Probably the least emotionally impactful story out of the 3 Mafia games, but still a solid gangster game. It's not overly long, the shooting is good and the characters are fun. The only really negative thing I can say about it is that the driving mechanics are not great, with some of the cars handling like whales, and the gameplay does get repetitive in that GTA kinda way, but overall I had a good enough time with this one. I had never played the original before, but I'm glad I've finally gotten to experience the full Mafia trilogy.

An underrated gem. I honestly have never heard anybody say anything about this game, but I tried it because it's free with PS+, and I'm glad I did. It captures the irreverent spirit of the Guardians films, but the characters are more true to their comic book counterparts. Listening to the team banter between missions is as much fun as Dragon Age: Origins, and the story is actually really good. I was not expecting as much emotional pathos and chuckle-worthy wittiness. The cast they got is also great and delivers outstanding performances.
The only downsides I can think of is the combat gets repetitive and there are some nasty bugs. Nothing game-breaking, but some sequences did have my PS4 lagging a little too much. There's also a glitch with collectables that is very irritating, but I managed to work my way around that for the platinum.
Overall, I had an actual blast with this one. It's a great experience that I doubt we'll ever get again. It's not as standout amazing as Marvel's Spider-Man, but it's a definite sleeper hit. A lesser masterpiece.

A pretty good sci-fi horror experience. It's got tons of body and existential horror, with some genuinely disturbing imagery and ideas at play, and some actually terrifying sequences - mostly due to excellent sound design. I really enjoyed the investigative elements in the beginning and then the slow descent into madness that occurs over the course of the game.
The only downside is the forced stealth sections, which reminded me quite unfondly of the demon sequences from Murdered: Soul Suspect (for the five people who actually played and remember that game). I get that there has to be some kind of stakes, but those sections just felt very lazy and tacked on. Even the monster's visual cone is a lie as sometimes they spot you poking 1cm out of a corner and other times they can walk right past you without a care in the world.
Overall though, I had a good experience with this. It's a blend of different cyberpunk stories and ideas, but it was well executed. We got some Bladerunner, we got some Cyberpunk, it was a nice grab bag of references and technologies. I haven't played Layers of Fear, just because it looked like a pretty generic PT-inspired horror experience, but after going through this game, I might just have to check those out as well.

A fine prequel to The New Order.
It doesn't really add anything new to the combat or mechanics from that game, which is fine because the game plays great, but the story was definitely lacking in comparison. It's basically like a shot of Wolfenstein and if you liked the reboot, you'll probably enjoy this as well.
All it really did for me was make me want to replay The New Order, to be honest, but I've got the sequel I still need to get around to, so I'm probably gonna get on that soon. Mick Gordon fucking killed it with this and the Doom reboots, huh? Goddamn, the music is so good.

A decent enough horror experience. A sort of "spiritual successor" to Dead Space, you can really see some of the DNA from that franchise here, but unfortunately just not executed as well.

The story is pretty boilerplate, with bland characters and cliche plot threads. In the year of our Lord 2023, I didn't think we'd ever get another boring, shaved-head, gruff-voiced main character, plucked straight from 2008.
The combat is heavily melee-focused and meaty, but it does get old and repetitive quickly as there are about 5 or 6 enemy types in the entire game - most of which you don't even encounter that often.
The scares are also lacklustre and unimpactful, which is something you DON'T want in a horror game. There was never a single moment that gave me actual dread or made my heart race.

Overall though, I didn't hate the game by any means. It's just very lacklustre and I was kinda hoping for something more the entire time I was going through it. Thankfully, it's not too long, although it can feel padded out at times. It also looks very good, even on PS4, with some nice, claustrophobic area design.

I had an absolute blast with this one and glad I finally got to play it. I never owned a 360, so I never got the chance to, but best believe I have been itching to ever since Control's DLC. It was a joy to go through and experience this story.
The only bad thing I can say about the game is that the controls are clunky as hell, and some of the combat encounters are unnecessarily unfair and frustrating, but overall that didn't hurt my enjoyment of the game too much. I didn't do the Nightmare playthrough to get the last of the manuscript pages, but that might be something I'll look into in the future.

Super excited to get Alan Wake 2 as well. Probably won't get to play it on release, but I'm gonna be playing that for sure.

A surprisingly pretty fun little re-imagining/prequel to the O.G. Final Fantasy. The combat system is 100% the best part of the entire experience, with so many levels of customization made possible by a wide range of job classes, weapons and abilities. You can fine-tune so much of your experience that it's honestly a little overwhelming, but it's great fun to mess around with different builds and move-sets to find what works for you.

The game is very challenging, which is something you'll either love or hate. I personally put the difficulty down just to get through it a little easier because the one bad thing about the entire game is the story and characters. For the vast majority of the runtime, the characters are uninteresting and the story is boilerplate nonsense. It's only really the last handful of missions where the story becomes good and the characters start to shine through, and you get the whole picture of what the game was going for. It would have been much better if the story had been reworked a little bit more to make the overall experience more enjoyable because honestly, the combat solo carries until the very end of the game.

I also didn't complete the "Bahamut" trials or whatever, because I just have no interest in grinding for better equipment and replaying the entire game again. It already took me 30 hours to get through it once, so much like the endgame of Middle Earth: Shadows of War, I just left it.
Overall though, this was a good experience. It's not going to blow you away in any way, but it's a very solid action game akin to Nioh, and you get a nice payoff for seeing it through to the end if you're a fan of the Final Fantasy series. I honestly wouldn't mind a complete remake of FF I & II with this combat style, but just keeping to their original plot lines.