LEGO City Undercover Review

This game was mostly a solid time and I did like the fact that this was an original story with the Lego brand rather than telling abridged versions of classic kids and family adventure movies or having it be an "original" story but featuring already established characters like DC and Marvel superheroes, I was already starting to get sick of that formula especially after so many games that got made using the latter style.

Instead of doing that, Lego City Undercover is an original story that features parodies of many movies genres and franchises from crime, sci fi, spy thrillers and so on, even if you don't actively watch film there is at least one or two refrences you are bound to spot. I found this approach to writing to be a breath of fresh air after playing so many Lego games the past couple of years that are based on already established properties considering I never had the game's story spoiled for me, this means I can wonder what is going to happen next and how the story is going to play out rather already know beforehand what is going to happen. Unlike the Marvel and DC approach, I don't have to have to see characters in a Lego game that have already been reimagined so many times in not just video games but other media too.

The story itself is decent if nothing special, the well acted and directed voice performances carries much of the story. The characters outside of Natalia are entertaining and fun to listen to as well. A big issue I have and this is a big issue I have with the game in general is just how long it is and as a result the story can feel bloated.

For example, a good amount of the game is spent doing the Grand Theft Auto thing of doing tasks for other people, and that already derails the whole finding Rex story, that and the backstory with Chase and Rex is never really explored either. Then there is a twist late in the game, that undermines Rex as a character and it makes me wonder why they made him look like the big bad the whole time.

The story is better written than TT's previous efforts like Lego Batman 2 but it could've been better paced.

The gameplay however is pretty good stuff, the open world I am not big on, but I do like unlike other Lego games that attempted the concept, there is a better attempt at incorporating it into the overall gameplay, for example there are car chases(with fail states in a Lego game), on foot chases, climbing up buildings to progress the story or just take pictures or listen in on conversations, as well as a parkour system.

The level design outside of the open world however is where the game shines, this is easily in terms of moment to moment gameplay the best Lego game, the level design 95% of the time where a joy to explore and solve puzzles in, there was rarely if ever a moment where I wanted to look up a guide since everything was laid out in a well structured way and these are original levels, not just Lego recreations of movie locations.

What makes the level design shine is the costume system and this is something you can say is lifted straight from the Lego Batman games, the way Undercover has the player constantly switch between costumes every 1-2 minutes makes the game very stimulating to play for me, you will go from using a grapple hook, to opening doors with a crowbar, using dynamite, destroying objects with a pick axe, gliding with a chicken, using a jetpack and so on.

In Lego City Undercover, you will cycling through your costumes so much that, it makes playing the moment to moment Lego gameplay an active game of solving mini puzzles within a larger puzzle.

Combat is also decent for a Lego game, very Batman Arkham inspired and it is more visually stimulating than your average Lego game combat.

However what lets the game down? It's just way too long, while the moment to moment gameplay of easy combat and easy puzzles is solid, the fact that the game never throws anything new outside of new costumes does make the game get stale at times. The costumes just adds new contextual actions and not much else and combat never throws in more than 2 enemy types and the fact that the game is longer than 8 hours does kind of make the game feel a monotonous, not overwhelminging but I did start to feel it the more I went on. 

There are some other issues like the buggy and finicky platforming which makes it hard to tell what is or isn't an accurate jump, the parkour heavy missions have some weirdly inconsistent button timings that feels like I got to be lucky to get down. They don't last long enough to be infuriating.

The fire dosing can be pretty inconsistent, sometimes I would hold the button nearby fire and they would be put out and other times they don't.

Overall, Lego City Undercover is a solid game and I had a good time after playing so many Lego games these past few years, all though I am not so sure I want to play anymore after this.

Trepang2 Review

I have been a fan of games like FEAR, Extraction Point and even it's more derided sequels 2 and 3 for a while now, the first game and Extraction Point are two titles I love coming back to. In fact, FEAR 1 is one of my most replayed games of all time due to how much it gets right with it's combat. Unfortunately, the series has been dead and dromant for some time and even if the series were to somehow come back, they'd probably remake the games or reboot the series but they haven't done either of those at least not yet.  

Enter Trepang2, a game that very much wants to be a spirtual indie game to the FEAR series, considering the amount of indie games revisiting ideas old games have done in the past and the amount of shooters that have been inspired by what Doom and Quake have done, it seemed like it was only a matter of time before FEAR would get it's turn in the spot light. 

I played the game mostly on the Hard difficulty, when the game was the most like FEAR where you are fighting soldiers and infantry, when the game would have you not do that, I lowered it to Easy or Normal to get past those parts faster. 

Introductions out of the way, how does Trepang2 fare? I'd say it most fares really well and is mostly a great time, it has some weird quirks about it here and there but let's start with the good. 

The good is that everything the FEAR series especially 1 and Extraction Point do well are done well here. The amazing game feel, polish and good weapons are all done well here, if the devs wanted to nail that aspect of FEAR's gameplay, then they mostly succeeded. 

Weapons tear apart enemies with ease especially when using the slo mo up close and it creates the power fantasy of being an action movie protagonist really well. 

It has the slo mo and the weapons feel down but if the game only does those two things, why don't I simpily just play FEAR instead? Well, Trepang2 has a number of things both good and bad that makes it a different enough game from FEAR. 

Let's start off with the mechanics or just the sheer number of abilities that the player can do in Trepang2, you can do slo mo, melee attacks and throwable weapons of course, but you also get the ability to cloak like in the Crysis games, human shield like in the Dead to Right series and some Volition titles like Saints Row and the Punisher, you can throw the human shield with a grenade like in later Gears of War games as well as sliding like in Vanquish, and the ability to dual wield like in Halo 2 and 3 and Timesplitters. 

Sure all of these said mechanics and moves have all been done individually in other games, but I have never played a hitscan shooter especially where all these mechanics are avaliable to use at once. It's why I played the game on Hard mode at all since I want to be pushed into using all of these moves at least once or twice in every battle and the game on Hard does indeed make me do that.

There is something really great about a game that constantly make me do momennt to moment decesions when playing. For example, when you are fighting out in the open you can do the FEAR tactics of mowing down 2-3 enemies while in slo mo, throwing a grenade then maybe doing a melee attack on an enemy. 

You can also slide into enemies with shields and kill them while they are down, use the cloaking and stealth mechanics, to relocate yourself and either throw a grenade, kill enemies in slo mo or my favorite grab them as a hostage and then use slo mo to get some kills. The stamina meter also means you won't constantly be sprinting and then spamming the slide button to constantly get enemies flying. 

You can also use slo mo and cloaking at the same time to grab enemies while in front and then try to get kills when grabbed to build your slo mo meter up or you can throw them while their grenade is activated and you can get a kill or two. 

As far as a hitscan shooter with mechanical depth is concerned, this is one of if not the best title you can find right now. 

The level design also does a good job at keeping up the FEAR tradition of having large wide open arena fights with locations also being "realistic". They are large and open for the the player to flank, and the enemies to move around and get the drop on the player too. 

The game's campaign also mostly checkpoints really well to the point where the reason why I was able to do Hard mode was because I didn't have to repeat lots of content. 

Another positive is the health system, and this might be an improvement over FEAR's. Health packs are littered everywhere and instead of storing health, they are items you pick up during battle and enemies can drop either that or armor when killed making the player more proactive during fights instead of just checking if the player has medkits left and activating a button when on a killing spree and low on health, I do like FEAR's system, but I do think Trepang2's keeps you in the action more since you aren't looking down at your health bar as much on a first time through. 

I also like how late game, the game pulls a Call of Duty Advanced Warfare with the player loseing one of his hands and as a result you have to deal with high recoil when firing guns while also losing access to moves like throwables and human shield, its a nice change up to the game and is one of the more positive examples of Trepang2 throwing something new in it's campaign. 

That now lets me transition to the negative aspects of the game. While the game is very good, there are a number of negatives that hamper the experience, the biggest being the first half of the campaign. 

While the 2nd half is great and generally has the humannoid solider fighting, the first half is rather questionable. The Pandora Insitute is mostly a good level but then the game shoves in the player fighting acid zombies and a humannoid bat. 

Considering Trepang2 and by extension FEAR is at it's best with the humanoid solider fighting, why would I want to fight enemies where over half my moveset and options are reduced? I like Trepang2 for it's wide open arenas, and fighting enemies who are smart enough to make me use all my avaliable mechanics, these enemies belong in a completely different game. The humanoid bat also just seems out of place in a game that I am playing for the over top "gun fu" mechanics. 

Jorvik Castle is better but it also has questionable enemies like suicide bombers and for a game inspired by FEAR, why would you have enemies not focused on self preservations, it's like having the headless kamikazes from Serious Sam in FEAR, they belong in SS because the latter is about shooting hundreds of enemies sprinting at you while showing no concern for themselves, in FEAR, what made the AI in that game stand out is how enemies are constantly retreating and flanking you, so having this enemy in a game styled after FEAR is rather questionable. 

Fighting a big monster where you just slide away and your enemy being the level geometry was also a low point of the game since it feels like a different game, then "killing enemies to build up slo mo bar or getting the drop on enemies". 

What's even stranger is that neither of the two quirky design choices appear in the latter half of the campaign so it was like the devs were getting experimental just for them to realize it was all a waste of time and resources. 

It also makes me realize that FEAR was truly a one of a kid game where Monolith Productions were so confident in their combat mechanics that they made the player do it for 7 hours instead of adding in different enemies and attempts at situational depth that could've ruined the game. 

The bosses are also not very good but that is to be espected, the final boss is basically a Marauder battle from Doom Eternal with a Terminator and Predator lovechild, this one was okay but nothing special, but the boss fight with the brain was pretty bad since it does the boss battle sin of having the wave of enemies being the threatning aspect instead of the boss himself. 

Dual wielding two sub machine guns have super high recoil, the weapons in the game outside of the shotgun do in general, but with the smgs it was ammo draining and the recoil made it hard to aim. I got eventually got used to the recoil but not for dual wielding smgs. 

Final issue is that the game can have it's buggy moments, for example, I saw an enemy corpse heavily clipping through the floor, I also clipped through the world during one level, I also had the game crash on me too all though it only happened once. 

Overall, if you like games like FEAR and Max Payne and are missing a highly polished adventure in the style of them, then look no furthur than Trepang2, however the game does have it's strange quirks about it about that prevent it from consistently great, minus the questionable first half of the game, there is some great shooting and mechanical depth to be found. 

Bladerkisser Review:

This DLC while not terrible is just incredibly disappointing. I feel like I'm soft on this because I like Trepang2's base game and combat mechanics a lot more than because this DLC provided substantial content. Compared to Warhammer 40K Boltgun's Forces of Corruption DLC which added 3 hours of gameplay for about $10, Bladekisser only provides slightly over an hour and a half worth of content and slightly maybe longer depending on what difficulty you play on.

The best way of describing Bladekisser that's basically an add on pack with 2 new levels and some new weapons.

New levels are kind of a mixed bag, for one there is no overarching plot with them and it's basically just standalone episodic stories. TF63 is kind of on the forgettable side providing the same amount of gameplay that you would find in the base game. Omega Facility fares better since you have an okay submarine boss and the level design is more creative with different parts of the facility you will fight enemies on, there is one standout section towards the end where you fight enemies with the same moves as the player, but these encounters are over pretty quickly and its at the very end of the level. The submarine boss is more tolerable than the bosses in the main game since it autosaves on every phase and it has enemies waves to break up the monotony of shooting the sub while running away from missiles. There is a super strange first person platforming section while jumping on the debris of the submarine you defeat, you can't get a game over here which is good since it would make this section a weird addition otherwise.

The new weapons aren't particularly that interesting either, I do admittedly like the sword since along with the invisiblity cloak kind of gives the player a ninja like power fantasy of sneaking up and surprising enemies up close with an upclose slice. I do like how you can use hostages while using the sword too which gives the weapon more use. The revolver was borderline useless since trying to fire with it for more than 2 consecutive shots mean the player character would rapid fire like in a cowboy movie which means ammo will be chewed through and the ammo pool this weapon has is pretty small to begin with on top of the weapon being super inaccuarate. The rest of the weapons I'm not sure if exclusive to this DLC or were in the main game since none of them made much of an impression on me.

Overall, this DLC I expected more out of since Forces of Corruption came out in the same month and released at the same price. I did at the very least enjoy what was here considering I like Trepang2 but I really do wish there was more on offer, maybe more is coming but I wanted this to be to Trepang2 what FEAR Extraction Point was to the base FEAR game.

Watch Dogs 2 Review

Watch Dogs 2 is a game I tried to get into twice but never really could. I tried to play it two times in the past and both times I could not get into it. After playing the first Watch Dogs again for the first time in almost a decade, I decided to give 2 one final chance and while I don't think WD2 is "bad", I also never got the belief that it was better than the first game even now, while I don't think WD1 is an amazing game, it always felt like Grand Theft Auto if it had better mechanics, less scripted mission design and having a protagonist who didn't feel like a glorified errand boy. Watch Dogs 2 on the other hand tries to be a combination of Splinter Cell Blacklist, Deus Ex Human Revolution and Metal Gear Solid 5 all while just so happening to feature driving. While that might sound good on paper since I do enjoy all 3 of the above mentioned games, WD2 in terms of gameplay and mechanics is inferior to all 3. 

Despite me saying this, I'll give it credit for being an open world "crime sandbox" something the above mentioned games are not, it has far more ways of approaching and completing missions than something like the Grand Theft Auto series does and is less scripted and cinematic compared to the later Saints Row games. 

I like all this on paper, but the execution is lacking. 

Before I go more in detail on this, I will talk about the aspect of WD2 that is widely considered inferior to the first game and that is the story. I enjoyed the story to the first Watch Dogs, while it did have some issues, it was a solid and enjoyable story for the kind of game it was. WD2 on the other hand is where Ubisoft decided to listen to the people deriding the first game's story at the time where it "took itself too seriously" and had a "dull main character" and decided it into some weird and awkard dystopian satire. 

The writing is full of forced pop culture refrences, terrible attempts at trying to be "hip" with the younger people of modern times, and just has the forced modern day internet style of "humor" I have come to dislike. If Watch Dogs 1 was Breaking Bad but with a vigilante rather than a drug lord, Watch Dogs 2 wants to be the like the 90s movie "Hackers". 

That isn't a bad thing on it's own, I haven't watched Hackers in years but so much of the writing in WD2 is incredibly "tryhard". The game's opening already has a forced Mission Impossible refrence and it never lets up there. There is a conversation later in the game where Marcus and Wrench have a conversation about who'd win against Aliens and Predator and the whole thing was forced since it was just a pop culture refrence for the sake of having one. 

The character interactions just want the viewer to think these kids of today are relatable and zany when they just come off as obnoxious kids a lot of the time. The writing and tone never takes itself seriously enough even though the subject matter demands for everything to be taken seriously. 

The plot also has 3 major problems. The first being the poorly written main villain, Dusan, the second being a returning character Rayman Kenny given nothing to do and the third being how the plot turns into Grand Theft Auto 5 where around quarter into the story, the plot derails and then turns into a series of sub plots with barely much connecting everything. 

Dusan is a bad villain, he makes Damien Brenks look amazinginly written, while I don't think the latter is the worst villain ever and had potential, the former meets up with Marcus in the begginning while he was drunk and then turns out of nowhere to be the big bad of the game. 

Outside of derailing DeadSec one time, he never does a whole lot of bad things to the heroes outside of maybe antagonizing Wrench which doesn't hant him later. He mostly just acts smug and gets annoyed while never doing any major damage of his own. 

Raymond Kenny returns in WD2 and once he joins Marcus and his crew, he barely has any agency of his own or any geniune goals of his own compare that to WD1 where Aiden and Clara had to convince him to join them. Once you beat the hackers challenge, Raymond becomes a slave with not much to do on his end much like many of the side characters on Ethan Hunt's team in the Mission Impossible movies. He has some tension with Sitara but that only has two secnes and is dropped pretty fast. 

Then there is there the plot which goes into a series of loosely connected sub plots, there is one particular offender where Haratio gets killed by a Mexican gang out of nowhere with no build up and his death is just anticlimatic. You could cut Haratio out of the game and you'd get the same narrative. 

Not big on the story in WD2 at all, the voice acting and direction was the only reason I paid attention to the story at all even if the actors was given weak material. 

Now after how much I dislike the story of WD2, the gameplay is...okay. All though I do not like it as much as the first WD. 

Two issues I had right away was the lack of focus mode and the lack of car chases in the main missions. 

Focus mode's omission was strange since while I did discover after beating it that WD1's combat had a high skill ceiling even though I played it as a cover based shooter. It did give you more options in  combat and also getting headshots in slo mo never got old since WD2 gives you an option to run and gun it makes the combat feel even more one note without it. Also, since WD2 wants to be MGS5 really badly and WD1 had a system where you can use focus during stealth to prevent a possible alert if the enemy's detection bar wasn't filled up, the lack of WD2's focus or reflex mode stand in is even more jarring, I always did like Max Payne 3's last man standing mechanic on paper since it gives the player a few seconds to correct a mistake before seeing a game over screen and not seeing it improved was a shame. 

The second issue I have is the lack of car chases in the main missions considering this game has the developers of Driver San Franciso doing the driving physics, it's even more bizarre that there is rarely if ever any moment in the main story where there will be car chases, it happens maybe less than 5 times. I always liked the idea car chases in games since it's like living out those movie power fantasies of being in a cool action movie chase and while WD1 could maybe considered too easy since you can netrualize cars with a press of a button and the timing was far too generous but it did create a nice sense of spectacle. WD2 doesn't really improve on this and I also find it a shame. 

Since WD2 removes two aspects that made WD1 a solid, "do four things decently enough" kind of game. The thing with WD2 that I mentioned earlier is that it is basically a "play your way" style of action game like Deus Ex Human Revolution, Splinter Cell Blacklist and MGS5. 

Like Deus Ex Human Revolution, the game is heavily biased and wants you to play it stealth really badly since Marcus' characterization is that he's a young trickster who only uses violence when he has to and that is when he has the element of surprise. There is many ways for Marcus to deal with enemies non lethally and you could complete objectives using gadgets. 

It's like MGS5 in that many of the missions revolve around Marcus infiltrating a "camp" full of enemies, doing an objective then exfiltrating. To WD2's credit over MGS5, there is far more variety in the kind of "small base infiltrate and then exfiltrate" then there is in MGS5. 

This is also combined with Splinter Cell Blacklist's gadgets like a portable remote control helicoptor, it's cover system and it's quick tap of the action button while from behind to do a stealth takedown as well as it's detection arrows. 

This all sounds like a solid game on paper even if it could suffer from the problem MGS5 had which was being way too long and one note with the lack of situational depth but this can apply to many open world games. The game also gives you more depth on completing missions than GTA and Saints Row do. 

What is the thing that lets the game down so much for me? That is the enemy AI. Enemies notice you way too fast and the way they can spot you can be really inconsistent. They can see me above their line of sight one minute, they can see me from far away, and to top it all off, if you knock out a guard a couple of seconds after they spot you, the whole base will be on alert and everyone will know where you are. It's incredible how Splinter Cell Blacklist which came out 3 years prior managed to avoid AI like this. On top of this, Blacklist had a last known position system which also makes it easier to tell where I should relocate after being seen. 

As a result, what should've been me feeling a cool stealthy trickster who occasionally gets caught to, play stealthy for 2 minutes then get caught and then shoot everyone in sight until I kill enough people to the point where I can have the guards give up on their search for me. Most of my time WD2 experience was this. So what should've been solid stealth adventure turned into an okay at best shooter. 

Also why is there no crouch button still? I want to maintain stealth after being seen or when caught have me be harder to hit by enemies. 

After all this, what does WD2 improve over the original? The hacking puzzles are slightly better now that you have to look around the environment as well solve the puzzle even if this improvement is one note since it's the same style of puzzle for the whole game with the exception of a bomb defusal. The reputation system is gone which is good since it was a gimmick in WD1. 

One final compliant is that while Watch Dogs 1 like I said before never excelled at once aspect since it did so many gameplay ideas like driving, stealth, shooting, puzzles. WD1 has a much more memorable final mission than 2 does. In WD1, you had to deal with the enemy also having ctOS and you didn't have access to it for a while something the player was accustomed to using and you had to deal with environmental obstacles while also dealing with the cops as you had to hack 3 terminals in order to regain control. It felt like a great way of putting the game design on it's head and it felt like a nice accumulation of everything that came before. 

What does WD2 do? Just the same hacking puzzles, a one note shootout, and the same guard evasions you've doing for 95% of the game. It's as underwhelming as the rest of the game, nothing really changes or gets put on it's head, it's the same gameplay that was there since the first few hours. 

Overall, while I don't think Watch Dogs 2 is a bad game, I also don't think it's the "massive improvement" over the first game that many hype it up as. It tries to be more of an open world stealth adventure instead of "vigilante hacker" Grand Theft Auto with better mechanics. The bad AI is what holds WD2 back for me, if this aspect was improved I'd be much kinder on it. I can see why dropped the game twice in the past and while apart of me is glad I finally finished, I can't picture myself playing it again. 

Brothers in Arms: Hell's Highway Review

This is going to be a weird one. I never played any of the previous Brothers in Arms games and the two reasons why I played this was because it was a game I had on PS3 for the longest time and I recently got into more slower paced "tactical" style of shooters.

I do think Hell's Highway is a solid game, and it does a do a solid job at standing out from other WW2 games like Medal of Honor and Call of Duty. However compared to more "modern day" tactical shooters like Rainbow 6 Vegas and the SOCOM games, I do feel like Hell's Highway does come up pretty short.

I'll start by talking about the story first and this is where playing Hell's Highway first might've been a mistake. The game pretty much expects you from the offset to know what happened in the first two BiA games and the recap that shows up at the start does a poor job at filling me in on what happpened previously.

The best way of describing Hell's Highway is that what if you were watching the latest season of an ongoing TV show and you didn't watch the previous seasons? That's what it basically is. There's lots of refrences to past events I had no idea what the game was even alluding to, the awkward facial animations didn't do the greatest of job of selling me on the material either. I was zoning out during many of the cutscenes because I just had no idea what the characters were even reffering to half the time and what the story was building up towards.

Maybe I should've played Road to Hill 30 and Earned in Blood but the fact that Hell's Highway also ended on a cliffhanger to this day that never got resolved isn't encouraging me to want to do so.

The gameplay however is solid but at the same time can be pretty one note. I do like how the game does a solid job at standing out from other cover based shooters at the time with the supression system, unlike other tactical shootes I played where it's about dealing with the enemies at long range and it's best to avoid close quarters combat, BiA is a game where the player places his squad at various points on the map and have them be a distraction while the player sneaks around or tries to distract enemies' long enough to get a headshot.

Speaking of headshots, I love the slo mo cam of the occasional headshots I get, it never happens often enough to get irritating and it happens enough times to the point where it can still be surprising.

The level design is solid and does a decent job at striking a line between Medal of Honor's level exploration and Call of Duty's overly scripted nature. There is a map and objectives but the levels are linear and the objectives you will do in a certain order but unlike say CoD, the gameplay never feels like the game is moving when you do so there is still a sense of level progression and not a linear set of explosions and cutscenes. Hell's Highway is still scripted to varying degrees but the scripted moments are primarily cutscenes. There are some scripted gameplay sections like one sniping section where you are escourting a kid to safety and the tank levels which are awful but other than that, the game is priamarily spent in slow paced tactical cover shooting.

There is also a nice standout mission where you are in an abandoned and creepy hospitle, the level loses it's impact since you were here earlier in the prologue but at the same time, the sections before the prologue parts do a good job at being creepy since ambience and lighting creates a rather unsettling atmosphere.

Here are some negatives, the first being the aforementioned tank sections which are awful and do a terrible job at making the player feel empowered. First, there are two health bars, one for the character and the armor, the former is where enemies can kill you with gunfire with ease and the second is where the tank shells and missiles will chip away at health and then slowly get you killed. A lot of these sections are trial and error at best.

An issue that I also had and this might be exclusive to the PS3 version that the framerate is awful. Borderline unplayable at times, and if the game didn't checkpoint as well as it did, these parts where the framerate was below 30 fps would've made me quit the game, but I was patient and stuck through it because of the checkpointing.

The objectives are also not as varied as something like Rainbow 6 Vegas and SOCOM games are so many of them in the former consist of "clear x area", "clear x amount of flak 88s", "kill x amount of tanks". It can get rather monotonous at times and while the slow paced and low health is tense, so much of the game consists of the player doing the same objectives, the short length of the game however prevents the game from being a super big slog.

Overall, Brothers in Arms Hell's Highway is a solid WW2 game and tactical shooter, just be sure to play the previous games and play on PC before jumping into this one. It definately has it's own unique identity and it's a shame the series is pretty much dormant now.

Hyrule Warriors Review

The Legend of the Zelda is a series I never really liked or ever got the hype for, I always try to play a Zelda game and start getting my expectations way too high that the games are going to be the epic masterpieces the gaming community hypes them up as and that never happens. I randomly bought Hyrule Warriors because I thought maybe the change to the musou style of game and it's style of gameplay and combat I prefer over the mainline Zelda series and plus it was a random game I wanted to play on the Switch and in spite of all this what did I think of the game?

I kind of enjoyed it and had more fun with it than I thought I was going to but it's nothing special which is fine, the fact that I even got to the end and even got some enjoyment out of a Zelda game and a musou game which the latter I get some casual enjoyment out of is impressive enough as is. My big gripe and prevents me from saying with a straight face that I like it without saying "but" is that I really think the game should've ended after Cia was defeated, more on that later.

For a guy who isn't very familar with musou games and his only experience with the genre thus far is One Piece Pirate Warriors 4, I had some fun with this game for primarily three reasons, the first is that the game checkpoints during the main missions and the checkpoints are frequent enough to avoid having me get frustrated and quit the game, the story while Zelda's story is nothing special, it gave better contextualization for the gameplay and didn't expect me to know beforehand what was going on like Pirate Warriors 4, and the Twilight Princess art style I really like and prefer by a large country mile over One Piece's.

Comprisons aside while the musou style of game is infamous for being button mashy and pressing x to win and while that is kind of true, I did like the Zelda shake ups to the formula did kind of help at breaking things up at least for up to when Cia is defeated. I like how certain enemies can't be killed by sword and you need to switch to bombs for eye statues, arrows for the poisonous plants, and hookshot for the dragons.

The bosses in general can't be beaten through conventional sword attacks and require item use in order for them to be beaten which somewhat helps at making combat less stale as well as the combat while simple does a good job at making the game feel like an okay power fantasy of killing horders of enemies.

What also helps with the game is that all the enemies have stamina bars of sorts where you can perform a critical attack to do massive damage to them which helps gives the combat be a little more dynamic than "press x to win".

However with all that said there are number of issues I have, one being the camera which ranges from, "serviceable" to "where the hell am I attacking?" So many times the camera gives an okay view on the action where I have a solid view of where I am in relation to the enemies then at other times in closed spaces the camera will have a hard time keeping up with the action or if I am striking at areas behind me the camera, the camera really feels like it doesn't do the best job at keeping up with the active inputs I am doing.

Another issue is that, the game's difficulty rarely if ever comes from your HP reaching zero, it comes from how inept your allies are. So many of the game overs I got was because my allies' HP was zero and I didn't come fast enough in time to refill their health when they were at critical. I don't so much feel like my weaknesses come from skill, they come from me babysitting inept friendly AI. 95% of all the fail states I got were because my allies' health was at critical and since there is no voice acting in the game and HW you got to pay attention to the map screen at all times in order to get anywhere, this got annoying. If the game didn't checkpoint as well as it did, I would've given up on HW because of this issue alone.

Final issue is that I wish the game just ended a couple levels earlier after Cia was beaten. The levels with Ganon felt dull and padded the game length since the game is pulling a Mortal Kombat 11 Aftermath and you are playing as the villains undoing what the heroes did earlier in the game, this would've been fine as say maybe a DLC chapter but Cia's defeat geniunely felt like the story wrapped up but instead it still kept going plus there is not enough new thrown at you except for maybe some generic boss rushes to really justifying adding more content and the bosses that changes up the pace in an interesting way is the same bosses fought earlier in the game and how did Ganon get access to all the same items Link had? This whole section soured my opinion on the game and if they were gone I would geniunely reccomend the title.

Overall, coming from someone who never liked the Zelda series and someone who isn't passionate about musou games, I was surprised to get some enjoyment out of Hyrule Warriors, the game isn't great but my expectations were low.

Immortals of Aveum Review

The best way of describing Immortals of Aveum is that it's to New Doom what Heretic was to old Doom.

It's crazy how a traditional single player FPS game that is not an indie game but instead a AAA game can even come out in today's gaming industry. While Immortals has some issues, it's a blast to play and worth trying out to people enjoy arena horde shooting of FPS games like New Doom, Serious Sam and Painkiller.

I'll start with the story and while it isn't anything to write home about especially with the amount of third person non skippable cutscenes there are, it's decent overall. The protagonist and by extension the dialogue can be a little too joke heavy and quippy for my tastes, I don't think it gets super obnoxious especially the furthur you get into the game. The characters and their interactions did start to slowly grow on me the more the story went on. I also think the voice acting and direction as well as the solid character animations do a good job at selling me on the material. Rook and Thaddeus are my favorite and the most well acted characters in the story since they play off the other characters pretty well. The protagonist Jak and Devyn could get on the nerves of some but I found them tolerable enough mainly because while they still get quippy, they do slowly start to get more serious.

I do think the setting and the world building itself is quite interesting since I am coming to enjoy fantasy stories now. The whole concept of using magic while also damaging the world around them and I have a soft spot for stories that take place during a war and to Immortals' credit, the story and characters especially for a "first" entry in a series does have a lot more going on than say something like the first Halo and Gears of War's stories do since you learn more about the story and world in Immortals than you ever do than in above mentioned games.

Some of the twists and turns I saw coming and the writers could've done a much better job at misdirecting me but overall the story is decent especially for that in a shooter.

The gameplay however is where Immortals shines and the best way of describing it is that what if New Doom, Infamous, and Heretic all had a had a baby, you'd get Immortals of Aveum.

You have the immense enemy waves, and platforming of something like Doom Eternal, flashy and over the top action and particle effects as well as special moves you can perform like in Infamous Second Son and the fantasy setting and have real world gun analogs for magic spells like in Heretic and Infamous.

The spells you get all feel satisfying and powerful to use and they do a good job at giving a great feedback for the carnage the player will be doing in battle.

You will also be actively switching between your sniper, shotgun and smg powers actively like you are switching weapons actively in Doom Eternal but not nearly as much as the latter game since Immortals isn't as strict on which spell/weapon is weak to which enemy like Eternal is. You still need to use certain powers a lot like shield, blink and the 3 base powers and the tremors attack, all though there is a lot of useless ones like the special attacks outside of earthquake tremors to destroy shields, shield and occasionally blink will get some use but other powers like lash during combat, the slo down power, and the red laser barely get enough use, and I wonder if this would fixed on hard mode but the game has no chapter select or cutscene skip as of now so me going back is unlikely.

When it comes to moment to moment FPS combat Immortals gets it down really well and is worth playing for that alone despite some issues. I did wish there was a radial menu on consoles to switch between the 3 powers.

The game also has platforming and puzzles and to the game's credit is handled decently, never gets in the way and does a good job at breaking up the pace plus it gives abilites that are useless in combat like lash and slow down some geniune use. I also like how this is one of the few FPS games where you have a gliding power and the game makes some solid use out of it with some decent platforming challenges. They aren't remarkable since there isn't much platforming along with combat or moments where you have to handle two obsticles at once. It's generally, "here's a platforming level and then here is an action level". 

The game does reuse assets a lot, you will be going through the same levels, fighting the same enemies and bosses many times and it can add to the repetition but the combat and moment to moment gameplay was so enjoyable that I can look past this.

Another questionable issue is the RPG additions but I mostly looked past this since I always got enough loot to get high powered attacks and get different and more interesting attacks, questionable since I prefer FPS games without them but nothing intrusive.

Overall, Immortals is easily one of if not the most underrated games of the year and is highly worth checking out if you want a AAA FPS game that is not an indie game. This is quality FPS combat.

Assassin's Creed Mirage Review and Why the Series stopped appealing to me

Alright, this review is going to be a weird one because it's going to be that and by extension an opinion piece on the series of Assassin's Creed, this might come off as jumbled and messy but with the release of this game and how it was my first mainline AC game since Unity while also never touching the RPG games, I am going to both make a review of AC Mirage while also at the same time describing why AC as a franchise in premise, story and gameplay is something that may have sounded appealing on paper, but when put into practice, everything about it is just silly and hard to take seriously when I start thinking about these games for more than anything more than the "junk food" power fantasy they provide. It won't be all negative in this review and I did get some enjoyment out of the game but overall, throughout my entire playthrough of Mirage I was just saying to myself, "do I even find this series unappealing no matter what it does?" 

I'll start with the story of AC Mirage and by extension the series as a whole. Mirage's story on it's own isn't particularly good, the first few hours were decent stuff but the more it went on the more unengaged I was. Basim and Nehal started off as characters who were moderately engaging at first with decent  character interactions in spite of the not so good character designs and stifly animated cutscenes which is something even I'll admit the franchise in its previous outings did manage do a better job with. 

After the opening few hours and when Basim becomes an assassin however, the story just turns into what Middle Earth Shadow of War did and it has a bunch of episodic "standalone" stories with barely any bearing on the overarching plot at large. The game very much does take inspiration from the first Assassin's Creed in terms of narrative and structure and the latter is one of the more enjoyable stories in the series for me since even if it did start off in a questionable way and introduced a mythos I can never get invested in now but more on that later. AC1 had a sense of an overarching mystery and how each target Altair killed slowly revealed more pieces of the puzzle while Altair was questioning himself about his master's teaching and how he shouldn't view things in black and white. 

Mirage doesn't really have this, it's Basim going on a bunch of assassin missions with a loosely connected plot binding everything. All the assassination missions and investigations you go doesn't reveal on overarching mystery since most of the important things happen at the start of the story and at around the end with middle portions being fluff. The ending twist is nonsensical and even stories like Call of Duty Black Ops doing a better job with the whole, "the person helping you the whole time was never there twist" since that game had some aura of foreshadowing of leading up to it since your NPCs in Black Ops never noticed Reznov being there.

Then there is the fact that I am not even sure what the series' story is even about anymore or what genre it even is. I don't recall there being supernatural elements in the older games and could've sworn it was sci fi but no there is supernatural elements now. 

Since I am talking about AC's story I might as well talk about why the story is so unappealing to me now. I am not one of those people who think a story needs to be "deep" or have immense theme exploration to be good and I do even enjoy some of the stories in the franchise as standalone stories not part of a bigger narrative like AC1, 3 and 4. 

At the same time, everything about the whole series' story is just so nonsensical. Why would a cult war throughout history go on for so long all the way to modern day? Why would every famous historical figure and group get involved in this crazy cult war? Why are the Templars so overpowered and start off every game in control of all of the world's governments? Why do the Assassins defeat the Templars in every game just for every defeat to be a mild and inconsequential setback in the grand scheme of things? Why didn't Ezio with the amount of times he defeated the Templars and with how inept they were in his time didn't just singlehandledly end the war? Why do the assassins constantly promote freedom yet they are in nothing more than a cult group who have their own rules and "creed". 

Then there is the fact that even stories like Star Wars with the whole cult war between the Jedi and Sith have more going on. In Star Wars even with it's messy canon, the Jedi and Sith do one up each other. In Assassin's Creed? It's always, Assassins are on the losing side promoting freedom then someone(the player character) becomes apart of the order and then they slowly thin out the Templar ranks just for the defeat of the main villain in that timeline to not mean anything in the long run. 

The modern day story seems to be in limbo with no ending in sight ever since AC3 and it makes me wonder if Ubisoft has any clue on what story they want to tell here. It seems to be a period piece story with sci fi elements but Mirage introduces the supernatural while also being a prequel. I am just left confused on what the series was ever trying to do if it ever had an idea on what it was. 

Now, the gameplay, and this is going to be the part where I do in fact praise the game. AC Mirage from a stealth mechanics point of view is the most competent AC game ever made. You have got the bare minimum when it comes to stealth mechanics, something previous games in the series lacked. There is crouching, last known position, whistle guards over to you, being able to carry bodies while crouched, and unlike Unity, a detection system that is forgiving making stealth gameplay while achieving the bare minimum does a decent enough job at capturing the power fantasy of being a predator. The lack of a dedicated cover button is questionable but 90% of the time the corner cover kills work as intended which is why I didn't mind the lack of one. 

Double assassinations were quite finicky and would work and at other times they don't, the game in general has an unpolished nature to it, the double assassinations is one of them but also the parkour system while feeling "okay" just never feels as precise as I want it to. This is an issue the series always had where I want to do one thing and the parkour system had no idea the direct inputs I want to make. If you want to move diagonally, the system will just have no idea which area I want to jump in. There there is the fact that I want to move down super quickly and the game will just be confused on which direction down I want to go. AC's climbing always put looking cool and cinematic over being precise and feeling like I have direct control over my character. 

Now to give the game more praise while at the same time criticism is that I am glad the investigation system AC1 and Unity are back and I always did like the idea on paper since unlike other open world games like say Grand Theft Auto, the smaller missions and the more intel you learn about the main assassinations could benefit you in the long run, the smaller missions do help you in the assassinations, this taking place in an open world even makes it stand out from other games like the Hitman series.

The issue I have with Mirage is that while I like that the system is back making Mirage feel like the third offical AC game to me where AC1 felt like the first and Unity felt like the 2nd. So many of the missions feel similar to each other, so many of the missions revolve around searching for something while evading guards, the lack of your performance in one assassination could potentially change how the rest of the investisgations play out still isn't here. 

This is also partnered with the dumb guard AI, the lack of new enemies being introduced after the first 2 hours or any kind of situational depth where the rules of the game changes or juggling multiple factors makes the game super monotonous to play even it's bare minimum stealth mechanics. The most the game does is throw a "Marksman" enemy that doesn't let you use your eagle to tag enemies and you have to take them out in order to use it but there is always one of them, they are never used in a new light and if you choose to get the stealth recon skill later in the game, the eagle becomes trivial.  

Speaking of trivial the notriety system is that. It's back to the Ezio days of easily finding 4 posters and people will stop noticing you, I wonder why this is even the game if getting it down to 0 is that easy to pull off. 

I do like that combat in Mirage doesn't feel as easy as it did in past ACs making me want to use the bare minimum stealth mechanics and this time it doesn't involve the game instantly failing me upon being seen in order to reinforce them which is good.

However, due to the above mentioned issues, on top of AC being games were enemies use swords and slow firing guns unlike say Metal Gear Solid, Splinter Cell, Batman Arkham, and Hitman as well the Basim being able to climb surfaces with ease and the dumb AI. This means that many of the stealth encounters in Mirage is a game of, "be unseen until you get alerted, break line of sight and and evade enemies until they stop looking for you then go back to stealth". What do you get if you got a stealth game where you are the Flash and all the guards are Solomon Grundy and that is what AC Mirage is. 

So much of the stealth gameplay is basically this, which gives the game a rather one note feel in terms of gameplay. While this might be the most mechancially sound AC game in terms of stealth mechanics, the overall structure and design while "functional" still isn't remarkable much like the rest of the series. 

This is also by extension why the series slowly lost it's appeal for me. The whole promise, of a "social stealth game" that Ubisoft promised back in 2007 may have sounded interesting on paper but in practice the whole thing is a mess. It's why so many AC sequels avoid being stealth games or lean into this premise since so much of it flawed by design. 

How does a stealth game that is focused on hiding in crowds even make me want to do that when I can climb anything with ease with one button does everything parkour? How is a player character who can climb up anything and is super fast and nimble ever have geniune depth with guards that don't even have access to traditional firearms even in games like Metal Gear Solid and Batman Arkham, getting away from guards requires more effort by comparison since everyone can quickly damage Snake and Batman due to them having guns and they both can't climb everything. Splinter Cell Blacklist's parkour was far more balaced since Sam Fisher can't climb everything in the level meaning escape from guards was harder to do. It's why the series after AC1 had easy combat, linear missions and reliance on setpieces. Making a pure stealth game out of this was already going to be quite the climb and Ubisoft knew it. 

This is why so much of AC never dealt with this premise because so much of it starts to make less sense the more I think about it, much like AC itself. 

Overall, while I think Mirage is the best game in the series due to it being the first time where an AC game with the bare minimum in terms of stealth mechanics and a forgiving detection system got made. While also having the return of AC1 and Unity's investigation system. The game with it's lack of throwing much of anything new at you after the opening hours with the same guards, same missions and abusing the same tactics for so much of the game is a rather a montonous experience. As well not having the most polish in the world. I am surprised I got some enjoyment from the game at all for being an AC game but playing it reminds me why the series will ultimately never appeal to me.