Xbox 360

In Defense of the 7: Xbox 360 Exclusives

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/25/2023

Posted in: Blogs, Microsoft Consoles, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Many people use video game reviews to determine how to spend their hard-earned dollars. While as an adult I don’t take this as seriously and I now make my own money I am more forgiving of games that aren’t perfect. As kids or teens, we have limited money and are usually picked through gaming magazines to determine if that one game was worth the money because we only got a few a year. For me, it was only during Christmas time that my parents bought games. I mostly rented mine throughout my childhood and teen years. Even for rentals, I was picky as I didn’t want to be stuck on my weekend with a dud of a game. Even a 7/10 or 3.5/5 would be considered a waste of time. This was the last generation in which AAA title after AAA title would be considered fantastic and with so many exclusives it was hard to keep up with. The HD era of gaming would see budgets balloon to insane heights and game releases slowed down as a result.

In my eyes, 7/10 or 3.5/5 games are mostly ignored. These aren’t always considered hidden gems either. Some are, but some are just considered forgettable. Not awful or good, but just passes under everyone’s radar. These aren’t the “so bad it’s good” games either. A few of these games have cult followings; a few I had only heard of while compiling this list and some I played myself growing up. I compiled this list from Metacritic with games between 74-70. I feel that’s the true blue 7 range. 79 and 78-rated games usually only have about 25% of the critics giving it a 7 to bring an otherwise 8 score down some. These games are at least rated by half the critics as 7/10. While I know many people don’t listen to critics and some might feel this game should be rated higher or lower is subjective. Like it or not, critic reviews drive sales and it may be the reason why you might find a few games on this list you’ve never heard of, thought was talked about worse than you remember, or something along those lines

Dead Rising 2: Case West – 2010

An exclusive standalone title bringing back Frank West. It was too little too late as the second game wasn’t a big enough improvement for most people. I personally don’t care for this series but die-hard fans at this one up.

Most Recent Entry: Dead Rising 4 – 2016 (PC, XONE)

Capsized – 2013

This indie title was well-liked for its visuals and atmosphere as well as old-school challenge, but its combat and exploration were a bit one-note and didn’t hold most people’s attention for long

Ridge Racer 6 – 2005

A console launch title that was met with a lot of hype. It was just average. There were better arcade racers at the time and it didn’t advance the series enough to be groundbreaking. For a console launch title, it also didn’t show off the power of the 360 at the time like it did with the PSP.

Most Recent Entry: Ridge Racer: Draw and Drift – 2016 (iOS, AND)

Kinectimals – 2010

One of the most hyped Xbox 360 games to date. This was shown off during the Kinect unveil at E3 and people went nuts. It’s probably the best Kinect game out there and while it was praised for its imagination and whimsy it didn’t have much gameplay or content to keep you coming back.

Comic Jumper: The Adventures of Captain Smiley – 2010

Comic Jumper was praised for innovative gameplay and fun characters, but lacked depth and became very repetitive. It felt like an older Xbox game at best.

Dance Dance Revolution Universe – 2007

A competent yet underwhelming debut on next-gen consoles. The graphics were sub-par and there was no addition of custom soundtracks which many stated was a missed opportunity. It was just more DDR on Xbox 360.

Most Recent Entry: Dance Dance Revolution II – 2011 (WII)

Your Shape: Fitness Evolved – 2010

The short-lived series made its mark at the launch of the Kinect and many praised it for using the device well, but underneath was simply a workout simulator and nothing more.

Most Recent Entry: Your Shape: Fitness Evolved 2013 – 2012 (WIIU)

Jetpac Refueled – 2006

A cheap reimagining of the classic Atari game. It worked well enough, but if you aren’t a fan of high-score games then this wasn’t for you. It didn’t do anything to evolve the series enough.

Motocross Madness – 2013

The final game in the long-running series. Its console debut, and reboot, featured cute avatar characters, and looked good, but had very little content outside of multiplayer.

NBA Baller Beats – 2012

Not to be confused with Midway’s NBA Baller series. It was an ambitious title and probably one of the most unique for the Kinect. You used a real-life basketball and dribbled to a rhythm game. It was great for practicing and a good workout, but hindered the visuals and content department. People also complained of needing said basketball and a hard surface. Anyone living with downstairs neighbors was also left out.

Most Recent Entry: NBA 2K23 – 2022 (PC, XONE, PS4, PS5, XSX, NS)

Hybrid – 2012

Even if you wanted to play this game you can’t. It was online only with no bots and isn’t for purchase any longer. Now it’s just a relic and time capsule. The game was praised for doing interesting things, but was priced too high, had no offline play, and had weird controls.

Small Arms – 2006

An early title that launched with Xbox LIVE Arcade. This four player brawler had a charming roster and fun combat, but didn’t offer much in terms of longevitiy or depth. It’s still available today to play on Xbox One.

Raiden Fighters Aces – 2009

For a budget retail title it offered three Raiden games that hardcore fans would love. Other than that the game wa questioned for being double the price of most LIVE Arcade games and only including three.

Most Recent Entry: Raiden IV x MIKADO remix – 2021 (NS)

Zumba Fitness Rush – 2012

Fitness games were everywhere for the Kinect and motion devices. It was an unstoppable plague. Zumba Fitness was considered one of the better ones, but each version lacked a variety of content.

Most Recent Entry: Zumba: Burn It Up! – 2019 (NS)

Kinect: Disneyland Adventures – 2011

Of course this was going to happen. Riding the apex of the Kinect’s popularty you can take a trip down a virtual Disneyland. The game was praised for capturing the magic of the theme park, but lacked content or challenge.

Scene It? Lights, Camera, Action – 2007

Trivia games have always had their audience and Scene It? burned up and fizzled out fast. This one was exclusive on Xbox 360 for some reason and was crtiqued for having triva that only 20 something’s (who are in their 30’s now) would get and understand. It wasn’t great for family night.

Most Recent Entry: Scene It?: Movie Night – 2011 (X360, PS3)

Kinect Sports – 2010

The most popular Kinect game, it launched with the device, and it was a direct rival to Wii Sports. It didn’t have the same charm sadly. While the games were fun the motion controls didn’t register accuretly and it lacked overall content. The series would try one last time on the Xbox One before fading out of existence.

Most Recent Entry: Kinect Sports: Rivals – 2014 (XONE)

Crimson Alliance – 2011

Praised for it’s bright visuals and fun take on the Diablo formula, but was really short and didn’t offer much in terms of content. It was also best played with other people as the AI wasn’t very good.

Omega Five – 2008

A fun yet shallow side scrolling shooter. It looked really good as well with lots of nice effects, but it didn’t have a unique hook or visual style and in the end many people lost interest.

Race Pro – 2009

A racing sim that was praised for it’s realism but lacked content and felt too similar to othe PC racing sims. It just couldn’t compete with the likes of Forza and Project Gotham Racing.

Amped 3 – 2005

A system launch title and originally Microsoft’s answer to SSX Amped had it’s following and crowd. Amped 3 was well…amped up to launch and was one of the better selling games. Despite this the game lacked content despite looking next-gen, but looked bland and the game just didn’t have much flair or style to it. It played like a generic snowboarding game.The series would end here.

Gel: Set & Match – 2009

An original puzzle game indeed, but it just felt like it wasn’t enough or didn’t reach its full potential. It wasn’t super accessible and also not challenging enough at the same time.

Star Ocean: The Last Hope – 2009

Xbox 360 exclusie JRPGs weren’t pentiful and none of them were stellar. Many kept playing them until FFXIII would surface, but Star Ocean hasn’t been a good franchise in over a decade. The Last Hope was full of long drawn out cut scenes, an uninteresting story, and gameplay that was boring and average. However, regular JRPG lovers will find enough to like here. It would later relase on PS3 with little fanfare.

Most Recent Entry: Star Ocean: The Divine Force – 2022 (PC, PS4, XONE, XSX, PS5)

Phantom Breaker: Battlegrounds – 2013

This is a hardcore beat ’em up similar to Castle Crashers, however it’s not as accessible. Some claimed it was too complicated, some said it had gameplay mechanics that weren’t the best. Overall, if you like this genre there’s something here for you. It’s also getting a new game this year.

Most Recent Entry: Phantom Breaker: Omnia – 2022 (PC, NS, XONE, PS4)

South Park: Let’s Go Tower Defense Play! – 2009

Considered the best South Park game at the time, but that’s not a big shoe to fill. You either needed to be a South Park fan or love tower defense to enjoy this. It offered very little variety and not much outside of multiplayer.

Most Recent Entry: South Park: The Fractured But Whole – 2017 (PC, PS4, XONE, NS)

Axel & Pixel – 2009

A great looking original point-and-click adventure that was praised for being brave enough to bring this genre back, but the story wasn’t interesting enough to garnish sales for a sequel. If you love the genre and haven’t played this then you’re in for a visual treat.

Hexic 2 – 2007

A new game by Tetris creator Alex Pajitnov is exciting. Hexic 2‘s Xbox 360 exclusivity wasn’t a surprise, but it wasn’t much more than the original. The first Hexic game was the first ever LIVE Arcade game I played as it came with my system bundled in. I never bothered with the sequel, but my sister was obsessed with this game. Many complained the game cost too much for how little it offered.

The Splatters – 2012

A unique and fun physics based puzzle game, but players felt the game was too hard, unfair, and overall rough around the edges. It’s still fun for puzzle fans as there’s nothing else like it.

Nike+ Kinect Training – 2012

Nike threw their hat into the Kinect ring a little too late and what we got was a pure training simulator with almost no game. It wasn’t fun, it was very serious, and didn’t have the best motion detection setup. If you had one training sim for your Kinect you had them all.

Meteos Wars – 2008

The DS phenomenon came to Xbox 360, but was hamepered by an overly aggressive AI and no online play. Despite the name you’d mistake this for an online only game. While the core gameplay was intact, it didn’t have a lot to offer. This would be the final nail the series’ coffin.

Lips – 2008
Lips: Number One Hits – 2009

If the name wasn’t dumb enough the karaoke genre was overflowing with shovelware at this point. Despite this one-off game for the 360 being decent as a simulator. It wasn’t really a game. You just sing to the words like any other game with no modes or actual fun.

Fruit Ninja Kinect – 2011

Does anyone remember Fruit Ninja? It was a smartphone phenomeon. It also got a giant arcade version which I actually got to play. While this is one of the better Kinect games it was way overpriced and this hurt sales and reviews. It had about the same of content as the smartphone versions at nearly full retail price. It’s a great title to own if you have one collecting dust somewhere.

Most Recent Entry: Fruit Ninja 2 – 2020 (AND, iOS)

Easy Golf: Course Architect – 2008

This was a more high-profile indie game that was made by the community. It looked simple, but played well enough and had a robust course editor. It was best played online. However, the rather ugly visuals and UI hampered the experience a bit.f

Chromehounds – 2006

If the cover isn’t the most generic thing you’ve ever seen it doesn’t end there. The game didn’t look up to snuff for the era, but offered a robust customization suite with great online play, but lacked everywhere else. It’s a decent mech game that was exclusive to the system, but quickly forgotten about.

Crackdown 2 – 2010

The first Crackdown was loads of fun and felt original. Sadly, due to the surprising popularity the sequel was greenlit too fast and we got more of the same which wasn’t really a good thing for an open world game. It felt like an expansion if you can say that. The sreies never reached the heights of the original after.

Most Recent Entry: Crackdown 3 – 2019 (PC, XONE)

Bubble Bobble Neo! – 2009

Another arcade version of Bubble Bobble. Nothing new or innovative and incredibly hard, but if you love arcade games then this is for you. At this point in time any form of Bubble Bobble was heeded with groans as it was a series Taito had beaten into the ground at this point.

Most Recent Entry: Bubble Bobble 4 Friends – 2019 (NS, PS4)

The Outfit – 2006

A hyped up exclusive that got attention everywhere. It was firstly looked down upon due to its dated visuals which didn’t look next-gen. It was also a slower paced strategy title which would automatically neuter sales. In the end the game had fun multiplayer, but was really repetitive. It would have done better as a PC title.

Bomberman Live: Battlefest – 2010

Better than the abysmal 360 exclusive, but plays it too safe to set itself apart from other games. The online play was a good addition, and the visuals are charming, but that’s about it.

Most Recent Entry: Amazing Bomberman – 2022 (MAC, iOS)

Full Auto – 2006

A very short lived series and a not-so-surprising Sega exclusive on Xbox. This was a generic feeling car battler at its core despite the high octane thrills and average track design.

Most Recent Entry: Full Auto 2: Battlelines – 2007 (PSP, PS3)

Haunt – 2012

This Kinect title was late to the game, but provided a charming haunted house to travel through. Ultimately it was over in a few hours and didn’t have much gameplay or depth to keep you coming back.

Ticket to Ride – 2008

There wasn’t anything inherently wrong with the game. It was for hardcore boardgame players really. It had a dry presentation and was simple to learn but hard to master. I feel if it had flashier visuals it would have appealed to more people.

The Secret of Monkey Island: Special Edition – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 11/26/2022

Posted in: Xbox 360, PC Reviews, Mobile Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Microsoft Consoles, iOS, Mac, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification. Leave a comment

Publisher: LucasArts

Developer: LucasArts

Release Date: 07/15/2009

Also Available On

LucasArts’ SCUMM engine games hold a great fanbase for those who grew up in the 80s computer gaming scene. They were bright and colorful. Revolutionary, for their time, in terms of gameplay and art. They were also later updated with voice acting which was some of the first of its kind. While the games were short (running around 6 hours per game) they were memorable and had a special sense of humor that was considered top of their class. The series got a much-anticipated remake starting with the first game. While not much was really added, the entire game was redrawn from scratch with all new lines of dialog recorded by the original cast.

The game definitely plays like an old point-and-click adventure of yore. Clumsy controls (which were never really fixed), slow pace, obtuse object hunting, and no puzzles. That’s not to say the game is bad. While it doesn’t feel as modern as The Longest Journey or even David Cage’s games with quick-time events and button pressing that’s part of the charm. Thankfully the game has a hint system that slowly gives you more specific hints including full-on arrows pointing to the exact spot you need to be. This was really helpful and a must-have for first-time players or those who aren’t familiar with this era of adventure games.

The game has two main areas. The first one consists of some small areas, a town, and a large overhead map to get to these areas. Most of the game is gathering items and figuring out where to use them and how. You have multiple commands such as talk to, push, pull, look at, use, open and close. These are used by pulling up an action command menu and then you have your inventory. To use these commands you need to pull up the command menu and then the inventory. This is cumbersome and took a while to figure out. You control Guybrush by clicking around on the ground, but his walk cycle is pretty slow. There’s a lot of backtracking in this game and this slowed the progress a bit. One thing I didn’t like was the insult for sword fighting. You have to lose to pirates to learn their insults and comebacks. You need to learn enough to defeat the first “boss”. There was a lot of trial and error doing this and it got really frustrating.

The star of the show is the characters and the writing. The salesman Stan for example is hilarious. Using overexaggerated arm waving and an obnoxious coat to look like a sleazy salesman. The pirate LeChuck doesn’t get much on-screen time, but neither do most of the characters. The main character Guybrush is who you will get to know the most. There is an optional dialog for most characters to get to know their personality more than their backstory. There just isn’t enough time to get to know them more. So, it makes up for funny writing and witty humor which the game does solidly.

I liked the visuals in this game. The hand-drawn art is beautiful and still captures the classic LucasArts look. Some of the animations feel a bit stiff still, but again, that all adds to the charm. The voice acting is awesome, there is some funny use of items and small little tidbits of humor thrown in that did make me chuckle. I have to say that this game won’t hold everyone’s attention. It is slow to build up and takes a while to get going. A lot of people might feel lost clicking on everything and not realize what order to do things in, but the hint system makes this game much more enjoyable. I highly recommend this classic remake, but it won’t be to everyone’s taste.

Retrospective: HD Era of Gaming – The Best and Worst Horror Games

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/17/2022

Posted in: Blogs, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Wii, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

We all love a good scare, right? Horror games are some of gaming’s greatest past times. Usually booming in October, horror games from the past and present are played all around the world. The problem is, there just aren’t a lot of them made, and the best ones are far and few between. Usually, this is a great time to dig up old classics rather than trudge through recent crap. While the PS1/PS2 era was the golden age of horror games, the HD era, or the seventh generation of consoles, struggled and was probably the most anemic when it came to horror games, especially the good ones. There’s a reason why some of the rarest and most coveted physical games are horror. It’s the genre that’s been the least explored and not done well enough most of the time. If you can look past clunky controls and awkward gameplay most retro horror games do provide good scares, atmosphere, creepy monsters, and good visuals. I’ve compiled a list of the best and the worst.

The Best

Alice: Madness Returns

American McGee is well known for his dark interpretation of the Alice in Wonderland series. The first game, American McGee’s Alice, was clunky mechanically but was a visual treat. The same goes for the sequel. It’s a gorgeous game with a lot of dark themes dealing with mental illness. The enemies are fantastically designed and the levels themselves are living art. Despite the incredibly repetitive gameplay, this one is a blast to play through.

Silent Hill: Homecoming

A lot of people didn’t like Homecoming due to its more action-oriented combat, but I actually quite liked it. I feel it was the last good Silent Hill game in the series and it still retains the creepy atmosphere and insane creature design. The haunting music is still present as well. While it’s not as tense as the original trilogy, Homecoming does have better combat despite it being the wrong focus here. This was the first game in the series that was part of the jump to the next generation. The next game in the series, Downpour, would be considered the worst in the series, and I personally hated it. These would be the last games in the series to date.

Metro Series

Metro 2033 and Last Light, these were some of the best horror games to grace the seventh generation of consoles. While they played and looked best on PC, the console versions still looked great and did a good job giving us scares. The post-apocalyptic horror series had an intriguing story and tense atmosphere along with crazy creature designs. The final game in the trilogy, Exodus, would be on the next-generation systems and receive mixed reviews.

Shadows of the Damned

While not inherently designed to give you nightmares, Shadows has a lot of horror elements in its design such as creepy enemies and an overall atmosphere of dread. It’s more of a comedy horror title, but it has tons of style that help make swallowing the shallow substance a bit easier. It’s also not very good-looking, on a technical basis, but the art is awesome. Most of Suda 51’s games were one-shots and never saw sequels. SotD never saw high enough sales even if he wanted to do a sequel. To date, it hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port.

Condemned Series

Condemned: Criminal Origins really showed us what next-generation visuals could look like. The E3 2006 demo blew me away and it was one of the reasons I got an Xbox 360. This was one of the few games that looked the part and really pushed the industry into a new era of HD visuals. It’s a game that can be replayed many times and you will always have a fun experience. It’s too bad the series is dead because Monolith nailed the atmosphere here. The game is intense with crazy melee combat and incredibly dark and haunting levels. Crazy bums coming out of nowhere breathing and panting and trying to attack you in dark hallways is something else. The sequel, Bloodshot, was great but focused more on combat and less on the atmosphere, so it’s not quite as scary. It was also the nail in the coffin as due to the poor sales of the sequel Sega shuttered the series for good. To date, the series hasn’t seen a remaster, remake, or port of any kind.

Dante’s Inferno

Dante’s Inferno is one of the best hack and slash games ever made, but EA was bound to make sure you didn’t know that. It didn’t get much attention or was considered just another God of War rip-off. While the game was short, it had incredibly responsive and fun combat, an interesting protagonist, and insanely gory and adult-themed levels. It’s just too bad the story wasn’t fleshed out enough. What’s here is a fun 4-5 hour game that you won’t find anywhere else. Sadly, the game’s low sales sealed its fate to have no sequel, caused Visceral to shutter, and hasn’t seen a port, remaster, or remake to date.

BioShock Series

Specifically speaking about the first two games, BioShock had a crazy dark atmosphere and some creepy enemies and horror that kind of just oozed everywhere. There was no jump scares or downright frightening scenes, but you always had a sense of dread and fear and that’s really hard to pull off in games. The game was more about psychological horror and isolation and it sure pulled it off mostly the best in the first game. Surprisingly, the entire trilogy was released during this generation and would receive barely passable ports later on as the BioShock Collection.

Dead Space Series

While Dead Space 3 was mostly about the action and less about horror, the first two games were damn scary. I would consider them one of the scariest games I have ever played. Jump scares aside, there was a constant foreboding presence of something lurking around every corner and the Necromorphs are some of the greatest video game enemies of all time. This was peak horror during the HD era. Another trilogy that saw its ending in the same generation cycle. The series would stall here and the first game would receive a remake two generation cycles later.

Deadly Premonition

Deadly Premonition is the perfect game of it’s so bad it’s good. The gameplay is dated and feels like a PS1 game, the graphics are terrible, and the voice acting is awful, but the writing and overall atmosphere the game presents are well done and memorable. It really feels like a PS2 game that was quickly ported over to next-gen consoles without any improvements in mind. It can be scary in the sense that its trippy Japanese horror weirdness will freak you out more than scare you. This is one of the few games you should stomach the terrible design for the weirdness. It’s worth it. It would get a sequel in the next generation, but not look like it and would be poorly received

F.E.A.R. Series

Oh man, this one brings me back. The first game was very scary with crazy The Ring girl vibes that were all the rage in the early 2000s. The gunplay was genuinely solid and you needed a NASA PC to run it back in the day, but forget about understanding the story. The second game had some really scary elements, but was more action-oriented and had less of a mid-2000s PC shooter Half-Life 2 style vibe to it. The third game, well, just isn’t scary at all. Another trilogy that was released all in the same console cycle. While the first game was a port and was released during the PS2/Xbox era, the entire trilogy would never see a remake or remaster.

Resident Evil Series

The Resident Evil series really took off after the previous generation. This generation would see the most action-focused games yet. Resident Evil 5, 6, and Operation Raccoon City were the main releases. There was also an HD port of the 3DS exclusive Revelations as well as Revelations 2 as a sequel. Some would consider this the weakest run the series had only to go back to its roots in the next generation cycle starting with Resident Evil VII. The games also weren’t very scary around this time. They were just too action-focused and didn’t have the nuanced scares and puzzles as before. Revelations would be the only sub-series to feel scary or have any tension at all. Operation Raccoon City would be lauded as the worst game in the series.

The Last of Us

The Last of Us would be considered one of the best horror games ever made. It was wildly praised and made waves throughout the gaming industry receiving awards and praise from all angles. The tense stealth scenes with the Clickers were awesome. These monsters are some of the creepiest and eerie creatures ever made for a horror game. This wasn’t just another zombie game. It would receive a sequel in the following generation as well as some of the most controversial decisions ever for a game. It would also receive a full remake and remaster.

Outlast

Released at the tale end of the HD era of gaming, Outlast never saw a port to consoles until the next generation. It was damn scary. This small indie game made waves and became one of the top streaming games of all time. The tense atmosphere and overall great design, in general, made Outlast terrifying. The sequel would be released several years later on PC and consoles as well as a port of the first game released about a year later.

Amnesia: The Dark Descent

Amnesia was probably the top-streamed video game of the year in 2010. Game streaming was new and scare reactions reached the charts on YouTube. There hadn’t been many really scary games during this generation. It was all action-focused and multiplayer-focused to generate sales. That’s why this indie game was released on PC only at the time. It had interesting puzzles and enemies you couldn’t fight. It wouldn’t receive a port until many years later and two-generation cycles later. The sequels A Machine for Pigs and Rebirth would be poorly received, and I personally didn’t like them that much either.

S.T.A.L.K.E.R. Series

The STALKER series wouldn’t sell well at first but would gain a huge cult following. The entire trilogy was released around the mid-life of the HD era and was exclusive to PC. It’s rough around the edges, but a huge following of modders would improve the game and it wouldn’t be until two generations later when a true sequel would be released. The game never saw a port to consoles and for a reason. The engine is already poorly optimized on PC and wouldn’t do well on consoles. It would be a huge undertaking to port the entire trilogy and it would be hard to market.

Alien Isolation

Alien Isolation wasn’t technically developed for HD consoles, but mostly for PC and next-generation systems. It came out right as the next generation was coming in and the HD versions were quickly forgotten. Isolation is considered the best game in the Alien series and one of the best horror games of the last couple of decades. It captures the 80s aesthetic of the movies and tells a great story while being terrifying. I still haven’t completed it to this day because of how scary it actually is.

Penumbra Series

The original horror trilogy, Penumbra, was developed by Frictional Games who would later go on to make the Amnesia series. This was released for PC only and never received a console port. It was a less talked about indie series that was loved among horror fans, but indie PC games didn’t receive the same spotlight that they do now. Console gamers didn’t care unless they were ported. Penumbra is a slow-paced, puzzle-focused horror series all about adventure and discovery. It’s creepy, full of psychological horror, and is a must-play for any horror fan.

The Evil Within

While this is stretching it a bit, The Evil Within was mostly meant for next-generation consoles and PC. It played and looked nice on PS3 and Xbox 360, but those weren’t the intended systems. This was Shinji Mikami’s next opus and was definitely creepy and had some good elements, but was too action focused and unbalanced and the story made no sense. Some say that’s the charm of survival horror games. There’s a bit of jank that’s needed. I personally just thought this game was okay despite the amazing monster designs. A sequel would later come out, but not sell as well.

Alan Wake

This is one of my favorite horror games of all time. It has a great story, memorable characters, and a great combat system that plays off of light and darkness. I’ve replayed this game many times and it wasn’t an instant hit for Microsoft. The sales were slow and it wasn’t appreciated until much later. It received a PC port and a recent remaster. It’s a must-play for any horror fan.

Siren: Blood Curse

It was a surprise to see a niche and obscure horror title return to PS3. Siren didn’t sell or review well but is considered a cult classic and part of the classic survival horror era. Blood Curse was a digital-only episodic release that had some great scares and an overall fun adventure. Sadly, only Japan received a physical release.

The Worst

Silent Hill Downpour

Oh man, where do I start? My favorite horror series was butchered with this release. I rented this from GameFly and had to follow a guide through most of the game. It was a confusing convoluted mess and felt like a chore to play. It wasn’t scary, wasn’t fun, and was the worst game in the whole series.

Saw Series

While the movies were quite enjoyable despite their flaws, the games were just awful. They weren’t as gruesome as the movies and played it too safe. Pretty much every bad conventional video game flaw was present here. Awful voice acting, terrible graphics, bad puzzles, and poor level design.

Vampire Rain

Easily considered one of the worst games of the HD era there was no redeeming value in this game. There was nothing you could overlook. There wasn’t any “it’s so bad it’s kind of charming” to this game either. It was just a disaster and an unplayable mess. It wasn’t scary, it felt like it was trying to be several games at once, it looked bad, it played even worse, and wasn’t any fun despite all the hype leading up to release.

Aliens: Colonial Marines

This game needs no introduction. It’s been covered by every “worst of” and “most controversial” video game on YouTube out there. Its history has been extensively documented. From broken AI to awful visuals, and just a completely unfinished and broken game. It’s also considered one of the worst games ever made. It’s a stark contrast to Alien Isolation.

Alone in the Dark

I had the displeasure of actually finishing this game when it came out. I was hoping it was going to be a great reboot of a classic horror series. I followed the developer’s diaries all the way through the release and played it without reading any reviews. The game is pretty bad. It’s one of the worst games of the HD era. It was just an awful chore and a mess of a game. It wasn’t fun. It wasn’t scary. It was just plain bad.

Amy

Probably one of the worst games ever made. This was a small indie game that was supposed to be full of suspense and horror, but instead, it’s a chore of a game with awful controls and graphics. The game was also poorly optimized and suffered terrible framerate issues. The story made no sense, and overall, it was just a stupid and lazy game.

Clive Barker’s Jericho

I was so excited about this game, and every time I think about or have to write about it break’s my heart. I absolutely love Clive Barker’s work and had it since I was a young teen. I fawned after the figures from Todd McFarlane and loved the characters in his movies. Undying was also a cult classic. The game was just trying to do too much at once. It had cramped level design, awful performance, dated visuals, and just felt like a chore. The only thing it had going for it was the art design. It’s one of the worst games I’ve ever played and one of the saddest scars of the HD era.

Lost Planet 3 – 9 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/11/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Spark Unlimited

Release Date: 08/27/2013

Also Available On

The Lost Planet series is one of those sad ones you see on “worst of” or “what happened” YouTube videos. The first game is great if not repetitive. It was early in the HD era of gaming and showed off what the Xbox 360 could do. The second game took a serious dive and tried to be a Monster Hunter rip-off and the third game tries to blend both but doesn’t do it very well. The biggest strength in Lost Planet 3 is the continued story from the first game and it’s done quite well with story twists and surprises, but it’s dished out too slowly and the game in between is repetitive and slow.

You play as Jim Peyton. A man who is just using his rig to make some money to send back to Earth for his wife and baby. You are back on E.D.N. III and you are back to work for the NEVEC company just like in the first game, and the story starts out really slow. While you wait for that to pick up you get to learn the two main gameplay loops here. On foot shooting and your rig. The rig is a hulking mech that can’t really fight. It’s mostly used to trek across small areas to get to an objective and I honestly find this a waste of time. The whole trapesing across areas to get to somewhere isn’t done right. The areas are small, there’s zero exploration, and it just wastes time. You can eventually unlock fast traveling, but you can only fast travel at the opening of each area. The first 2/3 of the game starts each mission with you doing the same preamble of walking out of the base and then across the same areas dozens of times to get to the objective. When fast travel is unlocked it helps, but why wasn’t this an option from the start?

The rig can kind of fight, but it’s melee brawling with larger Akrid which are the planet’s native creatures you must kill. The same five-six enemies repeat throughout the entire game and it gets old quickly. There are a ton of repeated boss fights in the game and to mix things up (not really) you can fight them in the rig as well. This consists of timed blocks and then using your claw arm to and drill to get at their weak points which glow orange, a series staple. This orange stuff is the lifeblood of the planet and used as currency in-game and is sent back to Earth to solve the energy crisis. The mech itself is very clunky but in a bad way. It feels unresponsive and sluggish to move and the boss fights are never epic feeling or satisfying. The most irritating missions are the ones in which it turns into a drilling platform and you must defend it. These missions last for what seems like forever and you never have good enough weapons for the enemies at hand.

Let’s get to the on-foot combat. The weapons here are completely useless. Only the shotgun and assault rifle is any good. The hunting rifle, bowcaster, and grenade launcher are mostly useless. They fire too slow as every single enemy moves fast and swarms you. They only became useful in the final chapter when you finally fight human enemies. The same few enemies repeat. Three small swarming enemy types, two larger giant dog-like creatures, one centipede-like creature that can use cover, and three boss types that repeat often. That’s it. The game relies on quick-time events when enemies get too close and especially in the rig. They all move fast and don’t benefit from long-range weapons or slow-shooting weapons. You need a lot of ammo to pelt at them to keep them off of you. There are upgrades and weapons to purchase, but you wind up not needing most of them for the other weapons because they are useless. You can also upgrade your rig, but outside of armor there really isn’t a reason to do much upgrading.

The entire game is also dull to look at. Sure it looks nice graphically, but artistically the entire game is just ice and snow. There’s no variation and it just looks boring. Even the base is boring to be in because it’s all ice and snow. I know this is a frozen planet, but there are usually other biomes on every planet type. Mix it up some. Outside of shooting Akrid you are pulling levers, turning knobs, and pressing buttons. There are some scripted events, but the few interior areas are drab and just as boring as the outside. The game has no soul and feels like a typical cookie-cutter shooter. It feels like it tries to be Dead Space 3 sometimes with odd horror music that doesn’t fit and the creatures that hide behind cover.

Overall, the game is just so underwhelming. It doesn’t have compelling shooting, the weapons suck, the rig is wasted by not having any weapons, and the areas repeat just like the bosses and enemy types. The story is the only thing worth sticking around for, but unless you’re a hardcore Lost Planet fan there’s no reason to play this. The story is for fans of the original game and newcomers won’t get the full impact of the twists in the story. The graphics look nice, and the voice acting is great, but the same repeated ice and snow levels for 10 hours get old really fast. Sadly, this series doesn’t end with a bang and there’s a reason why Capcom left it in the graveyard.

Doom 3

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/07/2022

Posted in: Android, Mac, Microsoft, Microsoft Consoles, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Retro Consoles, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Bethesda Softworks

Developer: Panic Button

Release Date: 07/26/2019

Also Available On

The original release of Doom 3 was a huge deal. It was a technical marvel with fantastic new lighting effects and textures that could fill the latest GPU and all of your RAM. It split fans due to the slower pace and focus on jump scares (that honestly don’t really work these days anymore) and a bigger focus on the story (if you can call it that). The game retains the same dark visuals and monsters from before, but being the first game in full 3D it had a lot of problems.

The first thing you will notice is that this release has no visual upgrades outside of some texture filtering and anti-aliasing and slightly better lighting. The textures still look muddy and the models are still low-poly. With this being the third official release of this game I’m surprised more work hasn’t been done to it. You play as a marine who is stationed on Mars when things suddenly go wrong. The first couple of levels is probably the best since they slowly introduce the gameplay to you and have better-designed levels. Zombies emerge from the dark, and your flashlight is a lifeline. It does have a short battery but recharges within seconds.

The main issue with Doom 3 is its much slower pace in every part of the game. The movement is slow (you have adrenaline that’s used for limited sprinting which is annoying), and the weapons reload slowly (why is there reloading anyway?). Not to mention the weapons just plain suck. The pistol is useless outside of the first couple of levels. I never touched it after this. The machine gun is useless in later levels, and everything else just feels slow. Enemies feel slow as well. The environments are also cramped with too many enemies spawning at once and I constantly backed into walls and got stuck in corners trying to get away. Very rarely does the game ever feel like a classic Doom game with more open areas.

The level design is also terrible. The game is way too long as it is and it’s just boring hallways after hallway finding PDA access cards, running back and forth activating switches, and trying to open doors. nearly eight grueling hours of this. It felt like a chore after the first two. Eventually, you do get to Hell, but it’s such a short level with a boss fight at the end, but it still suffered from cramped areas and nothing new except a couple of enemies that finally show up such as the Hell Knight and Arch-Vile which are some of the toughest enemies in the game. I mostly stuck to the strategy of using guns that shot the fastest such as the Cell machine gun being the most powerful with the chaingun being second. I used the shotgun through most of the mid-section of the game until I got the cell rifle.

There are a few boss fights in the game that all play out the same, and in the end, the entire game is just one long boring chore. It’s fun at first, but if you are a veteran of classic Doom games then most of you may just shut this off early. This is my third play-through of this game and it’s less enjoyable each time. I originally played this on Xbox, and then PC, and then dabbled in it a bit on Xbox 360 and never finished it. Now I completed it on Switch.

Speaking of the Switch the game plays fine, but there is some slow down in the larger areas and it doesn’t always stay at 60FPS. In handheld mode, the game runs fine as well, and you have the option to turn off flashlight shadows to help, but overall it’s great to just have another FPS on the Switch. These don’t come around often. Included is the Resurrection of Evil expansion which I already finished once on Xbox and a new Lost Mission short campaign which I will get around to eventually. It’s nice that there’s some new content. Overall, this could have easily been a remake from the ground up or a mode that made it feel faster-paced like the classic games. If you are itching for a mid-2000s FPS game then go ahead. Don’t come into this thinking it’s like the newer Doom reboots. This game was a specific era of id Software at its lowest point (Quake 4, Rage)

Assassin’s Creed II – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 04/23/2022

Posted in: Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox 360, Xbox One. Leave a comment

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Montreal/Virtuos

Release Date: 2/17/2022

Also Available On

Assassin’s Creed II is by far one of the biggest sequels in video game history. When it came out everyone was blown away by the scope and ambition put into this game. It made the first game feel like a concept demo. It felt like just the core of the first game was present and so much was built on top of that game. The world was five times as big, there were new mission types, cinematic story missions, and tons of overall additions and improvements, however, the game did suffer on its own for various reasons.

This game starts the epic saga of Ezio Auditore De Firenze. One of the most iconic video game characters of all time. It was a surprise that Ubisoft scrapped Altair and his story so quickly, but we are greeted with 15th century Italy and various historical characters that appeared during that time such as Catarina Sforza, and Leonardo Di Vinci, and Machiavelli. The story itself is fairly easy to follow and has a few twists, but most of all have a really surprising ending. Ezio works his way up as an assassin knocking down templars to retrieve the Apple of Eden and keep it from the templar’s hands. The main villain, Rodrigo Borgia, is a nasty snake and overall all the characters are well written and I wound up really liking most of them.

First off, the overall way you maneuver has been improved slightly, but more things have been added. While you can swan dive into haystacks and climb ladders, the entire game has been built with parkour free-running in mind. You can climb every building and stay off the streets by staying on the rooftops. Overall, the system was impressive back in the day, but it has a lot of quality of life issues. The overall parkouring feels too sticky. Ezio will jump around like a rabbit sometimes so fine-tuning your turns is difficult to forget any type of mid-jump changes. Once you get close to a wall or object Ezio will climb and quick button presses just aren’t responsive. I would start climbing a wall and then try to tap the descent button, but instead, he would just fall to the ground. Other instances had guards chasing me while I was trying to round a corner and Ezio would cling to the wall and get stuck or jump onto the wall or object nearby instead. This can get incredibly frustrating as the system just doesn’t allow fine tuning or sudden changes.

That’s not to say the parkour system is bad. When you have a good line of sight it works well or you just want to climb broadly over a building. There were other instances in which precise jumping became a chore during Assassins Tomb missions. There is a fast walk button and holding down the run button together allows Ezio to scale things quickly. If you are holding that run button after each jump Ezio will just go in that direction whether there’s something to grab on to or not. For small jumps across beams, I had to let go of the run button after each jump to re-align myself for the next jump. Quickly parkouring around just isn’t possible due to this finicky system.

Some other frustrations stem from combat. Firstly, the system is mostly the same as the first game as it can be easy due to the whole system being a parry-fest. You can whack away at enemies, but instead, just hold the block button and parry when enemies strike and it’s a one-hit-kill city. Once I acquired my wrist blades I didn’t even use my sword anymore and never once used my secondary dagger weapons. This is a flaw in the combat itself and needs serious overhauling. It makes open combat boring and sometimes too easy. What is challenging, and annoying, is trying to lose guards and become anonymous. Sure you can blend into crowds, benches, and haystacks, and you can now hire prostitutes or mercenaries to distract guards and get them off your tail, but the combat plus finicky parkour system makes losing guards incredibly frustrating. You have to lose their line of sight by rounding corners or jumping off buildings and if you can get far enough away it will create a search radius. You can hide in that radius or continue escaping. There is an anonymity meter and once it’s solid red every guard will recognize you and it’s a frustrating mess of finding a town crier to bribe and take 50% of the meter away.

With those two major things out of the way that leaves content itself. The sad thing about all this new content is that it’s meaningless in the end. There are no rewards for any of it except for achievements or completion’s sake. There are 73 viewpoints to find which are actually fun as most of these are climbing puzzles on their own. Now it does still feel like overkill as each viewpoint only reveals the surrounding buildings and not much else. I felt there were just too many. There are races, assassin contracts, courier missions, and fights. These are boring and pointless and just there to add in filler. You can really tell this is where the Ubisoft plague of too much crap to do in a game starts. The only rewarding side content is The Truth puzzles. There are 20 hidden glyphs throughout the game and finding them will grant you puzzles to solve. These get increasingly hard, absurdly hard in fact, in which the clues become obtuse and impossible to decipher. However, what’s revealed is a cool video.

The story missions themselves are mostly varied with various tasks such as assassinations, tailing, fights, horseback riding, and the occasional scripted mission. I really liked the story and characters enough to stick around and wound up completing all viewpoints, The Truth puzzles, and finding all the codex pages which max out your health. I do need to mention the various gadgets you get which are mostly useless. Poison darts can make enemies go berserk and attack each other, but you also have smoke bombs, throwing knives, a pistol, and that’s about it. I mostly used the throwing knives to take out rooftop guards and smoke bombs were great to get away from large groups of enemies to become anonymous. In fact, they’re required to reduce frustration.

The visual upgrade for The Ezio Collection is minimal. There aren’t any actual improvements outside of some draw distance gain, anti-aliasing, and texture filtering. The lighting is slightly improved as well, but not by much. The game runs incredibly well through with no slowdown, but I did run into a few crashes and glitches. I wish we got a full remaster or remake, but what’s here is fine. It’s crazy how well this plays so many years later and just shows how far ahead the game was at the time. There are a lot of quality-of-life improvements that need to be done and most of the core mechanics have frustrations you will need to forgive or workaround, but the story and characters are worth sticking around for. There is also a lot of bloated side content that has no meaning or rewards including fully upgrading your villa which literally just generates more income and isn’t used for anything besides dying armor, buying weapons, and armor itself. The assassin and templar tombs are a lot of fun as well.

Wanted: Weapons of Fate – 13 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/19/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Publisher: Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment

Developer: GRIN

Release Date: 03/23/2009

Also Available On

Most video games based on movies are notoriously terrible and thankfully the trend has mostly ended. With game development costs through the rough, it’s not feasible or profitable to pump out a game in 6 months based on the next big movie. Weapons of Fate is the rare video game-only sequel to a movie because the movie bombed. The story seems interesting at first. The voice acting is great and many of the original cast from the movie return, but the game is over so quick the story doesn’t get time to unfold. It plays out like a typical Hollywood action movie. Lots of cool and interesting words like “The Immortal” and “The Fate of the Loom” but it means nothing in the end. It seems almost like an Assassin’s Creed-type storyline where you play as a child of an assassin and are trying to find the killer of your mother. There are legendary real-world assassins who are buried in special tombs and so on.

It’s just an action sequence and repetitive shooting sequence to the next cut-scene. These are abrupt and frequent, but it’s still not enough to shell out the lore that this type of storyline needs. There’s no backstory to any character. You just get introduced by a few lines and that’s it. Why do I want to kill these people? Who do I care about my two characters? Who cares about any of this? The game at least tries to give you interesting abilities, decent gunplay, and some scripted moments. There are even a few boss fights thrown in for good measure. The game plays like any third-person shooter. You run around the incredibly linear and cramped levels and can take cover behind things and pop out and shoot. This seems standard enough, but I have to give GRIN compliments for good hit feedback when you shoot enemies and they aren’t bullet sponges.

You slowly unlock a couple of abilities. There are adrenaline shots you use for bullet bending and slow-mo dodging between covers. Honestly, the bullet bending is a really neat gameplay idea. You can pull up a line that you move around that locks onto enemies. When it’s white the bullet will get them around the cover and corners. The downside is they can’t be moving, but if you hit them you recover that adrenaline shot back. You can chain these together easily, but it kind of falls apart towards the end of the game. Tougher enemies get introduced and can dodge your bullets. Bullet bending no longer becomes a one-shot that kills most enemies. Usually, they stagger out of cover and you have to continue the kill. You still get the shot back, but it can get quite annoying because all of these enemies do become bullet sponges in the end or require melee attacks.

Bullet dodging only became useful during a couple of boss fights and that’s it. Each level is filled with cover and enemies use it too. There are moments where you get to use a sniper rifle, mounted machine gun, and cinematic bullet doge sequences in which the game slows down between animations and you have to kill whoever is blocking your way. They’re fun and shake things up a bit, but the repetitive level design and the constant barrage of killing enemies behind cover get tiresome towards the end and the bullet bending loses its charm fast despite how cool it is. There are rare occasions where a shielded enemy will confront you and you can suppress them and sneak around the sides and flank them. This was in the main tutorial like it was a constant thing. I ran across less than five of these guys through the whole game.

That’s all there is to the game. You just run around shooting, bullet bending, and killing each wave as you push through the levels. Each chapter has an end boss that isn’t all that tough, but they’re there. You can eventually acquire your dad’s sub-machine pistols towards the end of the game and his suit. You go back and forth between the past and current times. The game is over in less than 4 hours and you’re left with 4 hours you won’t get back. There’s literally no reason to play this game at all unless you’re super bored and want a decent afternoon with an HD-era shooter.

Retrospective: HD Era Shooters – Worst Third Person Shooters

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/04/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Wii, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

The seventh generation of consoles was really rough. While we did get some awesome games there were a ton of experiments as developers struggled with rising development costs and complicated hardware tech. With the rise of HD gaming, being games rendered in 720p or higher, there was also the struggle to evolve genres with this newfound hardware. First-person or third-person shooters struggled probably the most in this era as open-world games were evolved and, mostly, well done with games like Grand Theft Auto IV, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, and Saints Row. Shooters were stuck in the past gameplay and design-wise. Corridor shooters with no story or interesting characters, and not to mention lacking an identity which helped make up for the lack of the latter. Your favorite shooters like Doom and Quake didn’t really have a good story or characters, but they had an identity that helped them stand apart from other shooters. The look, feel, weapons, and overall design were unique to that game. This just didn’t happen with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 shooters, and if it did, it was rare. We’re going to take a look at the worst and best shooters in this generation of consoles and why the genre stalled and didn’t really evolve much until the next generation cycle.

The Outfit

A launch title for the Xbox 360, and developed by the excellent Relic Studios (Warhammer fame), it was a surprise that the game was so boring and bland and a complete flop. The game forewent realism and instead encouraged total destruction, but the campaign was repetitive and dull and overall a very forgettable experience.

Bullet Witch

I really wanted this game to be good. Not only did it have a fun female protagonist, but it had style as well. However, upon release, it was a buggy, clunky, awful mess of a game and looked really ugly and dated. I don’t know how this game wound up so bad, but even a recent re-release of the game on PC didn’t help it any. There’s a lot of potential here, and if you really want to play it…it’s possible. Sadly, the game flopped really hard despite releasing early in the HD era cycle.

Infernal: Hell’s Vengeance

This is probably one of the worst games on this list. This is “Steam Early Access” quality gaming here. The game is literally incomplete. The controls don’t work half the time, the puzzles don’t make any sense like they were still in the planning stages, the visuals are horrendous, and the voice-acting is awful. There isn’t a single redeeming quality to this game at all. You’re better off forgetting it exists. What’s even worse is the console version is an “updated” re-release of the PC version and clearly nothing was fixed.

Kane & Lynch: Dead Men

Kane & Lynch really tried, they really did. While the cinematic moments are entertaining, the gunplay is weak and feels half-baked and the story doesn’t really go anywhere. Not to mention, the game looks really dated. The sequel is much better, despite it having its own flaws. While Dead Men isn’t inherently awful, you’re not missing out on much by skipping it entirely.

Iron Man

Woof, yeah. I can’t believe I’m talking about this. This was one of the worst games ever made in 2008 and it remains so. This was when superhero games were still awful, plus a movie tie-in? No thanks. Iron Man had a good sense of speed and tearing apart things was kind of fun, but the game was ugly, bland, repetitive, and just didn’t have a drop of fun. Sadly, everyone bought it! The game sold really well and I don’t understand why. There were much better superhero games at the time, but because of the movie, I guess people needed it in their life. Thankfully, movie tie-in games aren’t as common these days because of the rise of development costs and the stigma surrounding them.

Fracture

You know, making these lists is really depressing. I remember renting this game from Blockbuster when it was released because of the cool new terrain deformation technology that LucasArts was supposedly going to shock the world with. While it looked cool, and the graphics were nice, the game was just plain boring. It’s one of the most boring shooters I had ever played and this was a plaque during this time. There were so many generic boring shooters out there that didn’t want to do anything interesting or build worlds and characters. Generic white dude with a bald head? Check. Sci-fi weapons that don’t have any meaning but mostly resemble real-world weapons? Check. The same multiplayer modes in every other shooter? Check. A single gimmick the entire game hinges on? Check. Generic military dudes as enemies? Check. Everything is gray and looks like Gears of War, but not as interesting? Check. The list goes on.

Destroy All Humans! Path of the Furon

Oh man, whoever was behind this game was complete dicks. Not only was Path of the Furon an incomplete mess, but the humor sucked, and had many racial stereotypes in the game that would make the most racist people on the planet blush. Who approved this script? Even if you look past that the graphics are last-gen, the game crashes and breaks often, and the game just isn’t fun at all. It’s easily the only bad game in the series. Don’t even pick this up out of curiosity if you can avoid it.

SOCOM U.S. Navy SEALs Confrontation

This is easily the worst game in the series. Not developed by Zipper Interactive themselves, Slant Six really screwed up here. While the game felt like a SOCOM game they forgot everything else. Only seven maps at launch, no campaign mode (whoops), and essentially since the servers are dead this game is a piece of vaporware now. The animations were bad, the graphics were dated, and overall it just wasn’t very SOCOM-y enough to garner sales. By this point, the series was waning in sales and was becoming just another yearly military shooter.

Eat Lead: The Return of Matt Hazard

Eat Lead is a generic and boring shooter despite its attempt at being a video game parody. The level design sucks, the characters are dumb, the gunplay feels like BB guns, and the graphics are downright hideous. This could have been an interesting game, but instead, we just get more typical shooter garbage of the era. Everything is gray, the lead protagonist is a bald white dude, and there’s no effort put into it.

Damnation

The game originally had potential. It was first entered into an Unreal Tournament 2004 mod contest and became a Total Conversion mod. The premise of an alternate American Civil War is a great idea, but they forgot to make a good game. Awful performance issues, terrible gunplay, bad voice acting, ugly visuals, man the list goes on. This is probably one of the worst games of the HD era hands-down. There’s not even enough here to bother trying out of curiosity. Even the gore and interesting-looking weapons don’t save this mess.

Terminator Salvation

Why is it so hard to make a good Terminator game? Not a single one exists. Salvation is of course a movie tie-in but doesn’t feature anyone from the movie. While the game looked decent, the action was repetitive, there wasn’t an interesting story, the gunplay was weak, and the game was just another gray shooter of the era. At least the Terminators looked cool, but it’s still not enough to pick this up. You can also beat the game in a few hours and it was $60 upon release. Yikes.

Sniper Elite Series

Specifically for this era of gaming, Sniper Elite V2 and Sniper Elite III are what I’ll be talking about. Both games are incredibly dull. Sure, the series is known for really awesome X-Ray sniper shots and exploding testicles, but that excitement ends before the first level is over. While Sniper Elite hasn’t been an inherently bad series, it’s just not very interesting. This is a generic gray and boring WWII shooter with broken stealth mechanics (somehow it has yet to be fixed), boring level design, and of course a pointless story. Hardcore stealth-action fans might squeeze a tiny bit of juice out of this, but most won’t.

Inversion

Man, at this point should I just do checklists? Another generic, gray, boring Gears of War rip-off shooter with a single gimmick it hinges on. Look! It guarantees the gimmick is so cool and unique they made it par to the cover art! Yeah, walking on walls doesn’t change anything here. The graphics were pretty good but other than that it’s a generic city. Boring weapons, lame story, stupid characters, bad voice acting, and a complete short and forgettable experience.

Army of Two Series

EA was really convinced this new IP was it. So instead of capitalizing on better original IPs like Mirror’s Edge, they took off with Army of Two. Again, another gray, generic, and boring military shooter, but the gimmick here was co-op campaigns. The game was pretty unplayable solo because of the dumb AI, and a lot of situations required quick reactions from both players. The story was dumb, and the attitudes they gave the two main characters were pretty lame. As you can see, this was a plaque of the HD era. Shooters just weren’t very good and were pumped out like candy.

Velvet Assassin

This one had a lot of potentials and I was excited leading up to release. A WWII Splinter Cell with a female protagonist? It was unheard of back then. Then the game came out and it was a complete mess. Awful level design, stupid AI, terrible controls, boring story, and the lead character had no depth. The selling point was tight clothes and lingerie. The graphics had too much bloom, looked gray and boring, and overall it was just a bad experience.

Dark Void

This was a reboot of the classic 8-bit game, but it was considered one of the worst games of the era. Here we go again, say it with me now! Generic, gray, and dull. It had no life and was just another generic shooter. The main thing that made Dark Void fun was the jetpack! So what do the developers do? Take it away during most of the game. Wow, good job guys. You couldn’t even get the game’s main gameplay mechanic right. The enemies repeat ad nauseum, and the story is dumb too. Seeing a pattern yet?

Defiance

An MMO shooter you say?! Wow, how exciting! Yeah, not. This was another over-ambitious project from the start. The game was supposed to tie into a TV series and the choices players made during the story would affect the show. Advent Rising also wanted a TV show and look what happened there. The game was just dull, boring, glitchy, and not fun at all. You can’t even try the game now because the servers are offline so the game makes a decent coaster.

Quantum Theory

Here we are! We made it! The ultimate Gears of War rip-off award goes to Quantum Theory. I remember playing this demo and thought it was one of the worst games I’d ever played. The game is essentially incomplete and rushed together to capitalize on the gray, white-dude, Gears of War looking-ass shooter trend. There’s not a single redeeming quality here outside of a few good-looking characters, but this was a Japanese-developed rip-off so it had that weird stuck-in-the-early-2000s Japanese developer weirdness that took forever to change.

Transformers Series

While the High Moon Studios games were great, this section covers all other Transformers games released at the time. They were mostly movie-based and dreadful. Boring is the best word to describe them all. While they functioned and weren’t glitchy, they just weren’t fun at all. Incredibly short, repetitive missions, ugly graphics, terrible controls, and the list goes on. Not a single one has any redeeming values even for the most hardcore Transformers fans out there.

Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City

When Resident Evil 4 became as successful as it did Capcom thought it was a good idea to take away tension with each new release and add more shooting. Sure, the shooting mechanic in RE4 was revolutionary, but don’t make the games just about that. ORC was a complete disaster and easily the worst game in the series. Nothing but a pointless and boring corridor shooter with terrible cover mechanics, lame weapons, dumb AI, and a stupid story to boot. The game mostly focused on multiplayer which it couldn’t do that right either. The enemies were also bullet sponges. Making enemies take a stupid amount of damage doesn’t make the game more fun. That’s now how shooters should be. Stay away at all costs.

Retrospective: HD Era Shooters – Best Third Person Shooters

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 02/02/2022

Posted in: Blogs, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Wii, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

The seventh generation of consoles was really rough. While we did get some awesome games there were a ton of experiments as developers struggled with rising development costs and complicated hardware tech. With the rise of HD gaming, being games rendered in 720p or higher, there was also the struggle to evolve genres with this newfound hardware. First-person or third-person shooters struggled probably the most in this era as open-world games were evolved and, mostly, well done with games like Grand Theft Auto IV, The Elder Scrolls Oblivion, Skyrim, and Saints Row. Shooters were stuck in the past gameplay and design-wise. Corridor shooters with no story or interesting characters, and not to mention lacking an identity which helped make up for the lack of the latter. Your favorite shooters like Doom and Quake didn’t really have a good story or characters, but they had an identity that helped them stand apart from other shooters. The look, feel, weapons, and overall design were unique to that game. This just didn’t happen with the PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 shooters, and if it did, it was rare. We’re going to take a look at the worst and best shooters in this generation of consoles and why the genre stalled and didn’t really evolve much until the next generation cycle.

This will be a multi-part series due to the number of games. The next feature will talk about the worst third-person games of this generation.

Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter Series

Ghost Recon was one of the best FPS games for the longest time. It was one of the few good military shooters in the sixth generation of consoles and dominated the Xbox space. Advanced Warfighter was one of the few real next-gen games upon release and was one of the reasons I bought an Xbox 360. It helped introduce me to a real next-gen experience along with Gears of War and Condemned. Advanced Warfighter was nearly perfect. Fantastic level design, perfect gunplay, amazing visuals and animations, and somewhat interesting soldier banter. It still holds up to this day and looks great on Xbox One X. The series went to shit with Future Soldier and completely changed everything.

Gears of War Series

Gears of War is probably one of the best third-person shooters of all time and by far the single best series for the seventh generation of consoles. It’s the main reason I got an Xbox 360 and I have replayed these games numerous times over the years. They are just perfect. Excellent weapons design, great cover system, well-balanced difficulty, a wonderful cast of characters with depth and backstories as well as a fascinating world to just be in. The games were also leaders in visual and graphical design at the time. Each game pushed the Xbox 360 to new limits I didn’t think it was capable of. The first three games are gems, but Judgement lost me. Developer by the Bulletstorm guys it just felt like an arcade shooter and pretty much ruined the flow of the original games. You aren’t missing anything bypassing that one up.

Lost Planet Series

Lost Planet was an interesting attempt at a third-person sci-fi game from Japanese developers. It felt dated and clunky but was overall a fun game. It looked pretty good too and the PC version was even better. Fighting aliens with orange explodey blood is a blast and the game could get downright hard. The second game was fairly decent mostly focusing on online multiplayer and was incredibly difficult. The third game was more story-focused but didn’t really explore its story to its full potential or gameplay mechanics. The last two games are worth playing through the campaigns but don’t expect anything amazing.

Stranglehold

This was a game that stood out from the crowd. Directed by John Woo and starring Chow Yun Fat, the Hardboiled team took a crack at a video game and it mostly succeeded. The game had great cinematic flair, fast-paced arcade-style gunplay, and great visuals. Sadly, it wasn’t enough to push sales as the game mostly flopped, and Midway canceled a sequel. It’s a lot of fun, if not repetitive, even today and still looks decent. Think of this as an Eastern Max Payne.

Kane & Lynch 2: Dog Days

Kane & Lynch was a promising series. The first game had a lot of ambition and the first part of the game was mostly decent in scope, but the gunplay felt really bad and it was just a mess. The second game was much better and was an enjoyable cinematic corridor shooter with interesting characters and much tighter gunplay. The game was graphic and a roller coaster ride of bombastic gameplay and was quite a fun evening despite how short it was. Sadly, these improvements weren’t enough to keep the game alive and Square Enix quickly shuddered the series and we haven’t seen anything since.

Uncharted Series

Does this series need explaining? It’s one of the best third-person shooters franchises of all time and one of the most consistent in terms of quality. Every single game is solid and you can easily spend a weekend going through all three games and have a blast. While the first game feels more dated than the others they are gorgeous games pushing the PS3 to its absolute limits and featuring memorable characters and fun adventures. The gunplay never quite felt right to me, but it’s still solid. The puzzles were fun and the best parts are the huge vistas you get to explore. Each game feels like a new adventure and Nathan Drake is a very lovable character.

Mass Effect Series

Despite Mass Effect is an RPG it’s mostly a third-person shooter with RPG elements. This was a juggernaut for nearly a decade when all three games were released. The first game, while clunky and had poorly implemented RPG elements and loot system, felt vast and large in scope with great characters and a huge system of lore and space fairing universe to dive into. The races, planets, and overall mythology of everything surrounding the story were fascinating and memorable. The series tightened up with Mass Effect 2 and fixed a lot that was wrong with the first game and ME3 was probably the most refined. Great gunplay, tighter explorations, amazing visuals, and a great conclusion to one of the biggest franchises of all time.

Ratchet & Clank Series

The Ratchet & Clank reboot series for PS3 was just as good as the PS2 series. The games pushed the PS3 to its limits and featured the same tight gunplay, unique and zany weapons, and fantastic voice acting with a colorful and well-written cast of characters. The locales were varied with lots of secrets to find and the entire game was just so well balanced and well done. While there is a lot of platforming involved there is also a lot of mini-games and various other things to do in this series. You can spend a week playing this trilogy and have a blast doing so.

Robert Ludlum’s The Bourne Conspiracy

Surprisingly not based on the movies, The Bourne Conspiracy was a sleeper hit low-budget title that was really good. I rented this and was surprised at just how solid it was despite its very short length. There were great animations, visuals, voice-acting, and tight controls. The story was pretty forgettable, but it was just so varied and well done I’m surprised it never got a sequel despite the low sales. There were a lot of games like this in the HD era that was pretty good, but no one knew about them and sold poorly. It’s such a weird license to choose and never capitalize one as the Matt Damon films were still coming out at this time.

Dead Space Series

Another series that doesn’t need an introduction. This was one of the few good horror games of the HD era and a surprising new IP from EA. I remember the first game very clearly as it was so unique and new at the time and was a visual treat. The limb system and using power tools instead of traditional guns helped carve Dead Space into its own thing that separated it far from other shooters and horror titles. It was tense, eerie, and had some good scares. I picked this up on day one with the strategy guide played it straight through and went through it again. The entire series has great replay value, but the third game is a lot to be desired. It strayed too far from the traditional ways of the series and implemented microtransactions and a weird loot system. Still decent to play, but nothing like the first two.

Resident Evil Series

We’re specifically talking about RE5 and RE6 here. These were the two mainline games released during this generation. RE5 was a hotly anticipated sequel and follow-up to RE4. How can you fill those massive shoes? RE5 was pretty much the same as RE4, but a little blander and less interesting. It incorporated co-op and online play which I wasn’t interested in. I was so excited for this game I stood in line at midnight and picked up the collector’s edition. It was a solid game and still is, but doesn’t hold a flame to RE4. RE6 was something that grew on me. I feel like if the game only focused on two campaigns instead of 4 it would have been more focused. I hated this game at first, and it still has balance issues. It can’t decide if it wants to be survival horror or action game. It looked dated at launch, and the PC version is the best way to go as the console versions just look like total crap. Still, the series introduced great new characters into the series that are well-loved today. Revelations were ported from DS and are also a fantastic shooter despite being more simple and linear than the mainline games. It had solid mechanics and some creepy monsters and felt more like RE4 at heart to me.

50 Cent: Blood o n the Sand

Hear me out here. This is actually a decent if forgettable shooter. While the first game was a huge deal because 50 Cent was one of the biggest names in the world at the time, this game fell under most people’s radar. The shooting is tight, the graphics are decent if bland and Mr. Jackson’s terrible voice-acting is hilarious. The story is also really stupid, but you get good music, lots of explosions, and shooting action, and after a few hours, you finish the game and put it aside. It’s still a fun romp and is endorsed by a celebrity makes it strange that it turned out halfway decent.

The Saboteur

Despite this being an open-world game, it doesn’t quite break the rules being on this list as it’s very underrated and not as well known. While there is an open world it’s still rather small and there are a lot of linear missions in the game. While pretty clunky in most departments, Pandemic was one of the best studios when it came to open-world games and this was one of their last games. The story was forgettable as well as the characters, but the art style was fantastic, and an open-world setting in WWII? Can’t beat that. The stealth gameplay was a lot of fun and the missions were quite varied. There’s a good weekend here waiting for you.

Red Faction Series

While the first two games were linear FPS games the reboot sequels were “open-world” destruction simulators that were quite entertaining if forgettable. The story and characters were pretty dumb, but Guerilla featured a fantastic destruction system in which you can destroy every building from the outside in or reverse even. I remember playing the PC version and the DirectX 10 version made my PC chug. It looked good, but the open-world part was barely that. It was just an excuse to extend the time between missions. Driving around on the boring Mars sand just to get to another mission was an excuse, but the gameplay was still fun. Armageddon was better in my opinion as it focused more on the story, was still forgettable, and introduced new weapons and less on the open-world stuff. A very interesting franchise for sure, and sadly we haven’t seen anything in a decade.

Ghostbusters: The Video Game

A lot of people consider this game to be the third Ghostbusters entry. There was a lot of skepticism around this game and rightfully so. The franchise has always been in turmoil due to creators arguing and rights being discussed, but the game turned out great if not forgettable. The story was pretty basic and paper-thin, but we got all the original voice actors and they sounded except for Bill Murray who mostly phoned his lines in. The gameplay was fun and you actually felt like a Ghostbuster. The locales varied from the hotel to a library to a graveyard and while it was short it was sweet.

WET

WET was one of the few new IPs during the HD era that never got a sequel due to poor sales. The game was a boatload of fun with varied gameplay, exciting visuals, an awesome protagonist, and a style similar to Quentin Tarintino’s films. It was brutal, looked good, and had tight controls. Sadly, the story was nonsensical and there wasn’t anything to remember the game by after its short length. It’s still an awesome experience to this day and should be played by anyone who missed it. Sadly, it never got a PC release.

Alan Wake Series

Alan Wake is one of my favorite games of all time. I picked this up on launch day and just remember all the hype leading up to release. It was supposed to be an open world and then not, the story changed numerous times, and we never quite got an idea of what it was until just up until release. I have played through this game many times on both Xbox 360 and PC and thankfully the new remaster can be played by all. I eventually moved into the area where the film was researched. The PNW, and I’m not far from Snoqualmie, WA where the setting was inspired. Whenever I drive around in more remote areas of where I live I think of Alan Wake every time. It has the same atmosphere and feels that the game does, or the game captured the atmosphere here. The gameplay of light vs dark is awesome and unlike any other game at the time. It has a confusing story, but after a couple of play-throughs, you catch what you missed.

Transformers Series

I have to be very specific here. There were a lot of Transformers games released during the HD era on both consoles and handhelds, and most were trash. What I’m talking about is probably the best Transformers games ever made and these are both developed by High Moon Studios. War for Cybertron and Fall of Cybertron not only looked good, but you felt like a Transformer. The controls were tight, each character was detailed and had the same weapons they do in the show and abilities. The story was a bit mundane, but it kept you going. Despite how good all of this was the game was still repetitive and got tiresome towards the end, but thankfully that’s around when the games ended. Even if you aren’t a Transformers fan these are great mech shooters in their own right.

Mafia II

An open-world game you say? You could barely call this game that. It’s an excuse to extend the game time and have driving missions. Outside of missions and going in between missions there’s no reason to be out in the open world. It looks good, feels authentic to the time period, but is mostly pointless. The game has an entertaining story and characters, but they aren’t memorable or anything. The gunplay is tight and the missions are varied. Overall, it’s a great Mafia crime thriller that you can kill a weekend with. The series has always been rough around the edges, but Mafia II is probably the best in the series.

Vanquish

Vanquish kind of came out of nowhere. Like Wet, Binary Domain, Shadows of the Damened, and many other original IPs it just didn’t sell very well. This was an era dominated by mostly sequels. Statistically, these mostly sold the most for any publisher or franchise, and with rising development costs and an economic recession, that’s what publishers stuck to. Vanquish was a gamble, and while it has its issues like severe repetition, a short length, bad voice-acting, and a stupid story, the gameplay itself is fast-paced, frantic, tight, and it looked decent doing it too. Sure, it looks like any other Japanese futuristic military shooter, but the sliding gameplay worked here. Platinum Games was on a roll around this time and every game they made paid off.

Shadows of the Damned

Around the time this game came out I was out living on my own and moved away from my parents. Money was tight and I could only afford to rent games for a good couple of years. Shadows of the Damned is a perfect example of a rental you play for an afternoon or evening and send back. There’s nothing memorable about it, the story was dumb, the characters were lame, but man was the game crazy! There were a lot of good ideas here with interesting weapons and some crazy gameplay ideas and monster designs, but the game also looked ugly and dated. Grasshopper Manufacture’s Suda51 was pumping these oddball Japanese games and some were hit and miss. This is still worth a bargain bin purchase for a fun evening.

Binary Domain

This was another original IP in which the publisher gambled it would make big bucks, but this one did not. It just didn’t look appealing but it played very well and was highly entertaining. It looked like another generic Japanese military shooter of the time and most people passed it up. What was here were entertaining characters, bombastic gunplay, and just an overall really fun time. This is a great evening and shouldn’t be missed.

Max Payne 3

This was a hotly anticipated sequel. The original two were from the previous generation of consoles, so what would Rockstar do to bring it up to speed? Well, not much. The game is mostly the same overall but has a much longer length. While Max himself is a treat to see and hear on-screen everyone else makes this feel like a generic drug cartel B-grade story. The gameplay is pretty thin too. You just shoot everyone in sight, activate bullet-time, and heal. That’s all you do in this game. The weapons feel great, the cover system works well, and the production values are top-notch, but the game also looked dated on consoles and only looked really good on PC. I remember this game struggled in DirectX 11 on my gaming laptop and wouldn’t run very well. It was state-of-the-art tech-wise.

Tomb Raider Series

This was probably one of the biggest and bravest franchise reboots of all time but let’s not talk about those yet. The Tomb Raider series had two reboots in the same generation cycle. Legend came out right at the tail-end of the sixth-generation consoles and was later released on Xbox 360 and looked amazing. Legend had tight controls, fun puzzles, and classic Tomb Raider gameplay. Later a remake of the first game was released as Anniversary was played well across all platforms. The Wii had its own unique version and the game somehow even looked good on PS2! Even the PSP version was rock-solid. Lastly, Underworld was released with larger levels, a bigger story, and improved visuals. This trilogy was awesome, but it wasn’t enough! Tomb Raider then rebooted to some chagrin. Lara Croft was a sex symbol, and when Crystal Dynamics took that away fans revolted. They wanted Lara to be more human, more believable, a Lara that wasn’t a superhero. The reboot is one of the best games in the entire HD era of consoles. It had cinematic bombastic gameplay, tight controls, and an awesome semi-open world experience.

The Evil Within

Despite coming out at the tail-end of the seventh generation cycle, the game still looked decent on PS3 and Xbox 360. I played this on PS4, but it was probably one of the few good horror titles to release on the HD consoles. While the game had awesome monster designs and was quite scary in some areas, it was poorly balanced, and couldn’t decide if it was a survival horror game or an action game. The game felt like a chore to get through, but playing on easier difficulties would probably remedy this. It’s a memorable experience due to the awesome art design and monsters, but the story itself is a convoluted mess.

Metal Gear Solid Series

Metal Gear Solid didn’t see many releases during this time because Hideo Kojima takes his time with them. MGS4 was probably one of the most anticipated games of all time and a huge PS3 seller. I remember when I picked up a slim PS3 in 2009 MGS4 was one of the games that came with me. It was absolutely fantastic in terms of visuals and production values. While the cut-scenes could sometimes drag on as long as 45 minutes, it was entertaining all the way through. The multiplayer component was hugely popular but wasn’t enough to keep the game afloat. Later on, MGS5 would also release on Xbox 360 and PS3, but it wasn’t the ideal way to play. It was pretty ugly and dated and clearly wasn’t meant to run on this ancient hardware. There was a fantastic HD remaster of MGS2 and MGS3 that are a blast to play through. Overall, it was a good era for the franchise, and probably the best overall.

Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell Series

The Splinter Cell series was a massive hit on the sixth generation of consoles, mostly a huge seller for Xbox consoles. The series debuted on Xbox 360 with Double Agent, but it didn’t sell super well. Conviction was a kind of reboot for the franchise making it more streamlined and a little less clunky feeling. While the story was forgettable, seeing Sam Fisher on screen is great as he’s a powerful character. Michael Ironside does a fantastic job with him. The game was a lot of fun and pave the way for Blacklist later on which was also solid, but not as good.

Hitman Series

The Hitman series had a reboot of sorts with Absolution, but Blood Money was an HD port of the sixth generation game on Xbox 360 and was a pretty awesome game. I remember playing it and finishing it on PS2 and had a blast with it. Absolution looked pretty good for the dating hardware, but I played it on PC and I remember the DirectX 11 mode pushed my gaming laptop beyond its limits and chugged a lot. Absolution had more memorable assassinations and some awesome levels. Later on, the series would reboot again, but these were the only two Hitman games released on the HD consoles. There was an HD remaster of the first three games released which were also quite entertaining. Overall, you got the entire Hitman package on these systems.

Dead to Rights: Retribution

This was a huge surprise and was a sleeper hit. The Dead to Rights series isn’t well-known for being all that great. I remember playing the original as a kid for the PS2 and only the stripper scene stood out for me. As a hormone-enraged pre-teen, I would constantly replay that level to see that scene when my parents weren’t looking. However, I totally skipped the second game, and the PSP game wasn’t all that great, but Retribution was a huge surprise. I rented it from BlockBuster and it was super entertaining. Using your dog as a companion was awesome and the game also looked good too. While the story was pretty dumb, the game overall was super entertaining.

Dark Sector

Another awesome sleeper hit. This was a rental for me and I highly enjoyed it. The Glaive system in the game really stands out and the graphics were pretty good as well. It had a nice art style and atmosphere and really sucked you in despite the forgettable story (what story wasn’t back then?) The gunplay was tight and there were some fun environmental puzzles you had to solve with the glaive as well. This is a must-play if you missed it, and it’s just too bad the game didn’t sell well enough for a sequel. Another great shooter lost to time due to poor marketing.

Stranglehold – 15 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 01/27/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 3, Sony Consoles, Xbox 360. Leave a comment

Publisher: Midway

Developer: Midway

Release Date: 09/05/2007

Also Available On

The HD era of gaming was a rough one, especially in the beginning years. Games had to transition from dated aging hardware and design choices that had to work around that and open up more. Bigger levels, better AI, better graphics, and just overall more content. Stranglehold was a AAA blockbuster of a game due to the names attached to the game and Midway’s push to let celebrities in on this new HD era of gaming to bring Hollywood-style action to consoles.

Stranglehold is a successor to John Woo’s Hardboiled Hong Kong cop action movie from the ’90s starring Chow Yun Fat. Both star in this game and Chow reprises his role as Inspector Tequila. I will say that the story is really stupid and this has a lot to do with the 4-hour run time of the game. It’s incredibly short unless you die a million times which can be possible. The story is something lame and typical. Tequila’s daughter and ex-girlfriend get captured and he gets stuck in the middle of two rival Hong Kong gangs, the I-9s and the Dragon Claws. One is new blood and one wants the “old ways” back and Tequila’s daughter is the bargaining chip to get the police off their back. The voice acting is pretty bad, even Chow’s acting is kind of phoned in. The main star of the game is the gameplay, however.

I remember when this game came out it was pretty impressive on a technical level. We finally got an unofficial new Max Payne game. I say that because the entire game is incredibly shallow gameplay-wise. You get “Tequila Time” which lets Chow use bullet-time just like in Max Payne. There’s a meter and everything. However, the difference here is using your environments as well. Certain objects like rails, tables, and carts will have a white line on them if you can mount them. This activates Tequila Time automatically but also gives you a score ranking and boosts your ability gauge. That’s as deep as this game goes. I’m not joking either. You unlock abilities during the first few levels. These allow you to sacrifice one of the four-bar to heal, use a bullet cam that does extra damage, a rampage mode that is a longer Tequila Time, and the last one takes four bars and eliminates all enemies in the area. These actually came in really handy for the most part. The bullet cam ability was great during boss fights as a few of these and they were done.

The issue with all of this is the level design. It’s just too cramped and too small. After the first level the rails become too short, the objects are scattered everywhere, and while the destructible environments are nice, the tables can be destroyed that you need as well. Because of this, I got tired of constantly finding small objects to hop on and off of. The novelty wears off after the first level anyways. I just manually activated my bullet time and ran around shooting everyone in sight. There is a cover system, but it’s a little stuff and is kind of useless in this kind of a game where enemies are designed to come at you in every direction, and because of hit you can’t really hide. So, that essentially makes the ability to rack up your ability gauge and score meter mostly pointless because it’s a chore constantly finding objects to ride on.

When it comes to the actual shooting it’s fine. It works. You get all of your typical weapons. Pistols, sub-machine guns, assault rifles, shotguns, rocket launchers, and heavy machine guns plus grenades. The game is very arcade-like and every enemy has the same amount of hit points. A few shots take them down. There are trigger points to kill enemies with the environment but these are forgotten about mostly after the first couple of levels. As for the design outside of that, it’s actually still last-gen. Enemies pop out of open doors that lead to nowhere, cramped level design, and not to mention that every level looks really bland and boring.

Overall, this was a fun weekend rental and nothing more. It had a lot of Hollywood attached to it but didn’t feel truly next-gen like Gears of War or Ghost Recon Advanced Warfighter did at the time. Stranglehold has one foot in the sixth generation door and it shows. The lame story, cramped level design, half-baked “object riding” idea, and the overall generic arcade feeling are very forgettable, but still a fun evening.