Loved this! Some great and weird sci-fi with some rather disturbing cosmic horror sprinkled in. The story is very engaging, and there's a marriage of narrative and gameplay that is rare to find. It's a simple game to play, it can get disorienting at times but I'm okay with it as it matches the setting. The puzzles are clearly reminiscent of what this team made in 'Stories Untold'. It's kind of an expansion on what that game brought to the table.

I'm now unbelievably excited for Silent Hill Townfall.

These are still some of my favorite games of all time, and this is the best way to play them right now. It’s not much more than a new coat of paint, they are pretty much the same games underneath, but they look nicer and feel more cohesive as a trilogy.

There’s the jankiness that comes with age, the rather dated design elements and the combat never was much more than serviceable. The characters, writing and worldbuilding are where this series’ strength lie. We do not often get original epic space operas that are as detailed, fascinating and actually great as this one. It’s a true pleasure to come back to this universe every now and then.

Possibly the first ever truly ‘Lynchian’ video game. It’s ‘Mulholland Drive’ the videogame. And I absolutely adore it for that reason.

This might be the most fascinating experience I’ve had with art this whole year. There are few games, even movies, on its level.

I don’t really want to talk about the story here. It’s best to experience it, engage with it fully, really discover it piece by piece. It’s shocking, it’s twisty, it’s scary, it’s moving, it’s a lot more than you think going into it.

Manon Gage, and specially Charlotta Mohlin are on another level. Performances like these are only rarely seen.
The way this is played is fascinating as well. Play with a controller, it’s extremely tactile.

I only wish there was an easier way to pick up the last missing clips after you roll credits, kinda like in ‘Her Story’. It´s not really necessary, I believe that by the point you reach the ending you’ll me more than satisfied, It’s just to make it simpler to complete the movies.

It’s hard not to think about this game in relation to 2018’s God of War. I only recently played it, and while I liked it well enough, I didn’t go crazy for it like others. I still believe it to be nuts that it won ‘Game of the Year’ over Red Dead Redemption 2.
This one I liked more. Here the story is more sprawling, the world is wider, the cast is bigger. 2018’s story is a smaller scale one, it’s great to have such a contained focus on just a couple of characters, but there the rest of the cast didn´t do much for me, and the stakes felt too low to be compelling most of the time. This one utilizes that set up to actually develop the characters into much more interesting ones, with well developed arcs and stories. It’s even harder to pick a standout character or performance, all are rather delightful in their own way, and divert enough from the preconceptions one might have about them, making them extremely compelling. There are also more standout sequences, set pieces and just memorable moments here. It’s a beautiful story.

I have some rather minor issues with it as well. This is brought over from 2018’s God of War, but I still do not buy Kratos as a husband someone would fall in love with. Here we see and interact with his late wife a couple of times, and the relationship never felt real to me. My other issue is with the pacing of certain sequences, which is killed, mostly near the end of the game, by the introduction of side content in awkward places. Yes, you can skip these and do them later, but if that was the developer’s intention, they should just introduce them either sooner or after the climax. I can’t complain about the side content though. Here there’s more than ever before, and it feels more interesting. There are large optional areas to explore, with some truly excellent side quests among them. Some of these areas feel a bit unwieldly at first but exploring fully is pretty much always rewarding in one way or the other. And I don’t think that the ‘one-shot’ gimmick is all that necessary here. They cheat enough where I just ended up believing that they are only using it because the previous game did.

I don’t want to go into detail regarding some of my favorite story beats, as it’s maybe better to go into it not really knowing all that much about it. It’s a truly spectacular, block-buster level, story.

In terms of gameplay, as with the previous game, combat is entertaining though not perfect. I still have issues with it, but here the options of engagement are expanded, and it feels more polished. I still do not like it enough to try and beat some of those extra post game bosses, but I like it more than before. Sadly, traversal still sucks ass. The new ‘grappling hook’ looks cool and feels dynamic, but climbing is such a chore still. And there’s a constant need for those crawling transitions that make going through areas again a real pain.

I still do not believe that these games need the gear and ‘rpg-lite’ systems that they feel necessary to include. I guess that it’s there because of modern AAA game design trends, but it’s the worst part of the game. So dull and uninspired, at least here you can just stick with a build and level it up so it’s viable all throughout the game. Looting is fun, but you can make it so the resources you pick up while playing are directly used to upgrade weapons and stats, if necessary to have them instead of just leveling up more linearly, instead of this whole confusion of gear and upgrades that is there. I understand that it gives freedom to players to adjust their playstyle to their liking and add some more versatility to the combat system, I just do not enjoy it enough to actually engage properly with this element of the game.

I played this on a base PS4 and it’s a technically flawless game. Smooth constant 30 fps, and it looks just as good as the 2018 God of War looked when I played it on my PC at fairly high settings. I have tried some of the Greek God of War games along the years, but never got hooked enough on their gameplay to stick with them all through the end. I believe it says plenty of the quality here that I played these two Norse ones back-to-back. And paid full price for it. If you are looking for a truly spectacular, state of the art, triple A, action-adventure videogame, and are even mildly interested in Norse mythology look no further. Just play this thing.

Excellent horror game. Very inventive, constantly switches mechanics and feels fresh, all while maintaining a truly unsettling mood. It´s short, which works great, it really knows how to use the time it has. One of the very few games to actually scare me and get under my skin. Terrific vibes as well, the score is a certified banger, and the art design succeeds in making everything a delight to look at and interact with.

My only issue with it is that some of the puzzles can feel a bit obtuse, and the prompts that are required from the player should feel a bit more loose. Maybe I´m just dumb.

The approach to story and gameplay makes me very excited for whatever this people are cooking up in the Silent Hill franchise. Feels like a match made in heaven.

It's not exactly the expansive GTA-like sandbox RPG that was marketed as, but it's a pretty great game nonetheless.

It's clearly using the same blueprint as The Witcher 3. Very similar games both in design and structure. Combat is simple, nothing special, fun but can get old after a while. Systems such as crafting and netrunning feel underused and unnecessary, maybe in higher difficulties this changes like in The Witcher. Character customisation isn't it's main strength, it never really felt like I was playing as a unique character through my choices, it's very much a predetermined character with some minor characteristics you can change depending on how you like to play, once again, kinda like The Witcher. Having clothing and fashion directly tied to armour values is a pretty big miss, a transmog system would go a long way in making the main character feel more of one's own.

The world, the setting, the writing, characters both main and secondary and the strength of the mission structure are the reasons why I would highly recommend playing this game.
The art design of Night City is unparalleled, no other game let's you explore a city like this one. It's really fun to drive around and just absorb the environment. It's sadly not as lively and active nor as interactible as a Rockstar-made city, but it fully scratches the Cyberpunk environment itch.

The "NCPD Hustles" as they're called are just small activities you can find all over the map, rather simple and quick to complete, I never really got bored by these as I did rather quickly with the ones in The Witcher 3. Side Jobs offer a more compelling case for going around the map and clearing the checks off the list. Very fun, very varied, lots of colorful characters and situations. Main Side Jobs and Main Jobs are the meat of the game and you are missing all of the best moments and interactions if you're not experiencing them fully. Really well written and acted characters abound, plenty of standouts. Keanu Reeves is really well utilised as Silverhand, not a crappy celeb cameo, he's basically the co-protagonist and is great at it.

I really enjoyed the game. It runs great now, I've encountered more issues in games that have had no bad press around them, I played it at launch even and thought the reaction to the release was way overblown. It didn't really need many updates to "fix" the game itself as it was never exactly going for what it was expected to be, but some new quality of life additions were solid. It's a pity that the whole release fiasco screwed up the game's image, because I ended up appreciating it more than The Witcher 3 by the end and I'm pretty sure that it could have end up being similarly regarded by the general public. (The Witcher 3 isn't all that great chill out). I'm curious about those rumoured expansions, I would like to see more stuff made in this world.

If the aesthetics interest you, there's no other one quite like it.

Extremely surprised by this game, enough to make me want to write a recommendation. Very fun and chill, pretty much a perfect linear single player action adventure game. Lots of humor, great music and writing. Way better than 99.99% of MCU movies, and much more memorable than any of them. If you even slightly feel you might enjoy it, just buy it, you wont regret it. I hope this one sells well and publishers take notice, this and Jedi: Fallen Order make me hopeful for a true return to form in big franchise driven AAA games. Good job Eidos and Square!

(Including "Whistleblower" DLC)

Found footage horror shlock B-Movie simulator, and a pretty good one at that. Fun and genuinely scary, great classic "horror" soundtrack. Doesn't overstay it´s welcome, and the DLC is worth it too. Serviceable and creepy story, great gore and setpieces. Gameplay is rather basic, mostly a walking sim, but it works here perfectly. Pretty much one of the best indie horror games you can find, and for dirt cheap when on sale.

It was extremely popular when it came out, so if you are interested in these type of games you know its a must play.

I pretty much suck at stealth games, and that´s why Dishonored is so great. The player has enough tools and possible routes to complete their objective so as to encourage any playstyle and experimentation one could want. Do you want to never be seen? A complete pacifist? Did you get caught? Well, here is a bunch of ways you could fix the situation. Do you want to just rush through the level or explore every nook and cranny there is? What if you just want to straight up massacre the whole population? You can do that too, and the game allows you to build up your character to be able to do just that.

Add a compelling story with some twists and turns, and a completely new and fascinating world to explore, and you have a must play.

It´s hard not to compare this to the first game after having finished them back to back. As a sequel it changes some stuff, some successfully, most of them unsuccessfully. It isn´t as polished (if even possible), iconic, memorable, unique, nor as good or as enjoyable as its predecessor. I even would say that it doesn´t feel as fair. But it still manages to scratch that "Dark Souls" itch that I was feeling after finishing the first game. It successfully maintains the obstacles that feel good to jump over and make you want to keep going, the same "addictiveness" that I experienced while playing the original, which in my book it makes it worth playing.

By now I have completed a bunch of FromSoft games and this one has been the hardest one yet. I´m sure that plenty of people will find this one easier than some others in their catalogue, but my reflexes suck ass, and this one´s gameplay is very much about correctly interpreting and reacting to what´s happening. But what I believe to be this game´s greatest strength is that (just like pretty much every other FromSoft game I´ve played) it manages to make the tough learning process extremely fun and addictive. Yes, you are constantly hitting your head against the wall, but you want to do it again and again non stop, and at the same time you start realizing that you were actually learning all this time. Next go you do it a little better, you reach a little further, you are almost there and once you´ve climbed over that wall it´s truly the best I´ve felt while gaming yet.

And all of these statements are true with any FromSoft game, but this one felt a little bit better when completing than the others. Here there´s no real overleveling nor summoning help, the way to get through is just to learn, to "git gud", and once you´ve beaten it it just means you have truly learned.

The combat is really smooth, it really feels great to play, an outstanding transition from the studio into a format of gameplay that´s different enough to what came before so as to feel pretty much brand new. The verticality provided by the jump and grappling hook mechanics bring a lot to the table in terms of exploration and level design. Stealth and it´s incentives are really fun when taken advantage of by the designers as well.

Buy it, play it, try it out. Great stuff.

As a final note, there´s an optional boss that took me like 6 hours to beat, just want to leave a special Fuck You to that guy.

Really good game. I dont have much more to say or anything necessarily new to add that I haven´t written before in the reviews of the previous two Dark Souls games. And that´s good and bad at the same time. It mantains the best elements of the series and it does it better than Dark Souls 2, it still holds up graphically with some great visual design (though the overall theme of the game is very gray, which can make certain areas look and feel quite bland), it streamlines some gameplay elements, it brings back the "circular" or shortcut-based level design from the first one and it manages to freshen up the combat by making it a little bit faster, which after having finished both Bloodborne and Sekiro is a very welcome change. I don´t tend to play with magic in these games, but i hear that the new FP based system is very well liked, and i´ve seen that they kept it in Elden Ring as well so i´ll assume that it´s a positive change too.

Honestly the negatives I see in this are few and very personal. Maybe it´s because I have finished 5 From Soft games in 4 months, each one of them for the first time (they are rather addicting what can I say) and at this point this one didn´t offer a memorable experience as much as i wanted to. I´ve just beaten it and I have a hard time remembering the areas and levels, yes some bossess are memorable and fun to fight, but maybe I have finally gotten good because I can only recall one that presented me with a real challenge. The story is even more nonexistant than in previous games. I mean, i get that is all built by lore through hidden texts and stuff like that, i like that, but i also like to understand the objective. And NPCs are pretty much impossible to find and follow their questlines without a guide, which i get that it´s a series staple as well, but whereas in previous games I could interact with them even without doing their quests and they would show up every so often as you progressed through the levels, here they basically just disappear with no explanation. The levels still have their shitty moments, plenty of locations, enemies, bosses and characters are just retreads of what we´ve already seen. But thematically it is a fitting conclusion to the trilogy which i´m thanful for. I hope they put Dark Souls to rest for good and keep experimenting with this formula in other ways as they´ve shown that they can do so well.

Overall as I stated before, I really like this game and I really like this franchise, it offers something that no other franchise offers, I still find it tremendously fun and addicting, and I hope more people get to enjoy them as well. I can see this one being someones first From Soft game because it´s more modern feeling, polished and less clunky/janky than the previous entries in the franchise, and graphics look good, people seem to like that. And that seems like a good choice honestly, yeah the older games might seem worse and harder to play, but whichever game gets you through the door i´m sure you´ll end up just as hooked as me. Just buy it and play it, it´s worth every cent. I´m a dumbass and paid like 40 bucks to get the Deluxe version with the DLCs and i don´t regret it. It took me 50 hours to beat, no need to wait for a sale, it´s still a bargain at full price.

It´s a pity about the online though. As i understand it the servers will be back up soon, but still, if you are very into the PvP or Coop scene maybe it is worth to wait. I personally don´t engage in the multiplayer element of these games so i don´t really care about that. The only From Soft game i´ve played with an online connection was Bloodborne, and the messages are rather annoying, and i only tried summoning a player for help once which was fun while it lasted but a true pain in the ass to set up, so I don´t think you are missing much by playing offline.