One of my Favorite FPSs originally from 7th gen still holds up replaying it again for the most part. The gameplay is creative with the skillshot system and being able to use different combos with the leash amongst your arsenal of weapons that all have alternate charge firing modes unique to each and every single one of em to stand each other apart. While some wont enjoy it, The humor/dialogue is my kind of humor, so that's a bonus.

Only things holding it back is trends of shooters at the time, QTEs (including the final "boss"), a weapon limit for this kind of shooter (which is fixed with the overkill mode but you'd have to beat it first), Regenerating health which also screws with the flow of the combat, especially in the earlier parts of the campaign.

These are trends that they've took the piss out of in their promotional material in its 2011 original release with modern military shooters at the time, only to suffer the same problems that are mainly magnified because of how good the gameplay is with its skillshot/leash mechanics. Reminds me when Duke Nukem infamously took the piss out of Halos "power armor" only to suffer the same fate in DNF.

Speaking of which, since gearbox published this remaster, the only other thing thats advertised in this DLC, the Duke's World Tour, is half-assed to say the least. its enjoyable hearing duke again and him being plopped into someone else's story is funny, but its not worth the extra $5 as standalone DLC for a $40 game. I luckily got both in a bundle for $3. Some cutscenes are off with him not really lip syncing with grays (original protagonist) animations, due to them (most likely) plopped dukes 2011 DNF model into the game. Apparently it was worse before and had been fixed since then but somehow that inadvertently caused a bug that i also encountered on the PS4 version where gray couldn't speak in one of the final cutscenes which made it awkward.

Also, its a shame seeing no one playing the coop anarchy mode and the matchmaking is completely FUBAR, since it was a fun horde mode which relies on you and your squads skillshots than solely just your kills. While you can play it solo, its recommended to do two or more players so you can pull off some skillshots you cant really pull off otherwise.

Then there's Echoes mode which is basically short campaign sections of just straight up combat with a score limit/ranking with 3 stars, if you didnt wanna be bothered with the cutscenes or dialogue, and the more skillshots you pull off, the higher your score/more stars you earn, the higher you'll get up on the leaderboards. Fun for a little extra hrs on the game but its nothing to come back towards once you beat all of the echo levels with max stars.

To sum it up or TL;DR: I definitely recommend giving this a try on sale if you just wanna try the campaign and Echoes mode, Don't get the Duke DLC separately for $5, and if you wanna try anarchy mode you have to be willing to search for people online to play in a private match or solo it, otherwise you'll be stuck waiting for hours.

TL;DR: As a game its frustrating to play that HEAVILY gets held up by its presentation and its story.

This is sensory overload: the game, handheld camera that keeps following you is shaking, gunshots are ear deafening, screen tears when you get shot at and audio gets corrupt whenever explosions occur, its an insane experience from start to finish. The "too violent for TV" censorship (when it works, sometimes you pull off headshots, it just doesn't) does make it really feel like an abandoned snuff film tape or a live leak video. and it really does genuinely feels like a harken back to old style youtube with the shitty camcorder.

Presentation wise? IO knocked it out the park, luckily i didn't get nauseous or motion sick with the shaky camera on but i can see why most would playing through this.

The story just takes a bizarre sharp left turn, coming from recently beating K&L1, there's rarely any mentions of it. No mentions of The7 at all and they wont bother to delve into what happened after the ending(s) of Venezuela in the first game.

Takes place 4 years after Dead Men, With Lynch being medicated and making peace with a new GF named Xiu in Shanghai, and Kane wanting in on this deal set up by Lynchs contact Glazer, a grimy, sleazy, british gunsmuggler who thrives in the seedy streets of China, to smuggle some weapons into africa. Simple, right? As you can guess after Dead men, It goes horribly wrong thanks to lynch fucking up, yet again. Only this time in solo, instead of playing as Kane like in DM, you play as lynch, so now you're seeing this in his POV. Having him basically teach the ways and the ins and outs of shanghai, with Kane being a fish outta water. and unlike the last game on how he fucks things up when kane makes a deal, he royally fucks up from the beginning trying to teach a thug a lesson, only for this confrontation to go sideways and have an accident that gets an corrupt businessman, crimelord and government official to throw everything he has at Kane and Lynch. and it snowballed into a catastrophe which directly physically and emotionally scars him, and it actually slowly brings out his mental illness out once again after it had been medicated for the past 4 years.

Kane is no better, in a really loud as hell clip that plays when sitting idle on the main menu, you can see him, yet again, going back to his old ways of being a heister post Venezuela, and how all of his unnamed crew gets killed by the cops, showing how he needs this deal for his daughter. Which the last we've saw her, she despised his ass and cut all ties with him after she survived Venezuela as he mentions in one mission. Albeit, not as spiteful and sociopathic towards those around him as the last game as he's older and more matured (but not wiser), he's still greedy and keeps his eyes on the deal to get enough to retire and possibly the forgiveness of his daughter. But on the way, he does care for lynch in a weird way, even though it doesn't seem like they were friends at all during the last game. He even straight up tells Lynch if he really loves his girl, Xiu, lynch would have to stay far the fuck away from her, knowing how this path will go.

These 2 even make the same mistakes, almost following similar plot beats of Dead men, and even become self-aware that everywhere they go, people will die around em due to their massive fuck ups. Lynch even has a breaking point near the end which harkens back to the nature he had in dead men when kane tried to strike a deal with retomoto, only this time, its on purpose in a fit of Rage and tiredness and not a schizophrenic episode. Subconsciously knowing that they cant really take an "easy way" out with deals unlike Kane who keeps on trying to finesse him and Lynch out of the shitshow they're in.

The setting is a great choice all things considered, shanghai is a stark departure of the suburbs, skyscrapers, State penitentiary, nightclubs and the jungle environment of the first game. Not only the streets look filthy, grimy, looking depressingly sick, contrasting the flashing neon lights and blooming colors, but later when you get into an office building in the more "fancy" parts of shanghai, it still doesn't look all that well with the haze-y environment and smoke illuming the air, only exacerbated with the shitty 2000s camcorder. and the tone is much, much tighter and better than the first, where instead of a gritty crime drama having to deal with cops, guards, mobs and criminals into taking a sharp left turn into a shoddy quasi-spiritual successor to a squad based action game fighting a damn militia in the middle of Havana and Venezuela, you gradually escalate the situation from thugs to cops to swat/personal hitmen squads to the goddamn chinese military in a matter of hours. and it feels consistent, thanks to the found footage gimmick having the story taking place in a couple of days. in the first few missions, you can even sometimes see the last level just right behind where you spawn in. and have the same arsenal as you left the last level with. making it seamless. then the OST makes you feel some type of dread, be it juxtaposition with chinese pop songs during gunfights or actual ominous stingers that fit within a silent hill game. almost invoking the same feelings i had after beating a level in Hotline miami where the banging music stops and its just a drawn out noise, looking at the carnage you've caused around you.

Now, the gameplay.. this is a few steps forward but also few steps back, its a lot more streamlined than dead men, actually having a cover mechanic, the gunplay actually feels tighter than the first game, and best part, no useless squad mechanics that you'd forget about. Only time there's something close to it was a mission that had raid on a gang leader named Hsing. and even then the AI is just window dressing.

But of course, there are many mistakes in dead men that unfortunately also follow this game, like forced "stealth sections" which doesn't even count as stealth despite having silenced guns, which i wonder if IOI just couldn't fit it in on time because there's MULTIPLE of these and no matter how hard i tried, it was just dead set on you going gung-ho guns blazing from start to finish. The cover is not worth shit in this game, many pieces of cover is destructible just like in DM, which i get, but there are some that are solid as a rock, but have the worst cover spots possible, and i thought it was just me sucking ass, no, seen others complain about it too, it takes the piss even with medium difficulty. and unlike the first one, theres no dedicated execution like with kane's handy dandy dagger, nah, you take the enemies hostage as a bullet shield. Which i rarely used other than early and some later parts of the game. Don't bother trying it too much because you'll be shot on sight regardless. and there's a reason why i put an asterisk with the gunplay, while it is tighter and actually feels like a TPS should feel, instead of bullet tracers that hit bodies in DM with ragdoll physics (which is unfortunately absent in this), you have hitmarkers that reminds me of those old ass MLG MTN Dew doritos parody videos where there's a shit ton of hitmarkers from MW2 (2009), its a little distracting at best and at worst, as unreliable since the gun bullets does sway a little like the first game. and the fucken replacement for grenades, the gas canisters, can simultaneously save your ass when you throw them at enemies direction and blow them up by hitting the trigger, clearing a chunk of 'em but also can be death sentence because since it auto locks onto the canister, and you are in that vicinity and you shoot it, you're dead. instantly. while a good idea in concept, it shouldn't replace grenades, in the same way human shields replace melee executions. Not to mention, the CRASHES, it crashes on me thrice, 3 times just at randomly throughout the playthrough, oddly more times than the "janky" K&L1.

All of that being said, as an experience, its a guilty pleasure that just clicks if you can stomach the shaky cam, the visual effects gimmicks and the overall aesthetic. Especially when you get the LMG and it really just felt like sensory overload with the muzzle flash and the loud ass gunfire, having to have a turrent section to take down those within the building and also other helis trying to screw you over, that shit hits. the violence just feels raw thanks to the pixelated censorship (again when it works, its bipolar on whether or not it'll activate) just makes it feel a bit more disturbing in that aspect because what you can picture in your head is a lot worse than just a simple entry/exit headshot wound.

As a game, its a frustrating mess that's slightly* better than its predecessor in some areas, almost if not bordering on a competent third person shooter but a helluva lot worse in others.

The game is at least worth one shot if you're a fan of spider-man.

There's a good chunk of variety in suits, including suits from most of the spider-man movies, from 2010's "Amazing spider-man" duology to Kino like Raimi's Spider-man trilogy to of course the MCU costumes from 2016-recently updated No way home suits in the PC version. and other additions like the Toku-inspired Spidey suit, Spider-punk, Negative Spider-Suit, cel-shaded comic book-esque spidey, etc. Including being able to add in mods on the PC version, there's going to be an endless amount of variety to choose from, and you can choose your own "Suit ability" which ranges from increased damage, bulletproof, reflecting bullets, being able to regenerate your combat meter which can be used for health by pressing down on the D pad or whatever key you've binded to, or can use it to use instant takedowns.

The Swinging does feel great albeit far more simple than expected, i thought it would be a shit ton of combinations to swing around New york but, it just seems right trigger to run and swing, Dualshock's X or A depending on the controller to shoot little webs to move yourself forward or dust yourself off and boost yourself upwards when you fumble to the ground, and maybe RT and LT to leap into edges of buildings, or miscellaneous things on rooftops like water tanks. and you can do cools spins and rolls by holding onto Square or Xbox's X button after you level up a little bit. and the charge jump is back (though you need to unlock it) so you can easily to swing back into action. Im satisfied of what they come up with, especially animations but there's a lot more room for improvement in terms of button placement, especially when it comes to parkour or what movements you can pull off by swinging.

Leveling up is a breeze, almost too generous even with one of the suit mods granting you extra XP before even doing the final mission, to the point of having 4 left over skill points after maxing out all of the skill trees. Only thing to worry about if ever is the other miscellaneous things like research points, challenge tokens, base tokens, Backpack tokens, crime tokens and landmark tokens to buy new suits (except the movie ones and other additional ones come with this version) and gadgets to help along the way. and Even that's easy to do via roaming around the city and pick off bases here and there in wave arena styled fights against enemies, doing side missions, taking photos of landmarks, etc.

Just wish that tedious ass things weren't there, tedious shit that you likely have heard of (the eternal MJ and Miles "stealth" sections) or things like Sable's soldiers at the later half just wind up being so damn annoying, particularly those with the jetpacks and those who just deplete your health in nanoseconds with guns or laser rifles. Had gotten me to use the damn bulletproof suit ability because of how annoying it is, like i never died during any of the major boss fights yet i fucking die constantly to those. or those enemies with whiplashes where they can catch you mid air and slam your ass into the ground while everyone else is shooting you, leaving no chance to dodge and ruining your combat flow more than the jetpack sable mercenary goons.

The other usual shit that's usually in modern open worlds like collectibles or "ubisoft towers" (just like the name implies, towers that are required to uncover the map fully, infamous on being mediocre ubisoft open worlds) dont feel as boring or mind-numbingly dull as i would've initially thought thanks to the swinging mechanics but i can definitely live without them.

The story starts strong but then it does take a while to start up again but damn when it hits by the 2nd half, it goes full speed ahead. You'd know what's gonna happen if you've seen a spider-man story before, be it movies or comics so there's no surprises here but the execution is genuinely good, Puts the first 2 MCU spider-man solo films to shame just on the fact that they take shit seriously and not taking the piss. Particularly when it comes to peter's identity, where here its treated more emotionally vs with those films its just played up for laughs and makes peter look so fucken incompetent.

Its emotional, well acted enough to where it didn't make me go "wtf that's cheesy" (well main story anyways, i know about the screwball broad and i really didn't like her like many reviewers) and its intense, especially when (without spoiling it) the city goes to shit and its total chaos and you have to stop it. You go from maybe stopping a few criminals in car chases and robberies and drug deals to full blown riots and snipers everywhere NONSTOP. and when i say nonstop, i mean getting this close to another campaign mission marker then hearing another NYPD dispatch and going "Aw fuck, not again".

The boss fights were actually piss easy like I've said before, didn't die once during a boss fight and i almost did with the shocker and that's mainly due to me figuring out how to dodge properly, but after that, it was almost embarrassingly easy.

Same with the combat for the most part (except those damn laser beaming/whip lashing bastards that deplete your health before you can even blink) I found myself getting 100x combos with a generous window even with the usual goons, goons with guns and big grunts compared to the arkham series where the momentum and the combo meter is just gone in the second you slow down. and just like the swinging i thought you can be able to pull off more moves other than the usual punching, webbing enemies up, swing em around, etc., makes me miss some web of shadows type shit where you can just straight up surf on a dude, Maybe when Spider-Man 2 (Insomniac) comes with peter getting the inevitable Venom/symbiote suit, there's gonna be some gnarly combos. but its serviceable here.

Overall, There's nothing completely egregious about this game, its good but it can be better. Helps that i play it on PC, running buttery smooth on my rig for the most part at 60fps, making the combat helluva lot more responsive. Would've said this is serviceable and gave it a 3 and a half stars but The story, the animations, the lived in world where there's more NPCs here than there are in certain open worlds nowadays and Graphics bump it up to a 4. One of the better "modern" Sony (PS4/PS5 era) exclusives atm.

A good ass open world zombie survival horror that's one of its only faults is the story where i could care less about the characters.

Everything else including the parkour is great (tho you cant wallrun and most of the moves are locked behind a skill tree), i felt the climbing sections could be a pain in the ass and techland definitely knows you gonna try to cheese through em with the grappling hook, so in certain sections your guys "too exhausted" to use it.

if you played dead island the combat should definitely feel familiar to ya, except these weapons arent invincible and can easily break on you and you gotta repair them, except certain weapons like the guns or the dlc weapons like the chainsaw.

but by the time you repair em, you can easily get enough money/resources to buy a new weapon or craft one, especially with the added dlc. Which can definitely make the game piss easy by the end thanks to all the rifles and other weapons you can make with the permanent dlc blueprints you have in your inventory.

That aside, this is still a great ass experience, only hampered by story, and fucking connection issues that caused me to disconnect my friends session in coop. and the mouse cursor in the menu is fucked but you can make it better via mouse sensitivity.

This is my first game i wanted to play when i got a trial on game pass on pc, and its definitely a good ass game to start on, albeit some levels are genuinely bullshit (without spoiling, its basically those who ONE HIT YOU and it kinda fucks with the flow of the rest of the game)

Stories simple enough, you done get rescued by a drone in order to prevent a hostile criminal takeover by your former crew, but while i can predict one plot point, the ending and some levels were so bizarre and out of left field, i just ran with it. plenty of different enemies, references and scenarios like a b action movie you'd see on a shelf on blockbuster (or these days scrolling through netflix)

but yeah the combat for a beat em up is slick as hell and easy to pull off but hard to master seeing as how you slowly fill up the skill tree, pull off some john wick shit with not only hand to hand but also gun fu executions, be doing body slams, smash bastards heads into walls, suplexes, some martial arts shit and later on you'll get a revolver with different types of ammo and a rope to straight up pull em towards you. when you pull off this shit it makes you feel like a badass. only issue is, those one hit kill fuckers will interrupt your flow into a screeching halt. but yea other than that, the combat is so satisfying and the dev knew it because you can save the "highlight" of the level (basically hitting a combo or execution) as a gif on your PC to share online.

Overall, don't miss this game, especially on game pass, only 4gbs and mainly made by one dude whose a polish father, basically wind up making a more memorable experience than AAA titles as of late.

There is a reason why this is looked back on with rose tinted nostalgia glasses, this is arguably the PEAK of Need for speed.

Now lets get the negatives out the way, The drag races definitely do suck ass with the way traffic goes in front of you and its a tedious as hell trial and error process, its definitely the worst one of the 6 racing modes (Circuit, Sprint, Speedtrap, tollbooth, lap knockout and drag). it is definitely a slog to go through the blacklist requirements in order to beat each member, having to have increased amount of races won and milestones and bounty (the last one is easy just destroy shit in your path including police in pursuits). its customization is disappointing in the fact that its less expanded from the underground games. its open world is kinda pointless when you can just fast travel everywhere including into pursuits.

but other than those? it is definitely one of the best racing games, the cop chases are intense as all hell and you have to be on your toes in order to outrun and outsmart them. the driving and tuning options are A+ tier, most of the races are fun, the campaign might be cheesy but its played itself as a homage to a B car action movie in the 2000s in a good way (albiet dont expect much other than a handful of cutscenes and phone calls), and the final pursuit is the most intense shit ive seen in a racing game and nothing has topped it since.

Only sad thing is in order to play this you gotta download it off the internet since its abandonware and also download MW redux while you're at it because i was SHOCKED when i first booted it up and it looked awful and low res and its in 4:9 ratio, its horrendous, especially for my computer. but its definitely worth a playthrough, even with its faults.

It was boring as fuck at the start shooting the cog robots, a miserable slog during the underground sections and having to have horde modes with the fabricator in the campaign

but when the mech suits and certain old characters show up i actually had fun, that and the windflares which they show up a lot but there's a lot of intensity there. i don't mind the new characters but they're just.. there, and in comparison to OG gears they're written like its a saturday morning cartoon where i could give less of a shit about any of em. and i gave em a fair shot but nah, just aint doing it for me. and the fucking enemies, including the grenade fuckers are tedious as hell to fight. and guess what, we get another brumak boss fight but this time its worse because you got these discount glowing locusts on your ass while trying to shoot the glowing bits.

the only reason why i aint giving this a 2/5 in spite of being miserable is that its a functioning TPS that runs well on my pc, especially for a game thats exclusive to the microsoft store where i feared the worst. otherwise its a forgettable experience until the end sections where i was actually having fun with the (albiet easy) boss fight.

(Future Edit: Capcom has since removed GFWL entirely from RE5 with no need for a fan patch now, so my ratings changed to a 4 out of 5.)

Original Review: Was gonna be 4 stars but the damn bugs where enemies get stuck in one place were frequently annoying, Also this may sound like a crutch, but this is worth more playing co-op than solo. and Games for Windows Live is still on it and you gotta patch it out with a fan patch, otherwise its unplayable on steam. (Thanks Capcom.)

Idk if its the pc version but often i see bugs like enemies get stuck on walls (especially worse/more apparent in the lost nightmare dlc) or fuck up and shoot rockets and blow themselves up. and a really bad bug where it automatically kicks out the coop partner in one of the last acts of the final chapter.

Otherwise, RE5 runs like butter, graphics aged well for 2009, the story and characters (new and returning favorites) do have their charm, gameplay is fun and intense with the enemies wind up being tougher overtime. Going from a shit ton of zombies (including those throwing goddamn dynamite) you gotta make sure they're dead by stomping on 'em, every so often you'll get a zombie wind up having tentacles shooting out of its head and will screw you up until you kill it, and eventually armored zombies that'll shoot back so you gotta shoot 'em in the legs. Wind up becoming Gears of War-Lite with the cover system but not as fluid because of the RE controls which while i got used to 'em, they're not fit for that type of third person cover shooter combat. Most of the bosses are easy except the second to last level where they have some bosses like 2 minigun dudes can be bullshit. QTEs definitely get more hectic as time goes on, especially with the chases, which can be doable but then sometimes, just sometimes, they'll be bullshit, especially if you or your partner fucks up. and your weapon progression and upgrades, while rewarding (example: if you upgrade the main shotgun you get early in the game, you get to buy a powerful triple barrel shotgun), i can see why people might think of it as "grindy" to get all the weapons maxed out to get the hidden weapons.

The Lost in Nightmares DLC was short but sweet throwback to the spencer mansion and does tie into the main game (albeit very, very briefly) except the aforementioned bug where the bastards get stuck in the walls which kinda killed the momentum to a screeching halt.

RE5 is worth checking out, but its definitely more designed for coop oriented play in mind than solo.