Objectivity in Media Critique

If you've been discussing media on the internet for many years or a over a decade like I have chances are that the idea of "being objective" or "objectivity" tends to come up a lot when it comes to critiquing, discussing or debating media on whether or not if they are "good" or "bad". 

To define "objectivity" when it comes to the concept of media discussion, it is basically the kind found in journalism where you show no favoritism or signs of bias when writing an article on a subject or topic of any kind. You were completely imparital. 

Here is the thing: everyone is always going to be biased when it comes to media they like or dislike especially on whether or not if the person grew up with certain media, if it consumed during the perfect time in their live, or if they found something they never thought would resonate with them as much as they did. 

There is some truth to the concept of "objectivity" when it comes to critiquing fiction, but that's the thing, it's a half truth and when it comes down to it, people who value in the concept of being "objective" in the media critique sense tends to value the craftsmanship more than anything. 

For the most part, there are two kinds of people who consume fiction, if they choose to get into passionate discussions regarding it and not just view it as a primary means to escape their life for a few hours when they aren't at work, school or anything that doesn't involve their downtime, it's craftsmanship vs memorablity. The former are those who care about how fiction is constructed and formed and look for all kinds of different ways in how well made a piece of media in question is whether if if twists and plot points are foreshadowed well, if characters are well written, and if the themes of a story is poignant and well explored among many, many, many other things. Where as memorablity people care more for if the media in question is something if they will of course remember after experiencing it, and they don't care as much if the fiction in question has questionable design decisions in how it was crafted, they care more about how for the say "entertainment" value more than anything. 

If you want an example, there are two kinds of pro wrestling fans, those who care about the wrestling(the cherographed fights and stunts) and those who care about the entertainment side(promos, skits and sketches). Craftsman people are the former while memorablity is the latter.

For me, I'm for the most part on the craftsman side of entertainment since I experienced so much media over the years but there will be exceptions later in the write up. I will also bring the idea of "objectively bad" here and there. 

I'm going to be separating this blog into 3 categories since I actively consume all 3 entertainment mediums at a pretty active rate: Movies, anime and video games. 

1. Objectivity in Film 

When it comes to movies, believe it or not, I'm in many ways on the memorablity side of things since with movies, they require me to sit down for an hour and a half to 3 hours and beyond and since I have a hard time sitting in one place for too long especially when I have to stand still and not use my hands, the movie in question better be the most memorable hour and a half to 3 hours of my life. 

I'm going to compare two movies from the same franchise and while I consider both to be terrible, they both pretty much illustrates what I'm talking about: Mortal Kombat 2021 vs. Mortal Kombat Annhilation. 

From a craftsman's standpoint MK 2021 is "objectively" the better movie than MK Annhilation, the former has far better special effects, far more believable fight cherography, better acting and has a far more coherent plot at least by comparison. However the thing is, MK 2021 is generally a dull and forgettable film while MK Annhilation is hilariously terrible on so many levels that I'm going to remember it far more later down the line. Sure, MK 2021 from a craftsman's perspective is "better" but outside of the various scenes with Kano, I will not be looking back on the movie fondly since I argue it being the better made movie in terms of the craft just makes me wish the writing was better where with MK Annhilation, watching one clip from the movie is enough to burst me into laughter and have so much fun with it. 

Once again, if you prefer how competently made a movie is, MK 2021 is going to be a far superior experience to Annhilation but if you care about memorablity, you are going to prefer the latter. It esstentially comes down to personal preference. This is kind of what I mean by "objectively bad" not really being a thing since even stories that are bad from a craftsmanship standpoint might have so redeeming qualities and so bad, it's good you can just have a good laugh at. 

2. Objectivity in Anime

I consider myself a craftsman side when it comes to anime since the shows do require a time sync, and unlike movies something that is hilariously bad in a run time of an hour and a half to two hours can feel like diminishing returns if stretched out. I could put live action shows in here too but there isn't any overly mainstream examples that I know of for live action shows that are "so bad, it's good" or live shows with a following of any kind that was bad at the very start and continues to remain bad throughout it's entire run especially from a "craftsman" standpoint. 

This is where things get weird because anime has so many different lengths when it comes to various stories. It can range from OVAs around 4-5 or even less episodes to over 100 or even a over 1000 episodes in length. For the sake of keeping things simple I'm going to compare two series I don't consider myself a fan of and that is Genocyber and Elfen Lied. 

Genocyber is 5 episodes where Elfen Lied is 13 episodes. The former from a craftsman and "objectivity" standpoint is worse than the latter, episodes are very incoherent, the characters are poorly written and some episodes end without even a geniune proper resolution but at the same time, one could prefer Genocyber since it's shorter and is over way faster compared to Elfen Lied's 13 episodes. However, this is where someone could prefer Elfen Lied because from an emotional standpoint, there is more going on that than there is in Genocyber, the former has a "memorable" opening and the story and characters are far easier to follow than that of the latter. 

This once again, goes back to what I'm saying is what do you prefer, craftsmanship or memorablity? I actually finished Genocyber but Elfen Lied I never got to the end of so in a sense, when it comes to anime if it's not very well made, I prefer shorter the better. 

3. Objectivity in Video Games

This is obvious while also weird one but I'm a craftsman guy when it comes to games. If the game has geniunely bad gameplay like the kind of bad gameplay found in Superman 64 or Bubsey 3D, no one is going to call it good, maybe in a so bad it's good kind of way but not geniunely good. 

Video games however is the strangest one to talk about in terms of "objectivity" since there are many games that might be considered "bad" but play well decently enough but are more so considered that because they didn't live up to the player base's expectations. They might be moderately if not greatly enjoyed by game critics and if they enjoy those games, then chances are the game is probably not that bad if even great. Games require not only a time sync but also particpation from the audience so, if a game is geniunely "bad", it might get considered as such from people who play games for memorablity than craftsmanship. It's why games also get criticized for being "repetitive" or "generic" since those people might care for games being something they will not recall rather than if it's at least suffientently put together. Games could be considered "bad" if the story isn't to a person's liking which is another aspect memorablity people tend to value. 

That's the thing, games when it comes to craftsmanship and memorablity is where things get blurred. I don't think there are going to be many who say, "The Bouncer has better gameplay than DmC Devil May Cry". 

What is often considered "bad" in gaming is often disappointing than geniunely bad games. Games like Rogue Warrior, Aliens Colonial Marines, Knights Contract, Big Rigs and the before mentioned Superman 64 and Bubsey 3D are pretty much terrible games that no one geniunely likes. 

I'm rambling here but I see the term of "objectively bad" get thrown when it comes to games from time to time. Can a game be "objectively bad" and this is where once again, I say, "no". All though people playing games for how bad they are aren't as common as they are for movies, some people like enjoy breaking and mocking games for their short comings like Superman 64. Games like Fist of the North Star: Twin Blue Stars of Judgment has a cult following in competitive fighting game circles for how terribly unbalanced it is. Some people just love to laugh at Rogue Warrior, myself included for the one liners, curse words, terrible AI and Mickey Rourke's super earnest line delieveries. Sonic the Hedgehog 2006 is pretty much one big laughingstock for how bad it is. 

Gaming is where it can get very muddled but I argue the craftsman side to games is important, just that some will admit it more than others. 

Overall, this is pretty much where the write up concludes, at the end of the day, objectivity in media discussion while not the be all, end all isn't really that as complicated and enforced of a standard as many on the internet makes it out to be. Just be honest and self aware enough to know which side you are on: craftsmanship or memorablity, which ever side you are on just try to be modest about which side you pick. 

Short Game Reviews: January 2025

Soul Calibur 2:

After playing so much of Tekken, Soul Calibur can almost feel like playing the former on easy mode, there is a dedicated guard command, attacks have far greater reach since the game is melee weapons based instead of fists, and it's much easier to read attack telegraphs by comparison. Side steeping feels noticeably easier in SC by comparison to Tekken. This isn't a bad thing since SC's easier to approach gameplay I find very appealing and fun, I remember SC2 being the best and I had a blast playing Kilik and Nightmare through their arcade mode routes, I always like easy to pick up and play games and SC2 delivers on just that.

Super Star Wars:

I was expecting to go into the game expecting it to be terrible and garbage but instead while it I wouldn't call the game great, it's a competent enough 2D side scroller shooter in the vein of Contra and Metal Slug. I thought I was going to abuse the cheat system or try to use the level skip cheats of some kind or eventually just start cheating in general but instead I managed to beat Super SW without doing that.

The easy mode did help with that, enemies give much more health drops on that difficulty and the game was much more forgiving with health in general.

Biggest hurdles you need to get past are the controls which are really awkward, the basic jump arc is fine and manageable but in order to moves like the slide you need to press down, right diagonally and x to do. To do a a higher "double jump" of sorts you need to press x and then up on the d pad, sometimes you will need to manage the descent of the high jump to reach higher platforms or hope that your character can grab the ledge when high jumping.

To top it all off, there is no dedicated buttons to aim up or down diagonally you need to do all this while using the d pad and you can only shoot up diagonally when holding down square.

However, in spite of all this, I slowly but eventually got used to these controls and thanks to the easy mode and save state within the game, I was able to beat Super Star Wars.

The bosses can be a little on the cheap side but you can eventually win by hiding in certain parts of the boss room and holding the fire button.

Final Death Star level can be out of place since it's the final level and doesn't use the base game's mechanics and this level can be really rough especially during the pseudo 3D trench run when using d pad aiming, there is analog stick aiming in the PS4 version during this part of the game and the game would be impossible without it.

Overall, Super Star Wars is a decent game, I wasn't expecting a masterpiece and had a solid time with it. I only played it at all because it was on sale for $5 on the Playstation Store.

Son and Bone Thoughts and Rant

Son and Bone was a game I desparately wanted to like, and when I first booted up the game, I thought was getting just that. The opening cutscene was short and brief and the game had an old school pick up, play, story is secondary approach. For a few hours, I thought this was going to at the very least be better than Turok 2008.

Before I start criticizing the game, I will give the game credit for having a massive stockpile of guns, much like Turok 2, there is a wide array of guns for the player to choose from, many of them are a variation of the same gun like there will be 3 shotguns, 2 machine guns, 2 chainguns, two pistols, two snipers and so on, the attempt at having a large array of guns is appreciated even if it never reaches the heights of creativity like an Insomniac game or the Dead Space series.

The game's damage animations while unpolished and awkward does get the job at creating moderately satisfying combat and the new Doom glory kill system is welcome here.

With all that said, this is where my praise for Son and Bone ends. One big ugly problem with the game is that the levels are way too large and bloated. Play times for the various longplays I have seen on Youtube ranges from 2 hours to 8 hours. The reason why they tend to vary this much because the "shooting" part of this "first person shooter" is entirely optional, you don't even need to actively kill enemies in the game to progress since there are rarely ever any barriers that will block progress unless you kill all enemies. On top of this, the game occasionally uses keycard system from FPS games from the past while also combining it with the Serious Sam and Painkiller horde shooter level design and as a result the level design can feel confused.

One minute, you can follow the waypoint indicator telling you where to go, and skip past enemies, then another minute the game will block progress and you need to find keycards since the game never tells you even with the waypoint indicator where the keycards are.

If you fight the enemies, the game is going to be even longer for you and since the levels are super long, bloated and dragged out on top of combat being optional, you are only artifically extending the length of the game.

The level design isn't good and combat in this FPS game is entirely optional.

What really destroys Son and Bone is the first person platforming, on it's own, the platforming ranges tolerable and unpolished to completely infuriating. I say this with the latter statement because with the former, as long as there are no death pits, the platforming is doable if a mild annoyance, but when it's the latter when there are death pits, and when you fail a jump, the game does not respawn you from the last platform you were on before you failed the jump instead you either die a slow death by lava or fall through the level with no ability to restart from checkpoint in the pause menu.

In order to restart the game when failing a jump especially when the death pit is an endless void, you need need to quit the game and restart from the start menu to restart the platforming guanlet, by that point, I gave up and realized I had better things to do and better games to play.

Overall, Son and Bone barely has any coverage and I doubt many know about the game, but as a whole, I just say it's a game you stay far away from. Don't let the Turok meets New Doom gameplay in the trailers fool you, the game is very poorly made and is a must avoid. If you are curious, get at a VERY steep discount.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate Review

The movie I don't really remember that well however I do recall playing the demo of Weapons of Fate many years ago and thought nothing of it, however I wanted to try out more random PS3 games and this game came back into my mind. I was mainly looking for a quick and breezy game to beat in a quick afternoon or night and the game provided me just that, it isn't going light the world on fire but if you are looking for a quick and short average game to play then you can do worse than this. Due to issues I will mention later, the short length felt like a blessing because if the game was any longer, I would've stopped playing after a point.

The game starts out extremely rough, it starts with a cover and flanking turtorials that never get explored that much in main campaign. Not only that but it's one of those games where there will be a cutscene, walk a few steps and then there will be another cutscene. The first level was basically a bunch of scripted set pieces and cover shooting. It's also easy to run up to enemies and use the insta kill melee attack. The only thing that carried me through the game was the over the top and crazy lines and delivery by Wesley. The sections with Cross don't do a whole to add extra context to the scenes and often derail the pace since an important plot moving part happens during Wesley's sections and then out of nowhere a flashback with Cross happens.

There are other things that are not so good with the game like the slo mo on rails borderline QTE sections where I was lucky to rarely die on since that is more unskippable cutscenes to watch. The turret sections are also really awful and since the health pool with either character is low on normal on top of being a stationary target meaning there will be lots of time hiding behind cover. This will become a bigger issue later.

This is where I start becoming positive on the game and say once Wesley gets his suit and signature gun, things just start to "click". First of all, Wesley's gun sounds awesome and is great to fire which is great since you will be using it a lot and won't get another weapon until later on. On top of all this, there is a decent gameplay groove where you use the curve bullet to get an enemy out of cover or just straight up kill him either way, you can finish him off with your gun and get a bullet time slot back or just get a kill anyway. You can't spam this either since you will eventually run out these slots since there is a 50-50 chance it will be a guranteed kill or get an enemy out of cover.

On top of this you also get melee kills and the ability to hold a hostage when approaching an enemy from behind. The enemy variety slows starts improving with knife wielding enemies and snipers. You eventually get Cross' dual SMGs and the special ability for this gun is that curve bullets is an explosive grenade sharpanel that works as splash damage. The cover to cover bullet time I only ever found useful on bosses however since there were often stationary enough and had enough health for the move to be useful.

Weapons of Fate is a game I got to give credit for, it has more going on in it's core gameplay and moveset than something Gears of War and Uncharted does.

There is just one major problem that holds the game back and it's a problem with many shooters that use it: the regenerating health. You can throw hitscan guns in there too but some games have managed to make hitscan and finite health work. Regen health is something I never really liked all that much since your only option is to wait for your health to regen and hope to god no enemy is coming or shooting at you while the regen is kicking in. That's pretty much my issue, your only option is to wait and that's it. So much of Weapons of Fate's challenge comes from having enemies in large number shoot at you, then wait for health to regen. Aim, shoot, get hit, wait for health to regen, the frustration even on normal difficulty is that you will repeatedly get shot at from so many directions except from behind, aim, shoot and waiting for health to regen.

The problem I have with regen health is that there is no agency, you are forced to wait for health to regen and waiting is all you got. You have no other options partner that with hitscan weapons and many of Wanted's late game shootouts is just waiting, shoot, get shot, more waiting. On top of all this, your base health on normal difficulty is pretty low which lead to some pretty frustrating deaths due to the above mentioned issues. The checkpoint system is at the very least forgiving and add the short length to it and it helps makes the game less frustrating.

Knife enemies also get annoying late game since you need to tap the circle button and press the left stick in a random direction, fail this and it's a game over, if you don't kill them with gunfire and the left stick isn't pushed in time and are a slow button tapper could lead to more cheap deaths

Overall, okay game game, it's short and very flawed, but if you want something quick to beat, you can do worse. 

Smurfs: Dreams Review

There's not much to say on Smurfs: Dreams, it is very much a 3D platformer in the vein of games like Super Mario 3D World and Sackboy a Big Adventure. If you have ever played those games before, you pretty much played this.

However that isn't to say Smurfs: Dreams is horrible, just more on the painfully average side. The game is mostly easy with some difficulty spikes here and there but not too many since checkpoints tends to cover everything you did in a level say for example, you collected x amount of a collectible to progress and you collected 4/6 before you died, it will remember you did the 4 so when you die, you will never be set back by an overwhelming amount of time redoing content. There's many checkpoints scattered throughout the level and no limited continues. Also, after playing Astrobot it is rather refreshing to play a platformer where you can take more than one hit before you restart a checkpoint and there isn't nearly as many as Astrobot.

Bosses in Smurfs will respawn you at right at the phase you are on instead of a full restart upon failure which adds more to how the game isn't really too challenging. I don't mind this since I don't think any game can annoy me as much as Psychonauts 2 removing the ability to die in the options which thankfully Smurfs: Dreams doesn't do.

There are some neat ideas here and there like using an ink gun to raise platforms and stop enemies, a hammer to destroy and build platforms, a light that you have to turn on to activate certain platforms and to turn off to reveal others. I wish these mechanics intersected more often or even have the ability to select them so you can stack up these level design gimmicks.

Another positive aspect is that rescuing Smurfs to unlock levels isn't too time consuming and steep, you can just rescue Smurfs and get to the final level with Gargamel just by playing the levels. You only need 8 to beat the whole game if you aren't 100%ing which is another reason why I'm not too harsh. If the game was any longer, I would be much more harder on it.

Some big issues with the game is that the level objective of, "collect 5-6 of something to progress" is here and it gets reused a lot to much for my liking since it feels like the game has no new ways of creating a variation on something already existing.

There is also Yoshi's flutter kick that your player character can use and on top of this, he can also suspend himself in the air inside of a bubble and stop himself from falling for a few seconds by pressing the sqaure button. I don't even get why this is a thing when the flutter kick already exists, I used the bubble ability for a bit then just stopped altogether.

Overall, if Smurfs Mission Vileaf was a Smurfs version of Mario Sunshine and Daxter, Smurfs 2: Prisoner of Greenstone was a Smurfs version of Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, Smurfs: Dreams is pretty much Smurfs Mario 3D World and Sackboy a Big Adventure. If that sounds interesting try this game out, just don't expect an amazing game going in.

Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 Review

This CoD campaign was very much a welcome surprise. When I saw the immense praise it got, I was questioning if I was going to be one of the people who liked it since I got varying degrees of enjoyment from CoD Vanguard but not so much CoD MW 2022. I can say that this is easily the most polished CoD campaign since Vanguard and the campaign that left any kind of impression on me at all since CoD MW 2019.

At first when I start the BLOPS 6 campaign, I was feeling a strong sense of "been there done that" from the corridor shooting, set pieces, following people around, combat making me feel like I was competent one minute and then I went prone just to get killed by enemies I didn't even know I was in their line of sight.

Then the second mission happened and the game turned into more of a play your way style of game, I chose stealth and the AI was accomodating and I didn't get spotted for getting into the line of sight for 5 seconds, knocking out a guard from the front doesn't alert the all the enemies nearby you, performing headshots with the silenced pistol felt consistent and easy to pull off, and the level was decently open. Sure, this isn't anything overly new for gaming as a whole but this felt like a nice change of pace from the lackluster mission preceding it.

Afterwards the home base opened up and this is a CoD campaign that somewhat rewards exploration and makes you look around levels to max out perks to get like in the multiplayer.

Best part is, these abilties I actively used due to how much CoD BLOPS 6 likes to shove in different enemies from armoured enemies, shotgunners, shield enemies, RC car spawners and enemies that threw electric mines. MW2 2022 did this too with armoured enmies but the problem in that game was that the only way to actively kill them was to just shoot them or hope that you timed your grenade throws that it effectively wiped away their health. Here, you get stim packs that slow down time, buying an ability where throwing grenades don't blow up after holding the throw button for too long, C4, RC cars, air strikes and motar strikes, some of these I wasn't using throughout the whole game but by the end, I was using them all to thin out the hordes.

It's rather impressive that a CoD campaign managed to have more going on with it's combat that isn't just aim down sights, shoot, get hit, hide behind cover, and repeat the process.

There is also not one but at least three standout missions one where you are in a warzone taking out SAM sites and there is a bunch of optional objectives to do like supplies, enemy camps and additional SAM sites. If you do all this, it makes the ending section where you can summon a chopper gunner to thin out enemies feel that much more satisfying since it felt like I earned that and took time out of my way to do it.

The bank robbery mission was memorable since it felt like a Sly Cooper game in that it's a heist but you get to play out every character's perspective while the heist is happening and it also does a good job creating a sense of place where you slowly infiltrate the bank then have an explosive exfiltration.

Under the Radar was a well made Hitman style stealth mission where the levels are open and AI is lienient enough to make moment to moment stealthing enjoyable and it makes the base raid that much more satisfying.

There are two major issues with the campaign with all this said, there are two very out place missions in BLOPS 6. The two being Emmergence and Separation Anxiety. Both are too out of place with the grounded military feel CoD campaigns go for. I did get some enjoyment out of Emmergence since I liked the hordes of enemies and the bosses but it can feel very out of place for those who don't want to play a section with zombies since that is what zombies mode is for. Also, you like the grappling hook? Have fun with only using it for one mission and it never pops up again outside of that brief movement in Separation Anxiety. Plus the entire level in Emmergence is filler and contributes nothing to the plot.

Separation Anxiety felt like an out of place trippy dreamlike level that develops a character who gets killed off in the following mission afterwards. You wanted timed first person platforming and puzzle solving in a CoD campaign? Well here you go. It's out of place to what the rest of the game is.

As a whole this campaign has so many memorable moments that the parts where it starts to have traditional linear CoD campaign shootouts can feel rather dull since Ground Control was very much that and it reminds me of all the problems with CoD shootouts that I mentioned at the start regarding the first mission.

Overall, CoD BLOPS 6 was a very welcome surprise, this franchise has been going on for some time and considering how much I was getting apathetic towards the series, I was surprised I ended up liking the campaign as much as I did. There's some stumbles here and there but this is easily the best one in a long while.

Sprawl Game Review

Sprawl was a game that caught my eye, I was waiting for it to come to consoles and it surprisingly came sooner than I expected. With that said, there's a really good game buried beneath here but it's marred by some awful feeling weapons and awkward bullet time mechanics. However the movement, level design and music do carry it.

The good things Sprawl does has surprisingly not much to do with actual combat. When it comes to movement and level design, Sprawl is quite competent. The game does have wall runs but the way you can chain jumps from wall to wall and how the game made me feel comfortable at traversing it's levels. I almost felt like a competent acrobat in first person in how much I was able to just casually time one jump and then quickly jump again on the same surface gave Sprawl a unique feel with it's wall run that I don't think Mirror's Edge, Titanfall or Prince of Persia managed to create since in those games once you wall run in them once, you are committed to do it. I almost feel like a speedrunner with how much I try to one up myself on if I can make it to certain parts of a level by entirely chaining wall runs.

Level design is also pretty good, at first I was groaning a little too hard with how much the game made you press x amount of switches to get somewhere, but it started to get more creative with the city street traversal and especially in the canals mission where you have to track down two captains and the level itself while being big felt like I knew where I was going and always looped back to the terminal to use the severed captain heads. There's also a pretty well made train level where you fight a large hordes of enemies while going through a train station. Two things the game does well with it's level design is how there is red lights on guiding the player, or how yellow outlines telling the player where the switches are and the voice in the player character's head giving him a good sense of direction on where to go without revealing too much.

The music is also really good since it's very much inspired by Kenji Kawaii's score in the 90s Ghost in the Shell movie and it does a good job at keeping me in the moment while borrowing from that movie. The entire cyberpunk industrial look of the game seems inspired by GITS too. There's even a boss fight in a large puddle of water all though there is no invisibility to be found.

Before I start criticizing the combat, I will say the enemy variety is solid and varied, there is regular gun firing goons, dogs, ninjas, mechs, large ships, robots with guns and so on. The weakpoint targeting system is also pretty interesting on paper since if you shoot them there you get rewarded with more pick ups.

There are just three major aspects of the game that holds Sprawl back, first of all are is the terrible feeling guns, the devs really screwed up the gunplay. All of the weapons lack a powerful punch, they sound pathetically weak especially the dual SMGs. Enemies take an unreasonale amount of bullets to be killed by them, you can shoot them in the head with the shotgun and they have a good chance of still tanking it. Don't even try headshotting enemies with dual SMGs since it will take more than half the ammo pool to kill one of them with, the dual pistols take too long to get any kills with and these 3 weapons are the most effective to use bullet time with.

This leads me to the next major issue in spite of the fact that bullet time is one of the game's selling points since games like Titanfall or the newer Dooms not giving it to you, it doesn't feel that great to use especially when compared to games like FEAR where you can at the very least kill 3 enemies with a full bar of it, Sprawl's bad weapon feel makes the power fantasy of mowing down enemies in slow motion feel null and void. The worst part is that all of the most powerful weapons like the railgun, chaingun, missile launcher and grenade launcher have very long pauses in between firing them again while in bullet time and since the pistols, shotgun and SMG don't feel that great when using it, on top of enemies being very damage spongey no matter what gun you are using makes one of Sprawl's biggest selling points rather lackluster and disappointing.

Final major issue is that due to all of this, I played 98% of Sprawl with the god mode cheat in the options menu since without it, I would think Sprawl is terrible rather than mediocre and would drop it. This just makes me wonder why the game didn't have a forgiving easy mode like Serious Sam does since because of this, the game could bore many first time players since there is no fear of death. I just found Sprawl stimulating enough to ignore that. You can also unlock trophies with the god mode cheat on giving less incentive to play without it. A forgiving easy mode could've helped.

Overall, Sprawl has the DNA of a good FPS but due to major design issues, it's just okay. The short length and god mode cheat is why I finished it at all.