Space Adventure Cobra: The Awakening Review

The game that makes me ask "why?" It's a licensed anime game not made in Japan and it's not even a tie in for a brand new Space Adventure Cobra adaptation. The brand itself has a cult following outside of Japan and the series itself hasn't really gotten a resurgance of any kind. I did check this out since I've been curious in checking out the anime for a long while and this game was a convienent enough excuse to jump into it's world without actually watching it. The game also has an english dub and the anime doesn't have a proper one so it gave me more an excuse to try this game out first.

As a whole, it's on the "average" side. It does have the potential to be more interesting than it actually is.

One thing noticeable right away especially if you have played them is that the controls and abilites are almost shot for shot the recent 2D Metroids made by MercurySteam. Being able to precisely aim in any direction, the way cobra moves while firing his canon, the slide, a charge shot, Cobra having missile and super missile equivilant. There's also the way dashing implement like in the recent Prince of Persia the Lost Crown. There's also a super attack like The Prince has in that game.

On paper, this would make The Awakening a very deriviative game but the one thing that prevents it from being that it's not a metroidvania at all. The exploration is optional rather than manadatory and it's mainly there for health and "missile" upgrades. In a sense, you could say there's elements of Contra and Metal Slug here too. Cobra has a melee attack like in the latter game too.

All of this together could make for a bizarrely unique title. Metroid and Prince of Persia's controls with linear design of Contra and Metal Slug? Sounds like a fun time and it is but the thing that holds it back is the lack of polish and lots of reuse of enemies and content.

An example of how unpolished the game is that the anime FMV sequences didn't play at all during my playthrough which made for weird moments where I missed the context while playing the game and had to watch them later on Youtube

Platforming for the most part can feel fine but there are bizarre moments weird collision detection.

The thing that really lets the game down is just how samey much of the game can be. At first, The Awakening can feel really good with how you have Metroid's controls as a run and gun shooter. Shooting enemies while dashing and quickly avoiding obstacles can feel make you feel the empowerment that being a space pirate on the run can bring you.

You got regular enemies, red and blue shielded enemies, larger enemies, drones, animal life. All of them do kind of require different tactics like regular enemies are threatning in number, red shielded enemies need their defenses taken out by Cobra's revolver, blue shielded need to be attacked by melee attacks. It can feel very involving until the realization that's all there is to the enemy encounters and much of the game is going through these same enemies. Enemies also give little health drops on normal and due to how many of them are shooting at you, it's easy to die quickly.

Also, you better hope that Cobra's revolver hits the red shield enemies the moment you get your line of on him because if you miss, there's a lengthy cooldown time and you might still be getting shot at while it's happening.

The puzzles have you do the same process and pressing switches and doing Psycho Gun drawing puzzles over and over.

The mini bosses is what really lets the game down. You fight the same drone and snake enemy multiple times through the campaign and the only way to damage them is is doing a drawing puzzle with the analog stick with the psycho gun. This could be easier with mouse but the real challenge of these fights is to get the analog stick right where you want it to draw the symbol to damage it. Take too long and you miss your chance. Due to this these fights can just drag on and it feels like luck if you can even damage them.

One great thing about the game is that easy mode is doable and it checkpoints often. The only really hard part is the boss at Mission 11-2.

Overall, Space Adventure The Awakening's existence raises quite a number of questions and there's some design ideas here that could potentially have the game rise above them but instead it's more of a game that could rather than a game that the devs pulled all the stops for because they had no big name to cash in off of.

Driver 76 Review

What a surprise this game turned out to be. I always thought it was one of those lesser spin off games or that it was just mediocre and forgettable but it turned out to be highly engaging and a blast to play through it's short length. What makes me like it as much as I do? It has a fun soundtrack, an enjoyable and entertaining story and the open world is on the optional side. The last one surprised me a lot. I was expecting it to be an open world crime game on the portable like those Grand Theft Auto games but instead it went back to the style of being a more "linear" narrative focused car chase game.

The soundtrack fits the world and the recreated 70s vibe pretty well. I always did get hyped up whenever Low Rider started to play.

Story is pretty entertaining while nothing amazing, it was fun in the moment. Seeing the dynamic between Ray and Slink as they work together to make money, get of jams, try to make it big and avoid getting wasted by the various gangs made for an entertaining set up. The voice acting and comic panel cutscenes do a good job at getting the basic beats across. Having the comic panel cutscenes was a smart move since the in engine would've just looked a lot worse anyway especially when compared to the couple that are there.

The real surprise which I've mentioned before is that this is NOT an open world game. Driver 76 does what I always have a soft spot for and have it be optional. Instead the gameplay revolves around a series where all of them involves a vehicle and you are almost always on a timer. I always did love timers in this franchise or anything involving vehicles since the whole point is to go fast and be efficient while doing it and having timers is a great way to encourage the player to get good and not sleepwalk through the missions.

It also helps that the game checkpoints during missions and when there is a part of the game where it feels like the objective is taking too long even when the ride is going smoothly, you'll get a good amount of extra time to complete the next objective.

There's a decent amount of variety here too like escourting assassins, driving pick up trucks while avoiding detection of enemy gangs, hijack and delivering trucks, collecting things and avoid annoying your passengers, vehicle tailing, traditional races, wrecking supermarkets. There's enough variety here as well the game not being overly long so the game never gets overly monotonous or overstays it's welcome.

Some issues is that the game doesn't run the most stable. There's framerate drops and a fair share of pop in. This could be the emulator but this could be both the game and the emulation quirks. The on foot controls are "tolerable" but not good since the game is mostly car chases, it's awkwardness never really sets in. The shooting isn't great but it's fine due to reasons I mentioned earlier.

There are two missions that can sour the experience that are "Arms Dealer" and the final mission. The former is bad due to on rails shooting section especially when dealing the cars later in the level as you are entering and leaving a tunnel. If you try to this with the base assault rifle the mission gives you, it will be impossible to finish due to the bullet spread not hitting your intended when you put the crosshair on them. You will be riddled with bullets and your shots will only hit on occasion. If you just do main missions, you'll get a grenade launcher and it's best to cheese the early enemies and the ones in the tunnels using this, if not it's an unwinnable mission. It can be a misleading on the game's part.

The final mission while fine in theory, it's a very trial and error mission where if you make one wrong detour as you follow the helicoptor, misintrepret it's route or try to readjust after being lead off it's trail, it will be a series of mission restarts. I get it's the final mission but due to long it can feel, it feels like you need to be a perfectionist even though the rest of the game didn't require you to do this.

Overall, despite some technical issues and a few sour eggs here and there, Driver 76 turned out to be a very enjoyable surprise and easily one of the better 3rd party developed games on the PSP.

Doom II: Hell on Earth(Playstation 5) Review

The most actionized sequel to ever be actionized. Yes, the original game was very much an FPS game where you were mowing down enemies but Doom 2 does the thing expected from a sequel and ups the ante when it comes to everything. I will admit that when I first played the game, my attachment towards it was non exisistent. I found it very disappointing compared to the 1993 original game. The level design was far too obtuse, the inablility to jump or look up felt more like hinderances than advantages and it felt like amping up the difficulty for the sake of it. Upon replaying the game a few years ago and now recently. I've come to like Doom 2 the more I play it. Understanding it's mechanical and level design quirks has come to make me love it. Doom 2 might be one of my favorite game sequels of all time despite me not feeling that way when I originally beat it.

I said before that Doom 2 ups the ante in every regard and two things it does this with is the weapons and the enemies.

With the former, you find many of the key weapons of the original game like the shotgun, chaingun, plasma rifle and missile launcher much quicker. You also spend the entire game with them upon accquiring them the first time where in original, starting a new episode means getting them all back again. Also, weapons like the BFG you might spend the whole game not even getting but in Doom 2, you will certainly get it.

Then there is the weapon the game is known for: the Super Shotgun. It's been stated how awesome this weapon is and it lives up to it's name. The powerful sound it makes when fired, the amount of damage it does to close range enemies like the pinky demons, it being able to wipe out multiple possesed marines at once with it's spread under it's crosshairs and the beautifully done reload animation and sound.

You would think this weapon would become the primary shotgun to use and the regular shotgun would have no use. It would be that in theory but one big difference is that the super shotgun is meant to be devastating up close. The regular shotgun is a long range hitscan weapon so. Close range use is super shotgun and regular shotgun is for furthur or ones places in higher elevation

Then there is there the enemies where the first game's early levels would place some Imps, some Possesed Marines but then slowly roll in the Barons of Hell, Pinkies and Cacodemons. Doom 2 follows the logic that you played the original already so these guys are already in the early levels and you'll be fighting huge swarms of them. Some of only one enemy types like the barons and pinkies or a mixture of many like the imps and marines.

There's also new enemies introduced in Doom 2 like Chaingunner Marines, Revenants, Archville, Mancubus, Arachnotron, Pain Elemental, and Hell knight. Many of them spice up combat like Chaingunners, Archvilles, Revenants, and Mancubus due to them changing up tactics. Like Archvilles with constantly breaking like of sight. Revenants with dodging the homing missiles. Chaingunners due to accumlated hitscan damage.

Some can be annoying like the Pain Elemental summoning so many Lost Souls that home in on you. However, most of these are hits rather than misses.

However there is one major elephant in the room and a rather divisive aspect of Doom 2 and that is the level design. Where Doom 1993's levels were all well made and do a good job at guiding the player around with the exception of Limbo. Doom 2 can get bizarrely obtuse and hard to understand where to go. First of all, many of the versions of the game has no jump button so the game never tells the player that sprinting from one platform to the next is an unofficial jump button. There is also the fact that teleporters don't teleport you to one place but stepping on them twice can lead you to a new part of the level.

Not understanding these quirks can throw many players off.

With that said, Doom 2 has one of my favorite and most memorable levels in older series and that is Courtyard and especially Industrial Zone. Remember how I said that switching between regular and super shotgun for long and close range is something Doom 2 does well? This is a great example. You need to use regular shotgun to take out the Chaingunners from afar and are higher up while using super shotgun to take out the enemies at your level.

There is some bizarre parts like you need to look down to know to land on a platform to progress in Downtown but you can't actually look down to know to land there.

Some levels like Citadel are just terrible and an all around stinker too. It's so bad that you don't even need all 3 keys to beat the level along with floor switch that is really hard to actually hear with the music playing.

Overall, with all this said, Doom 2 despite it's level design and mechanical quirks and not having levels as consistent in quality is an all improvement over the first game, you may need to play it more than once to fully appreciate the game with that said. 

Iron Meat Review

As far as Contra games or games styled after that franchise is concerned, Iron Meat is the best of that kind of game I have ever played. I'm more of a Metal Slug guy but Iron Meat managed to win me over. In terms of sheer specticle and approachable difficulty, it's the best a Contra style game has ever been for me.

When it comes to the visuals, Iron Meat's pixel art looks highly detailed especially with everything looking macabe, decrepit and and grotesque. There's lots of explosions and body parts being destroyed mauled and destroyed as you wreak havoc across the levels. It's one of if not my favorite example of indie pixel art work.

I mentioned approachable difficulty before, you get 30 lives on easy with your lives resetting back to 30 when you start a new level. So for someone who isn't really good at Contra style games, this is an easy crutch to rely on.

In Blazing Chrome enemies soak up an ungodly amount of damage even on easy to the point where your lives will be mostly drained by the time you reach the level end boss. In Iron Meat, it's more reasonable where you can have a decent amount of lives left before reaching the level end boss. I make a big deal out of this because there is no health bars in Contra style games, getting hit once is a life lost and losing them all is a level restart.

You also have a reasonable amount of weapon power ups to level the playing field in Iron Meat. It also helps that you can aim in all 8 directions. I did wish the controls for this was better rather like having dedicated buttons to aim diagonally but it's workable.

It's not like the game is brainlessly easy for me on easy. I was almost close to a level restart on the city stage and was down to one life on the boss before took the last one. It was a massive sigh of relief and felt like an epic win when the boss went down. If easy mode can retain things like this? Is it really a bad thing?

Projectile speeds and traps are also reasonable enough for a less skilled player like me to get through. You also get a warning and ample time to get out of the explosions marked in a red skeleton.

Bosses are also the pixel art at it's best and have very maligned designs. Something like a cross between Alien and The Thing.

Overall, that's Iron Meat, it's well designed, looks amazing, very approachable and the best Contra style game that I'm aware of. I randomly heard of this game when it was being compared to the that latest Contra game and Terminator 2D No Fate and while I like the latter, Iron Meat is superior.

Tormented Souls 2 Walkthrough

I really enjoyed the previous Tormented Souls and I was initally hesistant towards playing the sequel due to the mixed things I was hearing about how it was buggy at launch and the difficulty on normal being out of wack. After playing the game now, I can say the game is generally improvement on the first game mainly becase it follows the logic of Resident Evil 2 which is one of my favorite game sequels of all time. Both tend to have higher count of enemies and the enemies in TS2 are faster and more aggressive too. I did wish I played the game on normal difficulty since the mixed things I often heard before playing made it sound like normal was busted. Easy mode is still enjoyable but it is one of those difficulties that just keeps showering you resources due to reasons I will mention later, it didn't really hinder my overall that much.

In essence TS2 is more of what you liked about the first game. It Resident Evil's level design and limited saves with Silent Hill's more grotesque imagery, unlimited inventory and more cryptic puzzles. There's also a dodge this time around but I didn't really use it as much as the game would want me to since I played on easy. The save rooms are back and the music here is even better than it was in the first game.

There's also ideas exclusive to Tormented Souls itself like how the darkness can kill the player character if exposed to it without a lighter for too long and the dual world to solve puzzles in the levels.

Despite the level designed being more segmented this time around, the "ah this will make sense later" level design from the first game is still present here.

For example, early on the in the game you have to go up on top of a bell tower but the stairway is blocked by two vases eventually you will find a weapon that allows you to destroy them and progress furthur to eventually get the shotgun.

The level design classic Resident Evil is still here where you have this one big puzzle to solve that is the overall objective you have to do in the level but there is a bunch of smaller tasks like solving "riddles" and inventory puzzles you have to do inbetween all that. This is all retained in TS2. There's memerable levels like the Chruch, Mall, Graveyard and my favorite: school.

I do wish the riddle puzzles had different difficulties for them like the Silent Hill games from 2 onwards did since I don't really care for them and it's easy for me to view them similarly to the Raiders of the Lost Ark scene where Indy shoots the swordsman. I do think having riddle difficulties would be a solid compromise.

Since the inventory is limitless like in SH, enemies are much more aggressive and often come in 3 now. Where in games like the original Silent Hill 2, it would be a miracle if they could even close the distance on you if you riddle them with 3 bullets. Here, it's more like the first Silent Hill will they move in fast and will land a few hits before they die.

However easy mode did give me too many resources so it does sap away a little bit of the tension but the aggressive behaviour and Caroline's movement and aiming being so stiff does help cancel it out. So it feels in line with combat of the first Silent Hill in a sense.

The bosses are also an improvment since they are more along the lines of puzzle bosses where you need to figure out how to damage and defeat them rather a raw game of mechanical skill. It's smart on the devs part since they know the limitations of the combat system.

There's also a good and bad ending to get but luckily the former isn't too hard or complicated to get since you can backtract to an early part of the game and get it.

If one criticism I can level towards the game is that the game does start to drag it's heels out towards the end with the Bunker level. Where once you get back to the chruch, you'd think it's just going to be a quick trek to the final boss but then there is an entire level before you can get there. You also can't beeline it either since you need to solve a puzzle in order to not get killed in a cutscene before the final battle can actually start. By this point I did wish the game would just wrap up already even if the homage to Silent Hill 3 was enjoyable to see.

Story was okay, nothing amazing but nothing horrible, it did a good job at establishing the next levels you are going to go for the game.

Overall, TS2 was a well made sequel despite all the seemingly lukewarm and apathetic reception I saw at around the time of release. If one thing to be warned the trophy for beating the final boss is bugged as of now and doesn't unlock after beating it so I really hope that gets fixed soon. TS2 is a worthy sequel to the first game much like Resident Evil 2 was to the first game.

Yakuza 3: Remastered Review

Oh Yakuza 3 what an interesting game. What was originally going to be me buying the Kiwami 3 "remake" then turned into buying the remastered version of the original game before the delisting on consoles. To do this along with Kiwami 3 going into the frankenstein's monster direction that it did is one of many reasons why I'm becoming more and more dillusioned and disinterested in the franchise. To put it plainly, I don't dislike Yakuza 3 but I'm getting more and more annoyed by the series' antics the more I revisit it. I did play the original game before and while I prefer it over Yakuza 5, I'm noticing so many more narrative issues with the former and the series by extension. In spite of all this, the main villain Yoshitaka Mine carried much of the game and even some aspects of the Morning Glory subplot too.

This transitions me to my next point and a much derided part of Yakuza 3: the narrative pacing. I didn't mind taking care of the Morning Glory children in the early parts of the game but I can understand the complaints in that it has barely if any connection to the main story at all. It's also easy to complain about Sayama from the 2nd game being completely written out of the story when it hinders the narrative growth Kiryu could gain. Besides that much of the early sections of the game is helping out with the children and their problems. Sort of like Mass Effect 2 with the loyalty missions but if there is one thing I can give this game over ME2 is that Kiryu isn't directly solving the problems the children are having, he's more along the lines of guiding them in the right direction. For a game that deals with parenthood, it's decently executed.

This all ties into what happens later in the game with the main villain Yoshitaka Mine. He might just be the most interesting antagonist the series has ever had. The story starts to get much more engaging when late game he delivers Kanda head to Kiryu and the gang. Speaking of Kanda, it's easy to write him off as a dumb, horny and arrogant moron but the story does a solid job at establishing he was only ever able to get anywhere because no one else better could step up to take over the Niskiyama family.

Mine himself has an interesting backstory on he's a self made man who paid to be part of the Yakuza life rather than having it forced on him or choosing to impress role model like Kiryu did. How he wanted to find geniune love and loyalty when he never got when he was younger which leads to a great scene later in the game where Kiryu showing love, compassion and sympathy to the children is more of him showing weakness than geniunely helping the kids.

Whenever I look back on the story of Y3, this is what I often think of since while this is well done. The narrative pacing gets really messy. The game's main plot is about brining a corrupt CIA operative to justice and finding a mystery man, so much of the game's plot is this wild goose chase to find the mystery man. That and long drawn attempt to draw out a corrupt CIA agent. When the plot twist is finally revealed you GO BACK to Morning Glory with the kids again for 50 minutes and then the story can continue.

However what really annoys me and this is much of the series is how Kiryu despite supposedly being a criminal acts like a superhero with his moral code of not killing but then he'll act "devious" and wait for someone else to kill or scarifice themselves to finish off the opponent he himself won't do.

He's esstentially the personficiation of the Lex Luthor line: "I'm not going to kill you, she is. I abhor violence" but Kiryu is supposed to be a hero and not a scheming villain. The lack of any kind of self awareness in the story itself just makes this so much worse and harder to swallow and I just can't take the series' writing at face value because of this.

So parts of Yakuza 3's story I like but other parts I can be downright apathetic towards.

Gameplay particularly is not as maligned as parts of the internet can make it out to be. Yes, enemies do block a lot but it mainly happens with bosses or mini bosses and when that dice roll happens, it just exposes the big issues with the Yakuza combat system. You need to land hits on them to build up the heat guage and if you don't build heat fast or efficently enough, combat encounters go on for so much longer.

On top of this smashing furniture to activate the frantic button tapping stomach punches is the most effective way to do damage and the button prompt to activate this in heat mode is a dice roll on if the animation will happen at all making combat even more dragged out if you don't land this move.

Just be prepared to have a lot of healing items on you since and go to the drug store to buy them since you'll need it for the blocking mini bosses and bosses.

There is also a challenging police chase mini game but lowering to easy helped.

Overall, Yakuza 3 is okay but I question venturing furthur with the series or replaying later games.

Lord of the Rings: War in the North Review(Playstation 3)

This was a game I wasn't expecting much out of. I mainly tried it out because it was considered one of the better games based on Lord of the Rings. Apart of me was expecting to drop it at some point due it to being a coop RPG but instead I had a blast with it atleast on easy mode playing as Farin. Would I call it amazing? No but as far as LOTR games I played before the Middle Earth titles, it's above the Two Towers and Lego Hobbit games and on par with Return of the King and Lego LOTR. To best describe War in the North it's a combination of Mass Effect with the dialogue wheel and two party members, the stories some of the various Star Wars games that run in conjunction with the movies, the loot and gear system that is come to be expected and the finishing moves of God of War.

Everything about this title felt like a bizarre precursor to the Middle Earth franchise minus the Nemesis system. You got a character who can use melee and ranged combat, brutal finishing moves and over the top violence, a skill tree and even sort of a gear system.

While the combat is a little on the simplistic and stiff side, the extremely satisfying and gory kill animations carries much of it. It also helps that beeline it to the next story mission will have the game be about 6-7 hours so it ends before the monotony really starts to set in.

It's a lot of fun to use War Cry, tank so much damage and then just seeing all the limbs of your enemies fly off and seeing the nice and brutal kill animations. It also helps that you get a lot of spell and healing potions and also Andriel will cast her healing shield whenever low on health. Some could argue there's too many safety nets here but considering I'm playing a coop RPG that is meant to be played with people on my own, I don't mind. I just have fun with the power fantasy especially when bosses could get tanky.

Level design is fine and serviceable, nothing complex but nothing that gets in the way of slaughtering hundreds of enemies either.

It's also funny to see to be able to summon the eagles at any time or them talking and playing an active role in the story.

If one criticism I can make is that there is are some super long and lengthy turret sections especially one later in the game where you defend Bruni and Nordi. That went on for so long I almost thought I was going to eventually get a game over and due the tedious enemy wave again. Turrets early game can also shred through your health on easy but this becomes less of a problem the more you level up.

The loot and gear systems can be hard to keep up with when so many are stacked and then becomes a game of stat checking but that's par for the course with games like this. The UI is at least easy to follow.

Frame rate can also can get into nasty dips on PS3 too.

The story is just kind of there. It feels like one of those filler arc stories where it can't interfere with the "main canon" so the heroes of this game have their own bad guys to fight while encountering the characters and locations from the movies. It's much like the gameplay, it's there, nothing overly exceptional but it's fun in the moment.

Overall, that's LOTR War in the North, it certainly isn't a great game but it is a fun and enjoyable romp and in some ways a decent change of pace up until that point with the amount LOTR games where you just relive the big set pieces of the movies. Wasn't expecting much it was a fun time.