Fantastic game. The art style really holds up and makes it stand out among it's 6th gen shooter peers. The gun play all of the guns feel great to use, especially the crossbows and shot guns. The one exception I found to that, however, is the AR and Uzi stand in. both weapons sound and look great, just are not accurate in the slightest, pretty much having to be point blank to get any real damage in. The levels are also really fun; taking elements from the likes of Goldeneye/Time Splitters, albeit slightly more linear. The bosses are probably the worst parts of the game by far. The first is fine enough, it just asks you to avoid the doctors projectile syringes like that one Wolfenstein 3D boss. But the others are all just hitscan shoot em till they die, and are also somehow way more accurate than you with the same guns. The only other complaint I have is the lack of auto save; there are checkpoints throughout the levels, but the player has to manually save in the menu in order to save progress. Which is fine on paper, but unlike other games that use a similar method, the game never prompts you to save at the end of a level. So, if your game crashes once or twice like mine did, you're sent back to your last save like six missions back. Overall, though, XIII is a great game with fun gun play, an intriguing story, and an aesthetic that looks great even today.

Wow. Just wow. Tunic is seriously one of the most creative games I have ever played. The method of solving puzzles and gaining new abilities by just reading the manual and going "oh shit, I can do that" is simply incredible. I don't want to get anymore specific at risk of spoiling it for someone, but the puzzles are as good, if not better, than even the likes of Myst. There are still good things about it beyond just the puzzles though. The games approach to respawns is very refreshing, instead of just dying and going back to the last save, the plops you back to the last little campfire thing with a fraction of the consumables that you used before dying. It makes death feel like an actual punishment rather than just a temporary set back; it also makes boss less cheeseable, meaning you actually have to "get good". On that subject, the combat in this game was a very big surprise, as it takes after the souls games more so than Zelda. Lots of dodge rolling, parrying, and memorizing boss patterns till its a science. I've never played a souls-like but I assume that is what it's like. Overall fantastic game, the only knock I have against it were the souls-like elements. Which weren't objectively bad, just not my cup of tea.

Absolutely incredible game, the peak of the Meto games. The guns have been improved from Last Light, not as drastically as from 2033 to LL, but still great quality of life improvements. The pool of weapons has been decreased to around five to six guns, each filling in your basic FPS archetypes: semi-autos, shotguns, snipers, and pistols. But to accommodate for this, each of the guns have a frame that the player can customize to their liking; a simple Kalashnikov semi-auto can turn long distance hunting rifle, or the shotgun can be outfitted with two to four barrels for maximum fire power. The audio and visual design for these weapons are great too, the shotgun especially got an upgrade, becoming my most used gun almost solely on how satisfying it is to unload the chamber after firing. As well, Exodus does away with the currency system of the prior entries, and instead uses a new crafting system in order to make ammo, med packs, and mask filters. The system is very simple and can be done at any point during gameplay, though I would not recommend doing so during a fire fight. As long as you have the resources you can craft anything you made need, and said resources can be found all around the new semi open world. For this entry, Artyom leaves the cramped walls of the titular metro and goes with a gang of fellow soldiers to find a safe place to live on the surface. This means the player gets to explore the lands of post nuclear war Russia, but not in the traditional way you think. Each chapter takes you to a different, bite sized map that the player can explore through out that part of the story, and each location has a unique aesthetic and story that makes them standout. None of these maps are to overwhelmingly big, or disappointingly small, they are a great middle ground between the two. The staple morality system also makes its return in Exodus, but this time a little easier to navigate. Instead of being extremely vague like in 2033 and Last Light, the actions you must do to gain the good ending are, almost, told directly to you. Often times it is "don't kill anyone" or "free the slaves", which is very apricated, but there are still some unspoken objectives that the player must find on their own in order to get the good ending. I personally liked this much more because I didn't exactly in control with my choices in the previous entries. Overall, Metro Exodus is a fantastic game that is worth any players time, highly recommend.

To start off the year I decided to begin my backlog goals by playing through the first Hitman game, I originally wanted the original Metal Gear to be the first game I played this year but due to circumstances outside of my control, I decided to go ahead and start on Hitman. As well, I would like to preface this review with the knowledge that this is my first venture in to the stealth game genre, so take what I say with a grain of salt as this is all new to me.
The best way I can describe Codename 47 is that it seems like the framework for something greater. There are defiantly good ideas and mechanics, like the iconic disguise mechanic and the impressive AI pathfinding, but it is all bogged down by a severe case of linearity. The missions are not sandboxes; you are given your objective and there are specific steps you must take to get those objectives done, and any deviation results in mission failure. There are only about two levels that I can think of that offer the player some creative freedom. "Traditions of the Trade" and "Plutonium Runs Loose" are said two levels; the prior is a great example of what this game does right, and the latter an example of the worst it has to offer. "Traditions" takes place in a big multilevel hotel where you need to explore, learn NPC patterns, and gather information in order to complete the objectives. The level operates on it's own time and really gives the player opportunity to try out different routes. This is in direct contrast with "Plutonium" where it is extremely binary; there are only two choices and both are infuriating to no end. You either have to navigate through enemy patrol routes so that you can go to the other side of the map from where you spawn to grab a car bomb, after which the enemies stop patrolling and become stationary, which means you have to kill them in order to progress leaving a chance that your target might escape; or you go straight to the ship and try to complete all the objectives in one swift go, which doesn't go well because as soon as you take out the target all the guards come running towards you to turn you into swiss cheese. I will also take this time to mention that the gun play is dog water, it was clearly not designed with intense gun fights in mine, but it still asks you requires you to do so in some instances. But those two levels are extreme examples, most fall somewhere in-between and are generally enjoyable.
Overall, Codename 47 is ok, levels are fun albeit sometimes cryptic and infuriating; the story is non existent and not all that interesting, but both the story and gameplay offer a great base for future games to build off of.

This review is gonna be a little short because there isn't I don't have a whole lot to say about the original Metal Gear. I appreciate the ambition this one has, there are ideas here that you wouldn't really expect from a game of it's time; the radio frequency specifically is an aspect I didn't think would be as heavily used as it is. It is not implemented the best, the game flat out doesn't tell you one of the main frequencies you need to progress, but I still think it is cool and an immersive way of giving the player information that was ahead of its time. Other than that the game is pretty simple, stay out of guards literal line of sight, gather items to progress, and fight a couple bosses; it's simple but fun. I would suggest playing with a map, maybe not one that tells you where items are, but one that at least shows you what doors need what key card.

Firstly, I am aware that the SNES port of Prince of Persia is not a one to one translation, there are eight new levels, the levels that were already there have been remixed, and the game now gives a whole two hours to save the princess. But, from what I can tell, the original design and feel has been brought over gracefully; the weight in the prince's movement is still there, and the core design philosophy is intact, if not improved. But even with that, I understand if some consider this to be a wholly original entry in the Prince of Persia series; but for me, I am gonna treat this the same as the original, albeit slightly upgraded. Now with that out of the way, here is my review of the original Prince of Persia.

There is a level of detail and precision that comes from a game designed by an individual person. In most modern, big budget releases it is highly likely that each aspect of a game is worked on by different teams of people who all have different concepts that they want to pursue, and when all these ideas are combined they can sometimes stagnant and conflict with each other, take a look at the modern Wolfenstein games if you want an example. Here, though, there is none of that; there is a consistent and coherent pacing that shows through every element of the game. Jumping starts out as just a means to get over a gap, but it soon evolves into tool for spacing; killing an enemy is introduced as a simple obstacle to get through, but it is later implemented into the puzzle solving by having the dead bodies land on switches to keep gates open; the trap floors that fall from away from under the player are used to negate obstacles that you otherwise couldn't pass by letting them fall on top of them. Hell, on a grander scale, the entire game revolves around time, specifically, wasting time. The reason the player stutters when he falls is not just to show the impact of the fall, but to also punish you for making a mistake by wasting your time; rewards like health vials are purposely place out of the way in order to make the player question if they want more time or more health; and sword duels aren't just there as a challenge, but to also stop the player in there tracks so that they lose more time. This type of interconnected, multilayered design can truly be achieved when one person is allowed to be creative and fully understand each and every facet of their ideas.

To close out, while I did really like the first Prince of Persia, I still have a few criticism. I think the combat can be a little cheap, like if your timing isn't perfect the opponent can get like four hits in and you just can't do a whole lot about it. The inputs had a bit of lag with them, like I would press forward and jump, and then after I competed the jump the prince would just run forward again, sometimes into a trap. I don't know if this was the games fault, the emulator, or my brain going faster than the game can process. Other than that I think it is a fantastic game that holds up very well. Highly recommend.

This game is straight up awful, I don't know how people think it's better than Super Chargers. They nerfed all of the old characters to the point were the are practically useless on any difficulty above easy, attacks that used to do upwards of 200 damage coming from fully maxed out skylanders now do less than 20, and they did this so that they could show off how powerful the custom skylanders are, which is just the worst type of power creep. The imaginators themselves are just awful too, all the parts are just reused assets from previously existing models, the attacks that are offered for them are not interesting because they lack the personality of the core skylanders, and they just look bad too. The levels aren't too far behind either, with the best levels in Imaginators being comparable to the worst of the other games; it doesn't help them much either that by far the best levels in the game, The Lost Imaginite Mines and Cursed Tiki Temple, are locked behind two of the most expensive figures in the series, costing over $1000 for both. It also, somehow, has less levels than Spyro's adventure; it tries to make up for this with the sensei realms, but those are just glorified elemental gates and offer nothing of substance. The story, if you can call it that, is dreadful. It has complete disregard for all of the lore and stories from the previous games and just haphazardly reuses assets and characters from the previous games. It also just feels like a scrapped episode of the Netflix show, which this is 100% an advertisement for, if the main three characters you interact with being the core cast from the show wasn't enough of a dead giveaway. The only decent thing this game has to offer are the sensei characters; personally I think they are some of the most fun and well designed characters in the series, shame their trapped in one of the most miserable games of all time. I don't want to blame Toys for Bob too much here though, it's clear they wanted Super Chargers to be the last game in the series, and that Activision forced them to make a tie in to the Netflix show, but they still could have tried a bit harder to make something at least halfway decent. At least they would go on to make Crash 4, which I hear is pretty good.

I have never been a big hunting person, but I thought it would be fun to go through and try out all of the old Cabela's licensed games just for the fun of it. Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge was not the first licensed game from Cabela's, but it was the first released on consoles; so this is where I decided to start.
The game is exactly what it says on the tin, it is a hunting simulator where you track and hunt big game animals. It is surprisingly in depth for a licensed video game in the early 2000s; there are animal callers and scents that you can equip to draw game towards you, at least I think that is the intention; you need to bring the right type of clothing to both blend into the environment and survive the weather conditions; you can bring along a tent to camp out to regain stamina and wait out the night, and there is a day and night cycle, which I find really novel in a PS1 game. But those are really the only good things I have to say about the game, everything else is either just okay or just not well designed. The guns feel okay, the sound good, but that's it there are no reload animations and the view models are a pixelated blur. The graphics, while standard for middle market releases of the time, do not help because the draw distance is incredibly short and it makes the animals almost impossible to see if the aren't right in front of you. The game tries to compensate for this by having giant red dots mark where animals are, but this doesn't really work either cause the dots don't tell you how far away the animal is so you could end up traveling all the way across the gigantic maps only for your target to disappear out of bounds, which they can do for some reason.
Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge is an alright experience, but when it comes to hunting simulators, you are better off playing a more recent one like Way of the Hunter or Hunting Simulator 2.

Despite having an entire different title, and being part of different hunting game series, Ultimate Deer Hunt serves as a sequel to Coresoft's previous Cabela's game: Big Game Hunter: Ultimate Challenge. It is almost the exact same experience as the first game, the same type of equipment, guns, character selection, and practically the same locations, though they are technically different locations. The only big difference that sets it apart from its predecessor is that here, instead of hunting a variety of big game animals, you are hunting different breeds of deer, bucks, and elk. Personally I found this way less interesting and kind of frustrating to me. Each location in the first game was occupied by several species that are from that region; here, however, it's just deer; and if you are someone who really loves hunting and can differentiate breeds of deer good for you, but personally I can't, and so it feels very repetitive to me after the first two areas. This complaint also affects the gameplay itself; you are punished for killing game that you don't have tags for, which is completely fine and is expected from a realistic simulator; but when all the animals in the area are just deer and I can't tell them apart, getting fined $400 and getting kicked back to the main menu gets really annoying. other than that, some quality of life improvements have been made; the player moves slightly faster and the cross hair on scopes can be adjusted. Outside of that it is really just the same game as the first, just with more deer.

Spyro is a deceptively simple game, or at least its mechanics are. The story, if can call it that, abruptly starts and abruptly ends. Gnasty Gnorc is the main antagonist, but I would forgive you for not knowing that as he only appears twice throughout the entire runtime, once during the opening cutscene and then and then again when you get to his boss fight; this leaves Gnorc feeeling like a non threat during your playtime cause you just never see or hear from him. As well, Spyro has absolutely zero character growth, he is the same when the credits roll as he was when the player hits start. But I am willing to let all of this slide because the story was clearly not the primary focus here.

Like I said, Spyro is simple, the dragon has only a handful of abilities, he can run, jump, glide, charge dash, and breathe fire. These moves are all static; he gains no new ones, nor do they inherently change. But what does change is the environment and how these abilities interact with it. The game starts with levels that are intended to let you get your bearings with the controls and physics of it all, then the next set of levels asks you to start performing more daring jumps and glides, then the next makes you master super dashing, and before you know it you're having to juggle and combine all of theses abilities in order to get 100 percent in each of the levels. But the amazing thing is how natural it all feels, there is no sudden spike in difficulty, and the levels are ordered in such a way that it gentle guides you into certain trains of thought; the pacing really is just incredible. And even if you do get stumped on one section or puzzle, one of the many dragons you need to save in order to progress will likely have a hint to help you out. I think the best demonstration of what I am talking about is the level "Tree Tops"; the whole levels is this big open area with lots of winding paths and dash ramps, and in order to get all the collectables you have to experiment with all the paths and chain dashes together to reach maximum speed.

Despite this praise however, I do still have some critiques. The camera is just bad, not as bad as other games from around the same time, but still not good. In the options menu there are two modes for the camera: Active; where the camera moves almost entirely on its own, and Passive; which lets you control the camera, while still moving on its own when needed. I would recommend playing with the passive setting, it causes the camera to spaz out less in enclosed areas. As well, the jumping and gliding can feel a bit too punishing at times, some of the jumps need to be near pixel perfect in order to connect which was slightly annoying. Though I don't want to knock it to bad for this because these types of jumps were usually relegated to optional areas for 100 percent completion.

I think I can confidently say that Spyro the Dragon has stood strong through the test of time. Its mechanics and worlds are timeless and easily accessible, while still providing a challenge for those who want it. I would say it is definitely worth you time.

I would like to preface this review by saying that I think Dead Space is a fantastic game, and it does a lot of things really well, but I can't help but feel that it wears its influences on its sleeve a bit obviously, as well as not fully understanding what made those influences great. But I first want to start with the good, cause like I said, I think it's a fantastic game when looked at and played in a vacuum.

The atmosphere is what is considered to be the games strong suit, and I think I can agree for the most part. The USG Ishimura is probably up there as one of the best settings in a horror game; the nature of being on a gigantic mining ship in the far off future lends itself to easily alienating the player. The halls of the Ishimura are long and lined with air vents that build dread with the sheer potential that something might come crawling out of them; the scattered bodies of former crew mates and their deranged ramblings written in blood on the walls serve as a grim reminder of the situation at hand; and the moments where you are outside the ship in space, where you can catch a brief glimpse into the vast emptiness of space, leave the player with a feeling of overwhelming sense of isolation. But, like I mentioned earlier, Dead Space wears its influence on its sleeve, and I think that is most apparent here in the games world. It is extremely similar to both Doom 3 (yeah I know) and Prey 2006, all the way down having anti gravity mechanics and weird, alien, fleshy stuff overtaking the facility as you progress; and I can't help but feel like those games did what Dead Space does but better. Doom 3’s first person perspective allows for much more immersion into the environment, and Prey just goes all in on all the weird and trippy stuff Dead Space only flirts with. Dead Space also makes the mistake of never leaving the player alone; the atmosphere works well in Doom and Prey because there is ample time for the player to digest the environment and create their own fear. Dead Space has a constant need to explain and guide the player on absolutely everything, there is no getting lost or ambiguity in the game's objectives, either a NPC tells you exactly how to solve a problem or the game literally gives you a line to follow on your map. I am not going to pretend like Prey and Doom aren’t linear games, but they at least give the player the freedom of discovery, and that is just something Dead Space doesn’t allow.

As well, I think combat suffers from a similar problem. Again, I think when looked at on its own, it is great. The necromorphs are terrifying in looks and varied in design, they all have different ways of attacking the player which leads to the player needing to prioritize threats beyond just which enemy is closest to you, a problem that I think even the Resident Evil games struggle with. The necromorphs physical design also plays really well into the dismemberment mechanic; the dismemberment is a direct evolution of Resident Evil 4’s combat where enemies would respond accordingly to where they were shot, the difference here is that instead of just staggering the enemy, you completely sever their limbs off, and it is as glorious as it sounds. Crippling an enemy by shooting off its leg with the plasma cutter, or cutting down a whole group of enemies with the line gun is endlessly satisfying and only got more enjoyable as the game went on and acquired more weapons and faced bigger necromorphs, but where I think this fails in comparison to to the likes of RE4 is that the player is too powerful. RE4 struck a balance between a power fantasy and helplessness by having a combination of highly resilient enemies and pretty standard firearms; yes the guns were satisfying, and yes Leon could supplex and roundhouse kick enemies to timbuktu, but he could die just as easily because he couldn’t move and shoot, and because of the sheer number of ganados. Here in Dead Space, however, Issac can move and shoot, and while the enemies are about as aggressive as in RE4, the weapons are far too powerful. Being able to knock an necromorph on their ass with the force gun over and over again makes them feel like a joke, and having the ability to freeze enemies in place at the click of a button kind of dissolves any tension the combat encounters had. There was never a time where I felt out of control; I always had enough ammo, always had enough med packs, and, while I didn’t always have a full stasis meter, I always had it when I needed it. Don’t get me wrong though, I still think the combat was really well done and was by far my favorite part of the game, I just think it fails to understand what made its primary influence so great, as well as failing at creating meaningful tension.

There are also a couple things that I left out but still feel are worth mentioning; the sound design is great, if it did one thing right from RE4 it was definitely the sound design; The story was very intriguing, and while I personally haven’t done any research into its meaning, I can tell that it has something to say and was presented in a thoughtful way; and lastly the game just looks gorgeous; I know that it wasn’t built using ID Tech 4, but it is very reminiscent of that engine and is probably why it still looks great today (it also may be why Doom 3 and Prey kept coming to mind while playing).

Dead Space Is a game that has aged gracefully, it is truly incredible how this game's mechanics are still enjoyable and comparable to games coming out today. And although I personally think it is rather derivative of its influences, I can’t ignore the fact that it is still fun as all hell; and hey, I am very analytical when I play games, but if you’re not like me you probably won’t notice all the little flaws that I did.

What Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun lacks in substance it makes up for sheer, unadulterated viscera; it is a boomer shooter to its very core. Nothing else matters other than painting the walls of each of the game's 24 chapters crimson with the blood of the heretics that dare stand against you. The game asks you not to think, just kill without discrimination.

The weapons appropriately match this sentiment; the guns are blunt, with disregard to any sense of utility in exchange for raw fire power. Not to say they all do the same thing though; there are of course situations where the shotgun is going to be better than the titular boltgun, and the plasma guns splash damage is particularly handy in some scenarios, but really just holding down the trigger and letting bullets and blood fly is often the best way to approach encounters. As well, the sound design of the guns play into this play style; all the weapons just have a punch and power that makes them unendingly satisfying to fire in long bursts, to the point where I would often use a gun because I just wanted hear the sound of the projectile shooting out of the barrel and the shell hitting the floor. The game also provides copious amounts of ammo to ensure that you can fulfill this desire, there was never a single time where I didn’t have a sufficient amount of ammo, say for the game's BFG equivalent. The level design also encourages this run and gun strategy. The levels vary from being linear hallways where enemies are lined up like bowling pins for the marine to knock down in absurdly bloody fashion, and gigantic open maps where, to open the exit door, you run around and kill everything in sight, and sometimes then some. As well, health packs, armor (called contempt here), ammo, and secret power ups are all scattered around these arenas; so if you want to live you are going to have to run, jump, and pile drive through the environment.

However, as fun and cathartic as running through enemies with the force of god, it inevitably loses its luster after a while; and that is where the core flaw of this game lies. The game has no nuance. Like I mentioned, the guns only exist to do damage, they have no utility outside of that, which makes deciding which one to use for a given situation a matter of which one do I have the most ammo for. The enemies are also just as blunt as the weapons, they only exist to do damage and offer no other way of inconveniencing the player; the only real determining factors on which enemy should be dealt with first is how big their health bar is and how fast they can take yours. Compare this to the likes of Doom Eternal where the game constantly asks to understand the abilities of your guns beyond just damage and to apply them to dynamic combat encounters where enemies are designated to affect the players actions and train of thought in different ways, serving almost like a puzzle that is repeatedly un-solving itself.

Warhammer 40k: Boltgun is still a good game, don't get me wrong, and it will certainly make a name for itself in the ever growing pantheon of retro boomer shooters. But I still feel like it doesn’t fully understand what makes for engaging design in this genre, and instead decides to fully engross itself with a lot of the surface level concepts that people think about when discussing the retro first person shooter scene.