Titanfall 2

The first Titanfall was just a multiplayer deathmatch type shooter, so I jumped into the second one because of the campaign mode. The campaign is a standard call of duty style linear missions, but with a twist - very fluid and enjoyably fun parkour style platform jumping, and mech combat.

The bulk of the game has you going through linear levels platforming, running across walls, jumping in low gravity, climbing, to reach new areas. The combat feels pretty great in terms of impact, but I have one big personal problem. I never was a fan of fantastical scifi future type stuff , and here the aesthetic isn't very appealing to me. The guns don't particularly look appealing to me, so I never really enjoyed using them or really cared which one I had. I just picked up whatever gun and ran through the campaign. They're all extremely bulky looking like giant slabs of metal  and overly futuristic. It's a personal taste thing for me I guess. it's just not my style.  The writing/story is completely drab, boring, and generic. I did not give a single shit about the story here. Just a means to an end. You have a 'buddy buddy' mech that talks to you the whole game, and its kind of cool for a sidekick type perspective, but at times a little bit corny.

So while the boots on ground, parkour, run and gun combat is pretty damn fun, very fluid and enjoyable, well the other half of the time you're inside a mech doing mech combat. And these segments I personally didn't really enjoy too much. Was more like a chore everytime I was forced into a mech. As expected, you move extremely slow, your field of view is incredibly cramped and tight, and everything turns into slow methodical corner peeking extreme explosion / minigun shooting. It's not really boring, but for me its more the setting of the whole thing. If I'm not into the setting or premise, then its hard to really get into the gameplay. These mech segments happen about every second level and while there are some pretty cool boss fights that get thrown in, it's still the weakest point of the game for me. But again, the boss fights mostly turn into hiding behind a piece of wall, peeking out and shooting off some rockets, repeat or run for a health pickup.

The level variety is decent, some levels are big industrial factories, others are jumping across flying ships in the sky, some outdoor segments where your wallrunning across cliffs and things like that. Its standard really. There's one level with a 'time travel' device that I thought was pretty boring and gimmicky but it didn't last too long thankfully. The enemies are either squishy human military guys that are the most fun to fight because of the mist of blood that pop out from them,  or you have various types of robots/mechs, or fucking dinosaurs??? I never understood why the hell theres dinosaurs in the game but OK.

 Really for most people Titanfall 2 would be enjoyable if they are into the whole mech scifi futuristic military shooter, but for me It's just not an aesthetic I personally enjoy too much, and thats the main thing that hindered my enjoyment. I can't comment on the multiplayer, this review is not about that. Just the campaign. I played on second hardest difficulty called 'Hard'  and I will note that the challenge was just right. When I died it was mostly my fault, and overcoming a tough checkpoint felt rewarding.

6.5/10

The Dark Pictures: Man of Medan

There is an interesting surge of new games in the obscure genre called 'interactive drama'. Where its not quite a video game as you know, but more a movie that you can partake in and have choices which impact the story in a profound way. The story can be played co op, and most of the game is watching very high graphic appealing 'cutscenes' with thrilling quicktimes thrown in, and just one mistake of these can drastically change the course of the game. People can die and entire sequences can be skipped.
When playing co op, frequently you both will be experiencing completely different parts of the game. It is constantly swapping out which characters you and your friend are playing as, and they can be in a totally different forced part of the game than you, only to end up routing back around to meet up with you through some twist or series of events. So really it's all about the story, presentation, and writing here.

 There is a simple dialogue option system where you get 2-4 options at any given time. You get a real sense that you are drastically changing the game with these, and a lot of the writing is witty and funny.

 Well the premise is rather simple, you're a group on a boat(s) trying to discover some secret about a mysterious 'gold'. It's a minimal but effective setup. The majority of the game is spent listening to dialogue and watching scripted scenes, which is not a bad thing in this scenario. You need to change your mindset less like you're playing a video game, but more like you're 'watching' a movie with your friend that you can both manipulate and affect the outcome of. With this in mind its pretty entertaining.

 There are sections where it takes you out of the 'movie' where it goes third person with fixed camera angles and you have to walk around to progress. These moments are ok, and this is where the real 'gameplay' is. For the most part, these segments consist of simply walking forward in a narrow line to progress to the next cutscene, albeit extremely slowly and clunky to give a more cinematic vibe. It can work against its self though, and start to feel dull and monotonous just because of the movement speed.  There are usually some optional rooms you can enter to look at some objects, most of which are notes with flavor text about the circumstance.

So I would say its a top experience to have with a co op partner in the sense of sharing a thrilling horror movie. I will complain a bit in that all of the horror moments really are just cheap jump scares. There is no combat or anything like that, or any really threatening moments of gameplay.

It's all about choices and their outcome, dialogue, and quicktime events. Most of the quicktime events are extremely short 0.5ms ~ 1second; so you can easily mess them up if you're not hyper focused, which in turn drastically changes the outcome of the game, so this can be frustrating if you have the mindset of just relaxing and watching. You need to be on the edge of your seat ready to hyper press QTE if you want good outcomes.
It can be really bullshit though. For example there was a moment where I briefly lost connection to my partner, in the middle of a quick time event, I regained connection, but I failed the quicktime event - And a character was permanently dead. Could not revert, could not undo. Just like that the campaign is 'ruined'. Was quite a bummer especially because it wasn't my fault.

For sure the strong point of this game is its graphics / presentation. I don't really need to explain this in writing, just one look at the facial animations or graphics should be enough to impress. This really makes you immersed in the campaign so turn off the lights and jump in type feeling.

Lastly, I will note the game ended rather awkwardly and abruptly, it kind of gives many hints to whats actually going on, but then ends without really detailing anything. You can play through the game again to get different endings, and there is an additional mode that was added after the game came out called 'Curators mode' which has additional scenes, characters, and outcomes, but after 1 playthrough the ending feels awkward and abrupt. It does seem like a perfect game to play through again, with a new friend just as a cool cooperative cinematic experience to have even with people who don't like video games. It can be beaten in just one evening at only 3 hours long, so why not.

 7/10

Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy

Crash Bandicoot:

- game isn't challenging for any genuine reason but mostly because the camera is shit and you can't tell what the hell is going on. you're left staring at the shadow of your character rather than your actual character because the camera angle is positioned in such a way that you cant see where the fuck your feet are actually going to go.

- everytime i thought about playing this game it was dread. its a total slog and exercise in frustration and trial & error. you will never beat a stage on the first life. you need to slowly inch your way forwards one step at a time, die, repeat, game over, repeat. memorize. repeat. it sucks. its not fun. its not challenging. its just tedious. boring. moment to moment gameplay sucks. 1 step forward 2 steps back.

- 1 hit deaths are kind of not enjoyable in pretty much all games. especially when the camera is so ambiguous and shitty where you can barely tell where the fuck the character is.

- getting to the end of a level with 0 lives left and game overing because the controls are ambiguous and trash is REALLY god damn frustrating. oh when you bounce on a box you dont just hold A, you have to specifically wait until just the right combination of awkward janky phyiscs interactions THEN hold a to go 'slighltly higher' so you can 'just barely' make the jump. the physics suck. the jumping is annoying. i'm pretty sure the original game is better than this.

- boss fights with stupid gimmicks that you cant figure out on the first few attemps need to just die over and over until you figure out the stupid gimmick. not fun.


+ the levels are pretty cool and varied but due to issues earlier they aren't really enjoyable.

+ graphics are fine and colorful and enjoyable, its a simplsitic and minimal game. easy to pickup hard to master. but as i've said its only hard to master because its mostly trial and error. i genuinely dont think anyone can just pickup this game and play through it without dying dozens of times first on every level. because of this, the thought of even playing it feels like a chore

not really the classic I was hoping for sadly. apparently the first one is the most unforgiving so maybe the other ones will be a bit painless
6/10











Crash Bandicoot 2: Cortex Strikes Back

N/A


Crash Bandicoot 3: Warped

N/A

Get Even

 

where do I start with this mess?

the whole game is extremely narrative heavy. there is HARDLY any gameplay. all you do for the entire duration of the game is walk around your environment listening to extremely loud melodramatic violins and voice acting.

 then have this phone full of stupid fucking apps you have to switch back and forth between scanning your environment or doing all this digital virtual reality shit to highlight where to go and stuff like that. Its utterly boring.
 It's like they spent 2 days developing the actual GAME side of things, and 3 years doing nothing but voice acting, script writing, and story shit. Well then how is the story? UTTERLY MELODRAMATIC DULL BORING SHIT.

Essentially all it is: "muh family. What happened to Muh family." that's it. its the most generic trope in the book. its like the developer thought "Hmm whats something most humans can connect with on an emotional level? Oh I know, family relations!" and they made it the entire story. ITS BORING. It all takes place in a VR headset 'digital world' that makes you fly between tons of different random memories arbitrarily. It seems totally convoluted and overly complex for no reason. It's stupidly hard to follow and I just stopped giving a shit very quickly.  I was waiting for the actual gameplay AND IT NEVER HAPPENED.

 The entire game you have the most overblown MELODRAMATIC fucking violin music blasting in your face like its some grand emotional spectacle like The Titanic or something but in reality I'm god damn near falling asleep the entire time its so fucking dull and uneventful. 
 Here is what an average hour of gameplay looks like in Get Even

-> 1. appear in some random 'memory' complex room or forest area
-> walk around the environment staring at your phone on the bottom of the screen with incredibly low FOV so it feels like double vision
-> look at your stupid fucking phone apps for the next hint of how to progress in the enviorment
-> Stop! you are now interrupted by a scripted 'still image digital distortion Memory' event where you're forced to sit and listen to another fucking BORING line of voice acting for 90+ seconds at a time.
-> Repeat back step 1.

the ONLY variation of this are things like

-> Now there are 'Hostile enemy' forces patrolling around. However, the game is screaming at you to avoid them and do not engage.
-> Tip toe around the enemies or just say fuck it and kill them all with really rudimentary, boring, and stupid controls where you look through your PHONE SCREEN to shoot at enemies and they disintegrate into pixel dust. By the way you're not suppose to do this the game is yelling at you saying its going to punish you if you do this. I don't get it.
> OR there is now an incredibly basic puzzle where you flip switches.

Repeat all of that for 6 hours and that's ALL of Get Even. Don't forget the whole time you have extremely obnoxious SHITTY melodramatic music blasting at you and convoluted "oh my god the mystery of muh precious family NOOOO!!!".. Like they actually think they've written some masterpiece of story writing that really pulls on your emotions and really makes you think. They actually think they've done that. I can tell. It's so fucking lame. It's so corny. I hate this stupid shit.  God damn this game fucking SUCKS.

And to top all of that off guess what?

 You have to replay half of the game over again, from a slightly different 'perspective' The same dull 3 different environments over AGAIN.
 That's right. Around halfway through the game it shifts you into another person where it replays the same BORING FUCKING 'LEVELS" over again with slightly different voice acting and environmental paths. I WAS FALLING ASLEEP THE ENTIRE TIME. THIS GAME SUCKS ASS.

 There were many parts in this game where I was groaning out loud in cringe or just utter boredom it was that fucking bad. Rocking back and forth in my chair or just muttering dumb stuffto myself to try to entertain myself to be able to sit through this slog of a 'game'. It was that boring.
The story is so god damn bad and cliche. There isn't even really cutscenes or anything of the sort. The entire story is told through these scripted 'Still motion' digital memory segments where you just stand there like a dumbass watching these two digital caricatures repeat lines of voice acting to each other.

- The 'combat' sucks and punishes you for even attempting to have FUN by using it.

- the story sucks

- the graphics suck. its actually nauseating to play with the extremely low FOV and two screens at once (phone + regular vision)

- the environments suck. There are basically only three of them. Some sort of mental facility, a random forest, and dingy ruined buildings.

- the controls suck.

- the stupid fucking phone mechanic sucks.

-the music SUCKS. There are parts where it randomly starts blasting the most stupid fucking pop music in your face too. It's so stupid. This game is so stupid.

 It is really like they had a bunch of ideas for voice acting and dialogue and wrapped it in a poor excuse of a 'game' because they didn't know what else to do with it.
   You can do a ton of optional shit and 'discover more about the story'  by 'replaying memories' or some stupid fucking shit but WHY. I don't know if I got the 'proper' ending or not, I don't give a shit. I'm just happy this chore is over.

 3/10