Showing 1-10 of 18 items
| PlayStation | January 20th | Grade F | You're okay, Resident Evil 3. I'm continually surprised by how atmospheric and effectively spooky that the old Resident Evil games are over one decade later. Nemesis (the dude) goes a long way at making this game downright stressful at times, and while the Clock Tower fight against him wasn't especially thrilling, he was someone that I kinda loved to hate. I feel like Nemesis is one of the only few things to justify this game's existence, though. This all may be because I've more or less seen what the aftermath of this game's events are, but it really seemed this game didn't have much to offer to the overall Resident Evil story. Like, seriously, do we ever hear about Carlos again in the series? That Nicholai guy seemed like he only existed to blow up all the time. The characters are pretty lame, and like... not much happens? It just seems kinda pointless. Regardless, I still think this game's pretty cool. Not that I need any reminders, but it reminded me that pre-rendered backgrounds still look cool as heck, and that these old Resident Evil games are pretty great at making you feel like you're actually fighting for survival. Few games match that amazing feeling where you stumble upon a new safe room for the first time, and that music kicks in... ahh... I mean, at least it's easy and spooky. The ammo creation system is pretty neat and it's always fun reading through the plethora of files scattered in the game's world. If anything, I'm glad I got through it. It was always that game that I thought looked really scary just from the box art when I was a kid. It was one of the things that sparked my undying interest in trying the series out for years, so it was nice to finally meet Nemesis... and shoot his big, dumb face.
Episode 1: Chrysalis | PlayStation 4 | January 31st | I'm a little surprised by how engrossing this first episode was. The story is actually pretty alright so far and the writing is believable when it comes to teenagers in the year 2013. Not to mention, I'm always fascinated by examining every single object when the protagonist has something little to say. It's not without its flaws, notably context-sensitive button quirks and some truly awful lip syncing for the dialogue, but I'm totally interested in seeing what's next. My main worry is that the rewind mechanics will make the story decisions trivial. I can already feel some of that, given that I can just tidy up a decision that I immediately regret, but I hope that they can do some cool stuff with that. (Major bonus points for their mention of Tetsuo: The Iron Man) -- Episode 2: Out of Time | PlayStation 4 | October 24th | OK. Wow. I kinda fell off Life Is Strange after the first episode. Not that I lost interest, or anything. I kept buying them on the days that they were released, but I didn't have much in me that wanted to play a heavily story-based thing at that time. I was feeling... off. In some ways, right now I'm feeling more off than I was then, but Life Is Strange is exactly the sort of thing I need right now. I liked this episode a whole lot. From the looks of what I wrote about episode one, I was much more into this one. I'm getting very comfortable with the characters, to the point where it actually feels like I've known Chloe this whole time. I also identify with Max in a few ways... which is a new, but great feeling because I never feel like I can't ever identify with any characters in fiction. I feel exactly how she does in a bunch of situations, and that goes a long, long way. They do a nice job at fleshing out Arcadia Bay even further. To me, it feels like a place full of fond memories and personality. A humble, little town of mysteries. I've warmed up to the time mechanics, and appreciate that you can go back on major decisions and see the other possible outcomes without restarting the whole thing. I especially like how that works in the episode's climax. Speaking of which... good grief. I'm kind of unsure about what I'm supposed to do with myself now. Several factors hit me hard in the episode's closing moments and... I don't know. Compared to everything else in the game, I found it bold... and it's exciting because now I know the story is willing to go far. Life Is Strange makes me feel warm. It has a great atmosphere; one that I don't want to spoil. I'm usually very punctual in regards to episodic games, but I have the entire rest of the series waiting for me. I'm going to let this one sink in and give myself a bit of time before I play episode three. I'm seriously looking forward to it. -- Episode 3: Chaos Theory | PlayStation 4 | November 22nd | Slowly, but steadily making my way through the rest of Life Is Strange. This episode felt a lot more leisurely than the rest. That's not to say that nothing happened, but it certainly felt heavily focused on the relationship between Max and Chloe. I still liked it a lot, and it totally had its moments. The last few bits in particular are... crazy, even if I saw it coming after a certain point. This is where time travel stories get iffy with me, but I really want to see what happens next. Episode 4: Dark Room | PlayStation 4 | November 23rd | Damn. Episode 4 was arguably, the most emotional one yet. The opening bit was, to my surprise, completely soul crushing. I think that's a testament to how well Life Is Strange has developed its characters up to this point. The changes to the characters are, for the most part apparent but the subtle details are really, really cool and make the investment in them highly rewarding. I'm only a tiny bit disappointed that this change wasn't bold enough to directly affect the rest of the series, but nonetheless I thought it was one of the, if not, the most powerful moment in the series so far. The rest of the episode is standard fare, with lots of investigating. Admittedly, the gameplay formula is starting to get a little tiresome as I'm really just interested in seeing what happens next in the story. Whether that's a result of me playing 3 and 4 back-to-back (I couldn't wait any longer) or if that was the general feeling is something I have yet to know. I'm also bummed out that Max's powers haven't gotten any significant development since the beginning. It has really just been "time rewind" which is a bummer, especially considering Max's discovery at the end of the second episode. Even with its faults beginning to get in the way, the beginning and ending of this episode were killer. Especially the end. Fuck. -- Episode 5: Polarized | PlayStation 4 | November 24th | Life Is Strange's conclusion reminds me a lot of the last two episodes of Evangelion. A relatively straightforward series getting suddenly introspective and abstract in the end, with lots of reused assets as if they've suddenly ran out of a budget. Of course, it's nowhere as extreme and ineffective as Evangelion, but it felt weird. I don't know if I mean that in a good way or not. In a way, the worries I expressed when I finished the first episode, about the time rewinding mechanics severely lessening the impact of story events were valid. The crushing end of episode four is something that I feel is ruined in a way by what Max does in episode five... which, I mean, I can't blame her. It makes sense, because that's something that *I* would do in that situation. Thankfully, all of those worries tie into the episode's strongest moments that question the consequences of Max's time travel abilities. To me, the episode started off a little hokey but gradually became stronger for what was a fitting end, if not one that ends far too quickly. The ending was nowhere as strong as I wanted it to be. In fact, I would perhaps call this episode the weakest of the series. It was downright messy at some points, plus it felt like some things were loosely tied in just for the ending. The storm, for instance feels out of place to me among the far more interesting bits of Max and Chloe finding out what happened to Rachel Amber. Generally though, I liked Life Is Strange a lot. Despite some really wacky dialogue (especially in the last episode), bad facial animations that straight up drain some moments of their emotional value entirely, and eventual tiresome gameplay, I feel really good about it. It has a heart of gold with endearing characters, strong emotion, great development and... it just feels genuine to me. The relationship between Max and Chloe is one of my favorite things this year, and the issues it properly addresses are important topics that I rarely see done tastefully in video games. It does have its problems, and there are certainly some big unanswered questions... but maybe that's okay. Life wouldn't be so strange if I knew it all.
| PlayStation 2 | April 21st | What is there left to say about Vice City? It's a game that, in some ways, means the world to me and sucked up a great deal of my weekends as a kid before San Andreas happened. It was one of the first truly "mature" games that I ever played, and it constantly felt like something crazy and groundbreaking every time the game showed me something new, especially as someone who adored GTA2. Despite all of that, I never actually finished Vice City. No doubt, I spent most of my time with my brother causing city-wide mayhem and destruction, but I always had fun doing the missions that didn't involve painful RC vehicle control. I could never beat a mission for the Malibu Club, and even after years and years, it always bugged me that despite knowing what happened at the end, I never saw Vice City through to its end. As it turns out, I was only a few missions away from the end. So close, yet so far... but seriously, what a cool game. It's certainly a product of its era, where GTA was quirky and over-the-top in a way that the modern games aren't. The version I played (PS2 Classics on PS3) wasn't without its emulation issues, but that didn't detract from how fun the gunplay and driving are, how memorable the missions and dialogue are and the reassurance that oh yes, Vice City is still worthy of having so many childhood memories. No! My Bike!
| PlayStation 3 | April 25th | I bought this game the day it came out (for 10$ more than usual at that) but I played it for approximately three hours without touching the story mode and only barely getting into the challenge tower. I guess that PSN outage really killed my interest in it. So, because I bought and currently enjoy Mortal Kombat X, I went ahead and got the Komplete Edition of MK9 cheap so I could have all the characters and power through the story mode in preparation for whatever MKX has. To somewhat a surprise, the story mode is really well done. The story's told nicely in cool, plentiful cutscenes and the gameplay to cutscene (and vice versa) transitions are really smooth. The overall presentation adds a bunch to the experience and made the few hours I spent thoroughly entertaining. Save for the monotonous 2-on-1 fights and the dreadful Shao Khan battles, I had a great time with MK's story mode... plus, like, the actual story isn't all that bad either.
| PlayStation 4 | April 28th | Holy crap. I was super surprised by how entertaining Mortal Kombat X's story mode was. While I feel like the cutscenes are much longer (and much more well directed) than in MK9, they're full of good voice acting and fun fight choreography. Seriously, all the fights are a joy to watch, including the QTEs (which I was iffy with at first until there was the fatality QTE). The story was good, too and I thought the whole way the handled the ridiculous events of 9 was both exciting and super silly. I loved the heck out of the squad of the classic fighters' kids. Not that I was one to have any serious affinity with the classic MK cast, but the kids were definitely the stars of the show. Story stuff aside, I thought playing it was a better time than MK9 was, too. There's a relieving lack of annoying and cheap boss characters, and as in the previous game, the seamless transitions made it hard to put down. It was a good time all around.
| Mac | May 1st | After finishing Vice City, I had a sudden urge to play Grand Theft Auto III. My nostalgia and overall regard for GTA3 is nowhere even close to that of Vice City and San Andreas, but it's a game that I still like very much. I powered through most of the game in about a day, and I used cheats since I've already beaten this game without cheats a few years ago. I love this era's rendition of Liberty City and I think this game has a really cool, darker vibe to it than the later games. In particular, the soundtrack is excellent and there's something (that I can't quite put my finger on) about GTA 3 that reminds me a lot of GTA 2. This game and Vice City have special kind of speed and unpredictable chaos that didn't come through in later games. Everyone is fucking crazy and the police have absolutely no regard for anyone whatsoever. It makes police chases and city-wide killing sprees super fun and hilarious. I had a lot of fun, though. I wonder how long it's going to be until I inevitably replay San Andreas...
| PlayStation 3 | May 23rd | Hey, I finished a racing game! I don't think I've ever done that before... or at least, seen a racing game to its credits roll. They don't usually hold my attention for more than a few weeks, so it's a good thing I binged through Burnout Paradise in the last few days! What a cool game, man. The sense of speed is unreal, especially in the Speed cars and Paradise City is brilliantly designed to be seriously fun to drive in basically all the time with convenient, gigantic ramps and tons of stuff to smash through. The variety of cars, and their different boost types are neat and totally helped keep things fresh. What was a bummer for me though is that the crashes got old very fast, especially with that crappy slow motion effect they put on. They can be spectacular at times, but for the most part, especially during events, they're pretty annoying because it's like "okay, I get it... I crashed. Please respawn me already." Also, more games need precisely these two things that Burnout Paradise offers: an atrocious soundtrack, and support for custom soundtracks. Frankly, I doubt I would have seen this game to the credits hadn't there been support for my own music. Everything is great when you're taking cars down at 300 km/h while listening to Kyary Pamyu Pamyu.
| PlayStation 4 | May 30th | Hey, this game is really, really fun. Murdering everything in Kyrat with flamethrowers, rocket launchers and overpowered machine guns is the best time. Flying in that dinky little helicopter and blowing up convoy trucks with a one-handed grenade launcher is consistently hilarious and completely ridiculous. Driving at breakneck speed into outposts levelling the entire place with machine guns and grenades, calling jaguars and tigers and fuckin' elephants causing chaos and flipping cars over... ...not to mention, Pagan Min rules. While not intentional, I find it kinda cool that this is the last game I finished as a teenager considering the dude's name is Ajay. I've never seen that in a game before and I think it's super cool! I also find it kinda redeeming that people pronounce his name in like thirty different ways, and that I wasn't crazy all along. Even down to the bit where white people call him AJ. I feel you, other Ajay.
| Mac | June 3rd | Playing HuniePop has taught me two things: 1) I still love dating sims. 2) Maybe I should get over the idea of a "guilty pleasure." Let's talk about it. HuniePop is, for better or worse, completely shameless. It's a match-three puzzle game where you try and have sex with all of the girls. The writing is, in many aspects, pretty poor and juvenile. It feels like it was written by, and written for 13 year old boys. In that way, it kind of reminds me of those flash / Newgrounds dating sims that I played when I was 12. That might sound harsh, and it kinda should be given that I paid like 10$ for this, but I feel like it's at its most endearing in that way. Dating sims, and those in particular, have a special place in my heart and despite how light this game is on the visual novel stuff, the progression, outfit unlocks and addictive puzzles were enough for me to stay glued to HuniePop for the past day or two. I kinda felt bad that I enjoyed the several hours that this game stole from me despite how stupid it was at times (the moaning during the puzzles was hilarious and ridiculous.) I don't know, though. Should I? It's certainly a game designed for teenage boys, but it took me back. It took me back to a time that I kinda wanna stay in. That, or maybe I should stop denying around the fact that I totally enjoyed a non-serious game that is completely covered in a theme that I'm very uncomfortable with discussing. Psst, HuniePop developers. Hire better writers (*ahem*), voice actors and make a game like this but with dudes. I will definitely play the shit out of that... but until then, I guess I'll install all of those visual novels I bought on steam.
| PlayStation 3 | June 8th | Wow... Red Dead Redemption. I'm almost overflowing with thoughts right now. I'm gonna let 'em settle and get back to this. 2016 Edit: I never actually did this so uhh I guess I'll say something?? Red Dead Redemption is a very cool game with the best endgame I've ever played through.
