Short Game Reviews: February 2022

Ratchet and Clank(2016):

Really good game, and is way more fun to play than the original but due to it being a pseudo movie tie in game, a lot of the game can feel empty at times. It's just a padded out version of the movie in order to fit the length of a game. Everything looks and feels great and the quick select is a great addition to the series but so much of it can feel vacant because it wasn't an original game in the series made for the ground up. A lot of the levels in the game have a "come and go" feel as a result because they were movie scenes that needed to have gameplay sections shoved in. The upgrade system also felt like of weird and awkward but it's not too bad. 

Some of the story ideas are interesting like Ratchet trying to be a good person despite having a criminal past but it's never fleshed out enough to be substantial and Clank being a "defect" yet again the same issue applies. Quark does much of the story's heavy lifting. Drek also feels pathetic to the original, I don't know what was really the point in making Dr. Nefarious the main bad guy, he already was in a number of games until this point. 

Still, it's a lot of fun and if you want some really solid shooting and platforming, it's a good time.

Super Mario World:

The game is really good minus the mandatory secret world exits and Ghost Stages.

Severed Steel:

Campaign was a lot of fun and the objectives felt nice and varied enough. The weapons sort of felt like Dead to Rights 1 and 2 where you just use all the ammo and then can't use the weapon unless if picked up again. Combat was very satisfying and the length of the campaign fit the game well enough mainly because I can picture these objectives getting very dull if done for 6 hours on repeat.

Sackboy: A Big Adventure:

It's pretty solid overall. My only big issue with the game is the Dreamer Orbs and how they pad out the game. It got annoying later on where I just couldn't simpily enjoy the levels and I was always concerned with getting most of the Dreamer Orbs. Still, it's a nice and varied platformer. The voice acting is also really good too. Vex's actor was a lot of fun.

Necromunda: Hired Gun:

I am not sure if it was the recent patch or that it runs better on PS5 but in any case, the PS5 version ran WAY better than PS4. I kept getting crashes so many times on PS4 while PS5 I never got a single one. I am glad that I got a PS5 if multiplat games are going to run like shit on PS4 now. But overall, Necroumunda is a fun time, if I played this on PS5 first, I probably wouldn't have had such a sour taste in my mouth. Basically it's a weird combination of Titanfall 2 and New Doom. It's much jankier than both of them but for a AA game managing to pull off this kind of fast paced gameplay is an impressive feat. The Penultimate boss really does suck a lot, and once you get to him, the game starts getting lame but overall, it's an enjoyable time. It's health system is rather unique too. I can picture the Halo series benefitting from the health system this game has.

Bright Memory: Infinite

 Bright Memory Infinite is a strange game. For what a small indie dev managaed to pull off, it's pretty impressive, and it's entertaining enough for the 2 hours it lasts. 

But a part of me really can't help but think what if the campaign was 5 hours and slowly eased the player into the mechanics rather dump everything on him at once? 

It throws everything at you in one go. Not only that but it seems to combines elements of so many different fps games, it's a movement shooter like Titanfall and new Doom, but it also has elements of the Shadow Warrior reboot games with the sword combat, AND if you thought that wasn't enough it also has CoD style stealth sections and scripted vehicle chases. It has the grappling hook and wall running from the before mentioned Titanfall, then to top everything off it has a regen health system that is kind of like Halo's.

It also has elements of Devil May Cry in there as well. I haven't played an fps that feels this much like Frankenstein's monster since Duke Nukem Forever all though this game is much better. 

Another big issue is that the game tends to funnel you down a lot through corridors which can be a problem when melee enemies are attacking you AND hitscanners and since the game uses Halo style regen health that means you are going to have a number of cheap deaths.

The forgiving checkpoint system helps mitigate much of the potential frustration you could have, still a decent if undercooked and bizarre game.

Call of Duty: United Offensive Review

CoD United Offensive might be even worse than CoD3. This game was mostly a chore to play, everything I dislike about CoD in one package where the other games including 3 to some extent can be entertaining junk food games, this game was mostly boring.

The amount of times I was told to blow up a tank was so numerous that I think the devs ran out of steam quick. But yeah, if a CoD game was on Veteran even on Normal Difficulty then this would be it. The game makes it painstakingingly obvious that this game is super scripted. What made it tolerabe in a lot of the CoD games was the regenerating health, with finite health it is easy to just get killed over and over again. If there was no quick saving, I wouldn't have been able to beat it.

I heard the Russian Campaign was the best but I actually prefer the British Campaign due to the whole you being blown out of a plane and then joining up with a resistance movement. The Russian Campaign was taking back Stalingrad which was done better in other CoDs. So much of the game is run in, get shot, or hope you don't get and get to the next objective.

Every time I died in the later parts of the game, a huge part of me was wondering why the fuck didn't FEAR's system of letting you hold medpacks never became industry standard for games with hitscan combat? And fuck vehicle sections with no regen health.

If people ever say CoD Ghosts is the worst in the series, I will tell them to play this game.

Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts 2

This is a huge step up over the first game like very big. Where the first game had interesting ideas but felt very unpolished and unrefined, here the game actually feels much better to play. The level design is less bottlenecked, the AI is less bullshit and the best part is that the hivemind shit is gone, when you accidently alert an enemy you have a decent timing window to stop the alert from being triggered and the enemies eventually stop looking for you instead of just knowing where you are on the map at all times. I did wish the game had a last known position system so I know where enemies will try to find me but these are huge improvements. I like the setting and feel of the game, the middle east is a great stealth game setting.

My only big issues with the game is that the checkpoint system is Halo levels of inconsistent. For example it will go minutes without a save and then it can autosave at extremely random and inoppourtune times. The 2nd mission is also extremely shit and the sniping escourt section also really sucked.

Outside of those things the game is pretty enjoyable. If MGS5, Crysis(it was made on the Cry Engine after all), Hitman and Far Cry all had a baby, you get this game. I'd probably consider this a hidden gem and if you want another stealth adventure to try out, this game is worth taking a look.

Ratchet: Deadlocked Review

Played this game for the first time in a long while and I even beat it on the PS3 version at that. It's weird, the port isn't THAT bad. The framerate slows down when there is a lot of action and there is some weird audio glitches but it's an okay port.

The game is probably the best spin off game in the Ratchet series or at least tied with All 4 One. The game is light on platforming and exploration and instead just shooting galleries and you do objectives during those shooting galleries, if you ever wanted a full on Ratchet shooting game then this game is it. It is interesting the Halo inspirations the game has you have a radar telling you where enemies are, you have vehicle sections, Clank is a voice inside your head like Cortana, and Ratchet wears power armor. As a Ratchet shooting gallery, its pretty solid, I'd say it at least beats Ratchet 2002, the aiming is the by far the smoothest out of the PS2 games due to the fact you don't need to hold a button to strafe, Ratchet kind of controls like an fps character on consoles like MC from Halo. The autoaim tracks enemies well, there is also a decent amount of adversaries to face in combat, the campanion AI is decent enough except for one glitch that made me restart which could be due to the port.

The story is pretty decent here. People talk about the consumerism themes in Ratchet and here, it's much more well realized since the setting, overarching story, the presentation and what the player are doing are all in "harmony" of each other making the themes more poignant. Ace Hardlight and Gleeman Vox are pretty enjoyable and are some of the more memorable villains in the series. The game should've ended when Ace was beaten or at least cut the Ghost section out of the game.

The music is also the best in the series.

Which now leads to the negatives, the game pretty much rewards you every 10 seconds, you keep getting weapons and mods for them very easily, and you don't have to worry about saving up bolts either, that and weapons upgrade every 10 seconds, so it feels like you got everything way before the end of the game. Overall, I get why me as a kid liked the game so much. It's pretty fun now too, Insomniac knows how to make coop games I actually like.

Wet Review

This is the closest I have ever played to Max Payne meets Prince of Persia. It combines shooting and platforming in a way that I haven't seen other shooters do before or since.

You can do parkour but you can also do parkour while enemies are shooting at you. Usually in a lot of other games, shooting and platforming tend to be seperate but here, the platforming and the arena are both are connected. For example there are arena levels in the game where how much air time you have and sliding, only doing special actions activates the Bullet Time.

With all that said, the game has some major problems holding it back, the platforming is extremely buggy, very buggy, there are times where you jump and the game is supposed to register a ledge grab but it doesn't happen. Many deaths will happen due to how buggy the platforming is. I really do think this is why so many are lukewarm and even dislike the game. There are other problems too, sometimes enemies can chip away at Rubi's health very quickly and this can be a problem when platforming and reaching places, the hitscan weapons of course makes it almost impossible to avoid damage unless in Bullet Time so you have a good chance of dying when surronded by many enemies and aren't actively using it. The dream like sequnces makes it hard to tell where you are and are not allowed to go to because of the colors and there is just an over reliance on QTEs in general. It was pretty funny how this game's final boss was a QTE despite her not being a regular human enemy. Still, it's enjoyable as long as you can get past the buggy platforming.

Ratchet and Clank: Full Frontal Assault Review

For a game that I heard was bad and was the worst in the series for so many years, I actually like it. It's not a great game and All 4 One is better but as a weird Ratchet spinoff game, it's actually kind of fun. I do think it's brevity is what helped in that. If the game was any longer, I probably would've gotten sick of it, but the length of the game fitted it pretty well. Killing a horde of enemies with the Ratchet weaponry felt pretty good.

I am judging it as a spinoff rather than a full fledged Ratchet game and it's not bad. All though the penultimate level was some next level bs. I found a cheesing method by getting bolts and slowly building more defenses after every checkpoint save, this was a life saver because the last Tower Defense section throws EVERYTHING the game has it at you, and Insomniac unlike most coop devs realized that you shouldn't do a super long level again after failing since it makes it easier to play it solo. Then after the longest enemy wave ever you have to do an escourt quest and I don't think I could've beaten this if the bomb's health didn't slowly regenerate after every death. The writing was just...there. Not bad enough to annoy me, not good enough to stand out. This game is proof more than ever that I should never trust what other people say. What's bad to one person can be decent or good to someone else.

Spider-Man(2018) Review

I mainly played it for the story since my memory of it wasn't that great and outside of some issues, it still holds up. Otto Ocatvius was a great villain, I can even relate to aspects of him too but the thing with him is that the guy is so inspirational that I wished he never turned heel at all. If anything, the story does a better job at making you hate Norman Osborn. The story does a decent enough job at fleshing out the other villains, even if their motivations was just explained through audio logs I enjoyed Peter and MJ's dynamic a lot too. It was nice seeing MJ actually doing things in an on screen Spider-Man story. The stealth sections weren't all that bad either, the game gives you enough tools and feedback for you to get past them. They are decent enough. Making JJ a radio show host was a genius idea, he was better off being a radio show host than a newspaper editor. As for the gameplay, this the traversal is very good and the closest it ever felt like to Spider-Man 2's. 

But a big issue is that they never combine traversal and combat. But a much much bigger problem is that once you upgrade your gadgets and unlock double finisher the combat quickly becomes a gadget and finisher spam fest, you can even do this on the highest difficulty too. I started to get bored by the combat after a point and just played for the story afterwards. The Arkham games never really had this issue because you can't pause to select gadgets, you can only equip one gadget at a time, you had to build up a combo meter in order to do finishers, and there was no double finishers. It's why I can play Arkham on Normal where Spidey PS4 started to get boring even on Spectacular difficulty. All that and focus is easy to build up. This is Insomniac's first melee combat game and there is a solid foundation here but I hope the sequels improve the combat.

Halo 2: Anniversary Review

It takes 2 steps forward from Halo 1 while also taking 2 steps back. The level design is better, much better and it keeps everything that was good about Halo 1 and I actually like the Arbiter's cloaking ability and the later Arbiter levels in general. Mainly because cloaking gives you more combat options and lets you avoid Flood easier since Flood combat sucks, but one big issue I have with the game is the amount of sections waiting for an NPC or just waiting for a platform to move and kill a wave of enemies. These sections are boring and a massive pace killer. I don't think any Halo game has as many as this one does. The Shotgun feels kind of crappy too. Dual wielding is pretty good, I always did wish the later games had it. Brute combat gets boring after a point, I mostly just headshotted them with the Covenant Carbine and on Gravemind, I just used the Needler. The Brute Shot is a lame weapon even for Grenade Launcher standards trying to land a hit with is almost as preplexing as the game's story. 

I know Halo 2 went through lots of development problems and I think story is where it really suffered, it felt like the plot in general was supposed to be a lot bigger and grandoise than what it ultimately was. There's just way to many unanswered questions, and it felt like all the cut content was meant to fill in those gaps. And boy do Halo villains love to monologue endlessly. There are other issues like Gravemind just taking forever and got boring really fast. I'd probably say this game is better than Halo 1 overall even with it's flaws.

Ratchet and Clank(2002) Review

Beat this game for the first time in almost 10 years and it's not a bad game, it's pretty much the typical first entry to a long running series. This game pretty much confirms that Going Commando is the greatest game sequel ever made. The story in the latter is worse but GC's makes MASSIVE improvements in terms of gameplay. The story in 2002 is pretty decent and entertaining, the jokes are funny and Ratchet and Clank's dynamic is pretty good. Chairman Drek is one of the more memorable villains in the series, thanks to the writing and Kevin Micheal Richardson. It sucks what the 2016 game did to Drek even though the 2016 plays way better. 

But yeah, overall everything about Ratchet 2002 is like an unrefined version of what comes later. The music is great too. I often see people say this game is more platforming heavy compared to the sequels and I am not so sure about that. GC had way more interesting gadget based platforming. 2002 is still basically shooting section than platform section like the rest of the series just without a lack of stafe. 

And this is where I start being negative, the lack of strafing isn't too bad in the early sections but when Qwark betrays you, the difficulty gets out of hand, a lot of the combat in this game is either running around using Bomb Glove or Agents of Doom, sniping enemies with the rocket launcher or running around circle strafing with the Flamethrower and Blaster hoping that the auto aim tracks and hits everything because the lack of strafe also means you can't reliably avoid damage while shooting either. That and I can feel how boring the sequels would be if you didn't have weapon upgrades or just have a boring selection of weapons in general. Once I got the rocket launcher, I stopped buying weapons until the Tesla Claw, and the latter is objectively the best weapon in the game and shows how flawed the combat actually is. That weapon hits everything around you when moving in circles AND it does a lot of damage. The game kind of just started to get boring after a point because the action was sub par and the weapons selection was dull because Bomb Glove did everything for close range while rocket launcher was good for long range, and Tesla Claw was an inbetween. The Glove of Doom for large enemies waves, it was basically this for hours. 

And it's stupid how enemies can strafe BUT YOU can't. It's funny how Insomniac didn't have a shotgun in this game either, a game with shooting with no shotgun? Boring. Overall decent game, but it's the dullest out of the mainline series.