30) InFamous: First Light(PS4, 6/10-6/11, 6/13)
I first played InFamous: Second Son right around June 2016 so a year removed from the main frontline game, I dipped into it's following DLC which stars one of the side characters from the main game, Abigail Fetch Walker and I happen to find her even going back to Second Son as the better character of the two "protagonists". Just a better backstory altogether and while she is stuck with one power, her power was always the best of the 4 major powers you acquire through the game(The neon ability).
I think what was well done by this game is it is much more condensed and it doesn't feel like you are truly going out of your way for side things in this game. I didn't finish up the arena battles nor saving hostages granted but I did everything else from graffiti to collecting these neon bugs in these very fun races or these glowing powerups in high elevations. The side content I felt was simply better as opposed to Second Son, I felt like it really stressed the use of your powers whether it be in speed or jumping to acquire powerups. The main story is rather short so you would do yourself well to divulge into the side content because if I recall, there were maybe 10 or so main mission quests throughout the game.
However, less is more is not necessarily a bad thing per say because I think had this game gone any longer, it would have easily have dragged it's feet and honestly....wore out it's welcome. You don't really get to pick a side as you are simply forced into one main arc of Fetch, which can be good or bad given this series is about either being good....or bad. There is no final boss battle in this game at the end which is a shame so you don't really feel satisfied in giving the major antagonist of the game what was coming but outside of that, I think this game does well as a standalone DLC.
Recommended: Yay or Nay?
I actually liked InFamous Second Son when I first sunk my teeth into the game last year so you are now given a game with far less content but doesn't necessarily drag itself and are given a cool protagonist with the best skillset in the original game and are given fun side missions too? Count me in. If you liked at all Second Son, this is a no brainer. Even if you didn't, if you can get it on the cheap, still would say go for it.
31) Shadows of the Damned(XB1 6/14-6/21)
Going to be upfront about this, I expected a bit more out of this game with Shinji Mikami and Suda 51 together in this game and with GAF's high praise of this game, I felt a little underwhelmed when it was all said and done. That's not to say this is a bad game per say but more so that when the game was finished, I thought there were simply too many frustrating moments and so many correctable mistakes that were placed on this game that ruined this from being a great experience.
What the game does good is the different amount of variety of gameplay it gives you. It gives you the standard third person RE4 experience even though it does feel tankish and sluggish when in combat against numerous enemies in a room where you're literately rolling blindly around to avoid getting hit. There are 3 weapons you get in your arsenal to use, a pistol, shotgun and semi machine gun and you will be using all 3 because ammo(At least at the Legion Hunter/Hard mode I played on) is SCARCE which is a problem I will get to later on which allows for different variety of ways to go about killing off a hoard of demons. There are numerous puzzles this game throws at you, usually it pertains to needing to shine the light in the darkness, as darkness=bad in this game. Darkness will eat at your life and you really have to go out of your way to find the light because after an initial bar that doesn't eat away at your HP, your HP will dwindle and dwindle fast if you aren't drinking any alcohol/liquor(Yes that's how you get HP in this game) so there's a certain thrill that this gives you that you have to survive and solve the rather easy puzzles.
But this third person experience isn't all this game offers.....this game has you do side scrolling in a Gradius style of gameplay for a few segments which I thought was rather fun though easy to die in due to getting caught in a bad predicament that will essentially one shot you. This game has you protect the fort essentially in a fight against giant titan like demons that can one shot you if they get close enough and grab you. This game has an (Albeit annoying, IMO) chase scenes from someone who can one shot you if they touch you as you're running around senselessly trying to kill enemies or escape harm's way to progress. In essence there's tons to enjoy with this game and the best choice that could have been done is to not be one dimensional and stick too much with the third person perspective for all of the game.
The story in typical SUDA 51 fashion is balls off the wall crazy though there's something inside of the story though I wish the ending would have been better as I thought more so this game was a psychological action game and the ending without getting too much into spoilers was a letdown after hours upon hours of the game really diving into the temptation of your lover only to see it not essentially matter in the grand scheme of things. I'll be frank, there is humor and scenes in this game that not everyone will like. A lot of potty humor, a lot of sexual innuendos, that type of spill.....what you expect out of Suda 51 so if you don't like that, this may be a tough sell to spend 10+ hours playing this when it's chock full of this.
Three negatives about this game that I would like to discuss are the cameras at times can get frustrating especially in fights with enemies where I am again blind rolling to avoid harm's way regardless of what I am rolling myself into. The game offers up a very stiff turnaround mechanic to allow you to catch people in your 180 degree line of sight but it doesn't feel right per say and I find myself turning my character after countless rolling attempts to get the right vision. Another is the ammo or lack there of. There were 1-2 situations that I had to restart AN ENTIRE CHAPTER OVER(The checkpoints are great but you either have to restart from a saved checkpoint AKA right before this scene or restart the entire act again....) because I was not only out of ammo but for some in explicit reason, there was no ammo refills when the game was usually decent enough on that(There are usually a box refill that respawns every 10 seconds). You are able to buy ammo from a merchant but the merchant appears per say maybe 5 or 6 times throughout the game and for me at least, it's never when I want/need him the most. You have to solely rely on either lucky drops from enemies or picking up spare ammo lying on the ground and I found myself being always low on ammo, especially on bullet sponge bosses which will be discussed momentarily and having to waste 2-3 minutes alone restocking my ammo by essentially running around the arena without fighting the boss and dodging it's attacks.
But by far the biggest negative and drawback I can say are that the boss fights were a massive letdown and part of the reason is the lack of health bar which is something a future SUDA 51 game did in Lollipop Chainsaw that I played last month. You honestly have not a clue when a boss is going to die or when to hit it and this was especially the case for the second to last boss of the game which is easily the worst boss that I played in any game for 2017 due to the amount of damage it takes. The boss is repetitious, it does crazy damage on hard mode and I died one time because it unsuspectingly despite the boss dying had body parts flying around that killed me because I put the controller down after literately 15-20 minutes of a boss fight that the gimmick is you need to have light up after enough damage to put a explosive round(Which is very inconsistent of when it pops up on an enemy) only to die from flying body parts and needing to start all over. Unnecessary in the game and that's the real memo with the boss fights, just unnecessary portions of these boss fights that drag on and on and on. When it was all said and done, the boss nearly took an hour and that's because it used patterns that dragged the fight on in all honesty. You know the game has glitches here and there, like firing a gun when I simply take it out and have it ready to fire despite me not touching the right bumper to initiate fire but I can look past it but boring, repetitive boss fights that drag on far longer than they should are a true nuisance that hurt my enjoyment of the game.
Recommended: Yay or Nay
Despite all of it's shortcomings, I put yay but a slight yay as the negatives did bring down my enjoyment of the game. At the end of the day, you have a pretty cool protagonist voiced by Stephen Blum who does a pretty good job pulling off a convincing Spanish accent and a Mexican protagonist without falling TOO much into stereotypes, a neat set of side characters and some interesting gameplay and I see why this game is talked rather well about via word of mouth but the drawn out boss battles, some of the tankish controls really working against you at times and ammo resources can really spoil the fun. There's replay-ability in getting the hidden red gems that power your character up so there's that too.
It's an alright game, nothing to go out of your way for......
32) Sonic Adventure(PS3 6/24-6/25)
Wow, what to say about this game......I think had I come into this game expecting something more serious, I would have been left with sheer dissapointment because this game has massive shortcomings such as glitches that has led to instant fall deaths, an awful Big the Cat segment that I got the trick to doing(It's a fishing minigame) that was still relatively boring, easy bosses that can be topped in seconds, no exaggeration, a nonsensical story and some of the most lousy facial animations ever, even if the game is nearly 2 decades old.
But I didn't come into such expectations at all..........and thus, I found each and everything to be downright hilarious and it led to me just laughing my ass off throughout this entire game. There are some good with this game, and I will discuss each of the 6 character arcs and essentially rank them.
From good to bad:
E-102 Gamma(I actually found the whole "Man made machine to destroy grow compassion after seeing it's family get used and abused as toys when they lose their importance" actually.....well done which is amazing as far as Sonic storytelling goes. And the twist in this story was cool. Its mode was the best too, it was like a run and gun system that was rather easy as I beat bosses in literately 5 or so seconds outside of the final boss who took about 2 minutes. I had heard it had the best mode in the game and best story and that was certainly the case.)
Tails(The whole racing against Sonic didn't make much sense in the grand scheme of the story because what is the problem with losing to Sonic in a race?!?! You guys are together and are best friends! But heck if those races weren't fun, the ability to fly and soar past areas that Sonic had to be precise with the platforming on were great and it led to be running through this in seconds. Wish the airplane minigame was completely different as while fun, it stunk going through the exact level twice.)
Amy(She's been kinda labeled the kind stalker of Sonic's for some time and it was kind of ironic to have a robot stalker her throughout the arc. That Zero robot was almost Nemesis esque with it's obsession, even when she didn't have a emerald anymore! I wish her hammer was a bit better as it was a neat move to be able to hammer down and vault herself to farther distances, just sucked you needed to build up speed to do it.)
Sonic(The bread and butter of the series, his was hit or miss with the levels. He had the most content naturally as Sonic experienced almost all of the levels that the others end up doing. Sonic's speed led to tons of fun and tons of cheap deaths too. He too had super easy bosses........except for Egg Viper. That boss was mucho garbage....compounded with glitches. You hit Eggman in an opening, game will choose when or if you bounce back on the platform to resume or to not and fall to your death. That boss took longer than Gamma's whole story for me! Wow. Sonic's facial animations throughout the game were a-ma-zing. His eyebrows would obnoxiously extend like rubber while he's speaking, it reminded me of Super Mario 64 when you can stretch out Mario's face.)
Knuckles(Playing SA2, his and Rogue's find the crystal scavenger hunts were never favorites of mine. Now you add gimmicks as to when/how to move an object in order to get the crystal? Nah. Stinks Knuckles gets resorted to this because he was always a favorite of mine dating back to his debut in Sonic & Knuckles. So much more could have been done with him in these two games IMO.)
Big the Cat(Wow. I had heard how bad this was, but I didn't think it would be too bad. The problem with the fishing game is it takes a while to really get a hang of it and to get a feel as to how to navigate the bait to the right spot and it also relies on the fish/frog to nib on the bait too. You'd think his boss battle would include throwing boulders or what not but nope, just have to get lucky with the reel and if you get the frog correct, you win in seconds. Add how silly this thing sounds and you have hilarity casting over some rather poorest game design choices)
Recommended: Yay or Nay
Honestly comes down to the mode/vision you enter to this game. If you are expecting a serious game and a really good game(And I get why you enter that when you are paying for a game), I don't think you will have a good time with the problems this game has. However, if you expect a silly, nonsensical mess of a game that is unintentionally hilarious, than this might be for you.
Me? I am in the latter so it's a yay for me.
