Whenever a game is given the title of black sheep by its fan base it is usually with a negative connotation, Hitman: Absolution being no exception. While personally I think the term doesn’t deserve or inherently equate to that notion, I struggle to make an argument for it in the case of this game. As my previous reviews of the four Hitman games up until this point have documented, the series has had such a strong uphill momentum with its advancement and expiration of its ideas and mechanics, culminating with Blood Money being an absolute masterclass in that field of design. But with this peak in design came the immortal dilemma of every long running series; do the developers stick with their guns and what they know, risking being labeled as monotonous and safe? Or do they stake out in a new, bold direction, potentially alienating fans by delivering a product that is different from what those fans have come to expect? I don’t believe there is a definitive answer to this, because there is hard evidence to the pros and cons to both paths. In the case of Absolution, however, it is very clear that Io Interactive went with the latter, and in the process, have become the textbook example of the subsequent negative outcome. That being said, there are some new additions that I feel would be great features in a game that more resembled the older games, rather than this more linear direction.

As mentioned, Io’s answer to their dilemma was to try something new, something more palatable. In interviews leading up to the games release, and in interviews since, they made it clear that their intention was to move away from the old Hitman formula that they felt was to abstract and could leave players confused, and instead implemented a design philosophy that more resembled popular games from that time like Gears of War or Call of Duty, that being linear experience that focused heavily on cinematics and set pieces. As well, while I can’t confirm this, I would assume the remaining developers who did work on Blood Money prior probably had some feeling like they had done all they could with the old style, contributing to the desire to move forward with the new. The result is a game that feels like it is eating itself from the inside out. Every design choice directly contradicts another and either makes it irrelevant, or breaks the gameplay flow in some way. One of the games newest features that it relies on heavily is the instinct system, this system is a consumable resource that the player can activate by pressing the bumper on the controller. The instinct ability lets the player utilize the disguises in each of the missions; this time around, if the player is wearing a disguise that other NPCs are wearing they will immediately become suspicious, the player must then use instinct to be able to walk past them without triggering alarms. This new change completely destroys any interest the player has in the disguise mechanic. The disguises in the older games worked because the player would put them on and then become near invisible to all NPCs, so long as they weren’t actually doing anything obviously suspicious; here though, the player must use instinct or else the disguise will flat out not work. On top of that, the only way to gain back instinct once it is used is to either complete objectives or challenges, or by just killing people. Challenges far to cryptic to be able to be done on a first playthrough, objectives complete themselves most of the time but are too far between each other, and killing random people goes entirely against the core idea behind this series; this leaves the entire instinct mechanic as a unnecessary hindrance on the overall experience, and the disguise practically forgotten about because the player quickly realizes they are more trouble than they are worth. The levels that suffer the most from this are definitely the three or so that take place in the Dead Factory. These missions are sprawling with guards, and almost nothing but guards, meaning the player just has to pray to god that they have enough instinct to get past all the security checkpoints. As well, the game's whole level structure is entirely upside down and makes zero sense half the time.

The best way I can describe this Aboslution’s levels is that they resemble shitty Splinter Cell levels. Again, they are extremely linear and are split up into checkpointed sections, which is not bad by any means, many games use this structure very well, Splinter Cell being one of them. The problem is that this is not a format the Hitman formula can fit in. Hitman thrives off having its levels be independent ecosystems that function without any player input, that way the player can study and exploit their patterns. Absolution has maybe one or two levels that I can think of that even somewhat resemble this idea, that being the opening sections of both Shaving Lenny and Skurky’s Law, outside of these two small parts the game is entirely reactive to the player. The example of this that pissed me off the most was that some enemies just straight up didn’t have patrol patterns and were completely static, only moving if the player did something to move them. While this was sometimes present in the older games, there was always a way to get around them by interacting with the level in some way, or they were at least isolated enough that the player could distract them with a coin or silenced gunshot to draw them away. In Absolution that is just not an option, these guards are often in highly populated areas and are directly in front of some important thing like a checkpoint exit or mission vital interable thing, meaning there is no clever way of getting around them without using instinct, which the player will probably not have much of because of how fast it drains. Additionally, there are plethora of new combat mechanics and skills 47 can do, such as a mark and execute mechanic straight out of Splinter Cell or Max Payne 3, but combat is still practically a death sentence, just like in the old games, once again highly discouraging the use of the new mechanics. Not to mention that the before mentioned mark and execute bullet time thing eats up a lot of instinct, further discouraging the use of it. These are only two examples of the many ways this game shoots itself in the foot, but despite that are a few things I enjoyed about, and that I think could be great implementations in future entries.

Firstly, the Glacier 2 engine looks fantastic, while I am not a fan of the weird grainy filter they put over the game, when it’s not noticeable, the game looks great. The guns also actually feel good to use for once, to the point that I almost wish the game took a more Max Payne direction with its design, leaning more into action rather than stealth. While the story wasn’t great and was full of so many plot holes and questionable decisions, the performances from the cast and the overall presentation was very enjoyable. The game's villain, Dexter, was a particular delight every time he was on screen, despite being dumb as all hell. Finally, the ability to lean against walls and ledges was a fantastic choice and really made stealth feel a lot smoother and slightly more cinematic somehow. I hope this feature returns in 2016. With that, Absolution ends the original Hitman run with a whimper, it is a game I can only really recommend out of pure morbid curiosity; I can’t even recommend the online mode as the servers were shut down years ago. It is a game only worth playing for the sheer fact that you can say you did.

I want to be entirely straightforward about the nature of this review; this is not a review of Serious Sam: The Second Encounter, this is a review of The Second Encounters HD remake and subsequent Xbox 360 port. I will not be going over the design of The Second Encounter, instead I want to discuss my gripes with the HD remake, and then the weird oddities of its console port. With that being said, this is by far the worst way to play what is probably my least favorite Serious Sam experience. I am already not the biggest fan of The Second Encounter, and the issues that stem both from its remake and port job only serve to make it a worse experience.

I will not regale you with the copious amounts of versions, re-releases, and ports that make up the Serious Sam franchise. The only important bits to know for the sake of this review is that the original Serious Sam games, The First and Second Encounters, were released in 2001 and 2002 respectively, and then were both remade come 2009 and 2010. These remakes, appropriately, remade the first two entries in the then new and fancy Serious Engine 3, and with that process came a complete new look. Weapons and enemies had brand new models, textures were upscaled to match the standards for the time, and add some nice new gibs and animations for some of the enemies. Of course, I am probably not touching everything these remakes set out to do, but that is the gist. The problem I have with these remasters is that, in the process of making everything, quite literally, shiny, Croteam severely messed up any sense of art style and cohesion that these games had. The First Encounter gets off slightly easier because the Egypt aesthetic is consistent throughout, so while it is still very shiny and plastic look to it, like every model and texture looks like they have a cheap RTX filter on them at all times, it at least isn't a complete aesthetic shift every couple of levels. The Second Encounter has both the aforementioned Botox injection, and the drastic aesthetic shift; the latter isn’t that big of a deal in the original versions of the game, but here, with the horrible upscaled textures and really shiny everything, it is much more jarring. On top of that, The Second Encounter features levels that take place in massive outdoor areas, but because every surface looks like it was freshly polished near minutes before Sam got there, all of the plants and grass that look normal in the original, look drastically unnatural. As well, a lot of the weapon models were taken directly from the original Xbox port and then upscaled, which does not look good. These models were made for lower resolution textures, and so they also look slightly out of place. But that is all aesthetic criticism, there are some technical critiques I have.

This port does carry over a lot of the bugs that are present in the original PC release, such as enemies getting stuck on walls and terrain, but the port does have some of its own dedicated bugs. Firstly, and the one that was most baffling, is that the AI pathfinding is absurdly broken. It's not that noticeable at first, but as soon as the player reaches the alleyway fight in City of the Gods, it makes itself apparent. In the larger, more open combat arenas, such as the before mentioned encounter, almost all of Ziggurat, and especially in The Grand Cathedral, enemies just start bolting off the complete opposite direction of the player, or worse, the strafe around them. I can not tell you how much ammo was wasted due to these bugs, it is almost impossible to hit enemies that fall victim to these bugs, and it completely destroys the combat structure the game is so dependent on. I am unaware if this bug is present in the PC version, but I never hear it brought up when this game is in discussion, so I can only assume it is a problem in this port. As well, being a PC to console port during the 7th generation of consoles, there are some slight performance issues, and some sluggish controls. There is some slight texture pop in with some of the bigger maps, and some frame drops when a big amount of enemies are on screen, and the load times are just painstakingly long. They make dying so much more of a pain because you are just sitting there on the loading screen scorned by whatever got a cheap shot at you from around a corner. The controls aren't that bad, I have definitely played worse, but they fail in comparison to the smoothness of the original Xbox port. They are very choppy and feel like it's trying to emulate mouse movement. Additionally, the two methods of swapping weapons are not the best; the player can either use the shoulder bumpers to linearly cycle throw weapons, or use the D-pad to open up a weapon wheel to specifically select one. These aren't bad options, but they really should be swapped, like how they are in the 2017 Fusion release of the game, because the Xbox 360 D-pad is probably the worst D-pad out there, and using the bumpers takes way too long during high octane combat encounters.

And that's really it. I would not recommend playing either the original 2010 release of The Second Encounter HD, or its Xbox 360 port. If you are interested in this series in any way, I would highly suggest you either check out the classic release of the game, the original Xbox port, or the modern 2017 Fusion build that is available on PC and all modern consoles, there is no reason to go back and play this version, if only to say that you have like me.

After a couple months of messing around with Dead Space's spin offs and extended universe, I have finally reached the actual sequel for the game I played all the way back in January, and I must say, the wait was well worth it. The team over at EA Redwood Shores, now Visceral Games, identified the few shortcomings of the first Dead Space game, and rectified them, creating one of the most true survival horror experiences that I have played in a while. Honestly, it felt more akin to the roots of the genre than I think even the Resident Evil remakes did when I played through those. A lot like the series signature plasma cutter, Dead Space 2 is a tight, clean, efficient experience; it wastes none of the player's time and is extremely tense throughout its entire run time. Though, I do think some of the parts that make it such a tense experience are where a lot of its downsides come from.

In my review for the first Dead Space, I mentioned how I felt the game struggled with creating a terrifying atmosphere, as well as being somewhat bland with its environments and overall aesthetic. These complaints stemmed from the fact the game refused to leave the player alone, always having someone talking directly to Isaac, or by not leaving any ambiguity and leading the player directly to where they need to be; this not being helped by the very bland looking environments that looked like scraped concept art for Doom 3. So, I am very glad to say that they improved on both of these aspects quite a lot. Firstly, Isaac talks now. I never would have thought that simply having the player character talk could be so integral to creating tension, but it is. By giving Isaac a voice, the developers dissolved the need for the other characters to be constantly hounding the player with objectives, and trying to force agency where there is none .Now there is clear and effective agency because Isaac is his own person who can express personal wants and create his own objectives; no longer does he feel like an errand boy to the other characters, instead he actually feels like the main protagonist. As well, by having Isaac be more independent, there is much more room for the fear to build, and for anticipation to fester. There are now long stretches of time where the player goes without any sort of meaningful interactions with NPCs, meaning that they are going to be alone with their thoughts way more often, which is the key to creating good horror. To add to the fear factor, the game's environments are so much more varied and creative than that of the Ishimura. The game’s setting is a giant city colony orbiting Jupiter called The Sprawl, think the giant ship from Wall-E, but way bigger. Throughout his journey, Isaac stumbles through every possible corner of The Sprawl; from the medical wing that he wakes up in, a (formerly) bustling entertainment complex, an absolutely terrifying elementary school sector, a decadent Unitologist church, a sprawling mine and cave system, to, what is most definitely my favorite area, the quarantined remains of the Ishimura. All of these environments are so much different from the last, each offering new aesthetics paired with challenges that are appropriate to the area. A few of my favorites would be how the new velociraptor necromorphs use the church’s daunting collection of pillars to play mind games with the player and flank them; the necromorph babies and children that wander the halls of the school, and how the Ishimura is just this imposing scar throughout its entire chapters run time, filling the player with memories of dread with every familiar area they come across. As well, the general pacing of each chapter feels so much smother; gone are the individual levels of the first game that start and stop with a tram ride, in their place is now a much more Resident Evil 4 style structure that flows into itself very well, letting the world feel interconnected and not like individual parts. The RE4 comparison doesn’t stop there, however, as I think the developers finally got what made RE4’s combat so great.

Again, to reference my review of the first Dead Space, I described that game's combat as an imitation of Resident Evil 4’s, but without the understanding and nuance that made it so great. I think I can confidently say now, though, that they not only understand it, but made it their own thing. The first Dead Space took the surface level ideas of focusing on location based damage and a wide arsenal of weapons, and kind of did only that. The stasis concept was neat, but definitely not fully explored, and while the focus on cutting off enemy limbs is really cool, it is functionally not different than a headshot. Dead Space 2, however, fully expands on both of those ideas, while also fully embracing the RE4 style sense of momentum that made that game such a classic. RE4 does a lot of things right, but what it does obscenely well is creating a sense of forward momentum; it is hard to describe what I mean by forward momentum, but I think the best way I could is that the make the player constantly push forward, and that is the same feeling Dead Space 2 invokes. The player is constantly pushing through hoards of necromorphs,and through set piece after set piece at lightning speed, constantly keeping the player engaged and on their toes. I got physically exhausted my first time playing RE4, and I get the same feeling here; my heart rate is through the roof every waking minute. Stasis has now been revamped so that it can also launch, as well as freeze and carry them. Because of this, there is a much bigger focus on using the necromorphs severed limbs as projectiles in order to save ammunition. This creates a whole new layer of thinking for the player, on top of prioritizing targets based on who they perceive as more deadly, the player must also think about which enemies have the easiest limbs to cut off so that they don’t have to use up ammo, completely flipping the dynamic of the game on its head, and leading to really intense combat encounters. As well, ammo pickups have been made more scarce in order to encourage this playstyle. This is a great addition that really makes the game stand apart from both its inspirations, and even newer games. But like with every game, there are still some less than favorable aspects that accompany it.

While the combat is way more dynamic and way more exhilarating, some of the enemy placements and spawns are just baffling. There are a sizable number of encounters that have the necromorphs just appear behind the player out of thin air, and while I am sure that they had some animation that showed them coming out of a vent, in the heat of combat when I am facing an entirely different direction, with my back to the end of a hallway that I new was clear a second ago, it feels really cheap. I think this could have been made slightly better if maybe each of the necromorphs had more distinct sounds, or at least some sort of doppler like effect that would let the player know if one was coming. Alas, no, the player just has to suffer. But really that is my only complaint, because other than that it is a fantastic game that is well worth anybody’s time. The atmosphere is great, the combat is phenomenal, the story is very intriguing, though I don’t want to discuss it for spoilers and what not. As well, the voice work in this game is very well done and really helps to make deeper connections with the characters; I am also very glad to see they kept with the very diverse dialects and accents from Extraction, that was something that I thought made the universe of Dead Space feel a bit more real. Again, highly recommend.

Before playing through Spyro: Enter the Dragonfly, I was led to believe by years of watching videos and reading information about the game, that it was an unbearable broken mess that is one of the worst experiences in gaming. I am happy to report that it is, in fact, not that bad. At worst, it is a slightly glitchy, kind of annoying basic platformer; and at best it is a little distracting romp through an otherwise barebones Spyro game. Don’t get me wrong, the game still isn’t very good, it is littered with half baked ideas, technical glitches, and just some of the weirdest aesthetic choices I have ever seen in a game; and from what I can tell, a lot of these bad design choices are the result of a troubled development. But I think the overall experience is ultimately fine, definitely not as dreadful as most people make it out to be.

The big elephant in the room with the entirety of this game is its lack of anything interesting. Nothing stands out, it is all just standard Spyro structure really. The player goes through a linear stage, even more linear for this game's case, collect gems, gather the special items, here they are dragonflies, and the player is done. The Insomniac trilogy, for the most part, proved that this was a winning formula, but what made it so much fun was those slight deviations and changes to the status quo that shook up the players' train of thought. Think of obstacles like the egg thieves, or the entirety of Tree Tops, that recontextualized the environment and the players abilities and asks them to think outside of the box. Enter the Dragonfly does not do that, at all. It is a shallow, hollow imitation of what came before. The game tries to do this; Spyro has a handful of new elemental breath types in conjunction with his fire breath, but nothing is ever done with them. At the most, there will be a section that requires hitting certain objects with different breaths; put out the fire with the ice breath, burn the scarecrows with the fire breath, and electrocute the poles to turn on the power. These breath types would be so much more interesting if, lets say, the player could create platforms on water or lava with the ice breath, or melt metal doors/ice barriers with the fire breath, or maybe even have to electrocute watery areas in order to turn the power on in a level, thus creating a new hazard in the process. But no, the new abilities stop at very surface level challenges that require very little brain power. As well, if it was not clear with my description of what this game considered to be a puzzle, the stages themselves are severely lacking.

Something I really appreciated from the first Spyro game is the abstract sense of nostalgia its set of levels gave me, it was like a happier version of the whole liminal spaces phenomena, like I had been there long ago in a dream I had when I was younger. All of Enter the Dragonflies levels are the exact opposite of this feeling, I have never been to these places before and I would really like to leave. The range of aesthetics this game goes for are just boring as all be; there is a dojo, an island with a luau theme going on, two separate farm levels, a very basic ice level, and a jungle temple. These themes are extremely basic and uninteresting and offer no real intrigue beyond the initial concept; they are quite actually just linear straight shots from the beginning to the end of the level; no alternate paths, no secret hideaways, and barely any of the now standard mini game side missions. Although, I am rather grateful for that last part, but I want to cover that later. The only level that doesn’t follow this structure is the Thieves Hideout, a level where all the egg thieves in the dragon world hoard their treasure, and is themed after The Thousand and One Nights. Not only does it have probably the most interesting concept for a level in the whole game, maybe series (so far at least), but the Arabian theming makes it stand out amongst the much more boring levels in this game; and, of course, there are many winding pathways to traverse and secret areas to find in this level, because what kind of thieves hideout would this be if it didn’t have those. But sadly, this is the only level in the game of this caliber, everything else is just fine. Actually, they might be worse than fine because of just how buggy this game is. There is a decently high likelihood that whenever the player enters a stage, something is going to glitch the hell out; I think I can recall a moment from each of the game's nine levels where some glitch made itself apparent. In some of them, gems would just fall through the floor and be unobtainable unless the level is restarted, others had problems with collision, where some platforms Spyro would just fall right though like he was a ghost, and in one instance in Honey Marshes, the level just refused to load in, leaving me walking on invisible ground unsure of where to go because I couldn't see anything. So, on top of already being rather boring levels, there is a good chance the level is just going to be broken whenever the player hops into them. But, all of this aside, I do think there is some good that this game has, albeit very minimal.

During the games development, one of the bigger issues the developers faced was building the game from the ground up, as they did not have access to any of the original source code or assets from the original trilogy. It is unclear whether or not the publishers, Universal Interactive, had denied them access to those original files, or if they simply didn’t have them on record to use, but either way, this led to many of the games shortcomings. Specifically, the one I want to point out is the change to how Spyro controls, here he is much stiffer, or tighter, depending on your perspective. Spyro in the original trilogy was much more floaty and less precise, which helped those games achieve the more free and dreamlike atmosphere they were going for, but it didn’t work so well in the more critical platforming sections. Which is why I was very happy to find out that Spyro is much more predictable to control here, making the few difficult platforming sections present more palatable. Additionally, like I mentioned earlier, the side mini game missions that plagued the last two games have had their presence greatly reduced; as well, I think they are better designed too. There are now two special gates in every level that lead the player to their respective side mission, these missions vary from piloting vehicles like tanks and UFOs, to sliding down giant mountain sides toboggan style. I like this implementation better than how 2 and YOTD did it because there being two per level doesn’t take away from the level itself, and the new mini games are based on the player’s abilities rather than having their own independent rules and control schemes, allowing them to flow much better into the pacing of each level. On top of this, the bugs that I mentioned earlier aren’t as bad as I made them out to seem, a simple restart of the level will likely fix whatever problems arise, this leaves the levels to be their ok sleeves; they aren’t bad levels, just not all that interesting, distracting for a little while than anything, which I will take a million times over having to a stupid trolley minigame over and over again.

Truly, I don’t think this game is that bad, it has problems, no doubt, but the overall game is fine. I understand why people scream to the high heavens that this game is an abomination, but I just can’t get behind that sentiment, especially when I have played games far far worse than this.

I don’t think I have played a game that so perfectly fits the description of a troubled masterpiece better than Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time. The game has so many great features and gameplay mechanics that really elevate it to the top of the cinematic platformer genre that this series started. But for every great idea that presents itself, not too far around the corner is an equally worse one that just sours the rest of the experience. This game is coming off the back of Prince of Persia 3D, which is not really a game most like to remember when discussing this series. Where PoP 3D struggled with being derivative of the games the original duology inspired, such as Tomb Raider, and was plagued with a disastrous development; Sands of Time is much clearer in its design intentions, and instead of trying to catch up with the industry that had left it behind, Mechner and the team at Ubisoft carved out their own corner of the industry, which then would go on to have an arguably bigger impact of the industry at large than the original games. But, like I mentioned, this game has plenty of problems with it, which may be expected with a game that is truly the first of its kind, and it's these setbacks that prevent me from calling the game great, as much as I really want to. Don’t get me wrong, it is still enjoyable by all means, and maybe a more patient player can call it perfect, but for me, these flaws are too big to ignore.

Let's start with the good, because I think the gravity of the bad only makes sense in the context of the good. After the release of Prince of Persia 2 in 1993, the so-called cinematic platformer genre was continued, and then practically owned by Tomb Raider. The original PoP games were heavily precision based, having the player precisely time their jumps and actively think about spacing in everything that they did; Tomb Raider followed this up by taking those elements and putting them in a 3D space, and then using that 3D space to create gigantic and elaborate levels. But where I think Tomb Raider lost the plot a little bit was when it started focusing more on spectacle rather than skill; starting with the second game, Core Design began to shift their focus of design away from the skill based platforming that the first game heralded, towards using dramatic set pieces that lacked a lot of depth. Now, I believe that shift was mainly due to the yearly release contract that Core Design had with Eidos, so the more surface level, “cinematic” moments were an attempt to hold player intrigue without having to drastically change the core gameplay. But, nonetheless, by the end of the original series run, Tomb Raider kind of lost what made this genre special and unique, and it is here where Sands of Time steps in. Prince of Persia: Sands of Time is still a very cinematic game mind you, the dramatic camera angles and more linear structure reflect that, but those elements supplement the very skillful and challenging platforming. The Prince has a rather simple set of moves: he can jump across ledges, run up and along walls, wall jump, shimmy along and climb up ledges, and spin into a jump from poles. All of these moves are simple to understand, but the game really challenges the application of these abilities. The pacing of each of the moves introduction is really well done and doesn’t overwhelm the player, this leads to a train of thought that builds upon itself with each new introduction, culminating in sections that have the player on their toes the entire time; the descent into and out of the prison, as well as the final climb up the tower were the pinnacle of this. Additionally, the reverse time mechanic really allows the player to try out different options and test new abilities whenever they might get stuck, it is the perfect crutch for new players. The animations also play a big part in this. Much like the original duology, The Prince moves in a very natural way, a way that is predictable, for the most part; this creates a great sense of flow and cohesion whenever the player is doing long platforming sections. But, as good as the platforming is, it is the combat that brings it all down.

Between each of the longer sections of wall running and jumping from ledge to ledge, there is a pretty sizable combat section, that almost entirely overshadow the platforming, and not for any good reason. At first, it looks like it functions very similarly to how combat worked in Prince of Persia 2, with The Prince being surrounded by a group of enemies that he must duel by attacking, dodging, and counter attacking; and it actually goes slightly deeper than this too, letting the player vault over enemies and hitting them from overhead, as well as using the walls to bounce off of and strike a diving blow. But, as soon as the higher tier guards are introduced, it all begins to fall apart. Up until this point, the vault and wall bounce had been the players go to for taking down enemies, but the royal guards upward, enemies are able to block even the strongest of attacks, and whenever a hit gets blocked, it stuns The Prince or knocks him down. Now, this wouldn’t be that bad if there were some invincibility frames on the getting up animation, but there are not, so what usually ends is that The Prince ends up getting damage locked whenever he gets knocked down because each enemy decides to attack one at a time at the precise moment the getting up animation begins. Add on top of this an absolutely awful camera that almost never cooperates, a control scheme that correlates with the camera position and not player position, and an auto targeting system that just doubles all of the aforementioned problems, and you have a combat system that actively screws over the player. And honestly, this is not even the worst part, really what kills any fun that could have been found with this system is just the sheer amount of enemies. There are too many enemies in every single encounter that doesn’t take place within the first hour; the player will constantly be hounded by every manner of high tier enemies, which just perpetuates all of the problems this system already had. Not to mention, The Prince's partner, Farha, isn’t invulnerable, meaning that there is a very high likelihood that an enemy will stray off from the pack and target her, effectively being a game over if this happens. This entire system is plagued with so many issues that it almost overshadows any good that the platforming had.

As per usual with these reviews, I do have a couple of notes that don’t exactly fit with the structure of the rest of the review. I really love all the small nods and references to the original duology, from the little cinematic that plays after a combat encounter is finished, to some of the minor 2D sections that are very reminiscent of its forebears, and just the fact that both of the original games are straight up unlockable as extras, being the only way to legally play these classic games in HD. Thank you Xbox backwards compatibility program. As well, while not explored to its fullest extent, the time reverse mechanic is a neat little feature that I think really sets It apart from; I wish it was explored more though, Tears of the Kingdom I think created a lot of fun puzzles and utility out this idea if you want an example. Also, it absolutely baffles me that they take away the entire mechanic for the last stretch of the game, like, the entire marketing factor of the game is just absent from what is supposed to be its climax. That is such a backwards way of designing a champion's road segment. That's about it I think, it's a game with a lot of good, but just struggles with some poor execution and one of its biggest aspects. So, while I don’t think it exactly stands the test of time, pun intended, it still is a classic and worth a playthrough.

I am very torn on how I feel about Metal Gear Solid. I know deep down that it is a good game, and I can recognize a lot of the great and innovative design choices that set it apart from both games of its time, and even games of today. But, I also can’t help but feel disappointed with it .While it very well might be the game’s monumental legacy overshadowing the actual game and thus overinflating expectations, I don’t think it is that. I think it is more of being indecisive on what it wants to be; it is trying to be both an evolution of the exploration and stealth based gameplay of the first two games, and a more cinematic, set pieces based, boss rush style game, with a much heavier emphasis on the narrative. As a result, it fails in both categories, these two styles don’t mix well. There are many good ideas and mechanics sprinkled throughout the entire game, but they end up feeling either half baked or void of their full potential. It ended up leaving a taste in my mouth that made me wish it would have fully embraced one or the other, instead of trying to have its cake and eat it too.

The stealth and general moment to moment gameplay has been greatly improved and innovated on from Metal Gear 2, which is to be expected with the eight year long gap in between games. Guards' patrol patterns are much less rigid now, they still follow pre-made routes, but they are much more aware than they ever were in the original duology. They will follow Snake’s footprint trails in the snow when in the outside areas, if Snake so much as lightly grazes a metal grate they will immediately become suspicious, and now they have the ability to look up because of the game being fully 3D. As well, the player’s abilities have been ever so slightly tweaked to make sneaking around more interesting. No longer can Snake just pixel perfect take out enemies with a couple of punches, if the player tries to melee an enemy, they will only knock them on the ground for a short time before they get up and trigger an alarm. As well, the player has access to gear such as flash and chaff grenades that can stun enemies and security cameras/turrets respectively, making the planning process of how to get around obstacles much more interesting and dynamic. On the flip side of the design docket, this game features many, many more linear action sequences and set pieces. From scaling down the side of a tower while being shot at by a HIN-D, to running up a million flights of stairs while being chased by a ceaseless amount of guards, this game really makes the player feel like they are in a big budget action movie. I particularly love how over the top the boss fights are, with fights like the HIND-D and and REX fights being sheer spectacles, and Psycho Mantis really challenging the idea of what a boss fight can be by making the player use real world things to gain the advantage. My problem, though, with both of these design styles is that they don’t compliment each other, at least not in the way they are implemented here.

I think the main problem is that these two styles don’t play into each other. Metal Gear Solid is not the first game to have bosses, nor is it the first to have set pieces, but what other games do right is that they build off of the normal gameplay so that those skills translate to whatever those special segments require of the player. Tomb Raiders traps require the same precision and platforming skills that the ordinary gameplay teaches, and a game like Resident Evils bosses usually has some kind of puzzle aspect because that is what comprises the rest of the game. Here though, each boss fight and action sequence has its own little one off mechanics and gimmicks that are found nowhere else in the entire game; the Sniper Rifle and stabilization meds are only really used during the Sniper Wolf fight, the rope climbing mechanic is only utilized in the HIND-D fight, and the Psycho Mantis fight is the only time the games asks the player to really think outside of the box in that manner. The only boss that doesn’t feel weirdly detached from the rest of the game is the fight with Raven, because it has Snake sneaking around setting up traps and taking potch shots at Raven while trying to get spotted by him. It just feels very jarring going from a small stealth segment that plays like the previous games, into a near 30 minute long cutscene that is then followed up by an equally as long boss fight that nowhere near reflects the gameplay of the rest of the game. It's a complete whiplash in design, and creates a disjointed experience, at least for me.

Outside of that very specific criticism, I do have a couple other critiques that are probably a bit more understandable. Firstly, I'm not a big fan of how so many elements from Metal Gear 2 were just reused in this game with very little changes. Stuff like the temperature sensitive key card, the long chase up the stairwell to the roof, Snake getting jumped by four guards in the elevator, and even the final fight with Metal Gear and Liquid being almost identical to how the fight with Metal Gear and Gray Fox just kind of stuck me as a bit lazy. Though it could be that Kojima included these bits as a way to spiritually remake Metal Gear 2 in a way, but who am I to say? As well, Kojima’s writing style is a bit strange, he is very blunt and doesn’t leave a lot of room for interpretation, and for whatever reason is very horny every time a female character is included in a scene. Lastly, the Sniper Wolf fight sucks, it just sucks, nothing more. Overall, I think Metal Gear Solid is an absolute spectacle of a game, it is a wild ride from start to finish. My only complaint is that it feels a little disjointed going from new idea to new idea, but I do think its greater than the sum of its parts.

I feel like a bit of a broken record talking about Hitman: Blood Money, because what I have to say about it is very similar to what I had to say about every previous entry in this series, save for Codename 47. It is a direct improvement over its predecessor, expanding on ideas introduced in the previous entry, and bringing new innovations to the table that make the experience even better than before. Again, broken record, I feel like I’ve said this about each game since Silent Assassin. But, it is true. In fact, I would go as far as to say this is the best game in the series so far, maybe period. I am aware that the World of Assassination trilogy greatly shifts the focus of the series, and so I would argue that Blood Money is the finale and peak of the classic Hitman formula, giving the player the tools to create their own path.

The big step that each game in this series has taken is the expansion of depth, and Blood Money dives even further into this by giving the player near total freedom on how to approach missions. I know I have said this with every game in this series, but it rings most true here. In the previous games, the player could be considered an invasive species; each level functions as its own little ecosystem that the player picks apart piece by piece, exploiting its natural systems and patterns. Blood Money’s approach to this is similar, but different in the fact the player is more of a terraformer, sculpting and curating each mission rather than dismantling it. The opening mission serves as a very direct, but efficient tutorial, introducing the player to a sample of the greater scope the game has, and sowing the seeds of creativity for the more complex missions. It takes time to demonstrate that player is in much more control than they were before; items like the coin show that reliance on AI pathfinding and preset routes isn't the only way to get the jump on enemies, and the use of more unique kill methods like from above strangulation and using a chandelier to kill a target make it clear to the player that there are now better, more interesting ways to take out hits than just using a bullet or sneaking up behind them. I particularly loved the remote bomb and used it quite frequently; dropping it in a place I new a target would be stopping at, going and completing an entirely different objective, and then detonating the bomb from halfway across the map, and subsequently making the death look like an accident, just never got old no matter how many times I did it. Additionally, the before mission loadout selection is a great feature, letting the player bring weapons into the mission that better suit their desired play style; I personally am a big sniper guy, so I would bring a rifle into almost every single mission and try to use it, creating so really funny and creative kills in the process. As well, I think the level design plays a big factor in facilitating this level of player freedom and control.

Blood Money’s set of levels are wholly unique unto themselves, and are not only some of the best in the series, but I think some of my favorites in gaming period. On a purely aesthetic perspective, each of the game's twelve-ish missions are fantastic. The game will have 47 traveling across the good old US of A, going from the grimy docks of Baltimore, to the hedonistic casinos of Las Vegas, and everywhere in between, except Texas sadly. This means that the player gets a good look at all the different environments and landscapes that the US has to offer, and serves as a nice breath of fresh air from the usual rainy streets of Hong Kong or snowy government buildings of Russia. From a mechanical perspective, this game's set of levels blow everything else this series has done out of the water. Blood Money adds a new feature that lets 47 volts over small ledges and climb up certain walls, this creates a level of verticality that the previous games just did not have, and lets the player get really creative with mapping out different routes. Sure, missions like “Traditions of the Trade” and “Basement Killing” took place in big, multilevel buildings, but that is not comparable to figuring out that you can bypass a security checkpoint in “Death of the Mississippi” by climbing up one of the support banisters, or doing a similar thing in “A Vintage Year” by shimmying up a drainage pipe to get the drop on the target without having to take out one of the guards. Elevators too have been recontextualized because of this. Every elevator now has a hatch that 47 can climb through, meaning that if the player studies a target's routes well enough, or lures them into an elevator, the player can execute the aforementioned above ground strangulation that not only kills the target, but also hides the body in the process. No spoilers, but I made a great use of this in the penultimate mission. This level of verticality and level complexity opens the door for some of the most absurd and fun ways to complete missions that I have ever seen. But, of course, the game is not without its faults, even if they are few and far between.

I really don’t think any of Blood Money’s missteps are detrimental to the overall experience, if anything they are just ideas that weren’t fully fleshed out. The new notoriety meter is interesting on paper; if the player is too reckless in a mission and is spotted doing suspicious things by NPCs or security cameras, then guards are more likely to take notice of and be more suspicious of the player in the following missions. In theory, this would make the player want to be more cautious with their playstyle, but the game has an option to just pay off witnesses with bribes at the end of each mission, effectively negating any meaning the notoriety meter had. Mind you, though, unless the player decides to go totally postal in a level, they will only gather a small amount of notoriety, even if they are a little bit reckless; I think I only gained a total of thirty points on the meter during my playtime, and that was easily paid off with what was practically pocket change in comparison to what the game gives you for completing a hit. It is neat that it's there, and it definitely had a small amount of influence on how I played, but overall it could be missing from the game and nothing would be lost. Similarly, the story is a feature that has very little presence. I will say that Blood Money is the most ambitious entry when it comes to its story. The premise of 47 being hunted down by a rival agency, and that same agency trying to bring down the ICA from the inside is really intriguing, and the moral commentary of the nature and regulation of cloning rings a bit close to home with the current political climate. But it runs into the same problem that the other games had where the missions and overarching plot don’t feel connected, it feels like a series of unrelated missions that are intersected by a vaguely intriguing story. There are subtle foreshadowing moments that I really appreciate from diegetic NPC dialogue and columns in the end of mission newspaper, but those are only minor things, the overall series of events just feels disjointed. Even the prequel mission to Contracts feels shoehorned in, with it randomly being the third mission, and its fallout only being vaguely mentioned. The story is somewhat interesting at best, and completely missable at worst.

I think I mentioned in my Contracts review that the Hitman formula finally clicked with me, that I was finally beginning to understand the inner workings of this series. If that is the case, then Blood Money is the game that has made me fall in love with it. By simply giving the tools to the player, the developers at Io Interactive created an experience that encourages creativity, and really asks the player to think outside of the box. The linear nature of Codename 47 has been completely shed, and from its cocoon comes some of the best sandbox design ever seen. Not only do I think this is my favorite Hitman game, I think this might be one of my new favorite games of all time.

When it comes to the current boomer shooter scene, and really any movement that preys on nostalgia, a lot of the projects that come out tend to label themselves as a retro throwback made to emulate the feel of those old games people enjoyed, but oftentimes that is where they stop. Some choose to wear the guise of an older game in order to subvert expectations and do something new, while others settle with simple imitation of the classics; sadly the latter is more common than the former. Games like Prodeus, Warhammer 40k: Boltgun, and Slayers X, while having merit in somethings, ultimately just feel like hollow echoes of their influences. Ion Fury, at first, looks like it is going to be in a similar situation; a game that is trying emulate the likes of the Build Engine trinity, with Shelly Bombshell formerly being a Duke Nukem character, and the fact that the game is actually built in a heavily modified version of the original Build Engine. But, throughout the game's run time, it slowly unveils itself as something more; it is a direct evolution and improvement over its inspirations, it keeps the same feel but without the clunkiness and outdated design tropes.

The importance of the Build Engine games, that being Duke Nukem 3D, Blood, and Shadow Warrior, was their intricacy. The levels that make the worlds that these games take place in had a level of detail and openness that other FPS games just didn’t have; Duke Nukem’s levels were chalked full of air vents that acted as alternate routes and consumable items, like jet packs and steroids, that could lead to complete sequence breaks and level skips if used properly. Blood also had this, but added onto it with much more in depth combat and brutal combat, asking the player not just to aim and shoot, but to actively engage with the 3D environment by using crouch and jump to dodge fire, rather than just finding cover. In a modern context, these innovations aren’t anything unique, they have been integrated into the standards of game design, and as such, are just expected. This is the trapping that the boomer shooters mentioned earlier fall into, they replicate the innovation without improvement, creating a flat circle of design. Ion Fury sets itself apart by going beyond this; it uses the design tropes set up by its forefathers and fully explores them. Levels don’t just have one or two ways to approach, they have a hundred; there could be two different sets of air vents that lead to different positions that flank a group of enemies, there could be an explosive wall that kills the enemies on the other side, there could be a series of banisters or edges that can be jumped across in order to gain the high ground, and so on and so forth. Once the first one of these alternate routes is found, the player's brain starts to seek them out and begins to notice more of them as the game progresses; it keeps the player engaged and gives them a sense of freedom in a linearly structured game. It's not just the physical level geometry that keeps the player engaged, the way the enemies and the player interact also has a level of depth to them not seen in other games. The most blunt example of this is how the robot headcrab enemies overload and explode when hit with the electric baton, offering an ammo free alternative to taking out these smaller enemies. My favorite though is the centipede enemies; these guys break apart into shorter and shorter versions of themselves if you hit their body, but will die in one go if you get a perfect headshot, encouraging the player to slow down for a second so that the encounter won’t get out of hand. Additionally, much like blood before it, the enemies that fire projectiles, particularly the grenade grunts and bow grunts, really keep the player on their toes. If the player just runs around standing straight up like they would in any other game, the will get blown to bits; but, if they utilize the crouch and jump as not just platforming mechanics, but also ways to juke out enemies, these types of enemies become some of the easiest in the game. But, of course, these enemies wouldn’t be nearly as fun to fight if the arsenal of weapons wasn’t up to snuff, and they very much are.

I really appreciate the balancing and utility of the weapons in Ion Fury. Most FPS games that feature weapons with alternate fire mechanics make the mistake of either making the alt fires way too good, to the point that they overshadow the base fire, or they are way too gimmicky and not worth using. Ion Fury strikes the perfect balance between these two sides by having the alt fires be not too drastically different from the base fires, but different enough to where scenarios in which one would be better than the other can be differentiated. The Ion Bow is the weapon that I think first demonstrates this. The single bolt base fire is great for taking out the group of enemies right before the first boss because of how precise it is, giving clean head shots to all the singular enemies in that wave. But, the overload alt fire where it shoots out dozens of groups of bolts in quick succession proves to be extremely useful for both the boss and its accompanying flying drones that move sporadically. My favorite weapon in the game, the bowling bombs, do a similar thing, just on a much more subtle scale. The alt fire acts like a traditional grenade, Shelly lights the wick and lobs it in a general direction, and then it explodes, badabing badaboom, simple and reliant. But the base fire is a bit more tricky; it can either be rolled along the ground immediately to hit long range targets, or held a bit longer to activate a homing feature that can hit enemies from around corners, making it an extremely versatile weapon. The only weapon that doesn’t really fit this mold is the Loverboy, the starting pistol. The Loverboy’s alt fire lets Shelly pull a Clint Eastwood and auto headshot up to three enemies at a time, which is objectively better than its single shot base fire. Although, I think this is fine because it is the starting pistol, and it grants it relevance even into the final level of the game; as well it's not the easiest thing to get the hang of, so there is a bit of a skill gap. All the other weapons are great too, I just don’t really want to mention all of them here. That being said though, there are a couple of gripes I have with Ion Fury, but they are mostly to do with the porting job to the Nintendo Switch.

As mentioned, the version of this game that I played was the port released for the switch back in 2020, this is the version I bought years ago when it first came out, and I didn’t feel like buying it again on Steam or Xbox. This port of the game is pretty good all things considered; the frame rate does dip, and sometimes slows to a crawl, when big explosions happen or lots of enemies are on screen, but these instances are few and far between. My main issues come in the form of accessibility and options, there are very few of them. Firstly, there is no button mapping, just two alternate control methods, which is better than nothing, but these alternate options don’t change the things I wanted. The game has bumper jumper set to the right bumper and makes the player use the D-pad to toggle between weapons. The first of these is an issue because it means the player can not shoot and jump at the same time, which I am used to as a console FPS fan, but it still sucks regardless as it was so close to being functional, it just needed to be moved to the left bumper. The second issue is bad because having weapon selection mapped to the D-pad means that the player can't move and select weapons at the same time, which is a big issue. The game tries to mitigate this by having the shotgun’s grenade alt fire be a shortcut to the other side of the selection wheel, but I would have rather had a proper weapon wheel like in Dusk or Doom Eternal. Additionally, the games draw distance can be a little low, leaving things far off in the distance hard to see, this is only really bad in some of the levels set in the open streets or subway tunnels, otherwise it is not that big of a deal.

Ion Fury stands proud as one of the originators of this boomer shooter phenomena, standing alongside both Dusk and Amid Evil. It is a prime example of how to take what was set up by its influences, and improve upon them in order to unleash the full potential of those ideas. As this new genre continues to grow, and more and more games come out that simply want to be like the classics and nothing more, I hope more games look to what Ion Fury has done, to see how to properly create a meaningful homage to the past.

A short review for an even shorter game. Dead Space: Ignition is a short prologue to the events of Dead Space 2, and is entirely made up of small puzzle sections, segmented by a motion comic that tells a somewhat intriguing story. There are three puzzles in total: a pipedreams type light puzzle, a reverse tower defense game, and a racing one. The light puzzle is definitely the best and has the most variety with its challenges, the tower defense game is neat but can really just be brute forced every time and that will get the job done, and the racing one is bad because the controls for it suck, they are way to clunky and slow for how fast the player icon is going. They are serviceable and are mostly fun for the games short run time, which the same can be said for the story. The motion comic segments are, again, intriguing, and nothing more really. I have yet to play Dead Space 2, but I can say that this game has got me a little excited to see what happens; but that's all this game is really good for, set up for the next big Dead Space game. Which is not necessarily a bad thing, the game was free with pre-orders and is free on Gamepass, so I don’t think anyone was really expecting much out of it. That being said though, it's still enjoyable, and at the very least doesn’t overstay its welcome

Normally, when I play through a game, I will accumulate about two and a half pages worth of notes on whatever game I am playing. These couple of pages are usually filled with things about the game that I find interesting, as well as any meaningful ideas I find interesting; I find that writing down interesting findings helps me remember the games better later on, as well as help me better write the reviews for them. Spyro: Year of the Dragon has barely a page for its entry. This is not because I think it is a bad game, not by any means; it is honestly a great improvement over Spyro 2. But, that improvement doesn’t necessarily come from a place of innovation, rather a correcting step backwards; a step that was definitely needed, but in the process, creates an experience that is very much more of the same.

What I have come to realize is that Spyro suffers from what I like to call the Tomb Raider dilemma. This is a dilemma where the first game in the series comes out the gate near perfect, and it leaves the developer in a situation where they don’t really know where to go. Either, they do more of what works and risk being criticized as derivative, or they try new stuff and risk alienating the players. Spyro 2 attempted the latter and, for the most part, failed; it ended up being an experience that just lacks the sense of flow and progression that the first game had, and replaced with boring and infuriatingly bad mini games and side quests. Conversely, Year of the Dragon corrects the additions made by Spyro 2 by having its side quests function within the realm of the games core mechanics, rather than them having their own proprietary controls and mechanics. The primary form of these changes comes from the new playable characters; there are five of them in total, and while each of them do play differently from Spyro, they aren’t too dissimilar and the objectives of their stages/quests are the same as the rest of the levels, that being to collect gems and save dragon eggs. Compare this to the mini games from Spyro 2 like the ice hockey and or crystal popcorn section that don’t follow the core gameplay loop and are really jarring in conjunction with the rest of the game. Though there are still a couple of mini game type challenges that made their way into Year of the Dragon, they control way better than the predecessors and are overall more fun; the skate boarding challenges are a great example of this. But, these improvements are not without drawbacks.

Year of the Dragon is a big game, it is bigger than Spyro 2, and it is much bigger than the first game; and because of how this game streamlines and uses the Spyro gameplay loop, it is really noticeable just how big this one is. Spyro 2, despite its bad game design choices, still distracts you from its increased run time by having you do different tasks; but here in this one, it is very much noticeable. The new characters do help slightly with variety, but their sections are so few and far in between, it feels like an eternity before you get to play as one of them again. Because of this, and the prior mentioned streamlining, a lot of this game’s levels kind of overstay their welcome. Personally, I felt really burned out by the end of the game because I felt like I just played a longer version of Spyro 1, which isn’t a bad thing per se, but nonetheless that's how I felt. Additionally, none of the levels reach the peak that they should, there is no real crescendo if you will. Spyro retains all the abilities he gained in Spyro 2, yet there is no level that pushes the player to utilize those abilities in interesting and creative ways; the game is just content with giving the player easy as all get out levels throughout the entire game until it is just over. There is a slight difficulty spike in the final world that I enjoyed, but still nothing stands out. I don’t think I could name a level from this game that isn’t one of the new characters' home world missions. It all just adds up to a game that just doesn't do a whole lot

I know the general fan consensus is that this is the best game in the trilogy, and I can understand that, but for me it's just ok. I think overall Year of the Dragon is a good game, not quite as good as Spyro 1, but definitely better than Spyro 2. It just doesn’t do anything that hasn’t already been seen in the previous games, both in terms of gameplay and aesthetic. It is more of the same, albeit a good more of the same.

I am going to be entirely honest with you, I did not finish Prince of Persia 3D. Not because I didn’t want to, there is some good in this one that I think makes it interesting. Overall, it is just a clone of the PS1 Tomb Raider games; the controls are also better I'd say, with lots of customization options for both controller and keyboard, the graphics hit that late 1990’s Quake 2 style graphics that I personally really enjoy, and the music is pretty damn good. The level design, from what I played at least, is ok; again very reminiscent of some of the more ok levels from like Tomb Raider. The combat too is just serviceable, functionally being the same as the duals in the original duology, but in 3D with some fancy particle effects. The reason I quit, however, is because I could not get this game to run properly for the life of me.

To make a long story short, PoP 3D’s development was a dumpster fire, riddled with inner company drama and a bad case of an older developer not understanding newer design principles. For that reason, the game didn’t sell well, and has been abandoned by its current IP holder, left to rot in the annals of the internet. So, currently, the only two ways to play this game is to either get a physical copy for the Dreamcast release of the game, or try to find a pirated copy of the original online. I choose the latter, as the prior was just not an option for me. I was fine with this at the beginning, as I have a little bit of prior experience with emulating games. But, as I soon found out, this was nowhere near as simple. It took me nearly a month to finally get the file I took off of a sketchy website to finally work, something about the format of the file not being right, and not having the proper programs installed to run it; things that I just do not understand. Eventually though, I did get it to boot up, but I quickly found out that the game was just a broken mess. Firstly, the cutscenes didn’t work; secondly, the frame rate moved at a snail’s pace; and finally, the input lag was unbearable. No cutscenes is something I can work with, just look up the scenes on Youtube and you get the same effect. But a shitty framerate and input lag? That is not something that can be ignored; and let me tell you, I tried, I really tried to fix it. I went to every corner of the internet that had even the smallest info on Prince of Persia 3D, which frankly isn’t a lot of places, but nonetheless I did, and I found nothing. The one place that did have a ROM hack to fix these issues didn’t even end up working because apparently the files were not compatible with my version of the game. Hell, I even tried editing the program compatibility to run at a lower resolution and FPS to see if that would work, but all I ended up doing is just breaking the game further.

So, I have given up. This one bad game is not worth the amount of gray hairs it has given me, and I am not willing to teach myself a whole bunch of computer mumbo jumbo just to get a crappy PC game from 1999 to work on my laptop. Maybe if I had just put down the money and bought a Dreamcast, and tracked down a copy of this game for it, I would be singing a different tune, but it is just not worth the effort to play what is just a bad Tomb Raider clone. If you can somehow miraculously get this game to work, I will applaud you, but as for me? I am done trying to get this dumbass game to work. I’ll go spend my time playing something that actually works.

Metal Gear 2 is a major step up from both its predecessors. The sheer scope of the game is extremely impressive for the time; the giant interconnected map, the drama of the story, the creative puzzles and problem solving, and the overall presentation far exceeds that of Metal Gear 1 and Snake’s Revenge, although the later wasn’t all that outstanding in any of those fields to begin with. As well, it really feels like Kojima came into his own with this project; even for somebody like me who hasn’t played any of the future games, and only knows bits and pieces from internet osmosis, Kojima’s signature style can clearly be seen. It genuinely felt like Kojima cared much more about this project, much more than he did the first game; and whether it be because he was much more invested in this entry, or that he just wanted to one up Snake’s Revenge, it has culminated in an experience that is worth any players time, even non die hard Metal Gear fans.

The first Metal Gear’s narrative was nothing to write home about, it was simple and really only served to progress the game forward; in comparison, Metal Gear 2’s story is like The Godfather. Characters are actual characters and not plot macguffins, the player becomes invested in their personal stories and wants to see them make it to the other side, or their demise in the case of the antagonists. But even then, the game’s antagonists are honestly sympathetic at times. The returning Dr. Madnar and Gray Fox are both stand out examples of this; they both have similarly tragic but understandable backstories that led them to where they are, but are still very clearly villains who have done heinous things. Additionally, in what was probably the biggest surprise this game had, each of the characters play into the games overall thesis of war and the never ending cycle of violence. All the characters have been shaped by war in some way, like how Gustava was separated from her partner by the Berlin Wall, or how Snake himself has some form of PTSD from the Outer Heaven Uprising that keeps him from just quitting the operation. Hell, there are even children NPCs that can be found roaming the facilities of Zanzibar Land who have been displaced by NATO’s war efforts against Big Boss and his team of mercenaries; to which later Big Boss calls them the next generation of soldiers to fuel the machine. Mind you, this is all from a game that came out in the year 1990, on a computer system that has all been but forgotten to time; this was during a time where narratives in video games didn’t ever go past “save the princess” or “kill the bad guys”. This story was so far ahead of its time it's almost absurd. Not to say that the story is perfect, or even all that serious; many of Kojima’s “isms” do slightly detract from the story's overall impact; some of the dialogue is particularly campy, and Dr. Madnar breaking the fourth wall by name dropping the MSX and Konami are a bit distracting, although it is rather funny. Additionally, the cinematics are much more dramatic and lengthy, which I assume is emblematic for the rest of the series going forward, as is everything previously stated. But it is not just the presentation that took a major leap forward, the game design is also just leagues better from the first entry.

Both Metal Gear and Solid Snake function quite similarly in terms of progression; the player is dropped into a large, interconnected map where they must collect key cards, weapons, and gadgets to move forward. But where they differ is in the players' agency. For the most part, the challenge in Metal Gear’s design was learning enemy patrol patterns and then maneuvering around them so as to not get caught, which is fine, but it is the only form of interaction the player has; the player does have weapons they can use, but using them will set off the alarm, and the gadgets are all used for puzzles. It is a one sided interaction. Solid Snake fixes this issue by not changing, but rather evolving this design concept. For starters, the enemy patrol patterns are way less complex, but in turn, have become harder to recognize; but that doesn’t really matter all too much because a new map has been added that lets the player see where enemies are and where they are headed. Combine this with the larger maps and the ability to crawl under certain walkways, cracks in the wall, and under crates; the player has much greater control over how they navigate through each area; and when the player does inevitably trigger the alarm, it actually feels like a mistake made by player, rather than the jank of the game. Additionally, Snake’s array of gadgets that he collects are far greater; almost all of the items, outside of a small few, have utility functions outside of their associated puzzle. The camouflage mat is a particular standout, letting the player create their own cover to hide under on the go, letting the player be a bit more risky with their movements. On top of that, the keycards have been ever so slightly altered; they are still numbered and the player has to still equip them to open a door, but now for every three that the player collects, they can then be combined into a colored card that functions as all three of those keys, making the repeated opening and closing of doors when backtracking more convenient and player friendly. On that note, backtracking might be the only criticism I have in regards to this section. The greater majority of the game is paced very well, it is only the last third of the game that has some unnecessary backtracking, but that is a minor negative drop in an otherwise fantastic sea of design.

I would like to close by mentioning the fact that I played Metal Gear 2: Solid Snake, as well as Metal Gear 1 and Snake’s Revenge, in the Metal Gear Master Collection Volume 1 that was released last year. I will probably not be returning to this collection for future entries in this series, not because the collection is bad, but because I already own original copies of each of the games on their original hardware, and I think it would be better to play them that way. So with that, I wanted to say that I think the collection is a great value for anybody looking to get into the series. The emulation of the two MSX titles, the NES port of the first game, and Snake’s Revenge are all great; the quality of life features such as save states and virtual manuals really make these the definitive versions of these classic titles, though I wish you didn’t have open a browser on my Xbox to just look at the manual. I would highly recommend all of these original titles, as well as the Master Collection as the format to play them, although you could probably skip Snake’s Revenge and miss nothing.

Hitman: Contracts is a much more refined experience compared to its predecessors; where Codename 47 served as a blueprint, and Silent Assassin a exploration of the limits of that blueprint, Contracts took what was learned from that exploration and stripped it down to only what worked. The outcome of this is what very well might be the best campaign this series has to offer, so far at least. It offers a level of depth, matched with a level of efficiency, that is unmatched by the prior games; it is exactly the type of experience that you would want from a Hitman game.

I think the best word to describe Silent Assassin is BIG. The game is borderline bloated; the levels are of a daunting size, the amount of options the game gives the player are overwhelming, and the overall run time is the longest in the whole series, World of Assassinations online notwithstanding. But despite that, there was still a lot of good that Silent Assassin did; particularly the complexity of the levels and freedom of approach are innovations of note. Contracts’ challenge was to take those innovations, and condense them down into an experience that isn’t as overwhelming to tackle; and I think it did an absolutely fantastic job doing so. Contracts gives the player roughly the same amount of information per mission as Silent Assassin did, if not slightly less, but the map size has been greatly reduced, making for a much more player friendly trial and error stage. As well, the smaller levels lead to much more dense areas that offer more of the creative problem solving that Silent Assassin introduced. A lot of these strengths can be seen through the remade levels from Codename: 47; the majority of the Contracts levels are remade or remixed versions of the best levels from the first game. The objective is usually the same, and the process of going about it is generally similar, but the levels have been expanded to include more elements of player freedom. Traditions of the Trade makes its triumphant return here, and serves as a great example of this idea. Instead of spawning you at the front of the hotel with no weapons, the game spawns the player to the left with a briefcase sniper rifle, this immediately opens the door for many possibilities. If the player remembers how the level functions from Codename: 47, they can take the rifle to the right side of the building and take out the guard on the balcony of the room one of the targets is in, making that kill way easier. As well, while I didn’t find it, I am almost positive there is a way to get the rifle past the metal detector and into the building because there is a hole in the roof of the swimming pool where the second target usually is; compare this to the way more linear nature of the first game’s iteration of the level. This is just a taste of what the refinement that Contracts offers, as this level is pretty tame in its changes when compared to the more extreme reworks of the other levels, as well as the few original levels.

I still do think there is a bit of an information problem, however. Not to say that the game doesn’t give the player enough information, it gives maybe slightly less than Silent Assassin, which is fine; the problem I had is just with how busy levels are and how much information they drop on the player. For the majority of the missions this is not a problem, as they are again remade versions of Codename: 47 levels, meaning that the player should have some background information as to how the mission functions. But for the few original missions, while they are really good, there is a lot of information to process because of how dense they are. The Beldingford Manor mission was probably the biggest offender of this. This level is full of winding mazes and secret passageways that make for a very complex and intricately designed level; and while I think this mission is very good, arguably the best in the game, it took me hours upon hours just to digest all that this levels has to offer, and left me feeling more overwhelmed than it did accomplished. Though I do understand that this very well might just be a me problem, so take the criticism with a grain of salt. That being said though, there is one level that I think is objectively bad, and that is the remake of Plutonium Runs Loose from the first game, Deadly Cargo. The objectives of this mission are actually simpler from its original incarnation, all you have to do is get on the boat and kill the target rather than kill him and defuse the bomb, but the method of going about it is entirely different. In the original, you had to sneak your way onto the boat by killing one of the crew members and taking their uniform; in this new one you have to infiltrate a swat team that is staked out in one of the warehouses in harbor, and then kill the target as they’re assaulting the boat. The game never hints that you have to infiltrate the swat team, the most it does is tell you that the police have locked down the harbor, and I guess this is supposed to be the hint, but I don’t understand how you are supposed two and two together with that little amount of information. As well, this solution entirely goes against the philosophy of player freedom that the other levels, and the whole previous game had been building. Again, the rest of the game is wholly a masterpiece in its own philosophy; this one level is just a giant sour spot on an otherwise fantastic game.

Overall, Hitman: Contracts is a fantastic game that breaks down and refines the Hitman formula into an experience that not only is much more manageable when compared to its predecessor, but also offers a new level of depth with that approach. While it does have some slight miscommunication problems, those issues are entirely overshadowed by just how fantastic the rest of the game is. I highly recommend and am eager to see how or if it is topped by what comes next, because I think it will be very hard to do so.

As much as I loved this game, I don't have a whole lot to say about it, other than it is really good. I have tried writing a long ass review that goes in depth into why its so great, but every time I would write draft I just felt silly trying to describe how this game functions. It is one of those games that you really just have to play to witness its greatness. The one thing I will specially note is that the arm canon is one of the coolest and most versatile tools I have ever seen in a game, letting you blow up and break apart entire sections of levels; it's like Red Faction or Bad Company of crack cocaine. There is not a greater feeling of getting the drop on a group of enemies or cheesing your way to an objective because you decided to blow a hole through the floor, wall, or ceiling. I will say that if you aren't a fan of this type of "Woo Shooter" FPS game, you probably won't like it; but if you are, it is seriously one of the best games out there.

I am not at all familiar with the rail shooter/light gun genre of games, I think my only real experience with them is playing those Terminator and Alien arcade cabinets at my local Dave n’ Busters at my friends birthday parties. So needless to say that my expectations for Dead Space: Extraction were very low; I expected it to be just an overall boring spin-off that shared some aesthetical similarities with its older sibling. It wasn’t until I booted up the game and saw that this was an in-house Visceral Games project, that I realized there might be more to this game than I initially suspected; and boy, was I right. Dead Space: Extraction not only coherently translates Dead Space’s atmosphere and aesthetic to an entirely linear experience, but also turns the Resident Evil 4 inspired combat into an arcade-like experience that uses the same mechanics and ideas, but in a much better way.

While personally I didn’t think the atmosphere in the first Dead Space was anything unique, I still recognize that it more than than effective for other people and appreciate all of the different facets that went into building that atmosphere; the sound design, art direction, and level design are all really great and make Dead Space stand out amongst its peers. But, the challenge that Dead Space: Extraction faced was taking all of those aspects that were used to create that sense of dread, and making it work in the much more linear and restrictive format of a rail shooter. The thing is though, the way Visceral went about doing this was not a one to one translation, but instead, a B-movie horror flick reinterpretation of those original ideas. Mind you, it is much more Evil Dead 1 than Army of Darkness, as in it still takes itself seriously, but that cheese is still very much there, almost in an ironic way. Firstly, the cast of characters that the story follows is much more colorful than the ones in Dead Space 1, with each character following typical horror movie tropes; McNeil is the rough and tough PI who doesn’t take shit from no one, Eckhardt is the coward turned traitor, Lexine is the damsel, and Weller is the bastard with a heart of gold. All of these characters are entertaining to follow and their chemistry with one another is honestly pretty fun, though some of the line deliveries from the voice actors are a little off sometimes, but I think this just adds to the endearing charm of this band of misfits. As well, I find it very funny that the entire structure and flow of the games story is the exact opposite of the first game; Extraction starts you out right where Dead Space ended, at the loading bay on the planet colony, and then proceeds to hit all the major set pieces from the first game, nearly beat for beat. It creates this cool situation where the player, assuming they have played Dead Space 1, knows what's coming, or at least they know how that area is going to play out; which I guess is just the nature of prequels, but I still find it cool nonetheless.

The combat also had to shift in order to accommodate the rail shooter genre, and similarly to the story and atmosphere, I think it works way better in this game. Dead Space 1 was very liberal with its use of the necromorphs, which is the norm for the horror game genre. But, what I ended up having a problem with is that Dead Space tried to have its cake and eat it too by having those traditional horror elements, but with combat that is comparable to Resident Evil 4 and 5. This doesn’t work because any tension that the game tries to build up is immediately dissolved once the player realizes that the guns and equipment available lets them absolutely make clowns out of the enemies. Extraction fixes this problem by fully embracing its RE4 roots and just sends droves upon droves of necromorphs, and just lets the player use their arsenal to its fullest extent. The plasma cutter is just as satisfying to use as it is in the first game, the force gun goes from being too good, to actually being used for its purpose as a “get off me” tool, and the flamethrower has gone from just ok, to being the most satisfying and effective weapon in the game; lighting hoards of necromorphs on fire when you get overwhelmed and watching the drop like flies is so much fun. There is even a new pistol that, while initially not sounding that good, ends up becoming a great workhorse tool because of how handy the alt fire is. All of this is elevated even more by the masterful use of the Wii Remotes motion controls; as expected from a light gun, the Wii Remote is used to aim and shoot at enemies, but the game also utilizes the controllers that I would have never expected. The joystick on the Nunchuk is what is used to switch weapons, and not the D-pad like I had originally expected; this creates a great sense of fluidity during combat encounters, making the swapping of weapons like second nature, rather than an inconvenience like it normally does. As well, I particularly like how, to switch to the alt fire of weapons, you tilt the Wii Remote to the side; much like how the Nunchuk makes the switching weapons smoother, this use of the motion controls makes the atl fires so much more usable because you can just switch to them effortlessly on the spot.

To close out, I would like to mention a couple of criticisms of the game. For a Wii game, it runs fine, it sometimes stutters slightly when there is an abundance of particle effects on screen, or when there are a lot of enemies. While I do overall like the use of motion controls, the way they are used for the power saw is just not good; much like how it operates in Dead Space, the weapon fires a buzz saw that the player can then parade around with and cut off necromorph limbs like a chainsaw. In Extraction it still functions like that, but the saw can also be moved along the Z axis, which doesn’t really work because it is very hard to tell how far or how close an enemy is on screen. Overall though, I thoroughly enjoyed Dead Space: Extraction, it is a fun and innovative take on both Dead Space’s original genre, as well as the light gun/rail shooter format.