Fallout 1's age is hard to overlook. I couldn't even start the game at first and then once I got the game running in compatibility mode, selecting my monitor resolution would instantly crash the game. I won't blame the original devs for this, but I will criticize the now Microsoft owned Bethesda for marketing and selling a game in this state.

Luckily, there exists a mod that ports the entirety of Fallout 1 into 2, which I used for my playthrough. It includes a number of quality of life features, like having more than 10 save slots and easier inventory management. The ui is still not very intuitive and also fairly clunky, but you can get used to it, even though some elements must've already been confusing in 1997.

Fallout 1 shines when exploring the world. Everything feels cohesive, there's simply a great sense of place and realism. The wasteland feels brutal and the game mechanics emphasize that, although it certainly takes some getting used to. While the Bethesda games are always build so that a player going into the exact opposite direction of the main quest will stumble upon something interesting, players venturing into the wrong direction at the start of Fallout 1 will most likely be instakilled by a random encounter with super mutants.

Even later on and equipped with better gear, a single critical hit can instantly kill the player character. It's annoying, sure, but it also makes the world believable. The lack of quest direction works similarly: it's confusing when compared to later games, but then again, why would anyone know where to find a working water chip in a radioactive desert? The only time I was actually disappointed by the game's logic was when I encountered a second time limit, which unlike the earlier water chip deadline was hidden from the player.

While I did immensely enjoy the writing, characters, story, and possible quest outcomes, I found the combat pretty boring. It's turn based, but positioning is pretty much irrelevant since everyone uses ranged weapons anyway and there's no cover. All players can do is shoot at enemies and occasionally reload or use a stim pack. Other turn based RPGs offer deep mechanics and choices while Fallout 1's combat only made me wish for a speed up option.

All in all, playing through Fallout 1 was still a worthwhile experience. I don't think that I'll ever play it again, but getting to play it myself and finally see where the whole franchise started was great. Hopefully Bethesda will eventually release a version with better compatibility with modern systems, so others can experience the game without having to install mandatory mods.

The Xbox One's focus on TV over classical video games is widely accepted as one of the key factors that cost Microsofts the last console generation. Quantum Break almost feels like the embodiment of every weird idea Microsoft executives came up prior to the console's launch: It's a third-person-shooter that periodically interrupts its gameplay with TV show episodes detailing what the story's villains were up to.

In my opinion, the concept doesn't even sound that good on paper, and the execution is severely flawed. The live-action parts barely hide the lack of budget, with scenes often taking place in hallways, stairwells, and warehouses. The first episode is the worst offender in that regard, presenting the viewer with boring locations and offensively uncharismatic characters. Later episodes improve somewhat and the high profile actors manage to deliver on the acting side of things, but that doesn't change the fact that I only continued watching because the game expected me to.

Weirdly enough, the ingame parts look way better than the TV show. Setpieces are bigger and even lighting is improved. The TV show parts feel claustrophobic and held back in comparison. The game also already has a lot of slower paced narrative segments in its ingame parts, with lots of slow walking while listening to exposition and rooms upon rooms filled with text, video, and audio collectibles.

Unfortunately, Quantum Break doesn't manage to use all those narrative tools to create a compelling story. Things are happening, but between all the clichés and tropes (an evil corporation secretly plotting and taking over a city, never heard that one before) it's hard to find a reason to actually care about what's going on. Even worse, a lot of plot points have appeared in movies like Back to the Future or Terminator before, but where handled much better. Plus, the atmosphere is not nearly as thick as in other Remedy titles.

That leaves us with the actual gameplay. Puzzles are even easier than those in Life is Strange, consisting mainly of holding down a button or following a yellow cable. Platforming feels terrible. Jack will try to climb pretty much anything when you press the corresponding button, I'll give him credit for that, but a lot of the time he gets stuck on environmental objects or fails jumps necessary to progress.

Fortunately, combat is pretty fun. Jack doesn't have a lot of health, so relying on his powers is necessary to win. Those supernatural powers are all very loosely related to time (it's not a bomb or shield, it's time bomb and time shield) and feel powerful, especially when used against standard enemies. Mechanics never get too complex, but they don't need to for such a short game. There's very heavy auto aim, and since the game is clearly optimized for a controller, I'd recommend using one.

With the good and bad mentioned, that leaves us with the ugly: the game is not in a state that I would consider polished. The Windows Store version never received the latest updates, and even the patched Steam version still has major animation bugs. Reload animations dont even remove the magazine, and weapons teleport in and out of hands in cutscenes. Annoyingly, the final boss fight is an incomprehensible mess that covers everything in effects and even focuses the camera on areas players should run away from (making you run towards the screen).

By default, the game also uses horrible upscaling, rendering at two thirds of the display resolution with terrible results. While upscaling can be disabled in the settings, many of the other heavily featured post processing effect are mandatory, meaning the game often looks worse than it would without. Colors are washed out and greyish, it's just not pleasant to look at. The streaming quality of the cutscenes is also debatable. Aiming for streaming in a high resolution is great, but the stream starts buffering even on fast connections, with no option to download the TV show episodes. I also wonder how long the servers for this game will remain online - in a worst case scenario, half of the product will be missing in a couple of years.

Out of all the Remedy games I've played, Quantum Break was clearly the worst, and I doubt it'll ever get the sequel its ending set up. There's still Remedy DNA in here, but I have a hard time recommending the game over the studios' other works or other third-person-shooters like Max Payne 3 or Uncharted.

The original version of the first Uncharted game was the first game I ever played on my PS3, back in 2017. I was fairly late to the party, having only played PC games before finally got a PS3 to check out all the exclusives I kept hearing about. As a fan of Indiana Jones and Tomb Raider, Uncharted was the natural starting point.

I'd love to say that I instantly fell in love with the series - except I didn't. I was under the impression that I'd get to experience a globe trotting adventure, but the game mostly took place on a single island with repetitive environments. The jungle Drake traversed didn't even look that great, didn't this come out the same year as the first Crysis?! The game's atrocious performance didn't help it's case either.

In hindsight, I was perhaps too harsh on the game. Knowing more about the PS3's particular architecture, I can now recognize Uncharted as the impressive game that it was. It's also a noticeable step towards the cinematic presentation Naughty Dog games are known for today, although still fairly reliant on video game tropes.

That's not to say the writing is bad, the opposite is the case. All three leads feel like fully formed characters, and none of them are stereotypically "good guys". Elena suprised me again and again on my second playthrough, for example when she remarked that she wishes she had her camera with her after finding the body of an impaled soldier. She even pushes Drake to continue the hunt for the treasure when he's about to give up, a very welcome reversal of the role women often have in these adventure stories.

The story is campy at times, which I quite enjoyed. Some plot points border on the supernatural, and I wish the insanity of fighting off zombie-like creatures with Nazi machine guns had carried on into some of the later sequels. I'm genuinely suprised the game still carries a Teen rating considering some of the content in the game.

Combat is much more enjoyable in this remastered version, mainly because of the jump to a more stable 60 fps (the original often struggled with reaching 30). It's perhaps not as polished as Gears of Wars' combat loop was on the competing 360, but still a lot of fun. Guns feel powerful, especially the shotgun and Desert Eagle. Both send enemies flying backwards in a hilariously over the top fashion. Melee combat feels underdeveloped in comparison, but is thankfully optional.

It is worth mentioning that Uncharted can be a pretty brutal game at times. I opted for the second lowest difficulty ("easy") and found the challenge mostly enjoyable, but I can imagine that on normal or higher, things look different. Enemies with laser targeting always kill in a single hit, and enemies carrying a grenade launcher also occasionally one shot me.

Climbing, the other half of the core gameplay, is fairly simplistic and linear. Some of the climbable ledges can be a bit hard to spot due to the heightened detail of the remaster, but it's almost impossible to get stuck due to the hint system. Nate's jump distance seems to vary depending on the set piece and it often feels like he's dragged towards ledges during jumps, making it occasionally difficult to judge whether he can reach certain spots. I've also had the game bug out on me at one point, with Nate repeatedly not grabbing a ledge.

Boosts in resolution and frame rate aside, the most obvious improvements of the remaster have to be the reworked environments. There are more plants, making the jungle seem more densely grown, and textures see resolution boosts. As for the negatives, the game's lighting is often flat, especially noticeable in cutscenes. Faces often lack self-shadows and seem almost waxen at times. The game does certainly look better when compared to the original, but it's far removed from from the likes of Uncharted 4.

All in all, I've had a fun time with this remastered version. The game is fairly short and the writing and shooting mechanics kept me engaged throughout. At the same time, the series has come a long way and the novelty the game had in 2007 has worn off over time, making its flaws more visible.