Recent reviews by audromeda

the game that stole the show for me this year

I don't know how better to praise it than saying its a ♥♥♥♥♥♥ BLAST. It has such a charming and effective aesthetic, and no matter how crude it looks, it still manages to be scary as hell. For me, it does what Phasmophobia wants to do, horror co-op with prox chat and gadgets, but unlike Phasmophobia I don't feel like I'm constantly fighting with the game to get it to simply work, and the wonky ♥♥♥♥ in this game is a lot more tolerable due to its premise and nautral comedy elements. The only criticism I have is that I feel its hard to play with any less than 4 people.

one of the better recent survival horror games, frictional takes their strong sound design and places it as a central mechanic, creating some really tense moments. theres this insane pressure when you've got fuel burning in the generator to not let a single second be wasted, and each time you emerge from the safe room feels like its own expedition. the atmosphere is stupidly thick and dreadful. plus its about 5-8 hours a playthrough which is perfect for this sort of game, not to mention it has a lot of randomized elements so no two runs are the same. i'd say of every singleplayer game i've played this year so far, this ones really sticking with me, love this one.

best sf game no takesies backsies pls bump akuma up to release as the first dlc

easily the best remake this game could have gotten, rock solid action horror game, runs like ♥♥♥♥ sometimes though

you got your Silent Hill in my End of Evangelion!
you got your End of Evangelion in my Silent Hill!

best survival horror game in recent memory and probably the best new thing i played in 2022

After playing all of the Metal Gears in release order, this is probably the best one.

The sandbox style open-world allows for so much experimentation, whether it be with the staggering amount of weapons and gadgets you can unlock, or the responsive environments and AI. Once it all clicks, each mission feels calculable and the "tactical espionage" aspect shines. Metal Gear gameplay to me has always been about situational awareness and quick-thinking, two things this game rewards pretty well. It feels especially satisfying to gear up, do recon, and infiltrate a huge base, taking it slow and remaining undetected or having to maneuver your way out of potentially being discovered. Even getting caught can be fun when having to adapt to the AI's alert/search phases, although I do think fighting back can be a little clunky sometimes. The way that the enemy force as a whole reacts to how you play the game is also really cool and adds some variety to playing/replaying missions. Do a lot of missions at night, and the enemies gain flashlights and night vision goggles. If you typically aim for the head, the soldiers get helmets. It's a neat way to make my presence in the game world be felt, and its something I wish more open-world games would do. I'm also a fan of the game's bigger set pieces, especially the areas with multiple paths and levels to traverse (Mfinda Oilfield is a particular favorite). There's also a staggering amount of content in the game, with over 150 side ops, like a million different mission objectives (some of which can only be completed if you replay the mission once you've unlocked some late game gadgets), a whole ZOO to populate with animals, and plenty of unlockable items to get. However, the side ops can get repetitive though, with a lot of the later ones boiling down to extracting/exploding tanks and getting rid of soldiers in full armor. Replayability is really encouraged with this game which is a huge plus for me. In fact, at the time of writing I'm still trying to squeeze as much time as I can out of this game. Watching the completion percentage the game displays in your helicopter base go up is really addicting.

I think the story gets a lot of flack, understandably so considering that the story itself is light, somewhat confusing and the cutscenes can be so few and far between. I saw someone say that it feels like the narrative is in a state of always feeling like its about to get good and it just never really hits, which I would kind of agree with. But I think whats here works well enough to act as the middle link between the Big Boss/Solid Snake eras (and to be honest I'm a little biased because after playing MGS4, a Metal Gear game thats more focused on gameplay is welcome). Despite all that, I wouldn't say the story is bad, just not finished and not the main focus. There's some neat fan service moments and the good old Metal Gear memetics are all there. The cutscenes that are in the game are well-directed and stylish with some really memorable moments, and it certainly helps that the game is drop-dead gorgeous.

The original soundtrack is full of John Carpenter-esque, cinematic synth tracks that dynamically change as you sneak around. The licensed soundtrack is filled to the brim with time-appropriate bangers too (even though theres that one song by the Cure that came out like ten years after the game is supposed to take place lol). I do wish there were some more songs from the Metal Gear series as more little collectible tapes, which I think are really fun especially when you zoom with your binoculars and hear a split-second of Hall and Oates in the distance and picking it up becomes a little side note in your mission.

Everyones already said it but yeah it really sucks that the second half of this game is so blatantly unfinished. There's only a handful of original missions after the first half of the game is over, with a lot of reused missions with some sort of modifier on it, and most of the modifiers just kind of boil down to don't get caught or don't get shot. The story kind of just doesn't fully resolve either, although I'd consider the game to have a few endings to certain plotlines, it never feels like it gives as strong of a final send-off like MGS4 does. With some more time, who knows what a full second chapter or even a third would have been like.

Overall, this game really makes me appreciate what I love about playing the Metal Gear games and it reminds me just how much I miss these games. Everything feels like its designed around the idea of letting you be cool and cinematic, and the non-linear sandbox gameplay makes for some really organic, exciting situations. There's a part where Big Boss says "Anyone here can use a knife or a gun. What you're going to learn is how to use your head", and I think it kinda summarizes what its like to really get into this game.

200 Hour Edit: This is still the best of the series and probably in my top 3 games. I'm now throwing this game on when I'm talking to friends or just hanging out, and it's a fantastic timekiller. Now that I understand the AI through and through, there are so many interesting situations that you can fix yourself into, and yet it doesn't feel like I'm smarter than the game, but rather that I'm smarter than the enemy, which fits thematically.

Thought-provoking, hilarious, intense, heart-breaking, complex.

10/10

♥♥♥♥ this trash

Ahhhh Dead Rising. Well, Dead Rising is one of my favorite series just to muck about and have lots of fun in, and this game is definitely no exception. Dead Rising 3 is full of fun toys and trinkets to maim and mutilate with, and the map itself is pretty dense. There's lots of enterable buildings, and it feels like you're really in a city. The main character is a pretty goofy young guy, but he's pretty likeable, moreso than the other protagonists of Dead Rising. The story itself is a bit wobbly and isn't that great, but it's pretty alright.
The most fun however is being able to slaughter all the zombies on the streets of Los Perdidos, and it's even better than before. The gameplay has been upped tremendously from Dead Rising 2, where picking up weapons and eating food are much more fluent and everything just flows nicely. There's tons of zombies on screen which is pretty impressive considering none of them look alike. Also there's a sprint button finally so you don't have to leisurely stroll away from your death.
Now all of this is good fun, but there is one giant glaring issue with this game and that's the optimization of this port. I have a stable rig that can run games that are more graphically intense than Dead Rising 3 without a problem, yet I seem to be having tons of framerate and rendering issues. There's lots of pop-up and framerate loss, and sometimes some models don't even show up, so it looks like I'm driving and invisible steam roller. Plus the FOV is horrendous. Hopefully, Capcom will fix this or a modder will come along and make something that will fix these problems (i.e. Dark Souls, Saints Row 2). I would give this port a 9/10 simply because of the fun and bloodshed that this game allows me to have, but sadly because of the terrible optimization and such, It gets a 7/10. Hopefully, if a patch is released that makes the game stable on PC, then it'll bump right back up to a 9.