Recent reviews by dannyboy2016

Blood West is swell. I would even say that its the best Souls Like, Immersive Sim, boomer shooter, horror stealth game set in a weird west overrun by spooky stuff that I have ever played. Sure, we've seen it before, but have we seen it with a low poly , big boobed, skinless, and monstrous Boo Hag who looks like she just escape from the Hellraiser franchise and needs your help fetching a human skin suit she misplaced so she can have a classy wedding? Have we seen it with Siamese twin half man, half bears who become more man or bear if you kill one of the heads? I think not.

Now, its admittedly hard as hell at the beginning, but eventually you get better perks and gear and it becomes strangely relaxing. I like it, a lot.

There's been some talk about whether any single remake is ever as good or better than the original in any meaningful way outside of a few graphical upgrades. I never played the original Dead Space so I can't judge it in terms of that, but I can say this remake is pretty awesome.

In fact, the only Dead Space game that I've played before this was Dead Space 3 which is a less than terrifying co-op shooter. That experience did not prepare me at all for this. There's only one way to kill the monsters in this game. We're talking Total Dismemberment. Hands, arms, legs and, of course, heads will roll. It's something else. You'll "kill" critters only to see them get back up. Issac has to stomp the crap out of their bodies to make sure. It's gory and often terrifying. No, Dead Space 3 did not help prepare me at all.

Dead Space is one of those Alien or Event Horizon ordeals where a Spaceship doubles as a haunted house. In this case it's the USG Ishimura, a gigantic mining vessel which just happens to have huge medical research facilities, a gargantuan hydroponics farm, a space basketball court, etc. Ishimura is the star of the show (well, other than the monkey stomp corpse button). It is huge and full of places for monsters to drop out of the ceiling. Your constantly running across the ship taking care of various objectives like "do a spacewalk to fix our anti asteroid batteries while monsters try to cut your head off," or "stop a nuclear bomb from detonating and destroying the ship while monsters try to cut your head off," or "save us from poison gas by flushing a big monster into the great toilet that is outer space while other monsters try to cut your head off." It all flows together very well and the pacing is first rate.

I liked it a lot and it makes me wish I'd played the original. Better late than never.

Days Gone is the story of Deacon St. John, a deeply disturbed individual who is always rambling to himself as he murders opposing camps of survivors in the zombie apocalypse. “You guys are murderers so how would you like it if I murdered you” he screams as he stealthily kills an entire camp of apparently deaf bandits. That might not be an exact quote. But it’s close enough. I love it. Finally, a protagonist we can relate to.

Deacon’s sort of a murder hobo, going around the world on his motorcycle and doing missions for various groups of survivors while never settling down. Then his bro gets hurt and he finds evidence that his wife survived the apocalypse, and he must get all invested in society again. Lame. Always sucks when you have a good thing going and the plot ruins everything.

So now Deacon’s going around beautiful open world rural Oregon killing zombies (including child zombies which may be the first time I’ve seen that in a game), upgrading his bike, and scavenging for collectibles in between homicidal rampages. You know, the usual open world stuff.

There are basically two things that stand out about Days Gone. The first is the zombies. You can run into ginormous hordes of them. Hundreds of them are trying to chase you down. Tense stuff. Then there’s the motorcycle. At first its pretty annoying. You’ll have to scrounge for gas a lot in the beginning (and you do not want to have to do a lot of tedious walking in this game). Eventually, you can upgrade it and the bike becomes less “busywork” and more “pleasant sightseeing tour.”

I liked it a lot and recommend it highly.

I didn’t play the original Homefront because the whole “what if North Korea was a really functional and advanced society that conquered the USA” premise was too ridiculous to me. However, I lost a few brain cells and learned how to suspend disbelief just in time to play the sequel, Homefront the Revolution. It turned out to be much more enjoyable than I expected.

This is one of those games where you must slowly liberate an open world map by kicking the bad guys out of their outposts through violent tomfoolery. Unfortunately, things could admittedly get kind of repetitive as there a finite number of ways to murder North Koreans, but the actual open world had some quality that kept it just enjoyable enough for me.

Part of the appeal is that the zones had different levels on Korean jackboots stepping on the face of freedom. You could go to a nice compliant area and do your whole resistance thing and then boots are on the ground and drones are in the air. Things are bad and may escalate into full scale warfare in a zone. People can get bold once they’re backed into a corner. Homefront exists in a universe where Che Guevara’s Foquismo theory of guerrilla war kind of works. Sure, that’s ridiculous but it’s a universe where North Korea conquered the USA so its on brand.

But there’s something else going on. In many ways it feels a tad like STALKER. Just in the sense that you’re exploring (or fighting through) the ruins of a once great industrial society that’s fallen on hard times (mutants and anomalies in one case North Korean occupation in the other). I got sort of a sense of wonder stumbling upon the old Philadelphia Naval Yards.

The setting, as absurd as it may be, pushed this over into recommend territory for me.

This is one of those “the greatest game that practically nobody ever played” types of games. It’s sort of like Left 4 dead versus mode but with Sharks fighting divers. The Divers are skulking around and looting through underwater environments trying to look out for terrifying death dealing aquatic predators that can attack from almost any direction. And man, it’s scary to be eaten by a shark from the first-person perspective. Playing a diver can be a first-rate horror game experience.

With the Sharks though it’s less stressful and more lulzy. Bite a human, shake the mouse vigorously to consume human, then go eat some seals to heal up any damage the humans did to you before coming back around for more. When you die as a Shark it’s okay. No biggie. Better luck next time.

Both sides get a finite number of lives and can purchase various upgrades when they respawn. Divers can use the loot they gather to buy things like spear guns, net guns, underwater rifles, and a diver propulsion vehicle. Sharks can evolve to have things like serrated teeth, razor sharp fins, armored scales, extra speed, etc.

Now, the elephant in the room is that you’re going to have trouble finding a game of this. Or at least I did the last few times that I played. That’s the type of thing that would usually warrant a not recommended from me. However, it’s such a pure joy/terror type of experience that I still got to give it a recommendation.

There’s going to be spoilers here.

New Frontier boldly asks what if a Pete Rose type disgraced baseball player was brothers with the jerkola military man archetype from films like Avatar? And they totally run into each other during the zombie apocalypse when everybody is stressing about that. Oh, let’s add an awkward love triangle thing where the Army man’s wife thought he was dead and started hooking up with the brother. Then Clementine shows up to give some sense of continuity with the 2 previous games.

This family drama is resolved through about 5 episodes of a point and click adventure game without any sort of puzzles or challenges beyond quick time events. Then, whatever you do, regardless of whether you forge some zombie free Edenic paradise safe zone, Clementine will run off so she can be in a mostly unrelated final game.

The main reason to play Telltale’s games is the storytelling. This one’s story wasn’t particularly satisfactory for the most part. So, I do not recommend it.

El Presidente, the people love you! Even I must admit a fondness for you myself. But is there really any need for a sixth Tropico game?

No, but it’s still fun. The main differences are some infrastructure improvements (massive bridges can connect islands and tunnels can make paths through once impassible mountains) and the ability to steal various wonders of the world from other countries for the lulz.

If you like a little The Mouse that Roared flavor in your city builders and aren’t sick of El Presidente and Penultimo’s antics, then it’s worth picking up.

My kids love this game. It's relaxing, has bright colors, and settings can make it even more relaxing if you are 3 year old terrified by Tar slimes. I recommend it. Now go collect some slime poop for $$$!

Ghosts 'n Goblins Resurrection is exactly as advertised: a reimagining of Ghosts 'n Goblins and Ghouls 'n Ghosts. The new one is about as difficult as I remember from those halcyon days of playing it on my friend’s NES. However, there are some options for an easier time of things if you aren’t feeling particularly hardcore. A welcome addition is the ability for a second player to join the game and fly around as a friendly ghost with the ability to help the first player in various ways such as building temporary bridges to help with their platforming or even picking up and carrying the first player to inaccessible places. It’s great fun even if you don’t have nostalgia for the series.

Absolutely delightful old school style FPS. Do you like Quake or Blood? You'll probably get a kick out of Dusk. Get it. now.