Shooters and post apocalypse games are dime a dozen these days but metro 2033 and Last light both have the IMMERSION ace up their sleeve, let me explain... In a typical shooter game you have enemies, a gun and some fancy level to navigate the shooting gallery, Metro takes the basics and expands them to a fantastic and realistic degree, Artyom the protagonist is thrown into situations where patience and bravery are required to make it through the mission. Every step of this world leaks radiation as much as it leaks good design. By the end of the first few chapters the player is so effectively in the headspace of the protagonist that its almost reflex to scavenge for ammunition, to charge your battery with a hand crank, to monitor the amount of air you have to breathe... Metro takes a tighter approach to its world which makes it feel isolated, the people are on edge and the land is toxic, wildlife especially is known to be a problem and makes the game take a quasi horror tone, if you like tense scary moments then this game is what you need. This is best experienced right after the first game in the series since it is as direct a follow up as you can get, and you should pick both up for the bigger story, neither game feels complete without the other. on a technical level I experienced no issues, all the visuals were great, sound cues worked, controls were tight and the difficulty while challenging was still fun and lead to tense moments. Only gripe i have is the autosaves placing me in awkward situations but that was fixed with either skill or a minor chapter restart. Last Light is a roller coaster and it ends with perhaps one of the best ever final fights I have seen put to a monitor, seriously play this game if you like single player fps's, if you like survival games and most importantly if you appreciate a good post apocalypse.
Dead space 1 is a horror game that is mostly only scary in the beginning of the game when you the player are not familiar with the setup. However you will love this game once you do since the Desgin of the gameplay is rock solid, and has a unique gimmick and setting to reel you in. Combat - Fun, tense and someitmes unpredictable. All weapons feel fun to use and have their shining moments, all enemies have specific ways to beat them, all levels have a unique challenge to them that makes the game fun. Only complaint is ammo drops can be a bit frequent so play on hard for a more horror focused experience. Sound - If you are aware that musical stings put people on edge you can expect this to not be the case by hour 2 since thats about all i can remember from the soundtrack. For the action setpeices however it was great and elevated the scenes. Graphics - 2008 was a long time ago but this diamond still shines in the correct conditions, since its a console port i imagine the brightness is this hight to compensate birghtly lit living rooms so i advise to turn that setting down as much as possible. The UI of this game is astounding and it never pauses meaning you are always in the game world immersed in the action even if you are sorting inventory. There are moments when you panic as you sometimes get caught with your pants down... Necromoprphs are a sight to behold they are amazingly designed and have an awsome variety of ways to attack you, the sound cues for certain enemies will also scare you if you hear them before they show up. PLOT - Well you are a space handyman, go to level, fix a problem, kill the enemies and survive against the infection, there is more intrigue regarding how the necromorphs invaded the ship but that is more juicy so i will let you experience that for yourself. Must play for all fans of horror, or john carpenters the thing, or anyone who loves stomping corpses open!
This Stand-alone dlc is for the poeple who enjoyed The New Order, it contains a similar amount of action, stealth but for budgetary reasons it has less plot and more gameplay, not that this detracts from the game as it still had its nice moments. Guns, Grenades, Gaspipes The biggest combat gimmick was the pipe, which you can use to open boxes and climb with, and later on bonk zombies on the head when they become a close range issue. The weapons are different from the base game and i would say are easier to use but feel just as powerful. Fights are still stealth until you mess it up then a 1v10 powerstruggle as BJ runs around guns akimbo and scoffs every bit of food around to heal. Best gameplay moment was the cable cars easily, fights were a pleasant mix of close/long range and felt badass. The combat serves its turn brilliantly. Only thing we are missing is a rocket launcher. Plot? You are BJ, you are in a castle, you need to break out with ecret info and save your buddies. This game has little in the way of cinematics apart from the halfway point but you arent usually lost as much as in other games since the first person cutscenes between missions lay out the goals and reasoning for whats going to happen next. So next time you stab a robot nazi you know why at least. There is no hub or padding in this game witch is a good thing as it makes it flow better. Music to my (bleeding) ears music in this game is nice, tense but a week after playing i cannot name a single track, not counting the ending credits song which was an awsome way to end the game. It may not be memorable but is appreciated regardless. Technology Somehow this game was running with less stutters compared to TNO, not sure what would have changed in the supposed one year beetween them but i appreciate the slight upgrade. it wasn't perfect however but I found it less of a barrier this time. TLDR Get it if you enjoyed the first game.
Dishonred is one of those games that comes around really rarely, its grim plague ridden world has enchanted many eyes world over and it made quite the splash with its extensive routes to each objective. Corvo and his posse have much to offer to fans of the stealth/action genre more so than one may think. Gameplay So to get started, you have three key objectives, its always to hunt a specific target, complete optional quests between and lastly decide on which approach you will be taking to acheive this goal. The many suits of powers and gear given to Corvo ensures that folks who love stealth can use it with great success and the fighters among us can whip out the guns and go to town without feeling left out. The best way is sometimes a mix of both depending on the situation. The Games emphasis on exploration and "immersive sim" qualities is very fun to mess about with, especially early game when you are not as strong as you could be. The Moral choice aspect is however not too special, basically the be evil / be good idea. not too deep but it does change how you interact with certain targets. Killing is always easier however. The game always has a little inter-level section back at the hound pits pub, you can talk to folks, explore the hub to find collectibles, of which there is many strewn about the levels and i had myself going a LONG way off the main goal to get the powerups. For all the graphics obsessed PC players i can say this game is quite beautiful and aged really nicely due to the adequite amount of stylization, models look distinct and not low res as certain ones from the time might. The UI is not obtrusive and also carries a distinct "edge" to how its displayed. I love especially how you can see how much Extra health you have by the broken nature of the health guage. This review has barely scratched the surface of what it means to play this game but i can assure you give it a go you will love it, The DLC included also i think is worth your time.
Singularity is a good experience for fans of the first person shooting genre, this is a game that has a nice ideas and reasonable execution. It will not set the planet on fire with the mechanics or storytelling, graphically it does have reasonable merit however. -Gameplay Guns shoot, variety is reasonable, human enemies shoot back, push forward and use cover which is all nice, the monsters however have excellent gameplay, the fact that they use throwables which you can steal and throw back is a very fun mechanic. Puzzles with the TMD (The Usp of the game) are not too challenging as it shouldn't be for first person shooter players but it does seem fun to age/de-age objects to solve problems. The leveling system is allright, it does impact the game and give unique buffs but they arent that dynamic the differences aren't big but do give you an Edge, but thats about it. If you do not want to collect the E99 points to spend then this a good thing I suppose. Difficulty is good, While I did die at points at various points sometimes however the stock of health packs is quite generous. Folks who play fps's in general may want to play on Hard as I have. But beware the Bug Enemy is a headache and does too much damage. The strategy is to melee then while in the bubble shield. apart from this everything is great. -Soundtrack It doesn't rock your world but it has its place, It does highlight key moments and provide action scenes with more punch than usual. The ambient tracks fill the void nicely too, -Graphics and Art Even despite this not being Crysis the look of the game is really good, the alt history setting coupled with a semi-nuked world lead it a really spooky ambiance, especially in the beginning. As an FPS I thought it was going to be shooting people all day, but the tone early on with art and and visuals was really attention grabbing and slow at first. -Technical problems I did not experience a single one, granted i have a pc from 2020 Short and fun game!
This game obviously came out a while ago but I do like the premise of a world that went fully under after WW2, setting is brilliant and the visuals held up really well with time too. The game isnt too restrictive and allows most players to find their own prefered playstyle, each skill tree felt rewarding to progress and made a tangible difference to the following missions. The rate at which you gain momentum is frequently changed while some missions are big explosion fests, you do get nice narrative breaks inbetween inside the little mission hub. Each mission did feel unique from the rest too, who would have thought Nazi's in space would be cool (treyarch did but i digress) The soundtrack is nicely highlighted in select moments to give the game more "OOMPH" but otherwise is pretty standard, a good standard however with appropriate tones and harsh thrashes in battle, it is easy to see how composer mick gordon would refine certain aspects into Doom 4, The difficulty of the game is quite high, Granted i played on the second hardest so perhaps i was asking for it but enemies had good aim, shot often and the health you obtain melts away like butter if you arent wearing any armor, which led me to use a more stealthy approach when possible, but not always as sometimes BJ cashes through a window and all elements of surprise are lost. the exploration in this game is amazing however, i had a few upgrades I found for the laster gun which made my experiecne dramatically different, despite this I can tell the levels are still designed reasonably enough so that if you miss these you are still able to fight. the performance however is abysmal, on my pc from the year 2020, i am not able to get a proper stable framerate, i had to open the console and type "jobs_numthreads 1" becuase apparently this improved things, to a small degree. but it ran "okayish" enough for mt to not be too mad at my monitor. buy if you like shooters, hate nazis, and are a fan of alternate history.
This peice of media is one of the first of its kind, and shows how ubisoft back in its day was innovating on design and ideas of what it meant to be an "open world" game. you can see alot of the core ideals of what became the later staples of the typical ubisoft game, towers, crowds, good parkour, collectibles, repetitive objectives, pre-animated takedowns and a relatively open approach to tackling your target. Graphics, amazing quality, rough on modern systems but stylish nonetheless, the colors are heavily filtered but each enviroment has its distinct look and palette. the shadows appear slightly choppy due to old aliasing techniques but the way the game is lit is brilliant. Gameplay, simple but effective, this was the mid-late 00's so while players of the franchises sequels may find combat lacking options but there is not much clutter. stealth can be a bit janky with the guards having speedometers to detect suspicious activity which makes horse riding very slow around enemies but otherwise it works as it should. the quests are also good, you have a list of 9 targets and before you assasinate each one you have to research the area and find out where they are, how to get there, and what opponents you will face. the mechanics are limited but this definitive edition adds new quests to gain info so its an upgrade to the original. story, honestly the structure of go to town, research,assasinate and return to master is very nice since it doesnt have you slog through too much of the same issues, the sci-fi present day sections are fine for what they are, they do referesh your brain between the 13th century cityscapes. Ui, servicable, the ui is a bit too much centre for my tastes but conveys the information nicely, pretty wierd for the mini map to be more akin to a halo motion sensor showing directions of objectives and interactibles but not the actual city map, cannot decide if this is good of bad. ost, Good, tense, atmospheric. I recommend to all!
