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.
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