immaturegrin
BACKER
2021
In spite of its hiccups in atmosphere and multiplayer early on, I truly adored entering back into the Halo world, especially with the sandbox given to players. I will definitely look back on this game's gameplay and story favorably.
2023
Gorgeous visuals and music with a distinct atmosphere and legitimately challenging and unique puzzles.
I actually really enjoyed this one for what it was, it was more fun than playing the original game, even if it was a bit less refined. Even in small expansions, Remedy makes good products.
Mechanically more creative than the first DLC, "The Signal", and a bit more meaty story-wise. A nice conclusion to the events of the base game.
Barebones, with honestly annoying design. There's some fun stuff, and some funny moments, using some of the late game mechanics again, but the encounters feel challenging in unfun ways, much more so than the main episodes. Incredibly short if you can overcome the annoying combat encounters.
2021
I am a huge fan of the way Remedy makes games, and this is no exception. It is incredibly creative, meta, and unique, with a distinct tone. It does lack mechanically though, I will say. With Max Payne 1 and 2, it felt that Remedy had refined its simple gameplay and made it very fun. Here, it just felt a bit janky and uncomfortable. The exploration was more of the same from those games, but the levels in this one were far larger. Mechanically not great, but narratively it is a classic.
Really fun and emotional distilled version of what makes the franchise great, with my favorite Kiryu scene maybe ever. He erased his name, but we will never forget who he is.
2023
Played some of the trial version and even the introduction is just really uninspired and boring, like the gameplay feels fun and has potential but everything else about the game just totally wore on me.
Uninspired and unfun. Truly terrible, it's not worth playing even if it was free. The first thirty minutes are the least enjoyable of any game I've ever seen.
1998
Tremendous storytelling and atmosphere with such iconic moments including a diverse gallery of boss fights both stylistically and mechanically. They don't make them like this anymore. Kojima FTW.
2020
One of the most remarkable RPGs, and even games, I've played. Just a tremendous feat of scale and depth. It reminds me a bit of what the modern equivalent of Dragon Age: Origins would be.
The gameplay is full of tremendous freedom, that encourages experimentation and exploration rather than pure refinement of skills and memorization of patterns.
It took quite a while for me to understand the mechanics as someone who was only very mildly familiar with D&D.
The only thing holding this game back for me right now is how frustratingly buggy Act 3 of the game was, to the point where I would have quite consequential bugs every 2-3 hours and a crash about every 4-5 hours of gameplay, when I only crashed once in the first two acts. Way too much time was spent on reloading saves to try and get past bugs and glitches. In its current state, I can't give it 5 stars, but with some cleanup patches, it is totally deserving of them.
The gameplay is full of tremendous freedom, that encourages experimentation and exploration rather than pure refinement of skills and memorization of patterns.
It took quite a while for me to understand the mechanics as someone who was only very mildly familiar with D&D.
The only thing holding this game back for me right now is how frustratingly buggy Act 3 of the game was, to the point where I would have quite consequential bugs every 2-3 hours and a crash about every 4-5 hours of gameplay, when I only crashed once in the first two acts. Way too much time was spent on reloading saves to try and get past bugs and glitches. In its current state, I can't give it 5 stars, but with some cleanup patches, it is totally deserving of them.
2012
When I started playing Max Payne 3, I was wildly disappointed as I loved the first two and (for some reason) was expected a return to that noir and surrealistic tone, but was met by a brutal, harsh, action-centric perspective. It felt too much like Rockstar's other games, and made me feel upset at the loss of Remedy's distinct voice, but as the game went on I understood what the game was trying to be and began to fall in love with the intense and refined gameplay mechanics. Such a cool yet depressing game, after all, just like the first 2, but far different.
A fantastic topper to an eventually fantastic game. A beautiful story with incredibly well-realized and complex characters that force the player to make heart-wrenching decisions. CD Projekt Red, with this and the two Witcher 3 expansions, have created some of the greatest video game expansions of all time, ones that should be the model for any studios looking to make a great and memorable DLC. I truly love what this game has finally become.
Just another tremendous game in the series from Remedy, with a refocused tone, and a vision that seems more realized with a bigger budget and advanced technology. This one hurt, emotionally. There's so much to love (and hate) here, it's baked in atmosphere, full of humor, drama, surrealism, love, anger, hate, pain, and death. It's on the shorter side so I will definitely be replaying this game on a harder difficulty sooner than later. Probably stands as my favorite shooter of the Xbox / PS2 era, though I've not played too many, probably dethroning Halo: Combat Evolved.
2001
A truly remarkable experiences and one of the most well-crafted shooters in terms of storytelling and atmosphere. Love the feeling it evokes, and the strength of the dialogue and writing. Such a charming and fun game, brought a similar feeling to me to when I played Half-Life for the first time.