Virgin Spider-Man (2018):
– Mindless automated swinging where you don't have to think of anything other than having tall structures near you. No care for trajectory and momentum. Traversal is totally separated from combat.
– Mashy arkham combat that practically plays itself as you react to prompts on the screen. Doesn't even feel good since hits have zero punch.
– Ubisoft mush of checklists on the map with objectives as creative as "press A near the icon" or "defeat waves of generic enemies".
– Peter Parker fixes police surveillance network, larps as a cop and unquestionably trusts authority. Blatant copaganda that wants you be a part of status quo.

Chad Bionic Commando (2009):
– Detailed traversal where you have to consider trajectory and momentum of motion, not to mention the objects to swing on. Satisfying to get a grip on and use in combat encounters.
– Competent acrobatic TPS that requires mastery of movement mechanics to succeed. Pulling yourself to enemies to send them with a flying kick is peak instant gratification.
– Concise linear campaign encompassing a good variation of combat encounters and traversal challenges, alternating between action set pieces and moments of quiet exploration.
– Nathan Spencer despises every order from the government that marginalizes him despite making him a monstrous weapon in the first place. Proven to be right when it's revealed that his direct authority is behind the attacks.

Bionic Commando solos.

God this game is just dope as hell. A hero marginalized by authorities for being a threat to nazis? Cool swinging mechanics with a learning curve? A set of enemies that actually demand swift movement and mindful use of your tools? Despite all scuffed things about it, I keep returning to this reboot every few years for another replay. No other game has quite got bare fundamentals of an acrobatic action game so right, and I like it even better every time around.

Please Capcom give Spencer another chance. Make him non-stop quip like in a Marvel movie or give him a little bionic son to make journalists like it this time around. I'll take my monkey's paw to bring good swinging back in video games.

The concept of BPM shooter is intoxicating, and fundamentally Hellsinger achieves the promise of an FPS game that subjugates the player to the flow of bass riffs, bestowing the growl of burly Swedish men as the highest reward for good performance.

Your enemies are underwhelming though, not beholden to rules of rhythm as you are. It's quite telling that modding in faster songs makes the game EASIER, which I see as not getting the second part of BPM game equation quite right.

Also, very front-loaded in terms of OST. If you found yourself impressed with the music from the demo you might simply not get that from the back half of the levels. Serj cameo is very neat though.

Cool game overall, just falls short in a few key ways to be truly rad.

Uncharted 1-3 are straight ass, but what's this? Well designed combat encounters that take advantage of Drake's innate agility and athleticism? Intriguing historical mystique that mirrors hero's personal journey? Naughty Dog holding back with destruction pageantry and urgent action sequences so a few times they do happen they can actually leave an impact? It's still simplistic to the core, but this has to be the first time Sony's 7th-8th gen prestige formula actually worked on me. All it took is some focus and restraint, qualities that these games nearly always lack.

God, this game is so fucking cool. I assumed this to be a quirky management sim with heavy handed anti-corporate set dressing, reputable yet trite. I did not expect that base to be a vehicle to probe human's perseverance and tenacity, either by way of experience when the player is inevitably crushed by excruciatingly unfair trials and errors, or through the misery of characters bound to roots of this diabolical tree. It's such a success when anti-corporate notion isn't just handed out as sermon! It's also incredible when religious mysticism so effectively informs the story as it could just be a feeble ornament for extra style points like in many ocassions before. Even with repetition issues dulling out certain story beats I found overall tapestry enchanting, I might be hooked on Project Moon.

It's just meeting LoboCorp on its own terms is an absolute waste of time. There are ways to make pre-coded failure worthwhile as some games do with robust simulation of environment (Rain World). Constantly changing rules not letting the player slide into a comfortable strategy make sense when the game accepts mistakes and lets you roll with them forward (Pathologic 2). But as it stands, LoboCorp is too rigid and rudimentary yet completely unaccepting to errors, in a system you're supposed to explore guessing and grinding your way through! And no layers of cognition filtering will aid when micromanagement of everexpanding facility must be done using the least functional strategy UI ever. I just think I got the overall point well enough to earn my "Lobotomy Corporation Complete Story Compilation" pass.

10 hours of a game pass trial is a very generous offer considering you need exactly 5 minutes hands-on to realize there's just not much to experience here. A street racing game that leans heavily into hip-hop culture would be a treat but instead it immediately commits Forza Horizon 5's cardinal sin of having a person constantly talk in your ears establishing how relatable and hip they are, while the painter tag SFX gimmick is exactly that — a gimmick, and could as well be a mutator in virtually anything else.

What's left? The most cookie cutter seventh gen open world racer you've seen. Doesn't feel good ripping it a new one considering the car handling is competent enough and there are at least glints of fresh appearance, but if you're a regular on this website you definitely played this game already.

I was done with monotonous cadence of combat and stealth by hour four, you tell me the other game is 2.5 times longer than this? Yeah, Miles has drip and doesn't suck up to cops which makes him a much more likeable protagonist than Spider-Man from the sister game, but the feeling that I play a sauceless version of Batman Arkham would never go away. As simple as those games were — Arkham had memorable sequences and odd challenges that required creative application of tools. In comparison, the curviest ball Spider-Man is going to throw is introduce the enemy that has to be dismantled by pressing Y instead of X. "The oatmeal of games" is a very succinct definition here: it's aight, it's not wasteful, but not a single part of my brain is tickled as I consume this media product.