I loved the atmosphere and the obvious homage to old survival horror games, however Signalis felt to me like little more than a hollow impersonation of the classics... A black bean burger posing as the real deal. While containing similar component parts, Signalis simply lacked that secret sauce that made games like Resident Evil and Silent Hill great. This genuinely upset me as I really wanted to like it but the minute to minute gameplay just didn't hold my interest enough to care about the plot and pretty much every encounter can be easily avoided so most of the tension disappears a little over an hour into the game.

I'm not usually into the base building survival genre but wow what an experience this game was. All of the different biomes had a unique feel and tone to them and as you get deeper things take a turn for the horrific.

I'm not sure whether it was the the darkness, the fear of the unknown, the freakish noises of alien fish in the distance, or the sheer depth and the knowledge that if your seamoth were to get lost or destroyed you would be totally screwed with no chance of swimming to the surface before your untimely death that freaked me out the most. This game did something that no horror game has done to me and that is fill me with dread. It wasn't just being scared, or making me jump (though it did manage this a few times) but that existential dread that rarely is successfully touched on. The only thing that comes close to this feeling that I can think of is Outer Wilds and some HP Lovecraft stories. And for reference this is coming from a person who has scuba dived a few times and really enjoyed it.

I would recommend this game strongly for anyone looking for a fresh, unique, and at times terrifying experience. Had to subtract a half star for all the visual pop in that can be emersion breaking at times but other than that it was an excellent game.

After stumbling a bit with the disappointing RE3 Remake Capcom finds it's footing again and reaches, or even possibly surpasses, the heights of the excellent remake of RE2. This new version Resident Evil 4 is about as close to a perfect remake as you can get. By meticulously capturing everything that made the original special yet updating it for modern eyes and adding a few new features that make the gameplay more engaging Capcom made one of, if not the, greatest remake to date. The only reason this isn't 5 stars for me is because it's a remake, and just on principle I feel that I can't give a remake 5 stars.

One of the best stories ever told in a video game. The relationship that forms between Ellie and Joel is simply magical and is made great by expert writing and top notch voice acting. People in this world are just fighting to survive, jaded and broken by the brutal unforgiving environment that they now inhabit. This bleak backdrop sets the stage for some genuine human moments that will warm your heart or make you ugly cry. Some people might be turned off by the gameplay that you could argue didn't age that well, but in my opinion it is perfectly fine, and ultimately that gameplay is just a vehicle to drive the plot and develop the characters. To this day the opening sequence still breaks me every time I play it even though I've played it a number of times and just might be the best prologue to a video game ever.

Whoever it was at Playground games that responded when asked what they can do to improve on the success of Forza Horizon 4 with "more cutscenes of clay faced dweebs saying how cool you are and a non-skippable phone call packed with cringey dialogue after literally every race" should be forced into a piñata and have the life beaten out of them by children with baseball bats. The graphics are marginally better, the collection of cars is marginally more expansive, the map is new and interesting, but ultimately it feels identical to the previous game except for one major difference. In Horizon 4, the focus was rightly set on the racing, whereas in this game there is this weird focus on Mexican culture that just feels so out of place in a racing game. I get it, we are in Mexico, but I don't care about the little parades, or the jade statues, or Aztek ruins I just want to race... Leave me alone. And I literally laughed out loud during the character creation section with all the inclusive junk like being able to have prosthetic limbs and hearing aids for some reason... There's nothing inherently wrong here, but was it really worth it in a game where you spend most of your time sitting in a car and when you do see your character in a cutscene he is usually saying something so cringey it makes you want to cut off any remaining limbs he has and beat him to death with them? I mean honestly there are roughly 8-10 male hair styles yet literally over 100 different types of hearing aid, like wtf were they thinking? This and the over the top celebration of Mexican culture just screams of white people at their worst and most pandering... And it honestly put a sour taste in my mouth regarding this game. Though the racing, as usual, is quite good.

Some of the best sword fighting combat you'll find only bested by Sekiro: shadows die twice in my opinion. Story starts out quite compelling but begins to run out of steam during the final third of the game. However there is plenty of side missions and points of interest to keep you busy if you are in to that sort of thing. I usually am not, but this game is just so fun to play and beautiful that it held my interest until the end. However ,when I completed the story I didn't stick around to finish all the filler content.