Game #1249: Fuse

  I've been told I've got a short fuse.

 Known for Spyro, Resistance and Ratchet & Clank, Insomniac decided to go multiplatform, so they teamed up with EA to develop FUSE, yes, yet another third-person shooter I skipped way back when the PS3 was my main squeeze.

 Fuse feels like a product. It makes sense, originally they were going for a wackier art-style 'till EA and their focus group made them go grittier, grittier to the point that sometimes it's almost funny how hard it tries. Insomniac's penchant for creative weaponry also takes a step back, albeit there's some of it in its DNA. In Fuse you play as a four-man squad of violent and gritty mercenaries. Early on the first mission they find "Xenotech weapons", so each character gets a special gun. For instance, my boy Dalton gets a shield-gun that can shoot a shockwave blast that turns any enemy it touches into a pool of blood.

 But that's about where the originality it ends. Like games of its era, we get XP and skill trees, albeit very basic ones. You earn XP by completing objectives on a mission or just finding pick ups. You can even find money to spend on perks that affect the entire team. Each character carries three weapons: Their unique Xenotech weapon, a main gun and a side arm, and of course, characters run on regenerative health, and if a character is downed, other characters get a brief window of time to revive them before its game over. And don't worry, they shoe-horned in some mandatory climbing sections.

 As for modes, there's the main campaign and a Wave/survival mode, the essentials. That said, the game is made up of six very distinct, very lengthy missions. I'm not kidding, the first three are about an hour long, the next three take about hour and a half. Not too shabby!

 I felt like Fuse was a very solid third-person shooter. It's not the best thing out there, but you can tell that care went into building the game, and there's some very satisfying bits about it, even though it fails to stand out from other third person shooters.

 7.0

Game #1248: Blazblue Chrono Phantasma(Playstation Vita)

 Anime cliches and stereotypes on the go.

 Well, it seems I'm back again with Blazblue, Blazblue: Chrono Phantasma on the Vita this time around. I've written about pretty much every Blazblue game I purchased sans the original Continuum Shift, and considering I own BB games on PS3 and Switch might as well triple dip and get the Vita port, right? I love the Vita after all!

 Well, I won't go much in-depth as I've already written about this game before, and this Vita release is pretty much identical. You get all the modes, this means the detailed tutorial, the boring story mode, the mandatory Arcade and VS, as well as all the fun modes BB is known for, such as the Survival/Abyss mode. Since this is a straight-up port, it's as scummy as the original release, since one of the DLC characters not only does he appear on the game's cover, you also get to fight him twice during the story mode. Ah, yes, ArkSys' horrid DLC practices at their finest.

 The game works pretty much exactly as it did on PS3, however, the audio quality is a bit suspect. What's more, while in-game audio can be set to English or Japanese, the Story Mode only gets the English dub, which is kinda lame. That said, on the visual side of things, the character sprites look very crisp, it's a very nice looking 2-D game and the framerate holds up... at least anywhere except during the Story Mode's final boss, which feels as if it's running at 15 FPS at most.

 On the more technical side of things, the loading times when going back to the main menu feel a bit lengthy, but loading in-between fights is pretty swift. I only had trouble getting the 'press all face buttons' actions to go off, so I had to rely on shortcuts. That aside, the controls worked pretty well.

 Chrono Phantasma on the Vita is a very good port of a pretty decent fighting game. I'd say I'm impressed, but I've seen Fighting games on the System, and developers usually got them right,  So, yeah, it's a good port, it's a decent version sans a few small gripes.

 7.0

Game #1247: Dark Sector

  Shouldn't it be darkSector? Why does every site have it as 'Dark Sector'? I'm in the dark!

 My quest to play forgotten action games on the PS3 that I skipped continues, and Dark Sector is up next. Following the trend of my latest playthroughs, it's another third-person shooter, but, hey, this time around the protagonist doesn't wield a sword....he wields a Glaive.

 The plot is interesting because there's barely any of it, and it barely makes any sense. There's a reason for it, apparently, the people editing were so familiar with the plot that they forgot that some details actually SHOULD to be told to the audience. That aside, the game is your standard, linear, third-person shooter. It's also very, very grey, and there's not much variety in the environments or enemies. Exploration is rewarded with Money and Upgrades. Money can be spent to purchase weapons for good, since guns you pick up from fallen enemies explode after a few seconds, or to allot upgrades into your permanent guns' slots. As you advance through the game, better guns turn up for purchase, and you'd better mind your expenses, as money becomes rather scarce late in the game, and the last thing you'd want is for your main gun and side-arm to use the same ammo type!

 The shooting is alright, just your average third-person cover-based shootouts, although the game has a few puzzles here and there to break the monotony. Most puzzles are of the elemental variety, you have to hit something that caught on fire, is electrified or is frozen in order to add that element to your Glaive, and then use the elementally charged Glaive on something else. This elementally charged Glaive can also be used in battle, what's more, while your main gun takes both of your hands, you can dual wield your side arm alongside your Glaive.

 As you advance through the plot you'll actually gain new abilities, like a timed-Glaive throw for bonus damage, the ability to control the Glaive directly after you throw it(Make sure to turn off the motion controls for this!!), and even turn invisible. Oh! There are a few turret sections too, and they are kinda lame, because either they do scrap damage or the accuracy blows. The fire effects actually make it hard to see where you are shooting at.

 Dark Sector is a pretty decent third person shooter, and I won't deny that using the Glaive feels really nice, but ultimately... it's pretty forgettable. You fight the three-four enemy types, around the samey brown and grey environments over and over again. But it's alright while it lasts.

 6.0

Game #1246: NeverDead

  So that means always alive?

 I remember the very first time NeverDead was first announced, as they opened up with Bryce's, the main character, past as he looked like a very generic JRPG hero fighting a very weird and flamboyant demon, only to show us Bryce 500 years later. The premise alone sounded brilliant, the character designs looked right up my alley and it looked as if it was just my kinda weird. Then the game came out, critics panned it as a very subpar third-person shooter and I got turned off from it. But it never quite left my mind, as I always felt that even though it's probably bad... I could probably enjoy it. I was right.

 So, what makes NeverDead stand out from every other third person shooter out there? Well, mainly the fact that Bryce was cursed with immortality. This means that you can't die, not really, but your allies can! Not to worry, as you can pretty easily heal them by getting close to them, should they happen to fall in combat. Bryce's immortality comes into play as one of the game's main gimmicks, the fact that you can lose your limbs. You can lose any arm or leg, and even your torso. Picking up body pieces is as easy as rolling over them, or after a short while, you can just regrow any missing limb. Some puzzles even have you taking your own head and throwing it to wherever you need to go, or even rolling, as a head, through ducts. It gets even better, you can even tough fire or electricity in order to strengthen your attacks, or solve some very simple puzzles.

 As you can tell from the game's main hook, while the overall plot is relatively serious, the game is front-loaded with humor. It's not gonna be for everyone, that's for sure, but I'd say I liked it overall. Bryce follows the generic gruff tough guy bit to a tee, but the immortality curse and how he uses it does add some flavor to his portrayal. The rest of the characters are alright, but I was mostly a fan of the character designs and the aesthetics, I thought the game looked really cool, and the graphics are pretty detailed all things considered. The characters are very striking, at least as far as their visual designs go. While the story is rather bland, the premise is quite original too, so I dug it.

 The game itself is rather decent, it's a very linear romp although if you take your time to explore each level you'll be able to find weapons and even bonus experience points. Since you could lose any arm at any time, each hand can carry a different weapon between: Pistols, Assault Rifles, Uzis, Shotguns and even a grenade launcher. You need to find two of any if you wish to dual-wield whatever type of weapon, sans for the pistols, which are the weapons you start off with. You can also shoot each gun independently, using the L1 and R1 buttons. But maybe, if you are like me, you want to take things up close and personal... so you can take out your sword by pressing Triangle.

 At first I hated it, you must hold down R1 and use the right analog stick in order to slash with the sword. It felt super awkward at first... but 30 minutes later I found out that mashing different directions on the right analog stick felt SO good that the sword became my default approach to every enemy. You'll be surprised by how destructible everything around you is, but it's more than just eyecandy, as using debris is a suggested way to take down enemies. Destroying a pillar to make the roof fall on enemies, or even using the debris of the pillar to smack enemies are both equally valid and efficient ways of taking down enemies.

 As previously stated, there are experience points in this game, which you can either find in the environment or get when defeating enemies. These points can then be spent to purchase abilities, which you can then equip, being mindful of an ability point cap, to make Bryce fit your playstyle. Abilities are very interesting, as you can make different builds. Maybe favor your guns, by enhancing Gun Damage, turning your arms into grenades and making your spring faster to strafe around enemies. Or maybe you'd rather enhance your sword, making melee stronger and adding range to your swipes. But, maybe, just maybe, you want to be weird about it, so you can get abilities to enhance the damage you do to the environment and how much damage you deal with the environment. This system is fantastic, and rather deep all things considered.

 And so far, it sounds pretty cool, so why was the game so divisive? Well... for starters, Bryce is very fragile. Losing limbs is and having to collect them is a genuinely interesting concept, but it seems as if any single attack will deprive Bryce of something. Some enemies will instantly pop every limb from your head and torso with a single tackle. The Final Boss was something of a pain in the rear, as every single shockwave attack instantly popped every limb out of you. Add to this that the game very quickly introduced headsucking enemies, these blobs of doom will go after you whenever you are left only with your head, and if they suck you in... you must engage in a timing mini-game, otherwise it's game over. The mini-game wasn't much fun, and losing progress because you didn't hit X at the right moment feels downright unfair. To be fair, on the other hand, evading this suckers is not too tough.

 And then there's the fact that the game is rather repetitive. You spent the entire game fighting the same 4-5 enemy types over and over again, but, first you have to find every enemy generator and slowly whittle down its health. I enjoyed the game, I did, but sometimes it can feel rather uninspired.

 I don't think NeverDead was deserving of most of the low scores the game received, as it has some very original ideas, and some very interesting mechanics. That said, I understand that the game's tone and humor is definitely not for anyone, but anyone that enjoys quirky Japanese games(It may have been developed by Rebellion, but the director was Japanese and it shows!) will probably find something enjoyable here. And, if in doubt, the trailer will instantly tell you if the game is for you or not.

  6.5

Game #1245: Wet

 The closest thing to a Kill Bill videogame.

 Every now and then it's time for me to finally play a game that I knew existed but for whatever reason didn't care bout, only for me to discover that I missed out. Wet is one such game. A sword-and-gun toting protagonist, just why wasn't I interested in this game before? I don't know, but I regret it immensely, as this was one exciting third-person shooter I could have done with way back when.

 First things first, this is no Uncharted, the budget wasn't quite as large, and you can tell that certain things such as moving around can feel sorta clunky, heck, you'll come across a ton of reused animation sequences and what not. But it's got a lot of heart, they went after a pulpy, grind-house aesthetics and they knocked it out of the park.

 The game feels like an early 2000's PS2 game, thanks to the pulpy soundtrack, abuse of slo-mo mechanics and very simple gameplay, but I say this as high praise. The game just works. You play as Rubi, the deadliest woman in the mercenary business, and she's angry 'cause she was double-crossed and left for dead, but jokes on them, as now she's back for revenge.

 The game's hook is Rubi's stylish slo-mo shooting. You can press R1 and very slowly shoot your gun. It's boring, not very effective, but you can do it. Or you can slide, wall-run or jump and enter slo-mo, upon which Rubi will start shooting with another gun. Whenever you enter slo-mo, which never runs out, a red targeting reticule will pop on top of the closest enemy. Rubi will automatically shoot at it with one of her guns, meanwhile, you get a white reticule that you can move with the right analog stick, letting you shoot any other enemy that you wish, or maybe the same enemy as the one she is already automatically attacking, or heck, maybe you are feeling dumb and just want to shoot at thin air. This very basic and simple mechanic is a ton of fun and allows for some very stylish moments.

 Rubi is armed with her unlimited ammo guns at all times, and she doesn't need to reload them, but as you go through the game you'll unlock dual shotguns, machine guns and explosive crossbows, These other guns do run on ammo, however, and they are used exactly like her main guns, slo-mo and everything. I thought that having to abuse the slo-mo would get boring.... but it never did.

 But sometimes you just want to take things up close and personal, which is why Rubi carries a sword. At first the only thing you can do is a very basic, but powerful, three-hit combo. But you can purchase new abilities, such as aerial slashing, sliding slashing and even a slash while wall-running. Sword combat is, evidently, not very deep, but it gets the job done, and slashing up enemies is fun. 

 The game rewards your stylistic carnage with point modifiers, and the points you earned can be spent on new abilities, upgraded health bar or even upgrades to your weapons. I love upgrade systems like this in videogames, and it's not overly-expansive, so you can get most of them by the end of the game, heck, I was only missing one.

 There are QTEs every now and then, which weren't too bad as the input window is pretty generous. Although, sadly, the final boss is just one extensive QTE section. One final mechanic is the Rage Mode, every now and then, the same exact cutscene will play out in which Rubi shoots someone and her face gets splattered in blood... in which case a red-and-black cell-shaded filter will be applied, and now you deal extra damage. It's pretty cool, although I much preferred the normal graphics.

 The game is divided into three main sections, so to speak. Your basic third-person shooting as you advance through levels, enemy arenas, in which near-endless enemy waves will spawn until you destroy their spawn points... although, I liked the game so much, and wanted to get my upgrades, that I pretty much didn't break the spawn points until enemies completely dried out! And then there are the parkour sections, which are alright. A few times I was completely stumped on how to proceed, but eventually I'd figure it out.

 The best thing about the game is, simply, how insanely cool and exciting it is. There's a lot of action and shooting, and Rubi is one lethal badass, she gets all sorts of cool moments, some you get to create yourself, others you get to watch, Enemies too are an interesting sort, particularly the named ones, and even though many of them get very few lines or scene time, they do manage to make an impression, either because of their quirks or their cool designs.

 I honestly can't believe how long it took me to play this game, and I almost didn't even consider getting it, but for some reason I decided I wanted to try PS3 action games that I missed out back in the day, and even though this one made it to my list, I wasn't too excited about it. Turns out, it was sort of an obscure little gem.

 9.0

Game #1244: Uncharted - The Lost Legacy

 Old man Nate is old news, time for Chloe.

 You might've thought with Nate retiring that Uncharted would be over, but you'd be wrong, as now Chloe and Nadine take center stage with Uncharted: The Lost Legacy, a DLC-turned-Spin-off from the now iconic Playstation third-person shooter franchise.

 Just because it started life as DLC doesn't mean that this is a smaller scale game, I mean, it is compared to Uncharted 4, and it IS shorter than any other Uncharted game, but as far as spectacle and narmy-but-charming dialogue, this one's got you covered. They even tried to one-up Uncharted 2's Train scene, now with the power of the PS4, so... yeah, this game is a proper Uncharted game.

 First things first.... Yeah, Nadine is back, Uncharted 4's lowpoint. She was unlikeable and forced into a role of 'FEMINIST FEMALE POWER' in a series that has been all about a male power fantasy. She sucked. In this game they almost fixed her, almost. For instance, since she is now an ally, we learn more about her, and she isn't angry and frowning all the time, she is actually a human and we learn about the things she likes. Her partnership with Chloe was enjoyable, and Chloe too was softened up, and made more heroic, but in her case it feels appropriate as she's the new face of the series. Back to Nadine, just as I was starting to like her, she and Chloe have a fallout midway through the game and the way she reacts..... made me hate her all over again. I think the fallout could've been handled better so as not to make us dislike her again. That said, shortly after, a third character is introduced into the team, and I really liked seeing Nadine play off him. The three characters work well together since they have different personalities. That said, clearly Nadine is going to be the short-tempered prick in the group, which is fine, as long as they make her less of a brat about it.

 The new villain was... quite probably my favorite villain in Uncharted. He is soft-spoken, but also a narcissist, and he looks pretty suave too. That said... there's a moment in which he handled Chloe and Nadine 2 vs 1. Look, I hated how they made Nadine beat Nate and Sam 2 on 1, it made no sense, it felt forced and the fact that she never gets defeated, being the villain, sucked. But they've already established her as the ultimate fighter, so having the new villain beat her and Chloe, at the same time, felt super cheap. I hate to get all anime in here, but what the hell is going on with the series' power scaling??

 As far as mechanics go, it's pretty much identical to Uncharted 4. Remember how Nate mysteriously remembered that he knew how to use a rope and thus was a ropemaster in 4? Well, Chloe and Nadine, turns out, are just as good as him when it comes to using a rope. Even the car returns, for chapter 4... and it's brilliant. Chapter 4 is the only non-linear, somewhat open-ended chapter. You get three main objective and a side objective, and you can tackle them in any order. Visiting the side-objective opens up 11 optional puzzle missions that you can track, if you wish. The reward was kinda lame(A bracelet that reacts when treasure, the series' useless collectible, is close by), but the hunt itself was fun.

 Uncharted: The Lost Legacy is just as good as any other entry in the series. While I don't think they have rehabilitated Nadine just yet, Chloe is the perfect character to carry the series onward, and Nadine can work well with her. I also felt the Chapter 4 experiment payed off really well, so they could easily sneak in a few open-ended chapters like that one in between the more linear affairs moving forwards. All in all, pretty decent for a game that started off as DLC.

 8.5

Game #1243: Zero Escape - The Nonary Games

 Guess you won't be running out of doors any time soon? 

 A few years ago I played 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors on the DS, and it was pretty decent. It was no Danganronpa, but I liked it, so I knew that I'd eventually try the entire series. Lo and behold, Zero Escape: The Nonary Games, a two-in-one package that includes the first two games. Both games follow a similar premise, it's a visual novel game that spreads out its narrative scenes with puzzle rooms that you must figure out, as well as decisions that will take you through alternate routes. Both games also feature a cast of 9 characters that must play a deadly game that involves doors and numbers. It's way more interesting than it sounds.

 999: 9 Hours, 9 Persons, 9 Doors 

 This is actually a remake of the DS original, so I won't delve too much into it. It offers a new alternate 'Adventure Mode' that changes the text so as to cut on the descriptions and make for an altogether speedier read. It's completely optional, so that's fine by me, and you can swap at any moment by pressing R1. The transition to a single screen was done very well, I never felt the interface got in my way.

 The only way to get the true ending is to go through every route and scenario, and it actually plays into the overall narrative, believe it or not, and in this version you can quickly go into the menu screen and go back to any scenario, making getting every route a cinch. In the original it was back to the start every single time, and you even had to solve the puzzles again! This seemingly small additions makes this the best way to play the game.

 Zero Escape: Virtue's Last Reward

 This time around, the nonary games have changed a little, so now it's all about betraying or allying with the other 9 players, and the objective is to reach 9 points in order to open the exit door. I found the premise to be more interesting, although having to go through every route, to get the true ending, meant having to betray characters, which made me feel awful!

 The first game had a lot of pretty JPEGs, but this one is in full 3-D, so actually examining and exploring every puzzle room was made more fun. The puzzle's are way, way harder, so I wouldn't feel too bad about having a guide on hand.

 That said, while the story is better... the dialogue was sorta lame and felt kinda meme-ish? The main character, the guy whose thoughts you read as your own, has some rather perverted lines that I felt were in poor taste. Look, I hate fanservice and I hate the anime pervert-stereotype character, but having to play as it was kinda annoying.

 All in all, I liked The Nonary Games, this collection makes for a pretty convenient way to experience both games as the porting job was excellent.

 8.0

Game #1242: Fullmetal Alchemist Brotherhood

  The White-Knuckled Alchemist

 Might as well play every FMA game available, right? Enter Fullmetal Alchemist: Brotherhood, a game based on the manga/second anime of Fullmetal Alchemist. Unlike what came before it, this is, believe it or not, a Gundam VS clone.

 And as such, this is a 2 on 2 fighting game that lets you play as a few key characters from the series, up to Ed and Ling's fight against Envy. The game looks pretty good, characters take after the manga's art-style pretty nicely, so they look very squared and chunky. Despite the game having up to four characters on screen at the same time, the frame-rate keeps up pretty nicely. The cherry on top? Clothes break and characters start looking damaged as the fight goes on! And, to make it even sweeter, you can unlock costumes for every character! Most are simple recolors, but you do get a fair amount of fun stuff, such as Roy with his coat hanging over his shoulder, or Ed's artic coat. The character roster is pretty comprehensive, considering up to where the game covers, so you get Ed, Al, Roy, Riza, Major Armstrong, Izum, Ran Fan, Mey Lin, Ling, Ling(Greed), Greed, Lust, Wrath, Envy, Gluttony and Scar.

 Sadly, the game itself is a bit clunky. Battles feel pretty slow, and there's not much you can do with the tools you are given. You can mix weak and strong blows to create various 3-hit combos, you get two different alchemy/special attacks, a jump, you can block(Or dodge, but it's pretty useless, dashing is better 90% of the time). Oh! And you can't use the analog stick, movement is done through the digital pad exclusively. Special attacks are fairly slow to come out, but they are probably balanced that way for 2 on 2 fights. Unlike Gundam there's not much verticality in the fights, so for all intents and purposes, it's an Anime Arena Fighting Game(tm). There's also a Super Combination Attack that you can use once you fill an energy gauge, in which case the character that initiated it must go through 3 sequences of 4-button presses to initiate it. Getting hit, or getting an input wrong, will lower the overall possible damage it will dish out. Once you press every button, an unavoidable cutscene plays out, and the enemy gets to go through QTEs to lower the damage. You can also use these energy stocks to revive a fallen comrade instead.

 But I simply can't stress how dull the game is when the game plays so slowly. It's not even a framerate issue! For instance, your special moves either have a long wind-up animation or a long recovery animation, so pulling them off feels like a chore. The three-hit combo system doesn't work very well, 'cause sometimes you or your opponent can simply start blocking out of hitstun, which is all sorts of wrong.

 And then there's the story mode... it's a bore. In the case of Ed, it follows the plot up to the fight against Envy's real form, however, the story mode for the other characters is mostly made up. Izumi, for instance, ends up teaming up with the Elric brothers and takes down the homonculi. As you go through matches, some optional, some mandatory, you level up and unlock various costumes as well as stat points that you can spread on your Attack, Defense, Special Attack Power and Speed. Sounds neat, huh?

 But it's not. Stat points seem to make no real difference, and fighting the CPU feels unfair to the point of annoyance. They can amass Super Stocks way faster than you, so you'll be eating a ton of unavoidable, unblockable Super Combination moves that will deal 70% or so damage to either you or your ally. Sure, you could try to quickly kill either of them, but they'll have a stock ready to revive each other, and pretty soon after they'll launch a super move. This means that you have to play defensively with your Super stocks, since you'll probably need them to either revive your ally or wait for your ally to revive you. It simply isn't fun, I'm still considering not unlocking every character 'cause I'm dead tired of this game. Oh, and your AI partner? Absolutely useless. He'll let enemies gang up on you, and when they are priming a Combination Attack they'll just let it happen.

 Fullmetal Alchemist on the PSP isn't very good. Even putting aside how annoying the single player mode is, the game is just too slow to be any fun. Even though the game looks really good, it's only skin deep, just avoid it entirely.

 2.5

Game #1241: Ape Escape 3

'sssabout time we open up a Zoo with all them monkeys! 

 In an attempt to prove that you can never have too many Monkeys in your videogame, Ape Escape 3 was created, and this time, they are going Hollywood!

 Not much has changed since the last game, as Ape Escape 3, as this is yet another 3-D platforming game in which you must collect monkeys, and the game makes use of both analog sticks for your actions, the left one moves your playable character and the right one uses whatever gadget you've selected. The game has changed very little, to the point that not much is new, and it retains everything that worked in previous games... as well as everything that didn't.

 In this new entry, Spike and Jimmy, the heroes from AE 1 and 2 respectively, are out of commission, so you get to pick between Kei and Yumi, a boy and a girl. They are pretty much interchangeable and most differences are negligible. Although a few monkeys 'like' Yumi, so they won't attack her. As mentioned in the opening paragraph, the monkeys went Hollywood in this one, so you'll occasionally finding aping movie scenes, but it didn't necessarily affect gameplay in any major way, it's just more monkeys doing silly things that you must capture.

 The overall inventory has been reduced, most of the gadgets AE 2 added were removed, as this game features the same gadgets from AE 1 minus the boxing glove. Most of the puzzles too are stuff you have seen already in the previous games. This might be a good thing as there isn't as much inventory shuffling required, although they added a new quick-swap feature, double tapping a face button will start shuffling the assigned tool with the rest of the available gadgets, which made the game a lot more comfortable.

 There is one new addition, however, Transformations. As you go through the game you'll unlock the ability to wear costumes, such as the Knight, which can block flames, the Ninja, that can run on walls and over ropes, as well as a few others. Their use, when it comes to obstacle clearing, is pretty limited since transformations are temporary and run on an energy gauge, so they couldn't expect you to have access to them at all times. It's a bit of a shame, as they could've had more fun coming up with different obstacles that required costumes to make up for the reduced amount of gadgets.

 Costumes do come in handy to handle the monkeys, as they are more aggressive than ever before, they can even knock out gadgets from your hands and steal them for themselves! Yeah, it's very annoying(Not in a bad way), but monkey can't take away your transformations, and transformations tend to have overpowered capture abilities.

 Sadly, as I mentioned previously, what didn't work in previous games hasn't been addressed. The camera is still rather unwieldy, and since this game has tougher and faster monkeys, it actually turns into a hindrance. Some boss battles are needlessly tough because the camera can't keep up with you or the monkey, and pressing L1 to set it behind you doesn't always work correctly, specially when doing things such as strafing with the Cowboy Transformation. The game also had a fair amount of frame rate issues, they didn't ruin the game, but they were there.

 But worst of all, just like before... every new stage has a quota of monkeys you have to capture before the next level opens up. Problem is... maybe you want to capture every monkey? Well, no dice. Back to the game's HUB, if you want to capture every monkey you have to return to the stage and get back on track, which sometimes means going through puzzles or platforming sections again. This means that getting every Monkey requires visiting every stage at least twice. Oh, word to the wise, don't revisit stages when you get new gadgets, for you see, after beating the game for the first time, every stage gets a 'hidden room' with 4 monkeys you have to find. You also have to fight every boss again, and the fights are identical to how they played out the first time around. It felt a bit cheap, to be honest.

 Ape Escape 3 is another excellent entry in the series. Honestly, the biggest thing it's got going against it is the fact that most of the game is pretty much identical to the previous entry, warts and all, luckily, the entire series, at least the numbered entries, are fantastic games. If you ask me, I still think the second entry is the overall best in the series, but this one is no slouch, I just wish they would've worked on ironing out the series glaring camera issues.

 8.5

Game #1240: Pokemon Let's Go Pikachu

 C'mon, Pikachu, let's go party! 

 I hated Pokemon GO, and I decided I hated Pokemon: Let's Go Pikachu! on the basis that it was meant to bridge Pokemon GO with the classic RPG games, in order to attract the massive new fanbase GO garnered. It's a Kanto remake made for GO players.

 Well, for all intents and purposes, this is a Pokemon Yellow remake. While we get the new types, Steel, Dark and Fairy, no Pokemon outside the original 151 appear in the game... unless you caught Meltan in GO, in which case you can pass him into Let's Go. The story includes a Pikachu that won't get inside his ball, as well a Pikachu(Or Eevee, if you are playing the Eevee version) who won't get into their Pokeball. Jessie and James, from the anime, also made it into the game. That said, there were a few changes made, so now you have a new original rival, and both Blue("Gary") and Red("Ash") appear in the game, albeit as Pokemon Masters instead of being the rival and playable characters respectively.

 The rest of the game is the tried and true Pokemon formula: Set out on an adventure, capture as many Pokemon as you can, have them battle against other trainers' 'mons, challenge the 8 Pokemon Gyms and earn their badges so that you can challenge the Elite 4 and the champion, thus, becoming the new champion... while battling an evil organization and your own rival along the way. This is as classic Pokemon as it gets, and I'm not gonna lie, it still works. It's simple, but it hits all the right notes, and in a way, I think the simplicity of the plot kinda makes it stand out from how silly future games got. Straight and to the point, no unnecessary fluff.

 There were a few minor alterations, such as removing the Casino and the Safari Zone, but for the most part, it follows the same plot and progression from the original games. Before tackling each Gym you'll have to show some sort of Pokemon, which is kinda dumb. For instance, to tackle Brock you need to show a Grass or Water type Pokemon, to battle Koga you need to show a Pokemon who is at least level 45. It's a bit annoying because they only added it to help make sure newbies stand a chance, but for most people it will be superfluous, as you'll probably meet the requirements and then some every time you reach a new Pokemon Gym. New additions include Master Trainers, after finishing the game, which are 150 trainers spread throughout the world of Kanto that want a mirror 1 vs 1 Pokemon match, using the Pokemon they are masters of. It's not a bad post-game addition, to be honest, and after you defeat a few of those you'll be allowed to challenge Red.

 Before I get into all the stuff I didn't like, I'd like to go over the stuff I did. For instance, the combat is fast and snappy, unlike Shining Pearl that felt as if it took forever due to all the flavor text. TMs don't run out, which is HUGE considering how the keep changing their mind with these when it comes to new games, and as far as HMs go, you don't need any, as Pikachu learns all the moves you need to progress and they don't take up Attack slots. This is also AMAZING and I wish all the other Pokemon games did it this way. You get Mega Evolutions later in the game for a few select Pokemon, and it was neat seeing those again. You can have any Pokemon running behind you, although a few only appear on water. It's pretty cool, because some of them are pretty darn large. Lastly, at first I thought the mandatory gyroscopic controls, for when you have throw pokeballs, were super annoying on a handheld game, since where am I gonna turn if I'm sitting in a bus, but then I realized two things: A) You can use the analog stick and B) They feel so much better and accurate than using the stick, go figure! While I hated the first 5 hours or so of catching Pokemon, once I got used to it I didn't mind it at all.

 On and since I'm at it, the game is quite a looker. It does have some framerate issues here and there, at least if you play in Handheld mode, but only when traversing the overworld, so it shouldn't affect fights or captures. The game includes mini-cutscenes for events such as coming across legendary Pokemon, which is pretty cool as well. Oh! And no more random encounters, you can see Pokemon walking about and you can tackle them at your leisure. That said, this means that you may have to wait until the Pokemon you are hunting for spawns, and since only 3-4 Pokemon might be on screen at the same time... you might need to wait for them to despawn. Or approach them and escape/capture them to make them disappear from the overworld.

 But then... there's the bad. You can no longer fight random Pokemon on the overworld, instead, tackling a Pokemon means entering the Capture mode, in which you have to follow them as they jump around, trying to land the Pokeball on them, much like Pokemon GO. I did not like the new capturing mechanics, and this means that Training your 'mons, if you already defeated all the trainers available, is a matter of capturing a load of Pokemon over and over again, which is annoying as you'll have to purge your Pokemon box every now and then, unless you want it cluttered with garbage. Capturing is such a big part of the game now that defeating Pokemon trainers rewards you with money as well as a few Pokeballs, and releasing captured Pokemon nets you Candy. First of all, there are no Pokemon Boxes, so you are carrying your full amount of 'mons with you at all time, which is kinda annoying. You can't have Pokemon folders, the most you can do is 'Mark' them so that you remember which ones you want to keep. It's so cumbersome, why mess with something that worked well? Probably because you are expected to capture a ton of garbage.

 EVs, the hidden stat boosts you obtain as you battle other 'mons are a thing of the past, instead, now you have to feed pokemon Candy in order to raise their stats. This takes a LONG time and it's infinitely more annoying than EVs. Hold Items and Pokemon abilities were axed entirely, which means strategizing took a huge hit, in an effort to streamline it more. I'm a casual player, so this doesn't affect me TOO much, but playing around with items or abilities such as setting up Sunny Day was fun.

 And by the by, there's a route that is bugged, because if you enter that route while having Charizard, Dragonite or Aerodactyl you'll be sent flying upwards, above trainers and wild Pokemon. Turns out, this is a feature, after you defeat the Elite 4, but you should be able to fly over towns and routes. There's a tiny issue with this... you can't toggle this 'high flying' mode on or off. This means that if you want to capture Pokemon, talk with NPCs, enter buildings or whatever.... you can no longer have any of those three Pokemon following behind you. Thanks for nothing, I can't run around with my Charizard anymore.

 As with pretty much every other modern Pokemon game... this one is a mixed bag. Has some really cool features, has some really bland and half-baked mechanics, it's missing some core elements but it adds others... I enjoyed visiting Kanto again, no doubt about it, but it feels like yet another underwhelming entry in the Pokemon franchise.

 5.5

Game #1239: Taito Legends

 No quarters needed!

 Now this is a cool collection, considering Taito Legends is made up of 29 different games. That's a lot, so if you've ever been to Arcades back in the early 90's, or heck, dabbled in MAME emulation, you've probably played a few!

 Each game has a few Settings you can toggle to sorta toy around with the difficulty, which is quite fair considering these games were made to suck quarters out of people. That said, some of these games run on checkpoints, some not even on that, so even if you have infinite coins... it's still gonna be tough to see every game to the end. There's a bunch of information, including very basic hints and tips for each game, as well as one flyer for each.

The games:

 Battle  Shark - A weird, but not bad, first person gallery shooter. Most stages are underwater, but one takes place on the air. It was more fun than I would've thought! You can't spam your shots willy nilly 'cause they run on a cooldown! Kinda short, but I dig it!

 Bubble Bobble - A game I tried a few times here and there, mostly the NES port, and never cared too much about it. It's really fun! The game is divided into single-screen stages in which you must trap enemies in your bubbles and then crush them. Game is 100 stages long, and if you run out of lives, even if you have credits, it's back to stage 1! Cruel

 Colony 7 - A very simple classic. You play as a couple of cannons on both ends of the screen and must destroy incoming enemy ships. It looks super simple. You have to protect town below, but be careful, as enemies can kill you if they destroy both cannons!!

 Continental Circus - A behind the back racer...  Your car catches fire if you merely bump another car. Too complicated for my taste, I mean, I don't particularly enjoy racing games, and if it gets to convoluted... next!

 The Electric Yoyo - This one is SO weird. You are a YoYo and must collect pellets one at a time, without touching enemies. You can move in four different directions by one step... although if there's a pellet you automatically throw you string as a hook and move towards it. Can't say I'm a fan.

 Elevator Action - I grew up playing the NES port with my family! Basically, you start a top a building, and must climb your way down using elevators, while entering every red door you come across. Problem is... the building is infested with never ending cops that you must either kill or avoid, as they can use the elevators in the same way you can. As fun as the game is... it hasn't aged very well, the controls are SO clunky, turning around in particular, and if you crouch it's as if you were rooted to the ground. That said, it's still pretty fun.

 Exzisus - A mediocre horizontal shoot'em up in which you play as a girl with a jetpack and a gun. Didn't care bout it.

 Gladiator - Strangely homoerotic? The game constantly scrolls forward and you must aim your shield middle, bottom or top. and move, blocking or defeating small enemies on your way to a gladiator boss. Getting hit means you the armor you were wearing wherever you got hit, so in a way, it's almost as if you are trying to remove the clothes of your opponent before they do so to you! To be fair, there is a female gladiator later on, but it's all about the sausage!

 Great Swordsman - Clunky but fun. You go through Fencing stages, Kendo stages and then you get Roman-esque sword stages. You get with three attacks: low, middle and high. It's point based and you must hit your opponent before they hit you. If swords collide both attacks cancel each other. It's interesting!

 Jungle Hunt - A weird action game that starts with you timing vine jumps, then you swim through crocodiles, can knife them, then you avoid rockslides... It's interesting, but meh. I really liked the whole adventure bit, as you go from simple scenario to simple scenario, but the game as a whole wasn't very interesting. 

 The New Zealand Story - this one is a really cute platformer in which you play as a yellow kiwi and must rescue your family. You start armed with a bow, but can find other weapons such as bombs, and you'll also have to make do with flying gizmos, such as rideable platforms or balloons! This one is pretty good.

 The Ninja Kids - SERVANTS OF THE SATAN!!! This is a very quirky beat'em up. The artistic direction is very weird, but super charming, and the translation, which might be wonky or might be accurate, not sure, adds a ton of flavor to the game. At one point, when I tried to continue Start didn't work? It really annoyed me.

 Operation Thunderbolt - Surprisingly fun military-themed first-person gallery shooter. You are rewarded for shooting CATS and can actually accidentally murder kids! While I can't say I enjoyed the theme, I did enjoy the game.

 Operation Wolf - Basically the game that came before Operation Thunderbolt. it's identical but doesn't look as good, and it's a bit shorter. Once again, it allows you to accidentally kill children!

 Phoenix - Taito's version of Galaxian. You're a ship on the bottom and must destroy waves of alien ships that stay at the top of the screen, eventually comin' down one by one trying to getcha. It was decent.

 Plotting -  A weird puzzle game in which you shoot blocks, with different symbols, horizontally against a tower of blocks. I used to play a bootleg NES version of this one when I was younger! I won't lie, I didn't really understand the game's rules, but I didn't care too much about it.

 Plump Pop - An Arkanoid/Breakout clone with a Twist, instead of a Paddle you play as two animals holding a trampoline, and must bounce a third in order to hit UFOs, balloons or even a giant buda/sheep head that loom above you. The physics were kinda whack, as the bouncing didn't work quite like you'd expect it to, so I didn't enjoy it too much.

 Rainbow Islands - A very weird platforming game in which you must move upwards. You can 'shoot' a rainbow that also doubles as a platform! It's decent, but gets old fast.

 Rastan - A pretty cool 2-D Sidescroller in which you play as a Conan-esque Barbarian and get to collect different weapons. If only it wasn't so hard and you weren't sent back to checkpoints, which can be kinda stingy in their placement, every time you died.

 Return of the Invaders - Proper graphics! That will only make sense if you played the previous Space Invaders games, but what it means is that it doesn't look like an Atari game anymore. In this one there are different enemy types(Such as armored enemies that will counterattack if not shot in the middle), plus, stages have different enemy formations!

 Space Gun - Another first person gallery shooter. This one is all about gunning down aliens. Pretty bloody! You collect special ammo, such as incendiary or explosive!

 Space Invaders - Can add color and background through the options menu, which is a nice touch. An undeniable classic.... It hasn't aged very well, it's very slow, super repetitive and what not... but hey, it's a classic, which makes it a game you must play at least once in your life.

 Space Invaders part 2 - Pretty much identical to part 1. It's more colorful, and it has some slight additions to the enemy variety, but it's not very different.

 Super Qix - I LOVE these kind of games. You play as a cursor that can move around the stage, and you must 'reclaim' the screen by drawing lines inside. If an enemy, that can only move on areas you haven't claimed, touches the line you die. You must recover at least 70% of the screen to win. I like it a lot.

 Thunder Fox - Taito's take on Rush 'n' Attack, it's a load of fun. It's a sidescroller in which you get to knife a near endless amount of soldiers trying to take your life, BUT, you come across guns, flamethrowers as well as vehicles, heck, the second stage you fly a copter! Very exciting, I liked it a lot. At first I thought it was kinda boring, since I don't like RnA very much, but the more I played it, the better it got as it added more and more exciting stuff into the mix.

 Tokio - A vertical shoot'em up. You can collect small ships and change their formation, but if they take a hit you lose them. I kinda hate the 'cloud transitions' because they take about one or two seconds in which you can't do anything and nothing happens. Kinda boring.

 Tube It - Speaking of weird puzzle games, it's like tetris, but pieces that fall are sections of pipes you can rotate. Try to make pipes connect to may a path from one end to the other end of the screen. It's fun, I like it.

 Volfied - A more polished version of Super Qix. I loved it!

 Zoo Keeper - This one is SUPER weird. You run around a SQUARE, and everywhere you step you build a wall that animals are trying to break from the inside. You must keep them trapped for as long as you can. It's more fun than it sounds

 I really enjoyed this game collection. It has a pretty generous amount of games as well as variety, so there's bound to be something you like, as well as games you've never played before and games you have played before. The one big thing is that some of these games might be too hard and too unfair, so I would've liked some sort of built-in cheats or more generous checkpoints. That aside, I thought it was a great collection. 

 7.0

Game #1238: Middle-Earth - Shadow of Mordor Game of the Year Edition

 Assassin's Creed: Middle-Earth. 

 Ah! I remember Shadow of Mordor, I was super hyped about it. I wasn't planning on getting a PS4, but the game would release on PS3 as well. And then the game came out, and... the PS3 version was putrid. There's a ton of footage on Youtube highlighting just how atrocious it was. I was sad. But then I got a PS4, and it was only a matter of time until I tackled Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor - Game of the Year Edition, the final release of the game that included all the DLC.

 The game, in a nutshell, is Assassin's Creed meets Batman Arkham. You are thrown into two medium-sized environment that have towers peppered about. Climbing this towers, and thus, 'activating' them will reveal the collectibles and sidemissions nearby on your map. Rinse and repeat for every tower. Every area has an assortment of collectibles, that reward you with Lore, as well as side missions that grant you XP or money. Bow missions usually involve marksmanship, dagger missions involve stealth and sword missions are all about combat. In other words, it's as Assassin's Creed as it legally can. That said, while Talion, our hero, is as nimble as any Assassin, both environments in the game are mostly made up of ruins, so buildings are relatively sparse and not very high.

 There's also a stealth component, you can hide in bushes, or even use your parkour abilities to drop enemies off of ledges. You can draw enemies towards your hiding spot, in order to kill them, and you can even choose a more violent stealth kill in order to try to scare surrounding enemies away. And don't forget about the mandatory X-Ray/Eagle Vision, so that you can pin-point where enemies lie.

 And then, there's combat proper. While you get a bow, that runs on limited ammo that you can recharge by 'branding' enemies, when it comes to taking things close and personal, it's your sword which you'll be using the most. And it's pretty much a straight up copy from Batman Arkham. Mash the attack button, press X to vault over shielded enemies, triangle to counter enemies or O to daze dual-axe wielding Orcs in order to hurt them. Hitting enemies without getting hit raises the combo counter, when it reaches a certain number you can press different combinations of buttons for different special attacks. It's as close to Batman Arkham as it legally can be. Unlike Batman, however, fights can get rather epic and, admittedly. a bit chaotic, considering the enormous amounts of enemies that can be on-screen at the same time. There's no way this game could've ran on the PS3 this well, no way.

 And despite how much this game borrows from other games, its main claim to fame was actually patented by Warner Bros. which goes to show you how shameless it can be. I'm talking about the Nemesis system. Basically, there's an assortment of randomly generated Orc captains, with their own names, weaknesses and strengths. If you kill them, if they manage to survive, or if they kill you(as you simply respawn at any tower) they will remember it, sometimes, they may grow resistant to however you killed them. So if you landed a headshot with the bow against them, when they come back they might resist Bow strikes. And it's entirely possible to face an Orc captain who is resistant to melee, ranged and stealth, so you'll have to find other ways to defeat them.  It's really cool.

 And even better, they randomly roam the lands, so you might be partaking in a side quest and BAM, enemy orc commander comes here to ruin the day. Or you might be battling an Orc Captain only to be assaulted by another one... or even two more of them. It adds a lot of excitement to the game! There are also specially designated enemies, with a green symbol, roaming the environment, which you can question for information on these captains, so that you know what would enrage them(Making them stronger) or scare them.

 There's also plenty to upgrade. Money is used to upgrade your health, bow slo-mo, amount of arrows and rune slots for your weapons. XP is used to get more abilities, mostly for combat and then there are the runes themselves. Runes are obtained by slaying Orc Captains, and you can slot them into your weapons for all sorts of bonuses. This edition of the game, as it includes all the DLC, includes some rather powerful runes from the get-go, including one that lets you use the most powerful melee ability from the start.

 The graphics are interesting, because while the human characters look a bit mediocre, the orcs are HIDEOUS, in a good way. The story is... it's acceptable. Look, it took some liberties with a few characters, so depending on how much you like Middle Earth you might not enjoy what they did. It's much better when it comes to its own original characters, as I didn't have any expectations out of them. That said... the final boss is a 4-QTE event. That's it.

 The GOTY edition comes bundled with a few costumes, which are alright, but also the three DLC pieces. Trials of War are just combat trials, I didn't care about them. Lord of the Hunt is a 2-3 hour mini campaign focusing on capturing and riding monsters. I didn't care much about it, and since the new creatures don't carryover to the main campaign... it felt incredibly superfluous, plus, I don't like Talion's appearance in this one. The story was boring too. The Bright Lord is more interesting, as it takes place before the main campaign and you play as Talion's Wraith companion before he became a Wraith. The gameplay was a bit dull, but what kept me interested was the story. Overall, it was alright, but I'd say that none of the DLC adds anything of worth, you can do just fine with the main game. When I replay this game I won't be playing the DLC again.

 Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor is a brilliant, brilliant game. It borrows a lot of its elements from other blockbuster games, but they nailed everything, and its own original feature, the Nemesis system, sounds kinda dull, but it does add a lot of flavor to the game. I'd hesitate to call it the best LOTR game ever released, but it's one of the best for sure.

 9.0

Game #1237: Senran Kagura Burst Re-Newal

 World's largest recycle job.

 After criticizing games like Senran Kagura for the longest time, I decided to give it a proper try a few years ago. And it was decent. so, when Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal was announced exclusively for PS4 and PC, no handheld version or anything like that, I wanted to see what they'd do with stronger hardware. Well, they did the cheapest thing possible. Let me put it this way, this is little more than a remix of sorts of Estival VS, one that has very little new, but is missing a ton of content from that game.

 This game is a pseudo remake of Senran Kagura's very first game, the one that released on the Nintendo 3DS, albeit with the gameplay of the PlayStation entries. I'll be 100% honest, I still don't care about SK's plot, so I just skipped every single cutscene. This also means that the game is a bit paired back in the character roster, as there are only 12 girls available. 14 if you purchase the DLC that lets you play as Yumi and Miyabi, y'know, the leaders from the schools added in Estival and Shinovi Vs. But here's the thing... the game pretty much reuses everything from EVS and SVS, so they are charging you for assets they had already made. I think they come with some story bits, at least. That said, buying the rest of the missing girls doesn't add story. So... yeah, the character roster is tiny compared to the previous two games, and they charge you for recycled assets. You can 

 And that's the most egregious part about this game, how shamelessly greedy it is. The game recycles every enemy and every background from Estival and Shinovi VS, the character models from the girls, as well as most of the clothes, come directly from those games. The DLC girls you can purchase? They were default characters in said games. Some of the customizable clothes might be new, but pretty much the only new thing about the game is the text you read, meaning the story, and maybe some cutscenes, oh, and a Final Boss. That's it. They completely outdid Capcom in their lazy and greedy endeavors. Once again, 90% of this game is made up of recycled content, and it's MISSING some of the recycled content which must be purchased. I don't think I've ever seen a more shameless game.

 The game plays pretty similarly to EVS and SVS, except that before any stage you must pick weather to fight in Yin(Clothed) or Yang(Frantic/Underwear) modes, while in the previous games you could enter Yang Mode at any moment. Using either mode will let you earn different perks, as each 'branch' has five different buffs your character can obtain. That's it.

 The customization element is still pretty decent, you can even change the haircut and skin color of every girl, and the combat is decent... at least once the girls are fully levelled up, as otherwise you might tap Triangle after a combo but won't get an attack since you have to learn it by levelling up. The lewd Knock-out cutscenes were removed too.

 Senran Kagura Burst Re:Newal is, honestly, shameless. This could've, nay, should've been released as Estival VS DLC. And if it had to be a stand-alone release, all girls should've been default characters and not DLC, not only as not to scam players, but as not to make it feel like such a scam. It doesn't matter how good the story could be, fact is, getting any of the previous installments on PS4 or Vita is a much better choice.

 2.5

Game #1236: Trüberbrook

 Take a troubled trip to Trüberbrook.

 Well.... Trüberbrook is definitely one of the most gorgeous games out there, as the environments were made by hand, and then digitalized for the game. It's been compared to Wes Anderson's stopmotion movies, and the comparison is appropriate. As for the game itself, it's a point-and-click adventure game, like the Monkey Island games of old, but maybe it stuck too close to its roots...

 The game is about Tannhauser, a guy who wins a stay at a hotel in the small town of Trüberbrook. Except he never took part of a raffle. And thus, stars Tann's adventure. At first the game gave me a few Twin Peaks vibes, with Tannhauser talking to a radio to a mysterious 'Evelyn', but that's as far as the Twin Peaks references go, as there aren't all that many townsfolk you regularly interact with, and they don't feel all that mysterious or interesting.

 The game is built like older Point and Click games, basically, collect items and then try them out on stuff to progress. It's a bit more streamlined in that you can't select items from your inventory, but rather, when you interact with stuff you get an action wheel with four choices: Collect, Talk, Examine or a Cog, and if the Cog can be selected then it means you have the right item, or one of the right items, to use. Not every action is available on every interactive element, be it a person on an object, which does cut down on trial and error... as well as possibly funny 'Can't do that' results. Puzzles and item interaction are just as nonsensical as the worst in the genre, for good or bad.

 In my opinion, even though the game feels smaller and more streamlined that classic games in the genre, in a way, it felt more convoluted and aimless that I would've liked. Sometimes the puzzle is finding out who to speak with AGAIN after you picked up something new. So chapters 1 and 4 sometimes dragged a lot since I should speak with someone I already talked with. And maybe I'm being unfair, maybe older games sometimes felt just as aimless... but in that case, I don't feel like this is something that aged well. Or maybe it's how nonsensical and convoluted doing certain tasks can be. It also doesn't help that the narrative and the dialogue simply... isn't very entertaining. The game does introduce a few quirky characters, but... they simply didn't do it for me.

 That said, there's a single puzzle that takes the cake for bad game design. In chapter 4 you are given a long string of numbers. You'd better write it down, or take a screenshot as we did, because if you didn't... you won't be able to type them down by memory. Got it? Now you have to find the NPC to give the numbers to... which was bafflingly turned into a four-option five or four question affair. That's right, you are forced to give out the number through 4 or 5 different inputs. So if you accidentally pick the wrong set of numbers... you have to do it all over again. But it gets better. One part of the number is smudged, so you have to try three different choices(As the fourth one obviously can't be the right number, since the numbers don't fit the string). So, worst case scenario, assuming you don't accidentally pick the wrong number, you'll have to try all three choices, wasting your time just because. If it's meant to be some kind of ironic joke on these games... then it doesn't land.

 Can't say I thought Truberbrook was a good game. It's beautiful, that's for sure, but neither plot nor gameplay lived up to its gorgeous aesthetics. 

 4.0

Game #1235: Shadow Warrior

  Have a dose of some Lo-brow humor.

 Back when I was younger there was this Duke Nukem clone I used to play a lot, the original Shadow Warrior. Y'see, back in the day I wasn't very fond of the Duke, but I loved Shadow Warriors due to the Ninjas, Katanas and Shuriken. It was a game after my very own heart. I don't remember if I was excited about this remake or not, but I think I wasn't as this Lo Wang looked nothing like my Lo Wang, but I still decided to give it a try.

 This new entry is a First Person Shooter that feels very retro in all the right ways. There's no regenerating health(Kinda...) and you carry your entire weapon inventory with you, instead of being limited to a paltry 2 guns. Stages have all sorts of hidden secrets that reward player with XP or Gold, valuable currencies you can spend on upgrades. It's also pretty lengthy, the game is 17 chapters long, and chapter should take someone anywhere between 30 minutes to an hour. At least in my case, as I tried being very thorough as I went off the way to search for goodies.

 You get a very tried and true assortment of weapons: A gun, a UZI, a Shotgun, a Flamethrower and a Rocket Launcher... but you also get a few more unique things you might remember from the original Shadow Warrior, your trusty Katana, a decapitated enemy head and even a demon's heart, which you can squeeze to instantly kill lesser demons close to you. The game is incredibly gory, and you can dismember enemies, which feels very satisfying. Using the Katana was a blast, as slicing demons felt very satisfying.

 Money you find can be used to upgrade your weaponry, which includes an alternate function for every weapon. The Crossbow can shoot grenades, the Uzi can be dual wielded, the Shotgun can shoot all four bullets at once, etc. Even better, the weapon models change as you upgrade them. Defeating enemies using different guns and what not adds Karma modifiers, which can then be used to get passive benefits, such as more stamina, more health, more Katana abilities, finding more money, etc.

 Oh, yeah, Katana abilities. There are three of them, which can be used by double tapping left/right, up, or back and then holding down the attack button or by moving your finger through the touchpad and holding down R2. Honestly... It's not very useful. Either input method feels finicky, the double-tapping method might make you trigger unwanted animations when you move and slice through enemy waves, while the touchpad sometimes doesn't register the input you were going for. This holds true for the powers you can acquire.

 On most levels you'll find crystals that can be spent to learn and upgrade four different abilities, they work just like Katana abilities, but there's a different one for the Right and Left inputs, and you hold down L2 instead of R2. Much like Katana abilities, these don't run on any gauge so you can use them indefinitely. You can Heal(Up to 60% of your health), create a Shield, trap enemies on a water trap or use a shockwave to knock'em backwards. And JUST like the Katana abilities, they are a fun idea, but the controls are less than ideal.

 To cap things off, there's a very cool Survival mode, in which you attempt to survive enemy waves. As you kill enemies you earn XP and money so that you can upgrade your guns and abilities for the run. It was pretty fun.

 The game's plot is... curious. It has some serious moments sprinkled here and there, but there's also a ton of very immature, vulgar and cringy humor, true to the original! The game's humor is definitely not for everyone. Although I'll admit I chuckled a few times, but overall, I didn't enjoy it too much.

 One thing I didn't like was fall damage, as sometimes it's rather finicky. I sprinted two or three times over stairs or steps, and for whatever reason, the fall killed me. Even though I was at full health. It felt like a bug, as I'm sure that if I had jump those very same steps I would've only lost some health. In any case, I'm not a fan of fall damage, and in this game it felt a bit buggy.

 Shadow Warrior was a fantastic throwback to older FPS under a modern coat of skin. I think the game might be a bit too long for its own good, since as fun as the game is eventually it starts running out of steam by the time you reach chapter 14 or so. That said, it's a fun time, now I'm interested in playing the sequels!

 7.5