11 Nov 2022

LTTP: Resident Evil 2 [PS5]

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I played the original Resident Evil 2 on the Sega Dreamcast of all consoles. It was my second Resident Evil game after finishing Resident Evil: Code Veronica on Sega’s impressive 3D console. In fact, the only reason I even played Code Veronica was because of a school friend who bought his Dreamcast for the exclusive. My impressions of the original RE2 were not as glowing as I hoped. I was coming from a game that refined tank controls and generationally superior in every technical aspect. 

I recall finding it neat that it had two playable characters, but at the same time, I was disappointed that I was essentially playing the same 10 hour game twice. Coming from the 20 hour epic campaign of Code Veronica, it felt like things were wrapping up as soon as things started moving. 

I’m the weirdo who would have preferred a remake of Resident Evil: Code Veronica over Resident Evil 2. With that in mind, I still recognized Leon and Claire’s first adventure has its place amongst fans of the franchise and video games at large. I was curious if I would enjoy the remake more with a fresh new coat of paint and a revised perspective many years later.

The remake’s philosophy seemed to have been: “Keep the spirit and hallmarks of the original while modernizing just about everything that makes sense.” Third person over the shoulder camera established in Resident Evil 4 made its return. I found the first person camera in Resident Evil 7 fine, but to me, it doesn’t feel like a Resident Evil game unless its in the third person. 

A generous checkpoint system, friendly controls, and melee counter options gave Leon and Claire more fight and capability than ever, but they were still bound by the confines of the original’s design. They could jog and jump down in this game, but a 3 foot gap was too much to handle. They still had to re-arrange giant bookshelves just so they can build a makeshift bridge across the library’s second floor.

I was generally impressed with how the game looked technically; I was playing the PS5 upgraded version at 120FPS mode. My only gripe was with the screen space reflections which were a distraction. I would have switched on the ray tracing mode to fix those flaws, but the performance issues in that mode deterred me from staying with that mode.

I was also a fan of how the zombies, police station, and just about everything aside from Leon and Claire looked. I found both protagonists looked and sounded derpy with their awkward lines. Ada Wong and just about every other character came across fine, but Leon and Claire were a couple of awkward fools that didn’t quite grasp the gravity of their situation. 

Playing through Resident Evil 2 twice wasn’t satisfying. Claire’s playthrough was faster and had a handful of interesting moments, but it didn’t warrant retreading so much of Leon’s adventure. I understand this was a relatively novel idea when the PlayStation version debuted, but I’m just not a big fan of having to go through games multiple times to unlock true endings — especially when the differences aren’t enough to warrant it.

When I was in the thick of it, creeping by a licker because I was low on resources or just jetting through the station because Tyrant was nearby, I was loving every second of Resident Evil 2. The game was in its element and executing on every level. It’s unfortunate that there was just a tad too little of it and the experience was watered down with the Claire playthrough. 

Verdict
I liked it

Ratings Guide

8 Oct 2022

LTTP: Judgment [PS5]

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I’ve been meaning to check out Judgment for a while now. As a fan of Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio’s Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise, it only made sense to check out Judgment. Judgment was the first game they developed to star a completely different cast of characters with Kamurocho as backdrop. It plays like a Yakuza game in many ways, but it has its own distinct voice and style.

I warmed up quickly to Takayuki Yagami and his partner, Masoharu Kaito. In fact, many of the characters, including the antagonists were instantly captivating thanks to their outstanding performances. They did a great job teasing out tidbits of information about the characters and their history. 

Like with RGG Studio’s previous works, the story was the driving force to punch my way through the streets of Kamurocho. I wouldn’t describe the execution of the murder mystery narrative as excellent, but it was captivating and I was satisfied with how it wrapped up in the end. I felt the transitions from between beats and twists took a bit of liberties and didn’t quite do enough stitch together a believable ramp up. Nevertheless, I was till thoroughly entertained and still found it to be the most relatable story the developer has ever put out.

Considering the detective angle, a number of gameplay mechanics were introduced to compliment the shift in tone. As a private detective, Yagami tailed a lot of people, and spent a fair amount of time looking for clues and evidence. There were moments of piecing everything together, but they were not as involved as I would like. Yagami was a former lawyer turned detective, and I was hoping to see more Ace Attorney style mechanics where I would be presenting evidence and dispelling lies. There were some, but not nearly as much as I hoped for.

Brawling was still a focal point to the core gameplay loop. Yagami was more nimble and acrobatic compared to Kiryu, but a faster paced style is not foreign to the series. Health and ki meter management was given greater weight because Yagami could suffer severe injury that would temporarily cap his max health until he visited a clinic. Attacks from weapons such as swords and guns could injure Yagami unless he harnessed his ki. 

The side content involved Yagami taking on side cases, getting way into flying drones, and the occasional Mahjong. Kamurocho will still radiate Kamurocho things which included hostess bars, drinking, and oh so much delicious food choices. I was a tad disappointed that there wasn’t a larger overarching mini-game on the size of a running a hostess bar, but alas, I felt there was still enough to do in Kamurocho in-between major story beats. Unfortunately, Judgment took the Mr. Shakedown concept and took it too far. I kept running into the same fights over and over again which became nuisance more than a fun distraction to conquer.

Knowing how the Yakuza/Like a Dragon franchise is going down the turn-based route, I think RGG Studio can successfully continue their story driven brawler games with the Judgment franchise based off my impressions after the first game. I was so impressed with how well they introduced the new characters and stories. Judgment felt like a long running franchise already. The familiarity can largely be attributed to the familiar setting and mechanics, but there was no guarantee that I would like this spinoff just because it was set in Kamurocho. It’s not the place that defines meaning for me, it’s the people, and RGG studio introduced us to some great ones.

Verdict:
I liked it

Ratings Guide

18 Sep 2022

Steam Deck Review

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The Steam Deck is a lot of things to me. It’s the most interesting handheld to date, but it’s also the most distracting and unrefined handheld that I ever owned. It holds plenty of surprises, but it equally reveals disappointing shortcomings. Even after two weeks, I don’t know if I would recommend it to the masses without qualifiers.

The Hardware

The Steam Deck was both deceptively big and light. I knew it was larger than the Switch, but I didn’t expect the grips to be so girthy. With all that size, I thought it would be heavier than it was, but it was surprisingly light. I eventually learned to appreciate the added grips for extended gaming sessions, but that’s only true for me. It’s slightly too large for my fiancée whom recently got into Hades.

I also found it was only comfortable if I were using the joysticks and buttons. It was comfortable and capable when I playing various Street Fighter games, but when I got my hands on Civilization VI and poured 50+ hours into it and the touchpads, I quickly discovered the fact that the touchpad wasn’t meant to be used for long Civilization sessions with a lot of scrolling on a map. 

The screen may be the most disappointing aspect of the Steam Deck. It’s barely okay for 2022 standards. My Nintendo Switch launch unit may have a smaller screen, but it has a better quality screen without distracting light bleed. 

The fan noise comes second, but that is highly dependent on the game that I’m playing. Slay the Spire, Hades, and any other “light” game, is a pleasant and quiet experience. Games like XCOM 2 or latter stages Civilization VI would send the fans whirring and into overdrive at times. It’s quite distracting.

Unfortunately, the fan became such a distraction that I had to replace it 5 months in. It began to rattle and instead of sending it back to Valve, I decided to just find a replacement fan and fix it myself. It was a painless and easy experience thanks to the guides at iFixit.

The Software

Unofficial

I spent a fair bit of time messing around Desktop mode, loading EmuDeck, Emulation Station, and getting a smattering of  Street Fighter titles loaded on the machine. It was surprisingly easy and (unsurprisingly) highlights how great of an emulation machine the Steam Deck can be. I loaded the following seamlessly:

  • Street Fighter Alpha 2 (CPS2)
  • Street Fighter Alpha 3 Max (PSP)
  • Capcom vs SNK 2 (Dreamcast)
  • Mega Man X3 (SNES)

The most finicky part was trying to learn how RetroArch works and saving the settings.

More importantly, I wanted to gain access to all those Epic Games Store titles that I’ve been collecting. There are at least 4 ways to access those games:

  1. Installing the Epic Games Store launcher as non-Steam executable and running the Proton compatibility layer with it
  2. Heroic Game Launcher
  3. BoilR
  4. Lutris

I tried option 1 first as it was the full “Epic Games Store”, but then I wanted a more seamless integration with Steam, so I tried options 2 – 4, but they all exhibited some additional issue that the Epic Games Store did not. Hades’ Cloud Save, for example, wouldn’t reliably work with any other option. Rayman Legends wouldn’t launch with options 2 – 4 either.

Even though I owned base game copies of Civilization VI and XCOM 2 on the Epic Games Store, I eventually bought complete Steam versions because the 2K Launcher wouldn’t launch properly on the Epic Games Store version. 

Official software: Verified, Playable, Unsupported

If I wanted the ideal Steam Deck experience, I would stick with Steam Deck verified games. They run well and they have the right controller layouts; there’s no futzing around with settings. Playable titles are technically playable, but they have a range of issues including small UI text to iffy performance. XCOM 2 and Civilization VI are both technically playable, but I find interacting with the games less than optimal with their default . 

I want the console controls and console UI experience as an option, because of the long term ergonomic issues I have with the trackpads. I switched XCOM 2 to be more controller friendly, but the UI was still tiny. Civilization VI worked well with the trackpads and triggers as mice, but its UI was also filled with tiny text. Even the relatively simple games like the Slay the Spire had slightly smaller text than I wanted. It’s clear that these games weren’t made with portable sized screens in mind.

I bought a compatible dock and was happy to see the desktop mode works well with the keyboard and mouse; it’s just a computer running Linux after all. I played a bit of Civilization VI at 2560 x 1440p with a mouse and keyboard which was significantly better for my hand. 

Then I decided to undock and tried to resume my Civilization VI game in portable mode and that’s when things unraveled. I had a newfound appreciation for the Nintendo Switch. The Steam Deck doesn’t switch resolutions or graphics settings between desktop and portable modes which means I either have to toggle those settings manually or just stick with 1280 x 800 resolution in desktop mode. Neither option is ideal.

Steam OS’ Evolution Makes This Work

What makes this entire Steam Deck experience tick is Valve’s commitment to Steam OS. The ability to tweak the device to my preferences is what makes this a standout product and makes me weary of playing any other handheld PC.

I found that leaving the Steam Deck’s APU at full TDP wasn’t doing me any favors. With games like XCOM 2, the Deck was running too loud, too hot, and draining battery too quickly. I realized that these games weren’t going to hit 60 FPS with all that extra juice anyways. So I toggled on the 40Hz refresh, turned down the APU’s power limit to 11W, tweaked some settings, and XCOM 2 was a more tolerable experience. 

I hope to see the Deck’s docking and undocking experience improve, but even if it doesn’t, I think Valve’s commitment to improve the Deck from an OS perspective is the highlight of the device.

A Bright Future Ahead

Valve’s been trying their hand at the hardware game for over a decade now and I think they finally hit it out of the park with the Steam Deck. It’s not perfect, but it’s slowly evolving and hopefully it’s enough of a success for them to keep iterating and releasing new models in the future.

I play games on this thing on a near daily basis now. I love it for connecting me with all the PC games that I had in my backlog. I see its flaws, but I also see a lot of promise and a revision of this device that could address many of my issues with it. Not a bad first try for your first handheld gaming device, Valve.

Verdict:
I like it

Ratings Guide

22 Apr 2022

LTTP: It Takes Two [Xbox]

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It took us a couple of months, but we finished Hazelight Studio’s It Takes Two. I didn’t intend on trying it any time soon, but after hearing so much positive buzz surrounding it, I suggested it to my fiancée after the game appeared on Xbox Game Pass and we took to it quite quickly. Momentum waned a bit as the story and character motivations were watered down to pad out video game ideas, but we kept coming back to it and eventually finished it.

I didn’t play A Way Out, but I played Josef Fares’ directorial debut, Brothers: A Tale of Two Sons. His first game felt cohesive and concise. It Takes Two was incredibly well polished, filled to the brim with lavish content, and neat gameplay ideas, but the story felt thin and couldn’t reasonably justify the length of the game. I felt they didn’t need to invoke the rule of three in order maintain a better pace.

There were a lot of fun and interesting co-operative gameplay ideas that kept me motivated; every new area and level was like a small jolt of “wow”.  We both knew the story was going to wrap up in the proverbial tidy bow, but I was legitimately impressed with how much new stuff we kept seeing. The pervading thought mind through all of this was: “This is what Electronic Arts money gets you. And they’re going ham with it!” It’s a bit of a weird comparison, but I had the same feeling with Max Payne 3. It’s impressive how much high quality work was used or experienced just once and never seen again.

Friendly checkpointing, generous aim assist, and well designed challenges kept engagement high and frustrations low. That may seem like a throwaway compliment, but not even the great Nintendo can execute on the high bar that Hazelight Studio set with this game. I was consistently impressed with how they created common ground for two video game players on the opposite sides of controller proficiency.

The story was very predictable and while there were some cruel moments involving a stuff elephant, nothing surprised us on that front. It served as simple fodder or kittling for discussions for us. We either both agreed on the outcomes that transpired or who was “in the wrong”. We didn’t break out into any multi-hour discussions, but I think we still appreciated those discussion prompts.

It Takes Two was a triumph in co-operative games for the simple reason that it was something that my partner and I could sit down and play together without having it be entirely a shooter of some kind. Co-operative puzzle platforming was interesting for the both us and we were able to contribute in our own way; it wasn’t just video game skill leading the way. It could have used a bit more editing and it wouldn’t have hurt to see the story visit new territory, but in the end it was a fun time and I still highly recommend it.

Verdict:
I liked it!

Ratings Guide

1 2 3 4 … 80