Tomb Raider Underworld Review

This game was a geniune mess, I played Legend years ago and I beat Anniversary recently and I always heard this game in this version of the TR timeline was the worst of the bunch and yeah it lives up to its reputation as being just that. I was always hesistant on even playing this game at all, I wanted a PS3 game to beat and I bought the "LAU" collection a couple of years ago, and this was just lying around for so long. There were many times I wanted to drop the game and move on to something else but due to reasons I will state later, I held on, and preservered and got to the end.

Anyways introductions out of the way, what why am I so negative on it? Simpily put, this game is a case study of how automated platforming can go horribly wrong. The first problem and this can apply to Anniversary to varying degrees is that Lara doesn't feel very smooth and precise to control. There are times where Lara jumps and she will either not go the way I want her too, refuse to do the action, or do a completely different move from the one I want her to do.

For example, if I say, have Lara balance on a beam, she will either jump across or do a weird front flip that causes her to miss the ledge and fall to her death.

Speaking of Lara falling to her death, that is something that will be happening a lot while playing TR Underworld. It has unpolish written all over it. Everytime she jumps on to a ledge, clambor on to one or just anything that involves moment to moment climbing, there is always a 50-50 chance of Lara messing up the jump even though I pressed the right inputs and she falls to her death or her doing something I don't want her to do.

To name two examples, when I try to make Lara wall jump, I have to mash x for dear life in order to for Lara to consistently jump from side to side because the timing for it is almost non existent then there is the parts where Lara is on a pole which she will either climb on top of one, shimmy to the side and hopefully she will actually jump to the position you want her to. The movement in general feels very stiled since like mostly anything involving climbing or platforming, there is always a 50-50 chance, the player will succeed or just die and restart.

Then there is the camera, which at it's best, does an okay job at giving you an angle on where to go next but at it's worst it starts spazzing out and it gives the player an awkward angle on where the player can or cannot jump to. Then there is the fact that it can get way too close to Lara while she is climbing and it gives an even worse angle on the action.

This now leads to my next issue, what can Lara can or cannot interact with? I had a hard time what hand holds and ledges Lara can climb or she will ignore, having Lara climb up surfaces that are waist high is a herculan effort considering sometimes she will climb and sometimes she won't. Am I supposed to climb anything colored in white? I think but all of that can start blending in with scenery and as a result, I have no geniune clue which areas Lara is able to interact with.

I looked up a walkthrough for much of the since all of these issues combined made for an extremely cumbersome game to play. This game came out the same year as Prince of Persia 2008 and that game is much more polished and enjoyable to play than TR Underworld is.

Now on to the good, after all that complaining why did I beat the game at all? Simpily put the game checkpoints well and load times after dying is super fast, I wish all games loaded as fast as TR Underworld did. This might be the one of the redeeming parts of the game.

Another good part is that the under water "Helheim" level is damn good. It's an underwater level meaning there is barely any climbing, and as a result, the level design gets to shine and I can tell where I am supposed to go without needing a guide. I can appreciate the exploration and backtracking Indiana Jones style power fantasy of exploring the unknown mythological tombs the game wanted. Knowing what I can and cannot interact with was easier to tell compared to the previous levels since it's just collecting keys and switch pulling, two things in game level design I like.

Combat is okay, I like using Thor's Hammer and it felt better to use here than it did in the Avengers game. I see people complain about it but it's decent, not good but combat was not the sole focus so as far as, combat inbetween climbing and exploration is concerned, it gets the job done. It's not supposed to be combat master class. Shotgun rounds can take out most enemies before getting Thor's Hammer.

Overall, TR Underworld is about as mediocre as mediocre games can get. It clearly needed more polish and more time to cook in oven before releasing. If I didn't own the game for so long and it didn't checkpoint and load as fast it did, I would've dropped and not see it to completion at all. If you want a case study of how to mess up automated platforming in a big budget AAA game, this is it

Star Wars Episode 1: The Phantom Menace Game Review

I got this game becuase it was the Premium game Classics game for the month of January and well, while the game isn't good, it is an interesting game.

I will admit, the first couple of levels of the game weren't too bad, the combat while far from good was somewhat serviceable, there was enough health pickups, and it was often easier just to reflect blaster bolts than it was to attack up close, the controls and camera aren't the greatest, serviceable at best, awkward at worst, it suffered from the same issues that a lot of fully 3D camera control games suffered from at the time where the movment with the tank controls as well as the collision detection not being the smoothest, and the camera at times can give you a good layout of the action, there was no moment where I was ever like, "man this is so much better than being able to rotate the camera".

Where the game did shine in the early levels however was the level design, I have a massive soft spot for mid to late 90s 3D level design approach of, little hand holding and you just find a way around a level yourself. It just felt super rewarding to figure out all the pathways you are supposed to go by yourself, and figuring out which switch does what and moving blocks to access new areas in order to progress through the level just gives that feeling of, "oh my god I did it" that only gaming can provide. I also have a massive soft spot for dedicated interact buttons before the days of Resident Evil 4 making them contextual. I did wish the game taught you that using Force Push to activate switches earlier in the game since it happens randomly in the 4th level.

However all of this goes downhill when I got to Tatoonie where the directions were far too vague and I had no idea what the actual means of getting T-14 Hyperdrive even was, it seemed like it was entering into the realm of a role playing game where it can play out in multiple ways but I am not a big fan of that kind of design and prefer the more linear and direct approach. It also just felt like the devs of the game were just padding out the runtime of the game so it wouldn't be as long as the film it's based on.

I eventually level skipped to Courasant and I disliked how the game made you play it as a third person shooter and you had no geniune means of evading attacks while having a lose auto aim and no geniune means of aiming, and fighting droidekas without lightsabers were a pain in the ass. I started to get bored and level skipped to the final level and it was back to the linear progression I liked but it's more obtuse here and once again, the devs were just padding out the levels. Like for example, in the movie Obi Wan jumped to where Maul and Qui Gon were when they were fighting but in the game Obi Wan has to do awkward platforming and puzzles instead. It just derails the pace of the Obi Wan, Qui Gon and Darth Maul fight.

Padme has to do a bunch of weird and convoluted key card puzzles to progress and also, who would put a key card near the top of the pillar? Even the level design has less consistency in logic later on. Why are there even droids on the balcony?

By the time I finished that last level, I was just glad the game was over.

This leads to me the most interesting aspect about this game, it feels like an amalgamation of multiple SW games in one before they came out despite being a third person version of Dark Forces 2.

It has the role playing of KOTOR, it has the lightsaber combat of Jedi Knight and Revenge of the Sith game, it has the character swapping and puzzle solving where you play as blaster and lightsaber characters like the Lego games, and it has the linear action adventure platformer third person shooter adventure that Bounty Hunter would have. Everything this game does is done better in other SW games all though TPM game came out before many of them so in a sense, it paved the way for them which despite the latter not being good it's interesting to view it from that lens.

It goes to show that it had interesting ideas in spite of being rushed out of the door to meet the movie's release date.

Assassin's Creed: Syndicate Review

I'm not that big of an AC fan but after playing Mirage and kind of warming up to Ubisoft open world games these past few months, I decided to buy and play Syndicate. I played Unity almost a decade ago and strongly disliked the game but Syndicate was enjoyable time. I don't think this game is great, I don't think any of these games are but they are decently enjoyable games as long as you don't go in expecting too much. In general, AC Syndicate is what everyone praises Unity for and if this was the game that came out in 2014 instead of Unity, I would've probably never have gotten into my anti AC phase for the longest time, still not a big fan of the series as a whole, but as far as being a "stealth game" that the series supposedly was before the RPG games, Syndicate does a competent job.

I'll start off with what I dislike. The story was not particularly good, at it's best, you just turn your brain off and not question it too much, at it's worst, it's just badly told. The cutscenes are well produced, acted, and directed enough that it's not off putting in the moment but then there are things like, why does Jaccob do all the work while Evie is mostly there in the background, Jaccob does mostly everything, he does most of the main assassinations, and gets all the missions while Evie gets a few by comparison and this starts to stand out when they are both playable characters and are supposed to be on equal standing. You learn about the backstory of sibling's parents towards the end of the game when it has a mission with little at stake and one late game "betrayal" with Jaccob's story involving children was enough to make me zone out for good. The last sequence in general lacks any build up to the final mission and it just kind of well happens. I also dislike AC's overarching modern day plot in general since in the Animus, the heroes will be defeating the villains and that is contrasted with, "well that didn't mean much in the end" since the Assassins in the modern day are on the losing side.

There were some bugs and glitches here and there all though on PS5, it is prone to crashing so be warned if you want to play the game using backwards compatablity. Luckily, the game autosaves frequently and also during missions which is really helpful.

The parkour still isn't as accurate and precise as you would want it to be. There are times where the player character will climb up walls and then when anything involves moving diagonally and just moments where you are in a pinch and you just want them to climb something, either they will climb up or they won't, since climbing is a contextual action like many in the game, either they will do what the button you press tells them to do or they will do something else entirely. For example, I want to press circle to ride the carriage but instead when attacked by enemies, they will be grabbed instead. Sometimes, I press parkour down, and the player character will not do it and the magnetized wall grabbing means that they will move to places I never wanted them to. It's a system to this day, I'm not big on despite having slightly more control in Syndicate and Unity.

Finally the dual skill tree system is pointless, you could have Jaccob and Evie share the same skills and it would lead to the same thing. They both play too similarly to even justify having two different skill trees plus the skills exclusive to each character are usless, big culprit here being Evie's invisiblity cloak since it takes too long to activate and stealth requires you to be moving away from sight lines not staying in place.

I might sound like I have been complaining a lot but I do like this game. One thing I like about is that while the AI is dumb as bricks when it comes to moment to moment stealthing, the AI at the very least has a stupidity about them that is consistently exploitable. For example, their sightlines, as well as the detection system is forgiving enough to the point where consistent stealth is possible and if you are seen and since most of the missions don't have a instant fail state when detected, you can break line of sight and then go back to sneaking again, it's not "immersive" per say but I come to accept that stealth games have their dumb quirks about them. The AI isn't Splinter Cell Chaos Theory and Blacklist but not a lot of games can be measured up to them. It's easy to take multiple enemies out from the same corner and you can kill multiple enemies on a high vantage point with throwing knives in ACS. 

The stealth is actually reinforced somewhat here since combat feels awful and enemies are super spongey even with a mostly maxed out skill tree but this is good since this is an AC where stealth feels mandatory outside of immediate fail states when seen.

I criticized the parkour before, but I like it a bit more here with parkour up and down, it gives me slightly more control over my moments, and I like that there is even descend options at all. Making going down building somewhat quicker, and the animations do look very nice which is good since a lot of the game is climbing up buildings. The grapple hook while automated did do a good job at making climbing feel a bit faster, it did make crossing the gaps between buildings a lot easier to do all though I did wish the moving down zipline speed was faster since one moment, player character is descending quickly and another moment they are moving slowly.

The Black Box Assassinations which got introduced in Unity is something I appreciate much more here since the AI is more consistent, I love how big densely populated these missions are and how it feels like you are solving one big epic puzzle to get to the kill. It feels rewarding when I get to them and these missions give me enough hand holding but not too much compared to say playing the modern Hitman games on normal do. It's surprising when a game like this allows me to figure things out for myself. 

Another thing I like is how dynamic the open world the open world can be. For example, the Templars, gangs and the policeman are you enemies but you can also have them fight each other and this shines during the enemy outpost missions, where you can lure enemies out of the outpost with your how fast you can move and either have them fight policemen or just run back to the objective and complete it after getting alerted, it isn't game over if you get spotted even with the combat in this game not being as good as it is. You could use stealth to kill everyone or get spotted and lure everyone out or use tools. It's rather impressive. 

Overall, for being a game in a series that I feel out of favor for a decade ago, I can say I got enjoyment out of Syndicate, which I even I am surprised that I enjoyed. It's not an amazing game, but for a game I got a reduced price, it was a good time. 

Jack the Ripper:

This was a super dull DLC, I should've played this as soon after I finished the Syndicate base game but I doubt it would've made it better. I'm not even sure if the AC franchise ever did have a good DLC in its run and this did little to change my mind.

I didn't really like the AC Syndicate story so I don't have much to comment on here since I don't really care for Jaccob and Evie and the former is gone for 95% of the DLC so if you were attached to him, you will be disappointed in his lack of screen time.

The biggest issue with the game is just how easy is it to use the "Fear" bombs and takedowns as a dominant strategy, only time it isn't is when holding square doesn't activate the fear takedown animation when using fear bombs on alerted enemies or screwing up the left stick QTE prompts as Jack the Ripper.

If any of these things happen, game plays out like this:

You sneak around activate a fear takedown and scare everyone nearby or get caught activate fear bomb then do the fear takedown animation to scare everyone away. This whole system becomes easy to break after a point, on top of this the bomb don't cost that much at vendors meaning you can spam them even more.

Final boss was pretty laughable since all you need to is run away and so some stealth takedowns and you are done.

Overall, this DLC just isn't worth it and isn't well made since new mechanics are established but are incredibly half baked beyond belief. Everything about it is so unremarkable, it makes me glad it checkpoints mostly well and is pretty short.

MediEvil(1998) Review

I played MediEvil Resurrection not too long ago and I always heard the original PS1 game was better and after playing the latter for the first time this year, I kind of agree but at the same time I disagree.

Anyways, with that out of the way what did I think of this game? It's a mess it really could've been a good game but it's held back by an awful camera and controls that aren't up to the task to what the game expects out of you.

I'll start with the good, the music, voice acting, and level design all oozes charm and has that whole cartoonish horror feeling, I'm not overly familar with Tim Burton but I can see the connections. Sir Dan and the characters around him are fun and endearing and the former has a lot of personality for someone who can't technically speak, his muffled voices and garbles gives him a lot of character an does a good job at selling the underdog motif that the game is going for. The story and premise still stands out today in that the game is esstentially a parody of the "chosen one" trope and how Fortesque for an action game protagonist especially is more of a incompetent goofball who has to prove himself rather than someone who is already capable at the start.

The level design oozes charm. The enviroments look distinct and are solid to navigate for the most part which is especially impressive considering the game has the PS1 short draw distance problems. I also like how the game combines two of my favorite types of level progression in games, you got the 90s FPS keycard hunts with the runes and you got the survival horror inventory puzzles. Combining both does give this game a unique feeling that even games from the late 90s didn't have and that era was already full of level design powerhouses. The game also takes inspiration from linear platformers in that there is an overworld screen where you can choose which level you want to go to and new levels get unlocked the further you get into the game. The game does have a unique style when it comes to level design that games today don't even have.

However what lets the game down is the platforming and controls. They are fine at first since the obstacles the player faces in the first half is pretty manageable. Nothing too outreageous just kill enemies, avoid traps, platforming and solve puzzles, the first three especially in the first half feels reasonable since nothing is too demanding from the limited movement controls the player is given which is walk and run and having tank controls in a fully 3D space with no camera control.

Then I get to the Pools of the Ancient Dead level and if you want everything bad about MediEvil's second half in one package, this level is it. You got enemies attack you from all sides, insta kill pits, awkward platforming with how floaty and imprecise the jump is, and tight and narrow walkways and if you try to move fast it could have you lose a lot of your continues and this level was annoying as shit even with save states. I would just accidentally fall to my death constantly since you have to move slowly, it means the level itself goes at a painfully slow rate. The lack of camera control makes level navigation disorienting at it's worse and at times a bit of a guessing game. The entire second half of MediEvil has varying degrees of this.

Another issue is the combat and like with the levels, the first half of it is fine. Fortesque is a tank and is pretty much meant to be taking hits, there is no dodge button and blocking feels limited to the point where I never used it. The combat is esstentially spam powerful attacks and take hits from enemies while running around and eventually kill them. The 2nd half of the games is where enemies get really spongey and it starts to get infuriating since Dan isn't given much in the way of combat options and he becomes more fragile later in the game.

Combine all this together and by the time I got to the Pirate Ship level, I wanted the game to just hurry up and end. That level is a massive difficulty spike and apparently there is an overpowered sword you get that makes short work of tougher enemies but I was so sick of collecting Chalices and wanted to get to the end. The Pirate Ship level has some awful platforming, tough enemies and a boss that will heavily drain your health. The Time Device level is when I cheated and just wanted to beat it already. But even with the infinite health cheat on the Duckstation emulator, you can still get game overs from pitfalls so it wasn't a mindless cakewalk then the final boss was mostly a pushover even with cheats. If the game just removed the Pirate Ship and Time Device levels altogether, I would've been more positive on it.

Overall, Medievil is a unique game if you can look past it's rough edges but at the same, the game slowly starts to loose it's charm the more it goes on. I'm glad I played it but I am not sure I would want ever want to play again unless its been 20 years and my memory on the game is really hazey.

Daymare: 1994 Sandcastle Review

I never played the first Daymare game and I mainly played this first because it was a prequel, I normally don't do this but this game looked and sounded intriguing enough for me to want to play it, I might play the first game down the line due to the varying degrees of enjoyment I got from this game. I'm not holding out my breath for that game to be good since it sounds like something I might not enjoy.

Anyways with that out of the way, what did I think of Daymare 1994 Sandcastle? It's an okay-good game, however it is an okay game that I find to be endearing which is fine by me.

I'll start with the good, the weapon feel and damage animations all feel great and have the gratifying feedback you want. Blasting enemies with a shotgun especially while frozen just has that "oomph" to it that I want out of any game that has a high amount of shooting in.

The fact that you only get two weapons throughout the whole game did sound offputting when I looked up more info regarding Sandcastle, but it's fine. I did switch between shotgun and smg enough to the point where neither weapon felt too dominant over the other, I did mainly use the shotgun since the game's combat is primarily at close range and shotguns in video games are more effective at that distance but the smg did at the very least get more use whenever the insta kill attack flying monsters showed up. The smg's ammo ran out faster than the shotgun too, but I was fine with it. At the very least the game never made me wish I wanted to have more weapons which is a quite the achievement.

The frost grip is encouraged and is required to be used by the player, the thing is definately not a pointless gimmick, you will most certainly need to use it throughout the game to effectively get by combat encounters, you need to pretty much freeze enemies in order for you to effective kill them. Regular enemies can be taken out with a shotgun blast while other enemies who are bullet proof need to be frozen in order for you to get the kill.

The final thing I like about combat is that enemies won't die after you blasted them with a shotgun or headshotting them with the smg, their "soul" will transfer to another another corpse of sorts and then they will attack you again, this encourages use of the frost grip even more since you need to forst bullet them in order to avoid them from "resurrecting" think of the Infector from Dead Space except they can be taken out as easily with one shot but you need to deal with multiple enemies. My only gripe with this is that it's hard to tell which enemies will have their "soul" come out of a corpse and which ones don't. There is also the aforementioned instakill flying enemy but his attacks are telegraphed well enough when he is close by with a sound cue to know when to avoid him.

The level design is pretty decent too. Nothing too standout but it gets the job done, the game's levels are ultimately linear but the general direction is pretty easy to figure out without the game needessly being patronizing. There is also some decent use of the "inspect" option in the inventory.

Story is also kind of engaging with Reyes being noticeably more vunerable and interesting than a lot of Resident Evil protagonists. It's not amazing but it is more engaging than something like the aforementioned RE even with it's stifly animated cutscenes. The voice acting isn't as bad as some make out, I found it to be decent enough. Reyes does show character when her sister Helen is involved and she's shown to be introvert with how she is a scientist and how she lives in a closed off apartment. The rest of the story can be pretty hard to follow and somewhat convoluted but Reyes did make me more engaged than I thought I was going to. 

However after all this praise, there is some major issues one being the lack of enemy variety but I didn't mind that so much since the lack of weapons and the lack of enemies sort of balance each other out. Add the frost grip and encounters are generally engaging enough.

Two bigger issues I have is the lack of defense items and a dodge button.

The RE remakes have the former and the lack of them in Sandcastle is noticeable. There is no way of defending yourself when you get grabbed, sure you can activate freeze attack after getting hit but can't you say, have Reyes do a counterattack before the enemy bites her and then it depletes the frost grip guage and then you need to replenish it using an canister items? It would give these items more use and add more decision making. Should I use a canister to restore my grip or should I take the hit and use a healing item? Plus it starts to get tiring and frustrating mashing x all the time to break out. This would add more to combat and cut down on the tedium.

The lack of a dodge button can be super frustrating at times. There are enemies who throw projectile attacks at you and the only way to evade them is hope you press the sprint button fast enough before the projectile lands. This can kill you in 2-4 times and add the enemy grabs to that and the combat can get really frustrating at times, so many times I died in this game was because of the lack of defensive options and evading. I did try to save health kits when I can but the game spawned them on occasion so it felt like I had to use them sparingly. The final boss in particular can be infuriating due to this since she can grab you and then you have to repeat to redo a section to get back you were on and her patterns and when she grabs you can be very unpredictable and the lack of being able to move out of the way last minute can add some major frustration despite being health kits spawning every time Helen teleports you. 

Overall, Daymare:1994 Sandcastle is a decent at time good game but expect rough edges with some omissions being questionable, still worth checking out if you want an over the shoulder action horror game that is not a remake like Resident Evil 4 and Dead Space. 

We Love Katamari Reroll Review

I played Katamari Damacy Reroll around the time it came out and the more I look back on it, the more I remember it fondly. It's one of the games that I didn't mind you being timed and the last level where you have to roll up so much of the map within the 20 minute timer and then I reached the required roll amount with the main theme playing in the background is one of the most memorable moments in gaming.

I did play Katamari Forever before playing this since I thought We Love Katamari wasn't going to get a modern port at all but it turns out the latter did. Plus the former game was just a "cheap" rare game convention buy.

Introductions out of the way, I found We Love Katamari to be an admirable sequel and it's certainly better than Forever by a large country mile but at the same time, Damacy just felt like those weird wacky one off games that didn't need to be a franchise and while I commend WLK on trying to innovate on the formula, much of it's attempts to innovate doesn't really do much for me.

I do like the gimmick stages and they do seem interesting in concept but so many of them just either consist of you rolling things up until the time limit is up with no mandatory amount you need to roll up leading to a game over or just rolling things until you roll up enough to overtake the bigger object. A lot of these gimmick stages just lack challenge or geniune tension to be engaging for me. It's not as overly difficult as some of Forever's stages but Damacy managed to hit that sweet spot of being having the right amount challenge to the point where the game felt fair but not overly difficult. Once again, the gimmick stages are an admirable attempt at innovation but it further tells me that the original concept of "rolling a certain amount until time runs out" is what makes this kind of gameplay engaging.

In fact, the best and probably the most challenging part of WLK is the Bird and Elephant level where it has Damacy original game mode of rolling up a certain amount before time runs out and much of this map is reused from the final level of the original game just that now you need to 500m rather than 300m. The best parts for me is the non gimmick levels.

This leads to my next issue, the campaign structure, I prefer you increasingly have higher requirements to roll up during the main campaign through a linear stage of missions like say a linear platformer or a 90s fps game rather than you doing the levels out of order. This leads to levels I can skip and inconsistent levels of difficulty. The gimmick stages don't have much in the way of challenge but the traditional stages can be much more challenging by comparison. The Bird and Elephant mission can feel like a massive difficulty spike depending on when the player does it and the game never gets that challenging or stressful again.

Without slowly increasing the roll up requirements and the non linear progression, the difficulty doesn't feel like it is amping up, it's just all over the place.

I might sound like I am being a harsh on WLK and I did enjoy the game and it didn't annoy me as much as Katamari Forever did, the former just further reinforces my belief that Katamari Damacy was a one of a kind game that should've never have became a series. There's only so much you could do with the concept of rolling things up in a ball.

Smurfs 2: Prisoner of Green Stone Review

Weird how Mission Vileaf was a Mario Sunshine and Daxter styled 3D platformer, now with this sequel, it's basically a Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart clone although that might be putting it lightly, Smurfs 2 enters more into the realm of borderline "knockoff". I am not entirely against this however since Ratchet Rift Apart failed to break even and there isn't many third person action games that play like it, I'm kind of okay with the idea of a licensed game borrowing so heavily from it.

With all that said, I did enjoy Prisoner of Green Stone varying degrees after all I did make it to the end credits, but it's hard not to see Rift Apart's influences when playing it. You got a double jump, a dash that can be used during combat and platforming, lots of portals, the Smurfs move around and have animations similar to Ratchet, even the way the gun is aimed and the way the camera is positioned when doing it is very similar to Rift Apart. I do like Rift Apart a lot and like I said before, there isn't many games that plays like it so a game that reminds me of it even if it super on the nose about it is a good thing. If I was on the Rift Apart development team I would geniunely feel flattered.

However there are some problems have with it and if you are like me who likes Rift Apart and wishes there were more third person action games that plays like, then this alone is worth the price of admission. I was expecting a 3D platformer like Mission Vileaf rather than a full on genre switch up but it's a welcome change.

Before I go on the negatives, I do think playing the game on the hardest difficulty did provide a solid and decent enough challenge, it did make me had to avoid getting hit a lot more even if the game having health items scattered all over the arena did make even that mode a but easy but I argue the high damage and somewhat high HP of enemies cancels out the health packs being all over the arena. I also have more reason to use each Smurfs' special moves after hitting their weak points mutliple times to fill up the meter since larger enemies can be spongey on the hardest difficulty.

The puzzles and platforming do a decent job at breaking up the pace, they aren't going to blow your mind but they do an okay job at breaking up the pace of the action. I also like how it makes you switch between the different substances the Smurfs have since the CatchAll Substance was the secondary weapon I mostly used.

I might as well get to the negatives now, the CatchAll Substance was the most useful and dominant secondary weapon in the game, it has the best range, does the most damage and it had an area of effect that grabs nearby enemies and damages them too. The rest have limited range and require you to be close in order to reliably hit enemies. I wish you could carry all the substances instead of it being a pseudo two weapon limit but I am not sure that would make me use CatchAll any less.

The damage animations and weapon feel isn't that great and needs more polish. Sure Smurfs 2 is a kids game but games like the aforementioned Rift Apart, does a much better job at making weapons feel powerful and it shredding through enemies. Other less gorey and violent games like Metal Arms, the Transformers TPS games and Timespiltters do a good job at giving highly polished damage animations. Prisoner of Green Stone has enemies flash white and shots don't have satisfying imact when they land on enemies making combat not as gratifying as it could be.

This leads me to my final issue, the game is just too long and I wouldn't mind since highly polished damage animation and good feeling weapons can carry me through many shooters but Smurfs 2's levels can really drag, some parts have super long enemies waves that feels like they are supposed to bookend a level but instead the level keeps on going. The game also stops throwing new enemies and weapons at around the half way point so without polished damage animations and good weapon feel, and the dragged out levels Prisoner of Green Stone can get monotonous and not the kind that I can enjoy. It also reuses boss fights like the Frog and Stolas multiple times too adding more to the monotony, fighting the latter was fun the first time(he was rather broken on hard) but a few new attacks isn't enough to make the fights feel new and fresh.

Overall, Smurfs 2 is an okay attempt at aping off Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart, if there were more games that attempted what Rift Apart did, I would be harsher on Prisoner of Green Stone but like with Forspoken was to Infamous, I welcome a game that tries to imitate a game I really like since the lack of those kind of games on it's own makes me open to other games that take heavy inspiration from those said games.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3(2023) Review

I wasn't really big on CoD MW2 2022 but I did to varying degrees enjoyed MW 2019, Cold War and Vanguard before that, and I wasn't really going to play this game especially how MW2 2022 was supposed to be a two year game and how they decided to rush MW3 2023 out the door. But I can't deny that the reception to MW3 2023 and how it was so poorly received that not even game journalists liked did get me curious in checking it out and especially considering how the gaming community tends to exaggerate the negative aspects of games that didn't meet their expectations, it got me curious if the game is the epicly bad game they hyped it up to be.

And well, the game isn't "bad" on a technical level but the campaign feels like a rushed, confused, poorly put together mess. I still don't think this is the worst CoD I played, United Offensive takes that award, but this isn't even on par with the original MW3 and that game I sort of liked. This game just doesn't know what it wants to be half the time.

The big problem with the campaign is that at it's best, it's the same old typical CoD campaign setpieces and one note shooting galleries it's always been but at it's worst, the new ideas MW3 2023 brings to the table are hollow and half baked. I might as well address the new "open combat missions" and on paper they seem like an okay idea, and I for one welcome the idea of more freedom and open maps in a CoD campaign especially when its not there for a one off mission but the problem is, it feels undercooked, most of the objectives in these missions are, "destroy or hack x amount of something", the rooftop level is where things get the most interesting but that starts off as an open combat mission and then towards the end turns into a typical CoD scripted setpiece shooting gallery that these campaigns tend to be.

The open combat zones on paper could potentially give the freedom CoD mp nowadays brings into single player which is interesting on paper but it not only feels half hazardly put together due to the objectives being the same but outside of collecting armor pieces, (which I do admittedly like for the first time in the series since WW2, the devs innovated on the health system), you don't really need to use half the mechanics, items and materials these missions offer you. There is "stealth" but it is easy to get caught and breaking line of sight and getting back into stealth is hard to do since so many of these missions revolve around sprinting to the objective while getting shot at, kill everyone who are shooting at you and hope you don't die while you are doing it or else you respawn at the start of the mission since these missions checkpoint on occasion.

I will admit there is SOME good here, the game overall at the very least doesn't checkpoint as inconsistently as MW2 2022 does, the game is slightly more polished by comparison all though this game is still pretty buggy and it still amazes me how Vanguard's stealth mechanics are better than both MW sequel reboots, and this MW game doesn't feel like it's aping off of the Uncharted franchise compared MW2 2022 where that game had you get into a shootout with enemies while shipping containers are tipping over and the convoy chase from Uncharted 4. Armored enemies in MW 2023 don't take as much damage to kill compared to MW2 2022 all though CoD games' shooting gameplay boiling down to "ADS and shoot" make these enemies feel more like an annoyance to fight since there is little way of dispatching them. I also like how MW3 2023 doesn't have two whole chapters in the AC 130.

This is basically the biggest issue with MW3 2023's campaign, who is this campaign even for? If you come to CoD for scripted setpieces and over the top action movie fare, you won't like the open combat zones. If you like the open combat zones and enjoy multiplayer with a loose narrative, the scripted missions will feel out of place. One set of missions let you customize your loadout, the other doesn't. One lets you switch to your secondary weapon with ease, the other doesn't. One checkpoints a lot, the other checkpoints occasionally. Due to this, the campaign's structure and direction can feel super confused and appeals to no one.

Overall, this version of MW3 is a fascinating case study of how a super sudden change in plans and developers hurrying and rushing out a product can lead to confused design. This campaign isn't the super epic pile of garbage it is hyped up to be but isn't good either. Vanguard was probably the last CoD campaign I consistently enjoyed and didn't constantly groan at while playing.

Resident Evil 2(1998) Review

Resident Evil 2 is a weird game, I recall liking it even when I still beat it but after playing the Director's Cut version of the first game, I have a new appreciation for RE2 than I originally did. Jumping into RE1 1996 to RE2 1998 and it feels like a massive jump in almost every way. 

Everything about RE1 that is good is mostly kept intact in RE2, the amazing level design of the Spencer Mansion is carried over to the STARS Police station. The interconnected areas where you have short cuts, where you need to collect ammo, healing and inventory items to progress and where you learn new things about the map as you are going through and checking down each room and making a list of all the important areas of interests is all kept intact. 

The inventory system which I have come to appreciate about the older REs is also still kept intact, where treks outside of save rooms is a game of, "how many health items, weapons, ammo, and puzzle items can I keep with me before venturing out". Now, you even get extra inventory spaces all though you have to choose if Leon and Claire will have it. 

The satisfying weapons like the shotgun and magnum are still there and the damage animations are still as satisfying as ever. 

Where RE2 improves on RE1 is all the questionable aspects of the first game. For example, there is now a visual indicator of when the player character has taken damage, making it easier to tell when the player should take a healing item.

The voice acting is better, all though still not amazing, it does have an intentional camp to it where the first game's voice acting outside of maybe Wesker and Barry's VAs sound confused about the material they are acting out. 

Music is also much improved and the ambient music gives a tense yet oddly catchy tunes that accompanies the game since it would be dull just hearing Leon and Claire's footsteps. 

Combine all of these things and RE2 is one of the most engrossing games I have ever played, I played the game for hours on end without ever getting up from my chair, RE2 just nails everything I like, decent enough combat and very engrossing and engaging level design. 

Where RE2 really makes the massive leap forward is the A and B game system. I encourage anyone to play the B game after playing the A game of either character. It gave me a new appreciation for RE2, where RE1 has seperate camapigns for each character where both took place in their own universe, RE2 improves upon this by having Leon and Claire's campaigns intersect with each other. Stuff that happened or gets overlooked in Leon's campaign will get addressed in Claire's, for example remember the part where the zombies start to burst through the area where the basement entry was in Leon's campaign, in Claire's campaign you will have to deal with that. 

Remember the crashed helicopter as Leon? In Claire's campaign, you will have to blow it up to meet Chief Irons. There is also a sub plot with Mr. X not present in Leon's A game.

I don't have much in the way of compliants, the combat issues can be annoying like the lack of a dedicated dodge button, the auto aim not always being reliable, and enemies covering a good portion of the screen where you are trying to aim your gun but these are small compliants since you get powerful weapons that make short work of many of the enemies especially as Leon. 

And this transitions me to my next issue, Claire's projectile weapons don't feel as good as Leon's hitscan weapons. Leon gets a super shotgun that rips enemies apart late game and a magnum where Claire's most useful weapon is a grenade launcher that has a good chance of missing enemies since it's projectile and the auto aim minus the fixed camera makes it not as easy to land shots but the low hp of enemies makes this tolerable enough. 

The bosses aren't that great but they go down pretty quickly like the enemies and there isn't many of them luckily. 

Overall, RE2 1998 is one of the greatest game sequels ever made, I completely understand why it gets the praise it does, it took what RE1 did and improved upon it in every way. This might be one of my favorite games of all time, it certainly is one of my favorite game sequels of all time. 

Mass Effect: Andromeda Review

I'm not a big Mass Effect franchise fan, by the time I beat ME3 I was so burnt out on it that I didn't want to touch more of the series but I wanted a "quick and easy" game to beat before 2023 came to close and MEA fit that role pretty well. Andromeda isn't a very good game at all, it's about as medicore as mediocre can get but in a backhanded way, the game feels like one of those kinds of games I have to play every once and a while to understand why I like the games I enjoy.

With that out of the way, I would actively talk about the story but I didn't pay as much attention to it as Bioware wanted me to. The story, the writing, the voice acting, the animations are so stiff and awkward that by the time the main villain of the game made his first appreance after the prologue and all he did was just moved around and made blank facial expressions, I basically knew the story wasn't worth my attention, there's probably lots to comment on but the whole everyone trying too hard to sound snarky partnered with the awkward voice acting animations and I couldn't care less. I already am not a big fan of ME2 and 3's writing and MEA seemed to enter into the realm of "soft reboot", I'm not sure if more refrences to past games would've helped but at the same time the game in terms of story has little going for it.

I'll give the story some credit where the villains react to every time Ryder and the crew made a set back to their plans but this feels like it's too little too late. This could've elevated ME1 and it could've helped give the Illusive Man more character but at this point, I just don't care anymore.

Now the big reason why I consider the game to be painfully average and dull: the gameplay. The UI is so bad that even I am complaining about it, everything is presented in a convoluted way and there load screens within load screen when using going to planets, and you need to press the left trigger button and cross just to Tempest.

The big reason why I played this game at all was because the gameplay seemed to be moving away from cover based shooting or at least that is what it looks like, you got a jump pack and a dash button, this sounds great on paper but then the arena designs hardly ever rely on you to use the dash and jump, when they do, all the combat areas have the exact same layouts and the verticality jump pack has is barely even used. The arena design is basically just a floor, 1 platform above that and that's how far it goes. Playing MEA, it's just easier to hide behind cover a lot of the time and occasionally actively move around when tougher enemies with bigger health bars start to actively flank you.

The difficulty is also really messed up, normal difficulty has your shield get taken out pretty fast, and your guns do poultry amounts of damage but on easy, your shield is a lot more resilant and your guns do more reasonable amount of damage. Playing on any difficulty other than easy just means I am going to spend more time hiding behind cover and waiting for health to regen. I got the sniper rifle stat maxed out and my sniper shots were still weak as hell on normal.

Another big issue with combat is that so many of the enemies types are the same thing over and over, ME1 suffered from this addmittedly, but ME1 wasn't didn't have a jump pack or a dash and enemies being damage sponges. ME3 had some pretty solid enemy variety from Cerberus troopers to the various Reaper aliens Shepard fights. But MEA? You just fight Kett and some robots the whole game. You might fight some giant aliens, enemies witha force field and Krogan here and there but this is just too few and not interesting enough when you got dash and a jump pack and outside of the force field enemy where you have to shoot the orb to damage it, the Krogan and bigger aliens just have more health and thats it.

You also don't need to weapon switch that much since weapon switching in clunky due to clicking the touch pad which could have you holster your weapon when you want to switch guns and snipers are the best gun since most enemies are mid to long range with the Omni Tool for close quarters combat.

To give the game some credit the weapon sounds and headshots are pretty meaty. This kind of helped me carry me through the game since good weapon feedback and polish can really stimulate my brain.

The vehicle sections return but they are too few and far between and there is rarely any combat with it on the main story path. So once again too little, too late.

Overall, MEA was mediocre, it's the kind dull that I touch every once and a while just to remind myself of what happens when good game design gets subverted. I probably won't play this game again but at least I finally got to beat the game I bought for $20 on sale for a few years ago.

Short Game Reviews: December 2023

Watch Dogs: Bad Blood:

Solid DLC just more of the main game while doing nothing new. The story is pretty decent stuff with Raymond and his bonding with Tobias. I didn't have many issues with the base game so this DLC being more of the same didn't bother me. It doesn't do enough different to warrant a full on review and I did like that one mission where you were defending Tobias and Raymond using automated turrets and it has just as much of the hacking, stealth, and shooting the base game had. Stealth can be pretty easy if you use the silenced pistol, auto aim headshot and focus mode combo but considering how AI notices you pretty fast it makes the stealth much more bearable even if the forced cover blows can be annoying at times. If you didn't even like the base game, I am not even sure why you would even play this DLC.

Metal Gear(1987):

This game feels like someone who is learning about game design for the first time and he's developing the game as he is learning. Metal Gear at first seems okay but once I got captured for the first time, all the problems start rushing at once. The fact that all the doors look the same and it's hard to tell which key will open which door, guards get alerted to my position every time I enter a stealth room, the awkward and clunky shooting with weak feedback to enemies getting shot, being unable to tell which sight lines will have me be noticed by the enemy or when they will ignore me, the cameras not even having a clearly visible sight line to avoid, the endless respawning enemies that will just eat away at my health and healing items. The straw that broke the cammel's back for me is when I had to use plastic explosives to blow up certain walls to get to a room and all the walls look the same making it hard to tell where I was supposed to place them in order to progress. Before that, you had to destroy a wall in a jail cell with your fists and it wasn't even shown which texture was weak's to Snake's punches.

Just the way this whole game is designed is just trial and error and not in an interesting way. It's just you looking around and guessing or watching a walkthrough to see how the uploader did it and then you following that. Everything about this game feels like it was designed by people started designing a game for the very first time and didn't have much skill or confidence in doing it.

Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake:

Metal Gear 2....does not feel very good to play and feels dated right when I start. I knock out a guard seconds after he spots me and the whole hivemind knows, alerts either stop or it goes on forever and I can hide in one location knock out multiple guards where their bodies despawn and they still know where I am. I don't even know how to reset the alert in this game, whole thing feels super arahiac and poorly explained. Haven't played a game that felt this bad to play seconds after playing it in a long while. Solid is a masterpiece compared to the first 2 MGs.

Games like this make me understand why Splinter Cell eventually added a last known position system. I get chased around in this game not even knowing where or where not the enemy will search for me. It was ambitious for it's time but screw MGS3 getting a remake, the first 2 MGs deserve it far more. They feel terrible and awkward to play even now. There's a reason why Solid is where everyone starts regarding the series.

Twisted Metal 2:

TM2 is a massive improvement over the first game one example is that the maps are much better and the pick ups are much more visually distinct and are much more useful during moment to moment gameplay. Getaways are much easier to pull off and cars don't take nearly as much damage as the first game.

The core gameplay is still fun but I can't help but find the difficulty too punishing for it's own good. You get two lives throughout the whole campaign of each character and lose one life and you lose it permanently, and it's easy to get overwhelmed and lose a life very quickly, and health pick ups get harder and harder to find the more you progress. The driving isn't the greatest and the animations can lead to weird collision detection. The game CAN be really fun but the awkward driving, collision detection and physics sucks much of the the fun out of the game. So much of TM2 is spent wrestling with the controls and trying to have it be as precise and do the thing I want it to do. Turns and any complicated maneveurs are just too complicated feel way too awkward. My hand geniunely started to hurt after extended play sessesions. Enemies also have a knack for spamming freeze a lot of the time, this can be mitigated thanks to the rewind feature but on the last level I was just starting to lose patience for how dated the vehicles handled and how awkward the driving physics were.

I prefer Head On and Black over this game despite me finding some enjoyment in TM2. TM Head On in general feels like TM2 but improved in almost if not every way.

Quake 2 64:

All though this is technically not an "expansion" in the traditional sense since this is the N64 port of Q2, I'm going to be reffering to this as such since it comes with the remaster.

I do prefer this expansion over the Reckoning, the former has better level design instead of being a worse rethread of the base game. There is a weird charm to how the levels are structured in this version of the game, it feels a bit similar to objective completion shooter like Goldeneye than the "open" levels of the base game and the Reckoning. If you didn't like the constant backtracking across zones in Q2, you might like this. Q2 64 basically has you complete objectives in one zone and you reach the exit and move on to the next one until you get to the final zone where the final boss is located. I found this to be pretty charming since it feels like a cross between Goldenye in what you are doing in the levels with the objectives and Doom 1993 and 2 were you are slowly making your way through segmented levels as you slowly journey to the end.

Outside of this and the noticeably shorter length with it taking probably 1 and a half to 3 hours, it's the same Q2.

It does unfortunately do what the Reckoning expansion does and amp up all the annoying aspects of the base game to eleven like how the sprinting Strogg's attack can happen out of nowhere, randomly getting attack from behind, the railgun Strogg's attack being poorly telegraphed, and just enemies moving all over the damn place and how ambushes with lots of enemies at once can be unpredictable. There's also some hitscan attacks by the infantry marines that you pretty much have to tank, I didn't mind it in the base game but it does get pretty grating not being able to reliable dodge or prevent the attack from happening.

The game also feels like save scum city at times with the aforementioned issues but thanks to the game being so short, I am not as annoyed by this stuff as I was with the Reckoning, this expansion wraps up the moment the issues really was starting to annoy me.

Overall, not on the level of something like Doom 64 but this was an interesting attempt at porting Q2 to the N64 even if now the game is basically an expansion.

Burnout Revenge:

I am going to be honest and say the following, I do enjoy Burnout Revenge and it mechanically it's even better than Burnout 3 and the latter game was already hard to top but playing this game reminds me that racing game even with great mechanics just wear me out after playing them for longer than 8 hours.

This transitions me to the next part, I am not even sure what even counts as a "completion" regarding this game and racing games with no traditional story mode or plot in general. You need to technically reach Rank 10 and complete all the Grand Prixes to count as a "beat" but I feel like if I played this game more than the 10 hours, it then I would start to strongly dislike BR. There is no story and there isn't even a final boss in the tradtional sense and apparently to get the credits you need to get Gold Medals on all the events and no way am I going to do that. There's so much crash mode, elimination, traditional races, takedown centered modes, time attacks, crashing into cars I can take before I call it quits. Do this for 20 hours and I would just start to get super annoyed and maybe even dislike the game.

With that out of the way, I'll talk about what the game does well, mechanically like I said before is even better than Burnout 3. You got the risk reward system from the latter system which is great, but now you got stuff like crashing into cars, avoiding on coming traffic, avoiding bigger vehicles, as well as takedowns being easier to perform, leading cars into on coming traffic as well as using the traffic to destroy other cars. AI is more dynamic too where they can even be taken out during races and thanks to all this the whole game has a fast paced over the top dynamic feel to it that not a lot of racing games and it's predessor can even match. Races in general feel more epic and dynamic in Revenge since getting boost is easier to pull off so if I crash and fail, it doesn't feel like the end of the world compared to 3. Burnout Revenge might not be a "reinvention" of the series but I feel this is an "expansion" sequel done right, at least in terms of mechanics and game feel.

If I have to choose between playing Burnout 3 or Revenge, I choose the latter, I even think the progression system is better but I wish there was an actual story mode in these games since rank progression can start to feel like a boring grind by the time I reached Rank 8.

I do like Burnout Revenge but I feel burned out every time I play it and B3. This might be the best racing game ever made in terms of mechanics but at the same time, without context for the races and a geniune sense of escalating stakes, even nothing but mechanical depth can start to bore me. If you don't mind this stuff then this game is a must play, it's just not 100% my kind of game.