20
Clearing My Backlog #1
I don’t have much experience with “classic shooters”, so when I originally tried this game out, I fucking hated it. I thought it was confusing, unintuitive, and plainly unfun; so I instantly shelved it thinking I’d never go back to finishing it, and while I have now gotten 100% on it, those problems that I had are still present.
This is the first game that I randomly picked to go back to and complete, with the hopes of finally catching up on all of the unplayed — and/or unfinished — games that I have in my backlog (which is a lot, 130-something) so it’s about to be a long 10 years.
I have a love/hate relationship with the level design here, sometimes it can be adrenaline-inducing leading to me zapping around the place like the fucking flash blasting everyone in my way, but then at other times it can be a disjointed mess that makes me take cover for several minutes at a time, makes me look for a singular item/key/switch which can take ages, and makes me feel like a snail taking forever to do a seemingly simple task, and unfortunately the latter is far too common. When the momentum hits, it really hits; it becomes fast paced, but then you’re immediately halted when the game forces you to backtrack through several hallways/rooms that all look the same to the point where I don't know where I’m supposed to be going, there’s no sense of flow, or a general sense of direction. Most of these levels can be beaten in 3-7 minutes, but I bet most people will be taking 15-20 minutes just because of how convoluted it all feels. There’s also this weird thing where some of the levels are rigged with explosives, so you’ll be killed out of nowhere, at random points in the level and it’s one of the most annoying things I’ve ever experienced in any game.
I found myself playing on the lowest difficulty with this one, which is the only difficulty that allowed me to have some fun with it. I tried the hardest one, and then also the second lowest, and they all bombard you with enemies which brings me back to the “makes me take cover for several minutes at a time” thing — which is easily the most boring way to play this game imo.
As for variety, there’s a decent amount of it. The guns all feel unique, sure, but the game doesn’t force you to use any of them on specific enemies, so you’ll probably just end up using your favourite one throughout the entire game — like I did — but they’re all mostly fun, except the shuriken. Enemy variety is okay too, but I found it weird how it’s basically impossible to dodge Evil Ninjas’ attacks, they literally have aimbot and will 100% hit you with every single bullet.
For the most part, this is an extremely outdated game with its humour, gameplay, and abundance of technical issues. I thought this was supposed to be a remaster? so why are there sound issues, no autosaves, no 1440p without the game breaking, and plenty more QoL issues that just aren’t resolved? I could’ve seen this game being good — maybe even great — but it’s just not very fun to play.
Playtime: 12.4 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Clearing My Backlog
2013 - Ranked
Clearing My Backlog #1
I don’t have much experience with “classic shooters”, so when I originally tried this game out, I fucking hated it. I thought it was confusing, unintuitive, and plainly unfun; so I instantly shelved it thinking I’d never go back to finishing it, and while I have now gotten 100% on it, those problems that I had are still present.
This is the first game that I randomly picked to go back to and complete, with the hopes of finally catching up on all of the unplayed — and/or unfinished — games that I have in my backlog (which is a lot, 130-something) so it’s about to be a long 10 years.
I have a love/hate relationship with the level design here, sometimes it can be adrenaline-inducing leading to me zapping around the place like the fucking flash blasting everyone in my way, but then at other times it can be a disjointed mess that makes me take cover for several minutes at a time, makes me look for a singular item/key/switch which can take ages, and makes me feel like a snail taking forever to do a seemingly simple task, and unfortunately the latter is far too common. When the momentum hits, it really hits; it becomes fast paced, but then you’re immediately halted when the game forces you to backtrack through several hallways/rooms that all look the same to the point where I don't know where I’m supposed to be going, there’s no sense of flow, or a general sense of direction. Most of these levels can be beaten in 3-7 minutes, but I bet most people will be taking 15-20 minutes just because of how convoluted it all feels. There’s also this weird thing where some of the levels are rigged with explosives, so you’ll be killed out of nowhere, at random points in the level and it’s one of the most annoying things I’ve ever experienced in any game.
I found myself playing on the lowest difficulty with this one, which is the only difficulty that allowed me to have some fun with it. I tried the hardest one, and then also the second lowest, and they all bombard you with enemies which brings me back to the “makes me take cover for several minutes at a time” thing — which is easily the most boring way to play this game imo.
As for variety, there’s a decent amount of it. The guns all feel unique, sure, but the game doesn’t force you to use any of them on specific enemies, so you’ll probably just end up using your favourite one throughout the entire game — like I did — but they’re all mostly fun, except the shuriken. Enemy variety is okay too, but I found it weird how it’s basically impossible to dodge Evil Ninjas’ attacks, they literally have aimbot and will 100% hit you with every single bullet.
For the most part, this is an extremely outdated game with its humour, gameplay, and abundance of technical issues. I thought this was supposed to be a remaster? so why are there sound issues, no autosaves, no 1440p without the game breaking, and plenty more QoL issues that just aren’t resolved? I could’ve seen this game being good — maybe even great — but it’s just not very fun to play.
Playtime: 12.4 hours
Every Game I've Ever Played - Ranked (By Score)
Clearing My Backlog
2013 - Ranked