CarloOos

Nahhh, CV is wall-to-wall military bases, creepy mansions, torture basements and secrets labs. It’s primo Resident Evil. I struggle to see the argument that it’s worse than Zero, 6 or 5 in SP. It’s probably better than 3 even, as a trad Resi game. What does ruin it is the insane difficult spike of that tyrant on the plane. I started replaying it last year and even knowing that encounter was coming, I still found myself totally fucked for ammo.

If my memory serves, you lose all your weapons & upgrades at the start of each chapter, too. Despite enjoying the combat, my favourite bits of the game are the daytime sections, which all had such amazing vibes. It’s a shame they couldn’t get their mad Shenmue-esque version to work, I’d have loved a game with something closer to a 50/50 split between exploration and combat. I’m hoping they lean into this with the sequel. My favourite chapter of the original was 4, the one that takes place in the therapy centre.

Subscription services are a replacement for the second hand market more than anything, surely? Previously if there was a game I was interested in which I either missed or didn’t want to pay full whack for, I’d get it second hand. Now I wait for those titles to hit GamePass. I still buy games I want at launch rather than waiting. Anyway I asked my partner (a high level civil servant with literally zero knowledge of the gaming industry) if she’d heard anything about this and she immediately responded with ‘that whole mess is just so-and-so trying to make a name for themselves’ which did make me wonder how much this is internally regarded as a political fuckup.

There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the combat in the original, it’s the Remedy staple of a handful of mechanics honed to perfection. Squeezing the trigger to ‘focus’ the torch, the ‘pop’ of the enemy shield, the stripped back meaty gunplay, those brief moments of slow-mo as you blown an enemy away or successfully dodge an attack, the camera spinning around as you pull out a flare for crowd control; it’s all so slick in comparison to almost any other survival horror game of the era. It’s only Resi 4 which comes out on top, as it does against pretty much every other third person shooter in existence. All that being said, I don’t think there’s a another game to be wrung out of those mechanics so they’re wise to change tack. The original was a horror game in name only really, and Remedy have been consistently excellent at creating creepy, surreal imagery since the Max Payne games, so I’m looking forward to seeing what they’re got up their sleeves.

I’m happy to finally confirm, after 18 years of consideration, that it’s my favourite early Cronenberg for sure. Funnily enough I found that DVD recently and had been considering a rewatch.

To be fair I’ve only played it the once. Chapter 2 was the only other section I remembered having anything resembling ‘proper’ gameplay, but it’s still about half the length of the first one and my recollection is that you basically move forward through a bunch of areas, many of which it’s entirely possible to just run through if you get spotted. I was excited when it started for some updated MGS3 shenanigans, but underwhelmed when it concluded. Chapters 3 & 4 are extremely similar to each other in that they both open with such unbelievably cool premises which proceed to be mostly wasted on absolute nonsense.

What killed MGS4 for me was that it had five chapters, but only the first had anything resembling 'core' gameplay. It was about twice the length of the other chapters and had loads of sneaking around open environments, which unfortunately the rest of game ditched entirely. Chapter 2 was basically a corridor through a jungle followed by boss fight, chapter 3 was basically one long totally scripted set-piece, chapter 4 had the amazing hook of going back to Shadow Moses but ruined it with infinitely respawning Inspector Gadget bad guys and chapter 5 is again basically a corridor followed by a series of boss fights. It's not even about the cutscenes or the length of them, there's just not enough game there. MGS2 gets so much shit but it's far denser and more inventive than 4, when I replayed it in the HD Collection it was chock full of moments I'd forgotten.

I was genuinely gutted about losing Lance, and now Ray too? Absolutely fucking sucks.

There’s a lot to like about Crystal Skull, it’s mainly the execution which is lacking. The opening warehouse scene, the Harvard chase, and aspects of the jungle chase are all great. Also one thing that struck me when I recently rewatched it as part of the 4k disc set (first time I’d seen it in 10+ years) is how it’s very clearly shot on actual film, which feels ironic considering the criticisms of the time regarding how digital and clean it looked. The digital cinematography paradigm has completely shifted in the time since.

Nothing to do with his review of this particular film, but I increasingly find Robbie Collins to be a bit of a knob.

To be fair that last one of the sandworm isn’t front the film is it? I’ve only seen it once but that scene was in the dark.

I dunno, I fully believed the Souls formula was running out of steam after DS3. And then they dropped Elden Ring, which was twice as memorable and ten times larger. I have much stronger memories of DS2 on the whole, which still felt almost perverse in its trolling of the player. The only area in DS3 which felt truly unique is Boreal Valley, but in retrospect it’s quite Yharnam inspired (I played DS3 before BB).

I don’t understand people who thought Pacific Rim was amazing but Uprising was rubbish. They’re both Power Rangers-level naff. The original might have a marginally better cast, but they’re all giving career worst performances.

Yeah I saw this at the time and thought it was great, the sleaze oozes through the screen.

To be fair you’ve just listed a bunch of artificial restrictions you’ve put upon yourself and blamed hardcore mode for making them difficult. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with the balancing of hardcore mode when going for a first run through the game.

I don't really care about 30fps, I play most games in quality mode. But do Arkane actually have a reputation for being technically polished? Creatively their games have always been full of fun stuff, but they're normally pretty janky on console. From the outside looking in it also seems a bit unusual that they've used four different engines for their games. They've gone Unreal 3 (Dishonoured) Void (Dishonoured 2) CryEngine (Prey) Void again (Deathloop) and now Unreal 4 (Redfall).

I’m fairly certain the win state of the cabin is based on a particular number of kills. Playing on hardcore I didn’t get a chance to actually finish off the bull man, but it did end on the exact frame I finished off a normal ganando. If I had to guess, I presume the bull guy counts for x amount of normal kills, which is why it often ends with him being defeated. Either that or there’s multiple triggers, it seemed like he had a lot more health than the previous ones you encounter.

And they’re both absolutely incredible together in The Man Who Would Be King.

The latter. He’s meant to be exceptionally difficult in real life.

You may be surprised.

Yeah must admit I always found NG+ boring, never finished it on the original RE4 either. I’d quite like a super-hard version where you start with all your toys, a ProPlus mode if you will.

In the barn? You can party all his attacks if you climb the ladder in phase 1, it’ll quickly eviscerate your knife’s durability though.

I learnt my lesson with hardcore mode after Resi Village, which had a brutally hard opening siege on that difficulty. Started again on standard, did the siege first time and got all the way to the castle without a scratch before realising it was just way too easy. Started again on hardcore, scraped past that siege and it was about right after that. RE3 felt similarly difficult for the opening hour or so before settling down. I do think the game’s advice to play on hardcore if you’re familiar with the original is correct. If you memorised the old loop of always moving, kneecapping enemies and meleeing as much as possible to preserve ammo, those rules still apply and you’ll welcome the extra threat. It was the new controls/mechanics fucking with my muscle memory more than the game itself that initially caught me out. The only real spike since has been the house siege, which was tough but also superb.

RE5 was already controversial in the culturally tone-deaf days of 2009, I just can't see them going back to it without starting from scratch. It was also a HD game which still to this day looks amazing.