Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening Review

The game that makes me ask "why?" It's a licensed anime game not made in Japan and it's not even a tie in for a brand new Space Adventure Cobra adaptation. The brand itself has a cult following outside of Japan and the series itself hasn't really gotten a resurgance of any kind. I did check this out since I've been curious in checking out the anime for a long while and this game was a convienent enough excuse to jump into it's world without actually watching it. The game also has an english dub and the anime doesn't have a proper one so it gave me more an excuse to try this game out first.

As a whole, it's on the "average" side. It does have the potential to be more interesting than it actually is.

One thing noticeable right away especially if you have played them is that the controls and abilites are almost shot for shot the recent 2D Metroids made by MercurySteam. Being able to precisely aim in any direction, the way cobra moves while firing his canon, the slide, a charge shot, Cobra having missile and super missile equivilant. There's also the way dashing implement like in the recent Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. There's also a super attack like The Prince has in that game.

On paper, this would make The Awakening a very deriviative game but the one thing that prevents it from being that it's not a metroidvania at all. The exploration is optional rather than manadatory and it's mainly there for health and "missile" upgrades. In a sense, you could say there's elements of Contra and Metal Slug here too. Cobra has a melee attack like in the latter game too.

All of this together could make for a bizarrely unique title. Metroid and Prince of Persia's controls with linear design of Contra and Metal Slug? Sounds like a fun time and it is but the thing that holds it back is the lack of polish and lots of reuse of enemies and content.

An example of how unpolished the game is that the anime FMV sequences didn't play at all during my playthrough which made for weird moments where I missed the context while playing the game and had to watch them later on Youtube

Platforming for the most part can feel fine but there are bizarre moments weird collision detection.

The thing that really lets the game down is just how samey much of the game can be. At first, The Awakening can feel really good with how you have Metroid's controls as a run and gun shooter. Shooting enemies while dashing and quickly avoiding obstacles can feel make you feel the empowerment that being a space pirate on the run can bring you.

You got regular enemies, red and blue shielded enemies, larger enemies, drones, animal life. All of them do kind of require different tactics like regular enemies are threatning in number, red shielded enemies need their defenses taken out by Cobra's revolver, blue shielded need to be attacked by melee attacks. It can feel very involving until the realization that's all there is to the enemy encounters and much of the game is going through these same enemies. Enemies also give little health drops on normal and due to how many of them are shooting at you, it's easy to die quickly.

Also, you better hope that Cobra's revolver hits the red shield enemies the moment you get your line of on him because if you miss, there's a lengthy cooldown time and you might still be getting shot at while it's happening.

The puzzles have you do the same process and pressing switches and doing Psycho Gun drawing puzzles over and over.

The mini bosses is what really lets the game down. You fight the same drone and snake enemy multiple times through the campaign and the only way to damage them is is doing a drawing puzzle with the analog stick with the psycho gun. This could be easier with mouse but the real challenge of these fights is to get the analog stick right where you want it to draw the symbol to damage it. Take too long and you miss your chance. Due to this these fights can just drag on and it feels like luck if you can even damage them.

One great thing about the game is that easy mode is doable and it checkpoints often. The only really hard part is the boss at Mission 11-2.

Overall, Space Adventure The Awakening's existence raises quite a number of questions and there's some design ideas here that could potentially have the game rise above them but instead it's more of a game that could rather than a game that the devs pulled all the stops for because they had no big name to cash in off of.

Driver 76 Review

What a surprise this game turned out to be. I always thought it was one of those lesser spin off games or that it was just mediocre and forgettable but it turned out to be highly engaging and a blast to play through it's short length. What makes me like it as much as I do? It has a fun soundtrack, an enjoyable and entertaining story and the open world is on the optional side. The last one surprised me a lot. I was expecting it to be an open world crime game on the portable like those Grand Theft Auto games but instead it went back to the style of being a more "linear" narrative focused car chase game.

The soundtrack fits the world and the recreated 70s vibe pretty well. I always did get hyped up whenever Low Rider started to play.

Story is pretty entertaining while nothing amazing, it was fun in the moment. Seeing the dynamic between Ray and Slink as they work together to make money, get of jams, try to make it big and avoid getting wasted by the various gangs made for an entertaining set up. The voice acting and comic panel cutscenes do a good job at getting the basic beats across. Having the comic panel cutscenes was a smart move since the in engine would've just looked a lot worse anyway especially when compared to the couple that are there.

The real surprise which I've mentioned before is that this is NOT an open world game. Driver 76 does what I always have a soft spot for and have it be optional. Instead the gameplay revolves around a series where all of them involves a vehicle and you are almost always on a timer. I always did love timers in this franchise or anything involving vehicles since the whole point is to go fast and be efficient while doing it and having timers is a great way to encourage the player to get good and not sleepwalk through the missions.

It also helps that the game checkpoints during missions and when there is a part of the game where it feels like the objective is taking too long even when the ride is going smoothly, you'll get a good amount of extra time to complete the next objective.

There's a decent amount of variety here too like escourting assassins, driving pick up trucks while avoiding detection of enemy gangs, hijack and delivering trucks, collecting things and avoid annoying your passengers, vehicle tailing, traditional races, wrecking supermarkets. There's enough variety here as well the game not being overly long so the game never gets overly monotonous or overstays it's welcome.

Some issues is that the game doesn't run the most stable. There's framerate drops and a fair share of pop in. This could be the emulator but this could be both the game and the emulation quirks. The on foot controls are "tolerable" but not good since the game is mostly car chases, it's awkwardness never really sets in. The shooting isn't great but it's fine due to reasons I mentioned earlier.

There are two missions that can sour the experience that are "Arms Dealer" and the final mission. The former is bad due to on rails shooting section especially when dealing the cars later in the level as you are entering and leaving a tunnel. If you try to this with the base assault rifle the mission gives you, it will be impossible to finish due to the bullet spread not hitting your intended when you put the crosshair on them. You will be riddled with bullets and your shots will only hit on occasion. If you just do main missions, you'll get a grenade launcher and it's best to cheese the early enemies and the ones in the tunnels using this, if not it's an unwinnable mission. It can be a misleading on the game's part.

The final mission while fine in theory, it's a very trial and error mission where if you make one wrong detour as you follow the helicoptor, misintrepret it's route or try to readjust after being lead off it's trail, it will be a series of mission restarts. I get it's the final mission but due to long it can feel, it feels like you need to be a perfectionist even though the rest of the game didn't require you to do this.

Overall, despite some technical issues and a few sour eggs here and there, Driver 76 turned out to be a very enjoyable surprise and easily one of the better 3rd party developed games on the PSP.

Doom II: Hell on Earth(Playstation 5) Review

The most actionized sequel to ever be actionized. Yes, the original game was very much an FPS game where you were mowing down enemies but Doom 2 does the thing expected from a sequel and ups the ante when it comes to everything. I will admit that when I first played the game, my attachment towards it was non exisistent. I found it very disappointing compared to the 1993 original game. The level design was far too obtuse, the inablility to jump or look up felt more like hinderances than advantages and it felt like amping up the difficulty for the sake of it. Upon replaying the game a few years ago and now recently. I've come to like Doom 2 the more I play it. Understanding it's mechanical and level design quirks has come to make me love it. Doom 2 might be one of my favorite game sequels of all time despite me not feeling that way when I originally beat it.

I said before that Doom 2 ups the ante in every regard and two things it does this with is the weapons and the enemies.

With the former, you find many of the key weapons of the original game like the shotgun, chaingun, plasma rifle and missile launcher much quicker. You also spend the entire game with them upon accquiring them the first time where in original, starting a new episode means getting them all back again. Also, weapons like the BFG you might spend the whole game not even getting but in Doom 2, you will certainly get it.

Then there is the weapon the game is known for: the Super Shotgun. It's been stated how awesome this weapon is and it lives up to it's name. The powerful sound it makes when fired, the amount of damage it does to close range enemies like the pinky demons, it being able to wipe out multiple possesed marines at once with it's spread under it's crosshairs and the beautifully done reload animation and sound.

You would think this weapon would become the primary shotgun to use and the regular shotgun would have no use. It would be that in theory but one big difference is that the super shotgun is meant to be devastating up close. The regular shotgun is a long range hitscan weapon so. Close range use is super shotgun and regular shotgun is for furthur or ones places in higher elevation

Then there is there the enemies where the first game's early levels would place some Imps, some Possesed Marines but then slowly roll in the Barons of Hell, Pinkies and Cacodemons. Doom 2 follows the logic that you played the original already so these guys are already in the early levels and you'll be fighting huge swarms of them. Some of only one enemy types like the barons and pinkies or a mixture of many like the imps and marines.

There's also new enemies introduced in Doom 2 like Chaingunner Marines, Revenants, Archville, Mancubus, Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, and Hell knight. Many of them spice up combat like Chaingunners, Archvilles, Revenants, and Mancubus due to them changing up tactics. Like Archvilles with constantly breaking like of sight. Revenants with dodging the homing missiles. Chaingunners due to accumlated hitscan damage.

Some can be annoying like the Pain Elemental summoning so many Lost Souls that home in on you. However, most of these are hits rather than misses.

However there is one major elephant in the room and a rather divisive aspect of Doom 2 and that is the level design. Where Doom 1993's levels were all well made and do a good job at guiding the player around with the exception of Limbo. Doom 2 can get bizarrely obtuse and hard to understand where to go. First of all, many of the versions of the game has no jump button so the game never tells the player that sprinting from one platform to the next is an unofficial jump button. There is also the fact that teleporters don't teleport you to one place but stepping on them twice can lead you to a new part of the level.

Not understanding these quirks can throw many players off.

With that said, Doom 2 has one of my favorite and most memorable levels in older series and that is Courtyard and especially Industrial Zone. Remember how I said that switching between regular and super shotgun for long and close range is something Doom 2 does well? This is a great example. You need to use regular shotgun to take out the Chaingunners from afar and are higher up while using super shotgun to take out the enemies at your level.

There is some bizarre parts like you need to look down to know to land on a platform to progress in Downtown but you can't actually look down to know to land there.

Some levels like Citadel are just terrible and an all around stinker too. It's so bad that you don't even need all 3 keys to beat the level along with floor switch that is really hard to actually hear with the music playing.

Overall, with all this said, Doom 2 despite it's level design and mechanical quirks and not having levels as consistent in quality is an all improvement over the first game, you may need to play it more than once to fully appreciate the game with that said. 

Iron Meat Review

As far as Contra games or games styled after that franchise is concerned, Iron Meat is the best of that kind of game I have ever played. I'm more of a Metal Slug guy but Iron Meat managed to win me over. In terms of sheer specticle and approachable difficulty, it's the best a Contra style game has ever been for me.

When it comes to the visuals, Iron Meat's pixel art looks highly detailed especially with everything looking macabe, decrepit and and grotesque. There's lots of explosions and body parts being destroyed mauled and destroyed as you wreak havoc across the levels. It's one of if not my favorite example of indie pixel art work.

I mentioned approachable difficulty before, you get 30 lives on easy with your lives resetting back to 30 when you start a new level. So for someone who isn't really good at Contra style games, this is an easy crutch to rely on.

In Blazing Chrome enemies soak up an ungodly amount of damage even on easy to the point where your lives will be mostly drained by the time you reach the level end boss. In Iron Meat, it's more reasonable where you can have a decent amount of lives left before reaching the level end boss. I make a big deal out of this because there is no health bars in Contra style games, getting hit once is a life lost and losing them all is a level restart.

You also have a reasonable amount of weapon power ups to level the playing field in Iron Meat. It also helps that you can aim in all 8 directions. I did wish the controls for this was better rather like having dedicated buttons to aim diagonally but it's workable.

It's not like the game is brainlessly easy for me on easy. I was almost close to a level restart on the city stage and was down to one life on the boss before took the last one. It was a massive sigh of relief and felt like an epic win when the boss went down. If easy mode can retain things like this? Is it really a bad thing?

Projectile speeds and traps are also reasonable enough for a less skilled player like me to get through. You also get a warning and ample time to get out of the explosions marked in a red skeleton.

Bosses are also the pixel art at it's best and have very maligned designs. Something like a cross between Alien and The Thing.

Overall, that's Iron Meat, it's well designed, looks amazing, very approachable and the best Contra style game that I'm aware of. I randomly heard of this game when it was being compared to the that latest Contra game and Terminator 2D No Fate and while I like the latter, Iron Meat is superior.

Tormented Souls 2 Walkthrough

I really enjoyed the previous Tormented Souls and I was initally hesistant towards playing the sequel due to the mixed things I was hearing about how it was buggy at launch and the difficulty on normal being out of wack. After playing the game now, I can say the game is generally improvement on the first game mainly becase it follows the logic of Resident Evil 2 which is one of my favorite game sequels of all time. Both tend to have higher count of enemies and the enemies in TS2 are faster and more aggressive too. I did wish I played the game on normal difficulty since the mixed things I often heard before playing made it sound like normal was busted. Easy mode is still enjoyable but it is one of those difficulties that just keeps showering you resources due to reasons I will mention later, it didn't really hinder my overall that much.

In essence TS2 is more of what you liked about the first game. It Resident Evil's level design and limited saves with Silent Hill's more grotesque imagery, unlimited inventory and more cryptic puzzles. There's also a dodge this time around but I didn't really use it as much as the game would want me to since I played on easy. The save rooms are back and the music here is even better than it was in the first game.

There's also ideas exclusive to Tormented Souls itself like how the darkness can kill the player character if exposed to it without a lighter for too long and the dual world to solve puzzles in the levels.

Despite the level designed being more segmented this time around, the "ah this will make sense later" level design from the first game is still present here.

For example, early on the in the game you have to go up on top of a bell tower but the stairway is blocked by two vases eventually you will find a weapon that allows you to destroy them and progress furthur to eventually get the shotgun.

The level design classic Resident Evil is still here where you have this one big puzzle to solve that is the overall objective you have to do in the level but there is a bunch of smaller tasks like solving "riddles" and inventory puzzles you have to do inbetween all that. This is all retained in TS2. There's memerable levels like the Chruch, Mall, Graveyard and my favorite: school.

I do wish the riddle puzzles had different difficulties for them like the Silent Hill games from 2 onwards did since I don't really care for them and it's easy for me to view them similarly to the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene where Indy shoots the swordsman. I do think having riddle difficulties would be a solid compromise.

Since the inventory is limitless like in SH, enemies are much more aggressive and often come in 3 now. Where in games like the original Silent Hill 2, it would be a miracle if they could even close the distance on you if you riddle them with 3 bullets. Here, it's more like the first Silent Hill will they move in fast and will land a few hits before they die.

However easy mode did give me too many resources so it does sap away a little bit of the tension but the aggressive behaviour and Caroline's movement and aiming being so stiff does help cancel it out. So it feels in line with combat of the first Silent Hill in a sense.

The bosses are also an improvment since they are more along the lines of puzzle bosses where you need to figure out how to damage and defeat them rather a raw game of mechanical skill. It's smart on the devs part since they know the limitations of the combat system.

There's also a good and bad ending to get but luckily the former isn't too hard or complicated to get since you can backtract to an early part of the game and get it.

If one criticism I can level towards the game is that the game does start to drag it's heels out towards the end with the Bunker level. Where once you get back to the chruch, you'd think it's just going to be a quick trek to the final boss but then there is an entire level before you can get there. You also can't beeline it either since you need to solve a puzzle in order to not get killed in a cutscene before the final battle can actually start. By this point I did wish the game would just wrap up already even if the homage to Silent Hill 3 was enjoyable to see.

Story was okay, nothing amazing but nothing horrible, it did a good job at establishing the next levels you are going to go for the game.

Overall, TS2 was a well made sequel despite all the seemingly lukewarm and apathetic reception I saw at around the time of release. If one thing to be warned the trophy for beating the final boss is bugged as of now and doesn't unlock after beating it so I really hope that gets fixed soon. TS2 is a worthy sequel to the first game much like Resident Evil 2 was to the first game.

Yakuza 3: Remastered Review

Oh Yakuza 3 what an interesting game. What was originally going to be me buying the Kiwami 3 "remake" then turned into buying the remastered version of the original game before the delisting on consoles. To do this along with Kiwami 3 going into the frankenstein's monster direction that it did is one of many reasons why I'm becoming more and more dillusioned and disinterested in the franchise. To put it plainly, I don't dislike Yakuza 3 but I'm getting more and more annoyed by the series' antics the more I revisit it. I did play the original game before and while I prefer it over Yakuza 5, I'm noticing so many more narrative issues with the former and the series by extension. In spite of all this, the main villain Yoshitaka Mine carried much of the game and even some aspects of the Morning Glory subplot too.

This transitions me to my next point and a much derided part of Yakuza 3: the narrative pacing. I didn't mind taking care of the Morning Glory children in the early parts of the game but I can understand the complaints in that it has barely if any connection to the main story at all. It's also easy to complain about Sayama from the 2nd game being completely written out of the story when it hinders the narrative growth Kiryu could gain. Besides that much of the early sections of the game is helping out with the children and their problems. Sort of like Mass Effect 2 with the loyalty missions but if there is one thing I can give this game over ME2 is that Kiryu isn't directly solving the problems the children are having, he's more along the lines of guiding them in the right direction. For a game that deals with parenthood, it's decently executed.

This all ties into what happens later in the game with the main villain Yoshitaka Mine. He might just be the most interesting antagonist the series has ever had. The story starts to get much more engaging when late game he delivers Kanda head to Kiryu and the gang. Speaking of Kanda, it's easy to write him off as a dumb, horny and arrogant moron but the story does a solid job at establishing he was only ever able to get anywhere because no one else better could step up to take over the Niskiyama family.

Mine himself has an interesting backstory on he's a self made man who paid to be part of the Yakuza life rather than having it forced on him or choosing to impress role model like Kiryu did. How he wanted to find geniune love and loyalty when he never got when he was younger which leads to a great scene later in the game where Kiryu showing love, compassion and sympathy to the children is more of him showing weakness than geniunely helping the kids.

Whenever I look back on the story of Y3, this is what I often think of since while this is well done. The narrative pacing gets really messy. The game's main plot is about brining a corrupt CIA operative to justice and finding a mystery man, so much of the game's plot is this wild goose chase to find the mystery man. That and long drawn attempt to draw out a corrupt CIA agent. When the plot twist is finally revealed you GO BACK to Morning Glory with the kids again for 50 minutes and then the story can continue.

However what really annoys me and this is much of the series is how Kiryu despite supposedly being a criminal acts like a superhero with his moral code of not killing but then he'll act "devious" and wait for someone else to kill or scarifice themselves to finish off the opponent he himself won't do.

He's esstentially the personficiation of the Lex Luthor line: "I'm not going to kill you, she is. I abhor violence" but Kiryu is supposed to be a hero and not a scheming villain. The lack of any kind of self awareness in the story itself just makes this so much worse and harder to swallow and I just can't take the series' writing at face value because of this.

So parts of Yakuza 3's story I like but other parts I can be downright apathetic towards.

Gameplay particularly is not as maligned as parts of the internet can make it out to be. Yes, enemies do block a lot but it mainly happens with bosses or mini bosses and when that dice roll happens, it just exposes the big issues with the Yakuza combat system. You need to land hits on them to build up the heat guage and if you don't build heat fast or efficently enough, combat encounters go on for so much longer.

On top of this smashing furniture to activate the frantic button tapping stomach punches is the most effective way to do damage and the button prompt to activate this in heat mode is a dice roll on if the animation will happen at all making combat even more dragged out if you don't land this move.

Just be prepared to have a lot of healing items on you since and go to the drug store to buy them since you'll need it for the blocking mini bosses and bosses.

There is also a challenging police chase mini game but lowering to easy helped.

Overall, Yakuza 3 is okay but I question venturing furthur with the series or replaying later games.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review(Playstation 3)

This was a game I wasn't expecting much out of. I mainly tried it out because it was considered one of the better games based on Lord of the Rings. Apart of me was expecting to drop it at some point due it to being a coop RPG but instead I had a blast with it atleast on easy mode playing as Farin. Would I call it amazing? No but as far as LOTR games I played before the Middle Earth titles, it's above the Two Towers and Lego Hobbit games and on par with Return of the King and Lego LOTR. To best describe War in the North it's a combination of Mass Effect with the dialogue wheel and two party members, the stories some of the various Star Wars games that run in conjunction with the movies, the loot and gear system that is come to be expected and the finishing moves of God of War.

Everything about this title felt like a bizarre precursor to the Middle Earth franchise minus the Nemesis system. You got a character who can use melee and ranged combat, brutal finishing moves and over the top violence, a skill tree and even sort of a gear system.

While the combat is a little on the simplistic and stiff side, the extremely satisfying and gory kill animations carries much of it. It also helps that beeline it to the next story mission will have the game be about 6-7 hours so it ends before the monotony really starts to set in.

It's a lot of fun to use War Cry, tank so much damage and then just seeing all the limbs of your enemies fly off and seeing the nice and brutal kill animations. It also helps that you get a lot of spell and healing potions and also Andriel will cast her healing shield whenever low on health. Some could argue there's too many safety nets here but considering I'm playing a coop RPG that is meant to be played with people on my own, I don't mind. I just have fun with the power fantasy especially when bosses could get tanky.

Level design is fine and serviceable, nothing complex but nothing that gets in the way of slaughtering hundreds of enemies either.

It's also funny to see to be able to summon the eagles at any time or them talking and playing an active role in the story.

If one criticism I can make is that there is are some super long and lengthy turret sections especially one later in the game where you defend Bruni and Nordi. That went on for so long I almost thought I was going to eventually get a game over and due the tedious enemy wave again. Turrets early game can also shred through your health on easy but this becomes less of a problem the more you level up.

The loot and gear systems can be hard to keep up with when so many are stacked and then becomes a game of stat checking but that's par for the course with games like this. The UI is at least easy to follow.

Frame rate can also can get into nasty dips on PS3 too.

The story is just kind of there. It feels like one of those filler arc stories where it can't interfere with the "main canon" so the heroes of this game have their own bad guys to fight while encountering the characters and locations from the movies. It's much like the gameplay, it's there, nothing overly exceptional but it's fun in the moment.

Overall, that's LOTR War in the North, it certainly isn't a great game but it is a fun and enjoyable romp and in some ways a decent change of pace up until that point with the amount LOTR games where you just relive the big set pieces of the movies. Wasn't expecting much it was a fun time.

Turbo Overkill(Playstation 5) Review

Out of all the "boomer" shooters that have been made, none of even managed to capture the sheer ambition of Turbo Overkill. If you ever wanted to see the feel of Doom Eternal replicated but through a much smaller dev team then you can't go wrong with this game. It's the most ambitious boomer shooter ever created but at the same time it can also come back to haunt it in a lot of ways.

As far as boomer shooters or even just shooters in general, Turbo Overkill is one of the most challenging I ever played. It's not just combat that is a hard time but also the sheer amount of platforming the game has too.

What makes combat so challenging where Doom Eternal has glory kill to replenish health back and chainsaw for ammo. Turbo Overkill at best gives you an upgrade you could by where killing fodder enemy with a chainsaw leg can get you back 1 hp. With ammo you have to find pick ups all over the map.

It does keep Doom Eternal's combat model of being having high HP one minute and then being down to critical the next.

Due to the lack of glory kills and chainsaw, the horde battle are even more intense than before. Every battle is an intense battle for survival. I'll be going through an enemy wave and then mech enemies pop up and I'm like, "damn it" after it kills me.

This is one thing Turbo Overkill does really well. The enemy variety is top notch one you'll be killing mooks with the chainsaw leg one minute, then switch to shotgun or assault rifle to kill the shield enemies, then use rockets to kill the drones, then running and shooting for your life when the mech enemies show up.

The weapon line up while standard like pistols, shotguns, assault rifles, sniper rifles, rocket launchers and so on. There are some insane alt fires you can have like the sniper having a telefraggins ability, shotgun having shock blasts that can be lined up, the pistol having a charge ability that can level most enemies if line up well. You even get a variation of the Hammer of Dawn from Gears of War here which is always interesting to see in the context of this kind of game.

Level design and platforming also returns from Doom Eternal and they can be quite expansive to how big the space can be. The levels can take so long to complete that it felt like I complete an entire episode of many boomer shooters even though I only did one level. There's levels that take place in wide open cities, traffic, destroyed cities, toxin refinery, factories, a scrapyard and so on. Each one of these levels can take a 30 minutes or an hour to complete. They have lots of platforming then lots of intense horde shootouts, then hunting keys and so on.

It doesn't end there either, there will be levels will you will be riding your car then the maps get bigger and then infiltrate structures while riding the said car, then getting out to progress the level. You'll in a motorcycle chase and then a mech late game. A late game set piece will also happen where an entire army gets wiped out as you are barely trying to survive while platfroming through the level.

In terms of sheer and utter ambition Turbo Overkill almost has no rival.

The sheer scope does come back to haunt the game. For one the upgrade system while interesting, it gives you a tons of perks and options but once you find the one that you are most comfortable with, you never want to try anything new.

Platforming and this might be me playing on a controller can so hard even analog stick can't even keep up like with the grapple hook mechanic, half the time I get past these sections by luck.

By far the biggest issue with the game is how long it is. Remember how I said that one level in TO can be as long as a single episode in many boomer shooters? This is what I'm talking about. The game can especially around Episode 3 can drag on for so long that by the time Maw was defeated I just wanted the game to end already.

It leads to the actual final showdown against Syn and to say this last level was hard would be an understatement. It's so hard that it dampers my experience on a game I really enjoyed. You not only have to defeat multiple challenging waves of enemies but you have to do in a time limit too. You already have to not die but also kill the enemies fast enough too. Then there is a late part where you have to use a sniper where you stand in one place since not all enemies can be telefragged and you could get hit and die here too. Doom Eternal never had this. Then you get to the actual final boss against Syn and it can take a lot of damage before it dies too.

By the time I got to the sniping, I lowered the game to easy and finished the game. I was just getting so worn out by everything that I wanted everything to wrap up. If the game ended with you killing Maw, I would've been fine with that.

Overall, while Turbo Overkill might just be the most ambitious and insane boomer shooter ever, I really just wished the game end earlier so it could be my favorite boomer shooter of all time.

Evil Dead: Regeneration Review

Played Evil Dead Fistful of Boomstick prior to this and didn't get very far since it tried to be a combination of a third person shooter and a survival horror game and didn't commit to either. Evil Dead Regeneration on the hand is Devil May Cry meets Ico. This game was borrowing from the latter before it really started to take off later on with games like The Last of Us and Bioshock Infinite and so on.

As far as Devil May Cry clones are concerned, Evil Dead Regeneration is easily on of the better ones up there with games like the Van Helsing video game all though the former has ideas that separate from DMC like aforementioned comparison to Ico.

One of the most interesting thing about the game is character of Sam. Where with many games that are escort quests like with Ico or TLOU, you have a case of consantly watching over Yorda and making sure she won't get kidnapped by the shadow monsters. It doesn't help the game has many combat encounters where you are meant to control a character who can't fight. TLOU has a case where the game world won't acknowledge friendly npcs unless if Joel is seen.

Evil Dead Regeneration solves both these issues where Ash controls much like Dante from DMC so the frequent combat encounters are more enjoyable and Sam is immortal so you won't have to worry about getting a game over when dying as him. Sam can also be useful in combat by distracting enemies and you being able to kick him into them as well.

One of the most fun part of Regeneration is when you play as Sam and seeing how many over the top and hilarious death animations Sam has after solving a puzzle as him before controlling Ash again.

There's also a surprising amount of conversations Ash and Sam have during gameplay too which keeps things lively rather than empty.

Combat itself is very similar to DMC. Ash has projectiles with unlimited ammo and one of the most fun things about the game is shotgun juggling with the ragdoll physics the game has. Enemies also can't die from just hitting them so you need to scripted finishing moves to actually kill them and they are a lot of fun to watch. Similar to the melee takedowns from God of War minus the QTEs. An aspect neither in DMC or GOW like being able to hit enemies while they are down.

There's even a rage mode Ash gets which is similar to Rage of the Gods but is obvious riff on Devil Trigger and it's just fun to watch Ash tear things up in this form. Bosses can beaten in short work depending on how efficiently you use this mechanic.

A big critcism is that I didn't even know Ash had a move list until you get to The Woods level. Trying to do the guard break on enemies can feel very awkward to pull off too. You also don't get many of the weapons until good while into the game. It starts to open up more and more when you get the harpoon gun when you are in the Mines level. Unfortunately you don't get all of your weapons until Port Turnham Shipyard level and by that point there's only two major levels in the game left.

Two of the biggest problems are how many times the game reuses the "escort Sam 3 times to open a door to the boss level" objective throughout the whole game. It can be very annoying since while Sam is immortal, but if he "dies" while getting charged up a by spirit, you have to do it again which can be very tedious and the game does become the babysitting escort quest that games like this or feature it can become. Save points are plentiful but most of the challenge comes from these sections. 

The biggest issue however is the story or should I say, it's a pilot episode of a TV show. The entire game is Ash breaking out of the Asylum, trying to rescue Sally and stop Dr. Reinhard. The game is well acted and entertaining enough that it's not completely insufferable but at the same time, barely much of anything happens in this whole story. Almost to the point where it feels like a side story. No big twists, no moments of character development, it's just Ash and Sam getting to Dr. Reinhard, they stop him, save Sally game ends. That's it.

This is where unfortunately where the game gets let down. Outside of being an Evil Dead fan, there isn't much of anything here that you want to come to game to. In 2005, there were your obvious heavy hitters like Devil May Cry 3 and God of War but there was also Prince of Persia the Two Thrones, Hulk Ultimate Destruction and Genji Dawn of the Samurai as well.

Overall, while Evil Dead Regeneration is a solid licensed game, I just wished there was meat to it's bones like a story with more going on and a more evenly paced campaign. Still it's worth checking out if you are mildly curious.

Ereban: Shadow Legacy Review(Playstation 5)

This was an interesting effort especially for a genre that has seen fewer and fewer releases as the decade has gone by and not even by a big budget studio at that. It is easy to rag on how underdeveloped the game can feel but at the same time due to the above mentioned reasons I'm a lot softer on it. After dropping Styx Blades of Greed a day prior to the game's port to PS5, it just gives me even more reasons to be softer on Ereban. Just for the fact that it's just a "linear" stealth affair and no bizarre and awkward attempts at an open world.

It's easy to draw comparisons between this game and the Aragami series. The visuals, the looks of the player character, the shadows motif, the various upgrades, and the fact that there is no combat option. Getting caught once means that it could lead to a game over.

What really surprised that it had much more in common with the Splatoon games than I thought it would. Shadows in Ereban is like the Inkling's ability to travel through ink in that series. You can even attach yourself to walls and surfaces that have shadows on them much like the aforementioned character with ink. The main differences are is that you can't plaster ink to create more surfaces to travel only the shadows is already cast on the level geometry and you can hide under shadows for a certain amount of time.

With that said, as novel as a concept this might be. It can feel more so like a underdeveloped gimmick much of the time. It's often easy to bypass many of the enemies due to how slow they can move and how fast you are when travelling under the shadows.

It's often easy to just knock out a robot, have another robot spot the unconcious body, hide and travel under the shadows and then knock out the suspecting guard.

There are human enemies too and the game does try to incoportate a morality system by having you avoid killing them but they don't behave that differently from the robots.

Different attempts at gadgets are also in here but I didn't really use them that much or as much as the game would want me to due to how OP the base shadow travel ability is. I did you the decoy ability from time to time with that said.

Platforming can also feel stiff and awkward here too especially the base movement ability since your character can't mantle up waist high obstructions as gracefully as I would like. It can also feel unresponsive and awkward trying to from one shadowy surface to another during occasional mandatory platforming section with it. There's also a puzzle section late game that can feel out of place considering there weren't any puzzles before that.

The hardest parts of the game is when you have to deal with key or level progressing item that can't be phased along with you so you have to find a way to travel through the level where you can physically bring the item to the terminal to progress the next level. I did wish the game had more shake ups like this. That or have more enemy can directly influence the environment.

After all that criticism, it should sound like I shouldn't really like it that much, I can say I do at least like it. The level design is at least designed in the "get from point A to B" sqaure and rectectangle design. It's hard to get lost meaning the levels move at a fast and steady pace. The game also checkpoints quite often too so it's never too much progress lost upon death. There's also a really cool and interesting open level at around Chapter 3 that encourages you to explore. The whole game isn't like this and it's a decent way at shaking up the level design. Chaining multiple kills while hiding and travelling in the shadows does feel satisfying to pull off in the moment.

The story while nothing special never gets in the way. Main character can get a little chatty but nothing that gets in the way.

Overall, while the game can feel underdeveloped, I can say as a stealth game it does get the basics right and while I wish there were more higher quality new releases in the genre, I'm happy to say I atleast enjoyed this one.

Starship Troopers: Ultimate Bug War! Review

All I knew about this title going in that it was made by the developers of Warhammer 40K Boltgun which is a game I enjoyed for the most. It did however turn out to be a complete surprise in more ways than one.

Ultimate Bug War isn't really a traditional "boomer" shooter but it also has elements of games like Halo with the two weapon limit, vehicles(mainly just mechs but still) and the the supply drops from Helldivers 2. There's even having other soldier NPCs help you like in a Halo and especially a CoD campaign which adds to the immersive feeling that you are in a large scale battle. It's impressive that this is all done in an indie pixel art game. It gives it's own unique feeling. You got the powerful feeling guns and bugs have satisfying gore effects when you kill them.

There's different kinds of guns like of course your assault rifles and shotguns but there is also energy weapons and my personal a carbine that is hits hard but can't be reloaded like an M1 Garande.

The different bug types do a decent job at changing things. There's your fodder but there also flying ones, armoured enemies and bugs that can shoot fire.

What really puts everything together is the bizarre framing that the campaign cutscenes uses. It's used in the satire videos that were in the initial Paul Verhovan movie but the video game that you bought is now being used as a propaganda simulator to help recruit new members into the Federation. These live action satire cutscenes are hilarious and it's good way to frame why a single soldier is able to feel so powerful while being a single soldier in the military and how the player is able to be so proficient at killing so enemies, the game you bought is a satire military recruitment advertisement after all.

I was already enjoying the game but this whole framing device tied everything in a nice bow.

You could argue that the only big gripe is that the game is too short and can be beaten very quickly on normal difficulty but I argue it would start to get monotonous and mind numbing if it were longer.

If you are unsure on the price, the game is certainly worth getting on a discount.

Overall, now with this and Robocop Rogue City, all it is needed is a solid Total Recall modern licensed game to close out the package. 

Crisol: Theater of Idols Review

For a is a cheap game that was shadow dropped out of nowhere, made by a newly formed dev team that seems to have the very least double AA production values, Crisol is rather impressive for what it is. There are some major issues that prevent from being a I would highly recommend instead of midly but for what's on offer here, it's impressive.

To sum up Crisol simpily, it's a horror game leaning towards the action side where you use your health as ammo for your guns. It's like if Resident Evil 4 and Village combined together. It's an interesting concept but due to the early game hell that is at the start, this is more of a hinderance rather than something you can use reliably or strategically. This could be due to me playing on controller but enemies on normal take way too many shots to die. Your shots in the early game do little damage and I was in many situations where I was either out of ammo or was too low on it due to enemies taking away a large chunk of health when hitting you. Syringes were also very scarce and the knife also inflicts very little stun on top of the parry being unreliable. The final nail in the coffin is that enemies can do a scripted attack when you are at critical health but it's hard to tell how low does your hp have to be for the scripted attack to happen.

Add to how slow paced combat feels and because of how infrequent checkpointing can feel because of this, I lowered to easy. It is still strange how you can't lower the difficulty once you start the game even though the game also allows for custom difficulty but how I can use it effectively if I can't do it while playing the game?

Once I got to easy combat started to get more enjoyable, enemies took much less shots to die, the knife felt more reliable to use and I had more HP to draw blood for ammo for the firearms. Guns also feel very nice and punchy and enemies also have location based damage like both various of Resident Evil. I started to get into the groove of combat more.

There are some annoying parts like traversing parts of levels with a stalker monster coming after you. Reaching it's lowest point in Chapter 2 where you need to sneak past her, kill flying enemies and archers WHILE she can hit you while also being blindsighted by mines when running away.

It also doesn't help that audio cues for mines and cameras are minimal leading to plenty of surprise out of nowhere attacks. Dead Space 2 did it far better when it's explosive alien husks.

After all that, the game gets noticeably easier with so many syringes, healing and ammo that it hard to feel geniunely threatened by anything. The final level can feel long and tedious due to how many puzzles and combat encounters you have to get to before fighting the final boss.

There is also too much of that infamous yellow paint. I try not to complain about it but Crisol has a bad habbit in putting them in obvious spots where by the time you interact with the level, you'll already know that's the only places you can go. The levels are not super open nor is there any platforming to warrant this.

To give some praise, the story is rather decent. Not amazing but the main character has a decent amount of personality and he does slowly change and learn humlity throughout the game despite being hostile towards everyone at first. Not amazing but it's solid. The story doesn't rely on notes as much as other horror games do.

Overall, decent game considering the price and the devs who made it even if I had a lot of issues with it.

Metroid Prime 4(Nintendo Switch) Review

Back when this game was announced in E3 of 2017 when the Switch was still a freshly released console who would've thought it would've taken almost 10 years for the game to come out and it would be 18 years after Prime 3's release, 15 years since the last "mainline" 3D Metroid and multiple 2D games in the series would be released. This also isn't including the massive boom with Metroidvanias in recent times. A lot has happened during the time it took for Metroid Prime 4 to release. After playing this game and while there are some notable flaws, it's rather impressive how much Retro Studios was able to salvage what was already a messy skeleton that Namco Studios made.

This is what caught me by surprise when booting up Prime 4. In spite of the fact it has been 18 years and 2-3 console gens later after the Wii, Retro working on two Donkey Kong Country games and not working on the series in so long, Prime 4 felt like it could've came out a few years after 3. The musical motifs, the look and asethethics of the series, the immersive touches like seeing Samus' reflections on her visor, the game feel all the way down to the auto locking and morph ball physics, it all feels in line with the series. It feels like a Retro Studios developed Prime game in spite of the very long time gap.

The visuals on Switch 1 are also impressive even now and the fidelity felt like an evolution over Prime 3. The only big downer is the super long load times.

With all that said, if you wanted a Super Metroid styled game in 3D like Prime 1, this game won't scratch that itch. In fact, it scratches a different kind of one. Prime 4 is more Zelda than Metroid both older and elements of the open world games.

This leads to the first negative. The shrines are completely pointless since progression in the story locks off your ability to complete them. New Zelda lets' you complete it's shrines in a varieity of different ways where Prime 4 has you do them in one way where you need a certain ablity to do them. Also doesn't help that the map never marks which shrines as not completed.

I'm not the biggest Zelda and I don't care for the overworld Prime 4 has much like older Zelda. If one good thing I can say about this is that if you know to constantly collect the green crystals while travelling around throughout the gme, it will be the shortest late game fetch quest in Metroid Prime history. It could be the longest if you don't know. I did wish the game did a better job at making this clear.

Story also is just there and isn't that great. Not the worst but it just exposes how Samus just feels like an overly expensive moving action figure when interacting with characters since she never even says anything nor do we know her inner thoughts like in Metroid Fusion. It made sense in Prime 1 and 2 since she never has to interact with anyone in those games but it exposes the problems in Prime 3 and 4. The npcs are moderately entertaining if nothing special. Them scarificing themselves the first time being a fake out but then dying for real against Sylux just made their actual deaths diminish the emotional impact. Sylux doesn't have much of a prescene in the story than fighting Samus a few times and then having some weird backstory.

Positives are that once you get past the tedious parts of trying to get to the dungeons like in older Zeldas, the dungeons themselves are pretty interesting like going to the Volt Forge to get the power on. Trudging your way through the Ice Belt with how windy certain parts of the level was. Fighting your way while escourting the characters in Flare Pool and having that really weird fake out countdown sequence or slowly going though the Great Mines and fighting off the Greivers while going through it.

The bosses are mostly solid with the worst being Sylux Phase 1 due to the reviving of teammates you got to do. I did enjoy the boss fight with Phenoros where there is decent specticle and good amount of challenge in dodging it's attacks while you are on the offensive. It was also nice to see the motorcycle get use outside of just only open world traversal. The only awkward part is remembering to use the control beam to finish off the boss. It pops up so infrequently that I always forgot I even have it. Same goes for the psychic glove.

I also enjoyed fighting the Omega Griever since it follows the formula of Metroid Prime bosses of finding out on how to damage it then dodging it's attacks and finally doing enough damage to finish it off. It hits the right spot at being a puzzle and having a good amount of action. My only big issue this time around is mashing A to get out of a boss' grab attacks since I hate doing mashing sequences in any game.

Final issue is that it did feel very grating that some switches had to be scanned while other could be interacted with by just pressing the button.

Overall, MP4 was an enjoyable game in spite of major issues. Games that take almost a decade to release could be worse than this.

Doom(1993)(Playstation 5) Review

There's so much that can be said about the original Doom. It was an early example of gaming going into the 3rd dimension, it helped popularize a genre that is still around now, it's been ported to many different systems and formed a popular franchise much like Resident Evil and Metroid managed to reinvent many times throughout it's long history. In spite of the original game being relatively short especially if it's the first 3 episodes, lacking in features like looking up and down and the lack of a jump. It's still endearing even now. The original Doom is a simple game but what it does is give solid moment to moment decision making and always adding different variations on already existing ideas. It's fine to be repetitive but it's not good to be monotonous which Doom avoids. It's just one of those games where I supposed to play a few levels than stop but I ended up beating all 3 episodes in one sitting since I found it that fun.

The first pillar Doom does well is it's weapons. Sure a little tame by today's standards but every weapon outside of the pistol has a clear and distinct role during gameplay. Shotgun is good for close and long range but can take a quite a number of shots to kill an enemy depending on the range. Doom's shotgun has novelties of it's own that other video game shotguns don't have like being effective at longer ranges too. Chaingun is good for keeping enemies in one place and prevents them from getting closer or firing projectiles. Rocket launcher fires projectiles and is slow moving but can do a lot of damage you might need to guide it's shots to be effective with it. Splash damage can also hurt you and do a lot of damage so it's a no no at close range. Plasma rifle runs out of ammo fast but can kill multiple horde in one burst. The BFG of course is a weapon that do massive damage but it's better to be saved during a huge swarm.

The second pillar is the level design and variation. Doom has it's mazes of course but there is always variations to it's level design. There will be close quarters battles with enemies waiting to ambush you from behind corners. There could be an imp from afar firing a projectile or they could above or below you. There might be a shotgunner hiding from behind a pillar waiting to shoot you. You could pick up a key and enemies will spawn in from and cover your entire flank. The lighting could be a lot darker having you be careful on when is a good time to aim your shot on an enemy. There could be a wide open circular arena with lots of enemies for you to shoot. Teleporters can put you into different parts of the maps. The floors could have lava or be acidic so be careful that your health doesn't drain when on them. Elevators add verticality. Switches can open up new parts of the map or have enemies spawn in. Imps could be behind walls and shoot fireballs when behind them. You can also get crushed by moving ceilings too. There's also secrets to find rewarding people who throughly explore.

The only geniunely bad level out of the original 3 episodes is limbo due to how many lava floors that drain your health there is and over reliance on teleporters. It does say a lot when it's the only geniunely bad level.

The 3rd pillar are the enemies. You got the imps who are weak but can throw a projectile a fast moving projectile. There is a possesed human and his deadlier shotgun wielding variant who are hitscan but can die quickly. The pinky demon and his invisible counterpart where they are deadly upclose but can rush you if you aren't careful. Lost souls that can quickly zone in and hit you but can be taken out with a shotgun blast. The Cacodemon who float take more damage than the imp and can do more damage when firing projectiles. Then the strongest of the enemy line up being the Baron of Hell, they take a lot of damage and their projectiles can do a lot of damage if you aren't constantly strafing out of the way.

When you combine all these pillars together while you get game that while simple on paper can have plenty of variations and permutations on what kind of encounters and levels that can be created. There's a reason why it often gets cited so much when it comes to game design. Combine all this with a great soundtrack that does a great job adding to the upbeat power fantasy and I can see why I beat the game in one sitting rather than take my time.

The only real weak link are the bosses like the Cyberdemon and Mastermind. They are mainly just threatning due to how much damage they can do to you while you widdle away at their health using your stronger weapons. In Mastermind's case it mainly just had a super annoying hitscan chaingun. These levels are short and are over before you know it so you aren't even dwellling on this very long. In Mastermind's case, Limbo is such a long and confusing level that beating him quick with a good amount of health remaining can almost feel like the true reward.

Overall, my love for the original Doom has grown even more.