Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker – Dreaming of Heaven

I have been getting into my old Xbox 360 as of late, so I thought: why not start with Metal Gear Solid: Peace Walker that I have never finished before. Peace Walker was originally a PlayStation Portable (PSP) exclusive, but later remastered for the Xbox 360 in the excellent and well-worth package Metal Gear Solid HD Collection. Now, since it is a PSP game, there are some issues, especially if you treat it as a mainland Metal Gear game on a home console. It’s extremely segmented so you can easily play it on the move, with the missions being very short. The only thing that has any stay is the bosses, which can drag on compared to the usual sneaking and choking out guards. Regardless, it’s an enjoyable stealth game that greatly expands the lore about Big Boss

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Star Wars: Bounty Hunter – Jango’s Adventures

Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is a remaster of an old PlayStation 2 game, which I did not play back in the day. This means that my review will be purely based on my experience with the remaster on PC. My first impressions is that this a damn fun game that makes you feel like one of the legendary bounty hunters from the Star Wars universe. However, as with almost every game, fun is only allowed in small quantities mandated by publishers and probably the state. Jokes aside. While Star Wars: Bounty Hunter begins excellently, it starts to show some serious cracks in its design after a few hours of gaming, disappointingly enough that it affects the whole feel of the game in retrospect.

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Crysis: Warhead – Going Psycho

More tropical island fun in Crysis: Warhead can’t be a bad thing, right? Well, probably not, but it can be somewhat of a disappointing experience if the fundamentals of the game change too much. See, Crysis: Warhead is more of the same, but they dropped the more simulated and highly immersive feel of Crysis, for a more “high-octane” action adventure with guns. The problem with this is that there are just too many scripted moments and an overload of on-rails vehicle chases. Hope you like turret segments! They also ditched the immersive aspect of keeping you in first-person all the time, even for the cutscenes. Now, the game constantly jumps in and out of your body and displays the scenes in very awkward third-person acting.

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Black Mesa: Blue Shift – Impressions

I decided to try the Black Mesa: Blue Shift mod for Black Mesa to sate my current Half-life addiction. While it’s more of the fantastic Half-life universe and does satisfy some of the cravings, it has a couple of issues. Blue Shift is a remake of the expansion Blue Shift made by Gearbox for Half-life. I never played the expansion back in the day, so I don’t know much about it, but from what I have read, the mod is supposed to be a pretty faithful recreation. Otherwise, you might think; what would be the point? Anyway, much like Black Mesa, which itself is a remake of Half-life, the quality of the work here is substantial, and matches the same level of dedication. However, while the work by itself is impressive, I can’t say I enjoyed the gameplay all the way through. I should also mention that the mod is not finished. Only the four first chapters are complete, while missing the final four.

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Syrian Warfare: Return to Palmyra [DLC]

Welcome back, soldier. It’s time once again to defend the ancient city of Palmyra from the terrorist savages. It won’t be easy. Actually, I’m sure this campaign will be at least double as painful – so make sure the quick save button is ready to see some heavy action. Syrian Warfare: Return to Palmyra is an expansion with five more missions for you to battle out in the Middle East. While it’s still the same old war, you will control a different group of men this time around.

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