Cody1075
24 reviews liked by Cody1075
Though I have played Colonial Marines several times over, I have never played its DLC prequel story chapters. Just as expected, Stasis Interrupted is more horrendous Aliens fanfiction (this time with Alien³) with the usual "fish in barrel" shootouts. For an extra 3 hours of gameplay, Stasis Interrupted does what it advertises on the tin, but it's more Colonial Marines, which is a net negative at the end of the day.
Colonial Marines may be a bit better than I would orignally give it credit for solely for functioning alright compared to most other kusoge. It's clear that Colonial Marines was a Frankenstein's Monster of poorly thought-out story ideas stitched together by several contracted studios because Gearbox spent more time and money on Borderlands 2 and attempting to make something out of Duke Nukem Forever. Needless to say this spotty development approach and lack of care and interest in the IP (despite what that awful PR video tries to gaslight the audience into believing) births a half-baked shooting gallery at best, and technically unstable, infuriating fan fiction at its worst.
Colonial Marines' biggest praise is that being able to pick off fish in a barrel with a friend is somewhat fun. Obviously, playing this with my friend @Cody1075 meant we spent more time having fun at the game's expense rather than giving it much of a fair shot. Colonial Marines makes it hard to approach it with anything resembling fairness, though, considering how technically busted it is. While I was able to complete this most recent playthrough without crashes, that doesn't mean there weren't ceaseless audio-visual and gameplay related bugs happening to either of us on the frequent.
The fact Randy Pitchford had a shitfit and fell in it how Stephany Sterling and other critics at the time (rightfully) shat on this trash for what it was astounds me. History has rightfully placed Colonial Marines in the shitter with all the other bunk (if not entertaining) shooters that plagued the hardware generation. No, Randy, this game is not a 7/10; not even close.
Colonial Marines' biggest praise is that being able to pick off fish in a barrel with a friend is somewhat fun. Obviously, playing this with my friend @Cody1075 meant we spent more time having fun at the game's expense rather than giving it much of a fair shot. Colonial Marines makes it hard to approach it with anything resembling fairness, though, considering how technically busted it is. While I was able to complete this most recent playthrough without crashes, that doesn't mean there weren't ceaseless audio-visual and gameplay related bugs happening to either of us on the frequent.
The fact Randy Pitchford had a shitfit and fell in it how Stephany Sterling and other critics at the time (rightfully) shat on this trash for what it was astounds me. History has rightfully placed Colonial Marines in the shitter with all the other bunk (if not entertaining) shooters that plagued the hardware generation. No, Randy, this game is not a 7/10; not even close.
Half-Life: Decay
2001
Goofed around in this with a friend in local co-op and it's a blast if not for the bland level design and crushing difficulty. Turning on cheats and smashing everything with a crowbar with your equally stupid friend is an absolute joy.
*Technically played the PS5 LRG release but I cannot find a specific release date for the port so I cannot add the data to Backloggd
I wanted to play this with a friend who helped me secure a hard copy when I was running a little low on dough, and I was finally able to. The both of us had a mostly good time besides my frustration getting the hang of how the game works. Though there is an included manual, both that and the initial menus do a poor job of onboarding the player, making the initial experience a frustrating trial-and-error effort until you understand the three or so functions you need to repeat to see the ending.
Onboarding issues aside, Night Trap serves its purpose of being a glorified party gag best suited for groups of intoxicated friends (or at least ones that appreciate silly games). Without multiple eyes watching the cameras (if you're using the modern convenience mode) or a friend scanning a walkthrough next to you, the repetitious gameplay and cruel tricks the game tries to pull would sour fast. I'm glad I had my first experience with a "backseat gamer" in the share play chat.
The game, itself is whatever 25 years later, but the packaging of said product is arguably more important when "preserving and enhancing" the experience. Night Trap's 25th Anniversary release has enough goodies to suffice, with several interviews, behind-the-scenes photos/promos, and a 45-minute "movie" version of the game you can watch; it's not a lot, but it's enough to justify buying a modern port of a SEGA CD game.
Lastly: no, the 4K transfer for the PS5 version is not worth it. I don't know much about the equipment used to shoot/preserve the master used for the updated edition, but most of the scenes aren't clean and upscale enough to make any reasonable difference if I were to buy the PS4, Switch, or PC versions of Night Trap.
I wanted to play this with a friend who helped me secure a hard copy when I was running a little low on dough, and I was finally able to. The both of us had a mostly good time besides my frustration getting the hang of how the game works. Though there is an included manual, both that and the initial menus do a poor job of onboarding the player, making the initial experience a frustrating trial-and-error effort until you understand the three or so functions you need to repeat to see the ending.
Onboarding issues aside, Night Trap serves its purpose of being a glorified party gag best suited for groups of intoxicated friends (or at least ones that appreciate silly games). Without multiple eyes watching the cameras (if you're using the modern convenience mode) or a friend scanning a walkthrough next to you, the repetitious gameplay and cruel tricks the game tries to pull would sour fast. I'm glad I had my first experience with a "backseat gamer" in the share play chat.
The game, itself is whatever 25 years later, but the packaging of said product is arguably more important when "preserving and enhancing" the experience. Night Trap's 25th Anniversary release has enough goodies to suffice, with several interviews, behind-the-scenes photos/promos, and a 45-minute "movie" version of the game you can watch; it's not a lot, but it's enough to justify buying a modern port of a SEGA CD game.
Lastly: no, the 4K transfer for the PS5 version is not worth it. I don't know much about the equipment used to shoot/preserve the master used for the updated edition, but most of the scenes aren't clean and upscale enough to make any reasonable difference if I were to buy the PS4, Switch, or PC versions of Night Trap.
There is no doubt that Red Dead Redemption 2 is a game packed to the brim with enthralling content. One of the most precise definitions of an "open world" as it allows you to explore a vast, beautiful, wild west frontier with striking detail paired with one of the most enthralling stories and empathetic characters in video games.
Although you're playing a game filled with outlaws in nearly every definition of the word, there's beauty in the souls of repeat criminal offenders. The player comes into contact with several different people among many different walks of life, leading to dynamic encounters both scripted and even player-driven (if not in a railroaded mission) that make this world and its characters feel so genuine. The sheer number of "important" characters to the narrative is intimidating, leading to an expected lengthy runtime; a runtime that is understandably a bit much for many, and itching close to a dealbreaker for me. Thankfully, the aforementioned strong narrative guides the player through an often dark, sometimes beautiful, and tear-jerking narrative that you won't forget anytime soon.
Red Dead Redemption 2's story and aesthetics are admittedly its saving grace among a litany of long-standing issues with Rockstar's game design. There's no need to go over every one of them, but if you've played any other open-world Rockstar game, you'll find yourself in the samey travel, talk, shooting gallery, talk mission structures found in their games of yore. Be prepared, come the later chapters of the story, that's going to be a large majority of story missions.
As long as you stick to Rockstar's strict guidelines on what it wants from you in its story, you'll have an amazing time with this game. While I did enjoy my time, I found being railroaded through extensive - and sometimes quite boring - missions and travel bloated the completion time more than it should have. Red Dead Redemption 2's scenery does make the tedious-to-swallow travel time easier to digest. Eventually, the player will even gain access to fast travel, yet like many other mechanics in Red Dead Redemption 2, it's buried under heaps of poor UI and the game's assistance in sticking to its underwhelming survival mechanics.
In this attempt to create a more "realistic" open-world experience, you're bound from the beginning to engage with some (mostly optional) survival mechanics. Some of these may be fun and even turn into decent companion missions (ex: hunting, fishing, ambushes), but many slog down the pace of the game and introduce more burdens on a game that demands a lot of your time. Having to worry about babying Arthur around to make sure he eats, gets proper sleep, bathes, as well as cleans and feeds his horse gets old when you need to do these things and have to take extended breaks from the story. All of this comes from someone who hasn't had many positive experiences with survival games as it is. I know that in the grand scheme of survival games, Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn't go very far; that begs the question though as to why they'd bother to implement these features if they weren't going to go all-in?
It's sad to know that many developers literally hurt themselves for the production of this game; something we should never excuse or forget. With that crunch and strong ambitions for what Red Dead Redemption 2's world was to be, there are some problems worth discussing. Many have pontificated already about the need for these 100+ hour work weeks to code in your male horse's balls shrinking in the cold (obviously unnecessary), but that also sheds a dichotomy to Rockstar's overall mission structure. With how many obsessive little things there are to find and do throughout Red Dead Redemption 2, the gameplay structure of many story missions buckles down into drawn-out shooting galleries with a janky cover system and less-than-stellar shooting controls. There's good reason to question Rockstar's priorities when it comes to game design.
At the end of the day, my experience with Red Dead Redemption 2 is obviously a positive one. That said, when you're expected to be railroaded through very specific mission structures, with specific half-baked survival mechanics, and with clunky, outdated gameplay on behalf of an overly-detailed animation system, I begin wondering if Rockstar is ever going to evolve beyond its writing and tech prowess and will begin providing better gameplay experiences in the future.
Although you're playing a game filled with outlaws in nearly every definition of the word, there's beauty in the souls of repeat criminal offenders. The player comes into contact with several different people among many different walks of life, leading to dynamic encounters both scripted and even player-driven (if not in a railroaded mission) that make this world and its characters feel so genuine. The sheer number of "important" characters to the narrative is intimidating, leading to an expected lengthy runtime; a runtime that is understandably a bit much for many, and itching close to a dealbreaker for me. Thankfully, the aforementioned strong narrative guides the player through an often dark, sometimes beautiful, and tear-jerking narrative that you won't forget anytime soon.
Red Dead Redemption 2's story and aesthetics are admittedly its saving grace among a litany of long-standing issues with Rockstar's game design. There's no need to go over every one of them, but if you've played any other open-world Rockstar game, you'll find yourself in the samey travel, talk, shooting gallery, talk mission structures found in their games of yore. Be prepared, come the later chapters of the story, that's going to be a large majority of story missions.
As long as you stick to Rockstar's strict guidelines on what it wants from you in its story, you'll have an amazing time with this game. While I did enjoy my time, I found being railroaded through extensive - and sometimes quite boring - missions and travel bloated the completion time more than it should have. Red Dead Redemption 2's scenery does make the tedious-to-swallow travel time easier to digest. Eventually, the player will even gain access to fast travel, yet like many other mechanics in Red Dead Redemption 2, it's buried under heaps of poor UI and the game's assistance in sticking to its underwhelming survival mechanics.
In this attempt to create a more "realistic" open-world experience, you're bound from the beginning to engage with some (mostly optional) survival mechanics. Some of these may be fun and even turn into decent companion missions (ex: hunting, fishing, ambushes), but many slog down the pace of the game and introduce more burdens on a game that demands a lot of your time. Having to worry about babying Arthur around to make sure he eats, gets proper sleep, bathes, as well as cleans and feeds his horse gets old when you need to do these things and have to take extended breaks from the story. All of this comes from someone who hasn't had many positive experiences with survival games as it is. I know that in the grand scheme of survival games, Red Dead Redemption 2 doesn't go very far; that begs the question though as to why they'd bother to implement these features if they weren't going to go all-in?
It's sad to know that many developers literally hurt themselves for the production of this game; something we should never excuse or forget. With that crunch and strong ambitions for what Red Dead Redemption 2's world was to be, there are some problems worth discussing. Many have pontificated already about the need for these 100+ hour work weeks to code in your male horse's balls shrinking in the cold (obviously unnecessary), but that also sheds a dichotomy to Rockstar's overall mission structure. With how many obsessive little things there are to find and do throughout Red Dead Redemption 2, the gameplay structure of many story missions buckles down into drawn-out shooting galleries with a janky cover system and less-than-stellar shooting controls. There's good reason to question Rockstar's priorities when it comes to game design.
At the end of the day, my experience with Red Dead Redemption 2 is obviously a positive one. That said, when you're expected to be railroaded through very specific mission structures, with specific half-baked survival mechanics, and with clunky, outdated gameplay on behalf of an overly-detailed animation system, I begin wondering if Rockstar is ever going to evolve beyond its writing and tech prowess and will begin providing better gameplay experiences in the future.
I've never made it a secret among my peers that Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon is my favorite game in the series. Free from the restrains of accumulating inane amounts of the expected "Ubisoft bloat," Blood Dragon is a far more concise package still filled with the usual collect-a-thon open-world nonsense, but scaled down to a far more palatable size. With a smaller scale and a more juvenile, 80s nostalgia attitude (when that wasn't as annoying as it is today), Blood Dragon was remarkably the freshest entry in a series that was only going downhill from here.
When a "Classic Edition" for Blood Dragon was announced, I was pretty excited to have another excuse to play one of my favorite open-world games. Sadly, the game was restricted behind a season pass paywall for Far Cry 6, a game I wasn't about to buy - especially at launch since Ubi games tank in value faster than the crypto market - however, with the most recent PlayStation sale, I felt $10 was a reasonable asking price for this game.
To say I was wrong over my initial assessments is an understatement. While Blood Dragon is still a good game to this day, this "Classic Edition" port is a total sham and a waste of money. This may have also been the case for the 8th gen port of Far Cry 3 (I haven't played it in years), but Blood Dragon sees no noticeable improvements to the visuals, gameplay, performance, and so on. There shouldn't be any excuse as to why this isn't running at 60FPS at least on a PS4 Pro (I played on PS5 through an external HDD, which technically runs these Pro versions when available). Even if that was unachievable on a Pro, there are ZERO excuses why this shouldn't be running at 60FPS on a PlayStation 5, especially when there are no noticeable visual improvements to the game.
I don't want to scream about lazy devs, especially in a cutthroat company like Ubisoft (that still employs and shuffles around known and admitted sexual abusers within leadership positions in the company), but this is by far the laziest port of a game I've ever seen. The gall to not only release this half-assed port of a game but also hide it behind a season pass for another game for a while, and when you finally release it standalone, to still feel the need to ask for money on such a lazy port of a nearly 10-year-old game is astounding.
To this very day, the best way to play this game will still be on PC, where you can actually get good performance out of it (and of course have KBM support which is usually my preference for FPS games anyway). Don't give your money to Ubisoft even on a good day, but especially for half-assed software like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - Classic Edition.
When a "Classic Edition" for Blood Dragon was announced, I was pretty excited to have another excuse to play one of my favorite open-world games. Sadly, the game was restricted behind a season pass paywall for Far Cry 6, a game I wasn't about to buy - especially at launch since Ubi games tank in value faster than the crypto market - however, with the most recent PlayStation sale, I felt $10 was a reasonable asking price for this game.
To say I was wrong over my initial assessments is an understatement. While Blood Dragon is still a good game to this day, this "Classic Edition" port is a total sham and a waste of money. This may have also been the case for the 8th gen port of Far Cry 3 (I haven't played it in years), but Blood Dragon sees no noticeable improvements to the visuals, gameplay, performance, and so on. There shouldn't be any excuse as to why this isn't running at 60FPS at least on a PS4 Pro (I played on PS5 through an external HDD, which technically runs these Pro versions when available). Even if that was unachievable on a Pro, there are ZERO excuses why this shouldn't be running at 60FPS on a PlayStation 5, especially when there are no noticeable visual improvements to the game.
I don't want to scream about lazy devs, especially in a cutthroat company like Ubisoft (that still employs and shuffles around known and admitted sexual abusers within leadership positions in the company), but this is by far the laziest port of a game I've ever seen. The gall to not only release this half-assed port of a game but also hide it behind a season pass for another game for a while, and when you finally release it standalone, to still feel the need to ask for money on such a lazy port of a nearly 10-year-old game is astounding.
To this very day, the best way to play this game will still be on PC, where you can actually get good performance out of it (and of course have KBM support which is usually my preference for FPS games anyway). Don't give your money to Ubisoft even on a good day, but especially for half-assed software like Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon - Classic Edition.
Metal Gear Survive
2018
I just can't force myself to finish this. After an earnest effort to finish the most controversial "Metal Gear" game, I just can't finish it.
Metal Gear Survive isn't anywhere near the "worst game ever" or anything like that. Instead, Metal Gear Survive offers the skeletal minimums of single-player survival gameplay plastered over the Fox Engine in an obvious attempt to recoup those development costs. What spawns out the other side of this cynical match made in hell is an obvious "product of a video game."
Metal Gear Survive isn't there to keep you engaged in a fun gameplay loop or develop an intriguing narrative; what it is here for is to keep you in a constant loop of logging in, doing dailies, and hoping to extract you out of some cash (they want $10 for you to create a second save file, for example). While it's on, I can't say MG:S is a terrible game. The core fundamentals of a functional video game are found within Survive, yet none of the "fun" can ever really be found besides Falcon-punching coyotes in the middle of the desert.
What killed this game for me was its horrid save system. MG:S does not care at all if you finished the objective, completed side quests, and were totally efficent and clean through all of it; if you don't march your ass back to the safehouse, you will lose all of your progress when out exploring. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was the fourth - yes fourth - time I had completed an objective that took nearly - if not longer than - a half-hour to complete, only to lose all my progress because I died on my way back to home base. There's a level of respect a game must have for a player's time, and when liberties are taken to this extreme, I fail to see any reason to respect the game on its terms and actually finish it.
Metal Gear Survive isn't anywhere near the "worst game ever" or anything like that. Instead, Metal Gear Survive offers the skeletal minimums of single-player survival gameplay plastered over the Fox Engine in an obvious attempt to recoup those development costs. What spawns out the other side of this cynical match made in hell is an obvious "product of a video game."
Metal Gear Survive isn't there to keep you engaged in a fun gameplay loop or develop an intriguing narrative; what it is here for is to keep you in a constant loop of logging in, doing dailies, and hoping to extract you out of some cash (they want $10 for you to create a second save file, for example). While it's on, I can't say MG:S is a terrible game. The core fundamentals of a functional video game are found within Survive, yet none of the "fun" can ever really be found besides Falcon-punching coyotes in the middle of the desert.
What killed this game for me was its horrid save system. MG:S does not care at all if you finished the objective, completed side quests, and were totally efficent and clean through all of it; if you don't march your ass back to the safehouse, you will lose all of your progress when out exploring. The straw that finally broke the camel's back was the fourth - yes fourth - time I had completed an objective that took nearly - if not longer than - a half-hour to complete, only to lose all my progress because I died on my way back to home base. There's a level of respect a game must have for a player's time, and when liberties are taken to this extreme, I fail to see any reason to respect the game on its terms and actually finish it.
Predator: Hunting Grounds barely works as it's intended. Within the 3 games a friend and I played, we had one that could've been considered bug free, and our 3rd (and last) match had a game-breaking bug where I was a headless t-posing menace immune to damage, yet couldn't interact with the world, nor had any UI elements on the screen.
Even if this game can say it "mostly" works, it's incredibly boring, smeared in disgusting motion blur and grain effects, and is genuinely a boring a-sync multiplayer affair that made us wish I was playing anything else.
Even if this game can say it "mostly" works, it's incredibly boring, smeared in disgusting motion blur and grain effects, and is genuinely a boring a-sync multiplayer affair that made us wish I was playing anything else.
All things considered, I'm rather surprised that Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie (yes I will continue to use the full title since it is the best title for a video game, ever) is as decent as it is.
Movie licensed games used to be a rather common epidemic on gaming consoles. The low-quality standard of this point in gaming was a serious problem since movie-tie-in games could've been something really great. We've seen a few of those titles over the years, and Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie was oftentimes hailed as one of those very titles.
Getting down to brass tacks, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is a rather sub-par first-person shooter for most of the game, held up by some alright level design and impressively ambitious mechanics for when this game initially released. Seeing a full ecosystem brought to life in a linear FPS game was pretty awesome, especially so since this was made by Ubisoft during the early days of the Far Cry series.
Unfortunately, there are many technical issues holding this game back. While it is technically impressive for the time it released (and understanding that video game graphics of the time have certainly aged), there are several control and performance issues that can cause frustrating moments of jank and trial by fire level design. Sadly, even the massively impressive King Kong segments are held back by wonky control issues, though being able to snap the jaws of a T-Rex while playing as a giant ape is something I could never grow old of.
Due to the sheer amount of copies that are out there, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is a game you can get your hands on for rather cheap... depending on the platform. I struck gold in finding the Xbox 360 version of this game for rather cheap, considering that achievement nerds have made this a rather massive "holy grail" kind of game due to its easy achievement list. Needless to say, the price of this game is stupidly inflated when it comes to the only (easily playable) HD version of this game, which I would predict looks and runs better than the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox versions of this same game.
Get your hands on it if you must for the 360 version, but I presume you'd be just fine finding another version for significantly less.
Movie licensed games used to be a rather common epidemic on gaming consoles. The low-quality standard of this point in gaming was a serious problem since movie-tie-in games could've been something really great. We've seen a few of those titles over the years, and Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie was oftentimes hailed as one of those very titles.
Getting down to brass tacks, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is a rather sub-par first-person shooter for most of the game, held up by some alright level design and impressively ambitious mechanics for when this game initially released. Seeing a full ecosystem brought to life in a linear FPS game was pretty awesome, especially so since this was made by Ubisoft during the early days of the Far Cry series.
Unfortunately, there are many technical issues holding this game back. While it is technically impressive for the time it released (and understanding that video game graphics of the time have certainly aged), there are several control and performance issues that can cause frustrating moments of jank and trial by fire level design. Sadly, even the massively impressive King Kong segments are held back by wonky control issues, though being able to snap the jaws of a T-Rex while playing as a giant ape is something I could never grow old of.
Due to the sheer amount of copies that are out there, Peter Jackson's King Kong: The Official Game of the Movie is a game you can get your hands on for rather cheap... depending on the platform. I struck gold in finding the Xbox 360 version of this game for rather cheap, considering that achievement nerds have made this a rather massive "holy grail" kind of game due to its easy achievement list. Needless to say, the price of this game is stupidly inflated when it comes to the only (easily playable) HD version of this game, which I would predict looks and runs better than the GameCube, PlayStation 2, and Xbox versions of this same game.
Get your hands on it if you must for the 360 version, but I presume you'd be just fine finding another version for significantly less.
Resident Evil 3
2020
So, I was writing this whole big review for the game when the window I was writing this in crashed, so no big review, I guess.
Anyway, this remake is fantastic. The gameplay is fluid and super customizable (keyboard/mouse setup is king for this game), the story is great in that usual hokey Resident Evil fashion, the changes brought upon this version of the game are interesting but still remain mostly faithful to the original release, the voice acting is great, and although we're in a more action-heavy experience as compared to the RE 2 remake, the game is still fraught with great horror moments that freaked me out plenty.
I'm just going to say here that although I finished this game in around 6 hours for a first run, I do not have any complaints about the game length. I know that there's a lot of people out there complaining that this game is short, and I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but it should always be kept in mind that the original Resident Evil 3 is a rather short game, and although there aren't any additional scenarios placed on like in RE 2, there's a wealth of interesting NG+ options available once you roll credits.
If you're someone who places a lot on the length of your gaming experience, then don't bother with this game at full price, but if you're a functioning adult and realize a brief, yet replayable and extremely fun experience is more worth playing that a drawn-out boring one for 25+ hours, then you'll certainly have a blast with this game.
I highly recommend Resident Evil 3 Remake to RE fans and functioning adults alike.
Anyway, this remake is fantastic. The gameplay is fluid and super customizable (keyboard/mouse setup is king for this game), the story is great in that usual hokey Resident Evil fashion, the changes brought upon this version of the game are interesting but still remain mostly faithful to the original release, the voice acting is great, and although we're in a more action-heavy experience as compared to the RE 2 remake, the game is still fraught with great horror moments that freaked me out plenty.
I'm just going to say here that although I finished this game in around 6 hours for a first run, I do not have any complaints about the game length. I know that there's a lot of people out there complaining that this game is short, and I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but it should always be kept in mind that the original Resident Evil 3 is a rather short game, and although there aren't any additional scenarios placed on like in RE 2, there's a wealth of interesting NG+ options available once you roll credits.
If you're someone who places a lot on the length of your gaming experience, then don't bother with this game at full price, but if you're a functioning adult and realize a brief, yet replayable and extremely fun experience is more worth playing that a drawn-out boring one for 25+ hours, then you'll certainly have a blast with this game.
I highly recommend Resident Evil 3 Remake to RE fans and functioning adults alike.
