Flameyboy928
I found the content of the game to be interesting as I don't really know anything about the theory behind game design and I like learning about stuff like that. I don't necessary agree with a lot of the opinions stated throughout it but at the end of the day it is just an opinion.
The 2 star rating can be put down to the visuals which look really unique and cool and the music which absolutely slaps. The gameplay is fun but it did seem very janky, while I didn't experience any soft locks like a lot of people did, I can see how the controls and movement could end up with something like that happening.
It is basically a playable video essay, fairly interesting with some great visuals and music
The 2 star rating can be put down to the visuals which look really unique and cool and the music which absolutely slaps. The gameplay is fun but it did seem very janky, while I didn't experience any soft locks like a lot of people did, I can see how the controls and movement could end up with something like that happening.
It is basically a playable video essay, fairly interesting with some great visuals and music
This review contains spoilers
This review will contain spoilers
As with pretty much all FPS games that I review this is for the campaign only as I haven't played the multiplayer or any other modes.
MW3 is my favourite COD by a longshot. It has been my favourite from when I first played it years ago on my 360, I have probably played the campaign like 5 times and I never get sick of it.
I really enjoy the story and think it carries over well from the end of MW2, with Makarov as the centre piece big bad this time the remaining members of the 141 must hunt him down as the Russian army ravages its way across Europe. Only a few main stay characters are left by this game but they are at their best, Price and Soap are great in this game with Price being the ultimate bad ass throughout. Cool to have the playable character actually speak for once with Yuri frequently talking during cutscenes, he also has a decent bit of backstory unlike most other MW protagonists. I like the B plot characters a lot in this game as well, obviously nothing too special but I like that they are a lot closer than the other B plot characters in the MW games normally are, you can tell that they have been a team for a long time and not just been thrown together for a mission. Can't talk about the characters and not mention Makarov, the best villain in the COD franchise by far, such a ruthless psycho and his death during the final mission goes down as one of the most satisfying villain deaths ever. Speaking of deaths, Soap's death will never not be sad despite the fact it has been horrifically meme'd to death over the past few years.
I think the missions in this game are some of the most entertaining in the franchise. Each mission feels completely different with different locations and massive set pieces. The variety in mission locations is amazing with almost every mission being set in a different country ranging from the USA, UK and France to places like Sierra Leone and the Czech Republic. The set pieces are I think, the best in any COD game. So much variety with fantastic visuals to boot. Going from running through a war torn New York City, Chasing a hijacked subway train through an underground route, fighting through a sandstorm, launching a full on assault on a hotel dressed in riot gear and watching the Eiffel Tower collapse in front of you. No COD game has ever managed to capture these amazing action movie set pieces like MW3 did, in my opinion.
Gameplay wise it plays the same as MW2, could of had some better improvements in either the movement or combat but MW2 played really well so im not complaining. Shooting feels responsive but the movement is a bit clunky in places. I think visually this game holds up really well, that kind of goes hand in hand with the set pieces with massive city scapes that hold up very well visually. Music is pretty good too with a few solid tracks.
I never played the multiplayer or any of the other game modes so I can't comment on any of them. From what I can gather it was pretty divisive with some liking it and others hating it but I think that can kinda be said for the whole game in general.
Overall I really don't understand why this game is hated as much as it is. I think it has the most action packed campaign out of any COD game alongside a pretty decent story to pair with it. Not sure how much criticism the campaign alone gets or if the distaste for the multiplayer and other stuff over shadows it. Doesn't matter to me though as I will always love this campaign. A great action packed experience.
As with pretty much all FPS games that I review this is for the campaign only as I haven't played the multiplayer or any other modes.
MW3 is my favourite COD by a longshot. It has been my favourite from when I first played it years ago on my 360, I have probably played the campaign like 5 times and I never get sick of it.
I really enjoy the story and think it carries over well from the end of MW2, with Makarov as the centre piece big bad this time the remaining members of the 141 must hunt him down as the Russian army ravages its way across Europe. Only a few main stay characters are left by this game but they are at their best, Price and Soap are great in this game with Price being the ultimate bad ass throughout. Cool to have the playable character actually speak for once with Yuri frequently talking during cutscenes, he also has a decent bit of backstory unlike most other MW protagonists. I like the B plot characters a lot in this game as well, obviously nothing too special but I like that they are a lot closer than the other B plot characters in the MW games normally are, you can tell that they have been a team for a long time and not just been thrown together for a mission. Can't talk about the characters and not mention Makarov, the best villain in the COD franchise by far, such a ruthless psycho and his death during the final mission goes down as one of the most satisfying villain deaths ever. Speaking of deaths, Soap's death will never not be sad despite the fact it has been horrifically meme'd to death over the past few years.
I think the missions in this game are some of the most entertaining in the franchise. Each mission feels completely different with different locations and massive set pieces. The variety in mission locations is amazing with almost every mission being set in a different country ranging from the USA, UK and France to places like Sierra Leone and the Czech Republic. The set pieces are I think, the best in any COD game. So much variety with fantastic visuals to boot. Going from running through a war torn New York City, Chasing a hijacked subway train through an underground route, fighting through a sandstorm, launching a full on assault on a hotel dressed in riot gear and watching the Eiffel Tower collapse in front of you. No COD game has ever managed to capture these amazing action movie set pieces like MW3 did, in my opinion.
Gameplay wise it plays the same as MW2, could of had some better improvements in either the movement or combat but MW2 played really well so im not complaining. Shooting feels responsive but the movement is a bit clunky in places. I think visually this game holds up really well, that kind of goes hand in hand with the set pieces with massive city scapes that hold up very well visually. Music is pretty good too with a few solid tracks.
I never played the multiplayer or any of the other game modes so I can't comment on any of them. From what I can gather it was pretty divisive with some liking it and others hating it but I think that can kinda be said for the whole game in general.
Overall I really don't understand why this game is hated as much as it is. I think it has the most action packed campaign out of any COD game alongside a pretty decent story to pair with it. Not sure how much criticism the campaign alone gets or if the distaste for the multiplayer and other stuff over shadows it. Doesn't matter to me though as I will always love this campaign. A great action packed experience.
2022
I've had this game on my backlog for quite a while and with it being removed from Gamepass this month I decided it would be best to play it now and save me paying for it later.
I had a lot of fun with this game, its a decent FPS shooter with some funny moments thrown in for good measure. The story is pretty decent and moves along quite quickly, I was actually quite surprised by how short the game was. The 4 guns that accompany you throughout the game are what pass for the games side characters, I didn't hate them nearly as much as a lot of people did. The boss fights are quite fun and all feel quite different, the final boss is a bit lackluster though.
I really like the movement mechanics with boosts, the jetpack and anti grav boots. Adds a lot to the traversal parts of the game which serve as good breaks from the action. I found each gun to be equally useful and swapped between all 4 very regularly. Shooting combat is good, nothing ground-breaking but fun none the less. The large gauntlets of enemies get annoying quite quickly as they throw ungodly amounts at you multiple waves at a time, also there isnt a lot of enemy variety so killing the same 5 enemies over and over again gets pretty repetitive.
I think the game relies a lot of its comedy as a selling point which is a pretty bold move as comedy is very subjective. The game feels like an episode of Rick and Morty which I think was the exact goal they were going for. I was a fan of the early seasons of Rick and Morty but kinda fell off watching it as its went on but in general I do find a lot of the dry humour funny so I had a good time with the dialogue. Obviously comedy, especially this kind is very subjective so if you don't find Rick and Morty funny, probably best to skip this as it will infuriate you quickly, there is an option in the settings to limit the chatter from the guns when outside of scripted dialogue sections but it seems like even that is too much for some people lol.
Visually I think it looks great, each area feels different and the aesthetic works really well. Soundtrack is pretty decent as well.
My biggest problem with this game is its repetitiveness, going from gauntlet of enemies to a parkour movement back to gauntlet of enemies and so on and so forth until you get to the boss. Some areas have other little things put in to break these parts up but they are to far and few between.
Overall its a fun FPS experience that I would normally recommend as long as you can put up 8 hours of Rick and Morty humour. I don't really get why this is as hated as it is, outside of its creep of a creator.
I had a lot of fun with this game, its a decent FPS shooter with some funny moments thrown in for good measure. The story is pretty decent and moves along quite quickly, I was actually quite surprised by how short the game was. The 4 guns that accompany you throughout the game are what pass for the games side characters, I didn't hate them nearly as much as a lot of people did. The boss fights are quite fun and all feel quite different, the final boss is a bit lackluster though.
I really like the movement mechanics with boosts, the jetpack and anti grav boots. Adds a lot to the traversal parts of the game which serve as good breaks from the action. I found each gun to be equally useful and swapped between all 4 very regularly. Shooting combat is good, nothing ground-breaking but fun none the less. The large gauntlets of enemies get annoying quite quickly as they throw ungodly amounts at you multiple waves at a time, also there isnt a lot of enemy variety so killing the same 5 enemies over and over again gets pretty repetitive.
I think the game relies a lot of its comedy as a selling point which is a pretty bold move as comedy is very subjective. The game feels like an episode of Rick and Morty which I think was the exact goal they were going for. I was a fan of the early seasons of Rick and Morty but kinda fell off watching it as its went on but in general I do find a lot of the dry humour funny so I had a good time with the dialogue. Obviously comedy, especially this kind is very subjective so if you don't find Rick and Morty funny, probably best to skip this as it will infuriate you quickly, there is an option in the settings to limit the chatter from the guns when outside of scripted dialogue sections but it seems like even that is too much for some people lol.
Visually I think it looks great, each area feels different and the aesthetic works really well. Soundtrack is pretty decent as well.
My biggest problem with this game is its repetitiveness, going from gauntlet of enemies to a parkour movement back to gauntlet of enemies and so on and so forth until you get to the boss. Some areas have other little things put in to break these parts up but they are to far and few between.
Overall its a fun FPS experience that I would normally recommend as long as you can put up 8 hours of Rick and Morty humour. I don't really get why this is as hated as it is, outside of its creep of a creator.
2018
Due to the hype of the show my friends talked me into playing fallout 76 again. I've never really been a big fan of fallout but I was eager to get into the series as my friends really like it.
We played it all of once for a good few hours and I genuinely had a good time but I could not see myself playing this for any length of time. I enjoyed the exploration and from what little we used the building mechanics seemed interesting but apart from that nothing really made me want to play it more.
Its good to see that the devs turned it around, as its launch is probably up there with Cyberpunk for worst game launch of all time. The game works now, at least on PS5, if you are a fallout fan id suggest giving it another shot. I am interested in maybe playing some of the other games so I might do that in the future.
We played it all of once for a good few hours and I genuinely had a good time but I could not see myself playing this for any length of time. I enjoyed the exploration and from what little we used the building mechanics seemed interesting but apart from that nothing really made me want to play it more.
Its good to see that the devs turned it around, as its launch is probably up there with Cyberpunk for worst game launch of all time. The game works now, at least on PS5, if you are a fallout fan id suggest giving it another shot. I am interested in maybe playing some of the other games so I might do that in the future.
This review will contain minor spoilers involving a gameplay mechanic
I think if I was to describe this game in one word it would be "Uncomfortable".
I saw the press the second game was getting and since its free on game pass I was gonna just jump straight into that but I realised the first game was free as well so I thought I might as well play through it first.
The story of this game is what everyone is going to be there for. You play as Senua who has travelled to Helheim to retrieve the soul of her partner Dillion. I had no idea this game was set within Norse mythology so that was a big win for me out the gate as I love that stuff. Senua is plagued by constant voices in her head second guessing absolutely everything she does, constantly beating her down with whatever she is trying to do, so much so it can be hard to listen to at times. The main point of the game is Senua trying to overcome her grief which is shown in a lot of ways. I wont get to much into spoilers but I think the story is fantastic and kept me interested throughout the lacklustre gameplay sections
I absolutely love the character designs in this game. The Northmen all look disgusting, like hybrids of humans and animals. There are 5 enemy variants being the one with a sword, one with a hammer, one with a hammer and a shield, one massive guy with an executioner axe and one fast jumping guy with two small axe's. For the limited combat sections this game has there is enough variety to keep it interesting. I love the designs for the bosses in this game, each one towers over Senua. Valravn, Surtr Garm and Hela all look terrifying and look nothing like any designs I have seen for them previously. The game really excels off of the performances from the actors. Melina Juergens gives a fantastic performance as Senua, which I was surprised to see is her only credited acting role.
Now unfortunately the gameplay is where I would imagine the game looses a lot of people. The gameplay is very repetitive mostly revolving around perspective puzzles and small combat sections. They are cool to start with but when each area contains the exact same puzzle format it gets old fast. The game is only around 6 hours in length but took me several days to get through just to avoid burnout. The combat system is fun and I enjoyed all the segments with it but I wasn't really a fan of the "Permadeath" feature the game has. Each time Senua dies a bit more of her is covered by this black rash looking thing called "Rot" the game tells you that if you fail too many time then your quest will be over, insinuating that you have to start again. This actually isnt true as it was just a fluke which I guess was put in to further hammer in that nothing the voices tell you can be trusted. I'm not a huge fan of permadeath stuff so I was a little turned away by this but the combat is easy enough to master that it proved not a problem.
Visually this game is stunning, for being 7 years old it holds up extremely well with beautiful landscapes and extremely well designed characters as previously mentioned. Soundtrack is a banger as well. I think the place that this game excels the most is its sound design, playing this game with good headphones is a must as you can hear the voices moving around your head, it really adds to the atmosphere.
I was taken by surprise that this game is kind of a horror game at times. The whole game has a creepy atmosphere with weird voices talking to you all the time but certain segments, particularly the Garm one were genuinely scary. Add the weird 4th wall breaks when Senua just straight up talks to the unseen voices while looking straight at you and you have yourself one genuinely creepy game.
Overall I think this is a great game but is unfortunately let down by its repetitive gameplay mechanics. I would however not recommend this if you suffer from any kind of mental disorder like schizophrenia as I feel like it could be quite triggering. Good to see the developers acknowledge that with plentiful trigger warnings each time the game is loaded up. Great creepy and stressful story with amazing visuals.
I think if I was to describe this game in one word it would be "Uncomfortable".
I saw the press the second game was getting and since its free on game pass I was gonna just jump straight into that but I realised the first game was free as well so I thought I might as well play through it first.
The story of this game is what everyone is going to be there for. You play as Senua who has travelled to Helheim to retrieve the soul of her partner Dillion. I had no idea this game was set within Norse mythology so that was a big win for me out the gate as I love that stuff. Senua is plagued by constant voices in her head second guessing absolutely everything she does, constantly beating her down with whatever she is trying to do, so much so it can be hard to listen to at times. The main point of the game is Senua trying to overcome her grief which is shown in a lot of ways. I wont get to much into spoilers but I think the story is fantastic and kept me interested throughout the lacklustre gameplay sections
I absolutely love the character designs in this game. The Northmen all look disgusting, like hybrids of humans and animals. There are 5 enemy variants being the one with a sword, one with a hammer, one with a hammer and a shield, one massive guy with an executioner axe and one fast jumping guy with two small axe's. For the limited combat sections this game has there is enough variety to keep it interesting. I love the designs for the bosses in this game, each one towers over Senua. Valravn, Surtr Garm and Hela all look terrifying and look nothing like any designs I have seen for them previously. The game really excels off of the performances from the actors. Melina Juergens gives a fantastic performance as Senua, which I was surprised to see is her only credited acting role.
Now unfortunately the gameplay is where I would imagine the game looses a lot of people. The gameplay is very repetitive mostly revolving around perspective puzzles and small combat sections. They are cool to start with but when each area contains the exact same puzzle format it gets old fast. The game is only around 6 hours in length but took me several days to get through just to avoid burnout. The combat system is fun and I enjoyed all the segments with it but I wasn't really a fan of the "Permadeath" feature the game has. Each time Senua dies a bit more of her is covered by this black rash looking thing called "Rot" the game tells you that if you fail too many time then your quest will be over, insinuating that you have to start again. This actually isnt true as it was just a fluke which I guess was put in to further hammer in that nothing the voices tell you can be trusted. I'm not a huge fan of permadeath stuff so I was a little turned away by this but the combat is easy enough to master that it proved not a problem.
Visually this game is stunning, for being 7 years old it holds up extremely well with beautiful landscapes and extremely well designed characters as previously mentioned. Soundtrack is a banger as well. I think the place that this game excels the most is its sound design, playing this game with good headphones is a must as you can hear the voices moving around your head, it really adds to the atmosphere.
I was taken by surprise that this game is kind of a horror game at times. The whole game has a creepy atmosphere with weird voices talking to you all the time but certain segments, particularly the Garm one were genuinely scary. Add the weird 4th wall breaks when Senua just straight up talks to the unseen voices while looking straight at you and you have yourself one genuinely creepy game.
Overall I think this is a great game but is unfortunately let down by its repetitive gameplay mechanics. I would however not recommend this if you suffer from any kind of mental disorder like schizophrenia as I feel like it could be quite triggering. Good to see the developers acknowledge that with plentiful trigger warnings each time the game is loaded up. Great creepy and stressful story with amazing visuals.
2016
After playing a lot of Fight Night Champion I decided to come back and give UFC 2 another shot as one of the biggest reasons I never played more of it was due to its different control scheme. Since Fight Night has fairly similar controls and I got pretty adapted to them I came back to give it another try.
Im a really big UFC fan and I regularly play UFC 5 on my PS5, its like my go to game if I just wanna play something. Due to this I am very used to the controls used in both UFC 4 and 5 which differ greatly compared to this games. But I have slowly got the hang of it and played around with a lot of what the game has to offer enough to review it.
In general I love the striking in this game. Every punch, kick, knee or elbow lands with so much power you can feel it through the screen. The combo like controls used in this game play into that well, you have to throw your fingers around as you would in something like mortal kombat. The game has a good roster with a lot of fighters not present in the current games which is annoying. Some very uncanny valley like designs but decent for the time. I don't like how limited the customization is primarily with short colours, which is something that has only been rectified in UFC 5 recently but being limited to only black, white and champion shorts is annoying especially when at that time there was other colours used on the Reebok kits. Bit of a nit pick.
My biggest problem is the grappling and ground game. I find the ground game system in all games aside from 4 and 5 ridiculously over complicated and just not fun to play with. No easy way to deny transitions, being knocked out in like 3 punches if your opponent gets on top mount and most annoying is the takedown defence system. I was playing on easy and beginner difficultly and was not able to defend one takedown as you would need to have the reaction time of the flash to press the required buttons by the time your opponent has slammed you on the floor. Also I find the Ai to just be weird in general when fighters known for striking are ragdolling me on the ground, especially on the lower difficulties. Issue with most of the games to be fair, and I also suck at these games lol so that might play a part.
This game is heralded as the best of the EA UFC games due to its ragdoll mechanics and clean striking but I really do not agree. The controls are over complicated, the ground game is terrible and all the games that follow are more polished in every way. I will commend it for being the last EA UFC game to not feel like a total copy paste of the previous because each game after falls into that. Seriously, look at footage from UFC 3 and UFC 4 they look literally Identical.
Overall I will probably play this from time to time when I am between games on my Xbox as its fun to mess around with and spinning capoeira kick people in the face. Fun to go back to but massively overrated by the fans.
Im a really big UFC fan and I regularly play UFC 5 on my PS5, its like my go to game if I just wanna play something. Due to this I am very used to the controls used in both UFC 4 and 5 which differ greatly compared to this games. But I have slowly got the hang of it and played around with a lot of what the game has to offer enough to review it.
In general I love the striking in this game. Every punch, kick, knee or elbow lands with so much power you can feel it through the screen. The combo like controls used in this game play into that well, you have to throw your fingers around as you would in something like mortal kombat. The game has a good roster with a lot of fighters not present in the current games which is annoying. Some very uncanny valley like designs but decent for the time. I don't like how limited the customization is primarily with short colours, which is something that has only been rectified in UFC 5 recently but being limited to only black, white and champion shorts is annoying especially when at that time there was other colours used on the Reebok kits. Bit of a nit pick.
My biggest problem is the grappling and ground game. I find the ground game system in all games aside from 4 and 5 ridiculously over complicated and just not fun to play with. No easy way to deny transitions, being knocked out in like 3 punches if your opponent gets on top mount and most annoying is the takedown defence system. I was playing on easy and beginner difficultly and was not able to defend one takedown as you would need to have the reaction time of the flash to press the required buttons by the time your opponent has slammed you on the floor. Also I find the Ai to just be weird in general when fighters known for striking are ragdolling me on the ground, especially on the lower difficulties. Issue with most of the games to be fair, and I also suck at these games lol so that might play a part.
This game is heralded as the best of the EA UFC games due to its ragdoll mechanics and clean striking but I really do not agree. The controls are over complicated, the ground game is terrible and all the games that follow are more polished in every way. I will commend it for being the last EA UFC game to not feel like a total copy paste of the previous because each game after falls into that. Seriously, look at footage from UFC 3 and UFC 4 they look literally Identical.
Overall I will probably play this from time to time when I am between games on my Xbox as its fun to mess around with and spinning capoeira kick people in the face. Fun to go back to but massively overrated by the fans.
It says a lot that I didn't even know this season ended until I saw the update for the new season on my PlayStation today.
Funny because it wasn't even bad, the map changes were cool and the battlepass was pretty decent. I think I personally just got burned out after playing so much of the OG season and Chapter 5 season 1.
Funny because it wasn't even bad, the map changes were cool and the battlepass was pretty decent. I think I personally just got burned out after playing so much of the OG season and Chapter 5 season 1.
Very short but features a good message. Interesting gameplay mechanic as well.
Very one and done however, but its free so who cares lol
Very one and done however, but its free so who cares lol
Ill prefix that I played this through the Master Chief collection on Xbox Series X. Similarly as to what I did with the Metal Gear collection I will review each game individually and then talk about the collection at the end.
Despite growing up with an Xbox 360 I have never played a Halo game properly. So I figured while i'm on a bit of a break from playing through the Zelda franchise I would play through some of the Halo games to cleanse the pallet a bit. While overall I did enjoy this game, there is no question that it is showing its age in the modern day
Story is simple enough, the humans versus the covenant, which I think is theme I can expect from each game. This game of course introduces Master Chief, without a doubt one of the most iconic gaming characters of all time. I actually believed that Master Chief was a silent protagonist in this game as he literally doesn't speak for the first half of the game and then just starts talking randomly which I thought was funny. I really liked Cortana, I like that they didn't make her just a tutorial voice and had her speak like a real human. No missions really standout as most are just the same environments repeated over and over again, which cant really be knocked in this case due to the games age.
The gun combat hasn't aged amazingly but is still playable. I do quite like the large crosshair aiming feature which gets rid of a ADS button as it makes mowing down enemies a lot easier. Ammo I found was quite scarce in places especially for the non covenant guns which are the ones that you start with normally. I really did not like the driving controls, a big pet peeve of mine is when driving controls use the joystick instead of the triggers, obviously age plays a factor here so ill let it slide. Also some missions were very hard to navigate even with the floor arrows but normally I would end up finding my way accidentally. I feel like a simple mini map would of fixed that issue.
My biggest gripe is the checkpoint system. Not that there are too many or too few, its that it is extremely inconsistent. I found that there would be times when I was walking through random hallways and hitting checkpoints at a usual pace but then almost entire missions would go by and I wouldn't hit a single one. Two biggest moments I saw this was in mission 9 & 10, in mission 9 there is a cutscene where a big spoiler takes place, you would think there would be a checkpoint after the cutscene right, nope, it put me back to well before the cutscene which I found very weird. Lastly in mission 10 during the driving segment, there were no checkpoints at all even during the moment the timer is paused. I get it a bit more in this sense as it is the games climax but its still something that is very annoying especially paired with janky driving controls.
Visually the anniversary edition makes a massive change up in graphics. I really like the feature where you can switch between the old Xbox graphics and the new remastered ones. This game saw the first use of the Iconic Halo theme so it gets good points here for that.
Overall not a horrendous first instalment. It is definitely starting to show its age but that is to be expected. I'm looking forward to playing through the rest of this series as its one that's been on the backlog for a long time.
Despite growing up with an Xbox 360 I have never played a Halo game properly. So I figured while i'm on a bit of a break from playing through the Zelda franchise I would play through some of the Halo games to cleanse the pallet a bit. While overall I did enjoy this game, there is no question that it is showing its age in the modern day
Story is simple enough, the humans versus the covenant, which I think is theme I can expect from each game. This game of course introduces Master Chief, without a doubt one of the most iconic gaming characters of all time. I actually believed that Master Chief was a silent protagonist in this game as he literally doesn't speak for the first half of the game and then just starts talking randomly which I thought was funny. I really liked Cortana, I like that they didn't make her just a tutorial voice and had her speak like a real human. No missions really standout as most are just the same environments repeated over and over again, which cant really be knocked in this case due to the games age.
The gun combat hasn't aged amazingly but is still playable. I do quite like the large crosshair aiming feature which gets rid of a ADS button as it makes mowing down enemies a lot easier. Ammo I found was quite scarce in places especially for the non covenant guns which are the ones that you start with normally. I really did not like the driving controls, a big pet peeve of mine is when driving controls use the joystick instead of the triggers, obviously age plays a factor here so ill let it slide. Also some missions were very hard to navigate even with the floor arrows but normally I would end up finding my way accidentally. I feel like a simple mini map would of fixed that issue.
My biggest gripe is the checkpoint system. Not that there are too many or too few, its that it is extremely inconsistent. I found that there would be times when I was walking through random hallways and hitting checkpoints at a usual pace but then almost entire missions would go by and I wouldn't hit a single one. Two biggest moments I saw this was in mission 9 & 10, in mission 9 there is a cutscene where a big spoiler takes place, you would think there would be a checkpoint after the cutscene right, nope, it put me back to well before the cutscene which I found very weird. Lastly in mission 10 during the driving segment, there were no checkpoints at all even during the moment the timer is paused. I get it a bit more in this sense as it is the games climax but its still something that is very annoying especially paired with janky driving controls.
Visually the anniversary edition makes a massive change up in graphics. I really like the feature where you can switch between the old Xbox graphics and the new remastered ones. This game saw the first use of the Iconic Halo theme so it gets good points here for that.
Overall not a horrendous first instalment. It is definitely starting to show its age but that is to be expected. I'm looking forward to playing through the rest of this series as its one that's been on the backlog for a long time.
2016
I saw this trending on TikTok and impulsively bought it as it looked quite entertaining. Whilst I did have fun playing it it doesn't have anything that drives me to come back to it.
The interactions with the skull guy are funny and tossing him out the window in the castle will always be hilarious but once you have done it a few times it wears old fast. I liked the potion mixing but there are only around 15 different mixes you can do, which takes around 10 minutes to get them all.
It is a fun VR experience but doesn't have much that would make me return to play this unless I get that itch to. I would pick it up if it was on sale as £15 is a bit steep.
The interactions with the skull guy are funny and tossing him out the window in the castle will always be hilarious but once you have done it a few times it wears old fast. I liked the potion mixing but there are only around 15 different mixes you can do, which takes around 10 minutes to get them all.
It is a fun VR experience but doesn't have much that would make me return to play this unless I get that itch to. I would pick it up if it was on sale as £15 is a bit steep.
2008
This review contains spoilers
This review will contain main story spoilers
Finally after like 4 attempts I managed to fully complete GTA 4... kind of. I will properly go into it later but technically I didn't complete the final mission but I am marking it as completed as I played the entire game and was already well aware of the ending and ill be damned if after all the time it took me to complete this game to not have it marked complete.
Grand Theft Auto 4 is as much of a classic as you can get. Alongside a few other notable titles this game really encapsulates the Xbox 360/PS3 era. Like a lot of games I have played this year, this was the first time I played through this game in its entirety. I messed around with it on the 360 when I was younger and made a few attempts to get through it on PC but only got around a quarter into the main story. Comparing it to the other narratives in the GTA series, 4 leads the pack with its iconic dark and gritty mafia story, along side a bunch of great characters.
The story itself is very enjoyable. It revolves around Niko Bellic, a former soldier turned gun for hire as he tries to track down the traitor who turned on his friends and left him to die. Arriving fresh off the boat in Liberty City, Niko ends up working with all sorts of the cities criminals in order to make money in pursuit of the American dream. The main story is I believe 88 missions long which I do feel is a bit too long. There were lots of times when I felt that the game could of and should of been starting to wrap up, only for there to be another 20 missions with a whole new cast of side characters. The game can be sort of broken down by looking at the characters Niko is interacting with, Act 1 sees him working alongside the Russian Mob where he is betrayed by Dimitri Rascalov who serves as the games main antagonist. The second act sees Niko working with the McCreary family who are part of the Irish Mob. Finally the 3rd act has Niko working for the Pegarino crime family, who are part of the Italian mafia. This is quite a broad assessment and there are lots of other people who Niko also interacts with like a corrupt cop, a federal agent and many street gangs.
The characters, especially the protagonist are this games best area. Niko Bellic is by a long shot the best GTA protagonist and in my opinion the 3rd best Rockstar protagonist behind Arthur Morgan and John Marston. Niko has real motivations and genuinely seems to want to better his life in order to move on from his past. While being a cold blooded gun for hire, there are many moments when you can see Niko reflect on his past actions with clear regret. Which is a lot more than you see from any other GTA protagonist. The side characters are also a great bunch. Roman, Niko's gambling addict cousin who sold him on the American dream. Packie McCreary the 2nd youngest of the McCreary brother eager to restore his family name and my personal favourite Little Jacob who is just the best.
Most missions follow a similar format, either shoot up a large gauntlet of enemies, chase someone in a car and kill them, tail someone in a car and follow them to a gauntlet of enemies. We all know the rockstar gameplay format. While these missions are all quite fun and a lot of cool action movie set pieces are put into these somewhat repetitive missions in order to keep it fresh, as the game progresses you start to see a lot of the same. This game is often praised for its physics which were ground breaking at the time. To this day I am still very impressed with the water physics. Mantling on ledges sounds way cooler than it actually is, its only used properly in like 2 missions and normally is just quite janky. Im not a fan of the shooting mechanics, with the lock on feature either locking onto an enemy across the room instead of the guy shooting you in the face right in front of you, or aiming at a guy behind a wall. I got the hang of it eventually but I much prefer the free aim style they used in GTA 5.
The friend system is something I believe is unique to this game and i'm quite happy it never properly made the jump to 5. Certain side characters you are able to do activities with will call you randomly and ask you to hang out. This is normally fine but it gets to a point in the late game where there are too many to keep track of. On multiple occasions I was heading to meet one person when another would call me up which ends up with you loosing relationships with certain characters which sucks.
Another thing unique to this game was the strange amount of choices you were given throughtout. Obviously GTA 5 had this with its ending but throughout GTA 4 you are given choices between characters to kill. Normally there are benefits for doing either which make for an interesting spin on gameplay. What I like the most about this is that normally there wont be much of an impact outside of different dialogue so its more of a moral decision of who you would rather save (If you ignore the rewards). It's something I hope returns in GTA 6. Speaking of dialogue, I was very surprised by the sheer amount of it, during retries of missions there are sometimes 2 to 3 cycles of dialogue that can happen on the journey to an objective. It helps keep things less stale especially when having to repeat a drive.
Graphics wise this game has aged extremely well. Liberty City looks great, very dingy and run down in certain places and full of life in others. I did sometimes have a bit of trouble with the lighting as the city can get very dark and grey. The music is iconic. That main theme is one of Rockstar's best, even down to the little motives that play after completing missions.
Unfortunately I have one major complaint, the lack of checkpoints. Now this may fall under a "Get Gud" opinion but this is something that really bothered me throughout my playthrough. Now most missions are only around 5 minutes in length and that's ok to repeat but can get annoying with repeated attempts but dear God some of these missions are so long. One in particular that stood out to me was involving stealing drugs from the Triads. to start you have to drive to pick up a truck, then drive this slow ass truck half way across the map, then kill a massive gauntlet of enemies and finally escape on a boat, all without a checkpoint. This is made even more annoying by the fact that your health doesn't regenerate at all, and the medkits are so far between and more or less impossible to find that you end up running through a gauntlet with a slither of health praying you dont die. This is also made more irritating by the fact your ammo isnt reset when you die, so you end up going in with barely any ammo in your good weapons. The amount of times I got within one enemy of completing a mission only to get blasted away and have to do the entire thing again almost made me give up on a few missions lol. Something I am soooo glad they changed in GTA 5.
Now as you may have noticed at the start of this review I said that technically I haven't completed the game. That is because Grand Theft Auto 4 is more or less impossible to complete on Xbox Series X. The final mission has a segment where you need to jump from a bike onto a helicopter in order to kill the final guy. After jumping you have to spam the A button to climb up but due to the Series X running at 60 fps, this is impossible to do. I say borderline impossible as it has been done using certain methods but personally due to my previously mentioned complaint about the games checkpoints, I am not going to constantly replay the entire shooting segment before hand multiple times in order to master the technique. I'm slightly conflicted whether or not to let this effect the score I will give it as it seems more like a software problem than the game problem. As of now my score is 4/5 stars (Or an 8/10) but if anyone has any input on whether or not this issue should affect the score, feel free to leave a comment!
All in all I think GTA 4 is starting to become a bit dated. Not taking anything away from its fantastic story, great characters and genuinely fun missions, but some of its gameplay choices seem like they may make it a bit more inaccessible as the years go on. I'm thinking about grabbing The ballad of Gay Tony and The lost and the damned when they are next on sale to try them out at some point. Still a solid recommendation but look out for that game breaking bug
Finally after like 4 attempts I managed to fully complete GTA 4... kind of. I will properly go into it later but technically I didn't complete the final mission but I am marking it as completed as I played the entire game and was already well aware of the ending and ill be damned if after all the time it took me to complete this game to not have it marked complete.
Grand Theft Auto 4 is as much of a classic as you can get. Alongside a few other notable titles this game really encapsulates the Xbox 360/PS3 era. Like a lot of games I have played this year, this was the first time I played through this game in its entirety. I messed around with it on the 360 when I was younger and made a few attempts to get through it on PC but only got around a quarter into the main story. Comparing it to the other narratives in the GTA series, 4 leads the pack with its iconic dark and gritty mafia story, along side a bunch of great characters.
The story itself is very enjoyable. It revolves around Niko Bellic, a former soldier turned gun for hire as he tries to track down the traitor who turned on his friends and left him to die. Arriving fresh off the boat in Liberty City, Niko ends up working with all sorts of the cities criminals in order to make money in pursuit of the American dream. The main story is I believe 88 missions long which I do feel is a bit too long. There were lots of times when I felt that the game could of and should of been starting to wrap up, only for there to be another 20 missions with a whole new cast of side characters. The game can be sort of broken down by looking at the characters Niko is interacting with, Act 1 sees him working alongside the Russian Mob where he is betrayed by Dimitri Rascalov who serves as the games main antagonist. The second act sees Niko working with the McCreary family who are part of the Irish Mob. Finally the 3rd act has Niko working for the Pegarino crime family, who are part of the Italian mafia. This is quite a broad assessment and there are lots of other people who Niko also interacts with like a corrupt cop, a federal agent and many street gangs.
The characters, especially the protagonist are this games best area. Niko Bellic is by a long shot the best GTA protagonist and in my opinion the 3rd best Rockstar protagonist behind Arthur Morgan and John Marston. Niko has real motivations and genuinely seems to want to better his life in order to move on from his past. While being a cold blooded gun for hire, there are many moments when you can see Niko reflect on his past actions with clear regret. Which is a lot more than you see from any other GTA protagonist. The side characters are also a great bunch. Roman, Niko's gambling addict cousin who sold him on the American dream. Packie McCreary the 2nd youngest of the McCreary brother eager to restore his family name and my personal favourite Little Jacob who is just the best.
Most missions follow a similar format, either shoot up a large gauntlet of enemies, chase someone in a car and kill them, tail someone in a car and follow them to a gauntlet of enemies. We all know the rockstar gameplay format. While these missions are all quite fun and a lot of cool action movie set pieces are put into these somewhat repetitive missions in order to keep it fresh, as the game progresses you start to see a lot of the same. This game is often praised for its physics which were ground breaking at the time. To this day I am still very impressed with the water physics. Mantling on ledges sounds way cooler than it actually is, its only used properly in like 2 missions and normally is just quite janky. Im not a fan of the shooting mechanics, with the lock on feature either locking onto an enemy across the room instead of the guy shooting you in the face right in front of you, or aiming at a guy behind a wall. I got the hang of it eventually but I much prefer the free aim style they used in GTA 5.
The friend system is something I believe is unique to this game and i'm quite happy it never properly made the jump to 5. Certain side characters you are able to do activities with will call you randomly and ask you to hang out. This is normally fine but it gets to a point in the late game where there are too many to keep track of. On multiple occasions I was heading to meet one person when another would call me up which ends up with you loosing relationships with certain characters which sucks.
Another thing unique to this game was the strange amount of choices you were given throughtout. Obviously GTA 5 had this with its ending but throughout GTA 4 you are given choices between characters to kill. Normally there are benefits for doing either which make for an interesting spin on gameplay. What I like the most about this is that normally there wont be much of an impact outside of different dialogue so its more of a moral decision of who you would rather save (If you ignore the rewards). It's something I hope returns in GTA 6. Speaking of dialogue, I was very surprised by the sheer amount of it, during retries of missions there are sometimes 2 to 3 cycles of dialogue that can happen on the journey to an objective. It helps keep things less stale especially when having to repeat a drive.
Graphics wise this game has aged extremely well. Liberty City looks great, very dingy and run down in certain places and full of life in others. I did sometimes have a bit of trouble with the lighting as the city can get very dark and grey. The music is iconic. That main theme is one of Rockstar's best, even down to the little motives that play after completing missions.
Unfortunately I have one major complaint, the lack of checkpoints. Now this may fall under a "Get Gud" opinion but this is something that really bothered me throughout my playthrough. Now most missions are only around 5 minutes in length and that's ok to repeat but can get annoying with repeated attempts but dear God some of these missions are so long. One in particular that stood out to me was involving stealing drugs from the Triads. to start you have to drive to pick up a truck, then drive this slow ass truck half way across the map, then kill a massive gauntlet of enemies and finally escape on a boat, all without a checkpoint. This is made even more annoying by the fact that your health doesn't regenerate at all, and the medkits are so far between and more or less impossible to find that you end up running through a gauntlet with a slither of health praying you dont die. This is also made more irritating by the fact your ammo isnt reset when you die, so you end up going in with barely any ammo in your good weapons. The amount of times I got within one enemy of completing a mission only to get blasted away and have to do the entire thing again almost made me give up on a few missions lol. Something I am soooo glad they changed in GTA 5.
Now as you may have noticed at the start of this review I said that technically I haven't completed the game. That is because Grand Theft Auto 4 is more or less impossible to complete on Xbox Series X. The final mission has a segment where you need to jump from a bike onto a helicopter in order to kill the final guy. After jumping you have to spam the A button to climb up but due to the Series X running at 60 fps, this is impossible to do. I say borderline impossible as it has been done using certain methods but personally due to my previously mentioned complaint about the games checkpoints, I am not going to constantly replay the entire shooting segment before hand multiple times in order to master the technique. I'm slightly conflicted whether or not to let this effect the score I will give it as it seems more like a software problem than the game problem. As of now my score is 4/5 stars (Or an 8/10) but if anyone has any input on whether or not this issue should affect the score, feel free to leave a comment!
All in all I think GTA 4 is starting to become a bit dated. Not taking anything away from its fantastic story, great characters and genuinely fun missions, but some of its gameplay choices seem like they may make it a bit more inaccessible as the years go on. I'm thinking about grabbing The ballad of Gay Tony and The lost and the damned when they are next on sale to try them out at some point. Still a solid recommendation but look out for that game breaking bug
Heard a lot of fun things about this game and decided to give it a shot since it was free on game pass.
Very fun basic premise, creating battle like simulations with different groups of soldiers like Vikings, Romans and Greeks. A lot of fun to mess around with for a while but nothing to keep you playing for excessive amounts of time.
I like the addition of mods, it helps add to the amount of content available. Also its just awesome to set up massive clone wars battles with all the starwars mods.
Id recommend this if you are looking for a quick timewaster game to sink a bit of time into. Ill probably dip in and out of it if im bored but wont keep at it consistently. A lot of fun regardless.
Very fun basic premise, creating battle like simulations with different groups of soldiers like Vikings, Romans and Greeks. A lot of fun to mess around with for a while but nothing to keep you playing for excessive amounts of time.
I like the addition of mods, it helps add to the amount of content available. Also its just awesome to set up massive clone wars battles with all the starwars mods.
Id recommend this if you are looking for a quick timewaster game to sink a bit of time into. Ill probably dip in and out of it if im bored but wont keep at it consistently. A lot of fun regardless.
Ill prefix before I start that I completed a half finished save file from an old playthrough I started around a year ago. Similar to my Cuphead review im still reviewing it as technically I beat the game this year despite having played a decent chunk a while prior.
Majora's mask is one of my favourite games of all time and if it were not for Red Dead 2 I would have no problems calling it my favourite. I think that not only is it the best game Nintendo have ever made, I believe that they will not make another game that will be as amazing as this in their company lifetime.
The story goes the same way as Links Awakening, featuring none of the recuring things from other Zelda games. No Zelda, No Ganon, No Hyrule and No Triforce. Instead Link is travelling in search of Navi before being cursed by the mischievous skull kid and turned into a Deku scrub. Awaking in the land of Termina where the mysterious Happy Mask Salesman tasks Link with recovering Majora's Mask for him. Simple enough, until you step outside and gaze upwards. With three days on the clock and the moon rapidly falling towards Termina, Link has to race against time. With an already bleak story, pair that with a cast of side characters that each deal with their impending doom in a unique way. Some stay in denial, others run and hide while some just stay to face it. This is the only Zelda game where I will walk around and talk to every NPC every chance I get, just to see if what they say will be different depending on the day. The main meat of the game involves Link traveling to the 4 regions of termina and lifting the curse put over them. Each area features tragic characters like Darmani the Goron, Mikau the Zora and the King of Ikana who's small amount of screen time is so impactful to this games main theme. What I love most about this games general narrative is the air of mystery surrounding it, why are all the characters the same as Ocarina of Time? What exactly is Termina? Who is the Happy Mask Salesman? Things that keep people theorising and talking about this game well into the modern day. It has my favourite atmosphere out of any game I have played, slightly beating Arkham Asylum.
The gameplay changes up a lot of what I found slow about Ocarina. The fast travel is a lot better handled since most side content can be done any time so saving it till after all the fast travel points are unlocked is good move so you can jump around as you wish. The temples are a bit of a drop from Ocarina, I love Woodfall temple and Snowhead temple, I enjoyed Stone tower but Great bay temple isnt great.
A massive part of this game is the time management system. Having to move quickly in order to get to a certain area before you miss it adds urgency to your tasks. The ability to slow down time and skip forward helps a lot and is made more useful on the 3ds version I believe. Pair this with the masks which make for both really fun and useful gameplay objects and great side quests. Some masks may be borderline useless but the quest to get it makes it worth it. The transformation masks are great and getting to play as a Goron is a personal highlight.
Visually it looks the same as Ocarina, which looked amazing in the 3ds remake. No frame or texture issues at all. This game also features my favourite soundtrack of all time. It is heavenly. The music pairs with the atmosphere so well, simple things like the clock town theme speeding up as the days progress, the temple themes each pair with the surroundings extremely well and very few recycled tracks from Ocarina. Please put your music on Spotify Nintendo.
Im honestly surprised that this game turned out as amazing as it did. The history of this game is really interesting to look into. Majoras mask was made with a third of the development team that Ocarina of time had and was crafted in just one year. Which provides an explanation for the recycled character models and repeating day cycle. Due to this Majora's mask feels very compact which I love, nothing is too far out of reach and the map is very easy to traverse.
Now the 3ds remake. I have never played the original game, I once again debated it like I did with Ocarina but decided to go with the 3ds version as its what im more comfortable with. After researching, there seems to be two vaild criticisms, the boss fights having the massive eyes to indicate weak spots and the changes to the Zora controls. Everything else is completely down to nostalgic bias. The small QoL changes the remake made dont drastically change anything about the original. Even the valid criticisms should not attract as much hate as this remake has.
Normally I am fairly safe with my takes but one I will defend no matter what is that Majora's Mask is Nintendo's magnum opus and they never have nor will make a game as good as this ever again. I cannot recommend this enough.
Majora's mask is one of my favourite games of all time and if it were not for Red Dead 2 I would have no problems calling it my favourite. I think that not only is it the best game Nintendo have ever made, I believe that they will not make another game that will be as amazing as this in their company lifetime.
The story goes the same way as Links Awakening, featuring none of the recuring things from other Zelda games. No Zelda, No Ganon, No Hyrule and No Triforce. Instead Link is travelling in search of Navi before being cursed by the mischievous skull kid and turned into a Deku scrub. Awaking in the land of Termina where the mysterious Happy Mask Salesman tasks Link with recovering Majora's Mask for him. Simple enough, until you step outside and gaze upwards. With three days on the clock and the moon rapidly falling towards Termina, Link has to race against time. With an already bleak story, pair that with a cast of side characters that each deal with their impending doom in a unique way. Some stay in denial, others run and hide while some just stay to face it. This is the only Zelda game where I will walk around and talk to every NPC every chance I get, just to see if what they say will be different depending on the day. The main meat of the game involves Link traveling to the 4 regions of termina and lifting the curse put over them. Each area features tragic characters like Darmani the Goron, Mikau the Zora and the King of Ikana who's small amount of screen time is so impactful to this games main theme. What I love most about this games general narrative is the air of mystery surrounding it, why are all the characters the same as Ocarina of Time? What exactly is Termina? Who is the Happy Mask Salesman? Things that keep people theorising and talking about this game well into the modern day. It has my favourite atmosphere out of any game I have played, slightly beating Arkham Asylum.
The gameplay changes up a lot of what I found slow about Ocarina. The fast travel is a lot better handled since most side content can be done any time so saving it till after all the fast travel points are unlocked is good move so you can jump around as you wish. The temples are a bit of a drop from Ocarina, I love Woodfall temple and Snowhead temple, I enjoyed Stone tower but Great bay temple isnt great.
A massive part of this game is the time management system. Having to move quickly in order to get to a certain area before you miss it adds urgency to your tasks. The ability to slow down time and skip forward helps a lot and is made more useful on the 3ds version I believe. Pair this with the masks which make for both really fun and useful gameplay objects and great side quests. Some masks may be borderline useless but the quest to get it makes it worth it. The transformation masks are great and getting to play as a Goron is a personal highlight.
Visually it looks the same as Ocarina, which looked amazing in the 3ds remake. No frame or texture issues at all. This game also features my favourite soundtrack of all time. It is heavenly. The music pairs with the atmosphere so well, simple things like the clock town theme speeding up as the days progress, the temple themes each pair with the surroundings extremely well and very few recycled tracks from Ocarina. Please put your music on Spotify Nintendo.
Im honestly surprised that this game turned out as amazing as it did. The history of this game is really interesting to look into. Majoras mask was made with a third of the development team that Ocarina of time had and was crafted in just one year. Which provides an explanation for the recycled character models and repeating day cycle. Due to this Majora's mask feels very compact which I love, nothing is too far out of reach and the map is very easy to traverse.
Now the 3ds remake. I have never played the original game, I once again debated it like I did with Ocarina but decided to go with the 3ds version as its what im more comfortable with. After researching, there seems to be two vaild criticisms, the boss fights having the massive eyes to indicate weak spots and the changes to the Zora controls. Everything else is completely down to nostalgic bias. The small QoL changes the remake made dont drastically change anything about the original. Even the valid criticisms should not attract as much hate as this remake has.
Normally I am fairly safe with my takes but one I will defend no matter what is that Majora's Mask is Nintendo's magnum opus and they never have nor will make a game as good as this ever again. I cannot recommend this enough.
2015
Originally this was the only game in the series I had played and I was very excited to come back to it having played the first two. Having finished it again it builds off of everything fun about Just Cause 2 and makes it better. My favourite of the series and I don't see it changing.
First off the story, shock horror Rico is thrown into a politically unstable country and has to kill the dictator. However Just Cause 3 makes its main story much more interesting than the previous two. The Mediterranean island of Medici is where Rico was raised, coming back to it for the first time in years to kill the ruthless dictator General DiRaviello. This is my favourite version of Rico by far as he isn't just a one note action star that only speaks in one liners, he actually has relationships with the side characters and seems to care about who he is fighting against. Once again both Rico and Sheldon have been recast, I'm not sure as to why this is but the actor does a good job to not make Rico as one note as the previous games. DiRaviello is by far the best antagonist as he appears frequently enough so you don't forget about him. The small cast of side characters make for good interactions in cutscenes and it is nice to have meaningful characters other than Sheldon.
The gameplay is the best part of this. This game is a blast to playthrough. Everything great about 2 is here with updated fluidity and fixed the janky controls. Thankfully instead of the chaos system which Just Cause 2 had where you had to get a certain amount of chaos points before the next main mission unlocked, Just Cause 3 uses a liberation system where certain missions are locked until you have liberated enough provinces on the island. This is a way better alternative as it is just the dumb fun that this game is best known for. Rico can zip across power plants blowing up everything in his path and its the most entertaining part of the game. The gun combat is a little bit tricky to get the hang of as there isnt really a lock on feature and most enemies are armoured so it takes a while to kill them.
Visually the islands of Medici are stunning to look at. A lot of inspiration from Italian style architecture can be seen primarily in the villages. A couple decent tracks on the soundtrack but nothing I would seek out. Im very surprised for a 9 year old game that I experienced no frame drop even when loads of things were exploding around me.
There are a few things that I think bring this down a bit. I think that Rico is far too weak in this game. They switched up the health system where Rico no longer needs medkits to heal and will heal automatically and I suppose to balance this they made his health a bit lower. However pair this with the bullet hells that are clearing out bases and you will find yourself dying quite a lot. I also found a lot of loading screens that took especially long which kills the pace a bit, especially after dying. Ill put this more down to its age than anything else. Ironically there is a bit less fluidity in the animations, mainly when skydiving, I suppose this is to make grappling in mid air easier but its a shame when Just Cause 2 had very fluid animations for an older game.
Just Cause 3 is the perfect amount of dumb fun mixed with a fairly interesting story. If you want to play a Just Cause game but don't want to play the whole series, just play this one. You get everything good about the last game, without any of the bad the next game adds. Solid recommendation
First off the story, shock horror Rico is thrown into a politically unstable country and has to kill the dictator. However Just Cause 3 makes its main story much more interesting than the previous two. The Mediterranean island of Medici is where Rico was raised, coming back to it for the first time in years to kill the ruthless dictator General DiRaviello. This is my favourite version of Rico by far as he isn't just a one note action star that only speaks in one liners, he actually has relationships with the side characters and seems to care about who he is fighting against. Once again both Rico and Sheldon have been recast, I'm not sure as to why this is but the actor does a good job to not make Rico as one note as the previous games. DiRaviello is by far the best antagonist as he appears frequently enough so you don't forget about him. The small cast of side characters make for good interactions in cutscenes and it is nice to have meaningful characters other than Sheldon.
The gameplay is the best part of this. This game is a blast to playthrough. Everything great about 2 is here with updated fluidity and fixed the janky controls. Thankfully instead of the chaos system which Just Cause 2 had where you had to get a certain amount of chaos points before the next main mission unlocked, Just Cause 3 uses a liberation system where certain missions are locked until you have liberated enough provinces on the island. This is a way better alternative as it is just the dumb fun that this game is best known for. Rico can zip across power plants blowing up everything in his path and its the most entertaining part of the game. The gun combat is a little bit tricky to get the hang of as there isnt really a lock on feature and most enemies are armoured so it takes a while to kill them.
Visually the islands of Medici are stunning to look at. A lot of inspiration from Italian style architecture can be seen primarily in the villages. A couple decent tracks on the soundtrack but nothing I would seek out. Im very surprised for a 9 year old game that I experienced no frame drop even when loads of things were exploding around me.
There are a few things that I think bring this down a bit. I think that Rico is far too weak in this game. They switched up the health system where Rico no longer needs medkits to heal and will heal automatically and I suppose to balance this they made his health a bit lower. However pair this with the bullet hells that are clearing out bases and you will find yourself dying quite a lot. I also found a lot of loading screens that took especially long which kills the pace a bit, especially after dying. Ill put this more down to its age than anything else. Ironically there is a bit less fluidity in the animations, mainly when skydiving, I suppose this is to make grappling in mid air easier but its a shame when Just Cause 2 had very fluid animations for an older game.
Just Cause 3 is the perfect amount of dumb fun mixed with a fairly interesting story. If you want to play a Just Cause game but don't want to play the whole series, just play this one. You get everything good about the last game, without any of the bad the next game adds. Solid recommendation
2010
A massive improvement on the first game in pretty much everyway imaginable. Not without its problems but Just Cause 2 is a way more enjoyable experience than the clunky mess that its predecessor was.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.
The story is as simple as can be, Rico is once again thrown into a politically volatile country and has to kill its dictator. This time it is the island of Panau. I much prefer Rico in this game than the first, he doesn't only speak in one liners and has a smidge more personality to him. For some reason the entire voice cast was switched so the three returning characters all have new voice actors which is also the case for every game going forward, not sure if there is any specific reason. The main story itself is only 7 missions long but the game is padded out with required side content which I will go on to talk about in a bit.
The gameplay is an absolute blast. It improves so much on the first game through stuff like the grapple hook actually working, making health an actual concern instead of Rico being a bullet sponge and all around better controls. Don't get me wrong there is still a lot of jank, the flying controls are very hard to get used to and the camera doesn't always help and instead of the driving being more like gliding, I found it to feel really stiff. Best way to describe it is if I was trying to make a turn, the car wouldn't turn till the last moment and I would normally go flying off the road. Dont get me started on trying to use planes. Trying to take off on a plane was so weirdly frustrating as if you even breathe on the joystick the plane goes full tilt into the nearest wall. Sometimes it would just hit off something on the road and go flying backwards. It was like trying to ride a scooter on an ice rink. Despite all that they really nailed down series staples like the grapple mechanic and the gun combat. All in all it feels like a less polished version of Just Cause 3 which is to be expected.
Visually its a massive upgrade, thankfully they decided to ditch the uncanny valley cutscenes for more fitting character designs and cutscenes you would see on Xbox 360 games. Nothing really to note score wise.
My biggest complaint with this game is the chaos feature. Which I believe does become a staple going forward so it will be a bit of a reoccurring issue. Basically the main story is 7 missions long, to combat this in order to unlock the next story mission you have to run around doing missions all be it fun missions for the three biggest gang leaders in Panau. Now these missions were fun, none felt stale or repetitive and most where short enough to not drag on. My problem is with the fact that there are only so many of them. While waiting to unlock the last missions I had no faction missions left to do so I had to just fly around blowing up stuff in order to get enough chaos points to unlock more missions. Which again, was really fun but its something that did put me off a bit.
To put it simply, Just Cause 2 is really really fun. You get to fly around blowing stuff up and actually able to have an enjoyable experience in this game as it fixes what was terrible about the first one. Despite the lack of substance in the main story, I had a blast with this game. Im looking forward to replaying Just Cause 3 next to see if its as good as I remember. Solid recommendation.