Recent reviews by Headbanger203

So I was looking forward to an excuse to play through the game again on my preferred platform, this is genuinely awful and according to the PC specs info-graphic they released around the start of march I should be able to play this game at high settings with 60 fps but it's not even close, second I click on high or even medium, my VRAM usage goes straight into the red with about 10gb required.
Now I haven't upgraded in a couple of years and I would still say my PC is above average but this game makes it feel like a toaster, how? All the past exclusives have run flawlessly and been pretty good ports (Horizon was a bit iffy) but this one seems to be such a performance hog that I think they only ran it on top of the line PCs.
Very disappointing.

So just over 50 hours I have just managed to 100% RE4R and without a doubt I can say, this may be one of the best remakes I've ever played and one of the best RE-makes, I've put a great number of hours into the original and it's amazing how much has been left as is or slightly reworked but faithful with only a few major cuts that comes to mind and that is the removal of the U-2 boss fight and the truck ride with Ashley (Although this one is replaced with a similar scenario).

The combat? It's fluid and fun with its updates, I played through the original '04 release recently and I relied on the knife regularly, the remake switches it up with Knife Durability but it hasn't lost any power, enabling you to one-shot most enemies using a takedown from behind, all of the other mechanics from '04 have been brought back, Leon's melees, upgrading, merchant, bingo quips.
The story is almost unchanged a few events are swapped about, characters are the biggest change with Luis being the most different, he's actually viewed with suspicion instead of him and Leon immediately being best buds. Ashley is no longer as much of an annoying nuisance. She's still Ashley though.

Honestly if I had to give it a number? it's probably close to a 9, as much as I do love it and have absolutely enjoyed it's take on the original, my nostalgia will always win out and 04 takes the cake, it's got far too much charm in it.
I'd love to see capcom either go for RE1 as a modern series game or Code Veronica.
I won't complain when RE5 gets announced though.

So after completing my 'First' playthrough of Dead Space, I can assure you that the remake is great as almost everything that you remember from the original is here, there's been changes but it's all for the better. Dead Space '23 has had 15 years worth of discussion and technology to use for improvements but the easiest way to describe how this will impact you? Imagine Dead Space 1 but with everything you liked from 2 and 3 with extras.
I don't really want to go into any of the actual changes to the story and gameplay as I feel they were such nice things to experience as it's the same game but with small expansions here and there to make you further enjoy it, the one example I'll use is Issac's family, never mentioned in the games but through a few books and comics you find out that he's not a fan of unitology due to his parents, the remake actually integrates that into the game and it's things like that that immerse you further into the world.

TL;DR If you love the series then you'll easily enjoy this. I hate to praise EA but this was a win.

I really wanted to enjoy this game but unfortunately, it's missed the mark. I wouldn't recommend this game, even if the issues that can be fixed are fixed, if the game was about 6 hours shorter and £30 cheaper then yeah, I'd praise it but after nearly 12 hours of bad combat and performance issues, It's a no from me Chief.


Performance - is questionable, it's barely able to keep a stable framerate even with all settings dropped to lowest, stutters are commonplace and ruin the experience as they happen regularly when getting grappled or during the games MANY jumpscares.
Edit: After a patch the stuttering seems to be gone but the framerate is still very inconsistant.

Combat - is awful after 7 hours and I'm scared of the permadeath mode they've got planned, when fighting you must hold (not time) left or right which then initiates a dodge then you alternate keys (left > right > left) to keep dodging until the enemy allows you to attack, which is fine until you get to multiple enemies and then it just turns into a bit of a cluster**** until you inevitably make a mistake and get smashed into oblivion. Throw in the enemies mutating after taking damage unless you shoot them quick enough and you have a receipe for disaster, I found it impossible to get through fights without taking some damage, throw in the random enemies that you have no way of knowing they're there then you'll just lose hp because of it.

Enemy Variety - Off the top of my head, there's 7 enemies in the whole game, one of which is a boss? mini boss? Think the brute from DS, who you fight 4 times IN TWO CHAPTERS and the boss fight isn't even fun because you remember the dodging? You can just hold left or right and shoot him and he will never hit you unless you get stuck on the environment but the issue is he one-shots you and the later fights have enemies thrown in who can grapple you and when you get free, boss slaps you and you die. God forbid you get the fast phase of the mini boss and then it's just the same dodge animation but even quicker...

Checkpoints - So you've made a game in 2022, a narrative game, an immersive game, with long sections of holding W while fitting through a small gap only to come to a section where you can die instantly, where do you put the checkpoint? Obviously before all of that! They are awful, collectables aren't saved, upgrades aren't saved. I got to a section where I had to fight 4 enemies and had low health, before that is a little side path and collectable, every time I died I had to grab the items again before facing the group of 4, how did this happen? A checkpoint at the end of the paths would solve this issue or when grabbing a collectable, exiting the shop etc. Sure the system could be gamed for easy checkpoints but the user experience would be so much better.

Story - Virus outbreak on a station, there's similar elements to both Dead Space 2 and 3 but it doesn't have the characters or development of the previous titles and the story doesn't really get going until a few hours in, there's not a whole lot else to say without ruining the fairly barebones story that is here.

Visuals - Game looks fantastic, environments are well realised and really suck you into the world like some scenes border on photo-realism and the characters? *Chef's Kiss* Beautiful, some of the best I've seen but the caveat is, with performance being so rocky it's hard to enjoy the visuals.

Addendum - I finished the game in 7 hours and 50 minutes, I won't say I hated it but the game is easily a C - Tier title, it's not quite the worst thing you could buy and is a good for killing time but there's much better things out there, for the same price you could just replay through Dead Space 1, 2 and 3 which I would recommend over this.

Truly a shame.

It's taken me nearly 30 real life days to survive an in-game month.

The answer to the question "Will I survive a zombie apocalypse?" - No, no I won't.

It's honestly so generic that I stopped playing the game.

This game is the closest we can get to Hotdogs, Horseshoes and Hand-grenades without VR and compared to the first game it's a massive improvement in almost every way, hell the only bad thing I can really say about the game is that there's not more to it, if you've played the first game then a lot of the areas are very familiar, better but familiar.

What's different from the first?
Well there's a few new killdrones which I won't spoil as it's a nice "Oh sh-" moment when you first encounter them, there's also now 8 handguns compared to the 3 of the original, you'll also have malfunctions to spice up encounters but they are rare enough to not be frustrating.

There's also a new progression system which consists of collect x amount of tapes then you 'Level up' and if you die you de-level, once you get to rank 5 you 'win' the game which can take you a few hours depending on luck and skill.

It's a good game, hopefully they'll add more features like a challenge mode or an endless mode with some leaderboards, anything to encourage a bit of replay value. I wouldn't even be opposed to paying a small amount for a new gun and a mode as you can feel that the people who worked on this game put in the effort to give us a short, good quality game.

Valve made a Half Life game and it's Wow.

Just Wow.

Bought it on sale, I wasn't expecting much and was expecting a simple game from the trailers but after playing it for a few hours I can say it's absolutely brilliant, short enough that I can do a few missions when I'm bored and hard enough that I'm constantly adapting.

Totally worth the money, although you might want to nab it quick before the sale runs out.

These games (Minus the 3rd and Perseus Mandate) are some of the best FPS games that have been made, FEAR is over 13 years old and it still hasn't been matched to this day, in terms of gameplay, detail and fun AI, that will call you out when you hide behind a vending machine.

FEAR 2 is a bit more cinimatic shootybang fest that IMO doesn't have the charm of the original, but is still worth a play.

FEAR 3 is, um, just not very good.

I highly reccomend all of them, except Perseus Mandate.

I DO NOT reccomend it at this price, which is why this is short and a negative review, get it on sale or from a website and you'll have a good few hours trekking through a game from a time where developers actually seemed to care about what they're making.