A spy game that has more to it than simply shooting people and sneaking around buildings, succeeding in knowing who’s your ally and who’s an enemy is even more vital than the aforementioned gameplay aspects, and serve to largely influence what happens in the plot as they help in various different ways, be it offering to spike the cocaine of a drug lord so when you have a boss fight with him you completely deny his second phase and he gets knocked out from the spiked coke, pulling the veil away from major plot twists before it’s too late and they bite you in the ass, or unveiling information you can use to your advantage. Speaking of that, information is truly key in this game as you can use whatever character secrets you acquired to influence, blackmail, taunt characters out of hiding and into their death and so on, this game is quite open in how it can be approached as I’m sure many of you have heard before and is easily its strongest feat, even the story missions can be played in different orders which alters some things that happens in them.

As for the shooting and sneaking itself, It is honestly quite over-hated, it’s essentially a more polished up version of Deus Ex in terms of how the RPG aspects intertwine with the shooting aspects but with good enemy feedback, I love the way they react to your bullets, sometimes they stumble over and fall, other times they panic and spray-fire all over the place, it does it’s job well. As for the accuracy, simply focus your points into one or two weapons (preferably pistol as its the best weapon in the game, AR is great too) and don’t spam-fire, wait for the reticle to recover from recoil and you’re good to go, although its best to focus the shots when it comes to pistol, you can fire faster and more accurately with AR, and I recommend having both on you as they suit different needs, you absolutely should stealth some missions and even go through them non-lethally since not every enemy you face can be killed without consequences (civilians, regular cops and other American agents for example). This is overall quite an immersive experience and I heavily recommend it to RPG or Espionage fans.

Ironic that a game who’s plot is about breaking your programming and going against what would be expected of you ends up with a reputation that takes what it presents at face value and twists what it actually is so it could fit the mold of what people expect 7th gen games to be, and this game faces no critical re-evaluation to this day, simply look at that disgrace of a description, in-fact there’s only one other person who appreciates it for what it is and he is the one who recommended this to me in the first place, it seems everyone else is still stuck up on taking the first 45 minutes of this game as gospel for representing everything else it has, failing to recognize that the game acknowledges the doubts a person could have about sci-fi military shooters of that gen because it begins with a section that can’t be anything other than a parody to GoW. Shed away all of that and you have a fantastic shooter underneath with a heartfelt sci-fi story, the variety of weapons on display here are nice and fit whatever playstyle you’d want to go for, there’s also the fact that you can combo with your partner to unleash some devastating attacks, it all flows into one, fluid gameplay system.

TL;DR, it’s not a fucking GoW clone or a cover shooter.

A must play for people who consider themselves fans of the horror genre, as creative in it’s approach to the gameplay as it is terrifying, its a real test of mettle and how much you can handle, it tosses away conventional regular enemies to instead focus on a posse of stalker enemies who chase you around as you try to desperately advance through various levels, speaking of those, it’s amazing the amount of interesting environment you can pack with such a simple setting, some later levels are just jaw-dropping in terms of atmosphere and detail. It’s a true spiritual successor to RE1, but you’re not playing a person capable of being able to shoot any threat that comes their away, quite the opposite in fact, Fiona can and will succumb to the stress placed upon her by enemies which leads to a variety of panicked states, she only has her wits and some piss poor attacks to maneuver or defend herself, the German Shepard she rescues, Hewie, does the real carrying but even then he can only temporarily stop enemies and not permanently incapacitate them, add to that the fact that the stalkers in this game don’t have a habit of giving up easily on chasing you and you have a great basis for some truly terrifying moment to moment gameplay.

Oh yeah, the story is also interesting and holds it’s own quite well, Fiona might not say much but her expressions show a sea of emotions, seriously the facial animations for the game are pretty fucking good and they add a lot to the cutscenes, one of the most terrific scenes is pretty dependent on em! As for other aspects I really like how an act of unwarranted kindness from Fiona, even in the depths of hell, is what ends up saving her, I think it’s a neat way to shine a light on an aspect of Fiona’s personality.

Let’s not pretend as if we can’t put aside shitty story for sick gameplay when RE4 who’s script was written in a matter of weeks is one of the highest rated games on this site. The physics based puzzles shit all over your typical “get object for locked door” survival horror puzzles that are shamelessly spammed all over the place and don’t receive half as much flack, even figuring out fighting the enemies is more puzzle-like as you have to create makeshift weaponry either with actual crafting or grabbing furniture and putting the enemies to sleep with them, it’s all about on the spot improvisation and it’s sick.

I already had a high opinion on the 7th-gen but this game cemented it as one of my favorites, the more I delve into it’s library the more I notice how many elements it shares with the 6th and yet the contrast between their receptions couldn’t be any wider, I am asking this genuinely, where did all the people who enjoyed the 6th-gen go? I feel like if some of the more praised titles from that gen were to release during the 7th they’d face just as harsh of a reception. The most common complaint you hear about the state of gaming now is how everything plays the same and there’s a distinct lack of creativity, well, what the fuck did any of you expect would happen when the moment any game experimented and didn’t go with the design trends of the time, it was met with lackluster reception, one dogged on title after another mixed in with the sharp increase of development costs pretty much killed creativity in this medium for good unless some miracle happens.

To attempt to break down what makes breakdown so good is a hard task for me, maybe it’s the slick, intensely immersive first person presentation that’s further enhanced by being able to utilize the strength from the XBOX, the strongest console at the time, maybe it’s twisty, badass 2000’s sci-fi narrative, or maybe, just maybe, its the fucking BEASTLY combat system, I’m not sure I even know how to put my liking for it into words, but goddamn if it isn’t satisfying and unique then I don’t know what is, you get so many combos and some are better than others at doing specific things like you wouldn’t deal with 1 guy the same way you deal with 3 guys, another thing that enhances the combat is the progression of both enemies and your power, the game does a great deal of work to build up and introduce most enemy types, like those buff dudes at the start, all you’ve been fighting are humans and then these dudes pop out of nowhere and have a horror introduction where you walk through the messes they made and then see them absolutely destroy groups of enemies you’d have trouble with, so now you know they’re not to be messed with and you should run the fuck away, which is a great thing, you simply run away from them until you gain enough power to beat the ever living shit out of them, that’s another thing, the power progression is hands-down the best there is, without spoiling anything, you get stronger and stronger as the game goes on and every single moment is cool as fuck and serves to introduce your abilities well, no limp-dick skill tree bullshit.

BREAKDOWN turns boys into men. And you better play it if you have any ounce of love for action media. Just be open-minded regarding it’s control scheme, and don’t forget to block!

I will refrain from rating this game because as much as I enjoyed it, I genuinely cannot, in full conscience, dare to call it a well-designed game. Now I know what you must be thinking reading this, “But what matters is if you enjoyed it at the end of the day” and right as that statement is, I feel like I’ve hit a wall with it. When do we stop, draw a line and say “Yeah, we deserve better than this, because we got better than this a fucking decade ago and what we have now has no excuse being worse than what we got before”

What 4R attempts to do is capture the same kind of design RE4 (and subsequently 5/6) had, and modernize it, and to say that it falls flat on its head and miserably fucking fails would be a gross understatement, they removed the one thing all of those games were balanced around, and what made them so satisfying and unique compared to other shooters in the market in the first place, proper enemy feedback which leads to consistent stuns, you’re crowded? You quickly shoot a zombie in the shin or head and perform a melee attack, that’s your bread and butter for proper crowd control, for christ’s sake, it is so tightly designed to the point where RE5 has a difficulty mode where you go into danger status in one hit, one goddamn hit, and it still comes across as a fair, balanced and enjoyable challenge. Imagine the sheer amount of confidence you must have in the systems that you designed to put in a challenge mode like that into the game. Meanwhile in 4R you find yourself at the mercy of the RNGods which is exasperated by reticle bloom, a mechanic pulled from 2R and put into this game just to make you constantly beg, plead and pray for a stun to get yourself out of one tight situation out of a dozen. To at least stagger an enemy that’s running straight at you with a pitchfork, or to grab you, and speaking of grabs, the balance regarding that single move alone is busted to an unbelievable degree, enemies love to spam it and it happens to be ambiguous in how it’s telegraphed to the player, there’s a form of the grab (close running grab) that you pretty much cannot react to. so on-top of an inconsistency in stuns, you also have inconsistency and vagueness regarding the enemy attacks themselves, and for some reason the grab damage doesn’t work like in previous games where the danger comes from messing up the mashing QTE, getting grabbed in itself is a danger because it happens to do insane damage simply at the startup, for example sometimes there’s a delayed reaction because you and the enemy are so close to one another, you shotgun the zombie but in a very short frame it happens to grab you, you are not rewarded for your sharp reaction time because half your health depletes from that startup alone.

The fact that the game design and balance feel like an afterthought despite having a decade of action RE before it to pull from, add on and improve upon is so disappointing that I can’t help but ask the eternal question what were they thinking? All in all, I hope Capcom learns from this game’s shortcomings, but given all the lavish praise it received, I doubt that will be the case.

Anyone who thinks this is any bit better than the remake hasn’t played it since 1999 and is huffing unhealthy amounts of nostalgium. This piece of shit takes the exact same game-design from 1/2 (fixed camera, tank controls) but abandons everything that made those games work in the first place, long gone are ammo management and snappy decision-making in favor of churning out an action game that simply does not work, juking is barely viable due how many enemies they put next to one another, and the fixed camera is poorly implemented because it hardly ever shows you what you need to see, one screen it’s empty, the next screen you find out you ran into 3 zombies. The fact they put a dodge system in a fixed camera game is ridiculous in and of itself, but they went ahead and made it so it requires frame perfect precision and is mandatory for getting through the game, not only that but it doesn’t account for the camera angle changing mid-fight AND enemy behaviors happen to be erratic and unpredictable.

A short and fun experience where the gameplay Is all about the power fantasy of being an Incredibly busted being, It has so many movement options and even more combat abilities and both leave the door open for an exhilarating combat system that makes It so you can approach the same situation In 10 different ways, which leaves me surprised to see so many people resort to playing It like Generic Third Person Shooter ™️ , Ace Combat or Battle City for the NES. And It’s a great Venom wish fulfillment game.

Venom
Adrenaline momentum
And I'm not knowin' when I'm
Ever gonna slow up and I'm
Ready to snap any moment, I'm
Thinkin' it's time to go get 'em
They ain't gonna know what hit 'em
(W-w-when they get bit with the)
Venom
(I got that) adrenaline momentum
And I'm not knowin' when I'm
Ever gonna slow up and I'm
Ready to snap any moment, I'm
Thinkin' it's time to go get 'em
They ain't gonna know what hit 'em
(W-w-when they get bit with the)

One of, if not the worst shooter I’ve ever played. The game Is a bullet sponge fest with no player feedback, as In enemies don’t react to your damage at all, you might as well be shooting a wall that happens to have a health bar. The bosses are especially egregious because they’re like RPG superbosses and have 4+ health bars that you’re gonna be endlessly shooting at. The game does that shit where they don’t allow the protagonist to talk because they previously didn’t have a VA so Aya walks around grunting to everything while people talk to her like a regular person that’s supposed to respond back, she’s not even a mute protagonist cause she talks in text boxes??? So why Is the game like this????

Only good things about the game are the visuals and music but thats been a consistent staple regarding Square Enix games anyways. Oh and I found the battle damage cool, seeing your character get more bruised up and their clothes torn up over time Is something I wish more games did. Dogshit game.