When you play Spider-Man 2018 you feel as if you have played a flawless game where it would not be easy to pinpoint in what ways a sequel could possibly improve upon it. Then Insomniac releases Spider-Man Miles Morales which somehow improves on everything you love from the first game. You reach a point where you are yet again unsure how they could possibly improve it further beyond this point but now you know that Insomniac will do it and your expectations have been raised. Spider-Man 2's improvement in all aspects is not only on par with but far exceeds the jump from Spider-Man 1 to Miles Morales.

Technical feats including the leap in the graphical fidelity and the massive scale and spectacle of sequences highlight that playstation exclusives are finally beginning to reach the level of utilisation of the PS5 that Astro's Playroom promised as a demo years ago which is no doubt enabled by developing the game exclusively for PS5.

The story and soundtrack also continues to improve. John Paesano's score is emotionally moving and a testimony to his skill as a composer. The story is written incredibly. As a narrative, it holds its own next to this year's Spider-Man Across the Spider-verse. In my opinion, this is a huge compliment to it.

Combat and gameplay also sees massive improvements with overhauls to core systems like focus and your abilities that increases the difficulty of the game and makes your actions feel much more rewarding and fun. Crimes have become much more dynamic and the map has become much larger and dense, improving the overall immersion.

It is truly incredible how much they have done for this game. Many game companies would settle for "good enough" and ship the same game with new content and happily move on with their money but Insomniac proves the fact that only when developers are driven by high standards and the determination to make the best games they possibly can that masterpieces can be made.

This was my very first game on the PS4 and it set the bar for what I could expect from AAA games.

Spider-Man is far from difficult after playing for so many hours but the game's flexibility in its combat allows for a very high skill ceiling.

Although the first act is quite slow, everything builds up and pays off in the incredible final act where the story elevates to a scope much bigger than what the first act makes you believe.

I went into this game with a completely open mind. Goodbye Volcano High has a narrative that has so much potential in concept but unfortunately falls short in execution. The story is paced too slowly during less engaging sequences and paced too quickly when emotional tension could have been taken advantage of more effectively. There were lots of interesting things that were put down that could have been used but most of them were never brought up again. Often during my playthrough, I wondered if the narrative would have been better if it had continued with then story they had written before they did an overhaul as the original trailer seemed more promising than the final product.

In terms of its gameplay your choices, unfortunately, do not have any significant consequences and the game does not even give you the facade that it does as many dialogue alternatives are often blocked out. The story doesn't seem like it would ever digress from its set linear path unlike the Life is Strange games. This is the most apparent in the game's dreadful DND sequences where you are forced to play a version of DND where (ironically) you have the least agency and all your initiative rolls are predetermined.

I enjoyed the voice acting of the characters. All of the actors definitely put effort into their roles and gave each character their own charm but the animation and art quality mostly falls short of their voices.

Brigitte Naggar's songs are genuinely good and they werethe main reason why I was interested in the first place. The songs did not disappoint and her singing voice is really good. Unfortunately, the game's narrative quality once again could not match so the songs often felt like an outlier. However, there are some points in the game where the music does work really well and matches emotionally.

Despite its flaws, it is very clear that there was love and effort put into this game and that the creators tried their absolute best. My favourite aspect of this game is the positive moral of its narrative. Despite the intentional portrayal of flawed characters who often have disagreements in goals or beliefs, the narrative delivers the positive message that true friends would stay together despite how problematic their disagreements get or how much they hurt each other because they would get over it and move on.

Underneath the surface of unfortunate technical issues with sub-par framerate and screen tearing is a fantastic game that is not only an improvement from the first game in every way but one that stands on its own as a good game in its own right.

It is clear playing through this game that there was love and passion put into it. The game's cinematic narrative even stands on its own next to the recent Star Wars films.

The biggest improvement from the previous game was the overhaul of parry timing. The game's parrying is now much closer to how it works in Sekiro and Sifu and so it has become much more fun to do.

Edit: important to note that performance issues on PS5 has been mostly fixed since the latest patch so overall I think it's just a solid game now.

The closest thing to a cinema blockbuster that a game has ever gotten to and with quality that would rival even the those in the film industry.

God of War Ragnarok is genuinely the best game I have every played. God of War 2018 already remained my favourite game and for me one of the best games of all time. Ragnarok delivered all expectations and more. It is an innovation in the game industry for how stories can be told and will forever change the expectations audiences will have in future AAA games.

The maturity in the writing of the story and the characters was the last thing I expected to be able leap forward from God of War 2018. The characters and the story are both written so intelligently and empathetically that there are even lessons you can learn from it. The graphics has the same effect that recent PS5 releases such as Last of Us Part 1 has in that it is so beautiful your brain cannot even completely process it. The soundtrack can barely be called a video game soundtrack because it is essentially scored like a film and in the most epic and emotional way that will take you from hyped to being in tears.

Everything in Ragnarok combined gives you an experience that you can compare to the greatest blockbusters in movie history. If God of War Ragnarok was a film, it would still sit next to my favourites.