Reviews (SPOILERS)

Yakuza Kiwami is a remake of the original Yakuza 1 for the Playstation 2. Other than the English translation, Yakuza was way ahead of it's time. At that time in gaming history, you either played Final Fantasy or Shenmue for a Japanese game fix (unless I'm forgetting something, which I'm not). Then Yakuza 1 shows up, kicks the fucking door down and slaps around these established titles, making them look like students before the master. The Final Fantasy series had nearly zero basis in reality, leaving only fiction, whereas Shenmue was "a little too real" leaving nothing but the mundanity of day-to-day life in all its boring glory. There had to be a balance somewhere, somehow. Showing how the bleakness of everyday life (in Tokyo) could not only be exciting, but thrilling, without having to rely too heavily on fantasy elements like magic or mythology, etc. Yakuza found the happy medium and planted its flag deep within it's little niche, sturdy, and with the purpose of staying there a while. There is your history of the time, all the Kiwami remake did is added a few sidestories, made the combat sections much more fluid and fun, and improved the graphical fidelity. Some might argue with me on 2 of those points but they are wrong. Onto the Big 4. For starters, the art style: it's good. It's really, really maxed out Unreal engine beauty. For this engine or with these tools, this is as good as it gets. You can see the pores on the characters faces for Christ's sake. So the photorealism is there. The style is based on older Japanese games, just simply overdone in a good way. Like a good char-broiled sirloin steak, this title is designed for enjoyment with an extra layering or two of flavor. The trails behind characters during fight scenes add a certain artistic flair that you don't see very often in gaming intentionally, except for motion blur effects, and those are usually disorienting and awful. Nearly every object in the game is high-fidelity and just a pleasure to look at and that adds to nearly every other good thing in the game, simply looking good matters. The entire game is smooth as hell and gorgeous. As I said in part 98 of this series: it's the old "pre-prison best friend/girlfriend loses her mind while boyfriend is locked up to have a kid with a prominent politician, only to lose the kid (somehow) and the kid then randomly meets up with the boyfriend after his parole, and the boyfriend basically adopts her and is bringing her back to her mother post-finding her mind" story we have all heard a million times... That is a joke, but legitimately I have never heard that story before and it was an absolute joy. There is more to it than that, but the story on its face is solid. Kiryu, Nishiki, Yumi, and Reina all grew up at Sunflower Orphanage, that we learn later was set up by Shintaro Kazama, and of them only Kiryu survives the conflict in this story, unfortunately. Shinji, Sera, Jingu, Patriarch Dojima, and a bunch of other people I'm probably forgetting also had to give their lives during this conflict. None of that is Kiryu's fault, mind you, but Kiryu will have to live with that weight on him for the rest of his life. It will affect him and that's what the story is about. That and killing in self-defense is acceptable, but murder is not acceptable. Notice, Nishikiyama didn't lose his mind when he killed Dojima, protecting Yumi. Nishikiyama lost his mind after murdering his subordinate for no reason (the one in the purple suit, I forgot his name). This is the clear distinction that the game is illustrating, excellently I might add. 2A self-defense at its finest, in my opinion. The soundtrack and sound engineering is incredible. Footsteps, all the way to the overwhelming loudness of the city and industrial areas of town are wonderful to listen to. Never overbearing, but always constant. Sounds during fights are satisfying to a fault, visceral and not lacking impact. Not quite as good as The Last Of Us, but close. It's pretty good. Soundtrack is superb, there are better soundtracks out there, but this one is great. The final round of the underground coliseum's song is my favorite on this soundtrack. Ambient songs are sweet, intense songs are heart-pounding, it's good. Finally, the gameplay, the most important element to a title such as this, you would think. It really isnt', the story is the main part of this title. The combat is a given in a Yakuza story about the Yakuza called Yakuza, so it should be good and feel good to play, and it absolutely does, but you can skip every single fight almost and it won't change much. The start of the game gives you 3 great fighting styles to choose from at a moment's notice during combat for maximum domination. Brawler is my pre-Dragon go to because of the versatility, I use Rush to leave slower fighters in the dust and to avoid damage, and Beast is for doing big damage quickly when there is a ton of debris around to use and deal even more damage. Interesting rock, paper, scissors approach to the problem of making a fun beat-em-up/simple fighting game that you can get way into and just reign supreme, if you want, but don't have to. Just when you think each style is getting quite powerful, Dragon style gets the speed boost. It's the ability that speeds up combos at low health, at that point in the game it just becomes too fun not to use Dragon style. Sliding around enemies going faster than Rush, hitting harder than Beast, and having more to do than Brawler is when the game opens up. So a fast, creative, destructive fighting style that becomes easier to use and faster (which is the most impressively important skill in a fight [speed, I mean]) becomes an offer that cannot be refuse. That is Dragon style, that is Kiryu, and that is this game. What you once though was good, is left so far behind that I never used those styles again. I used Brawler, Rush, and Beast against the Mob outside Stardust at the end of the game just as a gimmick and to see how bad they actually were maxed out. They were bad, I was getting my ass kicked for a while there. Dragon is the dragon of fighting styles. It's so fun to use with all the abilities, too, Majima Everywhere is worth it and training with Komaki is worth it to become that powerful . To conclude, gameplay is some of the most fun you can have in a video game about 2/3rds of the way through Kiryu's training, soundtrack/sound design is great, story is as good as it gets in this series and among the best in gaming as a whole, and the art style is timeless. This game will always be great, no other game coming out will make this game any worse. There is a reason this series is so popular and is only gaining momentum and popularity and it is because of this title. It all started with this story, and Yumi. Great work.

(Spoilers) I'm gonna get straight into it: starting with My Big 4. Graphics / Art style is phenomenal in my opinion. There are times when I'm watching a cutscene and totally forget what is happening and just am amazed that the fidelity and sheer art on display. On my display, I should say. Incredible graphics, timeless art style, I love it. The story is top notch. Again, like Final Fantasy Tactics, not as much of an action-packed thrill ride as I prefer, but nonetheless well paced, dramatic, and thoroughly emotional. The huge gut punch at the beginning of the game comes out of nowhere and is completely unexpected. From that point on, you can put together how Joel Miller will live the remainder of his life. Only out for himself, once he is settled, he can then take care of who he is with (if he feels like it). Joel never once put Tess's or Marlene's needs ahead of his own, Henry and Sam taught Joel that he had room in his life for other people, and until he met Ellie and took responsibility of her, Joel was the same selfish survivor he has been since Sarah. Tommy then taught Joel he really wanted Ellie in his life, and Ellie changed him. She didn't revert Joel back to his pre-end of the world self, but he was returned to the more caring, fatherly protector. Tess teaches Joel to trust, Marlene teaches Joel to care (not in the way you're probably thinking though), and Ellie teaches Joel that people are what is important. The way Joel is though, especially after what happened to Sarah, made him the worst possible person to make the choice at the end of the game. Joel, the way his is and the way he thinks, would NEVER willingly give over Ellie to be killed to save anyone. Not all of mankind, not his mother, not himself, not anyone. Joel was the wrong person to make that decision for everyone else, and yet perfectly understandable from his perspective and might I say, even the correct choice to make for Ellie. Good stuff. Constant twists and turns and long and lingering tedium, mixed with a slight anxiety of being heard by clickers or seen by bandits at any moment gives the entire game a unique feeling in terms of mood. That unique feeling is coupled with moments of complete insanity. Fist fights and gun fights in this game are so intense! The game steers you towards sneaking past or avoiding them, but they are so fun, I for one can't stay away for long. Gameplay is superb. Plain and simple. The controls are simple and intuitive, there is plenty of feedback visually, sonically, and through the controller used to play the game believe it or not. I'm not used to that last one and that part was interesting. Very Tomb Raider-y or Uncharted-y style of gameplay, the Last of Us is more about slow constant movements followed by super intense fight sequences more than agility and mobility like most 3rd person games like this are, which is unfamiliar but very cool. Nothing felt off during the game other than the turning speed when using firearms was a little slow. That slowness aided in precision shooting though, so I don't want to complain too loudly about that. The bloaters are too tough and are bullet sponges.... That's really all the nitpicks, everything is good. Very fun to play, however the difficulty is real, so be ready to try different strategies. Very tough game, but it feels great to beat 3 infected down in a row with just the knuckles. Best fist fights I've seen in a game in quite a while. That just leaves soundtrack and audio design. Very quickly, the soundtrack is on the bad side of "ok" and the audio design is simply wonderful. Review over. Just kidding. Every song except the song playing during the credits is good open-mic level or bad professional musician level of writing and playing. Every song is professionally recorded, I can say that, so every song you hear is the best version possible of those songs. The problem is the songs aren't that great. Sound design of the game itself on the other hand is pretty freaking great. At no point in the game was I taken out of the moment by a terrible sounding effect. Footsteps sound great all the way up to punching fools in the face sounds great and is at such a high level of quality that couldn't stop playing this title for weeks just so I could hear it. That doesn't happen much anymore for me, so that's high praise coming from me. To sum up, the intense nature of the story beats and the downright brutal fight sequences didn't match with the "alone in my room with my acoustic" vibe of the songs here. The in-game sounds are world class though. Now, about the Left Behind expansion. I can sum everything up in 1 sentence: "More of the same, Ellie is gay." Those are the two things you didn't know. Two things you did know already, Ellie got bitten and Ellie saved Joel during the winter. We know that already at this point in the story and the whole DLC was just sorta dull. Didn't need to be there, nobody gives a crap that Ellie is gay or Riley for that matter, and we knew Joel survived because in the main game he survived. Not great, could have been better, then again you could have left that out entirely. Or.... left it .... behind.... Ok, review over now, for real.

Right off the bat, Black Mesa is a great game. This is a group of amateur developers attempting to remake a game that is easily in the top 5 of all video games. Quite the task, this is similar to someone that started learning piano 6 months ago trying to write Mozart. I'd like to say all the music is phenomenal, except 1 track is not to my personal liking (I won't say which one though). The gameplay is aggressive and fast-paced, the weapons feel satisfying to kill shit with, the story is fleshed out ever so slightly more than the original Half-Life 1, and soundtrack is better than the original in my expert opinion. Here's the problem, the graphics. The graphics? How are the graphics a problem, they are so good. And that's the whole conversation right there. Are the graphics better, yes. They are more photorealistic and more appealing and interesting than the original. That being said, there are very subtle artistic techniques that go into great game design and art that equal more than the sum of its parts. One of these is lighting. "The lighting is great here!" I know, here's the thing. I played through Half-Life and Half-Life Source (same exact game in a different programming engine, essentially), and the only time I didn't know where to go or "got lost" was during the On A Rail chapter, because it's so big and expansive. Remember when Gordon had to electrocute the Goliath? That part, though, I got lost in Black Mesa several, several times. Most notably, I personally got so lost in the Lambda Complex it was infuriating, but other times were in the Black Mesa offices, the blast silo, On A Rail, the city, and Xen. That's not good and I blame the poor artistic use of the great lighting these devs have access to. Lighting can gently nudge a player into going in the right direction without saying a single word, no marker on screen telling you what to do, not even making a straight line or corridor for the player to follow along with, but simply the art of scenery and what film people call "frame composition" can lead a player toward the next part of the story. This is something Valve were already masters of when creating Half-Life, and, adversely, Crowbar Collective collectively don't quite get. They know that one can use these artistic techniques to improve a game, but not how to implement them in specific ways and at will like Valve does. Don't even get me started on the story, Valve might have something to do with that one. I can't say much there, yet. There really isn't much else to nitpick about the entirety of Black Mesa other than that. And Xen sucked, but we all knew that and I think it was supposed to suck because everything in Xen except the Nihilanth sucked in the OG Half Life 1 in 1998, as well. To conclude, I had a great time with this title. Half-Life 1 is better though, lol.

What is there to say? This is a classic of epic proportions with something here for almost everyone. It isn't an action-packed thrill ride of an adventure, but it isn't supposed to be. This is a complex story about many, many moving parts operating to form a concise whole. That whole is called Ivalice and the factions and politics and even relationships of this time period are explored. Now onto my Big 4. Gameplay is usually the most important part of my reviews, but let's face it, the gameplay of FFT is complex chess. There is a bit more to it than that, but the simple fact is that this game is a fairly straight-forward stat-based RPG. If you have high faith and magick power scores, your troops will be better mages and if your troops have better bravery and physical scores, they will be a better warrior. With a few exceptions here and there like the Samurai and the Monk, fairly straightforward. The most interesting gameplay feature to my mind, is the Zodiac compatibility of each character. I never got into to it, so I won't be talking about it. Otherwise, not an easy game but it is simple. Warriors soak up damage and can be used as light support units, as well as distractions or diversions in battle. Mages are supposed to be the main damage-issuing units, crowd control, and buffing/support characters... they aren't. The way to go, and it is best to figure this out early, is to create warriors that cast cast a few spells, Spellswords if you will. I wanted to explore both the warrior path and the magick path during this playthrough to show it off, but seriously, a posse full of powerful warriors that can cast a few spells is the way to go. The end of the game was a cakewalk during this playthrough because of that. Nearly every job is fun to play as once a few key abilities are learned and every class has a purpose, although, some of the early-on jobs become useless because more advanced jobs are better in every conceivable way that some early jobs. The Squire, for example, loses favor quickly when the Archer, Monk, and Wizard classes become available. The story or plot of FFT is excellent, superb even. A group of demons disguised as war heroes playing both sides of a worldwide war to open a doorway to hell through a church? What's not to love? This game is a period piece, taking place in the equivalent of the times of the Spanish Inquisition in Europe. With all of the parallels of places, people, and groups in real world history. There is no such thing as magick, obviously, I'm not trying to sell you on that. My point is this, you have a bunch of Japanese writers from Japan that are more than likely not Catholic or even Christian. These writers are more than likely are from a family that doesn't take too kindly to Christians, who then write a plot and a storyline outlining inner workings of Medieval Catholic Church better than I think I have ever seen. I have been a devout Catholic my entire life and even I learned a thing or two from this story. Here are some things I noticed that was just clever writing. There are 7 enemies that become demons: Cúchulainn, Belias, Zalera, Adrammelech, Elidibus, Hashmal, and 2 forms of Ultima. Seven is a very important number in Biblical terms. There are seven deadly sins, the universe was created in seven days, and seven seals in the Book of Revelation, just to name a few. Each Lucavi demon could represent a deadly sin I suppose, but they are all just kind of assholes. Every group in the game is destroyed from within, the Order of the Northern and Southern Knights, the Glabados church (the Catholic Church equivalent) itself, the Templar Knights, and even the Monarchy is all brought down because of infighting or betrayal. The overarching theme here is that integrity and loyalty are more powerful than power for its own sake. The art style is pretty, but simplistic. These are decent-ish graphics are far as fidelity for it's time. You must remember, this is a B-team of developers from a great studio, but a B-team of developers nonetheless. There are 3-dimentional models in-game that are combined with 2D sprites for quite the unique aesthetic. The art itself for the backgrounds, locations, and units is not bad, but everything seems a little "generic" or "bland" and I was not able to shake that feeling for the entire playthrough of the game. Although, I must say I love how colorful and vibrant this game can be when it needs that. The Necrohol Of Mullonde (Mullonde Death City in the original FFT) should not be that colorful, but magick spells and vibrant forests should be, and they are, and I like that. I gotta be honest, the entire game might have looked better and run smoother if everything was sprites. Overall, the visual presentation is adequate and gets the job done. Nothing here that groundbreaking, even for its time. Soundtrack/Audio design. Finally, what I really want to talk about! Nobuo-san (the composer) is nothing short of a genius. Nearly every piece here is a masterpiece, and I say that without hyperbole. I am aware these are MIDI tracks of orchestral pieces, but they sound great, don't they? Even some of the weirder sound effects that sound a little off still sound cool. When I bought the original game for the PS1 in, like, the year 2000, I could not believe the quality and passion and just the level of talent on display in this title. This soundtrack may have single-handedly gotten me to start on my musical journey because I started music classes and started playing music after buying this game in the same year. If that doesn't sell the soundtrack, nothing will.

For my proclivities, this is a Top 5, perhaps a Top 3 favorite games of all time. Way up there with Halo and Fallout 4 (spoiler) and Final Fantasy Tactics. Everything is top notch except for the song playing over the credits (sorry not sorry guys). Ukyo Tatsuya is the Mike Tyson of MMA. If you like Iron Mike, or MMA, or Ukyo I guess, then you will enjoy the hell out of this title. Review over I suppose... I'll get into it. The story seems like it's going at a glacial pace at times, not as bad as Kurohyou 1 but still crazily slow. The story is ok, just ok, the stakes are far lower than in Kurohyou 1 and the resolution of the conflict is lacking in my opinion. On the other hand, the characters are very well-written, even with the voice change from K1 to K2. I like them both but K1 Ukyo Tatsuya sounds like a 20 year old and K2 Ukyo Tatsuya sounds like a 30 year old, if you ask me. Interesting change that I like. The Ashura group showing up and wrecking shit in Kamurocho at the same time that local gangs are making moves seem more important than the main story. Unfortunately, Ashura quickly becomes a non-issue when Ukyo gains access to the more powerful styles like Muay Thai, Pankration, and Aikido. The Kamurocho gangs plot is never concluded on this playthrough because I could not find how to continue the storyline with Yumiko and Akagi and all of them. The main story has it's high points but seem convoluted at worst and forced at best. Not great, nowhere near the weight and momentum K1 carries with it, but it's ok. The gameplay in Kurohyou 2 is an improvement in almost every conceivable way from Kuroyou 1. I have zero games other than the first of the series to compare this one to because there are simply no other games like this one. The Yakuza series is similar-ish in "taste" or "aesthtic appeal" perhaps even in quality, but not it feel. K1 feels like you are hitting people with a sledgehammer every time you hit them. K2 is more like a claw hammer but because it's a claw hammer, it feels more realistic. Less epic, but more realistic, it depends on what you're looking for. Personally, I prefer the gameplay of K2. The walled heat actions are an absolutely brilliant addition to this series. Instead of having blue heat, then yellow, then red, there is only red and blue with walled heat actions becoming tricking to set up but "free." These heat actions can be performed as soon as the set up is complete and can be done at any time, meaning the momentum of any battle can shift with a simple shove into the wall. The Self-Taught style is very cool, and allows the player to customize the perfect style for the way they play. All the additions are positive, in my expert opinion, nothing good is taken away, and nothing bad is added. It's literally all better. Gameplay in this title is nearly perfect. As far as audio design/soundtrack, every song is great but not like Kurohyou 1 where every track was an eargasm. The songs are great, but not literal perfection. There are a couple of bangers on here that are better than even most tracks on K1, like the motif of fighting the police is fantastic and some of the boss fights' tracks are just wonderful. Audio design of nearly every scene is great except for the footsteps don't always line up I noticed a couple of times, which can be annoying and immersion breaking. Audio design/ soundtrack is superb. Art style is the same as Kurohyou 1 but less angular, more shapely, and better quality. The cutscenes have more attention to detail, the gameplay itself is easier on the eyes than K1, and the enhanced lighting and shadowing gives the entire game an overall more comfortable and more appealing feel. This game feels better than K1. Then again K1 is supposed to be about no hope and no way out and K2 is about giving up comfort to do the right thing. The art styles weirdly coincide with the graphical fidelity. To conclude, K2 is better in every way except for the soundtrack and certain attacks in fights have more impact. The less impact even gives the game a better feel though, because the fights in K2 is so much faster, heavier impacts would be too "noisy" all the time. Less impact actually works better for this title, but I like the heavier impact of K1 more. The soundtrack here is wonderful, but not as good as K1 which is tough to compete with because it's a masterpiece of a soundtrack. The story is not as good simply because of the lack of stakes compared to K1's ridiculously high-stakes. In K1, if Ukyo lost a match, he was going to prison for the rest of his life, in K2 if Ukyo lost a match, his friends would have to find a new hobby. Not even the same ballpark, but the story has more twists and turns and is an ok story. K1's story is just way better. So minus story and soundtrack, K2 is better in every way. I think it ended kind weird, too. There is a lot unexplained, but I won't get into it. Check out both games if you haven't already, they are well worth your time.

Pandemic Studios, my old friends. This now defunct game design studio is responsible for the Army Men series, Full Spectrum Warrior, and the original Star Wars Battlefront. Pandemic Studios was bought out by EA games in 2009-ish then promptly put to work on this masterpiece as their final project. Once their last title, The Saboteur, was completed EA then axed every Pandemic employee, and closed down the studio. EA has a knack for buying up smaller companies, destroying them, and then continuing along like nothing ever happened (stopkillinggames.com). Anyway, The Saboteur is loosely based on a real-life historical figure from World War II Europe. There "was" an Irish mechanic that became a racer, that joined the French Resistance and blew stuff up. It didn't exactly happen the way it is portrayed in this game, but it is fairly close. I believe what he ended up breaking was a Nazi heavy water plant, not a nuclear weapon factory. Still quite the feat, and still important historically. Now, to go over my Big 4. Gameplay is smooth and fast, which is not easy to do. Unlimited spring being available makes the game feel faster and give the player options to play their way. Gunplay is loose and a bit arcade-ey but satisfactory and fun. The unarmed combat is plenty for a game like this that doesn't heavily rely on it, but is needed for the disguise mechanic. Donning the uniform of an enemy combatant gives Sean the ability to sneak in to enemy territory, and is such a brilliant feature to add! The driving and selection of cars and other old-timey vehicles is incredible and never gets old. Every vehicle and weapon has a character of it's own and all feel like they are supposed to be there. Gameplay is overall excellent, not much to do to actually improve on it. The audio/soundtrack of this game is phenomenal. Being a period piece, in the middle of World War II, the soundtrack is mainly blues, jazz, and classical orchestral pieces. There is very little fat on any track I was hearing, they are all professionally recorded and performed by experts in their artistic craft and really place you smack-dab in the mindset of folks of this era, even though they are modern rendition of older songs but we can let that slide. Some guns sort of lack a bountiful bass that would be an improvement, but at the same time, some of the guns sound great. Also, the gunfire and explosives are not too loud to take away from the conversations or the story. Audio design is acceptable, the soundtrack (for my proclivities) is fantastic. The art style here is so good, especially for its time. The Saboteur looks great even by modern standards. Even without my Reshader program, there is a slight comic book or cell shaded quality to the graphics that add a lot to the overall presentation. The game being in black and white or monochrome color scheme until the area of France is liberated is genius game design. And what really drives it home are the bright colors this game brings. 2009 was around the time in game history that washed out browns and greys color schemes were becoming very popular with games like Fallout 3 and New Vegas, Call of Duties, and Spec Ops The Line, etc. I never liked that trend and I longed for the days of bright colors contrasted hard by the black and white of unliberated France, like in this game. I wondered for years after playing this title in 2009 why more games didn't like bright blues and oranges and colors in games. If I were scoring, the art style of The Saboteur receives my highest score possible. The writing and story is nothing special. It's a box-standard vendetta ride with some cool historical missions thrown in. I like the Catholic overtones, I like the trash talking from Jules and Sean and Father Dennis. Santos being the traitor near the end of the game was actually a legitimately good twist, I must say I did not see that coming. Other than that, most of the main characters are fairly unlikeable other than Sean, Skylar, and Vittore and maybe Bishop. Everyone else is too whiney or too French to be memorable and impactful characters. Writing and story are passable, but just barely. To conclude, if you are playing this game it's not for the writing/story, it is for the art style and gameplay. It is literally GTA in 1940's France fighting the Nazis. That is a home run of an idea for a game and it would be tough to mess it up. That being said, this is a grand slam, in other words, this game is better than it sounds. I will never play GTA again after learning that this game exists. The art is great to look at, every single scene pops and it's just beautiful! The soundtrack and audio design places you right in the time period and in the center of the action. A cinematic title like this can only benefit from great gameplay, which this title delivers, and then some! And the writing, story, and characters are just kinda there. This is a video ass video game, check it out.

(ME1 Part 63) Ah, Mass Effect. A treasure of gaming. One of the very few titles that is a true space opera, with all the melodrama, action, violence, relationships, and romance, minus fat ladies singing. I couldn't get enough of this series when these games came out in about 2007-ish and it was a weekend treat for me and my friends after a working all week. I will now go through my Big 4 important aspects of this masterpiece. To start off with, the gameplay start to finish is heavy and a little clunky. There is no way around the fact that this is not a game designed to be a modern cover-based shooter, even though that's what it is. This isn't Gears of War or even Army of Two in terms of smoothness, this is downright rough. Despite that fact, every combat encounter is fun and intense, without exception. The fight with Fist in Chora's Den near the beginning of the game shows how nearly every enemy encounter goes. The sprint function is really cool and kind of a new feature to gaming at this time in history, but not well-implemented because Shepard doesn't have enough endurance and can only run like 10 yards without breathing hard, even though she's this legendary soldier. The RPG (role-playing game) stat screens and decision-based character development is pretty cool. Not really what I'm in a game like this for, but I am glad it is there. The skill menus are quite extensive and allow for a bit of variety, but you will more than likely maxing out nearly everything like I did. Everything else I have about gameplay is probably nitpicking, so, average gameplay with a ton of wiggle room to play around with tech and biotic powers, even though I didn't. The art style is evergreen, in my opinion, timeless. Without my new reshader program this game oozes style, with the reshader this is a phenomenal looking game. Truly jaw-dropping visuals during gameplay, and the cutscenes are masterfully choreographed and directed. Every color pops, the bright colors are directly in your face and the dark colors sink back, deep into the background. I'd like to say that every species and creature in this game look wonderful. Some planetary environments could use a little polish, but the indoor corridors and the insides of buildings and whatnot look great. I'm not the reviewer that will stare at a wall of a game and tell you how bad it looks if that's not what I do during standard gameplay. I'm not a micromanager and I don't enjoy nitpicking when I don't have to. For as clunky as Shepard moves through each landscape, the framerate is smooth, and the framerate will only dip slightly during very demanding portions of action, like explosions or there there is a lot of characters moving quickly, which is almost to be expected. The art style itself draws upon elements of Heidegger and H.P. Lovecraft (which we don't see nearly enough of in my opinion). Organic life mixed together with a little advanced technology is very "Aliens" film to me, but the Reapers are about the most Lovecraftian evil villain you will ever see in a videogame, moreso than even some titles with Lovecraft right there in the name. At the very least, the Reapers are presented the best of any Lovecraftian thing in any videogame and have the looks to match. The Reapers look like a combination of a scarab beetle, a scorpion, a spider, and a hand (which I personally find terrifying, except the hand I guess, but I had to mention that). An armored exoskeleton, a predator, and a dangerous object, all of these listed items have that in common and those are all things the Reapers embody. The Reapers are superbly-designed enemies. Saren slowly succumbing to more and more powerful Indoctrination is also fantastic design because Saren's degeneration is as much storytelling as anything else. Saren could say nothing each time you meet, and you as the player would immediately know what is going on with him and how far his Indoctrination has landed him, if you pay attention. That is attention to detail, that is incredible craftsmanship, and that is art. Onto story and writing, now. At the very beginning, Mass Effect 1 is simply put, an above average Star Trek episode, that is until the Reapers are introduced. There are so many unnerving things happening at once when the Reapers show up. The fact that Saren, being a Council Spectre, would be formidable enough as an opponent without help from the Reapers was a great touch. Also, the Reaper reveal being dragged out for so freaking long during the plot until you speak to Sovereign face-to-face over a facetime-type situation was a great writing technique, perfectly paced, and perfectly placed. The reveal comes out of nowhere, no one sees it coming, and it's such a horrifying discovery that this enemy is superior to any sentient lifeform in nearly every conceivable way. Terrifyingly intelligent, gigantic in size, can fly, made of crazily strong metal armor, computerized, cold, calculated, mechanical, murderous, and with experience carrying out a plan the for total annihilation of everyone in the galaxy. This is a true enemy that would make even Lovecraft's sick mind swell with pride. Not to mention the ability for these things to Indoctrinate those unlucky enough to get near them, with horrifying results. This startling realization changes Saren from being the main bad guy of the story, to the sense of urgency ramping up dramatically to stop Saren from assisting the real main bad guy, Sovereign. The Reapers are perhaps the best villain in gaming. I will be quick here and say the audio design is among the best in this genre, maybe even in all of gaming. Every track is exactly what it's supposed to be within the game. The ambient tracks are relaxing and calm. The combat music is exhilarating and pulse-pounding. The dramatic scores have synth strings swell with orchestral walls of sound, and can even be a tad overwhelming at certain key times. The music is in a league of its own, the ambient tracks are especially pleasant during downtime, and every other non-music sound blends perfectly into the experience of the game. Footsteps sound present but not distracting, winded breathing is at a great volume when compared to everything else going on. The whispers, heavy traffic, and industrial noise of the Citadel sounds just as good as the slightly windy, yet creepily quiet of some of the empty, unexplored planets. Every gunshot and explosion is impactful and forceful, making combat all the more enjoyable to the player. To conclude, I value gameplay over all else when talking about videogames. And that is a weird thing to bring up because I can't describe this title's gameplay any more accurately than "average." So, a game with average gameplay is one of my favorite game of all time, but how? While this game isn't quite as underrated or unknown as some games I will play through, the first game in the series is and there is a certain amount of people that would have been turned away because of a controversy. The controversy is that you can romance some of your companions in the game and have sex with them. It was bad y'all, the game was getting badmouthed on the news, and copies were getting pulled from store shelves, I remember it was bad. I didn't romance anyone during this playthrough, which is weird because it's really difficult to actually not do that in this game. But somehow, I accidently avoided any romance, lucky me. When I played through this game originally in 2007 or 2008 I romanced Ashley because she's tough and no nonsense and Christian, and I like all of that. Liara isn't a bad choice either because she's really shy, and sweet, and smart. Anyway, everything except the gameplay is at an incredibly high level of quality in this game. So much so that even with the most important aspect of the game, gameplay, just being average, the quality of every single other thing in the title elevates this game to one of the best of all time. The other titles in this series are not like this one, so enjoy ME1 while it lasts.

Let's get into it, straight away. Similar to every review of mine, my "Big 4" points of interest of video games quality checking are going to be here, as well (Gameplay, Story/Writing, Graphics/Art Style, Audio Design). Gameplay in Tomb Raider: Legend is fluid, smooth, and graceful. Lara is much, much more of an acrobatic character to play than I'm used to, because I mostly play as the brick shithouse, tank characters. But, Lara's ability to float around her opponents and out-maneuver them for a victory on a near constant basis is nothing short of stupendous. So fun to play. The story of TR:L is pretty good as far as a video game standard goes. Keep in mind, video games don't have "Star Wars" or "Raiders of the Lost Arc" or even "Citizen Kane" yet, so even the best games' stories would realistically be considered B-movie levels of quality. If you go in knowing that, and just enjoy what is right in front of you, this story here is not bad at all. The writing is dialogue heavy, which is the toughest thing to write in my opinion, and is realistic provided you can accept the idea that all these old stories of Camelot and whatnot are not only factual, but incomplete. There is more to these old stories than we even thought. That part of this story is cool and I dig it. I'm also into history, so if you are into history too, it'll be right up your alley. The art style is half-way between "cell-shaded" and realistic. I really think that was a bold and ingenious idea that was implemented perfectly. Full cell-shading in games can be cool, but the luster wears off quite quickly in my opinion (look at the Borderlands for an example), and full photorealism is great but if most of the game's budget goes there, the story and everything else in the game will suffer. This blend of the two styles with the expressive faces of all the characters really make an interesting range of visuals to enjoy. The graphics are above average in terms of photorealism for games of this time, but the "next-gen" (better) graphical settings will start breaking the game and cause crashing on PC after Ghanna. Nearly every bit of music in this title is phenomenal. The audio design is way above average, reaching into superb at times. I never heard about this particular Tomb Raider game until kinda recently, so I had no idea I was missing out on such a great soundtrack. Every song here is upbeat, heart-pounding, and high-energy, while at the same time being rhythmic, warm, and soothing. I can tell ya, that takes time and effort to get that to mix right. Well done. The weapons sound impactful without being needlessly scary, the grenades and explosions are satisfyingly thumpy, and melee attacks are meaty. Everything you want, nothing you don't. To conclude, I liked nearly everything here except for a few of the puzzles didn't want to cooperate with me, the bosses had far too much health and became a marathon of attention for no reason, and some of the basic features like locking on to fire guns was lacking. Many times (especially the last boss) there were times where the game just refused to lock on. And with no dedicated lock-on button like in Kurohyou or Dark Souls or something like that, it became mighty frustrating. Other than that, the puzzles were fairly challenging and still fun to complete, the graphics/art style are far above average, nearly every song on the soundtrack is a fucking banger, the gameplay is killer, and story is pretty damn good. Well worth your time.

(K2 Part 1) My entire playthrough/series is the review but I wanted to mention a few things about the first game and the series during this video. FIRST, and most importantly, the gameplay: it never gets old. The gameplay reminds me of the Def Jam series except WAY better, every battle is enjoyable and entertaining, and there is enough there to keep even the most nerdy martial artist (like me) satisfied with the system also being simple enough for players that just want to scrap. I see gameplay as the most important aspect of a game because it's a fucking game and it's supposed to be fun. #1 rule. SECONDLY, the story is pretty damn good. The main story although a little slow is a complete story, characters advance in their arcs and lives, people are took out, and people prosper. I'm a sucker for a coming of age story for reasons I don't even fully understand so this is right up my alley here. I'm also a sucker for a who-done-it and this game is both of those things. The Japanese as a people and culture have a real tough time wrapping their heads around the idea of a main character because their communities are more important than they are in that culture. So for them to put together such an amazing main character as Mr. DJ Announcer-san is just wonderful (ha). Joking aside, Tatsuya treats people the way they treat him. If you come at him stupid, he will kick the shit out of them, and if you are respectful towards him, most of the time he will at least make an attempt to get along. Except for the Chinese restaurant at the beginning of the story, every situation that becomes a physical encounter is in 2A self-defense. The painstaking detail for the games' developers to make things happen in this specific way is incredible. You can go back and watch every single encounter that turns physical in the game, every street brawl, every underground match, every boss fight (again except for the Chinese restaurant) and each encounter is Tatsuya defending himself against a violent threat. Great attention to detail there. NEXT, is the art direction discussion. I don't necessarily care how photorealistic a game's graphics are as long as there is a strong style. Kurohyou 1 and 2 are on the PSP handheld console which is roughly the computing power of a Playstation2. What the developers have done with the quality of the visuals with that limited of hardware is nothing short of a miracle. I am using an emulator to boost the resolution 4x, but even then, I should not be more drawn to the comic book art, cool color schemes, and fluid movement even at high-speed than to more modern games with photorealistic graphics. Style is more important because graphics get old and styles are forever, I'm convinced. LASTLY, audio design. The music is fucking fantastic and I could listen to nearly every song on here all day long and not get tired of them. The sounds of the city are great, the insults and shit that is talked during the game are a part of the Japanese language that you rarely, if ever, hear outside of Japan because that impolite language is looked so far down upon. People like Tatusya and Tenma and most of the characters here are already assholes, so they don't care about people looking down on them because they do that already, so people like Tatsuya and Saki and Kuki are just gonna say what they think. The thump of strikes and throwing techniques are audible and impactful in-game. All these aspects together make an amazing ramen broth , if you will, of awesomeness which is the game. The gameplay never gets old, the story is incredible, the graphical style is evergreen, the soundtrack is top 5 if not top 3 in all of gaming, and the cohesion of these elements makes a hydrogen bomb of awesome art with a purpose, and a well-earned place among the greatest games of history. At least for my tastes.