The Last Campfire has the hallmarks of a satisfying experience but never quite feels as though any of its channels get to ten.

The story has been played out before, in many a game and tale, but that doesn't mean it can't be enjoyed once more. Unfortunately, little new is added, nor anything old made new. The sorry neither seeks your attention not has you clawing for the next crumb. Indeed, certain aspects become jarring pulling you out of the immersion.

Graphics are sugary sweet and it's a joy to walk around when you're not catching on rough corners and missing ramps. Sounds is superb with the general ambience merging with the real world (though that could be the Steam Deck speakers).

The puzzles are light and rarely take more than a couple of tries, which puts it just beneath 'optimal' on the satisfaction meter.

Controls are smooth, but navigation can be a little frustrating - a map would've been nice. Getting help on where to locate the puzzles is a nice touch, but one could argue that such mechanisms shouldn't be required.

Overall, I enjoyed the game. It felt like a prototype rather than a complete game, but it kept my interest for around four hours, which I believe is about 2/3 of the game. After the second section I felt no desire to continue on. My journey was incomplete, but enough.

A valiant build with some nuance. Mixed voice acting, but on par with many AAA games. Storytelling structure and pacing a fair bit off with some inadequacies. Nicely produced. An excellent, if a little tired, score. I preferred the previous game for the more ambiguous narrative, but this does have something, the execution was just a little off. Mostly unlikeable characters, alas, and the script and acting weren't enough to round them out. All that said, it was a small team and I completed it (having spent longer on it than God of War, any Assassin's Creed and Ghosts of Tsushima!) Myself, and my family enjoyed it.

Elden Ring is a mixed bag for me. On the positive side: Elden Ring is gorgeous, it looks like high fantasy from every angle and I never noticed any issues. The environment and atmosphere are dark and ominous, superbly portraying a terrifying world. The world building is rich and multifaceted. Narrative is solid - the story is your own, supplemented by incidental crossings with other goings on in the realm, now and earlier. It's an intact setting.

On the negative side: well, it's not a game for me. I don't like games that are mostly a series of fights and I certainly don't like boss fights. It begs the question as to why I played the game - the answer to which is that I wanted to create a narrative and experience the world. Immersion is important to me and I found myself dragged out due to the placement and execution of encounters. I often felt like there was a bit of a disconnect between the encounters and the world in which they existed, as though they were plopped onto the world rather than existing within it. They didn't feel organic and speech always seemed forced and not part of the world. There was a rich world, but the game element sat on top of that. Now, this is just a negative for me. I understand that such a design is exactly what people want. People come for the fights and those fights binding to a rich world helps create the narrative. I just don't enjoy the fights, so it doesn't work for me - but it wasn't designed for me.

In conclusion, Elden Ring is a genuine achievement in AAA gaming, and I haven't felt like that about a AAA game in a long while. I wish there was some way to tackle the narrative without the encounters, or perhaps someway to beat the encounters with a less a need quick reactions.

Abandoned at about 25%. Initially I was intrigued, which was promising given that it's been a while since I enjoyed a third-person game. This was mainly down to what I hoped would be a compelling story, as the gameplay elements seemed to be lacking (took me a good while to find the time pin!) Alas, as the game progressed the story just didn't unfurl; rather it became a series of sparse and loosely related events that were showing little cohesion. The gameplay became a touch tiresome, just the usual progress-is-blocked-find-something-to-unblock-it. A common trope in gaming, but frustrating in this scenario, moreso than usual. For example, early on we have to get into a building through a broken window above us. To accomplish this we have to find two things. I understand this is a 'puzzle', and part of the 'game' but it just slows the plot and seems pointless, and breaks immersion when there are loads of other windows that could be easily smashed (were it a real situation). I know this criticism could be levelled at any number of games, but it (perhaps unfairly) was more blatant here. The main game element should've been the dual reality but in my partial playthrough this was immaterial. The USP is the concurrent gameplay, except you never use them concurrently. Of course, it may happen later, but with that mechanism why not woo the player right away and show its power. No, you switch from one reality to the other. Now, were this executed ala Titanfall 2 you would be provided with a little agency of when to switch and given a little more satisfaction. Instead you somewhat randomly try things in one world and then in another, until you progress. Objects somehow move between realities, but that's just part of the fairly loose rules of the world building.

I don't know, were the narrative compelling, the gameplay would've been forgivable. But it wasn't it was essentially absent.

The graphics were great though. The music was spot on. Controls were satisfactory and the prelude set some sold foundations for character-building. I just don't think the narrative and 'unique' mechanism were harnessed well enough.

I played Sniper Elite 4 to completion. I loved the level design and the little adventure. That great level design seems to be mostly missing from Sniper Elite 5. All the levels just seem more compact though I'm told they're actually bigger. Perhaps it's because SE4 was my first SE game, but things like your last known position just seemed much more important. Now that barely seems to matter. I remember tons of sniping too, but now it seems less common. Buildings are empty and there seems to be a real lack of environmental interaction - I'm sure I was blowing up trucks a lot more in SE4. Similarly enemy snipers seem absent; that glint off the scope was always a worry - I think I've only seen it once in SE5. Similarly moving vehicles; haven't shot anyone in one. I've barely been prone. I'm just crouch walking around, stealth killing and enemy and then moving on. It just seems more grindy then SE4, and empty. So I've given up at the Guernsey map.

A fantastic little gem. It's easy to give small indy games a little bit of a free pass when comparing to AAA games or similar, or rather be less forgiving with AAA games. In this case though I can easily hoist this game above many AAA games I've played this year, judging solely on experience of the game without consideration of budget. It's simply better than many recent games with teams a hundred times bigger. I played it to completion, I didn't get frustrated and the story met the gameplay without either sacrificing for the other.

It might sound like hyperbole, but the reality is that I played a AAA game on Xbox Game Pass and was bored within 15 minutes and gave up. I clicked Donut County just randomly and played it to completion. The context for the two games being presented to me was as equals. I hadn't paid for either outright, so I had little investment in either and could just play to enjoy. It was a couple of hours where I didn't get impatient, roll my eyes, get frustrated at gameplay, or bugs or tedium. It was just a couple of hours of good fun.