It is very hard to love a game that does not love itself and tries to be more than it is. Assassin's Creed Revelations feels like a DLC that should have been part of Brotherhood after launch despite the size of the city that it takes place in.

The city is a major highlight of this game as it looks stunningly good for a game from 2011, and it has a really charming atmosphere that elevates the experience. Revelations also has a darker theme as it deals with death, aging and losing focus over time, and it has some decent writing that supports these themes but overall, the writing in general feels a bit edgy this time around.

The lack of side missions and things to do further makes this adventure pretty boring at times as you barely can interact with the world while you travel between main missions. In previous games, I was constantly reminded and motivated to interact with the world through events and missions but Revelations lacks these.

The last thing I wanted to talk about that I did not like at all is the clunky nature of the combat, making it very unsatisfying to engage with enemies. Overall, Revelations does everything worse and still manages to improve upon one thing, that is the saving grace of this game: the parkour.

The hookblade and ziplines were great additions, and they really made travelling around fun and exciting. Some of the main missions even uses tombs, which are mostly parkour segments, and they are the most fun out of every mission.

Overall, the Ezio trilogy is mostly ridden with fans who are more nostalgic than objective with the games, but I cannot blame them. The writing (so far) is one of the strongest aspect of these games, and all of them are charming in their own way.

Assassin's Creed Brotherhood follows the path that AC II started and improves upon everything I had a problem with the series. Well, almost everything.

Brotherhood features a relatively short story (I finished the game in 12 hours and I did some side stuff) that makes you love Ezio even more and as he becomes a middle aged man, his tactics and character change with him. This time around, he needs to recruit loyal assassins to help him in order to defeat the Borgias, a powerful family that captured Rome.

Brotherhood features a wide variety of missions, mostly side stuff, like a fight club, tailing missions and optional contracts for your assassins. You can also collect feathers (this time 10) and flags. Also, you can obtain an armor called the Armor of Brutus from a cult that is lurking underneath Rome. Mind you, these missions are rather short, but in higher doses you can feel the repetition. The story starts promisingly as well, and it keeps the momentum until sequence 5 arrives and everything gets ruined by weird decisions and a rushed ending.

At least, the graphics look way better as AC II looked really muddy and the characters were looking very funny at times. In Brotherhood, everything is sharp and detailed, especially the different armors. What I really loved is the refined combat, that makes sure that you will not just spam the attack button but also watch out for incoming attacks constantly.

The way the combat works in this game is both satisfying and clever, as the game introduces a better chain kill system, that allows you to kill any type of enemy with a single button in a brutal fashion, if you execute your current target. If you can keep the chain going, you are literally untouchable.

If the story wasn't as rushed as it is, I would say that this game would have been so much better in my eyes. Sadly, the ending sequences drag it down as those are not just short, but very tedious and overly long for the sake of dragging out the length of the story.

I do not remember when I exactly started to play Assassin's Creed II but I certainly remember that I did not had any fun when I entered Venice until the end.

Assassin's Creed II seems like a great sequel that improves upon everything, until you find out that you are stuck in a combat system that is far worse than the original, stuck with cities that feel the same despite looking much better than the cities in the first game. Overall you are stuck with a game that tries to rob every minute of your time with overly long playtime, that does not support the amount of content this game has.

The best part of Assassin's Creed II is the writing, that is improved upon massively, and Ezio as the protagonist feels so much better than Altair. I really liked all the characters, most of them are insanely friendly and quirky, especially Leonardo da Vinci, who is the true gem of this game.

I did the tombs, most side missions and the main story, but I did not care at all about the feathers and I lost interest in renovating as well.

What can I say? I enjoyed the first one better than this one.. 3,9 is CRAZY high for this game. It should be around 3,3 or 3,5. Nostalgia is something else...

Assassin's Creed came out in a year which defined what games are we going to play for years to come. 2007 was truly special and Assassin's Creed is also one of the most important franchises of today. It is a cleverly combined work of art, that fuses history, sci-fi and drama, that is sadly chosen to be a videogame instead of a movie.

The writing is stellar, as I enjoyed every bit of dialogue and interaction between Altair and the rest of the characters, but I was utterly disappointed by the repetitive nature of the investigations, which are mandatory, and cannot be skipped. It would have been nice to just go in blindly into these spots, improvising without actually learning about the targets, and I wanted more equipment, more side activites and all that.

However, Assassin's Creed's atmosphere is unmatched in my opinion, as it has an absurdly edgy but very enjoyable feel to it when you are playing it.

Overall, I think this is a good starting point for a franchise, but a very shallow experience when it comes to actual gameplay. There is a lot to improve, and I know it is going to be much better with later entries.

Also, how on earth is this game this beautiful?! It is from 2007 and it still looks really good.

Monolith Productions really hit the nail in the head when they developed F.E.A.R. , as it was such an unique and interesting game, that if they ever wanted to make a sequel for it, they needed to bring their A game in order to just scratch the level of quality of that one.

Here comes F.E.A.R. 2, an ill-fated sequel that never really got a clear direction and almost killed the franchise as a whole. At one point, two different games were even developed as F.E.A.R. 2, one for consoles and one for PC. However, the two games merged, and became one entity known as F.E.A.R. 2 : Project Origin.

This game is really hard to describe. Project Origin is way more cinematic, but also absurdly janky. It is brutal, but also lacking in terms of visual. It is a lesser version of the original, seemingly sharing the name of something that it wants to imitate as it slowly rots away while you are playing, until it becomes somewhat enjoyable for what it is.

Project Origin is something that would make any fan fear what an upcoming sequel will do to their beloved original. Sadly, it is an essential experience for those who seek more F.E.A.R. content from Monolith, as this is their last game in the franchise.

Do not get me wrong, Project Origin has it's own moments, such as the mech section that is weirdly fun for example. It is just that everything feels downgraded compared to the original. At least the plot is somewhat better, and it is much more akin to a movie, than a game. Actually, Project Origin would have worked much better as a movie to be honest.

If you are a fan of videogames, you probably played at least one game by Monolith Productions, and that is for a reason. This studio made some of the best games for PC, including Blood, No One Lives Forever, SHOGO and Claw. In 2005, they managed to do the impossible: Create a game that is so unique, and fun, that it is still a reference to this day.

The mid 2000's were an era where videogames came out left and right, and some of them were mostly lost to time, as very few of them were memorable enough. Fortunetly, time was kind enough to these games, as loyal fans shared their experiences online, so these games could live on forever. In this era, comes F.E.A.R. , a game that was a somewhat cinematic, first person shooter with horror elements that features incredible lighting, particle and gore effects with a slow motion mechanic and gorgeous visuals. An instant classic, that also has similar feats to Half-Life and it even has 2 expansions featuring new perspectives.

F.E.A.R. is a phenomenal game, that needs to be played by at least once by everyone who is interested in videogames. F.E.A.R. combines elements from horror and action cinema, and it has a really, and I mean really good atmosphere. Most of the time you are walking in an office or some tight area where nothing can be heared but buzzes, lights flickering, phones ringing and your own footsteps, only to be found by some hostile forces patroling the area, and the sounds of gunfire can fill the emptiness of these spaces. Do not let the tight spaces fool you though, because F.E.A.R. offer some upgrades for those who venture deep into the darker corridors, and you can pick up some boosters that increase your health and reflex. Exploration while being rewarded, can be limited, because these boosters shine bright in different colors, and you can spot them very easily, you only need to find the way to them.

Sadly, F.E.A.R. is not without it's flaws, and some of them can be major to some, minor to others. First of all, despite the great atmosphere, the game itself is not that scary. It is more eerie, than scary actually, and some of the jumpscares are very cheap and annoying. The game even slows down at times, so you can catch a glimpse at the thing that should scare you, but I do not know how many times I watched someone else play this game and not noticing what the devs want you to see. Hell, even I fall into this group, because even after finishing this game multiple times over the years, I still miss some of these scares, even though the game even plays a notificiation sound before some of them. Second, the game does not try to mix action and horror at the same time. Spooky things happen, and after that, there will be always an enemy encounter, and repeat. This loop can be a bit tedious, because the horror wears down relatively quickly, only to become somewhat annoying at times.

Even the combat has it's own flaws, mainly that some weapons are way better than the rest, and the fact that almost every enemy dies from a shot to the head when you fire the first round, but after that first headshot, the hitbox changes, and they need several shots to the head to go down. It is a weird system, because gives you the false sense that you are in charge of a situation, but after that, it takes away that feeling from you, and the game wants you to use the slow motion mechanic in order to fully control the combat encounters

Despite these, F.E.A.R. is a phenomenal game, and a great experience, where the supernatural can be scary at times, but true fear comes from the encounters and the fact that you need to be on your toes all the time, because when you least expect it, an enemy squad will surely surprise you.

Monolith Productions changed after F.E.A.R. and it might not surprise you but the company not changed for the better. After some big studios noticed their talents, they became a shell of their former glory, and they made some big mistakes. However, this does not mean that they stopped creating good games, and I even want to talk about their other works as well.

I am a big fan of the Sniper Elite series ever since I played V2 when it was originally released in 2012. I replayed it four years ago, and I thought it was still pretty alright.

Now, I got the remastered edition, which serves as the complete version of the game, packed with every DLC and some visual changes and let me tell you, now I get it why some people hate V2.

V2 is a Call of Duty and Medal of Honor hybrid, mixed with Splinter Cell Conviction, and it does not sound bad to be honest, especially since I enjoy both COD and MOH, and I even had my fun with Splinter Cell.

Just to get this out of the way: The game does not support stealth play at all. It tries to support stealth, but it always fails, and the game becomes a somewhat enjoyable shooter, that mostly requires you to stay put, and snipe your enemies from cover, while they try to kill you or make you move to an another cover.

The stealth bits are relatively simple, janky and uninteresting. Mostly, because the enemy AI can detect you really fast, and you cannot sneak past them like in another games. You mostly need to take everyone out with a silenced pistol, or wait for a distraction so you can take them out with a sniper. You can set traps, lay down mines but you do not need to use them at all in order to complete the game.

Some sections even require you to stay in a small location and defend your position from waves of enemies, and after that, the missions just ends. The perfect way to describe it is "uninteresting", because everything stays the same from beginning to the end. You always shoot down the same soldiers, who try to make you move from a cover, until you snipe them down or die from their attacks.

The one redeeming factor is the franchise's main gimmick, the X-Ray kills, which can be really satisfying from time-to-time but it becomes shallow after a few shots. Not because it is boring, but because the game does not do anything with this system. It is only a gimmick, that can make you stay for some time, but it becomes boring.

I still love this series though, because I know that this was the first step in order for the franchise to become an alternative for Hitman, and I still enjoy some bits of it. I am just disappointed that I cannot enjoy this game anymore like I used to. Nostalgia is a bad thing I guess.

Turbo Overkill is one of the few frustratingly good video game experiences I had in my life and this is not a compliment.

TO is NOT a boomer shooter, despite the heavy 80's inspired future setting that mashes Blade Runner, Cyberpunk and many other franchises into one. TO leans heavily into the "Doom Eternal wannabe" territory, and it has every element from that game. Keep in mind, some things are better implemented here than in Doom Eternal but that is usually the case when something tries to improve upon the thing it got inspired from.

So what is the problem with TO? Well, for starters, it is way too long without any interesting story or stakes at all. The story is 3 episodes long, each with a few bosses, different enemies and all that. The main "bad guy" is a virus that combines flesh with metal, converting people into Strogg like creatures, so as you progress through the story, the more grotesque these creatures become.

Fortunetly, your combat arsenal is more than capable of dealing with them as every gun comes with a secondary function that you need to unlock, and even these forms can be upgraded. Your dual SMGs can be one assault rifle, the minigun can be a flamethrower and your sniper can teleport you to your target. All of these are fun to use, punchy and well animated. You even have a leg that turns into a freaking chainsaw, and you can slide around killing everyone in front of you. Too bad you get a seizure while using anything I mentioned.

Yes, the main problem with the game is the gimmick. It is ridden with bright lights, neon, vivid colors and flashing images that after a few hours of playing your eyes will definietly hurt, even if you are used to this kind of stuff. Combine this with the insane amount of speed, and you will 100% need to take a break after 30 minutes.

Even if you find the visuals cool, the game just drags on and on, and you doing the same thing over and over again, without any interesting change. Everything feels polished, everything is technically fine but it is somewhat lacking. You can grab a copy of Turbo Overkill along with other shooters from Humble Bundle right now. Check it out if you are not sensitive of this amount of flashing lights and vivid colors.

I honestly never fully completed FNAF before, because I am very easily scared and this game is just full of jumpscares. Without a doubt, I was struggling to finish this one, because I found it easily one of the scariest short games that I have ever played, simply because the gameplay loop is so simple, yet it requires attention to not mess up the whole thing. If you are focused enough, you can easily get scared for life by any of the animatronics.

FNAF has a wonderful atmosphere, that is even enchanced by the fact that the I think the sounds of the animatronics are great. All of them are memorable, making the player know instantly what kind of danger is lurking outside of the doors.

Overall, I had my fun with FNAF, and I do not regret checking it out. Be sure to eat some pizza while playing this one though! Just for the sake of it.

Dread Templar is a boomer shooter that seemingly wants to be everything and it almost nails everything! Something is just... off about the whole game.

It reminds me of everything that is good and bad about that era of shooters: The very chaotic levels, seemingly large but very shallow enemy variety and the fact that it has "episodes", each with a different theme.

What makes Dread Templar unique are the runes and the "default equipment" of the protagonist. At the first episode of the game, you assemble what is basically the essential weaponary for your character, namely a katana, a bow and a trap launcher. These weapons will be your best friends along the journey, as 2 out of 3 has infinite ammo, you only need to wait for a short cooldown to use them again. The runes are essentially perks and modifiers that you can find in secret locations, and along the main path, making your weapons shoot faster, deal more damage or store more ammo.

Along these weapons you also have a bunch of other toys, as a demonic rocket launcher thing, dual SMGs, shotguns and the list goes on. These weapons are pretty standard and you need to mix them with the above mentioned katana and the bow to create combos. You can also slow down time, and dash, so you can really make those ugly demons suffer for what they done to you.

Speaking of demons, the enemies are annoying, and their designs are just simply flawed most of the time. There is one in particular, that can sidestep, but only in one direction, no matter where he is, so he can just sidestep into a wall and appear out of nowhere, making these creatures annoying, instead of challenging. There are also enemies, which can just zap you almost instantly, ones who can bombard you with what seems like exploding spores and the list goes on. They are not that good to engage with, that is what I am saying.

What makes this game seemingly fun though is the fact that you have the bow and the katana, and the obvious mixing and matching of runes, where you can create alternate versions of guns with the highest tier runes. The SMGs can become mini chainguns or the regular pistols can become demonic versions with better bullets. These alone can make up for the flawed enemy designs, the seemingly messy concept of the game, and the overall fact that it feels kind of overly long to finish this game. I played this one for 10 hours, and it did not have that much content in it. I wish this was a shorter, sweeter and better game, but I did not regret my time with it, thanks to the vast combat equipment.

SINGLE PLAYER ONLY:

Black Ops Cold War feels like the reimagination of the Black Ops 1, with similar missions, locations and characters, but it is also a continuation of the original.

The structure of the missions are insanely fun, with some very surprising twists and turns, providing a much needed refreshment to the series. I feel like the ending is probably the best from recent CODs and that is saying a lot.

I liked the fresh, Doom style animations, even though I did not even care for the bodyshield system, and I feel like it is a very weak gimmick.

Addler and his group are entertaining, well written with great VAs, and I really liked to see the dynamic between Woods and Mason again.

Overall, Cold War is just a simple and fun game, that you can enjoy even if you skipped the previous titles. You might miss some references, but the story is self contained enough to be enjoyable on it's own.

I am getting somewhat tired of the "goofball male lead and the morally questionable but always right no matter what she does female lead" duo that makes this adventure really uninteresting after some hours.

Rhys is lovely on his own, and his story has everything to make it interesting, but Fiona's part gets surprisingly ham-fisted into it after the first episode, and their dynamic just falls apart after some choices. What I mean by that is that seemingly every time you do something as Rhys, you get punished for it. You are being called a jerk, a loser, and the list goes on. Why did this guy even bother with caring for any one of these characters? No matter if you are honest, selfish or friendly, everyone will screw you over. You cannot even say that this is part of the Borderlands world, because it is not.

And the story? It goes nuts. I get it, it is a Borderlands story, but Borderlands does not masks itself as a simpler story, that goes totally nuts at the end. They are always about a grand adventure, a hunt for loot and saving the world. This game started out as a more personal story and it got ruined by the fact that it is all about the vault hunters and a certain character that became the Joker of this franchise.

Also, did I just mention how insuffurable Fiona was for me? Every other character had heart and motivation. Her being a rude blank space without any kind of development really made me angry when all your choices were either to manipulate, kill off other characters without any consequences or just straight up bully Rhys. Her sister was way better, and I would have actually loved this game if she would have been the other protagonist.

So you want to hear a review, eh? Well you are in luck because this one will be a lengthy one for sure!

Borderlands 2 is probably one of the most beloved games ever created and with a good reason. Insane amount of loot, great classes to choose from, decent skills, a beautiful art style and tons of creative scenarios will makes sure that you have a great time on Pandora. This was my sixth playthrough, and I was pretty excited to experience this whole package again, and while I found some things that annoyed me, overall, this is still a stellar game to play.

I enjoyed the chaotic writing, the jokes and the overall insane amount of content and creativity that went into creating absurd side missions and jokes. What I did not like is the fact that with this amount of side content, you need to choose after some hours in what you want to do. You focus on the side quests or do the story missions, because the story is very tight, and if you stop to do some side stuff between missions, it can quickly lose it's momentum. On the other hand, if you do not level yourself up, the game can really make you suffer, as your level will be way lower than what you need to catch up with the story.

The other bigger negative aspect is the gun variety, as the game sometimes does not offer loot that is satisfying, instead it throws in a bunch of shield and grenades as a filler. The weapons themselves are cool but they are lacking creativity even with the elemental stuff (Borderlands 3 improved this).

The writing can be hit-or-miss but it is mostly enjoyable and I found most of the jokes still funny, even though some were brutally dated even for it's own time. Characters from the previous entry provide very good dialogue though, so even if you do not vibe with the game, you will probably appreciate how well the writers implemented the previous cast into the game.

As for the new characters, I like almost all of them except for Salvador. He is fine, I just do not like his playstyle with the dual wielding. Axton and Gaige are probably my favorite, but I really like Maya and Zero as well. I weirdly never played with Krieg before. I recommend Axton and Gaige for solo plays and after getting familiar with the game, any class is okay to start with. Axton's turret can be a lifesaver, and Gaige's robot can tank everything for you if you use it right, so they both can be insanely OP.

And what about the DLCs? Well...


Captain Scarlett and Her Pirate's Booty:

A very decent new zone with lots of sand and a pirate theme. I really love Shade and his design, as he was obviously inspired by the character of Johnny Depp from Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas. The bosses are okay and the overall DLC is very creative with the pirate stuff, I just wish the later missions weren't so boring, as the game tries to pan out them in order to make the experience longer (looking at you Herbert). Overall, fun DLC that is a little bit annoying in the end.

Mr. Torgue's Campaign of Carnage:

Insanely fun DLC with Torgue's over the top performance that makes up for all of the things this DLC lacks. I do not want to spoil anything from it, because it has some very good writing, so you just better check this one out.

Sir Hammerlock's Big Game Hunt:

The Big Game Hunt is the most hated one from the bunch and I can see why, even I hated parts from it and found some designs questionable but I liked what this one is going for with the old fashioned adventure movie vibe and the main bad guy. It is quite short, you can have some fun with it but you can skip it.

Tiny Tina's Assault on Dragon Keep:

The star of the show, the DLC that everyone loves for how creative it is with it's fantasy setting. To be honest, I loved this one too but I found the writing of Tina a bit too much for me. I did not like some parts of the campaign because of this, as it made me realize that I liked her way more in Tiny Tina's Wonderlands, as her sadness and grief were portrayed much better there. Overall, this one is the best of them all, and I highly recommend checking it out.

After trying out the Dark Pictures games, and liking them a lot, I thought I need to check out Until Dawn, the first major Supermassive horror experience that is considered their best, and loved by many. After 6 hours, the credits rolled and I was left with a lot of questions, and most of them started with a "why". After consideration, I believe this is a "Walking Dead situation" all over again, when Telltale delivered a game that was so new to a lot of players, that they instantly loved it, no matter what.

In Until Dawn, you play as a bunch of teens, who are up in lodge with the host who invited them a year after a tragic accident that affected him mentally. The "party" is basically an excuse, they just kind of bonding and talking about the event that was taking a hold on the group, and not so long after the guests arrive, strange things happen. You need to make sure that the group stays alive, because any one of them can die a horrible death, and cannot be saved from what is lurking out there.

The main theme of Until Dawn is loss, nature and mental health with a bit of grief, love and survival sparkled in to make sure everyone is satisfied. What I really, and I mean really disliked about this game is the writing. Until Dawn tries to surprise you, making sure that you do not know anything for sure and question your choices during the game where you need to choose from 2 options. Rather than thinking fast, you need to think about the consequences of your actions, but certain events need to happen in order for the story to progress. No matter what you choose, certain things will play out the same way, as some of the cast has gigantic amount of plot armor. This issue was mainly a "me problem" I guess, because I experienced the Dark Pictures first, where totally different character moments can happen on different playthroughs.

Until Dawn's strongest aspect however is the fact that this cast is great and I really liked most of them. Usually, these games offer a wide selection of characters and most of them are annoying, but here, they managed to make most of them stand out on their own. I really liked Sam, Mike and Chris, Ashley had her moments, and I wanted to spend more chapters with Matt and Jessica.

However, the worst offender of them all, the gimmick that should have been great was Dr. Hill, who was so under utilized that after a big reveal, I almost felt betrayed by the writers. He is supposed to analyze the players actions, judge them based on their poor choices and make them question their own decisions. Pretty much like the Curator in the Dark Pictures, who is always there to mock you, or even support your decisions. Dr. Hill's whole character is a weak gimmick, and I am baffled that people are not disappointed how poorly he was implemented.

Overall, Until Dawn is disappointingly mediocre, and I do not understand why people love it so much. Do not get me wrong, it is decently made and offer some good moments, but it is just not up there with the Dark Pictures, and those, even in their weakest moments shine brighter than Until Dawn.