Craigjs91
What a disappointment this game was. After the success of the first game the sequel failed to improve on any of what made it's predecessor so good. For a start the writing was amateurish and even laughable at times. The decision to make a significant chunk of the game on land was a bad one considering they didn't update any of the out of water mechanics so the land sections feel tacked on and low quality. The map is way smaller, way less deep, and way more empty. It's almost like someone at Unknown Worlds wrote a list of all the things that made the first game good, and then decided to reduce all those elements for the sequel. I just don't get it.
2020
What a tedious clunky mess of a game. It's a shame because the world did seem pretty interesting. If you are looking for a decent souls-like go with Thymesia instead, much better game.
Amnesia: The Dark Descent is like the Beetles for me, I appreciate what it did for gaming and how influential it was, I enjoyed playing it, but it's not on my list of favorites. and I'm sure this will be an unpopular opinion but I think a machine for pigs the far superior game.
2019
This is how you make a roguelike! Easy to learn, hard to master. Tons of variance between runs with a number of interesting characters who all have their own unique decks and playstyle options. Mid run you will often find a powerful card that completely changes the way you were planning to build your deck and this is what makes this game special. You are forced to adjust on the fly each run to what the RNG gives you and it keeps every run feeling fresh and interesting.
2020
It's been a while since I've played a game that is a true sandbox like this and boy did I have a good time. Most games nowadays seem to pull you around by the hand telling you where to go and exactly how to accomplish goals. Teardown shatters this mold by giving you seemingly infinite options to experiment and find your own solutions to the problems presented. This design choice gives the player such a feeling of freedom and is so conducive to experimentation and creativity that it reminded me of being a kid just goofing around with friends in a video game finding our own fun while completely ignoring the main objectives of the game.
Most missions fall in to one of two categories:
a. Specific items are scattered around throughout the level, you have to steal them and bring them to the escape point. The catch is that upon picking up the first item an alarm starts that creates a fail state if you don't get all the items to the escape point by the time the clock runs out. This leads to planning out the fastest most efficient route possible by smashing holes in walls and setting up vehicles in the right spots to save time walking, building makeshift stairs, and whatever other ways you can figure out to shave off a few seconds. These are the puzzle levels, they are challenging yet fun and promote experimentation and creativity.
b. I call these the "fuck shit up" levels. In these levels you are tasked with causing some specific form of destruction and are given carte blanche to use whatever tools you have at your disposal to get the job done.
These two types of missions are balanced pretty well though, I would have liked to see more of the category b missions as towards the end the puzzle missions do start to become a little tedious. This issue starts when you begin to collect a massive arsenal of equipment like explosives, guns, boosters, sledgehammers, blowtorches, etc. In order to justify all this equipment the game cranks up the difficulty of the missions and can being to feel like a grind to get through. Towards the back half of part 1 the developers seemingly start to run out of fun ideas and just start making the maps more and more tedious to travel through by adding obstacles like omniscient immortal attack helicopters and flooding a whole area that makes traveling across the map take more time. This subtle change feels hostile and makes you keenly aware of the developers hand trying to hold you back from success compared to the beginning where you felt like you were in a fun sandbox that wanted you to succeed in a way that was uniquely your own by finding ways to bypass locked doors, gated fences, and barred windows to snatch up all the loot in the quickest way possible.
Thankfully after you finish part 1 (which I imagine was all that was available at launch) you get to play part 2 which adds a new island sandbox for missions, a few new interesting ideas for mission objectives, new obstacles like extreme weather and attack robots, and even some new tools to unlock. Part 2 seems to mostly fix the tedium of the back quarter of part 1 and becomes pretty fun again. The game really does peak in the first half of part 1 though. I honestly feel like once you unlock all the explosives, rocket launchers, and such you can just blow holes in everything so a lot of the magic is gone. Where the massive toolbox at your disposal becomes insanely fun however is when you start dabbling with mods.
At one point I downloaded a New York City replica map and caused mayhem with an arsenal of destructive tools. After over an hour of rampaging like a maniac I finally took a moment to look at all the havoc I had wrought and revel in my psychopathy. Something about this experience was magical and will stick with me for a while. No quest giver told me to destroy New York nor did I earn XP for doing it. I simply had C4 in my inventory and saw in my head that scene from the Last of Us with the collapsed skyscraper being held up by the other skyscraper and wanted to recreate it. And recreate it I did. It's this style of "get an idea and do it" type gameplay supported by awesome voxel physics that allows you to destroy stuff in such a creative way that really makes this game stand out. Along with the first half of part 1 of the campaign this is the most fun I had in the game.
Most missions fall in to one of two categories:
a. Specific items are scattered around throughout the level, you have to steal them and bring them to the escape point. The catch is that upon picking up the first item an alarm starts that creates a fail state if you don't get all the items to the escape point by the time the clock runs out. This leads to planning out the fastest most efficient route possible by smashing holes in walls and setting up vehicles in the right spots to save time walking, building makeshift stairs, and whatever other ways you can figure out to shave off a few seconds. These are the puzzle levels, they are challenging yet fun and promote experimentation and creativity.
b. I call these the "fuck shit up" levels. In these levels you are tasked with causing some specific form of destruction and are given carte blanche to use whatever tools you have at your disposal to get the job done.
These two types of missions are balanced pretty well though, I would have liked to see more of the category b missions as towards the end the puzzle missions do start to become a little tedious. This issue starts when you begin to collect a massive arsenal of equipment like explosives, guns, boosters, sledgehammers, blowtorches, etc. In order to justify all this equipment the game cranks up the difficulty of the missions and can being to feel like a grind to get through. Towards the back half of part 1 the developers seemingly start to run out of fun ideas and just start making the maps more and more tedious to travel through by adding obstacles like omniscient immortal attack helicopters and flooding a whole area that makes traveling across the map take more time. This subtle change feels hostile and makes you keenly aware of the developers hand trying to hold you back from success compared to the beginning where you felt like you were in a fun sandbox that wanted you to succeed in a way that was uniquely your own by finding ways to bypass locked doors, gated fences, and barred windows to snatch up all the loot in the quickest way possible.
Thankfully after you finish part 1 (which I imagine was all that was available at launch) you get to play part 2 which adds a new island sandbox for missions, a few new interesting ideas for mission objectives, new obstacles like extreme weather and attack robots, and even some new tools to unlock. Part 2 seems to mostly fix the tedium of the back quarter of part 1 and becomes pretty fun again. The game really does peak in the first half of part 1 though. I honestly feel like once you unlock all the explosives, rocket launchers, and such you can just blow holes in everything so a lot of the magic is gone. Where the massive toolbox at your disposal becomes insanely fun however is when you start dabbling with mods.
At one point I downloaded a New York City replica map and caused mayhem with an arsenal of destructive tools. After over an hour of rampaging like a maniac I finally took a moment to look at all the havoc I had wrought and revel in my psychopathy. Something about this experience was magical and will stick with me for a while. No quest giver told me to destroy New York nor did I earn XP for doing it. I simply had C4 in my inventory and saw in my head that scene from the Last of Us with the collapsed skyscraper being held up by the other skyscraper and wanted to recreate it. And recreate it I did. It's this style of "get an idea and do it" type gameplay supported by awesome voxel physics that allows you to destroy stuff in such a creative way that really makes this game stand out. Along with the first half of part 1 of the campaign this is the most fun I had in the game.
2014
One of the most faithful remakes I've seen. It's the exact same game with the same spooky tense atmosphere, resource scarcity, and interesting puzzles only with the graphics turned up to meet modern sensibilities. It also keeps the terribly cheesy voice acting and the clunky tank controls though I hear you can change them to a more modern format in the settings, though I did not know that for my playthrough and honestly I don't think I would have changed it anyway.
2018
I'll start by saying the art direction in this game is simply stunning and is accompanied by a beautiful musical score that comes in and out at the perfect time. The video game-ification of the 5 stages of grief was pretty interesting and I applaud the creativity.
However mechanically this game doesn't really do anything new and uses a lot of the well established design tropes that have been used for years to create emotional feelings through level design and gameplay, specifically present in this game is the steep ascents and sharp descents to create feelings of overcoming obstacles and hope, or despair and sadness respectively.
The gameplay is minimalist and somewhat uninspired which ends up hurting the final product significantly. While playing I kept hoping in the back of my mind that it would end soon because I just knew that the gorgeous style could only hide the lacking substance for so long and I didn't want to start disliking it. Thankfully the game is only 2-3 hours long so it doesn't overstay its welcome and the finale is rather powerful and ends on an optimistic note which I appreciated.
However mechanically this game doesn't really do anything new and uses a lot of the well established design tropes that have been used for years to create emotional feelings through level design and gameplay, specifically present in this game is the steep ascents and sharp descents to create feelings of overcoming obstacles and hope, or despair and sadness respectively.
The gameplay is minimalist and somewhat uninspired which ends up hurting the final product significantly. While playing I kept hoping in the back of my mind that it would end soon because I just knew that the gorgeous style could only hide the lacking substance for so long and I didn't want to start disliking it. Thankfully the game is only 2-3 hours long so it doesn't overstay its welcome and the finale is rather powerful and ends on an optimistic note which I appreciated.
2014
Dark Souls 2 is the red-headed step child of the souls franchise and seems to be either loved or hated with no middle ground. I think this is because Dark Souls 2 has some really high highs, and some really low lows.
Some of the environments are superb and the sheer size of the game is deserving of praise. This also speaks to its shortcomings though, there seems to have been a quantity over quality approach by the designers. There are so many different environments and some clearly received more love than others. Same with the items, there are way to many different weapons and most of them feel identical to others like it. Some people might like this aspect as more content can be a good thing but a lot of things in this game just feel thrown in.
This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game, I am actually on the love side of the fanbase. I'm not blind to it's flaws, I just enjoy so much about the game. I found the Vendrick/Giants storyline to be tragic and enthralling, there are also some really interesting and unique areas in the game, and holy shit the music in Majula!
Some of the environments are superb and the sheer size of the game is deserving of praise. This also speaks to its shortcomings though, there seems to have been a quantity over quality approach by the designers. There are so many different environments and some clearly received more love than others. Same with the items, there are way to many different weapons and most of them feel identical to others like it. Some people might like this aspect as more content can be a good thing but a lot of things in this game just feel thrown in.
This isn't to say I didn't enjoy the game, I am actually on the love side of the fanbase. I'm not blind to it's flaws, I just enjoy so much about the game. I found the Vendrick/Giants storyline to be tragic and enthralling, there are also some really interesting and unique areas in the game, and holy shit the music in Majula!
This review contains spoilers
This game is a tough one for me. I'll start with the positives because I don't want to sound like I hated everything about this game because I definitely didn't but I do have a few serious issues that really irked me. The gameplay is so brutal and intense and much improved from the previous game. The voice acting is amazing as usual with naughty dog games. I respect what they were going for, they took a chance on something they knew would be controversial to tell the story they wanted and it worked... Maybe a little too well.
I'm just going to write out my issues in a numbered list for formatting purposes because I'm sure this will meander a little bit.
1. The first problem for me was that I felt the decision to kill Joel like 30 minutes into the game was pretty dirty considering Joel was all over the advertising material. At this point in the game I imagine a large chunk of the fanbase checked out immediately, however, I kept chugging along to see where it went. This action did exactly what they wanted it to do... It made me hate Abby with a burning intensity that no game has come close to before. In the next 10-15 hours of gameplay we play as Ellie going on an understandable but reckless quest of revenge that gets increasingly more violent and dark as it goes. Following the climax of Ellies portion we then get to "enjoy" the next 10-15 hours of the game playing as the person we hate, to see the story from her perspective. Again I get what they are trying to do here, everyone has a reason for the decisions they make and violence begets violence and all that jazz. However a number of issues spring from this decision to split the game into two separate halves, I will elaborate in the next few numbered items.
2. This split is totally jarring and occurs right at the climax of the main story and gives a serious kick in the balls to the pacing of the game.
3. This one is a negative to me, but some people might have enjoyed this part but I didn't want to play as Abby, I hated Abby, and the designers purposely made me hate Abby. Something about this just comes off manipulative to me. Ellie's section comes off uber violent and ruthless, she tortures people, she kills doggos (unavoidable on at least 2 counts), she kills a pregnant person (even though imo her hand was somewhat forced). Abby however, throws tennis balls to doggos, she saves a young outcast of the cultists, she comes off as heroic and good (for the most part). This manipulation really bothers me because they forced me to kill the dog, they forced me to kill the pregnant girl, they forced me to torture the woman for information. These weren't my decisions and I didn't want to do any of them. Again I get that the whole point is to make you see that no one is purely evil or good, and the decisions we make have downstream effects on everyone but I just found this to be a bad way to drive the point. I felt like I was being reprimanded for a decision that the game designers wrote into the game intentionally only to rub it in my face later. Almost like getting mad at your dog for peeing in the house even though you refuse to walk him or let him outside. The term Ludonarrative Dissonance describes this conflict perfectly. The games narrative wants us to feel guilty for our bloody rampage through Seattle but the game is designed in such a way where the minute to minute gameplay promotes and revels in large scale violence.
4. The decision to make you fight Ellie as Abby was insane. I've never lost a boss fight on purpose before. I don't care how much they tried to force me to care about Abby, she killed Joel, it was that simple to me. I must have let Ellie kill me purposely like 5 times.
5. After the Abby section we finally get back to the theater and get to see what is seemingly the finale of the game. Ellie has learned that revenge is a selfish desire and only causes more problems and returns home with her partner and child. But then completely out of character and without any real explanation as to logistically how this could happen Tommy has information that Abby is in Santa Barbara and essentially calls Ellies love for Joel into question because she doesn't want to travel across the country to try to kill Abby again. This is so out of character for Tommy, did we forget that he willingly went to try and handle the WLF by himself in order to stop Ellie from putting herself in danger at the beginning of the game? So what, he lost an eye so now he wants Abby dead more than when she killed his brother and beat the crap out him? It just makes no sense. So the loop essentially begins again, Ellie goes out to seek revenge one last time, and what happens? Ellie goes all that way for essentially nothing... Again. Ellie's presence actually works out pretty well for Abby because she is saved from the group of bandits, granted she has to take a beating from Ellie but still. Ultimately this again works out where Ellie is the one who comes up with the short stick, she loses her fingers and can no longer play the guitar Joel gave her. And this brings me to my next issue.
6. The punishment seems to be so one sided in this game. Both Abby and Ellie follow the cycle of violence and revenge, Abby just gets her ultimate revenge earlier on. If anything Ellie is on morally superior ground because she could have killed her main target and chose not to, whereas Abby did follow through with killing Joel. However the story seems to punish Ellie so much more than Abby, Ellie loses her friends, her significant other, her kid, her father figure, her mental health, her fingers and subsequently her most loved hobby. She is a broken husk of her former self by the end of the game... Abby on the other hand loses a couple of friends and does go through some tough events with the bandits at the end but she has gained a true friend and partner in Lev, has a purpose, and is in a pretty good place mentally. Part 2 just seems to show so much favoritism to Abby compared its main characters. Joel gets brutally murdered 30 minutes into the game and Ellie is just a broken shell of who she used to be by the end credits.
7. The attempt to retcon Joel's decision in the first game to seem like it was purely selfish and evil was unforgivable to me. The most egregious display of this is Abby's father AKA the surgeon who got in the way. In the first game the surgeon operating on Ellie has sunken in eyes with dark black rings around them. He is wearing dingy green scrubs and giving off almost mad scientist vibes. The operating room is disorganized and dirty with a nice layer of filth on pretty much every surface. The setup doesn't inspire confidence and only helps convince you that you are doing the right thing. However in part 2, the surgeon is clean, well rested, and now wearing shiny new blue scrubs. The operating room is nice and clean with none of the aforementioned filth on the walls and equipment. They also go out of their way to show that he saves Zebras and is a really nice man who is struggling with the ethical dilemma in front of him. There was a clear change in tone here and it's just so obvious that it is off-putting to me.
The thing that made the first game great was that Ellie was a beacon of light in a horrible and dark world. She had unshakeable optimism and hope even though she had been through so much and this made her worth saving. The fireflies slogan is literally "when you are lost in darkness, look for the light"... Ellie was that light!!! It doesn't get more on the nose than that, and this is why so many people understood Joel's decision at the end of the game whether they agreed with it or not. And the writers respected the audience to make up their own mind about the final decision. Not in part 2 though... part 2 tells you exactly how you should feel, and that feeling is sad and empty. This game spits in the face of that light in the darkness theme by overloading the player with nihilism and cynicism. The world was already extremely bleak and when you turn the moral center of the game into a bloodthirsty asshole it just makes the game hard to get through and ultimately that's where I stand. I don't hate the game, but I can honestly say I don't think I will ever want to play it again because there is simply nothing endearing about it... unless you are into wallowing in a pit of despair.
I'm just going to write out my issues in a numbered list for formatting purposes because I'm sure this will meander a little bit.
1. The first problem for me was that I felt the decision to kill Joel like 30 minutes into the game was pretty dirty considering Joel was all over the advertising material. At this point in the game I imagine a large chunk of the fanbase checked out immediately, however, I kept chugging along to see where it went. This action did exactly what they wanted it to do... It made me hate Abby with a burning intensity that no game has come close to before. In the next 10-15 hours of gameplay we play as Ellie going on an understandable but reckless quest of revenge that gets increasingly more violent and dark as it goes. Following the climax of Ellies portion we then get to "enjoy" the next 10-15 hours of the game playing as the person we hate, to see the story from her perspective. Again I get what they are trying to do here, everyone has a reason for the decisions they make and violence begets violence and all that jazz. However a number of issues spring from this decision to split the game into two separate halves, I will elaborate in the next few numbered items.
2. This split is totally jarring and occurs right at the climax of the main story and gives a serious kick in the balls to the pacing of the game.
3. This one is a negative to me, but some people might have enjoyed this part but I didn't want to play as Abby, I hated Abby, and the designers purposely made me hate Abby. Something about this just comes off manipulative to me. Ellie's section comes off uber violent and ruthless, she tortures people, she kills doggos (unavoidable on at least 2 counts), she kills a pregnant person (even though imo her hand was somewhat forced). Abby however, throws tennis balls to doggos, she saves a young outcast of the cultists, she comes off as heroic and good (for the most part). This manipulation really bothers me because they forced me to kill the dog, they forced me to kill the pregnant girl, they forced me to torture the woman for information. These weren't my decisions and I didn't want to do any of them. Again I get that the whole point is to make you see that no one is purely evil or good, and the decisions we make have downstream effects on everyone but I just found this to be a bad way to drive the point. I felt like I was being reprimanded for a decision that the game designers wrote into the game intentionally only to rub it in my face later. Almost like getting mad at your dog for peeing in the house even though you refuse to walk him or let him outside. The term Ludonarrative Dissonance describes this conflict perfectly. The games narrative wants us to feel guilty for our bloody rampage through Seattle but the game is designed in such a way where the minute to minute gameplay promotes and revels in large scale violence.
4. The decision to make you fight Ellie as Abby was insane. I've never lost a boss fight on purpose before. I don't care how much they tried to force me to care about Abby, she killed Joel, it was that simple to me. I must have let Ellie kill me purposely like 5 times.
5. After the Abby section we finally get back to the theater and get to see what is seemingly the finale of the game. Ellie has learned that revenge is a selfish desire and only causes more problems and returns home with her partner and child. But then completely out of character and without any real explanation as to logistically how this could happen Tommy has information that Abby is in Santa Barbara and essentially calls Ellies love for Joel into question because she doesn't want to travel across the country to try to kill Abby again. This is so out of character for Tommy, did we forget that he willingly went to try and handle the WLF by himself in order to stop Ellie from putting herself in danger at the beginning of the game? So what, he lost an eye so now he wants Abby dead more than when she killed his brother and beat the crap out him? It just makes no sense. So the loop essentially begins again, Ellie goes out to seek revenge one last time, and what happens? Ellie goes all that way for essentially nothing... Again. Ellie's presence actually works out pretty well for Abby because she is saved from the group of bandits, granted she has to take a beating from Ellie but still. Ultimately this again works out where Ellie is the one who comes up with the short stick, she loses her fingers and can no longer play the guitar Joel gave her. And this brings me to my next issue.
6. The punishment seems to be so one sided in this game. Both Abby and Ellie follow the cycle of violence and revenge, Abby just gets her ultimate revenge earlier on. If anything Ellie is on morally superior ground because she could have killed her main target and chose not to, whereas Abby did follow through with killing Joel. However the story seems to punish Ellie so much more than Abby, Ellie loses her friends, her significant other, her kid, her father figure, her mental health, her fingers and subsequently her most loved hobby. She is a broken husk of her former self by the end of the game... Abby on the other hand loses a couple of friends and does go through some tough events with the bandits at the end but she has gained a true friend and partner in Lev, has a purpose, and is in a pretty good place mentally. Part 2 just seems to show so much favoritism to Abby compared its main characters. Joel gets brutally murdered 30 minutes into the game and Ellie is just a broken shell of who she used to be by the end credits.
7. The attempt to retcon Joel's decision in the first game to seem like it was purely selfish and evil was unforgivable to me. The most egregious display of this is Abby's father AKA the surgeon who got in the way. In the first game the surgeon operating on Ellie has sunken in eyes with dark black rings around them. He is wearing dingy green scrubs and giving off almost mad scientist vibes. The operating room is disorganized and dirty with a nice layer of filth on pretty much every surface. The setup doesn't inspire confidence and only helps convince you that you are doing the right thing. However in part 2, the surgeon is clean, well rested, and now wearing shiny new blue scrubs. The operating room is nice and clean with none of the aforementioned filth on the walls and equipment. They also go out of their way to show that he saves Zebras and is a really nice man who is struggling with the ethical dilemma in front of him. There was a clear change in tone here and it's just so obvious that it is off-putting to me.
The thing that made the first game great was that Ellie was a beacon of light in a horrible and dark world. She had unshakeable optimism and hope even though she had been through so much and this made her worth saving. The fireflies slogan is literally "when you are lost in darkness, look for the light"... Ellie was that light!!! It doesn't get more on the nose than that, and this is why so many people understood Joel's decision at the end of the game whether they agreed with it or not. And the writers respected the audience to make up their own mind about the final decision. Not in part 2 though... part 2 tells you exactly how you should feel, and that feeling is sad and empty. This game spits in the face of that light in the darkness theme by overloading the player with nihilism and cynicism. The world was already extremely bleak and when you turn the moral center of the game into a bloodthirsty asshole it just makes the game hard to get through and ultimately that's where I stand. I don't hate the game, but I can honestly say I don't think I will ever want to play it again because there is simply nothing endearing about it... unless you are into wallowing in a pit of despair.
2011
One of the few games that I still replay on an almost yearly basis. Truly is one of the best games ever made and massively influential on the industry. To this day I don't think a better world has been created in a game. There might be games with bigger worlds, or worlds with higher graphical fidelity, but none have matched the sprawling interconnected maze that is the world of Lordran.
Better than the first, but still suffers from the same issues as its predecessor. Games like this work best when you have peaks and valleys in action when you transition between exploration/puzzle solving and your big set piece action sequences. I understand that their needs to be some action and shooting people, but like with the first game, I found there to be way to many bullet sponge enemies that you need to mow through in order to get to the next part of the story.
I also found the plot to be essentially identical to the first game. Drake gets word of a historical object and goes on an adventure to find it, however he is pursued by generic bad guy who somehow remains one step ahead of him even though drake is the one solving all the puzzles. Drake eventually finds the object and discovers it has supernatural powers only to have it taken away from his at gunpoint, then faces off against the bad guy with all odds against him, but comes out victorious. You might be able to make this argument against any Indiana Jones-esque adventure movie/game but I would just like to see some unique ideas in a game that is usually touted as one of the greats. Again, I'd probably feel a little different if I played it at the time of release but I still enjoy plenty of games from the 2000s so that doesn't totally absolve the game of its issues.
Also a few notes on things that don't make sense narratively.
- how has no one found this mystical city when it is literally visible from the sky.
- In the section where Chloe sets the C4 in the enemy camp then you have to go back there and arm the C4, killing everyone in the camp in the process. Why didn't she just arm it as she set it?
- Drake doesn't bring guns to the museum heist because he doesn't want to kill the guards, but he throws one of them off a building on a drop that is sure to kill him.
I also found the plot to be essentially identical to the first game. Drake gets word of a historical object and goes on an adventure to find it, however he is pursued by generic bad guy who somehow remains one step ahead of him even though drake is the one solving all the puzzles. Drake eventually finds the object and discovers it has supernatural powers only to have it taken away from his at gunpoint, then faces off against the bad guy with all odds against him, but comes out victorious. You might be able to make this argument against any Indiana Jones-esque adventure movie/game but I would just like to see some unique ideas in a game that is usually touted as one of the greats. Again, I'd probably feel a little different if I played it at the time of release but I still enjoy plenty of games from the 2000s so that doesn't totally absolve the game of its issues.
Also a few notes on things that don't make sense narratively.
- how has no one found this mystical city when it is literally visible from the sky.
- In the section where Chloe sets the C4 in the enemy camp then you have to go back there and arm the C4, killing everyone in the camp in the process. Why didn't she just arm it as she set it?
- Drake doesn't bring guns to the museum heist because he doesn't want to kill the guards, but he throws one of them off a building on a drop that is sure to kill him.
2019
In the risk averse world of the modern game industry it is so rare to find a game that I can honestly say is a singular unique experience. This game checks that box in so many ways. while there are enemies both of the human and checks notes Ghostly oil monster variety these are hardly the main obstacle/challenge in the game. That would be traversing the rough terrain of this post apocalyptic world... And the 150 lbs. of supplies on your back that need to be delivered.
The gameplay loop is one that I have never experienced and while it has received the criticism of being a mailman simulator, it is so much more intricate than that. Every job is a gamble where you either risk taking too much stuff and overwhelming yourself, or not maximizing the profitability of each trip. You also have to carefully plot your route to avoid bandits and BT infested areas when possible and bring only the equipment that you think you will need. Bring too much and you further overburden yourself. Bring too little, and you might not be able to rappel down that cliff, or cross that lake, and may have to take a longer or more dangerous detour. In most games the journey between point A and B is just a hurdle that you rush through to get to the next quest or boss fight. In this game the boss fight is the journey.
Finally the soundtrack is simply stunning and seems to pop in just at the right time. The highlight of the game for me was right at the end of a long arduous journey, I walked up over the crest of a mountain and finally for the first time saw my destination on the horizon, a feeling of triumph washed over me as I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and all of a sudden the song "Asylums For The Feeling" by the Silent Poets starts playing and it made the short jog down the hill to my destination feel somber and lonely yet hopeful and this perfectly encapsulated the tone of the game for me.
The gameplay loop is one that I have never experienced and while it has received the criticism of being a mailman simulator, it is so much more intricate than that. Every job is a gamble where you either risk taking too much stuff and overwhelming yourself, or not maximizing the profitability of each trip. You also have to carefully plot your route to avoid bandits and BT infested areas when possible and bring only the equipment that you think you will need. Bring too much and you further overburden yourself. Bring too little, and you might not be able to rappel down that cliff, or cross that lake, and may have to take a longer or more dangerous detour. In most games the journey between point A and B is just a hurdle that you rush through to get to the next quest or boss fight. In this game the boss fight is the journey.
Finally the soundtrack is simply stunning and seems to pop in just at the right time. The highlight of the game for me was right at the end of a long arduous journey, I walked up over the crest of a mountain and finally for the first time saw my destination on the horizon, a feeling of triumph washed over me as I finally saw the light at the end of the tunnel and all of a sudden the song "Asylums For The Feeling" by the Silent Poets starts playing and it made the short jog down the hill to my destination feel somber and lonely yet hopeful and this perfectly encapsulated the tone of the game for me.
2000
One of those games that I grew up on and had a formative effect on my taste in video games. Diablo II will always have a special place in my heart, I still remember the first time I went to the secret cow level, the first time I got a SoJ drop, the first time I got a torch, the first time I got an Anni, and the first time I made an enigma (also the first time I screwed up the order and wasted high runes). People who didn't grow up with this game might find it overly grindy and repetitive which are definitely valid criticisms but man there is something special about this game. D2 is the game that most seasoned gamers compare any new ARPG to and it sits forever in the pantheon of all time great video games.
A fun but ultimately forgettable Metroidvania that will fade from your memory shortly after you finish it. I don't remember having any serious complaints about the game... Then again I don't remember much at all about it to be honest and I played this like 4-5 months ago.
2013
A teenage girl coming of age story masquerading as a horror game sounds like something that wouldn't work but somehow this game pulls it off really well. I would actually go as far as to say that without the scary, haunted house vibe the game portrays this game wouldn't work nearly as well.
Some people might be turned off by the gameplay which is essentially just walking around a house picking up objects and looking at them. Hopefully you are okay with that style of game because there is truly a deep emotional story here with a couple of twists and turns that will seriously tug at your heart strings.
Some people might be turned off by the gameplay which is essentially just walking around a house picking up objects and looking at them. Hopefully you are okay with that style of game because there is truly a deep emotional story here with a couple of twists and turns that will seriously tug at your heart strings.