| Currently playing |
PlayStation
2: .hack//MUTATION Xbox: Phantom Crash; GoldenEye: Rogue Agent Xbox 360: Earth Defense Force 2025; Assassin's Creed III |
| Project Sylpheed
(Xbox 360) Developers: Game Arts, SETA Corporation Publisher: Microsoft Game Studios Released: 2007 Genre: Space combat simulator |
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| I only heard of this game a couple years
ago in a YouTube video, but it looked cool as hell like Ace
Combat
6:
Fires
of
Liberation in space. For years I
was thinking about playing it but I was never really in
the mood for it until now. Also I've never seen a game
before with adjustable white and black level and gamma
settings huh, it was weird. Apparently it's part of a rail
shooter series but it plays nothing like that thank good.
There is a nice tutorial that teaches you everything
although it took some time to get used to the controls.
The story takes place in the future where a few colonies
form an alliance called ADAN and rebel against Earth and
launch an invasion because apparently the government
forces destroyed their terraforming units and that made
the planet inhabitable (it's weird, by that logic they
should be the good guys but they are evil as fuck lmao).
You are playing as Katana (what a name) a young pilot for
Earth, just doing training exercises with your squad when
ADAN forces attack you and your retard squadmate gets
killed immediately lmao. You have a wingman Ellen (who you
will fall in love with of course) and your squadleader who
looks like Mike Tyson lmao he even has that shitty face
tattoo. Man the graphics look really amazing, I love the
stars and planets and just in general looks fucking
incredible, the cutscenes have this 3D anime style and
they aren't as good but it's fine. The music is more
forgettable synth music, nowhere near as good as the one
in the Red Faction games. It really is like Ace
Combat, you have your briefing, weapons you can
select, new ones you can buy but you can only use your
spaceship. And you have your wingman and later two other
squadmates who you can order separately, but you need to
give them order here because otherwise they won't do
anything just fly around lmao. There is also radio chatter
which I could barely hear and it was impossible to pay
attention because this game is even more chaotic than Ace
Combat
6:
Fires
of
Liberation. There is just so much
fucking shit happening, fighters and rockets flying
everywhere, battleships firing at you, it's fucking insane
lmao I'm glad I decided to play it on easy (and apparently
you should on your first playthrough, because it's almost
impossible on normal with the starting weapons). Weapons
are cool, like you can have 3 different ones, rockets that
can lock onto multiple enemies or the same enemy multiple
times, battleship killing missiles and laser cannons lol,
but you are gonna run out of ammo a lot so you need to
return to your mothership to reload and for repairs too.
Missions are fairly long but at least there are chekpoints
between some parts. There are secret subobjectives like
shooting down all enemies and stuff like that, I usually
got at least one lol but most of them are impossible.
There is a time limit, usually not that bad but there was
a mission where you need to shoot down everything while
your mothership is being repaired and I literally had one
enemy left when the time expired lol. There are some
special moves you can use, like targeting everything in
front of you and firing all your weapons simultaneously
lmao, going insanely fast to a target or slowing down
time. This game has aces too, they are really fast and
hard as fuck to shoot down, one of them was your friend
before he joined the bad guys because his planet was the
one that got destroyed and you fight him a bunch of times.
And of course there are the usual insane enemy types Ace
Combat style lol, massive fucking battleships you
need to destroy and a fucking Death Star like superweapon
that can destroy planets lmao, and the last mission is
inside the core of that thing lol but by that time I
unlocked such an insane weapon that I took down the final
boss and the core with one hit lmao. But no fucking trench
run wtf, I wanted to get inside that thing but it's only a
cutscene where your friend literally gets fucking
destroyed while he is trying to protect your ship lmao,
and the only reason you get out is because his ghost takes
over your ship lmao. The after credits scene shows there
is life on the destroyed planet so it was all for nothing
bad guys lmao. It's not as good as Ace Combat 6: Fires
of Liberation but it's a really fun game, and I
wouldn't mind playing it again with the more powerful
weapons I unlocked. |
2023/02/22 |
| Red Dead Revolver
(Xbox) Developer: Rockstar San Diego Publisher: Rockstar Games Released: 2004 Genre: Action-adventure |
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| First time I heard of this game was when Red
Dead
Redemption came out, but I didn't know anything
about it except it's not an open world game and it was
very different. For some reason I thought it's the same
character in both games and this is a prequel where you
see his family die. Apparently the two games aren't even
connected but still I guess I should play this first
before finishing Red Dead Redemption. Here you are
playing as Red Harlow, who in the first mission is just a
kid and your father returns after he found gold, but then
bandits show up and kill your father and your Native
American mother. Then he grows up and becomes a bounty
hunter to find the people who killed his family. You have
a dog with you and could have been a cool mechanic but
bandits shoot him in the first mission eh. The characters
look a bit cartoony but the game has a nice old Western
movie look although sometimes I couldn't see shit because
of the colors, and having a fucking letterbox didn't help
it, and of course there is the usual Western soundtrack.
It's a very arcadey game, missions are usually short and
you just need to shoot down guys, sometimes you need to
protect or escort someone, ride a horse, or have an
on-rail stagecoah level lmao. You get the usual Western
locations, bar fights, fortresses, mines, cemetery, ghost
towns etc. Sometimes there are duels too lol (there is
even a mission which is like battle royale dueling lmao)
where you need to draw your weapon with the analog stick
and kill the guy before he kills you, I sucked at this but
it wasn't too hard. And there is Dead Eye which is also in
Red Dead Redemption where time slows down and you
can target the enemies on multiple parts of their bodies
and then you fire a bunch of shots lol. You can get either
a good or excellent rank after missions based on how long
it took to finish it, how accurate were you etc and you
can unlock new characters or maps for multiplayer or
weapons. Between some missions you can walk around the
town which is the only open world aspect of this game,
there isn't much you can do except repairing and buying
weapons or a bunch of shit which unlocks journal pages and
more characters and maps for multiplayer. The journal is
insanely long, like hundreds of pages, you can read about
characters, backstories, weapons, places, all kind of
stuff, it's really impressive to have this in the game (I
unlocked like 80 something percent of it). Sometimes you
play as other characters and they have different
playstyles (they all have cute intros lol), like your
Native cousin who has a bow and you even play as the bad
guy in a flashback. The game is not that hard but some
bosses can be brutal, but apparently I got lucky because
the worst one with the dynamite bugged out lmao. The worst
mission is when you are breaking into a mansion and the
guy is picking the lock for minutes and waves of fucking
enemies and bosses swarm you, it took me forever to beat
that shit. Anyway you find everyone responsible for the
death of your family and have your revenge (that's right,
eye for an eye motherfucker) and you refuse the bounty and
just walk away like a badass lol. After you beat the game
you can play through it again in Bounty Hunter mode where
you need to complete them with certain conditions (like
headshots only and shit like that) to unlock cheats and
more stuff for multiplayer, which has bots and that's
always a good thing to find. One mode is a 4 way duel lmao
and I have no idea what's the difference between the other
two modes but you can have separate teams if you want so
it's not just deathmatch. It's an alright game but nothing
really extraordinary, just a nice arcade game (dear Dead
Man's
Hand, this is what an arcade Western game
looks like). So I guess it's time to finally finish Red
Dead
Redemption, I think I will play it either this
winter or next year. |
2023/02/17 |
| Miami Vice: The
Game (PlayStation
Portable) Developer: Rebellion Developments Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games Released: 2006 Genre: Third-person shooter |
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| I watched Miami Vice on TV when I was a kid
lol and I watched the "new" movie this games was based on
a couple years ago, it was ok I guess. I first read about
this game in the only issue of a console magazine I bought
lol because Gears of War was on the cover (same
magazine I read now in pdf). I think this is a prequel to
the new movie but I don't remember the characters from it,
not that it matters because the story is basic as fuck,
you are trying to find some drug lord that's it. Basically
you are just going from room to room, hiding behind cover
and shooting guys or sometimes destroying stuff, it's
basic as fuck lol. You have the usual locations like
warehouses, drug labs, trailer parks, mansion and on your
map you can see the drugs you can find, health pickups,
camera you can deactivate, a RAM you can find for the
hacking minigame, but you need to buy these informations
before missions from a guy. After missions you can sell
the drugs you found or buy more from dealers (no reason to
do this, what you can find is more than enough) and use
the money to upgrade guns or buy and upgrade clothes lol.
And there is a hacking minigame which is like some 80s
arcade game lol with three stages, you need to blow up
these squares and avoid their fire, it was hard sometimes.
Completing them unlocks new upgrades and drug baron
locations, which is another minigame where you can sell
drugs and you can make it harder to get more reputation (I
have zero idea what reputation is good for lmao). Some
missions are boat rides lol but they very easy, in fact
the entire game is easy as fuck except maybe the last
mission which has tons of enemies. After you beat the game
you can select all the missions on the map and buy cheat
clothes lol they cost a lot of money though. It's nothing
special really, a very basic game that does nothing great
but it's a good time waster I guess. |
2023/02/15 |
| Silent Hill 2
(PlayStation 2) Developer: Team Silent Publisher: Konami Released: 2001 Genre: Survival horror |
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| The first thing you might ask is why didn't
I play this on Xbox when it came out there, well
apparently having Silent Hill 2 save adds some
extra things to Silent Hill 3 which only came out
on PlayStation 2, and
Konami didn't do a good job with the port and this has
more fog which looks incredible. I think this is the only
Silent Hill game where I forgot what the story and
the ending was so it was nice to play through it spoiler
free. Although my experience wasn't the best because the
screen of the ancient notebook I used for SMB stopped
working and I had to use another one which I assume has a
dying hard drive because it froze for a few seconds
sometimes (luckily I found a VGA cable so I'm back using
the other one). There is a nice CGI intro in the menu
before you start the game and man it looks awesome, it
looks so real, much better than the soulless modern crap
we have today. The story is about this guy James who
receives a letter from his dead wife to meet her in Silent
Hill. Even though you don't need the fog anymore to mask
the draw distance it's still an awesome eerie effect
especially with the noise filter. But everything looks
great even to this day, I would say this is where graphics
peaked, the enviroments, the characters, just everything
is so detailed with an incredible style, I can't believe
there is only 2 years between the two games (compare that
to the modern trash where there has been zero fucking
innovations for a decade). Finally there is a better
control scheme you can select lol even though it's kinda
gimped because you can't walk backwards but it wasn't a
problem, it's much easier to avoid enemies in this game
(seems like they used the enemies from this game for the
movie like the Pyramid Head dude lol). There is a separate
action and riddle difficulty which is an interesting
solution, although I regret picking easy on the action,
the first game was challenging to me even on easy but here
it's so ridiculously easy, and even the puzzles too (and I
picked normal there) like I could solve most of them alone
(I still used a nice strategy guide because I didn't want
to miss anything). On your journey through the town you
meet other people too who aren't locals, they seem to be
attracted to the town like you. There is a woman though
who is from the town and she looks like a slutty version
of your dead wife, even her name Maria is similar to your
wife's name. She will be with you for a while so you need
to escort and protect her. Another new thing is how you
can combine items to solve puzzles. The combat music here
is scarier lol but it's still not really a scary game
(although there are some scary moments like hearing those
fucking whispers in a room). The nightmare parts are
different too, in the first game it was all rusty and
bloody with tortured and brutally murdered people hanging
everywhere, here it's just empty, gray and abandoned, but
it's supposed to represent the inner feelings of the
character so that makes perfect sense. There are some
weird moments here like a fucking quiz show when you are
in an elevator lmao, and later you are going down holes
and end up in different parts of the town, then finally
you take a rowboat through the lake to the hotel. There is
this video tape they keep referencing, and I thought it's
gonna be a sextape lmao, but when you watch it you find
out what really happened (and now is the time to stop
reading because I'm gonna spoil everything). You find out
you killed your wife when she was sick and you confront
Maria who now looks completely like your wife, and after
you defeat her you finally get to see the full letter your
wife sent you and it was really sad and heartbreaking. I
got the In Water ending, which I guess is the intended one
because every other ending requires you to purposely not
to read, listen or do certain things. Now the Greatest
Hits or Director's Cut version includes a bonus scenario
where you play as Maria right before the start of the main
story, it's less than an hour long where she is thinking
about killing herself but then she helps a dude in a
mansion and you kinda find out the town manifested her and
the dude was a ghost. To be honest I'm not sure if I like
this more than the first game, it was short and even
though I didn't feel like it's a great game I started
thinking about the story more and more after finishing the
game, just what everything meant and I kept reading about
it online too to understand it more, just about how the
town manifests the nightmares of these troubled people, a
woman who was molested, a fat guy who was a killer, and
James of course who probably drove to Silent Hill with his
dead wife to kill himself and whose guilt and delusions
manifested Maria and the Pyramid Head and how he was able
to face them at the end. Very few games have this effect
on me and it actually helped me face my own personal
delusions. |
2023/02/12 |
| Knights of the
Temple: Infernal Crusade (Xbox) Developer: Starbreeze Studios Publisher: TDK Mediactive Europe Released: 2004 Genre: Action-adventure, hack and slash |
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| I wanted to play this because it's one of
the very few PAL only Xbox games and I like the
setting. It's about a girl with magical powers who is
kidnapped by this evil bishop, and you are a Templar
knight who goes after him to rescue her. Most cutscenes
are shitty drawings eh and there are no subtitles. You go
from Belmont to Acre, Jerusalem, Petra, then to hell lmao
then back to Belmont at the end so your trip was all for
nothing lol. It's just a hack and slash game with a few
puzzles and keys to find. But the gameplay sucks, the
camera is awful and sometimes I can't see shit, I got
stuck in everything, even in enemies when they just block
the door and you can't move lol and they can hit you
through the wall eh. The combat is hard because it doesn't
make sense, I couldn't figure out how the fuck to do
combos it's like they just happened randomly sometimes
when I pressed the correct buttons, it doesn't help that
your special powers and moves (healing, shield, swiping
attacks, shit like that) literally have wrong combinations
listed on the combos menu lmao what a cheaply made piece
of shit game, the funniest thing is how enemies just wait
for you to finish your execution moves and don't attack
you while you are doing it lmao. You have a couple
different weapons and a bow, and you can find better ones
which replace the previous weapon, I just used the last
one I picked up because it doesn't tell what the
difference is. There are health ornaments you can find and
boxes that give you some kind of power, but it doesn't
explain what those fucking powers are lmao I assumed it
buffs your magic. Most puzzles are simple except that
fucking door align one which took me ages to solve, but
there are barely any puzzles. The game wasn't really
difficulty but when you go back to Belmont it becomes
insanely hard out of nowhere, and then the fucking final
boss took me days to beat, the fucking last two demons
always destroyed me. There is a making of video during the
end credits full of shit that's not in the game wtf, they
must have cut tons of shit and that explains why it feels
barebones and unfinished. There is a survival mode with
DLC maps too but it's just endless waves of enemies and it
sucked ass as usual. It's just a boring shitty game and a
waste of time, now I understand why it was never released
in America. |
2023/02/08 |
| Battlestations:
Midway (Xbox
360) Developer: Eidos Hungary Publisher: Eidos Interactive Released: 2007 Genre: Action, real-time tactics |
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| I always wanted to play this game because I
love naval ships, I remember following the development but
for some reason I never played it. I thought about playing
it on my Xbox
360 but I was worried
it might be too complicated to manage these grand battles
with planes and ships and I had other game priorities, but
now I have more discs so I don't have to worry about that
lol. It has a really detailed and long tutorial, it took
me two days to complete it lmao. There is a story but it's
not important, you are some guy who is a torpedo boat
captain and as you progress and get promoted you will
control a destroyer, a cruiser and at last an aircraft
carrier (and there are parts where you are playing as the
guy's friend who is a pilot). The first mission is Pearl
Harbor, and it was really cool to see it happening just
like in Medal of Honor: Rising Sun, but
unfortunately I immediately realized how overwhelming this
game is, there is just way too much shit happening and I
can't focus on shooting and controlling the ship at the
same time, I was getting destroyed like crazy. Then there
was the plane section of that mission, and fucking hell
the controls sucked ass, I could never get used to it. It
got worse when you control a destroyer, I had to lower the
difficulty just to be able to finish missions, it makes it
worse that there are no checkpoints so you have to start
from the beginning if you die. But the game redeemed
itself in the second half of the campaign when you get
promoted and you can control more units. Micromanaging
units from a map is much easier when you don't have to do
everything on your own, I liked just sitting on an
aircraft carrier (I hate them in real life though, I want
epic battleship duels not some shitty planes destroying
ships eh), launching planes with different tasks, giving
orders to ships, launching bombers from airfields or boats
from shipyard, and letting them do everything and taking
them over the last second to drop bombs or torpedos,
switching to the repair screen of ships to make sure they
stay alive. The last two missions were the Battle of
Midway and it was cool to fight through that too, but the
campaign is ridiculously short with missions no longer
than 30 minutes (even with the secondary and hidden
objectives), but there are separate challenge missions
where you can play with the Japanese too. They have 3
different categories, planes, ships and submarines, but
you can't change the difficulty so they were extremely
hard, like defending an island from waves of planes and
ships with only an airfield, attacking a convoy fleet with
submarines etc. Somehow I managed to beat the plane and
submarine challenges after many tries but I couldn't get
through the second ship mission so I just gave up. There
is a nice epilogue hidden after the end credits (which you
need to view separately), a letter from the guy talking
about his memories as he was a real admiral. So even
though I enjoyed the strategy aspect of this game I don't
think it's worth to waste a disc for just looking at a
shitty map, I wanted epic naval battles, or at least some
instant action kind of thing but it only has online
multiplayer eh. The sequel has that though, and a lot of
improvements (and kamikaze attacks lmao) so I might play
it later. |
2023/02/06 |
| Metal Gear Solid
(PlayStation) Developer: Konami Computer Entertainment Japan Publisher: Konami Released: 1998 Genre: Action-adventure, stealth |
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| This is one of those games that's so famous
you will hear about it one way or another. However I never
wanted to play it, and I never understood what's the big
deal about it, from everything I've heard it lead to the
interactive movie shit games becoming the mainstream which
absolutely destroyed gaming. But because it's literally
the most famous PlayStation
game I felt like it's a must play and I can't avoid it.
But first I watched the 2D games on YouTube, because this
one is actually the third in the series. And man the
second one is so complex for a shitty 2D game, but it's
the perfect example why I hate 2D games, I would have been
lost all the time because I can't navigate through samey
looking non 3D areas, and you are backtracking all the
time, and it's full of cryptic shit so no thanks, fuck
that. I found a really nice strategy guide for this game,
it's full of character backstories but later I realized it
spoils a lot of shit from the game lol. This is also the
game where I figured out how to play NTSC games because I
didn't want shitty letterbox, but I will make a blog post
about that later. The first day I just watched the
detailed briefing videos, read the Previous Mission logs
and played the VR Training to get familiar with the
gameplay lol, they were so long. You are Solid Snake, a
former special forces guy who lives in Alaska, when your
former colonel finds you (and gets your dogs killed, fuck
you) and drags you back into action. Members of your
former team took over a nuclear disposal facility and
threaten to launch nukes if their demands are not met.
They want the remains of your former leader and antagonist
of the first two games, Big Boss. They also hold hostage
the DARPA chief and the president of a weapon
manufacturing company, and your colonel's niece lol, so
your task is to stop them and rescue the hostages if
possible. It really is kinda like a movie, it even starts
with the credits lol. At first I struggled with the
gameplay, like I couldn't choke out guards because they
always noticed me, so it was a good idea to play on Easy
(which is the intended difficulty, but as usual those
dumbass Japanese increased the difficulty for the West),
but I got used to it after a while. You can only have one
weapon and item equipped, luckily the game pauses when you
switch between them, that's especially helpful when you
are in a gas filled room and you need to switch between
your gas mask and card to open a door. The stealth itself
is pretty basic, but guards can hear you when you walk on
some surfaces and can follow your footprints in the snow
which was pretty cool. I think the worst thing about this
game is the isometric view, you can look around in
first-person and switch to a proper third-person view when
you are behind cover, but mostly you will just look at
your radar to avoid guards and shit. You have a codec
which you are gonna use a lot, your Colonel and other
people will call you, and you can call them too like the
Chinese girl to save your game. You can flirt with her too
lol and get info and tips from animal expert, weapon
expert, or just general tips on what to do and how to
defeat a boss, or just talk to them and learn about them
(or get some famous quote from the girl lol). And man, no
wonder this game was popular, the level of story,
cutscenes, voice acting and details are insane for a PlayStation game. I really like
the graphical style, you have the usual samey military
halls but rooms or offices have their own personalities,
and you can find shit like a little PlayStation
or anime and game posters lol. Then you have different
colored walls where you need to tap to hear if it sounds
different so you can blow a hole in it, or cards that
change shape in cold or hot which was really clever. The
story itself isn't better than any random B tier action
movie (which I like), but the way it's presented is
incredible for such an early game. Like you have shit like
the girl hiding the key in her pussy so the guards
wouldn't find it lmao. I guess the most unique things are
the boss fights and how the game is self aware, it doesn't
try to be like a walking simulator movie game and it takes
the interactivity to real life. Boss fights are somewhat
challenging, the first try I usually got destroyed lol
then I figured out what to do, like for the sniper you
need to take pills to not to shake (fuck all the
backtracking for the sniper rifle though). And there is
the infamous Psycho Mantis boss fight, I'm pretty sure
that's how I heard of the game first in the early 2000s
(and I actually thought he is a woman lmao but he is just
a really skinny guy), where he tries to read your memory
card and comments on a game if you have that save, or asks
you to put the controller down and he will "move it" when
it vibrates, then he makes the video disappear lol, and to
defeat him you need to connect the controller to the other
port which is insane, I have no idea how I was supposed to
figure that out on my own. The other infamous part is the
torture scene, where you need to press the O button really
fast to survive (or you can give up to get the bad ending)
but I had to look up how to do it because I kept dying,
the trick was to keep sliding a pen over the button lmao.
And after the torture the doctor on your codec will give
you a "massage" by telling you to put the controller on
your arm and she vibrates it, now these are the things
that separate it from the shitty movie games, an actual
interactivity with the player. There are also some deep
thoughts about memories and how you can save in a game but
in real life you gotta keep them in your heart, and I
guess the overall message of the game is don't let your
genes determine who you are and how you live which was
nice (as much as I enjoyed the story I still don't know
why people treat it like the greatest thing ever, the
premise is especially retarded, like yeah Kojima a slow as
fuck giant walking mech is gonna revolutionize nuclear
warfare lmao). At the end you get to fight the Metal Gear
then Liquid Snake with hand-to-hand combat lol (also what
the fuck are these names, Solid Snake, Liquid Snake,
Revolver Ocelot, Psycho Mantis lmao it was so hard to take
them seriously). And then you have a Warthog run at the
very end lmao, I guess that's where Bungie took the idea
from lol. There is an interesting wtf post credits scene,
and you get a rank with statistics after you finished the
game, I got Mongoose, probably one of the worst ones lol.
Btw it's a two discs game, and that normally wouldn't be a
problem but you can't save between switching discs here so
I had to play in that emulator a bit and I literally fell
under the stairs near a box, so yeah no regrets burning
two discs for this game lol. I would say this is the best
and my favorite PlayStation
game I've played so far, and I finally get why this game
was popular and revolutionary, it treats itself like a
game and that's what all those interactive movies failed
to do, and I hope the sequels didn't make the same
mistake. |
2023/01/30 |
| Manhunt (Xbox) Developer: Rockstar North Publisher: Rockstar Games Released: 2004 Genre: Stealth, psychological horror |
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| This is another game I've always wanted to
play, I remember how controversial it was and that it was
banned in some countries because of the insane violence. I
remember watching one of our neighbors playing this game
and choking enemies to death with a plastic bag, and I was
like wow holy shit I can't believe they made a game like
this. The story is about a guy on death row who thinks he
is getting executed, but instead a snuff film director
takes him and he's gotta kill his way through this
absolute crime ridden shithole city (which is by far the
best one I've seen, better than Grand Theft Auto III
or Max Payne, I just love this aesthetic) for the
director's films. It has a really nice noise filter which
just makes the whole shithole look even better, and
cutscenes have VHS effects to make them feel like you are
watching a real snuff film. I think most of the sound
effects are from Grand Theft Auto III lol, I guess
it was just easier to reuse them. The default controls are
absolute ass though, I feel bad for those poor fuckers who
only had the PlayStation 2
version where you can't change it, thank god you can use
another control scheme here. So you are going through
parts of the city, abandoned streets, zoo, factory, junk
yard, insane asylum etc, which are all controlled by gangs
like white supremacists, gun obsessed retards or just
insane psychos and at the end of a gang's territory the
director's security unit captures you and takes you to the
next location. Basically your job is to get to the next
level by killing your way to the end, preferably by
stealth and brutal kills (you can just attack enemies with
your weapons or your hand but you are weak and multiple
enemies can easily kill you). You can use all kinds of
weapons, plastic bags, glasses, crowbars, guns, and can
pick up bricks or even severed heads and throw them to
cause distraction lol. Basically you are gonna wait in
shadows, making noise so the enemies will come and
investigate, and when they turn around you can hold down
the attack button and charge up your kill for more brutal
executions, which is essential if you want to get a good
rating, 3 stars unlock concept arts, and 4 stars give you
one half of a cheat. Sometimes you are required to use a
specific weapon and execution style, or a big ass crane to
kill enemies lol (that part sucked). And then there are
some escort missions too, like escorting a hobo lmao and
telling him to hide in shadows while you do the killing.
It's honestly a bit repetitive but man this game is
absolutely nerve-wracking, just waiting in the shadows and
trying to figure out how to kill an enemy without the
others seeing it and just hoping you can make it to the
next save point, I was sweating like crazy playing this
game. Near the end you manage to escape from the director
and team up with the reporter chick to bring him down, so
it's another escort mission but now you are in the better
parts of the city killing cops and his security units, but
it basically turns into a third-person shooter because you
are mostly just using your guns. It's not that this part
is easier at all, you still need to use stealth because
it's just waves of enemies with guns coming at you. And
then you break into his mansion, where there is this
chained insane guy in a pig suit called Piggsy lmao, he is
like the final boss before you reach the director and
slice him up with a chainsaw lol. You can unlock some
bonus challenge stages, I unlocked two where you fight all
gangs (and they fight each other too) and another one
where you are trying to survive with a nail gun
(apparently there is one where you shoot monkeys in the
zoo lmao). It was a really fucked up game with an awesome
aesthetic but those things don't really make a game great
when the stealth is very basic and gameplay is repetitive,
but that doesn't mean it's a bad game either. I will play
the sequel later for sure. |
2023/01/26 |
| Death Jr. (PlayStation
Portable) Developer: Backbone Entertainment Publisher: Konami Released: 2005 Genre: Action, hack and slash |
 |
| I think this was the first PlayStation
Portable game they ever showed, and I
always thought it looks cute (and has that Tim
Burton-esque style) but when I watched some reviews they
said it's really hard so I wasn't sure if I should play
it, but I want to play the early games first so I just
said eh fuck it. But it is in fact hard, but entirely
because of the absolutely terrible controls and camera.
You are playing as the Grim Reaper's son Death Jr., who is
friends with Pandora, some freak baby in a jar, Siamese
twins, a fucking dead fish lmao and they go to the museum
with their class. They find a box there which Pandora
really wants to open and to impress her Death Jr. opens it
but it sucks all his friends souls in, so you gotta go
through levels to find parts of their souls to restore
them. They are like your neighborhood, the school, a meat
factory, insane asylum etc, and they are filled with
demons and shit. You have your scythe for melee attack
(and for platforming too) and a bunch of guns you can
unlock and upgrade. You have like 3 levels per souls, one
is either a boss fight or waves of enemies, and I couldn't
pass them until later when I unlocked enough weapons and
found enough weapon and health upgrades (and you gotta
collect them all if you want to have a chance to finish
the game), but at least it's not linear so you can just go
through other levels and come back later. But then again
the god awful camera just makes everything worse, you keep
falling off shit or dying because you can't see anything,
and then the enemy AI is terrible too, but sometimes that
can be a good thing when they just walk right into the
lava and die lmao. And it's a buggy mess too, like your
hits don't always register or a boss clips into the wall
and it takes him ages to move back to place and shit like
that. This just has to be the worst PlayStation
Portable game I've played so far, there is
nothing good about it besides the artstyle and the weird
characters. Still I will play the sequel one day, hoping
they realized they should have just used the L and R for
adjusting the camera. |
2023/01/22 |
| Darksiders
(Xbox 360) Developer: Vigil Games Publisher: THQ Released: 2010 Genre: Hack and Slash, action-adventure |
 |
| I was really excited for this game back in
2009-2010 because I was really into mythology and stuff,
and this Christian mythology thing with angels sounded
cool as fuck so I followed the development. It actually
came with my Xbox
360 so I played it but
I felt kind of lost after the first level, I didn't know
what to do or where to go so I just stopped playing. So
the first level is the Apocalypse happening, angels and
demons swarm the world and one of the Four Horsemen of the
Apocalypse, War shows up. It turns out the Seventh Seal
was not broken and the Apocalypse was falsely triggered by
someone. Your council gives you another chance to redeem
yourself by sending you back to Earth to find out what
really happened. But a hundred years have passed and there
are no humans left, just angels, demons, monsters and
zombies who roam the Earth. First you are helping some
demon dude who becomes the vendor in the game lol, you can
buy new weapons, moves, Wrath abilities (barely ever used
these) etc, and later you can use him for quick travel
between locations. Then you free another demon guy called
Samael, who sends you to different locations to hunt down
bosses for him who guard the tower of the Destroyer. The
story is really interesting, but I could tell from the
beginning who will be the Destroyer but I had no idea how
they're gonna do it, it was a pretty good twist. Some of
the locations are smaller but there are huge ones later
on, and there are also tunnels which connect two
locations, but both of these have a lot of hidden chests
you can find, most of the time you can find almost
everything you first time there but as you unlock new
abilities and gadgets you can come back and use them to
reach new areas. This reminded me of Batman: Arkham
Asylum, so no way I could have played this game
without a guide. There are a lot of puzzle rooms too, most
of them can be figured out but that one where you need to
switch walls was crazy, and then later on you get a portal
gun which was awesome btw, but the puzzles are really
insane here, especially because it takes it to the next
level when you need to fire a portal through the portal,
now that was some fucking crazy shit. Btw some of these
items and abilities you can use are pretty cool, like the
grappling hook or your horse later (which makes sword
attacks more powerful) but there are some useless ones,
like I don't think I needed to use the pistol at all. You
have your sword to attack, and later a scythe and this
epic glove (and you can use your throwing blade which is
also needed for puzzles), X is for sword attack and Y is
for the other weapons, and you have some pretty cool
combos and B for finishing moves at the end. You get blue
souls which are the currency you need to buy new stuff
which you find in chests too (and green and yellow too,
for health and Wrath abilities). Weapons level up and you
can add enchantment to them lol. There are some different
parts to make the game more interesting, like an on-rail
shooting section, using a big gun to shoot down angels
lol, or competing with a guy to see who can kill more
enemies (I wish there were NPCs to interact with, like
angel and demon towns, because the world felt empty this
way). Sometimes you will be transported to the Shadow
Realm where you need to complete a set of challenges to
progress. And then there is the Chaos Form, which turns
you into a big flaming demon guy if you kill enough
enemies, and it makes you insanely powerful and you can
kill anyone with a few hits. At the end you will need to
go back to previous locations to collect parts of a new
weapon you need to kill the Destroyer, that's when you
should go back to collect everything (including a better
armor, but it doesn't look better than the base one lol).
I collected every single upgrade so the final boss wasn't
hard at all lol, the ending was really cool with the
Seventh Seal being finally broken and you see the rest of
the Horsemen coming. So yeah it was a good game, it has
some framerate issues though even with the title update
and the world felt kinda empty, but I will play the sequel
for sure. |
2023/01/18 |
| Kingdom Hearts
(PlayStation 2) Developer: Square Publisher: Square Released: 2002 Genre: Action role-playing |
 |
| Of course I heard of this, I'm not sure
when exactly but it always sounded so weird to me, Disney
characters mixed with Japanese RPG characters lol. But
unlike most JRPGs it doesn't have turn-based combat (more
like turd-based combat, am I right lmao) which I
absolutely fucking hate so that's why I wanted to try it
out (and because it's one of the most famous games on the
PlayStation 2), even if I
find the concept retarded as fuck (there are some other
early action RPGs that looked interesting to me but the
more I looked into them the more they looked like I would
hate them). There is a really nice piano music in the menu
before you start the game, the music is fine in general
but most of them are from Disney movies lol. You are
playing as Sora, who lives near a beach with his friends,
and when the Heartless attack they destroy his world and
he finds himself in Traverse Town where he meets Goofy and
Donald Duck lmao. You want to find your friends and they
want to find their king Mickey Mouse lmao, who instructed
them to protect the person who wields the Keyblade, which
you get when you arrive in Traverse Town. So they are your
party members, Goofy is more like the tank with a shield
and Donald is the magic user. And you travel to different
worlds, which are basically Disney movies, like Alice in
Wonderland, Hercules (this one is an arena with waves of
enemies and bosses), Tarzan, Aladdin (which was my
favorite when I was a kid), Pinocchio, The Little Mermaid,
The Nightmare Before Christmas, Peter Pan, Winnie the Pooh
(this one is a book, you find pages and you can play
minigames with them inside the book), and some other
places made for the game. In some places you look
different, like in The Little Mermaid world you are a
mermaid lol, and sometimes other characters can join your
party if you are in their world. You can also summon a
character who replaces all your party members but the only
one I used was Tinkerbell because she heals you and your
party stays with her. Basically you relive those Disney
movies but of course different things happen with the
Heartless attacking and trying to destroy the world. The
combat is in real time thank god, but it doesn't pause
when you try to use items and switch between spells so
that was kinda hard, and battles can be really chaotic,
you can't move the camera with the right stick, you have
to use the L2 R2 buttons, luckily I got used to that from
playing PlayStation games
(at least it's not inverted). You travel between worlds
with a gummy spaceship but this is the worst part of the
game, it's like a simple rail shooter and you can change
your ship but the editor is a nightmare to use, I just
kept going with the stock one until late game when I built
a new one from a blueprint. Luckily you can go to worlds
you have visited through a wormhole so you don't have to
go through that fucking shit all the time. Cause you are
gonna travel between worlds a lot, Traverse Town is a hub
world where you can buy new stuff but when you learn new
abilities you can get to more chests (like the 99
dalmatian puppies lol) or using those colored marks to get
items. But there is so much grinding to do and I hate that
shit but you need to be like around level 60 to beat the
game so I was just killing enemies for a few days eh. It's
not a hard game but some bosses near the end were a
nightmare, especially because you can't skip cutscenes and
you have to watch them over and over again. Ironically the
final bosses were the easiest lol, and there are some
secret bosses too but you need to be like level 80 for
them and fuck that shit, going through the Hades cup with
50 waves of enemies and bosses was hard enough to do (at
least you can continue after every 10 if you die). There
is a nice end credits reunion, the world is saved and
everyone can go home, but you stay with Goofy and Donald
to find Mickey lol. I did all the stuff needed for the
post credits scene and damn it looked so cool, I had no
idea what it was I thought maybe it's something Final
Fantasy related but apparently it's like a concept
video
for the sequel eh. So yeah it's an OK game, the message is
similar to Infinite Undiscovery like friendship is
the most important thing and darkness can never reach your
heart when you have friends you can count on or something
like that lol, I mean these games were clearly made for
kids and I can't really appreciate it as an adult so I
don't understand why this series has so many obsessed
fanboys (maybe because they are cringey weeb manchildren).
Btw I played the original game, it was re-released in
Japan with more content and they changed some stuff too,
it has a translation but it doesn't work in OPL and I hate
when they change something about the game later. |
2023/01/14 |
| Breakdown (Xbox) Developer: Namco Publisher: Namco Released: 2004 Genre: Action-adventure |
 |
| I heard of this as a famous Japanese Xbox
game, I don't think it was a big deal though and I think
people thought it's a first-person shooter and that's why
they didn't really like it, but it's more of a
first-person brawler with some shooting mechanics (which
happens with lock-on). And it's one of those games where
for some retarded reason the Japanese thought people in
the West want to play hard games so they increased the
difficulty for no reason, so you are supposed to play on
easy to get the intended difficulty setting. But I read
it's still hard that way so I was trying to find some tips
and some forum from the mid 2000s said use the sliding
uppercut combo and they were right lol it made everything
easier so I just spammed it constantly lmao. The story is
fucking awesome, you are playing as Derrick who wakes up
in a research facility and you have no idea what's
happening because you have amnesia. You see everything in
first person, there are no cutscenes or loading screens
between levels, you just walk to the next area and see
everything from Derrick's perspective. They tried to make
the game very immersive, but I think they went a bit too
far, like the way you pick up items is like press X to
raise your hand, press it again to grab the item, then
press it again to take it or use it, but I just spammed X
so it was fine lmao. It starts with a nice tutorial where
you learn the basics, and then a girl named Alex saves you
from soldiers (that's when you experience first-person
vomiting lmao). At first you are only fighting soldiers
and going through grey corridors (which is fine, it's a
research facility), it's very linear but sometimes there
are cool shits like avoiding moving lasers like in the
Resident Evil movie lmao. Then the T'lan warriors show up,
and they are these fucked up soldiers from underground who
glow, and you can't kill them with bullets you need to
beat them to death lol (or use the anti T'lan laser later
in the game). They have different types, like stealth,
laser firing ones, big giant ones etc, and they leave red
and blue energies behind to recharge your health and
energy (drinks and energy bars do the same thing). You
slowly learn about what's going on (and you can get more
info from notepads and tapes, and you have to turn the
pages with the X too lol), some people might hate how they
don't know what's happening but I really liked how they
slowly reveal everything, you can make up your own
theories which is cool. Especially with all the fucked up
hallucinations you experience, like you see a cat
sometimes, or your body turns into flesh and bones, or
going through a door and you end up in a deserted area
with ruins everywhere, or seeing yourself and the scene
you just played earlier from another person's perspective,
they were so fucking cool. And you can try to put the
pieces together when you meet the scientist woman or when
you walk past the Beta Project, but even though you can
get a general idea of what's going on the twist will blow
your mind. Basically in the first part of the game you are
trying to get to the lead scientist who is in deep
undeground, and he explains to you what you already
figured out by that point, that you are the only one who
survived the experiment of creating supersoldiers with
T'lan abilities. You get another injection and you get
more powers you can use, stuff like blocking bullets,
throwing energy balls, shockwaves. Then you go through a
portal to the T'lan world, which is like a huge
underground place with a sun and oceans like wow what the
fuck, and you fight your way to the tower (you can get a
car thankfully cause it's huge lol, this part reminded me
of Halo). The tower is where things get really
fucking repetitive, basically you are climbing up and down
the same silos over and over again for like an hour lmao,
then you finally have your fight with the T'lan leader
Solus, thinking it's the last boss fight but then the
twist happens and I can't talk about the rest of the game
without spoiling everything but it's the coolest fucking
shit ever. Anyway later you need to get through some
previous locations again but you get another injection
that gives you super jump and you can slow time down so
that made everything so much easier. There is a part where
waves of enemies come at you and I think that's where a
lot of people got filtered for good lol but with sliding
uppercut it was manageable, and then the end was another
fucked up insane thing. There are two endings though, I
picked the good one but it pissed me off because it ended
with a cliffhanger and they never made a sequel. You
unlock bonus pics and music (the Japanese sure love
putting the music as an extra in their games huh) as you
go through the game, and there are some funny easter eggs
like an Xbox on a desk lol. I know this game has a
lot of problems, it tries to be too immersive which
doesn't really work in video games and I know a lot of
people wouldn't like it but I don't care, it's one of the
coolest fucking games I've ever played. |
2023/01/10 |
| Mafia (Xbox) Developer: Illusion Softworks Publisher: Gathering Released: 2004 Genre: Action-adventure |
 |
| This was the next game coming up but I
heard the console ports are terrible lol and I didn't want
to play it on PC.
But I watched a video and it wasn't that bad as they say,
I mean as long as it isn't unplayable with cut content I
don't care cause fuck PC.
But graphically it's really bad lmao, the draw distance
and lighting is terrible, like when it's sunset and you
look at the sun it just makes the screen all red lmao. It
all makes up for it with the driving which isn't complete
fucking dogshit here and the speed limit is 60 instead of
40. The gunplay is awful too, but it's not really the
console port's fault because the combat in general is bad,
like you need to pop out of covers when the game doesn't
have any cover mechanics otherwise they will kill you in a
second. There is no auto aim but you can move the
crosshair to the enemy with the black button but that
means you need to keep pressing it lmao, it's helpful when
the target is too far away though but it's so shit to use.
They also added arrows to some places to help you where
you need to go, and I think there was no minimap in the PC version
but I'm not sure, because I only played a little bit of it
back in the day before I got filtered by the driving and
how boring it was. Anyway the game starts with a really
nice intro where you see the city then Tommy walks into a
bar to talk to a detective about his involvement in the
Salieri crime family in exchange for witness protection.
Of course, no fucking subtitles and that's just fantastic
in a game where all the story is in cutscenes, luckily I
could understand everything. And yeah there is little to
none dialogue during gameplay, just driving with some
people in total silence most of the time, at least they
changed that in Mafia II. And missions are
insanely long because the driving takes fucking forever,
at least you can continue from checkpoints here unlike in
the PC
version. And to make them longer sometimes at the end of
missions you can go to a guy who teaches you how to steal
luxury cars, these are the only side missions in the game
but it just adds another 30 minutes to them. It also has
mundane shitty tasks like driving a taxi and picking up
crates but it's so much worse here lmao. There is of
course the infamous racing mission, I don't know if they
changed this for the console version but you can lower the
difficulty and turn off damage before it starts lmao I
laughed so hard when I saw this, it really filtered people
huh. I knew the ending from Mafia II but the
leadup to it was really sudden, like everything just
happened in the last two missions and you were just doing
normal mob stuff before that (lol at that end credits
song). Still the story is better but the gameplay is so
much worse than in Mafia II, but I guess they even
out. There is a Free Ride mode like in Driver
where you can drive around the city but at least you can
drive a taxi here lol (and you can select a bunch of
insane Wacky Races looking cars too lmao), and Grand Prix
which is a racing mode with an actual championship but I
can't imagine anyone wanting to play this shit after that
fucking mission. I was trying to understand the appeal of
this game and based on the reactions of the people I knew
when it came out it's the realism, how the 30s cars handle
like shit as they should be, that you have to obey the
traffic laws, or that bullets left in the clip disappear
after you reload, but I don't see how these things are
good, and ultimately this obsession with trying to make
games realistic is what killed gaming. |
2022/12/20 |
| Overlord (Xbox 360) Developer: Triumph Studios Publisher: Codemasters Released: 2007 Genre: Action role-playing |
 |
| I think this game had the same effect on me
as MediEvil: Resurrection, I saw the cover in
stores and I thought it looked so cool, plus you play as
an evil guy and control your little army lol so I always
wanted to play it. But when I was looking up reviews I
thought maybe I wouldn't like the controls so it wasn't a
priority. But now with all those new discs I have no
excuse not to play it. You are some evil demon guy with a
big tower who looks like Sauron lol and you got killed by
a group of heroes, but your minions resurrect you and your
job is to kill the heroes, get your tower objects they
stole from you back (because they give you power) and
conquer the world lol. And you are accomplishing all that
with your hordes of minions lol, you are kind of useless
alone in the beginning and you control your minions, not
only they will pillage and kill enemies and pick up armor
and weapons to become stronger (sometimes they pick up
dumb shit like a pumpkinhead for helmet lmao) but you also
need them to move and pick up stuff and your tower objects
to carry them back home. The more enemies you kill the
more life force you will collect, that's what you need to
summon more minions, there is a maximum limit though but
you can increase it by finding more tower objects. You
have 4 types of minions, the browns are the general
fighting ones I guess, reds can throw fire and walk
through it, greens are like stealth units and can get rid
of poison gas, and blues resurrect dead minions and can
walk through water but they are terrible in combat. They
all need different kind of life force to summon so if you
run out of them you need to go back somewhere to farm it.
The game isn't that linear, you can't do everything at one
location, you will need to go back after you unlock a new
type of minion to access more areas and complete quests.
Controlling the minions is a bit complicated especially
when you have all four types of them, you can switch to
overhead view which helps a bit, but it was overwhelming
when you need to switch between them quickly in the heat
of the battle (this was especially bad during the final
boss fight, took me forever to beat him). Your spells can
help a lot, you can throw freballs, have a shield, slow
the enemies down (and turn them to your side later) or
buff your minions lol. These are all upgradable just like
your armor and weapons too, and you can buff your stats
with minion sacrifices lmao (you can also sacrifices them
to get back your health and mana). To be honest this game
is a lot like Fable, from the style to the humor
to the world, but you can only play the evil path lol. But
even that has two paths, you can be just a guy who wants
to conquer the world and rule your objects or an insane
mass murderer lmao, and your corruption level determines
which endings you get (of course I had 0% corruption, I
can't even play like a bad guy in evil games). You get a
wife here too, and you can customize your tower, and if
you buy everything she likes you can fuck her lmao. I
liked how the heroes all succumbed to the seven deadly
sins, and there is a nice twist at the end where you learn
why and who you really are. There were some bugs like the
minions liked getting stuck in walls and some parts were a
bit tedious (like the fucking sandworms from Dune) but
overall it was a fun game, I liked it. Now there is an
expansion called Raising Hell but I can only play it on PC and I'm
not sure if I would want to do that lol so I might just
watch it on YouTube before I play Overlord II. |
2022/12/14 |
| Blood Omen: Legacy
of Kain (PlayStation) Developer: Silicon Knights Publisher: Crystal Dynamics Released: 1996 Genre: Action-adventure |
 |
| I always wanted to play this series,
especially Legacy of Kain: Soul Reaver (and I'm
pretty sure I played one of the games a little bit on PC, I think
Blood Omen 2 maybe but I don't remember anything),
but it started with this game, which is like a shitty
isometric game and I hate those, so I thought I will just
watch it on YouTube. But then I realized it can be played
on a PlayStation
Portable and it came out there officially
too, and a game like this is fine for a handheld I guess.
The game starts with a cutscene that made no sense to me,
like who are these people and what is happening, then you
get to control your character Kain who gets killed
immediately and then someone from the underworld turns him
into a vampire and sends him back. He wants revenge but he
is sent to the Pillars of Nosgoth, which supposed to
represent the world, and they got corrupted by their
guardians so your job is to hunt them down to cleanse the
pillars. To be honest I had to read the plot and watch
YouTube videos to understand what the fuck was going on
after I finished the game, it does such a terrible job at
telling this story. And the gameplay is fucking awful too,
like you can zoom in and you won't see shit or zoom out
and can barely see anything, but you go through the world
fighting enemies and exploring dungeons or cities, but
hell even with a guide I was totally lost all the time
(especially when you need to go back to previous areas to
find new items and spells), it's such a confusing mess.
You can find new weapons, armors and spells (and forms too
that can help you walk through water or fast travel, those
were cool) that do different things but the combat is the
worst fucking shit I've ever seen in a game, I've never
seen hitboxes so bad I could barely hit anything, then
there are those fucking spell throwing demon assholes who
can kill you by spamming that shit and you can't even do
anything because it cancels your movement or combat, I
just had fucking enough at some point and started cheating
to get through this piece of fucking garbage game as soon
as possible (and of course there are only two cheats,
refilling your health and mana so I had to use those all
the time). Just to say some positive things, I liked how
sucking blood refills your health lol, the voice acting
was pretty good (no subtitles of course) and the story was
so cool, but of course I had no idea about that until I
finished the game, it's a shame that such an awesome story
is lost in a shitty game like this. At least as a reward
for my suffering I can finally play Legacy of Kain:
Soul Reaver (and it better be good after this shit). |
2022/12/05 |
| SWAT: Global Strike
Team (Xbox) Developer: Argonaut Games Publisher: Vivendi Universal Games Released: 2003 Genre: Tactical shooter |
 |
| This is actually part of the PC SWAT
series, and that's the reason why I went back to play it
after I found out about it. I played the demo of SWAT
3: Close Quarters Battle in the early 2000s, it was
that level with the Arab store and it was after 2001 so it
was fun to kill some dirty terrorists lmao. I didn't
really have any idea what to do though but I still had fun
with it fucking around with my teammates lol. This is very
different though, it's like a very dumbed down arcade game
for consoles. The story was hard to follow, most of the
plot is in the loading screen and I learned more about it
from the manual lmao: it's centered around two rival gangs
and a new drug they want to distribute. Sometimes you are
rescuing hostages (like the daughter of a mayor called Tom
Brady lmao), defusing bombs or just attacking the enemy
stronghold. The game is basically Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six 3
lite, like it's very simple with barely any depth to it.
You can choose weapons before missions but there is no
point, just go with the default assault rifle and you can
upgrade it with points you earn for completing objectives
(and those are always the same, arrest a number of
enemies, no civilian casualties, arrest certain enemies),
and you get grades after missions but they are weird
because I always got an A even if I had to use all my
continues (which are 5 instead of 3 saves). You have 2
squadmates, a guy with a shotgun and a girl with a sniper,
they can be useful to take down enemies but sometimes I
had to push them into elevators to continue eh. You can
order them with the D-pad and sometimes you take over the
girl who is in a different place to snipe some enemies.
Combat is really easy, you have unlimited ammo lol you
just need to reload, and I don't think there is any
stealth you just yell at enemies to suprise them and they
will surrender instantly, otherwise you need to shoot them
a few times while spamming the yelling button lmao to
handcuff them (and you need to handcuff everyone,
civilians too, too bad they all disappear a few seconds
after that eh). What I really liked is the graphics and
the lighting, I don't know what this style is called but
it looked very detailed (reminded me of Prey) but
when you get close to walls it's just flat textures (btw
it's a fun little detail that you take your weapon down
when you bump into walls lol). The only ulockables are 3
short shitty action movies where you see an enemy trying
to avoid your characters eh. I'm just not sure who this
game is for, like tactical shooter fans wouldn't like an
arcade game like this, and I don't think arcade fans would
play a game like this at all. |
2022/12/04 |
| The Suffering
(Xbox) Developer: Surreal Software Publisher: Midway Games Released: 2004 Genre: First-person shooter, third-person shooter, survival horror |
 |
| I heard of this game but didn't know much
about it, other than how you can transform into a monster
and that it's pretty insane lol. This is the game where I
learned about manual ACL patching with DVD2Xbox, because
it didn't want to work and I couldn't find a patch online
(it took me a while to figure out you can only patch games
from its file explorer). The first thing I did was to
watch that bonus documentary of that real haunted prison
they used as an inspiration, it's so cool to have an extra
like this in the game, it was really creepy and set the
mood perfectly. You are playing as Torque who is on death
row for killing his family, but he doesn't remember
anything and thinks he is innocent. He is sent to this
fucked up prison called Abbot State Penitentiary on
Carnate Island, which has a history of fucked up things
happening outside of the prison too, and when he arrives
these monsters attack the place and start killing
everyone, so you are basically trying to survive and
escape the island somehow. I was a bit afraid it's gonna
be scary but it's more like an action game and that's
exactly what I want from horror games lol. It can be scary
though sometimes when enemies just jump at you or when a
random scary image pops up for a second with a screeching
violin sound lol, and there are a lot of fucked up things
happening like hallucinations, seeing a lot of monsters
trying to kill your children or visions from the past of
people getting killed, or just looking at the security
camera monitor and seeing yourself with someone walking
towards you but when you turn around there is no one
there, it's so cool. Some of the characters are fucked up
too, like child murderers, an insane doctor, little girls
who got people burned for claiming they are witches, and
enemies are like manifestations of how people got killed,
like by blades, firing squad, gas, lethal injections,
hanging, and you learn about them and the places you go
through like the asylum (which is such a confusing place,
I got lost all the time), caves, pirate ship, nazi plane
crash site by archives you unlock. It's really cool that
you can switch between third-person and first-person
views, but I just used third-person because it was clearly
designed to be played with that view and you can see
Torque covered with blood after he massacres enemies lol.
You have an insanity meter and when it gets full after
killing enough enemies you can transform into this monster
and just rip everyone apart lol, I barely used it because
if you use it too much you can't get the best ending. But
the morality system is more important, throughout the game
you meet people who you can help and they will join you
for a while, or you can decide to just kill them, and you
hear your wife and some demon in your ear telling you what
to do, obviously the good choice is listening to your
wife. Boss fights can be tough, like that gas boss was the
fucking worst, and the final boss is Torque's "hatred", a
gigantic monster you need to kill, it was so hard to aim
at it. With the good ending you remember who killed your
family, you escape on a boat and you get a retrial. I
watched the other endings too and the bad one was really
fucked up, obviously you killed them in that one. So it's
an awesome fucked up game but it was really buggy for some
reason, like on that level with the raft guy it bugged the
hell out, I had to restart it so many times until he
finally started going, the music bugged out one time and
sometimes I couldn't hear phone calls, and the inventory
was a bit hard to use because the game doesn't pause.
After you beat the game you can start a new game and you
will get a bonus first level, and you can hear the
director's voice explaining why it was cut and you wear a
cowboy hat lmao. There is a bonus making of video (I
always like these) and a trailer for Psi-Ops: The
Mindgate Conspiracy, which is another game I'm
looking forward to play lol. |
2022/11/21 |
| Disney's Treasure
Planet (PlayStation 2) Developer: Bizarre Creations Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Released: 2002 Genre: Action-adventure, Platformer |
 |
| I wanted to play this game for a long time,
I liked the movie but it's more like I loved the concept
of it, mixing the old colonial period with sci-fi and
going through space in a fucking sailing ship, how cool is
that? Previously my only option was that shitty strategy
game on PC
but no thanks lol, there is also a PlayStation
game that's a totally different from this one, I might
play that one day. For some reason the game didn't want to
start and that's when I realized I need some years old OPL
version to make it work because those fuckers keep
breaking games with every update they release by adding
useless shit instead of working on compatibility which is
the ONLY thing that should matter. One thing I quickly
realized as I was playing it that this game is exactly
like Jak and Daxter: The Precursor Legacy, and I
mean literally an exact clone of it, the same shitty
inverted camera, the same moveset, the beacons which pop
up like the orbs, the hoverboard levels, the green energy
which is the same thing as the flies, Morph who is like
your Daxter etc. But it's like eveything is worse here,
the combat isn't that fluid, the platforming fucking
sucks, I keep falling off shit and can't find stuff
because the camera is so fucking terrible and the level
design is confusing with samey looking enviroments. But
it's not open world here, you are going through portals to
reach new levels and that's why you need more beacons to
open them (which doesn't really make sense if you know the
movie, and especially after you already made it to
Treasure Planet lol). There are two types of them, the
on-foot levels and the hoverboard ones. Instead of the
energies here there are Morph powers you can pick up and
he transforms into a jetpack, an arm to pull levers, boots
to make you faster, or a hammer to break things, all for a
small amount of time so you gotta do it fast. The worst
part is the stealth segments where you need to sneak past
cops and if they see you they kick you back to the
beginning, fuck it was so bad. And then there are the
hoverboard levels, good lord... You gotta pass through
rings in time, do timed races, tricks, chasing something,
all by avoiding obstacles, it was so fucking bad holy
shit. At some point I just stopped trying, one level I
just skipped entirely because I couldn't accomplish any of
the tasks. There are only a few boss fights but the final
boss was especially painful because of the shitty camera
and platforming, and then you get the final level which is
a hoverboard one of course lol, you gotta reach the portal
in time to escape, it took me forever to get through it.
If you collect everything you get a shitty video with all
the character and enemies, so I'm glad I didn't try to do
that lol. This game wouldn't even been that bad if they
just had a good camera, seriously fuck every single
developer who forced inverted cameras in their games. |
2022/11/12 |
| Dead Man's Hand
(Xbox) Developer: Human Head Studios Publisher: Atari Released: 2004 Genre: First-person shooter |
 |
| The only thing I knew about this game was
the cover which I saw in stores a lot, but for some reason
I thought it's a shitty poker game because it was so cheap
lmao. It's the first of the upcoming Wild West games, it
looked like it could be fun so I decided to play it. It
has a really nice manual, it looks like an old book from
that era. You are some Mexican dude who was part of this
gang but you didn't like that they killed women and kids
so they betrayed and shot you, and some Mexican general
captured you and put you in prison. You escape after a
prison riot breaks out and you go on a journey through the
West to hunt down the 9 leaders of this gang to have your
revenge. It's like a very simple arcade shooter, you score
points for shooting at hats, glasses, windows, barrels,
causing explosions, or using the environment to kill
enemies by shooting at big rocks or something. The score
builds up your trick shot meter which you can use for
secondary attacks. Before missions you can choose which
pistol, rifle and shotgun you wanna use but honestly the
starting ones are the best lol. Before levels you can play
poker to get bonus health and ammo but I have no idea how
to play poker, I never understood the rules so I just
tried to pick the bigger numbers and sometimes got lucky
lol. There are usually two levels per leaders, the first
one is where you are killing his goons and trying to get
to him, and the next one is the boss fight, but it's
usually the same boring shit every time (fuck that boss
fight with the dynamites though). Sometimes there are
bonus levels too which can be different, like defending a
fort or going through a mansion destroying shit to cause
enough damage lol. I found some interesting easter eggs,
like a purple rune which must be a reference to the
previous game of the developers, Rune (which I
played and liked it, but it was the Rune Classic
version which is like a gimped version of it eh - oh and
apparently they made Prey too, pretty cool) and
one time I shot a watermelon and it said "Watermelon shot
1/3" but I kept destroying them on levels and I never saw
it again and couldn't find anything about it on the
internet, which isn't suprising because it's such a shitty
game lol. The aiming is terrible and the framerate too
when you are looking around. It's just so simple in a bad
way, it feels like absolutely nothing, that's what this
game is. Ironically the the on-rails horse riding levels
are the only thing I enjoyed lol, it should have been a
shitty rail shooter instead. At least it was short. |
2022/11/06 |
| Half-Life (PlayStation 2) Developers: Valve, Gearbox Software Publisher: Sierra Studios Released: 2001 Genre: First-person shooter |
 |
| Obviously I heard of this game, I knew it
was a huge deal because everyone was raving about it in
magazines and you could still find it in stores in the mid
2000s and people were insanely hyped for Half-Life 2,
but I just couldn't care less about this game and I never
had any interest in playing it until now when I found out
the PlayStation 2
version is actually a good port lol (because I'm not gonna
play it on PC
that's for sure). You are playing as Gordon Freeman, a
scientist who works at a secret underground research
facility, working on portals and teleportation to other
dimensions I guess when your experiment goes wrong and
suddenly aliens invade the facility through portals. So
now you are trying to escape and find a way to close the
portals, and after the beginning the government sends
soldiers to kill aliens and everyone else to make sure no
one finds out what happened so you have to deal with them
too. What made this game revolutionary is the
interactivity and the scripted sequences and all the extra
details that happening in the background with NPCs and
shit and you will notice them right at the beginning where
you go through your daily routine to get ready for the
experiment (and I guess the portals too, maybe Prey
wasn't that revolutionary as I thought lol). Sometimes you
can ask NPCs to follow you too and guards will help you
kill enemies and scientists open doors to help you
advance. Unfortunetly I have a lot of problems with this
game, and I know some of it is unfair, like all I could
think off that this is like Red Faction lol, and I
know that's supposed to be the Half-Life clone but
that's the one I played first. There are no subtitles
which is especially bad here because the sound quality is
so fucking terrible for some reason. The movement sucks
ass, the character moves way too fucking fast it makes
platforming really frustrating because I keep falling off
from ladders and shit. At least I could change the aiming
sensitivity and there is a lock-on button so the shooting
isn't that bad, but the game can be hard sometimes and
just turns into constant quick saving and reloading. And I
guess it's the fault of the PlayStation
2 but sometimes it has bad framerate
issues, can't believe this fucking console has trouble
handling a PC
game from 1998 lmao. Even though the scripted stuffs are
impressive the game can softlock you if you miss something
or don't jump on a lift in time which I didn't appreciate.
And fucking hell it can be a buggy mess, and apparently
the PC
version has this one too (why couldn't they just fix it
here?), like I couldn't kill that fucking Gonarch boss
near the end but you can blow up the floor under it if you
have enough explosives and then jump down to the portal, I
don't even know how many days i wasted on this shit to
finally get to the next level (and I saw it in the next
level in the sky still trying to shoot at me lmao). I
think the worst thing is how it just drags on forever, it
felt really tedious to play just like Red Faction,
and I would get lost all the time without a strategy
guide. The final boss was also a pain in the ass to beat
thanks to the shitty movement and platforming, but we get
a really interesting ending with that guy in the suit who
you see throughout the game, it kinda made me interested
in playing Half-Life 2, now there is an Xbox
version but it also came out on the Xbox 360 with all the expansions
as part of The Orange Box collection with some
other games so I might get that one. This one had 3
expansions, Half-Life: Decay came with this
version but it's a co-op campaign so I didn't try it (I
might watch it on YouTube), but Half-Life: Blue Shift,
where you play as a security guy trying to escape with
some scientists, was ported to the PlayStation
2 by some fan which is pretty cool so I
played that one. And you know what, I think I had a better
time with it, it's short and on point and doesn't drag on
forever like the main game, I liked it. In Half-Life:
Opposing Force you play as one of the soldiers, and
this is being ported to the PlayStation
2 by the same guy but he is a Russkie and I
think he got sent to the frontlines to die lmao, if not
then I will play it too and maybe update this one later. I
know I mostly just complained but it isn't really that
bad, I'm just 20 years too late to experience this game
unfortunately, I think you had to be there to truly
appreciate it. And I still think Halo is the gold
standard of that era's FPS games lol. |
2022/10/30 |
| Vanquish (Xbox 360) Developer: PlatinumGames Publisher: Sega Released: 2010 Genre: Action, third-person shooter |
 |
| I found this game on a list, it's supposed
to be a crazy fast-paced third-person shooter that's
really short so that's why I thought maybe I shouldn't
burn a disc and it would be a bit overwhelming, but then I
said eh fuck it, it looks cool lol. In the future some
evil Russkies capture a space station and use it as a
weapon to destroy San Francisco and you gotta stop them
before they destroy New York too. The space station is
huge but it's kinda just the same grey color everywhere
which is fine, the graphics are nice but kinda blurry and
I checked it online just in case but it's blurry in videos
too lol. You are Sam Gideon a DARPA agent who comes with
the army in a badass armor suite lol to find a missing
scientist, and you have a sexy blonde in short skirt to
assist you from your ship. This fucking cool armored suite
is what makes the game epic and unique, you have these
tiny rockets on your leg so you can slide anywhere at high
speed lmao but you can slow down time too, it's really a
fast-paced game, you are supposed to play it by sliding
everywhere and just destroying everything lol and
recharging behind covers, I tried to do that but still it
was kinda overwhelmnig to me (and I had to play on Casual
difficulty because I knew my shitty brain wouldn't be able
to handle this game). As you go through the space station
you destroy robots in all kind of sizes, from tiny little
ones to giant fucking walking fortresses lmao. You
basically have one weapon that transforms into 3 other
ones you pick (and then have two kinds of grenades), and
you can upgrade weapons by picking up the same one when
your ammo is full. What makes it really cool is the insane
shits you can do, like lighting up a cigarette and
throwing it away to distract enemies, slowing down time
when you throw a grenade and shooting it for extra damage
or shooting down incoming missiles like that, and the epic
QTEs like beating the shit out of a robot's head lmao or
that awesome sword fight lol (or just dumb shit like those
dancing robots lmao). And the game rewards you with
achievements by killing enemies in a cool way or
accomplishing things in a certain way. There are these
tiny statues as collectibles but I could barely find any,
but you get detailed statistics after every mission like
how many allies you saved or how much time you spent under
cover. There is a nice twist at the end (lmao at what the
president did) and you get a cliffhanger ending which is a
shame because we never got a sequel. And lol at that end
credits, it's basically a rail shooter where you need to
destroy meteors which are the developers, it's really
clever and probably the best end credits I've seen. There
is no multiplayer but apparently there is a challenge mode
but you need to beat it at least on Normal so I couldn't
try it out. Shame it's such a short game and that there is
no sequel because I had a lot of fun playing it. |
2022/10/29 |
| James Bond 007:
Everything or Nothing (Xbox) Developer: EA Redwood Shores Publisher: Electronic Arts Released: 2004 Genre: Third-person shooter |
 |
| One of the first games I played on my Xbox
after I softmodded it were James Bond 007: Agent Under
Fire and James Bond 007: Nightfire, I don't
even know why because I never cared about the movies lol.
The second game is technically better in every possible
way but still I enjoyed the first one more. Those were
first-person shooters but in this game they switched to
third-person, I guess to show off Pierce Brosnan who
finally voiced the character lol. I usually play PAL
versions because I genuinely can't tell the difference
(and I don't think there is any difference in speed in
games after 2000) but this game doesn't work from the HDD
without a patch and only the NTSC version had one (later I
realized I could just patch everything manually with
DVD2Xbox lol). But the game launched right into the first
mission and I couldn't see cutscenes or the menu, that's
when I realized I'm supposed to switch to NTSC video mode
to play NTSC games... I never had any problem like this
before because I have PAL-60 enabled and it just switches
to that if the game supports 60 Hz (and I thought it works
like the PlayStation 2
where it switches automatically), either way changing the
video mode fixed it and I could play the game. Besides the
regular actors from the movies we have some famous chicks
too and Willem Dafoe who plays a Russian guy who wants to
take over the world with nanobots, so you are trying to
find out what's happening and chase him all over the
world. It sucked that there is no aiming and you need to
lock onto enemies, I wanted a normal fucking third-person
shooter. And it's hard (especially that part where you are
falling down from a cliff, it took me forever), but
missions are kinda short and sometimes have checkpoints.
You can earn Bond moments by doing cool shit like taking
down enemies with the environment lol. You have a bunch of
gadgets you can use, my favorite was the grappling gun
which you can use to climb up and down from buildings lol.
But I like the gadgets in the other games, some of them
doesn't make any sense like I couldn't figure out how to
use that network tap gun or some grenades, they just
randomly worked sometimes. There are a lot of vehicle
missions, like almost half of the game, and they control
like shit like it's from Need for Speed: Underground
(I actually tried playing that game but dropped it because
the cars controlled like dogshit and I hate that tuning
bullshit), but at least the cars look really nice with the
reflections. The last missions was fucking nervewrecking
with the hordes of enemies you have to fight your way
through, the final boss was easy as fuck compared to it
lol. You get a nice bonus video after the credits with the
voice actors, and there are things you can unlock based on
your mission scores, like concept arts, behind the scene
pics, upgrades, new sexy outfits for the ladies lol, or a
new bonus mission too. And two new game modes, VR
challenge rounds and survival modes, but they suck lol. It
actually has a different co-op campaign for multiplayer
which is pretty cool but I couldn't try it out alone,
along with the normal multiplayer because it doesn't have
bots. But I realized the other two games have bots which I
didn't know so I downloaded James Bond 007: Agent
Under Fire again first and a save that unlock
everything and I'm having a lot of fun with it, especially
with low gravity setting and jetpacks enabled lol. |
2022/10/28 |
| Assassin's Creed:
Brotherhood (Xbox
360) Developer: Ubisoft Montreal Publisher: Ubisoft Released: 2010 Genre: Action-adventure, stealth |
 |
| Man it's finally here, I can't believe I
waited two years to play the next mainline Assassin's
Creed game after that insane ending, I was so
excited to see where the story goes next. And it continues
right where the second game ended like literally, you are
in that chamber wondering what the fuck just happened when
your uncle shows up and you escape, and it seemed like I
had the same equipment lol I guess it checked my save
which is pretty cool. The first memory is basically the
tutorial, the Borgias attacked your villa when you arrived
home, killed your uncle and took the Apple of Eden. So you
go to Rome to take it back and have your revenge for real
this time. To be honest pretty much everything is the same
in this game lol, but instead of a couple big cities you
have one huge one with its countryside. Rome is so cool
though especially how you can go to the Pantheon or to the
Colosseum, the city looks beautiful and the graphics are
noticably better too. Because it's a huge city you can
ride horses anywhere and there are tunnels you can use for
fast travel. You can leave the Animus anytime too, in fact
you have to because some memories take place in real life
which is another cool thing. And you can hang out in the
city and look for artifacts, talk to your team members and
check emails. There is virtual training you can do which I
guess are like challenge stages, I only did a few of them.
I finally figured out the combat in Assassin's Creed:
Bloodlines but of course they changed it here lmao,
you can't just use counterattack, most enemies have a
specific way of defeating them, and there are executions
which are basically combo finishers where you get insta
kills with all the enemies around you if you press at the
right time. Some of those eagle towers are controlled by
enemy soldiers and you have to liberate them by killing
the captain there and then burning down the tower which
liberates the district and you can open shops, tunnels,
famous buildings or repair viaducts there. They are also
related to the biggest addition which is the Brotherhood
system. You can recruit assassins (the more towers you
liberate the more you can hire) and send them on missions
all over Europe to level them up, and use them in battles
to assassinate people or use their arrow attacks to kill
everyone lol. There are a lot of secondary missions in
this one too, you will do missions for different guilds
(and they also have challenges which reward you with good
weapons if you complete them all), destroy war machines
(you can actually use them too in those missions, like a
tank, a ship, a machine gun and a plane lol), replay some
memories with that girl from Firenze who Ezio loved,
catacombs where you find treasures and get the Armor of
Brutus if you complete them all (which doesn't look as
good as Altaïr's nice black armor) and find those hidden
glyphs with the puzzles like that video from Assassin's
Creed
II, but here you actually go inside the glitch
and play through it to unlock the message, it wasn't as
cool as the previous one but it's still interesting, a
nice mystery. There are also collectibles, Borgia flags,
treasure chests (which give you items too you can sell or
use them for those shop quests to unlock new stuff) and
just a few feathers, I felt compelled to collect
everything here too but it definitely felt more tedious
this time. It was so cool that you could use the Apple of
Eden near the end of the game, you can charge it up and
kill most people instantly or turn them against each
other, it was fucking awesome lmao. There is a big epic
boss battle at the end, then you go back to present day to
find the Apple, and you get another wtf ending, it doesn't
hit as hard as Assassin's Creed II's insane
ending, it's more like wow ok that just happened. It also
had multiplayer but I couldn't try it. I really enjoyed it
and it's great but it doesn't feel as insanely better as Assassin's
Creed
II was to Assassin's Creed, it's more
like just an improved Assassin's Creed II. I
really like the story in these games but I need to make
sure it won't take me another two years to play the next
game lmao. |
2022/10/11 |
| Beyond Good &
Evil (Xbox) Developer: Ubisoft Pictures Publisher: Ubisoft Released: 2003 Genre: Action-adventure, stealth game |
 |
| Beyond Good & Evil means a lot
to me. I was so excited for this game after reading about
it in magazines, it sounded like a game I would really
love and actually it's one of the few games I bought for PC. I played
it for a while but then I had to reinstall Windows, I
wanted to continue playing it so I saved the save files (I
still have them!) but later I realized I forgot a file and
I couldn't use them. But to be fair it fucking sucked on PC, the
controls were terrible and you could clearly tell it was
designed to be played with a controller and I could
immediately tell that again when I started playing it on Xbox.
It was one of my top priorities to play this game after I
softmodded my Xbox and it's weird it took me this
long, even now when I got there in the release order I was
still looking for excuses to not to play it, I guess it's
so important to me that I wasn't ready for it and I didn't
want to get disappointed. First thing I noticed was the
fucking letterbox which you can't turn off, like you are
forced to play in 16:9 which sucks, I can't even imagine
playing this on a small TV lol. But as I was playing it
again on the first day all the memories came rushing back,
the lighthouse and the characters who I loved so much (the
place is so comfy it made me want to live in a
lighthouse), the beautiful sky, the animals, the dog who
reminded me of my dog, it was so magical to experience
them again. I remembered everything like it was yesterday,
the hovercraft, the big flying monster who attacks you on
the sea, Mammago Garage, the city, the minigame at the bar
with the shark, that Propaganda song lol, the races, the
island where you need to take a picture of the DayZ
monster, all the way up to part where you are in the
factory and trying to find Double H, I think that's where
I stopped playing. The story is one of the reasons why
this game caught my eyes, you are playing as a cute girl
named Jade who lives in a lighthouse with her humanoid pig
"uncle" Pey'j and a bunch of orphans when the aliens
called DomZ attack and after you defeat them the Alpha
Section, who are a military unit that fights the DomZ,
shows up. To pay the bills and get the shield back up to
prevent another attack on the lighthouse she finds a job
to photograph creatures for a museum, and then gets a job
offer from some mysterious guy to take a photo of some
creatures in an abandoned mine. This turns out to be a
test by the underground resistance group called IRIS
Network. They suspect the Alpha Section and the DomZ work
together and they are behind the kidnappings, and they
want you to find proof so they can launch a revolt. So you
go from one location to another, sneaking around and
trying to find proof and take a photo of it. Combat is
alright, you fight with a stick and can do range attacks
with gyrodisks, and your companion can help out too with
special attacks, which can be used to solve puzzles too.
The camera was kinda weird, sometimes I couldn't really
see shit, and the jumping and climbing being automatic was
weird too. I think the worst part of the game is the
stealth when you are trying to avoid Alpha Section
soldiers, they can fuck you up easily and it was so hard
when you had to pass through a bunch of them. You make
money by taking photos of creatures and after every roll
film you get a pearl. Pearls are used to purchase upgrades
for your hovercraft, you can get them by looking around
the city trying to find doors you can unlock with keycards
you find during missions, winning races, chasing looters
in a cavern, winning them in minigames or by killing
certain flying enemies or bosses. Collecting them all
gives you a pearl game disc you can play lol, and there is
also a save code you can use online to unlock another disc
in game for that shark minigame. It was so awesome when
you get a flying ship near the end and you can fly above
the islands, it's such a cute world. And then you go to
space which was just wow, it looked incredible. Another
hard part was the final boss where the controls change lol
I could barely adjust to it. I'm happy to say that I
wasn't disappointed at all, it's such a cute game and I
love it so much, it really is a heartwarming experience.
It sort of ends with a cliffhanger but unfortunately we
never got a sequel. I remember a leaked footage and a
trailer from the late 2000s and I was so excited but of
course it never came out. There was another modern shitty
game in development a few years ago but it lacked all the
charm and looks like that one is dead too thankfully. |
2022/10/07 |
| Downhill Domination
(PlayStation 2) Developer: Incognito Entertainment Publisher: Sony Computer Entertainment Released: 2003 Genre: Racing |
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| One night I was watching a video from the
2003 E3 and it had a short clip of this game where bikes
go down on an insane mountain slope crazy fast and you can
kick and throw bottles at other bikers lol. I never really
cared about extreme sports games and the only one I played
was SSX 3 on my friend's Xbox back in like
2005, I wanted to like it but I'm way too fucking dumb to
remember those complicated combos. But man this game
looked so much fun, it reminded me of Burnout with
its insane speed so I ignored my early PlayStation 2 games first rule
to play it next (and then tried to find similar games on
the Xbox). I really wanted to like this too but
man it's so hard for me, I can't train my brain to focus
on tricks and not hitting something at the same time when
I'm going crazy fast. I switched to easy after a few races
so that definitely helped, but still I forgot the tricks
and the controller sucks ass, I can barely press the
shoulder buttons on this tiny piece of shit, especially 4
of them at the same time. But to be honest it's still fun
to just race like crazy and press random buttons here and
there when I'm in the air lol. There are so much crazy
shit on the map lol, like rams and deers and monks,
Russkie soldiers, tourists to evade, or lava, thunders and
shit, insane jumps, mines, a city to go through, it has
really fun locations, and sometimes trails marked by black
diamonds which are harder to navigate through but you can
get more points. There are some pickups too, the green one
gives you more energy so you can keep sprinting, the red
gives you an insane speed bonus for a few seconds, the
yellow is combat upgrade, the more you pick up the better
weapons you have, and purple for more points and orange to
get up immediately after you crash. And there are a lot of
game modes (even though they are kinda the same), Super
Career is the big one, you go through every map with 3
different modes (the last 4 races were hard, luckily you
don't have to finish first, you get points for like the
top 4 places and you can progress after a couple of
retries), Freeride (I guess that's the normal race),
Mountain Cross (short motocross race more focused in
tricks and jumps) and Technical Downhill (similar to the
first one but harder and more shit to avoid), and then
there is Specialized Career which is all three separately
(you can also make your own under Custom Tournament).
Freestyle is basically a trick objective based mode, you
don't race anyone just gotta complete the specific set of
tricks to complete a course. To my suprise I was able to
complete the first one somehow lol but of course I was
stuck on the next one and I hate this trick shit anyway so
no thank you, that was enough. There is an Arcade mode too
but again it's like the same thing as the other career
modes, the only difference is you can only use stock
bikes, in other modes you can upgrade them and unlock pro
bikes which have better stats (and sponsor shirts too like
eBay, Amazon, Mountain Dew lmao). You earn money from
races and that's how you unlock those, but actually you
need to unlock a lot of shit, like music, racers and
cheats too, and two game modes: in Moshbowl you basically
just fight in a small arena lmao, I only played it once
but it was fine, and Super Jump where you go down on an
insane ramp from the skies for a gigantic jump lol, you
are supposed to land to pass it and you can land on
multipliers but I couldn't figure out how and just kept
crashing lmao. Oh and of course the usual time trial which
I'm not gonna touch lol, I'm sure there are more for
multiplayer but I can't test those. It's pretty much the
only PlayStation 2 game
I won't delete because it can be played for fun anytime.
Still though I was hoping to enjoy it more, but I'm just
too dumb for games like this. |
2022/09/30 |
