lovelaika
2023
Normally, I'm inclined to complain about contemporary games being too long, but I really think Jusant could've used just a little extra time to flesh out the third act and introduce some more challenging scenarios. That might be against the Journey-like spirit, but I like the climbing system a lot and would've loved some puzzles that really require full use of the toolset!
It's a good thing this has great combat encounters, because the story is boooriiing
Ultra Deluxe is a good entry point for people who missed the 2013 standalone game. If that's you, consider this review to be more like 4.5 stars!
As a returning player and fan of the first game, I found it kind of lacking. Ten years ago, I was genuinely taken aback at the game's humor, depth, and breadth. There were fewer games willing to get so meta and tackle more complex philosophical concepts, and even fewer that I knew about as a teenager.
Ultra Deluxe has no shortage of additional content, but I didn't find much of it to be all that... new. It's the Stanley Parable, but there's just more of it. Not better or even different per se, just more.
As a returning player and fan of the first game, I found it kind of lacking. Ten years ago, I was genuinely taken aback at the game's humor, depth, and breadth. There were fewer games willing to get so meta and tackle more complex philosophical concepts, and even fewer that I knew about as a teenager.
Ultra Deluxe has no shortage of additional content, but I didn't find much of it to be all that... new. It's the Stanley Parable, but there's just more of it. Not better or even different per se, just more.
Unquestionably an improvement over the first. Handling is tighter, physics feel less floaty, and tracks are larger and more numerous. The only downside is that with the greater variety of locations, the Unnamed Pacific Island has much less identity than Utah's Monument Valley.
A rip-snortin' good time, they don't make 'em like this anymore!
A rip-snortin' good time, they don't make 'em like this anymore!
2006
The variety of vehicles and criss-crossing routes across tracks plus the loose drifty handling do an amazing job to capture that dangerous and out of control dirt racing fantasy.
They don't make for a great racing game, though. Motorstorm feels more like an impressive tech demo for the PS3 that's still too raw for commercial release. It's sequel is dramatically bigger and tighter, though I have to admit, the vibes aren't quite the same out in the Pacific as Monument Valley.
They don't make for a great racing game, though. Motorstorm feels more like an impressive tech demo for the PS3 that's still too raw for commercial release. It's sequel is dramatically bigger and tighter, though I have to admit, the vibes aren't quite the same out in the Pacific as Monument Valley.
There are two ways to play Peace Walker: as another stealth action story in the Metal Gear lineage, or as an action management sim.
If you play the first way, chewing through stages like MGS3, Peace Walker is easily one of the best. It's one of the best tales in the whole series in my eyes, despite being in the unenviable position of following up one of the most acclaimed game stories of all time. The mission-based structure can sometimes make scene transitions awkward, with you backing out to a menu to assign some guys, build some guns, and listen to some tapes and the QTE cutscenes feel unnecessary but not totally unwelcome.
Playing this way makes you pretty unlikely to unlock the game's "secret ending" but that ending really only matters as connective tissue to MGSV and is a real pain to get anyways.
The second way is to min-max and micromanage your Mother Base like no tomorrow. When the story ends, the real game begins. You put your R&D team to work, constructing stronger and stronger weapons to take on the most difficult bosses in the game, usually with your friends. Not just the secret end but the secret tapes and the AI cores and going Moster Hunting.
It's here that the game is less successful. The postgame just isn't that interesting. It's largely playing extra ops and while there are some gems in that list, most are variations on a theme with similar objectives. The extra boss fights are extremely difficult and essentially require three friends to play along and 10 years from release, there aren't many people playing. Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty good mindless fun, but it needs more narrative content or more complex systems (as would appear in MGSV) to really complete the package.
If you play the first way, chewing through stages like MGS3, Peace Walker is easily one of the best. It's one of the best tales in the whole series in my eyes, despite being in the unenviable position of following up one of the most acclaimed game stories of all time. The mission-based structure can sometimes make scene transitions awkward, with you backing out to a menu to assign some guys, build some guns, and listen to some tapes and the QTE cutscenes feel unnecessary but not totally unwelcome.
Playing this way makes you pretty unlikely to unlock the game's "secret ending" but that ending really only matters as connective tissue to MGSV and is a real pain to get anyways.
The second way is to min-max and micromanage your Mother Base like no tomorrow. When the story ends, the real game begins. You put your R&D team to work, constructing stronger and stronger weapons to take on the most difficult bosses in the game, usually with your friends. Not just the secret end but the secret tapes and the AI cores and going Moster Hunting.
It's here that the game is less successful. The postgame just isn't that interesting. It's largely playing extra ops and while there are some gems in that list, most are variations on a theme with similar objectives. The extra boss fights are extremely difficult and essentially require three friends to play along and 10 years from release, there aren't many people playing. Don't get me wrong, it's still pretty good mindless fun, but it needs more narrative content or more complex systems (as would appear in MGSV) to really complete the package.
I'm not as down on the story as others, it's the same goofy conspiracy vortex as previous games, just amped to 11. It doesn't approach any of the other games, before or after, but it's not the worst thing in the world. It has its moments.
My main gripe is with the gameplay, or lack of it really. The cutscene to interaction balance is waaaaay off here, and much of that gameplay is mandatory action sequences. Even when they aren't strictly speaking, linear, levels feel more linear even with the stupid number of weapons and gimmick items you get.
People often give The Phantom Pain guff for feeling like a game that was massively scaled back mid-development, but I think 4 is the greater offender here.
My main gripe is with the gameplay, or lack of it really. The cutscene to interaction balance is waaaaay off here, and much of that gameplay is mandatory action sequences. Even when they aren't strictly speaking, linear, levels feel more linear even with the stupid number of weapons and gimmick items you get.
People often give The Phantom Pain guff for feeling like a game that was massively scaled back mid-development, but I think 4 is the greater offender here.
Everyone loves this game so I'll skip all that to get to what I'm stuck on.
I'm torn on whether I ought to nick a half-star because compared to modern games (and modern Metal Gears), this game just feels really awkward to control. The free spinning camera goes some way to fix that compared to the original release, but there's still just enough weirdness and jank to occasionally take me out of it.
Depending on when you see this, it will be either 4.5 or 5 stars and you should expect it to change every few days. This fuckin' game...
I'm torn on whether I ought to nick a half-star because compared to modern games (and modern Metal Gears), this game just feels really awkward to control. The free spinning camera goes some way to fix that compared to the original release, but there's still just enough weirdness and jank to occasionally take me out of it.
Depending on when you see this, it will be either 4.5 or 5 stars and you should expect it to change every few days. This fuckin' game...
2007
Reviewing Team Fortress 2 is like trying to review an entire city. You can like or dislike individual parts of it, but trying to summarize the entire thing into a few sentences or even a few paragraphs feels asinine.
TF2 is so old, diverse, and ever-changing (...maybe not so much recently) that saying it IS one thing is impossible. It's kind of all things to all people. New players can jump into matchmaking, old players go back to their favorite servers. Looking for something a little more serious? Try competitive TF2 communities. Not interested in fighting at all? There are dozens of community modes and maps of all types.
So what does 4/5 stars mean? I guess I like it, it's almost easier to compress my thoughts and feelings into a form so lacking in nuance. But is this a review? Am I recommending you play this game? I can't really say, though it is free to download
TF2 is so old, diverse, and ever-changing (...maybe not so much recently) that saying it IS one thing is impossible. It's kind of all things to all people. New players can jump into matchmaking, old players go back to their favorite servers. Looking for something a little more serious? Try competitive TF2 communities. Not interested in fighting at all? There are dozens of community modes and maps of all types.
So what does 4/5 stars mean? I guess I like it, it's almost easier to compress my thoughts and feelings into a form so lacking in nuance. But is this a review? Am I recommending you play this game? I can't really say, though it is free to download
2008
I will absolutely admit that mechanically and narratively, New Vegas is the superior post-Bethesda Fallout. And still, I keep coming back to F3 as a comfort game. It's so easy for me to slip back into the muted greens and browns of the Capital Wasteland. New Vegas and 4 and 76 even may be newer and shinier, but Fallout 3 is the game I still think about.