Devil May Cry 5: I've never played a Devil May Cry game, so I had little idea what was going on with the story in Devil May Cry 5. It didn't really matter, though, because this is an incredibly deep third-person beat 'em up that I never quite mastered yet thoroughly enjoyed. Switching between Nero, V, and Dante for various missions gives perhaps a little too much variety, but oh well. Nero has his chain sword, a giant revolver, and various mechanical arms that give him weapons like a rocket launcher or a whip. V relies on demon summons, and Dante has about a million different weapons and stances. It's a challenge to keep those combos going, especially with the bosses, and I never really gelled with the control scheme or the game's general feel. This is a game that's fun and that I wanted to get good at, but my lack of familiarity with the genre and the depth required for tripe S rankings defeated any intentions I had. Anyway, Devil May Cry 5 is still accessible to newcomers and worth playing even if you don't master it, and it's often available for under 10 bucks on Steam, so check it out if you're in the mood for a beat 'em up. Also, the Netflix series is pretty good.
Halo Campaign Evolved: Has any company mishandled a franchise as bad as Microsoft has mishandled Halo? After the initial positive reception of Halo Infinite degraded into negative territory due to 343 Industries inability to manage the live-service portion of the game, Microsoft reset things again, renaming the studio to Halo Studios and switching to the Unreal Engine, which powers this remaster. This is a game that's been remastered at least twice, once with the Anniversary Edition facelift and second with the original game's integration into the excellent Master Chief Collection. We probably didn't need a third remaster, even if Campaign Evolved is much more faithful to the look of the original game than the Anniversary Edition was. Coupled with a wasted console generation that's squandered years chasing the impossible dream of a profitable Game Pass, and Microsoft's recent layoffs that decimated talented studios like id Software, it's easy to see how the general mood around Campaign Evolved deteriorated, despite the fact that the game is great. I had a hell of a lot of fun exploring the ring and battling the Covenant. Although I'm generally not much of a fan of the Unreal Engine, it's put to good use here, with its ray-traced lighting and nanite texture technology. At a certain point in the game, the formerly barren Forerunner structures become overgrown with the Flood's disgusting organic matter, and it's suitably atmospheric. The Library is much improved from its original maze-like incarnation, and enemies show behaviors from other Halos, like the suicidal grunt grenade rush or Elites who'll kick you off your Ghost if they get too close. However, on Heroic, it's pretty tough, due less to the enemy AI, which I felt was worse than in the original game, and more to the sheer number of Covenant and Flood who'll rush you, sometimes endlessly. There are certainly some choke points that could use more balancing. It was also a huge missed opportunity to not include multiplayer other than online co-op. And why, Microsoft, do I have to log into my Microsoft account every fucking time I play a single-player game? I'm sure there are tons of people who didn't buy it just because of the forced log-in aspect. Stupid, stupid, stupid. I love Halo, and Campaign Evolved is a great single-player first person shooter, but Microsoft just can't return the franchise to its former glory, mostly because it's an AI-obsessed tech company unconcerned with making art or even just pleasing its customers.
Doom: Dark Ages Revelations DLC: You know a developer that's at the top of their game and who has released banger after banger for the past ten years? That's right, id Software, who were just rewarded for their excellence by having half of their studio laid off as Microsoft "restructures" X Box. Man, those fuckers. Revelations is basically the swan song of the last ten years of Doom, and at least id goes out with a bang. After the events of the previous game, the Doom Slayer gets his ass handed to him and is banished to hell, where he must undergo trials to get his chance to escape. At least, I guess that's what the story is saying; who gives a shit about the story in a Doom game? Let me rip and tear! Revelations adds the Spear, which is probably the coolest weapon and tool in the entire series. Functioning as a grapple hook, parry method, and weapon, you can switch between the Spear and the Shield, but you'll find that the Spear is where it's at: Revelations is much harder than the base game, and you'll need to be flying around those arenas if you want to survive. If you thought Dark Ages was too easy compared to Eternal, than you'll love Revelations. It's brutal on Ultra-Violence, and big fights take some strategy and planning to survive. I'm really digging it even as it beats my ass. Definitely give it a shot.
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