Max! Max, you’re back! It’s so good to see Max Caulfield again. This time as a grown adult. Our Max is all grown up. Well, that’s what I wanted to say, but a few hours into the game, you will realize that while Max is back, everything surrounding her return isn’t. This is a very forced game that didn’t need to get made. While all of us are curious as to what happened to Max as she grew up, we didn’t want a repeat of the original game. Deck Nine nailed the feeling of the first game. While we’re not in the same time period (late 2000s), we are in modern times, but with new friends and foes. The atmosphere of Life is Strange is here. The surreal soundtrack, being able to interact with various objects and hear Max’s inner monologue, important choices, well-made characters, etc. It’s all here, but in a very basic package to tie it all up.
Here’s the thing: Double Exposure literally tries to repeat the original game and story. It feels very forced and eye-rolling towards the end and isn’t believable one bit. Cloe has been replaced with Safi. She’s a hotheaded character similar to Cloe, but she also has a soft side. She’s goofy and has a good sense of humor, but you can clearly see this is a Cloe replacement or clone. Then you have Lucas, who is a Mark clone, etc. There’s a pattern here. He’s another creepy teacher who has a secret that rocks the whole story. It’s predictable, which is a shame. Instead of putting Max in a new situation with her old powers, she somehow has new powers. The power of Double Exposure. She can now hop timelines. It’s pretty silly and less grounded than the original game. While having powers is silly anyways, the first game being so grounded made it believable rather than a hokey superhero wannabe story. Treading the same ground just feels wrong.
Thankfully, the characters are interesting, but not as memorable as the original cast. They all have character, flaws, good and bad traits, and are not super stereotyped. Gameplay-wise, nothing has really changed. I would go as far as to say there is less gameplay here than in the original game, and that game was already lacking any. The locales are also not very interesting and are constantly repeated. There are too many mundane indoor environments, such as the Turtle bar, the school, Max’s apartment, etc. There aren’t any outdoor locations with sweeping vistas or more interesting indoor areas. You will spend up to 10 hours in these same locations over and over again. Max is now an urbexer (Urban explorer) so why don’t we get to see some cool abandoned buildings like during the intro sequence? The game just jumps straight into Max trying to save the planet, so we don’t get time to be with her and her friends living normal lives for a bit. That’s what made the first game so great.
Gameplay involves switching back and forth between timelines to solve puzzles, but this is just an excuse to extend gameplay. There are set nodes that sparkle, and you can jump between the Dead and Living worlds (one of the characters in the game dies, and you are trying to save her and stop it). You can pulse your power to see objects placed in the other timeline in real time before switching to it, but it doesn’t add anything interesting. There’s of course the usual collectible hunt, but that’s about it. Choices in the game are fewer and don’t have the mega impact that they did in the original. Story-changing sequences don’t come by often. Maybe once a chapter or none in some of them.
At least the visuals are improved. The facial expressions are great, and there’s a lot of detail in everything while still looking like a Life is Strange game. The upgraded visual quality helps go a long way, but sadly this was wasted on so few areas to explore. The ending is also rushed and feels inconclusive and too predictable. When the credits rolled, I just felt like the entire game was just not necessary. It didn’t add any value to the original game. Fans should definitely play, but you do need to play the original to appreciate what is here. Max recaps the original game throughout the story, but not in detail, so a lot is missing. There are a lot of references to the original that new players won’t understand. Some scenes in the ending aren’t explained at all, but are direct references to the original game such as when Mark strapped Max into the chair. For a cheap purchase you will have a fun couple of evening with the game, but don’t expect anything groundbreaking.
Oh boy, it’s another Call of Duty release. I completely disregarded it due to its brief campaign and my lack of interest in the Zombies mode. Four years passed, and here we are. I was in the mood for an FPS game that wouldn’t take up a lot of time, and I’m glad I played it. Starting with the campaign, this is one of the most entertaining in the series, and it’s a crying shame it’s so short. Activision has the budget and talent to make a good long 8-10 hour campaign, but instead we’re stuck with 9 short missions clocking in at around 4 hours. The characters are fun, the writing is tight and interesting, and the Nazi villains are fun to see on screen. You play as a team of allied soldiers who are captured by the Nazis while trying to find documentation on plans for Project Phoenix. The Nazi plan to stay alive after Adolf Hitler had allegedly committed suicide. It’s an interesting point during the war that isn’t talked about or used in WWII games much. The main antagonists are two SS officers who torture and kidnap an Australian, an American, a Russian, and a British soldier who were on the operation to steal the documents.
The game opens up with a train mission. It’s as bombastic and fun as any Call of Duty mission. The game feels immediately familiar…too familiar. It has the exact feeling of Modern Warfare. The speed, the momentum, and everything about what gives modern Call of Duty its identity are here, both for better and for worse. It feels a bit odd while holding WWII guns to be reloading them like a modern rifle. Slapping a clip off the top of a Browning. Everything feels like it’s in fast forward. I would have liked a slower, more deliberate feeling to this game, as we are returning to the series’ roots after all, but that’s too much to ask. It feels odd hopping around walls like it’s Assassin’s Creed as the Russian sniper Lady Nightingale. I feel like a WWII shooter needs a bit more finesse and a slower approach. The game doesn’t feel like Modern Warfare when it’s dressed in a WWII setting.
I don’t like stealth in Call of Duty, and it’s just as broken here. Running around and hiding in vents and under tables just slows the game way down. A high-octane shooter like this does not need any stealth. It’s easier to just shoot everyone in sight. The only reason to actually use the stealth is when it’s required or for achievements. Enemy placement is not right for stealth combat, and patrol patterns seem random. Enemies will also stay in an alerted state once seen, so it’s just pointless. The stealth takedowns are pretty cool to see, though. One new gameplay mechanic not seen in a Call of Duty is flying planes as the American. It’s fun; it doesn’t last long (only a single mission), but the preflight check and taking off just feel cool. There are no other vehicles to drive or even ride on in this game, which is kind of odd.
Outside of the campaign are multiplayer and Zombies. I’m not a Zombies expert, but I do know that this is a return to form with no story or weird map puzzles like in the Black Ops series. Some may like this, and some may hate it. I personally do not care either way. I tried Zombies for a couple of hours, and it was…fine. Multiplayer is the best part of the game, but it’s subject to the usual Call of Duty nonsense. The maps are at least really good, and the way the weapons fire makes it a bit different than modern games. They are less accurate and, of course, less modern, so you don’t get all these crazy attachments for the guns. I won’t bother going into detail on maps or anything, as, sadly, the game is mostly dead. I made it into a couple of matches, but that was after sitting for 20+ minutes waiting for enough people to join.
With that, this game is best played as a super cheap discount for the campaign and maybe some multiplayer with friends, but don’t expect much playtime out of this. I really wanted the campaign to be longer. There’s a lot here that works with interesting characters and a great script, but it’s just cut so short. The authentic WWII weapons feel good, and anyone who is a veteran of past WWII shooters will instantly recognize all of these weapons. Zombies mode is fun, but a drastic change from Black Ops Zombies, which some people may not like, but as it stands, this is a modern Call of Duty game. All that will be left one day is just the campaign and offline multiplayer. What’s here is entertaining for an afternoon of fun, but that’s it.
Well, we finally made it to another Silent Hill release. This time it’s excellent. I will start off right away with that. After the utter disappointment of Downpour, the last mainline game in the series, everyone thought the series was dead. After the failure of resurrecting the series with the abysmally boring dungeon crawler Book of Memories for Vita and the terrible HD remaster of SH2 and SH3, it felt that Konami was done with the series. Downpour had some good elements, but it was a terrible game to play. With the huge success of the SH2 remake from Bloober Team, it feels like Konami is going full steam ahead with the series once again. For those who don’t know, the “f” moniker at the end means “forte” to contrast the “Silent” part of the title. While it’s not clear if this is a mainline title or not, as this is the first game not set in the titular town on the East Coast of the US.
SHF is set in post-World War II Japan. Hinako Shimizu is your leading lady this time around. A shy high school student who has a disturbing and dysfunctional family and ends up getting trapped in what seems to be monsters and red fungus and spider lilies taking over the town. Hinako relies on red capsules to stave off headaches. As you play through the game, Hinako is seemingly teleporting to a Shrine world, when passing out, and the real world, which is the town of Ebisugaoka. This is a small town, similar to Silent Hill itself, that’s full of lower-class citizens who rely on living off the land. The game strays far from the Western horror we have seen in the series and relies more on Eastern horror and Japanese folklore. It’s hard to get used to, but the themes and Silent Hill DNA are all here. The enemies move like mannequins; they look grotesque and horrific, the music by Akira Yamaoka is absolutely fantastic and takes the usual Silent Hill music we are used to and adds an Eastern flair during the fog world (real world). The music here is somehow darker and scarier than it’s ever been. There’s more emphasis on unease and disturbance. The soundtrack is full of out-of-tune instruments, wailing cries and hymns, and screeching string instruments, all mixed with traditional Japanese folk music. It’s a nice twist on the soundtrack while keeping it sounding familiar. Kensuke Inage composed the Shrine world pieces, and they contrast well with Akira’s music. He is mostly known for composing music for Musou and fighting games of various franchises.
With that said, Hinako controls really well, and she should. She is small and lightweight and can run around with ease. Combat is the best the series has had so far. While it’s simple, it is hard to master. You can dodge in this game, and that’s the hard part. Enemies will flash red, and for a split second you can press the heavy attack button to do a powerful attack and stun them for a perfect dodge. Hinako also has a focus meter that she can charge up, but this uses focus energy. If you get attacked while trying to charge your focus, it will take a portion of the bar away, and you need to use various items to restore this. You also need to manage a stamina meter used for sprinting, dodging, and attacking. If you run out, Hinako will run out of breath and will pause for a few seconds to recover. They took a page from the Silent Hill: Origins book, and weapons now have durability. It works much better here, as you can carry up to 3 weapons and repair them with toolkits. There’s light, medium, and heavy durability. Weapons like kitchen knives are fast, while crowbars and lead pipes are normal speed. Axes are slow and do massive damage. There are no firearms in this game. The combat is raw and visceral, and it feels like Hinako is just doing what she can to survive. She’s not a warrior. You need to manage these systems, heal, and store meters while fighting off enemies, like the series’ staple. Run. Run like hell if you can.
You can upgrade by using money from selling items at save shrines. You can exchange some healing items or find valuables hidden everywhere. You also need an Ema board to upgrade your character. You can upgrade your life, stamina, and focus meter as well as your passive ability size. You can equip up to three Omamori, which are found throughout the game. These add passive abilities like extra health, stamina, easier-to-do perfect dodges, refilling life upon death, allowing you to run a little faster, etc. This is a great way to add some depth to the combat system without it feeling like a full-fledged RPG or something more complicated than it needs to be. If you want an easier time, you are encouraged to explore and find extra keys or go where you might be scared too.
Shrine worlds have specific weapons that don’t have durability. I don’t want to spoil the story, but about halfway through, Hinako gets a very powerful weapon in the Shrine world. However, in the Fog World, she’s very vulnerable, and while enemies are easier to fight, she is weaker. In between fighting, you need to use your map like the traditional way. Blocked doors are scribbled out, open doorways and pathways have arrows, and objectives are circled. It’s a great map system and has worked well throughout the series. You won’t get lost like in older titles, and there are clear objectives. Puzzle difficulty is still here, and they become harder with more vague hints the higher you go. The puzzles are great and require full manipulation of objects and deciphering clues logically. The harder puzzles are in the Shrine world, as well as more combat. In the Fog World, you are trying to avoid combat and get to the next objective as quickly as you can.
The game’s story was written by Ryukishi07, whose pen name is famous for the When They Cry manga series. That series is known for intense drama, pain, and suffering. This clearly is translated into the story of Silent Hill f. While the series continues the tradition of needing some player interpretation, it’s a bit more structured. The series continues to deal with mental health and disturbing moments of human nature. There are some really dark scenes in this game, and as the story crescendos into madness, the player is left to interpret the goings-on more and more, which is fine by me. This is also the longest game in the series. I did a full collectible playthrough, and it took me 22 hours to finish. Even if you blasted through the game, you are still looking at a near 20 hour game. There’s a lot to see here, and the visuals are absolutely stunning. The game does use Unreal Engine 5, so there are some technical hiccups here and there, but on my playthrough they weren’t too noticeable. The game captures the essence of Silent Hill, and we can finally say that AAA survival horror is back.
Stop-motion animation is fantastic. I love it. It was made famous by The Nightmare Before Christmas and Disney, but there’s also a lot of bad stop motion. Robot Chicken was a comedy TV show that did it with a tongue-in-cheek flair. The Midnight Walk is utterly gorgeous to look at. Easily one of the most artistically stunning games released this year. It would be a disservice to call this a “Nightmare Before Christmas clone,” as it has clear inspirations with a Burton flair but also includes the studio’s own touch seen in their last game, Lost in Random. The dark is very dark. So much so that it’s suffocating, but this is intended. The Midnight Walk is a road that creatures travel down trying to reach the light. You are the “Burnt One” who befriends a little creature called Potboy, and with flame in hand, you embark on a journey full of short stories to help those trapped forever walking the midnight walk.
The game is designed with VR in mind, but you can totally enjoy this without it and still get the full experience. The first-person view is really interesting, as you can experience everything up close and in detail. The game is very linear, but I won’t fault the game too much for that. For this art style everything needs to be scripted and tailored in a way to get the most enjoyment. Every creature is hand sculpted and animated by hand. The handmade animations play at a lower frame rate than everything else around them, but it works here. These “lower framed animations” are centerpieces, but don’t overstay their welcome. There’s so much visual eye candy going on here, from incredibly disturbing scenes like The Dark popping up with just two eyes and everything else being pitch black. The effect is incredibly effective and doesn’t just look like a pair of generic eyes. The screen shakes, the eyes blink and move around, and they look menacing. They are larger than you, and you feel the darkness that these eyes represent.
There are many stealth sections in the game, but they aren’t awful. You don’t need to try too hard. There are closets you can hide in as well as other hidey-holes, but once the creature passes, you can just run to the next area. The creatures are frightening. While they still have a cartoony whimsy to them, they are still scary. There aren’t many of them in the game, but they are used sparingly without overstaying their welcome or getting boring. There are four short stories in this game that are sandwiched with a prologue and epilogue episode. The game is narrated by a gravelly British voice that is usually typical with these types of games, but it works. Outside of finding collectibles and solving simple puzzles, there’s not much gameplay, though.
You do get a single “weapon” called a Matchlock. It’s very underutilized. It holds three matches and isn’t used as a weapon. It’s used to solve puzzles similar to the Portal Gun. You can light candles from a distance or other items from a distance, but you can also hold matches by hand and do most of what the Matchlock can do that way. There are unlimited matches when you find a matchbox, which are pretty much everywhere. The fire element in general is just not used enough here, and it’s a fun gameplay element. Potboy also feels a bit underwhelming gameplay-wise. You can order him around to go through pipes, stand on switches, and light things, which also makes holding matches redundant too. There are three different ways to light things, so puzzles feel really simple and bare-bones. It’s the only weak part of the game. The whole fire thing feels like it should be expanded more.
The game is never boring, thankfully. I was entertained the entire time. Even when I felt the puzzles didn’t challenge me and there wasn’t any combat, I was entertained with great storytelling, voice acting, and pure visual eye candy that doesn’t come around very often these days. I wanted to see what was around every corner. The sense of discovery and wonder is done well in this game. The game’s pacing is also perfect. The weaker sections don’t linger too long, and you will be greeted with a new character or enemy fairly frequently. Sadly, the game is really short. You can finish this in about 4 hours, and I wanted to see more. I really hope we get more in this world and setting.
Overall, The Midnight Walk is one of the most artistically stunning games I have ever played. The dark world that never lets up is just fascinating to explore. The creature designs and the mix of stop-motion work masterfully here. The voice acting is top-notch, and Potboy is a cute and wonderful companion full of whimsy and character. I just wish the matchlock gun and the fire elements were better utilized here. With stronger puzzles and maybe some actual combat, a sequel could be even better. Don’t let that stop you from picking this game up. There’s so much here to take in visually that you won’t mind the weaker areas.
The premise of Gloomy Eyes is intriguing. It takes a post-apocalyptic zombie setting and adds a twist. Humans are living among zombies, but they are hated and are considered vile. A girl, Nena, finds a zombie boy her age who is tame and wants to integrate back into society. In the end, they are kids and just want to do kid things together, but her evil uncle, The Priest, has blocked out the sun so he can use zombies for slave labor. Nena and the zombie boy Gloomy explore levels and solve puzzles to navigate their way around to find the sun and stop her evil uncle.
The only voice is the narrator, The Gravekeeper. You can swap between Nena and Gloomy, as each has different ways of interacting with objects. Nena is the only one who can push buttons, pull levers, climb ladders and vines, and insert items into slots such as fuses. Gloomy can toss objects and push objects. Don’t think this makes Gloomy useless, as they are both needed for other reasons. Gloomy can go near zombies, while he can’t go into bright lights. Nena can’t go near zombies, or she will be eaten. A lot of levels have multiple mini-puzzles to get to certain areas. One level has you assembling a boat, and each piece is a small puzzle within the level. You need to push and pull objects, turn lights on and off, and throw bricks at generators or signs to block light. There are some stealth areas in which you need to snag keys off of the backs of enemies. They walk a single patrol route and have flashlights or trap guns. These areas aren’t very hard.
Some of the puzzles only seem challenging because of the camera. It’s not always positioned in your favor. I wouldn’t see certain paths and get stuck because I couldn’t figure out what to do, only to realize there was a hallway or door hidden because I couldn’t turn the camera enough. It’s not a big issue and rarely happened, but I still want to mention it. The levels are varied and get switched up a lot. You also have the entire game sandwiched with solo scripted levels to give your brain a break from the 10 or so levels of straight puzzles. The levels become multi-puzzle right in the middle of the game. I never got bored, and while the narrative won’t keep you going, the variety in puzzles and level design will.
The visuals are very charming and have a Tim Burton vibe mixed with Psychonauts. It’s a very 90s Halloween vibe, and I really like it. The cheesy haunted mansion level notwithstanding. The character designs for Nena and Gloomy aren’t anything special, if not a bit grotesque in a bad way. The bug eyes and large heads didn’t do anything for me, but the overall charm and atmosphere of the game reminded me of PS2 era games, so I stuck with it. The story won’t do much for people either, but it is charming in a way. Nena is incredibly lonely and wants this zombie boy to be her best friend and will do anything to make that happen. It has a predictable ending, but the story is there to glue the puzzles together and string you along. The boss fights (there are a total of two) are Mario 3D esque being very easy and simple.
Overall, Gloomy Eyes is a charming little puzzler that will entertain you for an evening. The charming visuals, soft narration, and varied level design will keep you going. The music isn’t anything special, We have all heard this stuff before. It’s the typical mysterious Halloween music with xylophones and triangles. You’ll know what I’m talking about when you hear it. It does give me a sense of nostalgia for early PS2 games with that Halloween vibe, and I quite liked it. If you want a fun puzzle game and love Tim Burton or Psychonauts, then give this a try.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
thebinarymessiah.com 
Yep! The fact that I forgot about this game until you made a comment proves that.