Just Cause 2 Review

Just Cause 2.....I heard this game was great for so many years and a lot of people on to go on about how awesome it is, and I occasionally hear people say it's better than 3 and I especially hear people it's better than 4, and I am going to be really as honest as I can here and say that I really didn't enjoy this game that much, I prefer JC3 and 4 way over this game, but even me prefering those two games over this, I found so much of this game to be a dull grind and a chore to play, if it weren't for me liking 3 and 4, I would've dropped this game hours ago, that and I love good feedback for weapons in games and this game does provide it. 

I'll start with the good, the weapons and feedback you get from killing enemies feels amazing, whenever you kill an enemy they have really over the top animations and blood effects you could possibly even juggle them in the air with bullets if you wanted to. The grappling hook feels very good to use and it's also refreshing even now to use a grappling hook in a game that isn't automated or contextual. I did have a lot of fun using it and the game does push you to use a lot during missions and combat. The game also checkpoints really well so even though I would occasionally frustrated by the difficulty due to reasons I will mention later, the game at least never made me repeat a lot of content.  This is where my praise ends. 

The game has so many aspects about that hinders my enjoyment of it by a large degree. The map is way too large, waaaay too large, to the point where just using your grappling hook to get to mission start points is not going to be enough, you will need to use vehicles and anything that is not a helicoptor has extremely loose handling, drive a land vehicle and whenever you break or turn the game will over do it every single time, it's impossible to be precise since whenever you try to turn or do any kind of driving where you need to avoid traffic and enemies you will crash or turn so hard that you could damage your vehicle. During the missions where you need to ride a plane and if you turn before you take off, you could possibly over do it and crash before you take off making these missions or any missions involving vehicles outside of helicoptors a pain in the ass and extremely grating. As a result, I eventually abused the fast travel system the game offered since driving and getting to missions especially without the wingsuit in JC3 and 4 was a complete and utter chore. It just feels weird when you jump out of a helicoptor in this game or whenever you start falling, it feels like you can move around but can't even the game's parachute offers movement in air that is super slow at best and isn't fast enough especially when you are chasing someone and don't have a faster way to move. Speaking of fast travel, the game also makes it super inconvienent for you by not making the missions on the fast travel menu, making it hard to tell where you want to fast travel to in order to get close to the mission and start it. The black market system is also poorly handled, in JC3 and 4, supply drops are simple and easy to use, in JC2 you need to select and pay for each individual weapon and vehicle so you will be cycling through the black market menu more than once just to refill ammo on more than one gun and to get a vehicle, I will admit, it was cool experimenting with this system during main missions, and getting sttuf like cars, rocket launchers and helicoptors during main missions, but this isn't enough to save the game. 

While I praised the combat, rocket launcher users and snipers can wipe away your health in a few hits even on easy mode which can be jarring and lead to random deaths since you didn't know where the enemies were. The health system also felt like a missed opportunity since I would've prefered for enemies to drop health during combat rather than med stations so I can continue being aggresive during combat. 

Now the missions, this is where the game really starts to grind my gears. JC2 is one of those games where if you played 4 or 5 hours of, you played the whole game, I don't mind some repetition, but this game really did test my patience. The faction missions you do are so short and revolve around the same objectives so much to the point where it felt like it was just padding to hide the fact that the game barely had any story missions, basically what this game is, maxing out the stronghold and faction meters enough to get the agency missions which are the story missions to unlock. You can destroy red marked property and take over military bases to increase these meters, but either way all the stuff you are doing is a grind to unlock the next story mission. I say it's a grind because the agency meter moves at a super slow rate no matter what you do, it's going to take many hours either way. Faction missions are the best way to go but those just revolve around the same objectives over and over, escourt this guy, blow up this thing, wait for hacking meter to finish, kill this guy, chase this thing, sure the game will throw some gimmicks but the missions are so short and are over so quickly that it feels like you accomplished nothing substantial and the whole thing is just waiting for the agency mission meter to go up. Taking over military bases is a chore and a waste of time since you need to find upgrades in order to take it over and finding these upgrades is liking looking for a needle in a haystack since the game will not always tell you where the upgrades are actually located on the base and you can spend hours trying to find them just to ignore it and move on. I thought it was just blowing up the property but no, you got to actually look for optional upgrades just to 100% a military base and make that agency meter go up. Stronghold missions are the same thing throughout the whole game, escourt a technician to hack into a console, there is nothing here to shake things up, they are the same the whole game. 

It all starts to get so old after a few hours, especially the start of faction missions where the leader shows up on a vehicle and gives Rico some orders while he just stands there and says nothing or just how little the plot progression even happens and Rico just stands around taking orders with nothing to say. I can take this for a few hours but for around 20? This can get extremely grating. 

Overall, JC2 is not a game I like all that much and I only played it through to the end due to my liking for JC3 and 4, that and I don't like leaving games I get some enjoyment of "unfinished". I am glad Avalanche found their stride with JC3 and 4, and it was probably a mistake playing this game after 3 and 4 but at the same time, I argue playing game franchises out of order isn't always bad and some early entries to a franchise still hold up despite the sequel improvements, this game is not one of them and while I appreciate for the grappling hook and having some kind of cool movement system for a "realistic" open world game at the time, I argue this game has been surpassed now and is hard to go back to. 

Killzone: Liberation Review

Killzone Liberation attempts two things, the first is that Guerilla Games can make a good game after how much of much of a mess the original game was and to prove that the PSP is capable of putting out killer apps and a killer shooter at that.

I will start with the good, the game has some of the best controls for a PSP shooter I have ever played, sure it doesn't use a traditional third person camera but at the same time, this top down perspective makes great use of the singular analog stick the PSP has. It never felt like I wished the controls were better or I needed a 2nd stick because the game's design with the controls compensates for it so well. Sure you are relying on auto aim but it most of the time it track the targets well enough. You only need to be precise on a few occasions which is targeting the spider mines, the explosive barrels and the boss fight with Cowbar. Other than those instances, the auto aim mixed with the top down perspective and singular analog stick makes for a shooter on PSP that feels like it was specifially made for the system in mind. The game checkpoints extremely well, it can be challenging at times but it never feels like my time is being wasted by repeating lots of content, I used save states sure, but I actually used save states in tandem with the checkpoints since it was hard to know when a hard shootout was coming up so I don't when to save state so the game checkpointing often came in handy. The sounds for firearms and the damage animations all feel solid giving you good feedback. Killing multiple enemies with grenades is also really satisfying like it is in Killzone 2 and 3. The enemy AI is also solid and it helps make up for the fact that the arenas are small and the enemy count isn't that big due to the small screen. Enemies will throw grenades, move around, flank you and run away so it makes firefights more dynamic despite how small scale they are. The enemy variety and designs for a hitscan shooter where you fight "human enemies" is pretty solid. There is assault rifle users, revolver users, rocket launcher launcher users, grenade throwers, flamethrower enemies and they all have disntict designs letting the player know which group of enemies you have to deal with compare that where you fight traditional human enemies where everyone looks the same. The cover system is one of the better implementations of one in a video game, since it feels like an extension of the game's mechanics which is crouching rather than sticking on to a waist high wall and playing hide and seek with enemies behind that sticky cover.

Now on to the bad, I wish the game lets you hold medkits, since I feel there is just too many supply depots scattered everywhere, I would prefer there to be less supply depots and the game giving you a two weapon limit since it makes those moments where you need to use rocket launcher and sniper rifle less of a pain in the ass since there will be moments where you need to use the rocket launcher but can't so you need to switch by going to a supply depot, that and I would prefer to have a sniper and shotgun with me at all times instead of having it be my only options since it allows more decision making during combat. Another issue I have is that enemies take too much damage, while I get why this is here to show off the enemy AI and to make up for the lack of a high enemy count, I find it questionable when enemies can take 2 or possibly 3 shotgun or sniper blasts since it makes those weapons feel underpowered, and since both are situational weapons where the game has lets you hold one gun, I don't want to use either of them as a result. If if the game found a way to lower the amount of damage enemies take by 30%, it could make the cheap moments where you are swarmed by multiple Helghast less aggrevating along with the other suggestions I made. Final issue is that explosive spider mines and mines in general can be very random when triggered, some spider mines can be hinding behind boxes even though they wouldn't logically hide behind them and the explostion radius for mines can be cheap since I swore I was far away from one just to be hit by it.

This might be an issue for some but the game barely has much of a story here at all. It works for the portable nature of the game, and I feel like there is a charm to the lack of story cutscenes especially considering so many shooters around this time had an emphasis on plot since it gets straight to the action more. If you never liked the story and writing in the Killzone games, this might be a selling point for you.

Overall, KZ Liberation is a solid portable "sequel" of sorts to the original Killzone, it helped proved that Guerilla Games can make a good game and it's one of the best shooters you can find on the PSP, if you can get past some of it's odd design quirks, there is a lot to like here.

Chapter 5: Root of Evil:

Finally got access to this chapter thanks to the Playstation Premium which now makes that version the definitive version of the game since it comes installed with the game rather than downloading seperately through the PS Store.

Overall, this chapter is great, it's everything great about the first 4 chapters but more. You got one larger wide open areas with the first level and the enemy count is larger too which is the first thing I noticed, then you got a well designed sewer level with a decent amount of backtracking and exploration where you need to find multiple switches to progress through the levels as well as fighting enemies that can call in reinforcements and jetpack enemies, ladders are also introduced too, then you have Rico backing you up and it even handles endlessly respawning enemies as well too mainly because they spawn at a slow race to the point where you will have enough time to blow up their spawn points with C4, you also get a higher enemy count the game has had towards the end where you need to hold off a destroyed road and face a tank with a flamethrower, then it ends with a very visually appealing final level where you fight through enemies and get to the final boss, it's the most straightforward of the levels but it does have a decent of amount enemies that are higher up than you and it ends with an okay final boss if kind of annoying final boss that does a decent job at tying into Killzone 2. My big issue with the Stratson boss is that it requires you to dodge super fast in order for you to avoid his flame grenades.

Still, this DLC is fantastic stuff and is worth playing if you were already a fan of the game but had a hard time obtaining it.

Also, I played KZ Liberation again due to the Premium version having you to play the game again in order to play Chapter 5 and here are some additional thoughts:

What I dig about Killzone Liberation now that I think about it over other Killzones is that it actually requires you to explore the enviroment to find switches, kill enemies to find keycards, find C4 to blow up doors, and the levels have some degree of exploration despite their small size, Chapter 5 might have some of the best level design in the game from what I played of it. You get a map but it's useless. It surprisingly has a good sewer level. Liberation might not have the over the top specticle that 2 and 3 has but I do like how it tries to be more engaging in different ways since it was on weaker hardware.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Review

Fatal Frame 4, I am going to be honest here and say that this could be a pretty good game or the very least a decent game but it is held back by two major flaws, the slow movement speed and the confused progression. I'll get to those later but I feel like I didn't buy this game and that had a weird madatory obligation to see every game I buy to the end, I would've dropped the game while ago. This game is certainly better than Maiden of Black Water but not by an overwhelming degree.

I'll start with the combat, it's...not that great, I'd say it feels clunky at best and absolutely frustrating at it's worst. When playing as the characters that use the camera obscura, it's an awkward game of following the meter on the top of the camera predicting when a ghost will come and hoping you don't get hit and lose your sense of alignment when you switch back into 3rd person, this will happen a lot since combat is slow and dodging is contextual meaning you can't consistently rely on it, I will admit that for a game that is considered "easy", I had a hard time on normal so I switch to easy so I won't get annoyed by how many times I would have to realign my shots when constantly cutting back into 3rd person then regain my sense of direction when switching into first person. But then the game actually offers a solution to the issues I have been having with the camera combat, the character of Choshiro Kirishima or should I say his flashlight camera controls, I am surprised this is considered the worst part of the game when I actually consider it to be the best, as him, I can reliably avoid damage since I have a better sense of my surrondings with the over the shoulder view and I can strafe left to right when aiming, so ghost combat actually felt somewhat enjoyable since I don't have to reposition myself nearly as often compared to the camera combat, I rarely if ever took damage as Choshiro. I'd say have the whole game be played like this and have a first person aiming option like Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 do. Either that or have the game entirely be in first person. Instead of this weird inbetween of perspectives.

Now the thing that completely ruins the game for me: the running speed or should say jogging speed, this ruins any kind of enjoyment I could get from exploration, so much of the exploring feels like a chore due to how slow you are partner that with a hint and map system that works when it feels like it and also misdirects you and the game's structure of being in one location while slowly unlocking new areas throughout the game feels like a chore. The slow movement would get anyone to drop the game, and the ghosts giving you hints could easily be replaced with the game being like Resident Evil and pointing out areas of interests on the map, because the ghosts are vague and can even mislead you at times. The game points out areas of interest sometimes but not often enough and it's only when you get keys to unlock new doors not with puzzle areas or what's the next place you should be looking at. The slow movement also makes just wandering around and exploring a bore too due to how long it takes from one side of the map to the other. This game took me 8 hours to beat but I bet it would be 6 if my character could run faster.

Overall, I see solid game in here but it has too many issues to be a game I didn't groan at every 10 seconds throughout my playthrough. Not the most tedious "survival horror game" I played but not a very good one either. Improve the map and movement and I could enjoy it much more.

Syphon Filter: Dark Mirror Review

Syphon Filter Dark Mirror is pretty good. Not a fan of the lack of right stick controls on the PS5 version but the controls that are avaliable are easy enough to get used to. I'd say it's at least better than 2. The stealth isn't that great since you are given no visiblity indicator and guards have binary AI vision where they notice you way too quickly but knife kills are satisfying and while there is a lot of cover shooting, the game does know when to mix things up like the game doesn't have nothing but generic cover shooting, you will be escourting people, using your various goggles to locate objectives, avoiding nuclear waste, having occasional turret sections, will be going up and down ziplines and the level design can be pretty vertical at times too. I can see why the game gets the acclaim that it does especially for being a portable game. Some issues I have is the amount of randomly place tripwire traps, I randomly run into them even though I swore the tripwire section was over, it means I got to wear that red vision goggles at all times, and it looks pretty ugly, uglier than the Detective Vision. Headshots are satisfying to pull off and outside of the before mentioned gripes I did wish the all purpose sniper rifle got better use. The gas and the explosive dart doesn't have a super big area of effect, and it's not as good as Splinter Cell's 40K. I will admit later on in the game, the all purpose sniper did get better use with armoured enemies and plenty of sniping sections as well as enemies that can only be damaged when you use the electrical darts on them but I kind of wished the game did more of this instead of doing it towards the end, I know the game is a hitscan shooter where you fight human enemies but at the same time, the before mentioned armoured electrical enemies did show some potential with the combat and the all purpose sniper rifle.

I do like the nods to the previous games while outside of the refrences to past games, the story is decent overall, I did wish the optional loading screen monologues made into the main plot more since it adds much needed depth to the characters, and they did try to give more personal stakes to Logan which is nice and I loved how much the final boss just shoved in refrences to past adventures especially after playing the trilogy, I was almost losing my mind with the amount refrences the former got. Jason Chance and Mara Aramov actually get name drops. So does Markinson. I always like it when long running franchises acknowledge it's long running continuity rather than soft reboot bullshit. I don't think the writing is that amazing overall, and the villain outside of being a refrence machine could've been better but this was pretty cool.

Overall, SF Dark Mirror is a solid game to play on portable as well as console, the controls aren't the greatest but compared to other games on the PSP like Star Wars Elite Squadron and Ratchet Size Matters, I'd say the game controls decently, the game is a solid short adventure and if you like cinematic action games or a fan of Syphon Filter and missed this game, it's worth a shot.

Project: Snowblind Review

This was a pretty solid FPS for the short duration that it lasts, of course it's no secret that this was supposed to be a Deus Ex game but became it's own IP later on development, and if you played Deus Ex or any games like it you see the influences from the Cyberpunk setting, the multitude of gadgets and tools to having multiple ways to complete an objective all though this game feels more like an fps that just so happens to have elements of the above mentioned ideas of Deus Ex rather than a full on DE game.

The game can feel pretty rough around the edges from it's movement to it's awkwardly implemented stealth mechanics, to having an objective marker be optional but probably better keeping it on at all times. The save stations also feels pointless and the game was at least better off having checkpoints or saving anywhere, I can do it on emulator for sure but the save stations and how out of place it was in a game like this is what I found offputting the first time I played this game. One could say the game's level design feels like a compromise of "immersive sim" and fps level design, while it is easy to fault the game for that, I can't deny that having a game like this come out in the 6th gen and on the PS2 can feel kind of charming even if it's ideas feel half realized due to the fact that since the levels are mostly linear, you are better off playing the game as a shooter. So how is it as that?

I'd say it's solid but it won't light your world on fire, but I do like the amount of combat options the game gives you, even if when it came to the augmentations I mainly used ballistic shield with occasional electric storm. What I do find impressive about the game is the amount of creative guns you get to play around with, it's not on the level of say a Resistance or Dead Space game but this is one of the more memorable and standout full on shooting game arsenals. You get access to standard fare weapons like pistols, sniper rifle, shotguns, rocket launchers but all of these have alternate fire modes and I used the alt fire particularly for the shotgun and assault rifle quite a bit, and you get ammo for each gun just enough for you to experiment with at least all of them. The creative guns include a rail cannon, a lightning gun, and a Flechette gun, my only issue with the game is that the combat encounters starts to really ramp up and get more engaging later on in the game towards the end, where you have all your abilities and weapons avaliable and these are some of the best moments in the game because the game is throwing so many of it's enemies at you and you have so many weapons and abilites to take them out with. I just wished the game was a little longer so I could to use my full powers and abilites more. That and it was weird how you killed the main villain a few levels before the last level and now you have no one to fight at the end of the game, it's pretty anti climatic stuff.

Overall, Project Snowblind is a decent attempt at a shooter of sorts in the Deus Ex universe even though it has no ties to that series, it could be better as a whole but I can't help but enjoy the amount of cool weapons and the overall charm of being a PS2 immersive sim/fps game.

Splinter Cell: Conviction Review

Splinter Cell Conviction, this was a game I hadn't played in so long and when I played it all those years ago, I remember not being a big fan of it. After playing the game all these years later, I still don't think the game is that great, at best I consider it to be mediocre with some good moment here and there when I mean good moments, I mainly just mean one level which is 3rd Echelion HQ. I'll get more into that later.

I'll start with what I dislike, the game simpily can't decide whether it wants to be a cover based shooter or a stealth game. What really hold the game back for me is the level design, and it's not even because it's linear, after all pasts SCs were linear, but what makes Conviction's levels so sub par is the fact that they feel like cover based shooter arenas where the game makes deceptively makes you feel like you could sneak your way through and it is possible to, but only after getting spotted and the enemies paying so much attention to your last known position to the point where you can slip away from them, at that point, I am not sure if I was supposed to engage in a cover based shootout or that in fact had an option to sneak past them. It's hard to tell since the level design bottlenecks you so hard that it feels like you are going to get spotted no matter what. I dislike the lack of any gadgets or anything non lethal since all the gadgets you do get are offensive items which makes me even more confused about the level design. So many of the levels consist of linear straight line hallways covered with guards, and there is so many of them to the point where it feels like you are eventually going to get caught and then play the game as a cover based shooter with inaccurate weapons. The infamous level in Iraq I found to be the most honest level in the game since by that point it isn't even hiding the fact that the game is a cover based shooter and it's fully embracing that side of the gameplay. The mark and execute another infamous aspect about the game, I find to be more of a novelty if anything, I am guessing Ubisoft wanted to make you feel like a badass action movie hero where they instantly kill an enemy super fast with quick reflexing but it feels novel considering it only works if you are in stealth and you need to quickly kill enemies since the weapons in this game are super inaccurate, and that what makes the cover based shootouts so frustrating since your weapons lack any kind of accuracy, it makes the human shield mechanic worthless a lot of the time since getting headshots is unreliable so you better hope body shots kills them fast enough. There is also an over reliance on setpieces more so than other SCs and it leads to a rather uneven campaign.

Before I talk about that, I want to say that the 3rd Echelion HQ mission is one of the better missions in the game, the level design actually encourages you to play steath, and it feels possible to sneak past them with much more open areas and less guards around every corner, the level starts with no alerts and it works well since you are given multiple ways to approach the area. There is still some scripted moments here and there, but evading guards eventually getting Sonar goggles and avoiding laser grids feels so awesome and good since evasion feels possible and it adds some situational depth. The unlimited mark and execute feels somewhat earned after all the sneaking you did, so it feels cathartic to let loose.

This leads to both the game's greatest strength and weakness: the length. Many deride Conviction for it's short length but I argue it's a strength since the game ends before the frustration truly starts sets in and the game never truly overstays it's welcome to the point where the aforementioned issues would make really dislike the game, but at the same time, it's a weakness since the level design is mostly just setpieces and confused cover based stealth rooms. Since the game has many scripted sequences, how is the story?

It's okay but it feels very derivative of action movies and it feels like Ubisoft was trying hard to make their own action movie in game form. My big issue is that Ubisoft had to play along with the events of Double Agent even though it seems like deep down they seem to regret killing off Lambert and they didn't have much of a plan. Like how Tom Reed and the 3rd Echelion mole comes out of nowhere and never gets mentioned in Double Agent from what I remember. That they "retconned" Sarah's death so they can give Sam a reason to fight again and it all feels forced or the addition of Victor Coaste. It's not a terrible story since Micheal Ironside carries much of the material to make it bearable, the story in general is like, "well let's try our best to continue off what little Double Agent gave us".

Overall while I don't outright dislike it, I can see why many would, it's easy to say it's a downgrade from Chaos Theory, but as a game itself it's not that great because of it's confused design.

Bloodrayne 2 Review

Bloodrayne 2 screws up the gamefeel hard. My big issue with the game is that so much of the combat lacks any kind of weight. When you strike someone, it feels like are hitting the air and enemies react like you are splashing water at them. You can get stunlocked by bosses too. Enemies can strike you while you are attacking them and it makes combat feel like weird slapfights with swords. I haven't played a combat system feeling this weightless since Prototype 1. That and for fuck's sake why can't you feed enemies while they are down? The first game had this. The damage reactions enemies have to gun shots feel pitiful too. The lock on sucks and cycling through enemies is a gigantic pain since you need to make a claw grip on the controller just to actively cycle through them. The enemy variety isn't even as good as the first game since all you fight are generic thugs. The writing and voice acting is solid, at the same time the awful gamefeel ruins what fun I could be having, that and the platforming controls aren't very good either, I get it's hard to be precise while the movement is automated but the Prince of Persia Sands trilogy felt like I had more control. Another issue I have with the platforming and I can see why so many modern games had to make interactable ledges have specific colors is that it was kind of hard to tell what ledges and I can interact without the aura vision turned out so much of the platforming sections was spent with me having the aura vision filter on and the white filter can be pretty distracting much like the Detective Vision in Batman Arkham Asylum since the devs put their heart and soul in making the enviroments just to have the player see it with a filter effect. I don't even mind that this game is a full on melee brawler rather than 1/3 of one like the first game but it feels like Terminal Reality was making a full on melee brawler for the first time.

The puzzles aren't really all that interesting since it just feels like the game was chasing the trend of every action game in the early 00s needing to have a ragdoll physics engine of some kind, I say this because every puzzle in the game mainly revolves around pulling things with Rayne's harpoon, and the whole thing lacks any way to be precise. You just hope that the engine will pull enemies exactly to the spot you want it to. I can also talk about other stuff like the AI being really dumb, and the camera is also really terrible in that it often zooms super close even though you don't want that, this can happen with both platforming and combat. I only got as far into the game as I did because I used an invinciblity cheat and I am glad I did since some of the bosses in the game are some next level of cheap, most of the time you aren't even fighting the boss you are often fighting minions or doing some annoying puzzle instead of fighting the boss directly, the boss fight with Ferril is super grating because you have to take down a bunch of generators while getting chased endlessly. The boss with Ephemara revolves around destroying her power sources while you are getting chased again, and the penultimate boss with Xerx's requires you to hope the autoaim with the harpoon and and your guns can be reliable enough to consistently hit him. You also get way too many abilties that I never used all that much due to the game never making clear how to use them or encouraging me to use them in anyway. The most useful power I got was Blood Hammer and that was because it was an explosive weapon that did a lot of damage.

Positives is that that the blood and gore animations are decent, and the story actually had an overarching plot now with twists and turns and with actual villains for you to hate this time around, Rayne and Severin's interactions with each other are amusing enough and Rayne is even more snarky and has even more over the top one liners than she did in the first game, it does ignore the first game's story to the point where it almost feels like a soft reboot rather than a sequel but I don't really mind since the first game's story was rather weak to begin with. The cliffhanger ending seems to be rather typical of games in the early 00s where they tease sequels that never actually came out but what can you do. I really would've liked to see where the story have went after the cliffhanger.

Overall, while Bloodrayne 2 is an improvement is the writing and story, the gameplay I find weaker, a bad camera, terrible feedback for melee combat, lack of weight to melee attacks, weak bosses, game giving you too many abilties that it never really encourages you to use and plethora of other issues ruins what could've been a solid sequel.

Yu Yu Hakusho Review

Yu Yu Hakusho is a series that holds a special place to me. It was one of the fighting shonen anime I watched back in high school when I was in my anti battle shonen anime phase when I watching stuff like Cowboy Bebop and Ghost in the Shell and thought fighting shonen was incredibly lame. I watched this series 11 years ago, and I recall really enjoying it, I remember how watching it back in high school really felt like some grand epic adventure, so now 11 years later, what do I think of it? I do think YYH is a good show overall with some great character interactions, interesting villains, and a fantastic first half but it faulters a good deal later on in the series which I will explain more later on like my past fighting shonen anime reviews I will rate each individual saga/arc, give my thoughts, and then give an individual rating while giving an overall score for the series as a whole. 

Spirit Detective Saga - 8 out of 10. This saga has one of the greatest starts to an anime I have ever seen, and how does it engage me so well? It starts off with pondering with the age old question, what happens when you die? It's a question I think of from time to time and YYH's early episodes do a good job at exploring those ideas. It really hits home when Yusuke Uremeshi, the protagonist of the show was a good for nothing deliquent that did something no one else would actually do, and actually saved someone who was never really in need despite appearing to be so. It only gets more interesting from there since Yusuke thought the entire time no one ever really cared for him but in fact, people actually did and it makes his sudden death in the first episode seem all the more tragic. These episodes also do an incredible job at establishing the characters surronding Yusuke like Keiko Yukimura and Kazuma Kuwarbara outside of the Yusuke's mom, everyone feels reasonably fleshed out especially the first two characters I mentioned.Keiko might seem like generic childhood friend character that you often see with anime starring teenagers as the protagonist, but she stands out much more than them since really goes out of her way to ressurect Yusuke like going into a burning house just to make sure Yusuke bodies doesn't get burned before he can be brought back, and just how committed she in helping him despite Yusuke coming off as a jerk to her. Kuwabara has a macho code of honor that could come off as a bit cheesy but since he is so committed to following it and never once betrays that rule, he comes off as a really endearing character. Kuwabara has so much conviction in how much he follows his code that he is likeable and a character you can't help but respect like when the school teachers threaten to expell one of Kuwabara's friends if the latter raises his hands on someone. Yusuke does eventually get ressurected from there, and the story does some enjoyable and lighthearted adventures until the characters of Hiei and Kurama get introduced and once again, these two characters are incredibly well written. They start off as villains with Kurama's sympathetic side being foreshadowed early on with him willing to turning himself over to Yusuke if the latter helps his mom and Hiei showing off how fiesty he is by challenging Yusuke to a fight after Hiei kidnapping Keiko. The fight was decent enough and the way Yusuke defeats Hiei is clever too. Hiei is a male tsundere much like Vegeta from Dragon Ball and the thing with YYH is that even if the characters can appear to be sterotypical, the way they are written with how they interact with other characters make them very likeable and engaging to watch. Hiei and Kurama no show for a while and Yusuke eventually meets up with Genkai who will play a big role later and she also has some very entertaining interactions with Yusuke and later on Kuwabara. The Rando tournament episodes are all solid enough and my only big gripe with it is that the final fight with Rando ends pretty anti climatically and it felt like Yusuke needed to win somehow despite him clearly being at a disadvantage, so Rando gets defeated with Yusuke's ears being clogged which doesn't make any sense since Rando has killed many people and they never had their ears clogged with blood when they were defeated and killed? It's decent but the ending was rather anti climatic. Next is the four Saint Beasts was a good introductory section to introduce the four lead characters of Yusuke, Kuwabara, Kurama and Hiei, the character dynamics with them are great and they make for the most entertaining character group in anime. The fights with Saint Beasts themselves are decent and the episodes do a good job at establishing the stakes with human world being infected by the Makai insects. The character interactions sells most of these episodes even if the villains can be a little too one note since they are obsticles rather than fully fleshed out characters but they do their job decently enough. The only issue with these episodes is that Yusuke's fight with Suzaku ends in a rather strange way with it making look like Yusuke will die again to defeat Suzaku but that turning out to be a red herring, this will become a bigger issue later in the series. Finally, to end off this Saga, it's the Demon Mansion raid, and it's pretty solid and does the same as the 4 Saint Beasts did and introduce a bunch of one note jobber villains for Yusuke and Kuwabara to fight, but this section also introduces the first villains outside of Hiei and Kurama to surivive more than one encounter against Yusuke. It also does a good at establishing Yukina and Hiei's relationship to her but Kuwabara's attachment and love towards her can come off as a bit too cheesey for my liking since it comes off as this weird puppy dog love of sorts. Anyway, I have talked about this Saga long enough and it's time to move on to the Dark Tournament. 

Dark Tournament Saga - 9 out of 10. Honestly, when it comes to stories like this, Dark Tournament ticks all the boxes when it comes to being engaging. It has a great main villain through Younger Toguro and the Saga does an amazing job at establishing him to be a sympathetic or "anti villain" of sorts by having him be very polite. Like when the Saga first starts, it begins with Toguro destroying a construction site with not many people looking so Toguro right away you can tell isn't a cold blooded killer who enjoys killing people. It doesn't end there either, he always apologizes to the people he didn't want to kill and he even refers to Sakyo as "Mister" even though Toguro can kill him at any time. He even kills his older brother later on when he kept interfering with his fight against Yusuke. Outside of Toguro, the Saga always manages to mix things up by putting Team Uremeshi at constant disadvantages throughout the whole Dark Tournament, which keeps the stakes high and keeps the tension strong since the Tournament committe really wants them dead, it isn't really until the fight with Team Toguro where Team Uremeshi is put in a fair fight, and each fight with the invitable fight between Yusuke and Toguro's teams are great, Kuwabara and Elder Toguro, Karasu and Kurama, Hiei and Bui all have good connections to put more investment in their respective fights. Kurama's fear of Karasu, Kuwarbara needing to pull his wight, and Bui's hatred for Toguro are stories told well in their respective fights. Koenma and Jorge's interactions works for great comic relief and they are very entertaining duo. The saga also raises the stakes towards the end with Sakyo putting a tunnel between human and demon world so it gives Yusuke even more reason to beat Toguro outside of the smaller stakes of Toguro threatning to kill Yusuke's friends and family. Genkai is also much more fleshed out here and is a great character by having a personal connection with Toguro, and it also does a good job at showing how important it is to cherish the people you love over material gain since Toguro gave up everything for it. There isn't a whole lot of criticism I can give this saga except towards the end of it. The first issue is that Genkai being masked was kind of pointless since it was pretty obvious from the start that it was her, and everyone eventually figured it out anyway, and the biggest issue I have with the saga and it becomes a big issue later on in the series is the red herring "deaths". Both Genkai and Kuwarabara was built up that they were going to die and it was retified later and they got brought back. Kuwabara I can somewhat look past but Genkai makes no sense since the series was building up towards her death and it all turned out to be a lie. That Koenma and Toguro actually had time to arrange Genkai's body from not being destroyed so she can be brought back to life, the whole thing felt like because Togashi was too scared of actually killing off any major characters, Genkai also becomes a side character later in the show anyway, this will become a bigger issue later and now lets get to the next saga. 

Chapter Black Saga - 7 out of 10. This is a strange saga because it's definately something that is carried on it's back by it's main villain Sensui. To put it simiply, when Sensui is involved or when he is on screen, the saga is an 8 out of 10, but whenever he is not involved or on screen, it is a 6 out of 10. The saga starts off pretty decently overall with Genkai showing off the to Yusuke and the gang that random teenagers have super powers but questions start getting asked immediately when Hiei gets written out of the plot because Koenma told him that there are stronger demons than him, this could make for an interesting arc where Hiei struggles if humanity is worth defending or not but he no shows for a while and then randomly shows up to help Yusuke so it felt like a missed opportunity. What I do like about this saga is how much Sensui's action puts Yusuke in situations that they don't want to be in, and are often forced in life or death fights that kind of prove Sensui's points that humanity is a barbaric race focused on self destruction. Much of these themes carries this saga for me. Some more questionable writing starts happening when Kuwabara decides to randomly ditch Yusuke and the crew to go to a Metallica concert and it feels questionable since the world is able to end and Kuwabara decides to go to a concert with his friends? And that Yusuke actually didn't keep a watch on him? It all feels like a contrived way for Kuwabara to get new powers without getting upstaged by the other characters since his Spirit Sword abilites are pretty useless by the time you reach this point in the story. I also feel like the saga doesn't involve Kurama, Hiei, Kuwabara and Genkai as much as the Dark Tournament since they all had clear roles in that saga, here most of the time it feels like they are on the sidelines. Another issue is Yusuke's battle with Sniper since his powers are pretty ambigious and lacks rules. It's established that he can use makeshift weapons and needs to aim to use his powers yet a good number of his abilties requires him not to aim like moving knives and trucks that can home in, so it makes what could be a good fight into me asking questions. I might as well, say some more positives before getting negative is that Sensui's backstory and his fights with Yusuke are great and like I said before he is an interesting villain in that he uses humanity's knack for causing destruction or the dark side of humanity in general to manipulate people to do his bidding, and as a result he makes characters like Kurama kill Gamemaster who was just a little kid, and whenever this arc heavily involves Sensui in anything, it's great and it always raises interesting philsopshical questions. Koenma is also much better here than he was before, he might've come off as snotty brat in previous sagas but here is much more fleshed out and interesting in that he has to take responsility for his mistakes regarding Sensui and putting the world in danger. I will finally get to the issue I have been alluding to the whole time, and that is the "deaths" and lack their of any. Togashi has a big issue of killing off characters who are only pure evil like Gourmet and Elder Toguro, and every time a character is not pure evil, they either get a face turn or get an off screen ressurection. I was willing to forgive this before, but with Chapter Black being the darkest saga in the series, this becomes a lot harder to ignore. It gets really silly with how much stuff like Kurama killing Gamemaster turned out to be a red herring or Hiei killing Sniper. Then there is Yusuke being a descendant of ancient group of demons which comes out of nowhere and is only there because killing off  Yusuke twice would be silly but it also gets in the way in the fact that Hiei, Kurama and Kuwabara were willing to do anything to avenge Yusuke and that plight also turned out to be a lie. I still enjoy this saga but it's mainly due to Sensui and the philsophical questions it raises, take that away and I would not enjoy this saga nearly as much. 

3 Kings Saga - 6 out of 10. This has to be by far be the most disappointing saga in the whole show and it feels Togashi just wanted the series to end at this point. I hear this saga is even more incoherent in the manga. But before I start tearing into it, I'll start with the good, it starts off pretty well with Yusuke becoming so disillusioned of living a normal life after his battle with Sensui that he is in some ways slowly becoming the battle crazed demon that he spent the whole series getting rid of when he tried to rationalize demons eating humans like how humans eat meat, I felt the arc was going to interesting places. The conviences get a little too much for my liking with Kurama, Hiei and Yusuke all being connected to a major King, but there are things I enjoy the long awaited backstory reveal for Hiei which is pretty solid and finally answers some questions regarding him, and the whole Cold War esque tension regarding the 3 Kings was interesting enough and it kept the stakes high, but the saga goes downhill when Raizen dies and then Yusuke tries to wrap things up in a fighting tournament that I am surprised anyone would agree to. What's worse is that no one in the tournament is even that interested in winning for nefarious purposes or anything that would cause tension between human and demon world, it all just feels like they are fighting for the fun of it, which is a far cry from the Dark Tournament with Sayko putting a whole between human and demon world. There is no tension from here on out and Yusuke doesn't even seem interested winning the Tournament and he loses his fight with Yomi making it even hard to care what happens later, and Yomi loses his fight later which loses any kind of investment this saga had left, and then it ends with one of Raizen's friends winning he got introduced super later into the story by the way and he says there will be no trouble in human and demon world, and I am surprised anyone would agree to these terms considering how Raizen died. The ending to the show overall feels anti climatic and feels like there was more to come but nothing came of it. 

Overall, YYH while good is carried by it's character interactions and mostly interesting villains. The show in general feels like diminishing returns the anime, and while I can say I like it, I feel like some people in the anime community can overhype it a good deal. I enjoyed my time with it but I can't help but say I wanted more in some respects. 

Ghost Recon: Future Soldier Review

Ghost Recon Future Soldier is a good game but it feels like it could be a great one. It's a thrilling and enjoyable tactical shooter held back by some larger issues.

I'll start off with the bad first. The first mission is really terrible, it sets a bad first impression, tons of scripted sequences, you can't be revived and the unreliable stealth are at the forefront here, it's the shortest mission in the game but it also feels the longest due to how awkwardly structured everything is. The level design is also at it's weakest here due to how much of a scripted corridor shooter it feels like. Once you get past this mission, the game improves greatly. Other issues include the context sensitive action not always working the way I want it to like me pressing the x button multiple times in order to get into cover and the biggest issue with the game: the stealth mechanics, this is why I couldn't get into the game the first time, it's because I tried to play it like a stealth game when in reality it's best to play it stealth for a little while then get caught and then start slowly picking off enemies from cover. The problem with this is that there are some mandatory stealth missions where you can't alert nearby guards not even once until the game decides that is no longer needed, these sections don't last long but it can be frustrating trying to sneak around and then randomly get alerted or how it's never made clear if it's better to kill people or play as a "ghost" and kill no one since you will randomly get spotted and it takes a bit of trial and error to finally be able to get past these parts. It feels like all of this could be avoided if the game added had the guards enter into a search mode every time a body is found or lets you break line of sight and then go back into stealth again, I say this because the level design and mechanics can make this feel like a solid stealth game but the lack of nuanced AI makes the act of playing stealth a chore. I also didn't like that I used the see through wall ablity too much, it has the same issue that Batman Arkham Asylum of leaving the mode on at all times since it gives you so many advantages without any disadvantages.

Now the bad out of the way, lets get to the good, this game feels like if Rainbow 6 Vegas and Splinter Cell Conviction had a baby. You got the mechanics of Conviction and the squad and thrilling cover shootouts of Rainbow 6 Vegas. The sound design for the weapons when firing and hitting enemies all feels great and makes the act of particapating in the cover shootouts thrilling and I have said before that I dislike cover mechanics but I do like how in this game, your health pool isn't that big even on easy so you have to engage in long range combat and slowly move and flank around enemies in order to be efficent at combat. It's basically a 3rd person Rainbow 6 Vegas in that regard but now you get a stealth camo and allies can revive you when down making combat more fair as a result, you can still die and I did wish the number of revives resetted after reaching a checkpoint but this is fine. The campaign is also varied and thrilling and shakes things up constantly. You got the 2nd mission in Africa where you are in croweded villages sneaking around, later the game throws in a sandstorm, you have missions where your see through vision is acting up, you get access to a mobile mech unit that can shoot missiles and mortars but only for that mission, you go on in alone without your squad, you will be killing enemies on rooftops, you will also have turret sections on occasion, while also fighting enemies who are also invisible and this is only some of the variety the campaign has on offer. The sync shot ability also isn't a gimmick and can be satisfying and useful to pull off.

Overall, while I did enjoy my time with this game a lot, I feel like some refinements could make it great. If you dislike the constant influx of military shooters in the 7th gen, I can assure this game is easily one of the better ones. If you are casual tactical shooter player like me, there lots of enjoyment to be had.

Halo 3: ODST Review

Halo ODST is a solid expansion to Halo 3, but it feels like that through and through while also removing mechanics that was present in the base game like the equipment system and changing the health back to Halo CE's system and while I while I talk about the health I might as well talk about my brief experience of the game on Heroic difficulty: I am surprised playing Halo on Heroic is supposed to be the "intended" difficulty or how you should play Halo. All that difficulty does is make me dislike the regen health more than I already do. Raising the difficulty just increases the amount of time I have to hide behind cover. I thought playing it on Heroic might be fun considering you don't have regen health but all it does is remind me how much Resistance Fall of Man's health system is far superior. What annoys me so much in ODST especially on Heroic is that you can't partially regenerate your health after being in critical condition and enemies don't drop health either so if you fight more than 3 brutes, it's basically shoot, take hit, find cover, regen health, rinse repeat However play Halo ODST on Normal, and I am running out in the open, throwing grenades, actively engaging with the melee attack and actually not hiding behind cover like a wimp. Taking on 3 Brutes or more actually feels possible and not frustrating. I remember Halo 3 having a pretty balanced Heroic mainly due to the equipment system but that gets thrown out the window once the Flood shows up. Playing ODST on Heroic you can't even take more than 3 shots until you are in critical health and you have to hide behind cover. I started to enjoy the game much more when playing it on Normal due to the above mentioned reasons.

Now I'll talk about the game overall, the game feels experimental but at the same time also removes things that made Halo 3 interesting like the equipment but ODST has it's own innovations like the "open world" which I will admit nails the atmosphere with the art direction and the fantastic music but it's ultimately a gimmick, it's basically just a fully rendered level select menu and it often just gets in the way of the actual Halo missions you will be partaking in. The Halo missions are pretty good if typical, you got your vehicle sections and traditional shootouts and I do like that in this game you got to use the Spartan Laser a lot more where in Halo 3, you used it on occasion. I do enjoy Halo's combat outside of the regen health, I like how the 2 weapon limit makes you experimental with different weapons, how melee and draining shields can help you save ammo or how draining shields and using bullets can effectively make you better at fighting the Covenant. Grenades also work for crowd control as well. I feel like only regen health prevents from enjoying the game even more considering whenever you are at critical health, waiting for it to regen while hoping the AI would ignore you is not super effective especially on higher difficulties. The Banshee mission is also really bad and goes back to Halo 2's bad habbit of waiting for npcs or the game to progress the next sequence. Data Mine and Costal Highway also kind of go on for way too long for my tastes but I played this game so much that I got used to it by now. The usual Halo issues show like how the series only has four enemy types and whenever it tries to add more, the game starts to fall apart like with the Flood, the lack of bosses can be pretty disappointing but I don't mind since Halo's combat can't really allow for it.

Story is decent if nothing special. The characters interactions are okay but feel a little too Whedonesque for my tastes but I did like the way the story was told with the narrative being scattered and you and by proxy the Rookie have to connect all the dots. I do like how there is a bit more humanity in the story with Buck being torn between the safety of his men and the mission with Dare, it's not super amazing but it's engaging enough. I am still to this day not 100% sure how the narrative to this connects to Halo 3 but I do think the story is decent for a Halo and an FPS story.

Overall, Halo ODST is an interesting expansion to Halo 3 and I did enjoy my time with it, even if this game never reaches the highs of the base but at the same time, never reaches the lows of Halo 3's Flood levels.