DC's Justice League: Cosmic Chaos Review

DC and by extension WB has been making questionable decisions for years now when it comes to all mediums, I don't even know where to start really and I don't want to go on a rant revealing my hardcore biases but to keep it short, my patience with WB and the DC brand by extension is wearing thin. So with all that said how was this game?

For a kid's game, it's decent and I do like some of the things this game does but I can't help but feel like for everything this game does well, the Marvel Ultimate Alliance games do better.

I'll start with the good, the story and writing is enjoyable. The bantering between Superman, Wonder Woman, Batman and all the other characters are humorous and it does a decent enough job at keeping me engaged. The voice acting is directed well enough to the point where it feels like the actors are doing a good job selling me on the material. It parodies DC characters a lot while also having it's share of more serious moments. Speaking of Superman, it's great that WB finally made a DC game where you play as Superman as a good guy as opposed to making him evil like the Injustice games and the upcoming Suicide Squad game, it's a shame it took a kids game to do it, but I am glad it's here at all. I also like how this game has a Superman villain in it and it's not Lex Luthor or Darkseid which I swear the amount of Superman and JL media coming out now especially the JL, you'd think Darkseid was the only villain the JL has. I do think Mister Mxyzpltk is portrayed pretty well here, his voice acting and material does a good job at selling me on a villain that can't really do anything overly harmful for a game made for kids and he's a pretty solid choice to have for the game's tone. I am however not so big of a fan of Starro showing up because of his recent appreance in the Suicide Squad movie but he's decent enough.

And now here comes the bad, outside of the writing and story which I find to be charming and entertaining, the actual gameplay itself while not bad just feels like a worse Marvel Ultimate Alliance, I'd even goes as far to say the DC Lego games are more enjoyable. My big issues with the combat is the lack of button combinations which I will admit, I don't make a big deal out of as other people but it does head into the realm of questionable when the triangle button isn't even being used for anything. So as a result a lot of combat is spend mashing square and on occasion holding square to shake things up, doing special and ultimate and rinse repeat. There is no team attacks and your special attacks mainly consist of doing 2 moves, you can't even do team attacks like in later MUA games. Points to the game's favor, the game does shake things up with exploration and parts where you get a super powerful weapon to hold to kill enemies faster to avoid the game from being too monotonous but even the levels start eventually get reused a lot. Another issue I have is that enemies don't give health drops when killed, this is one thing I prefer Marvel Ultimate Alliance over X-Men Legends over, and this game having health packs be shared makes the parts where you fight large waves of enemies to be a long battle of attrition until you lose all your health packs, I eventually started playing on easy and then story difficulty due to how many same and overwhelming amounts of enemies the game throws at you. Don't let that fool you however, you can still possibly get game overs if Starro face hugs your entire party on Story difficulty. Add to the overwhemling enemies waves that they are also damage sponges too with the bigger enemies especially and if it weren't for Story difficulty, I wouldn't be able to beat this game. The final boss is just crazy with how many enemies you have to contend with plus the final boss, and you can get a game over if your party gets face hugged. I only won because of a glitch where I got my party face hugged but I knocked the boss' health bar in time for the final cutscene to activate.

Overall, if you are a DC fan, I say try the game out, if you are not, wait for a sale, it's one of the more tolerable products WB has made in recent times but don't expect this game to reach the heights of the Batman Arkham games, Insomniac Spider-Man, Guardians of the Galaxy, Marvel Ultimate Alliance or even the Lego games.

Blackwind Review

There is a good game buried beneath here but I feel like the developers were a bit too over ambitious for their own good. For a random game I bought at a convention vendor which I knew nothing about, I did get more enjoyment out of it than I was initally thought but there was plenty of frustration to go along with it.

When I started up Blackwind, I actually really liked the mechanics of the game you got a dash, a special move, melee options as well as being able to shoot enemies and switch between melee and shooting seemlessly. It controls decent enoughly and I do like how the game has the God of War and new Doom games' scripted melee takedown to get health system. I always liked this since it encourages players to be aggresive and it doesn't want to make you want to cower or run away. The story is also unintrusive which is good for a game like this.

With all this said, there is plenty of things that actively hamper the experience. There isn't a whole lot of enemy variety or at least the tactics in which you dispatch them often consist of the same thing. Shoot melee enemies, use special ability, melee projectible enemies, damage them to do enough to do a scripted melee takedown, dashing constantly to create distance from enemies and on occasion, do the God of War style rage ability by clicking both analog sticks to defeat large enemies. You fight bugs and soldiers but a lot of the enemies types are analogs for one another like one melee, shooting, smaller enemies that shoot, bigger enemies and so on despite all this I did enjoy the game's combat to some degree mainly due to gratification I get from seeing the takedown animations and the enemies are somewhat varied to the point where you won't be doing one very specific tactic over and over, it's just that you will be doing 3-4 tactics over and over which is okay but nothing special. I also dislike how melee enemies can kill you very quickly and they don't react to when you shoot them which gets in the way of good feedback for your weapons but what prevented me from finding this too irritating is that checkpointed reasonably enough which helped me get through the game.

With the combat being okay, how else is the experience hampered? Well combat isn't the only thing you will be doing you will also be puzzle solving, platforming and backtracking and this is where I think the game faulters, the big issue with the level design is that it has this Halo CE and Castlevania Curse of Darkness problem of everything looking the same throughout. You even get a map in this game like you do in the latter which tells me the devs knew this so this is how they compensated for it. Puzzles can be rather obtuse for example, you will be piloting a drone a lot and one minute you can activate switches with a button press and then you need a passcode, and speaking of passcodes for the longest while I had a hard time telling which code opened which door and I had to guess a lot of the time. The platforming also isn't that great and actively get in the way of the mostly decent combat. It's too automated while at the same time jumps are floaty and aren't as precise as I want them. The time platforming sections are the worst since you need to activate switches you to get past that one annoying jump you were stuck on.

I feel like if the puzzles, backtracking and platforming were removed I'd enjoy the game more. If it was twin stick Serious Sam, I'd have more fun with it. Remove all the aspects I mentioned and spiced up the enemy variety and you could make a game that is easier for me to reccomend but overall, it feels like it could be enjoyable game but it's over ambiton gets in the way. The glitches also get had to make restart a few times. If you play this game be warned for many low points along the way. If you are unable to beat it and drop it at some point, I get it.

Sonic Frontiers Review

Sonic Frontiers...this was a game I was intially negative on and I ranted on it many times but truth be told I do enjoy the game, maybe not a whole lot but just enough to make me see it through to the end and yes, this includes me getting the true ending where you have to raise the difficulty up to hard mode to get which the game does not tell you btw and can catch first time players playing on easy or normal off guard.

But on to the game itself, I'll start with the good, the open world and sense of discovery to the game has a relaxing atmosphere to it. It feels like a very chill experience with the soft orchestral music playing in the background all the way to how you move at fast speeds discovering new areas on the map to unlock. I made the mistake of initally starting the game doing Cyberspace levels first and then unlocking the map but instead I realized I should be unlocking the map first and then maybe doing the Cyberspace missions after. The fishing mini game with Big the Cat is well done too, I normally do not give two shits for fishing mini games but this was relaxing and simple enough and it was easy to get so many rewards that I couldn't help but find it oddly addicting. I did this towards the end of the game when the Vault Key and Memory Token requirements started to get too steep for my liking but the Big the Cat mini game made that an enjoyable experience. I wished I discovered this before but I am glad I got to to this at all. The challenges for unlocking the map are generally simple but engaging enough to make getting the full map not feel like a chore. Just finding random areas on the map to unlock was a blast. The true ending shump section was good, and it feels challenging without getting furstrating, I wanted to get better each time I died.

I also want to briefly talk about the story, I don't care for the story in Sonic games and I am too much of a casual fan to know about the lore and history of the series, and the most interesting thing I find about the Sonic mythos is how much it has weird parallels to Dragon Ball but at the same time, the story here was captured my interest. Sage and her interactions with with entire cast is surprisingly endearing and it wasn't filled with cringe at all. Her character development also felt natural and her interactions with Sonic do a good job at selling you on Sonic and the bond he shares with his friends.

Now, on to the bad. Pop in shockingingly bad for a game in 2022, I get Sonic is super fast but seeing this much pop in for a 2022 game is rather appalling considering this a AAA game. The Super Sonic bosses can be rather obtuse at first since it forces you to use the parry which I barely used as regular Sonic except for the few map challenges, as a result sections that are supposed to feel empowering can feel cumbersome due to the camera and the game not telling you to actively parry titan attacks. The platforming can still feel awkward, unpolished, and too automated, I hear this has been an issue with 3D Sonic for a while especially for certain games. There is some weird difficulty spikes like the Shield Escape. The makes wants you to have unlimited boost for this sections as well as max ring power but it never tells you, so you will die a lot to sections you think you should be able to win but it turns out to be a red herring. It never tells you at least need unlimited boost in order to not die, and it's the hardest part of the whole game. The hard mode shump section was easy by comparison to this. Pinball was also super easy by comparison to this section and I can understand someone dropping the game at around this part. The Cyberspace levels aren't that great and are mostly pretty boring since it's just old Sonic levels, I am glad 100%ing these parts isn't nesscary to beat the game.

Overall, as a casual Sonic fan, I had a good time with this game with some occasional rage quits along the way. I am not a big fan of the series or open world games in general and this turned out to be a solid time, I get why this game gets it's praise and hasn't gotten any kind of hype backlash even though I have my issues with it.

Short Game Reviews and Thoughts: April 2023

Blaster Master Zero:

Pretty solid 2D metroidvania, I didn't get the true ending and from what I did manage to beat, I do think the game is solid enough. Level design is decent if a bit too segmented for my liking with it being seperated to "areas" rather than being a seemless world but I was fine with it, until you have to backtrack several areas to unlock the next level since it feels like it's stuck in an awkward crossroads of having linear level progression and metroidvania.

I also like how the tank parts are broken up with on foot sections that does a decent job at spicing up gameplay. Since tank combat would be a bit one note if it was the whole game since all you do is just fire blasts and double jump. Another issue is that the on foot sections during the pseudo 2D sections could be better since it feels like you can shoot in all 8 directions but move in those said directions. Outside of that, they are decent but I didn't like the heavy emphasis on stealth later in the game even if it's not the worst example of stealth segments in a game, it just feels at odds with the fast paced nature of the game. One final thing I didn't like that I wished hover and special weapons had their own meter since some enemies in the game need you to use homing missiles in order for you to kill them and partner that with jumps where you might need the hover and there might be excessive waiting for your special meter to recharge since there might not be pickups, it didn't get in the way of my experience too much until later in the game like that level with the heavy emphasis on stealth.

Bosses can also be beaten pretty quickly which is surprising for a game like this, but I didn't mind all that much since I came to this game because I heard it was short and easy.

Overall, not a bad game and a pretty enjoyable time, I don't like how you need to go out of your way and look for items in order to get the "true ending" but I found the default ending satisfying enough and I didn't care about the story to want to get the "true ending". If you want a mostly easy, short and enjoyable metroidvania game, you can't go wrong with this.

Saints Row: The Third:

Playing this game again feels weird after playing SR2, while I do like that game and I do like this one too. This feels like a point where the series got it's whole, "GTA but batshit insane" mantra that it's known for now. SR2 while can be silly at times, felt far more grounded compared to this game. In SR3, you will be going through crazy set piece after crazy setpiece, fighting pro wrestlers, falling out of airplanes more than once, using predator missiles, and even going to airships and fighting hi tech mercenrary armies and so much more. People who liked SR2's grounded approach will probably find this to be offputting, and I don't blame them but at the same time, I like how silly this game is and how committed it is to being that. The game just throws something crazy and over the top at you almost every few missions and as a result, it's a game I can't say I can call "forgettable".

The gunplay is okay, but it can be one note since the silenced assault rifle and rocket launcher were my go to weapons for much of the game. While I kind of liked that the respect system is gone, it also feels like it falls under the trap so many open world games do where you just need to play main missions and the whole open world feels like an over glorified hub world, I will give the game credit for having the world be quick and easy to get around in so it's not an open world where you spend most your time driving or running to the next mission. Vehicles also control pretty decently too.

Issues with this remaster include some freezes on the convoy decoy mission where it happened twice and Cryrus' face being messed up.

Overall, I do like this game even if it feels very different from 2, but I think it does the wacky over the top crime sandbox idea pretty well even if the game at times, the game teter into the realm of too silly for it's good, if you never played SR2 this might be a non issue for you.

Spark the Electric Jester 2:

I am not really familar with 3D Sonic or the Sonic franchise as a whole but this game I enjoyed but I can't help but feel like it's not 100% my kind of game while I get the appeal, the game just moves at such a fast pace that it's hard for me to keep up. The fact that the player character moves at such a fast speed while you have to anticipate every movement on the analog stick while he is moving so fast can lead to rather stressful and challenging gameplay especially on your first time through the levels. The last few levels in particular were some of the most challenging 3D platforming gameplay I recall playing in a long while. I remember just feeling sigh of relief every time I got to a checkpoint. I was barely making it through the levels. If this game had limited continues, even furthur spaced out checkpoints, and was longer than than the 2-3 hours that it lasts, I don't think I'd be able to beat the game at all.

From the 3D Sonics I have played, I can say that those games are kids games compared to this. Where 3D Sonic can have plenty of 2D sections and can feel on rails and automated for their own good, Spark 2 is just pure 3D movement and jumping at super fast speeds the whole way through. It's surprising that the bosses are a lot easier than the stages by comparison. The bosses aren't a complete calkwalk and you might die a few times before beating them but it's mostly just block and dodge while building up your combo meter to do more damage, it takes a little time, but once you get the rhythmn down, they are generally easy unless you have that weird glitch where the camera goes into first person and it's hard to get a view of your surrondings, but I eventually got past this.

The story is just there, I barely paid attention since the dialogue wasn't voiced and I sort of had some clue but it was hard for me to care since I came for the gameplay.

Overall, if you wished 3D Sonic was less automated and didn't shove in 2D sections, then this game is for you. It's not my kind of platformer but it's enjoyable for the 2-3 hours that it lasts probably even shorter if you didn't die as many times as I did.

Deliver Us The Moon:

Okay game overall, I was expecting it to be a walking sim of some kind and it ended up being more than that. I will admit, I didn't like the puzzles that much and the game to me was at it's best during the platforming and avoiding obsticles parts game or the timed parts, but it has a solid and interesting atmosphere focused on isolation and I liked the space adventure feel of the game with you needing to go up into space first then needing to get down to the moon, and then exploring the moon space station for the rest of the game, it felt like an adventure even if the loading screens that cut from the player character got in the way of that to some degree. The first person space station exploration sequnce was kind of tedious due to the awkward controls of constantly realigning the character to see properly and knowing what to do before you got a game over with the limited oxygen but once you play from the 3rd person perspective everything became more manageable and interesting since I got a better sense of where to look. The game also knowns when to shake things up to remain interesting. It has platforming, puzzles, vehicle sections, timed sections, and even a stealth section towards the end. It's not amazing but I do like that the game keeps things varied enough for the duration that it lasts.

I don't think the game is amazing but I had a decent time with it. If you want a Dead Space or System Shock style game without the aliens or overly stressful gameplay or combat, then might be worth checking into.

Pac-Man World: Re-Pac:

Playing this game just reminds me of why I am not a big fan of playing late 90s 3D plaformers. Limited camera control making it hard to have a better view of where and where not to jump. There are times where I keep wishing I can turn the camera due to how limited the view is, it feels like it is stuck between being a 3D game and being a 2D side scrolling platformer, having the lives system just makes the game feel antiquated since lives is nothing more than just padding to make you plow through the easy parts over and over just so you can get back to that hard part you were stuck on. There are also other issues I have like how you can't have seperate buttons for double jumping and ground pounding which makes the controls feel like it is stuck on an awkward middle ground before games discovered you can have them be seperate button presses. The level design isn't that great since it can randomly change from being simple platforming to being a puzzle section out of nowhere, and I could've sworn you just need to go forward but nope you need to a do a puzzle. That and for the life of me I can't figure out what makes Pac Man's super charge jump move fast enough to reach certain platforms. I keep going furthur back and I still fail to reach the platforms.

Overall, I really wish this remake added more refinements instead of being the same game with better graphics.

Splatoon 2:

Not a bad game and I can get some fun out of it but playing the single player really makes me feel like it was a tutorial for multiplayer. The hub worlds for the levels are a pain to explore and I just wished it was a level select menu instead of it being a series of puzzles to get to the next level. I wished the hub world design was more like World 1.

Another issue I have is the limited continues on the levels while I like you get them back, I don't really like how continues are connected to your life bar, it just feels like padding to me to get over halfway through a level and just to lose your life bar and start from the begginning.

Now, my biggest issue with the game: the loadout system. To me, this system is a red herring, the game says you can carry any weapon you want to a level just for the level to make you play with a specific gun instead this really tells me that this game is basically a tutorial for multiplayer and I don't like the low fire rate of the basic hero shot gun and the game makes me use it so much, this isn't a bad sp by any means and there is fun to be had, but the game always finds a way to shoot itself in the foot and be a dull experience.

I am glad I got this game at a discount or as little of a discount a Nintendo game can go for and I might play the 3rd game but only at a discount like I did with this game. I am hoping the 3rd game improves on the sp.

Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Turtles in Time:

Solid old school beat em up, not much to say that it's enjoyable and it can be challenging at times but the rewinds help it from being too frustrating. Some enemies do high damage and they are usually the non foot ninja enemies and the robot enemies in general are pretty annoying since they have hard to avoid attacks and can do high damage to you. I also don't like how special attacks drain your life bar, I get why they did this but at the same time, I can't help but feel like limits options during combat. This was par for the course with Konami beat em ups.

Overall, I say it's about on par with Konami's X-Men beat em up game.

Starhawk:

Pretty enjoyable and well made single player campaign for a game with a heavy mp focus, I was expecting it to be pretty bad considering how games like Battlefield 4 has one of the worst single player shooter campaigns I ever played but this game is not like that.

What I liked about the game is that the game always knew when to break things up. You'll be engaging in tower defense levels one minute and then dogfighting in space the next while also having jet packs. The game throws enough different scenarios at you for it's short campaign that it never gets dull. I am not even big on tower defense games but I do like how the tower defense mechanics gives the gameplay more depth by having choose the various between turrets, beam turrets, supply bunkers and so on, it helps makes it stand out from hitscan regen health shooters at the time and the fact that there is no cover system only adds to it because you aren't sticking to a wall and waiting for health to regen, here you are out in the open and shooting your enemies. The dogfights are decent but I found the enemies and the various things you had to takedown to be way too spongey even on easy mode. They do a decent enough job at breaking up the on foot combat. The game basically reuses multiplayer maps into single player but the game does a good job at hiding by decent situational depth and repurposing it's mechanics for single player. The voice acting, and setting are also really good if the latter underexplored. The music also fits the setting and gameplay really well.

The only major gripes is that the story is underdeveloped and the dogfighting can have enemies and targets that are spongey but it's a solid campaign and is worth checking out if you like shooters and are looking for a "hidden gem" of sorts.

Guns, Gore and Cannoli 2:

Pretty good sequel overall, reminds me of Max Payne 2 in how it changes the style of shooting and the difficulty drop compared to it's predecessor despite it being a 2D game all though this game gets pretty challenging on easy towards the end with some intense enemy waves and a final boss with way more than 3 phases but other than that, I still really like this game, I prefer the aiming and control in this one mainly because it's easier to aim at specific targets and it's a lot snappier making the game less frustrating as a result.

The combat is still as satisfying as ever and the game does a good job at shaking this up too. Only major gripe is that the bigger enemies don't react to getting hit by the rocket launcher and weapons aren't as wacky since there is no lighting gun and there is too many interchangeable machine guns but the game is still as good and as fun to play as ever before. The short length is fitting for the kind of Metal Slug style arcade experience that it is.

Afro Samurai the Game(2009):

This game just isn't very good at all. At first, it didn't feel that great but I enjoyed it for how mindless it was. I liked the dismemberment system, the visuals were pretty solid and nice to look at, and the voice acting was pretty solid. I thought this was going to be a "style over substance" kind of game with not much challenge to it but provides a decent and enjoyable power fantasy but the more I played the game the less apparent this became.

My first big issue is that I dislike the health system, I am not sure if health regenerates or you need to find healing items because the game goes away with a traditional health system of it being shown on the HUD and instead just has damage be shown through how "red" and covered in blood you, this sounds immersive at first but when the challenge starts to ramp up later in the game, it starts to get extremely grating in that it was hard to tell if I was close to death or if I still had some health left to take more damage.

My second issue is how during the half way point of the game it starts to spike in difficulty to the point, where the other issues like the lack third person camera getting in the way of where enemies are attacking, getting blind sided constantly, and the game having so many enemies that block your attacks and the aforementioned issues being so prevelant that you start relying on dominant strategies like abusing the focus slash. Every fight later in the game is, "combo, combo, focus slash", it's basically this for so much of the game. The game also throws an enemy gaunlet so big that I am surprised I was patient enough to get past, it takes way too long to get past, and then it throws in a super buggy platforming section later which the platforming wasn't that great to begin with since it's mostly contextual with finicky controlling since you can wall run and it won't work and then you can jump and Afro will jump to places you don't want to. Enemies also lack any kind of variety too and are just the same groups of people you were fighting at the beggining, regular goons, agile goons, monster goons, and big goons, its that for the whole game.

Third, and the big reason why I haven't beaten this game is that the game forces you to know bullet deflect by the end of the game which the game does a terrible job at teaching you and is just a chore to pull off since the timing is so strict and unclear. The fact that I had to use a mechanic so late in the game even though I hardly used it up untill that point is already enough of a bad sign.

Finally, the checkpointing of the game is so far off combined with the aforementioned issues and the game is very frustrating and is no longer the decent power fantasy the early parts of the game was.

I can't reccomend this game even to those who just looking for a random melee combat game to play or an anime game that isn't your usual fighting game or musou game fare.

The Bouncer:

Ngl, this game isn't very good at all but I can't help but find it to be charming. I get why someone wouldn't like the game but for me, I couldn't get my eyes off the game for it's batshit insane and stupid plot, while the voice acting isn't really good, having Steve Blum was enough to carry me through to the end.

The combat isn't very good at all. The camera is bad and you can't turn it, and it doesn't give you a very good angle on the action. You have no combo attacks you can chain, on top of that combat mainly consist of mashing kicks and hoping it connects to the enemies while not doing much to get in your way. You got no evade command and blocking you will only do on occasion during the game's more occasionally challenging fights. You never need to manage health, there is no exploration, and the fights themselves last less than 3 minutes most of the time.

Yet after saying all this, why I do I even somewhat enjoy it at all? To put it simpily, I haven't played a game that felt so "bad it's good" since Rogue Warrior. And coincidentally this game is also as short as Rogue Warrior too. The beat em up gameplay while not good, is at least easy enough to make the a somewhat relaxing experience while I view the super stupid story, there's little if not any difficulty spikes, the levels are short and you get health refills in between. If anything, this game feels like a dumb anime movie with interactive beat em up sections. That and I can make the argument that the short gameplay sections while an issue, never last long enough to the point where the awkward combat becomes infuriating.

The easy and awkward combat, the beautiful visuals, the stupid plot, the awkward voice acting, really just makes this a bad game that I say is worth checking out. I rarely if ever call a game "bad" but this game fits the bill of being that as well as being so bad it's good. If I paid money for this at around the time of release, this might be something I consider to be a rip off, but for a game I just randomly decided to emulate it was worth the hour of mostly cutscenes and weak combat.

Just Cause 2 Review

Just Cause 2.....I heard this game was great for so many years and a lot of people on to go on about how awesome it is, and I occasionally hear people say it's better than 3 and I especially hear people it's better than 4, and I am going to be really as honest as I can here and say that I really didn't enjoy this game that much, I prefer JC3 and 4 way over this game, but even me prefering those two games over this, I found so much of this game to be a dull grind and a chore to play, if it weren't for me liking 3 and 4, I would've dropped this game hours ago, that and I love good feedback for weapons in games and this game does provide it. 

I'll start with the good, the weapons and feedback you get from killing enemies feels amazing, whenever you kill an enemy they have really over the top animations and blood effects you could possibly even juggle them in the air with bullets if you wanted to. The grappling hook feels very good to use and it's also refreshing even now to use a grappling hook in a game that isn't automated or contextual. I did have a lot of fun using it and the game does push you to use a lot during missions and combat. The game also checkpoints really well so even though I would occasionally frustrated by the difficulty due to reasons I will mention later, the game at least never made me repeat a lot of content.  This is where my praise ends. 

The game has so many aspects about that hinders my enjoyment of it by a large degree. The map is way too large, waaaay too large, to the point where just using your grappling hook to get to mission start points is not going to be enough, you will need to use vehicles and anything that is not a helicoptor has extremely loose handling, drive a land vehicle and whenever you break or turn the game will over do it every single time, it's impossible to be precise since whenever you try to turn or do any kind of driving where you need to avoid traffic and enemies you will crash or turn so hard that you could damage your vehicle. During the missions where you need to ride a plane and if you turn before you take off, you could possibly over do it and crash before you take off making these missions or any missions involving vehicles outside of helicoptors a pain in the ass and extremely grating. As a result, I eventually abused the fast travel system the game offered since driving and getting to missions especially without the wingsuit in JC3 and 4 was a complete and utter chore. It just feels weird when you jump out of a helicoptor in this game or whenever you start falling, it feels like you can move around but can't even the game's parachute offers movement in air that is super slow at best and isn't fast enough especially when you are chasing someone and don't have a faster way to move. Speaking of fast travel, the game also makes it super inconvienent for you by not making the missions on the fast travel menu, making it hard to tell where you want to fast travel to in order to get close to the mission and start it. The black market system is also poorly handled, in JC3 and 4, supply drops are simple and easy to use, in JC2 you need to select and pay for each individual weapon and vehicle so you will be cycling through the black market menu more than once just to refill ammo on more than one gun and to get a vehicle, I will admit, it was cool experimenting with this system during main missions, and getting sttuf like cars, rocket launchers and helicoptors during main missions, but this isn't enough to save the game. 

While I praised the combat, rocket launcher users and snipers can wipe away your health in a few hits even on easy mode which can be jarring and lead to random deaths since you didn't know where the enemies were. The health system also felt like a missed opportunity since I would've prefered for enemies to drop health during combat rather than med stations so I can continue being aggresive during combat. 

Now the missions, this is where the game really starts to grind my gears. JC2 is one of those games where if you played 4 or 5 hours of, you played the whole game, I don't mind some repetition, but this game really did test my patience. The faction missions you do are so short and revolve around the same objectives so much to the point where it felt like it was just padding to hide the fact that the game barely had any story missions, basically what this game is, maxing out the stronghold and faction meters enough to get the agency missions which are the story missions to unlock. You can destroy red marked property and take over military bases to increase these meters, but either way all the stuff you are doing is a grind to unlock the next story mission. I say it's a grind because the agency meter moves at a super slow rate no matter what you do, it's going to take many hours either way. Faction missions are the best way to go but those just revolve around the same objectives over and over, escourt this guy, blow up this thing, wait for hacking meter to finish, kill this guy, chase this thing, sure the game will throw some gimmicks but the missions are so short and are over so quickly that it feels like you accomplished nothing substantial and the whole thing is just waiting for the agency mission meter to go up. Taking over military bases is a chore and a waste of time since you need to find upgrades in order to take it over and finding these upgrades is liking looking for a needle in a haystack since the game will not always tell you where the upgrades are actually located on the base and you can spend hours trying to find them just to ignore it and move on. I thought it was just blowing up the property but no, you got to actually look for optional upgrades just to 100% a military base and make that agency meter go up. Stronghold missions are the same thing throughout the whole game, escourt a technician to hack into a console, there is nothing here to shake things up, they are the same the whole game. 

It all starts to get so old after a few hours, especially the start of faction missions where the leader shows up on a vehicle and gives Rico some orders while he just stands there and says nothing or just how little the plot progression even happens and Rico just stands around taking orders with nothing to say. I can take this for a few hours but for around 20? This can get extremely grating. 

Overall, JC2 is not a game I like all that much and I only played it through to the end due to my liking for JC3 and 4, that and I don't like leaving games I get some enjoyment of "unfinished". I am glad Avalanche found their stride with JC3 and 4, and it was probably a mistake playing this game after 3 and 4 but at the same time, I argue playing game franchises out of order isn't always bad and some early entries to a franchise still hold up despite the sequel improvements, this game is not one of them and while I appreciate for the grappling hook and having some kind of cool movement system for a "realistic" open world game at the time, I argue this game has been surpassed now and is hard to go back to. 

Killzone: Liberation Review

Killzone Liberation attempts two things, the first is that Guerilla Games can make a good game after how much of much of a mess the original game was and to prove that the PSP is capable of putting out killer apps and a killer shooter at that.

I will start with the good, the game has some of the best controls for a PSP shooter I have ever played, sure it doesn't use a traditional third person camera but at the same time, this top down perspective makes great use of the singular analog stick the PSP has. It never felt like I wished the controls were better or I needed a 2nd stick because the game's design with the controls compensates for it so well. Sure you are relying on auto aim but it most of the time it track the targets well enough. You only need to be precise on a few occasions which is targeting the spider mines, the explosive barrels and the boss fight with Cowbar. Other than those instances, the auto aim mixed with the top down perspective and singular analog stick makes for a shooter on PSP that feels like it was specifially made for the system in mind. The game checkpoints extremely well, it can be challenging at times but it never feels like my time is being wasted by repeating lots of content, I used save states sure, but I actually used save states in tandem with the checkpoints since it was hard to know when a hard shootout was coming up so I don't when to save state so the game checkpointing often came in handy. The sounds for firearms and the damage animations all feel solid giving you good feedback. Killing multiple enemies with grenades is also really satisfying like it is in Killzone 2 and 3. The enemy AI is also solid and it helps make up for the fact that the arenas are small and the enemy count isn't that big due to the small screen. Enemies will throw grenades, move around, flank you and run away so it makes firefights more dynamic despite how small scale they are. The enemy variety and designs for a hitscan shooter where you fight "human enemies" is pretty solid. There is assault rifle users, revolver users, rocket launcher launcher users, grenade throwers, flamethrower enemies and they all have disntict designs letting the player know which group of enemies you have to deal with compare that where you fight traditional human enemies where everyone looks the same. The cover system is one of the better implementations of one in a video game, since it feels like an extension of the game's mechanics which is crouching rather than sticking on to a waist high wall and playing hide and seek with enemies behind that sticky cover.

Now on to the bad, I wish the game lets you hold medkits, since I feel there is just too many supply depots scattered everywhere, I would prefer there to be less supply depots and the game giving you a two weapon limit since it makes those moments where you need to use rocket launcher and sniper rifle less of a pain in the ass since there will be moments where you need to use the rocket launcher but can't so you need to switch by going to a supply depot, that and I would prefer to have a sniper and shotgun with me at all times instead of having it be my only options since it allows more decision making during combat. Another issue I have is that enemies take too much damage, while I get why this is here to show off the enemy AI and to make up for the lack of a high enemy count, I find it questionable when enemies can take 2 or possibly 3 shotgun or sniper blasts since it makes those weapons feel underpowered, and since both are situational weapons where the game has lets you hold one gun, I don't want to use either of them as a result. If if the game found a way to lower the amount of damage enemies take by 30%, it could make the cheap moments where you are swarmed by multiple Helghast less aggrevating along with the other suggestions I made. Final issue is that explosive spider mines and mines in general can be very random when triggered, some spider mines can be hinding behind boxes even though they wouldn't logically hide behind them and the explostion radius for mines can be cheap since I swore I was far away from one just to be hit by it.

This might be an issue for some but the game barely has much of a story here at all. It works for the portable nature of the game, and I feel like there is a charm to the lack of story cutscenes especially considering so many shooters around this time had an emphasis on plot since it gets straight to the action more. If you never liked the story and writing in the Killzone games, this might be a selling point for you.

Overall, KZ Liberation is a solid portable "sequel" of sorts to the original Killzone, it helped proved that Guerilla Games can make a good game and it's one of the best shooters you can find on the PSP, if you can get past some of it's odd design quirks, there is a lot to like here.

Chapter 5: Root of Evil:

Finally got access to this chapter thanks to the Playstation Premium which now makes that version the definitive version of the game since it comes installed with the game rather than downloading seperately through the PS Store.

Overall, this chapter is great, it's everything great about the first 4 chapters but more. You got one larger wide open areas with the first level and the enemy count is larger too which is the first thing I noticed, then you got a well designed sewer level with a decent amount of backtracking and exploration where you need to find multiple switches to progress through the levels as well as fighting enemies that can call in reinforcements and jetpack enemies, ladders are also introduced too, then you have Rico backing you up and it even handles endlessly respawning enemies as well too mainly because they spawn at a slow race to the point where you will have enough time to blow up their spawn points with C4, you also get a higher enemy count the game has had towards the end where you need to hold off a destroyed road and face a tank with a flamethrower, then it ends with a very visually appealing final level where you fight through enemies and get to the final boss, it's the most straightforward of the levels but it does have a decent of amount enemies that are higher up than you and it ends with an okay final boss if kind of annoying final boss that does a decent job at tying into Killzone 2. My big issue with the Stratson boss is that it requires you to dodge super fast in order for you to avoid his flame grenades.

Still, this DLC is fantastic stuff and is worth playing if you were already a fan of the game but had a hard time obtaining it.

Also, I played KZ Liberation again due to the Premium version having you to play the game again in order to play Chapter 5 and here are some additional thoughts:

What I dig about Killzone Liberation now that I think about it over other Killzones is that it actually requires you to explore the enviroment to find switches, kill enemies to find keycards, find C4 to blow up doors, and the levels have some degree of exploration despite their small size, Chapter 5 might have some of the best level design in the game from what I played of it. You get a map but it's useless. It surprisingly has a good sewer level. Liberation might not have the over the top specticle that 2 and 3 has but I do like how it tries to be more engaging in different ways since it was on weaker hardware.

Fatal Frame: Mask of the Lunar Eclipse Review

Fatal Frame 4, I am going to be honest here and say that this could be a pretty good game or the very least a decent game but it is held back by two major flaws, the slow movement speed and the confused progression. I'll get to those later but I feel like I didn't buy this game and that had a weird madatory obligation to see every game I buy to the end, I would've dropped the game while ago. This game is certainly better than Maiden of Black Water but not by an overwhelming degree.

I'll start with the combat, it's...not that great, I'd say it feels clunky at best and absolutely frustrating at it's worst. When playing as the characters that use the camera obscura, it's an awkward game of following the meter on the top of the camera predicting when a ghost will come and hoping you don't get hit and lose your sense of alignment when you switch back into 3rd person, this will happen a lot since combat is slow and dodging is contextual meaning you can't consistently rely on it, I will admit that for a game that is considered "easy", I had a hard time on normal so I switch to easy so I won't get annoyed by how many times I would have to realign my shots when constantly cutting back into 3rd person then regain my sense of direction when switching into first person. But then the game actually offers a solution to the issues I have been having with the camera combat, the character of Choshiro Kirishima or should I say his flashlight camera controls, I am surprised this is considered the worst part of the game when I actually consider it to be the best, as him, I can reliably avoid damage since I have a better sense of my surrondings with the over the shoulder view and I can strafe left to right when aiming, so ghost combat actually felt somewhat enjoyable since I don't have to reposition myself nearly as often compared to the camera combat, I rarely if ever took damage as Choshiro. I'd say have the whole game be played like this and have a first person aiming option like Metal Gear Solid 4 and 5 do. Either that or have the game entirely be in first person. Instead of this weird inbetween of perspectives.

Now the thing that completely ruins the game for me: the running speed or should say jogging speed, this ruins any kind of enjoyment I could get from exploration, so much of the exploring feels like a chore due to how slow you are partner that with a hint and map system that works when it feels like it and also misdirects you and the game's structure of being in one location while slowly unlocking new areas throughout the game feels like a chore. The slow movement would get anyone to drop the game, and the ghosts giving you hints could easily be replaced with the game being like Resident Evil and pointing out areas of interests on the map, because the ghosts are vague and can even mislead you at times. The game points out areas of interest sometimes but not often enough and it's only when you get keys to unlock new doors not with puzzle areas or what's the next place you should be looking at. The slow movement also makes just wandering around and exploring a bore too due to how long it takes from one side of the map to the other. This game took me 8 hours to beat but I bet it would be 6 if my character could run faster.

Overall, I see solid game in here but it has too many issues to be a game I didn't groan at every 10 seconds throughout my playthrough. Not the most tedious "survival horror game" I played but not a very good one either. Improve the map and movement and I could enjoy it much more.