While I still have a ways to go before I actually "complete" DOOM: Eternal, I have finished the campaign and done a select amount of side activities (enough to know how they all work).

DOOM: Eternal has been one of my most anticipated games since I ran the credits of DOOM's 2016 reboot all those years ago, and the wait was worth it. DOOM: Eternal does what ANY sequel should do: use the previous entry as a launching point to further refine and add on to what you had before, and not breaking anything down that didn't need any fixing.

Eternal brings us exactly what you'd expect for a sequel to the previous DOOM, for better and sometimes for the worst.

For the better: DOOM: Eternal adds onto the already solid foundation of monsters presented last time around with a more robust assortment of demons to annihilate, some totally new to the series, and some returning from games of the past. I was admittedly terrified to see that both Pain Elementals and Arch-Viles made a return in DOOM: Eternal, because those two enemies alone made my experience with the classic DOOM II a totally nightmare, ultimately leaving me more frustrated with that game than I wanted to. Thankfully, the way that they're both implemented into the experience makes them much easier to deal with while still maintaining a fair level of challenge to fight against them. Both enemy types have seen dramatic changes in how they operate this time around to relive a lot of the anxiety I had heading into this experience.

With the overall roster of enemies this time around, there's enough of them that helm different tactics to take on the player that combat encounters feel rather fresh whenever you engage in one (which is all the time). Demons will helm specific similarities between each other, but have distinct abilities that cooperate with other demons in any single combat encounter to make every single killing frenzy that of a complicated and brutally fast game of chess, figuring priorities in what needs to be taken down first and with what weapon, calculating weaknesses, and how the layout of the area you're in is going to support which tactics. This is where DOOM: Eternal shines the brightest; thinking on your toes while strafing and jumping around everywhere like a mad man while fifty different projectiles are being hurled your way.

DOOM: Eternal's level design is also fantastic, mixing together tight corridors with open arenas, building consistently different yet still ultimately similar combat scenarios, mixing in the usual secrets to incentivize exploration.

Unfortunately, this is where DOOM: Eternal's issues begin to creep in. While for the most part, the level designs are rather straight forward on where you need to go and what you have to do at any point in time, some of the earlier levels of the game can be obnoxious gauntlents of samey coridors that you can get easily lost in; there's a map to relegate this issue, but having to constantly pause the game to figure out where you're going on the frequent severely kills the pacing of the game. The later levels never felt to have this issue, which could either be the fact that they're possibly designed better, or I adjusted myself to think the way the game was thinking, but nevertheless, the first few missions of the game were constant ups and downs.

On top of the progression issues in levels, there's newly added swimming sections added to the experience, which suck big time. While being ultimately brief, any time you're required to swim around in any given area because of a puzzle or you just need to get from point A to point B is a total hassle in how it controls, and again, kills the pacing of the experience. This obnoxious change in controls and pacing is also not helped my a large majority of swimming sections being pools of "tainted water" that do chip damage to the player, making you have to continuously swim around to get the necessary hazmat suit charge-ups or deal with a constantly annoying barrage of chip damage; neither of which are any fun to deal with.

A lot of people have levied complaints towards Eternal for the newly added platforming sections of the game, which I can sort of understand where they're coming from, but I never found them to be that big of an issue. There are certain platforming-heavy levels towards the later half of the game, but the game is pretty forgiving on any mistakes that are made during platforming, so I didn't find it too big of a problem; they're still not the best designed things in the world, continuously propelling the truth that first-person platforming is stupid difficult to nail down properly, but they're functional nevertheless.

The last of seemingly small complaints is that of the end of the experience, which is really cathartic to reach, culminating with a rather typical "video-gamey" final boss that's rife with the typical cliche's early 2000's boss battles had, however, the fight is still really fun to pull through thanks to the fluid movement mechanics at DOOM: Eternal's core. The boss isn't the issue, though, but that the experience just sorta... ends, like out of nowhere. As soon as the boss falls you get a brief cutscene, a rehashed song back from the previous DOOM game, and we go to credits. I'm not expecting some sort of explosive finale of an ending, especially considering the fight that leads up to the end, but the narrative cuts out so quickly without you ever seeing the heroics you pulled getting any sort of real-world payoff. Abruptly ending the experience was also a huge problem in the previous game,and I was hoping to see that remedied this time around, but it was only made worse.

Besides all that jargon I previously spouted, there's two actually serious issues I have with DOOM: Eternal.

I played this on PlayStation 4, which is as functional as one would expect. There's rarely any performance issues, and having HDR support even on the base systems leads to a graphically beautiful experience, but the difficulty of the game does not take into account that you're at a severe disadvantage using a gamepad rather than a mouse and keyboard. DOOM: Eternal expects a ton of precision from the player in terms of how/where they're shooting, with tiny weakpoint areas on enemies coupled with the amount of damage they deal at any point in time. This means that a large majority of people are not going to be able to maneuver around the game like it wants you to. Aim assist is a thing and it mostly works for Eternal, pulling your crosshair around to get a general hit on enemies instead of missing all the time, yet you're more than likely rarely ever going to pull of the kinds of stunts the game is asking you to do. This all culminates to how the difficulty works overall, because if you're planning on playing this on console and on any difficulty either than the easiest, you're in for an absolutely chaotic ride. Setting the difficulty to just the "medium" setting had me getting reamed over and over again by common type enemies, which feels extremely embarassing considering my storied history of completing CoD and Halo campaigns on their highest difficulty, but when you look into how DOOM operates, in how fast it always wants you to go and how precise it wants you to be with its aiming, it's clear that the blame isn't that with a "bad" player, but that the game just isn't designed for a gamepad with higher difficulties in mind. Co-director Hugo Martin claims he's a big gamepad guy, rarely ever going for a mouse and keyboard, and if he honestly thinks the balance is where it should stay at right now, I'd like to see him try and play this on "Nightmare" difficulty with a gamepad and say it's perfect where it's currently at.

Thankfully, there is some additional difficulty tuning in the game by way of unlockable in-game cheats that don't stunt your progression, as well as a fail-safe option a player can take without having any hindrance put towards their progression that will add a ton of armor to the player, easing up on them severely. I only ever had to use this once (second to last boss of the game), and I was on the easiest difficulty when doing this, so I don't know if this becomes available on anything higher than just the easiest setting.

Eternal's last big issue is that it outstays its welcome. I know that a lot of people will find this blasphemous to state, but DOOM: Eternal did not need to be a twenty-hour game. Several levels feel really stretched for length to try and pull as much time as it can from the player, with the repetitious combat arenas that pop up in sometimes unlikely places, as well as the implemented platforming/swimming sections that add on to the length. The general "game flow" works wonders as you progress through it, but I started to feel the length of the whole experience bog down on me by the third-to-last level. I got to a point where the combat all just felt the same and the encounters just came at such a frequent pace and went on for so long when the end-goal was so close that a creeping sense of boredom began to shadow over me. I wouldn't say I ever got truly "bored" by the game, because its frenetic energy in all presentation/gameplay aspects keeps the pacing going considerably well, however, the facade can only last for so long. I've said this before and I'll say it again, but I would much rather play a four-hour experience that is tight, fun, and never had a dull moment, tan a fifty-hour one that's full of boring tedium; DOOM: Eternal really rides the line of that philosophy towards the end of its campaign.

So, I know I spent a ton of time complaining, but I would still highly recommend DOOM: Eternal. It's refreshing to get classic-styled FPS games out in the current market, especially with the kind of production budget this game has, but it sadly doesn't top its predecessor in any intriguing ways. DOOM: Eternal is still an overall more enjoyable experience than DOOM (2016), but it has enough tradeoffs to make it only a slight improvement than a leap into gaming perfection.

A rather fun battle royale experience, but the only thing it honestly has going for it in terms of being truly distinct from its contemporaries is that it uses the ultimately satisfying and constantly thrilling Call of Duty combat design.

In terms of the only other thing Warzone has that other games don't is the "Gulag" system, where upon a first death, the player in question squares off in a 1v1 match against another player who recently died; whoever wins that match is allowed to move on and reenter the game. The Gulag is a rather intruiging mechanic, and works relatively well, but the game can get rather frustrating when almost every time you exit the Gulag, you're thrown back into the map with no resources, and you're immediately pummeled into oblivion because you have a rinky-dinky pistol, and some guy with a gold-tier shotgun smacks you into next week as soon as you land from the aerial jump.

Warzone is a fun distraction to play in bursts, but it really needs to hit for the long game if it's going to outlast its immense competition. New modes, maps, weapons, vehicles, and more are needed to keep this feeling fresh in the long term.

So, I was writing this whole big review for the game when the window I was writing this in crashed, so no big review, I guess.

Anyway, this remake is fantastic. The gameplay is fluid and super customizable (keyboard/mouse setup is king for this game), the story is great in that usual hokey Resident Evil fashion, the changes brought upon this version of the game are interesting but still remain mostly faithful to the original release, the voice acting is great, and although we're in a more action-heavy experience as compared to the RE 2 remake, the game is still fraught with great horror moments that freaked me out plenty.

I'm just going to say here that although I finished this game in around 6 hours for a first run, I do not have any complaints about the game length. I know that there's a lot of people out there complaining that this game is short, and I can kind of understand where they're coming from, but it should always be kept in mind that the original Resident Evil 3 is a rather short game, and although there aren't any additional scenarios placed on like in RE 2, there's a wealth of interesting NG+ options available once you roll credits.

If you're someone who places a lot on the length of your gaming experience, then don't bother with this game at full price, but if you're a functioning adult and realize a brief, yet replayable and extremely fun experience is more worth playing that a drawn-out boring one for 25+ hours, then you'll certainly have a blast with this game.

I highly recommend Resident Evil 3 Remake to RE fans and functioning adults alike.

While harking back to some rather cool elements from the classic RE games, Revelations acts like the same old action-oriented entries to the series; that's fine and all, but the mish-mash of ideas leads to serious tonal inconsistency, and the gameplay really isn't that fulfilling.

Expectations have to be tempered correctly since this is a port of a 3DS game, but with it running on the same engine as its predecessors, I can't see an excuse why this thing is as flavorless as it is.

The story is pretty dull and inconsequential for the most part to the series going forward (as far as I've experienced so far), voice acting is ATROCIOUS as well as the writing, bosses are extremely poorly designed and a pain to get through even on easy, the gameplay is fine but needs serious retooling in the menus to get it feeling half-decent, and while we still get that familiar level-design from before, the backtracking elements feel nowhere near as good as they did in RE 1 or 2, instead rehashing the same areas over and over and over again to make the game a serious chore to finish.

Again, the game is fine, overall, but not great. If you can put up with some strange design decisions, and the fact that you're playing a port of a mobile game, essentially, you might get something out of this. As it stands, here, I cannot stand the extremely frustrating aspects of this game and I will never see myself returning to it.

Simply insane!

Vanquish was always a game I meant to get into but never did. I heard fantastic things about it in the past, but had heard that the original console versions of the game were not the way to go. Understandably, I waited. I eventually picked up the Bayonetta/Vanquish double pack steelbook for PS4, and had every intentions of playing the game that way, but since I got a semi-competent PC, I went for that option, and I certainly chose the better way to play this for the first time.

Vanquish is a simple to learn, hard to master 3rd person cover shooter, where you break past the usual bonds of just hunkering down in cover for inconceivable amounts of time and do pop shots from chest-high walls for 7 hours until the credits roll. Vanquish may have those elements, but it actively discourages you from just sitting in cover all day, rather engaging you in crazy moment mechanics that see you zipping around combat arenas at mach speeds when comparing to other traditional cover shooters. The sole job of Vanquish is to provide a high-octane adrenaline high as you pull off the most insane of tricks in a fluid ballerina dance of carnage, and it fulfills that role near flawlessly.

The gameplay of Vanquish is something that just cannot be accurately described in writing; it’s something you have to experience for yourself, but make sure that if you are to play it, that you give it a go on either of the current-gen ports or the PC port. As far as the PC port, I ran into few issues but nothing that actively hampered my experience. I had brief frame drops for a while, but after doing some simple menu configurations I ran a buttery smooth 60 FPS at 1080p at high settings with my mid-range PC, and I did encounter a single hard crash towards the beginning of the game, which was frustrating, but the game’s more forgiving checkpoint systems didn’t cause too many issues. Using the mouse and keyboard for your control options ultimately feels like the way to go, here. The precision of the mouse is something that feels needed to keep pace with the rest of the game; actively making sure you keep pace with all the insanity happening around you. The ability to zip around quickly with the mouse means that I was able to get effective headshots and target weak points with far more ease than what a gamepad would provide, but I guess now that I’ve experienced what seems to be the best way to play, I’m more curious than ever to try my PS4 version to see how a gamepad stacks up.

Anyway, Vanquish may be a simply fantastic game, but it does have its faults, though not many.

The first issue I have with Vanquish is that I just couldn’t really get into its narrative. I understand that for a game that’s just SO gameplay focused, that the story is more of an afterthought than anything else, but I never really cared for what was happening at any point in time. This also relays into the dialog, which is super hokey as expected coming from Shinji Mikami, but its funny moments mostly land flat with its one-dimensional characters that just scream at each other like Gears of War characters.

I also would’ve liked to see a bit more enemy variety. I honestly like that most of the game already has a rather good variety of robot enemies with variable move sets and weapons but killing robots over and over again does get tiresome after a while. Boss encounters shake this up a bit, each of which are all rather great, but I could’ve done with a few more enemy types to really keep the pace going stronger. Ultimately, the enemy variety issue isn’t that big of a problem, mainly because the game is rather short, so it never outstays its welcome. For a “normal” difficulty run, I finished the game at around 6 ½ hours, which was just fine for me.

My last complaint comes from certain enemy types which can be super cheap in their attacks. I know that Vanquish ultimately gives the player the upper hand in combat scenarios through the ungodly speed given to you, but no matter the game, I have always hated one-hit-kill attacks, and this game has a few, which had me stuck in certain points of the game. Without those attacks, I honestly could’ve finished this game closer to 6 hours flat, but certain cheap attacks can either do the aforementioned one-hit-kill, or you can draw the short straw from the luck stack in certain QTE scenarios where you can start a QTE with good footing, but end it being swarmed by enemies, making it nearly impossible to make it out alive.

So, yeah, don’t play Vanquish for the story, that’s obvious, but if you want a stupid, phenomenal gameplay experience unlike any other, this is a MUST PLAY, and you have to play it NOW!

I was going through a nuzlocke run of the game, and I've honestly lost all passion to actually finish it. I had a bit of fun with the heightened challenge, but I just came to a point where I just didn't care anymore. I still feel that Emerald is a good game, overall, but not necessarily great (a common theme for almost all Pokemon games I've played to be frank), and the nuzlocke challenge options are honestly cool, yet Pokemon's gameplay loop and the addition of insane grinding for a nuzlocke challenge just became more effort than I honestly felt was worth.

Nuzlocke in case you're not aware is a self-imposed challenge people can put on themselves when playing a Pokemon title where the following rules apply:

1. You can only catch a single Pokemon per route. The first Pokemon you encounter in said route is the one you have to catch, if that Pokemon faints, then you're SOL on that route. Exceptions can be made if you already have the first Pokemon in a new route, if you run into a legendary or shiny, or to gain a better type balance in your party (not catching another water-type if you already have multiples in your party). If the player runs into a double battle (2 wild Pokemon showing in a battle), the player can only choose one to keep.

2. If a Pokemon faints, it's considered dead. If a Pokemon faints then it must be released into the wild or stored in the PC for the rest of the run. If your entire party is K.O'd in a battle, then it's game over (exceptions can be placed for people who have Pokemon stored in a PC, if they want to continue the run with a backup party).

3. While not required, yet strongly implied you do so, you give nicknames to each of the Pokemon in your party to help build a stronger relationship with your party; that way, if a Pokemon "dies", the loss hits harder than it normally would.

There are additional modifiers people can place on a run, but those are the basic rules.

Was playing this with a friend in co-op and I guess it's fine, overall. Nothing special, but in a world where we lack a new Left 4 Dead, it's the next best thing we have. WWZ is honestly pretty generic, but the gameplay suffices the need for co-op zombie-slaying action well enough.

For the PS4 port of the game, it works fine yet has issues. The game experiences significant performance issues when tons of zombies are on screen - at least on the base PS4 - and there's some visual glitches that happen from time to time, but nothing I would consider "game breaking".

Certainly worth a go if you have the pals to play it with, especially with the crazy amount of game modes on offer to play. If you need a "forever game" to pick at from time to time with some friends, or even on your own, there are certainly worse time-killers out there, but don't expect anything special with this.

I have the game "shelved" for now, mainly because my friend and I are more occupied with playing the Resident Evil games together, but we'll return to it soon enough, and I'll have more flushed out thoughts at that time.