HBO Presents: Half Life 2 - Episode 1 (FakeFactory Cinematic Mod).

While both games are surely quite good, I'm still unconvinced by The Last of Us. There's REALLY nothing I can add on top of Pansy's wonderful review.
What mostly struck me was how sanded down much of the theming of this really was, the way the second half of the game begs you to find endearment in Abby and her family struck as cartoonish in the already well-trodden realm of player implicating. What I did find assuring was how much I agreed with the game's own assessment of Joel, despite eroding the ambiguity that gave the ending any kick to begin with. Considering how much the game caters itself to low common denoms, I'm glad it didn't take the easy way out and venerate him, making Ellie's Quest 4 Revenge as dicey as it needed to be. I genuinely only wish this wasn't a roving epic where 13 hours of playtime are dedicated to hugging walls, opening shelves and picking up scraps of metal. The developers dying at their desks for this game feels uniquely frustrating to me because of how... unambitious it felt despite dizzyingly high production values?? The whole thing is enemy chokeholds in dense concrete jungles separated w/ scripted segments where someone grapples you from offscreen for going through a door. Very brave, Druckmann.

kamiya is an arcade guy, that's his sensibility, dmc3 and 4 aren't arcades and they don't mesh well with one, here there is a pretty good base for an expressive action game that gets cannibalized by vehicle sections and qtes and a lot of stuff that either limits character expression or is outright annoying in this context, this dumb mixeup now hangs on the shadow of almost all of platinum's work and that's a shame. also this is very unsexy because kamiya is incapable of charm, he tries too hard and he isn't itsuno, nothing here comes even close to the dmc3 dante pizza intro, i won't dream of bayonetta for years to come.

I understand that first games in an extremely successful franchise tend to be rough but lord almighty I was not expecting to be this drained when playing this game for the first time. Halo 1 is repetitious to the Nth degree. You wander around fighting enemies in the same looking empty hallways leading to the same looking arenas for the 50 billionth time over and over again, and that’s not even an exaggeration. The amount of recycling CE does is borderline ridiculous, sometimes it recycles other parts of another level in a LATER level with little to no changes added. And what makes the whole thing worse is that these levels can drag on for an eternity. Just when you want it to end, you find yourself in yet ANOTHER copy of the similar room you were in like 5 minutes ago for the 15th time and you silently beg for the sweet sweet release of death (No Halo 1, haphazardly dumping the flood in a level we were just in a couple of missions ago is not an excuse to force me to play the exact same level we juST PLAYED A COUPLE OF MISSIONS AGO, IT'S STILL THE SAME FREAKING LEVEL).

Gunplay itself is slow and somewhat clunky compared to the other Halo games but it’s to be expected, the enemy design and AI is pretty decent and sets the stage for what will be standard in the future. Music and atmosphere carry this game HARD. I don’t think I’m ever gonna go back to this one ever again.

i'd wager there are many who try to undertake a more fair critical analysis when writing about this game. for the sake of transparency, let's just say i can't. this isn't about a stringent inability to separate art from the artist, this is about my inability to separate art from its era.
- it is emblematic of a dark period in capcoms oeuvre, in which they repeatedly made awful creative and financial decisions in an attempt to both maximize revenue and appeal to western markets
- it is easily one of the most repugnant, misogynistic games ive ever played; it possesses some of the worst writing ive ever seen in a game while still supposedly aspiring to shakespearean greatness. none of its musings on society ever come together nor can it be enjoyed as a charming romp when so little of its characterization is either endearing or palatable
- the calvacade of capital G Gamers who were thoroughly unimpressed by this title inspired a desperate and petty form of tribalism from the likes of varying industry figures that continues to resurface to this day...
- ...which, inadvertently, largely reminds of a kind of rampant xenophobia that existed in the seventh generation of games, a quiet dismissal of anything japanese in the medium and a refusal to engage with their works on sincere grounds (look no further than the original niers critical admonishment). ninja theory felt completely comfortable disparaging and blaspheming the original franchise that they now held the keys to in an era where inescapable indie 'beloveds' like jonathan blow and phil fish rallied to antagonize an entire country's output to the medium
- ninja theory had zero right to patronize or criticize, by the way, given that itsuno had to babysit them to teach them anything at all about proper enemy design, combat design, and so on and so forth. their action game couldn't even be considered average until the release of the special edition
- honestly think the games environments look like dogshit, considering it's the one thing everyone is unanimous in praise of. 2000s movie poster type bullshit

a stark reminder of an awful time to be a participant in the medium and the sole reason i refuse to be accessory to ninja theory in any financial capacity. sacrilege if im being real. hilarious that dmc5 reconciles with this games western sensibilities to often brilliant effect by comparison