Super Mario Bros. Wonder Review

I got to give Mario Bros. Wonder a lot of credit, the game is easily the most innovating 2D Mario in such a long time, where the New Super Mario Bros games just feel like cash grabs where it felt like Nintendo just wanted to make 2D Marios so they can make a quick buck, Wonder feels like the game where Nintendo actually tried but even then, I feel like the game could be a lot more, I would be much harsher on the game if it didn't feel so innovating but there are things about it that I hope Nintendo improves in later games when they follow up on this.

I'll start with the good, like I said before this is easily the most innovating 2D Mario in a long while. You got new power ups like the Elephant Form, the Drill, and the Bubble Form, you got the Badges which allows you to either glad, do charge jumps, or rhythm jumps to name a few.

Then there is the enemies which has a surprising amount of new ones like the Hoppycat which doesn't move unless you start hopping, Tall Mushroom enemies which you need to really time your jumps in order to take down, the spiky slider where you can avoid and use as a makeshift platform, and the Condort to name a few, all of this is just innovations I am honestly surprised Nintendo is capable of doing for a 2D Mario, it's why I'm soft on the game as I am. It felt like a lot of heart was put into the game. It's why for the next few paragraphs I will be more negative but I do enjoy the game but this coming from someone who wants the game to be better and improve for a sequel.

The my first issue is the fact that Nintendo has yet to remove the limited continues in the Mario franchise, modern platformers like the recent 2D Rayman games manage to still remain challenging without limiting your continues yet Nintendo is still adamament about a system they themselves dropped previously in Mario Odyssey, so the fact that Wonder uses this system just feels jarring.

As a result, and you can call you can call me someone with no "skill" but thanks to this now that I know that a character like Nabbit and Yoshi can't take damage means I'm going to default to them whenever the game gets hard, luckily I can just use Nabbit, but at the same time, I think an ideal solution would be to remove the lives system and just have the playable characters be Mario and Luigi, the challenge remains but I don't need to play as characters that reduces 50% of the challenge, it doesn't make the game brainlessly easy since pits and some enviromental hazards can kill you but isn't the point of the 1ups to take more damage and the power ups is supposed to make me use them on enemies? Nabbit nullfies this. I don't play games to 100% them so self imposed restrictions don't work on me, so as a result it makes using the temptation of using Nabbit too great. It's not like Funkey Kong in DK Tropical Freeze where the same rules still apply but he has more HP and a glide mechanic, Nabbit and Yoshi changes the dynamic of Wonder with 1 ups and power ups.

This leads to my next issue, 1-3 star stages are too short and the challenge of them is to find the hidden Wonder Seeds. You can skip much of the games' content if you get two Wonder Seeds per stage meaning that I will rarely engage in the 4 star challenge levels. As a result, combine that Nabbit and Yoshi takes no damage by enemies, and how short the levels are most of the time, it can lead to many victories through the levels to be pretty hollow.

Next issue is the lack of boss fights, most of the worlds have them but some worlds don't and some of them require them you to find hidden exits to progress through the game, this is mandatory and when these parts pop up, it can feel jarring since before, you can just rush to the end of the stage and get to the end with no issue but now, you need to suddenly find the true exit to cap off the world or some of the levels. Whole thing felt like they could've just made Kamek the boss of those worlds instead of coming up with these fake out level endings, he is in the game so why not fight him when not fighting Bowser Jr.?

Final issue, the Badges, this is a great idea on paper since it expands Mario's moveset but most of these are generally just optional which is a shame since there are levels dedicated to teaching you how to use these badges but then in the actual levels, you can just skip them and never use them again, for example, there is a grappling hook badge, but outside of the tutorial area where you need to use it, the Badge is never really needed for the rest of the game after getting it. So Wonder in a sense teaches a new mechanic but has what it teaches you to be optional, all this could be avoided if every level had certain badges be mandatory to complete.

Overall, while I have been harsh on Wonder, it's still a "good" game worth checking out, worth it at that Nintendo rarely if ever goes down more than 30% full price? No, but still worth looking it but there are a lot of issues that prevent it from being great.

007: The World Is Not Enough(Playstation) Review

Before I start this review, I emulated the Playstation version of this game. I don't particularly like the N64 so I decided to play the PS version instead. That and I'm more comfortable with Duckstation than N64 emus.

I wasn't expecting anything out of The World is Not Enough, I thought I was going to play for a few hours and then drop it, play on the first level then customize the controls or eventually start playing with cheats, but shockingly, I didn't do any of those things, outside of say using a couple of save states on some unexpected difficulty spikes, I mostly managed to beat the game on it's own terms which was really surprising to me. I have even gotten used to tank controls over time thanks to games like the original Tomb Raider and the PS1 Resident Evil games so the lack of analog controls in World is not Enough, I got used to. If you can't stand playing games without them then steer clear of the PS1 version.

There is also the fact that enemies move slowly, auto aim is forgiving enough, enemies drop armor, full armor is easy to find that the game despite appearing to feel "dated" does at the very least feel like it is built around it's limitations, it rarely if ever feels unfair.

Other than that, while the game isn't an amazing shooter by any means, I was looking for a quick game to beat on a saturday night to sunday morning and World is not Enough delivered on just that.

The shooting is satisfying, weapons have punch and it feels good to hit enemies even if the shooting itself lacks depth since all you are fighting are human enemies with hitscan guns and in these games you are basically tank where you need to repair yourself using health packs and needing armor to surivive since you can't avoid damage reliably.

To the game's credit, you are never primarily shooting enemies, there was particularly memorable where you need to tap phones and sneak around a house instead shooting your way through, I was expecting this part to be terrible but it was mangeable since enemies can be mostly be punched and tranqed before they raise the alarm.

There is also a mission where you have to handle Bond skiing through a moutain while protecting someone or where you are in a Casino and you need to gamble and distract guards to go further. Some missions require you to save civilians and activate switches to get further into a level. A high speed subway mission and more, the game is always throwing something new and over the top at the player throughout it's run time that is definately a memorable few hours that the game lasts.

The music is also really good and gets you into the moment, I'm not sure if I will listen to the OST after I stop playing, but at the very least, the music feels good while playing in the moment which is what game music should do at the very least.

Only big that somewhat ruins moment to moment gameplay is that the quick select is rather clunky, I would try to cycle through it and never select the weapon or gadget I want, it was far eaiser to select them through the pause menu, like selecting weapons in Resident Evil 4(2005).

Some moments require some random guide searches to figure out like for example to disable a bomb you need to throw a satchel charge, then activate the cell phone stunner to activate, why would I need another bomb to deactivate a bomb? There is also the final mission where you need to activate a radiation scanner or else when you enter a red room with canisters late in the level, it's easy to get hit off screen and get random cheap deaths because you didn't know to activate the raditation scanner before entering that room. It would be nice to know if I was supposed to use it beforehand. I don't recall the briefings telling you this.

Other issues which might be for some is that the voice acting isn't that great and it uses scenes from the movie, but I don't really mind since it's encouraging me to finally give a Bond movie a try.

Overall, I wasn't expecting anything out of World is not Enough, I was expecting myself to either cheat or drop the game within a few hours but surprisingly I saw it through to the end. By no means this is a masterpiece but much like the movie franchise is it's based on, I don't think it's even trying to be

Army of Two: The 40th Day Review

After playing the first game and not liking it, as well as the Devil's Cartel and somewhat enjoying that. I decided to come back to the 40th Day to see if I still like it and I still do, all though I did wish I got to play the game in coop since it seems to be the way is intended to be played but at the very least playing 40th Day on easy is doable enough and I do get some fun out of it. I would probably say this is the most consistent game in the series. Original Army of Two had terrible controls and a regen health system that made it hard to see when at critical health and Devil's Cartel had a pretty bad story. 40th Day however manages to remain pretty consistent.

I wouldn't call any of these games masterpieces by any means, I do think it does have enough going to have it stand out from other cover based TPS games at the time, particularly with the partner system in how one guy distracts the enemies and has the heat be brought to them while the other sneaks up from behind and takes them out while they are distracted. It does do a good job at selling you on the premise that you are in fact playing an army of two. The arenas are pretty impressive too especially in "the Bund" chapter where there is a lot to maneveur, flank and get the drop on your enemies.

The weapon customization is pretty cool too, letting you add scopes silencers and different parts to your guns and the best part is, your customized weapon is never taken away from you meaning it gives you an incentive to actually use the feature.

Weapons feedback and the guns in general can feel pretty good, I really like the shotgun you get and it has a pretty decent amount of range unlike a lot of video game shotguns, it's not on older Doom levels but it can take enemies out at medium range. Headshots with the shotgun are also really satisfying too.

Only big gripes with the game is that on anything higher than easy, the partner AI can be too inept to help you even a little.

The cover system isn't the greatest, at first it feels like a precursor to the Last of Us and Survivor Trilogy Tomb Raider's cover mechanic in that your player character will go into cover automatically as long as the player is crouched, but then I am tapping the x button and it seems to be doing the Gears of War thing of where your character will be magnatically attached to walls. It's such a shame because it felt like 40th Day came close to solving that issue Gears of War had but then it had stuff I described.

The melee attacks also isn't the greatest either. I will tap the melee button while crouched and there is a 50/50 chance either a stomp animation will happen or the player character will actually do a punch or direct melee attack on the enemy, it's better than the first game's contextual melee but it could've been handled better here.

The mortality system is also half baked and doesn't add much. You save or get a bunch of people killed and it won't really change the game in any meaningful way outside of, "you got x or y killed". Saving innocent civilains is supposed to require stealth but I would do one stealth kill and get detected immediately afterwards. It's not a big deal unless if you really care about how gameplay and themes can be interconnected to tell stories in games.

Overall, 40th Day is the most well rounded game in the series, it isn't super amazing, but at the very least it gets the job done as being a quick beat that is playable alone on easy mode. I really did wish there was an easy and accessible way to play this cooperatively.

Slayers X Review

While I get what Slayers X is going for and what it tries to do, I can't really say it's a game I enjoy with a straight face. If the game were honestly any longer than it was, I probably would've dropped it at some point but the fact that the game is as short as it is, does sort of make this a bad game that is worth trying out, all though in Slayers X's case intentionally bad.

So this game is a boomer shooter but it is a boomer shooter with an emphasis on narrative, is the narrative good? I didn't really have much of a clue on what was going on, whole thing felt like a edgy teenager's fever dream. The whole thing is dumb and over the top, but in a way, it's so earnest in that I can't really fault the game for it all though if the game's selling point is the narrative, it didn't do much to magically say the game is worth playing for that alone.

The positives I will say for the gameplay is that unlike many if not all 90s styled boomer shooters, melee in Slayers X actually feels like it you can actually do. I got a good number of hackblood charges and even normal melee hits can down 2-3 weaker enemies which makes it easy to save ammo. I do appreciate this melee in many other games like this tend to be useless especially when you get moe weapons.

Weapons feel "okay" but nothing really stand out, it gets the job done but nothing really stands out.

However what does prevent me from at least prasing this game as a, "quick boomer shooter" to play if you want to quickly get into the genre is the level design. To put it simpily, it's not very good, if at times outright bad. The game has some innovations to the genre like a map that is actually useable but that starts to fade away when the game doesn't really do keycard hunts that well. Environments tend to be overly large and don't require clear rules on where you are supposed to be going or which area will get you what key. You can spend minutes or long periods of time wandering around and still not even the first key to open the first door in a level so much of it can look the same due to the how ugly and drab the enviroments can look. This might be intentional on the devs' part but it doesn't make for compelling level design to me.

For example, in E1M3 there is a huge store area for you to explore but one of the keys is located behind a generic door that looks the same as every other door in the area, nothing about catches the player's eye to go there, it's just something you just guess to going to by being one of the doors you randomly interact with.

Finally, a big issue with the level design that later in the game, you get so little ammo, even with the hackblood sword and it just becomes too easy to sprint to the keys and run to the exit. You don't even need to fight the enemies after a certain point because it wastes more ammo and health trying to fight them. It's just easier to ignore them. I never even noticed this could be a design flaw with the keycard hunt style of boomer shooter level design until I played this game.

Overall, Slayers X isn't particular a good game and I doubt that was the intention but at the same time, I'll give the game credit for being over so quickly and being forgiving enough that it can be something bad that you at least get out of after a certain period of time and remark back by saying, "at least it wasn't a sub par game that wasted my time".

Medal of Honor: Vanguard Review

While Medal of Honor Vanguard isn't "bad" on technical level and is a mostly "functional game", it's hard to overlook the fact that the game is just typical of so many WW2 run and gun shooters that were so prevelant at the time.

On the Wii, the game might've been novel since there were many good FPS games on the system at the time, but on the PS2 which is the version I played on an emulator, it's hard to shake the feeling of, "been there, done that" regarding this whole game. There were already a good number of Medal of Honor, even Call of Duty games on the PS2 before this and that's not even including the plethora of other WW2 run and gun shooters at the time.

So while MoH Vanguard is at the very least polished and you can get some fun out of it, the short length plays a big role as to why I finished the game at all, there isn't much of anything this game does that previous MoH games and especially CoD from CoD2 onwards hasn't already done. In fact, I'd say just play CoD2 on PC and Xbox 360 over playing this game since everything Vanguard does, CoD2 already did, in fact you can also play Big Red One and get the same experience too.

When I compare it to CoD2 or just CoD in general, what do I mean? You got the scripted moments, you got the super linear levels where you have the compass guiding you where to go, the scripted roller coaster feel of the campaign where the level won't progress unless you do a specific objective, the two weapon limit, the regen health and the ability to crouch and go prone. The objectives are similar too, plant explosives, destroy a tank using a rocket launcher, capture and hold certain points, clear out certain areas, obtain documents that are marked on the map, everything you have done in a CoD campaign especially a WW2 CoD campaign, you have done here.

I'm not not even sure what is different with this game, you have a worse control scheme where prone and crouch are separate button presses, sprinting doesn't work as well since the stick click requirement to activate the sprint animation is much more rigid, and you can aim down sights like in CoD but you can't move while doing it only lean. In the off chance that Vanguard does something different CoD, it's down worse and not for the better. There are weapon upgrades but these are hard to find and the only useful one I found was for the M1 Garand.

MoH Vaguard even shares the same issues is that the enemy infantry you fight starts to become samey and they can all be beaten by abusing the MP40 and machine guns are generally the best options even at long range. The tanks can all be beaten by taking cover and firing a rocket at them. So many of the encounters start to feel samey especially if you played CoD game before.

That and hitscan weapons plus regen health means you are going to spend a lot of time hiding behind cover on anything difficulty above easy mode but this has always been an issue with a game in this style.

Overall, while this game and I hate to use the term is "generic". I do say it's worth checking out because it can pretty much beaten in afternoon, outside of the penultimate and final missions, you can breeze through the game, if you are bored one day and happen to own this game or just want something super quick to finish, MoH Vanguard is worth trying out, it certainly doesn't reach the series' lowest point of the series like Warfighter did, at least this game is a somewhat competent CoD clone. Just don't expect it to change your perspective on WW2 run and gun shooters.

Alone in the Dark(2024) Review

I went into this remake with pretty low expectations, I'm not big on the Alone in the Dark franchise from what I played of a New Nightmare, I'm not really big on the survival horror genre as a whole either, on top of that the game got some pretty lukewarm reception but in spite of all that, I enjoyed this remake, it isn't going to revolutionize the way this genre is played and it's not going to be that groundbreaking title like the original game was, but at the end of the day I go into any game expecting myself to get some enjoyment out of it, and the game provided just that. 

I'll start with what I liked, the story, the atmosphere and the writing is pretty interesting stuff. I do think this is one of the more engaging stories in the genre, for one the game is quite committed with it's 1930s film noir motif, and the performances are pretty good. The various characters and Edward Caranby's interactions with them are pretty amusing and adds to the weird spooky nature of the game. The best complement I can give the story that unlike say a game like Alan Wake 2, Alone in the Dark's story doesn't take nearly as long to engage or get going and right away you are already into the gameplay. There is a lot of cutscenes and voice acting which is more than usual in the game of this genre since they require you to read lots of notes to understand what is going on. 

Speaking of voice acting there is lots of it, and I like that there is voiced narration for all the notes you read, I normally don't like reading notes that much in video games so having them be voiced is a welcome addition. 

The moment to moment gameplay is mostly pretty good, if you ever played a Resident Evil or even a Silent Hill game, you will be right at home here. Lots of inventory puzzles, lots of locked doors or items needing to progress furthur, lots of puzzles, combat, and shortcuts to find. There is even plenty in common with the first Resident Evil game in that it takes place in primarily in mansion, and it surprisingly enough uses the 2002's remake's map system where all the areas you haven't 100% explored will be highlighted in red and everything explored will be in green. It doesn't end there either since Alone in the Dark 2024 also takes inspiration from the Evil Within games in that reality will warp around as you discover clues when looking around in the mansion. You could look at being derivative but I don't mind this the execution when it comes to exploring the mansion is solid. There is always items to find and areas to come back to keep track of later in order to progress later in the game. Everything about the game in some ways feels like survival horror lite and if the combat was better I would surely reccomend this game for genre newcomers. 

What I disliked and I'll get this out of the way but the game isn't the most polished in the world, I got stuck behind geometry multiple times forcing me to restart the game but luckily the save system is super forgiving and I didn't lose too much progress. 

The hint system is also a red herring. You can set it to "modern" or "old school" but it didn't matter since David Harbour would spell out super obvious hints at me like, "I need a key" even on the old school setting. 

And finally, this is going to break the game or be tolerable for many people is the combat. At first, it's somewhat easy to praise since you have makeshift melee weapons like in the Condemned games and they break like in Condemned 2 and unlike Resident Evil to this very day you have an actual dodge button meaning you have a reliable way to move out of the way from enemy attacks that doesn't involve a contextual button prompt, all this sounds like it gives you more options than the remade Resident Evil games do. The weapons also have decent punch when fired too. 

This all sounds great, right? The problem lies is with the collison detection. This is somewhat okay with melee weapons since you can spam the attack button until it breaks but when you get hit yourself there is no stagger animation or any inviciblity frames so it's easy not to get a sense of weight when fighting, it can be very easy to get swarmed by enemies and get killed when attacked by multiple enemies at once. Due to this combat can feel more frustrating than it should but eventually I did get used to all these weird quirks regarding combat but this could annoy many other people. The lack of polished combat is the main thing that is preventing me from reccomending this game for someone new to the genre. 

Overall, Alone in the Dark 2024 is a solid remake from a franchise and genre I don't care for, the only thing fully reccomending this game is it's overall lack of polish but if you can look past that there is an enjoyable game to be found here.  

Knights' Contract Thoughts

I bought this game at a convention for an unreasonably high asking price because I just love playing random PS2 and 3 games hoping I might find something I could enjoy. I always heard from the start that Knights' Contract isn't very good and even reviews at the time derided it but I wanted to find some enjoyment.

I'll start with what I liked, the story did seem pretty interesting, the premise and the idea playing as an immortal character is pretty cool since game characters in many ways are immortal to begin with and the idea of a game having that directly acknowledged withing the story and gameplay is interesting. Gretchen is admittedly an interesting character in that all of that similar to her kind have turned evil but she refuses to and still walks the path of protecting humanity, I admittedly have a soft spot for characters that choose to be good despite the fact that they have every reason in the world not to be. Them fighting for a hopeless cause where they won't get rewarded for it is something I always respect in any character in a story as long as their behaviour is consistent and gets results. The voice acting is also pretty good, but despite all my praise I never actually finished the game even though I like the story and voice acting.

To put it simpily, Knights Contract might be my go to game from now on when it comes to games that appear to have a good story and writing but terrible gameplay.

The gameplay of Knights Contract is so bad that it's almost impossible to see the game through to the end. The basic combat isn't too bad, it's essentially a combination of something like the God of War games where it has lights, heavy and magic attacks, the lock on and camera is somewhat similar to Dark Souls in that you can control the camera, and the lock on has a overhead view and you can strafe and run around your enemies, the game is also like ICO in that you have a companion with you at all times and she can help you during combat.

This all doesn't sound bad on paper, but this leads me to my first issue, the camera is really bad when enemies and Hendrich are in closed spaces, the camera will spazz out constantly and it makes it impossible to see what is going on but the moment to moment combat is generally okay. It's admittedly kind of fun to use different magic attacks with Gretchen.

This is where all the problems start rushing at once, Gretchen has a life bar of her own and Hendrich can't die. Gretchen's AI isn't the greatest and at times she will even run into enviromental hazards getting you a game over. You have to hold her to recover her life bad and this can be painfully slow, very painfully slow especially when enemies and bosses are attacking you all at once and you are trying to avoid getting hit while, it's just charges at too slow of a rate.

Then this leads to the bosses, which aren't very good since the camera isn't the greatest but admittedly they can go down pretty quickly but here is the catch if you get past all the dumb quirks with Gretchen and beat the boss, you have to do a QTE to finish them off like in God of War, but the thing is, these QTEs are easy to fail and you will have to fight the boss again to have another chance. The ice snake boss is one of the worst bosses I have encountered in a while, she can incapcitate Hendrich and mashing x just takes way too long to recover in time to rescue Gretchen from dying and this will lead to multiple game overs. But I got past it.

Here's the thing, I can take bad cameras, annoying escort missions with slow regen health and bad AI, terrible boss fights where you have it takes a while to do the finishing QTEs again but ruins the game for me and what made me drop it was the terrible level design.

Levels in Knight's Contract are way too big, okay that's not bad, but what makes it bad is that everything looks the same, there is multiple load screens breaking up the levels and the biggest kicker to all this is that it is never clear what is it you are supposed to be doing in a level. You can wonder around for minutes because there is no sense of direction or idea on what the player is supposed to be doing. You'll get some vague hints like going up a mountain top or opening valves to move through a sewer system but am I specifically doing in order to get to the end of a stage? I don't know, I looked up a walkthrough to get to firey village level to see how I am supposed to get to the end and it's to go up a hilltop and enter a door that looks exactly the same as the other areas of the village level, you are just running around circles because the game gives the player a terrible sense of direction.

Overall, as you can tell I did not like the game, the story, writing and voice acting seemed interesting but the terrible gameplay makes Knight's Contract a must avoid, don't buy this at it's current asking price, if you can play with emulator save states maybe there is some fun to be had, and that is a strong maybe.

Mighty Goose Review

Best way of describing this game is that it feels like Metal Slug where it's possible to beat without using infinite continues and respawns. If you ever wanted to play Metal Slug but without it needing to feel impossibly difficult then Mighty Goose is for you, it sure as hell felt like it was made for me. I like 2D side scrolling shoot em ups and the Metal Slug kind in particular and this game is all that minus the part where it feels like you need to have infinite respawns to get anywhere.

If you are Metal Slug expert and wish for their challenge that those games provided then Mighty Goose might be a disappointment but for me more casual and forgiving Metal Slug game is something I welcome.

Everything that is great about Metal Slug is here, the amazing animations, the over top carnage and explosions, the super satisfying weapons with great feedback like the shotgun, rocket launcher, and machine gun, the over the top narrator, the vehicle sections, it's all here.

Mighty Goose however has some differences that makes it easier for newcomers for this kind of game, one it has infinite continues and retries upon dying, no lives here thankfully, a dodge roll, you get assists in the armory to help you out in battle, what secondary abilites to have like throwing a grenade or slo mo, and a buddy to assist you in combat and this is the biggest game changer, a superpowered mode where Mighty Goose will do more damage and is invincible for a certain period of time until the meter runs out. All of this helps Mighty Goose to being a more approachable Metal Slug without needing infinite respawns.

I don't have much in the way of issues other than the slo mo during combat can be quite grating since they feel like unskippable cutscenes during combat and I just want to get back to the action when they are happening, there is a little too much clutter and stuff happening on screen that it can be hard to keep track of what is happening to your player character especially during sections with lots of enemies and explosions happening at once, me wishing the final boss has a checkpoint on the final phase rather than me doing all the easy phases over and over again just for the game to give me an assist to beat the final phase, I just wished it just checkpointed on there instead of robbing me of a victory because the game got annoyed for having me die to the final phase so many times.

Finally, the game is just too short, I mean I came to this game at all because it was short but I was enjoying the game so much that I wished there were just more levels but at the same time, if a complaint of a game is that it leaves me wanting more, then game did a damn good job at having me enjoy what is already there.

Overall, Mighty Goose is a very good game if you want to play a more approachable and accessible Metal Slug. It's a damn good time that lasts less than 2-3 hours.

Super Metroid Review

While I don't dislike Super Metroid by any means, it did do a lot to shape the Metroidvania genre as we know it today and I do think it holds up better than SOTN, but at the same time after replaying Super for the first time in almost 10 years, I can see why I was never *that* big on it.

What I like about the game at least at first is the level design, the way the game starts off and how it bottlenecks you but at the same time, gives you enough freedom to look around to find new upgrades and the first few hours of SM can be pretty enjoyable because of that, the game never tells you where to go and the level design's initial charm of giving you information but just enough where it feels like you are finding upgrades for your suit and missile upgrades can feel rewarding and makes me feel pretty cool for finding them, it manages to hit the sweet spot of feeling guided but just enough that it feels like I'm finding things on my own.

Then there are parts where it feels like the game has soft locked you when in reality it's more of a puzzle to progress later on in a section, it is rather clever how it feels like I'm getting softlocked but it's actually a challenge I have to overcome.

All that then becomes diminishing returns since so much of this game expects you bomb and shoot every tile to progess, even power bombing them won't make a difference since I used them so many times and it doesn't lead to me finding anything, then there was this one part where you were supposed to power bomb a glass tube but I would never know that playing the game the first time, and there is no crack to indicate that I should power bomb it. After a point, I was starting to get lost since it felt I just had to look at specific spots to progress.

Then I get the Freeze Beam and then later the Spazer Beam and pretty much everything goes downhill and this is where the difficulty of the game becomes borderline non existent. 95% of the the enemy roster of Super Metroid are weak to this combo, every enemy will be frozen and the Spazer has such a wide spread to the point where moment to moment enemy encounters will barely put up much of a fight. Metroid Prime, Samus Returns, Dread, AM2R, never had this problem where with Super once you get to the Freeze and Spazer Beam combo, moment to moment enemy encounters will forever remain braindead easy and it's hard for there to be any tension during the exploration parts.

The platforming has been stated many times to not be that great and it isn't. I think my big issue with it is that doing the vertical jump and the horizontal sommersault jump require different button presses and movements of the d pad, and this isn't bad during moment to moment platforming but it's infuriating during bosses.

Speaking of bosses, they fare slightly better in that they are immune to the Freeze Beam, but this leads to my second issue:

The controls for selecting missiles. In order to do it in Super Metroid, you need to get your hand off the d pad, and press what is the stand in for the middle button on the SNES controller, this can be rather cumbersome since you need to move around to avoid the bosses' attacks but you will spend a good amount of time, cycling through missiles, super missiles and later power bombs, the grapple and x ray vision just to start attack the bosses and by that point they would've gotten some hits in while you are looking above to see if you selected what you wanted.

Speaking of bosses Ridley's is the worst in the game, the camera does a terrible job at tracking him and he can attack you off screen a lot and you got to spend your time jumping while hoping the camera can track Ridley in time to hit him or dodge his attacks.

Other issues include the Screwattack having weird physics where one minute it feels like I am able to stay in the air consistently and and the I start falling the next.

And while I appreciate what this sequence did for game storytelling at the time, the part where the Baby Metroid came and protect Samus is hard to really appreciate since it was gone for so much of the game and didn't even appear towards the end which makes it hard to care when Mother Brain kills it. I'm not expecting a super deep story but outside for what it did for games' storytelling at the time, it's hard to really care for it in isolation.

Overall, while I don't dislike Super Metroid, I feel like it can be overhyped at times and is more known for it's legacy then rising above it. I'm willing to bet the game is popular to speedrun because it's the only way to get any form of moment to moment challenge. Every time I play Super, I would just much rather play Prime or Dread instead.

Enter the Matrix Review

I always heard about this game, it would get derided pretty often but at the same time, there are some of fans of it. I can't deny that I do enjoy this game, but as someone who is a fan of the Matrix franchise, if you were to view the game in isolation the game pales in comparison to the Max Payne series, and in some ways even the first Dead to Rights game which came out around the same time as Enter the Matrix. So much of your enjoyment of this title comes from how much you enjoy the Matrix story as a whole and I mean beyond the first movie.

I'll start with what I liked, when it comes to the look, sound and feel of the game, it feels very much in line with the franchise it's based on which is great it has Don Davis's distinct score and musical motifs in the orchestral tracks and it has the rock and techno music that are also in the movies. Everything about the presentation and production values *feels* like it belong in the Matrix franchise. Usually, I find live action cutscenes in games to be gimmicky but it gives Enter the Matrix a weird charm to it like it gives the game a feeling that is also part of the larger Matrix narrative.

The story of the game is also kind of interesting, but only if you find the overarching story the Matrix sequels were trying to tell to be interesting and I kind of do so seeing how side characters like Niobe and Ghost tie in to the overarching plot of the Matrix Reloaded was rather interesting. It also helps shine some light on how despite Neo in the Matrix sequels seem to be powerful and even invincible to some degree, he still needs guys like Ghost and Niobe to help him, I also think Ghost is interesting in the sense that despite being a small player in a grander story, he fufills his role with conviction, it also helps that the dialogue whether you like it or not is in line with the movies making you feel like you are watching a Matrix movie in video game form.

The gameplay is also pretty decent stuff, this is where the game gets divisive since Enter the Matrix in a lot of ways was a dated game even for it's time but more on that later, what I liked about it is the moveset you get. Remember all those cool moves Neo and Trinity did in the lobby shootout of the first movie? You can do most if not all of it in Enter the Matrix, like the slo mo cartwheels, running up walls, running down walls and kicking people, slo mo, as well doing martial arts takedowns, as well as Max Payne's shoot dodge from the front and behind, my personal favorite was the slo mo cartwheels, you technically don't need to do this and it's complicated to pull off since you need at least 3 inputs to pull it off, but it looks so damn awesome that I loved doing it. That one time where I run across a wall and kicked an enemy in the face just made me go like, "that was awesome".

The animations in combat are pretty good, and the guns feel decent enough to use and despite what some say, I didn't have much in the way of issues with auto aim for the guns. The auto aim always felt like I hit my enemies when I fired the weapons, it at the very least works better than Rise to Honour's shooting.

I also really liked the final chase scene in Chinatown, it did a good job at replicating the fast paced and intense from the final on foot chase from the first movie in game form especially with how Agents are swarming the player along with SWAT teams as you are climbing ladders and running for your life with barely any means of defending yourself but his now leads to my next issue.

Now here comes the negatives, the first one and this is a big one is how short the levels are, like they are really short, you can beat many of the sections in less than 5 minutes, the Chateau level is the worst for this, you kill 1 or 2 guys open a few doors and then the level is over and the game wants you to save. This is immersion breaking as well as not giving the player a satisfying amount of play time in between save screens, I wouldn't be surprised if many would be like, "but that barely lasted 5 minutes". The power plant level fared the best since moment to moment shooting in those levels were the longest in the game, even it isn't saying much. This also somewhat ruins the final chase which I praised since you will be an intense on foot chase, and then the game is like, "do you want to save now?" 

The aforementioned Chateau level can be pretty underwhelming, I thought the player was going to have to be creative in how they were going to kill the warewolves and vampires since you need to stake them but instead Ghost will just have a dedicated stake at all times and you just need to whail on the enemies and they die, imagine this what if Ghost had to constantly find stakes with tables and furniture to destroy and have staking enemies be some kind of resource the player has to use in order to take them down. You even get a crossbow which I never needed since stake enemies normally was already really easy. This felt like a wasted opportunity to me. This section could've broken up the pace but instead it's just combat without the shooting. 

The controls aren't the greatest, it controls like a PS1 game at times where the right stick gets no camera control, it's used for first person aiming and you press the L2 and R2 buttons to strafe, this is going to turn away many people but if you played 3D games before the days of active right stick involvement during gameplay, then I argue you could get used to this.

Two other issues is that while the combat animations are great, the running and climbing animations can look pretty goofy. That and I'm not a big fan of the gimmick levels, they control way too awkwardly like the the car chases and on rails shooting sections both in the car and final sequence against the machines. They just feel like awkward gimmick levels. That and well, they lack any kind of epic build up with the game's existing mechanics since you played Enter the Matrix for it's epic slo mo fisticuffs and shootouts and instead the game ends with an on rails sequence against a bunch of sentinels, it can feel rather unsatisfactory since it used a different set of mechaincs and rules for the final sequence to end off the game. The ending itself is pretty unsatisfactory in it's own right since it's basically nothing more than hyping the Matrix Revolutions movie. 

Final issue is that regen health gets disabled during bosses and there is no explanation for it so it's jarring to lose the ablity you were relying upon for no reason. It is rather interesting that this game predates Halo 2 when it comes to games having fully regenerating health. Another weird thing is that this game also has a contruction yard sniping npc escort sequence like Max Payne 2 does. 

Overall, while the game isn't bad your milage may vary and much of your enjoyment hinges on you being a Matrix fan especially outside of that first movie. You could find a decent action game here, but at the same time, games like Max Payne do play better but at the same time to Enter the Matrix's credit there is stuff you can't do in MP unless you mod the former.