AhmedDaReviewer

Let's start with the good first, The game looks absolutely fantastic, Art style wise I mean, How everything looks with the stylized glass looking graphics, It looks truly great, Seriously big props for the art department guys, The story is fine, and the music is great but in the end of the day, this is a video game, What's important here is how the game plays, and the gameplay in this one is unfortunately not that great..

Serial Cleaner (Great title BTW) is an adventure/stealth story-driven video game that takes place in the 70s, if I remember correctly, So when I heard that this game is stealth only, I expected the stealth to be good at least, but no, The stealth (which this whole game is based on) feels half-baked and underdeveloped for some reason, Your character can't anything expect, cleaning blood off the floor and carrying dead bodies, That's it, and that could be fine for a short flash you can play for free on your browser, Not a 4 to 5 paid video game, There is just not enough meat on the bone here to make this game worth your while..

Another problem is how the enemies behave, The cops in this game are very predictable, and they don't slowly turn around to give a chance to hide, They just turn around without giving a chance to make a move, which make me just wait till they change their position and basically just turns the whole experience into a waiting game, and unfortunately that not how I wanna play a 4-hour game..

And that's so unfortunate, because I really wanted to love this game seriously but I ended up just being bored and disappointed and just thinking about playing seriously anything but this, and I know that sounds harsh, I'm sorry but that's just how I feel.

And if you wanna play an actually fun top-down stealth game, I recommend playing "Robbery Bob: Man of Steal" on Steam for like 3 dollars or on your phone for free, and I hope this studio's next game will be better, because I know they have talent but I guess they just didn't had it in them this time.

Sonic and the Fallen Star is a fan game I have been following for quite a while now, I even remember playing a demo of it, a couple of months ago and enjoying it a lot, I remember thinking it was a really cool and refreshing take on a classic formula!

And now after going through the entire game twice.. Let's just say that I didn't expect this game to be.. one of the most fun 2D side-scrolling experiences I've ever had in a long time!

First of all, Let's start with the visuals.. Yeah, this game looks amazing, everything in this game from the character sprites to the artstyle to the backgrounds to the popin' color choices looks absolutely gorgeous, You can tell just by starting the game up and watching the intro cinematic, That this game, when it comes to visuals, means business, Classic Sonic games never looked this beautiful!

Other thing I really like about this game's artstyle in particular is how it feels like a natural successor to the artstyle of Sonic 3 & Knuckles, I know Sonic Mania is considered by many fans to be the "real sequel" to the classic Genesis Sonic games but Idk man, Something about this game's artstyle hits different!

Sonic and the Fallen Star feels like the Sega Saturn 2D Sonic game we unfortunately never got, You know, taking full advantage of this next-gen generation of consoles, pushing the graphics to its limits, That's what this game feels like and absolutely adore it for that!

Now to the gameplay.. It's great!

Sonic feels really nice to control, They got the physics right, This ain't no "Sonic the Hedgehog 4 episode 1" dollar store Sonic physics, The physics and how Sonic feels in this game is how every modern Sonic game should feel like!

Fantastic controls and physics paired with really solid level design and gimmicks makes this game, no joke, some of the best 2D side-scrollers I've ever played in like.. FOREVER!

The elemental shields makes a return also, with some different gameplay designs, like the fire shield giving you the ability to triple jump which can take you places if you know how to use it, and the electric shield working as a coin magnet and also gives you a boost of speed and the bubble shield being.. the bubble shield, Yeah I guess my guy, Stardrop, ran outta ideas with last one lol

The special stages make a return also and they're.. pretty great, They're really fun, They're probably my second favorite special stages after Sonic Mania's, They're like a hybrid between the half-Pipe special stages from Sonic 2 and the chase-the-UFO special stages from Sonic Mania, They are pretty challenging but fair, and the seven chaos emeralds are necessary for the real ending where Sonic transforms into his "HYPER STAR FORM", It's really cool.

The music is pretty fantastic too, My girl, Hollie Taylor, did not to go this hard on the soundtrack, It's honestly amazing, I guess we gotta continue the trend of Sonic games always having amazing soundtracks, even if the game itself isn't practically very good, my personal favorite tracks are One Way Lane, Sonic's Last Night in Town, and Amy, It's Cold Outside. They're all uploaded to Hollie's channel on YouTube if you wanna check them out, They're really awesome.

But just like every other thing that has ever existed, This game is not perfect, sometimes Sonic's Collision can be a funky, running on surfaces, I don't think Sonic should be able to walk on and running on ceilings.. yeah, I don't think Sonic should do that, and another thing I don't personally like about this game is how they nerfed the lives system, like come on, I know there's this whole thing/discussion about if Lives is an outdated system or not, but I don't care, You can't have a classic-styled genesis Sonic game without the lives, you just can't!

I even stopped collecting coins after a while because they just felt like they didn't matter, I wish with the next update Stardrop could add a toggle option like that in Crash Bandicoot 4 (a retro or modern mode), I think that'll be the best choice, not that'll need them anyway, This game is incredibly easy, I seriously don't think that there's a single pithole in this game, You can't even get crushed, Yes, It is that forgiving, but I didn't mind the game design was still fantastic, even if the game is super easy, The boss fights are a bit harder but nothing too crazy when you know what are you supposed to do.

So.. to sum all this up, Sonic and the Fallen Star is fantastic, amazingly polished, superbly made, It is what every fan project should be like, A labor of love that can enjoyed by everybody including Sonic and Non-Sonic fans, and not gonna lie, Even if this game wasn't as good as it is, I would've still probably loved it because, I will not gonna lie, I'm just happy there's still Sonic fan games being made to this day, but thankfully I don't have to do that, because this is absolutely fantastic, and something you seriously shouldn't miss, especially if you're a Sonic fan!

Thanks for reading :)

It's a solid movie with a lot of interesting ideas, concepts and messages and.. that's it, This is where the movie just kind of stops with me, Like don't get me wrong, It is a really thought out and well made sci-fi thriller about people trying to communicate with aliens and.. that's just kind of it.

And that wouldn't be such a big problem if people just stopped pretending that this movie is the greatest thing that has ever graced cinema since 2001: A Space Odyssey, Like seriously, dear and give this movie a rating lower than 7, Everybody in your comments will be like "Uhh sorry dude, wrong rating" "Your rating is too low" "It's okay dude, You don't know how to watch movies, Just say it" (talking about Letterboxd btw) and It's so darn frustrating everytime, but hey, how cares, Let's start with the good:

This movie being directed by Denis Villeneuve, One of the most beloved and well praised living directors rn, I wouldn't expect less than at least 9/10 directing skills and wow, did he delivere in this aspect, The way this movie looks and the way its shoot is basically the best thing about this movie, This movie literally only has like, three locations (Amy Adams' house, The felicity she works in and inside of the aliens' ship) and Denis Villeneuve somehow made every shot feels distinct and unique from each other, and that's something I really appreciate in this type of movies!

Other thing, I really love about this movie is how.. weirdly realistic it is, and I'm saying "weirdly" because when you think about a very big budget Hollywoody sci-fi blockbuster movie, You immediately think of big muscular dudes with big guns or a cool very charismatic space soldier Will Smith™ type character that is ready to DESTROY and KILL the aliens so he can save the whole universe and make their spaceship go BOOM!.. This movie has none of that.

This whole movie is just people trying to communicate with aliens, and I respect that, Even the around-the-world-news-footage™ cliché where they show us how every country reacted (which is probably one of the most annoying, overused sci-fi clichés btw) wasn't very bad in this movie, and was actually re-incorporated later in the movie in a smart way, It wasn't just "Oh look, everybody is scared of the aliens and nobody knows what do, This is very serious rn".

Now to the "controversial" part of the review, The acting was just.. fine, and IN MY OPINION, the worst thing about this movie, Especially Amy Adams, Like, she was okay, I guess, But her character and her performance in general really did nothing for me, and that's makes me incredibly sad because wow, People really love her performance, Like seriously some people over here seriously having mental breakdowns because she didn't get nominated for an Oscar because her acting was "just that good and emotional and impactful", and I'm just standing in the corner of the room like "No.. not really 😐"

I think I just felt like there was no actual reason for us to like her character, Expect for the fact that she's being played by Amy Adams. Everybody loves Amy Adams right, RIGHT?! And she's a language teacher and she has a daughter that she likes very much and she's smart and stuff... OKAY, AND??!?!

The movie literally tells us to care about her, just because she's the main character, Lory or whatever her name was really remind me of Brad Pitt's character in World War Z (Anyone remembers that mess lol), A main character that you should care about just because they love their family very much.. Like okay, you're not especially I like my family too, Can I be the next hero of a big Hollywood blockbuster movie, No, I'm not a famous and hot actor, Oh well, too bad I guess.

The music was really good, The editing was pretty great also, It's all good above average stuff, Even though, There is one really random and weird lil tidbit I noticed while watching the movie, There's like 300 scenes that just cut to a clip of Amy Adams sleeping/trying to sleep/waking up from a nap/taking a nap and I will not gonna lie, it is the funniest weirdest little thing, You're gonna think that the director has a sleeping fetish or something, It's honestly surreal.

The pacing was pretty alright, The movie is really slow paced but I didn't really mind that, I mean we're trying to communicate with aliens after all, It will not be an easy task so I appreciate the movie making us feel the time our characters is spending trying to get this miserable task over with, I think the pacing become a problem with the beginning of the third act, Things literally just happens, For most of the time, All I was saying in my head was like "Oh, I guess she can do that now.." "Oh, Is this what we're doing right now.. Okay" "Oh, The aliens are doing this now" So yeah, It was alright but it could have been a lot better and more natural I'm my opinion.

So to end this pretty messy and kind of all over the place review, Arrival is a really well made, though out sci-fi thriller that has a lot of interesting ideas, interesting concepts and.. that's it,

This movie didn't change my life, It didn't make me change the way I look at life, I don't think I will watch this again unfortunately, Amy Adams absolutely do not deserve all the praise she's getting for this movie (I sound like such an asshole, Sorry), It is (in my opinion) just a good movie and that's it.

Thanks for reading.