There's really not much to say here, it's a big ol' Contra collection and it's a good one. The arcade originals are here as well as the console games and even some of the gameboy versions. Chances are your childhood favorite from the series is here somewhere and they even include some of the regional variants. I highly recommend checking out the Japanese version of NES Contra and being mad, like me, that we Americans got so gipped on visual features. Anyway yeah, it's Contra, you know it, you love it (and often hate it), so buy it.
DOOM 64 is, quite simply, the best DOOM game made on the original DOOM engine and I don't say that lightly. I love the original DOOM, DOOM II, and even Final DOOM but DOOM 64 is a perfect example of a game that doesn't waste any space, featuring tight, creative, distinguished levels that are perfectly designed to be challenging without resorting to needless hoards or dirty tricks (Although the final level is pretty hoard heavy but I suppose it gets a pass, being the final level). The gameplay is functionally the same as the original DOOM games but the engine has been updated to allow for features such as colored sectors, slight room-over-room (Mostly used for bridges and what not), traps such as arrows or wall-fired rockets, and scripted events which allow for things like radical changes in map geometry, teleporting items, trip wires, and more. The theming leans further into atmospheric horror and gothic design than the original games but the gameplay remains as fast and aggressive as ever. There's one new gun, unidentified in the game but known in fan-canon (and as of DOOM Eternal, game-canon) as the Unmaker and there's an all new boss monster to fight at the end. Other familiar monsters return for this installment but have had their designs changed, some slightly, some dramatically, and most if not all of them are more powerful than their OG-DOOM counterparts. Lost souls for example are half as durable but attack twice as frequently, making them lethal in large numbers, and pain elementals now launch 2 lost souls at once. One big thing I love is that secret levels aren't just their own reward - there's a tangible benefit to visiting them that I won't reveal here, other than to say it's definitely worth looking twice over every nook and cranny for those previous secret exits. What else can I say, it's the best DOOM game of the original era, it's a steal at $5, and if it's on sale, it's a no-brainer. Buy it.
The other reviews have said it repeatedly but I'll say it again - you're going to get from off-screen. Like, a lot. The original Hotline Miami wasn't without its flaws, with white-knuckle twitch-style gameplay occasionally betrayed by less-than-intuitive controls but beyond that, there was a fun challenge worth the learning curve, and it was designed with these pros and cons in mind. Levels were generally more enclosed, asking the player to be quick, creative, and clever. Hotline Miami 2, it what feels like a means of artificially inflating the difficulty in the laziest possible way, simply makes the levels enormous so that you have little awareness of your surroundings. They encourage you to use a 'free' look feature to scroll the camera over, but it's limited in how far it'll go and comes at the cost of being able to see the area around the player character, making it risky to even use the function. And since you need to use it constantly, what you get is a clumsy, frustrating gameplay experience which undermines the fluidity offered by the original. On top of this, various arbitrary handicaps are added to certain characters, such as limited what weapons or methods can be used and oh my god, do I hate being saddled with the Zebra mask that makes the 'finisher' button double as a roll-dodge button. Pressed the button one too many times while finishing someone off? Now you roll out the door and get shot. Fun! I can accept that some people might love this sequel or even prefer it to the first, if brag-worthy difficulty is all they're looking for, and as a Contra and Ghosts n' Goblins veteran, difficulty is nothing I can't handle. It's what made the original worthwhile. But while HM2 is not insurmountable, to me, it's just not fun to surmount. It can be done but why bother when a functionally identical but way better game already exists in the form of the original? That was my takeaway.
Shadow Warrior 3's primary strength is probably in its combat, which feels the most 'consequential' of the series. It's the most challenging game of the series from what I can tell, a big plus from SW2 which I enjoyed but felt was too easy. Guns have a level of oomph to them that the series previously struggled with and enemies in this game are probably the most distinct they've been for the series, contrary to SW2 where all enemies felt like the same kind of cannon fodder, requiring no change of strategy on the part of the player. The game clearly borrows from DOOM Eternal's gameplay, which may delight some players and annoy others. Like Eternal, the combat relies on the management of resources, tasking the player with keeping their limited ammo pool stocked and frequently replenishing their health, both of which have to be regained through different means, health via gun kills and ammo via sword kills. The level designs are lovely to look at but suffer from a strictly linear design, a disappointment for fans like myself who like to explore the environment. There are some hidden little nooks off to the side which hide upgrade points for your weapons or character, but aside from that, the game is practically on rails, ferrying you from one arena to the next, again, similar to DOOM. Much has been said about the game's length which is indeed on the shorter side, though didn't bother me as much as others, given my recent preference for shorter experiences. Still, it IS a pretty short campaign for a game with near-AAA pricing. Every game in the series is different. In alI, I enjoyed my time with SW3 and its increased stakes in the combat, even if I yearned for greater exploration. It's probably my pick for weakest entry of the series but I still enjoyed them all. It's not everyone's cup of tea but if you're in the market for a sillier DOOM Eternal, Shadow Warrior 3 just might scratch that itch in a way that, let's face it, few other games other than DOOM itself can.
I'd probably feel better giving this 3.5 out of 5 but since I can't give half stars, I'll go 4 since there's nothing particularly wrong with the game. The story is yet another post-apocalypse tale wherein your protagonist and her friends live in squalor after bombs leveled their society, some of them too young to remember life before the bombs. On your quest to be granted a lottery ticket for a vaccine to the deadly sickness going around, you end up joining a resistance effort against the rich and the powerful who live lavishly and keep the poor under their thumb. The story's not one that'll have you misty at the end but it's enough to keep you wondering what comes next. The art direction is good, as to be expected from a WadgetEye release, nice, charming pixel art backgrounds and a lot of different areas to visit so it doesn't get too stale. There's a lot of brown and yellow due to the whole 'fallout' theme but the artwork itself is nice and detailed. The game's puzzles, for the most part, are pretty easy as I myself never reached one that kept me stumped for any significant amount of time. Nobody likes to be stuck for hours but that "ah-HA!" moment of a tough puzzle finally solved never quite came. The toughest one for me was probably the chalkboard puzzle toward the beginning of the game. Otherwise, it's usually pretty straightforward what you need to do or who you need to talk to in order to move forward. Voice acting ranges from generally good to a little corny but it's generally good enough to keep from detracting at any point in the game. Characters are likable enough though nobody exactly oozes charm. Like much of the rest of the game, they're fine. Just fine. Overall this is a serviceable point and click game. Not sure you'll remember it forever but it'll keep you busy for a few hours and won't leave you regretting the time spent, most likely.
This game's mixed reviews are largely of a result of its 2017 release date, at a time when Nazism, especially in America, was never more popular. So when you see people complaining about it, they're mostly mad that the game portrays Nazis so negatively. These people should be ignored. Otherwise the game itself is a blast, in my opinion. I may be in the minority if people who prefer it over New Order, but while NO had a gripping story (Not that Colossus doesn't) and admittedly more varied level design, it was occasionally bogged down by slow periods, such as the stealth levels, the underwater level, and things of that sort. It also had a bad habit of taking away your arsenal on new chapters. New Colossus, in contrast, keeps the focus on the FPS aspect of the game with more aggressive, tougher gameplay and maintaining your arsenal throughout. Be aware that this game is tough as nails, and while some have complained that they find the difficulty to be a grind, I myself, used to maintaining an aggressive pace, didn't find myself having to redo the same sections too many times. It is possible to stealth your way through an area but is definitely much tougher in this game. However, enemies discovering dead bodies is no longer an automatic Alert (just temporary increased awareness) and it's possible to kill all available backup if you do trigger an alert, leaving just you alone with the Commander(s). The play time is expanded with the inclusion of District Missions, where you return to previous areas to hunt down and kill the very dangerous UberKommandants, often guarded by tougher opposition than before. These are simple-yet-tough assassination missions that focus entirely on the shooting, for players who want more action than story. The level designs are admittedly kind of homogenous, a lot of grey, industrial areas. The overgrown New Orleans level and A-bomb fallout Manhattan levels are standouts, however. I really enjoyed this game. I don't sympathize with Nazis.
Simply put, this game is in many ways a shot for shot remake of Sim City 1 with a few extras thrown in. That's bad news if you're looking for a modern city building game but great news if, like me, you wanted to keep things as simple as they were in Sim City but with an updated look for modern systems. You'll find all the familiar things here: Industrial, Commercial, and Residential zoning, automatic construction based on land value, traffic, pollution, and noise control, electricity and water management, natural disasters, and pretty much everything you remember. Added to the mix are little things like city policy (Plastic Bag Bans, Public Transit Optimization, etc) to update the experience just a smidge but overall, it's the same game you remember with Mr. Wright, just without the green-haired nerd himself. A potential drawback is that the game is pretty easy. Residents get unhappy from time to time and disasters can strike but much of this is fixable within moments. It's also hard to imagine ever actually running out of money. That said, things to complicate a bit as the city grows and it should keep you fairly busy, just don't expect any high-stress situations that require miraculous fixes. Still, you can definitely find yourself rapidly having to fix a tanked happiness rating among your citizens for a polluted water supply or powergrid-disrupting Earthquake, just don't expect the process of problem-solving to last long. Pros: Classic, familiar gameplay Simplified and easy to learn Charming retro-style isometric art Runs easily on low-end machines Cons: Perhaps a bit too easy Map cannot be rotated Email Too Frequent and sometimes annoying (CAN be filtered). So overall, if you're just looking for a recreation of the original Sim City, this one shouldn't disappoint.
I'm a lifelong Contra fan, having beaten many of the games in the series, so I know my stuff on this genre. Blazing Chrome is a valiant effort in recapturing the feel of a largely lost genre though it's not without its faults. Graphically it's perfect for what it wants to be. Not like those indie titles that do the 'retro' thing but then spoil the effect with the kind of impossibly smooth animation that could only exist today, BC feels authentic to the age they're going for. No complaints here. This also includes the sound effects, intentionally designed to sound like simplistic speech patterns on a primitive sound chip. The gameplay is fast, fluid, and very challenging, as one would expect, tasking the player with memorizing enemy patterns to ever have a shot at success. A Run n' Gun veteran can tell you that Contra and Metal Slug each had their own feel and this one is solidly into Contra territory, and seems to be based heavily on Contra: Hard Corps. The game's main weakness is in the reliance on dodging, a function requiring you to press Down+Jump to perform a roll that makes you momentarily invulnerable. Down+Jump is consistently a terrible control for any function, especially in a fast paced game where you frequently want to jump immediately out of a duck. The result is often an unwanted dodge that will often cost you a life. This could have easily been assigned its own specific button which would greatly improve the quality of life in playing. Eliminating one of the weapon swap buttons, for example, in favor of this would have been ideal since a 'next' and 'previous' swap feature is too awkward for a game this twitch, anyway. Gameplay at times also seems poorly balanced, the devs not seeming to understand that cannon fodder enemies shouldn't take so many shots to bring down in those kinds of numbers. It's not insurmountable but it's more frustrating than fun. Overall this game is a decent homage to Contra but still has a bit to learn about the genre.
I had my eye on this for a while but didn't want to spend the money given how the reviews seemed to describe the deaths as very arbitrary. I ended up getting it as a freebie for spending enough dough during the Winter Sale. My instincts were more or less correct but that's not to say there's nothing to like. I'll keep it simple, it's a visually gorgeous space combat game where you travel from area to area fighting enemy ships and salvaging materials in order to craft items, repair your ship, etc. It plays like a standard loot game in that way, randomly rolling the items and weapons that you'll find. The combat itself is very fast paced and "twitch." Fairly simply stuff here, fire lasers or guns with left click, missiles or similar with right click. Where the game and I differ is how it handles death and progression. It's one of those situations where the game knowingly starts you off without a chance in hell. Your entire goal is to collect whatever credits you can before you're dead, then spend them on the long-term goal of maybe one day getting a ship that's actually capable of finishing the game. You keep perks but lose all your loot upon restarting. But since it's a rougelike, death is very arbitrary. The game might just plop you into a swarm and you've got no chance. Or, one will appear after a certain amount of time. It suggests you take evasive maneuvers but that ain't happening, everyone else is much faster and more maneuverable than you are. If you're lucky the game will give you enough fuel. It's one of those games that I often describe as pointing a limp finger at you and going "ah ha you died." I'm not crazy about having to spend hours playing to finally earn actual gameplay balance. And recording your stats feels like a huge asterisk is needed since it's not so much skill as much as luck and the perks that define your success. But if you're into that then this is a pretty nice space fighter. Just don't expect to play more than a few minutes at a time.
I'm gonna open by saying that I don't handle failure, even one, very well in games that might even be brand new to me like this. But that said, how it happens makes a difference. Also I haven't finished it and likely won't for the following reasons. I don't have much to say on the game itself other than that it was made by the people who gave us Wolfenstein 2009, which I love, and is similar in concept but ultimately a lot less fun. Gameplay is a fairly generic FPS flavor, which I generally don't mind, centered around the use of a decide called the TMD which lets you manipulate time, objects, and enemies. Using the device seems clumsy and not well implemented, especially in combat. My biggest complaint with the game is that a lot of your deaths are due to the game working against itself to explain what you're trying to do. For example you're tasked with running away while your hands are tied while a woman tells you where to go to avoid enemies. Problem is that she explains this after you've already started trying to run, likely in the direction of death. Sure, second time's no problem but I'm not a trial-and-error kind of guy. This same girl later says "Hurry to the engine!" while you're supposed to be fighting a boss, making it unclear if you should be fighting or looking for an exit. You also have to chase after her and her captors but you're not told that you actually have to keep up with them so when you're looking for pickups on the way or trying to fight a little smarter, you end up getting an unexpected game over because you "Lost Kathryn." Coupled with gunplay that feels...okay but with clumsy shooting at times and for me, this one's just frustrating, and not interesting enough on its own to warrant the shortcomings. I might eventually slog my way through it but it just makes me want to play a better crafted shooter. I was excited for another Raven shooter from this time period and am sadly disappointed. 3 stars to make up for personal biases.
