HIGH The visual style is totally on point.

LOW The rigid weapon restrictions become irritating very quickly.

WTF Yes, Cindy Aurum’s awesome. That’s a weird reference though.

Stand up straight citizen, it’s time to step into the immaculately-polished shoes of one of the most fascist police forces in videogame history. Freedom of personal expression is extremely frowned upon in this town, so if anyone ventures outside with even the slightest hint of non-conformist sartorial stylings, the police will be immediately unleashed to ‘fix’ their external appearance via force if necessary… and force is usually necessary in a First-Person Shooter.

Wait, FPS? And it’s called Fashion Police Squad? What a coincidence!

Still, these brainwashed, unkempt goons don’t seem to mind that they essentially have no rights at all when it comes to how they dress and present themselves in public. Also, they’re all bastards who attack anyone with ‘better’ style sense. Hipsters on scooters rudely careen around the place trying to mow everyone down, ‘Karens’ (their term, not mine) constantly complain and kick up a literal stink, and inelegantly-dressed job applicants rush around while hurling their CVs at everyone in sight.

Now, where Fashion Police Squad separates itself from most shooters is that every enemy has to be dealt with in a certain way — not killed, mind. Sure, murdering people for having the wrong color of socks could be darkly hilarious, but also even more morally bankrupt than forcing them to toe the line by force when it comes to fashion.

Someone’s suit looking a little baggy? Sew it up with a machine gun needle called the Tailormade. They’re not looking vibrant enough? Blast them with a paintball shotgun until their fashion sense pops instead of their skull. Baggy pants breaking the dress code? Remove that belt, officer, and… brutally whip them until they’re suddenly looking great?

Look, I didn’t claim that any of these policing methods make sense. I’m just pointing out that using the wrong weapon in combat will be utterly ineffective at curbing a lack of pizzazz. Using a paintball gun on someone with loose pants isn’t only a deeply questionable act, it also doesn’t take care of the problem. As a result, players need to zip around combat arenas making sure that they’re using the right weapon for the job — and it’s a mechanic I’m not entirely convinced of, if I’m being honest.

Sure, Doom Eternal also had enemies with weaknesses to certain approaches. Lobbing a sticky grenade into a Cacodemon’s mouth or sniping the turret off an Arachnotron would greatly weaken these opponents, but the difference was that other weapons were still effective. That’s not the case in Fashion Police Squad, meaning that battlefields with a variety of enemies require constant gun juggling and repositioning to get clear shots at the right target.

In theory it sounds fine, and an interesting twist on simply pointing and shooting. In practice… well, it’s fairly limiting and noticeably less satisfying than getting a minigun out and turning everything into chunks.

Then come the special functions where our character’s belt allows him to swing across gaps, and a water gun that allows him to shoot the floor to move faster and take longer jumps. Again, interesting ideas, but ones that don’t add much to the experience.

The pacing’s not handled well either. Main character Sergeant Des and his partner Haley are always getting in touch with one another to yak about fashion, share their concerns about the rise in fashion crimes and unload a bunch of mediocre puns. Constantly. The radio clicks to life an absurd amount of times per mission, and everything screeches to a halt while they hash out their thoughts. A recent post release update introduced a desperately needed ‘skip dialogue’ feature which is an absolute blessing, but there’s still no way to excise these conversations completely.

On the other hand, one area where FPS absolutely shines is in its overall look. The devs have gone for a faux-retro style which at reminds me of a particularly vibrant PlayStation One game without the technical limitations of the time. For those old enough to remember, imagine something like Duke Nukem mixed with The beautifully cartoonish Misadventures of Tron Bonne, and it looks awesome.

I’m conflicted about Fashion Police Squad. It’s a great-looking title with mechanics that may not be to my personal taste but are at least fairly unique. However, I found playing became a bit of a slog as time passed, and that didn’t change as the difficulty ramps up in later levels — instead of getting more tense, it simply becomes more tedious due to cramped level design and continually swapping to the correct weapons in chaotic situations.

Fans of ’90s-style retro-shooters might find Fashion Police Squad‘s offbeat and quirky approach to the genre to their liking, but there’s already a lot of stiff competition in the genre — it’s interesting, but flawed approach simply doesn’t measure up to the others already strutting on the catwalk.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Mopeful Games and published by No More Robots. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is not rated. Nothing in it should cause too much offence though, enemies aren’t massacred en masse but instead made stylish through shooting them with fashion accessories.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. All dialogue and story events are displayed in text format. The subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. There are audio samples that indicate where enemies are coming from and these do not come with visual cues. Unfortunately, this means it is not fully accessible — it should still be fairly playable, but since the damage indicator doesn’t show where attacks are coming from, it can take longer to figure it out without sound.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

HIGH Slo-mo limb-severing explosions.

LOW Replaying the same five minutes ad nauseum.

WTF How big is this dance club?

There are moments in The Cleaner that are magnificently brutal — like when the player’s slow-time ability allows them to weave through a cloud of bullets before shooting three people in two seconds, and then watching all the bodies collapse at once. It looks and feels incredible in those brief moments of balletic viciousness, and if it could find a way to make those moments the meat of gameplay, it would be an incredible accomplishment.

A first-person shooter in the Hotline Miami try-and-die mold, The Cleaner has players controlling an assassin sent to kill a child trafficker in his nightclub office. But is that what’s really going on? The world is much stranger than it first appears, with many locations that make no logical sense. One second I was blasting my way through a well-appointed library, and the next I was jumping from pipe to pipe in a dingy sewer built over an abyss.

So what is going on? I’m afraid I can’t weigh in on that because, despite its solid core mechanic and fascinating level design, The Cleaner botches its difficulty level so badly that I was unable to make it through the game.

The Cleaner‘s biggest problem is that its levels are just too long. A core quality of try-and-die games is their staggering level of difficulty — to learn a level well enough to beat it, players are generally expected to fling themselves against a seemingly impossible challenge a dozen times or more. This naturally leads to extreme frustration, and one way level designers generally mitigate this is by making stages short and sweet. In the genre’s best outings (like Super Meat Boy) it’s rare to see levels last more than a minute.

The Cleaner goes a very different way, offering levels between five and ten minutes long that are full of labyrinthine, ambush-filled passages and ill-conceived platforming sequences. A single bullet will kill the player, just like many others in this genre, which means that at any moment they can find themselves losing several minutes of work — sometimes without even having an idea why they died.

The one tool that evens the odds is a three-second timestop, during which the world grinds to a halt while the player is free to roam at full speed, killing at-will. Using this is always a pleasure, and getting a glimpse of a room’s layout before ducking for cover, engaging the timestop and charging into battle works perfectly. It’s even better when players have run through a level a few times and know exactly where the enemies are located. At this point they can optimize their path until every stage becomes a speedrun.

At first this feels like an engaging challenge, but as the levels drag on, it begins to feel as if the player is the victim of a prank — rather than being a challenge, it comes off more like some other difficult game’s challenge mode since The Cleaner is essentially asking players to play a perfect six minutes over and over again, and I find it to be the absolute nadir of sadistic game design.

If my biggest problem with The Cleaner was just the length of its levels, there is a chance that this would still be a positive review, but the miserable platforming shatters any chance of that.

First-person platforming is iffy at the best of times, with even the best of the genre like Dying Light and Mirror’s Edge being filled with moments where players have literally no idea why they plummeted from the sky — and sadly, The Cleaner‘s platforming is nowhere near the top of the genre.

Jumps are floaty and hard to control and platform edges are ridiculously difficult to gauge, often leading to my character frequently stopping dead in mid-air before falling to my death. Jumping from pipe to pipe is a nightmare, and trying to hop between tables and chairs floating in electrified water is an unacceptable slog that will easily erase the six minutes of work it took to get there. Extended try-and-die gameplay can only work if the player is in total control at all times, and that’s just not the case here, even remotely.

When The Cleaner sticks to gunfighting and slow-mo sequences, it’s a winner, but the platforming and overly-long levels destroy everything it gets right. I want to adore this game and I was more than willing to meet it on its own terms, but it’s just asking for far too much — it’s frustrating to see how badly its flaws undercut the rest.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by Dystopia Corp. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was not completed.

Parents: This game was not reviewed by the ESRB, but it contains Blood and Gore, Violence. Most of The Cleaner‘s gameplay revolves around shooting people to death — and those people’s arms and legs can be blasted off with almost no effort. Keep kids far from this one.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: I attempted to play it without sound and found it prohibitively difficult. Because any injury kills the player instantly, it’s vitally important to know when enemies are firing their weapons. Without being able to hear enemies moving and shooting, the game will be functionally impossible to play. The is no dialogue or in-game text. This game is not accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, the game’s controls are remappable.

HIGH Gore Kills are a nice idea.

LOW All the good features from previous games are gone!

WTF Whose idea was it to ship with just seven weapons?

I was introduced to Shadow Warrior franchise with its 2013 reboot. It was a fast-paced FPS with a katana — how awesome was that? The second installment was even better, adding semi-open world elements and 27 types of guns! After loving both of those, I was all-in on the third, but now I wish I’d never played it…

Shadow Warrior 3 picks up where players were left off in at the end of Shadow Warrior 2 — an ancient dragon is freed and protagonist Lo Wang is trying to kill it. That’s basically the whole story, and unlike the earlier instalments, SW3 has no plot twists or back-stabbing allies to spice it up. Lo Wang’s jokes and comic relief were the only thing that made the narrative more bearable. The campaign is also as brief as the plot, taking me only around five hours to complete on the highest difficulty setting.

So, beyond a dull story, where else does it go wrong? Too many of the features that made past games so good are now inexplicably gone.

In contrast to SW2, the campaign is completely linear, and the side missions offering entertaining things like enchantments, mods, or weapon dealers are now gone.

The looting mechanism that gave Shadow Warrior 2 a Borderlands-like feel is gone. Killing enemies no longer rewards the player with new weapons and equipment, and weapon elemental damage is both available solely through upgrading and tied to specific weapons, so there’s no longer any ability to change things up.

The combo system for the katana is also gone. Previously, there were combos for specific situations, such as a 360-degree slash that hit enemies grouped around Lo Wang. Without them, the katana is now just a button-mashing melee weapon that can use some elemental attributes when heavy attacks are activated.

Also cut are the weapon types and abilities. Shadow Warrior 3 has only seven weapons and 12 passive skills with a single combat ability — a huge downgrade as SW2 boasted 27 different weapon types and more than 40 skills, four of which were active combat abilities. Worse, the seven weapons we do get aren’t a great fit for the combat here. Most encounters have the player facing off against numerous enemies in relatively closed environments, yet the only weapon that can be used for crowd control is a grenade launcher that needs a reload after every shot! For a franchise that’s ostensibly about shooting and slicing through enemies, Shadow Warrior 3 falls short on its arsenal.

This leads me to another big issue — a lack of motivation to keep fighting. Besides the limited weaponry, the game forces players to kill every single demon in an area before letting them access the next part of the level. Since killing enemies no longer provides loot or XP there’s little incentive, so this task starts to feel repetitive and forced.

While there’s no doubt that Shadow Warrior 3 has lost a lot, it’s not all subtraction since Lo Wang does have some new abilities. Gameplay is now more focused on platforming with a new wall-running ability and a grappling hook. The hook can be used on enemies as well, bringing them closer for melee kills. A nice idea, but I rarely felt the need to use the option.

Shadow Warrior 3 also puts more focus on environmental damage. There are explosive barrels all around the world and many combat arenas have trap mechanisms that Lo Wang can activate to take out groups of enemies such as trapdoors. Beyond that, Lo Wang can use “Gore Kills” — these are executions that temporarily arm him with the weapons of the enemy. For example, Gore Killing an ice-shooting demon gives Lo Wang the demon’s eyeballs, functioning like a freeze grenade. Some Gore Kill weapons are one-time use, while others can be used for a few seconds. They add a bit of variety to combat, but since their use is so brief and limited, the joy is short-lived.

While the new formula of Shadow Warrior 3 offers a few minor positives, they’re far overshadowed by the numerous absences — fewer weapons, simplified combat, a more linear world, a too-brief campaign, and more. It’s a strange and unexpected step backwards for a series that I had previously enjoyed so much. The dialogue might still be filled with Lo Wang’s jokes, but compared to its predecessors, the joke is definitely on Shadow Warrior 3 this time.

Disclosures: This game is developed by Flying Wild Hog and published by Devolver Digital. It is currently available on PC, XBO, and PS4. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and was reviewed on PC. Approximately 5.5 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: The ESRB rating is M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mild Sexual Themes and Strong Language. Definitely not for kids here, it’s filled with violent combat and gore, including things like enemy limbs being severed and heads exploding. The protagonist also makes sexual jokes and uses foul language as well.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: The game has subtitles. They can be altered. No audio cues are necessary for playing, so this game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game’s controls are remappable.

HIGH An in-game radio station full of salsa songs. 

LOW Awkward changes to the gameplay loop that don’t move the series forward. 

WTF Way more work needs to be done…

Between my editor’s notes and my old drafts lying in Google Docs purgatory, there were at least five different ways I was gonna open this review.

I struggle with what I wanted to say about Far Cry 6. Ubisoft’s open-world shooter series is one I have come to enjoy in the last few years thanks to its power-trip gameplay set across beautiful vistas, but the narratives full of cliché and apolitical nonsense never reach the same heights as the dynamic gameplay. And, as much as everyone loves the “psychology” of the villains, they don’t amount to much in the end. Far Cry 6 seemed like more of the same, and perhaps even worse, since Ubisoft was just coming off a host of controversies at the time.

Issues with Far Cry 6 began with the marketing, as I was fed stereotypes of boorish and loud Latinx people reveling in violence. Being set in a fictional Latin American country ruled by a merciless dictator, I was furhter wary for several reasons, primary among them that Ubisoft has been known to portray foreign countries in a negative light, as we’ve seen with titles like Ghost Recon Wildlands. Most readers of this site will know I tend to be more sensitive to games about or featuring Latinx folks, so naturally, I feared for the content. That said, I was pleasantly surprised by some aspects once I got my hands on it.

To Far Cry 6‘s credit, the main character Dani Rojas (who can be either male or female) feels like a real character thrust into a revolution that she isn’t ready to fight in. Her story is one paved with loss, as she reveals her time in an orphanage and even being kicked out of the military. She’s definitely one of the stronger protagonists in the series and adds some much-needed personality into a long line of leads who have primarily been annoying white dudes and frat boy assholes. 

Honestly, the highlight of the narrative was an early scene. Dani was speaking to another character about her aspirations to flee to Miami and open a body shop. She explains it’s her ticket to the American dream, to which the other character replies, “The American Dream doesn’t come in our color.” That interaction got me invested, and my fears of playing a ‘safe’ apolitical shooter have washed away immediately, something that was also confirmed by the main director in a blog post.

While Dani is great, I also liked many of the supporting characters because they successfully feel like larger-than-life personalities. These include a former KGB agent named Juan Cortez, a living Guerilla legend known as El Tigre, and a local rebel leader known as Yelena Morales. Each of these characters offers more depth than expected, with compelling stories and equally high stakes at the center of their motivations. For example, one conversation with Morales recounted the fate of her late lover, and how that continued to motivate her throughout this fight.

Speaking of characters, this review would be incomplete without mentioning the antagonist, Anton Castillo. Played by Breaking Bad’s Giancarlo Esposito, he’s clearly modeled after the likes of Chilean dictator Augusto Pinochet. Like Pinochet, Castillo is a ruthless tyrant who kills those who opposed him. Esposito plays it with a lot more energy than I’ve seen in his other recent roles, and those expecting something close to Gustavo Fring will be surprised to see an eccentric and trigger-happy adversary.  With that said, although I loved Esposito’s performance, the fact that a non-Latinx actor is playing a Latinx role still bothers me.

Another issue I had was that I usually cringe at Latinx characters in triple-A games since their dialogue is always punctuated with random profanity in Spanish — it feels out-of-place and forced, turning them into gross caricatures. Sadly, Far Cry 6 has these moments as well.

Growing up in a bilingual household, I’m used to people switching between English and Spanish, but it doesn’t even sound natural here. It’s more like someone looked up some Spanish curse words and just peppered them into the script. I wish the writing team had opted to release the game in Spanish — it would have felt more natural, instead of simply having voice actors with thick accents saying a few Spanish words in their English sentences. 

Gameplay-wise, it’s still a Far Cry game, with a few changes.

For those unfamiliar with the series, players are given free rein to explore the island of Yara and its various regions. Played in a first-person perspective, Dani has access to different weapons, means of travel, and even allies to aid her in fights. Most of the action revolves around clearing different parts of the map by liberating outposts, killing high-profile targets, or taking down military checkpoints. It’s all the same well-trodden open-world stuff we’ve come to expect from Ubisoft. There’s nothing inherently wrong with it and as repetitive as it can be, I enjoyed roaming the map and finding ways to dispatch enemies. 

However, it’s not all cookie-cutter, though what’s new here is a mixed bag.

Taking inspiration from the last few Assassin’s Creed entries, Ubisoft has opted to remove traditional skill trees and replace them with gear-based abilities and buffs. Players can find different bits of gear scattered across Yara that offer different buffs, like resistance to fire or increased speed when running. Weapons also feature different types of ammo that can dispatch different kinds of enemies by igniting them with fire or piercing their armor.

While change can be good, I will say that I miss the simpler approach to combat in past iterations — it was simpler to level up and select the skills I wanted, but now players have to find specific pieces of armor. While mixing and matching different pieces for various effects was enjoyable enough, I miss being able to specifically choose what skills my character would have.

On the other hand, players now have new “Amigos.” Here Dani can recruit different animals to fight alongside her, and after completing a short quest to gain their trust, they can be summoned immediately for any mission. My favorite, Chorizo, is an adorable dachshund who will distract guards. This comes in handy for stealth, as the enemies that are focused on the cute canine are perfect targets for quiet machete kills. 

In terms of presentation, the world of Yara is gorgeous — but what I really appreciated were the in-game music choices. Dozens of licensed songs are featured, ranging from Latin pop hits to modern reggaeton bangers. Hearing Dani sing along to Ricky Martin’s Livin’ La Vida Loca or Camila Cabello’s Havana adds a lot of personality, but what really got to me were the old salsa songs. Groups from Colombia and Puerto Rico are present (a great way to my heart) and certain missions include some truly awesome needle drops, including one where I had to burn a tobacco field with a flamethrower while a catchy salsa song played. 

If I’m being honest, my frustrations with the marketing’s focus on the worst caricatures of Latinx people made me brace myself for a racist triple-A experience full of gross clichés and awkward attempts to be apolitical. Instead, I was surprised to find that more thought than I expected was put into its depiction of Latinx people. Although it isn’t perfect — those cringeworthy lines! The grind of finding gear! — it’s better than what I initially expected, and that counts for something.

Disclosures: This game is published by and developed by Ubisoft. It is available on PS4, PS5, XBO/X/S, and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS5. Approximately 30 hours were spent in the single-player and the game was not completed (still playing). Under an hour was spent in the game’s co-op mode. 

Parents: According to the ESRB this game is rated M for Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Mild Sexual Themes, Strong Language, Use of Drugs and Alcohol. The official description reads as follows: This is a first-person shooter in which players assume the role of a resistance fighter (Dani Rojas) battling a tyrannical regime on the fictional island of Yara. As players engage in a variety of combat missions, they use firearms (e.g., machine guns, pistols, sniper rifles), grenades, and flamethrowers to kill enemy soldiers and assassinate high-ranking military targets. Combat can be frenetic, with frequent screams of pain, explosions, gunfire, and blood-splatter effects. Stealth attacks can result in enemies being viciously stabbed/slashed close up. Cutscenes depict further instances of intense violence: bound/cuffed characters being beaten, kicked, and/or shot; characters executed by gunfire; a man cutting his own throat with a knife. A handful of scenes depict dismembered corpses or severed limbs amid pools of blood. The game contains some suggestive/sexual material: a soldier role-playing with a fully clothed sex worker (e.g., “I pay good money for you to do what I tell you”; “You address me only as ‘Mama’”; “And what’s the safe word going to be?”). During one sequence, players’ character is seen drinking alcohol as the screen gets progressively distorted. A handful of scenes depict drug packages or contain dialogue referencing cocaine and opium; one sequence depicts a man snorting drugs in the distance. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles and on-screen instructions can be adjusted, and other various closed-captioning features can, as well. I played the game on mute most of the time and found that the lack of audio was not an issue. This game is fully accessible. 

Remappable Controls: Yes the controls are remappable. 

Longtime listeners of the old podcast might remember that Metroid Prime is my number one game of all time. While it isn’t a title I’ve had a lot of occasion to talk about publicly, Prime was actually what made me start to approach videogames as something more than toys, and it ultimately led to me finding GameCritics.

I first played Metroid Prime in 2003 at the age of 19, and while I used to replay with some regularity (I’ve beaten it probably four or five times) it’s been ages since I gave it a full playthrough. My Gamecube is still alive and kicking and I’m certainly not getting any younger, so while waiting for Metroid Prime 4 I decided to go back and see if my memories did it justice.

The first thing I noticed was how different the Gamecube controller is from the standard controller design of the past decade or so. Nintendo was the last major console maker to adopt the PlayStation standard setup — not truly giving in until the launch of the WiiU — and the Gamecube’s quirkiness has taken some getting used to. Most notable is the use of a single stick for movement, as opposed to the twin-stick setup of most 3D combat games. Having to lock on to do a strafing motion is something I definitely do not miss. On top of that, a surprising amount of force is required to press the shoulder buttons, giving my index fingers quite a workout. While I most certainly still adore this game, I’d love to see any re-release implement a contemporary twin stick control scheme.

In another ‘first’, Prime was the first adventure that made me appreciate a layered and intricate environmental space. While I had been a fan of Zelda-style level design since Ocarina of Time in 1998, I hadn’t played Super Metroid, so its concepts were unfamiliar to me. Prime allowed for much more freedom of movement compared to Ocarina. So, while there are definite similarities between the two, Prime stood out as a more fluid experience.

The moment that won me over for good was acquiring the space jump ability — essentially a double jump that allows Samus to reach higher and farther-away places. It’s located near the beginning of the game at the landing site, but it’s not accessible until acquiring the boost ball. Once I got it and realized that such a powerful item was within sight but just out of reach, all kinds of possibilities started to open up. What else have I walked past? What else am I going to discover?

What initially drew me to Prime was how aesthetically unique it was compared to many games at the time. It sits comfortably at the midpoint of the attempted realism of something like Resident Evil and the outright cartoony style of Ratchet and Clank. Even just looking at the box art, Samus’ iconic suit is colorful and smooth, but she still has a sharpness to her design that would make her fit right in with a corps of space marines. This extends to the environments as well — Tallon IV is quite vivid, but still conveys the appropriate sense of alien foreboding.

Time has been particularly unkind to a lot of 3D games from the PS1 and early PS2 eras, with blocky character models and low-res environments that look garish compared to today’s games. More stylized projects that didn’t try for realism have fared much better, and Prime stands out, even among this select group. While the polygon counts and resolutions are still low, Prime remains pleasing to the eye.

With all this said, the experience of actually playing Prime in a modern context is what surprised me the most — once I got past the unusual controls, it felt like something that could have been released yesterday. The gameplay has aged extremely well, and it’s easy to see how it influenced later games like Dark Souls or Arkham Asylum. The visor/detective vision system in particular is critical to what makes Arkham work, and it owes that to Prime.

I had expected to be disappointed with at least some aspects of Metroid Prime after so long, but to my pleasant surprise, I really wasn’t. It looks great, feels great, and outside of the controller weirdness, it hasn’t lost a step in the slightest. It explains itself well and pushes the challenge when appropriate. It’s rare that any piece of media suffers no damage from time, but Metroid Prime comes through largely unscathed.

HIGH A ’90s throwback with fast and smooth gameplay.

LOW The uninspiring and repetitive levels.

WTF Great (but minimal) music on a constant loop.

As a gamer in my mid 30s, I have a soft spot for ’90s era of first-person shooters. I loved the quick, smooth and simplistic gameplay that sometimes gets lost in modern titles (I’m looking at you Doom Eternal!) and I’m clearly not the only one who feels nostalgic for this style since as there are now similar throwback shooters flooding the market, Exodemon being one.

Developed by Kuupa, players control a scientist in a laboratory at the edge of the universe who has been infected by a symbiotic entity. She has been able to control this entity, and as a result now sports alien claws used for melee attacks and for shooting. Players then use these claws to fight their way through 18 levels filled with enemies. 

Exodemon makes a good first impression. The play is fast and smooth, and has a slightly different feel compared to other first-person shooters due to the claws. These each have their own corresponding shoulder button and it felt intuitive to to slash with one claw and shoot with the other. Exodemon also incorporates its UI diegetically by placing the health and ammo bars on the claws themselves. I always like it when developers are creative with UI implementation, and it helps ensure that there’s a nice, uncluttered look to the proceedings.

The graphics are simple but colorful, featuring blue security bots as enemies. The laboratory setting initially looks drab as it largely consists of grey corridors. However, I was sure that as the game went on I would find more interesting enemies and levels, but sadly, that never happened. 

With a few exceptions, the entirety of Exodemon is set in the same drab and grey laboratory levels. The enemies do change, but these continue to have designs that are lacking in creativity and simple to a fault.

I did not expect Exodemon to live up to the visual fidelity of contemporary games, and it shouldn’t, but the best shooters from the ’90s used interesting designs whilst working within the limits of the era’s hardware. I had high hopes for a visually appealing experience, but instead Exodemon ended up being an ugly game, and it’s hard to feel any kind of tension from visually boring enemies.

Like the graphics, the gameplay also fails to develop over time.

Exodemon is fast and smooth, and using the claws adds an interesting wrinkle. However, the player simply doesn’t feel powerful. Rather than offering a power fantasy, the slash attack doesn’t do enough damage and actually leaves the player prone to taking damage. As such, Exodemon encourages the player to keep their distance and play it safe. Sadly, the shooting lacks impact thanks to tinny sound effects and an absence of discernible feedback when the enemies take damage.

Surprisingly, what Exodemon does well are the platforming elements. I have never been a fan of platforming in first-person shooters, but here it feels fine. The jumping isn’t too floaty, and whenever I misjudged a jump it felt like a mistake that was my fault, and not the game’s.  

Sadly, decent platforming is not enough to save Exodemon. I was looking forward to a dose of ’90s era nostalgia offering visceral shooting at high speed, but what I got was a drab-looking project which is far too simple and greatly lacking creativity in art design. It may seem competent at first, but Exodemon lacks anything to keep it interesting past the first few levels.

Disclosures: This game is developed by and published by Kuupa. It is currently available on XBO, XBX/S, PS4, PS5, Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PS4. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single player mode and the game was completed.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Fantasy Violence. Whilst Exodemon is a shooter, it lacks any overly violent or explicit imagery. Overall, I’d say Exodemon is safe for kids.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: Exodemon has no dialogue. Its minimal story is told between levels in text. This cannot be resized and features white letters on a black background. There is an audio advantage from being able to hear enemy fire from outside the player’s line of sight, and this fire has no visual cue.

Remappable Controls: Certain functions are remappable. There is no control diagram. Players can invert Y and can adjust sensitivity. This game does not offer a controller map diagram, but movement is on the left stick. Camera is the right stick. Jumping is X. Slashing with the left claw is R2 and shooting with the right is L2.

HIGH The Sentinel Hammer’s a pretty decent addition.

LOW The Dark Lord boss fight is abysmal by every conceivable metric.

WTF They’ve literally made The Ancient Gods, Part 1 worse with this release.

Note: This review covers the DLC for Doom Eternal. For the full review of the core game, click here.

The final battle to dispel the demons of Hell is nigh! By the Doom Slayer’s own hands, The Dark Lord has been resurrected, and thus Doomguy must now travel on a sacred dragon to the site of the final battle against all evil with the fates of Heaven, Hell and humanity itself at stake!

Yes, the story’s still absolute bobbins. No, I wasn’t joking about Doomguy riding a dragon. And worse, the final DLC for Doom Eternal is but a pale shadow of the excellence that came before it, resulting in a weak and lifeless conclusion to one of the greatest first-person shooters ever made.

Returning players will notice that there have been some changes made to the user interface, with the icons for various timers such as the flame belch or chainsaw now appearing near the center of the reticle when they’re ready to go. It’s probably a decent change to help out newer players, and unintrusive enough that they barely registered for me whilst in the thick of combat.

Less welcome is the change to the Marauder enemies whereby causing a stun triggers a ‘comical’ Looney Tunes-style sound effect and bright swirling stars to appear above their heads. I guess the original animation of staggering around with the tooltip explaining in exacting detail how to kill them wasn’t enough for some spectacularly unobservant players? If that’s the case I personally can’t wait until the platforming sections are reworked to feature a ‘Meep Meep’ sound effect whenever the player is required to dash in midair, followed by a ‘Wile. E. Coyote plummeting’ soundbite whenever they screw up.

There are five new enemies introduced in this content, but they’re all fairly lazy variations on previous foes and about as enjoyable in practice as chewing on a dead rat. From Stone Imps who spin-dash across the battlefield to armored Barons of Hell who can be sniped during an attack to shatter their armor, the long and short of it is that these ‘new’ enemies are all variants on older, better designs with some pointless gimmicky twist added to them that usually requires a specific and irritatingly restrictive approach to overcome.

Possibly the worst of the bunch is the Cursed Prowler — a particularly loathsome little bastard who poisons the player before teleporting away, leaving the Slayer hemorrhaging health and plodding around without the ability to dash. The twist is that the Prowler then has to be smacked with a Blood Punch to remove the curse. If that Blood Punch gets wasted for any reason, good luck getting out of the encounter alive.

To help him contend with these boring new foes, the Slayer has been granted a new and powerful warhammer to help him out. What sounds like an incredible addition to his arsenal is slightly disappointing in practice, as it’s used mainly to extend stun phases on staggered enemies or to boost resource-gathering efforts. It’s fine, but feels slightly superfluous and tacked-on.

The new stages are largely mediocre, lacking the atmosphere of the best in the series and erring towards the less-interesting ‘fantasy’ aesthetics Eternal introduced. There’s a medieval village, a mountain peak, what might very well be the blandest Earth location imaginable, and finally a trip to a half-decent hellish dimension for the big finale. The combat encounters are similarly pedestrian, with an over-reliance on fodder enemies and significantly fewer white-knuckle moments than before. Honestly, some of these encounters are laughable — try not to chuckle when a horde of Imps attack en masse, as if they’re supposed to present some sort of threat through sheer numbers alone.

…And then, of course, there’s the final boss.

Punchy, dynamic, interesting and adrenaline-pumping… the Dark Lord boss fight is none of these things and less. It might just be the single worst boss encounter I’ve come across in years. It’s a slow, lumbering, drawn out car-crash of a finale that involves trying to bait out an attack before delivering a counterblow that knocks him off-balance and opens him up for some real damage.

Everything about the fight is terrible. He’s essentially a bigger sword-and-shield-wielding Marauder cosplaying as a Warhammer 40K Space Marine, complete with a gigantic health bar. He also constantly summons various wolves and hellbastards, and heals huge chunks of his life gauge any time he makes contact with the player or gets shot outside of the one move that leaves him vulnerable — which, of course, he barely ever uses even when kiting him at the optimal range.

It’s almost impossible to describe just how ill-conceived this battle is, especially in a series that usually prides itself on visceral, pulse-pounding action. Rip and tear? Sit and fucking wait, more like.

It’s not a good sign when I turn off a boss fight midway because I’m bored out of my mind, but that’s exactly what happened the first time I got to this overhyped clown. It’s a ludicrously tedious fight that punishes minor mistakes not with death, but with something far worse — a pointless time sink as the boss heals himself back to full health. He isn’t even particularly difficult, it’s just a soul-sapping slog with no redeeming qualities.

So, this new stuff is fairly awful compared to the excellence of their previous offerings, but what’s even worse is that they’ve gone and fiddled with The Ancient Gods, Part 1 in their spare time, making it a less engaging and challenging experience than it used to be. Early encounters now have enemies missing or replaced with weaker versions across all difficulty settings, resulting in a lazier, slower start to an expansion I originally thought was the perfect Doom experience.

To offer an essentially-perfect Doom experience and then take it away in a follow-up patch is something I find borderline offensive — it’s a little bit like Leonardo da Vinci painting the Mona Lisa, and then then deciding five months later that she needed a big cartoon mustache growing out of her ears.

This underwhelming finale to the rebooted Doom saga would be limp enough when judged on its own merits, but the fact that the developers went back and screwed around with what made The Ancient Gods, Part One work so well is criminal. This expansion is more Doom Eternal, which should be a good thing, but turns out to be the weakest and most disappointing that Doom Eternal has ever been.

Disclosures: This game is developed by id Software and published by Bethesda. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on PC. Approximately 4 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. No time was spent in multiplayer modes, as the Battle Mode reportedly has no changes made to it.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Intense Violence. I’ll just cut and paste most of the ESRB breakdown from Part 1 here, because it’s pretty good and still applicable: Players use machine guns, shotguns, laser rifles, and blasters to kill demons in frenetic combat. Large blood-splatter effects occur frequently as enemies get decapitated and/or dismembered during combat. Players can also use blades and chainsaws to dismember and decapitate enemies at close range. Combat is frenetic, highlighted by realistic gunfire, screams of pain, and large explosions. Hell yeah!

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: While there are onscreen indicators showing where damage is coming from, playing Doom Eternal without sound would be very difficult on higher difficulties. Knowing where enemies are coming from is crucial, and the only real way to do that for an enemy outside the player’s view is listening out for their telltale sounds.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls, at least on keyboard and mouse. The controller has a variety of preset modes to choose from instead.

HIGH It’s still that same satisfying Call of Duty gameplay…

LOW …in a severely half-baked, racist and politically screwed-up package.

WTF Someone thought a dangerously right-wing game was needed in 2020?

Being a minority in the gaming industry is hard. Headlines about Latinx folks getting screwed over seem to pop up almost every day. It’s stressful to navigate, and difficult to cling to the hope that it will get better. Hell, I still feel like my last name is too ethnic for any major publication to consider hiring me.

There’s also friction when it comes to the type of games I play, mostly in how they portray people in my ethnic group. As I get older and now have a platform to talk about games (and media as a whole) it’s given me time to reflect on my relationships with the more… problematic… things that I love. Specifically, Call of Duty.

This latest release in the massively popular first-person shooter series takes Call of Duty back to the conspiracy-laden Black Ops subseries. Set in 1981, players control “Bell,” a custom-character assisting CIA operatives Russell Adler, Alex Mason and Frank Woods in trying to stop a worldwide nuclear threat, courtesy of a generic Russian villain named Perseus. Players will travel to different locations and shoot waves of enemies — standard CoD fare.

Along the way, there will be a few missions that require stealth, some light puzzle work and tests that require the player to remember previous actions/words from events earlier in the campaign. There are also dialogue choices that can alter missions in significant ways and side objectives to complete. In short, it’s a COD game through and through. A few welcome changes are brought into the mix, but it retains the basic skeleton of COD games past, right down to the heinous story content.

While most big-budget games and films don’t do a good job of accurately pointing out the problems of our military industrial complex, the CoD games go out of their way to gloss over American war crimes (usually blaming them on other countries) while perpetuating xenophobic imagery. CoD: BO CW continues this trend, this time with an obvious right-wing slant.

Prior to release, trailers showed former president Ronald Reagan assigning the characters their mission. In BO:CW, that cutscene’s lighting and sweeping score are obviously meant to evoke heroism — as if this legendary figure of American history is sending players on a task to protect freedom. Instead, it came off more like orders to commit war crimes stroking the ego of a hyper-conservative, racist ghoul.

Missions taking place in East Berlin, Russia, Cuba, Vietnam, and Turkey all have the same goal — kill everything in sight and destroy the Soviet Union.

While FPS games naturally revolve around shooting, Cold War’s enthusiasm for carnage seemed especially sickening. This isn’t Doom. I wasn’t killing demons, I was being told to kill minorities and Soviets and to enjoy the carnage. While the tone of earlier entries emulated smart, political thrillers of the ’70s, Cold War throws subtlety and nuance out the window.

In most CoD games, there are usually cutscenes in which characters discuss the human cost of war. Everyone who played it will remember seeing a war-torn town in Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and hearing “50,000 thousand people used to live in this city. Now it’s a ghost town.” While it isn’t the hardest-hitting commentary, I appreciated the examination of violence, even if it was cursory. Similar sentiments cropped up in other installments, but Cold War offers no hesitation in pulling a trigger or digging a knife into someone’s neck.

One example was in an early mission. I was chasing someone who had information, and I had the choice to kill or spare him. I spared him, but he was killed with prejudice anyway. Another mission features characters jumping at the chance to get into combat, happy at the prospect of “killing commies” for the sake of “freedom.”

Why Treyarch felt the need to release a game with attitudes like this in 2020 is a mystery to me. Worse, this isn’t even the first time the studio has given players a right-leaning story — it’s basically their brand now. Earlier Black Ops games were horribly racist towards Asian people, and I specifically recall a gruesome torture scene meant to look ‘badass’ along with the same sense of glee towards murder. Based on Cold War and their past work, they seem to be CoD’s designated “red team.”

I had a long discussion with my partner over the content in Cold War, and during this chat she noticed that some of the multiplayer avatars were given bios stating they fought in “Operation Condor.” This operation was a real-world United States-backed coup that killed over 60,000 in South America.

To many, this ‘trivial’ description of a character avatar will probably go unnoticed, but to myself and others, it’s a grave reminder of real-world crimes committed. The motives of both Activision and Treyarch for including elements like this must be examined. After this discovery, I not only questioned my choice in reviewing the game, but whether or not I would even play or support future installments.

Even with my unsease towards the story content, I was still eager to check out the multiplayer. Like other CoDs, it’s separate from the campaign and largely disinterested in philosophy. Here, it’s all about the shooting.

Unfortunately, as of the writing of this review, the overall package is as barebones as it gets. Only eight maps were available at launch, compared to the 10 main maps and a few mode-specific ones that launched with last year’s entry. It’s a pitiful collection. and while Treyarch has announced that all future maps will be free, it’s disappointing to see it launch with so little.

Playing multiplayer is fine and enjoyable enough, though. The twitchy, fast-paced gameplay is still there. Modes like team deathmatch provide the same adrenaline rush from games past while new modes like VIP Escort offer large-scale battles with interesting twists. I like many of the modes and I also appreciate the scorestreak system — earning points by killing enemies and performing other tasks net tactical advantages like an air strike or a care package.

Leveling up in Cold War is still the same as it was in games prior, but being able to take a multiplayer loadout and use it in the included Zombies mode is a great way to grind. There, players face off against a horde of the undead while discovering secrets and opening doors placed around a map. That said, while I have a soft spot for blasting the undead, playing on the same map gets repetitive quickly.

I normally don’t mention price in the reviews I write because everyone’s idea of “too expensive” or “too cheap” is different (not to mention discounts and sales) but I will mention I spent $70 here. The lack of multiplayer content burned me, but what really makes me feel bad about spending that cash is the political content. In examining the art I consume as a minority, did I make the right choice in supporting a studio so blatantly promoting American atrocities against minorities and foreign countries?

I’ve spent the last few months coming to terms with my place in a world that seemingly doesn’t want me, my partner, my family and those who look and sound different than some imagined ‘norm’, and I deal with outlandish racist comments and microaggressions every day. While Cold War is a part of a series I would have said that I loved, I can’t fully embrace it now knowing that this work is trucking in harmful stereotypes via patriotic-tinged gameplay.

A decent CoD multiplayer experience will likely emerge from the currently-underwhelming Cold War, but I’m going to seriously consider whether that gameplay is worth enduring (and supporting) the rest.

Disclosures: This game is published by Acitivision and developed by Raven Software and Treyarch. It is available on PS4, PS5, PC, and XB. This copy was obtained via paid download and was reviewed on PS4. Approximately 10 hours were spent in singleplayer and the game was completed. 30 hours were spent in the multiplayer and co-op modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M for Blood and Gore, Drug Reference, Intense Violence, Strong Language, and Suggestive Themes. The official ESRB description reads as follows: This is a first-person shooter, set during the Cold War, in which players explore locations in Europe and Asia while engaging in combat/infiltration missions. Players use pistols, machine guns, assault rifles, and explosives to kill hostile forces in frenetic combat. Battles are highlighted by realistic gunfire, blood-splatter effects, and cries of pain. In addition to ranged combat, players have the ability to stab or pistol-whip enemies close-up, or use them as human shields. Some weapons cause characters to explode into bloody chunks of flesh. A zombie mode also depicts decapitation and dismemberment, as players use bladed weapons and guns to kill hordes of undead soldiers/creatures. In one setting, flyers with the words “peep show” and “XXX” can be seen alongside pictures of women in lingerie; a red-light-district storefront is depicted with a neon sign that reads “XXX.” During one mission, players infiltrate a drug cartel—drug packages and piles of white powder can be seen in a warehouse. The words “f**k” and “sh*t” appear in the dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind modes are present in the options menu.

Deaf and Hard of Hearing Gamers: Subtitles are present in the single-player mode for all dialogue, as well as plenty of visual cues that alert the player to enemies. Multiplayer includes subtitles that feature play-by-play commentary as well as indicators for certain scorestreaks being used. Subtitles can be resized.

Remappable Controls: No, the controls are not remappable but there is a control diagram and several presets.The Y-axis can be changed.

HIGH This is some of the finest videogame combat ever created.

LOW Buff Totems are still inexplicably awful additions to any encounter.

WTF They removed the DOOG easter egg? Give it back, cowards!

Does Doom even need an introduction these days? It almost seems pointless to mention that it’s a first-person shooter where players are tasked with battling the forces of Hell itself since it’s such an iconic series at this point. The 2016 reboot was almost impeccably successful at reinventing the series for modern audiences, Doom Eternal made the combat even wilder and more intense, and now we have The Ancient Gods DLC, which continues where Eternal left off.

Interestingly, The Ancient Gods isn’t DLC in the standard sense since owning the base game isn’t necessary. Although it’s a direct continuation happening after the end of Doom Eternal‘s campaign, it can be bought and played as a standalone package. However, since Gods starts off at endgame levels of difficulty and only ramps up to near-ludicrous extremes from there, I can only imagine it would be a brick wall for new players. There are selectable difficulty levels, though.

I played through The Ancient Gods on “Ultra Violence” difficulty using a controller, which offered a fairly stiff challenge without feeling completely over-the-top or insurmountable. Players start out fully-stocked with all of the upgrades and weapons from the base game aside from the Crucible sword, so things start out the way they mean to continue — i.e., eyeball burstingly violent.

Like all the best combat titles, practice makes perfect, and some of the enemy encounters here practically had me spitting blood the first time I took them on. During a second runthrough, I had to stop and check that I hadn’t accidentally dropped the difficulty down a notch as I was ripping clean through sections that had initially seemed like progress-halting walls of sheer difficulty.

The fights are set in all-new environments. The first stage is magnificently atmospheric, taking place on a storm-battered oil rig in the midst of a rampaging demon invasion. The next involves traversing a cursed swamp that somehow defies videogame conventions by not being bland as hell, and then it all culminates in a return trip to Urdak. The design here is consistently strong, occasionally breaking up combat with extremely simple puzzles and traversal, and completing hidden challenges will unlock new power-up support runes.

Gods offers a few new enemy types that shake up the core combat loop slightly. The “Spirit” in particular is a real pain to contend with, thanks to its possessing nearby enemies and making them significantly deadlier until forcibly evicted from their host via the business end of a shotgun. They also remove certain weaknesses from their host such as flinching animations, but they do have a vulnerability to the plasma rifle’s alt-fire even while inhabiting another body, which evens the odds a little.

The other enemy additions are more standard fare. There’s a turret that pops up and takes potshots so long as the player isn’t too close or aiming directly at it for too long, and a new Makyr variant that’s completely invincible apart from during certain attack phases. These enemies require a slightly different approach, though some players will undoubtedly find the inability to simply pump lead into them as restrictive as they did with the Marauders in Doom Eternal.

Incidentally, those same players will be delighted to hear that there’s now a section featuring two Marauders attacking at once, as well as a Marauder hopped-up from a buff Totem. Never say that id Software doesn’t listen to complaints. They do — they just laugh at them.

The music remains fantastic throughout, with Mick Gordon’s noted departure from the series more than capably handled by Andrew Hulshult and David Levy. There was concern that the change in composers would result in a lesser experience in a game renowned for its soundtrack, but that’s not the case at all.

If I were to complain about any one thing The Ancient Gods does, it’s that the storyline is still clinging to the Elder Scrolls level bullshit that Doom Eternal introduced to the series. It’s pure cringe that tries to stuff a turgid high fantasy tale into a series featuring an angry space guy who shoots baddies in the face. This time he’s tasked with resurrecting “The Father” at the behest of “The Seraphim” with a surprise appearance by “The Dark Lord”. It’s about as interesting as its sounds, which is to say, not in the slightest.

If I were to complain about two things, it’s that buff totems are still one of the dumbest additions to the Doom experience. Suddenly being expected to go on an impromptu treasure hunt mid-battle to punch a stupid little object  hidden away somewhere that happens to be powering up nearby enemies into murderbeasts isn’t an amusing or entertaining twist on the gameplay, it’s just plain irritating. Thankfully they don’t show up too often, but the correct amount of appearances at this point is ‘zero’. (Still, at least there’s no purple goo this time out.)

Oh, alright. Three things. The bosses in Doom franchise continue to suck ass, with two more unique yet less-than-thrilling level finales to encounter. It’s almost remarkable that they haven’t been able to design even one boss encounter in the last two games that’s been a pleasure to fight. I’m fairly sure the developers know it too, given that dying multiple times on a boss encounter allows players to slap on some special armor and effectively bypass these lackluster creations.

Still, while it’s easy to nitpick, it’s even easier to rave about how great the rest of the The Ancient Gods is. I’m not sure this is the best place to jump into Doom Eternal given its initial difficulty, but picking up the whole package is absolutely recommended. The Ancient Gods consistently delivers some of the best combat ever seen, and delivers it in spades.

Disclosures: This game is developed by id Software and published by Bethesda. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. No time was spent in multiplayer modes, as the Battle Mode reportedly has no changes made to it.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore and Intense Violence. I’ll just cut and paste most of the ESRB breakdown here, because it’s pretty good: Players use machine guns, shotguns, laser rifles, and blasters to kill demons in frenetic combat. Large blood-splatter effects occur frequently as enemies get decapitated and/or dismembered during combat. Players can also use blades and chainsaws to dismember and decapitate enemies at close range. Combat is frenetic, highlighted by realistic gunfire, screams of pain, and large explosions. Hell yeah!

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: While there are onscreen indicators showing where damage is coming from, playing Doom Eternal without sound would be very difficult on higher difficulties. Knowing where enemies are coming from is crucial, and the only real way to do that for an enemy outside the player’s view is listening out for their telltale sounds.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls, at least on keyboard and mouse. The controller has a variety of preset modes to choose from instead.

HIGH A sniping post across a lake from a chalet with glass walls.

LOW Why doesn’t this super-mask work?

WTF Why do I have to worry about windspeed in an underground lab?

There’s a story I like about the development of Batman: Arkham Asylum.

Apparently some playtesters enjoyed using detective mode – the x-ray vision that allows Batman to easily spot interactive elements and see traps at a great distance – and they enjoyed it so much that they were leaving it on for the entire game. Worried that no one was going to see the huge amount of work they’d put into the graphics, the developers spent time trying to brainstorm ways to discourage players from overusing the mode.

Nothing seemed actionable, since limitations would only frustrate players in the many sections where detective mode was necessary. Then someone had a eureka moment that would contribute hugely to its success — why not let them play however they want?

I bring this anecdote up because Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts manages to deliver a largely satisfying sniping experience, but faceplants in the most spectacular way when it comes to its gadgets. The devs would have done quite well for themselves by taking a page from Rocksteady’s handbook.

As a follow-up to 2017’s FPS Sniper Ghost Warrior 3, SGWC puts players in the role of a mercenary working for the shadowy supervillain organization from that game.

In a near-future setting, Siberia has broken away from Russia to become its own country, but corruption and mismanagement have massively destabilized the region. It’s the player’s job to kill the dozen or so people most responsible for the sorry state of the nation and soften it up for a people’s revolution the aforementioned supervillains will be able to guide towards their own ends. If the player manages to grab any biological weapons and genetic engineering research at the same time, there will be a nice cash bonus for that, too!

Functioning as a sort of middle ground between Sniper Elite and Hitman, SGWC abandons the previous title’s delightfully complex open world and replaces it with five separate mission areas, each one built around three or four facilities where objectives are hidden. Players are dropped in and then told to complete their checklist of tasks in whatever order and manner they please.

The levels are carefully constructed to ensure that all options are on the table. There’s plenty of cover for those who want to run and gun, secret entrances for those who prefer to sneak in and slit throats, and (naturally) many vantage points with clean sightlines for the long-distance killing implied by the title.

The core mechanics are practically perfect. Moving through the world is smooth as silk, whether the player is crawling along riverbeds or climbing to scale cliffsides. Sneaking through enemy lines requires careful use of cover and minimizing sound but there are numerous paths to each objective, some more obvious than others. The ‘tracking’ feature from SGW3 in which players can see glowing footprints on the ground makes a return appearance, although here it’s not about uncovering environmental storytelling, it exists to teach the player how to tiptoe through minefields.

The shooting is simply excellent. Players begin with a silenced sniper rifle with a weak scope, but can quickly upgrade to bigger and better guns by spending contract rewards between levels. Every gun can be extensively customized to fit playstyle, from bipods with extreme-range accuracy to muzzle brakes that let assault rifles to empty a full clip without losing their target. There’s only one fairly major oversight — there are numerous types of special bullets that deal armor piercing or explosive damage, but only certain rifles can equip them and SGW3 doesn’t tell players which bullets go with which rifles until those guns have been unlocked.

It’s not a huge problem, but I did spend too much time trying to figure out how to unlock futuristic computer-guided DARPA projectiles which erase the player’s need to worry about things like bullet drop and windspeed, transforming the most extreme-range engagements into a turkey shoot.

Overall SGWC gets so much right that it almost pains me to bring up its greatest flaw…

In the initial briefing, the player is told that in order to accept contracts, they’ll have to wear a futuristic mask that will hold significance to anyone who played SGW3.

The mask is supposed to overlay an AR filter on the world, auto-tagging enemies, revealing the position of countersnipers, and suggesting alternate routes through levels. It starts out relatively weak, but players can upgrade its range and functionality until it essentially transforms them into a super-soldier.

The entire game is built around employing this mask to make things easier, so why does it have a timer and cooldown restricting its use? Players can turn it on and get outlines of enemies through walls and see the vision cones of surveillance cameras, but a few seconds later it shuts off automatically. It’s a baffling restriction which — like the incredibly small battery life on the drone that players can use to scout areas — makes actually using tech central to the entire premise an annoying chore.

Here’s the thing, though — even without the advantages of the mask and drone, SGWC is still some great sniping, and by the end of the campaign I was barely using the mask at all. At its core Sniper Ghost Warrior: Contracts is a challenging, but fundamentally well-balanced sniping FPS, but the mask was supposed to be the thing that empowered the character and made them more than a match for the armies they’re up against — I just can’t understand why the developers didn’t let me choose how to use it, rather than forcing annoying limits upon me.

Disclosures: This game is developed and published by City Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS4 and XBO.This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 10 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, and Strong Language. I can talk about the drinking and smoking and slave trading all you want, but you don’t need to know all that to know this game must be kept away from kids. Here’s all you need to know — bullets tear off limbs and explode heads in this game. Graphically and upsettingly. Don’t let kids anywhere near it.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available in the options.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: You’re not going to have much trouble with the game — there are onscreen indicators letting players know when they’re being spotted or attacked by enemies. The only important audio cue missing is the whine of surveillance drones drawing near, but they do offer an onscreen indicator once they’ve spotted the player.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.