gamemast15r
This review contains spoilers
Friday the 13th is an asymmetrical multiplayer horror game developed by Illfonic and developed by Gun Media; where you can either choose to play as Jason Voorhees or the numerous camp counselors looking to run away from him as you fight to survive or in Jason's case, try to murder everyone in pure style. I'm gonna start out by saying that this won't necessarily be a full in depth review as I hadn't played it in so long, nor am I a huge multiplayer guy anymore (however this is my most played game on Steam by far). Here's what I can tell you though, this game was one of the most fun multiplayer games I've ever had fun with; I backed the kickstarter when they announced it, I got a gaming PC just to play this game, and through this game I met some of the coolest people in my life (and some of the worst) but it was an experience to say the least. It had some toxic and horrible people but some of the best people as well; I remember dudes would go out of their way to kill me because I had pre-ordered the Savini Jason Skin (mainly because I like new Jason ideas helped me imagine the potential for future movies) but other times everyone would just meet up in the center and goof around, sometimes Jason would roleplay and play loud a s s music in the mic while trolling people, or sometimes he'd just be a dude who'd just go for a jog with you, say their pleasantries before putting you in a sleeping bag and smack you against a tree.
There is no real story (other than collectible tapes which both provide some sort of backstory to certain events while also making references to other horror media like Nightmare on Elm Street, Shocker, Halloween, etc) because the truth is that obviously it wasn't really built for one. And that's fine, the gameplay was for the most part the real center stage piece of it.
The gameplay follows as stated above, but with different mechanics: play as Jason and you're basically invincible but capable of being stunned, slowed down by certain traps, etc. Maybe I'm just a biased Jason fan but I know a lot of people at the time we're complaining about Jason being overpowered, but that's what Jason is in the movies so I didn't really complain. But you could choose from a number of Jason skins from the the second movie onwards (though no Pamela, no Jason X or further due to rights issues), who all had different buffs and cons, and truth be told it was a delight to see them all play out. The counselors also had different buffs and cons, and you had different objectives such as escape via boat, car, survive til' the end, or the most difficult of all: Kill Jason which required a number of steps that for the most part could only be completed due to extreme team work, luck and maybe even Jason's help if he's feeling generous. Honestly, even though at times it could be janky, the gameplay was a lot of fun, even if you didn't take anything seriously and just wanted to goof around and talk to people in chat. However it's been a while since I last played, and when I last played that social aspect was gone due to the fact I can't understand Eastern European or Asian Languages, but I respect that people we're still able to play it even after it's absence. The worst part I could say the game had an issue with at the time was sometimes toxic people (not as bad as Overwatch's fan base though to be honest) and just the disconnection to the servers sometimes were AWFUL; the game came out as a broken mess but due to the fact I loved the series I stuck by it and enjoyed it for what it was.
For graphics/art and music, and everything else; I'll start by saying before the legal issues set it up for failure, I know when I reviewed the game I said it could've done with more maps but by the time the game was shelved it had maps from Part 1-5 and really accurate representations from the movies. I didn't expect fifty maps that are huge as they were going based on the movies and I respect that but they made it look fantastic even if graphically the game wasn't the greatest with graphics as it had a lot of goofy models, facial structure, and the likes of lots of goofy but noticeable glitches. The music, created by Harry Manfredi stood out however as always and was fantastic and everyone did a great job in replicating the old movies in terms of atmosphere and the likes.
Since then, what has happened? Well due to issues on who owned the franchise between writer of the OG Victor Miller and the owner of the series Sean Cunningham this game was forced to shelve all future content (which included the likes of Jason X). I appreciated the amount of content it did get though (like a homage to NES Jason was priceless) and all the times I had with it, though sadly the game will be closed down soon; sales will stop in December 31st of 2023 and be shut down in the years following, probably including it's offline NPC mode (which I didn't try but it probably didn't work much anyways). However, there is hope for a potential future as new movies/series are being made as well as a new game apparently. To finish it off, I miss this game and back in the day there was a bit of a rivalry between this and Dead by Daylight; to me DBD was scarier but F13 was a lot more fun, however we all know who won the longevity game. Regardless it's just sad how this game went out with a whimper, I wish things could've been different, though if you wanna try it out and play now's your chance.
https://twitter.com/Friday13thGame/status/1666811485811806210
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/613356213/friday-the-13th-the-game
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/a-new-friday-the-13th-game-is-in-development-with-composer-harry-manfredini/1100-6514935/
https://fridaythe13ththegame.fandom.com/wiki/Collectibles
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FridayThe13thTheGame
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
There is no real story (other than collectible tapes which both provide some sort of backstory to certain events while also making references to other horror media like Nightmare on Elm Street, Shocker, Halloween, etc) because the truth is that obviously it wasn't really built for one. And that's fine, the gameplay was for the most part the real center stage piece of it.
The gameplay follows as stated above, but with different mechanics: play as Jason and you're basically invincible but capable of being stunned, slowed down by certain traps, etc. Maybe I'm just a biased Jason fan but I know a lot of people at the time we're complaining about Jason being overpowered, but that's what Jason is in the movies so I didn't really complain. But you could choose from a number of Jason skins from the the second movie onwards (though no Pamela, no Jason X or further due to rights issues), who all had different buffs and cons, and truth be told it was a delight to see them all play out. The counselors also had different buffs and cons, and you had different objectives such as escape via boat, car, survive til' the end, or the most difficult of all: Kill Jason which required a number of steps that for the most part could only be completed due to extreme team work, luck and maybe even Jason's help if he's feeling generous. Honestly, even though at times it could be janky, the gameplay was a lot of fun, even if you didn't take anything seriously and just wanted to goof around and talk to people in chat. However it's been a while since I last played, and when I last played that social aspect was gone due to the fact I can't understand Eastern European or Asian Languages, but I respect that people we're still able to play it even after it's absence. The worst part I could say the game had an issue with at the time was sometimes toxic people (not as bad as Overwatch's fan base though to be honest) and just the disconnection to the servers sometimes were AWFUL; the game came out as a broken mess but due to the fact I loved the series I stuck by it and enjoyed it for what it was.
For graphics/art and music, and everything else; I'll start by saying before the legal issues set it up for failure, I know when I reviewed the game I said it could've done with more maps but by the time the game was shelved it had maps from Part 1-5 and really accurate representations from the movies. I didn't expect fifty maps that are huge as they were going based on the movies and I respect that but they made it look fantastic even if graphically the game wasn't the greatest with graphics as it had a lot of goofy models, facial structure, and the likes of lots of goofy but noticeable glitches. The music, created by Harry Manfredi stood out however as always and was fantastic and everyone did a great job in replicating the old movies in terms of atmosphere and the likes.
Since then, what has happened? Well due to issues on who owned the franchise between writer of the OG Victor Miller and the owner of the series Sean Cunningham this game was forced to shelve all future content (which included the likes of Jason X). I appreciated the amount of content it did get though (like a homage to NES Jason was priceless) and all the times I had with it, though sadly the game will be closed down soon; sales will stop in December 31st of 2023 and be shut down in the years following, probably including it's offline NPC mode (which I didn't try but it probably didn't work much anyways). However, there is hope for a potential future as new movies/series are being made as well as a new game apparently. To finish it off, I miss this game and back in the day there was a bit of a rivalry between this and Dead by Daylight; to me DBD was scarier but F13 was a lot more fun, however we all know who won the longevity game. Regardless it's just sad how this game went out with a whimper, I wish things could've been different, though if you wanna try it out and play now's your chance.
https://twitter.com/Friday13thGame/status/1666811485811806210
https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/613356213/friday-the-13th-the-game
https://www.gamespot.com/articles/a-new-friday-the-13th-game-is-in-development-with-composer-harry-manfredini/1100-6514935/
https://fridaythe13ththegame.fandom.com/wiki/Collectibles
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/FridayThe13thTheGame
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Drug Dealer Simulator is a quite literal “drug dealer simulator” about being, well, a drug dealer; developed by Byterunners Game Studios, it’s kind of self explanatory and I’m not sure what else to put here in terms of developer context. However what I can say is this: I originally got this game a month and a half after the game came out in Early Access around April of 2020 (shoutout to my dude BFD Survivor for the immaculate pick) because not only had I shown interest in it due to my fascination for criminal fiction/nonfiction but also my constant jokes about actually selling and taking drugs, so I’ve been playing this on and off for the past couple of years and I’ll just start out by saying that it has its flaws but as a game I really enjoy my time with it, both due to my imagination but also due to the fact that once you get the rhythm going that the gameplay loop to me personally becomes addicting.
In fact, I’m gonna start with the gameplay; you’re here to sell drugs (of which can vary from weed to meth to the motherload of cocaine), you can mix them together with other materials like baking soda, fentanyl, acetone, whatever you can find in game to make it more potent/addicting. The more addicting, the more customers you bring/the faster you can get them addicted; however there’s a high price to pay if people overdose. The cops will show up more often, a lot less people will go to you for product and eventually you might get raided by DEA and if you get that then it’s game over. To this end, this game essentially promotes both time and monetary management skills; you have to buy the drugs from Eddie (your dealer) whom you distribute drugs to other customers so you can get money of course. However with this, keep in mind you have to pay Eddie as well or you won’t get any drugs; of course you can grow some in the future (and later end up going independent due to story events, of which you have to start up drug labs in certain safehouse spots). The early game can be hellish in terms of actually making profit considering the first area you don’t really get too cash. But saving money is the key, you get money and stash some away, maybe buy a safehouse or two in case you need a place to fall back on (they also give you benefits like extra money per sale and lower reputation degradation), invest in new equipment; there’s a lot that I can’t describe here but it does have some sort of benefit to the overall experience. Of course you can only get this stuff (as well as End Game features) by leveling up to 36 so it’s going to be a grind, and whereas I do enjoy this stuff and the RPG-like mechanics with perks, grinding in almost any case can be boring if there isn’t MORE to it other than the core gameplay loop, which I like a lot but still. Again, you can kind of tell that the feature creep really got to ‘em considering the debut trailer had guns in it (and I believe the dev promised them? Don’t quote me I don’t remember). You can also apparently get high on your own supply (which I didn’t, because never do that though it apparently gives benefits) and there’s a lot of smuggling going on with inventory management; any money you get you have to carry in your backpack (which reminds me you can launder that money later and slowly get it trickled back down to you for legit purchases such as late game villas, safehouses, furniture, etc.) and the smuggling kept me on my toes between buying lockpicks and trying to cross into the other districts via sewers or choosing between paying 350 dollars to a construction worker to take a tunnel or throwing your bag over the wall (which I’ll be honest is kind of easier said than done, at least with me) and going through the police checkpoint. All of these make for a very interesting loop which I’ve enjoyed non stop; I wish I could describe every feature but I can’t because time; however if I were to describe any issues it would definitely be the grind can be boring and the police themselves. The police were strange with their AI in my play through, most of the time they worked fine but sometimes they could see me from 15 miles away and ask to search and other times I can sprint right past and they wouldn’t care; I don’t remember if that was perks or if it’s just a game thing but as much as it keeps you on your toes they definitely become annoying. If you want a tip for this, if you ever get into a chase and you have a heavy load then drop it and just book it or you’ll get zapped and arrested; overall for me the loop works and trying to balance doing all the math to get your product correct while running all over the place, trying to avoid cops, it genuinely works and it’s a tense but rewarding process. However, do yourself a favor and save often just in case, gonna move onto the story quickly.
The story is you play as a dude working under a guy named Eddie, who works for The Cartel; you sell drugs and do general crime while your inner conscience talks to you in a 90s skater voice about how doing crime is awesome while sometimes making fourth wall breaking joke instructions or pop culture references; play your cards right and eventually you team up with either drug lord La Ballena or Kenji who ask for varying amounts of drug orders in exchange for huge profits, you team up with a Psychedelics gang, get a money launderer and then you go to the end game: The Cartel and the Colombians go to war, and through a series of events Eddie ends up leaving and you grow to be an independent drug dealer with the entire area under your control. That’s it, no in depth plot or anything, it’s serviceable but for a simulation game like this it’s kind of what I expect.
To move onto graphics/art & sound design; I’ll just start with the graphics. The graphics aren’t great, they feel really cheap, like low quality flipped assets (mostly on the civilians of course) and the world definitely gives the feeling that it’s abandoned (I mean christ, you’re working around what I believe to be the border and it’s a HORRIBLE crime infested hell hole), most likely it’s not a purposeful world design but it gives off the vibe of such especially considering throughout the game you’re stuck in a town trapped by overzealous police officers who love to oppress the people anyways. Now there are people, but most of the buildings while they don’t need to have a purpose, feels like they were supposed to have one but got cut due to budget reasons. Truth be told, I don’t think the graphics really delivered because of the budget stuff, what I can say is that the graffiti looks cool. Also commonly when getting into conversations you’ll see misspelling, punctuation that’s off, like it’s a finished game but it needs more polish and that’s probably due to the fact that the developers are from Poland I believe (no pun intended). In this section however, the sound design is where the game shines; the music selections are a great sort of underground mix, the title theme slaps to hell, like there are songs in this game that I STILL listen to even when I take months off from playing this game (mostly songs by Thonio or Vic Sage).
Overall, the game has a lot of jank, a lot of stuff that feels strange and unfinished; but again the gameplay loop really works for me and I like what this game has to offer despite the jank (also wanna point out a glitch, working on my villa and tried putting some doors down but accidentally painted the nearby walls and so now I can’t give my villa front or back doors, which is strange but whatever) and general grind of the game. Is it worth the price? To me yes it is, I got my hours/enjoyment out of the game and every now and then I’ll go back and play for fun; BUT you kind of have to look past all the imperfections and meet the game on it’s own terms to do so. It’s not perfect but I find it enjoyable and will probably continue to play it; I know at the moment the studio is gearing up for DDS2, of which I’ll put the links below.
Wanted to post this in the review but I'm tired and Steam Character limits, however here are some guides and reference material I looked into.
https://www.chaptercheats.com/cheat/pc/436459/Drug-Dealer-Simulator/hint/155297/
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2065932078
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2885790535
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXd86rUabl8
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D00LMHvPxxvlllGQUAx7XqX-iBzlfTM
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4d5eN1HopWyRm3xF6DGCyc
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708850/Drug_Dealer_Simulator_2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBLCU-T5rvs&ab_channel=GameTrailers
https://www.nexusmods.com/drugdealersimulator
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
In fact, I’m gonna start with the gameplay; you’re here to sell drugs (of which can vary from weed to meth to the motherload of cocaine), you can mix them together with other materials like baking soda, fentanyl, acetone, whatever you can find in game to make it more potent/addicting. The more addicting, the more customers you bring/the faster you can get them addicted; however there’s a high price to pay if people overdose. The cops will show up more often, a lot less people will go to you for product and eventually you might get raided by DEA and if you get that then it’s game over. To this end, this game essentially promotes both time and monetary management skills; you have to buy the drugs from Eddie (your dealer) whom you distribute drugs to other customers so you can get money of course. However with this, keep in mind you have to pay Eddie as well or you won’t get any drugs; of course you can grow some in the future (and later end up going independent due to story events, of which you have to start up drug labs in certain safehouse spots). The early game can be hellish in terms of actually making profit considering the first area you don’t really get too cash. But saving money is the key, you get money and stash some away, maybe buy a safehouse or two in case you need a place to fall back on (they also give you benefits like extra money per sale and lower reputation degradation), invest in new equipment; there’s a lot that I can’t describe here but it does have some sort of benefit to the overall experience. Of course you can only get this stuff (as well as End Game features) by leveling up to 36 so it’s going to be a grind, and whereas I do enjoy this stuff and the RPG-like mechanics with perks, grinding in almost any case can be boring if there isn’t MORE to it other than the core gameplay loop, which I like a lot but still. Again, you can kind of tell that the feature creep really got to ‘em considering the debut trailer had guns in it (and I believe the dev promised them? Don’t quote me I don’t remember). You can also apparently get high on your own supply (which I didn’t, because never do that though it apparently gives benefits) and there’s a lot of smuggling going on with inventory management; any money you get you have to carry in your backpack (which reminds me you can launder that money later and slowly get it trickled back down to you for legit purchases such as late game villas, safehouses, furniture, etc.) and the smuggling kept me on my toes between buying lockpicks and trying to cross into the other districts via sewers or choosing between paying 350 dollars to a construction worker to take a tunnel or throwing your bag over the wall (which I’ll be honest is kind of easier said than done, at least with me) and going through the police checkpoint. All of these make for a very interesting loop which I’ve enjoyed non stop; I wish I could describe every feature but I can’t because time; however if I were to describe any issues it would definitely be the grind can be boring and the police themselves. The police were strange with their AI in my play through, most of the time they worked fine but sometimes they could see me from 15 miles away and ask to search and other times I can sprint right past and they wouldn’t care; I don’t remember if that was perks or if it’s just a game thing but as much as it keeps you on your toes they definitely become annoying. If you want a tip for this, if you ever get into a chase and you have a heavy load then drop it and just book it or you’ll get zapped and arrested; overall for me the loop works and trying to balance doing all the math to get your product correct while running all over the place, trying to avoid cops, it genuinely works and it’s a tense but rewarding process. However, do yourself a favor and save often just in case, gonna move onto the story quickly.
The story is you play as a dude working under a guy named Eddie, who works for The Cartel; you sell drugs and do general crime while your inner conscience talks to you in a 90s skater voice about how doing crime is awesome while sometimes making fourth wall breaking joke instructions or pop culture references; play your cards right and eventually you team up with either drug lord La Ballena or Kenji who ask for varying amounts of drug orders in exchange for huge profits, you team up with a Psychedelics gang, get a money launderer and then you go to the end game: The Cartel and the Colombians go to war, and through a series of events Eddie ends up leaving and you grow to be an independent drug dealer with the entire area under your control. That’s it, no in depth plot or anything, it’s serviceable but for a simulation game like this it’s kind of what I expect.
To move onto graphics/art & sound design; I’ll just start with the graphics. The graphics aren’t great, they feel really cheap, like low quality flipped assets (mostly on the civilians of course) and the world definitely gives the feeling that it’s abandoned (I mean christ, you’re working around what I believe to be the border and it’s a HORRIBLE crime infested hell hole), most likely it’s not a purposeful world design but it gives off the vibe of such especially considering throughout the game you’re stuck in a town trapped by overzealous police officers who love to oppress the people anyways. Now there are people, but most of the buildings while they don’t need to have a purpose, feels like they were supposed to have one but got cut due to budget reasons. Truth be told, I don’t think the graphics really delivered because of the budget stuff, what I can say is that the graffiti looks cool. Also commonly when getting into conversations you’ll see misspelling, punctuation that’s off, like it’s a finished game but it needs more polish and that’s probably due to the fact that the developers are from Poland I believe (no pun intended). In this section however, the sound design is where the game shines; the music selections are a great sort of underground mix, the title theme slaps to hell, like there are songs in this game that I STILL listen to even when I take months off from playing this game (mostly songs by Thonio or Vic Sage).
Overall, the game has a lot of jank, a lot of stuff that feels strange and unfinished; but again the gameplay loop really works for me and I like what this game has to offer despite the jank (also wanna point out a glitch, working on my villa and tried putting some doors down but accidentally painted the nearby walls and so now I can’t give my villa front or back doors, which is strange but whatever) and general grind of the game. Is it worth the price? To me yes it is, I got my hours/enjoyment out of the game and every now and then I’ll go back and play for fun; BUT you kind of have to look past all the imperfections and meet the game on it’s own terms to do so. It’s not perfect but I find it enjoyable and will probably continue to play it; I know at the moment the studio is gearing up for DDS2, of which I’ll put the links below.
Wanted to post this in the review but I'm tired and Steam Character limits, however here are some guides and reference material I looked into.
https://www.chaptercheats.com/cheat/pc/436459/Drug-Dealer-Simulator/hint/155297/
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2065932078
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2885790535
https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=ZXd86rUabl8
https://m.youtube.com/playlist?list=PL2D00LMHvPxxvlllGQUAx7XqX-iBzlfTM
https://open.spotify.com/playlist/4d5eN1HopWyRm3xF6DGCyc
https://store.steampowered.com/app/1708850/Drug_Dealer_Simulator_2/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CBLCU-T5rvs&ab_channel=GameTrailers
https://www.nexusmods.com/drugdealersimulator
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2003
This review contains spoilers
Siren (or known as Forbidden Siren in the Europe/Asia markets) is a game developed by Japan Studio under the banner of Sony Computer Entertainment for the Playstation 2 console. This game is a fascination to me, in fact it’s been a fascination to me I believe since I watched NitroRad’s video on it (link below) though the truth is I’ve known about it for a bit longer than that due to the fact I’m a weird Sony exclusive historian guy so I’ve always gone out of my way to collect these. However, I originally bought it on PS4 for ten dollars or so due to Nitro’s video on it; and that’s basically the console I played it on because the game is expensive (though I’d love to collect to own it in the future) due to the fact that the game didn’t exactly sell well due to it’s gameplay concepts, of which I will discuss here in a bit. This is due to the fact that the game’s director, Keiichiro Toyama (originally of Silent Hill 1 fame), wanted to create something unique with the series, something that hadn’t been done before. Though I can’t confirm this because writing this review is off the cuff, apparently he wanted this game to be a sort of puzzle that players would have to put together with other people, preferably on the internet. Again, I don't remember the source other than a few offhand bits of info I heard from Youtubists (which could be wrong), but this stuff is kind of rare in concept (the only other example I heard being like this was Kojima’s P.T.; which in a sudden twist of fate was a Silent Hill game but that’s a whole nother bag of shit to get into) and even more rare in the fact that this game came out in 2003, so not a lot of people we’re really doing that as far as I’m aware, at least not like it is now. Because of this, the game didn’t exactly sell well, garnering two more games (the second which only sold in Europe and Japan with no way to play other than region locked PS2 consoles from those versions or alternatively emulating via PC, as well as a “Reimagining” of the first game which I heard was not so great), as well as some movie adaptations in Japan and some manga comics. Truth be told, with how this game plays out, I’m not surprised that more people didn’t play this game, and whereas I’m disappointed and sad, I also can’t really fault anyone. It took me 10 hours to beat based on in game stats but it doesn’t count the constant retrying of deaths so it was more like 15 I would make a guess, which factors into the gameplay which is up next.
So here’s the basic concept of the gameplay: you start out as one of ten characters (which range from main character Kyoya Suda, professor Tamon Takeuchi, Priest Kei Makino, his twin brother Shiro Miyata, Risa Onda (a woman who is also looking for her twin sister, who was dating Shiro), teacher Reiko Takato, student/child Harumi Yomoda, celebrity/70s sitcom mom looking Naoko Mihama, old badass/poopy diaper grandpa (as a friend called him lol) Akira Shimura and finally Tomoko Maeda, a student who ran away from home after her parents read her diary. You get placed in a random section of a map and you’re often told to do an objective, and for the first couple of loops you can do those objectives while also completing secret secondary objectives (which are basically kept secret unless you’re following a guide, look to the bottom of the page) so other people in different missions down the line can do other objectives needed in order to pass. After you beat a bunch of these missions, you’ll unlock the “Link Navigator”, which helps you choose which missions you wanna do as well as tell you which missions haven’t gotten their secondary objectives done. However, sometimes these objectives don’t even pop up properly unless you do a bunch of other missions first and get the prerequisites done, even if you already unlocked certain missions previously. For example, there’s this mission where you play as Akira Shimura and you have to protect Tamon Takeuchi’s student, Yoriko Anno, as she’s attacked by Shibito (the main enemy fodder, they’re reanimated villagers who are kind of like zombies except a whole lot more human and can be armed with anything from shovels to big ass rifles) and one of the prerequisites for a later mission (spoiler) is to “Remember Akira”. To do that, you need to tell Yoriko to hide in an area around some houses, however if you hadn’t completed some other missions (which I have no clue what missions are needed and if they even tie into anything) she won’t find a picture of Akira lying on the ground which won’t be used later by Tamon to remember Akira after he’s been Shibitofied and plugs him with some bullets. Another example, you play as Kei Makino as you have to escort Tomoko through a cliffside village area, once you get to the end and split up you’re supposed to (as a secondary objective), go back to the nearby temple, sightjack (give me a second) and watch as a nearby Shibito puts in a code to unlock the temple door so you can grab something and leave; problem is the fucker doesn’t spawn until you do a bunch of other missions beforehand.
This, while I enjoy the meta concept to the whole “Time Loop” concept that the game has (which will be explored in the story section), and whilst I understand that it plays into the “Cooperate with other players to figure out how to continue the game”, nobody was doing that shit back then that I’m aware of so it came off more frustrating than most, unless of course you use a guide which I’m gonna be honest with you, in order to understand what’s going on YOU WILL NEED A GUIDE. Trust me on this, I suck at puzzles cause I’m a dummy idiot simpleton fuck who can’t solve most puzzle games without one, but dude I doubt anyone could sit through this game and intuitively think “Wow, this game is really cohesive with what it wants me to do and I’ll snap to it like that”, it’s unique don’t get me wrong but it’s obtuse as hell, especially for it’s time period which was 2003. This is I think one of the game’s biggest weaknesses, but again also a strength with how it ties into the metanarrative it’s got going, a strange catch-22 of sorts because while I like it a lot for it, it’s really confusing and I guarantee you because of this (as well as some of the controls), not a lot of people got passed the first mission, as for some people the first impression is the only impression you get.
Hell, I’ve been kind of afraid to touch it, having wanted to but knowing I would get way too frustrated on my own, I’ve been streaming it once or twice every week for a friend as a sort of excuse to delve head first into it, and having gotten to the end and beaten it I’m glad, but I also understand. Bringing it back to the controls for a second, this game is a bit of a confusing mish mash; it’s a third person over the shoulder survival horror, except it doesn’t play all in one go. You play a mission at a time, with maybe a checkpoint here and there dependent on how long the stage is but because of these short, segmented stages you won’t get much in the way of guns and ammo, sometimes you’ll get a melee weapon and sometimes you just won’t get shit at all and have to survive only using your wits. This can actually lead to some tense moments (and frustrating moments). The more frustrating side tends to come when the Shibito have guns, specifically long rifles, if you are seen it’s a death sentence; for example there’s a mission with Kyoya where you have to escort Yoriko through a giant nest of buildings with armed guards patrolling the place, of which I was only able to get through with the IGN guide as well as a Youtube channel whose moves I replicated (thanks to P.B. Horror Gaming, link on the bottom). With this in mind, another thing I want to bring up; if I wasn’t streaming the game I would’ve gotten really pissed at this game as it’s very much trial and error; you will die A LOT in order to figure out a pattern to complete the objective and it can really try your patience so make sure to have A LOT of that as well as the guide because sometimes it’s not explained properly.
My scariest moment was playing as Harumi trapped in a house, defenseless against three other Shibito (all of them being Tomoko and her family); the only tool you have is the Sightjack ability, which you use to close your eyes and moving the left thumbstick around can sort of “tune in” to different Shibito, seeing from their eyes as they move around the area. This is both useful in the sense that you can figure out their patterns and learn to avoid or confront them and scary as fuck cause if one of those guys sees you while you’re sightjacking? Run. It’s a unique game mechanic I haven’t seen pretty much ever except one game, Atama (which takes inspiration from Siren anyways) on Steam (Link below). Other than the sightjacking, you have combat which if you can you should probably avoid unless absolutely necessary. Ranged combat should only be used for people you need to knock out in a jam (they don’t die, they WILL get back up so shoot wisely) or for certain objectives (mainly involving the Onda twin shibitos) because you could both run out of bullets quickly. Melee combat isn’t bad but can be a bit funky, if you get too close you have a good chance of getting grabbed which means you lose health and there aren’t any health packs in the slightest and you can die really quickly without button mashing; of which I don’t know which button to press whether it’s X or Square (EDIT: Just learned it was the left thumb stick, I’m an idiot my apologies). Also, for melee you have the light attack by tapping X and the strong attack by holding X; learn the timing for the strong attack not only because it knocks em’ out faster but if you’re in a shorter area like a tight hallway, the light attack is useless as your range is stopped by nearby walls, trust me on this. Along with the fact that the more the game progresses, the tougher the Shibito get: spider shibito are fast and can get in your ass quick while climbing around and fly shibito are basically mobile sentries that usually have a revolver and can blast your ass quick, along with other forms. I should also bring up the controls really quick:
Controls:
Square is the flashlight
X is to open doors, and interact with stuff in the environment like collectibles
Circle is to crouch
Triangle is to open up the interaction menu, which allows you to: Call/tell people to wait, shout at enemies to lure them to you, interaction with certain objectives, etc.
L1 is to strafe and you move left or right
L2 is to Sightjack, with the left thumbstick helping you channel to different enemies
R1 is to aim, if you have a rifle like Akira, it’s zoomed in and you move the right thumb sticks though keep in mind it’s kind of awkward
R2 is to go into First Person mode, where you can move but very slowly
Start (or right on the PS4 face pad) is to open up the main menu
Select (or left on the PS4 face pad) is to open up a map (you won’t be told where you are so you kind of have to triangulate yourself and figure it out)
As far as I know clicking the thumbsticks does nothing, but moving the right thumb stick quickly moves your camera a tad but doesn’t exactly move your character in a way that’s normal as it’s still a survival horror game. Any movement you do will be primarily the left stick, which I’ll give you some advice: the tight maneuvering (as well as the longer animations sometimes) can lead to Shibito gaining on you if you’re running away, so if you’re in an open space it’s fine to run but if you have a tight corner, slow down then move to the desired direction because I ran into so many walls and it takes a bit for your character to get out of it. Also goes for jumping off of or climbing stuff, the animations are slow and if you get hit you’re back to square one, so you have to gauge the distance/pray the shibito miss if they have a gun. It gets especially frustrating when trying to help people up whatever cliffside, as it takes a while to do so. I don’t think I have much else to put out there in the way of gameplay, except three things: as Kyoya you’ll be escorting a blind girl named Miyako sometimes, don’t run too far ahead of her or else she won’t be able to sightjack through you (because she’s blind of course) and it helps her orientation if you’re looking at her. Another thing to note is that you can get into vehicles sometimes, but when you do you’ll be first person and each section will be its own thing you have to press Triangle on to figure out what does what (mainly throwing this out there for the first mission as Kyoya), the third is to take your time with it’s game and get comfortable with repetition as if you’re trying to do the collectibles/secret objectives and you die after getting some progress done, if you’re not restarted at the beginning stage then there’s this glitch where certain things don’t actually count towards your progress and they get erased so either you’ll have to go get this stuff again or alternatively restart. Keep in mind, though a lot of it is clunky and definitely frustrating, once you get the hang of it, it all sort of clicks and there were times where I felt REALLY good playing the game. If there’s something I’m missing, feel free to let me know and I’ll put it in. I’m gonna go onto the story here because there’s a lot to unpack for me personally.
The story starts out relatively simple but gets complicated and rather confusing and convoluted quickly. You start out as Kyoya Suda, traveling to a remote village in the Japanese mountains called Hanuda, investigating a massacre that happened decades ago along with the paranormal side effects (which I didn’t even catch this, shoutout to the wiki). Of course, like all horror games, there’s a cult that is trying to sacrifice a blind girl named Miyako in a ritual, Kyoya’s presence lets her escape and the ritual is foiled, leading to the entire area to go to hell really quickly. After escaping a drunk cop (not officially a Shibito as he hasn’t died yet but drunk cops shooting at civilians? Why does that sound familiar?) and getting shot he lands in a red river and wakes up next to a village with a priestess named Hisako Yao, who helps him get his bearings. Along the way you’ll discover the motives of other people involved: Tamon was originally from Hanuda and his parents died in a mysterious landslide in 1977, Kei Makino is a priest in the local religion (called the Mana Religion) but is apparently a really nice guy and a bit of a wimp while his twin, Shiro is a bit of a sociopath who murdered his girlfriend Mina Onda, a nurse who worked with him, for telling him that she’s pregnant with his baby, and after the Shibito outbreak guess who pops out of her grave. Meanwhile her sister Risa Onda is looking to find her, like keep in mind there are so many plot details and intricacies that I can’t really put it all in this review as it would just be blatant copy paste wiki articles at this point.
What I can say is this: everything is happening because of an event centuries ago: a famine happened long ago in the late 7th century, and the people of Hanuda was suffering through a drought that really hurt their ability to consume; they perform a ritual rite calling for rain and all the sudden a decade later a creature comes falling down on a comet where it’s mistaken for a fish and is eaten; it doesn’t exactly like that so it screams and brings about a curse, specifically on Hisako Yao; that’s right the priestess is immortal and has erected this Mana Religion in this creature’s honor, named Datatsushi as everyone else dies a painful death. She’s also pregnant apparently and starts the Kajiro family bloodline, known in Hanuda as royalty and is shown to have gained the sightjacking ability as a sort of miracle and having been cursed to resurrect Datatsushi, forgets her duty. With this in mind, she interrupted another ritual in 1976/7, which sunk another part of Hanuda into a landslide (which Tamon’s parents died in) and sending that piece into an alternate dimension, or as the game would say “The dimension that’s between life and death” or something along those lines. After that she regains her memories to revive her god, and has since been determined to appease it yet again, so sacrifices Miyako in 2003. Kyoya fucks it up of course and everything goes to hell; what I liked out of the game is the interconnectivity between the characters and the plot, for example Akira’s son was apparently 1976 Miyako’s boyfriend and that’s led to a long line of depression and hatred for the local cult; Shiro has always been jealous of his brother Kei’s upbringing and has longed to become him, he’s also a bit of a mad scientist as he conducts experiments on the Shibito to learn their secrets; however he disappears after Day 2 because he grabs the Uryen (a plot macguffin that helps both harm the undead as well as representing Yin and Yang (which little note here, symbolically is represented multiple times between Shiro/Kei as well as Risa and her twin Mina Onda)) and from then on you just play as Kei Makino. But wait, his voice sounds familiar right? Well if you play one of Harumi’s alternate missions in Day 3 you learn why, out of sheer jealousy (as well as due to the fact that Kei’s stepfather gifted the entire control of the religion to him in his will) murders his own brother and dons the garb, with Shiro finally becoming the person he wanted to be all along: his brother. I love this twist, and it’s the little details like that even when out of order, if it’s brought back together correctly it makes for a fantastic twist. Again, there are so many details that sort of loop back into itself that even logically speaking make sense, like something that I got from Nitro’s video was that Miyako had a dog (until her adoptive brother killed the pup and attempted to kidnap Miyako back before getting wacked in the head with a stick), and since she’s blind and sees through sightjacking, they’re a literal seeing eye dog. Another thing I enjoy is Harumi’s bond with her teacher, Ms. Takato who takes a motherly bond with her and refers to Harumi as her daughter, and goes out protecting her in a fantastic send off involving explosives. Another detail I like, Naoko is career obsessed and worries about her beauty so a remark from Akira (in a negative light) about being immortal due to the red water (final bit here before I explain the red water and wrap up the plot) leads to her getting the idea that she can get eternal youth and beauty by bathing in the red water; that’s not the case and it leads to her transforming into a shibito. In fact, anyone who gets in contact with the red water will eventually become a Shibito, with Kyoya being the only difference due to a blood transfusion between him and Miyako, and she’s immune due to her bloodline. The titular siren the game talks about is the call of Datatsushi, which leads shibito to bathe in the red water so they can transform into more fucked up versions of themselves (which is a reason why spider shibito and fly shibito exist).
The game finally starts to close when Miyako is sacrifice and Datatsushi sort of reincarnates; shit gets even worse as the fates of Shiro/Kei and Tamon are revealed; Shiro sacrifices himself to kill off all the remaining Shibito I believe with the Uryen (of which there are two, one which he gives to Kyoya, and also he floods the shibito nest by opening up the dam) while Tamon gets a tragic ending and ends up finding his parents, to him they look the same but he’s had contact with the red water so to others they’re not. In fact, barely anyone gets out alive save (thank fuck) for Harumi, who is rescued via helicopter from the ruins of the town which were revealed to be, shock, “a landslide”, repeating the same events from the 70s (of which since it’s the same dimension both the 2003 timeline and 1970s timeline kind of merge in this one dimension). Kyoya however confronts Hisako Yao and her underling, Miyako’s brother (and piece of shit dog killer Jun Kajiro) in a difficult sniper battle that ends up in a final confrontation with Datatsushi itself; however you have someone who could help you: Miyako in spirit. After picking up the Homuranagi (an ancient sword of which only really works to decapitate if you knocked down four separate stone markers as four separate people before playing as Reiko Takato and knocking down four other stone markers in one mission in a specific order) and killing Datatsushi (of which if you sightjack the praying mantis/wasp elder god looking fucker you can see Miyako point to a nearby pyramid which will help you reveal the location/distance of Datatsushi, or alternatively you could just run a bit, do a 180 and either activate the Uryen immediately or wait between 3-6 seconds to stab it with a sword) the fate of the remaining characters are revealed: Hisako Yao grows old and falls through a time vortex with the fallen god’s head, later giving it to her past self so the time loop continues and Kyoya Suda is now trapped in the underworld with Miyako’s blood in his veins. However he proceeds to roam the dimension armed with both the Uryen, the Homuranagi and a rifle he picked up along the way, and proceeds to annihilate the shibito.
Overall, to wrap this story up; I don’t usually care for stories that make you get all the collectibles in order to understand ANYTHING about what’s going on (talking about you Outlast 2), but this game does it in a way where I LOVE it and how it goes together. It’s a fascinating take on time loops, yin and yang, good and evil; there’s a lot of stuff in there to unpack and on top of it I consider this game to be Lovecraftian horror and in that sense it’s fucking amazing too. The only complaint I have is that a couple different times when you follow certain mission paths and go from mission to mission they’ll bring you to the final cutscene out of context: Kyoya murdering Shibito while loud rock music plays (bringing his loop full circle as he was up in Hanuda investigating a massacre from the 1930s, which he’s doing right now though I don’t know where the 1930s part comes in? I’ll have to look it up), which is tonally inconsistent and funny as fuck when just viewed out of nowhere. Me and my one friend nearly shat ourselves (more me of course) trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. In fact, that’s kind of the whole game in a nutshell; it’s confusing as hell and you’re trying to unravel everything and figure out what the hell is going on and truth be told I can’t believe I’m saying this: in the words of Todd Howard? “It Just Works”. Because the more you play the more invested you get, and the more you kind of connect the dots together. I’m gonna quickly move onto the other stuff before wrapping up here:
The graphics are PS2 era but are laden with uncanny valley facial movement as the game used a strange early version of motion capture; it looks unsettling as hell in the way it moves as if it’s as NitroRad said, an actual face being projected onto the face of a mannequin. I feel like that’s a huge part of what gives the horror the unique identity it does along with everything else; on PS4 it’s upscaled so it all looks good there. The soundtrack is creepy as hell (though funny in the final cutscene); the track “Hoshingoeika” (created by composer Hitomi Shimizu) does a fantastic and unique job at bringing about all the old creepy cult chants together in a way that helps form the atmosphere, it’s not Akira Yamaoka with Silent Hill but that’s not the vibe it’s going for in the slightest. It’s honestly a lot MORE creepy whereas Yamaoka’s soundtrack is godly and can be creepy but a lot of his stuff his more melancholic and sad (again I LOVE IT) but it contrasts to what this game is trying to do. Speaking of sounds, the environmental sounds are creepy as hell; yeah the Shibito are creepy as fuck with their grey skin and bleeding eyes but dear god when you sightjack them and hear them breathing? That’s the stuff of nightmares and definitely made me feel uneasy as I went through the game. The only thing I could consider a downside is that the voice acting isn’t great; you get used to it after a while but I really wish they had a Japanese dub/English subs thing because the british voice acting is more hilarious than anything else, though it can help add levity to the game even though it wasn’t quite meant to originally. I think my favorite is when Harumi calls out “MRS. TAKATO”, mainly because it sounds like an old H3H3 bit where Ethan would get into that weird high pitched voice and say something messed up after coughing violently. Basically the VA ranges from “somewhat ok and not noticeable, to unintentionally hilarious/kind of bad.
To finish up here, I actually really love this game; however I’m giving it a 4 instead of a 4.5 or a 5 for a number of reasons; it has a lot of confusing fridge logic and jank, the VA isn’t that great, some of the enemy placements feel really unfair sometimes and it’s based in trial and error, and for some people the whole “look at collectibles to understand what’s going on” can 100 percent be frustrating. In fact I’ll even say, if I wasn’t streaming this for a friend over a period of two months once or twice every week I’d probably want to smash my head into a wall as I’m not really the patient type and I'm unsure as to whether or not I would really play this ever again. However beneath all of the dirt and grime there’s a real solid gem here, something beautiful and special that I feel deserves way more credit than it gets, even if it understandably doesn’t get a lot of points with people over it’s confusing direction and design. It makes it even worse that Siren 2 wasn’t even ported or released in the U.S. and that Siren: Blood Curse got a digital only copy (though the physical copy which I bought for 80 dollars cause I’m a collector) only released on the PSN Store. Since the release of Siren, he worked on both sequel games as well as another series I platinumed last year: Gravity Rush (of which one day I will come back and review both of these games because I have thoughts about them too). After these games he left Sony to start up his own studio: Bokeh Game Studio, which is in the process of developing a game called Slitterhead. Now I’m VERY interested in this game, however I’ll admit I still miss Siren. As always, I wish Siren had a PC port, I wish Forbidden Siren 2 had both a PS5 AND a PC port, and Siren: Blood Curse I think you can play through PSN Plus but don’t quote that but even if it’s not the best game apparently it deserves the same amount of treatment. However, as our capitalist system would incline: money talks and fuck everything else, which is sad that even for preservations sake doesn’t get more. Also I’d really like them to make a Siren 3, and if I had a choice I’d say do it with the old PS2 styled graphics and Mocap, it really seals in the unease. I’m also gonna leave some links down below for those who want to watch or listen to some stuff or read up on some of the guides I used or wiki pages I read to refresh my memory on certain things and if I ever think of something else to add to this review then I will. Thank you for reading if you did and if you would rather a single sentence summarization, look below.
tl;dr good but jank, no normal person would ever play this.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/05/31/siren-walkthrough-508738
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=114Ygup5-x4&ab_channel=NitroRad
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2019840/Atama/
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Siren/Controls
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hanuda_Village#History:
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hisako_Yao
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Homuranagi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Siren_(video_game)#Playable_characters
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Datatsushi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Harumi_Yomoda?so=search#Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Water
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Uryen?so=search#The_Uryen_in_Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Kei_Makino#Story
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Shiro_Miyata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO6EgutJLqA&t=18s&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEyCVRelds&list=PLEE2727EDFDE65968&index=1&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUoLtWQ1Pnc&list=PLd4jZRAzc5n8R0gE9U90SsUqJt4V04PHe&ab_channel=P.B.HorrorGaming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZI968UaZw&ab_channel=Fakan
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/topic/275063-siren-trophy-guide-amp-roadmap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkG3DH6IZw0&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ZcsWN_KBc&ab_channel=BoulderPunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wj65MimUc
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Siren
UPDATE:
Found some more sources for stuff if you want to look into it, just be careful with security of the site.
http://siren.kakurezato.com/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/siren-arg.1636588/
Didn't know there was an ARG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOYdxGjgSrA&ab_channel=InfiniteRetry
https://web.archive.org/web/20040110033312/http://www.occultland.com/
So here’s the basic concept of the gameplay: you start out as one of ten characters (which range from main character Kyoya Suda, professor Tamon Takeuchi, Priest Kei Makino, his twin brother Shiro Miyata, Risa Onda (a woman who is also looking for her twin sister, who was dating Shiro), teacher Reiko Takato, student/child Harumi Yomoda, celebrity/70s sitcom mom looking Naoko Mihama, old badass/poopy diaper grandpa (as a friend called him lol) Akira Shimura and finally Tomoko Maeda, a student who ran away from home after her parents read her diary. You get placed in a random section of a map and you’re often told to do an objective, and for the first couple of loops you can do those objectives while also completing secret secondary objectives (which are basically kept secret unless you’re following a guide, look to the bottom of the page) so other people in different missions down the line can do other objectives needed in order to pass. After you beat a bunch of these missions, you’ll unlock the “Link Navigator”, which helps you choose which missions you wanna do as well as tell you which missions haven’t gotten their secondary objectives done. However, sometimes these objectives don’t even pop up properly unless you do a bunch of other missions first and get the prerequisites done, even if you already unlocked certain missions previously. For example, there’s this mission where you play as Akira Shimura and you have to protect Tamon Takeuchi’s student, Yoriko Anno, as she’s attacked by Shibito (the main enemy fodder, they’re reanimated villagers who are kind of like zombies except a whole lot more human and can be armed with anything from shovels to big ass rifles) and one of the prerequisites for a later mission (spoiler) is to “Remember Akira”. To do that, you need to tell Yoriko to hide in an area around some houses, however if you hadn’t completed some other missions (which I have no clue what missions are needed and if they even tie into anything) she won’t find a picture of Akira lying on the ground which won’t be used later by Tamon to remember Akira after he’s been Shibitofied and plugs him with some bullets. Another example, you play as Kei Makino as you have to escort Tomoko through a cliffside village area, once you get to the end and split up you’re supposed to (as a secondary objective), go back to the nearby temple, sightjack (give me a second) and watch as a nearby Shibito puts in a code to unlock the temple door so you can grab something and leave; problem is the fucker doesn’t spawn until you do a bunch of other missions beforehand.
This, while I enjoy the meta concept to the whole “Time Loop” concept that the game has (which will be explored in the story section), and whilst I understand that it plays into the “Cooperate with other players to figure out how to continue the game”, nobody was doing that shit back then that I’m aware of so it came off more frustrating than most, unless of course you use a guide which I’m gonna be honest with you, in order to understand what’s going on YOU WILL NEED A GUIDE. Trust me on this, I suck at puzzles cause I’m a dummy idiot simpleton fuck who can’t solve most puzzle games without one, but dude I doubt anyone could sit through this game and intuitively think “Wow, this game is really cohesive with what it wants me to do and I’ll snap to it like that”, it’s unique don’t get me wrong but it’s obtuse as hell, especially for it’s time period which was 2003. This is I think one of the game’s biggest weaknesses, but again also a strength with how it ties into the metanarrative it’s got going, a strange catch-22 of sorts because while I like it a lot for it, it’s really confusing and I guarantee you because of this (as well as some of the controls), not a lot of people got passed the first mission, as for some people the first impression is the only impression you get.
Hell, I’ve been kind of afraid to touch it, having wanted to but knowing I would get way too frustrated on my own, I’ve been streaming it once or twice every week for a friend as a sort of excuse to delve head first into it, and having gotten to the end and beaten it I’m glad, but I also understand. Bringing it back to the controls for a second, this game is a bit of a confusing mish mash; it’s a third person over the shoulder survival horror, except it doesn’t play all in one go. You play a mission at a time, with maybe a checkpoint here and there dependent on how long the stage is but because of these short, segmented stages you won’t get much in the way of guns and ammo, sometimes you’ll get a melee weapon and sometimes you just won’t get shit at all and have to survive only using your wits. This can actually lead to some tense moments (and frustrating moments). The more frustrating side tends to come when the Shibito have guns, specifically long rifles, if you are seen it’s a death sentence; for example there’s a mission with Kyoya where you have to escort Yoriko through a giant nest of buildings with armed guards patrolling the place, of which I was only able to get through with the IGN guide as well as a Youtube channel whose moves I replicated (thanks to P.B. Horror Gaming, link on the bottom). With this in mind, another thing I want to bring up; if I wasn’t streaming the game I would’ve gotten really pissed at this game as it’s very much trial and error; you will die A LOT in order to figure out a pattern to complete the objective and it can really try your patience so make sure to have A LOT of that as well as the guide because sometimes it’s not explained properly.
My scariest moment was playing as Harumi trapped in a house, defenseless against three other Shibito (all of them being Tomoko and her family); the only tool you have is the Sightjack ability, which you use to close your eyes and moving the left thumbstick around can sort of “tune in” to different Shibito, seeing from their eyes as they move around the area. This is both useful in the sense that you can figure out their patterns and learn to avoid or confront them and scary as fuck cause if one of those guys sees you while you’re sightjacking? Run. It’s a unique game mechanic I haven’t seen pretty much ever except one game, Atama (which takes inspiration from Siren anyways) on Steam (Link below). Other than the sightjacking, you have combat which if you can you should probably avoid unless absolutely necessary. Ranged combat should only be used for people you need to knock out in a jam (they don’t die, they WILL get back up so shoot wisely) or for certain objectives (mainly involving the Onda twin shibitos) because you could both run out of bullets quickly. Melee combat isn’t bad but can be a bit funky, if you get too close you have a good chance of getting grabbed which means you lose health and there aren’t any health packs in the slightest and you can die really quickly without button mashing; of which I don’t know which button to press whether it’s X or Square (EDIT: Just learned it was the left thumb stick, I’m an idiot my apologies). Also, for melee you have the light attack by tapping X and the strong attack by holding X; learn the timing for the strong attack not only because it knocks em’ out faster but if you’re in a shorter area like a tight hallway, the light attack is useless as your range is stopped by nearby walls, trust me on this. Along with the fact that the more the game progresses, the tougher the Shibito get: spider shibito are fast and can get in your ass quick while climbing around and fly shibito are basically mobile sentries that usually have a revolver and can blast your ass quick, along with other forms. I should also bring up the controls really quick:
Controls:
Square is the flashlight
X is to open doors, and interact with stuff in the environment like collectibles
Circle is to crouch
Triangle is to open up the interaction menu, which allows you to: Call/tell people to wait, shout at enemies to lure them to you, interaction with certain objectives, etc.
L1 is to strafe and you move left or right
L2 is to Sightjack, with the left thumbstick helping you channel to different enemies
R1 is to aim, if you have a rifle like Akira, it’s zoomed in and you move the right thumb sticks though keep in mind it’s kind of awkward
R2 is to go into First Person mode, where you can move but very slowly
Start (or right on the PS4 face pad) is to open up the main menu
Select (or left on the PS4 face pad) is to open up a map (you won’t be told where you are so you kind of have to triangulate yourself and figure it out)
As far as I know clicking the thumbsticks does nothing, but moving the right thumb stick quickly moves your camera a tad but doesn’t exactly move your character in a way that’s normal as it’s still a survival horror game. Any movement you do will be primarily the left stick, which I’ll give you some advice: the tight maneuvering (as well as the longer animations sometimes) can lead to Shibito gaining on you if you’re running away, so if you’re in an open space it’s fine to run but if you have a tight corner, slow down then move to the desired direction because I ran into so many walls and it takes a bit for your character to get out of it. Also goes for jumping off of or climbing stuff, the animations are slow and if you get hit you’re back to square one, so you have to gauge the distance/pray the shibito miss if they have a gun. It gets especially frustrating when trying to help people up whatever cliffside, as it takes a while to do so. I don’t think I have much else to put out there in the way of gameplay, except three things: as Kyoya you’ll be escorting a blind girl named Miyako sometimes, don’t run too far ahead of her or else she won’t be able to sightjack through you (because she’s blind of course) and it helps her orientation if you’re looking at her. Another thing to note is that you can get into vehicles sometimes, but when you do you’ll be first person and each section will be its own thing you have to press Triangle on to figure out what does what (mainly throwing this out there for the first mission as Kyoya), the third is to take your time with it’s game and get comfortable with repetition as if you’re trying to do the collectibles/secret objectives and you die after getting some progress done, if you’re not restarted at the beginning stage then there’s this glitch where certain things don’t actually count towards your progress and they get erased so either you’ll have to go get this stuff again or alternatively restart. Keep in mind, though a lot of it is clunky and definitely frustrating, once you get the hang of it, it all sort of clicks and there were times where I felt REALLY good playing the game. If there’s something I’m missing, feel free to let me know and I’ll put it in. I’m gonna go onto the story here because there’s a lot to unpack for me personally.
The story starts out relatively simple but gets complicated and rather confusing and convoluted quickly. You start out as Kyoya Suda, traveling to a remote village in the Japanese mountains called Hanuda, investigating a massacre that happened decades ago along with the paranormal side effects (which I didn’t even catch this, shoutout to the wiki). Of course, like all horror games, there’s a cult that is trying to sacrifice a blind girl named Miyako in a ritual, Kyoya’s presence lets her escape and the ritual is foiled, leading to the entire area to go to hell really quickly. After escaping a drunk cop (not officially a Shibito as he hasn’t died yet but drunk cops shooting at civilians? Why does that sound familiar?) and getting shot he lands in a red river and wakes up next to a village with a priestess named Hisako Yao, who helps him get his bearings. Along the way you’ll discover the motives of other people involved: Tamon was originally from Hanuda and his parents died in a mysterious landslide in 1977, Kei Makino is a priest in the local religion (called the Mana Religion) but is apparently a really nice guy and a bit of a wimp while his twin, Shiro is a bit of a sociopath who murdered his girlfriend Mina Onda, a nurse who worked with him, for telling him that she’s pregnant with his baby, and after the Shibito outbreak guess who pops out of her grave. Meanwhile her sister Risa Onda is looking to find her, like keep in mind there are so many plot details and intricacies that I can’t really put it all in this review as it would just be blatant copy paste wiki articles at this point.
What I can say is this: everything is happening because of an event centuries ago: a famine happened long ago in the late 7th century, and the people of Hanuda was suffering through a drought that really hurt their ability to consume; they perform a ritual rite calling for rain and all the sudden a decade later a creature comes falling down on a comet where it’s mistaken for a fish and is eaten; it doesn’t exactly like that so it screams and brings about a curse, specifically on Hisako Yao; that’s right the priestess is immortal and has erected this Mana Religion in this creature’s honor, named Datatsushi as everyone else dies a painful death. She’s also pregnant apparently and starts the Kajiro family bloodline, known in Hanuda as royalty and is shown to have gained the sightjacking ability as a sort of miracle and having been cursed to resurrect Datatsushi, forgets her duty. With this in mind, she interrupted another ritual in 1976/7, which sunk another part of Hanuda into a landslide (which Tamon’s parents died in) and sending that piece into an alternate dimension, or as the game would say “The dimension that’s between life and death” or something along those lines. After that she regains her memories to revive her god, and has since been determined to appease it yet again, so sacrifices Miyako in 2003. Kyoya fucks it up of course and everything goes to hell; what I liked out of the game is the interconnectivity between the characters and the plot, for example Akira’s son was apparently 1976 Miyako’s boyfriend and that’s led to a long line of depression and hatred for the local cult; Shiro has always been jealous of his brother Kei’s upbringing and has longed to become him, he’s also a bit of a mad scientist as he conducts experiments on the Shibito to learn their secrets; however he disappears after Day 2 because he grabs the Uryen (a plot macguffin that helps both harm the undead as well as representing Yin and Yang (which little note here, symbolically is represented multiple times between Shiro/Kei as well as Risa and her twin Mina Onda)) and from then on you just play as Kei Makino. But wait, his voice sounds familiar right? Well if you play one of Harumi’s alternate missions in Day 3 you learn why, out of sheer jealousy (as well as due to the fact that Kei’s stepfather gifted the entire control of the religion to him in his will) murders his own brother and dons the garb, with Shiro finally becoming the person he wanted to be all along: his brother. I love this twist, and it’s the little details like that even when out of order, if it’s brought back together correctly it makes for a fantastic twist. Again, there are so many details that sort of loop back into itself that even logically speaking make sense, like something that I got from Nitro’s video was that Miyako had a dog (until her adoptive brother killed the pup and attempted to kidnap Miyako back before getting wacked in the head with a stick), and since she’s blind and sees through sightjacking, they’re a literal seeing eye dog. Another thing I enjoy is Harumi’s bond with her teacher, Ms. Takato who takes a motherly bond with her and refers to Harumi as her daughter, and goes out protecting her in a fantastic send off involving explosives. Another detail I like, Naoko is career obsessed and worries about her beauty so a remark from Akira (in a negative light) about being immortal due to the red water (final bit here before I explain the red water and wrap up the plot) leads to her getting the idea that she can get eternal youth and beauty by bathing in the red water; that’s not the case and it leads to her transforming into a shibito. In fact, anyone who gets in contact with the red water will eventually become a Shibito, with Kyoya being the only difference due to a blood transfusion between him and Miyako, and she’s immune due to her bloodline. The titular siren the game talks about is the call of Datatsushi, which leads shibito to bathe in the red water so they can transform into more fucked up versions of themselves (which is a reason why spider shibito and fly shibito exist).
The game finally starts to close when Miyako is sacrifice and Datatsushi sort of reincarnates; shit gets even worse as the fates of Shiro/Kei and Tamon are revealed; Shiro sacrifices himself to kill off all the remaining Shibito I believe with the Uryen (of which there are two, one which he gives to Kyoya, and also he floods the shibito nest by opening up the dam) while Tamon gets a tragic ending and ends up finding his parents, to him they look the same but he’s had contact with the red water so to others they’re not. In fact, barely anyone gets out alive save (thank fuck) for Harumi, who is rescued via helicopter from the ruins of the town which were revealed to be, shock, “a landslide”, repeating the same events from the 70s (of which since it’s the same dimension both the 2003 timeline and 1970s timeline kind of merge in this one dimension). Kyoya however confronts Hisako Yao and her underling, Miyako’s brother (and piece of shit dog killer Jun Kajiro) in a difficult sniper battle that ends up in a final confrontation with Datatsushi itself; however you have someone who could help you: Miyako in spirit. After picking up the Homuranagi (an ancient sword of which only really works to decapitate if you knocked down four separate stone markers as four separate people before playing as Reiko Takato and knocking down four other stone markers in one mission in a specific order) and killing Datatsushi (of which if you sightjack the praying mantis/wasp elder god looking fucker you can see Miyako point to a nearby pyramid which will help you reveal the location/distance of Datatsushi, or alternatively you could just run a bit, do a 180 and either activate the Uryen immediately or wait between 3-6 seconds to stab it with a sword) the fate of the remaining characters are revealed: Hisako Yao grows old and falls through a time vortex with the fallen god’s head, later giving it to her past self so the time loop continues and Kyoya Suda is now trapped in the underworld with Miyako’s blood in his veins. However he proceeds to roam the dimension armed with both the Uryen, the Homuranagi and a rifle he picked up along the way, and proceeds to annihilate the shibito.
Overall, to wrap this story up; I don’t usually care for stories that make you get all the collectibles in order to understand ANYTHING about what’s going on (talking about you Outlast 2), but this game does it in a way where I LOVE it and how it goes together. It’s a fascinating take on time loops, yin and yang, good and evil; there’s a lot of stuff in there to unpack and on top of it I consider this game to be Lovecraftian horror and in that sense it’s fucking amazing too. The only complaint I have is that a couple different times when you follow certain mission paths and go from mission to mission they’ll bring you to the final cutscene out of context: Kyoya murdering Shibito while loud rock music plays (bringing his loop full circle as he was up in Hanuda investigating a massacre from the 1930s, which he’s doing right now though I don’t know where the 1930s part comes in? I’ll have to look it up), which is tonally inconsistent and funny as fuck when just viewed out of nowhere. Me and my one friend nearly shat ourselves (more me of course) trying to figure out what the fuck just happened. In fact, that’s kind of the whole game in a nutshell; it’s confusing as hell and you’re trying to unravel everything and figure out what the hell is going on and truth be told I can’t believe I’m saying this: in the words of Todd Howard? “It Just Works”. Because the more you play the more invested you get, and the more you kind of connect the dots together. I’m gonna quickly move onto the other stuff before wrapping up here:
The graphics are PS2 era but are laden with uncanny valley facial movement as the game used a strange early version of motion capture; it looks unsettling as hell in the way it moves as if it’s as NitroRad said, an actual face being projected onto the face of a mannequin. I feel like that’s a huge part of what gives the horror the unique identity it does along with everything else; on PS4 it’s upscaled so it all looks good there. The soundtrack is creepy as hell (though funny in the final cutscene); the track “Hoshingoeika” (created by composer Hitomi Shimizu) does a fantastic and unique job at bringing about all the old creepy cult chants together in a way that helps form the atmosphere, it’s not Akira Yamaoka with Silent Hill but that’s not the vibe it’s going for in the slightest. It’s honestly a lot MORE creepy whereas Yamaoka’s soundtrack is godly and can be creepy but a lot of his stuff his more melancholic and sad (again I LOVE IT) but it contrasts to what this game is trying to do. Speaking of sounds, the environmental sounds are creepy as hell; yeah the Shibito are creepy as fuck with their grey skin and bleeding eyes but dear god when you sightjack them and hear them breathing? That’s the stuff of nightmares and definitely made me feel uneasy as I went through the game. The only thing I could consider a downside is that the voice acting isn’t great; you get used to it after a while but I really wish they had a Japanese dub/English subs thing because the british voice acting is more hilarious than anything else, though it can help add levity to the game even though it wasn’t quite meant to originally. I think my favorite is when Harumi calls out “MRS. TAKATO”, mainly because it sounds like an old H3H3 bit where Ethan would get into that weird high pitched voice and say something messed up after coughing violently. Basically the VA ranges from “somewhat ok and not noticeable, to unintentionally hilarious/kind of bad.
To finish up here, I actually really love this game; however I’m giving it a 4 instead of a 4.5 or a 5 for a number of reasons; it has a lot of confusing fridge logic and jank, the VA isn’t that great, some of the enemy placements feel really unfair sometimes and it’s based in trial and error, and for some people the whole “look at collectibles to understand what’s going on” can 100 percent be frustrating. In fact I’ll even say, if I wasn’t streaming this for a friend over a period of two months once or twice every week I’d probably want to smash my head into a wall as I’m not really the patient type and I'm unsure as to whether or not I would really play this ever again. However beneath all of the dirt and grime there’s a real solid gem here, something beautiful and special that I feel deserves way more credit than it gets, even if it understandably doesn’t get a lot of points with people over it’s confusing direction and design. It makes it even worse that Siren 2 wasn’t even ported or released in the U.S. and that Siren: Blood Curse got a digital only copy (though the physical copy which I bought for 80 dollars cause I’m a collector) only released on the PSN Store. Since the release of Siren, he worked on both sequel games as well as another series I platinumed last year: Gravity Rush (of which one day I will come back and review both of these games because I have thoughts about them too). After these games he left Sony to start up his own studio: Bokeh Game Studio, which is in the process of developing a game called Slitterhead. Now I’m VERY interested in this game, however I’ll admit I still miss Siren. As always, I wish Siren had a PC port, I wish Forbidden Siren 2 had both a PS5 AND a PC port, and Siren: Blood Curse I think you can play through PSN Plus but don’t quote that but even if it’s not the best game apparently it deserves the same amount of treatment. However, as our capitalist system would incline: money talks and fuck everything else, which is sad that even for preservations sake doesn’t get more. Also I’d really like them to make a Siren 3, and if I had a choice I’d say do it with the old PS2 styled graphics and Mocap, it really seals in the unease. I’m also gonna leave some links down below for those who want to watch or listen to some stuff or read up on some of the guides I used or wiki pages I read to refresh my memory on certain things and if I ever think of something else to add to this review then I will. Thank you for reading if you did and if you would rather a single sentence summarization, look below.
tl;dr good but jank, no normal person would ever play this.
Links:
https://www.ign.com/articles/2004/05/31/siren-walkthrough-508738
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=114Ygup5-x4&ab_channel=NitroRad
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2019840/Atama/
https://strategywiki.org/wiki/Siren/Controls
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hanuda_Village#History:
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Hisako_Yao
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Homuranagi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Siren_(video_game)#Playable_characters
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Datatsushi
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Harumi_Yomoda?so=search#Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Red_Water
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Uryen?so=search#The_Uryen_in_Forbidden_Siren
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Kei_Makino#Story
https://forbiddensiren.fandom.com/wiki/Shiro_Miyata
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kO6EgutJLqA&t=18s&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0rEyCVRelds&list=PLEE2727EDFDE65968&index=1&ab_channel=Wiiplaya1234
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BUoLtWQ1Pnc&list=PLd4jZRAzc5n8R0gE9U90SsUqJt4V04PHe&ab_channel=P.B.HorrorGaming
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4ZZI968UaZw&ab_channel=Fakan
https://www.playstationtrophies.org/forum/topic/275063-siren-trophy-guide-amp-roadmap/
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AkG3DH6IZw0&ab_channel=NeoGamer-TheVideoGameArchive
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L-ZcsWN_KBc&ab_channel=BoulderPunch
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=C2wj65MimUc
https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/Siren
UPDATE:
Found some more sources for stuff if you want to look into it, just be careful with security of the site.
http://siren.kakurezato.com/
https://www.neogaf.com/threads/siren-arg.1636588/
Didn't know there was an ARG.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OOYdxGjgSrA&ab_channel=InfiniteRetry
https://web.archive.org/web/20040110033312/http://www.occultland.com/
2013
This review contains spoilers
Outlast is a "Run Away and Hide" first person horror game by Red Barrels Inc., founded by former Ubisoft developers who wanted to create their own horror game. They succeeded as Outlast became super popular amongst horror enthusiasts, ESPECIALLY the Youtubers who love to overreact and scream at every little noise and jump scare. However, is it really worth playing? I guess it really depends on your preferred horror tastes. It isn't like Resident Evil or Condemned where you have to manage your resources to defend yourself and it's not like F.E.A.R. where you just have a whole a s s arsenal that you mow dudes down with.
The gameplay is basically as said before a "Run and Hide" game, one where you are defenseless in general as you run around your environment, hide in lockers and under beds, and either go from Point A to B or move around a singular environment to try to find something in order to figure out a puzzle or another way forward. This will be the entire game, and as such if you don't mind it then I'm sure you'll do fine with it; I'm one of those people that don't hate it but don't think it's particularly great as I much prefer to have more involvement in the horror so to speak. But with that in mind, it's not bad persay as it does the job fine enough, I guess if I were to point out anything gameplay wise I didn't like is that in certain areas you can get lost really easily trying to find your objective and in certain chase sequences you can flub it and make a wrong turn you can't predict and die for that, an approach that I'm not the biggest fan of because it feels like repetitive trial and error. The most interactivity you have is to pick up batteries for your handheld camera (which is both a plot device and a gameplay feature) where you need to get batteries so you can charge up your device; and for the most part you get a lot of the plot via background details, as well as explain your protagonists feelings on the matter.
Speaking of the plot, the gameplay isn't really my favorite part of the game, in fact it's kind of hit or miss with me at times. The actual plot is probably the high point to me, because it does have interesting pieces they do with it but also they really went bats h i t insane with the shock factor that in a way, I admire the hell out of it. You play as a silent protagonist/journalist named Miles Upshur as you receive an email detailing horrific experiments by the Murkoff Corporation at a psychiatric hospital called Mount Massive Asylum. You enter to figure out what's going on only for everything to have gone off the rails; the prisoners have escaped and butchered the staff, and one in particular has it's sights set on you: Chris Walker, a former marine who wants to control the spread of "plague" by killing everyone he sees on site. He's one of the two more memorable "Chasers" in game along with Richard Traeger, a deformed doctor/Murkoff member with a habit for snipping genitals and disgusting past, of which I also need to bring something up here: this game is not afraid to show nudity and other freaky imagery and implications; it's brutal in it's depiction of violence and isn't afraid to take it far beyond good taste and in a sense I kind of admire it for that and is probably the most effective part of the game to be honest.
From here the game doesn't have much in the way of plot except you constantly trying to escape the asylum only for random occurrences to stop you from ever getting close, and as such it's mostly set piece to set piece until the very end, where you learn that the experiments being conducted involve a former Nazi doctor brought over from Operation Paperclip, in which the United States Government brought over former Nazi scientists to help develop technology in exchange for pardons and the like. This doctor, Rudolph Wernicke, has been experimenting with some sort of entity named "The Walrider"; truth be told this guy is just a floating ghost thing and is probably my least favorite and most uninteresting chaser in the game but nonetheless you go to power down the machine only to get possessed by the Walrider, after which Wernicke tries to have you killed only for the Walrider to float out of Miles body and kill them all. Overall, I like the plot to an extent but when it gets to the supernatural stuff, It honestly felt kind of underwhelming after so freaky stuff and whereas I don't really have the full plot in picture here, it's an interesting story to me personally with a lot of interesting bits to fill in on the details, but also it kind of depends on your feelings towards more extreme subjects which to be honest, horror is meant to provoke uncomfortable emotions so I guess it depends on your tastes, just be aware of what you're getting into.
The graphics for a game that came out in 2013 look amazing, I have no words to describe how good it looks; the imagery is creepy as hell and effective in the overwhelming tone that it's trying to convey, with pretty much everyone in game looking like they just went through all sorts of hell, being trapped in an asylum and all. Sound Design and all is pretty good too, with the chase music being terrifying and the sounds that the pursuers and other inmates make being unnerving. Pretty much everything in this area is pretty good, though I have mixed feelings about the silent protagonist feel here: some of it helps put you in the shoes of Miles in the moment for a more immersive feel while the dude for the most part doesn't have any personality besides whatever is written in the notes.
I guess to summarize, I don't hate this game, in fact there's a lot of ways I like it and find it memorable; however I also completely understand those who don't like this game and games like it. It's rather linear and trial/error gameplay mixed with it's almost edge lord tone in how it delivers it's content can be off-putting depending on what you're really looking for. I played through it a couple of times, in which I remember having a decent enough time with it but being more fascinated with the lore of the series EXCEPT for the last time I played this where I made the dummy f u c kin idiot mistake of getting all the achievements in one go: collectibles, hard difficulty, speed run, etc. This was the first and last time I ever studied for a speedrun and I will never do that s h i t again because it sucked, so I won't be playing this game for a long time, though I'll probably watch some friends play through this game one day. Don't be an idiot like me, take your time with it and have fun with it, if you can ignore the whole Youtube jump scare scream fest reputation that this game has gotten, and can forgive trial and error chase sequences amongst other things than give it a try, it's a short game so it won't be too grating. However, if none of this appeals to you, play something else entirely and if you're interested to see what's going on just look it up on the Wiki.
https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/Outlast
Also the DLC is pretty good, I won't review it here but it's more of the same stuff except with some new plot stuff where you play as the Whistleblower who sent Miles the email to get him to come to Mount Massive in the first place. It's not a bad DLC, 8.99 feels a bit much though for something that's a bit smaller (but just as freaky and potentially kind of offensive depending on certain tastes) but overall it was pretty solid. I'd say get both Outlast and the Whistleblower DLC on sale.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The gameplay is basically as said before a "Run and Hide" game, one where you are defenseless in general as you run around your environment, hide in lockers and under beds, and either go from Point A to B or move around a singular environment to try to find something in order to figure out a puzzle or another way forward. This will be the entire game, and as such if you don't mind it then I'm sure you'll do fine with it; I'm one of those people that don't hate it but don't think it's particularly great as I much prefer to have more involvement in the horror so to speak. But with that in mind, it's not bad persay as it does the job fine enough, I guess if I were to point out anything gameplay wise I didn't like is that in certain areas you can get lost really easily trying to find your objective and in certain chase sequences you can flub it and make a wrong turn you can't predict and die for that, an approach that I'm not the biggest fan of because it feels like repetitive trial and error. The most interactivity you have is to pick up batteries for your handheld camera (which is both a plot device and a gameplay feature) where you need to get batteries so you can charge up your device; and for the most part you get a lot of the plot via background details, as well as explain your protagonists feelings on the matter.
Speaking of the plot, the gameplay isn't really my favorite part of the game, in fact it's kind of hit or miss with me at times. The actual plot is probably the high point to me, because it does have interesting pieces they do with it but also they really went bats h i t insane with the shock factor that in a way, I admire the hell out of it. You play as a silent protagonist/journalist named Miles Upshur as you receive an email detailing horrific experiments by the Murkoff Corporation at a psychiatric hospital called Mount Massive Asylum. You enter to figure out what's going on only for everything to have gone off the rails; the prisoners have escaped and butchered the staff, and one in particular has it's sights set on you: Chris Walker, a former marine who wants to control the spread of "plague" by killing everyone he sees on site. He's one of the two more memorable "Chasers" in game along with Richard Traeger, a deformed doctor/Murkoff member with a habit for snipping genitals and disgusting past, of which I also need to bring something up here: this game is not afraid to show nudity and other freaky imagery and implications; it's brutal in it's depiction of violence and isn't afraid to take it far beyond good taste and in a sense I kind of admire it for that and is probably the most effective part of the game to be honest.
From here the game doesn't have much in the way of plot except you constantly trying to escape the asylum only for random occurrences to stop you from ever getting close, and as such it's mostly set piece to set piece until the very end, where you learn that the experiments being conducted involve a former Nazi doctor brought over from Operation Paperclip, in which the United States Government brought over former Nazi scientists to help develop technology in exchange for pardons and the like. This doctor, Rudolph Wernicke, has been experimenting with some sort of entity named "The Walrider"; truth be told this guy is just a floating ghost thing and is probably my least favorite and most uninteresting chaser in the game but nonetheless you go to power down the machine only to get possessed by the Walrider, after which Wernicke tries to have you killed only for the Walrider to float out of Miles body and kill them all. Overall, I like the plot to an extent but when it gets to the supernatural stuff, It honestly felt kind of underwhelming after so freaky stuff and whereas I don't really have the full plot in picture here, it's an interesting story to me personally with a lot of interesting bits to fill in on the details, but also it kind of depends on your feelings towards more extreme subjects which to be honest, horror is meant to provoke uncomfortable emotions so I guess it depends on your tastes, just be aware of what you're getting into.
The graphics for a game that came out in 2013 look amazing, I have no words to describe how good it looks; the imagery is creepy as hell and effective in the overwhelming tone that it's trying to convey, with pretty much everyone in game looking like they just went through all sorts of hell, being trapped in an asylum and all. Sound Design and all is pretty good too, with the chase music being terrifying and the sounds that the pursuers and other inmates make being unnerving. Pretty much everything in this area is pretty good, though I have mixed feelings about the silent protagonist feel here: some of it helps put you in the shoes of Miles in the moment for a more immersive feel while the dude for the most part doesn't have any personality besides whatever is written in the notes.
I guess to summarize, I don't hate this game, in fact there's a lot of ways I like it and find it memorable; however I also completely understand those who don't like this game and games like it. It's rather linear and trial/error gameplay mixed with it's almost edge lord tone in how it delivers it's content can be off-putting depending on what you're really looking for. I played through it a couple of times, in which I remember having a decent enough time with it but being more fascinated with the lore of the series EXCEPT for the last time I played this where I made the dummy f u c kin idiot mistake of getting all the achievements in one go: collectibles, hard difficulty, speed run, etc. This was the first and last time I ever studied for a speedrun and I will never do that s h i t again because it sucked, so I won't be playing this game for a long time, though I'll probably watch some friends play through this game one day. Don't be an idiot like me, take your time with it and have fun with it, if you can ignore the whole Youtube jump scare scream fest reputation that this game has gotten, and can forgive trial and error chase sequences amongst other things than give it a try, it's a short game so it won't be too grating. However, if none of this appeals to you, play something else entirely and if you're interested to see what's going on just look it up on the Wiki.
https://outlast.fandom.com/wiki/Outlast
Also the DLC is pretty good, I won't review it here but it's more of the same stuff except with some new plot stuff where you play as the Whistleblower who sent Miles the email to get him to come to Mount Massive in the first place. It's not a bad DLC, 8.99 feels a bit much though for something that's a bit smaller (but just as freaky and potentially kind of offensive depending on certain tastes) but overall it was pretty solid. I'd say get both Outlast and the Whistleblower DLC on sale.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2023
This review contains spoilers
HROT is a "Boomer Shooter" FPS developed by Spytihněv; developed in the vein of older FPS games like Quake and the like. Recently it came out of Early Access, I had it sitting in my library (shout to Sabwones for the game!) for a while but I wanted to wait until it fully came out to truly give it a spin.
I'll start with the story since there isn't too much in the way; you're in 1986 (according to the steam page) Soviet Union (specifically the Czech Republic as multiple mentions of Prague were in the game) as you find your socialist country surrounded by invaders. You decide to go out and kill these invaders and that's kind of it that I was able to find aside from fighting a parody of current Russia's leader Vladimir Putin as he rides both a bear and a pterodactyl in a hilarious yet difficult boss battle during the end, before jumping into his mouth, shooting his heart and then jumping down a toilet as well as mentions of how if the Orloj Clock Tower astronomical clock is broken than the world is doomed, which you later fix after the battle in the Epilogue. Other than that, for the most part any lore is kind of spread apart, which is fine cause I was mostly focused on the gameplay and atmosphere.
The Gameplay was great, more throwback shooter gameplay with secrets, boss battles, and the such. Truth be told, I don't really have much to say here that the likes of DUSK, Quake and other shooters like this haven't already done. What I can tell you are some of the more noticeable things that popped in my mind; some of the levels in the first episode when ramping up can be on the confusing side in terms of layout but the more the episodes go on the better it gets, shift is a giant kick which you can use to both kick enemies and enemy grenades back and when timed right it feels amazing. I think Episode 3 is my favorite just from how insane it really gets, from fighting Salamanders or Otters with giant guns to the ability to save adorable dogs from cages to murder attacking enemies (which was my favorite part of the game, you can indeed pet the dog in this game). Other things to mention is that driving around the motorcycle is a lot of fun running people over, and also to keep an eye on your environment because this game will surprise the hell out of you real quick with enemies (mainly static vehicles coming to life to try to run you over). The double barreled shotgun will be your best friend along with the grenade launcher; and I guess the final note I can throw down is that you can interact your environment like opening cabinets to find ammo and in some levels keys, of which like other old school first person shooters you need to open doors that leads to the end of the level. For the last stage of Episode 3, don’t bother fighting the mech, bring it back to the area you started and let it fall down the stairs cause you’ll need the pickups for the ACTUAL final boss. Last thing, I tried with everything but no rocket jump that I could find, so unless I'm dumb as s h i t don't even bother to do it cause it won't work.
The Atmosphere/Art Design/Everything else for the most part was solid; at first the drab tone kind of got on my nerves a bit, especially with the sewer levels in Episode 1 (titled Kiss Me Gustav) but the more I played (mostly from Episode 2 and 3), the better it got and the more variation it had in it's environments. Keep in mind, I love oppressive atmospheres, It just took a while for me to get adjusted. Graphics look like Quake and other old shooters and as a simp for old throwback games I love it, the enemy designs are great environments whilst samey looking for the most part change up later on. The only criticism I have in this part is that two of the weapons, the Pistol and Machine Gun, feel under powered like a pea shooter; while I understand the pistol is supposed to be a weak weapon you have as a backup I don't really like it as a weapon mainly due to the fact that even if it's weak that it should still pack some sort of feeling. Otherwise, honestly this section is the strongest part of the game; it has it's identity in the sea of browns and blacks and it's not afraid to really get the Soviet aesthetic down.
To finish off my thoughts, if you like old school throwback shooters than I feel like most people would like HROT; it's gameplay of finding keys and opening doors, interacting with the environment in small but interesting ways, shooting your way through strange creatures, etc. I enjoyed my time playing HROT, it has a unique personality with it's own inside jokes (like getting a recipe for food at the end of each Episode? Strange but made me chuckle) that I don't totally understand but I appreciate the hell out of, it grew on me the more I played and to me was it's best at Episode 3 (Again, not a lot of games let me kill a parody of Putin before jumping down his mouth and into his throat in an episode called "The Gastroscopy", which look up on your own time lol). Is it worth your time and money? I thought it was good enough to get my money's worth but I guess 6 hours for 20 dollars depends on what you really find to be worth the price. It's unique and it deserves it's place in the Boomer Shooter pantheon, and a must play for the h o e s like me that love retro stuff.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
I'll start with the story since there isn't too much in the way; you're in 1986 (according to the steam page) Soviet Union (specifically the Czech Republic as multiple mentions of Prague were in the game) as you find your socialist country surrounded by invaders. You decide to go out and kill these invaders and that's kind of it that I was able to find aside from fighting a parody of current Russia's leader Vladimir Putin as he rides both a bear and a pterodactyl in a hilarious yet difficult boss battle during the end, before jumping into his mouth, shooting his heart and then jumping down a toilet as well as mentions of how if the Orloj Clock Tower astronomical clock is broken than the world is doomed, which you later fix after the battle in the Epilogue. Other than that, for the most part any lore is kind of spread apart, which is fine cause I was mostly focused on the gameplay and atmosphere.
The Gameplay was great, more throwback shooter gameplay with secrets, boss battles, and the such. Truth be told, I don't really have much to say here that the likes of DUSK, Quake and other shooters like this haven't already done. What I can tell you are some of the more noticeable things that popped in my mind; some of the levels in the first episode when ramping up can be on the confusing side in terms of layout but the more the episodes go on the better it gets, shift is a giant kick which you can use to both kick enemies and enemy grenades back and when timed right it feels amazing. I think Episode 3 is my favorite just from how insane it really gets, from fighting Salamanders or Otters with giant guns to the ability to save adorable dogs from cages to murder attacking enemies (which was my favorite part of the game, you can indeed pet the dog in this game). Other things to mention is that driving around the motorcycle is a lot of fun running people over, and also to keep an eye on your environment because this game will surprise the hell out of you real quick with enemies (mainly static vehicles coming to life to try to run you over). The double barreled shotgun will be your best friend along with the grenade launcher; and I guess the final note I can throw down is that you can interact your environment like opening cabinets to find ammo and in some levels keys, of which like other old school first person shooters you need to open doors that leads to the end of the level. For the last stage of Episode 3, don’t bother fighting the mech, bring it back to the area you started and let it fall down the stairs cause you’ll need the pickups for the ACTUAL final boss. Last thing, I tried with everything but no rocket jump that I could find, so unless I'm dumb as s h i t don't even bother to do it cause it won't work.
The Atmosphere/Art Design/Everything else for the most part was solid; at first the drab tone kind of got on my nerves a bit, especially with the sewer levels in Episode 1 (titled Kiss Me Gustav) but the more I played (mostly from Episode 2 and 3), the better it got and the more variation it had in it's environments. Keep in mind, I love oppressive atmospheres, It just took a while for me to get adjusted. Graphics look like Quake and other old shooters and as a simp for old throwback games I love it, the enemy designs are great environments whilst samey looking for the most part change up later on. The only criticism I have in this part is that two of the weapons, the Pistol and Machine Gun, feel under powered like a pea shooter; while I understand the pistol is supposed to be a weak weapon you have as a backup I don't really like it as a weapon mainly due to the fact that even if it's weak that it should still pack some sort of feeling. Otherwise, honestly this section is the strongest part of the game; it has it's identity in the sea of browns and blacks and it's not afraid to really get the Soviet aesthetic down.
To finish off my thoughts, if you like old school throwback shooters than I feel like most people would like HROT; it's gameplay of finding keys and opening doors, interacting with the environment in small but interesting ways, shooting your way through strange creatures, etc. I enjoyed my time playing HROT, it has a unique personality with it's own inside jokes (like getting a recipe for food at the end of each Episode? Strange but made me chuckle) that I don't totally understand but I appreciate the hell out of, it grew on me the more I played and to me was it's best at Episode 3 (Again, not a lot of games let me kill a parody of Putin before jumping down his mouth and into his throat in an episode called "The Gastroscopy", which look up on your own time lol). Is it worth your time and money? I thought it was good enough to get my money's worth but I guess 6 hours for 20 dollars depends on what you really find to be worth the price. It's unique and it deserves it's place in the Boomer Shooter pantheon, and a must play for the h o e s like me that love retro stuff.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2020
This review contains spoilers
Dreams is a “game creation system video game” designed by Media Molecule exclusively for Playstation 4 systems as an exclusive; from what I understand this was announced as a PS4 launch title and got a little bit into development hell. Beyond that, I’m not sure about the development cycle of this game other than what the basic Wikipedia article throws out there. Now I forget how I first heard of this game, but most likely I bought it because both it was an exclusive as well as the fact that it reminded me a lot of an old game I used to play on Xbox One: Project Spark.
In fact their fates are sort of similar at the moment: both were out for a short while and now support will be discontinued (though in Dreams case it’s mostly official developer updates, the servers will stay up after a migration). I enjoyed Project Spark because you could both create games for other players as well as play other people’s games. I feel like this game is naturally an extension of that idea, so when there wasn’t a PS5 port or an actual PC Port (where the community would’ve kept this alive forever past what Media Molecule would’ve I believed), I was disappointed. Especially considering they were originally going to potentially allow users to sell their games on the marketplace? I’m not sure how that would work moderation wise but it would’ve been interesting (https://wccftech.com/dreams-users-make-money-application/amp/).
So this is where I usually go into Plot, Gameplay, etc; but the truth is it’s not one of those games. The closest thing this game has to a campaign is Art’s Dream, a relaxed decent sized game about a man named Art in a jazz band who deals with his own personal issues. Other than that, you develop your own games using the tools that the game gives you as well as search through lists of games developed by other players. As usual with these type of games, there are some fuckin stinkers; a friend has been coming over and we’ve been playing bad meme games, one in recent memory that was a giant parody of Spider-Man where he flies a plane to Brooklyn or something. Obviously not every game is going to be fantastic though, and that’s perfectly ok. However what I can do is link a playlist I put together and describe why I put some of them in this list, a sort of curation of games (which you can also do).
Games:
Here’s the curated list: https://indreams.me/collection/cdGWoMaJUGC
Art’s Dream by Media Molecule- The starter game as I’d call it of Dreams, as mentioned above you play as a Jazz band guy named Art as you struggle with your issues and regain your sense of self worth. Nice little bop, can’t go wrong. Also doing the stuff in this game nets you stuff to use in your creations as well as trophies.
Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale by Media Molecule- A little dungeon crawler by the main devs, the combat while repetitive feels good enough to get through. Also playing this and doing the side stuff nets you trophies.
All Hallow’s Dreams by Media Molecule- A series created by Media Molecule where they actively got involved with the community to get them to contribute horror themed stuff to a single game. The first one were some 10-11 floor haunted floors with each one being created by a contributor in Dreams, leading to varied content. Ghost Train is more of an on rails affair, with some contributions being rail shooters that contribute to a high score while others is just scenery, and the most ambitious one: The Land of Lost Dreams. This one has side quests, a main quest and a giant forest with tons of varied player creations; one that in all honesty I did get kind of tired of by the end going through a massive gauntlet. However there was a lot of effort and charm being put into these so I’d say with these games: short bursts. Also, going through these games past their prime (having only got invested in Dreams now for trophies and because the games are infinite and overwhelming), it kind of makes me sad as they feel like old memories gone I guess.
Silent Hills by DrJones20- As a huge Silent Hill nerd, I was excited for Silent Hills before Konami canned it like everyone else; and even though there’s a bunch of new stuff in the works, one will always think of what could’ve been. This is probably one of, if not the only actual game that tries to do something with what’s given. Not everything is perfect of course, but it has a lot of stuff in it that I liked and got really surreal and weird towards the end, and when me and my buddy played it we enjoyed it a lot.
P.T. Remake by lewisc729- I’m always gonna be pissed off that I didn’t get to experience the PT Demo at all on PS4 and as such this isn’t a bad way to do it; just keep in mind nothing will ever feel the same.
The Backrooms by MarshallsAccount- I’m gonna encompass this as a whole series; there’s a 1-7 as well as a couple of unrelated stuff I believe has the potential to be incorporated into the game. The story follows unnamed researchers going into the titular Backrooms for scientific purposes only to encounter horrors beyond imagination in liminal spaces. Obviously this is based off of the internet horror series of the same name, and keep in mind I don’t follow Backrooms stuff so this is my first real exposure to it and it made me more interested in it as an actual concept. What I really like about this is that depending on whether or not you stick with your team you can get alternate results on whether or not you stick with your team or not. Goof off in the first chapter and the team will be scattered in the other ones, though if you stick with them you’ll see more of them often and they’ll question where you went. Sound design is great and so is voice acting, graphically it’s cool and it’s one of those games I’d love to see to the finish.
Isle of Eras Chapter Zero + Main Game by Grambitious- Along with Silent Hills and The Backrooms, I truly feel like this is my favorite on Dreams. The story is about a man trying to find his missing brother in Harper’s County; along the way you’ll discover lore about the surrounding region, your family, time travel and cosmic horror. I love the multiple different ways you can access different versions of time, the multiple choice of where to go and how to do it, the amount of detail is amazing, like truthfully this is one of those games that I would buy on Steam if it was remade for it. By the time I got done I really enjoyed it and felt it was an experience that everyone on Dreams should play.
Lake Juniper by Grambitious- Smaller title, a bit more linear and solid, though I understood the plot a little less and there were a couple of glitches here and there I enjoyed my time with it! I enjoyed the hook of trying to find out about a cryptid while unraveling a deeper conspiracy behind everything. I’d say if you like Isles of Eras give it a shot, just know it’ll be shorter than the previous game.
Citadel Series by schreppybroepke- Inspired by the like of thatgamecompany’s Journey and Team Ico’s Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, the series (consisting of Islands and Citadel Act One and Two for now) was just randomly sent to me by the guy that made it, I don’t even know how and it turned out to be one of my favorites in the entire game. Keep in mind, you don’t do anything else than jump but the environments are beautiful, the sound design is great and the untold story telling I feel is more than worthy of being close to the influences.
Pathogen by Jiffy-Jaff- A gothic horror walking sim about a city where you play as a doctor who comes home to take care of her mom; obvious Pathologic and Bloodborne influences (in art design) aside, I really love the atmosphere, the characters, the lore. It’s fantastic and an interesting piece, though with a couple of bugs here and there. Definitely worth checking out.
Check Out the Bellevue by tony1979- A walking sim puzzle horror game about a man who is exploring a hallway in the mysterious Bellevue hotel; you investigate the death of certain guests in an atmospheric yet claustrophobic game about guilt. Though the ending was a bit predictable, I enjoyed it and I liked the fact the dev added a walkthrough for those who get easily lost like I do in game.
Crash Bandicoot: Retrieval by autofan999- Somehow randomly ran into this Crash fan game and I’ll be honest it’s pretty good. I can’t say much about it except it’s Crash at home for those who don’t have Crash at home; art style is nice, places about the same. Can’t go wrong to be honest.
Golden Kingdom by Chris_Redwalker6- A shortish walking sim about walking through caves in the search for an old treasure. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the game a lot, and graphically it looked cool.
The Lakehouse + ETCA by Ballofspite- A short horror game about a house-sitter who watches over a lake house and discovers a horror in the basement. It’s an interesting bit of lore, which ETCA by the same dev expands upon a little bit in text entries. Whereas the actual horror interactivity is lacking, and in some cases I had to turn up my TV’s brightness to figure out where the fuck I was going, it’s interesting enough to where I’d love to see more.
Also keep in mind my list is subjective, mostly based on my tastes and what I feel works best within the system’s limitations (mostly that combat and shooting can be done somewhat ok but always feeling stiff in the end, understandable considering aforementioned limitations and limited experience amongst developers) so I guess I tended to go towards horror walking sims but I tried to vary up as much as possible. I would also throw away more but the truth is there’s a lot and it’s almost midnight when I post this.
Other things I can mention is that sometimes navigating with the motion controls, while understandable and for the most part freeform, can be a pain in the ass to move stuff sometimes while going through the menus. The aesthetic is really cool and nice, though it leaves the art design of some games looking all too familiar and honestly kind of furry like? But those are also little nitpicks and for the most part everything runs smoothly, though if you’re trying to get those trophies and you’re not a super technical creative person to make games, keep in mind you’re gonna have a tad bit of a rough time with the grinding.
My final thoughts, I like this game a lot. In fact, I truly believe that this could’ve and should’ve been ported to PS5/PC. There is so much potential for this game that it’s not even funny; there are loads of hidden gems tucked away behind whatever is being thrown out there, and everyone contributes to the community in their own way whether it’s creating assets for games, music, inviting people to collaborate, it’s endless and amazing. Which is why I was sad when Media Molecule announced they were stopping official support, not surprised mind you but sad; it’s only natural for people to want to move on creatively but for stuff like this that can not only create interesting concepts and ideas but help develop the skills of potential future game developers? It deserves a whole lot more than what it’s getting right now.
I’ve seen this game sell for around thirty dollars or so: if you’re looking for a game to kill time with and don’t feel like playing anything specific, you want to go out of your way to create something and test stuff out, maybe kill an hour or two with friends on some funny meme games you guys see around and you own a PS4? This is it. Also this plays on PS5 as well and surprisingly from what I heard some games play better on PS5 even though it’s a PS4 game that you can just install on it without an official port. No clue on how that works but hey for what it’s worth, it’s a fuckin fantastic game. Again, not officially shutting down servers but live support ends in September so keep that in mind.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/11/23678609/dreams-live-support-ps4-media-molecule
In fact their fates are sort of similar at the moment: both were out for a short while and now support will be discontinued (though in Dreams case it’s mostly official developer updates, the servers will stay up after a migration). I enjoyed Project Spark because you could both create games for other players as well as play other people’s games. I feel like this game is naturally an extension of that idea, so when there wasn’t a PS5 port or an actual PC Port (where the community would’ve kept this alive forever past what Media Molecule would’ve I believed), I was disappointed. Especially considering they were originally going to potentially allow users to sell their games on the marketplace? I’m not sure how that would work moderation wise but it would’ve been interesting (https://wccftech.com/dreams-users-make-money-application/amp/).
So this is where I usually go into Plot, Gameplay, etc; but the truth is it’s not one of those games. The closest thing this game has to a campaign is Art’s Dream, a relaxed decent sized game about a man named Art in a jazz band who deals with his own personal issues. Other than that, you develop your own games using the tools that the game gives you as well as search through lists of games developed by other players. As usual with these type of games, there are some fuckin stinkers; a friend has been coming over and we’ve been playing bad meme games, one in recent memory that was a giant parody of Spider-Man where he flies a plane to Brooklyn or something. Obviously not every game is going to be fantastic though, and that’s perfectly ok. However what I can do is link a playlist I put together and describe why I put some of them in this list, a sort of curation of games (which you can also do).
Games:
Here’s the curated list: https://indreams.me/collection/cdGWoMaJUGC
Art’s Dream by Media Molecule- The starter game as I’d call it of Dreams, as mentioned above you play as a Jazz band guy named Art as you struggle with your issues and regain your sense of self worth. Nice little bop, can’t go wrong. Also doing the stuff in this game nets you stuff to use in your creations as well as trophies.
Ancient Dangers: A Bat’s Tale by Media Molecule- A little dungeon crawler by the main devs, the combat while repetitive feels good enough to get through. Also playing this and doing the side stuff nets you trophies.
All Hallow’s Dreams by Media Molecule- A series created by Media Molecule where they actively got involved with the community to get them to contribute horror themed stuff to a single game. The first one were some 10-11 floor haunted floors with each one being created by a contributor in Dreams, leading to varied content. Ghost Train is more of an on rails affair, with some contributions being rail shooters that contribute to a high score while others is just scenery, and the most ambitious one: The Land of Lost Dreams. This one has side quests, a main quest and a giant forest with tons of varied player creations; one that in all honesty I did get kind of tired of by the end going through a massive gauntlet. However there was a lot of effort and charm being put into these so I’d say with these games: short bursts. Also, going through these games past their prime (having only got invested in Dreams now for trophies and because the games are infinite and overwhelming), it kind of makes me sad as they feel like old memories gone I guess.
Silent Hills by DrJones20- As a huge Silent Hill nerd, I was excited for Silent Hills before Konami canned it like everyone else; and even though there’s a bunch of new stuff in the works, one will always think of what could’ve been. This is probably one of, if not the only actual game that tries to do something with what’s given. Not everything is perfect of course, but it has a lot of stuff in it that I liked and got really surreal and weird towards the end, and when me and my buddy played it we enjoyed it a lot.
P.T. Remake by lewisc729- I’m always gonna be pissed off that I didn’t get to experience the PT Demo at all on PS4 and as such this isn’t a bad way to do it; just keep in mind nothing will ever feel the same.
The Backrooms by MarshallsAccount- I’m gonna encompass this as a whole series; there’s a 1-7 as well as a couple of unrelated stuff I believe has the potential to be incorporated into the game. The story follows unnamed researchers going into the titular Backrooms for scientific purposes only to encounter horrors beyond imagination in liminal spaces. Obviously this is based off of the internet horror series of the same name, and keep in mind I don’t follow Backrooms stuff so this is my first real exposure to it and it made me more interested in it as an actual concept. What I really like about this is that depending on whether or not you stick with your team you can get alternate results on whether or not you stick with your team or not. Goof off in the first chapter and the team will be scattered in the other ones, though if you stick with them you’ll see more of them often and they’ll question where you went. Sound design is great and so is voice acting, graphically it’s cool and it’s one of those games I’d love to see to the finish.
Isle of Eras Chapter Zero + Main Game by Grambitious- Along with Silent Hills and The Backrooms, I truly feel like this is my favorite on Dreams. The story is about a man trying to find his missing brother in Harper’s County; along the way you’ll discover lore about the surrounding region, your family, time travel and cosmic horror. I love the multiple different ways you can access different versions of time, the multiple choice of where to go and how to do it, the amount of detail is amazing, like truthfully this is one of those games that I would buy on Steam if it was remade for it. By the time I got done I really enjoyed it and felt it was an experience that everyone on Dreams should play.
Lake Juniper by Grambitious- Smaller title, a bit more linear and solid, though I understood the plot a little less and there were a couple of glitches here and there I enjoyed my time with it! I enjoyed the hook of trying to find out about a cryptid while unraveling a deeper conspiracy behind everything. I’d say if you like Isles of Eras give it a shot, just know it’ll be shorter than the previous game.
Citadel Series by schreppybroepke- Inspired by the like of thatgamecompany’s Journey and Team Ico’s Ico/Shadow of the Colossus, the series (consisting of Islands and Citadel Act One and Two for now) was just randomly sent to me by the guy that made it, I don’t even know how and it turned out to be one of my favorites in the entire game. Keep in mind, you don’t do anything else than jump but the environments are beautiful, the sound design is great and the untold story telling I feel is more than worthy of being close to the influences.
Pathogen by Jiffy-Jaff- A gothic horror walking sim about a city where you play as a doctor who comes home to take care of her mom; obvious Pathologic and Bloodborne influences (in art design) aside, I really love the atmosphere, the characters, the lore. It’s fantastic and an interesting piece, though with a couple of bugs here and there. Definitely worth checking out.
Check Out the Bellevue by tony1979- A walking sim puzzle horror game about a man who is exploring a hallway in the mysterious Bellevue hotel; you investigate the death of certain guests in an atmospheric yet claustrophobic game about guilt. Though the ending was a bit predictable, I enjoyed it and I liked the fact the dev added a walkthrough for those who get easily lost like I do in game.
Crash Bandicoot: Retrieval by autofan999- Somehow randomly ran into this Crash fan game and I’ll be honest it’s pretty good. I can’t say much about it except it’s Crash at home for those who don’t have Crash at home; art style is nice, places about the same. Can’t go wrong to be honest.
Golden Kingdom by Chris_Redwalker6- A shortish walking sim about walking through caves in the search for an old treasure. I enjoyed the atmosphere of the game a lot, and graphically it looked cool.
The Lakehouse + ETCA by Ballofspite- A short horror game about a house-sitter who watches over a lake house and discovers a horror in the basement. It’s an interesting bit of lore, which ETCA by the same dev expands upon a little bit in text entries. Whereas the actual horror interactivity is lacking, and in some cases I had to turn up my TV’s brightness to figure out where the fuck I was going, it’s interesting enough to where I’d love to see more.
Also keep in mind my list is subjective, mostly based on my tastes and what I feel works best within the system’s limitations (mostly that combat and shooting can be done somewhat ok but always feeling stiff in the end, understandable considering aforementioned limitations and limited experience amongst developers) so I guess I tended to go towards horror walking sims but I tried to vary up as much as possible. I would also throw away more but the truth is there’s a lot and it’s almost midnight when I post this.
Other things I can mention is that sometimes navigating with the motion controls, while understandable and for the most part freeform, can be a pain in the ass to move stuff sometimes while going through the menus. The aesthetic is really cool and nice, though it leaves the art design of some games looking all too familiar and honestly kind of furry like? But those are also little nitpicks and for the most part everything runs smoothly, though if you’re trying to get those trophies and you’re not a super technical creative person to make games, keep in mind you’re gonna have a tad bit of a rough time with the grinding.
My final thoughts, I like this game a lot. In fact, I truly believe that this could’ve and should’ve been ported to PS5/PC. There is so much potential for this game that it’s not even funny; there are loads of hidden gems tucked away behind whatever is being thrown out there, and everyone contributes to the community in their own way whether it’s creating assets for games, music, inviting people to collaborate, it’s endless and amazing. Which is why I was sad when Media Molecule announced they were stopping official support, not surprised mind you but sad; it’s only natural for people to want to move on creatively but for stuff like this that can not only create interesting concepts and ideas but help develop the skills of potential future game developers? It deserves a whole lot more than what it’s getting right now.
I’ve seen this game sell for around thirty dollars or so: if you’re looking for a game to kill time with and don’t feel like playing anything specific, you want to go out of your way to create something and test stuff out, maybe kill an hour or two with friends on some funny meme games you guys see around and you own a PS4? This is it. Also this plays on PS5 as well and surprisingly from what I heard some games play better on PS5 even though it’s a PS4 game that you can just install on it without an official port. No clue on how that works but hey for what it’s worth, it’s a fuckin fantastic game. Again, not officially shutting down servers but live support ends in September so keep that in mind.
https://www.theverge.com/2023/4/11/23678609/dreams-live-support-ps4-media-molecule
This review contains spoilers
Horizon Forbidden West: Burning Shores is paid DLC to the original game, and continues on from the end of Forbidden West. I decided to get it because my weird OCD brain dictates if I don't finish the DLC than my time with the game isn't finished, so I picked it up for 20 dollars or so and it wasn't bad. It's smaller in scale but has some interesting new additions and a moment that actually made me FEEL something (rare for these games).
The only thing I can think of that is new for the gameplay end is that you get a new weapon, The Specter Gauntlet, which I must say fucking slaps as a weapon and is a must use for fantastic damage output. There's some new collectibles, such as using your flying dino robot to follow a set path to collect voice recordings, picking up action figures/treasure trinkets for rewards, four new dino types, some new skills (which definitely check out Specter Gauntlet gliding as well as grapple strikes for certain trophies), etc. Overall it's not bad, not mindblowing but for what the game is it's a natural step up DLC wise, you'll get some new stuff but more of the same.
The story follows after the events of Forbidden West, Sylens (RIP Lance Reddick) sends you out to kill Walter, one of the last Far Zeniths (the rich assholes who went to space in the main game) to live, and you spend your time disassembling his plans (which include starting a cult and brainwashing Quen to join him on his rocketship, which is poisonous enough to kill a whole lot of people with radiation to escape Nemesis, the big bad of the next game) before finishing him off in a giant setpiece that involves a robot tentacle monster that looks like it came out of War of the Worlds. Overall, it's not bad though seeing Lance Reddick again makes me a bit sad considering both his untimely passing and the fact that he's hinted at being an even greater part of the third game, of which I have no clue how they're gonna do that. Also, there's a potential sweet moment involving Aloy and her companion Seyka, where they could share a tender moment of romance and honestly it was one of the first times the Horizon games made me FEEL something, which is something I've been waiting for a good while.
There were a couple of glitches here and there, mostly with trying to get a Stormbird to appear (which I had to reload a save) to unlock an item for a certain area, you'll see some returning characters (one from The Frozen Wilds from Zero Dawn in a side quest, whom I didn't know because I didn't remember most of anything in the first game).
I guess if I were to finish up the review it would be with these thoughts: god playing this again reminded me that the traversal is both good in terms of ease of accessibility (I'm often able to skip certain sections because I can just jump on random stuff and climb up the wall in a way that's unintentional) as well as painful in certain ways (that last section going through the Sectoid looking thing that Walter pilots legit frustrated me because of how close the camera is to you, mixed with overshooting the jumping parkour wise), as well as the fact that the game took me about 10 hours or so to complete all of the trophies. Keep in mind, this is a shorter experience, twenty dollars or so (btw, pre-ordering a DLC is fucking ridiculous) and if you love Horizon than you'll love this. Don't go into this expecting it to change your feelings on Horizon, if you didn't care for it then you won't care for this, and if you're like me who just likes playing PS Exclusives and feel that the game is basically every other open world game with a mid plot and characters whose names aren't memorable for the most part then it'll still feel the same.
The only thing I can think of that is new for the gameplay end is that you get a new weapon, The Specter Gauntlet, which I must say fucking slaps as a weapon and is a must use for fantastic damage output. There's some new collectibles, such as using your flying dino robot to follow a set path to collect voice recordings, picking up action figures/treasure trinkets for rewards, four new dino types, some new skills (which definitely check out Specter Gauntlet gliding as well as grapple strikes for certain trophies), etc. Overall it's not bad, not mindblowing but for what the game is it's a natural step up DLC wise, you'll get some new stuff but more of the same.
The story follows after the events of Forbidden West, Sylens (RIP Lance Reddick) sends you out to kill Walter, one of the last Far Zeniths (the rich assholes who went to space in the main game) to live, and you spend your time disassembling his plans (which include starting a cult and brainwashing Quen to join him on his rocketship, which is poisonous enough to kill a whole lot of people with radiation to escape Nemesis, the big bad of the next game) before finishing him off in a giant setpiece that involves a robot tentacle monster that looks like it came out of War of the Worlds. Overall, it's not bad though seeing Lance Reddick again makes me a bit sad considering both his untimely passing and the fact that he's hinted at being an even greater part of the third game, of which I have no clue how they're gonna do that. Also, there's a potential sweet moment involving Aloy and her companion Seyka, where they could share a tender moment of romance and honestly it was one of the first times the Horizon games made me FEEL something, which is something I've been waiting for a good while.
There were a couple of glitches here and there, mostly with trying to get a Stormbird to appear (which I had to reload a save) to unlock an item for a certain area, you'll see some returning characters (one from The Frozen Wilds from Zero Dawn in a side quest, whom I didn't know because I didn't remember most of anything in the first game).
I guess if I were to finish up the review it would be with these thoughts: god playing this again reminded me that the traversal is both good in terms of ease of accessibility (I'm often able to skip certain sections because I can just jump on random stuff and climb up the wall in a way that's unintentional) as well as painful in certain ways (that last section going through the Sectoid looking thing that Walter pilots legit frustrated me because of how close the camera is to you, mixed with overshooting the jumping parkour wise), as well as the fact that the game took me about 10 hours or so to complete all of the trophies. Keep in mind, this is a shorter experience, twenty dollars or so (btw, pre-ordering a DLC is fucking ridiculous) and if you love Horizon than you'll love this. Don't go into this expecting it to change your feelings on Horizon, if you didn't care for it then you won't care for this, and if you're like me who just likes playing PS Exclusives and feel that the game is basically every other open world game with a mid plot and characters whose names aren't memorable for the most part then it'll still feel the same.
2021
This review contains spoilers
Adios is a narrative adventure game (or what the kids would call a "walking simulator") developed by a game developer named Mischief. I don't really know much about this game's history in the slightest, all I personally know is that I either ran into a Youtube playthrough one day or a friend of mine wishlisted it and it said "Disposed of bodies for the mob" and I instantly got giddy and wishlisted it as I love playing games with guys like Paulie and Joey as they eat fettuccine and beat up guys while wearing see through socks and track suits. That being said, this is not that game. In fact I'm going to go out of my way to tell you the gameplay here, as I said it's a "Walking simulator", you go around your farm doing chores and conversating about life with your mafia handler and so you do a lot of walking and clicking on stuff. Personally for me, I was okay with that because primarily it's a story game and it's a game whose themes really resonated in some ways for me.
The story goes like this, as stated in the steam store page, you play a Pig Farmer who doesn't want to dispose of bodies and feed the meat to his pigs anymore; all your reasons for doing this arrangement are now gone and you're left with the inevitability of what's to come: regrets and death, something we all will have to come to grasps with eventually in our lives. What follows is you and your mob buddy going around your farm and doing activities such as milking goats, shoveling s h i t, playing horseshoes and more as he tries to convince you not to sever ties. One thing I like about this game is how convincing the relationship between the handler and the farmer; they have a professional relationship and yet they respect each other and joke around, and it upsets him that he won't just continue their business together not only because it's convenient but that because you can't get out of your association with the mafia unless it's through the feds or death and for the farmer, he just wants to die anyways. His life has gone downhill, his wife died years ago (being put into a nursing home for Alzheimer's) and his son hates him (for the fact he put his wife in a nursing home); mix that in with mortality issues such as death and thoughts on religion, and just wanting there to be some positive end even if there's no sure way that it'll really work due to his past actions.
There were many scenes that were poignant to me, the two especially being the section called The Soda, where you discuss with your mob handler the meaning of hobbies, how they feel and what they mean to the protagonist, before ultimately segwaying into grief and how people often handle it by going into their escapist roots, a feeling that is all too relatable to me. But however, the most memorable would have to be when the father calls his son on the phone near the end of the story; throughout the game you were given multiple choice dialogue options in the way you respond to people, but when you call your son Bill and you have the harrowing talk about why they're strained, most of the dialogue options are blanked out, thoughts that the Farmer desperately wants to say to his son but doesn't feel like he can, another thing that's all too relatable with guilt, he had to do a lot of things he didn't want to do for what he viewed as the greater good and no matter what he will be judged for that. The Farmer isn't a perfect man, in many ways he reminds me of a lot of my father figures; he means well and tries his best, only taking up the job because he wanted to support his family; but ended up messing up a lot of his relationships along the way (not that it excuses their actions).
The story is something whose themes I'm not sure I could articulate fully without it actually being experienced as the writing REALLY does it's job well and made me empathize with all the characters in game, each having things that I can identify with in a sense (minus the whole mob shooting people thing of course). The voice acting is phenomenal too, Resident Evil fans will recognize D.C. Douglas (of Albert Wesker fame EDIT: didn’t know he was a creeper too, the things you learn off the internet) as your handler but Rick Zieff is the highlight with his farmer, whose voice carries a lot of weight as he shifts emotional tones trying to strike these tough conversations with people, a tone that embodies the character of someone who wishes he did better, something to me that's identifiable.
I guess to finish off the review, the graphics the usual indie graphics affair, (the most I could really notice is that the Handler walks kind of funny to me personally), but the design of the farm where you live captures the Early 90s country farm feeling. Everything looks beautiful, but empty; alone, like the Farmer himself. It's a short game, you could complete it in an hour and a half to two if you're going for all the achievements and what I will say here is that the price for this game personally to me is a bit high at 18 dollars but I guess the value is up to the player themselves, as to others the game's handling of themes could more than make up the price and I wouldn't blame them as I'd also recommend plaything through the game multiple times to really digest it emotionally but to me but to me, I'd say wait for a sale.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The story goes like this, as stated in the steam store page, you play a Pig Farmer who doesn't want to dispose of bodies and feed the meat to his pigs anymore; all your reasons for doing this arrangement are now gone and you're left with the inevitability of what's to come: regrets and death, something we all will have to come to grasps with eventually in our lives. What follows is you and your mob buddy going around your farm and doing activities such as milking goats, shoveling s h i t, playing horseshoes and more as he tries to convince you not to sever ties. One thing I like about this game is how convincing the relationship between the handler and the farmer; they have a professional relationship and yet they respect each other and joke around, and it upsets him that he won't just continue their business together not only because it's convenient but that because you can't get out of your association with the mafia unless it's through the feds or death and for the farmer, he just wants to die anyways. His life has gone downhill, his wife died years ago (being put into a nursing home for Alzheimer's) and his son hates him (for the fact he put his wife in a nursing home); mix that in with mortality issues such as death and thoughts on religion, and just wanting there to be some positive end even if there's no sure way that it'll really work due to his past actions.
There were many scenes that were poignant to me, the two especially being the section called The Soda, where you discuss with your mob handler the meaning of hobbies, how they feel and what they mean to the protagonist, before ultimately segwaying into grief and how people often handle it by going into their escapist roots, a feeling that is all too relatable to me. But however, the most memorable would have to be when the father calls his son on the phone near the end of the story; throughout the game you were given multiple choice dialogue options in the way you respond to people, but when you call your son Bill and you have the harrowing talk about why they're strained, most of the dialogue options are blanked out, thoughts that the Farmer desperately wants to say to his son but doesn't feel like he can, another thing that's all too relatable with guilt, he had to do a lot of things he didn't want to do for what he viewed as the greater good and no matter what he will be judged for that. The Farmer isn't a perfect man, in many ways he reminds me of a lot of my father figures; he means well and tries his best, only taking up the job because he wanted to support his family; but ended up messing up a lot of his relationships along the way (not that it excuses their actions).
The story is something whose themes I'm not sure I could articulate fully without it actually being experienced as the writing REALLY does it's job well and made me empathize with all the characters in game, each having things that I can identify with in a sense (minus the whole mob shooting people thing of course). The voice acting is phenomenal too, Resident Evil fans will recognize D.C. Douglas (of Albert Wesker fame EDIT: didn’t know he was a creeper too, the things you learn off the internet) as your handler but Rick Zieff is the highlight with his farmer, whose voice carries a lot of weight as he shifts emotional tones trying to strike these tough conversations with people, a tone that embodies the character of someone who wishes he did better, something to me that's identifiable.
I guess to finish off the review, the graphics the usual indie graphics affair, (the most I could really notice is that the Handler walks kind of funny to me personally), but the design of the farm where you live captures the Early 90s country farm feeling. Everything looks beautiful, but empty; alone, like the Farmer himself. It's a short game, you could complete it in an hour and a half to two if you're going for all the achievements and what I will say here is that the price for this game personally to me is a bit high at 18 dollars but I guess the value is up to the player themselves, as to others the game's handling of themes could more than make up the price and I wouldn't blame them as I'd also recommend plaything through the game multiple times to really digest it emotionally but to me but to me, I'd say wait for a sale.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Halo: The Master Chief Collection is a collection of Halo games developed by both Bungie (originally when they had control of the franchise) and 343 Industries for Microsoft/Xbox Game Studios; the Halo series is one that I've had a little bit familiarity with, having played the first two levels of Halo 1 and the last level of Halo 3 with my cousin during the 360 days before finally playing and beating Halo 4 on 360 all the way through. I didn't really have much in the way of feelings on the series and still kind of don't, as someone who's played nearly all of them coop with a buddy (shoutout to the Big G here) I can safely say that it's a game series, one that was revolutionary for it's time before kind of becoming a shell of it's former self. Regardless of those feelings, I think that this is a great packaging for most of the series), at least in the way of mainline titles. I'm gonna come out and say, 40 dollars for Halo: Combat Evolved to Halo 4 is a huge steal and a fantastic way to experience the collection, even though it was apparently a buggy mess when it first debuted.
Truth be told, I didn't have too much in the way of bugs other than the fact that Halo 2's graphical remake stuff (which for Halo 1 & 2 you can switch between modern game graphics (as well as soundtracks and etc.) and is f u c king impressive as I have never seen stuff switch so seamlessly for the first one) was half and half in the way of crashing a lot. Other than that, I'm not really sure what to put here except this: if you want to experience the original mainline series through Halo 4 on PC it's a fantastic way to go (it even has Xbox Achievement Sync for both Xbox and PC if you care about that stuff like I do). I can't/won't review each game in the series because the truth is there's not enough in terms of character limits to do so, but if I do review the games in this collection then I'll do it on Backloggd and post the links in here. In the meantime, the only things I could really say is this in terms of detriment: I know that nobody likes Halo 5: Guardians, I'll even admit playing through coop made me kind of shoulder shrug, but for the sake of preservation I would've liked to have had it on here (though didn't there used to be a Steam port of it? I don't remember to be honest). That and if they could port Halo Wars 2, that would be phenomenal. Soon I'll be play through Halo: Spartan Strike/Assault, and I'll have to go back and review Halo Wars at some point (spoiler, it's good) but yeah 40 dollars for a whole bunch of games and HOURS to sink into for both multiplayer and campaign? What's not to love? I guess one more request other than the ones before, it would be cool if they did a Gears Collection for all the games as I had never really played them and getting them all on PC would be great!
Edit: Also be aware the file size is at least 170 GBs of Free Space but also holy s h i t it has a steam workshop, gotta love the modding community.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
Truth be told, I didn't have too much in the way of bugs other than the fact that Halo 2's graphical remake stuff (which for Halo 1 & 2 you can switch between modern game graphics (as well as soundtracks and etc.) and is f u c king impressive as I have never seen stuff switch so seamlessly for the first one) was half and half in the way of crashing a lot. Other than that, I'm not really sure what to put here except this: if you want to experience the original mainline series through Halo 4 on PC it's a fantastic way to go (it even has Xbox Achievement Sync for both Xbox and PC if you care about that stuff like I do). I can't/won't review each game in the series because the truth is there's not enough in terms of character limits to do so, but if I do review the games in this collection then I'll do it on Backloggd and post the links in here. In the meantime, the only things I could really say is this in terms of detriment: I know that nobody likes Halo 5: Guardians, I'll even admit playing through coop made me kind of shoulder shrug, but for the sake of preservation I would've liked to have had it on here (though didn't there used to be a Steam port of it? I don't remember to be honest). That and if they could port Halo Wars 2, that would be phenomenal. Soon I'll be play through Halo: Spartan Strike/Assault, and I'll have to go back and review Halo Wars at some point (spoiler, it's good) but yeah 40 dollars for a whole bunch of games and HOURS to sink into for both multiplayer and campaign? What's not to love? I guess one more request other than the ones before, it would be cool if they did a Gears Collection for all the games as I had never really played them and getting them all on PC would be great!
Edit: Also be aware the file size is at least 170 GBs of Free Space but also holy s h i t it has a steam workshop, gotta love the modding community.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Midnight Fight Express is an isometric beat em' up game developed by Jacob Dzwinel and published by Humble Games (of the Humble Bundle site I believe, good for game key deals); I didn't really know anything about this game until a buddy of mine (shoutout to my dude Gage, love ya dweeb) who threw the trailer at me. As a huge fan of Hotline Miami and games like this, I immediately liked what I saw and gave it a wishlist before forgetting about it for a while. I decided to pick it up around Christmas last year and went in blind, and I was pleasantly surprised.
The Plot is a simple one, you play as a dude named Babyface who is woken up by a strange talking drone up in a random apartment with no idea of what's going on; only the urging from the drone to trust him and take down the city's criminal organizations as they're enacting a plan that could doom the fate of humanity. Truth is that's really it, there are some twists and turns here and there but it mostly just feels like an excuse for the gameplay, but basically fight your way through waves of dudes to take down the Boss-On-High's criminal lieutenants while in-media-resing inside of an interrogation room as you recount your story for two detectives, Agent Smithman and Agent McCloon (which both come off as parodies of Agent Smith from the Matrix and John McClane even if it's in name only). I guess that's one thing I will mention is that it's definitely parody and homage based; you'll see references to stuff like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (as a Big Smoke parody named Large Soda), Modern Warfare 2 (a whole airport terrorism scene and even fighting a bunch of expies of Makarov in an elevator) to even a level dedicated to referencing Fight Club, Hotline Miami and I believe Sons of Anarchy? For the most part these are fine, though I feel like in the back of my mind it's a little jarring if you're actually trying to take the plot seriously, but for the most part I wouldn't take it seriously as the game doesn't really either, it's just going from set piece to set piece beating people up. Speaking of, the gameplay.
The gameplay is pretty solid, repetitive sure in the beginning but definitely solid. If I could describe the gameplay (and game overall), I'd say it's a combination of Hotline Miami, Sifu and the atmosphere of My Friend Pedro. You go from place to place, picking up weapons, throwing them, doing combos, dodging and trying to manage your crowd while coming off as cool as possible. For me, it definitely worked enough to make me invest my time going into the challenge mode to replay all of these (though to my detriment as some of them tend to get really frustrating, like a level where you can't get hit by pepper spray once even though sometimes the stun animation doesn't even render and it's in enclosed spaces). Sometimes there would be glitches too where I'd beat all the enemies and then it wouldn't spawn in but I think that was because during the end I was god-modeing it to get the challenges done, I also think a restart checkpoint system would be advantageous to this effect just in case but for the most part it works well. Doing these challenges get you rewards like new props and enemies to fight in practice mode, cosmetics to create your own character (which you can do basically as soon as you get out of the tutorial I believe?), certain cheats for repeated runs, etc. Again to me the ease of challenges at the beginning give a lot of incentive to go through them, though keep in mind some of the later ones tend to be really frustrating and mind numbing. Keep in mind you get new abilities as you advance, like a 3D printer gun which regenerates ammo over time and can be great for parrying or removing certain enemies from play or a rope gun which can drag enemies to you amongst other abilities (though you get it a bit later in the game) and helps give a bit of combat variation. If I were to name a least favorite level it would be The Graveyard, mostly because the zombies tend to grapple you if you get close and either instantly kill you or nearly kill you, really breaking up the flow of combat but otherwise are for the most part decent if not challenging, especially the levels where you take control of a vehicle and shoot from it, of which there are three in a total of 41 levels (which includes the tutorial). I guess to finish it off, the gameplay is good, and when it REALLY connects you feel like a f u c king god, or the human equivalent of that being John Wick or something; if you're in the mood for a good beat em up with variation it's a definite recommend.
The graphics are rather minimalist as it understandably focuses on gameplay flow but it fits with the overall atmosphere, the environmental art design looks good and all the objects you can use to fight look like they fit in. No voice acting as far as I'm aware and the soundtrack is by a guy named Noisecream and by god did they do a fantastic job at the soundtrack that is immersive as hell in your murder spree, continuing the sort of synthwave (best I can explain) vibe that Hotline Miami, My Friend Pedro and The Hong Kong Massacre did to great effect.
And that's basically what I could compare this game to, the love child of all of those games and it's a pretty solid title that'll take up your time if you're REALLY invested in it as I was these past couple of days (minus a few headaches). If you're into beating the s h i t out of people and don't care if the story takes a bit of a backseat I can definitely recommend for the full price it's asking, also get the soundtrack too it slaps.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The Plot is a simple one, you play as a dude named Babyface who is woken up by a strange talking drone up in a random apartment with no idea of what's going on; only the urging from the drone to trust him and take down the city's criminal organizations as they're enacting a plan that could doom the fate of humanity. Truth is that's really it, there are some twists and turns here and there but it mostly just feels like an excuse for the gameplay, but basically fight your way through waves of dudes to take down the Boss-On-High's criminal lieutenants while in-media-resing inside of an interrogation room as you recount your story for two detectives, Agent Smithman and Agent McCloon (which both come off as parodies of Agent Smith from the Matrix and John McClane even if it's in name only). I guess that's one thing I will mention is that it's definitely parody and homage based; you'll see references to stuff like Grand Theft Auto: San Andreas (as a Big Smoke parody named Large Soda), Modern Warfare 2 (a whole airport terrorism scene and even fighting a bunch of expies of Makarov in an elevator) to even a level dedicated to referencing Fight Club, Hotline Miami and I believe Sons of Anarchy? For the most part these are fine, though I feel like in the back of my mind it's a little jarring if you're actually trying to take the plot seriously, but for the most part I wouldn't take it seriously as the game doesn't really either, it's just going from set piece to set piece beating people up. Speaking of, the gameplay.
The gameplay is pretty solid, repetitive sure in the beginning but definitely solid. If I could describe the gameplay (and game overall), I'd say it's a combination of Hotline Miami, Sifu and the atmosphere of My Friend Pedro. You go from place to place, picking up weapons, throwing them, doing combos, dodging and trying to manage your crowd while coming off as cool as possible. For me, it definitely worked enough to make me invest my time going into the challenge mode to replay all of these (though to my detriment as some of them tend to get really frustrating, like a level where you can't get hit by pepper spray once even though sometimes the stun animation doesn't even render and it's in enclosed spaces). Sometimes there would be glitches too where I'd beat all the enemies and then it wouldn't spawn in but I think that was because during the end I was god-modeing it to get the challenges done, I also think a restart checkpoint system would be advantageous to this effect just in case but for the most part it works well. Doing these challenges get you rewards like new props and enemies to fight in practice mode, cosmetics to create your own character (which you can do basically as soon as you get out of the tutorial I believe?), certain cheats for repeated runs, etc. Again to me the ease of challenges at the beginning give a lot of incentive to go through them, though keep in mind some of the later ones tend to be really frustrating and mind numbing. Keep in mind you get new abilities as you advance, like a 3D printer gun which regenerates ammo over time and can be great for parrying or removing certain enemies from play or a rope gun which can drag enemies to you amongst other abilities (though you get it a bit later in the game) and helps give a bit of combat variation. If I were to name a least favorite level it would be The Graveyard, mostly because the zombies tend to grapple you if you get close and either instantly kill you or nearly kill you, really breaking up the flow of combat but otherwise are for the most part decent if not challenging, especially the levels where you take control of a vehicle and shoot from it, of which there are three in a total of 41 levels (which includes the tutorial). I guess to finish it off, the gameplay is good, and when it REALLY connects you feel like a f u c king god, or the human equivalent of that being John Wick or something; if you're in the mood for a good beat em up with variation it's a definite recommend.
The graphics are rather minimalist as it understandably focuses on gameplay flow but it fits with the overall atmosphere, the environmental art design looks good and all the objects you can use to fight look like they fit in. No voice acting as far as I'm aware and the soundtrack is by a guy named Noisecream and by god did they do a fantastic job at the soundtrack that is immersive as hell in your murder spree, continuing the sort of synthwave (best I can explain) vibe that Hotline Miami, My Friend Pedro and The Hong Kong Massacre did to great effect.
And that's basically what I could compare this game to, the love child of all of those games and it's a pretty solid title that'll take up your time if you're REALLY invested in it as I was these past couple of days (minus a few headaches). If you're into beating the s h i t out of people and don't care if the story takes a bit of a backseat I can definitely recommend for the full price it's asking, also get the soundtrack too it slaps.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Curse: The Eye of Isis is a "survival horror" game by Asylum Entertainment developed for Windows PC and Xbox Original as well as for Playstation 2 in Europe only; here's what I can tell you about this game: I put quotations around survival horror for a reason. It's a game that wears the skin of an old survival horror game, it has the fixed camera angles and the inventory management, puzzles, all the nine yards. But let me introduce a concept, have you ever heard of Asylum Films? Their movies consist of low budget knock offs with poor special effects, hammy acting, and strange design choices that reek of low effort cash grab and are definitely not scary. This may have had some effort but I can't think of anything more fitting considering Asylum Entertainment (probably not related) made this game. I'll start with the plot here:
The plot involves a thief breaking into a museum in London during the 1890s to steal the titular Eye of Isis statue, the dumb f u c k breaks it or something and a curse is released. Things go haywire and young Darien Dane goes to the museum to meet up with old childhood friend Victoria Sutton. I can't remember too much in terms of plot stuff, but you meet up with a guy named Abdul (the only actual source of real scares in this game) who can hold items and you both go search for Victoria. Hijinks happen I guess, there's stuff with the actual thief (named Le Chat here), mummy monsters, goons with guns roaming around, Darien gets cursed at one point and Victoria has to cure him three times. There's notes about the curse and how originally the Sutton and Dane families found the Statue in Egypt and then took it I guess? Eventually they chase after the thief who boards a boat led by some Humpty Dumpty lookin f u c ker named Bupo. You go through a ship to do....something? Whatever the case, you finally pop back to the actual Pyramid in Egypt to find both the thief, Bupo and MORE magical monsters who want to breathe on you harder than Matt Gaetz at a day care center. You finally go through all of that to stop this curse and you learn some stuff like Le Chat is actually Victoria's twin sister? Where this came from I don't know, and also Bupo turns into something akin to The Master from Fallout and after putting the statue back the curse finally comes to an end.
So what did I think of this plot? It's confusing, forgettable, most of the characters don't have much in the way of personality, and I truly struggled understanding what's going on most of the time and even while reading notes it's just kind of boring. Like where did the twin sister thing come from? That plot thread felt forced and hammy. Who is Bupo other than some random collector guy? Actually I'm gonna combine the plot section with sound design, art design, and everything else because I don't have too much to say here other than this game feels like it was supposed to be more of an Indiana Jones film than anything else, just dressed up with a "horror coating", the VA is ok, the locations (The Museum/Sewers, The Ship, the Pyramid) are boring and one note for the most part, again there's not much in the way of personality for anybody really (like I don't remember Darien saying much other than "Great Scott" til the end of the game) and keep in mind I'm not gonna really remember the plot as much as I will the gameplay: or better yet my janky experience thereof.
The gameplay was...mixed for me to say the least. The first I'll go into was glitches, I couldn't even get this game to load updates properly because it would sit in the install update thing for hours which I didn't find a fix for so that it probably contributed to glitches in my actual play through. For starters, I literally couldn't play the game past the first save area because it kept crashing until a friend sent me her save file (shoutout to Jinx btw thank you), when I pause the game it'll randomly just boot me out at strange times, legs would randomly spin around in a helicopter motion on the pause menu and continue until later in the game (more funny than anything else), one enemy who was chasing me decided to run back in the opposite direction into a wall or something and kept running in motions; in the Egypt levels Victoria won't go through the spinning doors properly, I could've been softlocked because Abdul wouldn't pop through the revolving door so I couldn't get a flamethrower to light up some candles but luckily I did, the Scorpion boss made me crash three times towards the end. It's
hilarious how many I encountered playing this game, and I'll post some later here at the end.
The actual gameplay you'll do some survival horrorey stuff like solve puzzles, conserve ammo and health, etc. It's not awful the way they do it, of course I broke out a guide (this is a good one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=942210108) to figure out what I was doing so I can't say much cause I suck. What I can say is that enemies consist of undead mummies or corpses for the most part, which is fine but they also have one special ability: the ability to breathe on you and give you the curse which will slowly lower your health over time unless you use amulets you pick off of dead bodies (which heals you and gets rid of curses but I don't think that was explained well) or menthol jars. I don't mind combat being mixed up but in certain cases I would get cursed because the cameras were orientated in a strange manner, which when moving between cameras have this thing where instead of continuing to move in a consistent manner in that direction makes you move in the other way so then you have to kind of spin and reorient yourself and it just feels weird. Speaking of controls? The PC controls f u c king blow and the controller support is worse so I had to buy this app- https://store.steampowered.com/app/367670/Controller_Companion/ (great by the way) and used this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648605819) to put in good controller support stuff so I could actually play the game in a comfortable manner. When fixed camera angles are done well it can be atmospheric and great but in this it's more of a detriment to fight against, the gun combat (though maybe a glitch) I had trouble locking onto enemies sometimes and would aim next to them even if there's no other enemies in the room. I guess if I had to add another thing is that with the limited inventory space you have to go to Abdul in order to switch out items as well as save your progress, and let me tell you this guy is dedicated to his job. He literally provides 100 percent of the scares coming out of strange places and hiding spots, yelling your name and plot exposition while some goofy genie music plays in the background. It can get kind of tedious but overall it was tolerable for the most part.
I don't hate this game, but truthfully it's obtuse, confusing to fix up and patch and generally kind of dull. Also my playtime didn't count (I had 5 hours) so I had to leave the start up menu on so I could write this up. It came out in 2004, I know some things were a product of it's time and if you're willing to put in the time and effort to fix the damn thing in certain spots for 2.99 it's not the worst price but there are better and more interesting games you could be playing. Here's some guides I found (not the ones above) and videos I recorded.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1683612384
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Curse:The_Eye_of_Isis#Unable_to_Execute_error.28Steam_Version.29
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kRd3GtFtokNNtmjlb-W5uonsghVGpLvf/view?usp=sharing (If you keep crashing after trying to save with Abdul the first time)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB3ImoxUBsM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn6gqZ4phQE&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz1gIE1CUlo&ab_channel=gamemast15r
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The plot involves a thief breaking into a museum in London during the 1890s to steal the titular Eye of Isis statue, the dumb f u c k breaks it or something and a curse is released. Things go haywire and young Darien Dane goes to the museum to meet up with old childhood friend Victoria Sutton. I can't remember too much in terms of plot stuff, but you meet up with a guy named Abdul (the only actual source of real scares in this game) who can hold items and you both go search for Victoria. Hijinks happen I guess, there's stuff with the actual thief (named Le Chat here), mummy monsters, goons with guns roaming around, Darien gets cursed at one point and Victoria has to cure him three times. There's notes about the curse and how originally the Sutton and Dane families found the Statue in Egypt and then took it I guess? Eventually they chase after the thief who boards a boat led by some Humpty Dumpty lookin f u c ker named Bupo. You go through a ship to do....something? Whatever the case, you finally pop back to the actual Pyramid in Egypt to find both the thief, Bupo and MORE magical monsters who want to breathe on you harder than Matt Gaetz at a day care center. You finally go through all of that to stop this curse and you learn some stuff like Le Chat is actually Victoria's twin sister? Where this came from I don't know, and also Bupo turns into something akin to The Master from Fallout and after putting the statue back the curse finally comes to an end.
So what did I think of this plot? It's confusing, forgettable, most of the characters don't have much in the way of personality, and I truly struggled understanding what's going on most of the time and even while reading notes it's just kind of boring. Like where did the twin sister thing come from? That plot thread felt forced and hammy. Who is Bupo other than some random collector guy? Actually I'm gonna combine the plot section with sound design, art design, and everything else because I don't have too much to say here other than this game feels like it was supposed to be more of an Indiana Jones film than anything else, just dressed up with a "horror coating", the VA is ok, the locations (The Museum/Sewers, The Ship, the Pyramid) are boring and one note for the most part, again there's not much in the way of personality for anybody really (like I don't remember Darien saying much other than "Great Scott" til the end of the game) and keep in mind I'm not gonna really remember the plot as much as I will the gameplay: or better yet my janky experience thereof.
The gameplay was...mixed for me to say the least. The first I'll go into was glitches, I couldn't even get this game to load updates properly because it would sit in the install update thing for hours which I didn't find a fix for so that it probably contributed to glitches in my actual play through. For starters, I literally couldn't play the game past the first save area because it kept crashing until a friend sent me her save file (shoutout to Jinx btw thank you), when I pause the game it'll randomly just boot me out at strange times, legs would randomly spin around in a helicopter motion on the pause menu and continue until later in the game (more funny than anything else), one enemy who was chasing me decided to run back in the opposite direction into a wall or something and kept running in motions; in the Egypt levels Victoria won't go through the spinning doors properly, I could've been softlocked because Abdul wouldn't pop through the revolving door so I couldn't get a flamethrower to light up some candles but luckily I did, the Scorpion boss made me crash three times towards the end. It's
hilarious how many I encountered playing this game, and I'll post some later here at the end.
The actual gameplay you'll do some survival horrorey stuff like solve puzzles, conserve ammo and health, etc. It's not awful the way they do it, of course I broke out a guide (this is a good one: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=942210108) to figure out what I was doing so I can't say much cause I suck. What I can say is that enemies consist of undead mummies or corpses for the most part, which is fine but they also have one special ability: the ability to breathe on you and give you the curse which will slowly lower your health over time unless you use amulets you pick off of dead bodies (which heals you and gets rid of curses but I don't think that was explained well) or menthol jars. I don't mind combat being mixed up but in certain cases I would get cursed because the cameras were orientated in a strange manner, which when moving between cameras have this thing where instead of continuing to move in a consistent manner in that direction makes you move in the other way so then you have to kind of spin and reorient yourself and it just feels weird. Speaking of controls? The PC controls f u c king blow and the controller support is worse so I had to buy this app- https://store.steampowered.com/app/367670/Controller_Companion/ (great by the way) and used this guide: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=648605819) to put in good controller support stuff so I could actually play the game in a comfortable manner. When fixed camera angles are done well it can be atmospheric and great but in this it's more of a detriment to fight against, the gun combat (though maybe a glitch) I had trouble locking onto enemies sometimes and would aim next to them even if there's no other enemies in the room. I guess if I had to add another thing is that with the limited inventory space you have to go to Abdul in order to switch out items as well as save your progress, and let me tell you this guy is dedicated to his job. He literally provides 100 percent of the scares coming out of strange places and hiding spots, yelling your name and plot exposition while some goofy genie music plays in the background. It can get kind of tedious but overall it was tolerable for the most part.
I don't hate this game, but truthfully it's obtuse, confusing to fix up and patch and generally kind of dull. Also my playtime didn't count (I had 5 hours) so I had to leave the start up menu on so I could write this up. It came out in 2004, I know some things were a product of it's time and if you're willing to put in the time and effort to fix the damn thing in certain spots for 2.99 it's not the worst price but there are better and more interesting games you could be playing. Here's some guides I found (not the ones above) and videos I recorded.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=1683612384
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Curse:The_Eye_of_Isis#Unable_to_Execute_error.28Steam_Version.29
https://drive.google.com/file/d/1kRd3GtFtokNNtmjlb-W5uonsghVGpLvf/view?usp=sharing (If you keep crashing after trying to save with Abdul the first time)
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cB3ImoxUBsM&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hn6gqZ4phQE&ab_channel=gamemast15r
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Xz1gIE1CUlo&ab_channel=gamemast15r
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
This review contains spoilers
Star Wars: The Force Unleashed II is a game developed by Aspyr Studios for 360/PS3 era game systems and the obvious sequel to the first Force Unleashed game; now I haven't heard much beforehand about this game other than it was supposedly shorter as well as worse than the first one. My feeling having beaten this game is that yes and no, in certain ways.
The Story is worse than the first one, it mainly consists of you [spoiler]escaping from Darth Vader as a clone of the original Starkiller (I don't even remember if he died in the first game but this clone s h i t is kind of confusing to be honest), saving the Jedi Master (Peter Stormare, who for the love of god I love him but when he repeats dialogue to you sounds like a whiny child and it's sad because I love his work. EDIT: Turns out it wasn't Peter Stormare, it's a guy named Cully Fredricksen whom I didn't recognize because he sounds really similar to Peter in Until Dawn, my mistake. Pretty good VA if I couldn't recognize him) from the last game, stopping off for a quick glorified cameo by Yoda and a bite to eat (which is just a funny a s s hallucination inside of some tree which made me giggle a bit) in Dagobah, fighting in space than going back to Darth Vader for a final showdown to rescue your love interest. [/spoiler] Of course, like the first game, there's [spoiler] a Dark Side choice and a Light Side choice in which the Light Side you get a good ending with a Boba Fett tease (which I chose) and the Dark Side ending everyone dies and your super evil clone goes and kills the Rebellion I guess, but this clone doesn't appear in the Light Side logically speaking and it feels inconsistent as hell.[/spoiler] I'll be honest with you, the story was painfully rushed and you can tell just by how brief the game is. It still feels like fanfiction except fanfiction that the author hated, wanted to salvage and just chopped up. Most of the character development you would get would be in the first one, this doesn't really have much in the way of story and mostly feels like it would've been DLC but the budget got too big and Lucas was like "Make it a full game to recoup the budget".
As for the DLC, it's not included in the game and I don't care enough about this game to really bother downloading patches to get whatever. At the end I'll post some links to hopefully point those in the right direction for those who want to play it.
The main reason why I'm giving this an upvote is for this reason alone: the gameplay for the most part feels a tad bit on the improved side whereas in the original I played on Steam it felt way worse. I'm not sure what exactly it was that made me feel it played better but my guess is it was just general improvements to feel a bit more powerful, you clip less in jumping (though you still do) and the fact that the run time is significantly less. My guess is the game is like 3-4 hours long depending on how often you die? I'm just surprised I had more fun this time around than the first one. Also my advice would be to turn up the camera sensitivity just because it felt a tad bit slow.
To break out the art design, graphics, sound design, etc: The graphics look better than the first one though the first level looked like it was smeared a bit with vaseline; although I do like the glass effects from Chapter 2-4 when they break and shatter. It's still Star Wars "Voom Voom" sounds, though I also wanna address that this game is still a tad bit on the glitchy side with numerous times where graphical pop ins were noticable, with one big example being I walked into a hallway and all the graphics disappeared from the hallway going forward except the floor which was lit up with lights. I fixed it by going back to the previous hallway then going back in and it was fine but it was still kind of weird.
I guess to finish off my thoughts, this game feels unfinished and cobbled together, a footnote of a footnote to something probably greater than what it was. It's ok, definitely wait for a sale and look into patches and such just to make it work better. Even then keep in mind that your experience will be short and you'll play through basically everything really quick. There are better Star Wars games to play out there, and I guess I'm just surprised that the flaws from the first one were fixed in this one, only for the flaws in this game having been addressed in the first one. It's weird and honestly I have no feelings about this game whatsoever other bits and pieces and it's kind of sad to be honest. Buy it on sale if you really want to get it but just know that this thumbs up is kind of pushing it a tad bit.
Also shoutout to the Big G for getting me this game!
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121445637
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Unleashed_II
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The Story is worse than the first one, it mainly consists of you [spoiler]escaping from Darth Vader as a clone of the original Starkiller (I don't even remember if he died in the first game but this clone s h i t is kind of confusing to be honest), saving the Jedi Master (Peter Stormare, who for the love of god I love him but when he repeats dialogue to you sounds like a whiny child and it's sad because I love his work. EDIT: Turns out it wasn't Peter Stormare, it's a guy named Cully Fredricksen whom I didn't recognize because he sounds really similar to Peter in Until Dawn, my mistake. Pretty good VA if I couldn't recognize him) from the last game, stopping off for a quick glorified cameo by Yoda and a bite to eat (which is just a funny a s s hallucination inside of some tree which made me giggle a bit) in Dagobah, fighting in space than going back to Darth Vader for a final showdown to rescue your love interest. [/spoiler] Of course, like the first game, there's [spoiler] a Dark Side choice and a Light Side choice in which the Light Side you get a good ending with a Boba Fett tease (which I chose) and the Dark Side ending everyone dies and your super evil clone goes and kills the Rebellion I guess, but this clone doesn't appear in the Light Side logically speaking and it feels inconsistent as hell.[/spoiler] I'll be honest with you, the story was painfully rushed and you can tell just by how brief the game is. It still feels like fanfiction except fanfiction that the author hated, wanted to salvage and just chopped up. Most of the character development you would get would be in the first one, this doesn't really have much in the way of story and mostly feels like it would've been DLC but the budget got too big and Lucas was like "Make it a full game to recoup the budget".
As for the DLC, it's not included in the game and I don't care enough about this game to really bother downloading patches to get whatever. At the end I'll post some links to hopefully point those in the right direction for those who want to play it.
The main reason why I'm giving this an upvote is for this reason alone: the gameplay for the most part feels a tad bit on the improved side whereas in the original I played on Steam it felt way worse. I'm not sure what exactly it was that made me feel it played better but my guess is it was just general improvements to feel a bit more powerful, you clip less in jumping (though you still do) and the fact that the run time is significantly less. My guess is the game is like 3-4 hours long depending on how often you die? I'm just surprised I had more fun this time around than the first one. Also my advice would be to turn up the camera sensitivity just because it felt a tad bit slow.
To break out the art design, graphics, sound design, etc: The graphics look better than the first one though the first level looked like it was smeared a bit with vaseline; although I do like the glass effects from Chapter 2-4 when they break and shatter. It's still Star Wars "Voom Voom" sounds, though I also wanna address that this game is still a tad bit on the glitchy side with numerous times where graphical pop ins were noticable, with one big example being I walked into a hallway and all the graphics disappeared from the hallway going forward except the floor which was lit up with lights. I fixed it by going back to the previous hallway then going back in and it was fine but it was still kind of weird.
I guess to finish off my thoughts, this game feels unfinished and cobbled together, a footnote of a footnote to something probably greater than what it was. It's ok, definitely wait for a sale and look into patches and such just to make it work better. Even then keep in mind that your experience will be short and you'll play through basically everything really quick. There are better Star Wars games to play out there, and I guess I'm just surprised that the flaws from the first one were fixed in this one, only for the flaws in this game having been addressed in the first one. It's weird and honestly I have no feelings about this game whatsoever other bits and pieces and it's kind of sad to be honest. Buy it on sale if you really want to get it but just know that this thumbs up is kind of pushing it a tad bit.
Also shoutout to the Big G for getting me this game!
Links:
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=121445637
https://www.pcgamingwiki.com/wiki/Star_Wars:_The_Force_Unleashed_II
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2002
This review contains spoilers
The Getaway is an open world crime game/”Gta Clone” created by Team Soho of Sony Computer Entertainment with a budget around five million pounds or so according to IMDB, originally starting as a developer of basketball and racing games for the first Playstation before it ultimately transformed itself into open world driving. It ultimately transformed itself into an open world crime game (which apparently sold 250,000 copies) later on under the direction of the team due to competition between Sega over one of their racing games as well as the constant need to perfect the streets of London in their recreation of the game. It was also directed and written by Brendan McNamara of L.A. Noire infamy, mostly due to the fact that his constant need for perfection and treating his staff like shit led to the downfall of Team Bondi lead to Rockstar jumping in to finish off development for that game. It is this sort of strange coincidence that to me oddly makes sense that this was the case because how the game was programmed with perfection in mind feels like the kind of thing someone like him would be involved in. I’m gonna explain the gameplay here first.
The gameplay consists of going from mission to mission (of which there are 24 overall split between two playable characters), and set piece to set piece with mixed up bits of shootout gameplay, driving sections and a couple of stealth/precise dodge rolling bits here and there. You have a HUGE area of London to explore, and keep in mind that this map is as I say, fucking HUGE. Like I haven’t been there (yet), but what I will say for its limitations it’s amazing what the developers achieved in scope here without resolving to loading screens (unless it’s cutscenes or the like), though I’m sure that stuff like this is really the main reason why the game was delayed so long (along with probably getting the license to everything related to real life companies because holy shit there are A LOT of brands from FedEx to Burger King to Ted Baker amongst other ones along with basically every car brand in existence at that time except for BT because they didn’t want their brand to be associated with violence). With this stuff in mind, the game has a sort of unique presentation in the fact that it’s very dedicated to being as “realistic” as possible; there are no health bars, for the most part there are no loading screens which is amazing considering the scope (view GTA: Vice City as an example of how their world was programmed, sections of the map being blocked off by loading screens), there’s none of that. However, it can also lead to really confusing or frustrating moments; the first mission even being one of them; you have to chase a car across the city to a hideout and shootout with a bunch of dudes in a warehouse, cool right? The driving part, while confusing as hell (which I’ll explain in a bit), can be done intuitively if you for the most part know the right controls for most open world driving games. Once you get on foot? Ohhhhh fuck you have no tutorial on how to do anything, you’re basically just kind of thrown in and expected to wing it, which is a bit mixed for me but I managed to get through it with the help of a buddy telling me what they are and without that I might have been stuck on the first mission for longer than I would have wanted. Let me explain some of these on foot controls:
The X button is to take cover/roll depending on where you are or your speed/direction, apparently it can be used to grab an enemy from behind which I wish I knew before beating the game
The Square button is to pull out your gun (often with R1) and shoot/attack people in close distance
Triangle is to put it away/drop any big guns
Circle is to carjack people from their cars
R1 is to auto aim
R2 is to manual aim
L2 is to reload your guns
Again they don’t tell you any of this so you’re kind of just forced to wing it with no direction and it’s kind of jarring. When you aim down your gun with manual aim there’s no reticle which if you’re not used to it can be frustrating; for example in Mission 6 I’m escaping a police station and there’s an option to shoot the mechanical thing that controls the gate so I can escape, an option I always missed considering I can’t aim for shit. If you get damaged, since there are no health bars, you actually have to position yourself at the correct angle next to a wall to heal yourself, where you are put in a vulnerable position where you can’t make any movement of any kind, and you just kind of slowly breathe in and out as the blood on you magically disappears. Now this can be a mixed bag it’s arduous waiting for your health to come back up (nor do I know if it’s a limited thing keeping in realism), but I like how tense it makes it because you always have to watch for enemies coming around any corner waiting to pop a cap in your ass because they WILL charge you for the most part. What I can say about the gunplay is for me, unlike the driving, I actually got used to it and you kind of get into the groove of it fairly quick. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel stiff as hell sometimes because it certainly can, for example get caught on the stairs and it’s kind of a deathwish because your character trots up the steps like an old person just waiting to die of cardiac arrest and if people with guns are nearby you can’t really shoot them up from the steps so then you gotta go one direction or the other and shoot them and it’s really kind of annoying though if you shoot and kill one on the steps I enjoy their little tumbling down animation as it’s kind of funny. I think the worst example of anything on foot related for me had to have been Chapter 11 because dear god, on foot they have you moving through lasers while also having a companion behind you. Keep in mind, look up a guide and see how others do it because it took me try after try, and a decent hour or two to get past this ONE section, arguably the worst in the entire game. You fail to do a roll correctly or shimmy past a couch you’ll get gassed, sometimes there are multiple laser rooms in a row and you will be frustrated going through trying to dodge all of them while also dealing with goons in gas masks and a stupid companion who just kind of gets shot and dies. And the worst part is that this mostly has to do with the camera angles and slightly awkward moving controls, they’re awful in figuring out distance and it’s an actual struggle to move your character up to position without overshooting and hitting a laser to do a roll or shimmy into another area and often times due to the awkward player positioning I’d just knock into some lasers anyways, especially if I’m free aiming to get a grasp on my position. But then other times you’ll feel like a fucking badass, shooting through twelve goons with an AK just lining themselves up for you in the hallways of a hospital. It’s a strange genius but a very jank and sometimes frustrating dichotomy that honestly you’re gonna have to get used to playing this game. Again there’s nothing that can really tell you how much ammo or health you have, for the sake of immersion you are given nothing but your main character in the middle of the screen and told which direction to go.
But that’s only one of many things this game just kind of throws at you. Driving for the most part is normal except using the right thumbstick helps you do drifts, but how you get any direction is strange: you have to follow the blinker lights on the back in order to navigate to your next objective. Keep in mind, if it’s blinking to the right or the left it means the first right or left you should take, if it’s blinking really fast it means you just missed it I’m pretty sure and if both are blinking at the same time you’re in the right spot. I guess for the most part in almost every game, and in real life, I suck at driving; so I will always crash into everything and fly past traffic going the opposite way (in game only of course) because that’s just how I’m wired. These missions kind of need you to do all of that, navigating through the use of blinker lights while also simultaneously (not all the time, but a decent portion) going under a time limit that doesn’t show itself except for some rings and a faster speed in the music when you’re almost out. This has also led to some frustrating moments like in Mission 14 where you have to get to an area in four minutes from a decent distance before you run out of time; the direction the blinkers are giving me mixed with the fact that I can’t seem to shake off random cars of gangsters who just happen to see me and want to fuck me in the ass with no lube who just like to crash into me and throw off my progress non stop; this is mixed in with the fact that it’s realistic, take a crash and for the most part you will start seeing smoke. Go on for too long, it turns black, slows down and the engine dies; sometimes it happens immediately depending on how hard other cars hit so it’s kind of a “Shoot these guys or run to another car while they shoot out my tires and etc” and truth be told during this mission I swear to god Team Soho must’ve collaborated with Sony to release this game in an attempt to boost controller sales because I literally broke a controller in frustration during this mission, not proud of it but it can get really fucking annoying real quick; but then in other cases I’ll do a really good drift or the controls feel functional enough to dodge a bunch of cars and lose my pursuers like it’s Fast & Furious and I don’t understand how the hell that happened. I’ll be more than willing to say I suck eggs at games but again it happens to jump around between janky/frustrating design choices and then it switches to genius in a second and my mood switches immediately. I know some people kind of throw out that this is a Grand Theft Auto clone but truth be told the similarities kind of stop at a certain point as this game focuses way too much on immersion and not holding your hand to differentiate itself from everyone else. I’m going to go to the story because the rest of the game shines there and the design around the gameplay.
The story revolves around two characters: former gangster Mark Hammond and Detective Frank Carter of the Flying Squad, a special unit inside London Police. Mark Hammond’s wife gets shot and his son gets kidnapped by members of the Jolson gang, led by one Charlie Jolson, a brutish right wing old head dusty crime lord who hates the multicultural presence the other gangs have taken in London and being a bit salty about the old days plans to take the reins back. Using Hammond to commit acts of terror in exchange for his son, Hammond is blackmailed into acts like shooting up members of his old gang, the Collins gang; starting a gang war between the Yardies (a jamaican gang) and the Triads, shooting up a police station to assassinate a police captain and all sorts of shit. Meanwhile Frank is trying to figure out what the hell is going on, trying to arrest the Jolsons while simultaneously dealing with police corruption due to his police captain (the one shot by Hammond) having ties to Jolson; both of their stories and actions intersect with each other and it’s nice seeing what each one has in context with the other. I love the characters, I love the noirish plot they have going, there’s a lot of stuff going on (a lot of which I don’t want to spoil here to be honest because it’s that good but if you want to look it up on Youtube) that frankly to me even though it’s simple in its plotting is great in it’s execution. The only thing I personally could say is that although starting as Hammond is a strong opener first, I feel like they should’ve let you play as Carter first simply due to the fact that both it’s a lot easier than Hammond’s missions so it slowly rises the difficulty level of the game in a better way while also delivering the plot in a way that feels a bit more satisfying. After all, the idea that you’re a cop with no clue as to why all this shit’s going to hell, thinking that Hammond is some psycho only to learn that he’s doing this under blackmail feels more satisfying to me personally as it gives context to what Hammond’s stuff is later. However for what it is it’s good, and honestly again I love the plot. I also personally like the writing, for the most part you get a feeling for what the others are about motivation wise and personality and such; ESPECIALLY the Jolson gang. They’re a funny bunch, in the sense that they’re psychopathic racist gangsters with a clear love for each other and a hatred for everyone else, writing that could only be really accepted in 2002 with its constant mentions of racial stereotypes that are clearly satire on old gangster stereotypes. Another funny bit is when Hammond throws a duffle bag at a group of gangsters, only for it to go full black comedy as they unleash an angry cat and spend the next five seconds just shooting into the void as you escape into a warehouse only to hear loud screams, gunshots and smoke in a moment reminiscent of that one scene from Boondock Saints. Though to me nothing beats the final mission when Charlie Jolson finally loses it inside of a ship about to blow up; that monologue had me cackling over how fucked it was and how out of his mind Charlie was. Keep in mind that everything around the story is surrounded by stuff that is also immaculate and helps bring up the story even more. Basically, the game plays out like a Guy Ritchie crime movie and I love it. I’m just gonna post an example of some of the dialogue here from IMDB so you can get my point:
Jake Jolson: Oi Hammond. What are you doing?
[to Eyebrows and Walter]
Jake Jolson: Oi, boys, in here!
[to Mark]
Jake Jolson: I thought I told you to stay put.
Mark Hammond: What do you think I'm doing, moron? I'm looking for my kid.
Jake Jolson: [to Eyebrows and Walter] What did he call me?
Big Walter: A Mormon.
Jake Jolson: What the fuck's that?
Eyebrows: You know, Mormon - them bible-bashers that come round knocking on your door telling you that Jesus is a fucking Yank.
Jake Jolson: [to Mark] You must be losing it, Hammond. I've just been talking to Charlie about you and your little boy. Very touching. But now you've got a job to do for us. You're gonna run this geezer over to Chinatown. It won't take long.
Keeping with that in mind, again graphically the game for 2002 is graphically impressive and I can’t really complain because I’m sure it was great for its time. The art design is mostly just realistic 2002 London City so I can’t really say too much about that. The soundtrack however is amazing and uplifts everything around it; performed by the London Philharmonic along with composers Andrew Hale and Shawn Lee; personal favorites include the Main Menu theme, the song that plays in the Yardie’s crackhouse, and the chase theme going in between missions with a sort of sixties crime movie vibe that I really like. It helps bring the game to a more cinematic level, making the tense scenes more fucking tense and honestly just sounding great in general, like I literally downloaded the soundtrack online so I can listen to it offline. The voice acting is great as well, with my particular favorite being Richard Hards (heh) as Charlie Jolson, he sounds like a douchebag crime boss and plays it very well but truth be told everyone does a good job here from the main characters and onwards. The dialogue in game is acted great and delivered convincingly (two examples being Mark Hammond yelling “You fucking muppet” when he kills people sometimes in a way that makes me giggle as well as certain drivers yelling “Stop, I need your details” in a way that makes me want to crash into his car further) and further add to the atmosphere of the game.
I guess my final finishing point about this giant ramble is that I like The Getaway, in fact I LOVE The Getaway; it’s funny and brilliant yet frustrating and jank, like a shiny gem covered in thick layers of nasty smelling mud just waiting to be cleaned up and shined. The gameplay being somewhat frustrating, everything else really hit well for me and I ended up loving the game to the point that I’m gonna come out there and say it: this series deserves better than what it got. It got this game and its sequel, Black Monday (which a friend says feels more like an expansion pack than a sequel) but there wasn’t much else after that. There was a PSP spin-off called Gangsters of London which is technically not related but was made by the same team and with some of the same assets/personality and THEN there was The Getaway 3: the legendary sequel that was rumored to be canceled but not canceled multiple times in a state of development hell/limbo due to the studio focusing on games like SingStar, which admittedly I couldn’t give a fuck about but other people do I guess and that’s perfectly ok. That being said, I’m gonna come out and say this; this janky fucking game deserves not only ports of the whole series, but honestly it deserves a remake and it also deserves the fucking sequel. But since then, Team Soho and Bizarre Entertainment (another UK studio) were turned into Team London and all they’ve been making were these SingStar games and other titles related to it except ONE that points out: a VR FPS made for PS4 titled Blood & Truth going back to its roots in London gangsterism. Now I didn’t buy a VR headset, nor am I going for the PS4 but there’s this hope that maybe one day, ONE DAY, they will sit down and do more with this series because behind this confusing contraption is a shiny gem waiting to unearth it’s true potential. I love this game a lot, but keep in mind if you’re playing this most likely it’ll be on PS2 hardware only, I picked up my copy for like 20 dollars or so, so it shouldn’t be that bad to get but it’s a shame it’s trapped on older hardware that sadly will eventually die out. It deserves better.
The gameplay consists of going from mission to mission (of which there are 24 overall split between two playable characters), and set piece to set piece with mixed up bits of shootout gameplay, driving sections and a couple of stealth/precise dodge rolling bits here and there. You have a HUGE area of London to explore, and keep in mind that this map is as I say, fucking HUGE. Like I haven’t been there (yet), but what I will say for its limitations it’s amazing what the developers achieved in scope here without resolving to loading screens (unless it’s cutscenes or the like), though I’m sure that stuff like this is really the main reason why the game was delayed so long (along with probably getting the license to everything related to real life companies because holy shit there are A LOT of brands from FedEx to Burger King to Ted Baker amongst other ones along with basically every car brand in existence at that time except for BT because they didn’t want their brand to be associated with violence). With this stuff in mind, the game has a sort of unique presentation in the fact that it’s very dedicated to being as “realistic” as possible; there are no health bars, for the most part there are no loading screens which is amazing considering the scope (view GTA: Vice City as an example of how their world was programmed, sections of the map being blocked off by loading screens), there’s none of that. However, it can also lead to really confusing or frustrating moments; the first mission even being one of them; you have to chase a car across the city to a hideout and shootout with a bunch of dudes in a warehouse, cool right? The driving part, while confusing as hell (which I’ll explain in a bit), can be done intuitively if you for the most part know the right controls for most open world driving games. Once you get on foot? Ohhhhh fuck you have no tutorial on how to do anything, you’re basically just kind of thrown in and expected to wing it, which is a bit mixed for me but I managed to get through it with the help of a buddy telling me what they are and without that I might have been stuck on the first mission for longer than I would have wanted. Let me explain some of these on foot controls:
The X button is to take cover/roll depending on where you are or your speed/direction, apparently it can be used to grab an enemy from behind which I wish I knew before beating the game
The Square button is to pull out your gun (often with R1) and shoot/attack people in close distance
Triangle is to put it away/drop any big guns
Circle is to carjack people from their cars
R1 is to auto aim
R2 is to manual aim
L2 is to reload your guns
Again they don’t tell you any of this so you’re kind of just forced to wing it with no direction and it’s kind of jarring. When you aim down your gun with manual aim there’s no reticle which if you’re not used to it can be frustrating; for example in Mission 6 I’m escaping a police station and there’s an option to shoot the mechanical thing that controls the gate so I can escape, an option I always missed considering I can’t aim for shit. If you get damaged, since there are no health bars, you actually have to position yourself at the correct angle next to a wall to heal yourself, where you are put in a vulnerable position where you can’t make any movement of any kind, and you just kind of slowly breathe in and out as the blood on you magically disappears. Now this can be a mixed bag it’s arduous waiting for your health to come back up (nor do I know if it’s a limited thing keeping in realism), but I like how tense it makes it because you always have to watch for enemies coming around any corner waiting to pop a cap in your ass because they WILL charge you for the most part. What I can say about the gunplay is for me, unlike the driving, I actually got used to it and you kind of get into the groove of it fairly quick. That doesn’t mean it doesn’t feel stiff as hell sometimes because it certainly can, for example get caught on the stairs and it’s kind of a deathwish because your character trots up the steps like an old person just waiting to die of cardiac arrest and if people with guns are nearby you can’t really shoot them up from the steps so then you gotta go one direction or the other and shoot them and it’s really kind of annoying though if you shoot and kill one on the steps I enjoy their little tumbling down animation as it’s kind of funny. I think the worst example of anything on foot related for me had to have been Chapter 11 because dear god, on foot they have you moving through lasers while also having a companion behind you. Keep in mind, look up a guide and see how others do it because it took me try after try, and a decent hour or two to get past this ONE section, arguably the worst in the entire game. You fail to do a roll correctly or shimmy past a couch you’ll get gassed, sometimes there are multiple laser rooms in a row and you will be frustrated going through trying to dodge all of them while also dealing with goons in gas masks and a stupid companion who just kind of gets shot and dies. And the worst part is that this mostly has to do with the camera angles and slightly awkward moving controls, they’re awful in figuring out distance and it’s an actual struggle to move your character up to position without overshooting and hitting a laser to do a roll or shimmy into another area and often times due to the awkward player positioning I’d just knock into some lasers anyways, especially if I’m free aiming to get a grasp on my position. But then other times you’ll feel like a fucking badass, shooting through twelve goons with an AK just lining themselves up for you in the hallways of a hospital. It’s a strange genius but a very jank and sometimes frustrating dichotomy that honestly you’re gonna have to get used to playing this game. Again there’s nothing that can really tell you how much ammo or health you have, for the sake of immersion you are given nothing but your main character in the middle of the screen and told which direction to go.
But that’s only one of many things this game just kind of throws at you. Driving for the most part is normal except using the right thumbstick helps you do drifts, but how you get any direction is strange: you have to follow the blinker lights on the back in order to navigate to your next objective. Keep in mind, if it’s blinking to the right or the left it means the first right or left you should take, if it’s blinking really fast it means you just missed it I’m pretty sure and if both are blinking at the same time you’re in the right spot. I guess for the most part in almost every game, and in real life, I suck at driving; so I will always crash into everything and fly past traffic going the opposite way (in game only of course) because that’s just how I’m wired. These missions kind of need you to do all of that, navigating through the use of blinker lights while also simultaneously (not all the time, but a decent portion) going under a time limit that doesn’t show itself except for some rings and a faster speed in the music when you’re almost out. This has also led to some frustrating moments like in Mission 14 where you have to get to an area in four minutes from a decent distance before you run out of time; the direction the blinkers are giving me mixed with the fact that I can’t seem to shake off random cars of gangsters who just happen to see me and want to fuck me in the ass with no lube who just like to crash into me and throw off my progress non stop; this is mixed in with the fact that it’s realistic, take a crash and for the most part you will start seeing smoke. Go on for too long, it turns black, slows down and the engine dies; sometimes it happens immediately depending on how hard other cars hit so it’s kind of a “Shoot these guys or run to another car while they shoot out my tires and etc” and truth be told during this mission I swear to god Team Soho must’ve collaborated with Sony to release this game in an attempt to boost controller sales because I literally broke a controller in frustration during this mission, not proud of it but it can get really fucking annoying real quick; but then in other cases I’ll do a really good drift or the controls feel functional enough to dodge a bunch of cars and lose my pursuers like it’s Fast & Furious and I don’t understand how the hell that happened. I’ll be more than willing to say I suck eggs at games but again it happens to jump around between janky/frustrating design choices and then it switches to genius in a second and my mood switches immediately. I know some people kind of throw out that this is a Grand Theft Auto clone but truth be told the similarities kind of stop at a certain point as this game focuses way too much on immersion and not holding your hand to differentiate itself from everyone else. I’m going to go to the story because the rest of the game shines there and the design around the gameplay.
The story revolves around two characters: former gangster Mark Hammond and Detective Frank Carter of the Flying Squad, a special unit inside London Police. Mark Hammond’s wife gets shot and his son gets kidnapped by members of the Jolson gang, led by one Charlie Jolson, a brutish right wing old head dusty crime lord who hates the multicultural presence the other gangs have taken in London and being a bit salty about the old days plans to take the reins back. Using Hammond to commit acts of terror in exchange for his son, Hammond is blackmailed into acts like shooting up members of his old gang, the Collins gang; starting a gang war between the Yardies (a jamaican gang) and the Triads, shooting up a police station to assassinate a police captain and all sorts of shit. Meanwhile Frank is trying to figure out what the hell is going on, trying to arrest the Jolsons while simultaneously dealing with police corruption due to his police captain (the one shot by Hammond) having ties to Jolson; both of their stories and actions intersect with each other and it’s nice seeing what each one has in context with the other. I love the characters, I love the noirish plot they have going, there’s a lot of stuff going on (a lot of which I don’t want to spoil here to be honest because it’s that good but if you want to look it up on Youtube) that frankly to me even though it’s simple in its plotting is great in it’s execution. The only thing I personally could say is that although starting as Hammond is a strong opener first, I feel like they should’ve let you play as Carter first simply due to the fact that both it’s a lot easier than Hammond’s missions so it slowly rises the difficulty level of the game in a better way while also delivering the plot in a way that feels a bit more satisfying. After all, the idea that you’re a cop with no clue as to why all this shit’s going to hell, thinking that Hammond is some psycho only to learn that he’s doing this under blackmail feels more satisfying to me personally as it gives context to what Hammond’s stuff is later. However for what it is it’s good, and honestly again I love the plot. I also personally like the writing, for the most part you get a feeling for what the others are about motivation wise and personality and such; ESPECIALLY the Jolson gang. They’re a funny bunch, in the sense that they’re psychopathic racist gangsters with a clear love for each other and a hatred for everyone else, writing that could only be really accepted in 2002 with its constant mentions of racial stereotypes that are clearly satire on old gangster stereotypes. Another funny bit is when Hammond throws a duffle bag at a group of gangsters, only for it to go full black comedy as they unleash an angry cat and spend the next five seconds just shooting into the void as you escape into a warehouse only to hear loud screams, gunshots and smoke in a moment reminiscent of that one scene from Boondock Saints. Though to me nothing beats the final mission when Charlie Jolson finally loses it inside of a ship about to blow up; that monologue had me cackling over how fucked it was and how out of his mind Charlie was. Keep in mind that everything around the story is surrounded by stuff that is also immaculate and helps bring up the story even more. Basically, the game plays out like a Guy Ritchie crime movie and I love it. I’m just gonna post an example of some of the dialogue here from IMDB so you can get my point:
Jake Jolson: Oi Hammond. What are you doing?
[to Eyebrows and Walter]
Jake Jolson: Oi, boys, in here!
[to Mark]
Jake Jolson: I thought I told you to stay put.
Mark Hammond: What do you think I'm doing, moron? I'm looking for my kid.
Jake Jolson: [to Eyebrows and Walter] What did he call me?
Big Walter: A Mormon.
Jake Jolson: What the fuck's that?
Eyebrows: You know, Mormon - them bible-bashers that come round knocking on your door telling you that Jesus is a fucking Yank.
Jake Jolson: [to Mark] You must be losing it, Hammond. I've just been talking to Charlie about you and your little boy. Very touching. But now you've got a job to do for us. You're gonna run this geezer over to Chinatown. It won't take long.
Keeping with that in mind, again graphically the game for 2002 is graphically impressive and I can’t really complain because I’m sure it was great for its time. The art design is mostly just realistic 2002 London City so I can’t really say too much about that. The soundtrack however is amazing and uplifts everything around it; performed by the London Philharmonic along with composers Andrew Hale and Shawn Lee; personal favorites include the Main Menu theme, the song that plays in the Yardie’s crackhouse, and the chase theme going in between missions with a sort of sixties crime movie vibe that I really like. It helps bring the game to a more cinematic level, making the tense scenes more fucking tense and honestly just sounding great in general, like I literally downloaded the soundtrack online so I can listen to it offline. The voice acting is great as well, with my particular favorite being Richard Hards (heh) as Charlie Jolson, he sounds like a douchebag crime boss and plays it very well but truth be told everyone does a good job here from the main characters and onwards. The dialogue in game is acted great and delivered convincingly (two examples being Mark Hammond yelling “You fucking muppet” when he kills people sometimes in a way that makes me giggle as well as certain drivers yelling “Stop, I need your details” in a way that makes me want to crash into his car further) and further add to the atmosphere of the game.
I guess my final finishing point about this giant ramble is that I like The Getaway, in fact I LOVE The Getaway; it’s funny and brilliant yet frustrating and jank, like a shiny gem covered in thick layers of nasty smelling mud just waiting to be cleaned up and shined. The gameplay being somewhat frustrating, everything else really hit well for me and I ended up loving the game to the point that I’m gonna come out there and say it: this series deserves better than what it got. It got this game and its sequel, Black Monday (which a friend says feels more like an expansion pack than a sequel) but there wasn’t much else after that. There was a PSP spin-off called Gangsters of London which is technically not related but was made by the same team and with some of the same assets/personality and THEN there was The Getaway 3: the legendary sequel that was rumored to be canceled but not canceled multiple times in a state of development hell/limbo due to the studio focusing on games like SingStar, which admittedly I couldn’t give a fuck about but other people do I guess and that’s perfectly ok. That being said, I’m gonna come out and say this; this janky fucking game deserves not only ports of the whole series, but honestly it deserves a remake and it also deserves the fucking sequel. But since then, Team Soho and Bizarre Entertainment (another UK studio) were turned into Team London and all they’ve been making were these SingStar games and other titles related to it except ONE that points out: a VR FPS made for PS4 titled Blood & Truth going back to its roots in London gangsterism. Now I didn’t buy a VR headset, nor am I going for the PS4 but there’s this hope that maybe one day, ONE DAY, they will sit down and do more with this series because behind this confusing contraption is a shiny gem waiting to unearth it’s true potential. I love this game a lot, but keep in mind if you’re playing this most likely it’ll be on PS2 hardware only, I picked up my copy for like 20 dollars or so, so it shouldn’t be that bad to get but it’s a shame it’s trapped on older hardware that sadly will eventually die out. It deserves better.
2021
Halo: Infinite is a game created by 343 Industries as a part of Xbox Game Studios; let's be real though everyone knows about the Halo series, how it basically gave the Xbox series of consoles life, the soundtrack that although repeats of the same song by Martin O'Donnell & Michael Salvatori it always kicks a lot of a s s. This game was supposed to be the game that "Finishes the fight" in 343's VERY mixed Halo trilogy. Does this game finish the fight? Yeah for the most part. Here's my take on it.
The campaign is the best part of this entire package, my other Halo Infinite review consisted of me slamming it for it's s h it ty microtransaction filled lootfest. The campaign on the other end consists of a smallish open world with some collectibles and outposts with fifteen or so main missions in between. Though I'll admit that the Ubisoft Open World Formula does feel tiring in a lot of ways, in a strange sense it feels like the kind of thing needed to shake up Halo a little bit and make it more memorable. A lot of the campaign you'll be treading on the actual Halo, called Zeta Halo here, as you move from place to place with both vehicles and the beautiful grappling hook as you massacre your way through outposts, collect upgrade points to bolster your abilities, take down high value targets for access to newer and upgraded weapons, save marine squads for more backup, etc. Honestly it's familiar but it's not bad in this case, though I will be honest in my coop playthrough of the game the only special ability I used for the most part was the Grappling Hook because it's fun as hell to travel around using it. The combat for the most part feels fine, a bit less punchy personally compared to previous ones but against AI it feels a lot better; also they added in smaller little mini bosses which again feel like a bit of a needed variation. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: It's Halo Far Cry (minus any radio towers). If you don't like the formula you won't like it here, I don't mind it if done right and for the most part it was fun going through with a buddy in this big open planet and doing the Haloing. This is the kind of feeling I've been wanting since playing the first Halo on the second mission where you roam around saving marines and shooting covenant. The actual main mission though are kind of boring and samey, the same repeated Forerunner future architecture that to be honest I can't really tell apart and though I understand it has a story purpose, it just didn't do it for me when it came to it's connection to the story.
The story is something I can't really get into because I didn't follow it too much but basically the main bad guys from Halo Wars 2 (port it please), The Banished, are a splinter faction of Covenant set on their own plans of which I'll be honest I forget. I guess it's fine because it's more covenant to shoot but basically Cortana is still alive in the ring, and you/your buddies Echo and AI companion Weapon go to explore the ring, kill the Banished and stop whatever weapon is being used. Though my memory is bad, what I can say is that I promise that it's way better than whatever they had going for Halo 4 because the story does have interesting character moments, elicits some feelings, and does things better than pretty much most of the games in the series for me personally. That being said does it match up to the original trilogy? No, not even close; but it's the freshest feeling that Halo has had in a long time and truthfully I gave up on there ever being a same feeling of the original trilogy as I don't think that's possible, as those games were but a time piece in history covered in beautiful mid 2000s gaming nostalgia. Also if you felt that Halo 5's story was a s s? The devs for the most part ignored it and cherry picked some stuff, which is cool although it does feel kind of jarring not to know the context of certain things due to the fact that there's a whole book universe you'd probably have to follow, but for this game it's fine.
The art design as I had addressed a bit looks good, though I prefer the topside areas. Soundtrack, though samey, still slaps. Voice acting is also good, Master Chief always having the iconic voice. I guess to say, it's more Halo. Though if I'm gonna finish this review off I'm going to say this: this game took a good while to get to the state it was in, I had been playing through the entire series with a friend and waiting for a year or two for them to actually put in Coop was kind of frustrating. Modern day game developing is hard, and I don't know the particulars about the behind the scenes, and though I'm glad it finally came out it was a bit of a wait with constant news about setbacks, restructuring, and etc. Hopefully with whatever's going on it'll be okay, though I'm sure the last thing Microsoft would want to do would be to bury one of their biggest cash cows.
To finalize, is it worth 60 Dollars for the full price campaign? I felt it was, but at the same time I had sunk about 14 hours I think with a friend. I guess personally I'd say wait, or if you just want a supreme Halo experience get the Halo: Master Chief Collection and Halo Wars on Steam as well. The game is good, and I definitely finished my fight with it, though for the others that view this game as a boring cookie cutter open world game I understand that feeling and it's valid considering the high bar set previously. However, my thoughts are this: Wait for it to go on sale, keep an openish mind, and don't expect this to be the Bungie games: they aren't and I don't think they're really trying to be. But I'd definitely recommend it for those wanting to have a fun time killing more Covenant, riding physics based warthogs with marines in the back, and on occasion throwing a sticky grenade on the back of your friends while they aren't looking as a prank. Shoutout to the Big G for that lol.
Also I'm still not touching the multiplayer, the s h i t is boring.
Multiplayer Review (November 19th, 2021):
I guess I'll start off on my average feelings of this game. It's decent, no complaints. It's Halo, more importantly 343 Halo, which means you'll get modern Halo which feels ok but without the soul the original trilogy have. I'm hoping that the campaign gives me what I'm looking for, and if it does then I will change to a positive review. Playing the multiplayer as it is now however is....
I'm sorry but if you're expecting me to pay money out the a s s to buy your battlepass you're out of your fucking mind. Basing your level up progression (which locks your customization behind doing challenges instead of...you know getting kills and actually being good at the game) around a battlepass system that's solely devised around cutting out stuff that was there since the beginning and then sold back to you is sad. Whoever created this system blows dogs and honestly you can't change my mind otherwise. And honestly this isn't even just a Halo problem, every game and their grandmother does it; I get the covering development costs thing but seriously dude: this is Halo. You should be doing better. That's all I have to say on multiplayer battlepass bulls h i t. But otherwise the base multiplayer is ok, functional and if you enjoy Halo it's there but it hasn't added much more than that. I'm mostly interested in the campaign.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
The campaign is the best part of this entire package, my other Halo Infinite review consisted of me slamming it for it's s h it ty microtransaction filled lootfest. The campaign on the other end consists of a smallish open world with some collectibles and outposts with fifteen or so main missions in between. Though I'll admit that the Ubisoft Open World Formula does feel tiring in a lot of ways, in a strange sense it feels like the kind of thing needed to shake up Halo a little bit and make it more memorable. A lot of the campaign you'll be treading on the actual Halo, called Zeta Halo here, as you move from place to place with both vehicles and the beautiful grappling hook as you massacre your way through outposts, collect upgrade points to bolster your abilities, take down high value targets for access to newer and upgraded weapons, save marine squads for more backup, etc. Honestly it's familiar but it's not bad in this case, though I will be honest in my coop playthrough of the game the only special ability I used for the most part was the Grappling Hook because it's fun as hell to travel around using it. The combat for the most part feels fine, a bit less punchy personally compared to previous ones but against AI it feels a lot better; also they added in smaller little mini bosses which again feel like a bit of a needed variation. I guess what I'm trying to say is this: It's Halo Far Cry (minus any radio towers). If you don't like the formula you won't like it here, I don't mind it if done right and for the most part it was fun going through with a buddy in this big open planet and doing the Haloing. This is the kind of feeling I've been wanting since playing the first Halo on the second mission where you roam around saving marines and shooting covenant. The actual main mission though are kind of boring and samey, the same repeated Forerunner future architecture that to be honest I can't really tell apart and though I understand it has a story purpose, it just didn't do it for me when it came to it's connection to the story.
The story is something I can't really get into because I didn't follow it too much but basically the main bad guys from Halo Wars 2 (port it please), The Banished, are a splinter faction of Covenant set on their own plans of which I'll be honest I forget. I guess it's fine because it's more covenant to shoot but basically Cortana is still alive in the ring, and you/your buddies Echo and AI companion Weapon go to explore the ring, kill the Banished and stop whatever weapon is being used. Though my memory is bad, what I can say is that I promise that it's way better than whatever they had going for Halo 4 because the story does have interesting character moments, elicits some feelings, and does things better than pretty much most of the games in the series for me personally. That being said does it match up to the original trilogy? No, not even close; but it's the freshest feeling that Halo has had in a long time and truthfully I gave up on there ever being a same feeling of the original trilogy as I don't think that's possible, as those games were but a time piece in history covered in beautiful mid 2000s gaming nostalgia. Also if you felt that Halo 5's story was a s s? The devs for the most part ignored it and cherry picked some stuff, which is cool although it does feel kind of jarring not to know the context of certain things due to the fact that there's a whole book universe you'd probably have to follow, but for this game it's fine.
The art design as I had addressed a bit looks good, though I prefer the topside areas. Soundtrack, though samey, still slaps. Voice acting is also good, Master Chief always having the iconic voice. I guess to say, it's more Halo. Though if I'm gonna finish this review off I'm going to say this: this game took a good while to get to the state it was in, I had been playing through the entire series with a friend and waiting for a year or two for them to actually put in Coop was kind of frustrating. Modern day game developing is hard, and I don't know the particulars about the behind the scenes, and though I'm glad it finally came out it was a bit of a wait with constant news about setbacks, restructuring, and etc. Hopefully with whatever's going on it'll be okay, though I'm sure the last thing Microsoft would want to do would be to bury one of their biggest cash cows.
To finalize, is it worth 60 Dollars for the full price campaign? I felt it was, but at the same time I had sunk about 14 hours I think with a friend. I guess personally I'd say wait, or if you just want a supreme Halo experience get the Halo: Master Chief Collection and Halo Wars on Steam as well. The game is good, and I definitely finished my fight with it, though for the others that view this game as a boring cookie cutter open world game I understand that feeling and it's valid considering the high bar set previously. However, my thoughts are this: Wait for it to go on sale, keep an openish mind, and don't expect this to be the Bungie games: they aren't and I don't think they're really trying to be. But I'd definitely recommend it for those wanting to have a fun time killing more Covenant, riding physics based warthogs with marines in the back, and on occasion throwing a sticky grenade on the back of your friends while they aren't looking as a prank. Shoutout to the Big G for that lol.
Also I'm still not touching the multiplayer, the s h i t is boring.
Multiplayer Review (November 19th, 2021):
I guess I'll start off on my average feelings of this game. It's decent, no complaints. It's Halo, more importantly 343 Halo, which means you'll get modern Halo which feels ok but without the soul the original trilogy have. I'm hoping that the campaign gives me what I'm looking for, and if it does then I will change to a positive review. Playing the multiplayer as it is now however is....
I'm sorry but if you're expecting me to pay money out the a s s to buy your battlepass you're out of your fucking mind. Basing your level up progression (which locks your customization behind doing challenges instead of...you know getting kills and actually being good at the game) around a battlepass system that's solely devised around cutting out stuff that was there since the beginning and then sold back to you is sad. Whoever created this system blows dogs and honestly you can't change my mind otherwise. And honestly this isn't even just a Halo problem, every game and their grandmother does it; I get the covering development costs thing but seriously dude: this is Halo. You should be doing better. That's all I have to say on multiplayer battlepass bulls h i t. But otherwise the base multiplayer is ok, functional and if you enjoy Halo it's there but it hasn't added much more than that. I'm mostly interested in the campaign.
From Steam Reviews: https://steamcommunity.com/id/gamemast15r/recommended/
2008
This review contains spoilers
Too Human is apparently an Action RPG (lol) developed by the likes of Silicon Knight and published as an Xbox 360 Exclusive by Microsoft Game Studios themselves; known for seminal titles like Blood Omen: Legacy of Kain, Eternal Darkness: Sanity’s Requiem, as well as the Gamecube-only remake of Metal Gear Solid, called Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes. However while they might be known for these arguable classic games, they’re also known for their history, or rather history of ineptitude towards their later life due to many reasons, the one that seems to be the most prominent is the founder himself, Denis Dyack. This game originally started as a Playstation Exclusive four disc Cyberpunk RPG before Nintendo took over the company while they were developing Eternal Darkness for the N64 originally.
Fast forward a couple of years, this game was put on hold while Silicon worked on the aforementioned Eternal Darkness and The Twin Snakes before in 2005 they were somehow taken over by Microsoft Game Studios and it was released in 2008 to mixed reviews before eventually getting shut down due to bankruptcy after trying to sue Epic Games over it’s Unreal Engine. Now my feelings are definitely not in the mixed, they’re A LOT worse but I find exclusives to be fascinating due to the history behind it and boy does this game have a history of mismanagement. Now I believe I picked this up over in San Diego last year on a trip though I’m honestly not sure and I wanted to pick it up for a while and give it an honest go, and even beat it to say that I beat it. I have some thoughts here:
ACT 1:
The Story starts off where you play as Baldur, a Bald (heh) amnesiac member of the Aesir in some sort of Sci-Fi take on Norse Mythology. Now I’m gonna start by saying this, I don’t remember this game’s plot too much, maybe because this was one of the most boring fucking games I think I’ve ever played and the story personally wasn’t the most captivating so I’m gonna be taking from a variety of sources while I’ll link them at the bottom. But continuing on, The Aesir Corporation holds reign over humanity during a never ending war against machines led thousands of years ago by some ancient evil kingdom called YMIR? Nuclear Winter happened due to the use of Antimatter weapons and now the Aesir are humanity’s last hope though even that is dwindling in itself. However, the actual story plot starts off with Baldur leading a hunt against an old cyber enemy, known as GRNDL-1, at a place called The Hall of Heroes. Now in the background there’s this conflict between the Aesir and Hel, with something called “The Pact of the Fallen” being dissolved which forbids the collection of dead from being taken from Hel. Freya takes Baldur to the Norns in Cyberspace, with hints of both Baldur being gone for a while and a romance that happened long ago between Baldur and Freya before Baldur got with his now dead current wife Lyanna. The Norns hit on Baldur I guess and give him some info/access to all Cyberspace wells before sending him on his way. In the current day, Baldur continues to fight through the Hall of Heroes, getting introduced to the poisonous Nidhogg (which you can’t get rid of until much later in the game and New Game Plus). You eventually find GRNDL before slaying it in a battle, after which you report back to Midgard (a cyberpunk city) and you have to choose between cybernetic and human abilities.
ACT 2:
While here, you can run into some guards who discuss how Loki is trapped in their prison, and that he was framed and should eventually be out of there soon. Now I personally never encountered this but it’s a nice little bit of foreshadowing to what’s to come. Baldur arrives at the feasting hall, with Heimdall and the others feasting to his victory. Baldur has a flashback to two shadows over him while he’s in surgery and after some banter, Freya and Baldur have a heart to heart about him missing his now dead wife, urging him to move on from the past. However he disagrees and is sent to Heimdall to find information about who killed his dead wife. Turns out another Aesir, Hod, murdered Baldur’s wife and has fled to Svartalfheim to apparently join the machines, with Tyr heading the hunt for him. Baldur insists on taking over the expedition, and he’s suspiciously told to destroy his cybernetics. After he leaves, Heimdall and Thor go to Loki’s torture chamber in his prison and wake him up, only to beat him up and tell him he’ll be tried for Treason before being thrown back into the torture chamber as he apparently killed another god. It’s also learned that the soul of Fenrir, a machine that Loki brought back from the Land of the Giants, was locked into a sword and given to Baldur. They go out to search for Hod in the frost forest and get attacked by machines, only going in further and further. Baldur goes into cyberspace again to have a weird freaky conversation with one of the flirty Norns about Loki’s cybernetic origins and sacrifices in a way that feels like she’s either siding with or is Loki in disguise? Who knows, to be honest, I don’t remember too much of the plot anyways. Eventually Baldur finds Hod and challenges him for killing his wife, however something isn’t right as Hod sees him as Loki; and a narrative flashback shows Hod apparently killing Loki. Loki had betrayed them and staged an attack on Asgard, and had gotten a dome straight through the head for it. Baldur chases Hod down in a frustrating boss battle before Hod finally comes to his senses; he sees that Baldur is most definitely not Loki and is executed for his crimes. However, Baldur does NOT destroy his cybernetics and instead brings them back to the Norns in Midgard and it’s learned that a signal was hacked into these cybernetics, and Hod was set up.
ACT 3:
Heimdall and others are required by the headless Mimir for information about The Jormungandr, a YMIR war machine that’s the last of it’s kind and the general consensus is to take it give the AESIR the balance of power that could lead to them winning the war once and for all. Baldur and Thor are assigned to take Mimir and go to this “World Serpent” machine and Thor implores Baldur to go to the Norns once again to acquire some knowledge on the machine itself. The YMIR created these machines out of bloodthirst and the need to conquer everyone, and when destroyed their creations continue to fight back, but only with basic programming and no real motives. Again it’s kind of hinted at that this one Norn is actually somewhat related to Loki in disguise due to her dialogue but it might pay off. Another cutscene shows a red haired cyber woman who is replacing her body with another one to try to achieve immortality and both Baldur and Thor leave for the war machine. In one of the game’s only hints of genius, Baldur enters Cyberspace and after leaving believes that Thor has died and that Mimir has gone insane; and then enters another Cyberspace well only to wake up in the first one. It reminds me of an Eternal Darkness hallucination, and again I actually liked this sort of thing and I feel like it would’ve been interesting if they perhaps took more cues from it (the good ones of course). The three fight through the war machine only to learn that Loki has taken control of the machine using his super cyber hacking mental skills and GASP impersonated the flirty Norn. Baldur and Thor fight through the whole ship and end up at the core. Thor wants to destroy the ship while Baldur wants to escape and warn the AESIR, however it turns out that Loki jump started a rebellion in their absence and has recruited humans working on the inside to break him out of his prison cell, which ends in success. The traitors left alive are executed in the feasting hall and it’s thought that Loki took to hiding out in Helheim with his daughter Hel, the red haired woman from earlier. They bicker amongst themselves before ODIN, the AI that controls the AESIR, decrees that they invade Helheim and kill him once and for all. Everyone agrees to stop Loki’s world domination plans and set out.
ACT 4:
If you go to the Cybernetics lady before heading out you’ll catch a little foreshadowing glimpse of a twist to come, everyone departs to assault Helheim. Loki and his daughter Hel embrace and Loki departs to fulfill some master plan I guess. The AESIR fight through only for Baldur and Tyr ro encounter Garm, some robotic beast dog whose battle ends up with Tyr sacrificing himself. Baldur fights his way up the tower to encounter Hel herself, and a number of reveals are thrown out: Hel still wants immortality and has been experimenting with corpses to keep them alive, Nidhogg has been freed (no follow up) and Ragnarok has begun, Baldur had actually died before and had been experimented on, also his wife Lyanna is still alive; when Baldur had died before Lyanna couldn’t move on and ended up trying to kill herself repeatedly, and then the Aesir had dumped her on Hel’s doorstep. Basically confirmed later, Hod had murdered you, and wanting to bring you back to life, brought you back from Helheim after a resurrection experiment but now you have amnesia and glowing blue shit on your face, with this actually breaking The Pact of the Fallen. Anyways you end up finishing Hel by strapping her to some sort of experiment table thing and she gets sawed in half, and before escaping Baldur’s possessed sword murders the Lyanna clone thing. Helheim is nuked with a fusion strike and everyone goes back to Midgard while the dead roam the world. Everyone reunites at the Feasting Hall, with Baldur chiding everyone for causing problems by resurrecting him to begin with: Tyr dying ruined any chance of them understanding the old weaponry, and now Loki roams free. Baldur abandons the Aesir, while the others prepare for the upcoming war with Loki, and the game finally ends with a post credits sequence of Loki meeting up with a cybernetic giant before the game cuts to black.
Final Story Summary:
The game’s story to me personally, as I mentioned, wasn't the most captivating one. Sure there are interesting things that it does with the game, and it’s weird seeing a different version of the Norse gods after having recently played through the two newest God of War games. It has some cool foreshadowing going on here and there, a couple of moments I thought were cool but honestly I personally feel the story is riddled with issues that mainly stems down to one fact: They imagined this game as a three game trilogy. That’s nice and all but if you create a game that leaves unanswered questions and plot hooks, then make a good fucking game first. Because of that there is no conclusion and it’s just kind of left on a strange note. That and make most of the characters interesting please, like who the hell is Hod? Who were most of the people at the Feasting Hall? One of them was apparently Freyr but I didn’t know that because they don’t say much in the way of shit. I kept getting Thor and Tyr mixed up because they look the fucking same. ODIN as an AI is a neat idea but I only ever remember hearing him twice. I don’t know, it just felt underwhelming as hell and deserved better. Again the one point I really like is in arguably the worst Act, Act 3 where he has that little hallucination thing from Cyberspace but other than that it was kind of moot. It’s one of many reasons where I honestly fell asleep a couple times playing this game, other than the worst contender: The Gameplay.
The gameplay fucking sucks. The combat feels like Kingdoms of Amalur mixed with Hunter the Reckoning or something; like it felt like it should’ve been an MMO more than anything. Which to be honest, I’m not surprised considering the game used to have a drop in co-op multiplayer, however with this multiplayer shut down, I’m sure it feels a whole lot worse. You fight by moving your right thumb stick in different directions, which is supposed to lock onto enemies automatically and fight them. Now here’s the issue with that, the combat system often clashes with the camera leading you to attack enemies you’re not trying to hit, or you’ll leap across the area to another enemy only to stop short randomly and miss because the game decides it doesn’t want to go that far. Now the camera can sort of stay behind you, and you can sort of change how far or close you want it to be so that’s cool, but the problem is that the camera fucking blows at actually keeping you in the present with combat. There would be times where I’d kill an enemy and I would want it to actually lock onto another one, but sometimes it won’t. Sometimes it’ll work but other times it’ll just keep locking onto the corpse of the enemy you just killed, so you’ll have to wait ten seconds to switch to another enemy, or if that doesn’t work it’ll just do nothing and you’ll be shooting into the fucking void where you’ll have to press it a couple of more times to actually have it lock on and then it won’t even hit the enemy you actually want. When you’re not in combat you’ll sometimes have these Eternal Darkness styled angles which can be cool but when it bleeds into the actual gameplay it makes for a frustrating experience.
I want to use a boss as an example, there’s a final boss in Act 3 called The Everlasting Hate and this made me everlastingly hate this stupid fucking game. So the whole point is to kill this boss you have to actually take it down by ripping off limb by limb, not a bad strategy right? Well, when you factor the actual camera into it, trying to go for these pieces can be a chore if it won’t let you do any actual damage aside from limb damage and you’re only able to hit certain spots like the arms/shoulders because trying to get the camera lock on to actually focus on it and let alone HIT the damn thing is exhausting, and it won’t let me destroy it by shooting so I’d have to break out a melee weapon and seventy five percent of the time the damn thing wouldn’t even hit and then after a minute or so of struggling I’d die. Now there’s a cool detail where if you die a Valkyrie comes and picks you up, bringing you to a golden hole in the sky. This would be better if it was skippable, but it isn’t so you will die and keep dying (not only on this boss but in general) and dealing with the same shit over and over again taking up more and more of your previous time and you will be seeing this nonstop throughout the game (though cool little detail, any soldiers that go with you and die will also get that so it’s kind of cool that way). Oh and also not during this battle but during Act 3 in general it’s a painful process because while you’ll usually have soldiers following you around in the other acts in this one you only have Thor, and he’s fucking useless. Half the time he’ll just run into a goddamn wall, while other times he’ll barely do anything for damage while boasting for the fifth time against Loki that he’ll “crush anything that he sends him” which clearly he can’t. Speaking of trying to crush it in melee combat, since all the melee combat goes with the right thumbsticks, it apparently has a series of combos you can do in order to do special moves like juggling enemies in the air. This has barely worked for me, oftentimes I’ll try to juggle and Baldur will slash like once and then fall down, other times I’ll somehow do some special slide move that I was only able to do randomly flicking the thumbstick around. However, I’m willing to admit maybe I’m just not good at doing combos? Ok, cool. However, I’d at least like to not feel like I’m constantly weak, which of course in these types of “RPGs” (let’s face it, this game is a dungeon crawler with a skill tree) they like to do the Gear based system where you just constantly have to switch armor and weapon types often to fit some arbitrary based number so you can survive for a decent time like the newer Assassin’s Creed or something. There has to be a better way of doing RPG combat than this because truth be told this kind of combat feels lazy as hell, and I don’t want to constantly switch out weapons just to be able to feel like I’m doing something and it isn’t just for this game this is for every fucking game that uses these systems, and these loot systems are necessary for furthering progress in the game and are your only reward for exploring. Sometimes you’ll get these obelisks by moving something in the environment by going into Cyberspace Wells and doing something there, like force pushing a door; these are ok and thankfully aren’t brain teasers but they’re also not even really good puzzles to begin with. You’ll get four powers over the first playthrough: force pushing, force pulling, walking on water, and the ability to burn Nidhogg down in the last one. However, the only way you can actually use this effectively is to play the game on New Game Plus and there’s no way I’m spending any more time actually playing this game only for the reward to be: MORE LOOT. Like I don’t need another weapon that does like five extra damage, how about you actually give me something interesting?
Speaking of weapons, I hate saying this but I mostly just stuck to using a Laser Gun of some sorts while jumping or rolling (which only works sometimes if the enemy has a giant AOE attack) away because truth is that while it’s not that hard to stay alive, it’s also not that hard to die. Sounds weird right? Well, when I was playing there would be rooms where it would be fine and I could just melee them and move on, and then others where they just kind of threw a bunch of enemies at a wall to see what would stick. So you’ll have like five enemies who just spam missiles while twenty five to fifty enemies run at you with a sword and then you have like one or two spiders or giants in the background, which can be manageable if you weren’t trying to constantly dodge the missiles. Luckily for spider enemies, killing them was as easy as abusing the game by dodging as soon as they raised their arms up to hit you with the AOE attack that could knock you down. Now luckily you have big arenas to maneuver around in for the most part which helps things but number one they can close in really quick and also number two as another criticism you’ll for ninety five percent of the game see these big arenas. There is absolutely nothing of interest around them other than the fact they’re giant, they’re confusing to navigate and the only reward you can really get from exploring a bit are little obelisks in which you can activate to get more loot; no lore, no nothing, there’s absolutely nothing of interest in these environments other than loot obelisks. So for most of the game, you’ll just be nonstop fighting enemies in room after room and open arena after open arena and I’ll be honest with you this shit bored me to tears and as I said before, I nearly fell asleep A LOT playing this game. And personally I feel like this is the biggest sin a game can make is having an excruciatingly boring game loop with absolutely nothing redeemable. Sometimes it can even be frustrating as after each death, your loot will degrade with status as your armor loses functionality and weapons lose damage output, further punishing you for the shitty game mechanics THEY put in there.
Now what I can say is that these mechanics also didn’t matter as I just kept switching them out with higher output weapons and lord knows you’ll gather enough cash to buy more loot later on from The World Tree, which is considered this game’s hub. For the most part you can walk over to the weapons store run by Tyr (I think?) and the Cybernetics store run by….whoever the fuck. You’ll also be given the choice of doing a Cybernetic or Human upgrade tree with separate abilities on top of the numerous classes you’re already given which I guess is cool with choices but truth be told I’m not going out my way to experiment because that would require me actually playing more of this game and I’d sooner get my face fucked with third degree burns. Other than that you can walk around, open up MORE LOOT OBELISKS, encounter random conversations that you can’t engage in and some you can, but other than that it’s just kind of boring, though the aesthetics are nice but I’ll be talking about that in the next section. I guess to finish off any criticisms, if people are able to sit down and make a great build and kill shit that’s amazing, but the dungeon crawler MMO combat feels sloppy to play and unintuitive and I can’t believe they decided to make that a thing? I forget if I said how I played before but oftentimes I’d feel like I would have to just keep jumping back and shooting people, while also spamming my delayed healing ability, my shields or an over powered special attack using the RB button to clear some enemies in front of me though even that wouldn’t work out the best as said with The Everlasting Hate or Hod’s boss fight in Act 2. One last thing, but speaking of The Everlasting Hate, you’ll have special enemies sometimes (or a lot in the later acts) that have edgy ass names like “The Cruel Death of the Dark” or “Bone Gnasher” or some really strange shit that you’d see some Norwegian Metal Band take up as a handle instead of actually threatening names? I don’t know, I just found it funny to me.
The Soundtrack/Graphics/Art Style: The art style is cool I guess, they got a whole cyberpunk norse thing going on which is cool and the environments in hub look cool but the actual level design/art design of the dungeons are repetitive and boring, with the same shit over and over again that both helped put me to sleep and confused me on where the hell I was going. The soundtrack was ok, some orchestral stuff but truth be told I don’t remember hearing much of any music in game and what little music I did hear was glitching the fuck out, mostly during The Everlasting Hate boss fight where it would just start warping itself before canceling outright and starting again in a broken loop, I don’t know if anyone else ever encountered that issue but for me it was jarring. Honestly I think the graphics were probably the most interesting thing as it reminded me a lot of that mid to late 2000s Fable-era Xbox 360 styled graphics which I have nostalgic memories over but nothing too exciting.
To finalize my thoughts on the game: I have it in my collection due to the fact it’s fascinating in its history, the development of a game that was tumultuous at best. Before Silicon Knights went into bankruptcy over a lawsuit, they were ordered to destroy all copies of Too Human and X-Men: Destiny over stolen lines of code from Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine. On top of unsold copies of those two games, Silicon Knights were apparently working on games like a new Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness 2, and the two sequels to this game. Having played the game out of morbid curiosity and a penchant for collecting and playing console exclusive games while ranting about how each of these need a port; I’m glad I played through it once but I don’t think I will ever again except if it’s for a really good reason. The idea that Denis Dydack thought of making a mess of a game in the first part of a trilogy is astounding, and again a BORING mess at that. To me that’s the worst thing a game can do, is not only be bad but BORING bad. I would even go as far to say I don’t think I would care if it ever got a port but it should be preserved not only for history’s sake but as an example of what NOT to do while making a video game. I would also say that I think we would’ve been better off if we had gotten whatever version of Too Human they were making when it was supposed to be a PS1/Gamecube Exclusive. I wouldn’t really recommend this game to anyone unless you’re a fuckin masochist or unless you also find bad games as funny as I do. I’d rate this below a 2 out of 5 but unfortunately it’s still a game with some competent parts in it so I can’t but if you saw a copy of this and thought about giving it a try, I’d say collect it with the intent on sticking it on a shelf and never touching it again and if you played this game as a kid and thought it was cool but didn’t remember any of it? Don’t try it again, it’s a whole lot worse than what you thought it was, though (Un)luckily if you have Xbox Gold you can download it for free on Xbox One and it's in your library to play whenever you want because shoutout to Xbox's backwards compatibility system it's great.
TL;DR I’d rather play Forspoken ok thanks bye.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-aAJRDHn8I&ab_channel=GamerPete
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TIfOKG74Q&ab_channel=MattMcMuscles https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TooHuman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVlVq3pStk8&ab_channel=GVMERS
https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/11/too-human-playstation-1-cancelled/
Fast forward a couple of years, this game was put on hold while Silicon worked on the aforementioned Eternal Darkness and The Twin Snakes before in 2005 they were somehow taken over by Microsoft Game Studios and it was released in 2008 to mixed reviews before eventually getting shut down due to bankruptcy after trying to sue Epic Games over it’s Unreal Engine. Now my feelings are definitely not in the mixed, they’re A LOT worse but I find exclusives to be fascinating due to the history behind it and boy does this game have a history of mismanagement. Now I believe I picked this up over in San Diego last year on a trip though I’m honestly not sure and I wanted to pick it up for a while and give it an honest go, and even beat it to say that I beat it. I have some thoughts here:
ACT 1:
The Story starts off where you play as Baldur, a Bald (heh) amnesiac member of the Aesir in some sort of Sci-Fi take on Norse Mythology. Now I’m gonna start by saying this, I don’t remember this game’s plot too much, maybe because this was one of the most boring fucking games I think I’ve ever played and the story personally wasn’t the most captivating so I’m gonna be taking from a variety of sources while I’ll link them at the bottom. But continuing on, The Aesir Corporation holds reign over humanity during a never ending war against machines led thousands of years ago by some ancient evil kingdom called YMIR? Nuclear Winter happened due to the use of Antimatter weapons and now the Aesir are humanity’s last hope though even that is dwindling in itself. However, the actual story plot starts off with Baldur leading a hunt against an old cyber enemy, known as GRNDL-1, at a place called The Hall of Heroes. Now in the background there’s this conflict between the Aesir and Hel, with something called “The Pact of the Fallen” being dissolved which forbids the collection of dead from being taken from Hel. Freya takes Baldur to the Norns in Cyberspace, with hints of both Baldur being gone for a while and a romance that happened long ago between Baldur and Freya before Baldur got with his now dead current wife Lyanna. The Norns hit on Baldur I guess and give him some info/access to all Cyberspace wells before sending him on his way. In the current day, Baldur continues to fight through the Hall of Heroes, getting introduced to the poisonous Nidhogg (which you can’t get rid of until much later in the game and New Game Plus). You eventually find GRNDL before slaying it in a battle, after which you report back to Midgard (a cyberpunk city) and you have to choose between cybernetic and human abilities.
ACT 2:
While here, you can run into some guards who discuss how Loki is trapped in their prison, and that he was framed and should eventually be out of there soon. Now I personally never encountered this but it’s a nice little bit of foreshadowing to what’s to come. Baldur arrives at the feasting hall, with Heimdall and the others feasting to his victory. Baldur has a flashback to two shadows over him while he’s in surgery and after some banter, Freya and Baldur have a heart to heart about him missing his now dead wife, urging him to move on from the past. However he disagrees and is sent to Heimdall to find information about who killed his dead wife. Turns out another Aesir, Hod, murdered Baldur’s wife and has fled to Svartalfheim to apparently join the machines, with Tyr heading the hunt for him. Baldur insists on taking over the expedition, and he’s suspiciously told to destroy his cybernetics. After he leaves, Heimdall and Thor go to Loki’s torture chamber in his prison and wake him up, only to beat him up and tell him he’ll be tried for Treason before being thrown back into the torture chamber as he apparently killed another god. It’s also learned that the soul of Fenrir, a machine that Loki brought back from the Land of the Giants, was locked into a sword and given to Baldur. They go out to search for Hod in the frost forest and get attacked by machines, only going in further and further. Baldur goes into cyberspace again to have a weird freaky conversation with one of the flirty Norns about Loki’s cybernetic origins and sacrifices in a way that feels like she’s either siding with or is Loki in disguise? Who knows, to be honest, I don’t remember too much of the plot anyways. Eventually Baldur finds Hod and challenges him for killing his wife, however something isn’t right as Hod sees him as Loki; and a narrative flashback shows Hod apparently killing Loki. Loki had betrayed them and staged an attack on Asgard, and had gotten a dome straight through the head for it. Baldur chases Hod down in a frustrating boss battle before Hod finally comes to his senses; he sees that Baldur is most definitely not Loki and is executed for his crimes. However, Baldur does NOT destroy his cybernetics and instead brings them back to the Norns in Midgard and it’s learned that a signal was hacked into these cybernetics, and Hod was set up.
ACT 3:
Heimdall and others are required by the headless Mimir for information about The Jormungandr, a YMIR war machine that’s the last of it’s kind and the general consensus is to take it give the AESIR the balance of power that could lead to them winning the war once and for all. Baldur and Thor are assigned to take Mimir and go to this “World Serpent” machine and Thor implores Baldur to go to the Norns once again to acquire some knowledge on the machine itself. The YMIR created these machines out of bloodthirst and the need to conquer everyone, and when destroyed their creations continue to fight back, but only with basic programming and no real motives. Again it’s kind of hinted at that this one Norn is actually somewhat related to Loki in disguise due to her dialogue but it might pay off. Another cutscene shows a red haired cyber woman who is replacing her body with another one to try to achieve immortality and both Baldur and Thor leave for the war machine. In one of the game’s only hints of genius, Baldur enters Cyberspace and after leaving believes that Thor has died and that Mimir has gone insane; and then enters another Cyberspace well only to wake up in the first one. It reminds me of an Eternal Darkness hallucination, and again I actually liked this sort of thing and I feel like it would’ve been interesting if they perhaps took more cues from it (the good ones of course). The three fight through the war machine only to learn that Loki has taken control of the machine using his super cyber hacking mental skills and GASP impersonated the flirty Norn. Baldur and Thor fight through the whole ship and end up at the core. Thor wants to destroy the ship while Baldur wants to escape and warn the AESIR, however it turns out that Loki jump started a rebellion in their absence and has recruited humans working on the inside to break him out of his prison cell, which ends in success. The traitors left alive are executed in the feasting hall and it’s thought that Loki took to hiding out in Helheim with his daughter Hel, the red haired woman from earlier. They bicker amongst themselves before ODIN, the AI that controls the AESIR, decrees that they invade Helheim and kill him once and for all. Everyone agrees to stop Loki’s world domination plans and set out.
ACT 4:
If you go to the Cybernetics lady before heading out you’ll catch a little foreshadowing glimpse of a twist to come, everyone departs to assault Helheim. Loki and his daughter Hel embrace and Loki departs to fulfill some master plan I guess. The AESIR fight through only for Baldur and Tyr ro encounter Garm, some robotic beast dog whose battle ends up with Tyr sacrificing himself. Baldur fights his way up the tower to encounter Hel herself, and a number of reveals are thrown out: Hel still wants immortality and has been experimenting with corpses to keep them alive, Nidhogg has been freed (no follow up) and Ragnarok has begun, Baldur had actually died before and had been experimented on, also his wife Lyanna is still alive; when Baldur had died before Lyanna couldn’t move on and ended up trying to kill herself repeatedly, and then the Aesir had dumped her on Hel’s doorstep. Basically confirmed later, Hod had murdered you, and wanting to bring you back to life, brought you back from Helheim after a resurrection experiment but now you have amnesia and glowing blue shit on your face, with this actually breaking The Pact of the Fallen. Anyways you end up finishing Hel by strapping her to some sort of experiment table thing and she gets sawed in half, and before escaping Baldur’s possessed sword murders the Lyanna clone thing. Helheim is nuked with a fusion strike and everyone goes back to Midgard while the dead roam the world. Everyone reunites at the Feasting Hall, with Baldur chiding everyone for causing problems by resurrecting him to begin with: Tyr dying ruined any chance of them understanding the old weaponry, and now Loki roams free. Baldur abandons the Aesir, while the others prepare for the upcoming war with Loki, and the game finally ends with a post credits sequence of Loki meeting up with a cybernetic giant before the game cuts to black.
Final Story Summary:
The game’s story to me personally, as I mentioned, wasn't the most captivating one. Sure there are interesting things that it does with the game, and it’s weird seeing a different version of the Norse gods after having recently played through the two newest God of War games. It has some cool foreshadowing going on here and there, a couple of moments I thought were cool but honestly I personally feel the story is riddled with issues that mainly stems down to one fact: They imagined this game as a three game trilogy. That’s nice and all but if you create a game that leaves unanswered questions and plot hooks, then make a good fucking game first. Because of that there is no conclusion and it’s just kind of left on a strange note. That and make most of the characters interesting please, like who the hell is Hod? Who were most of the people at the Feasting Hall? One of them was apparently Freyr but I didn’t know that because they don’t say much in the way of shit. I kept getting Thor and Tyr mixed up because they look the fucking same. ODIN as an AI is a neat idea but I only ever remember hearing him twice. I don’t know, it just felt underwhelming as hell and deserved better. Again the one point I really like is in arguably the worst Act, Act 3 where he has that little hallucination thing from Cyberspace but other than that it was kind of moot. It’s one of many reasons where I honestly fell asleep a couple times playing this game, other than the worst contender: The Gameplay.
The gameplay fucking sucks. The combat feels like Kingdoms of Amalur mixed with Hunter the Reckoning or something; like it felt like it should’ve been an MMO more than anything. Which to be honest, I’m not surprised considering the game used to have a drop in co-op multiplayer, however with this multiplayer shut down, I’m sure it feels a whole lot worse. You fight by moving your right thumb stick in different directions, which is supposed to lock onto enemies automatically and fight them. Now here’s the issue with that, the combat system often clashes with the camera leading you to attack enemies you’re not trying to hit, or you’ll leap across the area to another enemy only to stop short randomly and miss because the game decides it doesn’t want to go that far. Now the camera can sort of stay behind you, and you can sort of change how far or close you want it to be so that’s cool, but the problem is that the camera fucking blows at actually keeping you in the present with combat. There would be times where I’d kill an enemy and I would want it to actually lock onto another one, but sometimes it won’t. Sometimes it’ll work but other times it’ll just keep locking onto the corpse of the enemy you just killed, so you’ll have to wait ten seconds to switch to another enemy, or if that doesn’t work it’ll just do nothing and you’ll be shooting into the fucking void where you’ll have to press it a couple of more times to actually have it lock on and then it won’t even hit the enemy you actually want. When you’re not in combat you’ll sometimes have these Eternal Darkness styled angles which can be cool but when it bleeds into the actual gameplay it makes for a frustrating experience.
I want to use a boss as an example, there’s a final boss in Act 3 called The Everlasting Hate and this made me everlastingly hate this stupid fucking game. So the whole point is to kill this boss you have to actually take it down by ripping off limb by limb, not a bad strategy right? Well, when you factor the actual camera into it, trying to go for these pieces can be a chore if it won’t let you do any actual damage aside from limb damage and you’re only able to hit certain spots like the arms/shoulders because trying to get the camera lock on to actually focus on it and let alone HIT the damn thing is exhausting, and it won’t let me destroy it by shooting so I’d have to break out a melee weapon and seventy five percent of the time the damn thing wouldn’t even hit and then after a minute or so of struggling I’d die. Now there’s a cool detail where if you die a Valkyrie comes and picks you up, bringing you to a golden hole in the sky. This would be better if it was skippable, but it isn’t so you will die and keep dying (not only on this boss but in general) and dealing with the same shit over and over again taking up more and more of your previous time and you will be seeing this nonstop throughout the game (though cool little detail, any soldiers that go with you and die will also get that so it’s kind of cool that way). Oh and also not during this battle but during Act 3 in general it’s a painful process because while you’ll usually have soldiers following you around in the other acts in this one you only have Thor, and he’s fucking useless. Half the time he’ll just run into a goddamn wall, while other times he’ll barely do anything for damage while boasting for the fifth time against Loki that he’ll “crush anything that he sends him” which clearly he can’t. Speaking of trying to crush it in melee combat, since all the melee combat goes with the right thumbsticks, it apparently has a series of combos you can do in order to do special moves like juggling enemies in the air. This has barely worked for me, oftentimes I’ll try to juggle and Baldur will slash like once and then fall down, other times I’ll somehow do some special slide move that I was only able to do randomly flicking the thumbstick around. However, I’m willing to admit maybe I’m just not good at doing combos? Ok, cool. However, I’d at least like to not feel like I’m constantly weak, which of course in these types of “RPGs” (let’s face it, this game is a dungeon crawler with a skill tree) they like to do the Gear based system where you just constantly have to switch armor and weapon types often to fit some arbitrary based number so you can survive for a decent time like the newer Assassin’s Creed or something. There has to be a better way of doing RPG combat than this because truth be told this kind of combat feels lazy as hell, and I don’t want to constantly switch out weapons just to be able to feel like I’m doing something and it isn’t just for this game this is for every fucking game that uses these systems, and these loot systems are necessary for furthering progress in the game and are your only reward for exploring. Sometimes you’ll get these obelisks by moving something in the environment by going into Cyberspace Wells and doing something there, like force pushing a door; these are ok and thankfully aren’t brain teasers but they’re also not even really good puzzles to begin with. You’ll get four powers over the first playthrough: force pushing, force pulling, walking on water, and the ability to burn Nidhogg down in the last one. However, the only way you can actually use this effectively is to play the game on New Game Plus and there’s no way I’m spending any more time actually playing this game only for the reward to be: MORE LOOT. Like I don’t need another weapon that does like five extra damage, how about you actually give me something interesting?
Speaking of weapons, I hate saying this but I mostly just stuck to using a Laser Gun of some sorts while jumping or rolling (which only works sometimes if the enemy has a giant AOE attack) away because truth is that while it’s not that hard to stay alive, it’s also not that hard to die. Sounds weird right? Well, when I was playing there would be rooms where it would be fine and I could just melee them and move on, and then others where they just kind of threw a bunch of enemies at a wall to see what would stick. So you’ll have like five enemies who just spam missiles while twenty five to fifty enemies run at you with a sword and then you have like one or two spiders or giants in the background, which can be manageable if you weren’t trying to constantly dodge the missiles. Luckily for spider enemies, killing them was as easy as abusing the game by dodging as soon as they raised their arms up to hit you with the AOE attack that could knock you down. Now luckily you have big arenas to maneuver around in for the most part which helps things but number one they can close in really quick and also number two as another criticism you’ll for ninety five percent of the game see these big arenas. There is absolutely nothing of interest around them other than the fact they’re giant, they’re confusing to navigate and the only reward you can really get from exploring a bit are little obelisks in which you can activate to get more loot; no lore, no nothing, there’s absolutely nothing of interest in these environments other than loot obelisks. So for most of the game, you’ll just be nonstop fighting enemies in room after room and open arena after open arena and I’ll be honest with you this shit bored me to tears and as I said before, I nearly fell asleep A LOT playing this game. And personally I feel like this is the biggest sin a game can make is having an excruciatingly boring game loop with absolutely nothing redeemable. Sometimes it can even be frustrating as after each death, your loot will degrade with status as your armor loses functionality and weapons lose damage output, further punishing you for the shitty game mechanics THEY put in there.
Now what I can say is that these mechanics also didn’t matter as I just kept switching them out with higher output weapons and lord knows you’ll gather enough cash to buy more loot later on from The World Tree, which is considered this game’s hub. For the most part you can walk over to the weapons store run by Tyr (I think?) and the Cybernetics store run by….whoever the fuck. You’ll also be given the choice of doing a Cybernetic or Human upgrade tree with separate abilities on top of the numerous classes you’re already given which I guess is cool with choices but truth be told I’m not going out my way to experiment because that would require me actually playing more of this game and I’d sooner get my face fucked with third degree burns. Other than that you can walk around, open up MORE LOOT OBELISKS, encounter random conversations that you can’t engage in and some you can, but other than that it’s just kind of boring, though the aesthetics are nice but I’ll be talking about that in the next section. I guess to finish off any criticisms, if people are able to sit down and make a great build and kill shit that’s amazing, but the dungeon crawler MMO combat feels sloppy to play and unintuitive and I can’t believe they decided to make that a thing? I forget if I said how I played before but oftentimes I’d feel like I would have to just keep jumping back and shooting people, while also spamming my delayed healing ability, my shields or an over powered special attack using the RB button to clear some enemies in front of me though even that wouldn’t work out the best as said with The Everlasting Hate or Hod’s boss fight in Act 2. One last thing, but speaking of The Everlasting Hate, you’ll have special enemies sometimes (or a lot in the later acts) that have edgy ass names like “The Cruel Death of the Dark” or “Bone Gnasher” or some really strange shit that you’d see some Norwegian Metal Band take up as a handle instead of actually threatening names? I don’t know, I just found it funny to me.
The Soundtrack/Graphics/Art Style: The art style is cool I guess, they got a whole cyberpunk norse thing going on which is cool and the environments in hub look cool but the actual level design/art design of the dungeons are repetitive and boring, with the same shit over and over again that both helped put me to sleep and confused me on where the hell I was going. The soundtrack was ok, some orchestral stuff but truth be told I don’t remember hearing much of any music in game and what little music I did hear was glitching the fuck out, mostly during The Everlasting Hate boss fight where it would just start warping itself before canceling outright and starting again in a broken loop, I don’t know if anyone else ever encountered that issue but for me it was jarring. Honestly I think the graphics were probably the most interesting thing as it reminded me a lot of that mid to late 2000s Fable-era Xbox 360 styled graphics which I have nostalgic memories over but nothing too exciting.
To finalize my thoughts on the game: I have it in my collection due to the fact it’s fascinating in its history, the development of a game that was tumultuous at best. Before Silicon Knights went into bankruptcy over a lawsuit, they were ordered to destroy all copies of Too Human and X-Men: Destiny over stolen lines of code from Epic’s Unreal 3 Engine. On top of unsold copies of those two games, Silicon Knights were apparently working on games like a new Silent Hill, Eternal Darkness 2, and the two sequels to this game. Having played the game out of morbid curiosity and a penchant for collecting and playing console exclusive games while ranting about how each of these need a port; I’m glad I played through it once but I don’t think I will ever again except if it’s for a really good reason. The idea that Denis Dydack thought of making a mess of a game in the first part of a trilogy is astounding, and again a BORING mess at that. To me that’s the worst thing a game can do, is not only be bad but BORING bad. I would even go as far to say I don’t think I would care if it ever got a port but it should be preserved not only for history’s sake but as an example of what NOT to do while making a video game. I would also say that I think we would’ve been better off if we had gotten whatever version of Too Human they were making when it was supposed to be a PS1/Gamecube Exclusive. I wouldn’t really recommend this game to anyone unless you’re a fuckin masochist or unless you also find bad games as funny as I do. I’d rate this below a 2 out of 5 but unfortunately it’s still a game with some competent parts in it so I can’t but if you saw a copy of this and thought about giving it a try, I’d say collect it with the intent on sticking it on a shelf and never touching it again and if you played this game as a kid and thought it was cool but didn’t remember any of it? Don’t try it again, it’s a whole lot worse than what you thought it was, though (Un)luckily if you have Xbox Gold you can download it for free on Xbox One and it's in your library to play whenever you want because shoutout to Xbox's backwards compatibility system it's great.
TL;DR I’d rather play Forspoken ok thanks bye.
Sources:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H-aAJRDHn8I&ab_channel=GamerPete
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Y3TIfOKG74Q&ab_channel=MattMcMuscles https://tvtropes.org/pmwiki/pmwiki.php/VideoGame/TooHuman
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zVlVq3pStk8&ab_channel=GVMERS
https://www.unseen64.net/2008/04/11/too-human-playstation-1-cancelled/