Cold steel 2 was a significant improvement from 1, all the problems I had with the first game were fixed as well as expanding upon the things I liked. However as an event that's been teased for like 4 games this feels extraordinarily lackluster. I understand this was a personal journey for Rean but you'd think a civil war that's been teased since like 4 games ago would be on a grander scale.

Obviously Rean isn't on the frontlines so he won't see the brunt of it but I didn't feel any significant change in most of the environments or any tension when visiting a town. I know one of the ways they tried to make us feel the effects of the war was by not allowing travel between towns but that feels meaningless when you couldn't even do it in the first game. I felt more immersed during sky fcs final chapters.

To summarises my point there was a drastic lack of change the war brought between Cold Steel 1 and 2. The things I could do in 1 I could still do in 2 despite fighting a losing war. This disconnect between the narrative and the gameplay felt jarring as hell.

Ubisoft is nowadays often (and rightly) reviled for its empty openworlds, filled with millions of collectible items that, in the end, produce no real effect on the player.

Blood Dragon comes out in 2013 and, ALREADY aware of this bad turn Ubisoft games were taking, it jokes about it, creating the perfect version of these games: a parody. Not a parody that completely destroys and insults its source of inspiration, but a parody that takes what works and repeats it, joking about it.

In Blood Dragon, players find themselves in a fairly small map, easily walked around by the very fast protagonist. This makes collecting collectibles fast, fun, and assufacient. Not enough? Collectables FINALLY unlock something useful for the game: weapon modifications, EXCELLENT weapon modifications.

The plot is obviously a parody of 80s movies, and here again I find myself loving it: the protagonist kills avalanches of enemies without turning it into a massacre, but simply like anyone who crushes Goombas in Super Mario. They are there to be killed in fun ways. And this allows for an almost relaxing gameplay, a power fantasy where you can feel invincible without too much difficulty, something missing in some "git gud" games.

Played on Xbox Series S, very short loads, graphically perfect, a marvel that I highly recommend.

with mods highest difficulty and playing without save/load this is ultimate sigma africa survival videogame. after some relaxing driving with a nice view of nigilistic but beautiful Africa sound of enemy cars pumps adrenalin through your system, AI give you panic time after time, guns just breaks and malaria... all systems just create so juicey sigma gameplay I don't even want to nagging about strange voice acting.

it's a gem. suprisingly it got many similarities with STALKER series about how just work gameplay loop and the openworld and maybe... in alternate universe far cry had turned on that path.