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Analogue movement is a very easy sacrifice to make for the ability to hit a damn thing in a shooter. The only 3rd person view games where a controller is not a hindrance are walking simulators, like LA Noire or quantic dream games. But even LA noire had a few shooter segments where I wanted to throw the boomerang out the window and the ps after it.
 
Analogue movement is a very easy sacrifice to make for the ability to hit a damn thing in a shooter. The only 3rd person view games where a controller is not a hindrance are walking simulators, like LA Noire or quantic dream games. But even LA noire had a few shooter segments where I wanted to throw the boomerang out the window and the ps after it.

If a game is heavily shooter based I prefer not to use a controller. But 3rd person shooters are inherently garbage in the first place when it comes to the shooting. Rage 2 will be interesting because it is an FPS with vehicle sections. I may have to suck it up and use a mouse/keyboard for the vehicles because it looks like you switch between them too frequently to use both. But I'll probably give it a try using mouse/keyboard for the on foot and controller for the vehicle sections up front.

The one shooter based game I did absolutely fine in with a controller was Just Cause 3, which I used for the duration of the game. But I did have to use auto aim which fit okay with the gameplay style of spraying everywhere, lobbing a giant explosive device and inaccurate weapons coupled with a 3rd person view. Can't recall of any other shooter based game that I used a controller in exclusively outside of the PS2 days.
 
Assassin's Creed Odyssey

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Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Join us on an epic running marathon across ancient Greece as we depopulate the entire region of boars and deer in an attempt to make our swords do 5% more damage. And then do it again in an hour because you levelled up and need more soft leather. Fend off the mythical teleporting bounty hunters that ancient Greece is so well known for! Enjoy picking up stones, small bushes and deer carcasses so you can upgrade your character's butter knife to into a potent weapon only for it to magically turn back into a butter knife an hour later because you levelled up. I’m repeating myself intentionally much like Odyssey repeats the same tired tasks over and over again.

Odyssey is a game that missed the mark in practically every area with few if any redeeming qualities so I apologize if this sounds more like a rant but there simply isn't much that can be said about the game in a positive light. Odyssey is an exceptionally lazy game throughout. It is absolutely astonishing at how regressive and poorly thought out it is.

Assassin's Creed Odyssey is a story about finding your long lost stash of soft leather with some occasional side tracking by looking for people you don’t give a damn about. Sarcasm aside, the story is fairly weak in a game that takes around 80 hours to complete.

Throughout the game little occurs that affects the mood or pacing of the story. It is simply phoned in bits of character interactions stretched out between repetitive, repeating activities. There isn't much going on in the story and it certainly wasn't an adventure or journey. As an example, in Black Flag you start off with nothing, rise to the top and then feel the tone shift as the piracy age comes to an end and you realize you’ll never attain what you had set out to achieve in the beginning. The protagonist in that game also developed along with the world. Nothing of the sort happens in Odyssey.

You play as Alexios (or Kassandra), who is a cookie cutter character with no real development or notable personality traits. A tough, muscly person with no real goals aside from deciding to find his family. Voice acting and reactions of your character are fairly out of place and over exaggerated. Someone may be talking in a normal calm voice but Alexios will be shouting, flexing his muscles and acting aggressive for no real reason. Conversations bounce back and forth with conflicting tones and you can tell due to the sheer amount of voice acting many of the voice actors weren’t on the same page when it came to recording lines for certain situations. An example of quality being sacrificed for quantity.

That is about all the story has. Some lame attempts to tug emotional strings, and bunch of loosely slopped together tasks to bring you to a new region and generic evil bad guys who you need to poke with your blunt butter knives. The modern day aspect returns, but is neutered. You continue to play as the impossibly good at everything Hasan. An incredible genius who redesigned the Animus, is an expert assassin fighter, geek, and intellectual all in one. Not remotely realistic unlike Desmond. There are other awkward things that supposedly tie into the story but end up making zero difference. You can often choose to fight for Sparta or Athens in a “battle fields” feature but it devolves into choosing which nation will give you better gear and has otherwise zero effect on the game.

So how is the gameplay? A bag of steaming poo. The levelling system introduced in Origins has a greater impact and has devolved the gameplay to an unprecedentedly bad standard both for the Assassin’s Creed series and video games in general. If you’re 1-2 levels below an enemy, your character is worthless. Even if you have Legendary or Epic gear at the same level. In 2018 Ubisoft decided to take the lazy approach circa 1990s – lets make enemies damage sponges. Back in the day before developers could make enough content, difficultly typically revolved around copy/pasting enemies with more HP and damage as you progressed. Odyssey embraces this archaic game design approach. Those same idiotic, stupid guards you constantly face off against? They keep magically becoming stronger with each new piece of terrain they happen to be in. Utterly lazy design, but there is an ulterior motive here which I’ll bring up later.

You’ll spend more time looking for crafting materials than anything else, which absolutely doesn’t come naturally in the game. You’ll have to do numerous fetch and delivery quests which typically revolved around you talking to someone and then running 300 meters to talk to someone else to get your reward. How fucking lazy can you be? How is this acceptable in 2018? It isn’t.

Weapon combat is regressive from Origins, which itself took a step back from previous games. You no longer can set traps. Due to the levelling system you cannot practically keep two weapon types going at once. I basically was forced to use regular swords for the entire game because I couldn’t afford to constantly upgrade two along with my armor. And I do all or the majority of side quests in a region before moving on.

Want to slickly run up to someone and stab them from behind like in Unity? Gone. See someone around the corner that you want to assassinate? Gone. Let them walk up to you and sit there like a dumbass, then press the assassination prompt after they spotted you. Other lazy things like slow motion are added which makes zero sense. How does your character manage to move 5 times faster than other humans? Blocking and parrying combat is worthless as are charged attacks. More or less you mash the attack and dodge button. You get more abilities but most are worthless, require an “action bar” and aren’t fun to use because they’re copy/paste. Whatever fun was in the gameplay has been removed from Odyssey.

Quest design is also equally poor. Story quests are typically the same as the random side quests you get. Run here, kill this guy. Run here, collect this, run back. Go to this generic fort, burning these war supplies, run back. In past games like Syndicate we’d have story missions take place in a unique setting, a theatre, a palace, a scientific / anatomy institute. We had interesting ways to take down our targets, difference circumstances of the areas and unique ways to sneakily enter. In Odyssey it is the same copy/paste situation throughout the game. Sneak in via climbing and a bush. Do the same few activities 100 or more times. Where is the diversity? Unacceptable in a game this long.

There are countless other small issues through the game that just make it a pain in the ass to play. I’ll list some here:


- No clear boundaries for restricted zones, resulting in you stepping inside a zone for a second and having an entire garrison chase you around the city. Maybe give us more leeway so walking across town isn’t like walking on a damn minefield.

- Button for talking is the same as assassination, meaning sometimes you try and talk to someone only for your character to turn around and assassinate the man next to him. Ditto for carrying. Ubisoft the Incompetent Ones, have you not learned from your past mistakes?

- Poor movement controls. Assassinate someone and want to climb over a wall before being spotted? Too bad, because your character is unable to climb the wall. Instead they peak up and down over and over again. It will work eventually but now you're spotted. Incomplete controls further hinder the experience.

- Cartoon like character design, massively large people.

- Bounty hunters interrupt dialogue sequences, friendly NPCs get caught up in battles and lost when you have to follow them to complete a story quest.

- Poor mood setting. After a romantic sequence, immediately as you take control of the player while sentimental music is still playing a giant wolf attacks you. What the hell?

- Quests often end abruptly with no lead in to what you're supposed to do next. This is problematic because you're often given the illusion of choice; take a quest path to spare someone or kill someone with potentially a different outcome. You can start down one path and then the game will fail to tell you how to finish it, but the alternate path will appear in the quest log and map. So you end up having to do the path you didn't want.

- Abilities don’t work or the descriptions are incorrect. For example one ability is supposed to restore health and remove fire but it doesn’t. Sheer laziness and incompetence.

- Story missions play out almost exactly like side quests. Lack of diversity is a huge problem. There is never a unique way to assassinate someone. You’re presented with the same options as killing any other random NPC.

- AI is dumb. While the bounty hunters can track you, spawn instantly after you commit a crime, can waltz right through a military camp without harassment the AI itself is stupid. As in, standing on top of another dead guard and not realizing it stupid. Or slashing three people 15 times each, shooting arrows, having NPCs throw fire bombs at you only for their buddies 25 feet away to be oblivious.

- The “ending” for a major part of the story is determined by mundane choices you make earlier in the game that have no logical connection. Bacon or sausage for breakfast? Well, that will determine what happens in the ending.

There are two other areas of concern about Odyssey. Perhaps the biggest offender of this game is the paid for booster. The game is intentionally designed to be grindy in order to push people to buy their quick levelling booster. This is absolutely a problem in Odyssey because it hurts the gameplay experience and it cannot be avoided. I don’t mind these things if they don’t effect it for those that don’t purchase it but Ubisoft crossed that line. No, they leapt over it with a smile. You can turn the difficulty down but the game becomes too easy. You can choose from different levelling options but again, none of those work properly into fine tuning ideal difficulty. Lazy development standards mixed with sleazy “pay to play as its mean to be played” DLC schemes are utterly unacceptable.

Second is the overt push for “Social Justice Warrior” politics. Normally I don’t mind much. I didn’t find Wolfenstein 2 to be bad at all while others did, but Odyssey takes it to a whole different level. The game is constantly reminding you that everyone in ancient Greece is gay. There are likely more gay male characters than there are normal males in Odyssey; same for females. And they constantly remind you of it. Some really poor side characters are designed simply to parade around a gay character. In one example one woman has cringe worthy dialogue constantly reminding you her lover is also female, before simply running to her death like an absolute idiot. If feels very juvenile and crosses a line into immersion breaking territory. Everyone and everything is gay in Ubisoft-land. It feels like a bunch of high school boys wrote the story and characters.

There is also a huge push for women in combat positions and leadership. This isn’t a bad thing in a sci-fi game because it can fit the setting if done right. But in ancient Greece, a time where physical strength ruled everything (and why woman were historically discriminated against until the last century) it simply stands out. The best fighters in this game are women which looks comical. Their outfits often look like something out of teenage oriented Japanese anime. I didn’t expect a documentary but you do play an Assassin’s Creed game to for its historical aspect. Some of the women and men are absolute giants as well, around 50% taller than your character with arms almost the size of Alexios’ waist. Odyssey looks and feels more like a cartoon with the new gameplay and political direction. This just adds to the already terrible story design and results in something unbelievable, boring and generic.

What is good about the game? Graphics I suppose. Good enough, not ground breaking either. LOD shifts very close on the ground which does standout. Ubisoft has an army of artists but cannot put them to use properly.

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey isn’t a game. It’s a mundane task simulator designed by bean counters with the intention of upselling a sleazy progression enhancing booster. Sheer lazy game design and terrible business practices make this one of the most miserable “gaming” experiences I’ve had in a while.


3.5/10

I feel that is being generous considering their business practices and just how sheer lazy and amateurish the development for this game was, but I was able to finish the game without very many CTDs so I have to allocate some points.

I’m not sure how many more digital sticks and rocks I can pick up but for fucks sake, someone please end the trend of “junk collecting” in modern video games. Nothing screams “we’re incompetent game developers” than resource gathering and open world.
 
Even through Origins was a departure from being an actual AC game, I still found it more enjoyable than Odyssey (the varied locations in Origins vs. water+hills+trees helped).

Nothing screams “we’re incompetent game developers” than resource gathering and open world.
Really? It always screamed "pay us money to have fun" to me :) (assuming it's a game that "lets" you buy them.
 
Nice review, Flogger23m. This is my general opinion of all of the Ass Creed games after the first couple. And Far Cry 3,4,5+. Endless pointless grinds.
 
Nice review, Flogger23m. This is my general opinion of all of the Ass Creed games after the first couple. And Far Cry 3,4,5+. Endless pointless grinds.

Far Cry 3 & 4 are solid gameplay. 5 they dropped the ball.
 
Nice review, Flogger23m. This is my general opinion of all of the Ass Creed games after the first couple. And Far Cry 3,4,5+. Endless pointless grinds.
I liked Black Flag a lot. The ship battles were well done and sailing the oceans to explore was fun.
 
Even through Origins was a departure from being an actual AC game, I still found it more enjoyable than Odyssey (the varied locations in Origins vs. water+hills+trees helped).

Origins had problems, but it was a big step above Odyssey. The dynamics of the combat blows Odyssey out of the water and the level system while a hindrance wasn't an absolute pain in the ass. The weapon diversity and traps you could set in Origins at least made it fun despite flaws.

Really? It always screamed "pay us money to have fun" to me :) (assuming it's a game that "lets" you buy them.

If done right. The problem is, most developers don't do it right. I'll get to Rage 2 shortly, which I still think was a good game but the open world aspect was done terribly. Sadly "open world" has become a standard check mark for marketing.
 
I liked Black Flag a lot. The ship battles were well done and sailing the oceans to explore was fun.

I wish there was a way to skip to the pirate part. I had it and got rid of it because I got tired of doing the same BS assassin stuff, never made it to the ship part
 
Here's an old one for you guys:

Manx TT Super Bike - Sega Saturn

The game is really fun with a great sense of speed. The graphics are good for a Saturn game, with a decent draw distance, good textures, and a solid framerate that stays at 30fps at about 99% of the time (it has an occasional stutter). Honestly, I view this game as a testament to the fact that we simply need more arcade motorcycle racers in the modern era. Anyways...

What didn't I like? Well, the game doesn't control all that well with a digital controller. If you have the analog pad then you're all set (did you know that the triggers on the Saturn analog controller are also analog?). If you don't have an analog controller, though, the game's still doable. Also, there's a whopping TWO tracks - four if you count the reverse modes. Music isn't great either.

Still, if you're looking for a fun arcade racer, this is a very good one.

Sega, if you read this - can you please make a remaster of the Model 2 arcade game? And not lock it to consoles only? Thanks!
 
Here's an old one for you guys:

Manx TT Super Bike - Sega Saturn

Did you play on an OG Saturn? Or emulator? I always wanted a Saturn back in the day but $$ was tight in the low-mid 90's. I did buy a Dreamcast right before Sega threw in the towel though, that was neat but had to sell it during a money crisis
 
Did you play on an OG Saturn? Or emulator? I always wanted a Saturn back in the day but $$ was tight in the low-mid 90's. I did buy a Dreamcast right before Sega threw in the towel though, that was neat but had to sell it during a money crisis

OGJ Saturn my man. (I have a Japanese model 2... gave my American model 2 to a friend)
 
Assassin's Creed Odyssey

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Assassin's Creed Odyssey: Join us on an epic running marathon across ancient Greece as we depopulate the entire region of boars and deer in an attempt to make our swords do 5% more damage. And then do it again in an hour because you levelled up and need more soft leather. Fend off the mythical teleporting bounty hunters that ancient Greece is so well known for! Enjoy picking up stones, small bushes and deer carcasses so you can upgrade your character's butter knife to into a potent weapon only for it to magically turn back into a butter knife an hour later because you levelled up. I’m repeating myself intentionally much like Odyssey repeats the same tired tasks over and over again.


This was REALLY funny. Thoroughly enjoyed reading this. Especially the butter knife part.
 
Metro Exodus

This game was a breath of fresh air. With many games seemingly not developing a unique, detailed world and instead opting for games with settings as generic and underdeveloped as possible this was certainly a good reminder of what games can be. I'm looking at you Ubisoft.

Exodus is a focused FPS with survival elements. What it presents in the game is well done. As this is a shooter we'll spend time shooting things, so how does Exodus fair? Pretty well. Weapons have a meaningful impact. They are deadly and you won't see enemies absorbing dozens of rounds. They're decently accurate and have fairly sensible recoil. They're loud as they should be. If you see a head light pop up between some crates, industrial equipment or whatever it may be, you can easily let off a few accurate shots with a rifle and hit your target. This is a huge step up from games like Far Cry 5, where weapons have toy like sounds and appearance. The animations in Exodus are also fairly good, a huge step up from the sub par Last Light's.

There is a customization system as well. As you progress through the game you'll unlock new upgrades although you can only carry a few weapons at once. You'll have to head back to a work bench to upgrade them further which sometimes can be a pain because it is often out of the way. There is no fast travel, although the maps are sensibly sized so if you absolutely want to change out weapons it isn't that much of an issue. It does add a bit to the urgency and survival aspect though. Aside from weapons, you get some grenade and ammo types which can change things up. There are throwing knives for stealthy kills, but in general you have most fun shooting and burning things.

The map and quest design is done nicely. There is no garbage content. The story and main quests are constantly present. You are constantly aware that there is a goal or purpose to your actions. Story missions take up the majority of your time and take you to most corners of the maps. There is enough leeway for some exploration and occasionally choosing the order of missions but there is enough coherence to keep the player grounded. Side missions are just that, side missions. They're typically short, take you to another area and aren't forced. You don't need to do dozens of garbage quests to level up weapons. Map design is a good mix between more linear, cinematic sections are decently sized open areas. It is a good change of pace so you don't feel lost or like you're going through the motions waiting for another scripted sequence.

As this is an FPS with survival elements, you will have to find ammo, filters, grenades and some crafting materials. Occasionally it felt a little too crafty, but isn't that bad compared to most modern games. But you find these parts naturally if you play the story missions. I never once had to set out on an extra excursion to find crafting materials or ammo. You will have to conserve ammo a bit, but I never came close to running completely dry. But you will have to make your shots connect.

The story of the game is another area that shines. It isn't the most sophisticated story, but it is very present. A few familiar characters return and a host of new ones are introduced. There is ample time to learn about them, their personalities and feel like they're actually worth something to you and your character's goals. You actually get a sense that these are real people and you're on a journey together. Between missions there are character building sections on the train, which can last 20-30 minutes. You can enter conversations, observe characters and in general get a feel of the world around you. While conversations aren't two way (Artyom is still a mute, and there is no dialogue option) they offer a nice change of pace reminiscent of Mass Effect 1-3. To break up the combat/gameplay there are story building segments that end just as you start getting an itchy trigger finger again. The characters also seem life like, realistic and logical. Ubisoft, take note.

Graphically the game looks stunning. Absolutely cutting edge lighting and effects, even without RTS on. Textures and details are extremely high as well. The game is stunning and well rounded. This isn't an instance of good lighting but terrible assets. The only down side are the character animations, which weren't the greatest but not Witcher 2 or Deus Ex Mankind Divided bad either. Playing Far Cry 5 was like stepping back in time after Exodus. Performance wise it did make my PC struggle. RTX 2070, Ryzen 2700X, 16GB RAM maxed out at 2560x1440 meant 45-60 frame rates. Some areas would get a bit low for comfort. Turning on Ray Tracing hit frame rates more but playable sections were still fairly playable which I did not expect. But the slow areas became unplayable. RTX looked nice and more realistic, which sometimes made things a bit harder to see even if more realistic. Honestly it wasn't necessary and I only tried it after I finished the game.

Exodus isn't without flaws though. The way the ending is determined is by how many good or bad actions you perform. Occasionally enemies surrender and you can knock them out or kill them. Missions also present good or bad options, even if you're not overtly aware of any consequences they may have. I did all of the good actions and only killed a few people who were surrendering, and I still received the bad ending. Essentially, you'd have to play the game entirely stealthy and kill as few people as possible. Considering this is a shooter and you need to be careful with your ammo in the first place I find this to be a jarring problem. The stealth combat simply isn't fun to use consistently. The ending difference is essentially just a cut scene that can be watched on Youtube but still having the awkward morality system just doesn't feel right for this game. There are some other small quirks in the game, but nothing much to write about.

Enemy AI is kind of dumb. Sometimes they won't note that their buddy, 100 meters from them, had their head blown off by a large caliber rifle. Sometimes they run back and fourth between cover which looks odd. At best it is average, at worst oblivious. It is enough to standout but most games aren't much better when it comes to tactics and maneuvering. There are also various mutants to fight which aren't smart (they're mutants) but once the humans zero in on you the combat is fun.

Exodus is an old style game in a good way. It is long enough to deliver an experience but not wear out its welcome. It grabs your attention and never lets up until the end. The world feels alive and it feels like you went on a journey at the end rather than checking off an endless list of menial tasks. As such the game stands out among many over the past few years.

8.6 / 10

Tweak the morality system, fix the AI, maybe some more weapon benches out in the world and maybe a bit more ammo for those what want to let off some more shots down range and you'd have a perfect game.
 
Flogger23m... man... you are tearing through the games! Love the reviews. You are 100x faster than me, it takes me forever getting through games between work, sleep, and house & wife chores.
 
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I loved this game. I think I may have beaten this already maybe when it came out, but I honestly can't remember (Red Faction came out in 2001 (18 years ago)). This is one of those games that I can't quite put my finger on why it is so memorable. I remember on the PC a long time ago there was a demo where they had a "Glass House" you could explore. It would be a room that had a house with panes of glass in it. You started with a pistol and there was I think the rocket launcher and the remote charges you could use. The floor and walls were all destructible and I remember making caves and seeing how far I could go by blasting my way through the area. Also the glass breaking technology was really cool and shooting near a window and seeing the glass fly was neat.

I am not good at reviews, but I loved that almost every weapon had an alternate firing mode. I had forgotten just how many vehicles you can pilot in this game! There is a huge digging machine, submarines with torpedoes, an assault vtol, a ship with machine guns and rockets, a jeep, and a gunner on a jeep. I loved the weapons... this was I think the first game that had a XRAY view through two of the weapons I think. The rocket launcher has a little monitor attached to it that can see heat signatures through any surface, and the rail gun also has one where you can see through walls.

The story is simplistic... you are a miner and the company Ultor is treating all the miners like trash and human garbage, and all the miners revolt and start taking down Ultor. There are also some stealth missions too where you don a disguise and have to get through areas quietly which I really disliked.

I think I may go on a classic game binge. I started Red Faction 2 right after this (which I know I haven't played) but it just is disappointing so far and idk how far i'll get in it. I may replay the original Far Cry next or maybe Half Life 2... not sure. Red Faction was great though. I can't think of anything bad to say about it. Just had a blast. Was unexpected too... just started playing on a whim when I couldn't think of anything else to play, or rather didn't feel like playing anything else in my enormous backlog...

9/10
 
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I loved this game. I think I may have beaten this already maybe when it came out, but I honestly can't remember (Red Faction came out in 2001 (18 years ago)). This is one of those games that I can't quite put my finger on why it is so memorable. I remember on the PC a long time ago there was a demo where they had a "Glass House" you could explore. It would be a room that had a house with panes of glass in it. You started with a pistol and there was I think the rocket launcher and the remote charges you could use. The floor and walls were all destructible and I remember making caves and seeing how far I could go by blasting my way through the area. Also the glass breaking technology was really cool and shooting near a window and seeing the glass fly was neat.

I am not good at reviews, but I loved that almost every weapon had an alternate firing mode. I had forgotten just how many vehicles you can pilot in this game! There is a huge digging machine, submarines with torpedoes, an assault vtol, a ship with machine guns and rockets, a jeep, and a gunner on a jeep. I loved the weapons... this was I think the first game that had a XRAY view through two of the weapons I think. The rocket launcher has a little monitor attached to it that can see heat signatures through any surface, and the rail gun also has one where you can see through walls.

The story is simplistic... you are a miner and the company Ultor is treating all the miners like trash and human garbage, and all the miners revolt and start taking down Ultor. There are also some stealth missions too where you don a disguise and have to get through areas quietly which I really disliked.

I think I may go on a classic game binge. I started Red Faction 2 right after this (which I know I haven't played) but it just is disappointing so far and idk how far i'll get in it. I may replay the original Far Cry next or maybe Half Life 2... not sure. Red Faction was great though. I can't think of anything bad to say about it. Just had a blast. Was unexpected too... just started playing on a whim when I couldn't think of anything else to play, or rather didn't feel like playing anything else in my enormous backlog...

9/10

I played this on PS2 back when it came out as well and remember enjoying it at that time. It wasn't long after I had played through Half Life on my old Packard Bell P2 350 MHz PC with software rendering because it didn't have any dedicated graphics, and I thought it ran on the same engine (or modified for the "geo-mod" features, but it might be an entirely different engine) or something as HL, so that's what got me interested in it initially. I think it was pretty well reviewed a the time too, but since I didn't think my PC could run it properly, I got it for PS2 and the geo-mod feature on it still worked pretty well on there and was always an awesome mechanic I thought should be implemented in other games. The combat was pretty good as well, although I don't remember any specific weapons besides the mines and rocket launcher that let you dig the tunnels or bring structures and buildings down, although that rarely worked as you thought it would. I remember using riot shields a lot and thinking it was cool to watch them crack and degrade as they got shot up and you could shoot around them I think.

But the best time I had in that game was in multiplayer with my friend; we would dig spiral tunnels with explosives into and up on walls to make perches at the top of the level's perimeter wall. Then we would cut out a huge chunk of rock to see if we could make it fall off the wall, which took forever to do and was pretty anticlimactic as you would probably assume. One issue was that it was hard to completely separate the rock from the wall because the explosions of course would only deform the objects for the most part and not actually remove material from the wall. But we did eventually get a chunk of rock to fall from the wall after finding the single strand of pixels holding it onto the wall, then the rock fell to the ground with the worst physics you can imagine (I think it almost just appeared on the ground with no transition), then it immediately disappeared and I think the engine re-filled the missing chunk on the wall, lol. I'm not sure if it was a RAM limitation of the PS2 or if you could do more on the PC version, but after so much tunneling too, the engine would start back-filling previous modifications you made to the terrain, but it did allow you to do quite a bit still before that started happening.

I played through RF 2 as well on PS2, but thought I remembered being somewhat disappointed in them restricting a lot of the geo-mod function in that game, pretty much only to certain areas where they only wanted you to modify things, like in a scripted sequence anyways, so it took some of the fun out of it for me. But the gun play and other things were a bit better from what I remember and still worth playing through at the time (not sure about now though, hah).
 
I played this on PS2 back when it came out as well and remember enjoying it at that time. It wasn't long after I had played through Half Life on my old Packard Bell P2 350 MHz PC with software rendering because it didn't have any dedicated graphics, and I thought it ran on the same engine (or modified for the "geo-mod" features, but it might be an entirely different engine) or something as HL, so that's what got me interested in it initially. I think it was pretty well reviewed a the time too, but since I didn't think my PC could run it properly, I got it for PS2 and the geo-mod feature on it still worked pretty well on there and was always an awesome mechanic I thought should be implemented in other games. The combat was pretty good as well, although I don't remember any specific weapons besides the mines and rocket launcher that let you dig the tunnels or bring structures and buildings down, although that rarely worked as you thought it would. I remember using riot shields a lot and thinking it was cool to watch them crack and degrade as they got shot up and you could shoot around them I think.

But the best time I had in that game was in multiplayer with my friend; we would dig spiral tunnels with explosives into and up on walls to make perches at the top of the level's perimeter wall. Then we would cut out a huge chunk of rock to see if we could make it fall off the wall, which took forever to do and was pretty anticlimactic as you would probably assume. One issue was that it was hard to completely separate the rock from the wall because the explosions of course would only deform the objects for the most part and not actually remove material from the wall. But we did eventually get a chunk of rock to fall from the wall after finding the single strand of pixels holding it onto the wall, then the rock fell to the ground with the worst physics you can imagine (I think it almost just appeared on the ground with no transition), then it immediately disappeared and I think the engine re-filled the missing chunk on the wall, lol. I'm not sure if it was a RAM limitation of the PS2 or if you could do more on the PC version, but after so much tunneling too, the engine would start back-filling previous modifications you made to the terrain, but it did allow you to do quite a bit still before that started happening.

I played through RF 2 as well on PS2, but thought I remembered being somewhat disappointed in them restricting a lot of the geo-mod function in that game, pretty much only to certain areas where they only wanted you to modify things, like in a scripted sequence anyways, so it took some of the fun out of it for me. But the gun play and other things were a bit better from what I remember and still worth playing through at the time (not sure about now though, hah).

Interesting you mention PS2 because I actually played it on my PS4 Pro. Red Faction 1 and 2 is available on there in case you own a PS4 and want to play them. All the same features from the PC version are present on the PS2 version which is nice. The PS2 ports of most PC games at the time in some way were superior to the PC especially in the case of the original Half Life. I remember PS2 Half Life had the HD textures mod before the PC version got that option.

The weapons were the following:

1. Stun baton for melee. Primary fire mode was a swing, and the secondary was a hold and shock... you stick the baton out and shocks whoever comes in contact with it.
2. Riot Shield. Secondary fire is a bash.
3. Pistol. Alternate fire was adding a suppressor.
4. Assault Rifle: Primary fire was a 3 round burst and secondary was full-auto.
5. Submachine gun. Primary fire was a super fast 30 round mag discharge of standard ammo. Secondary fire was switching to a 20 round magazine with high damage but lower fire rate ammo.
6. Shotgun. Primary fire shot 2 shells at once and was pump action. Secondary fire was full-auto if you held the trigger down, but you could also fire quick successive semi-auto shots with each secondary trigger pull.
7. Flame Thrower: Primary fire was a standard flame shooting out, secondary fire was unscrewing the fuel container of the gun and throwing it like a grenade so that it explodes into a large fire-filled area.
8. Grenade: Primary fire was throw and bounced off surfaces until exploding after 5 seconds. Secondary fire was a throw but explode instantly on contact with a NPC/enemy or explodable surface such as a destructible wall.
9. Remote Charge: sticky remote charge that can be exploded by remote.
10. Rocket Launcher: Has a screen on the rocket launcher that allows you to see through walls. Apparently you can lock on as a secondary fire but I honestly didn't try it, or I missed it doing this.
11. Heavy Machine gun: Primary fire was a fast discharge of the 99 round box mag but wasn't accurate. Secondary fire was a much more accurate but slower firing-rate mode.
12. Precision Rifle. Semi-Auto rifle used primarily in the latter part of the game once the mercs show up. Primary fire is semi-auto and secondary is a zoom-able scoped view.
13. Sniper Rifle. Super powerful. Primary fire is just firing without the scope and very inaccurate. Secondary is a zoom-able scope.
14. Rail Driver. Basically a rail gun that can shoot through walls. Primary is just firing from the hip. Secondary is a scoped view that can see through walls.
15. Fusion rocket launcher. Huge blast area and has to be reloaded after every shot. Basically kills everything in a room similar to Doom's BFG. No secondary fire mode, but with this much firepower why need it?


Just a quick thing on the physics you mention... there definitely weren't any in the game, but if something should fall like a stalactite you shot off while roaming around in the submarine then it would fall and then once it hit a surface it would just rotate a couple times. It definitely wasn't impressive, but it was cool you could still shoot things off and they would fall.
 
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I have fond memories of Red Faction. I have not so fond memories of it's sequels.

I assume anyone who thinks the PS2 version was better probably didn't have a decent 3d card. I'm trying to remember what I had back then, I think it was a Geforce 3 in the low 2000's (I seem to remember going from Voodoo 5->GF3 >GF5 and so on).

I was actually shocked by the number of "gamers" at work that played games in software mode (Rainbow 6, counterstrike, Q2, etc). Then I would show them what even an old Voodoo 1 could do and their jaws would go slack and start drooling.
 
The PS2 ports of most PC games at the time in some way were superior to the PC especially in the case of the original Half Life. I remember PS2 Half Life had the HD textures mod before the PC version got that option.

Even considering the significant graphics upgrade, the best part of HL on PS2 was proper keyboard and mouse support I actually put my PS2 on my computer desk and played it on my monitor like a PC just for that, lol. It was awesome and a much better experience than the original on PC. I thought that would be the start of KB&M support on consoles and we would all be using it on every FPS console game today, but how disappointing that dream turned out to be today, eh? It still baffles me that console devs can't at least bake it in for single-player games, or split matchmaking up online to only match KB&M players if they're afraid of the unfair advantage.

Almost as good was the Decay co-op mode that I don't think ever made it to PC even as a mod at least for years after it was available on PS2. I also had a keyboard and mouse for my Dreamcast to play PSO and Unreal Tournament with, so I was really looking forward to HL on Dreamcast before it was cancelled (I was soooo pissed). But I eventually saved up enough to get a PS2 and a copy of HL on there too, which turned out to be better graphically than it was on DC anyways.
 
Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night.

It's Castlevania.
It's one of the better, if not rivaling the best Castlevania. (Of the Metroidvania type.)

10/10.
 
Even considering the significant graphics upgrade, the best part of HL on PS2 was proper keyboard and mouse support I actually put my PS2 on my computer desk and played it on my monitor like a PC just for that, lol. It was awesome and a much better experience than the original on PC. I thought that would be the start of KB&M support on consoles and we would all be using it on every FPS console game today, but how disappointing that dream turned out to be today, eh? It still baffles me that console devs can't at least bake it in for single-player games, or split matchmaking up online to only match KB&M players if they're afraid of the unfair advantage.

Almost as good was the Decay co-op mode that I don't think ever made it to PC even as a mod at least for years after it was available on PS2. I also had a keyboard and mouse for my Dreamcast to play PSO and Unreal Tournament with, so I was really looking forward to HL on Dreamcast before it was cancelled (I was soooo pissed). But I eventually saved up enough to get a PS2 and a copy of HL on there too, which turned out to be better graphically than it was on DC anyways.

Well when the PS3 launched it had full keyboard and mouse support... in fact Unreal Tournament 3 is the game that sticks out in my mind as fully utilizing it as I am sure others did too. Also the PS3 had the ability to load Linux directly onto the system and use it as a full computer. I actually set my original fat PS3 to do this, but I found it more frustrating than useful. It was cool using a keyboard and mouse while using a full desktop os on a gaming console, but a few clicks here and there were all that was interesting.

https://www.playstation.com/ps3-openplatform/

Supposedly the next Xbox will be fully keyboard and mouse usable so it's not completely out of the window yet, but I will never use that with a console. I like sitting on my comfy couch with a controller and playing consoles. If I want to use a KB + M i'll get on my PC. Plus my computer monitor is 144hz whereas my TV is 60hz. Now that higher refresh TVs are coming it should be interesting, but I doubt this will change anytime soon.


....sorry for derailing the thread.
 
Rage 2

Rage 2 is a game that has a solid foundation but simply misses the mark in many ways, opting for a safer more generic approach opposed to striving for excellence. It feels as if the game was rushed and tried too hard to hit all of the modern day gaming check marks for marketing: selectable character gender, open world and a host of other things that just scream "we're just following the trends."

Rage 2 does good on its primary attraction - shooting and combat. The game delivers here. First person, enough weight in the movement to feel like you're controlling a human being, enough impact to weapon shots to keep you aware of their state but fast enough to not be clunky. I would describe the combat as being faster paced overall. This is an action FPS, and while there are multiple ways to shoot enemies there isn't much in the way of stealth gameplay. But this isn't a bad thing; the game focuses on fast paced combat giving you enough weapon and ability diversity without shoehorning half done scenarios requiring poorly thought out stealth mechanics or the like.

There are not many weapons in the game, but each has a different feel. Some a clearly worse than others such as the pistol, but there are many options that allow you to change the gameplay. There is a revolver that shoots sticky remote incendiary rounds, missile launchers, beam weapons and more. Unlocking the weapons allows you to choose different upgrade paths which can change how the weapon functions (such as choosing to have guided projectiles). Abilities in the game are similar to the original Mass Effect titles. You can suspend enemies in mid air, hit them with a power blast and whatnot. You can use these abilities in tandem with the weapons; throw a Vortex grenade to raise them into the air, shoot them with the revolved and them detonate everyone at once. The further you get in the game the more fun the combinations get.

There are some downsides to this, namely the unlock system. Some of the weapons and abilities are out of the way meaning you can easily finish the story without getting them all. I suggest looking up a guide to find the last few earlier on in the game. Sometimes finding resources can be irritating. Smashing open boxes is the rage in modern gaming, but it just isn't fun. You'll need to smash open a lot of boxes in Rage 2 for parts. The good news is you practically never have to divert much time to it, you merely smash boxes after you clear out an area. But sometimes getting the points, XP and resources to upgrade can simply be a pain. The game would be so much better if the XP gain was twice as fast and resources required here halved because the fun comes when using combos, and the game isn't exactly long.

Vehicular aspects of the game are underwhelming. Controls/handling is passable. Combat is also passable, but feels tacked on. Upgrading your vehicle did require me to go out of the way. It took too long to upgrade my vehicle to take on enemy convoys and I did most of those after finishing the main story. Driving from place to place wasn't exactly exciting, there are few interesting landmarks to look at and it simply feels like a time filler (there are only a handful of fast travel locations).

The open world is what you expect from open world games. Empty, dull, sterile, lack of character and filled with enemy camps. Yes rolling up to random camps and killing people can be fun, but it lacks context. This game would've been far better if they took a Metro Exodus style approach with smaller open maps that had some character to them. There are dozens of lackluster side quests (drive here, kill them, return) and enemy camps to clear out. The few city/hub areas are also fairly lifeless and lack much of a purpose outside of shops and a few story missions.

A big shortcoming is the length and lack of qualify of the story. You can probably finish it in 10-11 hours if you dive into it. There are enough side quests and places to clear out to carry you around 15-16 hours, but after that you'll want to finish the campaign otherwise you'll loose context and interest. I got another 5-6 hours out of it doing more camps but it felt too repetitive. I put around 20-22 hours into the game. This is a fine length, the problem is the quality of it. The story is the most generic, boring post apocalyptic story you can imagine. The apocalypse occurred, people went underground. People came out and half the population somehow turned into savages who attack anyone on sight. They are so dire for resources yet have time to dye their hair and take up the mohawk hairstyle like every other post apocalyptic game known to man. You fight off evil bad guys who are pretty much just evil, and then the game ends. Not as abrupt as Rage 1, but not much better.

Graphically the game looks fairly good. Some areas look amazing but some assets look a bit dated (low resolution textures, props). Overall the game looks nice and runs well. A stable 60-80 frame rates on my setup at 2560x1440P, as detailed in the previous reviews. Loading times are quick. View distance is good; too bad the environment in general looks pretty bland. Stability wise I don't recall many issues. Nothing game breaking. I may have had one CTD but don't recall. No issues with quests being broken, my character getting stuck, sticky controls, physics bugs or anything like that. If there were they were infrequent and minor.

So what is the cumulative result of all these aspects? We have some fun core gameplay that isn't supported as well as it should have been. But it is wrapped up in a well optimized and stable package, and often times that helps smooth the experience out. Rage 2 was played too safe and not enough care went into the lore, map design and main campaign. Falling into industry traps like open world design didn't do them any favors. But the core is there, it works, and can be fun because you do mostly focus on the game and rather than excessive time wasting nonsense.

8/10
 
Doom 3 on Nintendo Switch.


So, Doom 3 is one of my favorite games of all time. First game I ever bought a video card for. I spent $550+ on a Nvidia 6800 GT 15 years ago to play the game at 720p on High Settings, and I now am playing the same game on a "all-in-one" device and I am blown away... especially when I play Doom 3 in handheld mode. I never thought 15 years ago that shit would progress to the point where a game that demanding would some day be playable on a device that costs $300 and I can take wherever with me. It truly feels like the future to me when playing Doom 3 on the Switch.

That being said it's a awesome port. No problems whatsoever aside from a very very occasional framerate slow down but that was rare. Other than that the game appears to play at an unlocked framerate b/c there were times it felt like it was playing at or near 60 fps. The port also includes both DLCs including Resurrection of Evil and Lost Missions and for $10 that's a awesome deal. Just completed the game on Marine difficulty last night at between 9 - 10 hours.

It was really fun playing the game again. Would highly recommend even if you have played it plenty over the years. It's really cool playing it on the Switch.

10/10 would slay again
 
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Rage 2

Rage 2 is a game that has a solid foundation but simply misses the mark in many ways, opting for a safer more generic approach opposed to striving for excellence. It feels as if the game was rushed and tried too hard to hit all of the modern day gaming check marks for marketing: selectable character gender, open world and a host of other things that just scream "we're just following the trends."
The game has a ton of problems but selectable gender is not one of them.

The start of the game screamed to me: "I'm an MMO repackaged as a single player game" Even more so than DAI or Anthem was. I couldn't push on after the first location in the game. I doubt it even hits 5/10.
 
The game has a ton of problems but selectable gender is not one of them.

The start of the game screamed to me: "I'm an MMO repackaged as a single player game" Even more so than DAI or Anthem was. I couldn't push on after the first location in the game. I doubt it even hits 5/10.

I suggest you push further and see for yourself. Nothing screamed MMO about it to me, there was nothing MP like about it at all. There are a lot of small outposts as common with practically all open world games but that is about as close to any MMO aspect I can think of. What part did you get to? First region or the linear intro part? This game is very similar to Mad Max, but based on shooting rather than fighting. And I suppose a not so serious protagonist and atmosphere.
 
I suggest you push further and see for yourself. Nothing screamed MMO about it to me, there was nothing MP like about it at all. There are a lot of small outposts as common with practically all open world games but that is about as close to any MMO aspect I can think of. What part did you get to? First region or the linear intro part? This game is very similar to Mad Max, but based on shooting rather than fighting. And I suppose a not so serious protagonist and atmosphere.
It seemed nothing like madmax, none of the fun mechanics are present. And the worst of it that the driving is infinitely worse than in mad max. The whole intro part was interchangeable with any one of a dozen MMO intro missions I played in the past 10 years. And after the intro the narrative goes out the window almost. I was bored doing the first outpost, and then after clearing it the game sends additional enemies on a script. Cheapest tool in the game designer inventory spawning enemies from nothing to annoy the player.

To sum it up:
  • weak mmo level story
  • weak, uninteresting characters
  • it wasn't able to invest me in the story or the characters at all
  • terrible driving physics
  • mediocre shooting
  • hidden collectibles and loot galore*
I honestly can't see anything positive about the game.

*in mad max it was completely straightforward to complete outposts, nothing was deliberately hidden and there weren't two dozen collectibles at a tiny outpost. Here I had to run around for half an hour and still couldn't find all the collectibles at a small outpost.
 
It seemed nothing like madmax, none of the fun mechanics are present. And the worst of it that the driving is infinitely worse than in mad max. The whole intro part was interchangeable with any one of a dozen MMO intro missions I played in the past 10 years. And after the intro the narrative goes out the window almost. I was bored doing the first outpost, and then after clearing it the game sends additional enemies on a script. Cheapest tool in the game designer inventory spawning enemies from nothing to annoy the player.

To sum it up:
  • weak mmo level story
  • weak, uninteresting characters
  • it wasn't able to invest me in the story or the characters at all
  • terrible driving physics
  • mediocre shooting
  • hidden collectibles and loot galore*
I honestly can't see anything positive about the game.

*in mad max it was completely straightforward to complete outposts, nothing was deliberately hidden and there weren't two dozen collectibles at a tiny outpost. Here I had to run around for half an hour and still couldn't find all the collectibles at a small outpost.

Personally I didn't do any of the collecting, I'd just smash a few boxes that were along the way. Mad Max was similar, you'd need to smash a few things to get some resources for upgrades but it wasn't too bad. In some parts you may have to detour to an outpost and kill the guys there but it was fun enough to do and only took a few minutes, smash some boxes and get some resources for upgrades. Some of the arks are out of the way which I noted but I checked a game guide and found the last 3 or so, which took around 10 minutes to drive to at best. Driving was kind of lame but Mad Max wasn't all that great there either. If you didn't get far into the game you likely don't have all the abilities and it would be pretty boring. Once you get more abilities and weapon upgrades and you start chaining them together is where the gameplay comes together. Otherwise, you just have a functional game with the short comings you mentioned and it would be underwhelming.
 
Detroit: Become Human

Graphics: 10/10. It's the best looking console game I've ever seen and it's not even close. In fact, even the 30fps framerate leaves me more than satisfied.

Sound: 10/10. The audio is also terrific. From clear, well-acted dialogue to positional audio cues and terrific music there are no real faults here.

Gameplay: 2/10. Here's the rub. As a game, the gameplay consists of looking for on-screen cue to interact with. That's typically done via a single button or motion on the right analog stick. Dialogue is handled via a decision tree with certain options only available based upon your prior actions. Anything fast paced is handled via QTEs. Luckily the game is very forgiving with these and as long as you get 1/2 of them right you usually get the desired outcome. Still, I hate QTEs and don't really care for the game's oddly varying control mechanics. As a game, there really isn't much there. It's basically like a CGI version of Bandersnatch or a Choose Your Own Adventure book with QTEs. You can also never explore very much thanks to most areas being rather small and contained.

In spite of being one of the most polished and production heavy games I can think of - it's not much of a game. Replaying sequences is also needlessly tedious if you have bad luck with a decision or fail a QTE.

It's a neat story with characters you'll really care about...but it isn't really much of a game. Luckily it's also free right now on PSN+. I highly recommend it in place of watching a movie/show or for people who don't traditionally play games.
 
SOMA

Game basically verified the fact that I jump at something as simple as some pipes breaking...

Fun game with a interesting story that makes you think about stuff.. The game is a horror survival/walking sim game that focuses on atmosphere and sound design. Visuals and sounds is what makes this game chilling..

Gameplay consists of you navigate the levels, listening/reading logs to expand the story and complete tasks to advance the story. The game uses dialog and various clues found in the levels to help you navigate and tell you what needs to be done, no hand holding map markers in the game. The game's tension is maintained by enemies that can only be dealt with by running away or with stealth, which combined with their visuals and sounds will make your hair on your neck stand up.

Overall enjoyed the game and recommend to those don't mind the lack of combat, likes exploring environments, enjoy atmospheric horror games with a story that will probably invoke some emotions.
 
WarriorX Excellent game! Made by the folks that made Amnesia: The Dark Decent. Scary as all get out since you are defenseless, it's all about evading enemies and stealth. If you haven't played Amnesia, I definitely recommend adding it to your list too.

The atmosphere in both those games are something else, the better your audio setup, the better the experience. Goes without saying, but you have to play this game in the dark too :D

Hair standing up on your neck is an understatement btw...
 
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Streets of Rage 2 - Sega Genesis

My son, who is now old enough to play video games, has taken a liking to the original Streets of Rage. It's a bonding thing between me(his dad) and him. IE - he doesn't like to play alone. Anyways, for a surprise, I bought a copy of Streets of Rage 2 and we played it this weekend. In short, it's better than the original, but not by that much.

First, I love that the game runs at 60fps. The original ran at just 30. And that's not all either. All around, the game simply looks better than the first. Characters are bigger, and backgrounds have more depth to them (IE - there are now foreground scrolling elements), and the game just looks much more polished than the first. Sound is a mixed bag. I dig what Yuzo Koshiro was going for, and the game more-or-less sounds like a more "amped up" version of the original Streets of Rage score, but I think I still have to give the nod to the first game, in terms of music.

The biggest improvement in the game has got to be the gameplay. Each character feels significantly different, and the game will end up playing differently as a result of who you pick. My favorite (and my son's as well) is Max - the big wrestler guy. He's slow but his hits are devastating. His slowness also sets a more "relaxed" pace of gameplay too.

If there's a strike against the game, it's got to be that the screen gets a little cluttered when doing co-op. I found myself accidentally hitting my son's character (and vice versa) more often in this game than the first. I think the reason for that is that the large sprites clutter the screen more.

Overall though, Streets of Rage 2 is considered to be one of the finest beat-em-up's ever created, and it's easy to see why. The gameplay is excellent, visuals great, stages imaginative, and the difficulty is just right. Oh, and did I mention the game virtually NEVER slows down?! Even when the screen is littered with bad guys and the sprite generator is at its limit (you'll see some line breakup in the characters), the Genesis still never drops a frame. Very impressive. Bonus points for co-op too!

If you haven't tried it, definitely do. It's a hell of a good time. :)
 
I love Streets of Rage 2. It took the style from Final Fight (and original Streets of Rage), but incorporated special moves and motions from fighting games. That added some additional depth beyond mashing and/or trying to grab everyone. I don't remember why, but I recall #3 being a little bit of a step down after Streets 2.
 
I love Streets of Rage 2. It took the style from Final Fight (and original Streets of Rage), but incorporated special moves and motions from fighting games. That added some additional depth beyond mashing and/or trying to grab everyone. I don't remember why, but I recall #3 being a little bit of a step down after Streets 2.

Yeah, most people consider Streets of Rage 3 to be inferior. Bare Knuckle 3, the Japanese version, is apparently better because it's less censored and its gameplay is better. That being said, it's got some stuff in it that my kids aren't quite ready to see just yet, so I won't be trying it any time soon.
 
20190814184759_1.jpg

I never finish games just don't have the time but just finished Deus Ex: Human Revolution the credits everyone at Edios Monteral was drunk. The outsourced bosses didn't bother me the last time I played this game was 2014 and in 2011 I started it suprised my saves were still there. Good game I like the clean look of the game unlike alot of those Modern games with tons of textures that just hurt your eyes.
 
Wolfenstein Youngblood

Here we have another example of a game that tried to branch out and hit all the modern gaming check boxes. Lots of upgrades? Check. Co-op at some expensive of a coherent experience? Check. A little too much retreading? Check. What we have is a decent FPS game that took what worked in the previous games and made it slightly worse while adding some features that just don't work very well.

Movement and shooting feels solid. Movement is quick yet has weight. As do the weapons. There is enough recoil yet your weapons don't fly all over the place. There isn't much wrong with these mechanics with one exception, and that is the amount of armor/health enemies get. Enemies are bullet sponges; there are some weak ones but many enemies just take too many shots to take down. Eventually as you upgrade your character this will become less of an issue.

You level up by completing missions, killing enemies and doing everyone's favorite gaming past time: Collecting awkward, meaningless things from the ground. Just what I wanted to do! Upgrading weapons is important and you get a sustainable amount of this by collecting coins by smashing open crates, running over dead bodies and opening boxes. It just pulls you out of the fast paced action because you spend a minute running around after each encounter, sometimes forgetting the dialogue as you scramble to pick crap up. This just isn't fun and took a stream lined experience that we found in The New Order and tainted it with awkward little sections post combat. You can upgrade both weapons and your character, but buying all of the attachments will be impossible. It wasn't a huge issue but changing out modifications on weapons would've helped change things up.

Enemy AI is gaming average. As in, kind of dumb. This is emphasized by the fact that many enemies are bullet sponges. It becomes much more noticeable that they simply follow their comrades, who were just gunned down seconds ago, around a corner and brazenly waltz into your line of fire. This shows faults of the slapped on leveling system which often distills the combat to dumping rounds in the direction of idiots while running towards them. Nevertheless, it is still fun overall. The general movement and shooting feel is better than most games. It is a mix of fast paced action with some weight/feeling to it which still ends up being fun. I think this says more about the state of modern games because Youngblood is still better, combat wise, than most other shooters.

Map wise the game presents you with a few open ended maps, which seems great at first but eventually gets repetitive. Most of the areas have a unique look and feel to them, but the diversity isn't on par with The New Order. Side missions take you back to the same places which can be fun the first time because you may see a new route or area, but that quickly becomes repetitive because you will get multiple side missions in the same area. Running back and fourth killing the same enemies again is lame. We need less time spent running places and picking up crap, and more time enjoying the combat and fighting in new areas.

Story is dumb, and the protagonists are dumb. It is silly and I hardly cared much for it. Evil Nazis, have to kill them. Annoying dialogue between your sisters with what sounds like a fake Southern accent mixed with a faux "retarded accent". It got old fast. There simply isn't anything in the story that grabs you in, no progression or anything memorable.

Lengthwise it took me around 16 or so hours to complete. I put another 5 or so hours into the game easily doing side quests.

Graphics, sounds and polish were of high quality. The game ran great and looked the part. It wasn't Metro Exodus but it certainly looked good enough while giving high frame rates which you do want for the faster paced nature of the game. Weapon sounds were good, voice acting itself was fine aside from the protagonists being annoying. I had no crashes of any kind, and no issues I can remember with regards to bugs. Easily one of the more polished games out there.

7.8/10

A solid experience with great polish and quality control made this be a fairly fun game.

*** The good news is the developers look to be listening to feedback and will make the game less bullet spongy in future patches. I assume that will make the experience a little better.


Heavy Rain

An interesting premise but ultimately this is just a bad game. The controls are bad. The buttons they require you to press are a pain, and having to hold down a button for so long gets tiresome. Why can't it be a simple press? The camera angles are bad, some of the worst I've ever experienced. They don't follow the player around much and come from an angle that offers poor visibility to the player in terms of where they are walking.

Gameplay wise the Heavy Rain is largely QTEs, but they're absolutely obnoxious QTEs. And whether you pass or fail a QTE often results in how the game will wrap up the story. I didn't have much issue with failing story altering QTEs, I actually got all those right, but dying due to some of the terrible "boss fight" QTEs was just a pain. Only a few sequences that actually affect the story require a conscious decision instead of mashing a button quickly enough. I don't mind the story taking a different course for failing to do an action, but this game largely removes player choice from the equation while requiring buttons to be held down for stupid lengths of time. The execution here was simply bad.

The story itself was interesting and wasn't so predictable. The problem is there were some things left unexplained which seem like outright plot holes. Apparently the developers decided to cut parts of the story with no explanation which will make you question why certain things occurred in the story. Even with their supposed explanation, I am not sure if that sufficiently fills the gap appropriately. Which is a shame because otherwise the story was fairly nice.

I had no real stability issues, maybe one CTD if I recall. Graphics were ugly but considering this is a port of an old game I can't fault them much.


5.5/10


Bad gameplay with an intriguing story which itself was flawed result in a low overall score. At some points I almost wished it was just a movie so I didn't have to partake in button mashing fests.






 


Heavy Rain

An interesting premise but ultimately this is just a bad game. The controls are bad. The buttons they require you to press are a pain, and having to hold down a button for so long gets tiresome. Why can't it be a simple press? The camera angles are bad, some of the worst I've ever experienced. They don't follow the player around much and come from an angle that offers poor visibility to the player in terms of where they are walking.

Gameplay wise the Heavy Rain is largely QTEs, but they're absolutely obnoxious QTEs. And whether you pass or fail a QTE often results in how the game will wrap up the story. I didn't have much issue with failing story altering QTEs, I actually got all those right, but dying due to some of the terrible "boss fight" QTEs was just a pain. Only a few sequences that actually affect the story require a conscious decision instead of mashing a button quickly enough. I don't mind the story taking a different course for failing to do an action, but this game largely removes player choice from the equation while requiring buttons to be held down for stupid lengths of time. The execution here was simply bad.

The story itself was interesting and wasn't so predictable. The problem is there were some things left unexplained which seem like outright plot holes. Apparently the developers decided to cut parts of the story with no explanation which will make you question why certain things occurred in the story. Even with their supposed explanation, I am not sure if that sufficiently fills the gap appropriately. Which is a shame because otherwise the story was fairly nice.

I had no real stability issues, maybe one CTD if I recall. Graphics were ugly but considering this is a port of an old game I can't fault them much.


5.5/10


Bad gameplay with an intriguing story which itself was flawed result in a low overall score. At some points I almost wished it was just a movie so I didn't have to partake in button mashing fests.
7,8 for youngblood? Can you spell overrated any clearer? That game is a 3 or 4 at best, the very best! Even without taking the wokeness into consideration.

As for Heavy Rain, i don't even know why they brought that game to the PC, it was only ever properly playable with the Move on the playstation as well. Still wasn't great, but at least it was far less of a pain with the move edition.
And apparently they didn't make the controls any better for the port.
 
7,8 for youngblood? Can you spell overrated any clearer? That game is a 3 or 4 at best, the very best! Even without taking the wokeness into consideration.

As for Heavy Rain, i don't even know why they brought that game to the PC, it was only ever properly playable with the Move on the playstation as well. Still wasn't great, but at least it was far less of a pain with the move edition.
And apparently they didn't make the controls any better for the port.

Youngblood was fun enough. Flawed but still fun. High polish pushed it up for me. Not worrying about the game crashing or inputs not being detected makes it stand above many other games. Combat was let down by overly powerful enemies and dumb AI but still was better than most shooters out there. Heavy Rain controls suck as I mentioned. The whole game aspect sucked. I realize it comes with the genre it is in, but it was utterly obnoxious control/camera wise. The semi interesting story was literally all it had going for it otherwise it would've been a 3 for me.
 
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