haleez
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.
I must've missed the Merriam-Webster definition of the word "prologue" because I had no idea that it could mean a standalone game that you can easily sink 8+ hours into. It genuinely blew me away how much "game" there was to be had here, and I enjoyed it pretty much the entire time. I have been waiting for YEARS on any news about The Big Catch releasing and a standalone open world tech demo that gets you accustomed to the movement of the full game IS NOT what I expected.
Yes the game is very pretty, and whimsical, and animated BUT I cannot stress enough how fucking WELL this game controls. There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to climbing, and even some aspects of a puzzle platformer, but after enough fails often times something would just click in my brain and I would flow through whatever jump I was struggling with. It feels amazing when it all comes together!
I honestly think with some compass improvements and a map, this game could definitely stand on it's own. Also I didn't mind the open world aspects all too much but I really would like to see how this game could play with some levels. I did see that some people struggled with the difficulty of the platforming so I'm interested to see how much of it actually makes it into the actual game.
Yes the game is very pretty, and whimsical, and animated BUT I cannot stress enough how fucking WELL this game controls. There's a lot of trial and error when it comes to climbing, and even some aspects of a puzzle platformer, but after enough fails often times something would just click in my brain and I would flow through whatever jump I was struggling with. It feels amazing when it all comes together!
I honestly think with some compass improvements and a map, this game could definitely stand on it's own. Also I didn't mind the open world aspects all too much but I really would like to see how this game could play with some levels. I did see that some people struggled with the difficulty of the platforming so I'm interested to see how much of it actually makes it into the actual game.
2015
Put this game in the "Only play with friends" category because the game is pretty flat in gameplay and although it starts out pretty funny, I think the charm of the game gets old pretty quick.
Haven't watched the LOTR movies so maybe I missed out on some fan service but this really felt like a watered down baby version of Valheim. So many mechanics that felt like they were artificially delaying progression in the most "NOT FUN" ways possible. The building system also would misbehave frequently which is unfortunate because I thought the idea of platforming around the place to be a cool idea in a game like this, just sucks I had to fight the grid everytime I wanted to do it. Glad I got this game on a discount.
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.
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.
2024
BO4's greatest claim to fame might be that it has now inspired a 3rd dev team to try and make a team based arena shooter with abilities that probably won't have any more staying power than the last. Of course I don't think the amount of twitch viewers or aim highlights for a game correlates to it's quality but I struggle to see how this game will outlast it's predecessors. I'm a sucker for FPS games so I'll admit, I had some genuine fun playing this but your average salary man (the backbone of the free to play FPS genre) probably won't give this more than 3 hours.
Also having 1-2 shot snipers in an FPS with a high ttk is the stupidest shit ever can we be serious.
Also having 1-2 shot snipers in an FPS with a high ttk is the stupidest shit ever can we be serious.
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.
2007
Got me into PC gaming fr very different game than it used to be though
2022
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.
Alan Wake turns into Alan Wick in this more action oriented mini sequel to Alan Wake 1, and I think the game was dragged down because of it. Gone is the dark and spooky forests of the Pacific Northwest, which was replaced by a Arizona town that didn't feel fleshed out at all.
I'm not really sure why they thought that after all the fun ideas they used to tell the stories of MP, MP2, and Alan Wake, they thought the best way to handle this game was to have you play through it's three distinct stages THREE different times with ultimately MINIMAL changes.
Yeah the extra guns are fun, I enjoyed using the crossbow and double barrel combo myself, but I came to this restaurant to eat a good story; I left quite famished!
Mr. Scratch was a genuinely disturbing character, and not at all the way I thought he would be written. From fighting shadow creatures that state facts about the forest or fishing to an ACTUAL serial killer, how unlucky for Mr. Wake.
For how much I seemed to dislike this game, it did expand the lore of the Alan Wake universe AND it got me even more excited to see fight Mr. Scratch in AWII.
4 down with 3 more to go in the "Remedy Rampage."
I'm not really sure why they thought that after all the fun ideas they used to tell the stories of MP, MP2, and Alan Wake, they thought the best way to handle this game was to have you play through it's three distinct stages THREE different times with ultimately MINIMAL changes.
Yeah the extra guns are fun, I enjoyed using the crossbow and double barrel combo myself, but I came to this restaurant to eat a good story; I left quite famished!
Mr. Scratch was a genuinely disturbing character, and not at all the way I thought he would be written. From fighting shadow creatures that state facts about the forest or fishing to an ACTUAL serial killer, how unlucky for Mr. Wake.
For how much I seemed to dislike this game, it did expand the lore of the Alan Wake universe AND it got me even more excited to see fight Mr. Scratch in AWII.
4 down with 3 more to go in the "Remedy Rampage."
2020
Hard to look at, hard to listen to, and just hard in general. An incredibly tight but short shooter that's all about making it to the end without losing your head, literally.
2016
DO NOT PLAY THE GAME PASS VERSION, IT DOESN'T WORK
Although the gameplay tended to fall a bit flat, and even at sometimes felt like sort of an afterthought, I genuinely had a great time with this game.
The combination of third person shooter and TV show wasn't something I thought I would enjoy but every actor involved brought their absolute A game, especially the late and great Lance Reddick. As always Remedy delivered with the world-building and story, and the different branching path choices literally made me stop and think about what I would do vs what Paul would do. Although it falls out of the Remedy connected universe of Alan Wake and Control, I could easily see how this game could be incorporated into the CU.
This game genuinely got me excited for Control and AW2 because now I can see what Remedy is able to do with a modern engine. Only 2 more games to go in the Remedy Rampage, Control and AW2.
Although the gameplay tended to fall a bit flat, and even at sometimes felt like sort of an afterthought, I genuinely had a great time with this game.
The combination of third person shooter and TV show wasn't something I thought I would enjoy but every actor involved brought their absolute A game, especially the late and great Lance Reddick. As always Remedy delivered with the world-building and story, and the different branching path choices literally made me stop and think about what I would do vs what Paul would do. Although it falls out of the Remedy connected universe of Alan Wake and Control, I could easily see how this game could be incorporated into the CU.
This game genuinely got me excited for Control and AW2 because now I can see what Remedy is able to do with a modern engine. Only 2 more games to go in the Remedy Rampage, Control and AW2.
2019
A very fun audio and visual experience.
As a big sound enjoyer, my favorite part of the game was when I would do something and then a loud sound would play, almost emphasizing the fact that I just did something. Not many games do this! Or maybe my favorite part was when the 30 seconds of sporadic dissonant instruments would suddenly turn into 5 seconds of almost cohesive music, often times brought upon me doing something :O.
I will admit that by the 3rd album the steam from the first two albums was starting to run low for me and the background brain chatter, that is almost standard for a human of the modern era, began to creep it's way back in. I was forgetting my Ape roots.
But the game was able to clutch it up by the end of the 4th album, where I escaped with other mistreated caged animals and was treated to probably the craziest credits song I've ever heard in a video game. I loved that part and listened to it for longer than I'd like to admit.
Overall, it's a real ape experience and you probably won't find a better ape experience out there. The Donkey Kong Country trilogy got nothing on Ape Out. You could play 4000 hours of Winston in Top 500 and that wouldn't even compare to the angry beast I became every time I heard a loud cymbal crash.
As a big sound enjoyer, my favorite part of the game was when I would do something and then a loud sound would play, almost emphasizing the fact that I just did something. Not many games do this! Or maybe my favorite part was when the 30 seconds of sporadic dissonant instruments would suddenly turn into 5 seconds of almost cohesive music, often times brought upon me doing something :O.
I will admit that by the 3rd album the steam from the first two albums was starting to run low for me and the background brain chatter, that is almost standard for a human of the modern era, began to creep it's way back in. I was forgetting my Ape roots.
But the game was able to clutch it up by the end of the 4th album, where I escaped with other mistreated caged animals and was treated to probably the craziest credits song I've ever heard in a video game. I loved that part and listened to it for longer than I'd like to admit.
Overall, it's a real ape experience and you probably won't find a better ape experience out there. The Donkey Kong Country trilogy got nothing on Ape Out. You could play 4000 hours of Winston in Top 500 and that wouldn't even compare to the angry beast I became every time I heard a loud cymbal crash.
2011
Top 5 of all time