Crysis 2(Nintendo Switch) Review

Crysis 2 was a game I originally played back when it came out mainly due to the positive reviews from websites I watched at the time. It seemed like a weirdly intriguing game. It is an enjoyable to play in the moment but it's nothing I consider truly great. It even slowly got me into playing stealth games due to it being an FPS and how cloaking gives you the ability to play it that like the former without needing experience points and buying skills that many games that have you play in different play styles would do before and after. I wasn't super into FPS games like I am now and being exposed to something like this was pretty cool. You got armor mode, fighting aliens and different branching options unlike the CoD games at the time so in spite of being inspired by that series, there was enough to make it different.

It is strange how I have beaten the game multiple times over the years but still just think it's "solid" but nothing more. Upon playing the game again, I have come to realize that Crysis 2 is the gaming equivilant to a solid action movie that can make you think at times but is ultimately meant to be comfort food something like Escape from New York or Con Air.

Level design is easily the biggest point of contention when compared to the first game. You don't have the vast open tropical island of the first game. It's either linear shooting galleries like a CoD campaign or wide open squares that connect with a level exit at the other side of it. There is no sense of you going through this vast open area where you getting past guard checkpoint after checkpoint.

There are no secondary objectives and the tactical options are slight branching off paths with some advantages to get leg up over enemies.

At the same time, considering Crysis 2 was on consoles with games like Deus Ex Human Revolution releasing months later, it is rather impressive that there is a 7th gen multiplatform FPS that even gives you more leeway to tackle objectives compared to how CoD was slowly becoming more infamous for how scripted it's campaigns were. The suit powers also made it stood out.

What also help that most of the time is that stealth is a viable option. It isn't deep by any means but within the context of an FPS game where it's about an alien invasion, I'm surprised I'm able to play a good portion of the levels of at all just by using the cloak and going from cover to cover.

There is one unfortunate elephant in the room and it's the AI. It wasn't well remembered even for it's time. Playing it now, it's easy to mock the game for how stupid enemies can act and how their pathfinding can have them run around in places or even walking into walls or obstructions. It's pretty amusing to see. Games like Splinter Cell Blacklist would have far more believeable enemy behaviour but that would release 2 years later. It can also get erratic when you don't get a clear indicator if you are in a guard sightline, you decloak and get spotted. What saves this however is that you can recloak, change position and enemies will have a hard time trying to tell where you are. Line of sight when seen is easy to break, none of that hivemind AI which makes stealth more viable. There is also a stealth kill that is satisfying to pull off.

Compare this to say the Assassin's Creed games releasing prior to Unity and even after, stealth in Crysis 2 can feel more refined and doable by comparison. There is crouching and a cover system here

There are a lot of lots of lengthy shooting galleries against the Ceph midway into the game unlike Crysis 1, shooting aliens actually feels decent enough especially with gooey splash they make upon killing them. It's also great that you can stealth kill them from behind which adds a little more depth. It is scripted like a CoD campaign but considering the alien invasion context, the loud bombast and the fact it takes place in a real city can give the game a feeling of being in a playable version of War of the Worlds. These sections do last can go on for a little too long but there is a fantastic level with "Eye of the Storm" that follows up on that goes back to the wide open boxed sneaking rooms so there is solid pacing in this campaign.

The story isn't going to be thought provoking but it does feel competently presented unlike the first game. Cutscenes provide enough context for levels, characters are decent in the moment and there is even a solid attempt at creating attachment to the villian with Jaccob Hargreave where he helps Alcatraz and the player by extension before betraying you later making it feel unfortunate that it happened. There's is some interesting recontextualized callbacks to the first game with him and Prophet.

Alcatraz can't talk and silent protagonists being the way they are makes me question why Nathan Gould never asks or demands for him to talk early game with the whole mystery that Prophet is dead.

Overall, Crysis 2 is solid action movie in video game form and that's fine.

Parasite Eve Review

Parasite Eve is a game I have a soft spot for. It was one of the first PS1 games I went out of my way to try out back when I was first looking into them. It's short length, the designs, and the battle system were all things that brought me to it. I played it a few times, I technically beat it twice but the first time I quit because the epsxe emulator version I used didn't let me switch discs so I had to stop on Day 5. I came back and used a different version of the same emu and finished. It's been a few years, beat many games later and Duckstation has become a thing which is a far superior emulator to espxe in every way. I decided to have one Duckstation playthrough of PE since changing discs no longer means it's going to crash the game. It's a game I remember really liking and I still do now but there are some weird issues and quirks with it that can get in the way. As a whole, the game is interesting for what it pulled off for it's time and is endearing now.

The story in Parasite Eve is really impressive for how well presented it is especially back in the late 90s. Everything about it follows action movie and thriller logic. The game was marketed as a cinematic RPG but it can be shown in how it's pacing works. The game has a quick section where Aya and her boyfriend is watching an opera play and right away, it doesn't take too long for action to start and establishes that right away how fearless and to the point she is. Most of the game is paced this way. There will be decent stretches of gameplay then cutscenes while arguably a little too lengthy does feel earned since all the gameplay you had to go through to get there. The characters are also very compelling and it seems that writer knows what he is doing with how Daniel is introduced. A pestering reporter talks to Aya and he smacks him in the face. It's a great way to introduce a character. There are exposition sequences but there are entertaining character interactions, the script has it's moments letting the viewer to come to conclusions and everything goes by a lightning fast rate to reflect the fact that the story is taking place over the course of a few days.

One could criticize the lack of voice acting but it was not of high quality for console games at the time, you could run the risk of having narmy voice acting getting in the way of a good story like this. The soundtrack often does much of the heavy lifting

  
It is rather unfortunate the game fumbles hard on Day 5. Things were already off to a bad start where you are supposed to go a location called Chinatown but it's actually a sewer level...which is ultimately pointless since there was just a random explosion in the Museum rather than Aya herself finding the clue on top of lots of nothing during the sewer exploration. Making it worse. This is the longest chapter in the game and it can feel the most padded because of this. Outside of this, the story mostly hits the mark.

The gameplay is also just as interesting. It has elements of Resident Evil with backtracking and inventory management but the combat is turn based in real time. When first starting up the game, it surprisingly feels pretty simple to grasp. Sure you wait your turn but you can also avoid attacks in real time meaning there is some control you have during combat.

There are your regular fodder enemies during random battles but bosses require a little more thinking and you need to attack different weak points to effectively manage them. This keeps the puzzle element of turn based combat intact.

There is weapon customization and stats too but I mainly went for which did the most damage and there were too many tools I got which weren't really useful since mod permits are needed to effectively use them and I got two the whole game.

Dungeon design is also solid if at times the places can look too copy and pasted. Central Park and the Sewers being prime examples. The Hospital was the best one due to the routes and being slowly led around it.

There is one major problem however and that is Aya's very slow run speed. During the early game, it's fine but when the challenge ramps up with more and more enemies and bosses that various inflict status aliments, having no evade and her moving so ungodly slow isn't ideal. Haste helps but you get that on late into Day 3 and it's ridiculous to cast a buff just to have an ideal run speed to reliably dodge enemies attacks. It can get hard to reliably cast haste when dealing with status aliaments and regular enemy attacks when the buff wears off. 

The game also gets boring at around the 2nd visit to the Museum. Fodder enemies become too easy to takedown and there is overwhelming amounts of random encounters. It feels like it never stops. Just to have a fight with Eve who is much much harder than everything before her which can feel jarring. Eve is a massive damage sponge who almost felt immortal.

Final boss is okay but the hardest part is a weird scripted escape sequence.

Overall, despite some stumbles PE is still very good. 

Yooka-Replayee Review

I played the original Yooka Laylee around the time it came but I wasn't into collectathon platformers back then. I remembered it as the "overshadowed by a Hat in Time" game. I never even knew there was going to be an updated re release that would overhaul the original game almost a decade down the line. The changes is what brought me to this version at all. It sounded weirdly intriguing.

As a whole, this version of Yooka Laylee is decent but nothing really special. What I find amusing is that it sort of feels like it's Banjo Kazooie is aping off Jak and Daxter: the Precursor Legacy. Examples being how all your moves are avaliable for you to use at the start of the game, making the obvious jab that there is autosave after getting a collectible unlike Banjo, how there are dual analog controls, and even more efficient menus tracking collectibles. This game does have a map along with the collectibles list. It did feel satisfying slowly checking it off even I don't need to get them all to beat the game.

Other than that, it's about what you expect form a the kind of game in the genre. You can bash the game for being derivative considering the original game was hyped for being by the developers of Banjo Kazooie but it didn't provide much new ideas of it's own and all the new ideas it did have were so bad this version changed it.

The moment to moment gameplay is enjoyable, exploring levels and finding pagies so you unlock more worlds. Platforming controls feel solid and the moveset feels good enough that the act of getting around in the world doesn't feel like a chore. I did enjoy running around the map and slowly unlocking most of the pagies I felt like getting. Most of the time, the clues are simple enough where there isn't a need for too much use of a walkthrough

They double the amount of pagies you can get meaning you do a good chunk of the game very quickly without needing to explore other levels but that's been a thing with the genre, the main difficulty comes from 100%ing it.

The combat can be a little too easy since you have an upgrade later in the game that can be make short work of most enemies which was supposed to be unlocked later but it did feel good to hit those enemies. Getting a game over is almost too hard except for maybe the bosses but the battle in the first world was the hardest before the final boss.

The final boss is where the game ramps up in difficulty due to how the boss himself can hit you while obscured off screen while trying to deal with area of effect electricity hazards and then later needing to deal with fodder enemies all at the same time. It took a number of tries to get past this part where everything before this I didn't die much at all. It was surprising since the rest of the game was on the easy side.

Overall, that's Yooka Replayee. It's a competent and enjoyable collectathon platformer. There is nothing it does extraordinarily well but nothing that really annoys when playing it either. I mainly wanted to play since I got it at a reduced price for owning the original and wanted to quickly get a game out of the way.

Red Dead Redemption Review

This was a game I played around the time it was still new, I recall how much praise it received and the amount of game of the year awards it got was staggering to teenage me at the time. I finally played it and at the time I was very underwhelmed and never understood the "hype" behind it. This was a younger me and in a time where praise and awards were something I really cared about. It's been over 10 years since I originally finished it. I've mellowed out now and mainly just want to experience games by extension media because I want to enjoy them. I'm not someone who wants to passionately rant about media I don't enjoy because many people liked it and I'm cursing them for "lying" to me. With all that said, when playing RDR, it was very hard to keep my composure while playing mainly due to how much I disliked my time playing the game. I wouldn't call it "terrible" or "bad" there are no doubts worse games than this but every time I was playing RDR, I kept asking, "why am I still going?" It's one of those games that felt like a personification of the sunk cost fallacy. When playing RDR, I already knew the gameplay I wasn't really going to enjoy since I don't like much of the design mentalities Rockstar puts in their titles. I was hoping for at the very least that it's a "good story, okay gameplay most your time is spent playing" kind of game. Something along the lines of Legacy of Kain Soul Reaver 2, Second Sight, or to a lesser extent the first Mass Effect and Assassin's Creed even what I remember of Call Juarez and it's sequel Bound in Blood. Much to my shock, Red Dead Redemption wasn't even that. The entire game's story was one massive learning experience of "what not to do" which is shocking for a game as big and acclaimed as this. 

Long intro out of the way, in spite of me disliking the story immensely I will talk about gameplay first since in spite of there so much of it, there is almost not much to really chew on. 

To sum up all my criticisms towards Red Dead Redemption's gameplay as I simple as I can it's this question:

Why play Red Dead Redemption when you can just play Grand Theft Auto instead? 

I don't like GTA either but every time I play RDR, it's just a copy and paste job of the former in the wild west. Sure RDR being labelled as "GTA in the wild west" is a marketing slogan but that's really all it is. RDR has everything that GTA does but nothing to accomadate for the wild west setting. 

My big example to illustrate my point is the horse. Horseback riding follows the same rules as riding an automobile in GTA but instead of holding the trigger you tap x. When you place a quest marker on the map, the game even marks a line for the player to follow to get to their destination as long as you don't go off road and stick to the main road, it's also faster to stay on the road...wait this is horseback riding, these are just following the same rules as driving an automobile. 

There is also the fact that GTA takes place in populated cities where there are pedestrians, obstructions, maintaining vehicle speed, as well dealing with traffic, AND vehicle damage. These are multiple factors you have to consider when driving a vehicle in GTA. 

Horseback riding in RDR has you deal with none of these factors. It's just tapping x and getting to the finish line. You may need to worry about stamina but the horse will maintain some speed even the x button isn't being tapped after starting the sprint, doing that makes it go faster. The key is to start the sprint and every few seconds tap x instead of right away tap x. 

Once I figured this out even the chases on horseback were never once a challenge. I don't ever recall getting one game over because I failed a horseback ride sequence. I did get a few due to Rockstar's rigid mission design but that's something in most of their open world games including Grand Theft Auto. Which furthur illustrates my point with it's wild west setting could have a different take on the mission system but it doesn't. It's just as scripted and rigid as ever. 

To praise the horse gameplay for a second, cattle hearding was interesting since there is another factor the player has to account for which is the cows veering off course and the player has to lead the herd through the destinations as he watch out for multiple cows and obstructions. This is something not in GTA and wish there were more ideas like this. 

There is also the bountry system. This is one of the more amusing aspects of the GTA copying. I didn't even know there was this system until the mission with Seth happened. 

Which is yet another thing that GTA does better. The wanted system is one of GTA's most famous systems where the more crimes you committ, the more police aggression is enforced. This is something that every player will encounter since they will no doubt run over civilians on purpose or by accident and this meter will inevitably start rising. 

Now compare that to the bounty system of RDR, it follows similar rules. Everything is barren and empty. There is almost no civilians or much of anything the player can do to accidentally get a bounty which makes me wonder why this system is even here. You can just get "fame" and "honor" just by playing the missions which is another aspect that is never accomdated for. 

This just leaves the combat and once again, it's just GTA with the auto lock where you just aim, target reticle tracks enemies, shoot. Might as well not even have free aim and over the shoulder shooting. Most of the guns are all the same since it's the wild west and all the rifles are different variations of bolt action and pausing inbetween shots. Most of the pistols are the same too and just different takes on reloading shots between each round. 

So the gunplay is like GTA, so why play this over it? That series gives you more of a variety of hitscan weapons than weapons that pause between every shot. 

There is also Dead Eye and this annoyed me when I first played but it annoys me even more now. This was a carry over of Red Dead Revolver but the main differences is that Revolver had a moderate enemy count where enemies had moderate amounts of health where the bullets were projectile. Dead Eye in that was a means to get some quick shots in while so many enemies were firing bullets at you and to more reliably widdle at their health. 

In Redemption, enemies have the health of infantry solidiers of a Call of Duty campaign so partner this with the auto aim and Dead Eye and no shootouts hardly have any tension. There might be some deaths here and there but you will have to try hard or get a game over by accident due to the lack of challenge keeping you on edge. 

If I were to raise the difficulty, none of this shooting would be more interesting than the shooting mechanics in Grand Theft Auto. Which comes back to that question that started this whole thing again. 

The shooting and horseback riding are dull and most of the game's missions revolve around these two things. Rockstar even knows there so much horseback riding which is why there are parts where Marston rides a wagon and later a car to some of the destinations which is just a glorified cutscene. This wouldn't even make for a good movie scene where it's just people riding a car with mostly uncomfortable silences. It's also grating since you never know in the moment if characters will talk to each other or it's going to be minutes of uncomfortable silence. 

The waiting for npcs at a certain time to do a mission is a pacing killing grievance since all you need to do is sleep on a bed and it will eventually set to the time you want. Also diminishing Marston as a outlaw who supposed to be taken seriously. 

There are also a few cinematic gun duels the whole game, I especially started to just roll my eyes that the final duel with Edgar Ross which is supposed to be a final boss of sorts has a tutorial reminding you how it works because Rockstar knows how infrequent it is. At least Red Dead Revolver has these moments sprinkled throughout it's campaign on top of it's gun duels being with people you have fought throughout the levels which is yet another aspect it does worse than that game. 

Enough on the gameplay, I already knew most of this going in when replaying the game again. I was younger when I played first played RDR, I wasn't nearly as game and by extension media "literate" as I am now. Maybe the story was too complicated for me to get in the moment but since I'm older, I will appreciate it more than I originally did. The story is RDR's last line of defense. The one thing that could make me tolerate the dull gameplay. This could be the thing that it does better than Grand Theft Auto and have an defrenciate it from that franchise. 

Unfortunately, I might just dislike the story even more than the gameplay. So RDR for me is, "terrible story and extremely dull gameplay" or "enjoy the story, skip the game". It almost shocks me for how a story with such a fascinating premise and how it loves to drive home how interesting John Marston's backstory is, so much of it feels like a boring empty mess. 

To sum up my two biggest issues with the story. It's two things, it's protagonist and the antagonists. These two things work in tandem to make the story as dull as it is. 

John Marston is one of the most fascinating fictional anti heros in any mainstream media I have ever witnessed, not because he is well written but because of how much the writers get wrong. 

There is an interesting point proffesional wrestler Scott Steiner makes where he says, "threats are apart of wrestling, what matters is those making the threats". It took me a long while to notice but so much fiction I enjoy follows this logic to varying degrees. 

The reason why I could never remember John Marston after over a decade of playing RDR but I can with Kratos from the God of War 3(both released the same year after all) is because the former doesn't follow this line, the latter does. John Marston spends so much of RDR being bossed around and never really feeling like someone you should never annoy or mess with. Marston spends so much of his time doing errands and what other people want that it's hard to take him seriously after a point. Which is yet again another carry over of Grand Theft Auto because in those games the characters are trying to get furthur into the criminal underworld and not annoy the mob bosses. 

Kratos in God of War 3 brutally murders anyone who gets in his way even innocent people to get what he wants. The begginning establishes that with the death of Poseidian, later in the game Gaia betrays Kratos and then the latter kills her. Later on Hephastus betrays Kratos and sends him to Cronos and then kills them both. The former betrayed Kratos because he's been shown to be such a monster that he doesn't want his daughter Pandora anywhere near her. Point of this is, Kratos is the kind of character who is protrayed as threatning but he follows up on those threats, giving him the vibe that he shouldn't be messed with to the point where his allied even become afraid of him

John Marston is supposed to be the last of the cowboy who is so good at what he does that he is being used to wipe out whatever outlaws that are left. The ones that aren't your run of the mil. Yet Marston never does anything heinous or questionable. Early game Marston and various npcs have frequent conversations about what the latter does is even right and how how he finds ways to rationalize his actions. Marston is annoyed by Wes Dickens and the latter points out what he does is no different. These conversations are sort of interesting but it highlights that the story will tell you about how questionable Marston is but never has him do anything questionable that you might agree with what Wes Dickens and Bonnie MacFarland says to Marston. 

There's a scene later on in the Mexico portions where De Santa gets caputred and Marston interrogates him on where Javier Esqualla is. Marston either kills him or the revolutionaries do. There's a shootout and it ends with Javier not even being at the place where he was told and the mission amounted to nothing. De Santa lied to Marston and he got away with it. After this, I just couldn't take John Marston seriously as a character anymore. Any crediblity he has left was gone. 

This now leads to the villains? What villains? RDR is the kind of story that loves to tell you about how awesome it's backstory between John Marston and his former gang are. The way it's worded can almost hook anyone in the story. John Marston once rode in a gang? They were like family to him but then they left him there to die despite the bond they formed? He survived after all that and wants to live with his family but needs to kill his former family members who left him there to die in order to erase his path and start a new life due his family being held hostage by the government? Add in some ideas of the cowboy and the west slowly dying and leading to modern civilivation and if this premise was a movie or TV show, I watch would in a heartbeat. The way John Marston delivers this backstory and how it's worded, it can make anyone believe that the story of RDR is going to be an awesome classic. It's why I played this game at all again because of how interesting it sounded. Who wouldn't want to check out a story with a premise like this? 

Here's the thing, most of RDR's story is nothing more than a series of wild goose chases. This is what I mean by the villains are poor. A good villain can bring out the best of the hero. This is why good villains are often valued in stories. This is what I mean in how the poor protagonist and antagonists work in tandem. 

You go to Fort Mercer and go after Bill Williamson, he shoots John and then it starts him on a series of quests to assault the place. Now here is the thing, Bill Williamson does absolutely nothing while John is slowly gathering the means to assault the fort. No inverentions, no antagonizing npcs, not being annoying to John or anything to just want to motivate the player to kill him. He's never even shown to leave Fort Mercer after killing John which is what makes it even weirder when he knew the latter was coming with a gattling gun to storm the place but there would never be any kind of clue to what would even tip him off run to Mexico. 

Apart of me was scratching my head and waiting, "wait we organized all that to assault Fort Mercer and it all ends with Williamson escaping? I thought he served his role as being the antagonist for that section of the game?" Little did I know the truly artifical reason why he didn't die during the assault will come later. 

Here comes Mexico and it's painfully dull and despite Williamson escaping Marston has to go after a guy who just got named dropped at the end of the Fort Mercer mission. Williamson is now completely invisible along with Javier Esqualla. I wonder if you could make a drinking game out of how many times John asks where the latter is, you could in more shots add the former too. Marston has to help out a rebellion going on Mexico that is disconnected from the main story and the biggest kicker is Williamson and Esqualla only make on screen appreances at the end of this portion. Remember what I said about that artificial reason? Williamson only survived Fort Mercer so John Marston has an actual reason to stick around to see the Mexican civil war come to an end since the evil government was hiding Bill Williamson the whole time. If he just got Esqualla, he would've just left like nothing mattered and there'd be no payoff to the hours spent in this boring sub plot. 

Then there is the Mexico sections itself which is so fascinating that it manages to do a great job at being, "too bleak, stopped caring". Marston is completely or tries to be impartial during the Mexican civil war and then he supports the corrupt government but he joins the rebels and rescues their leader Abraham Reyes and somehow he manages to have more screen time and despicable than the people John Marston is actually trying to kill. He doesn't even come off as a dependable leader since the story has no problem showing how much indulges having sex, Luisa loves him so much but he doesn't even know who she is and never remembers her name once and the only reason he is able to turn things around on the corrupt government is because he keeps roping and manipulating Marston into doing what he wants. It's hard to even recall any moment where he shows compassion, virtue or just giving the player a reason as to why he's any better than the corrupt government. With how much contempt this villain brings out of me by talking about him, you'd think he was the main antagonist of RDR but he isn't. This is someone you are supposed to help and the story deems will make a positive difference. With a guy like Reyes running things, this new regime wouldn't even last a year let alone 6 months. This is a good portion of the game and your most destable villain isn't heel heat, he's go away heat. 

Now this leaves Dutch Van Der Linde, I didn't even remember anything he did when I first beat the game. He did get a prequel with Red Dead Redemption 2 that was made 8 years after this game and I wondered why I liked him there but don't remember anything he did in the game he debuted in. I already strongly dislike this story but apart a large part of me wanted Dutch to be to RDR what Raul Julia's portrayal of M. Bison was in the 90s Streer Fighter movie. "I can't stand Red Dead Redemption's story but when Dutch was on screen, he made me believe the story he was in good or even great". That's the power of what a good villain can do. Wesley Snipes was also this in Demoliation Man. 

Dutch Van Der Linde is like the father John Marston never had, he was once someone who had honor and cared for people but slowly went crazy over time and lost his way. He's the reason why everything happened the way it did to Marston. Why his family was even held hostage by government, why he did all the stuff he did for those government officials. Why the whole game happened, Dutch got the Prequel. He has the backstory the game will remind you of multiple times. This should be the part where everything comes together, right? Nope.

Rob Wiethoff has been praised as John Marston many times but something was already off with how his voice direction doesn't even seem to change in any way at the start of the West Elizebeth chapter. No sense of shock, dread, desperation, or just anything that makes Marston feel different from before. His voice is the same it's been since the start of the game. The journey is about to end, the government is having him kill the last member of his gang as one last favor and it will finally be over and it sounds like any other job he always did. 

Then Dutch shows up and the first major thing he does is killing an innocent woman he took hostage to escape. What annoys me about this scene is that on paper it works really well, the problem is while Dutch is holding her hostage John is just standing around and there is no sense of any emotion or him doing something he hasn't done before. Dutch called John's wife Abgail a whore multiple times in this scene and Marston is taking forever to even do anything. A good villain makes the hero want to do things he is against and the audience by extension. John just says nothing and stare at him while he is holding the woman. Having a line where Marston says, "sorry miss this isn't personal but this man must die" but then Dutch gets scared and throws her at Marston and the latter accidentally shoots her and the former runs away would've given the scene the emotion it should've had. 

This cutscene was when I was losing any kind of hope. The rest of Dutch's scenes don't fare any better. He never even has anything as potentially dramtically as the aforementioned hostage scene. He just shows up antagonizes John and then leaves. Later in the game Marston looks at Dutch through biniculars, the latter shoots him the binoculars in his face to the point where he gets knocked out and then there is a fade black and he escapes that level of incompetence completely unscathed. 

Then Nastas dies later on in the story and it was by a bunch of generic enemies who weren't even named. Harold MacDougal also escapes and lives to tell the tale even though his questline had Dutch appear in the cutscenes and antagonizing John. He doesn't even scare or try to torture Edgar Ross. There's not even a scene where he kidnaps Abgail considering the fact he called her a whore prior so it can follow up with using he as a way to finally kill Marston. Angering or trumatizing Jack. This would also help segway into the epilogue of the game since right after Dutch dies, Marston heads back to his family anyway, maybe encountering Dutch makes them glad they are reunitied with Marston because the government could never keep them safe. Anything that makes me remember Dutch as a villain I like and finally made me feel like I was enjoying the game. 

When finally defeating Dutch and doing the epilogue, I wonder was there ever a need for Marston? All the people he was trying to kill were so ineffective and incompetent at what they did. Williamson would hide in Mexico and can't even lay a finger to Reyes. Esqualla had no geniune power over anything or anyone. Dutch's crusade at West Elizebeth wouldn't even go longer than 6 months or even 2. 

I'll make a tangent on Red Dead 2 where it makes me start wondering what was ever compelling Dutch to warrant the prequel? It was just Rockstar yet again showing off how compelling their backstory sounds. I might not like Star Wars' Darth Vader that much but at least him in Return of the Jedi and by extension of how evil the Emperor was so compelling in the quest to turn the Luke Skywalker to the dark side and how in spite everyone being absolutely convinced that he would strike down Vader but it ends with Luke refusing to take action and would rather die on the Death Star and then leading to Vader to redeem himself because he didn't want to see his son get tortured. 

This sequence in Return of the Jedi was the only thought provoking part in the Original Trilogy, it's one part I can look back on with fondness. It's good enough that I geniunely can picture George Lucas making a Prequel Trilogy on Vader and The Emperor. At least George Lucas made me picture the idea that a prequel starring them could be compelling because he showed me that they can be. 

Dutch Van Der Linde in spite of how much Rockstar hyped him in RDR as being this amazing villain was never even close to what the story made him out to be. All of this geniunely makes me dislike Red Dead Redemption 2 by proxy. Dutch might be a well written villain in that game? Well that's like making me feel sorry for some person I don't like in online or real life. They probably have some reason why they act like the people they do but I never found them endearing so I don't want to know. I just want to forget I ever spoke, interacted or even know about them. 

Anyways, I zoned out during the epilogue, I just wanted this story to end. Marston died and I was laughing like Nelson Muntz from the Simpsons instead of feeling sad like the game wanted me to.

Jack Marston is somehow able to get weapons training training even though cowboys and outlaws were wiped out and they had no relatives or the even made it aware to the audience that Jack did know someone who could do that. To praise Star Wars again, at least Luke got training because Obi Wan was nearby his aunt and uncle's house. Don't even know such a character for Jack Marston since it time skipped to him being an adult when Marston died. Edgar Ross a villain I don't care about dies and I'm just done talking about this story. 

Overall, I didn't like Red Dead Redemption when I played it and time has made even harsher on it. I dislike it so much even though it's not a bad game on a techical level that I questioned what made me go through it. The story is very poor which was supposed to be it's massive selling point over the Grand Theft Auto series. The gameplay is just a more limited and stripped down of that very series. When I look back on playing this game, I question, was there a point of me getting to the end credits? If I was a hardcore gamer in the 5th and 6th generations and I told this was being the standard for what a great game is, I would've certainly had a retirement arc from gaming in the 7th gen or have a scorn for AAA mainstream gaming that many gamers do now. 

Silent Hill f Review

I wasn't expecting much. SHF looked more like Siren and Fatal Frame than Silent Hill. At the same time, considering Konami has already pushed the idea of characters going through horrific nightmares when entering a creepy foggy town this far, a game like this was inevitable. There was already Silent Hill 4: The Room prior to this. This is pretty much the weird part of Silent Hill F despite appearing to be unfamilar there are elements of what's already there along with new ideas to go along with it. It has ideas present in Silent Hill 1, 3 and 4 and there elements of the soulslike genre in there as well as the games mentioned at the start of the review. It borrows so much that it has a weirdly unique identity all it's own.

The story has some very bizarre presentation and as indirect as it can be, it's all very intriguing watching the way the story unfold. There is one aspect added to Silent Hill F that really adds to it is the journal. The biggest limitation of gaming as a storytelling medium is being to tell what a character is actually thinking during gameplay. It almost feels like gameplay is an alternate dimension. SHF's journal fixes this since at first it sounds like an excuse to feed lore but it also tells the player what Hinako thinks of certain characters, places or happening in key story events. This might be sounding like me making a big deal but it adds so much extra context when partnered with the story cutscenes.

Due to the journal, it's easier to piece together clues by especially by comparison to the older games. The cutscenes, voice acting, music and cinematrophy is enough to make the story engrossing in the moment and after a long section of gameplay. I can't stress enough that the journal makes the story easier to digest.

Despite the change in setting the themes of have some callbacks to Silent Hill 1 and 3, the latter obviously being the teenage girl protagonist but also abusive parental figures and drugs.

The only big issue I can give towards the story is that the facial expressions and lip syncing for characters could've been much better since the acting could be good but the animations can't keep up.

The gameplay is much in the same way, it's almost too uncanny. Ebisugaoka is pretty much designed like Silent Hill 1. It's the overworld of the game where you get you go to interiors that are standalone levels. There will be many many dead ends that will slowly edge you to your destination. There will be monsters everywhere ready to jump and ambush Hinako as she is making her way to the various destinations. There's a map to help guide you along that marks important places as you progress. Running away from the monsters is the superior option than fighting every one you encounter head on.

There's also aspects of SH3 where you can avoid enemies even when in the interior levels themselves and only needing to fight them when they are really in your way.

There's your SH tropes of broken locks that can't be open and puzzles to do and of course entering into this game's version of the "Otherworld".

It's pretty much the reoccuring theme that SHF does really well despite looking completely different in asethetics there's elements of the familar to the point where it isn't completely "Silent Hill in name only" that the game initially may come off as.

This now leads a big elephant in the room: the combat. I can't say the combat is well done but at the same time, most of the game was spent running away from enemies and killing enemies as a last resort. The combat doesn't feel amazing but the game never tries to push the one man army idea on to you where you need to kill every enemy to progress. If running away and evading enemies wasn't such a viable tactic for so much of the game, I would not be able to tolerate it as much.

The late game did start to shove in more and more enemy waves and by that point combat did start to feel more and more tedious. There's a wolf form late game that makes Hinako more effective at combat but it never feels like she is efficient at killing enemies due to how slow attacks. Late game has more and more sections where it needs mandatory combat to progress and combat isn't good enough to make these sections feel less of a slog.

Combat itself mainly consists of using heavy attacks a lot of the time since it stuns enemies the best, then shove in light attacks every once and a while and dodging while managing stamina. If heavy attack wasn't as effective as it was combined with most enemies can be skipped past or avoided, my opinion of the game would be much more lukewarm. Due to running away being the most effective option, it's easier stock on healing items and save them for bosses like true survival horror fashion.

Skills, charms and upgrades can be a red herring since no matter what build you have running away and fighting occasionally is the best option for most of the game.

The sanity guage is another one since it was more of an ability that was supposed to help you in combat but charged heavy attacks were so useful that it was never needed due to how well the latter does the aforementioned stun. 

Overall, SHF was a surprise for a game I didn't pay too much attention to. The combat sounded like it was going to be a big issue but it wasn'té 

Far Cry New Dawn Review

Playing FC New Dawn felt like it was everything good about FC5 minus all the annoying bloat and it might've been an improvement over the base game. The more it went on, the more it felt dragged out and I wished it would just come to an end. It's a shame since everything up to the "through the wringer" mission was enjoyable.

If you played Far Cry 5, it's the same deal. Main difference now is that everything is much smaller and everything comes at a quicker pace. You have one part of Hope County to explore rather the 3 regions in the base game. Main means of progression now is to upgrade your hub known as "New Prosperity" and do some story missions along the way. Best part is that the villains wanting to get the leg up on the player is no longer here and it doesn't interrupt open world activities like the base game.

You also don't start off with super weak weapons and don't have enough skills then the game throwing the kitchen sink at you like Far Cry 5 which is also a big point to New Dawn's favor.

The Sawblade weapon you get is also fantastic since it's satisfying to get a kill with, can kill multiple enemies at once more so when upgraded, can kill higher level enemies fast and requires some skill to use since it's a projectile weapon.

Rwards come at a much snappier pace. Perk points and upgrading your character is quicker as opposed to getting them on occasion if you chose not to engage with it actively. Finding parts and components never take too long. If you need some to build vehicles, treasure hunts will have you covered to give you metal and spring.

Ethanol which is main currency used to upgrade your base comes by fairly quickly if you do the Outposts. One cool thing about New Dawn is that you can give up your current Outpost and get more ethnanol by completing a more challenging version of the one you just did. Meaning it's always easy to get back the Ethanol you just spent. Due to all of this, upgrading your base stats isn't is nowhere near as tied to the perk system like the base game is. Health, explosives, healing, fast travel, vehicles, is all connected to how much you uprgade New Prosperity. On top of that, you need to upgrade it to unlock story missions and the requirements are never steep or time consuming due to how quickly ethanol can be gained through outposts.

Guns for Hire are never taken away from you during story missions all though I didn't need them as much in this game for not throwing nearly as much at you in the early game like FC5 did.

There is one addition to this game which I strongly dislike is the addition of different levelled weapons. FC is going full looter shooter this time, the main difference is that now there is 4 levels of guns as opposed to 30 different variants of them. This isn't too bad at first but the more you get into the game, the more it rear it's ugly head.

At first all you really need is level 2-3 guns to get by most of the game but towards the end particularly the final missions. The last couple of bosses take so much damage that it felt like you needed to get those "rare" level guns to effectively widdle away at their health. I lowered to easy and there were ammo caches lying around to make this much easier but there is no doubt that I had to get the rare guns to be more effective at taking them down.

Then there was the last 3-4 main missions which all involve gear being taken away or nothing involving straight up shooting or stealth just for it all to end with the main villains escaping from the set plan you and the npc had to kill a bunch of nameless captains I knew nothing about.

The story was also kind of interesting at first with Joseph Seed going through a redemption arc of sorts but the actual main villain is so obvious in how much he hates the former that his character introduction is a long winded rant on how much he hates him. I try to avoid complaining about stories being too "predictable" but that was just making things almost too obvious.

Overall, FC New Dawn had a number of things going for it but it's later missions and sections plus the spongey boss fights makes this hard for me to say it's "head and shoulders" above FC5. With that said, I really wanted to say it was.

Crysis: Remastered(Nintendo Switch) Review

I've beaten Crysis three times over the years, this being my third. All though I've only beaten the console versions and not back when it was a meme of whether or not your PC can run the game. I'm aware of the "dummed down" controls Crytek implemented from the Crysis sequels retroactively put into this remaster and by extension the 7th gen console ports. At the same time, there are things about any version of the first Crysis that is hard to overlook. Despite being an ambitious game for it's time and even now, there are still major shortcomings that prevent it from a consistently great or even good game. The best way of describing Crysis is that it's as remarkable as it is unremarkable.

The story is one such an example. It's basically the same set up as Predator except now, the squad that slowly gets killed off are powered up with "nanosuits" and there is a mysterious alien threat on an island that is occupied by North Korean forces who are also digging up something. That sort is an interesting premise to work with but outside of the character of Psycho, all the characters just seem like background dressing and not much of anything interesting even happens. Far Cry at least had gave it's protagonist such unintentionally awkward voice direction that it made indirectly memorable and some weird banter with the various characters. Crysis doesn't have this unless Psycho is on screen.

Same can be said for the gameplay. You have these very large wide open environments and not many games after even followed up what Crytek did with the original Far Cry so combine that with a fancy nanosuit, it should lead to some interesting gameplay? And well, it does at least for the first half before the aliens show up especially when similar "realistic" shooters at the same time like Call of Duty 4 were basically just linear scripted "corridor" shooters.

Crysis is quite the bizarre title in that in spite of the premise that player has this awesome nanosuit, being a one man army is something that is often ill advised. You have armor, invisiblity, super speed, and to a lesser extend super strength and agility(dummed down console controls I know). Running in guns blazing and shooting everyone is better off being avoided. Sneaking around and using cloak is the better way of handling things. If push comes to shove and there are enemies close by, it's better to take them out fast and then run away, relocate then cloak again.

Your maximum armor isn't going to soak up an overwhelming amount of gunfire which encourages sneaking around. What also solidfies this is that there isn't any good feeling weapon feedback for guns. Hits lack any geniune impact and killing human enemies feel like they just awkwardly flip around or roll ever. Combine these both together and I wanted to avoid combat whenever possible.

Crysis is either a stealth game or a slow paced tactical shooter much like Crytek's previous' effort with the aforementioned Far Cry.

However with that said, the AI isn't very good or at the very least I can't tell if they are too aware or if they are psychic. Decloaking in Crysis unless you are so far out of everyone's line of sight will have the entire area knowing where your position is. I'm guessing it needed to be this way since ghost runs with super accomdating AI would be too easy. At the same time it can be amusing to have every enemy be aware of you and then zip past them when recloaking like some kind of trolling ninja.

It's also a plus that there isn't much content you have to redo upon death. The Switch version also had zero crashes either in my playthrough.

With that said, there is a massive elephant in the room and that is the 2nd half of the game where all you fight are a bunch of boring aliens. These sections is in fact when Crysis turns into a dull and by the numbers shooters that loses all the good will that the early sections broughts. I also lowered to easy from Crusher Yard onwards since it was getting more and more combat focused and was getting less and less open ended. There is also an entire level dedicated to just going through the alien core which doesn't have much compelling gameplay outside of being a typical navigation puzzle.

The alien combat just consist of them flying around, they get upclose, you shoot them. They have simple patterns and don't live up to solid sections where you are up against the Koreans. Just get some high powered weapons and fire away at them.

Final boss is also really terrible and also feels like a game of RNG to actually beat then skill since your health can be levelled by one of his attacks and the enemies surronding him can also chip away at it too.

Overall, Crysis on paper should be enjoyable in spite of it being an advertisement for high end PCs back in the late 00s but the 2nd half of the game just pulls it down just being a dull and mediocre shooter. It really had the potential to be more than that.

Resident Evil Village Review

Throughout my entire playthrough of playing Resident Evil Village, the whole game just feels like it was an RE game for a more "casual" audience. I don't like to insult any game as that but Village is just unbearably unfront about the whole thing. Capcom wanted to appeal to the people who thought what made Resident Evil interesting was how "scary" the series is and how the best parts of RE7 where the scripted moments. It even wants to tell to a more emotionally gripping story and scarifices everything to tell it. Unfortunately, not even that said story is very interesting. I wasn't big on this game back when I originally played it and I'm less kind on it now. I'm not super harsh on this title because playing it in the moment is never overly frustrating due to how easy normal difficulty is.

Right away when starting the game, it takes a good while for the game to actually start. I've seen these opening sections get criticized for not being appealing for people who like to replay games or speedrunners but even in the moment, these sequences aren't very compelling due to how convoluted and hard to follow the story can be especially regarding Chris Redfield's actions more on that later.

When finally in the Village after a somewhat decent confusingly presented timed enemy wave. The game *still* doesn't start and you have to go through a pointless sequences with Ethan and a bunch of villagers who serve no bearing on the plot and won't even get mentioned again. You could cut this part and Ethan gets the second seal to open the Castle and nothing would change.

It takes another batch of cutscenes and then you finally get into Castle Demitrescu. Right away it tells you about how the level design is. You are never given this wide open space where you can look around and find puzzle items and explore on your own, you are always railroaded to go one way making the entire Castle level that is supposedly large nothing more than a red herring. It's not an interconnected puzzle but more of a bunch of specific straight lines.

This is one of the more open levels of the game and any level outside of the Factory is designed like this where there isn't much in the way of exploration, just go one way. The titular Village also railroads you to go one way, maybe you can find some random items to sell which leads to my next issue.

Okay, maybe the action side of things could help. Well no. There is no resource management of any kind to be found here. None for puzzle items and nothing for keeping ammo, health and crafting items which is are all it's own menu that has nothing to do with the inventory that carries weapons and ammo. This also leads to the next issue, you get so much money whether it'd be for killing bosses and finding random jewlery in the environment, you will be rolling in so much ammo and have your weapons be so powered up by the time you fight the first boss that you can STAGGER her with basic pistol bullets.

None of the bosses are much of a threat due to the excess amount of resources you can sell just by playing the game. The regular enemy mobs are also too few in a number and can be taken out pretty easily. You storm a Lycan Stronghold later in the game and despite this part having the game throw the kitchen sink at you, it feels like a small piece of the tap is.

It's a shame since RE games tend to have balanced normal modes.

Before I start describing the story, the thing Capcom gave up everything about this game to tell. I will say House Beneviento and The Factory are the best parts of Village.

The former because there is some decent amount of tension to be found with all your guns taken away from you. It is much more scripted but since I was never confused by it's scripted nature, I was able to enjoy it and feel a little tension especially with how distrubing the monster in the Basement can be. Says a lot when one of the more interesting parts is when guns are taken away from you.

The Factory has some decent level design but it guides you and is open enough that it never feels as rail roaded and linear as the rest of the levels do. You know all of it revolved around finding mold and to open certain parts of the map. The enemies are noticeably tougher and require weakpoint targeting to kill effectively. The regular mooks even have their head covered so it isn't as easy to kill them.

These levels do prevent the game from being all bad.

The story which is what Capcom have up everything is very hard to follow mainly due to Chris' action of not giving fake Mia a blood test before storming his house. There is also something about how Rose is like Alessa Gallespie from Silent Hill 1. Mother Miranda is connected to Ozwell Spencer and Ethan being dead the whole time which is such a silly retcon considering this was never hinted at in RE7 or why he is pouring red blood instead of mold when he gets attacked.

Overall, RE8 really is a confused mess of a title that learned all the wrong lessons RE7.

The Darkness II(Playstation 3) Review

This was a particular game I always had a fondness for. This among other games was one of the titles that showed me that shooters didn't have to be an endless game of shoot, getting hit, duck behind cover, wait for health to regen rinse repeat. Playing Darkness 2 again still shocks me that it came out in the 7th gen at all. While having the tropes you assiociated FPS games at the time with like weapon limits, regen health, sprinting, and aim down sights, it uses the license that it's based on to stand out from the pack. Partner that with a solid story and it's one of the best FPS of it's time.

The story is well written and enjoyable for the kind of game this is. I haven't played the first game in a long while but it's just as easy to jump into this game and still be up to speed. All you really need to know is that Jackie's girlfriend is dead and is now dealing with the aftermath while dealing with a proxy war between 3 factions: the Brotherhood, the Darkness controlling him and one revealed at the end. All of them thinking they are in control when really, they aren't.

What sells the story is how well acted and written many of it's cutscenes are. Character interactions are quick and to the point and they never get in the way of the gameplay. The load screens inbetween levels do a great job at giving backstory on Jackie Estacado's and why characters like Jenny and Aunt Sarah are so important to him as well giving an insight into the former's upbringing. The single Darkling that is with you has some funny lines and helps you out during gameplay. You can unlock an upgrade to throw him at enemies, he can give you materials to kill enemies, as well as stealth sections whenever Jackie is in a bind and can't do anything. Johnny Powell is very fun to listen in how he's a crazy wackjob but he also gives information on the lore and the greater story at hand regarding the titular Darkness.

The side characters while not having an overwhelming screen time do have memorable interactions to stand out like Sarah keeping Jackie sane because of the aftermath of Jenny's death or Vinnie and Jimmy being people Jackie can trust.

One really cool detail is that Jackie always attacks his enemies when none of his underlings are around. It gives him a sense that he cares about his people for the Darkness not to accidentally kill them.

The asylum sections are also interesting in that Jackie along with the player is also questioning their own sanity if anything transpiring is real along with the numerous flashbacks to Jenny.

My only big gripe is the cliffhanger ending. It was foreshadowed but it felt like a cheap shot with the happy music playing just for it to end with no continuation to this day.

Gameplay is also really good. You have all the things that I mentioned at the start but now The Darkness license is used to make what could be a by the numbers shooter stand out all the more. I even played the game on Hitman difficulty just because I welcome the challenge for this combat system. However with that said, Demonic Path is the best path for all the cool powers that can help you.

You got the moves that you can do like using guns but ammo is scare enough that you will need to use the powers. There is tentacle swipe and this is move you will need to replenish ammo and health. It can take a few seconds for the prompts to pop up for the takedown animation. You can throw objects to impale or you can grab a car door for a shield. There is single weapon use as well as dual wielding and two weapon use. Throwing a Darkling can also help.

What is great about this combat is that health is brought back by eating hearts rather than much of the health regeneration that plagued the era. The only issue is that sometimes the button prompt to eat a heart doesn't appear fast enough and could lead to a cheap death when in a pinch.

It doesn't end there. You also need to deal with light sources that when in stepped into, you can't use your powers and become much weaker. First it's regular street lights, then generator lights then car vehicle lights to flashbangs to enemies flashing lanterns at you and you need to shoot them to destroy it.

The enemies are also no slouche either. First you fight generic mafia goons who mainly use guns but after there's The Brotherhood enemies where they use guns, shields, armored, to the aforementioned lantern users and my personal favorite enemies can use the whip to pull Jackie's currently held weapons out of his hands meaning more improvasion.

Combine all this and you get a combat system where you are always on your toes and never feel like you are always powerful. You could be dominating one minute but then you could lose your Darkness powers, lose your weapons or be ovwhelmed and need to improvise.

Some criticize the game for being "short" but the game throws so much at you from the Carnivale level onwards that an extra 5 hours would feel like diminishing returns.

One major criticism I do have with the lantern enemies is that once you are in the light, Jackie is much weaker can most of his moveset is gone and can't take as much damage. A second chance system where you give up your health bar chunk to destroy a light source or have some grenade throwables could help.

Overall, Darkness 2 is still very good, I might check out the comics now.