This game is made up of recognisable chunks of other 3D platforms, with Super Mario Galaxy and Psychonauts being the two influences I feel are most strong. However, it does not come close to either in quality and comes across as a pale imitation. Not to say the game is not unique in its own ways - I just feel that there are better titles out there.

The games four distinct worlds are hit and miss, and mostly miss. I will compliment their attempt and differentiating themselves from one another, but I can't say that any are truly good ideas.

The mafia world is a fine starting point.

The film director world feels like it could've been handled in a far more interesting way.

The horror world is probably my favourite - it's not the most unique of settings but I enjoyed most of the levels and the two boss fights it has were dangerously close to being actually fun.

The final open world area seemed like it would be a welcome change of pace, but in practice it's confusingly designed and the lack of structure hurt it.

The game was fun while I played it but I can't say I would recommend it when so many better 3D platformers are out there.

I am so incredibly disappointed with Dragon Age: Origins. There is common discourse online that this is one of the greatest fantasy RPGs ever made. To address this, let's look at the two core pillars of the genre - gameplay and writing.

The writing for this game, the plot and setting, the dialogue and the characters, feels lacking in a way. The world is well crafted enough, but it lacks a distinct edge. It's fantasy, it's evil monsters, it's civil war - but it's never innovative. I found the characters to be underwhelming too. Alistair and Morrigan were my two favourite companions, while everyone else I found felt disconnected from me. They just join you basically out of some vague duty to save the world or just because they don't have much else going on. I can recall very few characters relating to quest lines that were interesting enough to make any lasting impression either.

But whatever lacks in the writing department, it's still a cut above most video game writing - I will give it that. My number one issue with this game is ironically how much the game gets in the way. Simply put, the gameplay is tedious. Bad, even, at times. And yet there are literal hours between story beats that oblige you to trudge through dungeons killing room after room of bland enemies. I know this is a 2009 release, and therefore isn't going to be technically fantastic, but the enemy variety is so poor. This is exacerbated further by every enemy being fought the same way anyway, meaning any visual variety (of which there is little) hardly matters.

On that note, the game is ugly. Again, expected, but that doesn't change the fact. Animation is stiff and the world is so utterly bland. This is worsened by the abysmal soundscape; the game's soundtrack is so poor it may as well not exist, while the sound design is distinctly lacking. From a bustling market in the capital city to the otherworldly planes of the Fade, there is basically just complete silence - maybe the bare minimum ambience just to keep you from thinking your sound system has entirely stopped working.

So in the end I find little to recommend about this title. I have seen online that this game is placed alongside other contemporaries in a certain "big three" of the fantasy gaming genre. This in 2009, Skyrim in 2011 and The Witcher 3 in 2015. These comparisons do the game no favours. The world is far too unimmersive to be mistaken for Skyrim, while its narrative lacks the charm, wit and creativity of The Witcher's setting and characters. There is a place in the gaming canon for Dragon Age, but I don't believe it is worth revisiting. Know it's place in history, but feel no obligation to ever visit it.

I found a lot of horror to love in Condemned. The combat is weighty enough, but we have since seen far better first-person combat systems. For one this old, however, it holds up well enough.

I've an issue with some of this games bland feeling level design, and a bigger issue with the games final two chapters. Chapters one through eight all feel completely standard for this era in gaming; ruined city blocks, subways, sewers, abandoned school, library - it's all here. The last two chapters, however, made me want to drop the game. I didn't, I stuck it out, but it was close.

The supernatural elements that get revealed right at the end after only being hinted at through visions fell flat in my opinion. This game at it's best is about clubbing vagrants with blunt objects you pull off the wall in a scary setting; at it's worst it throws boring encounter after boring encounter at you while you trudge through a dark field.

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.

The game has only the framework of a narrative to keep the player moving from scene to scene. The characters are all so dreadfully bland, with the worst offender being the protagonist himself - Gabriel. He rarely says anything, and when he does you'd wish he hadn't. I've never heard a voice actor sound this uninterested in their own work before.

The game starts strong with regular boss fights and new scenery for each level, but at the back of my mind I kept wondering "how long are they gonna keep this variety up before it starts just recycling what's already been used?" The answer is: not long at all. The game is strong for the first couple hours, and quickly descends into tedium from there as the levels start to blend together visually and the same three enemies make up all the combat encounters. Online sources say the same is 18 hours long, which is actually criminal. You're getting your money's worth, I guess, but that is far beyond what a game of this scale should be. There's a reason all the old God of Wars (the games this is clearly influenced by) are all done in 5-8 hours.

The game feel here is also not great. The combat has some good ideas - I like the crystal system that makes you choose between healing and dealing extra damage - but it just feels bad to play. And no amount of good ideas can save a game that just isn't fun to control. If it wasn't clear, I didn't finish this one. It became too tedious and eventually at one point the plot contrived me to have to go and collect some keys or something for the dozenth time and I gave up bothering.

I bought this game on the Xbox store for £1.67, and it's probably one of the best purchases I've ever made. I was, up until this point, completely unaware of the TimeSplitters franchise. Less still, that it was so highly regarded. While I have started with the third and final entry in the trilogy, I intend on going back and playing the second game as well. This game worked well enough as a self-contained narrative so I didn't feel like I was missing context.

The gimmick of the game is that across the game's 13 levels you travel to 6 distinct timelines, all with their own "period accurate" weaponry. This leads to great gameplay and visual variety across the different levels - it's that constant flow of creative and unique ideas that elevates this game to such heights.

The problem with the game is that it's too short, but that is just because there is absolutely no filler. Every level is a string of all the good ideas and set pieces back-to-back, and then the level ends. That's the trade-off for the short runtime. I would, however, be inclined to replay this game on its higher difficulties for fun, because it really is about 4 hours of exceptionally paced creativity.

The story is also surprisingly enjoyable. All the characters are great and distinct, while all being charmingly funny, and the cutscenes are very well animated - especially considering the game came out in 2005. And while I won't spoil anything, the use of time in the narrative has a very satisfying moment towards the endgame that really took me by surprise, and I loved it.

Play this game, if you have the ability to do so. There is nothing to hate here. Nothing to even dislike. It's pure fun that this industry simply cannot produce anymore.

Pyschonauts holds up exceedingly well for a PS2 game. Even if graphically it shows its age, in gameplay it functions as well as any modern title should. There's very little of the jank that you sometimes find when going back to older eras of gaming.

Each level is an absolute blast and also a completely unique idea. Not just unique for the game, but unique for everything. There's nothing out there quite like the ideas present in Psychonauts. Each of the ten levels is distinct in both gameplay, visual setting and story.

The story is also a joy to experience. It's childish, yes, but with a very distinct charm that makes it appealing to almost anyone, I would say. Any story which sees you dealing into the mind of a paranoid schizophrenic milkman to solve a conspiracy drama has to receive a due amount of credit for its creativity if nothing else.

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.

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.

I'd like to preface this review by acknowledging my score of 5/10. I think numbered reviews are a limited form of expressing one's opinion about a game, but are necessary to bring across a person's general opinion.

I don't believe that Close to the Sun is a bad title in the least, though the score I have given it may indeed make that appear to be the case. I might, by the end of this piece, even end up recommending the game - but that's going to have to come with some big qualifiers. I'll keep it spoiler free, but if you happen to be familiar with Bioshock (2007), I may imply a little too much for you here.

Because yes, Close to the Sun borrows heavily from that title, as do many other titles releasing in this era (Atomic Heart springs to mind). I've seen critique that it is a complete rip-off, which I don' personally believe is a fair assessment. There is a unique identity, tone and world here - it's just the basic set up and late game twist that may seem familiar. I think this game does enough of its own to not be written off as a cheap knockoff.

But now, the game. Playing as an investigative journalist, the gameplay is that what you might describe a "walking simulator". There is light puzzles, and simple action sequences in which you run away from things, but mostly it's a slow paced experience that you'll get a lot more from if you approach it with an investigative eye; the first-person perspective works wonders to this effect.

Visually this game is quite striking, with a distinct uniqueness in its steampunk setting. The entire plot takes place upon an impossibly large boat at sea in which scientists were allowed free rein in their research (which strikes quite closely to a description of Bioshock's Rapture) and this ocean-faring vessel is very well realised. Across the games 10 chapters, I think each level is distinct enough that you could well enough tell them apart from one another, while all managing to adhere to a set theme.

Regarding other aspects of the game's construction, it certainly isn't perfect - you can tell it's an indie production when you look at anything other than the quality of the graphics and world. The animations can be smooth and believable sometimes, but other times they can be distractingly poor. Likewise, the voice acting is a constant point of contention, as is most of the lines in the script. It's a shame to see an interesting plot squandered by dialogue that is this bad. Even if they had top of their game voice actors on this, I don't think they could get a good performance from this script - and these voice actors are anything but. There are moments where it's okay, but overall it's probably the biggest problem with the game.

I'll refrain from close analysis of any story beats, because I want this to be spoiler free and would recommend going in as blind as possible to make the most of the developing mystery. I will, however, say that I think the ending is quite rushed. The final three levels are only about ten minutes each, if that. Maybe it wouldn't have felt weird if it was all condensed into one chapter? It's a strange feeling I have - I believe the game is as long as it needed to be, and would've loathed it to go on much further, but there is something amiss with the climax.

Also, the soundtrack is mostly understated piano pieces, but they do wonders for the game's atmosphere.

So, should you play Close to the Sun? If you've a few short hours to spare and a willingness to lose yourself in a well made (if flawed) world, then yes. If you play games for narrative depth or mechanical challenge, I can heartily say that you'll likely want to give this a miss. It's free on XBOX game pass, at least at time of writing, so at least there'd be no monetary investment - only your ever so precious time.

While I usually try to only write reviews after I've finished a game, that would mean I would never write a review for Lies of P, which would be a shame because I quite like the game, but am physically incapable of beating it. Skill issue, yes. Now, acknowledging that up front, I'd like to discuss what I enjoy about the game, because it's difficulty is my least favourite aspect, and yet it is the largest barrier to entry and an ever prevalent aspect of its design.

Lies of P is the only souls-like made by a developer that isn't FromSoftware (that I've played) that I don't despise. Unique enough in setting and tone to be distinct from their mainly dark fantasy medieval settings, yet using every system that makes From's titles work. However, the literal copy and pasting of every mechanic from games I really enjoy doesn't earn this game any points.

Setting wise, the Pinocchio influence is surprisingly well handled, being a unique spin on that novel's story distinguishes it from any game I've ever personally seen when it comes to its world building.

Graphically the game is what you'd expect from a modern title, but deserves more praise because it comes from a smaller studio. This comes at the cost of downsizing the scope somewhat, however. The levels are extremely linear, presumably to account for this budgetary limitation. Enemy design, on a visual front, is highly distinct. In fact, the highest praise I could give this game is having such rich enemy variety in a sub-genre that usually fails so spectacularly in that aspect.

Enemy mechanical combat design is pretty varied too. I'll now reveal that I got to the end of the swamp area, and was utterly stuck on the Green Monster boss that sits at the end of it. That's about 2/3 of the way in, or so sources online tell me. I never felt encounters were repetitive up until that point, and I've got it under good authority it remains that way through until the very end.

Now, the big topic - the difficulty. For my money, only the bosses of this game are hard. The areas and enemy encounters can be challenging, but the bosses are consistently designed to not be beaten, but to be perfected. Each boss is a mechanical and visual spectacle, I can't speak highly enough of their quality. However, I am not a player who enjoys analysing and memorising an enemy move-set, but I certainly persisted far beyond the point I thought I would. Knowing how utterly stumped I was, despite trying every strategy the game would afford me, only feels worse when I know there's like three bosses after this one that are even harder. That is always what kills any motivation I have for these hard games, the knowledge that my struggle is for nothing, because an hour from now I'll be put against something even worse.

But hey, there's a definite audience for this type of challenging game, and I'm glad that those types of masochists can play such a high quality knock-off of the FromSoft games for a change, rather than the usual drivel of this category of games.

This is the final COD campaign that I had not played (the campaign is the only topic I will be critiquing). As of right now, I have played them all (excluding the original trilogy but they are so outdated I don't want to touch them).

With the knowledge of the entire rest of the series, I can say with confidence that this is one of the better ones. Even though it came out all the way back in 2008, it didn't feel too dated. However, having played so many, these games have long since become far too formulaic, and this being one of the earlier ones means they had no desire to innovate beyond the core shooting (which holds up well enough).

The story is light, but it's WWII so you know the general plot beats. The game is split between a duel narrative; a voiceless US soldier fighting the Japanese and a voiceless Russian fighting the Nazi Germans. You are a vessel who is present for interesting battles, and the character along with you (either Roebuck or Reznov) is the one with the interesting dialogue and interactions. The Russian plot line as Dmitri does it's best to portray you as a hero by the end, culminating in a pretty great ending sequence, but being silent hampers what could've been a far more emotional story.

On a gameplay front, as I alluded to, it really is just shooting gallery after shooting gallery. The different styles of fighting between the Japanese and the Nazis make for some superficial differences which keeps things somewhat fresh mission to mission. There is also two vehicle missions; the tank one (my least favourite in the whole game) and the plane gunner one (one of my favourite in the whole game). Again, this is an easier title so they weren't looking to innovate yet, so I can forgive it. The differences in locale mean you won't get bored during the 5 - 6 hour runtime.

The soundtrack is particularly noteworthy here. Usually I can't really pinpoint any stand out OSTs from COD titles, but this game has bangers across the board. Seriously, I was hooked on these tracks from mission one all the way to the rolling of the credits. And suitably, the credits sequence just played some of the best tracks, which I happily sat through just to relish in them again.

Artistically, the game looks dated. It is from the early XBOX 360 era after all. Despite this, I wasn't too often hampered by an inability to see what was happening, which is a problem I've had with other COD titles from this era. That's kind of subjective though, so feel free to ignore that aspect. Basically, it looks fine for it's age, and there's some decent art direction to carry it.

In summary, it was worthwhile going back and playing this older gem that I somehow missed. There's something about the older titles that, try as they might, they can never really recapture. And this isn't nostalgia, because up until I recently saw this in the XBOX store on sale, I didn't even know this game existed.

Having sunk around 20 twenty hours into Hades, I finally reached the end credits and main ending of the game. This is a rouge-like game with about an hour of content, but that content is very difficult and will require persistence and practice to conquer. Plus, to see the true ending will have to escape the Underworld a whopping 10 times. If this opening paragraph sounds negative, I do not intend it to come across that way. I too was skeptical by that pitch, but Hades is an absolute blast - and while I found it began to drag as I approached some of those final runs, the narrative "climax" (for technically this game goes on far beyond the credits) is very much worth the time.

As previously implied, there isn't much to this game when measured by standard rulings. There are 4 bosses (with some variance between attempts and optional harder versions) and you'll encounter just about every enemy the game has to offer after only one or two successful runs. Four areas, all with a handful of enemies, a boss at the end of each - and that's your lot. The variety comes from the six very distinct weapons and the various upgrades you acquire throughout an attempt; the combination of which will likely be wholly unique to that run. This all works to keep things relatively fresh; I still think by hour twenty I was getting rather tired of the combat system as a whole, but there's enough to keep you ploughing onwards through escape attempt after escape attempt until you finally reach the ending.

The story is perfect for a rouge-like game, a genre usually lacking in narrative because of how hard it is to implement. Everyone is immortal, you are repeatedly trying to escape, everyone knows this and can both remark on what you've been doing while also having relationships develop. The characters are all distinct and well voice acted. This isn't the most incredible narrative ever, but it's one that can only be told through the video game medium, and for that it deserves praise.

Artistically the game is great. Isometric games are probably the hardest to make look good because of the obscure perspective, but they have managed to make it work. The character portraits are all beautifully drawn and add a LOT of life to the dialogue.

The soundtrack to this game is absolutely incredible. I would be lying if I said it wasn't the initial reason I picked up the game. It's metal, fast paced and every track is a banger. The final battle theme against Hades himself is without a doubt one of my favourite OSTs ever composed.

All in all, despite some flaws, Hades is very worth playing even if you aren't a fan of this genre. Trust me, I wasn't either - and still am not. But this game is great despite that. And if you're a fan of rouge-likes? Well, you've probably already played this.

Edit: I have since returned to the game and beat it several more times in order to best every boss with the Extreme Measures condition. I've bumped the game up to 5 stars and take back any critique I had for this games combat. I cannot speak highly enough as to the quality of Hades as a game. By far my favourite indie title.

I have never played a Dynasty Warriors game, so this was my first glimpse into the franchise. I can't say I'm much inspired to seek out and play any of the other titles, but for all I know this could be quite a bit worse than the others.

Berserk is a manga series I very much love, and this game is a butchery of everything that makes it special. The story is retold through terrible looking in game cinematics combined with sections of the anime ripped out and spliced in.

The game's biggest sin is how repetitive it is. It is viscerally satisfying to cleave through hordes of enemies, but that is literally the whole thing - the gameplay never advances beyond basic combo attacks. There are boss fights that try to mix things up, but they all feel clunky and don't so much alleviate the boredom as they do introduce frustration in its place.

As if the game wasn't long enough, they frequently add filler sections to the plot to further pad the mission count. With classics like the three mission section where Guts protects local villages from thieves during Golden Age - this literally never happens. It's not as if Berserk as a story lacks enough battle scenarios to fill a game like this, so I don't understand why they felt the need to put the plot on hold to make you do even more identical battling.

If you like Berserk, there is some cheap fun to be had here, but there is nothing of substance to this game. It's ugly, overlong and is a disservice to the quality of Miura's original work.

There are few gaming experiences quite so miserable as playing Fort Solis. There are many measures by which you can judge a game, with gameplay, story, art and sound design / soundtrack being the key four I think.

- Fort Solis has absolutely no gameplay beyond walking around bland corridors at the slowest pace a human can possibly achieve while you interact with computers, read emails and watch video logs.

- The story is mildly interesting but dragged way too thin for how simple it is. This entire narrative could be told in 30 minutes, yet they stretch it to 4 agonising hours of nothing. Literally nothing at times. The dialogue between the two leads during chapter one and two is uninteresting, but at least it exists! Once you reach chapter 3, there is no more banter - only crushing silence as you backtrack. Chapter 4 sees the climax finally arrive, and it has the gall to be a tragic ending. So I walk around a space station for 4 tedious hours and I didn't even get the gratification of a cathartic finale.

- The art is okay. It's graphically stunning, but that is the alter to which everything else was sacrificed. And while it is impressive, there are no real stand out areas. If you've ever consumed any piece of sci-fi media, you've experienced the world of Fort Solis. It's all bland grey corridors and there's a constant sand storm so even the surface of Mars is dull.

- There is no music, save for the song that plays in the credits. I must admit, the song is pretty good - but a good credits song should top off a memorable experience, not be the highlight of the ENTIRE game. There is no stand out elements of diegetic sound design to comment on. The voice acting is good; they brought in some solid talent, but the script allows for none of them to shine. Save for the ending battle, where Roger Clark's (as Jack) cries of pain felt quite viscerally real. But just play RDR2 if you wanna hear a good performance from Roger Clark. And just play TLOU if you want to hear a good performance from Troy Baker (who is the villain in this trash).

So there, this is a disaster and is an example of how a push for graphics and realism has utterly destroyed what could maybe have been a good idea.