Malcolm MacDonald

Medal of Honor: Allied Assault has aged very poorly, especially when compared to Call of Duty, which launched the following year (2003). The graphics are poor (even for its time, in my opinion), and it has many technical issues on modern systems. There are times when it feels as if levels were designed only to punish or annoy the player. The infamous "sniper town" is far from the only frustrating and annoying moment in the game. Escaping the U-Boat facility in Norway, destroying the rocket artillery ("Nebelwerfers"), the D-Day beach landing- all these moments are truly annoying and only serve to test one's patience. Enemies can be completely concealed by foliage. Enemies can spawn close to the player, or in places that make little sense. There are plenty of moments where I felt as if I was playing a game of Whac-A-Mole. An enemy mounted a machine gun, he was killed, and another generic enemy appeared instantly to take his place. Rinse and repeat. Or the player can mount a machine gun, and enemies rush the player's position in a perfectly straight line- and get cut down instantly. It can feel like the lamest shooting gallery ever conceived. The whole game is basically a poor retread of the first two games on PlayStation. Those first two games, in my opinion, have actually aged better than Allied Assault if you take into account the limited power of the hardware they run on and how modern the controls feel. I will say, however, that the music is very well done and highly memorable. It's for this reason that I will give the game two stars, instead of only one.

Excellent optimization on PC but the gameplay is extremely repetitive and not very much fun on solo. Much of the game was designed with co-op in mind, so the number of enemies can be kind of ridiculous during a solo gameplay session. Visual presentation is average, overall. The puzzles are also pretty uninteresting and usually involve finding a certain hieroglyph and shooting at it. It's a rinse and repeat type of game through and through. If you've played other Rebellion games, you'll feel right at home with Strange Brigade.

Rubbish. It borrows from Far Cry and Crysis- it even runs on CryEngine- and somehow it manages to be even worse than both of those franchises combined. Stupid story: North Korea took over the United States (and presumably the world). It's like Wolfenstein: The New Order with Koreans... but awful. The North Koreans "ruined" the United States according to the characters in the game. If you ask me, it's the fault of the leaders of the USA. They bought weapons and technology from their enemy... for the love of god! What did they think would happen? It's been patched a bunch and doesn't crash too much anymore. But there is tons of jarring pop in with shadows and parts of the environment even on high or very high. Performance is alright on my machine, too, and I will at least give them credit for that. Honestly, it must have really been rushed to market. The animations are so janky and robotic- AI walk into walls endlessly, float in the air when they're supposed to be sitting, pose like they're holding a gun when there is nothing in their hands. A lot of jank. Not recommended. This game could have been great.

The police don't believe him even though cloning pets is a mainstream thing and an entire human was once cloned. There are laws against cloning humans, called "Sixth Day Laws." Why would the police not enforce the law when Arnold's character informs them of a violation? It's completely illogical to believe Arnold's character is mentally ill. Everything that he says actually corroborates his story. A man who looks the same enters the police station one hour earlier and describes exactly what happened from the opposite perspective. How were the writers so stupid?

A mishmash of ideas that don't mix well. Horrible, janky platforming. Guns sound weak and are no fun to shoot. Too much hand-holding. You don't even die if you fail a platforming section, so what's the point? You only lose some health and armour, and instantly respawn. You don't even lose a life. Low risk equals low sense of accomplishment. Travelling between arenas just starts to feel like a chore. You know what happens when you fail a jumping section in Doom 2016? You die instantly, as you should.

Good game but suffers from the same problems other games like Borderlands or Fallout suffer from- where enemies become bullet sponges on higher difficulty settings. Slashing enemies to pieces with a samurai sword is immensely satisfying, but some of the guns are weak and serve no purpose. Enemies explode like pinatas, dropping weapon upgrades like candy. Most of these "weapon gems" or whatever you want to call them aren't very helpful. They mostly have boring, mundane attributes like "+5% damage to large enemies, -10% damage to elite enemies" or "+10% lightning damage." I had literally hundreds of these things after beating the game. I was expecting a more focused experience, similar to Shadow Warrior (2013) or the classics Duke Nukem 3D, Doom or Quake. Forced, unnecessary RPG mechanics is a common problem that plagues the gaming industry as of writing this review. Even Doom (2016) has weapon upgrades and health/armour/ammo upgrades. The core of Shadow Warrior 2 is solid, but everything built around it is flimsy and uninspired.

A mixed bag. I love Raven Software, and X-Men Origins: Wolverine has their signature over the top violence that warms my soul. Limbs fly through the air as your enemies scream in agony- a truly visceral and satisfying feeling. Visually, it's not bad. The player character model looks great, especially when regenerating. However, the Unreal engine can have texture streaming issues. Some of the action set pieces are exciting, while others are tedious and repetitive. The controls are mostly responsive with some occasional "jankiness." The game's biggest weakness lies in its repetitive nature. Returning to the same location over and over again isn't particularly enjoyable and fighting the same mini-boss fifty times is something I could really do without. X-Men Origins: Wolverine is a game I would recommend only to hardcore fans of the X-Men franchise and longtime fans of Raven Software. To the casual player, skip this game unless you get it cheap and don't value your time highly.