Aventinus

The environments are beautiful....everything else is steaming donkey dung. From the mundane conversations to the hollow and non-existent plot...this game may be what stops me from playing games forever. I've just finished it and it left such an empty feeling inside of me that I just don't want to touch video games for the foreseeable future. Thanks Firewatch.

They ripped the soul out of Agent 47....this no longer feels like a Hitman game. You could easily take Sam Fisher from Blacklist and insert him into this world and call it Splinter Cell Absolution, and there would be no discernible difference, because this franchise has been razed by corporate greed and the lust for profit. As a result, saves are completely gone and replaced by dreaded checkpoints, so sometimes you must re-attempt the entire level after being spotted. You cannot choose your gear and/or purchase upgrades and you cannot walk among the crowd freely without arousing **** that is what kills the game and makes it feel like a generic stealth romp. Some of the signature kills are fun and humorous (ice cream truck - Lenny), but they are shrouded by frustration due to the broken stealth **** environments are sometimes very constricted yet there are a plethora of enemies littered on the map, so good luck trying not to get spotted. With the inclusion of instinct, I don't know what they were hoping to **** player actions which were available in the stealth genre a decade before this game was released, like whistling or knocking on walls to arouse suspicion, aren't included?? The game design here also makes you wonder, because little things like being spotted with a full face mask covering your entire head and head and having the enemy start **** in their pants with sadist blood-lust in their veins upon spotting you makes no logical sense. I urge anyone who hasn't played this to stay away. How many more franchises must be ruined to appeal to the Call of Duty ADHD generation? Assassins Creed, Thief, Mass Effect, Sim City, Batman, Dragon Age, SW: battlefront, fallout, hitman, battlefield, Need for speed, tony hawks, Resident Evil, Splinter Cell, The **** list goes on.

In this players humble opinion, the greatest video game ever created. Yu Suzuki's brainchild, Shenmue 1 and 2 was a work of art , and came very close to simulating a young Japanese man's life and struggles in the late 80's. The innovation was **** was an archetype for many features we see in gaming today, including QTE's, weather effects (weather was randomized and actual recorded weather forecasts were used), interactivity etc. It propelled the medium to new heights and left a lasting impression on those that had the privilege to play it. Although it was a financial failure, and left the world with a whimper, it was an attempt to defy the tested the tried principles of gaming mechanics and transcend the boundaries of video gaming as a whole. The atmosphere was just off the charts. You could start chatting with just about anyone, and you truly felt like you were part of a living, breathing world. You could visit an arcade , collect toys , feed kittens or just hang out at the soda machine and gulp down fizzy drinks all day. Later , you could participate in arm wrestling matches with Spanish men that oozed machismo, or take a load off and play a round of darts with a snobbish mustachio dude. The world was yours to discover and manipulate as you saw fit. The variety in gameplay methods never allowed the game itself to drag on, the sheer quantity of things to do and places to go could keep you busy for hours. There were easter eggs like obtaining a sega saturn game or participating in duck racing. Ahh, the memories. The graphics were unparalleled at the time. The Dreamcast's 200mhz (or so) processor was tested to it's limits, everything was thrown at it except the proverbial kitchen sink, but it did not falter and other than a few areas (pigeon park) where the frame rate would slow to a crawl, the game ran smoothly. The orchestral score and in game music were also memorable , from the opening prologue and Lan Di's enigmatic entrance scene to the tomato convenience store theme (best jingle evah!). Yu Suzuki and his team poured their souls into this game, it's just a damn shame that there will probably never be a deserved conclusion to this masterpiece.

It baffles me to this day why this game is lauded so immensely , I'm on my second play-through and all I can say is it's a bitter disappointment, especially after the flawlessness of the first one. That one was a charming caper that had all the elements of a 60's spy movie: it had international intrigue, unforgettable characters, and witty humor. Elements that could have rivaled any Bond movie of it's day, albeit with a slightly feminine touch. The second iteration just doesn't have the same feel, Cate is virtually unrecognizable and the script is lacking. There is hardly any attempt at the dry-wit comedy of the first one (Remember the criminal convos - especially the self psycho-analysis by one of the henchmen as to why he's a criminal , lol) and it quite literally never picks **** falls flat on it's face without even 'hitting it's target'. Cate has lost all her charm and 'street smarts', and can hardly put a sentence together. It's like the developers decided to dumb down the character for reasons I can only guess at (maybe to appeal to a younger audience?) and instead of the spy diva that enchanted our CRT monitors , and was just so memorable and engaging, we are instead left with a bimbo with a no nonsense attitude and a desire to get the job done ....a one-trick pony. The same goes for Bruno, Mr.Jones and Armstrong....either the scriptwriters got lazy, or they decided to focus on different aspects of the game.... The game itself looks great , even to this day, especially with the widescreen patch. Textures are hi res and I'm really surprised at how well it's held up. The level design is somewhat lackluster though, with levels feeling confined and not as open-world as the first iteration. Santa's workshop has been plucked out completely, so you don't get to test the nifty gadgets before embarking on a mission. You also don't get to customize your weapon arsenal before loading a mission , but design choices have always been perplexing to me. Lastly, I'll quote another review that kind of hit the nail on the head: No one lives forever "expanded the narrative capacity of the medium, the sequel is just a game". The first script would have given Ian Fleming a run for his money... unfortunately NOLF 2 was a step in the wrong direction, it failed to live up to the high lofty standards set by the first and will forever go down in my personal recollection as one of the worst sequels in the history of PC gaming.

Don't let the title fool you ..this is Resident Evil 4.5, and probably came out about half a decade too late. First of all your probably have heard of all the technical setbacks this game is riddled **** biggest gripe was with the FOV after changing the aspect ratio through the console...I could see some screen, but mostly a lot of ass. If I really wanted a to get a close up of a rear end of some guy I'd venture to a gay bar , with a magnifying glass in hand (vomit). This game was supposed to be scary, well it's far from it. Watching the Exorcism backwards on mute is much scarier, in fact, playing Kirby on a monochromatic gameboy is scarier. There's gratuitous amounts of blood though. Gallons and gallons of it. What we have here is a quantity over quality conundrum, so the only way this game is bound to scare you is if you're a hemophiliac. Maybe Mikami should get in touch with the developers at Creative Assembly to get some pointers on how a scary game should be made. In fact , if I was Japanese I'd try to lure him into one of those Japanese prank shows, where they scare the living bejesus out of the participants. He deserves it, because he's released such a disappointing schlock **** that I waited months to come out only to be kicked in the teeth by a steaming turd boot and splashed with 3893829829283 liters of HIV infected blood. So in the vein of conan o' brien (clueless **** a high score was a possessed ghoulish pasty white girl with a rotating head, and a really bad score was a chainsaw wielding inbred brute suffering from acromegaly. Then this game is a little girl that's lost in the woods; she's soiled herself and she's crying for mommy to come save her.

It's a beautiful game but that's about all the praise it's going to get here. Wandering through a ghost town with no objective marker (yes, I realize it was in the disclaimer), is just not fun, it's downright frustrating. Maybe for some of you who have a LOT of time on your hands and patience to spare, this will be engaging, but I found myself frolicking about, without a freaking clue as to what to do next, passing the same bloody patch of land numerous times wondering where to go. Murdered Soul Suspect did a much better job pulling you into the **** threw you a bone at least, giving you a full encyclopedia-worthy history on the background of Salem as you slowly unraveled the mystery. Sure, it had it's drawbacks but at least you were surrounded by a world that was eerie and teeming with liveliness with characters that you cared about....while here, there are no characters except the walking ghoul which is the protagonist detective. This is not my type of game, and I will never ever be revisiting Red Creek Valley again. On the plus side, at least this game is **** free (Gone Home).

This is a bland , linear and above all, tear-your-hair out frustrating game that doesn't deserve to be on anyone's shelf, and if it has found it's way to your collection somehow, pray that someone 'steals' this abomination. It's impossible to sneak your way through levels and stick to the shadows since all the levels are designed to cramp your style due to the claustrophobic nature of the places you'll visit. The game feels clunky and unpolished... I honestly enjoyed playing Rambo more than Thief. The loading times....just god-awful, every 5 minutes it seems there's an interruption and voila, you'll be staring at a progress bar again and again. There's no jump **** 2014, I mean this isn't zelda ffs, if you are going to make a realistic game with some minor paranormal overtones then why remove a basic trait that all people with two healthy legs can accomplish? If Adam Jensen can jump, then why can't Garrett? The voice acting is ok but at times it's drowned out by the music OR the characters' conversations get stuck in a loop and you're forced to listen to the same phrase repeated 20 times in succession. "if they have a cure for the gloom, I'll put up with the throng to get my hands on **** listening to that repeatedly without getting annoyed. All the side-missions are the same, basically you're looking for a 2X4 that you can latch a rope arrow to which eventually leads to a window you must open with a crowbar and steal the loot. There's virtually no variation in any of them. Boring as ****. Also, if I fire 5 fire arrows into an enemy, you'd expect them to go down , dead on the spot. Not the case here, as one blow to the head from a blackjack is more effective than 5 piercing arrows doused in flame. The animations are sub-par as well, Garret and the rest of the lot barely make a facial gesture that resembles normal human emotion.... Performance is ok, but it's disappointing that Mantle wasn't released for AMD graphics card optimization because it was promised by the developer. All in all, you guys should not invest any time in this, just spend more time with your girlfriends instead. Peace.