NerdyMrSimms
My rating for this game is super biased because I grew up with Homestar Runner and the jokes in this game hit just right. It is otherwise a pretty basic point and click escape room esque game spanning three rooms. You may want a guide handy if you want to get perfect scores in the rooms.
2010
It's one of the rare instances where the charm of the game is more than enough to ignore its many, many problems.
2001
Fatal Frame is a game that relies heavily on atmosphere and ambiance over jumpscares. The story and setting kept me intrigued, along with the camera's multipurpose use of a puzzle solving tool and a weapon for the ghosts I encounter. I didnt really care that much about the back and forth backtracking a lot of the puzzles had, but I feel that's kind of most of the older horror games' schick.
The combat with the camera felt pretty clunky. I found myself fighting with the controls, even after changing it to the more comfortable alternative where it mirrors some of the FPS controls when using the camera. The thumbstick sensitivity only has two speeds when looking in first person, but there's a separate fast speed button that ignores any analog sensitivity, zipping along the screen even at a light tap of the stick.
Not at all a demerit, but the game is also not forgiving with its ammo. The weakest ammo - although infinite in theory as you can recharge it at the save points - will have you fighting ghosts for a longer than necessary period. You need to keep in mind of using the weaker film when solving puzzles and the stronger film for fighting, as well as try to prioritize attacking when either fully charged and/or the moment an enemy is ready to strike you. This makes the combat pretty intense, and it provides super satisfying moments dealing high damage the moment a ghost tries to strike you.
Older Japanese horror games have a habit of having bad English VA and this game is no exception. Though, I feel like it was the fault of the localiztion's voice direction that was the culprit and not the actors themselves as there were few instances where the VA didnt sound out of place. Mafuyu's VA unfortunately sounded completely disinterested in his role.
Despite its terrible English VA, the game sounds great. It has on-point horror ambiances and its reliance of the ghosts spatial sound design when fighting them makes it a great terrifying experience. Although there are cases where the ambiance stops abruptly when going into another room. I'm not sure if it was a stylistic choice or because of the game's limitations, but that sounded odd to me.
Near the end of the game, the difficulty spikes pretty harshly. Annoyingly, theres an enemy that screws with your controls, and there is an instance where the game isn't immediately clear of where a certain key item is, and you had to make a short time windowed decision to find it and put it in its right place or it's an instant game over far away from a save point.
Overall, I've enjoyed my time with the game, and I've heard the sequels are much better. I'm looking forward to playing Crimson Butterfly along with the rest of the series.
The combat with the camera felt pretty clunky. I found myself fighting with the controls, even after changing it to the more comfortable alternative where it mirrors some of the FPS controls when using the camera. The thumbstick sensitivity only has two speeds when looking in first person, but there's a separate fast speed button that ignores any analog sensitivity, zipping along the screen even at a light tap of the stick.
Not at all a demerit, but the game is also not forgiving with its ammo. The weakest ammo - although infinite in theory as you can recharge it at the save points - will have you fighting ghosts for a longer than necessary period. You need to keep in mind of using the weaker film when solving puzzles and the stronger film for fighting, as well as try to prioritize attacking when either fully charged and/or the moment an enemy is ready to strike you. This makes the combat pretty intense, and it provides super satisfying moments dealing high damage the moment a ghost tries to strike you.
Older Japanese horror games have a habit of having bad English VA and this game is no exception. Though, I feel like it was the fault of the localiztion's voice direction that was the culprit and not the actors themselves as there were few instances where the VA didnt sound out of place. Mafuyu's VA unfortunately sounded completely disinterested in his role.
Despite its terrible English VA, the game sounds great. It has on-point horror ambiances and its reliance of the ghosts spatial sound design when fighting them makes it a great terrifying experience. Although there are cases where the ambiance stops abruptly when going into another room. I'm not sure if it was a stylistic choice or because of the game's limitations, but that sounded odd to me.
Near the end of the game, the difficulty spikes pretty harshly. Annoyingly, theres an enemy that screws with your controls, and there is an instance where the game isn't immediately clear of where a certain key item is, and you had to make a short time windowed decision to find it and put it in its right place or it's an instant game over far away from a save point.
Overall, I've enjoyed my time with the game, and I've heard the sequels are much better. I'm looking forward to playing Crimson Butterfly along with the rest of the series.
2017
I'm aware of the controversy of its name. This game is not a sequel to the 2006 game, but rather a brand new and more accessible System Shock game in a different universe. Prey requires some degree of persistence, clever thinking, and patience to make it through the early game. It is not a game where you can sit back after a long day at work or school and let loose of your trigger finger mindlessly. Doing that will get you killed. All of the enemies seem overpowered and unfair, but the game suggests you don't have to fight them all head-on.
Once you understand that always starting a firefight is not the way, and you begin to learn multiple ways to solve different problems (like using a toy crossbow to hit a button through a broken window to open a door that's locked by a keycard that you don't have,) Prey evolves into an amazingly immersive sci-fi first-person adventure game, kind of similar to Metroid Prime in some ways where shooting is not your only objective, and the story unfolds through its atmosphere, environment, and logs and emails you listen to and read. (Update in 2023: after playing the System Shock remake, I now know this game is essentially a finely crafted love letter to System Shock 1 right down to collecting junk to convert into something more useful.)
It also tackles some resource management style crafting systems, as the ammunition and health are finite on Talos I. You will find garbage to recycle to create enough material to fabricate new items, as well as multiple copies of the same weapons for you to dismantle for spare parts to fix machines on the station, or you can recycle the weapons to fabricate more ammunition.
If your fancies are Metroid Prime and System Shock, Prey tickles all of those fancies extremely well. Highly recommended, and one of my favorite games as of late.
Once you understand that always starting a firefight is not the way, and you begin to learn multiple ways to solve different problems (like using a toy crossbow to hit a button through a broken window to open a door that's locked by a keycard that you don't have,) Prey evolves into an amazingly immersive sci-fi first-person adventure game, kind of similar to Metroid Prime in some ways where shooting is not your only objective, and the story unfolds through its atmosphere, environment, and logs and emails you listen to and read. (Update in 2023: after playing the System Shock remake, I now know this game is essentially a finely crafted love letter to System Shock 1 right down to collecting junk to convert into something more useful.)
It also tackles some resource management style crafting systems, as the ammunition and health are finite on Talos I. You will find garbage to recycle to create enough material to fabricate new items, as well as multiple copies of the same weapons for you to dismantle for spare parts to fix machines on the station, or you can recycle the weapons to fabricate more ammunition.
If your fancies are Metroid Prime and System Shock, Prey tickles all of those fancies extremely well. Highly recommended, and one of my favorite games as of late.
It's not a good Metroid Prime game, but a good portable online shooter. Single player mode is very much a zero calorie Metroid Prime game where a lot of the level design is pretty much the same, and you fight only two bosses in the main campaign and then one more in the end.
Where the game really shined was its multiplayer component. Each player character has their own specific weapon and morph form that gives them a certain advantage over other players in the area. Unfortunately, multiplayer is not possible on the Wii U, and you'll have to go through hurdles to get the DS' online component working again after Nintendo shut it down.
It's worth playing if you can get the multiplayer working again. Without it, you can watch a youtube video of one level playthrough and that's pretty much its single-player component on rinse and repeat.
Where the game really shined was its multiplayer component. Each player character has their own specific weapon and morph form that gives them a certain advantage over other players in the area. Unfortunately, multiplayer is not possible on the Wii U, and you'll have to go through hurdles to get the DS' online component working again after Nintendo shut it down.
It's worth playing if you can get the multiplayer working again. Without it, you can watch a youtube video of one level playthrough and that's pretty much its single-player component on rinse and repeat.
1997
Multiplayer is a blast. Single player is fine unless you make the decision to collect all of the gold cards. Dousing yourself in gasoline and setting yourself onfire is a better decision. Late game gold cards require you to use the game's bomb jump mechanics which its physics are pretty much a dice roll.
Skyward Sword for the Wii is my least favorite mainline Zelda game not counting the DS games. It was very hand holdy, tedious, and the motion controls hampered the game more than they helped. So when they announced the remaster, I was taken aback by the 60 dollar price tag. Nintendo tried to justify the price by pointing out that they've fixed the general annoyances of the original. They were mostly wrong on that part, they've fixed most of the surface-level annoyances, but the rougher parts of the game haven't been tweaked.
The selling point of the remaster is that it's the same game, except now the mandatory and often forced motion controls are now made optional. The game is also smoother at a constant 60fps. They also fixed one of the glaring issues that plagued the original Wii title: made it less annoying to play. Their fix? You can skip dialogue and some cutscenes so that you can avoid Fi's constant interruptions during the game.
Alright, so at first glance, they went in the right direction, but I kind of wished they had a way to turn off Fi completely instead of allowing you to skip her logging. That also means you would have to skip entire cutscenes that feature her, meaning you'll likely miss key points of the game's plot if this is your first time playing.
As stated before, the fixes they made were pretty surface level. The constant and often pointless mcguffin fetch quests between dungeons, the imprisoned boss that you had to fight multiple times, the tear trials, and remnants of the game's handholdy nature are still present. Much of the main quests were designed to inflate the game's length for some reason, as this game could do without much from its 40+ hour average game length. Granted, they would have to basically redesign the game possibly from scratch to fix those issues so I'm kind of not surprised that they remain in the remaster.
The conventional controls work pretty well despite the original game's hefty reliance on the motion controls. You swing your sword directionally by flicking the right stick. Though some of the moves you have to pull like the ending blow might be confusing for the conventional controls, and there is a delay between the time you flick the stick and the time Link swings his sword. The absolute saving grace of the button-only controls is the actions that felt like the motion control felt forced I.e. the loftwing and swimming. I'm so glad I'm able to do those things without the odd controls.
As it stands, this game is better than the Wii original, the graphics and artstyle hold up incredibly well even after a decade, the story can be engaging during its intense parts, and the soundtrack is amazing. Unfortunately, it's all held back by a game design that doesn't respect the player's time or intelligence.
Whether you're playing it for the first time or you're experiencing it again after some time, the game has its moments to really shine, but when it drags... unfortunately it really, really draaaaaaaags.
The selling point of the remaster is that it's the same game, except now the mandatory and often forced motion controls are now made optional. The game is also smoother at a constant 60fps. They also fixed one of the glaring issues that plagued the original Wii title: made it less annoying to play. Their fix? You can skip dialogue and some cutscenes so that you can avoid Fi's constant interruptions during the game.
Alright, so at first glance, they went in the right direction, but I kind of wished they had a way to turn off Fi completely instead of allowing you to skip her logging. That also means you would have to skip entire cutscenes that feature her, meaning you'll likely miss key points of the game's plot if this is your first time playing.
As stated before, the fixes they made were pretty surface level. The constant and often pointless mcguffin fetch quests between dungeons, the imprisoned boss that you had to fight multiple times, the tear trials, and remnants of the game's handholdy nature are still present. Much of the main quests were designed to inflate the game's length for some reason, as this game could do without much from its 40+ hour average game length. Granted, they would have to basically redesign the game possibly from scratch to fix those issues so I'm kind of not surprised that they remain in the remaster.
The conventional controls work pretty well despite the original game's hefty reliance on the motion controls. You swing your sword directionally by flicking the right stick. Though some of the moves you have to pull like the ending blow might be confusing for the conventional controls, and there is a delay between the time you flick the stick and the time Link swings his sword. The absolute saving grace of the button-only controls is the actions that felt like the motion control felt forced I.e. the loftwing and swimming. I'm so glad I'm able to do those things without the odd controls.
As it stands, this game is better than the Wii original, the graphics and artstyle hold up incredibly well even after a decade, the story can be engaging during its intense parts, and the soundtrack is amazing. Unfortunately, it's all held back by a game design that doesn't respect the player's time or intelligence.
Whether you're playing it for the first time or you're experiencing it again after some time, the game has its moments to really shine, but when it drags... unfortunately it really, really draaaaaaaags.
Croteam struck gold with this game for the series. At its best, it has the best-paced, balanced, and designed levels in the series. At its worst, there are instances where the game tries to pull some pretty bullshit encounters to overwhelm you. Those usually involve the bouncy rooms, which although they are hilarious, they get way too chaotic on anything harder than normal difficulty.
The new weapons in the game balanced out some of the general annoyances from the first encounter. For example, the sniper rifle is an amazing counter to the arachnoids that tend to spawn long distances away from you and pick you off with their hitscan chainguns, while the serious bomb is a great panic button that gives you a bit of breathing room in a pinch.
It's one of my favorite games growing up and I still enjoy playing it every now and then.
The new weapons in the game balanced out some of the general annoyances from the first encounter. For example, the sniper rifle is an amazing counter to the arachnoids that tend to spawn long distances away from you and pick you off with their hitscan chainguns, while the serious bomb is a great panic button that gives you a bit of breathing room in a pinch.
It's one of my favorite games growing up and I still enjoy playing it every now and then.
This review contains spoilers
It's a mostly negative mixed bag. The last case had among one of the best plot twists of any Ace Attorney game, although the chapter with Athena and Blackquill is absolutely pointless even if it's a bit fun. It's almost like the devs were like "Oh wait, those characters exist, welp we gotta find a way to shoehorn them into the story." And the way they did it doesn't even matter to the overall plot of the entire game.
However, the the biggest reason why I do not like this game is the expansion of Apollo's backstory in an unnecessary direction, along with the continuing trend that started with Dual Destinies where it pretty much ignores the continuity of Ace Attorney 4. Instead of continuing where AA4 left off from regarding Apollo and Trucy Wright's biological mother, along with the foreshadowing of Trucy's past, AA5 and AA6 bring in new characters and puts their stories in the forefront.
Dual Destinies kind of gets away with that because for all of its faults, I still enjoyed the game. As for Spirit of Justice, not so much. It's sort of an out of nowhere ass pull of Apollo's origin story and brings in a new country and a new cast of characters that imo wasn't needed. It is among the most genuine what the fuck asspulls the series has ever pulled.
I don't buy that somehow a country that conducts its court cases the way it does and then kills DAs along with the guilty party is somehow never mentioned in the entire series until now. I also couldn't stand the prosecutor of this game. I swear to God if he says "putrid" one more time...
At least Maya's back, however she's only in the game for a good half hour (technically longer through someone else) and that's it. It's almost like she was brought back just as a marketing ploy.
However, the the biggest reason why I do not like this game is the expansion of Apollo's backstory in an unnecessary direction, along with the continuing trend that started with Dual Destinies where it pretty much ignores the continuity of Ace Attorney 4. Instead of continuing where AA4 left off from regarding Apollo and Trucy Wright's biological mother, along with the foreshadowing of Trucy's past, AA5 and AA6 bring in new characters and puts their stories in the forefront.
Dual Destinies kind of gets away with that because for all of its faults, I still enjoyed the game. As for Spirit of Justice, not so much. It's sort of an out of nowhere ass pull of Apollo's origin story and brings in a new country and a new cast of characters that imo wasn't needed. It is among the most genuine what the fuck asspulls the series has ever pulled.
I don't buy that somehow a country that conducts its court cases the way it does and then kills DAs along with the guilty party is somehow never mentioned in the entire series until now. I also couldn't stand the prosecutor of this game. I swear to God if he says "putrid" one more time...
At least Maya's back, however she's only in the game for a good half hour (technically longer through someone else) and that's it. It's almost like she was brought back just as a marketing ploy.
2005
It's Doom 3's combat streamlined to be quicker and have more oomph in the gunplay, but with a bunch of same-looking corridors and bullet sponge enemies. I think I'm halfway into the game and I already lost interest. There are also vehicles in this game and they control like ass.
For what it's worth, it looks fine for a 2005 shooter when you turn up the settings all the way. The problem is there is a bug in the game that causes the textures to blur on the highest settings because the game doesn't recognize GPUs higher than 1GB. Thankfully, the fix is easy in the config file.
I can say one big positive thing about this game is that its shotgun feels way better than Doom 3's melee shotgun.
For what it's worth, it looks fine for a 2005 shooter when you turn up the settings all the way. The problem is there is a bug in the game that causes the textures to blur on the highest settings because the game doesn't recognize GPUs higher than 1GB. Thankfully, the fix is easy in the config file.
I can say one big positive thing about this game is that its shotgun feels way better than Doom 3's melee shotgun.
As far as computer Dungeons and Dragons games go, this game is probably the most faithful 3.5e rendition of the paper and pen game, for better or worse.
It plays similar to Baulder's Gate in that it's a top down isometric game, but its combat system is turn based, not a hybrid system that you would see in the Bioware D&D games like BG and NWN.
Unfortunately, the game is unfinished and it is super buggy. A few of the bugs can be game ending, too.
It plays similar to Baulder's Gate in that it's a top down isometric game, but its combat system is turn based, not a hybrid system that you would see in the Bioware D&D games like BG and NWN.
Unfortunately, the game is unfinished and it is super buggy. A few of the bugs can be game ending, too.
1997
This is actually the first Doom game I've played in my life back on the N64. Contrary to the title and the nature of N64 ports, Doom 64 is an original game in the series and is a direct sequel to the PC games.
The game plays almost identical to the PC versions with completely different levels. Because of the game's engine upgrades, it places a larger emphasis on puzzles and traps. Personally, I find them fine except for some select levels which become a little annoying than fun or interesting. (I'm looking at you, Alpha Quadrant)
The game also ditches the hard rock and heavy metal soundtrack and in its place are some horror ambient tracks with slowed to a crawl instrumentation. These include pitched down baby cries that really bring the satanic imagery home.
I grew up playing this game a lot as a kid, so I kind of preferred this game's horror aesthetic over the badass vibe that the original games had. It's close to being my favorite Doom game, but I find some of the later levels pretty frustrating with their layouts and puzzles. The secret levels are not a necessity, but they will GREATLY benefit you in the last level. Might be worthwhile to have a guide for those.
All in all, I think that it is well worth your five dollars on modern consoles. The remasters do the game more than justice and plays extremely well on all platforms. It's a very good game that got the short end of the stick because people had enough of Doom in 1997.
The game plays almost identical to the PC versions with completely different levels. Because of the game's engine upgrades, it places a larger emphasis on puzzles and traps. Personally, I find them fine except for some select levels which become a little annoying than fun or interesting. (I'm looking at you, Alpha Quadrant)
The game also ditches the hard rock and heavy metal soundtrack and in its place are some horror ambient tracks with slowed to a crawl instrumentation. These include pitched down baby cries that really bring the satanic imagery home.
I grew up playing this game a lot as a kid, so I kind of preferred this game's horror aesthetic over the badass vibe that the original games had. It's close to being my favorite Doom game, but I find some of the later levels pretty frustrating with their layouts and puzzles. The secret levels are not a necessity, but they will GREATLY benefit you in the last level. Might be worthwhile to have a guide for those.
All in all, I think that it is well worth your five dollars on modern consoles. The remasters do the game more than justice and plays extremely well on all platforms. It's a very good game that got the short end of the stick because people had enough of Doom in 1997.
This game wasn't exactly a port of the 360 original, but rather a remake using Resident Evil 4's engine and gameplay mechanics as a foundation of its overall presentation. The only thing that the game benefits from doing this is better control over the firearms thanks to RE4 Wii Edition's controls. However, the engine and gameplay mechanics are so limited with what it can handle that everything else about this game is inferior to the original. There are way fewer zombies on screen, no photography, your mobility is limited, and killing zombies using anything other than your guns doesn't have the same impact as the original game.
Basically, this game is a demake of the original. I never understood why it had to be made.
Basically, this game is a demake of the original. I never understood why it had to be made.
You can easily beat all of the cups in under an hour, there's not much variety in the tracks, and it's super silly.
And I love it for it. Unironically the best thing about it is its soundtrack; a mix of twangy rockabilly, acid house, and metal.
N64: better looking, sound effects are higher quality, fewer announcer voice cues, and the music is compressed and loops for 20 seconds. It is also missing two tracks from the ps1 version
Ps1: CD quality music, worse looking than the n64, sound effects are muffled, but there are more announcer voice over cues. Also has two more tracks than the N64 version. Analog controls are a crapshoot as you have to use the right analog stick to accelerate and brake and you cannot change them in settings.
And I love it for it. Unironically the best thing about it is its soundtrack; a mix of twangy rockabilly, acid house, and metal.
N64: better looking, sound effects are higher quality, fewer announcer voice cues, and the music is compressed and loops for 20 seconds. It is also missing two tracks from the ps1 version
Ps1: CD quality music, worse looking than the n64, sound effects are muffled, but there are more announcer voice over cues. Also has two more tracks than the N64 version. Analog controls are a crapshoot as you have to use the right analog stick to accelerate and brake and you cannot change them in settings.
2002
Pretty average Zelda clone, not a good StarFox game. It turned every millenial boy into a furry.