The Callisto Protocal Review

I was actually kind of hyped for this game when it was announced and when they showed gameplay footage of it, there hadn't been a new Dead Space game in almost a decade and I thought it was going to be way better than the Dead Space remake but now after playing both, DS remake is definately the better game, however I can't say I completely dislike this game, I do get some degree of enjoyment out of it that is mainly just due to how Glen Scofield designs his games after the first Dead Space, having playing this game and the CoDs he directed, its easy to see that after DS1, the guy has really wants his games to be an bombastic over the top high budget Hollywood production which is why a number of his games tend to feature lots of scripted sequences, level design strung together by corridors with barely much room to go off the beaten path, very high budget production values and celebrity voice talent. Callisto Protocal isn't the bad game that some hype it up as, at the same time, it's not really the epic Dead Space stand in that many including myself wanted it to be, the game is very middle of the road. Now that out of the way, I might as well described what I like and dislike. 

The story is just kind of there and not that great, it's not terrible since the performance by the actors in the game do a decent job at making the material somewhat engaging, the character interactions are solid and makes me want to pay attention even if much of the story is just, Jacob Lee wants to get out of prison then gets out, then some twists happen, he goes back and then there is an expostion dumps towards the end and then it ends. I don't think the bond between Jacob and Dani is as well earned as the writers want the audience to think since it's rather bizarre how much Lee goes at arm's length to help Dani even though they knew each other for a few hours and had no previous history together, that and Jacob's whole "redemption arc" feels like it kind of comes out of nowhere since Jacob just looked at the cargo his ship was carrying and then thinks to himself as a shitty person, there might be more to this but I don't think the game gave me enough character to latch on to the point where the reveal felt earned. The villains are very underwhelming and underdeveloped and they don't do enough to make me want to see them dead, plus the main villain's motivation doesn't make a whole of sense since turning humanity into brainless monsters is a nonsesical motivation on top of that how did Sam Witwer's character survive that monster attack? Also, he just so happens to be cahoots with the main villain and when he just seemed like any other generic guard in the facility. To sum it up, it feels like they are just setting up a bigger universe here, not even sure I want to see more. 

The gameplay is...okay, it's basically Dead Space with a melee focus, and like DS it has amazing polish and game feel. The weapon sounds, the damage animations, the gore, all gives an amazing and very visceral feedback, the stealth kills give a nice satisfaction as well. If this aspect of the game wasn't handled well, I wouldn't even be able to beat the game at all and see it through to the end. I will also admit that I played the game on easy which is probably why I didn't get as frustrated like others did with this game, at the same time, some games aren't even fun even on easy so I am glad this game was more enjoyable since I can take more damage. I have seen some say the game is hard even on easy and I find that to be quite exaggerated, I don't think combat is good or well made that I want to consistently play on normal. Combat kind of feels like a ballet of shooting, melee, grip, and stomping. To this game's credit, the stomping feels much better than DS since you can actually finish off an enemy with the stomp when they are down as to opposed to enemies in DS that can attack you in the middle of your stomp animation. 

I didn't even dislike the dodge as many other people did but I do see their point whenever there is more than one enemy and how hectic the combat can be when you are fighting more than 1 foe. Camera isn't that great and can give you lots of awkward angles especially in corridors surronded by enemies. On top of that, the camera tends to track Jacob whenever he falls down, so it makes it harder to get a grasp on the action since you can lose your alignmnent on where you were when facing the enemy. Trying to reload your gun while in trying to finish off enemies quick can be irritating because Jacob takes forever to reload. When you do get surronded, it basically a battle of finishing off enemies quickly before they overwhelm you and I think that was the intention even if I would prefer a dedicated dodge button especially when x could've been used. I would've prefered the Gears of War approach where the x button has more than one use, I don't like that either, but I prefer it over this super context sensitve stuff since with the one button does multiple actions approaches the only issue I got to worry about is not being next to waste high walls or latters when in combat as approach to the context senstive dodging hoping it registers my stick movments. 

Another issue with the game is the lack of enemy variety compared to DS, it feels like DS3 in this regard since basically uses the same 1-3 enemies for the whole game, the game has enemies "mutating" also like in DS3 but from my experience I often like to hit enemies with the melee attack, shoot them when the prompt comes and finish them off before the mutation even happens. CP never has nearly as much enemy variety as DS does either. In DS you had pukers, kamikaze exploding monsters, enemies with no torsos but have a tail, enemies that can multiple into smaller monsters when killed, an infector, a head where you have to shoot it's tentacles to damage it. Compare this to CP and it can feel tame and dull by comparison. A lot of the combat can just feel like a game of, "hit enemy, wait for gun prompt to pop up, and shoot them". You will occasionally need to stomp or do a melee finisher on downed enemy, or grip enemies into spike traps, I did also tried to mix things up by using firearms to dismember enemies and finish them off before melee combat started but it just felt like I wish I was playing DS instead. Game feel and polish did do a good job at carrying this aspect of the game which I will complement the game for. The stealth which I heard wasn't that great I thought was decently handled, sure it's the same, crouch up behind an enemy and hit the takedown button that so many AAA games that attempt stealth nowadays do, however what I do like about this game is that you don't need to keep track of line of sight and the enemies especially the blind ones are forgiving enough to sneak past and stealth kill, I got a decent number of kills and bypassed a decent number of multi enemy encounters because of it, there was one moment where an enemy jumped me while I was sneaking up on one of the blind enemies but that happened only once. The stealth with the security robots aren't that great but they aren't numerous enough to annoy the crap out of me. There was maybe only 2-3 the whole game which is good. 

The level design also isn't that great, while I do like there is some room for exploration so it isn't as linear as say CoD or Uncharted. Most of the levels mainly consist of linear corridors with an occasional branching path and that's it. I do like that there are resources you have to collect and there is upgrades meaning you have to observe and look around the enviroment making the level exploration feel somewhat more involving than the above mentioned games. However, there's lots of shimming, walking sections, vent crawling and scripted sequences which tells me that the devs didn't really know how to make moment to moment gameplay outside of combat exciting. The jump scrares with tentacle face monsters and smaller monsters attacking you when opening chests gets old very quickly and isn't as interesting as the devs want to think it is since it's the same tactic with the same context. Outside of that, it's mostly just trudges to get to the next combat area, Dead Space I argue did a better job with more resources to manage, upgrades and tons of items to sell to make money for weapons and suit slots. Callisto Protocal kind of has this but it's a lot more tame since there aren't as many weapons and the weapons you do have are the generic pistols, and shotguns fare, you don't have the node system and you can't buy suit upgrades and as a result, it feels like an okay scripted rollar coaster ride with combat rather than feeling like there is more worthwhile moment to moment gameplay, I don't dislike scripted rollar coaster rides but so much of CP is that, it's more like CoD meets DS rather than an action based System Shock like DS1 which I felt was more engaging than CP since while DS was linear, there was more decision making involved when not in combat as DS also has more experimentation with it's moment to moment exploration. 

Overall, Callisto Protocal isn't a terrible game, but it's not a misunderstood gem either, it's about as middle of the road as middle of the road can get. It seems to be the case with a lot of big budget new AAA IPs lately. 

Gundam Wing Review

When I watched Gundam Wing the first time all those years ago back in 2016, I was like, "what was the hype even about, what was so special about this?" While I like it a bit more than I used to I can understand why me from all those years ago was never a big fan of it despite me thinking the series is decent overall.

I'll start with the good, the setting and world like a lot of Gundam shows are fascinating and interesting, I always loved the idea of mankind moving up into space colonies and one day leaving the earth which could happen someday, and I love how this franchise explores that possibility, and it's still just as interesting here, even if much of the backstory is clumsily delivered through narrated exposition a lot of the time, and I feel like the show could do a better job at weaving in backstory and exposition in better. The characters are also decent, Heero is a strange character at first but he started to grow on me, the villains like Trieze and Miliardo are also solid enough. However characters like Catra and Wu Fei aren't particularly that great, Catra being hard to sympatheize with after the actions he does later in the series and Wu Fei just comes as a smug brat a lot of the time. I do like Duo Maxwell a lot and he's a pretty entertaining character and the rest of the cast is just okay overall. Relieena is also somewhat tolerable for a pacisfist character since she never contradict herself that much or at least I can't recall.

This is where the series tends to break it for me, my big issue with Gundam Wing is the frequent time jumps and perspective breaks with characters, there's a lot that happens on this show but it never feels like you are going on a slow gradual journey with them, it feels more like a highlight reel where you will follow one character one minute for a few episodes, then they will be written out of the plot for a while and then you follow another character(s) and then after a while they will be written out of the plot. It makes for an awkwardly disjointed narrative where it's hard to get overly attached to anyone and their plight, Relianna's character development later in the show felt particularly jarring since she had shown up in so long. There's a "death" of sorts that happens later in the series and the whole time, I am wonder, "are they ever going to explain what her fate actually was already?" It makes me appreciate the original series and many other Gundam shows in how they are written since the cast was generally always together in one location, meaning you didn't have to break the perspective of other characters nearly as often since they were always near by. It made the narrative feel less disjointed ans stilted as a result. Most of the cast in Wing are always seperated and are off in different places so far away from each other as opposed to the story following two groups in the original series like the White Base and the Zabi family.

The last few episodes are easily the best since the series by that point is following 3 factions and the most of the characters are together making the story feeling it doesn't need to break off into subplot land nearly as much anymore. It actually feels like I am following a group and their stuggles rather than having it be the highlight reel.

Overall, I like Wing a bit better than before but not by much, this show will always be a reminder of how I take certain tropes for granted and how bizarre a story can be when these tropes are not being followed.

Resident Evil 4 Remake Review

Resident Evil 4 remake, this was a game I was intially antagonistic on when the moment it was announced. I am not a big fan of REmakes 2 and 3, and Village and even RE7 while I like, I am not super big on, when it comes to modern RE and modern Capcom by extension, I don't like them that much. This remake however was a massive surprise for me, it's the best RE engine game, the best game since RE7, the best modern remake, and an overall improvement over the original game. I have some issues with it overall that prevent it from being head and shoulders above the original game, but when it comes to moment to moment gameplay, I think REmake 4 is the better game. 

I'll start with the good, you can actually move while shooting and have more mobility in general, this makes the game FEEL much better to play as opposed to the tank controls and turret like gameplay in the original. You can also reload while not aiming, which is massive improvment when it comes to intense combat since now, you don't have to worry about possibly getting hit while in the middle of the reload animation, or just having to aim your gun to reload in general which can be rather cumbersome and can waste time when all you want to do is quickly reload every gun.  A lot of the combat in the original game was basically a game of aim, shoot, quick turn, aim, shoot, quick turn, rinse repeat it felt like a flight game where you aren't in control of a constantly moving vehicle and compared to shooters that came afterwards especially to something like Dead Space, it can feel dated and not as refined. Original RE4 made up for its awkward shooting mechanics and lack of overly deep shooting with enemies reacting to different areas when shot, very good weapon sounds and feedback, and plenty of situational depth where it wasn't about just straight up killing enemies in hordes. REmake 4 retains all of this with the added mobility and more refined movement and controls. You will be going through a creepy village and fighting a one hit kill chainsaw monster while holding off a bunch of other enemies, you will be escourting Ashley and while doing that fighting enemies while taking out multiple trebucets, fighting a monster on a boat, holding off a horde of angry villagers in a house with Luis, fighting alongside Luis later, collecting puzzle pieces to open doors, fighting in a maze with dogs, going on a crazy mine cart ride, going on an elevator ride while enemies are constantly jumping down and attacking you and much more. And luckily the game manages to keep all this while keeping the more modern controls and movement. Everything is just more updated now to accomadate for the updates. Where REmakes 2 and 3 were basically a fixed camera angle games having overhauled the gameplay for over the shoulder view and has jarring changes like zombies taking multiple headshots from pistols and shotguns in order to compensate for the fact that the player now has free aim and it being harder to tell where you should move the stick after a zombie grabs you especially after the camera jerks around so much and REmake 3's case of having Nemesis be less persistent due to the fact that it's harder to tell how far he is from the player due to the over the shoulder camera, REmake 4 however was already a remake of an over the shoulder game to begin with so all of it's changes didn't need to be massively overhauled to the point of the game feeling much worse. The combat is just as if not more satisfying the original game due to the RE engine's more detailed visuals, and the weapons all feel as good as ever and unlike Village the upgade system doesn't ruin this game and you can't buy upgrades out the ass and have overpowered weapons by the end. The best thing about this remake is the added defensive options with the knife, in the original game you didn't have much in the way of blocking attacks or any form of defense, if an enemy hits you in the original game, you had to tank the hit and hope you had a healing item on you to recover. In REmake 4, you can block incoming attacks making combat more dynamic since now you can mitiage damage and even perform counterattacks  now so if an enemy attacks you, it is possible to prevent damage rather than just take the hit. The blocking and parry window is generally big enough to make it a viable option in combat. Another thing, I like is the quality of life improvements like when crafting herbs it tells you what healing items you want to create and does so automatically which makes menu fiddling less tedious as a result. You also have weapon shortcuts now so less travelling in the menu to select weapons. Also, those annoying QTEs are gone and down away with, they are mostly just connecting to dodging which I don't like but more on that later. The bosses are also an improvement over the original since I felt the tank like movements, low hit points and the lack of moving while shooting made them grating to fight so I always bought a rocket laucher to insta kill them in the original game. Now in the remake since everything is modernized, I can actually fight them without doing that and they are decent change from the normal encounters even if I feel like console aiming for precise weakspot aiming is rather cumbersome, I didn't bother with the built in gyro controls since gyro aiming seems to be hard to get right. 

Now on to the bad, this part will be lengthy but let me assure that this game is very good and is worth playing it's just that these aspects of the game prevent it from being even better for me. One thing I dislike about the game is the pointless stealth that adds nothing to the game, you can sneak around in REmake 4 but you are given no stealth indicators or actual mechanics to work with so it makes it a pointless option, you can't even distract enemies or even actively get the drop on them and relocate after like in the Last of Us. This also means dodging is contextual yet again(why can't a modern RE just give me a dedicated dodge button already?), my suggestion would be to have circle be a dedicated dodge button and remove the crouching and stealth entirely. The contextual dodging isn't too bad in this game but I would just prefer to reliable be able to avoid attacks whenever I feel like I can rather than having a prompt pop in order to dodge certain moves by enemies and bosses. The side missions and the explorable worlds are also pointless and add nothing to the game. RE4 was never an exploration heavy game to begin with like RE2 and 3 so the addition of this just feels jarring since you have to these boring fetch quests that have no story to tell just to unlock certain things like the Red9 stock or the laser sight for certain guns. Plus after certain sections of the game, you can't do these missions again and you can't fast travel back either making these missions even more dull and pointless to do. I just did a couple to get the Red9 stock and moved on. If I did these more, my opinion of the game would greatly diminish so I am glad when I stopped when I did. At least in the Dead Space remake while the side missions were pointless in that game, they at least provided lore, this game's side quests are irksome, add nothing to the game and feels out of place in an action game like this. Just let me buy everything, and while I am at it, I am not a big fan of the whole inlaying gemstones in order to have certain jewlery sell at a higher price. I just want to sell the gem stones already, I don't want to hurry up and and hope I can sell the gems at a higher price. While I also like the knife system, I also feel like the knife should've never have degraded, it felt like a weird and once again meaningless addition to the game since once your knife is upgraded, it will rarely ever break and you can fix your knife with ease too back to it's original state so it might as well have umlimited uses since the durablity adds little to the game overall since it's easy to fix and rarely ever breaks when upgrading past a certain point. Ammo crafting also doesn't add much to the game either, I would much rather have ammo spawn instead of creating ammo since this game is mostly pistol city. I do like the Red9 a lot, I also feel like ammo crafting doesn't add much since RE4 isn't a traditional survival horror game where ammo isn't as common and you want to create ammo for guns you want to use, this doesn't work as well in an action game since you are better off just spawning ammo rather than just creating ammo which the resource system is mostly biased towards pistol ammo and you get lots of pistol ammo as is. 

The next issue is that while the game on Standard is generally easy there are some annoying difficulty spikes on occasion. First is when you fight the chainsaw monster which can feel out of place since the player is just getting used to the controls and gameplay systems so having an insta kill enemy with a massive horde can feel like a strange way to ease player into the game. This issue could extend to the original game as well. Another issue is that the sections is with Ashley is actually something this remake does worse than the original. Where in the original, Ashley didn't speak nearly as much, she had a health bar telling you how close she was to dying and Ashley didn't get knocked down constantly and didn't get in the way nearly as much and the animations to revive her after her getting knocked down take a little to long for my liking since enemies could possibly attack and get the drop on you after you revive her, it's at it's worst during the trebuchet section where you could dodge the fireballs but it could hit Ashley thus meaning you have to wait for the fire to disappear and then revive her just for another fireball to hit you afterwards. On top of that you could accidentally hit her while someone is grabbing her and you don't know if that accidental shot could get you a game over. Whenever the difficulty spikes it tends to always involve Ashley in some way, which is a shame since the original game handled her pretty well. The Island section is better here than in the original, but at the same time, it's still rather weak in comparison to the rest of the game since I find the shooting mechanics too weak to support it's rather action heavy final portion, they do break up the pace a bit better by comparison since there is auto turrets now and I do like the keycard swiping and reginators and the modernized controls and moblity helps but after the section in the lab and especially after the Kruaser boss, the game just starts to drag and I wish the game would just wrap up since the game becomes even more of a one note shooter with not enough situational depth and it's basically just endless shooting galleries where you just headshot, melee, shoot, headshot, melee, rinse repeat. This is something RE5 gets critcized heavily for but it did begin in RE4 first, just thought I'd add that. 

Finally, these issues aren't too big, the voice acting and story isn't that great, it's both two steps forward and two steps back from the original. Ada's voice acting isn't as bad as I thought it would be and I do like that it has the Leon actor from REmake 2 which makes for a smoother continuity compared to before, he does an okay enough job. At the same time, the voice acting for the villains like Krauser, Salazar and Saddler aren't very good and they have a much less of a prescence in this remake compared in the original especially Salazar and Saddler where both those villans would talk to and taunt Leon in the original, in the remake, they barely show up and don't taunt Leon nearly as much. Luis and Krauser are better and expanded upon. Luis' death hits a bit more in the remake since he was given more screen time and development but at the same time Krauser killing Luis feels weird since he wasn't even the main villain. The story in general just isn't that good much like the original, I never liked just how Capcom thinks they can tell a good story and every time they try to, they come off as a bunch of kids who think they are way smarter than they actually are like when Leon and Krauser are talking to each other about absolute power. Krauser just comes off as a bargain bin General Hummel from the Rock since he never really makes any interesting points regarding how corrupt his government was nor does his actions show anything. It feels like a superhero arguing with a supervillain but it also feels so hollow since neither Leon or Kruaser's actions are explored that much. At this point, I would love an RE game with barely any plot or story since I feel Capcom never knew much when it came to nuanced writing. 

Overall, despite my lengthy review, I think REmake 4 is a very good game, just that I have a number of issues with it that prevent me from liking it more than I already do. Is the game "perfect?" No much like the original, but at the same time I can't say I didn't have a blast playing it, and for a guy that plays a lot of games like I do that is all I can hope for. 

Halo 4 Review

Halo 4, oh boy Halo 4 this is a game that tends to piss of Halo fans by the mere mention of it's name. And I have beaten the game a number of times over the years and yes, I do like the game. It's a game while I get not being a great game yet at the same time I can't for the life of me get why it's considered a "bad game". I am not a Halo super fan despite spending over 100 hours in the MCC so this is probably why I don't consider it to be the epicly bad game that 4 is widely call as. The game is mostly a play it safe sequel in terms of gameplay and that is by far it's biggest issue, I'll go more in detail on that later.

Story first, I actually consider this to be the best narrative in the series as far as games are concered, the only game in the series that I consider coming close to this is Halo Infinite, I say this because while the story overall isn't super amazing, the bond between Master Chief and Cortana is what carries much of it and does so much of the heavy lifting for the story. I like Chief and Cortana's interactions with each other and it's Jenn Taylor best performance in the series. The whole idea of Chief being a stoic soldier having no humanity is reflected well within the story. It's both a strength and a weakness. A weakness in that Chief never really knows what to say to Cortana in her times of need yet also a strength because his stoism also gives Cortana the conviction to move forward. It's one of the few times where the series actually gets any form of emotional connection out of me regarding narrative. At the same time, Halo 4 has it's flaws, a lot of stuff like Infinity, the expanded lore with the Forerunners, the "storm covenant" and the character of the Didact feels like the game is throwing way too many concepts that an FPS like this can even handle, I might look up the supplementary material for this game but at the time, I am not that interested. The Didact might be the best villain in the series...even though it's not saying a whole lot, he does at the very least does one evil deed that makes me dislike him like killing all those people on the Halo installation where Truth and previous Halo villains never accomplished that much, sure they killed Miranda but even Tillson in her short screen time was more interesting than Miranda was in 2 whole games, then again, this could because I tolerate Tillson more than Miranda since I consider her to be boring and terribly written character along with Sgt Johnson. The Didact still does that Halo villain thing of doing the cryptic monologuing while Chief is killing enemies but I'd still say he is better than what came before, even if it was a low bar.

Now the gameplay, I still think the gameplay is solid and the sound design for the game is incredible, the gun sounds and weapon feedback was the best the series had up until that point and I still love hearing so many of the weapon sounds, sounds meaty and very punchy which is great considering this game is an fps. The fights with covenant are still the same, the AI is still solid even if the enemy roster is still the same 3-4 types you have mainly been fighting in the series up until this point, they are still enjoyable to fight and the coveant weapons being more fun to use with improved feedback makes the combat more fun in some ways since I want to use covenant weapons more. Now where Halo 4 divides everyone is the Promenthan enemies and weapons and while I don't think they are as bad as Halo fans make it out to be since the Flood wasn't exactly enemy design masterclass either. They still are just Halo struggling to figure out to come up with an enemy type outside of the Covenant since fighting the same 3-4 enemies for 10 hours would be boring and you don't have the Halo Reach excuse of shoving in Brutes halfway through the game. I do think the Promethan weapons at the very least feel good to use and the combat even if it has that Halo bad habit of alien weapons being an analog for weapons in real life. You got an alien machine gun, pistol, shotgun, rifle and rocket launcher, it just feels incredibly lazy and I hate to use this word but uninspired as well since the Covenant weapons are also like that and it's issue with them too since, this takes place so far into the future and the best you can come up with is just real world guns with a different skin. At the same time, with that said, I don't think the Promethans show how bad Halo's health system can be compared to the Flood, but it also isn't that great either. Since enemies can be pretty spongey can swarm you a lot especially swarm you more than the health system can handle. You want your health to recover but enemies will keep swarming your position preventing you from doing so and leading to some cheap deaths. Rocket launcher promethans can be pretty annoying too since they can kill you in one hit at full health. They can also teleport and insta kill you out of nowhere too, but it didn't happen too much to the point where I found extremely infuriating

I also don't get why sprint gets so much hate when Halo's health system forces you to have your health to regen, sprint saved me at so many points and it's one of the few options I have when health is at critical. Halo was never even as fast as Doom and Blood to begin with, so sprint isn't even ruining anything.

The biggest issue with Halo 4 is that I played the game already, it's called Halo Reach, it has the same armor abilities which I didn't find interesting in that game since most of them are situational to this game's credit, sprint is an ability that you can always use. I never found the armour abilites as interesting as the equipment in 3 or dual wielding in 2. Dual wielding complements the combat really well since it allows you to destroy shields with one hand and tear flesh with the other. Equipment on higher difficulties allowed you to use arena design more to your advantage and give you a possible edge in combat, armor abilites give you one situational power that you can use after a lengthy cooldown. It even has similar air combat like Halo Reach does later in the game. And that's where the big issue with Halo 4 lies, it doesn't offer a whole lot of geniune innovation gameplay wise over the rest of the games. The Mantis was great but innovations and sections like that are few and far between. It's the best feeling Halo game by far yet at the same time, I don't think it does enough to have the game escape from feeling like a Halo Reach expansion. 

Overall, I'd say it's a good game but not amazing. It's definately not the second coming of the devil like Halo fans want you to believe. 

Syphon Filter: Logan's Shadow Review

Syphon Filter Logan's Shadow is a rather fascinating "ending" to the series. I consider it to be a solid game overall yet at the same time I feel like the way Bend Studio closed it felt like it was out of bad faith. More on that later.

I'll start with the story and it's...strange. While the character interactions and Gabe Logan himself are as entertaining as ever(Logan's interactions with the new recruits in the tutorial mission being a great highlight), there is also just way too many randomly introduced plot elements that made me started asking questions every 5 minutes. Who is Cordell? Who is Bitar? Who is Alima? Who is Dane Bishop? I played the previous Syphon Filter games within close proxmity of each other and I am wondering who a good number of these characters even are since the previous games never established them, apparently, Alima was in the Omega Strain but the rest are entirely new characters introduced in this game. What makes this even worse is that it's established that Logan and the crew has known the above mentioned characters for a while yet I am just now hearing about them. Some characters like Dane Bishop are entertaining, while others like Bitar are underwhelming since he suffers from that video game villain problem of the story mostly being a goose chase and he only has a little screen time and has a few lines before he dies. Speaking of establishing so many plot points in between games, this feels like Kingdom Hearts levels of "do your homework" before playing the next game but at the same time, I don't think there was any Syphon Filter tie in material for this game which makes everything all the more jarring. Then there is all the stuff involving Lian which I thought the 3rd game already established but it turns out....there is more that the audience and by extension Gabe didn't know about her, it all feels like it comes out of left field, I am guessing this is a theme of the game how there is more to people than you originally thought, I also feel like this could've been built up and alluded to better. In the context of this game, its...fine since it does a good job at creating some tension between Lian and Gabe while being an okay mystery box, but in the context of the series, I find this whole thing to be questionable, mainly because it feels like it enters into the realm of retconning and I am not sure if it adds a whole lot to Lian's character considering what her and Logan has been through. Story is not bad, since Logan and his interactions with his crew does a good job at making the story engaging and the whole over the top spy nature of the plot, I do think the story could've fitted better within the grand context of the series like Dark Mirror did. The ending was also terrible. I am really supposed to believe that Trinidad would magically know where Logan and the gang are hiding out and then he just suddenly kills mostly everyone including Logan. It's contrived and forced considering there was barely any foreshadowing before this point in the story and if the game ended before the after credits ending, it would've been fine, but no, the game pulls a Yakuza 3 and has the whole "killing off" the main character out of nowhere thing like that game did. It really felt like Bend closed the series out of bad faith instead of it being a worthy send off for Logan. 

Now the gameplay and this is where I am more positive on, the game is basically more of Dark Mirror, and if you like that game, you'll like this game. I do think this gameplay is better than Dark Mirror overall, it gives you more options in combat like the human shield mechanic, underwater fighting which I thought was a really good edition to the series, and it makes you use the all in one sniper rifle more, even though I mainly used the explosive bullets more than anything else since electric rounds I used on occasion since now you don't need to use them to damage elite enemies and bosses anymore and gas rounds were useless since they were a stealth tactic and the stealth isn't that great. The combat is the the same as Dark Mirror so if you didn't like the fact that enemies didn't react to getting shot to anywhere other than the head, and how you need to constantly get headshots in order to avoid getting killed, then you are probably going to dislike the combat, I didn't mind since I find it cool that a shooter requires forces you to actively aim for the head, especially a hitscan shooter where you fight human enemies. Flak jacket enemies can be grating since they can take a number of shots to the head so it's best to be careful when they are around to counteract this, you get flak jackets and your health regens now so, even with your flak jacket gone, you aren't in an unwinnable state. I also wish the human shield mechanic got more use like on the levels of Dead to Rights 1 and Retribution and the Volition Punisher game since I only ever used it from time to time especially when enemies can tear your health to shreds when up close.

Syphon Filter is best described as an "interactive spy story" and the game does a good job at fuffling that fantasy. I have been kind of negative on the game, I do feel like the game is solid. I like the underwater gameplay and sections and wished there were more of them. I like that the underwater sections turns your hitscan guns into slow moving projectiles and now you have to check where the bullets will land. The submarine boss fight with Dane Bishop was well done since you have to take down enemies while timing the depth charges to damage the enemy sub and then open it's weak spot to do damage. The game has plenty of sections to break up it's more traditonal cover based shooting galleries like protecting and escorting people, looking around with your detective vision I mean EDSU goggles, shimming around on occasion, sometimes you need to wear heat vision goggles to see enemies through spoke, other times you need to do certain actions while on a timer, then you need to use your RTL to get across and attack enemies while you are using it, there is some stealth here and there and the stealth kills are skill pretty satisfying to pull off even if the mechanics aren't that great. The last episode combines all of the stuff I mentioned really well too, where you need to shut off valves, swim, kill enemies, use the RTL, then go on a timer to get to the other side of the floodgate. The game throws enough new at the player that it never really gets dull even if the cover shooting itself is just satisfactory. The game does a good job at making the player feel like they are in an interactive spy story without it feeling way too scripted and on rails. This is more on the action side of the espionage gameplay spectrum rather than Splinter Cell being more on the stealth side which is why I always found it silly that Syphon Filter was even considered a stealth game at all but that is a different topic.  

Overall, If you like Dark Mirror, you'll like this game, but if you dislike it, there is a good chance you will dislike this one too, and be warned, the after credits sequences ends the series on a really sour note. 

Forspoken Review

Forspoken is not the bad game it is hyped up to be but at the same time it isn't a very good game either, it's about as "middle of the road" as middle of the road can get. I had some fun with it which is really all I can hope for when playing any game and Forspoken wasn't a completely miserable experience at the same time, the whole game from a gameplay standpoint made me wish I was playing other games that did what this game does but better.

I'll start with the story and writing, while it's not the worst thing ever, at the same time, it isn't that great either. I kind of like what the story was going for with Frey basically a loner who doesn't really trust anyone but when going on this journey she discovers herself and learns to accept greater responsiblities and other people, it's a premise that has been over done but it can make for a decent story when done well and some aspects of the story I did like how Frey doesn't want to get involved but throughout the journey she slowly does, it's kind of realized even if it feels like the story is rushing through story beat after story beat with not a whole lot of down time in between which I get since it is a game. The dialogue isn't good but I don't think it's the worst thing ever, it's serviceable and I do like Cuff's voice acting and since I mentioned him, I might as well say what I disliked about the story, Cuff's transition to be a full blown villain felt completely out of nowhere and out of left field and felt like it was only there because the game needed a big, emotional and bombastic final boss to end the game on, I won't go too much into detail to prevent even more spoilers, it felt like the stars would just need to magically align for all the stuff in the game to transpire the way it does.

Now on to the gameplay and this is where I feel like the game "shines" and I only say so in a rather backhanded way. The best way of describing it is basically this game is to Infamous what Star Wars the Force Unleashed is to God of War. Every time I play Forspoken, I feel like I would rather play Infamous instead. I say this because both games have you use parkour, lets you dash, and gives you a wide array of superpowers to lay waste to your enemies with. The difference is with Infamous is that series takes place in a modern day setting where Forspoken takes place in a fantasy world. This difference is important because with Infamous, the parkour fits the tall buildings and lots of climbing you will be doing. The Infamous games takes place in an "urban" playground of sorts where you can jump from high buildings, glide, and quick ways of moving quick and fast darting around the world. Forspoken on the other hand takes place in a fantasy world where much of the terrain is flat with not many way to move quickly around the world outside of dashing, there is no buildings to speak of, so you will be holding down the circle button a lot with not many as many ways to move around quickly. You also get a stamina meter and take fall damage in Forspoken which is an odd adition for a game with superpowers since you are supposed to be leaping and jumping around constantly, it means players will be less experiemental.

Another issue is the combat, while combat in Forspoken isn't "bad", it's also inferior to Infamous, where the latter especially in the second game where you have a wide array of enemies to fight from close quarters enemies, long range enemies, bigger enemies, fast enemies and a mix of all the above, in Forspoken, all the enemies either come in close to attack you or or have bigger enemies that take a ton of damage to kill with the occasional enemies that throw really fast projectiles. The Infamous games also have a dedicated dodge button while Forspoken doesn't. Forspoken requires you to hold 2 buttons to dodge or use your unreliable dash which could potentially get enemies to land hits on you especially during bosses with fast moving projectiles. Forspoken doesn't have a dedicated melee attack button either and you need Silas' skill set to use which means I was using her moves for much of the game and only used Olas' because it did high damage. I am going to be honest and say if Forspoken didn't have it's customizable difficulty, I would've been unable to beat the game due to the above mentioned issues. You not only get to pick easy but lower the damage numbers enemies give you too. So thanks to this I was able to beat the game at all since the gameplay is way too clunkly and I didn't want to engage with the barren and empty open world and boring RPG systems in order to have fun with a game with elemental superpowers.

Overall, I don't dislike this game, I think it is alright but I can't help but think when playing this game I would rather play an open world Spider-Man, Infamous, Prototype, and Hulk Ultimate Destruction instead. This game is decent enough if you get it at sale price. 

In the Tanta We Trust Review:

I played the base game and got the DLC due to me doing some random impulse buying and after playing this DLC, my issues with the base game start to become more clear. I can't really call Forspoken a game I absolutely can't stand playing since I did get to the end, but at the same time, apart of can't help but feel a little down that a game with such impressive production values is wasted on a game that the game development team had no idea they want to make.

In my review of the base game, I said the game plays like Infamous minus everything that makes the Infamous series' action and traversal gameplay enjoyable and much of that can still apply.

But here is my big issue with Forspoken's combat, it can't decide whether it wants to be a shooter or a melee combat game. For example, all most of Frey's attacks are ranged projectiles but enemies often don't strike back at you using ranged projectiles of their own, most of the enemies attack at close range, or constantly love to come up close.

Then there is Frey's close range attacks which are really imprecise despite having a lock on and they lack impact or feedback to make them a worthwhile option and to top if all off there is no dedicated melee attack button so if you choose melee Frey will often flail her sword like mad with hits that don't make any kind of satisfying impact when they land. Compare that to Delsin Rowe's melee attacks or Cole MacGrath's in Infamous 2, enemies will get react and get staggered to the hits making it feel like you are actually damaging the enemies.

Then there is the lack of a dedicated dodge button, it sort of has one with the circle button but only if Frey is locked on and dodging works like a melee combat game and since her most effect attacks are ranged and melee lacks impact it's going to be a game of constantly dodge rolling. I really think an Infamous Second Son or Doom Eternal style dashing system could've worked here since dodging as it is is either going to lead into rolling or Frey using her usual parkour run as an evasion tactic which isn't precise since the camera tracks her running along with the movement of the enemies. The X button could've been a dedicated dodge button since the jump in Forspoken doesn't really do much of anything and most of your traversal is spent holding circle, and occasionally holding square to use the grapple hook, while we are it you could've made triangle the melee attack button, you could've easily had the context sensitive actions and melee be mapped to the same button, I'm not the biggest fan of this but it's better than what Forspoken comes up with.

This leads me to my final issue: the camera, I will admit that while I think dislike for the over the shoulder camera recently has been over done, I'm not sure if that along with the traditional fully controllable 3D camera melee combat game where the locks and follows the enemies movements makes for a consistently entertaining combat experience. This along with my previously mentioned issues just makes for one of the most confused combat systems I have ever played, it can't decide whether it wants to be something like Infamous or a melee combat action RPG like Kingdom Hearts.

The DLC doesn't provide much content either and much of it is spent on going the optional areas in Chapter 2, so if you beline it to the next story mission, there isn't much content here, all though I didn't mind since I was looking for a quick game to beat anyway. The enemies are also mostly very samey, you will mainly be fighting cultists, winged cultists and a dragon 3 times. Also, they tease a sequel that probably will not happen.

Overall, I have been complaing about this DLC a lot, but playing Forspoken's combat really was a fascinating experience in a backhanded way, I do find it's shortcomings to be fascinating, but you probably got the DLC already if you enjoyed the base game, I'd say if you have no problem with what have been saying this whole time, then get the DLC and play it. I did get some enjoyment from it and I wanted a short and quick game to beat and the game gave me just that.

Bayonetta 3 Review

Bayonetta 3 is a decent enough game overall, I don't think the game is amazing and I wasn't expecting much out of the game to begin with. I am not a big fan of "character action" games but I do get a decent amount of casual enjoyment out of them, the gameplay in these kinds of games I would probably start to dislike if I played more of them outside of the base campaign. While the gameplay is a solid time, the story however is just awful and the game really spends a lot of it's time trying to tell it. I'll start with that first.

I never really liked Bayonetta as a character all that much, she isn't terrible but I find her overly flamboyant way of expressing herself to be rather obnoxious and she rarely if ever takes anything seriously even Dante from it's brother series Devil May Cry took things more seriously than Bayonetta does or at least by comparison to her. What I dislike about the story is how long the cutscenes last and when my Switch controller kept disconnecting during these long cutscenes, this is what lead to me spending a decent amount of time complaining the story. The game's story throws a lot at you and it feels like you have to give a crap about Bayonetta lore and it's characters in order to be invested. You have Luka turning into a Hulk wannabe, Viola being Bayonetta's daughter and the torch being passed on to her, alternate universe Bayonettas, an end of the world plot involving the multiverse and it seems like this whole story is trying to do what stuff like Into the Spider-Verse and Turtles Forever tried to do with it being a high stakes story with lots of franchise fan service. Ratchet Rift Apart is another comparison to make as a gaming example. It's not because I am not a big fan of multiverse stories, or that I am a bigger fan of the above mentioned franchises' stories so I care about them more by default, it's that the game's story has this weirdly inconsistent tone where Viola has an alternate universe Bayonetta get killed in front of her and people are dying yet the game has so many weird and goofy antics going on at the same time. Bayonetta also acts just like her cocksure self like usual and it's hard to feel like anything is at stake. The story is bad and while I never liked Bayonetta's story, the writing is worse than usual and the game spends so much time telling a story the devs think will move people.

The gamplay is the same Bayonetta gameplay as 1 and 2, I am not familar with the "hidden depth" of the first game but I doubt even if I had the patience to learn it, I doubt my overall thoughts on the core gameplay of the series would change. The combat is enjoyable in the moment and it's fast paced and rewarding enough to feel involving with how satisfying it is to pull off Witch Time and timing your dodges but at the same time, this is basically what you do when playing these games, it's punch, punch, punch, dodge, rinse repeat, the games give you a lot of combos but the basic combo where you can mash the punch attack is the easiest one to do and does the most damage, so as a result I never want to do anything more intricate since they are harder to pull off and the basic punch combo is the path of least resistance when it comes to offensive and the key to combat is making sure you got Witch Time down, the combos are irrelevant, DMC3, 4 and 5 may have so many issues specific to them that prevent me from enjoying them a lot but Dante's moveset is more vast and gives you more to pull off and has more cool stuff to do by comparison to what Bayonetta can do. There are new stuff specific to this game like the monsters but I find them rather cumbersome to do unless if I want to quickly knock down a big enemy's health bar super quick, I like that the monsters specific to each level does give the levels some situational depth even if a lot these moments are one offs, I do appreciate them since it gives the levels more personality along with the added emphasis on platforming. Viola and Jeanne are okay, Jeanne's levels are so short that they don't get too grating and the shump style levels are decent fun. Viola is okay but her playstyle is just Bayonetta with parrying rather than Witch Time, I prefer her over someone like V. The game also feels a lot easier and harder at the same time to past games, easier in that you can carry so many healing items and harder in that enemies have bigger health bars and hit a lot harder, I never got a game over during the traditional fighting sections but I also feel like if the game never let me carry so many healing items, I'd be getting game overs left and right. I also think stages can drage on too, for example you fight a really challenging boss you think the level is wrapping but no, then you got to do a mini game and then the stage wraps up.

Overall, Bayo 3 is a decent game, and that's exactly what I got, as a casual fan of the series, it was what I expected it to be. For a game stuck in development as long as this, it could've been worse.