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7/10
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5/10
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10/10
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10/10
I'll say this first, I thought the original Portal was a good game, but I was never a rabid fanboy of it. Portal 2 has changed that, having improved upon Portal in every way and has become one of my favorite games ever thanks to it.
First off, the story in Portal 2 is still good. It's probably equal in terms of quality to the first Portal and there are still hidden areas and messages around the environment telling smaller stories or giving hints to later events in the main story. However, where Portal 2 shines most is it's writing. I can honestly say it's one of the funniest games I've ever played, both humorous, and witty, and well articulated, Portal 2 often had me stopping just to listen to what people were saying, not wanting to miss a word. The graphics are also good, featuring a much needed update to the Source Engine that made everything look more more recent and crisp. The audio is great, featuring well timed cues and experiments Valve decided to test out. Additionally, the voice acting is great, Wheatley is one of the best voiced characters I've ever heard and Glados still has great voice acting behind the character. The co-op campaign is a great way to play a separate story that takes place after the single player. On top of difficult puzzles, it features a more Portal 1-esque Glados and actually does tie back into the main story throughout.
The only negative thing I can really say about Portal 2 was that by the end of the game, I was growing a little tired of the gameplay, but I'm betting that's just because I'd been playing it for like 4 hours straight at that point.
Portal 2 is so far the best game I've played this year and I have a hard time believing Valve will be able to outdo themselves come whatever they decide to do next with Portal.
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6/10
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9/10
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Second Playthrough: 10/10
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8/10
Catherine was one of my most anticipated games of the year and mostly did not disappoint. Catherine emulated in me a perfect sense of indecisiveness, even after I had decided to commit to a girl, constantly keeping my emotions in a battle and making me relate to the main character Vincent's plight. On top of that, the graphics are honestly the best example of anime style art making it's way into a more realistic environment and the music, composed as always by Shoji Meguro, was very fitting in the scenes it played. As expected with an Atlus game, the story has deep underlying themes and tackles them mostly via the block puzzles that take up most of Catherine's gameplay. Overall, they are pretty good, however when you do find yourself getting stuck, they can be immensely frustrating.
Unfortunately, there are some things I found issue with in the game, one being the presentation of story. While I love the bar setting and thought it was made very well and filled with unique people, I felt limited with it being the only area I could walk around in. On top of that, it felt like I was just breezing through the story parts, often spending much longer amounts of time in block puzzle land with little time spent in the bar. The way the game decides who you're going for threw me off as well, I chose Catherine optinos the whole game, yet somehow ended up with Katherine's bad end.
Despite my complaints, Catherine is still a very good game that I blew through in one sitting. There's truly nothing out there like it and I haven't played a game that has made me seriously considering my choices and views on various aspects of relationships in a long while.
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9/10 While I think my enjoyment of the game was lessened by my knowledge of the plot and characters that I got from the anime, coming back to such a wonderful, emotional story was a hell of an experience. Great art, detailed extras, dozens of hours of content, and deep characters are just some of the things that make Fate/stay night a fantastic visual novel.
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7/10
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8/10 Yakuza 3 tells a really interesting and deep story about internal conflict within a Yakuza group with external forces also playing large roles. The characters introduced throughout are well written, whether they're designed to get you to hate them, or designed to get you to like them. The game also has a crazy amount of stuff to do, which can easily start adding hours onto your game clock. The game also looks very nice for the most part and the characters are typically well voiced, especially the main cast. What I didn't like was certain aspects of the combat system which I felt were a bit unfair and the general amount of combat I had to do to get to more story parts, it felt like I was constantly running into thugs on the street with repeating dialogue.
Ultimately though, I enjoyed my time with Yakuza 3 and look forward to getting into Yakuza 4 in the future.
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8/10 Majikoi focuses more around it's characters and their development and surroundings more than an actual plot, though there is one of those too. What it pulls off is a group of well-voiced, unique, and fun to be with cast that will make you want to check out each route. Rather than sticking you with a bunch of girls and no guys, the game decides to put you in a group of 4 guys and 5 girls, most of you are childhood friends, and this allows a good amount of back and forth dialogue and avoids the typical "all the girls love me" scenario. The visuals I also found very good, and the soundtrack is fitting as well. Overall it's an enjoyable game to check out if you're looking for some good character interaction and a bit of action to go along with it.
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9/10
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7/10
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7/10
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9/10
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