Lol, and lol.

You know, I really gotta give props to David Cage, he really is an innovator. Like how do you manage to make a game about discrimination/segregation/slavery with an allegory for civil rights so flawed, so stupid, that it double backs and ends up becoming offensive. Really impressive. Even still, if I'd completely ignore that and take this game at face value, there are so many issues with this that you could break it apart piece by piece (the melodramatic writing; David's usual misery porn; a "plot twist" so unnecessary that it ruins a whole character arc; the plot holes, holy shit, the amount of plot holes). Also, can we stop and think that this line was written, if not by an English white dude, by a French white man? Lmao.

As difficult as it is to talk positively about this I do have to mention a huge improvement over past Quantic Dreams games, and that's the presentation. Which I think it's also the main reason for the positive feedback Detroit has compared to their previous. Everything from the graphics, to the music, acting (specially Connor and Hank), and even the cinematic feel, is considerably better. I guess this would be Quantic Dream's closest attempt at making a game that feels like a movie, and it's really close to achieving it. Kind of disappointing that players find that enough to be tricked and ignore everything else about it that's a flaw, though.

Anyway, I'm currently dead sick so spending any effort in talking about this is exhausting enough... David Cage's best game so far.

★½ – Unplayable ❌

The one Silent Hill that gets shrugged off as dated and uninteresting, which I couldn't disagree more.

The weakest of the main 4 games plotwise (even still, features a more than decent story compared to modern horror games like Amnesia: Rebirth or Alan Wake), but who established most of what makes Silent Hill the best horror franchise in gaming: The dream-like nature, woven with the echoes of Alessa's psyche reverberating through the world; the esoteric symbolism around emotions and trauma; and the relentless suffocating atmosphere of the Otherworld, and its alien nature. All these elements, combined with the game's remarkable art design, graphics and an unforgettable soundtrack (that somehow only improves with each subsequent installment), solidify Silent Hill as a timeless classic.

On a more specific note, I love the piano and zodiac puzzle so much. I remember as a little kid playing this game at a friend's house and never figuring out the solution to the first, even though we tried like the whole day. Well, this time around I spent like 20 minutes alone trying to make sense of the second, and when I figured the solution it only made me feel dumber for not realizing how simple it was, goddammit. As a positive, now I know a little bit about astrology... lol.

★★★½ – Great ✅

KOBE! (That's a dog head)

Dated, obtuse, with a fair share of pixel hunting, as usual for the genre, but with an immaculate ambience. Always wanted to try this, it being the first commercial adventure game from my country. If you're one to enjoy Gone Home/Resident Evil/Amnesia for building the game around an intricate moody place full of secrets, you might enjoy this. There's also a certain terrifying sequence that's worth experiencing if you enjoy horror. It really got me considering it's a point & click game, but at the same time I'm a huge pussy, so don't take my word for it. I can definitely see why original players of this game built such a strong cult following around it, hell even Civvie made a video on it.

I'd love a modern counterpart to this, good thing the original developers are working in a spiritual successor that's been in development for 13 yea- hmmmmmmmmmmmm... that's never releasing, is it?

★★½ – Average ✅

lol

sigh

So, I've been playing this with my little cousin, who loves football, on his PS4 and surprisingly I had a ton of fun, not to EA's merit but just by the fact that this is a football game. And since the World Cup 2022 reignited my long-lost love for the sport, naturally I decided to give this a try on PC. And well, is the game good? ...I couldn't tell you.

This is one of the worst unoptimized pieces of dogshit I've ever touched. A whopping average of 12 fps during a match, and even less in the menus. LMAO. I know my system is old (GTX 1060 3GB), but there's no way this should play as if it was Crysis 9. I can comfortably play Red Dead Redemption 2, but not FIFA 23... Wow.

On another note, if you play this with your friends only to use PSG to Mbappé your way to the goal, fuck you.

★ – Dumpster fire ❌

Realisticamente, la peor ofensa es que Orsini (72) tiene más puntos de media que Langoni (69). Arreglenlo, inservibles hijos de re mil puta.

Kind of funny how I replayed Hotline Miami, which was one of my favorite games, then disappointingly realized it aged poorly, followed by its sequel bringing back the familiar satisfaction the original made me feel in 2012.

Hotline Miami 2 recontextualizes the original's flawed commentary about violence, changing the framing approach to the issue by using elements that were already in the first game, bringing it to a whole another level of complexity. This sequel isn't so much about merely shaming players for enjoying violent video games, but a reflection of human nature's self-destructiveness on the cycle of violence, and the insidious influence of nationalism and propaganda. While secondarily working as a criticism of the film industry, similarly as how Hotline Miami was to gaming, still flirting with the notion of glorifying violence, it does so in a more nuanced and thought-provoking manner.

If you enjoy games that make you think about its themes and philosophy, this is your wet dream. It's been a long time since a game made me ramble in my own thoughts this much. I do have to point out that there are some ideas here that maybe I don't know if I 100% agree that much, mostly about how nihilistic some of its commentary is, but overall, this game is fucking awesome, and a reminder as to why I love this medium so much.

Lastly, something I have to mention. I'm seeing a recurring complaint people have about this game and its level design, which is players dying by off-screen fire... Question, you all know you can press SHIFT to move the camera further, right? I know it sounds like I'm being an asshole, but I'm not. I didn't know either; I tried like 3-4 different times to get into this game, but never could... and I think not knowing I could use the SHIFT button was the main reason. So, yeah... use it, lol.

★★★★ – Excellent ✅

They really took that AMD partnership seriously with how shitty the performance on Nvidia is, huh.

Anyway, literally in the first minutes of the game:

You meet nonchalant Barrett, who's just arrived and is going to give you his ship. But he doesn't tell that space pirates were actually following him

Yara yara dialogue, and then the pirates ship appear

Barrett: "I REALLY thought I lost them..."
Supervisor Lin: (angry) Barrett!

Pirate ship start landing

Supervisor Lin: "Weapons! Everybody get ready!"

A gunfight starts between your people and the pirates

You kill them, they kill a few of yours

Supervisor Lin: "Of course Barrett was being followed... Every. Time."
Barrett: (all happy and smiling) "Now that was some fine work under pressure."

Barrett goes on being cheeky and cracking jokes like nothing happened

...

I guess he doesn't care that he just got a bunch of people killed? LMAO.

I know I'm being a little bit of a cunt, but come on... it's the very first minutes. Bethesda writing, baby!

Game's feeling really boring atm. Doesn't do anything better than the games they're trying to copy. What's the point of the spaceship if I'm going to fast travel everywhere I go? And what the FUCK is that map? It actually does a disservice to the player by existing. How come Skyrim, a game that came out in 2011(!), has a better map? This doesn't feel like a game that's been in development 8 years.

I'm going to try it again in a year or so... or whenever the modders finish its development.

A tip to enjoy this game:

If you want a challenge, don't use shotguns; if you're having trouble with it, use shotguns.

They're kind of broken rn and I imagine they'll get patched. My arena experience wasn't that memorable thanks to using a dual shotgun setup early on. 🙃

Ah close, a little late for AC6's release (hell no, I'm not playing AC5 and AC:VD).

In short, much, much superior to AC4, but could've been a lot better. It's alright, overall. Don't really want to talk much about it since AC6 is already out, so here are some random notes:

-Why is Type-B not the default control scheme? It's easily the best choice.
-Still artistically boring, but not as bland as 4.
-Not really appreciating the "someone took a piss on my screen" filter much.
-Menu is so much better than the convoluted mess 4's was.
-Yay, the arena is back and it's actually fun.
-Mission design is an improvement over 4, but still I'm not a fan of "ignore everything and go for the main target" silent hill-style missions.
-Aiming is so annoying. Why are my missiles targeting the enemy's if I'm literally in front of him?
-WHY AM I TARGETING THE FAR AWAY ENEMY IF I HAVE ONE IN FRONT OF MEEEE!? AAAAAAAA!!!
-Arms Forts (colossal weapons) fights are awesome, even if they're on the easier side. Spirit of Mother Will fight might be one of my favorites in the franchise.
-Hm, so it's possible for Fromsoft to do the "bigger=better" shtick correctly (looking at you, Elden Ring).
-For a game with so much movement, the vertical box is very limited in certain maps.
-White Glint fight was so awesome that future fights felt underwhelming. Maybe it should've been the final boss.
-Hands down best soundtrack in the franchise, not even close.
-Ending 2 is somewhat interesting philosophically.
-Some changes up in the missions and story in Route 2, but it's not enough to justify playing it a 3rd time.
-Also, I've already seen Ending 3, and it feels edgy for the sake of being edgy. Not interested. I guess it's a cool bonus, though.

Probably won't play the other ACs, maybe Project Phantasma, which I wrongly skipped, after 6. A cool franchise to play overall, but hindered by the lack of narrative and Fromsoft's inability to adapt to modern gameplay improvements. If they manage to bring an interesting story with 6, I'll be pleased.

★★½ – Average ✅

Miyazaki? More like Miyasucky. The debut of the fraud scam-artist of a director. What else it's there to expect, d00d.

No, but seriously, this is so sloppy on so many levels I don't even want to write about it. That said though, I did like the lore behind the Kojima Particles, a technology the NEXTs (this gen's new ACs) uses, and how it's polluting the planet, so basically every single war is permanently poisoning the Earth making it inhabitable. And the soundtrack is amazing, even though the mixing is really shitty, and you have to lower everything else to hear it.

Maybe it'd be a ★★ with multiplayer which supposedly was fun, but good luck with that now.

Runs surprisingly well on RPCS3, if anyone's wondering.

★½ – Unplayable ❌

Finally, some good fucking food Armored Core with a decent story.

I'll have to admit I was a little skeptical coming to this game, mostly because when people talk about it, it's not about how good it is, but how hard. But yes, there's actually a good game here if you're curious and don't care about circle-jerking its difficulty.

In difference to other ACs, this one has more of a grim quality, making it feel more realistic in ambiance. Fitting, considering the context of the story: Taking place after the catastrophic events of Nexus, corporations (Crest, Mirage, and Kisaragi) join forces to form Alliance in a last ditch effort for power, but a new organization called Vertex, formed by Ravens, call an ultimatum on them. This final attack will take place in 24 hours (you can actually see the timer update after each mission, giving a sense of desperation). All of this while a new threat of mysterious unmanned weapons called Pulverizers appear.

What separates Last Raven from other ACs, is the different paths you can take in its story. There's a total of 6 paths (with an additional secret ending), each one having their unique sets of missions and bosses, adding replayability that other ACs didn't have. If you enjoyed the occasional twists previous missions had, there's a lot of that here, and if you enjoyed the 1o1 AC fights or unique boss battles, I think Last Raven is the best one in that department too. Souls enthusiasts will probably appreciate this game, because the boss fights (specially the Zinaida path) are hard as hell, but well-designed too. In terms of gameplay, this is easily the best, most tightly designed AC. Basically rebalancing and polishing Nexus' gameplay, featuring the updated combat and controls while not suffering from its overheat and ECM mechanics (they're still here, but now being manageable). Thanks to that, you can be a lot more creative with your builds than in Nexus, which already had a lot of builds to try. I had a total of 7 builds that I was adjusting and cycling throughout. Worth mentioning that the arena made a comeback too (no, Nexus' arena doesn't count as one), and it's as fun as any other, probably featuring the hardest arena opponent.

As for negatives, I don't have that much to say apart from a few nitpicks, but while before I mentioned the realistic new look, this could actually be considered the worst looking AC, but not because of the graphics themselves. For some reason, Fromsoft decided to completely ruin the visuals with a permanent scanline and blur filter, and it looks completely AWFUL. Eye-damaging bad. Luckily, you can fix this in PCSX2. But, why add them? So random...

If you're going to play Last Raven, I'd suggest against going the Zinaida path first (known for its difficulty), and instead playing whatever other path you end up with, and leaving Zinaida for your second playthrough, because if not, you're probably going to have a terrible time if you don't own the parts or don't have the experience for it.

My favorite AC so far, with Master of Arena in second. If you don't have time to play the whole series, at least try this one, maybe in conjunction with Nexus to save transfer.

★★★½ – Great ✅

(Only AC I played before, btw. Owned it as a kid, but never could complete the second mission because it was too difficult, and I couldn't understand the language. Loved watching the intro cutscene, though. That's the average latino kid AC experience, I guess lol.)

Disc 2, Revolution:

So, this game comes with 2 discs, Evolution, which is the main campaign, and Revolution, which is a remaster of some of the most iconic missions from AC1, Project Phantasma, and Master of Arena. I didn't have a really positive opinion of Nexus' Evolution, but I think Revolution completely justifies playing Nexus. While in the main campaign missions are lackluster in terms of creativity and difficulty, here it's the complete opposite. And it makes me wish I wouldn't have skipped Project Phantasma, because its missions here were some of my favorites. Surprisingly, the older missions play wonderfully on the new engine, featuring new parts, collectibles, updated music and cutscenes, and of course the updated gameplay of Nexus. It also features reverse side missions, and some tricky 1o1 AC fights, really fun figuring them out again. I think the only complaint I have is that some missions end kind of awkwardly, and they probably should've been updated in that regard. But in general, it's just a lot of fun.

Overall, great addition to Nexus, and the most (or only) enjoyable part. In opposite contrast to Evolution, it's clear Fromsoft put a lot of effort in this. I'm bumping my rating to 4 from a 3, and changing it to recommended (✅). I know Last Raven is tempting, but don't skip this disc!

★★ – Bad, but playable ✅