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A short, charming game, albeit not a simple one- but the complexity of it's gameplay isn't archaic or frustrating, as the developers have taken great pains to make each new mechanic feel intuitive within the little sandboxes the game presents to you. Worth it for the soundtrack alone.

This game is Resident Evil 4 with more cheesy stuff, more over the top action, and co-op. If you're a die-hard fan that thinks Resident Evil died at RE4, you're not gonna have a good time with this game. But if you can appreciate the campy straight-to-DVD flair of RE4 and enjoyed the flow and the combat of that title, you'll have a pretty good time.

Please do note that this game comes with the now-defunct Games For Windows Live. In the Steam Discussions section for this game, there is a guide that will help you circumvent this. It's an annoyance, but ultimately, the process is painless, taking under five minutes. There is also a mod that I'd highly recommend that allows you to increase your FOV, remove the brown visual filter (from 2005-2015, color filters were all the rage then for whatever reason) and so on that I would also highly recommend you play with. The game actually looks much younger than it actually is when played in that way.

One thing to note- this game is much more challenging than RE4's Professional difficulty. Enemies are much faster on their feet, much more agile, and nearly 3/4 of the way through, you will even encounter quite a few enemies with honest to goodness AK-47s. For that reason, playing with a friend is recommended, as Sheva's AI, while competent... Isn't the best.

All in all, a great game, if the absurdity of the narrative and the utter departure from it's survival horror roots doesn't turn you off.

Spec Ops: The Line is a narrative driven cover based third person shooter inspired by a classic film called Apocalypse Now, which in turn was inspired by the novel "Heart of Darkness". If you've seen the movie or read the book, then you somewhat know what to expect, but I still recommend you play this whether you've seen the game's inspiration or not- it not merely a rote retelling of either plot.

Cons-

-Some of the cutscenes are videos rather than being in-engine, and I don't understand why developers do this. I've almost never seen a video cutscene that didn't look like complete dogcrap, and this game is no exception, which is a shame, considering that the in-engine cutscenes, as well as the game itself, still holds up quite admirably in terms of visuals.
-The combat in this game is competently put together, but there's not much to it. It is very standard, so if you're looking for a game you'll be replaying over and over for the combat loop, I'm sorry, but this ain't it chief. It's not bad, and capping someone in the head or blowing them away with an AA-12 is satisfying as all hell, but it's nothing you haven't seen before.
-This game is very short- I completed this game from start to finish in about four and a half hours on standard difficulty. You're looking at maybe... Six hours or so if you decide to crank the difficulty up some. Maybe even eight if you scour the game for every collectible as well.
-The multiplayer component is dead, which may be a mercy, considering it was never all that good even when you could find a match.
-The pricetag is ludicrous for a game that's this short and this old. I didn't buy it for thirty bucks, I bought it for six on sale, and that's the pricetag I recommend for you, as well. Maybe ten bucks max.

You might be thinking to yourself, "Good grief, that's rough. Why are you recommending this game?"

The story and the art direction in this game carries everything. In-engine cutscenes still look phenomenal- the use of color and lighting, the texture fidelity, voice acting, it's all great. Some facial animations and models look a bit rough but quite frankly for a game this old marketed mainly to console players, it's to be expected, and the visuals hold up well enough that it's more of a nitpick. The story, which I am desperately trying not to spoil, is great, with a fair few choices to be made that might change things later on down the line, but a lot of them are really meant to impact you, the Player, rather than the progression of the plot itself. A lot of people really overhype this game as being the most dark, morally complex and emotionally challenging game EVAR, and honestly, they're blowing smoke up your behind.

No, this game isn't the second coming of Christ, but it absolutely does deliver a solid experience for the player from start to finish, which is ultimately this game's saving grace. Without it's narrative, all you'd have left is a dead multiplayer component plagued with technical issues, some decent presentation, and some stock-standard third person shooting. Instead of being an 8/10, you'd be looking at a 3/10, and I wouldn't be recommending this game to you now- hell, I wouldn't have gone through the fuss of purchasing it again, having already played it via "alternative distributors" way back in the day.

With all that being said, I absolutely recommend Spec Ops: The Line... On sale. That's an order, soldier.

I played this game long ago, having "acquired" it by alternative means, and remembered loving it. I picked it up again now that I had the money to, and played it, still loving it.

Cons-
-Despite this being a Crytek game, a lot of assets and textures show their age, super duper closeups in particular.
-The camera movements feel slightly weird, but nothing one can't get the hold of.
-The voice detection is poor, and is honestly not worth trying. Putting on my best worst Japanese accent only made a 5% success rate increase to 35%, which, in the middle of a battle with bucketloads of gun-wielding robots, is less than ideal. So, stop worrying and learn to love pressing TAB.
-Some throwaway lines are triggered when various contextual events happen mid combat. When it's you getting downed, it's whatever, but sometimes, you'll hear a lot of things being repeated that really, really don't need to be repeated. A minor quibble, common to many games of this era, and doesn't happen enough to really deflate the mood.
-The AI of your teammates is smart enough, but occasionally they'll do some really, really dumb stuff.

Pros-
-The story, while it's not some grand galaxy hopping saga like Mass Effect, is an absolute joy from start to finish. Like every cheesy action movie you ever loved, but now you're the one kicking robot butt. They absolutely nailed it, and it's a shame the game never got more recognition in spite of this.
-Enemy destruction looks incredible, and is immensely satisfying to see. This is the closest any modern game has come to having good enemy destruction. I would have preferred human targets in a first person shooter, but beggars can't be choosers, I suppose.
-Progression of both the story and your power is done very well. Their equipment has to be managed just as much as yours does, and you have a reputation system with them, so don't neglect anything- your nanomachines especially, unless you're up for a major challenge in the later levels.

All in all, this game is a joy, start to finish, with very few, very minor issues. It's a crying shame this game didn't get the recognition it deserved on launch, and is absolutely worth the fifteen dollar pricetag. And if you find it on sale, even better.

As a final note, I haven't tried the multiplayer, and I don't intend to, to be quite honest I'd be shocked if it was still available.

Daymare: 1998 styles itself as a throwback to the survival horror games- specifically the Resident Evil games- of old. Now, I know most people aren't weirdos like me that are constantly monitoring the modding/freeware/fanmake scene, so I wouldn't take offense if you didn't know that this project actually started as a fan made recreation of Resident Evil 2, dubbed "Resident Evil 2: Reborn". This project was DMCA'd by Capcom, but they were good sports about it, flying the devs in to their Osaka branch to have a talk with RE developers, trade ideas, and they even got to see what would become RE7 and the remake of 2, and so on. Mind you, this was all before Capcom had even announced REmake 2, so the people complaining that this is just a rip off of that idea are not only wrong, they might even have it backwards. So this little group of fans with a vision created their own legit game studio, tweaked some things, created a new story with the assets they had already made, and this is what we ended up with.

Getting to the point: did Invader Studios succeed at recapturing what made Resident Evil what it was? I can say, without a doubt: Yes! For better... AND for worse. "What could this handsome, long winded ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ possibly mean by that?!" You might be asking yourself... Allow me to explain.

You see, this game was meant as a homage to the CLASSIC RE titles. And what are they known for? Yes, yes, they're survival horror masterpieces, the pioneers and pinnacles of the burgeoning genre back in the day and all that happy stuff. What else are they known for? Slow pacing. Clunky combat. Obtuse puzzles. Dialogue constantly oscillating between hilarious and cringe-worthy, often being both at the same time. An emphasis on clever resource management, doing your best NOT to waste every precious bullet on every single zombie you come across, instead running past most engagements, when it can be helped. They also had pretty great soundtracks, satisfying, meaty headshots, and certain tough enemies/bosses that, for a first time playthrough, were tense and often frustrating encounters, bordering on tedious, even, until you figured out the trick to defeating them.

This game has ALL of that. This game, without a shadow of a doubt, IS Resident Evil, for better, AND for worse. Which makes it all the more.... Shall we say, "interesting" that many players, especially video game reviewers both within the mainline industry and independent reviewers living off Youtube ad revenue and Patreon donations who claim to have not only played classic RE titles but adore them, suddenly find this game at fault for what they wrote off in classic RE as the "charming quirks" of a bygone era in video games as a medium.

I would just leave it at that, but this game unfortunately does suffer from some small issues of it's own. The faces of playable characters look like they were ripped straight out of those CGI pre-rendered cutscenes from RE2 from back in the day, which would actually have been charming if only the whole game had that look, instead it's just jarring to see these awkward faces compared how awesome the zombies and environments look. Video cutscenes appear to run at (30?) FPS, which, while not damning, is certainly jarring as well. Hit registration for melee attacks is substandard, where sometimes you'll get right up a Z's behind, initiate a melee attack, and somehow whiff straight through them! Considering that this manoeuvre is the bread and butter of the minor encounters which will make up the majority of the combat in the game, this particular annoyance is by far the most glaring issue, even if it doesn't occur so often as to make the game unplayable. Zombies also have an annoying quirk where they'll get up after being knocked down, and they're invulnerable to melee hits until they get up. Which would be fine if they didn't immediately latch onto you despite somehow being faced in the opposite direction. I must remind you, again, that this is an indie game made by fans, so some jank, quite frankly, comes with the territory. I'm more shocked that it's not any MORE janky than this.

As for the plot itself, I'm surprised at how well written it actually is, standing in stark contrast to the... Shall we say, "unique" dialogue, with each of the individual threads ultimately weaving together into a fine tapestry, indeed. One thing I don't care for is that a good chunk of the story is actually squirreled away behind real life internet links that will take you to a website stylized as being the Evil Corporation's super secret data servers. It's a neat gimmick, but...

A: What happens when the devs can no longer pay to keep the website up?

and

B: In my opinion, having to leave the game to read lore about the game kind of kills the immersion that this game otherwise nails with flying colors. There are computer terminals scattered throughout the game: why not simply allow the player to input the address and look at the data there, in the game itself? Strikes me as a missed opportunity.

There's more content besides the main campaign, such as a Mercenaries-style mode where you're tasked with completing various objectives, but I haven't played it much- and besides, this review is far too long already.

In short, does Daymare: 1998 succeed in it's vision of paying tribute to classic Survival Horror? It absolutely does. Is it a good game that's worth your hard earned cash? Only if you're already like hardcore, old school Survival Horror. My minor gripes with the game's ACTUAL shortcomings aside, I had a blast with this game from start to finish, and I recommend you check it out at whatever price point suits you. The soundtrack is absolutely killer too, so if that's your thing, definitely pick that up as well.

Sleeping Dogs is a third person action game with a heavy emphasis on melee combat and occasional gunplay where you take on the role of Wei Shen, an undercover cop tasked with infiltrating and dismantling the Sun On Yee Triad of Hong Kong. New mysteries arise with every discovery, new risks reveal themselves just as the old ones are dealt with, and all the hilarity of some of the game's more lighthearted content will be followed by tragedy. You absolutely can play this game on a keyboard and mouse setup, but you absolutely should NOT. Please don't do it to yourself. PC Controllers aren't that expensive. Apart from that, I really don't wanna say too much about this game except that it is excellent and you should absolutely play it the first chance you get.

DX:HR is a pretty great and competently put together game. The only "cons" I can think of are really just nitpicks or things that can't be helped. Starting with the cons:

-Music, while mostly good, is nothing to write home about. They've certainly opted for a more "ambient" score, to set the mood for various situations and encounters, and while it does pick up at times, it's nothing that will make your jaw drop.

-Graphically, the game looks fine, but models and textures certainly show their age.

-The story, while interesting in and of itself, rarely leaves you pondering the morality of your decisions, let alone the philosophical/ethical issues surrounding the concept of transhumanism. The broader themes and ideas of the setting instead take a backseat to a more personal story, which would be fine, except...

-Choices... Aren't really. By this, I mean that as per usual with every RPG that decides to take "inspiration" from Bioware's tried and tested formula, they also tend to inherit the worst of their problems- namely, "dialogue options" that consistently offer almost no tangible reward for taking any other route other than the most virtuous one possible. Like, technically I have options, but realistically, if my options are "piss off NPC and get nothing, possibly locking me out of further content/getting another character killed/failing a quest" or "spec into pheromone tracker to deduce their exact temperament, and then use that information to figure out the best possible strategy for manipulating them into giving me precisely what I want, plus the game will give me XP rewards for being such a "smooth talker", you bet your ass most people are going to go for the latter option.

DX:HR is at it's best in those brief moments when you don't even realize you're making a choice. For instance, there's a brief but very intense encounter in the midgame (which I will do my best not to spoil too much) where you and a friendly NPC are pinned down with droves of enemies rapidly encroaching on your position. Where in any other game where this would be a scripted encounter, killing you if you hung back, you actually DO have a choice between leaving your comrade to their fate, or, despite the odds, annihilating your attackers and thus preserving their life. On my first playthrough, I actually opted to run away, not because I wanted to, but because I didn't even realize I had that choice. It's a shame more of the game isn't like that.

Combat suffers the same fate as dialogue- while serviceable enough, your weapons start out so artificially crappy, and your character so ridiculously inept with them despite him supposedly being ex-SWAT, that there's no reason NOT to go for the stealth exploration approach. Your rewards for doing so in terms of XP bonuses are greater, and if you're paying attention, you'll frequently stumble upon even great material bonuses such as healing items, PDAs, ammo, occasionally weapons, and so on. This is made slightly less tiresome by occasional scripted encounters, where, because plot, your otherwise perfect attempt at infiltration has been discovered, and a squad of enemies are sent to investigate. Now, credit where credit is due, you CAN beat the game without killing a single person (with the exception of bosses) but at that point, most normal players will just whip out their weapons, having finally been given the proper pretense to use them in the first place. It's like Skyrim in a sense- you CAN go loud in every encounter and just wreck everyone's ♥♥♥♥ once you've specced into the proper augmentations to do so, but the game's structure most heavily incentivizes the "stealth archer" approach- or in this game's case, the "stealth hacker with a suppressed, laser-equipped 10mm pistol shooting AP bullets" approach. That pistol is your workhorse, and can, when fully upgraded, easily annihilate anything unlucky enough to get in your sights.

-It's been complained about before, but... The piss filter. By that, I mean the yellow color filter overlaid over the game. I get that there was an particular color palette and artstyle they were going for, but it doesn't do anything for me. Sure, there are some really neat setpiece areas in this game, and the choice doesn't necessarily detract from those, but it also doesn't do anything for them, either.

-This game, like a lot of "open" RPG games, has some really crappy canned character animations during dialogue reminiscent of PS1 era resident evil dialogue animations. I understand why it is the way it is in this game as well as it's contemporaries, as individually animating the faces and exact body language of so many NPCs would be intensely cost/time consuming, but it's still noticeable, and their jarring, unnatural transitions from one animation cycle to the next are in stark, stark contrast to the general quality of their voiced performances.

-The way they handled the final choice in the game was... Ill-advised, to say the least. Buyer beware: if you weren't a fan of Mass Effect 3 for the way it handled it's own ending, this one might give you flashbacks.

As for the pros-

From level to level and even hub to hub, there's a lot to see, a lot to explore, and a lot to do. The choices you make, not just in dialogue but in terms of outfitting your character's augmentations and equipment will sometimes radically alter the way in which you approach each areas's objectives and explore the world around you. There are a lot of secondary and tertiary exploration paths which I only discovered even existed on my second playthrough.

-Voice acting is mostly performed excellently.

-The story, while nothing grand and epic in and of itself, is certainly interesting enough to keep you engaged and make you seriously consider the choices you make, at least on a first playthrough.

-The gameplay is enjoyable whether in stealth or in combat, though it's best played by mixing both at your own discretion.

-The levels are large and frequently reward exploration, and enemies can be tackled or avoided in multiple ways.

-Characters themselves are interesting, and the dynamic of your conversations with them is usually impacted by your character's relationships to them- you wouldn't talk to your boss the same way you would your friend.

-Plenty of interesting side objectives that usually feel relevant, or at least important in their own way, instead of feeling like generic tacked-on fetch quests.

All in all, the experience isn't groundbreaking or incredible, but it's not mediocre or lackluster either. It is solid, it is good, nothing more, nothing less. On console as well as PC, I've easily played this game for over 120 hours total, despite the campaign taking only half that time, even with the DLC grafted into the main campaign 3/4 of the way through. It's a damn shame that, due to Square Enix being the EA of the Orient, this is bound to be the second to last title we might see out of this series for a long, long time.

This game is an edgy black and white Postal clone with environmental destruction. That's all the game ever claimed to be, and it delivers. It also has Steam Workshop support, which is great!

This game's challenge ranges from "slightly challenging" to "CBT" if you play it on any difficulty setting above the aptly named "Game Journalist" difficulty setting.

Isometric twin stick shooters tend to be very forgiving, but this game is certainly not. You have to be as sparing as you possibly can with your ammo, and more often than not it's better to run away from large scale confrontations (if at all possible) or try to funnel your enemies into killboxes rather than simply hose them all down. It's almost akin to a survival horror title, except this time YOU are the "monster" lurking in the shadows, indiscriminately destroying everything and everyone unlucky enough to cross your path, or foolish enough to try to stop you. Your respawns are limited, and you gain more as you complete the various objectives in each level.

This game was at the centre of a lot of "controversy" upon release, but I hardly understand why. This game does not attempt in any way to endorse or celebrate the acts it depicts, and it's hardly even grounded in reality. The tone they went with isn't "found footage of (insert mass shooting here)", but rather, that of a dark joke- offensive to those of more delicate sensibilities, and entertaining to those who are mature enough to understand that it's not to be taken seriously.

As a whole package, the game is okay. Apart from generally poor performance, anyone with a decent last gen rig or a current gen rig with decent specs should be able to run it with no problems. It won't blow your mind with some deep, multilayered narrative, it won't hook you with some complex, multifaceted combat system. It's score gets the job done. And it's theme is mostly played for laughs, so unless you're one of those increasingly rare individuals who cringes at the sight of even fake violence (or maybe I'm just desensitized?) there's nothing in the vanilla game that's even going to shock you all that much.

I'm not usually one for number ratings, but you're looking at about a 6.5 to maybe 7 out of ten, but your mileage may vary. If you're on the fence, buy the game, play the first level or until you get to a little under two hours of game time, and if you can't vibe with it, refund it, because nothing major about the game really changes apart from the challenge your enemies present, and the layout of the levels.

Given that there's no option for a "Mixed" feeling on a game, I'll simply recommend it for now.

Well, I've finally pulled through and managed to complete all the content available (except multiplayer). So. What are my thoughts?

My first impressions were a wave of red flags- this is a game that's changed hands more than the money in your wallet, running on the notoriously finnicky Crytek engine- an engine that seems to be the town bicycle as far as AA dev teams with big ambitions go. This game had just as notorious of a launch, being broken and nearly unplayable on release.

But I didn't play THAT game.

I waited for the post-launch support to kick in, I waited for the bugs and glitches and other stuff to be ironed out, and I bought this game and it's expansions for a cool six bucks when the whole thing finally went on sale a few years later.

This game is... Goodness gracious, where to start? It's a mess. An awesome mess! But a mess, nonetheless. It looks great. Runs mostly okay on my aging, hand me down, last gen tower. Music's good, voices are mostly great. What this game really nails is it's atmosphere. From ruined city blocks to the (temporarily) more peaceful occupied zones, the light of signal flares reflected off scratched, rain-soaked gunmetal, the toxic brown-yellow haze of a city blanketed in poison gas... Contrary to popular belief, there are a LOT of crappy looking asset flipped games using the Crytek engine, and this is NOT one of them by any stretch. And it's this unique conceptual flair that shines through the greatest, from the environments, to enemies and their vehicles and armor, to your own hastily-crafted, jury rigged firearms.

The game starts off really really strong, but towards the middle of the game, it kind of drags on, and by the end, you're just walking through halls of cliches and content that, to be quite frank, didn't need to be in the game. You can see in the mission structures when funding ran out and deadlines were approaching. For instance, about three quarters through the game, you're tasked with completing your objectives with the aid of a hacked Goliath, an autonomous heavy vehicle firing explosive rounds that'll rip anything they hit apart. Only problem? The damn thing can't navigate the city you're meant to be doing these objectives in, with it's half-baked pathfinding compelling it to try to drive over obstacles that are impassable. After you destroy two of the five objectives, the Goliath goes back to base, since it's "turret is malfunctioning". And to this, I said... "Haha, yeaaaaah. Riiiight".

Overall, the main campaign is great-ish, despite the flaws. The DLC are way more of a mixed bag, being short, linear, and mostly narrative driven. I completed all of them after I beat the main campaign in... Three or so hours, give or take. They attempt, and mostly succeed in, trying to fill in the plot's holes and tie up loose ends leftover from the main campaign.

I recommend this game with the caveat that you purchase it at a steep discount. We're talking a ten or fifteen dollar max with the campaign DLCs included. This game has a lot of charm, and a lot of character. If you can get immersed in it's atmosphere, you'll get what you paid for. But if you need all your games to be super polished, avoid this game like the clap.

Funny story: the only truly "severe" bug I encountered was in the first DLC, "The Voice of Freedom". The game crashed, softlocking my computer and forcing me to hard restart my computer. Imagine my surprise when I login, and my installation of Windows had temporarily been activated?! I ♥♥♥♥ you not! I'm more annoyed that it didn't stick, rather than that error in and of itself, to be quite honest. But as far as technical problems may go, your mileage may vary.

It delivers.