episodes 1 and 2, after finishing every max payne: oh hey this is a neat action horror game with light mechanics
episode 3: they call this game alan wake because you gotta WAKE ME UP AFTER PLAYING IT
episodes 4, 5, 6: okay this is a fine video game and the sam lake narrative is good but it's not nearly as high as any of the good moments of max payne nor does it match the ludonarrative depth consistently

also this remaster sucks a little ass bro i got a ryzen 9 7950x3D and a 4080 and this shit vertex explodes every 30 seconds. happy to have played it at least on the trek to alan wake 2, apparently the video game renaissance of 2023

dlc finished edit: yeah that was better than the entire base game solely because they got weird with it both with physical locality/being in weird spaces and the gameplay mechanics of the written words. that and it didn't take place in a fuckin' forest for six hours. +0.5 stars

played on a new ryzen 7950x3D/RTX 4080 build in 1440p after upgrading from an i7 8700K/1080 Ti rig. i think my frame rate was consistently in the 90 to 120 range with the default settings when the game wasn't constantly tripping over itself.

portal is a great game but this RTX version, despite yes being very pretty, kinda sucks ass technically. it stuttered a lot, which i'm assuming is because of some behind the scenes shader compilation from rtx remix, but it was bad enough that the credits sequence with still alive became hilariously out of sync with the lyrics text and the actual music, plus every time i quit out of it steam would still think i was playing it so it's leaving behind some ghost task or something, forcing me to close steam if i wanted to play anything else because said ghost task wasn't showing up in my task manager. the new assets and lighting also kinda fuck up a lot of the inherent aesthetic and intention; windows to previous test chambers in the escape sequence were virtually opaque and i couldn't see through them, and the whole thing felt a little too cleaned up in the direction of portal 2 from the original game's intentionally sanitized art style. it gets to a point where you can't really recognize some walls as being portal-able in the escape sequence, and the inherent visual guidance of things is just ever so slightly murkier. plus i dunno if it's the DLSS implementation or what but the whole thing just feels smeared in vaseline at times, which is definitely not the case in other games i've played so far with DLSS on.

this being a pretty decent demonstration of RTX/DLSS however (sure i'm playing it a year after the fact and on a newer generation of graphics card, but regardless) at an effective cost of zero dollars and zero cents for already owning the original game (as long as we don't account for the ballistic amount of money i spent on this graphics card), and it still being portal aka "One Of The Best Video Games Of 2007", i guess i can let it slide. i think i would rather just tell someone to play the original version, though.

pros: this'll probably only be until at least a month or so after launch, but playing it again during the launch feels almost exactly like how overwatch 1 did back from 2016 to 2018 when the game was Actually Okay™. it's still overwatch at its core, so it's at least decently okay fun if you have some friends to play the game with. i am not immune to hot women, so their soft lean-in on porn twitter is kind of working maybe.

cons: feels sterilized in so many ways it's unbelievable. everything just does damage now with no real interesting options for play (WHY would you even remove mei's gun freezing and slowing enemies, isn't that like the whole point of her kit???), all of the UI / new graphic design feels like they kept turning a gauge in front of a board of investors labeled "Clean" until they applauded, and they managed to increase the fomo and microtransaction monetization with battle passes and hard currency. also we know that this company sucks ass now and is under sixty billion investigations for being a shitty place to work at

the fact that this $50 title has less sports than the uncontested king wii sports resort (which was also apparently $50 msrp at launch), implemented kind of shoddily (see below), and ALSO somehow managed to shove free cosmetic battle passes in as fomo is an insult on my life frankly

credit where credit is due though, battle royale bowling is something i did not know i wanted, and chambara / swordfighting is BACK AND BETTER THAN EVER BABY. soccer is weird though, and if we're being honest, volleyball, tennis, and badminton are all basically the same thing. maybe golf will kick ass or something when it comes out, but i doubt it.

also as the world's #1 mii enjoyer i have to disavow myself from these new player models. no offense to them, they're fine. it's a morals thing.

this is definitely the kind of game that isn't for everyone; at it's core, it's mostly just a walking simulator limited in scope and event. for what is lost in breadth, however, is made up in spades by depth.

for me, an asian-american kid growing up in the 2000s who spent a lot of time at relative's houses and other sort of things involving family, this game perfectly encapsulates the vibe of just being aimless and having an innocent view of the world as a kid without any of the emotional baggage of real life. all of the details put into it are so perfect — the randomness and haste of the placement of all of the objects you can look around in and inspect in every room (as well as the rooms themselves, and the stories behind them), the shrine dedicated to family long gone, the ornamental knick-knacks scattered about, the sort of loose "cramped but free" feeling to the place, the interactions with family members and how they act and interact with you and what you're doing, even the daydreams are delightful and charming, and remind me of the same kinds of things i'd lose myself in when i was 10. everything here just matches in my head that kind of feeling of being stuck at my grandparent's house while my parents were off doing something else, and having to keep myself occupied without any of the things i had at home.

i think for most people who are open to playing this, it does a fantastic job at capturing a slice of life that you take for granted as a child, but come to desire and nostalgically look back upon when you grow older. for someone like me though, coming from an asian background, this game perfectly hits all of the memories and experiences i remembered growing up. i might be biased in giving this 5 stars, but i cried while playing it, so i don't really care — whoops!

tl;dr read saikoroshi-hen and then immediately stop and go do something else with your time. i played with 07th-mod installed.

saikoroshi-hen: extremely compelling scenario to act as an epilogue to higurashi. not sure i really liked how quickly the last quarter of the story played out nor how it plays out, but it does introduce some new lore (both for higurashi and umineko) and poke at some "what ifs?" well enough that i'll let it pass. strong 7/10

hirukowashi-hen: rena swallows some magic rocks. hilarity ensues. -10 points for pedophilia and Evil Lesbian™ trope (at least conjoined with one another). 0/10

batsukoishi-hen: three grown men encourage a minor to sexually harass his female friends and teacher; said female friends sexually harass him back in the second half. hilarity ensures. -20 points for pedophilia and having to make me look at those renders. -10/10

all-star cast review / staff room: pretty neat insight onto umineko's development. not worth having to endure the two arcs before it, however.

played this coop with a friend in a discord call with others. overall i thought this was way better than all of the nancy naysayers have been saying, but it's still not without flaws.

overall, gameplay is clunky as hell but in sort of a good way? gunplay is fine enough, but mixed in with the clunky and overbearing controls and mechanics, it feels like too much at first but then gradually comes up to being natural (except for vehicle controls. please keep your controller plugged in). the inventory/menu UI is hot garbage though and whenever it keeps changing i want to stab my eyes with forks.

here's some campaign specific reviews from a coop perspective, but my overall ranking is jake > chris >>> leon = ada. i guess spoilers from this point forward:

leon — played as leon. definitely presented as the Beginner-Friendly™ playthrough, but to a detriment imo. basically all of the deep "Look How Fucked Up This Bioterrorism Shit Is" stuff from an RE2 or an RE3 but instead played out in the most hammy of ways conjoined with trying to get you acclimated to the ropes. too much fighting simmons for my taste. at least the lightning rod part was hype. 2.5/5

chris — played as chris. this is where the funny redfield bloodline face picture is from. feels just like RE5 kind of did in terms of story structure and stuff, but with way more homoeroticism. too much fuckin' running away from things with the camera pointed opposite the direction you're running from though! pour one out for piers and his sick lightning virus arm. 3.5/5

jake — played as jake. expected to like this one the least, ended up loving this one the most. honestly, i think the more action-oriented RE games shine best when they lean all in on the random nonsense bullshit. having jake do fucking suplexes and melee combos and shit while sherry (who is now hot and voiced by eden riegel, god bless) has RE5's certified best weapon, the stun rod, kicking ass is incredible. the racism gets kicked up a little bit on this one though. oops! 4/5

ada — played as the bozo agent. this campaign was designed for solo play and it fucking shows hard; you can't do jack shit as the agent. we ended up making our own fun coming up with in-lore reasons as to why he just teleports everywhere and can't do anything. tries to wrap up all of the story bits, but is kind of more confusing in retrospect. also tries doing some classic RE puzzles at the start but then it just kind of falls apart. we actually got a pair of other bozos playing the leon part of the ada campaign and we got to fight simmons with them while i kept spamming the agent's "Nice!" line which was the funniest shit ever. 2.5/5

overall, i did enjoy playing this one. not as much as RE5, but i think we can all agree that a stellar "7/10" game you can just take the piss out of is way better than most of the kind of dull triple-A stuff on the market nowadays trying to take itself a little too seriously. like my buddy chase posted here before me said, this game sucks but i kind of adore it.

chris punch the bolder funny, wesker say the funny line, sheva is hot. whoever though that binding QTEs to F and V on my keyboard should be reprimanded

in all honesty, it's clunky as hell and pretty racist at points (and the last few levels are frustrating as heck), but it is a funny and pretty enjoyable video game. however, i will note that it probably helped that i actually played this coop with friends in a discord so we had a great time taking the piss. not a very good "resident evil" game if you're here for that though.

the sickos "YES... HA HA HA... YES!" of video games

i think the long-ass levels should've had checkpoints and the story is basically mid but otherwise this game fucks; maybe i will write more cohesive thoughts at some point. they got machine girl though! the soundtrack slaps, dude. violet reminds me too much of a white girl i know.

also the dialogue is not that bad. get over yourself. being post-cringe is great.