Recent reviews by Peter Pan(cake)

Like CS:GO, but worse.

Metal Gear Rising seems to be the product of (a) very peculiar mind(s), tailored for a narrow niche. In the world of Metal Gear (Solid), Metal Gear Rising throws out any competent stealth, rendering even the idea of crawling around in prowl of carefully-aimed headshots pointless. Instead, it opts for a much more action-oriented style of gameplay.

Oddly enough, even the stealthier parts of Metal Gear Rising take influences from outside of the Metal Gear Solid games. The path to infiltrating a location without getting discovered (albeit made nigh impossible in most cases) involves sneaking up to an enemy and pressing a button highlighted on the screen, which summons a killing animation and a swift death. From the more gun-oriented Metal Gear Solid games (which do have some limited melee fighting, which never quite reaches competency) where most deaths are dispensed with a well-placed headshot and then a hiding of the victim, quick melee kills from behind was something it never quite dabbled in. Metal Gear Rising feels a slight obligation to include stealth elements, but by no means should - or would - anyone ever think it's much to write home about. This is, first and foremost, a hack-and-slasher, a game where the only thinking you do is the combo you want to string together, and retaining a sense of when to press a button prompt.

In some regards, though, Metal Gear Rising still makes a case for carrying the Metal Gear name. Winding codec conversations peppered with snarky remarks and a lingering sense of (oftentimes forced) camaraderie are still present in the game, albeit not to the extent they've been presented in past games. There's a lot of left-overs from previous Metal Gears, like the presence of nanomachines that were a focal point of Metal Gear Solid 4, the appearance of Sunny, appearances by towering Metal Gears, and of course, Raiden. Purely looking at the main conflict that carries the story, however, shows a game which, while holding the Metal Gear name, doesn't lend itself to much creative liberty to do whatever it wants to with the series. The conflict centers around characters never seen before, in a premise years away from the last Metal Gear Solid, with implications far-reaching, and touching upon the previous staples of the Metal Gear series (like The Patriots and the idea of PMCs, like the Desperado Enforcement LLC, which much of the game centers around).

All in all, the story sets itself up to have a far-reaching impact on the Metal Gear universe, but ends up falling flat, mostly positioning itself in the timeline as a pocket of Raiden's life, a tour de force on a revenge path, finishing the game with the general world none the wiser about the events that transpire during, and shape, the game.

Aside from the bland and mostly insignificant plot, however, is a game which does make some contentions on being its own entity in the hack-and-slasher genre. Instructions are very down-played, and many players (including some reviewers who've written about the game) may find themselves (unnecessarily) frustrated. As personal experience has shown, the existence of a dodge button is hidden away under lock and key, something many players have managed to miss throughout a whole playthrough. Even with its existence, though, it's still easy to get hit in a crowd of enemies, and the life supply in Metal Gear Rising isn't cranked up quite as high as you'd expect. After some time with the game, you'll realize this is a hack-and-slasher much more built with blocking and parrying in mind, facilitating success by way of careful timing and precision. Recovering health works by going into blade mode, and quickly - but precisely - cutting through a square that's shown somewhere on the enemy's body, and then slamming on the highlighted button prompt after you manage to successfully cut into it.

There's different responses you need for different enemies, some having attacks with an area of effect that can still catch you even with a dodging attempt presented at the right time, some being unblockable (or unparryable), some triggering quickly after you initiate an offensive towards the enemy.

This is a huge focal point of boss battles. While the bosses aren't as fascinating as some of the other boss characters in the Metal Gear Solid series, all of them are intricate battles with different sections and stages that require different responses (from parrying to dodging to attacking at the right time, either normally or in Blade Mode), with most of them being, admittedly, frustrating. The game is not very accommodating with the bosses, dealing exorbitant amounts of damage to players who miss a cue for an attack or make any other mistake. This makes the absence of a save/load function especially frustrating, seeing as often you can end up initiating a cutscene leading up to a boss fight, where you might find yourself with no healing or attacking items, leaving you in a situation where you have to either find ways to abuse the game's bosses' responses/attacks (which is possible with some of them, to an extent) or just run through the strategy the developers have intended the player to go through perfectly, which can lead to some frustrating sessions, with a low margin of error (especially dealing with Blade Mode) and a high level of punishment for making a mistake.

Overall, though, the game is a delight. Raiden's movement is extremely fluid, and his attacking is both flowing and complex, making you feel both powerful and poetic in combat, especially when you notice small touches, like Raiden using his feet to fight and so on. Dodging and parrying works well, and Blade Mode, while fidgety in occasions where both you and the enemy move, giving you an extremely small window of time to successfully slash through them, is functional, and is a great, interesting way to finish off enemies, never leaving even the kill of a pawn soldier unsatisfying. If there's nothing else objective to say about the game and its quality, then what can be agreed upon without room for disagreement, is that Platinum is a mechanically competent developer of hack-and-slashers. Their animation is great, the combat is refined, and the numerous costumes and weapons add customization to the game that add longevity.

Overall, Metal Gear Rising is not particularly noteworthy. The story is one-note and the writing, while decent, is not as memorable as the previous Metal Gear Solid games, and trades in touching, affecting moments for comedy and angst (one particularly egregious example being George, the funny Guyanese kid whose largely defined as being the comedic relief). The combat, while extremely fluid and refined, is a different experience from most hack-and-slashers, and requires a more careful and methodical approach than others. The enemies are mosty bland soldiers and robotic constructs, and, while the bosses in the game do offer variety in that respect, most of them are still one-note characters who aren't overly memorable. The extra items are fun to discover, purchase, and use, but don't offer quite enough for subsequent playthroughs.

In the end, I would recommend Metal Gear Rising much more as a gameplay experience than a story experience. While there is a story there and it does strive to be a serious, thought-provoking narrative, it falls flat most of the time, and the characters, issues and locations it deals with are fleeting, unmemorable and insignificant.

Dead Rising 2 is an interesting game. The premise, while differing from the first one, presents the exact same kind of gameplay structure. You're thrust into a big locale filled with zombies from one end to the other, and your playground is stacked to the brim with items that you can pick up and either use as weapons or consume for health.

One big problem the game has that very ironically cripples the game's fun factor is the constantly running time, with relatively strict time limits placed on every mission in the game. From what I could glean, there is no way to turn this off. Even if they don't want to abandon the intentional rushed feeling of being stuck in a city filled with zombies, the time limit could make some concessions, considering it keeps running during almost all missions, even after you've initiated them, which might leave you to randomly fail a mission that, for example, involves carrying a wounded woman back to the safe house, a trial she survives with no problems if you don't waste time running to her rescue at the beginning of the mission, but for some reason "the truth is lost forever" when you take time to make a few Painkillers and create some combo weapons beforehand and then go take her, and the timer runs out mid-mission.

Another gripe is the game's limited save system. This was a huge criticism levied at the first game, and maybe the decrying of the first game was pointless, because the Dead Rising series seems poised to retain its rushed, dangerous and desolate feel of tight time limits and very sparse save points, that lead you to being unable to save a huge majority of the survivors, and make you reload earlier saves often to save time while doing the main missions.

Overall, though, the game is a delight. Chuck Greene starts out as a boring alternative to Frank West, but quickly becomes endearing, especially with the addition of a good co-cast, and a sporadic, but nonetheless touching, relationship between Chuck and his daughter, who periodically needs Zombrex, medicine that keeps her from turning into a zombie, due to a zombie bite gained prior to the game's events.

The combo weapons are fun, and once you get the hang of the game and start instinctually knowing where maintenance rooms are and memorizing the combinations, you'll feel naked using regular weapons (except for the firearms, and a few others, like the broadsword, which would be ridiculously fun if only it lasted for longer), which is a good sign in my opinion, because the joy of creating a cool combo weapon is satisfying to no end, especially with the discovery of some of the better ones.

The psychopaths are tons of fun to fight (once you gain a few levels, 'cause in the beginning they're impossible) and have varied fighting tactics which, coupled with the different environments and weapons you have and their relatively high difficulty, provide variety in tactics that you have no choice but to experiment with to prevail.

The storyline throws a few curveballs at you and doesn't throw too much monotony at you, which is more the domain of the tedious survivor rescues. Even though not too emotionally gripping for most of it, there are a few moments in the plot that can really get to you, especially if with the hardships you have to go through with so many gameplay limitations, you feel magnified emotional connections to some of the characters that you co-operate with, look after and occasionally save.

All in all, there's not much to say. Chuck controls very well, and there's a certain "meatiness" to his turning and his hits (with the feeling of smashing through a crowd of zombies with a sledgehammer being my favourite), and with the exception of the annoying time limitations which sometimes don't even make logical sense and the still-annoyingly sparse save points, the game is a fun romp that makes you feel both powerful, and hopelessly weak, that controls with little fault, and oozes personality through the graphical presentation and the colourful characters.

Bioshock 2 doesn't quite excel as much as the first one did at a viscerally innovative experience and unexpected journey, but nonetheless does a great job of constructing a fun and interesting second foray into the underwater city of Rapture.

The simultaneous use of weapons and plasmids is welcome, and the game is still plenty challenging, provided you pick a normal difficulty level. It doesn't come with an equal share of memorable moments to the first Bioshock, but the story of the search of Johnny Topside for Eleanor is peppered with the same gripping atmosphere that made the first game so haunting, with only slightly less of a punch, but nonetheless draws the game to a memorable finale.

Considering Bioshock 2 takes place 8 years after the first one, I scratched my head over what the still sane and human denizens of Rapture had done all those 8 years in Rapture, considering it was in more or less an identical state in the first iteration of the series, but if you ignore that, the game had a great story and the gameplay, with its numerous weapons and plasmids, and chances to upgrade both, and similar moral dilemmas that the first one presented, I think it's a very competent follow-up to the first Bioshock.