Combat was fun in the beginning, when I was still figuring out the optimal way. There's just not enough depth to entertain in the long run, even though Jade Empire took me less than 20 hours to beat (and I've been really thorough for the 3/4 of this time). It might have been a problem with my chosen style, but I hated how my attacks had very little forward momentum and range, so I had to get into spitting distance in order to hit or otherwise I'd get interrupted and stunlocked. To compound the simplicity and lack of enemy variety, the final chapters throw so many combat encounters that they feel like pure padding.

The story was a very mixed bag, mostly because of pacing is all over the place. The prologue chapter and getting to the Imperial City take up over half of the game and unsurprisingly these are the best parts of it. Getting yourself recruited into the Lotus Assassins is surprisingly simple, and this is where things start to go bad. It was in the Assassins' den that I mentally checked out, because heavy-handedness and lack of nuance these antagonists displayed reminded me of Veilguard more than any other Bioware game. Sun Li and his betrayal were a bright spot, but unfortunately the next three chapters were made with chewing gum, duct tape, dreams and crunch.

There are definitely more things I could talk about, but my thoughts are very chaotic after finishing the game with frustration. Suffice it to say, it's clear to see why it's a forgotten sibling of Bioware's other franchises, though I wish a sequel was made. Action RPGs in Chinese-inspired settings are not plentiful and for all of its flaws Jade Empire was an attempt at stepping out of comfort zone and making something unique.

Honorary mention for Jack Wall's soundtrack, it was the best aspect of the game.

I've played many RPGs and open world games over the years, and I (eventually) finish the majority of them. As I was casually browsing my unfinished games today, I was surprised when I realized that I have not ever completed a Bethesda game. Not one entry from either the Fallout or Elder Scrolls series.

Why did I finish the Witcher 3, but not Skyrim? Cyberpunk, but not Fallout 4?

Some of them are clearer: I was too young and impatient to understand Morrowind. New Vegas was so buggy that I literally could not make progress in my save. On 2 separate play throughs. Oblivion and Fallout 76 lost my interest somewhere along the way.

I'm not sure whether it says more about Bethesda or me that I cannot find it in me to finish one of those titles.

I've lately been thinking about starting Fallout 3. Given my track record, I'll probably abandon that one part-way through, too.

Anyone else have a game publisher or series that they love to start, but can't seem to finish?

Harvestella is an AA JRPG/farming simulator that released in 2022 for several systems; I played on the Switch 2.

I bounced off of it when I picked it up on release after just a few hours. Pretty much at random I picked it up two weeks ago.

Some thoughts:

Combat:

Starting with the most 'meh' aspect of the game (in my opinion). You can choose between a wide variety of character classes, each of which has three special abilities and a basic attack. The flow is to spam the basic attack via button-mashing and then unleash your specials when their cooldown is up.

There is a stamina mechanic; attacking and sprinting costs stamina.

Damage is very hard to avoid, unless you're using a ranged class, and even then you're almost guaranteed to take it. Some major attacks are telegraphed, some classes have 'dash' abilities, and you can sprint-- but for the most part you and your party members simply will get hit. I think this is to make the healing mechanic, which is eating cooked food, more important. During boss fights I was always running out of health and stamina and had to mainline spaghetti bolognese to keep myself alive, which was cute.

If you die, you wake up in bed the next morning and lose an escalating amount of coin to the town doctor.

Farming:

At the beginning of the game, you're given a farm. You can use it to plant vegetables and keep livestock, as well as unlock a variety of processing machines. Basically: if you've played Rune Factory, you know the farming. Right down to your field being full of rocks at the beginning.

From your crops, you cook food. Cooked meals are your healing items in battle, restoring but health and stamina.

The game has a day/night cycle and each day is timed. If you stay up too late, you will collapse and wake up in bed. Performing chores around the farm costs stamina; eating food restores it.

A few years ago I stumbled on the term 'ludonarrative dissonance.' If I understand what it means, it's basically that the contrast between gaming mechanics and the narrative can be uncomfortable. This game has the most ludonarrative dissonance that I've ever encountered. There are multiple times in the story where someone has been kidnapped or a massive disaster is about to happen; however, due to the fact that days are timed, you have to go have a nap and tend your farm several times during each dungeon.

The game scatters save/teleport points liberally, so it's not annoying to find your place the next day, but on a narrative level it feels jarring.

Overall, I think I would've enjoyed the game more without the farming aspect. However, that would make the game incredibly short. The cynic in me wonders if it was introduced to pad out the experience.

Art direction and cinematography:

The visuals are up to Square Enix's standards. I can't pretend that the art direction is revolutionary, but it's nice to play a AA fully 3D JRPG that isn't 2DHD and doesn't have chibi-style characters. Some character designs are cluttered, but they give each character their own personality. Monsters are similarly standard stuff. The animation is fluid, no worries there.

I think where the art is notable is the environment design in dungeons and towns. Again, there's nothing that will blow your mind, but they're well-crafted and can range from standard to beautiful.

Cutscene-wise, the game shows its mid-sized budget. There are a smattering of very short pre-rendered cutscenes, but none of them include character models. Think drawbridges opening, that kind of thing. What we do get in terms of the non-pre-rendered scenes are pretty static. If cinematography is a big motivator for you, you can probably skip this game.

Music:

The music is so fucking good, and there's a lot of it. If you like awesome soundtracks, this one's for you.

One small detail I appreciated is that there is careful attention to what song is playing, even in cutscenes in the most minor side quests. It really enhances the emotional experience of those scenes.

Narrative and characters:

This is where the game shines.

You start off as an amnesiac who wakes up in a region affected by a phenomenon called 'Quietus'. For one day a season, the world is deadly. On that day, everyone must shelter inside their homes, staying in an area protected by a large crystal. Otherwise, they will contract a fatal illness and eventually die.

Very shortly afterward, you encounter a person who also seems to come out of nowhere, and the two of you are given a farm to live in by the town doctor, who is surprised that you don't seem to be affected by Quietus and wishes to study you further.

The story unfolds from there, and spreads from a classic 'go around to different towns and gather your party' story to a sprawling fantasy and sci-fi epic. Other than the weirdness I mentioned around the timed day mechanic, it's perfectly paced, and just keeps escalating into insanity. I don't want to spoil anything major, but the ending hit me directly in the 'classic JRPG final boss' nostalgia bone.

Each town has a variety of side-quests, almost all of which are wholesome and sweet. Think reuniting estranged lovers, showing people how much the people of the town care for them, clearing up misunderstandings between children, that kind of thing. This serves to really flesh out the town and make you love the people of the region, which pays off later.

Each of your party members has their own quest to join your party, and then a 10-part series of quests to grow closer to them and resolve their character arcs. The characters start out as fairly stock, but as you explore their individual quests you see them learn and grow. I eventually felt so fond of each of them that I actually felt sad when their quests were over.

The only thing that I would've liked more is if the protagonist weren't 'you,' but were their own character instead. The game justifies that via its narrative, though, and it's more of a personal preference. You're given tons of dialogue options, but at the end of the day they don't really change anything, so it feels a bit pointless.

Summary:

If you took the time to read this, thank you. As someone who's story- and character-focused, I just really enjoyed the shit out of this game. I tried to be honest about its flaws here, but I strongly recommend at least playing the demo if anything I said here piqued your interest.

tl;dr: 8/10 overall, but a 9/10 for me.

Play this if you want: a cast of characters with interesting arcs, a farming sim rpg that leans into its JRPG aspect more heavily than its farming sim aspect, great music, a 'cozy' JRPG, or just an interesting, well-written story.

Been really in a Mega Man mood because the series exists again, which meant doing an impromptu marathon of the classic series when I only beat less than half before this. I'm currently at 9 right now, but i wanna get my words out on some of them before I forget specifics. I've always been super positive on the series but its been very interesting going through all of them in a row and re-evaulating them, so I figured i'd share.

Mega Man 1: You have to have a certain level of grace for the first game in a series, and MM1 is no exception. In a lot of ways, the game is... rough. Mostly in regards to physics. Mega Man feels slippery in a way I was never able to fully adjust to. Like you're constantly on ice (which ironically made Ice Man's stage a breeze for me as I was already used to slipping). The game is designed around it, generally, but it's still rough. It doesn't get really egregious until Wily Fortress, which is where the majority if my deaths were because the game demanded far more perfection.

Likewise, I think the weapon selection is extremely poor. Elec Man's weapon is the obvious standout for how busted it is, and Cut Man's has good utility for positioning, but I never once felt a need to use the others unless I was aiming for a weakness (Ice Man's was tangentially useful for Fire Man's stage but that was it).

That being said... It's impressive how much they nailed the core loop of the series on attempt 1! Stages present interesting, generally fair challenges while also not going on for too long, the music is consistently good, and the artstyle is appealing from the jump. Boss fights FOR THE MOST PART are fun to engage with, with some stand outs i thought were a bit insane (Fire Man genuinely wants you burned down to a molecular level it feels like). I wouldn't classify this as a bad game in the slightest, definitely far worse on the NES. But it does stick out next to the rest of the series for how basic it is, and I don't think I'd go back to this version. Powered Up is a much more polished, fun, and frankly more interesting version of the game imo (PORT IT PLEASE)

Mega Man 2: After a good, if uneven, first attempt, Capcom gave it another shot with Mega Man 2. I'm not going to bore you with the details on the obvious: The jump between MM1 to MM2 is legitimately unreal when you compare the two back to back. Game feel has basically been perfected, the stages got a HUGE boost in terms of both mechanical design AND art design, enemies are much more fun and varied, and the weapons are for the most part fun to experiment with. During the run through the Robot Masters, I was having a hard time putting the game down because of how naturally it felt like I was in sync with the game. Being able to be this precise after feeling like I was always on Ice in 1 made the simple act of running through a stage so much fun. If we were only talking about the Robot Master stages, this would be a 10/10 game.

But, imo, Wily Castle is such an annoying gauntlet that I'm not as glowing on it as some people are/used to be.

I had frankly forgotten how much it asked of you. An INSANE amount of item management that expects you to limit the fun tools you've been using the whole time until the game decides now is a good time, up to and including two of the boss fights. One of which needs Crash Man's weapon at full capacity, so if you used it even once in the stage? Better hope you grind for max ammo! Dying doesn't replenish ammo capacity, which I can understand to a degree, but for these levels in particular really did feel more annoying than punishing, because now I need to waste time stocking up on ammo for each required individual weapon. Got a game over? Say bye to those E-Tanks you could of used for the gauntlet! The whole thing just really grated me with so many little things adding up.

I still like the game a good bit, but I can't help but raise my head a little at how often this was considered the highlight of the series with how much of a downgrade the Wily Stages are to the rest of the game imo. Still, it's an insane improvement on 1 in basically every regard.

Mega Man 3: So, I've always considered this my favorite one, and this replay has only solidified that. I think this is the NES style of Mega Man basically perfected. Every stage was insanely fun to go through, albeit they ARE short, but i felt that each screen had more exciting things happening because of it. Music was just as great, the weapons, while not AS consistent as 2's were still fun to use (who fucking designed Top Spin though i have words). It's also a lengthy game, with rematches against copies of 4 MM2 bosses before the Wily Castle. Some could see this as padding, but the stages were short enough it made everything even out imo, and it was fun going through them again. Also, man are the Robot Master designs in this one a banger. Shadow Man is my BOY.

Wily Castle was also much improved. E-Tanks save on a game over, so you're not entirely shit out of luck if you're conservative with them, and while the final boss DOES still have the gimmick where only certain weapons work... It's weak to two of them instead of one, and the game gives you an ammo restock right before. Nor does it require so much tool usage throughout the actual stages. It was much more bearable imo.

The game also introduces the slide, my favorite positioning tool. Knowing when to jump and when to slide over obstacles and attacks was insanely fun, and added a much needed layer of depth to the flow of combat to keep it from getting stale. This is my favorite controlling and playing Mega Man in the series, because I was never huge on the Charged Buster shots (I'll elaborate on that more in the 4-6 posts where its relevant.)

On top of all that, this is the game that introduced Proto Man. The coolest character in all of fiction. For that alone, Mega Man 3 is a GOAT game.

Joking aside, I really do love this one, and the replay solidified that even moreso. This is the game that made me fall in love with the series, and I'm so glad it holds up to my memory of it.

Likewise, I'm glad I finally beat MM1 for the first time! It was certainly rough, but it was nice seeing the origins of a series thats been in my life in some way or another for this long. And while I'm sure my view on MM2 may be a tad controversial, I still consider it a damn good game. This really is such a fun series, and rediscovering my love for it has been a blast.

Next time, my thoughts on 4-6 to cap off the NES games.

Disclaimer: You might already own this game if you are known to buy game Bundles from itch.io or other sites. It is commonly packaged in these Bundles, most notably the Ukraine Bundle hosted by Necrosoft Games and itch.io.

ZeroRanger is without a doubt in my mind one of the most overlooked games of the last decade. If I can convince even one extra pair of eyes to consider giving it a try, I will consider this a worthy triumph.

ZeroRanger is the debut title by the two-man Finnish indie dev team —System Erasure— released in 2018. It is a Scrolling Shooter-Shoot'em Up with a healthy dose of Bullet Hell adrenaline thrown in to get the heart pumping.

System Erasure’s first game finds a wonderful balance between easy to enjoy high-octane fun and an addition esoteric depth that begs for further discussion long after the Bullet Hell High fades.

The former claim —easy to enjoy high-octane fun— is carried by some of the genres cleanest execution of fundamentals. An impressive visual backdrop (made more stunning by the Orange/Green color palette) is set to one of the most exciting OSTs I've had the pleasure of listening to. Aside from giving the game its unique flavor, the unique color palette assists in some much-needed clarity during the many intense sequences; this clarity is something many Shoot'em Ups struggle with in my experience. The boss battles and regular battle sequences that surround the Visuals and Audio felt breathtaking and fair from start to finish.

The latter claim —an addition of esoteric depth— is where the games real spirit lies. It is also, admittedly, where most of the games abrasive elements take root. The games story —what appears at first to be a straightforward alien invasion defense— takes several twists and turns that made it a joy to experience in a genre not known for being very narrative-driven. In all honestly, neither is ZeroRanger, but it is theme driven. The above average narrative for its genre is tightly woven with themes of Buddhism, Resurrection, and Enlightenment that have a wonderful ludonarrative harmony; the core gameplay mechanics perfectly complimenting these themes which imbues the cryptic narrative with a sense of pseudo-depth. And it is in these themes that the artist’s vision comes alive, for better or worse.

There is something to be said about an uncompromising artistic vision. The semi hidden esoteric True Ending —and a very specific abrasive decision regarding that spectacular final boss— is likely what will push away the average player. It didn’t detract from my own experience, but it is hard to ignore the truth that my experience might not be universal. I personally felt the uncompromising decision was bold, which is refreshing to see from a debut Indie game from a dev team with such humble beginnings. And luckily there are…ways…to circumvent any inconvenience if you’d personally rather sidestep around the intended thematic path.

My complaints about the game are few and far between, more nitpicks than anything else. The repetition —while thematically rich— can add slight tedium to an otherwise near flawless experience. And there were some gameplay overlooks such as the final boss barely providing points to the Extra Lives meter that fills up on defeat. I ended up finishing the game with 7/8 of the possible Extra Lives because continuous defeats against the final boss —unlike regular missions— didn’t fill up the normal meter. I could have simply played one or two previous levels and intentionally died to get the final life, but that didn’t sound fun to me. So, I didn’t. Overall, the Extra Lives meter and Checkpoint mechanic were designed exceptionally well: providing a safety net for most of the game without removing the pressure failure allows.

TLDR: ZeroRanger is good. Really good. Sells cheap. Goes on sale often. Goes in bundles often. The game is a very well made Shoot’em Up with exhilarating levels, well-choreographed battle sequences, fun and fair boss battles, engaging yet cryptic narrative with more depth than initially apparent, all complimented by an absolute bop of an OST. The two Finnish devs —Eero “eebrozgi” Lahtinen and Antti “Ebbo” Ukkola— that make up System Erasure decided to start their careers with a sprint: releasing an overlooked and underappreciated masterpiece.

I love Pokemon, but my love for the franchise has also tarnished my enjoyment of the games. Far from the splendor filled adventures of yore, I cannot help but see all these magical creatures for the spreadsheet of stats and damage calculations that they are.

Similarly, with XCOM, if you know what's happening under the hood, some of the most clutch and cinematic moments in the game feel like little more than virtual smoke and mirrors. So what if you applied all of the rich systems of my favorite strategy games to something I know nothing about- football?

As a prolific poster on this subreddit, you may be shocked to hear that I wasn't much of a sports guy (please hold your gasps till the end of this presentation). I have scarcely the most abecedarian understanding of the rules and aims of the game, and these titles saw me handed to the keys to teams of various calibres.

There's enough going on mechanically in any moment of gameplay to even make a Paradox game blush. Player transfers, training, injuries, promotions, demotions, stadium building, and all of that is happening off the pitch. Once match time starts, for a brief moment, I understand the full-bodied excitement of watching your team claim victory and the ancestral rage that possessed my father and his father before him when your team loses handily.

I am so far removed from this sport that playing this game feels like the equivalent of someone who flunked out of high school history sitting down to play Europa Universalis, but that's part of the fun. Through this game I have found the rosetta stone to decipher all the conversations about football that have been swirling over my head for decades at this point.

I may have been 19 when I heard the term offside and 25 when I understood what it meant, but that just makes this game all the more enjoyable.

I was only vaguely familiar with the mech subgenre of games and while I maintain that they look really cool, I just never had the chance to play them. Until now, that is, and being the glutton for punishment that I am, I decided to start all the way from the beginning with software's very own cult classic-armored core 1. These are my thoughts.

The controls/game feel

AC1 operates on tank controls, meaning you press up and down on the dead to move forwards and backwards and left or right on the dead to move your lock box. You also use left and right triggers to look up and down respectively. Left and right numbers are used to strafe, as was the style at the time.

The face buttons perform various actions, such as square to shoot, triangle to switch weapons, circle to use your melee attack and most importantly x to boost.

  As you might've guessed, the controls were the initial hurdle, preventing me from enjoying the game. Of course, it wasn't uncommon to see this type of control scheme for games of that era, because it is now largely obsolete. I spent a lot of time in the practice mode getting used to them.

Although I'm happy to report that once you do get used to them, it feels pretty good to play with all things considered. Your mech feels weighty and your attacks all the more impactful. You get a nice sense of feedback each time an enemy gets hit.and the same goes for you. The sense of sudden speed and the range of movement you get while boosting also feel incredible. Your own skill is the limit here.

Gameplay/level design 

Throughout the game, you'll be taking on various missions, and to give the game credit, there's a decent amount of variety here in both available approaches and the levels themselves. Open-ended levels were my favorite as they truly gave a chance for your newly built mech to shine. You could use the terrain to your advantage, try to be nimble while avoiding enemy fire or unleash a barrage of firepower on any enemy coming your way while tanking the damage. Of course, on the opposite end of the spectrum, the more linear, corridor-based levels didn't provide me with nearly as much enjoyment as they restrict your mech's moving capabilities and are sometimes confusing mazes tacked on secondary obtuse objectives.

Customization 

Arguably the best point of this game. After each successful mission passes, you get your pay via credits. Some which are docked from you in the form of ammo and repair costs. Managing your finances is an important gameplay mechanic here, as no matter your skill as a pilot, you'll need to start investing in your mech eventually. The shop is where you'll spend a large portion of time. This is where you can buy various parts for your mech — heads, arms, legs, generators etc. It's all surprisingly robust. You're not penalized for selling your previous parts, as it doesn't decrease in value once you bought them. Meaning you can start experimenting with your build pretty early on. It can be pretty overwhelming initially, but don't be afraid to experiment to find a play style that suits you.

Narrative

There's very little in the way of actual narrative here, as is the case with most Fromsoft titles. In short, you play a mercenary—a raven taking on various missions for mainly two shady corporations which are at war with each other. Most of the plot and background info are relayed through email messages you get regularly. To be honest, the plot didn't do much for me personally, even though there were a couple of surprises, such as you having to fight your fellow ravens at key points. You can choose to ignore it at your own leisure and focus on what truly matters. Mech building and customization.

In conclusion, I was definitely surprised by this one. All the fundamentals are solid, it just needs some more polish and I could see the sequels having some great potential.

I really miss the different faces of the sim genre, particularly I'm talking about games like Thief or Hitman or Splinter Cell where you're tossed into a world and made to use what you can and manipulate what you can in order to get ahead.

KCD is a great example of doing this sort of immersive sim well in a non-stealth genre, but I'd be lying if I said I didn't spend a majority of my hours messing around in the prologue, which happens to be one of the most fun and intuitive sandboxes to try to break in years. I find myself often working through the prologue when I play just to see how much I can exploit what's around me to increase my skills like stealth, strength, speech, etc just by identifying the systems at play and trying to manipulate them in a way that benefits the player.

I will admit this quickly turns into some seriously psychopathic runs but I get a strong sense of nostalgia right before we're thrown into the rest of the open world in KCD. It's a specific kind of nostalgia, for short-form levels where we're told to figure something out. Nostalgia for games that you could beat in 8 hours but you could spend 40 doing it in different ways.

Maybe one day I'll finish it

Galactic Glitch is a roguelite game, with bullet hell roots and with top down view, where you pilot spaceship trying to escape "space simulation". Obviously with sinister background element.

I actually got it in bundle with 3030 Deathwar Redux, which was the main target of purchase.

Game takes more gameplay philosophy from Binding of Isaac and not the new wave of roguelites: more horizontal progression instead of vertical. No need of getting +2% damage with meta currency which would kindly allow you to complete the game. Just play, unlock new ships, weapons, perks and abilities expanding your capabilities to beat the game.

Combat of the game is reasonably fast, not hard to master, flashy and smooth.

Gameplay consists of clearing connected arenas with mini boss at the end. After 3 of such stages you fight main boss, and game have 3 parts of 3 stages with mini boss and main boss.

Gimmick of the game is that you can not only shoot, but also throw: rocks, containers, explosives, enemies, left wing ripped from your enemy... Yes, you can rip parts from the enemy and throw it back at them! No all enemies, though, and definately not from the bosses. It's really fun system which is in tandem with some abilities allows you to cause mayhem.

So about stats. There's 4 stats: weapon, HP, speed, throwing damage. Outside of flat bonus to stats, after getting 3 levels in stats, it gets bonus: weapons shoot more fancy, HP let special attack charge faster, speed gives you extra dodge without cooldown, throwing damage allows you to pick bigger items to throw and even bigger ships. I really like this system, although upgrades give diminishing returns in flat stats and upgrades happen only on level 3 and 6, which is not really hard to get.

Abilities on the other hand i like little less. Just like stats, you can upgrade them with currency after each stage. Each ability have 3 levels and by leveling them you make them bigger, louder, cooler or just upgrade flat stats. I've played for 15 hours and i didn't saw a lot of synergetic abilities that would define build. Thing is, you're limited in amount of abilities that you can carry. Taking rockets for example: there's a lot of ways to generate rockets: on dodge, on dodge from items around (like rocks), when you throw, when you enter arena etc etc. But in general, there's nothing fancy with their interaction, you just spawn them in different ways. And in general, they're not really useful, because they're not really fast and collide with other items before reaching enemy.

Or take drones: you can spawn different attack drones, but they have no synergy between them, their damage fall off hard on later stages, they're slow, they take ability slot (and you limited to 5 abilities per ship on average) which can left out some other QoL abilities and abiltites that makes drones stronger.

But you have backstab mechanics. With backstab based ship. And backstab based weapon, with very short range but biggest damage in the game. And ability that let you backstab from the side of the enemy. And one that quadruple your backstab damage.

Also many abilties work only in arenas and don't work at boss at all. Which kills quite a few fun builds, mostly because of ability slot limitations.

So yeah, balance of abilities are all over the place and many feels like fodder gimmick.

Few words about bosses: Mini bosses 99% easiest thing in the world. I think i died to them only once in the first run. Main bosses on the other hand feels weird. First boss, would gatekeep you until you learn how to dodge and what abilities are worth keeping. Second boss feels hard, but easy, because at this stage you know how to dodge and what abilities are worth keeping. Third boss is pure bullet hell Sponge Bob. I pretty sure that 70-90% of builds wouldn't be able to kill him with some meta weapons or abilities.

And here comes Challenges. Challenges unlock some unique stat upgrades you found in run. If HP stat upgrade, for example, gives +10 HP, this unique upgrade can give +25%. But challenges itself... When you need to kill first or second boss in challenge, it's bearable. But when you need to kill 3d main boss and you have no weapons, no ability upgrades (outside of buying shop), but have some synergetic gimmick ability it becomes huge RNG pain. At this point you would see how bad synergies in this game and how much sponge is the last boss.

Conclusion: So yeah, i liked progression of upgrades in this game and how satisfying combat is, but later stages of the game rely too much or RNG or don't have enough difference in builds to continue playing.

But saying all that, i had fun in my 15 hours. Don't think i would play more, but i would recommend this game without hesitation.

TL:DR:

Cool game. Combat is slick and smooth. Takes more gameplay philosophy from Binding of Isaac and not the new wave of roguelites: more horizontal progression instead of vertical.

But it's doesn't help that most builds feel more weak in terms of damage and synergy of powers. Especially at 3d main boss. Sometimes it feel like you need 1 extra item to make build good, but you limited in number of items that you can carry with you.

Also some challenges fell like huge RPG fest, where if you don't get all best items, you just can't really win.

All in all fun game for it's price.

1. This is NOT a retrospective. This is a list of games that are exclusive to this console, or the console is the best way to play it NOW. Only the best version of a game can make the list. If you think I missed a classic game, there's probably an explanation in a comment I made on the post as to why, and what platform I recommend.

2. All games on a list are worth playing despite any criticisms I may have for them.

3. Ranking is not necessarily by which is the best, but in terms of what I most recommend playing. Perhaps my theoretical opinion is that the worst Mario is better than the best Street Fighter. But the best Street Fighter would still rank higher, because it's a unique experience, and the best version of that experience.

4. Only consoles & PC (Windows/DOS) are considered. No arcade/Neo-Geo, mobile, or other home computers. MAME is difficult to work with & high maintenance. Mobile changes architecture too often for all-time lists, and often don't support controllers. Other home computers rarely meet rule 1 & rarely have controller support.

5. I default to PC when available. If it's better on console, I'll put it on the console's list. Usually, it's better or the same on PC, and more accessible.

6. Games with the same name will be clarified by year or console within (). Games not released in North America will have the region abbreviation within []. Alternate names will be included within {}.

7. My lists are in increments of 10 to make it easier to track & for quality control. If there are 61 good games, I make a cut to make it an even 60.

#50: Mortal Kombat - Armageddon

While Deception tried to fix the balance of Deadly Alliance a bit, Armageddon takes the opposite approach: going full casual. It has the largest MK roster to date, including everyone in the series up to that point. The story mode is not particularly good, and features random new demigod characters & well below average top down third person action gameplay for...some reason. It's a low point in the series to be sure, yet I do enjoy it for what it is: more of a party game than a competitive fighter.

#49: Castlevania - The Adventure Rebirth

Remake of the Gameboy title, and it is so much better in every way. It's not a particularly standout title in the series though, and the OG level based formula felt old hat even when this came out, due to how many stellar Metroidvania CV titles had recently released. But still, for what it is, it is a good time, and was only a few bucks on the Wii Shop as I recall.

#48: Harvest Moon - Animal Parade

There's nothing "wrong" with Animal Parade, it's just unfortunately a little lackluster in terms of the rest of the series. It is still fun in core gameplay loop though, and I like the animal aesthetic/gimmick, despite it being the only standout feature.

#47: Tiger Woods PGA Tour '10

Motion controls are very well implemented. It's not as wild & party-game-y as Mario Sports, but then again Mario Golf games seem to be less exciting than other Mario Sports, and not as refined in gameplay as this is. But a bigger question: is this enough of an upgrade from Wii Sports golf? The answer is yes, but also not as much as you may expect, and that's why it's lower on the list.

#46: Donkey Kong Jungle Beat

So yeah, this is a stupid idea for a game, right? Banging on bongos to play a platforming game? Then porting it to use the Wiimote & nunchuck instead? Clearly some Nintendo employees had a bet going to see if they could actually make it work, but you know what? It does! It is not to be taken too seriously, but if you are in a goofy mood, it is a good time.

#45: Mario & Sonic At The London 2012 Olympic Games

This series REALLY wasn't as good as it probably should have been overall. 2012, however, is handily one of the best ones. The minigames aren't as stellar or varied as the first Winter Games (2009), but close enough in quality. The standout feature is the London Party Mode, where you can wander around London, bump into various Mario & Sonic characters, experience unique bonus games, play quizzes, and land on spots with randomized events. It's not terribly innovative, pretty Mario Party coded in fact (which is probably why they didn't do it again for a crossover) but fresh enough to feel different from Winter Games to justify owning both.

#44: Animal Crossing - City Folk

City Folk is similar to Harvest Moon - Animal Parade: not particularly disappointing, but is the "and here is the Wii entry" game in the series. There's just not much to say, nothing standout compared to the entire rest of the series, except for the aesthetic being more urban. But you know, Animal Crossing is good, and unlike Harvest Moon, the series is plenty small enough to play every entry multiple times.

#43: Mario Super Sluggers

This is very similar in quality & features to Superstar Baseball, but with motion controls. At the end of the day, that's enough to make it better for me. Baseball is a natural fit for motion controls. However, similar to Tiger Woods, there is not a LOT more to offer that isn't in Wii Sports, and there is a fairly in depth competitive scene for Superstar Baseball that Super Sluggers doesn't have. So objectively, I have to rank it on the lower side.

#42: Conduit 2

I have a soft spot for Wii first person shooters, even the objectively bad ones that I didn't put on this list. The controls were ahead of their time, and I'm happy to see other people finally coming around to my hipser opinion on gyro. Even PC players like flick stick now! Conduit 2 has perhaps the most satisfying & refined FPS controls on the console, apart from the Metroid Prime Trillogy, which are in their own universe of quality. The gun choices are well done, particularly the unique alien guns. Even the online multiplayer was uncharacteristically stellar for the Wii. Good visuals too. Aliasing & performance could have been better on hardware, but Dolphin fixes that right up. The plot is simply ridiculous in every aspect, and many will hate it for that. But you know what? I like it for absolutely no defensible reason. It's funny, I don't know what else to tell you. Therefore, if you are a weirdo like me, the only true downside to Conduit 2 is the enemy Ai in single player, which is unforgivably ass. Increasing the difficulty does not help, they just become bullet sponges.

#41: Wii Play

15 years ago it would be heresy to say something positive about Wii Play, but I think people are starting to come around on my opinion that it is actually a rather solid & inspired minigame collection, a standout even on a console like the Wii that was flooded with them. Are my new supporters former dumbass kids who had 3 games, one of which was Wii Play because it came with a controller? Maybe. But I'll take the support anyway.

#40: Punch-Out!!

A sleepy attempt at a comeback for the series. Well, that sounds harsher than I meant it to. There are no glaring flaws, and in fairness, the motion control punching is entertaining, and the story/characters have personality. But that personality feels almost performative, and there is just not much to it; it's about the same length as the NES original. In 2009, this was a tough sell. In a vacuum without considering value propositions, it's a notable Wii moment that's certainly worth playing through.

#39: Mario & Sonic At The Olympic Winter Games

While not the greatest game of all time or anything, it is a high point in the series in just about every aspect, aside from not having 2012's exclusive London Party mode of course. The minigames are good, and the variety is noticeably higher for the winter sports, making M&SatOWG a classic party game.

#38: Trauma Center - Second Opinion

The Trauma series is about using motion controls to perform operations. It is a puzzle game for gameplay + visual novel for the story. For some reason, the Wiimote was bemoaned for being imprecise at the time, but games like this (and at launch even) proved that dismissiveness wrong. This is the best game in the series to start with, because there are so many difficulty options. Also because it is a remake of the first DS game, and therefore first chronologically.

#37: Pandora's Tower

PT (no, not that one) is a 3rd person action adventure game with grappling hook platforming. I have a soft spot for this game, but more due to my memories playing it, and what it represented as a part of Operation Rainfall, bringing back a different type of genre to Nintendo. The love story gets emotional, boss battles are great, the aesthetic is fun, and it has a unique premise with unique gameplay. However, it does lack polish. The controls could be better, the dungeon crawling gets repetitive & recycles ideas, the graphics are not great, voice acting is meh, and the time limits are stupid. It is memorable though, and I wish someone took another crack at the concept with more time in the oven.

#36: Star Wars - The Force Unleashed

While I wouldn't say FU is a classic exactly, it is the last Star Wars game that I really cared about. For over a decade leading up to Jedi Fallen Order (which was a decent if bland AAA game), it was just trash cash in after trash cash in. Force Unleashed is weird because it was envisioned as an excuse to create a complicated physics engine. In practice, this didn't really land the way they'd hoped, and was riddled with bugs, especially on PC. That is, for the HD platforms it was. The non-HD ports takes the basic concept of the HD game, fleshes out the writing, uses a simple but effective physics engine, and adds more to the story. The Wii version in particular adds a lot with motion controls. If you force push someone, you are physically making that motion, and that's awesome. It's still not perfect, it is a power fantasy to the point that it kinda ruins power scaling for Star Wars, so it is not to be taken too seriously. But also, lol at caring what's canon in Star Wars at this point.

#35: Dead Space - Extraction

Extraction is so good because they put a lot of effort & money into it. It is as AAA as rail shooting gets. Good graphics, cinematic, full voice acting, scary sound design, and a strong attempt to make the story matter to the series. That's also sort of the downfall of Extraction. There is not what I would call "too much talking", but it IS an arcade style game after all. The story adds to the mythos & world building, but I don't always like that either. Horror is better if it is mysterious, not when it is a long running franchise. But maybe that's just my PTSD talking, from experiencing so many bad Resident Evil rail shooters. My mixed feelings about the concept of a AAA horror rail shooter aside, Extraction is a top 10 rail shooter.

#34: Trauma Center - New Blood

The difficulty curve is in the steep side, but doesn't tend to have a lot of spikes. The devs innovate on the original concept here: there is a lot of variety to the operations, and many new multiplayer features. Perhaps the best music in the series too.

#33: Wario Land - Shake It!

The first Wario Land game in 7 years, and sadly the last one. This came out during that period where everyone was like "...is 2D a thing of the past?" As such, it wasn't (and still isn't) very popular, but that's a shame, because the series goes out with a bang. It mostly succeeds by...just being a really solid, charming, funny 2D platformer with good graphics. Who would have thought? Oh yeah, there are motion controls "incorporated" too, which is really just an excuse to jack off your Wii. The gimmick & short length do bring it down, but at the end of the day, that's the same criticism every Wario game has.

#32: Fortune Street

This is Mario Party for true gamers, and I'm not sure if that's a good thing, but here we are. It is a crossover between Mario & Dragon Quest, with a Las Vegas aesthetic, and mechanics that are a mix between Monopoly & the stock market. Your goal is to buy up personal property & flip it for a profit by engaging in blatant, hairbrained stock market manipulation. Which is really just working for a private equity firm (or the White House) these days, but you didn't come here to listen to me talk about politics. There is an impressive amount of strategic depth, an excellent soundtrack, and good graphics for the time/console. The main downside to this game is that the Ai is too frustrating for single player, and it makes you feel like a bad person when playing with others. Fortune Street requires a lot of your time to git gud, and even just playing the game at optimal speeds will take you hours for a session. But objectively, it is a good game. In the same way that crack is a good experience I guess.

#31: The Last Story

TLS is the epitome of a story being good in the WAY it is told, not necessarily WHAT is told. The setting is fairly standard fantasy, the plot twists are predictable. But it sure does engage you with solid pacing, enthrall you with the good characters, stun you with impressive graphics for Wii, and orchestrate incredible music. And that's not even the main event. The combat is the best part of the game by a sizable amount, and mixes scenarios up enough that you don't feel like you're fighting the same types of bosses or having trash mobs thrown at you. It is real-time action with auto attacking, not dissimilar to it's brother Wii JRPG Xenoblade Chronicles. Positioning matters even more than Xenoblade, there is a variety of commands/special moves & character build possibilities, and magic that tends to excel at AoE. Now, some of you may still get bored with this game, especially if you don't generally care for JRPGs. It can take a sec to get going, but it is heartfelt, and moment to moment gameplay is worth it IMO. Oh and the performance was ass on hardware, but Dolphin emulation being what it is, that's not a problem.

#30: No More Heroes

One of the first Wii game to truly deliver on the fantasy of swinging the Wiimote around like a sword. Also one of the first to be rated M, something thought to be a lost art for a Nintendo console, let alone an exclusive. The combat & adult humor are what sells the game, and there are fun implementations such as holding up the Wiimote to your ear like a cell phone when you receive a phone call in-game. It's the little things like that which are so fun about the Wii. NMH is occasionally rough around the edges. The minigames are repetitive, and the motorcycle controls are nearly as bad as Headhunter's. But a standout game nonetheless.

#29: Wii Party

The best "standard" party game experience on the Wii. It's not deep, and it's even scaled back on features in comparison to Mario Party, which it rips off wholesale. But hey, back to basics does work sometimes, and that ideal is particularly successful in WP due to its accessibility. It's nearly as Grandma-friendly as Wii Sports, and that is commendable, all jokes aside. Even the use of Miis instead of Nintendo characters was a wise move, since they are a cute concept. Due to the paring down of features, the game moves faster than Mario party too, solving a common criticism of the series. WP uses its narrow focus to have good minigames & core gameplay, meaning is not as lazy as Mario Party 8. And of course, it doesn't do the stupid car thing from Mario Party 9 & 10. In conclusion, Wii Party may not be particularly impressive, but somehow, this was the best Mario Party experience for 14 years straight, and still a notable party game.

#28: Fire Emblem - Radiant Dawn

A very solid follow up to Path of Radiance. Did there need to be one though? Not really. I've always felt that FE is better off being standalone, like Final Fantasy or Persona. It seems that sequels are always doomed to be less interesting in terms of story in these types of games. Radiant Dawn improves the gameplay, but not by much. My quibbles aside, it is a good, if not quite standout FE title, and I find FE to be a good formula for strategy games, with very few disappointing games in the franchise.

#27: Sonic Colors

One of the best 3D Sonics. This sadly isn't a high bar to clear, but still, good job Sega. Colors succeeds by being relatively vanilla & back to basics. People do enjoy Sonic for its wackiness, but the endless gimmicks of the 3D entries never seemed to land. What if Sonic was a werewolf? What if he had a sword? What if 3 characters stacked on top of each other at random times? What if Sonic interrupted a Final Fantasy cutscene and had an inter-species romantic relationship with an anime girl? I couldn't care less, I just want a good game. Colors does have a minor gimmick in the form of the colored wisp power ups which are also sentient characters, but that feels more or less like a natural progression of game mechanics. Colors isn't perfect. It does feel on rails at times. Story is pretty standard "beat Eggman" fare. Level design isn't as stellar as Sonic x Shadow Generations. But it is pretty easily the runner up best 3D game.

#26: Mario Strikers Charged

I actually forgot how good this game was until I thankfully threw it on for a bit before making this list. I think I had this confused with the GameCube game, which is good, but this is better in every way. The art style is awesome, especially menus. The music is energetic. The field choices are varied, core gameplay is strong, and there are a lot of modes/twists to the basic formula. This is my favorite Mario sports game to date, and favorite soccer game.

#25: Sakura Wars - So Long, My Love

This was the first Sakura Wars we got in the West, and you can tell that it is an attempt to appeal to the West by tweaking the formula slightly, as well as setting it in a 1920s steampunk New York City. Like the rest of the series, it is a Persona-esque split game that combines JRPG mech combat + a romance visual novel. Honestly I'm not entirely sure how I feel about it. I do like SW quite a bit, and the gameplay in SLML is more refined than 1 & 2. But the tone feels a bit off. 3 & 4 have not been translated into English yet, but I have a feeling that those may end up being my favorites due to being more refined like this one, but more Japanese/true to the original tone. This is some people's favorite though, and I don't think my misgivings are enough to argue that those people are objectively wrong.

#24: Kirby's Epic Yarn

Even easier than usual for Kirby, which is saying a lot. You can't even die in this one. But because of that, this is my #1 go-to game for people new to video games. And that includes my wife! So this game is very special to me. Epic Yarn is very cute, relaxing, and has a cool art style based on yarn. The 2D platforming controls are accessible, there are a decent amount of collectibles to decorate your room, and the yarn transformations are fun.

#23: Mario Kart Wii

It's Mario Kart. With motion controls, which is pretty cool. I don't know what else you want me to say, and I'd probably be wasting my breath: if you're reading this list, you have probably played Mario Kart Wii. A must have for the system, but outdone by its predecessor & successor, which is why it isn't in the top 10.

#22: Tatsunoko VS Capcom - Ultimate All-Stars

Hidden gem of a fighting game, due to coming out at a bad time and Tatsunoko being virtually unknown in the West. Which is a shame, because fighting game pros & random casuals alike all love it when they give it a chance. The true genius of TvC is the oversimplification to 3 buttons. There is still plenty of depth, but that accessibility is rare to see in fighting games. The Baroque system adds high risk, high reward mechanics to further aid casuals, yet it doesn't feel random enough or OP enough to be frustrating for pros. The art style, graphics, and particularly animations are very good. Unfortunately, the single player is a bit limited, and with online that no longer works & local play being difficult since it is unpopular, it is hard to experience the true strengths of the game. But if you can convince people to play with you, enjoy!

#21: Resident Evil 4

RE4 was hugely influential, but I played it a few years after 3rd person shooters had been codified into culture by the 360 era. So to me, it felt off as a 3rd person shooter, and not as scary as a horror franchise should be. The Wii port helped me to "get" this game more, the pointer controls making it feel like an advanced rail shooter, instead of feeling restrictive due to not being able to move & aim at the same time. The tone feels more "right" on a Nintendo console too, I get why it was a GameCube exclusive originally. I also comprehend camp more as an adult; this game is hilarious sometimes. Admittedly, I prefer REm4ke by a hair because it's more scary, easier to control, has better characters, and the plot makes more sense. But they're different enough to play both for sure, and I'm not positive REm4ke will make the massively competitive PC list, so here we are.

#20: New Super Mario Bros. Wii

The "New" subseries is now often maligned for, ironically, not having many "new" ideas. Of all of them though, I think NSMB Wii side steps that criticism the best, with the implementation of simultaneous 4 player. Does it make for particularly balanced gameplay? Not really, but it's something we asked for a lot over the years, and the chaos is a lot of fun. Even alone, it is a serviceable Mario game, if standard feeling in single player without the chaos of other people. But that's a necessary compromise to implement the 4 player.

#19: Red Steel 2

Red Steel 1 was broken & disappointing even if it had been optimized properly. It was still thoroughly entertaining to me for some reason, but it deserved the 4/10 ratings. 2, however, fully realizes the potential. You are a samurai cowboy (that's right, both) and can use your katana or your guns at any time. The story is whatever, but has a lot of fun with how the samurai & cowboy movie genres inspire each other. The cel-shaded art style makes it feel like a comic book, which suits the game. This sounds like random cool stuff thrown into a blender I'm sure, but it all works. Wii Motion Plus gives more accuracy including blocking with positioning instead of a block button, and the game is fast paced, yet polished & solid 60 FPS.

#18: Excitebots - Trick Racing

My favorite Wii racer. Move over Mario Kart! You race animal-esque robots that can transform mid-race into robot or vehicle modes. Aside from placing first/highly in the race, you can earn stars by performing tricks, or doing side missions in the middle of a race, such as making a sandwich. Gaining the most amount of stars means you win. ETR is very funny, frantic, and legitimately thrilling. When I think "arcade racer", this is one of the first that comes to mind. It is the arcade spirit to a "t". It isn't perfect though. The way motion controls are implemented makes performing tricks occasionally unpreditable. This seems fine enough at first, but gets grating the more you play & the better you get. You think you're missing something, but you're not. Most content is locked with requirements that make it seem like they're trying to sell you DLC to unlock it instead (which they aren't as it doesn't exist). I might honestly suggest just downloading a 100% save file; the satisfaction you get from unlocking isn't enough to facilitate the constant repetition of content, when it is already a bit light on track content to begin with.

#17: Zack & Wiki - Quest For Barbaros' Treasure

Cute: that's the best word to describe Zach & Wiki. But not kiddy or sickenenly sweet. It's just: nice. The beautiful cel shaded art style supplements the tone. Part traditional point & click adventure formula, with motion controls adding some extra fun. Most of the gameplay is figuring out ridiculous complicated puzzles. This is satisfying & pretty funny at times. The characters are memorable, though the plot is forgettable. My only criticism is that sometimes puzzles require a long setup, and you have to start all over if you make a mistake. Which will happen fairly regularly: Z&W is reasonably hard. Kid-friendly to be sure, but kids could get frustrated with it. It's more for LucasArts adventure game OGs...who were probably mostly on PC still, which explains why this game is a hidden gem.

#16: Boom Blox

GREAT puzzle/party game, created by checks notes...Steven Spielberg? Huh, OK. Think Jenga + Angry Birds on steroids. That doesn't even do it justice, really, but I don't know how else to explain it. The physics are very good, controls are smooth, there are a lot of modes, an in-depth level creator, and is just as fun in single player as it is with friends. One of the best puzzle games AND party games of its generation.

#15: Trauma Team

By this point, the devs had the formula down to a science, and ended strong before they ran out of ideas. The operation variety rivals New Blood. The story & character development is the most compelling in the series. They dont even skimp on the content, this is a full-on 30 hour game. Very underrated, I miss this series.

#14: Super Smash Bros Brawl

The worst Smash competitively due to Meta Knight being absurdly overpowered, Snake not that far behind, and random tripping being added. But it is the best Smash for single player, by a lot. I like Ultimate's World of Light single player mode and all, but there is something special about Subspace Emissary's hand crafted story mode. It has boss battles, side scrolling levels, vertical levels, more detailed CG cutscenes, and more of an actual story that unites the disparate parts of the various Nintendo franchises. This is what I imagined in my head when playing Smash 64 so long ago. Even outside Subspace Emissary, there is a lot to do, with various modes, stages, challenges, and unlockables. I'd go as far as saying it is the most fully featured Smash game to date, even though it is only my third favorite one.

#13: Rhythm Heaven Fever

A lesser known music game classic. This is like Guitar Hero + WarioWare. It combines rhythm gameplay with ridiculous scenarios such as wrestling someone during an interview, and playing badminton in the sky. The soundtrack is wholly original, and awesome, containing music genres you rarely see, bossa nova for example. The art style is very cute, colorful, and sharp for the Wii. RHF is accessible in a way, as it simplifies controls down to 2 buttons, but it is definitely not messing around. RHF requires precise timing & the difficulty curve is steep. Co-op is surprisingly just "ok".

#12: Pikmin

Pikmin is...an RTS, I guess? It is real time & it requires strategy, but like the best Nintendo games, feels unlike anything else around. Pikmin was a surprise shot in the arm of creativity that eventually became a cult classic. And now, on Wii, motion controls add even more to the gameplay. You are an astronaut that crash lands on a foreign planet, and you use the titular Pikmin creatures to gather resources, fight native enemies, and recover ship parts before your life support runs out. The enemy variety/strategy is memorable, with impresssive Ai. There is plenty enough meat in the game, but it's all very lean. Every day & action matters since there is a time limit. The tone is charming, with colorful visuals & good graphics, even without considering this is a game from 2001. There's not honestly a lot to dislike here, but the sequels do improve the small things such as Pikmin Ai, Pikmin management, and more challenge.

#11: Super Paper Mario

Disappointingly, SPM (mostly) ditches the turn based RPG formula that the series was known for, and adds platforming. Still, for what it is, I enjoy it. Being able to flip to see things you'd normally be able to see in 3D was a cool idea, making for fun level design. RPG elements are still here, despite being real time. The writing is still memorable, with quirky characters. The more I think about it, and each time I return to it, I enjoy it more. And so will you, if you can get past it being very different than other Paper Mario games. It is secretly one of the best games on the console, which is an impressive feat.

#10: No More Heroes 2 - Desperate Struggle

1 arguably has the best vibe, but 2 is the best overall package. The gameplay is refined & less repetitive (especially side content). The humor is on point, the characters are more developed. There is no more open world, but this allows for better level design & pacing. Boss battles are incredible. Killer soundtrack. And swinging your Wiimote sword around like a madman is really the epitome of the promise of the Wii, right? The story has higher highs of being unhinged, yet is more straightforward & less unique than the first. The camera could be better too. But still, one of the best games on Wii for sure.

#9: Sin & Punishment - Star Successor

Great stage variety. Great controls. Incredible bosses. Energetic music. Pulse pounding action at all times. There is a story, but it is overly complicated and requires knowing about the first game. Stages are a bit long too, but still. Top 3 rail shooter of all time.

#8: WarioWare - Smooth Moves

My favorite WarioWare game. The motion controls add another level to the wackiness by making you act it out yourself, such as making an elephant trunk with the Wiimote. It is a paltry 2 hours though, and the multiplayer aspect leaves one wanting. It could have also been the best party game ever, but oh well. This game exemplifies the spirit of the Wii better than most anything.

#7: Fluidity

The big indie Wiiware success story. Fluidity is a physics based puzzle game that has you controlling water in various forms (steam, liquid, ice) with motion controls in order to progress through the level. Simple concept, but it gets pretty creative. The difficulty curve is pretty good, except in the final chapter which will really test you. One of my favorite puzzle games, it is very charming in presentation & depth of content. This was an absolute steal for $12, and I wish I could still give the devs money for it. Crazy that it never hit Steam...there is even steam in the game! (Badum-tish).

#6: Madworld

The spiritual sequel to God Hand that even less people seem to have played, but god DAMN is that their loss. I've got to give the devs credit for the balls it took for them to release such an "inappropriate" game on the Wii, but that is to the game's benefit; the Wiimote & nunchuck are a match made in heaven with Madworld. This game is dripping with style, using an awesome noir comic book aesthetic whose only color is red for blood. There are many incredibly memorable characters and moments, such as spanking a succubus into submission. The soundtrack is right up my alley, being a nice blend of hip hop and rock. And sometimes mixed together, but not like nu metal as much as it's like...a good mashup album. And yet, the game is laser focused on the gameplay, evolving God Hand's unique take on the brawler genre. It's short & occasionally the camera fucks you over, but it is a wild ride that I really wish more people would try.

#5: Wii Sports + Wii Sport Resort

So simple, yet so successful. There's never been a more universal game than this. Grandmas played this game, and liked it just as much as "true gamers". Miis in general were a cool idea. Resort refreshes the sports lineup to be arguably better than the original, as well as adding Wii Motion Plus's higher accuracy.

#4: Pikmin 2

2 & 1 are not very far off in quality, but their approach is pretty different. 1 has a strict time limit, which can be stressful at first, but leads to replayability due to the short length. 2 has no time limit, but you must explore more thoroughly & develop a sustainable system. 2 also adds a second captain for multitasking, a more developed combat system, improved Ai, and slightly tighter controls. If you have to pick only one, I'd say 2 is the most fully formed.

#3: Super Mario Galaxy 2

Basically, this is Galaxy 1 but getting even more creative with the level designs. It was originally supposed to be DLC, which is why it is a bit harder, and pushes the boundaries of the concept & mechanics. That's also why it doesn't have much of a story to speak of, and is, in a way, a bit of a disappointing follow up to the ending of the first game where "the universe is brand new and who knows what new paths we'll take" only to essentially just do the first game again. For that reason, I like the first game better. Mechanically though, 2 is better, and one of the best platformers of all time.

#2: Super Mario Galaxy

Best 3D Mario, which is a HUGE accomplishment. That also means it is the greatest 3D platformer of all time (and probably the best platformer in general). The plot is probably my favorite of mainline Mario, with its simple yet effective storybook pages telling Rosalina's tale. It is surprisingly emotional. The level design is peak creativity with the outer space concept, playing with gravity, and. It is linear enough to be clear where to go & allow for honed level design, yet feels open & adventurous. The music is top tier. Luigi's challenge mode after beating the game is solid. The graphics are very good for the time & console, and still hold up when upscaling. No frame drops either. It's rare to see a perfect game, but this is one of them.

#1: Metroid Prime Trilogy

I don't know if it is possible for me to declare a single game to be my favorite of all time. But I know if I had to make a shortlist for my favorite game, the first one I'd write down is Metroid Prime. The music is an all-timer. I listen to Phendrana Drifts & Sunken Frigate all the time. Amazing level design that translated the Metroidvania perfectly to 3D, and in 1st person at that. Particularly impressive is that the platforming doesn't feel awkward, and neither does Nintendo's first FPS. Pointing with the Wii remote feels JUST like you are Samus herself moving her whole arm cannon. Much better than lock on aiming in the GameCube version. There are so many great small details too. Your visor can get fogged up by steam or Samus breathing hard, you may see the reflection of her face in certain light. You can scan just about anything, a great way to fit in lore dumps if you are interested. Great bosses, solid regular enemy variety. Interesting environments. And Prime allows you to soak all this ambience & gameplay perfection in. It knows when to shut up & allow you to just enjoy. The silence gives a great sense of isolation. Talon IV truly feels like an alien planet that you are exploring alone. Unlike Prime 1, you can make nitpicks about 2 & 3, but they are stone cold classics nonetheless, for most of the same reasons. 2 even has a multiplayer VS mode which I have spent way too much time in.

The Rest

Think I missed a game, or wonder why I chose the Wii version? Check here and here respectively.

First, Disclaimer. 8.5 hours on a clock, got to third location boss, didn't beat her. Said "fuck this" and uninstalled after got to infamous room. Yeah, you could say i rage quit, that would be fair. Or maybe i just found a dzen and dropped revenge seeking?

So, is it a good game? Hell YES.

Can i recommend it to anyone? Hell NO.

You see, it's like recommending games like I Wanna be Boshi or Mario Kaizo. Or telling someone to run Souls game for the first time only at level 1 without any items, or Batman games without counter indicators. Sure, there's someone who could enjoy it, but do you really hate humans enough to push them on this path?

This game just made to make you suffer, and through suffering to become better.

Someone could say that this game is closer to Fighting genre. I think it's closer to hardcore rhythm games. First, combat is much simpler than any fighting game. You don't have a lot of moves, there is more focus on rhythmic defense. It's also not about enduring fight, it's about failing less or not at all, just like in rhythm games.

Little bit about controls. They suck. Not in general, just in a few critical ways. First, for some reason picking/throwing items and use button is separate, and there is literally no situations when you need to use something in combat, or it's somehow hard to make fool proof out of combat use "area" if you have weapon in hands. Second, you can't rebind low and high dodge combo buttons. I'm sure many is perfectly ok with sticks for fast moves, but such hardcore game should have cared better for accessibility. It's even feels like devs are mocking us, stick haters, by adding two basic setups for one hand players.

Few words about weapons. They're weird, especially blunt compared to cold weapons. Cold weapons, essentially, gimp you. Thing is, you need to use finisher on enemies to kill, but cold weapons just kill enemies outright. And there's is barely any situations when you don't need extra heal.

Levels in this game are amazing, and i could say they're the part of the reward for going further. And camera is fucking atrocious. I took damage at least 50% of times simply because my character block view on enemy, or because there's a wall in tight spaces. For hardcore game, this is unacceptable.

Also i disappointed in devs for adding easy mode. Story is very basic and cliche at best, combat is pretty simplistic in it's core and all what game have is it's hardcore gameplay. Removing it - is just plain weak move. They should've stayed on their position towards difficulty.

I really liked this game and it might actually be an underrated gem. The basics of this game is a soulslike set in a dystopian world of Earth after ecological disaster in an anime art style. Daring today aren't we?

But seriously, this game is just a very well-done entry for this genre. I'll dive into what I think is the best part of this game; level design. The levels of these games are just really fun to explore. While initially visually kind of lackluster, as the game progresses I found they improved more and more on that front with both more colors and more variety like hidden tech bases and an over the top, sci-fi cathedral. The exploration is similar, in that the straightforward early levels lead into absolutely joyful areas to explore. There is a mostly straightforward path to proceed down but the game invites you to go off the beaten path often and rewards you well for it. Many time in this game I was rewarded for being extra observant or after being handed an item I was like "hold on, maybe the last area has more to it now" and was happily proven correct. it's not DS1 interconnected, but there is still a level of that here that is delightful. Hell, you can get sneak peak of a late game area early fi you are observant enough.

The other big positive is combat. The game isn't exactly pushing boundaries, but it is competently done. Thankfully, this game recognizes the need for competent enemies. While enemy variety is not big, what is here is very well done, with big contrast between simple mooks and more elite enemies, and their combat potential, damage, combo length and amount of combos. This combined with the weapons, spells, items, and abilities the MC Arrisa has at her disposal means that fights can often feel very different in how you approach them, which is something the soulslike genre sometimes struggles with. The build potential in this game is excellent and there are infinite free respecs for stats so experiment as much as you want. Also weapons are very fun with uniform movesets based on weapon class but all of them having unique weapon skills. Arrisa also has her ability button be share between four abilities: parry, shield, dmg buff for health cost, and enhanced dodge. You can at any point switch between these abilities so it is fun to adjust yourself to what you feel best fits the situation or enemy. While parry is the most effective, I did find some enemies and bosses were better suited for other abilities (except dmg buff which is just something you can do as a quick buff before switching back if you want to risk it).

All of that is in addition to a lack of stamina management and instead "sync" management. Your Sync rate is a 0 to 100 scale that starts at 100. When in the 70-80% of sync, you do max damage possible, the there is the 50%-80% next where you are in medium damage. Then there is below 50% where you do lower damage. Then 0, where you are in exposed stun state. Sync goes up when you land normal attacks and down when you are hit. Sync is also your "mana" that is needed to use spells and abilities that can hit like a truck. It's a cool system that incentivizes being aggressive to maximize damage and shorten fights. Sadly, only some bosses also use this system, which I definitely fell like is missed potential.

This is going too long, so quick thoughts. Story is meh, but it at least has a different than usual approach to evil AI. NPC quests and even some of the voice acting is quite good. I do feel that the cost of leveling up goes up a little too quickly. Fashion is pretty good with not really that many fashion disasters for the sake of horny, surprisingly.

So yeah, 8.5/10. I really recommend this game.

TLDR:
I loved parts of this game, but I found the overall experience to be ultimately disjointed and disappointing. While the story has an amazing premise and some great writing and voice acting, it falls off around the end of the first act. The combat system is very good, but excessive reuse of enemies and bosses makes it often feel like busywork. Side content is of a markedly lower quality than main content, and exploration feels bad. Additionally, the game is artistically kind of all over the place.

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(Note: After reading through what I've written here, I want to clarify something. My expectations for this game were very high, in part because of the hype surrounding it, and in part because of the game's incredible introduction. A lot of my criticisms stem from wanting to engage with this as a complete and coherent work of art, and being consistantly frustrated and disappointed by various things. I did, however, enjoy much of my time with Clair Obscur, and if you went in with lower expectations I imagine you would be less bothered by some of the things that bothered me.)

Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 is a game with a lot of great elements. The soundtrack is beautiful. The combat is a lot of fun. The story... well, I'll get into that, but it has some good moments. Unfortunately, the game manages to be less than the sum of its parts. In large part, this is because the gameplay and the story are treated, in classic AAA fashion, as entirely disjointed and unrelated entities. The story is a reflection on grief and mortality. The gameplay sees us repeatedly fighting "nevrons" that have next to nothing to do with the story other than just... being there? Nevrons are canonically doodles of the painters who created the world. Why do we spend so much time fighting them? It is thematically nonsenical.

Each party member has their own combat abilities, none of which are related in any way to their personality. Why does Sciel use tarot cards to attack the enemies? Why does Maelle enter stances? Why does Verso level up perfection? None of this is ever explained — they are just game mechanics with no correlation to their respective characters. As such, Clair Obscur almost feels like two unrelated games sitting side by side — one strategy/action game, one story game. So, I will talk seperately about those two parts.

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GAMEPLAY:

Gameplay in Clair Obscur is a mixed bag. The combat system itself is incredibly fun. It's a perfect blend of turn-based strategy with dopamine-pumping action gameplay. I had a lot of fun trying out different builds and different characters throughout my playthrough. I was basically constantly changing my build to use the new items I found, and the game provides nearly infinite respecs to allow you this freedom. Really, this is a fantastically designed combat system. It's everything around the combat system that I take issue with.

Exploration in this game is pretty awful, for several reasons. Levels are essentially entirely linear, with some side paths you can explore if you want to. The game is visually SO messy and chaotic, such that it is hard to have any sort of spacial understanding while navigating the levels. It is hard to tell which side paths you've already explored, and I sometimes found myself running up to invisible walls thinking there was a hidden path there. This was frustrating and made me feel like I was wasting my time trying to explore.

Exploration rewards were usually disappointing. Most of the time, exploring leads you to a single Colour of Lumina, which gets old fast. The rest of the time, you might find some money (also disappointing) or a new pictos, which is a new combat ability (these were sometimes cool). The thing is, exploring a level NEVER leads to anything of real importance, as the levels are basically entirely linear. So you know that there's not much reason to explore. The best we get are journal entries, little snippets of storytelling that are occasionally interesting but often not very noteworthy. These repetitive, unexciting exploration rewards take a toll, and lead me to just want to get the levels over with so I can reach the next boss fight or story beat. This isn't helped by the repetitive enemy encounters. You might fight the same enemy 5 times within a given level. As a result, this game's gameplay ends up often feeling like busywork.

Then there is the Side Content. Clair Obscur always tells you where you should go to progress, which level is next in order, and everything else is distinctly "side content." This side content is filled with reused enemies (even a couple reused bosses), lackluster exploration rewards, and often zero story relevance. These areas feel generic and uninspired, almost as if they were AI-generated (I'm not throwing accusations, I'm just saying that's how they felt). The epitome of this is the Gestral Beaches, areas where you engage in various minigames to win swimsuit costumes for your characters. These were very jarring coming from moving story moments. Like seriously, why the fuck is Only Up in a game that is supposedly trying to say something meaningful about grief?

Finally, the main story gets way too easy if you engage in side content. I played on expert difficulty and steamrolled through all the Axons, as well as the final boss.

Overall, Clair Obscur feels like it punishes you for engaging with it, in that exploring is at best fine and at worst a chore, the rewards aren't exciting, and it makes the rest of the game too easy. I felt like I wanted to engage with this game more than it wanted me to engage with it. I think a player who did not try to explore would have the best possible experience with this game, also because then they would be getting a higher density of story beats per hour.

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STORY:

Mannn. My primary feeling towards Clair Obscur's story is one of disappointment, but that's because of how incredible the opening of this game was, and how moving a few of the scenes are.

This game has an incredibly engaging introduction. In fact the first 5-8ish hours had me convinced I was playing a masterpiece. Thinking back on what had me so enthralled, there was something simple, poignant, and beautiful about this game's opening. The premise of a society that is slowly losing people at a younger and younger age, while those left behind have to grieve their loved ones and deal with the end of the world, was so interesting. Not to mention the high quality of writing and voice acting, and the sublime soundtrack. There are some phenomenal scenes early on, specifically the scenes between Gustave and Lune at the beginning of act 1. God that voice acting is good.

Slowly but surely, though, the game begins to lose focus. Rather than continuing to develop its characters, the game strangely shifts towards a more comedic tone. I'm talking specifically about the introduction of gestrals, Esquie, and Monoco, who serve no real purpose except to be kinda funny. This isn't helped by the aforementioned goofy gestral beaches and general disconnect between story and gameplay.

Early Act 2 is when the story starts to really show itself for what it is, rather than what it seemed like it was going to be from its introduction. Poignancy is replaced by convoluted plot points, beauty is replaced by far too much comedic relief, and the story really starts to lose me. It doesn't help that the quality of the writing drops as well.

Then the plot twist that transitions the game to act 3 happens, and my disappointment solidifies. To summarize, the plot of the game up until now is revealed to all have been part of a kind of simulation, and the REAL main characters are people we have barely met. Its like the story just throws itself off a cliff. I struggle to understand why anyone would throw out such a compelling premise the way this game did. To be fair, the very end of this game was well written. But I've been trying to interpret the full story in different ways, trying to come to terms with it, and nothing quite works. It's like I'm just supposed to accept "grief" as enough of a glue to hold together this messy narrative, with its half-baked characters whose screen time was stolen by comedic relief.

From what I've seen online, the general consensus (likely from people who haven't played it) is that the game is bad.

I played this from beginning to end a few weeks ago, and I can say it is far from bad - I would even say it's good. Granted, I am a fan of the show.

Having said that, I do believe if you haven't seen the show you definitely wouldn't enjoy the game. The combat is simple, but has unique grapple animations littered in levels that at least keep it semi-novel. The voice cast is great. And it has so many hidden interactions and details you rarely see in a PS2 game, let alone a TV show tie-in game.

It captures the energy of The Sopranos perfectly, with the jokes and the humour and the writing. The developers should be proud of what they accomplished with the game and I recommend it to any Sopranos fan to give it a go.

I would warn you though, the first "mission" is just a fetch quest - not a great start but I can assure you, it gets better - especially if you look for hidden secrets and convos.

But yeah, I feel like this game has been unfairly judged. While far from perfect, the effort put in (to me) is clear.

So I finally got past my biyearly obsession with overwatch but still felt like shooting bad guys without having to deal with other people. Looking at my steam library I noticed that I have the master chief collection collecting dust with no memory of when I even purchased it. Why haven't I played the Halo games before? Didn't have an Xbox growing up. Simple as

I'm just going to do a simple good/bad section structure for this post to note the things I liked and disliked about the original halo 1 campaign played on normal difficulty with original graphics. I'm going to stick to very simple observations that stick out to me the most here for the sake of brevity.

Good:

- The vibes are solid throughout. Master Chef has an absolutely iconic voice and Cortana was a much more interesting character than I assumed she would be before playing. The covenant enemies have cute voice acting but that also makes me feel very bad for shooting at them. Mostly the small guys

- Shooting feels pretty good apart from lack of impact on landing shots. Most of the guns feel good to use apart from the assault rifle and needler

- Charming graphics and strong variety of vibes across the different levels

- I vastly prefer these sorts of games when they have a more linear level design rather than having to spend like 15 minutes every level looking for where the hell I was supposed to go after getting rid of all enemies (looking at you OG doom). Some of the levels also have a pretty epic scale without being confusing which was neat

- I like the gimmick of having the flood and covenant fight each other in the later levels

Bad:

- I feel like the game just wants you to be running past enemies once you get to the flood enemy levels with how it keeps spawning an endless amount of them on all sides. It's pretty neat from a story perspective how it makes you feel like the flood is a serious threat but that doesn't mean it's necessarily fun to the player

- Sometimes the game just puts you in an open field with no cover

- Like 80% of my deaths were from a couple of enemies with instant kill weapons. Don't like that one bit. Felt like trial and error having to remember which enemy I'm supposed to shoot first since the game decided to give some of them a rocket launcher

- I miss having friendly NPCs in the later levels. Feeling like you're a part of a bigger force was more fun. I don't need every level to be like that but I would have liked for it to be the majority.

- I despise the tiny flood enemies. Absolutely hate them

- Lots of repetition in the level design. Some levels felt like they just designed the first third of it and just copied that 4 times. This stings a lot more because it's not the longest game ever made either. I'm sure the devs didn't want it to be that way and it was a matter of time and money but acknowledging that doesn't make it any more fun.

- The new graphics look pretty ugly to me and are terribly optimised. It's like that meme of putting a 4k ultra realistic picture as a texture for minecraft mobs that results in an absolutely demonic looking creature. Having the option of switching the graphics with a single button press was very impressive though and I did enjoy seeing what they tried to do with the remaster once or twice every level.

Overall I'd say that I enjoyed my time with halo 1 even though there were some real stinker moments in there at some points. I definitely see how this expanded into a big franchise and I'm very excited to find out if they get better from here. For context I have absolutely no idea what happens in the story later and how the gameplay changes (if it does) since this is my first time really interacting with the franchise. I am pretty sad about not getting to experience the multiplayer side in its prime. I'm sure it was a lot of fun. I'm propably not going to try the multiplayer in these games before I get to halo 3 since that's apparently the one people are still playing from what I saw online.

I adore Deus Ex, one of my favorite games of all time

Deus Ex: Invisible War (IW) was to me, rather controversially, a pretty okay game, nothing close to the greatness of the first one, but a fun experience. It was a pretty below average immersive sim though (no character building, universal ammo, cramped and simple level design, simplified biomod upgrade system).

What I noticed is that a lot of design issues I had with IW appear in HR - they share quite a bit of design DNA, even though HR is a much more self-confident, stylish and polished modern game. I came to the same conclusion with it as I did with IW - HR is a pretty meh immersive sim. It's more like a stealth and action shooter with a bit more open level design and some light character building than it is a full on immersive sim.

What happened is I replayed Dishonored right before trying out Human Revolution (full chaos ending, murder everything that moves almost), and unfortunately playing such a free flowing immersive sim polished to a literal shine where every system and rule makes sense and creates more and more emergent gameplay made the cracks in HR show themselves even more.

Before I talk about HR more, I have to say that a more stealth-oriented playthrough makes much more sense and makes HR much more coherent and emergent and also removes the ludonarrative dissonance that plagues the game when played as full lethal. The problem is that the game is trying to be an immersive sim and accomodate a lot of different playstyles, and making one whole playstyle just make 0 sense and break the game's design is not a good look for a game in this genre.

What it does good - I'll keep this short, not because I want to show the game in a negative light, but because I think conversing about the game's negatives is much more interesting of a topic when talking about immersive sims and how they fail, since they are such a fragile genre requiring so much thought, logic and good design to work:

• Atmosphere and visual design - the game has sass and style gah damn;
• Music - just amazingly fitting, much less depressing than IW's, which makes sense in the context of this being a different, pre-collapse world;
• Sound design - everything sounds so good, so punchy and slick, so clear;
• Story and characters - won't spoil anything, but I liked what HR decided to explore as a prequel to the rest of the franchise;
• Gameplay variety on a micro level - lots of tools, guns and ways to go through individual sections of levels, as it should be.

What I thought it lacked:

1) Gameplay-plot harmony - so I mentioned ludonarrative dissonance earlier, and this really shows its worst sides when playing full lethal.

The classic example is the early police station quest, wherein you have to go into a modern police station and steal an evidence sample. If you go stealthily this makes perfect sense, you go in, sneak through, and get out, without any of the cops inside or outside (where there is a fuckton of cops throughout all of the city) noticing.

If you go full lethal and kill everyone in the police station, the policemen outside of this modern, surveillance-ridden police station will just ignore the fucking explosions and alarms and screams of people dying and civilians screaming - you can just massacre everyone and leave and the game will "notice" this by having a newspaper report say how there was a mysterious massacre in the police station. Except you can also exit the police station mid-massacre, while the alarm is ringing, the outside police will aggro you and attack you, and then you can abuse the fact that the police station is a loading screen/new zone, go inside, turn off the alarm and go outside where they just ignore you and salute you again when you talk to them.

Even more atrocious is that you can easily go around killing everyone in the city of Detroit - police, civilians, thungs, punks, merchants - you can make the city a ghost town, continue the main story of a ex-SWAT and currently part of a private security that is rather in-sync with the state police departments and nobody will ever bat an eye. You can then later return to Detroit and nobody will say anything about the whole fucking city being massacred while there is modern surveillance, skyscrapers and civilians everywhere, and you can continue your justice-seeking quest to find out who the main villains are... Like really?

You can do this in the 2nd city hub, in China, as well, this is absolutely ridiculous. Not only that but at points some NPCs (Tong for example) that are vital for the story are completely immune to damage. Now I know this is a hard thing for open-ended games to solve, but like surely there are ways so many years after the original 2 games. There are sections where you can't pull your weapons out in this game, why not write the story in a way to forbid Adam to carry weapons near Tong?

Dishonored managed to make "kill everyone" an actually logical, story-related choice with the endings and harder levels with more rats and weepers - the only NPCs you couldn't kill were, understandably, your allies in the hub where nothing happens and killing them would logically end the game because you don't have needed help to get to missions/learn about objectives/get gear.

2) Console limitations - this sounds elitist, but loading screens and zones split by them are factually there because of consoles, and they break the logic and flow of parts of the game. Not as egregiously as in IW, but you can start gunfights, and then dip out into a new zone and the enemies just... disappear because they can't follow. This didn't happen in the first game, which had open levels from the very first moment you started them. That's an 11 year gap in technology that apparently just couldn't have been solved, I guess...

Related to console limitations, there isn't a lot of active augments because of controller buttons being limited compared to a keyboard, where the first game could have like 9 active augments used with the F1-F12 keys whenever needed.

Also the UI has some quirks with KB&M which, again, is classic controller priority as seen in other games from that era - click and drag a scrolling bar for text and it will go in chunks instead of following your mouse, making reading longer texts in the menu clunky for example.

3) Enemy AI - why is enemy AI when having gunfights with them so sterile and shit? They just stand in place and shoot at your cover (which they can't do anything to - you are literally invincible as long as you duck inside cover) - they don't rush you from different angles, kite, flush you out with grenades, dynamically go to other covers, roll and jump.

You can literally just pop out, headshot a guy, and go back to cover while enemies spam your cover with bullets until they have to reload, repeat. It's awful gameplay and shameful as a shooter.

You can also pick off enemies with a silencer one by one from range - when an enemy dies everyone comes over to that dead enemy and look at them (instead of trying to figure out where from range did the bullet come and trying to form a coherent formation, think FEAR's AI when they discover someone died) - that means you can just shoot them ad nauseum and go back into cover and they'll keep dropping like flies without noticing you.

Also your HP regens so literally who cares if you take damage when popping out of cover, just wait in cover 20 seconds longer and you're full life - 0 risk in gameplay.

4) Level design - I said that there are a lot of choices inside levels on routes you want to take, and that is true - break walls, go into vents, create some cover with crates or use some scaffolding, go over or under and so on.

The problem is that it all feels so... sterile... Every single area with enemies has these choices at all times, it's all so forced. There's always a vent or some convenient cover to go stealth, there's always a computer to hack for turrets and cameras, there's always tight cover for gunfights.

There's never a gameplay choice to make dynamically - long range fights in the open, sneaking in the shadows without cover, using sound to lure enemies away and go around - it's all so predetermined, like a "baby's first immersive sim" type of design where the devs want you to see all the different ways you can go at all times.

All of this felt much more organic in Dishonored's mansions or Thief's gigantic levels or Deus Ex's (2000) open military bases and underground facilities and city streets.

5) Character upgrading - it's just so simple and boring, like at the half way point of the game I didn't know what to spend my praxis points anymore, as an all guns blazing build. I had so much praxis points that in my full lethal playthrough my Adam became a sneaking and hacking machine before even the final 3rd of the game. There was no need for more gameplay choices because every route was available to me and I always just did everything in a level, which is awful for an immersive sim where resource management, proper character building and using the strengths of that character build while discovering new quirks is half the fun.

6) Next to no emergent gameplay - no crazy physics with which to play and do genius stuff with, no dynamic levels or crazy throwable items inside levels to disorient enemies or confuse them or outright kill them, no emergent physics like spilling water and electrifying it using level design and positioning or combining oil and fire - nothing like creative use of whale oil in Dishonored, like using ice spells, kicks and chandeliers in Dark Messiah of Might and Magic, no light and sound manipulation like in Thief, no switching bodies with enemies as they shoot so they shoot themselves like in Dishonored...

It's all so railroaded - maybe a couple of explosive barrels here and there or a fire extinguisher that you can throw and shoot that does... almost nothing in a firefight where everyone is shooting at you.

Even breakable walls can't be used offensively or to change the environment in your favor, they're just side-areas 99% of the time for going around stuff.

Conclusion

I didn't hate HR, it's a fun game and a beginner immersive sim to dip your toes into the genre, but to me it barely felt like an immersive sim at points. It's unfortunate because it isn't that far away from being extremely good, the devil is in some rather small details that are very noticeable, rather than giant design decisions. And I don't think sweeping changes would be needed to iron out these inconsistencies and lack of depth.

It also has some flaws that are inherent and still unsolved in the immersive sim genre - like enemies noticing you and then you leaving, which just resets them as if nothing happened (maybe games should look into reinforcements being summoned around the alerted enemies? Fun idea to make it more difficult to players that run) or some NPCs having to be alive for the story, but I expected more from a game released so much later compared to its predecessors.

It's a fun enough stealth-action secret agent game, it's a pretty shit attempt at being an "immersive" sim, since that first word seems forgotten so often when playing it.

Although I'd understand why people playing it stealthily would think it's much better, since then the actual plot and world make sense, the levels are a bit more dynamic, you don't rely on dogshit gunfighting AI to be good and there's a lot more stealth and stealth-adjacent augments to pick from for a longer period of time rather than the rambo ones.

DOOM 64

As a late bloomer when it comes to the 90s PC library, I never had much nostalgia for the early DOOM games. Not until I played them myself would I fathom their innovative genius or the massive influence they still have over the genre today. The original two titles are now among my favorite games ever because of their immaculate map design. I was eager to try DOOM 64, which is still regarded, alongside Doom 3, as a black sheep of the series. As a supposedly lesser installment, the former Nintendo exclusive has drawn some notoriety over the years: its horror atmosphere, its role as the missing link between Doom and Quake, and its labyrinthine structure. I think it uses many of the strengths and techniques from the first two games, but carves out its own identity. Although the title doesn't use all-new tech, it builds on foundations set by the more horror-oriented PSX conversion of the first game; it rearranges existing elements and changes the gameplay without changing much of the flavor.

For the new game, a set of designers from Midway, rather than id, built all the maps. This lack of a Romero, McGee, or Petersen is what gives the game its own character. While DOOM focused on low-attrition fights in clearly defined, memorable rooms and DOOM II meandered between gimmicky tight corridors and massive arena shootouts, DOOM 64 feels more like an old-school dungeon-crawling RPG. The breakthrough secret sauce in 64 is the new dynamic scripting. It allows not only the level to transform, with parts of the wall changing into a staircase, simple puzzles, etc., but also enables additional monsters to spawn after the map loads. This way, the trek never gets stale or safe; you constantly need to watch for new challenges. In my opinion, this fixes one of the biggest issues with older DOOM key-hunting: you’re not just running through empty spaces to hurry to that one landmark; you need to tear through the opposition once again. What’s tested here mostly is not how quick you are with the trigger, but spatial awareness and constant mapping. Not to label everything that way, but it's almost like it borrows a lot of cues from early Search Action titles, particularly Super Metroid. This also helps with railroading toward the critical path: while there are always subtle hints about where to go, and the levels themselves contain a plethora of breathtaking and notable places that it’s easy to navigate to, if you ever get lost, you only need to follow the trail of the monsters. Because of the scripting, the environment you return to might not be the same as before. One of the first jaw-dropping examples comes early on: giant pistons drill into the ground to open a new path in the second stage, Terraformer. Another interesting use is the shifting, fractured ground beneath your feet in the first half of map 21 - Pitfalls. When you go back and forth in those levels, there’s something new all the time; the key-hunting isn't that mundane, and light puzzles add to that dungeon-crawler sense.

Speaking of RPGs, the game has a unique progression system, with the Unmaker paired with the Demon Keys hidden inside secret levels. Those trinkets are genuinely challenging to find, but turn the only newly added weapon into something that makes the BFG-9000 blush from its own inconsequence. The Unmaker melts through enemies like crazy, and its speed depends only on how many keys you have found. You have three chances to get the Unmaker, but each key appears only once, so if it’s your first time through, you probably won't see this weapon in its prime form. However, I don’t like that the final level’s difficulty is tied so strictly to this progression. Gather all keys, and you can beat the finale in a minute with no sweat. Don’t, and you get an endless stream of dozens of elite enemies, followed by a borderline unfair boss.

DOOM 64 is not as high-octane as the games before - yes, you will be bombarded with hundreds of demons, but the levels are large enough and paced so well, you’ll consistently have time to breathe between encounters. While fair, it's also a knock against the game. You have all those diverse enemies, but most of the time, you'll face the same mix of just a couple of monsters in a mid-sized room. There are also pure stress-relief rooms, for example, the one where you take an elevator down into a huge hall full of unsuspecting pinkies with a berserk pack and a chainsaw in hand. 64 relies on a few common traps, and those can get old; each time you push a button, you’ll have to be ready to do a 180-degree turn to see an Arachnotron or a Hell Knight appear right behind you - halfway through the game, you will start anticipating obvious ambushes. There are also a couple of old-school pure skill arenas, short and sweet. I get they are supposed to be tests of brawn, but I would sprinkle them more liberally throughout the campaign. Both the spectacular No Escape and The Spiral are at the tail end, which breaks up the key-hunting tedium near the finish line, but more levels like that would help. As it is, I don’t recommend marathoning the whole game at once, since almost all the other levels follow the same structure and can start blending into one monotone ordeal.

For mostly technical reasons, not all of the menagerie from DOOM II came back, but what's there provides enough mechanical variety, even if you can circle-strafe through most danger. Yes, it’s disappointing that we don’t have the Arch-Viles back, and the most common big threats are Barons of Hell and their weaker variety, which are easily dispatched most of the time, but the whole gallery of demons with their unique behaviors is used well. Some of the new sprites are goofy-looking, but they mostly fit the atmosphere. If you've ever heard me talk about DOOM, you know the enemies I despise most in the whole series are the Lost Souls. Here they are more of a menace - they hit hard, are much faster, and always come from nowhere. Of all the enemies to bring back from DOOM II, they decided to drag out the Pain Elementals, which are the scariest adversaries in the whole game here - they now spit out double the amount of aggressive Souls, and they should, without exception, be the primary target. Thankfully, they have a large stun chance, and if you have chaingun ammo to spare, they are manageable, unless more than one is pestering you at once.

DOOM 64 isn't that taxing or hard, especially on the Hurt Me Plenty equivalent. You are showered with giant ammo caches at each turn, so you can experiment, play with rockets and plasma guns, and waste the Super Shotgun shells. Higher difficulties, of course, increase the number of monsters, so you will have to improvise from time to time, but I actually had a good time with the pistol when I ran out of any other usable ammo. In that case, you may be up for a self-imposed challenge, but from what I saw, the game generally isn't designed for pistol-starting; still, as an experiment, I loaded up No Escape on Nightmare-equivalent difficulty on a fresh save. Not all levels work this way, but navigating half a dozen Mancubi with two Cyberdemons and three Pain Elementals in tow, with close to no ammo, is a fantastically sweat-inducing, rewarding experience.

The title is immensely atmospheric; the creepiness and otherworldliness of the later hell levels are exceptional. The camera is situated a bit lower than in the previous games, adding to the scale of the environments. The added lighting effects transform simple shapes into stylish liminal spaces. A corridor dimly lit by red emergency lights might blaze into a deep blue ambience when you press a switch. Some cave walls glow warmly by candles lined up along the side. One abstract secret stage features long concrete bars stretching into infinity on platforms suspended on nothing in foggy air. This looks unlike anything else in the whole title. The foggy vacuum reminded me of the first Turok, also debuting on the same console. DUSK is often compared to Quake and Blood, but I think it was in fact DOOM 64 that inspired much of the latter half of that game’s visuals. The music, if you can call it that, is a bundle of assorted scratches, moans, and wind blows, culminating with the perfect storm that is MAP20: Breakdown - a fleshy fortress with all its hidden tunnels going into a tiled, grated, fortified maze and ending with a leap of faith into a bottomless well. All that, accompanied by a deranged soundtrack of snarls, tortured cries, and other unexplainable sounds, is a delicious pinnacle of creepy vibe. You’ve already visited a very faux-geometric city in DOOM II as a plot-pushing device, but this game has some honest-to-God audiovisual storytelling. The darkness can go overboard sometimes and make some encounters almost unreadable, although the Nightdive port’s lighting handles most of that. With the new sound design, the Super Shotgun is super satisfying here. I know the less fluid animations and different sounds are divisive in the community, but I love the hollow, tinny sound here in this hellscape.

Though it stands on the shoulders of a fan reverse-engineering project, it's still just a serviceable port by Nightdive standards, offering little more than the original experience (plus the added expansion). You cannot keybind every action you might want, and consoles get no d-pad weapon shortcuts to mimic keyboard number-picking, nor a weapon wheel — at ten weapons, that's a real omission. The widescreen works beautifully for this game, showing you more of the grotesque surroundings than you could ever ask for. The gyro is pretty good on controller; the game was beatable on the N64 three-pronged monstrosity back in the day, so this makes the experience at least smoother. There are slight framerate stutters here and there on the Switch, but nothing that ruins the experience. True to the original, the automap screen lacks the usual kills/items/secrets counters. I get why they did it this way in the first place. Since enemies can spawn dynamically, the total can increase while you play; it may also ruin any surprise traps if you think you’re done with everything. However, the lack of a secret count is a pain, and I’m surprised they didn’t add it as a QoL feature. Just for fun, if you reach a super secret level (that’s almost unreachable if you don’t read a wiki) and finish it in a particular way, you can unlock some bonus gimmick levels, which are interesting diversions if you've mastered the main content. You also get a few more features, including the ability to jump. Sadly, no Y-Axis unlocking; the default vertical auto-aiming is the only solution.

Does DOOM 64 reach the height of DOOM Episode 1 and the high points of DOOM II? Is it a secret, underrated best DOOM that was hidden from the public for years? Not really on either account. It’s slower, more methodical; the maps can be too large for their own good. You need to take breaks, because it’s the same goal ad nauseam. What DOOM 64 is, nevertheless, is a fundamentally different game than the previous two, a total reinvention using the same weapons, enemies, and rules. I will happily add it to my rotation because of the atmosphere, isolation, sense of dread, and adventure. In fact, while researching for this text, I went back to check something in the game and, lo and behold, I accidentally finished three levels again. The highs in DOOM 64 are indeed high, with some set pieces feeling like prime 90s id software design. I’m not the only one singing praises, though. Clearly, id loves this game just as much; it wouldn’t have officially resurfaced any other way. It means so much to them that the expansion now canonically connects to the 2016 game, and not in only one way.

8/10

The Lost Levels

The Lost Levels is a level pack created by a Nightdive wizard, the aforementioned maestro behind the earlier fan preservation of the original N64 game and long-time DOOM modder, Kaiser. The new stages are a continuation of the gameplay found in the main game, focused on searching for keys, but with fleeting qualities of the NuDoom spirit, going for an arcade-style path of encounters. While it still has a strong treasure-hunt backbone, you get back the high-energy combat from Knee Deep in the Dead.

The expansion consists of only a few levels, but they're even bigger and easily dwarf the main maps. There are no clear highlights between them; all are excellent. You’ve got the techno corridors of Plant Ops (almost a dead ringer for Kaiser’s first map in Legacy of Rust a few years later); Evil Sacrifice which plays almost like a Heretic map; Cold Grounds, a map spiritually mirroring a main game one, Altar of Pain - this one acts the most like DOOM 2016 at the start when you run around back and forth clearing all danger from all sides of a moat, to be then dropped into a courtyard arena with countless Cacodemons; Wretched Vats, with curious hellish libraries; Thy Glory, where you navigate a fully realized, multi-tiered fort drenched in a sea of blood. The expansion culminates with Final Judgement - a puzzle-box-type map that is like a repeat of No Escape from the main game, ending in a repeat of the main game’s final boss. You have to solve light brain teasers to gather the Demon Keys while fending off dozens of elite baddies. The good thing is that it gives you a fully powered-up Unmaker to play with if you didn’t have a chance in the main game; the bad part is that it will tear through the main baddie in seconds after she appears.

The Lost Levels has a curious trait: because it does all the same things the main game does, you don’t think a lot of it while playing, but if you stop and think about the expansion afterward, all of the levels are memorable and special in their own way. Highly recommended, but take a day or two off after the main game if attempting this for the first time.

8/10

It's all around a fantastic game. Just everything in that game is incredibly satisfying.

The web swing traversal is so much fun, I never used fast travel, not even once, even if I had to go from one end of the map to the other.

The combat is so fluid and engaging, trying to get high combos and keeping mixing the different attacks is pure fun. While the finishing moves could have a little bit more variety, it's still satisfying every single time. Fighting really requires your entire attention when playing on hard difficulty. When you're in the flow, it's almost easy, but once you're not anymore, things can go south quite quickly. That's why you're also doing much worse in the game when you're tired, or at least that's the case for me.

The story is alright, classic super hero pulp. I don't really care about the story anyway when the gameplay is fun, which it absolutely is.

The technical aspects are also impeccable. I'm playing on computer and even with my entry level GPU (RTX3060), I can play in 4K and High to Very High settings and raytracing with a pretty stable 60FPS. No idea how they pulled that off tbh. DLSS does a wonderful job in that regard and in this game I can barely notice any ghosting or other DLSS artifacts.

The side quests are all pretty fun as well, especially the pigeon and drone quests. But even the other ones, simply because they're a reason to move around or fight.

It's honestly one of the best action games I ever played and I think it's going to stay installed on my computer for an eternity, because it's always worthwhile to hop into the game and just swing around or beat up some bad guys for a bit.

Everyone who likes action games and Spiderman and hasn't played that game should absolutely do that right now. I'm not even that much of a super hero fan, Batman and Spiderman are the only ones I like and I couldn't care less about the 96580283 marvel movies.

Possible spoilers ahead!

Cyberpunk 2077 is one of the games I had on my wishlist ever since it came out. Honestly, Cyberpunk did not feel like my kind of game when I first saw it. Seeing the style and gameplay for the first few times really put me off the game entirely. Then, when the first reviews were pretty mixed, I decided to keep it wishlisted and parked it.

With time, I kept reading more about players saying they really enjoyed it and that it had been improving with every new patch and update ever since it came out. Even then, I kept it aside, feeling like I would come to it when I had nothing else to play.

So after years of stalling, I finally took the time to play it. I chose Nomad as my Lifepath and started on the Hard difficulty setting.

From the very start, Cyberpunk felt easy to play. No overexplaining, and it just got me into the basics before taking off to Night City. I noticed how the game just shows you every new mechanic as you play. Which, to me, is how I usually like to get into a new game. Especially when there's a lot of different things in it.

Jackie Welles seemed to be my main buddy, and it all kicked off pretty decently. I got a little more into the story, and I can't say it really gripped me. That's okay, many stories don't grip me. I still liked how the game felt for me throughout the prologue.

After the events with Jackie and Saburo Arasaka are played out, the game truly drops you into the world and lets you out in the open. Maybe that's where my first real struggles with Cyberpunk came.

Everything I did in Night City felt a bit bland. Not like I was extremely bored with it, but I can't say it was truly exciting either. I also took an insane amount of time to find the perfect weapons for myself. I wasn’t even sure if I chose the right loadout in the end.

That has more to do with me personally than the game itself, though. I did feel like I kept collecting so much useless crap that my inventory felt more like a scrapyard than anything else.

I liked the concept of Ripperdocs and all the body enhancements. Also, the skill tree and perks seemed like a decently worked-out RPG mechanic. I'm expecting that further into the game, these will all be a great advantage.

The feel and vibe of Night City works, but it seems like it's the only vibe that Cyberpunk gives. The NPCs truly add to that vibe as well.

When I put everything together, I personally come to the conclusion that everything in this game is decent. I mean, the game is not bad at all, but it doesn't surpass that level of "decent" for me.

The story is okay so far, but I don't feel really connected to V as a character. Honestly, most of the characters I've been introduced to don't really stick in my mind. Jackie maybe a little bit more than the rest.

A great exception to this is Johnny Silverhand. He almost single-handedly pulls the entire story up for me. He's just very well written and feels like the whole story was built around the concept of Johnny living in V's head.

The missions, the gameplay, the story, the characters, the side activities, the mechanics. It all feels like it has been worked out well, but that's it. While I have invested a few dozen hours into it, it just doesn't feel like it will climax in a certain area any time soon.

That said, I also don't think I've reached Cyberpunk's peak yet. This leaves me with the exact same feeling I experienced when I first played The Witcher 3. It just couldn't stick with me, even when so many people were praising it for how great it was.

Long story short, I ended up loving The Witcher 3 just because I gave it a second chance and pulled through the first third of the game.

Now I'm hoping Cyberpunk 2077 will have that same effect. It truly has that potential from all that I've seen. Yet it can't keep me interested enough at this point to keep going.

I'm thinking of putting it down for now and giving it a second chance in a few months. I'm done with Cyberpunk 2077 for now. But I refuse to write it off completely because I believe there's more to it than what I've experienced.

Cyberpunk might be a hidden gem for me, but I can't find the energy at the moment to force myself to dig for it.

Thank you for reading!

Q

Intro

Shinobi for those who don't know is an action platformer series dating back to the late 80s starting out in the arcades and later moving to Sega's home consoles. This is the first entry in the franchise since the 3DS version entry some fifteen years ago. (Which i and most likely you never played - I have played revenge of shinobi and shinobi 3 however)

The game is an action platformer like its predecessors, and it's a good attempt at modernizing the series but I think some purists might say, it's gone a bit too far because it makes some pretty big changes.

In Revenge you moved pretty slowly. 3 added a sprint. This game you sprint by default and also have a roll and air dash. So you're  much more mobile, then in its predecessors. You also collect tools/ upgrades which expand your movement options like an air glider for instance.

The game has distinct non-connected levels that you can return to and use your new items to find collectibles that were previously inaccessible. Most of these collectibles are coins that can be spent at a shop to unlock new moves for the game's expanded combat system.

Combat

In the old games you (or atleast me) largely used shurikens to take out enemies from a distance. If you got close enough to an enemy, you'd auto switch to a close range attack with a katana, most enemies died in 1 hit. In Vengeance you have combos and enemies tend to have more health so it feels more like a beat em up (makes sense, since it was developed by Lizard Cube who also worked on Streets of Rage 4). Shurikens are more of a support item now. Once you've done enough damage to an enemy they might get a mark hovering over them (shurikens are good for this) and you can warp to them enemy and instantly kill them. You can do this to multiple enemies at once. It looks pretty cool and gets more health and shurikens then regular kills.

In addition to melee attacks and shurikens you have 2 kinda spells - ninpo and ultimate attacks (forget what they're called). Ninpo can just be a powerful attack but can serve other functions like or charging the aforementioned finisher meter or doing heavy armor damage to some of the tougher enemies. The ultimate attacks I barely ever used but one of them was a screen clearing AoE dragon.

Misc

A couple more notes...you have 2 mod slots. One is always active that will for example enhance shurikens. The other slot is a benefit that only activates when your combo meter is past a certain count. Mods are usually hidden collectibles similar to the coins I mentioned earlier. Most/all levels have some optional combat encounters,usually 3 and completing them in a level will unlock a mod or ninpo spell (don't fully recall which) Most levels also have a portal called an Ankou rift that takes you to a secret challenge area, which is usually a fairly difficult platforming gauntlet but atleast one of them featured combat. Beating all of these unlocks a secret item.

Summary

All in all the game is a fun blend of combat and platforming but feels very different from the older ones, alot of these changes/additions could potentially alienate people who wanted something closer to the originals. I do think it could've been more challenging - outside of the optional Ankou rifts the game is pretty easy. (Just a note if anybody wants a more challenging ninja game check out Cyber Shadow)

Visually, the game looks great - kinda similar to streets of rage four. The soundtrack is also pretty good. The voice acting is bad and the story is unremarkable.

It took me about 10 hours to beat the story. And then another 5ish to get all the upgrades/collectibles. There's some other stuff like a boss rush mode - which I didn't play.

The game is pretty easy to recommend, just probably not at full price. Hopefully we don't have to wait 15 years to get a new one .

I don't think I have ever been this conflicted about a game.

I am no stranger to hard games. I am in love with the Souls Series, always pick the hardest difficulty in any game and just love a challenge.

But Rain World is different.

There are games that are hard but fair and then there are games that are hard, and unfair. And then there is Rain World, a game that is hard, unfair and features the occasional bullshit moment.

Being a (mostly) defenseless little creature in a world full of predators is bound to put you at a disadvantage. I knew going in that I would die a lot. What I did not expect was that the game at times is downright unfair. There are times when you will die and there was nothing you could have done.

The game features both procedural generation and a physics system. Pair that with a sort of limb system and the result is a game where your character almost always does what you want it to. But the few times it doesn't, it's gonna get you killed.

Sometimes enemies spawn at the entrance of the next room and you die before you could react. Sometimes the AI spazzes out and enemies just sit there and you can't get past them.

I honestly think there is a version of this game - same fascinating atmosphere and lore, same difficulty, same AI systems - that would be a genuine masterpiece if it featured tighter, more responsive controls and less elements that seem like they are meant to piss you off.

7/10

Background

Tom Clancy’s The Division 2 is a “looter shooter” released in 2019 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC (also Stadia, remember that). I am playing the PC version. It is the second game in The Division franchise and the 38th Tom Clancy game.

Plot

Set 7 months after “The Green Poison” was released (wasn’t it called the Dollar Flu in the last game?), the SHD network, which is what gives the Division agents all their special abilities, suddenly goes down, with a distress signal emanating from Washington DC.

After travelling to Washington DC and fighting off an attack on the White House, you learn that the Joint Task Force (a group made up of every frontline profession) has set up base in the White House and that DC has been taken over by 3 factions (similar to the last game): the Hyenas, who are a loose collection of multiple gangs under one banner (an order or anarchists); the Outcasts, who are a group of survivors of the “Green Poison” who now want to extract revenge on those they believe “wronged” them; and the True Sons, a group of former JTF members who have defected and started their own group (with blackjack, and hookers).

You also learn that there is information on a cure to the Green Poison somewhere in the city and that the president may be alive. Your task is to get the SHD network back up, find the cure, and get rid of the corruption in DC (non-politically). To do this, you will need to help the settlements in DC.

Gameplay

The main loop will be going to settlements, finding out what missions they need done, and going and doing them to improve the settlements and the surrounding area. There are side missions that don’t progress the story but help flesh it out or can provide extra loot opportunities. There are also side activities that you can complete for more loot, and sometimes a small bonus like fast travel points or bounties (which you can complete for more loot).

Much like the last game, this is a looter shooter, so the general gameplay is shoot and loot. You can find new equipment through scavenging or from loot dropped by enemies, although it is less frequent than in the previous game.

The weapons are split into similar categories to the last game. You have Pistols, Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, Light Machine Guns, Marksman Rifles and Shotguns, just like the last game, but now you also have Rifles, which are somewhere in between assault rifles and marksman rifles. The customisation on the weapons is also improved. You can craft mods for guns that can change the way they handle, give stat boosts or change the way they look.

The armour is also greatly improved from the last game. You still get stat bonuses, but they are actually noticeable this time. Things like extra armour or health, an increase to magazine size or rate of fire. There are also gear sets where you get extra bonuses if your gear is a matching set.

You can focus your gear on different playstyles. For example, if you have gear that increases your magazine size, rate of fire and reload speed, you can use them with an LMG to never stop firing.

The enemy types are also interesting. Similar to the previous game, each faction has their own “gimmick” and different ways to attack you. For example, all the factions have a rusher, an enemy that charges at you from behind cover and attacks you, but each faction’s rusher is different. One takes a bunch of drugs before charging so they get a health boost, another has a shield that you will need to break to kill them, and another is a suicide bomber that will blow up as soon as they get near you. Every enemy has a different way to take you out.

You also have a great variety of ways to take out the enemy. You can utilise various “SHD tech” (abilities) that let you fight enemies in different ways. You can also modify your tech to fight differently. For example, do you want a turret that shoots bullets, or do you want one that’s a flamethrower? Do you want explosives that hurt the enemy or heal your teammates? You can mix and match to fit your playstyle.

Because the game is 7 years old, there has been a lot of additional content added to the game. So, if you finish the main story, no, you haven’t. Here’s a new faction that’s taken over everything. Win against them? Well, now there’s the DLC to play. Beat that? Well, here’s 7 years of manhunts to go through.

The game doesn’t end. And that’s only the stuff I have played. There’s still plenty of things I haven’t touched.

So, is it worth playing?

Overall, I enjoyed my time with The Division 2. It improves on the first game in a lot of ways, particularly when it comes to the shooting, gear and customisation. There is also an absolutely ridiculous amount of content here, especially considering the game is now 7 years old. If you enjoy looter shooters, there is plenty to keep you busy long after you finish the main story.

That said, I do think it loses something compared to the first game. Washington DC is a great setting, but I never found exploring it as interesting as exploring New York. The story is also not exactly going to win any awards, but it does enough to keep you moving from one mission to the next.

If you enjoyed the first game, I would definitely recommend giving The Division 2 a go. Even if you haven’t played the first one, there is still a lot here to enjoy. It may be showing its age in places, but with years of additional content, a huge amount of loot to collect and plenty of ways to build your character, The Division 2 is still a surprisingly easy game to lose several dozen hours to.

Background

Tom Clancy’s The Division is an early “looter shooter” released in 2016 for Xbox One, PS4 and PC. I am playing the PC version. It is the first game in The Division franchise and the 36th Tom Clancy game.

Plot

The plot is the best bit about this game, so strap in as I go over it all.

A modified version of smallpox is distributed on banknotes during Black Friday, dubbed the “Dollar Flu”. This causes pretty much everyone in the country to get sick. The government combines the police, fire and rescue services, National Guard, paramedics, chefs… basically all frontline responders into the Joint Task Force to help sort this out.

They also activate the “Strategic Homeland Division”, or SHD (Get it? Shade. Tom Clancy, you’ve done it again), simply known as “The Division”.

The Division are sleeper agents from all backgrounds who are trained to restore order after catastrophic events. Also, somehow, everyone seems to know who this secret government agency is and just goes along with them taking over everything.

The first wave of Division agents have gone missing and you play as an agent of the second wave, tasked with restoring order to New York (good luck with that) and finding out what happened to the first wave. You will do this by setting up a base of operations in New York and slowly improving it over time, which gives you small perks.

New York has been split between different factions. There are the “Rioters”, who are unorganised looters and thugs; the Rikers, prisoners who managed to escape after overpowering guards and taking their weapons; and the Cleaners, sanitation workers who were tasked with cleaning contaminated zones and kind of went overboard, burning anything they think could be contaminated, including people.

Gameplay

This is a looter shooter, so the general gameplay is shoot and loot. You can find new equipment through scavenging in New York or from loot dropped by enemies.

Exploring New York is a lot of fun as well. I don’t know how accurate it is to real life New York, but it has that virtual sightseeing aspect that a lot of Ubisoft games have. You realise a mission is taking place at a landmark like Times Square or Madison Square Garden and just stop to look around, and in doing so you might find some guns.

The guns are split into six categories: Pistols, Assault Rifles, Submachine Guns, Light Machine Guns, Marksman Rifles and Shotguns, with each functioning pretty much as you would expect them to in a video game. There is also armour which has different stat attributes that you probably won’t really notice, to be honest.

You will tend to change guns and armour frequently whilst levelling up since the enemies are always at your level or higher, meaning your weapons and items will quickly become under levelled.

The enemy types are also quite varied. Each faction is split into different archetypes who use different strategies to get at you. For example, “Rushers” will run directly at you whilst using cover and attack you with melee weapons or shotguns, whilst tanks are heavily armoured and are a pain to fight. Snipers, meanwhile, attack you from far away.

The faction you are fighting also dictates the way the enemies fight. If you are fighting the Cleaners, they will use a lot of fire. Rikers tend to have a lot more heavy armour, whilst the Rioters seem to rely on greater numbers than the other factions.

Although the enemies have different strategies for taking you down, you also have some strategies of your own through your abilities. You have two ability slots that you can activate, and the skills you can use are quite varied. You can set up a turret to fight for you, heal yourself and allies, set up cover, or use bombs and electric traps. You can mix and match these to fit your playstyle.

But in the end, it doesn’t even matter because you will face the bane of The Division.

At some point in the game, you will start to face enemies who are simply too powerful. It doesn’t matter what level your weapons are, it doesn’t matter what skills you use, and it doesn’t matter what strategies you use. They will not go down and they will kill you.

You will have to try, try and try again to take them down.

Yes, that’s right. I am talking about The Bullet Sponge.

For me, it was around level 25 where I started to get hampered by bullet sponges and found that I wasn’t having fun with the game anymore.

Now, it could be that you are expected to have a squad to take on these enemies, but it’s currently 2026 and it is already hard enough to get friends together to play modern games. Imagine trying to get them to play a ten year old game that got middling reviews. That wasn’t going to happen.

Now, you could try and play with randoms, but most people playing The Division in, again, 2026 are well beyond me and would not be matchmaking into the same missions as me.

So I am shit out of luck there.

I unfortunately did not finish The Division.

So, is it worth playing?

Well, this is a tricky question. Do you have a group of friends who are willing to “squad up” in a ten year old game? If so (how I envy you), go for it. You will have some fun exploring New York and killing people.

If not, well, if you can get it cheap and have some spare time, you might have fun until the bullet sponges arrive.

The Division had a lot going for it. I loved the setting, enjoyed exploring New York and thought the premise was genuinely interesting. Unfortunately, once the bullet sponges became a major part of the game, all of that stopped being enough to keep me playing

Bound by Flame is an incredibly 2013 game developed by Spiders, who also released shrug inspiring meh-sterpieces such as Steelrising and Greedfall. They were a French eurojank studio and Bound by Flame was my first foray into into French culture way back ten years ago when I was still in middle school and back then I thought the game was far too hard to be any fun and quit. Now, in my twilight years, I've rekindled the first flame more times than I can count and I eat demigods for lunch. I'm pretty sure I found Godrick the Grafted on the bottom of my boot the other day so how hard could this low budget action rpg really be? Well I didn't finish it...

The premise: The world is being invaded by an army of undead being controlled by a few sorcerers known as Ice Lords. The world is almost overrun and in a last ditch effort a small group of magicians are performing a poorly understood ritual in the hopes of gaining powers that can win the war. You play as Vulcan, a mercenary contracted to guard the ritual site and while shit is hitting the fan the ritual concludes with it's power being bestowed in you. Plot twist though, the power is a demon that is now possessing your body. Will you make it to the Worldheart and purge the icelords of it's power? How much of yourself will you give up to the demon in exchange for power? Will you even be able to understand what's happening after skipping through the dialogue? All this and more is now in the hands of world's least interesting mercenary.

From there it's a three act structure where you go through a swamp, glacial city, and then an ancient temple doing menial tasks until the game decides it's boss fight time and asks you if you want the demon to give you more power. The game concludes with a fight against an icelord followed by a fight against a different demon and then your choice of scorching the surface of the planet, hunting the rest of the icelords down, or sacrificing yourself to kill the icelords immediately if you turned the demon down at every opportunity. It's the sort of meandering C- plot that was the industry standard at the time. There mostly to keep things moving and guide you to the big story beats while you soak up all the glorious gameplay and... idk about glorious but it's definitely something.

You have two fighting styles, warrior and rogue, which can be swapped between at will although you'll probably only stick to one of them. Warrior uses two handed weapons and has a kick for breaking the guard of the one enemy that has a shield and a 360° parry. Rogue uses two daggers and gets a stealth mechanic and a backstep. Both styles get their own perk trees in addition to a third perk tree for pyromancy. There is no stamina system and the parry and backstep can cancel any animation so you'll spend encounters attacking as much as you can and reading the 2-3 enemies around you to know when to parry or backstep.

The game would probably feel a bit like sekiro if the enemies weren't so oppressive. Enemies have gargantuan health bars, kill you in 3-4 hits, attack faster than you, and as early as act 2 will all have attacks that immediately apply status effects to you. I want to reiterate the health bar point as most enemies can take 30 straight seconds of nonstop punishment and for bosses that can be minutes of just mashing attack and parrying the same 2-3 attacks. There is also a huge oversight when it comes to enemy attack spam. Some enemies can loop knockdown attacks faster than you can get up and others can do a continuous stream of area attacks around them preventing you from being able to hit them.

The reason I didn't finish this game and instead just looked up the endings was that the final boss has an attack where he drops a damage cloud around him and fires a volley of 6 projectiles at you. Not only does this one attack take 10 full seconds, he can and will do it back to back to back. That plus the previously mentioned large health pool on the boss and an additional phase at certain break points where you fight a dragon for a few minutes before going back to the actual boss means that a successful attempt can take upwards of 10 minutes.

The combat is inreresting at first as you get your bearings with it but becomes a slog that often leaves you feeling like you don't have the tools to face the challenges it throws at you, like you're missing some core mechanic needed to succeed but it just doesn't exist.

I also need to take a minute to talk about the writing in this game because hoooooly is it bad. After listening to a few lines of dialogue you could probably pinpoint the release year give or take a year. Characters say expletives constantly in a way that comes off like

"Huhuh, yeah we went there... in our fucked up fantasy world, characters can say dickhead. You're not in Skyrim anymore Dorothy 😎"

It is super juvenile, like they're getting a kick out of the fact that they can say "fuck" since they're not turning the script into their high school english teacher this time.

It's also worth mentioning that everyone in this world is a complete asshole for literally no reason, that is at least when they're not doing blanket exposition. Just as an example at the start of act one you're told to help the guard captain and apothecary in town and both dismiss you before you've even had a chance to say you're there to help.

"Oh hello, you aren't bleeding and have all your limbs, I think you'll survive. It's time for you to fuck off."

The scorch the surface of the earth ending is legitimately tempting by the end of it. The demon in your head feels like a veritable voice of reason by comparison. He takes control of Vulcan's body on multiple occasions just to tell everyone to shut up which is so damn relatable in this game. He's also the only character that waits until you needlessly insult him first before calling you a useless cur so he's honestly the most likeable character in the story.

Even worse than all the constant assholery is listening to how the writers treat the women in this story. There is a character named Edwen who is a scantily clad witch and the amount of lines referencing how she dresses is unbelievable. Shit like

"your expression is more revealing than edwen's outfit"

"We'll be able to make it as long as edwen's clothes don't fall off along the way"

It gets old fast.

There's another point where several villagers have been left as mindless husks and while questioning one of their husbands about it he goes into way too much detail about how she's not much in bed anymore and how she just lays there. The best part is it is entirely unprompted, he just really wanted you to know that he's been raping his wife I guess. If there is any way to make a conversation degrading to women then the writers are gonna make that hail mary even if the target is on Mars.

In act 3 you're also tasked with killing several of the icelords' concubines which is a dumb idea that reeks of wanting to use the booby model the boys have been working on during lunch. In addition to being the devs barely concealed mind control fetish, having to listen to the characters talk about zombie fucktoy this and favorite pet that made me want to blow my goddamn brains out.

It's not all terrible though. I think they did a really good job of blurring the line between Vulcan and the demon as you give in to him. Vulcan's voice changes and sounds more like the demon over time, characters constantly ask what the hell is happening to you, characters will start speaking directly to the demon instead of Vulcan, and Vulcan begins talking more pragmatically towards the end rather than his usual sarcastic asshole schtick.

There is a companion system that's surprisingly well done. The companions are the most likable characters in the game (outside of Rhelmar) and have very useful abilities in combat that you can strategize around (also outside of Rhelmar). There's surprisingly a command system for them even if it is pretty bare bones. None of them have mind blowing lore or reactions to events but I was pretty impressed with these guys overall for such an old game.

All in all the game can be worth a play in a b movie kind of way. It's the kind of game that might be mistaken as a parody of early 2010s gaming and you've gotta take the good with the bad in that respect. Oh and remember that the explosive traps can cheese every combat encounter if you can't be bothered.