Short Game Reviews: June 2022

Super Mario Galaxy 2:

It's pretty good and is overall better than the first but two things that kill it for me are the motion controls stuff and the crazy amount of Star requirements in order to progress through the game. I beat this on an emulator so the right stick by design isn't going to stand up to actually using your hand and the Yoshi levels can be annoying at times because of it. For the stars, I actually had to resort to using cheats on the emulator just so I don't have to do any bullshit mandatory secret hunting to get through the game. I strongly dislike it in any platformer but Galaxy 2 pushes it to new extremes. Still, this is my 3rd favorite 3D Mario. First being Odyssey, 2nd being Galaxy 1 and 3rd being this game.

Wild Guns:

Wild Guns seems like an on rails spagetti Western version of Metal Slug. I dig it.

F-Zero X:

I don't talk about racing games but this game was pretty enjoyable all though it was pretty hard. I do love how fast it is.

Jumping Flash:

For a game that predates Mario 64 as the first "prolific 3D platformer", I prefer this game. It's surprising how well desinged it is for an early 3D platformer and a first person one at that. The jumps feel smooth to pull off due to the fact that your character having legs makes it easy to tell if you are going to land on a platform or not and you can jump very high making complicated jumps easier to pull off due to the camera zooming in on your legs to see if you can make the platform.

I also liked how the game makes up for it's short draw distance by giving the player a good sense of where the level progressing collectibles are.

Solid game.

TMNT Shredder's Revenge:

I am more of a TMNT 2003 fan and a lot of the 80s TMNT refrences were lost on me. I did enjoy it but only when I played with people and it was only 3 player games. 6 player games are clusterfucks. It does confirm that 2D beat em ups are better with people than when you are alone. The game was a chore to play alone but having people backing you up made the game much more enjoyable all though at times people would just stand around or take forever to click on to the next level which did sour my experience but it's decent

Stranger of Paradise:

Stranger of Paradise's writing is fascinating in that its basically an edgier Kingdom Hearts with Doomguy as the protagonist. I had a hard time grasping the story of that game but Jack Garland is someone I can't my take my eyes off of. He's probably my favorite protagonist in FF, yeah I know it means little coming from someone who barely played the games in the series but the way Jack acts is hilarious.

As for the gameplay, the overall combat mechanics are quite solid and feels really good, all though I played on the casual mode, but that is because I just find the game to not explain it's systems very well, and if it was any harder, I would have to search and discard more items, and I certainly wouldn't want to rob Jack of his agency by grinding on easier missions so I can be properly levelled to beat the main missions.

The dungeon and level design is quite good. There are a lot of shortcuts(the characters will remind you constantly) and there are a number of cool gimmicks that change up exploration throughout like finding keys, shifting planes, cooling lava, activating light switches, and going through misty areas to name a few. It feels like something out of an action game rather than an rpg, in fact the length of the game overall feels more like a traditional action game than an RPG which is why I played this game to begin with. Overall, I had a good time considering I haven't played an RPG in a while.

Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl:

I am not a big fan of Smash Bros styled fighting games and it annoyed me that this game didn't have a tutorial to help me understand them better. I only played this because it was a PS Plus game, I would have never have played it otherwise. I prefer the Nick Kart Racers games over this one. All though that is because I prefer kart racers over Smash styled fighting games.

Kao the Kangaroo(2022):

It's pretty much exactly what I expected, a 3D platformer that is competent in every respect and while nothing groundbreaking was a good time from start to finish.

The writing was pretty bad but it did get less annoying as it went on all though those pop culture refrences are going to be super dated.

The level design is all around solid and the game does a good job at changing things up like throwing in elemental power ups, grappling hook, grind rails, simple enviromental puzzles and timed platform challenges, all of it is mixed and are used well enough, nothing here you have never seen before, but is executed well enough. Combat is also decent too, not too complex, but it gets the job done and breaks up the platforming.

The lives system was pointless overall and the game is pretty easy enough to the point where you will never run out, I wonder why this was in the game.

Overall, I wanted a fun 3D platformer and I got just that.

Sayonara Wild Hearts:

Decent "experience game", it was more challenging than I was expecting it to be but it could be because I suck at rhythmn games. The whole thing feels like a playable music video, and while not my thing, it was decently executed for what it tried to do.

Splinter Cell: Pandora Tomorrow Review

 It's basically a a Splinter Cell 1 expansion pack. I do enjoy the game and I think I may prefer this game over the first one overall mainly due to the improvements it added like better climbing, the debut of the whistle feature(which is my favorite addition), moving bodies while opening doors, an indicator telling you when a body is hidden, and alarms going down after a certain period of time all though I only did this once. I also found the locations you visit more appealing like Jerusalem and Indonesia. I also think the music overall especially for the ambience to better but not on Chaos Theory levels.

While I do prefer this over the first, there are aspects about it that prevent from giving a full on reccomendation over SC1, the first being the super erratic AI, it was like that in SC1 but only at times in the latter but in PT, I get alerted out of nowhere, I shoot someone in the head then alarm, I punch a guy then alarm, I move slowly and then alarm, I always try to make sure no one is looking but I always activate alarms even though I shouldn't be. That and while this was a problem with the first game as well, the human shield mechanic feels like it isn't as useful as it should be due to enemies shooting past the shield and the really shitty hit detection for the pistol. I also found SWAT turning and the split jump to reach higher places underused. Also, I am glad Blacklist gave you the ability to knock out or kills guards from out of cover, that feature is a godsend after playing this game. I also kind of felt like the game could've ended at the level with Sadono since the last level with Soth as the villain feels like a weird bait and switch. While I don't talk about story much and SC's narratives were never THAT amazing Pandora Tomorrow feels like an anime filler episode, and the news broadcasts felt like it got in the way of what should've been geniune character interactions between Sam and his team.

Overall, the game is worth playing but is it the skippable entry in the series like many claim it to be? Sort of but I do think as an SC1 expansion, it's pretty solid.

Ratchet and Clank Size Matters Review

The game is strange, all the ingredients to make a decent if by the numbers Ratchet and Clank game is here, I emulated the PS2 version btw. I call it that because the game feels like an amalgation of Ratchet 2002 and the sequels.

You have Ratchet being more self centered and dawning his 2002 look, you got the PDA, and you respawn with the amount of ammo and bolts you had before you died instead of at a checkpoint. It also has the nanotech health upgrades, the weapon upgrades, armour and strafe from 2 and 3. It almost feels like Ratchet and Clank 1.5 at times. What holds the game back however is the awful, and I mean really awful camera, it zooms in too close and it jerks around too much when moving and when in tight spaces, and when too many enemies get on screen it becomes a bitch to dodge the attacks since enemies hit as hard as they do in Tools of Destruction. The mandatory races especially the first while have David Bergeard's awesome music, controls terribly and there are some crazy as hell difficulty spikes.

Then the games gets really easy once I used the Rocket Launcher and PDA combo, and the last level was mostly a breeze when I got the shield along with that. It's really weird, there's a decent enough game here and if the camera wasn't so bad, this could've been to Ratchet what God of War Chains of Olympus was to GoW. Overall, considering this was the first Ratchet game I played many years ago, everything afterwards in the series certainly was an upgrade.

Hulk 2003 Game Review

This was a rather strange game for me to play. The game can be pretty good and it hardly feels like a movie tie in game at all and feels very disconnected from the movie it is based on.

This game feels like a cross between a 3D Streets of Rage and Final Fight with a mix of Metal Gear Solid. The brawling sections feels solid but basic and Ultimate Destruction would greatly improve the combat all though I prefer the level design, structure, art style and the fact that this game has more story. All though the story itself is your typical "Banner on the run" story and while I like they had a lot of Hulk villains many of them being obsucre where even I never heard about, I find it strange how Leader is hyped to be a big threat yet he appears so late in the game. Betty Ross only shows up once, and Eric Bana's performance I can't tell whether he is supposed to stoic or the voice directing but he seemed so uninterested in playing Banner in this game.

The stealth segments are okay and do their job even if I would prefer a traditional third person camera just to see behind corners better.

What does greatly lower the score is just how outrageous the difficulty gets later in the game. The game throws a lot of enemies and bosses at you later on and what makes this worse is that you have a limited continue system which I think is a bi product of game devs trying to take advantage of making as much money as they can through the rental system by making artifically challenging game design. The difficulty mainly comes from how many enemies and very tough enemies the game constantly throws at you. You will fight tanks, Hulk Busters(I think) and Hulk clones with guns a lot and the game will either throw them in heavy waves or have them respawn until you figure out how to open a locked part of the level. It also doesn't help that you have no reliable dodge roll button either making you easy to get hit by these guys especially when the Hulk Busters fire their "repulsor" blasts at you.

The bosses are decent but when they throw in the gun wielding Hulk clones, they become frustrating because these enemies have a knack for hitting you hard and possibly even stun locking you, potentially leading a game over, I am not going to lie and say the save states helped because the limited continue system would make these section even more grating.

Overall, the game is an interesting precursor to Ultimate Destruction and the Prototype series, and I like the more linear traditional game design but it is held back but so many things like difficulty spikes, a limited continue system and some really cheap enemies.

Dragon Ball Advanced Adventure Review

This is going to sound weird but this might be favorite Dragon Ball game mainly because it appeals to my current gaming tastes. It's a linear side scrolling brawler and it's a pretty solid one, the game did a decent enough job retelling the story of the original Dragon Ball since it was already hard enough to make into a game. The combat feels pretty good and you unlock a lot of new stuff along the way. The game turns into this weird fighting game but it makes sense considering the parts of DB they are adapting. If you are an original Dragon Ball fan and never played this, I say it's a must play. I played this because original DB games are rare enough as is.

It's one of the better licensed anime games too.

Gungrave Game Review

It is weird to think that Gungrave was created because the devs of a Trigun game didn't want to shelve what was already made. Overall, I decided to play the first Gungrave game, and it was...alright. I can see why people wouldn't like it.

The shooting mechanics lack depth and consists of mashing sqaure, the draw distance is small, it can slowdown at times, the controls aren't that great, and lacks proper camera controls, there are random difficulty spikes and the boss fight with Bunji is some next level bs with how much he spans his special move.

I can see some bashing it for being too short but I feel it fits the game because if it went on longer, the flaws would become even more apparent. That and I feel the length fits it's "old school" score based gameplay well.

I mainly like the game for it's style and the story itself was kind of engaging for a TPS game all though it could be I watched the anime first and it was interesting to see where the anime got it's inspirations from, and how the anime expanded on the story of the game and did it so well. The shooting is simple, but I think the carnage and destruction on screen was enough to be visually stimulating and I love Grave's animations and the music is also great. I'll eventually play Overdose since I hear it's better.

Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's Door Review

I made it pretty obvious in my review of the Cowboy Bebop series that I am not a big fan of it, it's not a bad show but it felt way too jumbled and disjointed to be consistently enjoyable for me. This is going to be a much shorter review but to put it simpily, I really enjoyed this movie.

It's the only anime movie based on a series that I consider to be better than the source material.

Knockin on Heaven's Door basically took everything good about the series like the amazing animation, well produced action, good music, and incredible art and cranks it up to 11.

This time however, the plot is actually much more consistent due it being a movie and not an episodic anime that sort of has a serial narrative. The movie's commitement to the whole urban city asthestic I do think is rather commendable considering it adds to the whole grounded action thriller story that the movie goes for.

It does make me question if Bebop was even better off for being a sci fi series but that is an issue that can apply to the series and I went to at length in my review.

The villain here is much better. Where Vicious hardly had any of his motives explained and isn't very proactive in the story at all. Vincent's motivations are explained to varying degrees and there even is a scene that explains what makes him tick which Vicious never really had. The guy is basically an "Evil Spike" but I find that more compelling than what Vicious was. I did find his whole delimma of what is a dream and what is real to be compelling enough. He's what if he was Spike but completely unhinged which is what the antagonists of the series needed. And it made me wish I knew more about the war on Titan but that is an issue that can apply to the series too.

I also liked how there was even a scene where Jet and Spike had ideological differences in how they handle situations due to the former being a former cop and the other being a former gangster, which the show didn't have much of.

Alright, might as well describe my issues, first the character of Electra, she's decent but she feels too much like one of those female characters in the Lupin the 3rd movies where while decent do tend to make you wonder why on earth does Spike and Lupin not hang out with them and continue to go after women who don't really provide much of anything for them Julia and Fujiko respectively. That and I do wonder why the series never acknowledges her again nor Spike never tries to get together with her after showing so much attachment, I am not saying this as a "shipping" guy, I am saying, what was the point showing Spike cared if the ending wasn't going to address that whole sub plot? It felt weird to me, the ending kind of felt rushed in general. The Bebop crew saved Mars from a bio outbreak and then it just...ends.

That and the ending also makes the series' ending look stranger in retrospect, I mean the Bebop crew went through absolute hell and back in this movie yet I am really supposed to believe that Jet and Faye would let Spike go on his own in the the final battle against Vicious or how Ed would just ditch Spike and Jet after everything but that is just prequels being prequels.

Also, with Vincent and Vicious both being on the war on Titan really did make me wish that the Bebop series actually gave more details on it. The whole thing feels like a huge event that I barely know anything about but that is another issue that can be found with the series.

Overall, if you were one of the few people that were lukewarm on the Cowboy Bebop series and are hesistant of giving the movie a shot, I say watch it, the movie isn't that long and if you liked the art, music, animation, and action of the series, Knockin on Heaven's Door is basically more of that but with a bigger budget.

Cowboy Bebop Review and Thoughts

 

Cowboy Bebop Review and Thoughts

Ah Cowboy Bebop, this was an anime that was important for me being the anime fan I am today. Back in 2008, I quit watching anime for a number of reasons but then I watched Bebop back in 2012 and then I slowly got back into the medium again. This and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex were the two shows that helped me get back into it. This is going to be both a write up and a review, and this will kind of pain me to say but after watching the show again, I think it's a 6 out of 10.

Introductions out of the way, I don't think Bebop is a *bad* show, I think it's decent but it really is mostly a style over substance show. I don't like it when people critique any piece of media that way since you need both style and substance to make an entertaining story, but Bebop is mainly carried by its style more than anything else. If the show didn't have the animation that it did, if the music didn't fit the scenes as well as it did, and if the dub was off in any way, the show would not have the following that it has. The best way to describe Cowboy Bebop is that it's a bare minimum comfort food story done with style that sneaks in a more interesting episode here and there.

I might as well get into the most debateable aspect of Bebop that either make or break the show for some people is well, the episodic standalones. Fact of the matter is, Cowboy Bebop doesn't really have a serial narrative that you expect a lot of an anime to have, it has a number of episodic standalones that has either nothing to do or vaguely something to do with the main plot. Here is the thing, I am not against this style of storytelling, in fact, as someone who wants to be a fictional writer, I find when a writer can pull this kind of story telling off to be an impressive feat. Mainly in that he has to find a way to get a viewer invested within a short time of 22 minutes, I think the Simpsons, "Homer's Enemy" and the various episodes of the Boondocks do this sort of thing very well. Here's the problem with Bebop's standalones, while most of them aren't bad, none them really stand out in any way either. Outside of Mad Pierrot and Cowboy Andy, I can't think of many that really click with me. Mad Pierrot being an interesting thriller story of sorts and Cowboy Andy being a funny parody on the Western. The rest of the standalones? Outside of "Gateway Shuffle", "Heavy Metal Queen", "Toys in the Attic", and "Boogie Woogie Feng Shui", the episodes are mostly serviceable comfort food at best. I can see why Adult Swim still plays this series to this day because back in the days of only having TV channels late at night, Bebop would probably be a good show to watch to have the time pass by. The biggest problem with the episodic standalone episodes I feel is that they revolve around too many of the same concepts like, "good people in bad situations", "wacky hijinks", or just introducing a new concept out of nowhere in every episode. The writing never makes a point or a message that would last with me, and that is fine, but considering the acclaim this series gets, I was expecting more.

I might as well get to the next point, the sci fi setting, I think it's pretty obvious that Shiniciro Wantanabe is a big fan of movies and not just westerns either, he likes all kinds of genres like film noir, gangster movies, cyberpunk stories, sci fi horror, buddy cop stories, war epics, family movies and so on. I feel that Bebop was better off being just a gangster story and removing all the other genres and sci fi setting that the series pays homage to because the gangster narrative with Spike, Vicious and the Syndicate I felt was the most interesting part, but the series forgets about that a lot of time just to pay subpar tributes to different kinds of storytelling and movies. When I got to Ballad of Fallen Angels I am like, "I want to know more about Vicious and what his deal was, more about Mao, more about Annie, more about the whole power struggle with rival crime syndicates and why Vicious took that moment to want to kill Spike and killed Mao, what Mao and Spike's relationship was. Ballad of Fallen Angels as the 5th episode and it felt like there could've been more set up to it. I felt if Bebop was more about this and was a toned down on the episodic standalones, the show would be better for it.

This is going to be a weird comparison but I always felt Cowboy Bebop was the Jak 3 of anime. Both forget what they are, one being a gangster tale and the other being a 3D platformer and the best parts of both are when they remember to be those things. 90% of the run time of both is spent being subpar versions of other kinds of genres in their respective mediums. It is rather strange how the former is considered to be the greatest anime ever while the other is considered to be the "worst" in its trilogy and is considered to be a game with a cult following.

I might as well now talk about Bebop as a serial narrative...or what little there is of one. The series throws a lots of concepts at the viewer like cowboys, animal and human experimentation, bounty hunters, immortality, corporation scandals, eco terrorism, cryosleep, assassins, crime syndicates, a corrupt police force, a destroyed earth, techno cults, a war, it has all of these things and all of them don't feel like they bleed into each other that well. The series drops these concepts as soon as they get introduced, as standalone stories they aren't that interesting and as a serial narrative, it just makes the world building a mess and makes me scratch my head every 10 seconds.

This will now lead into my next two points, the ensemble cast and the character of Vicious. I'll talk about the former first, the series promotes an ensemble cast and makes you think it's about the crew of the Bebop and their adventures together when that isn't true, it's ultimately Spike Spiegel's story and everyone just so happen to a supporting character. Sounds weird? Here is the thing, whenever Bebop has it's episodes resembling a serial plot, half the cast are conveniently written out of the story. Jet never gets involved that much and him and the main antagonist, Vicious don't even exchange dialogue together. "Radical Edward" is always never in these episodes with a prominent role because the silly nature of his character would not jell well with the serious episodes of Bebop which is also why he is written out of the story before the series' finale. It's funny how shows like Dragon Ball Z and Naruto get bashed for, "main character or GTFO" when Bebop is, "Spike or GTFO". And before you bash Goku for being a "bad dad" remember Edward's dad ditched him and sent him to a rundown orphanage and then ditches him again and runs away when he sees Ed again, and I am wondering what is the lesson here, Ed realizes his dad is a deadbeat and decides to ditch the Bebop crew? What is the point of that? Okay, back on topic, now here is the biggest problem with the Bebop finale while the ending on its own is decent enough, the stuff leading up to the ending just gets my head scratching. Are some of my major issues with it have to do with the before mentioned "Spike or GTFO". Why didn't the finale involve Faye and Jet in any meaningful way? At least DBZ and Naruto would have characters job to opposing force to establish how strong they are. Faye and Jet should've at least participated in the final shootout before Spike fights Vicious, instead of Shin, it should've been Jet. Faye realizing she has nowhere to go could at the very least have her die for Spike to establish how strong their bond has been since being together. Imagine in the first Lethal Weapon where in the finale Murtaugh decides to ditch Riggs after the former saves his daughter, yeah, it wouldn't do a good job at establishing their bond now would it? Instead all the finale of Bebop does is constantly remind you of a character I hardly care about which is Julia. Faye crazes over her, Jet talks about her, Annie's last dying moments is her acknowledging Julia, Vicious wants Julia dead, Spike has a obsession with Julia, this all wouldn't be so bad, if I actually knew more about Julia outside of flashbacks or if Faye and Jet had any agency of their own.

Now the character that Bebop detractors as here and there they tend to show up tend to criticize, the main antagonist Vicious. Here is the thing, I don't dislike Vicious as much as they do, I think Vicious is both a decent and terrible character at the same time. I only think he is decent because of his voice actor in English because he does a good job at carrying a lot of this material and the way he talks and delivers his lines gives a lot of character that the actual story doesn't really give him. Ignoring him, what was Vicious' plan outside of killing Spike? Why did he want to kill the Red Dragon elders so badly? Why did he testify against Gren? Why does he go after Spike on occasion? Why are those henchmen who helped with the coup so loyal to Vicious? Why does he never go after other members of the Bebop to get to Spike? I can go on, but I felt Vicious as a villain was wasted potential, if the series just committed to the gangster narrative, then maybe there would've been more character and even him having more agency in the story. 

Overall, I feel Cowboy Bebop should've been a maybe a 10 episode OVA rather than an anime series, it would feel less bloated and the storytelling would be tighter overall. Note I don't think Bebop is bad, I think it has too many issues that prevent from being an anime I consistently enjoy or an anime where I don't have to zone out during over half its run time. That and I feel the show's mostly critical immunity has gotten me more critical on it in general. 

Serial Experiements Lain Review

Serial Experiments Lain, an anime series that I have watched more than any other. I have seen about 5 times now and I still find it to be a very thought provoking and intriguing series that I still get a lot out of each time I watch.

All though despite what I have said thus far, I don't consider Lain to be my favorite show, but as far as a "thinking man's anime" for begginners are concerned, I think it's easily the best one.

As far as the series' reputation as being "too confusing" and "hard to understand", I don't think that is true at all. Sure, it may need at least more than one viewing to completely understand and if you are younger and aren't used to kind of story Lain is, it might be offputting but I think the series gets easier to understand the more you watch it especially years apart from the rewatch too after gaining more experience when it comes to life, human nature, and internet culture in general. It's short length also makes rewatches of it a lot easier too.

Now, on to the show itself and I will get the negatives out of the way first. The first 5 episodes are admittedly kind of dull. While having some interesting imagery and moments, not a lot really happens during them. A lot of those episodes are spent with silence and not a whole of explanations as to what exactly is really happening. I can see some people getting turned off by the first few episodes too and think it's just one of those stories where it's just people saying cryptic things and with a lot of "visual" storytelling and expects the symbolism to do the heavy lifting but that changes around episode 6, while the show is still not 100% direct with how the story is told, there is much more explantations as to what is going on. It kind of feels like a different show by episode 6. The show has more dialogue explaining the setting and the overall plot. So if you are bored by the first 5 episodes, get to episode 6 and see if the series is still your thing.

Another big issue I have are the characters, outside of Lain and Eiri, the rest of the cast is rather forgettable and don't have much to define them as characters, Alice is a very important character and outside of one major scene in the series regarding her fantasies, all there is to her is that she is very kind and that is really about it, so if you are an anime fan expecting characters to be the thing you look for, you might not get that here.

Alright, issues aside, the positives, I will admit that I am not a big fan of surrealism stories or stories that aren't told directly to the viewer. However, I do think Lain handles this in a rather compelling way. Mainly in that surrealism actually enhances the story rather than detract from it. While the overall setting can be rather vague, this actually works to the show's favor in that the whole series is about what is real and what isn't and how society that the characters are in is crumbling due to how powerful the "Wired"(this show's version of the internet) is becoming.

Another big thing about this show that I will admit that I generally don't care for but this show handles wonderfully is the theme exploration and particularly the theme exploration of how much power something like the internet can give to people. The show handles ideas like thought experiments, internet cults, government conspiracies, the idea of "god hood", online impersonators, having different personalities on the internet and how the internet can ruin someone's life all within it's short run time and the way it's told with it's surrealism and ambugity makes for a very fascinating watch even many decades after it's release. There's many concepts the show explores that are relevant even now. The show feels like a "surreal experiement" and that's esstentially what the series is when you strip it down to it's core.

As far as an anime, no a story that is purely about theme exploration, this show handles it better than many.

Overall, Lain is a very good series to me despite it's issues, I watched it 5 times for a reason, and while most of the characters can be dull and the early episodes can be kind of boring, the show rewards you with an engaging portal of what the internet and how society could be when given so much power with technology.

Splinter Cell(2002) Review

The thing with the original Splinter Cell that is going to throw off many people is that if you come into the game expecting it to be like Chaos Theory, Conviction or Blacklist, or other "immersive sim" style games, you will be massively disappointed.

SC1 is a more of linear puzzle game that gives you different ways of solving the puzzle rather than having open ended levels. In SC1, you are given options but it's more about either finding a path where you can avoid enemies entirely or you can knock enemies out and spend a lot of time dragging bodies to avoid raising alarms. There is lots of trial and error in the game, but I think the handles it well enough mainly because you are given enough mechanics and tools to make it interesting. Like you could kill an enemy(if the mission allows for it), knock them out and hide the body, use a gadget, or shoot out a light and hope you can slip past guards that way. I prefer to mix up all these tactics since ghosting in stealth games is boring and frustrating to me.

The movement and climbing is mostly fine but Chaos Theory would improve upon them both greatly. Games like Conviction and Blacklist would make climbing feel better and I also get why they both have detection arrows since it gives the player more feedback on whether or not enemies are going to be alerted since SC1 can be spotty at times when enemies can see you since there are times where I felt I was sneaking past an enemy just for them to suddenly spot me, there are times where I crouch slowly and get spotted too.

Plus no whistle a guard over to you is a massive bummer since you have to jump and hope a guard can hear you plus alerts can be rather erratic too.

The levels themselves are pretty well designed despite not being being open ended. Abattoir being the worst of the bunch, and feels completely different from the rest of the game. I would not be surprised if many people quit the game here. I know I did when I first played.

The scripted action segments are not very good but I did like how it was done in Kalinatek Headquarters mission since it felt chathartic to kill people after the CIA mission of trying to avoid killing anyone.

Overall, Splinter Cell is a good game if you know what you are getting into, and it feels rather accomplished for the kind of game it is especially for a first game in a long running series, I like this a lot more than I used to.

Infamous: Second Son Review

While I like it a little more than I remember it, it still has major issues that prevent me from really enjoying it. I actually kind of liked the early parts of the game but the later parts really started to get dull.

The first few hours felt like everything Infamous 1 tried to do with progression but better since it does better job at easing you into the mechanics like giving you at least 2 more powers before giving you the rest a few minutes later and slowly letting the player getting used to them without waiting for too long. Smoke is a pretty good starting power and Neon is a good follow up but Video oh lord Video is so OP that is sucks at most tension or sense of experimentation since Invisibility is so OP. You can get stealth takedowns out the ass to the point where you perform finishers like no tomorrow. The game just became a joke once that power came into the fray. The melee is also OP. And it's easily the best power to use for traversal. This is like a shooter where they made one weapon dominant for every solution.

The story is also okay, the characters are decent but nothing special. My big issue is how small scale everything feels compared to the first 2 games. Since Infamous games are superhero narratives, it feels so odd that SS's story feels so small scale and lacking a plot that is larger than life. The whole game's story could've been avoided if Augustine just pulled the shards out after interrogating the people since they still need to live their lives after that. Augustine is a pretty decent character on paper but it suffers from the problem that a lot of villains in action games suffer from and with the short length of the game her motivations are never explored and is just delivered through exposition.

The Incredible Hulk 2008 Game Thoughts

This game was a boring, duller and jankier Ultimate Destruction in every way. This feels like a cheap knock off of UD. All my time playing this made me wish I was playing Ultimate Destruction instead. Everything is done better in that game. You can't even wall run and sprinting is something you have to unlock rather than being there at the start. The robust upgrade system is absent too and the intriguing fan service boss fights replaced with awkward rushed ones.

Out of all the MCU movie tie in games I played, this one bores the crap out of me. Mainly in that Iron Man and Captain America Super Soldier were rushed out the door but there was blueprints for good games. This game feels like a cheap knock off of a better game

Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water Thoughts

Fatal Frame Maiden of Black Water is a game that is actually 6-7 hours but since you spend so much time moving slowly and watching characters slowly take their time to pick up stuff and open doors and getting grabbed by ghost hands(which gets old very fast) and the needing to pick the item up again, the game is much longer as a result.

Before you think about bashing the Dead Space games for their waypoint systems, just remember Maiden of Dark Water's straight up lies to you, is confusing to follow and then the game randomly decides you don't need it anymore and then decides to give it back to you.

The combat is decent but it's nothing special overall, and it's like Resident Evil 4 where the action parts instead of being a pace breaker, now plays a huge part of the game. Where RE4 always knew when to break up the pace until the Island section and throws something new at the player, this game often just consist of the same combat encounters of, see ghost pop up, then wait for a Fatal Frame shot or Shutter, then ghost runs away, then he reappears, after wait for a Fatal Frame or Shutter, maybe get hit on occasion and heal yourself using the clunky menu controls of putting away the camera then opening the menu to get the item, rinse and repeat.

To add to all of this, the slow movement and watching animations play out you then have to occasionally fight respawning enemies and the fights can take awhile padding out the game even more.

The game also feels weird with the whole being able to buy items while also having items being pointed out to you while on the beaten path and the whole stealth game arrow system telling you where exactly they are.

I can see why many are lukewarm on this, I get some enjoyment with the ghost fighting but the game feels way too padded for even that to be consistently enjoyable. I think this was supposed to a more "casual" take on the series but even as that, the game is way too confused about the whole thing to the point where newcomers and causal fans(I guess I am the latter) won't find much to enjoy

Ghostwire Tokyo Review

 This game was...decent enough. All though what carried the game for me was the novelty of it being a first person AAA Japanese game, screw it, a first person Japanese game that's not a visual novel or a dungeon crawler.

Combat is okay but nothing special. You get all your main abilities pretty early on and the game doesn't add any new powers later so combat doesn't really have much to shake things up later. It does know when to break up the pace because if this game was just combat, it would get tiresome fast due to how basic it and rudimentary it is overall. It's mainly, attack, charge attack, use wind attacks for single enemies, water for close range, and fire for large big groups and powerful enemies. It never grows past this, luckily the game has stealth segments that and parts where you play as just Akito without his powers to break things up. Stealth is not great but I am not expecting it to be.

The open world however just feels tacked on but that is usually for these kinds of games, I never feel like I want to side quests due to how much the game reminds you how much Akito needs to save Mari(go to a phone booth to redeem collectibles to get XP and the game will remind you) and the open world consist of clensing Tori Gates, in fact that is mainly what you do, and it makes me wonder, why not instead of being an open world, just be a hub world where you can do missions, something like Yakuza? Just have Tori Gates be apart of the main quest to unlock more of the HUB, the whole thing feels half baked to me. You get to use Tengu to get to higher ground and that is not used much. 

The story is surprisingly engaging if not really overly explained that well, I liked the characters and their interactions all though I think it's because the voice acting does a good job selling it. The story has a number of unanswered questions the more I think about it. And considering how many cutscenes the game has, I would like to get some degree of answers regarding them.

Overall, decent enough game carried by one big novelty.

Donkey Kong Country 2 Brieft Thoughts

It's not *bad* but its not as fun and well designed as the first one. Too many boring animal sections, too much pin point pixel perfect precesion platforming, the bee hive levels are horrible and the level where you have to dodge a moving pool of acid while you need to use the snake form's long jump which you need to wait 5 seconds as it RISES SUPER FAST is level design Hall of Shame worthy. I have played enough to know that I ultimately prefer the first game over this. The first game it actually feels like it is possible to move fast and jump without feeling like the game will kick you in the balls for doing so. This game feels it forces you to be absolutely perfect or screw off.

The Ascent Thoughts

I got to the last level and I am stopping. I finally for the first time ever played a game where the combat and the game mechanics are fun but the game is bogged down by everything else.

The world is WAY too big and there is no sprint button and I am convinced this game is only longer than 5 hours because of the amount of time spent travelling and running around this hub world with your slow movement speed and you can run past enemies easier if your movement speed was quicker.

Then there is the difficulty and boy, this game's difficulty is so bullshit and inconsistent, one minute the game is super easy and then another minute the game is super hard and frustrating and the only way the game adds challenge is by shoving in craploads of enemies that are damge sponges. That's it.

Then there is the level and loot system that adds nothing to the game and actually makes it worse. This shit adds no depth at all, it just makes the game more challenging because you aren't high enough leveled. And the system can withhold information from you as well. In the penultimate mission, I am told I am at the appropirate level to beat the mission then the last level starts and I am way underleveled and enemies are killing me super fast, I want to do side missions to level up but the game can only warp me back from where the penultimate mission started, and I look for side quests and I can't find any and have to look around the boring world some more, and I already had enough of the game and the game was manageable before the final mission.

And to kick me in the balls where it REALLY hurts, I can't even play the game online coop through public matchmaking. Come on man, you don't even have that? Like why? You make a super big difficulty spike and I can't even play through matchmaking in a game where the coop is the advertised feature? And the autosave is super inconsistent as well. The only thing this game has going for it outside of combat is the music. Good lord, Alienation while not being my cup of tea at least didn't feel like this much of a mess to play.

Well, I finally played a game where even the combat couldn't save it's shortcomings. Rage 2 and Agents of Mayhem while flawed at least were consistent fun when killing things.

Battlefield 4 Campaign Review

I know playing Battlefield for the single player is like coming to a Ninja Gaiden game for the story but the more of these sps I play, the more I get why BF stopped trying to have them. BF1, Bad Company 1 and 5 might just have the most tolerable campaigns in the series but none of them are nothing remarkable. 

This game however despite me not playing BF3, has to be the worst of the all the ones I played. It shocks me how games like CoD Ghosts, Bioshock Infinite and Killzone Shadow Fall were the most lambasted campaigns of 2013 when this game is much much much worse than all 3. 

Where to start, the story is just a bargain bin political thriller story even CoD stories are more engaging since the latter have charismatic characters. 

The game gives you a custom loadout system you never need to experiment with since its a hitscan regen health shooter where you fight human enemies. You could lower the number of weapons and it makes no difference since they all kill the enemies in a few hits. 

There is stealth that makes me think that it might be a tatical shooter where you need to sneak up on enemies but they notice you way too fast and you can't even attach silencers on guns, and makes the barebones stealth more tedious. 

Then when you get caught, the game just throws lots of enemies at you and its a game of waiting for health to regen while you pop out take pot shots rinse repeat even on easy mode this is super boring. 

Then there is the dumb as shit friendly AI where you need to baby sit them in order to get anywhere, the one snow level where you need to get to the tram is a good example, I ran to the damn thing but I need to kill everyone so my braindead buddies can proceed to the next sequence and the enemies had snipers and grenade launchers can kill me across the map with pin point accuracy. 

Add to all of this the terrible checkpointing and the long levels that overstay their welcome, and you get the answer to the what if question, "how insufferably awful a CoD campaign could be if they checkpointed awfully and had long levels that overstay their welcome?" This game is what you get. 

The gunfire sounds is the only good thing about this game.

I thought Bad Company 2's sp was bad but this game makes that look award winning. Glad fps single players turned around after this. Hell, even later BF campaigns are a turn around in quality compared to...this. This might be one of the most umremarkable big budget shooter campaigns ever.

Marvel Super Heroes: War of the Gems Thoughts

This is a pretty unenjoyable and awkward to play brawler. Every character attacks and moves super slowly and avoiding attacks feels impossible and combat often consists of getting hit and hope the I-frames last long enough for you to kill the enemy. I would be okay with all of this but your characters don't even get health refills inbetween levels and you have to collect health refills making the game even more of a chore. This whole system feels like it pads out the length of the game because the game itself is really short. Hulk is objectively the best character because he does the most damage and takes the most damage but even then you have to deal with awkward platforming and hard to avoid traps. You never feel like an awesome superhero when playing this, you feel like a tank living off borrowed time. The Aquariam level alone is enough to drop this game and make you quit.

I would give this game a lower score but seeing older pre MCU Marvel characters is nice and to me somewhat indirect fan service and the character sprites do look solid. Music is also pretty good.

I feel like Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3 is a much better, "hunt down the infinity stones" Marvel themed brawler than this game is, play that instead. MUA3 actually has good feeling combat despite it having a weak story.