Totally fine sequel to this long running franchise with a big new gameplay element that really doesn’t change too much but adds slightly more gameplay elements. The gear system allows for slowing time or powering up attacks and it works great when the levels are throwing obstacles that make you use it. My issue is that it almost felt like cheating on bosses but you are clearly meant to use it.

The strength of these games is in the level design and I just felt some of them had too many annoying sections, there are so many aids you can buy to make the actual dying part semi trivial so I guess they decided to up some of the instant deaths, or maybe I was just rusty. It nails the feeling of MM and it looks nice with its new graphics.

The added challenges is a nice touch and really I feel that’s when the game comes alive. Just going through it once felt like I was going through the motions, not bad in any way just not the top tier MM. I enjoyed it, it’s MM, it’s firmly in the middle of the pack to me.

Score: 6.8

Crow County is a PS1 style survival horror game which clearly takes inspiration from Resident Evil and other horror games of that era. It’s a good feeling game, it controls well with a camera that does move but still gives off a static camera feel. The issue I have is it doesn’t follow the limited inventory of RE games and that’s what I feel is key for the old survival horror games.

You explore a derelict theme park that is now filled with monsters and traps as you uncover the mystery of the missing owner and why your character is searching for him. The story ain’t bad, I liked the few twists and turns and the characters you meet. It’s all told through text, no voice acting. The graphics are interesting as it goes for the PS1 blocky style but the coloring pops, it feels like a living Lego style world. I think the presentation is well done, it’s never really scary, it’s too cartoony for that but it feels like I’m playing a game from back in the day, with better controls.

This game weighs more to the puzzle solving adventure aspect of survival horror than any kind of surviving. As I stated before there is no limited inventory to manage, no item boxes, you can explore and take everything you want, I always had plenty of ammo and health so there was rare ever a sense of danger. Also when you take away the gameplay loop of needing to be selective of what to bring on a run the game becomes just an adventure game with monsters, and that’s all this is.

So adventure games rely on puzzles and exploring to be memorable and this game has some good puzzle moments but nothing really stand out. I will say it moves at a brisk pace, plenty of locations open up with new dangers growing as you go. I think it starts a bit too open, I was wandering around a bit looking for where to go, later on it felt much more focused so I enjoyed the second half more.

The combat is gunplay where you can even aim at individual parts of an enemies body though I think only headshots matter giving you a bonus. Enemies are pretty much all very slow and easy to kill, the only thing you need to worry about is do you have enough space to back away while firing and hope it dies before it reaches you. Again I had plenty of ammo and health so I never felt the fear of surviving. As the game goes on the park adds more and more random traps, these things are super annoying as they almost come out of nowhere and just serve to annoy you. Most of my damage came from these traps that litter the world. Also there seems to be no rhyme or reason to rooms being cleared of enemies and then they are repopulated the moment you return. The key to these games is usually choosing what enemies to kill so you have a easier path to get around but now enemies just respawn whenever they want so what’s the point, it’s easy to run past most enemies. A few interesting boss fights do enhance the experience at least.

It’s a good length, took me like 5 hours and I made sure to find all the secrets which were really enjoyable to figure out. There seems to be multiple endings to get, there is a hard mode that unlocks, rankings with how fast you beat it. New items to unlock and so on, so it has a nice amount of content you expect from a survival horror game.

Crow Country has a lot of heart, it shows its respect and love for this genre. For me I like more RE style games and this one forgoes that with no limited inventory. I can see why others enjoy this more than I do, but I think there is more they could have done design wise to be better. If you want the best indie style RE game out there, try Tormented Souls, for those that like the more adventure style this will do fine.

Overall Score: 6.7

Rarely do I change a GOTY pick years later, mostly cause I try to play everything I know would greatly interest me but once in a while something gets by. Especially something like this, a unique indie game that is unlike anything really. I enjoyed Pony Island, the previous game by Daniel Mullins, this is a massive step in quality. Inscryption is such a wild ride that it has become my GOTY of 2021.

It’s best not to spoil much of Inscryption so I’ll keep things vague. At its heart it’s a rogue like card game with adventure elements. The story is you are playing a long lost disc housing this mysterious old game no one knows about, so you are a person playing a game and wild things go from there. This ain’t the deepest card game, it’s no hearthstone, you aren’t building your own deck to battle other players or anything, it’s a story driven card game, it’s has the rogue like elements but the secret sauce is that’s it’s really a linear story. You will get help and items to push you along just when you were struggling, cause it’s not really a randomized game, it’s pretending to be. That’s part of the beauty, the difficulty is tuned perfectly, it has just enough depth to keep you hooked on this card game while not overwhelming you with options or endless repetition because it wants you to go to the next story beat. It’s amazingly paced, for all its crazy twists and turns, not one segment over stays its welcome, it’s brilliant design.

I have to hand it to Mullins, this card game, that is clearly not a full on deck builder but pretending to be one, is really deep and unique and could totally be a stand alone customizable card game. The main game involves sacrificing cards to gain blood points which lets you use better cards all with their own abilities. Card battles take place on a 4 vs 4 row battle field, the ever changing opponents make every battle very engaging. Even though there is random elements to your run as you get to choose your power ups, your extra help items and boosts; some how the fights manage to come down to the final turn, the last attack. Yes you can also break a run with very overpowered cards (again this game isn’t concerned with a card game meta, it’s a story game) which makes you feel like a genius for creating such a powerhouse. There are boss fights with totally unique mechanics at the end of each section, yeah you have to repeat them quite a few times but I still found it fun to fight them.

In between card matches is an adventure game style almost escape room. You search around this cabin for clues, cards speak to you can give you hints on how to proceed. Solving puzzles gives you the special items needed to advance further and further in the card game and start to unravel the greater mystery of the game. The adventure parts were a blast and scratched that exploration itch as well as some really good puzzles. And again I dont want to spoil most of the game but where it goes is so cool and well implemented. I can’t think of many games that do two contrasting gameplay styles so well.

What takes Inscryption over the top is where it goes from its initial presentation. I won’t spoil it but it’s like an ever blooming flower that keeps opening and opening, more amazing layers than the last. My mind was blown so many times, just when I thought they can’t go further it does. It’s also a surprisingly emotional journey as well with such captivating characters.

It’s hard to find any faults with this game. I guess I could say some of the sections are repetitive, you have to repeat runs… ok yeah but it’s part of the game simulation. I think the overall real world part of the mystery left a lot to be desired. I can always say the puzzles can be better, more bosses, more content but really what’s here is really great and special.

Inscryption is a must play game, don’t read much about it just play it. If you ever liked card games you will like it. Hell even if you don’t other elements might grip you. If you find yourself thinking that games don’t surprise me anymore do yourself a favor and play this new classic. It’s one of the best indie games I ever played.

Overall Score 9.4

Made by ex Dead Space developers The Callisto Protocol is an attempt to recapture that magic with an independent studio. Does it do so, no, this is no where close to being as good and interesting as Dead Space was. Is it bad, no, it’s just a by the book game that tries to have an identity with its melee focus on combat but fails to make great situations for it.

Callisto stats very close to the Dead Space formula with undead enemies that can survive head shots, pieces of them can come off, they can mutate. Your character gets powers that let him grab and throw objects like a Jedi. He has the usual guns in a third person shooter, which can be modded to have secondary fire modes but honestly bullets are scarce , the cost of upgrading is so much that it’s pointless to ever reach these upgrades.

Best to save your upgrades for the true killer, the melee baton, which beats enemies to a pulp. It’s the first weapon you get and clearly the focus on the combat, swinging feels and looks great with the camera going in with each swing, the issue is how boring the entire melee system is. You have a standard combo and a stronger wind up attack, honestly just use the standard combo, strong attack is only good on regular goons and if you want to knock them back. You just mash mash mash until the combo is over or the enemy blocks. The evasion system is extremely one note and makes defense during close encounters almost automatic. All you have to do is hold the the stick to one side and you auto dodge, then move the stick to the other side and you will dodge. Never have two attacks in a row with you pressing to the same side, so as long as you can move your thumb left to right you are invincible against most attacks. Say multiple enemies come at you, if you engage in a combo on one the others will usually just stand around and wait their turn, unless they hurl projectiles at you which will stun you and open you up for attack. So many fights can be won by just dodging and meleeing forever (on hard the enemies take a while to kill with just melee).

Guns start off super weak, I felt like I was firing a pea shooter the first few hours. The later guns are better and finally there is some impact with enemies flying back or losing limbs. The most satisfying why to kill enemies is using the multitude of traps around the game world to instant kill them, best way is to simply force grab them and launch them into a spinning fan. When all your skills and powers are on display the combat can shine, I didn’t feel the main game had enough quality encounters that really pushed the mechanics. This is in contrast to the post game dlc which I felt was so much better designed than the main game, more on that later.

The first two or three hours of the game is a slog, almost all linear hallways and so many forced tight spaces and air duct crawling. Seriously this game has more air duct crawling than all of metal gear saga. And it’s all for nothing, to hide loading I guess, it’s ridiculous. Some times they go for the most obvious scare possible so it ends up being not scary at all. Everything about the design of this game has a been there done that feel to it, nary an inspired gameplay moment in the game. There is a mid section in the game with fake clicker enemies so you must crouch and slowly sneak around for instant kills, it’s so SLOW. There is none of the tension from TLOU cause these enemies just walk in a set pattern so you just wait till you get behind them to kill. These sections just kept happening over and over and over, way too much.

At the mid point enemies start to sprout tentacles after hitting them a few times, the gimmick is to shoot them before the creature evolves into a bigger foe. This is where melee starts to become an issue cause if you melee a dude with the tentacles they probably morph meaning it takes extra long to kill. To combat this the game gives you an auto shoot skill after a melee combo, but at first it always targets the head, meaning you miss the tentacles. You need to spend a bunch of upgrades to reach the auto target the tentacles skill. It’s such a weird thing to hide behind a skill, it made me never want to do melee against these guys until I got that skill. There are weird quirks with the gameplay, one with a big tank boss like monster that all of a sudden you can’t do melee attacks on but the only way to actually kill it is to stun it and then do the melee but only the regular melee hurts it, not the strong one. Things felt rushed.

As the game goes on you get more enemies, better mix of enemies, bigger levels with lots more traps and toward the end actual boss battles but not great ones. It’s never bad, combat is engaging enough, your deaths are so brutal it was a joy to be killed. I actually enjoyed the story somewhat, it had some twists and turns. The game is gorgeous to look at, production values are ridiculous and the Hollywood acting talent is engaged and gives good performances around. It doesn’t really over stay its welcome, hell it actually feels like they wanted it to be a longer game judging by how slow the weapons were given early on and how they dump the final ones pretty much at the end.

As I said before the DLC is easily the best part of the game. This is the true ending of the game, sucks they put it behind a pay wall but that’s the industry we have now. The quality of the encounter design and having a full strength arsenal from the start makes the game so much better. The DLC has much better level design with some areas needing keys or batteries to be moved to activate certain sections. New saw blades can be grabbed and launched at enemies. The levels and mix of enemies is far better done than the base game with encounters that felt like actual design thought was put into it. If the whole game was like the DLC this would be an 8, but I’m going to judge the main game as it is, a disappointment.

The Callisto Protocol just never does enough to stand out. There are so many better third person action games out there… one of them being the literal remake of Dead Space. I appreciate the effort, I enjoy these kinds of games so I was into it. Seems the production values got more attention than refining the gameplay, or they ran out of time and money.

Base game score: 6.5

DLC: 7.5

My gaming history has plenty of gaps when it comes to the CRPG. Seeing that I am mostly a console gamer and an action game fan, I never played the Baldur's Gate series, the old Fallout, or Neverwinter Knights. My one attempt at BG2 ended in frustration when a bat murdered my entire party 10 minutes in. My CRPG fix came from the Bioware school of make it palatable for console folks and boy did I love it; the choices, the branching stories, but those games still felt there was a layer of complexity missing. Divinity Original Sin 2 was the one that opened my eyes to what a more traditional CRPG should be like, and I adore that game but there were some things that I wish it expanded upon, mainly a larger party with better storylines. Enter Baldur's Gate 3, the latest Larian studio masterpiece, they heard me, they gave me almost everything I could want in an RPG. This game is simply put the best RPG I have ever played, and it seems many others who have played far more RPGs than I agree.



The most important aspect for me with when a game is PC centric is if I can play it like a console game, please give me a controller. Yes, I know many of you will throw up in disgust but hey I feel comfortable with a controller, I don’t want to be tied to a table with keyboard and mouse, I just want to relax and play. You can't do that with any of the older CRPGs, it's a big barrier to me as those games don't introduce its concepts in a way that is natural, instead it expects the player to read a 100 page instruction manual, no thanks. Teach me piece by piece how to play naturally, that doesn't mean dumb it down, I can explore the depths as we go along, and BG3 does this masterfully. Fully playable with a controller (yeah some menu navigation is annoying, but I chose this so whatever) and a game with gameplay systems that are presented logically and at a good pace.



Unlike DoS2, this game uses the Dungeons and Dragons license, it's my first foray into that fantasy world and its rule sets. Dice rolls used to scare me, now I learned to love the dice roll. There is quite a bit to learn but the in-game tutorials give you most of the basics. Everything is governed by the dice, sometimes it's in the background like during combat, but for world actions a big dice will appear on screen so you can have the feel of that tabletop experience. I went from not understanding how D&D works at all to looking up play sessions online, to see how it compares to the tabletop experience and wow they really nailed it about as best they can. The key to the D&D experience is that freedom of choice and adventure, where you can do almost anything and the dungeon master (in this case the devs) must accommodate those actions and boy does this game do that.



It's funny how in the same year two games that allow some of the most free-from gameplay ever, Zelda in the gameplay physics side and BG3 with story choices. I cannot fathom the web of different scenarios the devs had to create. It starts off simple like most games, pick one choice and maybe one character lives or dies and you will find them later on. Ok but then compound that with a whole group of them, decide to aid in genocide of an entire group of people, what happens to all those potential allies not just now but 100 hours into the game. What happens when choices upon choices continually create ripple effects, how does a game keep track of everyone. And these are not simple choices, these are deciding who your enemy will be, where you are allowed to even set foot, your party members might disown you, anyone can die. By the third chapter I was overwhelmed with the possibilities, I have to believe someone else is playing a totally different version of this story. I did perform a few experiments of my own to see different outcomes of major events and I was blown away at how different the mission plays out and what occurs immediately after, I have no clue how that affects what comes 70 hours later. Even the miniscule choices are all kept track of, NPCs I forgot about many hours ago will show up and thank me leaving me asking "wait who are you again?" I have never felt more in control over the direction of a story than I have in this game, I am in awe of the possibilities.



All the choices in the world don't matter if I don't care about the story or the characters in it, in this aspect BG3 is once again top of its class. Not since Mass Effect have I had a party of characters I grew so fondly of, characters that feel like family who I want to protect. They also feel alive, independent, they will chastise me when they don't like my decisions. They will bicker with one another, form rivalries and bonds between themselves. Pretty much all of them are extremely horny and all want to sleep with me regardless of gender or even species, that aspect felt a bit much as one night at the campfire I had four party members try to get me to sleep with them and I had to make a choice. That's an area that can use work, I get romance options are fun but when every party member is basically open to everything they seem to lose an aspect that can make them unique, also lose the whole hard to get part when they all line up like a deli market to take a number to try to bang you.



I like my RPG parties to be mixed with all kinds of weirdos and different creatures. DoS2 had four party members, it was way too basic and lacked that party management aspect I love. Here the cast is massive, 10 potential characters, many optional, one I missed out on entirely (I murdered her before I knew I could recruit her, that's the freedom the game gives you). Most of the focus is given to the main 6 companions you get in the first chapter. All of them are so well developed even though they might seem like standard fantasy tropes. Each has such a rich backstory which gives them all incredible depth. Shadowheart is the quintennial female lead, a high elf cleric who worships the god of darkness, she is no nonsense but noble. I thought she is going to be somewhat of a pain most of this game, and she starts off like that but as she confronts her religion and her repressed feelings those defensive layers peel away to a much more interesting character. All the party members are like this, from the witty mage Gale to the devilish snark of the vampire rogue Astarion, or the sweet innocence of the murdering barbarian Karlack; all these characters are so much fun to talk to and play with. As the game goes on you can recruit the optional characters and these mostly have ties to past BG games. I only wish the fan favorite Minsc came sooner, he shows up VERY LATE in the game which doesn't allow him any real chance to grow as a character. This is one of the greatest RPG casts ever, it is Bioware in quality and as fun and quirky as the best JRPG parties.



The main plot itself is standard fantasy fare, there is some world ending threat and a team of heroes must band together to stop it. Coming from D&D enriches the storylines as they have such deep history to pick from, not just from the previous Baldur's Gate games but from 50 years of D&D. This game does a great job introducing you to who and what you need to know for this specific story. I learned about the mind flayers and their war against the Githyanki. I learned about different levels of hells, about how different gods and religions operate, how magic fits into the world and so on. I found all of this so interesting, which led me down a whole D&D rabbit hole reading about different Dragons, different famous campaigns, famous heroes and villains, different worlds and dimensions. There is so much material to take from and every bit of it is handled with such care in this game, as I started to learn more of the lore of D&D my appreciation of all the small details grew. Every inch of this game is filled with stories whether it's told through the environment, dialogue or notes.



Like many of the best RPGs it is not even the main quest that delivers the best stories, though compared to most RPGs this one has one of the better main quests I've played, the side stories are so memorable especially when they are tied to your party members. I have battled demonic hags who have tried to use a small girl to transfer their mind into her as a new host. I have made deals with literal devils and paid the price of trying to break those deals. I've discovered trap filled tombs which hold ancient curses and of course great loot. The more complex ones branch off of the main quest giving you so many options, entire communities can live or be destroyed by your actions. The final act in particular puts so many compounding decisions one after another, I was feeling the pressure of so many factions and characters I care about pulling me in different directions, to give the player choice is one thing its making it feel like it really matters that is the key and not many games achieve that. I loved all the twists and turns of the main quests and the wild shocking moments of side quests. There are moments of humor, love sadness, grief, wonder, awe, it spans all emotions while telling great stories that never feel too stoic, never too comical, it walks this fine line of a world that has a sense of humor but can still be taken seriously. It's a masterclass in storytelling for video games.



Story and choice are top notch, but that is just one half of the equation, the other is the most important to me, how it plays. The only reason I can play this game is because its turn based, I can't do real time CRPGs. Turn based allows the combat and scenarios to play out like a strategy game with loads of crazy powers and emergent gameplay. Divinity 2 had this in spades, incredible reactivity to the game world, that returns with even more options.



This game makes other games seem basic in comparison. It's funny at first I wasn't too enamored with the way magic and combat was playing out in act one. D&D rules have stringent action and magic rules which limit the actions a character can take to just a primary action and a secondary one. If you use magic you lose a magic point for that level which at the start might just be two or three points, those aren't coming back until you long rest. Long rest isn't something to take lightly, you can't do it in a dungeon and when you do the story advances and certain situations might play out without you. I felt my beginning teams were so limited, fights were feeling basic because of them. Divinity 2 introduced environmental interactions relatively early and often, I feel they were a huge part of the combat scenarios. In BG3 the spells and skills you gain as you play let you create the environments and combos; yes plenty of locations still have objects you can use like of course an explosive barrel. The game doesn't overly rely on those scenarios so it doesn't feel like there is one correct way to play out the fights, I saw the beauty in this the further i went along the game. The combat keeps evolving to the point where it's laughable that I thought it wasn't as interesting as Divinity 2, this game is magnitudes more complex.



To fully describe the breadth of options for the player one just has to read the class listings, of which there are twelve. As you level up those 12 they each split into three different sub classes. On top of that you can take on multiple classes, as many as you like, you can mix and match all classes and create some wild hybrid that might be OP or useless. I can make a warrior that dabbles in wizardry specializing in enhancing spells. I can be rouge monk, sneak up to enemies and then punch them to death. In this game every character can only reach level 12 which sounds low but every level is such an improvement. You know the game will change with each level increase, it's not some random number that just goes up and leaves no impact on the game. Here you will gain multiple new skills, new spells, new spell slots, new spell levels, perks and more. What starts off very limited in the actions you can do expands in so many various ways. Many classes have the ability to attack multiple times per turn, on top of the ability to gain a full action letting you hit again, well what if you have haste on as well that's a third attack, now I can hit an enemy about 6 times in a row. New ways to regain spell slots emerge, never enough to make spell casting wasteful, you better save those high-level spells for the right time in the fight, but at least you can be casting spells constantly during a fight and not run out. On top of all your skills there are a plethora of items that can enhance your character. I suffered from the usual item paralysis many do where you never use your items cause you want to save them for when you need them, which means it's the final boss and now you have 100000 buff potions... I actually had to use them all throughout the third act, especially haste potions. There are also spell scrolls which let you cast a spell with any action, and anyone can use it, that's a huge game changer to have.



Options, options, options, it is the name of the game, you decide how you want to fight, what strategies to implement, its pure gameplay freedom. This is one of those games where you just try things to see if it works and holy shit it does! Have a barbarian, odds are they can throw enemies around or objects. I was on a bridge once and this big armored dude was coming at me, has lots of health, well I just picked him up and chucked him off the bridge. Mages can create ice walls trap hordes of enemies behind it while another can set a blade tornado spell constantly damaging those trapped enemies. There are plenty of skills that let you manipulate enemies, you can create illusions to have them inspect a certain area perfect for traps, or just take over their brain if you are powerful enough. So much can be done even before battle has started using invisibility spells or morphing into different animals as a druid, sneaking into areas with only one enemy around to thin the numbers before the fight even begins. It's not just environmental combos that can work beautifully but the gear and perks of your character which can create wild synergies to make you an unstoppable killing machine. Loot in so many RPGs feel so useless, while there is a lot to collect here, you will still throw away a bunch of gear but only because it doesn't fit for your current play style, each gear has a use if you were going for that skill. I turned my Gale into Raiden god of lightning by giving him gear which charged him with lighting charges with every action, allowed him to be immune to all lightning damage and letting him turn all water electrified by just standing in it. I always had a constant charge and was blasting enemies with chain lighting. I had my other characters use spells to move enemies into position and Gale light a whole row of them up into a crisp. There is an absurd amount of skills and actions you can do, this feels like the X-Men game I always wanted, at some point you can learn to fly so I'm hovering around the battle field creating lighting and tornados like Storm, others are taking over enemies minds like Prof X, I'm launching objects at enemies with my mind like Magneto.



Now a game can give you all this freedom and have repetitive boring fights forcing the player to "make their own fun", thankfully they don't do that. Every single encounter, every location, every NPC, it seems like every single moment of this game is hand crafted to give the player a new situation to work through. There are no junk mobs, no copy pasted activities all over the map, it is all curated and it is HUGE. How?! How can I be 200 hours in, and I am in a wild dungeon playing a deadly game of chess for a puzzle which uses my spells to move the pieces and that is unlike anything else in the game before it. The game world isn't close to the size of these massive open world games, this game is broken into smaller areas but every 30 steps there is something of note and not a fetch quest, if there is a quest it's going to be good. If it's a battle it is going to be interesting whether its stumbling into a spider's nest and babies sprouting from eggs all around you or accidentally triggering a curse in a graveyard and hordes of zombies burst out, every situation is so well done. Oh and the dungeons! A bunch of games are fine with loads of hallways and enemy encounters, here there are multiple ways to approach a dungeon, sometimes you can skip huge chunks of them.



One of the early ones that I had no business being in at such a low level was this lair of a hag. You have to overcome an illusion to gain entry and then descend a trap invested lair which goes down down down. I used certain spells to let me bypass many of the traps like feather fall and super jumping which let me land from great heights and not take damage, so instead of going through the traps I just leaped down into the chasm. The problem was my whole team couldn't use those spells, so some had to go the long way, I used my advance team to find ways to disarm some of the traps and clear the way; then all kinds of ambushes happened which took a bunch of my spell slots to deal with. I reached the boss not at full strength, like many bosses in the game this had all kinds of unique elements to it, for this one a maiden trapped in a cell hanging over a pit, its being held by a rope that gets on fire and has two turns before it snaps. This hag can make fake versions of herself all over the map, I need to use a water spell to shut down the fire, let's just say the first go didn't go well for me. So I reloaded and now I had a gameplan, I snuck around the area before the hag was aware of my presence and set my team up so when the fight started every one had a clear goal, one to save the maiden, one to immediately dispatch the clones and another to stun the hag, plan worked to perfection. That entire section had me problem solving step by step, it was not some mindless location, the entire game is like this.



There are thrilling moments where entire structures are going to collapse, and your entire team only has a few moments to escape. Prison escapes where you can only save so many people in so many turns, trying to save everyone is like a gigantic logistics puzzle. Dungeons filled with trials that test all kinds of skills from stealth to knowledge, to brute strength. And again, I cannot stress how many options you have, not just in the free form gameplay which lets you approach and handle any situation in a variety of ways, but simply talking to NPC characters can drastically change the outcome of any situation. I managed to convince an entire kitchen staff of werewolf creatures to turn on their masters because they were actually being used, so when the revolt started, I had a werewolf army burst out of the kitchen. There are so many amazing situations, memorable encounters and deeply unsettling choices to be made all the time.



I must talk about the boss battles, many devs will just pump some enemy up with a huge health bar and big damage and call it a day, not Larian. Like the aforementioned hag battle, these fights have layers to them, they have different variables which test your teams in various ways. In the great forge there is this massive iron golem that comes alive to protect it. This area was circular with a gigantic hammer in the middle that would crash down to forge an item, around the circle the area would constantly fill with lava. This golem was immune to almost all attacks but blunt damage, so I got my barbarian, gave her a hammer and used my teammates to buff the shit out of her and have her attack nonstop, literally brute force it. It worked for me but then I thought, wait a minute that seemed messy, there must be something else I could do. Turns out I could have activated the giant hammer lured the golem into it and let it come crashing down for an instant kill. There are bosses where certain party members are about to be scarified or need to be saved or lost forever creating complex scenarios where you need to keep the enemies at bay while doing the actions that need to be done to save your compatriot. From gigantic undead dragons to powerful vampires and all kinds of wild things in between the games bosses always surprised me and tested me in the best ways.



I am going to cop out and not give the game a perfect 10 but a 9.9 and I guess i should explain why. When I think of my 10s they are my absolute favorite games ever and this game is near that list, but I don't think it surpasses any of my all-time favorites and part of that could absolutely be genre bias. The few negatives I can think involve the presentation and scope of the game. While graphically this game is really good looking for a Larian game, it's a huge step up from Divinity 2, with better models and environments that are detailed enough to be played from a near behind the back camera rather than top down. Every character is now fully voiced, they went above and beyond to make this world feel alive. That said when the cutscenes happen and it's supposed to be a big action moment it feels like I am watching a bad school play. The animations are extremely stiff, camera work and cuts are almost nonexistent. I love to be wowed by spectacle, its why I love Final Fantasy so much, that gives me the HOLY SHIT setpieces. If this game had those moments, even just like two of them, in the way that gets me excited it probably pushes it over the edge for me. Sadly I was always reminded that this is a lower budget game in graphics and presentation. The next issue I had is the scope of the adventure felt limited to a small region. This is the same structure as Divinity 2, three acts, each act is one location, and they are all sort of close to one another and you basically don't ever go back and forth between them. On one hand this keeps the game focused, that's great, but I feel I lose the sense of a globetrotting RPG adventure. Coming from a JRPG background those are my favorite kinds of quests, when the whole world opens up and I am on an airship exploring a magical new world for secrets. This never feels like exploration, the area is small and so dense with things every few steps, I didn't find that on my own, I was always going to see it on my way to my next objective. There is a lot that you can miss in BG3 for sure, tons of it is optional but I wouldn't call it exploring or finding secrets and I like that in my RPGS.



I have read online that many people criticize the third act for being rushed and not as well made as the first two. I don't get that complaint; I think the third act is the strongest of the three with by far the most intense consequential choices to be made. The final dungeons are also very well done, it has the strongest boss battles of the game. The city itself is amazing to behold, they pack it with things to do and explore. Yes, I could see sections where something more was clearly supposed to be there, but the game is huge already, a few missing quests is ok.



I already mentioned the graphics, a huge step up for Larian and for games like these which usually don't get the AAA treatment. I love the new camera system, not always being isometric view really allows for immersion. I want to give massive praise to the music which has a very beautiful recognizable theme that has many variations to it as you play. Fully voiced songs appear, and they are well done, some are soothing, and some are surprising. The best one happens during a boss fight where out of nowhere the boss has a whole Disney style bad guy song during the fight, I was overjoyed. The voice cast is tremendous, I feel bad for the amount of dialogue they had to speak, I hope they were paid well. Oh, glitches or lack thereof. Games this complex always come with issues, it's natural, that said compared to most other games of its kind and other games by much bigger studios which I won't name names, this game is relatively bug free and functions so well considering there are like a million ways it could break. Now I did play it a few months after release, maybe some big bugs were ironed out, who knows, for me it was relatively smooth. Yes I had multiple crashes, once maybe every 60 hours, ohhh I restarted from my recent save no big deal. If there was ever an argument for early access this game is it, I am almost certain that the years of testing early access gave this team allowed them to make such a relatively glitch free game that has all its complicated game systems working in perfect harmony.



Baldur's Gate 3 is a masterpiece of the highest level, top of the genre, a new standard by which every other RPG will be judged by. The freedom of its gameplay is breathtaking, its level design is top notch and the storytelling pushes player choices and consequences to its limit. I feel I can play this game again and see 50% of new scenarios and having alternate storylines playing out. I missed out on an entire party member because she didn't align with my good guy run, that is waiting for me. Oh I didn't even touch multiplayer, yes you can play this entire game with friends, it's crazy! I am the type of player that loves to play a game and move on, 100 hour games test my patience, and this one never did. I played for about 3 months straight, took a small FF break, but went right back to it. Night in and night out waiting for my chance to jump back into the world of D&D, never bored, always surprised at what I was playing. There isn't any more I can say, it is a must play and the best game to come out in over a decade.

Score: 9.9

It has been 9 years since the announcement of a Final Fantasy Remake and we are now about halfway through the story. The first installment was an excellent start, I loved how they fleshed out all the characters and was thrilled with the combat system, but looking back at it now Remake felt like a test for what was to come. Remake was literally the prologue chapter of FFVII, and that game now feels like a prologue for Rebirth , a much bigger and better title. To me the true FF remake begins with this game, this is what my mind envisioned when I was screaming with joy during the 2015 E3 conference. I doubted they could pull off a game so huge, an open world with so many locations and story beats. Splitting the game in pieces has of coursed helped them achieve this monumental task, regardless of the method it works. Rebirth is a dream come true and one of the best JRPGs ever made. 

Remake was mostly a linear adventure with almost no room to explore. There was a lack of experimenting with party builds, hardly much materia to create the wild combinations of powers you can do in the original. Rebirth addresses all those issues, taking inspiration from the original. The world map is there in incredible detail, in a way I didn't think they would even attempt to achieve. It is not a full explorable map you can walk around like a Zelda BOTW, it is broken into regions, with each region having its own theme and unique activities. That said while you can’texactly walk the world, the entire chunk of the world this chapter covers is all there, it's not segmented sections. It all exists together in one giant seamless overworld map just like the original. Toward the end when you see the full scope of what Square has achieved my mind was blown, my head racing with the possibilities of what awaits in the final installment.

The open world has some issues which I want to cover first. Most of the activities in this game run through the AI bot Chadley who keeps track of every side quest and odd job available per region. An on screen checklist showing your progress in each region pops center screen every time you complete an assignment. Some of these activities repeat in every region much like a very standard ubisoft map; with activites like activate towers, find life springs, find multiple summon stones. As you unlock towers the icons of where to find these activities fill the map, no real discovery needed. This method of side quest tracking eliminated the sense of magic and discovery the OG FF7 excels at. Even though I was exploring these areas fully I never felt like I am actually discovering anything on my own, I can't think of a secret that exists outside the giant Chadley checklist, everything is logged for you, makes it feel like a countdown to completion than true exploration.

So while I am not a fan of how they handled the way the world was presented I am a huge fan of the content provided in these worlds. Rebirth is side quests the game, and to be even more specific MINI GAMES the game. I have always been a huge fan of variety in my games, I love mini games.Simple ones, weird ones, kind of crappy ones, it doesn't matter. If you try to add activities to your game I am almost always in support of that, especially if they are done this well. I struggle to think of a game with a better selection of mini games and wild side content like this one. Queen's Blood, the fully fleshed out battle card game within this game could be its own game (and might end up happening), this one quest line is so deep it has its own storyline, card boss battles, and different puzzle trials. Over 150 cards to collect and the way the layers of complexity open up as the game rolls along is so impressive, it really is a game within a game. That is just one side quest, how about Chocobo racing with itsmultiple kinds of chocobo to find and race. Different equipment all with their own stats and bonuses. Loads of circuits to try out and a big side story connecting all of it. How about more Fort Condor, how about a gambit driven robot defense game, how about Red rocket league, every single arcade at Golden Saucer, an entire piano rhythm game, I can go on and on and on. These quests don't just appear and go away, some unlock harder modes the longer you play with added complexity, I was addicted to playing these, loved it.

Part of the fun of the open world is discovering what you can do in each region. Every region has a specific Chocobo to find and each has a new skill. It starts simple with a chocobo that can climb certain rock walls, but later on you have chocobos that glide through the air, or bounce off mushrooms, and others I don't want to spoil. Multiple vehicles are also accessible at certain points, if you played the original you know the ones, every vehicle is accounted for. Besides fun side activities in every region, there are optional hunts of rare monsters to track down and a big boss battle per region. These fights are fantastic and usually test some aspect of combat that others do not. Each region is home to a town or two, all fully fleshed out with their own set of side quests and activities to do. Costa Del Sol gets a massive upgrade with full on carnival games to mess with and much more story beats. Even the crazy dolphin jumping two second segment in the original is now a full on dolphin race mini game. They have everything!!!! Every town was a joy to explore, to see reimagined in such a grand way. The Golden Saucer probably being the crown jewel of all of them, oh man the stuff you see and do there, Square totally outdid themselves.

What really sets this game apart from the original and other recent FF games is the combat. Building on the foundation set by Remake, this game addresses many of the complaints from that title mainly how your AI teammates are not building much ATB on their own and lack of aerial attacks for airborne targets. Synergy attacks change the entire flow of combat allowing you incredible control over all three party members even when not directly controlling them. There are two versions of them, one is a real time skill that costs no ATB but builds ATB for the two characters involved. This is now one of the primary ways to build ATB in combat as these skills are incredibly useful, most instantly teleport a character to you allowing you move characters around the battle at will. This adds a huge layer of strategy as different combinations of party members lead to different combos, once hard to build ATB characters like Aerith can piggyback off of Cloud to do a dual super attack which gives a full ATB bar. Tifa's skills allow her to be launched into the air allowing her to attack airborne enemies with ease, something she was useless at in the last game. As you use ATB skills you build up synergy power, once you have enough you can execute an ATB free double attack which does massive damage and has its own secondary effect like say increase limit break levels or give infinite magic for some time. 

Using synergy skills and attacks are key to mastering the combat and yet it really is mostly optional, I think its a credit to the flexibility of this games combat system to where you can still play it a more traditional pausing the game to pick commands. For those that want to go almost full real time there are new control options that let you map up to four abilities per party member and they can be activated no matter who you control. That said I love switching between all party members because they are all so interesting and different to play. The new additions, Red and Cait, play so different than say Barret and Tifa. Yuffie returns from her DLC with more abilities than ever, she is a total powerhouse when used correctly. The returning characters have many new abilities and tweaks to make them more interesting to play as well. Thats all before you get to the materia system which lets you customize any character any way you want. Where Remake felt very limited by the choices of builds and even who you can bring with you to a fight, Rebirth blows those doors open giving you full freedom to create any build you want.

I wondered if they could match the sheer amount of options the OG had in character building and well they basically did it even though its still the halfway point of the story. Yes there are still some more materia saved for the last game but most of the big stat changing ones are here, including materia that focuses on limit break building, some can swap stats of different categories, some allow for quicker ATB building, and many combination materias allow for builds that are immune to all kinds of damage or status effects. Combine that with the multitude of armors and accessories each with their own status abilities and you got a level of customization that nearly any FF game outside the job system can't match. Especially if you go by recent FF games which have been systematically cutting down party sizes and build options. This is a true return to form, to 90's era FF where you can create wild builds. There is so much to find and collect; and now exp means something as every quest you finish and every victorious battle leads to more skills and abilities. This is what i have been asking for in modern FF games and it’s finally here. We can have big parties, we can a gameplay system that allows for freedom to build your team, to pick who you want to play as. This is the best combat system of any Final Fantasy game and I am hard pressed to think of any JRPG with a better one. 

Rebirth excels not just with how much fun it is to fight, it’s also how this game is constantly testing your combat abilities and how you are managing your team. Sure the junk mobs will always be fodder, mindless hacking and slashing for some exp and items but in these games they are easily avoidable on the map. The optional tougher enemies and boss battles is where this combat system shines. Many enemies have specific strategies to pressure and stagger them meaning you might have to do some pre fight prep to get through them. Enter a battle with enemies who are only pressured by a certain magic element and not have that spell available can be an issue, but this game has a remedy for that too as the new exp sphere grid allows you to unlock ability spells for every element meaning even if you dont have that materia you will have a weapon skill with it on your character at all times. There are enemies that constantly buff themselves or debuff your squad. Some are susceptible to sleep, or silence. Annoying bastards will turn you into frogs, have that white cape handy. Some work in pairs and you may need to defeat them in a certain order or even simultaneously. There is so much variety with enemies, over 150+ of them, it’s wild. Once you get into the combat trials they REALLY start to push your combat prowess with trials that might restrict party members or even make you use all of them. It's a combat system that builds and builds the entire game long and even when I finished the story I still felt like I was just beginning to reach the highest levels. 

As mentioned before your progress throughout the game mostly takes place in the open worlds but between sections there is usually a linear dungeon that plays out similarly to most levels in Remake. I won't lie, there are a few duds with these dungeons, some old fashion linear level design with odd time wasting obstacles like moving and throwing boxes around. Still overall most of the dungeons are an improvement from Remake mainly because now many of them are focused around a specific party member which opens up new environmental skills. Barret can shoot distant objects to activate switches. Red can climb up specific walls to reach new places. Yuffie can use a grapple hook and swing around the map. These dungeons are a bit more dynamic, have better variety and sometimes have really fun setpieces like the mine cart mini game. There is still some room for improvement here but it's better than Remake to be sure.

At the end of these dungeons are usually the show stopping boss battles which once again are amazing spectacle and so much fun to fight. Many are still multilayered, requiring strategy changes per phase. There are many small cutscenes during the fight to push the cinematic feel, no one can top Square with presentation, these battles are incredible. It may not reach the level of the recent FF16 as that game spoiled us with its all time great mind blowing boss battles, but it’s better than most games of its kind. One gripe I did have is how spaced out the battles felt mainly because I am a completionist so I spent like 7 hours between dungeons just doing side quests. I know this is ultimately my fault because there is so much optional stuff to do and you the player are your own director of content you can really mess up the balance of story momentum. I am not sure if there is a way to fix that, I do think the way the game was structured, pretty much asking the player to complete a whole area before moving on, exacerbated the feeling for me to focus on side quests before moving on. A more organic free form world might allow for better balance.

So how is the story, well when its following the original games beats its incredible. Just like Remake it fleshes out so many of these characters and their personalities. The world around them has so much more detail, way more NPCs that feel like full characters.  The locations and people living in them come alive in a way the original couldn't even dream of. Even characters that were not that interesting like say Cait Sith have a much more lively personality, they nail every character. Well I have one gripe that involves Red and voice acting, don't want to spoil it but you know what it is if you played the game, I felt they went a little too far there, kind of distracting but I got used to it. Even the two party members that you can't play as yet, Cid and Vincent, have moments to shine. Vincent already has a bunch of killer lines and he is in the game the least of all major characters. Oh Yuffie is a star now, an optional simple character in the original is now a scene stealing ball of energy. I love these characters, I love this world, when this game is doing the original retelling it does it extremely well. 

BUT then there are the new story elements… this is not a true remake, it’s more of a pseudo sequel that’s a retelling of the original with new events happening involving multiverse and time travel shenanigans which get extremely convoluted quick. I actually like the idea they are going for with this project, a Sephiroth from the future is trying to mess with time/fate so he can find a way to win but a transcendent version of Aerith is doing her best to stop him. The last game ended with our party destroying the arbiters of fate thus unleashing endless new possibilities. The majority of this game never addresses that, there are some new segments with Zach that play between chapters, one big moment in the middle and the end , that’s pretty much the only time the new elements come to play, most of the games story is told as it was before. Sadly the new story elements come at the expense of extremely emotional scenes in the original, mainly the big one.

The final few hours of this game in terms of story is a mess (the boss fights are amazing). What should have been the most important emotional moment of the game becomes a confusing mess of purposefully vague story beats that left me wondering what the hell is happening rather than feel the events of the moment. It’s a damn shame that a remake that has enhanced so many story beats fails at the most important one. I feel bad for anyone who didn’t play the original, the entire sequence won’t even make sense. Trying to keep an air of mystery for the next game is one thing, but purposefully having the events so confusing so there are no real answers as to what happened, leading to endless theories online, is being confusing for confusing sake. Maybe it all comes together in epic fashion in the last game, still doesn’t excuse that right now I am robbed of the emotion I should feel.

Rebirth uses the same engine as Remake, UE4, but with this game being open world the performance is actually worse. I had to play on quality because performance mode was so blurry and still dips at times. Even with those concessions the game world is beautiful, good art direction can overcome graphical limitations and this game has some glorious vistas. To see these classic locations come to life with such great detail, expanded even, I am overjoyed with the look of almost all the locations, enemies and characters. I really do hope they move onto unreal engine 5 for the next but there is almost no chance that happens.

I need to devote a paragraph to the music because it deserves all the praise possible. I want to shower the composers with awards, this is one of the best soundtracks of any game. Every classic track is redone, sounding better than ever with more layers to the songs. New tracks mix and match sounds of different FF7 tracks, or are original bangers. Some music from other FF games even come into play during some wild side quests. Why the soundtrack is so impactful is because they use it to enhance every single moment. Who knew you could continuously remix the FF7 battle theme so that it feels exciting and fresh every time it plays. On the voice acting front everyone does a fabulous job bring live and new personality to these characters. Special praise to Cait Sith’s voice actor for much needed personality enhancement.

Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is the game I envisioned when this project was first announced. It has exceeded my expectations as I never thought new age square had it in them to go full 90s era JRPG. All the layers of strategy is there, the massive party all given their due and play so uniquely to one another. A full world map to explore and even hints at what’s to come with full flight over the entire overworld. A game that embraces the quirky mini games and oddities of the original by not just matching it, blowing it away with content. It might have some story issues and it’s still only a piece of the overall story so you never get that sense of a complete adventure like the original. In terms of game design though this is top tier Square. I hope this game serves as the template for future Final Fantasy titles as it is one of the greatest ever made.

Score: 9.6

I missed out on pretty much every 16-bit JRPG, I am more of an action game guy and I had a Genesis, that sealed my fate. There was one big RPG series on Genesis, Phantasy Star, I rented one of the games, could have been 2, hated it and had it returned quickly, thus my experience with JRPGs pre FFVII ended there. After FFVII I have gone back and played many of the classic RPGs of that era but I never returned to Phantasy Star (even though I am a massive PSO fan). I heard Phantasy Star 4 is easily the best of the series and one of the better RPGs of that time and hey its in my Genesis collection so why not try it. I am very happy I did as Phantasy Star 4 is still to this day an immpressive game filled with memorable characters and a thrilling story.

Like most every JRPG of the time the game is top down view as you navigate a world map that takes you to various towns and dungeons. Random encounters happen anywhere outside towns at a rate that is borderline annoying, thankfully this version of the game comes with a fast foward button so I sped through most of the garbage fights. You gain exp, level up, gain new powers, buy new gear at the latest town and so on. Clearly the mold wasn't broken with this game, its as traditional as it gets, where it succeeds is how well executed all aspects are.

The most compelling reason to play PS4 is definetly the story and characters that accompany Chaz throught the adventure. During cutscenes comic book style windows tell the story. They aren't real time animated or anything but it feels like reading a well draw comic book. Seeing the party members close up during these scenes adds a nice layer of connection to them as they have a face, you can see their emotions, they arent just a tiny sprite you see from above. While I didn'y play the previous Phantasy Star games I did do a quick summary to catch up, which is important because Sega managed to create a 4 part epic where each game is a subsequent generation of heroes battling the same malevolent force that dooms their solar system. A few long living characters survive across multiple games, stories are told in this one about the heroes of the past games and the impact of a major moment in PS2 has changed the way all species living in this solar system has lived for a hundred years. I didn't see many interconnected storylines back then, I was hugely impressed how this grand finale to the story managed to incorporate those storylines into this and have it work for new comers and those who played the entire series.

I love world maps in these older games, I always feel like I am on a grand adventure if I hop on some airship and explore a full world. Go town to town, discover strange new species and customes. Phantasy Star takes it a step further as you visit multiple planets, sure its just a swap of a map screen but the game feels huge in scope even though it isnt. It takes the usual 30 hours or so to beat this game and do most side stories, maybe today that sounds short but back then that was a massive game.

Sense of adventure is key and so is the push to keep the quest moving and being interesting location after location, this game excels in both of those areas. Its so well paced with big story beats coming after every new dungeon or new party members jumping in or out of your party. I love a large varied cast in these RPGs and this has a bunch of great characters, all well realized with small yet impactful story arcs. One of the most shocking story moments comes about a third in and is something another very famous RPG is known for, well here is this game doing that same scene many years earlier, now I feel this game was the bold one. It is not all drama, this game has a great sense of humor, there is this underlining sense of poking fun at RPG tropes throughout. Certain townsfolk will say the most cliche sayings and a nearby NPC will comment and make fun at how cliche that person is being. There will be observations of the absurdity of breaking into homes and just stealing peoples items. It never takes itself super seriously and yet still hits the right tone for all the heavy emotional stuff. I loved the characters, story and world of Phantasy Star 4.

The gameplay is where I found it lacking compared to a FF or Chrono Trigger. For one there is basically zero party customization, not until the literal end of the game do you get to choose a party member, and even then its just one. The party is always picked for you, characters come and go and level up on their own when they are away. With no space to customize the party there is no real room to develop unique combat strategies. Instead you will fall back to the usual using of the strongest attack, healing when needed and using support spells for bosses.

The presentation of the fights is extremely well done with large sprites filling the screens and some good attack effects. I wish there was a way to know what order the party and enemies will go in, instead you pick which action every party member will do and then it plays out however it decides to play out. So sometimes an attack you think would be helpful to hit multiple enemies at once ends up useless as that becomes the final attack in the turn and most enemies died from the other characters attacking. One of the more unique gameplay elements is the ability to combine spells from different characters to have a combination attack. The game never tells you these, you are supposed to discover them by experimenting, problem is these spells have to be chosen in a specific order, and since you dont always know the order of the attacks its almost random if the combo attack works or not. I used a guide to see the different combos, I would have never found them out... also they arent really needed.

Speaking of guides, I needed one just to understand what every spell and technique in the game does. The words used for these skills might as well be random jibberish and nowhere in your in game menu is there a "description" option. You learned "saner"! Great what in the hell is Saner and what does it do?! At least when you cast it it tells you, that doesnt happen with many attacks as you will use a power and many times nothing happens. I come to read from a guide that some attacks are instant death attacks that have a lower success rate, some are status attacks that only effects certain types of enemies. Does the game tell you any of this, nope. Now I know every game had a manual back in the day, but i also had the manual up and not every spell or skill is in the manual so that didn't help.

Like every JRPG of the time the game suffers from boring trash fights that serve as grinding tools. I never had to grind because I explored nearly every inch of the world which meant so many random battles. At least dungeons had a few enemy combinations that made me think, break up the bordom of hitting attack attack attack. Boss fights of course is where actual strategy comes in but rarely did they really require any interesting process to take them down, it was usually just use your strongest attack. When I compare this game to Final Fantasy V, which I recently just played, its extremely apparent how basic the combat character building is, so because of that I cant say this game ever reaches the highs of that franchise.

I am glad I got around to playing this so called forgetten gem, I wish i gave it more of a chance back in the day as I could have used more variety in my Genesis collection. Do I think its an all time classic, no, maybe for its time, I could see an argument but it shows its age where the true best from back then still offer plenty of quality gaming even today. It's the presentation, story and well paced adventure that really made this a hugely enjoyable experience.

Overall Score: 7.7

A totally free rogue lite mode that is extremely well done and adds plenty of quality story elements, new enemies and one hell of a compelling loop. For fans of the original series this is a must, it examines Kratos actions during that time while bringing back many of the classic enemies. The rogue lite elements are handled so well and work perfectly with how the combat and its gear worked in the main game.

With loads of new dialogue this epilogue would be great at $20, so it being free is wild. One of the best add on modes I have played.

Score: 8.5

I haven’t been the biggest Remedy fan, I found the Max Payne games and Alan Wake to be pretty simple action games. It wasn’t until Control when I feel Remedy found their voice with its incredible world building, quality level design and fun combat mechanics. With Alan Wake 2 Remedy continues to show they have hit a new level of storytelling that I feel puts them in the discussion with the best in the industry. But I feel AW2 suffers from uneven gameplay which is still hampered by gameplay elements Remedy has yet to excel at.

Alan Wake 2 is a narrative powerhouse, every inch of this game is so meticulously crafted to enhance the storytelling. Remedy has always played around with FMV in their games but here they mix FMV into the game world in very creative ways. Every area of the game including the menu areas all serve a narrative purpose and keeps the player in the world no matter what you are doing. This is a game that plays with the perception of time and respects the player enough to piece together elements of the story themselves whether through context clues or optional content. It’s a game not afraid to drop an entire musical number, a short film, or a bunch of funny in world commercials, and mix them seamlessly into the narrative. That sense of world building I loved in Control is back with Alan Wake 2, the confidence to push the narrative boundaries of what could be done in a game is on full display here.

The story itself is a twisting narrative filled with metaphors about many different subjects, one being a full on meta commentary on Remedy’s journey into making Alan Wake 2. Taken at face value this game is a horror story in the vein of Twin Peaks, a continuation of the first story about writer Alan Wake having the power to change reality with his writing getting entangled with a dark presence in a small town with super natural occurrences. This game has a dual protagonist setup with two concurrent storylines happening, one is of Alan Wake stuck in the dark place , and the other is new coming Saga Anderson, an FBI detective who finds she is way closer to the case than she realizes. With plenty of twists and turns of the story I was always engaged and interested with where it was going.

I don’t know if the plot is actually good though, it’s good for a video game for sure but would this work in a movie or a book? it might be a bit too convoluted, a bit too cheesy at times. I can’t help but think if a critic of another medium just read the script they would think this is a sloppy mess of a story but it’s not meant to be viewed that way, in a game it kind of works. There is also what I feel is a deliberate choice to have bad writing, mostly when Alan Wake is writing his manuscripts, I the joke being he is a bad writer.

The strength of the story comes from the world building and how it expands the Remedy gaming universe. Nearly every side character is quirky and memorable, just exploring the town of Bright Falls is a delight as you can over hear all kinds of optional conversations which add layers to the story. Everyone puts in a great performance, especially considering how wacky things could get, this is a game where the same guy delivering a depressing monologue about his insecurities in one scene is singing a song in the next. Characters from past Remedy games show up, mostly from Control, and new named representations of past characters which Remedy doesn’t have the license for anymore, mainly Max Payne. The voice actor returns and Sam Lake once again is the face model for Alex Casey, the Max Payne like detective from Alan Wake’s novels who is now a full flesh and blood character, Payne in all but name. There is so much to delve into with the story for fans of the original, fans of Control, fans of Remedy in general. This narrative sure is ambitious but I don’t feel it has a satisfying conclusion, clearly leaving lose ends for products down the line.

Alan Wake 2 tries to go the survival horror route with mixed results. All the elements of a good survivor horror game is there and none of it is bad, it’s just none of it is great either. It includes a limited inventory with an “item box” located in specific save rooms, a genre staple, but It doesn’t focus on the limited inventory like an old RE game does. The levels aren't really made to be part of the gameplay decisions like an old RE title does, where every trip around the map is a calculation of how much you can hold, how much ammo you should bring, what routes are the safest and so on. When a limited inventory is in place I feel that’s the best way to make use of that system, without the actual level design forcing the player into situations where management of said items is key what’s the point. The only time I had to make a decision on what to carry or not was the over abundance of health items, so I stored a bunch of them. All key items don’t take up space, so its not a game about managing inventory, the limitations are only there for ammo, which is pointless cause ammo is already kind of limited by how scarce it is to find at times.

Not every survival horror game is about item management, sometimes they are tense danger filled experiences where death is around the corner. I didn't find the game to be all that tense or dangerous, once you kind of know the tricks for the enemies it all becomes really repetitive. The enemies in Alan Wake 2 are pretty basic, there are about 6 different enemy types and they all follow the same “trick” to kill then which is to shine light to break their darkness shield then shoot them in a weak spot or just unload until they die. Saga gets most of the enemy variety and combat scenarios, she has more weapons and her levels are larger to allow for bigger action moments. Even in the most complex of action sequences the most that happens is waves of enemies coming at you, usually in an area with no cover, it’s just a flat piece of land.

Combat feels cumbersome, probably on purpose to push the feeling of being underpowered as most survival horror games tend to do, but this means when the game does throw out a big horde attack it shows the deficiencies of the combat. Movement is slow on purpose, your only defense mechanism is a dodge move which allows you to avoid an attack. Reloading is painfully slow to the point where it’s probably best to use every weapon you got before reloading one. I found it cumbersome to switch between throwable items and weapons, for some dumb reason if you have a flare ready to throw out and get hit you automatically go back to your firearm, meaning that desperate attempt to use a wide area attack can be stun locked. Also say you get backed into a wall or against some object an enemy can hit you to death as the dodge move starts to mess up when against objects. Some enemies can throw projectiles and they magically go through any solid objects so trying to use the environment as protection is not possible. It’s as basic a combat system as there is, the only interesting part is how to manage your light attacks and finding the most efficient ways to defeat the enemies. With so few enemy types the battles get repetitive quickly and once you learn when to run, a lot of it can just be skipped.

This comes into play a lot more on the Alan Wake sections which play out in way more cramped hallways that reminded me a lot more of the RE style level design I love. These locations are constantly filled with enemies which is a big difference from Saga where about 70% of her locations have absolutely nothing. The issue is these enemies for Wake are all the same, these black shadows that stand around and only attack if they notice Wake coming close. Well if you turn off your flashlight you are practically invisible to them meaning you can just shut off the light and just run past nearly all of them. A few times one of these shadows will turn out to be a full on human enemy much like Saga’s enemies, many times you can out run them but there are moments where the game will force you to battle them where all the same issues of combat come into play. It’s not bad in anyway, it’s just not great. You might ask “well old RE games had shitty combat but you loved those games”, with those games the combat was directly tied to the process of managing items and finding your way through a dangerous location, I don’t feel that’s the case with this game. At least Wake’s sections had always had threat, for those reasons and others I will mention soon I enjoyed the Wake portion of the game more.

There are some standout sections of the game that I do want to speak about, could be a spoiler so skip this paragraph if you want. The big musical number is easily the most memorable moment in this game, a show stopping spectacle of a stage with a song that I cannot get out of my head. I loved it, I think it’s artistically brilliant BUT the actual game part of that level is as simple as it comes. You walk forward for many minutes then get a preset stash of weapon and ammo to dispatch a bunch of standard enemies as they come at you one by one, pretty basic. The other is with Saga, the Valhalla nursing home which is her best level, but even that is basically a slow linear walk through a location. The atmosphere and buildup of tension through the story is top notch during this section, the payoff doesn’t really come though. There are about three enemy encounters in the entire section, so while the game is throwing out every trick in the book to make you fear what’s coming around the next corner, the only real danger is a few enemies that are easily taken care of. So here are two of the most memorable levels of the game and to me it’s clear they aren’t memorable because of the gameplay, it’s all the other factors.

I will give some props to the boss battles, they are all different from one another with unique strategies to beat each one. These aren’t going to win any points for originality, I’ve seen these kinds of boss battles done before, and usually better, in other games but it’s an improvement on most Remedy games from the past. For a game that’s extremely long only having four boss battles seems low and more of them could have served to really break up the repetitiveness of the normal enemy encounters. At least they are highlights.

My favorite parts of Alan Wake 2 were the optional upgrades scattered around the world and some of the neat tricks and puzzles associated with world traversal. Saga had most of the optional content with locked supply chests that required different puzzles to unlock and a series of doll riddles used to gain charms. The supply chests often had environmental puzzles that require you to be observant of some symbols or patterns, some made you do some simple math. I generally enjoyed these as it was the most puzzle solving the game has. The doll riddles give you a simple nursery rhyme and you need to determine which doll to place on which environment based on the rhyme, pretty simple stuff but fun little diversion nonetheless. There were plenty of locked doors which had to be accessed later on when you gained the ability to open them, rarely was it anything substancial. I enjoyed collecting all the optional content but traversing the locations with Saga is such a major chore, it hurt my play time. You always start at the bottom right of the map and if the location you want to explore is the top left, we’ll get ready for like 10 minutes of mindless walking to the map, with the occasional random spawning enemies which you can just run past.

Saga has an odd gameplay mechanic where she files away everything she sees in her “mind place” which is like an office with a string board. Prerelease previews touted the ability to “investigate” these murders but this entire mechanic is nothing more than a glorified encyclopedia that catalogs the events you see. There is no puzzle to be solved, no deduction to make, you can only place the files on the specific spots they are meant to be in, it’s always solved the same way, it’s all very linear and happens as part of the story. What it does do is make you enter menu over and over and over again. This is not RE style pop into a menu to make a quick selection and get out, nope, every file you find, every new clue in the world you can go to the menu and hear a minute long speech about it. I could have ignored most of it but I try to see everything so this interrupted my flow of the game.

Alan Wake I felt had the way more interesting environment as the stages themselves could be manipulated and were the puzzles. Wake’s game takes place in a dark version of New York, it’s not a large map but it’s dense with subways, hotels, backstreets, a theater and more to explore. The key gameplay mechanic is Wake’s ability to change the world around him first with an object that can capture light and transport it to other areas, the light instantly changing a location to reveal more paths. At specific locations Wake can change the story on the fly and write a new version of the location. In one of the best uses of an SSD I have seen you instantly see the world snap into a new version. You are limited to preset choices and preset locations that can change, it’s not something the player has to think about or anything, it’s all kind of linear with optional switches if you so choose. Still I found it to be a very interesting unique gameplay mechanic that made exploring Wake’s location much more engaging. Hidden around the world are yellow arrows that only show up when you shine light to them and they point to various words of power which enhance Wake’s abilities. This made me want to pay close attention to every inch of these locations, to make sure I saw every possible permutation available. To me this aspect was more engaging than the combat.

That’s essentially the game, as you play the locations expand and you enter a new area but the mechanics don’t really evolve past the first 6 hours or so. The game does let you switch between Saga and Wake in different save locations, I guess the devs figured this might be a neat option but I fail to see how it impacts the game in any meaningful way. I would say it hurts the game as players might ruin the pacing by switching at inopportune times. Hey developers, you manage the pacing for me, that’s your job not mine. For as long as the game is it does stay interesting, so for sure Remedy managed to craft a compelling world with enough interesting gameplay moments to keep me engaged for nearly 30 hours.

Graphically the game is stunning, easily one of the best looking games ever made. The lighting is some of the best around, especially with how they play with light. This game easily has the best soundtrack of the year with loads of original songs, almost all very memorable and are stuck in my head long since I stopped playing. Every chapter ends with a new song, multiple singing interludes occur during the game and all the lyrics matter to the story. Plus the sound on a 3D headset is superb! This game is a technical marvel. Sadly though there were some performance issues on PC, seems to do with some memory leak as textures would stop loading in the further I played. By the end of the game I was needed to restart the game nearly every 30 minutes just to get the textures to stream correctly, extremely annoying.

Alan Wake 2 has a lot of good going for it, it’s bold in its storytelling in ways a few games are. If there was ever an argument for best game to watch on YouTube this one might be it. For me though the playing part just felt too standard for a horror game. It didn’t do anything particularly great, combat was average, exploration was interesting but tedious, it failed in any inventory management; the worst thing I can say is that I found a lot of the play to be boring, that’s never good in a horror game. I can still see lots of the greatness in there, Remedy is close to hitting on a masterpiece they need to shore up their gameplay variety and mechanics to get there.

Overall Score 7.5

The latest from the director of Limbo and Inside comes another well designed puzzle game with some genius mechnics that is over a little too soon. In this game you can use orbs to activate machines which in turn allow you to move further in the environment eventually leading to a sort of station where you go inside the orb into another world, which it itself is an orb. You can collect the orbs and use them to shift from one world to another using their unique abilities to solve puzzles.

Cocoon is very well paced with a gradual build up of all the mechanics. It starts simple enough, using the orbs powers to activate lifts, having to find a way to reach a switch while the orb powers a new device. Each level lasts a good 30 -40 minutes before you gain a new orb and the new power and level that comes with it.

For the first three hours its all about learning what each orb can do and how each orb world has elements that need other orbs to work. It's the second half where the game really takes off, now you have to start using orbs to get into multiple levels to reach your destination. This becomes an inception like process where you go into one orb, which leads you to go deeper into another orb, and the further into another just to change an object in one orb that go back a few levels to activate another switch which makes something happen in the second orb and well you see how it can get complicated.

Its so well done, so intuative that I never felt lost even though you had layers upon layers of levels. Every time I got stuck I felt I deserved it, every solution was well earned, made sense and was rewarding. I felt the puzzles were going to reach a peak of genius but the game ends right when I felt it could have entered a zone of excellence. At 6-7 hours, its a decent length, I just wish more of it was the mind bending puzzles of the final few hours.

Most of the game is simply traversing a world solving puzzles but at the end of each orb's level is a boss battle, kind of new for this developer. Surprisingly these bosses are really good, they clearly take ispriation from platformers with its repetitve attack patterns and hit me multiple times to get to more forms. The variety in bosses is impressive too, each one uses the mechnics introduced in that world so it's always fresh.

Cocoon is a great puzzle game with a wholy unique idea and great presentation. For me I thought it ended just as it was getting really good, could have used more of that. One thing I found lacking is in the story department, Inside managed to tell a story with basically no words, just visual storytelling and it was very effective, I have no clue what is happening here, its all alien and animal like. Regardless its another memorable puzzle game, probably the best of lead designer Jeppe Carlsen's career.

Overall Score: 8.3

From the creator of Rick and Morty comes a surprisingly great FPS with inventive levels, solid gameplay, and a humorous story with memorable characters. This could have easily been some cheap poorly designed comedy game but the developers really went all out to create a game that feels like a FPS from the early 2000s with inspiration from games like Oddworld Stranger's Wrath.

This game isn't going to win any awards for inventing new gameplay mechanics but they way it uses plenty of tried and true mechanics in creative ways makes the game a joy to play. At the center are your weapons which are sentient beings, played by various voice actors, one is the comedian JB Smoove. Each have multiple uses, Kenny the standard pistol gets the ability to spray juices which send enemies into the air for air combos. One weapon freezes enemies in a time bubble and is more like a needler. One gun is shoots small babies that attack the enemies and can even turn them on your side. These weapons aren't just used for combat, they are used to solve environmental puzzles as well.

That combination between action, exploration and puzzle solving is what works so well with this game. Levels are medium sized with plenty of space to explore and discover secrets. Plenty of times you will see an item out of reach which requires a new skill to find to access, the classic Metroid/Zelda formula. Some secrets hold some really clever and funny side content. The game was just fun to play and explore, I found so many levels to have inspired design, this could easily be just a run of the mill FPS but man they tried to have some fun moments and they succeeded.

The action isn't exactly Halo or Doom, it's not even Half-Life but it works well for the game. Enemies come in a standard set of bad guy types like the grunt, the brute, the sniper, the crazy run at you like Serious Sam guy. Not the most inventive enemies but the way the weapons let you attack in various ways makes the combat scenarios fun. You learn a grapple power at some point which lets you swing around the battle field and that is always a big plus for me.

Boss battles are a highlight, almost all are well done with great patterns to learn and really fun dialogue throughout. The comedy is hit and miss, if you know the stylings of Rick and Morty you know a lot of the comedy is just GUY SCREAMING REALLY LOUD PROFANITIES!!! HAHA ISNT THIS FUNNY!!! That could get old really quick but thats not the only kind of comedy. Surprisingly this game has a lot of heart as well as the characters you meet all come with backstories which lead to a sort of rag tag group of misfits trying to save the world.

High on Life is the total package, production values are great, story is interesting, gameplay is fun and it's a perfect length at about 15 hours. I am shocked at how great this game is. Again, it ain't going to win any awards for originality but there is still a place for games that use tried and true mechanics so well.

Score: 8.3

It's been a long time since Super Mario Bros has tried something new and different. The NSMB line has dominated the 2D Mario landscape for better or worse for 15 years or so. Wonder is the first departure from that line of games, meaning its the first non NSMB game since Super Mario World, think about that. What was missing from the NSMB games was a sense of well... wonder. Something unique and exciting which the old Mario 2D games had and 3D games excel at, Wonder brings back that spirit of creativity and originality.

Wonder's levels are the star here with nearly every level having some fun unique gimmick to it. This is no short game either, I am certain there are north of 70 levels to this game and most all of them try to have an identity. Its that variety and imagination that makes this game so special.

The big new addition is the wonder flower which allows every level to undergo a drug like trip allowing the developers free reign to create any scenario they desire, rules don't apply when you touch a Wonder Flower. It starts off simple with some pipes moving around, one stage the piranha plants sing on parade. As the game continues the effects get more weird and a joy to play through. In one level you could become a goomba and have to navigate a trap filled level. Some the lights go out and in shadow you have to elongate and shrink Mario to avoid enemies. Some levels become musical gauntlets with the beat controlling the platforming. New forms are used like a giant spike ball, or a blob that can stick to ceilings. These moments really shine and bring me back to that sense of the unknown that I had with SMB3 where I had no clue what was coming next.

During the normal play Mario and company get some new power ups, the most famous being the elephant powerup. This neat power lets you burst through brick walls and use your weight to crush objects normal Mario can't. Water can be stored in your trunk and sprayed on flowers to get some bonuses. A bubble power and drill are the other new power ups and they all have specific and well designed uses in many levels. Old faithful fire flower is there of course, always good for some enemy clearing. When you combine these with the forms you get in the wonder trips it comes out to the most diverse set of powerups since SMB3.

The platforming is perfect to control as always, Mario invented this genre and to this day I feel every platformer is judged against it, every jump, run, bounce off a wall feels perfectly responsive. I wish Mario had more core moves, its kind of a basic move set because they saved those moves for the new badge system.

Badges can be found in different levels and one can be equipped, this can give Mario a new ability or be a helpful bonus. The abilities is where its interesting as it gives Mario a new move like the flutter jump that normally Luigi would have (of note every character in this game controls exactly the same, except Yoshi which is a bonus easy mode), or a triple jump. There is a crazy one where you can shoot a vine and attach to a wall like Spider-Man. I found these to be fun to have but struggled to really find a good use for them in most levels. They are best in the challenge levels designed for those abilities specifically.

The support badges can be bought in various stores and are nice for anyone that needs a little help like gain a powerup at the start of every level, or have a save from a pit death badge. I did not use these very much because I of course do not need them, but its always nice to have options for everyone.

The world map is top down and slightly free roaming, certain parts are on a road like classic Mario maps but certain areas let you roam around freely and find the levels, sometimes hidden away in corners. It's pretty cool to have to look for the secret levels, I missed a few when i finished the game and got the full level list. All the usual worlds you expect are present, grass, desert, ice, water, lava, poison and so on. I found it strange that some worlds were much bigger than others, world 1 and 2 are sprawling with big maps and like 15 stages. Then you do world 3 and its half as long, very linear and has no Bowser Jr. boss, this happens in world 5 as well. The game is plenty huge but it gives off the impression that something was cut for time even if that is not the case. If you are going to have a formula for every world, like each world ends in a castle and a boss, then do it for every world.

The difficulty and actual platforming challenge is where this game loses points for me. Wonder won't really challenge your platforming skills till the very end and saves all the hardest levels for the optional star world which is excellent. Now it suppliments the easier levels with the more creative approach of the wonder seeds, it feels like this is slower more exploration or even puzzle based Mario game. That is great if the ratio of hardcore platforming challenge and explore was more 2:1 for platforming but i feel its the other way around. I played SMB3 right before this and while that game is much shorter, and yeah the first four worlds are easy, it gets crazy hard and my palms where in a constant state of sweat. I rarely got that sensation in this game, but when I did it was a brilliant challenge.

Another critique and this is more about modern game design, the secrets and ability to go off and create your own path is not as good as before. In Wonder and many games now the levels are clearly specifcally designed for certain power ups and the game makes sure to give you those powerups, really goes out of its way to make sure you get them. In SMB3 and World that might happen at first but by the end of those games you had to find the powerups and even manage them. The final worlds maybe had one or two powerups in the level but they are so hard you might not ever get to find one as the struggle just to stay super was so hard. I miss the strategy of managing powerups because levels were so difficult. I miss using powerups in ways where you can practically break the game with flight, this game does not allow for that level of player creativity.

Every level has three purple coins to collect, that's been a thing since SMB3. Some are tough to find but most are pretty easy, still I love having that extra goal to reach. I kind of wish there was one more layer of replaying the levels, mainly a time attack. The Rayman games did this, so did DKCR, that would turn every level into a platforming based challenge against the clock, not sure why they don't do that. So I would say the levels are more creative than the best the 2D platforming genre has offered BUT I rather have that collection of challenges where the game pushes you to master a level in every way that those other franchises do.

I love the look of Wonder, thank god that NSMB looks is gone. This is so much more colorful and lively. The stages feel alive with dancing and talking flowers. Parts of the background react to what you do, its beautiful. The music fits the game well but its not the best Mario soundtrack.

This game is entirely playable with up to four players and I played some with my nephews and that was a lot of fun. Sadly online play is restricted to friends only, which has a race mode. Thats a shame cause racing versus random players would have been fun. There is a whole souls like system if you play online where you see other players ghosts in the levels, you can leave signs for them and they you in case you die allowing you to revive if your ghost form reaches them in time. Its a way to make it easier for people, I had this off the whole time. I'm sure multiplayer is a blast but I hardly used it.

Super Mario Bros. Wonder is the best 2D Mario since World (not counting world 2 as Yoshi’s island is a different series). It is so inventive that every level was exciting to try and it keeps this streak of non stop creativity for over 10 hours, it’s extremely impressive. My personal preference of challenging platforming holds it back from being an instant classic, but I can see why others might put it among the greats. I am just happy to have a 2D Mario with that spirit of wonder that filled the early games.

Score: 8.9

The first two Spider-Man games by Insomniac were extremely well-done story driven games that clearly borrowed from the Arkham series but never reached the gameplay depth of Arkham. Is Spider-Man 2 one of those sequels in which every aspect is improved, where it feels the formula is perfected; the answer is yes and no. It’s absolutely an improvement over the first game in many ways but the core gameplay remains mostly unchanged . What sets SM2 apart though is its bombastic setpieces and incredible focus on the main narrative which to me is an all-time great Spider-Man story.

Clearly Insomniac has gone to the Naughty Dog school of making a setpiece heavy narrative-based game. This game has main missions with wild action sequences, it’s everything I want to see from a BIG spider man story and interspersed between those are smaller more down to earth side missions. The player oversees when to keep the main story going or letting the two spidermen take care of requests of citizens in need or do one of the many side quest activities. Certain moments in the main quest do feel extremely urgent so having Spider-Man take a break to help a person take some pictures seems like poor judgement, but there are usually cues given by Peter or Miles as to when it’s better to do the side quests. After a mission they will say “Mary Jane will call me when she has the info, now would be a good time to see what else I can do” a not-so-subtle way to tell the player it’s ok to do side quests now.

Why I bring this up is because the main quest is so compelling, and action packed that if you just take all main missions and string them together I feel you would have an excellent Naughty Dog level linear 12 hour action game. It’s a testament to the side quests that I still loved taking a break, it’s the contrast from half of NYC being blown up to Spider-Man just helping an old man in the park, that works for Spider-Man more than any other comic hero. Spider-Man has always been the hero for the people, down on the streets engaging with civilians and being friendly, that’s his thing and this game captures that trait perfectly.

It also captures the other aspect of being Spider-Man, which is your life must be miserable. Seems like a rule, the moment Peter Parker is happy the worst thing imaginable happens to him, he is cursed. The first game was brutal on Peter, his misfortune is for our benefit as that’s when Spider-Man stories are at their best; this game takes it to the next level. It explores not only how can Peter balance his life but also how being Spider-Man affects his closest relationships. Harry Osborn, his best friend, is a major character here as is Mary Jane, both serve as a glimpse into how a normal life as just plain Peter could be. He could see himself working in a science lab with his friend living their childhood dream, coming home to a loving wife. It’s that temptation for Peter knowing that he can’t have that life that makes his character so endearing. The black suit symbiote of course brings out the worst of Peter, it’s a story we have seen before but the twist here is what they do with Venom and how that affects Peter. I loved Peter’s journey in this and how it all comes to a head during major boss battles and action sequences, that’s when the story is at its best. It feels like a Naughty Dog game in that regard, the story is so rich and intertwined with the gameplay to create a thrilling experience that only gaming can provide.

Miles personal journey is no slouch either, he has to confront the anger and obsession he feels over his father’s death. I really enjoyed watching Miles grow and become more of the prototypical hero than even Peter, but he clearly gets the B side of the story. Filling out the narrative is the main villain for most of the game, Kraven, who I hardly have read any of his stories. Kraven is a formidable villain who is able to defeat other Spider-Man villains easily, he hungers for a worthy foe for his hunt. He never really evolves; he is a one note villain but at least the threat feels worthy of Spider-Man. Venom steals the show at for the final act and it’s one of the most interesting takes on the character I have seen, the campaign does not hold back, I loved the sheer lunacy of the final hours.

Clearly the main campaign and story push this game to new heights but how about the gameplay, well that is more of a lateral move if that. The clearest improvement comes from traversal in the game world, mainly giving SM a glider and more boosts to travel city at much faster speeds. Wind tunnels are located around the city to let you glide through the air for long periods of time. Clearly Insomniac loves testing the SSD because I was in awe at some of the sequences that have you moving through locations at incredible speeds. This game also has the best fast travel ever, you click anywhere on the map, the screen zooms in on the map and instantly you are swinging there in game, its magic. Not many players may experience this but there is an option to reduce swing assist and turn on fall damage which means the player must pay more attention to where SM swings. It doesn’t change the locomotion to something you have to really control, its still mostly automatic but at least you have to be aware of building height when swinging, I liked it.

The combat and stealth sections remain mostly the same with a few tweaks. When avoiding combat now you can launch a webline between any two points so that SM can create his own perch from which to web up bad guys. I feel this game didn’t have any forced stealth sections; I don’t know if the first had many but I think it had a few. It’s pretty rewarding to clean out an entire base without throwing a punch but also kind of repetitive, again this game is not deep in the way Arkham is. Which leads to the combat which is that same poor man’s Batman combat. This time the number of gadgets has been drastically reduced, replaced with more special powers that have their own cool down timer. A parry move has been added so now enemies can have unblockable attacks that must be parried, as well as moves that must be dodged, this adds a few more variables to the boss battles which is welcomed.

Peter and Miles each have their own set of power moves but share the rest of the move sets. The different special power moves aren’t all that different either, they kind of share the same outcome, one is a launcher, one a dash attack, one a slam and one an area of attack. It’s a shame this game didn’t allow for more differences between the two characters, but I guess it keeps things simple. Most of the fights are about juggling opponents in the air while dodging long distance attacks and building up all those power meters. By the end it felt like I was just cycling power moves and gadgets, it got really easy even on hard. While I say it’s kind of easy and repetitive, I still always have fun punching enemies in this game, it feels so much like how spider-man would fight that I enjoy swooping down from the sky and laying the smackdown on a ton of enemies without anyone touching me. The boss battles do a great job of pushing the focus of the combat toward the defensive moves; dodging, parrying, leaping out of the way on time. I found some to be pretty creative, a few went on for too long, but the story aspect made it all worthwhile.

The main quests do a fantastic job of mixing swinging, setpieces, combat pieces, quieter pieces all together. Mary Jane sequences return, and they are much improved, this time even giving her more offensive weapons. Her moments feel essential to the game this time where before it felt like hitting the brakes on any momentum the story had. To supplement the main quest are all the side content which is another area of clear improvement. Most of the major side quests tie into a small side story, some with great payoffs and memorable characters. My favorite was the Mysterio side quests where you enter battle challenge illusions, these were a great test of the combat system as each trial had different requirements and a time restriction. One side quest is heavy on the puzzle elements; the main one being one where you have to arrange molecules, it really feels like something out of Ratchet and Clank, almost all of it optional so I found it to be a fun diversion. Miles gets some pretty boring side quests, they are more day in the life of a high school student kind of things, it’s cool character building for him but easily the worst gameplay of the bunch. There are still random crimes occurring around the city but thankfully this game doesn’t require you to complete an absurd amount of them to finish a district, they are totally optional in this game. I feel they nailed the exact amount of side content for a game like this, its varied enough and deep enough to be satisfying and not bloated where it feels like there is padding. Spider-Man 2 is the perfect length to 100% an open world superhero game.

This game does add new areas to NYC, Queens and Brooklyn, but the way Spider-Man game operates the city is not a part of the gameplay, its more the setting. One rooftop isn’t really any different from another, one city street is the same as the other, the few locations that do matter are used very well during the story. A few side quests make use of the wind tunnels and the glider as a sort of mini platforming challenge but again, where you are doesn’t make a difference. I don’t know how to make NYC more of a gamey location for more mechanics to play out, the Batman games turned Gotham into like a weird Zelda like game, that wouldn’t work for a more real NYC. At least its fun to just swing around but maybe this is where the next step for this franchise is, making the locations and movement through them more of a gameplay mechanic.

Visually this game is stunning in motion. Zipping through the buildings at those speeds and being able to see everything clearly in the distance with basically no pop up, we are finally making use of the power of these new consoles. The face models are not the best especially when you compare this game to other Sony first party games. I wish Guerrilla would give them their voodoo magic face tech from Horizon, could have helped. Still NYC is incredibly detailed, it feels populated and lived in. Both fidelity and performance modes have ray tracing on, its not as showy as Miles Morales game was, but it is very nice to always have perfect reflections on every surface. The music and voice acting are top notch, every character nails their role so well, I feel the acting in these games are as good as any superhero movie.

The first two Spider-Man games left me wanting more, I felt there was a good base there but it was just missing something. For Spider-Man 2 that something is the energy and flow of the story and how it rockets the player from amazing set-piece to the next memorable moment. The pacing is perfect, every twist and turn the story has is compelling and the gameplay while mostly the same is still fun enough to for the 30 or so hours it can take to see all the game has to offer. Insomniac has taken their storytelling to another level, this might be their best game… but I still like the gameplay variety Ratchet games offer more, its debatable for me now. For any Spider-Man fan this game is pure magic, it’s easily the best Spider-Man game ever made, and one that can stand next to Batman proudly.

Overall Score: 9.2