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Review: The Suffering [Xbox]

Developer: Surreal Software
Publisher: Midway
Rated: M for Mature
Released: March 9, 2004
Completed: October 9, 2017

When speaking of survival horror, two names synonymous with the genre are usually the first to be brought up: Resident Evil and Silent Hill.  It’s not without merit.  Both franchises redefined horror games in their own way, and are deserving of their praise.  The unfortunate side effect is that many other excellent games got lost in the shuffle.  Tecmo’s Fatal Frame received multiple entries here in the west, and a handful of spinoffs, yet hardly anybody ever talks about it.  Even lesser known is Midway’s The Suffering.  That’s something of a travesty because while The Suffering leans heavily into action, with less of an emphasis on the survival aspects, it’s still a spooky good time.

The setting is Abbott Penitentiary, and if that weren’t already an appropriately grisly place for a horror game, wait until I tell you the prison sits on Carnate Island.  You play as Torque, a silent protagonist accused of murdering his wife and children, but who claims to have blacked out and remembers nothing of the event.  As you’re led to death row during the game’s opening cinematic, chock full of hysterically bad voice-acting and copious over-swearing, a supernatural force rocks the prison walls and begins making mincemeat out of the condemned.

The Suffering brings a few unique twists to the horror genre.  It features a morality system, but it’s not explicitly laid out before you.  Every time you meet a survivor, Torque’s inner demons will try to convince him to murder the poor sap while the voice of his wife appeals to his humanity.  It’s up to you how you react, but there’s no big menu choice presented.  Should you spare the poor souls, they will often help you, although the companion AI is pretty lackluster and sometimes gets in the way.  In addition, Torque can unleash the beast within – quite literally transforming into a giant hulking monster – but the more you rely on it, the worse your ending will be.

The most distinctive characteristic of the game are its monster designs.  Designed, at least in part, by the late, great Stan Winston, The Suffering’s freakshow ghouls will make your hair stand on end.  As metaphors for execution methods, they’re a little on the nose and lack the subtlety of Silent Hill’s natives, but they get the job done.  There are enemies that represent death by hanging, firing squad, good old fashioned prison justice (e.g. – getting shanked), and horror-of-horrors, lethal injection.  The latter particularly creeped me out because of my strong aversion to needles, which they have COMING OUT OF THEIR GODDAMN EYE SOCKETS.

Also unique is the ability to switch between first and third person views at any time with the push of a button.  I found myself playing in third person exclusively because it offered a better view of my surroundings, and where enemies were in the environment, but first person is a perfectly viable way to play the game. 

Which brings me to my next point: The Suffering is definitely more of an action game than its more famous brethren.  Resident Evil relies on jump scares and the early Silent Hill games relied on psychological horror, but The Suffering doesn't do either of those things particularly well.  It's very generous with supplies, be it ammunition or health pickups, and there isn't an option to run away or avoid enemies due to the game's linear nature.  In fact, the final stages are a constant barrage of enemies as you fight your way to the final boss.

On the flip side, the focus on combat is what sets The Suffering apart.  All three franchises offer completely different horror experiences.  The Suffering is the least outright terrifying of the three, but it's still creepy in spots and the action is very enjoyable.  Dodging monster attacks and blasting them with your shotgun is a lot of fun and the responsive controls make it easy. 

I was also really impressed with the boss battles, which all feature some puzzle elements instead of brute force.  In a battle with an electrocuted ghost, you have to shut down the electric chair before you can damage him.  Another boss requires you to funnel his poisonous mist-like spirit into a furnace.  These were the moments where I felt the game really shined, and I just wish there were a few more.

The graphics have held up fairly well.  Character models are expectedly blocky, and their mouths just open and close like anime characters, but they animate well enough otherwise.  The monsters still look fantastic, and the environments are... whatever you'd call the inside of a prison and the surrounding woods, catacombs, and whatnot.  The color scheme is lots of drab browns and grays, but again, it's not a trip to a theme park.  I especially loved the blood splatter that covers Torque after each encounter.  It gradually dissipates, but after each battle his face, hands, and clothes are soaked in gore, which fits the mood of the game very well and looks cool.

The audio has also stood the test of time.  Some of the voice acting is awful, but there are also a couple of really exceptional performances - mostly from the game's antagonists.  The weakest part of the audio package is the music which, honestly, I couldn't tell you what, if any, there was.  I wanna say there was some hard rock and metal guitars during some of the big combat moments, but it's so generic I can't remember. 

I'm not saying The Suffering is on par with the likes of Resident Evil, Silent Hill, or even Fatal Frame, for that matter.  As horror experiences, all three of those franchises are superior.  However, The Suffering is an overlooked and mostly forgotten gem that does something different with the genre, and it does it very well.  What it lacks in scares, it makes up for with pure entertainment value.  The combat is fun, the puzzles aren't as obtuse as the competition's but they're solid, and the story is fairly captivating, even in spite of some suspect voice acting.  Both Suffering games are available on the PS2, Xbox, and PC for next to nothing, so do yourself a favor and check them out.

The Suffering was completed on a real Xbox with no cheats.

Retro-Review: Veil of Darkness [PC]

Developer: Event Horizon Software
Publisher: Strategic Simulations Inc.
Released: 1993
Completed: September 23, 2017

It was a dark and stormy night when a young man of about 14 was perusing the shelves of CompUSA.  He scanned his eyes across the shelves, waiting for something to jump out at him when suddenly he was greeted by a visage of terror.  Eyes as red as the blood that stained the vampire's fangs held him entranced in their gaze, his mouth open in hungry anticipation of his next victim.  Reaching up slowly, the young man pulled the box off the shelf, turning it over to read the gripping text on the back, promising a horrifying adventure in a valley shrouded from the outside world by the vampire's power.

That dramatization is exactly how I discovered Event Horizon's little known PC action-adventure Veil of Darkness, and ever since that fateful day it has been one of my favorite games published by SSI.  Best known for their war strategy and AD&D licensed games, Veil of Darkness was a unique entry in the publisher's catalog, while Event Horizon would eventually rebrand themselves as DreamForge Intertainment (no, spellcheck, that's their name) and go on to create a number of other excellent titles, including Sanitarium and the equally overlooked Ravenloft games on PC.

I've always had a penchant for all things horror, and especially when it involve vampires.  One of my earliest memories was being terrified by the TV adaptation of Stephen King's Salem's Lot (the original, not the Rob Lowe remake).  In spite of myself, I was transfixed by the mini-series, watching through my fingers as though shielding my eyes partially would somehow make it less frightening.  It didn't help that my brother and his asshole friend used to stand outside my bedroom window at night and scratch on the glass like the vampires do in the story.

Eventually, I became mostly desensitized to horror.  It can still give me goosebumps or even make me jump on occasion, but very few films, books, or games leave lasting impressions on me that make me afraid to turn the lights off.  Now, I just enjoy them for what they are - an adrenaline rush.

Veil of Darkness isn't a horror game in the traditional sense, but it's drenched in atmosphere.  From the attractive VGA graphics to the outstanding, spooky score, it's a bloody good time.

It all begins with one of my favorite intros in gaming history.  The corporate logos are presented like a film, moving seamlessly into a backwards audio recording and garbled text that is eventually revealed to be part of an ancient prophecy.  A light flickers, and the screen is illuminated by your character's lighter as he studies a map, unaware of the sinister figure in the window of a building behind him.  Cut to title, then dissolve to the events that bring you to the vampire Kairn's hidden valley.

Seriously, the opening cinematic is incredible and does a perfect job setting up the story, as well as the mood.  When the game begins proper, you'll wander about the small village from an isometric viewpoint, talking to the strange inhabitants, solving puzzles, and eventually leaving town to visit other locations, solve more puzzles, and endure some light combat.

The back of the box bills Veil of Darkness as an RPG, but it really has very little in common with typical role playing games.  Unlike Event Horizon's previous game, The Summoning (very much a precursor to Diablo that is also worth checking out), there are no stats or experience points, and all that really connects the genres is item management and status ailments.  Combat takes place in realtime.  It's very basic and rather unexciting - by far the weakest aspect of the game's design. 

The bulk of Veil is in puzzle solving.  There's a good combination of conversation and item-based puzzles much more akin to traditional point and click adventure games.  Most conversations take place via keywords that are underlined, but you can also type in words.  Most times, this is a dead end, but there are a handful of puzzles that can only be solved by saying a specific word to a specific person, such as outing the vicious werewolf that has been murdering villagers or obtaining key items for quests only by asking for them. 

Each location is generally fun to explore.  There's the village itself, which features a grim tavern full of miscreants, a gypsy camp, an old farmhouse, the site of your crashed airplane, a hedge maze, and Kairn's fortress, as well as a few others, and every one of them offers interesting characters, conversations, and quests.  The game is vaguely non-linear, and you can theoretically complete several quests out of their order in the prophecy, though if it's your first time playing you'll likely solve them in the order they're written. 

Some of the puzzles do require logic leaps, but most are pretty garden variety inventory puzzles.  There are a handful that are actually quite clever, giving you a real sense of satisfaction when you figure it out after scratching your head for a while. 

Inventory management is crucial, but to that end, the user interface could have been a little more intuitive.  You must first drag the inventory screen upwards to have full access, and even when you do, the game doesn't pause.  You must find a safe place, and have your most useful items in the top row for use in a pinch, lest you be savagely torn apart by the game's enemies. 

Dull as combat is, there is one aspect that I enjoyed.  Certain creatures can only be harmed by certain weapons.  A skeleton, for example, isn't phased by a blade as there is no flesh to cut, but a mace will shatter their bones.  Shades can only be defeated by a magical staff you'll acquire late in the game, and the topiary monsters in the hedge maze can only be defeated with the machete.  It's a clever aspect of an otherwise boring mechanic that boils down to pressing the 1 or 2 button on your keyboard, hoping the virtual dice rolls are in your favor. 

Veil of Darkness excels in the storytelling department.  In fact, the game's manual has a 40 page novella about Kairn's turn from lovelorn nobleman to ruthless vampire that is well worth the read.  The whole game carries that old school horror novel vibe.  The village itself seems a place out of time, and the residents all seem to have some dark secret, even if some of them really don't.  The writing is quite good so although the conversations will play out exactly the same every time you play, they're still engaging and surprisingly natural in many ways. 

It's all brought to life with beautiful VGA graphics.  Character portraits are fantastic, the locations are well detailed and feature lots of little touches like debris and cobwebs.  The world itself feels fleshed out, and as a result there are rooms in some buildings that serve no purpose other than to add a sense of realism.  Rather than lock these off to the player, Event Horizon lets them explore every nook and cranny, even if there's no reward for doing so. 

The audio is equally impressive.  There's not much in the way of sound, which is somewhat curious given the excellent use of voice samples in the intro, but the music is chilling and amazing.  The intro theme, and the song that plays in the game's first location, have both stuck with me for more than two decades.

The lone weakness in the game's presentation is the animation, or lack thereof.  Walk cycles, attack animations - everything is basically two frames: doing, not doing.  It's especially funny when wielding the pitchfork weapon as your character doesn't even hold it with the prongs outward, but instead completely upright and just stretches out his arm. 

There are also a few tedious parts, including the hedge maze where you must find six cloves of garlic by simply exploring every square inch.  Thankfully, you're at least given a map so you can see where you've been, but this section is way too long for its own good.  At least the topiary creatures are easy enough to avoid so you don't get bogged down in endless fighting.  There's another maze-like area in the mausoleum, and still another in a series of caves, though I didn't find those two nearly as long.

The game's biggest frustration comes from the status ailments.  If you don't have the specific type of healing item on your person, expect to reload a lot.  Some status ailments will cause damage over time, but there's no telling how much.  It could be a single hit-point, or it could be 60, resulting in an unexpected Game Over screen.  You can heal for free at the gypsy camp, but nothing is more frustrating than trying to find the antidote to your condition only to have the game pause and a werewolf's claw tear the screen, revealing the dreaded Game Over.

You can use a mouse and keyboard to control your character, but honestly, I found the keyboard the best way to control movement and combat.  The mouse is necessary for item management, but moving is controlled by holding down the button and dragging the cursor around the screen.  It's much quicker and more precise just to use the number pad and hotkeys to attack.

Veil of Darkness is one of those games that I never hear anyone talk about, but my memories of it are so strong that it's hard to believe not more people know it.  I remember playing the game with my old school chum in my youth, and I still remember the true name of the vampire that must be spoken as part of the final confrontation.  The name is picked from a shortlist of randomized names, and to this day I still recall Bhenblod was the name chosen when I beat the game in the 90s.  I may have received a different name this time, but I still had just as much fun playing Veil of Darkness as I did that first time around.  And seriously, how good is that intro?

Veil of Darkness was completed via on PC via DOSbox.

Review: Hunter the Reckoning [Xbox]

Developer: High Voltage Software
Publisher: Interplay
Rated: M for Mature
Released: May 21, 2002
Completed: September 17, 2017

Hack and slash games are a dime a dozen, and I typically like most of them.  There's something about mindless monster slaughter that's cathartic.  Hunter the Reckoning, based on White Wolf's pen-and-paper RPG of the same name, is among the better games in the genre.  It offers a fun mixture of melee and ranged combat against hordes of zombies (or "rots," as they're called in the World of Darkness), vampires, werewolves, ghosts, and these goddamn little spider-like things called Skitters that are the most annoying enemies ever, GOD I HATE THEM SO MUCH...

Ahem

Getting back on track: Hunter the Reckoning premiered on the original Xbox and Gamecube.  Oddly enough, the sequel, Wayward, was a PS2 exclusive, while the third and final game in the series, Redeemer, would only grace the Xbox.  With such strange marketing choices, it's no wonder the series faded into obscurity.  It's a shame, too, because all three Hunter games are a blast to play, especially with friends.

Like most hack and slashers before it, Hunter offers a choice of four characters and supports four player co-op.  Each of the game's titular Hunters are human beings imbued with special supernatural powers that aid them in their quest to eradicate the undead.  The characters follow the genre archetypes pretty closely - the burly warrior, the well-rounded character, the nimble but weak one, and the one that excels at magic - which means the game's difficulty can be drastically affected by your choice of Hunter.  I had originally beaten this game with Deuce, the slow and powerful Avenger, but I found I had a much easier time playing as Samantha, the Valkyrie-like Defender.  Her quick movement speed and health restoring magic spells allow you to stand back and thin out the herds of enemies with her Magnum.

The plot is kind of silly.  A bunch of stupid teenagers hold a rave at an abandoned prison, disturbing the tortured souls of those who had been executed.  Vengeful spirits flood into our world and only the Hunters can stop them.  It's kind of ludicrous, but in fairness if you've ever lived in an apartment, you know how annoying it can be when the person upstairs plays their music too loud. 

The locales are mostly dank urban environments - city streets, the prison, the requisite sewer level.  Even the more unique stages, such as the mansion or the hospital, look a little barren and bland.  The levels lack detail and offer few opportunities for exploration.  I suppose this was done to compensate for the pretty impressive amount of enemies the game crams on screen, but going back and playing it today, I was definitely less impressed by the visuals than I remembered being when the game came out. 

The more memorable aspects of the game are its boss fights.  While the majority of the game is spent cutting down innumerable rots and avoiding those rat-bastard Skitters, there are a handful of truly epic boss fights.  They still boil down to shoot or slash it till it's dead, but the larger, quicker enemies offer much greater challenge.  An early fight against a giant, demonic teddy bear is one of the game's standout moments, as is the fight against the mysterious Carpenter, a creepy antagonist wrapped in bandages who never really reveals himself to be friend or foe. 

Each Hunter has their own unique melee and ranged weapon, but you're able to collect limited use armaments as well.  The machine gun is effective against large hordes of enemies, and especially faster ones like vampires.  The shotgun does massive damage if you're close enough to use it, and the rocket launcher is a must for the boss fights. 

Though lots of enemies will mob the player, most of them drop health or magic orbs when killed, and continues are easy to come by.  You earn the latter for rescuing innocent civilians in the stages, and even though the game depicts them being attacked by monsters, I don't think they can actually die.  As I said before, the game's challenge partly boils down to which Hunter you pick, but there's a thin layer of strategy in the combat where taking risks and engaging in melee combat will yield more health and mana before it starts to dissipate, or you can stand back and blast away at enemies until they eventually stop spawning, but the drops may disappear before you can reach them.

Throughout the game, your Hunter's skills will improve.  The game automatically upgrades you at certain points, increasing your damage output, accuracy, or granting you new spells (called Edges), and while it does a good job doling out the points, I would have preferred to have more control over my character's progression like in, say, Gauntlet Legends. 

As previously stated, the graphics aren't particularly noteworthy.  Some of the character and monster designs look OK, but the levels themselves are just kind of drab and boring to look at.  The story is told through pre-rendered cutscenes that are heavily compressed, creating a very blurry, blocky look.  On the plus side, the animation is pretty smooth.  Your character looks a little funny while aiming, as they spin their arms around wildly like they're possessed, but most actions are pretty fluid.  The game does often force your animation to play out, however, so you will frequently get stuck hacking at thin air while monsters get in some free hits on your backside.

The audio does a much better job than the visuals.  The distinct noises of rots spawning in get louder the closer they are to you, helping your gauge where your enemies are coming from and how far away they are.  You'll quickly learn to hate the sound of Skitters clicking across the ground, but the game generally does a good job of alerting you to an enemy's presence so you can take a second to whip out your weapon of choice.

Control is a mixed bag, however.  The shoulder buttons attack and jump, and it's not ideal in a game where you have to constantly hammer the attack button.  The Xbox's analog shoulder buttons weren't built for that sort of rapid use, and my fingers did get tired after a while.  Jumping is practically useless in the game, and I really only found myself using it just for the hell of it.  The face buttons are reserved for switching between your default and special weapons, and selecting and using your spells.  There's also a taunt button that does absolutely nothing and could have been dropped altogether. 

Unfortunately, there's not really a better control option as the right analog stick aims your attacks.  The game operates like a twin-stick shooter, and as such you couldn't really use the face buttons to attack or else you'd have to take your thumb off the right analog stick.  Such as it is, it works, but it can definitely be tiring over time.

Hunter the Reckoning is one of those games that I have fond memories of.  It's what got me into White Wolf's World of Darkness universe, and led me to the mostly enjoyable Hunter novels (of which there are seven).  Going back and playing it today, the graphics haven't aged very well, but the gameplay is still a mindless good time.  It's a shame the series didn't get more recognition, despite having two sequels, because this is the kind of game that would've been great online.  Though it was surpassed by the later entries, the original Hunter the Reckoning is still one of the Xbox's best hidden gems.

Hunter the Reckoning was completed on an original Xbox with no cheats.

Retro-Review: Half-Life [PlayStation 2]

Developer: Gearbox Software
Publisher: Sierra Entertainment
Rated: M for Mature
Released: 11 November 2001
Completed: 3 September 2017

I have a secret to confess – a secret shame that has eaten away at me for years and I can no longer live with it. I have never finished the original Half-Life. I have started it many times, and always enjoyed replaying those early chapters, but my attention span would wane and I’d move onto something else. I recognized what a great game it was. I just never saw it through until the end.

No more.

Now my shame has been erased. Now, I am victorious! I have basked in the glory that is Half-Life and I can officially say: yeah, it’s pretty good, I guess.

That’s not a slight to Half-Life and all that it brought to gaming. Even today, the AI is aggressive and challenging, the levels exquisitely designed, and the story mesmerizing. But having completed Half-Life 2, arguably the best game of all-time, it’s harder to see the original game in the context of when it was released. It is by no means or any stretch of the imagination a bad game. It’s a (mostly) spectacular game, even if the PlayStation 2 port I played lacks the visual fidelity of the PC original. It’s just also an older game, and it has some rough edges that are especially noticeable in modern times.

I don’t think I need to elaborate on Half-Life’s plot. I’m pretty sure every gamer knows it by now, but for the two of you who may not, you play as silent protagonist Gordon Freeman, a researcher at the Black Mesa facility. Black Mesa’s experiments cause a rift between universes to form, and alien creatures start spilling over into our world, so naturally you grab a gun and start shooting them. The military is eventually called in, but instead of a rescue team, they send a cleaning crew to kill all the witnesses.  Gordon must rely on his wits (and his guns) to make it out alive.

Half-Life was revolutionary for its time. It had a much stronger focus on story than its contemporaries, and the AI was cutting edge. It's hard to believe looking at the blocky character models now, but the engine was actually pretty impressive in 1998. As a game, it mixed excellent shooting sections with some slightly frustrating first-person platforming. Movement could feel a little slippery at times, especially during the jumping sections, but as a whole it was - and remains - a fun game.

Thanks to its success on the PC, Half-Life was slated to be ported to Sega's Dreamcast console, complete with an exclusive expansion pack called Blue Shift. Sadly, though it was nearly complete, the Dreamcast port never saw an official release, and Blue Shift was eventually released on the PC.  The PlayStation 2 port is based somehwat on the Dreamcast version. It features the upgraded character models that were to be included there, as well as its own two-player cooperative (only) expansion called Decay.

I had played enough of the PC version to be able to make a comparison, and I wanted to see how the PS2 port stacked up. In short: not all that well. The PC version is clearly the best way to play Half-Life. The PS2 version looks somewhat muddy and drab, and the framerate is often atrocious, but if you have no other way of playing Half-Life, it's serviceable thanks to an intuitive control layout.

The controls were actually the most impressive aspect of the port, in all honesty. They're customizable, and there are thoughtful inclusions like aim assist and lock-on to compensate for the loss of precision on a gamepad compared to a mouse and keyboard. If you have the latter, however, you can actually use them thanks to the PS2's USB ports.

Just about every other aspect of the game suffers, unfortunately. It's not downright ugly on the PS2, but it's a far cry from the sharp textures afforded by the PC version, even if you're still playing the original release and not the upgraded Half-Life Source. The framerate is more consistent than the unreleased Dreamcast version's, but it still dips into the teens with regularity. The character models may have been upgraded with higher polygon counts, but they're still ugly to the point of being unintentionally funny. The only positive change is the new weapon models, which have more detail than the originals.

The audio in every version of Half-Life has always been a mixed bag. Character voices sound muddled, and most of them have been inexplicably pitched up so they sound ridiculous. Guns, enemies, and  environmental effects, on the other hand, have always had a satisfying clarity, but certain effects just sound too loud.  The clang of the iconic crowbar against anything metallic, or the ear-piercing shriek of the houndeyes are among the worst offenders. The same is true here, but the voices sound even more muffled, to the point where it's often difficult to make out what anyone is saying, especially if there are other sounds in the mix.

Some of the problems with PS2 Half-Life can be traced back to the PC original. The platforming sections were never that great, and they're made slightly more difficult when played on a controller. The levels themselves are large and expansive, which gives the game a distinctly realistic and cohesive feel that was very different from the disjointed episodic structure of many previous FPS games. However, the levels are broken up into smaller chunks with set areas that will trigger brief, but definitely noticeable, loading screens every time you transition between them. On a high-end PC, the loading times were only a handful of seconds - a small hiccup, really - but on the PS2, they're between 10-15 seconds. That's still a far cry from the 20-30 seconds found on the near-complete Dreamcast version floating around online, but it still breaks up the flow of the game and it's especially obnoxious when you're retreating from enemies and you happen to trigger a loading screen.

The save system is quite odd.  The game thankfully allows for quicksaving, but it comes with a caveat.  Quicksaves are not stored to your memory card.  If you turn your system off, you'll lose all your progress unless you have recently paused the game, gone to the menu, and manually saved to your card.  I learned this lesson the hard way, forcing myself to replay the first hour of the campaign over again.  You can save anywhere, just like in the PC version, but why the quicksave slot is not stored on the memory card is a foolish oversight.

The final levels of the campaign have always been very divisive. Frankly, I didn't find them all that bad. In fact, there were sections within the Black Mesa facility I found considerably more frustrating. I can do without all the jumping, but there are some pretty large scale battles that are very exciting.  It does feel somewhat out of place, but if the aliens can come to our world, why shouldn't we be able to visit theirs?

Should you play Half-Life? Absolutely, yes. That's an emphatic affirmative. Even with its age spots, it's still a great game. Should you play Half-Life on PlayStation 2? That's a tougher recommendation when the PC version is dirt cheap, readily available, and will work on just about anything from the late 90s to modern-day powerhouse machines. If you have no other way to play it, the PS2 version will do in a pinch, but it's not the best way to experience one of the best games of all-time. But hey, at least it got released.

Half-Life was completed on a real PlayStation 2 with no cheats.  The review score reflects the port more than the game itself.

Retro-Review: Snatcher [Sega CD]

Developer: Konami
Publisher: Konami
Rated: T for Teen
Released: 30 November 1994
Completed: 27 August 2017

It can be problematic reviewing or even playing a game with as great a reputation as Snatcher.  From the mind of the man who created Metal Gear, Hideo Kojima, Snatcher takes obvious inspiration from the film Blade Runner, telling a similar story about androids who are infiltrating society as regular humans.  Because of its pedigree and limited release towards the end of the failed Sega CD add-on, it commands high prices on the secondary market.  It is, to date, the most expensive game I've ever purchased, and likely will ever purchase, by a wide margin.

Worth it.

I'm an avid fan of Blade Runner and similarly heady science-fiction that tackles themes of humanity, memory, emotion, and the morality of certain scientific advancements.  Snatcher is right in my wheelhouse.  It's one of the rare games whose legendary reputation is genuinely deserved.

From the start, the influence is clear.  Neo-Kobe bears a strong resemblance to Blade Runner's vision of Los Angeles 2019, right down to the identical Tyrell Corporation pyramid and cylindrical police station.  The flying cars are essentially spinners.  Protagonist Gillian Seed is a JUNKER, a special police officer designated to eliminate the BioRoid (android) menace, and wears a coat and wields a gun nearly identical to Harrison Ford's Rick Deckard.  The androids themselves look suspiciously like the Terminator endoskeletons, right down to their creepy metal smiles and glowing red eyes.

On these aspects alone, Snatcher is worth a look.  As a game, it's little more than point and click visual novel, a style of gameplay that has seen something of a resurgence in recent years.  Players must collect clues and solve mysteries to advance the story, sometimes requiring careful investigation of every detail in a given scene several times.  It can certainly be tedious if it's not your type of game, but I was already well-versed in Sierra and LucasArts adventure games by the time Snatcher made it Stateside, so I felt right at home. 

Games of this type were pretty rare for consoles back in 1994.  The Sega CD also saw a port of the similarly cyberpunk point and clicker Rise of the Dragon, but it was largely a genre relegated to the PC.  Console gamers tended to want more action, not a bunch of static screens and long conversations that have become the hallmark of Kojima's games. 

To that end, Snatcher may very well be the best thing Kojima has ever written.  It's not the most original, but it's the most consistent tonally.  This was also three years before Westwood Studios released their Blade Runner adventure game on the PC, making this the closest thing to playing my favorite movie I could get.  In spite of the limited interactivity of the game, the world feels fully realized and is genuinely fun to investigate just to hear the characters muse about their surroundings.

Dialogue is an integral part of the game, but rather than a cumbersome typing parser, the game keeps track of relevant topics through a series of menus.  The menus often have several tiers within them, which can sometimes be confusing when trying to remember how to access a specific question with a certain character, but it gets the job done far better than an on-screen keyboard.  It also means it's a little harder to get stuck because you can always just exhaust every option multiple times rather than having to take notes or remember keywords, but it's a very elegant solution to playing a complex detective adventure with a controller.

Snatcher does contain a handful of action sequences.  These come in the form of shooting galleries where players have to blast incoming BioRoids or their spider-like seekers.  If you're equipped with Konami's Justifier lightgun, you can actually play these sequences that way, or stick with the on-screen reticle and mashing the controller button to fire.  Either way, these sequences can be tough and will usually require several attempts before you finally pass them due to the randomized appearance of enemies.  It's a nice idea, but these sequences are easily the weakest part of the game.

The real fun lies in the investigation itself, and the dialogue exchanged between characters or discovering the minuscule details of the world.  Not only does the game reference popular science-fiction heavily, but there are also some cheeky references to Kojima's own Metal Gear, including the humorous introduction of Metal Gear Mk II, your robotic companion, and a nightclub called Outer Heaven that's teeming with patrons dressed up as other Konami characters. 

The characters themselves are all quite memorable, especially Gillian.  He's not a 90's anti-hero or a gruff and stoic jerk.  He's actually a womanizing, sexist pig who would never pass muster in today's gaming landscape.  That's not necessarily a bad thing, but it's certainly a shock to hear a character make such overt sexual advances, especially considering the game's original release date when that type of content was even more taboo than it is now.  If nothing else, Gillian is a unique, expressive, and flawed but goodhearted leading man in the world of video game protagonists, which gives him a very realistic and relatable quality.

Taking advantage of the CD-ROM format, all of Snatcher's characters are fully voiced, and the game also features an outstanding audio score.  The voice cast is what you'd expect from a 1994 CD-ROM game - cheesy, but charming.  It's far from the worst voice acting you'll ever hear.  It's sort of on par with early anime dubs.  The soundtrack itself is definitely faultless, though there are only a handful of songs that repeat.  They do a wonderful job of setting the mood in every scene, from creepy abandoned churches to the apartment of a suspected Replic...er, I mean "BioRoid." 

The game's graphics are certainly no slouch either.  The scenes are mostly static, with character portraits appearing on the lower third of the screen when dialogue ensues, but everything is loaded with details and there's a bold use of color.  There are occasional flourishes and small animations to bring a little life to the stills as well.

Now that I've bought and beaten Snatcher, my white whale has officially been slayed.  This was the biggest game on my wishlist for many years, and I couldn't be happier to have it in my collection.  It's not the rarity, but the fact that it's such a captivating experience is the real reason Snatcher is worthy of that spot.  For decades I've regretted not purchasing it when I used to see it at Toys R' Us or Babbages, and even now that I've paid several times its original price, I still feel it was worth every penny.  Hideo Kojima is one of gaming's true auteurs, and Snatcher is, in my opinion, his masterpiece.

Snatcher was completed on a real Sega CD with no cheats.

Review: Dynamite Cop [Dreamcast]

Developer: SEGA AM1 
Publisher: SEGA
Rated: T for Teen
Released: 31 October 1999
Completed: 26 August 2017

A while back I reviewed Die Hard Arcade on the Sega Saturn where I said that, objectively, it's a pretty threadbare port of an arcade game that can be beaten in a matter of minutes.  Subjectively, I admitted that my nostalgia blinds me and I still love the game.  When it comes to the game's sequel, Dynamite Cop, all of that - but on a boat.

Pretty much the entirety of this review could be summed up with the phrase "but on a boat."  That is the gist of Dynamite Cop; it's Die Hard Arcade, minus the license, and on a boat.  Bruno Delinger, the original game's protagonist - returns, but this time he's on a boat.  Two additional characters join him, Jean Ivy and Eddie Brown, and while they technically have different moves and slight differences in speed, they're all pretty much the same.  I was miffed that Bruno's pet monkey, pictured perched on his shoulder on the character select screen, is not in the game.  I was promised a monkey, SEGA!

Wolf Hongo (and his amazing beard) also returns as the villain, but on a boat.  He has some other pirates with him, and once again the President's daughter has been kidnapped.  Instead of being held hostage in an office high rise, she is now captive on a boat and hiding in a rather ostentatious pink suitcase that raises so many questions I don't even know where to begin.  Whose suitcase was it?  How did the terrorists not notice it was so heavy with a human being inside of it?  How flexible is the President's daughter to fit inside of that suitcase?  How shitty are the President's secret servicemen if they let his daughter get kidnapped a second time? 

If this review seems utterly silly to you, that's because it's the only way you can really talk about Dynamite Cop.  The game itself is so self-aware and ludicrous it begs you to make jokes about it.  You can literally beat people to death with giant sportfish and fire missiles at enemies that explode into little tiny mushroom clouds, all within the confines of a cruise ship.  That's why the game works!

Dynamite Cop isn't an incredible game.  It got mediocre reviews when it came out, and they're largely justified.  Like Die Hard Arcade, it's capable of being completed in minutes.  There are plenty of moves and weapons at your disposal, but basic punch and kick combos will get the job done.  Between beating up thugs, you still have to participate in quicktime events that can result in slight alterations on your path to the final showdown with Wolf.  It all has a very been-there, done-that feel to it, but on a boat.

And yet, just like its predecessor, I can't help but love it.  I know it's an ugly game that would look more at home on the N64 than the Dreamcast.  I know the voice acting is horrendously, hilariously bad.  I know it's a simple, braindead, arcade button-masher, and it's stupidly easy, but dammit if it isn't fun in short bursts!

Just about the only difference between Dynamite Cop and the original Deka/Die Hard Arcade besides the setting (a boat, in case you forgot) is you can now pick your starting route from three options.  The three routes share some areas, but each has their own exclusives as well, giving the game just a tiny hint of replayability.

Like the Saturn port of Die Hard Arcade, there's also a classic SEGA arcade game thrown on the disc.  This time it's Tranquilizer Gun.  Ironically, DHA's Deep Scan would have been more fitting, in keeping with the boat theme and all, but in any case they're still both kind of weird choices that have nothing to do with the core game.

So what have we learned about Dynamite Cop?  It looks terrible, it's short, even with multiple paths, it's not very deep but somehow it still manages to be kind of fun, and it takes place on a boat.  It's so ridiculous you just have to play it, especially if you enjoy arcade brawlers. 

Dynamite Cop was completed on a real Dreamcast (but not on a boat) with no cheats.

Fail Review: Batman [NES]

Developer: Sunsoft
Publisher: Sunsoft
Released: February 1990

If you've ever heard the term "NES-hard," it was games like Batman: The Video Game that spawned it.  Released a few months after Tim Burton's smash hit 1989 film, this action-platformer is actually a fantastic game punctuated by moments of such extreme difficulty that they will test even the most patient gamers. 

To understand what a big deal Batman was in 1989-90, you kinda had to be there to experience the phenomenon.  Burton's film set the bar for all future adaptations.  Despite some very controversial changes, including an origin story for the Joker that ties him into Batman's origin, this was a far more faithful adaptation of the tone of the original comic books.  It was far removed from the campy Adam West TV show; a much more realistic, darker take on the character than had ever been attempted before, and with A-list actors in the lead roles.

As a result, Batman was everywhere in those days.  The logo graced t-shirts, bed sheets, underwear, and just about anything it could be stitched, sewn, or printed onto.  Prince's soundtrack flew off store shelves simply because the cover featured the logo - even non-Prince fans (e.g. - heathens) bought it.  It spawned a new line of action figures, a breakfast cereal, arguably the greatest animated show of all-time (several years later, admittedly, but the influence is clear), and of course, video games.

Batman's history with video games has always been hit and miss, and though this was not the first video game featuring the Caped Crusader or even the first one loosely based on the movie, it is the first good one.  It's one of the rare examples of a good movie tie-in game, though its connection to the film is tenuous at best.

The game begins on the Gotham city streets, and right away you're struck by two things: the appropriately dark and dingy look of the graphics, and the stunning music.  Sunsoft games almost always featured some of the best music on the NES,and this might be the pinnacle.  The level one music is as memorable to me as Contra, Castlevania, or even Mario and Zelda - it's classic stuff.  Getting back to the visuals, however, the color palette is generally drab, relying mostly on browns, rust red, gray, dark greens, and dull shades instead of vibrant, bright colors like most NES games.  Ironically, it resembles modern day games more than games of its era, which made it stand out all the more for players who were used to the cartoonish hues found in other popular games.

The drab colors work perfectly for the game, and the levels are loaded with details such as street signs, moving gears, and dripping acid.  Even Batman's death animation is awesome - a giant, flaming bat symbol!  I guess they figured they'd better make it cool, because you will undoubtedly be seeing in dozens of times.  Batman: The Video Game is hard.  No, like, REALLY hard.  Like, REALLY, REALLY HARD.  Controller-smashing, TV-tipping, wall-punching hard.  Seriously, this is a hard game - like "fuck this game" hard.  And yet, it's so damn good that I'm torn between smashing my cartridge with a hammer until there's nothing but a fine plastic dust remaining and persevering until I finally reach the end.  Ultimately, however, the game defeated me whereupon making it to the game's final showdown with the Joker himself - the only instantly recognizable boss - I spent more than four goddamn hours attempting to beat him before calling it quits.  I even paused the game and left my NES on while I left the house for several hours, with the hope that I'd return to it later and, in true gaming fashion, beat him on the first try after I'd had a chance to calm down.  No such luck.  Time and time again, the Joker destroyed me in a matter of seconds until I just couldn't take it anymore, threw my controller on the ground as hard as I could, and wrenched the cartridge from the clutches of the console, declaring it the worst game ever.  Yes, at 38 years of age, Batman: The Video Game still managed to make me break an NES controller.

If there's one saving grace to the game's ruthless difficulty, it's that you get unlimited continues, but in some ways it's almost like it's taunting you.  "Yeah, you know you wanna try again.  Sorry, you suck!  But try again!  This time you'll get it!  Oops, no you won't!  Hahaha!  But for real, the NEXT time will be the one... OR NOT!" 

The game quickly deviates from the movie with its first boss, the obscure comic villain Killer Moth (though many argue it's the slightly less obscure Firefly).  In fact, all the bosses in the game are generally so obscure I've never heard of most of them, and I read Batman comics growing up.  Interestingly enough, even a number of the generic thugs Batman faces during levels are based on villains such as KGBeast and Deadshot, which begs the question how they keep coming back after being blown up by Batman.  In a real divergence from the comics, Batman's enemies explode in a gout of flame, so I guess the Dark Knight gave up on that whole "no killing" rule for this game.

As a video game, this is a precision platformer of the highest caliber.  Batman has the ability to wall jump, often requiring very specific pressure sensitive commands to avoid obstacles placed there just to make your life a living hell.  It's one thing to make a tight jump to avoid falling into a bottomless pit, but another thing entirely when there are spikes overhead that will damage you or send you falling to your death if you hold the jump button too long.  The game's final stage takes place in the Gotham Cathedral, just as the film does, and some of the jumps there are almost impossible to make without just sucking it up and taking damage.  Enemies do randomly drop hearts to replenish your health, as well as ammunition for Batman's various gadgets (why do they have that?), and points - which are utterly useless since the game does not grant extra lives based on your score.  Being that the drops are random, you'll spend a great deal of time walking back and forth, forcing enemies to respawn just so you can farm for health and ammo.

Most of the levels have some correlation to the film - the Gotham Streets, Axis Chemical Plant, Gotham Cathedral - but there is also the obligatory sewer level, which dumps out to a cave, and a weird high-tech level where the Joker's face appears on TV monitors that I definitely don't recall from the film.  The bosses, on the other hand, are all completely unrelated.  In addition to the seemingly random selection of D-list villains, there are several original bosses that would feel more at home in a Contra game than here.  There's a giant computer thing where you have to take it out in stages, and two weird moving block things in another level.  With such a large and famous Rogue's Gallery, it's puzzling why Sunsoft chose to use these lame, generic video game bosses instead of including more recognizable, or even obscure, characters as bosses. 

Between levels, you're treated to some pretty damn slick cutscenes like the Batmobile cruising down the street, the Batwing circling the cathedral, or the Joker uttering his famous "Ever danced with the devil in the pale moonlight?" line.  Interestingly, Vicki Vale does not appear in any of these, though she was in the early prototype version of the game.  Sadly I never got to officially see the game's ending cinematic where Batman straight up murders the Joker in cold blood by throwing him over the cathedral balcony.  I guess I'll just have to settle for YouTube videos of the ending, because after spending hours fighting the Joker with no success, I doubt I'll ever attempt the feat again. 

Even in spite of the brutal, merciless, unfair, bullshit final boss - I mean, the Joker summons lightning, for Christ's sake.  Lightning.  When did the Joker become Thor, the God of Thunder? - Batman: The Video Game retains its status as a classic in my eyes.  The graphics, the music, and the precise control are all top-notch.  The level designs are challenging, but honestly quite manageable if you take your time.  This is as close as I've ever gotten to beating it before, and it's close enough for me. 

Batman was played on a real Nintendo Entertainment System.

 

Retro-Review: Arcus Odyssey [Sega Genesis]

Developer: Wolf Team
Publisher: Renovation
Released: 1991
Completed: 10 August 2017

Wolf Team may not be a studio you're too familiar with, at least under their original moniker.  Despite developing nearly 60 games before being renamed Namco Tales Studio, they're best known for creating the popular Tales series of RPGs.  Beyond that, they made several FMV arcade games that were later ported to the Sega CD in the West, including Cobra Command, Revenge of the Ninja, Road Avenger, and Time Gal.  Many of their games, however, never left Japan.

The ones that did were published in the US by Renovation, which Sega themselves quickly signed an exclusive deal with, resulting in some of the best hidden gems the Genesis has the offer.  Arcus Odyssey is one such game.

An isometric action-RPG, Arcus Odyssey is part of a larger series that sadly never saw any other games localized for American audiences.  It's considerably more action than RPG, but it's an enjoyable, if brief, romp.

I remember renting the game from a Movie Mania video store in my youth and thinking it was incredibly unique.  It begins with a spectacular anime-style intro featuring some impressive cutscene art and even more awesome music.  In fact, the music in the game is so good in general that it even includes a dedicated Music Mode for players to listen to it at their leisure. 

You select one of four player characters, very clearly based on the Gauntlet archetypes - a strong male warrior, a well-rounded female warrior, a nimble Elfish character that uses a bow, and a wizard with low health.  Unlike Gauntlet, enemies do not spawn endlessly from generators, though they will respawn if you walk far enough away and come back.  Levels are free-scrolling mazes that players are free to explore, often revealing hidden treasure chests filled with useful items.  You have a limited inventory, however, so you'll have to decide what's most important - restorative items or offensive spells. 

Combat is somewhat similar to Gauntlet.  Each character's primary attack is vastly different, and they can be upgraded by collecting icons left behind by bosses.  These icons can also upgrade your health depending on what color they are when you pick them up, so make sure you grab it at the right time to suit your needs.  In addition to your physical attacks, every character has their own unique magic ability though they're not all offensive spells.  The game's difficulty depends very much on what character and upgrades you choose, and it's impossible to upgrade your health and weapon fully during a playthrough, so you'll have to decide what's more beneficial.  For my part, I found the game nigh impossible in the later stages without upgrading my weapon.  Restorative items are plentiful so even a short health bar is easy enough to keep full.

Players can go it alone or bring a friend along (if you have friends) with two player simultaneous action.  The downside is the game is plagued by slowdown even in single player, and this is likely more prevalent in two player mode.  I can't say for sure.  I don't have friends to test with.  At certain points in the game, you can get an AI companion, so who needs real friends, am I right?  Arcus Odyssey has my back!

Other than the slowdown, the graphics are decent enough.  The isometric perspective means characters and enemies aren't the most detailed, but nothing looks horrible.  The use of color is actually very nice, giving the game an anime aesthetic that matches the excellent cutscenes.  There are a few stages with cool effects too, such as the transparent glass walkway in one of the later levels.

As I mentioned before, the music is absolutely fantastic, but the sound effects range more on the mediocre side.  It's mostly a lot of fart noises that the Genesis was infamous for.  Thank goodness for the music mode so I can enjoy some of the tracks without the constant flatulence. 

Arcus Oddysey is an incredibly short game, capable of being beaten in two hours or less if you know where you're going.  The levels generally aren't large enough to get lost in for long, so even first time players will likely beat it in under four hours.  The addition of multiple characters and their unique abilities does add some replayability, thankfully.  I recall beating the game when I rented it all those years ago, and I found replaying it was still great fun.  SNES owners almost got a port called Arcus Spirits, but it was unfortunately canceled in the US and none of the other entries in the Arcus franchise ever made it Stateside, making Odyssey even more special.  This is the very definition of a hidden gem, and well worth checking out if you're a Genesis owner.

Arcus Odyssey was completed on a real Sega Genesis with no cheats.

Retro-Review: Sol Divide [PlayStation]

Developer: Psikyo
Publisher: XS Games
Rated: E for Everyone
Released: 11 March 2003
Completed: 4 August 2017

Sol Divide is an interesting beast.  A relatively obscure arcade game that attempted to meld a horizontal shoot 'em up with melee combat, it was later ported to the Sega Saturn and Sony PlayStation in Japan by Atlus, before XS Games published it in the west.  Just because it tried something new doesn't automatically make it worthy of your attention.  The game's short length, ugly graphics, lack of a save mechanic (more on that later), and uneven difficulty mean you're probably better off skipping it, even with the incredibly cheap price tag on the secondary market.

Psikyo is a company best known for their shooters, and in many cases they're well worth it for fans of the genre.  They've made some very successful and capable franchises including Aero Fighters, Gunbird, Strikers 1945, and the criminally underrated Zero Gunner titles - not to mention their awesome collaboration with Capcom, Cannon Spike.  I mention the latter because, in many ways, Sol Divide is like a spiritual predecessor.  Both games are by and large shoot 'em ups with melee combat elements, feature several characters to choose from, and whisk players through a variety of incredibly short stages culminating in an impressively large - often very easy - boss battle.  The difference is Cannon Spike does it much, much better.

Whereas Cannon Spike is a multi-directional shooter, Sol Divide is strictly played on a 2D horizontal plane.  Players can choose from three characters, each with slight variances that mostly come in the different spells they can use.  Unlike most shooters that use a generic screen-clearing bomb attack, Sol Divide allows players to collect magic spells which they can switch on the fly.  Some are devastating single-use spells, capable of inflicting massive damage on bosses and wiping out lesser enemies completely, while others are dependent on your mana meter, which can be replenished by using your melee attack.  Most of the enemies are bullet sponges, rendering your ranged shot practically useless anyway.

Each stage is remarkably short, some lasting barely a minute before the boss encounter.  Most of the bosses are complete pushovers until the game's final stages, where suddenly the gap between stages widens and failing the second or last of three consecutive bosses means you have to play the entire run over again.  Why the sudden shift in formula is beyond me, and it was here that the game really started to lose me with a trio of frustrating bosses.

If you're great at shmups, however, you can probably clear the entirety of Sol Divide's arcade mode in about 15 minutes.  There are branching paths to increase replayability, but no matter which set of boring stages you tackle, it's a short arcade game at heart.  In an effort to combat this, Psikyo added an exclusive original mode to the home release.  It's a nice touch, and I commend their effort to add additional content, but like the base game it's just not very fun. 

The original mode focuses a bit more on the RPG elements, allowing players to level up as they defeat enemies and collect items through a 17 level run.  The problem is dying sends you back to the very beginning, and you lose you accumulated items.  You do keep your level, which means a longer lifebar, but your stats such as shot power are halved.  The only recourse is to slog through and grind, grind, grind.  Oh, and you have to do it all in one sitting because they stupidly removed the save mode that was present in the Japanese version of the game! 

Speaking of, I hope you can read Japanese, because the ending was not localized.  That's right.  Completing the game nets you a few static images with Japanese text.  The intro is in English, so what the fuck?  To make matters worse, Sol Divide was released in English arcades!  There is already an English-language version in existence!  Why is it not on this disc?

Graphically, Sol Divide is a pretty ugly game.  Originally released in 1997, it featured the use of pre-rendered CG sprites, a la Donkey Kong Country, but everything here looks grainy and washed out.  The backgrounds are forgettable, and the enemy designs are just sort of weird.  The bosses are the only thing that really stand out.

At least the control is precise, which is a requirement for any shooter, but the question is why would you want to play it?  You'd be much better off picking up Mobile Light Force on PS1 which, despite the ATROCIOUS and misleading Charlie's Angels-style cover art, is actually a port of the superior Gunbird.  Psikyo is so much better than this. 

Sol Divide was completed on a real PlayStation with no cheats.

Review: Metro 2033 Redux [PlayStation 4]

Developer: 4A Games
Publisher: Deep Silver
Rated: M for Mature
Released: 26 August 2014
Completed: 23 July 2017

 

 

When it first launched, Metro 2033 was the benchmark game of its time.  People judged the strength of their PC rigs by how many frames per second they could run the game at with max settings.  While it saw a respectable port to the Xbox 360, it still couldn't hold a candle to the PC version.  When the new generation of more powerful systems came along, it quickly became one of the prime candidates for the trend of remastered rereleases.

Developer 4A did more than just port the game, however.  Metro Redux was even released separately on the PC, bringing with it numerous changes.  It's still the same core game - a post-apocalyptic fight for survival against mutated creatures and other bands of humans - but some of the levels have been changed, the visuals and lighting has been tweaked, controls have been revamped, and there are additional difficulty modes that allow players more freedom to enjoy the game in their preferred style.  Purists may decry some of the changes, most notably the toned-down difficulty and the brighter environments, but it definitely makes the game more accessible without sacrificing much of the harsh atmosphere and excellent storytelling.

Based on the book of the same name, Metro 2033 tells the story of Artyom, a soldier living in the underground Metro stations of Moscow after the surface has been decimated by nuclear fallout.  Not only do you have to contend with the harsh Russian climate and radiation, but packs of mutated monstrosities roam the land and infest the tunnels.  It paints a bleak picture, populated with some unique and memorable characters, and moody, dangerous environments.  The story borrows more than a little from I Am Legend, but that doesn't necessarily detract from the game.  As far as survival stories go, that's a pretty good template.

In its original incarnation, survival was the name of the game.  The same could be said of any video game, but the original Metro 2033's unforgiving difficulty and scarcity of supplies really proved it wasn't fooling around.  "Survival" wasn't just a buzzword for the back of the box.  While it did offer non-violent and stealth options for dispatching enemies, the slightest alert meant a large scale gunfight and, likely, reloading your most recent save. 

The difficulty has definitely been toned down in Redux.  Early on, I didn't notice much of a difference, but as the game progressed supplies never became an issue.  Even on Hardcore mode, I was rarely at a loss for ammunition, and by the end of the game I had more than enough military grade bullets to lay waste to my enemies.  As in the original version, these double as the game's currency, but they seemed far more plentiful than I remembered.  That's not to say the game is a cakewalk.  Bullets can still do massive damage, and some larger enemies can still kill you in one or two hits, but overall I found the game much easier and fair. 

One of the more unique mechanics of the gameplay is the need for gas masks and filters.  Anytime Artyom is exposed to the surface air, he needs to put on a mask and change the filters as he explores.  This adds an element of tension as you sprint from place to place, hoping your filter doesn't run out and you start slowly suffocating.  Once again, however, I found that filters were rarely, if ever, an issue in Redux, resulting in a less dire overall feel.

The game also offers the new Spartan mode, inspired by the sequel Metro: Last Light (also on the disc), which features a much more run and gun style of play, with even less emphasis on supply management.  It definitely changes the dynamic of the game, which is interesting, but it also strips it of what makes it unique in most respects, revealing in a capable, but more generic, first-person shooter.

The power of the modern consoles is put to good use on the remaster.  Many of the game's environments are still extremely dark and cluttered with debris, but they still look excellent.  The game's lighting effects are still pretty spectacular.  The character models are slightly improved as well.  Just as impressive are the game's outdoor environments where the snowy Russian landscape looks as harsh and dangerous as the crumbling tunnels below.  The draw distance is impressive in these outdoor areas.  There are lot of little details that make Metro's presentation standout as well.  Your gas mask fogs and condensation beads on the inside the longer you wear it, and it will crack (and potentially break) if worn in combat.

The audio is something of a mixed bag.  The voice-acting is hokey, with obviously forced Russian accents, and children who sound like adult actors are playing them.  The music is mostly atmospheric mood pieces, but there's one particular song that you'll find on nearly every single radio that will get stuck in your head and may drive you crazy.  On the other hand, the sound effects are top notch.  The howls and growls of the Dark Ones, crisp gunshot effects, and environmental sounds are all immersive and bring the game to life.

Control has been revamped as well, matching that of its sequel, though to be honest I don't really remember the control in the original version enough to compare it.  Some people have compared the new setup to Call of Duty, so I'll just go with that.  All I know is that it works well, so I can't complain.

What I can complain about, however, is the seemingly random distribution of hit points to certain enemies.  Even with the more manageable difficulty, there was one section of the game where you face off against hulking, brutish mutants that was a fun-sink.  I'd kill one with two shotgun blasts, only to have the next one take six from the same range and a handful of pistol rounds before going down.  Of course, the enemies are strong enough to kill you in one hit, so I spent a great deal of time reloading saves and facing the same enemies over and over until I finally cheesed my way through it, leading the beast on a merry chase where I could predictably get a few shots at it without fear of retaliation. 

And while I'm not sure it's a complaint, I was puzzled by the game's morality system.  Not because it's complex or obtuse, but because I didn't even realize it was a thing.  The game makes no effort to tell you that your actions can influence the ending.  These can include everything from killing rival groups of survivors, to giving military ammo to starving citizens of the Metro.  I appreciate that the game doesn't display a big giant prompt a la BioShock that says "BE GOOD PRESS X" or "BE BAD PRESS Y" but seeing as how it has a direct effect on which ending you receive, it would have been nice if I'd been made aware of it.

Compared to other contemporaries such as STALKER: Shadow of Chernobyl or Fallout 3, Metro 2033 is a much more straightforward shooter.  It's heavy on atmosphere, and it arguably succeeds better than its competitors in that regard.  Fans of the original version have had mixed reactions about the changes to the Redux version, but I applaud 4A Games for offering more options for players of all skill levels to experience the world they've crafted.  Add to that the fact that the disc comes with the equally revamped sequel, Last Light, and that's a lot of value for a game that can be had for under $20 these days. 

Metro 2033 Redux was completed on PlayStation 4 with no cheats.