You don't need to ask. Just retire it. Resident Evil 6 is the RE fan's Goku Button and you make it pretty obvious that you don't even like most over revelied games in long running franchises. If there was a narrative that "RE6 gets better after a certain point" like say Final Fantasy 13, this would've been commonly stated. The people who enjoyed RE6 were the guys who played Mercs mode than the actual campaigns.

It's just a fun little thread man chill!

By underrated they probably mean games which they think are not much discussed and overally not so popular today

It's just another way of saying you really like your favorite game. Popularity is also subjective especially considering the more a game gets called underrated, the more the word doesn't apply. You could use terms like acclaimed flop or critical dissonace instead. The former has to do with money and the latter has to do with critics. Least it's more specific. It beats getting into multi comment arguments on whether or not a game you like fits being "underrated".

If you want to find discussion for the game, you'll need to look a little harder but you can find it if you preserver. Chances are games that were once "popular" and are not so discussed now either have no modern ports or re releases of any kind. Triple points if you are a PC only game that has yet to come to consoles. I doubt being underrated has to do with game in question being hard to port or the company in charge of the ip having no interest in it.

You have much to learn

About what? I know how addicting of a drug confirmation bias can be.

I did not like playing the recent Pirate Yakuza in Hawaii game but I did enjoy playing Yakuza Kiwami 2 so I'm capable of enjoying the series. RGG puts out so many games that it starts to wonder if all of them are made equal. Case and point Yakuza Ishin.

This particular game is considered a mixed bag but I decided to play for myself and it is such a mess. It falls into things that other RGG games avoided...for the most part. There are crazy amounts of filler here. In between Not Kiryu super slow base movement speed and him needing to catch his breath after a minute and how much side quests get shoved down your throats. Much of Ishin's chapters could be much shorter if these two things were removed. When I was forced to do a side quest because I wanted to buy some healing items, I stopped playing the game there since I can tell my time is being wasted.

The game is also running to the same buildings over and over again wouldn't be so bad if your base movement speed wasn't so slow.

The combat is where things get really bizarre. I play Yakuza games on normal and I got stumped on the first boss fight. I am like, "why the fuck am I struggling in a Yakuza game?" The horde fights are fine but the bosses are some next level bullshit. It's esstentially a game of getting out of their line of sight and attacking from behind them while they are doing their combo attack since when they are doing it, they are locked in the animation. The thing is and what's bullshit is that they have craploads of HP AND they can level your health bar quickly. On top of that, they can stagger Kiryu like no tomorrow. If one of their attacks connect, it's stagger central then you got to wait for him to get up afterwards.

It just exposes that Yakuza's combat is infuriating whenever the player isn't being favoured. I've discovered that it's better NOT to use the lock on system and the evade command and just runaway when a boss is going to combo you THEN attack them from behind. So just hit and run bullshit. Thankfully easy mode mitigates but everything else annoying about the game starts to add up . I never thought I would ever need to rely on the series difficulty system of lowering to easy but only for specific fights but here we are.

The story is also a mess. It takes too long for the plot to move forward. One minute Not Kiryu is looking for the murderer of his father figure and deduces that members of the Shinengumi a specific fighting style. Not Kiryu loses sight on this very quickly and he almost forgets his own revenge quest.

What broke the story for me was Not Kiryu's refusal to kill. It's annoying when canon Kiryu does this but it's even more bizzare here. He's infiltrating a band of murders and assassins and he's actively budding heads with the captains and is unable to kill someone even if it means he could blow his cover. It gets ridiculous where I lose suspension of disbelief. I officially zoned out when at multiple points Not Kiryu SHOULD'VE killed someone but the plot finds external ways for a person to get killed off like someone else killing the guy the former was supposed to kill. As if someone else killing a person instead of you shows a lot of virtue. It annoyed me that he names himself Hajime Saito because I'd take the Rurouni Kenshin version's philosophy of "slay evil immediately" over whatever Not Kiryu is trying to do.

At least in the mainline games Kazuma never witnesses his follow gang members committing crimes and when he does, he views it with impartiality. He never tried to lecture to them how murder and killing is wrong. The characters who opposed him in those games were already against him or had other objectives. Kiryu was never forced to kill someone at multiple point to maintain his cover in those games.

I eventually gave up after a few hours. I'm only writing this because I played it long enough to form solid impressions on the game. I did really want to beat this. Guess I'll just replay 0 and Kiwami 1 and play Kiwami 3 and stop there.

Pretty enjoyable sequel. In spite of the fact that this game gives you the ability to save anywhere, it's much more challenging that the first game. It also comes in handy too since the game can be unstable even on console too. The sound can randomly cut out and you have to boot the game again for it to return. My autosave got corrupted and if it weren't my other saves that I made prior, I might've had to restart a lengthy and challenging level again. I was never expecting this to be a sequel difficulty spike but it is.

Forgive Me Father 2 does walk a very fine tight rope of being challenging but fair especially in the early levels. When the game starts, there isn't an overwhelming amount of ammo and levels can be very stingy with healing items, they don't restore an overhwhelming amount of health. It can sort of enter into the realm of something like Resident Evil 4 where you aren't given an overwhelming amount of health packs and ammo and you have to make due with what you can find. There is also a Doom 3 style flashlight system too where there's dark areas and enemies can attack you while looking there. You have to to press the fashlight button to keep it charged.

There can be a fair number of cheap deaths and without saving anywhere I would've had to lower the difficulty to one of the lower settings or just drop. It's very easy to be low on hp and just get killed by a random enemy. It can be infuriating. The temptation to lower to easy was too great but every time I was going to give in there was a health pack lying around and I was able to turn the odds back to my favor. It's quite the example of early game hell.

When you unlock more powerful weapons with the tokens and get buy more cards for the dark tome, things do start to get easier especially when you find a play style that suits you. I went with a style where I was able to get back health when using dark tome and getting hit powered up my meter. There will be some random deaths from time to time due to how much one enemy projectile can take a quarter of your health. With the ability to save anywhere, I had to be careful whenever I did it to avoid an endless death loop. The different weapons you can get with the tokens does seem to give the player different play styles. I've seen some use the base revolver but I prefer the fish smg for how it tears into enemies up close.

The level design is mostly good with it being the expansive key card hunts you expect from the genre. One addition I love is that the game adds a small split screen effect found in games like Timesplitters 2 where when the player pushes a switch or kills enough enemies there will be a screen indicating what you did. It does a solid job at eliminating the guess work on what the switch activated a part of the level or what opened up.

Some of the bosses are okay a stand out being a boss that is basically a first person Sonic boss fight with guns.

The art style and animation are still fantastic especially with exaggerated blood and gore for the enemy death animations. Makes the guns just feel that much punchier. The voice acting for the main character is okay even if it feels like he's constantly speaking Frank Miller monologues.

There are some issues there is a level late game where you are in an egyptian pyramid and not only do you have to find colored keys but also activated around 25 switches. I strongly dislike level objectives like this since if you are doing it for the first time, you are bound to accidentally miss one switch. Afterwards finding the one you missed becomes searching a needle in a haystack. I got lucky when finding the ones I missed and had to look up a walkthrough on.

One major change I dislike is reloading. I'm starting to dislike the idea of reloading especially in this style of game since enemies will be relentless attacking you and I want to retaliate but then my character is stuck in a reload animation and I'm stuck until it's finally over. It can be very inconvienent when getting swarmed and attack from all sides.

The enemies that can fire laser beams from afar can be very annoying due to how far their beams can reach and can kill you in seconds. It can lead to some cheap deaths. There is an exploding barrel enemy but he's too infrequent to get annoyed by him.

Overall, FMF2 is a solid sequel to the first game. It did a good job at innovating what that game did without feeling like it was overly rethreading what that game did.

LoK Defiance was a game I beat around 11 years ago. I always wondered why I remember much of the game outside of the last few sections. The best way to describe the game if Soul Reaver 1 felt like the protracted prologue then Soul Reaver 2 felt like the amazing follow up season. Defiance feels like an incredibly disappointing season that continues off that. The season that was hugely disappointing, the last few episodes saves it from complete garbage. It might have one of the most epic and profound conclusions to a character arc I have ever seen. It's too bad it's in a game that is a hastily put together mess.

Defiance starts off strong with an amazing monologue by Kain saying, "given the choice whether to rule a corrupt and failing empire or to challenge the fates for another throw. A better throw against one's destiny. What was a king to do?" It's a great quote to start the game considering how much Kain's been through since Soul Reaver 1 up to now. The opening level in the Sarafan Stronghold is decent and the combat itself isn't too bad. It may be borrowing heavily from 2001's Devil May Cry but compared to combat in a lot of western RPGs, it's kind of decent. There's an attack button where you do a combo, air attacks, lock on, a dash, telekinesis, and you have a magic meter that can recharge after kills and execution animations as well being able to get back health when an enemy is weakened. Telekinetically sucking someone's blood from a distance can feel pretty satisfying.

A lot of the aspects found here can be seen in God of War 2 years later where it's a fantasy hack n slash with puzzles and platforming. It also has a follow cam. This now leads into two big problems. Defiance's follow camera is a disorienting mess and the platforming feels floaty and lacks weight when gliding. Getting stuck in Defiance is often a game of the camera so awkwardly angled and framed that the game never conveys the right information on what the player is supposed to do. It almost feels like a video game version of watching a movie with bad cinematography. There is a section later in the Stronghold level where you need to place an item on a door to continue the level but the camera never zooms in on areas of interest or if certain areas are blocked off.

The platforming can feel awkward and weightless as if you are control paper floating in air. It makes those sections when trying to get up platforms with archers shooting at you all the more tedious and infuriating.

Level design is the final nail in the coffin. Almost every level in Defiance is from past games like The Pillars, Graveyard and the one you will be seeing the most, the same elemental temple rooms where Raziel has to get different colored reavers. You will be going back to this same map at least maybe 5 or 6 times if not more. You will also come here as Kain too. You think you will explore a Vampire Citadel? Nope, it's just a teleporter to that same recycled temple map. Vorador's Mansion does fare the best since this an actual level that is pretty open with different areas. You will come back here multiple times as well going to that temple map during that level. So much of Defiance is seeing the same scenery of those temple maps over and over.

The combat which started off as decent start to become diminishing returns due to how unpolished and unrefined the combat can feel. Many of the moves for both Kain and Raziel is just million stab from DMC, an air version of it, a slash, air slash and telekinetic shackles. Not really much to work with not does the game encourage to use these moves. It is a 3D beat em up issue but considering much of Defiance is combat, these issues stand all the more. Enemies get spongier and spongier. Once you fight the demonic statues, the game never throws much new at you again with more tanky enemies making combat feel longer. If I enjoyed the combat a lot I wouldn't be complaining but it isn't good enough to carry the game. Much of the reaver attacks for both characters are the same area of effect moves. One only difference that Raziel has is the spectral realm and that is mainly used to phase through gates.

The story while having an amazing last few moments is mostly Kain and Raziel going through the same temple maps narrating to themselves about prophecy murals. This is much of the story. It does pick up with Mortanius, Turel, Vorador and Janos however.

Last few moments with Kain, Raziel, Moebius and the Elder God is where everything comes together incredibly well. The twist with Raziel if you paid attention to what Moebius said at the start of SR2 can be obvious. It's such a cathartic everything comes full circle moment that who even cares if it is? So many epic lines and moments happen here with the series' impeccable foreshadowing on full display. It then ends on a clifhanger. Aww

Overall, if you said Defiance was put together over 10 months, I'd believe you.

Far Cry 5 what a confused game it is. Apart of me wants to say FC5 is an improvement over 4 but with step forward the former does there's at least one or two steps backwards. Everything about the structure feels muddled. You have npcs and quests with an emphasis on coop like the Borderlands series but at the same time the game wants to tell a serious story with more scripted missions in a CoD campaign. It also wants you to destroy property and cause reckless abandon in the style of the Just Cause games do. There is also the stuff from previous Far Cries like outposts, skill trees and enemy outposts.

I did have fun playing FC5 but that was more so because it's an open world game where there are no loading screens and play for hours without interruption. It still can feel like frankenstein's monster when playing it in the moment.

The story is a great example of what I'm talking about it. Is it an excuse for you to over the top open world shennigans? You could get that impression since you can play the game for hours without interruption. One good thing about the new mission structure on paper is that it's less about actual missions to progress the story but how much damage you are doing to reduce influence of each of Joseph's captains. This meter can take hours to fill up however and when you reach a story milestone, the game will bizarrely have the player character get captured to escape for his life multiple times. You could be in a helicoptor and you will still get kidnapped when reaching a milestone. This can feel forced since the villains are cheating to get a leg up on the player while also interrupting the open world activities.

Then there is the story itself which is about a deputy and his group overthrowing a doomsday cult. The problem is it feels like the villains are cheating especially at the end where it turned out Joseph had a nuke the whole time and you indirectly caused Judgment Day? How did everything lead to this? I was just doing missions with wannabe Borderlands npcs for much of the game. Speaking of those npcs, they can drone on for so long before giving a mission that I just started to skip the dialogue after a point.

This then leads to the difficulty and it just adds more confusion. When you start up the game especially when you first enter any of the captain's regions, it's easy to get overwhelmed and decimated. The game drops the syringe system from past games for a generic regen health with med kits losing the self healing system that made the series different up until that point. The starting weapons feel weak especially the starting pistols and smg. Had to lower to easy since the health can take longer to kick in than many games using the system and enemies can tear through you easily. The more you play and getting more good weapons and especially when you unlock more guns for hire if you played single player like me the games gets much easier. Grace Armstrong and Boomer were my go toes basically Quiest and D-Dog from Metal Gear Solid 5. Remember what I said about this game feeling schizophrenic? It comes back again since during the most of the story missions where you are "captured" your guns for hire you've been using are taken away from you. The game gets much harder now and enemies can end you pretty fast especially heavy enemies with lots of health who use heavy weapons like LMGs You don't have your guns for hire to revive you during these missions. I want to lower to easy again during these parts so I can tank more hits, regen health can kick in faster and take more damage before dying when the medkit activation animation happens.

The perk system while interesting on paper since it encourages you to experiment just starts to become a hassle since this is a hitscan shooter and I just want to get the typical weapon archetypes like a sniper, shotgun and assault rifle eventually a semi automatic rifle since it covers both mid and close range and I don't need to grind out the perk system.

Outside of all that most of the game is spent trying to reach story milestones on each mission to get captured and then annoy the captains. The game did start to get monotonous due to how long it would take for a milestone to be reached. One thing that did certainly made the last few hours of the game super entertaining was buying an attack helicoptor and going to town on enemies with it from the sky.

Stealth is back and like every stealth system in this series from FC3 onwards, if you unlock fast crouch speed, it gets noticeably more easier to than it was when you didn't have since you move faster than enemy patrols do and before their AI awareness semi circles filll up. It's a shame not much has changed since these stealth mechanics were first introduced. There is no melee weapons now but they just make the takedown animation look slightly different.

Overall, I enjoyed FC5 and while this review can sound confused but that's how it feels when playing the game itself. It's as mad as the doomsday cult you are trying to stop

When I heard Nightdive was going to remaster this game having not played it, I was scratching my head. Yes, the game does have a cult following however that is just as mind numbing in it's own right. As far as the remaster is concerned, it does it's job and Nightdive delivers yet again. The problem is that The Thing 2002 wasn't a good game even for it's time. This game could be one of my go to examples how horribly things can go wrong when innovation isn't matched by good execution. It can be used as an example of how not every title from the 6th gen is automatically amazing for simpily being from that era. It also fall into the licensed game trap that a story unique in another medium can be a derivative and boring in a different one.

It's easy to insult The Thing 2002 for being a 3rd person shooter with a premise of the titular movie. It really is. The infection is a massive red herring since all your npcs are scripted to turn. What I don't understand is, why have everyone who turns into the monster be random npcs with no real character? The game can easily have scripted infections but have it be in a way where when it happens, the player is attached and don't want the npc to become the monster. Instead of every npc is a generic nameless character who are just there to be fodder with the exception of the engineer to repair the many, many, many fuse boxes and then it turns into a dull escort mission. You can also win them over very easily by handing them a 9mm pistol. Spoony's review isn't lying, there are lots of broken fuse boxes where you need to wait for either the main character or an engineer to fix. These sections just waste time and offer no geniunely interesting gameplay.

It's a 3rd person shooter and maybe you'd think the combat might be enjoyable but not really. All you do is shotgun the same headcrab enemies for much of the game. There are bigger thing monsters to fight but just shoot them then flame them with them running around and having a hard time knowing where you even are. There isn't much more to it do than that. It's the same 3-4 monsters for much of the game. Shotgun and shoot the headcrabs, shoot the bigger monsters than flame them. You also have to fight special forces marines since it doesn't already borrow enough from Half Life and their AI is really dumb and have their bad pathfinding put you in such advantage where you kill them before they fire their hitscan weapon at you until you fight enemies with flame throwers because if the flame even touches at you at full health, it will be a game over. This is where I quit the game since I would have to deal with them one shotiting me or the enginners I have to escort. It wasn't worth it for a game as aggressively bad as this even with Nightdive making this remaster easier with more health kits and auto saves, there is still awful design quirks about it's combat that persist.

The story might just be one of the most poorly written in gaming. I am almost shocked John Carpenter gave the game his blessing and even popped up in it. The first big issue is that the main character Blake is so generic and has no personality he can call his own. He just goes through the game killing monsters and no sense of doubt, no learning about his backstory, just anything that makes him more than a character I'm playing as. All the npcs that are with Blake are going to die or won't be able to follow him past a loading screen so he has no one to play off.

It doesn't help that the bosses pop up out of nowhere with no mystery, intrigue and build up any kind. Blake just walks into the room and you fight it. No sense of anything foreboding. Not even a creepy hallway or some segway into the boss like say a lot of boomer shooters do. There isn't even any reason why buildings are suddenly exploding or why every fuse box is busted.

The villain is also generic, confusing and also really stupid. He sends in Blake have look around the research outpost and then when the latter is cornered after rescuing not John Carpenter, he keeps him alive in the lab...just to come up with a bomb to try to kill Blake. What stopped him from killing Blake before. I'm guessing not John Carpenter is supposed to be important but then he dies as soon as Blake wakes up from being unconcious.

The final nail in the coffin is that the writers that the Thing was a virus and not an parasitic alien life form that completely takes over it's host. The Thing is a virus infection like Resident Evil's T-Virus. I would do what many people do online and bash the writers for not "understanding" license they are adaptating but if this game and story was good, I could overlook this but this just adds an extra reason for me to dislike this game.

Overall, I'm lost why a game like this was ever remastered. If you want 1st or 3rd person shooters play Half Life and Max Payne respectively. Want sqaud shooters? Play Rainbow 6 or Ghost Recon. You want to play a game with an actual zombie virus infection? Play Resident Evil.

I might've recalled hearing buzz for this game from a couple of places. I thought I wasn't going to bother with the game since I heard some pretty scathing things said about the demo. Much to my surprise however that the devs turned things around and the game turned out to be solid. I did enjoy my time with this game however, the game is unstable as of now. I would've beaten Metal Eden on PS5 sooner but then the game crashed on the final boss fight. This isn't your usual run of the mil game crash. All the progress I made since I returned to playing it the prior day was gone. To say I was really angry would be an understatement. I was close to beating the game and then one expected crashed set me back hours. With all that said, this is a testament to how much I enjoyed the game from a moment to moment gameplay standpoint. I would've dropped the game if I didn't enjoy it or thought it was mediocre. It did sting redoing everything from Level 4 onwards again just to get back to fighting the final boss.

That massive problem out of the way. Metal Eden is seemingly a new Doom meets Titanfall adventure. There is one major inspiration I never thought would be here that is the Halo series. There is also a weird homage to Metroid with Samus' morph ball mode but is more head scratching than endearing. It does add to how much Metal Eden borrows from the strangest of places.

It has the asthethics of modern Doom with mechanics from Eternal. There is also being able to hold all your guns, a freeze grenade and a "blood punch" of sorts. Titanfall's fast paced wall running and double jumping parkour system is here with a small hover ability. The grappling hook can be used in the campaign unlike the 2nd Titanfall. One big aspect of the Halo series does rear it's head, it's the aspect that never got ripped off nearly as much as 2 weapon limit, regen health, dedicated grenade throw button and vehicle sections. That is the shield and flesh system. There is something so surprising about this getting borrowed from since it always goes ignored.

Some weapons are good against flesh while others are good against shields. You need to drain the enemy of their recharging shield and then use a flesh weapon like a pistol or shotgun to actually damage it. The melee attack is a bit like Doom Eternal's blood punch with the animation of Halo's rifle butt melee attack where you get back health and armor when the attack connects. An issue is that the impact when using doesn't have the same feedback as the Blood Punch does.

Being effective at Metal Eden means you will need to switch to shield draining weapons and then after a flesh damaging one. There is also a high enemy count to contend with, health and armor management as well constantly being on the move to mitigate damage. There is also some stage hazards to content with like turrets that you have to shoot in the eye to deactivate for a few seconds and the floor getting electried to encourage the constant movement. You also need to stay in place for a few seconds as certain parts of a level scans to complete the enemy waves.

Metal Eden throws a lot at you and keeps things fresh and varied. I would do without those morph ball sections since they were are out of place in a game like this and are also too infrequent to be anything worth noting.

Weapon line up also isn't very interesting. You got two machine guns. One of the pistol alt fires being a rocket is more useful than the weapon itself. The grenade launcher like many in games is too unreliable due to hoping you time the denonations enough for them to damage the enemy. The two energy weapons more or less do the same thing, widdle at shields.

Reloading also is a massive inconvience. There is nothing more infuriating when a perfect freeze grenade is timed and I want to use that time to widdle at a shield but the reload time is happening while the freeze effect is active. It can feel like the game is holding the freeze grenade back at being a reliable tactic.

The story is also kind of just "there". The AI companions you get do tend to monologue excessively. I'm more focused on the platforming but these sections at times do feel like a means to an end have them drone on and one. It's not a story that overly annoys me since you are playing it more than you engaging with the story. I did wish sometimes you get some warnings when an platforming obstacle was going to pop up.

Overall, Metal Eden is a solid and enjoyable game. I would sing the praises for the devs turning things around as well as they did if it weren't for the crash save data wipe I mentioned earlier. It really left a sour taste in my mouth an otherwise an enjoyable game.

I'll preface this review by saying I'm not a fan of the original game this remake is based on. I played it because I wanted see if the gameplay was improved. I was already aware that the story was going to remain unchanged. It's esstentially something along the lines of the Destroy All Humans remake that came out a few years ago. Everything is the same but there are gameplay changes. Despite knowing what I was getting myself into, I was surprised that the gameplay hasn't improved by much. It makes me wonder what even is the point it other than for people who really want modern graphics and controls.

The story of the game manages to be both overbearing yet empty at the same time. A good bulk of the game's story is at the start with the Virtuous Mission. There will be non stop exposition with small amounts of gameplay. This whole prologue is as long as a feature length film and most of it is just non stop exposition and characters talking. The opening briefing sequence goes on for so long when it could've been so much shorter. You sneak into a Soviet jungle, get Sokolov, get out. This is way longer than it needs to be.

I'll give some credit in that the character of The Boss is at her most interesting here with lines like, "today's friends is tomorrow's enemies" and "the only thing you can believe with absolutely certainty is the mission". This is as interesting as she is ever going to get.

The middle half of the game is barren in terms of story and all you fight are one note generic bad guys with their most memorable traits is their ridiculous looks and names. They are no different than boss fights in platformers in terms of characterization and relevance to the overarching plot. For a story about a man becoming slowly becoming disillusioned by his own government that and why native people betray their own country, not much of this explored in the middle half and all of this is frontloaded at the end portions of the game.

There is never any bad calls Snake has to make or arguments with his superiors in the middle half. The support team is along for the ride.

Ocelot, The Boss and Volgin are the only "real" villains. Ocelot spends most of the game being a goofball to suddenly being the greatest secret agent ever. The Boss only shows up to stop Snake and report that he killed a Cobra member than leaves until her long monologue at the end. Volgin is an angry kid who thinks he's way cooler than he is. Everyone just lets him act like he's in control. All his accomplishments like owning the Philosopher's Legacy, the creation of GRU and firing the nuke at the start were mainly because of other people. His lightning powers are unexplained since he needs a last line of defense since he's not very strong or smart.

The gameplay changes? Everything is mostly the same except on the fly camo switching, crouch walking and sniper holstering. No quick select shockingly. The stamina system is out of place in a linear game like this since all it does is just make you check a meter every once and a while instead of a guage you have to constantly watch like in a survival game. The health and mortal wound system adds little to the game since health DOES regenerate even when wounded, it's just slower than traditional regen health. This only matters during bosses since they hit harder faster than Snake can regen. You'll be stockpiled with medical supplies by then.

The level design follows the same rules as the industrial corridors in MGS1 and 2 but makes less sense for a jungle since it is in the outdoors. You crawl from bush to bush like how you run and press against walls in those games. There could've at least been a larger and more interconnected jungle. The level design does shine a little more in the open mountain areas and the start of Gronji Grad but that removes the jungle which was this game's major selling and where much of the game takes place, it's also easier to deal with guard sightlines with the open space plus the addition of crouch walking which is harder to do during the interior and jungle levels due to their cramped nature.

Sniper holstering and crouch walking breaks The End and final battle. The former took a bit of time since using the sniper meant you had to be fixed to one spot but now you can pull out the sniper at any time making it for quick shots at the former. No more need to get up close and shotgun him.

The Boss can't see you as well when using crouch walking and partner that with sniper holstering and slo mo counter when she gets close and it gets noticeably easier. The hard part is get is getting the timing right for the first few slo mo counters.

The Fury is the hardest due to how one hit by his flame can level Snake's health and how he can stay in prone and the flames can still widdle away at it.

Overall, this remake changed the controls and certain mechanics but nothing to accomadate it all. This whole remake is just one big "why" outside of those who want a modern playing game.

1. Eriksholm: The Stolen Dream - 6/10
2. The House of the Dead 2: Remake - 7/10
3. TimeShift - 8/10
4. Ultimate Spider-Man - 7/10
5. Cold Winter - 7/10
6. Yakuza Kiwami 2 - 7/10
7. Hitman: Blood Money - 8/10
8. Metal Gear Solid Δ: Snake Eater - 6/10
9. Metal Eden - 7/10
10. Gigabash - 7/10
11. Far Cry 5 - 6/10
12. Legacy of Kain: Defiance - 5/10

Best: Timeshift and Hitman Blood Money. Blood Money is still enjoyable and Timeshift being so derivative actually manages to come around be entertaining.

Worst: It pains me to say it but Legacy of Kain Defiance. I say that because the last few hours if not moments of the game is one of the emotionally resonating scenes I have ever even come across in media. It's just in a video game so aggressively medicore and dull. The term "unfinished" gets thrown around a lot but playing Defiance feels like a game that was quickly cobbled together. It's a game I should like too since it's a proto God of War like Rygar the Legendary Adventure is.

Apparently House of the Dead 2 remake is bad or something but it's one of the few Dreamcast games I want to try out and I don't want to install an emulator for it just to play it. Sucks that Goldman has a generic southern accent now but stuff like this is remaking the Room or Resident Evil 2002's voice acting. Trying to replicate the narm is an impossible uphill battle.

Such a shame the original Dino Crisis ended up being more about puzzles (and not even good ones, just the same type that gets increasingly more annoying the further you progress) and less about survival horror, it starts off quite strong, also with the cheesy voice acting and everything. If there is one Capcom game that truly deserves a remake, it's absolutely this one. The sequel has shown that it's a lot more fun as a braindead shoot'em up, but I'm not losing hope of getting a genuinely good survival horror with dinos.

Dino Crisis 1 was coined by Mikami as panic horror than survival horror but since the game wasn't all that good the term never stuck around. It's kind of amazing how every attempt at distancing itself from Resident Evil made it worse than that very game. Dino Crisis 2 hilariously enough was more in line with the "rollar coaster" mindset than the first game.

I've played all 3 and I've only beaten 1 and that's Signalis. It's the only one from this list I enjoy. It and Tormented Souls are the best recent horror games.

Dino Crisis 1 may sound like RE with dinos when it's really just running away from dinos with lots of adventure game puzzles. It's almost funny there are people who remember DC1 being an awesome game and the ones who played are so lukewarm on it. It almost always invitablely ends with, "Dino Crisis 1 is an ambitious but boring game and 2 while simple is just way better".

Alan Wake 2 is a game that just annoys me upon it's mention. It took over a decade to come out and it's just an experimental indie walking simulator that has combat that wants to be a modern RE game. I wouldn't mind it so much if it wasn't made by Remedy. I never thought they would ever make a game with a protracted prologue. I just stopped playing it after a few hours. I know getting furthur into it would lead to a sunk cost fallacy.

What's underrated? The game not making it's money back or you not agreeing with game critics think of the game? Neither really has anything to do with me enjoying the game in the moment.

I have a Youtube channel but it's more for just watching vids while I eat, listen to music or to watch game walkthroughs. I got a blog that I've been running for a few years. Vid making isn't my forte. The last thing I ever want is to work so hard on a vid and then be tempted to try to manipulate algorithm to give me lots of views as a false sense of reward. I can handle one smug and crazy person with terrible reading comprehension skills. 2 or more? Count me out. It's Garrett or Sam Fisher trying to be a one man army.

Link's here:

https://civilwarfare101.blogspot.com/2021/08/level-design-analysis-series-1-call-of.html

My "favorite" games:

https://howlongtobeat.com/user/Civilwarfare101/lists/25158/Games-I-have-fond-Memories-of-and-had-a-lot-of-fun-playing

You could use the notes section as a worst case scenario. You put that Street Fighter game in and then the notes textbox put your ratings for both versions. It's can be annoying but the practice in the old days of games with the same name of having widly different versions already makes discussion on those titles very confusing.

John Carpenter's The Thing. I played that shitty video game based on it a week ago might as well have more excuses to watch it again. Haven't seen it since 2016, back when I was a film watching novice. Now I've levelled up to the point where I'm adept.

I know for sure I'll love the movie like I always did but the fact John Carpenter gave that piece of shit game his blessing I can't wrap my head around. The man even showed up in the damn game. He must've changed into a different man after he stopped making Hollywood movies. The guy who made The Thing, Escape from New York, Big Trouble in Little China and Assault on Precinct 13 eventually went away.

There's so many games to choose from. Next month is jam packed for me. Maybe Resident Evil Village. I'm going to replay that pretty soon.

I just dropped The Thing Remastered. It is so bizarre how this game has a cult following at all. I never thought Spoony's review of the game would be so on point but it is. Ugly Fish's review is even more on point. Nightdive truly has some weird choices when it comes to remasters because this game wasn't good even back in 2002.

Spoony pretty much described it perfectly as a uninspired knock off piece of shit. It's basically just Half-Life but worse in every way. It only had squad mechanics because Rainbow 6 and tactical shooters were rising in popularity at the time. I'd describe it but that'll take me too long and I already wrote a lot with the last game I dropped.

I dropped Assassin's Creed Shadows and I'm just done with this franchise. I can see why the RPG games are so disliked but it's not because it's not "true to Assassin's Creed" bullshit. It's because AC just wants to be a western RPG so damn badly. Instead of that whole "social stealth" that the series envisioned, it just wants to chase trends when the older games were ALSO not even close to being what the series was pitched as.

This game got on my nerves in a way not many games do. I usually try to be careful on what I buy and according to the "previews" of this game, it was supposed to be a ninja stealth game where it'd be easier to play as a ninja. Yasuke was supposed to be the brute force option. It's all lies, you will get into just as many forced fights as Naoe too. It also has the nerve to shove in Splinter Cell's darkness system as a selling point when that is all bullshit. Most of the game is spent running around in vast empty terrain and doing stealth that lasts about maybe 5-8 minutes if even that. Then there's also lengthy cutscenes and flashbacks too. I would've just ignored this game entirely but the fact that Ubisoft was trying to appeal to the Tenchu and Splinter Cell fan in me is what greatly pissed me off.

I thought Shadows was supposed to be the best game mechanically and would be like Mirage where you infiltrate enemy strongholds and occupied areas with an open world connecting all of them but no. This game, this franchise, it's almost amazing how the first game in a lot of ways is where the series peaked in spite of it's problems. I almost wished Patrice Desilets made AC2 a game that flopped so this franchise would be dead and buried. Maybe he'd get fired from Ubisoft later on and still have his mainstream gaming career would last a little while longer. Anything to just have this series not last as long as it has.

I need to let off some steam. Twitter wasn't going to let me say all this stuff with it's character limit.

Do you have something you've replayed? As of very recently The Beat count only counts games once leaving out replays. But the stats page shows all completions including replays. For example my Beat is 245 now but my Completion count is 273 because I have quite a few replays.

Oh, that explains it. I was going to ask this question but thanks for clearing it up. I thought replays never really get acknowledged that much.

15/09/25 - Prince of Persia: The Forgotten Sands



Well that bold new direction for Prince of Persia didn't last very long.

Oh Yeah There Was a Movie

Development for the game began at the same time of Prince of Persia (2008) although this would act as a tie-in to the 2010 film "Prince of Persia: The Sands of Time". I haven't heard much about the film, heard it earned a lot of money at the box office but the sequels were cancelled because it wasn't that good. So you'd think The Forgotten Sands would be similar to the film although it isn't. A delay in the film meant that the game could take longer to be developed so the team decided to return to The Sands of Time gameplay so that it can act as a return of the old and as "reboot of the series" (that part is a bit strange considering the game takes place between The Sands of Time and Warrior Within). The main version of the game (the Windows, PS3, and Xbox 360 version) was developer by Ubisoft Montreal and Ubisoft Singapore and still uses the Anvil engine that the previous game had. Ubisoft Quebec focuses on the Wii and PSP versions whilst Ubisoft Casablanca got to work on the DS version. There was even a browser version by Ubisoft Montreal and Explosive Barrel (a browser developer) which was used to promote the main game! Quite a few versions of the same game, but I'm focusing on the main one on the PC as that is the "official" one.

And despite all this, The Forgotten Sands would be the last PoP title for a while. I mean sure there were a few smaller titles for mobile devices but it wouldn't be until 2024 when a new main entry was provided (The Lost Crown). A game known as Prince of Persia Redemption was in the works although it didn't get as far as a concept. A shame it didn't continue as I'm certain there were more ideas to be had yet I think Ubisoft were more interested in the Assassins Creed franchise by that point, might as well go for that than a smaller franchise...

PoP-Lite Plot
The plot in itself is easily the most straight-forward one and has a bit of wasted potential. The story focuses on the Prince and his brother Malik attempting to fight off an invasion at a palace but, naturally, nothing goes to plan and the supernatural is unleashed by Malik in an attempt to halt the invaders. As with most PoP entries, the most interesting part is the dialogue between The Prince and another key character. In this case, I think it's done well with his brother but could have been explored a bit further, particularly towards the ending that felt quite sudden. The same goes for Razia as well, a queen within the spiritual realm whose just really there for progressing the story and some useful upgrades. The story itself is a classic "stop evil before it's too late", nothing too exciting but action-packed and engaging enough to keep going with it. I will say though, I can at least appreciate to a certain extent why The Prince became edgy by Warrior Within as it gives him a good reason for him to be angry. I'm not sure if the events of this story provides the entire reason but I can at least where the rage comes from.

Sand and Water
In terms of actual gameplay, it is indeed very similar to The Sands of Time trilogy especially with the first in the trilogy. The Prince can execute most of the moves with some decent precision such as the classic wall run, jumping, rolling, crossing beams and pillars, and the ability to rewind time using one of the sand tanks (which are now called energy slots). These work as strong as ever, precision can be a bit off sometimes so the Prince can launch off somewhere completely different but for the most part it's fast action with evading various traps which is what I want in a PoP game. This time around, The Prince does have a few extra abilities such as freezing water in place temporarily to navigate to the next section, the ability to have a massive leap if an enemy is on a far platform as a way to get that platform, and to restore a specific platform from the past to progress through an area. Interesting ideas, I especially like the freezing water on, it can leave to some unique ways of getting across rooms that didn't really happen in the past games. Restoration is a bit similar to the water and didn't really get the chance to shine but I'm alright with it, made for some intense platforming sections towards the end. The enemy leap is quite situational and just feels like one extra button to make progress, and it didn't give the enemies who could fire projectiles a chance to really be used as they were just bait for this. Despite the last part, I'm glad to see a strong platforming move set that compliments both the old and the new.

Basic Combat
The combat is a... hack and slash? No that's not right. It's true there are now a lot more enemies on the screen than every before, with around 20 enemies fighting the Prince at one time. But most of what made the combat interesting before is gone. No combos from Warrior Within, no teamwork like the self-titled, not even a deflect! It's simply either an attack, a power attack (which I rarely used) a roll to dodge, and an aerial attack from above. Now granted you can gain four additional powers to take out the enemies although I never used them as they were behind an upgrade system. I mean why should I gain extra moves when I can simply upgrade the damage and health of the Prince, it made the combat trivial by the end of the game. While I don't think the combat or simple XP system to unlock new moves is bad by any means, it does lack the enjoyment the previous combat systems had where it's more of a chore than an actual fight. The final boss at least shook things up a little bit and I do appreciate the variety of enemies for the 6 to 7 hour campaign the game had. I just wish there was more to it than that.



This image appears from the survival challenge mode. It's also a bit disappointing as not only is it very short and in a simple room, it doesn't even use all the enemy types in the room.

Still Sandy
The levels themselves, the music of them, the sound of them, the look of them, is hard to really talk about as it is simply the same style as before just with a bit of a polish. I mean it makes sense, if there's a movie coming out then keep it simple and try not to go too far away from the look that the franchise is now known for. I think the jump between the 6th and 7th generation was done quite well, it tends to capture what worked with The Sands of Time trilogy (ok maybe not so much Warrior Within) fairly well with the magic of the world and the fall of a kingdom. I think some of the feeling was lost with the jump though, colours don't tend to stick out as much as they tend to and there is a lot of greyish areas. Regardless, I do appreciate how well the game ran (on PC! the PS3 version I know has some graphical bugs) and the animation was fairly smooth throughout.

Summary
An underrated entry in the Prince of Persia franchise, the combat is a bit weak but it makes up for it with some new mechanics in its platforming and provides an engaging 7 hours of gameplay.

Rating:7/10

Update
I remember playing this game when I was a kid and I didn't really enjoy it then, I'm glad to return to it and find more enjoyment from it. The combat was what I expected but I'm grateful that the PC version is a lot smoother than the PS3 version and that the platforming was thrilling. Anyway, that's all I'm covering for Prince of Persia at the moment, I'll likely return to it at some point in the future but I'm happy to have played the games I had. It's an entertaining franchise with some mechanics you don't often see in platformers. I'll likely play some random games now just to mix things up a bit. Thanks for stopping by and reading :)

This game is strange in that it felt like it started off life as a movie licensed game but then it got retroactively made into a midquel instead. It's probably why it never truly explained what caused the creation of the Dahaka and why the Prince at the start of WW is the way he is. It's a shame because it has the potentially to be a geniunely great story if they embraced the concept.

I do agree with most of what you said, I did like the freezing water ability and how it made for interesting quick thinking jumping puzzles. Combat is on the weaker side but it's still kind of fun. I just really wished they kept the attempt at combining platforming and stealth like Two Thrones did.

The game does have an interesting art style but that is weird thing with Ubisoft games. When it comes to visuals, their games deliver most of the time.

I pretty much enjoy all the PoP games Ubisoft has made. The series may have had a number of weak entries before SoT but generally speaking when the company makes a title in the series, they usually bring their A game.

I just watched the movie again a couple of hours ago and it's still really enjoyable. It still is one of the better live action video game adaptations. The only reason why it isn't used as the epic poster boy or as a very glowing example of a geniunely good game adaptation is because it's just a dumb action movie with not much in the way of depth.

Ignoring that, it's well paced and things never drag on for too long. Exposition is surprisingly woven naturally too like when Raiden explain the tournament to Johnny Cage, Sonya Blade and Liu Kang and the backstories of all the villains in the dinner table scene. The synergy with the cast is great and apparently ad libbing was encouraged duing shooting which explains a lot. Fights like Johnny Cage vs. Scorpion and Liu Kang vs. Reptile are great too. The soundtrack is great stuff. The theme song being well known even to people who don't know MK or even plays games, they might not even know the games never used it. Things always move on naturally without too many questions raised. I also like Orbital - Halcyon On and On too. That song transports me to a different dimension whenever I listen to it.

I also really liked Robin Shou as Liu Kang, he always gave that character a lot of personality where in the games especially the MK games out at the time of the movie's release, he was just a vanilla protagonist.

The only big problems is Sonya Blade and Goro. The former pretty much being useless and having no service to the plot after she kills Kano. This version of Goro is also really lame in spite of the pratical effects budget and hype he got. All he really managed to do was beat up a large array of jobbers so he was only good because worf had the flu. When he fights Johnny Cage, he's quite pathetic and goes down like a chump. At least Kevin Michael Richardson comes back in Scorpion's Revenge which is nice.

There's also that very strange hard on and fixation Shang Tsung has for Sonya, I'm guessing it's supposed to be him being a creep but it's just kind of a bizarre background detail. It's there but never really expanded on.

Still, it's entertaining as all hell and I was never bored which is what any movie should do.

I understand, but I think the budget is important because some games try to act like big AAA games even though they aren't actually on that scale. It's like trying to make GTA 5 with a $5 million budget. The result doesn't feel like a completely independent game, but it's not AAA quality either. Still, I agree with you, it's not right to call a game trash just because its combat system isn't top-notch. If a game is playable and can be completed, it has value. But for me, GOW (2005) still feels overrated.

What does that have to with God of War 2005? Most of the indie styled GTA games are more so styled after the 2D games like American Fugitive, Rustler and the recently released Precinct. God of War 2005 doesn't feel like a game that is in limbo of AA and AAA either. Also, you trying to tell me you've been on the internet and never once bothered to type in "God of War 2005 sucks" on Youtube or Google? There'd bound to be at least 5-6 Reddit threads talking about how much the game isn't good. You can find at least a couple of negative reviews for the game just by organizing the user reviews of this site by score. There was even a heel turn going on when the 2018 game came out.

I don't like Metal Gear Solid 3 for example and just by typing in on google, "MGS3 Delta turn off first person grass crawling animations", I saw one Reddit thread insulting the "original" game.

That's the problem with these "overrated" discussion threads, just use a search engine and problem solved. Sure people will be apprehensive when responding but the internet is basically just organized crime meets religious cult groups anyway.

There are some memories attached to the PS2 release of Yakuza 2 in which I emulated the game 10 years ago. It was also one of the first game I ever recall using emulation on PC for, at least the first batch of games. When this remake was announced, I thought it was never going to come to the west or at least this back before Yakuza 0 really took off in the west and now the series gets active releases in both Japan and North America. I've fallen out of the series but I bought this remake a couple of years ago on a sale and I felt like revisiting the story of Yakuza 2 again. I do remember how back before 0 really took off in popularity, at least in terms of writing, this was considered the pinnacle of the series or 5 was. I was baffled at how this was considered to be well written.

This leads to story and Yakuza 2's story is one of the biggest mixed bags, I have ever experienced. Not even sure if I can outright call it "bad" since after all I got to the end of the game and rolled credits. I am well aware that the series is known for being "dumb" and "doesn't take itself seriously" but that doesn't mean you can do whatever you want and still have any form of crediblity. There still needs to be some consistency and logic to follow or you might as well call scribbling with crayons a "story" too.

The best way of describing Yakuza's narrative is like hanging around with a person who has crazy mood swings and has bizarre episodes. There is a lot of interesting and entertaining moments but there is a lot of "what the hell" or "why" moments to go along with it. At times, Yakuza 2 can feel like Metal Gear Solid 2 but more so the zany and wacky aspects of the latter and less of the meta commentary on society and sequel culture.

The very existence of Yakuza 2 contradicts the ending of the first game where Nishki, Shintaro and Yumi's deaths never meant much in the grand scheme of things or even guarenteed Kiryu and Haruka having a happy life with their scarifices.

With that said, the story of this sequel for the most part is fun in the moment. It is carried by arguably it's main antagonist Ryuji Gohda. He's a very fun, entertaining and charismatic villain the kind of character you'd expect in an action film. He doesn't have an overwhelming amount of screen time but when he does show up, he makes an impression like early game where he raids a meeting with the Tojo and Omi and kidnaps leader of the latter. His manly sense of honor prevents him from too one note and predictable.

The character of Sayama, I sort of get what RGG was trying to do with her in that she's supposed to be a female cop who inspires fear in gangsters. The idea I got was that deep down she never really wanted to be a cop but just used the police force as an excuse to find out about her past but she tends to either too useless or helps out in ways that can feel bizarre and unearned. Examples of the former being shot by a sniper in Sotenbori and then fainting when enterting Kamurocho after regaining conciousness. The latter is when it turns out she was part of a cyber crime unit the whole time with no hints of her being good with computers or shooting fake Kazuki because he was unaware and not because she was a geniunely good shot.

Then from Chapter 12 onwards and especially the final Chapter, it just amps the stupidity up to 11 almost to the point where I wonder if there is has any crediblity left especially with how the character of Terada is a heel-face revolving door and I'm not even sure who's side he was even on the whole time and he was supposed to be just a face in the first game with no hints of being possibly being a heel. There was also a deus ex machina where Majima, this whole time had a camera system not even Florist knew of.

There is also a fare share of filler here and there and you will know because the dialogue in the text boxes aren't voiced.

There are some scenes are appreciate more now like teenage Kazuma tring to help out Kazama but by helping him, the former made things worse. My personal favorite is that Majima knew Terada wasn't the "good man" that he sold himself as.

I'm talking about story so much because if you choose to just do story quests much of the game is cutscenes all though the story to gameplay ratio is mostly solid here. After a lengthy cutscenes 9 times out of 10 there will be a gameplay section that will last just as long depending on skill level. The bosses can last pretty long more on that latter. However due to them taking so much abuse, it does make getting that lengthy story cutscene feel like a geniune reward.

It will mainly the exploration of cities and combat. I did like buying various foods at resturants to get more stat points and to heal up without using a cosumable. The skill tree is mostly stat based and by the end, the stat tree will be mostly upgraded.

Then there is combat which is "fine". This is in the Dragon Engine, the one used for Yakuza 6. It's not amazing but it gets the job done. Weapons are fun to use and it's mainly about crowd control. The wonky grab button and physics are the biggest enemies since one hit can send Kazuma flying across the arena.

The biggest enemy against bosses where the hurdles is trying to have Kazuma realign where he is facing the enemy after doing a combo on his opponent and then they quickly dash out of his line of sight. Let go of lock on and then lock on again. There is also how much abuse bosses can take before getting staggered when powered up in "Heat Mode" form with only charge attacks being able to hurt them but then they can run up hit and then stagger you.

What cancels this out is how much money the player can accumlate just by fighting in random battles so items can cheese much of the encounters on top buying food at restaurants like I mentioned earlier.

There is decent progression of getting new moves, heat attacks and getting higher stats. It gets easier the more it goes on. I got so much money that I bought weapons and items and the final fight was over fast. This was the opposite in the PS2 game since you didn't get nearly as much money in abundance as well as weapons and items to plow through the late game mobs with ease. The only time I died was getting attacked by rocket launcher enemies who blindsighted me and killed me in 2-3 hits.

You also get a save point, abilties to organize items and buy new ones after the elevator fight in Chapter 16 too. This section was much easier than the PS2 original game.

Overall, Kiwami 2 is a decent remake. There are those who are critical of Kiwami 2 itself but it's a fine enough of version if you want to experience the story of Yakuza 2 for the first time and has enough new ideas of it's own and are executed decently enough from a gameplay standpoint that it won't feel like you are going through the motions when wanting to revisit it after a while. Not the best remake you can ever play but definitely a middle ground one.