defies all laws of the universe because nothing should be this good.. even heroin gives you diarrhea. I'm new to this site but I know we all like to write essays about themes of capitalism or some stuff but I'm just here to talk about how awesome this is ... first up is the atmosphere. You are evil because you kill people and the whole game feels like it. There's an air of sinisterness throughout everything and it's perfect; especially in places like the suburb, even there feels like it's evil. Why? You're there and your evil music is playing. Jesper Kyd is a god and every time I do an action and it progresses the level and the music kicks in I go bananas! I like the new games but they feel so sanitized and they try to make 47 and the ICA to be a super spy hero to the point where it feels like the new games are made as a resume to get the James Bond IP. This has the perfect balance of feeling evil and being a silly sandbox killing game where you can dress as a bird and headbutt people. The gameplay hits that perfect balance of just passing the point of jank. Like it's very smooth and playable, and since I've been playing this game before I could talk and replaying it every day, I probably don't have much ground to stand on but it's very smooth, the controls while very contextual and somewhat controller oriented and tiny on high resolutions, work well and I never had to rebind. I actually rebound the new hitman trilogy to have the controls of this game so that's gotta say something.
Soul: 5/5
Awesomeness: 5/5
Gameplay: 5/5
Overall: 5/5

First time I ever felt disappointed in a game. Hitman absolution maybe, but I so strongly remember saving up money, reading that you can explore all these lantern planets and remembering how awesome gotham was in lego batman 2 and then just like not being as into it. It was a strange feeling

Soul: 4/5
Awesomeness: 2/5
Gameplay: 2/5
Overall: 3/5

the very definition of the word quaint. Took me 40 minz

Soul: 4/5
Awesomeness: 1/5
Gameplay: 1/5
Overall: 2.5/5

Let's be real here, I'm kind of a big deal. I am, to put it in simple terms, kind of a hardcore gamer. I'm good at everything I do. I don't think I've ever died in a video game. Not until now. You see, a guy as awesome as me needs a little humbling every now and again, otherwise, I'd become too strong for my own good. This game came along, and a monkey threw poo at me and an old man pulled out a spear and a Glock and taught me that there is still a lot to do. The only flaws were small ones, the camera and sometimes ledges would trap you but those only stuck out because it got me killed and I got frustrated. But now that I've beaten the game there's this feeling of bliss, like everything in the world is ok now. It's like I'm on a trampoline, and the entirety of sekiro was the jump, and now I'm at the peak, that part where you're suspended in air, not falling down yet, but not going any higher. That is what I think of sekiro. Also, feel it was a bit too easy at times because of the possible cheeses but it's fine, a new game + ill just do it again but without any of the cheat prosthetics or stealth kills. I will face every enemy on my own, with an honorable duel with no cheap tricks.

no combination of words in any language could begin to enter the atmosphere of the planet of the top molecule of the surface of the iceberg on how amazing this game is. Not only is this the first lego game to have spoken dialogue, but it's also the first lego game to deserve to be put in the Smithsonian and the Louvre. Each level is a beautifully packaged piece of coding perfection, every inch of every room is perfectly laid out and the design of everything is intentional and serves a purpose. The puzzles are mind-teasing, but not enough to make you unhappy. The soundtrack... I was speechless when I first heard the Danny Elfman Batman theme. And when you fly as superman it plays his theme: and not to mention the whole open world which is probably up there, only matched closely by red dead redemption 2. Traversing the iconic world as the iconic roster of DC heroes in the dark and immersive Gotham city, exploring iconic locations, and you can use iconic vehicles. Flying is so awesome and so is gliding and going through the streets. The story is iconic and memorable. The artistic value of this game is unmatched and the games industry should feel shame for not being able to surpass this game in the many years it has been out. I pity the fool who tries to surpass this game. I was there on the launch day of lego batman 3 ready to pick it up. Advertised a bunch of planets to explore, including all the lantern planets and the moon as well as the watchtower. What a sick joke. Lego batman 2 is lightning in a bottle. It's everything a videogame - no, everything any piece of art should STRIVE towards. This is the ideal, the pinnacle, the final stage of humanity. I honestly can't say enough with my words on how amazing this game is, there's no way.

This is the best superhero game. Not only does it capture the gothic darkness of Gotham city, but it doesn’t lose the inherent silliness of costumed heroes fighting crime against costumed villains.




It deserves the Elk Omegaseal of superapproval and amazingness

prob my favorite of the new Wolfenstein games. (haven't played youngblood and I doubt I ever will) I love the setting, the more simple set pieces and the level designs. Playing this after new colossus was like going from a cramped taxi to a first-class private jet, just because of the WEAPON WHEEL. What in the world were they thinking with the new colossus weapon wheel?! I barely switched weapons because I didn't want to have that atrocious garbage piece of UI on my screen. You expect me to balance my checkbook in the middle of a firefight to hold two assault rifles? Anyways, the game starts really strong but the final couple levels lose my interest because of the plot twist which I wasn't really a fan of (not that it doesn't fit the game or the tone just it wasn't done well) and the bosses were questionable, but the base gameplay and movement were just too good. And the best part? No in-between levels hub area where you do random menial fetch quests so you can go back into the shooting. And thank you Jesus lord in FPS heaven, they finally smartened up and gave us the double-barrel shotgun for more than a single level. In both TNO and TNC, in an act of pure malice and hatred for humanity, they gave us double-barrel shotguns and took them away. We were stuck with an admittedly decent other shotgun but nothing can replace the double-barreled perfection of this sawed-off.

"Same things make us laugh, make us cry."

Video games are hard to make interesting and tense stories for. Because at any given moment in a hyper-serious game I could make the growling angry depressed protagonist spin in a circle 40 times and crouch up and down before 360 no scoping a zombie in the balls. But when the game balances out the silliness of the genre with funny jokes and good laughs, you feel like you are on a fun journey and not a Harry Potter fanfiction where Ron is suicidal and Hagrid does cocaine. But I don't want to discredit the story by saying it only works because there are funny moments in the sidequests to balance it out: the actual story is full of good twists, unforgettable moments, and super fun action set pieces. The writing and cutscenes are so good that I didn't even realize that one cutscene went on for 20 minutes. I was just so into it! At some points, I didn't even want to do any of the various extremely funny and memorable side quests or the addicting minigames. (emphasis on 'at some points.' 10 hours of my playtime was spent at the disco.) I think this is like the only piece of media that had two separate plot twists that made me like, physically open my mouth in disbelief. I've established this already but I'm not a big story guy but this is one of my exceptions. Actually insane.

But no game is just the story .... let's not forget the combat. Two characters, 8 styles, different weapons, heat actions, grabs, upgrades, combos.. there's a lot of depth to it but it was unfortunately useless because Majima has a style where he uses a bat, and it's so ridiculously overpowered that I was just wailing on all these crazy bosses with this same Nightwing-injustice-gods-among-us ass combo and winning. Kiryu was a bit more balanced but all 3 of his styles are just different speeds of punch whereas majima has punching, breakdancing, and baseball bat. Still fun though, and to make up for not having a bat Kiryu can use his heavy style to pick up objects like street signs and couches to destroy anyone. And I really loved the heat actions and how some can be so specific. If you grab a guy on the edge of a bridge or a boat, you can just straight up throw him off. And if you're surrounded, you can spin the dude around hitting others on the way. The bosses are also pretty sick, the combat on 1v1s feels visceral and the bosses have sick intros that make me hyped to fight. One particular repeated fight will remain in my memory as one of the best rivals and one of the coolest antagonists ever.

overall, this game does everything very well. My only complaint was how some enemies have guns and I don't really like fighting against those and I feel they're overpowered. In one room, a guy had a shotgun. I ran to him and knocked him out, took his shotgun, and cleared the room in like 6 seconds. Got a quadruple kill. I guess it's realistic sure but come on! Why can't I just take that with me and maybe buy some more ammo? the final boss is tough but he's still human. Shotgun to the face and he's done for. Another complaint is there are 4 escort missions. I hate these.
Yakuza 0 dares to ask the question, "What if persona 5 was good?" it takes that game, hires writers that weren't Disney sitcom veterans, and tasks them with making stories that rise above high school melodrama. Making the minigames fun and allowing you do to more than one activity before you are forced to continue the story. It follows no formula, creating an unpredictable progression where you don't know exactly what's going to be the loop repeated for the next 100 hours. And finally, it makes the combat fun. Why is yakuza so great? everything! I've finished the story and have 45 hours on the game, but I feel like i've just begun. So many side quests and minigames left for me. I want to keep coming back for more!!!!!!!

You can feel the game try to emulate RE4 and RE7 (two of my favorites in the series) but can't really do either of their strengths well.

RE4's action and mostly linear levels were offset by the ways you could approach combat and how creative the enemy variety and level setups were. You had to reposition, aim at knees or hands or heads depending on the scenario. There were not many choices and optional routes because the combat was all the choice. Your inventory being big was OK because crafting materials like herbs took up space in your inventory and you had to manage all that by combining and rearranging. RE7's survival horror and different routes meant that ammo was scarce and you would almost always constantly be barely clinging on to life. Because of limited inventory space, you would always have to choose. "I have some chem fluid. Do I use it to make health or more ammo? If I have more health, I will be safer. But if I have more ammo, I will be able to defend myself." You also had to backtrack around the house and surrounding areas so much that you would get accustomed to it and the enemies that were there. You could choose to clear it now and use up your bullets or dodge them for now and get rid of them later, at the risk of later being a worse time for you (like if you had no bullets or health at the time.) Exploration was also rewarded because the keys needed for progression were hidden everywhere. You go explore this room and find an unassuming object that you will put in the box. When stuck on a puzzle, you think "remember that random object from 2 hours ago? I wonder if I can somehow use that to solve the puzzle." Both of these games were fantastic in their own way, and they couldn't be more different. I was skeptical when I heard it was like a mixture of the two.

As an RE7 survival horror game, it fails because you are constantly given ammo and crafting supplies and weapons and inventory space and practically everything you need. I never ran out. Key items not only took no inventory space but were also basically always right around the corner. If not, they are just given to you on the linear path you take. There's this illusion of exploration but what really is happening is you get chased by the enemy into this room where you find the key and Ethan says "I wonder if I can use this statue head to open that statue head hole key at the coordinates 37.6460, -115.7507." Theres no way you could fail to find the statue and wander around the vast castle, looking for a key or something to progress. No, you get the item. There is ONE time in the final area where you have to backtrack to create the key but that's about it. In fact, that final map (factory) is the only good one in this game. Multiple floors, backtracking, different keys, unique rooms, and it may be surface level but at least these enemies need specific shots to the weak point. But other than that, you need a key, you'll find one in the room right next door. The puzzles are dead simple. But that's how it was in RE4. And it worked for that game. Why? As I said, the combat was super interesting. How's this game's combat? eh...

The pistols you get are reliable. The shotguns are pretty good. The reload animations are satisfying. You get cool weapons for exploring optional areas. All the weapons are good. So what's the problem? The enemies and the enemy variety! Village moved from zombies and mold people to werewolves to try something new but these are just hairy zombies. There's nothing interesting you can do with the combat. You can't shoot a TNT wielding Ganado's hand and detonate the bomb killing the crowd around him. You can't shoot the kneecap of a dude and then suplex him. Just shoot them wherever until they die. The AI is so braindead and the enemies are so weak that you could just shotgun and stun them so you could move on. Near the end, the enemies started getting armored but of course, they have big, glowing weak points on their chests. And since you can run and gun and Ethan just doesn't seem to get tired, they're not a threat either.

So, it fails at making you fight for your life in survival horror. It has no interesting puzzles and it's as linear as a non-bendy straw. There are no choices and the only reward for exploration are optional treasures. The combat isn't challenging or deep, the enemy variety is extremely lacking and the bosses are spongy and repetitive. You can play the game on autopilot. How about the story?

It's pretty good! I like the setup of saving your baby and the 4 lords have cool personalities and I liked it. And Ethan is the best protagonist since RE4 Leon. Such a great character.

I thought this was a meme game but no. Take Deus Ex and hitman and those stock market assassination side quests from GTA 5 and throw some postal 2 in there. But where hitman makes you feel like a slow and methodical killer hiding in plain sight, in this one i feel more like John Wick if john wick had holes in calves that shot out gunk that boosted him upward. Super fast time to kill, you die easily. But the levels are short and targets are automatically highlighted so repeat attempts shouldn't be too frustrating. This game is so crazy. The art style looks ugly at a glance but everything is so painstakingly grotesque and it all works together so well that it actually looks great and it fits with the theme, a garbage world where there is literally no hope, even the doors and walls feel oppressing. Also love the worldbuilding and little details, like one of the SMGs becoming popular because of its use in some anime and the speed glands replacing all your organs with "lightweight commercial variants" thus the speed boost and armor loss. The augmentation system is awesome and some of the implants are super cool. There was this grappendix (grappling hook appendix) that CHANGED THE GAME and made some parts pretty easy, but to be fair it's extremely expensive and I got lucky with some of my organ and fish investments in the stock market. I shouldn't be able to say these things about a videogame. This game shouldn't exist. But I'm glad it exists because it singlehandedly restored my hope for the future of video games. If more like this is made then our medium is secured. Now all I need is a VR version so I can set the world record for longest consecutive hours spent vomiting

and how cool is it the two best games of 2021 are about hitmen?

the engine is the first thing you notice about this game. The game looks much nicer, the lighting on the streets is amazing and the character models have improved exponentially. The combat is now more physics-based, when you kick an enemy they can go flying into another enemy and knock them over. You can walk into most buildings without loading and in some cases, you can throw an enemy through the glass of a restaurant and continue your fight in there. For the most part, the gameplay, the feel, and the graphics have been exponentially improved over 0 and kiwami, and I'd probably have no issue with them dragon engine-ing 0 and kiwami 1 as well as the rest of the games. It's super cool, but unfortunately, the huge drawback is I played this game on CONSOLE (like some sort of god damn peasant) and it ran at a pathetic 30fps. I don't even have to describe how unacceptable that is. If I played it on pc, I would have been fine but, we can't get caught up on "if's" in the cutthroat business of Backloggd videogame reviews. You came to me, elkmane, THE elkmane, for top-tier reviews and nothing but the cold hard truth with a heaping side dish of facts. Even IF I played on PC, think of the poor console peasants having to play this game at 30. My deepest sympathies. But since it was the shortcoming of the hardware and not the game, I won't take away any stars for that. So we know that the graphics are awesome, the traversal has been improved and the combat now has true physics.

there are small nitpicks with each of these though:

The graphics are awesome... BUT... Kiryu's face just looks slightly off, his eyes are inexpressive, or at least less than K1 and 0. And at night-time, there's a weird green tint to everything that looks kind of weird.

The whole map loads at once... BUT... Kiryu now controls like Arthur Morgan, meaning movement is much less accurate and you can get stuck on things. Your base speed is a walk so to go your base speed from kiwami or 0 you have to hold down the sprint button. Your sprint is the normal walk speed from the older games.

The combat now has true physics... BUT... it can be a little unpolished at times. If you're standing on a guy and he stands up, you go up with him, and it's weird.

besides that, the story is pretty great. There are some unnecessary parts that feel like padding, and I thought to myself "what am I doing? is this the main story mission? why am I looking for Santa Claus!?"
But the antagonist and the supporting characters as well as the boss battles and set pieces are amazing. Super cool, imagine two tigers and a ninja fortress but multiply that coolness by 10!

My general thoughts about this game is that everything is 85% great. There's always a "but" to everything. However I think altogether its still a really great game and I really enjoyed my time with it. Onto the remastered trilogy.

I know everyone hates Yakuza 3, but it really is the most important game in the series without getting into spoilers.

The first few hours of the game I really like. It shifts to a more slice-of-life style thing where Kiryu is taking care of his orphanage and the kids in it, and the new setting in Okinawa was a fantastic change from Sotenbori and Kamurocho, going away from the big city into a new location thats so drastically different is really cool. I liked the new area, despite being very small and not having many things in it, had a lot of charm and was fun to explore. The kids and your new friends are all very likeable and I found myself more interested in taking care of them over the actual yakuza side of the plot. This game's story is not up to par with the others I have played. It has serious pacing issues and was just really boring. One part was like a 30 minute cutscene where you sat down with another guy as he explained everything in the plot to you. OK, fine, an exposition dump. Sure. But at least it's early on in the game and takes advantage of the player's knowledge of what's going on right? Nope! It's the 10th chapter. Out of 12. You're practically done with the game and just now you figure out what's happening. The pacing would have been better if there was stuff to do. The minigames are all terrible! golf is OK, but the others aren't good. The substories mostly are boring and bad, with the exception of a couple of fun ones. Most boss battles were pretty bad and the final boss, while an interesting character, would have benefitted from more development and involvement in the story. His characterization suffers due to the pace. But the best parts of the story are centered around the orphanage and those kids, some great emotional moments make me wish they focused more on this.

The combat? is bad! the enemies block all your moves, and the boss's health bars are way too big. Your heat bar basically will never fill up and if it does, you gotta roll a dice and bet on a winning racehorse to get the heat icon to show up so you could do the animation, which does approximately 2 nautical centimeters of health bar damage.

This game would have really benefited from Kiwamification. Nicer graphics that make the beachside city really pop and sell the feeling, more things to do, and more fun substories and activities. Better combat, more balanced pacing, and, let's be real, a complete overhaul of the story.