The closest I've ever felt to the original playthrough of Max Payne. This game is unpolished, with clunky controls, super difficult at times and quite arcadey. Also, the introduction of cover mechanic early in the game is quite misleading (taking cover is the most sure way to get a lot of damage and die, this game should be played constantly moving). However, I loved the game despite all its weaknesses. Because it got so much stuff right: the style and colors are awesome, Red looks like an anime character (and that's intentional), the gameplay is challenging but rewarding as you gain more skill, the music is perfect and creates a vibe of spaghetti western. Don't take this game too seriously -- and you'll have a lot of fun.
What if Max Payne and Resident Evil had a baby, but it was a bit too weird for both parents and they left the kid for adoption (aka remastering) which made it even weirder. That's a very uneven game, and though its episodic structure sounds cool on paper, it doesn't work that well in real life. The highest points are probably episodes 4 & 5 where gameplay and style finally coalesce into a cool game (Old Gods of Asgards, yay!), but other episodes are either more frustrating or simply filler. The DLCs are even worse, more to the trashy side (and in general seem a direct commentary on Max Payne 2 game design). Remaster is hit and miss too, in the well-lit scenes characters look plasticky which dissolves a lot of the tension that the game tries to build up. So all in all: a mixed bag. Can't wait to play Alan Wake 2 though.
It would be a better game if it focused on Peter and Kraven only, skipping all the Miles stuff, the second main boss, and all the side missions. But we have what we have.
Awesome music, cute visual style, beautiful & cryptic game manual, great exploration. It would be a great game if it ended somewhere midway, but it introduces an unnecessary difficulty spike for combat and way too many cryptic puzzles there instead. The ending is meh.
Conceptually, that's a Super Mario Odyssey clone, but much simpler and shorter. So it's a very proven formula that works and the added nostalgia for PS history hits really strong. However, the gameplay is a bit derivative and simplistic, and the motion controls get old very quickly (the rocket sections were especially annoying).
I think that I understand the appeal of casinos better now. When you see an "EXTREME FEVER" screen after a lucky shot, and the epic music plays in the background, it's pure bliss.
A Portal clone, but with optical illusions instead of portals and done in the visual style of Stanley Parable. Illusions are great, but the game feels more like an unpolished demo with no coherent narrative to properly put it together. If you have a Game Pass check it out, though.
The art direction is awesome.
The gameplay is too slow, with not enough stuff to do. So feels like an annoying version of Firewatch.
Technically it's okay, totally playable, though some glitches in lighting reduce the immersion a bit.
Otherwise, feels like a decent adaptation of Lem's work. I nerded out a bit when the game name-dropped Robot Fables and Fiasco in some dialogue.
It has some impressive visual vistas and CGI, and in some occasions the gameplay is fun.
But overall, that's quite a weak entry. The pop-in is annoying, the story makes no sense, the gameplay and level design are mostly mediocre.
Dioramas are cute and it's a miracle that Mario platformer works w/o jumping. Also, it's funny that bird villains cast spells with Sony Playstation symbols.
The game is short, the art style reminds Pikmin with an Eastern European twist, the characters are adorable, the puzzles make no sense (it's mostly pixel hunting and brute force).
Meh. A mediocre puzzle game that takes itself too seriously. The world navigation is an abomination. The game has wonderful music and sprite work though.
On a more basic level, this game is a mix of Mirror's Edge and Metro 2033. In general, instead of inventing stuff it bluntly mimics visuals and mechanics from other fan favorites: Half-Life, FarCry, Assassin's Creed, and even Fallout. So it's hard to take this game seriously, but it works quite well as a gaming nostalgia trip. + The basic mix of parkour and FPS gel quite well. When parkour works (to be fair it fails miserably in ~10% of runs), it's a blast. + The open world map here has a reasonable size. + The quest structure is basic but legit. - The story is generic incoherent bs that uses gore and shocking scenes to hide this fact. And for my taste, the treatment of the Middle East setting here wasn't respectful enough. - The locations look quite generic and don't invite exploration (this is no Zelda or AC). There is nothing to discover in the open world except for loot. - Too much looting. - As mentioned above, this game copies and mimics other games a lot. So you'll find little originality here.
An enjoyable coop experience, but strongly overshadowed by the 'It takes two' masterpiece. +Movie homages are fun. Especially direct scenes from Oldboy and Scarface. +The 70s aesthetic looks great. +The coop aspect is fun. -The dark and serious tone clashes with coop fun. Again, 'It takes two' balanced the tone and gameplay much better. -The mechanics are too shallow. They're not bad per se and everything works fine. Also, that's cool that the game rotates mechanics quite often. Still, in many places, the game felt like a simplified Uncharted clone, which took me out of it.
The worst Batman Arkham game is still surprisingly playable. WB Games Montréal tries to replicate Rocksteady's approach but fails to do so. However, the foundation by Rocksteady is so solid, that the game works anyway. Pros: + Game mechanics are directly copied from Rocksteady games and they work quite well. + Gotham lore is still well-written. + The game is set at Christmas, so playing it during the Holiday season was fun. + The outfits of the Black Mask gang are cool: suits, turtlenecks, and golden chains. Cons: - The main story is cheap. While Rocksteady games introduced a new angle on Batman and Joker characters that worked well specifically for video games, WB Games Montréal just rehashes ideas from Nolan movies. It makes the story predictable and disappointing. Like 4/10 at best. - Tutorials miss the mark. In half the places the stuff is over-explained: like you're not even given a second to think about the puzzles, Batman immediately voices the solution. In other places (like the Deathstroke fight), the new mechanics are not introduced/explained at all. It makes the difficulty curve hilariously uneven. - Open-world design clashes with the linear gadget tree. And backtracking is not a lot of fun in this one. - Bugs, bugs, bugs. The game crashed 10+ times on me. Interrogate actions didn't trigger from time to time. Some scenes were missing voiceover.
OMG, this game is so bad, it's almost unplayable. I thought that Fallen Order was bad, but this is even worse. Pros: + Parts of the cutscenes that don't have facial animations hold up quite well and have strong SW vibes. + The name of the protagonist is Starkiller (you see, I'm really **** the bottom of the barrel to find smth positive to say) Cons: - Facial animations are abysmal. They're not even funny like Halo 3 ODST ones were. Just creepy. - Controls are terrible: unresponsive and unsatisfying. Both combat and platforming feel like a crappy demo made overnight. Combat you can button-spam to some extent, but nothing will vindicate the platforming. - Active objects are highlighted inconsistently. Targeting is off. It's especially annoying during the gas chamber and Star Destroyer levels. - Progression tree is a list on the third level of menu (why?). - I was failing most of the QTE-scenes at the first try, just because they were starting out of nowhere. - Story is meh. Nothing new. Same bits of SW lore and themes remixed.
The original was my favorite game from PS2 era. This remake mostly holds up to my nostalgia-biased expectations. Pros: + Colossi are still mesmerizing to look at. Their design is timeless. + Climbing colossi feels dangerous and Wander clings to his life with bare hands until his stamina runs out. + Exploring open world feels very much like a real-life hiking trip. The game has no filler activities of the modern open-world games. It could look empty to some, but I actually enjoyed it. Quite refreshing after Assassin's Creed series. + The music is still epic. The soundtrack didn't age a bit. Cons: - With the new game engine, the game looks much more generic than the original. I feel that the game lost some of its abstract geometric poetry with this new rendering. Also, the grass popup distracts more than it should. - At its core, this is a puzzle game. So at certain points I was annoyed. Especially, when the new hd rendering made finding interactive spots harder. In my teenage years I was much more forgiving for this kind of stuff.
A little bit cheesy and casino-like racing game with a perfect open-world Mexico. Expeditions and exploration are fun. The weather effect are cool, sunsets are mesmerizing, collecting cars is fun. The first racing game since NFS Underground that kept my attention long enough to finish it (can we count reaching Hall of Fame as a game completion? :)
A little bit simplistic, but lovely brawler made with love to the TMNT lore. Pros: + an animated opening + wonderful sprites + awesome soundtrack + lore used wisely, the game is also quite funny + coop Cons: - not much depth to inspire a second walkthrough
Just Cause feels like a copy of a copy **** game. It just doesn't gel together and becomes worse the more you play it. Pros: * The sky color and weather effects look quite cool. * Skydiving could is a chill and beautiful thing to do. * There are some meta jokes written for Garland's missions. (Seems the missions themselves are quite a rip-off from Forza Horizon, though). * Mira is hot af. Cons: * Controls are awful. 20 hours in I was still not able to consistency use the grapple hook. * Physics are awful. That almost breaks driving missions as handling is no fun there. * Missions are highly repetitive. Enemy's AI is dumb, with god-like precision for shots in harder missions.
Something felt off. Pros: + The new machines introduces by 343 are super cool: e.g. Mammoth, Mantis. + In general, the biology-inspired designs work: e.g. electric dogs, Didact's ship as chrysalis. + The retcon for index is kinda cool (though execution suffers). + So the game shines the most when it goes the furthest away from the original trilogy. Cons: - Gunplay feels off. There is no punch to guns. Enemies are bullet-spongy. - Levels are meh. In a sense, you go through a set of very small rooms and need to kill all enemies to proceed further. Again and again. It makes gameplay feel kinda random, more like Quake 3 Arena or Doom rather than Halo. - Enemy AI is meh. - The graphics are meh. Some designs are quite cool. But there are many visual glitches (even to this day). Huge ships just disappear in the air after the explosion. Items re-spawn behind you. All this breaks the illusion quite a lot. - People look wooden. And the cutscene art direction in general is not up to the standard of previous games. Also, the story between Master Chief and Cortana will make you cringe.
Meh, this one felt weak for (I played the Master Chief Collection version of it). It's the most fascistic and melodramatic of them all yet. I didn't enjoy it quite as much as CE or Reach. This game just rehashes everything from 1 & 2 and puts them in a bigger package. But I was more bored than entertained. Pros: + The epilogue in zero gravity is kinda cool (and almost touching). + Some of the space cutscenes look epic (though, the low resolution reduces the illusion a bit). Cons: - Enemies and allies AI is weak. Allies in cars where dropped me 100+ from the cliffs. Enemies freeze from time to time. - The story is confusing. Like it's cool that we change locations so quickly, but I wasn't clear what's happening and what's my role in it most of the game. Also, the dated engine doesn't allow to take the melodrama of the story seriously. - The level navigation and encounter design are weak too. Like 10+ times I was confused on what I should do and where I should go.
An incohesive addition to an incohesive game. This time around AC tries to cosplay Batman games and fails at that. Also, this one is as glitchy as the full AC Syndicate. One of the achievement got stuck for me at 98% for no reason.
London here is simply a dirty and red-tinted version of Paris from Unity. And quite derivative because of that :( Pros: + Cameos from Darwin and Marx. Super cool. + Starrick and Roth are cool villains (on the downside, they make stupid things and don't have enough screen time). + There is a connection to AC Chronicles India game. + WW1 London was an interesting (though a weak and unpolished) addition. Cons: - The achievements are glitched. 7 of them froze for me at 97-98%. The problem was known by Ubisoft, but they decided not to address it. - London is meh. - Two characters as protagonists don't work. And both are meh. - Storyline is meh. - Climbing is easier with the grappling hook, but no fun.
Eventually, the GTA and Max Payne sensibilities came together. It's the most cynical, gory and cinematic Max Payne to date. Also, that's why it feels really dated in 2022. Pros: * James McCaffrey now portrays Max not only in voice, but also in body. * You can shoot grenades mid-air. * Sao Paolo looks really dirty, levels are highly detailed and you get onto shoot outs all over the sightseeing spots. In general, replacing NY cold with SP heat was a stroke of genius. * They don't translate Portuguese! That feels very authentic and helps to show Max as gringo. * I enjoyed the storyline here better then MP2 (yes, it's an unpopular opinion). Cons: * This game has more cutscenes than shootouts (ok, I'm exaggerating a little). But during the second play-through that becomes much more visible and annoying. That part didn't date well. * The over-the-top brutality entertained me 10 yrs ago (as I've never seen anything like that before), but now it feels overly gratuitous and not necessary. This game is a teenager take on what 'adult content' looks like. * Gameplay itself gets old faster then it should. W/o auto-aim the game is too hard. With auto-aim -- too easy. It had never found a difficulty balance for me that I could enjoy. * The resolution is too low. I played this on Series X, and the age shows in resolutions. Models and levels are cool. But any time you need to shoot smth in the distance, you start pixel hunting. * Achievements are unreasonable.
Such a disappointment after the first game. Instead of a real sequel, it's an indoors GTA clone. Cons: - For some reason they replaced Sam Lake as Max Payne actor. The new one is bland. - The aspect ratio of comics is not right. - The level design in this one is weak. You come back to the same areas again and again, and they are gray lifeless corridors. Meh. - The music is too generic. - The story is predictable and weirdly cut. Love story with Mona looks laughable with this oldschool graphics. W/o insane Valhalla references it's just not crazy/dark enough. In a sense it's a bad prototype for Control game that will become great with Control. Pros: + We can see glimpses of Control: flamingos, weird ads, janitors. + Janitors were menacing.
A game that "Enter the Matrix" wanted to be. Stands the test of time better than I expected. In reality, it's a mix of Matrix movies vibe and Half-Life inspired gameplay (and I mean both as a compliment). Played it on Xbox, by the way. Pros: + You can see how this game became a template for Control. E.g. in brutalist architecture, dream sequences and Finnish actors for all the cast. + New York vibe totally works. + The grin on Max Payne's (Sam Lake's) face is priceless. + Comics! + The bullet time is still a decent (if maybe slightly overused mechanic). Cons: - No autosaving feels so dated. Why do I need to go to menu to save the game myself? - The graphics are not as great as I remember them from my childhood :) - Controls work fine, but you can see how they were retrofitted from PC. The biggest offender was the level when they take away your guns. And the need to scroll though all guns to switch them. - Some of the sections feel unnecessary long and repetitive.
An okayish stealth game and a bad AC creed game: Pros: + Watercolor visuals are interesting + The stealth gameplay works + Running sections are fun + It's totally doable to get 100% completion here Cons: - Some custscenes look like a 3d animated series from the 90s: i.e. everyone looks like plastic dools. (Other cutscenes look great, though. Hit & miss, hit & miss.) - Controls are okay, but not super precise due to 2,5d nature of the game. When doing 100% more often then not, I was trying to beat controls, not the game itself. - The color coding (red is climbable) doesn't have enough contrast, so it creates struggles sometimes. I missed a few alternative level routes due to that. - To get 100% only a no-kill policy is allowed. That's too harsh and limits gameplay styles to a great extent. - The historical & exploration aspects in this one are minimalistic at best. And they are the main draw of AC games for me. Now I want a full AC China creed game. This one only hinted at possibilities.
A beautiful, but derivative game, with bad performance on M1 Macbook. Pros: + An aesthetically pleasing game. The designs of the eagle and Змей Горыныч are especially good. + The movement feels interesting and fluid (it's never perfect though). + The score is good (nowhere close to ABZU, though. w/o the orchestra it doesn't catch the imagination that well). + The puzzles are fine (though, they're rather obvious). Cons: - Frame rate drops on M1 Mac are distracting. Also, there were visual glitches when rendering creatures. - The art direction is derivative. The game tries to be a mix of Shadow of the Colossus and Breath of the Wild and fails at both. It's a bad copy, not an 'inspired by' game. - The boss fights are repetitive and weakly designed. They follow the same structure for each one. And the art style of making everything red makes it hard to track things. (The final battle is fine, though.) - The map is barren and boring. Open world games are as good as their side quests, and here they range from bad to meh.
Wow, that was bad. The game is a shallow and unapologetic rip-off of other games: - The boy and mills designs are taken from Ico - Shadows design are taken from Ico and Shadow of the Colossus - Puzzles are taken from the Witness - Climbing is taken from Assassin's Creed - The dog is stolen from the Little Prince So, it's amazingly derivative and boring. Also, puzzles are meh. And finally, it runs so badly that at first thought that my Switch is broken. Framerate drops all the time. Textures are also abominable in the handheld mode. It's frightening to imagine how the game looked before the patch.
+ Stylistically, it's a perfect game = Exploration vibes are totally here, but camera kills some of the flow - Doing 100% achievements is a boring grind
Bowser's Fury scratched my open-world game itch, but the formula doesn't lend itself as good to a Mario game as it does for a Zelda one. Pros: + Cute art-direction (it's a given for a Mario game) + The movement is perfect. Nintendo knows how to do platforming well + I enjoyed the exploration and minimal paternalism from the Bowser Jr. + It's not overwhelming and kinda easy to get 100% (which I was never able to accomplish in previous Mario games) + Kaiju! Cons: - The open world feels kinda small and underpopulated. More like an extended level than the actual place. Maybe I'm spoiled by Assassin's Creed games. - The 100% ending is anticlimactic
A funny little game that feels like a drive down the gaming memory lane. It proudly wears its influences: Katamari Damacy, Loco Roco and WarioWare. So great for short sessions. But over the longer time starts to feel repetitive (especially in DLCs). And some levels will be frustrating to get the crown (doable nonetheless).
Machinarium meets Monument Valley. Art is super cool, mechanics surprisingly work, puzzles are not frustrating. If you love puzzle games (I don't) add 2 more points to my rating.
A very creative and imaginative game, but also an overstaffed and undercooked one. (Disclaimer: the first Psychonauts is one of my favorite games ever.) Pros: + Some levels are awesome. My favorite one was the Bob's mind. + Tim's writing is still funny and his puns work. + I did enjoy the boss fights (except the first one) + Most of the treasure hunting in the open world sections are nostalgia inducing and great. + This time around the game is relatively easy to 100%. Cons: - The platforming itself and movement never felt right. Double Fine games has never been mechanically impressive, but here it hits the hardest. All the other platformers in the market moved the future and this game stayed in the past. The gap is painfully wide. - There are also just too many mechanics in the game and none of them are great. You can see how more and more stuff was added over 6 year development span and most of them are mediocre at best. Feels more like an Assassin's Creed game then a Psychonauts one. - The levels are also very inconsistent. Both visually and gameplay wise. Some of them (like the Hollis's brain) I didn't enjoy at all. - The open-world structure is also gated weirdly. After entering Green Gulch you can't go back to Questionable area, and that prevented me from doing side-quests when I wanted them. And there is no good reason to structure the game this way.
Feels like a rip-off of the original game: * The gray filter and missing crowds make Franciade look bad. * The graphical fidelity and direction are a step down from the main game. Feels more like an Xbox 360 era game. * The story is meh (and rushed).
The most beautiful and historical AC game so far. But still glitchy in 2021 (played it on Series X). Pros: * The game looks great. Arno is handsome. * Paris really came alive. Crowds add to the vibe. And historical period and references make it an interesting place to be in. * Arno is a good protagonist (not a charismatic type like Ezio, more a silent type like Gordon Freeman). Also, Bellec steals a lot of the spotlight. * I did enjoy the murder mystery side missions. They're not complex, but make feel the city more lived in (if you allow me to say it like this :) * Getting 100% achievements is possible without entering a world of pain (it's not that fun and mostly repetitive though) * Assassination missions make a come back from AC1, and they're good. Not Hitman level good, but AC level good. The core mechanics never were a strong part of the series. Cons: * The game is still glitchy, even 7 years after the release. Don't get me wrong, it's totally playable. Just the immersion breaks regularly. Also, Quick Resume doesn't work in this game. It tries to reconnect to Ubisoft servers and then freezes. * In general, the game lack a lot of polish. E.g. character animation are very slow, so I was dropping two smoke bombs instead of one all the time. The characters in crowds spawn sporadically, teleport and change appearance all the time. And this list goes on and on. * Free-running feels great for the first hour. But then you realize that entering window and avoiding objects along your route is painful. Every time I was detected due to controls, not my mistakes or lack of tactics. That doesn't motivate you to plat this game like a stealth game. * Nostradamus puzzles are a missed opportunity. Like the third of them is great, the other third lazy, and the last third just awful. * In general, most of the side missions and coop missions are not that interesting. I think, starting with the next game, I'll stop to aim for 100% completion.
This game tries to be a puzzle game (like Machinarium) and a platformer (like Inside) and fails at both. Pros: + The art direction is dark and creepy. It doesn't reach the heights of Inside or Limbo, but it's good and i's the best part of the game. Cons: - Controls are awful. The camera moves around a lot, but the controls don't reposition themselves in relation to it. So running in a straight line is always a challenge. - The puzzles are meh (not awful not great). But they don't work well with 3d art-style. Pixel hunting becomes even worse than in old style puzzles games. I needed to google walkthrough twice and both times I would never guess that the items mentioned would be interactive. If you check the concept art section, you'll see that they wanted to do a 2d game first. And the game would be better if they kept this vision. - The game is super glitchy (especially in the DLCs). On my Series X I needed to reboot the game after every second death, because the game just got stuck on the black screen.
The best puzzle game I have ever played (and I hate puzzle games in general). Pros: * Perfect 1bit art style. In general, that's a game made by a single artist who had both a singular vision and a knowledge of his craft. (Lucas Pope did the story, the music and programming all by himself.) * You feel like a real detective (even more so than in Her Story which is also great). Also, I didn't google anything to complete the game. It was very satisfying to solve everything by myself. * It runs on my M1 Macbook as a breeze. Cons: * none
This game is pure genius. I played the original one on PS2, and this game still stands out both from its era and from current trend of generic open-world games. And my 8bitdo controller with symmetrical analog sticks fit the gameplay better than joy-cons. Pros: + Animated story is crazy and blocky humans fit the overall aesthetic of the game. + The assortment of objects is both funny and recognizable (from the real world). + Rolling your katamari is pure pleasure no matter the size. + The tension grows as levels progress. Often you finish mere seconds within the time limit. + Both the Moon level and End credits are the perfect high note to end the game. Cons: - The removed Father's voice over. - Some zodiac sign levels could be annoying.
