Trying games

Raging Blades
Another shitty PS2 fantasy hack 'n slash, like Realm of the Dead or the second Berserk (or the first on Dreamcast), but a little more arcade-style. It was only released in Japan and Europe. It feels broken, because you're always fighting multiple enemies but unlike most beat-'em-ups, you can only hit one at a time with most attacks, so you're just always getting interrupted with hits. Dashing (pressing a direction twice) is weirdly difficult to pull, the regular walking speed is super slow, and the additional quick dash system sucks. Just not fun to play at all.

Resistance: Retribution (PSP)
This is the only Western-made TPS I've tried so far that I can see myself playing through. The controls are weird as hell to me and the view seems too zoomed in, but once used to it I think it'll be fun. They really got the feel of shooting right with this one, and it seems to parallel The 3rd Birthday in some ways (the army in all-out war vs the monsters/aliens/whatever they are), though much more focused on the cover part.

WinBack (PS2)
I like this, though I'm really bad at it so far. My only issue with the bit I've played is sometimes I can't tell where the hell the enemy is shooting from. You can tell it's early in the genre by how the lock-on isn't great sometimes, too. But the methodical cover shooting fundamentals are strong with this one.

Miami Vice: The Game (PSP)
More generic crap by the makers of Dead to Rights: Reckoning. A lot of run-of-the-mill cover shooters seem to work like this one; get in a room, hide, shoot 2-3 dudes with very minimal care, pick up their ammo, get into another room, repeat. No variety, boring level design, and you don't need to play well at all (though that might change later). Also the enemies take too many shots, I shouldn't need to pop some guy 5 times in the head. The whole game plays like a series of loosely-designed shooting missions in a B-tier GTA knockoff, without everything else GTA does.

After a little more time with Winback, damn do the controls not hold up. It asks you to do very precise things or you die instantly, but it doesn't give you the right tools. Taking cover works when it wants to, it's really annoying to trigger sometimes. The section where you had the avoid the gun tower or whatever it's called with rolls was crazy tricky, and the first boss was an exercise in frustration. You know what you're supposed to do, but it just doesn't work like it should with the controls and cameras getting in the way. There are issues with targeting sometimes, too. This game could use a remake. Even getting out of cover and shooting feels a little too slow, a lot of times against the boss you end up taking a bullet even though it felt like the perfect time to come out and shoot. I don't know whether I'll stick with it. It's also overlong, with 31 stages. And I didn't care about the story getting in, so I initially skipped the intro, but after watching it, it's about as lame as it gets.

Yeah, I know. But it's hard to resist playing the OG for me. I haven't completely given up on it. I'm thinking of using a 3 strikes system for frustrating games. If a game really pisses me off to the point of questioning whether I want to keep going 3 times, I'll drop it. Provided I like some things about the game, of course. Because I've gotten past frustrations and found it worth it many times before, but I don't want to just put myself through frustration after frustration. And I do like some things about WinBack. When things work as intended, it's pretty cool. So now it's got 1 strike. Dead to Rights and kill.switch were made by Namco Hometek btw, which was their American studio. I will check out kill.switch eventually. But I'm in no hurry, too many others I'm more interested in right now. Winback 2 was made by Cavia 6-7 years after the N64 version of Winback, and from what I heard it's very different. I like the one Cavia game I beat, so I'll check it out eventually.

Y'all may have already mentioned it, but Winback got a PS2 port of the original, along with that sequel. I think I have both of them, but I can't remember right now.