Halo: Campaign Evolved(Playstation 5) Review

When this remake was announced and it being on put on Playstation no less I was like, "you could've just ported the Master Chief Collection instead". A remake like this does sound redundant on paper since the original Halo CE is often cited as an old shooter especially on consoles that still holds up today. With that said, while the existence of this game is rather questionable, playing it in the moment is "fine" at least for the for the first half of the game. It's not as nearly as much of a souless remake as the Metal Gear Solid Delta is. There's some interesting cutscene changes and some fun bonus missions here.

The best way of describing "Campaign Evolved" is that what if you had "Combat Evolved" but with the gamefeel of the 343's Halos and modern additions like sprinting, vehicle jacking and Halo 2's regen health. You also have the quest markers be there at all times rather than having them pop up at random points instead.

Story is much of the same but there is newly recorded voice acting and some cutscene changes. For one Miranda Keyes gets established early on as opposed to coming out of nowhere like in Halo 2. There is one hilarious cutscene change of two Hunters getting crushed by a Covenant ship at the end of the Truth and Reconcilation. Fohammer's model is actually shown and a really cool one of Chief fighting off Covenant before boarding the ship to get off Halo at the end of the game among others.

It's much of the same as a whole so it's basically just an excuse plot where it has slightly more going on than games like old Doom and Duke Nukem. It can be summed up like this: Covenant find Pillar of Autumn, Chief and Cortana crashland on Halo, find Captain Keyes, they find 343 Guilty Spark, there's a the flood, Halo is a doomsday weapon meant to kill them, blow up the Autumn and get off. It's as simple as I described similar to the vein as the original Star Wars before being retractively called a New Hope. There's not much in the way of interesting characterization and themeatic richness to be found here. It's as simple as I described it.

It's "fine" in the moment but it can be very simplistic and barebones compared to the multimedia franchise and expanded universe the series ultimately ended up spawning. The fact that much of the story was in a tie in novel would no doubt get scruntized if Halo was a brand new IP released today. World building without needing supplementary material was something even A New Hope had. There's no fun, destable or interesting villain here either.

Halo is an FPS after all and you came here for gameplay and for the first half of the game is quite good. Aspects of the game compared FPS of yester year is how streamlined everything is. No need to collect ammo since you just need to pick up weapons already on the ground or off dead enemies. Health management? No longer needed since your health regens so no need to worry about health pick ups.

Enemies are a lot smarter by comparison to those games where Covenant Elites will flank, move out of the way or will try to come up and ambush you if there shield isn't depleted. There's also the shield and flesh system where bullets drain flesh and plasma drains shields.

Vehicle sections are here too to break up the pace all though it's awkward to see the controls changed here since it now controls like a vehicle in anyother game

The environments are a mixed bag on the positive side, they are a lot bigger compared to the corridors and round circles and squares of shooters prior to this but at the same time so much of the design is copy and pasted which can lead to samey areas and bloated maps. You can tell that the devs of this remake are aware of this so they added nav points at all times now.

Some aspects I appreciate more now like how during the one section with no gun, it's there so the player can get used to controlling the camera. The first level is also meant to train you for the larger maps like Halo and also with higher enemy count and stronger enemies like in Truth and Reconcilation.

Assault on Control room is going through the same triagular areas 3 times and from then on the campaign gets weaker.

The 2nd half of the game is still very weak. If you didn't like the first half the game, then stop at 343 Guilty Spark because after the Library it's just the first half in reverse. You fight the Flood and all they are is that they swarm you and that's it. You point, you shoot, get hit, regen health, reload and then throw grenade every once and a while.

There are people who boil down FPS and shooters to "point and shoot". That's what these Flood sections are. They are very dull. The addition of sprint means that these sections are over faster and you could run past them on lower difficulties. The inconsistent checkpoint system is still very annoying but that is a Halo staple at this point. 

I did enjoy the extra campaign missions but they have more environment variety than the 2nd half of the game and there's no Flood battles.

Overall, questionable remake but still fun in the moment for the 1st half.

Metal Gear Solid 4(Playstation 5) Review

The common joke when discussing MGS4 for the longest time was whether or not it would ever leave the PS3. It finally did and with a solid functioning port too. I have a weird relationship with this title. I have beaten the game multiple times over the years but the more I start to play it, the more I start to realize that the game's strengths in terms of gameplay and even story comes Acts 1 and 2. Everything after the Act 3 tailing mission is where the game become diminishing returns and that's what sums up MGS4. It's the personfication of that very term.

I often start these write ups with story first but I have to here since you'll be engaging with that more than any other aspect of this game. It's been said and mocked to death how you'll spending more time watching cutscenes than actually playing the game. This has always been the case with the prior Solid games but MGS4 really wants to sell you on it's story.

It's easy to point out the issues like exposition that go on for ages, characters constantly reminding the audience of things they already know, the overuse of nostalgia baiting or mention of characters who weren't in the Solid games like Dr. Madnar, the constant retconning especially with many of them involving nanmachines, the rewrites or nothing changing for established characters, the open ended ideas MGS2 established being barely touched on or contradicted or how characters taking an excuriatingly long time trying to figuring things out. Two eregious examples is Meryl taking a long time to figure out that Johnny wasn't hooked on nanomachines or Otacon taking a few minutes to figure out Liquid Ocelot needed Rex even though it was already mentioned in the MK2 recording before getting destroyed.

What destroyed the story fundamentally was just how much of a disinterested and lifeless bore Old Snake is. The story never feels like you are going on a self discovering journey with him. Most of it is hearing other characters talk on and on and Snake just listens to them even him taking what someone just said and turning it into a question is gone. Now it's just replaced with awkward silence and cold indifference as characters around him keep on talking. Solid Snake at least showed enthusiasim in MGS1 and 2 but here he just wants to kill Liquid Ocelot and stop his insurrection because Campbell told him too.

Speaking of Campbell, this transitions me to the good. He and Raiden are some of the better characters in the game. Campbell in this game is in line with MGS1 where he witholds information from his friends and loved ones even if it means he'll hurt them for the greater good. Raiden also is one of the few characters Old Snake cares about and shows any conviction in saving. Him bringing out the best in Old Snake makes the former one of the better characters by proxy.

The cutscenes are beautifully rendered and are mostly very directed and the music, man the music it does so much of the heavy lifting where the story is unable to. It's a good thing these two aspects are top notch since without them, the game would be very insufferable to go through especially the ending that is as long as a feature length film.

This now transitions to gameplay and well thing is there's aspects about it I do enjoy. Act 1 and 2 feel like a streamlined version of MGS3. Octocamo is far better than the camo system in that game. The environments are more open and the psyche meter keeps the surivival system of that game without adding needless bloat. The controls are better now with crouch walking and there's actual third person grass crawling animations. CQC is more refined although it didn't get much use this playthrough.

There is also an encouragement to use the tranq pistol since in Act 1 and 2 it's about all out avoidance or you could help either side. Enemy gunfire can also tear thorough Snake's health quick on Solid Normal and it goes back to the ration system and no very slow regen health from MGS3.

If MGS4's was just this with occasional shakeups(notable one in Act 2 when tracking Naomi), I would be much more positive on the game but it isn't. Remember when I said it was diminishing returns? This is what I meant. Act 3 at the start has a decent tailing mission but it's divorced from the kind of stealth earlier. After that? It's just set pieces, boss fights and the stealth gameplay itself starts to dwindle the more the game goes on. You go back to Shadow Moses in Act 4 but since it is that level it has that more linear cramped block designs of MGS1 with annoying enemy placements for the Dwarf Gekko. You could cheese these with chaff grenades and I wouldn't blame you then it's setpieces and boss fights.

Act 5 has one very brief sneaking section and it's bosses and long cutscenes after.

Overall, MGS4 is mostly cutscenes and the story isn't very good with only Act 1 and 2 having decent writing. Same can be said for the gameplay. It can be easy to dislike despite not being bad on a technical level.