Far Cry New Dawn Review

Playing FC New Dawn felt like it was everything good about FC5 minus all the annoying bloat and it might've been an improvement over the base game. The more it went on, the more it felt dragged out and I wished it would just come to an end. It's a shame since everything up to the "through the wringer" mission was enjoyable.

If you played Far Cry 5, it's the same deal. Main difference now is that everything is much smaller and everything comes at a quicker pace. You have one part of Hope County to explore rather the 3 regions in the base game. Main means of progression now is to upgrade your hub known as "New Prosperity" and do some story missions along the way. Best part is that the villains wanting to get the leg up on the player is no longer here and it doesn't interrupt open world activities like the base game.

You also don't start off with super weak weapons and don't have enough skills then the game throwing the kitchen sink at you like Far Cry 5 which is also a big point to New Dawn's favor.

The Sawblade weapon you get is also fantastic since it's satisfying to get a kill with, can kill multiple enemies at once more so when upgraded, can kill higher level enemies fast and requires some skill to use since it's a projectile weapon.

Rwards come at a much snappier pace. Perk points and upgrading your character is quicker as opposed to getting them on occasion if you chose not to engage with it actively. Finding parts and components never take too long. If you need some to build vehicles, treasure hunts will have you covered to give you metal and spring.

Ethanol which is main currency used to upgrade your base comes by fairly quickly if you do the Outposts. One cool thing about New Dawn is that you can give up your current Outpost and get more ethnanol by completing a more challenging version of the one you just did. Meaning it's always easy to get back the Ethanol you just spent. Due to all of this, upgrading your base stats isn't is nowhere near as tied to the perk system like the base game is. Health, explosives, healing, fast travel, vehicles, is all connected to how much you uprgade New Prosperity. On top of that, you need to upgrade it to unlock story missions and the requirements are never steep or time consuming due to how quickly ethanol can be gained through outposts.

Guns for Hire are never taken away from you during story missions all though I didn't need them as much in this game for not throwing nearly as much at you in the early game like FC5 did.

There is one addition to this game which I strongly dislike is the addition of different levelled weapons. FC is going full looter shooter this time, the main difference is that now there is 4 levels of guns as opposed to 30 different variants of them. This isn't too bad at first but the more you get into the game, the more it rear it's ugly head.

At first all you really need is level 2-3 guns to get by most of the game but towards the end particularly the final missions. The last couple of bosses take so much damage that it felt like you needed to get those "rare" level guns to effectively widdle away at their health. I lowered to easy and there were ammo caches lying around to make this much easier but there is no doubt that I had to get the rare guns to be more effective at taking them down.

Then there was the last 3-4 main missions which all involve gear being taken away or nothing involving straight up shooting or stealth just for it all to end with the main villains escaping from the set plan you and the npc had to kill a bunch of nameless captains I knew nothing about.

The story was also kind of interesting at first with Joseph Seed going through a redemption arc of sorts but the actual main villain is so obvious in how much he hates the former that his character introduction is a long winded rant on how much he hates him. I try to avoid complaining about stories being too "predictable" but that was just making things almost too obvious.

Overall, FC New Dawn had a number of things going for it but it's later missions and sections plus the spongey boss fights makes this hard for me to say it's "head and shoulders" above FC5. With that said, I really wanted to say it was.

Crysis: Remastered(Nintendo Switch) Review

I've beaten Crysis three times over the years, this being my third. All though I've only beaten the console versions and not back when it was a meme of whether or not your PC can run the game. I'm aware of the "dummed down" controls Crytek implemented from the Crysis sequels retroactively put into this remaster and by extension the 7th gen console ports. At the same time, there are things about any version of the first Crysis that is hard to overlook. Despite being an ambitious game for it's time and even now, there are still major shortcomings that prevent it from a consistently great or even good game. The best way of describing Crysis is that it's as remarkable as it is unremarkable.

The story is one such an example. It's basically the same set up as Predator except now, the squad that slowly gets killed off are powered up with "nanosuits" and there is a mysterious alien threat on an island that is occupied by North Korean forces who are also digging up something. That sort is an interesting premise to work with but outside of the character of Psycho, all the characters just seem like background dressing and not much of anything interesting even happens. Far Cry at least had gave it's protagonist such unintentionally awkward voice direction that it made indirectly memorable and some weird banter with the various characters. Crysis doesn't have this unless Psycho is on screen.

Same can be said for the gameplay. You have these very large wide open environments and not many games after even followed up what Crytek did with the original Far Cry so combine that with a fancy nanosuit, it should lead to some interesting gameplay? And well, it does at least for the first half before the aliens show up especially when similar "realistic" shooters at the same time like Call of Duty 4 were basically just linear scripted "corridor" shooters.

Crysis is quite the bizarre title in that in spite of the premise that player has this awesome nanosuit, being a one man army is something that is often ill advised. You have armor, invisiblity, super speed, and to a lesser extend super strength and agility(dummed down console controls I know). Running in guns blazing and shooting everyone is better off being avoided. Sneaking around and using cloak is the better way of handling things. If push comes to shove and there are enemies close by, it's better to take them out fast and then run away, relocate then cloak again.

Your maximum armor isn't going to soak up an overwhelming amount of gunfire which encourages sneaking around. What also solidfies this is that there isn't any good feeling weapon feedback for guns. Hits lack any geniune impact and killing human enemies feel like they just awkwardly flip around or roll ever. Combine these both together and I wanted to avoid combat whenever possible.

Crysis is either a stealth game or a slow paced tactical shooter much like Crytek's previous' effort with the aforementioned Far Cry.

However with that said, the AI isn't very good or at the very least I can't tell if they are too aware or if they are psychic. Decloaking in Crysis unless you are so far out of everyone's line of sight will have the entire area knowing where your position is. I'm guessing it needed to be this way since ghost runs with super accomdating AI would be too easy. At the same time it can be amusing to have every enemy be aware of you and then zip past them when recloaking like some kind of trolling ninja.

It's also a plus that there isn't much content you have to redo upon death. The Switch version also had zero crashes either in my playthrough.

With that said, there is a massive elephant in the room and that is the 2nd half of the game where all you fight are a bunch of boring aliens. These sections is in fact when Crysis turns into a dull and by the numbers shooters that loses all the good will that the early sections broughts. I also lowered to easy from Crusher Yard onwards since it was getting more and more combat focused and was getting less and less open ended. There is also an entire level dedicated to just going through the alien core which doesn't have much compelling gameplay outside of being a typical navigation puzzle.

The alien combat just consist of them flying around, they get upclose, you shoot them. They have simple patterns and don't live up to solid sections where you are up against the Koreans. Just get some high powered weapons and fire away at them.

Final boss is also really terrible and also feels like a game of RNG to actually beat then skill since your health can be levelled by one of his attacks and the enemies surronding him can also chip away at it too.

Overall, Crysis on paper should be enjoyable in spite of it being an advertisement for high end PCs back in the late 00s but the 2nd half of the game just pulls it down just being a dull and mediocre shooter. It really had the potential to be more than that.

Resident Evil Village Review

Throughout my entire playthrough of playing Resident Evil Village, the whole game just feels like it was an RE game for a more "casual" audience. I don't like to insult any game as that but Village is just unbearably unfront about the whole thing. Capcom wanted to appeal to the people who thought what made Resident Evil interesting was how "scary" the series is and how the best parts of RE7 where the scripted moments. It even wants to tell to a more emotionally gripping story and scarifices everything to tell it. Unfortunately, not even that said story is very interesting. I wasn't big on this game back when I originally played it and I'm less kind on it now. I'm not super harsh on this title because playing it in the moment is never overly frustrating due to how easy normal difficulty is.

Right away when starting the game, it takes a good while for the game to actually start. I've seen these opening sections get criticized for not being appealing for people who like to replay games or speedrunners but even in the moment, these sequences aren't very compelling due to how convoluted and hard to follow the story can be especially regarding Chris Redfield's actions more on that later.

When finally in the Village after a somewhat decent confusingly presented timed enemy wave. The game *still* doesn't start and you have to go through a pointless sequences with Ethan and a bunch of villagers who serve no bearing on the plot and won't even get mentioned again. You could cut this part and Ethan gets the second seal to open the Castle and nothing would change.

It takes another batch of cutscenes and then you finally get into Castle Demitrescu. Right away it tells you about how the level design is. You are never given this wide open space where you can look around and find puzzle items and explore on your own, you are always railroaded to go one way making the entire Castle level that is supposedly large nothing more than a red herring. It's not an interconnected puzzle but more of a bunch of specific straight lines.

This is one of the more open levels of the game and any level outside of the Factory is designed like this where there isn't much in the way of exploration, just go one way. The titular Village also railroads you to go one way, maybe you can find some random items to sell which leads to my next issue.

Okay, maybe the action side of things could help. Well no. There is no resource management of any kind to be found here. None for puzzle items and nothing for keeping ammo, health and crafting items which is are all it's own menu that has nothing to do with the inventory that carries weapons and ammo. This also leads to the next issue, you get so much money whether it'd be for killing bosses and finding random jewlery in the environment, you will be rolling in so much ammo and have your weapons be so powered up by the time you fight the first boss that you can STAGGER her with basic pistol bullets.

None of the bosses are much of a threat due to the excess amount of resources you can sell just by playing the game. The regular enemy mobs are also too few in a number and can be taken out pretty easily. You storm a Lycan Stronghold later in the game and despite this part having the game throw the kitchen sink at you, it feels like a small piece of the tap is.

It's a shame since RE games tend to have balanced normal modes.

Before I start describing the story, the thing Capcom gave up everything about this game to tell. I will say House Beneviento and The Factory are the best parts of Village.

The former because there is some decent amount of tension to be found with all your guns taken away from you. It is much more scripted but since I was never confused by it's scripted nature, I was able to enjoy it and feel a little tension especially with how distrubing the monster in the Basement can be. Says a lot when one of the more interesting parts is when guns are taken away from you.

The Factory has some decent level design but it guides you and is open enough that it never feels as rail roaded and linear as the rest of the levels do. You know all of it revolved around finding mold and to open certain parts of the map. The enemies are noticeably tougher and require weakpoint targeting to kill effectively. The regular mooks even have their head covered so it isn't as easy to kill them.

These levels do prevent the game from being all bad.

The story which is what Capcom have up everything is very hard to follow mainly due to Chris' action of not giving fake Mia a blood test before storming his house. There is also something about how Rose is like Alessa Gallespie from Silent Hill 1. Mother Miranda is connected to Ozwell Spencer and Ethan being dead the whole time which is such a silly retcon considering this was never hinted at in RE7 or why he is pouring red blood instead of mold when he gets attacked.

Overall, RE8 really is a confused mess of a title that learned all the wrong lessons RE7.

The Darkness II(Playstation 3) Review

This was a particular game I always had a fondness for. This among other games was one of the titles that showed me that shooters didn't have to be an endless game of shoot, getting hit, duck behind cover, wait for health to regen rinse repeat. Playing Darkness 2 again still shocks me that it came out in the 7th gen at all. While having the tropes you assiociated FPS games at the time with like weapon limits, regen health, sprinting, and aim down sights, it uses the license that it's based on to stand out from the pack. Partner that with a solid story and it's one of the best FPS of it's time.

The story is well written and enjoyable for the kind of game this is. I haven't played the first game in a long while but it's just as easy to jump into this game and still be up to speed. All you really need to know is that Jackie's girlfriend is dead and is now dealing with the aftermath while dealing with a proxy war between 3 factions: the Brotherhood, the Darkness controlling him and one revealed at the end. All of them thinking they are in control when really, they aren't.

What sells the story is how well acted and written many of it's cutscenes are. Character interactions are quick and to the point and they never get in the way of the gameplay. The load screens inbetween levels do a great job at giving backstory on Jackie Estacado's and why characters like Jenny and Aunt Sarah are so important to him as well giving an insight into the former's upbringing. The single Darkling that is with you has some funny lines and helps you out during gameplay. You can unlock an upgrade to throw him at enemies, he can give you materials to kill enemies, as well as stealth sections whenever Jackie is in a bind and can't do anything. Johnny Powell is very fun to listen in how he's a crazy wackjob but he also gives information on the lore and the greater story at hand regarding the titular Darkness.

The side characters while not having an overwhelming screen time do have memorable interactions to stand out like Sarah keeping Jackie sane because of the aftermath of Jenny's death or Vinnie and Jimmy being people Jackie can trust.

One really cool detail is that Jackie always attacks his enemies when none of his underlings are around. It gives him a sense that he cares about his people for the Darkness not to accidentally kill them.

The asylum sections are also interesting in that Jackie along with the player is also questioning their own sanity if anything transpiring is real along with the numerous flashbacks to Jenny.

My only big gripe is the cliffhanger ending. It was foreshadowed but it felt like a cheap shot with the happy music playing just for it to end with no continuation to this day.

Gameplay is also really good. You have all the things that I mentioned at the start but now The Darkness license is used to make what could be a by the numbers shooter stand out all the more. I even played the game on Hitman difficulty just because I welcome the challenge for this combat system. However with that said, Demonic Path is the best path for all the cool powers that can help you.

You got the moves that you can do like using guns but ammo is scare enough that you will need to use the powers. There is tentacle swipe and this is move you will need to replenish ammo and health. It can take a few seconds for the prompts to pop up for the takedown animation. You can throw objects to impale or you can grab a car door for a shield. There is single weapon use as well as dual wielding and two weapon use. Throwing a Darkling can also help.

What is great about this combat is that health is brought back by eating hearts rather than much of the health regeneration that plagued the era. The only issue is that sometimes the button prompt to eat a heart doesn't appear fast enough and could lead to a cheap death when in a pinch.

It doesn't end there. You also need to deal with light sources that when in stepped into, you can't use your powers and become much weaker. First it's regular street lights, then generator lights then car vehicle lights to flashbangs to enemies flashing lanterns at you and you need to shoot them to destroy it.

The enemies are also no slouche either. First you fight generic mafia goons who mainly use guns but after there's The Brotherhood enemies where they use guns, shields, armored, to the aforementioned lantern users and my personal favorite enemies can use the whip to pull Jackie's currently held weapons out of his hands meaning more improvasion.

Combine all this and you get a combat system where you are always on your toes and never feel like you are always powerful. You could be dominating one minute but then you could lose your Darkness powers, lose your weapons or be ovwhelmed and need to improvise.

Some criticize the game for being "short" but the game throws so much at you from the Carnivale level onwards that an extra 5 hours would feel like diminishing returns.

One major criticism I do have with the lantern enemies is that once you are in the light, Jackie is much weaker can most of his moveset is gone and can't take as much damage. A second chance system where you give up your health bar chunk to destroy a light source or have some grenade throwables could help.

Overall, Darkness 2 is still very good, I might check out the comics now.

Like a Dragon: Ishin(Playstation 5) Thoughts and Rant

I did not like playing the recent Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii game but I did enjoy playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 so I'm capable of enjoying the series. RGG puts out so many games that it starts to wonder if all of them are made equal. Case and point Yakuza Ishin.

This particular game is considered a mixed bag but I decided to play for myself and it is such a mess. It falls into things that other RGG games avoided...for the most part. There are crazy amounts of filler here. In between Not Kiryu super slow base movement speed and him needing to catch his breath after a minute and how much side quests get shoved down your throat. Much of Ishin's chapters could be much shorter if these two things were removed. When I was forced to do a side quest because I wanted to buy some healing items, I stopped playing the game there since I can tell my time is being wasted.

The game is also running to the same buildings over and over again wouldn't be so bad if your base movement speed wasn't so slow.

The combat is where things get really bizarre. I play Yakuza games on normal and I got stumped on the first boss fight. I am like, "why the fuck am I struggling in a Yakuza game?" The horde fights are fine but the bosses are some next level bullshit. It's esstentially a game of getting out of their line of sight and attacking from behind them while they are doing their combo attack since when they are doing it, they are locked in the animation. The thing is and what's bullshit is that they have craploads of HP AND they can level your health bar quickly. On top of that, they can stagger Kiryu like no tomorrow. If one of their attacks connect, it's stagger central then you got to wait for him to get up afterwards.

It just exposes that Yakuza's combat is infuriating whenever the player isn't being favoured. I've discovered that it's better NOT to use the lock on system and the evade command and just runaway when a boss is going to combo you THEN attack them from behind. So just hit and run bullshit. Thankfully easy mode mitigates but everything else annoying about the game starts to add up. I never thought I would ever need to rely on the series difficulty system of lowering to easy but only for specific fights.

The story is also a mess. It takes too long for the plot to move forward. One minute Not Kiryu is looking for the murderer of his father figure and deduces that members of the Shinengumi a specific fighting style. Not Kiryu loses sight on this very quickly and he almost forgets his own revenge quest.

What broke the story for me was Not Kiryu's refusal to kill. It's annoying when canon Kiryu does this but it's even more bizarre here. He's infiltrating a band of murders and assassins and he's actively budding heads with the captains and is unable to kill someone even if it means he could blow his cover. It gets ridiculous where I lose suspension of disbelief. I officially zoned out when at multiple points Not Kiryu SHOULD'VE killed someone but the plot finds external ways for a person to get killed off like someone else killing the guy the former was supposed to kill. As if someone else killing a person instead of you shows a lot of virtue. It annoyed me that he names himself Hajime Saito because I'd take the Rurouni Kenshin version's philosophy of "slay evil immediately" over whatever Not Kiryu is trying to do.

At least in the mainline games Kazuma never witnesses his follow gang members committing crimes and when he does, he views it with impartiality. He never tried to lecture to them how murder and killing is wrong. The characters who opposed him in those games were already against him or had other objectives. Kiryu was never forced to kill someone at multiple point to maintain his cover in those games.

   
I eventually gave up after a few hours. I'm only writing this because I played it long enough to form solid impressions on the game. I did really want to beat this. Guess I'll just replay 0 and Kiwami 1 and play Kiwami 3 and stop there.

Forgive Me Father 2(Playstation 5) Review

Pretty enjoyable sequel. In spite of the fact that this game gives you the ability to save anywhere, it's much more challenging that the first game. It also comes in handy too since the game can be unstable even on console too. The sound can randomly cut out and you have to boot the game again for it to return. My autosave got corrupted and if it weren't my other saves that I made prior, I might've had to restart a lengthy and challenging level again. I was never expecting this to be a sequel difficulty spike but it is.

Forgive Me Father 2 does walk a very fine tight rope of being challenging but fair especially in the early levels. When the game starts, there isn't an overwhelming amount of ammo and levels can be very stingy with healing items, they don't restore an overhwhelming amount of health. It can sort of enter into the realm of something like Resident Evil 4 where you aren't given an overwhelming amount of health packs and ammo and you have to make due with what you can find. There is also a Doom 3 style flashlight system too where there's dark areas and enemies can attack you while looking there. You have to to press the fashlight button to keep it charged.

There can be a fair number of cheap deaths and without saving anywhere I would've had to lower the difficulty to one of the lower settings or just drop. It's very easy to be low on hp and just get killed by a random enemy. It can be infuriating. The temptation to lower to easy was too great but every time I was going to give in there was a health pack lying around and I was able to turn the odds back to my favor. It's quite the example of early game hell.

When you unlock more powerful weapons with the tokens and get buy more cards for the dark tome, things do start to get easier especially when you find a play style that suits you. I went with a style where I was able to get back health when using dark tome and getting hit powered up my meter. There will be some random deaths from time to time due to how much one enemy projectile can take a quarter of your health. With the ability to save anywhere, I had to be careful whenever I did it to avoid an endless death loop. The different weapons you can get with the tokens does seem to give the player different play styles. I've seen some use the base revolver but I prefer the fish smg for how it tears into enemies up close.

The level design is mostly good with it being the expansive key card hunts you expect from the genre. One addition I love is that the game adds a small split screen effect found in games like Timesplitters 2 where when the player pushes a switch or kills enough enemies there will be a screen indicating what you did. It does a solid job at eliminating the guess work on what the switch activated a part of the level or what opened up.

Some of the bosses are okay a stand out being a boss that is basically a first person Sonic boss fight with guns.

The art style and animation are still fantastic especially with exaggerated blood and gore for the enemy death animations. Makes the guns just feel that much punchier. The voice acting for the main character is okay even if it feels like he's constantly speaking Frank Miller monologues.

There are some issues there is a level late game where you are in an egyptian pyramid and not only do you have to find colored keys but also activated around 25 switches. I strongly dislike level objectives like this since if you are doing it for the first time, you are bound to accidentally miss one switch. Afterwards finding the one you missed becomes searching a needle in a haystack. I got lucky when finding the ones I missed and had to look up a walkthrough on.

One major change I dislike is reloading. I'm starting to dislike the idea of reloading especially in this style of game since enemies will be relentless attacking you and I want to retaliate but then my character is stuck in a reload animation and I'm stuck until it's finally over. It can be very inconvienent when getting swarmed and attack from all sides.

The enemies that can fire laser beams from afar can be very annoying due to how far their beams can reach and can kill you in seconds. It can lead to some cheap deaths. There is an exploding barrel enemy but he's too infrequent to get annoyed by him.

Overall, FMF2 is a solid sequel to the first game. It did a good job at innovating what that game did without feeling like it was overly rethreading what that game did.

Legacy of Kain: Defiance Review

LoK Defiance was a game I beat around 11 years ago. I always wondered why I remember much of the game outside of the last few sections. The best way to describe the game if Soul Reaver 1 felt like the protracted prologue then Soul Reaver 2 felt like the amazing follow up season. Defiance feels like an incredibly disappointing season that continues off that. The season that was hugely disappointing, the last few episodes saves it from complete garbage. It might have one of the most epic and profound conclusions to a character arc I have ever seen. It's too bad it's in a game that is a hastily put together mess.

Defiance starts off strong with an amazing monologue by Kain saying, "given the choice whether to rule a corrupt and failing empire or to challenge the fates for another throw. A better throw against one's destiny. What was a king to do?" It's a great quote to start the game considering how much Kain's been through since Soul Reaver 1 up to now. The opening level in the Sarafan Stronghold is decent and the combat itself isn't too bad. It may be borrowing heavily from 2001's Devil May Cry but compared to combat in a lot of western RPGs, it's kind of decent. There's an attack button where you do a combo, air attacks, lock on, a dash, telekinesis, and you have a magic meter that can recharge after kills and execution animations as well being able to get back health when an enemy is weakened. Telekinetically sucking someone's blood from a distance can feel pretty satisfying.

A lot of the aspects found here can be seen in God of War 2 years later where it's a fantasy hack n slash with puzzles and platforming. It also has a follow cam. This now leads into two big problems. Defiance's follow camera is a disorienting mess and the platforming feels floaty and lacks weight when gliding. Getting stuck in Defiance is often a game of the camera so awkwardly angled and framed that the game never conveys the right information on what the player is supposed to do. It almost feels like a video game version of watching a movie with bad cinematography. There is a section later in the Stronghold level where you need to place an item on a door to continue the level but the camera never zooms in on areas of interest or if certain areas are blocked off.

The platforming can feel awkward and weightless as if you are control paper floating in air. It makes those sections when trying to get up platforms with archers shooting at you all the more tedious and infuriating.

Level design is the final nail in the coffin. Almost every level in Defiance is from past games like The Pillars, Graveyard and the one you will be seeing the most, the same elemental temple rooms where Raziel has to get different colored reavers. You will be going back to this same map at least maybe 5 or 6 times if not more. You will also come here as Kain too. You think you will explore a Vampire Citadel? Nope, it's just a teleporter to that same recycled temple map. Vorador's Mansion does fare the best since this an actual level that is pretty open with different areas. You will come back here multiple times as well going to that temple map during that level. So much of Defiance is seeing the same scenery of those temple maps over and over.

The combat which started off as decent start to become diminishing returns due to how unpolished and unrefined the combat can feel. Many of the moves for both Kain and Raziel is just million stab from DMC, an air version of it, a slash, air slash and telekinetic shackles. Not really much to work with not does the game encourage to use these moves. It is a 3D beat em up issue but considering much of Defiance is combat, these issues stand all the more. Enemies get spongier and spongier. Once you fight the demonic statues, the game never throws much new at you again with more tanky enemies making combat feel longer. If I enjoyed the combat a lot I wouldn't be complaining but it isn't good enough to carry the game. Much of the reaver attacks for both characters are the same area of effect moves. One only difference that Raziel has is the spectral realm and that is mainly used to phase through gates.

The story while having an amazing last few moments is mostly Kain and Raziel going through the same temple maps narrating to themselves about prophecy murals. This is much of the story. It does pick up with Mortanius, Turel, Vorador and Janos however.

Last few moments with Kain, Raziel, Moebius and the Elder God is where everything comes together incredibly well. The twist with Raziel if you paid attention to what Moebius said at the start of SR2 can be obvious. It's such a cathartic everything comes full circle moment that who even cares if it is? So many epic lines and moments happen here with the series' impeccable foreshadowing on full display. It then ends on a clifhanger. Aww

Overall, if you said Defiance was put together over 10 months, I'd believe you.

Far Cry 5 Review

Far Cry 5 what a confused game it is. Apart of me wants to say FC5 is an improvement over 4 but with step forward the former does there's at least one or two steps backwards. Everything about the structure feels muddled. You have npcs and quests with an emphasis on coop like the Borderlands series but at the same time the game wants to tell a serious story with more scripted missions in a CoD campaign. It also wants you to destroy property and cause reckless abandon in the style of the Just Cause games do. There is also the stuff from previous Far Cries like outposts, skill trees and enemy outposts.

I did have fun playing FC5 but that was more so because it's an open world game where there are no loading screens and play for hours without interruption. It still can feel like frankenstein's monster when playing it in the moment.

The story is a great example of what I'm talking about it. Is it an excuse for you to over the top open world shennigans? You could get that impression since you can play the game for hours without interruption. One good thing about the new mission structure on paper is that it's less about actual missions to progress the story but how much damage you are doing to reduce influence of each of Joseph's captains. This meter can take hours to fill up however and when you reach a story milestone, the game will bizarrely have the player character get captured to escape for his life multiple times. You could be in a helicoptor and you will still get kidnapped when reaching a milestone. This can feel forced since the villains are cheating to get a leg up on the player while also interrupting the open world activities.

Then there is the story itself which is about a deputy and his group overthrowing a doomsday cult. The problem is it feels like the villains are cheating especially at the end where it turned out Joseph had a nuke the whole time and you indirectly caused Judgment Day? How did everything lead to this? I was just doing missions with wannabe Borderlands npcs for much of the game. Speaking of those npcs, they can drone on for so long before giving a mission that I just started to skip the dialogue after a point.

This then leads to the difficulty and it just adds more confusion. When you start up the game especially when you first enter any of the captain's regions, it's easy to get overwhelmed and decimated. The game drops the syringe system from past games for a generic regen health with med kits losing the self healing system that made the series different up until that point. The starting weapons feel weak especially the starting pistols and smg. Had to lower to easy since the health can take longer to kick in than many games using the system and enemies can tear through you easily. The more you play and getting more good weapons and especially when you unlock more guns for hire if you played single player like me the games gets much easier. Grace Armstrong and Boomer were my go toes basically Quiest and D-Dog from Metal Gear Solid 5. Remember what I said about this game feeling schizophrenic? It comes back again since during the most of the story missions where you are "captured" your guns for hire you've been using are taken away from you. The game gets much harder now and enemies can end you pretty fast especially heavy enemies with lots of health who use heavy weapons like LMGs You don't have your guns for hire to revive you during these missions. I want to lower to easy again during these parts so I can tank more hits, regen health can kick in faster and take more damage before dying when the medkit activation animation happens.

The perk system while interesting on paper since it encourages you to experiment just starts to become a hassle since this is a hitscan shooter and I just want to get the typical weapon archetypes like a sniper, shotgun and assault rifle eventually a semi automatic rifle since it covers both mid and close range and I don't need to grind out the perk system.

Outside of all that most of the game is spent trying to reach story milestones on each mission to get captured and then annoy the captains. The game did start to get monotonous due to how long it would take for a milestone to be reached. One thing that did certainly made the last few hours of the game super entertaining was buying an attack helicoptor and going to town on enemies with it from the sky.

Stealth is back and like every stealth system in this series from FC3 onwards, if you unlock fast crouch speed, it gets noticeably more easier to than it was when you didn't have since you move faster than enemy patrols do and before their AI awareness semi circles filll up. It's a shame not much has changed since these stealth mechanics were first introduced. There is no melee weapons now but they just make the takedown animation look slightly different.

Overall, I enjoyed FC5 and while this review can sound confused but that's how it feels when playing the game itself. It's as mad as the doomsday cult you are trying to stop

The Thing: Remastered(Playstation 5) Thoughts and Rant

When I heard Nightdive was going to remaster this game having not played it, I was scratching my head. Yes, the game does have a cult following however that is just as mind numbing in it's own right. As far as the remaster is concerned, it does it's job and Nightdive delivers yet again. The problem is that The Thing 2002 wasn't a good game even for it's time. This game could be one of my go to examples how horribly things can go wrong when innovation isn't matched by good execution. It can be used as an example of how not every title from the 6th gen is automatically amazing for simpily being from that era. It also fall into the licensed game trap that a story unique in another medium can be a derivative and boring in a different one.

It's easy to insult The Thing 2002 for being a 3rd person shooter with a premise of the titular movie. It really is. The infection is a massive red herring since all your npcs are scripted to turn. What I don't understand is, why have everyone who turns into the monster be random npcs with no real character? The game can easily have scripted infections but have it be in a way where when it happens, the player is attached and don't want the npc to become the monster. Instead of every npc is a generic nameless character who are just there to be fodder with the exception of the engineer to repair the many, many, many fuse boxes and then it turns into a dull escort mission. You can also win them over very easily by handing them a 9mm pistol. Spoony's review isn't lying, there are lots of broken fuse boxes where you need to wait for either the main character or an engineer to fix. These sections just waste time and offer no geniunely interesting gameplay.

It's a 3rd person shooter and maybe you'd think the combat might be enjoyable but not really. All you do is shotgun the same headcrab enemies for much of the game. There are bigger thing monsters to fight but just shoot them then flame them with them running around and having a hard time knowing where you even are. There isn't much more to it do than that. It's the same 3-4 monsters for much of the game. Shotgun and shoot the headcrabs, shoot the bigger monsters than flame them. You also have to fight special forces marines since it doesn't already borrow enough from Half Life and their AI is really dumb and have their bad pathfinding put you in such advantage where you kill them before they fire their hitscan weapon at you until you fight enemies with flame throwers because if the flame even touches at you at full health, it will be a game over. This is where I quit the game since I would have to deal with them one shotiting me or the enginners I have to escort. It wasn't worth it for a game as aggressively bad as this even with Nightdive making this remaster easier with more health kits and auto saves, there is still awful design quirks about it's combat that persist.

The story might just be one of the most poorly written in gaming. I am almost shocked John Carpenter gave the game his blessing and even popped up in it. The first big issue is that the main character Blake is so generic and has no personality he can call his own. He just goes through the game killing monsters and no sense of doubt, no learning about his backstory, just anything that makes him more than a character I'm playing as. All the npcs that are with Blake are going to die or won't be able to follow him past a loading screen so he has no one to play off.

It doesn't help that the bosses pop up out of nowhere with no mystery, intrigue and build up any kind. Blake just walks into the room and you fight it. No sense of anything foreboding. Not even a creepy hallway or some segway into the boss like say a lot of boomer shooters do. There isn't even any reason why buildings are suddenly exploding or why every fuse box is busted.

The villain is also generic, confusing and also really stupid. He sends in Blake have look around the research outpost and then when the latter is cornered after rescuing not John Carpenter, he keeps him alive in the lab...just to come up with a bomb to try to kill Blake. What stopped him from killing Blake before. I'm guessing not John Carpenter is supposed to be important but then he dies as soon as Blake wakes up from being unconcious.

The final nail in the coffin is that the writers that the Thing was a virus and not an parasitic alien life form that completely takes over it's host. The Thing is a virus infection like Resident Evil's T-Virus. I would do what many people do online and bash the writers for not "understanding" license they are adaptating but if this game and story was good, I could overlook this but this just adds an extra reason for me to dislike this game.

Overall, I'm lost why a game like this was ever remastered. If you want 1st or 3rd person shooters play Half Life and Max Payne respectively. Want sqaud shooters? Play Rainbow 6 or Ghost Recon. You want to play a game with an actual zombie virus infection? Play Resident Evil.

Metal Eden(Playstation 5) Review

I might've recalled hearing buzz for this game from a couple of places. I thought I wasn't going to bother with the game since I heard some pretty scathing things said about the demo. Much to my surprise however that the devs turned things around and the game turned out to be solid. I did enjoy my time with this game however, the game is unstable as of now. I would've beaten Metal Eden on PS5 sooner but then the game crashed on the final boss fight. This isn't your usual run of the mil game crash. All the progress I made since I returned to playing it the prior day was gone. To say I was really angry would be an understatement. I was close to beating the game and then one expected crashed set me back hours. With all that said, this is a testament to how much I enjoyed the game from a moment to moment gameplay standpoint. I would've dropped the game if I didn't enjoy it or thought it was mediocre. It did sting redoing everything from Level 4 onwards again just to get back to fighting the final boss.

That massive problem out of the way. Metal Eden is seemingly a new Doom meets Titanfall adventure. There is one major inspiration I never thought would be here that is the Halo series. There is also a weird homage to Metroid with Samus' morph ball mode but is more head scratching than endearing. It does add to how much Metal Eden borrows from the strangest of places.

It has the asthethics of modern Doom with mechanics from Eternal. There is also being able to hold all your guns, a freeze grenade and a "blood punch" of sorts. Titanfall's fast paced wall running and double jumping parkour system is here with a small hover ability. The grappling hook can be used in the campaign unlike the 2nd Titanfall. One big aspect of the Halo series does rear it's head, it's the aspect that never got ripped off nearly as much as 2 weapon limit, regen health, dedicated grenade throw button and vehicle sections. That is the shield and flesh system. There is something so surprising about this getting borrowed from since it always goes ignored.

Some weapons are good against flesh while others are good against shields. You need to drain the enemy of their recharging shield and then use a flesh weapon like a pistol or shotgun to actually damage it. The melee attack is a bit like Doom Eternal's blood punch with the animation of Halo's rifle butt melee attack where you get back health and armor when the attack connects. An issue is that the impact when using doesn't have the same feedback as the Blood Punch does.

An interesting aspect about the design is the tearing core system where you could either absorb it and turn it into Doom Eternal's blood punch or use as a grenade from a distance like in the Halo games to lower shields. It's an interesting decision to make depending on playstyle.

Being effective at Metal Eden means you will need to switch to shield draining weapons and then after a flesh damaging one. There is also a high enemy count to contend with, health and armor management as well constantly being on the move to mitigate damage. There is also some stage hazards to content with like turrets that you have to shoot in the eye to deactivate for a few seconds and the floor getting electried to encourage the constant movement. You also need to stay in place for a few seconds as certain parts of a level scans to complete the enemy waves.

Metal Eden throws a lot at you and keeps things fresh and varied. I would do without those morph ball sections since they were are out of place in a game like this and are also too infrequent to be anything worth noting.

Weapon line up also isn't very interesting. You got two machine guns. One of the pistol alt fires being a rocket is more useful than the weapon itself. The grenade launcher like many in games is too unreliable due to hoping you time the denonations enough for them to damage the enemy. The two energy weapons more or less do the same thing, widdle at shields.

Reloading also is a massive inconvience. There is nothing more infuriating when a perfect freeze grenade is timed and I want to use that time to widdle at a shield but the reload time is happening while the freeze effect is active. It can feel like the game is holding the freeze grenade back at being a reliable tactic.

The story is also kind of just "there". The AI companions you get do tend to monologue excessively. I'm more focused on the platforming but these sections at times do feel like a means to an end have them drone on and one. It's not a story that overly annoys me since you are playing it more than you engaging with the story. I did wish sometimes you get some warnings when an platforming obstacle was going to pop up.

Overall, Metal Eden is a solid and enjoyable game. I would sing the praises for the devs turning things around as well as they did if it weren't for the crash save data wipe I mentioned earlier. It really left a sour taste in my mouth an otherwise an enjoyable game.

Metal Gear Solid: Delta Snake Eater Review

I'll preface this review by saying I'm not a fan of the original game this remake is based on. I played it because I wanted see if the gameplay was improved. I was already aware that the story was going to remain unchanged. It's esstentially something along the lines of the Destroy All Humans remake that came out a few years ago. Everything is the same but there are some gameplay changes. Despite knowing what I was getting myself into, I was surprised that the gameplay hasn't improved by much. It makes me wonder what even is the point it other than for people who really want modern graphics and controls. The existence of MGS Delta is as questionable as the MGS The Twin Snakes was. This time replace MGS1 level design with MGS2 mechanics with MGS3 level design with MGS4 and 5 controls and mechanics. Playing this remake is like rewatching an action movie I'm not a big fan of. At least Twin Snakes had the amusing value of being MGS1 with over the top Matrix fights.

The story of the game manages to be both overbearing yet empty at the same time. What I mean is that a good bulk of the game's story is at the start with the Virtuous Mission. There will be non stop exposition with small amounts of gameplay. This whole prologue is as long as a feature length film and most of it is just non stop exposition and characters talking. The opening briefing sequence goes on for so long when it could've been so much shorter. You sneak into a Soviet jungle, get Sokolov, get out. This is somehow way longer than it needs to be.

I'll give some credit in that the character of The Boss is at her most interesting here with lines like, "today's friends is tomorrow's enemies" and "the only thing you can believe with absolutely certainty is the mission". This is as interesting as she is ever going to get.

The middle half of the game is barren in terms of story and all you fight are one note generic bad guys with their most memorable traits is their ridiculous looks and names. They are no different than boss fights in platformers in terms of characterization and relevance to the overarching plot. For a story about a man becoming slowly becoming disillusioned by his own government that and why native people betray their own country, not much of this explored in the middle half and all of this is frontloaded at the end portions of the game.

There is never any bad calls Snake has to make or arguments with his superiors in the middle half. The support team is along for the ride.

Ocelot, The Boss and Volgin are the only "real" villains. Ocelot spends most of the game being a goofball to suddenly being the greatest secret agent ever. The Boss only shows up to stop Snake and report that he killed a Cobra member than leaves until her long monologue at the end. Volgin is an angry kid who thinks he's way cooler than he is. Everyone just lets him act like he's in control. All his accomplishments like owning the Philosopher's Legacy, the creation of GRU and firing the nuke at the start were mainly because of other people. His lightning powers are unexplained since he needs a last line of defense since he's not very strong or smart.

The gameplay changes? Everything is mostly the same except on the fly camo switching, crouch walking and sniper holstering. No quick select shockingly. The stamina system is out of place in a linear game like this since all it does is just make you check a meter every once and a while instead of a guage you have to constantly watch like in a survival game. The health and mortal wound system adds little to the game since health DOES regenerate even when wounded, it's just slower than traditional regen health. This only matters during bosses since they hit harder faster than Snake can regen. You'll be stockpiled with medical supplies by then. 

The level design follows the same rules as the industrial corridors in MGS1 and 2 but makes less sense for a jungle since they are supposed to be wide and open. You crawl from bush to bush like how you run and press against walls in those games. There could've at least been a larger and more interconnected jungle. The level design does shine a little more in the open mountain areas and the start of Gronji Grad but that removes the jungle which was this game's major selling and where much of the game takes place, it's also easier to deal with guard sightlines with the open space plus the addition of crouch walking which is harder to do during the interior and jungle levels due to their cramped nature.

Sniper holstering and crouch walking breaks The End and final battle. The former took a bit of time since using the sniper meant you had to be fixed to one spot but now you can pull out the sniper at any time making it for quick shots at the former. No more need to get up close and shotgun him.

The Boss has a harder time seeing you due crouch walking and partner that with sniper holstering and slo mo counter when she gets close and it gets noticeably easier. The hard part is getting the timing right for the first few slo mo counters. 

The Fury is the hardest due to how one hit by his flame can level Snake's health and how he can stay in prone and the flames can still widdle away at it. 

Overall, this remake changed the controls and certain mechanics but nothing to accomadate it all. This whole remake is just one big "why" outside of those who want a modern playing game.