Recent reviews by nintendoeats

I've been playing this game with my coffee in the morning...my coffee time has extended significantly as a result...

It's nice, fairly chill. You can't really lose or anything, I suppose the worst you could do is screw up your garden so all the animals leave. I enjoy the puzzle element of trying to fit as many animals in the smallest space possible. You don't HAVE to do that as there is plenty of room, but I enjoy it.

A fun game that is kind of like gardening except it doesn't smell.

Overall, this is a good port (more like a re-write, since I doubt the original game was written for Unity). Better than Crysis Remastered for a start -_-

The whole game is there and its totally stable. The art and cutscenes look great in 4K. Katamari Damacy continues to be one of the most reliable games for inducing general happiness.

A couple of ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥, which in the grand scheme of things aren't that big of a deal but should have been addressed:
-The game launches in a 720p window and you can't change it until you complete the (very short) tutorial. This is bizarre. There is also a bug where the main game will not actually change resolution until you restart the game (until then, the main game window is just stretched 720p, while other elements will be 1080p/4k). Until I learned that restarting the game would set the proper resolution, I was planning to return the game over this.
-While the framerate is unlocked, many things (including the Katamari) operate at a locked 30 fps. This can be quite jarring, when you get used to general 30hz and then the king moves the camera at 120hz.
-No auto-save. They warn you about this to make sure that you manually save, but one does wonder why auto-save was not implemented.

I thoroughly enjoyed this experience. It is, just a little bit, like ResE4.

I would be significantly worse off financially, in very tangible ways, if I were not using YNAB. I cannot recommend it highly enough.

This game is great. It is a fantastic mix of fast and slow action, with a excellent ambience and incredible sound design. The new engine and map in the August 15th update are fantastic.

In particular, if you liked playing Sniper Elite on extra hard mode, you HAVE to check out Hunt. It absolutely nails that vibe.

The new UI does suck (for a variety of reasons I am not going to belabour) but it sounds like they are going to attempt to un-suck it. And, well, in the end not many games live and die by their menu.

It's fun. It's not as interesting as Crysis, and embarassingly it doesn't look as good. Nonetheless, it's a sneaky shooty good time.

I have played XCOM and XCOM 2 extensively (a thousand hours perhaps?) and modded XCOM 2 a fair but to boot. Time for something new I think :p. I also quite like stealth games, so this seemed like a good candidate.

After 10 hours, I am enjoying Phantom Doctrine. In many ways it is the opposite of XCOM 2; instead of focusing on completing the mission as fast as possible, generally your goal is to achieve as much as possible before you are detected. Some missions can be completed without ever being seen, others organically turn into firefights. When fighting does begin, it is generally resolved quickly: combatants don't last long when they are flanked.

I have three main issue so far:
1. The audio is annoying. The music didn't last 5 minutes, but the voice acting and buttons sounds also really rub me the wrong way. They need more agent voices, and those voices need more lines.
2. There is a lot going on, and the interface isn't quite up to the task of helping you manage it all. Keeping track of which agents are available for what is a challenge, and I still don't understand most of the weapon states.
3. When attacking an opposing hideout, the difficulty feels very arbitrary. Once you are discovered, you essentially have 3 turns to kill everybody and evacuate. Otherwise, reinforcements arrive and you have to take them out as well. This is EXTREMELY challenging, and not in a fun way. It also doesn't make sense (why do I need to take out all the random guards, why can't it just be opposing agents?).

All that said, I enjoy the mechanics and the atmosphere.

While Max Payne was surpassed in many ways by its sequels, the core gameplay remains hugely enjoyable. The weapons and the way you use them remain immensly satisfying, and there is no challenging the presentation. This series is classic for a reason and the only other game I can think of which feels similar is Stranglehold. Even that is part of a beautiful circle, with Max Payne arguably owing its existence to Hard Boiled and Inspector Tequila's comeback taking its central mechanics from Max Payne.

There are places where the game is weak, all of which Remedy...um...remedied in Max Payne 2. The dream sections are legendarily terrible, as are the other jumping sections to varying degrees. It also has a propensity for cheap deaths, particularly involving the grenades and their absurd area of effect. The levels contain about a third the number of painkillers they really need. First time players will spend most of the game with only the fifth of their health meter that regenerates. Oh, and if you have played either of the later games you will soon come to miss the ability to continue firing from the ground.

On the PS2 these were seriously frustrating, but on the PC with quicksave available it is easy to focus on Max Payne's incredibly solid core. It never ceases to be satisying to jump through a door and get one kill per barrel of your shotgun before you hit the ground. Sometimes Max doesn't do quite as well as you might have hoped and winds up on the floor with an empty weapon and 4 gangsters standing around him, but even that is often amusing in some way and maintains the action movie vibe.

I don't need to tell you that Max Payne is good. If you are genuinely using this review as purchasing advice, then ask yourself this: "how much technology do I need in an action game in order to enjoy it?". The lower the answer you came back with, the more Max Payne you should have in your future. If you like games about shooting stuff, Max Payne is a great example of the genre. The game's semi-serious personality turns great into superb.

It's really good. REALLY good.