Short Game Reviews: March 2023

Guns, Gore, and Cannoli:

Pretty enjoyable Metal Slug style game in the Prohibiation era featuring zombies. The game nails the moment to moment shooting action with solid feedback for guns and the game has a decent selection of firearms if standard fare. Ammo is distributed for all of the weapons to the point where all of the guns will actively be used. The game is also pretty challenging even on easy, I am not sure if it's because the game is meant to be played in coop or not, but I do love how the developers spreaded out the checkpoints, every time it feels like the game may enter into the realm of frustration, the game always gives a checkpoint before that frustration truly starts to set in. Even on easy, the game is challenging but only in one instance was it ever truly frustrating. Level design is also solid for the kind of game it is. The story and writing is also pretty decent and engaging especially for the kind of game it is. Maybe it's because I find the whole concept of the heavily parodied gangster movie to be very appealing. The zombie twist also helps the game stand out too.

My only big gripes with the game that prevents me from calling it great is the Rat Boss that happens in the sewer level because he has attacks you can't always reliably dodge, and on top of all this, the game also commits a boss battle sin I dislike so much which is sending in fodder enemies while fighting the boss himself. I never liked this since the boss should feel like a threat on his own, him relying on goons for help just feels like a cheap of adding challenge since you are trying to focus on the boss and the fodder enemies get in the way constantly. Another issue is that you can really aim your gun and it can lead to odd moments where you want to be precise but can't, and finally the last two issues which are interconnected to me are the hitboxes and the game having a bad habbit of swarming you with too many enemies up close. I say they are interwined because there are moments where enemies will actively swarm you and you will be firing your gun up close and it feels like your bullets aren't even registering the hits. This can lead to some frustration.

Overall, I played the game because I enjoyed the recent Warhammer game by the same dev, and this game was a decent precursor to that game.

Freedom Planet:

Coming from a guy who doesn't really like the 2D Sonic games that much I enjoyed this game a lot more than I thought I was going to. I remember some people saying this game made improvements to the classic Sonic formula and I do feel it. The biggest addition was the fact that you didn't grind to halt and lose health every time you got hit. It's much easier to maintain momemetum in this game than any classic Sonic game due to not fumbling around whenever you get hit by an enemy you didn't see coming. I do like how you get more attacking options where you have generic swipe attack, a jump move and a super dash. The level design is mostly easy to tell where to go next compared to Classic Sonic, some levels did stump me in this game but it's few and far between. The final thing I will praise is that I like that losing all your lives does not mean a game over, you just simpily restart at your last checkpoint, some could point out why it's even in the game at all, but I prefer this red herring system over starting the level again from the start after losing all your lives, and this game can be pretty challenging on Normal which now segways into my next point.

The bosses in this game are super challenging, the first few bosses before the Dragon Boss were manageable on normal but once I got to him, the game would just spike up in difficulty, the platforming stages except for the Dreadnaught are generally easy enough but once I got to the bosses I was struggling like crazy. I am glad the game let's you switch difficulty in the start menu and I eventually lowered to causal mode to get through the bosses fast since you are going through the same motions but now, you are able to take more damage. My gripe with the bosses is that they have super powerful attacks that aren't really telegraphed all that well and combine that with the platforming controls that is meant for speed meant that I was getting hit and getting game overs like no tomorrow. I don't outright dislike them, but something about them felt off to me and these two above mentioned reasons could be big reasons as to why.

The final compliant is the story, not that there is one for a game like this but moreso how much of it there is and how much I didn't really care for it. It's not terrible, but so much of it just feels like stuff you'd find in some kind of generic action cartoon or battle shonen anime. There is a lot of, "don't mess with my friends" and how "friendship can win overall if you believe in it" stuff I didn't care for. The voice acting in the cutscenes is pretty good so it did make the long cutscenes bearable enough.

Overall, despite my complaining I do like Freedom Planet and it's incredible how I like a game even though it's based on a style of game I never cared for. I am looking forward to playing the sequel and see how it compares.

Katamari Forever:

I liked this game at first but the more I started to play the more I bored I started to become, simpily put there is just too many levels in this game, just too many, I started to get bored of the game after a certain point. I know this game is a compliation of previous Katamari games and it sure does feel like that, there is just no structure to the game it just feels like I am just going through level after level without much going on. I generally don't play games for the story but the cutscenes and how long the game is plus the reused maps makes it hard to care about the game. I had to force myself to play it after a certain point and even then, I slowly got bored, and then I preservered with the game just for the later levels to stop unlocking and the game not making it clear how to unlock them. I am just done with this game at this point, it's one thing to throw endless levels and terrible ones like Campfire and Hot Stuff at that but to make me replay them and not making it clear how to progress furthur into the game? You can just screw right off.

Katamari Damacy Reroll is the far superior game to this one. That game is shorter and never overstays it's welcome unlike this game.

Tinykin:

A solid 3D platformer with elements of games like Pikmin despite me not playing the latter. I thought there was going to be combat since it's a 3D platformer but it's more of a chill relaxation kind of game and the game does do a good job at keeping me engaged. What makes it so engaging is the exploration and puzzle elements of the game, the game does have platforming but you also need to find little minions with different abilities to help you make it through the platforming and puzzle challenges. The exploration element comes in where you have to find them in order to progress through various parts of the level so when you start you explore, then you engage in the platforming and puzzles. Each minion has their own special ability so you need to use them effectively to get through the levels, and each level uses their abilites in clever ways like making bridges to get large objects across, connecting electricity to a power socket, or using them as a way to reach higher platformers, so the game doesn't have combat or health bars but still gives you a challenge to overcome while keeping it's relaxed tone. If you only go on the beaten path, the game can be beaten pretty quickly too.

My only big gripe with the game is that at first it was hard to tell if I was going the across the beaten path or I was getting collectibles and I was confused at first but the more I played the game, the more I got used to the game's level design quirks.

Overall, Tinykin was a pretty big surprise, I was expecting a traditional 3D platformer that just so happen to feature "pikmin" but instead it was a solid relaxation game that managed to keep me engaged.

Viewtiful Joe 2:

Solid sequel at least at first, I enjoyed the game until the boss with Frost Tiger. The game plays like the first game for the most part with addition of playing as Slivia. Joe still plays as well as he did in the first game with all the same moves and attacks like he did in the first game. Slivia feels kind of pointless since she doesn't play as well as Joe and I mainly just used her the mandatory puzzles. Combat is still solid even if it suffers from the beat em up problem having moves you are never going to use and you just use the same basic combos while using slo mo, it isn't as big of an issue as the Bayonetta games in that regard. The slo mo VFX powers still has that satisfying punch to it like it did in the first one. The first half of the game overall has that same VJ fun the first game had, you fight bad guys solve the occasional puzzle which can still somewhat be imprecise due to the controls but the overall structure is still solid.

Then you get to Frost Tiger and the boss fight is decent while a bit obtuse at first, it's almost like Fire Leo from the first game, but then the game's pacing really starts to get screwed up. After the fight with Frost Tiger, you then fight a long and overstaying boss rush that really slows everything down and get tiresome very quickly, the only thing making this bearable is that you get to save and get a health refill inbetween each fight. You also fight Frost Tiger again which doesn't help either since you are fighting the same boss within close promixty of each other. Then you get to a levels with multiple bosses, multiple puzzles that take a while and some obtuse platforming sections, the difficulty gets so out of whack that I am surprised you are supposed to do this with limited continues.

Overall, I do like VJ2 and while I do think the difficulty in the latter half gets out of hand later in the game, I do think the first half of the game is a solid sequel, and you could argue the first game was just as very difficult as this game is.

Dragon Ball Z: Shin Budokai:

It's DBZ Budokai on the go, it's about as solid of a portable "spin off" as it gets. I had a fun time with this game, despite the Budokai series not being as technical and complex as other fighting games, I always found the games charming for being distinctly "Dragon Ball" like the use of powering up Ki and how it has a risk reward system of possibly getting hit but you can gather enough energy for a powerful attack, and you got to time these high damage attacks correctly in order to make effective use out of them.

Stuff exclusive to this game is the story mode that has a retelling of the DBZ movie Fusion Reborn, which I'll be honest due to the dialogue not being fully voiced made it hard for me to pay attention to the story, it is a pretty wild and crazy story from what I gathered and it offered some innovation of DBZ games going from either Raditz to Buu or Raditz to GT with the movies thrown in. It does a decent job at provinding some context for fights. The fights end a lot quicker now, probably due to the game being on portable and the fighting in general has a fast pace with how combos connect and how quickly the health bar drains compared to how Budokai games play on console. Special moves and especially utimate attacks can drain your opponent's health bar really quickly.

There is also a ki dash attack which I used at first but stopped using since the attacks drain a lot of ki and it's hard to be precise with the attacks. I do like how fast it feels and looks though.

Overall, there is not a whole lot of things for me to say then it's a solid portable Budokai game. If you like the console games, you'll probably like this one, if not you could possibly prefer the fast paced nature of the game but I doubt you will like it a lot.

Fear Effect Review

Fear Effect very much fits the idea of a game where it gets better as it goes along. The best way of describing this game is if it was Resident Evil but way more cinematic and scripted. It has everything RE has like backtracking, tank controls, third person shooting reliant on auto aim and puzzles. What makes this game stand out from RE is the visuals, story and cinematic presentation.

If you start this game, it may feel awkward at first if you played Resident Evil, it has the tank controls and inventory but the way the inventory is handled is very different, here it's in real time where in RE, it's in a seperate menu. There is no limited inventory space either so it's like Silent Hill in that regard. Saving is also handled by using the inventory. There is also another major difference: enemies use hitscan weapons and also spawn ammo, this may sound bad but it's generally fine since the auto aim is does a good job at tracking the targets and you get a target icon when you can hit the enemy. There is non human enemies to break things up too. The game gives you a non contextual dodge command which I do like and even got some fun use out of it late game. What I find interesting about the game is that the game gives you no healing items to speak of you get back health by doing objectives and health can partially regenerate so the unwinnable boss situation is less than likely to happen in this game.

Now RE comparisons aside, how is Fear Effect exactly? It ties back into what I said earlier, it's a game that gets better the more it goes along. Fear Effect despite not being a shareware FPS game from the 90s shares some similarties with that. Each Disc in the game is a level and "episode". Much like those games, Fear Effect's first Disc isn't that great, the gameplay is decent but there are many scripted seqences that can kind of come out of nowhere, feel cheap and feels like trial and error, I can imagine this stuff being infuriating if I didn't play on an emulator. There is also stealth sections which are okay, but only because they are brief and don't last long because I can't imagine playing prolonged sections of stealth gameplay with a fixed camera and tank controls. The level design also gets more creative and interesting after Disc 1. Haunted villages, a compromised brothel of sorts, and even Hell. I did feel the levels can be hard to tell where to go at times but it's just me being lazy more than anything. That and some of the scripted sequences happen so fast and out of left field that I kept a walkthrough with on in case if I didn't know what to do when they happened.

The game's story is very well presented with great looking cutscenes, shockingingly well done voice acting for the time and an engaging narrative that also does a good job at involving other characters unlike most other games. Where you will be playing as all 3 characters in Hana's team and see their perspective as the situation plays out where in most games most supporting characters in the story get around without much explanation to how they got there. The twist involving Hana is pretty well foreshadowed, and the character interactions are also good even if the overall backstory involving the group never gets revealed. I didn't like the multiple endings which is what many games at the time and I didn't like it here since it felt like it came out of nowhere due to how linear the narrative was presented beforehand.

Overall, if you can get past some of the aggrevating scripted sequences and how underwhelming Disc 1 is, this game does a good job at standing out from other games at the time despite the obvious inspirations.

Short Game Reviews and Thoughts: February 2023

JoJo's Bizarre Adventure: All Star Battle R:

Game is alright, and while I am not a fan of the story mode of the PS3 game being removed, what's here is decent and I will admit I liked the game the more I played it since I got more used to the mechanics and how it worked. That and well Stand users are way more overpowered than Hamon users. It's weird the bosses for Part 1 and 2 were really difficult but from Part 3 and onwards, it got noticeably easier. The assists you get after you lose a fight and you have to pay for come in really handy against those bosses, the game gets so much easier later that you will be rolling in so much money that you can buy occasional assists on a hard fight.

Overall, for a guy who mostly if not always plays game for the campaign, Jojo Eyes of Heaven is the better game due to having an actual plot, and an actual campaign structure but this game is okay, but get on a sale at a noticeably reduced price.

Song of the Deep:

Yup, I can safely confirm it, Song of the Deep is easily Insomniac's worst game out of the ones I played. Insomniac making a metroidvania sounds awesome right? Nope, most of the game's challenges comes from fighting with the game's physics and knowing where to go next. The map outright lies to you, and I always quit this game around the Spider boss since all of the tedious shit this game has becomes more obvious like the imprecise combat and fighting with the physics. And the camera really sucks and in a 2D game shockingingly since every time the spider boss throws you all the way down, you can't even see where your character is, and for a game that is supposedly a metroidvania, there is barely any backtracking, and it's solving tedious physics puzzles. I didn't like this game when I played it years ago, and time hasn't been sweet on it.

Star Wars: Demoliation:

Pretty sub par Twisted Metal style game by the devs of Vilgilante 8. Both those games are much better than this one. My big issue is the shield and weapon system, I get that they were trying to make the vehicular combat feel more in line with Star Wars but due to this, so many of the battles feel like a rush to get to the nearest shield recharge and weapon station. Every time, you take a lot of damage, it's a rush to a recharge station, and you can't continously pummel enemies since you need to have your weapons recharge. The result of making this game more unique from other games like it makes the game more tedious.

Tiny Tina's Wonderlands:

At first, I liked this game, but the more it went on, the more I started to get sick of it. The combat is pretty solid but the game starts to reveal how dull it actually is after a couple of hours, the game's main story is pretty short, but it drags itself out by making the player do side quests and even on easy mode, you can't avoid this, if you try to engage in later story quests when enemies are way higher levelled than you, then you might as well quit the game or want do hours of side quests that robs the main story of it's agency. Playing this game reminded me of why I never liked this series or looter shooters in general. The gameplay is super one note, the length is padded as all hell, and it's easy to die over and over unless you play coop. I was hoping that a shorter version of Borderlands 3 would finally get me into the series, but I am just starting to think this franchise and looter shooters in general was just never for me. Playing a game where assault rifles and shotguns do more damage than rocket launchers, how fun is that.

Tried to play this game in matchmaking and it either crashed after joining a game or the game would end less than 5 minutes after me joining a party, even playing the game the way it was intended is a chore.

Saints Row: Gat out of Hell:

Saints Row Gat of Hell is a weird game. It's basically a game with a cool movement system but the missions is a random side mission selector. It's basically you doing side missions for 95% of the game but with a loose narrative tying it. If it were any longer, I would've stopped playing, but the game ends right before I started to get really bored.

The final boss was an annoying damage sponge and I had to lower the game to easy so he would die faster and the game in general really feels unbalanced, enemies would give health drops but it's super inconsistent, and the chair weapon you get is insanely overpowered. It can cut through the hordes of enemies outside of the final boss with ease. You also have a bunch of useless powers that I rarely ever used outside of when the game told me too, cooldowns for them are way too long and I would rather just use my hitscan and conventional weapons since they require less effort to use. The narrative despite have some few entertaining moments like the villains from Saints Row 2 and 3 popping up again as mission givers but at the same time, since there is no main missions, they come off more as glorified cameos at best. The missions also start to get old when you do them for the 20th time.

So despite my complaints what are aspects I liked? The movement system is great, I love flying around the city while also running around at fast speeds, it's esstentially a game with DC Comics characters like Superman and the Flash in one, if DC were to ever make games with them. Weapons feel decent enough, and like I said before the game is super short, so once it really starts to wear thin, the game ends.

Overall, Gat of Hell is not a game that will light your world on fire but I was looking for a game I could beat quickly and this game fits the bill. If you want a game to beat in a long boring afternoon with nothing else to do, you can't do worse than this.

A Plague Tale: Requiem Review

I haven't played the first Plague Tale since around the time it came out so memories of it are very hazey and I recall liking the game at the time in spite of that so I am going into this sequel with not so much of a strong attachment towards the first game. So what do I think of it?

The game is a solid sequel to the first overall, the gameplay is more improved regarding the stealth. The AI has detection arrows and as it slows fills up, the higher chance of you getting detected by the enemy is. It is a similar system to the first game and many modern games that attempt stealth use this system as well as using tall grass to hide from patroling enemies, it works decently enough despite how heavily derivative it is but I do feel what makes this game stand out from others like it and the first game is how this time around you will be dealing with swarming rats as well as patroling enemies. Thanks to this, enemy encounters have much more of an interesting puzzle like feel to them of trying to avoid swarming rats from eating you, avoiding enemies who can kill you when spotted as well as resource management where you have to chose between avoiding rats, making sure guards don't hear or see you but it doesn't end there, you can manipulate the rats the to kill enemies for you. Whenever these sections happen, it feels tense but not too frustrating since the checkpoints are forgiving. I am glad not every encounter is this since it can start to get overwhemling plus I doubt the developers can consistently have these sections without major issues, so the game breaks it up with more generic avoid the guards sections, enviromental puzzles, walking sections, cover based shooting, isolated parts where you avoid rats, some of these sequences get a new character with temoprary new abilites to spice things up and scripted sequences to keep things varied enough without it wearing thin because this is a long game, and a whole game dedicated to avoiding guards and rats can get tiresome. I will admit, the pacing after you get off La Cuna isn't as strong since it's just combat and setpieces which is a little too one note for me. Combat is just dull cover shooting with some occasional enemies you can't kill from the front, and the running setpieces I was never a fan of since it all it requires you to do is hold the analog stick in once direction and run, there are some interesting parts like timing your sprints to avoid getting killed by rat swarms and an interesting section where it combines gameplay and story but I think the game should've ended after getting off La Cuna. While I also commend the stealth gameplay, it does suffer from the issue many stealth based games have in that when you get caught you might as well reload from last save since getting caught and dealing with it is rarely fun in these kinds of games.

Story is also pretty solid overall, the new characters like Sofia and Arnuad are pretty good even though it takes a while for the story to get going. That and there is a certain moment in the game I knew was going to happen since I am so familar with media, one thing I did not like about it was how it had a sad ending just for the game to sequelbait at the end. For a narrative driven game, I will say the story kept my attention overall.

Overall, Plague Tale Requiem is a solid sequel to a game I have vague memories of, it does everything a good sequel should do, and if another game does get made, I hope they change up the stealth and add a darkness system of some kind.

BloodRayne Review

The best way of describing it is if Return to Castle Wolfenstein, Jedi Outcast and Max Payne ever had a baby, you'd get this game. It's about as early 00s of an action game as early 00s action games can get. I think what I find so fascinating about it is that despite it having many, many rough edges is that I like how it seemlessly combines platforming, gunplay and melee combat. It's never once thing in isolation, all of it is happening at once. The levels involving lots of jumping and have lot of verticality to them much like action games in the late 90s and early 00s. I was getting Jedi Outcast vibes with the amount of jumping I was doing with my super jump.

Might as well describe more of my experience with this game. I'll start with the negatives melee combat while works as a good support to the jumping and shooting doesn't have great feedback, while I can forgive the lack of a lock on mechanic since the seemlessness would be gone of it were there, I can't deny that I really wished my hits felt like they connected whenever I pressed the melee attack button, due to this it feels like I am failing around like a madman hoping that I actually hit something, the health bars for the boss fights come in handy because of this since it would be hard to tell if I am doing damage if they weren't there, same can be said for normal enemies, but enemies getting disembered is pretty solid feedback even though moment to melee combat feels like I am failing around like a crazy person. While I did compare this game to Jedi Outcast, the melee combat in that game this is not. Another issue I have is that while I like the shooting and feedback for it is solid when hitting enemies, I can't help but feel like they could feel more powerful in large part is due to how quickly ammo can run out for all your guns. As a result, I kept using Rayne's blood sucking grab move a lot, get the ammo and occasionally fire weapons. The bullet time you have access to at all times if also pretty useless since all it does is slow down time and make moment to moment combat a lot slower unlike Blood Rage where it goes into slo mo and your attacks hit harder. Sometimes the levels can occasionally be confusing and while the game telling you were to go does help 95% of the time, it can occasionally lead to confusion like how one door was locked but I dive kicked into it and it opened. The final boss is also really bad, it heavily requires you to use firearms in a game where firearms where used as a support to the melee combat and you have to hope the auto aim hits him because if you miss any shots, you will eventually play a game of looking for guns while the boss gets more powerful and eventually getting powerful enough to kill you easily. The only good thing I can say is that mid boss checkpoint after killing Wulf does help mitigate frustration.

The final negative is that and while I don't make a big deal about it, the story is not very good, Rayne is a decent protagonist in that sexy bad girl kind of way, everything surronding her story is a mess. The game kind of has a loose plot thread involving an ancient artifact, nazis and the occult but most of the game is basically killing nazi commanders and that's about it, not a lot really happens despite the over the top and wacky premise the game has. Most of the villains get killed off the moment you meet them, and the ones that survive more than once encounter eventually die very quickly too like Hedrox and Wulf. Myne had 2 deaths that were basically red herrings, and the ending was also terrible and anti climatic.

Now, the good, I already described it before but this game has that charm of where platforming, gunplay and melee combat combine together for a seemless if rather rough experience. You will attack people with your blades, shooting your guns on occasion, while also blood sucking your enemies and using them as human shields, as a result while the combat can occasionally get frustrating, the blood sucking ability already prevents it from leading into frustrating. The level design is also pretty open and big where you will be doing lots of high jumps while fighting enemies along the way. It's never, "here's a shooting bit, then a platforming bit, then here is a melee combat bit" where everything feels sectioned off, in this game everything works as one. You will be making high jumps, then fight enemies with your blades, then shooting them if you have the ammo, the grabbing them with your vampirism while also make super high jumps while also doing the Goldenye style objective system of finding explosives, or needing items to progress much like late 90s and early 00s action games. You will also be killing nazi commanders and killing a variety of occult and nazi soldiers much like the before mentioned Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The enemy line up while not overly complex is varied enough to keep the moment to moment combat interesting.

Overall, good game but expect rough spots.

Fashion Police Squad Review

Fashion Police Squad is another very good Doom Eternal styled fps game. I would even consider this to be a noob's first retro style fps. It tells you where all the color keys are with the objective markers and the game in general guides you to your next objective, I am not the biggest fan when games that are linear gives you objective markers but the game was consistent enough in it's use that I wasn't bothered too much. The game also actively tells you what guns work on which enemy and it checkpoints well enough. The game is also as short as something like Doom 1993 and Quake and you build off enough points to a one shot rage attack that kills enemies in one hit but only for a limited time, the only thing that could be offputting for a noob is that the late game encounters can be very overwhelming at times and I had to lower the difficulty to easy at that point since the game had so many enemies attacking you at once and it requires you to weapon switch a little too much for my liking.

As for the game itself, it's mostly very good, where this game differs from most fps games and even Doom Eternal is that guns can only work on specific enemies, where in Eternal it could damage enemies but it won't do as much damage as a weapon the enemy's weak to, FPS's enemies can only be hurt to a specific weapon and alt fire. It makes for a game that does a good job at standing out from what inspired it, every battle is a frantic game of weapon switching so if you didn't like the weapon switching aspect of Eternal, you will dislike this game even more. There is only 3 bosses in the game and all 3 are better than your usual shooter fare. They do require you to learn the patterns and make sure you time your movements, as opposed to firing your strongest weapon and circle strafe around them and hope you can tank enough hits. The platforming is mostly pretty solid and works well enough to break up the pace of the shootouts all though it was easy for me to miss some jumps due to the depth perception of the game being in first person.

Gripes with the game is that the difficulty can get pretty demanding later in the game and I wouldn't mind this but some the arena design can box you in a little too much and it's easy to get completely overwhelmed since the arenas are so small and enemies are attacking you from all sides, and since you don't have a weapons outside of the late game BFG inspired weapon where you can do large damage in a short period of time, it's easy to get hit a lot while taking a while to take out some enemies that are constantly attacking you. Another gripe is that the belt grappling hook is a little too contextual for my liking, sometimes I felt like I timed my button press but the belt won't grapple on and it thought I did a melee attack. Finally, the sniping and turret levels feel out of place in a game like this, I'd expect this sort of thing in a game with more "realism" but not in a game that is inspired by old school 90s fps and Doom Eternal. It felt very jarring to have this sort of thing in a game such as this since I certainly came for the arena fights, not scripted sequences found in something like a CoD or other more realistic shooters like it.

Overall, I really enjoyed this game despite my issues and yet another very good indie fps game.

Dead Space(2023) Review

Coming from a guy who has beaten the original game around 3-4 times over the years, and hearing the announcement of this remake, I was originally apathetic towards the idea, I was thinking, "what on earth is the point in remaking a game that was already good to begin with?" When I finally played Dead Space 2023, I realized this version of Dead Space is to the 2008 game what Resident Evil 2002 was to Resident Evil 1996. If you played the originals for both RE and DS, both remakes will play with your expectations and turn what you knew about the originals on their heads, if you never played the originals, you are in for a good time but you will appreciate the remakes more if you have played the former.

Dead Space 2023 has the same story and ideas as Dead Space 2008 but there is a lot of differences in the way both games play out. In Dead Space 2023, the Ishimura is much more explorable and is less of a linear affair like in DS 2008. There is tons of locked rooms you will need to find keycards for, power batteries to find and plug in more often, various securities levels to unlock certain doors and more. The upgrade trees are different in that you need to buy upgrades circuts for the suit and weapons to unlock more power nodes. Dead Space 2023 also lets you hold all your guns as opposed to 2008 where your inventory with health items, stasis packs, semiconductors, and ammo would only allow you to really carry 4, on top of this you get more inventory space and the guns you get are on the beaten path except for the Line Gun. As a result, I got to use all the guns I never got to use in the 2008 game and I appreciate them so much like the Flamethrower, Force Gun, and Contact Beam. Getting guns on the beaten path also encourages experimentation more since in DS 2008, you had to guess if a gun was any good by buying them at the store and hope your investment was worth it. My only gripe with this is that the game would benefit with a radial menu of some kind or letting you easily select every gun rather than go into the menu and switch the gun you are using for that slot. Felt like a missed opportunity there. The game also has all the additions Dead Space 2 would introduce like being able to repeatedly stomp on enemies, using Kinesis from dead enemy limbs to impale other enemies, the Pulse Rifle having a grenade launcher alt fire, the improved Zero Gravity sections, and the pukers from DS2. The game also has some new bosses and the already existing ones are decent enough for shooter bosses.

It doesn't just end with gameplay either, even the story is much more expanded upon comapared to the original, Issac can talk now which is good since in the original game it didn't make much sense for him to be voiceless, and it is handled well here, Issac's character is decent enough and he is given a side mission sub plot with Nicole and the Regenerator monster is given more context on how he came to be. Issac also never talks too much and only speaks when spoken to. Dr. Mercer is more proactive by comparison to him in the original. DS 2023 also remixes and adds new takes on existing story events which is what I mean by DS 2023 takes your expectations of DS 2008 and turns it on it's head. The story in this game, while not being amazing, I do think is an improvement over the original due to the remixing and added side missions and sub plots adding more context to existing events.

My only gripes with the game outside of a lack of a radial menu for weapon select are that the Pulse Rifle feels too weak and even it's alt fire isn't that powerful, some of the waypoints can sometimes be hard to tell what exactly to do, this isn't a big deal but I can get stumped a few times which is weird for a game featuring a waypoint system. Some of the aiming for when you get grabbed by tentacles isn't that great.

Overall, I have very few gripes with a remake I was against from the start. I thought EA was just cashing in off the stressed game remake fad that Resident Evil 2 remake started but surprisingly, this game surpassed the game that inspired it's creation by a large margin and I can safely say is on par with the Resident Evil 1996 remake as one of the greatest game remakes of all time. If you think this is the same game with improved visuals, I can assure you, it's way more than that.

No More Heroes III Review

No More Heroes 3 is a game that I am questioning what made me go through all the way to the end besides the fact that I paid money for it and I try to make sure every game I buy, I try to "beat". If I wasn't so persistent with the games I at the very least didn't get some enjoyment out of, I would've dropped this game around episode 2. I might as well go in detail on my thoughts now.

The good thing about this game is the combat, it's been years since I played NMH1 and 2, but I think this game has the best combat in the whole series, easily. Combat just feels a lot better with the ability to chain combos being really smooth, with more offensive options like a dropkick, sending projectiles, slow down time within close proxmity, and being able to send enemies flying across the battlefield, as well as being able to transform into a sentai style armor and do some serious damage to enemies, being able to a quick dodge and do an over the top fast slashing attacks and having various slot machine abilites like "Mustang Mode" and as a result despite how unfair some of the "desingated matches" can be at times, the amount of offensive options in combat as well as being able to respawn with various buffs or respawn with full health got me through this game, when combat is fun it can be pretty enjoyable and fast paced. I also think the bosses which is a staple of this are creative, wacky and enjoyable, the final boss with FU is pretty good especially before you fight the giant arm version of him, and the "final" boss with Damon while being a bit on the easy side did use the game's base mechanics when turned it a fighting game unlike say Metal Gear Solid 4.

Now this is where my praise pretty much ends. I'll start with the gameplay reasons why I am so lukewarm on this game. NMH3 brings back the open world of the first game and from what I remember of NMH1, that game involved Travis being low on the totem pole and he slowly had to work his way up the UAA, in this game, it feels like a pointless waste of time since this game doesn't have the excuse that NMH1 had. The open world in general just feels really pointless, you have very little ways of interacting with it, you can't even climb and use parkour like in other open world games like Assassin's Creed, Far Cry or Breath of the Wild, and while I am not big on those games either, you can at least interact with the worlds themselves more. Travis' only interactions with the open world is using his motorcycle which doesn't control that well and he can't even climb up waste high walls with tons of invisible barriers in the open worlds. All you can really do is designated matches and I am just wondering, why not cut out the open world, and have it be a generic guanlet of enemies before you reach the boss? It serves the same purpose and it's much less time consuming plus later designated match ups give you enough money for the boss anyway, making the open world even more redundant. NMH2 really did a lot better by having it be a level select menu, and NMH3 should've done the same. Other issues include pointless rpg elements that barely add anything to the game since you will always have enough money to increase your stats so it's better off not even being there since the only way to get money is through the match ups. Some of the enemies are also not very fun like the bullet hell exploding ball projectile enemies and the game also having the issue of being a 3rd person melee combat with a moveable camera where enemies will attack you from behind and you won't see it coming.

Now the story, I don't remember the stories to NMH1 and 2 that well since I haven't played them in years, and this game is more of a sequel to Travis Strikes Again, which is already a bad sign when a game series pulls a Kingdom Hearts where all the background information is explained in a spinoff. Ignoring all that, maybe it's that my tastes changed over the years but I found much of the writing to be obnoxious and try hard. I really got sick of how much this game tries to parody anime with every mission having an OP and an ED like an anime does while also having the Netflix episode counter. I also got really sick of Suda51 constantly reminding the player of his massive hard on for Takashi Miike. I just wanted to say, "yeah Suda I get it, you like Miike". I don't know much about Miike and or an expert in foriegn films so when Travis and his buddies spent minutes at the start of every mission talking about the guy, I kept wondering what it had to do with the overarching plot, and the game in general relies so much on meta humor and 4th wall breaks that didn't really connect with me. I'll give the story some credit, it did give some decent amount of scenes to FU and did end up growing somewhat attached to him by the end and to want to beat him up which is one complement I can give the story.

Overall, NMH3 is a game where the combat carried it 90% of the time for me, it played well to make me beat it.

Spongebob Squarepants: The Cosmic Shake Review

A solid 3D platformer through and through, the game was exactly what I was expecting out of a budget Spongebob game, and this is coming from someone who isn't a big fan of Battle for Bikini Bottom, this game is the underrated hidden gem that I wished BfBB was but wasn't. Its a nice throwback to the older episodes of Spongebob which I still to this day remember and I still recite from time to time.

What made me prefer this game over BfBB is the more linear structure of the game, BfBB was basically a collectathon platformer but wasn't a very good one compared to something like the Spyro games or the first Jak and Daxter. Cosmic Shake however was a solid linear adventure, sure nothing in Cosmic Shake is going to be revolutionary or light your world on fire but what overall platforming gameplay is here gets the job done, you got everything from the genre, like glides, double jumps, ground pounds, context grapple hooks and dashes, everything that has been done before but the game's level design is solid enough to the point where you feel going through a simple yet engaging ballet of jumps and obsticles, and no awkward exploration with a weirdly segregated map like BfBB to get in the way either and also no multiple characters, it's just you playing as Spongebob which is good since the character swapping of BfBB got in the way of the moment to moment gameplay.

My only major gripes with this game is the use of quest markers but it's nothing too distracting since the game is at least consistent about it, I did wish the devs thought the player was smart to navigate the levels without any guides or hints. That and the last few levels feel anti climatic and rushed, you just go to the Krusty Krab do some jumping and then final boss time. Also a big gripe I have while I didn't think the writing was too bad, the writers made it way too obvious that Kassandra was evil, I am not expecting an award winning narrative out of a game like this but at the same time, they didn't really try to make Kassandra seem like she was anything other than evil. I prefer narratives to be predictable and don't like expectations being subverted unless it feels earned but they could've done a better job here.

Overall, a solid 3D platformer and worth playing as a Spongebob fan, if you didn't like BfBB, it's worth checking out since it's structure is different and this game works better as a linear affair.

Saints Row(2022) Review

For a game I heard that was so bad, I was surprised by how much I enjoyed it. It's not a great game but then again, if I am being honest I don't think any Saints Row game is that, they are solid and enjoyable games that I always preffered over GTA but I never considered them to be masterpieces not even 2. With that said, that probably explains why I don't have a strong dislike for this game. Also because I barely experienced the bugs and glitches this game had at launch.

Let's start with the good, I think combat in the game is the best the series has ever been. You can dodge roll now giving you more options to evade and avoid attacks, the health system is much improved and isn't the regen health system that I am not a big fan of instead you have to get kills to fill up a meter to perform a melee John Wick style takedown to recover a health block, I wish more games that attempt shooting try something like this since regen health tends to be a game of being a tank and hiding behind cover hoping no one hits you while you act defenseless and finite health you might not always have and it becomes a game of hoping you can find a health kit before the hitscan weapons can kill you. I do like that there is a bit more of an attempt at enemy variety here for being a crime sandbox game where you fight human enemies like the Idols having grenades and some can deflect bullets, and later with merc groups showing up. The AI is still dumb and some of the weapons could sound better despite the game's combat being satisfying enough overall. The secondary abilities are mostly useless outside of the extra health points one. The missions are also memorable and quite good too, you will be jumping through cars, riding a tank and causing destruction, evading a gang infested boat and then shooting them in an on rails section, fighting on a train, and riding a flying bike while escourting a trailer, overall the missions are memorable and always throws something new and fresh enough to be interesting and entertaining.

Now the negatives, the game can still be kind of glitchy at times, I didn't encounter too many bugs but I did fall through the world once. The mission requirements for some of them can feel out of place, where most missions require you to press through a mission select on your phone, other have requirements to unlock and to get the mission that progresses at the point where the in midas res part of the story requires you to engage in the criminal empire system which can feel jarring since you were selecting missions from your phone up until that point.

And I might as well talk about the story while I don't think its as *bad* as many in the gaming community makes it out to be, I don't think it's good either. The character interactions range from okay to really cringey and none of the villains really stand out either, Sergio and Atticus don't even get bosses fights and the former get killed by Nahualli. The Idols' main gang leaders you don't even cover in the main story. Speaking of the Nahualli, he's a very weak villain, like very poor. You fight him at the start, then recruit him and then after one trip with the Saints, he suddenly has a creepy obessesion with the player character's friends, all of it feels unearned since they only had one hangout together and now suddenly he believes they are actual friends, the final boss is really anti climatic too since the final phase is a QTE. I could go on, but the story really isn't very good and I'd even say at the very least Saints Row 2's writing is far, far above this game's.

Overall, I do like SR 2022 despite it's bad reputation, I have no strong attachment towards the series and I got this at half price, and I found it to be decent fun.

Just Cause 4 Review

This was not something I was expecting at all. I always heard this game was worse than JC3, and to my surprise, I actually prefer this game. I will admit, at first the squad and territory takeover system was awkwardly explained and as a result, I didn't like it much, but once I figured out how it all functioned, I began to enjoy the game much more. The new mission system can sound a bit confusing and now, there are only a few main story missions and a lot of the missions you will be partaking in are "region strikes" and you need to have a squad on reserve after the region strike in order to take it over, I always had a squad to take over land and I never ran out, I also took over adjecent regions to help lower the cost.

This is going to sound contreversial, but I actually prefer the region strikes over the previous game's mission structure. I always found that in JC3, going around in various strongholds and destroying stuff painted in red started to get old after a few hours, and it started to wear thin, but these region strikes, I found had much more variety in the objectives to help keep gameplay fresh. Some of the missions do repeat themselves but they did have more going on than just, "go here destroy red colored property" and rinse repeat. Some of the objectives even make good use of the wingset like timed objectives or the objectives being so far apart that you need to use the wingsuit to gain more ground and get to them faster. Some of these missions are better than others, but I like the attempt at more variety.

Other improvements over JC3 is that Rico's health regens a lot faster, and while I make it clear I am not a big fan of regen health, this is the next best thing if the devs aren't going to overhaul the health system. It keeps me in the power fantasy that the game wants me to feel where in JC3, I was getting sapped out of it constantly due to getting overwhelmed by enemies and the health taking an awful long while to regen. There will be some cheap deaths here and there and it will more often than not be by explosive weapons but I still take this over JC3's regen health.

A big improvement I found over JC3 is the story missions, while there are few now, what is here is much more memorable compared to JC3's main story missions. In JC4, you will be fighting enemies while torandos are happening while wingsuiting across buildings, going on a boat through enemy waters to destroy a lighting powered reactor, and going through a sandstorm to destroy a bunch of generators. Compare this to JC3's rather dull story missions and JC4 is much more interesting by comparison despite only a few story missions.

The guns also have great feedback to them and headshots can be pretty satisfying, I also like the music too.

Some issues I have is that the game can be pretty glitchy at times all though not as glitchy and buggy as JC3, and the early hours like I mentioned before poorly explains the terroritory takeover system which can make the game offputting at first, that and I also found the open world a bit too big to the point where I actually did use fast travel. The story also isn't good but I didn't find it to be too bothersome. Alt fired I mostly found to be useless and kind of forgot they existed until late game.

Overall, Just Cause 4 was a surprise for me, I was expecting to drop the game right away and expecting it to be worse than JC3 but I actually prefer this game.