Splinter Cell: Essentials Review

Playing Splinter Cell Esstentials now really does hit differently. Back when I originally played it was easy to see why I didn't get very far and I dropped after a few missions. When I orginally played it, the series still had entries coming out for it and didn't become the dormant franchise it is now. Conviction was out for a little while and Blacklist was around the corner. This was all before Sam Fisher was relegated to being a crossover character in other Ubisoft franchises or had it's mechanics or ideas pop in other franchises by the company. It'll be a miracle if that remake ever comes out. However due to me watching Splinter Cell Deathwatch a few months ago with no SC game on a modern platform and I also randomly got interested in playing portable spinoffs for franchises I liked, I decided to jump into Esstentials again and beat it this time.

Upon beating the game, it is very easy to see why the game got the lukewarm reception it did. Controls are awkward even when playing on a controller with the PPSSPP emulator. Where you need to press down on the d pad to switch between camera controls and regular actions Sam Fisher can do leading to lots of "stop and go" with the movement. For example, you want to crouch and then turn the camera? Press down, switch to camera mode to turn it, then press again and press circle to crouch. Climbing on a pipe or want to fully climb on then get off? Press triangle, tap it twice, then press down to view the camera position yourself and press down again and hit circle to get off. There was no way into emulator configuration to have right stick controls at all times.

The contextual command menu now pauses every time you activate it, creating a bizarre dissonace between the player and the game world. The movement controls can feel awkward and unresponsive even when not playing on the PSP analog nub.

Many of the levels are reused from past titles or are themed after them. With the only big standouts in the main campaign being Colombia, Steel Factory and NSA HQ. Colombia being the first real mission and by far the longest. Every mission after isn't as long. NSA HQ being an incredible mission where it feels like a playable interactive thriller where Sam has to infiltrate his home turf with only Grim being his geniune lifeline.

The story is also very incoherently presented and requires you to play Double Agent even if you play either version, it's almost impossible to decipher what is going due to how quickly every plot point is being thrown at the player.

In spite of all this, I still got more enjoyment out the game then I thought I would. It's like watching a decent adaptation of a source material that hasn't gotten updated in years if not decades even if it is sub par, the things I liked about Splinter Cell is still there. The darkness system which is stealth game design that the industry especially in bigger budget games have all but forgotten now.

Sam being very agile and nimble like being able to climb and interact with very ledges and handholds just gives him and the player of feeling like a super cool sneaky ninja.

There is also other interesting aspects like how it feels like an inbetween of the first two games and Chaos Theory. You got the look of the older games and much of the same movement but you have Chaos Theory's knife and some it's animations like the instant knockout and kill as well as the grab. Door bash from CT manages to pop up. Double Agent's hacking mini game would also pop up here.

The devs were smart in that taking out enemies from the front when they alerted causes Sam to get hit by their bullets so you can't spam this. It's only effective when guards are unaware.

The guard interrogations are also really fun and entertaining too.

That is pretty much Splinter Cell Essentials in a nutshell much of what I find endearing about the game is stuff that is done better in other games in the series but me being a fan searching for a new experience made me tolerate all this stuff. It comes back to what I said about how it's like a decent but sub par adaptation or a brand new entry to dormant or obscure series. Me already being a fan makes me put up with this stuff a lot more than someone who doesn't have an already established attachment.

Overall, it's worth checking out for if you are curious fan of the series like myself. It's functional enough to get to the end if nothing remarkable.

Hitman Absolution(Playstation 3) Review

This was a game when I originally played, I couldn't help but be so disappointed and aggrevated at. I played Blood Money prior to it and like many, Absolution can feel very appalling to play by comparison. However upon playing it again over a decade later, there are aspects of about the game that can be endearing. It ultimately depends on what difficulty you play on and how much you can put up with the game and level design changes from Blood Money.

One thing that is undeniable about Absolution is that the graphically from both an art and technical standpoint, it looks incredible. From the densely packed streets of Chinatown and the crowded subway later in the game to neon lit buildings and western movie style of the South Dakota levels. Every mission from the hospital being invaded by criminals to the more mechanical and industry look of Dexter Industry to the rainy, darker and brooding Blackwater Park. It's some of the best technical and art direction the 7th gen had to offer.

The only gripe with visuals is how character models look when they are wet or are covered in liquid. They tend to look very oily which is the only bad thing I can say.

Speaking of the bad, the story is terrible. The voice acting and solid cutscene cinematics might fool some into thinking there is a well written story here but most if not all of the narrative consists of contrived writing, one note characters, and a poorly presented plot.

Everything involving Absolution's story almost feels like a parody of the series. The entire story proposes the idea of, "how does a bald guy with bar code on the back of his head get anywhere as a profesional killer?" The story is written in a way that wants to be tongue and check but it is presented entirely with a straight face.

You got characters like Birde who is called that because he is an informant who likes to be around birds. You got a crazy psychotic business tycoon who wants more money than already has because reasons? There is a genetically engineered teenage girl clone assassin who is very efficient at killing but take a USB drive off her and she is harmless if not outright useless. There are nun assassins who just pop up just for 47 to kill them. That is just some of the characters that are just dumb and one note for the sake of it.

It doesn't help that much of the writing is very contrived. There is of course the infamous scene of Blake Dexter killing the housemaid to frame an unconcious 47 who got incapacited seconds prior to then just blowing up the hotel building. There is a scene later in the game where Dexter doesn't give Victoria to Benjamin Travis after getting the money because if Dexter to give her to the latter, 47 would have no idea where Victoria would be since no informant and Dexter needs to die for the payoff. Dexter in general is trying to be a "love to hate" villain but he acts so illogical that he comes off as a self indulgent moron.

47 also infiltrates a courthouse just for him to get captured in a cutscene. 47 randomly hangs around and takes a relaxation break just for the assassin nuns to randomly find him.

It doesn't help that Victoria is a macguffin that 47 never speaks to or interact and spends most of the game kidnapped by Blake Dexter. The npc dialogue and conversations are decent at least. 

This is what I mean. The only way for the story to go anywhere in Absolution either the villains act illogical or 47 acts incompetent in a cutscene. It sounds like a parody of Hitman but it is just played too straight to be interesting.

Gameplay however fares better but it does depend on what difficulty you play on. Before I describe that, when it comes to the controls and mechanics. Absolution is the best the series ever felt at that point. Crouch speed is faster than prior games, you can create distractions, fiber wire kill from behind can be chained into a body drag, there is a smooth cover system, swat turning and the inventory is easy to use. Shooting feels decent and fist fights are QTEs to get out of a quick jam.

If I judged Absolution entirely on this then it might be the best game in the series. However there are two things that prevent that. First is the instinct meter. Every guard in the level can see through your disguise if it's similar to yours which can be silly. The level design is a mixed bag since the game is at it's best when it's traditional open sneaking levels where it's about sightline evasion rather walking out in the open. When it tries to be like prior games, you need to use instinct more and some areas have too many guards clumped together where if you run out, the level becomes much harder to play stealth. The checkpoint system doesn't help either.

A large part in my enjoyment is that I played on easy. Meaning I had lots instinct, hardly ever died and put up with the checkpoint system, and you got away with more mistakes. Play it on higher modes and this all falls apart.

Overall, Absolution is decent but very messy.

Shinobi: Art of Vengeance Review

When I first started to look more and more into the game, it sounded like "is this Guacamelee but it's with a ninja rather than a Lucador?" For the most part, it was that with some shake ups put in for good measure.

One thing I want to point out that while Art of Vengeance could be considered on the "easy" side, playing the game without respawning closer to the death location accessiblity option on would've soured my enjoyment if not made me apathetic towards the game. There are some very challenging platforming sections thrown in every once a while especially those involving the glider so dying at the last save point would've made those sections ungodly frustrating due to the repeated content.

Have that checked out but keeping everything the same on custom difficulty played a big role in liking the game as much as I did.

Other than that, I really enjoyed Shinobi Art of Vegenace. It's said to be a metroidvania but it's more of a metroidvania lite than a full on game in the genre due to the level based structure.

It is interested how the game never tells you where exactly to go but it still feels like there is a good direction of where I'm supposed to go due to the compact nature of the levels and the objectives themselves being very clear.

Platforming feels very smooth and responsive however trying to master the wall run after touching it by holding x can feel very tricky to get down consistently especially when the final escape sequence in the castle forces you to master this move in order to get past it. This can feel jarring since in the main story, this move can either be ignore and can be done casually to get by.

Any platforming section involving gliding and avoiding spikes can really feel like a fiendish jump in difficulty due to how careful you must be not to touch a tiny pixel of any spikes.

The movement system can also feel very nice chaining jumps into dashes into grapples. It can feel very Guacamelee but I don't mind since the level based stucture can make it stand out. Apart of me would've liked to have seen an attempt to have a variation on the enemy bouncing system from The Messenger and Ninja Gaiden Ragebound since the platforming sections with enemies doesn't feel as smooth in those games since they are more like obstacles that are in your way rather using them to quickly get to the next platform.

Speaking of that Guacamelee, there are forced combat encounters and they can be pretty enjoyable. It does try to be more like Devil May Cry and 3D beat em ups focused on style where there's a lot of moves that don't feel very practical in the movement and an emphasis on high combo counters. It does have Guacamelee's focus on crowd control which I really like and prioritizing certain enemies particularly enemies that throw projectiles.

One gripe I do have is that shield enemies with purple aura can take too long to take down when widdling away at their health. They are more tedious to fight due to how much HP they have and how little HP you have when hit by them.

Bosses are mostly solid, some being harder than others. Chiyo surprisingly being a pushover due to how much build up she got prior to her fight. Ruse being the hardest due to the game breaking it's rules at the end where you don't finish the boss off after depleting his health the first time. Kijima is my favorite in a lot of ways due to trying to avoid his sword while also trying to get hits in.

Overall, that's Shinobi Art of Vengeance. I had low expectations considering how much I wasn't big on Ninja Gaiden Ragebound but I ended up enjoying this a lot more.

Cronos: The New Dawn Review

What a surprise this game was. When Bloober renounced all their games they have done up until the Silent Hill 2 Remake, apart of me was wondering if they were capable of following up on what they said. In a shocking turn of events, they not only followed up on that but have a made a game that surpassed their SH2 Remake and it's inspirations like Resident Evil, Dead Space and The Evil Within in a number of ways.

I'll briefly describe the story and it's solid. While not the star of the show, the cutscenes did engage me while they were playing in between the gameplay. The arc the Traveler goes through as well as her interactions with the Warden were intriguing. Their discussions on "ascending" and the Warden's obessesion with the old world did keep my mind wondering especially how he contrasts with The Traveler.

The only big issue is the ending which is just way to anticlimatic and abrupt. It doesn't feel like an open up to intrepertation ending as it wraps up super fast and not letting the player ponder on anything.

Cronos' gameplay is borrows from many places like the aforementioned franchises. It manages combine them all and do it in a way that those said franchises lacked in.

While not as intricate, the disemberment system from the Dead Space games are here as well as it's inventory system and zero gravity sections. Fire also plays a key part in combat like the first Evil Within. It also combines Dead Space's suit upgrades with Resident Evil 4's gun upgrades. There's also currency you get upon from killing enemies like in both. You also got the backtracking, interconnected levels, save rooms, item boxes of the older Resident Evil games prior to 4. The inventory system combines both classic RE and Dead Space. Crafting ammo from the original RE3 and the REmakes are also here.

This might all paint the game as very derivative but the way it combines all of these aspects together gives it such a unique identity all it's own. It also manages to a number of the ideas presented in those games better than the games themselves.

The first Evil Within has the matches as a way to creatively burn corpses to conserve ammo due to scare ammo. Cronos improves upon this by fire not only burning corpses but it can also be a way to counter enemies and can even be used a reliable way to damage enemies when low on ammo or crafting materials. You plant mines as well instead just using matches. Burning enemies is also very highly encouraged due to the mutation system. Fire can also be used for exploration to find extra resources, healing items or upgrade kits throughout the levels.

Older Resident Evil games did encourage you to run away but more often than not, in the PS1 games especially, you'd be rolling in so much ammo that the only challenge is the inventory system not letting you carry everything. In Cronos, during the sections where you need to get to the next level objective and not during the mandatory enemy waves it's easier to run past enemies due to scare ammo and resources and how much damage an average enemy while you taking little damage by comparison. It's often better to save the fire, healing and ammo for the enemy waves. Some parts are designed to be so overwhelming that it's objectively better to run away.

Cronos' lighter version of the Dead Space dismemberment system by blasting enemies' legs is a good way to save ammo and have them lumped together for a good burst of fire. Melee attacks like the punch and stomp are more useful here since it helps save ammo and they tend to flinch when trying to finish them off with a headshot. The hint system in Cronos is also not as on the nose and intrusive as Dead Space can be. You still have the "holy crap" moments when levels loop back on themselves or when they lead to save rooms.

The crafting also adds a layer of strategy and choice to moment to moment gameplay. "Should I craft fire ignitions or mines to burn enemies or should I craft some medkits to damage when I get hit or maybe craft some ammo?"

Then there is ideas Cronos has to itself like be able to reconstruct already destroyed explosive barrels.

When you combine all of this together Cronos combines the best of action horror and survival horror in a way that is very compelling. It is certainly one of those games where it can checkpoint a infrequently and enemy waves can last long. When I do get a game over especially during the mandatory enemy waves I'm like, "I need to use my resources better and more efficiently". It makes getting through them all the more satisfying.

The bosses are also pretty decent too. They use the barrel reconstruction mechanic well and the final boss is Jack Norman from RE Revelations which caught me off guard.

Some issues are that the inventory using multiple weapons even when maxed out can be small. The audio cues for the wall corpses could be better handled. Not as good as Dead Space there.

Overall, I'm looking forward to anything Bloober Team does next.

Deliver At All Costs Review

This was a game I randomly saw trailers for on the Playstation Youtube channel. It looked like a weirdly intriguing an quirky game. I originally thought it was going to be a title I drop after the first few hours if not minutes I ended up enjoying it a lot more than I thought I would.

The first thing that surprised me was how much effort was put into the story and presentation. I never was expecting there to as much voice acting and cinematics as there was but there is a good amount of them. The voice acting and cutscene direction are surprisingly solid too.

The story itself is also enjoyable in the moment even if by the end of the game the story never actually answers the plot questions that it raises or that extremely bizarre twist late game never really gets a clear cut explanation.

However, due to the cutscenes and voice acting carries much of the story. It's kind of like experiencing those stories where even though there can be issues, there's not an overwhelming amount of contrived writing that gets in the way of the moment to moment story beats.

What even is Deliver At All Costs? It's what the title implies. You handing out deliveries. At first what is seemingly a 2D inspired Grand Theft Auto game is more of a nice and tranquil delivery game. It's gives the game it's very calming atmosphere. The game does appear to be a low stakes in terms of gameplay, but it can also feel relaxing just driving around the city and handing out deliveries.

I'd play the game for hours without any interruptions due to how the story of a man just casually delivering packages while living a double life can feel so insync. It also helps that the environments are destructible and you don't have to go at the slow pace that you do in real life so the elements of a video game is still intact.

The game can get bashed for it's repetitive objectives but I'd argue it works in sync of trying to live a normal life with dramatic moments happening while you aren't viewing them.

It also helps that the game mostly checkpoints really well and there is never an overwhelming content you have to do upon death.

There are some major issues with the game particularly with the controls. Sure, you can level the criticism that when driving, you can't see what's in front of you. My big issue is turn the truck or particularly: tight turns. Rotating the stick in relative to auto adjusting camera can make it hard to tell what is the is appropriate direction to turn in that moment. When making a tight turn to the left, is it actually to the right? Hard to tell especially when moving at fast speed.

Due to this if it weren't for the forgiving checkpoint system, this aspect of the controls would be hard to look over but due to that, I can forgive this as frustrating as fast turns in this game can be.

There is the aforementioned not being able to see in front of you but the arrows that you get when driving to the objectives is accomadating enough if a little too intrusive.

The game can also be a little too long. When the plot twist happens and towards the final few chapters of the game, it to hurry and wrap up due to how insane and dramatic the whole thing was. The final mission of driving a truck inside of a building was entertaining but the game was already quite lengthy before all that. You can only make driving a delivery truck engaging for so long, it doesn't really help that the aforementioned plot twist is never properly explained.

Overall, Deliver At All Costs was a surprise. For a game I was almost convinced I was going to drop, I ended up liking a lot more than I was going to.

Once Upon a Katamari Review

After hearing the amount of praise Once Upon a Katamari got, I thought it was a case of "there hadn't been a brand new game in so long and there weren't any clones of it either therefore it's good". Surprisingly, the game manages to breathe new life into the series. I didn't think it was even possible especially after a playing a game like Katamari Forever but I was in shock by how enjoyable this experience was.

There's a new time travel element now which now gives the developers an excuse to go all kinds of new and wacky places. You got Edo Japan, the Wild West, Ancient Greece and Egypt, and the Ice Age to name a couple.

New power ups like magnetizing nearby materials if they are smaller or your size, moving faster and slow motion are also new additions and they can definitely help out during the longer stages especially when used strategically and not spamming them.

What I like that this game had over We Love Katamari and this could be a me thing but I enjoy the gimmick stages a lot more this time. Time time limits are much more strict and the roll up requirements isn't as leinent when compared to that game.

I always felt Katamari was at it's best when there is a "just right" in terms of challenge and it isn't completely mindless. Which is what the first game did well and We Love lacked.

Once Upon is more along the lines of the former due to what I mentioned earlier.

Add that with time travel element and it's the best Katamari since the first game.

In just one world alone you are rolling drinks, tumbleweeds, and gold. In another you are rolling up mummies and coffins. Once Upon a Katamari always finds new ways to be over the top and wacky.

The addition of "simple" controls I also liked. It can be weird playing a Katamari game with this control set but it can feel natural once I got used to it.

Going through all this made me realize what I liked so much about Katamari in the first place. Time limits can be an iffy topic in games but Katamari especially when it's about rolling up to a certain amount to pass a level handles it so well.

The series personifies the idea of "the whole world is your oyster". Every level starts as you feeling like you have to be careful and not roll around the level mindlessly or else you will get smacked around all over the map. The more you roll up and the more efficiently you do it, the more your ball will grow and slowly but surely the easier the level gets. However a first time or someone not overly familar with the maps can capture that fantasy of rolling up anything for a fleeting for seconds maybe a minute or two at most.

It's what made Make the Moon from the first game so memorable. This all captured very well in Once Upon a Katamari even if you can't replicate that specific moment again due to it not being as novel.

The only issues I can knock towards it is that The King of the Cosmos can talk too much and feels intrusive especially when you are in the middle of rolling and want him to hurry up and stop talking and get back to gameplay. So it's mashing the x button like no tomorrow when he pops up.

The additon of having to collect clowns to unlock more levels can feel a bit like padding luckily most of them are easy to find and you don't need high scores to unlock them so it's not an issue that really gets in the way.

If there is one addition from Katamari Forever that was in this game is jumping. Magnetizing up walls generally works fine but adding a jump could add a bit more depth to the verticality especially when getting out of tight spots or wanting to climb up higher on a wall much faster epescially considering you are playing on a time limit in the stages. 

Overall, I was surprised as a whole, Once Upon a Katamari is the best game in this series since the first one. Never thought there could've been any life left in what was supposed to be a just a standalone game but I was wrong.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 - Remastered Review

Decided to play this game yet again after replaying MW1 recently and how bad Black Ops 7 was. No matter how many times I beat the MW2 campaign, I just seem to find new ways to be lukewarm on it if not outright apathetic. This does seem to be a reoccurring theme when playing popular 7th gen sequels and by extension games from that era. That aside, MW2 is where CoD's flanderization into the franchise it is now began. The only that prevents me from being overtly vitrolic is due to the sound design for weapons, the very good OST, the voice acting and how brisk and breezy the campaign is. It's why I have beaten it so many times despite being so lukewarm on it.

MW2 was the start CoD campaigns being more and more like action movies and adopting the "one man army" mantra Infinity Ward was against that spawned the creation of Call of Duty to begin with. The story isn't framed as soldiers on a battlefield working together to take on overwhelming force. Now you are the Master Chief but your player avatar does all the work and everyone around him takes the credit and the ones the story directly acknowledges. Being at the mercy of the game's script is questionable due to this.

The story itself is almost fascinating in how ridiculous various campaign scenarios has. Like a parody of American propaganda, the War on Terror and everything Michael Bay gets mocked for but the game does all this all with a straight face. You have two American soldiers infiltrating and escaping an entire military base of troops, Russia able to actually stage an assault on the US, the longest mission in the game is fending off Russian troops in a Suburb with multiple fast food joints while using predator missiles like toys, escorting a tank through a neighbourhood while marking it's turrets with a designator, a combat arena that is modelled after the Rock's shower room, another one where a soldier holds green flares to avoid fighters from boming the area, an Oil Rig with SAMs, firing a nuke to activate an EMP blast to help fend off Russia. There's so many not even including how towards the end of the game you fight a mercenary group with barely any foreshadowing where their leader is a nameless goon and the guy who hired them has poorly explained and presented motivations.

This all sounds like a parody or satire but there isn't really any self deprecating humor or self awareness to be found.

The characters are also very underdeveloped like Ghost. Who is a hacker with a skull mask who only uses his hacking abilties once. Captain Price is no longer a calm, collected wise cracking leader to an action hero that the other villain fears who somehow got into a gulag.

There is also the fact that your player character still can't talk even when playing Soap MacTavish late game who spoke before. It made sense in the previous games because you were one of many nameless soldiers, now you are an action movie hero so a disconnect is created.

Modern Warfare 1 quickly got information across with it's load screen cutscenes reveals it's limitations here with Shepard's not very well presented motivations or a late game betrayal's rationale being presented very poorly since the information is directly told to the player. The game expects you to understand a paragraph while removing the introductory sentenace. I didn't know Shepard cut a deal or was working with Makarov, there was a betrayal but the reason why is never properly said. On top of the game doing very little to create attachment towards him as a character. His monologues in the opening cutscenes are delivered brillantly by Lance Henriksen but it stops there.

Most of my praise comes the audio. Voice acting is great, the soundtrack is fantastic, and the weapons sound nice and punchy. Shooting is what you'll mainly be doing so it's good Infinity War nailed this.

The gameplay? Nothing has truly improved from the last game. The scripted nature is poorly contextualized due to being an action movie. Combat is still ADS, shoot, get hit, duck behind cover regen health rinse repeat. There are things I dislike more now like how flashbangs should be a way to resposition yourself after being at critical health but it also blinds the player when close making it's use a risk than a helpful tool. The level design is also overly linear barely much flanking with enemies that die in few shots.

Many of the deaths come from going off script, off screen enemies having line of sight and firing at you while ducking behind cover leading to a death or being overwhelmed from all sides without having enough ample cover for health regen to kick in since I'm at it's mercy when at critical health.

One part I can praise is Download and Defend the DSM. Its a take on the Battle on Hill 40 from CoD2 but you get more guns and there's multiple areas enemies flanking you and you need to make your the DSM isn't destroyed by enemies so it's different enough.

Overall, I'm as lukewarm as ever on MW2 but not surprised