Nintendo Consoles

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.

Trover Saves the Universe

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/31/2022

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

Publisher: Squanch Games, Inc.

Developer: Squanch Games, Inc.

Release Date: 03/31/2019

Also Available On

Rick & Morty became an animation phenomeon due to its quirky humor, crazy art style, and memorable characters. A lot of people don’t like the show, which is fine, and a lot of people love it. I just want to preface this review by saying if you don’t like Rick & Morty you won’t like this game. It’s basically an interactive Rick & Morty episode with the same voice actors, but with original characters. It’s the same humor, but more vulgar and mature due to not needing to tone things down for cable TV.

You play as a Chairorpian. A floating person in a chair holding what looks like a PS4 controller. The center part shows Trover’s health and the button presses reflect yours in real life. This is mostly for playing in VR, but it’s still funny without. Your two dogs get stolen by an evil god thing and Trover is sent to you so you can control him to save the universe. The story is insane and crazy and while it makes sense it’s as simple as an animated TV episode. It’s nothing groundbreaking. The most entertaining part about the game is the dialog. Characters break the third and fourth wall constantly and call out typical video game tropes which is hilarious. You can stand near a character and they will drone on for several minutes longer with a new dialog. If you don’t do a certain action Trover will call you out on it knowing you’re supposed to do it. The writing never misses a beat and is spot on.

When it comes to gameplay this is where Trover kind of falters. It’s incredibly simple and basic and pretty boring. Trover has a lightsaber-looking sword and he has a simple basic and heavy attack, but the heavy attack has to be acquired later on. You also have a dodge roll button which also has to be acquired. It’s an obvious stretch for gameplay time and feels necessary. Enemies are “kiddie video game” territory in terms of ease. There’s zero challenge here. Some enemies need armor knocked off which you can do by throwing objects into them, but it’s still not a challenge. There aren’t any puzzles here either. The ones that could pass as one are super easy and require no thinking. There is some platforming, but this is marred by the weird camera angles due to your perspective. There are nodes that allow you to move around and you can hover higher up to get a bird’s eye view, but it still makes some platforming more difficult than it needs to be.

There are green babies you can collect to upgrade Trover’s health, but I didn’t bother much with this outside what was out in the open. The game is so easy the upgrades feel like an afterthought. I mostly enjoyed just exploring the weird worlds and listening to all the dialog. The game gets incredibly graphic, but I personally love this kind of stuff. Too many games are afraid to dive into this territory. It’s just gross, sexual, vulgar, and super weird which I can’t get enough of. The writing of the show is elevated a bit due to not needing to censor anything. Visually, the game is fairly tame outside of some cartoony gore, but the dialog goes off the rails.

The game can be finished in about 5 hours, maybe 6-8 if you collect all of the green babies. It doesn’t stay its welcome and has a satisfying ending. However, there’s zero replay value unless you want to go back in VR. The gameplay is so basic and dull that I wouldn’t even do that, to be honest. If it weren’t for the awesome writing and characters and striking visuals this would be a pretty basic and generic game at its core. The pacing is at least great and you get pushed along the story and always see something new. A single evening would suffice and it would be well worth your time.

Overall, Trover Saves the Universe is full of Rick & Morty humor cranked to 11, but offers simple childlike gameplay. If you hate the show you will hate this even more, but fans of the show must play this. The over-the-top writing that you never see or hear in video games is a breath of the fresh air and it’s never boring. Once you finish the game there’s no reason to come back, but the time spent is worth the price of entry.

MADiSON

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/29/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Bloodious Games

Developer: Bloodious Games

Release Date: 07/08/2022

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Ever since P.T. was shown and canceled it set a new standard for survival horror games. Silent Hill has always been the gold standard to live up to and many games have since. MADiSON is one of the first games I’ve played in the style of P.T. to actually be good and pull off the scares and atmospheres. While not inherently as frightening as P.T. or other horror games it definitely gets across a dark and haunting atmosphere with plenty of scares.

The game starts out really solid but also has foreshadowing of the game’s main weakness. You start out in a dark room with just a TV on and your dad pounding on a door. You need to use the TV as a flashlight by spinning it around and finding a handle to a cupboard on the wall to get a hammer. You get to crawl your way into the rest of the house which acts as the main area you will be solving puzzles. Madison is all about puzzle solving as that’s all you do. The first half of the game can be solved fairly easily. It’s the same affair of examining everything you can and finding that one thing you can pick up and can use on something you remembered it would go to. A lot of finding and matching at the beginning. In between, there is the main gameplay mechanics which involved a Polaroid camera. A Camera Obscura isn’t unusual in horror games. The entire Fatal Frame series is based around one, but here it’s used to advance the story. There are Polaroids laying around objects you can photograph. When you do you can shake the photo to expose it. While most photos don’t need this some need to be exposed to show a number for a combination lock.

I have to give the developers credit for the great layout of the house. This is a huge issue with a lot of horror games. Many require tons of backtracking through the same area and they grow as you unlock new areas. The house in Madison is well laid out with lots of landmarks to memorize where certain things are. I knew the main starting point with the “ritual area” was past the dining room. The basement was in the main hallway etc. The house is laid out like all horror games should be laid out. Make it memorable with easy landmarks because you trek through the house probably hundreds of times. Most of the rooms hold puzzle areas or transport you to new areas to solve puzzles. You also have an 8-item inventory limit and need to trek to your safe often to store and pick up items. Outside of occasional scripted events, not much happens in the house outside of sounds. There is one scene in a water-filled basement that was probably the scariest in the whole game. The developers really used audio to spook the crap out of you and draw out many fears people would have. Creepy static on radios with unclear voices is haunting.

When you’re wandering around the house nothing happens in between puzzles. Just a lot of squeaking doors, wind blowing, slamming doors, etc. There’s Luca’s breathing that gets annoying as his deep sighs repeat often, but the house itself is just haunting. The sterile lighting, the ultra-realistic look to the house, and the head bobbing. If you played the P.T. demo you know what I’m talking about. This is the new-age horror style that needs to get perfected and Madison definitely sets a new bar. Here’s where things take a bit of a dive. Halfway through when you get to the infamous candle puzzle area in the church many players may turn the game off. You must find four different candles in two different time periods and match those colors that are associated with religious imagery. You also have to navigate through four different mazes and if that candle’s image isn’t there you have to backtrack, go back to the other time period, navigate the same maze again, then repeat this three more times. The one thing the game doesn’t tell you is that if you listen to the confessional too early a ghost stalks you and can kill you if you don’t place the candle down before he shows up. Thankfully he only exists in one time period. I was able to place the first three candles before doing the last one, but many players won’t know this.

Then there’s the clock face puzzle. You must match clock faces that are shown on five different walls but the correct faces are spread out around the house. It’s a lot of memorization and backtracking. And then there’s the Blue Knees ghost puzzle that was incredibly frustrating at the very end. None of this spoils the story, but the last half of the game will really try players’ patience. The game got so much right up until this point and it felt like filler to stretch a 2-hour game into 5. Horror game developers please listen. You don’t need insanely mind-bending puzzles to be a good game. I know this is a trope, but please stop it. No one liked them 25 years ago and no one likes them now. We play horror games for the atmosphere, scares, and intense scenes, not puzzles.

In the end, the story itself is open to self-interpretation. It’s not obvious or clear when the credits roll about what happens to Madison or Luca, but what is obvious are the possible reasons why the ending occurred the way it did. Props to the developers for making an open-ending without being cryptic or making no sense. The visuals are excellent and the production values are up there, but those later half puzzles really bring the game down quite a bit. If you can push past them you’re in for a treat with this being one of the best horror games in recent years.

Behind the Frame: The Finest Scenery

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/29/2022

Posted in: Android, iOS, Mac, Mobile Reviews, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Akapura Games

Developer: Silver Lining Studio

Release Date: 08/25/2021

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We as humans tend to dwell on death and what lies beyond. It’s only natural as we simply don’t know. Behind the Frame explores this concept with an emotional tug-of-war of a story, but you really need to pay attention, and a lot of the story is more between the lines and not what’s really being shown in front of you. There’s a lot of assumption that you know what’s happening when the main character looks shockingly off in the distance based on the previous scene. It’s done fairly well too.

Most of Behind the Frame is puzzle solving. It takes a dark twist halfway through and it surprised me. Your goal is to acquire all five missing colors on your paint palette to finish your painting. To do this each color is locked away behind a chapter puzzle. These got rather complex towards the end, but nothing you can’t figure out without exploring and finding that key item that gives you that “AHA!” moment. Some puzzles are as simple as matching colors on a painting to memorization. Nothing is overly complex and it does eventually come together. The painting itself is a matter of scribbling enough in the empty space and it will auto-fill. Nothing extraordinary there. There are some other small tasks like making food which is as simple and dragging items around.

There isn’t a lot of context on the main character’s life itself through any reading of notes or anything. It’s pretty much learning about her past and her connection with her neighbor. The game has gorgeous anime-Ghibli-inspired art with a few small cut scenes thrown in. I never got tired of looking at the game, but it is confined to mostly her apartment. Every so often you “dive” into a painting, but it’s usually just for story context. There were a few panoramic scenes that were breathtaking. I actually felt like I stepped into a painting myself a few times.

In the end, the game is over in about 90 minutes or less depending on how long it takes you to solve the more complex puzzles in the final chapters. Without having to solve these this game is over in an hour. The story does unfold quite a bit towards the end and without voice acting it gets a lot of emotions across and I have to give the developers credit for that. Most of these short indie games don’t have any meaning behind them. They have some clever gameplay ideas or neat visuals and nothing beyond that. Behind the Frame actually tugged at my heart strings a bit and got me thinking at the end which is more than I can say for 60-hour-long AAA titles. If you want a puzzle-filled emotional evening with great visuals and fun gameplay mechanics then look no further.

Sonic Colors: Ultimate

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/16/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PlayStation 4, Sony Consoles, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S. Leave a comment

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Blind Squirrel

Release Date: 09/07/2021

Also Available On

Oh man, where do I start. I’m not the biggest 3D Sonic fan and never have been. I didn’t care for Sonic Adventure even when I was a kid. My hot take here is that Sonic Adventure is awful and not a good game. Sonic Team seems to be the only developer on the planet that can’t improve their games in 20 years. Sonic Generations was the only good 3D Sonic game because it cut out all the crap that slows the game down and makes it frustrating. Why do you need combat? Why do we need gimmicks? Mario hasn’t changed in 30 years but has somehow naturally evolved. Why can’t Sonic just do what it’s good at Going fast?

That may have made some people mad, but I don’t care. This type of stubbornness is just unacceptable today. Now Sonic Colors is a better 3D Sonic game, but it has many problems. The game is poorly balanced in difficulty, but it makes going fast still fun. I hate the combat. I don’t like homing in on enemies to speed the game up. If anything it makes jumps inaccurately. I nearly tore my hair out trying to complete certain levels due to stupid game mechanics.

Sonic’s double jump is terrible. It’s too floaty and I constantly overshot jumps or undershot them. His wall jumping is awful. You have to waggle the stick in the same direction as each jump. This is too much for a game that’s supposed to be fast. The Wisps, while interesting in their own way, just slow the entire game down. Some are neat like the drill that lets you burrow through water and dirt. The purple one that turns you into a giant monster is fun. The green one that lets you shoot around like a dart is also fun. The ghost is an awful Wisp. It’s slow, the zooming through rings mechanic just doesn’t work right, and it made some levels insanely difficult to complete. The Wisps are cute, but I don’t want them back.

Like other 3D Sonic games, you are on a track and transition from 2D to 3D. I honestly wish the game stayed in 2D. The fun loops and speed pads are so much fun. This is where the game accelerates (HA!) and does a great job. The levels zoom by here and there are a good amount of collectibles. Red stars plus gold coins to spend in the shop to customize Sonic (which I didn’t care about at all), and it made my completionist demon itch. Sonic games have always been good at making you want to explore and retry levels and master them to know where all the goodies are. Colors kind of does this until you have to use the bad mechanics in certain levels. Why does the game need to slow down and make me bounce across a moving spring through half a level just die dozens of times to get a single jump timed right? That is what killed this series.

I also don’t care for the repeating boss fights. They are pretty dumb, to begin with. A giant Ferris wheel thing that just adds annoying obstacles later on that make it frustrating and not challenging. There’s a ship you need to take down and the captain jumps down after you get through its obstacle course. Later on, it adds missiles that need to follow you through a series of moving platforms to break a glass bubble. This slows the game down as you need to wait and guide the missile carefully. This isn’t what makes Sonic games! That’s like having Mario go through an entire level on a floating platform and jump over an occasional rotating fire bar. But that’s it. No enemies. No power-ups. Just float along and occasionally jump. It would be maddening!

There are a few levels that made the game enjoyable somewhat. They were better designed but didn’t have any obstacles or ridiculous platforming shenanigans or floating platforms to deal with. The levels that focus mostly on using Wisps also were frustrating and took dozens of tries to get through. I also never mentioned the story. Yeah, just forget it. It’s pretty basic and pointless and doesn’t really have a conclusion. The voice acting has at least improved over time.

The visual upgrade from the Wii version is decent. The game runs smoother and there are texture and model upgrades, but it’s not mind-blowing. There’s an extra mode where you can do challenges in 2D mode only, customization, and that’s about it. I don’t see any reason to replay this game unless you specifically like this kind of Sonic with the momentum always being interrupted. It’s over-engineered gameplay when it needs to stay basic. Colors is decent to play through, but many gamers will turn it off after their first irritating level they get stuck on.

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

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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)

Little Nightmares: Secrets of the Maw – 5 Years Later

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/05/2022

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

Publisher: Bandai Namco

Developer: Tarsier Studios

Release Date: 06/06/2017

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I recently picked up the Complete Edition on Switch as I never got around to The Kid’s DLC, Secrets of the Maw. I replayed the original game and will post my original review below and address further thoughts with the DLC review.

Minimalist side-scrollers have become very popular in Limbo. Inside is just another example of these horror side scrollers done right. Little Nightmares doesn’t really tell a story through voices or words, but through actions. Unlike Inside, Little Nightmares doesn’t have too much of a story to tell. You play as a child trying to escape a ship from humongous fat monsters trying to eat you. That’s all we get really.

Sadly, the story doesn’t really explain much as the art direction, monster design, and backdrops are wonderful and beg for more storytelling. The beginning of the game is made up of basic platforming with simple physics puzzles and a lot of atmosphere. Eventually, you start seeing the occupants of this ship and that’s when things get creepy.
Little Nightmares does a fine job of creating a tense atmosphere and suspense. Grabbing and sneaking are tied to the shoulder buttons, so when you grab something you must hold the button down. This makes things more intense as you are running away from a monster with a key to unlock a door and if you let go of that button it’s all over. The middle of the game is made up of outsmarting these monsters and the puzzles get bigger, but not really harder.

There’s not much to really explore outside of lighting lanterns for checkpoints and breaking porcelain dolls to unlock achievements. The game is definitely intense throughout the 3 hours it takes to complete, there wasn’t a dull moment that I can remember. I always felt like I was running and overpowered and small. From climbing stacks of dishes and escaping on meat hooks to chopping off the arms of a doll maker. The game gives players something that most don’t and that’s solid gameplay while combining excellent visuals and touching moments.

Overall, there are some of the best 3 hours you will spend. From beginning to end, Little Nightmares has something interesting to offer and it’s never boring. The graphics are gorgeous with art styles that reminded me of Box Trolls mixed with Coraline. If you love horror games and platformers then this is for you.

Secrets of the Maw DLC

After replaying the original game I still felt the same about it. The game portrays a really creepy atmosphere and digs into the fears of children and well – their nightmares. The Secrets of the Maw DLC tells the adventure of the kid you see in the cage when you first start the game up. The DLC is about as long as the original game and is divided into three chapters as well, however, there are more gameplay elements mixed into each chapter to make it more interesting gameplay-wise.

The DLC still gives off that creepy and dark atmosphere and sense of dread that the Kid has to go through. Sadly, we only get one new monster known as The Granny in the first chapter. You spend this chapter at the bottom of the ship in the sewers escaping her grip in the water. The main gameplay loop here is jumping around platforms in the water and swimming for your life to the next segment. I wish we could have seen her more instead of just bubbles in the water. She does appear at the end of the chapter, but with this being the only new monster it’s a bit of a letdown.

Overall this chapter focuses mostly on platforming and the DLC didn’t address any issues such as the camera problems and not being able to line up your jump correctly. The Switch version suffers greatly from long load times so dying often can be a frustrating mess on the Switch. Loading can take up to a minute between each death and sometimes I died shortly after loading just to wait another minute to try again.

The second chapter brings back The Janitor which was the first monster in the main game. This is a very long chapter that consists of three puzzle areas. Here you also get to solve puzzles with the little gnomes from the main game to push things around and activate levers. I found several bugs here such as gnomes disappearing through floors which required checkpoint restarts. Overall, running from The Janitor again isn’t as terrifying as the first time.

The last chapter brings back The Geisha which was the final monster in the main game. This one mostly focuses on a new flashlight combat system in which you shine your light on phantoms and they turn to ash. I found this frustrating as the closer they are to you the less effective the light is which doesn’t make sense. The smallest point of the cone of light is what causes this and it seems like an oversight. I found there were too many phantoms coming after you at once and it became overwhelming. The puzzles in this chapter are the best in the entire game, but again it’s another monster we’ve seen before.

Overall, Secrets of the Maw is a great DLC that doubles the length of the entire collection. It feels more like a game and less like a haunted house ride and just feels more thought out. There were some glitches, the platforming and camera need work, and reusing monsters brings the tension down too much. With the entire package wrapped up, you have about 3 hours of fun creepy atmosphere here.

Cruis’n Blast

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/02/2022

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Raw Thrills

Developer: Raw Thrills

Release Date: 09/14/2021

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Arcade racing games of the 90s are long gone, but many got ported to home consoles and became living room favorites. Cruis’n USA comes to mind for the Nintendo 64. It was a thrilling fast-paced arcade game with great visuals and tracks. Cruis’n Blast emulates this perfectly but lacks content and polish.

You start out with a selection of about five real-world licensed cars. This alone kind of surprised me as licenses like these are expensive. More cars can be unlocked by getting gold in the Tour mode and finding keys hidden throughout tracks. These keys can be kind of a pain to get and aren’t placed in the best spots, but the game remembers what ones you have picked up and they unlock vehicles accumulatively. There are only five tracks in the entire game and it gets repetitive very quickly. The first three tours can be pretty exciting as there is so much going on on-screen that you can miss some things. The game emphasizes dinosaurs and natural disasters by throwing tornados, prehistoric animals, helicopter chases, police chases, and even UFO chases through each level.

The levels are a lot of fun to look at with so much color and neon popping out on screen. The levels are full of speed boosts, massive jumps and drops, and the ability to do wheelies, spins, and backflips plus you can drift to boost or use a boost canister. You get three at the start of each race, but you can buy extra with earned cash. All of this starts to fall apart a bit once you get used to each track. The drifting mechanic feels tacked on and an afterthought as most tracks don’t have crazy turns. In fact, a majority of the tracks are mostly just straight-aways. I also had issues with the upgrades as they felt trivial thanks to the awful AI. No matter how fast you go or how perfectly you drive the AI won’t let you catch up until the last part of the race. This happened over and over again and it became frustrating. I would start out with a starter boost and still be in last place until halfway through the race.

There are other issues such as janky physics. The cars bounce around like balls and the physics overall are really floaty but in a cheap way. Cars clip through the ground when they do flips and you can take down cars kind of like in Burnout, but not it’s unclear what exactly triggers a takedown. When you finish a race you get awarded cash and you can use that to buy upgrades for your car. These range from the engine to body to buying neon. However, as I stated earlier, I don’t see the point in racing these same five tracks over and over just to unlock more upgrades. Each car has five levels and it takes about three tours to fully upgrade a car so about 12 races and getting first in each one. That’s incredibly tedious. To top this tedium off there are the same five tours on other difficulties, but it doesn’t seem to change as the AI is so bad.

Overall, there is multiplayer which I recommend playing, but with so little content I don’t see a reason to play outside of the first normal tour mode. If there were double or triple the number of tracks this game would be well worth the full asking price, but the jankiness of the physics and overall afterthought in drifting and upgrades, plus the terrible AI just makes this a literal evening thrill and nothing more. It looks damn good and the stuff going on in the tracks is fun, but it lasts about as long as a piece of Juicy Fruit.

Metroid Dread

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 07/02/2022

Posted in: Nintendo Consoles, Switch. Leave a comment

Publisher: Nintendo

Developer: Mercury Steam

Release Date: 10/08/2021

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Metroid has finally returned with a 2D game after almost two decades. With various spin-offs and portable outings, everyone wondered when Samus would return to her roots. The team behind the excellent Castlevania: Lords of Shadow series tackled this entry and did a fantastic job. There are some major additions to the game plus classic gameplay that any fan will immediately get sucked into.

Thes story isn’t much to talk about. It’s no different than many other Metroid games with Samus stuck on a planet and you add Metroids, a mysterious sinister force, and Samus trying to escape/stop the Metroids from their evil doings. The story doesn’t pick up until the final scenes, but it’s there to hold the game together and isn’t anything special. Samus starts out powerless, like every other game, and it’s your job to navigate the labyrinthine areas with various terrain types and try to reacquire your abilities to navigate around and advance through the areas. There are a ton of abilities to unlock. About a dozen and in between are boss fights and tons of Energy and Missible tanks to find. These are scattered and hidden throughout the entire game and some are incredibly difficult to find due to various abilities or advanced techniques that need to be learned.

Various abilities include the Power Bomb, Screw Attack, Phase Beam, and Gravity Suit, among many others. Some are classics some are new, but I feel the upgraded phases of the power beam and bomb are just to pad out the game. The missile also gets three different upgrades, and I felt it was kind of unnecessary. The game uses hot and cold to lock out certain areas and your missile is affected like this as well including your suit. The game could have been much simpler and more enjoyable with about six fewer upgrades and smaller areas. I played the entire first half by myself and this is when things started getting way too complicated. I love Metroidvania games and have finished previous games without a guide, but getting most of the upgrades required a guide. Specifically, ones that require using the Speed Booster which requires insane skills and perfect timing. Some upgrades took me an hour just retrying over and over until it became muscle memory.

This also falls under boss fights. They require precise attack memorization, and complete and total focus and mastery over the controls. This game can be incredibly hard and I can see many owners of this game never finishing it. The final boss had three phases and it took me nearly two hours to perfect the timing for each attack in each phase before I could beat him. I understand old-school gamers will love this, but it became a chore when boss fights are repeated often, sometimes three-fold, just to pad out the game more. While they became easier since it was the exact same boss thanks to new skills, it just got old after a while. The extra repeated boss fights could have easily been cut out. Most of them don’t even reward you with a new ability.

This leads to the game being way longer than it needs to be. My final timer said 9 hours, but if you include all the deaths it was closer to 12. If you don’t bother with the extra upgrades you could finish this game in about 6-8 hours, but there’s tons of backtracking, you’ll get lost frequently, and some areas seem obtuse on how to access them. Many blocks will have symbols that show which ability is needed to pass and then there are certain doors that require certain abilities as well. One new addition to combat is the counter move and this is essential for winning boss fights. When the enemy flashes you can press a counter button to do massive damage. This will also make regular enemies easier as the game goes on. There are maybe two dozen enemy types in the game.

The last thing I want to mention, and probably the most controversial thing that has divided fans are the E.M.M.I’s. These are certain areas that have a robot chasing you and you must find a way to destroy it. A lot of times you are trekking through these areas multiple times before finding the big gun that can kill them. They can climb up walls, on ceilings, and through Morph Ball tunnels. There’s no beating these guys the old fashion way. There are many other factors slowing you down such as water, doors, and various obstacles. They don’t notice you right away. They have a yellow cone that will detect you even through walls. Make too much noise and they will come running as well. If you get caught you get two chances to counter to stun them and keep running, but if you die you start back at the beginning of that zone which isn’t too bad. They don’t stalk you through the entire game thankfully as they are confined to their dedicated zones. I’m torn between this new feature. On one hand, they are well-made enemies and it’s satisfying when you find the gun that blows them up, but again it also slows the flow of the game down. You sometimes have to Cloak and hide from them or find the perfect path through a zone and die numerous times. I won’t miss them if they never return.

Visually the game looks among the best on the system. No slow down and smooth animations and crisp audio throughout. This was the first game officially launched for the Switch OLED and was designed with the screen in mind. It looks amazing on the system with colors that pop and really show off the new large screen. Sadly, pre-rendered cut-scenes run at 30FPS and it feels kind of jarring. Once you finish the game you unlock Hard mode and Boss Rush mode, but I found no reason to go back unless you want to complete the game 100% or increase your completion time. This is a Metroid game I doubt I will go back to just because of how many things slow the overall flow down. The E.M.M.I’s, the extra abilities that don’t add much, and the frequent repetitive bosses. It’s a solid Metroid game outside of these design choices.

Ikai

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/29/2022

Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Playable, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S. Leave a comment

Publisher: PM Studios Inc

Developer: Endflame

Release Date: 03/29/2022

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I absolutely love Japanese survival horror games. Even the worst ones usually nail the atmosphere and scare factor and this goes all the way back to the PS1 era which is where they pretty much became mainstream. From the best ones like Silent Hill 3 to some of the worst each title is unique in its own way. I collect survival horror games because of the unique factors in each game. Some may have terrible visuals, voice acting, controls, or obtuse puzzles, but they usually always scare and have great monster designs and a great atmosphere.

Ikai only got my attention due to its physical release. I usually don’t pay attention to digital-only survival horrors as most are pretty bad, and rarely nail even the atmosphere. Ikai does struggle in some departments such as the story, characters, and visuals, but it’s really creepy and has a haunting atmosphere. You play as Naoko who lives in an ancient Japanese village. You are a priestess whose uncle leaves the village and leaves you in charge. Yokais take over and it’s your job to rid them before they take over the shrine, and there’s something about a wedding and an abusive fiancee. Yeah, it’s not clear and even the game’s description doesn’t say much about the story. There’s a mechanic in which you can draw Japanese symbols on paper to make seals to rid of the Yokai, but once you get to the library tables you have to stop every 5-10 seconds as they will pop up and kill you. It helps add a sense of urgency and dread.

Like most games that take less than two hours to complete you don’t get a chance to develop characters or stories. Your main goal is breaking four Yokai seals via puzzles and exploration. Naoko is defenseless so you can’t fight, but just run and hide. Most of the game is easy to figure out minus a few obtuse and obscure puzzles. The village itself is really small so it’s hard to get lost, but you usually have to find context hidden within. Bloody footprints, opening the right door to trigger an event – that kind of thing. The few puzzles involved are slider puzzles and putting objects in the right place. Some more frustrating exploration bits were being lost at the bottom of a well and having to find bamboo to use as climbing posts amongst tons of bones. I spend 45 minutes running around examining every inch of bone until I found them all.

Some events have you hiding from Yokai which wasn’t too bad. They are really creepy designs and can pop up at you out of nowhere. Ikai really gets the sound design down. Creaking floorboards, moans, whispering wind, and bumps that come out of nowhere can make you jump. The game is intense all the way through. It’s just too bad the Switch version suffers from serious graphical issues such as incredibly blurry visuals due to resolution downgrade. It also runs less than 30FPS a lot of the time, but it doesn’t look bad other than this. There’s lots of detail, great lighting effects, and good-looking textures otherwise.

Despite the visual downgrade the game still sounds great, and I can only recommend it if you find it on sale. The $35 physical price tag might be a bit steep for a two-hour game, but anyone who loves classic PS1/PS2-era Japanese survival horror games will find something to like here. I do have to knock it for it’s an almost non-existent and incoherent story and obtuse puzzles, but playing this in the dark with the lights off and headphones on could make for a fun and scary evening.