Second Sight Review

What was Free Radical doing after Timesplitters 2 and before Future Perfect? You got Second Sight. That's often what this game is known as however that didn't stop it from getting a passionate cult following in it's own right. I orginally played it back in 2018 and recall the story having have amazing cutscenes but really confusing as a whole but the gameplay is just on the "okay" side. Playing it again years later and my thoughts remain the same. What annoys me this time around is that the gameplay could've been more interesting and better thought out considering the premise of the game. The story is still very good but the gameplay could've been more than just a means to an end.

When it comes to the non interactive side of Second Sight, the game delivers. Timesplitters was always an episodic tale with a loose plot that conncects everything with the cutscene animation, charismatic characters and funny dialogue doing much of the heavy lifting. Second Sight was Free Radical's attempt at making an overarching plot before Future Perfect would introduce one to TS.

The story itself plays out like a psychological thriller. With the main character John Vattic slowly piecing together everything as the player is while he is going through the game. There's a fair number of red herrings and intentional misdirection with the story. It's fascinating just how in sync it all is. The player is often confused just as much as the main character is. The twist of the game even coincides with the game's very title too. There is some gaps in the backstory I wished were explored like what was the catalyst that caused John's initial hostility for psyhics and what the pentagon specifically did to trick him into coming to Siberia. The villain Hansen is also on the underdeveloped side too. In the grand scheme of things, these problems I listed are minor.

It also helps that cutscene animation and direction much like TS2 are great here. The visuals and cinematography hold up partnered with how expressive characters can be. Now there is an overarching plot backing everything. The voice acting is also solid. The music is very much Timesplitters sounding which also gives this game a weird identity all it's own. Like a film director hiring the same production team on his last movie but now telling a different kind of story with his next one.

The story is very much the selling point here so I will avoid talking about specific events as weird as it is for me.

Gameplay is not terrible but a mixed bag if not just a means to an end. The game is basically a cross between Metal Gear Solid 2 with it's stealth and James Bond Everything or Nothing with it's auto aim heavy shooting.

However much like MGS2, the tranq gun you get pretty much bypasses any stealthing you will need to do since it's one and done solution for incapcitating guards. Guards don't wear helmets or protective gear like MGS2. What's worse here is that the guard AI can be inconsistent and partner that along with cameras never giving sound cues when near them can lead to many unfair detections. In MGS2, a guard has to call in on their radio and if the player attacks him during the call, the guards will sweep the area. In Second Sight, this is very inconsistent and can lead to hivemind stealth game AI that the genre can be infamous for. You don't even get timers of when the guards will give up the search. Cameras in MGS2 often let the player know they were close by them.

Another thing that defreniates Second Sight from MGS2 is the physic powers but most of your problems outside of the occasional puzzle can be solved with just firearms. You can't use powers and guns at the same time either. The only power that is useful during combat is healing. This ability and the very frequent checkpoints are two contributing factors are as to why many myself included were able to finish the game.

The shooting is weird in that it has Timesplitters' excellent sound design for weapons but it doesn't have the exaggerated damage animations when shooting various areas of the body. The only way to reliably kill enemies is to aim for the head or near the head which in a sense, you do get more freedom over where you can aim by comparison to the aforementioned Everything or Nothing. You don't get as much by comparison to Resident Evil 4 which would come a year later.

The enemy roster is also lacking. It consists of infantry soldiers, psyhics with guns and super soliders you fight only once. The only real enemy you have in combat is getting mowed down by an overwhelming amount of machine gun fire and not being able to find a safe spot to heal.

There is also random, "how was I supposed to know that" moments. With the computer puzzle in the Conspiracy mission being the most well known example. There isn't an overwhelming amount but they can really pop up when they happen.

Overall, the story is very interesting but gameplay is an okay means to an end that could've amounted to much more.

Playstation All-Stars Battle Royale Review

I remember hearing the announcement of PS All Stars back in 2012. What I mainly remember about the game before it's release was it being chastised for being a Smash Bros clone at all, how Sony was "ripping off" Nintendo and how Playstation IPs were never popular enough to sell a fighter and all that jazz. I sort of played the game for a little bit back in high school but I never really thought much about it. Over the years, the game did slowly start to garner a vocal cult following who really enjoyed it. The recent release of Astro Bot felt like it was echoing this very game. On top of finding a used PS3 copy for super cheap as well as being a celebration of Playstation before the Last of Us and Sony's 1st party games getting big with the PS4, I decided to give the game a proper chance. It also has that, "Marvel before the MCU" feel which gives PS All Stars even more mystique. I'm also way more experienced with the IPs in this game now than in 2012.

I'll preface this review by saying that I find Smash Bros very boring and every time I play those games, I can't for the life of me get into them. I'm used to fighting games being about health bar deleption and being the last man standing. Every time I play Super Smash, I'm confused or find those games have way too much going on.

Much to my surprise, PS All Stars is brimming with personality. This in large part could might be due to me being a life long fan of the brand but there is so much here that I don't recall Smash having. Like having fully voice acted cutscenes or dynamic and over the top stages. The latter especially have some crazy things going on during a match like having a Chimeran Widowmaker, the Iron Maiden from Twisted Metal 2012 and the Hydra from God of War coming out from the background and attacking the characters.

What sealed the deal for me was playing as the various characters with their movesets and abilities doing an incredible job at representing the characters' respective franchises. It's very easy to tell Superbot loved and did their homework with the various series that these characters are from. To name some examples Kratos has his attacks with the Blades of Chaos and Cestus from God of War 3 as well as the Spear and Shield from Ghost of Sparta. Jak has all of his moves and weapons from his inital run of games like spin dash, uppercut, hoverboard, as well as blaster rifle and the various weapons from Jak 3. Ratchet has his combuster and rocket launcher as well as wrench for melee. Daniel Fortesque has his axe throw, shield bash, and hammer. Evil Cole his electric grenade, amp, shockwave and grappling hook. Firebird Strike is better here than it was in Infamous 2 itself.

The third party characters like Ninja Theory Dante and Raiden all have their moves that would pop in the respective games a couple months later which is interesting foreshadowing.

Needles Kane and Radec feel realized despite not being playable in their respective franchises. Sly was the worst to play as but had the best arcade mode story.

This transitions to the negatives. The arcade mode while novel doesn't really amount to much than characters going to some dimension fighting another character and then having it end like some dream. Sly is the best since him looking for pages for the Thievious Racconous is something he would and could fit inbetween Sly 1 and 2.

However the biggest negative and of course what destroyed the game especially from a competitive side is the "health system" or should I say lack there of. In PS All Stars, the fighters are pretty much immortal until a super move is activated. It goes up to Level 3. The massive problem with this system is, that you don't even need to go up to level 3. A level 1 super is already enough to insta kill another fighter. Unless if you are dealing with Ratchet and to some degree Fortesque's level 1 super, they will always be enough to rack a decent kill count so this system is now just a weak gimmick. This might be fine in single player if you want to get as high of a kill count as possible but in multiplayer, which is what the Smash Bros titles made their name off of can be very problematic.

There are solutions to this I'm surprised the devs never thought of. Why does a game that has a block button not let you block super attacks? Fighting games have always done this. Have Level 3 supers be unblockable but very hard to acheive. Maybe even have supers be parried too giving players who don't have one lined up a fighting chance. You can also have two level 1 supers activated at the same time and whoever wins a frantic button tapping mini game gets the kill. Level 1 supers can be blocked, Level 2 supers can be parried, and only Level 3 can give the player the abilty to do insta kills but they have to be really good. You can also counter act Level 3 attacks with Level 1 and 2 supers being able to nullify the former.

Overall, I did enjoy the game but the subject matter and fan service carried it.

Far Cry: Primal Review

When I originally played Far Cry 4, I ignored Primal due to the lukewarm reception it got at the time of release. Playing FC4 again made me convinced that I would drop Primal in a few hours and then move on to something else. Much to my surprise, I actually enjoyed the latter game much more than I ever thought I was going to. Sure, it doesn't reinvent the wheel and it's still an FC game with the foundation laid by the 3rd game. What makes Far Cry Primal different and at the very least has me putting it above 4 is due to the changes in combat and not having nearly the same inconviences as the latter game did.

The story was just okay, I don't normally like reading subtitles in games especially but the whole story felt like a bunch of loose favors which felt episodic plots that didn't have much to with each other. I often just zoned out during cutscens until the story missions started. I also didn't really notice Takkar going on a big journey of any kind, he just felt like an errand boy for much of the game. I didn't even roll credits on the game either but according to the various internet walkthroughs I used, it seems I techically finished the main campaign when I completed the Batari Temple mission. I wasn't engaged enough by the story to do the 100% complete ending.

When you boot up the game, the visuals have a high amount of fidelity to them and it looks good now almost 10 years later. The premise is unique in that it takes place in the prehistoric age where characters seemingly speak a made up language. It does have much of FC3 and 4's mechanics like the stealth, the weapon limit, throwable weapons, the mantling which is mainly effective at fixed points and crafting. This is all pretty done before.

What does set this game apart is the fact that the weapons are not based around 20 different interchangeable hitscan guns where all you do is point, shoot and enemies die. The weapons in FC Primal are projectile and you need to be careful and line up your shots a lot more by comparison it's predecessors. You don't even get a slo mo ability to help you line up shots like the Horizon games either. There might be some aim assist particularly bullet magnatism used but it's never too noticeable in the moment.

On top of this, you only get 4 weapons to use with only the club getting a different variation. Each one serves a specific purpose. The bow and arrow is the weakest in terms of raw damage but one who is good with headshots can be very effective at actively getting kills. The spear does a lot of damage but you can only hold up to 4 and they are not as plentiful as arrows. Clubs are good for close range combat, however it's more of a last resort and is better used on two enemies or some animals. They can be thrown at enemies which is a good last resort tactic.

What also helps makes combat dynamic that even with upgrades, you won't always have enough crafting materials on hand. During a harder wave and challenge, you might run out of ammo to create and starting running around the map to pick up spears and arrows to kill enemies with. The continue system does respawn you with all the materials you had before you died instead of at the checkpoint which would annoy me but what helps is that due to the amount of spears, arrows, crafting materials and clubs scattered all over the camps, these sections can feel doable.

Other improvements over FC4 are that the skill tree doesn't make you do side quests to unlock them, you meet a quest giving npc, they unlock a specific skill tree and you can invest points. Search animations can be disabled and healing leafs and items are much more plentiful.

The negatives are that the missions can feel dull and samey. The combat is well made but the main missions is just consists of errands, fetch quests and following trails. There are some more interesting ones like setting a camp on fire, storming a camp with an elephant(it's not optional like in FC4), and destroying a moon but they tend to be the exception.

Animals are an annoyance here than adding to the world like in FC3. You want to run to an objective, wack some animals chasing you with a club and hope they either buzz off or you kill them. You can solve this problem the exact same way every time. Making them more of a small obstacle that gets in the way than a challenge.

Bosses are terrible. They are damage sponges who rely on doing lots of damage to you and enemies backing them up than being an actual challenge on their own. There is a few of them but UII was such a damage sponge that I wonder if that fight was playtested. When I beat them it felt like I got lucky than because of skill.

The game also crashes from time to time when fast travelling to your home base on PS5 which of course is annoying.

Overall, while FC Primal isn't a game I consider mindblowing, I'm surprised I played more of it than I ever thought I was going to. The combat is one of the more interesting in the series and carries the game.

Super Crush KO(Nintendo Switch) Review

This was a game that randomly popped up in my radar. I heard it was a "character action" game of sorts that released in today's gaming industry. Due to me checking out a traditional beat em ups of any kind as long as there is no soulslike or roguelike or lite elements in it's design, I will happily check it out. As a whole, I really enjoyed this game even it does have your usual combo driven beat em up trappings.

It may have the rankings and style system of games like Devil May Cry and Bayonetta but this is very much the combat system found in the Guacamelee games. It's basically a combination of both those titles. There are differences like how the special attacks can only be done again after getting pickups from enemies upon death and how you get super powerful energy beam attack that you also get by killing enemies. You also get health pick ups when you kill enemies too but it's not so prevelant that it feels like the game showers you with them.

You also get a ranged firearm that shoots lasers out similar to Ebony and Ivory in DMC. With the dodge and the aforementioned special moves having a directional input and a button press like Guacamelee. It however doesn't have Guacamelee's color coded enemies where specific moves can only damage the enemy.

There is also a number of stage hazards like moving sawblades, lasers and disappearing platforms to contend with as well.

So while Super Crush KO borrows from other games, it does have it's own ideas going on.

It is a short game but of course this is a game that is meant to be played over and over again to get higher rankings but with that said, an average playthrough where you get don't get the highest of scores is still going to be a moderate challenge. Everyone's skill levels varies of course but there are no difficulty levels and there is also a limited continue system as well. On top of all this, the enemy waves get more and more intense as well as dealing with the stage hazards makes the game not something you can sleepwalk through.

This is a title where your skill level is average at best might test you especially when you can't die and keep respawning at checkpoints and eventually win. I'm mixed on the lives system because I believe they exist for the devs to hide how short their game is. With that said, the lives system did feel like it put pressure and motivated me to be better in combat so I won't have to restart at the start of a level. There were times where it felt like I wanted to quit and eventually drop the game but the stage to my surprise wrapped up before I could lose another one.

The stages also don't really drag on it for that long so it helps counteract the lives system.

Despite it's short length, Super Crush KO does actively introduce new enemies to shake things up like ones with shields, breath fire, bounce around, fly, shoot slow moving projectiles or bigger enemies that shoot multple in 8 directions. What helps is that these attacks are well telegraphed due to the red lines knowing when to move out of the way. The waves only get bigger and longer as the game goes on so it feels like overcoming a massive obstacle when getting to the end of a level.

My only big issue with the game is that like many combo driver beat em ups especially the DMC and Bayonetta kind is that doing the complex moves and getting higher style rankings just seems like something I have to go out of my way for not in the heat of the moment. Trying to worry about style rankings while trying to survive tough enemy waves and stage hazards is not worth doing. The challenge doesn't make me want to do the more complex tactics, I want to use the easy to dish out moves much faster and then dodge like no tomorrow. If I try to do more complex moves, I might lose more health and get a game over and lose a life.

The bosses are just...okay. Not terrible and they get the job done for being bosses but them relying on hordes for back up diminishes them as a threat since they need goons to help them. It also distracts from the actual fight itself being a challenge since you got to deal with hordes and well as the boss. It doesn't help that all of them are the same design with different colors. They don't take that long to defeat and their attacks aren't too confusing to dodge as well them giving health drops after damaging them so they are tolerable at least.

Overall, in spite of those two big issues, Super Crush KO is a well made and enjoyable beat em up. For a game I randomly heard about and mainly bought because it was a quick game to beat, I had more fun with it than I thought I would've.

Indiana Jones and the Great Circle Review(Playstation 5)

I'm not really a huge fan of Machine Games. Their Wolfenstein games outside of The Old Blood ranges from passable to almost insufferable. Their best title was Quake 2: Call of the Machine so when this Indiana Jones game was announced, I was skeptical. When the positive game reviews came in, I took them with a grain of salt. I did want this developer to win me over and after playing Great Circle, it was just so okay, it's average.

The story of the game is interesting in that if you are just looking for a play it safe Indiana Jones adventure with nothing new or interesting that the franchise or stories inspired by it haven't already explored then it did it's job. Troy Baker's Harrison Ford impersonation is impeccable and very on point. It almost felt like the former studied the latter down to the letter and really went out of his way to get his mannerisms and the way he speaks down to a science. Harrison Ford's trademark dramatic finger pointing is here as well as Indy's fear of snakes among other aspects related to the series. Machine Games really do love the movies and playing the game does show that.

The rest of the characters and performances are "fine". Voss is well acted and fun to hate villain in the moment. This is pretty much my issue with the story where I alluded to earlier. If you ignore the performances, cutscenes and production values, there isn't much to chew on themematically or anything to think about after the game is done.

It's your typical story of this style. The start of it is different but it plays out the same way. There is a macguffin(main difference now that he is getting the one stolen from him), Indy goes around the world meets people new and old to find clues on where it is, there is allusions to famous myths, an evil group is after the same macguffin, Indy does most of the legwork to find the macguffin to the point where is better off not even going after it since he doesn't get the thing and it ends with a climatic showdown where the villain dies by their own hubris instead of the protagonist himself.

For a game where you have quite a number of cutscenes and the story being one of if not it's biggest selling point. It never really goes past what I mentioned. You can watch Raiders of the Lost Ark and get the same experience. Games like Terminator Resistance and Robocop Rogue City have more going on with their stories by comparison despite not being as rich in production values and presentation. Insomniac Spider-Man and the Middle Earth games provides more innovation to their respective franchises and have more going on themeatically than Great Circle does.

Great Circle's gameplay subverts the expectations of many. It wasn't their take on Wolfenstein, Uncharted or Survivor Tomb Raider. It's going back to the Starbreeze days of Chronicles of Riddick Escape from Butcher Bay. The 1st person perspective that cuts to 3rd during climbing or special actions, the first fighting and the stealth are all here.

Much like Butcher Bay, it's jack of all trades but master of none style of design. You have a stamina system now but it adds so little to the game that it might as well not be there since it's a cinematic action adventure game. You will never have to worry about falling off during a climbing section. During fist fights, it's a hinderance to have the player to avoid spamming the dash button since enemies wouldn't land a hit on the player if he did all though when I mean "enemies" its bosses since those are the mandatory fights. Without the stamina meter spamming punches and dashes would make them too easy. The hardest parts with these sequences is with certain attacks and especially when you get grabbed since depth perception of first person perspective as well the hit box for the animation to register is a 50-50 guessing game.

You can beat the game without using  Indy's revolver which is like a Star Wars game where you primarily play as a Jedi and never needing to use the Force.

This now leaves two pillars left. Tomb exploration and stealth.

The former is very scripted if almost on rails. You take pictures to get hints and most your time is spent figuring the puzzle out. When not doing that it's very automated platforming and environmental puzzles. It never goes above and beyond the kind of level design and exploration found in the Core Design Tomb Raider games.

Stealth is barebones and limited. It's a typical crouching line of sight based system during restricted area infiltrations and Hitman disguise stealth. Most the game gives you during these parts is improvised weapons to do takedowns with. AI is tolerable at best, borderline physic at worst. What doesn't help is that guards are littered almost all over the maps meaning you have to deal with the shoddy detection system and AI behaviours even more. Fine when they don't have guns, rage inducing when they do.

Overall, I wanted to be surprised but throughout my entire playthrough, the Great Circle never escapes the realm of average.

Darkwatch Review

Darkwatch was a game I played on the PCSX2 emulator a while ago but I stopped playing the game due to the game crashing and being unable to load a late game level. I finally completed in 2019 but there were some visual glitches and hangups along the way. Now, I'm finally able to beat Darkwatch on PCSX2 from start to end with barely if even any problems. Outside of the emulator issues I had previously, Darkwatch is a blast to play when it comes to gameplay and moment to moment combat. There are some major problems but they never really get in the way that ruins my enjoyment.

The weakest aspect of the game is the story. Yes, you don't play an FPS for the story primarily but DW's opening hours was the narrative at it's best and most interesting. The game feels like a weird inversion of the cowboy story where his "final score" is actually the begginning of the narrative. Lazarus is a fairly prominent threat and how Jericho indirectly is the cause of it all due to him thinking the train he was robbing was full of riches. He causes Jericho to become a vampire and kills Cassidy Sharp. After that, the story derails pretty hard and it's just spent getting to the Darkwatch HQ, proving your worth, joinining the organization, do some errands, forming a "bond" with Tala, she betrays you, Lazarus gets taken out and the game does a bait and switch, kill Tala, game ends. Everything past the begginning is so barebones and slapped together.

Cartwright seems like a questionable and evil person but once you join Darkwatch, he disappears from the story. Tala is supposed to the connecting thread during the middle half of the game but she is nothing more than a "bad girl" who personfies temptation. There is not much too her than that. Most her character seems to be everyone except Cassidy fawning over her looks.

It's a shame, with a solid begginning and the interesting premise, felt like the story could've been more than just reveling in it's mature content.

With that out of the way, gameplay is where DW shines. To best sum it up, the game is basically, "Halo in the wild west with vampires". There's the two weapon limit, dedicated throwable weapon button, regen health, vehicle sections(mainly just one Warthog section and some on rail horseback riding parts), melee attack, the Redemmer Pistol being like Halo CE's magnum especially in terms of animations, and having the more higher jump from Halo 2.

It isn't a complete shameless clone however. DW has a rechargable shield along with health packs as well as enemies giving health drops upon death, Jericho having superpowers, having more than 4 enemy types and even a location based damage as well as enemies visibly taking more damage the more you riddle them with bullets.

Due to all this Darkwatch's action is very fast paced, frantic and over the top. You can use blood vision to zoom in and aim for the head or shoot off their arms. Would've been nice if their legs could be blown off too. Combat is ballet of picking off enemies from afar and then dealing with enemies up close. The enemy count is high enough but rarely ever too overwhelming. Timing a good dynamite throw to get some quick kills is as satisfying here as it is in Halo.

One thing DW does do better than Halo is that since enemies give health upon death as well as additional pick ups can be used to charge up your superpowers, you don't have to spend nearly as much cowering behind a wall waiting for your health to regen when at critical. If you are at critical, you could wait for your shield to recharge or use your power you had lined up to get some quick kills and the health drops can refill hp.

There is one interesting late game mission where you are only in sunlight and don't have your shield, I always hated this mission but I like it now in that you often had to be careful when to pick off enemies and finding patches of shadows for your shield to return.

With all this said, there are some major issues. For one, explosions is Jericho's 2nd kryptonite. Explosions can kill him quickly even at full health. Have one Kegger slip by you and Jericho is at critical. It's also easy to get boxed in by enemies and have a quick game over in seconds especially with no ability lined up. Load times are quick and checkpoints are plentiful at least.

The game has a morality system before Bioshock and the Infamous games where different alignments get you different powers. I was a good guy and the abilites I used were silver bullets and vidicator. Nothing else I used since they were good crowd control moves.

The weapon selection is lacking. Shotgun and Carbine are the most effective weapons. Redeemer takes an entire clip to kill one enemy even when aimed at the head. Shotgun is great up close and has a battle axe and carbine for long range especially with blood vision. Every other weapon I only wanted to use because I was low on Carbine and Shotgun.

This is one aspect Halo does better at least when fighting the Covenant. Due to the shield and flesh system. It means that the Covenant weapons are best for draining shields and UNSC weapons are best for flesh. So by comparison, you have more reasons to experiment with different weapons. In Halo, you could drain an enemy's shields then you could finish them off with a grenade, use a melee or finish them off with bullets. DW doesn't really have any reason not use your favored guns unless if low an ammo with them. 

Overall, game is still a lot of fun but can be rough in places.

The Bourne Conspiracy(Playstation 3) Review

I played the demo of this particular game off the early days of the PS3 PSN store a lot when I was a kid. Back in a time where I could only play demos and actively getting new games was hard for me. I played that said demo before I even watched the Bourne movies themselves. I finally decided to play the game on PS3 since it's cheap as of now. I'd say the game is solid, I will say much of my enjoyment came from going in the low expectations and being pleasantly surprised as a result. The short length does prevent me from harder and more critical on the game as a whole.

The best way of describing Bourne Conspiracy is that it is very much a movie tie in game based on the Bourne Identity movie from 2002...6 years after the fact. Also without Matt Damon and songs like Extreme Ways by Moby and Ready Steady Go by Paul Oakenfold. The background music from that said movie is used during the gameplay scenes where it emulates the former.

There are some interestings aspects about Bourne Conspiracy. The game turning into a fighting game during fist fights when getting upclose to enemies is very reminiscent of Enter the Matrix(these sequences have more clear editing and camera work than the Bourne movie fights themselves) and there's lots of cover shooting. There's also a lot of things introduced in this particular game that later high profile game releases would have. There multi man takedowns through QTEs like CQC chaining in Metal Gear Solid Peace Walker and V. Mark and Execute before Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist would have it. Environmental takedowns before Sleeping Dogs. Detective Mode with "Bourne Senses" that highlights parts of the level the player can interact with before Batman Arkham Asylum. There's also the scripted hallways chases with lots of explosions and bombast going on before Uncharted 2 and the sequels to that would have them.

Everything about this game really does feel like High Moon Studios was really pushing the envelope. At times it the game was better off not being connected to the Bourne franchise at all and being it's own IP.

This is where the weakest aspect of the game comes in: the story. Conspiracy is very much a shot for shot retelling of Identity but there is just one major difference lots of adaptation expansion and the kind that enters into the realm of filler and padding.

Sure actually playing as Bourne leading up to the Wombasi assassination and seeing how he lost his memory is interesting but it ruins the "thriller" aspect of the story since now the player knows everything and there is less of putting the puzzle pieces together. I do like admittedly think having a character who survives multiple encunters against Jason through the character of Solomon is interesting. The latter gets away and survives so many times that when he finally dies it feel rewarding finishing him off.

None of the boss characters have this since many of them are just randoms bad guys with barely any characterization or anything that annoys Bourne or the player. Just a boss fight for the sake of a boss fight.

Much of the game exclusive flashback levels don't add much of anything to the story and just pad out the run time of a not so long game. They just feel like filler episodes when right before the canon episodes that move the plot are about to happen. Learning about Bourne before he lost his memory is interesting on paper but these flashbacks have no bearing on the overall story.

The gameplay fares better. It's basically fist fights, shootouts, stealth, setpieces, and one car chase. One thing that does tie all these pillars together is the "adrenaline meter". It's surprising how commited the game is to this. For first fights, build it up to do finishing takedown attacks. For stealth, takedowns from behind gets you a full bar. Shooting gives you an instant kill on an enemy if you have line of sight. You can slow down time for the car chases with a full bar.

Other than that, shooting is typical cover shooting and regen health of the time with the ability to shoot over the shoulder being a toggle of L2 than holding the button so you are better off in OTS mode at all times. The guns sounds could be better but bullet impact sounds when they hit enemy heads or body does make moment to moment shooting enjoyable and not completely dull.

Fighting is basic but the takedowns are very fun to watch. You can spam light and heavy kick on weaker enemies but bosses you need to do combos and wait for openings and build up adrenaline. It is silly to get shot at while in a fist fight no option to run back and break up the fight.

Stealth is buggy with Borune having Sam Fisher crouch animations but you will get caught eventually and no way to noticeable detection meter.

Setpieces will have you spam Bourne Senses since trying to tell what you can interact with in the heat of the moment can be troublesome.

Overall, it is a rather ambitous tie in game but it's hallmarks of being one are still there.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard Review

RE7 was a game I played around the time it came out and I enjoyed it. I remember thinking it was one of the better games in the series. After playing so many RE games again however, I wanted to return to it and see how it how it held up and for the most part, it holds up well. There are some major issues particularly with enemy variety and story but RE7 rises above those flaws and is good to play in the moment which is what matters to me.

The story is...okay. I wouldn't call it good and I stopped caring for the overarching RE storyline around 4 but this, "back to basics reboot" for the series was sort of intriguing. The main thing I found interesting was the Baker Family. They are set up pretty well as being this crazy and psychotic family who can't stand being around each other. Each section of the game involves taking on a specific member which does a good job at making RE7 not being overy derivative of the first game. Each section of RE7 has you take on a specific Baker, Guest House is Jack, Old House Maurguerite, Testing Area is Lucas and the final few areas is Eveline.

Jack is the overly aggressive one who uses brute strength to overpower Ethan echoing Nemesis from RE3. Unlike RE3, Jack is only in it for one specific section making him not overstay his welcome as well as him not him be faster and nimble than the player. Muargeritte has you deal with bees in order to progress through her level and Lucas' gimmick is relying on traps.

The game however does go downhill when Eveline gets introduced. I am aware RE7 is written by the same writer as FEAR but it's hard not to unsee the character of Alma Wade from the latter game. They are both creepy little girls with long black hair who pop during scripted sequences and both have over the top family issues. The Baker family being a product of her rather than their environment does feel like it robs them of their mystique and Mia being connected to Umbrella felt like an attempt to connect RE7 to overarching RE narrative which I don't care for since to me, it's just Marvel and DC without time travel or multiverses.

Where RE7 does shine however is the gameplay which is what I come to RE for. Obviously there is the first person perspective and you'd think, "this is so obviously Capcom playing follow the leader and borrowing from Amnesia and Outlast". Thing is, RE7 is enhanced by this perspective. I don't get scared by games, I know they are not real and are an illusion but the first person persepective along with how grimy, dirty and ugly everything looks does help enchance immersion in the moment. The asethetics of RE7 isn't nearly as clean and sanitized as the 3rd person REs.

Along with that you also get the return of gameplay mechanics of the older REs. Particulary my favorite: the inventory system. If you disliked the tank controls of the RE games that had this. RE7 might be the game where you could appreciate it since now the movement controls are modern.

The decision making is back, "do I carry lots of weapon and ammo but have more puzzle items or should I do the opposite?" It was great in the PS1 games and it's great here.

You also have the interconnected maps where you find new keys and puzzle items and each area is an interconnected puzzle where you unlock more of the map as you go.

Other things I enjoy is how the game teaches you it's mechanics by slowly playing. Early parts teaches you how to use healing items and using weapons while in the heat of the moment with Mia boss. Jack Backer has you slowly get used to the interconnected parts of the map and inventory. The trailer teaches you the upgrades with coins. Lucas is my favorite where he teaches you to be cautious and watch out for traps. You have to avoid trip wires but also have to worry about what crates are explosives and which ones aren't. I got startled when I accidentally forgot to shoot a crate and it exploded upon melee attack with knife.

The much derided ship sections I enjoyed since playing around with remote bombs was fun. The last few sections were enjoyable since I got to let loose with the ammo I collected throughout the game.

There are some issues I have with the gameplay, bosses are tolerable at best but can be on the greating side when one hit by them gets you to critical health so if I don't heal after getting hit once, it could lead to a cheap death.

Early parts without the shotgun are noticeably harder since pistol ammo is very limited and enemies take a lot of pistol bullets to die.

Speaking of enemies this is where RE7 fumbles. All you fight are the molded and that's it. For a game taking so much inspiration from RE1, where are the dogs, snakes, crows, hunters, wasps and spiders? All you fight are the molded and one variation on them. It's rather disappointing that RE7 has less enemies than a game from 1996.

Overall, RE7 does have some glaring issues with story and enemy variety but it never really gets in the way of playing it in the moment.

Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi 2 Review

DBZ Budokai Tenkaichi 2 is a game that really takes me back. Remember getting on PS2 at around Christmas time of 2006 and really looking forward to it in spite of how much I disliked the first game. Fast forward to around 19 years and while the game is a good sequel and is crazy how much the devs improved upon BT1 in such a short period of time, I also find BT3 and Sparking Zero to be more enjoyable games.

I'll start with the positives, the music is incredible. It's some of the best Dragon Ball game soundtracks you can ever listen to and since this is technically the first DBZ fighting game that didn't use the infamous plagarized score from earlier games makes the OST of this stand out that much more.

The improvement to the fighting from BT1 was a crazy step up. Everything from animations, to game feel to visual effects. All of the naunces that later games in the series would have are here. However there some mechanics only in this game like high and low blocking and attack cancelling. 

The multi man battles in story mode is a fun way to challenge yourself too. Seeing how many opponents you can take out before your HP on one of your fighter hits zero. 

The final positive depending on who you ask is the sheer amount of content in BT2. The story mode can take you about 20-25 hours to finish which is pretty crazy for a fighting game story mode especially for it's time. Kid me most definitely loved the length since I didn't get many games at the time and every new game was basically an event.

This is where the positivity ends, BT2 is a very good sequel but my big issue is how long the story mode is. There are a good number of people who criticize BT3 and especially Sparking Zero for how short their story modes are but I argue BT2 can feel too long and padded for it's own good.

For one, the overworld doesn't really add much to the game and just gets in the way of the pacing. It is a fighting game so I just want to cut to next fight. On top of this, does it really make much sense to be exploring when a major story beat is about to happen. I don't really want to cut to Piccolo flying around the open world before he meets Imperfect Cell.

Another issue is that doing the movies is mandatory and part of the beaten path in order to get to the "canon" sagas and GT. This is like making side missions part of the main story since the DBZ movies were esstentially side missions to begin with. The Garlic Jr. filler arc is also on the beaten path.

This in turns leads to my next issue is that the cutscenes aren't very well made. Budokai 1 had far better in engine cutscenes and that was back in 2002. There are some sequences in BT2 specifically that are well made even at the time I played the game I found the cutscenes to be bad. The Goku vs Vegeta fight in the mountains and the Android 18 vs Vegeta cutscenes are standout examples. Problem is that scenes like this are too few and far between. Most BT2 cutscenes will play out like this:

Characters either fly in, lying down on the ground, or holding their arm with all of the stuff that caused them to end up that way happening off screen with the most amount of camera composition you will get is the camera moving up or down and a close up. That's how most of the cutscenes will go.

Some can complain that BT3 removing cutscenes makes it worse, I argue that the devs just didn't try and expected you to know the story. They knew these games aren't a good jumping on point for DB.

The cutscenes of the movies are quite poor since some movie specific characters don't pop up like the most of the henchmen of Cooler and Bojack and Broly has no Paragus in the in in engine scenes. It makes me wonder why the movies are on the beaten path when they aren't even good retellings especially when the movies themselves are less than an hour.

Some of the gameplay issues I have with the story mode can be a little nit picky like Goku being able to use Kaioken or Spirit Bomb on Raditz.

Other issues can be more problematic like fighting the same opponent 5-7 times. I argue BT3 improved this aspect by having the event triggers, it makes the story battles feel more dynamic, more faithful to the series and cuts down on fighting the same opponent multiple times.

Playing fights from the villains perspective in BT3 also makes more sense than having to win against a character where you ultimately lose in a cutscene. It happens so many time where you need to win a battle but lose in a cutscene.

The HP some opponents can have, fighting with weaker characters, some characters being invunerable to your melee hits on top of being forced to beat them even though you lose in a cutscene makes me want to abuse lift smash since more aggressive enemies will use it on you, line of sight is lost when it connects and is a great combo which can work on bigger enemies making it a go to cheesing tactic.

Rush moves are also based around RNG by comparison to later Tenkaichi games. Them connecting at all feels like a dice roll.

Overall, BT2 is a solid sequel but the more I played, the more I wanted it to end. I prefer a game leaving me wanting more than wish it ended sooner.

Far Cry 4 Review

I played Far Cry 4 around 10 years ago and didn't think that much of it. I didn't find it as good as Far Cry 3 and found it about as forgettable as Blood Dragon. What I didn't realize upon replaying FC4 is that it follows the same game design philosophy of the latter which is what ultimately lead me to being so lukewarm on FC4 itself. I never played any Far Cry game after this and ignored the series for a while but after replaying 3, I thought, surely maybe I'd be kinder on 4? No. I still found it as dull as I did all those years ago.

The story is a weird one well not exactly, it's more that the most interesting parts happens at the start and at the end of the game. Pagan Min starts off as a pretty good villain, Troy Baker does a good job at giving him a charismatic yet psychotic demeanur. This was around the time where he appeared in almost every mainstream game and he did does turn in a good performance even if the start and the end were the high points. The begginning of the game is a great example, Min almost enters into the realm of anti villain where he wants to be friendly but he does a terrible job at doing due to his outbursts.

It's contextualized in an interesting way where the player is so horrified by his welcoming yet crazy behavior and that Ajay and the player by proxy wants to run away from him and join the fight with Golden Path. There's also an alternate ending if you stay. The ending if you run away is also interesting in that it makes Ajoy and the player wonder why he went on such a crazy warpath even though the whole point was to scatter his mom's ashes.

That's where the problems with the story lies. Everything inbetween the start and finish is filler. What does Pagan do when you don't meet him in person? Just taunt you on the radio. Compare that to FC3's Vaas where he often striked at Jason Brody when he least expected it and often did his monologues when the latter was tied up or was unable to move physically. Pagan Min never has this since it's all just radio chatter during the middle half.

Ajay is also impartial towards everything and everyone he is around despite characters getting the drop on him and getting drugged up at multiple points in the story. Amita and Sabal's conflict with Golden Path and Ajay wanting to scatter his mom's ashes are so fundamentally disconnected that it makes the actual part of the story where FC4's gameplay take place feel superficial. Much of the character motivations and you actions on the world is often told to the player rather than fully shown too. When you do a mission for either Sabal and Amita there's rarely if ever an example of how either of their ways of doing things could be right or wrong. All your actions are told to you after the mission is over with no major ramifications on the story or the game world. For example, if you side with Amita to allow Kyrat to become a state where drugs are accepted to make money, how does that effect the plot long term? It's ignored as soon as the mission is done. The story also ends never even showing the actions of the player either. 

FC3 was more of a personal story and FC4 feels like it wants to be more ambitous but the latter never really amounts to much outside of the start and end.

The gameplay is the same as FC3, everything is the same with some changes like auto syringe crafting, a cleaner UI, being able to carry bodies, a different skill tree and the player must always have a one handed weapon taking up a slot on the weapon wheel.

The last two I argue hinder the gameplay more so than enchance. Remember that early game hell that made FC3 so memorable? Ajay in the first 2-3 hours of FC4 is about as powerful as mid game FC3 Jason Brody. All the holsters you need to craft have animals on the beaten path in those said 2-3 hours. You also get lots of money and get lots of high level weapons and attachments in that early game too so now much of the enemies are barely a threat. The only hard parts is dealing with enemies shooting from all angles and constantly going down to critical health especially with snipers(being able to carry 6 syringes without doing a side quest to fully complete the holster doesn't help). Ajay gets knocked down upon a soldier's melee attack and having to wait for him to get up while getting shot at on top of green leaves not spawning nearly as often just makes combat more grating than fun. I lowered the difficulty to easy since it would lower the amount of green leaf finding I would have to do.

When it's not that, it's just ADS, shoot, get hit, use healing syringe rinse repeat. Stealth isn't mechanically improved over FC3 and having one weapon be a pistol means I can't carry a shotgun and sniper at the same time which limits options and makes me want to use the various LMGs that much more. Ajay is also so much powerful gear with LMGs for infantry and rocket launcher for helicoptors that even disabling alarms becomes something you don't need to do that often either.

There's fortresses, a grapple hook and a gryocoptor. The fortresses you don't need to do to beat the game, the grapple hook is too contextual to be anything of note, and the gyrocoptor makes taking over outposts pointless since even when you take them over, it's still a lengthy run to the mission start.

The skill tree is much worse than FC3 since many of them are locked behind side quests instead of just buying them outright.

Overall, playing FC4 again does remind me why I didn't like it that much. Time didn't make me kinder on it