Mortal Kombat vs. DC Universe Review

I normally don't talk about fighting games, but I'm sort of familar enough with the Mortal Kombat and by extension Injustice games that I want to talk about this particular game. 

I always heard this game wasn't very well liked by people and heard it wasn't very good, while I don't think the game is anything amazing since fighting games aren't really my genre, the game is at the very least decent enough for the kind of casual player I am. 

I only played the story mode and while it seems weird that I am primarily talking about the Story Mode for a fighter, I primarily bought this game for it since over the years I heard it was a proto MK9. 

Outside of the fact that the game has two playable sides with MK and DC, it very much plays like MK9 before MK9 you control a certain character for a few fights and then you switch to the next one, I have seen many criticize this system, and while I do very much understand where they are coming from, I kind of like it in the sense it feels like a weird, if somewhat not efficient enough tutorial on how to use certain characters, it's basically sort of like a tutorial mode with a narrative and this works for a casual player like me. I would've just ignored this game entirely if they went with the option of just having Arcade mode and that's it. 

However the problem but at the same time a strength is that since you play as so many different characters, you'll play as a character you like one minute and then a character you like another all though since I'm more familar with MK characters and their movesets over the years, I might've enjoyed playing as the MK characters more than DC, I know Liu Kang's fireballs, Bicycle Kicks, and Flying Kick and I know some of Raiden and Scorpion's moves too. I did like using Lex Luthor on the DC side, so it wasn't all bad. 

I also didn't mind the "3D" aspect of MK vs DC since I felt it did an okay job at feeling familar enough to a guy who plays modern MK and Injustice games, I mostly felt at home with the button and combo button inputs of despite the additional plane. The physics were weird sometimes, but I didn't mind. I also used combo breakers a lot more in MK vs DC by comparison to the Neatherrealm Studios fighters since there are no x-ray attacks. 

However despite all this, the story was kind of a letdown, I wasn't expecting writing masterclass or anything but the whole narrative felt like it could've had more meat on its bones. For example, Darkseid and Shao Khan both iconic villains in their own right combine together to form "Dark Khan" this sounds awesome, this could be a really wacky and over the top silly premise, I even bought the game for that, but instead Dark Khan barely has any screen time or doesn't do much of anything, he's just an end boss and that's it, no villainous acts, no worf effect, nothing to make me dislike him, he's just a boss fight, for such a wild concept, it felt like the writers could've done more with it. 

The rest of the story isn't much better, it's mainly just MK and DC characters, getting surprised or angry at each other then they fight, and then it moves on to the next fight, my big issue is probably just the lack of a geniune plot, it just feels so loose that it's hard to get invested even for a "dumb fighting story" point of view. 

The whole MK and DC playable campaigns also felt like a weird wasted opportunity, I thought with both sides being playable, you were going to play out both perspectives to "get" more of the story but they don't seem to intersect or change that much, probably due to the lack of plot but at the same time, it was kind of a wasted opportunity yet again. 

The voice acting is also decent stuff and it has number of the MK9 and later NRS game VAs too, and outside of Shang Tsung, they get the job done. 

Overall, I complained about the story a lot but I did enjoy the game from a moment to moment gameplay perspective, I'm a casual fighting game player and I doubt I will ever be a hardcore one, but at the same time, for the relatively cheap price I got this game for, I had a decent amount of fun out of it especially for a guy who occasionally plays the NRS game, I was expecting some decent fun and thrills and got just that.

Penny's Big Breakway Review

This was a good time, I wasn't expecting much out of the game and I mainly played it at all because it was one of the few indie games that had a simultaneous console and PC release which I wish was more common among indie games.

I'll start with what I liked first, the game has a great movement system, probably one of the best in 3D platformers that I played in a while, I thought Hell Pie's grapple hook system was innovating but this game takes it to the next level where you don't need to find upgrades, and you can just swing in the air at any time by holding the square button, it just feels amazing to chain multiple jumps and then do a swing to land on a platform. I felt like generally felt like a fast and nimble character most of the time, and the sense of control I get with this movement system can almost feel unrivaled at times, there were times where I thought I was going to die but instead I barely managed to make it, all though there were also times where I did miss jumps too.

This leads to me to the next thing I liked, the checkpoint system, you will be dying pretty often in this game and the best part is that you never get overly chastised for it. The worst that can happen is you losing a lot of points but I'm not really in it for games for that so this never really bugged me, all the checkpoints felt reasonably spaced out and there was never a moment where it felt like the game gave me checkpoint starvation, which is great since checkpoint starvation is one of my least favorite tropes in games.

The camera system is innovating for a 3D platformer too, I'm surprised I can't name many 3D platformers with this system, it felt like the old God of War games in how you have no control over the camera and it constantly follows you, the camera isn't behind the character's back like in 3D Sonic or Spark the Electric Jester 2 either. It's s surprisingly good system and I welcome more of it in the genre.

What I dislike about the game is that it can be pretty buggy, I had a grappling hook bug happen where I'd fall off for no reason, but it seems that got patched after since I never fell off once after I picked up the game again later. However, I did clip through walls, and the floor a few times so there is that to deal with just be warned.

The controls are mostly fine but using the analog stick can be cumbersome especially during some sections where they are timed and you need to be precise, these aren't too common but it can get grating trying to say aim a bomb directly at a rock formation you want destroyed as you are moving through the level. It's nothing too bad. There is one annoying thing where trying to build up speed momentum and not having the character just move seems to be a herculan task. Sometimes, I held R2 and I would start to build some momentum and other times I held R2 and the character would just move instead, I never managed to figure this system out.

Finally, the bosses are quite weak, they aren't "terrible" but 95% of them can be beaten pretty easily too, every time I beat most of the bosses, I'm like, "that's it?" The patterns can be pretty simple and the methods of getting to damaging them are so simple that you can beat them in probably less than 10 minutes, with the exception of an Ape Escape styled race boss that happens late in the game, this part is the hardest and a massive difficulty spike, you not only need to win a race where the boss constantly teleports a few steps ahead of you but you need to collect more tokens than the boss as well. This almost made me quit the game, but I was able to beat him but it felt like a close call more than anything, I'm willing to bet this would be a stumping point for many people who play the game.

There is also that 3D platformer issue of accidentally missing a fast jump and constantly adjusting the left analog stick hoping you will make the landing but I'm sort of used to this.

Overall, Penny's Big Breakway isn't my favorite game but I had a good time considering I didn't know much of what I was getting into outside of hearing it was a 3D platformer and how much I gravitate towards the genre. I'd say it's up there with Spark the Electric Jester 2 as a high speed 3D platformer that does 3D Sonic better than 3D Sonic.

X-Men Legends 2: Rise of Apocalypse Review

I played the first X-Men Legends back when I was a kid and I decided to play this game first since I always wanted to as a kid as well but never go to, might go back to the first game one of these days.

The best way of describing Rise of Apocalypse is that it is a weird precursor to Marvel Ultimate Alliance and there might be a number of comparisons between the former and the latter throughout this write up.

My thoughts on this game is that it is "good" but at the same time it felt like it could've been so much more. Definately play this game if you are an X-Men fan if you aren't, the game is going to be a much harder sell.

The story is solid, but only as a video game narrative to give enough context to what you are doing more than because the story is memorable. I do think Apocalypse is portrayed pretty well, he has an awesome design and is decently acted, he at the very least is a competent villain if most his feats are mostly done off screen, I couldn't help but be reminded of Ultimate Alliance's Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil, while Legends 2 does an okay job at characterizing and making you dislike it's villains with Apocalypse defeating Beast and mind controlling him and Angel being taken and turned to Arcangel, MUA has Dr. Doom and the Masters of Evil interact more often and Doom is shown in cutscenes doing more villianous acts by comparison to Apocalypse.

Legends 2's story isn't bad but it just feels like a decent game story to connect levels together, I really felt like they could've done more with the idea of the X-Men and Brotherhood teaming up. Magneto for example is a playable character but he only gets acknowledged within the story at the start and at the end of the game, outside of some optional dialogue with a villain on Genosha, Magneto spends most of the game being silent, which is pretty disappointing considering the premise.

There is a solid amount of voice acting here and most of it is pretty good minus some characters who just talk way too slowly, Patrick Stewart is even in the game much to my surprise and he gets a good amount of dialogue. The game also does a very good job at keeping you up to speed if you aren't familar with the X-Men with lots of NPCs giving background information on the plot or the various characters so if this your introduction to the franchise rather than you being apathetic towards it, this isn't the worst place to start.

Okay story aside, how is the gameplay? Much like the story, it's not bad and can be pretty good but it ultimately depends on how much of a fan of the source material you are. I generally enjoyed the gameplay on a service level and I did like how unlike X-Men the arcade game, you can use your mutant powers as much as you want all though it's on a somewhat long cooldown, however you can use energy packs to replenish your power meter, all though my strategy was to use my fists on occasion and them spam powers between the 4 playable characters untill everyone is dead. Wolverine was my major damage dealer, while Cyclops, Storm and Magneto were primarily support characters.

You can generally do this strategy throughout 95% of the game, the only major difficulty spike in the whole game was a weird boss rush of sorts where you had to fight Omega Red and Mikhail within short proxmity of each other, Omega Red can drain health packs pretty heavily if you aren't using energy packs to use your strongest moves and Mikhail has 3 very challenging phases after which is even harder than any boss afterwards. Once you get past this difficulty spike, the game never gets hard again outside of maybe on occasion one of your characters accidentally getting knocked out from exteneded damage and they hit harder faster than the auto health pack use can kick in. This is another aspect I prefer in Marvel Ultimate Alliance since it has health and energy drops rather than having limited recovery items.

The level design much like the rest of the game does an okay job at feeling like levels you can explore and the very least they don't feel like a string of scripted set pieces but at the same time, I'm rather mixed of the game having a minimap and the game telling you where to go, I was looking for a more relaxing game where I just wanted to beat people up and not think too hard and the game pulled that off. There is a few levels like Madri Temple and the Great Pyramid where you might need to backtrack, but these are mostly straightforward if jarring pace breakers compared to 85% of the game.

The bosses and some levels have some decent gimmicks to break up the pace, the part where you need to defend a SHIELD Agent from Sentinels as he is preparing bombs, the fight with Arcangel, the final fight in the Madri Temple, the boss with Beast and Sinister and the Apocalypse fight being noteworthy examples.

The music isn't as good as the first game outside of the Madri Temple theme. The game can also be a little too long for how the game doesn't have an overwhemling amount of story, I did start to feel it by the time I got to the Great Pyramid, your mileage may vary however. 

Overall, Legends 2 is a good game but nothing really spectacular, if you are new to the series or an already existing fan, the game is worth checking out, but if you were already apathetic towards the franchise to begin with, best to skip this one. 

Tomb Raider 1996 Remaster Review

This was a game I always hear about and Lara Croft's legacy can't be ignored. I did originally play the TR Survivor games and the Crystal Dynamics reboot trilogy before that but I would always hear about how good the Core Design particularly this game was. At the same time, there are your fair share of modern gamers and even retro gamers who are used to the Mario style of 3D platforming often critcizing this game. So where do I fit in?

I really like it, I can't deny if this was the original PS1 version of the game with the save crystals or the PC version without controller support, I wouldn't be able to get to the end and I can probably picture myself not liking the game even with it's hiccups, the remaster helped increase my chances of enjoying the game. I also played mostly with the original controls with some input remaps primarily putting interact and shoot to R2.

With that out of the way, I mostly had a blast if not rather exhausting time playing this particular Tomb Raider game.

I'll start with what I liked and is the platforming and level design. I'll start with the platforming, be warned, this is not your typical 3D platformer with analog control or heavily automated movement. Lara essentially moves like a tank where she has to jump to a series of sqaures and the name of the game is to judge the distance and line up your jumps to the next sqaure. Ledge grabbing isn't magnetized like in many games that come after instead you must time your jumps with the interact held down in order to grab ledges to avoid falling, this took me a while to get used to and I never fully got the hang of it even by the end but at the same time, this slow paced form of platfoming does give TR 1996 it's own unique and interesting brand of 3D platforming, it's esstentially more of a 3D transition of what cinematic 2D platformers like Prince of Persia tried to do. There isn't many games that really play like this in terms of how you interact with the ledges and how moment to moment jumps are handled.

The next positive is the level design, this is some of the best level design ever put in a game, these levels are lengthy and exhausting especially if you minimize walkthrough use, but I was already aquainted with this style, of backtracking, pulling switches, collecting keys and items and the whole, "here's a big open space, now figure out where to go as you are going through it" with other late 90s games like Resident Evil, Shadow Man, and shooters like Duke Nukem 3D and Syphon Filter to name a few and TR 1996 felt right at home for me while also having some surprises of it's own. For example the Egypt loop back twice and these are both segmented isolated levels, stuff like Duke Nukem 3D never had stuff like this. The Great Pyramid level always reminded me of how far I was from the bottom of where I started from by constantly looping back to the center with platforms placed on different sides and when I got to the top especially with how long these levels are, getting there felt pretty satisfying. If you love good level design with barely any waypoints and guides, then this game is a must play. The only issue I have with the levels is that towards the end, the game did have a lot of out of nowhere traps that can insta kill you, but this remedied by the remaster's save system.

Now I only have two major issues with the game and these could be deal breakers for some but the first I have is the lack of story. I don't really care for story in games as much as others but TR 1996's plot and characters are so paper thin that I almost with there was more actual context to what was even going on, who are the villains Lara fights' why is there a dude with a skateboard with SMGs? What was Lara's backstory and her plight? For a character that is so famous arguably more so than the games themselves, you know so little about Lara in her debut appreance, definately a strong case of first installment weirdness. That and there is so much gameplay and so little story while charming, it can sort start to feel empty with the lack of overall context to what I'm doing. This might be a positive to someone else with all that said.

The next issue and this one bugs me is the combat, while I get what the devs were trying to do, this isn't a full on TPS, combat is supposed to keep the player on his toes when doing the moment puzzle solving and platforming and it's supposed to provide some degree of tension, the combat just feels awful, and also makes me glad for the saving anywhere in the remaster. Lara can't strafe and most fights involve jumping around so the enemies can never hit you but the controls to do the sommersaults don't feel as quick and useful in the moment as they should. The auto aim doesn't feel that reliable and locks on to dead enemies too on top of the double tapping the d pad while weapons undrawn is where Lara will turn like a tank or actually jump. I never felt like I was decent at it.

Overall, Tomb Raider 1996 is a very good game depending on what you are getting into. If you are used to more traditional mascot platformers or games with heavy amounts of automated platforming, you might not like this game, but if you are open enough this might be a game you might come to like. 

Hi Fi Rush Review

I was planning to play this game for some time, I was originally going to play it on PC but I waited since there was going to be a PS5 version instead and I'm glad I did since I prefer to play on console than PC. Hi Fi Rush is now on a console I actually own. That said, I was also hesistant on playing the game since it was apparently a "rhythm game" of sorts and those aren't really my thing, I am willing to tolerate them in some random mini game to break up the pace or if a game feels like a loose inspiration of them like the free flow combat in the Arkham games or the platforming in Prince of Persia but generally speaking, I would never go out of my way for a genre like this.

With all that said, I enjoyed the game, but like many character action games, I only got a causal enjoyment from it. I like the combat in the moment but so much of the advanced combos and tactics I really don't care for.

The timing hits on the beat to get higher damage I am not sure is a gimmick or you actually need to do, it "felt" like I was timing my hits to the beat, but at the same time, for the timing rank I never scored very high, I was at the same time also getting an S rank during moment to moment combat and I was clearing combat encounters at a quick rate, I wanted to try on very hard on mode to see if it was just a fluke or I was actually that skilled but this leads to a big issue that prevented me from doing so despite very hard appearing to be forgiving, and that is the parry system.

I didn't even know the game had a heavy emphasis on parrying and my big issue is that the timing just feels way too strict and it almost feels like a rhythm game on hard mode where the circle to time the parry only pops up once and the rest of the parry prompts felt like I had to be very good at spotting the animation frame on when to parry. The Koriesca boss was a nightmare because of this or any enemy where parrying was a requirement to defeat them was. I just couldn't get the rhythm down and it felt like a completely different game every time it was there, the moment to moment fighting felt like I could just be decent at this style of game to succeed where anything with parrying felt like I had to be geniunely good.

I think there is a reason why I have seen a Reddit thread complaining about it and how the devs would later on patch in an accessiblity option where the parry window was super forgiving, unfortunately this option is only on normal so I just gave on very hard and played on normal. I did wish the game did a better job at being a more consistent, "rhythm games for people who don't play the genre" overall.

The style system apparently has your attacks be stronger and encounrages your meter to reach S at all times, but the only issue is that it's too easy to be at S rank at all times so it's hard to notice a geniune difference.

Other than that since I played on normal, the game is perfectly adequate for someone who gets casual enjoyment from the genre, I like how the support characters is something the game actually made me use like Peppermint for blue shields and Macaron for green armor, the game taught to me in a way where I started to use them actively and it felt like an extension of my moveset rather than never using them at all so good job to the game there.

I like how the game does a good job at almost never needing to use recovery items instead the game will reward you with health depending on how well you are doing which is something I like since it never feels like I need to look at my health and then retreat and look into a menu then activate the item, I like how it kept me in the action at all times.

The platforming at first felt a little obnoxious in how basic it was but later in the game, it did start to throw some more complex time challenges especially when Koresica joins your team where you have to use her special ability to activate a generator and then have a limited number of time to make to the end of a a platforming gaunlet. It does have the Platinum games problem of not doing much inbetween the major arena fights where it's just, "here's a platforming section, and here's arena combat" but it the platforming in this does have slightly more going on than in something like Bayonetta does especially later on.

The bosses are solid and enjoyable they aren't super great but they do a good enough job at filling in that larger than life action sequence in between group fights, the mid boss checkpoints did remove some frustration especially the fights later in the game.

The voice acting is pretty good and the story is serviceable, Chai is a little obnoxious at first but he gets slightly more tolerable as the game goes on. The character interactions overall are entertaining enough, nothing that is going revolutionize anything but it gets the job done.

Overall, I was expecting to get some casual enjoyment out of Hi Fi Rush and I got just that, I don't think it's a masterpiece but it's decent enough.

Mario vs. Donkey Kong(Nintendo Switch) Review

This might be the most, "its not bad but not anything amazing" game I have played in a while. Nothing about the game is outright terrible but at the same time, it's not exactly masterclass in game design either. The whole game feels like Nintendo wanted to remake this particular game because the recent Mario movie had DK and Mario be "shonen rivals" and Nintendo wanted to cash in off that.

My big issue with the game is the asking price for it and how since this is a Nintendo 1st party Switch game trying to find a discount for it is going to be something you have to go out of your way for.

You can probably beat the first 8 worlds and get the first credits drop within less than probably 4-5 hours, it seems the most of the game's content and value comes from getting 100% it and doing everything the game has to offer, which doesn't really interest me. I normally don't like complaining about this stuff since I was looking for a short game to play but the whole thing while not "terrible" just feels underwhelming. It's a little confusing what I am saying but the best way of describing the game is that the gameplay is "fine" but the content feels lacking. Maybe adding in 10 worlds instead of 8 would've helped.

With all that said, what exactly do you do in Mario vs. DK? What if 2D Mario was a puzzle platformer rather than a traditional one? You get this game. The game overall has this very relaxing and chill tone going on that I really enjoy, if you like games like that this is worth playing, I played on Casual Mode since timers while solving puzzles stresses me out. The lives system is pointless on casual mode especially since you will have to try pretty hard to lose them all on that setting.

The whole game mainly consists of getting keys where Donkey Kong is than getting the Mario toy inside the level and you don't need to get the optional gifts in the levels either, you can run straight for the Mario Toys and the game will not chastise you for skipping the "optional" gifts much to my surprise which adds more to my point that you'll get the most out of the game if you aim to 100% it.

The game controls decently enough, Mario has just enough weight and feels precise enough for the most part that it never feels like I am killing myself due to doing things I never intended to do.

I am not big on puzzlers but solving the puzzles in this particular game 95% of the time felt engaging and intuitive, I rarely if ever needed to look up a guide and when I did it's mainly because of an ability I forgot Mario can even do which is an issue I always with the genre since it's easy to be stuck on a part and you are stuck because has reintroduced the ability in a while like for example being able to throw objects upwards or Mario's long jump, to the latter's credit once the game reintroduced after spending multiple levels without doing so, I was abusing it left and right.

The level design and scenarios are mostly "fine", I wish the levels before the first credits roll had more abilities stack on to each other rather than introduce one or two gimmicks in one stand alone level, then disregard it in the next level after. For example the shield enemy might get introduced in one level, but the following one he might not pop up again or how there might be fireballs or lasers in one or two levels but they might not show up until 3-4 levels later.

None of this is "bad" by any means since the mere act of solving the puzzle in each individual level generally hits the sweet spot, "of not too easy but not too hard" but it does add more reasons on why I am just sort of lukewarm on the game. Also, while I think the brisk levels sort of add to the game's charm, they sort of make long term engagement hard since for me, I think the right length for any video game level is 20-30 minutes, anything lower or higher might take me out of it but your mileage may vary.

Overall, Mario vs. DK is not a "terrible" or "great" game, it's an enjoyable game that I feel like is a bit more biased towards people who like to 100% games rather than have that inital first time through feel incredible. If you can somehow find the game for cheap and you love to do everything a game has to offer, I'd say the game is worth checking out.

Jak and Daxter: The Lost Frontier Review

I am going to start off the review by saying I never even planned on playing this game, I spent years avoiding it because I always heard how "bad" it was and even from some other people on how they were also lukewarm on the series like I was saying that the game isn't good.

If it hadn't been for the game appearing on PS Premium Classics and me playing it on that for a couple of hours, I wouldn't even have played Lost Frontier at all. However, do not buy the PS Classics version as of now since there is a Far Drop crash quarter way into the game that I recall not being patched, however due to me giving up on waiting for a patch, I emulated the PS2 version and simpily put, the PS2 version is the way to play the game, the controls are far superior in the PS2 version than the PSP and emulated version on PS5. Mainly due to the weapon selection being on the D pad and the eco ability shortcuts, the latter is a big reason why I adovocate playing the PS2 version since the shortcuts are a far more intuitive way of using them rather than individually selecting them on the D pad. Being able to use all your abilities at once without switching just makes the game less clunky to play. You can just reach a spot to use your contextual eco power and then immediately use it without, awkwardly cycling through your ability to use the power you want. Shoot weapon is also mapped to R1 on PS2 and camera control is right stick adding more reasons to play the PS2 version.

Sony made a bad move by having the PS5 version be an emulated PSP version rather than choosing the PS2 version. The Far Drop crash as of now only adds insult to injury.

With that finally out of the way, I liked the game A LOT more than I thought I was going into it, I was expecting myself to drop the game after a few hours because I heard there is a huge emphasis on aerial combat and that there is barely any platforming, so I was expecting it to be a repeat of Jak 3 where instead of endless mini games, it's aerial combat and to my immense surprise, there is a good amount of platforming, more so than Jak 3 ever did. The first few sections of the game had a good amount of it, the aerial combat was there but it was more of a pace breaker along with the Dark Daxter sections.

What surprised me was how Lost Frontier during it's on foot sections, introduced new abilities, gave me a little while to get the hang of it and then gave me sections where I had to use those abilities during gameplay challenges. For example, I got a statue displacement power, the game introduced it to me to get s grasp on it and then I was doing a bunch of statue displacement powers to get furthur through the platforming gaunlet, the slo mo power even gets more use than it did in Jak 3 all though I would've liked more mandatory use of it.

Another example and the best bits of game design is when you have to use the statue displacement ability in conjunction with your other powers to name two examples, I had to use the eco crystals and the statue displacement in conjuction to across to the other side of the level, or how I had to use the eco shield and the displacement ability together to get past a pool dark eco and get line of sight on the statues as certain parts were rising. I was not expecting this at all especially with how Jak 2 had boring open world traversal, and Jak 3 was mini game overload. I just wished the game had more stuff like this because it could've been a stand out game in a series were I am not a big fan of it's direct sequels.

The aerial combat is decently fleshed out but it's either too hard or too easy. Your default ship is insanely weak but if you use the Sky Raider, the combat for the most part becomes a little bit too easy and the game has a heavy emphasis on it and it never managed to find the right difficulty.

Other issues I have is that I was bummed that roll jump, long jump and hoverboard are gone but I gave up on Jak leaning it's into it's movement mechanics a while ago.

The aforementioned aerial combat just hits in the realm of "okay" and the Dark Daxter sections are too few and far between to even be worth talking about.

The gunplay and moment to moment combat isn't very good, you don't have a dodge button still and still no ability to strafe and most of it just consist of spamming imbuse and using powerful weapons like chaingun to kill enemies until they die. Like the aerial combat and Dark Daxter sections, it isn't "great" but for the most part it's serviceable yet again, I gave up on the series trying to integrate combat and platforming seemlessly together a while ago.

Overall, if Lost Frontier just leaned into the game design I mentioned earlier, I would glowingly recommend the game but as it stands, it's an enjoyable game in a series where the only games I like are Precursor Legacy, Daxter and Jak X. It surpassed my extremely low expectations I had for it. It's a decently made game for the bad reputation I always heard it had.

Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot - Trunks: Warrior of Hope Review

Out of all the DLC I played for Kakarot which aren't many admittedly, this is the one I say is worth checking out, I might even end out playing Kakarot on this DLC since I am not sure I can take it's gameplay anymore.

What's good about the DLC is that it geniunely improves on the Future Trunks backstory from the anime movie released in the 90s since those portions of the DLC are much longer and has more scenes and better written down time moments than that said 90s movie. My favorite part is when Future Gohan and Trunks are discussing the past events of DBZ in a campfire at night or just any time, the characters are discussing past events, this DBZ fan service at it's finest and it doesn't just end there either, you get to defeat Android 17 and 18 and it feels cathartic finally killing them after fighting them in the DLC as many times as you did. The difficulty spikes are still infuriating but more on that later. You even get an extended epilogue where it covers the backstory in Super where you get a Future Trunks time line version of the Buu Saga and it's decently done here especially considering they could've ended it with the Imperfect Cell defeat but they took the extra step and it was nice. Compared to the 23rd World Tournament DLC, this feels like DLC done right.

Now on to the bad, remember how the most criticized part of Kakarot was the combat? Well, it's much harder here like much harder, I even had to lower the difficulty to easy just to beat this DLC which is something I never did in the base game of Kakarot. The Android 17 and 18 fights are very difficult and you even have to win these fights by depleting their health bars which makes no sense since Future Gohan and Trunks lose to 17 and 18, what is the point of having really challenging fights that you are supposed to win, if you lose in a cutscene, it just makes the victory during gameplay feel hollow.

The fights themselves involve widdling down 17 and 18's individual health bars while both are attacking you, sounds simple enough but then you have to deal with the fact that they have individually, they have lots of HP, both have powerful attacks, both have desperation attacks that can destroy your health in half and all your flanks are covered when fighting them so you could punch 17 or 18 and either one of them can hit you from various blind spots. You fight them at least 3-4 times and all the fights can be pretty lengthy due to how much HP they have.

The bosses in general are much harder here than in the base game, characters like Android 17, 18, Imperfect Cell and Dabura will do their rage/desperation attacks much more often than any boss in the base game, you will pummel them and then there is a decent stretch of time where you must dodge their attacks and avoid getting hit, my thumb was hurting on the 17 and 18 fights.

Then there are just issues I have with Kakarot's combat in general where Ki attacks and transformations don't do much to widdle health bars down and you are better off just mashing the attack button until they are down and firing them occasionally or how many attacks and boss patterns all revolve around the same thing, punch, punch, use ki attack, enemy does powerful attack where they flash red, punch, punch, then they do rage/desperation attack, rinse repeat, I never minded this that much in the base game but playing it now, I can see more issues with it that I didn't see before.

Overall, this DLC is worth checking out if for the Future Trunks backstory portions and the value you get, but I am reminded that Kakarot's combat and that it's harder just showcases that it was never that great. This will most likely be the last DLC of this game I'll play since the rest don't sound that interesting.

Far Cry Classic Review

Original Far Cry, I always heard about this game and how it is loved by some people while hated by others. It's funny really if you started with the FC sequels first, you generally don't like the game very much where if you started with this game first, you don't like the sequels very much.

Where do I fit in? I would sort of be in the middle, while I don't dislike FC1 and I actually do like it, I can sort of see why someone would dislike it.

I'll start with what I liked, I love how wide open the levels and terrain were, it was impressive back in 2004 and still is impressive now especially considering how a lot of FPS nowadays that attempt to be "realistic" either have levels that are too linear or just typical open worlds where there is a lot of empty space and not much to do outside of doing linear missions.

I like how the game can have long range encounters but then off the drop of a hat can switch to close range and switching between the M4 and SMG's burst and rapid fire modes are crucial here and unlike in a game like Call of Duty where rapid fire shooting won't reduce aim and doesn't have heavy recoil, FC does and it gives the alternate weapon fire modes some use.

There is also some fun moments where you have to traverse using vehicles and it helps break up the hitscan shooting gameplay minus the part where the controls will make have me do some awkward turns and getting hit by rocket launcher enemies where they are hard to see and they can hit me 20 feet across the map more on that later.

The Trigens are also decently designed if a little a cheap since their attack telgraphs can be too random and the best thing to do is strafe backwards and shoot them before they can hit you and rip your health to shreds, the rocket launcher Trigens are surprisingly an okay enemy, their rockets at least from long range move slow enough where I can reliably avoid them, but overall they do an okay enough job at breaking up what the pace of what could've been a monotonous combat system and luckily, the game does a good job at switching things up. Sometimes, you'll be in an open level fighting mercenaries, other times you'll be traversing a level while mercenaries and Trigens are fighting each other, and there will also be more more close quarter indoor areas where you need to find keycards to progress, FC1 never does one thing for too long where it feels like the polish and my patience would have to carry the game.

Also, special mention to Jack Carver and his voice acting, all of it so is so hilariously bad that it comes back to being over the top, the guy sounds like an over the top teenager rather a trained soldier but at the same time, it only makes him that much more entertaining, good voice direction would make Carver seem more dull.

This is where my compliants can come in, the game is hard even on easy, this could be because enemies rarely give health drops or how the game only lets you hold one health pack, on top of that, enemies will only drop armor pieces on occasion as a result I lowered the game to easy and I may have dodged any potential frustration due to things I will describe later.

Enemies have great vision and are super accurate, they can see you from very far and they can hit you with pinpoint precision too. Luckily the tagging feature really helped because it this wasn't in the game where if I activated the binoculars and I instantly tagged enemies, the game would be impossible to play.

Speaking of enemies that are accurate did I forget to mention that you will randonly die from long range shots you didn't see coming? That happened to me a lot, these guys are deadly accurate with rocket launchers too and at times I thought the game was bugged when really it was because the enemies are THAT good at hitting me from long range. Mercenaries are better at hitting you from afar than Trigens are.

The OICW also breaks the game balance too since this is a weapon that is very good at close and long range so no need to switch fire modes since you have a scope now and there is plenty of ammo for it. I rarely if ever used any gun besides this one.

If it weren't for the tagging, the really good and forgiving checkpoint system that also lets you choose which checkpoint to spawn from(more games should let you do this), and the ablity to hold one medkit. I wouldn't be able to beat the game at all.

Overall, this Classic version of FC1 is a pretty solid if otherwise weird port of the game, I may have enjoyed the game more than I should because of the anti frustration features in this version of the game, maybe I will give the PC version a whirl someday.

Shadow Man Remastered Review

Shadow Man is a cult classic I always occasionally heard about but I never heard so much buzz about it until the remaster by Nightdive that released a few years ago, I heard about how good the game was by it's cult following and now that I finally finished it, what do I think?

It's a great game but I don't think it will nesscarily an easy game for everyone to get into. If you are one of those people who can't stand it when a game tells you nothing like I mean absolutely nothing, you are going to have a bad time even by comparison to other late 90s games like say Soul Reaver, Tomb Raider and collectathon platformers like Spyro the Dragon, Shadow Man tells you nothing and trying to figure out what to do at first can be quite the daunting task. I had to use walkthroughs quite a bit before eventually getting into the game's groove and being able to play while occasionally looking up a walkthrough.

The best way of describing Shadow Man is that what if you had the aforementioned games I mentioned and combined them into one? You pretty much get this game. You got the two worlds you can traverse and having the supernatural premise and protagonist like Soul Reaver, you got collecticbles you must collect to progress like a collectathon platformer, you get linear stages with lots of switches, traps and puzzles to solve like the older Tomb Raider games and not to mention the game even has metroidvania elements where you have items you can collection that can make world traversal easier and can be used in combat like a Metroid game. Shadow Man combines all these games into one cohesive whole and at first it's not clear what you are entirely supposed to do.

That's the thing with Shadow Man, you could go into the game blind and you might get enjoyment from it but to put it simpily what you are supposed to do is kill 5 main bad guys, 4 of them are serial killers and one of them is the final boss, Legion, but in order to do that you need to collect retractors in the various levels to get to them through the Cathedral of Pain, but before you can do that you need to collect dark souls and increase your soul levels to unlock more playable levels, one to find retractors to get to the serial killers in life side and to solve a piston puzzle, two to unlock levels and some of those will give you metroidvania upgrades that makes it easier to traverse levels as well as getting game progressing items and to top it all off, you need to be able to be Shadow Man in life side in order to finish off the serial killers. This is just main gist of what you'll be doing in Shadow Man and see how it took me so long to describe all that? That's generally how many steps it will take to get to the final boss and beat the game, and like I said, it can be a daunting task.

Once I figured it all out, the game is one of the most rewarding exploration platformers from the late 90s if not ever even. The sheer act of exploring and finding cadeux, a dark soul, an item, or a new tattoo, there is just something to always find and be rewarded for your curosity.

The moment to moment level design is much like say late 90s Tomb Raider except the platforming is much more streamlined by comparison, no need to position jumps and hope you can press the interact button in time to grab a ledge, here Mike will grab ledges simpily by tapping x and shimming is done when the ledge is grabbed when Mike is close enough to it.

Platforming might be streamlined by the combat as far as this remastered version of Shadow Man is a lot better, the way Mike can strafe left to right with the left stick and camera turning is mapped to right stick makes the game feel like an early 00s game like Max Payne and Ratchet and Clank. TR's combat can be super stitled and awkward where Shadow Man feels a lot more doable and serviceable by comparison due to the aforementioned controls as well as most if not every enemy using projectile attacks where Lara has a hard time strafing and dodging enemy attacks without flipping around constantly.

Not everything about Shadow Man's combat is perfect however, the controls might be modernized, Mike can strafe backwards and there is ablity to dodge to the side to avoid enemy attacks like Max Payne and Ratchet which can feel quite jarring especially when taking accumulated damage can kill Mike pretty fast, it's a strange quirk but I slowly got used to it since the Shadow Gun slowly becomes more powerful and getting a pleathora of more items and weapons makes short work of most enemies.

That and after a certain point, the game stops throwing new enemies entirely and you'll be fighting many of the same enemy types over and over, but this is fine since the exploration aspect of Shadow Man is so well done that I can deal with okay combat, metroidvanias and exploration heavy games just need to have serviceable combat at the end of the day.

Overall, Shadow Man is a great game and but just be warned, the game doesn't tell you much on anything. Also, the game can be quite lengthy too, the game's clock and what my PS5's timer told me are very different. According to the game, I played for around 14 hours where my PS5 clock said I played for around 40 hours. 

Short Game Review: March 2024

Quake 2: Call of the Machine:

This was a pretty good expansion overall, out of all the ones that got made for Quake 2, this is easily the best one. The new structure and high enemy count carries much of it and all though I didn't like that every mission you got to get your weapons back and the fact that the missions can be beaten in any order kind of like how Halo ODST did it kind of nullfies any feeling of progression, I did like that there was some attempt at innovation here since playing so many of these expansions can get pretty draining.

I love how visually distinct each locale is and if you thought the base game looked too drab and industrialized, Call of the Machine might be appealing to you.

Out of all the levels I say generally isn't good, I'd say Wastelands is the only one that is a geniune drag since you don't get the super shotgun on the beaten path throughout much if any of it.

Darkest Depths was the most visually appealing of all the expansions and it made me appreciate the Quake 1 map design a lot more.

It's also rather impressive how high the enemy count is for devs making a game on such on old engine, it's not Serious Sam levels but it is higher than the amount of enemies you would normally fight in Q2 and it's expansions. The enemy count gets so high to the point where I even had to use the power ups on normal difficulty which is pretty crazy but I like that I am finally using them actively now.

Overall, not much more to say, if there is one Quake 2 expansion you got to play, it's easily this one.

Fe:

I was looking for a game I can quickly beat in two days and this game fit the bill nicely. Outside of that, it's pretty unremarkable, not terrible but just rather dull.

It's very much a typical artsy indie game so if you never liked that kind of game, stay away from this.

What's interesting about the game is that it has various ideas like platforming, metroidvania elements and stealth but they all feel rudimentary and service level.

The dedicated map button ruins any kind of geniune discovery you could have from navigating the levels and it's not really all that great, it gives you a vague idea of where to go but it's still rather vague on what precisely you are supposed to be doing and while later in the game, you will switch between various powers/languages but since the game is so short partnered with the above mentioned problems, the exploration and light metroidvania elements can be pretty hollow.

The stealth is just your typical hide in bushes and avoid line of sight but it does have a generally forgiving detection time and if you break line of sight as the enemies are attacking you, a game over could be prevented, plus the game has a forgiving checkpoint system so it isn't too rage inducing.

The platforming is pretty basic and nothing too fast or complex, the tree climbing can be quite innovating all though too contextual for my tastes especially a late game Shadow of the Collossus style boss climb can be pretty frustrating since it's hard to tell if you will climb all the way up a tree by rapidly pressing x or you will glide off. This made that climb more aggrevating than it should be. There is only one sequence like this the whole game but it can feel like a difficulty spike since falling off the boss means you got to get back on him again.

It would've been nice if Fe combined stealth and platforming together where you had to time your jumps while avoiding enemy lines of sight. It would've given the gameplay a lot more flavour than just being a basic platformer and stealth adventure

Overall, Fe was an okay time, I was looking for a quick and easy game to beat and I got just that. I am not sure if I will remember this game all that much months down the line but at the same time, I doubt I will view with much scorn either. Its about as serviceable as serviceable can get.

Far Cry: Blood Dragon Review

Far Cry: Blood Dragon is a rather odd game, I have beaten it at least 3 times by now and I only beat it for a 3rd time because I needed a quick game to beat and I bought the PS4 version of the game on a sale recently while playing the game through backwards compatibility on PS5.

In spite of the fact that I have beaten it around 3 times, this might be one of the most unremarkably remarkable games I have ever played. Nothing BD does is outright terrible but at the same time, nothing it does is out of the ordinary either.

It's a Far Cry 3 with retro neon visuals, synthwave soundtrack and 80s music and refrences. Rex Power Colt is just as much a typical macho action movie hero from the era as well as the 90s FPS protagonist that borrows from them like Duke Nukem, Michael Biehn sounds bored while also overly stoic at the same time, his performance did grow on me the more the game went on.

The story, writing and presentation were sort of novel at the time since the game came out before 80s homages were really beaten into the ground and it can be pretty charming especially when doing the main story missions only, the game can almost feel like you are going through an 80s movie. The synthwave soundtrack is fantastic and it was probably my first time hearing music like this when I played the game around release on PS3.

Might as well discuss the gameplay now. It's...decent but at the same time, this where I argue reusing Far Cry 3's assets hurts the game more than benefits it.

Before I discuss that, the guns generally feel pretty good but at the same time, some aspects annoyed me, the shotgun feels fantastic and using the Terminator 2 shotgun even when official Terminator games like Resistance doesn't even have it does feel like a novel concept to this game. The reloading animation for it is a lot of fun to watch. The Sniper which is I think is supposed to be like the Cobra Assault Cannon from Robocop feels fine but the reticle for it doesn't feel very accurate especially when aiming for the head, not sure if the hitboxes were off or because I couldn't tell if I lined the enemy up correctly for a headshot. The Chaingun feels fantastic and it should but it also feels like an easy weapon to abuse since even the titular Blood Dragons go down pretty easily even on hard mode. The Auto 9 stand in feels awful to use and is a poor stand in for the pistol from Robocop, it's super inaccurate even when sights are aimed down, has high recoil, and it takes more than one clip to take down one enemy due to the above mentioned issues. The Auto 9 in Robocop Rogue City feels far better to use by comparison. The assault rifle is functional but has way too high of recoil for me to want to use consistently.

A big issue with the open world even back at the time of this game's release is that it felt out of place. You don't really have to do any of the outposts to do story missions and you won't be put at a disadvantage if you do so. You get all your guns back after doing the 1st mission after the prologue and the later Serious Sam style mission has all your guns be upgraded to their strongest form and after that you will never use them again since you get the Killstar. There is no final boss either so no need to do the outposts to get better gear so you might have an easier time against him.

Stealth is barebones and is pointless, there will be many forced action segments throughout the game and characters like John Rambo and Matrix only used stealth on occasion when they didn't have access to heavy ordance. In the base FC3 game, it was done while Jason Brody still needed to level up and get better gear in BD, it doesn't much sense for Rex to do it since you are already blowing stuff with a chaingun at the start of the game.

I ultimately feel if BD was a linear game, it would benefit it a lot more, the open world and outposts could be reused for more story missions and the game's main campaign wouldn't be as long as feature length film, that and the game can slowly introduce new weapons and throw in new ideas as it steadily goes as opposed to most of the game being outposts and 30% of the game being story missions that can be beaten in 2-3 hours.

The game is also pretty easy even on hard, I probably made it harder for myself by not keeping the Chaingun with me at all times, but generally you are always nearby shops and there is always enough healing items to look for and buy, the hard part of the game is being lit on fire and having the game figure out whether Rex should put out the flames or he will waste a healing item or waiting for the healing animations to play out if you run out of syringes.

Overall, I don't dislike Far Cry Blood Dragon but every time I replay it, I get why I never am overly impressed with it. It's never bad to the point where I can't stand playing it but it's never amazing enough to the point where I would use it as my go to example as a favorite or even "good but nothing amazing game".