Yakuza 5 continues the trend of 4 by doing a character per 'Act', with now 5 different characters all having their own story arc, with their own gameplay gimmicks, that all by the end have their stories merge for the final showdown.

It was probably one of the better entries, even if sometimes the characters' chapters felt marginally short. I really, really, did not enjoy playing as Tatsuo Shinada though. I understand his addition as it helps re-inforce the overall plot and theme of the game - people's aspirations and dreams, carrying those on as a 'legacy' and striving to make them real, but, as a character and in his gameplay, I just really struggled to get on with him.

I was however, surprised by how fun they made Haruka's segments - a wild left turn from all the beat-em-up action you get from the 4 other characters into this minigame central, rhythm based experience.

It's also weird to experience a Yakuza game that not only is set outside of Kamurocho (though this happens often) but set in 5 different locations (sure, 2 or 3 are just a couple of streets and about half the size of Sotenbori / Kamurocho) but it felt 'refreshing' to experience a variety of new locales.

After I'd finished the main story of this, I was convinced I'd scored it correctly at a 4/5 stars, genuinely loving what I'd experienced (with a few 'oh, that coulda been done differently) moments - having just done everything in the game I had to come to the realisation that it just is fine (but still good).

Now, it does absolutely improve on everything gameplay wise from the first - the webwings are 10/10 absolutely never stop using, the combat taken from the improvements they did in Miles Morales, the upgrading of the suit tech 10/10 all of it, really good, and graphically, it's a huge step up.

BUT. that all came at a cost whilst juggling the two spider-men. The content. where is it? the story is short (now, I really don't hate a short story - I have things to do, games to play, etc.) but from a big title like this, I expect more than 15 hours. Failing that, I expect a heap of side content for me to do afterwards, which, there just isn't. You end up having done the main story just flying around the same city from two previous games, with a lil extra on the side (a big extra, I know, it's just still very same-y) that has just nothing going for it really.

There's also a criminal under-usage of side characters and/or sequel baiting (/or DLC baiting) side missions with said characters that after completion made me go ??? is that it??? that's all that character gets???

I get that this review absolutely sounds like I should be rating it 2/5 or 3/5 at a push, but I do think there's a heap of positives in there that make up for its short comings, I just know everyone else has already said all of them.

The most unexpected type of throwback game that really just works. I’ve never played more than 5 minutes of JetSet Radio, but from what I’ve seen of the game, Bomb Rush Cyberfunk encapsulates that core essence perfectly.

Fusing a quite basic combo system, like a tony hawk’s ‘lite’ with graffiti tagging, basic combat and collectibles it somehow just made the most enjoyable 00s gaming throwback experience. The art style alone is just chefs kiss beautiful.

It’s far from perfect, it does leave you wanting more of everything it does, but, it’s still a damn good time.

This being my first 'Borderlands' game that I've actually stuck with for more than a couple of hours is wild.

It plays pretty much as expected from a borderlands entry, though with the an absurdist 'DnD' take. There were moments where it kinda felt like it was dragging itself out, but the absolute standout that made it worth it was all the dialogue. I did not expect to actually have multiple times where I laughed out loud.

I also didn't expect the maps to be so 'large', nor did I expect their to be an overworld housing them all, which was a very nice addition. It was enjoyable to open up more of the world map to suddenly see a new area that was giant in scope with a load of side content to plow through.

Saying this though, I probably would not have played this to the end if I'd done it single player - I think allowing for the game to be played start-finish multiplayer really helped me to get into this one.

Yakuza 4 shakes things up a bit, with the story now split into four parts (plus a finale) with each one having the player take up the role of one of the four protagonists - Shun Akiyama, Taiga Saejima, Masayoshi Tanimura and the ever iconic Kazuma Kiryu.

While this change was welcomed and it helped to flesh out a more 'expansive' feeling story with each of these characters involved in the over arching plot and having that needed development in said plot to make that conclusion worthwhile, it felt way too short. Each part needed some more room, some more time for these characters to be properly fleshed out - everytime it felt like we were getting somewhere it kinda just rushed to the finish for that person.

I'm also very glad I played Yakuza 0 as my first 'entry' to the series, with this one primarily focusing on the events preceeding / taking place during 0.

The gameplay is pretty much as you expect from Yakuza, heavy on cinematics and cutscenes - giving that absurd 'soap opera' plot and then the beat-em-up/brawler combat inbetween (that is, if you're not spending all of your time just focused on playing mahjong and the myriad of minigames the series has to offer). I did appreciate that each of the characters has their own fighting styles, though they're essentially just the different styles Kiryu was able to do in 0/1/2 (But it at least made each one feel individual).

Probably the most forgettable of the franchise, Rogue’s main protagonist could have been something interesting, instead he ‘Makes his own luck’ as he says, 15 times throughout the really damn short campaign that after 2 minutes feels like a quick cash-grab reskin of Black Flag yet somehow worse.

I genuinely have been playing this every night for the past 4 days and I can’t tell you a single thing about this game besides the main character got so upset over an accident that he turned evil and against his “family”.

Starfield is Bethesda’s most ambitious game yet. Did you think Fallout 76 was too barren? Too devoid of life? Well…. Starfield is still that. How about other space games though, No Man’s Sky? Remember how they made it so you could fly not only around planets and land anywhere but directly up into space, and down onto another planet - no loading screen! Well…. Starfield doesn’t do that either.

Starfield’s main focus(es) both exploration and space travel are both incredibly pointless. For the majority of the game space travel is just menus, selecting where you want to go and then a loading screen. You’re really only using the ship when you have the very few enemy encounters to fight and/or to be an in-between stage of landing on a planet, because you need to be in orbit to then go to a menu to select the landing point on the planet if you’ve not been there before.

Now onto the planets - do you like walking and/or running with an incredibly limited stamina bar across vaste open empty spaces that boil down to ‘it either has trees or just rocks’ with a couple of randomly generated structures that are a very very long distance away from you and contain pretty much nothing? No? Well that’s all there is.

There are a few main cities, which do have their own unique aesthetic and design but with no minimap and no actual map to show you around (that isn’t just a planetary height map represented by blue dots on a darker blue background), it’s pretty easy to either get lost or not know what shops exist and where they are.

The game would’ve heavily benefited from being one or two systems with densely populated planets (a couple empty, sure, for resources, I’ll allow it) and the ability to actually use your ship for more than a ‘staging’ method for fast travel.

Now, weirdly enough, I did find some enjoyment amongst the soulless game design. Despite the main story being pretty bad and having an… interesting ending. I’m unsure what it was though, maybe it’s because of how it played exactly like Fallout that I couldn’t put it down. Maybe it’s because I can see the potential there that just never really got hit. Who knows.

All I know is, I’m so glad I played via gamepass and didn’t feel heavy regret at £60 spent on something that just doesn’t live up to what it tries to do in any aspect.

This being my first delve into the world of Pikmin, having always thought I just would not get on with the series I can say it left me pleasantly surprised. It's amazing just how accessible the game is despite being a strategy game - yes, it's obviously designed this way with kids being the main player base, but still.

The addition of Oatchi I really enjoyed, they made traversal so much easier and knowing that my Pikmin were all in one location rather than trailing off behind was needed. Oatchi also made collecting treasures / fighting enemies easier while I had my Pikmin do other tasks.

While there's only 4 'Main' areas they were decent sized with a lot of things to do in them - and that's really where this game surprised me, I'm not someone who loves doing collectibles in a game (my attention span is not there) but this game had me hooked for just over a week on making sure I 100%'d areas and fully explored. There was something just so relaxing about it.

The only real challenge I found was in the 'Dandori Trials' where you quite literally have to optimise your time, make sure no Pikmin are idle, know the best route to collect treasures but not waste time, etc.

The Quarry proves something I didn't think possible from Supermassive Games, they can make a game that not only has interesting characters and plot but is also visually beautiful and 'polished'.

Unlike the Dark Pictures Anthology it feels like actual time and care was put into this, no random loading moments during dialogue to reflect choices made, no glitches with character models during cutscenes and smoother animations.

The overall plot was very obvious from the jump though, I would've liked just a tad more mystery behind it. However, I still had fun trying to keep as many of the camp counsellors alive as long as possible (even if I made some real dumb decisions).

There was one issue I had - with The Quarry now including quicktime events that rely on directional input from a joystick I found sometimes it registered the wrong direction, which, led to some annoying last-minute deaths (This could be due to my own controller/setup though).

Oh, also, Lin Shaye was drastically underused - you don't get Lin Shaye to be a character introduced so late in the damn story!!!

The Devil in Me manages to keep The Dark Pictures' slow progression and evolution as the first season goes on and builds upon it - with new gameplay mechanics thrown into the mix, like; a basic inventory, balance beams and hiding segments (I'm sure there's more).

What it also manages to keep up is the feeling that The Dark Pictures are "unrefined". Small visual glitches plague the series, and, some moments that completely take you out of it - for example, watching the villain sew up a new animatronic only to see the thread is hanging loose and clips through the doll without so much as interacting with it and then still being vertical when the animation is complete. There's just a lot of these moments, paired with stilted dialogue due to the choices that have been present in all "Episodes" that just really need that extra bit of attention and care.

Back to the Devil in Me specifically though, I appreciated it being yet another case grounded in reality and not a creature-feature (something that, besides House of Ashes, has been present in the other episodes). I thought the characters were all pretty "realistic" and well written (and Jessie Buckley was 10/10), the story itself was interesting with it being based off of H. H. Holmes and his "murder" hotel.

They also ramped up the difficulty on this one and choices that look obvious are not exactly so. This was the first game in the series where I ended up with less than 4 survivors by the ending due to things I really thought would save them.

Fingers crossed there's more of these based-on or involving serial killer type moments in season 2.

House of Ashes finally provides a game within the Dark Pictures anthology with a decent ending to it.

This time ditching the five ‘ordinary’ people type ensamble for five military types who trapped in an ancient sumarian temple underground during the iraq war (a bizarre setting but okay) and chance upon an ‘ancient evil’.

House of Ashes had a tonne more combat-heavy encounters this time around and was far more hands-on than the previous titles in the anthology, which really worked to offset the dialogue moments - something I don’t feel like was present enough in the previous two entries.

Though I have started to notice, and it was particularly prominent in this one, that character models and facial animations are extremely stilted while they’re choosing what reaction to have based on your choices. There also seems to be the occasional disconnect - for example, I’d chosen to reconcile a relationship and 2 minutes later the two characters were talking as if they hated each other, despite just kissing and hugging and professing their love. This is ‘minor’ though, I suppose, given how many choices you are presented with and how things can change at any given moment.

I also found it weird they’ve chosen to re-use facial models from previous entries but with a new voice cast - again, it’s minor but it feels… strange to know. Why not use the same voice cast? Or even the actors behind the faces?

House of Ashes is definitely the peak of the series for me though, I found myself desperately wanting to find out the truth behind it all, more so than Little Hope (which I genuinely enjoyed, besides that ending), and it did not disappoint.

The Dark Pictures: Little Hope tasks you with answering the question: Can Supermassive Games make an ending that lands? - the answer I found is: not really.

It's frustrating, I know what they were going for here, I get the ending, I get why it was done. I don't think it's satisfying however and it quite honestly takes away from a lot of what's happened throughout the 5 hours I put into it.

I did thoroughly enjoy the mystery around Little Hope and the witch trials of its past, I actually made a dumbass move this time (unlike with Man of Medan) and got someone killed! There was also more 'combat' segments and quick-time life-or-death split second decision making moments in this one compared to MoM, which, was appreciated.

While it didn't have as many obtuse jump scares, of those that still persisted felt wholly unnecessary especially as they were 'transitional' moments to other scenes - purely baffling.

I went into Man of Medan hearing/seeing how much people enjoy the Dark Pictures games but had no expectations of my own for it.

I’m glad that was the case because while visually, it’s absolutely stunning even 4 years on, and, it has a really interesting premise for its story - I just feel it never quite goes anywhere with it, the game just kinda… ends.

I also found it rather easy to keep everyone alive, something I thought to be incredibly challenging given what I’d heard about it and yet I had no issue.

Aside from the story starting strong then going nowhere I take issue with the reliance on jumpscares. I only say this because there are plenty of times in this game that it does some “good” horror scares, with things moving in the foreground and background that work well in creeping you out. Then you have 9 times out of 10 where its just loud noise in-your-face obnoxiousness to try force a scare out of you.

Bugsnax is stupid, it's charming and it's fun. It takes the idea of 'Pokemon' or any other creature-collection game and makes it about collecting parasitic-food-creatures that turn organisms into the titular 'Bugsnax' upon consumption.

With a relatively straightforward story about a missing adventurer who was, essentially, the mayor of a small town named 'Snaxburg' on a remote island and restoring the town whilst trying to find out what happened to her. Throw in charming characters, with some actually surprising wit to them and then a whole host of side quests and requests from said characters, with challenges around each of the (small number of) Bugsnax and how to actually catch them - it made for a game that was genuinely a break from big and on occasion, mentally draining games.

I went into Sifu expecting, from what I'd heard, a 'Souls-like' experience of incredibly difficult combat and, to my surprise, it wasn't really like that.

Sure the combat is tough but it just boils down to knowing parrying is key and when to avoid to not have your structure break.

I was a bit disappointed in the length of the game - you can really get through it in 4 hours, which is absolutely wild to me that something like this that feels it could go on for a good 12 hours took a fraction of that time. I do understand that the idea is to replay it and complete the additional challenges etc etc. but even so!

My main worry going into this as well was that I'd end up reaching old age fairly quickly (which, if you don't know, you age when you die - starting at 20 with 78 being the max) and yet I completed the game having never going over 27/28.