I remember vividly this being my next game after completing Duke Nukem Forever. I was so burnt by what a steaming piece of crap that game was that I was borderline anxious about buying this game day one that also had middling (albeit still much more positive than DNF!) reviews. Turns out my fears were misplaced and the critics got it wrong - Alice: Madness Returns was ace. Maybe a bit stagnant in the gameplay department, but the amount of twisted imagination that went into the story, characters, environments and lore enraptured me and made the game well worth playing through. Deeply unsettling in places. Wish we got a new one.

I'm somebody who has never really jumped on the bandwagon and waved the flag in rapturous praise of From. They're undoubtedly one of the most adored developers in the biz today, but while I've certainly enjoyed the likes of Demon's Souls OG, Bloodborne and Elden Ring, I've never really held them in the same esteemed regard that your average gaming enthusiast does.

That's all changed with Sekiro. I get it now. I get why people love From and go stir crazy whenever a new game by them is announced. Sekiro is a certified masterpiece. It's From's best game. Their magnum opus. It has maybe the best combat I've ever had the pleasure of experiencing in a video game. The boss battles are an exhilarating thrill. It's a punishing game, but rarely unfair, and the mechanics are so tight that you always aspire to improve and be better whenever you take a beating. Deflecting feels fantastic. Pulling off a Mikiri counter is pure dopamine. Going on the offensive and smacking an enemy around so much that you wear them down and remove all their health with a single deathblow is rewarding as fuck. It just feels so fabulous to play.

I also appreciate that Sekiro has a more conventional storytelling approach than the usual From fare. If there's one thing I can't stand about the likes of Bloodborne and Elden Ring, it's the cryptic nonsense that passes as a 'plot'. No, I'm not going to watch Youtube videos to study up on the lore. I'm not going to read item descriptions in order to get a clearer idea of what's going on in your game. Sekiro does away with that for the most part. It's hardly Grim Fandango-levels of narrative intrigue, but it's a heck of a lot more engaging than what has come before and since. You play as someone not scrambled together in a character creator screen. He has a personality. He actually talks and interacts with other characters. He's an honourable gentleman and it feels good when he perseveres and takes down a big baddie! More of this please From!

It's a looker too. Graphical fidelity has never been From's forte, but Sekiro has plenty of occasions where one is tempted to take a breather and soak in all the pretty scenery. After Elden Ring, I was surprised by how much better this is visually, despite coming out a few years prior.

So why did it take me so long to play this winning showcase of the medium? Because for some reason it never got a discount in the UK. It's actually quite rare these days, and extremely hard to obtain a brand new copy. I had to buy the game used on eBay, and it wasn't cheap. But bought it I have, and played it to completion I did, and now it's going straight into my top 50 favourites list. RIP in peace whichever game gets kicked out of its slot as a result. And the next time a From game is announced to a roaring crowd, I'll be right there with them, whooping and hollering.

Unless their next game is a sequel to The Adventures of Cookie & Cream.

I wasn't expecting to like this nearly as much as I did. I thought it would be too punishing. Well, the story stuff is overly cryptic and not too interesting, but everything else is perfect. The controls are perfect, everything feels tight and right, the loop is addictive as hell, and the feeling of accomplishment is through the roof. Bonus points for incredible sound design.





If you want to play Returnal on easy mode, the Electropylon Driver is where it's at.

A wholly frustrating game, because with a few tweaks here and there this easily could've been my game of the year, but Rockstar had to squander the game's masterpiece status by doubling down on the huffing of its own farts. In many aspects, the game is flawless. The performances and writing are unanimously excellent, and the attention to detail and staggering amount of work gone into its world-building is awe-inspiring at times. Even someone as disenfranchised with vast open-world fields/forests/anything-with-trees-in-it as me was impressed with how alive and lush the environments were. I just wish it didn't take so damn long to do, well... just about anything! Sluggish controls I can adapt to, braindead whack-a-mole gunfights I can tolerate, but in a game as long as this, in a world as big as this, forcing me to walk in camp and denying me a means to fast travel conveniently became too much by the end. I'm a Shenmue fan, I can handle mundanity as much as the next person, but god I wish Red Dead Redemption 2 wasn't so damn content being so damn slow. To avoid getting too bogged down in negativity though, I will say that RDR2 contains my favourite and most emotionally-impactful moment of 2018 - the culmination of the money lending missions. I don't want to spoil it too much for folks who haven't played the game yet, but seeing good guy Arthur declare enough is enough and act upon the disgust of his own actions made the hairs on the back of my neck stand up.

(More of an 8.5 than an 8)

Stray is kinda like a Team ICO game meets Radiohead. I loved it. Dense environments, thick atmosphere, and a somewhat simple yet ultimately emotional story about a cat trying to escape an underground city with its newfound drone friend. I adore games where the primary focus is to just explore and soak in the vibes, and this is definitely one of those. The perfect antidote to all those bloated, overlong and repetitive open-world field-roaming simulators.

Can't wait to see what the developer comes up with next.

One of the most downright depressing games I've ever played. There's a vicious nihilistic streak running through RDR and I wonder if someone on the writing team was going through some dark shit during the whole creative process. This is a game where very few people get a happy ending. Even most of the side quests are tragic and generally feel bad in nature. None of this is criticism by the way. It's just that, when I reflect back on my time with RDR (which was a long time ago now), my most vivid memories are how affected I was by it all. Especially, ESPECIALLY, the absolute gut punch that is the ending.

I don't know if I could ever play through it all again, knowing what's to come.

No idea why this is one of the highest rated games of the year on OpenCritic. It's a fine puzzler with some very slick presentation and an emphasis on being all things 'chill'. I found it very satisfying to play... until the levels got too complex for my puny mind to handle. At that point, I lost the will to keep playing to be honest, and there's nothing really to convince the player to keep going anyway. But I admit that's more my own fault than the game's. I lack the patience in general to pay attention to puzzles once they get too hard. At that point, I usually break out a guide.

There's narration that's in keeping with the whole chilled vibe, but it had the opposite effect for me. The lady was far too twee and quirky for my tastes, and every time she opened her mouth and said some kooky bollocks, I started getting vexed. Her 'musings' start to get really strained towards the end, and it's clear that the writer is struggling to give her interesting and/or humorous things to say. My advice to anyone is - put the narrator on mute. She's incredibly irritating and a couple of packets of digested Pop Rocks away from manic pixie dream girl territory.

I've played through the first and second game in this series again on my PS5 courtesy of PS+ and the games being free because I bought the original trilogy for a dollar each in a flash sale during the PS3 days.

I loved these games back in the day, but man, they've aged like shit unfortunately. The controls are SO slippery and unwieldy, which makes gunfights a chore in general. Not to mention that enemies have a habit of ambushing you out of nowhere, so it's hard to contend with sudden combat encounters when aiming the reticle is akin to skating on ice while under the influence of a crate of Jack Daniels. The story is bog-standard Tom Clancy-wannabe guff, the actor for the Gabe Logan always talks like he is in fast forward and it's often unclear how you're supposed to carry out objectives exactly. I often had to resort to a Youtube playthrough to know what to do next.

There are plenty of games from the PS1 era that I can revisit and enjoy in this modern age. Syphon Filter 2 is not one of them.