Assassin's Creed: Mirage Review(Updated)

I played AC Mirage back when it came out and if I was apathetic towards the game. My apathy towards the fandom of the franchise combined with me not feeling in the mood to play it in the moment made me much harsher on the game. Having played most of the non RPG games again, Shadows and other Ubisoft open world games by extension, I've come to appreciate Mirage a lot more than I did originally. By no means would I consider the game great but as far as dumb and enjoyable moment to moment fun, Mirage is better than many of the games in the series. The free DLC, the updates the game got plus me strongly disliking Shadows made me go like, "ah let's play Mirage again".

The story is mostly "fine". Nothing good but nothing outright bad. The story shines in the early hours all the way up to the death of Al Ghul since Basim's growth and the plot is at it's most prominent. Later in the game after his death it turns into a series of 3 not so related standalone stories and then it all culminates with the final assassination followed up with an underwhelming stealth gaunlet and a dull soulslike boss. There is a Fight Club style twist in the story and while parts of it is foreshadowed decently, others parts is where I start to raise questions. It's not the worst twist but considering how the story after the death of Al Ghul already lost so much of it's momentum, it was hard to get invested.

Basim at least has a fun personality of being playful and polite but can get annoyed and angered from time to time. This is all me being aware of the fact that this game is also a prequel to a title I have no interest in trying out. Then there is the overarching AC story which at this point just seems to something everyone wonder how it's gone on for this long with no plot progression.

Gameplay is quite interesting. You may hear many on the internet and how this narrative even started of AC once being a stealth series but here is the kicker: this AC is one of two games in the series with decent stealth mechanics and enemy AI. The other being Syndicate. I've come to realize that the series never has and probably never will live up to it's original pitch of "social stealth". At the same time, if you view AC Mirage as a stealth killing murder simulator that just so happens to feature combat and the ability to climb, it's easy to have fun with it in the moment. In a weird way, AC Mirage was Aragami 2 minus the darkness system and extremely repetitive levels.

The climbing is much improved from the base release. There's an attempt to have ejects and parkour up and down. It's impressive that there's even an attempt to have both in the game considering this started off life as Vahalla DLC. With that said, while it's certainly better, it can still feel unrefined and unwieldly. Where the animations in Unity at least felt like they were built in with the movement Mirage's implementation can feel like the devs pushing their limitations. It's hard to tell what's the arc and direction Basim will go next. It's at it's worst when he's hanging on a pole and freerun down and circle will not have him jump down. I also dislike the fact that parkour down and crouch are mapped to the same command but I got used to it.

Where the game shines or could detract for some is the various areas you will go to and importantly how many ways you can mess around with how dumb the guard AI is. The biggest and most important rule is that guards will never see Basim kill a guard when it's in a bush even if the kill in their line of sight. Bushes is their kryptonite. Combine that and you can abuse the whistle ability and the fun comes from the ways you infiltrate and watch Basim stealth kill guards.

Get spotted? It might be game over but it's just fun to run away from guards and see how long the chase can be maintained especially with how much better parkour is better now. Combat is pointless since Basim runs out of stamina on one enemy and they take many hits.

There is also another major issue that due to the mission structure after Al Ghul's death where you can be beat it out of order, it's harder to steadily introudce new ideas or enemies. There are marksmans that can scare aware Enkidu but you just need to kill one and never more than that. Enemies and npcs won't react to what you did in another questline so there is nothing dynamic going on. I can ignore this issue more on this playthrough but it's one of many things the series to this day never managed to at least attempt. 

I do love that tagged enemies remain that way after death. The chain assassination is kind of fun to do during emergency or just to mess around with due to the density of them in every stealth area.

The investigations are more involving than AC1 even if they just revolve around activating eagle vision and pressing items of interesting.

The Black Box assassinations in this fixes an issue in the aforementioned game is that the act of assassinating is over quickly. In AC Mirage, it's more puzzle solving and findind clues so you get close and get the kill. It's reminscent of Hitman World of Assassination but nice change of pace from the traditional infiltrations.

The DLC unfortunately has the worst level with the jail breakout but then easily has the best mission in the series with the Black Box kill. The guard density and the work needed to get there makes it rewarding to finish. This was all in a free update.

Overall, I'm kinder on Mirage it has it's problems but it's consistently fun.

Watchmen: The End is Nigh: Complete Review(Playstation 3)

How much I really wanted to enjoy this game. I recently bought the Watchmen "Complete" experience that came in bundled with the PS3 version with both parts and the movie as a weird excuse to see the latter again. I viewed this game as an a fun bonus. To put it simpily, I enjoyed the movie a lot more. The sad thing is, this game isn't even a title I consider awful. What annoys me is that the DNA of a solid game is here. It's just held back by a lot of monotony and half baked ideas. At first when I played this, I was wondering, "where's the cult following for this like with Spider-Man 2(2004) or X-Men Origins: Wolverine?" I was even surprised that there's even a game based on a DC property at all not featuring Batman that seemed decent. The more I played, the more I realized why it wasn't the case.

At first, everything seemed like it was on the right track. The cutscenes have the same art style as Dave Gibbons' art work in the graphic novel which was a charming way of bypassing the lack of in engine cutscenes. Rorschach and Nite Owl are both voiced by their actors in the movie and both do a solid job. They also have great banter with each other during the down time sections where there's no fighting. It's one of the better aspects of the game's story. Pretty much everything that shares connections to the various source materials like with the movie or comic is where the game shines.

Everything outside of that is where things get muddy. It's a prequel to everything that happens before the events of either version of the story with having it take place before the Keene Act. It also has Dr. Manhatten conveniently written out to avoid not having a game at all. Outside of the aforementioned banter, it's really just an excuse for Rorshach and Nite Owl to go beat up various criminals and cops. Despite not really knowing much about the various villians the characters of the Watchmen universe go up against before the Keene Act both in the graphic novel and movie. This could be a decent excuse to develop and make interesting or at the very least memorably detestable villains out of Underboss and Twilight Lady.

Not really, they are just kind of there until you get to the final levels of both parts and the levels drag on where all you do is chase them around. Doubly and obnoxiously so for Twilight Lady. With how Rorschach's ending plays out in Part 2, it's a little hard to believe that Daniel doesn't outright detest the latter when they first meet in both the movie and comic.

The cutscenes and voice acting does do much of the heavy lifting and this is a game where most time is spent playing.

Gameplay is where once again there's some cool ideas here but it gets more monotonous and one note the more it goes on.

End is Nigh is basically Streets of Rage and Final Fight in 3D which there aren't an over abundance of those in of themselves. Like the story, first impressions are good. You can do various combos attacks and dodging can get take a little getting used to but I eventually got the hang of. Countering is where the main bulk of defense lies. The counter window is very generous and isn't overly strict. The camera is also zoomed out during combat. Both would pop in Batman Arkham Asylum which would release the same year. Rorschach has a charge attack and a rage mode as well scripted finishing moves when an enemy is at critical health.

There are some weird and cool naunces one major example being that when successfully countering an enemy holding a weapon, you can disarm him and take the weapon for yourself and attack enemies with it. The second is that you can keep Rorschach's rage mode going when performing takedowns on enemies.

At first, I was annoyed by regen health but then using the charge, rage mode, and countering, I was able to have it regen very quickly after being put to critical. I do wonder why takedowns don't get back health, it's the same idea.

Takedowns animations do look nice even if they can really get samey and how samey the game can be. It almost reaches a point where they are ingrained into my head due to how much I see them play.

This is where the problems lie. Enemy variety despite fighting cops, mercenaries, hookers and different gang members are just reskins of each other and don't require any different tactics to defeat them. Levels can also look copy pasted and samey too.

With Part 1, this isn't too bad since at least the levels aren't overly long and due to this, you can write the game off as brainless fun.

Part 2, however is where I was getting more apathetic. There are 3 levels but are much longer, dragged out and have even less story. The more I was going through Twilight Lady's masion, the more I wanted the game to end and my hand was getting more and more tired from playing it. I had to take a break when fighting Nite Owl due to how much combat there was prior to that. My patience was being tested here.

Overall, there's a solid foundation here held back by monotony.

Marvel Cosmic Invasion Review

There's been an influx of 2D beat em ups over these past few years especially since the release of Streets of Rage 4. I have enjoyed games like Dawn of the Monsters and Super Crush KO. However even though I do enjoy them to varying degrees, they tend to blur into one. I wasn't big on Tribute Games' previous effort with TMNT: Shredder's Revenge. Looking at Cosmic Invasion from afar it mainly just seemed like yet another licensed throwback game with Marvel characters drawn with their looks from the 90s. I was going in with moderate expectations but surprisingly, Cosmic Invasion went above and beyond that. It not only far surpasses the aforementioned Shredder's Revenge but it might be my favorite 2D beat em up of all time as of now.

One major aspect as to why I enjoyed Cosmic Invasion as much as I did is because it's ultimately a fighting game in the style of a beat em up. It takes the ideas found in those games but incoporates them into the style of beat em up where the name of the game is crowd control.

It's shocks me even more that this game has more in common with the Marvel vs. Capcom games than the latter's actual beat em up with the brand on the Super Nintendo. If you ever wanted a MvC game in the style of fighting hordes of enemies, here's a game that does that.

What do I mean by this? There is one major aspect that sets Cosmic Invasion apart from other games in the genre: the partner system. You not only get one but two characters to use during gameplay. You can mix and match different characters from the multiple heroes on the roster. I primarily used Wolverine and Iron Man. Wolverine for close range and Iron Man for distant enemies.

You can tag them in and out while also calling on them to do assists. One big gripe I do have is that there is no dedicated assist button and you could've used R2 as a means to do it since it has no use as of now. You also have ultimate moves for both heroes, a dodge button and certain heroes like the aforementioned Iron Man can of course fly as well as parry.

There is also other aspects to the combat like health regeneration and and focus mode renegeration and this is heavily encouraged by doing combos and keeping hitstreaks going for as long as you can.

Combat really shines here since due to everything I mentioned, the game heavily encourages crowd controls and trying to keep juggles going as much as possible. It's everything Slave Zero X tried to be with juggles and crowd control being the name of the game but far better realized. Mainly due to health regen and focus mode regen being heavily tied to juggling and crowd control.

You can't style on them endlessly either some enemies are highly aggressive, agile and can also break out of your combo if you aren't careful. It's as easy to get down to critical health as it is to have it be at full especially if you play mindlessly or have a team set up you don't have. Some of the bosses like Venom, Knull and Thanos can finish over the player quickly with mindless play. This is all balanced out by the fact that in story mode there is a decent amount of health and focus pick ups. If you get a game over, with both heroes dead, you need to restart the stage again. Due to everything I mentioned, while I did curse at the screen when I died, the combat was so enjoyable and I felt so in control that every attempt upon dying was an excuse for me to get better.

Due to all this, it took me longer than I was expecting to beat the game especially since Cosmic Invasion has no easy mode where you can breeze through the stages much quicker either. The latter caught me off guard due to many games in the genre offering it but it says a lot that I like the game so much and that's it more than doable without one.

There is also a decent variety of stage hazards and gimmicks to contend with from to keep things from being too one note. They can hurt you but you can also use them on enemies as well.

Some issues is that the bosses while enjoyable can range from mostly being doable in one go to being really challenging. Venom being the stand out. He moves so quickly across the boss arena, does a lot of damage and can move very erratically during his goo form attacks. Being good at evasion can still throw you off. Knull was more about waiting for the right opening and Thanos did have a weird puzzle element with the turrets and how you need to strike an offline one to have them stop attacking you.

It has other issues found in the genre where fast moving enemies that dart from one end of the screen to the other so quickly that it can be hard to anticipate their movements in the moments. That and combine with the hitboxes for some enemies being so small that you got to have pixel perfect precesion to actually hit them particularly with enemies that fly.

Overall while the issues I stated could sound problematic they are just minor speed bumps. This turned out to be more than another modern 2D beat em up featuring the Marvel brand.

Terminator 2D: No Fate Review

I was expecting this to be a traditional but solid movie tie in game. I knew going into the game that it wasn't going to reinvent the wheel. Much like Terminator Resistance, it's a game very much for people into the IP. If you aren't the chances of you enjoying this drastically lowers.

One big problem I had and that is the limited continues. I strongly dislike limited continues in any game but this game goes full on arcade game where if you die with all your lives gone, it's back to the very start. Going in, I thought it was back to the start of the level but no it's the whole game. That pissed me off learning about this. If you are used to this style of game design then play on easy mode since there is infinite continues. I did wish you had normal difficulty with infinite continues but it's better than me dropping the game.

The positives are that the game very faithfully recreates the movie all to the iconic theme, the shot of the Terminator unit in the fire all the way down to it's logo. Seeing the last one got me nostalgic seeing the blu ray menu of the movie. It's sad they didn't get Arnie's likeness but it's nothing too game breaking. The additions of the Future War sections did add some reasonable adaptation expansion being able to play as John Connor.

No Fate is mostly Metal Slug with it being 2D shooter sections with platforming. There will be shake ups like an auto scrolling, 2D beat em up and Mark of the Ninja stealth. There are also scripted sequences too. The only one I disliked with the 2D beat em up section since the T-800 moves very slow and the boss bookending the level moves fast and can hit you fast.

The Metal Slug sections were the most fun since that style of gameplay is timeless due to it combining platforming and shooting, two things in games I like. The damage animations and weapon sounds are on point too.

A selling point of No Fate is the different routes. I'd say just do the main game and Terminator kills Dyson. Doing the latter has one awesome sequence that the Terminator 1 fan in me was losing his mind over which is the level where T2 Sarah Connor starts shooting up a police station like how the T-800 did in that very movie. It was a nice themeatic bait and switch fitting the very movie this game is based on.

Getting to play as the T-800 going to down with the minigun was also great and awesome power fantasy moment since you now get to play out an abridged version of that scene in this game.

There is a very challenging boss fight with two Terminators that is the hardest part of the game. With infinite continues, I died a lot here. This is due to fighting two opponents and with less pipe bombs to cheese the fight so got to dodge projectile and avoid getting close and losing health. You fight the robot spider again who isn't nearly as hard. That wrapped up my time with the game. There is the Sarah kills Dyson route but there didn't seem to be differences I noticed. I would've gotten disappointed and annoyed doing mostly the same stuff again getting a slightly different sequence of events.

Overall, the price point and length will no doubt bother many but it's well worth it at sale price. The game is pretty much a genre throwback and never tries to be anything more than that.

Far Cry 6 Review

This was a title that always intrigued me. Mainly because it was the game that even people who stuck around with Far Cry after 4 don't like. Those who still enjoyed the Ubisoft open world formula aren't big on this title. There is also the fact that Far Cry used to release games annually or bi annually from Far Cry 3 up until Far Cry 6. This whole thing couldn't help but make me think, "how sub par is it" or "can there at least some enjoyment I can get out of this?" I decided to go through the series proper after my replay of FC3 and it got me more and more curious. After playing the game for about 33 hours, I can see why the series has been on a lengthy hiatus after this game's release. I wanted to say it's at least an okay game with enjoyable moments like Far Cry 5 and New Dawn but instead FC6 just test my patience the more I pressed on. I can't deny there are some interesting moments here and there which is why I finished the game but I also groaned a lot when playing the game in the moment.

The story might be something I'm more on the positive side about all though that depends. The game has an interesting spin on the premise of, "let's overthrow an evil tryannical dictator" story. It acknowledges that even by overthrowing the antagonist Anton Castillo, that alone won't fix everything and the real rebuilding has only begun. There is also stuff like how even some of the members of the various groups you meet throughout the game even admitted for voting for Anton which gives him more nuance as a villain. There is also some rather shocking moments like how McKay even mentions what Canada did to Indigenous people as an example to help Dani see reason. Anton himself tries to teach his son the way to rule with Dieago questioning and being confused by a lot of it. Anton didn't even want to have children at first but slowly started had an idea of having one.

Anton is one of the series' better villains considering Pagan Min was interesting at the start and at the end of his game. Joseph Seed was basically a 3D chess master who gets anywhere by cheating. Anton has more story about him revealed through the course of the game and doesn't cheat. He's the best since Vaas.

This is where things get on the negative side because all of this stuff I said, these moments are few and far between compared to what most of the game actually is. Most of the game is spent gather a bunch of resistance fighters to join your cause and that is what the game's plot is. You are basically doing all the work for Clara and she takes all the credit for what you do in the game. It was hard not to get annoyed that I'm just doing something for someone else. The scenes with Anton also get further and furthur apart. You could either do the "Dead Drops" mission either very early or late in the game and it's one of the first and few times Dani and him meet. It will either be very early or late into the game depending on when you do it.

To add one piece of positivity Dani is at least more entertaining than the Deputy from FC5 and has a fun enough personality to watch in the moment.

This leads to gameplay and this is where the game grinds my gears. On paper, it's the same FC gameplay that is introduced in 3. There are some changes now that are for the worst. The first big issue is that the most useful and powerful gun you get in the game is given to you right at the start. That is the MS16. Give it some armor pirecing rounds, a russian supressor and an ACOG sight and you can tackle many of the game's enemy encounters with ease.

On action difficulty, this weapon can break stealth in half the same way the tranq gun in a lot of the Metal Gear Solid sequels. Headshots are very satisfying to pull off which is a massive point to FC6's favor. The AI is much worse than past games. It will be a miracle if they will even be able to gang up and overwhelm you. It doesn't help that enemy locations are now red blots on the mini map so no need for tagging and looking for vantage points. 

To top all this you get a special move weapon called a "supremo" and the one you start with sends multiple rockets that can destroy much sturdier targets including helicoptors and tanks. The issues stem from whether or not the rockets hom in or are fired at in an arc. The former seems to happen when it feels like it. The insanely long recharge time also makes it inconvienent to use. I would buy a rocket launcher for my 3rd weapon slot but you now need to find blue prints to purchase it at a black market. Making it inconvient.

After a point, I lowered to story difficulty and started hip firing enemies with a custom LMG because I was just bored.

The reason for this is because the world is too damn big. Much of the missions of the game is either CoD campaign style scripted missions or doing it an outpost neither of which will be that long and then it's back to trekking from one side of the map to the other. The missions themselves can be very samey. The big issue is how much time spent traversing large stretches of land. Every place you have to takes ages to get to.

What doesn't help that security checkpoints deflats car tires and anti air cannons shoots down helicoptors and since missions is how you progress through the story, I wanted to get to them already adding even more to the tedious treks through the open world.

Overall, if the world was much smaller, it'd okay to find ways to mess with the broken AI and ponder on it's interesting story ideas but it's impossible due to the bloated open world.

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes Review

The first remake of a Metal Gear Solid game that makes me ask "why" when viewing it upon reflection . MGS The Twin Snakes was and still is an exclusive to Nintendo and MGS' player base by 2004 was on Playstation. MGS3 would come out on PS2 the same year. Portable Ops and Peace Walker would come out on Playstation Portable and of course MGS4 would be exclusive to PS3. The idea of a remake on a Nintendo system when the original game for the longest time wasn't even on Nintendo is also head scratching. That is going to be a recocurring theme of this entire game. I decided to emulate TS out of sheer curosity since it often gets bashed for breaking the original game's difficulty and of course the rather infamously reimagined cutscenes featuring action sequences seemingly inspired by the Matrix.

The best way of describing TS is this: what if you made MGS on Playstation and retroactively turn into Metal Gear Solid 2 and make it even more Hollywood? That is pretty much the whole game in a nutshell. TS' is so committed to this that I can't help but admire the game for that.

Have MGS and give everything a higher graphical fiedlity with the "power" of the Gamecube. Also have first person aiming, hanging mode, tranq gun, rolling, MGS2 guard AI, and Snake's 3 hit combo from that very game. The music is also more in line with MGS2 with different sneaking songs for each area with bits and pieces of the original game's motifs.

The story is interesting in that it's mostly the same story as MGS. With re recorded voice acting and cutscenes having transitions and having more Hollywood cinematrograhpy than before. If I can give this over Snake Eater Delta is at least there was some effort at creating a new experience where that game is just an Unreal Engine 5 paint job with detracting gameplay additions.

Since it's story of MGS. It has it's qualities and detriments. The former being the interesting villains, characters, and bizarre interwoven conspiracy ridden plot with backstabbing and betrayal. I didn't mind the voice acting too much here and some being an improvement like Mei Ling for example. The infamous Matrix cutscenes I just kind of laugh at more than anything since the series has made it's name off absurdity.

It also has it's detriments like a lot of Solid Snake's moment to moment dialogue of asking questions that are obviously spelled out to him or finding ask a question that end with him saying, "huh?" It can be really distracting consider it almost seems like it takes a few seconds for the information that is told for him to process. There is also the part where Snake accidentally activates Rex which I like in theory but can feel cheap especially when it can be beaten with just stinger missiles.

The gameplay is where things get bizarre. Yes, the much derided first person aiming does break the auto aim heavy fights but not all of MGS' boss fights were focused on that. If you play on emulator, it takes a little while until the game will actually let you hit Psycho Mantis. The fights with soldiers on the elevators are broken due to the the guards having MGS2 enemy health, no I frames with first person mode and Snake's health.

The last part is where TS' problems lie. MGS1 is a very unevenly paced game to the point where the more it goes on it's more of a boss rush game broken up by set pieces and small stealth levels than an actual stealth game. The tranq gun does break stealth sections but it's counter acted by guards having larger sightlines of MGS2 and hearing in MGS's smaller maps. The Nuclear Warhead Storage building is the hardest stealth room since it has everything I mentioned but can't use the tranq gun so you have to actually sneak around meaning you got to hear with guards investigating where Snake is much faster. Getting caught is an instant fail where it takes ages for the game over screen to pop up. The only challenging stealth area is this room. Everything else is bizarrely harder due to MGS2 guard AI in MGS' smaller maps but easier due to the game encouraging tranq gun even more.

Snake's health is where the difficulty gets broken in half. In the original game, his health started small but with every boss defeat, it slowly grew larger. In TS' Snake right at the start can take a lot of damage. MGS' challenge came from bosses but now it takes quite a lot of hits for many of the bosses to even get you to a game over screen. Combine that with roll from MGS2 and even evading attacks also becomes easier combined with the added health.

With the exception of Vulcan Raven, the bosses are pushovers in TS. Raven being the hardest due to the only boss requiring stealth and only surprise attacks like stinger, nikita, C4 and claymore being reliable enough to hurt him. It's the only boss where just shooting and being a tank won't be enough to win which makes him stand out even more so. This boss is the same as the original so it can't be a point given to TS.

Overall, TS is one big "why" but it is an interesting one to ponder on.

Bulletstorm: Duke of Switch Edition Review

Bulletstorm was a game I've played and beaten 3 times over the years. I never thought much of it but I appreciate aspects about it's design a lot more on this latest playthrough. The thing that really holds it back is how many modern shooter conventions it has despite having elements of the shooters of yester year at the time of it's release. It can be even more bizarre considering this was made by the developers of Painkiller. What also pours salt into the wound is that they also made a parody game mocking Call of Duty known as "Duty Calls" that was promoting the release of Bulletstorm...and it has mostly everything that it mocked the Modern Warfare CoDs for having. It is very easy to call Bulletstorm, "power armor is for pussies the video game". Unlike Duke Nukem Forever, there are a number of aspects of Bulletstorm that can be endearing so much so that for the most part I can look past them. It is hard not to think that parody when playing it in the moment however.

There is a surprising amount of story considering how much People Can Fly mocked CoD for having but it is mostly just...okay. One improvement over Painkiller is that the story by comparison is easier to follow and it doesn't take itself as seriously and leans into how absurd everything is. Grayson Hunt is at least more flamboyant and over the top by comparison to Daniel embracing the crazy side of People Can Fly's games. He does play off the other characters well and Steve Blum is just going full on over the top ham mode here which is a delight. The fact that Grayson does eventually come to realize how his reckless actions is what caused the events of the game does ground him a good deal.

The whole premise of getting off a crazy resort planet does a decent job at rationalizing all the crazy traps and insane ways of killing enemies the game has.

One thing that does let the story down is the character of Sarrano. I have never liked this character. He is a villain sure but he is often "go away" heat than geniune heel heat. The only time I ever liked him was when he quickly dealt with a giant monster by timing the self destruct on his pod to kill the giant monster that was antagonizing the Grayson prior. Other than that, he is just insufferable in that the way he talks and presents himself, you got to wonder how he was ever able to trick of fool anyone into thinking he had any good intentions. He makes multiple racist remarks towards Ishii and even when he is revealed to behind all the dirty black ops hits, he just acts like, so unapolgetically amoral about it. He could be a parody of the manipulative villain but it's not a very interesting one.

Gameplay is where yes, I bring up that People Can Fly mocked CoD but all the hallmarks of the latter is here despite the inital parody. Linear levels that only go in one direction? Check. Bloody screen effect at critical health that tells you to go into cover? Check. Set pieces and scripted sequences? Check. Scripted first person cutscenes? Check. Going into slo mo to shoot the main villain? Check. Mandatory sniping sequences or parts where you have to use one weapon? Check all though not just a CoD thing. Weapon limits? Check. Sprint button? Check. Sections where it will have a mechanic that appears once? Check.

It is very easy to call out People Can Fly for being hypocritical. With all that said, the moment to moment combat of Bulletstorm is really enjoyable in spite of it all.

That said combat encourages you to kill enemies creatively and effeciently. Like kick enemies into spikes(very Dark Messiah surprisingly), lighting them on fire, kicking them off platforms and using the leash along with the kick. Both create a decent amount of air time for the player to get a quick head shot, light on fire or even shoot them in the crotch. You can also a robust slide ability which can be used for kills too and create air time for enemies.

What really ties everything together wonderfully is how the skills are used for upgrades or to buy ammo so when you are at an upgrade station. It becoems a choice of, "should I buy alt fire upgrades, buy ammo, or buy some more alt fire uses". The more creatively and efficently enemies are killed the more points you can spend.

While the game has regen health, one mechanic that counters this is the slide since it can dart you across the map so fast that it's easy to get out of the enemy's line of sight.

It's not without issues. Some arenas box you in that the slide won't be effective to get out of enemy sightlines for health to regen. The leash makes it hard to grab which enemies you want. The kaiju monster section is terrible due his lasers can also be pointed at you and might cause accidental damage to you as well as it being projectile. The sniper should've been hitscan since guiding bullets just makes these dull sections longer.

The flare gun alt fire can have OP AOE.

Overall, Bullestorm more now even though I dislike modern FPS coventions in it