puts you really in the mind of Senua. They managed to do that very well.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
Two Sides of the Same Coin
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is an important game. It's the game thar put Ninja Theory on Microsoft's radar as well as many players' radar. It's a game that is loved by many even though it has some haters as well.
I think Hellblade is a great game, sorry, "was" a great game. I haven't seen a game betrayed by it's pacing this much in a looooong time. And it's so stupid, it's crazy to think that anyone at Ninja Theory found this structure for this game plausible.
Okay, let's start from the beginning with the story. Our story is set in the 8th century, somewhere up north. We play as Senua and she is on a journey to get to Helheim in order to save the life of the love of her life. The game doesn't give you much more than this when you start it but the story is uncovered slowly through the flashbacks.
In terms of presentation, Hellblade is really solid. Director Tameem Antoniades did a great job with the performances being really really good as well. Especially Melina Juergens who played Senua is the main component that holds everything together. She is so powerful yet so vulnerable at the same time, Juergens really blew me away.
However, when you come to the end of the game and you now know all of the story, it's not that good. Writer is also Tameem Antoniades but I have to say, his writing skills isn't very creative. The story here is very basic when you look at the big picture and the ending, well, it was a very big disappointment.
So, the story is not good but the presentation is pretty solid. Bundle that with great performances and I was overall feeling good about the story side of things.
The biggest problems comes with the gameplay. In Hellblade, there are 3 things we do. We walk, we fight and we solve puzzles. Let's start with the exploration and puzzle solving first. Exploration, what exploration? Hellblade is a very linear game and while there is a collectible type that gives a little bit more context to some characters and events, it's not enough.
I did not like the things those collectibles spoke about and I was not interested in them after a point. I collected all of them by the way and I don't think they were worth it. Puzzle solving on the other hand was fine, it was nice.
There are some chapter specific puzzle types but there are also "Illusion" puzzles, I think that's their name. These are featured in the game from start to finish. You have a locked door, there are some signs on it. You explore around and try to find that sign in the environment. That's how you unlock the door. Obviously sometimes there is more than one sign.
I know a lot of people that got bored with it but I think they were very clever with it's usage. Overall, I really enjoyed these puzzles. I had much bigger problems with some of the chapter specific ones. But I won't go into detail because of spoilers.
There is a third pillar to the gameplay, let's talk about that now. Combat. Combat in this game is pretty solid but when you play it in smaller chunks. The camera placement is great, you really feel your hits, enemies also gets knife cuts and stuff. So it's really really good. Especially in presentation again. There is not much variety in the combat but there is a bit of enemy variety at least.
Now I need to talk about the structure thing. Oh my god, this is so stupid. In the first half of the game, everything is great. You walk a bit, you fight a bit and you puzzle a bit. In the second half however, the game goes crazy and decides to throw in a bunch of puzzles and only puzzles. Then it throws a bunch of combat and only combat. I mean, why?
The first half had a great pace with every mechanic in the game being used but then the second half decides to go through the mechanics one by one until you die of boredom. There is kind of a story reason but the core story isn't that good like I said so the gameplay of the second half is ruined for something that's not even good.
I loved the game during the first half but hated it during the second half. It's, truly a mixed bag in that sense. Now let's get a little bit into the technical side of things and end our review.
Even if the game came out in 2017, I think it looks pretty good. Especially the animations are very nice. Combat animations looks crazy in a good way. But obviously the environment looks a little old these days. And as a linear game, you do feel like you are walking along corridors at many points.
When it comes to sound, Hellblade is quite impressive. It uses binaural audio to convey the sounds inside Senua's mind to the players and headphones are highly recommended. I played the entire game with headphones and it really does feel interesting and even nauseating at times. In a good way though because it puts you really in the mind of Senua. They managed to do that very well.
Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice could have been great but it does the most stupid thing imaginable in it's second half. While it's first half is a perfect mix of exploration, puzzles and combat; the second half decides to throw in these mechanics one by one which obviously gets incredibly boring after a while. Solving puzzles 40 minutes nonstop or doing combat for 15 minutes nonstop are the "brightest" ideas of the second half and well, they are not that bright. I loved the first half but got bored to death in the second half. I am right in the middle with this one.
2022
I abandoned Ghostwire: Tokyo. Why? Because it’s a boring nothingness game. You do nothing in it. Literally. Go there, kill this, open the map. It’s, oh my god. So boring. DualSense support is great but the combat for example is not good.
There are very little things you can do in combat. It mostly comes to spamming your ammo or magic bullets or whatever they are called in this game. And there is also very little enemy variety. And basically no story 4 hours in.
I just couldn’t get through it. I really don’t want to play this so I just abandoned it. It’s not good. Do NOT waste your time or money on this.
There are very little things you can do in combat. It mostly comes to spamming your ammo or magic bullets or whatever they are called in this game. And there is also very little enemy variety. And basically no story 4 hours in.
I just couldn’t get through it. I really don’t want to play this so I just abandoned it. It’s not good. Do NOT waste your time or money on this.
2024
I abandoned Foamstars. Why? For, many reasons. The biggest being that it's just not that fun. I never played Splatoon because I never owned a Nintendo console so I was low-key excited for Foamstars.
If Splatoon is as boring as this is, I really don't understand people at all. But it can't be that boring, right? Maybe the problem here is that Foamstars' characters are pretty boring, the maps are pretty boring, the graphics aren't very good and they aren't very artistic. And while the gameplay seems fun at first mostly due to DualSense, I think the game modes here doesn't work.
This game is much more about killing the other team then foaming the environment but I just didn't find that fun. I want to end this abandoned review with one little crazy thing. It's just, incredibly dumb so here we go.
While opening the game, you are presented with a choice to select your region. I did select my region which is a smaller country, a country that would not play Foamstars much. I started matchmaking and, it can't find anyone. I waited for like 10-15 minutes and then saw my friend in game. I asked him how he found matchmaking and he told me that he changed the region because this idiotic game only looks for matches in your selected region. And it does not think of looking at other nearby regions if it can't find any.
This, this is Foamstars. It's, pretty bad. I don't see myself going back to this, I don't see anyone going back to this and I just don't see this game surviving more than 6 months.
If Splatoon is as boring as this is, I really don't understand people at all. But it can't be that boring, right? Maybe the problem here is that Foamstars' characters are pretty boring, the maps are pretty boring, the graphics aren't very good and they aren't very artistic. And while the gameplay seems fun at first mostly due to DualSense, I think the game modes here doesn't work.
This game is much more about killing the other team then foaming the environment but I just didn't find that fun. I want to end this abandoned review with one little crazy thing. It's just, incredibly dumb so here we go.
While opening the game, you are presented with a choice to select your region. I did select my region which is a smaller country, a country that would not play Foamstars much. I started matchmaking and, it can't find anyone. I waited for like 10-15 minutes and then saw my friend in game. I asked him how he found matchmaking and he told me that he changed the region because this idiotic game only looks for matches in your selected region. And it does not think of looking at other nearby regions if it can't find any.
This, this is Foamstars. It's, pretty bad. I don't see myself going back to this, I don't see anyone going back to this and I just don't see this game surviving more than 6 months.
Destiny 2: Season of the Witch is a good season that comes with a pretty good activity as well as a mediocre one. The story continues to be the formulaic weely grind we are used to get with Destiny seasons but the theme surrounding it with witchcraft and arcana cards will keep your interest in the season.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
The New Hive God
Destiny 2's penultimate season considering that the next one will be the final season before we switch over to episodes, continues from the greatness of Season of the Deep. Many people didn't enjoy Deep but I myself have loved it and Witch is almost more of the same with a different theme.
Our story is about Eris Morn trying to become a Hive God basically. We, the Guardians try to tithe to her as her Acolytes in the process. The story here is good and it gets to somewhere very interesting but it feels a little bit repetitive.
Yes, Deep's story was repetitive as well. We got something new from Ahsa every week and solved the Witness' origins piece by piece. In Witch, we tithe to Eris every week and try to make her as powerful as she can be. So, both are repetitive but obviously Deep has a bit more to it's story here thanks to it being about the Witness and it's origins.
Now, let's talk about the content of this season. We had two new activities, let's start with those. Savathun's Spire is a 3 player matchmade activity that is basically a special strike mission with some parts of it being slightly different in each run.
You think it might be boring to repeat it over and over but I found it to be a pretty good activity and always enjoyed going through it. There are different final bosses to it as well so the things are kept a little bit more fresh than your typical strike mission.
Altars of Summoning on the other hand is also a 3 player matchmade activity but it's a lot different from Savathun's Spire. There is a hub area, connected to like 3-4 different mini areas. The game randomly selects one of these areas and a mission to do in it. You go to the specified location and select a difficulty for that mission.
Depending on your difficulty, you will increase your progress bar much faster. When the bar is full, you will get Altars of Summoning completion and rewards. But, you don't immediately exit the thing, you can keep grinding the bar again and again if you want.
Altars of Summoning was definitely an interesting idea but compared to Savathun's Spire, I found it disjointed and a little bit chaotic. One thing that was great about this season though was the Deck of Whispers. In many Destiny 2 seasons, our efforts went to spending points and upgrading some sort of terminal to help us get a few buffs in the seasonal activities or something.
Well, Witch's reward and progression economy is based on Deck of Whispers. The two activities have minor arcana cards you can collect in them that are hidden. Minor arcana cards gives you a random reward like legendary shards, exotic engrams, seasonal currency and more. There are also major cards you will get during story continuation.
Each major card will have their own set of quests to complete and once you complete that, you can use that card in the seasonal activities, before encounters to give you and your fireteam special boosts. It's not a fully fledged card game or anything but theme-wise, it's pretty cool.
Destiny 2: Season of the Witch is a good season that comes with a pretty good activity as well as a mediocre one. The story continues to be the formulaic weely grind we are used to get with Destiny seasons but the theme surrounding it with witchcraft and arcana cards will keep your interest in the season.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
The New Hive God
Destiny 2's penultimate season considering that the next one will be the final season before we switch over to episodes, continues from the greatness of Season of the Deep. Many people didn't enjoy Deep but I myself have loved it and Witch is almost more of the same with a different theme.
Our story is about Eris Morn trying to become a Hive God basically. We, the Guardians try to tithe to her as her Acolytes in the process. The story here is good and it gets to somewhere very interesting but it feels a little bit repetitive.
Yes, Deep's story was repetitive as well. We got something new from Ahsa every week and solved the Witness' origins piece by piece. In Witch, we tithe to Eris every week and try to make her as powerful as she can be. So, both are repetitive but obviously Deep has a bit more to it's story here thanks to it being about the Witness and it's origins.
Now, let's talk about the content of this season. We had two new activities, let's start with those. Savathun's Spire is a 3 player matchmade activity that is basically a special strike mission with some parts of it being slightly different in each run.
You think it might be boring to repeat it over and over but I found it to be a pretty good activity and always enjoyed going through it. There are different final bosses to it as well so the things are kept a little bit more fresh than your typical strike mission.
Altars of Summoning on the other hand is also a 3 player matchmade activity but it's a lot different from Savathun's Spire. There is a hub area, connected to like 3-4 different mini areas. The game randomly selects one of these areas and a mission to do in it. You go to the specified location and select a difficulty for that mission.
Depending on your difficulty, you will increase your progress bar much faster. When the bar is full, you will get Altars of Summoning completion and rewards. But, you don't immediately exit the thing, you can keep grinding the bar again and again if you want.
Altars of Summoning was definitely an interesting idea but compared to Savathun's Spire, I found it disjointed and a little bit chaotic. One thing that was great about this season though was the Deck of Whispers. In many Destiny 2 seasons, our efforts went to spending points and upgrading some sort of terminal to help us get a few buffs in the seasonal activities or something.
Well, Witch's reward and progression economy is based on Deck of Whispers. The two activities have minor arcana cards you can collect in them that are hidden. Minor arcana cards gives you a random reward like legendary shards, exotic engrams, seasonal currency and more. There are also major cards you will get during story continuation.
Each major card will have their own set of quests to complete and once you complete that, you can use that card in the seasonal activities, before encounters to give you and your fireteam special boosts. It's not a fully fledged card game or anything but theme-wise, it's pretty cool.
Destiny 2: Season of the Witch is a good season that comes with a pretty good activity as well as a mediocre one. The story continues to be the formulaic weely grind we are used to get with Destiny seasons but the theme surrounding it with witchcraft and arcana cards will keep your interest in the season.
Mortal Kombat 1's third Invasion season, Season of the Cryomancer was more of the same. But there were some good, nice additions. Biggest being the mid-bosses and full bosses having intros now. But I think this new change also showcased how rushed the intros of this game are.
The Invasions board maps was mostly the same, not much of a change there. Some UI elements have been simplified, at least that's what I thought. There is still not much of a story, it's all about evil Sub-Zero from a different timeline. That's pretty much it.
Overall though, because I like the winter theme, I liked this season. It was enjoyable going through it and while I still think that the Invasions mode requires a revision, this was fun to play through.
The Invasions board maps was mostly the same, not much of a change there. Some UI elements have been simplified, at least that's what I thought. There is still not much of a story, it's all about evil Sub-Zero from a different timeline. That's pretty much it.
Overall though, because I like the winter theme, I liked this season. It was enjoyable going through it and while I still think that the Invasions mode requires a revision, this was fun to play through.
As the first Mortal Kombat 1 Invasions Season I played, Season of the Blood Moon seemed okay to me. The Invasions' idea is simple. It brings together a bunch of smaller, one round fights and presents them in a cute, board game style way.
However, there are some weird creative decisions made with this mode. For example, none of the characters uses their own names. You see that a character is Raiden variant but his name is not listed as Raiden, it's listed as "Student". Why? There is a level up system with some RPG mechanics but they seemed overly complicated and not very useful to me.
One round fights are also weird, I think they did it because they wanted the boards to go faster but then just put less fights in each map. I am also not a "vampire" fan by the way so the theme of this season wasn't for me.
Overall, getting new and free content for this game is great. But I don't think that Invasions is a good mode to do that with.
However, there are some weird creative decisions made with this mode. For example, none of the characters uses their own names. You see that a character is Raiden variant but his name is not listed as Raiden, it's listed as "Student". Why? There is a level up system with some RPG mechanics but they seemed overly complicated and not very useful to me.
One round fights are also weird, I think they did it because they wanted the boards to go faster but then just put less fights in each map. I am also not a "vampire" fan by the way so the theme of this season wasn't for me.
Overall, getting new and free content for this game is great. But I don't think that Invasions is a good mode to do that with.
2024
Helldivers 2 is the first, oh forgot about Palworld, second big surprise that came out of nowhere in 2024. It has a great gameplay loop with tons of variety and some strong combat mechanics. It uses the DualSense very well and has a great atmosphere as well as pretty good sound effects. It's a game changer when it comes to monetization and in game economies. Progression paths are diverse, interesting, exciting and values the players' time. However, the launch was plagued by connection issues, matchmaking issues and even FPS problems. It's getting better but especially on PC there are still major problems. And finally, while the setup is great, there is no real story or a lore to dive deeper in here. Which is a shame. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it's clearly a very solid game and a game I will play for many more hours to come.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
For Democracy, For Freedom
Helldivers 2, well. That was unexpected. Even as a PS fanboy, I thought Sony should have just made this a Plus title at launch. It looked fine but I was sure that not many people would be interested by it. Yeah, look how it turned out.
Then they announced that it was going to be a 40 dollar game and I was like, ok. I will wait for it to come to Plus then. Surely not many people will buy it and we will see it on the service in 6-9 months. Yeah, I, was very wrong on that as well as I purchased the game in full price the weekend it released I believe. And have been playing since. 24 hours in currently, Level 15. I really underestimated the team at Arrowhead.
I usually start with the story in my reviews and we can do that here as well, but the game doesn't follow a classical story structure. The premise is that we are a part of Helldivers. In the future, Helldivers are an elite squad of soldiers that are specifically trained for bringing liberty and democracy to planets who are not under the control of Super Earth, the pinnacle of managed democracy.
And, that is basically it. As Helldivers, there is a Galactic War and we are on the frontlines, trying to liberate(capture) new planets or defend our own. Developers at Arrowhead can do crazy stuff with the post launch support; adding new cutscenes, characters, story missions and maybe even live events.
But the current product has nothing like that. After the opening cutscene and the training mission, all you get are minor lore drops in the form of propaganda videos and talking to NPC's in your ship. But they are really really tiny stuff.
However, while there isn't any story, at least for now, the game does a fantastic job of making you FEEL like a brainwashed patriotic dumbass thinking you are bringing liberty to planets and creatures that don't want it, by killing them and destroying their planet at the same time.
Thanks to the in game one liners thrown out by your Helldivers or even the loading tips, everything is part of this universe and the humor is great. I would have liked to see some sort of a story mode or at least a few more cutscenes that would go deeper into the lore but we don't have it. Is it a bad thing? No but it is a wasted potential. So again, hopefully they add it in the future.
What about the gameplay then? If there is not much of a story, then the focus should be on gameplay. And it is. Helldivers 2 is a third person "tactical" shooter with live service and co-op elements. What does all of this mean?
Remember the Galactic War I talked to you about? You have a ship and there is a Galactic Map there showing you the different planets of this game's world. You can't access all the planets, all the time though. There are a lot of them, like maybe even more than a hundred. The developers opens up a handful of planets at any given moment, stating that they are the focus of Super Earth.
You can select any one of these open planets and then you will have to select your difficulty as well as a mission which will send you down into the planet to do the mission along with some side objectives. There are a bunch of different mission types and usually each mission has a procedurally generated map that both has your main objective as well as a bunch of side objective, enemy outposts and question marks you can explore to find valuable items.
So, the game is not an open world but it's mostly set in open areas. There are a few specific mission types that are shorter and has a very small playing space as well but most of your time will be spent on those big missions.
You also don't have all the time to explore by the way. You will have a set amount of time, mostly 40 minutes for those open area missions, to do the main objective and then extract from the area. What happens when the timer reaches 0 you ask?
A shuttle will be automatically sent, normally you have to call it yourself and you will have 2 minutes until it arrives. During this time, you won't have any access to your stratagems which are basically your character abilities and one stratagem is used for returning to the area after dying so that means you will be on your last life when the timer reaches zero.
So, okay. We have planets, we have missions and these missions are open areas having a variety of objectives for us to tackle and we have limited lives and we have to extract before the timer runs out. Got all of that? Great. But, what do you exactly do in these missions?
That's where the tactical shooter part comes in. Helldivers is a very fun and ridiculous game but it's not a fast paced game. This is not Call of Duty, not Titanfall and not even Battlefield. It's way slower. Your Helldivers acts like a real human. Their animations are slow and you feel the weight of them.
There is a jump pack but there is no parkour in the game. Most of the time, you will feel like a tank. There is also a stamina limiting your speed so you should be careful about that as well.
Currently the game has 2 enemy types with the bug like Terminids and robots that are named Automatons. Both enemy factions has a variety of enemy types big and small, easy and hard. You can't go in guns blazing. You are weak. But you do have an advantage, that's where the stratagem system comes in.
Before starting a mission, you select 4 of these stratagems among a list that includes 50 of them. These include things like sentries, orbital strikes, nukes, special weapons, jump packs, robot guard dogs and more. You call these in game by entering a set of D-Pad combination. After a short wait, they are sent to you from your command ship for you to use.
Things like orbitals and sentries have a cooldown timer as well so you can't spam them. That's where the tactical elements comes in. 50 stratagems is a lot and most of them are very unique and different by the way. You will have to choose only 4 and believe me, it will hurt your feelings.
Finding a right combination of stratagems, using them in places where they will be most effective and also managing to call them while enemies swarms you is a challenge but it's the nice kind of a challenge.
The game has an incredible sense of progression. Difficulties that seems hard at first will become much easier once you start to get more powerful stratagems, once you learn how and when to use them and of course once you learn to warn your friends so they don't get blown off.
Yeah, friendly fire is on in this game for all time, always. So, go have fun dropping a nuke into your friend. Or maybe, don't. Because your lives are limited. You might be wondering about the mission and enemy variety as well.
Mission variety, is fine. There is an incredibly hard defend civilians mission that is also very boring but the rest is pretty good. Launch huge missiles, shut down bug nests or robot factories, kill powerful bugs or robots, sabotage enemy outposts and other classic things.
The variety in missions comes from the planet, enemy faction and the side objectives. Each planet has their own challenges. One of them has a very dense fog, one of them is full of ice so the ground is slipping. So far, these don't change the gameplay too much but they completely change the atmosphere and your emotional state which will impact the mission.
Not being able to see enemies because of the fog or the rain and lightnings that makes a nice night frightening will be important while trying to fight a bunch of enemies. Speaking of enemies, their variety is also pretty pretty good. Bugs are disgusting but many of them doesn't have ranged attacks so it's usually easier to deal with them.
Robots on the other hand are all about ranged combat and getting shot at from every possible direction is, not very easy. However, I do not think that the robots are significantly harder. Both enemy factions and every enemy type in these factions have their own strengths and weaknesses. Solving them is a part of the progression path in this game.
Because, new enemy types appears according to the difficulty. Currently there are 9 difficulties. To unlock a higher difficulty, you need to complete an operation on the previous difficulty. If you want to unlock difficulty 4, you need to complete an operation in difficulty 3. Operations are a number of different missions bundled together by the way. Nothing too interesting there.
And like I said, lower difficulties doesn't feature some of the harder enemies. So the game slowly makes sure you understand how to kill each enemy type before going onto a higher difficulty and facing new enemy types. It's very clever and works very very well.
Finally, side objectives. These are your typical stuff like enemy outposts, loot bunkers, destroy the facility missions and more. But because of the maps being procedurally generated, exploring them is a delight and you always feel like you are getting a fresh experience.
There are some very interesting side objectives as well. Radar Station side objective for example shows you all the special weapons(grenade launchers, railguns etc.) in that map or all the question marks on that map. Or SEAF Artillery side objective gives you 5 powerful stratagems to use. They are similar to orbital strikes but hey, 5 free stratagem uses. That could come in handy.
Each side objective completion rewards you with XP and Requisition Slips. Speaking of them, let's now get into the currency side of things. The deep mechanics. XP is your typical level up device. Leveling up unlocks new stratagems. That's the most important use of it.
But these stratagems needs to be purchased once to be used in the battlefield. You do that with Requisition. You get both of these by completing mission objectives. In every mission, there are also samples. These samples allows you to upgrade your stratagems. Reduce cooldown, increase damage and stuff like that.
You need to find these in outposts and question marks and you NEED to extract if you want these to come with you to the ship. Yes, while not being able to extract after completing the main objective in an area gives you your XP, Requisition and mission completion, it does not give you these samples. So extracting is important. Some of the stratagems has very long cooldowns.
Finally, we have the medals and the super credits. You can get medals in question marks and mission completion. Higher difficulty missions and completing mission bundles, operations, gives you more medals. Super credits on the other hand are the premium currency of the game. These are the only thing buyable in the game except the Deluxe Edition Upgrade. BUT, here is the big thing.
You can find them in question marks as well. It's random, it's about luck but you can find them. Each super credit you find registers as 10 and you can easily find 2-3 in every mission if you explore thoroughly and if you got lucky, you can even get to 6. So 60 super credits.
These super credits are used in the in game store for buying cosmetic upgrades. Capes, head gear and body armor are the things you will spend your super credits on. You might wonder about the price of them as well. They change between 120-300 or something. So yeah, you can totally get them without spending any additional money after buying the game itself.
There is one more use of super credits though and that is buying Warbonds. These are basically the battle passes. At launch the game has two. One which is free to all players and the other which costs 1000 super credits. I purchased this premium Warbond in around 20 hours of playtime without spending any real money on super credits.
When you open up the Warbond, you will see different pages and each page will have a number of different items for you to pick up, with Medals. That's where they come in. These Warbond items also includes cosmetic gear and even super credit packs but they also include new weapons and grenades.
Does this cause a pay to win? I don't think so. The gameplay here is so unique, your favorite loadout and my favorite loadout might be entirely different. Yes, there are grenade types and weapons locked behind that Premium Warbond but one, you can get that totally free by playing the game like I did and two, the weapons and grenades in that Warbond did not feel like OP stuff to me.
In fact, I think the Premium Warbond is a bit of a disappointment. Those weapons seemed too weak to me and I switched back to the weapons I got from the free Warbond.
Let's wrap the gameplay section by talking about gunplay and various ways of playing the game. Gunplay, it's pretty pretty good. Every weapon feels different, grenades and stratagems are very powerful. Bugs and robots have some crazy dissection animations. Really adds to the experience. Well, nothing more to say there.
Now, let's talk about the solo/co-op stuff. Can you play Helldivers 2, solo? Yes, you can. But it will be a challenging experience. Helldivers 2 is meant to be a fun experience. It's designed to be a fun third person action game. Playing it solo makes it almost like a survival horror experience. I liked that experience as well and I played a bunch of missions solo.
I also tried the quick play functionality. It works really well, I teamed up with 2 and 3 more people as well. Total randoms, we played through missions and they were mostly nice people that knew how to play the game. In one of my early tries, the game matched me with a very high level group compared to my level at the time which was a bummer because I didn't play much but all my later attempts paired me up with people around my level which allowed a much better experience.
I also played it with a close friend, talking to each other and coordinating. That is definitely the most fun way to play the game and it's the intended way. We laughed when we accidentally blown ourselves to pieces, got excited when we faced a difficult challenge and got sad when we couldn't make it to the extraction. In all these times though, we had fun. However, like I said, you can definitely play this solo and with randoms. It's not impossible or it's not a boring experience.
Finally, let's get into technical stuff. I played the game on PS5, in Quality Mode. It's 30 FPS, had some problems at launch but they are mostly fixed. I also heard that Performance Mode in 60 works good as well. In Quality, the game doesn't look mind blowing but it has an incredible use of light and it's atmosphere is pretty good. In that sense, it's very close to Returnal. Imagine a visual experience similar to that.
Game had a lot of server issues. Not being able to connect, matchmaking not working and stuff like that. I experienced these but I never encountered a server disconnect or a crash. Again though, I played on PS5 and it seems that compared to PC, it's a much more stable build. So I'm not sure about the PC experience.
The game doesn't have much music but the sound effects are pretty pretty good. Finally, the game uses DualSense and it's pretty effective. Both the haptics and adaptive triggers are used sparingly but both of them are used very very well. It's a delight to play this with the DualSense.
Helldivers 2 is the first, oh forgot about Palworld, second big surprise that came out of nowhere in 2024. It has a great gameplay loop with tons of variety and some strong combat mechanics. It uses the DualSense very well and has a great atmosphere as well as pretty good sound effects. It's a game changer when it comes to monetization and in game economies. Progression paths are diverse, interesting, exciting and values the players' time. However, the launch was plagued by connection issues, matchmaking issues and even FPS problems. It's getting better but especially on PC there are still major problems. And finally, while the setup is great, there is no real story or a lore to dive deeper in here. Which is a shame. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it's clearly a very solid game and a game I will play for many more hours to come.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
For Democracy, For Freedom
Helldivers 2, well. That was unexpected. Even as a PS fanboy, I thought Sony should have just made this a Plus title at launch. It looked fine but I was sure that not many people would be interested by it. Yeah, look how it turned out.
Then they announced that it was going to be a 40 dollar game and I was like, ok. I will wait for it to come to Plus then. Surely not many people will buy it and we will see it on the service in 6-9 months. Yeah, I, was very wrong on that as well as I purchased the game in full price the weekend it released I believe. And have been playing since. 24 hours in currently, Level 15. I really underestimated the team at Arrowhead.
I usually start with the story in my reviews and we can do that here as well, but the game doesn't follow a classical story structure. The premise is that we are a part of Helldivers. In the future, Helldivers are an elite squad of soldiers that are specifically trained for bringing liberty and democracy to planets who are not under the control of Super Earth, the pinnacle of managed democracy.
And, that is basically it. As Helldivers, there is a Galactic War and we are on the frontlines, trying to liberate(capture) new planets or defend our own. Developers at Arrowhead can do crazy stuff with the post launch support; adding new cutscenes, characters, story missions and maybe even live events.
But the current product has nothing like that. After the opening cutscene and the training mission, all you get are minor lore drops in the form of propaganda videos and talking to NPC's in your ship. But they are really really tiny stuff.
However, while there isn't any story, at least for now, the game does a fantastic job of making you FEEL like a brainwashed patriotic dumbass thinking you are bringing liberty to planets and creatures that don't want it, by killing them and destroying their planet at the same time.
Thanks to the in game one liners thrown out by your Helldivers or even the loading tips, everything is part of this universe and the humor is great. I would have liked to see some sort of a story mode or at least a few more cutscenes that would go deeper into the lore but we don't have it. Is it a bad thing? No but it is a wasted potential. So again, hopefully they add it in the future.
What about the gameplay then? If there is not much of a story, then the focus should be on gameplay. And it is. Helldivers 2 is a third person "tactical" shooter with live service and co-op elements. What does all of this mean?
Remember the Galactic War I talked to you about? You have a ship and there is a Galactic Map there showing you the different planets of this game's world. You can't access all the planets, all the time though. There are a lot of them, like maybe even more than a hundred. The developers opens up a handful of planets at any given moment, stating that they are the focus of Super Earth.
You can select any one of these open planets and then you will have to select your difficulty as well as a mission which will send you down into the planet to do the mission along with some side objectives. There are a bunch of different mission types and usually each mission has a procedurally generated map that both has your main objective as well as a bunch of side objective, enemy outposts and question marks you can explore to find valuable items.
So, the game is not an open world but it's mostly set in open areas. There are a few specific mission types that are shorter and has a very small playing space as well but most of your time will be spent on those big missions.
You also don't have all the time to explore by the way. You will have a set amount of time, mostly 40 minutes for those open area missions, to do the main objective and then extract from the area. What happens when the timer reaches 0 you ask?
A shuttle will be automatically sent, normally you have to call it yourself and you will have 2 minutes until it arrives. During this time, you won't have any access to your stratagems which are basically your character abilities and one stratagem is used for returning to the area after dying so that means you will be on your last life when the timer reaches zero.
So, okay. We have planets, we have missions and these missions are open areas having a variety of objectives for us to tackle and we have limited lives and we have to extract before the timer runs out. Got all of that? Great. But, what do you exactly do in these missions?
That's where the tactical shooter part comes in. Helldivers is a very fun and ridiculous game but it's not a fast paced game. This is not Call of Duty, not Titanfall and not even Battlefield. It's way slower. Your Helldivers acts like a real human. Their animations are slow and you feel the weight of them.
There is a jump pack but there is no parkour in the game. Most of the time, you will feel like a tank. There is also a stamina limiting your speed so you should be careful about that as well.
Currently the game has 2 enemy types with the bug like Terminids and robots that are named Automatons. Both enemy factions has a variety of enemy types big and small, easy and hard. You can't go in guns blazing. You are weak. But you do have an advantage, that's where the stratagem system comes in.
Before starting a mission, you select 4 of these stratagems among a list that includes 50 of them. These include things like sentries, orbital strikes, nukes, special weapons, jump packs, robot guard dogs and more. You call these in game by entering a set of D-Pad combination. After a short wait, they are sent to you from your command ship for you to use.
Things like orbitals and sentries have a cooldown timer as well so you can't spam them. That's where the tactical elements comes in. 50 stratagems is a lot and most of them are very unique and different by the way. You will have to choose only 4 and believe me, it will hurt your feelings.
Finding a right combination of stratagems, using them in places where they will be most effective and also managing to call them while enemies swarms you is a challenge but it's the nice kind of a challenge.
The game has an incredible sense of progression. Difficulties that seems hard at first will become much easier once you start to get more powerful stratagems, once you learn how and when to use them and of course once you learn to warn your friends so they don't get blown off.
Yeah, friendly fire is on in this game for all time, always. So, go have fun dropping a nuke into your friend. Or maybe, don't. Because your lives are limited. You might be wondering about the mission and enemy variety as well.
Mission variety, is fine. There is an incredibly hard defend civilians mission that is also very boring but the rest is pretty good. Launch huge missiles, shut down bug nests or robot factories, kill powerful bugs or robots, sabotage enemy outposts and other classic things.
The variety in missions comes from the planet, enemy faction and the side objectives. Each planet has their own challenges. One of them has a very dense fog, one of them is full of ice so the ground is slipping. So far, these don't change the gameplay too much but they completely change the atmosphere and your emotional state which will impact the mission.
Not being able to see enemies because of the fog or the rain and lightnings that makes a nice night frightening will be important while trying to fight a bunch of enemies. Speaking of enemies, their variety is also pretty pretty good. Bugs are disgusting but many of them doesn't have ranged attacks so it's usually easier to deal with them.
Robots on the other hand are all about ranged combat and getting shot at from every possible direction is, not very easy. However, I do not think that the robots are significantly harder. Both enemy factions and every enemy type in these factions have their own strengths and weaknesses. Solving them is a part of the progression path in this game.
Because, new enemy types appears according to the difficulty. Currently there are 9 difficulties. To unlock a higher difficulty, you need to complete an operation on the previous difficulty. If you want to unlock difficulty 4, you need to complete an operation in difficulty 3. Operations are a number of different missions bundled together by the way. Nothing too interesting there.
And like I said, lower difficulties doesn't feature some of the harder enemies. So the game slowly makes sure you understand how to kill each enemy type before going onto a higher difficulty and facing new enemy types. It's very clever and works very very well.
Finally, side objectives. These are your typical stuff like enemy outposts, loot bunkers, destroy the facility missions and more. But because of the maps being procedurally generated, exploring them is a delight and you always feel like you are getting a fresh experience.
There are some very interesting side objectives as well. Radar Station side objective for example shows you all the special weapons(grenade launchers, railguns etc.) in that map or all the question marks on that map. Or SEAF Artillery side objective gives you 5 powerful stratagems to use. They are similar to orbital strikes but hey, 5 free stratagem uses. That could come in handy.
Each side objective completion rewards you with XP and Requisition Slips. Speaking of them, let's now get into the currency side of things. The deep mechanics. XP is your typical level up device. Leveling up unlocks new stratagems. That's the most important use of it.
But these stratagems needs to be purchased once to be used in the battlefield. You do that with Requisition. You get both of these by completing mission objectives. In every mission, there are also samples. These samples allows you to upgrade your stratagems. Reduce cooldown, increase damage and stuff like that.
You need to find these in outposts and question marks and you NEED to extract if you want these to come with you to the ship. Yes, while not being able to extract after completing the main objective in an area gives you your XP, Requisition and mission completion, it does not give you these samples. So extracting is important. Some of the stratagems has very long cooldowns.
Finally, we have the medals and the super credits. You can get medals in question marks and mission completion. Higher difficulty missions and completing mission bundles, operations, gives you more medals. Super credits on the other hand are the premium currency of the game. These are the only thing buyable in the game except the Deluxe Edition Upgrade. BUT, here is the big thing.
You can find them in question marks as well. It's random, it's about luck but you can find them. Each super credit you find registers as 10 and you can easily find 2-3 in every mission if you explore thoroughly and if you got lucky, you can even get to 6. So 60 super credits.
These super credits are used in the in game store for buying cosmetic upgrades. Capes, head gear and body armor are the things you will spend your super credits on. You might wonder about the price of them as well. They change between 120-300 or something. So yeah, you can totally get them without spending any additional money after buying the game itself.
There is one more use of super credits though and that is buying Warbonds. These are basically the battle passes. At launch the game has two. One which is free to all players and the other which costs 1000 super credits. I purchased this premium Warbond in around 20 hours of playtime without spending any real money on super credits.
When you open up the Warbond, you will see different pages and each page will have a number of different items for you to pick up, with Medals. That's where they come in. These Warbond items also includes cosmetic gear and even super credit packs but they also include new weapons and grenades.
Does this cause a pay to win? I don't think so. The gameplay here is so unique, your favorite loadout and my favorite loadout might be entirely different. Yes, there are grenade types and weapons locked behind that Premium Warbond but one, you can get that totally free by playing the game like I did and two, the weapons and grenades in that Warbond did not feel like OP stuff to me.
In fact, I think the Premium Warbond is a bit of a disappointment. Those weapons seemed too weak to me and I switched back to the weapons I got from the free Warbond.
Let's wrap the gameplay section by talking about gunplay and various ways of playing the game. Gunplay, it's pretty pretty good. Every weapon feels different, grenades and stratagems are very powerful. Bugs and robots have some crazy dissection animations. Really adds to the experience. Well, nothing more to say there.
Now, let's talk about the solo/co-op stuff. Can you play Helldivers 2, solo? Yes, you can. But it will be a challenging experience. Helldivers 2 is meant to be a fun experience. It's designed to be a fun third person action game. Playing it solo makes it almost like a survival horror experience. I liked that experience as well and I played a bunch of missions solo.
I also tried the quick play functionality. It works really well, I teamed up with 2 and 3 more people as well. Total randoms, we played through missions and they were mostly nice people that knew how to play the game. In one of my early tries, the game matched me with a very high level group compared to my level at the time which was a bummer because I didn't play much but all my later attempts paired me up with people around my level which allowed a much better experience.
I also played it with a close friend, talking to each other and coordinating. That is definitely the most fun way to play the game and it's the intended way. We laughed when we accidentally blown ourselves to pieces, got excited when we faced a difficult challenge and got sad when we couldn't make it to the extraction. In all these times though, we had fun. However, like I said, you can definitely play this solo and with randoms. It's not impossible or it's not a boring experience.
Finally, let's get into technical stuff. I played the game on PS5, in Quality Mode. It's 30 FPS, had some problems at launch but they are mostly fixed. I also heard that Performance Mode in 60 works good as well. In Quality, the game doesn't look mind blowing but it has an incredible use of light and it's atmosphere is pretty good. In that sense, it's very close to Returnal. Imagine a visual experience similar to that.
Game had a lot of server issues. Not being able to connect, matchmaking not working and stuff like that. I experienced these but I never encountered a server disconnect or a crash. Again though, I played on PS5 and it seems that compared to PC, it's a much more stable build. So I'm not sure about the PC experience.
The game doesn't have much music but the sound effects are pretty pretty good. Finally, the game uses DualSense and it's pretty effective. Both the haptics and adaptive triggers are used sparingly but both of them are used very very well. It's a delight to play this with the DualSense.
Helldivers 2 is the first, oh forgot about Palworld, second big surprise that came out of nowhere in 2024. It has a great gameplay loop with tons of variety and some strong combat mechanics. It uses the DualSense very well and has a great atmosphere as well as pretty good sound effects. It's a game changer when it comes to monetization and in game economies. Progression paths are diverse, interesting, exciting and values the players' time. However, the launch was plagued by connection issues, matchmaking issues and even FPS problems. It's getting better but especially on PC there are still major problems. And finally, while the setup is great, there is no real story or a lore to dive deeper in here. Which is a shame. I don't think it's a masterpiece or anything but it's clearly a very solid game and a game I will play for many more hours to come.
Do you want to start Ghostwire: Tokyo? But you also want to learn about it's characters and world and lore a little bit before starting the full game? Well, do NOT play Ghostwire: Tokyo - Prelude. Because it won't give you those things.
Yes, this "thing" might be advertised as a jumping in point for Ghostwire: Tokyo but overall, it's incredibly pointless. Let me tell you the playing time I have on my PS5 AFTER finishing it so that you have an idea of what you are in for. 22. MINUTES.
This is a 22 minute visual novel thing where you have very limited choices and you mostly read a wall of text. A wall of text that doesn't make much sense because there is no explanation for anything here. You get minor information about a character called "KK" but that's it. And I'm sure, at least pretty sure, that this information will be given to us in the main game as well.
I did not give it the lowest rating I can give but I still gave it a very low rating because just "WHY?" Why does this exist? It just doesn't make any sense. It's a complete waste of time, very boring as well so just, don't touch it. One final thing, you know how non-important this is? Xbox, who owns the rights to this game now basically, did not release this Prelude on their console. They didn't even bother. So why should you?
Yes, this "thing" might be advertised as a jumping in point for Ghostwire: Tokyo but overall, it's incredibly pointless. Let me tell you the playing time I have on my PS5 AFTER finishing it so that you have an idea of what you are in for. 22. MINUTES.
This is a 22 minute visual novel thing where you have very limited choices and you mostly read a wall of text. A wall of text that doesn't make much sense because there is no explanation for anything here. You get minor information about a character called "KK" but that's it. And I'm sure, at least pretty sure, that this information will be given to us in the main game as well.
I did not give it the lowest rating I can give but I still gave it a very low rating because just "WHY?" Why does this exist? It just doesn't make any sense. It's a complete waste of time, very boring as well so just, don't touch it. One final thing, you know how non-important this is? Xbox, who owns the rights to this game now basically, did not release this Prelude on their console. They didn't even bother. So why should you?
2016
I abandoned I Am Setsuna. Why? Well, because it was just too simple. Did I think it was a bad game? No. But I did think it was not worth my time. I played it for like 3 hours. The story was going too basic. Characters were very two dimensional. No depth at all.
Combat was very simplistic. It did not have any interesting or exciting feature. I just couldn't force myself to continue. There are good things here though, like the art direction and the music but that's all.
Do I recommend you to play I Am Setsuna? Not really. I'm sure you can find much better JRPG's to play than this. I think it would be a waste of your time.
Combat was very simplistic. It did not have any interesting or exciting feature. I just couldn't force myself to continue. There are good things here though, like the art direction and the music but that's all.
Do I recommend you to play I Am Setsuna? Not really. I'm sure you can find much better JRPG's to play than this. I think it would be a waste of your time.
2021
This is a multiplayer only game so compared to my other reviews, this review will be much shorter and with much less detail.
Battlefield 2042 is a weird game to talk about. Because I haven't played it at launch, I entered the game at Season 3 I believe and then continued on with 4 and left at 5. There have been a sixth season as well with a seventh one coming so I'm sure the game has already changed significantly since I played it.
But for the time I played, BF2042 was a game that tried to be a Battlefield game that was originally setup to be something different. The original launch had a bunch of problems and weird design decisions like Specialists instead of classes. Many of these issues have been addressed, like the reintroduction of classes into the game. Many maps also saw significant change.
128 players thing slowly rolled itself out and got replaced with 64 players again. But while these changes are mostly solid and a clear sign that the development team listens to feedback, the game has not been build to work properly with these systems so the game is like a weird amalgamation of ideas.
128 players is too chaotic, yes. But maps are too big for 64 players and you don't feel the atmosphere of war. Specialists was a bad system, yes. But classes doesn't have enough specific attributes to them to make them unique.
It feels like this Battlefield game has been made using an alpha build of another game, which is sad to see. However, it's still Battlefield. It looks great, sounds great and plays great. Gunplay is as strong as always. Grappling Hook, Wingsuit and other gadgets like that are also very fun additions.
So even if the game doesn't have a clear identity, I had a good time playing it. After around 35 hours though, it was enough for me and I moved to different games. It lives on as a good but not great memory in my head.
Battlefield 2042 is a weird game to talk about. Because I haven't played it at launch, I entered the game at Season 3 I believe and then continued on with 4 and left at 5. There have been a sixth season as well with a seventh one coming so I'm sure the game has already changed significantly since I played it.
But for the time I played, BF2042 was a game that tried to be a Battlefield game that was originally setup to be something different. The original launch had a bunch of problems and weird design decisions like Specialists instead of classes. Many of these issues have been addressed, like the reintroduction of classes into the game. Many maps also saw significant change.
128 players thing slowly rolled itself out and got replaced with 64 players again. But while these changes are mostly solid and a clear sign that the development team listens to feedback, the game has not been build to work properly with these systems so the game is like a weird amalgamation of ideas.
128 players is too chaotic, yes. But maps are too big for 64 players and you don't feel the atmosphere of war. Specialists was a bad system, yes. But classes doesn't have enough specific attributes to them to make them unique.
It feels like this Battlefield game has been made using an alpha build of another game, which is sad to see. However, it's still Battlefield. It looks great, sounds great and plays great. Gunplay is as strong as always. Grappling Hook, Wingsuit and other gadgets like that are also very fun additions.
So even if the game doesn't have a clear identity, I had a good time playing it. After around 35 hours though, it was enough for me and I moved to different games. It lives on as a good but not great memory in my head.
Silent Hill: The Short Message is, not very good. I don't think it's bad, the themes of the story are really solid and the design of the creature as well as the atmosphere is great too. However, this 2 hour free game doesn't do this story concept justice and leaves too much on the table. And the gameplay is just, walking with a few terrible chases and a simple puzzle. This game had a potential but it needed to be longer with a bigger budget and with a few more gameplay mechanics.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
IT'S TRAUMA
Silent Hill needs to be back, somehow someway. We need this franchise in gaming, please. And to be fair, Konami seems to be genuinely trying this time. However, the teams they put their trust in are not very good game developers. At least so far. Genvid's Ascension is basically a cash grab, Bloober's 2 Remake looks terrible and now we have HexaDrive's Short Message. Let's see what they've done.
Our plot is about 3 girls. Amelie, Maya and the character we play as, Anita. After getting a message from Maya, Anita travels to an abandoned building that is popular among graffiti artists and among young people as a suicide spot. As Anita explores the building, she uncovers disturbing information about Maya, Amelie and even revists her own traumatic past.
Themes of the plot here are great and very modern. It's about being yourself, believing in yourself, the need to be accepted, social media usage and friendship issues in our day and age. However, it took me 2 hours to finish the game with thorough exploration. So if you rush it, I'm sure it can be completed in 75-80 minutes.
For a game experience as short as this one, trying to touch on all those topics and make a good story is an almost impossible task. And the writers of this game weren't able to find a way to do it. Almost all of the topics I mentioned are briefly discussed and because you can't fully connect to these characters, you just don't feel anything during big story moments or reveals.
A 5-6 hour bigger budget but still smaller scale game would do this story justice. In this form, the story is just mediocre. Oh and by the way, dialogues are very cringe. The subject matter is handled well and yes, thoughts of today's youngsters have been captured nicely but the portrayal of those thoughts with the dialogues are nothing like what today's generation talks like.
If we turn our attention to the gameplay front, well, we can't see much. Short Message is just a walking simulator. You are in a building, you walk around, look at diaries or messages and that's most of what the gameplay here is all about.
Are there any puzzles? There is one. It's not something that's too hard, I wished there were more puzzles but seeing that one puzzle was a nice change of pace. And there are chase sequences. Which, doesn't work. I mean, they work. There are like 4 of them and yes, they are tense encounters.
The monster's design here is also pretty unique and suits the story well. However, the problem is the third and especially final chase sequences. In the third one, the way you need to go is not clear so I had to try it a couple of times. The monster got me. It was due to skill too probably. I'm sure some people with better reflexes could beat that in one go. But the final one? The monster is constantly chasing you, everywhere looks the same so you feel like you are in a labyrinth.
And you need to find 5-6 different photos which will unlock a locked door. I spent like 20 minutes on this chase. Like I said, the place is like a labyrinth with not much enough things to differentiate each place. So you will go back and forth to the same places you go.
Exploring them is also not possible because the monster just doesn't let you go. Obviously, it one shots you by the way. And it can teleport. It can teleport to right in front of you. You open a door and it's right in front of you.
So TLDR, gameplay is also mediocre just like the story. Exploring, learning about the story that's all fine. And the one puzzle was a nice addition. But those 2 chases, especially that last one took a lot of my enjoyment. Not that I had too much of in in the first place...
Finally, let's talk technical stuff. Our character's face model is weird but the overall atmosphere is strong. Especially in the chases, atmosphere is fantastic. However, there are frame drops. I played this on PS5 and I think that's the only platform it's available on and there are constant frame drops. It's annoying. The game is not very fast paced so it doesn't kill the experience but it's annoying.
Silent Hill: The Short Message is, not very good. I don't think it's bad, the themes of the story are really solid and the design of the creature as well as the atmosphere is great too. However, this 2 hour free game doesn't do this story concept justice and leaves too much on the table. And the gameplay is just, walking with a few terrible chases and a simple puzzle. This game had a potential but it needed to be longer with a bigger budget and with a few more gameplay mechanics.
The Full Review(No Spoilers):
IT'S TRAUMA
Silent Hill needs to be back, somehow someway. We need this franchise in gaming, please. And to be fair, Konami seems to be genuinely trying this time. However, the teams they put their trust in are not very good game developers. At least so far. Genvid's Ascension is basically a cash grab, Bloober's 2 Remake looks terrible and now we have HexaDrive's Short Message. Let's see what they've done.
Our plot is about 3 girls. Amelie, Maya and the character we play as, Anita. After getting a message from Maya, Anita travels to an abandoned building that is popular among graffiti artists and among young people as a suicide spot. As Anita explores the building, she uncovers disturbing information about Maya, Amelie and even revists her own traumatic past.
Themes of the plot here are great and very modern. It's about being yourself, believing in yourself, the need to be accepted, social media usage and friendship issues in our day and age. However, it took me 2 hours to finish the game with thorough exploration. So if you rush it, I'm sure it can be completed in 75-80 minutes.
For a game experience as short as this one, trying to touch on all those topics and make a good story is an almost impossible task. And the writers of this game weren't able to find a way to do it. Almost all of the topics I mentioned are briefly discussed and because you can't fully connect to these characters, you just don't feel anything during big story moments or reveals.
A 5-6 hour bigger budget but still smaller scale game would do this story justice. In this form, the story is just mediocre. Oh and by the way, dialogues are very cringe. The subject matter is handled well and yes, thoughts of today's youngsters have been captured nicely but the portrayal of those thoughts with the dialogues are nothing like what today's generation talks like.
If we turn our attention to the gameplay front, well, we can't see much. Short Message is just a walking simulator. You are in a building, you walk around, look at diaries or messages and that's most of what the gameplay here is all about.
Are there any puzzles? There is one. It's not something that's too hard, I wished there were more puzzles but seeing that one puzzle was a nice change of pace. And there are chase sequences. Which, doesn't work. I mean, they work. There are like 4 of them and yes, they are tense encounters.
The monster's design here is also pretty unique and suits the story well. However, the problem is the third and especially final chase sequences. In the third one, the way you need to go is not clear so I had to try it a couple of times. The monster got me. It was due to skill too probably. I'm sure some people with better reflexes could beat that in one go. But the final one? The monster is constantly chasing you, everywhere looks the same so you feel like you are in a labyrinth.
And you need to find 5-6 different photos which will unlock a locked door. I spent like 20 minutes on this chase. Like I said, the place is like a labyrinth with not much enough things to differentiate each place. So you will go back and forth to the same places you go.
Exploring them is also not possible because the monster just doesn't let you go. Obviously, it one shots you by the way. And it can teleport. It can teleport to right in front of you. You open a door and it's right in front of you.
So TLDR, gameplay is also mediocre just like the story. Exploring, learning about the story that's all fine. And the one puzzle was a nice addition. But those 2 chases, especially that last one took a lot of my enjoyment. Not that I had too much of in in the first place...
Finally, let's talk technical stuff. Our character's face model is weird but the overall atmosphere is strong. Especially in the chases, atmosphere is fantastic. However, there are frame drops. I played this on PS5 and I think that's the only platform it's available on and there are constant frame drops. It's annoying. The game is not very fast paced so it doesn't kill the experience but it's annoying.
Silent Hill: The Short Message is, not very good. I don't think it's bad, the themes of the story are really solid and the design of the creature as well as the atmosphere is great too. However, this 2 hour free game doesn't do this story concept justice and leaves too much on the table. And the gameplay is just, walking with a few terrible chases and a simple puzzle. This game had a potential but it needed to be longer with a bigger budget and with a few more gameplay mechanics.
The Walking Dead Episode 3: Long Road Ahead is a solid follow-up to Episode 2. It's much closer to the quality of Episode 1 thanks to some much better pacing and better character moments. Puzzles returning was also nice but the second half of this episode was weak compared to the drugstore sequence of the first so it's disappointing that nothing is still able to beat that whole great sequence.
The Full Review(No Spoilers for THIS Episode, Spoilers for Previous Episodes):
One Bad Day
After a fantastic starting episode and a great second one, The Walking Dead's third episode continues the momentum. It's not the perfect episode but yet again it's a great episode with some very tough choices.
Our story continues a week after what happened at the end of the previous one. The group is back at the motel but missing a few people. Kenny still wants to go out with his RV while Lilly still wants to stay and defend the motel. However, the big problems starts when Lilly realizes that someone has been stealing their supplies.
This is just the very beginning though as thar story evolves quite quickly and then it goes into some very interesting places. The writing here, especially the relationships between characters was much better than the second episode. Because Episode 1's writer Sean Vanaman is back. With Co-Writers Mark Darin, Jake Rodkin and Harrison G. Pink.
The first 40-50 minutes of this episode are especially very well written and really well paced. However, the second half of the episode does have some moments that slows the story. Thankfully everything gets a little bit more interesting with 2 new additions to the cast and an interesting cliffhanger.
In terms of gameplay, the little puzzle boxes of Episode 1 returns. The second episode was much more of a linear story even though it had a HUB area. This is linear too obviously but you have a little bit more options to decide which thing you do first.
It's still not as strong as the drugstore of Episode 1 but the train here in Episode 3 works as a nice HUB you can explore and unlock more of. The choices here are also very very tough. Episode 1 Carley or Doug level stuff. Technically this episode was better which was nice to see.
The Walking Dead Episode 3: Long Road Ahead is a solid follow-up to Episode 2. It's much closer to the quality of Episode 1 thanks to some much better pacing and better character moments. Puzzles returning was also nice but the second half of this episode was weak compared to the drugstore sequence of the first so it's disappointing that nothing is still able to beat that whole great sequence.
The Full Review(No Spoilers for THIS Episode, Spoilers for Previous Episodes):
One Bad Day
After a fantastic starting episode and a great second one, The Walking Dead's third episode continues the momentum. It's not the perfect episode but yet again it's a great episode with some very tough choices.
Our story continues a week after what happened at the end of the previous one. The group is back at the motel but missing a few people. Kenny still wants to go out with his RV while Lilly still wants to stay and defend the motel. However, the big problems starts when Lilly realizes that someone has been stealing their supplies.
This is just the very beginning though as thar story evolves quite quickly and then it goes into some very interesting places. The writing here, especially the relationships between characters was much better than the second episode. Because Episode 1's writer Sean Vanaman is back. With Co-Writers Mark Darin, Jake Rodkin and Harrison G. Pink.
The first 40-50 minutes of this episode are especially very well written and really well paced. However, the second half of the episode does have some moments that slows the story. Thankfully everything gets a little bit more interesting with 2 new additions to the cast and an interesting cliffhanger.
In terms of gameplay, the little puzzle boxes of Episode 1 returns. The second episode was much more of a linear story even though it had a HUB area. This is linear too obviously but you have a little bit more options to decide which thing you do first.
It's still not as strong as the drugstore of Episode 1 but the train here in Episode 3 works as a nice HUB you can explore and unlock more of. The choices here are also very very tough. Episode 1 Carley or Doug level stuff. Technically this episode was better which was nice to see.
The Walking Dead Episode 3: Long Road Ahead is a solid follow-up to Episode 2. It's much closer to the quality of Episode 1 thanks to some much better pacing and better character moments. Puzzles returning was also nice but the second half of this episode was weak compared to the drugstore sequence of the first so it's disappointing that nothing is still able to beat that whole great sequence.
"Starved for Help" is a great second episode for The Walking Dead. Writing continues to be solid and the choices are difficult. However, this episode has a few pacing problems and the overall technical quality continues to be poor.
The Full Review(No Spoilers for THIS Episode, Spoilers for Previous Episodes):
Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover
After a fantastic start to the series, Telltale's The Walking Dead continues with another strong episode that only has a few pacing problems.
This episode starts 3 months after the events of the first one. Our group is still staying at the hotel but they have a huge problem. Food. As their food supply starts to go low, tensions rise up in the group. However, two new people they met promises a trade with them. Their food for our gas. To make this trade, a few people from our group goes with these new people but they quickly realize that something is wrong.
This whole episode is about these new people and the problems they have. Twists and turns are obviously included and overall I really enjoyed the story here. Writers Mark Darin and Chuck Jordan did a good job with the plot and the character developments we got here.
Unfortunately, my main problem was the pacing. The opening is pretty strong, even stronger than the first episode's opening. But then the episode continues slowly until the very end of the episode. There is one moment that is a bit more action-y but that is it. Opening, ending, and a very brief 3-4 minute sequence towards the end of the first act.
There is nothing like the Motel puzzle thing or the fight with the zombie officer. Those high action scenes aren't featured here. The hard choices continues though. There is especially a scene at the first act where you need to do food distribution and you don't have enough to give to all. That scene was great. Even if a similar thing to it was featured in the previous episode as a side objective.
It took me 2 hours to finish this episode. Sinilarly to Episode 1, there is a HUB area of this episode you are constantly returning to. There are some other places as well but this time you go to them much more linearly. It's not like the first episode's drug store where you could see a lot of puzzles just waited to be solved. Again, there are not much puzzles like that in this episode. It's much more dialogue heavy.
Technically, the art direction continues to be strong but the animation quality and overall technical quality is poor. Not too poor but you will feel that there is something wrong with this game technically.
"Starved for Help" is a great second episode for The Walking Dead. Writing continues to be solid and the choices are difficult. However, this episode has a few pacing problems and the overall technical quality continues to be poor.
The Full Review(No Spoilers for THIS Episode, Spoilers for Previous Episodes):
Don't Judge A Book By It's Cover
After a fantastic start to the series, Telltale's The Walking Dead continues with another strong episode that only has a few pacing problems.
This episode starts 3 months after the events of the first one. Our group is still staying at the hotel but they have a huge problem. Food. As their food supply starts to go low, tensions rise up in the group. However, two new people they met promises a trade with them. Their food for our gas. To make this trade, a few people from our group goes with these new people but they quickly realize that something is wrong.
This whole episode is about these new people and the problems they have. Twists and turns are obviously included and overall I really enjoyed the story here. Writers Mark Darin and Chuck Jordan did a good job with the plot and the character developments we got here.
Unfortunately, my main problem was the pacing. The opening is pretty strong, even stronger than the first episode's opening. But then the episode continues slowly until the very end of the episode. There is one moment that is a bit more action-y but that is it. Opening, ending, and a very brief 3-4 minute sequence towards the end of the first act.
There is nothing like the Motel puzzle thing or the fight with the zombie officer. Those high action scenes aren't featured here. The hard choices continues though. There is especially a scene at the first act where you need to do food distribution and you don't have enough to give to all. That scene was great. Even if a similar thing to it was featured in the previous episode as a side objective.
It took me 2 hours to finish this episode. Sinilarly to Episode 1, there is a HUB area of this episode you are constantly returning to. There are some other places as well but this time you go to them much more linearly. It's not like the first episode's drug store where you could see a lot of puzzles just waited to be solved. Again, there are not much puzzles like that in this episode. It's much more dialogue heavy.
Technically, the art direction continues to be strong but the animation quality and overall technical quality is poor. Not too poor but you will feel that there is something wrong with this game technically.
"Starved for Help" is a great second episode for The Walking Dead. Writing continues to be solid and the choices are difficult. However, this episode has a few pacing problems and the overall technical quality continues to be poor.