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Making Sense of The Phantom Pain

It's been a while, and while the Snake Eater Remake is announced, I figure this will be a good time to talk about MGSV again. This time, I want to talk about a very interesting observation I made about this game, now I realized this theory sounds quite ridiculous but bear with me, here goes- A lot of the people who have played MGSV will tell you, that it is somewhat odd and unfinished. What is up with all these fake guns? Why is there so few boss fight and whatever boss fight is there is so boring? Why is the extra ops so boring and monotonous? Why is the open world so barren? Why does Chapter 2 felt rushed? Where is Chapter 3? Where is the missing episode 51?  It goes on and on and I don't think that this is an accident, not a result of Konami rushing to push the game out of the gate, not Kojima running out of budget halfway through and give up. Rather, I think this is all by design and it all has something to do with the main character, Venom Snake. Who Exac
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Death Stranding: The Anti-Metal Gear!?

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I am a long time MGS fan. I adore most of Kojima's work- long cutscene, crazy conspiracy, innovative boss fight, if it has the Kojima stamp on it, I am guaranteed to love it. Yet, even I thought this game is insane when I first saw the trailer. My first thought is "only Sony would invest in a game like this". A triple A budgeted deliveryman simulator featuring an out-of-this-world-star-studded cast and a story so insanely creative, Kojima has to be high when he comes up with this idea.    Graphics The game is really gorgeous. Even though the game itself is supposedly set in America, it features a wide range of landscape that looks like they could be set in Iceland, on Mars or on some snowy mountains. Every location looks absolutely stunning no matter where you look, even on my base PS4 console. The characters all look like they are the permanent resident of Uncanny Valley, it's honestly quite amazing / creepy how photo-realistic everything looks. The game also doesn&#
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Goodbye to the Assassin's Creed series

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Man, this game gives me such a mixed feeling. It has every potential to be great from great graphics, likeable protagonist to satisfying story. But Ubisoft simply doesn't understand that sometimes less is more. Without further ado, let's get down to the details.      Maps In line with AC Origins, AC games now feature the entire country rather than just a few selected cities. It's no different for AC Odyssey, where the map is insanely comprehensive, covering the entire Greek world. With HDR mode turned on, the game can look absolutely gorgeous even by 2021's standard. Even after playing the game for more than 200 hours, the graphics still impress me. Unfortunately, beauty is only skin deep. The in game map as compared to the real deal.   The thing is, real life is boring. I'm sure the real ancient city of Attika is not that different from ancient Phokis or ancient Boeotia. But this is a video game, and to be impactful, a video game map must be a carefully curated
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Life is Strange 2 Full Season Review

Pros: - A more interesting, nuanced story compared to LiS1. In the LiS2, the story between the Diaz brothers is stronger, more intimate and nuanced. It definitely shows the ambition of the developer Dontnod to tell a more mature and grounded story as compared to LiS1. The game placed you in the role of Sean Diaz, a teenager thrust into the role of a substitute parent overnight after the death of his father. On top of that, Sean is forced to deal with the fact that he and his brother are both fugitives. What's more, the little brother, Daniel turns out to have superpower. It's a such a big triple whammy for even an adult to deal with let alone a 16 years old kid. By virtue of this setting alone, Sean is already immediately a more sympathetic, if not more likeable character.   With each episode, the game brings you to a new place, with a new set of character, in true road trip movie fashion, and asking the player to adapt to different situation, walking the tight rope balancing a
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The Last of Us Part 2 - A 3 Months Late Review

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  The Last of Us Part 2 is a hard game to write a review for. I would know, I have been trying and failing to write one for three months now. For the most part, this game has me absolutely floored in every way, leaving me tired and devastated after the first playthrough. Long after I'm done, this game continues to stick around in my mind like no other piece of media has done before. Firstly, let's talk about cons. For such a mainstream triple A game, The Last of Us Part 2 can be quite hard to like, some parts are downright unlikable even. No mainstream Hollywood bullshiterry can be found here. The game is simply uncompromisingly honest and obsessively true to the world as established by Part 1. From the story, the art style, the gameplay, to the upgrading system, every aspect of this game feels like a natural expansion of the first game. But if I have to pick some flaws, I would say it's the skill tree. In the first game, each skill has a clear specific branch, and you have
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Red Dead Redemption 2 Completionist Review

Let me just get it out there, I am a massive fan of 2010's Red Dead Redemption. It is one of my favorite game of all time. Building off the not-so-famous PS2 game Red Dead Revolver, Red Dead Redemption is truly one of video game's greatest dark horse. With virtually zero expectation from the gaming community, Rockstar San Diego has quietly created a masterpiece, perfectly juggling between compelling story, excellent writing/acting, addicting gameplay and a kickass soundtrack. This is the game that truly pushed the envelope of video game storytelling, cementing Rockstar's position as one of the top developer in the industry. Fast forward eight years later to 2018, everything has changed, RDR became an instant classic following its release, GTA V is breaking all kinds of sales records making billions of dollars even years after its initial release. Rockstar now had to live with the burden of knowing that fans' expectation for RDR2 will be sky high. To this end, they
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Marvel's Black Panther Review

Up until not too long ago, the term "superhero flicks" has been sort of a dirty word among film critics. Films in this category had been pejoratively described as childish, mindless, over the top, and sometimes excessively violent action show-reels designed to sell popcorn at the cinema. It often came with a dumb down story that couldn't hold up to close inspection and any good superhero movie that comes along once in a while are usually the exception, not the rule. Well, I suspect all this negativity is about to come to an end with the release of Marvel's Black Panther. This movie tells the story of T'Challa, played wonderfully by Chadwick Boseman, the new Wakandan king whose throne was challenged when a conflict arose as to whether or not he should open up his country to give aid to those in need. This is a topic worth discussing indeed especially when we see on the news that refugees from the middle east are being turn away for fear of being infiltrated with
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