MediEvil 2 Review

I wasn't expecting this game to come to the PS Premium Classics as soon as it did but it has come now. Medievil 2 doesn't seem to have as many re releases and different versions by comparison to the first game. I wasn't expecting much out of Medievil 2 but I got some enjoyment out of it. However apart of me has got to wonder if it's design problems I found more tolerable due to save states and rewind on the PS5 version more so than the game itself being consistently well designed. That and towards the end of the game, the difficulty started to ramp up so much that I eventually resorted to cheating, this seems to be a reoccuring theme with Medievil games for me.

First all I'll describe the story and it's...weird. Fortesque is now in London England, he has a girlfriend, there is a doctor and there is an evil crime boss who actively gets in his way. The best way of describing it is that it feels like everything is underdeveloped from the girlfriend to the doctor to the crime boss. All of the relationships feel half baked and undercooked and it's hard to get any attachment towards anyone. One story beat requires you to help a bunch of sewer dwellers just for you to betray them a few levels later with no build up or any sense of emotion for Dan. You fight vampires, you are fighting Jack the Ripper and it feels like the game just want an excuse to shove in as many cool things as it can. The story isn't super intrusive but when it pops up, I just feel a sigh of indifference towards it.

The gameplay at least from a mechanics standpoint is the same as the first game much like many direct PS1 sequels except there are three major differences is that there is a quick select for weapons, Dan can now climb certain areas and his head can detach on to hands and open up new parts of the level.

Due to all this, the moment to moment combat still isn't very good, it mainly consists dashing and running around since there is no evade or lock on during melee combat and holding the square button and hitting them with a charge attack. Occasionally you will have to switch to a ranged weapon to kill a smaller or far away enemy. As a whole combat is generally the same with not many big improvements.

Camera and movement is also just as much as the same. You have very limited control with the right stick and much of the camera tries to frame the action as you are moving around. During moment to moment running, this is fine but when during tight spaces, narrow walkways or crammed areas it's hard to tell have a good view on where you are moving. There is platforming is back is also just as awkward as ever with the timing of Fortesque's movements and his jump arc being high enough to reach a platform being a game of luck especially when combined with the camera.

Thing is, these were all issues with the first game. Medievil 2 does retain all of the good aspects too like the level design which does a fascinating job at combining boomer shooter keycard hunts with inventory puzzles of survival horror games. There isn't many games that has this style of level design and I enjoy the game for it. I might prefer the level design more here since the pointless overworld is gone and it's simpily just a level select now. Making things more straightforward, just finish one level and move on to the next one, just the way I like it.

I do like the quick select since it means less going around and fiddling in menus. The climbable walls does give the level more verticality and removing Dan's head and putting it on a head to solve puzzles and unlock more parts of a level is a nice way to more variety to level exploration since now there is more than just keys and inventory puzzles.

However one major thing that prevents Medievil 2 from at least being mildly better than the first game is the lack of health refills inbetween levels and the chalices depending on the player not giving them the ideal rewards for later parts of the game.

These issues sound trival for most of the game, but the Jack the Ripper fight onwards requires the player to have the Blue Magic Sword in order to deal decent damage to him before Dan's girlfriend's health also depletes or else you will need to use lightning to recover her health and this will do take away lots of health and since there are no health refills inbetween levels and healing areas are few means you have to avoid or tank hits for a good while.

The chalice rewards also seem randomized too, I got the Blunderbuss for the penultimate level and that thing was such an underpowered pea shooter than I eventually cheated and got the Chaingun instead, why this weapons I didn't get instead is beyond me. Enemies also become insanely spongey here which makes the lack of health refills and powerful weapons late game stand out that much more.

Overall, Medievil 2 like many direct sequels on PS1 is generally just more of the same but there are things that prevent me from saying it's mildly better than it's predecessor.

Ion Fury: Aftershock Review

I was pretty much expecting this to be more Ion Fury and I got just that there are some annoying things about it here and there but as a whole it's the same enjoyable gameplay. Playing this really does amaze me that the Build Engine can still be pushed this far.

If you played the base game, you know what to expect. Lots of guns, keycard hunts with mazelike levels, fast movement and lots of enemies. Considering this is following expansion logic from yester year, the game will expect you to play the base game so it expects the player to know how the weapons work and throws in multiple high level enemies at the player pretty much the moment you start up the game. It also introduces new enemies not in the base game either. There also are some new vehicle sections introduced in Aftershock.

You pretty much know the DLC ain't kidding around when it spawns in a Skinjob, as soon as you get decently into the first level but unlike a lot of the expansions of yester year, Shelly is given lots of ammo and good amount of new weapons to deal with the increased enemy waves like Disperser getting Cluster and Gas Bombs as well the Homewrecker which is Ion Fury's equivilant to the BFG. You get a good amount of ammo for those as well as other guns so it never feels like you are underpowered while playing.

There are some annoying quirks with this like for example when running around in a level and a Wendigo, Deacon or a Skinjob just pops up in your line of sight and since your health when getting hit by them when at 100 health and 200 armour will go down to 20 in a couple of hits just makes it seems like the devs just want you to abuse that quick save button.

The new enemies are mostly just reskins and different weapon variants of already existing enemies but the GDF troopers are new even if they can be beaten with the Penetrator.

The biggest new addition is the vehicle sections and I'm mixed on these that racing section was awful and felt out of place in a game like this since some of the turns feel too tight to consistently pull off and the jump physics feel too unreliable to consistently make the gaps without falling to my death.

The following vehicle section after is a fascinating thought experiment of, "what if Half Life 2 was done on the Build Engine?" It doesn't have the Gravity Gun, at the same time, it has a similar section very reimiscent of Highway 17, where the player drives across really long and expansive roads, makes pit stops to activate a part of the level to continue onwards except there is now keycard hunts. It is amazing that the Build Engine is capable of this even if this part of Ion Fury didn't have nearly as much as the narrative foreshadowing and the sense of adventure Highway 17 did. Still, I commend the devs for pulling this off.

Afterwards, the game also takes another cue from HL2 with how you see Nova Prospect or in Ion Fury's case a massive Valcano and you will eventual fight Heskel there and everything from that vantage point of seeing the valcano onwards is slowly making your way there. It's great stuff since I have a soft spot for stuff like this.

The only major negative is that the final boss while not as insufferably designed as the base game still suffers from that 90s boomer shooter boss fight problem of you just circle strafing with your strongest weapon and then he dies, you might accidentally fall into a hole with lava but after a few minutes, he should be beaten unless you are playing on higher difficulties.

Overall, Aftershock is probably if not the greatest boomer shooter expansion I have played, it does a good job at adding in new ideas and it's not difficult for the sake of difficult like many of these expansions tend to be.

Silent Hill 2: Born From a Wish Review

Considering I didn't really care for the base game, I'm surprised I liked this sub scenario as much as I did. This is mainly because I found the subject matter more interesting. The themes it deals with like slowly going insane, resigning to your fate and the idea of taking your own life but at the same time you consider your life precious enough that killing yourself is too painful to do. I found these concepts fascinating and the fact that this sub scenario made me reflect on all this much and it's only 30 minutes to finish is a testament to how less is more and how what you do with the time you are given can really elevate a piece of media.

Ernest Baldwin is also one of the most interesting characters in the series and is one of SH2's more interesting characters. Where the ambiguity in the base SH2 game I found annoying, the ambiguity here I found more intriguing since the subject matter resonates with me more. Does Ernest represent what little sanity Maria has left? Is learning that Baldwin wasn't really there basically just Maria slowly going insane and accepting her fate? Was doing his requests esstentially showing that Maria never had any control over her fate to begin with? The fact that I'm thinking about all this in a sub scenario that lasts 30 minutes is a rather impressive feat.

There is some nice songs here that wasn't in the base game like Terror in the Depths of the Fog and Morning Calm. I liked that Love Psalm played in the end credits.

As for the gameplay, it's basically SH2, monsters on normal difficulty die in 2 or 3 pistol bullets tops and you are showered with healing items and ammo, there is hardly any puzzles either. It kind of feels like an experimental indie game with just random sections of "shoot some monsters". There is no final boss either kind of furthur cementing this point. I did like that you got to visit a mansion a la Resident Evil even if it is much much smaller by comparison.

Apart of me wants to see if this gets the Resident Evil 4 Separate Ways(2023) treatment and there is full on adaptation expansion going on with this being a DLC expansion to the SH2 remake but only time will tell.

Overall, if you can find a way to play this, it's an interesting 30 minutes to an hour of gameplay you can find and something I can point to as a good example of "less is more".

Tenchu: Fatal Shadows Review

The Tenchu game that is pretty much forgotten about, I did buy it at a Flea Market on PS2 back in 2012 but I never got far in it. I only bought because it was a Tenchu game and I was interested in the series but I didn't know how emulation worked so this was the Tenchu game I actually could play. I didn't get very far in it but after playing through the PS1 Tenchus and Wrath of Heaven again a few years ago through emulation and me wanting to play random games in a game series I enjoyed, I decided to play Tenchu Fatal Shadows from start to end.

The best way of describing it is that Fatal Shadows is pretty much just a very iterative sequel to Wrath of Heaven, it's about as much of one as you can get. It almost feels like a Wrath of Heaven DLC than a sequel that improves upon it. The fact that Fatal Shadows in North America released one month before Splinter Cell Chaos Theory also didn't do the game any favors either, it just highlights how dated and awkward Fatal Shadows played even for it's time.

Before I describe the gameplay, I might as well just mention the story, it is supposed to be a prequel to Wrath of Heaven but outside of Tesshu popping up, it might as well just be shonen anime filler arc because nothing of geniune value even happens, nothing that gets brought up in Fatal Shadows adds any furthur context to what happens to Wrath of Heaven which is the bare minimum a prequel should do. The anime fan in me did find the mission/episode previews that plays at the end of a level to be pretty amusing but the production value is lower than WoH since many the cutscenes before a mission starts has these weird slideshow like cutscenes and then transitions to more traditional cutscenes.

To put it simpily, WoH didn't have a good story but that felt like a shonen anime with a poorly written canon arc where Fatal Shadows feels like a dull filler arc that was made because the anime had to keep up with the manga.

Gameplay of Fatal Shadows can at times provide the fun that Wrath of Heaven and by extension the Tenchu series brings but it is marred by issues that while there in WoH, the devs did not do nearly enough to fix upon that game.

The stealth kills still look awesome and even to this day, Tenchu's stealth kills is some of the best gaming industry has to offer and Fatal Shadows delivers. The stylishly over the top ways enemies are killed and the detail each kill animations is something that gives me a "hell yeah I did that" when successful taking out an enemy from behind, from the side, the air and occasionally from the front. The parts where it takes place small cities is still as fun to do since using the grapple hook or double jump to reach higher ground and stalking enemies from above is still provides the feel of being ninja predator. Thing is, WoH already gave a version of this fantasy with the double jump, air kills, and bigger draw distance.

However with all this said, there now comes plenty of problems that while WoH had are excerbated in the this game and introduces new issues not present in the former.

I'll describe the latter first, WoH had plenty of long corridor stretches where enemies would patrol in a straight line and the player often had to use cover to avoid their line of sight, the thing in WoH is that the enemies would never walk past the wall the player was hiding behind but in Fatal Shadows, they now do so there will be plenty of moments where you think a guard will eventually turn around but they are going to walk past the player and get detected. The lack of corner takedowns of any kind makes the lack of any changes to WoH's mechanics all the more obvious. The lack of ledge takedowns and being unable to hide behind waist high walls when crouched being two other big examples. This just makes Splinter Chaos Theory look that much better since you can do both in that game.

Another big issue with Fatal Shadows are the guard placements and if you are playing the game for the first time and you want to play the game to see cool looking stealth kills, the game will often chastise you in doing so becuase 9 times out of 10, there is a guard above, around or next to the guard you are trying to kill often leading to detections that felt like you couldn't have anticipated. The camera still doesn't let you turn the camera around your character and the look button doesn't give you enough of a bigger to view to locate nearby enemies, so it becomes the usual Tenchu game of running away when detected and then the guard loses interest in you when running away long enough.

The combat still isn't good which is fine but the bosses are too challenging for the game being based around stealth. Bosses block your attacks too much and they even have unbreakable scripted grab moves straight out a Team Ninja game. The Black Box Assassinations from Assassin's Creed Unity is far more fitting for Tenchu than the awkward 3D beat em up boss fights.

Overall, I can see why FS is such a forgettable game.

Beyond Good and Evil 20th Anniversary Edition Review

I remember playing and beating the HD version of this game over a decade ago, I remember enjoying it or at least enjoying certain parts of it but there were many areas of the game that are hazey for me. Playing the game again now, I find it easy to understand why that is. To put it simpily, BG&E is a collection of many different ideas and genres that is all hodgepodged into one game, some ideas land but many of them just feel they were an afterthought. Most if not all of the ideas the game presents felt like they weren't really fleshed out all that well. Many aspects feel half baked and some of the ideas that it does do well aren't fleshed out enough to leave a geniune impression.

Some good things are that visuals do look very nice even today, when looking at the game from a glance it has that same stylized 6th generation look that games like Jak and Daxter and the Ratchet and Clank have while also having unique elements of it's like having grosteque alien imagery and human characters. Characters move and react expressively even now and the art direction is solid too. Music has some pretty memorable tracks the race theme, the ship upgrade shop theme and the credits music are surprisingly catchy.

The game is mostly on the easy side and say for maybe one difficulty spike in the Slaughterhouse in the North Wing where you fight a seemingly endless wave of small bug monsters, the game is pretty easy. However the only thing with BG&E that will be tested is your patience, more on that later.

BG&E's story while decently presented and acted is surprisingly pretty lacking. Jade is a decent character on paper but towards the middle half of the game from the Factory all the way to the mandatory fetch quest, not much really happens in the plot or any intrigue involving her character, when the kids she is looking after gets kidnapped towards the end of the game, I forgot they were even there since Jade never once is worried that they might be put in danger before the kidnapping happens. Pey'J is also decent character but he is gone for much of the game despite being in the game's marketing and on the front cover. The story kills him off and then his "death" was a fake out 10 seconds later.

The villains are also forgettable, General Kehck I didn't even know his name because he never did anything remarkable or noteworthy in the story and DomZ for the same reasons. They are honestly some of the most forgettable villains in a story driven game I have come across.

Gameplay is where things get hard to describe. BG&E has an open world but it's mostly optional until the end game fetch quest. It's like Zelda but there are only two official dungeons the whole game. It sort of like collectathon platformer but collecting only becomes neccescary towards the end of the game instead encouraging the player to look around, they just feel like out place progression roadblocks. There is taking pictures of aliens to get currency but it isn't really mandatory since you get lots of money anyway. Combat is there and with the exception of the before mentioned difficulty spike, it's mostly easy since you mash sqaure and maybe press dodge on occcasion, the main enemy you be fighting is the camera. Bosses don't put up much a fight since their attack telegraphs are easy to spot you get lots of healing items due to the money you get by just playing the game and the amount stations selling them. There's racing but the addition of that just felt like it was there because it's an open world game and there needed to be some mini game. There is vehicular and space shooting mini games but there's only a few and are just there just to have more gameplay styles since there is only less than 10 of them the whole game if even that.

The stealth is surprisingly decent stuff especially for a game that has insta fail stealth sections, this is an idea of BG&E that feels somewhat fleshed out. The AI has doesn't instantly spot you when in an enemy's line of sight and on top of that, the roll command while crouched is a decent way to move quickly and silently without feeling like you need to move at snail's pace to get anywhere. You can also generally get away from enemies go back to being stealthy except for when there is a flying gun turret. Killing enemies when kicking them from the back feels satisfying too.

The gyrodisc launcher has some use for killing enemies and for puzzles like moving certain objects too.

That's the thing with BG&E's gameplay as a whole, it does multiple things half decently rather than excelling at one thing. I never cared for this style of gameplay since by that point the game feels like a mini game collection. The stealth I praised, is only in the two dungeons and smaller interior levels so it's 25-30% of the game.

The section where you need to collect 55 pearls to reach the moon felt like padding when you could make one more dungeon instead.

Overall, okay game but I get why I didn't like the game as much as others did.

Metroid Fusion Review

Metroid Fusion turned out to be a pretty big surprise. I wasn't the biggest fan of Super Metroid and Zero Mission I found to just be "good". Fusion however turned out to be mostly good time and is one of the better 2D Metroid pre Metroid Dread. It's one of my favorite games in the series even with some of the issues I have with it.

One good thing about Fusion is the story, and it isn't exactly going to be one of the greatest fictional tales ever but at the same time, it gave some much needed context to the gameplay that I felt other 2D Metroids before this one lacked. Samus talks but it's not an overwhelming amount of dialogue and you always hear her speak when given good reason to like during elevator rides or when she needs to strongly oppose her command. I always like it when games figure out a way to include what characters are thinking since a medium like this makes it hard to do since you can't tell read a game character's face or body language during gameplay but the elevator rides are a good enough way. You know more about Samus in this particular game then any Metroid game before and it's nice to see her show doubt and reveal backstory about her past.

However the other characters outside of Samus are just okay. Adam works well enough as an antagonist and guide to Samus and I liked it when he acted surprised whenever the Samus and by extension the player does something he did not expect and when an opposing force in a game reacts to what the player did that is a sign of solid writing and it also goes against the notion that Samus in Fusion and the player is "bossed around" the whole game. However the AI of Adam being based or connected to someone from Samus' past does seem to require a bit of the stars aligning to accept since it was never made clear if the Adam Samus knew was so respected that it was worth replicating him through AI. It just seems to come a little out of left field.

The SA-X is a decent antagonist and does a good job at making the player and Samus feel underpowered whenever she pops up whether it'd be hiding from her when she does pop in the story or running away. You can't even fight the SA-X on even terms until the very end of the game giving her presence as a villain that much more weight. However her scarificing herself for Samus can come a little of nowhere since she went from hunting Samus the whole game to scarificing herself just seemed way too sudden.

Fusion's story is solid for the kind of game it is but the gameplay I also consider good too.

The first and biggest improvement Fusion brings to the 2D Metroid formula is are the improved controls and boy, they are a massive step up over Super's despite the GBA having less buttons to work with.

First of all, no more pressing the start button to select missiles and activating power bombs, now just hold the R button and you can use them. Making combat and moment to moment exploration much less of a game of moving the thumb off the face buttons and switch to a stronger ability.

Platforming and the physics and improved too so now being able to do consistent and precise jumps feels a lot better to do. There is also a ledge grab now which is also a nice addition making platforms you missed by a hair pin something that doesn't feel like a limitation of the game.

Another improvement is that missiles abilties now stack up rather than selecting to choose between regular missiles and super missiles.

As a result, all though the bosses can be challenging especially the power loader, Ridley X and the final SA-X bosses, they never felt as frustrating as Super's bosses since the controls are as tight as they are. Another point to Fusion's favor is that a lot of the bosses don't take that long to die all though however their final X form can be a little on the challenging side and can feel like a cheap shot for first time players since they thought the the boss was dead and you have to fight a fast moving "final form" of the boss with precise missile shots for you to kill it and the boss is dead.

Fusion's level design is mostly good, there are those who criticize the game for being more linear but I don't mind more straightforward level design as long as what the player is doing in between the treks is engaging and there are other metroidvanias like Guacamelee and Prince of Persia Lost Crown gives you a guided option.

There will be moments where the player will have to explore, find a power up and then go back to the marked area Adam told you to go. The various locks require some legwork from the player to get to.

With all that said, there are moments that could stump players since this a 2D Metroid pre Samus Returns so it's not made clear which areas will be destroyed by morph ball bombs and what parts of the map Samus can interact with so these parts can be a massive guessing game especially without a guide since there is no scanning blocks ability at all.

Overall, Fusion held up remarkably well for the most part.

Dragon Ball: Xenoverse 2 Review

I never really planned on playing this game, I'm not really into the kind of game Xenoverse 2 tries to be but I wanted at least one more Dragon Ball game and I was planning on it to be Buu's Fury but that game turned out to be more annoying than fun. I also got the PS5 version for free since the PS4 version was already bought years ago so if I dislike Xenoverse 2 there isn't much lost. As a whole, the game is just "okay". I might prefer Kakarot and FighterZ over this as far as modern DB games are concerned but I had some fun from Xenoverse 2.

Some good things about the game is that the character interactions, english voice acting, cutscenes and overall production values while not amazing get the job done. It's not an Kakarot's and FighterZ's level but Xenoverse 2 also tells an original story which is something Kakarot doesn't have so there is some novelty to the latter. The plot in Xenoverse 2 sort of just seems to be Kingdom Hearts' story in the Disney Worlds except with a time travel twist in that it's esstentially an over the top fan fiction, after all the character you create is a self insert of the player. The character interactions and over the top scenarios does carry much of the game more so than the writing itself being geniunely well written. If you ever wanted to play out a DB fan fic here is a game for you.

The gameplay is just kind of...there. The idea of building your own character and doing missions with any 2 characters you want is a pretty concept. The main problem is that the 2 characters are basically just meat shields.

That and the game's campaign is also padded, you need to do "parrallel quests" in order to be properly levelled for story missions but these quests are harder than the main story missions. I eventually got so sick of doing them that I lowered to easy, I also did it because enemies can level your health bar pretty fast when they do a ultimate attack but on easy you can tank more hits and enemies have less HP and on top of this, you can the same rewards no matter what difficulty you play so playing on normal you don't need to do.

Most of the game is spent in combat and I have seen many rip apart Xenoverse's combat for being "simplistic" and I'd say they are right. The Tenkaichi especially 3 and Sparking Zero have far more going on with it's combat. Comparing this unfavourbly to FighterZ would just be too much since that is a more of a technical fighting game.

Xenoverse 2 is basically a game of hitting someone with a combo, then another combo, then slamming them across the map and then hitting them with a ki attack particularly an energy volley.

Close quarters combat is no different than subsitition jutsu from Naruto Storm where you can get endlessly comboed unless you have a teleport lined up on a separate meter, this case being stamina.

That pretty much sums up Xenoverse 2, you basically do all this for a couple of hours and roll credits. There is probably more fun to be had in multiplayer and DLC.

Overall, I played the game because I wanted to a DB game that I haven't played before and I guess I got just that. It wasn't really a game for me but I am happy I got to the end at all.

Rogue Warrior Review

I never thought I would play this game again of all things but the fact that it was on Playstation Premium and this is one of the streamable PS3 games on the service made me really want to come back to it since I never played this game's PS3 version. How this of all games made on to the service at all is what I don't get but I welcome playing it again.

Rogue Warrior in a lot of ways is the "best" bad game ever made, there are some others I would list but nothing ever really tops this particular game. A lot of other "bad" games I played and I don't mean disappointing games in popular franchises, usually tends to make me angry for a few hours and then I forgot I played them but Rogue Warrior is such a memorable title.

This can be due to the short length, the hilariously bad over the top dialogue and voice acting particularly by the main character and how the story is nothing more than a vague excuse plot to show off how "awesome" he is. The gameplay itself while can be functional at times has lousy gunplay and dumb AI. The brutal takedowns only add to the hilarity since it once again shows off how much of a "badass" Dick Marcinko love to view himself as. There is nothing more funny than going up close and constantly sprinting up to enemies for a takedown to happen. Where games like Deus Ex Human Revolution often needs resources for takedowns to be done, in Rogue Warrior, you can just keep using it.

As easy as it is to tear apart Rogue Warrior, there are *some* things it kind of does geniunely well. First of all, while you have a mini map, the game does a decent enough job at guiding the player using lights particularly green lights on where to go every door and switch is colored in green so if it's that color, you can interact with it.

Grenades get more use than they do in the CoD games since the health pool is pretty small and it's often encouraged to try to get in a good grenade throw to kill 2 or even 3 enemies.

The aforementioned takedowns are pretty satisfying to look out and has that Tenchu feel of getting a nicely detailed death animation rewarding the player for being sneaky.

The game also checkpoints pretty well and you don't have to do an overwhelming amounts of content upon death.

With all that said, Rogue Warrior isn't close to the realm of geniunely good. Weapons don't sound that great and if you aren't using the LMG and AK while using ADS and aim assist is a game of luck since most of the weapons feel very inaccurate to use. Trying to get a kill with an SMG or shotgun without getting gunned downed seconds after firing feels like a game of luck especially since the health pool on normal difficulty is really small.

The cover system is useless and is almost never needed where a game like Rainbow 6 Vegas gives you open areas with lots of cover and cover helps you getting hit from long range, Rogue Warrior's cover system is gives you a limited feel of view when aiming from cover and you can't use iron sights. Killzone 2 and 3 with it's first person cover at least lets you use ADS. As a result, it's just easier to ADS, shoot, get hit, wait for health to regen rinse repeat.

Stealth is borderline non existent since it's often easier to get takedown while everyone's backs are turned, if you want to reliably sneak past enemies using a third person cover system Deus Ex Human Revolution this is not.

The pistol is also has too slow of a fire rate to even use.

There are hardly any set pieces, any major shakeups to gameplay and most if not all the game is either half baked stealth and cover shootouts.

Sure all this is bad game design but when combine all this together with the dialogue, voice acting and just the dumb ridiculously stupid straight to DVD action thriller vibe the game seemingly is going for, and this makes Rogue Warrior a game that is hard to put down. It's a trainwreck in video game form.

Overall, if you want to have a quick exploration into a "bad game" without needing a time sync and realize how much you take good game design for granted, Rogue Warrior is worth taking a look. There's not many geniunely bad games that are as charming as this one.

Ninja Gaiden 2 Black Review

This game was a complete surprise along with the fact that it shadow dropped along with an announcement of Ninja Gaiden 4. However with that said, it seems the entire existence for this remake is to hype of NG4 and nothing more since there isn't very many differences that I can notice between this and Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2 however I never played the original Xbox 360 game. With all this said, if you bought the Ninja Gaiden Master Collection that came out a few years ago, you don't really have much reason to get this remake since Master Collection comes with Sigma 1 and Sigma 2 and even NG3 Razor's Edge. If you played NGS2, most of the major moments you will already be aware of. Outside of the additional of blood and gore and more "realistic" visuals, it's the same game, unless if you are a NG super fan who wants to know the difference between every version of every NG game, 2 Black at it's current asking price just isn't worth it with the Master Collection avaliable, unless if you really want the blood and gore and prefer the look of 2 Black.

Anyways, with that out of the way, since this is very much Ninja Gaiden Sigma 2, Black 2 carries that game's strengths and weaknesses.

Let's start with the weaknesses, the story is terrible, I know playing an NG game for the story is already a dumb idea to begin with and the game is taking the John Carmack Doom 1993 approach where story in a game is like story in porn but I argue even as an excuse plot, Ninja Gaiden 2's story fails. It's like the developers had a bunch of cool ideas and epic set pieces moments but could never make them logically transition to each other. A game story at the very least should give reasons why the player is going from level to level but NG2's story never really tries to have any of it make sense.

Characters are never given very clear motivations to why they are doing what they are doing, villains get introduced out of nowhere and have their character be expressed by entirely through monologuing, they never do anything with their actions to annoy Ryu or the player, and most of the cutscenes show Ryu in a new location but never really establishes how he got there. Sonia can't decide if she wants to be a tough girl or a damsel in distress. Villains also come back after being killed in previous chapters and the final boss has little to no actual characterization to him other than he is evil.

Ryu Hyabusa himself is basically Devil May Cry 2 Dante except the latter has more memorable lines and moments by comparison.

I know I'm harping on the story, but compared to something like God of War and in many ways it's rival series Devil May Cry, NG's story feels like it is trying to be a dumb action movie but fails at trying connect the major moments together.

The camera is pretty bad, but it's been said a million times already, it's tolerable but there are times where it gets cramped and it gives you a bad angle on the action. It's also easy to get attacked by offscreen projectiles and fast moving enemies.

Bosses are okay but they feel easy by comparison to the hordes with only their unbreakable grab moves being the only threat they pose to you.

With all that out of the way, I mostly had a great time with the game. There are multiple major changes. The heavy focus on action and less on platforming and puzzles, the dismemberment system, the higher enemy count, the changes to ranged weapons, an easier to access dodge button and being able to hold less healing items.

When you combine all this together, this makes for a much more entertaining, frantic and over the top game than the first Ninja Gaiden.

Combat is basically an over the top ballet of dodges, attacking enemies, cutting off their limbs then doing an execution attack then timing everything to perform an max essence attack to kill more enemies. The enemy count is much higher giving you even more reason to do these attacks.

Enemies drop health and there are always healing itsems lying around so the combat while having it's annoying moments always felt fair and never did it feel cheap. Murmasa shops are always around when low on healing items.

Weapon switching is also somewhat encouraged too. Dragon Sword is a good starter weapon, but the bigger weapons like the Emma's Fang and the Scythe are great for bigger enemies since it staggers them better, Vigoor Fail is great for the ghost fishes, and lunar is great for large groups. You do get a little too many melee weapons and stuff like surikens hardly got any use but I do like that weapon switching is encouraged at all.

Platforming is still not good but rarely if ever do you need to be super precise with it and you need to actually avoid death pits so that is a massive point to NG2's favor.

The death animations are also really fun to watch and each weapon has it's own set of animations which is impressive.

Overall, I do enjoy NG Black 2 even if this remake feels about as nessescary as Last of Us Part 1.

Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation Review

I was never really going to play this game especially considering that it was never that well liked even among AC fans but since it came with AC3 Remastered, I decided to play it. As a whole, there is nothing remarkable or very interesting about the game outside of the persona system. Where AC Bloodlines was sort of interesting that in that it could be done on a system like the PSP at all, Liberation just feels like a portable AC3 but even that is not a novelty since the game isn't exclusive to the Vita anymore.

The good things about AC3: Liberation in that in terms of visuals and controls, it is very faithful to AC3 and like I said before, it feels like AC3 on the go and your enjoyment really depends on how much you like that game. It's parkour mechanics, controls, visuals, and combat is pretty much AC3. The only big differences being now you get a whip, a mark and execute feature and different costumes. The naval combat is gone but I don't think it controlled well in AC3 so I don't miss it.

The whip outside of platforming is mostly useless and outside of the occasional section where you need to swing to another platform, it barely gets much use.

Mark and execute also doesn't add much since the game's combat is already leaning towards the easy side and countering can already lead to an instant death to an enemy anyway since the window for it so large.

The biggest and most interesting addition is the persona system. It's esstentially the player getting 3 different skins with different attributes and abilites. Slave lets you blend in with others and parkour, Assassin lets you use the entire tool kit and parkour, and the Lady gives you the ability to charm npcs but no parkour or nimble movement. On paper, this should give the player different choices during gameplay. Play as the slave to blend in and get lower notriety, play as the Assassin and risk standing out in public but have your toolkit and gain more notriety or play as the Lady where you can charm guards and blend in with larger crowds.

If the game leaned into stealth more and had more missions where all 3 personas can complete a mission, then this would be an AC that geniunely stands out from the other games but instead you need specific skins for specific missions. This almost feels like one of the few games in the series where the game tries to live up to the idea of "social stealth". It even stands out from the Hitman games since you can't take any set of clothes and each skin gives you certain stats.

That pretty much leans into much next issue, the missions and if you played any AC game from 2 onwards, it's just going through the usual motions. If this was a style of game I got a lot of enjoyment out of it, I wouldn't mind so much but this isn't.

Many of the missions are just do what the developer wants or else it's an instand fail. Ignoring all that here's what you will mainly be doing: tailing, fighting, occasional stealth, parkouring, investigating pretty much all this but in a different order that I mentioned.

If any of these individual gameplay styles were interesting on their own, maybe I'd be less lukewarm but instead I just find it dull. Tailing just consist of you slowly keeping up with an npc and hoping you can stay away from his line of sight long enough so the mission is over and you can move fast again.

Fighting just consist of mashing the attack button, occasionally doing guard breaks and different attacks while also using the overpowered counter move.

Stealth is also AC pre Unity so no crouch button and since this is AC there will always be detections you swore that you didn't do but happens anyway, the bush stealth wouldn't even become reliable until AC4. If the mission didn't allow me to be caught, I would always pick combat since it's easier and more reliable by comparison to stealth.

Parkour is the same as AC3 meaning sprinting and grabbing on to ledges and hand holds is mapped to one button so I can hold R2 and I don't need to do much all though there will be moments where I want to run but instead I grab onto something.

Investigating just consist of looking into a highlighted zone and holding the inspect button until you move on to the next sequence.

Thing is, most if not all these issues can apply to AC3 and many of the AC games in general. Not even in the story is that interesting since everything feels jumbled and disjointedly told. Where AC3 and 4 were carried by their stories, Liberation barely has much worth talking about outside of it's interesting premise that doesn't get explored that much.

I suppose one decent thing I can say about the game is that the game isn't too long and doesn't overstay it's welcome for too long.

Overall, AC Liberation is just more of the same of a franchise I consider to be medicore, AC Mirage might've gotten a lukewarm response as a whole but maybe it's proof that this formula was never that interesting. If you like this style of game then maybe check it out.

Resident Evil: Darkside Chronicles Review

I played Resident Evil Umbrella Chronicles on Playstation Now a decade ago and I recall not being able to finish it since PS Premium has Darkside Chronicles and it's one of the few PS3 games I haven't played that is on the service, I decided to play it. I also wanted to play it after recently dropping Code Veronica. I did beat the game with a PS5 controller on easy mode, it's beatable but easy mode is really challenging and it certainly isn't as accomadating for analog stick controller players like House of the Dead Overkill is.

The visuals are really good for a former Wii game and seeing Resident Evil 2 environments with a higher poly count is fan service that still manages to impress me even in a post Resident Evil 2 remake gaming industry despite me finding that said remake disappointing.

Code Veronica's portions were "fine" but me not caring for that game lessens the impact of seeing it reimagined. I just wished that game would just a proper remake already. I do tolerate Steve Burnside more here because of his voice acting, direction and dialogue. Alfred Ashford's voice acting isn't as hilariously over the top as it was in the original CV game.

Weapons sound good and killing enemies especially getting headshots on zombies has a very nice satisfying "pop" to them.

I do really like how the game encourages you to switch weapons a lot. You got the infinite ammo pistol as a weapon to kill weaker hordes of zombies with and a good fallback weapon. SMG and shotgun is good for close range and enemies like Hunters, grenade launcher, grenades and magnum for bosses and stronger enemies. It does a good job at keeping in with the "resource mangement" side of Resident Evil within the context in a rail shooter. You can beat something like House of the Dead Overkill primarily using the starting pistol by comparison.

There are some useless weapons like the bow gun, you can empty an entire clip and it still won't kill an enemy.

Speaking of resource management, Darkside Chronicles does what the series usually does a good job with and that is pacing out it's healing items. There will always be a first aid spray or herb after a couple of enemy waves and when you've probably taken a good amount of damage.

A huge positive is that the checkpoints are really well spaced out and there is rarely an overwhelming amount content you have to redo upon death after using all your first aid sprays and herbs.

There is also a good amount of content here for a rail shooter.

Now the negatives are that the upgrade system doesn't really add much since you primarily upgrade the pistol since it's the gun with infinite ammo and it's going to be the gun to always fallback to.

The biggest negative however are the boss fights, this could be me using a PS5 controller, but these boss fights were pretty difficult even on easy.

The RE2 portions were by far the hardest since you don't have the grenade and rocket launchers and magnum and the last few missions mostly just a boss rush. You have to fight William Birkin at the very least 8 times and he was just starting to overstay his welcome and I just wished he went away. At least in RE2, if you choose to play past the Leon A has the last few Birkin fights seperated by a rethread of the game but from Claire's perspective, removing this just makes me wish he would just die already.

Alexia was the second hardest due to how much damage she took with just the regular pistol and forced me to use most of my most powerful weapons early.

It's not only you having to shoot the bosses in time before the blows they throw land on you but you also need to have an extremely fast trigger finger. This could be due to streaming, my finger being slow when it comes to games or me not playing on a lightgun but if I hadn't develop an ability where I used left thumb controlled the reticle through the left stick and right thumb was on the fire button, it being R1, I wouldn't even be able to beat Alexia.

The specific "puzzle" section shooting parts were annoying since if I screwed up these, I could lose health and possibly restart the boss due to misunderstanding during a heated moment.

The story and the way it contextualizes events felt like an afterthought. For example it is primarily about Leon and Krauser going through Operation Javier but Leon isn't in CV so those sections feel pointless. The Veronica virus in series canon never amounted to anything. These portions itself felt like a filler episode of a TV show since I don't even understand why Krauser turned heel by the end of it, Javier dies without revealing anything useful, and Manuela also dies so nothing new is learned and no character insight happens. At least Umbrella Chronicles explained how the company was defeated so that provided more to the overarching RE narrative.

Overall, despite my issues, I do enjoy DC, I failed to beat Umbrella Chronicles so I thought I would dislike DC but instead I had some fun with it even with a contoller.