So, in the story of Quake 4, you live in a world after the French president Emmanuel Macron has been assassinated. Apparently, he was also president of a hostile race of Borg French aliens trying to give people sick implants that unlock cyborg arms and legs. Your character, Matthew Kane, is part of a human military operation sent to destroy the French cyborg operation and put a stop to Daft Punk once and for all.

However, halfway through the plot, you discover that Macron is in fact not dead and is augmented with robot legs, showing off the wonders of the French healthcare system. He then proceeds to strap you to a chair where the French aliens give you new cyborg implants. You then escape the lab with your buddies and have better health and abilities due to these augmentations. It was at this point that I realized the game was based and making an allegory to how effective a socialized, single payer healthcare system is. A bold direction for this old franchise!

If you want to get it up and running, definitely consult PCGamingWiki[www.pcgamingwiki.com] for tips on how to run it on modern hardware. You can also download Sikkmod for added awesome features but be aware that it breaks the weapon upgrades. So apparently, if you are using v1.2 like I was, the latest version, you need to download the v1.1 version and just extract the file called game000.pk4 from v1.1 and paste into you Sikkmod v1.2 folder in the game's directory. This will replace the .pk4 from v1.2 and will give you the weapon upgrades as you earn them. Unfortunately, the mod forums also point out that this breaks floor textures in a specific level, but you can walk on the floor. It's just not visible.

So yeah, an underrated gem that is a bit of a mess to get running on modern machines, but well worth it to experience the magic of French healthcare!

With a Dead Space remake on the horizon, it only felt natural to revisit the series. While I was making my way through the original, and loving every second of it, my eyes kept homing in on its sequel in my library. I couldn't resist it; this game was my crack back in middle school. I'd come home from school and finish a session of Dead Space 2, credits would roll, I'd load up New Game Plus and before dinner the credits would potentially be rolling again if I was that in the zone. That's how addictive this experience was back in the day.

This game nails virtually everything you need to in a science fiction horror game. The visuals are oppressive and haunting, the sound design is so good, the game features far more close quarters and claustrophobic fights than the first game and the challenge never lets up. Enemies constantly put pressure on you, and your ammo reserves are significantly less than in the prior game. But Dead Space 2 perfected a simple mechanic from the first game that makes these challenges completely fair and inviting to take on; the telekinesis module. While you could use this in the first game to pick up objects, now it has the unique ability of ripping off select sharp limbs from necromorphs and allows you to hurl them back at other beasts. This single-handedly makes Dead Space 2 the true answer to Resident Evil 4 from western developers. Sure, a lot of third person shooters have RE4's DNA in them by virtue of their controls, but RE4 was more than that. It was this tight ballet of using any weapon you had to its fullest and knowing when to lure enemies into a whiff so you could punish them with a knife to the face and then a followup attack. If you played your cards right, RE4 allowed you to turn a single enemy into a round house kicked bowling ball that would strike other enemies for you. That's what Dead Space 2's improved combat system feels like, a violent, terrifying, and skillful ballet dance. Except you're also playing as an intelligent, capable space engineer, wielding sci-fi salvage weapons, and fighting brutally violent cosmic body horror monsters. Fun times!

As a sequel though, Dead Space 2 sets the bar for what studios should be aiming for. It adds so much to Isaac's character that we never saw before. The first time I played this game I did find it weird that Isaac was no longer silent and could talk, but now? I can confidently say that Gunner Wright does an amazing job as Isaac, giving him such a layered performance full of fear, dedication, wit and all-around humanity. His guilt over what went down in the last game, coupled with him being hunted by religious cultists, corrupt government agencies and horrid John Carpenter's The Thing inspired monsters... well it's hard not to sympathize with his suicide mission to turn this whole mess around aboard Titan station to save the galaxy. He is probably one of the best protagonists I've ever seen in a game and it's squarely due to Gunner's performance in this one entry. Sonita Henry also does an amazing job as Ellie, being both a tough and capable woman not needing Isaac to come save her, while also clearly being vulnerable and in over her head at the same time. Her relationship with Isaac also never really forms into anything obnoxious or sexual, the two of them are just survivors trying to make it through hell. But there is one scene between the two of them near the end where Ellie's performance really shines and you just want to hug her after she's pulled through so much. It's such a tragedy where their relationship went in the third game. Besides them, the wild card character Stross is a deeply sympathetic, flawed, and tragic person. The main antagonist, Tideman, is a ♥♥♥♥ but also clearly a guy just trying to contain a horrible alien outbreak at the same time. Anyone in his position would probably turn just as corrupt, making his desperate attempts to kill you toward the end of the game feel believable and somewhat understandable. All in all, it's a really great cast of characters.

Beyond this, the game adds everything you could want from a sequel. The new setting is gorgeous with a fully inhabited space station full of different and diverse environments. The new guns kick so much ass it's not even funny, and there's some new upgrades from older weapons in the last game. You've got salvage weapons meant for slicing things up, new military weapons like the seeker rifle and even a cool electric javelin gun that you can upgrade to fire self-destruct spears from it! You seriously just need to play with these weapons yourself because they're so satisfying to use and upgrade. But the real highlight are the new enemy types. A swarm pack of enemies made up of infected children, explosive babies, a new puking creature that hurls a horrible acid ball that slows you down (and yes you can pick this thing up with your telekinesis module and throw it back at the bastard) and a new tripod enemy that encompasses a lot of the boss fights... but by far... by far the best addition Dead Space 2 makes to the enemy roster are the Stalkers. These enemies are ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ incredible and insanely satisfying to fight. They behave like raptors and hunt in packs, trying to catch you off guard by hiding behind crates and making squeals and cries while one of their comrades charges you like a mad ram. They also have small limbs, making it hard to aim at them and they move very fast. The later arenas also combine this enemy with pukers, who can slow you down, as well as other enemy types like the explosive cysts and suicide bomb babies (God that sounds ♥♥♥♥♥♥ up as I type this). The enemies are genius in Dead Space 2, but you can tell the developers were clever in not using one type too much as to not leave you bored of them and knowing how to combine different enemy types in different scenarios. They all complement each other very well and make the combat intense and challenging, but never unfair and always addictive.

After all these years, this is still one of the best games I've ever played. I honestly hope if they make a sequel to the upcoming Dead Space Remake that they just toss this out the window and go in a completely different direction. Because you can't update this. You can't make this better. Sure, the final boss kind of sucks, and sure it would have been nice to fight the cooler enemies a couple more times than you do, but it's honestly hard to complain when the package is this sound. I just hope they fix this game because currently the PC port is kind of messy. You have to turn off V-sync in game and force it through your graphics card's settings and download a fan made mouse fix, but even then, the mouse fix doesn't apply to the levels in the game where Isaac is floating around in zero gravity meaning those sections still have wonky aiming. So please EA, just do us a favor and patch this magnificent game so that younger audiences don't have an excuse to not play it on PC? This is one of the best sci-fi experiences you can have in a game, it deserves better treatment than this.

If what I have said hasn't convinced you then at least thanks for reading this. I just finished this game for the first time in over five years and the first time on PC. It was emotional remembering how much of an impact this had on me. At the very least I hope this inspires you to vomit words on the internet about your favorite games. Dammit man, I love Dead Space 2! Now if you excuse me, I'm replaying this on Zealot difficulty. Gonna try out some new weapons for this playthrough...