Count_Zurgula
1982
Probably my all-time favorite classic arcade game
Dig Dug was one of those arcade games I can’t resist playing if I am at an arcade. Like most of these classic arcade games I first played it on a plug and play in the early 2000s and immediately got hooked. For those of you who have never played basically this is kinda like a side scrolling maze arcade game where you play as a protagonist with a harpoon gun who digs tunnels into the ground and creates mazes. A fun and unique concept where the player creates the map essentially to eliminate the enemies. The enemies consist of Dragons and these monkey looking things called Pookas. The harpoon gun thing inflates the enemies into ballons, and they burst and the only other way to kill enemies is by strategically crushing them with rocks by dinging under them at the right time. The objective is to kill all of the enemies and the enemies usually become solid in tunnels but can also turn into ghosts and fly though the ground. The last few enemies usually try to escape the stage and whether they do or not the next stage is loaded. That’s basically the gameplay loop for DigDug its simple but feels very unique for its time compared to a lot of the other arcade games that existed. I believe this game is actually beatable and not infinite stages, but I’ve never seen most people get past the first 20 or so stages and I’m pretty sure there are a couple hundred so like most games from that time it gets really hard but out of a lot of the older arcades I actually can usually sweep through a decent number of stages. The music and FX of Dig Dug were always some of my favorite and graphically its nothing too incredible with the screen mostly just being dirt but its still a great classic game that’s pretty balanced and is all about strategically moving around the map and not getting yourself corned. I love old arcade games, but this is one I think I recommend the most because of its fun and unique nature.
10/10
Dig Dug was one of those arcade games I can’t resist playing if I am at an arcade. Like most of these classic arcade games I first played it on a plug and play in the early 2000s and immediately got hooked. For those of you who have never played basically this is kinda like a side scrolling maze arcade game where you play as a protagonist with a harpoon gun who digs tunnels into the ground and creates mazes. A fun and unique concept where the player creates the map essentially to eliminate the enemies. The enemies consist of Dragons and these monkey looking things called Pookas. The harpoon gun thing inflates the enemies into ballons, and they burst and the only other way to kill enemies is by strategically crushing them with rocks by dinging under them at the right time. The objective is to kill all of the enemies and the enemies usually become solid in tunnels but can also turn into ghosts and fly though the ground. The last few enemies usually try to escape the stage and whether they do or not the next stage is loaded. That’s basically the gameplay loop for DigDug its simple but feels very unique for its time compared to a lot of the other arcade games that existed. I believe this game is actually beatable and not infinite stages, but I’ve never seen most people get past the first 20 or so stages and I’m pretty sure there are a couple hundred so like most games from that time it gets really hard but out of a lot of the older arcades I actually can usually sweep through a decent number of stages. The music and FX of Dig Dug were always some of my favorite and graphically its nothing too incredible with the screen mostly just being dirt but its still a great classic game that’s pretty balanced and is all about strategically moving around the map and not getting yourself corned. I love old arcade games, but this is one I think I recommend the most because of its fun and unique nature.
10/10
1981
Great improvement over the original!
The Sequel to Galaxian, Galaga improves over the first one in many ways. This is a top-down game where you once again play as a spaceship killing alien ships. This game could handle a slightly better movement system, better firing and allowed you to shoot multiple shots on screen at once all of which was limited on the first one due to the older software. The game ever so slightly looked better when it came to ship design and style. One of the biggest improvements is the way even my spaceships move on screen and their capabilities where all of a sudden, a spaceship could steal one of your lives and use it against you, very cool stuff I did not expect while playing and because of these small changes I always preferred this one over the previous. This, much like a lot of the classic Arcade titles, will probably live on forever in some form or another.
9.5/10
The Sequel to Galaxian, Galaga improves over the first one in many ways. This is a top-down game where you once again play as a spaceship killing alien ships. This game could handle a slightly better movement system, better firing and allowed you to shoot multiple shots on screen at once all of which was limited on the first one due to the older software. The game ever so slightly looked better when it came to ship design and style. One of the biggest improvements is the way even my spaceships move on screen and their capabilities where all of a sudden, a spaceship could steal one of your lives and use it against you, very cool stuff I did not expect while playing and because of these small changes I always preferred this one over the previous. This, much like a lot of the classic Arcade titles, will probably live on forever in some form or another.
9.5/10
1979
Isn't much but for its time this was pretty big
Galaxian is a classic arcade shooter where you play as a space ship killing Alien space ships. Its a top down view and you can only move left and right on the screen while space ships shoot and fly down at you. It's a simple concept and a simple game with not much more to say about the gameplay other than that. It was one of the first video games with color and you might have this game confused with Galaga which is the sequel. This one was limiting because you could only shoot one bullet at a time. Just like most games at the time this game is infinite and you only get 3 lives. I personally never made it crazy far on this version and only have done better on Galaga but this one is fun too. Sometimes its the simple games that are the best games.
9/10
Galaxian is a classic arcade shooter where you play as a space ship killing Alien space ships. Its a top down view and you can only move left and right on the screen while space ships shoot and fly down at you. It's a simple concept and a simple game with not much more to say about the gameplay other than that. It was one of the first video games with color and you might have this game confused with Galaga which is the sequel. This one was limiting because you could only shoot one bullet at a time. Just like most games at the time this game is infinite and you only get 3 lives. I personally never made it crazy far on this version and only have done better on Galaga but this one is fun too. Sometimes its the simple games that are the best games.
9/10
2005
One of the hardest games I've ever played.
Ninja Gaiden Black is a remaster of the previous version with more content added which is a remake of the NES version and man is this game difficult. It’s a game I love and hate because its fun and bad ass, but it was the first extremely hard game I had ever played at the time and man did this game break me.
Gameplay: NG Black is a fixed camera angle hack and slash game, think of Devil May Cry 1 but with the difficulty of the original release of DMC 3 and that's basically what this game is. It's absolutely one of the hardest video games out there. Up there in hardness like the dark soul’s franchise or cup head. You are a Ninja with a decent arsenal of deadly and gory weapons that dismember enemies. Just like dmc you do combos and have to dodge other enemies’ attacks. You have a sort of devil trigger ability that does crazy damage and projectile weapons like a bow and arrow. The game is hard because of the camera angles, controls, and enemy ai and honestly no matter how strong you get throughout the story you can pretty much get destroyed by a basic enemy if you screw up. It's satisfying to get though levels but it's excruciating sometimes, especially towards the end. Each area seems to have some platforming which you can run up and along walls, but it feels like I’m playing ps1 tomb raider with how clunky it can be. Most of the levels have some sort of puzzle solving to do and I remember certain levels I had to ask a friend who had beaten it to help me understand where I needed to go because of how complicated the puzzles got and I couldn't figure out where to bring stuff and at that point I was a seasoned resident evil puzzle solver and I still couldn't figure out the map too well. The check points in this game are basically the level starts and ends more or less and man a lot of them are in crazy spots I remember at the end of the game you have to platform up a volcano like structure level that's timed and you have to also kill a boss all in the same checkpoint and just getting past the platforming was almost impossible for me, maybe I just suck but God damn. I think I cried tears of joy when I beat the final boss and I remember I was genuinely one step away from straight up quitting and just looking up the ending.
Graphics, voice acting & music: honestly the graphics are okay for what they are at the time which wasn’t too amazing but not terrible either. It's what you'd expect from an early Xbox game. The voice acting also isn't amazing but again for its time not the worst either and pretty much the same can be said about the sound design. It has that old nostalgic feeling to it and for the most part I liked it and found a lot of it spooky but also some moments where it felt out of place.
Story/ No spoilers: The story for this game is weird and the full lore to Ninja Gaiden is a bit all over the place with the story starting and ending on the original arcade games that came before this one. There is also Gameboy games and other spin off franchises that are canon like Dead Or Alive if you really wanna follow Ryus full story. Basically, he's like Dante but instead of being half human and half demon he's a human with a sword that has demon powers and a lot of the enemies you fight are demon monsters known as fiends but there is human military too. So basically, Ryu lives in a Ninja clan somewhere in Japan and is one of the best. His clan gets attacked by an Emperor and his forces. There are a lot of wacky characters in this game like Rachel (who is basically a stereotypical American over sexualized S&M semi-stripper that also can fight demons... lol yeah not really but you'll know what I mean when you see her) and the whole game revolves around trying to stop the bad guys and get back this powerful demon sword that was taken by the main villains. There is a fun twist at the end I didn't see coming and you don't have to play the previous games to understand this one. Overall, this game is pretty great, but the story isn't the most compelling and is like the typical Japanese ninja story from the Era of the early 2000s, if that makes sense but I still really enjoyed this game. I guess the reason I haven't gone back to it is because I no longer own it and it's such a difficult game in general but I want to reply these games sometime again and refresh my memory of them. If you like Japanese games, DMC, hack and slash games or just old or really hard games, you'll love this game but if you don't like any of those things you might not find this game enjoyable. I have been holding out hope these games would get modern remasters or another remake but at this point I think we'd be lucky to see a Ninja Gaiden 4 so who knows. If you are looking to pick up this franchise this is definitely a good spot to start in just be warned about the controls and difficulty.
8.5/10
Ninja Gaiden Black is a remaster of the previous version with more content added which is a remake of the NES version and man is this game difficult. It’s a game I love and hate because its fun and bad ass, but it was the first extremely hard game I had ever played at the time and man did this game break me.
Gameplay: NG Black is a fixed camera angle hack and slash game, think of Devil May Cry 1 but with the difficulty of the original release of DMC 3 and that's basically what this game is. It's absolutely one of the hardest video games out there. Up there in hardness like the dark soul’s franchise or cup head. You are a Ninja with a decent arsenal of deadly and gory weapons that dismember enemies. Just like dmc you do combos and have to dodge other enemies’ attacks. You have a sort of devil trigger ability that does crazy damage and projectile weapons like a bow and arrow. The game is hard because of the camera angles, controls, and enemy ai and honestly no matter how strong you get throughout the story you can pretty much get destroyed by a basic enemy if you screw up. It's satisfying to get though levels but it's excruciating sometimes, especially towards the end. Each area seems to have some platforming which you can run up and along walls, but it feels like I’m playing ps1 tomb raider with how clunky it can be. Most of the levels have some sort of puzzle solving to do and I remember certain levels I had to ask a friend who had beaten it to help me understand where I needed to go because of how complicated the puzzles got and I couldn't figure out where to bring stuff and at that point I was a seasoned resident evil puzzle solver and I still couldn't figure out the map too well. The check points in this game are basically the level starts and ends more or less and man a lot of them are in crazy spots I remember at the end of the game you have to platform up a volcano like structure level that's timed and you have to also kill a boss all in the same checkpoint and just getting past the platforming was almost impossible for me, maybe I just suck but God damn. I think I cried tears of joy when I beat the final boss and I remember I was genuinely one step away from straight up quitting and just looking up the ending.
Graphics, voice acting & music: honestly the graphics are okay for what they are at the time which wasn’t too amazing but not terrible either. It's what you'd expect from an early Xbox game. The voice acting also isn't amazing but again for its time not the worst either and pretty much the same can be said about the sound design. It has that old nostalgic feeling to it and for the most part I liked it and found a lot of it spooky but also some moments where it felt out of place.
Story/ No spoilers: The story for this game is weird and the full lore to Ninja Gaiden is a bit all over the place with the story starting and ending on the original arcade games that came before this one. There is also Gameboy games and other spin off franchises that are canon like Dead Or Alive if you really wanna follow Ryus full story. Basically, he's like Dante but instead of being half human and half demon he's a human with a sword that has demon powers and a lot of the enemies you fight are demon monsters known as fiends but there is human military too. So basically, Ryu lives in a Ninja clan somewhere in Japan and is one of the best. His clan gets attacked by an Emperor and his forces. There are a lot of wacky characters in this game like Rachel (who is basically a stereotypical American over sexualized S&M semi-stripper that also can fight demons... lol yeah not really but you'll know what I mean when you see her) and the whole game revolves around trying to stop the bad guys and get back this powerful demon sword that was taken by the main villains. There is a fun twist at the end I didn't see coming and you don't have to play the previous games to understand this one. Overall, this game is pretty great, but the story isn't the most compelling and is like the typical Japanese ninja story from the Era of the early 2000s, if that makes sense but I still really enjoyed this game. I guess the reason I haven't gone back to it is because I no longer own it and it's such a difficult game in general but I want to reply these games sometime again and refresh my memory of them. If you like Japanese games, DMC, hack and slash games or just old or really hard games, you'll love this game but if you don't like any of those things you might not find this game enjoyable. I have been holding out hope these games would get modern remasters or another remake but at this point I think we'd be lucky to see a Ninja Gaiden 4 so who knows. If you are looking to pick up this franchise this is definitely a good spot to start in just be warned about the controls and difficulty.
8.5/10
1980
Classic, Iconic and Simple Arcade Fun
Pac-Man is one of those timeless classic video games that I always gravitate towards when at an Arcade. Ever since I first played A Plug and Play version in the early 2000s, I have always loved every iteration of this game since. Pac-Man is a top-down game in an open maze where you play as a small round head with a mouth that eats pellets and is chased by ghosts. The big pellets give you the ability to temporarily eat the ghosts and food items in the middle of the maze are bonus points. As the levels go, they get harder and harder and much like many games at the time most people can’t get past the first few levels. From what I’ve come to understand the game only has somewhere around 250 or so levels and beyond that the game is just too impossible to keep going. It’s a simple concept but it’s an absolute blast, especially with friends. Oh, and it’s definitely Addicting I recommend the VS versions I’ve seen at Arcade bars where you can play against 3 friends those ones are my favorite iterations for sure.
9.5/10
Pac-Man is one of those timeless classic video games that I always gravitate towards when at an Arcade. Ever since I first played A Plug and Play version in the early 2000s, I have always loved every iteration of this game since. Pac-Man is a top-down game in an open maze where you play as a small round head with a mouth that eats pellets and is chased by ghosts. The big pellets give you the ability to temporarily eat the ghosts and food items in the middle of the maze are bonus points. As the levels go, they get harder and harder and much like many games at the time most people can’t get past the first few levels. From what I’ve come to understand the game only has somewhere around 250 or so levels and beyond that the game is just too impossible to keep going. It’s a simple concept but it’s an absolute blast, especially with friends. Oh, and it’s definitely Addicting I recommend the VS versions I’ve seen at Arcade bars where you can play against 3 friends those ones are my favorite iterations for sure.
9.5/10
1989
Basically the Founding Father of Puzzle Games
Tetris (in case you live under a rock) is a side viewing puzzle game from the late 1980s and was released on the NES and arcade machines before being rereleased multiple times after wards and was developed in Soviet Russia. It is a very simple game where blocks of different shapes and colors fall from the sky, and you must turn them to line them up, so they fall in place and make a full row of blocks and each level gets faster, so you have to have a quick reaction time before the blocks fill the screen and you lose. Over the years we have seen different versions of this game most often it isn’t a beatable game and really just endless waves, and some versions are 2 player competitive with a 2nd player being able to race you. Some versions have a B game mode with obstacles in each stage. I think one of the most recent iterations of this is now the battle royal version known as Tetris 99 against 99 other players. Tetris may be a minimal game but it’s a timeless one, one where no matter the age range you can always seem to have fun with it. It really shows us the genius of the creators who utilized the minimal technology of the 80s to create a true classic (Well, minimal by today’s standards). To me, Tetris is one of the few franchises that will never get old or die out. Not because of its simplicity or because it was one of the first big puzzle games that has a nostalgic feeling it gives people but because it’s a milestone in gaming history that continues to influence people all over the world and because of that it is immortal... Also, block game big fun.
10/10
Tetris (in case you live under a rock) is a side viewing puzzle game from the late 1980s and was released on the NES and arcade machines before being rereleased multiple times after wards and was developed in Soviet Russia. It is a very simple game where blocks of different shapes and colors fall from the sky, and you must turn them to line them up, so they fall in place and make a full row of blocks and each level gets faster, so you have to have a quick reaction time before the blocks fill the screen and you lose. Over the years we have seen different versions of this game most often it isn’t a beatable game and really just endless waves, and some versions are 2 player competitive with a 2nd player being able to race you. Some versions have a B game mode with obstacles in each stage. I think one of the most recent iterations of this is now the battle royal version known as Tetris 99 against 99 other players. Tetris may be a minimal game but it’s a timeless one, one where no matter the age range you can always seem to have fun with it. It really shows us the genius of the creators who utilized the minimal technology of the 80s to create a true classic (Well, minimal by today’s standards). To me, Tetris is one of the few franchises that will never get old or die out. Not because of its simplicity or because it was one of the first big puzzle games that has a nostalgic feeling it gives people but because it’s a milestone in gaming history that continues to influence people all over the world and because of that it is immortal... Also, block game big fun.
10/10
This review contains spoilers
Steam punk Assassin's Creed mixed with a hint of BioShock.
I remember playing this game back when it was new and hearing a lot of mixed opinions on it from friends. Some people hated it while others had nothing but good things to say and when I first played it, I can't say I was a huge fan but now that I'm older coming back to it I found it much more enjoyable.
Gameplay: Dishonored is a 1st person stealth based game with shooter, choice-based elements and Magic abilities. You play as a dishonored royal protector on some alternate planet from ours set in a steam punk timeline. This game has some very minor horror-ish elements with a big focus on stealth and choice making. In this game you can decide how you play by either being evil and going a high chaos route and killing anyone you want or going low chaos and not killing anyone or few people. You go from mission to mission in the story to a bunch of small semi open world maps where you have a main target to either nonlethally neutralize or assassinate with a small handful of optional side quests that usually aid you in either getting a special kill or nonlethal take down. It's very open-ended and the whole dynamic gives this game a lot of replay ability. There is a bunch to explore, and I think almost every time I play, I find a new way of moving around the map I didn't know about before. A lot of fun to be had here, you also have a really fun to use and upgradable kit of a crossbow, foldable sword, grenades, a steam punk musket and razor wire traps. You also get sleep darts and magic powers that allow you to teleport, see though walls, summon rats, possess people and more. The powers all remind me of BioShock and the whole general theme of killing lords, royalty and leaders of a falling empire all shout BioShock, but the gameplay feels like a first-person Assassin's Creed with some classic Bethesda side quests and glitching (I’ll get to that in a minute). The gameplay is fun but there is a big problem with the gameplay, that is the reason a lot of people don't like this game. killing people and going high chaos gives you the bad ending and the game punishes you for it by causing more rats and weepers (which are basically plague zombies, I’ll get to that in a bit too). Now as an adult I get it and get that the whole moral is your actions have consequences but for the average player that doesn't care about that kinda stuff they are definitely going to find this agitating. As I mentioned earlier, I ran into quite a bit of glitches, mostly in the dlc but the number of crashes and graphical errors I ran into were not great and when you are trying to shoot for different achievements this can get very frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the rules on what counts and doesn't count are crazy vague. For example, I ran through the entire game and didn't kill anyone but also didn't get seen I got every achievement for this except the one for not killing anyone. In the mission stats it says on every mission I'm clean, but the achievement never popped, and I read online some vague reasons as to why but honestly there really is no excuse. For a game to have such a tedious set of achievements it should have this system down because I honestly have no idea what I did wrong here, it feels more like a glitch than anything. Also the flooded district level sucks balls and man of course that's the mission I had to play though like 5 times because I either missed collectibles or someone somehow saw me somewhere. The base mechanics for the powers, collectibles and how the collectibles upgrade your kit along with being able to buy upgrades from merchants in the game is all well balanced and fun. I do wish this game had a new game plus so you can actually upgrade all of your powers in one go. They only give you enough to buy all upgrades once and then upgrade like 5 things to level 2 before you can't anymore and it's kinda lame. Speaking of dlc there was a bonus challenges mode that's purely all gameplay with very specific missions and objectives and I played a little bit of this, some of the missions seemed fun and I'm sure they are good but I was kind of burnt out on the game and put it down before completing these, maybe I'll go back to it at some point but one thing about the gameplay I will say is it definitely can get stale, especially if you are trying to get specific achievements and need to restart areas over and over again. The other dlcs are more or less extensions of the main story and just serve as story B about a side character.
Graphics, music & voice acting: The graphics in this game are pretty cool, the game has a unique art style where the environments look semi realistic while all of the people and animals have this almost cartoonish look. Some people's hands look bigger than their heads and a lot of characters have this stocky vibe. I don't dislike the art style but I'm not a huge fan of the way characters look. It's all personal preference and the graphics for a 360 game don't look bad at all. The music and original soundtrack is pretty solid. Aside from the cool credits song there isn't anything crazy memorable here and I remember the final area had this loud like horror movie music and it was Honestly super distracting and off putting. The voice acting is another area that's meh. It's absolutely not bad at all in this category but there aren't any groundbreaking performances to be had here either.
Story/ SPOILERS: Story wise I like and dislike this game and wanna talk about spoilers so be warned! Basically, this game takes place in a steampunk-ish empire called Dungwall ahhhiii mean Dunwall (seriously not the best name) a city that is in the middle of a rat plague and right away the empress is assassinated, and her daughter kidnapped and you are dishonored and blamed as the assassin. From here, you pick your path and decide the fate of everything and everyone you come across. The openness is both fun and immersive and I think this is the strongest part of the game. The world also has some hefty back story for how the plague started and where the supernatural aspects come from in the form of audio logs and A LOT of reading. This is probably a complaint about all Bethesda Games. I love reading and notes in games but the number of books, notes, letters and memos you can find and read are way too much and I feel half of it is just there to pad the runtime. If you are looking to do and read everything aside from a good and bad playthrough of the base game the runtime of this game is easily pushed to like 80+ hours especially if you are looking to 100% the story and DLC. The supernatural aspect of the game involving the outsider is probably the most interesting part of the story. The whole story surrounding him and where he comes from is very mysterious and intriguing. The main cast of people you assassinate, save, interact with and get quests from are all... okay and some are more interesting than others unfortunately since you play as a silent protagonist in this game I find most of the interactions kinda fall flat and most of the entertainment comes from the missions themselves, the fun gameplay mixed with missions like House of Pleasure or Lady Boyles last party is really what drove me to keep playing. The game does have a few twists I didn't see coming the first time I played and neither did my girlfriend when I played it again. The biggest problem with this story is probably the lack of a compelling villain, you basically work to kill the guys that dishonored you and took the empresses daughter Emily only to get dishonored again and have to kill the guys that helped you the first time and save Emily AGAIN... and that's the end of the story. Also, unless you play the dlc for the real empress assassin Daud, I was honestly confused as to how his story even fit into this game. When we first run into Daud in the flooded district, he's like "yeah I know a lot of stuff assassin" and that's basically all he tells us other than his audio log and notes that tells us yup this guy was hired to kill the empress and man was I let down that was the farthest his story went in the base game. His dlc does fix this and explain what he was doing the whole time and I’m glad because I really like him and his little group of assassins but i was hoping he’d play a better role in the main story. I don’t know what I expected his story to be, but he just felt like he should have been more important than what he does in his dlc. His DLCs are fun but for me they were riddled with glitches and pretty much just exist to set up the villain for the second game. Some of those levels are great and some not so great. Overall, the base gameplay is fun, the environments are cool and the core story about revenge isn't anything groundbreaking but fun and fit for a game like this. If you like Assassin's Creed, Bethesda Games, BioShock, or steampunk stuff then you'll probably love this game. It is a good game, maybe not a 10/10 masterpiece but definitely worth trying out but I can see how some people may lose interest.
Overall: 7.5/10
I remember playing this game back when it was new and hearing a lot of mixed opinions on it from friends. Some people hated it while others had nothing but good things to say and when I first played it, I can't say I was a huge fan but now that I'm older coming back to it I found it much more enjoyable.
Gameplay: Dishonored is a 1st person stealth based game with shooter, choice-based elements and Magic abilities. You play as a dishonored royal protector on some alternate planet from ours set in a steam punk timeline. This game has some very minor horror-ish elements with a big focus on stealth and choice making. In this game you can decide how you play by either being evil and going a high chaos route and killing anyone you want or going low chaos and not killing anyone or few people. You go from mission to mission in the story to a bunch of small semi open world maps where you have a main target to either nonlethally neutralize or assassinate with a small handful of optional side quests that usually aid you in either getting a special kill or nonlethal take down. It's very open-ended and the whole dynamic gives this game a lot of replay ability. There is a bunch to explore, and I think almost every time I play, I find a new way of moving around the map I didn't know about before. A lot of fun to be had here, you also have a really fun to use and upgradable kit of a crossbow, foldable sword, grenades, a steam punk musket and razor wire traps. You also get sleep darts and magic powers that allow you to teleport, see though walls, summon rats, possess people and more. The powers all remind me of BioShock and the whole general theme of killing lords, royalty and leaders of a falling empire all shout BioShock, but the gameplay feels like a first-person Assassin's Creed with some classic Bethesda side quests and glitching (I’ll get to that in a minute). The gameplay is fun but there is a big problem with the gameplay, that is the reason a lot of people don't like this game. killing people and going high chaos gives you the bad ending and the game punishes you for it by causing more rats and weepers (which are basically plague zombies, I’ll get to that in a bit too). Now as an adult I get it and get that the whole moral is your actions have consequences but for the average player that doesn't care about that kinda stuff they are definitely going to find this agitating. As I mentioned earlier, I ran into quite a bit of glitches, mostly in the dlc but the number of crashes and graphical errors I ran into were not great and when you are trying to shoot for different achievements this can get very frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the rules on what counts and doesn't count are crazy vague. For example, I ran through the entire game and didn't kill anyone but also didn't get seen I got every achievement for this except the one for not killing anyone. In the mission stats it says on every mission I'm clean, but the achievement never popped, and I read online some vague reasons as to why but honestly there really is no excuse. For a game to have such a tedious set of achievements it should have this system down because I honestly have no idea what I did wrong here, it feels more like a glitch than anything. Also the flooded district level sucks balls and man of course that's the mission I had to play though like 5 times because I either missed collectibles or someone somehow saw me somewhere. The base mechanics for the powers, collectibles and how the collectibles upgrade your kit along with being able to buy upgrades from merchants in the game is all well balanced and fun. I do wish this game had a new game plus so you can actually upgrade all of your powers in one go. They only give you enough to buy all upgrades once and then upgrade like 5 things to level 2 before you can't anymore and it's kinda lame. Speaking of dlc there was a bonus challenges mode that's purely all gameplay with very specific missions and objectives and I played a little bit of this, some of the missions seemed fun and I'm sure they are good but I was kind of burnt out on the game and put it down before completing these, maybe I'll go back to it at some point but one thing about the gameplay I will say is it definitely can get stale, especially if you are trying to get specific achievements and need to restart areas over and over again. The other dlcs are more or less extensions of the main story and just serve as story B about a side character.
Graphics, music & voice acting: The graphics in this game are pretty cool, the game has a unique art style where the environments look semi realistic while all of the people and animals have this almost cartoonish look. Some people's hands look bigger than their heads and a lot of characters have this stocky vibe. I don't dislike the art style but I'm not a huge fan of the way characters look. It's all personal preference and the graphics for a 360 game don't look bad at all. The music and original soundtrack is pretty solid. Aside from the cool credits song there isn't anything crazy memorable here and I remember the final area had this loud like horror movie music and it was Honestly super distracting and off putting. The voice acting is another area that's meh. It's absolutely not bad at all in this category but there aren't any groundbreaking performances to be had here either.
Story/ SPOILERS: Story wise I like and dislike this game and wanna talk about spoilers so be warned! Basically, this game takes place in a steampunk-ish empire called Dungwall ahhhiii mean Dunwall (seriously not the best name) a city that is in the middle of a rat plague and right away the empress is assassinated, and her daughter kidnapped and you are dishonored and blamed as the assassin. From here, you pick your path and decide the fate of everything and everyone you come across. The openness is both fun and immersive and I think this is the strongest part of the game. The world also has some hefty back story for how the plague started and where the supernatural aspects come from in the form of audio logs and A LOT of reading. This is probably a complaint about all Bethesda Games. I love reading and notes in games but the number of books, notes, letters and memos you can find and read are way too much and I feel half of it is just there to pad the runtime. If you are looking to do and read everything aside from a good and bad playthrough of the base game the runtime of this game is easily pushed to like 80+ hours especially if you are looking to 100% the story and DLC. The supernatural aspect of the game involving the outsider is probably the most interesting part of the story. The whole story surrounding him and where he comes from is very mysterious and intriguing. The main cast of people you assassinate, save, interact with and get quests from are all... okay and some are more interesting than others unfortunately since you play as a silent protagonist in this game I find most of the interactions kinda fall flat and most of the entertainment comes from the missions themselves, the fun gameplay mixed with missions like House of Pleasure or Lady Boyles last party is really what drove me to keep playing. The game does have a few twists I didn't see coming the first time I played and neither did my girlfriend when I played it again. The biggest problem with this story is probably the lack of a compelling villain, you basically work to kill the guys that dishonored you and took the empresses daughter Emily only to get dishonored again and have to kill the guys that helped you the first time and save Emily AGAIN... and that's the end of the story. Also, unless you play the dlc for the real empress assassin Daud, I was honestly confused as to how his story even fit into this game. When we first run into Daud in the flooded district, he's like "yeah I know a lot of stuff assassin" and that's basically all he tells us other than his audio log and notes that tells us yup this guy was hired to kill the empress and man was I let down that was the farthest his story went in the base game. His dlc does fix this and explain what he was doing the whole time and I’m glad because I really like him and his little group of assassins but i was hoping he’d play a better role in the main story. I don’t know what I expected his story to be, but he just felt like he should have been more important than what he does in his dlc. His DLCs are fun but for me they were riddled with glitches and pretty much just exist to set up the villain for the second game. Some of those levels are great and some not so great. Overall, the base gameplay is fun, the environments are cool and the core story about revenge isn't anything groundbreaking but fun and fit for a game like this. If you like Assassin's Creed, Bethesda Games, BioShock, or steampunk stuff then you'll probably love this game. It is a good game, maybe not a 10/10 masterpiece but definitely worth trying out but I can see how some people may lose interest.
Overall: 7.5/10
2012
This review contains spoilers
Steam punk Assassin's Creed mixed with a hint of BioShock.
I remember playing this game back when it was new and hearing a lot of mixed opinions on it from friends. Some people hated it while others had nothing but good things to say and when I first played it, I can't say I was a huge fan but now that I'm older coming back to it I found it much more enjoyable.
Gameplay: Dishonored is a 1st person stealth based game with shooter, choice-based elements and Magic abilities. You play as a dishonored royal protector on some alternate planet from ours set in a steam punk timeline. This game has some very minor horror-ish elements with a big focus on stealth and choice making. In this game you can decide how you play by either being evil and going a high chaos route and killing anyone you want or going low chaos and not killing anyone or few people. You go from mission to mission in the story to a bunch of small semi open world maps where you have a main target to either nonlethally neutralize or assassinate with a small handful of optional side quests that usually aid you in either getting a special kill or nonlethal take down. It's very open-ended and the whole dynamic gives this game a lot of replay ability. There is a bunch to explore, and I think almost every time I play, I find a new way of moving around the map I didn't know about before. A lot of fun to be had here, you also have a really fun to use and upgradable kit of a crossbow, foldable sword, grenades, a steam punk musket and razor wire traps. You also get sleep darts and magic powers that allow you to teleport, see though walls, summon rats, possess people and more. The powers all remind me of BioShock and the whole general theme of killing lords, royalty and leaders of a falling empire all shout BioShock, but the gameplay feels like a first-person Assassin's Creed with some classic Bethesda side quests and glitching (I’ll get to that in a minute). The gameplay is fun but there is a big problem with the gameplay, that is the reason a lot of people don't like this game. killing people and going high chaos gives you the bad ending and the game punishes you for it by causing more rats and weepers (which are basically plague zombies, I’ll get to that in a bit too). Now as an adult I get it and get that the whole moral is your actions have consequences but for the average player that doesn't care about that kinda stuff they are definitely going to find this agitating. As I mentioned earlier, I ran into quite a bit of glitches, mostly in the dlc but the number of crashes and graphical errors I ran into were not great and when you are trying to shoot for different achievements this can get very frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the rules on what counts and doesn't count are crazy vague. For example, I ran through the entire game and didn't kill anyone but also didn't get seen I got every achievement for this except the one for not killing anyone. In the mission stats it says on every mission I'm clean, but the achievement never popped, and I read online some vague reasons as to why but honestly there really is no excuse. For a game to have such a tedious set of achievements it should have this system down because I honestly have no idea what I did wrong here, it feels more like a glitch than anything. Also the flooded district level sucks balls and man of course that's the mission I had to play though like 5 times because I either missed collectibles or someone somehow saw me somewhere. The base mechanics for the powers, collectibles and how the collectibles upgrade your kit along with being able to buy upgrades from merchants in the game is all well balanced and fun. I do wish this game had a new game plus so you can actually upgrade all of your powers in one go. They only give you enough to buy all upgrades once and then upgrade like 5 things to level 2 before you can't anymore and it's kinda lame. Speaking of dlc there was a bonus challenges mode that's purely all gameplay with very specific missions and objectives and I played a little bit of this, some of the missions seemed fun and I'm sure they are good but I was kind of burnt out on the game and put it down before completing these, maybe I'll go back to it at some point but one thing about the gameplay I will say is it definitely can get stale, especially if you are trying to get specific achievements and need to restart areas over and over again. The other dlcs are more or less extensions of the main story and just serve as story B about a side character.
Graphics, music & voice acting: The graphics in this game are pretty cool, the game has a unique art style where the environments look semi realistic while all of the people and animals have this almost cartoonish look. Some people's hands look bigger than their heads and a lot of characters have this stocky vibe. I don't dislike the art style but I'm not a huge fan of the way characters look. It's all personal preference and the graphics for a 360 game don't look bad at all. The music and original soundtrack is pretty solid. Aside from the cool credits song there isn't anything crazy memorable here and I remember the final area had this loud like horror movie music and it was Honestly super distracting and off putting. The voice acting is another area that's meh. It's absolutely not bad at all in this category but there aren't any groundbreaking performances to be had here either.
Story/ SPOILERS: Story wise I like and dislike this game and wanna talk about spoilers so be warned! Basically, this game takes place in a steampunk-ish empire called Dungwall ahhhiii mean Dunwall (seriously not the best name) a city that is in the middle of a rat plague that turns people into weepers, which are basically just zombies with some minor intelligence and right away the empress is assassinated, and her daughter kidnapped and you are dishonored and blamed as the assassin. From here, you pick your path and decide the fate of everything and everyone you come across. The openness is both fun and immersive and I think this is the strongest part of the game. The world also has some hefty back story for how the plague started and where the supernatural aspects come from in the form of audio logs and A LOT of reading. This is probably a complaint about all Bethesda Games. I love reading and notes in games but the number of books, notes, letters and memos you can find and read are way too much and I feel half of it is just there to pad the runtime. If you are looking to do and read everything aside from a good and bad playthrough of the base game the runtime of this game is easily pushed to like 80+ hours especially if you are looking to 100% the story and DLC. The supernatural aspect of the game involving the outsider is probably the most interesting part of the story. The whole story surrounding him and where he comes from is very mysterious and intriguing. The main cast of people you assassinate, save, interact with and get quests from are all... okay and some are more interesting than others unfortunately since you play as a silent protagonist in this game I find most of the interactions kinda fall flat and most of the entertainment comes from the missions themselves, the fun gameplay mixed with missions like House of Pleasure or Lady Boyles last party is really what drove me to keep playing. The game does have a few twists I didn't see coming the first time I played and neither did my girlfriend when I played it again. The biggest problem with this story is probably the lack of a compelling villain, you basically work to kill the guys that dishonored you and took the empresses daughter Emily only to get dishonored again and have to kill the guys that helped you the first time and save Emily AGAIN... and that's the end of the story. Also, unless you play the dlc for the real empress assassin Daud, I was honestly confused as to how his story even fit into this game. When we first run into Daud in the flooded district, he's like "yeah I know a lot of stuff assassin" and that's basically all he tells us other than his audio log and notes that tells us yup this guy was hired to kill the empress and man was I let down that was the farthest his story went in the base game. His dlc does fix this and explain what he was doing the whole time and I’m glad because I really like him and his little group of assassins but i was hoping he’d play a better role in the main story. I don’t know what I expected his story to be, but he just felt like he should have been more important than what he does in his dlc. His DLCs are fun but for me they were riddled with glitches and pretty much just exist to set up the villain for the second game. Some of those levels are great and some not so great. Overall, the base gameplay is fun, the environments are cool and the core story about revenge isn't anything groundbreaking but fun and fit for a game like this. If you like Assassin's Creed, Bethesda Games, BioShock, or steampunk stuff then you'll probably love this game. It is a good game, maybe not a 10/10 masterpiece but definitely worth trying out but I can see how some people may lose interest.
Overall: 7.5/10
I remember playing this game back when it was new and hearing a lot of mixed opinions on it from friends. Some people hated it while others had nothing but good things to say and when I first played it, I can't say I was a huge fan but now that I'm older coming back to it I found it much more enjoyable.
Gameplay: Dishonored is a 1st person stealth based game with shooter, choice-based elements and Magic abilities. You play as a dishonored royal protector on some alternate planet from ours set in a steam punk timeline. This game has some very minor horror-ish elements with a big focus on stealth and choice making. In this game you can decide how you play by either being evil and going a high chaos route and killing anyone you want or going low chaos and not killing anyone or few people. You go from mission to mission in the story to a bunch of small semi open world maps where you have a main target to either nonlethally neutralize or assassinate with a small handful of optional side quests that usually aid you in either getting a special kill or nonlethal take down. It's very open-ended and the whole dynamic gives this game a lot of replay ability. There is a bunch to explore, and I think almost every time I play, I find a new way of moving around the map I didn't know about before. A lot of fun to be had here, you also have a really fun to use and upgradable kit of a crossbow, foldable sword, grenades, a steam punk musket and razor wire traps. You also get sleep darts and magic powers that allow you to teleport, see though walls, summon rats, possess people and more. The powers all remind me of BioShock and the whole general theme of killing lords, royalty and leaders of a falling empire all shout BioShock, but the gameplay feels like a first-person Assassin's Creed with some classic Bethesda side quests and glitching (I’ll get to that in a minute). The gameplay is fun but there is a big problem with the gameplay, that is the reason a lot of people don't like this game. killing people and going high chaos gives you the bad ending and the game punishes you for it by causing more rats and weepers (which are basically plague zombies, I’ll get to that in a bit too). Now as an adult I get it and get that the whole moral is your actions have consequences but for the average player that doesn't care about that kinda stuff they are definitely going to find this agitating. As I mentioned earlier, I ran into quite a bit of glitches, mostly in the dlc but the number of crashes and graphical errors I ran into were not great and when you are trying to shoot for different achievements this can get very frustrating. Speaking of frustrating, the rules on what counts and doesn't count are crazy vague. For example, I ran through the entire game and didn't kill anyone but also didn't get seen I got every achievement for this except the one for not killing anyone. In the mission stats it says on every mission I'm clean, but the achievement never popped, and I read online some vague reasons as to why but honestly there really is no excuse. For a game to have such a tedious set of achievements it should have this system down because I honestly have no idea what I did wrong here, it feels more like a glitch than anything. Also the flooded district level sucks balls and man of course that's the mission I had to play though like 5 times because I either missed collectibles or someone somehow saw me somewhere. The base mechanics for the powers, collectibles and how the collectibles upgrade your kit along with being able to buy upgrades from merchants in the game is all well balanced and fun. I do wish this game had a new game plus so you can actually upgrade all of your powers in one go. They only give you enough to buy all upgrades once and then upgrade like 5 things to level 2 before you can't anymore and it's kinda lame. Speaking of dlc there was a bonus challenges mode that's purely all gameplay with very specific missions and objectives and I played a little bit of this, some of the missions seemed fun and I'm sure they are good but I was kind of burnt out on the game and put it down before completing these, maybe I'll go back to it at some point but one thing about the gameplay I will say is it definitely can get stale, especially if you are trying to get specific achievements and need to restart areas over and over again. The other dlcs are more or less extensions of the main story and just serve as story B about a side character.
Graphics, music & voice acting: The graphics in this game are pretty cool, the game has a unique art style where the environments look semi realistic while all of the people and animals have this almost cartoonish look. Some people's hands look bigger than their heads and a lot of characters have this stocky vibe. I don't dislike the art style but I'm not a huge fan of the way characters look. It's all personal preference and the graphics for a 360 game don't look bad at all. The music and original soundtrack is pretty solid. Aside from the cool credits song there isn't anything crazy memorable here and I remember the final area had this loud like horror movie music and it was Honestly super distracting and off putting. The voice acting is another area that's meh. It's absolutely not bad at all in this category but there aren't any groundbreaking performances to be had here either.
Story/ SPOILERS: Story wise I like and dislike this game and wanna talk about spoilers so be warned! Basically, this game takes place in a steampunk-ish empire called Dungwall ahhhiii mean Dunwall (seriously not the best name) a city that is in the middle of a rat plague that turns people into weepers, which are basically just zombies with some minor intelligence and right away the empress is assassinated, and her daughter kidnapped and you are dishonored and blamed as the assassin. From here, you pick your path and decide the fate of everything and everyone you come across. The openness is both fun and immersive and I think this is the strongest part of the game. The world also has some hefty back story for how the plague started and where the supernatural aspects come from in the form of audio logs and A LOT of reading. This is probably a complaint about all Bethesda Games. I love reading and notes in games but the number of books, notes, letters and memos you can find and read are way too much and I feel half of it is just there to pad the runtime. If you are looking to do and read everything aside from a good and bad playthrough of the base game the runtime of this game is easily pushed to like 80+ hours especially if you are looking to 100% the story and DLC. The supernatural aspect of the game involving the outsider is probably the most interesting part of the story. The whole story surrounding him and where he comes from is very mysterious and intriguing. The main cast of people you assassinate, save, interact with and get quests from are all... okay and some are more interesting than others unfortunately since you play as a silent protagonist in this game I find most of the interactions kinda fall flat and most of the entertainment comes from the missions themselves, the fun gameplay mixed with missions like House of Pleasure or Lady Boyles last party is really what drove me to keep playing. The game does have a few twists I didn't see coming the first time I played and neither did my girlfriend when I played it again. The biggest problem with this story is probably the lack of a compelling villain, you basically work to kill the guys that dishonored you and took the empresses daughter Emily only to get dishonored again and have to kill the guys that helped you the first time and save Emily AGAIN... and that's the end of the story. Also, unless you play the dlc for the real empress assassin Daud, I was honestly confused as to how his story even fit into this game. When we first run into Daud in the flooded district, he's like "yeah I know a lot of stuff assassin" and that's basically all he tells us other than his audio log and notes that tells us yup this guy was hired to kill the empress and man was I let down that was the farthest his story went in the base game. His dlc does fix this and explain what he was doing the whole time and I’m glad because I really like him and his little group of assassins but i was hoping he’d play a better role in the main story. I don’t know what I expected his story to be, but he just felt like he should have been more important than what he does in his dlc. His DLCs are fun but for me they were riddled with glitches and pretty much just exist to set up the villain for the second game. Some of those levels are great and some not so great. Overall, the base gameplay is fun, the environments are cool and the core story about revenge isn't anything groundbreaking but fun and fit for a game like this. If you like Assassin's Creed, Bethesda Games, BioShock, or steampunk stuff then you'll probably love this game. It is a good game, maybe not a 10/10 masterpiece but definitely worth trying out but I can see how some people may lose interest.
Overall: 7.5/10
2016
A badass reboot!
Doom is one of the original first-person shooter games from the early 90s that became an instant classic getting multiple sequels and even a movie so of course they were gonna do a hard remake of this game again and at a time when it seems like everything is either getting a remake or sequel this remake feels amazing reinventing a franchise while also holding true to what it is and what makes it so great.
Gameplay: This is a first-person shooter game where you play as Doom Guy fighting demons on Mars. The game is loaded with very fun and over the top modern and futuristic guns that you can find upgrades for that change how the gun works or how strong it is. You can do these epic glory kills on enemies which are these melee moves that rip demons apart with your bare hands. There are special weapons like the BFG and the chainsaw and a shit load of cool collectibles and hidden areas scattered around the maps of each level. Everything you do in the game has replay value and gives you some sort of unlockable. You can do trials and get rewards you can then upgrade to make you even stronger. You have different kill objectives to help progress your upgrades and of course suit upgrades and so much more. All of which makes for some satisfying gameplay that never gets old. I will say though, the harder difficulties get pretty hard with some annoying checkpoints and as smooth as the movement, combat and action is there are still moments where if you aren't careful, you can soft lock yourself on the higher difficulties, but this game tries hard to not let this happen by giving you a lot of ammo and health per area. If you are careful and good at timing glory kills and build your kit a certain way you can get regenerative armor and ammo to help you push though challenges like this. The levels, secret areas and unique enemies are all fantastic and make for some very entertaining battles and interactions. It's a great game and though I did run into a few minor glitches and a few crashes the gameplay is superb. Another really cool feature in this game is the multi-player and custom forge style mode that is probably one of the most in-depth custom gameplay modes I've ever seen. The multi-player looks cool, and I've heard good things about it but in all honesty never tried any of those modes, but I did play a bunch of the custom game modes and man the stuff people made is incredible. People made their own 5 nights at Freddie's with demons in a custom map that even had cameras just like FNAF. Another memorable one was an extremely in depth and almost 100% accurate recreation of a call of duty zombie’s map. It had perks, the mystery box, Easter eggs, a story and everything. It was just incredibly done, and I wish every game came with a build able mode like this. I usually love to create custom game modes, but I never got around to it this time but the amount of detail you can use in it is fantastic.
Graphics, music and voice acting: The graphics look fantastic, and the level of gore is phenomenal. You go from destroyed Mars labs and facilities to gore filled blood drenched rooms with satanic altars and get to travel to hell itself a few times in the game. Hell looks exactly like how you'd expect hell to look but that doesn't mean it's bad. The details are perfect, and it looks like a place Dante from Devil May Cry might run though in one of his games. The music in Doom is probably one of my favorite parts Mick Gordon KILLED IT with the soundtrack in this game. Amazing metal instrument sound design!! As for the voice acting, well there really isn't much in this game. There are characters that talk, and the demons sometimes do and all of that is well done but there aren't any groundbreaking voice acting segments in this game but as a Doom game it really doesn't need that because it's all about mindless action.
Story/ No spoilers: The original Doom wasn’t exactly known for its story and well neither is this one. Doom isn't about it'd story so much as like I mentioned earlier the point in Doom is to just mindlessly kill Demons but I will say they definitely added to and changed up the story and made a nice little bit of lore in this game and a lot of the collectibles explain the back story of Doom Guy or as he's now known "The Doom Slayer" but ultimately none of it really matters and doesn’t need to. As a player you really only need the basic information to get the idea of what's happening across. Basically, in the far future humans make a Mars colony and use it to open portals to hell and use demonic energy as a renewable power source. It's a silly concept that raises more questions than answers. The Doom Slayer awakens and fights demons helping a cyborg doctor Samuel Haden stop the forces of hell and close the portals. Hell is actually given a bit of a cool back story you can read though collectibles and I mean the rest I'll leave for you to figure out. It's a fun game but if you are a heavy narrative person you might get bored with this game due to its lack of story, but I love narrative driven games and still loved this game and played though it a bunch.
If you love games like Wolfenstein or just first-person shooters with high action in general you will probably love this game.
9/10
Doom is one of the original first-person shooter games from the early 90s that became an instant classic getting multiple sequels and even a movie so of course they were gonna do a hard remake of this game again and at a time when it seems like everything is either getting a remake or sequel this remake feels amazing reinventing a franchise while also holding true to what it is and what makes it so great.
Gameplay: This is a first-person shooter game where you play as Doom Guy fighting demons on Mars. The game is loaded with very fun and over the top modern and futuristic guns that you can find upgrades for that change how the gun works or how strong it is. You can do these epic glory kills on enemies which are these melee moves that rip demons apart with your bare hands. There are special weapons like the BFG and the chainsaw and a shit load of cool collectibles and hidden areas scattered around the maps of each level. Everything you do in the game has replay value and gives you some sort of unlockable. You can do trials and get rewards you can then upgrade to make you even stronger. You have different kill objectives to help progress your upgrades and of course suit upgrades and so much more. All of which makes for some satisfying gameplay that never gets old. I will say though, the harder difficulties get pretty hard with some annoying checkpoints and as smooth as the movement, combat and action is there are still moments where if you aren't careful, you can soft lock yourself on the higher difficulties, but this game tries hard to not let this happen by giving you a lot of ammo and health per area. If you are careful and good at timing glory kills and build your kit a certain way you can get regenerative armor and ammo to help you push though challenges like this. The levels, secret areas and unique enemies are all fantastic and make for some very entertaining battles and interactions. It's a great game and though I did run into a few minor glitches and a few crashes the gameplay is superb. Another really cool feature in this game is the multi-player and custom forge style mode that is probably one of the most in-depth custom gameplay modes I've ever seen. The multi-player looks cool, and I've heard good things about it but in all honesty never tried any of those modes, but I did play a bunch of the custom game modes and man the stuff people made is incredible. People made their own 5 nights at Freddie's with demons in a custom map that even had cameras just like FNAF. Another memorable one was an extremely in depth and almost 100% accurate recreation of a call of duty zombie’s map. It had perks, the mystery box, Easter eggs, a story and everything. It was just incredibly done, and I wish every game came with a build able mode like this. I usually love to create custom game modes, but I never got around to it this time but the amount of detail you can use in it is fantastic.
Graphics, music and voice acting: The graphics look fantastic, and the level of gore is phenomenal. You go from destroyed Mars labs and facilities to gore filled blood drenched rooms with satanic altars and get to travel to hell itself a few times in the game. Hell looks exactly like how you'd expect hell to look but that doesn't mean it's bad. The details are perfect, and it looks like a place Dante from Devil May Cry might run though in one of his games. The music in Doom is probably one of my favorite parts Mick Gordon KILLED IT with the soundtrack in this game. Amazing metal instrument sound design!! As for the voice acting, well there really isn't much in this game. There are characters that talk, and the demons sometimes do and all of that is well done but there aren't any groundbreaking voice acting segments in this game but as a Doom game it really doesn't need that because it's all about mindless action.
Story/ No spoilers: The original Doom wasn’t exactly known for its story and well neither is this one. Doom isn't about it'd story so much as like I mentioned earlier the point in Doom is to just mindlessly kill Demons but I will say they definitely added to and changed up the story and made a nice little bit of lore in this game and a lot of the collectibles explain the back story of Doom Guy or as he's now known "The Doom Slayer" but ultimately none of it really matters and doesn’t need to. As a player you really only need the basic information to get the idea of what's happening across. Basically, in the far future humans make a Mars colony and use it to open portals to hell and use demonic energy as a renewable power source. It's a silly concept that raises more questions than answers. The Doom Slayer awakens and fights demons helping a cyborg doctor Samuel Haden stop the forces of hell and close the portals. Hell is actually given a bit of a cool back story you can read though collectibles and I mean the rest I'll leave for you to figure out. It's a fun game but if you are a heavy narrative person you might get bored with this game due to its lack of story, but I love narrative driven games and still loved this game and played though it a bunch.
If you love games like Wolfenstein or just first-person shooters with high action in general you will probably love this game.
9/10
This review contains spoilers
Underwhelming sequel but fun gameplay
The force unleashed 2 is a direct sequel to the first where you played as Star Killer who was a secret apprentice to Darth Vader. It was a simple idea that was hit with huge success for its level design, character design, story and replay ability. So, the idea of that game getting a sequel makes a lot of sense on paper but man I'm not going to lie to you that it massively disappointed me when I finally got around to playing it.
Force unleashed 2, just like the first game is a 3rd person hack and slash Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4. This game picks up with a clone of star killer from the first game and running off to find out more on who he is and what happened to his friends and love interest. You travel to multiple planets and reconnect with old allies. You can collect different light saber crystals and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You also have a much-improved combat system using 2 lightsabers this time and man is the combat fun as hell in this game. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. The different lightsaber animations and combat is crazy satisfying to pull off and I had nothing but a blast with the gameplay this time around. I guess you could say the core gameplay isn't crazy different, like it's still a linear hack and slash style game but the force abilities you use this time around are crazy and overpowered as hell.
Graphics, voice acting & music: Graphically this game looked great for its time and each planet you go to was fairly interesting and was either an original planet or something from the movies. The voice acting here is probably just as good as the first game with Sam Witwer killing it again as star killer. The music wasn’t anything crazy memorable other than the regular Star Wars music you've heard before. This game does have an original soundtrack too, but it wasn't anything that stuck with me.
Story/ SPOILERS: oh man... so based off everything so far it seems like this is a great game, right? And well yeah so far, I love it... until we get farther into the story. In order to talk about it I have to spoil some stuff and I won't talk about the entire plot but the basic idea of it and the endings so stop here if you do not wish to be spoiled. So, this game picks up some months after the good ending to the first game. Darth Vader is making a bunch of Clones of Star Killer trying to make the ultimate appearance that's extremely obedient, so he keeps cloning star killer and the one we play as in this game remembers who he was and escapes the facility. There was also a somewhat minor romance between him and his pilot Juno from the last game and that's now his driving force and basically the only thing he cares about in this game, okay sure. Love is a powerful motivator in storytelling and I'm okay with this, but I guess to me there's something about it that feels a bit out of nowhere in this story. Like in the first game he slowly develops feelings for Juno and he gives her a Lil kiss at the end of that game but aside from that I feel like he didn't spend enough time with her romantically for him to be like straight up obsessed with her In this game and this isn't even the real star killer but again not a huge deal, I just wish there was a bit more to his motivation here. There's a lot I could say about the plot of this game and cloning force users and how it may or may not fit into the bigger Star Wars universe, but I don't dislike it and of course this game takes place more or less in its own timeline so who cares if it breaks lore right? Same can be said with how overpowered he is at this point, I'm just along for the ride. I guess the biggest complaint with this story is how short it is. Force unleashed 1 was roughly 8-9 hours long but this game is like 4-5 hours long. That's crazy short for no reason and the ending or endings feel a little anti-climactic and also both endings feel like they don't make sense in and of themselves for multiple reasons. Basically, you start on kamino, escape, go to a bunch of planets and find yourself back at kamino just for the game to end and yeah that's it. I guess I don't have an answer for what I was expecting the ending to be but fighting faulty Clones felt a bit goofy and having a rematch with Vader isn't a bad thing, but it was a bit underwhelming to me like an “aw sh*t here we go again” kinda feeling. It feels like we are right back where we started at the end of the first game where he either chooses his friends or to kill Darth Vader and honestly Star Killer doesn’t feel like he’s really grown all that much as a character either, like what does this journey really accomplish for him by the end? The 2 endings you get also make no sense. If you pick the good ending Juno doesn't die from her fall and you capture Darth Vader (which to me feels silly as hell, like any restraint would hold this dude? Like okay sure.) Also, I don't understand the bad ending. In the first game you either took Darth Vader’s place or sacrificed yourself to save your friends but in this game you either capture Vader and Juno somehow survives, or you try to kill Vader but instead are killed by a random evil clone and everyone basically dies by being pushed off the edge of the platform and it all just feels rushed and all forced. Like how does the evil ending contrast with the good one? Does the evil clone just not exist in the good ending timeline and why? What about killing Vader causes an entirely new character to suddenly exist? I feel like this wasn’t really thought through in the writing room. This all goes without saying, clearly this story is far from the regular Star Wars timeline at this point. I mean the first game you could probably make some stupid argument that the game could have still existed in the timeline before a new hope but where this one ends… yeah, there's no way in hell it could but I mean ultimately that's okay and this story honestly works better in its own universe either way. It's an overall fun story I just wish more time went into it. Evil clones can absolutely work it just feels random with how they did it in this game. Everything except the gameplay has this superficial feeling like it was rushed and pushed out the door for money and as for the dlc? Well, just like the first game, it goes off the bad ending and continues that idea that an evil star killer can kill basically all the mainline hero’s and it is fun for sure and both the dlc and main story endings all leave off on these wacky cliffhangers for the sequel that we unfortunately never got and probably never will. I think that's the thing that hurts the most about this game is that we got a short middle game that left off on an unsatisfactory mark not having a satisfying conclusion. A conclusion they probably planned to finish in a 3rd game that probably will sadly never happen.
6.5/10
The force unleashed 2 is a direct sequel to the first where you played as Star Killer who was a secret apprentice to Darth Vader. It was a simple idea that was hit with huge success for its level design, character design, story and replay ability. So, the idea of that game getting a sequel makes a lot of sense on paper but man I'm not going to lie to you that it massively disappointed me when I finally got around to playing it.
Force unleashed 2, just like the first game is a 3rd person hack and slash Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4. This game picks up with a clone of star killer from the first game and running off to find out more on who he is and what happened to his friends and love interest. You travel to multiple planets and reconnect with old allies. You can collect different light saber crystals and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You also have a much-improved combat system using 2 lightsabers this time and man is the combat fun as hell in this game. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. The different lightsaber animations and combat is crazy satisfying to pull off and I had nothing but a blast with the gameplay this time around. I guess you could say the core gameplay isn't crazy different, like it's still a linear hack and slash style game but the force abilities you use this time around are crazy and overpowered as hell.
Graphics, voice acting & music: Graphically this game looked great for its time and each planet you go to was fairly interesting and was either an original planet or something from the movies. The voice acting here is probably just as good as the first game with Sam Witwer killing it again as star killer. The music wasn’t anything crazy memorable other than the regular Star Wars music you've heard before. This game does have an original soundtrack too, but it wasn't anything that stuck with me.
Story/ SPOILERS: oh man... so based off everything so far it seems like this is a great game, right? And well yeah so far, I love it... until we get farther into the story. In order to talk about it I have to spoil some stuff and I won't talk about the entire plot but the basic idea of it and the endings so stop here if you do not wish to be spoiled. So, this game picks up some months after the good ending to the first game. Darth Vader is making a bunch of Clones of Star Killer trying to make the ultimate appearance that's extremely obedient, so he keeps cloning star killer and the one we play as in this game remembers who he was and escapes the facility. There was also a somewhat minor romance between him and his pilot Juno from the last game and that's now his driving force and basically the only thing he cares about in this game, okay sure. Love is a powerful motivator in storytelling and I'm okay with this, but I guess to me there's something about it that feels a bit out of nowhere in this story. Like in the first game he slowly develops feelings for Juno and he gives her a Lil kiss at the end of that game but aside from that I feel like he didn't spend enough time with her romantically for him to be like straight up obsessed with her In this game and this isn't even the real star killer but again not a huge deal, I just wish there was a bit more to his motivation here. There's a lot I could say about the plot of this game and cloning force users and how it may or may not fit into the bigger Star Wars universe, but I don't dislike it and of course this game takes place more or less in its own timeline so who cares if it breaks lore right? Same can be said with how overpowered he is at this point, I'm just along for the ride. I guess the biggest complaint with this story is how short it is. Force unleashed 1 was roughly 8-9 hours long but this game is like 4-5 hours long. That's crazy short for no reason and the ending or endings feel a little anti-climactic and also both endings feel like they don't make sense in and of themselves for multiple reasons. Basically, you start on kamino, escape, go to a bunch of planets and find yourself back at kamino just for the game to end and yeah that's it. I guess I don't have an answer for what I was expecting the ending to be but fighting faulty Clones felt a bit goofy and having a rematch with Vader isn't a bad thing, but it was a bit underwhelming to me like an “aw sh*t here we go again” kinda feeling. It feels like we are right back where we started at the end of the first game where he either chooses his friends or to kill Darth Vader and honestly Star Killer doesn’t feel like he’s really grown all that much as a character either, like what does this journey really accomplish for him by the end? The 2 endings you get also make no sense. If you pick the good ending Juno doesn't die from her fall and you capture Darth Vader (which to me feels silly as hell, like any restraint would hold this dude? Like okay sure.) Also, I don't understand the bad ending. In the first game you either took Darth Vader’s place or sacrificed yourself to save your friends but in this game you either capture Vader and Juno somehow survives, or you try to kill Vader but instead are killed by a random evil clone and everyone basically dies by being pushed off the edge of the platform and it all just feels rushed and all forced. Like how does the evil ending contrast with the good one? Does the evil clone just not exist in the good ending timeline and why? What about killing Vader causes an entirely new character to suddenly exist? I feel like this wasn’t really thought through in the writing room. This all goes without saying, clearly this story is far from the regular Star Wars timeline at this point. I mean the first game you could probably make some stupid argument that the game could have still existed in the timeline before a new hope but where this one ends… yeah, there's no way in hell it could but I mean ultimately that's okay and this story honestly works better in its own universe either way. It's an overall fun story I just wish more time went into it. Evil clones can absolutely work it just feels random with how they did it in this game. Everything except the gameplay has this superficial feeling like it was rushed and pushed out the door for money and as for the dlc? Well, just like the first game, it goes off the bad ending and continues that idea that an evil star killer can kill basically all the mainline hero’s and it is fun for sure and both the dlc and main story endings all leave off on these wacky cliffhangers for the sequel that we unfortunately never got and probably never will. I think that's the thing that hurts the most about this game is that we got a short middle game that left off on an unsatisfactory mark not having a satisfying conclusion. A conclusion they probably planned to finish in a 3rd game that probably will sadly never happen.
6.5/10
One of the best Star Wars games?
The force unleashed is a hack and slashing Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4 as you hunt jedi and the rebel alliance it’s a great Star Wars experience with great character design, locations and story elements. Though I don’t think this game was ever really canon to Star Wars it’s still a fantastic experience and was really my generations jedi fallen Order game.
Gameplay: This is a 3rd person hack and slashing action-adventure game with platforming and minor puzzle solving. The game involved you traveling to different planets fighting different jedi, Rebels and eventually the empire. You can collect different light saber crystals, holocrons and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. Now depending on the version of the game you play will dictate which levels and places you go to. I originally got this game on the ps2 and Wii and those have more levels in the jedi temple, on Cloud city and the other levels are different. The ps3 and 360 versions of the game have more FX and you use a unique lightsaber fighting style similar to that of Ashoka while on the Wii and ps2 he fights more traditionally for some reason. There are pros and cons to all versions of this game, and I honestly couldn't tell you which I like better. I guess I like the length of the wii/ps2 versions but the cutscenes don't look nearly as good. There were a few glitches I ran into on this game on the Wii as well but most of it wasn’t too bad.
Graphics, voice acting & music: The graphics for the time looked great but I think the 360 and ps3 versions look the best especially in cutscenes. The fallen Order games could learn a thing or two from the FX team here since these games actually have dismemberment from light sabers which is HOW IT SHOULD WORK DISNEY anyways... The voice acting is mostly fantastic especially from the main character star killer. Sam Witwer has been involved in Star Wars in so many ways he's a great actor, motion capture and voice for star killer and plays many other great characters in Star Wars like Darth maul and the emperor in many games and animation from time to time. I feel this is really where he gets his feet off the ground with Star Wars and I still to this day see comments and posts on why they should make star killer canon or make an inquisitor version. He really makes this character and I hope they bring him back some day. The music is more or less the same traditional Star Wars music with some new themes on some levels all of which fit the vibe and tone of the series.
Story/ No spoilers: The story like I said, is about a young force user who is taken by Darth Vader in secret to train with the idea of using him as an undercover agent to do Vader’s dirty work. There is a lot more to this story involving the Rebels the Emperor and many double crosses and even a little romance. It's a good story but loosely fits in with the lore of Star Wars and like I said I think it was never really meant to be canon even before Disney purchased it. This game has multiple endings of good and evil and a few dlcs that follow the evil ending with a fun alternate universe where you get to kill legacy characters. I won't say much more than that because I think it's worth playing to find out more. The Wii version has a duel mode and I think either the psp or ds versions have a multi-player for it but I may be wrong as I never really got a chance to play those versions. Overall, I do like the story, gameplay and features of most versions of this game and think they are all worth checking out. People love star killer and the idea of him is awesome but in the grand scheme of Star Wars I don't think he could ever be canon because the bro is way too powerful. In his timeline he's stronger than basically all other characters including Vader, Yoda, obi wan and even prime legends Luke. The dude is a God and If he ever comes back, they need to seriously nerf his character hard because it's almost too good. He's like the Kratos of Star Wars and thre needs to be a cutoff in the canon unless they move him to a different section of the timeline like far ahead or far in the past.
Anyways great game if you love Star Wars or old games.
Ps3/xbox360. 8.5/10
Ps2/wii. 7.5/10
The force unleashed is a hack and slashing Star Wars game where you play as a secret apprentice to Darth Vader between episodes 3 and 4 as you hunt jedi and the rebel alliance it’s a great Star Wars experience with great character design, locations and story elements. Though I don’t think this game was ever really canon to Star Wars it’s still a fantastic experience and was really my generations jedi fallen Order game.
Gameplay: This is a 3rd person hack and slashing action-adventure game with platforming and minor puzzle solving. The game involved you traveling to different planets fighting different jedi, Rebels and eventually the empire. You can collect different light saber crystals, holocrons and outfits while exploring different planets, ships and locations from the Star Wars universe. You can use the force to pick up objects and move them around to platform off them or use them as weapons to throw at enemies. Now depending on the version of the game you play will dictate which levels and places you go to. I originally got this game on the ps2 and Wii and those have more levels in the jedi temple, on Cloud city and the other levels are different. The ps3 and 360 versions of the game have more FX and you use a unique lightsaber fighting style similar to that of Ashoka while on the Wii and ps2 he fights more traditionally for some reason. There are pros and cons to all versions of this game, and I honestly couldn't tell you which I like better. I guess I like the length of the wii/ps2 versions but the cutscenes don't look nearly as good. There were a few glitches I ran into on this game on the Wii as well but most of it wasn’t too bad.
Graphics, voice acting & music: The graphics for the time looked great but I think the 360 and ps3 versions look the best especially in cutscenes. The fallen Order games could learn a thing or two from the FX team here since these games actually have dismemberment from light sabers which is HOW IT SHOULD WORK DISNEY anyways... The voice acting is mostly fantastic especially from the main character star killer. Sam Witwer has been involved in Star Wars in so many ways he's a great actor, motion capture and voice for star killer and plays many other great characters in Star Wars like Darth maul and the emperor in many games and animation from time to time. I feel this is really where he gets his feet off the ground with Star Wars and I still to this day see comments and posts on why they should make star killer canon or make an inquisitor version. He really makes this character and I hope they bring him back some day. The music is more or less the same traditional Star Wars music with some new themes on some levels all of which fit the vibe and tone of the series.
Story/ No spoilers: The story like I said, is about a young force user who is taken by Darth Vader in secret to train with the idea of using him as an undercover agent to do Vader’s dirty work. There is a lot more to this story involving the Rebels the Emperor and many double crosses and even a little romance. It's a good story but loosely fits in with the lore of Star Wars and like I said I think it was never really meant to be canon even before Disney purchased it. This game has multiple endings of good and evil and a few dlcs that follow the evil ending with a fun alternate universe where you get to kill legacy characters. I won't say much more than that because I think it's worth playing to find out more. The Wii version has a duel mode and I think either the psp or ds versions have a multi-player for it but I may be wrong as I never really got a chance to play those versions. Overall, I do like the story, gameplay and features of most versions of this game and think they are all worth checking out. People love star killer and the idea of him is awesome but in the grand scheme of Star Wars I don't think he could ever be canon because the bro is way too powerful. In his timeline he's stronger than basically all other characters including Vader, Yoda, obi wan and even prime legends Luke. The dude is a God and If he ever comes back, they need to seriously nerf his character hard because it's almost too good. He's like the Kratos of Star Wars and thre needs to be a cutoff in the canon unless they move him to a different section of the timeline like far ahead or far in the past.
Anyways great game if you love Star Wars or old games.
Ps3/xbox360. 8.5/10
Ps2/wii. 7.5/10
2020
This review contains spoilers
Underdeveloped step down from its predecessors that probably killed the franchise.
Watch Dogs Legion or Watch Dogs 3 is the 3rd installment of the Watch Dogs series and honestly probably the weakest one. Watch Dogs is one of those franchises where I'm surprised it keeps getting sequels. Though all 3 games are fun all 3 have been hit with harsh criticism from the first one being boring and not making sense to 2 not taking itself seriously enough and having some gameplay issues to now this game and man does it have some problems.
Gameplay: This game plays like that of GTA as an open world, 3rd person shooter with some cover based, stealth and melee gameplay mixed together. Stealth is a big part of watch dogs with some very minimal parkour climbing. You can steal cares, kill pedestrians and all the usual sort of GTA stuff but in this game it's "for the greater good" the big selling point of all watch dogs games is the ability to hack anything anywhere all from your smart phone and in the first 2 games this really was a fun and unique feature that you could use in high speed chases to change traffic lights to cause your chasers to get into an accidents or to blow up pipes out of the ground or walls and hacking security cameras and people buildings and homes to snoop on them. In this game, however most of the fun and unique world interactions have been almost all removed and only do we get very minimal hacking of random panels and pipes in some areas and all the cool and fun abilities of the past 2 entries seem to be gone with no new variety. The only unique hacking mechanic they added in here is the inclusion of the spider Bot drone that climbs around though vents and man do you use it a lot. In fact, everything in this game feels crazy repetitive and gets boring real fast. This is one of those games with like 500+ collectibles, a small generic map and minimal gameplay that feels like a live service game but isn't. In some ways the stealth AI has improved over 2 and the combat has gotten better but the stealth areas that are red around the map have horrible set ups. With some characters, I actually enjoyed combat and stealthing but for most of them it felt miserable. Depending on the characters you have, or their kit is what makes the game fun or not fun, like if you are using a spy or hitman character or maybe a dlc one then you’ll have a blast but most of the other classes suck and aren’t fun to use. The big selling point of this game is the fact that you can play as anyone and recruit almost any NPC you want. Which is a very ambitious and unique feature that on the surface is fun but falls apart when you get into the game. The first reason is that, yes you can customize your characters and change their hair, cloths, piercings and what not; make them look better (fyi most of the randomly generated characters are ugly as f*** and need an extreme makeover) but it only goes so far and you can't change their voice or facial features so you can get a cool spy character that sounds like an old lady but look like a young person you are stuck with it. The other reason is that they all have a generic part they play in the story and unless you turn Perma death on you never feel any sense of danger for your character or team and your entire team you build through recruiting people feels very superficial because none of them have a personality past their bio and abilities except the DLC characters. Wrench and Aiden Pierce are probably the best characters to play as. Not just in terms of abilities but they give unique dialogue and fit in better with the overall story. There is no character development in this game because of this system and it sucks because this could be so much better if there was. Even games like Saints row where you make your characters from scratch still feel more immersive than this. The gameplay loop is basically do a mission where you hack something with a spider bot, recruit a character, do a mission involving stealth or combat, do a story mission involving all of those things and maybe a unique drone segment then repeat and that's basically going to be your over 80 hours of gameplay if you plan to do everything. Now I can't speak for the harder difficulty maybe it's better but in the base game this was all there was to offer. All of the side actives like spray painting walls and playing darts suck and man everyone hated the first game, but I sure do miss the days of spider tank activities, let me tell you. Another trash system this game has is the tech point system. Instead of having a skill tree you slowly unlock to get crazier and crazier hacks (like the first game) you get a bunch of lame skills that lack variety and there are only a few of them that you can go and unlock as soon as the game starts by running around the map to get them. Honorable mentions are the removal of the phone hub from the other games, the removal of listening to music in world, the removal of calling in cars (The list goes on). On top of all of this, the games a glitchy buggy mess with crashes, missing animations, graphic errors, loosing hours of save time from the game NOT SAVING, missions getting stuck, prompts not working (this list also goes on) and it's received huge patches too!
Graphics, voice acting and music: The graphics in this game are okay and the game’s overall color pallet is more Grey's than anything but most of the environment details look nice and well done. The characters design in this game is a mix between punk, cyber punk and this weird futuristic shit that looks like it's straight out of cyberpunk 2077 but most of the recruits are going to be wearing normal pediatrician cloths. For some reason the grounded feeling of the first 2 games is gone and everyone in this game is either a normie, goth or like some low-quality superhero. There are a lot of clothing stores in this game so there are a lot of clothing options but most of the clothing items are the same thing with a different texture on them and a lot of them lean towards the ugly side, same goes with hairstyles but it's all personal preference. Speaking of stores, you can't even go in the stores, you just sort of collect them by going to the doors on the map. The map icons for the stores are all over the place and don’t make sense with the same store repeated 50 times here and only once there and it doesn’t make sense because it clutters the map, and you can just collect them anyways for your safe house. The voice acting is another huge problem in this game. The studio decided to save money and time by having a small group of voice actors say the same lines and then used AI voice modulation to change their voices to fit the same situation with different tones. This doesn't work great and most of the characters sound like an AI and don't have rhythm to their voices, another reason to pick dlc characters instead. As for the music in this game, the main story doesn't present anything memorable, and the game’s radio is much better than previous games with music like the gorillas on the radio but most of it is indie shit I have never heard of before.
Story (SPOILERS): Watch Dogs Legions story is very generic and uninteresting. It has moments of fun and a couple twists but almost all of it was predictable as hell. Basically, this game takes place in near futuristic London that's under control of corporations, a police military group called Albion and various Curfews that control the population, there was a terrorist bombings and dead sec is framed for it. All of your recruits are being recruited to deadsec and most of the game is about fighting these various groups and investigating them. You take down like 4 different groups with the help of your friends and a chat GBT called Bagley. So, most of the game is split into different plot lines and most of them are boring with a few missions and enemies that seem like they could have been interesting if this game was actually finished. Maybe I've just played too many games like this, but all the villains feel predictable and generic especially the main villain. At this point I'm going to spoil the ending because it's worth bringing up so stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled. Basically you take down all the other groups in the game and are given like 3 Red herrings on who zero day is and it actually ends up being basically the only character that isn't seen on screen but heard and the only survivor from the beginning of the game, Sabine and I pretty much called it in the first few hours of gameplay that either her or Bagley would end up being evil and I was right on one account and really Bagley was used for evil and they try to make you feel sad that you are going to kill off Bagley which is close enough. AND that ending doesn’t even stick because he comes back right after the credits. The reason this was so predictable was because it can't be anyone in your squad and you take all other established villains down. Honestly this whole ending feels like it doesn't make sense like I get she recruited everyone to do her dirty work but why bother revealing it so they can stop it? It doesn't make sense and it's just goofy nonsense. The most interesting missions were when we investigate clan Kelly's whole human trafficking thing (it’s even better to play that part as Aiden) and some of the sky Larsen missions. If you are wondering about the zombie mode or the multi-player, I can't comment on those because I raced to uninstall this game when I was done so I have no idea if those are good. I'd imagine they aren't because you don't hear about people jumping on Legion for its multi-player so...
The best part of this game’s story was the bloodlines dlc with Aiden and Wrench. It's short and it has a stereotypical villain as well, but the characters and cameo were fun to see, and it actually held steaks and developed characters. All the side quests and main quests actually felt unique and more like watch dogs than anything else in this game. There was a very random PT inspired horror part in this dlc that also references the animus from AC and that was probably one of the dlcs highlights. It’s funny how Aiden went from one of the most boring characters in the franchise to aging like fine wine and becoming one of the best ones in this franchise and that’s not saying much. The Assassin's Creed crossover dlc was cool since 1 and 2 had small AC crossover missions that clearly take place in the same universe or were originally intended to and this time around, we got a mission to get an artifact from a Tomb and finally get to see these two storylines come together... in the most underwhelming way imaginable. You only get one super short mission with her then you get these awkward viewpoint missions where you collect vague artifacts and kill random npc templars. Sure, having an Assassin as a recruit is an awesome idea but the character, we got is lame and her dialogue sounds like it was written by a child in fact 80% of this games dialogue is terribly written cringe. Also, Ubisoft went back on this whole idea saying these universes are no longer canon to one another nor are they relevant and the crossover was only done for fans, and this is really sad. I think the ultimate future of both franchises is to combine them and make a modern-day AC game with watch dogs as a base and I honestly thought that's what they were leading towards here since this is the same city from AC Syndicate, but I guess not...
Unfortunately, this game was a huge let down in basically all aspects and I can only hope if watch dogs ever returns Ubisoft learns from these mistakes and goes back to its roots with the gameplay but take the story forward as a cross over or not because this is a sad way to see a franchise with such potential crumble and fall on such a low note.
Anyways... 4/10
Watch Dogs Legion or Watch Dogs 3 is the 3rd installment of the Watch Dogs series and honestly probably the weakest one. Watch Dogs is one of those franchises where I'm surprised it keeps getting sequels. Though all 3 games are fun all 3 have been hit with harsh criticism from the first one being boring and not making sense to 2 not taking itself seriously enough and having some gameplay issues to now this game and man does it have some problems.
Gameplay: This game plays like that of GTA as an open world, 3rd person shooter with some cover based, stealth and melee gameplay mixed together. Stealth is a big part of watch dogs with some very minimal parkour climbing. You can steal cares, kill pedestrians and all the usual sort of GTA stuff but in this game it's "for the greater good" the big selling point of all watch dogs games is the ability to hack anything anywhere all from your smart phone and in the first 2 games this really was a fun and unique feature that you could use in high speed chases to change traffic lights to cause your chasers to get into an accidents or to blow up pipes out of the ground or walls and hacking security cameras and people buildings and homes to snoop on them. In this game, however most of the fun and unique world interactions have been almost all removed and only do we get very minimal hacking of random panels and pipes in some areas and all the cool and fun abilities of the past 2 entries seem to be gone with no new variety. The only unique hacking mechanic they added in here is the inclusion of the spider Bot drone that climbs around though vents and man do you use it a lot. In fact, everything in this game feels crazy repetitive and gets boring real fast. This is one of those games with like 500+ collectibles, a small generic map and minimal gameplay that feels like a live service game but isn't. In some ways the stealth AI has improved over 2 and the combat has gotten better but the stealth areas that are red around the map have horrible set ups. With some characters, I actually enjoyed combat and stealthing but for most of them it felt miserable. Depending on the characters you have, or their kit is what makes the game fun or not fun, like if you are using a spy or hitman character or maybe a dlc one then you’ll have a blast but most of the other classes suck and aren’t fun to use. The big selling point of this game is the fact that you can play as anyone and recruit almost any NPC you want. Which is a very ambitious and unique feature that on the surface is fun but falls apart when you get into the game. The first reason is that, yes you can customize your characters and change their hair, cloths, piercings and what not; make them look better (fyi most of the randomly generated characters are ugly as f*** and need an extreme makeover) but it only goes so far and you can't change their voice or facial features so you can get a cool spy character that sounds like an old lady but look like a young person you are stuck with it. The other reason is that they all have a generic part they play in the story and unless you turn Perma death on you never feel any sense of danger for your character or team and your entire team you build through recruiting people feels very superficial because none of them have a personality past their bio and abilities except the DLC characters. Wrench and Aiden Pierce are probably the best characters to play as. Not just in terms of abilities but they give unique dialogue and fit in better with the overall story. There is no character development in this game because of this system and it sucks because this could be so much better if there was. Even games like Saints row where you make your characters from scratch still feel more immersive than this. The gameplay loop is basically do a mission where you hack something with a spider bot, recruit a character, do a mission involving stealth or combat, do a story mission involving all of those things and maybe a unique drone segment then repeat and that's basically going to be your over 80 hours of gameplay if you plan to do everything. Now I can't speak for the harder difficulty maybe it's better but in the base game this was all there was to offer. All of the side actives like spray painting walls and playing darts suck and man everyone hated the first game, but I sure do miss the days of spider tank activities, let me tell you. Another trash system this game has is the tech point system. Instead of having a skill tree you slowly unlock to get crazier and crazier hacks (like the first game) you get a bunch of lame skills that lack variety and there are only a few of them that you can go and unlock as soon as the game starts by running around the map to get them. Honorable mentions are the removal of the phone hub from the other games, the removal of listening to music in world, the removal of calling in cars (The list goes on). On top of all of this, the games a glitchy buggy mess with crashes, missing animations, graphic errors, loosing hours of save time from the game NOT SAVING, missions getting stuck, prompts not working (this list also goes on) and it's received huge patches too!
Graphics, voice acting and music: The graphics in this game are okay and the game’s overall color pallet is more Grey's than anything but most of the environment details look nice and well done. The characters design in this game is a mix between punk, cyber punk and this weird futuristic shit that looks like it's straight out of cyberpunk 2077 but most of the recruits are going to be wearing normal pediatrician cloths. For some reason the grounded feeling of the first 2 games is gone and everyone in this game is either a normie, goth or like some low-quality superhero. There are a lot of clothing stores in this game so there are a lot of clothing options but most of the clothing items are the same thing with a different texture on them and a lot of them lean towards the ugly side, same goes with hairstyles but it's all personal preference. Speaking of stores, you can't even go in the stores, you just sort of collect them by going to the doors on the map. The map icons for the stores are all over the place and don’t make sense with the same store repeated 50 times here and only once there and it doesn’t make sense because it clutters the map, and you can just collect them anyways for your safe house. The voice acting is another huge problem in this game. The studio decided to save money and time by having a small group of voice actors say the same lines and then used AI voice modulation to change their voices to fit the same situation with different tones. This doesn't work great and most of the characters sound like an AI and don't have rhythm to their voices, another reason to pick dlc characters instead. As for the music in this game, the main story doesn't present anything memorable, and the game’s radio is much better than previous games with music like the gorillas on the radio but most of it is indie shit I have never heard of before.
Story (SPOILERS): Watch Dogs Legions story is very generic and uninteresting. It has moments of fun and a couple twists but almost all of it was predictable as hell. Basically, this game takes place in near futuristic London that's under control of corporations, a police military group called Albion and various Curfews that control the population, there was a terrorist bombings and dead sec is framed for it. All of your recruits are being recruited to deadsec and most of the game is about fighting these various groups and investigating them. You take down like 4 different groups with the help of your friends and a chat GBT called Bagley. So, most of the game is split into different plot lines and most of them are boring with a few missions and enemies that seem like they could have been interesting if this game was actually finished. Maybe I've just played too many games like this, but all the villains feel predictable and generic especially the main villain. At this point I'm going to spoil the ending because it's worth bringing up so stop reading if you don't want to be spoiled. Basically you take down all the other groups in the game and are given like 3 Red herrings on who zero day is and it actually ends up being basically the only character that isn't seen on screen but heard and the only survivor from the beginning of the game, Sabine and I pretty much called it in the first few hours of gameplay that either her or Bagley would end up being evil and I was right on one account and really Bagley was used for evil and they try to make you feel sad that you are going to kill off Bagley which is close enough. AND that ending doesn’t even stick because he comes back right after the credits. The reason this was so predictable was because it can't be anyone in your squad and you take all other established villains down. Honestly this whole ending feels like it doesn't make sense like I get she recruited everyone to do her dirty work but why bother revealing it so they can stop it? It doesn't make sense and it's just goofy nonsense. The most interesting missions were when we investigate clan Kelly's whole human trafficking thing (it’s even better to play that part as Aiden) and some of the sky Larsen missions. If you are wondering about the zombie mode or the multi-player, I can't comment on those because I raced to uninstall this game when I was done so I have no idea if those are good. I'd imagine they aren't because you don't hear about people jumping on Legion for its multi-player so...
The best part of this game’s story was the bloodlines dlc with Aiden and Wrench. It's short and it has a stereotypical villain as well, but the characters and cameo were fun to see, and it actually held steaks and developed characters. All the side quests and main quests actually felt unique and more like watch dogs than anything else in this game. There was a very random PT inspired horror part in this dlc that also references the animus from AC and that was probably one of the dlcs highlights. It’s funny how Aiden went from one of the most boring characters in the franchise to aging like fine wine and becoming one of the best ones in this franchise and that’s not saying much. The Assassin's Creed crossover dlc was cool since 1 and 2 had small AC crossover missions that clearly take place in the same universe or were originally intended to and this time around, we got a mission to get an artifact from a Tomb and finally get to see these two storylines come together... in the most underwhelming way imaginable. You only get one super short mission with her then you get these awkward viewpoint missions where you collect vague artifacts and kill random npc templars. Sure, having an Assassin as a recruit is an awesome idea but the character, we got is lame and her dialogue sounds like it was written by a child in fact 80% of this games dialogue is terribly written cringe. Also, Ubisoft went back on this whole idea saying these universes are no longer canon to one another nor are they relevant and the crossover was only done for fans, and this is really sad. I think the ultimate future of both franchises is to combine them and make a modern-day AC game with watch dogs as a base and I honestly thought that's what they were leading towards here since this is the same city from AC Syndicate, but I guess not...
Unfortunately, this game was a huge let down in basically all aspects and I can only hope if watch dogs ever returns Ubisoft learns from these mistakes and goes back to its roots with the gameplay but take the story forward as a cross over or not because this is a sad way to see a franchise with such potential crumble and fall on such a low note.
Anyways... 4/10
Beautiful story and characters
Gameplay: Telltales The walking Dead is a 3rd person, episodic, choice based, choose your own adventure game with multiple dialogue options and different endings. Since its release I still see videos, memes and discussion on these games and more specifically this one. Gameplay wise, it was a fun game but by today’s standards would be considered clunky and even back then there was something annoying about the movement, camera angles and interaction controls. All of which vastly improves with every telltale game but for what it is, it’s still an enjoyable game to play, especially if you don’t know the twists and have never played it before. This game works very simply where you explore environments, check things, look for items and talk to other characters just like most telltale games. The only big problems I found with both the remaster and original version of this game are some level glitches. There were parts where dialogue was out of synch, repeated or just disappeared but it isn’t every time I play nor is it a constant problem. One constant glitch I came across was when I was exploring a school in a later chapter and when I would enter one side of the area explore and progress the story it would actually repeat the area like a time loop and it did this to me a few times and on the remaster this same exact area froze on me and wouldn’t let me progress so I had to restart the whole episode which was super annoying. I love telltale games, but it seems like all of their games have one major glitched part or area that is never 100% okay.
Graphics, Music and Voice acting: Graphically this game is pretty decent. It uses the usual cell shading most telltale games use that’s also seen in the borderland’s series. It’s a fun art style that actually works well because this game is based off a comic book, so it feels like we are in the comic. The music in this game is decent but nothing crazy memorable came out of it. I do remember all the themes fit the instances and setting they were apart of pretty well. The voice acting and characters is what really carries this game. The all-round cast of each episode did a fantastic job, especially the main cast, Lee, Clementine and Kenny to name a few. Lee and Clementine give outstanding performances that truly will move you and give a deep feeling of emotion.
Story/ no Spoilers: I’m not going to say a whole lot about the story other than a spoiler free summary because it’s a fantastic coming of age and deep plot set in the walking dead universe and follows the comic book story closer than the show. Though if you watched the live action show you’ll probably appreciate the game but also would be confused to why the few TV characters that are present look the way they do and act the way they do. Don’t get me wrong the story in this game is original and as far as I know the first few episodes are the only episodes in this entire game series that have tv or comic character cameos the rest of it is original, so you don’t have to watch or read anything for this game. Basically, the story follows Lee who was on his way to jail when the outbreak hits and finds himself taking care of a lone girl named Clementine. The 2 meet a bunch of survivors and take a journey across the state of Georgia to find her parents and get a boat and that’s all ill say about it other than the fact that this is one of the few games that has made me cry at the end. Even if the gameplay is outdated it’s an amazing story with amazing performances all around and that alone is enough for me to recommend it. I will say it does start a bit slow but picks up as you play, and my only other complaint is that even though there are a bunch of choices and different endings they are also kinda all the same too and just slightly different. These games aren’t as in depth as something Quantic dreams would pull but its still a great story to play though a couple of times regardless.
8.5/10
Gameplay: Telltales The walking Dead is a 3rd person, episodic, choice based, choose your own adventure game with multiple dialogue options and different endings. Since its release I still see videos, memes and discussion on these games and more specifically this one. Gameplay wise, it was a fun game but by today’s standards would be considered clunky and even back then there was something annoying about the movement, camera angles and interaction controls. All of which vastly improves with every telltale game but for what it is, it’s still an enjoyable game to play, especially if you don’t know the twists and have never played it before. This game works very simply where you explore environments, check things, look for items and talk to other characters just like most telltale games. The only big problems I found with both the remaster and original version of this game are some level glitches. There were parts where dialogue was out of synch, repeated or just disappeared but it isn’t every time I play nor is it a constant problem. One constant glitch I came across was when I was exploring a school in a later chapter and when I would enter one side of the area explore and progress the story it would actually repeat the area like a time loop and it did this to me a few times and on the remaster this same exact area froze on me and wouldn’t let me progress so I had to restart the whole episode which was super annoying. I love telltale games, but it seems like all of their games have one major glitched part or area that is never 100% okay.
Graphics, Music and Voice acting: Graphically this game is pretty decent. It uses the usual cell shading most telltale games use that’s also seen in the borderland’s series. It’s a fun art style that actually works well because this game is based off a comic book, so it feels like we are in the comic. The music in this game is decent but nothing crazy memorable came out of it. I do remember all the themes fit the instances and setting they were apart of pretty well. The voice acting and characters is what really carries this game. The all-round cast of each episode did a fantastic job, especially the main cast, Lee, Clementine and Kenny to name a few. Lee and Clementine give outstanding performances that truly will move you and give a deep feeling of emotion.
Story/ no Spoilers: I’m not going to say a whole lot about the story other than a spoiler free summary because it’s a fantastic coming of age and deep plot set in the walking dead universe and follows the comic book story closer than the show. Though if you watched the live action show you’ll probably appreciate the game but also would be confused to why the few TV characters that are present look the way they do and act the way they do. Don’t get me wrong the story in this game is original and as far as I know the first few episodes are the only episodes in this entire game series that have tv or comic character cameos the rest of it is original, so you don’t have to watch or read anything for this game. Basically, the story follows Lee who was on his way to jail when the outbreak hits and finds himself taking care of a lone girl named Clementine. The 2 meet a bunch of survivors and take a journey across the state of Georgia to find her parents and get a boat and that’s all ill say about it other than the fact that this is one of the few games that has made me cry at the end. Even if the gameplay is outdated it’s an amazing story with amazing performances all around and that alone is enough for me to recommend it. I will say it does start a bit slow but picks up as you play, and my only other complaint is that even though there are a bunch of choices and different endings they are also kinda all the same too and just slightly different. These games aren’t as in depth as something Quantic dreams would pull but its still a great story to play though a couple of times regardless.
8.5/10
2012
Beautiful story and characters
Gameplay: Telltales The walking Dead is a 3rd person, episodic, choice based, choose your own adventure game with multiple dialogue options and different endings. Since its release I still see videos, memes and discussion on these games and more specifically this one. Gameplay wise, it was a fun game but by today’s standards would be considered clunky and even back then there was something annoying about the movement, camera angles and interaction controls. All of which vastly improves with every telltale game but for what it is, it’s still an enjoyable game to play, especially if you don’t know the twists and have never played it before. This game works very simply where you explore environments, check things, look for items and talk to other characters just like most telltale games. The only big problems I found with both the remaster and original version of this game are some level glitches. There were parts where dialogue was out of synch, repeated or just disappeared but it isn’t every time I play nor is it a constant problem. One constant glitch I came across was when I was exploring a school in a later chapter and when I would enter one side of the area explore and progress the story it would actually repeat the area like a time loop and it did this to me a few times and on the remaster this same exact area froze on me and wouldn’t let me progress so I had to restart the whole episode which was super annoying. I love telltale games, but it seems like all of their games have one major glitched part or area that is never 100% okay.
Graphics, Music and Voice acting: Graphically this game is pretty decent. It uses the usual cell shading most telltale games use that’s also seen in the borderland’s series. It’s a fun art style that actually works well because this game is based off a comic book, so it feels like we are in the comic. The music in this game is decent but nothing crazy memorable came out of it. I do remember all the themes fit the instances and setting they were apart of pretty well. The voice acting and characters is what really carries this game. The all-round cast of each episode did a fantastic job, especially the main cast, Lee, Clementine and Kenny to name a few. Lee and Clementine give outstanding performances that truly will move you and give a deep feeling of emotion.
Story/ no Spoilers: I’m not going to say a whole lot about the story other than a spoiler free summary because it’s a fantastic coming of age and deep plot set in the walking dead universe and follows the comic book story closer than the show. Though if you watched the live action show you’ll probably appreciate the game but also would be confused to why the few TV characters that are present look the way they do and act the way they do. Don’t get me wrong the story in this game is original and as far as I know the first few episodes are the only episodes in this entire game series that have tv or comic character cameos the rest of it is original, so you don’t have to watch or read anything for this game. Basically, the story follows Lee who was on his way to jail when the outbreak hits and finds himself taking care of a lone girl named Clementine. The 2 meet a bunch of survivors and take a journey across the state of Georgia to find her parents and get a boat and that’s all ill say about it other than the fact that this is one of the few games that has made me cry at the end. Even if the gameplay is outdated it’s an amazing story with amazing performances all around and that alone is enough for me to recommend it. I will say it does start a bit slow but picks up as you play, and my only other complaint is that even though there are a bunch of choices and different endings they are also kinda all the same too and just slightly different. These games aren’t as in depth as something Quantic dreams would pull but its still a great story to play though a couple of times regardless.
8.5/10
Gameplay: Telltales The walking Dead is a 3rd person, episodic, choice based, choose your own adventure game with multiple dialogue options and different endings. Since its release I still see videos, memes and discussion on these games and more specifically this one. Gameplay wise, it was a fun game but by today’s standards would be considered clunky and even back then there was something annoying about the movement, camera angles and interaction controls. All of which vastly improves with every telltale game but for what it is, it’s still an enjoyable game to play, especially if you don’t know the twists and have never played it before. This game works very simply where you explore environments, check things, look for items and talk to other characters just like most telltale games. The only big problems I found with both the remaster and original version of this game are some level glitches. There were parts where dialogue was out of synch, repeated or just disappeared but it isn’t every time I play nor is it a constant problem. One constant glitch I came across was when I was exploring a school in a later chapter and when I would enter one side of the area explore and progress the story it would actually repeat the area like a time loop and it did this to me a few times and on the remaster this same exact area froze on me and wouldn’t let me progress so I had to restart the whole episode which was super annoying. I love telltale games, but it seems like all of their games have one major glitched part or area that is never 100% okay.
Graphics, Music and Voice acting: Graphically this game is pretty decent. It uses the usual cell shading most telltale games use that’s also seen in the borderland’s series. It’s a fun art style that actually works well because this game is based off a comic book, so it feels like we are in the comic. The music in this game is decent but nothing crazy memorable came out of it. I do remember all the themes fit the instances and setting they were apart of pretty well. The voice acting and characters is what really carries this game. The all-round cast of each episode did a fantastic job, especially the main cast, Lee, Clementine and Kenny to name a few. Lee and Clementine give outstanding performances that truly will move you and give a deep feeling of emotion.
Story/ no Spoilers: I’m not going to say a whole lot about the story other than a spoiler free summary because it’s a fantastic coming of age and deep plot set in the walking dead universe and follows the comic book story closer than the show. Though if you watched the live action show you’ll probably appreciate the game but also would be confused to why the few TV characters that are present look the way they do and act the way they do. Don’t get me wrong the story in this game is original and as far as I know the first few episodes are the only episodes in this entire game series that have tv or comic character cameos the rest of it is original, so you don’t have to watch or read anything for this game. Basically, the story follows Lee who was on his way to jail when the outbreak hits and finds himself taking care of a lone girl named Clementine. The 2 meet a bunch of survivors and take a journey across the state of Georgia to find her parents and get a boat and that’s all ill say about it other than the fact that this is one of the few games that has made me cry at the end. Even if the gameplay is outdated it’s an amazing story with amazing performances all around and that alone is enough for me to recommend it. I will say it does start a bit slow but picks up as you play, and my only other complaint is that even though there are a bunch of choices and different endings they are also kinda all the same too and just slightly different. These games aren’t as in depth as something Quantic dreams would pull but its still a great story to play though a couple of times regardless.
8.5/10
2023
Probably the best Harry Potter game.
As a huge Harry Potter fan, I went into this game with big expectations that it would deliver a fun and rewarding experience and I'm here to tell you that... well, it definitely does just that. Hogwarts legacy is an amazing Harry Potter game. However, it’s not the best rpg in the world and some areas of this game could definitely improve.
Gameplay: As a Harry potter game, It checks all the boxes for what you would want. immersive Open world exploration completely full to scale castle where you can explore every nook and Cranny, spells you can learn and use throughout the world, ride brooms and catch beasts, lore accurate storytelling, side quests and decently interesting set of characters. The gameplay is a 3rd person open world action-adventure RPG. You have a weapon wheel for potions and items to use while your spells go in a different menu, and you have 4 different spell wheels to add spells to for quicker use. There are different colored spells for different uses and all the spells are spells from the books and movies, so everything is very consistent here and I love that. The spells and the spell combat is a lot of fun and overall well done. I'd say for me personally I had the most fun in the combat but in the beginning when you have almost no spells, health or an understanding of how to fight it’s hard as hell and had a bit of a learning curve. The spell menu and wheel system feels a little clunky, like it could be better because there are too many spells and you constantly have to stop and change the custom wheels and it can get confusing to set up but it isn’t terrible. All the spells, potions and beasts are also lore accurate and all work wonderfully with the gameplay. You can grow your own plants and catch your own beasts to farm for materials and some beasts are rideable all of which is awesome. You eventually get a completely customizable room of requirement that works a lot like Sim’s customization and this is your hub for all your upgrades, crafting, and beast spawning. The customization for all of that stuff is fantastic. I guess a critique I could give this part of the game is that you get the room of requirement kinda late into the game but I'm probably wrong and it probably just felt that way because I usually grind and try to unlock stuff and do side content before I progress in an RPG and this game was probably made with average players in mind that just spam the story and eventually when I play it again as a different house I'll try spamming the story instead and see how long it actually takes to get to that part. I guess the good thing is the fact that you are constantly getting big unlockables throughout the game’s progression and it absolutely adds to the game and makes it not feel repetitive.
The side quests are, for the most part, a lot of fun and entertaining really throughout most of the quests I found your playable character the most boring part. I'm not sure if personality has anything to do with how I made my character or his gender or house he's sorted to, but he felt very boring, and it feels like most of the interactions in this game aren't super exciting. Something I'd absolutely love to see in a sequel is more dialogue options and personality choices. For example (I’m absolutely not saying this AC is at all a better game) in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey you can often decide on the spot if you want to romance or flirt, be rude, be nice, lie or attack them and I super wish this was more of a thing in this game. There are elements of choice in dialogue and story here but nothing on a major level as far as I could see. It would also be awesome if you could sort of pick who your friends are and have 2 companions with you on certain quests to sort of mimic the Ron and Hermione, maybe this is a bad or unrealistic idea but I think it would be a cool feature and maybe I'm wrong and you can do this if you pick a different house or certain dialogue but from what I've seen and read it doesn't seem like there is much of anything like that in this game other than maybe a few parts of the game and no matter what it seems like you'll get the same quests from the same people. I picked Slytherin and I did decide to be an overall good Slytherin, but it would be cool if you could actually be a piece of sh*t and not “kind of a bully sometimes but not really”. The biggest difference it seems between the houses is the fact that you get a different common room and maybe 3 different missions in the middle of the game that take you to a different place and it is awesome for sure, and I do plan to play this game again, but I don't think it's enough for most people to replay the game. One other thing I'd like to mention is if you have a universal account and take the online house quiz and link your account it will automatically pick your house you got on the quiz, and I think normally it's an in-game test so that's cool! This game has a lot of small glitches but most of it is in the graphics or npc behavior and it was nothing that ruins the experience for me.
Graphics, music, voice acting: My favorite part about this game is the fact that you can explore all your favorite areas from the movies and books and the above and beyond details they put in to make this work. The map looks absolutely fantastic, and I love, love, love the castle it’s too bad you seem to hardly be in the castle in the main story. Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely have a bunch of quests there and side content, but the vast majority of the game is in the countryside and OMG the number of caves you explore in this game is, it’s just too much! And most of them look the same! They really should have named this game Scotland Countryside Legacy or Cave Legacy because it feels like huge portions of the game is outside and I’m fine with the big map and exploring it, but I think it would have been cooler to go to places like nocturn ally and have like 3 big maps across the world itself because let's be real you are gonna be fast traveling a lot anyways. Another downside for me is your character customization, its good but not amazing and if you pick the starter white guy character you will basically look the same as Sébastien and half the other white males in the game which all pretty much look like Tom Holland. I haven’t tried out the female or changing my characters race yet which I will in my next run but from my experience it didn’t feel as good as I’ve seen it in other games. The music is actually pretty great and fits in with the whole vibe of the universe along with some returning themes from the movies as well. The voice acting from the supporting cast was all round fantastic and I give props to them. I'm not sure if my character is a real person or an AI. Half the time some of his lines are cringy and awkward as hell and I certainly hope we get a better character voice or voices in the next installment.
Story/ No spoilers: As for the story I'm not going to say much because I do think it’s a good story with a few different paths you can take and different endings. Basically, you play as a new 5th year that is transferring to Hogwarts and can see and use a special type of ancient magik. There is a goblin uprising happening and a few branching side stories like the dark arts side quest with Sébastien, or the 2 other poacher storylines and basically you juggle all of this stuff along with many other minor one-off stories you come across that give you things to do. Most of these characters are unique and fun but aside from the main quest I have to be honest, the Sébastien side quest is definitely the strongest and most interesting one in the game. Every time I got another quest to do I really just wanted to see what was going to happen with Sebastian’s storyline. The main story is interesting but super predictable and the main villains are honestly boring and stereotypical as hell. I know it’s hard to top Voldemort but Ramcock or whatever the hell his name was, he just felt goofy as hell to me.
Overall if you are an average or hardcore fan of this franchise you will probably love this game, if you are a newcomer you may or may not enjoy the game and if you are a hardcore RPG gamer I think you will have fun but will find this game easy and maybe even boring at certain points especially if you are looking for a Skyrim or Witcher type of experience but IDK personally I think it’s hard to find harry potter stuff boring so for me it was an enjoyable experience and don't get me wrong this is a great Harry potter game especially compared to a lot of the older ones. When I was finished with the game, I was kinda sad it was over so I mean that must be a good thing, right?
7.5/10
As a huge Harry Potter fan, I went into this game with big expectations that it would deliver a fun and rewarding experience and I'm here to tell you that... well, it definitely does just that. Hogwarts legacy is an amazing Harry Potter game. However, it’s not the best rpg in the world and some areas of this game could definitely improve.
Gameplay: As a Harry potter game, It checks all the boxes for what you would want. immersive Open world exploration completely full to scale castle where you can explore every nook and Cranny, spells you can learn and use throughout the world, ride brooms and catch beasts, lore accurate storytelling, side quests and decently interesting set of characters. The gameplay is a 3rd person open world action-adventure RPG. You have a weapon wheel for potions and items to use while your spells go in a different menu, and you have 4 different spell wheels to add spells to for quicker use. There are different colored spells for different uses and all the spells are spells from the books and movies, so everything is very consistent here and I love that. The spells and the spell combat is a lot of fun and overall well done. I'd say for me personally I had the most fun in the combat but in the beginning when you have almost no spells, health or an understanding of how to fight it’s hard as hell and had a bit of a learning curve. The spell menu and wheel system feels a little clunky, like it could be better because there are too many spells and you constantly have to stop and change the custom wheels and it can get confusing to set up but it isn’t terrible. All the spells, potions and beasts are also lore accurate and all work wonderfully with the gameplay. You can grow your own plants and catch your own beasts to farm for materials and some beasts are rideable all of which is awesome. You eventually get a completely customizable room of requirement that works a lot like Sim’s customization and this is your hub for all your upgrades, crafting, and beast spawning. The customization for all of that stuff is fantastic. I guess a critique I could give this part of the game is that you get the room of requirement kinda late into the game but I'm probably wrong and it probably just felt that way because I usually grind and try to unlock stuff and do side content before I progress in an RPG and this game was probably made with average players in mind that just spam the story and eventually when I play it again as a different house I'll try spamming the story instead and see how long it actually takes to get to that part. I guess the good thing is the fact that you are constantly getting big unlockables throughout the game’s progression and it absolutely adds to the game and makes it not feel repetitive.
The side quests are, for the most part, a lot of fun and entertaining really throughout most of the quests I found your playable character the most boring part. I'm not sure if personality has anything to do with how I made my character or his gender or house he's sorted to, but he felt very boring, and it feels like most of the interactions in this game aren't super exciting. Something I'd absolutely love to see in a sequel is more dialogue options and personality choices. For example (I’m absolutely not saying this AC is at all a better game) in Assassin's Creed: Odyssey you can often decide on the spot if you want to romance or flirt, be rude, be nice, lie or attack them and I super wish this was more of a thing in this game. There are elements of choice in dialogue and story here but nothing on a major level as far as I could see. It would also be awesome if you could sort of pick who your friends are and have 2 companions with you on certain quests to sort of mimic the Ron and Hermione, maybe this is a bad or unrealistic idea but I think it would be a cool feature and maybe I'm wrong and you can do this if you pick a different house or certain dialogue but from what I've seen and read it doesn't seem like there is much of anything like that in this game other than maybe a few parts of the game and no matter what it seems like you'll get the same quests from the same people. I picked Slytherin and I did decide to be an overall good Slytherin, but it would be cool if you could actually be a piece of sh*t and not “kind of a bully sometimes but not really”. The biggest difference it seems between the houses is the fact that you get a different common room and maybe 3 different missions in the middle of the game that take you to a different place and it is awesome for sure, and I do plan to play this game again, but I don't think it's enough for most people to replay the game. One other thing I'd like to mention is if you have a universal account and take the online house quiz and link your account it will automatically pick your house you got on the quiz, and I think normally it's an in-game test so that's cool! This game has a lot of small glitches but most of it is in the graphics or npc behavior and it was nothing that ruins the experience for me.
Graphics, music, voice acting: My favorite part about this game is the fact that you can explore all your favorite areas from the movies and books and the above and beyond details they put in to make this work. The map looks absolutely fantastic, and I love, love, love the castle it’s too bad you seem to hardly be in the castle in the main story. Don’t get me wrong, you absolutely have a bunch of quests there and side content, but the vast majority of the game is in the countryside and OMG the number of caves you explore in this game is, it’s just too much! And most of them look the same! They really should have named this game Scotland Countryside Legacy or Cave Legacy because it feels like huge portions of the game is outside and I’m fine with the big map and exploring it, but I think it would have been cooler to go to places like nocturn ally and have like 3 big maps across the world itself because let's be real you are gonna be fast traveling a lot anyways. Another downside for me is your character customization, its good but not amazing and if you pick the starter white guy character you will basically look the same as Sébastien and half the other white males in the game which all pretty much look like Tom Holland. I haven’t tried out the female or changing my characters race yet which I will in my next run but from my experience it didn’t feel as good as I’ve seen it in other games. The music is actually pretty great and fits in with the whole vibe of the universe along with some returning themes from the movies as well. The voice acting from the supporting cast was all round fantastic and I give props to them. I'm not sure if my character is a real person or an AI. Half the time some of his lines are cringy and awkward as hell and I certainly hope we get a better character voice or voices in the next installment.
Story/ No spoilers: As for the story I'm not going to say much because I do think it’s a good story with a few different paths you can take and different endings. Basically, you play as a new 5th year that is transferring to Hogwarts and can see and use a special type of ancient magik. There is a goblin uprising happening and a few branching side stories like the dark arts side quest with Sébastien, or the 2 other poacher storylines and basically you juggle all of this stuff along with many other minor one-off stories you come across that give you things to do. Most of these characters are unique and fun but aside from the main quest I have to be honest, the Sébastien side quest is definitely the strongest and most interesting one in the game. Every time I got another quest to do I really just wanted to see what was going to happen with Sebastian’s storyline. The main story is interesting but super predictable and the main villains are honestly boring and stereotypical as hell. I know it’s hard to top Voldemort but Ramcock or whatever the hell his name was, he just felt goofy as hell to me.
Overall if you are an average or hardcore fan of this franchise you will probably love this game, if you are a newcomer you may or may not enjoy the game and if you are a hardcore RPG gamer I think you will have fun but will find this game easy and maybe even boring at certain points especially if you are looking for a Skyrim or Witcher type of experience but IDK personally I think it’s hard to find harry potter stuff boring so for me it was an enjoyable experience and don't get me wrong this is a great Harry potter game especially compared to a lot of the older ones. When I was finished with the game, I was kinda sad it was over so I mean that must be a good thing, right?
7.5/10