Genji: Dawn of the Samurai Review

Genji was a game I originally played because I heard it was a hidden gem and I recall it being pretty good. After playing so many games and going through the Onimusha series again in recent years. My appreciation for this particular game has grown considerably. For a game that was widely considered to be an "Onimusha clone". It surprisingly kicks Onimusha's ass in a number of departments.

The story while your typical action movie and by extension action game fare is decently presented with a number of high quality cutscenes with decent voice acting at least from what I can tell considering the North American version has no dub. While there is your usual tropes of damsels in distress, heroes working together to thwart an evil plot, heroes getting backstabbed and then a villain underlying backstabbing his master, the story does a good job making it clear who the back guys are and what the conflict is. There's just enough going on for me to pay attention to the cutscenes when there isn't gameplay happening. The story is better presented than Onimusha Warlords and 2 at least.

The gameplay while sharing striking similarities to Onimusha differ considerably. For one there is no fixed camera angles but a follow camera. I wanted the Onimusha series to have a system like this and it took a different developer and game for this to be implemented. It's more similar to the camera system found in God of War which funnily enough came out the same year as this game.

Then there is also the fact that the Yoshitsune is a lot more acrobatic, agile and more nimble than an Onimusha protagonist. He can block and strafe around his enemies but he can carthwheel and flip around his enemies too. As a result reliably evading enemy attacks is more doable than the strafing system in Onimusha. The only downside to this is you might need to let go of R1 for Yoshitsune to lock on back to an enemy again from time to time.

Put them the agile movement and the follow cam together and it's easier to feel competent at Genji than by comparison to something like Onimusha 2 since the hit boxes for Yoshitsune to get hit by an enemy aren't too wide and flipping around gives some decent invinciblity frames.

It doesn't just end there, this now leads to the Kamui mechanic. It really feels ingenious. It's esstentially removing Onimusha's elemental magic system and instead have magic attacks be tied to the Issen counter attacks. It's like how in samurai moves where the protagonist kills multiple enemies in one strike. Kamui esstentially slows down time like say bullet time in Max Payne and there is a timing window where you can make a devastating counter attack that can do a lot of damage, wipe out enemies one at a time or killing a group in one slash. You can even reflect projectiles back with good timing too.

This does sound like a "win" button on paper but even the square button prompt that shows up can be misleading, more often than not you have to press sqaure a few seconds before the prompt even shows so there is some attack learning that has to be done. If timed well, bosses can die pretty quickly or can have their health bar levelled. I did wish there more wiggle room for this since you scarifice two kamui bars to slow down time even more but it doesn't make much of a difference. It would be interesting if two bars guarentees the counter but does less damage but one bar the window is tighter but a successful parry can do a lot of damage. Still, this system is solid as is.

It does handle a shop and economy system better than Onimusha 2 since it's prevelant throughout the entire game of Genji. The combat animations, sound effect when the blade hits an enemy and the blood splatter makes combat look and feel satisfying too.

Moment to moment level exploration is straightforward and never too confusing, there is so nice sections of the level looping back on itself.

There are some issues I have with all this said. As much as I love playing as Yoshitsune, the other playable character Benkei is cumbersome and not very enjoyable. His base movement is much slower and he can't dodge around as nimbly as Yoshitsune. Using kamui almost becomes a borderline neccessity to get anywhere with him.

Environments get reused a lot. Chapter 3 has much of the same scenery in Chapter 1 with only one new area to visit after. Chapter 2 doesn't even have a world map either and that with new environments.

Final issue is that the final boss Kagekiyo's final form can feel like a massive difficulty spike. It was so hard that I forgot you can upgrade your stats by using amahagne shards since you never really needed to interact with it beforehand as long as you bought high level gear and sword.

His attacks can hit hard and kamui isn't very useful since he can teleport and dart around all over the map. Before you had to pay attention to the animation but he disppears and repears before you retaliate.

Overall, despite some blemishes Genji is a well made game.

DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition Review

Since I replayed a lot of the DMC games recently, I decided to play this reboot again. I remember the Definitive Edition being good and it still pretty much is. I'd say it's one of the better games in the series. With only DMC3 in the mainline games that rivals this. In comparison to DMC3, I'd say it's two steps forward and two steps back in terms of story and gameplay, I would rather play this reboot than 1, 2, 4 and 5 since it has the much better combat than 1 and 2 and you play as Dante the whole game unlike 4 and 5. Must Style Mode also drew me to play this again, unfortunately it was pretty much an afterthought, more on that later. Story has improvements but also makes one big massive misstep from being the best in the series. Well two but the 2nd issue isn't as big.

The story at least in terms of backstory and aspects of it's world building is better than the mainline games. For one it is actually shown and explicitly shown what happened to Sparda and how Eva died. There also is a better clue on the how the demonic underworld works in this universe of DMC. Mundas also has more character by comparison to DMC1 since he reacts to what you do at the end of the missions and while he is basically a Wilson Fisk and Lex Luthor character with superpowers the story sets him up well in that you have to take out his operations and do strategic guerilla stikes before getting to actually fight him.

It also gives you more of a framework on Dante and Vergil's backstories by comparison to the mainline games.

The side villains like Lilith and especially Bob Barbas are quite entertaining and fun. The latter being my favorite since he belittles and attacks wrongfully accuses Dante and by extension of things the player didn't do. His death even helps gives an edge by giving Mundas the location of Vergil's hideout. Lilith keeps mocking Dante and insults Kat while she is trying to kill you. The Hunter Demon being a starter demon does destroy Dante's trailer and is a persistent threat in the mission he is in.

Kat is also the best female character in the series even if it is a low bar. How she helps contributes to the team and how her interactions with Dante are quick to the point without getting in the way of gameplay. She ironically contributes more to the plot than Vergil does especially with how she gives the layout of the demonic building or earlier in the game where she helps Dante thwart off a demon even though she didn't have and could've cowered in fear.

Speaking of Vergil this is where the game massively fumbles, early game he isn't bad when he's just hiding in the shadows and is giving Dante orders and is just manipulating both him and Kat for his own purposes. He's shown to be quite cunning and smart. Then later in the game when the resistance location is revealed is where everything falls apart. Remember how DMC3's Vergil was memorable for how the game uses the worf effect to show off how skilled he is as a fighter with him finishing off the bosses you previously fought as Dante? DmC Vergil lacks this strongly. This is the thing that prevents this version of him being better than 3's.

The way Vergil's fighting prowess is displayed he comes off more as a cowardly villain than someone who is manipulative but can also hold his own in a fight. Like say Star Wars' Emperor Palpatine, DC Universe's Darkseid or Dragon Ball's Cell. DmC Vergil shows the intellect part but not the fighting. Every time the game could show Vergil's abilties to hold his own in a battle, he either decides to not do act, have Dante do the work, rely on sneak attacks or when he does seemingly win in a fight, it is an off screen victory. When Vergil fights Dante at the end of the game in a fair and honorable duel, it feels unearned since the former never acted that way throughout the whole game. It can almost catch you off guard that he's even resorting to this. When he's doing his boss attacks, these are fighting moves and abilites not even shown in the game previously. 

The way Vergil's fighting is displayed he comes off as like a serious version of Futurama's Zapp Branigan, Ratchet and Clank's Captain Qwark, Dragon Ball's Mr. Satan and Harry Potter's Gilderoy Lockheart. With how much Adaptation Wimp he gets in this aspect, you start to wonder how he was able to amass followers and how his resistance group lasted so long against Mundas before Dante was recruited. There also only seems to be 3 major memembers of this resistance group and everyone else just being red shirts from Star Trek. 

Dante's character is also a lot more serious compared to the wannabe goof ball who thinks he is way cooler than he actually is in DMC3. Due to the serious nature of reboot and Dante himself being just as such his interactions with his enemies can off as vulgar than endearing. He isn't that bad considering his interactions with Kat saves it and there are some funny moments with him like waiting for the elevator to go up with annoying music playing. It did seem like an origin story where maybe in later installments and later parts Dante becomes more like how he was in the canon games. 

It's a shame that the story makes these massive fumbles since the baseline here is good and it gets quite a lot right. It makes these pitfuls standout all the more. Still, out of the mainline games, only DMC3 is a rival to this. 

The gameplay is solid. Reboot Dante doesn't really have the expansive moveset and weapons that Dante in DMC 3-5 has but at the same time, he is above Nero and V. Speaking of Nero, Ninja Theory managed to do what Capcom had a hard tim figuring out, they gave Dante a grappling hook without needing an entirely new character to justify having one in the game. This already is a point to Ninja Theory's favor. I also don't mind stinger having a knockback effect like it does in DMC5 since you have the ability to pull enemies back to you after you do it. 

The levels hardly ever feature any backtracking which is fine considering how ridiciulous DMC4 got with it especially with no level gimmicks like the disappearing platforms, dice game, slo mo dodging lasers and sawblade traps, a maze and puzzles that slow down the action like moving statues across a multiple areas. DMC3 was fine with the backtracking but DMC4 took it a step too far which is why DmC's adherance to not having any backtracking and puzzles is a big point to the game's favor. 

Platforming is also solid. Nothing indepth but it's involving enough just being a game of moving platforms and pulling them towards you. There is also some timed dashes you needed to with the timing window to do them being forgiving. 

When it comes to the actual sword combat there are new additions like a glow when Dante will do a pause combo, a dedicated launcher command and dodge button. The glow with pause combos I don't mind since it helps less adept players know when to do those attacks. 

Hitting enemies and killing them has a very eye popping and satisfying stimulus when hitting. 

The upgrade system is a step above DMC3 where you get skill points for moves and red orbs for itsems like in DMC4. You hold up to only 3 Gold Orbs unlike 5 where they keep stacking. 

DmC also doesn't have enemies as annoying as the Dullhans, Soul Eaters and the Fallen or as boring as the Chessmen from 3. the color coded enemies from the base game are gone and it's more so you do more damage to them if you hit them with a color attack which is a better change to me since you still need to engage with the mechanic. Outside of that is no enemy that overly annoys me however this is a different story on Must Style Mode more on that later. 

There is also some some great on boarding too. For example, you get used to the aforementioned dash move a few times before getting accustomed to it. The Pathos enemies can be a little annoying to get up close with swords or kill with guns but then you get a grapple hook so you can bring them to you or come closer to. You get Arbiter after trying to deal with the Hell Knight's shields beforehand. Aqulia is accquire late game to get past the Witch's force fields. Demon Shards you struggle with killing when using Ebony and Ivory but then get the Revnant Shotgun and they go down quicker. My personal favorite is how much the player would hypothetically be struggling against Tyrants but then then Dante gets Eryx and dealing with him becomes easier. You also get Kablooey to help deal with armored enemies easier. 

When it comes to subtlely teaching player what to do and easing them into the game DmC might be the best in the series. It's a step above DMC5's giving Dante 2 weapons and 2 guns the moment you control him or giving the player a new weapon towards the end of the game just to have it be a glorified boss rush. 

There are some issues with the game with all this said. The first one being Devil Trigger. This isn't a big problem early game before you unlock the ability halfway through especially if you don't care about getting high style points but when it does. My suggestion that after you get it, select whatever difficulty you are and switch to "hardcore mode" if playing the Definitive Edition since in the base game had DT be a glorified win button, it was quite obnoxious which DE thankfully removed. 

The weapon and style system can annoy some who loves playing as Dante in 4 and 5. I don't mind it too much. The weapons are like light and heavy stances from Heavenly Sword. Angel is light stance and Demon is heavy. This can feel derivative, it didn't bother me too much since at least you can seemlessly switch between both weapons. That and no specific combo attack to use to damage enemies like in that game. 

The weapons can also follow Quake logic where there's a stronger versions of already exisiting ones. This can make some for rundundant weapons unforuntately. 

Fighting styles or lack there of can be a kicker for some. You have some moves in Gunsliger style like Rainstorm, Shotgun Numbchucks, and charge shots. You also have a weird variation of the air dash in Trickster mode abeit a bit cumbersome to pull since it's better for platforming than in combat. As cool as I think the fighting style system is. You couldn't even select whenever you want in DMC3 without mods or playing it on Switch and it was never meant to played that way due to the style level up system. DMC4 and 5 doesn't even let you play as Dante the whole game and style switching itself could lead you open for an attack since the thumb is off the left stick and is on the D pad and an enemy could hit you. Swordmaster was mainly useful for close range since you get the max level of sword moves and trickster helped for bosses due to the air dashes 

While I like this system, I'm not too disgruntled over it's "removal". 

The lock on system isn't the greatest since this was added in DE but it mostly works fine even if there is seemingly no way to switch between targets. It never really got in the way of moment to moment enjoyment. 

Bosses aren't as good as DMC3 unforuntately. Bob Barbas being the best since it has decent specticle and it's also a good story boss too. The rest outside of him and Vergil tend to be a little too scripted. You hit their health bar and then do some grapple moves, a set piece then win. 

As a whole, DmC is more than worth checking out in spite the infamous reputation it can get. As long as you just accept as an offshoot universe of the series, it's easier to swallow. If you don't care about Must Style Mode, ignore the next few paragraphs. 

I do want to talk about Must Style Mode which I wanted to play DmC again at all. I always wanted some kind of game with a style meter to do what the Ghost Rider movie tie in game did and have the player reach a certain style and then he can damage to enemies. 

The fact that DmC has a mode where you need to get S rank and above to do damage drew me to it. I stopped about halfway through the game. This mode is an afterthought in spite of the interesting premise. 

The first red flag is that when playing must style on hardcore mode, the style meter goes down very quickly and it's worse with flying enemies especially when they are the only enemies on the battlefield or if the spawn at all. Mainly because when Dante combos a pathos or harpy, they will go flying across the map during that second it takes for Dante to grapple towards or bring an enemy over to him, the style meter will go down very fast. So it's a game of combo, knockback, style goes down, grapple rinse repeat. When not on hardcore mode, the issues with the vanilla release like DT doing high damage and have everyone float around Dante partnered with the easy style meter actually cancels out now since it raise the combo meter back up again much quicker. 

With that said, there are other red flags like how you don't get graded in this mode meaning no red orb or skill point bounuses after missions so you are needlessly playing on a harder mode with no reward for doing so. 

Both these issues start to ruin Must Style mode. The issues start to show when you have to deal with Pathos and Harpies while also dealing wth Tyrants and if you get hit, the combo meter has to be built back up again and your enemies are immortal punching bags while you have finite health. Outside of building up DT there is also no other way to get the style meter up much faster making combat even more of a battle with immortal punching bags. This gets worse when the ONLY enemies are Pathos and Harpies which where once minor speed bumps now become a long and very tedious battle of attritution deal to the knockbacks hitting enemies can bring with them also being immortal until you hit S rank or above. 

When the Witches showed up, I gave on this because I didn't want to deal with immortal flying enemies as well as a teleporter. She keeps disappearing before I can get the meter up to damage her. 

This mode was an interesting concept but the implementation of it was nothing more than an afterthought. It's nice this mode exists but so because this hasn't been done in a style based 3D beat em up before outside of the aforementioned Ghost Rider movie tie in game. 

Overall, DmC is an enjoyable game and one of the better games in the franchise. The story has more going for it than most of the games in the mainline continuity. You also play as one character the whole game and unlike DMCs 4 and 5. It has it's problems like a lot of games but as long as you don't try to play on Must Style mode like I did after my first playthrough, it's a game with a lot to enjoy. Go in with neutral expectations and there is a very enjoyable game to find here. 

Spider-Man 2(2004) Game Review(Playstation 2)

When I played Spider-Man 2 the movie tie in game as a kid, I never got very far into it because I found it dull. I finished it in 2014 and I was still lukewarm on it. Finishing and playing many superhero and movie tie in games later, I appreciate Spidey 2 a lot more now. I also emulated this on PCSX2. I tried it on Dolphin and it crashed, was unstable or ran poorly on every renderer I used. With that out of the way, in many ways I can see why this game was considered a game changer for movie tie in games and superhero games at the time in spite of some major grievances it can have.

One thing this Spider-Man 2 game does well is surprisingly the story. It does a good job at keeping with the themes of the Spider-Man mythos of Peter struggling with his powers and him struggling to live the life that he wants in spite of having this amazing power. In the movie, this is shown with Peter failing to maintain his relationship with Mary Jane and him losing his spider powers which seems more of benefit than a hinderance. The game keeps the same idea of disillusion but instead of with a depowered Peter, it shows how much better off he would be if he hung around with Black Cat instead of being responsible with his powers.

The game also has decent implementations of villains like Shocker and especially Mysterio who weren't even in the movie. With Beck having a bit of an origin story before becoming Mysterio.

There is also some charm in the writing too. Much has been said about Tobey Maguire's vocal performance but it fits with how Spidey is getting more disinterested in being a hero. It's interesting to see him act more like the Spidey that many of the versions of him tend to be with him making quips and wise cracks to show off that deep down he thinks he's really funny. The voice direction and the wise cracks sort of just gives him a weird sense of character all his own.

Some of the things the story of this game does better than the movie. Particularly with Otto Octavious. In the movie, he had no real reason to hate Peter and by extension Spider-Man but in the game, the former just blames Spider-Man for all his misfortunes in a guilt by assiociation way. The tentacles pretty much fuel that. His wife also get more mentions after her death than the movie does. It does make some traps like how Otto is able to afford mercs, hi tech weaponry and a helicoptor and both versions pretty much can't explain why he wants to create unlimited solar powered energy source so badly. I do commend this game for the earnestness it displays with it's writing even with it's pitfalls.

Gameplay is solid stuff. The swinging is where much of the praise comes from and it's great. It takes a bit of getting used to but eventually it's very enjoyable to swing through the city and timing boosting and web zips to dart quickly past buildings. You are also able to charge your jump too. The one big downside is that swing boost and web zip need to be bought in a shop. You also can't buy through the start menu like many games after this one, you need to find a store on the map and then buy. This can certainly feel dated and there is no custom waypoint markers.

With that said, I do like that there are a decent number of traversal missions in the main story. The ones with Mysterio are a highlight all though the section where you need to swing all the way up to the statue of liberty and that can be a massive difficulty spike for many on top of the swinging never getting that hard again. There is also a lot of timed missions and Black Cat chases so at the very least the game does lean into it's swinging mechanics to the point you will be somewhat decent at them.

Combat is a mixed bag, it's not "terrible" but it's not amazing but it does an okay job at breaking up the swinging. The combat encounters are over quick as well as the procedural and randomized crimes. The main issue with combat it feels easier to abuse the bullet time mechanic than use Spidey's base abilties. It's often just easier to hope you can build back up your bullet time guage and then beat everyone since basic punches will be blocked by enemies and to top it all off, they will dodge your web attacks too. It just makes the bullet time all that much of crutch to go back to especially since the rogdoll physics makes it feel like an eternity before Spidey can get back up on his feet.

You also don't get health refills upon completing story missions and there is no way to heal outside of them. You can hope you can do a random street crime and hope you have hp left to beat everyone and then get a refill.

Bosses especially Doc Ock aren't great since it feels like abusing the bullet time and hoping the contextual dodge button can read your presses fast enough or if the RNG for dodging the attacks are in your favor.

It's also hard to chain a web swing into a wall run that isn't a magnetic pull.

Overall, I can see why this was such a game changer for licensed and open world games.

Senua's Saga: Hellblade II Review(Playstation 5)

The first Hellblade game I played a while ago. It was a title I tried because I wanted to finish games for the sake of widdling my backlog down. I randomly decided to play this sequel since it recently came out on PS5 and while I can see why many criticize the hell out of it. I found the game to be very charming even if much that charm can from Senua and by extension Melina Juregens' performance as her.

Gameplay is pretty easy to criticize, in fact if you wanted to aim for the jugular regarding Hellblade 2, this is where you would attack. It is very much the kind of game that many post Last of Us sony first party titles often get criticized for. There's lot of "walking sections" plenty of sequences that are purely just there to show that there is one take with no cuts. There's also just long stretches with nothing but walking.

Another issue is that unless you are actively listening to Senua's voices, there may be times where it's hard to tell what you can and cannot interact with since it does away with active button prompts.

The symbols puzzles is just going to different parts of an enclosed space and lining objects together.

Combat? Well that basically just an overly scripted game of Punch Out. You don't have combos and it's esstentially a battle of getting strikes in and then have enough hits into to recharge your rune attack and then Senua can instantly kill her enemy she is fighting. To top it all off, there is only one or two enemy types and they attack Senua one at a time. It was hard to tell if I was losing because I was scripted to lose or I didn't have a rune attack lined up therefore the fight went on longer. I also disliked the there is no traditional health bar which only adds more to the ambiguity that combat can bring. There is a 2nd chance system if you get downed but the game never really tells you this.

The best way of describing Senua's combat prowess when playing as her in this sequel is like playing as a greatly depowered Peter Parker in a Spider-Man game.

With all that said, some aspects of the gameplay were decent like the teleporting platform bubble puzzles since those hit the sweet spot of not being too hard or too easy. Anything that revolves creating the ideal path to get across was decent. There was also an interesting section that involved lightning braisers on fire to create the ideal path forward. There was also some okay rhythm game scripted sequences during the giant defeating parts. Anything that didn't involve combat was decently handled if a little basic, I don't mind basic puzzles since if I want to overly hard puzzles, I got play a puzzle game. It is a shame that combat has been scaled back so significantly.

Hellblade 2 does look very nice visually with how detailed the environments and especially with the mo cap. What I mainly found interesting about the game was the story particularly Senua as a character. Whether it'd be her constant inner monologuing that gives her and by extension the player conflicting information. This also allows for Senua not to speak out loud for no real reason other than to give the player hints. Melina's facial mo cap is also really good and does a great job displaying conflict and anguish.

The story also has something I have an inherent soft spot for is when the protagonist spares the villain's life, he eventually comes to be an ally later in the story. She starts to unite more and more people as the story goes on. The actual story is just okay even if it did feel like Senua is going through arc fatigue. The cliffhanger ending didn't help either.

Overall, Hellblade 2 by all intents and purposes is a game I should've strongly disliked but it manages to have just enough going on and have some great acting to carry me through it's short run time. I can see why there are those who would strongly dislike the game, I found it moderately engaging even if it is inferior to the first Hellblade.

Solar Ash Review

This game was a strange one. I held it off for years and it was one of the first games I bought on PS5 but I held it off for this long. As a whole, I found the game to be decent but that is in large due to the short length and the frequent checkpoints.

Best way of describing this entire game is what if the 3D Sonic games, Mario Galaxy and Shadow of the Colossus had a baby? You'd get this. At first, I was confused why a platformer would have difficulty options but it's to mainly increase or decrease the amount of time Rei can stay on corrupted surfaces before they "rot" and a game over happens.

Solar Ash by essence is an open world game where you find various corrupted areas scattered all over a certain zone, the player does a platforming challenge and then Rei stabs an eye. The way points weird work like the Sly sequels where you are told where to go but *how* you get there, you have to figure it out. It is cool to see waypoints get implemented like this.

However the issues can really get in the way of moment to moment gameplay. For one, Solar Ash let's you down the right bumper, the game slows down and if the R1 prompt pops up than Rei can dash in and hit the enemy. It's hard to tell what distance is good enough to know when the player can dash into an enemy. I would just prefer something like Sonic's homing attack in the 3D games since there is less busywork and steps involve in quickly dispatching enemies.

You can't run past enemies no matter how fast you move either so you will have to use this slow down dash move and eventually fight enemies which isn't ideal since combat isn't great and the game is about speed which just makes me want a homing attack that much more.

The health system is weird in that you need to collect shards all over the level to increase your health bar but at the end of every boss it will go down and you need to have to build back up again.

There's other issues like how Rei magnetizing to grind rails feels like a 50-50 guessing game if it will happen. No matter if you set it to automatic or hold the dash button, it never feels like I was getting good or I was reliable with this system. It just felt like a game of luck.

Solar Ash also does a poor job at communicating what the player is supposed to get to certain parts of its levels. For example you are supposed to hit certain colored spots to activate new grind rails to unlock certain paths through the level but the game will never make it clear what exactly you are supposed to do. There's another section where you need to activate and deactive generators to solve a puzzle but since nothing is ever communicated, I banged my head against a wall having no clue what to do. A cutscene with close ups and zoom in shots and dare I say it, Rei giving a hint during gameplay could help. You already have waypoint markers.

When you add to that fact that certain climbable surfaces can rot and you need to quickly turn the camera fast enough to quickly jump to the next platform can feel very cumbersome.

Final issue is that, Mirrorsea is quite the terrible level. Half your time will be spent trying to figure out what is or isn't the right path to get traverse the levels. It's basically a puzzle that can feel tedious and punishing upon dying due to acid hazards. This part of the game did heavily test my patience mainly due to how far apart checkpoints can feel and how easy it is to quickly die and respawn hoping you get lucky the next time.

Which now gets me to the good. Despite all the issues I had with the game, the two main saving graces is the brisk pacing and the colossi styled bosses. The various levels in Solar Ash never drag on for too long due to the waypoint markers and fast travel can also cut down on dull down time.

The collosi battles can be enjoyable and intense, I did play this on easy since I don't the controls were reliable enough for me to quickly dash fast enough from weak point to weak point. Like I said before, I always felt like I was often lucky to get past many of the game's challenges. The bosses on normal difficulty felt like I really needed to be good with how refined the platforming can be.

Overall, Solar Ash was just "okay". I shouldn't have taken this long to play it but it also wasn't a repulsive waste of time either. If 3D Sonic, Mario Galaxy and Shadow of the Colossus sounds intriguing check this out, if you get frustrated by the lack of polish and refined mechanics, see if lowering to easy could help.

Robocop: Rogue City - Unfinished Business Review

The base game of Rogue City, I enjoyed for the most part but I did feel the game started to wear thin after a point. As far as being a game is concerned, it did fare far better than Teyon's previous effort with Terminator Resistance. With the latter game, you had to be a Terminator fan to really overlook it's shortcomings. Rogue City did have better combat and better moment to moment gameplay in spite of how unrefined it can be. There was some initial negativity I heard regarding this expansion. With stuff like glitches and crashes on PS5. I had virtually no issues with my playthrough of Unfinished Business despite what many reported.

What Unfinished Business esstentially is a video game version of movies like the 2012 Judge Dredd reboot and The Raid Redemption. The former movie and this expansion being inspired by each other being poetic since the first Robo movie was inspired by Dredd, the latter itself having similarties to video games and now there is a Robo game borrowing from Dredd. 

The game is sort of like a movie or an episodic standalone of a TV show played out in game form. It seemingly sets up Robocop 3 since the base game already answered the question of what happened to the Old Man inbetween Robo 2 and the aforementioned third movie.

Story itself is decent stuff. It was nice to see Alex Murphy's past as a police officer before he got mutilated at the start of the first movie since as far as on screen versions of him are concerned, it was never shown that much. His brief sections also highlights the contrast between playing as a police officer who can only take 2-3 bullets and how much of a powerhouse tank Robocop can feel when the player controls the latter again.

Cassius Graves is one of the franchise's better villains. This isn't saying much since the only ones of note Clearence Boddicker and Dick Jones from the first movie. Maybe to some degree the Old Man even if he was retroactively written that way. Cassius is esstentially a cross between the Marvel Comics anti hero The Punisher and The Rock's General Hummel. I did wish he had a few more scenes before Robo kills him but the stuff with him and Miranda was good since it highlights how manipulative he can be. The part where he brutally kills the merc highlights how vicious he is.

Speaking of Miranda Hale, she does a decent enough job at motivating the Robo and the player by proxy to see the story through. At the very least you can say her backstory is interesting enough. I also like her weirdly introverted nature too.

On to the gameplay, this is where things get interesting. The game follows expansion pack difficulty logic to varying degrees. The mercs that appear a fair way into Rogue City's campaign are now who you fight at the start of Unfinished Business. As a result, all the abilities you had to unlock in the former are in the latter. You know have armor, flash grenade, dash, and slo mo right at the start.

Some could criticize how combat heavy this expansion can be but since you have all powers I just mentioned, this makes combat more fun than the base game. The game just throws so many enemies at you and you are given just enough tools at your disposal to make short work of them. Enemies can shred your health pretty fast on normal difficulty. This is where the fun lies since now, you can use the abilites from the Crysis series like maximum armor to tank more damage and grab enemies for a fast and quick kill. You have the slo mo from FEAR to get some quick kills and widdle down armor and robotic enemies on top of the how much the battlefield carnage can resemble that game itself with the destruction bullets can cause. Flash greandes are a quick way to stagger enemies so you can get some quick shots in.

It is a game where it's easy to be overwhelmed by how many enemies is thrown at the player especially early on but if you use all these abilties and remember to take cover and choose when to come out of cover and shoot everyone, it's easy to make short work out of everyone but it won't be a complete cakewalk either. 

The detailed gore and blood splatter only adds to how visercal combat can feel. The secondary weapons like desert eagle and the spas 12 shotgun are also fun to use. The Auto 9 can be a little too easy to fall back on since the ammo is infinite and the first circuit board you get can make short work of a lot of the enemies in the game.

ED 209 gets some much needed Adaptation Badass.

This leads to my criticisms, the upgrade tree is pointless since most of the game is combat so no need for deductions or anything to help you during the investigations sequences since there is no need to choose between upholding the law or public trust.

Side missions add nothing since it just effects your end of chapter rank and slows down the pacing of Alex needing to stop the villain. This is no longer the, "day in the life of Robocop" that the base game was going for.

The cobra assault canon while awesome can trivialize much of the challenge late game since it rip through many enemies waves partnered with the Auto 9.

The pacing for some chapters like One in a Million and Ice and Steel can really slow things down due to how lengthy they can be to finish.

Overall, solid expansion considering how low my expectations were going in.

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men(Playstation 3) Review

Kane and Lynch: Dead Men is a head scratching case study on what should've been a celebrated cult classic devolving into a title where by the time you reach the end, you'll be happy it's over. This isn't an, "I can't wait for more" kind of way. It's a sigh of relief when it's over, if you get there. What really annoys me is that Dead Men had a lot going for it. The game is very well acted especially with the titular characters Kane and Lynch. The game did such a great job at selling you on a premise of two guys who can't trust let alone stand each being forced to work together doing awful things to get by and seeing how far they can keep slipping off the slope until they can finally regain their feet.

When it comes to presentation, K&L has a lot going for it. I already mentioned the voice acting but the game has this whole heist movie crime thriller atmosphere and it nails it pretty well. There's vehicle chases, nightclub shootouts, prison breakouts, bank heists and eventually the game homages the very movie it's inspired by with a shootout on the streets like in Michael Mann's Heat.

The game is obvious about what inspired it but what helps it sets it apart is how both Kane and Lynch are people you really aren't sure you are supposed to root for. This is where the slippery slope comes comes in. Kane was already on death row and doesn't deny the awful things he did. The inciting incident happens because The7 decides to kidnap his wife and daughter. The whole game starts because The7 wouldn't just let him die. Then they have Lynch be a guard dog who tends to have psychotic episodes. They both have to rely on each other with both being completely at odds. Kane will often withhold information from Lynch and the latter will often screw over the former due to his psychotic episodes.

In each chapter before the prison breakout one screws over the other and both have to deal with the consequences. Early game Lynch withholds that he's on medication, then later Kane tricks Lynch to tag along with him to kidnap the daughter of a crime boss. Kane tries to strike a deal with the crime boss and Lynch goes crazy and kills the daughter. It's this dynamic that makes the story interesting. The scene where Kane screams at Lynch to shut up while talking on the phone has great voice acting and is quite relatable when it deals with dealing multiple voices while talking to someone on the phone.

Kane is also a protagonist who has been through and seen a lot of bad things over the years and met his fair share of people. Gives his character a "he's been doing this for a while" aura.

Unfortunately, Havana is where this whole dynamic gets put to the wayside and it's just Kane's revenge but it's the gameplay where everything mainly faulters more on that later.

The gameplay can boiled down to be a cover shooter with squad mechanics. It's like Rainbow 6 Vegas in 3rd person with the scripted nature of a CoD campaign. One big difference is that in K&L is that you are never once chastised for murdering civilians in open combat.

Cover shooting is in the game but there are more interesting sections like in the Nightclub section where you need move through a crowd and if you pay attention to the guard flashlights, you can get a quick drop on them. There is also some interesting homages to IO Interactive previous title with Hitman Blood Money with the split screen effective, this gets used a lot with snipers when in their scope.

This all culminates to the best mission where you are in Tokyo Japan where you got to Retomoto Tower where you infiltrate it by blowing up the window in the building and then get to the streets and then get to the getaway vehicle. The streets sections did a geniunely job at replicating that shootout from the aforementioned Heat. Jesper Kyd's score here is amazing too.

Gameplay issues are that weapons are inaccurate since aiming the crosshair is not going to be where the bullet lands when fired. The "lives" system is unreliable since it resets on checkpoints but it's also RNG where I can take two morphine shots and other times I can't. There is also the fact that randomly shots can get me down to critical health or incapcitate me even at full health on easy. The squad AI is also inconsistent since they follow you reliably and then stand around and do nothing after.

This all culminates in Havana where all these issues get exacerbated to insane degrees. What were once mild annoyances now become anger inducing handicaps. The first Havana level is one of the worst designed game levels ever. Insane bottlenecking, hitscanners from all sides and getting to the level exit at all is basically a game of dice rolls where the odds and luck is your favor. It gets slightly tolerable with a terrible Hind D fight and awful stealth themed missions after. Beating them is a game of luck.

Overall, K&L before Havana was a decent if flawed game, Havana happens and it turns into a sunk cost fallacy with two weak endings.

Gungrave G.O.R.E(Updated Nintendo Switch 2025) Review

I played Gungrave Gore at around the time of release and it was on the letdown side, it wasn't terrible but I also struggled to say it was a mediocre game and even on easy, it really tested my patience. There was a similar game called Evil West that released around the same time as Gore and I found the former to be much better. Fast forward 3 years to 2025 and randomly browsing Gore's TV tropes page, I heard it went through massive changes and overhauls, a redemption arc of sorts, a quiet one but one nonetheless. There were apparently over 100 changes with things like the terrible platforming gone and even an overhaul to that much derided and infamous train level.

As a whole, while the issues that haunted the original release like the awkward and stiled cutscenes and english voice and terrible story are still there. The gameplay is fixed and the game runs stable enough that it's worth playing now. If Gungrave Gore launched like THIS while it no doubt wouldn't have lit the world on fire, but it would've been a competent and enjoyable action game that would've been a throwback to the linear stage based beat and shoot em ups of yester year.

I will mention thing I appreciate more now. The music is great stuff. The ambient tracks does a good job at selling you on the future cyberpunkish setting the game is going for.

The big additions that made the original release such a nightmare which were the platforming and train level are either gone or are overhauled to the point where they are no longer the obvious difficulty spike roadblocks they once were. If you hated the train level in that original release, I can assure you, it's much better and more tolerable now. It's actually doable without being rage inducing.

This now leads to the next point. The game is much easier now to the point where normal mode can feel doable and feels like an actual middle difficulty where easy in the original release can feel too cheap due to how easy it is to get a game over due to the sheer number of enemies.

With all the updates to the game now, the design the original release tried to have feels much more realized. I love that doing executions replishes parts of your shield encouraging you to use it. I never appreciated this because the execution command never worked properly half the time back when it came out. Demolition shots replishes health blocks, stuns enemies with it's area of effect and gives you a good few seconds for your shield to recharge. The icing on top of the cake is that the enemy count is high enough and your shield will get depleted so fast with enough enemy gunfire and melee strikes that the above mentioned tactics are even more encouraged. It's not a game where I can just get by just holding down the right trigger and kill everything with burst mode.

It's a really fun ballet of shooting enemies, kill them with an execution, use melee to attack upclose and reflect rockets with your coffin, get a high enough beat count, then use demoliation shot to get health back as well a few seconds from the attack pause to get shield back. Use fury mode to thin out tougher and stronger hordes. It also feels tense because the enemy count plus the hitscanners always kept me on edge and it never feels like I'm sleepwalking through an encounter. The enemy count plus snipers later in the game will made me more on edge.

There are issues that are still there like the pistol rate of fire being noticeably shorter when using human shields, storm barrage being an annoying situational attack since you need a beat count above 50 to do, it was easier to use when chaining into a melee attacks. Charge shot being too hard for me to consistently pull off in the heat of the moment since you need to tap it twice than hold the shoot button.

Enemies can stuck at times too.

The Upgrade system also isn't that great since it's often easier to buy stat upgrades than new moves and demoliation shots even when consistently getting B ranks and above. It's best to buy few demoliation shots and buy stats and some melee upgrades.

Bosses are a minor roadblock, some are okay but they will go down fast enough when spamming fury mode while strafing and dodging out of the way.

Gore is a good game when you are playing it. I already knew about the awkward CGI cutscenes, weird stitled english voice acting with the exception of Quartz and the plot being on auto pilot when Mika gets shot. The villains being one note bad guys with their over the top designs giving them more character than their actions. Characters like Bunji Kugshira randomly popping in and out.

What I notice now is how a lot of the cutscenes both that play during levels and at the end are a bunch of pointless are a bunch pf establishing shots that add nothing to the story and adds no sense of location or geography for the level. They are abrupt as the transitions used when going into them.

Overall, as far as redemption arcs go, this was a solid one. It's actually a fun game now.