Video Game Review #154: Undertale

Undertale 

PlayStation 4

Nostalgia Factor:

I first read about Undertale when it was still in development a few years ago, and what I saw immediately piqued my interest. The game was a 16-bit style RPG, inspired by the Super Nintendo classic Earthbound. I never had the chance to play Earthbound growing up, so I made it a point in my life to someday play Undertale.

Even though the game has been out for several years now, I finally got around to playing it here in October, 2018.

Story:

The game’s intro scene gives us a few pieces of critical information. Humans and monsters once populated the surface of the game’s planet. Whether or not this planet is Earth, I don’t think the game ever really says. Eventually humans and monsters would end up going to war against each other, with humans coming out on top. The surviving monsters were banished to the world located below the planet’s surface, hence the name of the game: UNDERtale.

In present day, your ambiguously gendered character falls from the surface of the planet into the monster inhabited underworld below. Taking control of this character, your goal is pretty straightforward: escape the underworld and return to the world of humanity above.

How you go about accomplishing this goal is one of the main draws of Undertale. You can take the peaceful route, talking to characters in battle and showing them mercy, or you can approach this like a typical RPG and just go around killing everyone who challenges you.

 Gameplay:

 At first glance, Undertale plays out like a typical old school RPG. The game’s camera angle is the usual ¾ view that you would see often in 16-bit RPGs from the 90s. You walk up, down, left, and right. Move off the corner of the screen and it brings you to a new area. Controlling your character, you walk around and talk to people. There is no spoken dialogue in the game, everything takes place through text boxes. Again, just like all the classic 16-bit RPGs of long ago.

Battles are triggered through random encounters as you walk around. There are several set boss fights as well. Nothing out of the ordinary there. What makes Undertale different is the battle system. The game gives you two different ways to make it through each battle – by fighting back against your opponents and killing them, or by utilizing the conversation menu to talk yourself out of the fight. I actually didn’t know that there were multiple ways to play this game when I first started it. I played it like I would a traditional RPG and I killed everything that would attack me. I didn’t learn until after I had beaten the game that the “preferred” method of playing was the pacifist route. By sparing your enemies, it would make people in the game like you and admire you. As a result, your experience as you play is vastly different depending on which way you go.

The other unique thing about the game’s battle system is in how you play defense. Most old school RPGs were strictly turn based. You attack them, they attack you. And when they’d attack you, they’d almost always hit you. This game gives you a chance to defend yourself. A little box shows up in the middle of the screen. There is a red heart in the middle of the box (sometimes it changes color depending on the situation) that represents you. A flurry of bullets and other objects that represent the enemies attack will flood the box. You have to evade these items to avoid taking damage. Some attacks are very easy to evade, and you can make it through several entire battles at a time without taking a single hit. Other times, the attacks are extremely difficult to avoid. In fact, the game can get downright difficult at times because of all the crap getting thrown your way.

Graphics:

This game truly looks like it could have been made in the 16-bit era. The characters are extremely simple and basic looking. Most of the game’s environments are about the same, although there are some areas that look better than anything that could have been done on an old console. That said, the game often looks a bit TOO basic. Outside of some areas that have fun atmospheric effects, there is little that is visually exciting about this game.

It gets even worse when you go into battle. Expect to see a lot of black backgrounds with ugly characters drawn out in white. If you know me, you know that I am more about the fun factor of a game rather than the graphics. So even though the game is often not very pretty to look at, I don’t hold it against the game too much. Clearly the makers of the game were looking to emulate the look and feel of old classic Super Nintendo era RPGs. Sometimes the visuals are spot on. Other times, things are a bit drab and ugly looking.

Sound:

I never had any problems with the game’s music or sound effects. The music always seemed to fit what was going on onscreen. I would comment more, but I really can’t. The music wasn’t bad or anything, it just was not memorable to me. I couldn’t name one track that I was gaga over or that would get stuck in my head. It was serviceable, but that’s about all I can say.

Overall:

After reading so many overwhelmingly positive reviews of this game, I started playing it with very high hopes. I have to say that I came out feeling a little bit disappointed. I wanted to like this game. I truly did. I love RPGs. I love retro games. This game combined two things I love, but it still managed to come across as a bit dull for me.

First off, the game’s humor. I get that it tries to be lighthearted and funny. I don’t have a problem with that. My problem is that it tries a bit too hard. A lot of the characters had potential to be funny and memorable, but just ended up being annoying instead. You are trying to walk across the screen to get to a new area. Someone calls you on your cell phone to tell you something stupid. Haha, okay. Cute. You take three more steps after the call ends, and they call again. Take three more steps and they call again. And again. And again. And again. It’s like – just let me play the game already! I don’t care about this stupid shit. But you better get used to it, because stuff like this happens throughout this game CONSTANTLY. It seems like more than half the game is sitting through “humorous” conversations while your mute character just sits there and watches these eccentric monster characters run around and make fools of themselves. Apparently this is someone’s idea of a great time, as this game gets showered with praise every time I read a review of it.

The graphics and the music are a mixed bag, as I said. I won’t harp on that. The story is extremely simple. It’s fine. Nothing special. The battles? Fine. Nothing special. That’s pretty much how I felt about the whole game. It is fine. Nothing special. It feels like it is geared towards 8 years old kids. I’m sure I would have loved this when I was younger. Now, not so much.

What did I like about the game? I like the feel of the game. It is quirky and it is original. I like the idea of the game, if not necessarily its execution. One thing people seem to harp on is the “bullet hell” system as you play defense during battles. I actually enjoyed this quite a bit. Some of these sequences were a bit challenging, and I am always up for a good challenge. I also like the fact that you can play through this game multiple ways. I expected to just play it, beat it, and be done with it. Turns out I ended up playing through the whole game twice just to see what happened differently playing as a pacifist and not killing a single enemy vs killing everyone I fought with in battle.

That said, after I finished playing the game a second time, I was wiped out. I’d had enough with the bad jokes, the childish characters, and the inane conversations that would go on for far longer than they should have. I just wanted to be over and done with the game and have it in my rear view mirror. Honestly, I can’t ever see myself ever playing this game again. Games are all about fun to me, and I just didn’t have fun with Undertale. It started out entertaining, but quickly turned into a dull grind for me.

I can’t think of a more overrated game that I have played in recent years. Have this game’s rabid fanatics ever played a video game before? If you want a game where you connect emotionally with its characters, try the Telltale Walking Dead game, Uncharted 4, or The Last of Us. This game is not great, in any way.

In fact, I struggle to say it is even good.

Overall:

D

If you liked my review of Undertale, please check out some of my other game reviews:

Final Fantasy VI

Final Fantasy VII

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Final Fantasy IX

Star Ocean: Integrity and Faithlessness

Video Game Review #153: Fallout 3

Fallout 3

PlayStation 3

Nostalgia Factor:

Believe it or not, this is the first time I have ever played through a Fallout game before. The series started back in 1997, and here I am in 2018, 21 years later, playing it for the first time. This game actually was loaned to me by a friend of mine several years ago. I had intended to play it, beat it, and get it back to him a quickly as possible. That didn’t happen. I did manage to start the game, but for whatever reason I stopped about an hour in and never came back to it.

Playing it had been on my mind for a while, but I was just never in the mood to start it up again. I had always heard that each Fallout game was a major time commitment, and I was not quite ready to take the plunge yet. I don’t know what changed, but last month, after several years of having this game in my possession, I finally decided that the time was right. I was going to start up Fallout 3 and see what all the fuss was about.

Storyline:

Since this is the third game in the Fallout series, I was a little worried that I would have missed something story-wise having not played the first two games. Turns out I had nothing to worry about. You can jump into this game easily without having played anything else in the series. Yes, the games are all connected, but it is not essential to have played the other games to understand what is going on here.

The game starts with you creating a player. You can pick either sex and pretty much any ethnicity you please. When I play games like this, I usually play as a man first. If I return to the game to play through it again at a later date, I will play as a woman. Sticking to tradition, I did indeed pick a man this time around.

After creating your character, the game takes you back in time to the birth of your character. Flashback scenes have you take control of your character through several defining points of his childhood. This is where you learn the basic story and the basic controls of the game. Your find out that you were born in a nuclear fallout bunker, AKA Vault 101. Nuclear war has devastated the world outside, leaving the last remnants of society (or so you think) living their day to day lives in the Vault. One day your father randomly decides to dip out and leave the Vault with no explanation. This throws the community into a panic, and Vault security comes looking for you for answers. Fearing for your life, you escape the Vault. The whole outside world in front of you, you set out on a quest to find your father… and answers as to what has been going on in the “outside world” this whole time.

I hope this isn’t too much of a spoiler (skip to the next section if you are worried about that kind of thing), but eventually you do track down your father. Turns out, he is a brilliant scientist who is looking for a way to purify all the irradiated water in the area and bring new life to the DC area. Sounds fine and dandy, but the last remaining faction of the old US government, the Enclave, wants this research for their own nefarious purposes. A classic battle of good vs evil ensues. What side you happen to be on is completely up to you.

 Gameplay:

I think one of the reasons I stopped playing this game the first time around is because I did not understand its combat system. As you are walking around, Fallout 3 looks and feels like a typical first person shooter. But when you go into battle, it is anything but. Sure, you can manually aim and fire away at your enemies, but the damage you inflict seems minimal and ineffective. The key to taking out your enemies in this game is to hit the R2 trigger. This pauses the game and makes combat feel more like that of a traditional role playing game (but not quite). When paused, you can manually target different parts of your enemy’s body. Targeting the head, which is what I mainly did, zaps their health faster and increases your odds of a critical strike. Targeting the legs will slow enemies down and make it hard for them to follow you. Targeting the arms can knock the weapon out of your enemies hand, rendering their attacks impotent. Your attacks are MUCH more powerful when you use targeting mode versus coming into this and trying to play it like a simple first person shooter. That said, if the game allowed you to stop the action and go into targeting mode at will, it would make the game too easy. Instead, you only get a limited amount of this kind of attack. You have an AP meter that determines how often you can enter targeting mode. When the meter is fully depleted, you have no choice but to play in “real time” and try to kill your enemies as if this was a regular FPS. You can only go into targeting mode to slow combat down if you have the proper amount of AP remaining on your AP gauge. Luckily, your AP replenishes itself fairly quickly.

Combat aside, game mechanics work like pretty much any traditional first person shooter. You walk, you pick stuff up, you jump, etc. You can switch to a behind-the-back viewpoint at any time, but this camera angle is basically useless. Stick to first person mode. In first person mode, you can see a greater range of what is going on onscreen. It also makes it much easier to collect all the items that are scattered around this world.

Speaking of items, you have to be careful with how much you take with you in this game. If you try to play like I did the first time I picked up Fallout, you are going to find yourself overburdened and barely able to move in no time. Each item has a specific weight number attached to it. You can only carry so much weight, so once you hit the limit your character starts walking around at a snail’s pace. The only way to begin moving at a normal speed again is to drop some of your items to get you below the weight limit. There is a crafting system in this game, but I never bothered with it because in order to craft special items, you need many smaller items to work with. I was always over the weight limit, and I preferred to keep space in my inventory for weapons, armor, and healing items, and that never really left me with any room to save smaller items for crafting, so I missed out on that whole facet of the game. You also have to be careful not to grab everything in sight, not only because of the weight limit, but because of what the game’s NPCs will think of you. If you walk into someone’s house and start grabbing stuff off the shelf, they will freak out and try to either fight you or hide from you. If you are in a town or a village, everyone will see you as a thief and start attacking you on sight.

Which leads us to the game’s karma system. If you have played games like Mass Effect or Knights of the Old Republic, you should know what to expect here. If you do good deeds as you play the game, you will find yourself with a positive karma score. The people of the game will praise you and randomly give you items as you play. You’ll hear stories of your good deeds broadcast over the radio system. Certain characters like the overpowered Fawkes will want to join up with you. Overall, you will be looked at as the hero of the wastelands. This is how I chose to play the game on my playthrough. When I play it again at some point in the future, I will likely pick the bad karma route. Make bad choices, like stealing and murdering, and it will lower your karma score. I don’t know how this affects you as you play, but I can imagine it will make people openly hostile to you. You’ll probably hear the radio DJ condemn your actions. Instead of the hero of the wastelands, you will be its villain. Really, you can’t go wrong with either choice.

The game is made up of many different quests, some of which are optional. The main story quest begins the second you exit Vault 101. You have to follow in your dad’s footsteps and look for clues as to his whereabouts. As you explore, you will discover a plethora of sidequests you can partake in. If you wanted to, you could skip these side quests and only do the story ones, and finish the game in a fraction of a time it would have taken you otherwise. But where is the fun in that? You should be happy to see that these quests are not all just annoying fetch quests. Many of them are very creative and actually do affect how things will play out later in the game. An example: a town is being ravaged by giant fire ants. You have to kill the ants, track down where they are coming from, and eliminate the source once and for all. Another quest has you freeing slaves from their imprisoners. The different choices you make while undertaking these quests affect your karma. An example: there is a quest where you agree to a bounty on four different NPCs. These people all have keys on them that the man issuing the bounty wants. There are many ways you can go about this quest. You can do it by the book: kill each bounty and take their keys back to the man who hired you. Or you can tell them the truth so that they give you the key and leave with their lives. Or you can kill them and take all the keys for yourself and use these keys to unlock a treasure. Or you can corroborate with these bounties and turn around and kill your employer instead. There are so many ways to go about each mission in the game, and it adds a LOT of depth to this title.

Graphics:

Considering that this game is ten years old, I think it still looks decent. It definitely shows its age, but I wouldn’t say it is hideous or anything. This game takes place in Washington DC, and many of its landscapes and monuments are faithfully recreated here. The landscapes look really good. I love it when I go over the crest of a hill and see everything sprawled out in front of me. The game is HUGE, and the amount of detail put into making it seem like a place where people used to live is terrific. You’ve got houses, office buildings, subways, downtown shopping areas, factories, parks, junkyards, museums, libraries, campgrounds, playgrounds, the whole nine yards.

There are a few glaring rough spots that you will notice as you play. The characters are nowhere near as well-detailed, well-animated, or lifelike as the ones you see in current games today. Some textures look pretty rough and grainy. A lot of the interior areas have the same dingy, dreary brown and grey tones. I mean, this is supposed to take place after a nuclear war, so it is not like everything should be bursting with color. But things do get a little boring to look at after a while. There is also a lot of slowdown to be seen here, especially when there is a lot happening on the screen at one time. The imperfections never really bothered me TOO much, as I am more of a gameplay guy than a graphics guy. Despite the game’s graphical flaws, it was still a very immersive experience for me, and I found that its setting of Washington DC ravaged by nuclear was never anything short of completely engrossing.

Sound:

Right off the bat, I knew that this game was serious with its voice acting. One of my favorite actors of all time, Ron Perlman, narrates the game’s introduction. Liam Neeson plays your father. There may or may not have been other notable celebrity voices in the game. If there were, I did not notice them. But the voice acting was pretty much on point for the entire game. Not all voice actors delivered perfect performances. Some characters’ voices came through as a little robotic or stunted. But the overwhelming majority of them were great. If I had to make one complaint, it would be that the ghouls all sounded like Krusty the Klown from the Simpsons to me. I just could not take them seriously because of this.

The music is nice too. It’s not very noticeable. Very low key. It sets a nice tone for walking around and exploring. The radio stations are a different story. I like a lot of the 50’s style music you can listen to, but there isn’t much variety in the songs you hear. I heard that Butcher Pete song (hackin’ and wackin’ and smackin’) so many times it was starting to make me grind my teeth. My favorite song was definitely I Don’t Want to Set the World on Fire. I like that one so much that I downloaded it and added it to all my playlists after I finished the game.

Overall:

I had an absolute blast with Fallout 3. There is so much to do here and so much to see. I still can't get over how enormous the world of the game is. I must have played this for well over 40 hours and there are still dozens and dozens of locations on my map that I haven't even explored yet.

Aside from Shenmue and Shenmue II, I can't recall playing a game in recent memory that has kept me as engrossed as Fallout 3. I would turn the game on around four in the afternoon with the intent of only playing an hour or so, and then I would look at the clock and find that it was after ten o'clock at night. Even knowing I had to go to bed, I would still struggle with finding a good point to save and turn the game off. I kept telling myself, just one more mission. Just make it to the next area. Just talk to this one person. Then you can stop. But then something would happen that would keep me playing even longer. I have a very short attention span, and the fact that this game kept me riveted for so long is truly a testament to how great it is.

Not to say the game is completely without flaws. I think the game struggled with finding its balance between being too easy and too difficult. There were many areas of the game where I would encounter overpowered enemies, and I would really struggle to make it through in one piece. Other areas were laughably easy. Even just wandering the map from one location to the next, the results were a mixed bag. Sometimes I would cruise along, no problem. Other times I would encounter enemies that would take me down with just two or three hits, and then I would find myself starting over again from the last save point. I met a character named Fawkes who joined up with me to help me on my quest. At first I thought he was a great addition, but then I discovered that he was making the game far too easy. Enemies couldn't get within ten feet of me because he would mow them down in three seconds. This was all fine and dandy, but with him killing everything in sight it made it very hard for me to kill anyone myself and get the EXP I needed to level up my character. As soon as I dismissed him, I started getting swarmed by giant radioactive scorpions, minelurks, and deathclaws - and the game became too difficult.

Another flaw is the game's map system. Traversing the ruins of DC is no easy task, and the map does you no favors. I would have a destination highlighted on my map and I would be following the marker. Then the marker would all of a sudden whip around and tell me to go back the way I came from. Then I would turn around, and it would whip around and tell me to turn around again. I knew where I needed to go. The game knew where I needed to go. But the map seemed like it was confused as to how to get to that location. The map often would lead me into a building or subway tunnel. As soon as I entered the new area, it would tell me to exit and go back out onto the main map. I would do so, and then it would tell me to enter the place I just exited from again. I'd often have to just ignore the map and wander off myself, not knowing if I was going the way I was supposed to, or if I was headed in the completely wrong direction. As a result, I did often wander into areas where I was not supposed to be yet, loaded with overpowered enemies and dead ends. I hope they fixed the map system for future Fallout games, because I got lost quite often, and it was no fun at all.

The game's save system is a little irritating too. The game autosaves whenever there is a loading screen, which is pretty much whenever you enter a new area or leave a shop or business. But this caused a few issues for me as I played. Let's say I am talking with someone and I make a bad conversation choice and they start attacking me. I'd turn around and run out the door, and the game would automatically save as I exited the building. Then all of a sudden I have the entire town attacking me, and if I tried to go back and load the last save, they would STILL be attacking me because the game had auto saved after I exited the door after making the bad conversation choice. I'd have to go back and load my last manual save (whenever that had been) and replay the whole segment of the game over again. So definitely manually save often or you will run into the same issue I did, many times.

So those are my gripes with the game: the save system, the map, and the uneven difficulty level. The graphics aren't the best either, but like I said I don't care about that too much. Even with all these gripes, I still absolutely loved the game.

As I said before, the game is completely engrossing. The makers of Fallout 3 did a tremendous job at creating such an enormous, believable environment. The world of the game is filled with its own lore. The missions in this game are all a blast to play, but just walking around and exploring and taking in the sights and meeting new characters and discovering the history of this nuked out world is an exhilarating experience.

I don't know how I resisted the allure of Fallout for so long. To believe that Fallout 3 has been out for ten years, yet I am just playing it now is crazy to me. I guess if there is an upside to waiting so long to dive into the series, it is that I do not have to wait to play more. Fallout: New Vegas, Fallout 4, and the original non-first person Fallout games are already available for me to play, and Fallout 76 comes out next month. There is a whole world of Fallout in front of me, and I couldn't be more excited. According to some of the reviews I have read, New Vegas and Fallout 4 are even better than this game. I consider this to be a damn fine game, so if the reviews are to be trusted then I am in for a real treat.

I usually only reward games that I consider to be flawless with perfect scores. Clearly, I had some gripes with this game and I do not consider it flawless. But I have to factor in other things. The size and the scope of the game. The complexity of its missions and its character choices. Uncovering the lore and the history of this big, complex world. The fact that I completely lost myself in this game, playing for days on end, hours on end, for weeks on end. The fact that I would recommend this game to anyone and everyone who will ask me about it. The fact that this game has fully put me on the Fallout bandwagon. If it wasn't for this game, Fallout would continue to be just another series that I didn't have time for yet. This game changed everything.

And that's a good thing. A very good thing.

Final Score:

A+

If you liked my review of Fallout 3, please check out some of my other reviews:

BioShock

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic

Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic II: The Sith Lords

Dishonored

Far Cry Classic

Re-Review #3: The Walking Dead: Michonne

Re-Review!

The Walking Dead: Michonne

PlayStation 3

>click here for my original review of the Walking Dead: Michonne<

I replayed the first two Walking Dead games from Telltale a few months ago. Mainly, I just wanted to play them again because I had planned to play the third game shortly thereafter. I needed a small refresher as I could not for the life of me remember where the second game had left off. Time has passed but I still have not gotten around to the third game yet. I figured that, in the meantime, I will play The Walking Dead: Michonne again. While it is unrelated to the Clementine story that takes place in the main game, I figured it would be a fun distraction until I would be able to play Season Three.

I don’t remember a whole lot about my first playthrough of the game, even though it only took place about a year and a half ago. I only recall thinking it was… okay. Not bad, but not particularly good or memorable either. Just okay. What would I think this time around?

I came into it with an open mind. I love Michonne, especially the comic book version of the character. If you are a fan of the comics, this game takes place shortly after the “All Out War” story arc. Michonne leaves Rick’s group and winds up hanging out with some sailor broskis on the water. Michonne and the bros get caught up in a battle between a vicious group of survivors and a family who is in open conflict with the bad guys.

The game plays out like past entries in the Walking Dead series. You can walk around and talk to people. You pick from different conversation branches and different character choices. Battle scenes consist of quick time events. There is nothing really new to report here, from the gameplay all the way down to the music and the graphics. I liked the past few Walking Dead games, so this was no problem for me.

The game takes place over the course of three episodes. While you may think “oh hey that’s not bad for such a small price tag”, keep in mind that each episode is only about an hour in length, if that. So at most the whole game is about three hours long. They could have easily released the game as one big chapter. This seems like a sneaky way of trying to get more money out of people who bought the season pass to me. Luckily, I didn’t buy the game until all three had been released and I was able to get the whole shebang on sale for about five bucks. I don’t know how much it costs now, but I wouldn’t pay any more than five bucks for it if I was you.

The game itself is fine, but it is nothing horribly memorable. The conflict is extremely straightforward. It doesn’t challenge you or make you think at all. The game also didn’t make me cry or trigger any kind of extreme emotions like the first Walking Dead game did with Lee and Clementine. It tries, with the deaths of several main characters and Michonne’s flashback scenes to the deaths of her two children. But to me it failed. I don’t know, the game just was not long enough to really get me invested in the characters. I wanted to feel that attachment, but I didn’t. The ending fell a little flat for me too. When the conflict is resolved, Michonne is just like "ok I guess I should go back to Rick's group now", and that is it. The end. There are no twists or turns, no big wow moments. No lasting repercussions for the actions you took as you played. That makes it the weakest of all the Walking Dead games that I have played so far.

Don't get me wrong, this is a fun distraction if you are bored and want to throw a few hours into a quick game you can finish in one night. It may not be the emotion-filled journey we've come to expect from Walking Dead Telltale games, but it is still fun to play. It is fast moving, action packed, and although the game's story is not horribly deep, it is well told and keeps you interested in seeing what is going to happen next. I definitely had FUN while I played this. 

So this falls into the category of "fun and enjoyable, but nothing memorable whatsoever". Ask me again in several years what I thought of the game's story, and I probably am not going to be able to tell you much. I may be able to remember that I liked the game and had fun with it, but beyond that? Meh. This is worth picking up if you are a big Walking Dead fan, or just a fan of Telltale in general. But I wouldn't pay any more than five bucks for it.

Overall:

C+

(original score: B)

Other re-reviews:

The Walking Dead Season 1

The Walking Dead Season 2

Video Game Review #152: Gears of War 2

Gears of War 2

Xbox 360

Nostalgia Factor:

There isn’t much for me to say here. Up until last year, I had never even played a Gears of War game. I thought the first game was… fine. Looking back at my review for it, I said it reminded me of a video game version of a Michael Bay film, and I gave it a C+. Honestly, there wasn’t a whole lot about it that was very memorable to me. It was a good, quick time waster. I recall having a fun time while it lasted. That’s about it.

Storyline:

I don’t remember squat about the first game’s storyline. All I remember is that humanity was at war with a hostile, possibly alien species that liked to burrow up and attack from belowground. Here in the sequel, this war is still going on. Rather than simply engaging in a defensive battle, you and your fellow troopers take the war to the aliens. You lead a strike team below the surface of the planet to annihilate the threat once and for all.

I do think Gears 2 struggles with its storytelling. There is actually a lot more going on with the game's storyline than just that small little paragraph above. It is just that everything moves so quickly in the game it is hard for me to remember a whole lot of details. I looked at the game's Wikipedia page and it has this long, detailed plot synopsis. I don't remember anything from that synopsis happening in the game, though! All I remember is a lot of running from point A to point B and shooting enemies. Eventually you make your way deep underneath the surface of the planet where you set off a bomb that hopefully kills the bad guys once and for all. All the other stuff mentioned on the Wiki page, I don't remember at all from the game. I don't know if that is just from me not paying close enough attention as I played, or if it was the game not getting its point across clearly enough. Either way, whenever it is that I play Gears 3 I am going to try to think back and remember what happened in the first two games and I am going to draw a complete blank. I am calling it already!

Gameplay:

Don’t expect a whole lot of variety while you are playing this game. You run, you take cover, you shoot things. You run, you take cover, you shoot things. You run, you take cover, you shoot things. Got that? If I had to compare the game to something I have already played, I guess Uncharted would be the closest thing. Not Uncharted as a whole, just the combat sequences. The way you take cover, the way you fire, the way you reload, even the way you change your weapons are all exactly the same. You are given the opportunity to use vehicles or to man defensive turrets from time to time. You’re still going to be shooting stuff, but you are not going to be running or taking cover for the time being. As far as variety goes, that is something, I guess?

I hope it doesn’t sound like I am being critical of the game. While, yeah, it is a little bit repetitive, it is also a lot of fun. I never got tired of playing this game. It never felt like a drag. In fact, I was having a great time for most of this game, much more so than the first game. A lot of it boils down to how impressive the stages and the set pieces are. My particular favorite is when you and your buddies have to enter a massive worm. Your goal is to find all of its hearts and cut them out with a chainsaw, putting an end to the destructive creature once and for all. The whole thing is incredibly clever to me, especially when the screen starts filling up with blood that threatens to drown your characters. It is so violent and gory and over the top, and I love it. Play through this sequence of the game and tell me you don’t feel like a complete badass after you finish it. I dare you.

So yeah. You big man. You have gun. You shoots things. The premise may be a bit shallow and to the point, but it is FUN. That’s really all that should matter, right?

Graphics:

I can’t say enough about how impressed I am with the game’s visuals. There were several points in the game where I had to stop fighting and simply pause to take in all the impressive sights. Some of the game’s landscapes are quite beautiful. Interiors look really good too, especially when the game’s action takes place in the “real world” on the planet’s surface. I put real world in parentheses because I don’t even think this game is supposed to take place on Earth, that's how much I don't remember about the game's storyline. But whatever. Even though buildings are damaged and in partial ruin, there is still an impressive level of detail that was put in to making things look authentic as possible. You can really see in your mind how things used to look BEFORE all the fighting started.

The characters look great. So do the enemies. Water effects, lighting, smoke, and explosions all look fantastic. The action is fast and furious, and although there is almost always a lot going on onscreen at one time, the game’s framerate never slows down. I can’t believe this game is ten years old. It looks better than some newer games I have played that have been released within the last few years. Good stuff.

Sound:

Everything sounds exactly as it should for this type of game. You are in a war zone, so expect to hear lots of gunfire and explosions. No complaints for me in this category. The characters voices all sound pretty good, certainly miles better than Shenmue, which I had just finished before starting this game. Again: no complaints there.

If I had to criticize one aspect of the game’s sound, it would be its music. Not that the music is bad, necessarily. I just don’t remember any of it. Most games have at least one catchy tune, one memorable track that gets stuck in your head. Gears of War 2 did not. In fact, if you were to play a bunch of the game’s tracks for me, without telling me what game the music was from, I wouldn’t be able to tell you where the music was from. And I just finished playing the game! So yeah. Very forgettable. On the plus side, the music wasn’t BAD. At least I don’t remember it being bad. You’d think I would have noticed if it was.

Overall:

Gears of War 2 is a relatively short game. There are five chapters, and I would say that, at most, each chapter lasts about two hours. So I finished with this pretty quickly. I know that most people play Gears of War games for the online multiplayer aspect, but I don’t care about that. I have never been a big online shooter person. I don’t even know if people still play this game online anymore - it is ten years old, after all. So that aspect of the game is a wash to me. I only care about the single player campaign.

And even though the campaign is short, I still had a lot of fun playing it. All the running and shooting and death never got old for me. Which is weird, because I thought the opposite when I played the first game. I think the game’s set pieces and its bigger battles and grander scale of action was the difference maker for me. It certainly wasn’t the game’s storyline. Even though I just finished the game a few days ago, I have already forgotten most of what the game’s storyline entails.

So yeah. This is not the deepest video game experience I’ve ever had, but that doesn’t mean much. I enjoyed myself. And really, that’s what it is all about. If you don’t have a good time playing a game, then what’s the point? If you are into mindless destruction and want a short, relatively easy game to bide your time, you should check this out. I can’t give it a higher score because so much of the game is not memorable in any way, shape or form. But it is fun while it lasts.

Final Grade:

B

If you liked my review of Gears of War 2, please check out some of my other reviews:

Gears of War

Uncharted 2: Among Thieves

Uncharted 3: Drake's Deception

Resident Evil: Revelations

God of War II

Video Game Review #151: Shenmue II

Shenmue II

Xbox

Note: I am not exactly sure what console to file this review under. Whenever an HD re-release of a game comes out, I almost always credit the original system if the game is basically the exact same thing with the addition of graphical upgrades. For example: I counted the first Shenmue as a Dreamcast game even though I had played the re-release on the PS4. My reasoning: I own the physical copy of the Dreamcast game, I grew up playing it, and I am most familiar with that version of the game. I didn’t see enough changes in the HD re-release to consider it a PS4 game. Using that logic, I would consider this to be an Xbox review, since the Xbox copy of Shenmue II is the one I played first and still own a physical copy of. I only played through the Xbox version once, and according to my memory these games are identical. However, I hear that the Xbox port of Shenmue II is garbage, and that it suffered all kinds of problems that were fixed with the PS4 port, which is supposedly far superior. I do not remember any of those issues, which is why I am still counting this as an Xbox title. If in the future I go back and play the Xbox copy and find it significantly worse than the PS4 re-release, I may change my mind. But for now: Xbox it is.

Nostalgia Factor:

I was always an enormous fan of the original Shenmue, but its sequel was never released for the Dreamcast in the United States. For the longest time, I never thought I was going to be able to play it. Eventually it was ported to the Xbox in the year 2002. One problem: I didn’t have an Xbox. After several years had passed, however, my girlfriend at the time was given an Xbox by a friend who was moving away. It didn’t immediately dawn on me: “oh yeah, you can play Shenmue II now!” I was more focused on finally being able to play the Knights of the Old Republic games. But when I went to a local buy and sell used game store, one of the first titles I saw on the shelf was Shenmue II. Memories of the first game came flooding back to me. A rush of adrenaline ran through my body. I was finally going to be able to see what happened next! I didn’t care what the price of the game was, I was going to buy it. It was MINE!

I popped Shenmue II in and I was immediately blown away by the larger scale of the game. Everything the first game had done, the sequel managed to ramp up to a much grander scale. Looking back on my first time playing, specific memories of the game are a little hazy. This was, after all, smack dab in the middle of the perma-drunk/stoned phase of my life that I mentioned during my Snake Eater review. I remember a woman on a motorcycle. I remember catching leaves. I remember visiting the martial arts school. I remember Kowloon and all the planks. I remember having to work my way up, floor by floor, through that Yellow Head Building towards the end of the game and how tedious it was. I remember the absurdly long walking and talking segment after you meet up with Shenhua. I did not remember the game’s exact ending. I also recall not liking the game as much as I did the first.

At the very earliest, this took place around 2004. At latest, 2006. I would not play the game again until 2018 when I got the Shenmue I and II collection for the PS4. I quickly burned through the first Shenmue in five days. Part of me wanted to go right into Shenmue II, but I didn’t want to burn myself out on the series so quickly. I played a few other games first. Then, after a week or two had passed, I realized that I didn’t care about getting burned out on the series. All I could think about was jumping back into the world of Shenmue. So I did.

Storyline:

This game picks up shortly after the first Shenmue left off. Ryo arrives in Hong Kong, fresh faced and ready to track down the man who killed his father. His only clue is a letter he received in the first game. The letter was addressed to Ryo’s father, warning him that Lan-Di was going to be coming looking for the mirrors. It was sent from Hong Kong by a man named Yuanda Zhu. Ryo sets off to find Yuanda Zhu, but runs into several roadblocks along the way.

First, his bag gets stolen. Mission number one:  track down the thieves to get it back. He does, only to discover that all his money was removed first. All that cash you carried over from the first game? Yup. Gone forever! Ryo is forced to get a job moving boxes (just for one shift, luckily). This gives you a little bit of cash to play with as you set out on your quest. You are going to need more money later on in the game, but how you earn it is up to you. You can take on more jobs, like the box moving. You can gamble. You can participate in arm wrestling matches. You can even sell your collectible baubles at pawn shops if you are in need of a little extra money.

Even though your goal of finding Yuanda Zhu seems pretty straightforward, it is not. Hong Kong is a big, BIG freaking city. And the game is set in the 80s, so you can’t just search for him on Google or anything. You have to go around and talk to people and gather clues to find his location. If you’ve played the first Shenmue, you should know how this works. The whole game pretty much is following one small clue to the next. Each clue you find, each path you go down brings you just a tiny step closer to Yuanda Zhu, and ultimately one step closer to Lan-Di.

Honestly, too much happens in this game for me to be able to recap it all for you for this review. Long story short: your quest eventually takes you out of Hong Kong and into the Walled City of Kowloon. In the game’s final act, you head to Guilin, where the mirrors were created. There you meet up with Shenhua, the mysterious girl you’ve been dreaming about since the first Shenmue. After a lengthy exposition sequence, the game ends on a cliffhanger when Ryo uses a mysterious glowing sword as a key to open up a cavern with a giant mural of the Phoenix and the Dragon mirrors located inside.

The end.

What? That’s it? You can see why people are so miffed that it has been almost 20 years and we still don’t have a Shenmue III yet. Thankfully, that is coming soon.

Gameplay:

The game’s controls are exactly the same as they were in the first game, so I am not going to go into great detail about them. Ryo still has his tank controls. The fighting system is still exactly the same. If you played the first game, you will be able to jump right into this one without missing a beat.

Quick time events are still aplenty, although they are more annoying this time around than they were in the first game. You don’t get a whole lot of time to react to them this time, especially in some of the game’s faster paced action scenes. As fast as I am, I failed many, many QTEs throughout the course of my playthrough. Most QTE sequences simply start back up again when you fail them, so this wasn’t a huge issue for me… for the most part. There is one particular spot in the game where you have to ascend a dilapidated building, using wooden planks to cross large chasms. As you are balancing,  a QTE sequence starts up where you must hit the proper buttons to keep your balance. One slip up, ONE, and you fall to your death. You then have to start at the bottom of the building and make your way up again. Seeing as how this is a lengthy and time consuming part of the game, you absolutely do not want to have to make your way up again. I found myself saving the game after each and every wooden plank in order to save some time. I could just load up my last save again whenever I fell (which was often). I don’t remember much of my initial playthrough of Shenmue II on the original Xbox, but I do remember this segment with all the wooden planks. I don’t think that the game let you save whenever you wanted like this one does, so I had to trial and error my way through it, writing down the button prompts one at a time and memorizing them so that I would not fall. That had to be a major pain in the butt.

Conversations work a little bit differently in this game. Instead of simply talking to people with your generic pre-loaded questions and getting their generic and predictable pre-loaded responses, you are often given the option of asking specific questions. If you have multiple objectives to take care of, you can pick which objective you want to ask people about. You can ask where certain destinations are. If you are in need, you can also ask questions about where to make money. This isn’t Knights of the Old Republic, however, where you have long and detailed conversation trees to pick from. Things are much more basic than that, although this is a step in that direction. I also must note that NPCs are much more willing to help this time around. 90% of the people in the original Shenmue basically told you to screw off whenever you’d approach them. This time around, everyone is SO much more helpful. You still get a few A-holes once in a while, but they are few and far between. Some people even go so far as to walk you to your destination if you are lost. They walk at a god damn snail’s pace, but they will take you where you need to be. Eventually.

One major improvement upon the original Shenmue is how you no longer have to kill time while waiting for events to happen. Need to meet someone at a bar that opens up at 7 PM, but it is only 10 o’clock in the morning? No problem! The game gives you the option to speed up time so you no longer have to wait around for hours at a time. Yes! Thank you! That was my number one complaint about the first game, all the waiting. I am so glad they fixed it. It is a little ironic too, because there is so much more to see and do in this game. Killing time in Shenmue II would have likely been a lot less dull than it was in the first game. But still, I am very glad this addition was made.

Graphics:

The game still looks really, really good. Sure, it shows its age in a few areas, but I don’t care. You can’t hold a game from 2001 or 2002 to 2018’s graphical standards. The characters look nice. The cityscapes look nice. All the shops, stores, restaurants, and the like are all extremely and painstakingly detailed. They look like places that could have legitimately existed back in the 80s. You can go inside a great many of them. I explored a LOT, and there are still dozens and dozens of rooms I did not enter. I am willing to bet, however, that even though going into these rooms is not essential to advance the plot in any way, that they are still intricately detailed and filled with small personal touches. That is some dedication. The atmosphere this game creates is sensational. It is just so easy to get completely lost in this game. Just as the first Shenmue made me fall in love with Japan, this game does the same with China. I’ve never been to China, but I feel that I understand what life over there would be like just from playing Shenmue II.

The landscapes in the game are beautiful too. I feel as if the first Shenmue was a bit more scenic than this one, which mainly takes place in dirty, crowded cities. But the cities are still really nice to look at. Kowloon not so much, but I did enjoy gazing out over the water while in Hong Kong. Aerial shots of the city always made the city look really appealing to me, too, although I hear it is polluted and filthy and disgusting there in real life. In this game it is all sunshine and clear skies and crystal blue waters

The game's final act takes you out of the city and into a lush, green forested area in Guilin. Guilin looks pretty beautiful, and it was admittedly very nice to get out of the city and see trees and some water and some nature.

Sound:

I thought that the voice acting and the sound quality of the game's conversations was one of the weakest things about the original Shenmue. While I think it has improved perhaps a tiny little bit, it still is not the best.

The game's music is still very good though. It blends right in with the game's intricately detailed environments. The graphics and the sound go hand-in-hand to really deliver an immersive experience for the player. Put on some headphones and dedicate a few hours to this title. You will completely lose yourself in the game.

Overall:

The original Shenmue meant a lot to me, and when I reviewed it I was tempted to give it a perfect score. I didn't, however, as I only give perfect scores to games that I believe to be absolutely flawless. The first Shenmue was not flawless. The long wait times, the tank controls, the hundreds of NPCs that were always too busy to talk to me. It was an outstanding game, but not a flawless one.

Shenmue II takes everything that the first game does, and makes it even better. The cities you explore are enormous, filled with hundreds of explorable rooms and businesses. The NPCs actually talk to you and help you out on your quest. The storyline of the game moves along at a much quicker pace, and is filled with all kinds of action. There were dull moments aplenty in the first Shenmue, particularly when you had to wait around because you could not speed up time. That is not a problem here! Everything clips along at just the right pace.

But when the game needs to slow things down and step back for a moment, it can do that too. When Ryo has to catch the red leaves falling from the sky. When he duels with Xiuying, who teaches him new moves. Learning about Wude under a sky of shining stars. This game does an excellent job of balancing exploration and fast paced action, while at times toning it back and delivering a heartfelt storyline at the same time.

Not to say it is without flaws. I don't know if it is just me, but I found some of the brand new QTE combo sequences to be hard to duplicate, simply because I could not see them properly. For example, it would look like it was saying to hit down, down, then right because of the way the buttons were flashing. But it would actually just be down then right. The way the buttons flashed up on the screen were very misleading, in my opinion, and often led to a lot of frustrating deaths.

Speaking of frustration, don't get me started on the plank segment of the game again. What a chore! And when you have to scale that building at the end of the game, floor by floor? Ugh. That part of the game seemed like it would never end. Just get me to the damn roof, or the 17th floor, or wherever it was I needed to be. It was so unnecessary to have obstacles that you had to dodge or enemies you had to fight and then long conversation sequences on nearly every floor. That whole area of the game was a bit dragged out for me.

And speaking of the phrase "dragged out", need I mention how boring the Guilin segment of the game is? All you do is walk and talk with Shenhua and pick different conversation topics for her to talk about. Seriously, that is all you do is walk and talk. For two freaking hours! I shit you not. That is how they end this game, with a two hour walking and talking sequence. I fell asleep in the middle of a conversation one night when I was trying to beat this game. When I woke up, Shenhua was still freaking talking and I swear I must have been asleep for at least ten minutes. She was just babbling on the whole time.

The first three quarters of the game are stunning, A+ material. The last quarter though.... ehhh. It is a bit tedious. The planks, the Yellow Head Building, the walking and talking Guilin segment; this game ends with a whimper rather than a bang.

So by my own admission, the game is not flawless. And I only give perfect scores to flawless games. The first Shenmue was an amazing game and it got an A. This game does everything that the first game does, but several times better. I can forgive the fact that the game ends with a whimper because everything leading up to the end is so incredibly entertaining. Plus, the ending does set us up for Shenmue III, which thankfully we can now look forward to as it is coming out next year in 2019.

Anyone who knows me knows that I often let nostalgia interfere with my reviews. Going simply by nostalgia and from memories, I would have originally told you that the first Shenmue was better than the second. After playing both games in the span of just a couple of weeks, I can now safely say that nostalgia served me wrong. Shenmue II is actually the better game. It is absolutely brilliant and is filled with dozens of breathtaking and memorable moments from start to finish.

No, the game is not flawless. But simply giving it the same grade as the first game when it is SO much better seems wrong. Shenmue II is simply an amazing game, and in the years since its release, its legacy has helped to shape the face of gaming. As innovative as the game is, it is also incredibly unique as well. I have never played anything quite like Shenmue I or II before.

In the past, I have heard Shenmue II mentioned as one of the greatest games of all time. I always used to scoff at that notion, particularly because I always preferred the first. Now, I am not so sure about that. I think those people might be on to something. Once I got started with this game, I couldn't put the controller down. When I wasn't playing, I was thinking about the game. I was really hooked. I hadn't been this invested in a game in a long time. Too long. For that, Shenmue II, I award you with this blog's highest honor: the A+. This game sets the bar ridiculously high for the upcoming Shenmue III. It has been nearly an 18 year wait. I sure hope its worth it.

Overall:

A+

If you liked this review, please check out some of my other game reviews:

Shenmue

Beyond Good and Evil HD

Beyond Two Souls

The Walking Dead

The Legend of Zelda: Majora's Mask

Video Game Review #150: Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

Metal Gear Solid 3: Snake Eater

PlayStation 2

Nostalgia Factor:

Dating back to the original game’s release back in September of 1998, I have always been a huge fan of the Metal Gear Solid series. I avidly devoured both the original game and its sequel – Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty. It should come as no surprise that I was super excited to play Metal Gear 3 Solid: Snake Eater when it first came out. While most critics out there hail this game as one of the best, if not THE best game in the series, I have always been completely neutral on it. I don’t hate it, but it has never been one of my favorites either.

I’ve always been someone who wants to see answers. Certainly, Metal Gear Solid 2 raised more questions than it ever answered. I think one of the reasons I didn’t like Snake Eater as much when I first played it is because I was hoping for a direct sequel to MGS2. Going backwards with a prequel, when there was still SO much plot left out there to explore, was super irritating to me. I wanted to know more about the events that took place after the end of the second game, like what happened to Ocelot. I didn’t care about what happened 30 years ago. This game didn’t even have the “real” Solid snake in it. What the heck?

It didn't help that this game came out in back in 2004, AKA the perma-drunk/stoned portion of my life when I was living with my ex-girlfriend Jessica. I probably didn’t even know what the hell was going on half the time as I played this. My most vivid memory of the game from back then is the part where I had to face off with The Sorrow. For the life of me, I absolutely could not figure out what to do, and I kept dying over and over again, to the point where I thought my copy of the game was broken. A simple Google search nowadays would reveal what I needed to do in about four seconds. In 2004 or 2005, however, the internet was not as easily accessible. We certainly didn’t have it in our apartment. I ended up discreetly opening the plastic packaging of a Snake Eater strategy guide in GameStop, and looking to see what I needed to do. Then I put the guide back on the shelf and scurried out with a guilty look on my face. And you know what? I have no regrets about that.

Overall, my initial impression of Snake Eater was a middling one. As a game I enjoyed it, for the most part. As a Metal Gear Solid game, I was very disappointed.

In the years since, I have played this game from start to finish a small handful of times. My overall impression of it HAS improved over the years, but before my most recent replay I still considered it the worst out of the main entries in the series that I have played. Would playing it in 2018 change my opinion? Read on to find out.

Storyline:

The storyline for this game is actually quite simple when you stack it up against other games in the series. 30 years before the events of the first Metal Gear Solid game, Snake is sent into the forests of the USSR to rescue a brilliant nuclear weapons engineer named Sokolov, who wishes to defect from the Soviet Union. During the rescue mission, Snake's superior officer, referred to as The Boss, teams up with rogue supervillain Colonel Volgin. They nab Sokolov for their own nefarious purposes and use the Shagohod (an early Metal Gear prototype) to wipe out his old base. Snake is attacked and left for dead during the mutiny. He recovers, however, and it becomes his mission to track down and kill Volgin and The Boss, and to get Sokolov back and destroy the Shagohod.

When I first played this game, I had no idea that it was a prequel. I was very confused as to how Solid Snake could appear to be the same age 30 years before the first Metal Gear Solid game. The game doesn't come right out and say it, but using deductive reasoning you can quickly figure out that you aren't actually playing as the "real" Solid Snake as we know him. You are playing as Big Boss in his younger days.

Expect some twists and turns along the way, but as I said the game's plot is much more simple and straightforward than Metal Gear Solids 1 and 2. Characters you meet along the way are Eva - a mysterious double agent who appears to be on your side, a Fox-Hound like gang of enemies with unique special powers, and a young Revolver Ocelot.

Gameplay:

If you have played any Metal Gear Solid games in the past, you should feel right at home here. You control Snake using the analog stick or the D-pad, The left shoulder buttons bring up your equipment, the right shoulder buttons help you manage your weapons. The game introduces a close quarters combat mechanic that was absent from previous games. Rather than just punch and kick your enemies, you can now grab them, hold them up, knock them out, body slam them, slash their throats from behind, and much more. The body slam function was quite useful for me as I played.

The way you heal in this game is new to the series, and it is a bit annoying if I have to be honest with you. Rather than simply having a health bar, where when you run low on health you can pick a healing item and use it, there is now this weird injury/health/stamina system in place. Snake can endure things like cuts, bullet wounds, broken bones, and even poisoning. While on the surface this sounds pretty cool, it is a lot more labor intensive when you want to heal him. You have to pause the game, navigate a menu, come to the healing screen, and start using items to heal Snake's wounds. You can't just use one item either. If Snake is cut, you have to select the disinfectant, then the sutures, then the ointment, and then the bandage to heal the wound. This is very time consuming. If Snake has multiple wounds, you have to do this for each and every one of them.

There is also a stamina bar in place. The lower your stamina gets, the weaker Snake becomes. You have to eat things to keep the stamina bar up. Good thing you are constantly killing wildlife like birds, snakes, rats, and fish. Eating these things replenishes your stamina bar. When your stamina is high, Snake's health bar starts to regenerate. When it is low, he becomes sluggish and unresponsive and easier to kill. Also, you can only swim as far as your stamina meter will allow. If you wait too long to eat the animals that you kill, they become rotten and actually hurt you if you decide to eat them.

There are, of course, items that will replenish your health bar too. But those are actually pretty hard to find here. All in all, I have to say that I am not a huge fan of the whole health/stamina/injury system. I like being able to catch and eat animals, but the fact that they only fill stamina rather than health, and that the game doesn't tell you when they are rotten is quite obnoxious. I would much rather have the simple health bar system back from the first two MGS games.

As is usual per the Metal Gear Solid Series, stealth is the name of the game. You don't want to just rush into areas and get into shootouts. You want to sneak around undetected. This game introduces new stealth elements to the series, like camouflage and face paint. I never bothered to mess around with them, because it never seemed to matter. I always got spotted everywhere I went, no matter how cautious I was. This happened a lot in MGS 2 with me as well. Maybe I am just bad at these kind of stealth games? It actually is pretty easy to shoot your way out of trouble in this one. Whenever I would get spotted I would kill everyone in sight until the alert would go away. Or I would just keep running until I triggered a story cutscene. Whatever worked for me. I wanted to stealth it up, and I tried, truly. But it just wasn't meant to be.

Like previous entries in the series, you will encounter a series of bosses as you play. This game's bosses are pretty cool, not gonna lie. When I think of Metal Gear Solid 3, the boss fights are usually the thing that comes to mind. You've got a guy who controls bees, a creepy tree jumping guy with a long tongue, someone who makes you see dead people, and a Big Daddy looking dude with a flamethrower and a jetpack. The most memorable (but not in a good way) boss to me takes place with you squaring off against a geriatric sniper. He is constantly hiding and is an absolute PAIN to find and kill. Plus, the fight takes a super long time. It could take over an hour if you don't know what you are doing. Ugh, worst part of the whole game in my opinion. The final boss fight of the game makes up for it, though. That battle against The Boss in the middle of the field of flowers is stunning.

Graphics:

The game looked good for its time, and it still looks pretty decent. Nothing eye-popping. Character models are pretty standard stuff. The buildings and the locations all look pretty good. I would have to say Snake Eater's biggest strength is in its atmospheric effects. The rustling of the leaves on the tree, the wind as it blows through the tall grass. The dripping of water in a dark cave, and the reflection of your torch as it lights your path. There is a lot of attention paid to detail with this game, and it shows.

Each segment of the game has its own distinct visual style. Gotta give the makers of the game kudos for mixing things up. Your view is generally limited to a pretty small area as you play, but during cutscenes, you get a chance to step back and check things out. It is easily the best looking of the PS2 Metal Gear games. I wouldn't say there is too much of a huge jump in quality over Sons of Liberty, but a jump was definitely made.

Sound:

Everything sounds exactly as a Metal Gear Solid game should. David Hayter is once again back as Solid Snake, and it is always a pleasure to get to listen to his gravely voice all game long. The rest of the cast is brand new, but everyone does a tremendous job with their voice acting. All the characters feel like they belong right at home here in this game.

The game's music is great, too. I particularly love the Bond-esque Snake Eater song when you load up the game. In-game music is excellent as always, although there aren't as many memorable tracks in this game as there are in the first two MGS games.

Sound effects are fine. Gotta love the classic Metal Gear Solid alert sound returning once again. When I get spotted and I hear that sound, and the music changes to its frantic "you've been seen!!" alert, I still panic as I did when I played the original Metal Gear back in 1998.

Overall:

I really like this game. I do. But my opinion on where it stands when placed against the other Metal Gear Solid games has not changed. Maybe, MAYBE it is better than Sons of Liberty. Maybe. This game definitely did not annoy or frustrate me as much as that one did. Thinking about it more, it is probably right up there with that game, neck and neck. But it doesn't stand a chance against the original Metal Gear Solid game or Guns of the Patriots. And I haven't played any of the other ones yet.

Just because it is not my favorite Metal Gear game doesn't mean it is not a good game. I do like it. I can see why so many critics out there consider this game to be one of the best in the series. It is a fine game. It just isn't as interesting to me. The whole combination: the setting, the storyline, even the time frame the game is set in. Not as interesting. Is it possible that I missed the convoluted messes that were the plots of Metal Gears one and two? Maybe.

I'd still recommend this to anyone interested in the Metal Gear series. It might even be a good starting point for someone who is new to the series and has never played any of the other games before. Its simplicity and the fact that it is a prequel makes it very beginner friendly.

Best Metal Gear Solid game? No. Still a really damn good game? Heck yeah.

Final Grade:

B

If you liked this review, please check out some of my other game reviews:

Metal Gear Solid

Metal Gear Solid: The Twin Snakes

Metal Gear Solid 2: Sons of Liberty

The Last of Us Remastered

Thief