psychotechnic

I can't get for the life of me all of the praise this series is getting. The first instalment was an okayish, functional if not spectacular game. Kinda forgettable, tbh. Yet the second one in comparison is pretty much a train wreck. The game is just a collection of worst modern gaming cliches, like characters constantly slowly squeezing through tight spaces (ssd instant loading, anyone?), pushing carts to get to a higher ground, hiding in tall grass etc. As for the actual gameplay, the puzzles are all incredibly simple and boring. Then there's the rigid, unengaging, frustrating stealth segments which are mostly trial and error that are actually actively punish player's creativity. The AI is very poor, with enemy behavior and patrol routes being totally arbitrary, and the actual amount of enemies in every segment is simply ridiculous, they basically walk holding hands and stepping on each other's toes. You simply cannot sneak around without killing them because of how poorly these levels are designed and yet your annoying companions constantly berate you for agressive play, testing your patience! The fact that Amicia moves annoyingly slow while crouching and does everything very slowly in general doesn't help, either. The infamous rats AI is glitchy as well, with them acting totally random. For example, I couldn't figure out how to dependably use bait, as they are simply ignoring it most of the time. The story is pretty stupid as well with irritating characters that either whisper or being hysterical and throwing temper tantrums (Amicia is especially obnoxious, btw). There are weird plot holes where Amicia suddenly passes out and stuff simply happens while she's out. Overall, the game is just aggravating bag of trial and error, poorly designed and balanced mess with none of truly great new ideas and everything that it has have been done better before by much better games. Granted, the stealth genre is very tough to pull off, requiring clever level design allowing for flexibility and careful AI programming, and this game have none of that. There's been a lot of back and forth about the 30fps cap because of supposed graphical upgrade, and all I can say that the game looks pretty (especially if you take brightness down a notch as it looks washed out by default at least on series x), but there's nothing I haven't seen before. It looks like typical modern game with heavy post processing effects like motion blur, depth of field and chromatic abberation. It's also very linear game, so it's pretty surprising for me that it doesn't run in 60fps. Guess all those rats don't come cheap, eh? Anyway, very overrated title and thoroughly dissapointing, clunky game which is a total slog to play.

Wasn't sure what to expect with all of the polarized reviews for the game but was pleasantly surprised. The main star is of course the art direction, this is undoubtedly one of the most striking looking games ever made with stunning amount of detail packed in every inch of it's hostile world. Fans of silent hill's grotesque macabre gore will find a lot's to love here. The sound design and music are also brilliant. Gameplay wise it exceeded my expectations, it's a solid if not ground breaking survival horror game with some nice puzzles and purposefully frustrating combat. It gives you just enough resources to get by but not enough to feel safe and confident, again very much in vein with classic survival horror games. Overall, the gameplay is good enough but it is definitely a secondary concern to the absolutely stunning, sadistic, incredibly immersive alien world. It took me about 5 hrs to beat the game, and I didn't feel much of frusrtration in regards to checkpoints since I died about 5 times during entire playthrough, mostly during one and only boss battle near the end. If you're a seasoned RE player and approach this title with the same mentality of conserving ammo and careful play you'll be fine. Overall, highly recommend this one to horror fans, especially since it's on game pass. In terms of flaws, it's pretty short, linear game with zero replayability, yet in my opinion is a big success overall, since the game is a fully realized work of art which achieves everything that it's developers set out to do. Bravo!

Took a rental of sony's vr headset specifically to play this game and I got to say that they did knock it out of the park here! If anything, I would say that this game is underrated, I think if it were another Mario game it would get 96-97 metacritic score. Anyway, this is a near perfect 3d platformer with a fantastic, creative, beautiful and ingenious level design, silky smooth controls, rock steady framerate and of course, jaw dropping vr effect. It has that inspired direction feel to it that just keeps you involved until you beat it at 100%, with the game constantly introducing some new gameplay ideas. Overall, as a fan of the genre, I would say that this is one of the very best examples, which reminded me playing Super Mario Galaxy and Rayman Legends games. If I would to point out some flaws I would say that the game is a bit on an easier side (except bonus challenge levels of course), and combat and enemy types could definitely use more variety. And it can be a bit too cutesy and kiddy sometimes for my taste. Nevertheless, this is tour de force of game design and I think every platformer fan should absolutely play this game, maybe take vr rental if needed as I did if you don't have a headset. Not to mention that this is probably the most polished and most compelling VR game out there (possibly with the exception of half life alyx). I just wish sony would release more platform games instead of their current open world schlock output, but oh well...