Captain Buttbeard's Gaming Corner

Splashdown: Rides Gone Wild (PlayStation 2) Developer: Rainbow Studios Publisher: THQ Released: 2003 Genre: Racing
	2025/04/15
The History Channel: Battle For the Pacific (PlayStation 3) Developer: Cauldron HQ Publisher: Activision Released: 2008 Genre: First-person shooter
	2025/04/13
The Club (PlayStation 3) Developer: Bizarre Creations Publisher: Sega Released: 2008 Genre: Third-person shooter
	2025/04/10
Arx Fatalis (Xbox) Developers: Arkane Studios, Wizarbox Publisher: DreamCatcher Interactive Released: 2003 Genre: Action role-playing, dungeon crawl
	2025/04/09
Silent Hill 3 (PlayStation 2) Devloper: Team Silent Publisher: Konami Released: 2003 Genre: Survival horror
	2025/04/04
Soldier of Fortune: Payback (PlayStation 3) Developer: Cauldron HQ Publisher: Activision Released: 2007 Genre: First-person shooter
	2025/04/04
Uncharted: Drake's Fortune (PlayStation 3) Developer: Naughty Dog Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Released: 2007 Genre: Action-adventure, third-person shooter
	2025/03/26
Ape Escape 2 (PlayStation 2) Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Japan Publisher: Ubi Soft Released: 2003 Genre: Platform, action-adventure
	2025/03/16
Kane & Lynch: Dead Men (PlayStation 3) Developer: IO Interactive Publisher: Eidos Interactive Released: 2007 Genre: Third-person shooter
	2025/03/12
Soldier of Fortune II: Double Helix (Xbox) Developers: Raven Software, Gratuitous Games Publisher: Activision Released: 2003 Genre: First-person shooter
	2025/03/09
The Outfit (Xbox 360) Developer: Relic Entertainment Publisher: THQ Released: 2006 Genre: Third-person shooter
	2025/03/04
Naval Ops: Warship Gunner (PlayStation 2) Developer: Microcabin Publisher: Koei Released: 2003 Genre: Vehicle simulation game
	2025/02/25
Blood Omen 2 (Xbox) Developers: Crystal Dynamics, Nixxes Software Publisher: Eidos Interactive Released: 2002 Genre: Action-adventure
	2025/02/21
Condemned (Xbox 360) Developer: Monolith Productions Publisher: Sega Released: 2005 Genre: Survival horror, action
	2025/02/20
RTX Red Rock (PlayStation 2) Developer: LucasArts Publisher: LucasArts Released: 2003 Genre: Action-adventure
I remember reading about this in a PC magazine, I have no idea how it got there cause it's PlayStation 2 only (maybe because it was a LucasArts article) and I just got fascinated by it. I thought about playing it but when I saw the reviews I was like nope, but recently I found a strategy guide and found out you can die as many times and it's not game over you just respawn lol and you don't have to kill the enemies again so I was like why not let's give it a try. The subtitles were completely out of sync in the opening cutscene lol, these aliens called LEDs attack Earth then some colony on Mars, they send this elite soldier called EZ Wheeler there, the dude is recovering from an injury where he lost an eye and an arm and they were replaced with mechanical ones. The interface is kinda complicated, you can change scan modes on your eye and you need a specific one to see the map and objectives, and there are also slots for weapons and items. You have a sassy AI girl called Iris that helps you, you need to insert her module to use things and don't forget to remove it after or you're fucked. Thank god you can change both inverted shit, why wasn't this an option in Star Wars: Bounty Hunter eh. The graphics are kinda meh it reminds me of very early PlayStation 2 games but the framerate is so bad, the music is techno scifi which was ok. You crash land on Mars after you fuck around on a moon base, you have a Buzz Lightyear looking spacesuit lmao and you need oxygen to survive outside (you gotta recharge it from the inventory), you can make really long jumps lol which is required for the platforming parts. The camera is awful and the combat is with lock on but it's so bad sometimes he just turns around eh, the pistol has infinite ammo but you can pick up LED weapons which need ammo. You can find cash which you can use in vending machines to buy health, oxygen and food you can drop to distract LEDs lol (and you can stun them too with fire extinguishers). Besides the Naviscan there is Thermoscan which can reveal invisible enemies, Electroscan shows things you can interact with or open, Bioscan reveals some spiritual alien shit called Old Souls wtf. You can find upgrades for your arm too, a torque wrench to open panels, grapple hand to go to areas you can't reach, taser to activate panels, plasma cutter to open walls on specific places and a catapult lol to launch butane tanks. There are 100 survivors you can find throughout the game, you get this alien device that scans them and stores them lol to carry them with you, I don't know where the fuck are they hiding not even the strategy guide has them all lmao but still I found 90. You can save anytime so that's good it just puts you back at the beginning of a section like when you die. Sometimes you gotta go inside a computer to hack or activate something, these parts are like Rez or Tron 2.0: Killer App visually, you're going through these gates avoiding traps to pick up some shit, I have no idea wtf to do I just drove around and it just worked sometimes lmao later I just followed the strategy guide. Before I played the game I thought it's like you are a repairman on Mars and just go around repairing stuff on a colony that lost contact and try to find survivors and shit, and a lot of times you do that, crawling around, fixing machines and using robots and shit but only to progress and there are way too many annoying combat parts. Those alien fuckers come from teleports and you need to use junk on those to disable them. So you go around fixing power stations or going through a mine or farm areas and the colony itself and shit until you find these ancient aliens called Old Souls who guard the Foundation Stones which the LEDs are really after, so your goal is to find them all. They actually have powers, one summons an Old Soul to talk, there is a blinding stone that blinds LEDs, hiding stone makes you invisible and healing stone restores health and oxygen. Sometimes you need to drive a Mars rover lol or an alien ship but the controls are terrible, and at some point you get a jetpack too but again terrible controls. Areas are actually pretty detailed as in they have a lot of shit around lol, in a gamestore in the colony I found a Monkey Island poster too lmao with a bunch of other LucasArts games, but there are some other cool moments like when you have to build a fucking robot girl to distract a robot cannon lol, she shakes her ass too lmao. At some point the dude gets trapped behind a chain-link fence and you gotta play the colony chick boss to rescue him, (why the fuck isn't he cutting himself out with his tools lmao shitty game), she gets a machine gun you can't get and you gotta move inside a box to pick her up controlling a robot to take her through areas without oxygen so there are some clever parts. There are boss fights too but if you die there you gotta restart the fight eh some of them were awful like that ship. When you get all stones you gotta go to some underground place to summon all the Old Souls, you get a stone from them which turns you into gold and you lose your equipment but you fire laser from your arm and shit now, you take the battle to the mothership lmao you have so much health you can barely get damaged and you're just destroying them like crazy. The final boss was insane and you gotta switch between your 3 attacks when you could barely see anything with the shitty camera and lock on, it took me forever to win. I guess you need to save everyone to unlock all extras but there is a cheat, you get a blooper reel of bugs during development lol it's so long, an early motion test video, a comic preview and the full comic too in an interactive form with sounds and music but I couldn't read it on this TV, photos of the devs and concept art videos. I read the comic later and it's the mission where he lost his arm and eye, lmao the game is so kid friendly but here Iris has giant tits and EZ is muscled and just massacring aliens lol. It's just not good unfortunately which is a shame because the concept of fucking around on Mars fixing shit on a colony is really cool but the execution sucks, vehicles are awful to drive, the interface is not easy to use, combat is awful and the framerate is terrible. It's kinda like Run Like Hell, if it came out 2 years earlier it would have been an ok game but in 2003 this is just not enough and outdated as hell, but still it has a soul like all LucasArts games.	2025/02/10
Call of Juarez (Xbox 360) Developer: Techland Publisher: Ubisoft Released: 2007 Genre: First-person shooter
I think I heard of the second game cause it takes place during the American Civil War, I wanted to play that but it's part of a series and this one didn't look that interesting and I heard it's frustrating so I dropped the idea, but after getting a PlayStation 3 I used the remaining DVDs on games I can only play on my Xbox 360 so I thought I give it a chance. The name is a reference to the gold of Montezuma which supposedly is hidden near the town of Juarez and that it's cursed and it drives people insane. The game starts with a shootout with a gatling gun, you don't know what's going on then when it's over you get a two weeks earlier screen to find out what lead to this by playing through the game. You start with this young dude called Billy who ran away from his stepfather and now comes home to visit his mother. The graphics look pretty good for an early game (on PC it came out a year earlier too) with a really nice looking nature (where wolves can attack you) and big open areas and shit, like it's really impressive how fucking huge they can be with giant slopes where you go down like in Galleon lmao wtf even when you're on a horse. There is a lot of interactivity, you can pick up so much shit with X, like carry a box to climb up somewhere or put it down on a plank to weight it down so you can walk over, or you need to fill a bucket with water to put some fire out, it's so cool. There are a lot of cool details too like horseshit on the street lol and you can see your entire body when you look down. Billy has a more stealthy gameplay, you need to hide in bushes and in the dark, and platforming too like using the whip to climb up and swing lol, you can even kill enemies with it lmao. From what I understand in the original PC version it was a lot more stealthy with less combat but they changed it and reworked some levels and added auto aim and regenerating health thank god (you can still pick up whiskey bottles as health when the screen is red and it instantly recharges it) so as always it's the superior version to play (fuck PC lmao). There are two kind of collectibles, the wanted posters which are pics and some info of the devs lol and if you collect at least 30 it unlocks a harder difficulty, and hidden bonus weapons which I usually kept using because the normal weapons sometimes are rusty and they stop working after a while, but Billy also has a bow and arrows (which you can recollect from bodies) and those are important for stealth kills, and you can go into bullet time with it lmao. There are also rifles and shotguns, and dynamites you can throw (or shoot down in the air when they throw it at you lol). Some objectives have a time limit, like when you're trying to find a pistol in a whore's room and when she comes back she sucks you off lmao. Billy isn't the only character, usually you alternate between characters and play as this priest dude called Ray who is his unlce, he finds his brother and his wife murdered and thinks Billy did it cause he runs away so he is chasing after him throughout the game to take revenge. He can equip his Bible and read passages lmao and it can confuse and freeze enemies, so crazy lol. He can also use bullet time (called concentration mode) when you pull out both guns at the same time and you can control the two crosshairs separately with the analog sticks. There is also quick shooting mode with revolvers which I used a lot more, and you can kick doors in too. Ray also has duel segments, you gotta draw your weapons slowly with the analog stick to aim properly and it works like concentration mode for a little bit, you can dodge to left and right but you can't move. You get stats at end of episodes but it doesn't really matter, but you also get a nice narration on the loading screens before the start of episodes where you learn more about the characters. Some episodes can be quite short but most of them felt extremely long, mostly because I played it very slowly so it took me forever to find all bonus weapons and posters or just trying to be hidden with Billy, like there was a stealth segment in a storm and you become visible for a few seconds when lightning strikes, it really is an immersive game. Some cool segments were riding on a minecart Indiana Jones style lol (and you ride horses too but it was so hard to control), saving a train from bandits, doing these trials for some Native dude climbing up mountains and swinging from platform to platform with your whip Jesus, or treasure hunting in a cave with traps and big spiders lol. You fight the final boss like 3 times lmao to save Billy's love but poor Ray doesn't make it. You get exta missions too after beating the campaign, it's unrelated to the story just a sheriff saving people from a gang burning down a house, then shooting his way through a town, and in the third one you become the sheriff in that town and go around stopping bandits attacking the bank or some women place, and you find out the commissioner who sent you there is with the bandits but the dude escapes to Mexico after killing them cause he has no proof lol. You also get duel challenges after you defeat them in the story with little character bios on the loading screens. It has multiplayer too but it's online only eh. Honestly it's suprisingly good and immersive, I didn't expect it at all and it's by far the best Western game I've played (which doesn't say much cause I only finished two others lol), it was fun and I'm looking forward to play the rest of the series.	2025/02/09
MechAssault 2: Lone Wolf (Xbox) Developers: Day 1 Studios, FASA Studio Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Released: 2004 Genre: Third-person shooter
God I played the first game so long ago I barely remembered anything other than the gameplay, I rewatched the cutscenes but the story was barely there anyway lol. I felt something was missing but when I played it online I realized it was more about the multiplayer and the campaign was just an afterthought. The main menu is pretty cool, you can walk around a spaceship but it has no function lol. So the story is about this datacore they recovered in the first game, you have the same crew but they look different and they developed some BattleArmor which is like a tiny mech, and they're walking around the city when mechs attack (no subtitles of course). It has a laser and mortal weapons, a jumpjet and you can grab onto walls with it to get over them which is cool. The graphics look better, you still have those gigantic explosions when mechs are destroyed lol, the characters look nice in cutscenes, and there are a lot more details like people walking around so you aren't just a gigantic mech destroying cities. The upgrade and health pickups are the same, but you can hack mechs with the BattleArmor wow by grabbing onto them and doing this quick QTE and then you can exit it as just a dude running around and enter the mech. It was a good idea to play on easy lol it was still hard like the first one. It doesn't take place on the same planet, you rescue some pirate chick who takes you to other planets with different locations like cities, swamps, fields, an arena with mech statues lol etc to hunt for more datacores. You can't pick mechs before missions anymore and you need to drive tanks too sometimes, you can zoom in with the cannon and you can knock mechs down if you aim at their legs which was pretty cool. Being able to leave your mech added a lot of variety, there are some missions where you gotta steal mechs, like by grabbing a plane's wings to carry your BattleArmor to a base and you can shoot at enemies while holding onto it lol, and you gotta pilot a plane too and you can pick up armored cars lol and carry them but the controls were weird. You are very vulnerable though so it's best to clear the area before you jump out to activate some panels with QTE, but there were longer on foot sections too which were more stealthy, enemies can only see you when you're in front of them and you gotta plant charges to destroy buildings, but the dumbass gets stuck in everything eh. There were some turret section too, this introduced a new weapon the guided missile, which obviously isn't useful while controlling a moving mech. There weren't many new weapons though, I don't remember having a flamethrower in the first game (which is actually quite useful at close range), and some mechs have an attack called alpha strike when all your weapons are max upgraded you fire all of them at once lol. Sometimes you have allies too which is cool, I don't think they were in the first game either. There are boss fights with gigantic mechs lol whith metal music playing in the background, like a huge spider with a gigantic explosion too lol, or later waves of little spiders who can hack you. The final boss fight was with a gigantic skull face mech lol in your tiny BattleArmor, you gotta hack it a bunch of times to disable its shields to finish it lol. There are no extras eh but the limited edition DVD had a making of video so I watched that on YouTube. The multiplayer modes are similar I assume, however there was a really cool one called Conquest mode which was a persistent online mode where you see the galaxy map and you can attack or defend planets or join in to support the battle, every planet has a different game mode associated with it so it keeps changing which faction controls what, it's a really cool idea. This is a much better game and a more complete experience on its own (even though it's still ridiculously short, it only took a week to beat it), and the cool additions to multiplayer make me wish Insignia supported it.	2025/01/29
Clive Barker's Jericho (Xbox 360) Developer: MercurySteam Publisher: Codemasters Released: 2007 Genre: First-person shooter
I remember seeing this game in stores and reading about it in magazines, I thought it looked so cool I actually almost bought it for PC lol. So I always wanted to play it but after seeing some bad reviews I didn't want to waste a DVD, but after I got that 25 pack Verbatims I changed my mind. I watched Hellraiser a few years ago which was made by the dude who wrote the story, the characters looked cool but the movie was very meh. You are part of the Department of Occult Warfare agency which is like a paranormal investigating unit with your squad kinda like F.E.A.R. but everyone here has powers, apparently god created this being called Firstborn before humans and then banished it because it terrified him lol. You're being sent to Al-Khali with your 7 member Jericho Squad because some cult took it over, the place is really cool with Sumerian ruins. You have a primary and secondary weapon with different firing modes, sometimes you get QTEs fuck you need to react so fast, but there are infinite retries thank god. I played on easy cause I heard it's hard and the friendly AI is dumb, but enemies are still bullet sponges eh. You play as Captain Ross and his power is healing dead allies, and your squad members are separated into Alpha and Omega squads, you can send them separately to different positions, or give advance all and hold all commands, but you are alone too sometimes. It's very linear though, you can only go one way and sometimes the squads splits up but you can't pick which one to control or where to go. It has the typical horror music and the graphics looked really nice and very slimy looking lol with blood and guts and shit everywhere but the game is very dark in some places, I had flashlight on most of the time, it didn't seem to have any limit. Here you have the dead cultists as enemies, some of them explode lol and there are flying ones too (these all show up throughout the game), but a lot of times combat is just waves of enemies and when they die a bunch of flies eat up their corpes ew. At the end of this first area your character actually dies and your squad goes through some breach to the past, here is where the main gameplay element of the game happens as your ghost survived and you can possess your squadmates and use them and you can still use your healing ability. They all have different weapons and powers, the sniper chick called Black has a grenade launcher too and she's telepatic and you can control her bullet's path to kill more enemies lol, the big native dude Delgado has a giant machine gun and can unleash a fire spirit that attacks enemies and lights them on fire and has a fire shield too, Church is a chick with a tiny machine gun and a samurai sword and she can use blood magic to freeze enemies or set them on fire, the autistic chick Cole has a rifle that can see the weekness points when you zoom in and has grenades and she can slow down time, add fire damage to everyone's attack and recharge everyone's ammo on checkpoints using time warps with chaos math and shit lol, the priest dude Rawlings has pistols with different ammo types like explosives and he can heal too from far and drain enemy health, and Jones who can use astral projection and can take over enemy bodies to open doors with inaccessible switches (sometimes by jumping from bodies to bodies) and he has the same weapons as Ross had. The powers slowly activate as you play through the game and they're needed to progress so you switch a lot between them for different situations. They can be really stupid though like standing out in the open instead of moving behind covers. You have files you can unlock about them or enemies, most would require beating missions on hard so fuck that but you can get some by killing enemies with grenades or headshots, but I could read all of them in the strategy guide lol and you can learn a lot about their backstories. So you arrive to this thing called The Box where segments of different time periods are locked inside, the first one is WW2 with nazi machine gunner monsters where you learn that anytime the breach opens it needs 7 people to close it (the nazi one has OSS Brits) and when it closes it takes a little bit of the place with it so those dudes are still trapped in there, and no one can actually die there, if they do the flies make them serve the Firstborn. There are boss fights too and you need to use at least one of your squad's special power to kill them. Next age is the Crusades with Templars lol with burning skies and blood river around a big castle, with a gigantic meat monster and fucking ghosts of child Crusaders (I remember that from history books, apparently it was bullshit though). Then there is the Roman times with crucified people everywhere and bathhouses with shielded legionaries and giant gladiators, the huge fat cannibal boss makes you fight like a gladiator in an arena lol. The last location is Sumerian times with the original city wow it was so big, you gotta reassemble the last good priest by killing the other 6 to close the breach, these feel so rushed like they didn't have time to finish the game so it's kinda like just boss fights after boss fights but they didn't even have any dialogue. And then the final level wtf was that lol, they fuck over the Sumerian dude and decide to fight the Firstborn and it kills some of your squad (including my favorite autistic girl fuck), and holy fuck that ending lmao are they serious with this shit, it just ends lmao not even a proper cliffhanger, I heard it's sudden and bad but my god wtf is this lmao. So I looked it up and they left some subtitles in the game files with the original ending which was totally different and would have been much better cause they actually explained shit with a twist, it's pretty obvious based on the last two locations that they simply ran out of time eh. You could unlock some bonus codes but only by calling the publisher on the phone to get the actual codes to unlock cheats lmao what is this the early 90s? It was kinda short too but that's fine, either way I liked the cool story and the concept and the locations but the half assed executions like enemies just swarming at you and the dumb AI kinda ruined it, not to mention that ending eh, but still it was cool.	2025/01/25
.hack//MUTATION (PlayStation 2) Developer: CyberConnect2 Publisher: Bandai Released: 2003 Genre: Action role-playing
Luckily I didn't have to wait years to play the next game, and winter was the perfect time to play a longer game. As I said you can load up your save from the first game and continue from there, and it it really is like the same game lmao I'm not even sure what to write about, it has same graphics and music and shit (but why did the voices sound so bad it was like a phonograph lol). There is a recap at the beginning which is good cause I forgot a lot of things either way (I watched a video of the cutscenes too on YouTube). You have all the stuff in the destkop too like the board messages continue and get more news with some prediction like the death of printed magazines. A new thing is flag races where you're racing with grunties you raised touching flags lol it's literally impossible, somehow I did the first beating all 3 times but on the previous server with the wooden planks it's impossible. There is a new type of data drain called Drain Arc which can drain multiple enemies at the same time now thank god. The cutscenes seem to be more cinematic with more things happening, you have a confrontation with the admins and make a non aggression pact lol, he poses as a shop NPC and you gotta report to him and he sends you out to investigate. There is a new server you can go to where the city is like a cool night town, and of course you can go back to the previous locations too. There are new virus cores too of course, new party members, new grunty types like some fucking snake one lmao wtf or a skeleton, and also some new scroll type to summon elemental enemies I guess, I don't even know if these were in the first game. The goblin chases are different though, they won't stand still when you use skills eh. Not that far into the game there is another giant boss fight like the final boss was in the first one huh, then another one later wtf. It seems like you gotta put the AI girl back together like in the book but I'm guess that's gonna be in the next games. This one felt easier too, there are less 5 floor dungeons and most of them have just 3 thank fucking god. You can also see the anime characters talking on the board so cool, actually they show up in dungeons too, then you find them again at that church and see these flashbacks from the anime recreated inside the game and get items for watching them. You gotta find some information about the book the game was based on, and you end up in Net Slum from the anime which looks like some ruined modern city where hackers go, it has all kinds of weird player characters lol, a monitor head, smiley heads, a 2D one lol, with some previous players who don't even have bodies anymore. The final boss felt easier than in the first game, and it ends with the towns becoming infected too damn. It also has an extra boss which was in the skies, it looked nice. I think I finished it faster like it only took a month because of the shorter dungeons and there's less extra shit to hunt. I watched the next anime episode too, wtf was going on lol the previous one was easy to follow this had nothing to do with anything lmao just some girl stuck in a mall eh. I know these are technically the same games so I don't expect any changes in the next one, but I still think it's better this way, I can't imagine playing these as one long ass game for months, it would bore me to fucking death.	2025/01/23
Prince of Persia: Warrior Within (Xbox) Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Released: 2004 Genre: Action-adventure, platform, hack and slash
I remember thinking this game looks cool but it's so dark and edgy lmao, even the strategy guide I found is scanned so darkly lmao, it's a shame that magical Arabian aesthetic is gone though (I can't believe it took this long to get to this game eh). I rewatched the cutscenes and dialogues of the previous game to make sure I remember everything and because I could barely hear anything while playing it, thank god this one finally has subtitles. I watched the trailers in the video gallery first (they have some from the previous game too) and the new combat presentation. The Prince has a new voice though eh I liked the old one better, his ship gets attacked by sand creatures and a girl walks out while they do a close up on her ass lol nice. You don't have the dagger anymore of course so you can pick up any weapon and use it and can throw it too but they deteriorate over time, there are maces, other swords, daggers, axes etc. Fucking metal music plays during combat lol and man it's so much more acrobatic, you can swing on poles cutting through enemies or jump all over them. You automatically collect sand and there is no need to finish like with the dagger anymore, water still recharges health and you can drink from puddles now too. And yeah this game was so fucking hard I had to restart on easy, I couldn't even finish the first tutorial level lmao. You get a flashback of the Prince talking to this old sage who tells him where the sands were created, cause this shadow monster called Dahaka is chasing him because he changed time and reversed what happened in the previous game, so you travelled to the Island of Time to travel back in time and stop the sand from ever being created. You wake up on the shores after they sank your ship and fight crows with a stick lol, this was like an acrobatic tutorial level. You have a map now but it's kinda pointless it just shows the entire island. You can find hidden chests and they unlock concept art, and you can only save at specific fountains. You get new swords too but you don't have to find them you just get them automatically as you progress. There are no future scenes anymore cause you don't have the dagger, apparently he kept Farah's medal and that gives him the time powers. You don't only have sand enemies, there are some shadow monsters and human enemies too, or a brute which is a giant armored enemy and you gotta climb up on his back and hit his head to kill him, and shit like exploding spiky wolves lol, and also a lot more boss fights like some crow master you fight a bunch of times. This game has some really brutal executions like decapitating or cutting enemies in half lol (you don't get anything out of fights besides weapons though so you can just skip them if you can). There are these portals where you can travel between the past and present, like sometimes it's all ruins in the present and the traps don't work but in the past they do and that's the only way you can progress between areas by traveling through timelines (you gotta activate the portals with switches too and it's always random eh but it's only 4 so whatever, it's a waste of time though). I think the puzzle rooms don't feel that enormous as in Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time, it's more like you have more smaller ones here but I could be wrong, you can also slide down tapestry and swing and climb on ropes, I don't remeber if they were in the previous game or not. You meet a girl and try to help her, she gives you a sword that's also a key you can use to rotate the environment and raise platforms with it in a room to access more areas, and you can return to previous areas too so it's kinda open worldy. You can find these hidden hard to get places too ridden with traps where you can get health upgrades and you still have your powers too and you slowly get them as you progress through the game, Eye of the Storm slows down everything, Breath of Fate is like a strong ground attack, Ravages of Time turns everything red lol with brutal fast attacks, Wind of Fate is a stronger ground attack and Cyclone of Fate is the strongest ground attack, and of course you get more sand tanks too. The Dahaka actually followed you here and it creates paths by destroying shit too, and there are these chase sequences when you gotta escape it lmao until you get to some water because it can't pass through it (Jesus fuck the later ones took forever and were so difficult). Thank god there are checkpoints before cutscenes, I would lose so much progress cause fountains are rare sometimes, still some of the jumps were impossible to get the perspective right and I kept jumping to wrong places. You are supposed to activate some mechanism to get to the Empress in the throne room and stop the creation of the sands, the two places are some clockwork tower and the garden areas (which totally looked like Ico). Turns out the chick was the Empress all along and she fucked you over, and the Prince was the one who created the sands accidentally oops, the Mask of the Wraith gives a him a second chance to travel back and change the past again, turns out that wraith you kept seeing was you cause it turns you into one, it recharges sand but it keeps depleting your health (it makes that griffin boss with regenerating health really easy to kill). You gotta go all the way back eh, but you see your past self doing shit and activiting stuff and that was cool, by this time you get a sword that can break some walls and find more hidden weapons that are so dumb like a hockey stick lol, a flamingo, a teddy bear, a lightsaber lmao. The game has two endings, you need to get all upgrades and the water sword at the end to unlock the true ending and final boss fight. This game was really buggy though like sometimes the music skipped or in one cutscene I couldn't hear anything and it froze once too. But the worst is the game breaking bug which fucking happened to me, it locks you out literally right before the final boss where I'm supposed to go through a portal wtf, I tried an earlier save I took before I went back to the final upgrade to get both endings and that one was fucked too wtf it ruined the entire game for me. I just downloaded a save thank god someone uploaded one right before both endings and also one with everything unlocked, but it wasn't on easy and it was fucking impossible for me so I just tried the true ending with the Dahaka fight and finally I could kill that, they both sail to Babylon which is under attack while they fuck on the ship lmao (Monica Bellucci voiced the Empress, nice). In the other one you fight the Empress and the Dahaka takes her and the amulet. The unlockables are videos of enemies, making of video lmao the director is clearly a metalhead with the same tattoos as the Prince lol, pics of all characters, environment art, illustrations with some sexy pics too and pics and stats of weapons. Now Insignia had the update and DLCs to download, they're like arena challenges and time attack modes, no thanks lol. Yeah it was good, the gameplay and the combat was better but I liked the Arabian Tales aesthetic more and that bug really made me angry and it was hard too. I'm looking forward to the next one though, it looks cool with the different Princes.	2025/01/21
Assassin's Creed III (Xbox 360) Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Released: 2012 Genre: Action-adventure, stealth
I finally got to the final game of the trilogy (even though it had more games but whatever lol), unfortunately I got spoiled ages ago of what happens to Desmond but I had no idea how. I knew it takes place during the US independence war, I thought it's a stupid location with these hooded figures lol and like how the fuck would colonial America have large cities lol. I found a strategy guide thank god, and I watched all the trailers before and read related news on an old website, I should start doing this with all games. I read the comics that came out before the release of the game, the one set in ancient Rome was cool but they used some retared logic like experiencing the dude's death is impossible lol when his memory should end when he impregnates someone, then another two from the Russkie civil war with his templar dude killing the Assassin leader. The intro explains what happened so far, then continues right where the last game ended going in that temple in America. The characters look good but the shadows are still weird, the controls are different though, you don't have to press A to climb just the right trigger and run and climb the way you move the left stick and you don't have to jump up when climbing big distances either, everything is automatic. You play this dude Haytham in the London opera assassinating someone, then he's sent to America to find the same temple you are in. Here you already see something new, a lockpicking minigame where you gotta rotate both sticks then press RT. You can do a bunch of shit on your ship ride, and can talk to random people too with proper conversations. You arrive to Boston and I noticed the most important thing in the entire game: you can pet animals lmao so fucking cool. Beggars were replaced by orphan kids lol, and you can clear the fog on the map around you when you walk through an area but only that small route so you still gotta use eagle towers. You meet famous people like Ben Franklin, you can collect pages he lost but you gotta chase after them cause they fly away and they unlock his almanacs, they are so long god just a bunch of bullshit, and you can talk to him about fucking old women eh gross, later you can craft his inventions too. You can run through open doors inside houses and windows now huh, and there is a slight cover mechanic when you stand around corners and you automatically hide in bushes and can hide in the back of moving carts too. Your health auto recharges so you don't have to deal with potions anymore, and you can use big muskets (takes forever to reload lol) and you can avoid firing squads by grabbing a soldier and holding him as shield lol. Seems like there is dynamic weather and a thunderstorm can start, and there is winter too with snow so cool and you walk very slow in big snow (I found a snowman too lmao). There is another region outside the city called the Frontier which is like a countryside with small towns and trading posts and forests where like wolves can attack and you gotta do this QTE to kill them, there are all kinds of animals too like rabbits, deers, racoons etc lmao. You meet young Washington too during the French and Indian War which I never even heard of, and you get the first twist as you find out that Haytham dude is actually a Templar wtf, he fucked the Native chick and now you are playing as his kid lmao (wtf is this language using the : symbol as letters lmao, you hear them speak it instead of English), you play hide and seek as a kid analyzing clues to find the other children, and your father's dudes led by Charles Lee find you and they look evil now and they burn down your village and your mother dies. So i wondered how the fuck would this work without big cities, well the Native dude can climb on trees in forests and run on them like in the cities, eagle points are big trees with nests lmao pretty cool, you can climb up giant rocks and mountains too (and actually the cities aren't small either, guess I thought they still had mostly wooden houses at that time lmao). And there is hunting too, you find clues to identify the animal, you can put snare and bait down lmao it attracts so many animals, then when you kill them you skin them to collect meat and bones and shit, some attacks can damage the pelt and it costs less in trade (some of them are really agressive though, fuck the cougars and the bears). Turns out the Natives have an Apple, dude sees a vision where apparently Juno tries to make sure his life goes the way that can help Desmond and you play through a trippy eagle flight. Btw I actually learned a lot about Natives, I knew they had big cities but I thought they were still just random tribes, I had no idea they had proper confederations that lasted for a thousand years wow and with such a democratic government type. There are these clubs with missions and the usual challenges, hunting that's pretty self explanatory, Frontiersman which has like legends you investigate like a monster was just a dude in a diving suit, an umbrella was the UFO lmao, Sasquatch was just a dude living in a cave, but the headless rider was actually true with a pumpkinhead wtf. Boston Brawlers is a fight club lmao with a tournament at the end with a crowd that can damage you too, and there are thief challenges too without missions. There is a very simple letter delivery sidequest too and an item list delivery one which is a lot harder to do. It takes a while till Sequence 5 till the game lets you go anywhere, you meet an old Assassin dude after spirits told you to look for him, he gives you a proper English name Connor lol and trains you and you gotta kill the Templars and your father. You see or participate in shit like the Boston Massacre, Boston Tea Party, Paul Revere's Ride etc which was really cool, Boston also has tunnels underground for fast travel, it's like a labyrinth where you can follow rats to get out lol and light up lamps, some of these are like those obstacle courses from the previous games just a mini version with puzzles and shit too, like you gotta use a lantern projector to align symbols, you can fast travel just by opening the map so you don't have to go back after unlocking them and there is also fast travel between regions by ships. There is also Homestead which is like the town you had in Assassin's Creed II but you just start with a house (which has your collectibles), you can recruit people with professions to live there so it's like town building, they have quests too and it levels them up making better items and their story progresses, some get married or get kids and you end up with a proper community. You can sell what they make with a trade route which can get attacked and you can go there to defend it, you need them to craft too you can see what you can make and who and what resources are needed for it, you can find more recipes in treasure chests, and you gotta craft the pouches as you can't buy them anymore so you need to level up your Homestead people for better ones. A cool new thing is naval combat, your ship has 2 different speeds and can stop too, you can give command to fire big cannons with different types of ammo (like you can use chains to destroy the sails) or just a small sniper one, the weather and wind has effect on how your ship handles, and there are naval missions too, and Privateer Contracts which are short ones that reduce the risk of trade as there are naval convoys too, and there is treasure hunting lol that some famous captain hid, you deliver trinkets to a dude who gives you letters and locations, these are the usual obstacle courses from previous games, there is one with the Northwest Passage in snow it was so cool, or Edinburgh castle in Jamaica (this was a real thing wtf), the treasure turns out to be an artifact that's an electromagnetic shield lol it reduces the chance of being hit by bullets. There are forts you can capture too, you gotta kill the captain, destroy powder kegs then lower the flag, it reduces trade tax and attack chances. A cool new weapon is the rope dart, you can drop it down from trees and hang people with it damn. You have Assassin buddies too and they have different abilities, they can cause riots, marksman is obvious, with bodyguard they follow you and kill enemies lol, covert escort is cool they dress us as Brits and pretend you are a prisoner to get into protected areas, lure is like the thieves in previous games where they steal something and the guards start running after them. You get them by liberating an area but you gotta do these tasks helping out people harrassed by soldiers and shit like that or burning infected blankets lol enough times to get the mission (you also get get keys to chests in the area after that and you no longer need to lockpick). You can leave the Animus again when you want to and talk to your crew and read emails (lmao Juno sends emails too), there are future missions too (the modern music reminded me of the theme of Halo 3: ODST), going up skyscraper under construction and parachuting into an Abstergo place to get a power source lol (that dude from the comic shows up wow it was worth reading it after all), there is Brazil too with some UFC arena place, and when your dad gets kidnapped you literally walk into Abstergo lmao fighting guards, you even get gun at the end lmao then just fuck shit up with the Apple lmao (man I actually really hoped the series would end with a modern setting, it would have been so cool). You need to install the power sources you get and Juno talks to you while you are trying to climb up to those places, you learn about the methods of how they tried to stop the catastrophe. Meanwhile Connor of course takes part in the American Revolutionary War, sometimes you are like an officer riding along firing lines and giving orders or controlling big cannons, you take part of the Battle of the Chesapeake too with ships burning everywhere, it looked really cool. By that time you get to the other big city which is New York, it has the same shit undeground and quests and pages (parts of the city is burned down lol). There was a cool scene where they almost hang you lol and you stop Washington's assassination, and at some point you work together with your father too, but the dude gets fucked over by everyone including Washington too wtf, and he's just really angry at everyone but ultimately he's after Charles Lee and it takes so many attempts to get him lol, and this is where Desmond finds out where the key they're looking for is. Spoiler alert: that fucking old civilization bitch fucked you over, she literally controlled history to free herself wtf is going on it was so dumb, and Desmond dies like a bitch, I'm sure as hell this wasn't the ending the real creator of the series planned before he left. There are actually some new missions after you beat the game huh, but it's more like cutscenes that things won't be as good as they thought, and his Native people still got fucked over. There are no new armored outfits you can get though eh as they don't have stats anymore, but you can unlock Altaïr's lol and some other ones. There are also some pivots thing to hack, they're placed on the map but it needs online so whatever, and you get cheats lol the season changer is nice. This is the first game where I actually completed everything including all challenges too (fuck those minigames I'm so dumb for it I couldn't even understand, the bowl game glitches out by going to the map when the other dude throws lmao so I used that trick, the others I just played on some browser game vs the AI and followed the moves), I just forgot some plate award for looting 10 convoys eh but it doesn't count toward 100% so whatever. It was buggy as hell even with a patch, like one of my convoys got stuck and I couldn't use that slot anymore, and some sidequests bugged out and had to start them again. So here is the thing, I watched the DLCs that take place during the story as usual and they didn't really add much, however a 3 part DLC called Assassin's Creed III: The Tyranny of King Washington came out that you can play separately and that means I could play them on my PlayStation 3 (you may think it's a wasted Xbox 360 disc now that I have a PlayStation 3 and I could have played all the DLCs but the controls suck ass there lmao so it's better this way). First thing I noticed is how much slower the load times are lol and the graphics are a bit different too. It takes place in some kind of alternate world where Connor wakes up, his mother is still alive and he never left his tribe, but Washington got mad with power and became king, turns out he got a fucking Apple lmao and he's like superhero, he kills your mother again and shots you like a million times, but you still survive. There is some new giant red tree that wasn't there, you drink a tea of it and hallucinate like crazy then gain this spiritual power with wolves that makes you invisible and you move superfast wow but it depletes your health when active, it's so fucking OP just killing everyone cloaked lmao (dogs can sniff you out though) and you also have these ghost wolves to summon like Assassins lmao so cool. This episode takes place on the Frontier but it's smaller and different, it's frozen and full of ruined buildings, hanged people, and with wolves everwhere. It has collectibles too like chests (the locked ones have upgrades sometimes) but it's all visible on the map, and these Lucid Memory Artifacts from the main game and they're like memories huh on the location they happened (3 per episode, finding all unlocks 3 videos of how this alternate world actually happened and what it really is). There are also citizen missions, like attack convoys to liberate prisoners and slaves (it's so buggy too often times people just sat on the air outside the cages lol), give food to starving people (raw meat is a new item) and save people from wolves. You get captured and the second episode is in Boston with so many guards, barricades and checkpoints or hanged people everywhere. The new ability here is eagle flight, you basically fly to the place you point like to edges, and can use it to air assassinate too. It has the same citizen missions even wolves lol, plus saving civilians from firing squads. Benjamin Franklin joins you here and you escape to New York lol on your ship and the first mission is a naval battle, the city looks so weird cause he built a gigantic fucking pyramid there lmao (the inside of it is like those obstacle courses and it has a zoo in there too lol). You get the bear power here by climbing up a gigantic bear and pulling spears out of it lmao (guess that's what Shadow of the Colossus is gonna be fuck it's gonna take forever to get there), it's great for smashing the ground and killing everyone around you but that includes allies too fuck. The sidequests are similar but instead of wolves you gotta defend people here in fights. Thomas Jefferson helps you here, you gotta create civil unrest by hanging soldiers lol, destroying cannons and statues and shit like that then launch a rebellion and finally have the ultimate showdown with Washington. One time there was a brutal slowdown when there were too many guards on the screen, that never happened on the Xbox 360. These DLCs were actually really cool and I liked the powers but it made you so OP lol. That piece of shit successor of the PlayStation Portable had an Assassin's Creed game and it was released a year later in HD but digital only however that means I can play it on my PlayStation 3, so that will be the next in the series after summer. Honestly this one has clearly the best gameplay and content with so many things to do (I loved forests and shit) but the story was kinda meh especially that ending after all the buildup, so overall I would say it's the second best after Assassin's Creed II but just barely, I can't believe I almost didn't play it cause people said it's bad.	2025/01/14
GoldenEye: Rogue Agent (Xbox) Developer: EA Los Angeles Publisher: EA Games Released: 2004 Genre: First-person shooter
I heard of this a while ago as a James Bond game where you play as an evil agent and that sounded cool, and it's an FPS again, thank god I don't have to deal with that lock-on shit. I knew people hated it but I thought they're just those insane Nintendo cultists cause it has the same name as their beloved game lol. It has a strategy guide but it's not needed, but I heard it's hard so I played on easy. It has a bunch of villains from the movies lol like Goldfinger, Dr. No, that Asian dude with a hat, Pussy Galore lmao what a name, some other chicks too and Christopher Lee lol (aren't they from the 60s and 70s, it feels so weird in this modern setting lol). The first mission is with Bond defending Fort Knox, first of all you can use P90 hell yeah which is a very important fact for me lol and you can dual wield a lot of weapons, there are some weird ones like some laser weapon that can fire through covers but it's really slow, I loved the big machine gun that just destroys everyone lol. There is auto aim too but it's just the bullet goes there if turned on instead of moving the crosshair to the target, aiming sucks though and it makes sniping so hard. You can take hostages for human shield after you stun them by beating them with melee attack lol. Enemies sometimes get scared of you and take one of their buddies as hostage to defend themselves lmao. There is regenerating heath and there are armors to pick up from dead enemies, if you damage their body they worth less which was cool. Sometimes you can find these machines that are traps you can activate and kill enemies and you get these Rogue Bonus points for it, you can also get them for headshots, melee kills, hostages, when you push them over rails, using explosive barrels and shit, or for kills when you go down on ropes or lifts. At the end of levels these points determine what you unlock, there are 2 concept art videos and 2 multiplayer maps or skins on every level I think, I was lucky if I could unlock one concept art video lmao, shame there were no cool extras. The character moves slow as shit though and you can't jump eh. Turns out the first mission was just a simulation and you failed and they kick you out, but Goldfinger contacts you and offers you a GoldenEye to replace your lost eye lol that has abilities. Dr. No is basically at war with Goldfinger because he wants to steal his organic matter destruction device or whatever it is, so you get recruited to defend it. The CGI was really nice in the cutscenes (your dude is barely in them and never talks lol) and the graphics look pretty cool too with aesthetics kinda like techno futurism if that's a thing lol. Your GoldenEye has 4 abilities you slowly unlock as you progress through the game and they all cost energy, you start with seeing through covers, hacking from a distance which can make weapons malfunction or activate shit and you take over turrets for your side which was cool, polarity shield which is an energy shield that protects you and you can use it in melee to discharge it and kill enemies (some stronger enemies with names can have this too), and a magnetic field which is the Jedi force basically lol to push and pull enemies. You can't save anytime but missions aren't too long, the levels are incredibly linear, you can only go one way eh. You go to Hong Kong fighting drones on skyscrapers and the triad in bathouses where you can gas them to death in saunas lol, Las Vegas in a casino and underground, the Hoover Dam which was way too long and fuck those tanks Jesus, some underwater base which is like a black market for luxury weapons and that dude with the cat shows up too lol, Dr. No's island where you kill him and get fucked over by Goldfinger of course, and then his base where you get the Omen weapon which can disintegrate enemies even if they're shielded, but that also means insta death for you too eh. There is multiplayer too but it's online only so who cares, it's not a good game anyway, it was so boring and dull and just lame as fuck, it wasn't fun to play at all.	2024/12/31
Primal (PlayStation 2) Developer: Sony Computer Entertainment Europe Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Released: 2003 Genre: Action-adventure
I only heard of this game a few years ago when I started reading that console magazine, from what I've read real gamer girls in those days really loved it (along with Beyond Good & Evil). It was made by the MediEvil devs so I thought I should check it out. So this metal chick called Jen and her boyfriend Lewis are at a concert where he sings and sees some weird tall being and he gets scared, later it attacks them in the alleyway and she hits her head and falls into a coma where this gargoyle dude called Scree drags her soul out of her body and takes her into this place called Nexus in this dimension called Oblivion which has 4 worlds, two belong to Order with the goddess Arella and two to Chaos controlled by Abaddon who wants to control everything and he's behind the kidnapping of your boyfriend, so you help the gargoyle dude to restore the balance by visiting those worlds. The first world is Solum where these minotaur beings called the Ferai live, it's like Greek ruins and it's always dark and snowy, the kings in this world need to sacrifice themselves but the current one' son is missing and the world is collapsing because of it so you need to find him and find out what's going on. There are some NPCs but you can't interact with them just in cutscenes, when you find the son he actually helps you fighting lol (later that happens with the Wraith peasant too). You have regenerating health but you don't really use human form, you get other from the worlds and they have their own energies with different colors which Scree can collect from dead enemies, chests, barrels, stones or fountains to recharge his pool, and if you hold down the form's dpad button it recharges it from his energy. The Ferai form makes you jump higher to reach ledges but the combat sucks, you need to use finishing moves on some enemies and can block too and if you do it the right time it counterattacks, you use the shoulder buttons which was wierd, a normal press is a quick attack and holding down is a power attack (there are combos too but I'm too dumb for that). Corpses don't disappear at all which is cool, sometimes there are shielded enemies and they were harder to kill. Scree can't fight at all though, in fact he turns into stone during combat lol. You can find energy gems for Jen and they restore full energy if you run out, it's basically extra lives. Graphics are fine but the camera jumps around and shakes when you go up stairs and shit and it made me dizzy eh. The music is alright but it turns into this metal music when you're in combat lmao. You can switch between the characters with the Select button, there is so much banter between them lmao, the chick's voice actress is that hot blonde goddess from Xena: Warrior Princess yummy. You can ask Scree what to do next but it's vague as fuck so I just followed a guide lol. You gotta work together to progress, sometimes opening big doors or switches together, but you need to be separated sometimes like Jen can walk through small ledges and Scree can walk on walls. Scree can posses statues using 5 lodestones (that's other shit he can collect), it's needed to open doors or wiggle it to knock it down and create a path but actually sometimes he fights using the statue lol. He can carry a torch too to light up dark places which was cool, and he will find a rope in that minotaur world you can drop down so Jen can climb up and down, the animations are so fucking slow though when you climb and shit or when you change forms just waiting for it to finish lol. There is no jump button, you gotta go to the place and press forward on the analog stick and they do what's supposed to happen, but that also means you can't fall off or do the wrong thing. There are rift gates which are like a stargate lol where you can travel to different gates you discovered on the level and that's where you go back to the Nexus too, you have a map where you can see the gates and the objectives too. There are also these little portals called summoning stones where you can drag Scree out from other parts of the level if you get separated. You can save anytime thank god, you don't have to deal with checkpoints. You don't really get visual clues on what to do unless you have multiple things you can choose from, without a guide I would have been completely lost. The collectibles are hidden tarot cards, I think they needed to unlock all extras. It reminds me of Soul Reaver 2 like the big puzzles to solve and how combat works, it's just the story isn't that good lol. You gotta use all the different forms to progress through the levels, the second world is Aquis which is a water world where the water is poisoned and you gotta save the queen and help her restart the water filtering system, the Undine form here makes you breath underwater, the combat fucking sucked though and it was disorienting sometimes. Aetha world is like Transylvanian mountains with fog and rain with Wraiths who are like French vampires lmao, they sacrifice villagers (the decapitated heads can talk lol) and you gotta stop them. The Wraith form has purple whip but the fucking enemies were so hard here Jesus I tried to avoid combat with the monsters, this form's special ability is teleporting around and when you aren't in combat you can slow down time (I loved that part where you dress up as a Wraith and go to dance ball lmao, but that fucking maze was a nightmare). The last world Volca is an Egyptian and Arabian inspired desert kind of place with volcanos and lava and Djinns lol (I loved how flames automatically light up the rooms as you enter like in Aladdin) where the king takes control of Jen and you gotta rescue her by fighting her lol, the Djinn form here is different because you can switch between fast but weak and slow but powerful modes with your flame weapons, you can instakill weaker enemies lol it was brutal. The final boss is your boyfriend who got brainwashed to serve Abaddon and he has the forms too so it's 4 parts where you gotta fight through all of them (I just switched to Djinn form for all of them except water lol), and there is one where you fight with Scree who returned to his original body. After the end credits there was a Ghoshunter promo, I'm really looking forward to that game. The bonus stuff you unlock are a cutscenes viewer, tarot card viewer, behind the scenes video with the voice actors, making of video that was more like a gameplay promo with the devs talking lol, an interview with that metal band, trailer, and a coming soon trailer for some stupid monster fighting game lol. It was actually quite long (would have been almost a month if I didn't have to stop playing), it's sort of like Soul Reaver 2 lite but still a good game.	2024/12/20

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