game review – Page 5

Happy about: Resident Evil 4 – Separate Ways

23/09/2023 23/09/2023

While every Resident Evil release since the wonderful new RE2 has evoked varying degrees of disappointment, you never know if the next one will be exciting again. The remake of Resident Evil 4, released earlier this year, was quite good but also full of infuriatingly baffling decisions and most people were sure that Separate Ways mode won’t be added to it, if it wasn’t there on release. It was a remake, after all, and it made all the sense to include everything that was canonical to the original version, including the additional modes that the original game had. And even though Separate Ways were not part of the first release of Resident Evil 4, they were added since the PS2 version and were included in all of the newer releases.

Yet here we are, with the Separate Ways paid DLC that is released half a year after the main game. And to my surprise, I find it more entertaining than the main game itself.

Happy about: The Making of Karateka

18/09/2023 18/09/2023

Even leading up to its release, I wasn’t sure what exactly The Making of Karateka would turn out to be. A collection of games? A documentary with interviews? Some remasters or reinterpretations of the original titles? All of it, turns out. And it’s a fascinating compilation that, in a way, was possible due to how impactful and important Karateka was and because Jordan Mechner, its creator, detailed his experiences in a diary that was published as a book years ago.

Revisiting Split/Second

12/09/2023 12/09/2023

There used to be a time I regularly played fun arcadey racing titles. But then two things happened. First – racing titles started to pursue the open world concept that made all of them move farther from the simplicity and joy of just selecting a car, a track and going. Second – the popularity of more sim-like arcade racing games like Forza Horizon and Grid, games that I just can’t get into to this day. The nice thing is that the last two greats of the genre that I loved were among the best I’ve ever experienced – Split/Second and Need for Speed: Hot Pursuit, both released in 2010. The sad thing is – there hasn’t been a single racing game since 2010 (the remaster of Hot Pursuit notwithstanding) that I’ve genuinely enjoyed. Is Split/Second as amazing as I remember it being?

In love with: Blasphemous 2

07/09/2023 07/09/2023

While initially I bounced off Blasphemous due to its focus on the “Dark Souls inspired challenge”, I did end up liking it a lot when playing the final version of the game a year ago. The title remained a bit too cryptic with some of its design and there still were some rude moments, but overall it was redesigned to be much more fun and welcoming. Its visual style and soundtrack were phenomenal as well.

I was very cautious about Blasphemous 2 as I couldn’t predict what direction a sequel could take. I could bounce off it even harder, after all, depending on what the focus of the game would be. In the end, I loved playing it. Yet I feel like some die hard fans of the original might get disappointed.

Read more“In love with: Blasphemous 2”

Ugly duckling: Tribes: Vengeance

02/09/2023 02/09/2023

There’s just nothing quite like Tribes. A huge sci-fi universe Dynamix created long ago and explored through their mech simulator games, strategies and fast paced multiplayer-only FPS titles definitely has interesting story and ideas to it, even if not exactly novel. But it wasn’t the story that made Tribes be as exciting and incredible as it is… I mean, they are those “multiplayer-only FPS titles” mentioned before, there’s not a much story needed for those to be good. Far future, different Tribes of people with jetpacks locked in an eternal conflict that, for whatever reason uses the typical classic FPS rules of “capture the flag” to win over each other – that’s all you need to know. The rest is speed, inertia, skiing over the ground and using projectile-based weaponry across gigantic levels to somehow snipe enemies flying through the air.

And yet, somehow, Tribes: Vengeance exists – a singleplayer first game with really heavy emphasis on story. Made by Irrational Games, fresh off their success with System Shock 2 and Freedom Fighters and soon to get even more love with SWAT 4 and then, of course, BioShock. And this game, for whatever reason, was very quickly dropped by the publisher Vivendi Universal Games and was all but forgotten.

In love with: Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective

27/08/2023 27/08/2023

After finishing the work on the third and originally final entry in the Ace Attorney series, Shu Takumi, the creative lead behind those games, wanted to do something similar but fresh. Which ended up becoming Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective for Nintendo DS in 2010. Unlike the Ace Attorney games, this title was more of a puzzle focused adventure game, where you are a spirit, who can perform the titular “ghost tricks” when possessing different items on the screen to solve problems. And instead of unearthing or solving crime you were often focusing on preventing it by having an ability to possess a recently deceased person and go 4 minutes before their death to attempt and prevent it from happening in the first place.

The game was very well received critically, but had poor sales, according to Capcom themselves, and soon after Shu Takumi returned to work on more Ace Attorney games. Luckily, the game wasn’t forgotten and we now have a new version of it adapted for modern platforms, running on RE Engine (as it’s now the main engine Capcom builds their projects on) and with a couple of neat improvements. And it’s great.

Happy about: My Friendly Neighborhood

22/08/2023 22/08/2023

When I see a game labeled as “survival horror” I don’t expect it to be a classic survival horror and instead turn out to be a horror themed game of some random genre. So after playing the demo of My Friendly Neighborhood and seeing that it is shaping up to fit the classic survival horror genre pillars, I was pleasantly surprised. And while I wouldn’t name it among the truly good examples of the genre, it’s definitely a descent enough game to scratch that itch and it also has a bunch of cute ideas of its own.

Ugly duckling: F.E.A.R. 3

18/08/2023 18/08/2023

I’d call the third entry in the F.E.A.R. series an odd one out if not for the fact that the entire franchise has been quite odd. Nonetheless, F.E.A.R. 3 tends to be the least liked entry, at least discounting expansions and DLCs, and there are plenty of mostly good reasons for that. The most minor of which, possibly, is the pretty tasteless stylization of the title as F.3.A.R. When it came out, I was rather cold on it, but did find plenty of things to enjoy. Since then, more history of its development became known and replaying it in 2023 made me appreciate what was attempted here more. Even if the end result is not great.

Read more“Ugly duckling: F.E.A.R. 3”

Thoughts on: Viewfinder

13/08/2023 13/08/2023

Of all the numerous first person puzzle games that I’ve played ever since Portal made the genre extremely popular back in 2007, Viewfinder might be the one I’m most conflicted on. More often than not, games like this are simply unremarkable, sometimes they get boring or frustrating and rarest of all they get genuinely fun all the way through. The main mechanic of Viewfinder is anything but unremarkable and the developers find ways to create good puzzles around it, and yet… There are a couple of things that sour the experience.

I also love: We Love Katamari REROLL+ Royal Reverie

08/08/2023 08/08/2023

When Katamari Damacy REROLL suddenly rolled into existence less than 5 years ago, I absolutely loved it. And my biggest complaint was the lack of We ♥ Katamari content, as it felt to me that a new title mixing both the original and the sequel would’ve been a far better choice. Well We Love Katamari REROLL is here now, with lots of improvements, a little added bonus in the form of Royal Reverie and, sadly, with a few unfortunate issues.