I played through
Darksiders 3 and
Crackdown 3 recently, two fantastic and confoundingly underrated games.
Darksiders 3 adopts some concepts popularised with the Souls games, bonfires and levelling and general toughness, whilst very much keeping its own identity to become my favourite in the series. The level design is great, the puzzles to solve and powers needed to explore are fun and well integrated into the character, combat is methodical and satisfying, and it all looks and sounds fantastic. I still think about the
20-second melancholy leitmotif that could make Fury picking her nose seem epic. Its problems are a basic story (it was already a daft soap opera) and the very occasional rough edge technically, both down to budget I bet, but it's water off a duck's back when the game is so good. They put the money where it was needed.
Crackdown 3 is Crackdown 1 turned up to 11, but CD1 for my money was a
very good game. More powers, more scale, more guns, more destruction, more intensity, as a fan I couldn't really ask for more. Hunting orbs is still fun and as addictive as crack, and the progression as you leap higher, hit harder, dash further and ultimately own the city is extremely satisfying. The crazy physics are back as well as you drive up the sides of buildings and punch enemies 300 feet out to sea, and they had me and my co-op partner laughing like drains all the way through. I also think it looks jaw-dropping!! It has that chunky, stylised look that I guess some people don't like, but it in no way looks rough up close and it helps them achieve the crazy scale and draw distance you see, all dripping in dazzling lights and building-sized holograms. Even the atmospheric effects like the fog hanging around coastal areas have a neon glow to them. Maybe Rebellion could partner with Sumo to help them make
MC1 if they ever do! For me this was all down-sampled to non-HDR 1080p too. I can only imagine what it looks like on a top of the range 4k HDR OLED.
I played through a couple of SNES games too,
R-Type III and
Operation Logic Bomb: The Ultimate Search & Destroy (as my friend said, a hell of a name
).
R-Type III was great! I'm not much of a shmup guy but I resolved to make myself play through some of the big guns, and I'm glad I started. Tough as old boots like! It's only 6 levels but it kicked my arse for a couple of hours a night for at least week before I finally fired my force orb thing rearwards into the Bydo mastermind's gob, sending him back through his portal whence he came. There's more depth than I realised to the combat, with you being able to detach the force orb and have it move freely but still shoot on your behalf, along with different weapon types and ship types and more. I never really mastered it, I won't be attempting the advanced mode you unlock when you beat it, but it was unadulterated oldschool fun and I was suprised how much I got into the soundtrack. I found it quite strange - theres some chilled, funky licks as you race to save the last of humanity from space-faring genetic horrors, but I love that when the music pulls in its own direction and add a new dimension (no pun intended).
Operation Logic Bomb is good, its a top-down shooter a la Chaos Engine with some really cool gadgets and weapons to use and other neat touches. Theres a ricochet weapon that lets you shoot enemies round corners (it'd be a must in a Dredd top-down shooter, was it in DvsZ?), directional claymore mines and a hologram of yourself that attracts attention. It's also not that hard at all, I like a challenge of course but I also like a game that has been balanced to make sure you're often progressing without being toooo easy and its always a pleasant surprise to find in games of this vintage! Outside of the awesome intro and underwhelming Castlevania-style outro, the story is told in CCTV footage you find, which is also a cool touch for an old game! We're still doing this today in games like Dead Space, it works great. Theres no dialogue here really, the vids are like little plays as we see the inter-dimensional enemies invade the base and interfere with the technology and kill and harvest the humans and androids. In one scene you see some androids fight the boss you will soon fight yourself and you see its weakspot and which weapons he is weak to, clever. All in all well worth a punt but you will fire through it fast!
