I really don't understand what people see in this title. The psychosis representation is well done and the pattern identifying gameplay is interesting because it's indicative of paranoia - but that doesn't make the game any better.

I could rant about just about every section of the game, but in the interest of my own time I'm going to keep my critique brief:

- The graphics are technically nice, yet every area looks the same and the whole game is far too dark.
- I didn't care one bit for Senua, her journey or any of the other "characters" in the plot. The narrative was entirely ungripping to me.
- The puzzle design is loathsome. I know it's subjective but I never had any clue what the game wanted from me, and when I eventually fumbled my way to a solution it still made no more sense. It's all so obscure and poorly informed to you.
- The combat sucks. I have the feeling that's the point, but it didn't need to be so plentiful if it was meant to be bad. I did, however, like the final boss encounter (the music and the "let go" solution was cool).

I know this game is entirely unique (excluding the existence of the sequel) and that the developers should be praised for their creative vision, but I really didn't get on with this game at all. It is a very short game and yet I spent most of it just begging for it to end. I know it's a representation of Hel and that it isn't supposed to be fun, but I don't think that's an excuse for being just plain not very good.

This one really hurts, and I mean that. I was pleasantly surprised when I began this game by the quality of its writing. It's genuinely very impressive, and the premise is very interesting. I would've loved to see where the plot was going.

However, I literally could not. This is possibly the most broken game I have ever played (and I played Cyberpunk 2077 on PS4 day 1). This isn't just glitchy, it is progress haltingly broken. The amount of times levels would entirely break, with things not spawning, level triggers not going off, collision with terrain completely breaking, and being killed for reasons I cannot see or understand. It happened constantly, but the worst thing is that every single time it happened, something about my save would corrupt. Numerous times I was booted back to the very beginning of the level, because something near the end would break and I would insta-die to nothing. I suffered through this far beyond where I would for anything else, because I really wanted to keep playing and to see where the plot went, but there's only so many set backs I can endure.

The game feel is quite terrible. The movement is clunky and the gunplay feels strange. I had attributed this strange feeling to Jack Joyce, the character you play, being relatively unfamiliar with firearms, but that fact can only excuse so much.

Graphically, the game is quite nice, albeit bogged down by massive amounts of motions blur, and also a 30fps cap. This isn't something I normally complain about, but there's something about games from this era that are so close to looking like they do in 2024, but technically just missing the mark. The graphics and animations are great, but the system can't cope with it well enough. At least, that's my unknowledgeable stance on the matter. See also 'Ryse: Son of Rome' and ' The Order 1866' for more of what I mean.

The strongest part of this game to me was, very ironically, the TV episodes that you are sometimes obliged to watch. I can't say it's the greatest show ever produced, but it sure beats playing the game; the story can shine without the game bogging it down. I'd a mind to watch the rest of this game on YouTube, from the perspective of someone who presumably didn't have so many game breaking issues, but ultimately I'll probably just move on. I will lament what could've been though, it really saddens me that something so promising was attached to a game this badly made.

The original Psychonauts was an absolute delight. It held up extremely well for a PS2 game and was brimming with unique ideas, creative artistic choices and a lot of good humour. The sequel is much the same, it is blast.

Going from one to the other, the near two decades of quality of life improvements make the act of playing Psychonauts 2 so satisfying. Where the original is clunky and showing its age visually, this gameplay is smooth as butter and the visuals are outstanding - both in their fidelity and in the actual art design.

I do have an issue with this sequel, and it's more a matter of personal opinion than concrete factual critique, so bear that in mind. I found the levels of the original game to be far more compelling. Each and every level in this game just feels like a simple idea. Slight spoiler warning for the level themes: there are things like casino, library, game show, mail room - all of which play and look great, but there just isn't that same charm. There is nothing so bold as entering the mind of a man who thinks himself to be a descendant of Napoleon Bonaparte and having to physically shrink down into a board game to help him win. Months later, I can recall every level of Psychonauts 1, but even having only just beaten it I struggle to remember everything in the sequel.

This is best showcased when comparing the two final levels of the game (although there is technically one more in Psychonauts 2 that you cannot return to and just acts as a final boss arena). In Psychonauts 1, you combine the minds of both yourself and the villain and have to overcome a nightmarish mashup of your childhood traumas - a circus and a butchery. It was genius. In Psychonauts 2, the final level is a theme park ride with cardboard cutouts that act to give exposition on the plot twist that preceded you entering that mind. Do you see what I mean?

Again, this is just personal opinion, and it's not like I don't like the levels of Pyschonauts 2 at all - this is still a great game - but in a way it lacks the same charm. The same can be said of the story in a way; it's grander in scope, more mature, but doesn't have that same vibe that I liked in the original. I still highly recommend both of these titles. They are probably my favourite 3D platformers ever.

Palworld is at the forefront of a lot of controversy surrounding its likeness to Pokemon. As someone who hasn't played a Pokemon game in about 12 years, I have no stake in that game.

This is a graphically unimpressive, slightly enjoyable time killer. For the 15 or so hours I put into it, reaching what I'd consider the mid game, I was confident I'd had my fill of Palworld. I would regret the time I spent with it, had I not enjoyed the co-op aspect; time spent having fun with friends is never time wasted.

What was a waste of time though, was how often this game crashes. It's unforgivable how frequently this happens, at least on the xbox port I was playing. It crashes when you open menus, engage in combat, catch things - and this is made even worse when every player now has to go through the slog of rebooting the whole game (from the console home screen no less, or else it doesn't work) and entering the unique join code.

Let's talk about other fun glitches. There was one dungeon that kept crashing about 30 seconds after our entering no matter what; there was a point we managed to get to the boss before it crashed for the 8th or so time and we gave up on ever doing a dungeon again. There was also the time I spawned under the map (after a crash) and had no choice but to respawn myself - leaving my bag with all my items and money lost under the map forever.

Fun parts of this game include the catching of the Pals and the subsequent putting them to work in your slave camps. It's a morally dubious concept and I loved every moment of it, it really leans into the stupid idea of having a labour force and I think it's the games best aspect.

The combat is terrible, I managed to do one of the major boss fights and a half dozen or so of the smaller ones. There is no strategy or skill involved, you just need to have a high enough level team of Pals.

Finally, the building is also terrible. It copies the system from Ark: Survival Evolved (as well as most other aspects of its progression system), which in of itself is a terrible system. There was satisfaction in making a half way decent looking base, but the process of building it genuinely might be one of the boring and tedious tasks a video game can oblige you to perform.

I feel my score may even be too high, now that I've highlighted my major gripes with it while simultaneously being unable to give it any real praise now that I'm looking back on my time with it. But I did find myself quite addicted for a few days there, and maybe that's enough for you. Get a few friends together, and play this if you really have nothing else going on. But honestly, just play one of the other survival games on the market; they're probably slightly better.

F.E.A.R 2 has a weak opening gameplay wise, but then becomes so much better once you get the slow-mo power as part of the narrative - it's very deliberate in making the game feel underwhelming before revealing the mechanic. The plot is strongest in these early hours with the corporate intrigue and human experimentation mysteries in full effect. But then, the game settles into a groove far more reminiscent of other shooters from this era. Ruined cities, long gun fights against soldiers, missile launchers - that effective thriller tone the game opens with dissipates into what I can only describe as thematically standard. The game retains the fun of it's gameplay loop though, which kept me playing all the way to the end, despite the narrative losing the wind in it's sails from about the half-way point.