Destroy All Humans(2020) Review

Randomly decided to boot this up again since I consider to be one of the best and most admirable game remakes ever created. After playing the game years after release, I'd still it is. It definitely goes beyond, "same gameplay, different visuals" but never quite enters into the realm of "different game, same name". This balancing act is part of the DAH remake's charm since it keeps the game's unique premise but adding some noticeable gameplay changes. Some of which shows the game was never meant to be played that way but others are geniune improves like the additions of checkpoints during missions.

When it comes to story, everything from the original game is retained except the reworked character models and cutscenes. I'm not a big fan of the way human characters particularly the female characters looking far too plastic but the overall reworked cutscenes get the job done.

This aspect is where the "same game, different visuals" comes in because it's the same as the 2005 game. Considering it was a unique premise back in 2005 all the way to 2020 and even now upon replaying it.

What is the premise? It's of course an alien invasion story but unique twist is that YOU are the alien invaders. It's not about defending earth from the alien threat but it's about taking it over for the furons and by extension you the player.

It helps that the furons are an alien race that aren't capable of reproducing and have relied on cloning throughout the ages to stay alive so it humanizes them and it helps sets the underdog story of taking over humanity from the very paranoid yet also very guillible civilization of America.

What sells everything so well is the interactions between Crypto and Pox. The former sounds like Jack Nicholson if he was constantly cutting wrestling promos and the latter is quirky brains of the operation. How the two conflict with each other. Crypto wants to blow up everything while Pox wants to wait for the right time for everything to be destroyed and taken over.

Everything is help sold by the fact that the Furons and Majestic are in a race to see who can control the American populace faster. All the missions are brillantly bookended with newspaper cover ups of what you did explaining your impact on the world. The fact that it's in the 60s and everything is often blamed on Communists makes the satire even more amusing.

The gameplay is where the differences show. There are many additions like the aforementioned checkpoints. There's also mechanical changes like using telekinesis in combat, a dash, weapon wheel, using the jetpack in conjunction to firearms and TK, and a lock on, the ability to deflect missiles back while in the saucer and the biggest improvement being the stealth.

Stealth in the original game was often a game of luck but since the Holobob would randomly deactivate where in the remake there's more a visual cue and a timing window of when the Holobob disguise will unequip itself. This partnered with mission checkpoints makes these sections much more bearable.

Bosses have multiple phases and have a more going on before you kill them.

With all these improvements in place, it does expose how rather simplistic these systems are. Use the jetpack along with the firearms and enemies will have a hard time even actively hitting you. The furon enemies introduced in the story missions never show up again but when causing reckless abandon in the open world.

Weapons both the original and this remake are rather and I hate to use this term, "uninspired". For a game where you play as aliens the most unique weapon you get is the probe launcher but it serves no real purpose than helping on a late game grind. The Zapomatic is awesome but it's the only weapon that feels somewhat unique and fund to use.

Stealth is also on the simplistic side too and the most challenging it gets is doing the objectional objectives. It also exposes why original game had no checkpoints since it makes for a rather simple and breezy game.

The saucer gameplay is still rather fun simply due to the unique idea of riding a saucer and wreking havoc on cities and miltiaries from above.

DAH does actively switch between these gameplay styles so while all of them on their own is simplistic, it never gets dull due to not having an overwhelming amount of each style of play.

There is bizarre defend mission where you could've done it in the saucer but aspects like that can be forgiven.

What can sour the game for many is the final mission. The dreaded progression roadblocks to unlock later missions gave you enough upgrades for your flying saucer, since no mission prior with it was difficult. It indirectly makes for a late game grind where you need to uprade the saucer in order to get the second phase of the boss. The second on foot phase is hard but you get a checkpoint here unlike the original game.

Overall, the remake pushes the idea of how far you can change and keep the same but is an improvement on the whole.

007: First Light Review

AAA gaming has been getting quite a bit of a pushback in recent times by certain vocal minorites. I say this because 007 First Light is the kind of game that they are rebelling against. As for me I do enjoy the game had an enjoyable time with it but throughout my entire playthrough, it was hard not to think of games like The Last of Us and especially Uncharted 4. Yes, it's been said many times that First Light resembles Uncharted but I'd argue the former has the most in common with the latter's 4th game.

I mostly enjoyed First Light's story even if it is carried by characters like Greenway, Q and Moneypenney especially the former. Greenway was especially a character I liked. I have a soft spot for archetypes like him and First Light does it well enough. How's initially distrusting of Bond due to his reckless and unelegant way of following protocal but then the latter slowly starts to earn his respect throughout the story. His backstory involving 009 was compelling he was once first with him and thought he was traitor but turns it out things aren't what they seem.

Q's interaction with Bond are also really fun in how the latter learns the ropes with his gadgets and bizarre antics. He also won't just hand all the information over to Bond.

Moneypenny's interactions with Bond are pretty fun and how she choosed to help him in spite of detriments in her own personal life or the way she reacts to what the former does during gameplay and in the field.

It was also fun to see the whole idea of the Bond mythos be reimagined in the modern age. Seemingly borrowing from the latest Mission Impossible movies regarding AI and computer algorithms in how it coincides with spycraft.

The game is also committed to being an origin story for Bond considering he doesn't start doing actual secret agent stuff until 3 levels in.

The only two big negatives is that the actor who plays Bond tend to make that same smile a lot the scenes he is in. Also Damien Webb somehow surviving Bond smashing him with construction equipment and later getting cyberized was when the story lost me. It felt like he only survived so we can have a final boss and Damien was the only in the story who knew how.

Gameplay in First Light is mostly good but it comprises of multiple different components. You got shooting, fist fighting, stealth, Hitman style puzzle rooms, car chases, and escape puzzles.

Stealth is similar to the recent Splinter Cells and Hitman Absolution. It's nothing standout. You got the bare minimum like decently wide open levels, cover system, reasonable guard detection rates, distractions, lures a guard over to you and a bluffing system similar to Instinct from the latter game.

What helps enforce stealth and I doubt this was intentional but fist fighting feels awful. Enemies have stupid amounts of health, Bond can only take two hits before dying, parrying and dodging feels stiff and awkward, you want to throw something at an enemy but Bond will throw them instead. It's all around not a very empowering system compared to the Batman Arkham, Insomniac Spider-Man or the Middle Earth games.

This is fine during stealth when you get caught and you want to quickly takedown 2 nearby alerted enemies. During mandatory boss encounters, the awkward stiffness reers it's ugly head and fights are infuriating partnered that with the long loading times which makes these sequences more frustrating.

Car driving and Hitman style levels while simplistic for the latter do a great job at being pseudo establishing shots when all hell breaks loose later on in the levels. Great example are Beyond the Grave and Wave of the Future.

Combat is the game's strong suit. I'm not used to an IO game having geniunely great combat but they should make a John Wick game. You have to cycle between two fire arms but ammo is scarce for both so you need to close the distance and get melee kills to pick up an enemy's gun. You can shoot an enemy's hands and legs stagger or use gadgets for distractions instead of wasting ammo, you can get a quick finisher kill on them. You got bullet time to help land some fast headshots. Destructible cover and grenades has you be on the move and you can get killed fast on normal so combine melee, shooting and bullet time for effective play.

You could possibly stealth when you get licensed to kill but gunplay is more far more fun than fist fighting.

With that said, combat might be maybe 30% of the game at most. You are better off playing Tactical Operations than the main campaign.

Remember the Uncharted 4 comparison? There's an excessive amount downtime. The reason why First light can be around 20 hours is due to this. I do like the story but it makes playing the campaign a rather uneven experience. I'm not someone who actively replays but these sections can be on the dull side even in the moment due to grinding the agency to a halt.

Overall, First Light is good but uneven in places.

Doom 64 Review

What I remember about this game was that it came free if you pre ordered Doom Eternal. Come to think, with the combine packaged of both this and Eternal, it might be the greatest pre order I ever did. Back on topic and spoiler alert, I mostly really enjoyed this. What was once a game that was considered "just an N64 port" turned out to be a "lost game" in the series.

Before I start with this review, the PS4 version of the save game menu is not very good. Yes, you can save anywhere but the menu itself never tells you the date and time you saved so when you die, you'll have to cycle through your saves to find the right one. It also doesn't organize the save games by latest adding more to the confusion. I still really enjoy this game but this save menu quirk can getting in the way from time to time. Might not be the case with other platforms. There is also no faster way to select weapons either.

First thing that is noticeable about Doom 64 is that it can have more of an emphasis on an oppressive atmoshphere rather than the upbeat, high octane, heavy metal feeling of the first two games. It can add to the idea of Doom 64 being a "lost" game since Doom 3 would later be focused on a darker atmosphere.

At times Doom 64 can feel like the original Quake with it's horror vibes. The redesigned enemies look a lot more intimidating by comparison to the past games.

I do love the redone weapons, I know the super shotgun reload has it's critics but it's clicking sound upon relading still sounds awesome that I don't mind the lack of an animation.

It does have my favorite reditition of the chaingun. Firing this version while taking out hordes and seeing cacodemons in so much pain upon landing shots along with the sound design makes it so such an awesome weapon to use.

The shotgun can feel like Quake's in that there's no pump time inbetween but it can kill basic enemies a lot better than it did in that.

One mistake this game makes that Doom 2 avoided was to have enemies of higher sightlines and elevation so you can actively switch between the two shotguns. Doom 64 goes back to more cramped mazelike rooms of the first game but with the addition of the super shotgun, it just makes the one shotgun that will actively be used.

The rest of the weapons behave exactly as you expect. There's a new weapon known as the "unmaker" but it was hard to use this over the BFG.

Rest of the game is typical classic Doom fare. Go through mazes, kill enemies, find keys, dodge traps, pick up ammo and health kits. It can be easy to see why at the time of release that this game can be viewed as "derivative" especially when Goldeneye came out the same year on the same system. However, I still liked the formula enough that I can take another familar romp. It's that kind of combination of corridors, lightning, enemies, and weapon line up that makes classic Doom timeless. There are a lot more Barons of Hell and Hell Knights this time around which makes the lack of a faster weapon switch all the more aggrevating. You can say switching to only super shotgun helps since it makes the close range decision making process faster.

There are some more puzzle like sections here and there. My favorite being "Unholy Temple" where you need to not only collect the keycards but then have multiple different orders of the colored switches in order to unlock other switches to open up the bars to the level exit.

Issues within the context of this game are that there are some switches that need to be shot at in order to progress. Duke Nukem 3D had something similar but I'd argue that game was more consistent with it and actively made sure to shoot switches to get anywhere. In Doom 64, you could go multiple levels without even shooting switch to progress furthur.

Other issues is that some parts of the level you can interact while others you can. There are some bars that Doomguy can lower by pressing interact and others he can only lower by pressing a switch in another part of the level. It can make for weird inconsistencies.

The final issue is that the final boss sucks. If you didn't do the optional levels, the best you can hope for is that you kamikaze it with the BFG and hope the credits roll a few seconds later. This is so terrible it makes the Icon of Sin look good and that was a terrible final boss in it's own right.

Overall, I played Doom 64 and really enjoyed and still do now. Out of the "mainline" classic games, 64 is my least favorite but that's like being the worst out of predescesors that were already excellent. Being the "worst" is just makes you least great but come on, you are still great.

YS X: Proud Nordics Review

I played both YS VIII and IX prior to this and while I do enjoy them and X. The quality did start to dwindle with each subsequent installment. I do enjoy YS X and definitely think it has the best combat system and in some ways the best traversal, there are aspects of the game that knaw at me and really get in the way of my overall enjoyment.

I'll begin with story and it's mostly just on the "fine" side. Nothing amazing but things that I didn't mind before like with Adol not having a defined personality starts to really grind my gears here. Karja is an interesting character in that she's balancing the life of being a viking while also reclutantly leading a crew of people who just got their home destroyed but that's the issue here. Many of the characters on the crew you have to go out of your way to learn about. Adol and Karja are mostly driving the story so the fact that Adol is just a silent protagonist where you choose the responses and Karja is the one going through the real growth makes the whole "player avatar" role hard to accept. Adol is with her at all times, there might as well be some geniune character interactions between the two.

There's also the whole twist at the game. I'm not complaining that it's "predictable". I'm more so criticizing that the twist doesn't get revealed until the very end of the game. I had this issue with YS IX that it took far too long for the twist to be revealed but here it's worse since here it gets revealed at the very end. The way everything is drip feed to the player that eventually even someone who isn't the well versed in media tropes could figure out. At least YS IX's twist was insane and crazy here, it's tame and eventually it's easy to put the blocks together.

It's still not a terrible story since Karja and the character interactions as a whole are decent enough to carry it but it's on "average" side. The villains are also kind of just there but that's just going to me going on for another couple of setenaces.

Gameplay is interesting since combat might be the best in the series. For one dodge and guard are no longer mapped to the same button. On top of that there are perfect parries and dodges with enemies and bosses having their own specific timings. There's also blue outlines for dodging and red for blocking. I often like to test my abilities with the latter and see if I can get "perfect parry". It makes combat more dynamic. The team up attacks also have a lot of visual specticle to them and do a lot of damage. It did make me want to use regular skills a lot less.

Traversal is pretty enjoyable here with you swinging off of automated grapple points and using the surfboard. The dungeons are also enjoyable with the occasional section of Adol and Karja needing to separate and you need to switch between them in order to progress through the level. Despite the game telling you were to go, there is some legwork in trying to get from point A to B in finding what switch pulls what or timing the grapple points to get across.

There are two aspects that do detract from the gameplay. One being the ship gameplay which if you beeline it to the main story felt like a rather pointless edition to the game. Main story ship battles are minimal and you'll always have enough upgrades needed to get by what little mandatory battles there are. They often just feel like dull downtime in between dungeons and plot progressing islands. It also makes the ending of the game feel less emotional since you were stranded or trapped and it leaves with you finally going but now you've on a ship the whole time.

Second major aspect are the bosses. I do think the bosses being challenging is fine on paper, it's just that no matter how many levels I gain with the gear and loot, they just take stupid amounts of health. I have to lower difficulty and retry a lot more than VIII and IX because of this. Don't be ashamed of using this because the game would be impossible to get to the end of without it. The bosses are challenging even using this feature 3-4 times. A big reason for this is because the bosses don't have health bars but armor you have to destroy BEFORE you damage their real health bar and taking this down will take minutes on end. The final boss also regenerates his armor after damaging his health bar at least 3-4 if not 5 times. Bosses can take a long while depending on how well aqquainted you are with the game's mechanics.

Overall, that's YS X, it's an action RPG that has the potential to be really enjoyable gameplay wise but is held back by damage sponge bosses and dull down time on the ship. Adol not being a properly defined protagonist also detracted from the game too. Still if you beeline it's not even that long of a game so by the time I got to to end, the annoying parts didn't feel like a "I can't believe I put with that" upon reflection.

Up

Call of Duty: Black Ops Review(Playstation 3) Review

My thoughts on CoD can range from apathy due to it's discourse online, being lukewarm on a title in question or it being that cool friend I haven't hung around with for awhile. Any piece media franchise especially long running popular ones can be this but CoD personifies that better than most. The first Blops for me is the last one. I remember back in around in the Fall of 2010 how I much I wanted this due to the craze the series had. I did enjoy the campaign but I was sick of the way the multiplayers were designed and it would end my run with the series by that point. With that said, I'm going to be reviewing the campaign since it's the part I remember liking.

While the story is definitely memed now with the whole line involving "numbers". In terms of storytelling for the series at the time, it was a breathe of fresh air. In the game prior to this, I was getting sick and tired of the series' tradition of always sticking to a silent protagonist. When the player character established he could already talk like Soap MacTavish, the story just magically forgets that he was speaking prior to controlling him.

Not the case with Alex Mason and the character player characters you control, they actually speak now. To top off all of this, the former is also an unreliable narrator which and it's also a framing story which were also two extra surprised thrown in.

I did complain in my MW2(2009) review about how the story can't decide if it wants to take itself seriously or be a parody on American propaganda and the war on terror. Blops on the other hand is very much a popcorn action movie first and foremost. It's not even trying to be anything than an over the top action film where it's about the characters trying to avoid a doomsday scenario.

It's very committed to this with the background music, the macho characters and with towards the end with Hudson putting on his shades.

The twist was mostly well foreshadowed too with how characters are questioning whether or not Mason's even there in the head or how no one even noticed that Reznov is even there. It adds to playing the game again in some ways to notice what other ways the question Mason losing it.

If there is one major weak link outside of one late game twist involving JFK is that Alex Mason's performance can get weirdly bizarre in places. Particularly the Bowman death scene where he tries to sound shocked and the way he threatnens the guy who killed felt more funny than menacing.

The villains can also feel on the underdeveloped side but it's with many of the series' villains and the mystery box nature of the story makes me more forgiving of this.

As for the gameplay, it's the same the series has been since CoD2(2005). You got the regenerating health where it's fine during easier parts but aggrevating when the challenge starts to amp up due to how much time is spent waiting for the regen health to kick in.

Reloading can be more of a hinderance since what if enemies catch line of sight of you and starts firing away and you are in the middle of reloading? Might as well hit the checkpoint restart button from there.

The hitscanners can also kill you from places where you can't even see them.

These have been issues with a lot of these games. What a CoD campaign lives and dies by are it's missions and how many interesting ones there are a good number of them in Black Ops.

You got missions like like "The Defector" where you get the iconic incendiary shotgun. "Numbers" where it's going through a series of rooftop fire fights. "Project Nova" which is kind of heart breaking for the CoD World at War fan in me seeing the protagonist "cheating" death just to see him finaly sccumb to it. "Vorkuta" with the prison break as you are going through it with Reznov. "WMD' where you have the snowy backdrop as where you are infilrating an enemy with the help of a fighter plane. "Payback" with the crazy part where you are shooting down from afar with the helicoptor that you fought to get. "Execute Order" with the another iconic weapon with the explosive tip arrows.

This could just be chocked up to me playing the campaign a lot but when it comes to sheer number of memorable missions in Blops, there's a lot here to go down. I could make a top 10 with this game. In spite of my issues with the combat, the missions in their specticle and gimmicks makes almost forgiving of them. The sound design and gory combat from WaW is best and it's just as good if not more memorable here. Treyarchs CoD did always nail it when it came to that and the music.

The only big stinker here is the 2nd half of Rebirth where you play as Hudson and you don't have regen health but finite health but with no way to replenish it. Combine that with the hitscanners and the prevelant smoke and this mission would be impossible without the frequent checkpointing.

Overall, CoD Blops while having the issues the series has had manages to be entertaining in spite of them.

Pragmata Review

Pragmata turned out to be quite the surprise. It's the first new IP Capcom has made in over a decade and despite Lost Planet being dead and Vanquish never getting a sequel, it manages to carry the torch those game did. There are major issues with it but when it comes to moment to moment gameplay it still manages to still feel fun even if it is easy to be an autopilot for much of the game after a point.

The story is a fine popcorn narrative. The interaction between Hugh and Diana do carry much of it. Seeing the latter's interest in humanity and how she wants to see the earth for herself. It sort of brings back a childlike wonder for things I used to have. Hugh in some ways representing the jaded adult I am now. I did always try to make small talk with Diana inbetween missions on the Shelter since her childlike wonder and curosity I found to be geniunely endearing.

Villains like Eight do an okay job at fuffling the role of the villain even if she can feel underdeveloped and never does much of anything interesting throughout the story.

My big gripes with the story is that Hugh can feel like there's pieces missing regarding his character. He worked with his crew at the start of the game for seemingly a while and yet he seems indifferent towards them when they die. This could be explained in a note but I argue a cutscene or even some line of dialogue should explain this.

Also I got no idea where in his characterization why he didn't just tell Diana that he was dying. Once again, it feels like there's pieces missing. Something to give me an idea on why he would keep it a secret. Maybe not wanting to worry her so she can focus on the mission? Maybe out of stocism to not show weakness? To be a stronger makeshift parental figure to Diana? It's all hard to tell within the way it's presented in the game.

Despite the premise, it's still ultimately a popcorn movie at the end of the day. Many of Capcom's game try to be this and this is one of their better efforts. It's still nothing amazing.

The combat is very interesting and it worked a lot better than I thought it would've when viewing it on paper. If you think "AAA gaming" these past years are lacking innovating ideas then give this title a look.

Enemies can't be damaged or even stunned unless you do a hacking minigame for the weakspots to be revealed. You aim your gun and the there is a screen right next to it where you do a puzzle with the face buttons. There is some depth to this system where you can find different nodes that stack damage effects upon a mini game completion. These might take longer and it's worth asking, "do I finish the mini game quick or hit different nodes to stack up the damage effects?"

There's different gimmicks thrown in like enemies having shields in the hacking mini game so you have to shoot them to make it easier. Nodes that can interrupt the hacking process or damage her or nodes that have to be avoided in order for the hack to continue. You can also equip different damage buffs in the Shelter too.

You have carry up to 4 weapons early game but then 6 later on. Some weapons can be charged like the Rail Gun. There area of effect like the grenade launcher. Devastating upclose weapons like the shotgun. Weapons that can also do accumulated heat damage like the assault rifle.

The way I'm describing this combat system makes it really sound like it could be one of the all time greats and well it's just missing one thing: difficulty that really brings out the heavy decision making. No, I'm not asking games to be extremely hard but Pragmata can have too many get out of jail free cards.

One of them being the defensive weapons. You in a tough spot? Use a decoy or later a shield and enemies won't really be able to gang up on you nearly as much. These weapons also have ammo replenish for them constantly.

Wait?! Are you in even more of one? Here's an overdrive like rage mode ability that freezes enemies and boost damage output.

Due to this, it can feel like much of the difficulty through much of the campaign can feel like you are going on autopilot. Get the slo mo dodge and it adds to that even more. It becomes a game of build heat with assault rifle, do mini game, then damage upclose. The enemy count, the enemy variety and the enemy behavior never really pushes you into getting out of this autopilot trance.

It might be a little hard early game due to the lack of upgrades and getting used to combat but then it turns into the autopilot state I described.

Bosses are also pretty easy too. I hadn't played the game in days on the 2nd boss and I beat it in my first try. The rest of the bosses is a game of effiectively remembering major damage dealing moves then using defense weapons and overdrive.

The final boss was the hardest part due to her extremely annoying chained tentacle swipes. It was a surprising jump in difficulty compared to the rest of the game.

Overall, Pragmata is solid but the combat has potential to be more

Terminator: Salvation(Playstation 3) Review

To no surprise of anyone, the movie tie in game that never got a "vocal" cult following who enjoys it ironically or unironcally is not good at all. I was supposed to play this and then play Binary Domain after but I got a damaged disc and I was in no hurry to get a better one. If you want to play a third person shooter where you fight robots, go play Binary Domain or Vanquish instead. However, I do like to play some geniunely bad games from time to time and due to how short and cheap this game is, it was a right candidate for me to try out. The short length really is a blessing because if it went on any longer either I wouldn't beat it or my dislike for the game would be even bigger. The frequent checkpoints also help make everything bearable.

This is a rather popular game due to how short and easy it is to get the Platinum trophy and I tried to get that but the game on hard during the on rails section during Chapter 1 is almost borderline bugged on what's needed to not immediately get a game over.

I eventually lowered to easy but there will still be some cheap deaths here and there since Terminators up close can kill you in one hit even on that mode. You also need to get up close since you'll be able to take out enemies with granades more efficiently or be close enough to hit them in the back. Fighting from afar will drain ammo faster.

There's only 3 enemy types: the HKs, T-600s and a bipedal enemy. These are the main enemies you'll fight. Two you can beat the same way. There's also a bigger drone mini boss you fight and win by firing rockets at it.

An example of just how rushed out the door this game is how in Chapter 4 there's a large building and one load screen later, John and the Resistance are magically already on top fighting a drone mini boss which is the same as the one you fought in Chapter 1.

Two of the hardest parts are in Chapter 7 doing a defend mission where either the enemies will kill you or they will kill the npc you are defending. You also get to pilot a massive HK but due to the aiming and how enemies will slowly overwhelm you, it's easy to die a lot during this section.

There is no final boss and you just fight the same T-600s you've been fighting for the rest of the game.

Story? I guess it's a prequel. I haven't seen Salvation in full in over a decade but the cutscenes are awkward and stifly presented. The whole story is a filler arc since the developers can't mess with the canon in anyway. John Connor is on some mission to help the Resistance but this won't matter since it does't really play a role in the movie. It's not even as charming as setting up the Kashyyyk invasion in Star Wars Republic Commando.

Overall, I came for a geniunely bad game that was tolerable because it was short and got just that. With that said, it's certainly no Rogue Warrior or the Bouncer in terms of being memorably bad.

Fatal Frame II: Crismson Butterfly Remake Review

This was a remake I've been curious about since Fatal Frame 2 also had a remake on the Wii prior to this. I have beaten the original years ago but it's been a while and since then I've beaten Fatal Frame 4 and tried to with Maiden of Black Water. I'm mixed on the franchise from the games I played. It's certainly more of an aquired taste by comparison to Resident Evil and Silent Hill. I can say that this remake is my favorite in the franchise out of the ones I have played.

Your milage will certainly vary regarding this but before I played this remake, it was reported to be much harder than the original game. Enemies were super aggressive, resources were very limited and battles went on for ages.

A difficulty patch got released and after playing post patch, it's by far the easiest game in the franchise. This I don't mind however since Fatal Frame combat has it's very bizarre design quirks that doesn't make it very easy to approach for people who has played games like Resident Evil, Dead Space and even Silent Hill.

Much of this game are mandatory combat encounters where in Resident Evil and Silent Hill, it's possible to run past enemies but FF, you can't run past the ghosts with the exception of the stalker wraith.

A lot of the difficulty can attributed to only being able to aim in first person, slowly waiting for the ghost to appear in front of you and hoping that once it does, you can hit it. Waiting for ideal moments to do more damage, and if you get hit, the line of sight you once had will be gone.

There's also a willpower gauge which will also hinder the performance of your player character if grabbed by enemies or hit too much.

With this difficulty patch, a lot of the weaker film you have will do more damage if you upgrade focal point, reload speed and film capacity. You'll be rolling in so much film too all though you might slowly dwindle in resources by the end of the game.

Due to this, battle can still feel have it's feeling of being tense but without the long battle attritions that the series' ghost battles can have. The balance of knowing when to hit the ghost with the right shot and knowing when to dodge out of the way. Just that now, they don't drag on as much. There is the infamous ghosts turning red and getting and angry system here but due to the reduced difficulty, they more so just spice up the last few minutes of a fight rather than making you constantly see the game over screen.

Some of the more challenging parts is during the scripted sequence where you need to run away from certain ghosts and knowing where to go and hide from them to get them off you. Mayu's crouch speed can be a little slow when trying to evage a ghost's line of sight.

Load times on PS5 upon getting a game over can also last way too long but that's where the difficulty patch cancels this part out all though not during the scripted parts.

The level design is "fine". Very similar to a Zelda game where you got a overarching hub world and there individual larger areas you have to explore. At a certain point in Chapter 6 were the objective and what you need to do becomes overly vague and confusing on what you need to actually do.

Also the late game can feel awfully padded due to spending much of the game rescuing Mio and then going on a fetch quest, just to then lose her again and then fight the final boss.

One massive improvement the remake has over the original is that the final boss is no longer a one hit kill so no unnesscary frustration here.

Story is on the okay side. It's less about the two sisters and more and more about the setting itself. I read a couple of the note but I did wish Mayu and Mio had more character in the actual story and less of a reliance on notes.

Overall, with the difficulty patch Fatal Frame 2 remake is a solid game in a series that I'm lukewarm on as a whole. There's some issues I had here and there but not enough to detract from playing the game in the moment.

Binary Domain(Playstation 3) Review

The best way of describing Binary Domain is what if you combined aspects of various sci fi action movies with the pleathora of cyberpunk anime and OVA series while having the cover based gameplay of Gears of War with Vanquish's robot enemies and Dead Space's dismemberment system? You'd get this charming game. "Charm" is the key word here while the gameplay can feel derivative in areas and undercooked in others, it always manages to maintain that. This was also the first RGG game I have ever played years before touching the Yakuza franchise.

Binary Domain's story has the moment to moment pacing, character dynamics and over the top cheese of action movies while having the wacky yet philosophical you'd find in cyberpunk fiction particularly the anime and OVA series released in the 80s-00s.

One thing the game does extremely well is with the moment to moment dialogue with the "rest crew" combined with the cutscene animations. The character interactions particularly between Dan and Botang are so hilarious and entertaining that you just want to see what they'll talk about next. The rest of the cast are also entertaing like Charlie, Cain, and Shindo. Racheal manages to be memorable with her whole "speaks with a few words but makes up for in explosions" approach.

Dan and Faye's relationship is moderately fleshed out to care on what happens later.

Lines like "this is some philosophical bullshit" is so awesome, hilarious and dumb that it's hard for me to quote from time to time.

The story manages to be thought provoking with the idea of who is a "hollow child" and how even hollow children themselves believe they are human while they don't even know that they are machines.

Only big compliants I can make with the story is that it can get hard to follow towards the end with double crosses that can feel weirdly out of nowhere so a final boss can happen. There also a fake out death with Botang just for him to die for real at the end which made me wonder why they had the fake out death at all. I also don't like choosing responses for Dan when he already has a defined personality to begin with.

Gameplay is solid but can feel underbaked in places. One big example is that the game has a "social links" system in place but the various characters aren't going to be with you for the whole game. You can upgrade the damage of teammate firearms but why would I do that when I'm better off just firing my own bullets and killing enemies myself? You can give squad commands like having them squadmates charge but there's no real use for this. There's a swimming section that only happens once. There's an RPG system with buffs but they don't really seem to make much of a difference in the moment.

To go on some positives, remember how I mentioned Dead Space earlier? You have robotic enemies but there is a multiple hitzone system where you can damage different parts of an enemy. Shoot them in the head and that'll mess up their programming. Shoot them in the legs? They'll be crawling on the ground? Shoot them in the arms and they might lose the ability to hold their weapons. You also have enemies flying in by drones and you can shoot them down for a fast kill. It's all permeated by excellect sound design hearing the explosions when destroying enemy limbs and destroying the robots completely.

Boss fights are also interesting in that there are different ways of defeating depending on what hitzones you damage them in allowing for different approaches. An early game boss can have you jump from on top of a building or shoot it in the head with rockets. One thing that lets these fights down is how the framerate can bearly keep up during the intense explosions and carnage.

Many of the moment to moment firefights on normal can be easy to breeze by due to overwhelming amount of healing stims. The player can hold 4 and each squad mate can hold up to 3 so you're going to have to delibrately try to even get a game over. The levels also 2 or 3 lying right around that is easy to fine.

The big challenge of Binary Domain are the scripted sequences. This could be me trying to do this on a third party controller but due to strict timing of these sections especially speedboat chase halfway through the game can be hard to how stiff left stick movement can feel. You also don't get any stims for revives here either.

There's also the occasional and stupidly put together QTEs where instead of pressing on screen button it's a timed rythmn game styled button press.

Shotgun can be pretty overpowered but the game seems to know and doesn't spawn much ammo for it.

The final boss can also be cheap in how it can one shot you with it's underbarrel shotgun and could even get a friendly npc game over which was hard to get prior to that.

It's also jarring that Cain has the acrobatic and fast movement in cutscenes but not in gameplay.

Overall, Binary Domain is a charming game throughout. There are problems here and there but they can be looked past.

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.