I should start by saying I have never played Quake II before and have no ties to that original release, so unfortunately much of the improvements or lack thereof are likely lost on me with this shiny new remaster from Nightdive.

I played and adored the remaster of Quake in 2021. A distinctly 90s package that managed to feel refreshing over 20 years later, offering an approach long abandoned by first person shooters. Now, 2 years later, Nightdive releases their overhaul of Quake II and it is magnificent. A more fast-paced, objective based run-and-gun that feels less scaffolded off it's predecessor and more like a new vision of Quake.

Gone are the dull-grey castle structures, knights in armor, Shamblers, and dark ambient tracks of NIN. There are minor 3D cutscenes and a narrative through-line as you blast your way across Strogg territory. It is up to you and you alone to strike at the heart of the alien enemy. The levels are more varied and larger, going between maps often to complete objectives. The levels transition between interiors and exteriors, always elegant and logical. I especially enjoyed the many skyboxes of the exterior environments. You will meet the sorry souls captured by the Strogg, watch them be decompressed or liquified by their machines. They cry with madness and pain until you either run past them or put them out of their misery. The narrative is simple and doesn't get in the way, but it makes you feel like you're fighting for something and that you've accomplished an important misson when reaching the finale.

The combat itself isn't all that different from Quake. You are given 8 different weapons ranging from your projectile-based pistol, to the BFG, and of course the super shotgun. The enemies are deadly, you can't stop moving or you're done for. I used the super shotty most of the time naturally, turning much of the enemies into bloody gibs every 1 to 3 shots. Some of the bigger bads can take up to 8 missiles. You'll do a lot of enemy managing, taking out the smaller targets first. Occasionally the enemies will friendly fire and they will turn on each other, giving you a temporary ally or distraction.

A fantastic game that looks incredible and has punchy, quick combat. The enemy designs are varied and nasty. All of the Strogg look like they need to be put in the dirt, miserable messes of flesh and steel. The Flyers in particular are an insane design. I can't wait to play all the other campaigns included, especially MachineGames inclusion CALL OF THE MACHINE. I loved their inclusion on the Quake remaster. They really push the engine into new and interesting territories, often appearing much more impressive than anything in the base game.

What dreadful melancholy. It's rare I play a game that makes me feel this morose. Maybe not since Silent Hill 2 has a game just made me feel like stomped shit. What begins as "Can I escape this planet?" slowly, and even agonizingly, becomes "Can I escape myself?" I don't want to get into spoilers, but this is simply not what it seems on the surface and is one of the most thematically rending games I've ever played. There's a method to this looping madness.

To gameplay itself: just excellent. I was worried about playing this on PS5 with a controller rather than PC where my skills are much better with a keyboard and mouse, but Housemarque perfectly tuned the style to controller. The dualsense feels perfect, the use of the adaptive trigger to switch to alt-fire is just brilliant really and the best I've seen any developer use the tech. Sometimes you get absolutely stomped, pelted by a million bullets. But other times you rip and tear these levels to pieces with your sword and weaponry. It feels intensely satisfying to stomp those early levels that gave you trouble.

I don't really have criticisms outside the clear positive feedback loop that comes from most roguelites. It's hard to knock the endless loop as "playing the same thing over and over" because of how in-tune this is thematically with the game. What a breath of fresh air, what a pleasant surprise, what a god damn nightmare.

A mind-bending metatextual noir and folk horror pulp novel wrapped up into a pseudo-survival horror package. Fantastic, the presentation is second to none. I've gotten a bit tired of style focused on realism, but Remedy are always making it necessary. The textural detail is livened greatly by the best HDR and raytracing implementation I've seen.

I think the narrative could use some tightening, pulling the game together more cohesively, but it is a fascinating story. It lets you be lost a bit, grasping at threads, and never really fully ties it up cleanly. Saga is a very welcomed addition, it allows the game to breathe between two worlds and helps to make each new section feel more fresh. The way the story wrestles with the suffering of characters created by a fiction out of their control, one they are forced into, is tense and raw. I've seen Silent Hill 2 named a few times in reference to what this has brought to the medium and while I disagree, I still think this is an extraordinary entry in horror and the medium. Remedy, blending narrative, live-action, liminal thresholds, and meta-fiction continue to bring one-of-a-kind experiences.

Teyon has once again crafted the best piece of media of a beloved classic in decades, even since the original film. This is a densely crafted, brutal first person shooter that puts you into the role of the big man himself in a way that feels earned. You feel like an unstoppable force, but are always on the edge of survival as you mow down dozens of creeps at a time.

The gameplay is a miracle, distilling the essence of the visual tactility and density of the first film. It feels very akin to FEAR which is the biggest compliment I could give it. Every piece of the environment explodes with each shot, melons pop and viscera splatters across every inch of space. You grab dudes off of motorcycles as they pass you then throw their ragdoll body 50 feet, then pick up the bike itself and chuck it at the next goon, creating beautifully emergent moments enveloped in flame. I finished the game in what felt like a very brief 15 hours and I loved pretty much every second.

My main gripes come from enemy variety, some frustrating boss fights, and same-y environments and level design. That aside this is one of the best games of the year and I can't wait to see what Teyon does next.

I only have a couple complaints for what is otherwise, in my mind, a perfect game. It has me aching for more like it, games where I really get to play a detective. I think the magic pocket watch is such a brilliant idea, allowing you to witness the moment of someone's death, because otherwise a game like this can't exist. It's always giving you just enough to keep your mind running. Total cohesion of narrative and gameplay. The way this thing unfolds is just brilliant, filling in the gaps with your imagination while the game consistently destroys your expectations.

My minor complaints are that I think you should be able to access someone's moment of death from the book. It gets a little tedious having to remember where someone's body is so you can re-live that death again to catch another clue. The other is that some of the fates are straight up a guessing game, but I think that's kind of realistic. There are few of these so you don't have to do much guessing. I just wanted to be able to know exactly what happened to someone if I could help it.

Don't want to give anything away, this was just an absolute treat. I loved every second of it and hope I get to have another experience like it again.

"Dragon Kick your ass into the Milky Way!"

Pure action, physicality, and hand-to-hand obliteration. The feeling you get when you perfectly line up your tailor-made combo, juggling an enemy into the air only to hit them with a high kick and send them flying is pure elation. By the end of the game on my 10th attempt at the final boss I was expertly avoiding moves and getting jabs in to perfectly execute Double Shaolin, moving into God Hand mode right into pummel. It's honestly everything you could ask from a game and more. Absolutely brilliant.

It's hard to objectively review this as the original game is among my all-time favorite games. When I played that game and what it meant as a budding horror fan is irreplaceable. Navigating the Ishimura was one of the most terrifying and exhilarating experiences I've had. Motive's remake adds a lot of gamechanging QoL features as well as an interesting re-interpretation of Visceral's level design and story, as well as creature design. I enjoy the small things like adding the Zero-G movement and Kinesis offensive abilities from Dead Space 2. Some things I like less, such as the less brutal stomp and overall less aggressive ways in which characters are dispatched. There's also a more defined loneliness and isolation in the original game which comes with Isaac's silence. I didn't mind him speaking and showing emotion in this reinterpretation but it is a different experience. This all of course leads to the elephant in the room...

The sabotage of Visceral is among the worst of EA's crimes. A passionate studio making cutting edge, adult-oriented games before being thrown to the wolves with Dead Space 3 and finally put down with Battlefield: Hardline. The success of this remake entirely hinges upon the work Visceral did with what I believe to be a timeless game. Outside that game being unavailable on new platforms, specifically Playstation consoles, I must say it's still the definitive and nastier game.