Watch Dogs 2 Review

Watch Dogs 2 is a game I tried to get into twice but never really could. I tried to play it two times in the past and both times I could not get into it. After playing the first Watch Dogs again for the first time in almost a decade, I decided to give 2 one final chance and while I don't think WD2 is "bad", I also never got the belief that it was better than the first game even now, while I don't think WD1 is an amazing game, it always felt like Grand Theft Auto if it had better mechanics, less scripted mission design and having a protagonist who didn't feel like a glorified errand boy. Watch Dogs 2 on the other hand tries to be a combination of Splinter Cell Blacklist, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Metal Gear Solid 5 all while just so happening to feature driving. While that might sound good on paper since I do enjoy all 3 of the above mentioned games, WD2 in terms of gameplay and mechanics is inferior to all 3. 

Despite me saying this, I'll give it credit for being an open world "crime sandbox" something the above mentioned games are not, it has far more ways of approaching and completing missions than something like the Grand Theft Auto series does and is less scripted and cinematic compared to the later Saints Row games. 

I like all this on paper, but the execution is lacking. 

Before I go more in detail on this, I will talk about the aspect of WD2 that is widely considered inferior to the first game and that is the story. I enjoyed the story to the first Watch Dogs, while it did have some issues, it was a solid and enjoyable story for the kind of game it was. WD2 on the other hand is where Ubisoft decided to listen to the people deriding the first game's story at the time where it "took itself too seriously" and had a "dull main character" and decided it into some weird and awkard dystopian satire. 

The writing is full of forced pop culture refrences, terrible attempts at trying to be "hip" with the younger people of modern times, and just has the forced modern day internet style of "humor" I have come to dislike. If Watch Dogs 1 was Breaking Bad but with a vigilante rather than a drug lord, Watch Dogs 2 wants to be the like the 90s movie "Hackers". 

That isn't a bad thing on it's own, I haven't watched Hackers in years but so much of the writing in WD2 is incredibly "tryhard". The game's opening already has a forced Mission Impossible refrence and it never lets up there. There is a conversation later in the game where Marcus and Wrench have a conversation about who'd win against Aliens and Predator and the whole thing was forced since it was just a pop culture refrence for the sake of having one. 

The character interactions just want the viewer to think these kids of today are relatable and zany when they just come off as obnoxious kids a lot of the time. The writing and tone never takes itself seriously enough even though the subject matter demands for everything to be taken seriously. 

The plot also has 3 major problems. The first being the poorly written main villain, Dusan, the second being a returning character Rayman Kenny given nothing to do and the third being how the plot turns into Grand Theft Auto 5 where around quarter into the story, the plot derails and then turns into a series of sub plots with barely much connecting everything. 

Dusan is a bad villain, he makes Damien Brenks look amazinginly written, while I don't think the latter is the worst villain ever and had potential, the former meets up with Marcus in the begginning while he was drunk and then turns out of nowhere to be the big bad of the game. 

Outside of derailing DeadSec one time, he never does a whole lot of bad things to the heroes outside of maybe antagonizing Wrench which doesn't hant him later. He mostly just acts smug and gets annoyed while never doing any major damage of his own. 

Raymond Kenny returns in WD2 and once he joins Marcus and his crew, he barely has any agency of his own or any geniune goals of his own compare that to WD1 where Aiden and Clara had to convince him to join them. Once you beat the hackers challenge, Raymond becomes a slave with not much to do on his end much like many of the side characters on Ethan Hunt's team in the Mission Impossible movies. He has some tension with Sitara but that only has two secnes and is dropped pretty fast. 

Then there is there the plot which goes into a series of loosely connected sub plots, there is one particular offender where Haratio gets killed by a Mexican gang out of nowhere with no build up and his death is just anticlimatic. You could cut Haratio out of the game and you'd get the same narrative. 

Not big on the story in WD2 at all, the voice acting and direction was the only reason I paid attention to the story at all even if the actors was given weak material. 

Now after how much I dislike the story of WD2, the gameplay is...okay. All though I do not like it as much as the first WD. 

Two issues I had right away was the lack of focus mode and the lack of car chases in the main missions. 

Focus mode's omission was strange since while I did discover after beating it that WD1's combat had a high skill ceiling even though I played it as a cover based shooter. It did give you more options in  combat and also getting headshots in slo mo never got old since WD2 gives you an option to run and gun it makes the combat feel even more one note without it. Also, since WD2 wants to be MGS5 really badly and WD1 had a system where you can use focus during stealth to prevent a possible alert if the enemy's detection bar wasn't filled up, the lack of WD2's focus or reflex mode stand in is even more jarring, I always did like Max Payne 3's last man standing mechanic on paper since it gives the player a few seconds to correct a mistake before seeing a game over screen and not seeing it improved was a shame. 

The second issue I have is the lack of car chases in the main missions considering this game has the developers of Driver San Franciso doing the driving physics, it's even more bizarre that there is rarely if ever any moment in the main story where there will be car chases, it happens maybe less than 5 times. I always liked the idea car chases in games since it's like living out those movie power fantasies of being in a cool action movie chase and while WD1 could maybe considered too easy since you can netrualize cars with a press of a button and the timing was far too generous but it did create a nice sense of spectacle. WD2 doesn't really improve on this and I also find it a shame. 

Since WD2 removes two aspects that made WD1 a solid, "do four things decently enough" kind of game. The thing with WD2 that I mentioned earlier is that it is basically a "play your way" style of action game like Deus Ex Human Revolution, Splinter Cell Blacklist and MGS5. 

Like Deus Ex Human Revolution, the game is heavily biased and wants you to play it stealth really badly since Marcus' characterization is that he's a young trickster who only uses violence when he has to and that is when he has the element of surprise. There is many ways for Marcus to deal with enemies non lethally and you could complete objectives using gadgets. 

It's like MGS5 in that many of the missions revolve around Marcus infiltrating a "camp" full of enemies, doing an objective then exfiltrating. To WD2's credit over MGS5, there is far more variety in the kind of "small base infiltrate and then exfiltrate" then there is in MGS5. 

This is also combined with Splinter Cell Blacklist's gadgets like a portable remote control helicoptor, it's cover system and it's quick tap of the action button while from behind to do a stealth takedown as well as it's detection arrows. 

This all sounds like a solid game on paper even if it could suffer from the problem MGS5 had which was being way too long and one note with the lack of situational depth but this can apply to many open world games. The game also gives you more depth on completing missions than GTA and Saints Row do. 

What is the thing that lets the game down so much for me? That is the enemy AI. Enemies notice you way too fast and the way they can spot you can be really inconsistent. They can see me above their line of sight one minute, they can see me from far away, and to top it all off, if you knock out a guard a couple of seconds after they spot you, the whole base will be on alert and everyone will know where you are. It's incredible how Splinter Cell Blacklist which came out 3 years prior managed to avoid AI like this. On top of this, Blacklist had a last known position system which also makes it easier to tell where I should relocate after being seen. 

As a result, what should've been me feeling a cool stealthy trickster who occasionally gets caught to, play stealthy for 2 minutes then get caught and then shoot everyone in sight until I kill enough people to the point where I can have the guards give up on their search for me. Most of my time WD2 experience was this. So what should've been solid stealth adventure turned into an okay at best shooter. 

Also why is there no crouch button still? I want to maintain stealth after being seen or when caught have me be harder to hit by enemies. 

After all this, what does WD2 improve over the original? The hacking puzzles are slightly better now that you have to look around the environment as well solve the puzzle even if this improvement is one note since it's the same style of puzzle for the whole game with the exception of a bomb defusal. The reputation system is gone which is good since it was a gimmick in WD1. 

One final compliant is that while Watch Dogs 1 like I said before never excelled at once aspect since it did so many gameplay ideas like driving, stealth, shooting, puzzles. WD1 has a much more memorable final mission than 2 does. In WD1, you had to deal with the enemy also having ctOS and you didn't have access to it for a while something the player was accustomed to using and you had to deal with environmental obstacles while also dealing with the cops as you had to hack 3 terminals in order to regain control. It felt like a great way of putting the game design on it's head and it felt like a nice accumulation of everything that came before. 

What does WD2 do? Just the same hacking puzzles, a one note shootout, and the same guard evasions you've doing for 95% of the game. It's as underwhelming as the rest of the game, nothing really changes or gets put on it's head, it's the same gameplay that was there since the first few hours. 

Overall, while I don't think Watch Dogs 2 is a bad game, I also don't think it's the "massive improvement" over the first game that many hype it up as. It tries to be more of an open world stealth adventure instead of "vigilante hacker" Grand Theft Auto with better mechanics. The bad AI is what holds WD2 back for me, if this aspect was improved I'd be much kinder on it. I can see why dropped the game twice in the past and while apart of me is glad I finally finished, I can't picture myself playing it again. 

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Review

This is going to be a weird one. I never played any of the previous Brothers in Arms games and the two reasons why I played this was because it was a game I had on PS3 for the longest time and I recently got into more slower paced "tactical" style of shooters.

I do think Hell's Highway is a solid game, and it does a do a solid job at standing out from other WW2 games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. However compared to more "modern day" tactical shooters like Rainbow 6 Vegas and the SOCOM games, I do feel like Hell's Highway does come up pretty short.

I'll start by talking about the story first and this is where playing Hell's Highway first might've been a mistake. The game pretty much expects you from the offset to know what happened in the first two BiA games and the recap that shows up at the start does a poor job at filling me in on what happpened previously.

The best way of describing Hell's Highway is that what if you were watching the latest season of an ongoing TV show and you didn't watch the previous seasons? That's what it basically is. There's lots of refrences to past events I had no idea what the game was even alluding to, the awkward facial animations didn't do the greatest of job of selling me on the material either. I was zoning out during many of the cutscenes because I just had no idea what the characters were even reffering to half the time and what the story was building up towards.

Maybe I should've played Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood but the fact that Hell's Highway also ended on a cliffhanger to this day that never got resolved isn't encouraging me to want to do so.

The gameplay however is solid but at the same time can be pretty one note. I do like how the game does a solid job at standing out from other cover based shooters at the time with the supression system, unlike other tactical shootes I played where it's about dealing with the enemies at long range and it's best to avoid close quarters combat, BiA is a game where the player places his squad at various points on the map and have them be a distraction while the player sneaks around or tries to distract enemies' long enough to get a headshot.

Speaking of headshots, I love the slo mo cam of the occasional headshots I get, it never happens often enough to get irritating and it happens enough times to the point where it can still be surprising.

The level design is solid and does a decent job at striking a line between Medal of Honor's level exploration and Call of Duty's overly scripted nature. There is a map and objectives but the levels are linear and the objectives you will do in a certain order but unlike say CoD, the gameplay never feels like the game is moving when you do so there is still a sense of level progression and not a linear set of explosions and cutscenes. Hell's Highway is still scripted to varying degrees but the scripted moments are primarily cutscenes. There are some scripted gameplay sections like one sniping section where you are escourting a kid to safety and the tank levels which are awful but other than that, the game is priamarily spent in slow paced tactical cover shooting.

There is also a nice standout mission where you are in an abandoned and creepy hospitle, the level loses it's impact since you were here earlier in the prologue but at the same time, the sections before the prologue parts do a good job at being creepy since ambience and lighting creates a rather unsettling atmosphere.

Here are some negatives, the first being the aforementioned tank sections which are awful and do a terrible job at making the player feel empowered. First, there are two health bars, one for the character and the armor, the former is where enemies can kill you with gunfire with ease and the second is where the tank shells and missiles will chip away at health and then slowly get you killed. A lot of these sections are trial and error at best.

An issue that I also had and this might be exclusive to the PS3 version that the framerate is awful. Borderline unplayable at times, and if the game didn't checkpoint as well as it did, these parts where the framerate was below 30 fps would've made me quit the game, but I was patient and stuck through it because of the checkpointing.

The objectives are also not as varied as something like Rainbow 6 Vegas and SOCOM games are so many of them in the former consist of "clear x area", "clear x amount of flak 88s", "kill x amount of tanks". It can get rather monotonous at times and while the slow paced and low health is tense, so much of the game consists of the player doing the same objectives, the short length of the game however prevents the game from being a super big slog.

Overall, Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway is a solid WW2 game and tactical shooter, just be sure to play the previous games and play on PC before jumping into this one. It definately has it's own unique identity and it's a shame the series is pretty much dormant now.

Hyrule Warriors Review

The Legend of the Zelda is a series I never really liked or ever got the hype for, I always try to play a Zelda game and start getting my expectations way too high that the games are going to be the epic masterpieces the gaming community hypes them up as and that never happens. I randomly bought Hyrule Warriors because I thought maybe the change to the musou style of game and it's style of gameplay and combat I prefer over the mainline Zelda series and plus it was a random game I wanted to play on the Switch and in spite of all this what did I think of the game?

I kind of enjoyed it and had more fun with it than I thought I was going to but it's nothing special which is fine, the fact that I even got to the end and even got some enjoyment out of a Zelda game and a musou game which the latter I get some casual enjoyment out of is impressive enough as is. My big gripe and prevents me from saying with a straight face that I like it without saying "but" is that I really think the game should've ended after Cia was defeated, more on that later.

For a guy who isn't very familar with musou games and his only experience with the genre thus far is One Piece Pirate Warriors 4, I had some fun with this game for primarily three reasons, the first is that the game checkpoints during the main missions and the checkpoints are frequent enough to avoid having me get frustrated and quit the game, the story while Zelda's story is nothing special, it gave better contextualization for the gameplay and didn't expect me to know beforehand what was going on like Pirate Warriors 4, and the Twilight Princess art style I really like and prefer by a large country mile over One Piece's.

Comprisons aside while the musou style of game is infamous for being button mashy and pressing x to win and while that is kind of true, I did like the Zelda shake ups to the formula did kind of help at breaking things up at least for up to when Cia is defeated. I like how certain enemies can't be killed by sword and you need to switch to bombs for eye statues, arrows for the poisonous plants, and hookshot for the dragons.

The bosses in general can't be beaten through conventional sword attacks and require item use in order for them to be beaten which somewhat helps at making combat less stale as well as the combat while simple does a good job at making the game feel like an okay power fantasy of killing horders of enemies.

What also helps with the game is that all the enemies have stamina bars of sorts where you can perform a critical attack to do massive damage to them which helps gives the combat be a little more dynamic than "press x to win".

However with all that said there are number of issues I have, one being the camera which ranges from, "serviceable" to "where the hell am I attacking?" So many times the camera gives an okay view on the action where I have a solid view of where I am in relation to the enemies then at other times in closed spaces the camera will have a hard time keeping up with the action or if I am striking at areas behind me the camera, the camera really feels like it doesn't do the best job at keeping up with the active inputs I am doing.

Another issue is that, the game's difficulty rarely if ever comes from your HP reaching zero, it comes from how inept your allies are. So many of the game overs I got was because my allies' HP was zero and I didn't come fast enough in time to refill their health when they were at critical. I don't so much feel like my weaknesses come from skill, they come from me babysitting inept friendly AI. 95% of all the fail states I got were because my allies' health was at critical and since there is no voice acting in the game and HW you got to pay attention to the map screen at all times in order to get anywhere, this got annoying. If the game didn't checkpoint as well as it did, I would've given up on HW because of this issue alone.

Final issue is that I wish the game just ended a couple levels earlier after Cia was beaten. The levels with Ganon felt dull and padded the game length since the game is pulling a Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath and you are playing as the villains undoing what the heroes did earlier in the game, this would've been fine as say maybe a DLC chapter but Cia's defeat geniunely felt like the story wrapped up but instead it still kept going plus there is not enough new thrown at you except for maybe some generic boss rushes to really justifying adding more content and the bosses that changes up the pace in an interesting way is the same bosses fought earlier in the game and how did Ganon get access to all the same items Link had? This whole section soured my opinion on the game and if they were gone I would geniunely reccomend the title.

Overall, coming from someone who never liked the Zelda series and someone who isn't passionate about musou games, I was surprised to get some enjoyment out of Hyrule Warriors, the game isn't great but my expectations were low.

Immortals of Aveum Review

The best way of describing Immortals of Aveum is that it's to New Doom what Heretic was to old Doom.

It's crazy how a traditional single player FPS game that is not an indie game but instead a AAA game can even come out in today's gaming industry. While Immortals has some issues, it's a blast to play and worth trying out to people enjoy arena horde shooting of FPS games like New Doom, Serious Sam and Painkiller.

I'll start with the story and while it isn't anything to write home about especially with the amount of third person non skippable cutscenes there are, it's decent overall. The protagonist and by extension the dialogue can be a little too joke heavy and quippy for my tastes, I don't think it gets super obnoxious especially the furthur you get into the game. The characters and their interactions did start to slowly grow on me the more the story went on. I also think the voice acting and direction as well as the solid character animations do a good job at selling me on the material. Rook and Thaddeus are my favorite and the most well acted characters in the story since they play off the other characters pretty well. The protagonist Jak and Devyn could get on the nerves of some but I found them tolerable enough mainly because while they still get quippy, they do slowly start to get more serious.

I do think the setting and the world building itself is quite interesting since I am coming to enjoy fantasy stories now. The whole concept of using magic while also damaging the world around them and I have a soft spot for stories that take place during a war and to Immortals' credit, the story and characters especially for a "first" entry in a series does have a lot more going on than say something like the first Halo and Gears of War's stories do since you learn more about the story and world in Immortals than you ever do than in above mentioned games.

Some of the twists and turns I saw coming and the writers could've done a much better job at misdirecting me but overall the story is decent especially for that in a shooter.

The gameplay however is where Immortals shines and the best way of describing it is that what if New Doom, Infamous, and Heretic all had a had a baby, you'd get Immortals of Aveum.

You have the immense enemy waves, and platforming of something like Doom Eternal, flashy and over the top action and particle effects as well as special moves you can perform like in Infamous Second Son and the fantasy setting and have real world gun analogs for magic spells like in Heretic and Infamous.

The spells you get all feel satisfying and powerful to use and they do a good job at giving a great feedback for the carnage the player will be doing in battle.

You will also be actively switching between your sniper, shotgun and smg powers actively like you are switching weapons actively in Doom Eternal but not nearly as much as the latter game since Immortals isn't as strict on which spell/weapon is weak to which enemy like Eternal is. You still need to use certain powers a lot like shield, blink and the 3 base powers and the tremors attack, all though there is a lot of useless ones like the special attacks outside of earthquake tremors to destroy shields, shield and occasionally blink will get some use but other powers like lash during combat, the slo down power, and the red laser barely get enough use, and I wonder if this would fixed on hard mode but the game has no chapter select or cutscene skip as of now so me going back is unlikely.

When it comes to moment to moment FPS combat Immortals gets it down really well and is worth playing for that alone despite some issues. I did wish there was a radial menu on consoles to switch between the 3 powers.

The game also has platforming and puzzles and to the game's credit is handled decently, never gets in the way and does a good job at breaking up the pace plus it gives abilites that are useless in combat like lash and slow down some geniune use. I also like how this is one of the few FPS games where you have a gliding power and the game makes some solid use out of it with some decent platforming challenges. They aren't remarkable since there isn't much platforming along with combat or moments where you have to handle two obsticles at once. It's generally, "here's a platforming level and then here is an action level". 

The game does reuse assets a lot, you will be going through the same levels, fighting the same enemies and bosses many times and it can add to the repetition but the combat and moment to moment gameplay was so enjoyable that I can look past this.

Another questionable issue is the RPG additions but I mostly looked past this since I always got enough loot to get high powered attacks and get different and more interesting attacks, questionable since I prefer FPS games without them but nothing intrusive.

Overall, Immortals is easily one of if not the most underrated games of the year and is highly worth checking out if you want a AAA FPS game that is not an indie game. This is quality FPS combat.

Assassin's Creed Mirage Review and Why the Series stopped appealing to me

Alright, this review is going to be a weird one because it's going to be that and by extension an opinion piece on the series of Assassin's Creed, this might come off as jumbled and messy but with the release of this game and how it was my first mainline AC game since Unity while also never touching the RPG games, I am going to both make a review of AC Mirage while also at the same time describing why AC as a franchise in premise, story and gameplay is something that may have sounded appealing on paper, but when put into practice, everything about it is just silly and hard to take seriously when I start thinking about these games for more than anything more than the "junk food" power fantasy they provide. It won't be all negative in this review and I did get some enjoyment out of the game but overall, throughout my entire playthrough of Mirage I was just saying to myself, "do I even find this series unappealing no matter what it does?" 

I'll start with the story of AC Mirage and by extension the series as a whole. Mirage's story on it's own isn't particularly good, the first few hours were decent stuff but the more it went on the more unengaged I was. Basim and Nehal started off as characters who were moderately engaging at first with decent  character interactions in spite of the not so good character designs and stifly animated cutscenes which is something even I'll admit the franchise in its previous outings did manage do a better job with. 

After the opening few hours and when Basim becomes an assassin however, the story just turns into what Middle Earth Shadow of War did and it has a bunch of episodic "standalone" stories with barely any bearing on the overarching plot at large. The game very much does take inspiration from the first Assassin's Creed in terms of narrative and structure and the latter is one of the more enjoyable stories in the series for me since even if it did start off in a questionable way and introduced a mythos I can never get invested in now but more on that later. AC1 had a sense of an overarching mystery and how each target Altair killed slowly revealed more pieces of the puzzle while Altair was questioning himself about his master's teaching and how he shouldn't view things in black and white. 

Mirage doesn't really have this, it's Basim going on a bunch of assassin missions with a loosely connected plot binding everything. All the assassination missions and investigations you go doesn't reveal on overarching mystery since most of the important things happen at the start of the story and at around the end with middle portions being fluff. The ending twist is nonsensical and even stories like Call of Duty Black Ops doing a better job with the whole, "the person helping you the whole time was never there twist" since that game had some aura of foreshadowing of leading up to it since your NPCs in Black Ops never noticed Reznov being there.

Then there is the fact that I am not even sure what the series' story is even about anymore or what genre it even is. I don't recall there being supernatural elements in the older games and could've sworn it was sci fi but no there is supernatural elements now. 

Since I am talking about AC's story I might as well talk about why the story is so unappealing to me now. I am not one of those people who think a story needs to be "deep" or have immense theme exploration to be good and I do even enjoy some of the stories in the franchise as standalone stories not part of a bigger narrative like AC1, 3 and 4. 

At the same time, everything about the whole series' story is just so nonsensical. Why would a cult war throughout history go on for so long all the way to modern day? Why would every famous historical figure and group get involved in this crazy cult war? Why are the Templars so overpowered and start off every game in control of all of the world's governments? Why do the Assassins defeat the Templars in every game just for every defeat to be a mild and inconsequential setback in the grand scheme of things? Why didn't Ezio with the amount of times he defeated the Templars and with how inept they were in his time didn't just singlehandledly end the war? Why do the assassins constantly promote freedom yet they are in nothing more than a cult group who have their own rules and "creed". 

Then there is the fact that even stories like Star Wars with the whole cult war between the Jedi and Sith have more going on. In Star Wars even with it's messy canon, the Jedi and Sith do one up each other. In Assassin's Creed? It's always, Assassins are on the losing side promoting freedom then someone(the player character) becomes apart of the order and then they slowly thin out the Templar ranks just for the defeat of the main villain in that timeline to not mean anything in the long run. 

The modern day story seems to be in limbo with no ending in sight ever since AC3 and it makes me wonder if Ubisoft has any clue on what story they want to tell here. It seems to be a period piece story with sci fi elements but Mirage introduces the supernatural while also being a prequel. I am just left confused on what the series was ever trying to do if it ever had an idea on what it was. 

Now, the gameplay, and this is going to be the part where I do in fact praise the game. AC Mirage from a stealth mechanics point of view is the most competent AC game ever made. You have got the bare minimum when it comes to stealth mechanics, something previous games in the series lacked. There is crouching, last known position, whistle guards over to you, being able to carry bodies while crouched, and unlike Unity, a detection system that is forgiving making stealth gameplay while achieving the bare minimum does a decent enough job at capturing the power fantasy of being a predator. The lack of a dedicated cover button is questionable but 90% of the time the corner cover kills work as intended which is why I didn't mind the lack of one. 

Double assassinations were quite finicky and would work and at other times they don't, the game in general has an unpolished nature to it, the double assassinations is one of them but also the parkour system while feeling "okay" just never feels as precise as I want it to. This is an issue the series always had where I want to do one thing and the parkour system had no idea the direct inputs I want to make. If you want to move diagonally, the system will just have no idea which area I want to jump in. There there is the fact that I want to move down super quickly and the game will just be confused on which direction down I want to go. AC's climbing always put looking cool and cinematic over being precise and feeling like I have direct control over my character. 

Now to give the game more praise while at the same time criticism is that I am glad the investigation system AC1 and Unity are back and I always did like the idea on paper since unlike other open world games like say Grand Theft Auto, the smaller missions and the more intel you learn about the main assassinations could benefit you in the long run, the smaller missions do help you in the assassinations, this taking place in an open world even makes it stand out from other games like the Hitman series.

The issue I have with Mirage is that while I like that the system is back making Mirage feel like the third offical AC game to me where AC1 felt like the first and Unity felt like the 2nd. So many of the missions feel similar to each other, so many of the missions revolve around searching for something while evading guards, the lack of your performance in one assassination could potentially change how the rest of the investisgations play out still isn't here. 

This is also partnered with the dumb guard AI, the lack of new enemies being introduced after the first 2 hours or any kind of situational depth where the rules of the game changes or juggling multiple factors makes the game super monotonous to play even it's bare minimum stealth mechanics. The most the game does is throw a "Marksman" enemy that doesn't let you use your eagle to tag enemies and you have to take them out in order to use it but there is always one of them, they are never used in a new light and if you choose to get the stealth recon skill later in the game, the eagle becomes trivial.  

Speaking of trivial the notriety system is that. It's back to the Ezio days of easily finding 4 posters and people will stop noticing you, I wonder why this is even the game if getting it down to 0 is that easy to pull off. 

I do like that combat in Mirage doesn't feel as easy as it did in past ACs making me want to use the bare minimum stealth mechanics and this time it doesn't involve the game instantly failing me upon being seen in order to reinforce them which is good.

However, due to the above mentioned issues, on top of AC being games were enemies use swords and slow firing guns unlike say Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Batman Arkham, and Hitman as well the Basim being able to climb surfaces with ease and the dumb AI. This means that many of the stealth encounters in Mirage is a game of, "be unseen until you get alerted, break line of sight and and evade enemies until they stop looking for you then go back to stealth". What do you get if you got a stealth game where you are the Flash and all the guards are Solomon Grundy and that is what AC Mirage is. 

So much of the stealth gameplay is basically this, which gives the game a rather one note feel in terms of gameplay. While this might be the most mechancially sound AC game in terms of stealth mechanics, the overall structure and design while "functional" still isn't remarkable much like the rest of the series. 

This is also by extension why the series slowly lost it's appeal for me. The whole promise, of a "social stealth game" that Ubisoft promised back in 2007 may have sounded interesting on paper but in practice the whole thing is a mess. It's why so many AC sequels avoid being stealth games or lean into this premise since so much of it flawed by design. 

How does a stealth game that is focused on hiding in crowds even make me want to do that when I can climb anything with ease with one button does everything parkour? How is a player character who can climb up anything and is super fast and nimble ever have geniune depth with guards that don't even have access to traditional firearms even in games like Metal Gear Solid and Batman Arkham, getting away from guards requires more effort by comparison since everyone can quickly damage Snake and Batman due to them having guns and they both can't climb everything. Splinter Cell Blacklist's parkour was far more balaced since Sam Fisher can't climb everything in the level meaning escape from guards was harder to do. It's why the series after AC1 had easy combat, linear missions and reliance on setpieces. Making a pure stealth game out of this was already going to be quite the climb and Ubisoft knew it. 

This is why so much of AC never dealt with this premise because so much of it starts to make less sense the more I think about it, much like AC itself. 

Overall, while I think Mirage is the best game in the series due to it being the first time where an AC game with the bare minimum in terms of stealth mechanics and a forgiving detection system got made. While also having the return of AC1 and Unity's investigation system. The game with it's lack of throwing much of anything new at you after the opening hours with the same guards, same missions and abusing the same tactics for so much of the game is a rather a montonous experience. As well not having the most polish in the world. I am surprised I got some enjoyment from the game at all for being an AC game but playing it reminds me why the series will ultimately never appeal to me.

Cyberpunk 2077: Phantom Liberty Review

I played the base game almost a year ago and while I recall being a little harsh on it, I do have to give it a massive amount of credit for being a WRPG that is mechanically competent and enjoyable. I jumped into this expansion a year ago without playing the base game again since the base game is too long for me to replay. However with that said, the Phantom Liberty expansion especially knowing how the base 2077 game ends already has a lot going against it story wise. Since it's a prequel or "interquel" of sorts to the base game and before V starts her battle against Arasaka, the game already has anime filler arc vibe written all over it.

It starts off with V asking Songbird for help to cure her illness but if you know how 2077 ends, you know the ending to the expansion and the consequences of it are going to be meaningless in the long run since CDPR can't contradict what happens before V attacks Arasaka.

However with that said, the writing and characters, at least if I view the expansion as it's own thing is pretty solid and well done much like the base game. Reed, Songbird, and Myers are solid and engaging characters with a lot of interesting backstory that is pretty intriguing to want to see unfold. Kurt Hansen is a moderately entertaining villain even if he doesn't show up that much. The voice acting and writing much like the base game does a good job at making the material engaging to watch unfold. Its basically an interesting espionage heist story even if the story in the long run doesn't really matter since it takes before the final mission of the base game.

The gameplay or more so should I say the pacing of the game however is a mixed bag. The game still has the decent combat mechanics and the rudimentary if serviceable stealth mechanics like before. This is not really so much a Deus Ex stand in but more so a combination of games like Call of Duty, Half Life 2, Telltale games with some rather basic stealth systems thrown in, at least when playing the main missions, it still has the GTA and Saints Row style open world, and the Borderlands style looter shooter elements. But the open world and looter shooter elements are toned down here.

The former is toned down since Dogtown is much smaller than Night City and you can sprint to the mission start points if you want to, and the looter shooter stuff is me having weapons like Johnny Silverhand's gun, and all my late game gear from the base game, plus new weapons like a powerful silenced pistol and sniper rifle.

Now all the tedious aspects of the base game are gone but where does the pacing let it down? This is definately not a WRPG or a "stealth or combat" game where you have tones of control how situations play out. Much of the game is biased towards shooting and stealth becomes pointless now since there are so many shootouts and scripted cover blows.

Where the pacing is really let down is just how much time during the main missions are spent just following people around and listening to them talk. It does benefit the story in some ways but the cutscene to actual gameplay ratio is uneven as all hell here.

When you do the Casino mission, you have one section where you interact with 3 guards and a sniping mission and the rest of the 1 hour long mission is spent talking. Much of the game is paced like this and it can get really uneven.

Another example is how there is lengthy period of talking inbetween the Casino mission and a few minutes into Firestarter.

Also the Kurt Hansen boss is also really bad due to it's reliance on scripted animations every time he hits you thus making it a game of ring around rosey then shoot him when he talks or starts taunting to you.

If you like this style of game this won't bother you but I want to have a good amount of actual gameplay inbetween the long dialogue bits. The story is engaging but then I wonder if it could just be a movie or show instead.

The final mission on Reed's route is one of most out of place sequences from a mechanical perspective since the game copies Outlast and Alien Isolation's style of stealth...in a game with traditional stealth mechanics. It felt so out of place with everything else and this is preceded by having a shooting section that was just a few minute boss fight.

The 2.0 update adds car combat but still none of it during the main missions or you interacting with the police so it felt like CDPR was just wasting their time adding this stuff. Why add something if not everyone or a good number of people won't engage with?

Overall, PL is a decent expansion I bought at full price, I was complaining for much of my review but I finished the game at all and if I do that then it means I got some enjoyment out of the game.

Forgive Me Father Review

Retro style boomer shooters seem to be coming out all the time now almost every few months. I remember back when Dusk, Amidevil, Project Warlock, and Ion Fury came out, these kinds of games weren't as plentiful as they are now. After the release of those 4, you got Prodeus, Warhammer 40K Boltgun and for this review Forgive Me Father.

Going to be honest and say I really had a great time with this game even if my opinions could be skewered a bit with me playing on easy since the difficulty options said it was for first timers and playing with console aim assist due to the lack of gyro aiming and with the amount of games not including them, I am starting to think it's a concept that will never really stick, and it's quite a shame. That and well I also played on easy since the game uses save stations as checkpoints rather than quick saving or just a traditional plentiful checkpoint system. That and including the insta kill platforming when you fail which is really inconsistent. I also heard the game gets really inconsistent at around Episode 4 and 5, the final reason put me off playing this game for the longest while.

With all that said, I had a blast playing FMF, and I will admit that I am biased towards this kind of game. I played as the Priest for my playthrough which I heard was better than the Journalist, that also might've helped my positive opinion on the game. The Priest did have some noteable abilites like recovering health and being immortal for a few seconds to enemies attacks and I abused the latter ability a lot during the later waves.

The game while being nothing revolutionary nails everything I want out of this kind of game, it's really well polished and made. The weapon sounds and damage animations makes Project Warlock jealous and the comic book art style really gives the game a unique look different from other "boomer" shooters.

The level design is also really good and while it is your typical keycard hunts of old, the game executes the familar adequtely enough. I rarely if ever had to look up a guide on where to go next which is something this style of game was never really consistent at. I can go maybe 3-5 levels without getting stumped in other games in the genre but then it would just be confusing and I would look up a guide, but FMF is generally pretty consistent regarding this even the infamous platforming and abstract levels in Episode 5 was mostly consistent. There are some longer levels but they are pretty enjoyable and can be pretty tense due to the fact you can't quick save or save anywhere so this is the part where some might like the save system in this game.

For example there are levels where there are invisible platforms in Episode 5 but as long as stay within the line of sight of when the blue lights are at their brightest, you will almost always never fall to your death. The only oddly inconsistent part is when during the penultimate level in E5, you are allowed to fail platforming sections and respawn with some lost health, I wonder why the whole game didn't do this rather than doing it on occasion, felt oddly inconsistent even if I did welcome it considering there was some pretty challenging platforming in that said level.

Another compliant is that even though I heard the devs fixed the lack of ammo in E4 and 5, I got to admit, during the Crystal Cave level in E4, I was really low on ammo and that level in general felt like a massive difficulty spike even on easy had to lower the difficulty furthur since the lack of ammo was bugging me, I eventually got past it and was able to beat the game without getting nearly as frustrated as the Crystal Cave level.

Boss aren't the greatest and they are pretty inconsistent in terms of difficulty with Episode 3's boss I recall being the hardest. I am just glad they weren't overly frustrating even if they aren't the greatest in the world.

The RPG skill tree which didn't really need to be there. It felt pretty half baked and it probably would've better if you just unlocked weapon upgrades through campaign progression instead, it's nothing too bad but it can feel out of place in a game like this since I don't really play this kind of game for RPG skill trees and levelling up. 

Projectiles can be a little too fast for my tastes, so fast that enemies can a good number of some cheap hits in. It's nothing too bad since I played on lower difficulties and I can tank them.  

Finally, the console port ain't that great, it needs some ironing out. There are some framerate drops, I got one crash for being idle for too long, menus aren't the most responsive in the world and load times can go on a bit longer than I would like. If you play this on console wait for a little for some patches.

Overall, FMF is a typical game in the genre, but it executes the familar with a high amount of polish and is a blast to play if you are still into this style of game even with it's odd quirks.

Short Game Reviews and Thoughts: October 2023

The Smurfs: Mission Vileaf:

I never grew up or watched the Smurfs and after playing this game, I can't say I want to check out the series itself since I didn't find the writing very good but at the same time, while this is a very play if safe and typical 3D platformer, it's a solid and enjoyable time especially for a licensed game with very little hype and released to little to no fan fare.

The game is very much a 3D platformer in the style of something like Mario Sunshine and Daxter. You have a contraption that lets you do many of the game's actions like gliding, dashing, attacking, and ground pounding and while Smurfs doesn't do anything differently from those games, it executes these ideas rather competently since for the most part, the controls are precise and the levels are fast paced enough to the point where it feels like you are flying through them but instead of that it's dashes, glides and jumps.

The opening levels of the game were rather dull, since you do small incremental platforming challenges constantly interrupted by cutscenes and it was testing my patience but once you get to chapter 2 where you unlock a robust glide ability the game started to pick up from there. From there there the game throws in platforming both 2D and 3D, get new powers like glide, dash, and launching projectiles, and combat. It mixes these ideas up at regular intervals to point where the game while simple and easy isn't braindead and stupidly so.

The 3D sections are more like the aforementioned Mario Sunshine and Daxter so if you played those games you might be familar here. The 2D levels especially in chapter 3 can be a bit challenging since they require you to be much more precise but they are manageable thanks to the frequent checkpointing and the game's checkpoints are very generous, the final chapter is quite the standout in where it's like the Scarecrow sections in Batman Arkham Asylum but in 2D with you stealthing around and avoiding Gargamel's light.

Some other negatives is that outside of the dull opening levels, the platforming at times can be a bit buggy, this wasn't too problematic but I did encounter some of it times, some platforms that you can or cannot touch especially during the 2D sections in chapter 3 can be rather vague.

The combat while serviceable also isn't that great, the game does do an okay job at using the platforming moveset to fight enemies like dashing to knock down enemies from their high place, and the ground pound to hurt them, the big issue I have is that the Smurfizer's attacks use character relative aiming like Jak 2, 3 and Ratchet and Clank 2002, you can't strafe and everything is positioned where your character is facing rather having a dedicated button where your character can move left to right when held, this means no reliable dodge button to avoid enemies also letting enemies have free hits on you and the camera also not being very good means it's even easier to get attacked from behind. If the game never had healing items nearby during every combat encounter, these sections could've been a lot more frustrating due to the above mentioned issues.

What's interesting is that this becomes a non issue during the final 2D section because it uses a twin stick shooter layout which makes aiming the Smurfizer's attacks much easier. A fix for this is either have a control mode where it's like a twin stick shooter, or add strafing. You could also add a dedicated melee attack button or just have using the Smurfizer work like in Daxter where the latter can move left to right but slowed down while the attack button for the Smurfizer is used

Overall, while Smurfs Mission Vileaf isn't a super amazing game and won't light your world on fire, but if you want a random 3D platformer to play, want something for a kid to play or just want a quick game to play especially on a weekend, you can't go wrong with this. 

The Callisto Protocol: Final Transmission:

I didn't dislike the main game of Callisto Protocol when I first played it months ago and this DLC rolled around, I didn't expect much. DLC and expansions in general tend to be a really mixed bag so I went into this with minimal expectations and from a gameplay point of view, it was fine, it's basically a 2 hour chapter of the base game charged for $20 and it's pretty decent stuff even if the ending is pretty awful and puts a bad taste in my mouth and it also felt like the development team was damage controlling the fact that CP wasn't the epic franchise they envinsioned before the game came out.

And that's basically what sums up Final Transmission is in general, more Callisto Protocol and it's played pretty safe outside of the Kinetic Hammer you get towards the end it's the same old CP gameplay you already know, super polished and satisfying damage animations, good weapon sounds, questionable dodging mechanics, generally linear rollar coaster ride gameplay with some occasional branching paths for upgrades, stealth sections are not as common but overall it's the same game so if you never liked the base game, this will not change your mind at all so be warned.

I do like the base game more so the idea of it, if the dodging mechanics are questionable, I can picture a great game in the making. CP on paper is basically a ballet of melee combat and shooting. Do you beat the crap out of enemies while chaining gun combos, or do you use your guns to dismember them and then go in for the stomp? You can also use the Kinesis ability all though at times I forget I have it except for a few instances. The amazing weapon sounds and damage animations does carry much of this game. I will admit, if the dodging wasn't contextual, I would engage in melee combat a lot more but at least on easy, I had enough firearm ammo to dismember enemies with occasional melee attacks since I didn't want to actively use the dodge mechanic, everything would've been if they could've just impletented an actual dodge button but this is an issue the base game had.

The Kinetic Hammer part was a good moment of empowerment even if the game came tried too hard compensate for that by having so many enemies on screen for the animation and camera system to even handle. I was trying to attack so many enemies and getting attacked from behind by so many times, that I wonder how much more frustrating this might've been on higher difficulties.

The ending is pretty awful and it even ruins the ending the base game had, but it seems pretty obvious that the dev team were trying to do some kind of damage control.

Overall, this an okay DLC even if you could argue paying full asking price for $20 for 2 hours of gameplay is questionable in it's own right. I enjoyed my time with it, that's the best I can hope when DLC and expansions tend to be such a mixed bag overall.

Alone in the Dark: The New Nightmare:

Survival horror is not really my favorite genre in the world. I get enjoyment from Resident Evil, Parasite Eve(arguably), Silent Hill 1-3, and Signalis, but many of the genres mediocre games or "hidden gems" just don't really appeal to me.

Alone in the Dark the New Nightmare is one of the latter games. It's rather fascinating how the first game predates Resident Evil 1996 but then this game comes out and takes heavy inspiration from the latter game.

That's basically what sums up a New Nightmare, everything is RE but worse, you got the mansion, the mystery, the monsters, the guns, the backtracking, and so on but everything is worse.

The level design may resemble RE 1996 but is worse in many ways, in RE, the mansion was intricately designed where the whole thing feels like one giant and elaborate puzzle room. In Alone in the Dark, everything is way more obtuse and harder to figure out, RE 1996 struck a fine balance between being cryptic but not too vague to the point of confusion. A New Nightmare can have you backtrack for hours and still not have much clue and where to go.

It's hard to tell which keys do what compared to RE where it makes sure you know which key does what and while it didn't have the best map, it was easy to make a mental list of all the doors and places you need to go to because every time you interacted with a locked door in RE, it told you what key you needed. A New Nightmare pales, key names are too vague and I am not even sure which one does what. You aren't even told which key you will need to open the locked door like you do with RE.

For example, there was a key I had to get in order to continue past the attic to open up a new part of the mansion, I apparently had to backtrack several rooms downstairs to unlock it, I looked up two different walkthrough that says the key downstairs is the one that opens the attic door to continue, I use it and the door is still locked, by that point I just gave up.

When you also shove in that the combat with the weapons you get don't have the satisfying punch that RE weapons do and it was even less reason to get me to continue playing. The weapons did not have the feedback that RE weapons have and the death animations don't feel nearly as good. Add that there is more combat with enemies constantly respawning and I had less reason to continue the game.

The voice acting in A New Nightmare is better I suppose even if it's not as memorable as RE 1996 since the latter enters into the realm of so bad it's hilariously good.

Overall, it's rather funny how the originator ended up turning into the pale imitation. 

Quake 2: The Reckoning:

I recall hearing some good things about this expansion and while I didn't outright dislike it, I don't like it nearly as much as the base game of Quake 2. The Reckoning suffers from the same issues that expansions back in the late 90s and early 00s suffer from, it's harder for the sake of being harder.

The weapons and level design is still solid but a lot of the newer weapons outside of the ironripper barely got much use from of me, and while the base Quake 2 campaign at times can suffer from some unpredictable enemy staggering and attacks but since the core design philsophy of the Reckoning is "more enemies" and "more tight spaces" a lot of my time playing the expansion was trial and error of me dying over and over again getting ambused by random enemies, then dying and then reloading a past save.

If Q2 didn't come with the ability to save anywhere, I probably wouldn't have been able to beat this since I was save scumming like crazy at almost every time I saw multiple enemies or in the middle of fighting challenging ones. This was also on Normal difficulty too.

The level design also isn't as good either, not bad but it doesn't guide me through the level through landmarks and me being able to navigate with ease without the waypoint system the remaster comes with like the base game. I was using the waypoint system more than I would like to. This could be because this expansion is a new experience for me but the levels didn't feel an interconnected as the original Quake 2 did.

The new enemies like the swamp monsters didn't add much either since they would just run towards you and rush you and not much else.

I will admit, I did like the part where you enter the Strogg ship and blew up the moon base but the aforementioned held back any potential fun I could've had.

Overall, not the worst expansion I ever played but this also reinforces my belief that expansions and DLC is such a mixed bag.

Resident Evil 4(2023) - Separate Ways Review

I have seen a number of people clowning on this expansion for the fact that you have to pay $10($13 in my case) for it but the thing is, the original version of the Separate Ways expansion was nothing more than a blatant cash grab to entice Gamecube owners to get the PS2 version of RE4 2005, but that's the thing, the original version of Separate Ways was basically that. It was dull and hastly put together with not a whole lot going on. I can barely even recall it.

Now this new version of the expansion is not only much longer but it also works as a good extension of the base game. Were you one of those RE4 2005 players who missed the U3 boss, ski lift and the laser room sequences? Well this expansion has it. There is even sections exclusive to this version like U3 being a hallucinated stalker monster, Ada getting chased by another monster in a laboratory, her having an automated grapple gun where you can get close in and attack far away enemies and reach high up places.

The grapple gun helps Ada be different Leon in some ways. The expansion might be a repurposed asset use of the base game but it does a good job at remixing those sections. That terrible trebucent section with Leon can be bypassed mostly with the rundimentary stealth mechanics, giving stealth a geniune use if it is only for one section. There is even moments where the game does a better job at intersecting with the main story like going to the Chruch and hearing Ashley trying to get out, how you get to build the materials for when Luis makes the antidote for Las Plagas which brings back the maze sequence in an interesting way, and you even get to slowly play your part in helping helping Leon defeat Saddler in a tense and rather challenging timed sequence.

There are also things the expansion does better than the base game like the pointless open world mostly being gone and now you can buy the stock for weapons like the TMP rather than do those pointless fetch quests, now all those points do is just unlock jewels and extras rather than weapon specific upgrades.

Everything the base game excelled at like situational depth and a variety of scenarios where you have to kill waves of enemies in is all here like killing two Chainsaw enemies before escaping the factory, dealing with a fire archer while infected knight armors are attacking you, dodging laser turrets while enemies are attacking and more. You also fight Regenarators later in SW.

While it has all the base game's strengths, it also has it's weaknesses.

First of all the voice actor for Ada I didn't mind in the base game was rather dull here. Every line said by her had the same dull and flat expression, with this sort of thing I am not sure if the actor, the voice director or external factors were at play unless if I know the behind the scenes shennigans.

The story also isn't that great but no suprise since it's RE but now I am questioning why didn't Wesker just invade the Island and solo Los Illuminados himself instead of relying on Ada so much. Does Wesker even have superpowers? The expansion and the "rebooted" RE canon has yet to make it clear or how Wesker just keeps announcing his doomsday plan like some kind of showboat. Not only that how does RE4 which was already a side story to the overall RE canon still connect to the rebooted timeline? If Wesker can handle himself on the Island he doesn't even need someone like Ada's help. 

Some gameplay issues is that the sniper especially in closed space when dealing with the Regenarators can be a pain in the ass. This might be a non issue on PC but analog stick aiming for the sniper with enemies that close the gap very quickly like the Reginators and when they can do a lot of damage to you can make them a geniune pain to fight when losing so much sniper ammo and not hitting their weak spots due to unreliable stick aiming. 

The ammo system I am not big on especially during the El Gigante fight where it had good verticality but was ruined by the lack of ammo and nothing for me to craft. It did become less of an issue the more the game went on after upgrading my weapons but the inital lack of ammo during the early game was pretty annoying. I would also just prefer the game to spawn more ammo rather than craft them. I don't dislike it but crafting is more fitting in a surivival horror RE since you can pick what ammo out of your limited pool to create.

Issues exclusive to the expansion is that the laser room sequence was also pretty bad and out of place, it's the only geniune QTE in the game and considering how encounters like the Krauser knife fight was reimagined as a proper gameplay sequence in the base game, things like this stand out all the more. The original monster was completely pointless and could've been cut out entirely and you would've gotten the same game. Also, the final timed part at the end of the expansion I can picture being frustrating if I died to it multiple times, I knew where I was going during it, but other players might not be so lucky. 

Overall, this was a great expansion to a remake I had no high expectations for. Who cares if it costs $10 and isn't free? This is some of the best DLC you can find right now.