Enslaved: Odyssey to the West

- extremely cringe character design, the moment I saw the protagonist I was wondering "hes gonna put a shirt on right? " bad dialogue, cliche forced 'romance', trite story

- game mechanics are barebones and handhold casual shit.  the 'platforming' is a total joke. imagine if in Mario all you do is hold a direction and spam jump button and you cant fail. thats the platforming in this. its rediculously simplistic. it looks like your character is doing all sorts of crazy acrobatics but in reality youre holding a direction and spamming 'jump' with no chance of failure.

- besides the platforming the only other real mechanic is a barebones modern game design batman style beat em up. mash button for light attack, then hit button for strong attack. dodge button, block button. really boring and generic. the game is so god damn linear you cant even jump off platforms where you want. there isnt actually a standalone 'jump' button. you can only jump at very specific designated points. if you are on a ledge and you want to drop down, you cant just jump off the ledge. you have to walk specifically in the 'here is the scripted jump part' and toggle it. IT SUCKS. it barely feels like gameplay. you dont feel like youre actually playing the game half the time, just engaging in a series of dumb fucking scripts.

- WAY TOO MANY CUTSCENES. the control of the character is constatnly taken away. I don't mean story based cutscenes, like every 40 seconds some new script will trigger that will show you something or spin the camera around or show you some enemy spawn or show you x. its nonstop. the game is so fucking scripted its painful.

- weak forced in upgrade system where you can upgrade health/shield/'combat moves' which are almost entirely pointless, and your 'gun' staff that shoots lasers. i mean the whole game is fucking stupid.  your staff shoots lasers. its retarded.

- game feels like its PG13 designed by a bunch of housewives or something. the overly saturated disney looking color pallette, the rediculous shirtless buff main character with dragon ball Z hair, the cliche 'le strong but dumb man'  and 'le weak but really smart haxor woman' its just so cheesy and cringe. the dialogue is embarrasing at times.

- enemy design is really boring. its all just metallic mechs. some of them shoot at you so you have to run around taking cover trying to advance towards them to kill them, the others are just melee robots. i never find it fun engaging or satisfying killing robots in any game. its about the worst enemy type in any game ever. i hate robot enemies they are just plain boring to engage and it feels like they only used them in this game to be more PG13

- the story is retarded and i figured out the plot twist like 2 hours in. theres really unfitting real life photographs randomly shoved into your vision and it just looks stupid as hell. the ending has the most obvious but '2deep4u philosophical dilemma plot twist'  when really its the most shallow surface level shit ever.  also it uses a real life video of a man and  looks absolutely stupid in the context of the disney like graphics of the game.


- not really much good to say about this game, it was only about 7 hours long and it felt too long. i was just waiting for it to be over. it felt like a drag. the mechanics do not evolve. like I said you either have REALLY shallow handholding 'platforming'  or you have really generic and boring beat em up.  there are some boss fights and they were probably the most fun in the whole game but they were still underwhelming and most of them just involve hitting switches and shooting at X which barely even feel like a boss. theres this stupid hoverboard mechanic that you have to use sometimes that just feels like a massive gimmick. the graphics are OK but the artstyle is SHIT. some of the vistas are nice to look at and sometimes the color pallette is nice but like I said the character designs and the enemy designs are just so awful. the plot is awful. the cliche generic 'romance' is awful. the PC port also sucks and has low framerate drops and stutter. keyboard and mouse does not work properly it feels like its emulating a joystick. so I just used controller. not a good experience overall.

4/10

Fallout New Vegas

Fallout 3

Penumbra: Overture

the premise/story of this game is really interesting and fascinating. however the major let down is that it feels designed really awkwardly and amaturely. for example a frequently i would progress to a new point and need to do something that actually is really obvious, but the game is just poorly breaks all direction. for example, any object you hover over you either get an eyeball (examine) or a hand (interact). if nothing, then generally not a point of interest. well one time there was a machine to control pistons, and it just had no prompt at all. so i ran around the entire room for 20 minutes only to find out all i had to do was click on the machine without a prompt. stupid and inconsistent.

things like this are frequent in the game. its a short game at only 4 hours, but it could be a 2 hour game if the points of interest were actually more coherent. another example: theres only a very few select pieces of wood you can actually break in the game, so you end up not bothering to try to break any most of the time. as well as all of the boxes looking identical and not serving any function.  Well theres a big power room with a pit and a box and a fence. you're suppose to figure out to break the fence and push the box into the pit to break it and get an item from it. However this is the last thing I would possibly think of as the whole game up to that point is teaching me to ignore boxes and that the enviorment isnt really destructible. So again, I wander around for 40 minutes when all I had to do was interact with something obvious in the room.


Another huge glaring flaw in the games inconsistency and poor design is you can actually progress far past a point you're suppose to and lack certain items to make the area you're in understandable. For example I missed a 'blank note' in a room, progressed far past it, and got into a Dark Room that casts blue light that illuminates everything in the room. Well I got to this point and just stood around thinking "what the fuck do I do?" interacting with everything on the walls and in the room for a good 30 minutes. Until I eventually look it up, and found it that I missed the 'Blank Note'  which the light illuminates when you enter the room and shows you the key code. Why was I even able to progress to that point without the blank note? Its just really jarring. There is no fucking way I would of figured out in a proper fasion without looking it up. I would of been walking around for a good hour or two just to find that blank note I missed. The pacing is just shit.

I really enjoy the premise of being on a boat in greenland stranded, then leaving your boat and then running into a random bunker for shelter. The story with the cool world war 2 mining bunker and stuff is great. The lighting is still top notch and the game came out in 2007. However theres another really stupid and disappointing flaw. The enemies, and complete lack of.  The entire game has two enemies: Dog, and Spider. Thats it.  At First when you see the dog the game tells you to be really afraid and never engage to attack and always run away and stealth etc... Well thats totally wrong. For one you can basically just sprint past the fucker 9 out of 10 times. And another HUGE thing ... you can just kill the dog with a hammer/pickaxe and they dont respawn. Not only that, but its incredibly easy to kill them. The AI is so fucking shit all you have to do is sneak up to the dog, or even let him aggro you, prepare a swing, and hit him. As soon as you hit the dog once you can just stand by and wait for him to stand up and then continue hitting him with zero danger. Then you kill him and thats it. once you figure this out the game has no threat.

So the game is just running around a dark bunker, in circles over and over, looking at walls/small detail objects that you missed the first time. The enemies are a joke so they dont matter, theres no threat. Nothing to be afraid of or spark you.  So once you do this the game is over, but at the end theres a really interesting and poignant part about the guy that contacts you on the radio and I wont spoil that so thats about it . This is the best score I can give because although its a short game I felt frustrated and annoyed with the inconsistent and annoying pacing and bullshit 'wheres waldo' object hunt crap.

+I will say that the story, atmosphere and environment kind of sticks with you. makes me want to come back for more in the form of the sequel Black Plague. not that I really enjoy the gameplay or object hunt. But I am curious how the plot unfolds.. 

6/10

Shadowgrounds: Survivor

cons

- really ambiguous level design. not sure if youre suppose to be killing everything, looking for switches, going to the end point etc. sometimes you can run past enemies to progress, other times not. never clear which.

- jarring switching back and forth between 3 different characters which limit your weapons. each character has a weapon set. the woman character has a sniper rifle and is by far the worst and is incredibly hard to play as and she barely has any ammo. for these segments you simply just run past all the enemies. the other two guys are tanks with assault rifles / shotguns

- enemy  variety is boring and limited. its all some form of little insect or alien thing. some of them have guns others just run up to you and attack. nothing has any real impact.

-sometimes there are barricades that are required to blowup to progress the map. however the problem is these are incredibly ambiguous as the game has zero sense of direction on where to go.

- weapons overall 'just work' they arent fun to use or have any power behind them.

-very boring level variety in general. everything is a form of wet dark road, a military steel complex. or a very brief desert canyon segment that you just run past.


pros
+gane is very short only takes 2 hours so its not a slog to get through
+some of the new physics addictions are fun blasting things around
+doesnt take its self too seriously. limited story. some wacky cutscenes that feel like they were taking notes from team fortress 2 or something.
+nothing really going for it other than its medicore action game thats extremely short so by the time youre very bored the game is over anyway

4/10

Alan Wake's American Nightmare

- game only has 3 really short levels that it makes you play on loop 3 times in a row doing things minor different each time

- every time an enemy spawns or anything happens it takes control away from the character and plays an obnxoiously long 'spawn cutscene' that you cant skip.

-mechanics really are not that fleshed out or well done. is it a horror game? is it a third person shooter? is it a survival game? it doesn't do any of these well.  the shooting is incredibly simplistic and boring. theres no shortage of ammo. you can constantly find full ammo refills around the map. the shooting is so boring and tedious that i simply choose to run past 80% of enemies in the entire game, because I could.

- really cheesy and cliche story. trite characters. embarrassingly corny real life cut scenes totally childish 'good guys vs the bad guys'  plot

- can't skip cutscenes so if you die you are forced to watch the same thing again and again. makes it that much more boring

+  only took 2 hours to beat
+ isn't painful to play through. just boring and simplistic mechanics
+ bunch of different weapons so thats kind of cool  but unfortunately theyre all locked behind collectables that i didnt give a shit about because the game is already such an easy trite. shotgun is good enough. 


really theres nothing really going for this game other than its incredibly short and a dumb third person shooter with simplistic mechanics. the story is absolute trite but its not even really laughable bad. its just cringe.  the major flaw with this game is it doesnt even feel like an actual game. it feels like the developer had some leftover assets from the original Alan Wake and instead of scapping those assets, they recycled it into a shitty half assed game where you play the same 3 segments on loop 3 times in a row and call it a game. its really boring and  not clever.

4/10

Dead Island Riptide Definitive Edition

It's hard to say if its an improvement over the first Dead Island game. a part of me  thinks it is, but again maybe I'm just sick of the first game and wanted a new experience. the mechanics are largely kept the same as the first game. except you feel more powerful in this one. for example it starts you off with a pretty strong weapon and there appears to be more weapons in general.  It's hard to point out the distinct differences between the two games. Just a continuation really.

It follows the same basic formula as the first game too, where the first half is all melee combat and item fetching, and the second half introduces guns a blazing and from there on out its just gun battles. Really both this and the original dead island just feel like the same thing, and this is just a continuation. Dead Island is a decent game if you want to just chat with a friend on mic and play through a campaign without much struggle or frustration. but it doesn't really do anything out standing. Theres a few different enemy types but they are just archetypal strong guys and weak guys.  And you eventually come across humans that shoot at you which is a nice change of pace.

The character selection is pretty weak too. None of them are appealing and they lock you into very confined ways of playing. Do you want to use blades or blunt weapons? Why is there even a 'firearms expert' class when you dont even get firearms until 60% of the campaign. My friend choose the firearms class only to be stuck half of the campaign without one. Whats the point of that?


  There are skill trees but they are pretty mindless direct upgrades. Not much thought involved. More damage, more survivability. .  The graphics and physics engine are decent, the melee combat is satisfying at times breaking limbs and has some real impact. The story is utterly forgettable and generic as hell.  The setting is probably the best part. The 'Far Cry' style tropical island with appealing sights and sounds and then the stark contrast of the undead. such a setting can make the graphics really shine.

   There are a few boss fights which can peak the adrenaline for a moment so a nice change of pace. You can drive around the big open map with your friend in the passenger, although the driving is shit its still pretty cool crusing around.

Theres some really obnoxious boat sections where the undead can drag you out of the boat if you dont perform a quicktime event in time.
Level design is nothing memorable at all but it isn't bad. Tropical island, sewers, office type indoor shootout buildings.. prison complex.. absolutely nothing standout but it serves the gameplay.

It was pretty satisfying finding all these new melee weapons and upgrading them over time and seeing them enhance and do more damage and cut limbs off faster and such. 

So as mentioned the first half of the game you'll be doing melee, and the second half introduces a big arsenal of weapons assult rifles shotguns pistols etc so you'll be utilizing some of that too.  Theres a pretty annoying defense section where you have to wait on something on a rooftop and I'm pretty sure it bugged out on us and we had to reset. The game is prone to just bugging out at times and you have to reset the last checkpoint..

overall its a barely above average first person shooter/melee open world CO OP game ... note CO OP as its the sole saving grace. Solo I would say this is barely worth a play, but the co op experience boosts it above average  because itsmostly a painless experience to play through an open world campaign with a friend, and not many games allow that. 

5/10

Halo 2 Anniversary

Halo 2 is the same engine and core gameplay experience as Halo 1, the visuals are slightly improved in some places, and it has a few new mechanics.

What Halo 2 changes is:

* the addition of Dual wield weapons

*the overhaul of the health system - no longer do you have health bars and health packs, but just one main health shield and when it breaks you die with the next shot.

*MAJOR change - in Co op no longer can you die and then respawn when your buddy is safe. Now, when ONE of you dies, it instantly reverts you to last checkpoint. This alone makes the game FAR more difficult.

* Some new weapons


So about the campaign, it goes through many twists and turns
For instance a lot of scenarios are different
There are levels where you're crawling through destroyed city streets, and a lot of the game feels relatively more urban than the last, because it takes place on Earth.
There seems to be more driving segments, and they last a lot longer, and they kind of feel a bit repetive at times with long tunnels of endless waves of enemies.

Then after a certain point, the viewpoint changes, and now you play half the campaign as the alien race the Covenant. Where you're going around sci fi alien ships using swords and alien weaponry fighting these new enemy types, its all pretty cool and refreshing but at a certain point I wanted to play as Master chief not the aliens.


Really, the main thing for Halo 2 is that I play all Halo games on Legendary difficulty, but for some reason, Halo 2 is the only game in the entire franchise that changes the respawn mechanic when you die on Co op. As stated previously, when any partner dies in Co op  , it instantly reverts to the last checkpoint instead of allowing you to respawn.

Because of this, Halo 2 is notoriously the hardest game in the franchise.
With this in mind, there are many segments that are down right sadistic to play through.
There are areas full of dozens upon dozens of One hit sniper enemies, and its a game of wheres waldo memorization game trial and error shit. You need to die over and over, remember where every single enemy placement is to proceed. It's challening as fuck, but also kind of bullshit.

Also just the regular enemies are way more bullet sponge too. The game is full of Elites which are aliens with huge shields, and pretty much the only reliable way to kill them is by grabbing a Plasma pistol, charging it up, shooting down their shields with it, then swapping to another gun for a headshot when the shield is down.
This game is hard, really hard, on Legendary. 
To the point where it's almost a pain in the ass to get through it,
There are tons of vehicle segments that are the same too. Like the flying sections where it's not uncomon to fly around for 40 minutes repeating the same checkpoint over and over.

There are so many segments like this I can go on forever
Theres another segment where  it keeps spawning 'flood' enemies through 2 pipes in the walls, in a tiny enclosed room, and you just have to survive. There is nowhere to take cover, and no respite. It's a damn endurance run and this part alone took is like an hour. Many many deaths. 



There's some pretty hilarious mid 2000s nostalgic in here too, like randomly hearing Alt rock songs from Breaking benjamin and shit. pretty funny stuff, and honestly can be kind of epic at times. 
Halo 2 is a good game, don't get me wrong. But personally it has some drawbacks for me that keep it from being as good as the first

- The level design is not quite as memorable for me, with some less interesting parts such as too much repetitive driving sections,  boring brown & bloom urban sections, and overall some of the segments just seem to drag on for too long.

- The difficulty seems almost broken accidentally or something, as its the only game in the franchise that does not allow co op partners to respawn. This makes the whole campaign hard as fuck and really frustrating. on the one hand the challenge is fun, but theres a certain point where the bullshit starts to come to a boil after repeating the same checkpoint 15 times in a row and randomly getting 1shot all the time.

All games in the Halo master chief collection have a scoring system where it gives you medals and points after every kill, which is extremely satisfying and fun to see. And there are 'par scores' for every level ,and it was actually a blast trying to get these par score achievements, and we would even replay some levels multiple times just to get the par score achievements. fun stuff. 



7/10

Halo Combat Evolved Anniversary

the PC remaster of Halo is finally here, but I'll mostly be commenting on the original game and not so much the remaster stuff.

The core game is pretty much great and a timeless classic for me.

+Great physics and shooting mechanics, revolutionary and unique more than any other. Feels like none other. The sense of gravity and fluid controls, hopping around, and engaing with many unique and interesting alien enemies.

+Lots of different interesting weapons all with fun physics and interactions, some like the plasma pistol are beter for breaking enemy shields and then you swap to something like the pistol to get that ever satisfying headshot

+ Unforgettable, memorable, and unique level designs and maps. Every level does something different and enjoyable , although however towards the middle half of the game there is a few levels that feel copy and pasted a bit with the same long bridge section and interior metallic enviorments, but  even then the levels are so large and engaging I don't mind.


+ Graphics and sound design are really cool and memorable. The enemies make iconic noises and have charming expressions, the weapons sound great and pack a punch, and the graphics are visually nice to look at with a lot of landmarks and vistas to look at and places to explore if you wish to because the maps are pretty large and sprawling.

+ Fun driving physics and driving sections where you can hop in and out of various vehicles and encounter the same scenario in many different ways.

+ Interesting story about aliens, a massive Ring weapon 'halo' in the universe that will destroy everything, etc.. it never gets in your way, and it always has some cool new plot device to employ, and full of twists and turns and questions to start off an epic trilogy

+ A revolutionary health system for the time, where you have a few health bars you can recharge with health packs strategically placed around the world, But also a main overshield that charges back up so you can stratetically decide when to take cover and when to be aggressive.

+ The difficulty is perfect and a full Co op campaign on the hardest difficulty, Legendary, makes for a very engrossing and challenging fun time! some of the best co op experience avalible.


I don't have much to complain with the original Halo campaign, the only thing I can complain about is a few of the levels feel a little copy and pasted, but other than that it's a great memorale experience worthy of repeat playthroughs, and one of the best co op campaigns out there.

AND as a bonus , this is the remaster so you can hit Tab at any point to swap to brand new recreated modern visuals that tend to look pretty amazing, so it's the cherry on top.

8/10

Call of Duty: Black Ops III