skyebaron
2023
Could have been a masterpiece. Amazing story, characters. sequences and atmosphere. Its all brought down by the middling level design and awful enemy encounters. The camera, shooting and dodging feel undercooked. It is especially noticeable when fighting more than one enemy at a time and boss battles. Which is surprising since it was the best part of Remedy's previous game, Control. Luckily its not a large part of the game but they are the glue that holds these sequences together.
For all the praising this game gets for its movement, its leagues below a typical 3D Mario. I do not expect to reach those highs but I also do not want a 3D platformer with such stiff, slow and sometimes unresponsive running. If you want any type of speed you need to spam that jump. Level design borrows from 32 bit games or more famously, Super Mario 3D World in a tepid manner since exploring the levels is not very rewarding nor interesting. I can see speed runners getting the most enjoyment out of going fast, ignoring most what the level is trying to offer and comboing the various dashes available. The best part of the game is jumping into dash to wheel or swing in a fast manner.
The presentation is a candy vomit artstyle that thinks a high color vibrance is a substitute for personality. Character designs do not fare better with their "we have quirky PS1/Saturn designs at home" aesthetics. The music gets a lot better past the first world with its Sonic infused melodies. It baffles me that the introductory track is pure annoying and embarrassing bloops made by a sugar abusing fiend.
Performance is great at 4K with a steady 120fps but this game came out under cooked with the multiple amounts of visual glitches and instances of getting stuck in terrain. A massive disappointment after Sonic Mania.
The presentation is a candy vomit artstyle that thinks a high color vibrance is a substitute for personality. Character designs do not fare better with their "we have quirky PS1/Saturn designs at home" aesthetics. The music gets a lot better past the first world with its Sonic infused melodies. It baffles me that the introductory track is pure annoying and embarrassing bloops made by a sugar abusing fiend.
Performance is great at 4K with a steady 120fps but this game came out under cooked with the multiple amounts of visual glitches and instances of getting stuck in terrain. A massive disappointment after Sonic Mania.
A graphically and artfully stunning open world recreation of the France revolution marred by a bland protagonist and unreliable controls.
Avoid on PC. One of the worst ports ever even after the updates.
A better paced Spider-Man game by Insomniac. This is way more of an expansion than the individual DLCs offered by the first game. Has a good amount of content, never feels bloated and the story, though not as good as the first game, is pretty good. Going through Mile's transformation into a proper hero is a joy.
I would advice against playing it immediately after the first one since the gameplay loop is so similar. Its an amazing gameplay loop but the repetition starts setting in at the end of these adventures. Also, its a short campaign if you mainline it. Not thats a problem for me since I love swinging around so much I try to 100% these games. Though, thats when you realize the weakness of these games, the few amount of mission types. The annoyance of this repetition is kept at bay by the wonderful Arkham style battles and traversal system.
Insomniac just made more of the best Spider-man game ever made and thats a great thing. Hope the sequel brings the variety it needs.
I would advice against playing it immediately after the first one since the gameplay loop is so similar. Its an amazing gameplay loop but the repetition starts setting in at the end of these adventures. Also, its a short campaign if you mainline it. Not thats a problem for me since I love swinging around so much I try to 100% these games. Though, thats when you realize the weakness of these games, the few amount of mission types. The annoyance of this repetition is kept at bay by the wonderful Arkham style battles and traversal system.
Insomniac just made more of the best Spider-man game ever made and thats a great thing. Hope the sequel brings the variety it needs.
2022
What Tinykin did for N64 collect a thons, Lunistice does for 32-bit platformers. A brief delight of a platformer thats well worth the $5 asking price. Great level design, cute asthetic and splendid soundtrack overshadow its brief runtime and puzzling default options like the lag feeling smooth turning.
This is retro platforming done right. It gives you the options to play it at 20fps, pixelated with a CRT Filter like the old days or an uncapped FPS, high resolution with a sharp aesthetic. No matter the options, its always fun to play.
An easy recommend.
This is retro platforming done right. It gives you the options to play it at 20fps, pixelated with a CRT Filter like the old days or an uncapped FPS, high resolution with a sharp aesthetic. No matter the options, its always fun to play.
An easy recommend.
The Gurdian's debt should be payed to Mass Effect and Telltale. Also add in modern videogame corridor linearity as exploration and you get a surprisingly great game.
Guardian's story, characters and amazing graphics go a long way to mask its serviceable combat full of sponge enemies that by the end of the game fall too easy to your team's abilities.
Still, its an amazing journey full of surprises but you need to tolerate the incessant ramblings of a well acted cast that just wont shut the hell up for a second. It made the impression that the game was too insecure in maintaining its audiences attention.
A shame, cause Guardians could let itself breathe in its amazingly crafted locales. Its a memorable space opera well worth playing through.
Guardian's story, characters and amazing graphics go a long way to mask its serviceable combat full of sponge enemies that by the end of the game fall too easy to your team's abilities.
Still, its an amazing journey full of surprises but you need to tolerate the incessant ramblings of a well acted cast that just wont shut the hell up for a second. It made the impression that the game was too insecure in maintaining its audiences attention.
A shame, cause Guardians could let itself breathe in its amazingly crafted locales. Its a memorable space opera well worth playing through.
For those without the nostalgia, it just shows how great the 3D Mario series or even the original Banjo Kazooie is. The slow as molasses movement speed and simplistic level design is indeed intended to the children a Spongebob cartoon is appealing to. At least he controls are good and the graphics capture the show's feel.
Still, this is pure nostalgia bait.
Still, this is pure nostalgia bait.
Even as a simplified X-COM, Firaxis sure knows how to make a hell of a fun tactics game. The game is a slow burn but its battle system carries it and gets even better the more your adventure it goes on.
2021
Smooth controls and amazing momentum. You wont find many shooters that feel as great as Returnal. Moving, evading and shooting are top notch. The Roguelike aspects leave a lot to be desired with how shallow they feel and the story is uninteresting. The suspend feature is a godsend with how long a playthrough can be.
Still, when gameplay is king and Returnal excels at it, its hard to knock it for how fun it is to play.
Still, when gameplay is king and Returnal excels at it, its hard to knock it for how fun it is to play.
2023
Wanna play a good quasi- Bioshock clone? Play Singularity.
2022
An amazing RPG made by a team that deeply understands what made Chrono Trigger and FF6 all time classics.
A decent combat system marred by sleep inducing traversal worthy of the term walking simulator.
2021
Exploring alien planets while controlling a marble's momentum through gravity with 2001 A Space Odyssey vibes create a wholly unique experience any sci-fi fan should experience.
2020
A strange remake. Its at its core a Super Nintendo Era RPG remade with Playstation 2 design sensibilities made on Unreal Engine 4. Which should be a banger but all it brought was an overtly simplistic, linear action RPG. I can say that the minds that made this game glorify the SNES original to an absurd degree. This should only be played if the nostalgia afflicted fans of the original want a 3D retelling.
The repetitious and braindead battles, the amount of backtracking, the awful voice acting, the cliched anime characters and the painfully average story is almost excused because its a remake of a SNES RPG. Still, we have remakes like Final Fantasy 7 as a standard for remakes today or and this game just dosent cut it. Its not garbage, just painfully mediocre.
The repetitious and braindead battles, the amount of backtracking, the awful voice acting, the cliched anime characters and the painfully average story is almost excused because its a remake of a SNES RPG. Still, we have remakes like Final Fantasy 7 as a standard for remakes today or and this game just dosent cut it. Its not garbage, just painfully mediocre.