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When it comes to most genres of games, players are spoiled for choice on what to play. Whilst being a relatively new medium, games have rapidly gotten better and bigger. While it's true that fans of particular genres are spoiled for choice (looking at you battle royale and survival creafting game fans), sometimes its the originals that pioneerd the genre that did it best. Resident Evil 4 is still great. Street Fighter 2 Turbo still routinely gets played. Many still consider Ocarina of Time to be the greatest game of all time.

God of War is not that. God of War is a dated, frustrating and bloated game that I really don't think has any reason to be revisted unless you hold nostalgia for it. I don't think god of war is a bad game. I mostly enjoyed my time with God Of War. I just think its aged poorly.

"Destroy my enemies, and my life is yours!"

God of War is a hack and slash game and is to some, the greatest in the genre. Set in ancient greece, God of War puts you in control of Kratos, a feared spartan warrior who led his army to victory throughout countless battles. In one particular battle, Kratos and his army were bested and with the last of his strength, he called out to the god of war Ares, asking to "destroy his enemies" to receive his life in exchange. Ares answers his call, and killed those who bested him. In return, Kratos slaughtered countless men and women in the name of Ares, becoming the strongest mortal known to man.

Whilst newer games have pivoted to norse mythology, the original trilogys ancient greek setting is great. I think if I had to pinpoint the one thing I loved most about God Of War, it would be the world it takes place in. Greek mythology is rich with exciting and facinating tales and I don't think any game has done it as well as God Of War has done it. Everything from the enemies to the weapons to the abilities to the levels are all enrinched with this mythology and it is one of the best game settings i've played through.

Hack and slash, and hack and slash, and hack...

Once you get over the (admittedly amazing) scale and art direction of the game, your left with frustrating and dated gameplay. Admittedly the first half of the game doesn't really suffer as bad as the latter half, and I really enjoyed my first few hours with the game. The main mechanic your going to interact with is the combat and for a game released in 2005, it really doesn't feel like it has aged. Combat is incredibly good for the series first attemp. Figuring out the most efficient way to slice through your enemies is incredibly rewarding.

Unfortunately as you progress enemies come in larger and larger numbers along with larger and larger health pools. I noticed this starting to really get obnoxious around the middle of the game. Enemies were spawning with more and more health and were spawning in larger and larger numbers. Defeat an enemy, and the exact same enemy respawns. Defeat it again, and yet another one spawns. It gets so absurd that it honestly becomes comedic at times.

Along with the large health pools is the damage they deal, or more importantly, the lack thereof. Enemies deal so miniscule damage that I never really felt like I was in danger. Getting hit by an enemy didn't make me feel like I had made a "mistake" in my combat and it didn't feel like it really mattered. I never felt like I was in danger when an enemy bested me. This along with the enormous health pools meant that I didn't really feel like I was participating in a tense battle, but instead felt like I was just waiting until the game had decided I had done enough fighting.

Death by a thousand falls

I don't think I died a single time to an enemy throughout my playthrough, with the exception of the ares boss fight. And yet I was finishing my playthrough with deaths well into the double digits. Placed in between combat arenas are platforming sections that make me want to pull my hair out. The fixed camera angles make it very hard to predict where kratos is going to land.

Whilst the game isn't filled wall to wall with them, the ones that are there feel so incredibly frustrating that I left the game thinking there were more than what there realy was. Turns out I just spent so much struggling on them.

I really don't think God Of War is a bad game. I think God of War is a game with incredible combat, strong art direction and a story that really pulls you in. I also think God of War is a game weighed down with overly spongey enemies, endless spawns, and infuriating parkour. Despite this I didn't leave God of War writing off the franchise entirely, I left it excited to jump into God of War 2 to see how Santa Monica Studios improved from the first.

God Of War

Santa Monica Studio, 2005

⭑⭑☆☆☆

screenshots aquired from godofwar.fandom.com

If you were to list the games that defined the first person shooter genre, you would probably start with Wolfenstein 3D, then DOOM, then QUAKE and finaly Half-Life. Over time shooters have become bigger, bolder, and complex to the point where we have almost forgotton the simple origins they came from.

Nowadays if you told someone you recently played the best shooter you've played in years, there is a good chance their first thought is a multiplayer competitive FPS complete with a battlepass and item shop. Games like Call Of Duty, Valorant or Rainbow 6 Seige (Rainbow 6 X? Rainbow Siege X? Rainbow 6 Siege X?). While games like this firmly cement themselves as the face of first person shooter, "Boomer Shooters" show us that sometimes, the classics did it best.

"I live... AGAIN!"

CULTIC is a Retro FPS (or as I prefer to call them, Boomer Shooters) that is so unbelievably perfect that if I did have any criticism of the game, it would just simply come across as nitpicking. Everything is so incredibly designed and so intricately built that I just simply cannot believe that at how amazing it is. A team of 100 people could not achieve what CULTIC has managed if they had all the time and budget in the world. Did I mention that this was entirely developed by 1 person?

THe premise is simple. The year is 1963 and a string of disappearances has plagued the town of New Grandewald. You play as a detective (referred to as "The Outsider") that was in the process of leading an investigation on the cult he suspects responsible. In a turn of events, the detective has been fired due to false misconduct allegations against him, and like any good noir detective he decides to continue the investigation on his own terms.

FPS Combat Refined

When I say this might be the best shooter of all time, I mean it. The gamelay is so mechanically tight and I have yet to experience it anywhere else. Nothing has ever come as satisfying as going from a headshot with the lever action to a one shot kill with the sawed off shotgun to a hatchet throw all within the span of a second. Everything flows so neatly into each other which is unusually unique for a Boomer Shooter. Long gone is the circle strafing of DOOM, or the duck and peek of BLOOD.

It's not just your guns and hatchets that let you indulge in mindless murder, but the environment as well. Gas lit lanterns can be picked up and thrown as makeshift molotov cocktails, explosive barrels can be kicked or thrown into crowds. It's not just the player that interacts with the world, "Ghost" enemies throw barrels at the player to deal damage. The player can even interact with the enemies weapons, such as catching a thrown hatchen in mid air, throwing back tossed explosives, or picking up and using the cultists shields as defense.

"Where'd Everybody Go? Bingo?"

If you had to ask me what my favourite shooter from the 90's is, it would probably be 3D Realms 1997 game BLOOD. BLOOD was one of the "big 3" Build Engine games and whilst the gameplay itself was good, it wasn't what kept me hooked. It was the setting kept me so enthraled. Inspired by classic horror movies of the time, BLOOD feels like an fps by horror fans for horror fans. There's levels directly inspired by The Shining and Friday The 13th (named "The Overlooked Hotel" & "Crystal Lake" respectively).

CULTIC to me, is what I imagined a modern sequel to BLOOD would look like. Whilst BLOOD was inspired by the horror movies that came before it, CULTIC feels inspired by the horror video games of the 90's and 00's. The first level in CULTIC feels exactly like what I imagine Resident Evil 4's first few levels would be if it was a shooter. Theres an asylum in the later levels that feels inspired by Outlast's "Mount Massive Asylum". Constant references, from Resident Evil to Outlast to Silent Hill to Condemnded Criminal Origins. There is even a part that references the DOOM wad MyHouse.WAD .

Admittedly, im yet to finish CULTIC. Mewgenics has came out right as I was finishing up CULTIC and it has completely taken over my life. However I can confidently say CULTIC may be the best of what Boomer Shooters have to offer, and I can't imagine it will be easy to top.

CULTIC

2022, Jasozz Games

⭑⭑⭑⭑⭑

I don't really like anime. I don't read fiction books very often and I struggle to stay engaged with games where the story is the main focus.

It wouldn't take someone particularly intelligent to figure out that visual novels are the one genre that I wouldn't really have any interest in at all. The only real experience I had with the genre was 15 minutes of the hit title Shia LaBeouf: Meme Master Dating Simulator and 2017’s Doki Doki Literature Club of which I remember making use of the fast forward feature extensively. Visual Novels are just not for me. So why did I fall so hard for Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc?

Ultimate to Despair

Danganronpa takes place in Hope's Peak, a private school for the elite, whose student body consists entirely of “Ultimate” students (such as Ultimate Programmer “Chihiro Fujisaki”, or Ultimate Fashionista “Junko Enoshima”). Each “Ultimate” student is the absolute best at what they do, and graduating undoubtedly guaranteed success in their future.

You play as Makoto Naegi, Ultimate Lucky Student, who despite being not particularly good at anything, was selected by the school at random to attend, making him the Ultimate Lucky Student. After arriving at the school, Makoto mysteriously passes out, and upon waking up, realises that he and the 14 other students have been trapped and cannot escape.

After being called to the school gym, we are introduced to our villain of the game, the extravagant and mysterious Monokuma. It is here in the gym where Monokuma explains that every single one of the students are trapped here and cannot leave the school for the rest of their living lives. However, if a student kills another student, and most importantly, gets away with the murder, they will “Graduate” from the school and be allowed to leave.

Daily life, Deadly life.

Each chapter is divided into three different phases. Daily Life, Deadly Life and The Class Trial. Daily Life revolves around getting to know your fellow students, exploring the school, and uncovering the mystery of why you are all trapped.

This is where the true meat and potatoes of the game are. When trying to research the game I read a lot of descriptions saying the game was a detective game with first person shooter elements, and while these are the reasons I decided to give the game a shot, it really pales in comparison to the social sim aspects of the game. I got genuinely excited to get to know my fellow classmates. Like spending all day looking forward to picking up my vita to spend time with them. As someone who typically wouldn’t play a visual novel, I was utterly and completely addicted.

I am NOT a teddy bear!

During the day you are given “Free Time” sections where you are free to social and explore as much as you want. Interacting with your classmates found around the school allows you to spend some time talking to them, and if you give them a gift that aligns with their likes/interests, they will reveal a little bit about themselves (as well as give you a perk to use during the class trial).

Whilst the students are definitely the main enjoyment in the game for me, I can not understate how much I also enjoyed Monokuma’s presence throughout the game. Describing himself as “not a teddy bear”, Monokuma is a black and white teddy bear who oozes charm. I truly tried to hate him, after all he was the one indirectly killing these characters I loved so much, but he is just so lovably evil that I couldn’t not get excited when he popped up on screen. Each day ends with a “Monokuma Theater”. A brief intermission where Monokuma makes some quippy remarks whilst playing with a story relevant toy. For a character who is truly depraved and fuelled by others despair, he has an incredibly cute charm that makes me want a plushy of him to watch me sleep.

A body has been discovered!

The next phase is Deadly Life, which activates once a body has been discovered, and involves trying to gather enough evidence to not only figure out who the murderer is, but to convince the other students that your suspect is indeed the killer. I find this just as enjoyable as Daily Life as it gives us time to learn more about our characters in a way that normal daily life does not show. Each student reacts differently under pressure, and each student has their own way of dealing with the stress of a murderer roaming amongst them.

The third and final phase of a chapter is the Class Trial, and requires you and your classmates to deduce who committed the murder. Each trial involves multiple different minigames each with their own distinct gameplay. The first minigame your introduced to is the Non-Stop Debate, a psuedo first person shooter in which you use your Truth Bullets (that are typically pieces of evidence you found during Deadly Life) to shoot down other students statements that are either not true or contradictory

Contradiction!

The second minigame found in the class trial is the Hangman’s Gambit, where you must shoot letters that appear on the screen to spell out the relevant word. The third minigame is the Bullet Time Battle, a pseudo rhythm game that requires you to dismantle a students argument by shooting down their statements in time with music. The fourth and final minigame is the Closing Arguments, where you explain the murder from start to finish, placing pieces of the crime into a manga shaped jigsaw puzzle.

I really enjoyed Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc and I am happy to say that it truly changed my perspective on what a visual novel could be. I deeply enjoyed my time with all these characters and Im so excited to hopefully see them again in the future of this franchise.