Wow. WOW. A remaster of a remake of one of the best Survival Horror games to exist. It’s no surprise how Resident Evil became a pioneer of this genre. Survival is genuinely hard in this game, with very limited safe areas and a small carry-capacity (especially with Chris). Combining this with a general scarcity of resources and a throng of varying enemies means that if you linger too long in certain areas, you are only compounding this difficulty further, which is an excellent motivator to figure out what to do and move on in a timely manner. I found that the game lightened up in difficulty once you branch out of the mansion, and the experience becomes much more linear to keep you focused on your goal, which was a nice change of pace.

Puzzles are fairly simple but rewarding, and the story is really intriguing. Having already played a few RE titles before this one, it was AWESOME to see how they set up future characters and plotlines in this game. I also LOVE how campy this game is. When I first played RE7 and later RE4 (my first two entries in the series), I thought there were some incredibly out-of-place lines of dialogue that made the characters sound silly or dumb, and even some enemy designs and plot points came across as too over-the-top for me. But having now played the original Resident Evil, I understand that camp is just as important in this series as survival, puzzles, story, and tense moments are.

The only gripe I have with Resident Evil is the loading screens between rooms. Constantly having to sit and wait for the next room to load started to get very tedious early on, but even this can be a beneficial tool used to quickly disengage from an encounter if you really need to. More often than not, though, it was more of an annoyance than anything. Still, Resident Evil is a spectacle, and is a nearly impeccably designed and tightly wound package that will continue to be the blueprint for all Survival Horror games for years to come.

Cerebral, mind-bending, macabre, and thrilling are all words that describe Alan Wake 2 perfectly. A masterclass in survival-horror that doubles as the culmination of everything Remedy Entertainment has learned over its 20+ years in the games industry. Tensions are high throughout the entirety of the 20 hour runtime of Alan Wake 2, not only through combat, but through auditory cues, jump scares, changes in scenery, and striking shifts in color. Remedy utilizes all these tools to keep you on the edge of your seat while your heart pounds in your chest as you slightly turn your eyes from the screen in an attempt to reduce your anxiety. All of the best parts of Alan Wake 2 can be summed up in one word. Atmosphere.
Atmosphere is this games strongest aspect, and unlike other games of the same ilk that released this year such as Resident Evil 4 Remake and Dead Space, there is less combat here than you would expect. I found the majority of my playtime was spent piecing together the story, exploring the different locales and looking for collectibles, callbacks to other Remedy games, and hints at future events in the story or the greater Remedy Connected Universe rather than fighting Taken. That being said, combat is a delight in this game. Every encounter is important due to scarcity of ammo and other items, especially during boss fights, but I do wish there were more enemies to defeat. Graphically, this game astounded me at every cutscene and set-piece, and was enhanced by a robust and vivid color palette that truly nails the feeling of Autumn in a small rural town.
The story in Alan Wake 2 answers so many questions that players were left with after the first game’s ending, but tactfully introduces just as many (if not more) new questions and ideas into the fold. No spoilers, but I DO wish some of the new stuff that was introduced here was explained/explored more fully, as they really did a fantastic job of weaving new characters, plotlines, and genuinely intriguing concepts into the Remedy Connected Universe. If Alan Wake and Control are anything to go off of, I’m sure we can expect some DLC to tie up these loose ends before too long, and I am more than excited to return to this universe.

With a seemingly endless number of places to see and things to do, Starfield felt overwhelming at first. An unusually slow start when compared to BGS prior works and hours of tutorials compounded these feelings, and had me worried that I might not be in it for the long run. I’m so happy to say that despite a slow opening and hours of tutorials, Starfield is truly something to behold.

Storylines and quests are what drive this game, as opposed to the exploration which games like Skyrim and Fallout 3 masterfully use to keep players engaged. That being said, Bethesda has never made a storyline as good as the main quest in this game. Ever. I also don’t think I’ve ever experienced a better New Game + system from any game before Starfield.. To avoid spoilers, I’ll leave it at that, but it truly is a compelling story with themes much deeper than past Bethesda quests, and high stakes. Almost all of the faction quests are of a similar high quality as well. That being said, a lot of the other side quests can get repetitive quick, and most can easily be diluted to “just fetch quests” aside from a few standouts.

Circling back to exploration now, I think it’s fair to say that the majority of players will be disappointed in how Starfield handles arguably one of the biggest aspects of BGS games. Hand-crafted spaces are much fewer and farther between compared to their past titles, and Starfield is only made worse because of it. I think the procedurally-generated planet experiment was cool in theory, but in practice it’s boring. Of course, finding a randomly generated outpost or research tower is fun the first few times, but gets stale quick. Similarly, space exploration is non-existent. You can’t fly from planet to planet like in No Man’s Sky, and there really isn’t much to see except for the occasional encounters with other space-faring people. I really didn’t find this to be too much of a hindrance, though, as to me, being in space was just a transitory period until I got to my next quest marker.

Two things I really loved that I didn’t think I would care for at all was ship building and ship combat. I often found myself completely lost to time while I was tweaking my ships or even building completely new designs. The dogfights in space really are awesome. If you play on Hard or Very Hard, even two enemies can be a challenge, which was very refreshing as enemies on the ground are fairly simple to deal with.

I experienced a fair share of stuttering, screen-freezing, long loading screens, glitches, and straight-up crashes to the dashboard during my time playing, which really did suck. Bethesda is infamous for things like this, which is inexcusable imo. Needless to say, the fact that I had to deal with these issues quite a lot during my 135 hours with the game and STILL think it deserves a 9/10 is a testament to how special this game is to me. I’ve reached NG+10 and have done every Faction quest and main quest at least twice and I don’t see myself putting this game down for a long time.

A monster-tamer with an interesting story, fresh battle/taming mechanics, and truly great character/monster designs. If you're looking for something to scratch that Pokémon itch while not just replicating the same tried and true mechanics, then Cassette Beasts is something you should give your attention to. Type-matchups don't influence damage in this game, but instead cause status conditions or stat increases/decreases. This was really neat to me, as it meant battles felt more dynamic than they have in other monster-tamer games, where maximizing damage output takes precedence. To expound on this even further, there are over 14,000 fusions in the game. Fusions combine the type of both creatures, meaning you could be facing a monster that will get both a buff and a de-buff depending on the type of attack you use. This will always keep you on your toes and wondering what the best course of action is.

In a game about cassettes and music, it's no question that the soundtrack for this game is important. Unfortunately, it's a bit underwhelming/repetitive. Despite having a good vocal performance on the tracks, there was no way I wanted to have someone singing to me for the duration of the game so I had to turn that part off.

All in all, I do highly recommend this game to fans of monster-tamers. For a completionist, this game overstays its welcome, but if you are only interested in the mechanics and playing through the story then Cassette Beasts* is well worth your time.

A masterclass in graphical presentation and technical prowess, but an incredibly boring and hollow game.

I REALLY want to like this game, but I can't. I want to like it so much that even after I set it aside the first two times, I came back to try again, hoping the classic mantra of "third time's the charm" would ring true and I could see this game for more than I originally had. Obviously this didn't happen and I'm so disappointed by that, because I genuinely enjoyed Horizon: Zero Dawn at it's release. What makes Forbidden West different? By most accounts the two games are very similar, so it makes sense that I would enjoy both of them, right? I'm going to chalk this up to my tastes having changed a lot since 2017; so much so that Horizon Forbidden West could have never pleased me as I am today.

To me, this game is the poster child of the homogenization we've seen in the AAA space since the PS4/XBone era began. A third-person, action adventure, open-world, "story-driven" game featuring a "mascot" main character. Nothing about Horizon Forbidden West feels new, unique, or even enjoyable to me, except in how incredibly gorgeous it is. To say that every new game similar to this NEEDS to be unique or innovative is foolish. However, considering this game is coming from one of the greatest first-party studios owned by what many would consider the best publisher in gaming at present leaves me feeling disappointed. I think I've rambled enough about my general distaste for the game (and the greater AAA space), so I'm going to get more into the weeds about what I dislike about the game.

Firstly, I clocked in about 10 hours of playtime in Horizon Forbidden West and I have yet to feel like I've really PLAYED anything. The sheer volume of cutscenes and moments of exposition have greatly outweighed the gameplay sections, and half of the time I have actually had control of Aloy, I've had to spend it doing really boring and mundane platforming/puzzle solving instead of fighting the excellently designed monsters. Seriously, there are times where you watch a cutscene for 5+ minutes, walk 3 feet, and are met with another cutscene of equal length. It feels as if Guerilla (or maybe Sony/PlayStation) doesn't actually want you to play a video game, but rather have a story told to you. This is made even more apparent to me by the platforming/puzzle solving sections, which serve as a vehicle to move the plot forward with in-game dialogue like a cutscene, but have it disguised as "gameplay". Aloy is not fun to control in these sections either, as the platforming is so barebones and simple it's sleep-inducing. On top of this, she has as much likeability and personality as a 2x4, maybe less. Worse still, for someone who is incredibly boring, she sure has a lot to say about not shit. This game barrages you constantly with Aloy quipping about how to solve the issues you're facing in these sections, which takes any sense of agency and discovery out of the situation entirely.

Combat is always heralded as the best part of this game, which I completely agree with, but I don't find it good enough to carry the game to greater heights. Stealth is not a viable option in this game, because as soon as you let one arrow fly, the enemies can pinpoint your exact geolocation with 100% accuracy. You are forced to always be on the move and utilize your smoke bombs to stay in-cover, and at that point, I'd rather just approach everything "guns-blazing" so I'm not wasting resources constantly. I also have issues with the general combat system, as you have to breakup what should be fluid combat with a weapon wheel every time you need more ammo or to switch to a different damage type/weapon, and in longer fights you'll be doing this a lot.

I have many more things I dislike about this game, but for the sake of keeping this concise I'll just touch on the open-world nature of this game and close it out. I already gave the "doom and gloom" spiel of modern AAA gaming, but I truly feel like this game suffers from having an open-world with a seemingly endless number of things to do on the map. It's completely paralyzing to be faced with so many side-quests/menial tasks that are of no consequence to the overall experience.

For those that enjoy "map" games like Horizon Zero Dawn, Far Cry 5, and Assassin's Creed Valhalla, you'll surely appreciate Forbidden West for what it is, and will probably be completely enamored with the experience. But I can't keep trying to force myself to enjoy this game.

Quantum Break is pretty enjoyable, but it falls just short of being great. The mixed media was neat, I guess, but I can't help but wonder if the TV show had such a high budget that it negatively impacted the rest of the game. It could just be my ignorance showing, but it's food for thought. At the time of this game's release, Alan Wake had already been out for a while, and is a more solid product from Remedy than Quantum Break is, in my opinion. That being said, the combat abilities are SO COOL and really make gunfights a blast. I only wish there were more combat sections in this game. Actually, I wish there were more good gameplay sections in general, as most of this game comprises of cutscenes, janky platforming, walking around (very slowly), and a TV show. The story was compelling and the revelations you get as the game progresses really keep you engaged, but man, I don't really feel like I PLAYED very much in my time with this game. I played Quantum Break twice for achievements and it was really cool to see how different choices you make during certain Junction points affected the story. I suggest tackling this one on hard difficulty just so you get the most out of combat.

I never played the original Resident Evil 2 from 1998, but this remake 100% stands on its own as a juggernaut of survival horror. The atmosphere early-game is tense & mortifying, and only grows in scale the longer you play. The puzzles are a joy to solve, and aren’t so difficult that you have to stop to look up a solution. Gunplay feels great, and overall the level designs were really top-notch in my book. The story is intriguing as well, even if some (most) of the lines of dialogue are cheesy. I only have two gripes with the game; the fight on the crane and the game of cat and mouse you have to play with Tyrant during most of the police station. I swear, I did the right thing on the crane 6 times before it finally worked, but maybe I just missed something. I understand the point of Tyrant is to keep the situation tense and make players more alert to their surroundings, but most of the time it was just a massive inconvenience that had me running all over the place and hiding in safe rooms until he moved to another area.

UPDATE: After the news that PvE has been scrapped from this release, I’ve lowered my rating from 1 star to .5, the lowest it can go. I’ve never seen a company fumble a game as bad as Blizzard has with Overwatch 2

Before I get into my tirade I have to give some points because yeah, the base gameplay is good. Changing games to 5v5 and re-designing the more meta-centralizing characters were completely valid decisions and whether or not you like/dislike the changes are really up to the individual. I like them. Crazy how they would create two characters that arguably centralized the meta-game in a worse way right off the bat, but go off I guess.

That being said, what a shit show this game is. Failing to deliver on the biggest selling point for the new game (PvE) and then completely "overhauling" the item shop/rewards to put any new cosmetics behind a ludicrously unjust paywall is hilariously mind-boggling. Overwatch is legitimately one of my favorite games ever, it's the multiplayer game I have the most play time in, and is definitively my favorite multiplayer game I've ever played, so I can say from the heart that Overwatch 2 is the greatest disappointment I've ever experienced in gaming. No PvE? Oh well, at least I'll be able to play multiplayer and eventually the PvE will come, right?

The launch of this game was the worst I've ever experienced in any game, and I've played almost every Destiny expansion and Call of Duty update when they've launched. I'm used to having to wait for servers to be stable enough to even log into a game is what I'm getting at. For Overwatch 2, it was over 10 days, yes, 10 fucking days since "release" before I could log in and play a game. Even after this absurd wait time, it wasn't even guaranteed that all of your cosmetics would transfer over from Overwatch. I got all of mine, but I know others that weren't so lucky. This should've been my sign to just get out ASAP but I had to try and capture the joys of playing Overwatch early on.

Of course anyone reading this can tell by my review that Overwatch 2 does not capture the sheer competitive joy I had when playing the original, which is an absolute shame. This game is way less competitive and more toxic than the original, which is solely due to it being free to play unlike it's predecessor at launch. This was my sign to end it, I wasn't having fun, and neither were my friends. Oh well, at least I can go back to the original if I need my fix.

What? WHAT DO YOU MEAN THEY FUCKING DELISTED THE ORIGINAL GAME???? I watched in sheer terror as the icon for Overwatch on my home screen was deformed and mangled into the icon for Overwatch 2. I'm not lying when I say that these absolute nimrods TOOK AWAY OUR OPTION TO PLAY THE OLD GAME right in front of our very eyes. Imagine if Call of Duty did this shit. Battlefield. Street Fighter? In absolutely no way do I find this acceptable. I can't even begin to wrap my head around why they did this. I'm sure there is some reason regarding server upkeep, cross-progression and player profiles but come on it's just absurd to kill a game the second the new one comes out. I have no idea how this game is now, but with Blizzard’s asinine treatment of this game at launch, I will never download it again to find out.

I hate Overwatch 2

Papers, Please is a wonderful experience. The interactions are engaging and will make you question what the best course of action is constantly. It's made clear early on that you have to follow your rulebook so you get paid enough to simply survive. After understanding this expectation, your job duties continuously change, and your morality and empathy are tested hard in certain scenarios.

In terms of gameplay, Papers, Please is fine. What your doing is mundane, but it's like that for a reason. The beauty in this game isn't from the gameplay in my opinion, but from everything I mentioned before. That being said, if you are the kind of person who likes getting into the weeds and really going over everything with a fine-toothed comb then you'll probably find the document inspecting enjoyable.

2022

Stray isn't innovative with puzzles or platforming, but it makes up for being pretty cut-and-dry in the gameplay department with an immense amount of charm and atmosphere. The three towns you visit are inviting and filled with characters that you’ll want to speak to, no matter how much or little they have to say. The exploration in the towns is fun and engaging enough, and the soundtrack is full of warm, lush synth pads/electric pianos, which are my jam. The levels where you do the bulk of your platforming and puzzle solving were good, but a little too simple and short. Strays narrative is also simple, but it is wonderfully beautiful, bittersweet, and heartwarming.

This review contains spoilers

I played this game twice in one sitting (so I could get all the trophies on the ps4 & ps5 versions) and I have to say that I got so much more out of this game on a replay than I did the first time. Of course, all the stories here have some weight behind them with some being more devastating than others. I picked up on things in the second playthrough like the chairs in the trees near the beach foreshadowing Gus’ story, or knowing that what Walter hides in the bunker from for 30 years is what ultimately kills him. Some of the stories ended in a way that didn’t really make sense or was sort of obscure, so I feel like I didn’t quite “get” this game fully. I also think it was wild to start with Molly’s story, as it’s the strangest by far and has the most obscure ending. Honestly I could see it leaving a bad first impression with people and turning them away.

All in all it’s a great experience, and I 100% it twice in 3 hours, so not a time sink or anything.

Maybe the Fire Emblem was the friends we made along the way.




The music, combat, and world design in this game were all excellent, but the characters were just okay, and the story/dialogue were equally unimpressive and became very cheesy near the back third of the game. Engage is meant to be a celebration of Fire Emblem's long history, and it does it perfectly in my opinion, despite the flaws I think this game has.

The gacha mechanics were neat for a few hours, but around chapter 8 I pretty much stopped crafting rings entirely. Once you get enough rings to slot into a broad range of characters (one for a mage, archer, warrior, etc.) and some emblems you really don't need to keep dumping bond fragments into getting rings. I actually stayed away from a lot this game had to offer other than skirmishes and the main chapters, simply because the combat is Engage's strongest point.

This review contains spoilers

Crysis is an open-ended first-person shooter that I really enjoyed until the second half. The nanosuit abilities were cool and different enough to keep gunfights engaging for the most part. That was until the number of enemy vehicles skyrocketed and the game became unbearable. The tanks were fine to maneuver around, but the constant onslaught of HELICOPTERS was infuriating. This was around chapter 5, and the game went further downhill from there. I’ve never experienced motion sickness from anything, but chapter 7 made me so sick I had to stop and lay in the floor until my head stopped spinning. The alien enemies were just plain weird to fight against and the look of horror on my face when I learned that they had HELICOPTERS too was probably a sight to see. Flying the VTOL in chapter 10 was slow, tremendously clunky, and straight up not fun. The final boss was equally annoying, because I knew exactly what to do, but couldn’t seem to make it happen. I did the same thing like 5 times and for whatever reason, it worked the last time.

All this being said, I’m not going to let the back half of this game ruin the opening hours. The core gunplay and ability management was awesome, and I hope the sequels capitalize on these aspects! The story was cool, but nothing groundbreaking.

I had never played a Monkey Ball game before this release, and while I did enjoy the time I spent playing, it didn't capture me like I hoped it would. I might go back someday, but I doubt it. My wife does not play video games, but she played the first world and had a great time with it.

The ghosts in this game legitimately made me cry and have nightmares