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A good game marred by some bad design decisions, Dying Light manages to be an overall enjoyable experience. I am reviewing this game as of March 2016, and therefore basing my critique after the game has had numerous patches, but I am not reviewing any DLC or multiplayer elements.

Full disclosure: I am a huge fan of zombie games. I don’t think I’ll ever get sick of zombies in games like other people may be. That doesn’t mean that all zombie games are good. In fact, a lot of them are pretty bland at best. Dead Island was a game that had a lot of promise, but overall fell flat for me. I never even played Riptide because of it. Dying Light definitely improves upon the Dead Island games greatly, but still falls into some of the same traps.

The main premise of Dying Light is that an outbreak of a Zombie Plague has caused Harran, a small country preparing for an international sports event, to be quarantined. An agent is sent in to recover sensitive information from a rogue operative but finds himself fighting to help the people of Harran survive. The main gameplay involves parkour and zombie fighting with some crafting and scavenging thrown in. A day/night system is in place, where super strong monster patrol the night, requiring you to plan missions/exploration around the time of day. The player learns more skills and crafting recipes as they level up.

Free running around the map is fun, especially when the grappling hook is unlocked. It’s mostly smooth, with some slight clunkiness from time to time. Sometimes the player locks on awkwardly to ledges when climbing. There will be some cheap deaths that result from bad platforming. The combat works pretty well, except when fighting the running zombies, which I will address later. Fighting the undead has a lot more feedback than it did in Dead Island. Zombies react pretty well to blows, and it is fun to devise practical strategies for dispatching them. However, fighting the larger zombies becomes a bit tedious later in the game, and I resorted to just shooting at them with guns from a distance. Another big problem is when the zombies grapple the player. Sometimes it feels really cheap how they just lock on to you from several feet away. While there is a move to dodge them and push them away, I found that it rarely worked.

Whereas Dead Island had two good regions to explore and then several awful ones, Dying Light sticks to two major areas that feel pretty well designed. There’s a minor third region that is only visited briefly, but it is nowhere near as bad as the Jungle and Lab regions of Dead Island. The maps are fun to run around, and they take on an entirely different life after dark. There are plenty of buildings and stores to scavenge through and numerous safe houses to reclaim. A big benefit to the game is all the little details in the environment. Probably my favorite part of the game was running around, killing zombies strategically, and exploring every nook and cranny. Swimming in the game kind of kills any momentum though, and while the maps are interesting to explore, the enemy placement isn’t very dynamic. Zombies will generally be placed in the same area every time. For example, there’s a bridge near the towers where zombies come around the corner at you, in the exact way every time.

Just like in Dead Island, the running zombies are one of my least favorite parts of the game. Whereas at night they make sense and can be run from and avoided with stealth, during the day they seem to always know where you are and pursue you tirelessly, just like in Dead Island. While in Dying Light they are a little easier to fight thanks to better controls, they are still a huge pain because of their tendency to dodge attacks. They get annoying very quickly during the day. Call me a slow zombie purist if you will, but I love Left4Dead. The fast zombies in Dying Light just feel out of place in the daylight. The story of Dying Light was alright. It was kind of similar to the story of a Far Cry game. It’s kind of basic, but at least there were no parts where I felt sexually assaulted like in Far Cry 3.  The climax of the story was pretty underwhelming, as the final boss encounter was reduced to a cliché Quick Time Event. I played almost all of the side quests, and I liked most of them. However, some of the side quests were a little mundane, and I eventually found myself skipping the dialog on a couple of them. My favorite side quests involved exploring new areas.

Overall Dying Light was a good game. It felt like what Dead Island should have been, and leaves me wondering how Dead Island 2 is going to keep from being overshadowed. I might pick up the DLC for the game when I feel like revisiting it. I hope they can smooth out the rough edges in future installments.

After the first game left me for dead in a ditch by the side of highway 9, I decided to try the second game to see if it worked on steam. I was pleasantly surprised. My two main problems with the original game were fixed immediately. My controller worked perfectly on the steam port and it had the save system where I can save anywhere. This system is the best for this kind of game because you can save right before difficult parts and not have to waste a bunch of time repeating large segments of the game over and over as you constantly die. I used this system a lot. I had saved about 600 times by the time I completed it. The amount of content in the game also surprised me. There are 18 levels in the game, and each one can last up to 2 hours long. I spent about a week playing this game doing 1-2 levels a day.

The game has more of a story than the first tomb raider, and the narrative takes Lara from one environment to the next. The issue is that the story just isn't very involving. I missed a lot of it and just kind of accepted what was happening. The game gets pretty weird at the end when a guy turns into a giant dragon, but at least the boss fight was pretty creative.

The gameplay is the best part of Tomb Raider 2. The controls have been tightened and feel more responsive. Once you master them, Lara moves about her blocky world with precision. I very rarely fell to my death from failed jumps. The level design is interesting and open, with large levels to explore and solve puzzles in. Environments are much more detailed ranging from the bottom of the ocean, to the canals of Venice, even to magical floating islands of jade. Lara's world is still blocky, but the increase in texture quality gives life to each region. Lara even gets to drive some vehicles this time around. They don't control very well, but they mix up the gameplay a bit.

Tomb Raider 2 falls short when it comes to combat. Lara spends most of her time fighting armed henchmen rather than wild animals. The ones with gun have an unfair advantage over Lara as they can and will shoot her with near perfect targeting from far away. This eats away at her health, which due to an unknown glitch, I couldn't see any health bar. Having more than 2 gun toting enemies can therefore kill Lara very quickly. I survived by using a lot of health kits, but they can become very scarce at times. I really enjoyed this game overall. Because of it, I decided to play the rest of the original series.

9/10

Disappointed in myself for being beaten by the original, and still wanting to experience the game, I decided to give this remake of the original a chance. Tomb Raider: Anniversary was released in 2007, over a decade after the original came out. It was built on the Tomb Raider: Legend engine, adding in elements like a grappling hook and a physics engine. Unlike it's predecessor, I was able to complete the game. The save system, while not ideal, utilized checkpoints that were much more user friendly than the fleeting handful of save crystals in the original. Instead, I had a much more troubling issue with the game.

The graphical improvement is probably the most notable change. The game looks decent for an early Xbox 360 game, and it performed nicely at max settings on my laptop. However, it does lose a bit of the blocky charm that the original had. The environments, while still distinct, kind of take on a visual blandness. There’s nothing to really distinguish them from other games of the era. Regardless, the level of detail should be applauded.

Gameplay wise, the game has been very streamlined. While the platforming has been expanded with many new tricks, the levels themselves have lost a lot of the exploration, which was something I liked in the original. The expanded platforming is still a lot of fun, as long as it's working. Swinging around and making leaps feels rewarding when you succeed. Swimming lost the most between games. There’s not a lot to do underwater, and Lara swims so slowly, especially when rising and falling.

The story has been expanded a lot from the original. Notably they tried to flesh out Lara a bit, giving her more personality traits then just "a badass." The cutscenes are improved, but are still a bit silly (not like that's a bad thing). The biggest flaw is that the story just isn't that interesting.

Combat is alright, but feels overly simplified. It all boils down to enraging the enemy, dodging its attack and executing the counter attack. Boss fights try to mix it up a bit, but nothing really changes. The worst one is against two centaurs. I'm still not entirely sure how I won. I just ran around until they eventually died. The flying enemies of the game are also too aggressive, and their attacks stumble Lara so much that they can easily knock her off of ledges with a constant barrage of attacks.

What nearly made the game unplayable, however, are the glitches. I'm not sure if they are exclusive to the PC version, but I experienced a wide range of glitches. Some were benign, like Lara's ponytail stretching all over the place, or bats blasting off like rockets when killed. One glitch however, was game breaking. Lara was unable to grab a hold of an important ledge. I was making the jump correctly, but after trying a number of fixes, I had to download a savegame from a checkpoint past the area. Otherwise, the game would have been impossible to complete.

Overall the game was good enough. It was nice to experience the updated version of a classic game, but I feel like too much was lost in translation. I would like the game more if it weren't marred by a game breaking glitch.

6/10

     Having enjoyed the recent reboot of the Tomb Raider Franchise and eagerly awaiting the PS4 release of Rise of the Tomb Raider, I decided to play through the original games. Thankfully Steam happens to put them all on sale fairly frequently. Although I grew up familiar with the franchise, the Tomb Raider games were never something I got to play during their original run. Perhaps I was a bit too young to handle the tricky platforming and puzzles, and by the time I was old enough and the PS2 came around, the series began to go down the toilet and I avoided it. Now that I've dived into the series I am starting to appreciate it. I'm surprised by how immersive and addicting the games can be, with a challenge that rivals other notoriously hard games.

     Initially I picked up Tomb Raider on Steam, although I ran into some control issues fairly quickly. I couldn't get my controller to work, and even with third party software, it barely functioned. I played what I could, but technical issues ended my playthrough pretty quickly. Thankfully, my local vintage game store had a copy of the PS1 version for a decent price. I fired it up but was unaware what awaited me. Although I could now play the game with no control issues or crashing, the convenient feature of saving the game anywhere was gone. Instead saving is restricted to single use save crystals. What is already a difficult game now skyrocketed in challenge. Save crystals are spaced pretty far away, and in a game where a single misstep can result in the loss of health or instant death, I found myself replaying sections of the game over and over again. Still, I pushed through the frustration and made it to Greece, the second area of the game. This is where I met my match. I reached a level that required jumping and climbing up and down a bunch of perilous platforms, hitting switches to open doors, and then navigating a themed puzzle behind each door. No matter how hard I tried, I could not beat this area. The constant backtracking and limited saves made it impossible for me. After a few hours of trying I gave up. I hate to admit it, but I did. Tomb Raider on the PS1 beat me.

     Still my time with the game gave me a decent enough impression. The graphics are basic and have a lot of clipping, but there's a charm in the classic style of it. The environments are diverse in their appearance and immersive, despite the dated graphics. The controls are clunky and even on the PS1 they were sluggish. However, as a longtime fan of the Resident Evil franchise, I have a soft spot for tank controls. Overall, I enjoyed the game well enough until it crushed me. It is a nice glimpse into gaming history, but not for the faint of heart. If I could have the PC version's saving system in the PS1 version, I probably would have been able to complete it. Thankfully, I was able to overcome my technical issues with later installments.

6/10

My opinion on Resident Evil Revelations 2 --------------- After the debacle of Resident Evil 6 this game is a huge step in the right direction. The game was initially released episodically but was also compiled into a single package and is cheaper than a full priced game. It is available on various platforms including next gen consoles, but I picked it up on Steam during the summer sale.

Story: Set after resident evil 5, Claire Redfield, who has been working with Terrasave, a NGO dedicated to helping areas afflicted by bioterrorism, has been kidnapped along with her co-workers, including Moira Burton. She and Moira find themselves trapped on an island somewhere in the former Soviet Union while infected with a new strain of T-Virus, and must escape a variety of decrepit locations while fighting off monsters. Meanwhile B.S.A.A. agent and founding member Barry Burton arrives at the island in search of his daughter and finds a young girl named Natalia who is somehow tied to the events of the island. The plot mostly deals with the aftermath of Revelations 1 and doesn't really deal with the mess that is RE6. The plot is thankfully scaled back and is essentially about a mad scientist in search of eternal life. The main characters are saving themselves, not saving the world. It doesn't get blown out of scale like RE5 and RE6. There's also no confusing shifting of time and locations like in Revelations 1. The plot is pretty contained and has some nice twists here and there.

The dialogue can be a bit cheesy, but it wouldn’t be a resident evil game without it. The occasional nods to past games are nice. The characters are also pretty well done. Moira is the master of daddy issues, but is more likeable than Ashley by a thousand. Natalia, as a little girl, is pretty well done, and her bonus chapter, while annoying, had a creepy tone and some great story moments. She’s just a child but manages to be more competent than Ashley. It’s great to finally have Barry return. He’s still a grouchy old man who tells bad jokes and I love him. Claire, one of my favorite characters, is noticeably older and more mature, but is still a terrible babysitter and has horrible luck with men. I liked Degeneration and enjoyed seeing a continuation of her story from that film.

Gameplay: The gameplay is more of a cross of RE0 and RE4. Claire and Barry each have a companion character that can be controlled at any time to solve puzzles or find hidden items, but the characters can't fight with guns. Instead they can be used to indirectly attack or stun enemies. Ammo is no longer dropped by enemies and is scarce at times, so you are rewarded by carefully taking out enemies without using up ammo. It feels a lot more like Resident Evil 4 than 5 or 6 did. I played through with the default controls, even though there is a RE4 style available. The dodge mechanic isn't silly like in RE6, and is more usable than in the first revelations on the 3DS. It feels pretty balanced. There are character upgrades that can be bought with points in between chapters, they make the game easier, overall its kind of lame, but there are a couple of upgrades that are really necessary. There are no real quicktime events at all, and puzzles make a comeback, so it feels more like a resident evil game.

Graphics/Design: The game ran pretty well on my 4 year old laptop. I only turned down the graphics slightly, but it still looks good. I had a bit of a slow down when there were weather effects or I used the scope on a rifle. The monster designs are pretty good. They are also pretty varied among each monster type. They move creepily, sometimes fast and sometimes slow. There are dog enemies that have pig faces, which is pretty creepy. One enemy in particular is pretty scary and can cause instant death. The environments range from pitch-black forest, to spooky asylum, to a ruined urban town. Lots of Russian/soviet influences in the designs of locations. The environments are full of detail, and there is room for exploration in most areas. The bosses are pretty well designed, and some of the fights take place in tight quarters. There are no stupidly huge monsters.

Replayability: The game has a lot of collectables, and ranks you at the end of each chapter. Weapons and ammo carry over like a new game plus. There are also a lot of unlockables, like costumes, screen filters, special weapons, additional files, and character/monster models. There are 3 base difficulties, with 2 special difficulties: countdown, which has a time limit that can be restored with time collectables and by killing enemies, and invisible enemies mode. Each chapter can be played independently of each other. There are also two different endings to the game based on how a certain event plays out in the third chapter. Overall I'd consider the game very replayable. After the first time playing through it, it's still fun to speed run the chapter with your new weapons.

DLC: There are a lot of paid DLC, especially for Raid mode which I'll get to later. There are two bonus episodes. Each one focuses on the side characters. One is sort of an epilogue, and one is a prologue. They change up the gameplay, but overall they aren't really worth it. Each one was probably less than an hour long. They only have two difficulties, and the production level on one of the bonus chapters was noticeably worse than the other. They don't really add anything to the game other than a bit of story.

Raid Mode: Raid mode is a mission based, mulitplayer, action game mode, with RPG elements that is separate from the Revelations 2 story. You can pick from a variety of characters to play levels with objectives like kill all the enemies, or get to a specific place, etc. You collect weapons, gold, and experience, each character is leveled up independently. There are daily missions, as well as a lot of skills and unlockable costumes for each character.This means that there is a lot to do. I have not tried the multiplayer yet, but overall the game is pretty fun. The levels i have played so far come from RE6, and ive had performance issues on a few of them. There are enemies from previous resident evil games as well. The biggest problem is the paid DLC. There’s a level pack, bonus characters, and stupid micro-transaction stuff that allows you to respawn after dying in a mission or gives you more slots to store weapons.