El Paso, Everywhere Review

This game was always on my radar since I tend to enjoy shooters with bullet time, some more than others but I generally have good fun with these kinds of games. I heard of El Paso, Everywhere back when it was on Game Pass and wasn't on Playstation and my PC couldn't run the game, but I randomly saw a PS5 version a few months ago and decided to finally play it since it's on a system I can play on now.

As a whole I'd say I enjoyed my time with El Paso, Everywhere but a big issue I had with is how long it is.

If Max Payne and a movie like say From Dusk Til Dawn had a baby, you'd get El Paso, Everywhere. You esstentially have the bullet time, painkillers, stoic protagonist, trench coat, intentionally low budget character models and the feel that a small team with a low budget made the game like Max Payne mixed in with the horror elements of From Till Dawn.

It makes for a game that while feeling familar does a good job at feeling different in it's own right. It even has somewhat similar development upbringings like MP does where the director of the game provides the voice for the main character and even the music too.

The story is a rather wild one and the best part is that it never overly gets in the way of gameplay much like it's inspiration Max Payne, cutscenes are brief and gets the story beats across and additional information is revealed through things like additional projectors you can find to flesh out the backstory between Savage and Draculae.

Right off the bat, El Paso, Everywhere makes a good first impression. The tutorial is generally short and brief gets the basic mechanics of the game across like stakes, bullet time, painkillers, shoot dodge, weapon selection and rolling. Only issue I had that being able to auto reload guns after the magazine was empty and pressing fire to reload it has to be turned on in the options menu. 

The checkpoint system is very forgiving and the difficulty is completely customizable which are huge points for the game's favor. 

Weapons feel nice and punchy and slowly throughout the first half of the game you get introduced to new weapons and enemies. You get dual pistols, then a shotgun, after a tommy gun, then an uzi and a rifle. Mowing down enemies with these guns feels very good to do, and all the way to the first boss of the game, I was having a solid fun time. New enemies would slowly get introduced too, first there would be husks, then wolves, then teleporting monsters who fire projectiles that do a lot of damage to you but can be taken out very quickly, then knights, then puppet monsters that spawn more enemies, then more flying monsters with projectiles with large splash damage then frankensteins that need to be shot at then staked.

The first half of the game does a good job at keeping thing varied and fun in spite of the constant asset reuse for levels. However some negatives is that the shotgun in conjuction to bullet time felt awful to use since the pump time inbetween shots would take too long to fire again while in bullet time. Sure, you could argue that there is a timing involved inbetween pump times and bullet time uses but machine guns and the rifle do a better job at being effective weapons while in bullet time since machine guns can be continously fired and rifle shots don't nearly as long to be shot again compared to the shotgun.

Another issue is that I never got much use out of shoot dodge since the camera would always act weird and jittery making it hard to see my targets, I felt MP1's shoot dodge felt better to use since Max's positioning with the camera felt more clear and he didn't spend nearly as long of a time in the air while in shoot dodge. As a result, I used the manual bullet time in El Paso more than the shoot dodge, I got more use out of the roll ability since the are also more helpful against bosses.

Speaking of bosses, there only two, are massive difficulty spikes and are awful. The roll while better than shoot dodge to avoid boss attacks don't grant invincibility frames when used so it's often a 50-50 guessing game if the boss' sword swings will land on James making what should be breaking up the pace, utterly rage inducing fights due to the issue I mentioned.

The biggest issue with the game is that it's way too long. It's strange, the game is seemingly 8 hours but the thing with games like Max Payne and FEAR is that they are 4 hours according to Youtube longplays but dying and getting lost just makes them 8 hours. El Paso Everywhere is 8 hours but add dying and not knowing where to go might make it 14-16 hours.

On top of this, the game stops introducing new enemies and just shoves in more of them, the asset reuses for levels becomes more obvious and the only new weapons you get is a grenade launcher and that it means you will be doing much of the same stuff in the first hours but now do it again for 5 more. You can argue all this is intentional since James is losing his mind along with the player but intentional or not, I still think it gets tedious and I wish the game would end.

Overall, the game is good but wished if 8 levels were removed, I would enjoy the game much more. 

Star Wars: Jedi Survivor Review

I decided to play Star Wars Jedi Survivor because I never thought I would enjoy Fallen Order upon a revisit as much as I did. That and the game would get heavily discounted on the PS Store pretty often which made me buying it hard to resist.

As a whole, I'd say the story is much, worse than Fallen Order but the gameplay as a whole is an improvement.

The story is a mess, a massive mess. I already started to tune out of the story when there is a huge time skip inbetween Fallen Order and Survivor. The ending of Fallen Order had everyone together and by the start of Survivor everyone is separated and are doing their own thing? What happened inbetween? There is some gaps in the story explained through flashbacks but not enough to paint a big enough picture on what happened inbetween. Cal is terrorist working for Saw Guerra and the latter never once makes an on screen appreance throughout Survivor despite being in Fallen Order.

Then there are other major issues with the story like how Cere and Cordova barely doing much of anything throughout the entire game and spending the whole game in the Jedi archive making it hard to care for their deaths later on. They don't assist Cal or do anything besides sit around making it really hard grow attached to them. On top of all this Vader is the one who kills Cere and knowing about the SW movies, you know Cal Kestis is not the one who defeats Vader but the game is setting up that Cal and Vader are destined to have a final battle together.

Other issues include villains like Dagan and Bode being underwhelming and poorly written. Dagan spends the entire game looking for a place called Tanalorr and Survivor also shoves in High Republic lore which wasn't even in Fallen Order which feels that more much jarring. Bode is also a very weak villain since his foreshadowing as a bad guy is almost non existent or whether or not if he was force sensitive and the only reason why he even is a jedi at all is because bounty hunters can only beat jedi with prep time and the element of surprise and this can't work in a game like this.

Final problem I can't overlook the weak story since much of Survivor's campaign is story driven and has lots of cutscenes. So it's hard to 100% ignore the story since you are going to engage with it in some way when playing

With all that said, gameplay as a whole is an improvement over the first game. I did play on story difficulty again because much like in Fallen Order the idea of a Jedi struggling against one or two stormtroopers is weird to me. I do like the additional of fighting style this time around, the addition of a John Wick style close quarters blaster style was quite nice and the idea of seeing a Jedi use a blaster at all in any SW is such a welcome novelty that it was in one it always took up a stance slot, that and dual bladed lightsaber was for horders and had the most appealing and over the top animations. The countering did feel more intiuitive this time all though I would prefer force slow to be used on one enemy rather than hordes since I don't think it's balanced well on story difficulty since it kind of becomes a move I want to spam since it doesn't take long for it to be used again.

Platforming and the adventuring aspect of Jedi Survivor is a massive improvement. One thing I love about Survivor is that it forgoes the usual video game sequel trope of the main character losing all of his powers at the start of the game. All of the moves you have like double jump, force push, pull all make a return but now you get a grapple hook, a dash, wall jump, various abilities with BD-1 and the ability to force slam.

Due to all this moment to moment adventuring feels even more engaging now since Cal isn't spending the entirety of Jedi Survivor learning moves he already knows. The game pretty much from the offset expects you to play Fallen Order and I respect it when any game sequel is daring enough to do that.

The grapple hook might be your usual automated grapple hook fare but combine all that with wall jumping, dashing, wall running along with the air launchers later in the game as well the puzzles thrown in and it's hard for me to get bored with the game, and on top of all this the new abilties slowly gets fed the player giving you new ways to traverse levels after getting them. Survivor does an amazing job at keeping the metroidvania philosophy without needing for the player spending 50% of the game to re learn all the abilities from the last adventure, I never thought the idea was possible but Survivor proved me wrong.

Only issue I have is that it can get a little confusing on where to go at times but the map 8 times out 10 always gave me the right nudge and I only looked up a walkthrough occasionally. The navigational aids added to the map was a helpful touch especially.

Overall, Jedi Survivor has very good gameplay but the story is an ugly mess. If you can get past how awful the story is there is, a very good game is here.

Trigun(1998) Anime Review

Trigun was one of the anime I first remember watching back when I got into checking out anime again back in 2012, what I especially remember about it since I went in blind was that the show had the coolest opening ever(and it's still awesome now) where Vash is portrayed as this most badass dude ever who seemed to be this really competent gunslinger and the first episode happens and he's like the opposite of how he is portrayed in the opening, I remember that aspect hooking me, I also remember the rest of the show being pretty good and having one really good villain through Lagato Bluesummers. However, watching it now, especially the more the show goes on, I start questioning what I even found appealing about the 2nd half to begin with. It made me realize I was overly harsh on Stampede and while I don't think that show is good, it at least seemed more skillfully written than 90s Trigun. What should've been a fun trip down memory lane just got me more and more aggrevated while watching causing me to write this review in the first place. I have experienced so much fiction whether it'd be anime or other mediums that does what this show does but better. 

Before I start going into what made me so apathetic towards the show as a whole, I will praise the first couple of episodes of the series. These episodes are pretty entertaining stuff, it's like if a series like Slayers were to take place in a pseudo wild west setting rather than fantasy, it's dumb over the top slapstick fun. Vash is as a protagonist is at his most tolerable here since the tone is lighthearted and silly and the episodes basically have that sitcom approach and anticipation of how will a moron like Vash get out of this wacky situation. There is a moral at the end of the episode like many of those kinds of shows, but these episodes made me realize that Trigun is really at it's best when it's more of a goofy comedy than as a serious story about morality. These episodes prevent from calling Trigun an "awful show". The character of Nicolas D. Wolfwood also carried me through the later episodes too, much like Stampede, he was the character I often rooted for over Vash, and if he wasn't in the later episodes of 90s Trigun, I doubt I would be able to get through even if his death was underwhelming. 

Then Lagato Bluesummers show up and while the writing heads into sort of questionable terrority with how Vash's no kill rule causes more problems than it solves, it doesn't get extremely insufferable...yet. 

Where Trigun does start to lose me is in the flashback episode with Vash and Knives in space. Apparently Vash has an evil twin brother named Knives and he was barely alluded to and didn't even make an on screen appreance beforehand, when Knives popped up in this flashback episode, if I didn't watch the series previously, I'd be like, "how the hell is this guy?" I'm also asking other questions like why is the whole idea of humanity looking for a new planet to live on suddenly being mentioned now? This is where I say Trigun Stampede is improvement because at least with that series, Rem, Knives and Vash and humanity is shown at the very first episode so you know this is a thing where in 90s Trigun, it comes so out of left field. 

This is pretty much where 90s Trigun starts to annoy me more the show goes on. A serial plot gets introduced and it just feels incredibly half baked in almost every aspect to to me. On top of all this, it can all feel bizarre and out of place too. If you were one of those people who liked the show for the goofy episode comedic portions, the sudden appreance of a darker serial plot can feel out of place. At least in a story like Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex, the police case nature of the show had it's episodic crime drama feel more natural within the story since the Laughing Man case often had dead ends and the titular character himself would hide and reappear after a couple of episodes. Samurai Champloo is about over the top wacky hijinks with occasional serious episodes with a loose excuse plot about looking for the Sunflower Samurai. 

This leads me to my next issue, the pacing is absolutely dreadful from episodes 18-23. Knives gets spotted in some abandoned town and it's established that he is Vash's archnemesis and he has to stop him but it takes at least 5 episodes to actually get to the town where Knives is spotted, this wouldn't be so bad if the show was episodic but this is the writers' attempt at a serial story and as a result, you could go to episode 18 and skip all the way up to episode 23 and nothing of geniune value would be lost, at the most all you have to do is just fast forward and skip to when Meryl and Millie meet Vash again and that's it. Wolfwood even knew where Knives' true location was the whole time which makes these episodes even more pointless. 

Next isssue are Trigun's villains and I remember particularly Lagato being well written and after watching the show again now, I'm not so sure. His introduction and his conclusion are good but everything inbetween is just dull and boring. All he does is send in Gung Ho Gun members after Vash and that's about it. Speaking of the Gung Ho Guns, they graudated from the Metal Gear Solid 3 school of villain characterization where they have over the top names and looks but often don't survive more than one encounter against the heroes and don't have much in the way of characterization other than they are evil and they in the way of Vash and Wolfwood. The only Gung Ho Gun who actually amounts to anything is Wolfwood's teacher since he killed the guy but he gets killed off in the first few minutes after the Wolfwood death episode, you think he might be important but no. 

This is where I propose that Lagato should've been cut out of the story entirely and should've been Knives doing all the dirty work the former was going. The backstory of Lagato and the Gung Ho Guns are never explained or even how Knives' doomsday plan or goals of wiping out humanity was going to work or what plants even are? If Knives was the one giving the orders to Gung Ho Guns, was the one who killed Wolfwood, and was the guy making Vash's life a living hell instead of Lagato, it would make him a much more memorable villain. Stampede even does this to varying degrees where Knives in that show destroys towns and is more of a geniune nuisance to Vash and did more outside of killing Rem. Sure, the part where Vash has to make the decision to take a life would a little harder to do since Vash does need to fight Knives at the end but you could have a new villain introduced where he antagonizes Vash for a while and almost kills Vash's friends and he is so powerful that Vash has to take his life. It's a little weird but considering how little Lagato does after his intro, nothing of much value would be lost. Knives being the one who killed Wolfwood would make the latter cross weapon getting the win for Vash that much more poetic. 

The biggest issue I have with the serialized episodes of Trigun if Vash himself especially now that the story takes itself more seriously. I'm not a big fan of pacifist characters in fiction but Vash is a sub standard one even within the context of those kinds of characters. Everything about Vash's morals and everything he knew was because he got brainwashed by Rem, not because he geniunely came to those conclusions. Every time he comtemplates anything, it's often what, Rem would do not what he would do. It's hard to take a character seriously when they got brainwashed by a woman who has been dead for so long. 

Compare this to characters like Kenshin Himura and Thorfinn, they both killed many people and often have to struggle with the horrible things they have done but eventually when they choose the life of a pacifist, it isn't because someone told them to do it, the conclusion was because of their struggles. 

The biggest problem with Vash however is just how much his actions geniunely doesn't lead to anything beneficial especially in the long term. He spares the villain or takes too long to neutralize them and many innocents die. The worst of this is when he destroyed the lives of the people on the Flying Ship and even caused Brad's death, or how not killing the Gung Ho Gun attacking the plant destroyed the ship. It's never even explained what happened to those people but the show just keeps doing this. Every time Vash shows compassion, it either leads to even more undesirable outcomes and humanity hating him even more. The show ultimately proves that Knives was right but not because of his actions but because Vash's idealism gets him nowhere. It rarely if ever gets to anything desirable. 

Compare this to other stories like Dragon Ball where Goku sparing Piccolo and Vegeta actually turns out to be a positive in the long run and turns out to be very valuable allies. 

In superhero hero stories like Superman, Spider-Man and Batman, in many of the versions of these characters, the respective cities for these characters come to accept these characters. 

The DCEU has Superman initially be mistrusting of humanity, but throughout Man of Steel, he gets the respect of Lois and the military and by the Synder Cut of Justice League, humanity embraces Superman as a symbol of hope. Does Vash really get any of this? My issue is that a lot of what Vash does never leads to anything long term, Meryl and Millie respect him, some villagers do but at the end of the day, most of humanity fears and hates Vash even by the end of Trigun, not much has changed. 

This leads to my final issue, the ending is just awful. Not much has changed and that promised land that Vash was telling Wolfwood about and took the moral high ground on him over never even happened. Did Knives realize the error of his ways or was his crippled so hard that he can't move anymore? If it's the former, then the face turn is too sudden and if it's the latter then Knives probably prefers to be dead than live with Vash. The whole thing felt like the animators ran out of money. 

Overall, I wanted 90s Trigun to be a fun trip down memory lane but all it did was make me question what teenage me saw in the show. The comedic episodes are fun but the show stops doing them and introduced a seralized plot that is just half baked and poorly executed that if it weren't for the sunk cost fallacy and Nicolas Wolfwood, I would've dropped a while ago. I wouldn't call Trigun a terrible show since I enjoy parts of it but I do not want to watch it again. 

Badlands Rumble Review:

I'm not the biggest Trigun fan in the world and even back when I was a fan of it, I always remembered this movie being boring and dull. I decided to watch it again for a 3rd time to see if that opinion of mine still held water and yes, it still does. Anime movies based on TV series tends to be a hit or miss but Trigun Badlands Rumble feels like it got made because Madhouse wanted a quick buck. Compared this movie to Cowboy Bebop Knockin on Heaven's Door and everything about the former feels like a bad unfunny joke. I'm not the biggest fan of Cowboy Bebop either but Knockin on Heaven's Door was solid. Badlands Rumble isn't. 

First of all, I'm just wondering how this movie is even for this if you never watched Trigun, the movie never goes over enough of the bare minimum to understand the characters and the world. At least Dragon Ball Z movies pre Battle of Gods was just a small diet version of what you find in the DBZ show and even movies like Full Metal Alchemist the Conquer of Shamballa and Ghost in the Shell Standalone Complex Solid State Society were extended epilogues of their own series. As Trigun fans, Badlands Rumble offers barely any interesting fights, villains or even new plot relevations that weren't in the show. It almost feels like an anime filler episode with a budget. 

I already dislike Vash as a character and this movie made me question his philosophy in life even more. In the series, it was questionable that the only reason he has pacifist morals is because a woman long dead told him to do so but in the movie, I just question what on earth does Vash gain by not even at the very least neutralizing his enemies. Vash thinks by not inflicting pain on top of not killing prevents possible slippery slopes from occuring but that is some questionable logic, and Vash ultimately proves that his ideals don't always work since he ends up shooting a guy in the hand and neutralizing Gasback anyway. 

At the start of the movie, Vash not only lets a bank get robbed, he doesn't even neutralize Gasback from possibly ruining the lives of other people. To add insult to injury, Vash always had the ability to beat Gasback with geniune ease but chooses not to because of some lousy and questionable sense of righteousness that still causes slippery slopes to happen. 

Speaking of Gasback, he's sort of okay due to his english voice actor, but the only reason he's even a threat at all is because Vash refuses to take action in stopping him, he's pathetically weak otherwise. It also doesn't help that Vash gets a clean win over him in less than 5 minutes towards the end of the movie which is also their first and only fight they have even the most forgettable of DBZ movie villains put more of a fight than Gasback does.

The action is pretty forgettable and so are the characters. Wolfwood is nothing more than a hired gun, has no unique subplot of his own and we learn nothing new about him. Ameila is just dull and boring since her relationship with Vash is the latter trying and failing to hook up with her and the movie doesn't even do a good job at establishing that Amelia is good with guns or why she hates men so much. Meryl Strife and Millie Thompson are just there too. 

Overall, I disliked this movie when I watched it and I dislike the movie now. I'm only writing this review at all so I can just bury the hatchet it with this series and honestly, I'm not even sure if I have the energy in me to watch the 2nd cour of Trigun Stampede due to how much I can't stand Vash. I'd honestly rather watch stuff like Yugioh the Pyramid of Light over stuff like this, however I can't say it angers me as much as Saint Seiya Heaven's Overture does but that is saying very little. 

Silent Hill 3 Review

I played Silent Hill 3 around 2015 and I remember it being the best of the Team Silent developed games and after playing SH1, 2 and this game weeks apart from each other, I still think SH3 is my favorite game in the series. It's got some issues with it but from a gameplay perspective, the older SH games pretty much peaked here. The story is on the mixed side but it's still far from something I consider bad and it does have some things going for it.

Before I start getting to the good, I'll start describing the parts I'm mixed on and that is the story like I said, it's by no means bad but there are some massive problems with it. The two issues being the first half of the game and Harry Mason. The big issue with the first half of the game from a story perspective is that everything from after the Shopping Mall all the way to getting to Heather's apartment can be cut out entirely and nothing would change. If you just had Heather get out of the Shopping Mall and cut to her getting to the Apartment, nothing of value would be lost since the plot barely even updates, there is not much in the way of new developments and Heather hardly even interacts with the rest of the cast with the exception of the interaction with Vincent in the Hilltop Center. Outside of that, not much happens and this is the first half of the game which from a narrative perspective can be problematic.

The second issue is Harry Mason and to say the game dropped the ball with his character here is an understatement. The big issue is that within the context of SH3, the player is given very little attachment towards him or given any reason to care about him or his relationship with Heather and any form of knowing about Harry is Heather telling the audience through dialogue and it's her going through the events of SH1. On top of that, how much you care about Harry depends on if you played SH1 and if you like the character like I did, the last thing I really wanted to learn that is that he dies alone, seemingly not even putting up a fight and getting killed by a mini boss where he defeated God in the first game. The worst part is everything hinges on how much you care about him since Heather's revenge is connected to this.

Outside of that, the characters are solid and unlike SH2, I can tell what their goals are. Heather Mason is weirdly enough what you get if a normal person were to act if they were involved in the strange and otherworldly antics of Silent Hill, she's has the most likeablilty and personality out of all the SH protagonists and she's much more expressive. Vincent is my favorite character of the bunch where he plays both sides and likes to mess with both Heather and Claudia. Douglas' voice actor can be better but I did like how he was interwoven with the Order and trying to help Heather and being conflicted on her. Claudia is a religious abused nutcase and doesn't even try to shy away from how much of that she is.

The gameplay is where SH3 truly shines, all the issues I had with SH1 and 2's normal modes pretty much got addressed here. You are no longer showered with healing items and ammo, now you only find them on occasion and the game gives you the sweet spot of giving just enough to get by. The puzzles and riddles are noticeably toned down too and now it's most inventory puzzles which is just the way I like it since if I want challenging puzzles, I go play a puzzle game.

On top of all this, combat is highly discouraged, where in SH1 you got enough ammo to mow down lots of enemies and SH2 you had monsters that died in 3 pistol bullets. SH3 is where monsters take a number of pistol bullets to kill and not only that, but Heather can staggered and knocked down pretty easily meaning running away and only killing enemies in your way is the way to handle things.

The only enemies that can be reliably taken down are the nurses but they take a lot of melee hits to go down and every monster including nurses take multiple stomps while down to kill as opposed to SH1 and 2 where one stomp is enough to kill every monster when they are down.

There is even a weird decision making process with the bullet proof vest. Do you want to move slower but take less damage or move faster and take more damage? It's a nice little additional decision you got to make.

The music is also as great as ever but it's no surprise there. The addition of lyrical songs is nice and I do like Mary Elizebeth's McGlynn's singing.

When it comes to compliants all I have is that the Silent Hill problem having many doors that can't be opened is still super annoying since they might as well be wall textures instead of doors you can interact with.

The Subway level is the worst since everything looks the same and it's hard to tell if you are on the beaten path due to the map being presented in a segmented way.

Overall, I was worried that SH3 might not have held up but I'd say SH3 from a gameplay standpoint hangs up there with the greats of the survival horror genre.

Bionic Commando(2009) Thoughts

I have never played a game I have so desperately wanted to like. Bionic Commando 2009 has a number of things going for it well mainly just it's movement and moveset.

The game's grapple hook and swinging mechanic is rather unique even to this day. What if Spider-Man 2 the movie tie in game's swinging and Just Cause 2-4's grapple hook ever combined together? You get this game's grappling hook system. It's a very unique combo. At first it's a little hard to get used to but the more you play, the more you start to get used to it. How you can can swing and it's based on the physics and the momentum of the player's movement on top of being grapple and zip on to almost anywhere in the game world much like the Just Cause games' grappling hook. It's a decently well thought out and well made movement system and what's even more surprising is that it's in a linear game not open world.

However one big issue is that when it comes to precise swinging, the system isn't the most graceful. When you try to grapple and swing on to the balloons and there is nothing but water or a death put with nothing to grapple on to save yourself, and you have to grapple on to specific parts of the environment to get through the level, the game can get frustrating since there are times where I swing and it feels like Nathan's grapple SHOULD be able to grab on to it but it doesn't.

Some more good things about the game before I get to more negatives is that you get a decent moveset outside of guns and grenades in a shooter like this Death from Above is very similar to the lightning drop from the Infamous games, you can also launch objects into air and punch them towards enemies and killing them with it is very satisfying and makes the player feel creative for using the mechanic. You can also grapple ammo pick ups to yourself instead of walking up to them which is a really nice and quick way to get ammo. You also get an area of effect whip later in the game and it can come in handy at even the odds...at times.

This is where I start to lean more into what I dislike. The level design is at it's best tolerable but it's worst utterly obnoxious. There is radiated areas that can kill you if in them for too long and these are easy to avoid at times but then there are other times where I get into them by accident and I'm given little time to escape and regain my barrings. There is also other issues with it like how the game can't decide whether it wants to be a 6th gen game or a 7th gen game. I say this because there is hallmarks of 6th gen action game level design where the player has to complete a level that clocks in at around 5-6 minutes with no checkpoints bookended by a loading screen. Then there are longer levels that do to have checkpoints all though not as consistently as one would like.

Next issue is the health system and enemies. A regenerating health system is used and much like Just Cause 3 since all the enemies are using hitscan weapons this means that a game that should be about you letting out your cool action movie hero fantasy is instead a game of running around, hiding and waiting for health to regen. The last one robs the player of any agency since the ONLY thing you can do when on critical health with a regen health system is to just wait and hope no enemies are hitting you or in this case, hope they don't have line of sight since it's a hitscan game.

The player often doesn't have enough ammo to take down enemies. Sure you might need to be more creative and use objects to beat them but some areas don't have that either and even then since enemies are hitscan, can home in on you pretty quickly and the regen health on top of taking a good few seconds to actually smack an object with the punch, you could be at critical health if you do this.

Now this leads to my final big issue and that is the enemy roster, they range from tolerable to terrible. The basic infantry and chaingunners are fine since they can be taken out with concentrated gunfire but the snipers and especially the Biomechs are awful. The Biomechs are some of the worst enemies I have faced in a game like this, they can fly and home in on you, have a powerful area of effect of effect ground slam attack, can grab you, shoot you with various attacks and can bring you to critical health and due to the regen health, most of the time is spent running away from them. The kicker to all this? You often don't get a powerful weapon to thin out the Biomechs until you kill one out of 3.

Some improvements I could make to the game is have a Lost Planet style health system where enemies drop health upon death and you can regen if at critical, spawn more ammo and objects to kill enemies with and give the player the ability to hold a pistol, a rifle and a power weapon like a grenade or rocket launcher.

Overall, I wanted to enjoy this game but instead all it does is give me some casual enjoyment and then I get pissed off and annoyed. I really do wish this game got remade.

Assassin's Creed 3: Remastered Review

AC3 is a game I do have some major nostalgia for, I remember playing it around the time of release and while I certainly recall critics at the time who enjoyed the game, months if not weeks afterwards more people were starting to turn on it. I was heavily defending it at that point but after that, I was slowly starting to get more and more apathetic towards the franchise due it not consistently not being the "social stealth game" that was promised since AC1 and the series after that game drifting further and further away from that. However, I recently have gotten a little softer on the series and saw some of the cutscenes on Youtube and I bought a massive AC bundle on Switch so I decided to jump back into AC3 again through the remastered version. All in all, I just feel a massive sense of indifference towards it, nothing terrible but nothing great either.

I'll start with the story and this is where the game shines and also could be better. It's hard to say if AC3's story is consistently enjoyable. There are some who love it and those who can't stand it but I'm somewhere in the middle. There are parts of AC3's story I really enjoyed, Haytham Kenway is a great character and works as both a hero and a villain due to how likeable he is, but not only that but he also acts heroic and shows signs of weakness despite him becomeing a villain later on. His voice actor and dialogue does a great job at selling him as this witty and charming fellow. The twist with him and his group being a Templars is great and is pretty decently done in how it doesn't spell it out to you right away and with how likeable, heroic and vunerable Haytham can be, the player wants him succeed despite him being someone the player has to stop later in the game.

Connor is a character I'm mixed on, some aspects of his story I do enjoy like how every time Connor kills his targets, it's never a triumphant victory but a hollow one, every time Connor gets a kill, the Templars believe they are doing the right thing barring the exception of Thomas Hickey but even with him, he's so honest about what he does that at the very least you can't call him a hypocrite. The AC1 story fan in me was losing his mind at the time and even now seeing the series go back to this style of storytelling as opposed to the dull action movies and 80s action cartoons the Ezio trilogy tried to be. It was nice to see Ubisoft due this.

However, some issues I have is that the Homestead missions are intregral to the story and show more of Connor's character but the thing is, these are entirely optional. Many who like Connor are the ones who did the Homestead missions. I mainly just watched the cutscenes on Youtube since the gameplay in these missions are rather dull with less bombast and excitement compared to the main campaign. Achilles' death is even in these missions which making them optional even more bizarre.

The prologue is also a little too long while the Haytham parts are charming, the Connor sections take him about halfway through the game to become an actual Assassin which makes a good half of AC3's campaign a tutorial, which makes for a dull experience for someone who only does main missions which is also probably why the Homestead missions are optional since the game would feel even longer.

There also seems to be too much knowledge on American history to understand what is going on in the plot. There's events like the Boston Tea Party and the Battle on Bunker Hill, which seems like it would be more significant for people who know the history of it. A big issue I have is that Geroge Washington's inept ability to lead is told by Charles Lee and the Templars which is hard to take seriously since they are the characters the player is trying to stop and it seems you need to know the actual history of him to properly understand or how stuff like the Crown making their moves and the aforementioned Washington stuff is shown off screen.

I have talked a lot about the story, but the gameplay is honestly just too little of note to write about which is why so much of this review was about it.

Combat is pretty basic, there is a little going on but you mainly just need to counter and occasionally guard break then win. Health also regens fast when out of combat.

Stealth is still not good since you still have no dedicated crouch button and when an enemy sees you slightly you can't hide back in the bushes again.

Parkour while I like you keep momentum after an assassination is still basically, "hold the trigger to do everything" which can lead to you climbing on things you never meant to. The environments are also too big making getting from mission to mission a big annoyance especially in the cities since there is no fast travel.

The missions feel scripted and less free form like they are from a Rockstar game. I got used to it after a point but if you try to anything not in the script, it's a game over.

Overall, AC3 is just an "okay" game. I don't love or dislike it.

Wolfenstein: The Old Blood Review

I'm not a big fan of the Wolfenstein titles MachineGames has made, I tried to play the New Order back around the time it came out and I stopped playing after a few levels, I didn't even beat that game until 4 years later and still wasn't a big fan. The New Collossus was a game I had a massive dislike for when I played at the time and I questioned why on earth I even got to the end of. Young Blood I completely avoided due to me already disliking the rebooted Wolfenstein franchise to begin with so I didn't even bother. The Old Blood however is a Wolfenstein game by them and due to me looking for PS4 games I wanted to buy for a convention, decided to buy this packaged with The New Order.

Anyways, with that out of the way, I'd say the Old Blood still pretty is a very enjoyable game. The "all killer and no filler" feel of the campaign contributed to that on top of it being a partial remake to Return to Castle Wolfenstein, a game I massively prefer over all of MachineGames' effort with the series. I still prefer RTCW but Old Blood for the most part is a game I had a good time playing.

I might as well start with the bad first since it really stood out to me when I started up the game. Major issues I had is that BJ's health and armor on the default difficulty can be shredded through quickly with enough concentrated gunfire when you partner that with enemies not giving health upon death, no ability to hold medkits, melee attacks often being scripted takedowns with no invicibility frames, and worst of all being forced to press the interact button constantly to pick up health and ammo, any fun I could be having on the default difficulty pretty much gets sapped away and I'm just getting frustrated. The combat being primarily around hitscan weapons is inevitably going to have some annoying design quirks I have to get past but due to all these issues I lowered the difficulty to, "Don't Hurt Me". I was starting to have more fun with the game that way.

The next hurdle I had to get past is the level after the Prologue, which for the life of me I can't figure out why MachineGames would have you get into a fun and intense shootout followed up with a dull and lengthy stealth section. These long stealth puzzle sequences where you need to hold switches on wired mech robots long enough to open electrified doors and a series of climbing sections is something I would never want to add in a game that is supposed to be about killing hordes of enemies. It's so bizarre compared to the rest of the game that I questioned why it was here at all especially considering how Old Blood is way more light on plot.

One final but major negative that the final boss is really awful, it's not bad enough that you have to pay attention to his attack patterns but you will also need to deal with Nazi soldiers shooting at you, partner that with everything I said earlier in the paragraph describing my combat gripes and it was a sour way to end off the game.

With all of that said, if you ignore everything regarding Chapter 1 all the way to the final boss, I had a great time playing Old Blood, it's esstentially everything good about the MachineGames' Wolfenstein titles minus everything I dislike about them like their over reliance on cutscenes and cinematics.

I like that this is the only MachineGames Wolfenstein where it's more of the secret agent espionage side of the RTCW rather than the whole leading the "resistance" their other games would do.

The weapons all sound powerful, weighty and punchy. The over the top death animations enemies have is one thing that I can say Old Blood does improve upon over RTCW. This was something MachineGames' Wolfenstein does really well and in Old Blood, this is what comprises most of the game.

You can even dual wield assault rifles and shotguns too which I can't recall many games letting you do especially with the latter and getting kills with the shotgun can feel very good. Getting silenced headshots with a pistol can also feel very satisfying too.

The overall loop of The Old Blood mainly consists of being in semi open areas where you either sneak around or go run and gun all though my strategy was to pick off as many enemies I could with a silenced pistol until the alarm eventually gets raised and I started mowing everyone down. Killing enemies with the sniper also has a great "omph" to it.

Enemy variety is also pretty good stuff, you got foot soldiers, shotgunners, bigger mechs who has a specific weak spot in order to be killed twice with a takedown and zombies, there could've been some more but the short length of the game cancels this out.

Pacing of TOB never really lets up and after Chapter 1 just feels like an epic action movie power fantasy. The levels also do a decent job at not feeling too hand holdy even if the blue circle at times can feel like quest markers.

Overall, I did really Wolfenstein TOB, and I did have major isssues with it, I also had a lot of fun with it for the short runtime.

Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy Review

Jak is a series I have a complicated relationship with, however Precursor Legacy while having it's flaws is a game I do very much enjoy out of all the "mainline" Jak games, I consider this to be the best one. It's the only game out the initial trilogy of games I can play more than once since I have beaten it on PS3, PS4 and now thanks to the PS Premium upgrade path, PS5. The game does have some major problems but as a whole I'd say the good outweighs the bad.

A huge point to Jak 1's favor is the lack of load times for levels, this might not sound like a big deal but I can assure you, when playing a game with a lack of load screens, it just immerses you into the level that much more since you can just on playing without any annoying breaks inbetween. It was impressive for the time and still is impressive now. The only form of loading that can be noticeable is when using the fast travel warp gates and those aren't even that long.

The platforming moveset and controls in Jak is also really good and is one of the more memorable platforming movesets in a 3D platformer and the latter is why I prefer this game over Banjo Kazzoie. The controls in Banjo can be pretty stitled and awkward especially for those not used to the N64's style of controls. Jak's controls are pretty easy to understand and feels more refined since Naughty Dog has experience from the Crash games on top of being on a dual analog controller. Precursor Legacy being able to have an autosave without a re release over a decade later also adds to Jak's more easier to approach feel than Banjo.

Jak's moveset consist of the usual stuff like jump, crouch and double jump. You can also roll, roll jump, hi jump and a spin attack that can also be used as a move during combat and gives extra air time after a double jump. My favorite move to do is the roll jump since it makes up for the lack of a sprint button and clearing large gaps with it is really satisfying

The story for the most part is unintrusive and is basically just an excuse plot which is fine, I mainly want to explore, do platforming challenges and collect stuff which is why I want to address a major criticism is Jak's lack of a voice, I personally don't really mind it since there isn't much in the way of a plot and Jak's characterization in the game is nothing more him being an adventurer. It is a little annoying to not have Jak say anything but the cutscenes after the opening, are short enough that Jak's inability to speak never really stands out.

Level design is where the game mostly shines but can also be a weakness. I'll start with the good, one amazing thing about Precursor Legacy is that everything has a delibrate feel to it. The individual levels hit the right length of being not too small and not too large. Getting a Power Cell just feels so satisfying due to the victory fanfare just hitting that, "hell yeah I did that" and Jak and Daxter's victory animations being not too long and not too short to make it feel like an accomplishment. Since the levels hit the right size length whether you are collecting precursor orbs, scout files, exploring and doing various tasks, the player is always rewarded to some degree for being curious and looking around every nook and cranny which is something every exploration based game should nail even in Jak's case you get no new powers or anything new for exploring since it's collectathon platformer.

This is where I get to the negative parts since TPL is a collectathon this means that the structure of the game can be pretty messy. My big issue is that there might've been more levels than what was needed. What I'm trying to say is that if you aren't 100%ing the game, that means some levels can outright be skipped so if you don't like one level, go to another. Some can view this as a strength, but what is the point of designing game levels of content that not everyone is going to see? It just seems like a waste of time and money. My way of fixing this is to either cut the amount of levels or raise the Power Cell amount for each story milestone, I would prefer the latter since I'm under the belief, "less is more".

Another big issue is the combat, while not "bad" by any means. Some aspects can be misleading for example when I constantly punch or spin attack I expect to consistently mow down enemies but the thing is some attacks can be dodged while other attacks are almost like a hitscan you can't avoid which means that eventually you will get hit no matter how much you spam the punch or spin attack or on the move, the enemy will inevitably land a hit. No ability to evade doesn't help either. Luckily the game does frequently checkpoint which is a huge point for the game's favor.

The vehicle controls and minigames aren't great but the mandatory vehicle sections are mercifully short and the mini games can be skipped due the structure.

Overall, Jak TPL is a really good game and still my favorite collectathon platformer. I still enjoy returning to it.

Castlevania: Order of Eccelsia Review

Much like Portrait of Ruin, I started Order of Eccelsia around 10 years ago on an emulator but could never get very far in it and after the Dominus Collection releasing so recently, I was finally able to beat it, however I do have a more clear understanding as to why I never got very far into when I played it the first time.

The first thing noticeable about Order of Eccelsia right away is the upped difficulty by comparison to many of the other of the Igarashi produced Castlevanias, this is easily the hardest one I'm not really sure if it's for the right reasons either.

The early game hell in Order of Eccelsia makes the game so offputting to newcomers that I wouldn't be surprised if many people who started the game up for the first time gave up around the first few levels. So many things are either not explained to the player, how weak many of starting attacks and glyphs are or just how damage spongey enemies and bosses can be. I almost wanted to quit at around the crab elevator fight and if it weren't for the built in rewind that comes with the Dominus Collection, I would've just stopped around there.

Later in the game, you do get more powerful glyphs like throwing fire balls that covers your entire flank from where it is casted and a light ball and even an energy beam late game. What really helps is that the player will rescue villagers and doing side quests for them will unlock better gear and healing items. You don't even get the ability to buy potions and hi potions until getting at least a good ways into the game. You need to get to finish a few of the levels and bosses to unlock regular potions and a good ways into the game to unlock hi potions, you can forget about super potions since they are insanely expensive. However once you rescue the village cook and do his side quests, you can buy ramen and BBQ fish which aren't as expensive as potions and can revive more health.

With all this said, I'm sure looking up lots of posts online could've made the game easier or unlocking more high level gear but at the same time, enemies take up an insane amount of damage and take far too long to die. If it weren't for the stages being short, the tickets that warps you back to the village and the rewind, the game would've been impossible to beat for me. The bosses take so long to die and they do so much damage to you that it's hard not to abuse the rewind feature since if I don't that just means more grinding.

Dracula's Castle is a level I very much dislike too. I don't mind have a lengthy level inside of his castle, but at this point, this is the ending section of the game and it takes so long to finish. There's at least 3-4 bosses you have to fight before Death and there is also a fetch quest involving the heads of Cerberus in order to unlock the Dracula boss itself.

The double jump in OoE can also be very misleading too, 95% of the higher platforms you can reach by casually double jumping but there are those platforms on occasion where you need to specific timing with the double jump to reach it, to rescue Irinia you need to do a specific jump from below the waterfall to reach the platform to get her, I almost quit the game due to how confusing the timing was when it was straightforward before this. Dracula's Castle has at least 4-5 platforms like this. It just makes me wonder, why are 95% of the jumps simple than on occasion I need to be precise with my timing? The lack of carefully easing the player is what annoys me.

One big issue I have with SOTN styled metroidvanias is that you can look around and find secrets in so many of the levels and all they reward you with is gear that has less stats than the one you are using, weapons weaker than the one currently equipped or just something completely useless like some materials for side quests I'm not sure if it gets me one step closer to finishing. I thought OoE going back to the older style of CV game would mean stuff like this wouldn't happen as much but not really.

Some good things I'll say about the game is that the requirements to get the "true" ending is generally simple stuff, just rescue all the villagers and they are mostly easy to find and you will need to rescue them in order to get certain things like healing items and armour. Sometimes, you will need to backtrack but it's nothing too time consuming.

The grapple hook like ability with Magnes gets a decent amount of use, I was expecting it to be used in the early levels but it still gets acknowledged throughout the game, there will always be a level that requires some use of the ability even by Dracula's Castle you still need to use the power which is some decent game design in a game with so many abilities given to the player.

Overall, I don't dislike OoE but I can see why I never got far into the game when I first played and it can be jarring with it's difficulty compared to what came before especially considering those who played CV for challenge probably stopped playing a while ago.

Ghost Recon: Wildlands Review

This is going to be a weird review, my experience with Ghost Recon Wildlands was basically, "this is kind of fun for the first few hours but the more I play it, the more I felt how painfully average it is". That's GR Wildlands in nutshell, it's not a game I consider good or bad just on the average on the side. Compared to the Ghost Recon games I have played liked Advanced Warfighter 2 and Future Solider, Wildlands is primarily carried by it's highly polished and amazing feeling controls and combat more so than the campaign experience being anything standout.

The story is basically nothing more than an excuse plot but some aspects of it I liked. For example, every time the player does a major blow to El Sueno's drug operation, there is a short optional video to watch where you see the villain reacting to what you did and considering I'm a fan of when games or any story have the villains react to the actions the hero does, this was something I enjoyed, it didn't have to be there, but it was nice that it was there at all.

The story itself is derivative stuff if you watch a lot of crime and political thrillers. I can't help but find characters like Karen Bowman and El Sueno to remind of characters in other stories and games. The former is voiced by Diana Burnwood's VA in the Hitman World of Assassination games and it was hard not to be reminded of her and Black Lagoon's Balalika. El Sueno's VA really feels like he was doing his best Vincent D'Onofrio Wilson Fisk impression.

Anyways enough of that, the gameplay of GR Wildlands at least when it comes gunplay is great. Damage animations when hitting enemy with gunfire just nails how powerful a comtemporary video game firearm should feel. The exaggerated blood splatter and the sound indicators upon hitting them just has a high level of polish that I like to see in any game.

The easy difficulty is also very accomadating for people who don't want to engage with the coop, exploring the open world or needing to unlock more skills in the skill tree to be efficient at the game since if it wasn't, I would've dropped the game a few hours in.

The controls on console feel just as if not more refined than Future Solider's, it's pretty much the same except no Splinter Cell Conviction and Blacklist snap cover system. Your character does feel at the very least nimble enough to climb up some walls and chest high walls and it's nice to be able to scale down cliffsides without the fear of the game killing me I'm not allowed to take the slightest bit of fall damage. The easy difficulty also makes enemy awareness accomadating to make stealth possible all though I would never call the stealth as good in an open world setting like Metal Gear Solid 5's since despite having power generators and being able to toggle night vision, darkness does not not seem to effect visiblity. 

A big positive for the game is that you can still extract targets at safe houses even when helicoptors and enemies are shooting you, it might be unimmersive but I'm thankful this is here at all since it would add extra frustration.

Few other points to the game's favor is that missions are short and generally have checkpoints in them when they go on for slightly longer, there's lots of fast travel points to cut down on some tedious travel time and finally, you do not need to take out all 4 Cartel Bosses to beat the game, temmate AI is also fine and rarely got in the way and always helped when I was down which is nice, you just need to takedown 2 which is great since if the game went on any longer I would just get more and more annoyed by it. You do need to takedown all 4 for the "true ending" but why even go for that when the story is an excuse plot to begin with. On top of this, the story, final mission and default ending changes very little no matter which order you kill the cartel bosses.

I might sound positive but all these things I listed is basically me saying, "I'm just happy that the game I spent 20 hours playing and got to the end of wasn't terrible and was able to beat at all."

One big issue is the big the open world is, there are fast travel points but you will still need to do lots of driving. I did beat Jak 2 so I never found Wildlands' driving as awful as some pointed out but the amount of driving and empty space there can make the stretches of downtime is very boring.

The load times on PS5 are also really long which makes me want to play on easy that much more so I can lower the amount of times seeing the load screen upon death and lower the repeat runbacks to the outposts. 

The biggest issue is that missions are one note. Most of them last about less than 10 minutes and it revolves around "destroy x, kindnap y, kill z, locate f, interrogate c, find documents, hack into this, defend this, attack this vehicle, talk to this guy, sneak into here". If you played the first 5 hours of Wildlands, you already played much of the game. If the game was 10 hours, I'd be much forgiving as a whole but it takes a while just to takedown the first Cartel boss and you've seen everything. 

Overall, GR Wildlands is a game I can't say I outright dislike but at the same time, I can't say it rises above being average.