After Man of Medan was somewhat underwhelming, I sorta shelved this title indefinitely and almost forgot the anthology was a thing. I'd buy my mum the games for Christmas each year and she'd say they were 'pretty good' or whatever, and I guess her opinion on this one just didn't sell me lol.

Flash forward a couple years, hot off the back of The Quarry I find myself remembering just how much I enjoy this type of game. The tension when making a decision, the gruesome deaths followed by "nooooo!"s, and the frequent cheating by hitting the pause button to linger on a question just a little longer.. I love it.

Admittedly, Little Hope started out a bit too slow for my liking, the prologue was pretty solid, but the whole unlikely-matchings group walking down foggy roads got quite tiresome. It picked up more as it went along and I found myself really enjoying it once the characters with "barely understandable" (Sheffield) accents made an appearance, but I'd be lying if I said that the ending was just a little bit.. lacking.

Now I didn't manage to get the true ending, so I'm sure I'm missing details as much as I should be, but the ending that I did get didn't do a particularly good job of tying up loose ends or answering many of the questions I had. This was unfortunately a pattern I found, with conversations or events often just sort of, moving on without showing you a proper conclusion. Characters being left alone somewhere only to appear suddenly later, it felt like parts of the game were missing even though my only death was at the climax.

If I had one major comment about why I think the game struggles to be consistent and hold up to the likes of Until Dawn and The Quarry, it's that there are just too many decisions in the first place. Some conversations are made up of 5 exchanged lines and you have to pick a response 3 times in process, it's too easy to misinterpret something or become inconsistent, which can actually have consequences if the characters' personality traits aren't strong enough. The traits thing is a really interesting idea and more choices makes sense for it, it's just a shame it fell a bit short for me.

Anyway, rambles aside, I'm glad I checked this out. It was by no means on the same level as Supermassive's mainline titles, but it definitely wasn't disappointing either. A step up from Man of Medan... Here's hoping House of Ashes is yet another step in the right direction!

As the final entry in Season 1 of the anthology, The Devil in Me makes for an interesting time to implement new mechanics like a simple inventory system, some light climb/crouch prompts and even a couple of puzzles. None of these add any more to the game than they take away in my opinion, with most of them - puzzles especially - just dragging the already slow pace in those sections to a crawl, but it's nice to see Supermassive trying new things to keep the series fresh. Hopefully this was a test drive that future entries will improve upon.

That aside, this game definitely suffers from a pretty slow start post-prologue, and personally I didn't find any of the cast particularly interesting until after reaching the hotel, which is around the time it picks up anyway, small shame there.

I played this game on lethal, following the footsteps of my lovely gf and her thirst for seeing as many brutal deaths as possible :p Not gunna lie some of the minigame sections are pretty hard and I lost a character to failing one so that was fun! The premise and the deaths are pretty great, they could've maybe done a little more with some things but I wasn't disappointed at all with the experience that I got.

I'm not the first to say it but it really does hold true: It's not the best of the season, but it's probably the scariest. Some really great slasher/thriller scenes and stellar atmosphere throughout. Definitely recommend sticking through the slow build and occasional dip to get play for yourself :)

Replaying this after so long was such a wild experience, it's so funny to me how I can change and grow so much over the years and then play things like this in almost the exact same way I did forever ago. I made some changes to my morality/corruption and the like, but spending over half my playtime seducing random townsfolk for store discounts and growing a property-empire took me back to all the times I played this on my Xbox 360. Unfortunately the combat was pretty lacking, it's not awful but it's a lot clunkier and more awkward than I remember, but for what it is that didn't sour the experience much at all.

There's such a charm to the dumb shit, it's really something. Knocking on the door of a house I can't afford until a pissed-off man and wife answer in the dead of night, dancing to them on their doorstep and watching their 'love' meters increase until the man clocks on to what's happening and gets a big wave of 'hate' for me, sternly reminding me that "that's [his] wife!" and I need to leave. Proposing to her right in front of him and getting married only to be reminded that this doesn't transfer ownership of the house to me, but to their young child 🥹

The highlight of this playthrough has to have been having sex for the first time and unlocking the 'apologise' expression as soon as I finished :)

Man I hope the new Fable game keeps all the stupid life-sim stuff while massively improving the combat, I could easily see myself loving it to be bits if they get it right.

Gurl, no...

This game came as a really pleasant surprise to me as an unexpected birthday gift (I won't say who from in case they'd prefer I don't, but massive thank you again!)
It was received as a random recommendation that I immediately recognised as something I'd meant to look into years ago, but forgotten about - needless to say I hopped on it pretty quickly.

I didn't have any particular expectations per se, but I was pretty confident that I'd like it, and am happy to say that the surprises didn't stop once I booted it. I've only played a handful of Wolf RPG and RPG Maker horror games but the ones I've liked have hit a real sweet spot for me and it's become a niche that I'm increasingly eager to dip back into.

Mad Father - despite being quite a bit older than some others I've played - uses some really interesting techniques that I haven't seen all that much of to emphasise the horror element, without relying on loud bangs or grotesque monsters. It wasn't exactly groundbreaking or anything, but there were a number of little things that on my first encounter had my eyes light up a lil with a "woa nice!" - The first hour or so especially was just a joy to play through.

The story itself is pretty good, nothing to write home about but memorable, and for 95% of the the game it sticks to the narrative really well which is appreciated. There's also voice acting but only for certain lines or shrieks which did a much better job at elevating the eeriness than expected. The music was also great, and the art is pretty, just an all round a solid game honestly. Biggest gripe with it would unfortunately be the True Ending. I get what they were doing but idk, it's not what I wanted :(

In conclusion, if you're into indie horror RPG maker games this is well worth checking out, and thank you again to my friend for gifting it, twas an excellent choice! :)

I'm writing this at 2:30am, after having spent about 13 hours straight doing what I thought was "the final stretch" :^) I'll try to keep it brief cause I'm tired but this game is big...

I really love this game. The combat took some getting used to, and it's not without its flaws, but man it just didn't get boring for me at all. The characters are great, as is the story and the music, it's a long ass journey but it's fulfilling. I also hugely appreciate customisable armour and played dress-up so much I prolly added 5 hours to my game time lol.

Now that said, it is a long. ass. journey... If you don't enjoy the combat or running around absolutely massive maps for 30-60 mins between cutscenes (with mob fights ofc) this will probably be a mega slog. Everything is so fucking far away I felt like I'd missed a car or some shit 2 chapters in cause it takes forever to get anywhere. This fucks the pacing at times as well, with some chapters ending with these big intense build-ups only for the next part to put a long walk between you and the next cutscene. Seriously at one part you load in, walk in a straight line with no enemies for 2 whole minutes, just to trigger another cutscene...

Anyway! Shut up I'm tired and I thought I'd be done hours ago but I wasn't and I'm kinda bummed but also I love it and I don't want it to be over so I'm gunna spend a small fortune on the sequel now okok

Honestly not sure what more you could want from a Ratchet game. The whole cast, new and old, are fantastic. The story was fun, engaging and higher stakes than ever. The weapons complimented each other well and felt great. The use of the PS5's controller really adds to the experience in a way I wouldn't have even thought of.

The game looks super pretty as you likely know, but it feels great too. I had so much fun just roaming around and, well, playing. The dimensionator allows for enemies and references to previous games from over the years, as well as a plethora of new content that I personally loved. The game's direction too is top-notch with even the on-rails level being a delight for once!

I 100%'d the planets on my first playthrough but need to go back for a couple clean-up trophies (bears, jukebox, 1 weapon-specific) which is a helluva lot more than I'd usually do in a game. In fact, in my 17ish hours of playing the only issue I encountered at all were some voice lines being triggered at strange times, and even this was only half a dozen times at best.

Overall, I've no idea where they're gunna go after this, but I'm excited for it. Especially if Rivet is involved, she's dope :)

Overall:
The UI is ugly as sin, there are waaaay too many QTEs and despite the melee combat having some sick-ass animations, the shooting and cover mechanics are both massive downgrades from RE5. Worst of all though is the co-op. RE5 is possibly the best co-op experience going, it's engaging and balanced, you work as and feel like an actual team, but in 6... No shared loot, no way to give each other items or ammo. Sure you open doors and give boosts, but otherwise it's like playing on the same map as someone rather than playing with someone. It's a huge shame.

No map also means keeping track of your partner is more awkward, and the comms prompts don't even align with the dialogue the characters say. (Follow = "Fall Back" and Call = "Follow Me" ...)
All that said, they did add the ability to move while shooting and dive/slide, shimmying on the floor as you shoot. So 10/10 for that.

Jake Campaign:
Aside from having a great name, Jake is a better protag than people give him credit for. He's obviously not on the level of our recurring characters, but there's really nothing particularly wrong with him beyond an edgetastic intro and a few dumb jokes.
The story of his/Sherry's journey was pretty decent, with a bunch of cool scenes to boot. The trouble is that the game isn't really capable of making the scenes cool, instead interrupting them constantly with QTEs and really poorly-controlled interactions. My gf said that it'd be better as a movie and she's hit the nail on the head. It was entertaining enough to watch, but trying to actually do it was often hellish

Overall Jake score: 3/5

Chris Campaign:
Chris's campaign places an emphasis on his relationship with his squad/s. Or at least, it kinda tries to.. almost. There are attempts at tense and touching scenes involving characters we've known for all of two minutes, and some half decent levels where you get to watch the squad members get in your way or shoot zombies you were trying to kill with coup de grace attacks. It's really just, not good. The story told through Chris/Piers is.. fine? Imagine any 90s film about a soldier that lost his squad having to lead a new one while struggling with PTSD, and then replace 90% of the psychological struggles with him TKOing zombies and sliding into boxes. I honestly think that despite being an established and beloved character - and the fairly interesting but totally fumbled ending - Chris's Campaign is the worst of the three.

Overall Chris score: 2.5/5

Leon Campaign:
Leon's campaign started out strong, way stronger than the others. In fact his first chapter is easily the best in the game, which in hindsight is downright cruel and misleading. Things start off with a slow-building, tense atmosphere as things gradually fall to shit around you, reminiscent of earlier titles. Sure my gf had to tell me to stop running around and walk slowly to feed into the vibe, but once I did it was excellent, best 2 hours hands down. But then.. the game pretty quickly transitions to more action-focused, with I believe the first 2 chapters having a few 'defend the area' scenarios, which were admittedly pretty fun, but it was all a trap! Not 3 hours later, there I was watching these huge helicopter chase scenes and buildings collapsing and Leon/Helena just doing the dumbest shit you'd never think of, it was so disappointing to reach the end and think "wow.. This is the same game." I suppose if nothing else it gives you a taste of something good to draw you in before showing you what you're actually in for: a hot mess :p

Overall Leon Score: 3/5

Ada Campaign:
Ada's campaign is kinda bad all-round. It's the only one that isn't built for co-operative play and yet it still finds a way to allow it, assigning player 2 as the mystical 'Agent' - A faceless character that doesn't appear in cutscenes and teleports to Ada's side any time she decides to progress or use her grappling hook. There are no points in which both players must be present to proceed, so if you're gathering loot and Player 1 decides to open a door? Well fuck you, you're out there now. At multiple times doors would close trapping Ada in an area with a 'survive' objective, only for poor Agent to be locked on the wrong side until she's done. Worst of all, you can't even interact with switches up pick up keys, it's like playing as her imaginary friend. Player 2 gripes aside, Ada's campaign works to give some insight on the underlying plot I suppose, but the problem is the levels are so dull and the fights so irritating that it's really hard to care at all. Not to mention the things it reveals are dumb and confusing anyway. Simply not a good time, no matter how hot she may be.

Overall Ada Score: 2/5

This one took me a while to get properly into, admittedly. The tone was a little different and I wasn't big into it for the first few hours. But at a certain point, it finds its feet, does away with all the shit I wasn't into and you know what? Yeah it's different to the first two even after that point, but I'd be lying if I said it wasn't damn fun.

As a Brit, patriotism is a little lost on me, but man if William J. Blazkowicz doesn't have an infectious attitude. This series is so good, I can't wait for Youngblood to implement girl power and co-op and definitely maintain the quality :')

Strangely enough, this game made me realise that the other games in the series were actually better than I'd given them credit for. That's not to say that this entry is bad per se, but it switched things up just enough to make me realise just how much I prefer the way they were before.

For whatever reason, throughout the entire game the weapons felt weak. Even during the tutorial it was taking more shots to put enemies down than it felt like it should've been. Furthermore the lack of marking just makes everything a lot harder than it was probably meant to. In fact a lot of the combat just didn't really feel good at all.

I acknowledge that I played this game "wrong" so I'll make that clear here, this title is very much an attempt at a Far Cry RPG, with the weapons having levels and such with damage that scales accordingly. So by beelining the plot and only doing enough outposts to upgrade my homebase to the required level, I wasn't exactly kitted out by the endgame.

The problem is, through some miracle, neither were my enemies? The penultimate mission sees you fighting the main antagonists - The Twins - and using Level 3 weapons (only 1 shy of the max) it took me an absurd amount of time to kill each of them. Headshots dealing 300 damage and I swear it felt like that had 50,000hp each or something. Not to mention the steady flow of dogs that just appear out of nowhere, grabbing your arm before I could hear them even playing with headphones. But when I finally did kill one and take her weapons, they were level 1? Despite killing me in 4 hits? Bruh

My partner says she had no trouble with this fight at all and that they even went down quickly so this seems to have been my own problem, but idk, I was playing it like a Far Cry game, not like an RPG. Foolish? Maybe. But it hadn't really been an issue until this fight, and it wasn't one for the finale boss either.

That aside, the AI was pretty annoying and this is a really weird thing to mention but the subtitles are so awful. They're not structured at all so any breaks between words or sentences aren't represented. To use an example that hopefully translates well, rather than:
"I'm not trapped in here with you...
You're trapped in here with me" displayed as 2 lines, synced up to the dialogue to show the pause in between them, this game would subtitle it more like:
"I'm not trapped in here with
you. You're trapped in here with me"
and the second line probably wouldn't even show until they were saying the word 'trapped' like bruh

Anyway, besides nitpicking and my own errors the game is alright. I really like the premise of showing Hope County years after the events of 5 but personally for me they changed too much for me to enjoy it nearly as much as I did its predecessor. The twins are fairly interesting and the music/aesthestic is cool, I just couldn't really get into it unfortunately.

An ambitious next step for Frogwares who have made clear by now that they’re not content with simply putting out the same game with new cases, in favour of releasing Sherlock games so vastly different they’re barely connected, if at all.

In the latest entry to date, they push the boat even further by taking us back to a younger Sherlock, revisiting his childhood home on the islands. No London, no 221B, almost none of the iconic characters we know and love, and he’s even sporting a new “hot” almost gothic look. Admittedly, I was initially worried that this might fall into a similar trap as DmC did, what with the whole “reimagining” of the protagonist resulting in such a heavy attempt to make them cool and likable that they became anything but, so I’m really glad to say that this isn’t the case!
Sherlock Chapter One takes some chances for sure, implementing an open world of sorts, with cases that can be tackled whenever you so choose. The map isn’t littered with collectables or an abundance of menial cases, so while it may seem unnecessary or even overwhelming at first, it very quickly just, works. This game feels much more like I am going around investigating rather than simply fast traveling between key locations (although you can do that ofc) and the fact there are NPCs outside of the cases just makes the city feel more alive I suppose.

There are a few other things that you mightn’t expect from a Sherlock game: Bandit Lairs which can be completed, consisting of a combat minigame in which you can arrest (or kill) enemies – these reward money used for the next thing I’ll mention, but are completely optional and better still - Limited to only 5 across the whole map 😌

There’s also some customisation which is always fun, and the money you earn can be used to buy a pretty decent selection of clothes and accessories, the citizens around you will even treat you differently based on what you’re wearing, being more or less cooperative depending on how they feel about your drip. Due to this, dressing the part before asking around is something you’ll have to think about, and I just think that’s neat. (Also you can wear women's clothing so brownie points for that)

As for the real meat of the game, the investigations are as fun as ever, and the interrogations/dialogue in general remain my favourite part. There’s just something about picking holes in someone’s story or sassing them to their face that they’ve been ‘ad that this game really hits on the head. The overarching story has been an interesting one as well, not sure I’m completely in love with everything they did but it provided a throughline that didn’t feel unnatural and allowed for a dynamic that would’ve otherwise felt lacking.

Overall, if you’re into investigation games or you’ve played the earlier entries, this one is definitely worth a look. I can assure you right now that it’s not just “hot gothic Sherlock thinks he’s so cool” lol

Looking forward to the new one set to release this year! :)

Surprisingly fun time, got me much more excited for the sequel :)

Personally, I've never been massive into Star Wars; my attempt at initiation was binging 1 through 6 numerically in one sitting, so I slept through most of the original trilogy. I'm also not particularly good at playing soulslikes. I really enjoyed Bloodborne and Dark Souls 3, but I need to be in a very specific mood to play for more than an hour or two, and I was only able to beat either of those because I had someone sat next to me egging my pride along (and helping with directions/strats)

As you can imagine, a Star Wars soulslike-ish wasn't the most appealing game in the world to me back when it released, and although all my friends recommended it and everything, I only got the final push I needed to actually play it last year when I was going over my backlog with my gf (a former Star Wars ... whatever their Trekkie equivalent is idk lol)

At first the combat hit me kinda hard, as it always does in these games, but the traversal, puzzles and mechanics obviously make for a very different experience to what I was used to. I didn't stick with it long term when I first played because I was doing so much else, but coming back to binge it on a weekend (and dropping it to baby mode partway through) resulted in me having a pretty consistently great time with it.

I don't have a whole lot to say being honest - rambles aside - but I'm hoping that the sequel addresses the maps somehow, because for as well crafted as they are, they can also be pretty confusing to navigate. Which is made worse once you've opened a bunch of shortcuts and can't tell which path takes you where you need anymore. First visits are fine, but subsequent ones always had me lost. I know waypoints and guide lines aren't very soulsy but I feel like BD-1 should offer something without it breaking immersion. And for christ's sake let me fast travel between meditation spots when I'm not locked into the story!

All in all this was about as good as I expected it to be, which I appreciate means almost nothing but hopefully shows how little I have to say lol. The story was interesting but I'm really not sure what they were setting up. I didn't dislike the ending it just didn't leave anything I could recall that would be an obvious assumption for the sequel. Also an inclusion in the finale felt kinda weird, y'all know.

That's it from me I've said nothing in too many words as per, thanks for reading and I hope you're having a good weekend! 🙏

Some of the BGM was a bit lacking but the wit and charm of the series continues to go strong. A powerful conclusion to one of the most gripping trilogies in all of gaming. The credits song was also a nice surprise.

I don't have that much else too say about this and I typically ramble a while. So the following are some notes from my Dragon Quest XI review :)

Dragon Quest XI is a phenomenal game. It stands firm as one of the greatest JRPGs I’ve personally ever experienced, and I expect is among the greatest titles within the genre of all time.
I have a lot to say about this title so for those of you who may not want to read 158 hours’ worth of thoughts, I’ll summarise it briefly here: The gameplay, polish and presentation of Dragon Quest XI is off the charts. Everything works and looks exactly as it should, there are basically no instances where you’ll find yourself against impossible odds or hit a wall of “bullshit”, it just works. It’s also incredibly accessible to players of all preferences and skill-levels, this game was made to be enjoyed by anyone and in my honest opinion, it succeeds. So, let’s get into it a little deeper.

And to borrow from the blog post of a brilliant mind:
Thanks for reading
- Frog Detective x