Recent reviews by Heathenhearted

New Vegas is a game I was mixed on when it was released in 2010. Having had my expectations of what constitutes “Fallout” set by the divisive third entry, I chafed hard against the slow pace, the invisible walls that felt omnipresent, and the decidedly shoddy technical state the game launched in that stopped my progress dead for weeks at a time while waiting for patches.

Since then, I’ve matured a lot as a player (and hopefully as a person but I’m less sure there). After spending a lot of time exploring the RPG genre, both classics (including the first two Fallout titles) and contemporary gems, I’ve grown a little out of touch with the perspective that defined my first time playing the game. Up until recently I’ve regarded F:NV as an overrated nostalgia-title propped up by people who haven’t played better and more interesting games. Upon replaying it, I realize this was uncharitable, and I’ve developed a lot more of an appreciation for what Obsidian accomplished here.

In contrast to the very “Hollywood” introductions of the Bethesda titles, New Vegas starts quiet, understated. You’re given an easily understandable motivation that isn’t particularly urgent in nature, and you’re set free to wander the Mojave. The game world isn’t huge, and the invisible walls are still frustrating at times, but it feels cohesive and well realized. Every location on the map, even the most obscure, has some purpose, even if it’s just a small bit of environmental storytelling to ground you into the setting. The characters and factions are nuanced, flawed, and varied, and the choices you’re given are rarely easy or black and white.

What really sets New Vegas apart is that it understands the mythical appeal of the drifter, to be another struggling soul making their own way in the wastes. It understands that a wasteland messiah is not interesting. It understands that the danger of the setting is undercut by hours of vapid settlement building and radiant questing. It understands that shooting someone in the face who shot you in the face is a better starting point than lofty concepts of family and duty that this game isn’t equipped to explore meaningfully. As you explore the Mojave, you are free to do what makes sense to you, to help who you want to help, to make the mistakes you want to make, and it rarely feels at odds with the forced narrative urgency that is so present in its sibling titles.

Despite my praise, this experience is far from perfect. Combat is floaty and awkward, even for its time. The limitations placed on your attributes at character creation are rarely meaningful with how potent skills are and the constant availability of buffs. Ceasar’s Legion, a faction rife with potential for nuance and moral ambiguity, quickly devolves into a punching bag that is neither the omnipresent threat it is made out to be, nor an interesting path that is even close to as developed as the others. I can’t help but wonder what this game could have been had it been given more time or resources, or if it wasn’t forced into a gameplay framework that might be effective for Bethesda’s aims but quickly begins to collapse when anything of narrative substance is placed upon it. In quests heavy with scripting and choices (the White Glove Society quest comes to mind), you can feel the seams of the game begin to come apart as seemingly contradictory paths collapse on each other and overlap when they shouldn’t, and it all feels a whole lot more awkward than it should.

Ultimately, I think Fallout: New Vegas overcomes its limitations and is an excellent game. I still think there are better written, more interesting titles that are overlooked in the face of its success, but it is a triumph and well worth the time of RPG players both new and old.

Hotline Miami is a tight, compact experience that tempers its immaculate presentation and buckets of bloody fun with moments of thoughtful introspection.

Gameplay is simple and intuitive, getting a lot of mileage out of a scant few buttons, and the levels function as puzzles with multiple solutions depending on playstyle and player expression. Frustration does rear its head at certain points. The boss battles are unexciting and painfully linear, and it can be incredibly exasperating when the limited control scheme works against you or your perfect combo is cut short by getting shotgun sniped across the map through six layers of glass by the one goon you forgot to bash. Other than these momentary dips, the levels are consistent in quality across the board, and the scoring system gives perfectionists and masochists plenty of opportunities to hone their craft.

Gameplay aside, I think where Hotline Miami really shines is the subtle narrative framing that examines player agency and our relationship to violence in this medium. The opening tutorial wastes no time in inciting the bloodshed with "I'm here to tell you how to kill people." Once the killing starts, it doesn't stop, but your motivations, your purpose, and your enjoyment of it are constantly questioned within the text of the story and the moments of Sisyphean quiet between levels.

If you want it to be, Hotline Miami can easily be enjoyed as a fun shoot 'em up on its own merit. But underneath the dripping red pixels and the pulsing synthwave beats, Hotline Miami holds up a mirror that asks "Do you like hurting other people?"

Although I haven’t experienced a great many of them yet, I can say with confidence that Celeste is the best platformer I’ve ever played. There is not much I can say that hasn’t been iterated better elsewhere regarding the quality of the music, visuals, and the intuitive simplicity of the controls that manage to do so much with so little. The learning curve is presented masterfully. Every time you think you’ve seen everything the game can throw at you, it presents new barriers, a new arrangement of elements to challenge you and jump for joy when you prove to yourself you had it in you all along.

I think this is where Celeste shines most. Madeline’s story, at least as it is presented in-game, is a simple and personal one. It is written from a perspective of pain and confusion that I will never know, but the themes of struggle and doubt it deals with can be understood by anyone. There are many points where Madeline wants to give up, to succumb, to fail. There will be many points in the game where you will want to do the same. But by setting down these seemingly insurmountable challenges, and by showing you time and time again that you can break through them, Celeste’s narrative design reaches past the screen and shows you what you’re capable of when you refuse to give up. Affirmation-through-challenge is something unique to video games within media, and Celeste’s display of it is singular.

If you have the slightest inclination towards platformers and are willing to struggle a bit, you owe it yourself to play Celeste, because we all have our own mountains to climb.

Yakuza 0 is my introduction to the long-running series and it has been an incredible experience. Between the main story and the absolute glut of side content, every bit of it drips with joy and sincerity even when the tone constantly jumps from serious crime drama to over the top testosterone-fueled insanity. The Western AAA landscape wishes it had this much heart.

Monster Hunter Wilds presents the next evolution of the long-running series and the first mainline title in the ninth generation of consoles. With Wilds, Capcom truly capitalizes on the concepts they explored with the Guiding Lands in Iceborne and refines the gameplay loop accordingly.

After completing the lengthy introductory campaign, players are free to roam the sprawling open zones of the Forbidden Lands and hunt dynamically spawning monsters seamlessly and without interruption. Old frustrations like the need to eat and apply buffs between every single hunt have been smoothed out and now operate on independent timers than only tick down when you're in the field. The end result of all this is that downtime has been reduced and you spend more time doing what is on the tin, hunting monsters.

Combat is at the most fluid and accessible it has ever been. Every weapon features refinements and exciting changes from past iterations, and the new wound system allows you to constantly keep up the aggression and smoothly target your attacks against exciting new opponents as well as old favorites.

Praise aside, there are few areas of Wilds that give me pause. Starting with World, Monster Hunter has attempted to broaden its mainstream appeal by introducing a greater emphasis on cinematic storytelling. This is pushed even further here, featuring the first voiced protagonist in the series as well as a cast of traveling companions and a storyline revolving around returning a lost orphan to his home, while protecting it from the threats (surprise, they're monsters) that face it.

To put it bluntly, none of this is particularly interesting. The characters are mostly a series of simple archetypes without any real development or investment and the broad strokes of the story hint at more interesting themes than this series is capable of meaningfully exploring. It's mostly serviceable, but that begs the question of whether it was worth including at all.

Beyond the narrative purpose, the story functions as an extended tutorial as wider gameplay concepts and tools are drip fed to the player in between extended sections of walking and talking along a set path. As it stands, the story and cinematics continue to serve as an impediment to those looking to jump into multiplayer, a problem that was introduced in World and is frustratingly unaddressed here. Overall, the emphasis Wilds places on narrative doesn't seem like it will win over anyone skeptical of the series, and it seems disconnected from the reasons people play these games in the first place. That said, recent statements from Capcom has them attributing much of the games success to it, so it will likely only progress further from here. Twenty hours is a not a great deal of time compared to the hundreds of hours of gameplay Wilds potentially offers, but it is certainly a rough way to start.

In addition to the story, recent titles in the Monster Hunter series (long considered dense and unapproachable to newcomers) have seen a push towards becoming more approachable. In Wilds, this is pushed to such an extent that it feels like every edge this series once had has been sanded off.

I can't help but feel that something has been lost in this transition. The once meditative atmosphere of entering a hunt and tracking down your target has been replaced with a mounted autopilot sprint to the monster which soon lies dead at your feet in a matter of minutes as a result of undertuned difficulty. Encounter design has not kept up with the expanding options afforded to the player. You are given tons of combat techniques but very little reason to master them. You are given tons of tools and an alternate weapon but don't really need to use them. You are given huge maps to explore but no reason to learn them. The element of preparing for hunts no longer exists since the nearest camp is always a stone's throw away where you change your load-out and refill all of your supplies which the game throws at you in piles. In the push towards sanitizing some of the frustrations in Monster Hunter's systems, some of its identity has also been lost.

I've played this series since the original entry in 2004. I adore these games, and firmly believe they fill a singular niche in the gaming landscape. I don't regret firing up Monster Hunter Wilds alongside the other rabid fans on launch day, nor the nearly one-hundred hours I've spent slicing and dicing my way across the Forbidden Lands since. The satisfaction of slaying dragons and using their bones to fight stronger dragons is here and as potent as ever. Yet, for the first time I find myself wishing to return to one of the earlier titles and their slower pace instead of continuing to bash nearly defenseless monster piñatas for more pieces and rewards in the current era. Even recent titles like World or Rise have me looking back with nostalgia.

Some of my thoughts here may seem overly critical, but with experience in this series comes the knowledge that these games start off good, but become something truly special over time with expansions and post-launch support. The first title update has already addressed some of the initial worries present at launch, and I have confidence there will be many more exciting additions and excitement to come, even if I might delay my experiencing of them as I play older titles that are more in line with my personal tastes. At the end of the day, any Monster Hunter is good Monster Hunter, and if you have any interest in the series, you'd be remiss to not try Wilds.

Interesting indie take on cosmic horror that does a good job capturing the bleak hopelessness of deep space, the atmosphere is immaculate. While short already, it could have been one or two missions shorter without losing anything.

Interesting mini visual-novel that succeeds in crafting a very weird and unsettling atmosphere over its short run time. Excited to try out the fleshed-out sequel.

A very unique little atmospheric horror game that is well worth the 15-20 minutes of your time it will eat up. Would love to see an idea like this explored in a longer format.

A wonderful little work of art. A modern take on the survival horror genre, which wears its influences on its sleeve while still presenting a refreshing and unique experience.

I have some minor gripes, mainly a lack of enemy variety and rather simplistic boss fights, but these pale in comparison to what the game does right. Immaculate presentation, a thought-provoking narrative, and exploration and puzzles that are challenging without being interminable, all add up to an experience no horror fan should miss.