LEGO Horizon Adventures Review

I was not expecting myself to enjoy Lego Horizon Adventures as much as I did. I am not a Horizon super fan but I do enjoy the series to some degree. The idea of a Lego title based on the series felt like a bizarre move since it's not a licensed game based on a family friendly kids franchise.

However with that said, this is easily the most interesting and innovating lego game I played in such a long time. Usually every lego game after the first Star Wars in 2005 is just a variation on what that game did maybe some attempts at an open world but it never goes furthur than that. Skywalker Saga did try to breath new life but it sort of just felt like a hodge podge of different ideas if not entering into the realm of a mini game compliation. I already knew I was in for a different kind of lego game experience when there are difficulty options and actual fail states. Death is not a slap on the wrist this time around. The closest you got to that in other lego games was not getting 1st place in the Pod Race in the games based on Star Wars.

Lego Horizon Adventures however is the game in the series I always wanted. I never cared about the mainline series' open worlds, RPG and traversal systems and the stealth mechanics. All I really cared about was the projectile based weapons, the elemental weaknesses on enemies and weak point based damage system. This to me is what made the series interesting and finally there is a game in the series where this is in the forefront and all the above mention stuff is out. The closest thing to RPG system is this game is a light levelling system similar to the Ratchet and Clank games where even if you die, the XP gained from killing enemies will be retained even upon death. You can also use lego pieces to get buffs but it still is light by comparison to the main series.

An improvement over the mainline games too is the camera, some could scoff at the isometric camera and while the lack of a dedicated dodge button is missed, I love the fact that now, I have a better view from where enemies are going to attack me and where their projectile attacks are going to land. There is a red circle for when an enemy is going to an attack and stay out the circle, you don't take damage. This by comparison to the 3rd person Horizon games where it's easy to get hit from off screen whether it'd be from far off projectiles are enemies just randomly charging into you from behind, blindspots or aiming your bow to land a hit. Despite the lack of a dodge button, I feel more capable in this game than I do in the mainline series, the removal of the aforementioned stuff just adds to it.

In terms of combat difficulty, the game is by no means a cakewalk but it's overbearing when it comes to challenge. The "balanced" combat difficulty actually does live up to its name. While your health does increase upon level ups even weaker enemies can wipe a quarter of your health and stronger enemies can do even more damage. The thing that prevents combat from feeling impossible is that there are medicinal berry trees scattered all over the various battle arenas.

What Lego Horizon ultimately is a twin stick shooter where you need to kill waves of enemies to progress and complete the level with bosses thrown in every few levels. I love that it's level based and focuses on what makes Horizon interesting like I said before.

New enemies get introduced throughout the campaign and they get mixed in with the fodder enemies too, they all have different weak points and targets to hit. This is the kind of game that I wished the main Horizon games leaned more into

The biggest hurdle is the controls. It looks like a twin stick shooter but does not control like a traditional one. In these games on console left stick is to move while right stick is to aim. Thing is, you can't aim and shoot at the same time. It's like Resident Evil 4 2005 where you aim, stand still and then fire. This can be offputting especially at first and it took a while to get used to. There's accessiblity options in the menu, I put aim and shoot to by clicking R3 and also switched it to toggle aim rather than hold.

There also different gadgets, elemental weapons and even environmental hazards like fire, ice, electricty hidden to damage enemies with so aiming with just the bow arrow so you don't have to primarily use that. Enemies can also hurt themselves by charging too.

After that, the only big negative I can say on the game is the story and writing. It can on the obnoxious side with the 4th wall breaks and referential humor and I am not a fan of the replaced voice actors for Hellis and Sylens.

The splash damage on rocket attacks can get a little on the cheap side since you might get hit even when out of the red circle

Overall, this was the most enjoyable Lego game I played in a while especially considering how samey many of them tend to be. Horizon and Lego did sound like a weird combination on paper but it turned out to work better than I thought.

Power Rangers: Rita's Rewind Review

I'm not even a Power Rangers fan, I remember watching a random series of it over a decade ago and the extremely rad and awesome theme song of the 90s series. Other than that I came into this game because it seemed to be yet another throwback 2D beat em up on a nostalgic series that began with TMNT Shredder's Revenge. I played G.I Wrath of Cobra earlier this year and the game was so unstable that I couldn't even get past the 2nd level due to crashes. I thought Rita's Rewind was going to suffer the same fate but thankfully it didn't.

The game's combat is pretty much traditional 2D beat em up affair with punches, combos and special moves, however one major difference that not every game in the genre has if not most of them is the addition of a dedicated dodge button. I tend to have a soft for any game in the genre that has this since now avoiding attacks doesn't become an unreliable game of chance. Due to this it now feels like I can feel competent in combat rather than a tank who needs to rely on having enough healing items spawn to get by a stage.

I kind of regret playing on easy but at the same time there is one thing that made me say, "kind of".

The game isn't purely a 2D beat em up. There is a fair number of shoot em up mini games and first person person mega zord sections. These are mostly fine and nothing too bad and I'm guessing the developers really wanted to make the most out of the Power Rangers license as they could. I just prefer games to do one thing and do it well.

Another reason why easy mode could be accomadating for me is because you get more health pick ups and power ups during these sections. If I found these sections any harder, this could've ruined my enjoyment with the game. The only major hard part of these sections is during the Green Ranger fight since his boss requires you to hit flashes of the character before you can do actual damage to his Mega Zord and I did get a game over here due to me not being good enough to tank my way through.

The Mega Zord sections are okay, they seem to be a moment of empowerment and an over the top way of finishing off the villain for that episode.

Some bosses like Bones 2nd fight where his projectile attack can stun lock me and I lost a lot of health rather than getting inviciblity frames after getting hit caught me off guard

The final boss with Rita was mainly hard due to her puzzle design and you couldn't win by hitting her, dodging her scripted attacks and then hitting her again.

Overall, game was a good time despite me not really being into the license. Price point might be questionable but there are always sales and you can get it at a reduced price. It's an enjoyable few hours.

Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro Review

Pretty much everything regarding Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro feels like one of those superhero story sequels that only exist because the producers thought they had massive success with previous entries and are now making a story because they know audiences will come to it regardless of quality. Something along the lines of Superman 3, the Joel Schumacher Batman movies or the 90s live action TMNT movie sequels.

Everything in this game was already done in the previous Neversoft game. It's very much a typical expansion sequel of the era. The biggest improvement Enter Electro has is that that the scripted sequences with the tank controls, slowly descending web swinging, and limited camera movement are noticeably reduced if not outright gone.

The music is also just as good as the first game too.

Other than that, it's the same game, combat is a little better in that there is an auto lock on and Spider-Man will close in any enemy nearby him but considering this game came out the same year as Onimusha Warlords and the first Devil May Cry game having slightly better combat than the first game by Neversoft isn't really a worthwhile improvement. The former even had 3D beat em up combat with tank controls much like this game. There isn't a dedicated dodge button or a reliable means of defense. Spidey is a tank with the frequent health pick ups being the only reason why I was able to scrape by combat.

The hard parts of the game is where you have to deal with the bigger environment with lots of enemies being thrown at you and hoping you can tank hits and hopefully find enough health pickups to get past the level, the multi colored key section where you need to find the keys on a timer, the plane section where you need to web up the propellars and bosses like Lizard and Electro himself and dodging Electro's blast while climbing up a large structure.

Much of the challenge comes from the limited movement and combat. I also used save states on Duckstation in conjunction with the frequent health pickups. The latter prevented me from relying on the using the cheats within Duckstation itself. That having the web yank work the way you want to it where sometimes where Spidey will do it or he will just shoot his generic webbing.

The story itself is extremely barebones if not a borderline excuse plot. This would be fine if the gameplay was great but it never rises above being "okay" at best.

Some have complained about how this game has some of Spider-Man's jobber villains like Electro, Shocker, and Hammerhead but I argue a good writer can make them compelling. Electro does have interesting versions like Spider-Man TAS and The New Animated Series. This game however, he just runs around committing crimes and Spider-Man stops them. Electro kidnaps a character towards the end of the game but she has no personal connection to Spider-Man. At least Venom from the first Neversoft game kidnaps Mary Jane and there was a symbiote invasion Spidey had to stop where in this there isn't much of a plot or stakes other than Electro does bad things and he teams up with bad guys. The titular character of this sequel doesn't even have enough overacting or scenery chewing moments to make him any less forgettable.

The Neversoft game didn't have the most in depth plot but the presentation carried much of it, however here there is not enough plot or enough of Peter being challenged as a character that it pretty much warrants the comparison between the superhero movies previously mentioned. Everything about Enter Electro just makes me ask, "why was this game even made?"

On a side note, it does annoy me even in the comics how whenever Spider-Man is around other heroes, they just have to beat over your head that Peter Parker is an underdog and a weakling by comparison to the Avengers and Fantastic 4.

Overall, by no means is Spider-Man 2: Enter Electro something I consider "terrible" but it's so average and a by the numbers sequel that I got to wonder what was even of it. The Neversoft game was popular so Activision wanted a quick buck so they got Vicarious Visions to make this within a year. It's not the most egregious example of games and by extension media being made like this but it doesn't make me kinder on it by any means.

Silent Hill: Homecoming Review

The Silent Hill game I avoided for a very long time due to it's bad "reputation". I managed to somehow get the game at an okay price considering how hard it is to find now and by extension all of the Silent Hill games are up to Downpour. I don't want to emulate PS3 games as of yet either and the PC port of Homecoming on Steam is broken, unsurprisingly. With all that said, in spite of all the negative virtol this game gets by Silent Hill fans by the mere mention of it's name like many "disappointing" game releases in popular franchises, I found it to be decent. It does have some major issues particular with story, combat design and presentation but this is not even close to a game I consider to be badly made.

The best way of describing SH Homecoming that it's an algamation of Silent Hill 1 and 3, Silent Hill 2, the SH movie, Jaccob's Ladder with some elements of games like Resident Evil 4.

I'll start with the story and it's okay, not bad but not amazing. Remember what I said earlier how its an algamation? This is what I mean. It has parts of SH1 and 3 in that it deals with the religious cult group called "The Order" and it involves demonic scarifices. Silent Hill 2 in that it's about the protagonist's personal nightmares being represented by the town with a similar twist towards the end. The movie with it's visuals, human enemies, grotesque death scenes and exposition and of course Jaccob's Ladder with it's very premise.

As a result, it feels jumbled and confused. A positive is that the voice acting is good and the cutscenes are decently directed and those do help the game's story. The music during the cutscenes are also fine if one of Yamaoka's weaker OSTs. With that said like SH2's story there is a lack of conrete evidence for anything. What was Alex going to do after he found Josh? When did he get released from the Hospital, how long was he there? How did Alex know how to fight like a solider despite not actually fighting in a war? Why did the town of Shepard's Glen choose to act hostile when Alex got back? Why was Alex not a kid and was considerably older if they wanted to scarifice him? He would be harder to manipulate the older he got. What was Alex really doing when bringing Josh on the boat?

I didn't like this storytelling in SH2 but it's worse here since like the movie, there is exposition now and it makes Homecoming's lack of background details more noticeable since Homecoming bothers to explain things.

There is also weird things about it like how when characters die, it's similar directed like in the SH movie where it's an over the top grotesque death scene where in the first 4 SH games, the way deaths were played out were up to the imagination.

The visuals are also a downgrade from SH3, that game was one of my favorite looking games on the PS2 and the character models especially look worse in Homecoming. In a time where major franchises were making leaps in terms of visuals entering 7th gen, this stands out all the more.

Final issues is that load times can be lengthy on PS3 and the early hours can be lacking in terms of direction. The early Shepard's Glenn and graveyard sections almost made me quit the game due to the lack of direction on what do and where to do. There was also the Scarlett Fitch boss and the police station section after that can be very challenging due to resources being drained in the former and touch enemies being spawned in the latter. Usually there is down time in a survival horror game after a boss fight so the player can get resources again

With that out of the way, the gameplay for the most part can be solid. The combat can be criticized but the idea of it is good and you can tell since SH2 Remake would use this as a basis.

Shepard's Glenn can be interconnected in some ways too, the Graveyard will be a return to Alex's house when you get the key daggar in the Town Hall.

Enemies often never appear in more than 2 and it's more about trying to defeat and avoiding attacks as much as you can and not using too many health drinks. The game has just enough exploration and combat encounters is spread out evenly enough that it never feels like I'm playing an actual beat em up. Enemies visually taking more damage is a nice touch.

There is some problems that holds the combat system back. That is the inconsistent AI and lack of I frames. Enemies in SH Homecoming will either be two things:

They will either stand around and let you whail on them until they die or they will interrupt your combo, you try to anticipate their moves and dodge but will get hit anyway since the dodge rarely if ever gives you I frames so what feels like a game of intense fights where you barely get by feels like an inconsistent game of luck.

Overall, SHH just feels like a basis for SH2R much like Splinter Cell Conviction was for Blacklist, Hitman Absolution was for World of Assassination or RE6 for RE4R if you like SH2R it's worth looking into this game or trying again if you disliked SHH.

Soul Calibur V(Playstation 3) Review

Normally, I don't really talk about fighting games that much, all I wanted to do was just play SCV, have a quick and good time and move on to something else. Maybe even enjoy the game and consider it one of the many, "disliked game in popular game series that I enjoy". When it comes to fighting games I do enjoy Marvel vs. Capcom Infinite, Tekken 4 and 6, the Mortal Kombat games after MK9 and MK vs. DC by extension, and Dead or Alive 6. Only Street Fighter 5 being the exception. I didn't come into this game with high expectations.

However, upon playing, a large part of me can't help but slowly get annoyed. The story mode is pretty bad and of course you don't play fighting games for the story, however the writing is bad even by those standards. The new characters are insufferable and only a few of the legacy Soul Calibur characters are even around. Whole thing feels like a bizarre fan fiction. Something that really annoyed me was when you played as Z.W.E.I and a had very challenging fight against Nightmare just to lose in a cutscene.

The AI is very inconsistent one minute they are pushovers and another minute they are overly aggressive who feel like they can read your moves before you make them.

However the thing that really annoyed me was the 3 round system, I can't for the life of me why this system was here. Even if you manage to win 1 round and your opponent wins 2, it's still going to be an uphill battle trying to get two wins in to become the victor.

I also dislike playing as many of the new characters since the appeal of SC for me was how since it's a weapons based fighting game, your attacks have far more reach than fighting games with fists but many of Patrokolos and Phyrra's combos don't really have this and they feel short ranged, I could've looked up the moved list but when I play as Nightmare and Kilik in other SC games, I never had this problem. Playing as any of the characters in the story mode despite having so many fights never made me feel like I was comfortable with them.

Still, I didn't find the gameplay that repulsive or insufferable since making a truly unplayable big budget fighting game from a casual standpoint seems almost impossible to do at the same time, it's a hard game to geniunely reccomend outside of Soul Calibur completionists or people who want to try out as many installments in a popular franchise that they enjoy as they can out of curosity.

Assassin's Creed: Revelations(Nintendo Switch) Review

I do have some memories with this particular game. This was back in a time period where was I was really into Assassin's Creed and Revelations was very hyped up for me. I played at it at the time and I recall liking and I would defend a lot around the first few months and a year of it's release, apart of me wonders was because I wanted to trick myself into liking it. Playing it now however, when I was playing ACR, a question kept popping up in my mind, "why was this game even made?" Sure a media product is to ultimately make money but with ACR, the story feels like a filler and monster of the week episode and the gameplay felt as marginally different as ever before. Everything about it feels like it needed to be made because Ubisoft needed an AC game out, not because it was a game that they felt needed to be made. I know the story of it ACR being a reworked 3DS game originally but it doesn't help it's case.

The story is the first example of what I mean. The Ezio portions of the story is esstentially a macguffin hunt. The problems with those stories is that the plot itself is not interesting on it's own. Ezio needs to stop the Templars from getting into Altair's library. Supposedly, the reason why Ezio wants to do this is because his father talked about it his writings but in AC2 itself no such thing gets mentioned. ACB never really sets up ACR in any big way. At the end of that game Ezio is the hero who beats Ceseare, wins and everything goes his way. What's even there for him to do in ACR?

There is also very little at stake. Why do the Templars need the Maysaf keys? They are already in control of everything behind the scenes and they don't know what is in the Library. Is it a doomsday weapon, will it win the war? All too vague to be interesting. The twist makes it even more hollow that it's Altair's Apple of Eden, but why does that matter Ezio has his own Apple stashed away.

Due to all this, the game sets up a political sub plot and a love story since the Macguffin hunt is not interesting on it's own. The former is not interwined with Ezio's motivations and the latter is. The romance with Sofia is hard to be invested in since Ezio is just using her without telling the truth. Ezio always tells you how she is a light in his life since the scenes they have together and her Sofia's characterization herself doesn't do enough of the heavy lifiting. Sofia's backstory is never even properly revealed either. She only exists so Ezio can have something to gain at the end of the story since macguffin hunts usually end with the hero not getting material gain but the bonds they made along the way. The political sub plot ends with Ezio banned from Constaninopple, a place he was already not going to come back to. 

The ending itself is just a rethread of AC2 and it doesn't even recontextulize that game's ending since Desmond on gets mentioned at the start of ACB and inbetween this and the ending of ACR, Desmond never gets mentioned again so when Ezio says he came to gripes with everything at the end of ACR, it feels unearned. 

Ezio is also very much a gary stu in ACR. It's downplayed in this game but it's still there, he accidentally kills Tarik but it never leads to anything disastrous or haunt Ezio later down the line. Sofia nearly gets killed towards the end of the game and she never argues, resents Ezio or slowly forgives him for what he did, she just instantly forgives him. Ezio also compromises the Brotherhood since him telling Yusuf to guard Sofia leads to his death, the latter died protecting a girl he didn't even know and the Ottoman Assassins are okay with that. Altair doing something like this is the inciting incident that jump starts AC1's story and in ACR, he gets away with it scot free. I thought ACR was going to make me win Ezio over as a character but all it did was make me dislike him even more. 

Altair's story is pretty interesting in how it sort of feels like a gangster story but instead of a crime family it's with a cult group and I almost wished he was the main character since it was more interesting than Ezio's macguffin hunt and the loosely connected sub plots. It was fun to see Ezio fanboy over Altair at the end of his memories. 

The gameplay is the same but with more fluff and with some minor improvements. The bombs you never need to use unless if it's to get the optional objectives which I don't care for since I need more than self imposed restriction to enjoy a game. Stealth and enemies are the same which makes bomb use even more redundant. It's the same enemy roster and enemy AI from AC2. You can still hire prostitutes for many of the stealth sections and parkour is unreliable due to rooftop guards.

The AI is also very buggy making stealth even more a game of luck rather than anything resembling skill thus encouraging the player to hire prositutes even more when given the chance.

Combat is the same ACB, with chain killing being very overpowered. There is one difference now which are the Janniseraries. These guys have you work a little harder to kill them since kicks won't work and can even use a gun to shoot you at a distance can't be countered. They take about halfway through the game for them to be part of the enemy roster, one big issue is that usually one or two of them with regular mooks and with enough chain attacks, they will go down usually being 3 so with lots of regular mooks and not more than two Janniseraries tops in a horde, combat is still brainlessly easy but just slightly harder than usual.

You are still never forced to use wall and side ejects.

Some good is that ACR is a vibrant and colorful and the hookblade is an okay innovation even if it is just a faster version of climb leap.

The sections were you get the Maysaf Keys are enjoyable since they feel like Prince of Persia levels of sorts. I enjoy them since I prefer that style of game than what AC tries to be.

ACR is also shorter than ACB which is good to me since if the game was longer I'd get more annoyed.

Overall, ACR and the Ezio Trilogy as a whole was me asking myself, "why?" What was the point in me beating the games when I barely got much enjoyment from playing them? All Ezio's games did was remind me why I enjoy the stories and games that I enjoy since to me they are big budget games that manage to get so much wrong in my eyes. 

Shadow Generations Review

Shadow Generations was quite the surprise, it was already weird to see game journalists make glowingly positive reviews on a modern Sonic game but as a whole it turned out to be solid. I would myself to be a casual fan or indifferent regarding the series but Shadow Generations won me over. I won't be talking about the base covering Sonic Generations, I'll replay that some other time. I mainly wanted to play this for Shadows parts since that was the selling point of this version of Generations. I don't know much about Shadow himself other than he is Sonic's on again off again rival and often gets compared to Dragon Ball's Vegeta.

Anyways, Shadow Generations is much like the game it's based on, it's a collection of Shadows levels throughout his run over the years. It does seem like the game is trying to be the best of both worlds in that it wants to appeal to speedrunning fans of the older games and the story fans of the Adventure games and it sort of works even if feels like I need to have played his games over the years to understand him better.

You have the overworld of the game inspired by Sonic Frontiers and much like the base Generations game, you do the one level both in 2D and 3D, then you do the challenges to unlock keys for the boss fights to continue. One massive point to over the base game is that challenges are much easier and are over much quicker. I would not even remotely consider myself an expert Sonic or high speed platformer player but most of the challenges I did in my first try, some needing to replay. What is good is that they are over so quickly so with enough brute force it can be done. You also have no lives and there is infinite continues, thankfully.

What's great about Shadow Generations is that throughout the campaign you will get new abilties like being able to dash into an enemy, knock them into the air and dash out of it with Doom Blast, riding on water with Doom Surf, launching Choas Spheres with Doom Spheres, and Doom Wing that lets you fly. All these abilties get their fair use in the campaign even if I would've liked all of the levels to use them all at once but what's here is good. Choas Control freeze time ability I thought would've been a gimmick but I used a good number of times throughout the campaign. There is also the homing attack that is a staple of 3D Sonic games.

The 3D levels especially are more polished by comparison to the pure platforming levels of Frontiers. However towards the end of the game, the awkward buggy platforming that 3D Sonic can be known for did start to rear in. Sometimes the homing attack wouldn't work, there were platformers that moved upside down which like a game of luck to not fall off from, the pole swing felt like I got the timing right then it turned out I got it wrong. It really felt like much of the challenge from the last few levels can from unrefined controls, level design and gameplay mechanics.

Boss fights are okay, they seem to lean towards the specticle since however a big issue I did have was during the bosses that required you to launch projectiles to do damage is that you had to press the bumpers while Shadow is moving and there either is a 50-50 chance he will either take damage or it will hit the boss. They do have mid boss checkpoints thanfully so this cancels out. I did like the ridiculous nature of some of them coming from a "casual" fan, where you had to fight a giant biolizzard, the whole concept I couldn't help but find funny and it was played with a straight face which adds to it but in a charming way. The final boss having All Hail Shadow play in the background was also great since I enjoy Sonic music and All Hail Shadow is one of my favorite songs in the series.

The game also moves at a brisk pace, apart of me wanted it to be a little longer so the various abilties and level gimmicks got to shine more but even the length as isn't enough to detract, also with how unpolished the last level was, this might've been okay in the long run

Overall, for someone who teeters between being a casual fan or indifference regarding the Sonic franchise, Shadow Generations might be one of my favorite if not my favorite game in the series. Came in with low expectations and it was enjoyable despite not even knowing much about the character of Shadow himself.