It's a solid city builder game that can be quite difficult if you're not careful early on. The gameplay loop is satisfying as you actually get to see your little community grow and prosper in a very natural way. There's not a whole lot to do in the game so once you start snowballing, you're pretty much done. The population growth is very organic and nicely simulated as every citizen actually has to be born and grow up before they can be put to work. This can however make the game really tedious if you have a huge death wave early on, because then you just have to sit idly by for a long time as your population bounces back to normal again. Overall it's a good city builder game if you're looking for more of a challenge, but it lacks replayability in my opinion since there isn't a whole lot of different things to do. So every playthrough is probably going to be more or less the same in the end. Maybe I'll play it again in the future some time, who knows. All I know right now is that I'm done with the game and I'm satisfied with what it had to offer, even if it wasn't that much.

Is it too late to change my game of the year?

I won’t be the first person to compare the two, but I find that the experience my time with Alan Wake II mirrors most closely is, of course, my time watching Twin Peaks: The Return. I know they’re apples and oranges, as Alan Wake II being a mixed-medium survival horror detective videogame makes it a different beast altogether, but the way I experienced both was similar: I had a good ol’ blissful, sacrosanct binge which commanded my full attention and which I could not stop thinking about.

I went into both armed only with my knowledge of the previous entries and the works of their creators… and that musical number at the game awards.

In short, Alan Wake II is operating on such unprecedented levels of Conmancore that I feel overwhelmed. I’ll have more specific and properly composed thoughts on the adventures of Owlan Wake and Saga Andeerson once I eventually play through The Final Draft.

Yes I was trying to figure out how to shoehorn in that symbolic pun but kinda gave up.

Despite Insomniac using all their technology to make Peter Parker’s face more punchable than ever, Spider-Man 2 still ranks alongside the movie Spider-Man 2 and its tie-in game Spider-Man 2 as one of the most enjoyable pieces of Spider-Man 2 media, improving on the already solid gameplay of its predecessor.

The web slinging is essentially that of the said 2004 tie-in game (if it ain’t broke…etc) but has never felt better on these buzzing haptic controllers - you can feel the weight of each swing. And as if that wasn’t good enough, the game introduces ‘web wings’ that add even more speed and satisfaction to soaring around the massive city. New York has never looked better: the streets and squares feel like they’re bustling with life, highlighted by some neat little photo missions - otherwise it’s easy to miss it all when you’re zooming over rooftops.

I enjoyed the collectibles and side-quests, and even just swinging about aimlessly, so much so that I put off main story missions until they were the last thing to do. In terms of the main campaign, I wasn’t completely averse to playing the novelty MJ or Hailey segments, but the more mundane walking/talking segments could be a bit of a slog, they seemed to exist simply to pace out the build-up to the next actual exciting thing. The boss battles generally had some great set-pieces - lots of trippy Spider-verse-jumping in and out of people’s minds and dimensions like Psychonauts or something - but repetitive in terms of the combat. Despite the variety in combat between the two web-slingers, the boss fights are usually dragged out with health bars replenishing for no reason beyond mere padding.

The story is good fun, has a couple of good dark twists and fun surprises, and while it’s Peter Parker focused, there’s some great moments for Miles too. Kraven is a terrific villain, although somewhat played down a bit for the (SPOILERS) doomy Venom stuff towards the end.

It’s pretty much the first game(s) but bigger, but, even with it’s flaws, Spider-Man 2 is not only the best Spider-Man for the console but probably an essential PS5 game to own, even if just to fall back on for some casual swinging between other, more demanding games.

After coming away from Resident Evil (2002) with the firm belief that the ink ribbon save economy is a genius-tier game mechanic, I couldn't resist starting my first playthrough of Resident Evil 2 (2019) as Claire in hardcore mode. Having done so, I can say with confidence: I was absolutely correct. The mechanical soul of these games is in the risk/reward calculus of limited resources and carefully planned runs. When you're running on the long end of a save and you choose to push a little further, that's the truest terror. When you first set foot in a new room with unknown horrors and everything to lose, that's when the zombies start to feel real.

Even aside from the impeccable mechanics, the vibe of this game is excellent. I lost track of how many times I legitimately jumped at a scare, or started shouting "OH NO OH FUCK" when a zombie came at me unexpectedly. Mr. X is a particularly inspired design element, destroying what scant comfort you can take in routes you thought were safe and violating the sanctity of the central atrium (the first time this happened I fully screamed). Claire is charming and Leon's stupidity plays perfectly into Ada's no-nonsense demeanor.

When I first started playing, a friend told me this was her favorite of all the RE games and remakes. I was skeptical: Resident Evil (2002) has a degree of mechanical purity that seemed impossible to match. But now I think I kind of agree: Hardcore mode brings the same mechanical genius (although part of me misses the compositional artistry of fixed camera and tank controls), while the rest of the game delivers excitement and frights well beyond what I got from the first game. This one is really magnificent.

i'm not oblivious to the irony of my feelings about this trash. when i was in my teens, magazines like egm and gamefan loved to report on joseph lieberman's campaign against violence in video games. he and his fellow senators didn't really get it, and even as kids we knew better. better than them, better for ourselves. mortal kombat was and always has been looney tunes, but these crusty old politicians took it seriously - at least enough to raise funds from clueless conservative parents. this whole era tilled the soil from which gamergate would sprout a couple of decades later. censorship was the enemy, no matter what considerations might motivate the direction of art or changes to it.

(a couple of side notes: howard lincoln, president of nintendo america in 1993, said that year that night trap would never appear on a nintendo system. well, he was wrong about that. also, it's pretty interesting to see these guys wring their hands about konami's justifier lightgun "teaching children that any problem can be solved with a gun" when we consider the world we live in - at least in the us - today. lightguns are pretty much a thing of the past, and i feel like it's a safe bet that kids who played lethal enforcers didn't all go on to become cops. but if they did, well, then i don't imagine lieberman has anything negative to say about them. i'm quite sure he's not thinking about what a tragedy it is that some old video games "justified" them becoming the violent foot soldiers of the white supremacist state. and how would we ever know if even a single cop in 2022 ever played lethal enforcers, anyway? what the fuck am i even talking about?)

here i am, well into my adulthood and reading articles about a fascist recruitment campaign which happened in roblox, thinking i'd like to make it my mission to get my nephews away from this junk. initially i frowned upon learning that the elder of my nephews was playing lots of this because, well, it's fucking devoid of any sort of aesthetic quality. funko pop shit. and, in fairness, my nephews are still young and easily distracted and who the fuck am i anyway, i'm literally talking in irc in between paragraphs here about cruelty squad and the worldview of its developer, who is supposedly anti-capitalist, though he also collaborated with the brigador devs not long after they were exposed as something awful forum posters into white nationalism and holocaust denial or whatever, and i find the whole situation frankly fucking bewildering and idk if i want to play this game (cruelty squad) which otherwise seems to be, incidentally, the exact inverse of a game like roblox... but is it really? jfc i really am an idiot. sometimes nothing makes sense. it's not like i'm afraid of some level of depravity... i mean, have you seen the movies and music i'm into? but i mean, despite my depression and the world i'm not a doomer or a nihilist. the red pill is a metaphor in the matrix, a movie that whips ass, not the hateful bullshit some 4chan nerds equate with being "based." all of this is so much weirder and more unsettling to me than mortal goddamn kombat ever even came close to being.

look, i mean... i don't want to approach my nephews as a lieberman, as some arbiter of content safe for consumption with a stick up their ass. still, one thing i do know: roblox is shit and the kids could do better. play a fucking dragon quest. discover culture, idk. maybe even go outside, learn how to be alone.

This is a game that understandably causes mixed feelings in the wider gaming audience and especially the franchise's own playerbase. That's pretty much an expectation for the series at this point, so it's hard for me to say what even my own expectations for this game were.

Whatever they were, they were blown away. I enjoyed its direct predecessor, but that game had very visible seams and glue. That's all gone here. Every decision made with the direction of Final Fantasy XVI felt to me intentional and clear. Even when it was obvious those decisions were made for budget and time constraints, I was left to believe they were the right decisions to not compromise the beautiful gem at the core of this work of art.

[Yes, it being a "Role Playing Game" is debatable ...]

I don't like formulating my opinions reactively, but I've heard so much disappointment expressed about this game's status as an RPG that I can't help but address that point directly.

I don't care about this game as an RPG. I come from the pen-n-paper RPG traditions, even to the point that I've gone back to first edition Advanced Dungeons & Dragons when running games for my friends (actually Old School Essentials, now, which is a much cleaner representation of that ruleset). Final Fantasy to me has always been "baby's first RPG" at its deepest.

While I couldn't resist that snarky phrasing, I don't say that disparagingly or as any kind of criticism. I've been enjoying Final Fantasy alongside the likes of Baldur's Gate and Neverwinter Nights ever since I was a 4-year-old. Its simplification of the Western tradition has been a feature since day one and in my eyes a nice, lighter alternative.

Even FFX, what I consider the best game in the series for "tactical" combat, is still a bare as bones "RPG."

Final Fantasy XVI then isn't that huge of a change to me as it finally goes all in on being a character action game. It still has Final Fantasy grade presentation, which was the important part, and now it's also captured a bit of that classic BioWare magic with its character driven moments. One might even call it Squeenix's Mass Effect 2.

Everyone complained about ME2's lack of heavy RPG systems. It's also considered one of the studio's greatest works. Yes, this a fairly odd take. Don't think too much about it.

[... but it's a smooth and approachable "Action" Game]

Sure, you can argue that even ME2 probably has more "build choices" with the suite of weapons and power upgrades. But in my experience with FFXVI, I was regularly playing around with my combat power selections until the last 3 hours of my 60 hour playthrough. That seems like a good amount of playstyle options to me.

You know what I don't spend any time thinking about? The Green/Blue/Purple/Orange gear shoehorned into a lot of games today. Not that they're automatically ruined for it, but as an example, God of War (2018) is a game I recently played that epitomizes what I consider "tacked-on" RPG systems. None of it felt like it did anything for my playstyle.

I played Diablo 2 and especially 3 for hundreds of hours. I do not get a high just from item-make-number-go-up anymore (more power to you if you do). I do get a high from inventing and executing a series of actions that make a damage number double in size without having to even change my equipment. I got that a fair amount in Final Fantasy XVI.

And a funny thing happened as I got used to the timing of the abilities and enemies... I discovered there's an oddly deliberate amount of downtime woven between many of the actions. Abilities, especially big ones, have a tendency to have fairly long executions with either minimal additional input needed, or they outright stop time for the animation. That gave me a fairly tactical experience at points as I took a couple seconds to double check my available abilities and plot out my follow up action when was either in a bind or trying to figure out how to best capitalize on an opportunity.

Maybe the future of JRPGs has been fighting games all along.

The combat here is rarely that "punishing" but that's quite certainly because it's tuned for a narrative driven experience and an audience looking for that. I consider it quite rewarding, though, as it's fluid, flashy, impactful, and as mentioned, if you dig into its systems you get the satisfaction of completely demolishing your foes. There are a few fights that require that, as well, so it's not all rose lined paths.

[A minimal distractions experience]

This is a case where my opinion is that the only-what-matters approach to gameplay systems was the correct one. I do think the equipment systems might have been stripped a bit too bare midway through development, as they still show signs that more was once intended, but otherwise I like the very reigned in approach this game has to the content.

Maps aren't overly expansive but they have a few key explorable parts. The only real drivers are the marked story sidequests, the unmarked "hunt" fights, and some hidden accessories. Otherwise you're in it just to see the beautifully crafted world and soak in the sights. Even when the side quest log hits its longest, you can still mop it up and return to the main story in an afternoon. And for most of the runtime you'll never have much more than 2 or 3 additional objectives in a story chapter for about 3-10 minutes a piece.

Overall, my impression is that it kept its sights close to the central narrative at all times without resorting to the infamous "hallway" design. This is not a game where you can eff off for 30 hours then come back when you're bored to "mainline" it. It's a meaty, focused narrative with a few optional breaks to soak in the world and characters.

[A deluge of spectacle delivered with excellent performances]

One thing I've always appreciated about Final Fantasy is the series penchant for larger than life fantasy and imagery that I will never forget in my life. Like the opening of FFX as Sin swallows Zanarkand, looking into the Jenova tank in FFVII, or the whole city of Burmecia in FFIX.

XVI stands on equal ground for me. There's some fight sequences in particular here that I can only imagine are what the developers of the original games always dreamed of putting to the screen. The sense of scale, the color, the detail the motion the lighting —

(Breathes deep, finds calm)

It's so good.

And the voice acting and motion capture performances during the directed cutscenes, along with the most natural and nuanced writing the I've seen from the series yet, were a pleasure to see. Just as I was floored by the big moments of the game, the little moments and "blink and you'd miss it details" kept getting me too.

This is the best character work the series has seen. I won't try to argue on a subjective matter like the "most interesting cast" but I'd certainly die on the hill that this is the most "fully realized" cast in a mainline title. It's hard to sum up exactly what I mean in a way that won't bloat this review into a full thesis, but the sum of it — I think — is that they all feel "present" and in the balances they should be for their roles. And frankly they feel more "real" than any other FF character I can remember.

And the camera work and facial detail and THE MUSIC ahhhhhh—

This is a bittersweet story about the struggle to keep living and to find a reason to do so in the face of world breathing its last whispers. And every bit of it sold that for me and got me entirely invested in Clive's journey.

I love it so much.

[This probably isn't a game for most people]

I'm not going to make a pretentious claim like "modern gamers are too hooked on the digital casino of modern AAA to appreciate this game." For one because, while I've seen a lot of takes on this game's story and pacing I just cannot understand, lots of people are enjoying this game just fine. So it's not my mission in this review to make everyone "see the light."

And secondly, because I know that this game is decidedly made for people who look forward to sitting through an hour of dialogue and cutscenes between 15-30 minute bursts of gameplay (not that the game is always that balance). And the game does start light on the gameplay.

While I personally find a heavily cinematic gaming experience very natural and compelling, I can understand those who don't want that.

So I won't call this a perfect game.

But it sure was near perfect for me.