What a wild ride this game is. From it's fantastic atmosphere, story telling, voice acting and visuals, is a game that nailed the psychological horror that so many small budget titles can't reach. It also has a great soundtrack not only to listen to outside of gameplay but also accompanying said gameplay. Speaking of which, gameplay isn't innovative by any means but it works. You have guns and you aim at the weak points to kill enemies quicker and saving as much ammo as possible. Never had a problem with running out of ammo as it's plentiful enough to comfortably fight off any encounter. You gradually get more weapons and equipment as you progress, opening up it's exploration even more. There's collectibles in the form of pills which increase your stats like: Max Health, Stamina, Stealth and Speed. It's a nice incentive for exploring, though I felt like Speed and Stealth were a bit on the underwhelming side of things. There's also plenty of lore to learn more about each character presented in the game. However, there's a bit of jank with this being a smaller budget game but nothing that detracts from the overall experience in a significant manner. But I have to address the elephant in the room and its the optimization. What happened here? Sure the game visually is quite good but nothing at the level of big Triple A games. I am playing at 60 fps just fine and all of sudden I get drops to 40 and even 30 depending what is being displayed on screen. Overall, I greatly enjoyed my time with this game with it's superb storytelling. voice acting, music and, well, everything. The optimization issues are annoying and it's something I hope they nail in the sequel or a new game.
If an Action RPG and Character action game had a child it would be this game. The perfect blend with your traditional character builds and combat with so much depth that you'll want to experiment with different builds and combos all the time. However, there are some issues like enemy variety which is almost non-existent as you'll fight the same enemies hundreds of times over and over... Even bosses are no exception to this rule. Side quests also suffer from the aformentioned lack of variety. It's the same ol' fetch this, fetch that, kill this, kill that and with no interesting side-stories whatsoever. It's incredibly dull. And speaking of dull, the world itself. While pretty looking, it's empty. Lifeless. You're just running around from point A to point B without anything interesting to see or explore. The caverns and dungeons are shamelessly copy pasted from one another, and all of this leads to a world that's completely forgettable. Story is serviceable. It's expected from these kinds of games and that's fine. Combat is the highlight here while the rest of the game holds it back severely as I mentioned above. I just hope a sequel expands the combat while completely reworking the whole world, with interesting side-quests and places to explore and get lost in.
I love this game. I bought it twice and I have no regrets. I love almost everything about it. Let's start with the visuals. It looks similar, if not, near identical to Fallout 3 which isn't a bad thing. Fallout 3 looked pretty good for a 2008 game with some ocasional low res texture here and there. Sound design, is what you expect from a Fallout game at this point with the good ol' radio stations with plenty of songs from the 30's, 40's, 50's, among others, that still hold up even today. Weapon sounds are slightly changed to feel more like guns instead of slightly sounding like toys, from Fallout 3. Story, is nothing too great, but it's compelling enough to make you think about it. Who's in the right? Who's in the wrong? Did you make the right decision? While were at it, yes, you have important choices, not only with side-quests but also the main storyline that affects the ending outcome and it's all shown to you at the end for you to see it's fate. Gameplay, it's identical do Fallout 3 only this time you got actual iron sights aim (You can also change it back to F3 in the options if you so desire). You still have VATS for that Turn-based feel. You get more weapons to choose from and most of them feel great. Characters, are very memorable. They all have personalities, several of them even have great backstories. I really like the characters. Exploration, unfortunately, is the weakest part of the game. In Fallout 3, it was fun to explore and wander off to wherever you pleased, because you were sure to find some great loot and tough enemies to fight. There's none of that here. It was disapointing then, it was disapointing now. New Vegas, the place named after the game, also isn't anything to write home about. It's feels unfinished. With all that said, I really enjoyed this game and played dozens of times with different builds and branching choices.
XIII, is an FPS that I played 15 years after it's release simply because I never heard about it until the hype surrounding the Remake. I got the original version here and decided to try it out and see what the fuss was about. First, the visuals. For a 2003 game, the comic book artstyle and all the little details still hold up pretty damn great. It has so much personality. Animations do look dated but that's to be expected from a day this old. Sound design, is very memorable. From the soundtrack to most of the sounds, it all fits this cartoony espionage game. Music fits every situation and sounds are very distinct. Gameplay, while not revolutionary what it does, it works. You have your standard FPS gameplay that you've probably seen in a lot of FPS from every decade after Half-life from 1998. Guns feel nice to shoot and you get plenty of diferent weapons to play around whether you want to play it sneaky and go loud. I did like mechanic of picking up objects and wacking enemies on the head with it and I wish it was better explored to give it a more defined gameplay aspect. Perhaps in a future sequel, who knows. Story starts slow, but eventually picks up the pace by half point, starts "upping" the stakes and you get more exposed to the conspirancy that's happening around you. Unfortunately, it ends in a cliffhanger and with no plans to continue anytime soon given the critical failure of the remake. The game is based off of the source material which did, in fact, already concluded. So, if you want to see how it ends, then get the comics.
Quake 1 is simple, fast and it's fun. With wellcrafted level design, tons of well hidden secrets and satisfying weapons to rip apart your enemies. It has great visuals for a game that came out in 1996, and although the soundtrack is a big departure from the heavy metal that we got with Doom, it's still very good on it's own and it amplifies the atmosphere. If you played Doom 1 and 2, you know what to expect. It's pretty much a Spiritual sucessor to Doom in many ways. I do have some gripes with a few enemies and guns. Starting with the shotguns, being kind of on the weaker side. Enemies like the Spawn and the "Spider woman" that are just immensely annoying to deal with and will lead to a lot of cheap deaths especially on higher dificulties. Also, the final boss entrance bugged out for me and had to noclip to it to face the boss. Expansions are more of the same in a good way. You get new enemies, Level aesthetics and a climatic final boss.
Full throttle, another classic Lucas Arts point and click game that inspired many other games of it's genre, has the same type of humor that you expect and lots of tricky puzzle solving. The remastered version aliviates pretty much all the "pixel hunting" the original had and I was actually able to finish it without looking up walkthroughs. You can switch to the original version included if you prefer to play the way it was meant to played. Pros: + Great Visuals + Great soundtrack + Cheesy and Superb voiceacting + Clever puzzles + Lots of humor + Short and Sweet. Cons: - It's only a handfull of times, but the "timed puzzles" were really annoying. It was pretty much skipping cutscenes and trying everything I could before I had to skip the cutscenes again and repeat.
