Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty Review

Metal Gear Solid 2 is a strange game in many ways. Back when it first game out it was very divisive and often got derided for it's "bait and switch" with having the player control Raiden instead of Snake for 90% of it as well as the plot being very incomprehensible at the time but has gotten many in recent times be more appreciative of it since it made many interesting points and basically predicted the world as it is today. 

As for me, I always found MGS1 to be the more consistent narrative and MGS2 while having interesting themes and concepts scarifices so much for them. Back when I finished MGS2, I found the gameplay of it to be better than it's predessesor but now I think MGS1 is the more consistent game in terms of gameplay too and I never found MGS1 to be a great game in terms of gameplay, more on that later.

The story in MGS2 starts off well enough, the opening cutscene where Snake jumps on to the Tanker invokes a lot of Predator vibes with stealth camo, the music makes for a calming stealthy atmosphere as well as the cutscene cinematrograhy is an improvement over MGS1 and the latter game already set a high bar in terms of production values in games. Everything is all fine and good, there is an aura of mystery of what Snake and Otacon(Snake and Otacon's save game coversations are also really entertaining) have gotten themselves into, why are Russians mercs on the tanker? What exactly is so special about it? What exactly is it hiding? All of this is mystery is built up well and far as openers are concerned, I do like how it got me engaged quickly enough even if the cutscenes can be lengthy but that improved production values really does help elevate it. This over reliance of well made cutscenes starts working to the game's detriment, more on that later. 

Everything is all fine and good and then a twist later in the mission where it is revealed that Ocelot is not working for the Russians but instead he is working for the Patriots but is he really? This now leads me to the first thing that divided people back in 2001 regarding the MGS story and that is Ocelot being possesed by Liquid Snake's arm. First of all, how did Ocelot even somehow get Liquid's arm especially when the latter's body was closely guarded and Snake and Otacon had to through hurdles to procure it but Ocelot was able to find Liquid's arm and is also able to able to attach it on to him? Then there is the fact that Ocelot seems to be working for the Patriots yet they are okay with a Ocelot attaching a mind controlling arm on to himself? A mind controlling arm that is also the persona of one of their worst enemies. Also, who's side is Ocelot even on anymore? The series makes it more convoluted the more it goes on but in the context of this game, it all started here. 

I get that apparently Kojima was "forced" to make MGS2 and wanted to leave the series after Solid but at the same time, this was a rather silly way to bring back a previously deceased villain even if he never planned on a follow up to Solid. 

This leads to the next divisive aspect of MGS2, the game somehow took a wacky and over the top premise like the first MGS and made it even dumber and wackier. It depends on the execution but I got to admit, that MGS2 got so stupid that even I questioned the plausiblity of it. MGS1 was wacky and stupid for sure but that game was dumb in a more endearing way. At least in the universe of that game, a physic character like Pyscho Mantis, a character you'd find in a superhero story is somehow in a more "grounded" spy thriller setting but at the very least a government or military would want to use a character like Psycho Mantis for something. Same goes for characters like Revolver Ocelot, Sniper Wolf and Vulcan Raven, silly and weird but they were on the verge of being plausible enough. 

Enter MGS2, you got the aforementioned arm possession, a fat guy on rollerskates who can somehow quickly plant bombs, a supposed vampire with a healing factor who can run on water while also making ridiculous dance poses while killing people with knives, a woman who has a device that can defend against bullets and heavy armaments, a harrier battle on an enviromental clean facility, and the former president of the Unitied States being a clone of the previous game's protagonist that also has Doctor Octopus arms that can shoot missiles, and uses swords. MGS2 is even dumber the it's predessesor which is fine but at the same time, it amping up the stupidity can also make it's more serious moment give a severe case of tonal whiplash that MGS1 managed to avoid in some ways. 

This leads me to my next point, Dead Cell is a downgrade and aren't as engaging as Foxhound were. Dead Cell has less memebers than Foxhound did and this might sound great on paper since less characters mean more development but much of Dead Cell no shows for so much of MGS2's "run time" and most of the many lengthy cutscenes are dedicated to the themes. As a result, there is rarely if ever any interactions between Fortune, Vamp and Fatman. There is only one villain interaction in the whole game and that is between Fortune and Vamp and that one has me asking questions more so than I find to be compelling like why does Fortune not know Vamp has a healing factor even though they have been on missions together. Fortune herself mainly has screen time early in the game and most of her interactions consist of her angsting about why does people involved with her die and why can't she get a soldier's death" with not much else. Vamp is basically more of an obstacle in Raiden's way than having any geniune character himself and most of his backstory being relegated to optional codec calls. Fatman might be the best of the bunch since his rivalry with Peter Stillman and the former's dislike for him gives Fatman more agency in the story. Since Peter is a character Raiden and Snake interact with the game is allowed to flesh out Fatman that doesn't involve optional codec calls. It also allows the game to flesh out it's themes of passing on one's legacy that involves using its characters rather than long exposition dumps. 

Another issue is that while I don't dislike Raiden in MGS2 as much as players back in the day, I also don't think his character never rises above being just "okay". The big issue is with him is that it barely feels like he has any agency in the story outside of being the protagonist. Many of his conversations consist of people chewing him out, gets bossed around, him asking questions, or people chastising him for being in the dark constantly. It never feels like Raiden is every control of anything. He does start to get more interesting when his backstory of being a former child soldier gets brought up but it is revealed far too late and Raiden never spends enough of the game comtemplating about this for this to be anything more than shock value. I argue Raiden's backstory should've been revealed halfway through the game rather than towards the end, much like Solid Snake's was in MGS1, having a scene where he talks to Rose about Solidus being his adopted father and being a former child soldier halfway through would give the twist more time to breath and easier to process. Lines like when Raiden says, "I knew when I saw him I know I would have to face him" would have much more meaning. Raiden doesn't get much in the way of any control until the very end of the game and by that point the credits already started rolling. 

I have been bashing MGS2's story for a while now so I am going to start praising it. When it comes to continuing Solid Snake's story, the game surprisingly doesn't feel forced since Solid's character in the first game was that he was a solider who only knew how to fight but only did it for bloodlust, if you were to continue his story, having him be a pseudo mentor who found his purpose in life would be a good way to follow up on that. His character interactions with Otacon are also endearing since Otacon in many ways gives Snake the motivation to keep going as well as vice versa. 

Peter Stillman and President Johnson despite not being major players in the story are memorable characters. Peter Stillman is decently fleshed out and Greg Eagles' voice acting does a good job at making him sound like someone who has committed many sins and deeply regrets it. He also serves his purpose well at being worfed and at establishing how ruthless Fatman has become, and he helps flesh out the themes of the story and Fatman himself. 

President Johnson also helps fleshes out the themes of the game of not wanting to be a figurehead and wanting absolute power. He has only one lengthy cutscene but that cutscene does a good job at establishing how great the Patriots' rule is, how they need to function in order to for society to run, and it also establishes how ambitious and far gone Solidus is when it comes to achieving his plan. I like it when one scene established multiple ideas at once and the President Johnson cutscene does just that. 

Since I mentioned Solidus, he is also a pretty good villain. He has as an interesting motivation and he follows goals with strong convictions too. John Cygan's voice acting gives him a great larger than life feel to his character, that he is a guy that I could maybe picture myself following, of course I wouldn't but his acting made me believe that and I got to give him and the voice director credit for that. He does sort of make for an interesting enough foil to Raiden even if the latter's lack of character and agency could've made it to easier to be invested in their dynamic. 

Of course, this wouldn't be me talking about MGS2 without mentioning it's themes, and they are interesting. The post modernist stuff doesn't interest me. I do however like the stuff involving the digital age and it's wacky predictions of the future that ended up being true today. One particular idea I liked is how the game delibrately tried to recreate the events MGS1 as a part of the antagonist's plans. I have never seen a sequel to this day even try to do this and MGS2 stands out a lot for it. It's also very well foreshadowed too with how you got the hero being inserted by sea, waiting for an elevator to get down, a cyborg ninja, Raiden and Solidus' dynamic being like Snake and his relatives, people dying of a mysterious virus, Otacon losing a loved one, a harrier fight rather than a fight with the hind d all of this feels so meticulous and delibrate that I can't help but want to commend the game for that. It is a theme that does land and it built in within the game itself and doesn't involve a 20-30 minute exposition dump to establish it. 

However a major negative that does fall into I said is that while the AI conversation that Raiden has at the end of the game while very memorable and is very thought provoking and predicting much of the future there is one big flaw with it, why didn't Solidus kill Raiden while the latter was talking to the Patriot AI? Solidus had a lot of agency as more than Raiden did, and its hard to believe Solidus would get stand there and let the AI talk Raiden into fighting him instead of just killing Raiden and pretty much getting what he wants. At least with Liquid in MGS1, it was built into his character that he wanted to humliate Solid Snake on a bigger scale and wanted to tell him about the Genome Soliders. 

Enough of the story, while I can say I generally enjoyed it in the moment especially towards the end, it does a have a number of issues, and while it has a lot to say and is interesting, it just isn't as consistent of a story as MGS1 was.  

The first difference between MGS1 and 2 is the ability to aim in first person and non lethal gameplay with the tranq gun. Both work in tandem to make MGS2's stealth gameplay easier and arguably more brainlessly easy compared to MGS1. In MGS1, while the stealth gameplay was the far from the best of it's time, you at least had to engage with the patrols and avoid being detected, you at least had to be patient and wait for holes in patrols and then make your move. 

In MGS2, all you have to do now is equip tranq gun, hide behind cover, aim for head in first person and then knock out a guard. All of MGS2's guard evasions with humans revolve around this. Cyphers are a bit better but just throw chaff grenades in tandem with human enemy tactics and much of the stealth of MGS2 can turn into this. An improvement the game could make is have enemies with helmets, riot shields or are armored to mix up the kinds of guards you will be evading. 

Guard AI is improved in someways, they will noticed missed shots, hear enemies nearby if you get into fist fights with them up close, they have to call in their radio in order to get a alert instead of the hiveminds from MGS1 and you have a few seconds to run back if they see a small glimpse of you giving you time to retreat, but once again first person aim and tranq gun trivializes much of this. 

Tanker section is the worst section since it is easier to cancel radio patrols by running into another part of the level, Plant is an improvement since the sneaking rooms are bigger but the first person aiming, and tranq gun are issues still persist 

Caution and evasion phases are great ideas on paper but I would rather die in the room where the objective was close in than run multiple rooms back and potentially lose health and resources 

Big Shell and level design aren't very good, lacks atmosphere of Shadow Moses and has even less exploration that MGS1 has. For example MGS1 had more random areas to find game progressing items in. The exploration in MGS1 while feeling entry level at least felt involving, in MGS2 however most of the game progressing items can be found in the Warehouse Strut, the assault rifle, the silencer for the pistol, and the sniper can all be found there, meaning there is no need to look in the other struts, they are nothing more than just sneaking rooms with nothing to find, the keycard system is mostly pointless as a result, you don't need to look around in the other struts outside of the warehouse. You can also loot guards for rations trivilizing exploration even more. 

Stealth mechanics are still basic with the radar system might as well replacing the ingame environment and character models, now with the aforementioned issues added on top of that. 

Game pacing is still inconsistent, the first few sections is kind of like MGS1 where you have to evade guards with the occasional boss fight but when you to Shell 2, there is a noticeable lack of sneaking and the stealth rooms themselves are much more linear compared to how somewhat open Shell 1 was, it can feel pretty jarring since now with Shell 2 everything feels extremely guided, you think Shell 2 is to be like Shell 1 but with more gimmicks, enemy variety or just something new but instead, the ideas are thrown out but it's just a more linear version with you just going one way with no much to change things up, then there is an escourt mission where all you do is just do the first person tranq gun tactics but now you are babysitter and the rest of the game is action and sword gameplay comes out of nowhere. I'll give MGS2 for introduction freely swinging sword controls a year before Jedi Outcast would but you get this so late in the former game and only use it twice making it hard to feel like the addition was anything substantial 

A big issue I have with the gameplay is that there are too many cutscenes and it ruins the pacing making the game hard to play at times, so much of MGS2 is spent doing less than 20 minutes of gameplay, and then 20 to 30 minutes of cutscenes. To name an example of what I am talking about, the Emma swimming section has you swim for about maybe 1-2 minutes preceeded by a 10-15 minute cutscene just to get to the filtration room and then there is yet another 10-15 minute cutscene, this just makes moment to moment gameplay pretty dull since it's getting more and more obvious that gameplay was clearly never the priority. MGS1 at least had a decent amount of challenge and a decent length in between gameplay and story. MGS2 at the very least feels 60% cutscene and while the story isn't terrible, it just doesn't hide the fact that so much of the game is watching a movie. 

Hanging mode and body dragging barely gets any use, hanging mode only is mandatory once and that is late game after the harrier battle and body dragging is useless since you knock out every one in the room and they guard will radio in for a status report 

Best parts of the game doesn't involve moment to moment guard evasion, some of my favorite moments of the game involve taking pictures of MG Ray, the bomb defusal, the Fatman boss, the sniping for semtex, or any moment that doesn't involve me abusing the first person aim and the tranq gun. They stand out more for not being as one note with easy to abuse strategies. Fatman is one of the better bosses of the game since you have to take out the bombs as well as netrualize Fatman himself. The final boss with Solidus was okay but the fight itself is an exercise of trying to land hits on him with the imprecise sword controls and isn't even as decently made as the Solid Snake vs Liquid Snake fight on top of MG Rex from MGS1. 

Overall, while MGS2 is a decent "interactive movie" or "mixed media". The game heavily scarifices everything to gets it's themes across from it's time spent playing the game, to story consistency, to it's villains as well. MGS2 is very much a game that should be experienced by anyone, even if you don't like long cutscenes, but as a game and as a narrative, MGS2 is just "okay". Definately a memorable okay game but an okay game nonetheless. 

Postal: Brain Damaged Review

Solid and enjoyable FPS game based on a series that I am not really experienced with and my exposure to it was the remake of the first game and I didn't really like it outside of Postal Dude's voice.

However what made me come to Brain Damaged was that it was more of a straight up first person shooting adventure and I heard some even comparing it to Doom Eternal and well, I'll talk about that first. Outside of guns having alt fires, the double barrel shotgun having a grapple hook on it, and pseudo dash mechanic with sliding instead of dashing, the game isn't really like Doom Eternal.

It has elements of Doom Eternal but I'd argue this game is more of an amalgamation of Serious Sam and Quake as well. The horde shooting is more akin to SS where there is a high enemy count but it's more about trying to dodge attacks and thin out the herd as opposed to Eternal's enemy roster being weak to certain guns, as well Eternal having many other mechanics like flame blech, blood punch, ice grenade, and chainsaw for ammo management, Brain Damaged doesn't have any of this and that isn't a bad thing since I like SS and Quake but the comparison is one of the thing that drew me to this game.

Speaking of SS, the horde shooting feels just as good and satisfying in this game as it does in the former...for a good portion of it. You get a wide variety of guns and power ups all given the Postal code of pain, you got a minigun, assault rifle, rocket/grenade launcher, a pistol which works a bit like Titanfall's Smart Gun, a double barrel shotgun, a cat launcher and a couple more. All though one thing I do think kind of helps makes this game stand out from other "boomer shooters" in some ways is that all your weapons have their own ammo pool instead of certain guns sharing ammo with each other. I am not the biggest fan of the ammo sharing system since I would much rather use the more powerful version of the gun unless if it is to kill some fodder enemies, thanks to BD not adhering to that, I can use more random weapons like the assault rifle for some weaker enemy kills and then chaingun if I want to quickly kill vast hordes.

Another thing it has in common with SS and also games like Doom 1993 is that, after beating a boss, all your weapons are taken away from you which I consider to be a good thing since the shooting in BD and SS while fun in their own way can be a bit one note compared to Doom Eternal so having weapons taken away from the player every few levels helps combat encounters feel less monotonous since you got to for a certain while use weapons you aren't comfortable with.

The level design is also quite good and surprisingly follow a consistent logic for dream like levels. There is a lot of key collecting, switch pulling, switch collecting, puzzle solving with the pee mechanic and item hunts to progress as well as platforming which the game even uses the grapple hook on the shotgun for unlike Doom Eternal's base campaign. This helps break up the pace of the horde shooting since when you are not doing that, you are doing what I mentioned previously. The levels have a since variety to them as well, you got suburban neightbourhood, New Mexico, an asylum, a crowded convention space, a spaceship of sorts, and the Death Star, there is a number of creative and wacky locales you will be visiting in Brain Damaged. The first level is pretty weak since it has multiple keyhunts within keyhunts but I got used to that since it then had me turn on my, "keen sense of looking every knook and cranny" like what games with this level design does. The endless hallways can be annoying but it isn't enough to bother me.

Issues I have is that saving anywhere can be a red herring since sometimes you can save anywhere and sometimes you can't. Not sure if it's a glitch but I can save scum during bosses so I am confused. Either let me save at all times or have checkpoints 

The writing is also not very good and full awkward and forced meme humor but I tolerated this since story in the game was unintrusive at best. 

There is a massive difficulty spike around the Asylum level where you have to kill multiple waves of enemies and they can easily surround and kill you, while not having your full arsenal of guns, falling out of the arena can kill you on top of that, this is one level you can't save scum during making it more frustrating, I did use all the items and powerups I collected previously to help me beat it which I do like but the game never really demands this out of you later on making it more jarring. On top of that you exit the level by grappling on to a mine cart which is more confusing.

Most of the alt fires are useless except for the assault rifle's on occasion and cat launcher.

The cat launcher breaks the game's balance, the alt fire becomes easy to abuse and it makes late game shootouts dull and montonous even on hard, which I raised it to then lowered since it just makes me want to use the cat launcher more. I eventually restricted myself to only using guns I like using like the minigun and assault rifle which I don't like doing but I wanted to make the last level less dull. Cat launcher got useless around the final boss but too little, too late.

Overall, BD is a solid and enjoyable FPS spinoff of a series I have barely any attachment towards. Shooting is generally solid until late game but even then the level design is imaginative enough to keep the rest of the game still relatively exciting. I am glad I gave this one a shot. This spinoff is up there with stuff like Ratchet Deadlocked, Jak X, Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light and Mortal Kombat Shaolin Monks. 

Spider-Man 2(2023) Review

I enjoyed both the 2018 and Miles Morales Spider-Man games while I don't think they are great games and far from the best Insomniac has to offer, I view them no differently as a film director I enjoy going to Hollywood and making a superhero movie that generally pleases everyone more so than providing  games that provide anything revolutionary or have any standout game design, outside of the solid narrative especially if you are a superhero and especially Spider-Man, they are enjoyable if play it safe superhero open world games. 

I wasn't particularly hyped for this upcoming sequel since I don't get hyped for games anymore and I especially try to avoid getting my expectations too high to the point where the game can't possiby reach my expectations, it's something publishers do to garner money and it's a trick I stopped falling for a years ago then there is the fact that Spider-Man himself has been so overexposed in recent times that I am starting to get sick of him not as much as Batman but he is up there. It's like listening to a song you like on repeat, the more you listen to it, the more it starts to annoy you more then it brings joy. I am getting off topic here, but I played this game at all because Insomniac is one of if not my favorite developer that is still going in the industry today, and I played Spider-Man 2 to support them since outside of Song of the Deep, I got varying degrees of enjoyment from all of their games I have played. 

So with all that out of the way, what did I think of Spider-Man 2 on Playstation 5? I'd say like it's predecessors, it's solid but nothing too mind blowing and I don't really mind since I go into any game expecting to at least get some enjoyment out of it, and luckily with Spidey 2, I had a good time even if the game can be messy in ways 2018 and Miles Morales were not particularly when it comes to story and since I mentioned it, the story in Spider-Man 2(2023) while not terrible and is far from something I'd consider to be overly repulsive is a step down from 2018 and Miles Morales. 

I am going to be overly negative when describing this part of the game and before I start being that, I will say that the voice acting, music, cutscene cinematrogaphy are all well done enough to the point where Spider-Man 2's story while entertaining in the moment starts to fall apart the moment where I put any thought into it. 

The big problem with Spidey 2's story is that it's bloated, very much so. It takes the typical sequel approach and adds in even more sub plots and villains compared to 2018 and Miles Morales. 

The start of the game is already questionable enough as is, for one the game gives you a recap on what happened previously but it's only a rough outline of what happened, it doesn't go over the DLCs and Miles Morales or at least not effectively as they should. I wouldn't say this is on the levels of the Kingdom Hearts series but it does stand out. If you want to start the Insomniac Spider-Man games at this latest entry then I highly suggest you don't, you will be lost very quickly. 

And speaking of someone who has beaten the 2018 and Miles Morales twice and not the DLCs, already I starting to ask questions, where did Sandman come from? It's a decent opening sequence but I am just wondering where did Flint Marko come from and what's his relevance to the overall story. It gets even more questionable that he acted crazy because Kraven was hunting him and he never pops in the main questline again. 

Speaking of Kraven, he kills many of the villains in the 2018 Spider-Man game off screen with Scorpion being the exception, and to add insult to injury, you can even miss the details of the deaths of characters like Electro and Vulture through audiofiles that not every player will find. This already off to a bad start. 

Coming from someone who is a massive fanboy of the fictional trope known as the "Worf Effect" it feels rather weak that in spite of Kraven being hyped as this big bad threat, only Scorpion is shown being killed on screen and it did get a kick out of me when I saw it but at the same time, couldn't you have improved this by say, having either Peter, Miles, or Mary Jane watch from affar and then have Kraven solo all of Spidey's rogues all at once? Kraven in this story wants a challenge after all and someone worthy of killing him so this would make far more sense to have the Sinister Six team up and challenge Kraven at once and then have them all die when they team up? It does a better job at establishing Kraven as a threat and showing the power gap between Kraven and the Spider-Men and on top of that, the villains have their deaths shown. 

All though Kraven isn't a terrible character in this game, he really comes off more of as a plot device to shove a wedge between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn more so than coming as an interesting villain, if the game didn't subvert the Worf Effect like I mentioned earlier, Kraven would've at least been a more threatning and memorable plot device villain much like Dragon Ball Z's Nappa, but instead his motivations isn't explored all that much since most of his screen time and character interactions are spent fighting people, he comes off as one note so when Venom kills him, while the death and boss fight were decent enough, it's hard to really feel anything. 

Then there are other issues with the story like the lack of any exploration for the side characters, many complained about the Mary Jane stealth sections and while I found the complaints to be overly harsh since MJ's stealth segments are some of the most forgiving forced stealth segments you can find in gaming, it's hard to connect to her plight of her being unappreciated by Peter Parker since her boss fight in late in the game while a decent fight and she is well acted is hard to get behind is a plot point that comes out of left field since MJ from what I can tell was mostly fine with Peter up until that boss fight. 

Speaking of more underdeveloped characters, Norman Osborn is a villain that managed to surivive from 2018 to the sequel and he is a massively underdeveloped, what was the point in having Norman step down as mayor? He's does even less than what he did in 2018 and the only character traits he shows is being a concerned father. He never breaks out or show anything else outside of being that, so he is another character who is one note, and it's a shame since Norman Osborn is one of if not my favorite Spider-Man rogue. There was a scene at the end where Norman gets angry and starts smashing everything around him in a hospital because of Harry's fate and I wished there was more of that throughout. 

I feel like you could improve this by having Norman remain as mayor of New York, and have him use Kraven the Hunter and his gang to thin out the criminal element of the city, it can have an actual mayor in the story since mayor in Spidey 2 never shows up and it explains the lack of law enforcement in Spider-Man 2 and it helps Norman and Kraven be more interconnected to the story while possibly fleshing both villains out more. 

Other underdeveloped characters include Martin Li who has a face turn out of nowhere and becomes a good guy in less than 5 scenes. His rivalry with Miles only exists so it can give the latter something to do. I do think Martin Li's voice acting does a good job at selling his scenes even though the writing can be MUCH better. 

There is also the Lizard who suddenly now shows up on screen in the Insomniac Spidey continuity much like Sandman only really exists to be a villain to keep Peter and Miles busy and later help the two later on. He loses any agency once he stops being the Lizard. 

I also forgot to mention Black Cat gets in a romantic relationship, and gets a dimension hoping artifact so Insomniac can shove in a mission where they can use their dimension hoping tech from Ratchet Rift Apart in their game and she never pops up again or plays a big role in the story. 

So after all this criticism what does save this story from being completely bad outside of the presentation. I'd say the symbiote and Harry Osborn stuff is pretty well done. 

This is in large part due to the presentation but I did think Harry and Peter's relationship were decently fleshed out, there's a good amount of interactions between Harry and the rest of the cast. Harry's motivation and his eventual heel turn is believeable considering there was a pretty enjoyable flashback mission where the viewer is shown how important Emily Osborn is to Harry and how desperate Harry is just to make sure he doesn't end up like the former. 

The Symbiote itself was integrated well into the story since it was build up as far back as Spidey 2018 so he doesn't come out of left field. The acting sells much of it and I did like how Peter especially how the more story goes becomes more and more dependant on the Symbiote which and how crazy and derenaged Peter gets because of it, and it does a good job into leading into Harry Osborn's eventual descent into madness. If there is one geniune saving grace in Spidey 2's writing, it's this. 

It's one of thing in Spider-Man 2's narrative that feels reasonably fleshed out in a myraid of half backed ideas. 

So the story is of Spidey 2 is a step down from the previous games, so how is the gameplay? 

I'd say this is where Spider-Man 2 is an improvement over the original. I don't think is great much like the past games but as far as improvements are concerned, there is just enough here to have the moment to moment gameplay feel solid and enjoyable. 

I'll start with traversal first and while it isn't overly differently from past games, the additions of web wings, makes it much more dynamic and fluid. I loved the wingsuit in Just Cause 3 and 4 and since there won't be a new JC game for a while if ever, Spidey 2 is about as close as it gets to a stand in for those games. The whole dynamic of staying in the air as much as possible while trying to not touch the ground is just as good in Spidey 2 as it does in those games. 

There is more traversal options and even the ability to turn off swing assist but I never bother with them since like in past games, there isn't a whole lot of main missions outside of maybe a few chases and the final boss where you will need to use the extra traversal abilities and those are the missions I mainly played. Traversal was still good as far as getting around the city from main mission to main mission but I wish the actual campaign made use you the advanced movement options more. 

The combat is also an improvement and since combat is what you will mainly be doing in story missions, it is good that moment to moment combat has far more going on compared to past games...in the first couple of hours and mid campaign. 

What I like about combat in 2 is that it forces you to use you abilities more since the two Spider-Men can only get hit probably 2-4 times tops and it is a game over doubly so if you belined it to story missions like I did. 

In Spidey 2018, once you got the ability to do double takedowns, combat became trivial and too easy for my tastes, you can hit enemie, spam gadgets build up combo meter and then do takedowns but since in Spider-Man 2 enemies hit super hard, you got to dodge even more so now, use more gadgets and abilties and do everything in your power to crowd control the hordes of enemies to avoid landing one hit on you. 

One other thing is that gadgets and abilties have shortcuts now, and the game teaches them to you in the story missions unlike say Batman Arkham City and since enemies hit super hard, this means actively use these shortcuts to crowd control groups as much as possible. 

There is also a parry now, and the window for it is super forgiving, and this may annoy some people but since I rarely if ever use parry mechanics in games outside of say the God of War trilogy, I am surprised I even used the ability at all and they will especially help during bosses and because of this, they are far dynamic and have more going on than Batman Arkham and the Middle Earth games' boss fights do. 

With all this and how much Kraven's gang's have enemies types that has the player constantly make decisions on who to take out first. For example, do you get the Hunter goons who is constantly sniping you or do you take out the robot dogs who is jamming your ability to do special moves? You also need to take care of flying drones more too as well as enemies you need to parry, rocket launcher enemies you also need to take care of, there is also big goons and bigger goons who you need to parry more just to damage, I did wish the latter showed up more often. 

Since enemies also take away much of your health upon getting hit, this also makes focus health recovery more important, you could do finishers but since I am not super great at following the "beat" of melee combat games even games like this and I occasionally miss a dodge, now I have to ask myself, do I finish off a low level goon right away or do I save that finisher for a health recovery in case if I accidently get hit? 

I won't even deny that I died a fair number of times, not a super amount but the combat was challenging enough on the default difficulty that I didn't feel like I sleep walking through encounters. This could be a different story is you did all the side missions as you were doing the main story like with many open world games. 

This is where my issue with the combat lies, outside of the game challenging the player with their low hp pool, the combat and enemies start to get one note after a point like many open world games of it's type, the lack of situational depth can make the game feel samey and dull especially when you factor in that I primarily did story mission and the game took me 25 hours to finish to credits and the game doesn't always sustain itself in that time. 

Much of Spidey 2 is combat, setpiece, traversal and then traversal setpiece. The missions just like the missions of it's genre tend to get one note since the designers can't slowly have a smooth difficulty curve or at the very least any change up the scenarios of gameplay since they have to accomodate for players who interacted with the open world. This one big reason why I don't consider the Spider-Man games among Insomniac's best among their other games. 

Overall, while Spider-Man 2 in terms of story is overly bloated and lacks any coherent focus, the presentation makes it decent enough while viewing it in the moment, the Symbiote story and the interactions between Peter Parker and Harry Osborn does much of the writing's heavy lifting. The gameplay is a solid improvement over 2018 and Miles Morales but still isn't anything mind blowing, this is large part of due to open world genre trappings. I enjoyed Spider-Man 2 but not without burn out and me asking many questions along the way. 

Sailor Moon 90s Anime Thoughts

I recently watched the entire run of the 90s Sailor Moon show, I am going to be honest and say that the reasons why I even watched this series at all especially when I am not even the target audience or demogrpahic for this story is due to two reasons, I vaguely remember watching it when I was a little kid all though my memories of watching SM isn't as vivid compared to something like Dragon Ball Z and Yugioh and that I have seen more fan art, cosplays as well as refrences and throwbacks to this franchise over the years than I care to count especially my years of going to conventions of even stuff not even fully dedicated to anime so in a sense, I got curious if a series like this resonated with so many people and including people that don't seem to be in the target demographic, I am wondering if it would appeal to me.

And well, it kind of did? In a rather backhanded way, I find SM to be interesting in that it is both remarkable and unremarkable at the same time. Remarkable in the sense that the writing peaked in the early parts of the show and it manages to remain consistently average and harmless throughout the whole series and unremarkable in that despite me watching the show and even somewhat paying attention to it, I also never got a strong sense of apathy or attachment in any way. I may have dozed off during some of the episodes but I never played video games while the show was playing in the background like with other anime.

But that is the thing regarding this series, if I were to rate simpily as a show to listen to in the background while doing other things or just as a background noise show in general, I'd say SM gets the job done extremely well. The story never requires you to really pay an overwhelming amount of attention to it, and most of the episodes are basically just episodic "monster of the day" standalones where the monster fights only happen in the last 5 minutes of every episode.

Even stuff like Dragon Ball Z by comparison requires you to pay attention to what happened previously while most of SM's content is just monster fighting that doesn't last overly long and with a loose overarching plot connecting everything.

Chances are a season of SM plays out like this: a new threat shows up, there is a big bad as well as two if not more underlings that constantly antgonize the citizens of the Juban District in a rather vein attempt at trying recon where they try to help the big bad's goal which is mostly likely to rule the world, then the underlyings get killed after failing so much, get replaced by new underlying then the last few episodes consists of the Sailor Guardians fighting the big bad, then Usagi transforms into Queen Serenity and beats the big bad, generally speaking a story arc of every Sailor Moon season plays out like this with different subplots here and there.

The standalone episodes involve an underling failing to accomplish their goal summon a monster to fight the Sailor Guardians and then they win in less than 5 minutes after Usagi gets bored fighting them and doing her sealing attack. The fights aren't anything special either since it's just special move spamming until Usagi gets bored. It doesn't even do the Naruto or Saint Seiya thing of having the villains have weaknesses to their attacks and the characters have to figure it out.

SM in a sense is more so a saturday morning cartoon more so than a show with a continous plot thread and I wouldn't mind this so much if the series wasn't so lengthy and if there was some long term character development throughout it's lengthy run but that never really happens.

All of the Sailor Guardians may have goals and dreams of their own and some of the standalone episodes may address that but nothing in SM ever lasts long term.

For example does Usagi and Mamrou Chiba get married? No. Does Mako Kino ever find the love her life she always wanted to find? No. Does Ami become a doctor? No. Does Minako and Rei become famous Idols or celebrities like they wanted to? No. Does Mamoru accomplish his dreams of graduating college? Never happens. Since there are no consequences or long term character development throughout SM's 200 episode run, it's even harder to be engaged by the series long term. Then there is a fact like various side characters get ignored the more the series goes on like Luna, Artemis, Usagi's father, Shingo, Haru, Rei's grandfather and many more.

Compare this to Dragon Ball and Z. Goku might remain static as a character but the characters around Goku grow and change despite that series lacking in the long term consequnces side of things. Piccolo becomes friends with Goku and Gohan and even patches things up with Kami, Krillin marries Android 18 and has a child, Vegeta learns humility and even in some ways puts in pride behind him and marries Bulma and has two children, Gohan becomes an adult after watching him struggle as a kid even Goku himself gets married has two children.

Sailor Moon lacks this and as a result, the series in general feels less like a serial narrative in it's 200 episode run and more like and I said this before a saturday morning cartoon. It never rises above the decent writing shown in season 1.

I have criticized SM so far but I will say if you are like me and are curious to watch it, I say watch season 1. It has far more going on then most of the seasons in the show, like how new underlings are getting introduced every few episodes and it uses it's side characters in more involving ways like Nephrite having romantic tensions with Naru. That and Mamoru and Usagi being more interesting when they are antagonistic towards each other since when they are hooked up, their relationship is more one note since Mamoru has no agency after season 1. Also, a big reason why S1 works so well is because of that said agency since Tuxuedo Mask is my favorite character due to how mature he is as well as him having his own sub plot of trying to find out about his past put this season much higher above the rest.

Season 1 does have it's issues like the last few episodes being pretty rushed and having an underwhelming conclusion that wraps up too quickly or plotholes like Jedite getting killed by Queen Berril before the latter can learn of Sailor Moon's identity. Other things like the Sailor Guardians getting killed off just for that to be a red herring. They get brought back and they don't even summon Shenron to do it which is even weaker writing. Also, Queen Berril herself also being an underwhelming villain despite being a key player to why everything in season 1 even happened. 

The last season is by far the weakest since Tuxeudo Mask is barely in it and how the villain is supposed to be a galaxy level threat yet she relies on incompetent underlyings or how its the final season that seems to be the darkest yet it personfies all the issues I have mentioned throughout this write up. Plus all the Sailor Guardians die, get brought back out of nowhere and then the city somehow gets fixes despite getting destroyed beforehand. It also becomes a war arc out of absolutely nowhere. It's 200 episodes and yet the ending just has the status quo being back to the same it always was. Which further tells me that SM is really just a saturday morning cartoon.

Overall, while I didn't dislike the series, I find it remarkable in that despite watching so much content I don't feel apathatic or a sense of any attachement at all. Sailor Moon is a series that is impressive and both unimpressive is that it's the most harmless piece of fiction you can ever find and stays that way throughout it's whole run. You could nitpick and mock for it sure but since I have rarely seen the series ever get put on a high pedestal, and I mainly watched it because of its massive impact on popular culture, so in a sense while I did finish all of it despite me thinking it's average, it's like I said many times before, its impressive that it made me to do it at all while unimpressive that I have no overly strong feeling towards it either despite me going through all that said content.

Lara Croft and the Guardian of Light Review

This was a solid spinoff title. I remember playing this a few years ago and I couldn't get into but playing it again on Nintendo Switch, it was an enjoyable time.

This is one of the better twin stick shooters that I have played all though not a shooter 100% of the time. The game does a good job at mixing up platforming, shooting, and puzzle solving in a way that the game never becomes one note and dull.

The game is short and the main challenge seems to come from trying to 100% it. It might be a short game, it was short but also sweet and it never overstayed it's welcome.

There's a shootout with okay enemy variety one minute, then some traps, then some puzzles where you need to pull switches and then some platforming challeneges, it's nothing mind blowing but at the same time, as far as being a random game I wanted to beat super quickly, it gets the job done.

All though the enemy variety is just decent, I do like how some enemies like the moving skeleton monsters need to be hit with explosive weapons in order to kill them, before you get the rocket launcher late game they can be quite the challenge to consistently kill since the grenade launcher can be a bit unreliable to aim and shoot.

Enemies with shields can also be have their shields removed moved if you shoot them with explosive weapons.

The platforming even starts to get harder with more challenging to dodge traps like instant kill flames, fireballs and spike traps and moving platforms. Platforming is pretty basic overall, but it does a decent job at breaking up the pace of puzzle solving and combat.

There is some okay situational depth towards the end where you have to kill multiple enemies while also avoiding moving firetraps.

The spear mechanic as an additional ledge is surprisingly malleable and consistent, it can work on most surfaces and Lara is able to use them as a foothold to grab a far off ledge.

There are some issues however, shootouts can be a little too punishing on normal difficulty considering enemies can wipe out your health bar in 3-4 hits. The dodging hitboxes with the lack of invinciblity frames means it is easy to get hit while you are trying to dodge out of the way. You could try to dodge an attack but an enemy will land a hit on you seconds after you dodge, it's also easy to get hit while the animation is finishing.

The game also sends in a lot of enemies that can kill you in a few hits and this was probably meant to be easier during coop.

What does prevent this from being super frustrating is the super forgiving checkpoint system, if they were really spaced out, then this game would've been super frustrating but instead the game counterbalances the combat that can be a little on the difficult side when playing solo on normal and makes it doable, many coop games don't do this and I am glad this did. Which helps puts it above many games of it's type for me because of how forgiving solo play is.

This also helps with a problem the Switch version has were it will crash on occasion but thankfully, this is one of those games where your checkpoints in the levels are also your save points meaning that you don't have to restart the level from the begginning when the game does crash, this shouldn't even happen in any game but I am glad, Guardian of Light didn't do what games before, at the time and even now do where they are unstable but the level checkpoints for some reasons are your save points. I wouldn't be able to beat the game at all if it weren't Guardian of Light doing this.

Overall, I am not super attached to Tomb Raider or the character of Lara Croft but this game turned out to be a solid adventure. I am not sure why I drooped it years ago but now that I have better appreciation for level design in games than I did before, I was able to enjoy this game much more.

Mass Effect Review

Mass Effect is a series, I am rather mixed on back when I originally played it. I found ME1 to have the best story in the series and 3 to have the best gameplay. 

For now, I will be talking about the first game which is the one I recently replayed through the Legendary Collection. 

I'll talk about the story first and overall, it mostly holds up pretty well but I have some major issues that prevent me from calling it great. 

What the story does well is how well it contextualizes the narrative of humanity needing to prove itself and how much it is the underdog in the universe of this particular game. The Council and many of the aliens you will meet are very distrustful of humans, the main villain Saren also hates them which does a further good job at showing how much humanity and the player character, Shepard will have to go through to prove to your and by extension the human race's worth to the galaxy. 

The story also does a good job at handling the themes of first contact and how this is interconnected with humanity needing to prove itself to the other alien races. Since Shepard is a human as well as the first offical human to join the Council, this gives a good and solid reason for them to be distrustful about almsot everything Shepard does throughout the game. The aliens don't trust humanity and now Shepard who happens to be the very race the latter distrusts now holds the key to warning them about an oncoming threat. It's so well contextualized within the narrative that I commend Bioware's writers for making it very belivable. 

More praise to the story is that Saren and by extension the first few hours and the last few hours of the game have very engaging writing. Saren while a good villain that could've been great is at his best in the first and last few hours of the game. How Saren was once a respected member of the Council and Shepard is apart of the race the Council does not like makes the former turning on the latter very dramatic and belivable plus the former kills a respected Council member at the start of the game and then later frames Shepard for it only helps makes him for the player and by extension Shepard dislikes, how Saren plays dumb on everything upon uniting a bunch of different people of different races together and is the reason why Shepard becomes a Spectre only does a further good job at making Saren an enjoyable villain. 

Later on in the Virmire mission it is revealed that he wasn't mind controlled and he chooses to be controlled by the Reapers by his own accord, and wants humanity to work alongside the Reapers even helps gives a layer of grey to the story as well helps in some ways to make Shepard by extension the player respect Saren in some ways. Sovereign also shows up showing Virmire also helping to solidify Virmire as the best mission in the game, the theme that plays during the Mako ride only sells it more since it's one of if not the best track in the game. 

On a side note, the ME1 soundtrack is some amazing stuff, I like how it's a synth score before those got very overused in modern media and the whole 80s sci homages with it's score and even some it's level asthetics like IIos and Eden Prime makes Mass Effect not only visually distinct compared to the sequels but it was an 80s sci fi homage before those started to also become very overdone. 

I am talking about Saren a lot but to me a story that is driven by fighting and action needs a good villain in order to be engaging and Saren tends to deliver but unforunately this leads to my first problem regarding the story. 

The middle half of the game once Shepard gets the Normandy and his crew is some of the weakest writing. This is in large part because the game does the video game habbit of the story being a wild goose chase. 

While the writing isn't "bad" in these parts, it never reaches the heights of the early and last few hours. Therum is fine since it's basically recruiting Liara, Noveria can be kind of dull since it's chasing after Matriach Benezia who no shows for 90% of the mission, the early parts of the Noveria mission is okay but once you get to the research facitily and enter the Rachni sub plot the mission loses steam when it comes to story pretty hard since its about an alien bug race and how they are a threat and Benezia wants to control them and becomes less about stopping Benezia and more about containing the Rachni threat but by the time I get the pass to the docking bay, I just want to stop Benezia and nothing else. 

The Rachni don't even show up at the end of the game to help Shepard and the Citadel against Sovereign if you choose to save them making their inclusion in the story even more pointless. Matriach Benezia only has a few scenes in the whole mission and a boss fight and thats it making it hard to get attached to downfall and the only thing really standing out about her is being Liara's mother. 

What also doesn't help is that there is never a scene cutting away where Saren is shocked by the news of Benezia's death, Liara's failed assassination, or the botched operation on Feros not even a Cobra Commander style temper trantrum, the latter of which while cheesy could've at given Saren more screen time and much needed character in the middle portion of the game. 

Feros is borderline disconnected from the main plot and could be cut away entirely as nothing more as one Saren's botched operations like I mentioned earlier and it would still amount to the same level of importance to the overarching plot. 

This is what I mean by the middle portions of the game being weak. 

The characters and by extension interactions are a highlight of Mass Effect, my favorites include Ashley, Garrus and Wrex. Liara and Tali are solid too. All of the character in ME1 are well acted and directed as well as having good character interactions with each other. 

This gets to my next big issue on the story, while the characters are good, if you just do main story missions and go for the main plot, it is hard to get attached to all of them and the only ones you will get attached to are the ones you use in your party since they serve a gameplay purpose so for me, Garrus and Wrex were the best characters. What also doesn't help is that since the only villains in the game that are connected to your party members is Liara with Matriach Benezia and Garrus with Saren. Wrex gets some development that gets pushed aside if you convince Wrex to join you after the Genophage twist. 

As a result, most of the characters in the story aren't given much to do in the main story, this could be in some ways be why Mass Effect 2 is considered the best since every character has something to do even if I have many issues with that game and consider the plot of ME2 to be much weaker to this entry. 

So as a result, if you want to get the most of the characters in ME1, you would have to replay the game multiple times but that will only lead to having different in game dialogue and character interactions. 

A possible fix for this is to have the skits system in the Tales series since all the characters would be interacting, they are short and only require a button press to listen to. It can help make it easier to be attached to the cast since they interact with each other more making them easier to grow some bond to between them despite given very little to do. 

Com chatter with the rest of the pparty during gameplay could also potentially help. 

One final thing I want to talk about story is that Shepard while contextualized and at his best in this game with him slowly earning his Spectre status, his actual character of him being a player avatar can be pretty dull, I am not a big fan of choosing my responses in games and I never had any issue with the dialogue options that other people had since I played Shepard like a nice guy but Renegade options seem to be borderline comical and seem to only be chosen for comedic effect, I get the idea of playing Shepard like a ruthless anti hero but when you choose to treat everyone around you like garbage, it makes me wonder why the Council, Captain Anderson, and the rest of the Normandy crew would ever want to follow someone like Shepard. Shepard to every one of allies might as well be an abusive film director from their point of view. 

Enough story, now gameplay and to surprisingly despite the ME series not being known for it's gameplay, it's shockingly decent here. I am not sure how much of this is improvements from the Legendary Edition since it's been years since I played ME1 on PS3 but from my experience with the gameplay of this version is that it's solid, if nothing outstanding. 

First and big positive to the gameplay is that guns sound loud and powerful, and this is a very good thing since shooting is one big aspect of gameplay and you will be killing many enemies throughout the game so the fact that the game nailed this aspect is a very good thing. The sniper rifle in particular sounds powerful and beastly. I am surprised Bioware even went out their way to do this since they could've chosen guns to sound weak and wimpy since the game is going to be played for the story but they didn't which I commend them for. 

I played as the solider class and I primarily used shield boost, and the weapon powerup attacks like assassination for sniper and overkill for assault rifle. To the game's credit moment to moment combat felt stimulating enough that I was never bored while engaging with the shootouts which is great since I don't play RPGs very often primarily because they are not a gameplay driven genre. 

That doesn't completely exempt ME's gameplay from issues, for one the cover system is very awkward and cumbersome to use and you will need to duck behind cover and fire shots from concealed positions to actively survive and kill enemies, plus while this combat is at the very least the bare minimum for okay combat since ME is not a pure shooter like say the first Gears of War game is, it's still not super outstanding when divorced from the fact that this is gameplay in a story driven RPG. 

Enemies can also be pretty one note, the AI while servicable does have a habbit of standing in place a lot of the time, the enemy encounters often consits of humaniod enemies with guns, beefer bigger enemeis and zombies with not much breaking it up. The Krogan later in the game are an interesting edition since they can cast immunity and can't be damaged for a short period of time but they come late to the game and the game's shootouts while serviceable is nothing outstanding which is fine since I was expecting the shooting to be a complete chore to begin with. 

Then there is the Mako and I am not sure how much this is the Legendary version improving it but I enjoyed these sections, I found the Mako's controls to be easy enough to control and these sections never lasted overly long to the point where I wished they would hurry up and end, they do a good job at breaking up the cover shootouts and lots of talking too. It's not great but like much of Mass Effect's gameplay, it gets the job done. 

One issue with the game and it could've been a big one if it weren't for me discovering the Unity ability are your party members and at best they are basically just meat shields. They are there to distract enemies while you line up shots and nothing more. I can see why I would've been initally lukewarm on the combat as a whole since your allies are just a distraction who get defeated pretty quickly when the enemy forces get overwhelming but with the Unity ability I was able to tolerate it even if I did find extremely cumbersome that your party AI can be pretty inept at times. 

Overall, Mass Effect tells a solid story that mainly shines in the first and last few hours of the game, it's good a story that is just a couple steps away from geniunely great especially if the middle portions were better written. The gameplay while not great is servieable and accomplishes the bare minimum to make the moment to moment gameplay inbetween experiencing the story not a complete chore. I have my issues with Mass Effect as a franchise but this first outing especially with the Legendary version is generally a good time. 

Goldeneye 007: Reloaded Review

Coming from someone who wasn't big on the original game, I had a decent time with this reimagining even if it feels like a very derivative and not nearly as industry defining as the N64 title.

While the original game was like I previously mentioned is very industry defining, the game itself was still very much a dull movie tie in game with the game's level design being the only thing that carried it since the combat itself was very one note. The level design in the original was also done better in games like Medal of Honor, Syphon Filter and Timesplitters 2 since those games also gave you more context and what you were doing in the levels and didn't give you barebones context by watching the movie of the same name to understand.

Enter Goldeneye 007: Reloaded, a reimagining of the original more so than a remake or the same game with better graphics. One thing I liked about this version of the story is that there are many more cutscenes and story fleshing everything out. I normally am not much of a story guy and I also have yet to watch a James Bond movie but I like the fact that the story in many ways feels like a playable Bond film much like the EA Redwood Shores Bond games and the Blood Stone game.

As a result the game has a lot more goofy charm than the original did like villains who have no problems killing his own soldiers who work for them, villains who monologue like crazy, double crosses, and my personal favorite strapping Bond into a helicoptor with an eject button built in for him to escape instead of the main villain, 006 just killing him right on the spot after capturing the former by surprise. Ridiculously over the top narratives is what will hopefully make me watch a Bond movie one of these days, and since Goldeneye 007 is a licensed game, this game along with the other EA and Activision Bond games has gotten me interested in the franchise which is what at the very least a decent licensed game should do.

Now the gameplay, this is where it will divide people the most, Reloaded is not the objective completing exploration game with lots of hip firing and auto aim like the original was instead this is very much derivative of the various Call of Duty campaigns that got released in the era. You got snap aiming, aim down sights, scripted sequences including slo mo breaching sequences, down time sequences where shit slowly hits the fan, a two weapon limit and regenerating health to name some examples.

Unlike other CoD clones of the era like Medal of Honor Warfighter and Battlefield 4, Reloaded does have some differences like optional stealth, gadgets like a smartphone that can hack into electronics, decently open arenas with decent AI while nothing on say Halo, FEAR or Resistance Fall of Man's level does seem slightly smarter than your average goons in CoD where they normally just stand there as you shoot them.

Gunplay feels decent enough and the weapon sounds are "okay" if nothing too special.

However issues with the game is that the stealth ranges from "tolerable" to "how did I get caught?" Basically my stealth experience in the game consisted of me shooting guards and cameras with a silenced pistol and to the game's credit, both felt good with a good "oomph" sound effect when getting headshots but since there is no visibility indicator, it was hard to tell if I was going to get spotted or if I remained undetected.

I do like the level design for the stealth parts since they feel decently open enough but the AI and lack of a visibility indicator lets it down. 

The shooting is also very one note much like the CoD games, so much of the game is just use snap aiming, ADS then shoot while waiting for health to regen inbetween. Speaking of regen health, it isn't that great, since it's hard to tell when I am super critical health and when I should go back into hiding. Sometimes it feels like I can take lots of damage and other times I die randomly. I am not asking for a patronizing, "you are hurt get to cover" but something that gives me a better idea on when I should hide, like making Bonds' heavy breathing more clear and obvious. I lowered to easy mode because of this I didn't want to deal with so much of my time dying due over and over due to seeing long load times and having a hard time telling when I should get to cover.

The QTEs are also unnesscary but to the game's credit, they are over fast and it generally never fails you if you get the button wrong. 

The game could've used more sections like the tank since combat is one note and stealth is too finicky to help break up the pace from more combat. 

The last level is also quite awful and a difficulty spike with an awful final boss that does the CoD thing where you slo mo headshot the main villain anyway. You have 3 awful sections within close proxmity of each other and I wouldn't be surprised if a random person quit the game here. You have to do an NPC 3 times while hacking into consoles with the you getting random game overs from the console getting destroyed, enemy gunfire and a solar beam attack and tearing apart the place you are in. Then you are timed where it's trial and error just to find out which is the ideal path to the end of the of the bridge, after that you have an awful bullet sponge boss with 006 with lots of enemies attacking you. If you got past this stuff on hard difficulty, I commend you but I do not have the patience for this. 

Overall, Reloaded is a decent CoD clone based on a game I never had a huge attachment towards. It might be too scripted for some, and if you love the original game, you probably already dislike this game but at the same time, I had some solid fun with this title and that's all I can hope for when playing any game. It's also a short game which might not help with it's curent price tag and lack of PC digital storefront version but since it is so short, it's shortcomings aren't enough to aggrevate me to the extreme. 

Watch Dogs Legion Review

Watch Dogs Legion is just more Watch Dogs 2 or many of the Ubisoft open world games that have enemy camps litered all over the map. I'll start with the story and then the gameplay. I have less to say on this title than WD1 and 2.

The story is not that great and in some ways even more sub par than Watch Dogs 2 was. WD2's story in spite of all how weak the writing was in that game at least made me feel something, apathy for sure but it was something. Legion on the other hand is basically just a bunch of loosely connected sub plots with barely much that ties them all together. With the whole, "play as anyone" system the game has, it's hard to get connected to any of the characters you play as since so many of those characters share the same dialogue lines. The whole plot has you investigate a group called "Zero Day" which framed DedSec for bombings they didn't do but the former is barely even in the game to make a geniune impact or do much to get me invested in beating them.

The actual sub plots themselves lack investment from me since they are just a bunch of dull standalone stories that loosely connect to the main plot. It's basically a "villain of the week" with an overarching big bad that barely does anything, I was honestly paying attention to the story maybe about 50% of the time.

The late game twist is so laughable and poorly put together, I am amazed it got put into the game at all, there is too many lapses in logic I would have to accept in order for me to accept it. Like what was Sabine doing while she was guiding the DeadSec member you were playing as in the prologue?

Good things about the story is that Bagley and the character interactions with him are entertaining enough to listen to. Bagley's character is one of the better things about the game's story since I like AI characters in any story so I have a bias for him already.

I also like some of the attention to detail to the playable characters too. Like for example, I primarily played as a Jamaican construction worker for much of the game and she spoke with not just an accent but also used the various slang words they tend to use as well and I found that to be an impressive since the developers didn't have to go to that extra mile but did anyway.

Now the gameplay, and to best sum it up in that it's basically Watch Dogs 2, where the game is basically, "infiltrate area, do objective, then exfiltrate" but to Legion's credit, the AI is much more forgiving and they don't spot you nearly as fast as WD2 does, and you also get stuff like an invisible cloaking device and you also get melee combat options all though with the latter, with many of the characters I played as, it was a game of, "try to get into a fist fight, then guns out and start shooting".

The cloak I discovered later in the game did come in handy and there is a pretty lengthy cooldown and you can't use it after a takedown so it does feel somewhat balanced.

There is also a bit more use of car chases in the main story by comparison to WD2 which is good, all though not as much as WD1.

Like WD2 however, the game can be very montonous, it is still very much what I described earlier, "infiltrate, do objective, exfiltrate". There is a bypass puzzle here and there but that was also in WD2's style.

Now, the problem is that there is vast amount of empty spaces in between mission objectives, where WD2's world wasn't too big and there was lots of fast travel, Legion has lots of travel time in between main mission and objectives and the game can feel like a good 40% of it is filler. I used the cargo drone to get to most of my objectives and you can tell the game's techical side is struggling to keep up with cars barely moving when so high up in the sky.

Another issue is that since the game is very repetitive, that means much of the game's challenge is spent doing forced action segments during missions you can supposedly play it stealth and dying over and over to damage sponge enemies, I lowered the difficulty to easy to get past these parts faster. To WD2's credit, there was much less forced action segments by comparison to Legion.

The "play as anyone" system is a big gimmick. It's basically a game of, "recruit 1 or 3 characters you like, stick with them and with permadeath off, die enough times to get back to playing as the characters you like". It makes game overs more tedious if anything.

You play 5-6 hours of Legion and you played a good amount of what the game has to offer.

Overall, if you like what came before and the games Ubisoft has made up until now, then there is stuff to like here, but at the same time, I am just lukewarm on that kind of design and I still think Watch Dogs 1 is the best.

Metal Gear Solid(1998) Review

Metal Gear Solid is a game and by extension series that I both appreciate yet am critical of at the same time, and with the release of the MGS Master Collection, I want to give a long detailed thoughts on the series, and now I am starting with MGS released in 1998. 

I'll start with the story first. I do think MGS tells an enjoyable and entertaining tale if you don't think about how ridiculous it is. This is where the story of the game gets it's fair share of questioning right away, MGS is a superhero story but also a spy thriller story as well as an action movie, it combines multiple genres into one and this helps makes it stand out from even other stories of it's type and that is not including the fact that it's a video game. It has 4th Wall breaks, characters surviving impossible situations, while also having characters with over the top names like "Decoy Octopus" and "Psycho Mantis" that's not even including the fact this is a game where characters have superpowers in a game that is focused on espionage and stealth. 

The game's biggest and most well known aspect is how it is both really serious and really silly at the same time. The game will have random 4th Wall breaks while also having geniunely serious scenes happening. You will have a guard with hygenie problems while also having the protagonist coming to terms with the fact that he killed his own father. 

I could be here all day discussing it, but I always felt that MGS unlike it's sequels did have the most well rounded narrative in the series in spite of how ridiculous it is. 

What makes MGS for me an enjoyable story is that the characters in the story from characters like Roy Campbell, Naomi Hunter, Hal Emmerich, Master Miller and many others is that they all have a part to play in the story and they all strengthen the story with their inclusion. 

Roy Campbell is a friend to Solid Snake but he does lie and withhold information in spite of all that, Naomi Hunter is Solid Snake's worst enemy yet at the same time can also be viewed at his greatest ally, Hal Emmerich can come off as a bit awkward with and his "nerdy persona" at first made me groan a bit but he does warm up and become solid character and a good friend to Snake. Master Miller despite being the main character Liquid Snake in disguise, also contributes to the plot by giving Solid Snake valuable information later in the game. 

Speaking of Liquid Snake, the villains of MGS despite being over the top and ridiculous in both designs and names are endearing in their own right. Unlike the sequels, most of the villains all have their own backstory, and their own clear reason for wanting to fight Snake, and this was a pretty big revolution at the time, you had video game bosses who not only tested the player's skill but also had clear and big narrative reasons as to why they challenged the player, and you learning about their backstory was esstentially the player's reward for beating them.

One thing that is hard to divorce from when discussing MGS is the presentation and style for the time, the game features many, many, many in engine cutscenes, and this was unprecedented for the time, since a lot of games either relied on FMV sequences to tell their stories or lots of textboxes, when there were in engine cutscenes, they never lasted very long. This might be the biggest contributing aspect that MGS did for the gaming industry for better and for worse. There is lots of voice acting and dialogue in the game. 

Speaking of the voice acting and dialogue, while the latter isn't the greatest since Snake our badass cold blooded hero can spend an awful lot of his time asking pointless questions, it is heavily carried by the former. 

MGS might just have some of the best voice direction of any game at the time. David Hayter's performance while over the top never goes into full blown over the top like he does in later games, it manages to sound "just right" in this game. 

Paul Eiding and Jennifer Hale are the highlights here and does a good job at selling the material. For example, Roy Campbell would have very long pauses and long silences when withholding information from Snake. Naomi Hunter when confronted with questions that contradict what she previously said about her history, she starts sounding nervous and insecure, my favorite scene in the series where her and Solid Snake are talking to each other about Big Boss and Frank Jaeger, she sounds geniunely shocked and confused over the idea that a man she spent so long resenting was saying so many kind things about Frank. 

The story, presentation, and voice acting are still good about MGS. The gameplay however while not outright bad generally hits the realm of, "being challenging enough to the point where it doesn't play itself, but nothing remarkable in terms of game design". 

I'll give MGS credit, unlike say Uncharted and David Cage games, the former doesn't feel like it's in control of itself when playing but at the same time, coming from someone who has played a number of games over the years, the gameplay in MGS is really nothing more than a vehicle for the story and a vehicle for people who might not play games that much to experience that said story. 

The first example to illustrate my point is the stealth mechanics, while other games around the same time had much superior stealth systems like Tenchu Stealth Assassins and Thief the Dark Project, MGS' stealth mechanics can feel rather rudimentary even when compared to the former. 

The radar system that the player is given might as well be where the actual gameplay takes place, you don't even need to pay attention to the 3D environment that the game is rendered in. Just look at the radar at all times and you can mostly avoid detection outside of that occasional moment where I ran on some loud floor and I got spotted and getting spotted isn't a big deal either since guards have a short attention span and will stop searching for you pretty quickly. This might be okay for someone who doesn't actively play stealth games, and for a "baby's first stealth adventure," MGS can work extremely well for that but for someone who wants to find more demanding stealth experiences MGS' stealth sits on the realm of, "just entry level and decent enough to the point it doesn't actively hinder the my consumption of the story."

Then there is the exploration and level design of MGS, which once again is just decent enough to the point where the game is moderately engaging before I view the next story cutscene. In terms of moment to moment stealth level design, it's not terrible but nothing standout either. You will rarely if ever use mechanics like making noise to lure a guard over to you that much in the main campaign, and you can generally just get by using the radar system to see holes through guard patrols to get by. The Docks and getting inside Shadow Moses Island are the most open levels in the game and the rest of the game is mostly very linear like dodging ghosts in Pac Man but a lighter version of that. 

Then there is the resource and exploration aspects but compared to other games on the PS1 that attempt this like say Medal of Honor, Resident Evil and Syphon Filter, the exploration aspect especially of someone who has played games with exploration can feel pretty hollow. In MGS, as long I am actively looking through all doors at all the areas in Shadow Moses Island before the Communications Tower, I will generally always have everything I will need to find to get past the game's challenges, where in Medal of Honor and Syphon Filter, you will need to actively observe the environment to progress and missing anything will not allow you to progress, in MGS especially coming from someone who plays a number of games featuring the idea of exploring, just having the basic mentality of, "look at all the previous locked doors for items," was enough to get by. 

The game has a characters telling you where to look for items if you do get lost which tells me this was made for people who were probably new to games not knowing to look everywhere. 

Then there is the biggest issue with the game and that is the structure and pacing. MGS is a very unevenly paced game. 

For example, the game is maybe a stealth game about 50% of the time and most the stealth takes place early on in the game, everything before reaching the Communications Tower for the first time. Once you do that, the game repeats all the stealth challenges you did previously where you have to backtrack for a sniper rifle, then back track to the Communications Tower again after Snake gets captured and from then point on the stealth is very light which mostly just consist of throwing chaff grenades at cameras, and the rest of the game is just action sequences, boss fights and cutscenes. Guard evading becomes too few and far between.

This is what I mean when I say MGS is a stealth game 50% of the time. 

There isn't much in the way of situational depth provided on the two runbacks to the Communications Towers outside of the part where you fight the tank where you have to use chaff grenades and a mine dectector. 

Ideas get thrown in and then get thrown out like puddles making noises, guards seeing footprints, non human enemies, sniping only be using on Wolf and so on. 

All of these issues I have tells me that MGS was meant to be primarily consumed for it's story and if I was someone who was doing that, then these problems I mentioned wouldn't stand out to me very much. 

I will give the game one example where it does handle situational depth well even if it is nothing standout, that is the Liquid Snake boss on top of Metal Gear Rex, I did like how you have to manage 3 things at once, first you had to look at the timer as well as take out Liquid's health bar before it goes down as well as avoiding fall off Rex, I did wish the game had more moments like this in place. 

Then there is fact that much of the action oriented parts of the game are challenging due to the lack of a free aim and dodge command, but this is a PS1 game that is incredibly forgiving barely any large run backs to challenging parts of the game and the only geniune annoyance regarding content repeating is not being able to skip cutscenes that happen during boss fights. 

I have been complaining about MGS' gameplay, but it goes back to what I said about how the gameplay manages to be challenging and engaging enough to the point where it still feels like I am playing a game and not just a wannabe movie but when I look at the gameplay in isolation, it just sits on the realm of just being "decent enough". 

Overall, while MGS excels at voice acting and story presentation while telling an interesting tale, the gameplay just sits on the realm of being, "challenging and engaging" at a service level and is primarily meant to be consumed for it's story. The gameplay while nothing terrible just isn't anything standout. The gameplay was just "okay at best" now and even for it's time.