I had some cautious optimism for Industria given the lower review scores both here and on Steam. While I was certain it would be good at best, some part of its premise and how reminiscent it seemed of games like Half-Life and Resident Evil intrigued me. However, I still found myself quite disappointed by the end product.

One of the bigger issues is the game's overreliance on obscuring the narrative. It presents a ton of questions that at first are intriguing, but quickly lose that intrigue as you discover more and more questions are left unanswered. I even went the extra mile of reading any text logs I could through documents scattered about, which gave little to no insight. I assume some of these questions will be answered in the sequel (or sequels for that matter), but I find that method to be rather cheap. You can leave some questions open for the future, but leaving this many questions makes the individual games feel unfinished.

The combat is also fine at best, serving its purpose but even on Hardcore being barebones. It boils down to shooting anything that moves with whatever weapon has ammo, though the overabundance of ammo means you just use whatever feels right. Enemies also boil down to running straight at you before either swinging or exploding. It's all very one note, and isn't supplemented by much in the way of environmental puzzles.

Speaking on that, exploration is sorely lacking. It has that classic issue where the only things you can find off the beaten path is crates with additional ammo, and those often involve using supplies to take down enemies on the way. Sure, you can find the odd page of lore, but it tends to not flesh out the world a whole lot.

Even the visuals, something I'm admittedly easy to please on, were often lacking. The environments themselves are interesting on paper, but often lack detail or are copy-pasted. I can appreciate reusing assets to save time, but in a game as short as this, it's hard to look past. I can understand it's an indie developer so I shouldn't be expecting big budget scenery design, but even from an art direction standpoint I was unimpressed in a few areas.

That all begs the question of who exactly Industria is designed for. If it's for fans of Half-Life, there's little to no exploration or environmental puzzles. If it's Resident Evil, there's way too many supplies to give you a reason to conserve ammo. If it's general FPS or narrative fans, aspects of both are too underdeveloped and given too little time to breathe.

Good ideas are buried somewhere in Industria, and you can catch glimpses of them occasionally. However, they're just that. Buried and only ever showing their face to remind you they're there. If you want to kill 2-3 hours then there are definitely worse ways to do so, but Industria stands as a stark reminder of better titles, even in the small-scale indie sector.

Star Wars Republic Commando comfortably lands in the group of games that feels well-deserving of a remake. It's got some fun moments in there but is let down both by misguided choices and the limitations of nearly two decades ago.

I want to kick things off with the good though, mainly in how the game perfectly nails that Star Wars vibe. It's to be expected from a LucasArts game, but praise especially needs to go to the core squad and the dynamic between the four of them. They're mostly serious, but the few joke lines they did send out managed to get a chuckle out of me. Even weapon sounds feel authentic, albeit some do not sound satisfying (something age hasn't been kind to).

Level design was also surprisingly solid for a game of its time. There was some repetition as was expected of a game back then, but it makes good use of laying out cover and giving you clear places to move up and slowly secure ground in various arenas. It helps reinforce a risk/reward playstyle that felt satisfying all the way through.

However, I can't say the same about the game's squad management systems. At their best, they're incredibly basic with the ability to direct them to move to a specific spot or take cover. However, the beginning of the game makes this big deal out of each of them having their own role while not properly reinforcing their strengths. The sniper isn't better at damage, the demolitions expert can't save time on bomb objectives, and the hacker doesn't save time when slicing terminals. They might take priority, but one is just as good as another. It relies entirely on their personalities and looks to form their identities which again, it nails. However, I can't help but wonder how that could've played more heavily. It often feels like so much more could be done with them which partly can be blamed on the time, but not entirely.

The difficulty scaling is also way off balance. It's mostly easy for the first two acts barring a slightly annoying final timed level. However, that third act sends the difficulty flying for a good handful of the levels. I eventually had to resort to cheesing some sections to get through them without losing my sanity. Running monster closets or forcing you to push a chokepoint with infinite enemy spawns isn't fun difficulty, it's just infuriating.

To top things off, the game can be quite buggy. I can forgive crashes since I'm trying to play a two-decade-old game on Windows 11. However, characters getting stuck on terrain and enemy/friendly AI collapsing occasionally is a little less forgiving. I even had a bug save me from more headache during the final level of Act 2 where the timed part of it seemingly stopped functioning.

I still had fun with Republic Commando at the end of the day, since good Star Wars FPS games are few and far between. I understand why people have a thing for this game, even if my feelings aren't quite as positive. I just hope someone gets the greenlight to give this game a makeover. With modern-day techniques and the right team, this could easily jump from good to excellent.

Ghost of Tsushima takes the cake as the review I've thought the most about recently regarding score. Some parts of me wanted to drop this score to a 9 since there are a couple minor things like technical issues that did annoy me. However, the fact this game has completely changed my thoughts on open-world games in general solidifies it as a modern masterpiece for me. One that shows that, despite all that's been said about some of the minor annoyances with open-world games, remedying those issues ultimately makes for a much better and tighter experience.

The biggest changes by far are in exploration and resource collection. You can fast travel to any point of interest you've been to, and your only guide to these points of interest are through question marks on the map and the wind leading you in a particular direction. It creates this satisfying gameplay loop where you never know what you're going to discover next, even if these POIs are taken from a small pool of possibilities. It could be a Hot Spring to increase your max health, a Pillar of Honor to acquire a new sword skin, or even a major Mongal encampment that uncovers more question marks for you to discover. It's a constant set of feedback that rewards going out and following wherever the wind takes you, which helped me go for so much of the game's side content.

The resource collection is also tightly packed, making specific resources for one specific crafting avenue and allowing you to pick them up while on your horse. There is still the game's "money" that is used for all crafting, but having something like Iron exclusively for swords and Bamboo for bows means you never feel like you're wasting resources. It even lets you target farm some resources, provided you know where to look. You can even buy some if you're tired of farming, or sell excess once you've maxed some upgrades out. It sounds a lot simpler on paper, but I promise its not.

Even excluding some of the major innovations, it's still a great game underneath. The strongest of all is its emergent gameplay particularly surrounding the outposts. I've played every Far Cry between 3 and 6 and the formula was starting to weigh on me after Far Cry 4, so to see a game that evolves its core concepts so well is a great breath of fresh air. You still have your stealth and loud approaches like classic Far Cry, but the tools at your disposal feel much more distinct. You could use an explosive arrow and wait for an opportune moment, or go for chain assassinations on multiple targets. There's stuff for loud as well, but I don't want to spoil too many of the game's surprises. The sandbox almost makes you feel like you're in one of those Far Cry stealth montages that were popular on YouTube back in the mid-2010s. While I understand the game is a tad easy outside of the DLC and know that's a problem for some, it was never an issue for me.

The narrative was equally impressive, hinging on samurai honor and its impact both to a samurai and those around them. A handful of moments stick out in my mind (The Ghost of Yarikawa mission especially), combining emotional heft with some great action setpieces. Even some of the side content was better than expected, almost arguing they could've been the protagonist under the right lens and with some additional depth. A lot of the side content was a bit short-lived, but even then offered some intriguing and thought-provoking stories.

All of this, wrapped in a game that four years on is stunningly beautiful, especially on PC. I'll take maybe one or two screenshots when playing a game to send to friends, but this game had me taking screenshot after screenshot with glorious vistas and a rather robust photo mode. This got even better for the Iki Island expansion, though I'll leave that spoiler-free.

While the technical issues were a tad annoying, Ghost of Tsushima currently stands as my favorite open-world game period. The fact that I got every achievement outside of the multiplayer mode and NG+ is a testament to that, especially with how rarely I 100% games.

Ghost of Tsushima takes the cake as the review I've thought the most about recently regarding score. Some parts of me wanted to drop this score to a 9 since there are a couple minor things like technical issues that did annoy me. However, the fact this game has completely changed my thoughts on open-world games in general solidifies it as a modern masterpiece for me. One that shows that, despite all that's been said about some of the minor annoyances with open-world games, remedying those issues ultimately makes for a much better and tighter experience.

The biggest changes by far are in exploration and resource collection. You can fast travel to any point of interest you've been to, and your only guide to these points of interest are through question marks on the map and the wind leading you in a particular direction. It creates this satisfying gameplay loop where you never know what you're going to discover next, even if these POIs are taken from a small pool of possibilities. It could be a Hot Spring to increase your max health, a Pillar of Honor to acquire a new sword skin, or even a major Mongal encampment that uncovers more question marks for you to discover. It's a constant set of feedback that rewards going out and following wherever the wind takes you, which helped me go for so much of the game's side content.

The resource collection is also tightly packed, making specific resources for one specific crafting avenue and allowing you to pick them up while on your horse. There is still the game's "money" that is used for all crafting, but having something like Iron exclusively for swords and Bamboo for bows means you never feel like you're wasting resources. It even lets you target farm some resources, provided you know where to look. You can even buy some if you're tired of farming, or sell excess once you've maxed some upgrades out. It sounds a lot simpler on paper, but I promise its not.

Even excluding some of the major innovations, it's still a great game underneath. The strongest of all is its emergent gameplay particularly surrounding the outposts. I've played every Far Cry between 3 and 6 and the formula was starting to weigh on me after Far Cry 4, so to see a game that evolves its core concepts so well is a great breath of fresh air. You still have your stealth and loud approaches like classic Far Cry, but the tools at your disposal feel much more distinct. You could use an explosive arrow and wait for an opportune moment, or go for chain assassinations on multiple targets. There's stuff for loud as well, but I don't want to spoil too many of the game's surprises. The sandbox almost makes you feel like you're in one of those Far Cry stealth montages that were popular on YouTube back in the mid-2010s. While I understand the game is a tad easy outside of the DLC and know that's a problem for some, it was never an issue for me.

The narrative was equally impressive, hinging on samurai honor and its impact both to a samurai and those around them. A handful of moments stick out in my mind (The Ghost of Yarikawa mission especially), combining emotional heft with some great action setpieces. Even some of the side content was better than expected, almost arguing they could've been the protagonist under the right lens and with some additional depth. A lot of the side content was a bit short-lived, but even then offered some intriguing and thought-provoking stories.

All of this, wrapped in a game that four years on is stunningly beautiful, especially on PC. I'll take maybe one or two screenshots when playing a game to send to friends, but this game had me taking screenshot after screenshot with glorious vistas and a rather robust photo mode. This got even better for the Iki Island expansion, though I'll leave that spoiler-free.

While the technical issues were a tad annoying, Ghost of Tsushima currently stands as my favorite open-world game period. The fact that I got every achievement outside of the multiplayer mode and NG+ is a testament to that, especially with how rarely I 100% games.