Tag: action adventure

Revisiting Resident Evil 4

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I have a complicated history with Resident Evil 4. For a lot of people it was an instant hit, for me it was a frustrating experience. I didn’t “get” the appeal of the game for several years and only after several attempts, and because of the fact that the game influenced so many others, which gave me necessary experience to understand what it as going for, I started enjoying it. I still have plenty of criticism towards it, mind you, but nowadays replaying RE4 is an enjoyable experience for me. And I’ve replayed it many times over many different platforms, including this 2014 “Ultimate HD Edition”, which remains the best version of the game to play.

In fact, the main reason for my revisit this time was the fact that the version got even better due to fan work – I wanted to finally experience out the fantastic RE4HD mod, that more than lived up to my expectations. And in addition to that, wanted to have some fun with the recently released randomizer mod that adds some fun chaos to the overall experience. As I was about to play, the RE4 Remake got officially announced as well, so I decided that it might be the best time to revisit the original. And even in 2022 it’s still an extremely fun game… that really hates you.

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Повертаючись в Resident Evil 4

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Мої відносини з Resident Evil 4 досить складні. Більшість людей полюбили її з першої спроби, але мені вона здавалась дратуючою. І лише після багатьох років і спроб пройти її знову я зміг “зрозуміти” гру. Що мабуть не сталось би, якби не той факт, що дуже багато інших проектів почали робити теж саме, і свій досвід з іншими проектами допоміг мені зрозуміти, як насолоджуватись RE4. Я все ще вважаю, що у неї багато проблем, але проходити гру мені подобається. Тому з роками я пройшов гру в багатьох версіях, включаючи це видання 2014-го “Ultimate HD Edition”, яке досі залишається кращим.

Головною причиною для цього проходження стало те, що видання стало ще краще після виходу моду RE4HD, тому я хотів нарешті спробувати його фінальну версію. Але окрім цього я вирішив ще додати мод, який рандоматизує ворогів, предмети і багато різних дрібниць, щоб побачити гру новими очами. І коли я вже зібрався грати, Capcom анонсували рімейк RE4, тому причин нарешті знову пограти в оригінал було занадто багато. Як я і очікував, навіть в 2022 грати в цей проект весело, хоча він постійно хоче вас вбити.

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Happy about: Rogue Legacy 2

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So, I don’t really like roguelikes and roguelites. I’m not fond of randomly or procedurally generated content and would always take a wonderfully hand crafted shorter experience over it. But there are occasional projects that grab my attention. And the original Rogue Legacy did grab my attention. There was something interesting and fresh about the idea (quite new at the time) of mixing the “fresh run” nature of roguelikes with permanent upgrades, plus there was enough metroidvania-ish charm to the exploration of the locations to get me interested, even if said locations were randomly generated each run.

Yet, a lot of games since then have done the same and combined the exact same basic concepts and I’ve not enjoyed any of the ones that I’ve tried. Thankfully, Rogue Legacy 2 turned out to be fun.

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In love with: In Sound Mind

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There have been so many “horror games in first person perspective” that ignoring them is my first reflex. In Sound Mind looked potentially curious, but from the looks and description it reminded me of Cry of Fear type of games, that work like a horror focused FPS action adventure, which could be interesting. Buuuut it also seemed to be delving into psychology and so few games handle this well (while so many are just edge lord crap, like the aforementioned Cry of Fear) that I decided that this game wasn’t worthy of a closer look.

Many months later, I’ve started hearing positive buzz about the game from people who have a similar opinion on these types of games, so I got curious. And I’m very glad that I did, because In Sound Mind is great.

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Зачарований: In Sound Mind

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Зараз існує стільки горорів від першої особи, що моя перша реакція – їх ігнорувати. In Sound Mind мене трохи зацікавила, але зі скріншотів та опису вона нагадала мені Cry of Fear. Що само по собі не погано – FPS action adventure з акцентом на горор може бути цікавою, але коли такі ігри починають розповідати сюжет з акцентом на психологію, дуже мало з них роблять це нормально. А більшість робить супер драматичну дурню на зразок вже названого Cry of Fear, тому я вирішив, що гра мого часу не варта.

Багато місяців потому люди, у яких схожа думка про вищезгадані ігри, почали говорити дуже позитивні речі про цей проект, тому я засумнівався в своєму рішенні. І тепер дуже радий, що все ж пограв в In Sound Mind.

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Thoughts on: Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga

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Ever since Lego Star Wars: The Video Game from 2005 Traveller’s Tales has been almost exclusively developing the Lego-licensed action adventure videogames. And they all followed the template established by that 2005 original with very few and rather minor changes. Even though the mumbling voices and original movie clips were swapped for voice acting recorded specifically for the games, even though more open world segments and different mechanics were introduced, the formula of the games was rigid and predictable. Which is one of the main reasons, I stopped even looking in the direction of these titles after The Lord of the Rings title – playing these titles became way too boring. Which meant that I’ve missed a rather curious attempt at making the gameplay more varied and fun in the Ninjago Movie Video Game from 2017. I still got bored with it, but at least that one had some genuinely fun ideas to it (and wasn’t developed by the main Traveller’s Tales studio).

Lego Star Wars: The Skywalker Saga was supposed to be a refresher of the series. Not a revolution, necessarily, but a long needed evolution. It was built on a new engine, restructured the game world, reshuffled the ideas that were at the base of all previous Lego Star Wars titles and, based on reports, had a really messy development. It is a shame, then, that the end result of this effort is the same boring TT Games’ Lego title we’ve seen for 17 years, just with a new coat of paint.

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