Doom 2016

Doom 2016 was a disappointment, at least for me.  I know it was praised as a return to roots for the franchise and a return to form for the FPS-genre, but I can’t help but disagree on both accounts.  Doom 2016 isn’t a return to its roots, it’s just as much a far cry from classic Doom as Doom 3 was.  Doom 2016 certainly isn’t a return to form for the genre.  The FPS-genre had gotten along just fine before Doom 2016 came around and enjoyed its fair share of run-n-gun shoot ‘em ups, both with and without some modern conventions.  Even BioShock: Infinite, was doing the kickass triple-A take on arena combat and did so with a lot more style and substance and with an even greater emphasis on momentum.  If you’re still with me and you aren’t lighting your torches and sharpening your pitchforks, let’s really get into exactly why I think Doom 2016 just isn’t the second coming.

Persona 3 - Female Protagonist

Generally, I wouldn’t think a second, gender-swapped, playthrough of a game would merit another review, but P3P just happens to be an exception.  For the most part, games that allow the player to pick between a male and a female don’t really offer a different experience.  Your pronouns are changed, the VA is different and you can bunk with the dudes if the game has a romance option.  These things aside, the core experience, character interactions and story remains the same.  As if to say “screw your traditions” P3P goes the extra mile by completely changing many relationships, offering whole new ones and giving the female protagonist an altogether different feel than what you get in the original.

Persona 3 (Kinda Sorta Mildly Spoiler-y) Review

Well, I take back my original comments on “Persona 4” wherein I state it’s the greatest thing I’ve ever played.  Back then, I didn’t know, I just didn’t know at all how much better its predecessor was on almost every level.  That’s not to take away from “Persona 4” at all, the game is superb and I immensely enjoyed my time with it and plan to return to Inaba for some more shenanigans in the near future.  Still though, aside from some technical aspects, better dungeons and more refined Social Links, “Persona 4” comes nowhere close to touching “Persona 3”, not from a narrative and thematic perspective, nor does it come close in terms of challenge.

The 3rd Birthday - a rant

To start this off, I have a love/hate relationship with this game.  On the one hand, it’s a fun, kinetic and challenging little action/RPG hybrid.  Even on the normal difficulty, the game is extremely unforgiving with a decent learning curve, leading to a frustrating, but rewarding experience.  Top off the sleek action and presentation with a relatively deep customization system and you’ve got one hell of a game on your hands.  I’ve played through it about four times now and still, the game is as cathartic and interesting as when I first booted it up.  On the other hand though, this game is a complete fucking asshole and practically goes out of its way to ruin the legacy of a character and franchise I cared very much about.

Corpse Party: Blood Drive (wherein I rant, a lot)

Well, this is the final chapter in what has been dubbed the Heavenly Host Saga and, well, it was kind of a disappointment.  Now I’m not saying the game was bad, not by a long shot, but compared to its predecessors, especially the original PSP remake that started the trilogy, it’s rather lackluster.  From gameplay issues to story and character problems, Corpse Party: Blood Drive, while occasionally very inspired, often feels less like a chapter in the Corpse Party storyline and more like an episode of this year’s most popular teenage aimed anime.

Child of Light

This was a very pleasant surprise and, all around, one of the most welcome and refreshing little experiences I’ve had in a game.  I decided to pick this up for a friend, to see whether or not the game was worth having.  What essentially started as playing guinea pig, quickly turned into a very enjoyable journey that I’m glad I was talked into taking, as I probably would not have taken it otherwise.

Ubisoft hasn’t had the best rap as of late, with good reason.  From the controversies surrounding Watch Dogs with its exclusive limited editions and the issues with Assassin’s Creed: Unity.  Ubisoft have been proving themselves to be up there with the likes of Gearbox when it comes to screwing over consumers and releasing products that, in no way, reflect what they show off during conventions.  While their controversies may not be as abhorrent as the Colonial Marines debacle, they’re still quoting from the same book, so I wouldn’t say mildly less lies gives them much of a pass.

Parasite Eve

God it was good to get back to Parasite Eve, which still stands as pretty much my favorite Square-JRPG.  It’d been quite a while since I last booted the game up and successfully completing it, so the overall impact from this go through was almost like a second first time and my was it absolutely glorious.  Square, and honestly several RPG centric developers, would do themselves well to learn from Parasite Eve.