Essentially everything I want in a modern Resident Evil game: satisfying gunplay, masterful growing tension, great scares that never feel cheap, a compelling story, and excellent visuals to top it all off. While it may not be as consistently frightening as RE7 overall, it does contain a few sequences that are much scarier than anything seen in its predecessor. Mostly it feels like they dialed it back a bit and leaned into some action à la RE4. But the action never overtakes the horror and only in the final stretch of the game does it really come into play. And by that point, it feels great to go guns-blazing on this whole damn village. They found a strong balance here. It doesn't even have the exhausting ending sequence that makes the game overstay its welcome, unlike a number of entries in this series (including 7). Not to mention the surprisingly touching story that fits snugly into the larger Resident Evil continuity while still feeling complete and satisfying in its own right.

Can't wait to see where the series goes from here.

I can actually forgive a lot of the visual bugs if they're amusing and not game-breaking, but holy shit they need to patch the fucking rain. It doesn't help that, by today's standards, the once revolutionary GTA III is now just kind of ordinary; especially compared to the games that followed. This is the entry in the trilogy I've had the least experience with in the past, and I don't think the game as a whole is fun enough to forgive the shortcomings of this "remaster."

A lot of shit is being thrown around at Rockstar and Grove Street Games, and deservedly so. Clearly this was not thoroughly QA tested. But I can't pretend like this game was broken, because it's not. It still played as I expected it to, albeit with a lot of visual weirdness along the way. I wanted to find some middle ground and not be one extreme or the other. This is still the GTA III we grew up playing, it just deserved a lot more time and care. Take the criticism to heart, step the fuck up, and fix your damn game, Rockstar.

Here's some bugs I experienced:

- rain usually looked fine but sometimes it would become blinding to a shocking degree
- rain appears inside of vehicles and buildings; evident from the opening cutscene
- ghostly apparition that appears behind vehicles as soon as you begin to move; turning off motion blur does nothing
- wall with noclip turned on underneath the bridge on the first island
- inconsistent framerate

Playing Resident Evil 3 not long after RE7 and immediately after the remake of RE2 did this no favours. I much prefer the methodical, explorative horror games over this point-A to point-B action movie structure. It's still fun, just not AS MUCH fun. I found it a lot harder than 2 as well, or at least there were more instances of enemy placement that felt straight-up cheap by comparison. The linear structure also gave way to problems of its own; such as hitting points of no return before you can finish collecting everything in a particular area. Annoying moments like that really dragged this one down in the end. It's not a bad game by any means, but it's not one I'm going to return to anytime soon.

If RE2 is a really fantastic haunted house tour then this is one of those motion simulator rides at Universal Studios. At least Jill is easy on the eyes.

I really enjoyed how much this DLC leaned into the oddity and comedy of Fallout, after Dead Money it made for a nice palette cleanser. There's so much interesting, funny dialogue to experience in Old World Blues that it makes up for the rather unremarkable setting. The Think Tank and other interior spaces dotted around the map provide plenty of lore and quests to chew on, but the exterior of the Big MT just isn't as cool as Zion Canyon. At least, not to me. Still better than navigating the Sierra Madre though.

That was one sexy light switch.