Hitman Absolution is the 5th Entry in Io-Interactive's series, and this game is sure a doozy. Following the release of the stellar entry, Hitman Blood Money, it almost felt like IO wanted to branch out and try new games which resulted in stuff like Kane and Lynch, and Mini Ninjas neither of which seemed to stick in the popular conciousness. and around the release of Kane and Lynch 2, Eidos, Former publisher for the Hitman Franchise was gobbled up by the japanese gaming conglomerate, Square Enix. These factors could have brought some stress upon the team around Absolution's development to result in such a tonally inconsistent, jumbled amalgamation of random ideas and concepts that is this game. Whatever the reason was Hitman Absolution really dropped the ball in terms of series momentum. The story follows Agent 47 as he is tasked to eliminate his former retainer, and only real friend, Diana. He soon comes to find out that the reason he was sent to eliminate her was so the Agency could get their hands on an experimental super soldier child that they had been developing who was stolen by Diana. He is left to care for the child but quickly gets out smarted by the main antagonist of this game who is just Jack Nicholson from the shining but slightly more nutty. The story tries to take it's self so seriously that it comes off incredibly edgy, and to top it all off it throws in all sorts of nonsense jokes and line delivery that throws the whole tone out the window. But most people don't play Hitman for the story, they mostly play it for the fun sand box levels and mechanics that they can play around with, so does this game deliver on that front? No. This game instead opts for an extremely linear level design philosophy which is so counter intuitive to the mechanics of the Hitman series, and this game in general. All the staple mechanics from Hitman return here such as sneaking, wearing disguises, and dragging bodies, but the way these levels are structured makes it so that all these core mechanics are pretty useless and instead the most optimal route to completion most of the time is to just instead go in guns blazing. It certainly doesn't help that this game also has really cheap enemy placement which makes it hard to not get spotted when joined together with the terrible instinct system. The basic premise of the instinct system isn't terrible, it essentially allows you to see enemies through walls and pin point targets which could be helpful for strategizing if it weren't for the fact that there is no map to reference along to like previous games. There is also the problem with disguises basically being more useless than they were in Hitman 2 Silent Assassin which says a lot. Basically any guard can see through any disguise unless you use your instinct ability to hide your features from oncoming guards. The big problem with this is that the instinct ability is based off a meter which lasts too little to really have an impact on sneaking past guards. Overall Hitman Absolution is an over bloated, mess of a game that if I had played on launch I would have assumed that this game would mark the end of the Hitman franchise as we know it. But at the time of writing this review there has been 3 additional Hitman games to have come out who bring the series back to it's roots and then some in some very impressive ways. There is only really one positive thing I can say about the game and that is that it runs as it should and isn't very buggy which nowadays is something that is far too rare. I wouldn't really recommend this entry to anyone, not even fans of the series, but if you are a completionist who has to play all the entries in the series, I just recommend playing this game more like a cover shooter, and less like a stealth game and you will have a much better time.

Going into Manhunt 2 directly after finishing the original was kind of wild. The sequel largely forgoes any attempt at being a serious stealth game in favor of providing a gory theme park ride (particularly if one is playing the uncensored PC version with the red filter disabled). From the first appearance of British-accented henchmen wearing business suits and opera masks, it becomes apparent that this is going to be a much campier experience. The prior story didn’t have a lot going on beyond darkly humorous comments from its antagonists, but this one resembles the scripts of a half-dozen classic psychological and political thrillers thrown into a blender. The twists can be seen coming from miles away, but there’s a satisfying sense of pulpiness to it all. With sharper gore effects to show off and an actual story to tell, Manhunt 2 also seems much more interested in letting the player reach the end credits. In comparison to the first, hand-to-hand combat is very forgiving; with the right weapon, button-mashing an enemy to death from the front is now viable. After the introduction of firearms in the fifth level (out of sixteen, counting the bonus mission), there’s only one mission that doesn’t build to a big gun battle, and the shooting itself has been reworked to result in fewer player character deaths and way more exploding heads. The focus on action probably works in the game’s favor, as the artificial intelligence is lackluster at playing hide and seek. Enemies forgetting that the protagonist was ever there and returning to their assigned patrol routes is a time-honored tradition of the stealth genre, but these guys often lost track of him because he walked around a single corner. In contrast to the original’s presentation echoing 80s slasher films, the sequel has a 2000s horror aesthetic that looks much tackier despite the higher polygon count. One other issue is the motion control-imitating mouse movements that intrude on executions by default; fortunately these can be disabled through the options menu.

It’s too bad that Steam’s policies circa 2009 and a somewhat questionable Adults Only rating from the ESRB basically scuttled this game’s digital availability. I got a SecuROM-protected copy from Amazon before it was delisted, but who knows how long the activation servers are going to remain online. One would think there’s nothing to stop it from being rereleased now, but given that the original on Steam currently requires a fan patch to run properly, it doesn’t seem like Rockstar has much remaining interest in this series. Manhunt 2 may not be as atmospheric as its predecessor, but it does pack an even greater amount of carnage in a much more accessible package, making it easy to recommend to horror aficionados.

I played this in the arcades with a friend twice through. While it was quite short, rather easy, and not particularly deep, it deserves 4 stars purely because that was the absolute most I have ever belly-laughed while playing any video game ever. The ability to use any part of the environment as a weapon is an effective gameplay gimmick, but is also used to hilarious effect; the ability to throw cake at enemies or to pick up a phone by the receiver and then swing it around like a nunchuck lends an almost Jackie Chan-esque vibe to what would otherwise have been just a regular beat em up.

"An Interesting Start For Lara Croft Hampered By Aged Controls"

Beginning in 1996, the Tomb Raider franchise has had a long, storied, and accomplished history spanning nearly 25 years. Lara Croft is one of the most iconic video game characters of all time, finding popularity in the video game art scene, cosplay scene, and even finding her way to appearing on the "big" screen with two blockbuster films to this date! However, many forget her humble beginnings, so I figured I would go ahead and check out this groundbreaking title!

I'll come right out and say it - the controls have not aged well, even with mods to make them better. This game has tank controls for movement, shooting, and platforming, and its a very awkward and frustrating experience. The difficulty is fairly high for some fights in the game, with the fights against human opponents and one particularly huge dinosaur being very difficult to overcome. While progression was still made on my end, the game just didn't feel "good" to play.

The sound is alright, and some of the tracks are fairly exhilarating for combat scenarios, but the effects just fall a bit flat to me. There's a large amount of repetitive ambient noise that plays in the background in between larger, ore dramatic tracks, and this does little to add to the game's immersion.

The visuals are pretty good for such an old title despite the environmental textures appearing a bit plain and wonky at times. The facial animations are cool to see, and give Lara a sense of emotion and reaction to many events in the game. The character animations are very advanced for 1996, with Lara being able to acrobatically scale obstacles with style and finesse. Enemies are distinguishable from the environments, and are terrifying to fight against.

The gameplay is fairly straightforward, and there are some systems that are very solid. There is a good blend of action, exploration, puzzles, and platforming, giving the game a nice well-rounded feel. Puzzles aren't too difficult to figure out. Exploration is pretty cool, mainly due to the game's nice color scheme and varied environments. Action and platforming are presented well enough, but there's a huge issue with the game that makes these portions of gameplay unbearable to play through...

Despite having some great presentation from the era that still holds up well to this day, the gameplay suffers a bunch due to the game's archaic control scheme. Tank controls do not work well in this title, as the lack of camera controls are also very frustrating. While Lara is able to lock on to foes without turning the camera, its hard to get her to focus on certain enemies, making combat a chore. Dodges and jumps are slightly delayed and very awkward to complete without the ability to fine-tune your directional controls, so it makes Lara feel like a stupid bunny hopping all over the place. Its really not that fun, and causes Lara to take heaps of unnecessary damage.

Platforming is where this game suffers as well. The controls translate ever worse to platforming sections, and there were many times I died trying to complete a maneuver over and over again! There are specific angle where Lara can grab on to objects, and they are pretty unforgiving, leading to countless trial and error moments. Sometimes there is such a small window to properly time a jump where it makes you repeat sections dozens of times. Altogether, the controls ruin the main portions of gameplay.

Sadly, my experience with this game was ruined by its controls. I liked the systems it had in place, but I couldn't enjoy them to their full extent due to lackluster and dated controls. It is impossible to change now, since there are no camera controls or strafing controls included in the title. Besides the controls, the rest of the game is fairly modern by today's standards. You can clearly see its influence in many modern Action-Adventure titles! Still, I will Not Recommend playing this title unless you are really willing to put up with some awful controls. It didn't have enough going for it in order to make me ignore its age, but I still respect the progress it made as a game!

Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)

A very interesting and weird playthrough as someone who has no knowledge of this series outside of "Lara Croft hotted video game woman". The controls obviously took some getting used to, as they were baffling at first for this sort of action-adventure platformer game. But I got used to them much more quickly than I thought, and I actually ended up seeing how this control scheme helps this game in some ways. It requires you to really consider every jump, whether to jump from right the edge of a cliff or do a jump with a running start off of it. You have to carefully climb down walls to not take damage, you have to take time to crouch down before making a leap.

Tomb Raider does a lot in the service or "realism", which I'm usually not into in games but I can't say I wasn't impressed by it here. Stuff like no music in-game, only cold ambient noises, your underwater oxygen meter taking time to refill when you rise up, and the animations for stuff like pushing a block or picking up an item. These elements combined with the form of methodical platforming and puzzle solving made Tomb Raider actually fairly promising to me when I started.

But unfortunately as the game went on its flaws overshadowed what I liked about it. For one, combat in this game is never anything more than a nuisance or completely trivial. It mostly involves holding the action button while backflipping away from enemies, but if they get close enough the camera flips out so much that it becomes a mess trying to get in a position to start shooting again. By the last third of the game, I had so many healing items that combat basically became a health-losing race, especially against "bosses". It's strange because they occasionally have these rooms with lots of pillars for cover in order to set up these dramatic fights with other characters, but all I do is stand in front of them and unload my shotgun a couple times.

The slow, "realistic" nature of the controls also became a detriment. Way too often I ran into the issue of Lara taking 2 or 3 more steps than I intended, falling to my death, or the walk button taking too long to actually stop my current pace, or just the tedium of having to wait for Lara to push a block by one square. Also, way too often I ran into the issue of walking right past the next point in the level because of how everything tends to blend in with the each other.

The puzzle solving aspect of things, while occasionally interesting, can be frustrating by the fact that it feels like the game sends enemies after you after every step of a puzzle. Like, I pull one switch and four apes just show up, and then I get to the next part of the puzzle and four more apes show up. This process got so repetitive and frustrating, especially with how annoying combat is.

This game also loves cheap deaths. Things like putting an enemy right around a corner you weren't expecting, or a fall leading to spiked you wouldn't be able to avoid the first time, and just countless things that seems to only exist to encourage save scumming, which I did freely. I understand its the nature of an ancient tomb to have countless traps, but I could tell when one obstacle was clever and required engaging problem solving and when another was something I had not chance of avoiding, like entering a small room and having a gorilla spawn the exact moment I walk in.

The story might as well not be here, and honestly I kind of wish it wasn't. The way the game just puts you in a locations that is continuous across several levels, sometimes going back to certain locations from different levels to emphasize the fact that their all continuous, with no cutscenes or narration or music in between, it's a really strong first impression. But when voice acting all of a sudden starts and you're watching a cutscene, its jarring and overall uninteresting. I get that the cutscenes function as transitions between locations, but basically every aspect of the story did not stick at all.

With all these negative points, it would make sense to give this game a more negative score, but I honestly did find playing through it fascinating. It makes a lot of bold decisions that I honestly think work really well when it does. I played this less because I thought it was gonna be a good game and more as a curiosity, a piece of gaming history I'm not familiar with, and in that front it provided a very interesting and educational experience. I could also see the sequels to this game being much better, but I'm probably not playing those for a while.

'A De-"light"-ful Metroidvania (Sorry, Had To Do It)'

Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition was a surprisingly enjoyable platformer! I had tried this title out in the past and had lost due to insert stupid reason not to play this magnificent title, and figured I owed the game another chance. Boy, am I happy I decided to do that!

The first things that a player will notice are the exceptional relationship between Ori's visual style and soundtrack. The unique environmental details which showcase both places of intense warmth/light and cold/darkness are compounded by some astounding parallax in the background to create a truly awe-inspiring image, one which is very easy on the eyes. The score is beautiful and tranquil with some very solid ambient tracks alongside some bombastic and powerful pieces of sonic bliss (oh yeah, this soundtrack is GOOD). These elements combine to create a part of some of Blind Forest's best moments, and yet this game decided to also have a story AND gameplay to boot as well. I felt so spoiled playing this one!

The story in Blind Forest is actually pretty solid. The characters are simple in design, but they retain some key features that can give insight as to who they might have been before the events of the game took place. The main villain is menacing and unlikable in many ways, but the writers manage to make her pain relatable and understandable by the end of the title. There isn't any normally spoken dialogue (that is, not in any decipherable language), but it is delivered gracefully and added to the mysticism of the world Ori traverses.

Gameplay-wise, this title nearly perfects what it is aiming to achieve. Maneuvering in the world with Ori feels very responsive, and the fact that the world is designed in such a way where there is nothing that seems "blocky" or "inorganic" is very impressive. It feels like you are actually travelling around a forest that is interconnected, which is a core mechanic of any metroidvania title. Platforming is pretty smooth and there are some very tight sequences where you use a variety of jumps, bombs, dashes, and bounces in order to fly from one location to another, and it felt awesome to play through. Puzzles and exploration are very solid as well, with collectibles testing out your skillset before you are able to collect each one. Sometimes items require certain abilities in order to collect them, other times you are required to use your already learned abilities in order to discover new ways to traverse the world. It created some moments of intrigue for myself as I attempted to unlock certain pathways or collect upgrades, and it felt rewarding to finally solve these areas of the game. However, the only areas of the title which I found to be a bit weak in these aspects are "Black Root Burrows", the escapes after collecting the second and third elements, and "Forlorn Ruins".

The problems that I have with each area listed above are straightforward and increase in frustration successively. In "Black Root Burrows", the biggest obstacle is a lack of light source in order to traverse the area. While this is the main theme of the area to begin with, I feel that as an add-on with the Definitive Edition, it shouldn't have relied on having an item that doesn't exist in the game. Thus, there are some blind jumps you are expected to make that are extremely hard to recognize. However, the escape sequences are much worse. These areas repeatedly aim for flashy, over-the-top escapes, but fail to provide proper insight as to where the player is expected to go/what they are supposed to do during each one. This wasn't a problem at all with the first escape in the "Ginso Tree", but in these areas obstacles are indecipherable from one another, and the player is expected to react almost "before" seeing each threat. This led to many more deaths on my end that I felt was reasonable, and I had to essentially memorize the entirety of each escape in order to finish them. Lastly, the gravity mechanic introduced in the "Forlorn Ruins" is a complete failure in my opinion. The path towards the end of the level is difficult to decipher, and I resorted to abusing my leveled-up health and abilities in order to reach the end rather than use the gravity mechanic itself. There are many insta-death obstacles here as well as small platforms, which only compounded with my frustration with the mechanic itself.

Besides these flawed areas, there was also an issue I had with the balance of the game with its upgrade tree. I was able to fully specialize my Ori and started to breeze through most combat and platforming challenges by the halfway point of the game, and the game felt much too easy for my tastes. Combat is already very "abstract" due to just pressing your attack button and having your helper "Sein" shoot enemies for you, but by upgrading their power you can totally melt most enemies in the span of seconds. This causes Ori to transform from a weak, vulnerable character into a ravenous god who can destroy any creature at will - not the best for what the game is trying to portray them as.

Yet despite my complaints with some locations and with the balance of the game, I consider Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition to be an absolutely excellent title. Its strong relationship between platforming, puzzles, and combat alongside its fantastic visuals and soundtrack make it a must play for indie gamers, platformer fanatics, or art connoisseurs. It is one of the best titles I have played from 2015/2016, and I can easily Recommend it as a must play platformer for the 2010's. Now go on - play the damn thing!

Final Verdict: 9/10 (Excellent)