The first GTA game that I really, really like! The way this PS2 version of miami is presented, with its clear structures, the unique looking character models (that tries to capture the comic book look of its cover instead of reality) and the thick color palette (full of beautiful reds, blues, greens and purple) creates an virtual space that is both alluring and calming. An effect rounded up by its stellar soundtrack that is filled with bangers and perfectly complement the games “80s by Scarface and Miami Vice” vibe. But the real surprise for me was how fun the game was apart from its atmosphere. The missions here strike a good balance between challenging the player in fun ways and not creating objectives that are a pain in the ass to complete and they mostly hit that sweet spot. The inclusion of real estate is also a neat idea, even if its underdeveloped, and provides an objective for players to do something with the thousand of dollars in their pockets.

Sadly this game also presents a few problems that would pop up in other GTA games: restrictive mission structure, derivative writing resulting in satire that honestly doest deserve to be called satire (thankfully mostly relegated to ingame radio shows) and unenjoyable shooting mechanics. it honestly kinda rocks how GTA never managed to make the shooting feel good in their games and Vice City is a prime example. Despite these flaws, I had a great time with Vice City and never expected to get so swept up in its moods and colors.

Not really special but the level design is uncomplicated enough to avoid the tedium of the lesser Resident Evil games and it delivers a ok horror action experience full of goofy looking enemies, a suprinsly engaging plot, a ridicolous amount of character switches, a weird looking jill valentine, shockingly good swimming controls (good = not awful) and some of the most horny designs for the female characters in the whole series. And of course there is the raid mode. A fine time waster, even if i don’t like how much of that mode ist statbased and how they force you to choose certain characters by giving them negative stats for different weapons. Example: Jill has higher fire rate and reload time for pistols and machine guns, but has worse fire rate and reload times for shotguns and rifles. Some characters have high enough boni to make noticable difference but most of the time it more feels like you get a disadvantage instead of an advantage.

The ideal videogame: A expertly crafted grindhouse epic that revolutionized action and horrorgames and presents some of the best stretched of gamedesign I've seen in a game. This reaches it’s peak in the absurd castle-segment where the game delivers a series of perfect enemy encounters and set-pieces. It also can’t be overstated how good the escourt mission is implemented, simply following a concrete set of rules (stand behind while you shoot, waits or runs on commando, can hide dumpsters in most arenas) instead of letting an underprogammed AI do the job. Also the only horrorgame where roundhouse kicks and suplexes are a vital tool for survival.

Without a doubt the worst RE Game i played and a terrible misinterpretation on what made the older games the classics that they are today. Starting with the convoluted map design that combined with the linear progression makes navigation only more confusing instead of engaging and lackluster boss design those main idea of a difficult fight is a ridiculously small arena + Enemy with gigantic healthbar. The most infuriating aspect of the game is the character switching that happens without warning and doesn’t provide meaningfull gameplay choices unlike RE 2 Zapping System. Here it mostly goes like this: you know you about to switch characters so you dump all your stuff in the itembox and you’re good! Or you don’t know you about to switch characters and don’t dump all your stuff in the item box and potentially fuck yourself. Even the visuals are lackluster now, standing between the charming and detailed low res models and pre-rendered backgrounds from the ps1- titels and the excellent and extremely detailed models and pre-rendered backgrounds from REmake and zero, Code Veronicas foggy and detailless environments can’t generate the same pretty atmosphere those games could. It’s also sad that they scaled down the gore in this one, resulting in far less enjoyable combat. But the worst aspect of this game is, with no question, the voice acting. Both alfred ashford and steve burnside provide two of the obnoxious voice performances i ever heard in my life, trancending the amusing acting in older games into annoying torture. The story itself is bad but that is nothing new for the series. The only thing that i would call good about this game is the soundtrack and that you can dual wield weapons, It’s a shame that Code Veronica won’t get a remake because unlike RE 4, this could really need one.



PS: The game is also transphobic, fuck this shit game.

Virginia ist certainly a unique game that sometimes provides a beautiful moment or a potentially interesting idea (use of editing in player-interactive sequences), but sadly never accomplishes it’s goal of telling a good story. One can’t fault the game for being not ambitious enough though: Virginia tries to tell it’s story using only the facial expressions and body language of ist cast und through the use of editing which is cool but rarely pays off because the non-verbal acting is held back by a limited budget that can’t produce facial animation that are subtle enough to convey the depth of the individual characters. Which is sad but not surprising, even AAA-Games struggle with this sometimes. What is more unfortunate is that the editing is honestly quite bad and fails the game at it’s most pivotal moments. This is especially a problem once the story gears towards a more non-linear and surreal direction that eventually becomes completely nonsensical. The biggest problem with the editing is mostly context: without layered performances or strong enough imagery the editing simply can’t elevate the material and so stacks scenes on top of each other without rhyme or reason. That way it fails on a fundamental level (creating meaning between two different images). Apropos images: The imagery throughout the game never becomes truly original and mostly regurgitates various motives from American mysticism. The only thing that truly stands out is the music that is sometimes a bit over the top but never feels phoned in or boring. Some sequences in this only work because the music almost convinces you to give a shit and try to see a meaning behind the randomness.

PS: it also runs pretty bad on my PS4, so if you feel compelled to give a try use the PC-Version.