Syrian Warfare – Terrorist Hunt

After playing Terminator: Dark Fate – Defiance, I wanted to try one of their previous games to see if it played any differently and to see if it was any fun. I’m very glad that I did, otherwise Syrian Warfare would have passed me by unnoticed which would have been a great shame. While my quick impressions of their new Terminator game weren’t all that positive (I blame it on mood at the time), Syrian Warfare is an excellent realistic RTS that everyone who likes the genre should play.

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Last Train Home – Go East, to go West

The Christmas game is here, if you don’t mind the blood, the civilian casualties, and the general horrors of war. Beyond that, it has snow and that is good enough for me! Last Train Home is somewhat of an X-com title, in that you control a “base”, build it up, and equip your men in wait for harder tasks—with the mix of Men of War inspired real-time combat when it comes to the fighting. Does it work, and is it fun? Well, let’s get into that, but first a bit about the story.

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Assassin’s Creed Mirage – Arabian Nights

The only reason I got this game was the promise of the franchise going back to its roots. While that remains true to a certain degree, it’s not the long-lost promise land of Grandpa’s old-school Assassin’s Creed gameplay. It’s mostly a mix between the original games in the series, and the RPG take on it that started with Assassins Creed Origin. I mostly blame this half-hearted attempt on the engine itself, since Assassin’s Creed Mirage shares that with Origin, Odyssey, and Valhalla. It looks pretty, there is no denying that, but everything that involves the player, as in parkour and the combat feels very floaty, just like in those titles. It has much less of a “simulation” approach than the former games which leads to the setting feeling less grounded and realistic. More on that down below.

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Onimusha: Warlords – Demons fear the Samurai

Onimusha: Warlords is an action-adventure/survival horror set in feudal Japan, which here, unlike real history is infested with demons and the mindless undead. It was made and released by Capcom back in 2001 for the Playstation 2. I do own the game on that system, but I decided to play it on the computer emulated with PCSX2. I had no trouble at all running it, the only setting I had changed was renderer to software. I played the game with a Playstation 4 controller plugged into the computer, which as usual matched all the in-game prompts and tutorials. In true survival horror fashion, the game has wonderful pre-rendered backgrounds with characters and monsters in 3D. Onimusha also controls like the olden days with tank controls, the sticks on the controller are unused – only the D-pad is used for movement. So, is it any good, and does it work as a survival horror in the veins of Resident Evil?

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Mafia: Definitive Edition – Cannoli Time!

Mafia – Definitive Edition is a remake of the classic PC game Mafia, and it’s made by the developer Hanger 13, which also did Mafia 3. While I do remember Mafia, at least parts of it, and I do recognize its cultural impact on the PC gaming scene, I was not that blown away by it back then. I did think it was an okay game, but funnily enough, the open-world fatigue had already set in for me back then, even in its infancy. Or well, you can say, I did recognize the pointlessness of having a big world if nothing is going on in it. A thing, this game is masterfully remade as well…

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