Ironic that a game who’s plot is about breaking your programming and going against what would be expected of you ends up with a reputation that takes what it presents at face value and twists what it actually is so it could fit the mold of what people expect 7th gen games to be, and this game faces no critical re-evaluation to this day, simply look at that disgrace of a description, in-fact there’s only one other person who appreciates it for what it is and he is the one who recommended this to me in the first place, it seems everyone else is still stuck up on taking the first 45 minutes of this game as gospel for representing everything else it has, failing to recognize that the game acknowledges the doubts a person could have about sci-fi military shooters of that gen because it begins with a section that can’t be anything other than a parody to GoW. Shed away all of that and you have a fantastic shooter underneath with a heartfelt sci-fi story, the variety of weapons on display here are nice and fit whatever playstyle you’d want to go for, there’s also the fact that you can combo with your partner to unleash some devastating attacks, it all flows into one, fluid gameplay system.

TL;DR, it’s not a fucking GoW clone or a cover shooter.

World War II shooters were everywhere, but Ubisoft and Gearbox took a dangerous risk and released one so late in the game. 2005 was a year where WWII shooters were at their peak and when gamers hated them the most. Brothers in Arms proved to be a more authentic and smarter shooter and won fans of the genre over.

Gearbox painstakingly recreated Carentan and many parts of France where the 101st Airborne Division landed on D-Day. The game also uses squad tactics and realism unlike any other WWII shooter out there. You will notice when you play how well the guns feel when you shoot them, and how you can’t nail an enemy from 100 feet away with a Thompson. You have to flank the enemy or you die. It’s that simple and that difficult. Red circles will appear above enemy squads. You can issue commands to your squads to suppress them. Their circle will turn gray and then it is safe to move up and find cover around the area to flank them. It sounds simple, but it’s not. Your squadmates can die and so can you if you aren’t careful. You have to watch out for MG fire which will kill you in an instant, and sometimes even tanks.

This realism and authenticity can’t be done without good AI and BiA delivers and is even impressive today. The only issue I had with AI was with tanks. Sometimes they wouldn’t go around each other or go the other way to follow a command. The game also requires a lot of patience. Sometimes even trial and error. You can’t just rush every enemy like in Call of Duty and save the day. You can order squads to rush and attack while your other squad suppresses, then you can charge in with them to kill them all. You can also order squads set positions that you want so you have total control. It feels good and is a key part of the game. Without mastering this you won’t get very far.

You also can’t just use an M1 Garand and snipe an enemy’s head while he’s in cover. It just doesn’t work that way, you also can’t kill an MG unless you flank them. This isn’t Medal of Honor. This gave a great feeling of realism, but it was also very difficult. I died quite often because I chose a wrong tactic or I flanked the wrong way. Sometimes my impatience got in the way as well. I even found different weapons to help certain situations. When I finally got the Springfield sniper rifle it was a weapon from God. After all the inaccurate weapons that couldn’t hit crap, this thing made life easier, but only for a few levels at the end.

When it comes to looks, BiA looks great even to this day. The lighting looks real, the grass flows, the models and textures are pretty high-res (for back then) you will be impressed. The game holds up and is still better than a lot of shooters today. My main concern is that the game feels the same throughout. I just went around killing everything and maybe planted a few charges. I could mount an MG sometimes, ride the back of a tank, but overall there wasn’t much variety in the game which I find the biggest issue.

What’s here is one of the most authentic shooters around and fans of the genre won’t be disappointed at all. The game looks great, has smart AI, and tells a sad story of Baker Company and the 101st Airborne.

I think it's pretty easy to take for granted how much official controller support can add to a game. I'll give you an example: Rollercoaster Tycoon 3 on the Steam Deck is an unmitigated nightmare that, at best, is barely playable unless you have a mouse and keyboard plugged in. But the version for the Nintendo Switch works surprisingly well. Further case and point: anyone who has ever tried rebinding the buttons on a controller so they could play any of the three S.T.A.L.K.E.R. games developed and released between 2007-2009 probably came to the same realization that the developers of System Shock 2's canceled Dreamcast port did: there just aren't enough buttons on any controller for this shit, man. Unless you want to sacrifice your ability to lean around corners, turn on your flashlight, change the firing mode of your weapon, or have quick access to healing items, trying to play the PC versions of S.T.A.L.K.E.R. with a controller is inadvisable until further notice.

Like Rollercoaster Tycoon 3's Switch port, what drew me to the Legends of the Zone Trilogy bundle currently on sale for the Xbox and (surprisingly) PlayStation isn't that I had never touched these games before, but I was genuinely curious to see how a franchise that has never had official controller support before would handle the task of running on console hardware. And surprisingly, it works. It works about as well as you would expect it to, anyway. It is still a little finicky in some regards: sensitivity between aiming regularly and aiming down sights differs to a distracting degree, the weapon wheel doesn't pause or slow the game while you're using it, and navigating the inventory without a cursor slows things down, which isn't aided by the fact that using the inventory, too, does not slow or pause the game for you. Some of that clunkiness aside, though, these control fine and are perfectly adequate ways to experience the vanilla versions of these games if you've either never played them before or simply want a reason to play them again. They've added achievements to all three games, as well, which is always a nice touch. Multiplayer modes aren't present, but it should be common knowledge by now that multiplayer doesn't tend to carry over when an older game gets re-released unless it was a notable part of the package (and here, it was not).

This is sort of reminiscent of that time they ported Half-Life 2, FEAR, Far Cry, and Doom 3 to seventh-gen systems to accommodate for the fact that neither the PS2 nor original Xbox could manage stable/struggled to manage stable ports of either, except they've done it two console generations later. I don't really mind that though; I find this sort of re-release nostalgic. On the subject of this being released on last-gen hardware rather than current-gen systems, perhaps they didn't have the resources for that? That distinction does make this feel a bit lazier than it should to prying eyes, but on a PlayStation 5, it emulates just fine, looks great in 4K, and feels fine enough with a DualSense. I am a bit bummed that they didn't consider porting this to the Switch, but I can see where technical barriers and monetary incentives would have prevented such a port from happening. Oh well, maybe next time.

There are a couple of interesting differences I've noticed so far:

- The Energy Drinks you'll find in-game now have the branding/product placement that they apparently did in the original European releases.
- They've done their due diligence, and the Chernobyl in Shadow of Chernobyl is now spelled in Ukrainian fashion, with an O instead of an E. They've also gone ahead and done this for S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, so it's not too surprising, but what is is that they've gone ahead and edited the original menu images to accommodate for this change.
- As has been common with these re-releases since Whoopi Goldberg introduced the Looney Tunes (probably), there's a disclaimer in here about these games being historical artifacts (no pun intended). While you could point to something like the use of the R slur in these games for that disclaimer, the most likely explanation for what they're referring to is that these games have never had a particularly positive outlook on the Ukranian military. Preeeeetty bad timing for that, I'd say.

ETA: Easily the roughest bit of transition from PC to Consoles is that I don't think any of these ports allow you to quicksave. Given that S.T.A.L.K.E.R. has always been firmly in the camp of "quicksave every five minutes in case you die instantly", this means that your manual saves will fill up quickly. There's also the fact that these being straightforward ports means that there are no quickslots for any game that isn't Call of Pripyat. Prepare to be sorting through that inventory a lot just to use one energy drink! That being said, I stand by my assessment thus far: these are accessible ports that mostly work out of the box. If that's what you're looking for, it's forty bucks well spent.

ETA2: Lowering my score for this by a star. Everything I said is true, but the faithfulness of these ports also extends to their notable technical shortcomings, including crashes, bugs that have never officially been patched, and inconsistent spawning/despawning. These games are still playable and fine, evidenced by the fact that I just spent 22 hours in Shadow of Chernobyl with very few issues. But if you're coming in expecting these ports to have been polished for consoles beyond their controls and presentation, they're somewhat disappointing, although the likely explanation is that there might not have been much to work with.

If Gravity Circuit is an example of a game "not understanding the inner workings of the many things it's inspired by", then Penny's Big Breakaway is the exact opposite. If anything, this game feels like something made by game designers first, and everything else second.

This is to say: Penny's moment to moment gameplay is really good. It's an incredibly smart game from start to finish. Penny herself is up there in the list of "best controlling platforming characters." There existing an actual learning curve to effectively using the Yoyo tricks to keep your flow is shows to me that Evening Star understands the secret sauce of other high skill ceiling platformers. The combo system and focus on score attack mechanics does wonders for this game's level design and dramatically increases the depth of sections I typically would not have a second thought about. "How do I get through this efficiently?", "Should I risk getting hit and dropping my multiplier here?", etc. There's tons of performers in Penny's (being the game's theme) and you, the player, are one too. The developers ask you to step into the spotlight: "can you show us that you've got it down?"
It's funny to hear the mixed reception of this game's controls in more critical spaces online, because all the people I've seen who stuck with it ended up appreciating how Penny's plays by the end.

Almost as if game design that pushes the player to get better can be rewarding, or something...

Now, I won't boil down all (only some) of the complaints about this game into a simple "skill issue"-- it's clearly more complicated than that. The bugs, for example, are not really a complaint that can be argued against. I think some exaggerate how often and intrusive the glitches really are, but there's definitely some jank in this game. It feels bad to lose your high combo due to a physics inconsistency. I also think Penny's suffers from "bad boss fight" disease-- strange for a game that seemingly understands platformers can be satisfying without them. It especially hurts to end the game on such a "blah" note of the final boss which captures exactly none of the aspects that make the levels so fun.

Out of all the complaints I'm the most sympathetic to, though, it has to be what I've seen about the presentation. Don't get me wrong-- it's not bad at all. There's some truly good tracks and area design in this game. Tee Lopes in particular pops off for the level themes in this game. I like that guy. But I don't know, man. If Penny's has the secret sauce in regards to its level design and moment to moment gameplay, I don't think it does in regards to its presentation. I wasn't ever really enraptured with the world of Macaroon like I was with the technically amazing game design. I still like Penny (the girlie) though. She's cool, even if she does have grandma hair.

Still, Penny is a great game. It genuinely makes the shot for one of the best 3D platformers I have ever played, and if Evening Star can make something this impressive when left to their own devices I greatly anticipate whatever it is they make next. There's clearly some real talent here.