haleez
2009
Gameplay aside, I just can't stop thinking about the audio of this game. The sharp drums mixed with the low guttural bass that permeates all of the horde themes. The jingles that play when the special infected spawn. The voice interactions of the 4 distinct but very entertaining protagonists.
Did you know in the first level before they learn each other's names, they call each other silly nicknames. For example: if you ping Coach as Nick, he calls him "Big Man", like that attention to detail is nuts!
This game is a treat to listen to and I'm convinced that I could play this game blindfolded and probably have a good time.
As for the gameplay, definitely the best out of any zombie game I've played which is surprisingly, a very low bar. It's grounded, punchy but fun. And then couple that with some of the nicest looking Source engine environments I've ever seen.
Yeah it's good.
Did you know in the first level before they learn each other's names, they call each other silly nicknames. For example: if you ping Coach as Nick, he calls him "Big Man", like that attention to detail is nuts!
This game is a treat to listen to and I'm convinced that I could play this game blindfolded and probably have a good time.
As for the gameplay, definitely the best out of any zombie game I've played which is surprisingly, a very low bar. It's grounded, punchy but fun. And then couple that with some of the nicest looking Source engine environments I've ever seen.
Yeah it's good.
2012
I haven't played that many stealth games, but more importantly, I haven't played that many games that "punish" you for killing people, which is kind of a problem for me. I like virtually killing people, but I'd imagine Corvo doesn't.
It's somewhat of a shame too because for all of the benefits of not killing people in Dishonored, this game has some hilarious ways to kill people. Cutting off someones head and killing someone else by throwing it at them over and over again. Using a rewire tool on an Arc Pylon and purposefully drawing guards towards it to watch them get turned to dust. And I can't not mention using the wind blast to throw people off of a building. Dishonored is its own little sandbox of death.
But I decided that Corvo and even the cursed Daud didn't want to kill anymore, so I attempted to not kill people. Of course, there were accidents. A few unconscious people accidentally thrown off a roof. Some guards that got herded into a group of rats. Disgruntled thugs who missed their shot on me and instead hit their brothers. But even through all that I didn't want to kill!
And playing the game this way made it super engaging, I had a great time! I'm sure I'll play this again some day and go Ultrakill mode, making quick work of everyone that I come across and generally causing more chaos, but for now I'm proud of my work.
It's somewhat of a shame too because for all of the benefits of not killing people in Dishonored, this game has some hilarious ways to kill people. Cutting off someones head and killing someone else by throwing it at them over and over again. Using a rewire tool on an Arc Pylon and purposefully drawing guards towards it to watch them get turned to dust. And I can't not mention using the wind blast to throw people off of a building. Dishonored is its own little sandbox of death.
But I decided that Corvo and even the cursed Daud didn't want to kill anymore, so I attempted to not kill people. Of course, there were accidents. A few unconscious people accidentally thrown off a roof. Some guards that got herded into a group of rats. Disgruntled thugs who missed their shot on me and instead hit their brothers. But even through all that I didn't want to kill!
And playing the game this way made it super engaging, I had a great time! I'm sure I'll play this again some day and go Ultrakill mode, making quick work of everyone that I come across and generally causing more chaos, but for now I'm proud of my work.
2010
For a game that really wants you to be scared/creeped out, I could not stop laughing while playing this game. A certain interaction with a log and a swinging ball had me in tears for at least 1 minute. I don't know man, the idea of "solve this puzzle or die a horrific death", works the first time but by the 3rd time the tension is gone and I'm genuinely locked in trying to solve the puzzle. It's at that point that the "horror" elements no longer work on me, and I'm just playing a puzzle game with bad vibes. The puzzles are good too and can even get tricky at times; I remember having to look up guides to some of them. But honestly at that point I think I'd rather just play a puzzle game where I don't have to watch a small child get brutally murdered, even if I manage to laugh at it.
2018
this saved me
2020
I actually think about Juice Galaxy a lot.
It's a weird little game that wears it's weirdness on it's chest like a badge, giving it's world a slew of different scapes while never missing that "Juice Galaxy" vibe.
I'll be honest, at times I thought the combat was a bit cumbersome, and even after beating every boss with a multitude of weapons, I still think that. But I couldn't imagine a combat system more fitting than one where you kinda just flop your weapon around and smack the hell out of shit. Imagine if they built this whimsical and weird world and gave you the basic slash, shield, dodge roll, and parry button that so many Action RPGs love to dish out.
For an early access open world game, you'd expect there to be more dull moments as you traverse the foggy and mostly unchanging over world, but I was constantly at awe when I was traveling. I've told one of my friends about this twice now, but somehow Juice Galaxy perfectly that "Adventure Time vibe" without really trying at all. I think the OST plays a big part in emulating that vibe but even on it's own, just walking around the over world made me think of the Land of Ooo. (The OST is fantastic btw)
But the real meat of this game is in it's boss battles, which combat wise can still be cumbersome, but their presentation tends to kick ass. Traveling through the Wawsp nest swatting away low level wawsps as the music builds up and you're greeted by an open room and the one who controls them all, The Wawsp Queen. I'll never forget my first time fighting her, the tense build up to her theme and the fact that she actually got hands! I died at least 4 times before killing her.
Every boss fight in this game feels like some grand battle, even though you're a floppy weird guy fighting another probably floppy weird guy. I love it so much.
I will be watching this game with curious eyes, I'm excited to see where Fishlicka takes it!
It's a weird little game that wears it's weirdness on it's chest like a badge, giving it's world a slew of different scapes while never missing that "Juice Galaxy" vibe.
I'll be honest, at times I thought the combat was a bit cumbersome, and even after beating every boss with a multitude of weapons, I still think that. But I couldn't imagine a combat system more fitting than one where you kinda just flop your weapon around and smack the hell out of shit. Imagine if they built this whimsical and weird world and gave you the basic slash, shield, dodge roll, and parry button that so many Action RPGs love to dish out.
For an early access open world game, you'd expect there to be more dull moments as you traverse the foggy and mostly unchanging over world, but I was constantly at awe when I was traveling. I've told one of my friends about this twice now, but somehow Juice Galaxy perfectly that "Adventure Time vibe" without really trying at all. I think the OST plays a big part in emulating that vibe but even on it's own, just walking around the over world made me think of the Land of Ooo. (The OST is fantastic btw)
But the real meat of this game is in it's boss battles, which combat wise can still be cumbersome, but their presentation tends to kick ass. Traveling through the Wawsp nest swatting away low level wawsps as the music builds up and you're greeted by an open room and the one who controls them all, The Wawsp Queen. I'll never forget my first time fighting her, the tense build up to her theme and the fact that she actually got hands! I died at least 4 times before killing her.
Every boss fight in this game feels like some grand battle, even though you're a floppy weird guy fighting another probably floppy weird guy. I love it so much.
I will be watching this game with curious eyes, I'm excited to see where Fishlicka takes it!
2020
To me, it felt like an upgrade to Gunfire Reborn in almost every way. The movement feels way more fluid and with the use of gadgets you can literally fly through some of the stages. Gun and enemy variety is also there and at the higher difficulties the game actually becomes a good challenge.
But what irks me the most about this game, and it's a complaint I had about Gunfire Reborn as well, is that so many of the higher rarity items follow this blue print:
"Increases (some random stat) by a marginal amount but now there's a percent chance that your head blows up when opening a door."
Here's one directly from the game: "Deals 22 cryo damage to enemies damaging you but taking damage has 10% chance to freeze you."
WHY WOULD I PICK THIS UP? I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO GET HIT WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ITEMS ABOUT GETTING HIT. I still don't think any roguelike I've played has done the "get this but lose this" kind of item balancing as well as Lunar items in ROR2.
Both this game and Gunfire Reborn feel like they're filled with them and they always feel useless to the point I almost never pick them up. I don't think they're very fun in this game and tend to pollute the loot pool.
Other than that though the game is pretty solid, but I must mention how B.S. the second phase of the final boss is, literally like 4 different "fuck you" attacks.
But what irks me the most about this game, and it's a complaint I had about Gunfire Reborn as well, is that so many of the higher rarity items follow this blue print:
"Increases (some random stat) by a marginal amount but now there's a percent chance that your head blows up when opening a door."
Here's one directly from the game: "Deals 22 cryo damage to enemies damaging you but taking damage has 10% chance to freeze you."
WHY WOULD I PICK THIS UP? I ALREADY DON'T WANT TO GET HIT WHY ARE THERE SO MANY ITEMS ABOUT GETTING HIT. I still don't think any roguelike I've played has done the "get this but lose this" kind of item balancing as well as Lunar items in ROR2.
Both this game and Gunfire Reborn feel like they're filled with them and they always feel useless to the point I almost never pick them up. I don't think they're very fun in this game and tend to pollute the loot pool.
Other than that though the game is pretty solid, but I must mention how B.S. the second phase of the final boss is, literally like 4 different "fuck you" attacks.
2024
Genuinely so happy creative people are embracing the Horror Co-op genre because jesus christ I had given up on the genre after the 3rd Backrooms game. I'm sure the 3rd extraction horror game will be the end of my interest with the sub - genre but I'll take it any day over all the phasmophobia and DBD clones.
Just like Lethal Company, the presentation is all there. I love the contrast between the silly and colorful new world against the dark gritty but still silly stuff of the "old world". Not to mention the game being focused around making a video means you have to stick around your friends and "perform" to get the highest view count possible. It's a great twist on the "horror" aspect of the game because you WANT to see these scary monsters. You WANT to die in funny ways because it'll make the video better.
This game does share the same problem I have with vanilla Lethal Company in that restarting after a long and difficult run feels so bad, to the point where you're just waiting for the game to be scary again. I do wonder how much more I'll play this game but from I played I'd say it's a great game. Also it was completely free for an entire day! Who does that?
Just like Lethal Company, the presentation is all there. I love the contrast between the silly and colorful new world against the dark gritty but still silly stuff of the "old world". Not to mention the game being focused around making a video means you have to stick around your friends and "perform" to get the highest view count possible. It's a great twist on the "horror" aspect of the game because you WANT to see these scary monsters. You WANT to die in funny ways because it'll make the video better.
This game does share the same problem I have with vanilla Lethal Company in that restarting after a long and difficult run feels so bad, to the point where you're just waiting for the game to be scary again. I do wonder how much more I'll play this game but from I played I'd say it's a great game. Also it was completely free for an entire day! Who does that?
2024
This review contains spoilers
TLDR; Exploring and combat is fun. Quest design varies greatly, sometimes good, sometimes very bad. Ending came so abruptly I wasn't able to do all that I wanted to do, it also bored me. True ending left me annoyed.
As my first RPG since Bowser's Inside Story, I think Dragon's Dogma 2 served as a great re-entry into the genre. I'd been anticipating this game since January after watching a friend play the first game while describing the sequel as a "re-imagining of that world." While that seems to be the case, I can't help but feel that DD2 is like 80% there. If DD1 suffered from being overambitious in it's vision, then DD2 suffers from being able to nail that vision but now it's weighed down by quest design that felt under-cooked. I can assume that both games share that same problem. It's this feeling of being unfinished that just slowly crept it's way in as I kept playing, but really showed it's ugly head in my last 5 hours or so.
I really can't praise enough how much fun it was to explore this fantasy world. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Open World games but this was the most fun I've had exploring one since BOTW. Couple that world with great combat and monsters that truly feel threatening to fight and it's a fantastic time. There's nothing more "epic" than when you're fighting a cyclops with your pawns and you notice a bird like shadow fly overhead. 10 seconds later you hear a whooshing sound and a griffin lands to 3rd party the fight. The spontaneity of it all is just so good.
And then you enter a town. Your frames decrease. Your mini-map fills with a slew of icons that just BECKON to be interacted with. You're on your way to the icon that looks like a big sword, and then a little girl steals the control of the camera away from you. "Hello Arisen the holy chosen one, gifted powers from the Dragon that my little mind can barely understand, can you do me a favor and pick up my groceries from the store?" A loud sound plays, and there's a prompt in the top right asking if you want to make picking up groceries your focused quest. You deliver her groceries some time later, and she responds with "Thanks for delivering my groceries! Come back in a few days to taste my soup!" The quest updates, "RETURN IN A FEW DAYS TO TRY HER SOUP". You return to try her soup but see a sad look on her face as you walk up. It turns out she was missing garlic for the soup that YOU need to go get. The quest updates. You return with the garlic, she adds it to the soup, and the quest ends. +5000 Coin, +1 Vegetable Soup.
DD2 loves this kind of quest design, and uses it in literally every town at least once. To be fair, this seems to just be an RPG thing™, but I guess I missed the memo and paid the price for it. In general I enjoyed most quests that are like "Go to this place with me there's something freaky over there 👅", but those became rarer by the end of the game, while there was still more map to be explored.
I guess I should say the quest design isn't bad, but just mixed, which still kind of sucks because the bad quests are like pretty bad. It's like the devs couldn't decide if they wanted the player to use context clues to solve the quests or just listen to what the quest menu says. A certain quest about a boy taken by wolves at the Checkpoint Rest Town had me confused on whether I was supposed to listen to the villagers or the quest menu, and in the end I just had to look up a guide for the quest because the flashing clock icon had me tweaking. On top of that, sometimes quests seemingly become stuck, or bugged. In the case of the noble in Vermund who was pretending to be a beggar, I did everything the quest told me to do only for the quest menu to just not change. You find out days later from a random guard walking around that he was killed. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential quest. Anything with escorting is also just plain awful. You can't carry them lest they struggle and you're forced to drop them. You can't sprint because they will just straight up stop moving if you go too far. You can't walk because then they'll just start sprinting. It's just bad.
And the craziest part is that NONE of that is even that bad. No, the reason this game went from a 4 to a 3 is because of the last 4 hours of gameplay and how much they soured the experience. See early in that session I had just switched back to Thief and I was exploring more of Battahl. I was having a great time doing quests as I went. Something the game doesn't tell you is that once you give Ambrosius those 15 wyrmslife crystals, you've already activated the last quest of the game, which THE GAME DOES NOT TELL YOU. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by Alan Wake II which I had completed prior to this game, because that game straight up tells you at the final quest that this is the end. Dragon's Dogma II tells you nothing. I guess I was the victim of a compounding issue. It's not that the main story quests are badly designed but they don't really have an affect on the outside world. So while I'm out fighting mythical beasts, I had completely forgotten how important Ambrosius and his studies were to the main story. And for that I paid the ultimate price.
Upon receiving the Empowered Godsbane Blade from Ambrosius, the beginning of the end starts, locking you from doing literally anything else. You can't go finish the Sphinx quests, can't complete your map, can't turn in your seekers tokens; etc. You're done. It hurt even more because I was literally on my way to the Volcanic Island camp for the first time to complete a quest, which I couldn't do now. I quickly accepted this blow to the stomach but little did I know there were more strikes on the way.
The titan rises from the sea, and the race to the excavation site begins. I would be lying if I said I felt literally any tension from this. I guess I was still stinging from having my game cut early but I thought everything about the moving statue section was so god damn boring. The dragon fight was more fun I guess but it also didn't feel that different from any of the other dragon fights, just more difficult. But fuck it, I killed them both and we're done right? No, I heard there was a true ending so I found out how to get to it and honestly I wish I didn't. I killed the dragon around 5:30 AM, and wasn't done with the true ending until 8:30 AM. I had no idea it was that extensive.
In the true ending you are thrown back into the world but now there's a timer and the end of the world is coming. It was at this point that I was reminded of all that I didn't get to do by the abrupt ending and the kettle is starting to whistle. I'm tired, figured I can't close the game and do the ending without fighting the dragon again, so I thug it out. I'm tasked with going to every town and telling them to evacuate, and that's fine. Almost all of those unfinished quests didn't appear in the quest menu anymore, but there was one that remained from the actual game, talking to fucking Hugo in that prison, WHICH I WASN'T ABLE TO COMPLETE EARLIER BECAUSE HE JUST DISAPPEARED. Why was it here now, at this tumultuous time. It even had a location that I went to to find literally nobody. Come to find out later that he died fighting his old boss, and the quest finally ended. The kettle is whistling a little louder. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential CHARACTER, FUCK HUGO.
Evacuating Bakbattahl reminded me of another inconsequential quest. I traveled there to talk to whoever is in charge after I let the empress die (whoops) only to find out that she's just miraculously alive! WOW. Literally a quest so inconsequential that her death changed nothing about Bakbattahl AND was retconned. And I find out later that she had quests of her own that she gives out. More quests I missed out on. Speaking of missed quests, evacuating the Sacred Arbor genuinely made me so mad. Because I hadn't restored life to the Holy Elven Tree in another side quest given by the leader's daughter, he refused to leave. Mfs on Reddit were saying to just keep sleeping and asking him when you wake up but that didn't work. I literally slept like 9 days in a row, he still refused to leave and at that point I just didn't give a fuck about ANY of it. I got the true ending, and the cherry on top, the game reminds me that my #1 NPC was the Elven dude who can't use Elven bows. I do not give a fuck about that dude.
Those last 5ish hours soured my experience of this game so much that I wanted so badly to give a 3, but I had to remind myself of all the fun I had exploring and calm down a bit. I think with some more time Dragon's Dogma II could've been an all timer but it remains just Good.
P.S. The framerate is a way bigger issue than the micro transactions that people won't shut up about. DMC5 had MTX and you hear no one talking about it, just how motivated Vergil is or whatever the fuck. I was more accepting of the 50 fps out in the world because I had just finished playing AWII which also beat my PC up, but there's no sugar coating it. This game does not run good and I'm not sure if it is something they can fix in a patch.
As my first RPG since Bowser's Inside Story, I think Dragon's Dogma 2 served as a great re-entry into the genre. I'd been anticipating this game since January after watching a friend play the first game while describing the sequel as a "re-imagining of that world." While that seems to be the case, I can't help but feel that DD2 is like 80% there. If DD1 suffered from being overambitious in it's vision, then DD2 suffers from being able to nail that vision but now it's weighed down by quest design that felt under-cooked. I can assume that both games share that same problem. It's this feeling of being unfinished that just slowly crept it's way in as I kept playing, but really showed it's ugly head in my last 5 hours or so.
I really can't praise enough how much fun it was to explore this fantasy world. I wouldn't say I'm a huge fan of Open World games but this was the most fun I've had exploring one since BOTW. Couple that world with great combat and monsters that truly feel threatening to fight and it's a fantastic time. There's nothing more "epic" than when you're fighting a cyclops with your pawns and you notice a bird like shadow fly overhead. 10 seconds later you hear a whooshing sound and a griffin lands to 3rd party the fight. The spontaneity of it all is just so good.
And then you enter a town. Your frames decrease. Your mini-map fills with a slew of icons that just BECKON to be interacted with. You're on your way to the icon that looks like a big sword, and then a little girl steals the control of the camera away from you. "Hello Arisen the holy chosen one, gifted powers from the Dragon that my little mind can barely understand, can you do me a favor and pick up my groceries from the store?" A loud sound plays, and there's a prompt in the top right asking if you want to make picking up groceries your focused quest. You deliver her groceries some time later, and she responds with "Thanks for delivering my groceries! Come back in a few days to taste my soup!" The quest updates, "RETURN IN A FEW DAYS TO TRY HER SOUP". You return to try her soup but see a sad look on her face as you walk up. It turns out she was missing garlic for the soup that YOU need to go get. The quest updates. You return with the garlic, she adds it to the soup, and the quest ends. +5000 Coin, +1 Vegetable Soup.
DD2 loves this kind of quest design, and uses it in literally every town at least once. To be fair, this seems to just be an RPG thing™, but I guess I missed the memo and paid the price for it. In general I enjoyed most quests that are like "Go to this place with me there's something freaky over there 👅", but those became rarer by the end of the game, while there was still more map to be explored.
I guess I should say the quest design isn't bad, but just mixed, which still kind of sucks because the bad quests are like pretty bad. It's like the devs couldn't decide if they wanted the player to use context clues to solve the quests or just listen to what the quest menu says. A certain quest about a boy taken by wolves at the Checkpoint Rest Town had me confused on whether I was supposed to listen to the villagers or the quest menu, and in the end I just had to look up a guide for the quest because the flashing clock icon had me tweaking. On top of that, sometimes quests seemingly become stuck, or bugged. In the case of the noble in Vermund who was pretending to be a beggar, I did everything the quest told me to do only for the quest menu to just not change. You find out days later from a random guard walking around that he was killed. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential quest. Anything with escorting is also just plain awful. You can't carry them lest they struggle and you're forced to drop them. You can't sprint because they will just straight up stop moving if you go too far. You can't walk because then they'll just start sprinting. It's just bad.
And the craziest part is that NONE of that is even that bad. No, the reason this game went from a 4 to a 3 is because of the last 4 hours of gameplay and how much they soured the experience. See early in that session I had just switched back to Thief and I was exploring more of Battahl. I was having a great time doing quests as I went. Something the game doesn't tell you is that once you give Ambrosius those 15 wyrmslife crystals, you've already activated the last quest of the game, which THE GAME DOES NOT TELL YOU. Maybe I'm a bit spoiled by Alan Wake II which I had completed prior to this game, because that game straight up tells you at the final quest that this is the end. Dragon's Dogma II tells you nothing. I guess I was the victim of a compounding issue. It's not that the main story quests are badly designed but they don't really have an affect on the outside world. So while I'm out fighting mythical beasts, I had completely forgotten how important Ambrosius and his studies were to the main story. And for that I paid the ultimate price.
Upon receiving the Empowered Godsbane Blade from Ambrosius, the beginning of the end starts, locking you from doing literally anything else. You can't go finish the Sphinx quests, can't complete your map, can't turn in your seekers tokens; etc. You're done. It hurt even more because I was literally on my way to the Volcanic Island camp for the first time to complete a quest, which I couldn't do now. I quickly accepted this blow to the stomach but little did I know there were more strikes on the way.
The titan rises from the sea, and the race to the excavation site begins. I would be lying if I said I felt literally any tension from this. I guess I was still stinging from having my game cut early but I thought everything about the moving statue section was so god damn boring. The dragon fight was more fun I guess but it also didn't feel that different from any of the other dragon fights, just more difficult. But fuck it, I killed them both and we're done right? No, I heard there was a true ending so I found out how to get to it and honestly I wish I didn't. I killed the dragon around 5:30 AM, and wasn't done with the true ending until 8:30 AM. I had no idea it was that extensive.
In the true ending you are thrown back into the world but now there's a timer and the end of the world is coming. It was at this point that I was reminded of all that I didn't get to do by the abrupt ending and the kettle is starting to whistle. I'm tired, figured I can't close the game and do the ending without fighting the dragon again, so I thug it out. I'm tasked with going to every town and telling them to evacuate, and that's fine. Almost all of those unfinished quests didn't appear in the quest menu anymore, but there was one that remained from the actual game, talking to fucking Hugo in that prison, WHICH I WASN'T ABLE TO COMPLETE EARLIER BECAUSE HE JUST DISAPPEARED. Why was it here now, at this tumultuous time. It even had a location that I went to to find literally nobody. Come to find out later that he died fighting his old boss, and the quest finally ended. The kettle is whistling a little louder. An inconsequential end for an inconsequential CHARACTER, FUCK HUGO.
Evacuating Bakbattahl reminded me of another inconsequential quest. I traveled there to talk to whoever is in charge after I let the empress die (whoops) only to find out that she's just miraculously alive! WOW. Literally a quest so inconsequential that her death changed nothing about Bakbattahl AND was retconned. And I find out later that she had quests of her own that she gives out. More quests I missed out on. Speaking of missed quests, evacuating the Sacred Arbor genuinely made me so mad. Because I hadn't restored life to the Holy Elven Tree in another side quest given by the leader's daughter, he refused to leave. Mfs on Reddit were saying to just keep sleeping and asking him when you wake up but that didn't work. I literally slept like 9 days in a row, he still refused to leave and at that point I just didn't give a fuck about ANY of it. I got the true ending, and the cherry on top, the game reminds me that my #1 NPC was the Elven dude who can't use Elven bows. I do not give a fuck about that dude.
Those last 5ish hours soured my experience of this game so much that I wanted so badly to give a 3, but I had to remind myself of all the fun I had exploring and calm down a bit. I think with some more time Dragon's Dogma II could've been an all timer but it remains just Good.
P.S. The framerate is a way bigger issue than the micro transactions that people won't shut up about. DMC5 had MTX and you hear no one talking about it, just how motivated Vergil is or whatever the fuck. I was more accepting of the 50 fps out in the world because I had just finished playing AWII which also beat my PC up, but there's no sugar coating it. This game does not run good and I'm not sure if it is something they can fix in a patch.
2016
Honest to god I enjoyed this one more than the original which is funny because this game could literally be a Doom WAD; even the jump feels like it doesn't belong. More of a puzzle game than the original but in the end I just stopped caring at some point.
2014
Thought this game was going to be a simpler but cleaner predecessor to Neon White but I ended up just hating the game and figuring that the genre just isn't for me. It's hard to hate on a game this indie/old but such a unique hatred was born of just me playing through Episode 5 and I need to make it known. Every god damn minute of this game is filled to the brim with the flattest visuals I've ever seen and one of like 5 songs that are incapable of giving me any positive emotion. In one ear out the other, my mind keeps wanting to call it mobile game music. I keep seeing people say "Oh the game is cute! It's got hearts and rainbows and candy and giant m16 statues!" and I can't help but overwhelmingly disagree with them! Did they forget about the evil apple like demon that will end your life if you let it touch the floor? This game is only cute to people who have Instagram pages for their pets. This game is cute to people who generate puppy pictures on Bing. This game is only cute to people who have never played Katamari, THAT GAME IS CUTE. This game is as cute as a baby hippo, in that it looks sweet at first but give it time and it'll crush your windpipe. And people talk about movement, WHAT MOVEMENT? The gross floaty and unresponsive Unity movement? The bounce pads? The speedrun routes that most players won't know exist on the first playthrough? I'm so confused! I forced myself to finish this and I think in the end this game just somehow made me hate Neon White even more. I had Lonely planet 2 and Remix on my wishlist and they instantly got removed once I finished the game. I think I'm just not a fan of this genre!
1992
It's insane to me that this game released, singlehandedly defined the FPS genre, and then a year later the same dev team released Doom which is an upgrade to this game in literally every way. Then 3 years after Doom they released Quake. Innovation after innovation after innovation. This game is nigh unplayable now, but it's probably fire on the computers at the library though.
1993
It's incredible how for me this game was outdone years ago in terms of FPS game play, yet it still holds up very well. It's still got some old game things like 5 million secrets per stage and incredibly varying map quality but when the game shines it's really sick. I will say that I've started this game before but abandoned it, it turns out that when aiming isn't really as important in an FPS it's hard for me to keep playing. But this time I wanted to see it through for the experience and I'm glad I did. But;
WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THE SUPER SHOTGUN IS A DOOM 2 WEAPON? I WAS PLAYING THIS GAME JUST WAITING, PRAYING TO SEE IT AND ONE GOOGLE SEARCH LATER ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT DRAINED FROM MY SOUL.
So I guess I'm gonna play Doom 2. Also, other than the first two maps, Episode 4 was the highlight for me, was lots of fun!
WHY DID NOBODY TELL ME THE SUPER SHOTGUN IS A DOOM 2 WEAPON? I WAS PLAYING THIS GAME JUST WAITING, PRAYING TO SEE IT AND ONE GOOGLE SEARCH LATER ALL OF THE EXCITEMENT DRAINED FROM MY SOUL.
So I guess I'm gonna play Doom 2. Also, other than the first two maps, Episode 4 was the highlight for me, was lots of fun!
2017
Every time I play this game I think "wow what a cool premise a movement FPS roguelike!" and then by the end of that run I ask myself why I'm even playing it. One of the most underwhelming games I've ever played
2023
After playing through them all, I can confidently say Alan Wake II feels like the Remedy Game of All Time™. I could feel - and often times literally see - something from every single game they've made and it was sick. I was amazed at how every system mechanic felt so well thought out, to the point where the game was kinda hard to put down. I just kept wanting to see how they would expand upon them.
Although I enjoyed the combat from AWI, the slower but heavier of AWII felt super good. Combine that with the darker environments and story overall and this was actually a great horror experience. I was jump-scared on multiple occasions which is something I could never imagine from the first game.
However, my favorite part of the game BY FAR was filling out Saga's case boards. There's something so simple and clean about having a question, finding out the answer, and then hitting that case board with new evidence. Very fulfilling stuff.
Will definitely replay at some point to 100% but this game was destroying my PC so I'm having to deal with the psychological damage of that.
Although I enjoyed the combat from AWI, the slower but heavier of AWII felt super good. Combine that with the darker environments and story overall and this was actually a great horror experience. I was jump-scared on multiple occasions which is something I could never imagine from the first game.
However, my favorite part of the game BY FAR was filling out Saga's case boards. There's something so simple and clean about having a question, finding out the answer, and then hitting that case board with new evidence. Very fulfilling stuff.
Will definitely replay at some point to 100% but this game was destroying my PC so I'm having to deal with the psychological damage of that.
1996
Even though I grew up around a N64 I missed out on this game as a kid and it wasn't until I had a Wii and enough money to buy the game on Virtual Console that I finally got my grimy hands on SM64. I loved this game then, and even went as far as getting all 120 stars. As a kid who assumed he was bad at video games this meant a lot to me. I was also a super Yoshi fan so seeing Yoshi on that roof filled me with so much joy! Even during this replay I had vivid memories of waiting for dinner while playing this game, almost brought a tear to my eye. more than a decade later and I can confidently say this is one of the most stressful games that I've played recently. The janky Clinton administration camera + the demonic level design genuinely had me questioning whether or not I was going to finish this game. I think most of the maps from the latter half of the game are evil as fuck but Tick Tock Clock, Rainbow Ride, and Tiny Huge Island must've single-handedly bent the moral arc of the universe against justice. One minor inconvenience on any of those stages and you'll be greeted by Charles Martinet's best Mario scream to date. My original plan was to get all 120 stars and greet Yoshi on the roof for old time's sake but upon realizing I'd have to get 100 coins on Rainbow Ride I decided I'd rather keep the extra year of life expectancy that would be lost attempting that challenge. 103 stars it is!