Recent reviews by SouthboundSoul

With the Home Invasion DLC, we finally get given some more realistic SWAT scenarios along with a mission that is deliberately morally ambiguous. You won't find upwards of 20 guys and wall to wall shootouts in these three missions. Instead, you are dealing with a more realistic number of assailants, around 10 or so. The first mission also sees you displacing homeless people during a hurricane - A mission that actually brings up some hard questions. As the name would suggest, all of these levels deal with home invasions - Whether thats you responding to a home invasion, or if you are the ones doing the invading. Perhaps there should have been more maps included in this pack, but at $9 you can't really complain if you loved the OG game.

This game is fun but that last mission in Philadelphia was too hard I think the devs wanted you to fail it.

1: Buy Game
2: Download Star Wars Conquest Mod
3: Play the most janky yet immersive star wars game yet

Good game, but not as "realistic" as the devs claim. SWAT 4 presented more realistic scenarios, the most guys you'd have to fight would be like 5 dudes. In Ready or Not, you are routinely caught in wall to wall fire fights from all angles by like 50 guys, who are usually just security guards, not armed criminals. (Security guard would probably not fight the police)

My main complaint is that as great as this game is, it comes off as total cop porn, depicting SWAT teams as gun-ho action heroes instead of the reality of what the job entails. This is closer to Rainbow Six than the original SWAT. Not really a bad thing, but I feel like it does take something away from the experience.

You don't get to pick your entry point, there are no police snipers and as I said, the amount of hostiles is far beyond anything a SWAT team would be called to put down.

Ready or Not also doesn't ask the same questions that SWAT does, about proper police procedure. For example, many of the arrest animations, most of which you perform on non-suspects and hostages, might be considered police brutality. (Slapping the person and shoving them to the ground. Not exactly the best way to treat someone whos been taken hostage.)

This would be fine, but the game never uses this to make a statement. It just presents it as accepted procedure. SWAT 4 was very nuanced about this sort of thing in a way that these developers don't seem to be. I mean, they are banning people on the forums for making jokes about the ATF or people who mention George Floyd, even in jest. Just reeks of insecurity and an unquestioning obedience to authority.

However, where I think the game shines is its atmosphere and the gritty environments. The enemies are some seriously bad people. Not just your usual gang bangers, bank robbers and terrorists. You'll raid sex slave rings, child traffickers, and a crackhouse complete with an ODing baby. Some seriously nasty stuff that borders on horror.

Its incredibly violent, which is another plus. On at least one level, a suspect blows his head off rather than be taken down. The Nightclub shooting is filled with gory bodies and the mansion raid has some incredibly confronting scenes involving child murder. Definitely not a game for the faint of heart, but in this sense, I think it does depict the nature of inhumanity that humans often display to each other.

Middling Resident Evil spin off originally made for hand helds and ported to other platforms later. Not terrible all things considered, but feels a bit half baked. Game is almost designed for coop but there is no coop option, like the game was released before that could be implemented.

Looks good for a handheld game, though looks much worse than Resident Evil 5 which came out years earlier. Mostly a fun campaign with a contrived and confusing plot. Would have been better if everything just took place on the ship but instead the game has you bounce all over the place playing as different characters in different locations. Absolute ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ final boss. Seriously, one of the worst sonsofbitches I've ever had to try and put down. So cheap and irritating.

In general I liked this better than RE 5 or 6, but its definitely from that period where the series was getting as ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ insane as the movies. The sequel was much better, and actually felt like a mainline game imo.

"Tomb Raider" + "Phillip K ♥♥♥♥" w/ Arkham style combat

A cyberpunk action adventure beat 'em up that was looked over upon release but is more fun than perhaps it deserves to be. Interesting setting and engaging story, though perhaps not told as well as it could have been. Big exposition dumps are a little bit disappointing. Introduction of the story seems rushed, with a big dump almost right at the start.

The game doesn't want you to ease into the story at all. However, definitely better writing than the studio's next game, Life is Strange. (That's some ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ student film level ♥♥♥♥.)

The story is basically Total Recall, but without Mars.
The idea is that the MegaCorporation is using their memory technology to control the populace, something that wasn't really touched upon in that particular story. You are Nillen, a resistance member fighting against a faceless corporation. You have your memories wiped and have to regain them. Loyalties and convictions are constantly put into question.
Simple stuff, but it works well for what it is. There are enough differences that it is not on the nose, and this game does it's own thing with it.

It's a game that's not in anyway great, but its also not a bad game either. And, I wouldn't even call it average, generic, or unmemorable (Like so many internet comedians have said before).
I think it's a good game, it's pretty fun and has some very memorable visuals. But it's a game that frequently comes short at reaching its full potential. For example this is a game where you are a person who has the power to change people's memories, and manipulate them this way. That's the premise of your character.Really cool, huh?

Except you do this very rarely in the game. This really should have something you did towards the end of every level.

Great boss fights and compelling characters. I love Madame, the Dominatrix Prison Warden of the Neo Bastille Prison. You fight her in like a VR simulation that looks incredibly cool. Everything makes use of a blocky augmented reality effect. The design of the city and environments is really cool and interesting. Neo Paris is not just a generic Blade Runner rip off, it looks unique, and in some aspects the game's environments remind me of Mirror's Edge.

The universe of this game is straight out of a Phillip K ♥♥♥♥ novel. Apart from the obvious Total Recall and Blade Runner connections, the augmented reality advertising reminds me a lot of Minority Report. There are hints of Asimov in the way that the robots are treated as well. The city also has just the tiny touch of inspiration from the movie The Fifth Element and the French comic Valerian.

Not much exploration, the levels seem way more linear than something like Tomb Raider 2013. The "secrets" are pretty easy to find and most of the time you'll stumble across them by accident. This game builds a great world but you never get the option to really explore it. I don't want it to be open world, but I would like levels to be more open ended.

Recommending if on a sale or if interested in Cyberpunk settings or beat 'em up games. Its perfectly adequate.

Dead By Daylight with Predators and Guns

A simple yet fun game. The first non AVP related Predator game since Concrete Jungle is an asymmetrical First Person Shooter/Stealth multiplayer game. Four players play as a team of commandos while a fifth player plays the predator. The commandos have to complete a series of objectives against AI enemies while being hunted by the predator. To win, they have to successfully complete their mission and exfiltrate or alternatively, they can kill the predator. The predator simply has to kill the fireteam before they can escape.

Easy to learn, hard to master. Progressing through the fireteam also unlocks new gear for the predator, and I would advise you start this way, as the predator is next to useless with the starting gear.
Lots of customization, but a little grindy. Singeplayer against bots is bare bones and does not support AI for the predator team. I would like to see this fixed soon to improve the games longivity. Can take up to 40 minutes (allegedly) to find a game as the predator. I havent experienced a wait time that long yet but the matchmaking in the game needs a vast improvement. Otherwise, this is a fun game to pick up on a sale.

A nice free little RTS set in the Half-Life universe. Could really do with a Xen as a third faction and maybe also the addition of vehicles such as the Scout Car and Combine APC, but other than that this is a fun strategy game for all you RTS nerds out there. Generally pretty lopsided in the favour of the Combine, but that kind of goes with the territory. I've never noticed any major issues, other than questionable path finding and balance.

Grand Theft Auto, except you're an alien.

This is just about the perfect video game remake. It is, exactly the same game, built from the ground up in the same engine. It has all the same strengths and all the same faults that the original had back in the day.
Much of the early 2000s jank has been carried over too, for better or worse.

That said, even without the graphics update, the gameplay has aged incredibly well, which shows just how great of a game the original was. Some elements do show the games age, such as the reasonably empty open world with lack of any real side quests. However, this is something that would change in the sequel.

Everything is destructable, given you're in the flying saucer. There isn't really much of a plot, other than it basicly being Mars Attacks the video game. You're sent to earth after the Roswell crash to prevent the humans for gathering your alien DNA, but after that, it kind of just starts being about you progressively eliminating the US's leadership until eventually you've disintergrated and impersonated the president of the United States.

Left 4 Dead + Gears of War

A welcome palette cleanser after Aliens Colonial Marines, Fireteam Elite is a three player co-op game based in the Aliens universe. The game also incorporates elements of Prometheus into the story and gameplay in a way that's better than anything Ridley Scott could have done.

A fun, lovingly crafted game that isn't without a few flaws. The amount of lore and care that went into this game is a testament to the fact that it was crafted by fans of the franchise and not just cynical devs looking to make a buck. The campaign has you fighting mostly the iconic xenomorphs, but a few missions will see you up against Weyland-Yutani combat andriods and black goo mutants to change things up.

There's a bunch of weapons to unlock, and the fact that many of them can be bought means that the games progression is not as grindy as many of its contemporaries. Perhaps a little too easy on the standard difficulty, you might want to play this on something harder. The Challenge Card mechanic, which makes matches harder or easier depending on the effect, is an interesting addition that reminds me of the skulls in Halo.

Once the campaign is completed the first time, you unlock several different game types including a horde mode that resembles Gears of War. However, these only feature the xenomorphs and I wish there were options to choose between the aliens, androids or the mutant creatures just for some variety. The robots and xenomorphs are fun to fight, but the mutants are a little stale. Effectively, they are just zombies, and the smaller ones resemble flood from Halo or headcrabs from Half Life. Kind of irritating, but they aren't in enough levels of the game for it to truly be a complaint. 85% of the time, you are fighting aliens.

I would recommend this for Aliens fans or anyone passively familar with the franchise who's looking for a decent co-op game.