Straight off the back of a newsletter about the triplest of triple A games, here's one about two double A titles that I've been having a good old time with. Next week starts the CHRISTMAS NEWSLETTER period, so get ready for some festivities over the coming weeks, cumulating with my Game Of The Year 2022 newsletter on the last Friday of the year.

One Foot In The Gungrave.

A regular complaint you'll find in these newsletters is my distaste for the current extremely formulaic AAA videogame. Games that are hugely influenced by the Disney/Marvel/Netflix style of storytelling and seem to almost find the fact that you actually have to PLAY the game almost a hinderance to their primary goal. Games that follow well established control rules to ensure that there's nothing particularly risky or awkward about how these games play but in doing so, make a lot of these games feel the same, regardless of genre.

Immediately after playing Sony's AAA mega game God of War: Ragnarok, which left me cold for a bunch of reasons you can read about in last week's newsletter, I jumped into two games that are, according to most of the gaming press, far, far inferior to Sony's title and had a great time with both - Evil West and Gungrave G.O.R.E. Two games that aren't setting out to reinvent the wheel or tell some BAFTA baiting story, they're simply two games that want to do nothing more than offer an entertaining time, focusing on the core mechanics over anything else.

Now, before I start going into the specifics of each game and what I am enjoying about them, we need to have a little chat about something that tends to get lost when discussing videogames on the internet. There's a massive distinction that needs to be made between "games that you like" and "games that are actually good" sometimes. You see it all the time, from the massive amount of top scores for Cyberpunk 2077 to articles like this, where I'm going to tell you why I think some solid 7/10 is better than a supposed game of the year contender. When it comes to film and music, whether something is badly made can be subjective - a lot of the music that I listen to is likely irritating noise to others, for instance - but when you factor in the whole 'interactivity' element that videogames bring to the table, you can find that some of this stuff can be poorly implemented or, in some cases (looking at you again, Cyberpunk) simply not working at all. You can look at a legendary stinker like Superman 64 and take a subjective view at things like the art style or the soundtrack but when it comes to things like the concept of flying through rings as a main hook, the movement feeling twitchy and awkward and a draw distance that is distracting at best and massively detrimental to your ability to play the game at worst, you can be a bit more objective with your criticism of those.

What I tend to find with modern AAA games is that they aim for a solid 7/10 across the board in regards to their mechanics and systems and then wrap them all up in 10/10 presentation, which is what tends to trick most people into thinking they're playing something a bit more interesting than it actually is. These two games remind me of something that is sadly becoming a bit of a thing of the past - those hidden gems that aren't doing everything to a solid standard and might be a little inconsistent, but for every element that might be below average, there's an idea or something in the presentation that is a 9/10, something that gives the game a reason to exist. Personally, I tend to find these games with interesting ideas far more up my alley. It's why I genuinely love games like the Splatterhouse reboot from 2010, the Disaster Report series, Capcom's gore-filled arena brawler/stealth sim Shadow Of Rome and recently have found myself really enjoying Sonic Frontiers, as well as the two titles in this newsletter.

Starting off with Gungrave G.O.R.E, as it is definitely the one for the more discerning double A game deviant. It's going to be a harder sell to people who like a smoother ride from their videogames but honestly, I've found it quite hard to put down over this last week. It's a sequel to two PS2 games that you usually see described as 'hidden gems' on the console, based on some anime I'll almost certainly never watch. I've no idea what is going on, I think Grave, the protagonist, died and was brought back with super powers and there's some alien force that needs stopping from doing something and for some reason there's loads of mafia lads in the way, needing to be shot. Really, there's LOADS of them. In those games, the action is fast and frantic, you blast away at hordes of enemies as you make your way through fairly linear stages, trying to manage how much damage you're taking in so that you don't burst your shield and start losing health. You're GOING to get hit, such is the amount of incoming attacks you have to deal with, so its all about mitigating as much as possible whilst killing all of the enemies so you don't get overwhelmed. The graphics are nice and chunky, the sound design makes all of your arsenal sound and feel super satisfying to use and, of course, being a PS2 action game, you also spend a fair bit of time wrestling with the camera and having to get used to some quite stiff movement.

And nothing has changed!

Now, maybe you'd think they could tweak a few of the things that were even regarded as issues AT THE TIME OF THE PS2 but no, that's where the charm lies. It's a throwback to a period where things were still being figured out, before the big change to shooters heralded in by Gears of War. Changing things, modernising them in a game like this would essentially mean it was a different game, only wearing Gungrave's pants. It's one of the issues I have with the Resident Evil 2 Remake - an otherwise excellent game, but one that is far too different from the one I love so much that it might as well be something else entirely. I liked Gungrave and I liked Gungrave: Overdose so there's no surprise I am enjoying this but your tolerance for some of the PS2-era design decision is going to entirely dictate whether you get anything out of this.

It's ruthlessly difficult once you get past the first set of stages, with no cover system meaning you've got to constantly be on the move, which means more dealing with the camera, which is one of the main areas most people are going to have a problem with. Cheap deaths can happen because of this and there's one level on the roof of a train where you're dodging near insta-death obstacles with Grave's slow-ass movement, shooting hundreds of enemies that chip away at your health and if you accidentally fall off the train, its back to the start for you. Oh, and this is all timed - if you don't make it to the checkpoint in time, you get smashed in by a low bridge and again, you've got to replay the whole section again. I've played a Gungrave game before, I know what to expect and, due to this, I didn't have a massive problem with it but it is absolutely a moment that is going to filter out any pretenders.

When you're in the heat of a massive firefight, racking up a ridiculous amount of kills, unlocking new, flashy-as-hell moves by raising your combo count, rolling out the way of enemies who rush you down and batting missiles back the way they came with Grave's massive casket he carries on his back, the whole time his twin pistols are blasting away, sounding like bass-boosted shotguns, it is simplistic but challenging fun. There's nothing more to it but honestly, I don't need it to be anything more than just that. It's certainly not going to appeal to everyone but I am glad it exists.

Evil West, however, is a much, much easier one to get on board with. The only thing that stops Evil West being a AAA game is the budget because everything else about it is absolutely fantastic. While Gungrave evokes memories of a time period before Gears of War, Evil West reminds me of that time immediately after, where every developer wanted their own third person action game, full of big chunky Unreal Engine looking motherfuckers killing a load of enemies. Hilariously, this is a game that if it was released in the middle of that era, it wouldn't feel anywhere near as fresh as it does in 2022.

See, while most AAA titles will often take you away from their core mechanics to ensure that a story gets told, Evil West is just relentless fights and some light exploration, so they ensure that the combat is fun and satisfying from the word go. Within the first couple of fights, the game has shown you that in order to close distance on an enemy you can do a Superman Punch, which not only looks awesome it has a really satisfying sense of impact. A basic move, one you start with, feels amazing to use. A bit of exploration nets you some dollars that you can spend on upgrades, so before long that Superman Punch can send enemies flying into spiked walls or explosive barrels, or let off its own massive area effect damage blast when you land it.

You've also got a bunch of firearms at your disposal too, from the rapid damage dealing six shooter, to a shield-destroying crowd-controlling shotgun blast and a long range rifle, as well as a few more exotic entries, you can mix these in with the melee combat seamlessly. Hold down the attack button to uppercut an enemy into the air then rapidly hit the fire button to fan the hammer on your six shooter and juggle them like you're playing Devil May Cry. Another cool mechanic is when an enemy is about to fire upon you, they temporarily expose a weak spot that if shot, does massive damage if not killing them outright. When you see this weak spot indicator flash up and you press L2 to aim your rifle in their direction, the subtle auto aim and speed of which you can pick them off with this makes you feel like a proper badass deadeye gunslinger, which given the setting is perfect.

The 'Cowboys v Vampires in a Teslapunk Old West' setting is pretty cool and allows for fair bit of creativity in regards to level, character and weapon design. It's an interesting setup - vampires have essentially had free reign over humanity for centuries but now they've started to figure out things like 'electricity' and 'guns', some vampires are trying to point out to their hierarchy that perhaps they shouldn't rest on their laurels and should go to war with the humans. On the other side, you play as Jesse Rentier, a hard-nosed vampire hunter who works for the Rentier Institute ran by his father - both elements have enough friction to ensure there's something a little interesting going on behind all of the vampire killing. Ultimately though, this isn't a story that is out to win a BAFTA - it's simply a story that acts as a justification for all of the cool fighting and not one that ever gets in the way of itself or you being able to engage with the most fun aspects of the game.

As both games are fairly simple and straightforward in their scope, they do start to run out of steam towards the end and, if they were the length of most modern AAA games they would massively outstay their welcome. However, both games are about 10-12 hours long. There's not really much in the way of replayability and once they're done, they done. There's no live service element or late game list quest box ticking exercises. You play them, have fun with them and move onto the next fun thing. That's a rare thing these days.

THANKS FOR READING.

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