This is specifically about the "remaster"
Shocking quality, crash after crash and bad textures constantly, Loads after a death are quick but that cannot be said for loading basic floor textures, took a solid 5 minutes to load in the texture for the church exterior after the first predator room sequence.

I one hundred percented this game, yes this includes the challenges, but I found myself coming across riddler trophies that were straight invisible, broken, or just not accessible until I hard restarted the console SERIES X BTW or just randomly use the scan at the right angle.

Ok Rant over.

The story is still great, combat is fluid, albeit it can be a bit overwhelming with the removal of some gadgets from the previous title, so I kept getting confused.

I love the side quests in this, ok maybe not the Dead-Shot "Fight" if it can be considered that one.

But the rest of them seemed good!
Voice actors are stellar as per usual so props there.

DLC was ehh hit or miss, found some of the gadgets for Robin to be crap, and the fighting stages were all meh. Nightwing is cool though.

Shame I cannot give this a higher rating as the OG is incredible.

Origins next ;)

Around the beginning of the year, I looked back at my rating for Outer Wilds with a bit of hesitation. I may be more generous than many other reviewers with my 5/5's, but I still genuinely consider everything I give the perfect score to, a league above the rest, and as I looked at Outer Wilds, I couldn't conjure up as many concrete reasons, as I could with any of the others, to the point where I retroactively changed the rating to a 4. So I began to tackle the DLC, in hopes of remembering what blew me away about this game, in a previous life.
Outer Wilds is a game that I played alongside over 50 other's in the oft unfondly remembered year of 2020. During those months of quarantine, fewer and fewer hours at work, and dwindling social interaction, I took to clearing out my backlog at a rabid pace. It got to the point where I was playing multiple story heavy games in the same day. I begin to get addicted to watching the credits roll after beating a game, and so I just kept going, realistically past the point of burnout, but this was Covid era, I was experiencing burnout with everything. And then in October, after my declaration of a 52 game/One game a week pace for 2020, I played Outer Wilds. I was charmed by the world, the atmosphere, but I genuinely wasn't viewing the game for what it actually is. While I was playing Outer Wilds like an open world adventure game with cool sci fi flare, I was missing out on the layered puzzle at the core of it all. For whatever reason, I viewed the obtuse logic and note rewarding puzzles as obstructions to seeing the credits roll, so I willfully looked up walkthroughs, almost immediately when I'd hit an impasse. By the time I made it to the remarkable finale, I tried my best to feel proud of what I'd accomplished, but over time the victory began to feel hollow, and I desperately wished to wipe my memory of the game and start fresh.
Fast forward to 2023; Life went on, my game completion rate dwindled, but everything else began to improve. It wasn't until I sat down with a newly acquired PS Plus (Extra) subscription, and noticed a familiar space-traveling game, that I decided to give Outer Wilds another shot. It was genuinely like I was playing a new game, despite my previous knowledge undercutting some puzzles, I was still having a blast reading the history of the Nomai, figuring out their technologies and cities, and using immensely satisfying A->B->C logic chains to get a full picture of what I had seen 3 years ago. It was then that I remembered that I had purchased the games' acclaimed DLC soon after beating it, but I had simply never played it.
I had a miniature revelation moment, knowing that this was my chance to experience a chunk of the organic discovery process the base game offered, with completely fresh eyes. I made it my goal to avoid walkthroughs, unless I had tried out everything to the extent of my knowledge, I focused on deductions and exploration, and I ended up being genuinely blown away by what Echoes of the Eye has to offer.
This may be one of the best-in-class complete packages that I've ever seen for DLC of a game, it offers something completely fresh, while keeping the same satisfying design principles that the base game did.
As I type this review, I am about one hour removed from the completion of Echoes of the Eye, the tears have dried a while ago, but the impression that I'm getting, is that I finally understand not only what I felt in 2020, but what I missed, playing this game back then with guides. I hope everyone can find some sense of satisfaction with this weird, messy entertainment medium, because Echoes of the Eye definitely reminded me of what that feels like.

Didn't think I'd ever entertain the possibility that an expansion might be my favorite game of a year.

Similar to its predecessor, revealing even the slightest detail about what makes Echoes of the Eye special will rob you of experiencing its magic first-hand. Outer Wilds is reliant on what the player knows, and once our brains know something, it cannot unlearn it. Understanding how to "beat" the game can shrink this adventure from 13 hours to ten minutes.

But the purpose is the journey. It's not just about what you know, but how you learn it and the visual/aural feast that accompanies each moment. Every solution is organic and could happen naturally. You're not gated behind walls or scripted events. Rather than your knowledge being a hard-coded stat, the player needs to actually remember, learn, test, and theorize.

I'm really proud that I got through Echoes of the Eye without looking a single thing up, as I googled some stuff in the original Outer Wilds and I regret it. Only after playing the original Outer Wilds did I learn how to truly experience Outer Wilds, and I'm glad this expansion allowed me to utilize that knowledge in my quest for the truth.

To keep the experience intact, I won't say much else except that this is a great expansion and was easily my GOTY. Can't wait to see what Mobius Digital crafts next.

Outer Wilds is the only game I can think of where within its first moments, I knew I was in for something very, very special without really understanding why. The title screen is already so inviting, with its gentle acoustic glow fading in over a collage of shimmering stars. The game opens, I wake up on my back, looking up into the sky to see something explode in the distant orbit of a giant, green planet deep in space, and my imagination is immediately captured. I feel an intangible warmth as I speak to my fellow Hearthians and wander our village, a sense of wonder and anticipation as I walk through our peoples' museum, learning about things that I realize I will inevitably have to face or utilize in the adventures ahead. All this before even seeing my ship, let alone blasting off with it into the far reaches of space.

The expectations and tone of Outer Wilds are set up pitch perfectly in this opening. On the whole, the game captures the innate desire we all have to learn more, to reach out for what's next, even if we have no idea what it is we are searching for or why we seek it. It's the only thing Outer Wilds relies on to lead players forward. There are no objectives or goals, no waypoints to show you where to go next; there only those which you create for yourself. What drives us forward is the need to understand the world(s) around us, or at least attempt to understand. Is there a more human desire than that?

Outer Wilds is a masterpiece for its many balances: of warmth and intimacy with the melancholic loneliness of space; a constant sense of wonder with an equally constant fear of the unknown; its charming, colorful art style with its hard, scientific approach; its reverence for the teachings of both classical and quantum physics; its personal, micro-level character stories set against the fate of the universe. The list goes on. And that's without even mentioning the game's emotional linchpin: Andrew Prahlow's incredible score, a healthy mix of folk, ambient and post-rock that is a delicate tight-wire act in and of itself, managing to capture both the vastness of space and the intimate glow of a campfire without compromise.

Whatever feelings Outer Wilds brought out of me in its opening moments were only further heightened and more deeply understood as I began unraveling the mysteries of its clockwork solar system, spiraling faster and faster towards an ending that left me in awe of everything that came before it and soon yearning for other experiences that could fill the black hole that the game's sudden absence left in place of my heart. Outer Wilds is not only a perfect game, but also one of the medium's purest expressions of its most inspiring possibilities. If only I could breathe out a sigh of relief and wake up on Timber Hearth for the first time again.

its a humbling feeling to find a game that feels bigger than you

i dont even know where to start describing it. at its core, its a game about not understanding. the gameplay revolves around trying in vain to learn about your surroundings - to piece it all together and find a solution to a problem - only to die not because of a lack of trying, but because we just dont have the time.

the beauty of Outer Wilds lies right there. its galaxy is small, yet feels huge and only gets bigger the more you dig. by all means it should feel like a hopeless venture to continue exploring, but its too engaging not to. there is no end goal, and it makes no promises other than the fact you will die.

and the magic is that we did anyway. even if i didnt know what for, i kept exploring its planets to find its secrets. i felt giddiness meeting every character and hearing their stories. i pat myself on the back after solving puzzles once i asked the guy at the starting campfire how to.

Outer Wilds - despite playing as an alien - is a deeply human game. a journey about facing adversity through sheer willpower despite not having all the answers, and knowing youre not alone in that.

i cant do this game a service with my $5 speak and someone else could do a much better job, and thats ok. because like i said, this game - like its setting - is big. theres so much to talk about, yet its message is so precise. its mysteries are so complex, yet so simple in retrospect. games like these remind me how special this industry is, and what kind of art it can produce. Outer Wilds is a profound experience i likely wont forget for a very long time.

Valiant Hearts: Coming Home is a sequel to Valiant Hearts: The Great War developed for iOS and Android. The game is currently only available for Netflix subscribers.

Compared to the first game, this sequel is definitely a step back. It's not a bad game, but it's certainly not as powerful as its predecessor.

The story follows the events of Valiant Hearts: The Great War, but the big moments in this sequel are not as memorable as those in the previous game, which is quite disappointing. The most significant aspect of The Great War was its story and characters, and unfortunately, Coming Home fails to deliver the same impact. It feels more like a filler game.

The art is impeccable, with the same visuals we saw in The Great War. It's a positive aspect that the game maintains the animated cartoon style without any unnecessary changes.

Considering it's a mobile game, the gameplay is the best they could offer. It works well, but it would have been even better if it were developed for consoles or PC. The virtual joystick is acceptable.

It's disheartening that Ubisoft treated the sequel to Valiant Hearts: The Great War as a small project. The first game was widely regarded as a work of art. At the same time, we must thank Netflix for supporting this project because without their influence, this franchise would have been forgotten.

If you played the first game and you're a Netflix subscriber, I recommend playing Valiant Hearts: Coming Home. It's great to see these characters return, but don't expect to have the same experience as you did with the original game.