Saints Row 4 Review

Saints Row 4 is a game I would definately understand why someone wouldn't consider to be very good at all. The game is a mess in many ways and is clearly an unfocused game too but at the sametime the game is so dedicated to remaining a wacky and fun over the top comfort food adventure that I can't help but admire it for that. 

The best way of describing Saints Row 4 is what if Prototype, Jak 3 and Saints Row 3 had a baby but it grew up to be an over the top edgy teeanger with an over the top and wild sense of humor? You get SR4. The game is as big of a mess as I described it and the game does have it's fair share of detractors for it but at the sametime, the game being the way it is makes it a very memorable time. 

No furthur to how much Volition was just going full blown crazy mode is with the opening, you start the game off with a Predator style helicoptor ride, where the player character is killing terrorists in an over the top way while the game is mocking modern military shooters(speaking as someone who can't stand those games, this parody was a joy for me), stops a missile from being launched, becomes the President of the United States, and then gets attacked by aliens where humanity gets wiped out and the only surviving members are a street gang. 

If I played Saints Row 2 back in 2008 and someone from the future told me this would be how the opening and premise of the 4th game would go, I would legit tell that future person that he was losing it. That's what sums up SR4 in general, it feels like Volition was just losing it and for a series that started off as a grounded crime sandbox turning into a Matrix inspired superhero game is something I can't help but respect Volition for trying to do even if it is jumping the shark. 

SR4 doesn't even end with that intial sequence of events either, it does game genre parodies like stealth, twin stick shooters, and 2d beat em ups. Has a Star Fox style on rails sequence with Haddaway's "What is Love" is playing in the background, has Keith David playing himself as a fictional character while parodying himself in a "They Live" parody, you fight a giant soda monster, the game world takes place in the Matrix while having an on the nose Matrix refrence, you go back to the first two SRs open world, and having a Tron style light cycle sequence. The whole game feels like it finds new ways to be an over the drop fever dream and I can't my eyes off it. 

Some people strongly dislike the over the top meta humor and while I get why some wouldn't, I can't help but respect SR4 for always find new and inventive ways for being silly and over the top. I think, "there's no way the game can get dumber" and then it does. 

It's a game I would never call "forgettable" by any means. 

However, with all that said, the game is still is an unfocused mess. 

The game has one driving mission and then you get the abilities you get in the Hulk Ultimate Destruction and Prototype series like being able to run super fast and charge up jumps. You eventually get the abilities to dash, glide and run up buildings a be it to my dismay where you have to unlock them in a skill tree. 

To the game's credit all this feels smooth and good to use and an SR game where it has SR3's combat with the superpowers sounds great on paper, right? 

Well, this is where my Jak 3 comparison comes in, SR4 gives you lots, and I mean lots of superpowers many of which the game will just give you one tutorial for, is never challenging enough to get you to want to actively use, the thing is, you only get access to the powers maybe about 45-50% of the time, there are many main missions in the game where your superpowers are taken away from you and it just starts to play more like SR3, so the game not only gives you these powers that you are never forced to use, you don't even have access to them for a lot of the game unless if you stay in the open world and only do side missions, if you do decide to go back to the beaten path, your powers being taken away is all the more jarring. Much like Jak 3, SR4 throws in something random like mech sections, shooting galleries, set pieces and so on. 

As a result the game feels extremely unfocused and can't decide on what it even wants to be from a gameplay perspective. Does it want to be Prototype meet SR3? Does it want to be a traditional Saints Row? Does it want to be a mini game compliation with so many different styles of game? I can't tell. Unlike Jak 3, SR4's lack of focus can add to the game's charm but it can still be jarring all the same. 

There's other issues with the game like the health pick ups system not being super consistent or enemies giving enough health drops, the game getting way too over the top and chaotic at times with so many enemies all over the place, which can also lead to some occasional annoying deaths. Then there is also the fact that enemies that during the out of the Matrix section you are back to regen health when in the Matrix, you had health pick ups which like I said before can be jarring. 

Overall, Saints Row 4 is such a messy, crazy and over the top game that I can't help but like the game for that even if the overall game design can be confused as a result. It's a game that feels incredibly murky in it's structure and story but SR4 does it all with a smile. 

Soulstice Review

This was a weird game, at first I thought it was a "Soulslike" considering how many of those kinds of games get made nowadays and "Souls" was in the title but instead the game turned out to be an action game like Devil May Cry where it's story and tone is heavily inspired by dark fantasy anime and manga like Claymore and Berserk with the game having heavy inspirations more so from the former. 

If you ever wanted a decently made "big budgeted" Claymore game than this game is as close as you will get to that. Speaking of which I will say that the plot being heavily inspired by it examples being the dark fantasy setting, an organization bent on wiping demons, an energy source that the warriors in the organization uses that will turn them into monsters when overdosing, agents that speak to the these said warriors and so on, a woman having a tragic past and the organization weaponizing that. Soulstice's story is interesting and well told enough that it doesn't feel too derivative of it and wish I was viewing Claymore instead. The opening exposition heavy cutscene was admittedly not a way to initally engage me in the story since it's just expostion being said without much visual flare or music but it gets better after that. 

This transitions me to my next point in that the story for Soulstice especially for the kind of game that it is well told and interesting, it's not a high standard, since many of Platinum games' titles aren't very well written. I do think the story of Soulstice with how Briar and Lute work together, and how the backstory of them and how the story in general is told in a way that both manages to feel natural within in the game, doesn't get in the way of gameplay too much and it does a good job and not feeling like the developers were cutting corners due to the lack of fully rendered cutscenes, nothing in the way the excessive cutscene use and the corner cutting isn't as egregious as Bayonetta relying on it's static film reel cutscenes. 

With the way the story is told with the flashback seqences of primarily being in Briar's mind when playing as Lute, the characters and story can feel more fleshed out than many other games in the genre even Donovan and Hannah feel decently fleshed out. Layton as well. 

However the cliffhanger ending, the fact it takes over 20 hours to beat and it ends with the, "villain only having a temporary setback" after all the actions the player did really does ruin the momemtum the story has up until that point since it's setting up a sequel that might not get made like an early 00s game. 

Speaking of early 00s games, Soulstice doesn't just feel like that with how it has fixed camera angles and light exploration, platforming and puzzles, it can also feel like that in how the game takes place in one location but is primarily a linear game like Mundas Castle in the first Devil May Cry or Vigoor Empire in Ninja Gaiden. So it was rather interesting to have Soulstice even with it's loading screens feel like you are slowly going on a long journey to get from one side of the city to the Cathedral towards the end of the game. 

The combat in the game is decent or at least I enjoyed despite not being big on the genre. It has the decently rewarding feeling combat of being in the rhythmn of hitting enemies and then moving out of the way at the right time. 

The weapon system of enemies being weak to certain weapons building up their stun guage was interesting and kind of reminded me of Doom Eternal even if it felt like I was often better off just widdling their health bars down with the hammer and then using the whip for crowd control then using the sword and using the bow on occasion. 

A big issue with why I never engaged with this system as much is that the game has a lot of pause combos and I am not big on those since, I want to be on the offensive, and waiting for a few seconds just to make my combo longer I just don't find to be very pragmatic and is just easier and requires the path of least resistance just to mash the hit combo over and over than wait and possibly miss chances of extending the combos, so as a a result I didn't buy many of the combos from the store. 

The game also doesn't borrow from the Capcom developed DMCs. Oddly enough, it borrows from the Devil May Cry reboot by Ninja Theory and it's infamous color coded enemies. I never recalled it bothering me that much in that game, and to Soulstice' credit, before the final enemy guanlet, this system never really annoyed me, since the game gave you enough healing items, take a decent amount of damage during combat, checkpointed well and enemies not being overly big damage sponges until that point. HA

However, you can turn this off in the accessiblity options menu which I never knew until after beating the game so if this bugs you can turn it off even if makes me question the developer's integrity by doing this at all. 

If you also don't like games where enemies can get their health back, then skip this, I did find it fair enough before the final enemy guanlet. 

Lute and the Unity system is also an aspect that makes it stand out from other games in the genre, but it seems like a system that heavily rewards people who are very good at the game and I can't comment on that since I am not big on the genre to want to get good. Lute can kind of be useful, but it can get very grating when I want to kill a color coded ghost and then Lute would lose power and the enemy could get his health back, I wonder if I could've made this more manageable in the accessiblity menu. 

Another thing that makes the game stand out is the "transcended form" and how you could get game overs and while I like the idea of combing gameplay and story, it makes the form especially at the final enemy guanlet where things get super challenging all the more useless. 

Two of the biggest issues I have with the game is that the game is just way too long and doesn't have enough to break up the pace to hide it's repetitive nature and the camera. 

Soulstice is already over 20 hours and since gameplay like DMC and Platinum games, aren't that long by comparison, it makes the repetition in them don't stand out nearly as much. However Soulstice is mainly combat and doesn't have much in the way of situational of depth compared to an older God of War game. The platforming, backtracking, puzzle solving isn't as good as GoW. As a result, I had to take frequent breaks from Soulstice because chapters can go on for ages especially early on. By the time, I got to the final enemy guanlet and the game ramping in challenge so much by the end to the point where I lowered it to easy just to get it done faster and see the end of the story. 

The final issue I have is the camera, more so how it can't decide on which camera system it wants to use. During exploration sections, the game has a fixed camera but during combat, the game can have a Kingdom Hearts camera system of sorts where it's controllable but it's reliant on a lockon that focuses and tracks the enemies. 

I managed to get used to it for the most part, but there are a number of moments in the game where I was like, "I really wished the game gave me a better angle on the action". Since in closed spaces you can get boxed in and it makes it hard to see where you are positioned when enemies attack you. This especially became a problem in the final enemy guanlet where it was hard to see, there was lots of flying enemies where the lock on would track them as they are attacking towards me, plus having multiple challenging enemies made it the worst part since so many times I would get hit because the camera would follow the flying enemies as I would try to move out of the way, they also did a lot of damage. 

The final two bosses after this aren't anywhere near as challenging even with the difficulty lowered. 

Overall, Soulstice is a very flawed and overly long action game in the vein of Devil May Cry that has a better story than most games in it's genre. It's rather impressive since this wasn't a big AAA effort and while I am a casual fan of the genre and got some enjoyment, there were many times were I did get frustrated a long the way, and worn out from how long it is.

If you like Devil May Cry, Platinum titles, and dark fantasy anime and manga like Berserk and Claymore, this game is certainly worth looking into in spite of it's flaws. If you don't care for that then skip. 

Watch Dogs Review

I played the first Watch Dogs almost a decade ago and I remember liking it mainly because I decided to lower my expectations due to the backlash the game got at the time, I also remember preffering the game over the Grand Theft Auto series and many Rockstar open world games. However over time considering how homogenized Ubisoft's open world design template is, how much I tried to get into it's sequel and that game was said to be improvement, and how much I am not big on Modern Ubisoft in general, and how lukewarm I have gotten on open world games in general, I was expecting to drop the first Watch Dogs game after the first few hours and look up the cutscenes on Youtube since the story of the first Watch Dogs and particularly the character of Aiden Pearce would get praise nowadays after how many detractors he got when the game initally came out. 

After all that, do I like the game? Yes, and while I don't think the game is "great" by any means, I still think the game is a solid and enjoyable if you ignore the E3 graphics debacle and how the game isn't the revolutionary open world game it was hyped up to be. 

I'll start with the story first. Surprisingly, while I never disliked Aiden when I first played like many and after playing so many games with dull silent protagonists, Watch Dogs' sequel, and other open world franchises like the aforementioned GTA, Aiden Pearce stands out by quite a large margin. 

The big reason as to why he stands out is mainly because of the fact that while the open world can arguably get in the way of that, he has geniune agency and his unlikable nature makes him stand out. 

Aiden doesn't take orders from other people nearly as much as your average GTA protagonist or many other games in the genre, Aiden is a guy that if you do the main missions only, drives the story, and when he does take orders it's beliveable since he is doing everything in his power to keep his family safe and making sure his enemies don't get to him. Aiden is always trying to stay two steps ahead of his enemies even when the game's antagonists Damien Brenks is constantly trying to break him. 

Aiden despite his stoism being derided by some, does show a good amount of character, he's definately not as bland as your usual silent protagonist is in games. Aiden doesn't show emotion but he has to in order to take find the culprit who murdered his niece, he has to not stand out and blend in order to get anything done, he has to look strong in front of his family despite all the things happening around them and on a personal note, I find the idea of Aiden's family being the only people he geniunely likes while at the same time keeping them at arm's length to be a rather relatable aspect about his character. It also works hand in hand with how with his niece diedd and constantly thinking about her, he can't form a bond with anyone and is too scared to do it. Everyone he works with like Clara, Jordi, and T-Bone are just strictly professional, for a character who gets derided as "bland", I am surprised I connected with him to this much of a degree. 

He also shows remorse for being rude to Clara later in the game and he also goes through an arc of intially doing it for revenge but then realizing that he has use his talents for greater purposes. It's all some pretty well done stuff. 

The side characters are also pretty enjoyable characters like Jordi and T-Bone along with his interactions with Aiden are well done since, it's basically a game of Aiden working with people who either has to win over and tolerates like with T-Bone or just finds his antics to be detrimental and annoying like with Jordi. 

Clara and Aiden has some decent interactions with each other even if Clara no shows for quite a long time after one of the twists. I did like how Aiden was initially hesistant of interacting with Clara and the latter's enthuasim does a good job at foreshadowing to a later twist. 

What I didn't like is that some of the villains outside of maybe Iraq were kind of underwhelming, they were more as obsticles for Aiden to overcome than geniune fleshed out characters. Damien Brenks on paper could be an interesting foil to Aiden but he just comes off as a typical arrogant money hungry villain who is using Aiden for his own personal gain and nothing more, he isn't an outright terrible villain but he doesn't go beyond being "the obsticle". 

Also the game does pull some punches with the story regarding the fate of the character "Bedbug" but I don't really mind too much since I don't mind some questionable writing here and there. 

After describing the story, what do I think of the gameplay? It's solid, but nothing great. I am not against games that have multiple design "pillars" since I do like some of those kind of games with Batman Arkham and the Middle Earth games being some examples and Watch Dogs does shooting, hacking mini games, stealth, and driving and to the game's credit, all of these things are handled competently enough and are mixed around at regular intervals to the point where nothing gets overly monotonous. 

The driving gets criticized by some people but I have played games with worse driving controls than this and I did get used to it. Jak 2 being a good example off the top of my head. You can criticize that that the hacking during the vehicle sections could arguable make them too easy but at the same time, I view this as the game substituing this for the lack of "shoot out window button" and I enjoy the specticle of a button press causing lots of carnage and destruction. It adds to the power fantasy even if you didn't have to "work" towards getting it. 

The stealth is very much inspired by the modern Splinter Cell games like Conviction and Blacklist. Enemies do notice you way too fast for my tastes, but the stealth is flexible enough where you can use the silenced pistol along with the "Focus Mode" and the contextual takedowns to the point where stealth is semi reliable, so when the game has the occasional "no detection" mission, it's manageable rather than a complete chore and a dull game of trial and error. I did however dislike the lack of a dedicated crouch button since it's contextual, and when you get caught Aiden will automatically start to stand up, it makes' sneaking past enemies while caught hard to do and the lack of a last known position can be rather jarring since it borrows so much from SC. If the game had a dedicated crouch command, as well as last known position, the stealth would be more refined and more robust to do rather than takeout a couple of enemies and then get caught and then go guns blazing. 

The hacking mini games are a decent distraction that isn't overly challenging but at the same time not brain dead super easy to the point where you can get them super quickly, these could annoy people who want more challenging puzzles in games but my patience for them is wanning more and more so I didn't mind. You could argue that for a game playing as a hacker, the hacking can arguably be a contextual telekinesis, sight jacking and is just a contextual superpower in general. I didn't really mind since it's like I said before adds to the power fantasy. Watch Dogs wants you to be a cool super hacker along with being an action movie hero.   

The shooting is very much a traditional cover shooter like Gears of War meets Max Payne with the Splinter Cell Conviction cover system and while the game never reaches the heights of the MP series with it's shooting, it isn't as dull and one note enough like the first Gears of War game since WD has other gameplay mechanics breaking up the pace, and isn't just cover based shooting galleries, the guns also sound very punchy especially in focus mode which can make combat fun to get into, I love getting headshots while in focus. However I think have a cover system inspired by the Last of Us can be both beneficial for shooting and stealth. 

You can have the x button be crouching and then while Aiden is crouched, he can take touch the piece of cover and can peak around from corners or horizontal positions. Since it can be rather grating to have Aiden stand up while enemies are shooting and I want to be in a lower position were enemies will have a hard time hitting me. 

While WD doesn't do any of the aforementioned stuff amazingly well, it does mix up and change the pace enough during it's main missions and is also more mechanically refined than Rockstar open world games to be an enjoyable experience. 

Also, I love how WD, has better controls than Rockstar games do to this day, Aiden can climb over waist high walls and can reach some moderately high places which is something GTA protagonists couldn't do until GTA 4 and also, you can hold a button to sprint rather than tapping x constantly so props to WD there. 

Overall, while I don't think Watch Dogs is an amazing title, and it is far from the revolutionary game that the E3 2012 reveal trailer wanted you to believe, it's a solid and enjoyable time that uses mechanics like driving, shooting, stealth, and hacking to give the player a decent power fantasy of being a cool action hero. The story and main character are surprisingly well done in a game of this type too. I had a good time for the $7 I rebought the game for. 

Short Game Reviews: September 2023

Lego Harry Potter: Years 5-7:

This was basically the exact same game as Years 1-4, which is fine I suppose since this game is to Harry Potter what Star Wars the Original Trilogy game was to that series after TT did the SW Prequels first but like I said with Years 1-4, SW has characters of different classes and types like Jedi have the Force, lightsabers and can double jump, there are non force users who use blasters and have grappling hooks, and droids characters who can use machinery.

Lego HP doesn't really have this since the HP brand is mostly everyone having access to the same abilities where all the characters just wands that can cast spells with exceptions like a level having the occasional one off chracter who isn't as adept at using magic like Hagrid or some random Goblin who can't use magic. The invisibility cloak gets even less use in this game so whenever you play the game as the trio you are almost always better off playing as Ron or Hermione since Ron can open Weasley boxes, use those color coded S puzzles and can take light sources, and Hermione can do the symbol puzzles, and have context sensitve actions dedicated to her. Harry is kind of just a husk in his own game since all the characters eventually learn the same spell moveset as the titular character does.

All the issues like the doing 3 of something to progress is still here all though downplayed here somewhat. Going through the same HUB worlds like Hogworts can get dull due to reptitive scenery, this time it's not entirely in Hogwarts since adapts Deathly Hollows.

New to this game is the duels and they are pretty one note since it's just a game of color matching and frantic button tapping and not much else.

I did like the destruction Reducto caused, felt like a LEGO rocket launcher of sorts which is nice and it does have the feel of being just engaging where it's not super boring even though at times I did get bored since the Half Blood Prince sections felt dull due it's padding.

Some parts felt buggy and got me confused at times but nothing too ergregious. My big issue with the game is that it just feels way too similar to Years 1-4 and other Lego games while having even less going in it's moment to moment gameplay like Star Wars, Marvel and DC adaptations do due to the aforementioned every characters having a similar skillset.

Not a bad game, but a dull one. I mainly played due to it being a PS Plus game.

Biomutant:

Biomutant sure started off pretty well and slowly went to shit. The combat felt decent and I like how you have access to swords, firearms, and psi powers and seemed to have more going on that some other open world games and the early hours were okay since it felt like a linear game. It was held back by the endless cutscenes and exposition dumps, I wanted to get back to the action after getting interrupted by cutscenes every few seconds.

When the open world plays a bigger role and one mission with a character named Gizmo decides to make go hunt down for a hazard suit which is supposed to make immune to cold which also required me to find a satallite over halfway across the map just for it misdirect me twice and the cold suit didn't do shit against the temperature, I gave up. It was super cumbersome since the waypoint markers would just lead me to so many random parts of the map. It was hard to tell what my main overarching goal even was, it's to destroy some monsters but I am doing a bunch of random sub plots instead, it seems typical of a WRPG styled game but it reminds me why I was never big on them since I prefer to have one epic plot and the sub plots connected to the main plot in some way.

This game does have more going mechanically and polish wise than WRPGs but this then leads to my next issue.

The game is just so bloated and the open world is so big and dull. The more of these open world games I play, the more appreciate Zelda BOTW for the fact that the open world exploration IS the game where with games like this, it's just following waypoint markers and killing enemies which would be better if linear since the open world might as well be a level select menu. If the game was linear, I would be engaging more with the combat and the early hours were more or less this, when I went on my aforementioned Cold Suit fetch quest, I only fought enemies on occasion to get a few level ups and tried to avoid them whenever I can since it's about running to the super far away waypoint marker and fighting enemies is just having me delay myself getting to those waypoint markers. I never really like the whole "follow the waypoint marker" style of level design since you might as well not even pay attention to the level and just have a white room where you are following a dot and you'd get the same game. Playing this game reminded me open world games a lot of the time just don't appeal to me even when they have solid mechanics and decent combat.

The narrator was also super annoying and he just kept on going on and on and while I heard after the fact that you can turn him off, I don't really want to read subtitles while playing video games either. Foreign live action movies is probably the only time I am willing to read subtitles of any kind. So it's either have a narrator who never shuts up or just read subtitles, sounds like a no win situation. Really felt like they did this because the dev team couldn't hire more than one voice actor. Was already hard to take the story seriously when the main villain can randomly show up on the map for no geniune reason.

I knew I wasn't going to like the game but for a second there, I almost thought I was going to enjoy it. Glad this is a game I tried out before I end my PS Plus subscription. I can't imagine buying this as a standalone purchase.

Brutal Legend:

I honestly didn't even know why I bother to buy or even play this game, I saw it a game store and then decided to impulse buy it for the reasons that it was cheap and I recall hearing good things about it, the game was a fascinating learning experience not only because it confirms that RTS games aren't my thing but because it reinforces my beliefs that open world games or a lot of games that attempt the concept really feel unfocused a lot of the time. When it comes to open world games that takes this idea of being so many games at once and take to the extreme, two titles come to mind, Jak 3 and Saints Row 4.

The former is what to me is what you get when you take the open world design philsophy of "do everything excell at nothing" to such an extreme that I find the game to be very offputting and tough to play for long periods of time. SR4 is what you get when you do the same philsophy but everything is so zany and over the top that I can't help but laugh at the same for throwing something ridiculous every few minutes.

Brutal Legend falls into the former. I will admit, when I first started this game knowing how bad the RTS minigames are, I thought I was going to drop it within maybe one or two hours, and while I did drop the game, I can't deny that the game's opening and the first half in general was a decent and charming time.

The opening of the game was so crazy and over the top that I was more engaged than I thought I was going to be. The writing and music do a good job at establishing the setting and tone in that it's a fish out of the water heavy metal themed adventure.

All though that opening in some ways is a red herring, you think the game is going to be a God of War style brawler where it's gory and over the top and you are going on an metal themed power fantasy of killing lots of enemies with some car and driving sections thrown in to break up the pace. The car combat at times reminded me of the Twisted Metal games in that you add machine guns on to your vehicle and blow up other cars with them.

You think the RTS minigames aren't too intrusive since from what I played on the easiest difficulty, they were mindless enough to the point where even an RTS novice like me can get past them. The first half was solidly paced.

It generally mixes up brawling(even if it is less than I would like after the first few missions), vehicle sections and RTS enough to the point where while it feels unfocused can make for a dumb "mini game compliation" of sorts.

Then I get to the half way point where the game basically turns into RTS central with how many of the minigames there are and they start to get challenging to the point where even I have to get good at it and there the tedious aspects of the game starts to show. Why I was never into the RTS genre to begin with.

There is so much waiting, so...damn...much of it. You got to wait for units to spawn, you got to wait for player units and enemies units to finish fighting, you got to lead each individual pack of units to the enemies and structures to destroy, you got to wait for the units to run towards the intended target. Then there is stuff exclusive to this game like doing a rhythmn mini game to rebuild lost territory and then the game starts spawn those ghost horse riders that cuts my units to in half no matter how many spawn, and I got to get the Face Melter Solo and upgrade my base which is just more waiting to get past the main quest line and I gave up.

I looked up more of the game to see if there is more RTS levels after this and there is. There isn't even any brawler sections left, the final boss is but by that point there are so few of those sections left to the point if someone were to play them again, they'd forget the controls for them. It's just racing and RTS segments and I just wanted give up and move on to something else and so I did.

The story, voice acting and writing are decent but they weren't enough to make me want to plow through any more of the game.

I wanted to beat this game especially after how moderately fun the first few hours were but I gave up, I'll give the game credit, I am probably never going to play another RTS game and open world games if they want to be minigame compliations should try to stick with mechanics that work to some degree rather than throwing everything at the wall hoping something sticks. I was never a big fan of that style of design and this game made even less of one. I am glad I got the game cheap.

Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem Review

I played this expansion around the time it came out and really enjoyed it. I saw a sale for the game on PS5 a few weeks ago and decided to buy it despite me beating the game so recently.

I still do really enjoy the game despite some of the techincal hiccups on PS5 like the game crashing when loading it up for the first time which only happened once for me, and the load times can be very slow. One lengthy load time to get to the start menu, and then another one just to load the game, and some slow down and framerates drops here and there, but the game ran sloppily on the PC I originally played the game on too even if it didn't have the aforementioned crashing issues.

One thing that did stand out to me more this time around is that I decided to play the game on normal difficulty and this is something that always bugged me about SS and I thought the recent games would fix is that normal difficulty is basically hard mode and easy mode feels like the intended difficulty for anyone who doesn't know the map layouts, every enemy spawn, and knows where all the enemies attack you from.

This might get me a lot of scrunity but playing Sam on easy mode really does feel like the ideal way to play if you don't want to die over and over again or get overwhelmed by how chaotic the game can be. I was playing on normal difficulty for the first few hours and I was just miserable, maybe the game is supposed to be bring back the difficulty of a classic shoot em up but in 3D but there are so many enemies on screen and you get hit from all sides, and your health bar gets torn to shreds so quickly that it leads into so much frustration. I reach a point where my weapon aresenal was too small, and ammo was way too limited for my shotgun and then had to defeat a super large group of Kleers in a closed space where the grenades on the shotgun would make you take damage due to splash damage and then I lowered to easy since I was just getting sick of dying to much.

Easy mode essententially makes you a tank where you can take so many hits from all sides to the point where it actually makes you feel like the "badass" that Sam Serious Stone hypes himself up as. I feel like just give normal mode easy mode health and I wouldn't be complaining this much. That or have melee kills provide more health back or have enemies drop more health or items upon death. It feels like any of these fixes could make Sam better to play on normal or higher.

I reached a point where I tried to play it normal one last time, and then I was getting attacked by a mutant helicoptor, I reach a door where it died and it autosaved and got me save trapped where I kept dying over and over. I reloaded a previous save and played on easy and then never looked back. I have some issues with games like Painkiller particularly it's awkward optimization but it's difficulty in the base game always did feel more balanced compared to Sam even if Painkiller doesn't have nearly as big hordes and arenas that SS does.

Also, why does the game have enemies giving health upon melee kill and them giving ammo and health drops skills in the skill tree? It's so out of place in a game like this since they are something you'd just expect to be there when playing any game of this type.

Now with the difficulty aside, I still really like the game. The damage animations when you kill the enemies is some of the best the FPS genre has to offer, the weapons themselves all feel great to use and fun to fire, and like SS4, the amount of guns you have is still impressive since now you got access to weapons from from the Second Encounter like the Sniper Rifle and from 3 you have a dedicated mid range weapon with it's own ammo not connected to the mini gun like the assault rifle or in Siberian Mayhem the AK-47.

The levels are nice and varied and the game gives you over the top and varied hordes early on, you killed so many enemies with the variety of weapons you have in SM that short length feels justified and beating the game is fuffling rather than hollow.

The enemy hordes towards the end of the game are so massive and crazy that it even puts some of the ones in the base SS4 to shame and that is an accomplishment since SS4 has some crazy and over the top hordes in it's own right.

The vehicle sections like the tank and mech are welcome pace breakers and don't take too long to the point where they overstay their welcome.

Overall, difficulty issues aside, Serious Sam Siberian Mayhem is still a ton of fun and I really like playing it...as long as I am not playing on a difficulty that is above easy.

The Order 1886 Review

This is a rather peculiar game for me, this game came out during a time where I viewed the Uncharted series less fondly than I used to and I was a big fan of Ready At Dawn with their work on the God of War PSP games and Daxter to this day they are still some of my favorite games on the PSP and the Order's CGI trailer was revealed, I was intrigued but I wanted to see more gameplay, then the gameplay was revealed, and I was letdown by the fact that the game was heavily inspired by Uncharted, and the fact that Ready At Dawn's PR for the game whether it'd be the various developer comments that were said or the fact that that it was a short single player only game that was charged at full price added more fuel to the fire, and I will expand on this later, the Order 1886 in general feels like a game that came out 9 years too late. I was more suspectible to bad PR back then and when I first played the Order 1886, I was going into the game rooting for it to fail because it was a heavily cinematic Uncharted style game rather than a game that was about killing Warewolves and monsters. 

The game in the following years after it's lukewarm reception has gotten a cult following and there a number of people who enjoy the game and wished it got a sequel since the game ended on a cliffhanger, after all this rambing, what do I think of the game after replaying it years later?

It's...okay, not the bad game I remember it for being but not a great or even good game. It's middle of the road and for a game that was supposed to be a PS4 killer app, a console that didn't have many worthwhile exclusives at the time outside of maybe Infamous Second Son, and it didn't have backwards compatablity to PS1, 2 and 3 games, a "middle of the road" game was not really in the cards for Sony. That is the thing with the Order, a lot of people like to say a sequel could improve the game and maybe it could've and the game could've gotten that potential sequel if it came out back in the mid 00s and early 10s back when cinematic cover shooters were more widely accepted. Games like Uncharted Drake's Fortune and especially the first Gears of War would get lambasted if they were to come out today and the Order feels like that kind of game but with much better graphics. 

The review will split into various parts, one being graphics, the other being story, and the final part being gameplay. 

I will start with by far the best aspect of the game, the very thing even the game's detractors will agree on that it does well. That is of course, the graphics and visuals and they are very good, in fact so good that I am dedicated an entire section of the review to it. I don't normally care about a game's visuals unless if it enhances the gameplay or as long as they do their job and don't hinder my experience with the game like say having environments that look samey making it hard to navigate levels, objects in the level that I can easily tell can be interacted with, being able to see with camera what I am can and cannot do etc. However, the Order is a special exception, the game to this day still looks fantastic, the character models, environments, weapon models, facial expressions look as richly detailed now as they did when the game first came out. 

The vaious London streets look meek and depressing and they do a good job at establishing the tone the game has. This is supposed to be a world ravaged by poverty and class inequality and how gritty and dark everything does a good job at establishing this even the brighter less poverty filled levels look great like the level on the blimp. 

The character models and performances still look good and convincing and for a game where a good number of the chapters are basically just watching cutscenes, it's rather impressive that the devs were able to make the characters' animations and expressions look beliveable. 

A lot of work was clearly put into the visuals and Ready At Dawn still did a great job and it still holds up even today. 

Now the story, it's not terrible and I don't think the Order's story and writing is as repulsive as say, a David Cage game since the cutscenes are decently directed, the writing generally serviceable and voice acting is directed well enough to engage me on the material. However when I was playing this game, I can't help but feel like the game was better off being a TV series instead of a game. 

To the story's credit, I do think it is far more engaging of a first entry to a franchise than something like the first Gears of War and Halo games. The Order does at the very least give more characterization for it's cast, have more twist and turns, better foreshadowing and better world building than those games do. 

I also can't help but think would the game have been better off being a TV show. It already begins with a painfully dull opening sequence that even mimicks those aforementioned repulsive David Cage games with excessive QTEs, and barely non existent gameplay. Like I mentioned before there is multiple chapters of the game dedicated to just watching cutscenes. 

What I mean is this since this game is esstentially a 3rd person cover based shooter, you are basically following Greyson the whole time, so aspects like his relationships with Malroy and Lucan, Layfatte's realization that Greyson might be in the right, Malroy's exploits and his backstory, Devi and her relationship with Lakshmi, Nicola Telsa being a spy, all of these things feel undercooked and doesn't feel as fleshed out as it could be because the whole story is from Greyson's perspective. All of these concepts would be better suited for a TV show where all these things can get fleshed out and following different characters and exploring backstories per episode. This would potentially make for a better live action TV show than Last of Us and Twisted Metal. 

More credit to give the story, some of the characters are decent like Malroy and Layfrette but they aren't fleshed out enough for things to be impactful. Lucan and Greyson's backstory is barely even explored for the former's betrayal and death to be remotely impactful and while the twist with the vampires is interesting, not enough is done with it from both gameplay and story perspective to really stand out from being service level. It's just revealed that there are vampires the whole time and since it's an action game and a shooter at that, it's not like you see Greyson try to deal with or have an existential meltdown over this relvelation. 

What also doesn't help is that much of the character interactions are very dry. The voice acting is very good and it's well directed, but much of the character interactions to say even something like Uncharted can feel dull. I am not asking for the characters to quip and crack jokes but considering how short the game is, and how you join the rebels side halfway through the game, the character interactions are going to have to really land and the most you get is Igraine chastising Greyson about how old he is, Layfrette being the optimistic, arrogant and somewhat resourceful memeber of the team and Malroy doing stuff behind the scenes while this isn't outright bad, it's not enough to make me feel like, "oh man Greyson is going to have to butt heads with characters I don't want to see die". It's more like, "oh Greyson joins the rebels". It also doesn't help that Uncharted games tend to feature much better and more engaging opening sequences than the Order does. Much of the information is told rather than shown and I am not against that style of storytelling, maybe the Order being a TV show could make it easier to see the backstories of characters like Igraine, Layfrette and Malroy. I was already starting to ask questions when Igraine's name was revealed through the objective screen. 

Finally, the gameplay, this is what I mean by when I kept on saying the Order would've been a servicable game in the mid 00s to early 10s. The game very much feels like a bog standard cover shooter you would find in that time period and while the Order does some things better than Gears of War 1 and Uncharted 1 and 2, it also does other things that are worse. 

The guns in the Order feel much more satisfying to shoot and enemies react much better than the first two Uncharted games which is a huge point to put in their favor since it took Uncharted a while to get weapon sounds and damage animations right and for a game where at least 60% of the game is spent shooting and killing enemies, the Order manages to better than I remember because of this. I was able to beat the game again at all because the game nailed the game feel in terms of combat. The rifles especially feel great to shoot and hit enemies with. 

What it also does better than Gears of War 1, the whole GoW series, and even games with sci fi settings like Halo and Destroy All Humans is that the game actually has some creative weapons, where in Gears of War, the most creative weapons got were the Lancer and the Hammer of Dawn, the Order has the Thermite Gun, an Electricity Gun, an assault rifle that can push enemies back with it's alt fire, and fire shotgun. The fact that the game features alt fires for some of it's weapons at all is already a step above, Halo, Gears and Destroy All Humans' arsenals. 

What lets the game down however is the enemy roster. You get these creative guns but all you fight are generic human enemies for 90% of the game, it's like if you got a game like Resistance Fall of Man which gave you a wide array of creative guns just for the game to waste them on having Call of Duty's enemy roster or lack their of any. Most of the enemies with the exception of armoured enemies can be taken down with headshots, you also get a Red Dead Redemption and Splinter Cell Conviction style "mark and shoot targets" but this is unnesscary since enemies can beaten easily with just aiming and shooting reguarly. Sometimes enemies can take more than one headshot too but aforementioned solid feedback prevents the game from being a total slog even if human enemies taking more than one bullet to the head can kind of take me out of it. 

The Warewolve fights are terrible, and what annoys me is that I have seen these encounters done better in another game called Dead Space 2. The Warewolves fights are much like the Stalker battles in DS2 where with the Stalkers, you have to be super quick, hear their loud screaming barks, and react fast enough in time with stasis or well place shots to the limbs to kill them. The Warewolve battles is basically a game of running around while the Warewolves try to attack you with barely having any audio cues and waiting for the x button to pop up and hold they get out of the way. The Warewolves only take a few hits and while the idea of needing to stake them in order to kill them is great, it takes such so few bullets to get them down and since the stake animation can't be interrupted means that they are even easier to kill. 

The game eventually has a twist in about the middle point where vampires are the enemy, and it might mean the game will pull an Uncharted Drake's Fortune and the player will be fighting vampire monsters instead of human enemies. That never happens and as a result, the game's weak enemy roster stands out as being even more weak with some potential to break up the monontony but that never happens. 

The QTE style fighting game "bosses fights" are also terrible but they are few to really annoy me much like the stealth sections. Both are "servicable" if can be easily derided. The stealth is also few and the game checkpoints well enough and you get a crossbow in a later extended stealth level. It can get frustrating since guard vision is binary in that level but as long as you can get a headshot before they can see you, it's generally simple if offputting at first. 

While I did praise aspects of this game over games like Gears and Uncharted, there are things it does worse than those games. First being that whenever you are in cover, the camera zooms up close to what piece of cover you are hugging rather than giving you a traditional above cover view of the action meaning that if you are in cover, you can't see the enemies unless you aim out of cover. It can be pretty annoying since the camera has no reason nor is it beneficial to not give the player a proper view of the action. Enemies could throw grenades or use grenade launchers and since you can't see above cover, it makes it hard to tell where they are coming from even with grenade indicators. 

The second is that evading and dodge rolling in the Order is entirely contextual. Where Gears would map sprint, cover and roll to one button, and Uncharted would just map cover and roll to one button. The Order has one button dedicated to just climbing, and the climbing sequences are too few compared to combat so the Order could've just done the Uncharted thing of having cover and rolling be in the same button and while this system is flawed, it would've given Greyson more moves to do and more mobility during combat than the alternative that is offered. 

The final aspect of gameplay that I will cover is the non combat sections and this what annoyed me about the game when playing it the first time and still does now, and that when during "exploration" parts Greyson doesn't have his typical movement speed in combat, it's basically the dreaded walking sections that get derided so much nowadays. I don't mind "walking sections" when used sparingingly Last of Us did a good job with this since Joel has a light jog he can do during the exploration and the slow movement makes sense since you have to move slow observe the environment and gather supplies, so it's fine to move slow in that game. 

The Order? It takes the Uncharted approach where it relies on superficial specticle during the non combat sequences but even Uncharted had more going during these parts. Uncharted gives you a decent run speed to traverse levels with and while the "platforming" is superficial to anyone who plays a lot of games featuring the concept, for someone that doesn't, these sections could provide some thrills since Drake is constantly falling off hand holds, it creates the illusion of tension and depth. The Order's traversal doesn't feature this and it's just pressing x and holding the stick to move where Greyson wants to go there is no specticle or seeing how Greyson barely make it out of a situation, it's just Uncharted without the superficial thrills. 

Also, the game can also be too scripted even for my tastes at times. For example there is a part where you need to destroy a part of a scafolding with the Thermite Gun, and I aimed for it with just shooting it normally but it turns out you need to activate a scripted sequence and then you can destroy it. Another section involves you to push back an oncoming warewolf attack with the pushback assault rifle and I did the alt fire early and he didn't react but then I did when the game prompted me to activate and then he did it. 

I also feel like Greyson having a slow as molasses walking speed feels like a rather pretentious way for the devs to pad out the game since it's already not that long, and while I don't mind it being short, the fact that the devs gave the non combat sections a slow movement speed while having sprint during combat does really tell me that Ready At Dawn felt quite insecure that their game without multiplayer shipping at full price can be beaten in 4 hours so they added this to potentially drag it out to 6 or 7 hours. 

Overall, I don't think the Order 1886 is the "bad" game that I remember it for being. At the same time, I do feel like the people who strongly dislike the game are overly harsh on it, and the people who really like the game are overly kind towards it. The game to me is very middle of the road, and perhaps maybe if the game came out in from 2006-2013, it could've potentially spawned a greatly improved sequel but by 2015, it just didn't offer enough different from other cover based shooters outside of high fidelity visuals and the setting to really stand out for being a typical game in the genre. I'd say try it out for the short length and that is cheap to find now and don't expect anything mind blowingingly good or bad. 

Pursuit Force: Extreme Justice Review

This game was a pleasant surprise, this was yet another PS Premium Classic game and I wanted to try out since I got varying degrees of enjoyment out of the original game. The best way of describing Extreme Justice is that it's a much easier version and more story driven version of a game that had solid mechanics and mission structure.

I'll start with the story since Extreme Justice is much more story driven by comparison to the original game, there is many more characters, more voice acting and more cutscenes by comparison. I find the story to be kind of interesting in that while it adds more context to what the player is doing in the missions since there is now on overarching plot and as an excuse to add context to the gameplay, it isn't too bad. The actual story itself I can't help but find to be funny in how tropey and "cliched" it is. As an excuse to add context and if I don't think too hard, and the voice acting and general interactions with the characters save it from being overly repulsive but it just covers almost every trope if you are familar with this kind of story. It doesn't really mislead or do enough different or fleshed out enough to stand out from being an okay game story. You got almost every plot twist and trope in the book, a traiter, a bad guy group posing as the good guys, a botched undercover op, a character getting killed off or nearly dying to establish stakes, and episodic bad guys. As an excuse to give context for the action, Extreme Justice's story isn't horrible but when divorcing it from that said action I can't help but want to criticize it for being so typical, lacking in any form of fleshing out in terms of characters and plot and not enough misdirection to be geniunely interesting on its own. The fact that the protagonist hardly ever talks and only does it in select cutscenes makes it even harder to care about what is going since he is the leader of the team yet he is not even providing any geniune morale for the Pursuit Force team. His fiance dies and he still rarely talks and says anything.

Now the gameplay, everything that is good about the original game intact here minus the immense difficulty so if you didn't like the original game for hard the bosses were and crazy difficulty spikes and they were hard even with the Premium's rewind feature, you might like this game. Outside some of the annoying sniping missions and the penultimate level with managing the Chief's heart rate, everything in Extreme Justice is much easier.

I find this to be a good thing since I found the original game to be way too unfairly difficult during boss fights especially so I prefered the reduced difficulty, now the time limits are much less strict to complete missions, the Justice Meter can bring back more health when critical and you have an upgrade system. There are two difficult chases missions in the whole game one is where you have to escort the Chief in an ambulence and the other is a setpiece avoiding containmained water but neither reaches the difficulty of the first game.

Everything good about the original Pursuit Force's car chasing and vehicle gameplay is kept intact in Extreme Justice. So the satisfying gameplay of jumping on to cars and killing enemies while on them, avoiding traffic, and ramming into cars is still enjoyable to do in this game. Now with the ability to bring back more health with the Justice Meter and with time limits that are much more reasonable. 

Boss fights are overhauled now and are setpiece quick time event moments rather than chases with extremely tight timelimits. They might be arguably more basic that in the first game but I prefer them over the rage quitting bosses. 

However one aspect that I am mixed on is the game adding more "shooting" levels. The on rails turret levels are okay if rather one note since you are just holding one button and hoping the analog stick aiming is fast enough to destroy the designated targets in time. Being able to recover more health and firing rockets while having high justice does make these sections a little less one note since you can cause extra damage if you are playing well.

The on foot shooting levels are decent ways to change up the pace but I can picture some being turned off by the awful PSP aiming controls and the fact Sony never patched the PS5 version with traditional aiming controls like with Syphon Filter Dark Mirror but I was able to get used to this and the enemy AI is dumb and also isn't too aggressive to the point where the awkward aiming controls didn't get frustrating and the Justice Meter getting filled up after headshotting enemies made these sections more than bearable since I don't have to worry about being low on health and not having any medkits or have regen health and constantly hide behind cover, wait for a screen to stop turning red rinse and repeat, it's rather interesting that a game like doesn't use either system for it's on foot shootouts. The QTEs with close quarters can get irritating but they don't happen too often.

However my least favorite shooting section is by far the sniping missions which are just cumbersome. They require pin point aiming accuracy and they require you to do them with the PSP analog nub no less, and it's hard with the PS5 controller analog stick and also require to aim well when the vehicle is constantly moving while also making sure you take out the enemies in a certain order. These missions are by far the worst since they require you to do more than what analog aiming can even provide and I don't even hate analog stick aiming as much as others do. 

Overall, Extreme Justice is a solid sequel that you might dislike for the reduced difficulty but I didn't mind since I felt it's predecessor wasn't always fair in terms of difficulty. 

MediEvil: Resurrection Review

I played this game because it was avaliable on the Classics section PS Premium and I never played Medievil before, and I heard bad things about this particular version of the game and from what I can only say judging from this game, I can say I enjoyed game to varying degrees but not without a good amount groans and frustrations along the way. There was a level late game so frustrating that I had to use a cheat to beat and it almost made me quit the game

I'll start with what I liked, the level design is great and is the best thing about the game from a gameplay standpoint, the level design is the good old fashion constant backtracking and exploration based level design that I love so much. When I was getting "runes" which were like the keycards in Doom 1993 or any 90s boomer shooter, I was enjoying the interconnected feel of the level where I would go forward, then hit a roadblock, then go left or right and try to slowly but surely figure out all the steps to getting to the end of the level. There's decent variety and gimmicks to the levels too. There are forests, graveyards, swamps and an abandoned farm where you also have to various objectives in those levels to progress so it isn't just finding keys to open doors.

You will find level progressing items, destroy certain amount of x to progress or collect and so on. The levels also look nice and have very imaginative imagery and designs. The music is also very athmospheric and fits the wacky majestic journey you are going on very well.

The story and particular the characters and voice acting are all expressive and memorable especially the Grim Reaper and Zarok. Sir Dan is also a surprsingly endearing and enjoyable underdog character especially in a game genre like action games. His backstory makes him easy to get behind and is a unique protagonist when it comes to action games since in this genre I am used to characters being "badasses" the moment you press start but Sir Dan was basically a character who is loser when you boot up the game. He is also fun to watch with how interacts and expresses himself with the other characters and the fact that he at the very least speaks in mumbles and garbles puts him over many dull and boring silent protagonists since he actually shows character rather than being a boring avatar.

Now the bad or the stuff I wasn't big on, the combat isn't very good, it isn't "bad" and it generally gets the job done but I can't say this is a combat system that can't do without some noticeable improvements. The camera is really bad and you can't even move it and the camera itself doesn't do a good job at framing the action well.

That and combat is basically a game of hold the swing attack button with your long sword and hope the hit detection can registers can enough with the quick charge attacks that it kills the enemy. I know the original game came out in a time where 3D action brawler gameplay wasn't refined and this reimagining came out back when devs were learning how to work with PSP but at the same time I still think some things could've been handled better even without hindsight like why is there two melee attack buttons in a game where you can't chain combos? It's a weird oversight when that second melee attack button could've been used for letting Sir Dan use his ranged attacks like his various bows and throwing knives using a button press.

There is a camera for exploration which can also ruin the moment to moment level exploration and considering how the level design is the best part, this can make them a hinderance to explore since you can't turn the camera around with ease, that means anything that requires you to find a level progressing item can be obscured since the camera used without turning gives you a satisfactory angle on where to look at best.

Two examples of this is where in the Pirate Ship level I was supposed to find 7 powder kegs to blow up a barrier to get to the boss, one powder keg towards the end of the level was on the other side of the trampoline area but since I can't turn the camera and in game camera giving you a sub par angle overall, I can never spot that penultimate powder keg to progress. Later in the game, I had to jump on some broken steps on a castle to progress through it but the camera and also by extension the texturing didn't look like I could interact with thos broken castle steps.

What just got me so annoyed on the game that made me lukewarm on the overall despite me having varying degrees of enjoyment was the boss with Fazgul before you fight Zarok. Either the PS5 version of this boss is bugged or this part was never properly playtested since it's borderline luck based if even that, I would just pour health to my soldiers constantly and the enemies would not die. I was stuck here for hours until I used an invinciblity cheat code and finally lucked out. This really soured my experience with the game and was the point where the game really hit the valley.

Overall, okay game and with every moment where I was enjoying it there was something that annoyed me. It's a super hard game for me to picture myself playing again or even trying the original or the PS4 remake. 

SOCOM 3 Review

I played SOCOM 3 years ago and then I recently played SOCOM 2 and other tactical shooters like Rainbow 6 Vegas and some of the Ghost Recon games, now I decided to replay the former since it was the first tactical shooter I ever saw to the end and after my replay how does it hold up? Still pretty good. I still say SOCOM 3 is my favorite game in the series after all these years and for a game and by extension series that is mostly known for being a multiplayer shooters, the campaigns for 2 and especially 3 hold up very well.

SOCOM 2 and by extension 3's campaign feels like the Medal of Honor and Syphon Filter 1 level design of you being dumped into a level, completing objectives while killing enemies along the way. The big addition with SOCOM is that you have a squad helping you out. If you ignore the squad, these games might be the closest thing you will ever get to a Modern Warfare CoD game where it isn't super scripted and the player having geniune agency in the levels. I really did wish the terrible Modern Military shooters campaigns of the 7th gen had this style of structure and level design, maybe then I wouldn't dislike them so much. SOCOM 2 and 3's campaigns feel like geniunely solid and fleshed out single players compared to those games.

Two big points of contention that you could make towards SOCOM 3 are the waypoint markers and the vehicles. The waypoint markers I didn't mind since they accomadate for the environments being much bigger and you still got to search the various areas of interest to progress later in the level, for example a waypoint will lead to a general area but you still need to do some degree of objective identifying. If you have to say kill all enemies within an area, you still have to look around and find them.

The vehicles are a welcome edition to the series in terms of single player since they aren't used way too much and do a decent job at adding variety to the levels. There is enough action going on in these sequences where you have to maneuver areas and avoid enemies attacking that their inclusion didn't feel like a complete afterthought unlike say the vehicle levels in Uncharted 4 and Lost Legacy since in those games the open exploration is hollow since you have no resources to collect, vehicles can't take damage, and there is no combat while riding them. 

With that out of the way, the game also nails many other things, it checkpoints and it's handled well for a 6th gen console shooter as well. I also like how your team and player health will be recovered after each checkpoint, this may sound contentious but I'd rather have this than be in a possibly unwinnable state low on health packs and hoping I can somehow get past it since I don't like sharing medkits with my AI squad plus your squad members have a good chance of biting the farm during a mission even on normal so the game isn't brainlessly easy. Weapons all feel great and head shots feel very meaty and gratifying and I also love how enemies in the game will start limping after shooting them in the torso a good number of times, I don't see "realistic" hitscan shooters after or now have that attention to detail, it makes the guns feel even more powerful.

The leaning feature with the D pad while probably harder to do with other controllers is something that works better than a lot of the cover shooters that would release later on like Gears of War and Uncharted since you can hold the D pad left or right and Spector will peak in that direction, it feels more intuitive than the sticky multi action on a single button that the above mentioned games have since when you hold right or left, you can do it from almost if not every area on the map to peak around and get the drop on enemies as opposed to Gears where you can sprint, have a 50% chance of getting into cover when running or rolling next to a wall or anything up to the waist.

The sheer number of objectives you will be doing in SOCOM 3's campaign is also impressive and gives enough variety to the campaign that it never feels like it heads into the realm of monotony. You be in a vehicle, escourting a VIP, sabatoging missles or various objects, going into occupied areas and clearing rooms, go on the occasional stealth mission, defend an area, setting up ambushes and so on.

Last things I will praise is that the music especially the main menu's fantastic and the feel of feeling like a badass of being Seal team solving conflicts around the world is still kept intact where SOCOM 4 would take the series in a more generic Hollywood action movie direction. There is minimal cutscenes and all the information you want to look up regarding the mission is in the mission briefings adding more to the power fantasy of being a badass Seal. 

After all my praise what do I dislike? It's not too many all though one big one is that your squad AI can be pretty dumb and the squad commands and AI isn't as robust as Rainbow 6 Vegas is. The squad AI wasn't as dumb as it was early on but stuff like R6V did refine it more.

The lack of a stealth meter in the game can still be annoying when the game awards you for being stealthy and encourages optional stealth, I would engage in them but the stealth system is too underdeveloped to make this approach work and I play it as a game where I thin the herd with my silent weapons and then fight from long range.

Melee actions can be too contextual for my tastes and a later level with Serwat can expose how poorly defined they can be since the prompt only appears when you try to capture him after throwing a flashbang. It can feel weird considering the pointless cryptic step to apprehending him.

Overall, I can still see why I enjoy SOCOM 3 five years after me playing even it, there still isn't many modern military shooters that have the feel of this game or series.