It’s been 10 years since the last time I’ve played Mafia: The City of Lost Heaven. Back then I still loved it, despite a lot of really clunky gameplay elements, for having a genuinely engaging story told inside an open world. We’ve had quite a few examples of really well made story driven titles inside open world design since then, of course, most not resorting to the same mission-based structure the original Mafia had, including the sequel Mafia II. Yet, there was something about that original game from 2002 that still had me extremely excited about the remake announcement. Despite being developed by the team who brought us the disappointing Mafia III, I had high hopes for the Definitive Edition of Mafia. And even though I might argue against the subtitle selected, this turned out to be a fine game indeed.
Tag: Recommended
Happy about: AMID EVIL
With the new oldschool FPS wave on the rise, it’s nice to see as many good attempts at the genre as there are. My biggest trouble with looking at these games, however, is due to how quickly the revival peaked with the astonishing DUSK in late 2018. And given that AMID EVIL is published by the same team at New Blood Interactive and also features the soundtrack by Andrew Hulshult, avoiding comparisons is pretty much impossible. It’s good then that this title has its own unique set of strengths to distinguish itself.
Happy about: Persona 4 Golden
I have very little experience with the (Shin) Megami Tensei series of (mostly) jRPG titles by ATLUS. I first learned of the series after the huge success of Persona 3 about 11 years ago, which is in itself part of the sub-series of games with a different story and gameplay focus. I did play Persona 3 FES around the same time. I loved the unique blend of social simulation and turn based jRPG dungeon crawling and the overall dark horror mood of the story got me through a huge chunk of the game, but in the end I’ve never finished it. Same happened with the original Persona 4, which I’ve tried a few years later – I liked the premise and the gameplay, but playing on PS2 with its loading speeds get to me in the end and I dropped it, hoping that later the game will be ported to other platforms where its problems will be alleviated somewhat.
Persona 4 Golden was such a port… which I did miss because I never owned a PS Vita. Yet, moving the title to a portable console seemed like a smart move – these are long games and the social/life sim aspect takes a lot of time, while also being very easy on the pick up and play routine and that’s where a lot of people enjoyed the game even more. Fast forward eight more years and Persona 4 Golden made a surprise showing as a PC port with a few more improvements over the enhanced PS Vita port. And now I’ve finally played the game to the end.
Happy about: Control (Ultimate Edition)
It feels like a lifetime ago already since Remedy Entertainment developed Max Payne and revolutionized the entire genre of third person shooters. Yet, despite releasing titles that were consistently good and high profile since then, none of them had quite the same impact as Max Payne once had. Always working with their in-house engines, they’ve pushed the limits in terms of technology with every title, constantly doing something inventive and innovative. And, if nothing else, every project they’ve worked on since 2001 was ambitious and full of really unexpected concepts and interesting gameplay and narrative ideas.
And up until Quantum Break, their previous title, I’ve also found their games consistently fun to play on their most basic mechanical level. I still find Alan Wake boring as a whole, yet the combat feels so satisfying. Max Payne 2 has way too many tedious and annoying sections, but it can be so gratifying to play. Quantum Break, though? It was… bland. Boring. Full of awesome visual flair, but feeling empty. And I was worried that Control might be the same. Luckily, it’s not the same this time.
Happy about: King’s Quest (2015)
While the classic Sierra adventures were part of my childhood in some way, somehow I’ve never played the original King’s Quest games to this day. I know quite a bit about the series and I do own it on GOG since forever ago, but for one reason or the other I’m yet to finally play them. The new game (well, it’s an episodic title from 2015-2016, so it’s not new anymore) didn’t quite interest me at first because I thought it would be yet another attempt to create a Telltale-type adventure with a bunch of QTEs, limited choices (which are far less meaningful than what they want to look) and all the other pitfalls of the type of games. The opening of the very first episode (they’re called Chapters here) only confirmed my expectations, so I’ve ignored this title for years. Until I’ve seen a few reviews that got my interest piqued and I’ve decided to give the game a go. Boy am I glad that I did.
Happy about: Halo: Reach (MCC)
With my general disinterest in Halo, the only two titles in the series that I’ve always been genuinely curious about weren’t the numbered ones. And now that I’ve played both ODST and Halo: Reach, I am impressed. This one might be the best Halo game from the ones that I’ve played so far. Which is hardly a glowing recommendation, but I did like this one quite a bit.
Happy about: Manifold Garden
It feels like ever since Portal the stream of first person puzzle games with new inventive mechanics and ideas has never slowed down. Yet, not every game that gets released turns out to be good, let alone amazing, no matter how cool its mechanics are. Manifold Garden lands on the good side, even if it might never become a classic.
Happy about: Halo 3: ODST (MCC)
Of all the Halo titles, the one that always got me most curious was Halo 3: ODST. A very different approach to story and tone, the more open world like game design and even the uneven fan reception were things that got me interested and now that I’ve finally played it in the Master Chief Collection, I have to say that it was right for me to be intrigued. Maybe this will turn out to be not the best campaign in Halo games, but I’m sure it will remain one of the most unique ones.
Happy about: Vaporum: Lockdown
Almost exactly 3 years ago a Slovakian indie dev studio Fatbot Games, s. r. o. released a grid-based dungeon crawler RPG Vaporum, which managed to exceed all of my expectations. Despite being openly influenced by the genre revival done by Almost Human with Legend of Grimrock titles and unapologetically “borrowing” the style and themes from Bioshock games, it had a voice of its own and played really well. Which is exactly why I bought Vaporum: Lockdown, a prequel originally announced last year, the day it launched. And while it’s not without faults, the game managed to exceed my expectations yet again.
Happy about: Terminator: Resistance
For the past 10 years or so the mid-budget game development has been considered, for all intents and purposes, dead. It used to be that magic range of titles that had a lot of the ambitions of the AAA titles, but on a much lower budget, yet also had a lot of that inventiveness and honesty that’s usually expected from small budget titles. And it could often do things that the indie scene often couldn’t – like working with a movie license. Licensed games, especially those tied to a movie release, also were due for a new “this is actually really great” release, if not on the Chronicles of Riddick: EFBB level, at least something like X-Men Origins: Wolverine. Well, now we have it. Say hello to Terminator: Resistance.