It’s pretty incredible to see how rockin’ this main quest line is. For how tired and generic Zero Dawn felt, this truly exceeded my expectations of what would happen with the sequel. Each main quest felt like an episode of a television show, episodic in nature and getting to the core of an idea over the course of that hour of quest.

No main quest was truly alike, we had multiple antagonists, warring factions, competing ideas and a whole host of fresh concepts to recontectualize the first game’s lore. Characters felt more varied and human. Returning characters had motivations and ties to the narrative that didn’t just feel wedged in.

Part of me wondered if the death of Lance Reddick shook up the narrative of this game and led to why it stood out so much. As much as I don’t like the idea of selling RPG’s as a continued narrative, I can’t help but feel like this game has so much more function to it than its predecessor.

The pounding music, the beautiful scenery, varied side quests and additional trinkets — there’s so much to explore if this game is your jam and you want more. As someone who didn’t like the bow mechanics and gameplay of the franchise everything surrounding that was just so much juicer.

I didn’t have to do the cauldrons! I didn’t have to grind for hours! The skill tree didn’t really have any perks I wanted, so I got to ignore it as well. I felt free to just get to what I wanted in the game and it would supply it for me. While side-quests weren’t always my jam, I found myself stopping off for them sometimes just to see how it would affect a character or give additional context that would color my view of them.

Learning about new characters and revisiting legacy characters felt heart warming, letting me dig into conversation with them as much as I wanted. If I wanted to know every single thought a main character had about the current narrative moment, I could swing by the Core and ask them! I could walk into a tavern and sit down and just listen to the individual bar themes!

I could participate in the clunky melee combat with the melee pits that broke for me. Or like get stuck on the geometry of mountains. Sometimes I had to fight against the generated climbing structures as Aloy would clip through the ground or animations would slip through structures.

Multiple times I stumbled into out of bounds areas and slipped through the ground but I still have so many good things to say. Absolutely a step in the right direction for RPGs, I really just want to see more ideas at this point and maybe the DLC will provide that.

Cyberpunk unfortunately does not hit the whammy bar enough.

Right now, we’re in a moment of abundance when it comes to open-world RPGs and it feels like our levels of general tolerance for the genre has crashed into the ground.

Outside of viewing this game from the extensive promises over the past decade before release, this is a game that just doesn’t live up to its potential, let alone to the TTRPG’s source material, as weird as it may be.

This is a fairly barren world. The gigs are fairly monotonous and do not feel as inspired as a science fiction world like 2077 should be able to be. The norm for RPG has become an acceptance of fetch quests and lackluster dialogue that really doesn’t push the character relationships forward.

Companions feel one-note and aside from a few standout moments, don’t have the depth for tackling queer relationships or even having conversations with the player.

On top of that, I never felt like I was truly in a ‘role’ playing game. Playing V rarely led to unique situations or even creative ways to build out the character in my mind. At one point or another, I hit a wall — the skill tree wasn’t equipped for my aspirational gameplay: the silent assassin who shuts down and eliminates her targets with hacking in a blink of the eye. Nor did lifepaths and skill proficiency truly affect dialogue or quest lines. With combat, CONTAGION was my best friend and even with every sort of hacking skill in 1.0 & again in 2.0, I couldn’t fully capture that character I had in mind.

This isn’t to say CDPR’s previous forays are bad! They are a great place to observe success from. In my opinion, Witcher 3 didn’t really have good gameplay — it was kind of clunky, frustrating and easy to die on harder difficulties. But what it lacked there, it made up with in emotionally complex characters, impeccably smart and diverse side quests and a whole sea of interesting places to dive into. I was Geralt. I was Ciri.

Here? It feels like V is a side piece in her own game. And yet, even with that being the case, no character truly gets a wondrous moment to take the stage. Quests come across as weak and thrown together while our characters feel disillusioned to the world they’re in.

Give me a story where V has to do a job for the Trauma Team, force me to choose to resuscitate someone I have direct orders not to save and force my hand a little more. Science fiction is so nested in anger and fear about this dark future portrayed here and yet very few of the moments in the game seem to capture that.

The whole religious prisoner side story is a great example of using the space properly. There’s a full concept and execution that feels at home in 2077.

And yet even the main story kind of felt like it was still grinding its gears. Not every moment needs to be action packed, but give me some compelling dialogue. Give me tension in relationships, illusion of player choice, something to make it feel like the story is actually playing out. Stakes should be able to be present even in dialogue! A rising and falling action does not have to be through shooting and macho macho stuff, but also through arguments, tiffs and the back in forth of melancholic life.

Night City is a space for so many unique stories and yet, all we get are some big explosions and some boobs here and there? Like hello?

Heck it’s a true crime that the Silverhand endings (no spoilers) don’t use the Samurai music during the boss fight. The one thing we’ve come to associate him with, and it doesn’t even follow him into the climax of the story. The game we get here feels sullen, dead on arrival and rushed out the door. Even after multiple years of updates, the base game feels so underwhelming.

I don’t want to leave the game lying on the ripperdoc’s table like this. I don’t like the idea of feeling cheated out of a good sci-fi game and yet, I feel like I am. I went into this hoping the game would make a statement only to find Cyberpunk didn’t know what it wanted to be.

If I had the time, I’d really want to mod in my own gigs or something, rewrite some of the dialogue and try to expand on my issues with the game currently.

As always, you don’t have to agree with me!! Stories are highly personal experiences and I’m always curious to know what others thought. Plus, it’s always possible my opinion could change on a replay in a couple years. Here hoping?

I'm still shocked after all these years this is the first time I played the DLC. It was a wonderful addition to the main game that felt more like cut content than anything else.

Seeing Ellie & Riley in this light is literally everything I need right now; I wish there was more. 😭😭😭

I guess I should replay Last of Us Part II now? If only I had the time LOL

It was a game that felt like I had to fight for control. It's a smart idea but a frustrating game in my hands. I don't think it is the game for me, but it is worth looking at.

The art style is aesthetically wonderful, and I think I was just hoping for a little more from the maps. Kara's narrative feels slightly sidelined and thrown in versus the main gameplay mechanics.

It's definitely a game that will find its niche with people who grew up with the Tony Hawk games or are looking for something like that.

It's a story that needs no introduction. It just felt right to replay it once more. I meant to replay it before the TV show, and well --- that totally didn't happen.

A great game stays a great game; it's just unfortunate how poorly optimized it was (and still is) a year after release—Left Behind felt like my computer was hauling a snow plow along as it tried to render everything there.

I also found that I preferred the controller to the keyboard and mouse just due to the interactivity of everything here. It wouldn't be a Playstation game without all the vibrations and gimmicky PS controller stuff.

But what stood out to me most is probably my appreciation for the craft and creation of this game. It's weird being able to meet people in the industry right now and start to put faces to the names in these credits. There's something so human about all the work that goes into these games that seems to touch me more every time I replay it.

As someone hopefully soon entering that world, it's sort of magical to see how all the pieces fit together, how everyone works on a common goal at the end of the day. But that isn't possible if people are stomped on. This year has been a magnificent year for game releases but not for the developers behind it.

Crunch & mass firings are a massive deal still, something we're seeing time and time again with each and every studio. It's an industry that's in such dire straights physically when the people at the top are profiting off the backs of everyone else.

Back on track: at the end of the day, you cannot go wrong with any version of the Last of Us. Original 2013, Remastered or this are all going to be a good time. Go out, play the Last of Us and uhhh I don't know, donate to my nonexistent OnlyFans or something??????

It is surreal how solid this is as a movement game. Effortlessly easy to control where at one point I just thought something and was able to articulate it with inputs with ease.

Although there’s not any in-game maps, the areas do have their own themes and different symbols around the area to let you know what a loading zone will lead to. The art direction is good for navigation if you’re looking for it.

Game feels authentically nested in time, with a gorgeous soundtrack and a look that feels like a true PSX era game.

Perfect sized game for the content that’s here, over and done with in four or five hours. I would love to see this move set in a larger game, but here it works like a charm.

It’s also important to note there are multiple developers on this project! It wasn’t all made by one person, go support the whole Pseudoregalia team!

Excellent gameplay that reminds me of what I love about the Metroidvania genre. The only thing missing is more.

Given what is here though, any longer (under the gato roboto game) would've felt too bloated. The choice to have the game end where it does is great for this game and my only hope is to see more from this team.

Maybe also more diversity in boss fights? I just want more challenges like the underwater fight.

After three years, I finally returned to this game to finish it.

First on the notes: the ending works as a solo narrative. Viewing as part of the DR story at large? Not really.

A specific film did a very similar thing with its franchise's fourth entry. Contextually, I think it worked a lot better there (and I did quite enjoy it), but for spoiler sake I won't name the film directly.

Other than that, it is a fairly good DR game. The first couple trials are pretty creative and feel fresh in a series of killing games.

I never felt like it was directly retreading any cases, but instead was a breath of fresh air, especially with Trial 3.

Past that? What else could you want from a Danganronpa? It's almost all here, with my only wish being that the cast could've been a little more well-rounded and it deserved more foreshadowing.

Good game, but don't get your hopes up on the ending and you'll probably enjoy it.

It always felt one step away from perfect.

It was lovely to see a more colorful game from Carlsen and to show that the ex-Playdead developer still has the magic in him.

In my experience, a good puzzle game should always feel like it was too short rather than too long. Cocoon succeeds in this idea by making me wish there were more ideas and more puzzles by the end of the game.

Put nearly forty hours in, in a span of a week before my roommate yoinked it away from me and took it home for the summer for the next month. I have to wait… and it’s all her fault. I WILL get more feral day by day.

I will grab Rauru by his grubby little dead ears and drag him back to my home if that’s what it takes. This is what I get for splitting the cost with my roommate and it shall only make me stronger.

Will update with a real review once I can finish the game. Finished two of the ancients and did a bunch of stuff, so I think I’m pretty close?

Coming off the high of snorting Across the Spiderverse like an art block cocaine, I had to ride the high by picking up and playing the OTHER Miles Morales story.

Like with the first game, you’re not really here for the story, but the exceptional web slinging. And it delivers. The idea to make this a separate game instead of DLC was so clever, as a way to get new players and all.

Miles Morales delivers what made the first game so great and more.

And yet, I cannot stop thinking about how much story means to me in any single player game. Insomniac’s storytelling has never really jived with me and while I like individual aspects of this story (like even the fact that a Spider-Man knows ASL) I couldn’t grasp on by a whole.

These were similar problems I had with the story of the first game and if I had to choose, I think this streamlines the game as opposed to its predecessor and tends to be a better game.

I just wish we could have more complex stories with these characters especially considering the themes of morality and family that seem to follow Miles. I just want to feel bad for the villain. I want a twist I didn’t see coming. A side quest where you just walk and talk with an admiring fan.

Give me more of the down to earth friendly neighborhood part of Spider-Man. I just want to have a superhero game that reaches emotional highs and lows rather than playing it safe.

Don’t let my score scare you! It’s an amazing time — and even fairly short if that’s what you’re looking for.

A really creative Ludum Dare entry. Stumbled upon a video about it and had to check it out.

It may be very simplistic, but I love the ways of thinking outside the box that this promotes.

Meta-solutions can be really fun when done right and I think this begins to find the thin line between too much and too little.

Babbdi definitely feels like a game that'll influence developers more than players. Everything about it feels so buttery smooth in only the best way.

Fundamentally, this free game has so many ideas for the parkour genre that I would love to see in a longer experience.

Babbdi is a must-play even if I don't think I can rate it.

Enjoy your time in the city. :)

Signalis found a part of me I didn't think I had.

It may not be revolutionary as far as some people are concerned, but it sure is the closest thing we've had to an excellent survival horror game in recent memory.

So much of this game works because of Signalis' eerie atmosphere and in media res-type storytelling. We know as much as ELSTER going into this adventure, and that's precisely all we need to start to piece it together. The game can blatantly show us spoilers, and we won't even know it yet.

On that same note, the same scene can serve multiple purposes throughout revisiting these core memories. A one-off conversation with a Replika can have so many more implications than expected. (I'm looking at you, KLBR unit.)

This theme is mirrored in its themes too. Classical music references and great paintings add more meaning to the scenes, and mathematical and scientific names peel back more of the onion.

It's just beautiful.

ELSTER's experience mirrors us, the player, when the experiences are balanced on replayability and how much the game is willing to tip its plot-dense hand. There's a lot to dive into here, in only the best way.

We may not know what we're looking at initially, but it shall become clear.


The gameplay provides another layer to this cake. The fusion of an orthographic take on the survival horror genre plus the fascinating first-person segments creates an increasingly promising premise that I never knew I wanted.

From the first moments I was stunned, it just felt so right that I wondered why I hadn't seen it before. We need more orthographic horror.

There's also so much here that's a tribute to its predecessors: It can feel like an old-school Silent Hill or Resident Evil without the feeling of "car" or "tank" controls. That is truly beautiful.

At the same time, the inspirations run deep as the game paints a presentation of true psychological torment and emotional duress that is all too rarely presented these days.

It's always a challenge to juggle gameplay regarding inventory management. You have to walk a fine line to make a player genuinely fear while not overly frustrating or letting them slip by with guns galore. Sadly, I couldn't find that fine line for my experience, but I was so engulfed and enamored with everything else I hardly noticed until my second playthrough.

In retrospect, the boss fights were reasonably straightforward, but at the moment I didn't know that. I was so deep into the game's lore I feared I didn't have enough to survive.

Signalis also returns to the classic puzzle system of Resident Evils of yesteryear in only the best ways. Each puzzle feels directly lifted from one of those games while never feeling too out of place.

I never felt like a puzzle was unsolvable, and with enough retracing of my steps, I'd be able to figure out what I did wrong. It never felt like it was me against the game; instead, the levels revealed what I needed as I needed it.

There's only so much I can say without divulging spoilers. What I do know for almost sure: this will probably be my game of the year. It's that well done.

No matter what, I eagerly await whatever rose-engine does next, even if it takes another eight years. Bravo.



I also apparently forgot to mention how it is wonderful to see a sapphic horror game. Power to the player, we love to see it.

There's something to be said about a small game that tries to do one or two things really well.

I wish that was how I felt about Alba. The ambience and sound work is wonderful, hearing the birds all around, the leaves in the breeze and the faint music is all wonderful, the gameplay just couldn't hold a candle to that.

Alba is very simplistic in nature and between it's fairly underwhelming intro and extensive hand-holding, my excitement to explore the island lessened. I was incredibly excited to run around the island initially -- only to find out portions of it would be blocked off for the first couple days, or a quest wouldn't be doable until later. I felt the sense of exploration being taken from me as I wanted to search and explore.

At it's core, taking photos of animals can be a wildly fun expedition, there just wasn't enough to do. It wasn't like I was on a safari and snapping photos for points like Pokemon Snap -- and I wasn't able to parkour or use any fancy movement to get to more areas and explore like A Short Hike or even something tranquil like Outer Wilds but instead found myself locked down for most of the time.

When I did set off, I had already found a lot of what was interesting about the island and was going from point A to B for each quest before returning for another day of questing. There wasn't anything driving my sense of adventure once I knew how the game would play out. Heck, the photos I took for the story wouldn't matter since it'd just show a pre-rendered photo instead.

During the opening cutscene I tried to jokingly take a photo of my abuelo without my abuela to see what'd happen, instead of using my photo or telling me I did it wrong, it displayed the right photo and progressed the story. Never did I get the opportunity to revisit my photos or even see them during the credits, they were just lost to time.

And at the end of 100% completing the few things that were left, what was I rewarded with for my wildlife adventure? A badge. An unviewable badge. It didn't show up on my notebook or anywhere on my game.

I wish the best for all y'all who liked this game. Hopefully one day I'll find that perfect exploration game for me. Until that day, I guess I need to go back to the list of games I need to finish.