South By Midnight(Playstation 5) Review

I randomly saw this game get discussed and talked about in certain places and I decided to check it out due it to recently coming to PS5. As a whole, I'd say the game is "okay" and nothing more. It doesn't really get any strong feelings out of me but I did have a moderately enjoyable time in the moment. I did start to get sick of the game the more it went on.

South by Midnight is a cinematic platformer while also being a melee brawler with a unique asethetic and a rather unconventional setting for a game.

Story is decent. At first, I was a little offputted that the game sort of relied on you to read to lore pieces to have a better idea of what's going on but at the same time I'm glad it's there at all since it would be harder to piece together without them.

The characters you meet are moderately interesting enough especially when you learn more about Hazel's past and her family. Laurent being the most interesting of the bunch.

I did wish Chapter 11-13 got removed since it slows the pacing down to halt and not much actually happens in it.

Which leads me to a big complaint I have is that the game can feel longer than it is. Gameplay mainly consists of platforming, puzzle solving and combat.

With all 3 aspects, in the early hours, it's reasonable in that you start off with a basic list of abilites you can do but then you slowly get new ones. After a point, it just stops and much of the game design can feel like it's on autopilot.

This can especially apply to combat. At first, new enemies and combat abilties are being drip feeded to the player at a reasonable rate. With different enemy types you got to take down and prioritize. You get a push and pull ability and a slam. Enemies also give health drops and there is a healing item in the arena.

However when the final giant glob enemy gets introduced, combat encounters become more and more interchangeable especially when you add in how lengthy the game can be.

The bosses were creative and had a decent specticle going on. Ranging from bosses you have to fight like Laurent to more puzzle bosses like Huggin Molly.

Final boss was really disappointing and was when I go so sick and tired of the monotony that I lowered to easy. It's just yet another series of horde battles...something you were already doing in droves prior to this boss fight.

Overall, it's strange. South By Midnight is an average game that I can recall aspects of but I'm just completely indifferent towards.

Mafia: Definitive Edition Review

Another example of one of the more interesting attempts at bringing an older game into a new and modern audience similarly to the Destroy All Humans remake which conincidentally came out the same year as this. Mafia Definitive Edition enters into the same realm as it in that it's not quite, "same game different visuals" but not quite "different game, same name". It also has similarities to the Silent Hill 2 remake which would come out a few years in that the story is mostly the same but the gameplay is modernized. With all that said, I never played the original game back in 2002. This Defintive Edition being a remake of a beloved cult classic and will no doubt have it's naysayers due that status, I'd argue even without playing the original, it kept what made the original standout in the first place. Due to reasons I will mention later, it indirectly stands out more in 2020 to now than the original back in 2002.

What Mafia Definitive Edition tries to do is trying to be a playable mob film. One big difference is that this is a video game and not a 2 or 3 hour film. Not only is this an interactive medium but you also have to maintain interest over the course of 10 hours or more.

However like film, you do need to engage the audience in the story as quickly as possible and this goes double here since the narrative is way over 2-3 hours. Thankfully, the intro quickly engages the player right away. You have a great narrative hook of Tommy Angelo confessing his story to a detective who initially distrusts him but slowly starts to get his interest piqued.

There's also a great example of combining gameplay and story at the begginning where Tommy and by extension the player makes a reluctant decision help two members of the mob that are on the run by a rival gang. There's some great cutscene composition where Sam draws a gun on Tommy thinking he might die but it's actually money for helping them out.

Later this is reinforced when Tommy and the player by proxy do a bunch of menial cab drives for rather annoying customers and get paid little for it and then get attacked by the rival gang that you were driving away from earlier in the game.

Making Tommy join the mob that much more. When you add to the fact that the story slowly starts off with Tommy doing smaller jobs like taking down thugs to doing hits to then killing higher class members of the rival family. It's this narrative synergy that works so well with the story of telling the story of a mob movie over the course of multiple hours. All culminating in a fantastic ending.

Remember how I said before Definitive Edition stands out more in 2020 to now than the original did back in 2002? This is where the narrative is also enhanced. This is what caught my eye when I first heard of this remake: the open world is entirely optional.

Where titles like Grand Theft Auto and crime games after would have an open world where it either gets in the way of the narrative pacing or just indirectly have the mission parameters and the open world itself clash in game design especially in the case of Rockstar games. Mafia forgoes all that and have the narrative come first above all else.

It also helps that Mafia Definitve Edition came out in a time where more and more people were getting tired of weary of the game design tropes present in modern open world games so the Mafia remake's adherance to having it be optional indirectly gave it a massive selling point. It's something I strongly respect this remake for doing.

Other than that gameplay, is on the "fine" side. It's functional enough and is mostly there to serve the narrative. There is one interesting aspect about it which is the shooting. It is a cover shooter but since health is finite with you needing to find first aid kits to get back large portions of it. You can't hold on to any medkits and can only be recovered at health stations which gives a weird late 90s and mid 00s vibe to the combat. It's about trying to trying to minimize damage and trying to get headshots as quickly as possible even on normal you have to be somewhat efficient at this. If not, you could lower the difficulty or try to memorize as many of the enemy spawns as you can to be more efficent. I was better at playing on normal on this replay.

However this system can be more annoying during escourt mission with vehicle with finite health bars

Driving is okay but it can be really awkward and stiff at times. I did eventually get used to it.

The infamous racing mission from the original didn't get touched up. It's terrible to play due to needing to be good with the driving and dealing with awful physics. It takes too long to obtain first place and even if you do, the awkward vehicle physics will have your car so badly damaged that you could get a game over by the time you get first place. Doing this on anything above easy is a waste of time and could stump many.

Overall, great modernization of a cult classic that walks a fine tight rope.