Ah yes, Gun Metal. I remember you fondly. You play as mech that can transform into a jet to blast away bad guys from any angle you can shoot from. But you'll probably beat it in just a few hours. Gun metal is, unfortunately, a cheap and short game with small levels, but is packed with a pretty solid amount of high speed action and fun for its size. I can only hypothesis whoever was in charge didn't care much for it, even though every 13 year old boy who might play Gun Metal would love it. It had the potential to be so much more. It could have been a franchise. There was a meager attempt to make the game worth a full game's price (back in the day) in that you can go back and replay any level after completing the game... with all your upgrades. Normally that's cool. Some of those levels you might have struggled with the first time are suddenly incredibly easy... so easy that it sucks all the fun out it. Yup. If the game hadn't been so short and had more replay value, I would have called it a hidden gem. But alas, it's what we got. I wouldn't say no to a reboot if actual effort was involved in its production. If you're curious, I promise it'll blow your mind for an evening and then you'll go, "That's it? Why didn't they do more?" I vouch the sale price seems pretty fair for what little there is even though I don't feel any personal need to pay a few bucks for a bit of nostalgia. Been there, done that already.
I got Greedfall on Steam and found myself falling asleep while playing it. Greedfall is an RPG designed with little to zero ambitition. It does absolutely nothing we haven't already seen in another RPG before, and it's all underdeveloped. The skill trees are linear, character design options are limited, and there wasn't a New Game + last I checked. The openendedness of the world causes the game to suffer from feeling overwhelming, disjointed conversations, no sense of real direction, and I failed to find a reason for I am exploring this wilderness. Because it's there? Not good enough for me. The characters, both your teammates and the MC are equally empty of life. They have problems and history, but they are 2 dimensional, nothing about them feels compelling, or gives me a reason to care about their existence. I will grant, for a small studio, the developers did make the game look nice, and it has very few bugs. But second rate storytelling and undercooked world-building won't save pretty graphics.
The Tomb Raider relaunch trilogy is a bastardization of what the franchise was originally all about. Lara Croft is supposed to be confidant and capable woman who has a passion for discovery and exploration, and is well armed for the occassional pack of wolves or bear. The edgy reboot trilogy is none that. We have instead been given a survivor of unfortunate circumstances who turns into a total psychopath. A lot of people seem to have bad habit of glorifying survivors as brave heroes. They're not heroes. Survivors are survivors, nothing more, nothing less. In Lara's case, however, all it took was one kill and she got the fever for it and goes on a killing spree. This isn't Lara Croft. This is some crazy bloodthirsty mass murderer who just happens to possess the same name as one of my favorite video game characters. If this entry in the series had been under any other name than "Tomb Raider," I might have actually liked it. It's not as though these games aren't fun to play, they're simply not the Tomb Raider I know and love.
This game is everything I hoped and feared it would be. The graphics are great, the action is hardcore, the story is well thought out. But this game is NOT for the faint of heart. Cyberpunk 2077 is true to its table-top pen-&-paper RPG roots when it comes to story design. It's dark, it's morbid, and upsetting. I thought I was prepared. I was not. You have been warned. The game has its bugs. This is to be expected, it's brand new, and they will get fixed. Functionally, if this game requires one thing, it's manual key/button-mapping. The same button uses a single-tap to toggle crouching and double-tap is required to dash/evade, which, in my opinion, is a major design mistake. A better default setting would have been tap for dash, and hold to toggle crouch. [Spoiler? Though I think everyone already knows by now] Story-wise, if this game requires any one thing, I think it's more freedom to explore and do without a time bomb in your head.
This game is like rock 'n' roll, it will never die. While Wolfenstein 3D was the first, it really only set the premise that a FPS game could be done. It was Doom that sold the FPS genre, and established the PC a gaming platform. It's also the game where the "deathmatch" and "spawn/respawn" terms come from. Its very existence even contributed to the modding community, as many people have made thousands of mods for the game since its release. Halo, Call of "Dooty," and hundreds of other games would not exist without Doom. If you have never played Doom, you NEED to play it. If you played Doom back in the day, why are you reading this review? I know you're going to buy it and play it again!
