"The Worst Party Game I've Ever Played"
I mean what is there to say about this heap of junk? There is no coherent story, annoying "Rabbid" characters being introduced, subpar visuals, a weak soundtrack of licensed songs, and horrible minigames all squished together into a disgusting mess of a game. The minigames are cheap and demand repetitive inputs that are irritating and work half of the time. The dumbest thing this game includes is an outfit for Rayman that makes him "gangsta" - pretty much overt racism at this point after the hijinks of "Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc".
This is one of the worst games I have ever played, and absolutely the worst party game/minigame game I've touched. I do Not Recommend it at all - stay the **** away from this!
Final Verdict: 1/10 (Terrible)
I mean what is there to say about this heap of junk? There is no coherent story, annoying "Rabbid" characters being introduced, subpar visuals, a weak soundtrack of licensed songs, and horrible minigames all squished together into a disgusting mess of a game. The minigames are cheap and demand repetitive inputs that are irritating and work half of the time. The dumbest thing this game includes is an outfit for Rayman that makes him "gangsta" - pretty much overt racism at this point after the hijinks of "Rayman 3: Hoodlum Havoc".
This is one of the worst games I have ever played, and absolutely the worst party game/minigame game I've touched. I do Not Recommend it at all - stay the **** away from this!
Final Verdict: 1/10 (Terrible)
"A Treasure To Play"
A legendary collection of one of the greatest platforming series ever made, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove provides memorable, engaging gameplay for a discounted price. I've done minor reviews of the titles included separately, so check those out if you're interested!
Overall, this collection is an absolute steal and easily one of the best money can buy. You owe it to yourself to check out this series, as it's a refreshing look into the platforming genre which oozes with humor, charm, and love throughout! I can easily Recommend it as it's one of the best platforming series around!
Overall Final Verdict: 9/10
A legendary collection of one of the greatest platforming series ever made, Shovel Knight: Treasure Trove provides memorable, engaging gameplay for a discounted price. I've done minor reviews of the titles included separately, so check those out if you're interested!
Overall, this collection is an absolute steal and easily one of the best money can buy. You owe it to yourself to check out this series, as it's a refreshing look into the platforming genre which oozes with humor, charm, and love throughout! I can easily Recommend it as it's one of the best platforming series around!
Overall Final Verdict: 9/10
2019
“Just A Mediocre Biker Zombie Drama”
You might be wondering if the title of this review is sarcasm. It’s not. “Days Gone” manages to take a relatively interesting mashup of settings and make it a dull, repetitive, uninspired mess. Its visuals and sound design are no doubt impressive, and it has some serviceable gunplay to boot, but it comes up way too short with its story, characters, open world, mission structure, and gameplay loop. What could have been a neat new IP for Sony ended up in a canceled franchise, and while some may consider the foundation to be promising for a sequel, I can see why Sony currently sees little in the IP’s future value.
The game looks great, as most Sony first-party games tend to look. The audio design is also really well done in general, which is pretty nice since not all of Sony’s first-party games contain good sound. The UI is clean, the menus are crisp, and everything handles well enough - no clunky UI to be found. Everything about this games’ presentation is great - unfortunately, it is by far its greatest strength. When it comes down to gameplay, that’s when things become much more of a mixed bag…
Mechanically, the game is fine with its core actions. The shooting is solid and has a nice chunkiness behind it (the nice audio design helps to do wonders for shots having that “impact” feeling). Driving around in the motorcycle feels good, and I enjoyed the weighty nature of it. Crafting is pretty simple and doesn't require too much thought. Healing is similar though it can be performed without breaking away from the in-game action. These things are very nice, but the problems with “Days Gone” start to arise with the mission structure and world design in which you carry out these game mechanics. Let’s just say that it’s to the point of “ad nauseam”...
The story mission design of “Days Gone” is disappointing. A lot of them involve just talking to a character or NPC and killing a few enemies/zombies in an encampment. Occasionally there will be a minor set piece like blowing up a dam or fighting some people while riding your motorcycle, but the player’s involvement is stripped back immensely (cannot get off of your bike, can only provide sniper cover while someone else plants explosives). Additionally, most missions fail to deviate from the “kill X amount of enemies and talk to NPC” trope, which makes them feel really, really repetitive. These are MAIN STORY missions, meaning there’s even more garbage that's a part of this game’s awful open-world side content and mission structure.
The side missions are generally repetitive and don’t give real weight to the world. They are mostly mundane quests involving rescuing kidnapped camp members, hunting down dangerous murderers, or finding some equipment to help solve a camp problem. They’re delivered via radio calls, but you still have to go to specific camps to gain more information about them. Why can’t the camp members just tell you on the radio?! You end up spending gas (and time) accepting the missions, only for them to be the same repetitive slogs as before. The open-world content isn’t much better. You “liberate” a few different camps like in various Ubisoft open-world games, and then can restock ammo there while uncovering new activities in the map. These are just simple collectibles, horde/nest locations, or small collectibles that feel like filler. However, if you choose not to do them, the story missions and main side missions don’t give enough to you so you feel strong in any sense. Plus, you can’t afford to buy certain guns in camps, making progression feel like a slog. It’s a huge mess, and ties deeper into the game’s obsession with being an open-world experience despite not being fine-tuned to deliver a world that is engaging or immersive.
This game has a really strange sense of detail as well. On one hand, the dynamic weather effects, crunchy audio detail, and customizable bike parts are impressive. On the other hand, the amount of nameless and bland NPC’s, almost nonexistent weapon customization, and barren towns/cities are shocking. It doesn’t seem to be committed to anything, and instead feels like a bunch of concepts and details were flung around haphazardly without much care at all. The same is said for the various plotlines: some will be more dramatic than others yet lack storytelling quality, while others are complete wastes of time gameplay wise but contain some pivotal information for the story. It’s nuts! This game’s troubled development shows its various ways throughout its game world, but there’s one area it shows the most confusion in its consistency - its characters.
As the main character, Deacon St. John is a complete mess. He’s arrogant, selfish, a bit stupid, and “kind” of a raging sociopath. While the game tries to paint him as a product of a troubled background and the apocalypse, he comes off less endearing and more…unlikeable. He stumbles throughout the plot angrily muttering to himself constantly, he lacks social awareness in so many cases, and he consistently antagonizes other people and deflects criticism. The game pushes so hard for you to like and understand him and his decisions, but he never really goes through a proper arc himself. The same can be said for his wife, Sarah, who is constantly paraded around as his “pride and joy”, yet I never really bought their relationship to be anything close to believable. She’s a fairly empty character, and their relationship is exceptionally forced throughout the 30+ hour story. All of the games’ characters continue this flawed pattern, and none of them end up having a quality arc (Boozer, Skizzo, Iron Mike, Rikki, Corporal Garret, etc.). The game presents these one or two-dimensional characters, and never really explores much about their personalities or backgrounds. It’s generally a few sentences and that’s it, with the rest being focused on their interactions with Deacon. This would be fine if their interactions were written well, but they aren’t. I can’t buy that they are friends/partners in many moments, and I don’t buy that they have an established relationship most of the time. This was my biggest issue with the game - the lazy, predictable plot and its bone-dry characterization.
So why does this game not warrant a sequel when its sales numbers were generally solid? Why does Sony lack faith in its studio despite fans seemingly loving the game, compared to the poor reception from critics? I think the design of the game as a whole explains a lot. “Days Gone” has little focus on establishing its story and characters, expanding its gameplay loop, and creating an engaging world to embark in. While it attempted to be ambitious in all three, it instead wasted many years and likely large amounts of money on concepts for the game that were eventually scrapped. For a new IP in Sony’s hands, this likely did not bode well when there are series like “Horizon”, “God of War”, and even “Uncharted” in their back pocket (despite the supposed “end” of the latter series). Something must have happened where Sony executives found little faith in a sequel, and while it is a “bit” disappointing, I think by playing through this game I have come to understand the reasons.
When the credits finally rolled, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, it was over. I ran through the world trying to do every activity on the map afterwards, hoping that I would finally find some satisfaction in the endgame content, and it just wasn’t enough to propel this game into a positive light. It’s an oversaturated pile of every open-world cliche that has been built up over the years, and it presents yet another frustratingly poor story into the sea of writing mediocrity that the gaming industry has. I would Not Recommend this game if you are not a fan of open-world games - it won’t change your mind one bit about them. However, if you enjoy open-world games, this one is still a tough sell since its gameplay loop becomes stale after a few dozen hours, its story is terribly written, and it lacks a real soul beneath its pretty surface.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
You might be wondering if the title of this review is sarcasm. It’s not. “Days Gone” manages to take a relatively interesting mashup of settings and make it a dull, repetitive, uninspired mess. Its visuals and sound design are no doubt impressive, and it has some serviceable gunplay to boot, but it comes up way too short with its story, characters, open world, mission structure, and gameplay loop. What could have been a neat new IP for Sony ended up in a canceled franchise, and while some may consider the foundation to be promising for a sequel, I can see why Sony currently sees little in the IP’s future value.
The game looks great, as most Sony first-party games tend to look. The audio design is also really well done in general, which is pretty nice since not all of Sony’s first-party games contain good sound. The UI is clean, the menus are crisp, and everything handles well enough - no clunky UI to be found. Everything about this games’ presentation is great - unfortunately, it is by far its greatest strength. When it comes down to gameplay, that’s when things become much more of a mixed bag…
Mechanically, the game is fine with its core actions. The shooting is solid and has a nice chunkiness behind it (the nice audio design helps to do wonders for shots having that “impact” feeling). Driving around in the motorcycle feels good, and I enjoyed the weighty nature of it. Crafting is pretty simple and doesn't require too much thought. Healing is similar though it can be performed without breaking away from the in-game action. These things are very nice, but the problems with “Days Gone” start to arise with the mission structure and world design in which you carry out these game mechanics. Let’s just say that it’s to the point of “ad nauseam”...
The story mission design of “Days Gone” is disappointing. A lot of them involve just talking to a character or NPC and killing a few enemies/zombies in an encampment. Occasionally there will be a minor set piece like blowing up a dam or fighting some people while riding your motorcycle, but the player’s involvement is stripped back immensely (cannot get off of your bike, can only provide sniper cover while someone else plants explosives). Additionally, most missions fail to deviate from the “kill X amount of enemies and talk to NPC” trope, which makes them feel really, really repetitive. These are MAIN STORY missions, meaning there’s even more garbage that's a part of this game’s awful open-world side content and mission structure.
The side missions are generally repetitive and don’t give real weight to the world. They are mostly mundane quests involving rescuing kidnapped camp members, hunting down dangerous murderers, or finding some equipment to help solve a camp problem. They’re delivered via radio calls, but you still have to go to specific camps to gain more information about them. Why can’t the camp members just tell you on the radio?! You end up spending gas (and time) accepting the missions, only for them to be the same repetitive slogs as before. The open-world content isn’t much better. You “liberate” a few different camps like in various Ubisoft open-world games, and then can restock ammo there while uncovering new activities in the map. These are just simple collectibles, horde/nest locations, or small collectibles that feel like filler. However, if you choose not to do them, the story missions and main side missions don’t give enough to you so you feel strong in any sense. Plus, you can’t afford to buy certain guns in camps, making progression feel like a slog. It’s a huge mess, and ties deeper into the game’s obsession with being an open-world experience despite not being fine-tuned to deliver a world that is engaging or immersive.
This game has a really strange sense of detail as well. On one hand, the dynamic weather effects, crunchy audio detail, and customizable bike parts are impressive. On the other hand, the amount of nameless and bland NPC’s, almost nonexistent weapon customization, and barren towns/cities are shocking. It doesn’t seem to be committed to anything, and instead feels like a bunch of concepts and details were flung around haphazardly without much care at all. The same is said for the various plotlines: some will be more dramatic than others yet lack storytelling quality, while others are complete wastes of time gameplay wise but contain some pivotal information for the story. It’s nuts! This game’s troubled development shows its various ways throughout its game world, but there’s one area it shows the most confusion in its consistency - its characters.
As the main character, Deacon St. John is a complete mess. He’s arrogant, selfish, a bit stupid, and “kind” of a raging sociopath. While the game tries to paint him as a product of a troubled background and the apocalypse, he comes off less endearing and more…unlikeable. He stumbles throughout the plot angrily muttering to himself constantly, he lacks social awareness in so many cases, and he consistently antagonizes other people and deflects criticism. The game pushes so hard for you to like and understand him and his decisions, but he never really goes through a proper arc himself. The same can be said for his wife, Sarah, who is constantly paraded around as his “pride and joy”, yet I never really bought their relationship to be anything close to believable. She’s a fairly empty character, and their relationship is exceptionally forced throughout the 30+ hour story. All of the games’ characters continue this flawed pattern, and none of them end up having a quality arc (Boozer, Skizzo, Iron Mike, Rikki, Corporal Garret, etc.). The game presents these one or two-dimensional characters, and never really explores much about their personalities or backgrounds. It’s generally a few sentences and that’s it, with the rest being focused on their interactions with Deacon. This would be fine if their interactions were written well, but they aren’t. I can’t buy that they are friends/partners in many moments, and I don’t buy that they have an established relationship most of the time. This was my biggest issue with the game - the lazy, predictable plot and its bone-dry characterization.
So why does this game not warrant a sequel when its sales numbers were generally solid? Why does Sony lack faith in its studio despite fans seemingly loving the game, compared to the poor reception from critics? I think the design of the game as a whole explains a lot. “Days Gone” has little focus on establishing its story and characters, expanding its gameplay loop, and creating an engaging world to embark in. While it attempted to be ambitious in all three, it instead wasted many years and likely large amounts of money on concepts for the game that were eventually scrapped. For a new IP in Sony’s hands, this likely did not bode well when there are series like “Horizon”, “God of War”, and even “Uncharted” in their back pocket (despite the supposed “end” of the latter series). Something must have happened where Sony executives found little faith in a sequel, and while it is a “bit” disappointing, I think by playing through this game I have come to understand the reasons.
When the credits finally rolled, I breathed a sigh of relief. Finally, it was over. I ran through the world trying to do every activity on the map afterwards, hoping that I would finally find some satisfaction in the endgame content, and it just wasn’t enough to propel this game into a positive light. It’s an oversaturated pile of every open-world cliche that has been built up over the years, and it presents yet another frustratingly poor story into the sea of writing mediocrity that the gaming industry has. I would Not Recommend this game if you are not a fan of open-world games - it won’t change your mind one bit about them. However, if you enjoy open-world games, this one is still a tough sell since its gameplay loop becomes stale after a few dozen hours, its story is terribly written, and it lacks a real soul beneath its pretty surface.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
'A De-"light"-ful Metroidvania (Sorry, Had To Do It)'
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition was a surprisingly enjoyable platformer! I had tried this title out in the past and had lost due to insert stupid reason not to play this magnificent title, and figured I owed the game another chance. Boy, am I happy I decided to do that!
The first things that a player will notice are the exceptional relationship between Ori's visual style and soundtrack. The unique environmental details which showcase both places of intense warmth/light and cold/darkness are compounded by some astounding parallax in the background to create a truly awe-inspiring image, one which is very easy on the eyes. The score is beautiful and tranquil with some very solid ambient tracks alongside some bombastic and powerful pieces of sonic bliss (oh yeah, this soundtrack is GOOD). These elements combine to create a part of some of Blind Forest's best moments, and yet this game decided to also have a story AND gameplay to boot as well. I felt so spoiled playing this one!
The story in Blind Forest is actually pretty solid. The characters are simple in design, but they retain some key features that can give insight as to who they might have been before the events of the game took place. The main villain is menacing and unlikable in many ways, but the writers manage to make her pain relatable and understandable by the end of the title. There isn't any normally spoken dialogue (that is, not in any decipherable language), but it is delivered gracefully and added to the mysticism of the world Ori traverses.
Gameplay-wise, this title nearly perfects what it is aiming to achieve. Maneuvering in the world with Ori feels very responsive, and the fact that the world is designed in such a way where there is nothing that seems "blocky" or "inorganic" is very impressive. It feels like you are actually travelling around a forest that is interconnected, which is a core mechanic of any metroidvania title. Platforming is pretty smooth and there are some very tight sequences where you use a variety of jumps, bombs, dashes, and bounces in order to fly from one location to another, and it felt awesome to play through. Puzzles and exploration are very solid as well, with collectibles testing out your skillset before you are able to collect each one. Sometimes items require certain abilities in order to collect them, other times you are required to use your already learned abilities in order to discover new ways to traverse the world. It created some moments of intrigue for myself as I attempted to unlock certain pathways or collect upgrades, and it felt rewarding to finally solve these areas of the game. However, the only areas of the title which I found to be a bit weak in these aspects are "Black Root Burrows", the escapes after collecting the second and third elements, and "Forlorn Ruins".
The problems that I have with each area listed above are straightforward and increase in frustration successively. In "Black Root Burrows", the biggest obstacle is a lack of light source in order to traverse the area. While this is the main theme of the area to begin with, I feel that as an add-on with the Definitive Edition, it shouldn't have relied on having an item that doesn't exist in the game. Thus, there are some blind jumps you are expected to make that are extremely hard to recognize. However, the escape sequences are much worse. These areas repeatedly aim for flashy, over-the-top escapes, but fail to provide proper insight as to where the player is expected to go/what they are supposed to do during each one. This wasn't a problem at all with the first escape in the "Ginso Tree", but in these areas obstacles are indecipherable from one another, and the player is expected to react almost "before" seeing each threat. This led to many more deaths on my end that I felt was reasonable, and I had to essentially memorize the entirety of each escape in order to finish them. Lastly, the gravity mechanic introduced in the "Forlorn Ruins" is a complete failure in my opinion. The path towards the end of the level is difficult to decipher, and I resorted to abusing my leveled-up health and abilities in order to reach the end rather than use the gravity mechanic itself. There are many insta-death obstacles here as well as small platforms, which only compounded with my frustration with the mechanic itself.
Besides these flawed areas, there was also an issue I had with the balance of the game with its upgrade tree. I was able to fully specialize my Ori and started to breeze through most combat and platforming challenges by the halfway point of the game, and the game felt much too easy for my tastes. Combat is already very "abstract" due to just pressing your attack button and having your helper "Sein" shoot enemies for you, but by upgrading their power you can totally melt most enemies in the span of seconds. This causes Ori to transform from a weak, vulnerable character into a ravenous god who can destroy any creature at will - not the best for what the game is trying to portray them as.
Yet despite my complaints with some locations and with the balance of the game, I consider Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition to be an absolutely excellent title. Its strong relationship between platforming, puzzles, and combat alongside its fantastic visuals and soundtrack make it a must play for indie gamers, platformer fanatics, or art connoisseurs. It is one of the best titles I have played from 2015/2016, and I can easily Recommend it as a must play platformer for the 2010's. Now go on - play the damn thing!
Final Verdict: 9/10 (Excellent)
Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition was a surprisingly enjoyable platformer! I had tried this title out in the past and had lost due to insert stupid reason not to play this magnificent title, and figured I owed the game another chance. Boy, am I happy I decided to do that!
The first things that a player will notice are the exceptional relationship between Ori's visual style and soundtrack. The unique environmental details which showcase both places of intense warmth/light and cold/darkness are compounded by some astounding parallax in the background to create a truly awe-inspiring image, one which is very easy on the eyes. The score is beautiful and tranquil with some very solid ambient tracks alongside some bombastic and powerful pieces of sonic bliss (oh yeah, this soundtrack is GOOD). These elements combine to create a part of some of Blind Forest's best moments, and yet this game decided to also have a story AND gameplay to boot as well. I felt so spoiled playing this one!
The story in Blind Forest is actually pretty solid. The characters are simple in design, but they retain some key features that can give insight as to who they might have been before the events of the game took place. The main villain is menacing and unlikable in many ways, but the writers manage to make her pain relatable and understandable by the end of the title. There isn't any normally spoken dialogue (that is, not in any decipherable language), but it is delivered gracefully and added to the mysticism of the world Ori traverses.
Gameplay-wise, this title nearly perfects what it is aiming to achieve. Maneuvering in the world with Ori feels very responsive, and the fact that the world is designed in such a way where there is nothing that seems "blocky" or "inorganic" is very impressive. It feels like you are actually travelling around a forest that is interconnected, which is a core mechanic of any metroidvania title. Platforming is pretty smooth and there are some very tight sequences where you use a variety of jumps, bombs, dashes, and bounces in order to fly from one location to another, and it felt awesome to play through. Puzzles and exploration are very solid as well, with collectibles testing out your skillset before you are able to collect each one. Sometimes items require certain abilities in order to collect them, other times you are required to use your already learned abilities in order to discover new ways to traverse the world. It created some moments of intrigue for myself as I attempted to unlock certain pathways or collect upgrades, and it felt rewarding to finally solve these areas of the game. However, the only areas of the title which I found to be a bit weak in these aspects are "Black Root Burrows", the escapes after collecting the second and third elements, and "Forlorn Ruins".
The problems that I have with each area listed above are straightforward and increase in frustration successively. In "Black Root Burrows", the biggest obstacle is a lack of light source in order to traverse the area. While this is the main theme of the area to begin with, I feel that as an add-on with the Definitive Edition, it shouldn't have relied on having an item that doesn't exist in the game. Thus, there are some blind jumps you are expected to make that are extremely hard to recognize. However, the escape sequences are much worse. These areas repeatedly aim for flashy, over-the-top escapes, but fail to provide proper insight as to where the player is expected to go/what they are supposed to do during each one. This wasn't a problem at all with the first escape in the "Ginso Tree", but in these areas obstacles are indecipherable from one another, and the player is expected to react almost "before" seeing each threat. This led to many more deaths on my end that I felt was reasonable, and I had to essentially memorize the entirety of each escape in order to finish them. Lastly, the gravity mechanic introduced in the "Forlorn Ruins" is a complete failure in my opinion. The path towards the end of the level is difficult to decipher, and I resorted to abusing my leveled-up health and abilities in order to reach the end rather than use the gravity mechanic itself. There are many insta-death obstacles here as well as small platforms, which only compounded with my frustration with the mechanic itself.
Besides these flawed areas, there was also an issue I had with the balance of the game with its upgrade tree. I was able to fully specialize my Ori and started to breeze through most combat and platforming challenges by the halfway point of the game, and the game felt much too easy for my tastes. Combat is already very "abstract" due to just pressing your attack button and having your helper "Sein" shoot enemies for you, but by upgrading their power you can totally melt most enemies in the span of seconds. This causes Ori to transform from a weak, vulnerable character into a ravenous god who can destroy any creature at will - not the best for what the game is trying to portray them as.
Yet despite my complaints with some locations and with the balance of the game, I consider Ori and the Blind Forest: Definitive Edition to be an absolutely excellent title. Its strong relationship between platforming, puzzles, and combat alongside its fantastic visuals and soundtrack make it a must play for indie gamers, platformer fanatics, or art connoisseurs. It is one of the best titles I have played from 2015/2016, and I can easily Recommend it as a must play platformer for the 2010's. Now go on - play the damn thing!
Final Verdict: 9/10 (Excellent)
This review contains spoilers
"I'm David Cage, And This Is A Racial Allegory"
This isn't the worst game I've ever played, but it has certainly pissed me off like no other game has before. The graphics are solid, the voice acting is fine, and the soundtrack is okay with its adaptation to in-game events. The controls are simple to understand for the most part, making the game traditionally "easy" to play. So why does this game irk me?
This game has the worst writing I've ever seen in the medium. Now this award was previously given to "Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy" (another David Cage stinker), but "Detroit: Become Human" manages to be tone-deaf, racist, and pretentious on top of all of the issues Cage's first game had.
The game starts innocently enough - each character is given a pretty solid opening scene, and you control them doing minor actions and interacting with other characters to get a sense of who they are and how you want your characters to act. It's a slow build-up (besides Connor's opening), but it helps you get acquainted to the controls, gameplay loop, and atmosphere.
Quantic Dreams' games tend to have an interesting atmosphere, and while this one still looks and sounds pretty, it is easily the most generic of the ones I have seen from the studio. The future is painted as incredibly bleak and bland, and it doesn't look like a unique setting rather than an amalgamation of other sci-fi futuristic settings from recently released video games. The facial motion capture is also something the studio prides itself in, and while it does look solid there are times where it reaches into the uncanny valley and feels off-putting. For android characters this may make creative sense, but the human characters should've felt a bit more real and familiar as well.
Gameplay is never Quantic Dreams' strong suit, and while some might give them a pass because they "don't focus on it", I still evaluate it on an enjoyment level regardless. This right here is an example of subpar gameplay. It feels like a stripped back adventure point-n-click game with random QTE's (or what I've heard called "DTE's", or dead-time events for when the game pauses for you to do an action). These events feel really tacky, sloppy in execution, and are presented too quickly to the point of frustration or too slowly where it causes immense pacing problems. Regardless of if they occasionally work or not, a game cannot revolve around simply playing button matching minigames and expect the player to enjoy the gameplay loop. It comes off as lazy and unoriginal and takes away from the so-called "mature" tone the game tries to sell to the player.
And thus, we get to the writing. Normally I'm pretty blunt and harsh, but I really don't think David Cage deserves that much attention. To put it simply, he's a hack. He's easily one of the worst writers to ever represent the industry, and all of his games prove his total lack of skill and nuance with narrative construction. However, "Detroit: Become Human" proves that he is willing and able to construct a story that serves as an allegory for the civil rights movement (with included themes of motherhood, self-identity, bigotry, etc.) while understanding none of what that historical (and ongoing) event stood for. Cage believes in furthering the industry in its writing quality yet doesn't proofread his own work for illogical plot holes (android errors happen regardless of memory loss or not, human characters don't actively check security systems despite giving approval for precious cargo to be stolen).
Cage doesn't even really care about representation in games, despite him showing you he wants to include multi-racial groups in his stories. He wants to use them as a tool to establish his "woke" writing style but goes ahead and de-racializes groups as well (writing an African-American woman to be the head of an android underground railroad, and having her relate it to the player character about her own peoples' black suffrage in the U.S.).
It's understandably frustrating to watch this garbage play out on your television, but even moreso to see other reviewers sit back and just take this game at face value. This is not effective writing, but that can just be seen by some as "subjective" since everyone enjoys things on different levels. But I'll go right ahead and say "Detroit: Become Human" is an objectively bad videogame because it uses the civil rights movement as window dressing for a racial allegory narrative, despite watering down the historical depth of the event and immaturely shoehorning it into a modern sci-fi "issue" that doesn't really exist yet.
I would Not Recommend this game because you should not support this type of storytelling. It tries to reduce the weight of real-life historical events (still ongoing!) in order to increase the importance of its fabricated videogame plot line.
I can't really find a good way to end this review, so I guess I'll go with "David Cage is an android constantly trying to explain real human emotions through entertainment".
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
This isn't the worst game I've ever played, but it has certainly pissed me off like no other game has before. The graphics are solid, the voice acting is fine, and the soundtrack is okay with its adaptation to in-game events. The controls are simple to understand for the most part, making the game traditionally "easy" to play. So why does this game irk me?
This game has the worst writing I've ever seen in the medium. Now this award was previously given to "Fahrenheit: Indigo Prophecy" (another David Cage stinker), but "Detroit: Become Human" manages to be tone-deaf, racist, and pretentious on top of all of the issues Cage's first game had.
The game starts innocently enough - each character is given a pretty solid opening scene, and you control them doing minor actions and interacting with other characters to get a sense of who they are and how you want your characters to act. It's a slow build-up (besides Connor's opening), but it helps you get acquainted to the controls, gameplay loop, and atmosphere.
Quantic Dreams' games tend to have an interesting atmosphere, and while this one still looks and sounds pretty, it is easily the most generic of the ones I have seen from the studio. The future is painted as incredibly bleak and bland, and it doesn't look like a unique setting rather than an amalgamation of other sci-fi futuristic settings from recently released video games. The facial motion capture is also something the studio prides itself in, and while it does look solid there are times where it reaches into the uncanny valley and feels off-putting. For android characters this may make creative sense, but the human characters should've felt a bit more real and familiar as well.
Gameplay is never Quantic Dreams' strong suit, and while some might give them a pass because they "don't focus on it", I still evaluate it on an enjoyment level regardless. This right here is an example of subpar gameplay. It feels like a stripped back adventure point-n-click game with random QTE's (or what I've heard called "DTE's", or dead-time events for when the game pauses for you to do an action). These events feel really tacky, sloppy in execution, and are presented too quickly to the point of frustration or too slowly where it causes immense pacing problems. Regardless of if they occasionally work or not, a game cannot revolve around simply playing button matching minigames and expect the player to enjoy the gameplay loop. It comes off as lazy and unoriginal and takes away from the so-called "mature" tone the game tries to sell to the player.
And thus, we get to the writing. Normally I'm pretty blunt and harsh, but I really don't think David Cage deserves that much attention. To put it simply, he's a hack. He's easily one of the worst writers to ever represent the industry, and all of his games prove his total lack of skill and nuance with narrative construction. However, "Detroit: Become Human" proves that he is willing and able to construct a story that serves as an allegory for the civil rights movement (with included themes of motherhood, self-identity, bigotry, etc.) while understanding none of what that historical (and ongoing) event stood for. Cage believes in furthering the industry in its writing quality yet doesn't proofread his own work for illogical plot holes (android errors happen regardless of memory loss or not, human characters don't actively check security systems despite giving approval for precious cargo to be stolen).
Cage doesn't even really care about representation in games, despite him showing you he wants to include multi-racial groups in his stories. He wants to use them as a tool to establish his "woke" writing style but goes ahead and de-racializes groups as well (writing an African-American woman to be the head of an android underground railroad, and having her relate it to the player character about her own peoples' black suffrage in the U.S.).
It's understandably frustrating to watch this garbage play out on your television, but even moreso to see other reviewers sit back and just take this game at face value. This is not effective writing, but that can just be seen by some as "subjective" since everyone enjoys things on different levels. But I'll go right ahead and say "Detroit: Become Human" is an objectively bad videogame because it uses the civil rights movement as window dressing for a racial allegory narrative, despite watering down the historical depth of the event and immaturely shoehorning it into a modern sci-fi "issue" that doesn't really exist yet.
I would Not Recommend this game because you should not support this type of storytelling. It tries to reduce the weight of real-life historical events (still ongoing!) in order to increase the importance of its fabricated videogame plot line.
I can't really find a good way to end this review, so I guess I'll go with "David Cage is an android constantly trying to explain real human emotions through entertainment".
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
“An Onslaught Of Mediocre Comedy”
After finding frustration with “Rayman 2: The Great Escape” and its confusing hub interface, weird level structure, and less than compelling cast of characters, I went into this third title with a bit of skepticism. I was unsure if I was really seeing much of the solid platforming of the Rayman series at this point, and instead felt like I was being bombarded with one awful design choice after another. This title definitely upped the quality of the gameplay a decent bit, but decided to force loads of awful dialogue and attempts at comedy while also having a terribly boring premise which ended up leaving me with a stagnant feeling towards the franchise as a whole.
This game made some good strides for gameplay that helped the platforming feel smoother and more dynamic. The hook shot is cleaned up here, and the combat is a bit cleaner as well allowing you to keep your momentum more often. However, it still felt underwhelming a lot of the time. The power ups that were introduced felt forced into a role where they served as ways to solve puzzles rather than allow you combat or platforming freedom. This led to these powers feeling far more restrictive than they should’ve been, and ultimately led to inconsistencies with the gameplay.
The story here is really dumb as well. You basically have to stop a hoodlum named “Andre” from taking over the world or something, yet the entire first third of the game (possibly longer because of how long it takes) you try to get him out of Globox’s stomach after he is swallowed. None of the characters are established very well, and the plot just involves Rayman and Globox traveling to different doctors in hopes of getting Andre removed. It’s really repetitive and boring, and unfortunately very bogged down by the game’s crummy humor…
This game is not funny in the slightest. There are a lot of forced one-liners that don’t land, and many visual gags that feel completely random and stupid. There’s also some weird racist humor in here, once with the Teensies in Jewish clothing dancing to suggestive music and another time with a doctor who has a very awful and offensive Asian accent. It's even in the weird phrasing of the "black Lums causing havoc" and the most evil Lum being named "Andre". Hopefully I'm not reaching too far with this stuff, but it came off in really bad taste, and if the game has to resort to random racist humor after failing to provide clever jokes, interesting writing, or funny gags, it means that it's not funny at all to me. This made not only the story insufferable to experience, but the characters insufferable as well. This was my most hated aspect of this game since it was so poorly done yet included in such a great amount.
Visually, the game is fine. There’s an impressive amount of color and the art design is cool, but the character models are super blocky and textures are lacking. It isn’t much of a visual upgrade from “Rayman 2: The Great Escape” on the surface, but it introduces some cool worlds. I just wish they would have properly connected these locations. In the previous game they were connected via a hub world, but didn’t make sense due to the varying scales and environments - here they just teleport you between worlds and call it a day, which doesn’t help with the story feeling like a “journey” at the end of the day.
Overall I just felt that this sequel took some small steps forward for its gameplay and a huge step back for its story and characters. The platforming was okay, but having to endure each character and their terrible jokes while progressing through a pretty mundane story was too much of an obstacle to my enjoyment for me to endure. I would Not Recommend playing this one unless you were already a huge fan of the previous game - in that case, you’d obviously want to continue the fun with Rayman yet again. Unfortunately for myself, I haven’t really found much fun to begin with.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Poor)
After finding frustration with “Rayman 2: The Great Escape” and its confusing hub interface, weird level structure, and less than compelling cast of characters, I went into this third title with a bit of skepticism. I was unsure if I was really seeing much of the solid platforming of the Rayman series at this point, and instead felt like I was being bombarded with one awful design choice after another. This title definitely upped the quality of the gameplay a decent bit, but decided to force loads of awful dialogue and attempts at comedy while also having a terribly boring premise which ended up leaving me with a stagnant feeling towards the franchise as a whole.
This game made some good strides for gameplay that helped the platforming feel smoother and more dynamic. The hook shot is cleaned up here, and the combat is a bit cleaner as well allowing you to keep your momentum more often. However, it still felt underwhelming a lot of the time. The power ups that were introduced felt forced into a role where they served as ways to solve puzzles rather than allow you combat or platforming freedom. This led to these powers feeling far more restrictive than they should’ve been, and ultimately led to inconsistencies with the gameplay.
The story here is really dumb as well. You basically have to stop a hoodlum named “Andre” from taking over the world or something, yet the entire first third of the game (possibly longer because of how long it takes) you try to get him out of Globox’s stomach after he is swallowed. None of the characters are established very well, and the plot just involves Rayman and Globox traveling to different doctors in hopes of getting Andre removed. It’s really repetitive and boring, and unfortunately very bogged down by the game’s crummy humor…
This game is not funny in the slightest. There are a lot of forced one-liners that don’t land, and many visual gags that feel completely random and stupid. There’s also some weird racist humor in here, once with the Teensies in Jewish clothing dancing to suggestive music and another time with a doctor who has a very awful and offensive Asian accent. It's even in the weird phrasing of the "black Lums causing havoc" and the most evil Lum being named "Andre". Hopefully I'm not reaching too far with this stuff, but it came off in really bad taste, and if the game has to resort to random racist humor after failing to provide clever jokes, interesting writing, or funny gags, it means that it's not funny at all to me. This made not only the story insufferable to experience, but the characters insufferable as well. This was my most hated aspect of this game since it was so poorly done yet included in such a great amount.
Visually, the game is fine. There’s an impressive amount of color and the art design is cool, but the character models are super blocky and textures are lacking. It isn’t much of a visual upgrade from “Rayman 2: The Great Escape” on the surface, but it introduces some cool worlds. I just wish they would have properly connected these locations. In the previous game they were connected via a hub world, but didn’t make sense due to the varying scales and environments - here they just teleport you between worlds and call it a day, which doesn’t help with the story feeling like a “journey” at the end of the day.
Overall I just felt that this sequel took some small steps forward for its gameplay and a huge step back for its story and characters. The platforming was okay, but having to endure each character and their terrible jokes while progressing through a pretty mundane story was too much of an obstacle to my enjoyment for me to endure. I would Not Recommend playing this one unless you were already a huge fan of the previous game - in that case, you’d obviously want to continue the fun with Rayman yet again. Unfortunately for myself, I haven’t really found much fun to begin with.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Poor)
2003
"Surprising Yet Standard Beginnings"
Where else to start my slow, insightful, and likely arduous quest towards playing all (or most) of this series than the original PC entry in 2003? What is now an industry staple (and a joke amongst many gamers), "Call of Duty" was a simpler and more interesting game in its day and age - despite 20 years seeming like nothing for a series with over 40 entries. What was it like going back to the original?
It was just plain decent. The graphics are a bit dated as to be expected, but there is some tech shown off that is interesting and a bit revolutionary for its time. The ability to aim down your sights was a big deal in 2003 and being a military shooter, this meant that it increased immersion. Nowadays this would go over most people's heads (hell I didn't even know this game was one of the first to really push this feature until I heard in a video and looked it up myself). You've also got some impressive directional audio for the early 2000's as well as weird quirks like your character being blinded from looking at the sun, or getting more and more out of breath when you sprint over and over. It's neat stuff but doesn't really carry the experience at all.
The shooting is decent but is somewhat different than the later games due to the ability to lean around corners. This is stressed heavily since enemies are much more difficult than a lot of other COD games, so staying mostly in cover is a good idea nine times out of ten. This leads to a slower and more methodical approach to combat, which wasn't actually that fun since I found the levels to be mostly subpar to average. The game is also brutally hard, pretty much unfair most of the time on "Hardened" difficulty or above. You die in about 2-4 direct shots in that mode which "sounds" fine on at first, but enemies almost never miss their shots and are constantly placed in positions where you wouldn't be able to react to them. The kicker is that you can't change the difficulty after starting a campaign, so I highly recommend playing on "Regular" if you want some challenge but don't want to rip your hair out.
The level design is pretty frustrating and generally revolves around tight corridors or wide-open areas with minimal cover. You get blasted often and thus require constant healing in order to avoid replaying sections repeatedly. There are some highlights like "Stalingrad" and most of the Russian campaign due to their cinematic feel and epic sense of scale, but the American and British campaigns are mostly forgettable. The worst levels involve defending an area for a specific timeframe, since enemies don't come in waves but rather instantly respawn. The worst of these was "Pavlov's House", which actually resulted in me dying about 40 times during the final two-minute defense stage. It led to so many needless deaths, and these segments dragged on while testing my patience tenfold.
Another aspect of this game that bothered me was the lack of regenerating health. It was definitely interesting to see COD without this feature, but I don't think Infinity Ward knew how to properly lay out these items in their levels most of the time. The defensive levels in particular lacked interesting counters to attacking foes, and when you ran out of health, the legit best option was to lay down and hide until reinforcements arrived. Awful stuff that I wouldn't go through again...
Despite the really bad stuff, there's a sense of charm to this game that got me to the end. The gameplay is still super simple, the character animations (especially that "crouch-run"), and the musical score kicking in during triumphant victories all added to the experience. While not as epic as the end to "World at War", I still enjoyed raising that flag in Red Square and achieving that hard fought victory for the Red Army...even though many died at the hands of wicked officers (a nice detail included in the campaign that showed the brutality of the war beyond what Nazi Germany was doing).
It's a decent game that most people won't play for many reasons. Aged graphics, simple gameplay, a nearly nonexistent story, and no characters you'll remember besides "Cpt. Price 1.0". The game is also massively overpriced by Activision on Steam at $20, which even at a discount still results in an overpay. If you can somehow find it for cheap (I'd say about $5 is the sweet spot), give it a try, but there may be other ways to try this out if you have the time and carefully research it.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
Where else to start my slow, insightful, and likely arduous quest towards playing all (or most) of this series than the original PC entry in 2003? What is now an industry staple (and a joke amongst many gamers), "Call of Duty" was a simpler and more interesting game in its day and age - despite 20 years seeming like nothing for a series with over 40 entries. What was it like going back to the original?
It was just plain decent. The graphics are a bit dated as to be expected, but there is some tech shown off that is interesting and a bit revolutionary for its time. The ability to aim down your sights was a big deal in 2003 and being a military shooter, this meant that it increased immersion. Nowadays this would go over most people's heads (hell I didn't even know this game was one of the first to really push this feature until I heard in a video and looked it up myself). You've also got some impressive directional audio for the early 2000's as well as weird quirks like your character being blinded from looking at the sun, or getting more and more out of breath when you sprint over and over. It's neat stuff but doesn't really carry the experience at all.
The shooting is decent but is somewhat different than the later games due to the ability to lean around corners. This is stressed heavily since enemies are much more difficult than a lot of other COD games, so staying mostly in cover is a good idea nine times out of ten. This leads to a slower and more methodical approach to combat, which wasn't actually that fun since I found the levels to be mostly subpar to average. The game is also brutally hard, pretty much unfair most of the time on "Hardened" difficulty or above. You die in about 2-4 direct shots in that mode which "sounds" fine on at first, but enemies almost never miss their shots and are constantly placed in positions where you wouldn't be able to react to them. The kicker is that you can't change the difficulty after starting a campaign, so I highly recommend playing on "Regular" if you want some challenge but don't want to rip your hair out.
The level design is pretty frustrating and generally revolves around tight corridors or wide-open areas with minimal cover. You get blasted often and thus require constant healing in order to avoid replaying sections repeatedly. There are some highlights like "Stalingrad" and most of the Russian campaign due to their cinematic feel and epic sense of scale, but the American and British campaigns are mostly forgettable. The worst levels involve defending an area for a specific timeframe, since enemies don't come in waves but rather instantly respawn. The worst of these was "Pavlov's House", which actually resulted in me dying about 40 times during the final two-minute defense stage. It led to so many needless deaths, and these segments dragged on while testing my patience tenfold.
Another aspect of this game that bothered me was the lack of regenerating health. It was definitely interesting to see COD without this feature, but I don't think Infinity Ward knew how to properly lay out these items in their levels most of the time. The defensive levels in particular lacked interesting counters to attacking foes, and when you ran out of health, the legit best option was to lay down and hide until reinforcements arrived. Awful stuff that I wouldn't go through again...
Despite the really bad stuff, there's a sense of charm to this game that got me to the end. The gameplay is still super simple, the character animations (especially that "crouch-run"), and the musical score kicking in during triumphant victories all added to the experience. While not as epic as the end to "World at War", I still enjoyed raising that flag in Red Square and achieving that hard fought victory for the Red Army...even though many died at the hands of wicked officers (a nice detail included in the campaign that showed the brutality of the war beyond what Nazi Germany was doing).
It's a decent game that most people won't play for many reasons. Aged graphics, simple gameplay, a nearly nonexistent story, and no characters you'll remember besides "Cpt. Price 1.0". The game is also massively overpriced by Activision on Steam at $20, which even at a discount still results in an overpay. If you can somehow find it for cheap (I'd say about $5 is the sweet spot), give it a try, but there may be other ways to try this out if you have the time and carefully research it.
Final Verdict: 5/10 (Average)
"Some Extra Lore For The Star Wars Saga, But A Bit Boring To Play Nowadays"
For a game released in the mid-90's, this was entertaining enough. The game uses the JEDI engine (similar to the "Build" engine from "Duke Nukem") and creates a Star Wars based story centering around a mercenary-for-hire named Kyle Katarn. The story is decent enough, with many plot points supporting the events that occur before and after "Star Wars: A New Hope", but the gameplay and visuals definitely suffer from age.
The gameplay is just "okay". Its as simple as "Doom" or "Duke Nukem", and has many of the same tropes (kill enemies, collect weapons/ammo/armor/secrets, etc.). A nice difference here is that each level has some part to play within the plot, as minor as it may be. Its nice to be able to go through locations knowing you have a separate goal besides "destroy hundreds of enemies". However, the game gets really stale, really fast. The weapon diversity is sort of there, but most are some form/variation of blaster or explosive.
The level designs are extremely convoluted and boring to the eyes. This may be due in part to the aged visuals, which makes many details squish together while edges are left extremely jagged. However, I think it has more to do with the levels themselves. They are very labyrinth-like, and it is oftentimes unclear as to where the objective/next area will be. There is authenticity in the design, sound effects, and story, but it still started to drag as I progressed and I ultimately ended up feeling burnt out and bored of the experience.
As Star Wars games go, this isn't the worst one out there that you can play, but it certainly hasn't aged the best. A remaster/remake would be awesome to see, that way many of the old-school elements could be cleaned up while the visuals could get a modern polish. I'm gonna go ahead and Not Recommend this game unless you have a lot of patience for repetitive gameplay, are a huge Star Wars fan, and love playing older MS-DOS titles.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Below Average)
For a game released in the mid-90's, this was entertaining enough. The game uses the JEDI engine (similar to the "Build" engine from "Duke Nukem") and creates a Star Wars based story centering around a mercenary-for-hire named Kyle Katarn. The story is decent enough, with many plot points supporting the events that occur before and after "Star Wars: A New Hope", but the gameplay and visuals definitely suffer from age.
The gameplay is just "okay". Its as simple as "Doom" or "Duke Nukem", and has many of the same tropes (kill enemies, collect weapons/ammo/armor/secrets, etc.). A nice difference here is that each level has some part to play within the plot, as minor as it may be. Its nice to be able to go through locations knowing you have a separate goal besides "destroy hundreds of enemies". However, the game gets really stale, really fast. The weapon diversity is sort of there, but most are some form/variation of blaster or explosive.
The level designs are extremely convoluted and boring to the eyes. This may be due in part to the aged visuals, which makes many details squish together while edges are left extremely jagged. However, I think it has more to do with the levels themselves. They are very labyrinth-like, and it is oftentimes unclear as to where the objective/next area will be. There is authenticity in the design, sound effects, and story, but it still started to drag as I progressed and I ultimately ended up feeling burnt out and bored of the experience.
As Star Wars games go, this isn't the worst one out there that you can play, but it certainly hasn't aged the best. A remaster/remake would be awesome to see, that way many of the old-school elements could be cleaned up while the visuals could get a modern polish. I'm gonna go ahead and Not Recommend this game unless you have a lot of patience for repetitive gameplay, are a huge Star Wars fan, and love playing older MS-DOS titles.
Final Verdict: 4/10 (Below Average)
"A Phenomenal Recovery"
With the release of Episode 1, Valve hoped to bring something fresh to the story of Half-Life 2 by introducing expanded partner gameplay with Alyx in order to refocus the plot of her and Gordon's relationship. While this was successful enough, there were many faults with the formula in my opinion, specifically with a lack of compelling narrative, weak combat sections, and some disappointing pacing. Thankfully, Episode 2 attacks those weaker aspects of the first entry and delivers a tight and compelling experience to end the Half-Life 2 saga.
Episode 2 takes the narrative approach of Episode 1, but flips it around to make the destination a bit more compelling. Instead of escaping from a familiar location, Alyx and Gordon are trying to navigate to a new, unknown base that the resistance fighters have operating outside the confines of the ruined City 17. Their journey takes them through an atmospheric mining complex, insect-infested cave systems, desolate backcountry roads, and abandoned research stations, all while encountering some of the most ferocious firefights in the entire series up to this episode's release. It's a fantastic breath of fresh air for the game's narrative pacing combined with its worldbuilding, and allows the action to rise and fall naturally with each encounter with a new area. City 17 was a great setpiece for the base game, but lost its charm with the Episode 1 due to the lack of creative use of its environments. Thankfully, this was ratified with Episode 2 tenfold!
There are also a few new pieces of gameplay to spice up encounters and exploration. The addition of the buggy allows for some semi-open world exploration that is occasionally optional, and this really adds some depth to the exploration/traversal section of the game. The chance to encounter mini-puzzles and random little combat encounters while on your way to your next objective was a neat introduction to this series, and I enjoyed the sporadic use of this mechanic in this episode. However, this isn't the only new gameplay shake-up that is added into the experience. There is a wave defense encounter in the mines, a neat barricade puzzle with headcrab zombies crawling all around you,
and several ambush sequences that force Gordon and Alyx to stay on their toes at all times. I found myself really surprised at all the ways this game managed to stay fresh despite adding only a handful of new enemy types and no new weapons into the mix. Valve really outdid themselves with their level design and creative combat/exploration scenarios, and layered multiple enjoyable sections on top of each other in order to deliver a diverse loop all around.
The music and visuals are amazing as always, with some particularly striking vistas presented before you as you journey throughout the wilderness in this title. The looming backdrop of a decimated City 17 was awe-inspiring, and really added a sense of scope to the story and the world itself.
The only real flaws within this title are in the slow introduction of the final combat section (involving an introduction to Dr. Magnusson, an okay combat trek through the White Forest complex, and an out-of-place combat tutorial before the final fight) as well as the final combat section itself. Dr. Magnusson was a weak character to throw into this story, and he's one of the least charming and put-together characters in the whole story. He's pretty unlikeable, but also not very creative of a character at all. He criticizes Gordon and Co. constantly, and this really makes the average combat encounters inside of the White Forest complex stand out. Additionally, his tutorial is incredibly out of place for this series, since Valve tends to allow for player experimentation in order to figure out certain combat/exploration tactics. In this case, Valve decides to teach the player how to throw mines and shoot them...
Unfortunately, this section doesn't stop there. What follows is likely one of the worst setpieces in the series due to its frustrating mechanics. Gordon is forced to drive within a semi-open section of the White Forest area while collecting mines to shoot at Striders who are advancing towards the facility. In the meantime, the Striders (accompanied by Hunters) destroy key resupply stations, forcing Gordon to operate in a tighter and tighter area as the action progresses. The frustrating part is taking down the Striders, which only require one mine to be shot at them and detonated in order to be killed. Whenever Gordon tries to shoot these mines out, the Hunters or Striders themselves will detonate the mines with their projectiles, meaning that Gordon has to run around and resupply yet again to give it another shot. Killing the Hunters helps alleviate some of this frustration, but the Striders will randomly attack Gordon and throw his aim off, or just straight up destroy the bombs time and time again. This was very frustrating to play through, and after completing the section I felt that it was not only imbalance, but was a very boring concept to end the episode on. Disappointing to say the least, but it didn't ruin the rest of this great game very much at all.
While this title fumbled a bit with its poor pacing leading up to final level as well as the final combat sequence itself, the game excels at everything else it has to offer. The final scene continues to send chills down my spine to this day, and ends on a magnificent cliffhanger that has rarely been matched in other games to this day. "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" adds enough creativity to stand side-by-side with the base game, and ends the "Half-Life 2" saga on an excellent note. I can easily Recommend this title to anyone who has played the previous entries (duh) as it wraps up the story in an emotionally cathartic way, delivers some awesome action setpieces (besides the final encounter), and lifts the gameplay potential of the series to new heights.
Final Verdict: 9/10 (Excellent)
With the release of Episode 1, Valve hoped to bring something fresh to the story of Half-Life 2 by introducing expanded partner gameplay with Alyx in order to refocus the plot of her and Gordon's relationship. While this was successful enough, there were many faults with the formula in my opinion, specifically with a lack of compelling narrative, weak combat sections, and some disappointing pacing. Thankfully, Episode 2 attacks those weaker aspects of the first entry and delivers a tight and compelling experience to end the Half-Life 2 saga.
Episode 2 takes the narrative approach of Episode 1, but flips it around to make the destination a bit more compelling. Instead of escaping from a familiar location, Alyx and Gordon are trying to navigate to a new, unknown base that the resistance fighters have operating outside the confines of the ruined City 17. Their journey takes them through an atmospheric mining complex, insect-infested cave systems, desolate backcountry roads, and abandoned research stations, all while encountering some of the most ferocious firefights in the entire series up to this episode's release. It's a fantastic breath of fresh air for the game's narrative pacing combined with its worldbuilding, and allows the action to rise and fall naturally with each encounter with a new area. City 17 was a great setpiece for the base game, but lost its charm with the Episode 1 due to the lack of creative use of its environments. Thankfully, this was ratified with Episode 2 tenfold!
There are also a few new pieces of gameplay to spice up encounters and exploration. The addition of the buggy allows for some semi-open world exploration that is occasionally optional, and this really adds some depth to the exploration/traversal section of the game. The chance to encounter mini-puzzles and random little combat encounters while on your way to your next objective was a neat introduction to this series, and I enjoyed the sporadic use of this mechanic in this episode. However, this isn't the only new gameplay shake-up that is added into the experience. There is a wave defense encounter in the mines, a neat barricade puzzle with headcrab zombies crawling all around you,
and several ambush sequences that force Gordon and Alyx to stay on their toes at all times. I found myself really surprised at all the ways this game managed to stay fresh despite adding only a handful of new enemy types and no new weapons into the mix. Valve really outdid themselves with their level design and creative combat/exploration scenarios, and layered multiple enjoyable sections on top of each other in order to deliver a diverse loop all around.
The music and visuals are amazing as always, with some particularly striking vistas presented before you as you journey throughout the wilderness in this title. The looming backdrop of a decimated City 17 was awe-inspiring, and really added a sense of scope to the story and the world itself.
The only real flaws within this title are in the slow introduction of the final combat section (involving an introduction to Dr. Magnusson, an okay combat trek through the White Forest complex, and an out-of-place combat tutorial before the final fight) as well as the final combat section itself. Dr. Magnusson was a weak character to throw into this story, and he's one of the least charming and put-together characters in the whole story. He's pretty unlikeable, but also not very creative of a character at all. He criticizes Gordon and Co. constantly, and this really makes the average combat encounters inside of the White Forest complex stand out. Additionally, his tutorial is incredibly out of place for this series, since Valve tends to allow for player experimentation in order to figure out certain combat/exploration tactics. In this case, Valve decides to teach the player how to throw mines and shoot them...
Unfortunately, this section doesn't stop there. What follows is likely one of the worst setpieces in the series due to its frustrating mechanics. Gordon is forced to drive within a semi-open section of the White Forest area while collecting mines to shoot at Striders who are advancing towards the facility. In the meantime, the Striders (accompanied by Hunters) destroy key resupply stations, forcing Gordon to operate in a tighter and tighter area as the action progresses. The frustrating part is taking down the Striders, which only require one mine to be shot at them and detonated in order to be killed. Whenever Gordon tries to shoot these mines out, the Hunters or Striders themselves will detonate the mines with their projectiles, meaning that Gordon has to run around and resupply yet again to give it another shot. Killing the Hunters helps alleviate some of this frustration, but the Striders will randomly attack Gordon and throw his aim off, or just straight up destroy the bombs time and time again. This was very frustrating to play through, and after completing the section I felt that it was not only imbalance, but was a very boring concept to end the episode on. Disappointing to say the least, but it didn't ruin the rest of this great game very much at all.
While this title fumbled a bit with its poor pacing leading up to final level as well as the final combat sequence itself, the game excels at everything else it has to offer. The final scene continues to send chills down my spine to this day, and ends on a magnificent cliffhanger that has rarely been matched in other games to this day. "Half-Life 2: Episode Two" adds enough creativity to stand side-by-side with the base game, and ends the "Half-Life 2" saga on an excellent note. I can easily Recommend this title to anyone who has played the previous entries (duh) as it wraps up the story in an emotionally cathartic way, delivers some awesome action setpieces (besides the final encounter), and lifts the gameplay potential of the series to new heights.
Final Verdict: 9/10 (Excellent)
1987
"A Shoddy Beginning"
While not generally considered to be a true start to the franchise, "Metal Gear" is in fact the first to adorn the MGS lineage. A simple but important game for the stealth genre, it saw a decent bit of success despite Konami's involvement in trying to destroy its creation (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). I played this one through the PS3 "Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection", and I have really one thing to say about it - this game sucks big time.
Now this is through the lens of someone playing the game more than thirty years after its release, but I just think it's an awful experience. The sprite work is fine, and the story isn't too shabby for such an old-school video game, but the gameplay is atrocious. There is a severe lack of player direction, and the gameplay loop is trash. The game is also punishingly difficult and downright cheap, making modern "difficult" games like those by From Software look like a cake walk. The game just has an irritating progression loop and limiting controls, and the ideas of the genre are here but nowhere near a level of refinement that I personally think signifies a complete title.
You can only save at specific checkpoints within the game, even if the PS3 port tries to fix this with a quicksave system (which doesn't work). Finding a checkpoint would already be annoying enough if the game wasn't two things - brutally difficult and unfair, and unbelievably hard to navigate.
Enemies can easily spot you and there is not enough room to navigate the screen as a simple Solid Snake sprite. Additionally, they do copious amount of damage to you despite combat being a necessity in many sections. Items are scarce and hard to locate, and the game outright forces you to take damage during many sequences (an early one being an obnoxious gas room where you are only allowed to equip one piece of gear at a time).
On top of this, there is no map. This means having to either make notes of where you are in the world (which is not ideal considering most of the map looks the same) or having a strategy guide open next to you (I personally don't believe in these things since they don't really revolve around competent game design if you're forced to utilize one). I died early and often, and the lack of checkpoints via no navigation, high difficulty, and cheap mechanics made this a bad experience.
Overall, just skip this one. Nothing in the story is that important for future titles, and the gameplay isn't really what is becomes later in the franchise anyhow. It's a relic of the past that was already niche enough at release, but now it has just aged like milk.
Final Verdict: 2/10 (Bad)
While not generally considered to be a true start to the franchise, "Metal Gear" is in fact the first to adorn the MGS lineage. A simple but important game for the stealth genre, it saw a decent bit of success despite Konami's involvement in trying to destroy its creation (sounds familiar, doesn't it?). I played this one through the PS3 "Metal Gear Solid: The Legacy Collection", and I have really one thing to say about it - this game sucks big time.
Now this is through the lens of someone playing the game more than thirty years after its release, but I just think it's an awful experience. The sprite work is fine, and the story isn't too shabby for such an old-school video game, but the gameplay is atrocious. There is a severe lack of player direction, and the gameplay loop is trash. The game is also punishingly difficult and downright cheap, making modern "difficult" games like those by From Software look like a cake walk. The game just has an irritating progression loop and limiting controls, and the ideas of the genre are here but nowhere near a level of refinement that I personally think signifies a complete title.
You can only save at specific checkpoints within the game, even if the PS3 port tries to fix this with a quicksave system (which doesn't work). Finding a checkpoint would already be annoying enough if the game wasn't two things - brutally difficult and unfair, and unbelievably hard to navigate.
Enemies can easily spot you and there is not enough room to navigate the screen as a simple Solid Snake sprite. Additionally, they do copious amount of damage to you despite combat being a necessity in many sections. Items are scarce and hard to locate, and the game outright forces you to take damage during many sequences (an early one being an obnoxious gas room where you are only allowed to equip one piece of gear at a time).
On top of this, there is no map. This means having to either make notes of where you are in the world (which is not ideal considering most of the map looks the same) or having a strategy guide open next to you (I personally don't believe in these things since they don't really revolve around competent game design if you're forced to utilize one). I died early and often, and the lack of checkpoints via no navigation, high difficulty, and cheap mechanics made this a bad experience.
Overall, just skip this one. Nothing in the story is that important for future titles, and the gameplay isn't really what is becomes later in the franchise anyhow. It's a relic of the past that was already niche enough at release, but now it has just aged like milk.
Final Verdict: 2/10 (Bad)
"A Worthy Expansion To A Classic FPS"
Half Life: Opposing Force does what many expansion packs fail to do - it provides meaningful and fun content that actually "expands" and pushes forward the original game's experience. By taking control of Adrian Shepard, a member of the military group sent in to kill Gordan Freeman, you get to see the game's original story from a different angle. The level design is improved, the arsenal of weaponry is refined and expanded, and there are new enemies to fight along the way, culminating in a successful expansion of the Half-Life formula!
The levels in Half Life: Opposing Force provide new sections of the Black Mesa research facility to play through. These areas include new tram levels, sewer levels, and even more encounters with the Pit Monster from the original title. The jumps and landscape are smoothed a bit better, leading to less instances of falling to your death or getting caught on the environment and staying stuck (although it still happened multiple times). While buggy, the levels look interesting, and play just as well as the original titles.
There are also new additions to Shepard's arsenal, such as an LMG, Transporter gun, Electric Shock Rifle, Heavy Pistol, and a grappling hook. This adds new ways to approach combat, as well as get around the environment, something that still occurred in the base game but at a much less frequent rate. Enemies also pack these weapons as well, so the ability to take and deal a lot of damage is enticing.
Lastly, new enemy types are introduced. All seem to be dangerous, ranging from Shock Troopers to Voltigores, to even an encounter with a helicopter like in the base game. These enemies introduce a new level of difficulty to the title, and cause the player to have to approach each section with care and awareness. I did feel that some sections of the game where multiple Voltigores would spawn were a too difficult, but I have to give Gearbox credit for adding something different to the Half-Life experience.
All in all, this was a fun expansion to play through, and I Recommend it to any fans of the original game or FPS games in general. There was enough new content, enemies, and locations to run through, despite it still being a retelling of the base game from a different perspective a la Half Life: Blue Shift . Unlike that expansion, Half Life: Opposing Force serves as a fun change of pace for the original game, which is good enough for myself!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
Half Life: Opposing Force does what many expansion packs fail to do - it provides meaningful and fun content that actually "expands" and pushes forward the original game's experience. By taking control of Adrian Shepard, a member of the military group sent in to kill Gordan Freeman, you get to see the game's original story from a different angle. The level design is improved, the arsenal of weaponry is refined and expanded, and there are new enemies to fight along the way, culminating in a successful expansion of the Half-Life formula!
The levels in Half Life: Opposing Force provide new sections of the Black Mesa research facility to play through. These areas include new tram levels, sewer levels, and even more encounters with the Pit Monster from the original title. The jumps and landscape are smoothed a bit better, leading to less instances of falling to your death or getting caught on the environment and staying stuck (although it still happened multiple times). While buggy, the levels look interesting, and play just as well as the original titles.
There are also new additions to Shepard's arsenal, such as an LMG, Transporter gun, Electric Shock Rifle, Heavy Pistol, and a grappling hook. This adds new ways to approach combat, as well as get around the environment, something that still occurred in the base game but at a much less frequent rate. Enemies also pack these weapons as well, so the ability to take and deal a lot of damage is enticing.
Lastly, new enemy types are introduced. All seem to be dangerous, ranging from Shock Troopers to Voltigores, to even an encounter with a helicopter like in the base game. These enemies introduce a new level of difficulty to the title, and cause the player to have to approach each section with care and awareness. I did feel that some sections of the game where multiple Voltigores would spawn were a too difficult, but I have to give Gearbox credit for adding something different to the Half-Life experience.
All in all, this was a fun expansion to play through, and I Recommend it to any fans of the original game or FPS games in general. There was enough new content, enemies, and locations to run through, despite it still being a retelling of the base game from a different perspective a la Half Life: Blue Shift . Unlike that expansion, Half Life: Opposing Force serves as a fun change of pace for the original game, which is good enough for myself!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
"A Poor Transition To Console"
What seemed be a port of the first game in the series to consoles ended up being something that was slightly original, at least in the case of it not being a port at all. "Finest Hour" contains a standalone campaign built specifically for consoles, which is no easy feat for a studio that had barely gotten its series started. However, the awful controls, lack of good shooting feedback, empty story, and all too familiar level design of the first game (yet worse) resulted in a pretty forgettable first entry for "Call of Duty" on home consoles.
The controls in this game were really bad. Aiming is really stiff yet doused in stick acceleration, meaning it feels much harder to fight enemies than it should've been. Hitboxes being as poor as they were didn't help either, so you would constantly miss shots that would have been a breeze on PC (aim assist was useless here as well).
Levels were sort of similar to the first game, though there are plenty of original missions here. Unfortunately, these ones aren't really exciting and mostly involve things like wave defense or tank segments (at least during the first third of the game). There is a new setting in North Africa which at first sounded appealing, but the actual gameplay is so repetitive that I figured the change of scenery wouldn't matter.
There are characters introduced in the story that you do take control of, but they also weren't notable. Most had some slightly generic backstory with an okay voice actor, but they lacked personality throughout each of their two missions. The plot is, well, WWII again, but Exact Ent. didn't really seem interested in forming any stories with a particular character or squad like future games in the series would go on to do.
This is just a really bland FPS that controls like crud on console. The only shooter I can sort of think about that had this issue was "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30", though in "that" game you couldn't even hit enemies with your gun most of the time. It's better than that here, though not by a huge margin. This one isn't really worth the time playing through since it mostly boils down the core COD mechanics while also failing to create a fun game out of the remains.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
What seemed be a port of the first game in the series to consoles ended up being something that was slightly original, at least in the case of it not being a port at all. "Finest Hour" contains a standalone campaign built specifically for consoles, which is no easy feat for a studio that had barely gotten its series started. However, the awful controls, lack of good shooting feedback, empty story, and all too familiar level design of the first game (yet worse) resulted in a pretty forgettable first entry for "Call of Duty" on home consoles.
The controls in this game were really bad. Aiming is really stiff yet doused in stick acceleration, meaning it feels much harder to fight enemies than it should've been. Hitboxes being as poor as they were didn't help either, so you would constantly miss shots that would have been a breeze on PC (aim assist was useless here as well).
Levels were sort of similar to the first game, though there are plenty of original missions here. Unfortunately, these ones aren't really exciting and mostly involve things like wave defense or tank segments (at least during the first third of the game). There is a new setting in North Africa which at first sounded appealing, but the actual gameplay is so repetitive that I figured the change of scenery wouldn't matter.
There are characters introduced in the story that you do take control of, but they also weren't notable. Most had some slightly generic backstory with an okay voice actor, but they lacked personality throughout each of their two missions. The plot is, well, WWII again, but Exact Ent. didn't really seem interested in forming any stories with a particular character or squad like future games in the series would go on to do.
This is just a really bland FPS that controls like crud on console. The only shooter I can sort of think about that had this issue was "Brothers in Arms: Road to Hill 30", though in "that" game you couldn't even hit enemies with your gun most of the time. It's better than that here, though not by a huge margin. This one isn't really worth the time playing through since it mostly boils down the core COD mechanics while also failing to create a fun game out of the remains.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
"Going Down To South Park, Gonna Have Myself A Time!"
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a fantastic spin-off in the South Park universe, showcasing yet again that Obsidian Entertainment is one of the best RPG developers out there. With a solid, albeit simple combat system, as well as a wacky story with some of the most insane writing ever to exist within a video game (let alone a South Park "episode"), The Stick of Truth ends up being a hilarious adventure for longtime fans of the series as well as newcomers to the show's antics.
Gameplay-wise, the game isn't too complex for a turn-based RPG. Your characters have basic melee/ranged attacks, some magic spells, and some usable items to replenish health, mana, and give special buffs such as extra attacks or increased defense. Honestly, it's lighter compared to what Obsidian has implemented in titles like Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity , but on a base level, it does its job. What gives it an extra layer of intrigue is the fact that every single attack/spell/potion is representative of either a joke/element of the South Park universe, or an extension of the character itself (Some examples: Stan's special attack using "Sparky", his faithful companion introduced in the first season of the show; Butters' special attack transforming him into Professor Chaos, and alter-ego of Butters introduced in the sixth season of the show). These easter eggs are stuffed within the game, and nearly every location you visit, every character you meet, and even some events within the story have something to call back to within the show. The level of detail is astounding, and Obsidian crafted a fantastic world based within the already complex show of South Park.
The writing is what takes this game from pretty good to simply awesome. There are things in this game that occur which could not be shown on television, and boy did Trey Parker and Matt Stone take advantage of it. Spoiling any of it does nothing review-wise, but I will say that I haven't felt a mix of being repulsed, offended, shocked, and completely baffled by a game's writing in a long time! It was an insanely hilarious and raunchy journey, full of the immature, pop-culture/social-commentary focused brand of humor that South Park has built for itself over the last two decades. Overall, I never felt bored of the game's antics throughout my 15+ hour playthrough, and I always looked forward to the next insane thing that the writers would throw at me.
While the somewhat simplified combat system is a bit of a letdown, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this title. I had only watched a bit of the show prior to playing this game, and now I am determined to dive in to the craziness of the show itself. The writing and humor won me over, and created a new fan by the time my journey ended. I would highly Recommend this game; If there was any way to jump into South Park, this game would be it!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
South Park: The Stick of Truth is a fantastic spin-off in the South Park universe, showcasing yet again that Obsidian Entertainment is one of the best RPG developers out there. With a solid, albeit simple combat system, as well as a wacky story with some of the most insane writing ever to exist within a video game (let alone a South Park "episode"), The Stick of Truth ends up being a hilarious adventure for longtime fans of the series as well as newcomers to the show's antics.
Gameplay-wise, the game isn't too complex for a turn-based RPG. Your characters have basic melee/ranged attacks, some magic spells, and some usable items to replenish health, mana, and give special buffs such as extra attacks or increased defense. Honestly, it's lighter compared to what Obsidian has implemented in titles like Tyranny and Pillars of Eternity , but on a base level, it does its job. What gives it an extra layer of intrigue is the fact that every single attack/spell/potion is representative of either a joke/element of the South Park universe, or an extension of the character itself (Some examples: Stan's special attack using "Sparky", his faithful companion introduced in the first season of the show; Butters' special attack transforming him into Professor Chaos, and alter-ego of Butters introduced in the sixth season of the show). These easter eggs are stuffed within the game, and nearly every location you visit, every character you meet, and even some events within the story have something to call back to within the show. The level of detail is astounding, and Obsidian crafted a fantastic world based within the already complex show of South Park.
The writing is what takes this game from pretty good to simply awesome. There are things in this game that occur which could not be shown on television, and boy did Trey Parker and Matt Stone take advantage of it. Spoiling any of it does nothing review-wise, but I will say that I haven't felt a mix of being repulsed, offended, shocked, and completely baffled by a game's writing in a long time! It was an insanely hilarious and raunchy journey, full of the immature, pop-culture/social-commentary focused brand of humor that South Park has built for itself over the last two decades. Overall, I never felt bored of the game's antics throughout my 15+ hour playthrough, and I always looked forward to the next insane thing that the writers would throw at me.
While the somewhat simplified combat system is a bit of a letdown, I thoroughly enjoyed my time with this title. I had only watched a bit of the show prior to playing this game, and now I am determined to dive in to the craziness of the show itself. The writing and humor won me over, and created a new fan by the time my journey ended. I would highly Recommend this game; If there was any way to jump into South Park, this game would be it!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
"A Brilliantly Simple Tower Defense With Loads Of Charm"
After nearly ten years of playing this game on and off, I finally managed to sit down and complete the entire Adventure mode (as well as a good amount of the extra levels/minigames). This is easily one of the best tower defense games I have played to this day, combining both simple to understand mechanics and a quirky art style to deliver you some garden warfare you never knew you needed in your life!
The variety of tools (or should I say "plants") you have at your disposal is surprisingly rich. There are multiple types of general turrets (peas, mushrooms, cabbages) that all have different behaviors and upgrades, different types of AOE effects (explosive cherry bombs, lane-clearing jalapenos, hypnotizing mushrooms), and layers of defense (pumpkins, potatoes). There is also a good selection of specific-use items, such as magnet-shrooms (good against metallic-type zombies), tall potatoes (good against vaulting zombies), and spike plants (good against vehicles), to name a few.
The level design is pretty well done, though it could have used some more differences besides lane changes, angles, and visual effects. You'll battle those zombies in your front lawn, backyard, and even your roof! While some plants were interesting in that they were more useful during either the day/night, I felt the flexibility of using some plants was a bit lacking. The difficulty of the game isn't too high, and it becomes very clear which plants are useful against which type of enemy, making the last few acts and bit of a cakewalk. At least for the Adventure mode, there isn't a whole lot of strategy to try out, but there is more room to experiments in the survival mode, as well as with additional playthroughs.
The art and music combined make this game extremely easy to love right away. The different zombies look silly, and the plants have a design that fits their functions. The music is amazing, and some of the tunes are definite earworms after an extended period of time. There's also a nice amount of hidden secrets/easter eggs for fans of other PopCap games as well.
There is a great amount of extra content for players that are extremely addicted to the game! I played through nearly all of the minigames, which are by far the best additional content provided, and each minigame is expertly crafted to be fun and challenging. I was disappointed by the Puzzle mode, since there are only two types of puzzles, but there is a lot to play through if you are a fan. The Survival mode is a nice challenge to get through after completing the Adventure mode, and allows players to test their most insane tactics against increasingly immense waves of enemies in a selection of places.
There is also a store where you can save money to purchase multiple types of items, such as new plants for combat, plants for farming gold, defensive items for levels, and extra slots for plants. While this is a neat idea, it comes at the price of a pretty big grind, and a lot of the modes related to gold-farming are just not that interesting. The most trivial item by far is food for the "tip tree", which gives the player an assortment of tips for gameplay. The problem with this mechanic is that many of the tips are redundant after completing the game, and will end up being a gold sink for a lot of curious players.
While the extra content could have been much deeper and valuable to play through, the game overall is created with an impressive amount of thought and care. The core gameplay is very good, and is a nice introduction to the genre for any players curious enough to test the waters. It is easily a Recommend from me, and is one of the best tower defense games of all time, even after an entire decade!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
After nearly ten years of playing this game on and off, I finally managed to sit down and complete the entire Adventure mode (as well as a good amount of the extra levels/minigames). This is easily one of the best tower defense games I have played to this day, combining both simple to understand mechanics and a quirky art style to deliver you some garden warfare you never knew you needed in your life!
The variety of tools (or should I say "plants") you have at your disposal is surprisingly rich. There are multiple types of general turrets (peas, mushrooms, cabbages) that all have different behaviors and upgrades, different types of AOE effects (explosive cherry bombs, lane-clearing jalapenos, hypnotizing mushrooms), and layers of defense (pumpkins, potatoes). There is also a good selection of specific-use items, such as magnet-shrooms (good against metallic-type zombies), tall potatoes (good against vaulting zombies), and spike plants (good against vehicles), to name a few.
The level design is pretty well done, though it could have used some more differences besides lane changes, angles, and visual effects. You'll battle those zombies in your front lawn, backyard, and even your roof! While some plants were interesting in that they were more useful during either the day/night, I felt the flexibility of using some plants was a bit lacking. The difficulty of the game isn't too high, and it becomes very clear which plants are useful against which type of enemy, making the last few acts and bit of a cakewalk. At least for the Adventure mode, there isn't a whole lot of strategy to try out, but there is more room to experiments in the survival mode, as well as with additional playthroughs.
The art and music combined make this game extremely easy to love right away. The different zombies look silly, and the plants have a design that fits their functions. The music is amazing, and some of the tunes are definite earworms after an extended period of time. There's also a nice amount of hidden secrets/easter eggs for fans of other PopCap games as well.
There is a great amount of extra content for players that are extremely addicted to the game! I played through nearly all of the minigames, which are by far the best additional content provided, and each minigame is expertly crafted to be fun and challenging. I was disappointed by the Puzzle mode, since there are only two types of puzzles, but there is a lot to play through if you are a fan. The Survival mode is a nice challenge to get through after completing the Adventure mode, and allows players to test their most insane tactics against increasingly immense waves of enemies in a selection of places.
There is also a store where you can save money to purchase multiple types of items, such as new plants for combat, plants for farming gold, defensive items for levels, and extra slots for plants. While this is a neat idea, it comes at the price of a pretty big grind, and a lot of the modes related to gold-farming are just not that interesting. The most trivial item by far is food for the "tip tree", which gives the player an assortment of tips for gameplay. The problem with this mechanic is that many of the tips are redundant after completing the game, and will end up being a gold sink for a lot of curious players.
While the extra content could have been much deeper and valuable to play through, the game overall is created with an impressive amount of thought and care. The core gameplay is very good, and is a nice introduction to the genre for any players curious enough to test the waters. It is easily a Recommend from me, and is one of the best tower defense games of all time, even after an entire decade!
Final Verdict: 8/10 (Great)
2011
"An Awkward And Unneeded DLC"
I may be an outlier here, but I did not enjoy this campaign much at all. I found the puzzles kind of obtuse, and the story was just not at all gripping or even remotely interesting to me. The interactions with the monster were still terrifying, but the areas you are allowed to interact with it are small and awkwardly designed. I wanted to like this DLC more, but I found it to be pretty poor overall and would Not Recommend it.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)
I may be an outlier here, but I did not enjoy this campaign much at all. I found the puzzles kind of obtuse, and the story was just not at all gripping or even remotely interesting to me. The interactions with the monster were still terrifying, but the areas you are allowed to interact with it are small and awkwardly designed. I wanted to like this DLC more, but I found it to be pretty poor overall and would Not Recommend it.
Final Verdict: 3/10 (Poor)