Not a game.

I guess it's okay for people who don't know how to download an emulator. The room was a cool idea, but it doesn't look that good or elicit nostalgia. Replayed Golden Axe with it, it was alright. But essentially this thing is pointless.

They could've made it better by offering light remasters of our favorite games. Just slight overhauls, adding QoL improvements or widescreen support, etc. Or, if you're not gonna change anything about the games, at least sell them in bundles, like 50 for the price of one. Selling each game as a separate DLC is ridiculous, when anybody can download the entire Genesis library from a million websites.

Having played Human Revolution, I went into this with pretty low expectations, but it really exceeded them.

First of all, most of my criticisms of HR had to do with how much it streamlined and dumbed down Deus Ex, both in terms of the gameplay and the story. Either of which don't really apply much to this though, since this is a mobile spin-off game that you don't really expect to be complex or even good. But for what it is, it's actually pretty amazing.

Obviously, if I rated this as a PC game, it would've been like a 2 at most. If I rated it as a mainline Deus Ex game, would've been even lower. But as a mobile game? Easily one of the best I've played. It has pretty big and open maps that you can freely traverse and explore, most challenges can be tackled in several ways, full-on voice acting, dialogue trees, leveling system, weapon improvements, pretty decent stealth and combat for a mobile game. If this came out in the early 2000s, this could've passed for a full-blown PC release. It would've still been a terrible Deus Ex game, but if it was called something else, I'm sure it would've gotten decent ratings. Hell, if it came out on PS Vita in 2013, I would've played the hell out of it (if only it was a bit longer).

Now, obviously, the story here is pretty generic and boring. Having learned from HR, I kinda skipped most of the dialogue and didn't read any of the materials. Maybe that's why it took me only 2.3 hours to beat it. But tbf I didn't explore it as much as I would've if I was playing it on PS Vita (or mobile with button attachments, I don't play 3D games with touch screen). You kinda just don't wanna spend too much time playing a mobile game on PC.

And also, this game is as yellow as HR, which sucks. But the quality of the graphics for a mobile game is pretty astonishing. Although, I suspect it got a facelift for the PC port. Still, I imagine it was mostly just sharper textures and some lighting, so I can still tell it looked great on mobile. And the music is really nice.

Playing it on PC is also kinda cheating. Enemies have pretty generous hit-boxes and can't properly hide in cover. Which would be okay on mobile or even on console, where it's difficult to aim. But playing with a mouse makes you a god. You can walk into any building and murder everyone. It does get tougher towards the end of the game because the enemies get more bullet-spongy, and that's kinda where the microtransaction bullshit becomes prominent.

I removed a whole star for the microtransactions here. If you don't invest real money into this game, you're missing out on at least 80% of weapons/items/upgrades. It is possible to beat the game without them, but it gets really tough at the end, and that's playing it on PC. I have no idea how people beat it on mobile phones. But if I had to pay money just to beat a game, it wouldn't even feel rewarding.

This kinda leaves this review in a weird territory. Because I'm rating this as a mobile game, but I don't know if you can even beat it on mobile without microtransactions. The fucked up thing is that the game actually costs money. So if you're buying it on PC, you're basically overpaying, because you're getting a mobile game that's about 3 hours long with half the content locked behind a paywall. Pretty bad deal, if you ask me.

P.S. One funny thing I noticed was in the beginning one of the Russian guards was whistling an actual Russian song. I don't remember what the song is called or where it's from (might've been a soundtrack to some Soviet movie), but it definitely is a real song that had existed before this game's creation.

Some day I'll write a better review of it. But until then here's my Steam review from May 2020 with some minor alterations

Max Payne and Max Payne 2 are among the best video games ever made and are in my personal top-10. And this is the case when a sequel made about half a decade later by another developer is almost as good as the originals. Yes, many disagree, but this is a near-perfect sequel, and here's why:

1. The gameplay conveys the spirit of the originals instead of trying to copy them, hence feeling both innovative and nostalgic at the same time. Every element of the game-design is made to remind you of the past without feeling repetitive. The only completely new feature is cover-shooting, but it's integrated in such a natural way. You never just sit in the cover and shoot everyone like in other games with this mechanic. You're still constantly moving because your enemies are constantly trying to flank you or destroy your cover, so in essence the gameplay involves more strategy as you move from spot to spot, barely keeping yourself alive, gobbling up painkillers. It's intense and addictive. This game stands on its own, it's not just a clone of the previous games with a few new features. And yet never for a moment you will feel like it's not Max Payne.

2. The story is emotional and suspenseful, carrying over that cynicism and wit from the previous games, yet taking itself more seriously this time. The creators knew they couldn't just make it a simple continuation of the story. It would've never lived up to its predecessors. So they've put their own spin on it. This feels more like an epilogue than a direct sequel, in a similar fashion to The Godfather Part 3. Yes, the story in the previous installment was self-sufficient, yes this third entry didn't need to exist, but it does, so they take this one in a different direction and explore a new side to the main character.

3. Neo-noir. This point is more of a continuation of the previous one, but I felt like this needed to be addressed separately. Ever since the game came out I kept hearing people complain: "Max Payne 3 is not noir". It is. And if you disagree, you don't understand what noir is. While the original 2 games paid tribute to the 1940s' black-&-white movies, this game references the neo-noir of the 60s and 70s, which had a tendency towards sunny, hot environments, social alienation of the protagonist (i.e. being lost in a country where nobody speaks your language), exploration of societal issues such as poverty, prostitution, drugs, etc., the existence of a darker underbelly (i.e. organ trade), etc. All of these elements are present in Max Payne 3. Not only that, you can clearly see the noir structure in the plot: things constantly get worse and worse as you progress. You complete an action-packed mission, getting closer and closer to your goal, but in the end you fail. Every step forward seems to be dragging you further down to hell with bodies piling up and things spiraling out of control. How is this not noir? This type of structure is one of the core elements of noir.

4. The physics and controls work in perfect unison to convey the sense of age of the protagonist and immerse you into the game. Max doesn't always immediately react to your inputs, but it's done in such a natural way that you never feel like the game is broken, but rather it sells you that illusion of being older and weaker. And yet throughout all this, your aim is sharper than ever. It's almost like Max knew he was getting older and started to rely more on accuracy than agility, understanding he's not as fast anymore. The element of cover-shooting fits perfectly into this theme.

5. The soundtrack. I don't have much to say about it, aside from it's amazing and fits the game's art direction, gameplay and story perfectly. It's not the same music as the first two games, and yet the main theme from them remains a haunting presence, appearing at important moments and reminding you yet again that, despite how distant the events of this game feel from the first two games, it's still Max Payne. It further contributes to the epilogian spirit of this sequel, creating a sense of structural climax (this being the third act of a trilogy) and closure.

Conclusion: Every step of this game is designed with an incredible amount of care and attention to detail. This game is an experience every element of which fits perfectly with the rest, and where the whole is better than the sum of its parts. I honestly can't imagine how else this game could be improved. If I really HAD to nitpick, the only thing I dislike about it is how Max keeps switching weapons before every cutscene. I think this was probably done because they could only record cutscenes once and had to pick which weapon they'd want to feature in them, but at the same time they wanted to keep continuity and fluid transition between cutscenes and gameplay. I personally would prefer that they break this continuity in favour of the gameplay, but still this is such a minor issue. I think, were the first 2 games not better in regards to the story and atmosphere, I would've probably called this the best game in the series. It's such a surprise to see a different developer nail the sequel so well. This is a 10/10 type of game. A must-play. A masterpiece.

There's this strange idea that simplicity equals low quality. I don't subscribe to that. Sometimes it's the complete opposite in fact.

Spider-Man 2: The Game is a simple game made for children. And for what it is, it achieves its goals with excellence.

In terms of presentation, it perfectly captures the aesthetic and tone of the movie, while adding a flavor of the comic-book craziness. But ultimately it's still a very cinematic game. The pre-rendered cutscenes are all spectacles to behold. The voice acting is very believable, Peter Parker sounds just like Tobey Maguire.

When it comes to gameplay, it's mostly aiming-focused, similar to the first three Harry Potter games. Your character will usually automatically determine which action needs to be performed when you point a reticle at something. That being said, there's still plenty of nuance (for a kids' game) to combat and platforming. Through experience you can find more efficient ways to fight and traverse levels.

It's not an open-world game, but most of the levels are huge, open and filled with secrets and easter eggs, giving you room to explore. I've played through this game like 30 times, but I still keep finding new places and secrets. Yet at the same time the level design doesn't make the locations feel empty and boring. You could mentally divide level into segments of mini-tasks, where the environments are crafted to guide the player to the completion of these tasks while throwing some challenges their way. There's never a moment when you're not busy platforming, solving puzzles or fighting. There's also never a moment you get lost or confused about what to do.

The game is very short, and it's got a really good flow. You can beat it in one sitting and not even notice how the time passed.

Again I wanna stress that this game is made for kids, so all challenges are very easy. If you're the type of person who believes an easy mode can ruin a game, this game is not for you. But personally, I don't see why that's the game's fault. As a piece of kids' media, it does exactly what it was meant to do, and does it brilliantly. I can testify as someone who bought this as a kid and spent countless enjoyable hours in it. And as someone who doesn't get blinded by nostalgia (you can find many of my reviews where I revisit childhood favorites and get disappointed), I say this game holds up.

This was probably my first football game ever. I think I might've seen one Sega Genesis football game before this, but I never really played that one.

It's still fun to play, even though it lacks a lot of features I've gotten used to over the years. For example, in most football games you can just hold down a button, and your guy will automatically run towards the ball and try to grab it. Here, you have to manually run up to the enemy players and press a grab button, which, if you don't time it right, will fail.

In addition, I'm used to a map like in PES games, but here all you get is some arrows under your selected player, showing the nearby players.

The biggest downside, I'd say, is that the controls are not remappable. And by default the same button is used for grabbing the ball and trying to score a goal. So you will often be frantically trying to grab the ball from the enemy, only to immediately kick it far away by accident.

In terms of game modes and customization, it's really bare bones as well. Practially all you can do is either play a match (where you do get stadium, time and weather settings) or play a tournament.

There is only one song, which plays in the menu, and it's alright. The sounds in general are pretty okay. I kinda liked the graphics too, including the artstyle,

Overall, pretty decent, but there's literally no reason to favor it over PES or FIFA.

Now I wanna rant about the IGDB again. I filled out the lacking info on this game and spent some time looking for a decent cover. The problem is, it seems this game was only officially released in Eastern Europe, so it's near-impossible to find an English cover, and completely impossible to find one in a decent resolution. So after scouring the internet I found a decently-sized DVD-format Russian cover, that honestly looked pretty sick. I uploaded it, but it was rejected on the grounds of "the current cover has the correct title". Like wtf?

I did point out in my submission that the current "cover" is just a screenshot of the loading screen IN POLISH. So technically, it doesn't have the correct title either. The Russian cover that I was uploading had the official Russian title for the game, which is Football: World Cup 2002, almost a direct translation. The Polish title, if I understand it well, means "The Age of Football 2002". So neither of the titles is exactly the same as English. Either both of them are correct, or both incorrect. The only difference is the language.

So because the IGDB is run by dumbasses, this game's page will continue having a wrongly-formatted Polish screenshot for a cover.

A game directed by Hideaki Itsuno, I should really like it, but I don't.

I'm honestly baffled as to all the praise this game gets, especially regarding its combat. I found it very clunky, unresponsive and not really complex. I've played a number of Action RPGs, and you can't tell me this is one of the better examples of combat in the genre. It's especially disappointing coming from the director of Devil May Cry 3 and 4, which have some of the best combat in any game ever.

One of the main gimmicks of this game is climbing onto huge monsters, which is apparently a feature first introduced in Shadow of the Colossus. Now, I've not played Shadow of the Colossus, but I have seen this feature in another game - Castlevania: Lords of Shadow. I didn't like it there, and I don't like it here. I don't really see why people find it exciting to turn a boss fight into a slow and tedious platforming section. It's awkward and frustrating, as the camera keeps shifting and altering your directional controls, and the monster keeps throwing you off before you manage to reach the head. In addition, if you play as a mage (which is the mistake I made on my first attempt), this feature is completely lost on you, because you're a ranged and vulnerable class that should stay away from the enemies and can shoot them in the head from a distance.

I mean, that's kinda a half-truth, because you can't really aim with your regular attack as a mage. Only with your skills, which it takes forever to cast. That is if your button presses register, which they might not, because the controls and animations are so ass. You have to hold down Ctrl or Alt and then click one of the mouse buttons (and hold it? Sometimes? I'm not sure tbh), and the skill ends up being cast when you release Ctrl or Alt, not when you release the mouse button. This is incredibly counter-intuitive. And because the animations are so long and can't be cancelled, sometimes you press Ctrl/Alt right after you released it but before the animation is done, and your character just ends up standing there. And you're just waiting for like a second for him to do something, because you can't tell whether the button press wasn't registered or it's just the animation taking up so long, or perhaps he ran out of stamina again, which he does constantly.

I hated stamina in Diablo 2, like most people, and could never understand its point in action-RPGs. I suppose here it functions as a sort of mana substitute. Except, the problem is, it's wasted on sprinting and blocking as well. What this essentially means is that ever action, aside from your standard attack, requires mana. And, I might be wrong about this, but I didn't see any way to tie potions to hotkeys. I have to go into the [extremely inconvenient] inventory in the midst of a battle, because my character needs a rest after every action, like he's 80 years old. Especially after blocking an enemy attack, leaving you vulnerable to a second attack.

But out of the three classes, it seems only the warrior can block enemy attacks, which is detrimental to the flow of combat. Every hit stuns you for a moment, making you unable to retaliate or break the enemy's attack-chain, and some hits knock you down, which will take you another couple of seconds to get up, during which your character doesn't respond to any button presses. If you're a magician, it's even worse, because your own attacks leave you immovable as well. You're a ranged class that can neither aim nor move while shooting. Which means you get hit and knocked down even more, which makes the whole gameplay extremely frustrating.

Kinda had more fun as a scout, who is more nimble and can actually aim and move when shooting arrows. Replayed the same portion of the game and a little more, and was surprised to run into all the exact same enemies. I kinda thought I had this many fights because I strayed away from the road (which the game warns you not to stray from), but no, you're still ambushed by enemies like every 30 seconds. And these are mostly the same types of enemies: bandits and wolves, and they're fought in the same way every time.

So after 3 boss battles and a shit ton of random encounters, you'd think there'd be some downtime for RPGing and stuff, but nope, an escort mission. I tried to force myself to play through it and died by accidentally falling off a cliff, and that's when I finally gave up. And while this death was totally on me, the level geometry in this game is pretty bizarre in general. There was a moment earlier where I slid down from a tiny hill, and then couldn't climb back up. It was about a 50 degree angle, only about a meter long, even a child could've climbed it, but not my character.

I can't really comment much on the RPG aspects of this game, but in my short time with it I barely encountered any. I leveled up a bunch of times and purchased one skill, but that is all. The game never offered me to manage stats or created a necessity to manage loot. Perhaps I missed something because I was skipping the majority of the tutorial pop-ups, but they were so goddamn annoying. 90% of the time the things they tell you are either obvious or something you had already figured out just by circumstances. Can't really say I cared about the story either. There was a bunch of generic fantasy exposition dumped on me, but I did not notice anything interesting.

I found the graphics ugly too, despite the fact they're using the same engine as Devil May Cry 4, which is a gorgeous game.

There were exactly 2 things I liked about this game: the customization and the music. That's it. Nothing else.

To be clear, played this on PS Vita, but for some reason it's not listed in the platforms.

I was kinda expecting more out of it. Thought it would be closer to Ghost Master or Polterguy for Sega Genesis. But this is much more simplistic. You just have a limited number of tools and have to utilize it against different types of characters, some of which are mages that can counter some of your attacks. This is a puzzle game where you have to figure out the correct order of "scares" on every level.

It's pretty fun for what it is, but gets boring quick. It's more like a mobile game to play when you're stuck somewhere far from real gaming platforms and just wanna kill some time.

The graphics and the music are nice, and it has slideshow cutscenes which are kinda boring and skippable.

There's really not much else to say about this game.

What the original game should've been, with the appropriate adjustment to the budget.

First of all, it's pretty incredible how they were able to fit the full-blown Assassin's Creed experience into a PSP game. The only compromises here are those of graphics and scale. Other than that, it plays almost identically.

But practically all the problems I had with the original are addressed here (as much as you can do without altering the core gameplay of course).

The boring tutorials, modern-day sections and unskippable cutscenes are gone. Nothing breaks up the game flow or ruins the immersion any more.

It's still not a stealth game, but at least it doesn't pretend to be one, getting rid of some unnecessary mechanics. More emphasis is made on combat, which, while still mostly boring, at least they don't take away your skills and weapons. You end up mostly relying on counter-attacks, which are satisfying, but can get tedious, especially as any fight can chain-link into several others. It can also be frustrating how after a successful counter-attack kill your character will disengage and just stand there to receive a hit. And trying to do something immediately might resolve in him just striking air. But I think this problem existed in the original game too.

The biggest and most important difference is how side-quests are no longer mandatory, but now there's an actual motivation to do them. They generate you profits which can then be spent on upgrades, which is yet another incentive to keep playing. These upgrades can make the gameplay much less frustrating too simply by making it easier, either through extra abilities, like auto-blocking or increased health.

Unlike the original Assassin's Creed, Bloodlines lets you just do what it was advertised to do: let you kill people as a badass assassin in Crusader states. It's still not a deep or complex game by any stretch of imagination. In fact, it's not really very fun either. But it won't stand in your way and make things difficult for you like the original did. And seeing how this is an open-world game for PSP with pretty impressive graphics, I had to add an extra half-star just for that. Still from the gameplay perspective it does not really compare to the Tenchu and Shinobido games.

Honestly, the first time I played this game, it felt perfect for what it is. It genuinely makes you feel like a gamedev without all the actual work that goes into it. And for years I'd find myself coming back to it to relive the fantasy.

But overtime I started noticing how sometimes the scores and sales of my games made no sense. For example, you could spend all your budget developing a powerful engine with cutting-edge technologies, spend a lot of time training your crew, make a big-budget game on that new engine and splurge on a large marketing campaign, and then release it to low scores and poor sales, thus completely ruining your career. Or you could create a text-based adventure on almost no budget and it will get 9+ scores and generate you millions of profits. I've always suspected something wasn't right about this.

Tried playing it with a cheat mod just now, and it confirmed my suspicions. I activated a 1337 developer, unlocked several technologies ahead of time + all the hints, and still couldn't get scores higher than 8. I moved into an office, filled my team with 1337 devs, unlocked several more technologies, added millions of money and fans, and began developing high-budget cutting edge games that were years ahead of their era, and each time I would fail to gain higher than 8. In addition, due to having millions of fans, I was selling tens of millions even with mediocre games, yet my games would always rank low on the sales charts (e.g. 60th place), implying that there are 59 more games that moved millions of units each (in the late 1980s!). Which is just ridiculous.

This game basically parasitizes on your dreams. There is no real substance to it. It's merely a graphical shell with a scripted progression.

While I remember enjoying this game on my first run, I can't help but feel cheated. And can no longer derive any joy from it. I'll keep 2 stars for the pleasant illusion it once created.

When ProStreet first came out, I was so disappointed with its deviation from the Underground formula that I quickly abandoned it, thinking it's become some sort of a hardcore simulator. However, upon revisiting it now, I feel like it's not even that good as a simulator.

The core gameplay mechanics function well. I'd even say ProStreet might have had the best handling in the series upon release. But NFS games have never really been known for their handling, and here it's still not Gran Turismo or Colin McRae Rally levels good. It's competent enough to make the gameplay fun, but it's not the star of the show like in those games. After you get used to it, you kinda just forget it. I would like to point out the fact that there's no rubber-banding, but tbf rubber-banding in a game like this would've absolutely ruined it, so it's almost a given that it's not here. The damage model is also pretty sick, but again, it's more of a bonus thing than something that would keep you playing.

By placing you in a realistic legal-racing enivronment, Black Box kinda shot themselves in a foot. Because it means no shortcuts, no traffic, no police chases and no replenishable nitro. While that makes perfect sense for the setting, it does reduce gameplay complexity, which in other racing simulators is usually achieved through the subtle improvement of gameplay mechanics (which, again, here are not on the sufficient enough level).

Instead the complexity here comes mostly from the customization and tuning. And I think this is probably what makes or breaks the game for most people. Personally, I think this whole aspect of the game is done much worse here than in the previous entries. The menus are less convenient. The tuning is not really explained to you and has way too many parameters that you wouldn't be able to figure out unless you're a carhead. And what absolutely kills it for me is how every car should be assigned to one racing mode, and each of those cars has its own unique car parts (even if it's THE SAME MODEL!). In other words, you could buy yourself a Subaru Impreza, splurge on the most expensive engine thus becoming unbeatable in grip races, but then you have to buy a new Impreza just to be able to use it in drag mode, and then buy that same engine again. This is just plain extortion that needlessly pads out the game, which btw already has a much slower progression than its predecessors.

Speaking of racing modes, I am very glad to see the return of drag racing, but here it's so mutilated. The whole thing is basically a mini-game preceded by another mini-game. You don't even look at the road while racing, because they made it's so hard to get the perfect timing, that you end up just looking at the tachometer. Not like you'd need to look at the road anyway, since now there's only one lane and no traffic, so it's not like you could crash into anything. Kinda the whole point of drag races used to be the adrenaline of driving super-fast in a straight line, constantly on the verge of crashing. Here they're just pointless. And in most cases, if you fuck up with the first gear-shift, it's basically over for you.

Regarding the presentation, which had been excellent between HP2 and Carbon, here it's just bland and boring. The aesthetics are "realistic", but they didn't have to make the colors so drab. The environments actually look pretty decent otherwise. And the soundtrack is probably my least favorite since Porsche Unleashed. It's not bad, but I can't remember a single song except for Wiley's Bow E3, but that's only because it's one of my favorite songs from one of my favorite albums. The rest of the soundtrack just kinda blends with the background.

There's seemingly no story this time around (or at least it's pretty scarce), but there is an annoying commentator, that seems to always only comment about you, like other racers don't exist. And the short cutscenes before every race (you know, where you just see cars pulling up) are for some reason unskippable, even though IIRC they're skippable in every other NFS game.

This feels like a game with a lot of potential that was ruined by the slow progression and the absolutely abominable extortionist game economy.

I think carheads would really dig this game, but I'm not one of them.

I feel like a lot of its DNA was later carried over into Hot Pursuit 2. At least mechanically and in terms of track design, it felt very similar to me. And I like HP2.

But I really hated this game's presentation. I can't stand sunsets most of the time, and in this game like 70% of all races take place at sunset. And I rarely care if the music isn't good, but here I found it so annoying. I actually ended up turning it off and driving in silence, which is something I rarely do.

Also not a huge fan of the whole "drive all Porsches through the ages" thing. The old ones are very slow and hard to control. I get that for carheads this is a great opportunity to try out cars you rarely see in video games, but for me it just felt boring and sometimes frustrating. And you have to play the old cars to unlock the new ones.

The career mode is essentially progressing through the history of Porsche, unlocking new cars as you go along. You can't play newer cars in single races either, until you unlock and buy them in the career mode. There is also a sort of secondary career mode, where you're just doing stunts, and I'm not interested in that at all.

This game just wasn't made for me. It's like every creative decision they made (other than the core gameplay mechanics) was designed specifically to annoy me.

The Sonic Heroes of the 7th generation.

Gorgeous aesthetics, stupid and unnecessary story, rudimentary combat, and fun platforming that doesn't work half the time.

Was a bit of a disappointment in 2008, but pleasant to revisit for nostalgia.

Way better than the movie.

At its core Harry Potter and the Philosopher's Stone is a pretty basic puzzle-platformer. Although it has combat too, it could barely be classified as an action game. Most of the game you're solving very simple puzzles and jumping over platforms. Despite its simplicity, it actually works really well, and the tactile feeling is sufficient enough to make the process enjoyable. I think there's just the right balance between challenges and rewards.

However, the core mechanics do have a few flaws. The spells don't always get casted; not all ledges can be grabbed onto (which can lead to some frustrating deaths out of confusion); the camera and movement controls are pretty clunky and especially become a problem during boss fights, which are the only cases you're allowed to move while shooting casting. The cutscenes are unskippable, and the checkpoints are usually placed before them, so you gotta watch them again and again every time you die.

That being said, they keep them short. There isn't a lot of story here, but it somehow manages to cover the entire plotline of the movie (maybe because most of the movie did not have much of a story either). Also, unlike the movie, there are black people in this game, hooray! It is no longer a white supremacist paradise.

One thing I love about this game is the presentation. The colors are vibrant and the music is beautiful. That's one of the main reasons I kept wanting to return to it and actually completed it, despite starting to get a little bored.

I mean, this is clearly a game designed for kids, but for what it is, it works. It's pretty simple, but it gives you a quick and immersive little adventure through Hogwarts. And, personally, as far as I can remember, I liked these first three games way more than the follow-ups. Complexity doesn't always equal quality.