First-person shooters were new to me when Red Faction launched in 2001. I didn’t have a gaming PC growing up, so games like Doom, Wolfenstein, and Quake were nearly foreign to me. Red Faction was an overhyped game full of development issues and overpromised ambition. The “Gen-Mod” destruction model is half-baked and barely there. The visuals are dull and boring (even for the time), and the story doesn’t go anywhere at all. Not to mention zero character development. I rented this game and got bored with it maybe an hour in, and I can see why.
Sure, the game looks much better on PC, but there’s not much to really look at. Even for the time level, the design in shooters was fairly dull. Very few had interesting things to look at, such as Half-Life or Halo. Red Faction is just browns and reds with boring caves and industrial buildings. You are on Mars, by the way. You are part of a rebellion group called the Red Faction, who are miners uprising against the overbearing government. You are trying to fight your way to the top and stop a deadly plague that’s killing the miners. This story starts and stops here. It doesn’t go anywhere; there’s nothing to spoil. You end up finding the cure, and that’s really it. The voice acting is actually really good for the time, but the only thing that kept me playing was pure curiosity to finally see this game through to the end.
There are quite a few weapons in this game, but most aren’t found until the last third of the game. You have your standard array of guns. Submachine, assault, precision, sniper, pistol, rocket launcher, and rail driver There’s also a heavy machine gun and grenades. It’s a standard list of weapons we’ve used in so many shooters, and Red Faction doesn’t do anything interesting or fun with them. The shooting in this game feels pretty good and holds up well today, but the enemy AI is terrible, so don’t expect much of a fight. There are vehicles you can pilot in this game, but they aren’t anything fun or interesting. They shoot bullets or rockets, and a lot of the time I would end up stuck in weird physics glitches.
The game isn’t very long. You can finish it in under 4 hours, and thankfully there’s a quick save feature, which I suggest using often. Enemies are run-of-the mill faceless military dudes, and there’s an occasional weird creature thing to mow down in the caves. Environmental detail is what you can expect from this era. Rooms are equipped with an occasional table, chair, or monitor. Nothing stands out or looks interesting in this game. Destruction is boiled down to blowing open a wall to get to a button (there’s a lot of button pressing in this game), and that’s about it. The occasional chunk of wall breaks off, but this is far from what Volition was touting back in the day.
Red Faction is at least a solid shooter. It’s fun while it lasts, and the last act throws new enemies and weapons at you, and there are two whole boss fights in this game. Vehicles don’t feel great to pilot, destruction is minimal, the story has a strong premise but goes nowhere, and the visuals are pretty bland. I did find the stealth section of the game pretty fun. Trying to find your way around without being spotted is like a giant puzzle, but that’s all there is that changes things up. In the end, if you never play this game, you aren’t missing out on gaming history.
A murder mystery. A supernatural thrill ride. A past that haunts you. These are many things, Edward Carnby and Aline Cedrac have to deal with. Carnby’s best friend, Charles Fiske, is found dead off the coast of an island. You are sent to investigate, but your parachute is damaged on impact, and you must fight off strange creatures from another dimension while trying to find out the fate of your friend. The story here is surprisingly deep and involved, but not very interesting. It’s akin to a sleepy mystery novel that keeps you hooked just enough to keep reading but then quickly forget about it shortly afterwards. The New Nightmare is kind of stuck between a rock and a hard place due to the timing of its release. It came out just before the beginning of a new generation of consoles and kind of feels like it has a foot in each generation.
I do have to state that the visuals are very impressive right off the bat. For a Dreamcast game, the pre-rendered backgrounds would be mistaken for a PS2 title, especially when using VGA. They are bright, crisp, and well detailed without that 32-bit sheen that older “tank-style” horror titles had that used pre-rendered backgrounds. The lighting effects are well done, especially when using your flashlight, and the monster designs are surprisingly not very scary or interesting. They feel like generic sci-fi creatures from a B-grade midnight premiere on the Sci-Fi (yes, not SyFy; get that out of here) Channel. The atmosphere is really tense, and there are a few jump scares scattered throughout the game, but overall it does a great job of giving you a haunting, impending doom feeling.
Back to the whole one foot in each generation business it still has pre-rendered backgrounds, tank controls, and a tiresome inventory system. Thankfully, there aren’t a lot of items to pick up, as there are few puzzles in this game. Most of your pick-ups are weapons, ammo, saves, and first aid. You can combine and split objects, but I only had to do this once as Edward. I got tired of having to do a quick reload by going into my inventory screen and manually reloading there, as there is no reload button. You must wait until you are out of ammo first. This would be nice to have, as you eventually learn how many shots each creature type takes and can count them that way. I also hated how much the views and angles flipped around. I appreciate the more modern take on cinematic angles and camera views, but this game could have easily been 100% done in real-time on the Dreamcast with no issues. When fighting some creatures, you get knocked into another angle, and the screen pauses to load for a split second, making you disoriented. This especially proves troublesome during the final boss fight.
I did like how the game doesn’t skimp on ammo, but you must preserve it in the beginning and be smart. I easily missed the shotgun the first time around and had to restart, as you don’t get much revolver ammo in the game at all. The majority are shells. I wound up in a hallway with zombies, zero ammo, and 200 shells. Thankfully, it was only 30 minutes of gameplay before I could get to the shotgun again, but this is another foot in the previous generation. I like the better map with an actual dot on screen showing you where you are, but certain angles and lighting make things hard to see. Some items sparkle, but I would see sparkles through walls that were objects in another room. It doesn’t help at all.
If you conserve well during the first disc, you get many more weapons later on and tons of ammo, and you can just blast away. However, the game tries to guide you a bit better, similar to how modern games do. Puzzles will sometimes be two-way communication over the radio with hints or instructions you need to follow or clearly needing symbols for a code lock, but you can use an item to follow clues and trails to the symbols you need. It’s a great step in a new direction, as I love these games’ atmosphere, story, creature design, or anything else but navigating their frustrating, labyrinthine, and obtuse maps. Backtracking is also not super horrible here. There were only a few times I needed to go from one end of a level to another, and it was the final time before moving on to the next major area. I do detest the limited saving system. You need to find Charms of Saving, and there are only around 20 in the whole game. Thankfully, the game is done in less than 5 hours, and if you are careful, you won’t die and can spread them out. I only used about 10 during my whole playthrough.
Overall, The New Nightmare isn’t a reboot of the game (we were graced with that horrible beauty just a few years later), but a step into making the traditional point-and-click adventures console-friendly and trying to make them more modern. The story and characters are interesting enough to push you through the game, but mostly they are forgettable. The voice acting is surprisingly decent, and the visuals are awesome. There is so much pushing and pulling in two different generations that the game falls into typical 32-bit supernatural horror trappings but also tries to break free of some. There are plenty of weapons and ammo; the auto-aim system works well; the puzzles are not obnoxiously obtuse; and backtracking is minimal. Overall, The New Nightmarehas aged better than many games of its era thanks to trying to push in more modern directions. This is a great way to spend a Halloween or dreary evening.
Wild West games blew up in the mid-2000s. Games like Read Dead Revolver and Call of Juarez really pushed the genre forward. Gun was a highly anticipated open-world game that was being watched by Grand Theft Auto fans. I remember reading about this game in magazines leading up to its release and being disappointed with how linear and simple it was. You play Colt White, who is just living day-to-day life with his father, Ned White, when he dies, and you get sent on a mission to avenge him, which leads to a road of greed and death. The story is really simple and short. It’s honestly very one-dimensional, but the voice acting is solid, with major actors like Tom Skerret and Ron Perlman.
The majority of the game is made up of shooting. As the title implies, guns are the main focus of the game. You have an array of weapon types, such as six-shooters, lever-action rifles, sniper rifles (bolt-action), melee, throwables, and bows. You slowly unlock these weapons as you play the story, and you can also upgrade them at the shopkeep. You can acquire more gold by finding it in the wild or completing side missions. Side missions are the second bulk of the game, ranging from bounties to poker games and, overall, just shooting up more bad guys. There’s no variation in mission type outside of the names. In the end, you’re either killing someone or rescuing a horse.
Horseback riding is a major gameplay element here, and it’s done surprisingly well for the time. They’re treated kind of like cars in the GTA. They have health meters, which are also tied to stamina. Overwork your horse, and it will die. You can trample enemies with the horse, which is great for clearing out large groups, and they are needed to travel between the two towns. This is one disappointment I have with the game. It’s surprisingly linear, and the open-endedness is an illusion. This is just one large map full of brown dust, canyons, a couple of rivers, and a meadow. The game is very dull and void of any life, unlike GTA, which feels vibrant and constantly moving. There’s just the wind and twanging background music playing. The towns may have three or four people walking around, and there are no interiors to speak of. It’s indeed a very empty world.
I highly recommend just blowing through the story mode in the 4-5 hours it takes and forgoing most upgrades. Despite having this shop system, it is pretty much pointless. Sure, it helps to have more damage or quicker reloads, but the quickdraw allows you to kind of cheat and constantly use it as long as you’re killing enemies to refill it. Empty the meter. Shoot about five enemies and empty it again. I never really saw the need for most of the upgrades. This will alleviate the pain of completing these dull side missions.
The shooting in Gun is mostly stiff and awkward. It’s not amazing. There is a sticky auto-aim, and you can aim down your sights with rifles, but the camera zooms too far in, and you can’t follow anyone up close. Stealth is pretty much pointless outside of a single-story mission because enemies can somehow see and hear you from a mile away. The explosives were surprisingly useless as well. Enemies can stand just in front of or behind an explosion, and they aren’t affected. This is really terrible. There are some missions that have you mount a cannon and hit everything dead on. There is no splash damage for explosions in this game. It makes no sense.
Overall, the game is very linear, ugly, and pretty repetitive. The side missions don’t add any variation, the upgrade system can be skipped entirely, and the open world is void of life. The only redeeming value of this game is its great voice acting, many cut-scenes, and short length. The story isn’t even anything noteworthy either, and the same goes for the characters. With their short length, they have no time to expand or grow on us. We get no backstory. Just the here-and-now, and that means nothing when characters die. I would only recommend this game if you’re itching for a Western game and need to go back in time, but this game really did not live up to the hype upon release.
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. Throughout the early 2000s, I had a PS2 exclusively and I was stuck with that system. 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” type of games either. A few of these games have cult followings while 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 a lot of 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.
Radiata Stories – 2005
This game was liked for its sense of humor and almost parody of the genre, but the weak story and repetitive side quests brought the game down some. The series would see a spiritual successor on the DS.
Most Recent Entry: Radiant Historia: Perfect Chronology – 2017 (3DS)
Smash Court Tennis: Pro Tournament – 2002 Smash Court Tennis: Pro Tournament 2 – 2004
The game was liked for its realism and decent visuals but was let down by a lack of content. It had a lot of different shot types and a fun career mode, but that’s about it. It wasn’t as good as Virtua Tennis or Mario Tennis. After three entries Namco scrapped the series.
The game was praised for its imaginative design and graphics, but it felt like a bit of a chore to play sometimes. All around rough around the edges, but charming enough to keep you engaged.
EverQuest Online Adventures – 2003
This era of console MMOs had growing pains. Consoles finally had broadband access but lacked storage space to store large open worlds and stream them. While Final Fantasy XIsaw major success others wanted to cash in on that. EverQuest was a valiant attempt but felt dumbed down and streamlined with repetitive quests. The servers shut down in 2012, but you can still play with fan servers.
Genji: Dawn of the Samurai – 2005
Being released late in the console’s life meant people expected great things out of the system. Genji looked good but felt rough around the edges and slightly clunky. It didn’t do any one thing particularly well, but it wasn’t bad either. The series would see one final entry to show the power of the PS3 and that would be lights out for the series due to poor sales.
Most Recent Entry: Genji: Days of the Blade – 2006 (PS3)
Steambot Chronicles – 2006
A very late release on the PS2, Steambot was praised for its customization, but it was brought down by the molasses pace of the game and everything is rolled out at a snail’s pace. The sequel would be canceled and only a smaller portable version would be released later.
Most Recent Entry: Steambot Chronicles: Battle Tournament – 2008 (PSP)
Tourist Trophy – 2006
Being released so late on the PS2, Polyphony Digital had mastered the hardware. This was the Gran Turismo of superbikes and was a one-shot project for the team. It was praised for its visuals and insanely good physics but had a really steep learning curve even Gran Turismo enthusiasts scoffed at.
Armored Core 3 – 2002 Armored Core: Nexus – 2004
Armored Core‘s home was on PlayStation. The series would see stumbles along the way. The game was praised for its hardcore mech mechanics but had a steep learning curve and didn’t have a good sense of scale compared to games like MechWarrior. This continued throughout the series alienating newcomers and not adding much outside of customization. It would see its final entry in 2013 and hasn’t been seen in the last decade.
Most Recent Entry: Armored Core: Verdict Day – 2013 (PS3, X360)
Way of the Samurai – 2002
Way of the Samuraiwas well-liked for its story but had a very low budget and felt clunky and rough through every release. It would get three more sequels before being shelved for the last decade.
Most Recent Entry: Way of the Samurai 4 – 2012 (PS3, PC)
Shin Megami Tensei: Devil Summoner – Raidou Kuzunoha vs. The Soulless Army – 2006
TheDevil Summoner sub-series of SMT is considered the most hardcore. This game was praised for its world-building and atmosphere, but of course, the barrier to entry was high thanks to its incredible difficulty. It also had a boring combat system and overall mediocre game mechanics.
The Atelierseries has a huge fan base. There have been over a dozen games in the series and are continuing to be released to this day. Eternal Mana was praised for its alchemical mixing gameplay but had repetitive missions and too much backtracking for most people’s liking.
Most Recent Entry: Atelier Sophie 2: The Alchemist of the Mysterious Dream – 2022 (PS4, PC)
Kessen II – 2001 Kessen III – 2005
The Kessen series was the thinker’s Dynasty Warriors. The third and final entry in the series gave you direct control of your troops in battle, but it was criticized for being reduced to silly button-mashing. The second game was praised for its story, but just felt clunky and had too many mistakes. It’s an interesting series to go back to, however, be warned that the game gets repetitive quick and requires some patience.
Naruto: Ultimate Ninja 2 – 2007
In 2007 there were few people still holding on to their PS2s and Ultimate Ninja 2 was late to the party. It felt last-gen, it had a generic feeling of combat, and despite its huge roster, gamers were ready for the next-gen Naruto fighting game. The series would continue for years until its final entry in 2016.
Most Recent Entry: Naruto Shippuden: Ultimate Ninja Storm 4 – 2016 (PS4, XONE, PC, NS)
Pride FC: Fighting Championships – 2003
THQ was kind of cannibalizing its own sales for the UFC series. Pride FC was the only game and was praised for its gritty realism, but lacked content.
Sled Storm – 2002
When you saw that EA Sports BIG logo it meant quality. These were some of the best sports games to ever be released. Sadly, Sled Storm was constantly compared to SSX and felt dated due to kind of being a remaster of the PS1 game. It’s still a lot of fun but feels like an early PS2 title.
Formula One 2001 – 2001
Sony’s hat into the F1 arena was a successful one. It was constantly praised as having the best physics engine out of the genre, but the series took a long time to gain its footing. This was an early PS2 title so the visuals weren’t very impressive since it was a cross-gen title with the PS1. The series would go on for some time and die on the PS3.
Most Recent Entry: Formula 1: Championship Edition – 2007 (PS3)
Lumines Plus – 2007
While no game in the series has been bad, releasing a PSP game two years late on a system that already received a next-gen release is a bad move.Lumines Plus didn’t add any new content and was already two years old at this point. If you had a PSP or Xbox 360 then this wasn’t worth picking up.
Most Recent Entry: Lumines Remastered- 2018 (NS, PS4, PC, XONE)
Super Bust-A-Move 2 – 2002
While not an inherently bad game, the series was growing stale at this point. It didn’t add anything new to the mix as the formula is already perfect. If you owned any previous version you had no reason to buy another unless you wanted more levels.
Most Recent Entry: Bust-A-Move: Journey – 2017 (AND, iOS)
Cold Winter – 2005
This was one of those cult classic types of games. PS2-exclusive shooters were never really amazing due to the limited hardware needed to top the Xbox and PC, but they really tried. At this point, the game felt dated visually and gameplay-wise. It was praised for its spy theme and great voice acting, but the corridor shooter felt dated compared to Halo 2.
Wild Arms Alter Code: F – 2005 Wild Arms 5 – 2007
Remakes aren’t a new phenomenon. Alter Code: F was a remake of the PS1 classic, but didn’t bring anything new, especially for how late it was released in the console’s life. RPGs were evolving fast and this was left in the dust.Wild Arms 5 felt repetitive and tiresome at this point despite the fun characters and story. The series would get one final entry on the PSP in 2007.
Most Recent Entry: Wild Arms XF – 2007 (PSP)
Xenosaga II: Episode II – Jenseits von Gut und Bose – 2005
Xenosaga is considered one of the best RPG series on the system, but the second game was radically different. It was half the length of the first game but felt like an anime movie rather than a game. The combat system was dumbed down and overall felt like a weird experiment that turned a lot of people away and many didn’t pick up the third game because of this.
Most Recent Entry: Xenosaga: Episode III – Also Sprach Zarathrusta – 2006 (PS2)
The rhythm game plague of the mid-2000s was a nightmare. We had some solid entries, but a lot of cashing in. The DDR franchise was no exception as it found its home on the PS2 for many years until finally dying on the Wii in 2011. SuperNOVA was criticized for focusing on party play over single-player gameplay and fell flat due to this. If you played one game in the series you’ve played them all.
Most Recent Entry: Dance Dance Revolution II – 2011 (Wii)
ESPN Winter X-Games Snowboarding – 2000
A very early title for the system means it didn’t look too impressive. It was praised for its realistic physics, but it lacked content overall. The Xtreme Sports era of the late 90s to early 2000s was beaten to death and peaking at this point. It would go on to receive one more game in the series before being axed.
SingStar 90s – 2007 SingStar Pop – 2007 SingStar Pop Vol. 2 – 2008 SingStar Queen – 2009
Oh man, I remember this series during the rhythm game plague. I had a girlfriend at the time seriously into these games and I just didn’t get it. I was a shy kid who never sang. A lot of games ranged from great to average. None of them were ever bad, but what else can you do with just a mic? These four games were probably the most mediocre of the bunch and seeing as they came out long after the PS2’s life those who were still hanging on were the type to buy these games on a yearly basis. These games were critiqued for not capturing the era/genre they were inspired by and fell flat in that regard. The series finally died off about five years ago.
Most Recent Entry: SingStar Celebration – 2017 (PS4)
Lethal Skies II – 2003
Not quite up to the quality that wasAce Combat,Lethal Skies switched developers with every entry and fell flat in a lot of aspects. It was liked for its content and visuals but felt just average with basic mission types and nothing very exciting. It also had a slow sense of speed compared to Ace Combat. Due to poor sales, this would be the final game in the series.
Gungriffon Blaze – 2000
Always compared to MechWarrior, Gungriffon saw a small spattering of fans, but this early PS2 title didn’t look too hot. It only had five missions so it was over in a couple of hours. This really hurt the game outside of the overall solid gameplay. It would see one final entry exclusive to the Xbox.
Most Recent Entry: Gungriffon: Allied Strike – 2004 (Xbox)
Shadow Hearts – 2001
A much-beloved series that was home on the PS2. The first game had some interesting gameplay with its Judgement Ring system, but it had a shallow story and uninteresting characters. This would later be improved in the sequels. It received two sequels and hasn’t been seen since.
Most Recent Entry: Shadow Hearts: From the New World – 2005 (PS2)
EyeToy: Groove – 2003 EyeToy: AntiGrav – 2004
The birth of motion control craze was born on the PS2. Sony released the EyeToy which was an average device that required bright lights to work. I had only AntiGrav and was most impressed when it did work. Some games were fun and some weren’t. Groove felt really slow and AntiGrav lacked a combo system. Very average, but playable. The whole series died off long after the PS3 came out.
Most Recent Entry: EyeToy Play: PomPom Party – 2008 (PS2)
God Hand – 2005
This is another cult classic. There are many fans of this game due to the studio behind it. Clover Studio is known for Okami and all of their games oozed charm and originality. God Hand was just clunky and rough around the edges, but the over-the-top action and humor reeled some players in.
Soul Nomad & The World Eaters – 2007
A very late release from NIS, Soul Nomadwas considered Disgaea for babies. It also emphasized room strategy over combat and many didn’t like that. It at least had a lot of charm and has a small dedicated following. It was later released in 2021 with an HD upgrade.
Primal – 2003
Primal has a huge following and had a lot of hype behind it. It was a AAA story-driven game that was praised for its characters and story but was a confusing mess of lock and key puzzles and gameplay that was mostly uninteresting. It’s not a bad game but didn’t live up to the hype.
Star Wars: Racer Revenge – 2002
Racer Revenge was a highly anticipated sequel to the above-average pod racer. Sadly, the game felt, sounded, and look dated from the start. It felt fast and controlled well, but that was about it. It was later released for PS4 in 2016.
Tribes: Aerial Assault – 2002
Tribes have a large fan base. The open map FPS multiplayer shooter was a huge success. It tried to achieve the same thing on consoles andAerial Assault got the job done. It looked great and felt like Tribes, but the lack of online play and voice chat meant couch competitions were needed. The series would see its final entry a decade ago.
Most Recent Entry: Tribes: Ascend – 2012 (PC)
SOCOM: U.S. Navy SEALs: Combined Assault – 2006
At this point in time, the PS3 was around the corner, and the SOCOM series was exhausted. The first three games were great, and it was still a fun multiplayer shooter. In fact, it was the only shooter that was popular online on PS2 that could match Halo numbers. Combined Assaultfelt like an expansion to the third game and only included 10 maps. It didn’t do anything really new. The series would finally come to an end in 2011.
Most Recent Entry: SOCOM 4: U.S. Navy SEALs – 2011 (PS3)
Bujingai: The Forsaken City – 2004
A one-shot action adventure that stars the Japanese musician Gakt. I actually played this one myself and while it oozed style it didn’t match the smooth controls of Devil May Cry. It was a clunky game with poor-level design. It looked good but fell flat everywhere including a nearly non-existent story.
Siren – 2004
I personally love any horror game from the 90s and mid-2000s. There’s a certain charm that lets the clunky gameplay work with the scares. Siren had the scares and interesting story, but the course the clunkfest it was, and its slow pace scared gamers away. It would later get a better-received episodic sequel.
Most Recent Entry: Siren: Blood Curse – 2008 (PS3)
The Getaway – 2003
The Getaway was a AAA-hyped-up blockbuster with a cinematic story. While the story wasn’t anything special, the acting was praised and the gameplay was ambitious. It just wasn’t much fun to play. It felt stiff and overly serious in places. It also pushed the PS2 way too hard. It belonged on the Xbox. Surprisingly, the sequel faired a bit better, but the series died after that.
Most Recent Entry: The Getaway: Black Monday – 2004 (PS2)
Ys: The Ark of Napishtim– 2003
Ys is an RPG that needs no introduction. It’s one of the most beloved series out there. The Ark of Napishtim was a highly anticipated sequel but fell flat due to its short length and formulaic gameplay. It’s not bad, but nothing groundbreaking, and didn’t push the series forward. It later got a remaster on PSP.
This was an expansion of the original game and it was never released on Xbox. Asking full price for a game that came out 6 months prior made people turn away. However, the series lives on to this day and is an incredibly popular Musou game.
Having released late into the PS2’s life, the Tales Ofseries trucked on. Many games in the series are all over the place, but by this point, the series was growing formulaic and stale and fans wanted a refresh of the series. It still lives on to this day.
Most Recent Entry: Tales of Arise – 2021 (PS4, PC, PS5, XONE, XSX)
Silpheed: The Lost Planet – 2000
Silpheed didn’t get too many games, but the PS2 entry was praised for its stunning visuals but lacked exciting gameplay to follow. Many kept saying it felt better in the arcades than at home. The series got one final entry as a paltry mobile game in 2011.
Most Recent Entry: Silpheed Alternative AM – 2011 (AND)
Super Dragon Ball Z – 2005 Dragon Ball Z: Budokai Tenkaichi – 2005
The Dragon Ball Z series was a yearly mega-hit and still is. These two games were PS2 exclusives and offered a great cast and the feeling of the show, but lacked gameplay, variety, and depth.
Most Recent Entry: Dragon Ball: The Breakers – 2022 (PC, NS, XONE, XSX, PS4)
Legend of Kay – 2005
Legend of Kay has a cult following. It was a light-hearted mascot platformer of the day but felt like it was geared toward kids too much and had an awful performance and camera. The Anniversary release is a bit better.
Most Recent Entry: Legend of Kay Anniversary – 2015 (MAC, NS, PS4, PS3, WIIU, PC, X360)
Yes, it was released very late in the PS2’s life and it might be why it was reviewed so poorly. However, I absolutely loved this game’s soundtrack. The Japanese operas were amazing. I have the limited edition hanging on my wall to this day. Despite the amazing soundtrack and interesting characters, the game dragged on too long and there wasn’t enough exploration. The first game was welcomed thanks to its simple combat and fun item farming but also suffered from a lackluster story. It felt very linear. The series would come to an abrupt end in 2014.
Most Recent Entry: Ar nosurge: Ode to an Unborn Star – 2014 (PS3, Vita)
The King of Fighters 2000/2001 – 2003
A lack of overall content is what hurt this compilation. It also didn’t have an online play which was expected on the console at this point. It’s still a solid port of the arcade game just not up to snuff for a console game.
Most Recent Entry: The King of Fighters XV – 2022 (PC, PS5, PS4, XSX)
G1 Jokey 3 – 2003
For some reason, horse racing games had a following. My own sister was one of them and loved Gallop Racer. While I never got into the games they did look interesting. G1 Jokey was the rival to Gallop Racer. This game was much harder to get into and had a steeper learning curve. It looked great, but many kept comparing the two. The series came to an end in 2011.
As an early PS2 game, the particle effects were impressive but all we had was a fireworks sandbox with little gameplay or variety. It looked pretty, but that was about it.
The Red Star – 2007
The Red Star was a sleeper hit that was released late in the PS2’s life. It wasn’t anything special. Just a decent beat ’em-up with multiplayer that was released for only $20. It was later released for PSP, PS3, and iOS.
Dynasty Warriors is a game of spotting the difference. An incredibly popular Musou series. In fact, it’s considered the best in the genre. However, these two games came out in the same year. Come on Koei. Despite the sheer amount of content in each game if you’ve played one you have played them all. The series lives on today albeit with much lower quality.
While praised for its unique take on dice rolling and math. The game was rather one note and lacking in the visuals department. It’s one of those unique PlayStation games that you can only get on these systems.
Sega SuperStars – 2004 Sega SuperStars Tennis – 2008
Yep, you know the drill. A gimmicky set of mini-games for a motion device that’s fun for a couple of hours and gets old quickly. Sadly, this one didn’t even offer multiplayer. The series died off a few years later as a tennis game. It’s fun for kids but that’s about it. It would later spawn a sequel that was cross-gen and fell flat compared to other mascot tennis games.
Arc the Lad; Twilight Spirits – 2003
Arc the Ladis a cult favorite PS1 RPG. The PS2 entry was highly anticipated and while it excels in storytelling it doesn’t offer anything but average gameplay and a lack of memorable dungeons. Overall, it’s still a solid entry but there are better RPGs on the system. Sadly, the series would come to an abrupt end and hasn’t been seen since.
Most Recent Entry: Arc the Lad: End of Darkness – 2004 (PS2)
Disney Golf – 2002
If you like Disney and golf this is your game. While it looked colorful and even sounded the part, the game was very arcade-like and too easy for adult gamers. It’s still charming and relaxing enough to play for adults.
Mobile Suit Gundam: Zeonic Front – 2002
The Gundam license has been used for games since the 8-bit era and continues on to this day. This particular PS2 exclusive just so happened to be almost great. Its strategy elements were praised, but the action was clumsy with terrible AI. It’s worth a look for hardcore fans.
The game had shallow combat and gameplay, but creating your own creatures and watching them come to life had a lot of charm. If you can look past the average combat then you have one of the most unique games on the system. This game oozes that signature PlayStation charm.
CMT Presents: Karaoke Revolution – Country – 2006
Well, take it or leave it with the title. This was Konami’s challenge to Sony’s SingStar and it was quite popular for a while. It relied on the gimmicky motion controls of the time but died out eventually in 2011.
The series made a radical reboot on the PS2 and was loved quite well. It looked good, played fast, and had some crazy combos, but the game was insanely hard. I remember renting this as a kid and turning it in the next day. It was brutal after the second stage. A cult classic and well-loved among fans.
Most Recent Entry: Shinobi – 2011 (3DS)
Bloody Roar 3 – 2001
The Bloody Roar series has never been considered great. A fun series for newbie fighters. The third game looked amazing at launch but was too simple compared to other 3D fighters at the time. The series lived on for a couple more years and we haven’t seen it since.
Most Recent Entry: Bloody Roar Extreme – 2003 (Xbox)
MotoGP 4 – 2006
The game came out too late and was overshadowed by the previous game’s impressive Xbox outing. While the Xbox was long dead by 2006, the weaker system tried its best and the physics were great, but the superbike scene was hyper-competitive around this time. Thankfully, the series still lives on with lots of ups and downs.
This game was a surprise when it was released. Being an obviousMario Kartclone theStar Wars IP was the last anyone would think that could create a good kart racer. The game had a great sense of speed, felt and looked like aStar Warsgame, and was a lot of fun. There just isn’t a lot of content.
State of Emergency – 2002
The game was praised for its frantic and chaotic action, but had repetitive missions and was very one-note. It has a cult following because of Rockstar’s name attached to it. It saw a late sequel that fell under everyone’s radar.
Most Recent Entry: State of Emergency 2 – 2006 (PS2)
P.T.O. IV: Pacific Theater of Operations – 2003
This marine strategy game is quite bland, but the tactics themselves work well. It’s not an exciting game, and there’s a very small niche group of gamers who like these types of games. This was an attempt at a reboot for the series that failed pretty hard. It should have been on PC or Xbox.
Resident Evil Outbreak – 2004
The Outbreak series was an interesting concept. While it’s better received today back in 2004 we had just been blessed with Resident Evil 4 so any game that went backward was looked down on. The online component, visuals, and improved controls were appreciated but the story was uninteresting.
Suzuki TT was considered a low-budget effort at the superbike craze of the mid-2000s. While you had the end ofTourist Trophyand MotoGP, this was at the lower end. Its authenticity was appreciated, but it had twitchy handling and only a single track. The series went on for a few more years though.
Most Recent Entry: Suzuki TT Superbikes: Real Road Racing Championship – 2009 (PS2, PS3)
Sub Rebellion – 2002
This weird exclusive was well-liked for its challenging gameplay, but low production values plagued the game and it felt quite generic. It’s still a fun shooter and unique to the system.
Gallop Racer 2001 – 2001 Gallop Racer 2004 – 2004
Gallop Racer was the gold standard for horse racing games. Yeah…well…if that’s your thing. My sister was really into this series, and while it was very niche, the series continued on for a few years and was praised for fun betting systems and being able to breed your own horses.
.hack//Outbreak: Part 3 – 2002 .hack//Quarantine: Part 4 – 2003
At the halfway mark people were tired of the padded-out nature of the .hack series. While it’s a beloved series today the game was split up into four parts that would take around 20 hours per game to finish. You really had to love the anime or the gameplay here to truck on.
Most Recent Entry: .hack//G.U. Last Recode – 2017 (PS4, PC)
Wizardry: Tales of the Forsaken Land – 2001
An early PS2 game that took the PC games and brought them to consoles. It’s buried under an awful UI and dated gameplay, but fans of the old dungeon crawler will get lost in the world here. Just push past the ugliness and there might be a gem in there somewhere.
Most Recent Entry: Wizardry: The Five Ordeals – 2021 (PC)
Dual Hearts – 2002
This is an Atlus game so you know there’s a cult following. This one-shot PS2 RPG was unique and quirky but was marred by technical problems such as heavy slowdown and other issues. It’s still charming and has that unique PS2 feel to it.
Enthusia: Professional Racing – 2005
This was Konami’s attempt at a Gran Turismokiller. If the game were put on Xbox it might have done better. Everyone praised the game for the effort put into it, and I clearly remember seeing this game hyped up in magazines but falling flat due to a lack of content. The career mode was over fairly quickly compared to other racing sims at the time.
Hot Shots Tennis – 2007
Releasing very late in the system’s life no one really paid attention to this series anymore. The game was light-hearted and fun, but too easy. The series would get one final game on the PSP a few years later.
Most Recent Entry: Hot Shots Tennis: Get a Grip – 2010 (PSP)
Killzone – 2004
Oh boy, this game needs no introduction really. This was the infamous Halo killer. One of the most hyped-up games in video game history. I remember getting this game for Christmas of 2004 and was ready for it. Sadly, the game fell flat quite a bit, however not all was lost. The game did look good for the underpowered system despite the low framerate. The weapons were unique, and the Nazi-Esque dystopian world was praised, but the story and character fell flat. The game suffered from long reload animations that were impressive, but unnecessary. It was far from the fast-paced and tight gunplay that was Halo 2. Online play was decent and fun, but this game was very slow. The weapons had weight which was good, but the gray color palette was also not very appealing. It was also very short on top of all of this. In the end, it was an impressive effort and Guerrilla went on to be one of Sony’s flagship developers and the series did improve.
Most Recent Entry: Killzone: Shadow Fall – 2013 (PS4)
AirBlade – 2002
Namco made an attempt to throw their hat into the Xtreme Sports ring. Everyone wanted that Tony Hawk fame. While the game looked good and had its own style, it just didn’t have the same flawless gameplay as the Tony Hawk series.
Fatal Fury: Battle Archives Volume 2 – 2008
The better of the two volumes, and the final game in the series. Sadly, SNK hasn’t returned to the fullFatal Fury game formula and has focused on The King of Fightersever since.
Okage: Shadow King – 2001
Considered a dumbed-down RPG for kids, Okage oozed charm and had pleasant visuals, but also had a clunky menu system and was seen as too easy. It’s still an early PS2 with that unique PlayStation feeling.
Mana Khemia 2: Fall of Alchemy – 2008
While better than the first game, it’s a game that’s better than the sum of its parts. Not a single thing is done very well, but if you love your anime JRPGs then this is something that might be worth your time. This would end up being the final game in the series after a port to the PSP.
Growing up, I wasn’t into Star Trek, and I also didn’t have a gaming PC. The computer we had for the family was for website development and it didn’t run any type of 3D applications well. PC gaming was pretty much out of my mind until the mid-2000s, but I also passed this up on PS2. I just felt Star Trek was a boring grown-up show and didn’t care at all. I now love the series and have caught up to halfway through the Voyager series so the characters and flow of the story actually made sense to me.
You play as a brand new Hazard Team thrown together by Tuvok to surgically strike enemy ships. The Voyager gets stuck in space and can’t repair itself or warp out due to something dampening its engines. It’s your job to find out what this is. It plays out just like a Star Trek episode. There is great voice acting from the show’s cast which is really nice. There are a fair amount of cut scenes, but of course, this isn’t anything stellar or memorable. It’s interesting enough to get you through the five hours it takes to finish the campaign and that’s all.
What is nice is the Star Trek experience is here. Weapons that feel like they fit in the universe, you get to explore parts of the ship, and it’s nice to see a 3D interactive world of something you see on TV a lot. Missions are varied thanks to the environments that change up. Sadly, there are no worlds you are plopped down in. Just lots of different types of ships and a few different enemy types. These range from Klingons that we all know to new original species just for this game. This is a typical id Tech 3 shooter with nothing special to it. Enemy AI is pretty dumb and the game is extremely linear. There are no puzzles or thrills. Just blast your way past wave after wave to get to the next cut scene.
There are two different types of ammo types. You pick up ammo crystals for one and regular blue energy for the other. There are nine different weapons in the game including your phaser which has unlimited ammo and does the least amount of damage. The weapons, while original and cool looking, aren’t anything special and their alt-fire modes are pretty bland. I understand this was the early days of shooters, but Half-Life proved you can have a small arsenal and make them have weight and feel unique. It got to the point that I just stuck to two different weapons at all times because the enemies are just bullet sponges. They swarm you head-on and don’t take cover or dodge or strafe. I could stand in one corner and just knock them all out and advance to the next room. The game is fairly easy because of this.
There are only two boss fights in this game and they are both pushovers because you can exploit their dumb AI. Throughout most of the game you have AI companions that do a decent job killing everything, but they usually just stand around and can’t die anyway. There is a single stealth section that felt completely pointless as the AI is so dumb you can walk right behind them and they won’t notice you. Gameplay-wise there’s literally nothing else. Just lots of elevator switches and control panels to press.
Visually the game looks the part artistically. You won’t mistake this for another game, but the graphics themselves are obviously really dated and didn’t look the best even when it was released. However, you know what you’re getting into with a two-decade-old game. It still looks clean and there is a lot of detail in making this look and feel like Star Trek. It’s worth a short play-through on a late-night gaming session, but it’s mostly forgettable.
Grand Theft Auto was an unstoppable juggernaut in the early to mid-2000s. With the rise of the PSP and its new, near-PS2-quality visuals, it was a perfect match for the series. Liberty City Stories wasn’t simply a GTA 3 port, but a whole new story and set of missions set within the same world. The exact copy of GTA3‘s Liberty City is ripped out of the PS2 and copied on the PSP with grace and detail. I felt like I was playing GTA 3 the entire time through my 10-hour campaign, but it came with caveats.
When you jump into a car for the first time, LCS has that classic GTA feel. Arcadey physics, campy humor, and unrealistic everything else. You can run people over, get 5-star police wanted ratings, jump off cliffs, and do everything else you could do in GTA 3. It’s a sight to behold on such a small system. Driving is probably the most enjoyable aspect of LCS, including the missions that have you driving the most. When you jump out of the car, things go awry.
Combat is abysmal in this game and really brings it down. Since there is no right analog stick, you must rely on a lock-on system that just doesn’t work. Half of the time, if you aren’t facing an enemy shooting at you, there will be no lock-on causing cheap deaths. There is no cover system, so missions are tailored toward the console with slightly better controls. It’s impossible to gun down two dozen enemies while also only being able to take 4-5 shots before dying. This is the most infuriating thing about LCS, and it really brings the score down. I had to use cheats to finish the game. I died maybe 10–15 times on several missions, even with cheats! Having only a few enemies is manageable, and some missions felt tailored towards the PSP controls and some didn’t. There were missions I really thought were fun, but then I’d be thrown into a multi-part mission and die a dozen times on the last part just to have to restart all over again. It also doesn’t help that you don’t make much money in this game quickly, so every time you die or get arrested, your weapons are gone. For some missions, I was stuck with no money and had to have a weapon, so I had to use a weapon cheat. The game’s flow was not thought out very well.
At least the story and characters are entertaining. While not as fleshed out as later games in the series, Toni Cipriani and his fellow employers are all classic GTA-style characters, and I enjoyed seeing them on screen. The radio stations are back, and they are one of my favorite parts of the game. Driving around and listening to the hilarious commentary is gold. Due to the small volume of space on the PSP disc, there isn’t much of it. I would start to hear repeated stuff about a quarter of the way through the game, which is a shame, but the game supports custom soundtracks, which are nice. There is a multiplayer mode, but it’s nothing really special. You and a buddy can basically wreak havoc ad hoc. You can participate in races, taxis, and first responder missions, but there’s nothing special here that wasn’t in GTA3 or is PSP exclusive.
The visuals of the game are pretty impressive, but there is a lot of slowdown and pop-ups. LCS pushes the system to its limits, and the amount of detail is crazy. There are reflections when it rains, tons of traffic and pedestrians, and large buildings loom over the horizon. The sound is great, and it feels like a living, breathing city despite how little interaction there is. But, on the surface, after the story is over, there’s no real reason to come back unless you just want to ride around, causing mayhem.
Overall, LCS is an incredible technical feat but is brought down by a mission structure not tailored for the handheld’s control system. It’s way too easy to die with missions that require sometimes dozens of enemies firing at you all at once, which leads to dozens of restarts and endless frustration. There’s a lot of slowdown and pop-in, and the radio stations start repeating after only a couple of hours, but that’s just the roughness of the original GTA open-world games. They weren’t perfect, but they were enjoyable thanks to their sense of freedom and great writing and character design. I recommend playing LCS, but keep the cheat sheet handy as you will need it since there are no difficulty options.
Max Payne 2 was released a little over a year after the original, and a surprising amount of fat was cut from the original. It’s the same game, but more refined and updated, and it feels more tightly woven than its predecessor. A lot of problems were fixed, but new ones arose as well. The narrative continues right after the first game, with Max still trying to avenge the deaths of his wife and child, still trying to get to the bottom of The Inner Circle, and a new love blooms: Mona Sax.
The game starts off similarly to the first game; we get some weird, trippy dream sequences, but they aren’t nearly as awful with zero platforming this time. Once you are in control of Max, you can instantly feel the difference. He has more weight, his animations are smoother, and the gunplay overall just feels punchier and sharper. More weapons were introduced, with many old ones coming back. The new M4 and Kalashnikov weapons are a great addition, but unnecessary. One assault rifle is good enough, as is the addition of the HP5, but the Ingrams do just fine for a submachine gun. While the older weapons pack more of a punch, the new weapons just feel like they were added just to add to the weapon count; less would have been fine. A new dedicated projectile button has been added, so you can throw grenades and molotovs without equipping them.
Bullet Time has been refined and fixed as well. Max can now spin around in a 360-degree motion while dodging, the bullets impact harder, and there’s less of a delay when you shoot. There is also better feedback on enemies when hit, as they stumble more and drop their weapons, so you know they’re dead in bullet time. Max can also stay lying down while continuing to empty a clip, so the delay in getting up doesn’t make you completely vulnerable as the first game did. The difficulty has been dialed way back, and I died a lot less than in the first game. All these great fixes and additions make Max Payne 2Â the better of the two games already.
When it comes to level design, Max Payne 2 has more interesting levels like a creepy funhouse, a sprawling mansion, a construction site, and some apartment slums, but there’s a lot of backtracking, and I feel the overall scope of the game feels claustrophobic. The variety is better, but you explore those few areas longer, and I just feel like I wanted to see more of New York inside this noir world Max lives in. Also, gone are the boss fights, so the game feels better paced, and I felt a tempo of gameplay going that the first didn’t have. However, the game is much shorter, clocking in at 4-5 hours. There aren’t any collectibles or anything like that, so once you fly through the game, it’s over, and there’s no reason to ever go back, honestly.
Max Payne 2 is a memorable ride. The story is still told in those awesome comic strips, and I feel that at the end of the game, we get to know Max and Mona well enough to understand their characters and want them on screen more. Their love story is a great centerpiece for this Mafia revenge tale, and it makes Max and Mona feel more human. There’s still a cliffhanger at the end of the story, and a third Max Payne game didn’t come until a decade later, but what we get is one of the best single-player shooters of the PS2/Xbox era. It’s tightly compacted and solid, and while it’s short, sometimes that means quality, and that is rare even to this day.
Bullet time. While The Matrix made it popular in pop culture, Max Payne started it all in the video game realm. You play a cop, Max Payne, who is framed for the murder of another NYPD cop. Your wife and newborn child were also murdered, and you are trying to get revenge on the people who did it. The story isn’t anything amazing, but Max Payne’s voice actor and the well-done writing keep you hooked long enough to find out what happened behind the scenes. The game is told in a comic noir graphic-novel style, and it suits the game well. The cut scenes are imaginative and different, and they don’t look cheap or like the developers were trying to take shortcuts.
Outside of the story, the gameplay is all about shooting, because that’s literally it. Max runs around with various weapons, such as Barrettas, Ingrams, shotguns, grenade launchers, Molotov cocktails, grenades, and assault rifles, to mow down the Mafia and corrupt cops. Bullet time is the main gameplay element here, and when activated, Max does a jump dodge in the direction you move, and you can see him dodging bullets in real-time. This is actually a mechanic you must master, as most situations require you to use it to stay alive. You can’t stand in one spot, or you will be dead in a few hits, and there’s no cover system. I had to quicksave every 2-3 minutes as well because the game is so difficult. It’s cool to jump dodge around a corner, but once Max lands, there’s a delay in him getting up, and you are completely vulnerable to gunfire. I had to make sure I jump dodged behind cover or across a hallway so I wouldn’t die the second the bullet time finished. You can also activate bullet time and just run your meter down so you can run and gun with it too.
There are very few scenarios in which you do more than press buttons. One scene has Max driving a crate crane around an area, but it’s nothing special, and there are some interactive objects that trigger comic-cut scenes, but 95% of the game is just shooting. The weapons themselves feel good, and I felt I had to switch up weapons depending on the situation to make my life easier. The locales are varied, but they are a bit too stale and boring for my taste. They don’t quite capture the noir feeling of the comic-cut scenes, but there is one level early on called Ragna Rock, which was a gothic cult house that reminded me a lot of Vampire: The Masquerade: Bloodlines, so that’s a good thing. The game really does feel like a first-generation PS2/Xbox game, but it’s very polished. The game flows nicely, but the difficulty is all over the place; you will die dozens and dozens of times in this game.
The visuals are clean and look nice even 20 years later. I installed a texture upgrade patch and some other things to make the game upscale to 4K nicely and play on modern hardware, and it looks pretty good. Even in the original, the facial textures are nice and very realistic, and the aesthetic of the game stands out over most shooters of its time. The voice acting is great, and I finished the game in about 7 hours. After you finish it, there’s literally nothing else to do, as the multiplayer mode was scrapped. It’s a fantastic single-player game that holds up well even today, despite its insane difficulty and unbalanced gameplay. The story isn’t anything special, but Max is a great character to dive into, and it makes for a fun evening.
Third-person action games were big on PS2, thanks to games like Devil May Cry. They were some of the largest games you could find on the system, and Bujingai followed that trend. The story is nonsensical and has almost no point. You’re following a former master around who has been possessed by a demon and has taken your girlfriend or something lame like that. Having almost no story isn’t a great way to start a game either.
One of the big draws with this game was the fact that the Japanese rockstar Gackt was involved, and I mean about as involved as showing up and grunting. Advertising someone as big as Gackt was at the time and only having him grunt and shout is a complete waste of talent. He has zero lines of dialogue and probably finished his whole recording session in a few hours. There isn’t even any music by Gackt in here, which is lame. With that said, the game is all about hacking and slashing, and there’s plenty of that.
The game consists of a quick and heavy attack as well as dodging and a defense meter that auto-blocks attacks until the meter is run down. 90% of the regular enemies are brain dead and are a cakewalk to slice through. As enemies die, you acquire orbs, which are used to upgrade various stats. You also have spells that are hidden throughout the levels and can be passive or active. I rarely use these, and most are not that powerful, but the passive attack increase spell wound up being the most useful. Lau, the main character, has some really nice animations, and the game is very flashy, but there are so many flaws that make this game a frustrating nightmare to play.
Something as simple as platforming is bogged down by an awful camera and finicky jumping mechanics. The character jumps in the direction the camera is facing, and the direction can’t be altered mid-air. This led to dozens of minutes just trying to get across a few platforms. You can wall run, glide, and wall jump, but they add to the chore and headache of platforming in this game. The combat solely relies on the lock-on mode, as the camera can’t keep up with the action. This proves extremely annoying during boss fights, and the final nail in the coffin is the uninterruptible animations that cause endless deaths and pointless damage. Lau will spin and slice, but one button press is a series of animations that must be played out before you can even dodge. Even if you time your attacks in between the enemies’ most of the time, you will still take damage because you can’t stop the attack. This also goes for the fall-down animations that take forever, and recovery is just as slow.
The level design is also very bland, with generic Japanese folklore-inspired enemies and repeated bosses. There’s not a soul in this game, as it just feels like a cookie-cutter Japanese game that tried to get sales with Gackt’s name. I honestly didn’t feel like there was any benefit to playing this game the entire time I played, and I couldn’t even finish the game due to how incredibly difficult it ended up being to just fight the animations and camera. I got to the second-to-last boss and had to just give up after 2 hours of trying. It also doesn’t help that orbs aren’t given out often enough to allow you to upgrade fully before reaching the final 8th stage. I like how if you die, you just restart the area you’re in instead of the entire level, but it means nothing if you can’t progress.
As it stands, Bujingai is a forgettable game with almost no point in existing. If you’re itching for a hardcore hack and slash that requires precise timing, then this might be for you, but there isn’t even a decent story to complete, and even Gackt fans have nothing to really gain here.
Ghost Recon has always been a part of my childhood, as it was one of my dad’s favorite games. While we only had the inferior PS2 versions, they were kind of fun to play and really challenging. The slow pace of crawling through enemy territory and deciding the best way to take them all out without dying after 3 shots could sometimes be quite rewarding, especially since this is what the series was popular for. GRAW carries this over to the PC version specifically, while the Xbox 360 version is faster-paced. I personally think this is a much inferior version, and the slower pace feels dated and boring.
After so many Ghost Recon games, it was exciting to get a new game in the series on the brink of brand new technology. While the PC version sure looks great, it uses a slightly different engine and is from a first-person perspective rather than a third, like the Xbox 360 version. Everything just feels completely different, such as enemies not staying tagged with the orange diamonds, and this became a real big problem. You get a drone in this game, but it’s tied to a tactical map rather than viewing it in real-time overhead. You can use basic commands to send squad members to an area and take out enemies, but you’re so blind, and the angle of the camera for the map is really strange and distorts your perspective. Many times my men died because I didn’t know what was ahead, and unless you play at a snail’s pace, you’re going to die a lot.
That also goes for your character. Two or three shots and you die, and the checkpoints are so infrequent and spread apart that it leads to many frustrations. The PC version should have a manual quick save feature, but it doesn’t. The character walks like a geriatric on a crutch or sprints as fast as a turtle. The maps are bland and void of any type of action or ambiance. Just plain walls, silos, warehouses, and blown-up cars. Once I did get a few bad guys tagged, I would send my guys out, but they strayed too far and the tags disappeared, which is really pointless. Just on the training map alone, I died maybe 6 or 7 times because it’s just so hard to see what’s coming up on a large open map. I need something like, I don’t know, my drone’s tags to stay up and I see where every bad guy is and either skip some or avoid certain areas.
At least giving commands is rather simple, as using the mouse wheel or number row tells your guys to stop, follow, attack, or carry out commands set on the map. However, the AI is weird, as sometimes my guys would pop people I never even saw and then not engage on tagged targets I told them to attack. They would just stand there and stare, sometimes get shot up, and tell me that the target wasn’t reachable. With all of this combined, this makes for a buggy and frustrating mess of a game that doesn’t exist on the Xbox 360 version. The snail’s pace alone isn’t fun, is boring and bland, and takes away all the character and amazing pace of the console version. Why Ubisoft tried to make the PC slower is beyond me, as I wanted the 360 version, maybe with better visuals. Even the art style is completely different, despite most of the maps and missions being the same.
Overall, GRAW on PC is a huge letdown, as Ubisoft thinks we want a slower, more boring game. It feels more like Rainbow Six than Ghost Recon, and it carries with it too many of the issues from past Ghost Recon games. Get rid of the slow pace and animations, make the AI better, and stop making up crawl around a massive map trying to pick off targets. It’s just not fun at all. Some people may love this, such as those who actually like boring tactical shooters that play at a crawl, but GRAW on PC just doesn’t cut it and shouldn’t exist when a superior version exists on Xbox 360.
Great post tthankyou