The Last of Us 2: Remastered Walkthrough

A good many things happened when Last of Us 2 game out. A literal pandemic, endless flame wars, among other things. Upon playing it again a while after it's initial release, there I things I appreciate about it more and things about it I view more critically than before.

I'll start with the latter first and that is the story. What I noticed more about it this time around is that I have two major issues with it. The first being is that TLOU 2 forgets or is ashamed of being a post apocalyptic zombie story and the constant red herrings.

To illustrate my first point, I have to bring up the infamous death scene of Joel. I'm not against the fact that he didn't die a hero's death or live happily ever after with Ellie. It's more so how the whole thing began because the story is following the rules of a setting that has law and order. Why is one of the family members of who Joel killed dedicated her life to revenge? How many others did he also do it too but suddenly this person is important. I bring this up because TLOU's setting is the post apocalypse. There's no law and order and killing and pillaging is what you do survive. Doing what Joel did is what everyone does. Then when the revenge happens, Abby and her crew doesn't kill Ellie because they'd be no better than him. What good does showing compassion and being righteous do in this situation? The characters are in a setting where it's kill or be killed. Being righteous has no real benefit. Abby does it again later and Ellie spares Lev but the latter is the only witness. Once again in a setting like this being righteous has no real benefit since it makes you look good or upstanding when there is actual laws.

This leads into another issue. The infected have been hit by villain decay. In TLOU 1, they were everywhere and were a constant threat in TLOU2, they feel like they pop up on occasion when Ellie and Abby need to go through a long trek to get to their destination.

It's now a gangster movie with the different factions. You got the Jacksonville crew, you got the WLF and the Seraphites so it's more of a gangster movie than a zombie apocalypse. Abby's part of the story is her trying to "leave" the life.

It's funny, Ellie's the revenge cowboy film and Abby is the tragic gangster tale which is TLOU 2's way of admitting it doesn't want to be a post apocalyptic zombie story anymore.

This leads to the next issue and can really mess up the game for me even with the gameplay and that is the red herrings. There's quite a number of them. Abby spends multiple chapters trying to heal Yara's arm. She dies not too long after. Ellie goes on a multi level journey to find Abby in the Aquarium just to not have no evidence on where she is when she gets to her destination. Ellie once again goes on a multi level journey to kill Abby and it ends with her being spared. Abby has no involvement with the WLF and the Sepraphites and they destroy each other without her involvement with Issac dying a quick death in his second appearence.

There's so many that it can make going through the levels feel hollow.

Gameplay is where things are an improvement over the first TLOU. The levels are much larger than many of the levels in that game, there's more verticality and more interiors to hide in during outdoor city encounters. The prone adds more depth to the stealth can make it feel more tense when there is tall grass. How you are evading enemy sightlines when going prone under tall grass and waiting for the right moment to slip by to crouch and hide back in again. The lack of enemy awareness indicators actually makes the sneaking feel more immersive now since it's not just crouch and cover stealth like TLOU 1.

There's also a dodge button making melee combat more dynamic now instead mandatorly taking blows from enemies when it's their turn to attack.

I also like the addition of silencers for the pistols. You need resources to craft them and they can only be used for a few shots so every shot in stealth has to count. You can also use the various arrows for both characters but they are projectile rather than hitscan and have a charge time.

It's also really interesting how enemies react to when you kill their allies and might notice one dying during stealth. They'll even try to run up and flank you too. Infected could also be nearby an enemy arena so they could shoot their loud guns and can have them be lured over to them by accident.

Ellie and Abby having different abilities is also really adds some cool dynamics to combat. Ellie can stealth kill with switchblade. Abby's incenary ammo can really feel satisfying to use and her 3 shot burst rifle can also feel really satisfying to use.

My only big complaints is that the dodge button timings can be a little hard to adjust to when you've been sneaking around for so long and a mandatory action section comes

The jump arc for both Ellie and Abby can feel a little to small.

Overall, I appreciate gameplay more while story less so.

Dino Crisis 2(Playstation 5) Review

A sequel to an ambitous yet lukewarm survival horror game of it's era changes it's style of "fixed" camera, drop the fully rendered 3D backgrounds and is more of an arcade action game than survival horror? You get Dino Crisis 2. On paper, this sounds like a case where it could potentially be worse than the first game instead however it's one of the most entertaining games you can find on the PS1.

The best way of describing the campaign is a combination of Resident Evil's mercenaries mode had a wacky, insane and over the top story you'd find in a light gun game. You also have no reloading like in Doom and enemies give currency upon death.

Much of the moment to moment gameplay is spent running around outdoors linear environments gunning down dinos like no tomorrow and racking up kills until you get to the next save station and start spending points on healing items, gun upgrades, ammo or other things like taking more damage or stronger melee weapons.

The guns feel awesome to use with Regina's weapons like her light machine gun and sub machine gun have the strongest and punchiest sounds when fired. Dylan's shotgun feels good to plow through when shooting dinos too. His Solid Cannon can be a tempting weapon to rely on since it has an area of effect that covers both his left and right flank when fired from the front.

This leads to an issue with the combat is that it's easy to get attacked off screen from enemies you didn't see coming or enemies that can attack you when it's in frame, it's too late to even react. It can lead to some some cheap hits especially when the auto aim might not track or be able to target the right enemy in time.

However, it's very obvious that the developers are aware of that if the game was just this combat loop it would wear thin even in a game that is short as this.

This is where the beauty of Dino Crisis 2 lies. It has enjoyable shooting galleries but there is also something else after that to avoid everything getting monotonous.

The first half of the game has some fair share of backtracking and item collecting akin to survival horror. There's also other absurd things you'll be doing that keeps in line with the over the top tone. There's a solid underwater section where you get a spear gun and kill dinosaurs as you backtrack through the facility. The game even embraces it's arcade roots and has some first person on rails shooting. The second half of the game is where things get so wacky and wild. You got a part where you are chased by dinos and you play as one character firing flares and the other uses the turret to kill the enemies chasing you. There's a part where you are riding a tank while being chased by a huge dinosaur. A section where you follow yellow landmarks as a good way to add different spin on the shooting galleries and the enemies you fight there requires sub weapon use to hit them while stunned on their bellies.

There's also an awesome worf effect where the Tyrannaosarus gets killed by a garguntan Giganotosarus and then you do battle with by using switches to hit with bursts of flame.

Since the game is short and it always breaks things up before the shooting galleries get overly monotonous, there's always something entertaining and wacky around the corner. It's why I consider one of the most entertaining games on the PS1.

There are some sore spots here and there. One notable example is when the game makes you think you moved on from the Jungle to the Research Facilty but no, there's a keycard at the jungle, you go back THEN you can continue. It's a stumping moment that can stall the pacing especially after tha rail shooting section you did prior. The hardest part of the game is an escourt mission towards the end due to how slow the ninja girl moves and how quickly enemies can attack her while partnered being attacked off screen from earlier. I'm convinced, someone would probably die on this part.

The final boss against the Giganotosarus can be a little underwhelming when it's you just pressing some switches and then you kill it with an orbital laser all though really considering the way the combat in this game is designed I'm glad it's not frustratingly difficult.

Overall, DC2 is more of an action arcade shooter with PS1 Resident Evil's fixed camera and pre rendered backgrounds but that's fine in the long run since it's less derivative and would indirectly predict what would happen with that franchise later on.

SiN Reloaded Review

This was a game I always heard of certain places. One of those "cult classics" that would I would hear of from time to time. It's recently gotten the Nightdive treatment and I consider it to be a solid game. I'm not 100% familar with the differences between this and the original. With that said, it's often said how the quality is uneven and the game gets worse as it goes on? Yeah it's still true. I do find it charming enough to get through even with that quality decline.

Sin gets compared to Half Life a lot. It's always brought up that it released close to HL. If anything Sin feels like Medal of Honor, No One Lives Forever, Soldier of Fortune and Return to Castle Wolfenstein. The FPS that creates the feeling that you are in a dumb over the top action movie. With an an over the top protagonist and him chatting with his tech support guy as he goes on a mission tracking down the over arching bad guy.

The opening is really enjoyable in that you'll be thrawting a bank heist, infiltrating labatories, warehouses, missile silos, and eventually infiltrating an oil rig. Different objectives being completed can have the mission being affected in different ways but this could've amounted to more.

It's cool to see an early version of an FPS with more tangible locations with an action film narrative connecting everything. It can feel more like an adventure than a series corridors with a loose narrative.

Combat is just "fine". Machine guns aren't the greatest at staggering enemies. The shotfun feels better to use and the rocket launcher does a better job at killing enemies. Snipers can also feel better to use than the machine guns do since it enemies in few shots.

The health system is unique in that you have different hp in different body parts so it's different in other hitscan games. You can't hold medkits but it's not a game over if low on health well sort of. You can get different health packs for different parts of your health so enemies might hit you in a different spot instead of instantly getting a game over when seemingly on low hp.

I'll start with the negatives is that the ATV controls like garbage and while the villain does tend to have her fans, I didn't find her that interesting or have her actions amount to much of anything.

With all this said, the quality drop off does have different answers from people but for me it's when you enter the jungle. The levels go by very quickly, are connected in a very loose way and it feels like the game just wants to hurry up and end. There's a mechanic where John can turn into a monster but this is underexplored for the most part since it appears towards the end of the game. You also get very little health packs and then there is a giant monster that gets introduced out of nowhere.

At this point, the game feels like it just wants to wrap up already.

Overall, this remaster of Sin was a charming enough game and I can see where the quality drop off comes from but I mostly had fun with it until around the ending few levels.

Castlevania: Harmony of Dissonace Review

There's a new Castlevania that just came out and before it did, I wanted to round up all the CV games Koji Igarashi on worked before touching it. I briefly touched Circle of the Moon and absolutely hated it's controls that I dropped it in less than 15 minutes. I was expecting to drop Harmony of Dissonace as well but surprisingly, I did finish this one. After doing that however, I can see why Aria of Sorrow is the most fondly remembered of all the GBA games. I wouldn't consider this title to be terrible but out of all the games worked on by Igarashi, this one makes me ask, "what's the point?"

HoD can be summed up in "what if old school CV and SOTN were to combine together?" You get this. You kind of have the same movement physics as the games prior to SOTN and you mainly use the whip instead of different weapons.

When you overlook that, it's a title that's just "there" and needed to be made because Konami had a mandate of releasing a new game in the series annually or biannunally. Everything from SOTN is here like the stats, the gear, the XP system, the spells, and the various traversal upgrades.

You'll get more heart and health upgrades than any other game "Igavania" game.

It's not the difficulty of combat you will be struggling with since enemies are mostly easy and bosses can be killed with just spamming spells and sub weapons. The real challenge is knowing where on earth you are supposed to go next. There are many vocal people on the internet who get angry by the mere idea of hand holding in a game but I really do believe this game will make them challenge that belief.

Knowing what the next objective is often vague and you'll need a guide just for that but the end game fetch quest can truly drive someone's patience. One of the items you need to get to get the "real" final boss requires you to get a metroidvania upgrade that you didn't need for most of the game and then has an extra step of you needing an item to get past a barrier to get it.

The music is often a much maligned part of the game but I didn't think it was that bad, I did start to get sick of it the more I played the game but I can't tell if it was just me wishing the game would just end.

Overall, the game's just there. Circle of the Moon feels awful to play and Aria of Sorrow feels like the GBA CV that is worth checking out. Harmony of Dissonace is worth trying out of curosity since it doesn't have challenging combat and bosses, but if you stop out of boredom, I don't blame you.

Blood: Refreshed Supply(Playstation 5) Review

Blood is a game so good that I'm willing to play a game for a 3rd time. When I first played it, you could only emulate through Dosbox then they made a remaster and now they are doing it again and I can play it console now. It was the game that put Monolith Productions on the map and would later make more games I would enjoy like No One Lives Forever, FEAR, Condemned and Middle Earth Shadow of Mordor then they would later meet their unfortunate demise but that's the gaming industry for you. I still really enjoy Blood but I can't help but notice issues that I haven't before. It's still a highly enjoyable game and one of the best boomer shooters you can play released in this era especially before they went full 3D.

Anyways, whenever I booted up Blood before, I always dread playing Episode 1 but now lowering the difficulty to easy, I appreciate the design a lot more here. Yes, no doubt you will be overwhelmed by the the hitscanning cultists and the regular zombies before you even build up your wilder arensal of weapons. There is one thing Episode 1 teaches you and this will be learned even on easy mode.

Enemies using hitscan weapons tends to be a hot topic among people who talk about shooter combat design. Blood is very unique in that instead of just tanking hits and hoping you recover from it. You have a way to combat them: The TNT. If you even casually play this game, this is a weapon you will have to get accustomed to. What makes it so unique is that basically a hitscan cultist or a group will be either hiding in rooms, corners, or just in tight spots. If you can spot one or hear the sound barks, you can lob in some TNT and get some quick and fast kills on them with no need to even tank any hits.

As a result, Blood can feel a bit more on the conservative or tactical side. You get no health packs outside of portable medkits, enemies just randomly drop health upon death. It's more about lobbing in and being as careful as you can before you can use your more powerful weapons later.

Speaking of more powerful weapons, Blood has the most punchy, gory and memorable boomer shooter aresnals of guns you could ever have. You got a useful flare gun. You got the awesome Tommy Gun that can tear into enemies and it's alt fire that can attacks nearby enemies with it's spread. The amazing sawed off shotgun where one shot can do a lot of damage but feels very satisfying to fire both shots to defeat higher level enemies. The beastly Tesla Cannon that can make little work of the tougher enemies. Of course, one of if not the beast rocket launchers in all of gaming: the Napalm Launcher. Which casuses a huge explosion upon touching an enemy and can spread to other enemies and slowly burn away at their health. The Remote Mines are also a decent follow back weapon for the TNT.

With that said, there are gimmick weapons that are just there like the Vodoo Doll, Aeresol Can, and the Life Leech is just kind of there. I will say the BFG from Doom and the Devastator from Duke 3D does have the Life Leech beat in terms of gamefeel and use.

The main weapons feel so good to use that I don't mind this.

Level design is mostly good with the scenery and locals getting better with each episode. Episode 2 being the most memorable in that you have a creepy carnivale then you got a real cool homage to The Shinning where you the level have you begin in a maze outside of The Overlook hotel then you actual visit and go through the actual recreation of it. Episode 4 starts off in creepy labs and then you start go through haunted temple areas. Blood is often said to be a parody of horror media like how Duke 3D is to action films and Blood does a good job at it. The only big issue I have is how in the penultimate level E4, Kaleb somehow gets inside of a giant worm. I'm not strongly demanding stories in these games but I wish it was explained how he got there since it's so random.

The enemies I'm more mixed on this time around. I find some of them to be really annoying to fight like the Hellhounds where if they hit you even once, they can slowly chip away at your health and you better hope you kill an enemy that drops some. The Gargolyes will take forever to finally fly down and start attacking you. Spiders can mess up you field of view by touching you. Phantasms can be really be grating if you don't have Sawed Off shotgun rounds ready and hit with it's alt fire when it reappears. Hands can be annoying if you don't know the button to get them off you. The Hellhounds are especially annoying since being ill prepared could lead you back to the restart screen.

It's strange, Blood for the most part is a really well made game but there are just enemies in it's roster that makes me start groaning by the mere thought of fighting them again.

Overall, while Blood can be frustrating in places, it's still enjoyable to play just held back by some very irksome enemies to fight especially in the moment before learning of their placement in the levels.

Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker Review

When I got the Metal Gear Solid HD Collection back over a decade ago, this was the game I remember playing the most out of all them. I really enjoyed it back then and I thought after being lukewarm on every MGS past the first Solid and especially after 2, a large part me thought Peace Walker might not hold up that much. After playing it again over a decade later, Peace Walker still holds up. There's a couple of things that hold the game back but after feeling almost nothing but apathy from MGS3 and 4, I'm surprised Peace Walker is even a game I still like.

Since it's an MGS game I'll begin with the story and for the most part I enjoy it. I really do enjoy the fact that the more or less seemingly retconned the 3rd game's ending. It was nothing more than the logical fallacy known as "appeal to emotion". What makes Peace Walker's story compelling is that Big Boss and by extension Hideo Kojima is on my side regarding this. What do I mean? Big Boss throughout the much of PW's story still hasn't accepted that fact what Eva told her is 100% truth since with MGS3's narrative, we don't really see that many scenes with "The" Boss and Eva. The latter ran away and gave you a tape recording saying, "take my word for it" in a long winded monologue of course. Having a story where Big Boss is questioning all this makes him a more nuanced character. The starting of the game does a great job at selling you on him as it shows how he is haunted by what seems to be a ghost of his former mentor. How Zadornov baits Big Boss into taking on the mission.

What is also refreshing is how great it feels for a Metal Gear protagonist to have agency again. Where Old Snake acts disinterested and dismissive, Big Boss in Peace Walker gives the feeling of wanting to find geniune closure. With the scene I mentioned and how he taunts Strangelove in the Torture Room later in the game. It's also great how Old Snake's long stretches of silence is gone and he gets into actual geniune conversations with his allies and foes. The "turning what you just said but saying it questioningly way" is toned down here a good deal.

The themes of deterance and peace are quite interesting in how AI should be used to handle firing nuclear weapons. This will do much of the story's heavy lifting outside of BB's plight since the characters outside of him, Strangelove and maybe Huey and Miller are on the underdeveloped side. There's not many bad guys outside of "Hot" Coldman and he's just there.

PW also gets very ridiculous towards the end even for MGS standards but that's if you do the grind in Chapter 5.

Gameplay despite losing actions like first person aiming and moving in prone. The gameplay manages to be the most compelling the series has been in a while.

Remember the tranq gun I kept on complaining about? Here it's used to recruit members for Mother Base rather be a bypass gameplay option. You are also encouraged to finish the level quickly and not die that much so you can get more "heroism" points so no relying on being able to respawn from the last place you died.

CQC slam is no longer an instant knockout. You have to knockdown on an enemy, wait for them to get up, then choke them out if you want to incapcitate them up close. Higher level guards will take longer to choke out.

It doesn't end there, the game also introduces new enemy types throughout the campaign. You got armoured enemies, guards with helmets(no first person aiming means you can't aim under them and you got to worry about activitating a quick caution phase), some that blend in with the surrondings and are also good at CQC, snipers using ghille suits, and game drone enemies.

Vehicle bosses can also be defeated using stealth.

This transitions me to negatives since the vehicle bosses on paper are a good idea only the APC boss is handled well since you know where enemies will spawn from. Later fights have random alerts and extremely random enemy spawns.

The AI bosses are okay but can be lengthy damage sponges especially Peace Walker. What makes it worse is that PW can go on for long that it drain that annoying psyche guage. Some of it's attacks can do it too. Then you have to do that obnoxious 7th gen left stick waggling nonsense.

While Chapter 3 starts off with a creative shootout where you have to watch multiple vantage points and are in a choke point where you can ambushed from left and right. The creativity in game design starts to go down slowly. You get only one whole main mission where you have to avoid a drone enemy and the rest is mainly just evading guards in industrial areas. Lacking the interesting enemy design of the outdoor levels. It's almost too easy to go back to tranq headshotting in the industrial levels before the Soviet Base.

Chapter 5 is a boring grind with a ridiculous boss and song at the end. A sequence where Big Boss resigns to his fate isn't worth grinding this much over. Also, that torture mini game is awful and can stump almost any first time player from getting furthur into the game. Why is there no accessiblity option for this?

Overall, PW was a surprise especially how apathetic to the series before playing.

Sprawl Zero Review

When I first heard of Sprawl Zero, I originally thought, "it's a follow up to that one game that wasn't really that great? Hope this time it's better". It was also interesting just how much it was going to borrow from the early to mid 00s FPS games. Games like FEAR, Halo, Dead to Rights and arguably even games like Psi Ops the Mindgate Conspiracy but most likely Half Life 2's Gravity Gun. There's also games like Project Snowblind and Ghost in the Shell 2: Innocence for it's visual inspiration.

As a whole, I'd say for the most part, it lived up to my expectations of being better than the first Sprawl.

One major difference and a really big improvement is that weapon feedback feels MUCH better this time. Guns actually have a sense of weight and punch to them unlike the first game. Tearing into an enemy with the various weapons feels good to do now. Where the original game's weapons feels like you are firing BB gun rounds into enemies.

Another one is while the first game was FEAR meets Titanfall. Here it feels like a homage to the 00s and also the hitscan shooters of the late 90s. There's traditional cutscenes here and there but also telling a story with no cuts like in Half Life. There's also a leader npc giving you a rundown on the mission objectives something you'd find in an early Medal of Honor game.

The narrative is kind of just there but it does give you more context to what's going by comparison to the first game.

Actual combat of Sprawl Zero is a ballet of using melee, slo mo, grabbing a weapon that can't reload then throwing the gun or lifting environmental objects, and then picking up another weapon or getting health back from the damage you lost from the hitscanners.

There's some cool ideas Sprawl Zero has to it's own like being able to hold bullets or rockets and send them right back at the enemy. You can also do the aforemention throw an empty gun at an enemy and it feels super satisfying to do. It can feel reminiscent of Superhot.

It creates for a very fast and frentic combat system that's very satisfying and fun in the moment. You can also kill an enemy leader and cause nearby enemies' comms to malfuction similar to killing an elite in Halo. Speaking of Halo, there is a very obvious homage to the Gravity Hammer from the 3rd game. It arguably feels better here than it did in that game since the enemies gib a lot more when the attack connects.

Enemies also give health pick ups upon death which is a system I prefer vastly over regen health since it keeps you on the move rather than have you wait and be vunerable. One aspect of 00s FPS design I'm glad it stayed away from.

You even helicoptors being regular enemy types as opposed to be bosses. I did wish you had another way to damage them other than using the magnetic reflection ability.

This might as well transition me to issues. While I do like that enemies give health upon death, I did wish you got one health stim to fallback on since you could be at critical and want to run to the pick up but you might be dead by the time you reach it. The guns are hitscan so you can't just dodge out of the way. The enemy counts also starts to get really high and overwhelming so it would be nice to have one fallback healing item.

The burst fire pistol feels awful and weak to use due to how long it takes to get a kill, not a good weapon to ever have in a game where there's no reloading and all guns are a single clip.

Like Halo there's black bars that pop up when loading a new part of the level and while in Halo, it never gets in the way, here there are parts of the game where you are getting shot at while the black bars are around.

There are some awful levels here and there like Eden where you have to get past a sniper's alley, fight them in a single choke point and fight helicoptors twice with no health items or checkpoints. The final boss is also really bad since you have to do an enemy wave just to fight him and battling him can level your health bar and start a restart. There can be some really annoying firefights here and there but the checkpoint system can allievate much potential frustration.

Overall, Sprawl Zero turned out to be an enjoyable follow up to a game I was very lukewarm on and it's highly worth checking out. Wasn't expecting to enjoy it this much.