Medal of Honor (2010)

4.5/10

The first thing I noticed was that my character was slow, I double checked the controls, but that was it. The fastest way to move around is to slide, by sprinting and pressing the crouch button. With some semi-automatic guns and shotguns I noticed the game would not allow me to shoot as fast as I want. Its the same toggle button to crouch, prone or get up, so sometimes I would go from crouching to standing up by accident. The controls are not horrific, but the object of the game is running around and shooting people so the controls for that should be spot on.

At some point in the game (on PC), you have to press and hold the key "4" to launch a missile to complete an objective. I had to look online.

The game bugged on one of the checkpoints at the end of the game, my character would die in an infinite loop.

Now a few war FPS games do that: infinite spawns of bad guys until you advance to the objective. This encourages the player to ignore enemy fire, advance (in a suicidal manner) and then kill the enemy. And I think that's stupid. There only a few of those in the game but then a again, the whole campaign is super short ...

The story is not amazing. The whole campaign is linear, the only freedom you have is shoot even if your team told you to wait (at least its not game over if you do manage to kill all the enemies anyways. The whole thing lasts between 4 and 5 hours. It could have been faster if the protagonists knew how to run and without the infinite spawns.

World of Goo

7.5/10

One of the best physics / puzzle game I've played. Usually you have to build some kind of goo contraption which allows you to reach an objective.

Borderlands

7/10

This apocalyptic first person shooter with RPG elements showers you with randomly generated and often over top guns. The story and the world are engaging, there's coop multiplayer, bosses and lots of fun to be had.

I tried the sequel also but found it was not as good.

Doom (2016)

8.5/10

Doom is back! How will you react when demons start spawning non stop around you? Where will you run? How will you explode them?

The single player campaign features, suit and gun upgrades as well some kind of perk system.

Also:

• Boss fights
• Amazing graphics and polished environments
• A story which does not get in the way.
• Lots of demons
• Many secrets

There's a demo here:  http://doom.com/en-us/demo

My only complains are that multiplayer DLCs are sold separately and that the game often encourages using melee attacks which I think slows down the run and gun gameplay.

I felt quite satisfied after the single player campaign and did not try the multiplayer part of the game yet. I would say the single player campaign is worth it on its own.

Final Fantasy 6

7.5/10

A classic JRPG. I did borrow the original on the SNES a long time ago but could no finish the game before I had to return it. Forward many years later and I'm bored, browsing the Apple store for something that's not crap and I stumble on some classic final fantasy titles. I was not disappointed.

There is not much to say. Its a good classic JRPG.

Final Fantasy Tactics: The War of the Lions

8/10

This game is a turned based strategy game and tactical RPG. Its pretty good. I played a little bit on the playstation a longtime ago and it has definitely been on my TODO list for a long time.

I bought IOS version and was mostly not disappointed. I remember there is a few issues with the port but otherwise the game was very very good. The worst was some glitches in the UI and save system. Notably sometimes I would lose my progress if I would switch to an other application. So I would save every time before switching applications.

People might complain that Square's old games are expensive on IOS but some of them are worth it I think.

To me it feels these ported AAA titles of their own time were made with more care and love than many of the newer little games that plague the app store. They are truly work of art that come with their own spirit, their own worlds. They took themselves seriously back in the day and it still shows, even through the port to newer systems.