Shoot-em-ups, shmups, and side-scrolling shooters, however you want to call them, had a grand place in the video game industry. While they may seem like a dying breed, they dominated the arcades and consoles leading up to the PlayStation 2. R-Type, Raiden, 1943, Cotton, Ikaruga, Defender, and even Space Invaders and various other shooters were household names. They are also some of the toughest games ever made. Only consisting of a few levels, these difficult pieces of art were what made you a hardcore gamer. Blazing Star was one of many, and it is now playable on mobile phones.
Blazing Star has only seven levels, but they are extremely brutal, and most people won’t make it past the first one. The controls are simple enough: use your thumb to move the ship around while you fire your bullets, and use another button to cause your bullets to scatter around. It’s fairly simple—sometimes too simple—but it works. The game is as hectic as you would expect and is actually one of the harder bullet hell games I have played. As you move along the 3–4 minute levels, you acquire points and also power-ups along the way. If you die, you get a chance to recover your power-ups, but there’s so much going on on the screen that you will have a hard time gathering them all back up without dying again. Honestly, there’s more going on than I could keep track of, but it was a lot of fun.
The final level is actually just a really tough boss, but beating the game is quite satisfying, and I have to say it looks good too. The screens are bright and crisp on high-res phones, and the only problem I had were the controls. They felt strange somehow, but I preferred a controller. I had to constantly lift my thumb and move it back because the ship didn’t follow my thumb where I wanted. The delay caused me to underperform, but this was fixed using an actual analog stick. I honestly can only recommend this game to hardcore shooter fans; casual lookers will immediately hate this game. There’s also nothing particularly memorable about Blazing Star that really sticks out; it feels average, but average enough to be better than a bad shmup.
Horror games that are truly scary are far and few these days. Neverending Nightmares actually helps change that idea with an extremely intense atmosphere, which is what horror games are all about. Neverending Nightmares has you playing as a boy (or man?) named Thomas who roams the pencil-sketched hallways in his checkered pajamas trying to find his sister (or wife?) that had been murdered (or she killed herself?). There’s a lot of open interpretation of the game’s story, but that’s kind of the fun part.
The game’s pace is at a crawl; let me just say that right away. Thomas trods along the hallways with a limited—and I mean limited—sprint button. The slow pace is supposed to add to the tension, but sometimes I wish he moved just a tad faster as the game got repetitive towards the end. The point of the game is to continue moving left (or right) through the hallways, opening doors, and interacting with anything that’s colored and stands out from the black and white background. These give hints at what may have happened to the girl that Thomas is looking for. While there’s no inventory system or even a combat system, there’s really no other goal than to head downward. Sure, there are enemies in the game, but your goal is to avoid them or hide from them. The toughest of them all are the big ogre-like monsters that require you to hide in closets, or worse, run from them. I found these segments frustrating as Thomas’ sprint is limited to about three seconds, and I had to exploit this to escape from these ogres and make it to the next door. I had to tap rapidly to stretch out the sprint or time when I started perfectly. This isn’t fun, and it doesn’t add anything but frustration.
The game has three possible endings, but there are no clues as to how to get them. At the end of each level, you are approached by this girl in different ways, but it all kind of blurs together. When you die, you start off in bed again, leading to the fact that Thomas might be asleep and can’t wake up. Is he insane? Is he a ghost? Who knows, but the endless hallways are probably the worst part of the game. Sometimes I thought the game was glitching because I would go through 5–6 hallways that I swore I went through earlier, but somehow I was progressing.
Thankfully, the game is actually scary; use headphones, and you will be in for a scary night. The music is haunting, and so are the sound effects. I applaud the game for the atmosphere, but the gameplay is really something that’s lacking and needs more polish. I’m fine with just wandering around places, but give me something to do while I’m doing that.
As it stands, Neverending Nightmares is a great horror experience, but as an actual game, it’s lacking mechanics, and the story and progression need work. I shouldn’t be playing a game thinking I’m not going anywhere or giving clues as to how to get a different ending.
The Batman Arkham games are some of the greatest things to grace the video game industry in the past decade. With the most advanced combat system since God of War, and not to mention the best superhero video game series ever made, Arkham Knight continues this trend. While Origins was a bit of a snag, I don’t count it as part of the Arkham trilogy. Arkham Knight is another masterpiece that any Batman fan will love.
Scarecrow and the new Arkham Knight are the main villains in this game, but don’t worry, there’s plenty of Joker as well, despite being dead. Joker is a manifestation in Bruce’s mind, and he constantly appears everywhere, putting his two senses into everything Batman does. It’s great to hear him again. Arkham Knight is also probably the best-structured Arkham game yet. Instead of a hodgepodge of little repetitive missions everywhere, the game has a Most Wanted mission wheel. Known Batman villains are to be stopped and captured through mission branches that are a blast. Firefly, Penguin, Two-Face, and various other villains have their own little subplot. This brings Arkham Knight to a meaty and well-balanced mission structure that the game desperately needed. The only other side things you can perform are AR missions that include fight and batmobile challenges and Riddler trophies. Oh yeah, I said Batmobile.
It’s finally here! The one and only Batmobile. It plays just like you think, controls like you think, and is as badass as you think. The batmobile can transform into a tank, allowing you to engage in battles with enemy tanks, but the best use of the batmobile is puzzles. Sadly, the tank battles are probably the worst thing in the game. While they work, they are the same thing over and over and over again; nothing changes. Enemy tanks will have a white line go across the screen, showing the trajectory of their shot. This allows you to dodge enemy missiles and shots. That’s great and all, but why does combat have to be this slow? Towards the end, the battles just get bigger with 50+ tanks in one area; that’s not exactly fun in my book. While the tank battles aren’t very frequent, they are happening often enough for you to sigh and wish it was over. As for the puzzle-solving, the Batmobile fits better here. Using the power wrench to crawl the downsides of buildings, using the wrench to power things up, ejecting out of the Batmobile to glide into a tunnel. All of this feels just like in the movies and comics; there is no disappointment there.
Combat has been perfected in Arkham Knight with added moves to make an extremely complex fight system that is so simple to learn. Outside of the counter system that we are all used to, new knock-out moves are introduced. Using your gadgets is much easier, as the button combos for them are easier to remember. LT for Batarang, LT+B for an electric shock to enemies with taser sticks, LT+Y for Batclaw, and RT+RT for Freeze Blast. It is very easy to remember, and the controls pop up on the screen to help you out when the option is available. The same goes for the knock-out moves, as well as fighting heavy enemies. These guys have their own system all to themselves. Do a fast punch combo, parry a guy behind you, a red exclamation pops up at a guy with a taser stick, LT+B, he’s down, continue pummeling the heavy, three more counters, then knock the heavy out. All of this is one big combo, and it’s so fluid and fast and one of my favorite fighting systems I have ever used.
The second combat system in Arkham is the stealth part. This has been expanded exponentially in Arkham Knight. There are more gadgets introduced that allow for more ways to take down opponents. The stealth areas are much larger and allow for multiple ways of taking people down. We’re used to stealth takedowns in various ways, including hanging, grating, and gliding behind people. Multi-level grate combat is introduced, as well as enemies being able to destroy grates so you can no longer use them. Using a voice synthesizer allows you to give commands to enemies and set up traps with your electric gun or disruptor. The disruptor allows you to sabotage weapons and drones to knock out enemies (yeah, I can’t say kill since Batman doesn’t do that). The stealth combat is fantastic and so much fun, and it allows for strategy over beating everyone up.
Outside of these new gameplay elements is the story. Arkham Knight has a long and well-told story that you actually care about. There are some great moments in the game that really get you hooked, and the ending is satisfying. I really felt the strengths and weaknesses of Batman come out through the story several times, as well as the other characters. My favorite part of the game is the ending with Scarecrow, but I can’t give it away except that it’s a first-person shooter sequence. WHAT?! Play it to find out!
Let’s talk about visuals. I know that the entire world knows how terribly optimized the game was for PC; however, if you have a powerful rig, it is very playable. Not perfect, but enough to not be really noticeable. This requires tweaks (there is a tool available on the Steam forums) to the game settings to get it to work. Out of the box, the game won’t run very well at all. There are some nice new effects, like RainWorks, Interactive Smoke and Fog, and various other effects. They look amazing, and Arkham Knight is one of the most detailed and good-looking games in a long time. However, a game should ship working, and this is just unacceptable. Most people don’t know how to tweak a PC game and will get frustrated and demand their money back (which happened and suspended the sales on Steam). The other issue is that you need a very new and powerful system to get the game to run well. I tried a GTX 670, and while I got 60 FPS when I was above the city, it dropped below 30 on the ground. Interactive Smoke and Fog dropped the game to 5 FPS; however, on a GTX 970, there were a few issues. The frame rate will vary constantly. You will jump between 60 and 30 a lot, but the tweaks available make it less noticeable. Anyone running a GPU older than a year will have issues for sure and should play the game on a console for now.
As it stands, Arkham Knight is a fantastic game and the pinnacle of the Batman video game franchise and superhero games in general. Taking all of what made the series great and optimizing and compiling the best of what everyone loves. More villains, more stories, more Batman. That’s what we came to see, and we got what we wanted.
Hotline Miami was one of my favorite games in 2013. It was violent, fast-paced, had tight controls, and rocked a retro 8-bit art style like no other game has. The music was fantastic as well, but the best part was the “just one more level” appeal. Hotline Miami 2 brings back epic music, great art, violence, and, well, some other things we didn’t really want.
Wrong Number starts out by giving us some backstory. Well, it tries and miserably fails at it. The story does not make one lick of sense because you are being flip-flopped between time periods and so many different characters. Each level just starts, and the story is just there. There’s some dialog with no connection to the previous scene. It’s frustrating and makes you want the storyless original back. However, and it pains me to say this, the story isn’t the worst thing in Miami 2. The game is excruciatingly difficult. Miami 1 was hard, but satisfying. It had great replay value because it was the perfect challenge. Miami 2 is a near-frustrating mess of endless restarts and trial-and-error.
You could say it’s a worse-level design, but that’s not the case; I feel it’s more like poor enemy placement. There are so many enemies in each level, and I mean tons. They all have a variety of guns and melee weapons, and a few can only be taken down with certain weapons. I feel the placement is haphazard; we used strategies in the last game that were way overused here and ended up being used to exploit the game to advance, which is not fun at all. Enemies will see you if you can see them; this is how Hotline Miami works. If you can pan the camera further away, you can get a quick sniper shot at them and a free hit, but for fewer points. One good strategy is to move in and out of a doorway really quickly, let some enemies see you, duck back into a corner, and slice everyone up as they enter the doorway or around a corner. That was an infrequent strategy in Miami 1, but in Miami 2, this has to be done to just get partway through one area. Miami 2 is also full of long-winded levels that seem to never end.
Abusing Miami’s strategies is a crying shame here since this game could have had so much potential for more enemies and new strategies. After halfway through the game, the levels become large and hard to navigate with traditional Hotline Miami controls and gameplay. It’s almost like the game tried to go in a new direction but didn’t evolve its gameplay for it. Miami 2 is also twice as long as the first game, but it overstays its welcome after the second act. I literally felt like the game had become a chore and just wanted it to end.
However, that’s not to say the whole “one more level” thing is gone. I was hooked, and the constant trial and error had me restarting levels dozens and dozens of times to try a new strategy, but it wasn’t really an enjoyable “one more level” feeling. A lot of times I had to exploit the enemy AI. Only certain levels can really be completed one way, and if you start a level with the wrong weapon, kill the wrong guy first, or even kill all the enemies in the wrong order, you’re pretty much screwed. More often than not, I was restarting a level not because my strategy wasn’t sound, but because the enemy AI screwed everything up because he wasn’t patrolling the correct corridor or left a room he’s normally in and blindsided me when I least expected it. Usually, this is a good thing, but not when you’re forced to kill enemies in a certain way due to poor enemy placement being overwhelming.
With that said, I hate to say that there’s really no reason to come back to this game after you finish. Do I want to spend an entire week restarting level after level again and again? Of course not. I’d rather re-download the first game and enjoy the excellent Miami-ness without all the hair-pulling. All in all, Miami 2 is not really a must-play, even for fans. If you end up never playing this, you’re probably better off sticking with the first game.
It’s been a long time since I played a game through an entire day and couldn’t put it down. Valiant Hearts will keep you instantly glued to the screen thanks to its rich history, characters, and story. Valiant Hearts is probably the only WW1 game I can remember playing. There is a huge lack of WW1 games, and I’m glad Ubisoft decided to make it a 2D platformer rather than an FPS. The game is brilliant on many levels, and fans of these types of games will not be disappointed.
You play four different characters, all fighting the tragic war in France. A German, an American, a French woman, and a Frenchman. The game reenacts major battles from World War I and also gives you a history of what really happened during that time period. You can also go around collecting trinkets that are from the war. It’s great for history buffs or anyone who’s curious about what really happened during WW1, since WWII is all anyone talks about.
With that said, the game mixes up stealth, action, and puzzle solving, all of which are excellent. There’s no real fighting in the game; you don’t get a gun. You are mainly just trying to survive this tragic war while you watch everyone around you die. It gives you a sense of helplessness and makes you realize just how terrible and brutal World War I was. The game is played on several 2D planes. Using the background and foreground to solve puzzles, all of which are completely different, but the mechanics tend to be the same, and it gets a bit old towards the end. However, many sequences are cinematic and scripted, which keeps you glued. I can honestly say the game is well-paced and perfect for a one-day gaming spree.
I did find some issues here and there, such as a few puzzles being extremely vague, but it’s nothing that some trial and error and exploration won’t solve. There is a hint system for people who aren’t very good at puzzles, but it can also be turned off. Some of the more frustrating areas were the action sequences in which bombs drop and you have to dodge enemy fire. A lot of it is trial-and-error because the game rushes you through it. Expect to restart and die several times throughout this game.
The graphics alone are just gorgeous, and the colors pop on PS4 and Xbox One. The sound is excellent, and the music is wonderful. Many pieces are classical symphonies from the time period, so it adds even more authenticity to the game.
With that said, Valiant Hearts is probably a hidden gem that many people will pass up. It’s tragic; it really teaches and shows you every step of WWI and enlightens you on just how terrible the human race can be. From mustard gas bombings to the creation of tanks and aircraft, World War I was just a stepping stone for WWII.
The Sherlock Holmes adventure series has had its ups and downs. If the story isn’t up to par with the show or books, it’s clunky controls or poor gameplay. Crimes and Punishments sound darker than they really are. Honestly, the game is more about the characters shining through and less about the crimes or gameplay.
The game starts out surprisingly cinematic for a point-and-click. Watson is dodging Holmes gunfire in his study as he ducks and weaves between pieces of furniture. It shows just how more nuanced the series is and just how much it has grown. Among the four cases you solve, neither of them is all that interesting. The game tries to get you thinking about big mysteries, but honestly, the dull way of going about the cases keeps you from really caring.
The gameplay consists of walking around areas and finding anything you can click on. Some items can be examined, and certain characters can be profiled, where you scan the character in slow motion to find interesting points. There are various puzzles as well, but these seem to be half-broken since pieces won’t snap in place and various objects won’t register. Surrounding is figuring out where to go and then solving clues to bring the whole thing together. Hopping back and forth between areas gets old, especially with the long load times. The character interactions are somewhat interesting, and I couldn’t help but smile at Holmes’ sarcastic way of going about things. Other than this, the game offers a dull experience of the detective mystery of old.
I played through the first two cases and, honestly, started losing interest. Each case has the same exact way of being solved. Wander around an area and pixel hunt, interview characters, run back and forth between areas, and rinse and repeat. The game looks really good, and the facial animations are surprisingly well done. Adventure game fanatics may love this game, but anyone else wanting a bit of action or suspense like in the Telltale adventure games won’t find it here.
If you haven’t already read the novel, Metro 2033 is probably one of the best post-apocalyptic novels ever written. The novel really gets into your head and takes the whole post-apocalyptic Russian lore and myths and brings them to life. Metro 2033 was ahead of its time in 2010. While the game looked decent on Xbox 360, it really pushed systems on PC. The game was one of the first to fully utilize DirectX 11. As a game itself, it had many issues, such as huge AI problems and a somewhat incoherent story, but underneath it all, it oozed an atmosphere that no other game could provide at the time. This is all tidied up and wrapped up in one big next-gen ribbon. The game is worth a replay for vets and well worth any newcomers’ time.
You play as Artyom, a “chosen one” who must stop the Dark Ones that have invaded his home station in the underground Moscow metro. While his station was overrun, he was trying to make his way to Polis to get help fighting off the Dark Ones. Instead, he must find a mysterious and once-forgotten nuclear missile silo called D6. His journey is terrifying; even humans can be as horrible as mutated beasts.
Most of the game sees you either fight your way through monsters or stealthily push through Communist or Nazi frontlines. Back when the game was originally released, these stealth sections were nearly broken due to the AI being able to detect them in the oddest circumstances. The AI has been tweaked but can sometimes still show a bit of awkwardness. While some areas have been completely reworked with even new enemy placement, I still found myself confused as to whether I could sneak through the area or shoot the place up. The stealth path would be too well hidden or in an odd place. However, this was pretty rare, and I really love how these areas were given attention. The atmosphere is just so incredible. When you get into populated areas, you actually feel “safe” and enjoy every minute of light and peace. One area that became extremely scary was the library. Mutated gorillas called Librarians that stalk are just downright scary.
The shooting mechanics themselves are fantastic. Each gun has its own personality, and you will easily find your favorite three or experiment. There is a wide variety of gun types, ranging from revolvers, assault rifles, bolt guns, pneumatic guns, and even shotguns. However, they all feel unique to the setting. Each gun looks beat up and worn and somehow piecemealed together to just kind of work. There are also a variable number of throwables, such as knives, firebombs, shrapnel grenades, and various others.
It wasn’t just the gameplay parts that were reworked. Entire outdoor areas were rebuilt to look more next-gen. Compared to the original Xbox 360 version, Metro 2033 Redux looks like a whole new game. Incredible attention to detail was taken when combing back over this game. Thankfully, due to the power of next-gen consoles, we get all the fancy DirectX 11 graphics that the PC version got, plus some. Despite being a remade game, Metro 2033 Redux is one of the best-looking games out on consoles right now.
With that said, the game is a little on the short side, and it feels a little too linear for its own good. Yes, you are in a cramped metro, but I feel like it would have been a good idea to explore this place more. The game is extremely scary, the monsters are freaky but awesome, and there are some pretty fun scripted events. For a 4-year-old game, it has held up so well to recent games and just shows how far ahead the game was back in the day. If you are a fan of Fallout, STALKER, or any other post-apocalyptic game, you should give this a spin.
Episode Two takes place right after Episode One, but this time we play strictly as Elizabeth. I love this move-in perspective because Liz can’t fight like Booker can, and it’s noticeable right off the bat. Liz has to sneak her way around using crossbows, vigors that turn her invisible, and ones that add extra armor. She only carries a shotgun and pistol, but very little ammo. The new weapon is one that microwaves enemies, but I was only able to use it a couple of times in the whole episode.
The story still doesn’t make much sense unless you play both BioShock games. This DLC is really for the fans of those games. Elizabeth is on a mission to save Sally, the little sister you were trying to find in Episode 1. With Booker dead, it’s up to you to run from everything bad in Rapture to find her. This includes Atlas, Andrew Ryan, and even Suchong. These characters won’t mean anything to anyone who hasn’t played the first game. I loved the setting and the brief trip back to Columbia, but the atmosphere is really great in this episode, along with less backtracking. Sure, Liz can’t fight off Big Daddies in this episode, but it makes everything more intense. The game is about twice as long as the first episode but can still be finished in a few hours.
I really appreciated how the stealth sections were interspersed with just exploring and cinematic events; it felt balanced. Sneaking isn’t just as simple as ducking and hiding from enemies. They now have an alert meter above their heads, while a new lockpicking mini-game has been added but is mostly lackluster and just filler. You can even use this mini-game to hack turrets to fight against you, but there were maybe only two opportunities to do this in the whole game. The new crossbow weapon with gas, alarm, and sleeping darts comes in handy, and the shotgun does a lot of damage. I felt the revolver was nearly useless, though.
With all that said, Episode Two really feels like an extension and slight evolution of Infinite in a good way, but anyone who hasn’t played previous games will be completely lost.
Final Fantasy X was a game in the series that really shifted things around. It broke some common JRPG rules and was a bit all over the place. This was the first JRPG I had ever beaten as a kid, and it was the first Final Fantasy I ever finished. I have a lot of fond memories of this game, and the HD Remaster brought a lot of those back.
The core game hasn’t really been touched, but US gamers will finally get a taste of the tougher international version, which adds an expert sphere grid and Dark Aeons, which are the toughest enemies in the game (some have millions of HP). Outside of the game, the game is still the same, with great characters that are memorable and beautiful locales. The story is a bit confusing at first, but very original, if not very deep. You play as Tidus, who is a young man sent forward in time hundreds of years into the future. His original home is now a sacred ruin, and a giant being called Sin is destroying humanity. Every 10 years, this sin comes back, and the calm ends. Another summoner must go on a pilgrimage to gather all the Aeons and take down Sin for another 10-year Calm. Your goal is to put a stop to this cycle. You gather your crew along the way to level up and put an end to all this nonsense.
Before you jump into this game, you must have a mindset from when the PS2 first launched. This game was fantastic back in the day and still holds up well. Most JRPG gamers will be thrown off by the Sphere Grid. There is no traditional leveling up where you gain levels. Instead, you acquire AP and get sphere points, which allow you to freely upgrade various attributes and skills for each character. The expert sphere grid allows you to use keys to go off your path and learn other abilities from other characters. This is a lot of fun and gives you total freedom over your character.
Outside of the sphere grid is the obvious combat. Yes, there are random battles, and some areas are so bad that you hit one every 2–3 seconds—literally. A maximum of three characters can battle at once with the freedom to swap out. It’s the usual JRPG turn-based battle system, but there are overdrives that are crucial to winning boss fights. Characters learn new drives as they battle. Aeons are also essential, but only Yuna can send them in. They are large, heavy hitters that will take away massive damage and can also be overdriven, which is probably the #1 technique for winning tougher boss fights. Like any other JRPG, learning enemies’ weaknesses and battling with magic is a must. Some bosses nearly turn into puzzles where you must cast Reflect on them so their healing spell bounces off of them onto you. Some bosses will cast status ailments that can cripple your entire party. If you don’t grind a bit and stay ahead of the game, you will struggle.
Outside of battle, there are the Cloister of Trials, which are a huge pain and aren’t fun at all. These are puzzles in which you place various spheres to unlock doors. Another huge pain is the Blitzball mini-game. This isn’t fun at all and requires math to actually play. It’s stiff, shallow, and just plain boring. I hated it as a kid, and I hate it even now that I know math better. It’s all nearly luck-based and a roll of the dice. You have almost no control over characters.
FFX is also full of pre-final boss content, but there are a lot of requirements to get this stuff. Ultimate weapons are a must-have to do more than the 9,999 HP damage limit. However, they require you to be in certain areas, acquire certain other items, or even get through harder areas that require getting through other areas just to get to that area. Sounds confusing? It is. I spent a good 15 hours just trying to figure all this out and could get only one optional Aeon (Yojimbo). Anima is another optional Aeon but requires getting through a tough boss with the three weakest characters (Tidus, Rikku, and Wakka) and then getting all the destruction spheres in every trial. It’s a huge pain, requires a lot of running around and backtracking, and can make you frustrated. You can also monster hunt, but this requires training a Chocobo (which is tough as nails to get through), and then capturing the toughest monsters in the game easily requires ultimate weapons, which require more backtracking. It’s a frustrating mess but also somehow extremely satisfying once you do it.
With the main game out of the way, let’s talk about visuals. The HD upgrade isn’t exactly what you think. Most of the game has been remodeled, and all the main characters are completely redone; however, many monsters and NPCs just had a few passes of texture filtering, and that’s it. It really looks ugly in spots, but it’s not so bad if you’ve played the game before. I just wish the Japanese voice track was on here since the English voice acting is so terrible and embarrassing to listen to.
Note: Shame on you, James Arnold Taylor, for your terrible voice acting in Tidus. You’ve done better! Like Ratchet from Ratchet & Clank, Gabriel Logan from the PSP Syphon Filters, and even Marty McFly from the Back to the Future adventure games!
The long-awaited Infinite expansion set in Rapture is out and about. I honestly didn’t know what to really expect from this other than more questions and fan service from Rapture. The story started out very similarly to BioShock 1, where you are riding down the bathysphere into Rapture. It brought back a lot of great memories, and I was happy to see the beautiful Elizabeth throughout the whole chapter. What I wasn’t happy about was the length, the gameplay, and the lack of anything memorable.
You feel more like one level from a full game. The one level that is really just action is more than the story. It doesn’t pick up at all until the last 2 minutes of the ending, which is both shocking and expected and gives us more questions than answers. The same infinite guns are back, but with only one new power, and that is Old Man Winter. It is not much different from the freeze power in BioShock 1. It can freeze running water to make a bridge, and that’s about it. I ran around closing vents to draw Sally out (the girl who Booker must get back) and not much else. The ammo is extremely scarce, so you will be scrounging for it more than at any other moment in previous BioShock games. You also don’t get the full arsenal in Infinite, and nothing much else has changed gameplay-wise.
The setting is fantastic, however. The underwater city is memorable, and it’s great to be back before it went to crap from the previous games. We are seeing the calm before the storm here. The Little Sister program is starting, and so are the new Plasmids. It’s very interesting to see how things are happening when everything is prosperous and fun in the underwater utopia. Another great addition is the return of Sander Cohen, who is probably the most insane person in Rapture. This section is memorable but dies out quickly with more boring shooting and getting lost in hallways.
Outside of the interesting ending, there’s not much else. This was a real disappointment because of how long everyone waited. The gamer who just played Infinite and moved on shouldn’t even bother. This DLC is mainly for hardcore fans who actually want the ending in Episode Three rather than the tidbits from each episode.
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Try multiplayer. A lot of fun !