CoP is one of those games where the stars align and everything just clicks. It's basically everything I'd hoped for when I first played SoC. As with the prior games, it's an atmospheric depressioncore shooter. All the changes from CS are retained, sans the faction war system. They are better implemented this time. The game plays out mostly on three huge maps, each containing a safe area or two with accessible technicians. Backtracking for repairs never feels excessive. The world contains many points of interest without feeling overly linear. The first two games had nearly everything take place along a roadside with a bunch of empty wilderness outside the road. The changes CoP makes are minor but appreciated. Helmets are separate gear from suits and may be upgraded to your liking, stashes may now be looted before you have the coordinates, coordinates are now received from quests and not randomly from dead bodies. More significantly, you will be fighting many more mutants this time. There are several instances of snork swarms. As such, this game actually makes shotguns a viable option compared to the previous games. It does the same for the RPG-7 and Gauss rifle, which you can now acquire and put to use at reasonable times. There are super tough mutant enemies such as chimeras where their use would actually be warranted as well. I really loved the anomaly clusters too, great way to show how the Zone warps the world. People sometimes complain about them but I can't recall any instances of solo anomalies in the prior games. They feel like they have more weight this time. If I have anything bad to say about CoP, it's that your starting gear is a bit too good. But honestly it doesn't take too long to get the good stuff in the other games. My experience was hardly ruined. CoP is a flawless, captivating game. It plays up S.T.A.L.K.E.R's strengths and removes its weaknesses. 5 stars is rare from me, but this is a rare game. It deserves everything I have.
As with its predecessor, Clear Sky is an atmospheric depressioncore shooter. Unlike its predecessor, it is a blatantly rushed, poorly thought out game. It is not, however, a bad game. Fundamentally, it's still built on the solid foundations established by Shadow of Chernobyl. It has most of the same ruddy maps, after all. The new ones are all just as well designed as the old ones. The game also had a lot of interesting new ideas, stuff people almost certainly wanted after playing the first game: equipment repair/upgrade, ability to join and fight for factions, making the artifact hunt much more dangerous. Unfortunately all are implemented poorly. Repair guys are sparse and require way too much backtracking during endgame, faction wars are boring and lack significance, artifacts and anomalies in general are scarce. Speaking of scarce, the game is really lacking in the abandoned research labs that contributed to the first game's most memorable moments. Instead it opted for more scripted action setpieces, which were the worst part of the first game and are even worse here thanks to things like minigun enemies. It also could have used some editing to make sense of all the plotholes it introduces. Anything involving Yantar and Sakharov made no sense in this game. Clear Sky needed to temper its ambition and focus on polishing what worked about the first game. Fortunately, GSC GW seemed to realize this too. That's what we got next game.
It can be tough rummaging through indie Metroidvanias. When you're not having to deal with poorly thought out Souls cash-ins, you're running through barebones worlds that give you minimal reason to explore. Neither of those applies to this game, thankfully. It's a standard experience with its own cool little spin on movement and lots of stuff to look for so you can buy upgrades. I very much enjoyed how it's more about creating your own platforms than precision jumping, though there is a bit of the latter. Furthermore, the game does a really good job at making its dungeons distinct. Each one has its own memorable gimmick to it, kinda like a Zelda game. Most puzzles are on the easy side, however. Same with the bosses, we're talking beat the final boss on the first try easy. I was able to nearly 100% the game in around 10 hours. I'm very satisfied, though. Great aesthetics, a decent, energetic OST, some solid, interesting level design and a few cool mechanics is all a gamer really needs for a good time. I got it on sale though, and I suggest you do the same. This a good game, but it's not gonna blow you away.
The first La-Mulana quickly became my favorite game of all time as soon as I played it. Even being as hyped as I was to play this, it didn't let me down at all. I don't think it surpassed the first game, but a lot of that could just be a result of me already knowing what I was in for. The game does feel very similar to its predecessor and you'll be doing fundamentally the same things. Exploring ancient ruins, solving difficult puzzles, fighting loads of minibosses. The big difference here is that you have some actual air control, as you're now a spry young lass instead of a stiff old man. There's a bit more of a platforming focus in light of this, but nothing too major. It does make a lot of the combat much more manageable, though it is still pretty tough (I actually couldn't beat the final boss this time). The area design is generally quite a bit more interesting, as many levels are arranged around a central idea or gimmick. There was a bit of that in the first game, but here they tried harder with thematics and setpieces. The game has more spectacle and intrigue and manages to do so in a way that doesn't compromise on gameplay. The only quibbles I have are a few odd retcons (a translation issue?) and memespeak (definitely a translation issue), not that the story's a big deal, the music being more forgettable and an overreliance on mantras as a puzzle solution. They even make you use them during the final boss. None of these are enough to stop me from giving the game my highest recommendation. I bought it at full price and you should too. The world needs more La-Mulanas.
Reading the other reviews, I thought I'd be in for a totally different experience, but nah. It sure is a standard sequel. Just like the first game, you dig progressively down a mine shaft until you reach the bottom, at which point you start doing the same in a few other areas. You'll run into several separate challenge rooms, which are again the highlight of the game since there's actual structure to them. Granted the overworld this time has a few gimmicks to it that make it a more interesting experience, but such things are few and far between. Perhaps the biggest difference is the change to your movement options. Unlike the first game, none of them use any water or consumables. All water is used for in this game is two situational tools. This means that you'll probably never run into a situation where you cannot climb back up because of the way you chose to dig, which happened to me more than once in the first game. Because of this, you don't have to plan your path down, which makes the game more mindless. You also don't really get the sense that you're playing as a "Steambot" Consumable items have been removed entirely. No more buying your own checkpoints to set anywhere. I kinda missed that. Orbs have also been replaced with upgrade cogs, which are generally a much more rewarding secret to find. I was more motivated to go out of my way and explore, especially with the easier movement. There were a few more boss fights as well this time, but none left much of an impression. Nor did the music, the graphics or the story. And that kinda sums up the game, and the franchise in general. It's perfectly average. I wouldn't pay $20 for it if I were you.
Are you a whiney congressman? Do you enjoy the Joker from Batman? Did you ever take a magnifying glass to an anthill as a kid? If you answered yes to any of these things, Postal 2 might give you an aneurysm. Get some help. The game is a first person shooter. The shooting is a little awkward but I definitely appreciate not having to reload so I can slaughter protestors as fast as possible. There's a pretty decent variety of weapons so you can reenact whatever edgy fantasy you may have had. My personal favorite is the machete, which instantly removes your opponents' limbs (or heads as it may be). Flamethrower and napalm are unfortunately a bit hard to use without setting yourself on fire. The design of the town that is the game's setting is remarkably open-ended and allows for a lot of screwing around. Once you get to the actual levels where you have a daily task to complete though, the design usually (not always) becomes more linear. The mission placement leaves a bit to be desired, as it will force you to walk from one side of the map to the other multiple times. The real joy of the game is, of course, how offensive it's willing to be. It relentlessly mocks pretty much every culturally relevant target of its time to the point that one wonders how it was published and is available for sale on major platforms. Every time you think it won't go there, it does. Few games allow such perfect misanthropy, and even fewer with such a level of production values. I definitely recommend it on the sheer basis that there's nothing else like it.
The late 2000s were a depressing era for video games. Everything was a generic shooter with a bleak brown realism filter over everything and on the surface S.T.A.L.K.E.R appears no different. It's only through a miraculous combination of small things coming together that it works. You're dropped into a harsh environment with your only direction coming from a surly, greedy, fat old guy. Others have come to the same place for various reasons. They'll reward you if you help them out but mostly keep to themselves. Most dialogue exchanges are brief. Bandits will try to kill you and loot your corpse if you keep to the beaten path. Environmental hazards and hideous mutants are waiting for you if you decide otherwise. Few games can instill such a sense of isolation and paranoia despite feeling so populated and alive. NPCs all have their own agenda, which they carry out in the background, your own input having little effect. The gameplay has a great sense of progression too. It's a shooter, but you're stuck with pistols and the worst shotguns ever for quite a while. The minute you finally get your hands on an AK-74 is pure bliss. As is the moment you get a scope and start sniping. Human enemies are hitscan aimbots up close, so being able to reliably hit them from a distance is a godsend. The game does go wrong in a few places, namely the pointless survival mechanics. Enemies drop resources, especially food, all the time, no matter the difficulty. The hunger stuff just seems to be an excuse to force you to carry more stuff for your weight limit. Some levels like the Dark Valley are thoroughly tedious. And of course, there are object positioning bugs everywhere. But, man. That feel you get when you brave all the dangers of the Zone, all the demons inside and outside your head, go to the bar and trade in your hobo clothes for stormtrooper armor and your hillbilly shotgun for an assault rifle? That's worth at least $20.
No one wanted to like this game more than me. I love Metroidvanias. I'm a traditional Catholic. The sprite art is gorgeous. This was my game! Alas. At every part of the game, something goes wrong. Out of place Dark Souls/Diablo corpse run nonsense causing tedium and discouraging exploration. Ditto with the bottomless pits, which are, naturally, unlabelled in this exploration game where you might think you can jump down but cannot without a lategame powerup. Damage sponge enemies making the beginning of the game really rough. All additions to your core moveset being situational at best making the endgame feel boring since you don't have anything meaningfully new to work with. Parry mechanic being really inconsistent. A few out of place opaque puzzles as if the game suddenly forgot it wasn't La-Mulana for a room or two (I wish). It just goes on and on. Now, I did give the game a 3/5. As stated it looks great, and the sound effects and animations are all very satisfying. You really do feel like a badass swordsman when you're not getting hacked to bits. The story certainly had me invested even if all the dialogue felt a tad grandiloquent. The world design is definitely sound, full of interesting locales and setpieces. While the level design could be frustratingly spike happy, it also had some really cool platforming challenge rooms. Blasphemous is the interesting kind of 3/5 where it does a lot of things well and a lot of things poorly. Love or hate, you won't be bored, at least. Is that worth your money. I'd say no. Buy La-Mulana.
First thing's first: resolve the crashing issue by forcing the game to render using DX9 With that out of the way, Bioshock 2 is a game that really won me over. For the longest time I regarded it as inferior to the original. On replaying it, I now understand that it's barely even the same game. "But MD, it still takes place in Rapture and features almost all the same mechanics!" True, but it both expands on those mechanics and uses them in a completely different way. The big new thing with Bioshock 2 is that you're a Big Daddy from the get go, and thus you spend the game doing Big Daddy things, namely defending Little Sisters. But this isn't some glorified rail shooter crap like the end of the first game. You're expected to stand against massive onslaughts in fixed locations that you can engage with at will. Thus, you actually have time to set up all kinds of traps and various area defense tools such as mini-turrets and summoned security bots. Traps were present but virtually unused in the first game. The only purpose of this, however, is gaining more Adam. If the player doesn't care, he's free to ignore it at the risk of being underprepared for later fights. There are a number of other really nice QoL changes in the game too. Dual wielding, gene tonics no longer having arbitrary limited slots per category (all are combined into a single ~25 slot board), the hacking minigame being changed to one that goes by so, so much faster (with the tradeoff of occurring in realtime). Even little things like the drill being more balanced and more satisfying than the wrench contribute to the gameplay being incredible While the story is an obvious attempt to rectify the fact that they didn't make an analogue to The Many from SS2 in the first game, it's compelling in its own right and expands on the lore well. The game does all a sequel should, with the only big disappointment being reduced level count. Little Sister defense can feel like padding in light of that.
I'm generally a big fan of stealth games, but I don't see myself revisiting Thief. I appreciate what it was trying to do, the whole atmospheric first person dungeon crawl type thing, and when it could fully bring that aspect to bear, it was fantastic. However, I found that that glamor was usually (though not always) lost amid the experience of actually playing the game. Here's what it boils down to: at all but the lowest difficulty, Thief is essentially two conflicting games mashed together: a stealth game and, well, a Mario 64 type collectathon/platformer. This makes sense, as you'd expect a thief to engage in both sneaking and collecting things, but in practice what it leads to is tediously dispatching every enemy in the level so you can go around secret hunting unobstructed, making the stealth aspects go out the window. This could have been entirely mitigated if the level design was much more linear. I absolutely loved the first Sly Cooper, and that's essentially what that game was, a linear stealth collectathon game. But Thief's levels are absolutely massive with secrets hidden in obscure locations. You have to spend so much time wandering around looking for stuff that sneaking quickly becomes too much of a chore to deal with. It's a shame because the game's stealth mechanics are quite good. I appreciated how absolutely relentless and deadly the guards are compared to most other stealth games. And without the collectathon aspects, the nonlinearity would serve this gameplay well. But I feel like it's not something that should be engaged with unless the player knows the levels like the back of his hand and can beeline to where all the stuff is. That's probably the point at which the gameplay becomes fun, but for me, that's too much investment to get to that point. I still find the game quite interesting, and am willing to check out the sequel. To anyone buying this game, I'd also suggest the gold2dark mod. The new Gold Edition levels really are awful.
