It does do a good job of going back to its roots, but it sorely lacks the character and story of the past titles. After a while the game started to grow stale, with a completely throwaway story and combat that is too easy to exploit with counters and tools.

It looks great, and I like the setting and the city, but Basim has the personality of a potato, the voice acting is stilted and theatrical, and the AI of the guards is very limited.

It's hard for me to judge it because I had 10 hours when I liked exploring, finding things, and taking my time with it, just as Assassin's is at its best, but the story missions grew so stale I ended up rushing through the end just to finish it and move on.

So the first half of the game was like an 85 for me, and the last part was like a 75.

I played this for the first time this year, and it's a hard game to judge without playing it back then. I can tell that the animations and visuals must have been great, it's still impressive to watch some of the cutscenes, and there are some massive scenes with hundreds of NPCs on screen, something we rarely see even today.

But these things won't carry the game in 2023. The controls are not as responsive as I would like, and the PS3 controller is not as good as modern controllers, the game can feel like walking underwater.

The game wants you to counter a lot with its 3-style combat system. But the slightly sluggish controls made me abandon that and I ended up button-mashing my way through the game.

I found the campaign to be too obsessed with large encounters, I wish I could run around and bump into one or two enemies, practicing my countering and combat styles, but it's structured in a way where you walk into an area and get swarmed most of the time.

There is also a good deal of motion sensor gimmick fights, where you tilt your controller trying to guide projectiles around. I'm not sure how people like these parts, but I actually liked these sections a lot.

And lastly, the characters in this game are so odd, Nariko the main protagonist is fine, even if she looks like a supermodel from another world compared to the other characters, but the enemies are so weird it's hard to describe it. They remind me of a Monthy Python sketch or a rude and crude version of Benny Hill. You really have to see it to believe it.

It's a rough but fascinating early PS3 game.

I expected to like this more. I enjoy skating games, and the premise of fast-twitch skating/racing gameplay sounded right up my alley. And it sort of was, but the game is heavily tuned for completing the secondary objectives because if you don't and only follow the main campaign, you end up spending 1 minute or so in each level and go from level to level so quickly that it starts to feel like an assembly line.

I also had a problem with the way they do the story, they have these little cutscenes in front and after every level that I felt were intrusive. Watching this unfold every time I finished one of these short levels was too much. I got so tired of it. It wanted to be funny and charming, but it never clicked with me.

But, the gameplay is solid, it is fun to blast around the level and avoid obstacles. But the short levels, obtrusive story, and non-stop level switching got to me. Towards the end, I ended up just wanting to finish it and be done with it. But I did like the gameplay, I just wish I could go straight into a new level after completing one without having to watch the story and load in and out of the level select screen.

As intuitive as any game I ever played, I felt like I acted on impulse to solve puzzles rather than thinking. In the game, you carry around whole worlds in the form of spheres, the premise will see you travel between worlds, using the spheres as teleporting devices. That might not be as easy to understand if you haven't played it, but it's a really clever idea that works well.

There are some puzzles in this game I have never seen before, it surprised me consistently throughout, and I am amazed that I wasn't stuck more than I was. They must have playtested these puzzles to the moon and back for them to work this elegantly.

Like most people who played the original, I was wondering if it would feel too familiar, considering how faithful they aimed to be. But the original Dead Space is still a great game and hasn't aged that much, so the overhaul of the presentation that they did with this one is enough to freshen it up and make it worth playing again.

But there is a bittersweet taste to this, do we really want remakes this close to the original? I would prefer Dead Space 4, but I imagine by redoing the same game they can keep costs lower than making a new one from scratch.

The game looks spectacular, and the sound design is equally on point. Some of the space sections are breathtaking, it looks so damn cool to view the space station from the outside, and in those sections, the game comes across as one of the best-looking games of 2023.

Dead Space is inspired by Resident Evil 4, and like that game, and games like Bioshock, Dead Space nails that aspect where you always feel like you need loot. It's a great system, the loot and upgrade bench is an everpresent search to improve. And you can make some of the weapons really powerful if you focus on them.

The combat is so good in Dead Space that I liked playing through it again, all these years later. There aren't a lot of big flaws here, it's just a little too close to the original to score it higher. We already had this experience.

Pikmin 4 makes a lot of small changes that broaden the Pikmin formula. It adds new features and systems that expand upon the previous Pikmin campaigns and maintains all the great RTS gameplay and addictive aspects that make it work. The only thing the game lacks is an online mode.

This time around you have a dog that acts as an armored carrier for you and your Pikmin. There is also a new home base, where the people you rescue travel to, and each of them gives you side missions and various activities. There is also a wide range of additions like a plethora of items, upgrades, and collectible building materials.

The game looks good (it's especially great underwater, I wish they used that more), and as usual, the environments and levels are addicting to clear. Pikmin 4 also follows Super Mario Odyssey and Kirby and the Forgotten Land in giving you a hefty end-game after the credits roll, even if most of that endgame is essentially the true campaign. It's like they roll the credits halfway through just to let you get the feeling you "finished" it.

The issues I have is mostly about the caves, 1 or 2 levels are fine to explore, but it gets too long-winded to go through 5-6 levels. I also started to get a bit tired of the loading in and out of sub-levels.

Pikmin is a franchise that might have ended on the Gamecube, but I assume Miyamoto's love for the franchise kept it alive. It's a great sequel that takes the franchise forward and hopefully unto the next Switch.

A good action-adventure game clearly based on the God of War formula. It doesn't quite have the same quality in its combat, bosses, and story, but it's worth playing.

Dante himself is about as interesting as a dried tomato, and there are some areas that are clearly worse than others ("stay in the air for x seconds" gtfo), but it's a solid game.

And it's fun to play now because these sorts of linear action-adventure games aren't that big anymore, it's a blast from the past.

I always have the same problem with the Dishonored games, if you play stealthily and try to do the side-objectives and find the hidden spots, you end up spending waaaaay too long getting through some of the later areas. You might spend 4-5 hours getting through a level.

There are five levels in the game, and I spent the first three playing stealthy, doing everything, and I spent maybe 12 hours on those levels. When I came to the fourth level, I had lost my patience playing so slowly and went berserk, ignored all the optional stuff, and ran through the last two levels in like 30 minutes.

So how long you spend on this game varies greatly. Everything from 3 hours to 15 hours depending on your aptitude for stealth.

This long-winded stealth pacing is increased by the extreme amount of notes and books, there is lore everywhere, and if you try to read it all, the game feels like it stops and starts constantly. I have no idea why reading lore is a thing included in practically every room in the game. Backwards design IMO.

BUT, the game has some great levels, intricate and thoughtfully designed with a lot of detail and things to find. The teleporting ability is as great as ever, and figuring out how to clear an area of guards is very satisfying.

Overall the gameplay and abilities are great and the levels are fantastic, making the Dishonored experience still a great one. But the long-winded pacing for stealth players, the frankly dumbass story, and how the AI can't keep up at times, holds it back.

There is an impressive amount of style and flavor to everything in Street Fighter 6. It's vibrant, fast, fun, and colorful.

There has been a lot of care put into fleshing out all the details and making all the visuals pop, I wasn't quite sure what to think of the trailers before the game came out, but the game took me by surprise. It's been a long time since I got this enthused about a fighting game.

There is a 14 to 18-ish hour campaign, where you create a fighter and do various missions. You can buy clothes for your character, upgrade them, and collect all sorts of items to help you along. It's alright. I suspect most will try it for 2-3 hours and let it be, but it's a solid fighting game campaign with a lot of content.

You do run into the usual crap like some fighters being easy to exploit for easy wins and everyone using them, but for the most part, I like this game a lot. One of the best fighting games I played in years.

Great improvement over the first, but for a lot of people the stuttering on Koboh (the game's hub world) is going to hurt the overall experience. Most other areas are fine, but Koboh is a disaster even after the big patch.

Survivor expands the world from what we saw in Fallen Order, there is more focus on substantial side quests, more side characters, more customization, and a lot of dialogue.

However, I think the story feels more like a side quest than anything dire like in Fallen Order. I'm not gonna go into spoilers, but there are a lot of things to pick at with how they tell it.

And there is still a lot of jank, for example, the way Cal's legs skip and slide when he moves fast looks completely ridiculous. For some reason, they never fixed it in Fallen Order and it's carried over to this game.

It's also easier than the first game, which I don't mind, but almost all the boss fights are disappointing.

But that said, the environments look incredible, some of the best of any game out right now, and the campaign is fun and takes you to a lot of cool places. The new stances are nice additions, giving you more options on how to fight, and the levels are better designed, they don't feel as weird and out of place as the ones in Fallen Order.

It's a great game that should be better if not for all the optimization issues.

There is an RPG system in the game that makes you stronger as you gain levels, and when you are under-leveled, the combat becomes more about staying away from the zombies and using range and trying to counter-block since you get hurt quickly, but when you are on the same level or higher, it becomes more of a bash-fest as you don't have to worry about every little scratch and can go wild.

I found that the game works a lot better when it becomes a bashing simulator. It's more fun, and you don't have to constantly worry about health packs and you can run around and try different things.

This means that the game varies quite a bit in playstyle depending on how many side missions you do for EXP. I was following the main missions for hours until I found myself annoyed as the zombies were higher level than me and I had to constantly run around and pick at them until they were proper dead.

Eventually, I came to a boss that smashed me so I went back and did side-missions and the game transformed for me. It was more fun, my weapons would wreck the lower-level zombies, and I felt this was how the game should be.

So I recommend doing some side-missions. And the beauty of the game really comes out as you look around without worrying about the main story. It's stunning and has some of the most detailed environments I have seen these last few years. And there are a lot of little nooks and crannies to find, with weapons and resources, so It's worth exploring.

It's also well-optimized, with a solid soundtrack and a wild gore system that breaks zombies apart in some pretty extreme ways. It's very visceral and brutal, you feel the crunch of the bones.

The story is silly and it's impact is gonna heavily depend on if the humor lands for you. It's like an SNL sketch.

I ended up liking it more and more as I focused on leveling up, it's so good looking and the combat is so powerful and graphic that it certainly leaves a mark.

The definition of a movie cash grab. Terminator Salvation is a 3-hour-ish third-person shooter inspired by Gears of War.

Expect barebones mechanical-looking animations, weird echos when people talk, stiff movements, annoying spider robots, fighting the same 3 enemies from start to finish, using the same weapons the entire game (there are 4-5 total), and a comical and nonsensical story where you play as John Connor as he randomly takes off to save a few guys in some random building (getting tons of people killed to get there btw).

The enemies walk back and forth on the same spot, they don't really chase you, as they all have a pre-made path to follow. In every fight, you take cover, take note of which path the enemies walk, and then flank them to hit their weak spot. Or in the case of the endo-skeletons, blast them with explosives.

The game is also made for co-op, so each level is designed with two people in mind, working together to flank the robots. In single-player, you have NPC's that gotta do the flanking, which is hit and miss in how good it works.

The game is rough, and I could go on and on about the problems, but there is one situation where I could recommend it, and that is "nostalgia dives" or whatever you want to call it. Meaning, if you are like me and enjoy playing random PS3 or 360 games from time to time, this one might be worth it simply because it's so damn short.

Solid puzzle game focused on relaxing vibes where you organize conveyor belts of donuts. It fits among games like Unpacking or A Little To The Left.

There are enough puzzles to last a good 8-ish hours, give or take. There were a few later puzzles I struggled with, but there is a logic to it, and once you learn how to deduct what goes where, you usually figure it out.

Most of the puzzles are easy though, I can count on one hand the puzzles I spent more than 15 minutes on, which generally I enjoy, as it means the game progresses fast and there are always new puzzles around the corner.

Prepare to button-mash 4 buttons at the same time while flying around in a circle.

Great tight sharp gameplay, fast and reactive, addicting and pure action-focused. It's so fast-paced and wild that it scratches a certain itch that a lot of games don't.

It encourages experimentation and bosses require different approaches and different weapons to conquer. I like the music, the look of the machines, and the cool massive backdrops of the levels. Let's hope it does well enough for From Software to make another one.