The biggest example of "missed potential" I think I've ever seen. You've got survival horror god Shinji Mikami, gaming auteur madman Suda51, and horror composer extraordinaire Akira Yamaoka working together on their own brand new third person shooter about a bounty hunter named Garcia Fucking Hotspur going down to hell with his talking bone-gun Johnson to save his girlfriend from a demon. It sounds like a perfect combination of elements to give me everything I'd want in a game, but in execution it feels like everybody brought B or C-tier effort to it. The gameplay is blander than untoasted bread, the soundtrack barely leaves an impression, and the narrative feels so desperate to be considered "whacky" that it fails to actually find anything engaging within it. Every once in a while, it finds a flash of identity and runs with it - the storybook introductions to the boss fights, the neon-soaked aesthetics of a few of the levels - but there's never a moment where you can take a step back and see a unique identity coalescing. Apparently this was a miserable experience for Suda since EA was constantly undercutting his ideas in favor of more market-friendly concepts, so I feel bad being so hard on it. It really isn't too bad at the end of the day, but it's hard to stomach an okay game when you can tell it could have been amazing.

Reviewed on May 31, 2022


Comments