Recent reviews by Jester

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This game really makes you feeeeel like a goat. Super solid movement.

An amazing idea executed so perfectly. Truly the first of its kind and very brain-wracking. Happy 1000 reviews!

Obviously I enjoy The Binding of Issac, as evidenced by my hours, but I would like to express my relationship with Issac as I feel it is one of the single greatest pieces of media I've ever consumed.

Issac is not a game. Issac is a way of life. The strangle-hold this game has on my life is unparalleled. It is not about me being unable to put down Issac, I can very well be in the mood or not in the mood for Issac, its about when I am Invested in Issac. I wake up with my goals in mind clear as day and I crave the dopamine rush I receive from calculating the perfect play. Blasting through rooms with ease knowing the run will end soon and I will have to restart from ground zero yet again. The grind is simple to understand, hard to execute. The game also shows logic constantly, giving the player items early in the run to test the player's thinking. A flight book could be given to the player with zero value in sight, only to be validated 20 minutes later in the run. The Binding of Issac talks to you. It communicates with you. Are you listening?

The game of Issac is simple, and someone new can get countless hours discovering all of the enemies, items, synergies, secrets, rules, etc. As that player grows, the rules of Issac can bend and contort to new unknown levels. I have 721+ hours in Issac (Steam time + Flash Issac days) and every time I play Issac I learn something new. I have also had the pleasure of sharing Issac with my girlfriend. I generally don't talk about Issac, probably due to the game being so weird, but I introduced Issac to my girlfriend and she also fell in love. That's when I understood that Issac is a universal joy. A simple game that can be enjoyed and loved by the young and old. Much like a fine wine, Issac matures as time passes.

If I were on a desert island, and I could only bring one game, I would bring Issac. It's not even my favourite game, damn near close, however. It's simply because Issac is Infinite. I adore you Issac and Edmund McMillen and all of the developers for Issac. Long live the greatest piece of media that ever existed.

game is amazing

♥♥♥♥ this game

The Darkness 2 surprised me entirely. I never experienced the first game but my first remembrance of The Darkness was when I received a free trial through steam in like 2012(?) or 2013(?) and I thought it was just a bland shooter. Fast forward to the Halloween Steam Sale 2022. I figured The Darkness 2 was on sale and while I gave it a decent trial while I had it, I needed to play it again... And it was cheap! Much to my delight The Darkness 2 was not only a satisfying run and gun and slasher game; The Darkness was incredibly immersive at times and thoroughly made me happy with everything. Lets get this sectioned out and talk about some points one by one.

Characters/Story points - Naturally, the first impression you make of the game is how relatable the characters are. If you cant imagine yourself as the main character or relate on some ground to the character, you wont care about the story or their background. At first I didn't care. Jackie Estacado is a dark and bruiting character who lost everything he has to live for "AKA" his girlfriend Jenny Romano. Jackie also runs a mafia organization which his dad owned before Jackie. Jackie is introduced In "TD2" working with and spending time with his mafia brothers. I really enjoyed his mafia friends they were fun, had great voice acting and, always had Jackie's back. Despite Jackie having such great friends he is stuck on the death of Jenny since the (end?) of the first game. While I do understand his persistence on remembering Jenny and paying tribute to her, I was disappointed that Jackie could not let go of Jenny and practically disregarded his friends, with the exception of one friend that I will get to in a sec. Not only were his friends those who hung around the mob mansion but also Jackie's dear Aunt Sarah. She's a good character, like a mom figure but unfortunately I feel like his family was an afterthought to the story. "Darkling" Jackie's Side-kick is a character I didn't get for a good portion of the game. What was his role? Why is he here? Is he always going to be this annoying? I feel like only after I spent a portion of the game with him was I fully committed to his character and ended up liking his humor. The antagonist, Victor, I did not care for at all. I feel like his role in the story was "be bad because am bad". I didn't care for him and honestly never felt like he was a threat. I figured The Darkness, the character, was the 'real' antagonist the whole time. Jackie talks of how it consumes him and is almost like a drug, but also talk about how it will take over his body and become whole. I felt like Jackie's conflict with The Darkness was more of a pressing matter than Victor ever was. Finally I want to mention the voice acting. I gotta say this game is pretty varied in its performances. However, I do have a very high praise for David Hoffman, the voice actor for one "Johnny Powell". I saved introducing Johnny due to how genuinely affectionate I became towards the character. Johnny is Jackie's only true friend, I feel, while playing the whole game. Johnny is crazy, from what I gathered Johnny gave Jackie "The Darkness" but I didn't really understand that. Maybe game 1 event. But, Johnny while being crazy, spastic and, delusional, is also your greatest ally in understanding The Darkness and its adversaries and allies. 10/10 character and honestly floored me. The Darkness, the character, had some bad voice acting in my opinion and wasn't very great to listen to. I would've done it differently but I respect the voice actors choice and maybe it works for other people.

okay lets move on because there is more

Game play - Traditional fun run and gun/ superpowers game. The game-play never had anything that changed the script or anything. The executions done by The Darkness is fun and satisfying to look at even until the end of the game. The game uses experience points that you earn through Head-shots, Executions, Kills, Eating hearts, Javelin-ing people, you name it. Those EXP points grant you perks in a skill tree that consists of 4 trees with honestly loads of goodies. Several crucial perks and a way to reset all points to try and mix and match is pretty great and I have no complaints. Gun-play was good, I feel like every gun was useful and there was never a point to not pickup any gun. Some guns I liked more than others but honestly that's preference, no judgement there. At times you will have to shoot out lights. Light recedes The Darkness and you lose its powers. Sometimes, I felt this was good, but other times it was just a nuisance that I inevitably forgot about or just ran past. Boss fights were meh... Basically a mag dump into all of them, or a wave defense. Not terrible not amazing.

Final thoughts - The game is dated. While the game is dated, UI and some settings don't work, I am wiling to admit its just old. If the developers updated the game with some fixes for V sync and such I'd welcome it but why would they, game's old. Theme-ing was pretty good. Pace was good. Hard as ♥♥♥♥ on harder difficulties. Graphics was good enough and had some stylistic choices that were pleasant. Overall good game I would recommend as a fun short action game that can be played as many times as the user wants. I don't feel like its a game I would play and put away for good rather, a game I would pick up and play eventually every so often.

TLDR - Worth it.

WTF

*First I have to say I played Resident Evil 8 on Hardcore and on a beefy computer.*

Resident Evil 8; There is so much to say about the game and yet so little to say about the impact that RE:8 has on anything. Right off the bat I have to say that RE:8 features some of the worst implications of Re Engine yet.

I often talk about how much I love the engine Capcom has created for the new Resident Evil IP's. Resident Evil 7 was the first of the series to implement Re Engine to the series and by the gods it is glorious. Item management was quick, pickups were quick and easy, crafting was not frustrating and actually meant something, the list really does go on but Ill save you the time. After RE:7, Capcom decided to use the same system for the Resident evil 2 and 3 remakes with slight modifications but nothing that made the UI clunky or strange. Then Resident Evil 8 decided to mess all that glory that the 3 previous games had brought to the franchise. One major example was the accessibility for the 'Key Items' menu. In RE:2 and 3 for example (I'm more familiar with those over 7 due to my recent playthrough of 3 and countless speedruns of 2) Key Items took up an inventory space once the item had been used, the player was prompt to discard the item for more space and declaring that that item was used and not needed anymore. it was a perfect balance of finding all the implications of that item and then throwing it away. RE:8 decided that instead of that system you are not only forced to hold on to key items but also there is a separate tab in your menu for Key Items. It was not such a nuisance until the player had to look at pictures of locations for rare birds or rare fish. The flow to look at key items was Tab>Key items>scroll down>click on picture>look at what you want>close menu>find where that is. It also did not help that Ethan never discarded used key items so by the end there was easily 10 items before the picture you wanted to look at which is just frustrating. Further more scrolling down the menu was hard to do due to scroll wheel did not work for any menu what-so-ever. I do have to say that when a key item was needed, simply pressing "F" next to a door that needed a key would bring up the key item menu but with so many useless keys and junk in that menu I often clicked on the wrong item and was stuck in a "Item could not be used here" text box that would disable movement keys and interact keys for a solid 2 seconds, which shouldn't be so bad if it didn't happen so frequently. Everything else about the UI was more or less okay.

Carrying on RE:8 has some amazing graphics. I run a pretty beefy computer at the moment and in my playtime I had a pleasant 100 FPS on High graphics. One spot particularly brought my FPS to 70 but it was only for 10 seconds or so. Really there isn't much to say about graphics in RE:8, its just as good as RE:7, 2 remake, and 3 remake. They all had great visuals that brought their respective games to life. Final note on graphics I found that my computer was being WHIPPED on this game. Easily one of the most taxing games I have run on this computer and my tower was screaming at me while I enjoyed the game.

Moving on to the gameplay. I've said this to my friends and I have been trying to keep an open mind on the game but, Resident Evil 8 is NOT a horror game, it is an action adventure. RE:8 felt more like RE:4 and RE:6 in the sense that horror was an element in the game but only utilized via cheap tactics and unsettling chase sequences. There was never a moment where I stopped, accessed the situation, feared to move on, and then close the game saying "Not tonight Satan!" Which was something Resident Evil 7 did perfectly. See, it is really hard to make a player terrified of a situation when they have a hand cannon and an abundance of bombs, ammo, and health ups, but RE:7 showed the player that no matter what you can do, you are not prepared. Similarly Silent Hill was amazing at creating scary situations while still giving the player a chance to fight what they are afraid of. It is not weakness to have a weapon, it is weakness to take away the players gun and expect them to be scared. Resident Evil 8 had a section where they stripped your weapons from you. It is one of the cheapest ways to scare the player. Of course the player is going to be afraid to progress when you take away the thing that makes them feel safe but ultimately, as a player I know, that if you keep on moving forward you will get your guns back and you will persevere. It really killed the scariest part of RE:8 for me and immediately after you get a water level :D The gun play in RE:8 was decent, it didn't add to anything to the series and I would even go as far to say that the previous games did it better. The knife is worthless. guns don't feel like they impact anything until the end game guns.

lastly, the story line of RE:8 was absolutely atrocious. It was cliche, typical, and even after the plot had thickened I was already too checked out to even care. Whoever was the director of this game should just be fired. They took the face-value simple story of RE:7 into this uninspired hot mess that just had twists to have them. I really hope Resident Evil will continue on as a Survival Horror game instead of the Action Adventure they have given us. I have to say I am truly sorry for you if you think that RE:8 is a horror game. Go do yourself a favour and play RE:7 or P.T.

Game still sucks. Buy anything else.

All of the players are now bots to compensate for the dying game. Do not buy.