Recent reviews by machina22

Haven't played these games in over 20 years, but the second one in particular is one of my favourite games from my childhood, so I'm glad they've finally been remastered.

Pros & Cons:

+ It's great to have all 3 titles fully remastered in one collection. With the DLC campaigns. For the price, it's an absolute bargain.
+ Being able to switch instantly between old and new graphics is great and, unlike in other games I've played with this option, I'm finding myself using it a lot.
+ They've faithfully retained the little things that make the originals so nostalgic, from the music, to the menus, to Lara's look, and the survival horror-like atmosphere. They haven't tried to impose their own vision on something they didn't create (this drives me mad in game remasters/remakes and tv/film adaptations); they've handled it with respect.
+ There are quite a few little optional upgrades that you can toggle on and off in the settings, like subtitles, context sensitive action prompts, enemy health bars, etc.

| The visual upgrade isn't going to blow you away, largely because it's a faithful remaster in terms of gameplay, which means any visual overhaul is limited by the geometry used almost 30 years ago. That said, the graphics do look better in-game than in screenshots, and above all it's great to be able to play these games on HD monitors without it making your eyes bleed.

- The modern controls are a missed opportunity. Not all moves are available using modern controls, while other moves like backwards jumping and side jumping require you to have weapons out, but this is never explained anywhere in-game, and it's counter-intuitive. I wish they'd come up with a middle ground option of old school jump abilities mixed with modern camera and character movement. I quickly defaulted back to tank controls and haven't looked back since.
- The cinematic cut scenes haven't been properly remastered, only the in-engine ones :(

If you played any of these games all those years ago and have some nostalgia for them, this is definitely worth a purchase. Newcomers without any emotional attachment to them, however, will find the visuals dated (even with the remaster) and the gameplay probably quite frustrating because of a mix of precision-based platforming and tricky old-school controls. So if you grew up on modern Tomb Raider or games like Uncharted, don't come into these expecting them to be like that at all!

The first 4 hours:

Cut scene, cut scene, 5 mins of gameplay, cut scene, cut scene, cut scene, cut scene, 10 mins of gameplay, cut scene, cut scene, 5 mins of gameplay, cut scene, cut scene, dialogue scene, dialogue scene, dialogue scene, 10 mins of gameplay, cut scene, dialogue scene, dialogue scene, dialogue scene. At that point I gave up; the constant interruptions were exhausting.

Good world-building, decently intriguing story, dull but well-fleshed out (if over engineered) postal delivery and broadband supplier simulator (and even THAT is constantly interrupted by mobile phone calls), terrible menu UI, and absolutely atrocious pacing.

Overhyped and overrated. If this didn't have Kojima's name attached it would have had a mediocre reception.

This is open world Dark Souls basically. I don't say that to be dismissive, because that's exactly what I wanted when FromSoft announced their next game, but this might as well have been called Dark Souls 4. There are some new features, the names of things have been tweaked (e.g. Souls are now called Runes), and it's open world, but this is Souls through and through.

It's very, very addictive and features the brutal, challenging combat you'd expect from a Souls game, albeit in some ways slightly easier as you can often go off and complete some other area of the map if you find you're struggling with a particular boss.

It's visually strong. Nice art style too. Not convinced the open world is entirely necessary, especially the area north of the first major castle and boss, which features so many copy/pasted assets, mini-bosses, dungeons, and architectural objects from the first open world area that it started to feel a bit Ubisoft checklist-y.

So it's definitely not a perfect game, but it is a great one, and each day since I bought it I've been looking forward to finding a few spare hours to spend playing it.

Alex Kidd in Miracle World DX is an accomplished remake built around a core that's admittedly creaking with age. It’s difficult to brainstorm anything extra that I wish the development team had added, beyond perhaps more new levels, although at that point the line between remake and sequel would surely begin to blur. Some of the quality-of-life changes will probably prove contentious, but the kid in me from 30 years ago just wishes they’d been there from the start. And that’s probably as good a sign as any that the developers handled this remake well.

DiRT 5 is the epitome of the word superficial when it comes to racing games. Loud, bright presentation masks the shallowest gameplay in the DiRT series so far.

The bad:
- No damage physics whatsoever. And limited damage modelling. What is there is entirely visual and it has zero impact on car handling or performance.
- Dull, repetitive track layouts. I wouldn't be surprised to learn that just one person created them all, because there are so many design similarities between the different tracks.
- Not enough variety to race types. Advertised as having lots of different event types but they almost all feel like ordinary 3 lap races, outside of some hill climb-esque events.
- Shallow racing gameplay. Not enough handling distinction between the different vehicles.
- The AI is very easy to beat, even on the hardest difficult, with the exception of a couple of events where the difficulty swings so far in the opposite direction that it doesn't feel QA tested at all.
- Feels like half the game is locked behind DLC. And you're constantly harassed in-game to buy more.
- It's so far removed from the series' roots (DiRT 1, 2 and 3) that they could've called this something else entirely and no one would've noticed.
- I got bored after just two hours. I've never felt like that playing a DiRT game before. Even Showdown was better, and that was a very experimental spin-off.

The OK:
- The tracks are longer on average than those in DiRT 4. That's a small step in the right direction. But they still feel samey.
- The visuals are fine-to-great. Really nice weather effects, excellent race track backgrounds, and the mud & dirt on the cars looks nice too. But there are some noticeable flaws too, like tyres clipping through the ground, and the vehicles themselves are pretty middling.
- The stats page is pretty cool. Lots of different stuff is tracked.
- I quite like the bright neon colours used throughout and the addition of flashy effects during races. I just wish it didn't feel like the devs spent so much time working on them that they ignored the fundamentals of making a good racing game.

DiRT 4 was bad, but this one goes even further down what's going to become a dead-end road for the franchise.

Overall a great-to-excellent game. Minor spoilers below.

Pros & cons:

+ The setting. What could easily have been a boring setting, and somehow in spite of how much grey architecture there is, it's surprisingly interesting. And quirky. And beautiful. Whoever designed, for example, the Dead Letters area, with its pipeline of letter tubes leading to an organ-like central structure, is very talented.

+ It’s drenched in a slightly unsettling atmosphere that makes it compelling. There's a vibe of mystery, secrecy, danger, and exploration that feels heavily inspired by (or at least similar to) the Cold War era of space exploration and modern media like The X Files (back when it was good; not the awful modern episodes), plus a little bit of BioShock.

+ The board is absolutely fascinating, and its dialogue with dual options - sometimes contradictory, often humorous - is absolutely superb. A+. I wish there was more of the board, and I wish too that the devs had structured the narrative so that Jesse gradually came to understand their motives, their relationship with the Hiss, and so on. Those things aren’t really explored.

+ The doctor’s video clips somehow work. Being FMV I imagine the devs were a bit worried how they’d go down and if they’d really work, but they do. Easily the best of the collectibles, they’re a fun reward for exploring new areas.

+ The combat is fun and flashy, thanks to the beautiful visual effects & physics and the enjoyable mix of shooting and special abilities. I never tired of grabbing chunks of concrete from the walls, or objects in a room to viscerally fling at enemies, for example. Or of shooting new surfaces and objects to see how they’d react.


| Half of the abilities are cool, but half feel useless in comparison. I never use shield, because you can’t use it together with anything else. I rarely use melee combat, and I only really use mind control when I’ve pretty much killed everyone already anyway. Levitation and force are excellent and fun to use though.

| Characters and their dialogue. Some I love – Ahti, Emily, the guy watching the fridge, the board. Some are good – Jesse (I really like the fact she doesn’t say much out loud, and mostly makes internal remarks, which is far more lifelike than the way protagonists are handled in most games), Doctor Darling, Trench (although his monologues get a bit boring). But some are awful – the scientist that’s obsessed with the mold (who treats you like her servant), the guy in charge of the panopticon (who also treats you like a servant, despite knowing you’re The Director), and Dylan (who you spend most of the game trying to find, then you find him, but he doesn’t say anything interesting or comprehensible except for telling Jesse to find out the truth about the FBC for herself – oh, gee, thanks Dylan; great contribution there!).

| The pay-off/ending. Spoilers ahead! I’m glad the first ending was a fake. It would’ve been abrupt and a bit unsatisfying, although the credits were cool. But the actual ending is almost nonsensical. At least the ‘fake’ ending was easily understood. The actual ending didn’t feel like it offered any answers or pay-off considering the build-up. In-keeping with the unexplainable mysteries of the Oldest House, where collectibles offer only more questions and not answers, maybe, but satisfying it was not.

| Can take or leave the RPG-esque systems to be honest. The upgrades to your skills are good and useful. But the main currency you collect from killing Hiss doesn’t really have much utility, so I ended up banking hundreds of thousands of it and not really wanting to even bother spending it. You can buy tokens to access a horde mode that I didn’t enjoy, or mods that might have marginally better stats than ones I’d found already. Meh. Waste of time. I wish you could buy something more useful and permanent, like for example slightly more max health or damage or even more outfits.


- I really don’t like the fact that enemies respawn. I know why they made it like this – to ensure there’s always a combat element, especially in previously-cleared areas. But it’s really tedious; I constantly felt pressured to keep advancing and not dawdle trying to find collectibles in major areas, lest another few waves of respawning enemies trigger. It became a drag and if I was returning to an already-explored area to unlock a new door I’d just rush to it and ignore them.

- Funnily enough the fact that enemies continue to respawn indefinitely even after you finish the game is also narratively inconsistent. By that point the remaining Hiss in the building are supposed to be limited in number; you should be able to methodically eliminate them all, according to the game’s narrative and dialogue, but you can’t. At least you get friendly NPCs to distract enemies at that point, so you don’t have to kill the waves of enemies if all you really want to do is find a collectible/locked door.

- The facial animations are weird at times. Jesse’s lips constantly tremble in close-ups, for example. And the annoying guy near the panopticon looks like he’s wearing one of those face masks from the Mission Impossible series – like his flesh isn’t actually attached to his body. It’s a bit distracting.


This is the first Remedy game I've played. Won't be the last, that's for sure.

Recommended? Yes, it's well worth playing and in many respects it's superb and breaks new ground for the industry, but then there are other aspects to it that feel 10+ years behind the curve.

The good:
+ The main characters all look amazing; the level of detail in their faces, animations, body art, hair, and even their clothing is incredible. You can even see tiny pieces of lint, dust, and stray hairs on the clothing.
+ The level of detail in the city is superb too. It looks, on the surface, stunning. You come out of your apartment and the busy goings on around you, the atmosphere, the cyberpunk vibe, it's all just... argh, they nailed that.
+ The art direction, art style, and use of colour are all top tier.
+ The RPG systems are good; the levelling, crafting, skills, character traits (and how they level just by you using them), etc. I'm really enjoying how flexible it is and quite unique too.
+ I wasn't expecting much from the combat to be honest, but it's surprisingly compelling, even if the enemy AI is pretty standard for the industry right now. Thanks to how skills and levelling works the combat allows for dramatically varied approaches to combat. You can focus purely on hacking people, or stealthing, or shooting, being a samurai, or just going round pretending to be One Punch Man - and it's all genuinely equally viable.

Neutral:
| The bugs. Not as buggy as I was expecting given the reports you find in the media and critic reviews. 1 crash in 17 hours so far, and one pretty annoying bug where when you exit a vehicle you'll sometimes not be able to run for a while and it's not obvious why this is or how you can prevent it happening. Plus a few more minor bugs that are common in open world titles like this.
| Dialogue and characters' personalities. Sometimes they're great, sometimes they're quite cliched. The main quest line(s) is very slick in its presentation at least. Solid 8 or 9 out of 10 stuff there.

The bad:
- Neutral NPCs are just... rubbish, absolutely rubbish. Here I'm referring to the generic NPCs that populate the city - they all have AI that's worse even than that found in GTA3 - GTA 3 ffs! Their reactions to your behaviour are virtually identical and often incomprehensible. Punch someone in the face and they'll just... do nothing, besides beg you to stop. Fire a gun in a crowded place and every neutral NPC in a circle around you will perform the same identical crouching animation with their hands up. You'd think they could at least code a handful of different responses, varying from cowering to outright hostility and fighting back, just like you find in any GTA game from the last 20 years, but nope.
- And what's with the police always insta-spawning on you when you commit a crime? How is that in any way realistic or consistent with the world that's been created here.
- There's that Fallout-esque thing where you'll struggle to pick up small items no matter how perfectly you seem to line up your cursor with the item.
- If you select lines of dialogue 'out of sequence' (e.g. selecting the fourth dialogue option, before then selecting the first one), then the game won't take this into account and the character you're talking to will deliver their scripted lines regardless of things you've just said to them. This results in a lot of immediate narrative inconsistencies. It's pretty sloppy.
- One thing critics really praised was the side quests. Eh? They're mostly just generic 'go here, kill or incapacitate enemies, grab something or someone, maybe bring it back or drop it off, end of quest'. There are a few that diverge from this, but not many.
- Talking of side quests. There's a lot of that tedious Ubisoft-esque busywork, where there are different types of quests that are simply copy/pasted dozens of times across the city.
- Why is there only one music track that plays during combat? Talk about repetitive.

Jury's Out:
~ The three 'classes'/lifestyles you pick from at the start of the game. I suspect they're not very different outside of the opening sequence and some dialogue options. The corpo option is a let down so far too - you rapidly find yourself no longer a corpo. Soooo.... what was the point of having it as an option, besides some slightly different dialogue?
~ Player choice. I've read good things about it, especially the different endings. I'm nowhere near the end though, and have yet to experience much actual choice, so the jury's out on this aspect of the game for me.

So far it's probably an 8/10 for me, although I've not really progressed the main story very much at all. I could easily see it being a 7 or 9 out of 10 by the time I've finished, depending on how various things pan out over the course of the rest of the game.

Hands-down the best 2D Soulslike on the market, at the time of writing.

A little bit disappointing. I loved the first Surge. It was my gateway drug; it managed to draw me into the Soulslike genre where Dark Souls II had originally put me off. It was only after playing The Surge, loving it, and then going back to the Souls series that I started to really fall for the Souls series and now devour any and all decent Soulslikes I can get my hands on.

So I had high hopes for The Surge 2. All it needed to do was give me more of the same while working on the flaws of the original (poor enemy variety, lacklustre bosses, samey environments that you have to also back-track through). Unfortunately it didn't really work on any of the flaws, and the world and level design here feel like a step backwards.

It's still fun, which is why I'm giving it a thumbs up, but it's not what I was hoping for or expecting. The first Surge is better.

A decent-to-good Soulslike. If you've completed all of the actual Souls games and you're desperate for more, then I'd recommend it (although I'd strongly suggest trying out The Surge series first; it's better than this).