PlayStation 5

Sword of the Sea

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/22/2025
Posted in: PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Giant Squid

Developer: Giant Sqiud

Release Date: 08/19/2025


Available On

The magic of Journey has rarely been replicated. The fantastic audiovisual spectacle captured many gamers’ hearts and is one of the most memorable games I have ever played. Sword of the Sea can be considered the unofficial spiritual successor. There’s clearly some heavy inspiration from Journey here as well as its follow-up, Abzu. There’s also some Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater thrown in here, and before you close this review, keep reading. It sounds absurd, but by golly does it work. There’s not much of a narrative drive here. While Journey told a story through simple visuals and it worked, it still wasn’t what people remembered the game for. Sword of the Sea is about the journey. The sights and sounds are what you will remember and take with you. The sweeping soundtrack, gorgeous art design, and incredibly memorable design choices will make you talk about it for years to come.

Sword of the Sea is what Journey could have done if there was more power available from the PS3 and if the game was faster paced. The golden sands, luscious water, and sweeping vistas from Journey are all here. You play as a hero who uses a hoverboard and can move insanely fast across the landscape. The power of the current consoles allows for larger levels, further draw distance, and better physics. The magical part about Sword of the Sea is “rehydrating” (as I call it) areas by using your interact ability (very similar to Journey). This is done by lighting lanterns placed in a circle, and then the sand turns to water, and you can see through the water but can’t go into it. It’s incredibly magical once you rehydrate an entire area and it feels like you are underwater. Fish and marine life seem to fly through the air, and you can glide up kelp. You can bounce off jellyfish, grind giant chains, and boost through the air to find secrets for trophies. Exploration is all optional, including finding currency known as Tetra, which can be handed to a vendor to acquire optional abilities such as spin and jump tricks. It’s nice that all of this is optional, so most people can just enjoy the narrative while others can explore. Nothing bars progress so trophy hunters have something more to do. The control is fantastic with the hero moving at high speeds, but if you stop pressing the analog stick he will make a dead stop allowing for precise platforming.

There are various environments, from deserts to actual seas, a volcano, a ghostly ocean, and underwater caves, and various others. These are massive areas that are so beautiful and well-designed. In between each stage are scripted linear areas in which you ride a sea animal at high speed. You can dive in and out of sand and ice like water while hitting lanterns to activate water bubbles to hydrate the area. These also include scripted cinematic moments that will make your heart leap. There’s an ice level that has you climbing a massive mountain and jumping off of ramps, and flying hundreds of feet is exhilarating and never gets old. Optionally, you can perform tricks with the face buttons. This includes wall riding, half-pipes, and anything you can jump from. The overall score is tallied at the end of the game. I feel the trick system is more of an afterthought and isn’t as elaborate as something in THPS as there are just four basic tricks. I honestly only did tricks for the four optional trick event areas, and they are incredibly easy. You just need 10,000 points. As long as you don’t touch the ground, you can keep your multiplier going by bouncing on jellyfish, wall riding, and boosting in the air.

Outside of all of the optional content, which I recommend doing on your first run, you can do a new game plus with all of the upgrades you bought and can just speed run through the game and enjoy the cinematics and scripted events more. This is definitely a game that would be enjoyed by multiple play-throughs. The feeling of seeing the levels transform from desolate to beautiful is something I haven’t felt since Okami, when you make a large tree bloom and the entire area bursts with color and life. The soundtrack is equally beautiful, with swells during cinematic moments and calming vocal chants during exploration. Each level has its own song, and I highly recommend listening outside of the game as well.

This is a game of moving art. The amount of work that went into the level design and everything surrounding it is astounding, trumping even AAA titles with their multi-million dollar budgets. This is a game you won’t forget. Play it on your nicest display (preferably an OLED), turn off the lights, and watch your room burst with color and life as you bring life back to this desolate world of sand and death.

Reviewed On

Among Ashes

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/16/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Dojo System/Selecta Play

Developer: Ratcliff Games

Release Date: 12/09/24


Available On

The concept of a video game taking over real life isn’t just a metaphor. There have been numerous instances where excessive gameplay has resulted in fatalities. But what about a game literally invading the real world? Is it actually real or a hallucination of the main character? Among Ashes explores this idea of a late 90s to early 2000s setting of a real game taking over the protagonist’s life. You play as a nameless gamer who ends up playing some indie game that his friend found and sends you the link over MSN Messenger (it’s MSN; it even has the same chimes and sounds). You can use the computer with a Windows 98 style setup. It’s not super interactive, but you can click links that open a web browser to a forum. The game inside the game is called Night Call. It’s a lost game from a developer that ends up putting it on this horror fan forum. You, of course, play this game along with your friend, and every so often you will go back and forth on the messenger talking about events in the game and what’s happening in real life.

Among Ashes is a melding of genres. It starts out as a Resident Evil clone with PS1 style graphics in a first-person perspective. You arrive at a mansion and are greeted by the maid. You make your way upstairs to talk to the resident doctor about reports of a woman screaming. Of course, this leads to puzzles, wandering around aimlessly with no direction, and combat. Combat consists of beating enemies over the head with a baton. You can block, which helps, but you also get a shotgun and revolver at certain points. It’s best to save the ammo for when you are surrounded by enemies, but I also recommend playing with a guide. There is a hedge maze that’s incredibly confusing to navigate, enemies respawn (they don’t die permanently), and there are typical lock puzzles, math puzzles, gathering hints puzzles, switch flipping puzzles, and so on. There are even a few chase scenes and a maze-like cave system with an enemy chasing you towards the end, and you have to flip switches and open gates. It’s frustrating and doesn’t add the right kind of tension to the game.

There are a couple of other game types thrown in here. There’s a game within the game of Night Call that’s for the Commodore 64. It’s an 8-bit action game that is required to play to advance the story. It’s not good, it’s repetitive, and it can get really hard sometimes. You only get three hits and you’re dead, and enemies can swarm you. There’s also an FPS Doom clone you can play inside the game, which is pretty bad, but it gets the point across. I will say that the game nails tension and atmosphere, and the monster designs are pretty insane. I love the scares here too. There are a couple of jump scares and just subtle scares, such as a monster staring at you through a gate. Not every scare is in your face. Some can be missed if you aren’t paying attention.

When you get up from your computer in the real world, it almost feels like a breath of fresh air, but things get crazy here too. Objects appear, things become rearranged, and you are very quiet. It was also refreshing when your friend would IM you, as the game feels very isolated, which is a good thing that it nails. I felt very alone, and any sign or hint of another person was so relieving despite how brief it was. The last act of the game falls into the usual indie horror trope of doing crazy things like constantly changing rooms, teleporting you to different locations, recycling older locations, etc. At least, the story maintains coherence throughout and doesn’t deviate significantly towards the conclusion.

Outside of the great atmosphere and tension, the game just lacks in the actual gameplay department. It’s not fun to play, and the mechanics, while trying to be purposefully bad to fit the type of game it’s trying to emulate, just aren’t done well. Respawning enemies, confusing mazes, obtuse puzzles, and weird boss fights that don’t feel good are all over the place. I liked the story; the Web 1.0 feeling on the PC is nailed perfectly, and the tension is there. I just wish this was wrapped up into an actual fun game to play. Thankfully, it’s over in 3-4 hours.

Reviewed On

Gears of War: Reloaded

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/12/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios

Developer: The Coalition

Release Date: 08/26/2025


Available On

As much as I love Gears of War, and for how iconic and revolutionary it was at the time, it doesn’t need three remasters. Yes, that’s right. It was already remastered before with the 2015 Ultimate Edition release. It was originally released on PC for the first time under the Games for Windows banner and featured DirectX 10 updated visuals and a brand-new chapter in Act IV that involved taking down a Brumak. The Ultimate Edition was already disappointing to some, but having the game further remastered was still nice, and I ate it up. Here we are a decade later, and the impossible has happened. Gears of War is now on PlayStation. This is the second most coveted Xbox franchise next to Halo. How could this possibly be? What kind of timeline have we jumped to? Well, if Xbox’s current downfall isn’t enough to spell it out, then I will. Microsoft is losing money on their GamePass feature as well as the Activision buyout and needs to desperately get their games on more systems. That’s okay, as the PS5 Pro version is the best console version.

With the shock aside, at least the price tag is nice. For $40 you get a remaster and a full multiplayer suite. For those who never played Gears of War, they are in for a real treat. For me, this is the fifth playthrough (twice on Xbox 360, once on PC, once on Xbox One S, and once on Xbox One X for the Ultimate Edition). The Ultimate Edition is also currently broken on PC and the original release has long since been taken down. So, outside of Xbox, this is the best offer for PC and PS5 players. The campaign is still fantastic despite how short it is, and its age is showing. Shooters back in the mid-2000s were still maturing, and we were still in the linear hallway shooter phase. The game still looks fantastic, and while nearly every game that used Unreal Engine 3 of the era was compared to Gears of War, it was the granddaddy of “grey and brown” games. This was on purpose. You are thrust in the middle of a war on a fictional planet called Sera (Earth is never mentioned), and a new beast called the Locust has emerged, committing full-blown genocide. It’s up to Marcus Fenix and the four-man Delta Squad to deliver a lightmass bomb to destroy their tunnels and stop them for good.

Gears of War was applauded back in the day for its fantastic cover system and level design. Marcus snaps into cover with ease. He can switch covers close to each other, roll out of cover, and use the Roadie Run feature, which brings the camera down near his legs while he crouch sprints for a cinematic effect. Gears of War was all about feeling like a movie. The over-the-shoulder camera perspective was heavily inspired by Resident Evil 4, and it works well here. When you aim your gun, the camera zooms closer, right up to Marcus’ face. It was something that was never seen before at the time of release. Gears also pioneered the Active Reload mechanic in which you need to press the reload button at the right time, and any bullets reloaded in that clip do extra damage. You will eventually have muscle memory of this feature and rarely ever miss. If you do, the gun will jam, and you will need to wait a few seconds before firing or switching weapons. It’s an awesome feature.

Gears‘ weapons are also well designed and perfectly balanced. The default Lancer Assault Rifle, an iconic weapon now, shoots large clips, has surprisingly good accuracy, and has a chainsaw mounted on the bottom. You can rev this up and saw an enemy in half. Even 19 years later this never gets old. The gib system is satisfying, with enemies exploding into chunks from grenades or getting sawed in half. One other feature that was well regarded was the sound effects. Gears of War has a distinct sound system and has never been replicated. The crunchy sounds of the guns, the reaction of enemies getting hit (which was a big deal) from enemies getting gibbed by grenades, or the subtle sound effect of “one more hit and you’re dead, so get into cover.” Gears of War took a page from Halo and featured a recovery system for health. A red Gears logo slowly appears in the center of the screen as you get hit. On higher difficulties (I cleared this on Hard, but not the hardest), it requires patience, careful flanking of enemies, and using the right weapons. The PS5 DualSense adds a layer to that crunchiness of the weapons. The adaptive triggers and vibration work wonders allowing to now actually “feel” how the weapons should be. This can’t be experienced on Xbox.

The level design requires you to flank enemies and close emergence holes. Tossing a chain grenade into a hole will close it up and stop respawning. They don’t infinitely respawn, but only killing two that crawled is better than waiting for all six. The Locusts are formidable foes and well designed. Not only do they look menacing, but each one has a design language that tells you how to approach them. Enemies can wear helmets, meaning headshots won’t work right away, and the Theron Guard have full armor, which takes longer to take down. The bigger Boomers have Boomshot grenade launchers and are bullet sponges. Then there are the occasional enemies like the Wretches, which are small ape-like creatures that come in swarms. There are Berserkers, which can only be taken down by a Hammer of Dawn, which is a satellite-guided laser. It’s freaking cool despite only being used three times in the game. The Berserker can’t see but can hear you, so you need to guide it around with sound to knock walls down to open up the roof for the satellite to triangulate. It’s neat.

The downside to Gears of War, and the aging part, is not only how linear it is, but also how sparse the story is and how little is explained. While the game is greatly expanded upon in the sequels, and especially the novels, it just feels like it’s over too soon. You want to get to know Delta Squad more. Their personalities are great and well written. Marcus has a dark past (why was he in prison at the beginning of the game?). Dom is trying to find his missing wife but is only mentioned a couple of times. Cole is an ex-football player, but his past isn’t talked about at all, and neither is Baird, who is the nerdy smart guy of the squad. It makes sense that in the heat of this war, going point to point with no breathing room means there’s no time to get to know anyone. Thankfully, this was changed in later sequels, but it’s just odd that this isn’t a remaster of the entire trilogy. The banter between the squad is great, and many new players will want to know more.

There are also some other things that didn’t age well, like some of the clutter in the levels. There are random chairs, stoves, and home appliances kind of haphazardly strewn about in ways that make no sense. The entire game is built like a video game and not like a world people would live in. Some areas just don’t make any sense. I don’t feel like I’m fighting in a city but a video game level. Despite how much Gears wanted to be taken seriously, its world-building is really lacking. Thankfully, the campaign is less than 6 hours long, and you can play with a buddy in co-op; that’s always fun. Just don’t give up on the series yet if you have never played it before. There is more to come. There also aren’t a whole lot of weapons in this game. The arsenal is small, and you will mostly stick to a couple of guns. I also hate how useless the Boltok pistol feels in this game. It’s the only weapon with no feedback when it hits enemies, and the snub pistol is pretty much MIA after the first act.

The multiplayer suite is…fine. I was never a fan of Gears multiplayer. I feel the gameplay doesn’t translate well when fighting against others. There are also some of the better modes from later games missing like Horde. Many will get frustrated with cheap deaths like the rolling shotgun blast. It does feel like an old-school shooter with regular modes that are missing in most of today’s games, so some players will find this refreshing in a world of Call of Dutys and Fortnites. This is an unnecessary remaster to begin with. The game runs smoothly on PS5 Pro at 120 FPS with no dips. The game uses the Pro’s PSSR and there are enhanced textures and lighting. It looks pretty much identical to the PC version. At least, I couldn’t tell the difference. If you’re new to the series or are a hardcore fan, I would say the low price is worth it. While the campaign will only last an evening, the multiplayer may be enough for people to keep coming back.

Reviewed On

120hz Output Mode

Mafia: The Old Country

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/07/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: 2K Games

Developer: Hangar 13

Release Date: 08/08/2025


Available On

Open-world games have become stale and boring. It appears that developers are merely creating open worlds without any enjoyable activities within them. Mafia’s open world is deceptive but beautiful, refreshing but also sort of pointless. Mafia tries to go back to its roots, literally, by bringing us to the times before the Italian mafia came to the USA. The Old Country subtitle is exactly that. This is a prequel to the original game before any family made it to Empire Bay. We play as Enzo Favara. An orphan miner who has been enslaved by a mafia family to work until he seems like he will die. The first chapter of the game introduces us to various characters, combat, and essentially a tutorial area. You will notice the game is very cinematic, with a lot of dialogue and cut scenes and scripted gameplay.

I hope you like scripted events because they are everywhere and there are a lot of them, and it’s mostly that. I personally felt this was refreshing. There was less emphasis on pointless mind numbing fetch missions. However, the game was clearly incomplete and cut off at some point during development. The open world is nothing but a tease and a backdrop to go from mission to mission. There’s nothing here. The world is literally empty of anything to do outside of a few missions, like finding new upgrades and upgrade statues. You can listen to dialogue with characters while riding in cars or on horses to missions, but after that you can just skip to the destination. This is one of the most pointless open worlds in any modern game. There’s no traffic, no people, and no real towns outside the main town, San Celeste. I honestly didn’t mind this. I was just surprised at how this game didn’t really need an open world. This is a shame because the first generation of cars around is really cool, and the horse back riding works well too.

With that said, the main attraction is the characters, and it’s some of the best this year. Every character is full of life, and I really wanted to know more about them all thanks to the tight writing and amazing script. Enzo is a great character to get behind. He’s humble, not perfect, but very loyal. His love interest ends up being the Don’s daughter, Isabella. She’s a great character to get behind too and ends up becoming the most important character in the game without giving spoilers away. The game’s story flows similarly to other mob stories such as The Godfather and The Sopranos. There’s a similar ebb and flow to everything and constant danger always being present and around every corner. Some might say that Mafia doesn’t tread new ground, but that’s okay. There are some stereotypical setups, like two rival mobs needing to make amends, love interests getting put on the back seat, the Don’s blood relative being a total douche nozzle (Cesare), and so on.

The gameplay features some excellent gunplay. There aren’t many guns in the game, but you will constantly swap between them based on your situation. Additionally, the game includes effective stealth mechanics. You can hold two weapons at a time and always have a knife on hand. The knife is a more fleshed-out mechanic than in most games, as knife fights are a big part of the combat. Boss fights consist of one-on-one knife duels similar to a sword fight. You can parry, break blocks, and do heavy and light attacks. It seems simple at first and feels more like a whack-a-mole style system, but there are enough moves here that require you to use quick reflexes. When a red flash appears, you can dodge and then counterattack. Regular attacks can be parried, and of course you can slash to your heart’s content. It’s not overused and is mainly reserved for boss fights, so I never got tired of them. In the middle of the fight, a scripted cinematic will play out too. The main focus of the combat in this game is shooting.

Shooting feels really good, which it didn’t in previous Mafia games. You can hide behind cover and blind fire as well as pop out and shoot enemies. It’s best to go for headshots here, as only a few shots will kill you. You can hold up to two bandages to heal, and you will chew through these fast. Weapons like revolvers, shotguns, and rifles are all on board, so nothing fancy or crazy. You can toss molotovs and grenades too. Once an enemy is down, you can loot their body for cash and ammo. Stealth gameplay works here because enemy placement isn’t random and you can track patrol patterns. Many areas can be done without killing anyone, but the added addition of throwing your knife is a great feature. Only a specific type of knife can be thrown. When you select your arsenal layout, you can choose different knives that deteriorate slower than others. A thrown knife must be recovered, or you lose it for that mission. You can use sharpening stones to bring your deterioration bar back up. You also use your knife for opening doors, locks, and boxes full of loot, so you need to use it wisely.

There are some minor RPG elements here. You can’t level up or anything, but you can equip charms that add passive abilities such as carrying more ammo, reducing knife deterioration rates, making your footsteps less obvious, etc. You can equip up to six, but four need to be unlocked by buying slots at the store. There is only one store in the game, and you must drive there each time, which I find frustrating. Here you can unlock weapons, clothing, and customization items for your cars. I find this all pointless, as the story missions give you weapons when they are needed, and driving cars has a minimal impact on gameplay. One of the biggest gripes I have is that the story introduces these open-world concepts to you, but you can’t drive around except during a few missions. This means you can only visit the store a few times during the game, and once the story is over, there’s no point in continuing unless you want to get every achievement in the game.

Despite the open-world portion of the game feeling half-baked, I enjoyed my 12 hours with Mafia. This may seem too short for some, but the story was satisfying, and I felt like I could go back and get the few collectibles that were left at a later time. For anyone wanting an authentic Mafia experience, they will be disappointed in everything but the story. The combat has undergone significant enhancements, and the visuals are outstanding. I also loved the authentic voice acting for the characters. They have weight and authenticity behind their roles. We don’t get video game stories like this very often anymore.

Reviewed On

Horizon: Forbidden West

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 09/04/2025
Posted in: Blogs, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: PlayStation Studios

Developer: Guerrila

Release Date: 02/18/2022


Available On

We have a lot of post-apocalyptic games right now. A lot of them are what the world is like shortly after the apocalypse. Usually a few years or decades. Horizon is one that shows what the world could be like thousands of years after one, and this fascinates me even more. Zero Dawn was a hard game to get into. It was slow to start, even slower to get good, and the combat just wasn’t all that great, including the stealth. Aloy is a fantastic main protagonist and one of Sony’s best in years. She’s strong, not cliche or stereotypical, and has a striking design. Sadly, she was the only memorable character in Zero Dawn. Forbidden West tries to remedy a lot of this by giving us a bolder and grander adventure and more refined mechanics, but does it succeed?

The game doesn’t exactly expect you to have played the first game and catches you up on the story so far, and kind of does throughout the entire game. Zero Dawn’s story only got interesting during the last few missions of the game, and it kind of exposition dumped on you during a few long cutscenes. It was interesting, but not very nuanced. Here, the story is kind of retold as you continue your adventure to stop Sylens and the Hephaestus AI from destroying the world. The game does start slow…again. You end up dealing with another warring tribe before getting to the heart of the story and saving the planet. Honestly, I lost interest in the game for a couple of years because of this. I put around 8 hours into the game, mostly trying to explore and get into the game mechanics again, but it just dragged. I highly recommend just doing the story before doing any side content, as you really need more of the special gear and higher-tier armor and weapons. You will constantly hit blocks, and it will frustrate you early on. The story itself takes around 20-25 hours to complete. By the end you will be around level 30 or so and have really good gear.

I don’t want to spoil much of the story, but your main goal is to help the GAIA AI to take back control of the various terraforming systems that Zero Dawn launched as the end is nigh. There are a few small plot twists, some new factions, and a great buildup to a pretty damn good story by the end of it all. There’s a lot of science fiction thrown in, and it talks about interstellar travel and whatnot, and I was hooked. There aren’t choices in the game like in most action games, but you do get dialog trees that let you optionally listen to more exposition and backstory. There’s a lot of this, by the way. Just metric tons of optional dialogue, audio recordings, and texts. They really wanted to sell this story and flesh it out as much as possible, and they did a pretty good job. It’s very believable and feels grounded and almost like it can happen. There are moments that got intense in the story where you weren’t sure how Aloy and her companions would get out of hairy situations. I really like what they did here, and there’s potential to now expand on this even further and branch off into other subgenres.

The writing is much better this time around with less cringy dialogue and corny lines; however, the character design is still generic. All of Aloy’s allies are either just generic characters or have good writing and personality, but their looks are generic. For example, Alva is a great character in writing, but she still looks generic. Varl and Zo are forgettable, and Erand is a stereotypical biker personality who discovers he likes drinking and “Death Metal”. All of the miscellaneous characters who give side quests and errands are pretty generic. I just didn’t care for most of them. Some other characters are more decent, like Kotallo, who is missing an arm and is battling his honor. They have some great personality, and I could get behind them. It’s better, but not quite there yet.

With the story out of the way, let’s dive into the combat. I still don’t love it. You’ll be dodging and rolling out of the way of these machine creatures. I feel there’s too much focus on ranged combat when most of the machines attack you up close. There is less stealth in this game and more up-close melee, but you still only have heavy and light melee attacks. If you sneak around, you can do a stealth kill, but you need to be at or above the area’s level to do instant kills. Humans are always instant kills, but machines not so much. There are many ranged weapons at your disposal that can set tripwire traps, semi-automatic arrows, long-range arrows, bomb slings, javelins, etc. These can all be equipped with coils that inflict various elemental ailments, such as corrosion to eat away at armor. The quickest way to take a machine down is to use your Focus to highlight weak spots and target those. You can slow down time (and this meter increases with various stat boosts), but I never felt in control of fights. Boss fights require tons of health potions and either having the right weapons or blasting them with everything you have. You can craft more ammo in the weapon wheel too.

Stealth still consists of hiding in tall grass, and you can use combat augments from the upgrade tree like an invisibility cloak. The upgrade tree now has more branches on the tree, such as trapper, hunter, infiltrator, warrior, etc. While enemy placement is a bit better this time around, I still found stalking around massive camps to be nearly impossible. When you get seen, the enemy and nearby enemies are on alert, and it takes forever for them to go back to patrol. With the heavier focus on direct combat, it was easier to just wipe everyone out. Find a heavy weapon and you can take out an entire camp with it. Combat does feel improved with a couple more weapon types, but melee fighting is still limited, and combat just isn’t my favorite in this series. I prefer exploring more than anything.

And with that, exploring is abundant here. The map is massive, too massive. It’s a truncated version of the West of the US. The Pacific Northwest (Washington, Oregon), Nevada desert, San Francisco coastlines (Northern California), and Las Vegas. They took all of these biomes and shrunk them down onto a single map. What’s here is a lot of nothing. While there are tons of side quests, errands, missions, and things to find, Forbidden West falls into the same tired trappings of modern open-world games. Too much bloat and not enough focus on what’s interesting. Everything outside of the main story is just for getting the platinum trophy. The side quests are given by companions, so those are more story related, but everything else is just filler to extend game time. I did like doing the Tallneck missions. These are one of the few less generic-looking machines in the game, but there are only five, with one being part of a main mission. These reveal more of the world and reveal large landmarks in an area, but there’s still some fog of war.

Traversing this larger map requires you to have a mount. I forwent them in the last game, as it wasn’t a very big map, but here they’re a must. You can bypass most machine herds and get to where you need to go, plus you can now fly on winged machines this time around, but not until the last act of the game. This makes doing side content so much easier, and you can pretty much avoid all herds this way. However, I do have a problem with platforming in this game. This game is just way too context sensitive, and that’s another problem with modern gaming right now. These large AAA games are so context heavy that it can make things feel sluggish and cause many glitches. Jumping and climbing in Horizon is not great. Animations are too long; Aloy will jump when not told, and she won’t grab onto ledges despite jumping right towards them; she will just fall through ropes and other objects. A lot of long platforming segments required many restarts just because something went wrong. You have to be lined up perfectly, or things won’t connect. I fell through objects and got stuck; she would swing half her body through a wall, and I would jump right past a pole or beam for no reason and then land it the next time around. It sucks.

And with that we can talk about visuals. Forbidden West is still one of the best-looking games of all time. The visuals are stunning, and even in performance mode, they look great. I played in balanced mode with 120 Hz turned on, and it was the best way to go. There is so much detail everywhere, from small facilities that look like they were abandoned for thousands of years to lush forests and dry deserts. There’s so much detail everywhere, including the new large underwater areas. While I still feel parts of the game feel generic, like the overall futuristic look of the game. It’s a lot of shiny metal, smooth gel like metal, white, gold, triangles, etc.; it feels like stuff that’s been done to death in games like Deus Ex: Mankind Divided, Mass Effect: Andromeda, Echo, etc. It was fine the first time around, but this futuristic style is getting old. We need a refresh. I also don’t care for the machine designs. They look like generic Transformer animals. Even the tribal armor all looks generic and the same after a while.

Despite all of that, the game has a fascinating story, a large beautiful world to explore, and some decent gameplay loops of side content. I just wish the combat was tighter and the platforming didn’t suck. The writing is better, and some of the main characters are better, but most of the other characters you run into are forgettable and generic.

Reviewed On

Balanced and Quality Mode

Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways (2023)

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/27/2025
Posted in: iOS, Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Mobile Reviews, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Capcom

Developer: Capcom

Release Date: 09/21/2023


Available On

Have you always wanted to know how certain things happen in Resident Evil 4? Why did Leon escape from situations at the right moment, or why did the odds of him surviving certain encounters seem unusual? Some of those questions are answered in Separate Ways. This is the side content from the original game remade for 2023. You play as Ada Wong here. She’s such a fascinating character, and despite being an early childhood crush, I found I appreciated her more endearing qualities as an adult. She’s mysterious and bold, doesn’t take crap from anyone, but is still fighting a moral quandary within herself. She wants to be a bad guy, but not that bad. She also has a hankering for Leon, and their sexual tension ratchets up here more than any other time.

Separate Ways is more of a remix of the main game than anything really new. New battlefields are usually above or in Leon’s old areas. Sometimes you will notice he’s cleaned up the place or destroyed an area before you get there. One such area is after the church bell tower fell in the main village. You go through the game in the same order, but at a rapid speed. Ada has a grappling hook in her arsenal to traverse the high ground. She can also use this to get closer to enemies quicker for a finisher and rip shields off of enemies. This is even used during the boss fight with El Gigante. She can swing up and fight on top of buildings, giving her an advantage. Ada also has access to the shopkeeper and a small repertoire of guns. She starts out with the Punisher MC pistol and the TMP. She’s all about close quarters combat. You can eventually get the M1903 rifle and the much better Stingray toward the end, but you will most likely always be charging in to get close. You can get access to the shotgun as well, but shells are really rare and take 12 gunpowder to create just 6 shells. Although it won’t be useful frequently, it can save you in an emergency. Save it for dispersing large crowds or for tougher enemies.

Ada also gets a few side quests, such as her very own medallion mission and fetching various items. There’s plenty of treasure lying around, and gemstones can be inlaid into valuable items to make them worth more. Be on the lookout for hanging treasure pots and chests everywhere. You will need those Pesos. You can use Spinel gems to trade for passive keychains to add to your cache to increase stats such as sprint speed, damage, and defense. I didn’t end up using any of these, as they are expensive, and the DLC’s short run time means you’re better off upgrading your pistol, TMP, and buying new weapons. I did end up with the Red9 towards the end and spent most of my money on upgrading those two weapons, as the ammo is most plentiful for them. I only used the bow a few times, but bolts use knives, and these are better suited for stabbing enemies on the ground before the Las Plagas pops out of their head. You will also need to get out of tight situations, and you can sneak around some areas and pick off some enemies too. Here it’s best to be resourceful, as ammo is scarce, and so are healing items, more so than in the main game.

Ada does run into her fair share of bosses, but not all of them are attacked head-on. One boss is a chase scene through a facility, while some are recycled from the main game but remixed a bit. I found the constant scraping for supplies, upgrading, crafting, and looking for treasure to be just as fun as the main game. It was nice seeing new areas and having some questions answered. Ada is a great on-screen presence and is one of my favorite female video game characters of all time. Her new voice actress does a good job making her sound emotionless and stern, but when emotion needs to break through, she can’t quite seem to land it. Emotions like surprise and slight fear just don’t come across well. Ada is almost like a robot by design, but she does have her humanity peek through from time to time, and that makes her such an awesome character. She’s not as evil as Wesker, but a nice in-between.

Overall, Separate Ways is a fantastic DLC that does everything right. Coming in at 4-5 hours of run time, it’s enough for a nice evening playthrough and to see the other side of RE4 that Leon can’t access. There are no upgraded visuals or anything like that with this, and there’s nothing inherently new or unique. It’s a remix of RE4 and that’s fine.

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Keyboard & Mouse

It Takes Two

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 08/17/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: EA

Developer: Hazelight Studios

Release Date: 03/26/2021


Available On

I’m not really a co-op person. I do not consider myself a person who typically engages in cooperative gaming. I was raised among friends who did not share a strong interest in video games, and when they did, it was not in the genres I preferred. I have always been inclined towards single-player experiences. It Takes Two is the first co-op-only game that has motivated me to seek out a partner for gameplay, even though it took me four years to complete it. I was always a single-player kid. It Takes Two is the first co-op-only game that has pushed me to find someone to play multiplayer games with, even if it took me four years to finally finish. I started the game out with my wife and finished it off with my youngest sister. Couch co-op is something that builds bonds and memories, and this is one of those games. The story takes a backseat to fantastic gameplay that is always changing with incredible level design.

The story is the worst part of the game, and not for the reason you think. It’s poorly written. Painfully written. The idea itself is fine on paper. You are a married couple (Cody and May) going through a borderline divorce when your child gets the troubling news and uses her handmade dolls to act out her parents getting along again. Both of you drift off to sleep, finding yourself in a world akin to Pixar’s, where everything is grandiose and seemingly insignificant details are conspiring against you. One of the most annoying characters ever conceived in pixels is a therapist in the shape of a book called Dr. Hakim, who is a racist Mexican stereotype. His dialog is cringy and awful, and he’s just so incredibly annoying. Whenever he was on screen, my wife would use her phone, or my sister would walk away. I also don’t like how Cody and May’s relationship seemingly never evolves despite these harrowing acts they go through. Each level should typically show some change in their relationship, and relying on a monkey-in-the-middle remediator is quite frustrating. This is one of my least favorite video game stories ever. It’s just incredibly horrid.

Outside of that, the game is a delight to play. Each level is unique and full of charm, such as the garden level with enemies that are different flora and the attic level, which has you walking and bouncing on instruments that make real sounds. Each level gives Cody and May a unique ability they must use to puzzle-solve and use for combat. Not every level has combat, but every one has a lot of platforming and puzzle solving. The first level’s vacuum cleaner, for example, is a delight, and another level uses a honey cannon backpack. The game is played in split-screen, so you must work together to solve everything. In some areas, one character is needed to get through. The puzzles constantly change, and each ability is used to its fullest.

There are some mini-games spread out throughout the game that are more like “toys” and don’t really do anything. They are marked with a tambourine floating above them. Some range from getting points by shooting cannons at blocks to long jumps off of swings to a chess game. They are interesting but slow the game and have no rewards. These are good ideas, but the winner should get a reward, like a damage boost. Most of the time we would just play once for a couple of minutes and move on.

Combat, on the other hand, is really annoying and not excellent. Balancing is an issue here. Occasionally, an excessive number of enemies will attack you, resulting in both of you dying and necessitating a restart of the area. If one player dies, they can revive by mashing a button, but if both die, it’s over. We died more in combat than any other time, and everything is too chaotic to monitor your life meter. I would get pummeled and wailed on as a passive ability character waiting for my partner to take out the baddies or expose the weak point of an enemy or boss while smaller enemies just annihilated us. This problem isn’t a skill issue either. Additionally, the absence of a lock-on button increases frustration during gameplay.

The visuals themselves are fantastic. Each level feels unique while grounded in realism. The unique dreamlike and cartoonish visuals provide a Pixar vibe, and they are a sight to behold. The explosion of everything, from everyday objects to skyscraper-sized buildings, is truly captivating. However, some levels, like the dream level at the midway point, seem overly lengthy. There is a hub area, and you branch off to different sub-levels, but it seems to go on forever. Then, later on, I felt like a single character’s ability was underutilized. The attic level had me barely doing anything for my partner. The balancing in this game is significantly flawed, but it can be overlooked.

Overall, It Takes Two is a must-play for anyone remotely interested in co-op games. The story, characters, and writing are both awful and rote, but the gameplay is why you will stay. The visuals are incredibly charming and imaginative, and the combat requires each player to assist each other at every single turn and puzzle. Combat is too simple and chaotic to be very fun or engaging, but there’s not a lot of it. The game is a pretty decent length, clocking in at 8 hours or so.

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American Arcadia

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 06/29/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Verification, Steam Deck Verified, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Raw Fury

Developer: Out of the Blue

Release Date: 11/15/2023


Available On

There’s been an ever-increasing discourse between the people and corporate America. American Arcadia takes the worst of the present and shows us the ugly side of being slaves to mega corporations. With clear inspiration from The Truman Show and Walt Disney’s vision of “The World of Tomorrow” and his original vision of Disney EPCOT, American Arcadia is a dystopian trip down 70’s lane with fantastic voice acting, a riveting story, and excellent pacing.

You play as two main protagonists. Trevor Hills and Angela Solano. The game has two perspectives. Trevor’s gameplay is a 2D side-scrolling platformer similar to games like Limbo and Inside, and Angela’s more puzzle-heavy first-person sections have inspiration from 70s spy movies, not too dissimilar from No One Lives Forever, but without any shooting. Angela is a stage tech for the corporation Walton Media (clearly a dig at the Walt Disney Company) who ends up being recruited by an activist group called Breakout, and you end up helping Trevor escape where he lives while trying to shut down the corporation. The game’s pacing is fantastic. The game consistently presents fresh scenarios, never growing stale or monotonous. The story continuously moves and evolves as you play, with events unfolding for each character while you control the other. Many times there will be cool split-screen sections in which you need to do tasks with Angela while controlling Trevor on her monitor. I don’t want to give away too much plot to have the explanation make more sense, but it’s really cool and well done.

Trevor and Angela are likeable characters, and while not super original, they leave an impact, including on the villains. There are sections of the game that teach you organically about the world of American Arcadia, including the lives of Angela and Trevor. Trevor’s sections are full of fast-paced platforming and push puzzles. These are not super complicated, but they are fun and help break up the chase scenes. Angela’s sections include quite a few puzzle types, from sliding puzzles and quizzes to some that are completely unique. This includes mostly hacking things to help Trevor get through areas. This was one of my favorite gameplay ideas. You can press a button to enter the camera mode. The feature changes the perspective of Trevor’s sections, and you must manipulate electronics around him to get past guards and obstacles. Every single scene gives you something new. I can’t state that enough. There were a couple of frustrating sections in which I realized I was analyzing the scene wrong. I made mistakes such as jumping onto the incorrect platform and running in the incorrect direction. Nothing was ever so annoying that I wanted to quit playing. I do think the game should have given a couple of hints if you keep doing the same thing over and over and dying, but again, it’s not a big deal.

Visually, the game has a fantastic sense of style. Inside of Arcadia, the world is stuck in the 70s. There are a lot of panning vistas of cool interior designs while Angela is in the present day, and it’s all less captivating to look at. I’m not a fan of the character designs. They are very blocky with no noses. It’s a bit off-putting, but the rest of the game looks excellent. I feel the biggest issue is that the game is too short. Depending on how much you struggle with the larger puzzles, you can finish the game in about 4-5 hours. While the entire game is explained well and feels like nothing is left out, I wanted to know more about Angela’s childhood and backstory, as we get to know mostly about Walton Media and Trevor.

As it stands, American Arcadia is one of the best games in this category. With constantly evolving gameplay ideas, fantastic voice acting, a riveting story with twists and turns, and a delightful art style, there’s not much you can’t like. Going between Trevor’s 2D sections and Angela’s first-person sections is a lot of fun, and you never know what’s coming next.

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While We Wait Here

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 03/31/2025
Posted in: Mac, Microsoft Consoles, Nintendo Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unknown, Steam Deck Verification, Switch, Xbox One, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Bad Vice Games

Developer: Bad Vice Games

Release Date: 10/23/2024


Available On

Retro-style games are booming right now, especially those with PS1-style graphics. Their limited capabilities are excellent for giving a certain vibe and atmosphere and are especially popular with horror games. While We Wait Here isn’t exactly a horror title, it does have a dark tone and theme. This is a story that begins near the conclusion and works its way backwards to tell everyone’s story. You are a couple who owns a diner in a small town in the middle of nowhere out in the Heartland of America. There’s no specific location given, and the entire area is generic, but it feels like somewhere out in the Midwest near Tornado Alley.

You are a couple who are about to move out of town and sell their diner. Lisa’s father owned this diner, and she assisted him in running it as a child. You meet Alex, your husband, while working at the diner as an adult. The game is a strange mix of horror, adventure, walking simulator elements, and restaurant sim similar to Diner Dash. However, the integration of the simulation elements with the rest of the story and game is so compelling that I found it impossible to stop playing. I played the entire game in one sitting. The writing is tight and well done, and the characters are very intriguing. Each character ends up at the diner, and you hear their conversations while cooking and play a 10-15 minute segment about their lives before arrival. The characters include two punk rock best friends who are constantly shushing each other about a secret, a couple with a newborn baby, a workaholic old man, and a peculiar and paranoid local.

Your story with Alex is eventually told, and I can’t really give any other details about the story, as it could spoil it. There is a mystery between the two and the diner itself. There are many first-person interactions with the people, but mostly on the sim side. Each person can order something off of the menu. The menu is accessible with a button that gives instructions on what items go with each order. Once you place a ticket down on the table, you can go about your business. It’s not very complicated, but the animations are detailed, and overhearing the chatter in the back as the story goes on is great. You can grab milk and ice cream to make a milkshake. Put everything in a blender, grab a glass, and prepare it for the customer. Some food dishes require placing a plate in the prepping area, such as hamburgers. Make sure you look at the ticket icon and see whether they want cheese or not. You can grill, make pancakes, give whiskey shots and coffee, and clean and put away the dishes. That includes putting back ingredients like milk and frozen french fries. This isn’t very deep, and only during a few moments will you have many orders, but there’s no rush. There is no time limit on the game.

You will eventually prepare every type of item by the end of the game, but that’s okay. There’s just enough here for the 2- to 3-hour story, and by then I felt like if I had to prepare more, it would become tedious. There are a few other mini-games such as shooting with a gun during a couple of segments and painting a room, but they don’t overstay their welcome and are relevant to the story. I did find one particular area in the game that really drove me nuts. You need to navigate a labyrinthine cave at a snail’s pace, and it took me nearly 30 minutes to find my way out. The story could have greatly benefited from reducing or eliminating this part of the game.

The visuals are great. Despite the PS1 style, the character models surpass the system’s capabilities in detail. The game is always dark, and you always wonder what’s just outside the window. The bizarre storm that’s the centerpiece of the story made me curious. The entire game made me curious, and I wanted it to go on further. The writing is so well done, as is the voice acting and characters. I was eager to delve deeper into these characters’ lives, yet what’s presented here fulfills its intended purpose and accomplishes the task. Both the resolution and each character’s conclusions are satisfying. It is very difficult to have such a good story for this short of a game.

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Warhammer 40,000: Space Marine 2

Posted by BinaryMessiah on 03/23/2025
Posted in: Microsoft Consoles, PC Reviews, PlayStation 5, Sony Consoles, Steam Deck Unsupported, Steam Deck Verification, Xbox Series X|S. Tagged: , , , , , . Leave a comment

Publisher: Focus Entertainment

Developer: Saber Interactive

Release Date: 09/09/2024


Available On

No matter your Warhammer fandom, you’ve probably played or heard of one of the games. The games garnered a stellar reputation with the Dawn of War strategy games in the early 2000s for PC. These games established Relic’s reputation and were regarded as some of the top Real-Time Strategy games of their era. Over two decades later, the franchise is now open to any developer willing to produce a game. One of the few genres the series has touched is action, let alone a third-person shooter. Despite receiving positive reviews, the first Space Marine struggled with its marketing strategy. Some saw it as a Gears of War clone, while the game also had issues with repetition and being somewhat forgettable. Sadly, not much has changed with the sequel.

The original game appears to have taught the developers very little. While it was a solid foundation, work on it feels like it was completely forgotten about. While you do continue the story of Titus, the Ultra Marine from the original game, his backstory isn’t touched upon, and you must have extensive knowledge of the Space Marine faction to truly enjoy this game. The story lacks depth, providing minimal explanation of the events taking place. The game opens up with one of the few scripted scenes as you play as Titus, who is dropped down into a Tyranid-infested planet to deliver a megabomb. This is where the game’s combat is introduced, and sadly, everything the game has to offer.

The combat in Space Marine 2 is really satisfying despite how incredibly repetitive and shallow it is. The animations are great. The weapons are punchy and all have a personality. I actually chose different weapons for different situations that arose. Melee combat is the most satisfying, with Titus using one of four different melee weapons that are unlocked as you progress through the campaign. These weapons include the combat knife, chainsword, power sword, and thunder hammer. Each has different feelings and speed as well as damage dealt. There really is only a three-hit combo with no light or heavy attacks. There is a parry system in which a blue flash appears on an enemy that is about to attack you. If it’s a small enemy, Titus will grab them and instantly kill them. Larger enemies will just deal a lot of damage. When an enemy flashes red, you can perform an instant kill with a brutal attack. Sadly, the same animation repeats for each enemy, so it gets old pretty fast.

In terms of shooting, the camera placement bears a resemblance to Gears of War. However, the game lacks a cover system, a feature it could greatly benefit from, and the sheer number of enemies necessitates constant movement. When you deal enough damage, a red reticle may appear on the enemy, allowing you to press the fire button for an execution shot. The downside is that most weapons are ineffective at close range. There are no shotguns or any close-quarters weapons outside of the flamethrower. There are sniper rifles, which are useful in limited situations. You also have a secondary pistol, which I found nearly useless, as there is plenty of ammo everywhere for your main weapon. There are also throwables, such as regular grenades, sticky grenades, and a bomb that you can detonate at your command. The game really does not give you enough grenades despite their effectiveness in dispersing large crowds. As a result, the weapons don’t feel well-balanced.

The more passive parts of combat include your Ultra ability, which grants you more damage, and you heal as you deal damage. This trait only lasts maybe ten seconds but takes forever to build back up. On two levels, you get to use jump packs, which grant you dash and double jump abilities, as well as being able to charge up a ground pound, which does some nice AOE damage. As you can see, most of the game is spent just aimlessly wailing on hordes of enemies or shooting them when they are far away enough to matter. It’s a shame the gun balancing is so poor, as they feel excellent to use. Instead of throwing masses of enemies at you, I wish they spent more time making the enemies more unique and worthwhile, like in Gears of War, which would enhance the gameplay experience. You also only get two different enemy types. The first half of the game sees the same few Tyranid types, and then the final half is only Chaos enemies, which are essentially just Space Marines. There are some sub-bosses, but they don’t provide much of a challenge, and there is only one for each enemy type. The Tyranid Carnifex and the Chaos Helbrutes. There are a couple of main boss fights, and they are the only real challenge in the game.

The entire game is fairly easy. I rarely died, and while the game itself is well paced, the level design is rather boring and uninspired. You will sprint down the same corridors and hallways just to press a button to open a big door to sprint down more hallways to shoot out in a large open area, which all look the same. Some indoor areas, particularly your main base, are detailed. Despite all of this effort, the actual layout of the levels is just boring. Back at base, you won’t see much change either. You will receive some speeches from the chaplain; you can visit the armory, but there’s nothing really here. You can’t unlock new appearances, and you can only select your loadout based on weapons you have already unlocked. Additionally, the base involves running through hallways and using elevators to navigate between levels. This terminal also allows you to select your co-op missions.

The multiplayer itself won’t last long for most people. Most of the fun in PvE comes from doing the co-op side missions. The PvP features a limited number of maps, each with a rudimentary layout that doesn’t inspire much planning or strategy. With no cover system, players are just running around shooting and whacking at each other, which isn’t very fun. I found myself playing multiplayer for a couple of hours and never had the desire to go back. Once you complete the campaign, there’s also no reason to go back. I really only recommend buying this game on a steep sale.

As it stands, Space Marine 2 didn’t learn much from what people critiqued the first game for. While the combat is crunchy, fluid, and violent, it’s very shallow, leaving you with repetitive gameplay. The same two enemy factions have the same type of enemies, so the entire game just gets boring rapidly. While the weapons feel enjoyable to shoot, they’re not well balanced, and the lack of a cover system makes strategizing your weapons almost meaningless. Despite the game’s impressive visuals and meticulous attention to detail, the level design remains uninteresting. Despite the excellent voice acting, the story lacks depth, and unless you possess a deep understanding of the Space Marine faction, you won’t derive much enjoyment from this game. That includes the passable multiplayer.

Reviewed On

Sony PlayStation DualSense