Recent reviews by apeguy

This game sucks and I love it.

I don't think any game has had such a big impact on me in such a short time. I saw everything the game had to offer in just 4 hours, but since then I can't stop thinking about this game. It's taking over my consciousness, it pervades my every thought.
All my devices now have Helltaker wallpaper.
I've read the whole wiki at least twice.
I'm constantly thinking about chocolate pancakes.
I can't stop listening to Mittsies' music.
Vitality is on permanent repeat inside my head.
I have the constant urge to kick the f**k out of skeletons.
I can't stop fapping to all the R34 of this glorious game.
IT'S TAKING OVER MY MIND! HELP! HEL--actually don't, I'll be alright.

Great game, highly recommended. Plus it's free, what do you have to lose?

Also, Malina is best girl.

Easily the best third-person shooter to come out of Japan, and easily one of the best third-person shooters ever made.

Even now, over a decade after its release, this game looks absolutely amazing. The sheer amount of crap happening onscreen is overwhelming at times, and even on consoles the visuals hold up remarkably well. The enemies, the environments and even the guns and the way they fold and unfold when you equip and unequip them all looks great. The improvements on PC make an already great looking game even better.

Graphics aside, this is a fast-paced shooter with large, often expansive levels, the traversal of which is aided by a slide-boost mechanic that you have at your disposal. You also have a decent selection of guns that can all be upgraded several times by collecting ammo for said weapon when its ammo is already full. An interesting idea that encourages you to not just use one weapon all the time, but cycle through them so you can keep collecting excess ammo to upgrade them. You can hold 3 guns at any one time, as well as a couple of different grenade types that you can cycle between.

Your sliding boost has to cool down between uses, so you can't overuse it. You also have a bullet-time-style mechanic that uses the same cooldown meter. Melee attacks will cause instant overheating, so you can only use them sparingly. Enemies consist entirely of robots, save for a couple of boss battles towards the end of the game. Some of the boss battles are pretty awesome, and the sheer spectacle of these fights are truly something to behold. Some of them transform as you destroy parts of them, and in one battle you get to punch the ever-loving s**t out of a giant robot's head, because reasons. This is Platinum Games doing what they do best, and it's epic.

The game is set sometime in the future, and takes place on an American space colony that's been taken over by Russians. It's microwave power generators are weaponized and used to devastate San Francisco. Oh no, those poor liberals. Anyway, you play as Sam Gideon, a DARPA agent whose sent to test the new Augmented Reaction Suit, (ARS) as well as rescue the head scientist at DARPA. The story is nothing special to be honest, and really just serves to move the action along. There's some twists here and there, but otherwise its serviceable.

Overall, the only complaint that I have with this game is the same one I have with many of Platinum's titles - there's not enough of it. I beat the game in only 7 hours on medium difficulty. There's no other modes on offer, just the campaign. Don't get me wrong, it's an awesome campaign, I only wish it was longer. Either way, buy this game, it's just as fun to play as it is amazing to see in action.

This is one of the most shamelessly violent games I've ever played, and I love it. Every kill is just an orgy of pixelated blood and guts. If you suffer from Gamer's Bloodlust, buy this. You'll be cured within minutes. You'll probably also be addicted to this awesome, challenging, satisfying and downright glorious masterpiece of a game.

But you know what's even better than this game? the soundtrack. Even if you have no intention whatsoever of ever playing this game, just buy the soundtrack.

This is probably one of the most underrated games of its generation. It seems that everyone talks about how ridiculously stupid the plot twist at the end is (and rightly so) but pay no attention to the actual GAME.

So this is basically a sequel of the classic NES game, set 5 years later, as well as a (failed) reboot of the series as a whole. You play As Nathan Spencer, a bionically enhanced soldier who has dreadlocks for some reason. I thought the only white guys who had dreads were weed dealers, but whatever. Anyway, you've been put in prison for treason, and on the day of your execution the capital of the F.S.A., Ascension City gets attacked by some kind of nuclear weapon. You're sent in to find out who's responsible.

At it's core, it's a third person shooter with a grappling hook, which you use as both a weapon and a means of traversing the environment, which you'll be doing a lot of. The grappling hook is easy to learn but can be challenging to master, especially given the sometimes wonky physics, for example going from hanging still from something to a full swing without having to build up any momentum. Once mastered though, environmental traversal in this game is fun as hell.

As far as combat goes, you can do light and heavy punches with your arm, as well as being able to pick up and throw enemies or other objects like cars, rocks, etc. Some abilities aren't available at first, but they unlock fairly early in the game so it's no big deal. As far as guns go, you have your standard pea shooter, a shotgun, grenade launcher, rocket launcher, sniper rifle and machine gun. All of them are fun to use and have their time and place during combat. Enemy AI isn't actually too bad, and they can cut you down pretty quickly if you're not careful.

While this game is no masterpiece, there's just something about it that I love. I think it's the satisfying movement with the bionic arm and the combat. Like I said, the enemies can be surprisingly adept, especially on higher difficulties. On the highest difficulty level, grunts for example can one-shot you with melee attacks, so you'll get a good challenge if that's what you want. There's other little touches that I really like as well, like when you defeat a BioMech, (Basically mechanised combat suits) sometimes the pilot will climb out and carry on fighting you. Or when you headshot someone at close range, their heads explode in a cloud of blood and the sound of splattering viscera. Seriously, that's so satisfying.

All in all, this is a fun game, just don't expect an amazing story. It can be challenging on higher difficulties, the combat is fun and satisfying, the bionic arm is fun to use and the music is actually pretty good. One complaint I have is that there's no achievements, even though the console versions have them, but it's not a huge deal.

I was on the verge of a heart attack when I finally got the last achievement.

Recommended.

It's because of games like this that SEGA will forever be the God-King of the arcades. Easily one of the best arcade games ever made.

If you want the truly definitive experience, follow the link below for this Gigachad's guide to get the original music:

https://v1.steam.hlxgame.cc/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=964260789

I can't quite remember back that far, but this may well have been the very first video game I ever played, on my older brother's Dreamcast. For that reason this game holds a special place in my heart, so be aware this review may be a bit biased.

So this was the first proper 3D outing for Sonic, (I think we can all agree Sonic Jam on the Saturn doesn't really count) and for the time it was pretty amazing. The graphics were great, the levels were fun and varied, and the music was some of the best ever made for any video game, let alone a Sonic game. Seriously, Jun Senoue and Crush 40 made some f***ing incredible stuff for this game and others. Go and watch just the intro on YouTube and try to tell me otherwise.

So what's it like playing today? Well, compared to many 3D games of its era, it's aged pretty well, although the camera can be a bit of a bastard sometimes. Unfortunately, the version on Steam is an updated version of the DX version originally released on the GameCube. While that added a few extras, it's widely seen to be graphically inferior to the Dreamcast original. There's mods to get around that problem though, so it's not a huge deal. Even as it is it's fine, but given the choice I'd rather the'd kept the visuals from the original version.

As far as gameplay goes, you start off playing Sonic's story, and unlock the other 5 character's stories as you progress. The other stories are for Tails, Knuckles, Amy, E102 Gamma and nobody's favourite retarded cat, Big. Tail's levels are much like Sonic's, just get to the end as fast as possible, and beat Sonic. Knuckles' levels are treasure hunts where you find 3 pieces of the Master Emerald. Amy's levels see you evading one of Robotnik's robots, Zero. In E102 Gamma's stages, you shoot and destroy enemies to earn more time on rapidly diminishing clock. Big's levels are just fishing for a frog with a boner tail. All the levels are fun except for Big's but there's only like, 3 of them so it's not too bad. You need to complete all 6 stories to unlock the final boss battle.

The story is that Dr. Robotnik (Or Dr. Eggman as he seems to go by now) has released a monster called Chaos from the Master Emerald, shattering it in the process and causing Angel Island to fall into the sea. Sonic and co. must prevent Chaos from consuming all the Chaos Emeralds and destroying the world. It's nothing amazing or anything, and the voice acting isn't great, (though that could be said for ALL SEGA games of the time) but it's okay and helps keep the story moving.

All in all, this is easily one of the better 3D Sonic games out there, and while I'm sure some 2D purists will scoff at it, there's still lots of fun to be had here. Give it a go, and get Sonic Adventure 2 while you're at it, they're both awesome.

This is probably my all-time favourite game. Ever.

Seriously, this game was like, 50% of my childhood. Ignore my Steam playtime, I played thousands of hours of this back in the day.

So it may not be the only big-name city builder in town now that we have Cities: Skylines, but I think there's still some things that this game does better, ever nearly 20 years after its release. For example, you have whole regions rather than individual cities, although individual cities in this game are smaller than their C:S counterparts. (A medium SC4 tile is roughly equivalent to a C:S starting tile) I'd argue that this game, being technically 2D with an isometric view, allows for much more detailed and realistic buildings that you get in C:S, especially vanilla stuff.

What really makes this game great though is the same thing that makes its de facto successor great - the community. Over the years there has been some amazing custom content released for this game, and while there's no workshop support, there's plenty of guides out there for installing mods and custom buildings available from all the major fansites such as SC4Devotion and Simtropolis, among others.

Be aware that this is an old game, and it doesn't always play nicely with modern hardware. Like before there's guides to get this game running as well as it can on modern systems, but even with all that you will run into slowdown as your cities grow. A major limitation of this game is that it's single-threaded, so even the latest multi-core processors may not help much. This game will crash sometimes as well, so you'll need to save often.

There are tutorials in-game, but with these types of games I always think the best way to learn is by just playing. There's no shortage of tutorials out there for everything from basic city planning to interchange designs (using the Network Addon Mod) and more. This really is an all-time classic, honestly one of the last truly great games to come out of EA. Speaking of which, there's none of that Origin nonsense here, so consider that a plus.

Honestly I could talk forever about this game, but I'll finish it here. Just buy it. If you have even the slightest interest in city building or management games in general, you'll like this. Even at full price, you'll get more than your money's worth.

One of my old favourites. Yeah, Spore didn't get all the features we were promised during it's time in development hell, but it's still a great game regardless. The meat of the game is the space stage, the other 4 stages aren't nearly as fleshed out as they probably could/should be. Unfortunately this expansion only adds stuff to the space stage, but that's fine as that's where you'll be spending nearly all of your time outside the creators.

Speaking of creators, you can make some pretty cool stuff in this game, as well as some pretty cursed stuff as well, true eldritch horrors that beg for apocalypse. Look it up and you'll see what I mean. If you're going to get Spore, (which you should) then get this expansion as well, it's worth it. Also there's none of that Origin BS here that you get with most EA games, so that's a plus.