Action
It is a sci-fi cover shooter and one of the games created by Ryu Ga Gotoku Studios that is not related the Yakuza series.
After a terrorist attack caused by the human-like android (androids that look just like humans are banned in the game world under the New Geneva Convention), the International Robotics Technology Association sets up a task force called “Rust Crews” to deal with violations of the convention. The crew was sent on a secret mission to interrogate Yuji Amada, owner of Amada Corporation, which specializes in robotics, including androids.
This is basically the Japanese Gears of War clone, but with robots as enemies. The combat is good, using weapons is fun, as is shooting off the limbs and shells of robots. Eventually, your weapons will become less useful, so you'll have to upgrade them, and the game gives you enough points to do so.
Besides yourself, you have a companion with different gear that you can command. Thankfully, they don't get caught in your line of fire very often and are useful; they can even revive you. Sometimes you will have to choose one of a few different crew members, as they have to split up for plot reasons. The game also allows you to upgrade your character and companions with nano-implants, which give you some bonuses.
The main problem I have with this game is not the single-player campaign, but the lack of a co-op mode, as the game has everything to be one of those games that are suitable for dual co-op mode, since you always have at least one companion. Also, you can't change a playable character or your primary weapon, but that's not a biggie.
This is a kind of game worth playing if you're looking for something to do for a few evenings, as it's polished, has an passable storyline, and a really good combat.
This is a mecha shooter that has nothing to do with anime, as it is based on a manga instead (which is completely different). You play as Rookie, a pilot of Fuchikoma (a spider tank) who fights against terrorism. The plot is not very complicated: you get briefed, you go on a mission and kill the bad guys.
The gameplay is fast-paced and arcade-like: you kill all the bad guys, confront the boss of the level, and move on to the next mission. You'll have to shoot at many different types of enemies, and you can also slide and walk on walls and ceilings.
The graphics look pretty good for the Playstation 1, and the soundtrack is a banger, because it's 90s techno.
I can't say anything else about this game, because it's a simple but fun arcade shooter for the PS1. I wish there was a successor to it, where you could also climb walls and ceilings in a spider-tank.
The most popular game in the 3D trilogy of GTA (and its not my favorite).
You play as Carl Johnson, who returns to familiar Los Santos for his mom's funeral, but upon arriving on his home street, he is arrested by corrupt police officers and thrown into enemy gang territory. Even after he gets out of there, he gets a lot of hate from his old friends for leaving the Grove Street Family gang and Los Santos for a better life in Liberty City, because after Carl left the state of San Andreas, things didn't go so well there. Realizing that his departure has worsened the situation in his neighborhood, he decides to help his gang regain its former glory.
The series is mainly about the criminal life, rising from the bottom, and some drama between the main characters. In San Andreas, in addition to the story missions, there are many different side activities, such as playing pool, going on a date with a girl, working out in the gym, or just causing chaos on the streets like an idiot.
The main problem I have with GTA:SA are the plot progression after the Green Sabre mission, as it stops resembling the "gangsta movie" that the game is trying to be; the game is just too long (compared to GTA III and GTA: Vice City), as well as the mandatory mission at the flight school, since flying a an air vehicle in 3D-era GTA is not easy at all.
Not a fan, to be honest. The first time was enough for me. Main story aside, I will never go through flight school ever again.
You take on the role of Tommy Vercetti, who has just been released from prison and has failed a drug deal due to an unexpected ambush. Your goal is to get the money back, find the people behind the ambush, and possibly start your own business empire.
The gameplay pretty much consists of completing story missions with different objectives. The game's soundtrack is great, the music for the in-game radio stations is very well picked, and the atmosphere of Vice City itself screams its Miami in the 1980s. I mean, the game is obviously inspired by the movies Scarface and Miami Vice, it even has Crockett's theme on the radio and Montana's mansion.
I don't really have much to say about Vice City, its good, the gameplay is simple, the story is good, cutscenes are well directed, all that stuff. I'm not even a fan of GTA, but Vice City is just my all-time favorite.
Another "80's Miami" game, in here you play as the guy called Jacket, who got a package with a mask and the letter that tells him to get the briefcase in a metro station. Each mission starts with a phonecall about murder job, vaguely disguised as a routine job with the address attached. As you arrive there, you just kill Russian Mafia guys in brutal way and go back home, while also visiting your old buddy, who oddly enough, has a job in pizzeria, mart or nightclub, which is weird (I'm not gonna spoil anything, play the game for yourself).
The gameplay is very arcade-y and brutal, not only because its from top-down view and that you can kill the mafia types in a few brutal ways, but because you can also die from one hit. Since you pick up the weapons from the enemies, you can't reload them, only swap them. The soundtrack for game is also good, though most of it was just licensed from electronic music artists, but it was a good pick nonetheless.
If you like arcade games and somehow missed the Hotline Miami, you should give it a try.
Its a sequel to Hotline Miami with more emphasis on the story of different characters.
The gameplay is similar to the first game, but the game feels "slower", you are limited in your abilities (equivalent to the masks from the first game) and the game switches to different characters in most of the chapters. The soundtrack for game is not as memorable, but its good and again, most of the songs were licensed.
Aside from a proper storyline, another good thing about the sequel is the Level Editor, which lets you make your own levels and campaigns (its not as flexible as it could've been though, some specific stuff has to be manually added through the notepad).
The opinion of the community on the sequel is divided, but if you just want more Hotline Miami, sure, why not?
You play as Tommy Angelo, ex-member of the Salieri Family, who confesses to a detective in everything he and the gang did, in exchange for reduced prison sentence and the witness protection. The story of Tommy begins with his job as a taxi driver, who was gun forced by Salieri gang members to drive as they were chased by the rival Morello Family, until they cut the tail. Tommy was compensated for the trouble. Then during his routine job, Tommy's cab gets smashed and his life threatened by Morello gangsters, so he had to run to the Salieri's bar for protection. He was later fired for dealing with Mafia, so he had no choice, but to join the Salieri Family, as he needed a job and it there was a Great Depression going on.
The gameplay, despite being similar to GTA (at the time GTA: Vice City wasn't even released yet), mostly resembles Driver, since all you're doing about 75% of time is driving (the game was originally developed as spiritual successor to Driver).
Unlike in GTA, the combat in Mafia is not casual (neither is driving). Enemies might ambush you pretty often and your weapon capacity is limited, so you can only carry few guns. The game was made for PC in mind, so there's no auto-aim. Also you have to watch out for your reload key, since reloading the gun actually unloads it first, causing you to lose your remaining bullets.
Since Mafia was originally supposed to be a Driver-like, it has a proper car physics and destruction model (not BeamNG.drive-level of destruction and physics, but it was better than in 3D-era GTA), also the car parts can bend and fall off on the go individually. And unlike in GTA, in order to blow up the car, you need to shoot at the engine. Shooting at the door from the side or window frames won't do anything and shooting at the fuel tank will not cause the car to explode, but it will spill the fuel over time, causing the car to halt.
And because of car realism, the driving is also another thing that is different from GTA. Each car feels different to drive and more or less resembles the characteristics of the IRL cars of the time, you have to go slow on the turns (especially during the infamous race mission) and going off speed limit or driving on red lights will cause nearby cops to chase you and fine you.
Another thing that Mafia does differently from GTA, is that the missions and free roam are separate game modes, so you are mostly following the story in linear progression, instead of going to the mission marker whenever you want.
The soundtrack of the game is either a mix of licensed music (district ambients and some cutscenes) or music written for the game (mostly cutscenes, combat and carchase) and its pretty good, it fits the atmosphere of the ongoing thing or the district you're currently in.
I actually prefer Mafia over GTA for being more grounded and for the setting of the game, even if it might be a pretty janky game made by some random dudes from Czech Republic. On the side note, if you are really eager to play Mafia, but can't get over with jank, you can also try Mafia: The Definitive Edition, which completely remakes the game for modern audiences more or less faithfully (though I don't like how some mission were directed into being more cinematic or that the characters were rewritten, still, its marginally better than GTA: The Definitive Edition)
Its a roguelike, in which you play as one of the post-apocalyptic mutants with a goal to reach the Nuclear Throne.
The game has a lot of guns, post-endgame content (and loops: repeating levels with more and harder enemies), different characters with abilities and different mutations to pick after reaching the level up. Its kinda hard to play (if it was easy, it wouldn't be fun though), but its pretty fun.
Nuclear Throne doesn't really have any story and the gameplay is pretty simple, so there's nothing I could say about this game other than its good and it inspired other devs to make their own roguelikes.
You take the role of Leon S. Kennedy, a special agent who was sent to rescue the US president's daughter, who was kidnapped by a cult in some Spanish island.
Despite being a game in Resident Evil series, known for being a survival-horror, its everything but scary and it has nothing to do with Raccoon City or whatever happened in the previous games (other than shared characters). You have a plenty of ammo to kill the cultist villagers, boss sequences aren't creepy at all and Leon's one-liners are pretty cheesy (even if the game looks grim and depressing). Combat in the game is fine.
The game has a couple of memorable characters (mostly because of their cheesiness and being one of the only conscious human beings in the game), the plot makes no sense (its Resident Evil, it wasn't dead serious, until RE7) and overall its a fun game to play.
You play as Ramiro Cruz, the son of DEA agent Ernesto Cruz who died in action and the brother of a DEA agent Tommy Cruz, who was injured during investigation about his father, and with no other alternatives, Tommy managed to let out his imprisoned brother Ramiro in exchange for replacing Tommy in his investigation.
Gameplay-wise, its Max Payne on crack. Other than a slow-mo, you can do trickshots and you have a bunch of "Loco Moves", like El Mariachi (two guitar cases with guns in them), Golden Gun (auto-aim one-shot gun) or Sombrero of Death (which spawns a guy in a skeleton suit wearing sombrero and shooting the bad guys with a grenade launcher).
The music in the game is mostly licensed, from traditional Latin American music to stuff like Mexican Rap Metal (specifically, Molotov. It also includes Apocalypshit song, so if you have watched Breaking Bad, you should recognise this song)
Despite the B-tier plot and in-game Mexico being some sort of caricature, its a pretty fun Max Payne clone.