Games Page

PEAK

Is a game where the title is also the review I would give the game. It is an excellent “friend slop” game and the one that somewhat started the term. Although I do not like calling a game “friend slop” as I think it is inherently negative. In PEAK, you and some friends have to climb up a series of increasingly difficult mountains to reach the top. There are some fun mechanics with hunger and poison and stamina, and there are plenty of items to make your journey easier or more entertaining. The different biomes they have all bring unique challenges and require different ways of navigating to the top. Playing many games with friends was a memorable experience. Even playing by myself, I had a lot of fun. It's a bit more challenging and you get to go at your own pace, so there is no one to drag you down if they suck at the game. You can also customize your character with all the different unlockable items, so you can show off to your friends about all the achievements you got. It's a silly and fun little game, and I will be returning next time they add a new update.

Halo Reach

Halo Reach is one of those games that is really special to me. I was already a big Halo fan because of Halo 3 when this game came out. I couldn’t tell you how many hours I have in this game, but it was probably at least 50% of my life in middle school. I remember all those Xbox live parties with my friends from school spending so many hours in forge mode and custom games. What made Halo Reach stand out so much was its multiplayer. Bungie greatly improved upon forge mode and all sorts of custom game modes that became hugely popular during Halo 3. Now players had much more custom options for game modes and could create all sorts of different kinds of maps with forge. Me and my friends spent an uncountable amount of hours building maps in forge, and some of them were actually good! The armor customization was also expanded in Reach from 3, and Reach’s armor customization is still the most beloved in the series. Story wise, Halo Reach also has one of the best in the series as well. Being a prequel, players already know that Reach and the spartans will all die, but seeing that story play out proves to be such a somber and emotional story. The story does not have those badass uplifting moments like the previous entries have. Instead Halo Reach provides a more depressing tale as you watch humanity slowly die mission after mission, and then those music tracks kick in and really bring in this futile feeling. Gameplay wise, Reach is a step back from Halo 3. There are new mechanics based on more popular shooters, and Bungie was clearly using Reach as a test for their next game Destiny. The gun sandbox is a bit better with the removal of dual wielding, but they also added sprint which is one of the most divisive and stupid mechanics in the series and it needs to go away, please Halo Studios get rid of sprint for god sakes. But anyway, Halo Reach is one of my most favorite games and one of the strongest entries in the Halo series.

Halo 4

Oh boy… is Halo 4 a bad Halo game? Yes. But is Halo 4 a bad game? Also yes. Halo 4 is a step back in every aspect from the previous entries and basically destroyed Halo’s reputation. Let's start with the first thing you’ll see; the art style. The art style of Halo 4 is super saturated and bright, the armors are ugly as hell, the enemies are impossible to tell apart from the background and themselves, especially compared to Halo 1, and hardly anything even resembles what Halo used to look like. Any of the thematic and intentional design choices are removed and replaced with generic and forgettable designs. The story is the strongest part of the game, but even that is underwhelming compared to the previous entries. The campaign levels range from mundane to frustratingly annoying at times, and the newly added promethean enemies are completely unfun to fight against. The Forerunners were implied to have been ancient humans in the previous games, but that is retconned here and explained away in a lengthy lore dump that confused myself and long time fans of the series. The world building is also dull; somehow the Covenant are still around even though they were defeated in the last game, and the story with the prometheans and the Didact are underwhelming. Gameplay wise 343 clearly wanted to chase a Call of Duty crowd by adding features like loadouts and perks into the multiplayer. Also they made the horrible decision to make sprint a permanent feature. The gameplay deviated from classic Halo too much and drove away long-time fans, and the CoD fans would rather play actual CoD instead of the diet rip off that Halo 4 was trying to be. Halo 3 and Reach stayed within the top 10 most played games on Xbox live for years after their launch, but Halo 4 drained player counts and left the top charts completely within a year. They also somehow made forge mode and custom games worse? Idk how they accomplished that but none of my friends who spent hundreds of hours in Reach custom games even touched custom games here. Halo 4 feels like the people who made this game had no understanding of what made Halo such a beloved series, and they would go on to keep proving this point correct.

Halo 5 Guardians

Man what the fuck was 343 thinking when they made this?? I mean Cortana is the villain and tries to become dictator of the entire galaxy?? This is something I would see on the stupidest fan theory video on youtube, not something that an actual professional game development team would write and publish. Like did no one at 343 look at this script and think “wow this is the worst dog shit plot that makes 0 sense for any of these characters to do at all”. How did this get approved? How the hell is Cortana even alive even though she blew up in the last game? Oh actually she teleported away at the last second to a mysterious planet that healed her. OK fine, but how exactly is she able to take over the entire galaxy in like a month? Oh she got access to giant super death robots that kill everything, and they were underground on every planet the whole time. Are you fucking with me here?? This shit just actually pissed me off even more while trying to write this review. The characters’ choices in this game make no logical sense at all. Cortana wants to take over the galaxy and make AIs like herself the rulers of everything. Why does she do this? No idea, they just don’t explain this at all. Master Chief is depressed that he lost his desktop stripper that lives in his helmet 24/7, until he gets a vision of Cortana telling him to visit her on the planet she landed on (again no explanation how this was possible), and he leaves on a quest with his 3 friends to find her. Most of the game you don’t play as Chief, you play as Spartan Locke who is tasked with arresting Chief for going awol. This entire plot point could have been solved if Chief just told Locke why he left to find Cortana, but he makes the cliche story beat of just not doing this. Anyway, you find Chief and fail to stop Cortana so she owns the galaxy or something. Also the Arbiter is there and he is cool like always. What the hell was this story? Having Cortana rule the universe is such a stupid plot to make and leaves the series in such a bad spot. The rest of the game isn’t good either. They continue with the same ugly art style as Halo 4, but they somehow innovated on how ugly the armor is and they created some of the most mind boggling disgusting designs here. And speaking of armor; gone are the days of unlocking armor customization by playing the game, now instead you acquire armor pieces by opening Req Packs, which are just lootboxes. So now you have to open hundreds of req packs to unlock the most eye watering armor I have seen. Maybe you’ll get lucky and get a helmet that doesn’t look like a melted microwave. Gameplay wise is even worse than 4. They added thrust packs and aim down sights and other features that make this game barely even feel like you’re playing a Halo game. Man what even happened here? I had no intention of buying Halo 5, but was convinced by my friends to get it and I don’t even remember playing with them at all. I haven’t even mentioned shit like Warden Eternal, or shitty campaign levels, but I have written too much here and now I'm just sad.

Fallout 4

I remember waiting for what felt like an endless amount of time for Bethesda to reveal this game. When the first trailer came out, I almost couldn’t believe that Fallout 4 was actually coming out. I remember watching Todd Howard show off the game at e3 and I couldn’t have gotten more excited. Playing it for the first time felt almost unreal; that's how hyped I was for this game. Now, after 10 years since the release of Fallout 4, I can definitely say that the game didn’t really live up to my hype. Fallout 4 is a very fun open world game, but Bethesda had the ridiculous idea to add a voiced protagonist and only 4 dialog options. This destroys so many rpg mechanics, that even Bethesda themselves realized it was a mistake by the time they made Far Harbor. This game expands on the “radiant quests” from Skyrim that only add filler time wasters to the game. The lore feels a little lackluster and there are a lot of characters and locations that feel they should have much more to them, like the combat zone. I like how the art style exaggerates the retro futuristic look, but I think it's way too colorful and a step back from the somber grittiness that Fallout 3’s art direction had. Weapon and armor modding are great additions, and power armor is finally the walking tank it should be. Some people may not like settlement building, but I love it. I have spent hours building so many towns. The open world is fun to explore, but unfortunately it's not as fun as Skyrim, and it's filled with generic “raiders” that are begging to be fleshed out more. The story with the Institute and Synths are interesting and I think they definitely should have had a much bigger impact in the game, even though they do have a lot. The quests are ok, but there is a lacking amount of them that are not just: go to this location and kill a bunch of enemies. That all being said, I still like this game and have fun playing it, but I wish it had the depth of New Vegas and the atmosphere of Fallout 3.

Resident Evil Village

I played Resident Evil Village a few Octobers ago per my tradition of doing a RE game for Halloween. Resident Evil Village builds upon Resident Evil 7 with its game mechanics and continues the story of Ethan Winters; the most bland but somehow lovable protagonist of the series. The game is split into four different sections, with a central village as a hub area. One section most people should be familiar with is Castle Dimitrescu headed by Alcina Dimitrescu who people went crazy on the internet for. Each section is based on classic horror movie genres: vampires, mad scientist, lake monster, possessed doll. Each area is well done and fun to go through. The game is not as scary as 7, and the game has escalated the threats and enemies but never gets to a point where it takes away from the experience. The boss fights are huge and the enemies are varied and plentiful. The story is packed full of lore and explanations for huge amounts of the broader Resident Evil story. Village also reintroduces Chris Redfield back into the game. He is his usual badass, but his entire appearance is just Ethan asking what's going on and Chris telling him it's too dangerous and to get out of there, until the end where Chris is like “damn, I should have told Ethan what is going on”. The puzzles are great, the characters are interesting, and the plot is suspenseful and interesting. This is my favorite Resident evil game I have played so far.

Blue Prince

Blue Prince is a game I had on my radar for months since it got released last year, but only decided to play recently. I first heard about this game by watching streamer Northernlion play it a bunch, and the game looked really interesting to me. Blue Prince is a “rouge-light” puzzle game with a bazillion clues and hints throughout the game. The game consists of you creating a mansion by placing blue prints of each room one by one. What rooms you get are random, and this rng can get really frustrating, especially at the beginning. But once I started to get some permanent unlocks and solve more puzzles, the rng got less annoying. There is a fun amount of strategy with deciding what rooms to place and each their respective bonuses and purpose. The puzzles are fun and interesting, sometimes a bit difficult to solve, but they all feel satisfying when you finally realize the answers. After 28 days (in game) and 14 hours of playing, I got to room 46 and got the ending. However, there is much more to the game after that first ending. I most likely will not fully complete Blue Prince, but it is a really fun and unique experience.

Civilization 7

After loving Civilization 6, I wondered what they would do for a sequel. Just like when Civ 6 got announced, I was skeptical of the new mechanics they introduced for Civilization 7. The biggest addition is swapping nations each era. I was not a fan of this change and thought they made a big mistake. After playing a few sessions of Civ 7, I have mixed feelings. Swapping civs each era ended up being really interesting to me. It added strategy in your goals to be able to unlock a different civ to change to, and also allowed you to pivot to a different strategy if you were falling behind. However, swapping also made every game feel mostly the same, because you were swapping civs, you couldn’t have a coherent playstyle the whole game. The eras mechanic was also fun, basically splitting each session into 3, but It ended up halting your progress if you had a lot of momentum going. Each era had their own goals, kind of like quests, that gave you bonuses if you finished them by the end of the era, and It was fun seeing what your civilization would have at the next era. Anyway, I have mixed feelings about Civilization 7; I had fun, but I also haven’t touched the game since release and don’t really want to.

Civilization 6

As a person who played hours of Civilization 5, I was very excited when this game got announced. I was skeptical of some of the new mechanics and wasn’t a huge fan of the art style. However, after playing many hours of Civ 6, I can say that I much prefer this one to 5. The best new feature they introduced is districts, creating a new type of strategy and planning for the game. Using the terrain to get extra bonuses and having to choose between the limited terrain around your cities made building and strategizing much more engaging. The art style also grew on me, and I think the more colorful and animated style fits the series more than the realistic approach. Being able to see your city's wonders and buildings on the map is also cool. This is my definitive Civilization game, and the one I come back to when I get the Civ itch. When covid happened, me and my friends played Civ 6 for hours, and nuking and killing and playing civ politics with them are fond memories during a real shitty time.

Resident Evil 7: Biohazard

Resident Evil 7 was the first Resident Evil game I played. I got this game on Xbox to play during October for Halloween. This game is definitely the scariest game I have played, although I don’t play many scary games. If you play this game, play it alone at night; it is scary, but that is part of the excitement. Ammo and weapons are rare so you have to use your ammo carefully, the enemies are tough, but once you learn their behaviors you can adapt. The puzzles in this game are smart, never too obtuse and difficult but also not hand holdy. Its classic Resident Evil gameplay and what the series is known for: Survival Horror. How easy this game is, is based on how well you manage your items and how efficiently you tackle this game's enemeis. The story is really good as well. It starts with the mystery of what is going on in this huge estate, and the reveals are shocking and crazy. Resident Evil 7 takes clear inspiration from classic horror movies; slashers, saw traps, haunted houses, ghost girl, blair witch style camera recordings. This game is truly horrifying with all the gore and the brutal deaths the people in this game get. What goes on in the Baker House are probably the most gruesome things in the whole series. If you have never played a Resident Evil game, this should be your first one.

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

What a thrill... Me and my friends are doing a Metal Gear Solid marathon, where each of us plays a different MGS game. My friends played the first two games, and so it was my turn to play as Big Boss in this game. Graphically, MGS 3 is very impressive for a PS2 game and I'm sure it was mind blowing at the time. The controls are a bit outdated and sometimes difficult. You have to stand still to aim and sometimes my inputs would not result in my intended action. Once you get the hang of the controls, the gameplay is very engaging. Metal Gear Solid 3 is the predecessor for stealth games and I could clearly see the inspiration for modern stealth mechanics in games today. What is best about Metal Gear is the story. Metal Gear Solid 3’s story is a serious political thriller that includes wacky characters with superpowers and plenty of humor. The bosses in this game are a collection of freaks who are as entertaining to watch as they are to fight. Snake is a badass who’s the best soldier in the world, and also an incel who’s never felt the touch of a woman and has mommy issues. There are parts of this game that includes highly critical takes on cold war politics that sometimes goes on for a long time, all while Snake is wearing kabuki theater make-up. Metal Gear Solid 3 was a fun game. The mechanics are engaging, sometimes a little frustrating, and the story is excellent.

Fallout New Vegas

Many people say Fallout New Vegas is the best Fallout game. Is that true? Yes it obviously is. What makes New Vegas stand far above other rpgs is how much depth this game has. Every character and faction is fleshed out with detailed motivations and history, and the quests let the player have a significant impact on the world. The lore is incredibly well written and interesting, with the world of Fallout New Vegas behaving realistically and having real world allegories. There is trade, economies, nation states, people fighting for independence, conquests, and politics. When I first played this game, I had no concept of a game being so in depth. I was stunned when I failed a quest and couldn’t continue with the NCR ending and had to restart my whole playthrough. But it is these consequences that make the quests so engaging. Since the player can fail these quests with their choices, they can decide which factions get supported or destroyed, what fate do these characters get, who lives and who dies. The best parts of New Vegas to me are actually the dlcs, which contain some of the best writing in the game and the most unique locations too.

New Vegas is a game that not just the Bethesda Fallouts, but most rpgs fail to reach the quality of. A lot of people are upset that no one has been able to make an rpg on the same standard as New Vegas, especially Bethesda. That is because New Vegas is a once in a lifetime type of game, the stars had to align for it to be created. The only reason Obsidian was able to create this game is because Bethesda made the engine and assets with Fallout 3, and some of the lore was made for the canceled Van Buren Fallout. Some will say to give the Fallout ip to Obsidian, but most of the people who made New Vegas don’t work there anymore, and have you played Avowed? Have you played Outerworlds 2? Didn’t think so.

Fallout 3

I first got introduced to the Fallout series in 2009, when I went to my friend's house and he showed me Fallout 3. The open world was unlike anything I had seen in a video game before. I definitely got this game before I was old enough to play it, but whatever. I really like the post-apocalyptic retro future aesthetic this game has. Wandering through the ruins of the nation’s capital that has been divided into trenches and war zones, trying to sneak past super mutants all while my pipboy is blasting “Bingo Bango Bongo” at full blast. This game does not at all shy away from the gruesome violence of the Fallout series. There are slavers, rapists, murderers, mutants who eat people, rich assholes who live in a giant tower and kill people for fun. There are a lot of choices the player can make on how good of a person they are to others, but the main story is more linear. Fallout 3’s best parts are exploring the wasteland itself. The world space was so vast back then, I could hardly comprehend it all at the time. A lot of this games mechanics are done better in Fallout 4 and New Vegas, but to me, Fallout 3 has an unmatched post-apocalyptic atmosphere.

Halo 3

Halo 3 is the first Halo game I played in 2008 when I was 9 years old. Since I never played the first 2 games, I had no idea what was happening in the story but I still loved it. Halo 3’s story is just the cut ending to Halo 2 that has been extended into a full campaign. Not much happens, but the story beautifully ends the Halo trilogy and lets the player finish the fight against the Covenant and The Flood. The environments are breathtaking, especially the levels on the Ark, which gave me my love for the series. Levels are an improvement from Halo 2, with way less frustrating and repetitive sections and a bigger emphasis on vehicles and exciting action and badass moments. Gameplay wise, Halo 3 is the same as Halo 2 but with better weapon balance (no more duel needlers) and the inclusion of equipment items. And you can’t talk about Halo 3 without talking about the multiplayer, which made Halo 3 one of the most played games for years. The addition of armor customization let players show off how skilled they were to others, and the new forge mode led to the explosion of new creative custom games that was a staple of Halo 3.

Halo 2

Before I played Halo 2, I heard many praises for it, with a lot of people online saying it is the best Halo game. What this game excels at is its' story. Halo 2 has the most campaign missions and cutscenes of the games and they are used to tell the best story in the series. The story is split between the Master Chief and the UNSC, and the Arbiter - a disgraced elite in the Covenant hierarchy. The Master Chief missions are badass and triumphant, and the Arbiter missions are political and tense. Playing as the Arbiter and seeing the story from the Covenant's pov, brings a nice dichotomy that makes the narrative even more interesting. The beautiful cgi cutscenes in the anniversary edition create a cinematic experience that makes the story much more engaging.

Halo 2 however, is a step back in the games sandbox from Halo CE. With the addition of duel wielding, some guns become way too weak and others way too strong. And the level design is a bit more frustrating than Halo CE. Too many levels are spent waiting on doors and riding on elevators while fighting waves of enemies as the level seems to not progress at all. That being said, Halo 2 is a great experience that expands Halo's universe.

Halo: Combat Evolved

I've been playing Halo games since Halo 3 in 2007, but I first played Halo CE in 2015 when it came with the Master Chief Collection. I assumed being the first Halo game, that it would feel outdated, but Halo CE actually runs circles against so many newer first person shooters, even most other Halo titles. Gameplay wise, Halo CE might be unmatched. The weapon sandbox is so well designed, no weapons ever feel useless or weak; every weapon has its purpose. The enemy ai fight in a pattern; Elites yell when their shields go down, Grunts run in terror, Jackals expose their heads when you shoot them in the arm. These things, combined with the level design, create this tight smooth gameplay where you are flowing through these levels. Another thing that is great here is the art direction. The design of the Forunner structures looks like a mix between futuristic technology and ancient ruins. There is a lot of visual storytelling in these designs. The Halo ring is an ancient weapon designed to kill all life in the universe, and the mechanical and mysterious nature of the Forunner ruins matches that. Great Game.