Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (2011) (PS3)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009).

With a game as successful as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) (CoD:MW2), making over $1 billion within three months, the future of the Call of Duty franchise would be surely be guaranteed. However, that future would not include series creators Jason West and Vince Zampella. It’s a very infamous and well-documented story, but the short version is that West and Zampella wanted more creative control over Call of Duty (CoD) following Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare’s (CoD4) success, though Activision CEO Bobby Kotick included a loophole in the agreement that control would revert back to Activision if the duo were ever fired. Soon after, Activision did everything in their power through an internal campaign dubbed “Project Icebreaker” to find a reason to replace the duo during development of CoD:MW2, which included plans to stage a fake fire drill to copy Infinity Ward employee emails. After CoD:MW2 came out and proved a massive success, West and Zampella were fired after renegotiations fell through, with Activision accusing them of “insubordination”. About 40 of Infinity Ward’s employees, numbering around 100 at the time, would quit and leave with West and Zampella to form Respawn Entertainment, who would develop the Titanfall series in partnership with Electronic Arts before later being acquired wholly by EA and making both Apex Legends and the Star War Jedi series. In the meantime, however, Infinity Ward was in the midst of developing Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3 (CoD:MW3), now put in jeopardy without the studio’s founders, and the publisher was in a legal battle over unpaid CoD:MW2 royalties. As such, Activision would seek assistance from Sledgehammer Games and Raven Software to help with development on CoD:MW3, which would see the light of day in late 2011.

That brings us to now, as I now finish my journey through the original Modern Warfare trilogy. I didn’t remember hearing too much from other people around the release of CoD:MW3, but I did remember hearing about the drama around West and Zampella (especially the fire drill story). I was already planning on playing CoD:MW3 to round out the trilogy, but after enjoying Infinity Ward’s work on CoD4 and CoD:MW2, even with whatever criticisms I may have expressed, my curiosity grew about how the studio would handle CoD without any involvement from its creators. Although Sledgehammer and Infinity Ward did their best given the situation, it’s impossible to ignore the effect of West and Zampella’s absence in the final product.

Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (2009) (PS3)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare and Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.

The explosive success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) would naturally justify production of a sequel, eventually confirmed and revealed as Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2 (CoD:MW2). While I was in high school back in 2009, this was actually the first Call of Duty (CoD) game where I couldn’t escape discussion about it thanks to the massive hype surrounding it (even a teacher would mention playing it one time during a class discussion). Apart from hearing endless discussion about the multiplayer, however, I was mostly aware of one Mission, “No Russian”, due to its controversial content, which for years was the only thing I knew about CoD’s storytelling and knowingly out of context. Now, with much more knowledge about CoD than I had before, my approach is more informed by not only playing CoD4, which has an incredible campaign on its own, but also the knowledge that this was the last time that Infinity Ward would develop a CoD game with original creators Jason West and Vince Zampella still involved, a story that I’ll save for another time. For now, however, we celebrate this blog’s fifteenth anniversary with CoD:MW2, which holds up surprisingly well in spite of some issues with the campaign.

Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (PS3)

Back in high school, in the far-off era of the mid-2000s, I couldn’t escape discussion about Call of Duty (CoD) from fellow students, particularly the Modern Warfare trilogy (even one of my teachers played Modern Warfare 2 at the time). Despite this, however, I never really touched the games for one reason or another due to my differing tastes in games at the time. I have since played more FPS games, as you can see on this blog, but even then, I still never touched CoD and hadn’t intended to thanks to the series’ increasingly mixed reception. That would change, however, as I learned that the series had more than just the name going for it and actually left a major impact on FPS games and gaming as a whole. As such, I decided that for the fifteenth anniversary of this blog, I would finally do my due diligence and play the Modern Warfare trilogy, beginning with Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare (CoD4) from 2007, developed by Infinity Ward. I didn’t know exactly what to expect going in, but I walked away finally understanding the game’s appeal and lasting influence.

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4

With the success of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2 (THPS1+2) in 2020, a remake of the third (THPS3) and fourth (THPS4) entries in the series seemed like the next logical step. However, this wouldn’t be the case, as despite said success, developer Vicarious Visions was folded into the Blizzard portion of Activision Blizzard King. Tony Hawk himself would later confirm that not only was said remake in the works at the time, but moving the developer around led to the project being canceled, leaving its fate up in the air. Fortunately, the project eventually resumed under developer Iron Galaxy, finally delivering Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 3 + 4 (THPS3+4) five years later. This remake, however, wouldn't be without controversy due to changes made to the soundtrack and the THPS4 half of the game, but I got a copy anyway due to having waited for it for so long and wanting to see the extent of the changes for myself. While I did end up agreeing with some criticisms of the final product, I still had a fun time with it for what it was regardless.

Second Look - Deadpool (Game) (PS4)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Deadpool.

Back in 2008, Daniel Way started his run on the Deadpool comic, which ran for 63 issues and ended in 2012. This run would give Deadpool more mainstream popularity, to the point he became the new “Wolverine” for selling Marvel comics, and served as many peoples’ gateway for the character, myself included. While the 2016 Deadpool film would expose the character to an even wider audience, including those who had otherwise never seen an X-Men film, the character also had one other notable mainstream release in 2013, the Deadpool video game developed by High Moon Studios, best known for the Transformers: War for Cybertron and Transformers: Fall of Cybtertron games, and written by Daniel Way. Although Acitivision would delist the initial PS3, 360 and PC release just a year after launch, a PS4 and Xbox One re-release would follow in 2015, likely to tie in to the film’s pre-release hype, followed by another permanent delisting in late 2017. Both releases garnered a mixed critical reception.

Back when I played the game in 2013, I had fun with it in spite of its faults and hoped for a sequel that never came. Fast-forward to now and our goal of catching up with the X-Men film series before the release of Deadpool & Wolverine inspired me to take another look at the game, this time through the PS4 port, and see how well it held up over a decade later. As a representation of an earlier point in Deadpool’s history, I still enjoyed the game for its writing, but the gameplay didn’t hold up very well.

Spyro Reignited Trilogy

After the success of Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy in 2017, a similar remaster of the original Spyro trilogy went into development and released in 2018 as Spyro Reignited Trilogy. Since the game required an additional download to have full access to everything, I didn’t buy it at first out of disdain for the practice. Eventually, however, I caved and got a copy so I could compare it to the original PS1 games, which I owned. While I think Toys for Bob made a valiant effort at bringing the original trilogy into the modern day, it does have issues that got increasingly more difficult to ignore with each game.

Second Look - Skylanders: Spyro's Adventure + Adventure Packs

Following the end of the Legend of Spyro trilogy with Dawn of the Dragon in 2008, a second reboot of the Spyro the Dragon series was announced for 2010, known as Skylanders: Spyro’s Adventure, which utilized physical toys that you could place on a Portal of Power to summon it in-game. “Toys to life” was in fact one of the slogans on the box, which was quickly adopted as the Toys-to-life genre to describe other, similar games. I wasn’t fully aware of the game until its launch and at first ignored it, though I quickly became curious about it and found the toy concept interesting, enough to get the Starter Pack as a gift. I ended up liking it enough to try and complete as much of my collection as I could, and later ended up playing the other main games in the Skylanders series while noticing how little Spyro was actually part of it.

After Skylanders: Imaginators, I began to lose interest in the series, eventually selling off a bulk of my collection due to how much space it was taking up, with some harder-to-find toys among them. However, one collection I still held on to was my Spyro’s Adventure collection due to having more sentimental value to me, plus I knew that one day I wanted to revisit the game to see what about the concept made it so magical to me in the first place. After deciding to look back on it for the franchise’s 10^th anniversary, I found that spark was still there, despite showing its age and having a handful of technical issues.

Crash Bandicoot 4: It's About Time

After having become a Crash Bandicoot fan through the N. Sane Trilogy remaster, and having played Crash Team Racing Nitro-Fueled, I was curious what direction Activision might take the IP after having remastered all four of the original Naughty Dog titles, since I was aware of the other games that came afterwards. This question was answered when Activision and developer Toys for Bob announced Crash Bandicoot 4: It’s About Time, presenting itself as a direct sequel to Crash Bandicoot: Warped that returns to the original style of gameplay while also low-key addressing the other titles with the premise of alternate dimensions. Due to the later micro-transaction implementation that occurred with Nitro-Fueled, which severely affected the overall experience in a negative way, my expectations were admittedly tempered for Crash Bandicoot 4 as a result, though I was still curious as to what direction the game would take itself. Upon getting to actually play it, it exceeded those expectations, however in what felt like an attempt to one-up the original trilogy, it did feel unnecessarily difficult at times.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater HD (PS3)

Prior to the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 in 2015, developer Robomodo released a digital-only remaster of the first two games (in theory), Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater HD, in 2012. After playing through the recent remaster of the first two games by Vicarious Visions, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, I remembered I still happened to own a copy of Pro Skater HD, which has since been delisted, on my PS3 hard drive and wanted to see how well it held up (or didn't) after eight years. After going through the game again, I remembered more of the game’s shortcomings and why I didn’t really like it when I first played it.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 1 + 2 (PS4)

Following the disastrous release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 back in 2015, the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series was officially over, as the contract between Tony Hawk and Activision had expired. Because of this, I was surprised (in a good way) at the announcement of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, which aimed to remaster Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater and Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2 with some quality-of-life changes to bring the series into the modern era and introduce it to a new generation of players. This announcement led me to go back and replay the original games for comparison to the remaster, followed by what turned into a rather lengthy retrospective on the franchise as a whole. Since the remaster was handled by Vicarious Visions, the team behind Crash Bandicoot N. Sane Trilogy, my hopes were high, and thankfully this remaster delivers on that and more.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 5 (PS4)

We’ve established by this point that we’re fans of the Tony Hawk games, particularly up to Underground 2. From that entry onward, however, the series would continue a downward spiral of popularity going into the release of Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 5 in 2015, the same year the deal with Activision expired. We later bought the game at a steep discount just to see how bad it really was, but wouldn’t go through a full playthrough until more recently. Having played every game from Pro Skater to Proving Ground, I can say without a doubt that Pro Skater 5 is truly the worst Tony Hawk game I have ever played.

Tony Hawk's Proving Ground (PS3)

Following the release of Tony Hawk's Project 8 in 2006, another annual installment to the Pro Skater series came in 2007 in the form of Tony Hawk’s Proving Ground, offering the premise of a more customizable story mode to create a more unique experience. Notably, Proving Ground would also be the final game in the series developed by Neversoft, after which the series would be further developed under new studio Robomodo while Neversoft would exclusively develop the Guitar Hero series until their closure in 2014. Despite the game representing this particular milestone for the Pro Skater series, it didn’t exactly go out with a bang.

Tony Hawk's Project 8 (PS3)

After the release of Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland in 2005, a new game known as Tony Hawk’s Project 8 came out the following year, however it would also be the first one released on the then-new PlayStation 3, as a launch title for the system. Around this time, the Pro Skater series also took more of a shift towards realism, seemingly as a way to take advantage of the next generation of hardware. While the effort put into the title was certainly ambitious, I found it rather disappointing, both on its own merits and especially in comparison to previous games in the series.

Tony Hawk's American Wasteland (PS2)

Following the release and success of Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 in 2004, the annual releases continued with Tony Hawk’s American Wasteland in 2005. Rather than following in the same footsteps as Underground 2, this entry sets itself apart by featuring an open world, a first for the series, as well as setting itself within the confines of the Los Angeles area. While it pulls this aspect off successfully, the game is overall a bit of a mixed bag when compared to its predecessors.

Tony Hawk's Underground 2 (PS2)

Following the success of Tony Hawk’s Underground in 2003, a sequel was released in 2004, simply titled Tony Hawk’s Underground 2, which saw a much wilder take on skating culture. This was actually my first exposure to the Pro Skater series as a whole, even if I wasn’t the one playing it, and so this is the entry I am most familiar with. As a result, I will admit to having a small bias towards this game, and so would rank the game higher if I were to place it on a tier list, however I felt that it was not to the point that it would interfere with writing an impartial review. After going through the game again, while it has its issues and is generally a lot more crass, it still stands as one of my favorite entries in the series for its sheer fun factor.

Tony Hawk's Underground (PS2)

Note: This review contains spoilers for Tony Hawk's Underground

Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 4 set a precedent for later games in the series to go more open-world, however the next entry, Tony Hawk’s Underground, takes this a few steps further. Rather than playing as one of many professional skaters, this time the game is about you, the player, trying to become a professional skater, even introducing a story mode to the series. Though times have changed since the game’s release in 2003, their first attempt at a story-driven Pro Skater game was handled surprisingly well and still somewhat resonates to this day despite some mechanical flaws.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater 2 (PS1)

In further anticipation of the upcoming Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, here we continue from the original Pro Skater game and into its sequel, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 2. Though the Pro Skater series had begun running on an annual release schedule, this game takes the concepts introduced in the first and expands upon them in a number of areas, creating a more solid experience from a technical standpoint, though it’s not without its flaws.

Tony Hawk's Pro Skater (PS1)

Our personal experience with the Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater series began with Tony Hawk’s Underground 2 for the PS2, however it did get us interested in the idea of owning a skateboard. Years later when we acted upon this, we gained a sudden impulse to play every game in the series that we could get our hands on, in order of release, starting from the original Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater for the PS1. With the announcement of a remaster of the first two Pro Skater games for modern platforms, entitled Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 + 2, I decided to try and revisit those two games for comparison, and possibly beyond. Going back to the original Pro Skater game was a fun experience, though it wasn’t without issue.

Transformers: Devastation

While I haven’t played many games made by PlatinumGames, and I probably won’t, one game I was instantly attracted to was their take on Transformers in the form of Transformers: Devastation, thanks in part to the developers’ usual gameplay style and their attempts to capture the feeling of the 1984 The Transformers cartoon as close as possible. While I did play this game when it came out and liked it, I never gave the game a proper review since I was losing my enthusiasm for writing reviews at the time. After deciding to go back and do the game better justice, it’s still one of the better Transformers games out there and it manages to create a world with some interesting potential that will sadly never get properly fleshed out.

Second Look - Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark (PS3)

After playing through Transformers: War for Cybertron and its sequel Fall of Cybertron again, I decided to take another look at a third game in the series, Transformers: Rise of the Dark Spark, developed by Edge of Reality rather than High Moon. What made this game stand out, however, was that it was advertised as a crossover between the aforementioned Cybertron games and the live-action film continuity, specifically the then-new Transformers: Age of Extinction. On my initial playthrough my thoughts on the game were a bit mixed, however after a second playthrough and some additional continuity research, I found my impressions a little more negative than they were before.