This game is like a nice fuzzy blanket. Dusted off my Xbox 360 that still surprisingly works and popped in this bad boy. I beat the first Max Payne recently and I just can't help but get a kick out of this specific pipeline: Hard Boiled influenced Max Payne, which then resulted in Strangehold, a video game sequel to Hard Boiled, that was definitely influenced by Max Payne. Love it.

It's barely worth even mentioning that Stranglehold hasn't totally aged gracefully; video games from previous console generations rarely do, we really can ease up on mentioning that when talking about older games. That includes myself, I need to get better at it. But yeah, jumping and bouncing around as Chow Yun Fat just blowing the everloving shit out of bad guys, the environment, and everything in between, is so fucking fun.

Build up your "Tequila Bomb" powerups and snipe a dude in the nuts from afar, unleash the barrage attack with dual wielding submachine guns on a squad of goons, or do the ultra slo-mo spin attack that kills all enemies on screen like a Contra special attack. The fact that Max Payne 3 came out 5 years later than this (which obviously, plays/looks/feels incredible) is a sign of how ahead this game was in 2007. Everything around you breaks, shatters and explodes in over-the-top John Woo style violence, blood splatters, bodies fly, bullets are always in the chamber as you never have to reload, ever. Brilliant!

Not a perfect game, the difficulty ramps up quite a bit near the end as it throws so many dudes at you at every angle, and it gets a little much at times (also the bullet-sponge bosses don't really do much for me). But holy hell, as a John Woo/Chow Yun Fat diehard fan I ain't rating this anything lower than 4 stars. A must-play if you're into either of them.

If you're still reading: Some personal suggestions if you love this game and are looking to check out other movies by Woo or starring Chow Yun Fat that aren't Hard Boiled. The following are must-watches:
- The Killer
- A Better Tomorrow 1 & 2
- Bullet In The Head
- Once A Thief
- Full Contact

I really expected to like this one more, but unfortunately I decided to give up on it a few worlds in (love the 2D overworld map by the way, great stuff).

I'm someone who didn't play any of the Super Monkey Ball games and only played Sonic Adventure 2 Battle briefly when I rented it back in the day, so my personal connection with 3D rolling games is pretty small. I love the idea of a little guy bouncing and jumping around colorful platform levels (and I do like a good speedy time trial race every now and then). Throw in the tongue mechanics - like Frogun did, another throwback-indie platformer, tongues are SO hot right now - and there's some fun movement to be had here.

I just ended up getting way too frustrated with this one. The whole game feels like you're on ice, sliding everywhere, I felt like control was out of my hands and turns and jumps were way too slippery. If Sami controlled tight as hell and could turn on a dime, this wouldn't necessarily make the game easier, cause you'd still need the reflexes and timing skills, but it would feel so much better. Especially since this game runs buttery smooth with a super high frame rate.

There's lots of things here for people to like and some people are definitely having a ball (heh heh) with this one but I'm throwing in the towel after too many annoying cheap deaths and it not being much fun anymore. Being able to restart on a dime is definitely nice, but monotony can only go so far. Sure, I can lower the difficulty and get rid of the time limit, but I'm STILL slipping and falling off the tiny ass ledges and getting stuck in the damage-animation where you jump into the air grabbing your ass in pain like Super Mario 64 and you have little to no control over where you land and it results in getting hurt again, or dying.

Sorry Sami, you're cute and all and all the customizable outfits are fun, but I'm tapping out bud.

As much as I'd like to, like most significant art I'm going to struggle to say much of substance about this other than "oh damn this shit is good" but I'll try!

So many games I've played in my past fester in my brain like a weird dream, usually the ones that are mature, dark, violent, experimental narratives that are comprised of bizarre, nightmarish and challenging settings/themes. Killer7 and Inscryption are two all-time favorites that immediately come to mind; they dive deep into a world of intrigue, surprise and surrealism while also using mostly traditional genres of gameplay to get their point across.

Disco Elysium is a traditional feeling top-down RPG that, right off the bat, is almost giving you quick confrontational shoves backwards like someone trying to instigate a fight. "What are you gonna do? Huh? Do something. Come on, try me. I dare you." It wants you to be confused, to think about fighting back, or possibly even fleeing. It tries to knock you off balance immediately by throwing you into the dingy and warped fray of the player character, trapped inside his own mind. What you do next, where you go, who you speak to, it could all be laid out in front of you in a clear and concise matter. But who you are, how you speak, what you can accomplish and how, is all a fucked up mess of thoughts; hatred and torment, childlike confusion and amusement, twisted worldviews and ideologies. Who the fuck are you? This game frankly doesn't care, and good luck trying to figure that out anytime soon.

Video games are no stranger to containing boatloads of lore throughout their worlds, but Disco Elysium acts like there is a trilogy of books based on the history of its world you haven't read and never will. It thrusts you into conversations with characters about religion, race, social and political unrest, social relationships, and even the paranormal, which are all steeped deeply in the thick lore of its world. It won't explain any of this unless you poke and prod, a quirk which thankfully makes sense for your main character that is having an amnesiac episode and remembers nothing. Real world themes and familiar situations arise, but all in their own unique state of affairs the games world allows them to. Union strikes, murder, unruly teens, drugs, poverty, these things all exist in our world, but in Disco Elysium, they are all wrapped tightly in the lore of the world and molded to fit its blueprint.

I really can't emphasize the richness of dialogue here, it's unheard of in a video game. And everything else: the choices, the addictive levelling up of certain skills and personality traits, the detective work, the exploration, the tense moments of unrest, and even (as a big fan of cryptids) some cryptozoology!

Kim Kitsuragi is an incredible character that I would do anything for. Anytime I offended or disappointed him with my dialogue or actions, I truly felt it. He understands your flaws but still accepts that you're human. I went out of my way at first to try controversial things to see how he would react, but by the end I was protective of him at all costs.

This is a game to talk about at lengths, for years and years to come.

I really really enjoyed this one! Dredge ticks off a ton of boxes for me:
- peaceful boat exploration
- addictive collectathon/upgrading/crafting elements
- supernatural mind-games
- having an immense fear of the deep dark ocean
- tons and tons of real fish as well as their freak-ish counterparts
- just lots of fucked up weird shit!

My partner hasn't played a different video game other than Tears Of The Kingdom since it came out and when she walked in on me playing this on PS5, it took her less than 20 minutes of watching to be like "yeah I'm buying this on Switch". We played it side by side, having different adventures and giving each other suggestions and hints at what to do and tips and tricks. It was so fun to experience together... especially when the night time spooky shit happens and we'd be like "did you see this thing?" and the other would be like "what?? no??"

I 100%'ed Dredge and got the Platinum trophy, catching all fish, upgrading everything, doing all quests and seeing all the endings. The endings are insane and amazing and as a fan of sea creatures and great big freaky things, I was immensely satisfied. Lovecraftian horror fans, you're probably already aware of this one, but if not, dive into this one ASAP.

One of my fave games of 2023, beautiful and eerie and peaceful and uneasy all at once. A great soundtrack and art style, the controls are tight and simple and the menus and inventory systems are perfect for the type of game this is. Play Dredge!!

A pretty safe and standard recommend for fans of Banjo-Kazooie/Donkey Kong/Spyro/Crash, the variety of level layouts ranging from full on 3D exploration to 2D side scrollers and auto-run levels is a big selling point. There's a lot to like here.

My main gripe is that it feels very "for kids" in the sense that the other games I mentioned don't as much. This was the first cartoon-y animal platformer I've played as a grown ass man that made me feel, "maybe this one is strictly for children". It's very easy and the general design of the characters feels kinda "baby-game"-ish. The UI, fonts, and some design choices feel very mobile game/generic royalty free clip-art found online to me. Lucky himself looks so plain and boring with his big eyes and goofy smile, he just looks dead inside. Thankfully there's some other fun character design and lines throughout, like the worm guys and the wrestler yetis, which felt very Spryo/Crash inspired. Some great comedy here to be found as well.

This is an easy Platinum, with the hardest challenges saved for the last bonus world Foxington. It's the only location in the game that actually felt challenging, and some specific trophies may take you more than a few attempts. But this is a basic ass kiddy platformer through and through, with some nice variety that I didn't have a terrible time with at all. If you have kids, definitely give this one a go with them.

The Messenger is one of my favorite games so I was very excited for this one; Sabotage Studios are making themselves known for developing very polished, stylish and fun indie titles that reward you for exploring everything there is to offer in their games. Not to mention super fun endgame content and tons of side quests and secrets to find. The fact that their games so far are a shared universe makes being a fan that much better; when you see/hear things from The Messenger in this, you get that much more excited.

Paper Mario for N64 and Persona 5 are some of the only turn-based RPG's I've played to the end and loved to death (Paper Mario The Thousand Year Door is also very high on that list). But they've never been my fave genre. All it took for me was knowing and trusting in Sabotage to deliver a top notch title and I was hooked pretty instantly from the start. The combat has timed attacks/blocks similar to Paper Mario, and lots of elemental special attacks/targeting weaknesses like Persona 5. I also loved that there's no random encounters like some JRPG's have where you're walking randomly and the screen flashes and you get sucked into a battle. Like the above games, Sea of Stars shows you enemies on the screen and you can run around them if you want, but it's best to fight 'em anyways for the XP.

The world, islands and towns are varied and interesting, with some standout areas (and some familiar for The Messenger fans), ultimately it's nothing you haven't seen in a fantasy RPG before... until it actually goes to some cool and unexpected places. I will admit, there's a moment in the story where I thought they were gonna suddenly pull a bait-and-switch like The Messenger famously does, but it's something different.

The story is fine, and the 2 main characters are unfortunately the least interesting of the bunch. All of your other party members, side characters and even the villains and bosses are more engaging. The plot constantly has you going from region to region, hopping from area to area without much of a suspenseful and engaging story to engage you with; honestly I didn't even know why I was going to a lot of these places other than the game just either telling me to go there or just placing me there automatically. It's mainly typical quest stuff, go to this dungeon, fight this boss and get this doodad, etc. and it was also a lot more linear than I was expecting (which isn't a bad thing!). There's some puzzles thrown in as well of course, but other than the endgame side quests, none of it was challenging in the slightest.

And speaking of that... this might be the easiest RPG of all time? The game lets you use these essentially cheat code items if you want which makes the game easier than easy mode, and I think it's mainly for accessibility, but even without using any of them, it's extremely generous. I died a few times, but it was only due to foolishly battling without aiming for weaknesses and breaking enemy attacks. If you pay attention, use your skills accordingly and cook food often, you'll be absolutely fine, with the odd death to a boss here or there. There's also an extraordinarily generous amount of campfires around, which allow you to cook healing items and rest to heal your party. You can backtrack to these at any point after a battle, and the enemies don't respawn, so it's very forgiving if not a little bit too much as it can definitely be taken advantage of. But at the same time, who cares!

I really liked the minigame, Wheels, that you can play in taverns/inns, that was really fun to get the hang of, kind of like Yahtzee meets War with little figurines. Cool stuff!

Sea of Stars is really really cool and well worth your time, some of the characters I really liked and even if the story is just okay, I was still curious as to what's gonna happen next. And the "ending" just opens up more to do, which results in the true ending, and is absolutely worth playing more to witness. Just be prepared to explore a lot of the world for a certain type of collectible (thankfully there's only 60, and most of them you'll find without even trying, but expect to look up a guide for some specific hidden ones). I can't wait to see what Sabotage do next, they're killing it

I really wanted to love this one more. The mystery was intriguing, the ever-expanding house setting, the boatloads of puzzles and clue investigations, and the surreal nightmarish imagery and vibes. Even really liked the graphics that had the character model animations reminiscent of mid-90's PC games.

I found the writing and dialogue a bit obtuse and it made me feel distanced from both the characters and the plot itself. Several cutscenes and entire chunks of dialogue when speaking to characters just felt either poorly written or alienating to the player; entire sentences seemed like you weren't in on the bit or were leaving bits of information or context out on purpose. I can't really explain it, it wasn't all like this, but there were several instances. It does help to know the game is about mental health issues, but I found it touched on those elements better using visual moments. I felt the same about the lore pieces you'd find around the house of the owner/visitors/history of the house, etc. Not much of an explanation or payoff to mostly all of it.

In terms of the scare-factor and the puzzles (the main parts of the gameplay), the creepy killer was really cool at first, and I'd continuously get freaked out when it'd appear when/where I wasn't expecting, and running away from it with the old-school tank controls was always a tense encounter. But after a couple hours when you're well into the game, running all over the house trying to solve puzzles under a time limit of when the killer finds you, the scare factor just turned to annoyance when I'd see or hear it coming and it's like "fuck, alright let's get this over with", it kills you and then you retry again. The tedium of having to redo certain puzzles, even if you already knew the solution, wasn't all that fun, and in terms of the puzzles in general; some were kinda cool, but several I felt frustration with. Lots of them were just trial and error, trying whatever until you figure out the solution with no rhyme or reason. I struggled with a fair amount of these, some just didn't feel like you had to use your brain or logic, but just, keep fiddling with the gadget until it works. Not all were like this, and some were definitely exploration-based and rewarding if you make sure to check every nook and cranny in a room for clues.

Anyways, wanted to keep this a short one but alas, I got on a tangent, but I liked what this game was going for in terms of presentation, mood, and trying to say something personal underneath everything, but mainly I was kinda glad this was over when it ended and kinda felt nothing from it. I want to love this game, and there are definitely parts to enjoy here, so others definitely will get more out of this than I did.

Big Star Wars fan since the mid-90's here, when the re-releases were just around the corner, my parents rented the OG movies for me and I was about to experience the masterpiece that is Shadows Of The Empire on N64. Lego fan as well (90's kid, duh), but in terms of Lego video games the only other one I've played is Lego Marvel Superheroes, which I really adored. The open-world NYC on top of a metric fuckton of heroes and villains to play as (every X-Men and X-Men villain was a massive plus for me), it was just a fun and easy going beat-em-up/platformer/puzzler/collectathon.

I knew I was going to enjoy this based on all of the above, and the idea of playing through every main Star Wars film sounded insane to me. AND you could play as a bajillion characters and ships? AND every planet is explorable and contains dozens and dozens of side quests and things to collect? How does this game even exist? I'll tell you how, with a disgusting amount of crunch from all of the developers involved, so much that some had full blown mental health crises and suffered damages to their wellbeing. All for a cute and funny little Star Wars game. It really makes you feel fucked up the more you think about it... no job is worth that amount of anguish, especially for something as silly as a video game, and it's something we really take for granted every time we boot up any game nowadays.

But I want to sing my praises for the devs, because their hard work, despite it never being worth the amount of anguish they went through, has paid off immensely for paying customers and fans of Star Wars. This game is massive, a ton of fun, funny as hell, and so faithful and respectful for Star Wars as a whole. If you know these movies like the back of your hand, love them, or even hate some of them, you can't help but appreciate how well they adapt the plotlines, set pieces, dialogue, and even emotional beats of these movies. It even pokes fun at them in a loving way; sad moments are played for laughs, and they double down on riffing on some very popular moments that have been referenced to hell and back. The prequels and Disney sequels get the most parodying here, with those being the most torn-to-bits-by-the-internet of the whole series. There were so many times the jokes are just smile-worthy, but a huge handful had me actually laugh. It reminds me of Airplane!/The Naked Gun style humor, with visual gags in the background or silly slapstick moments, as well as groan-worthy puns and dialogue that is still humorous as hell. When Rey hears all of the Jedi voices encouraging her during the climatic battle in Rise Of Skywalker and you hear Anakin bluntly say "I don't like sand", despite it being meme'ed to death it still got a legit chuckle out of me.

The game is not hard in the slightest, but the lightsaber/shooting is still fun for how simplistic it is. Same with the ships, they feel great and it's all accessible and easy for fans of any age. There is so much to do and see, that 100%'ing this game feels almost impossible, but it's there if you want to. I completed every movie and dabbled in exploring and collecting tons of stuff on every planet to get more of a full picture/experience, but I don't think I'll ever go as far as completing it all, because life is too short and there are too many other games/movies/life in general to enjoy. But if you want to, it's all there, and that's great if you just love Star Wars and don't play many other games and want to soak in it all for hours and hours.

There are countless Star Wars games that I love more than this but it also is kinda one of the best I've ever played, just for accuracy/attention to detail/the amount of love here. I wouldn't doubt it if the developers have been soured on Star Wars for life after they were done with this, but I really applaud them for their work, and wish it didn't have to happen the way it did.

Gorgeously macabre like the first, but even more so with such a varied and expansive setting this time. This series just knocks the visuals/presentation/mood out of the water in terms of horror video games, you feel totally enraptured by it all.

The puzzles as always are great logic-based ones that only require your use of the items and environment around you, and there's even some mild combat too which was cool and tense each time it happened. Some mild bouts of frustration with some chase/escape set pieces that require perfect precision and speed but it being the only thing difficulty-based in the game, it was all part of the horror.

The story is great, the ending is a shocker and the surreal nightmare quality of the world just kept getting better and better. I really enjoyed the first game but I think this one outshines it a bit more. But both are must-plays in my opinion

If I paid full price for this day one like I was going to last year before I read all of the bad word of mouth, I probably would felt let down. But waiting almost a year and getting to finally give it a playthrough on PS Plus definitely boosted my opinions on this.

This isn't Dead Space 4 like everyone was hoping, but I like it more for that reason. I've always loved melee combat-centered action games so this was a very welcome change over a full on gun horror experience. There's a pretty big emphasis on gun combat as well, sure, but the majority here is swinging your baton with chunky combat and dodge mechanics. It definitely shows its flaws sometimes when more than two enemies come at you at once, as several others have mentioned, but when it clicks and you're smoothly avoiding attacks and trading off blows it really worked for me.

And Jesus, the graphics here... like... goddamn. I can't express how much literally everything in this game looks incredible, and the lighting, sheesh! It's jaw-dropping. The nasty enemy design, I liked that the enemies were still very humanoid, save for a few, rather than in Dead Space where there were tons of monstrosities and abominations everywhere. Just a nice change to differentiate the two; mushy bloated zombies covered in sores and infection, skeletal twitchy ghouls, really cool spooky design.

Enjoyed the story, which for me got good near the half way point as the mystery got deeper and you were dying to know what was up. I really enjoyed the linear experience that it offered, even if the majority of the game outside of combat is just holding the stick forward to move ahead. Get used to slowly crawling through tight spaces, air vents, tunnels, and casually making your way through incredible environments just as eye-candy and nothing else. There's no puzzles or anything either, it's just move forward and fight every now and then, which I'm also fine with - not every survival horror/action title needs puzzles to be good!

My only big gripes is that the slow pace works against itself sometimes (nice and relaxing versus boring and slow), the combat feels uneven (you can get overwhelmed by several enemies and using the same stick to move and dodge can screw you over), and the glove-force powers you have don't do much outside of combat - it lets you easily throw enemies into death traps/blades/spikes, which can make some fights be over in a second.

Not as good as Dead Space but I think this comfortably sits fine as the younger sibling of it who wants to be cool just like them. If you're into linear story games with some hard hitting combat like The Order 1886 and Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice, I'd easily recommend this especially if you can play it for cheap or through a service

Spider-Man 2 was my most anticipated game of the year easily - as a big fan of Venom and just Insomniac Games knocking it out of the park every time I knew it was gonna be great. It's too early to say if I like this or the first game better but it's impossible for me to not give them both the same rating; each have their own strengths. Spider-Man 2018 just felt huge as the first incredible Spider-Man game in years that actually nailed everything about the character/villains/setting/gameplay, and Spider-Man 2 just gives you more of the same but bigger, with better graphics and framerate, and the smooth/fast performance of the PS5.

This was so good that I ultimately ended up blasting through the story way faster than I expected, which made it feel shorter. I didn't wanna take my time and got really wrapped up in it. It just begged me to keep going when things got heavy, dark, and intense - as much as some of the side content was fun, I couldn't imagine stopping to hunt for spider-bots, do science experiments and help students with their school spirit when there were these insane city threats on the go. And some of the side content was really cool, with rewarding endings to most of them. Those goddamn neighborhood Spidey missions with personal interactions with people, some of them quite heart-wrenching, nailed the whole Spider-Man as a man of the people thing that the character is known for. Just the best dude, he cares for everyone and it really shows.

I'm not gonna go into spoilers just so anyone can read this, but yeah some story beats REALLY worked for me. Kraven was great, what a beast he was, I was never a huge fan of him but they really make him a force of nature here; he's legit scary in some scenes. There's a battle with him in this that will go down as one of the best gameplay segments of the year for me. All of the bosses really have standout fights, and test your skills with lots of attack patterns, dodging, and uses of the environment.

The story and performances I expected once again to be great, with Peter/Miles/MJ/Harry and more all getting big moments to shine time and time again. I really like how Peter and Miles refer to the villains as their real names, it shows Spider-Man understands most of these guys are just angry and gone bad because the world either fucked with them, they're down and out, or they just can't help it. Lizard is a great villain but Dr. Connors can't control himself and Spidey refuses to stop until he can save him safely. And Sandman, who starts the game off with a bang, is going on a tear and it's clear something set him off; Peter knows he lost his cool and needs to understand why. The dialogue during these battles is pretty constant and sometimes distractingly so when the fights are so flashy and explosive and you're hammering out attacks, but there's so many character moments during that flesh our their motives and emotions.

Platinum trophy here is easy peasy if you're gonna do everything, the Spider-Man games have established that by now pretty clearly, and if you love the game you're gonna do it all anyway. Leaving a lot of the collectibles and side missions til last does feel a bit grind-y, but getting to swing and fly around the city is such a blast that it doesn't get tired at all. And speaking of flying, holy hell is the wing-gliding fun as shit. The wind tunnels feel incredible, and the heights you can reach in this game is breathtaking; I feel like I was doubling or tripling the height of the some tall buildings with how high I was getting with the wings!

Finally, the suits here are both some of the best and coolest suits they've ever featured, and also have some of the worst that I never used once. All of the color variations were really really nice though.

Def one of the best games of 2023 and along with the first one, pretty damn perfect Spider-Man experiences in general. I'm actually excited for a NG+ to come out to experience the story again, and really hoping for DLC like the first game had.

A masterful journey of a game and very much so a "me game" that I have to give it a perfect rating.

Alan Wake 2 is confusing, surreal, mysterious, funny, terrifying, and engaging as hell all at the same time. When video games as a medium can expertly tell stories this experimental and presented in the mind-bending way that it does, it's mind boggling that some people still think of this medium as a dumb kids hobby. The directing, acting, gameplay, environment design, presentation, it's all meticulously planned and thought out. I've been seeing people comparing Sam Lake to Hideo Kojima lately and the guy is absolutely up there now as one of the best minds working in games today. I could not be happier to be a fan of the Remedy-verse and to be as sucked into its world as I am.

On the topic of Sam Lake/Remedy... my god, the Alex Casey stuff. My partner was watching me play at one point and witnessed one of the Alex Casey echoes that Alan finds where Casey's face is projected across the screen and his voiceover narration monologues over the scene. Nearby were posters for the Alex Casey movies, with Casey smirking and pointing his gun towards the camera on the poster. I couldn't help myself and asked, "you want to know something really cool about this character?" Cue me, for ten minutes, explaining the very meta Sam Lake/Max Payne/Alex Casey pipeline, all the while going into the plots for Alan Wake 1 and Control. I caught myself with how excited and giddy I was talking about it and how fucking cool it all is, and that's exactly when you know you really truly admire a work of art and that this is a very special thing.

Honestly, there is so much I could talk about here, I have to try and limit myself. The way you can tackle the plot and structure of the story, jumping between Saga Anderson and Alan Wake, from Bright Falls to New York City, and that it all works, no matter which way you do it, is a marvel. I bounced between to balance my time with each character, but the way some things will become clearer earlier on depending on how you do the story, is crazy to think about in terms of game design. Saga has a "mind place" in her head which is a room piecing together all the things you've collected and investigated, including a wall of evidence and clues all connected via individual cases, and I imagine Remedy had something similar in their offices to keep track of everything going on in this game. The way the world can be explored, changed, shifted, the little clues and collectibles you find, it's all part of the bigger story and fleshes everything out.

The first Alan Wake game throws hordes and hordes of enemies at you, in a typical action game fashion, where by the end of the game you would have taken out hundreds of them. The slo-mo bullet-time effects as you light up flares and shoot them into groups of enemies as they explode, it's very stylish. Alan Wake 2 keeps the intense action but reduces the enemy count considerably; most of the time encounters are under five enemies, sometimes more depending, but even just a single one sometimes. It keeps you on your toes, uses them sparingly but always effectively. The horror is really on display here; some really twisted and freaky shit to contend with. It doesn't burn you out on the action, which is something the first game did by the end. I will admit, I did miss the bullet-time effects when firing my flare gun into an enemy, especially with how absolutely incredible it would've looked here, but that's not a nitpick, just a personal wish.

The world design is so detailed and effectively realistic that this is a game that sometimes make it hard to determine what can and can't be interacted with. It has a little button prompt on all items which is helpful, but sometimes areas are so packed and dense that you may miss resources or collectibles; you really have to walk around and look at everything. It begs you to explore it all, and when a game looks this good, you can see why. Facial animations when characters speak look incredible, and of course the switching between live-action and in-game cinematics just makes the stylish factor and overall presentation that much more unique. The Alan Wake sequences in particular feature some absolutely incredible scenes.

I won't lie, I think the only thing I'm not crazy about are the songs that play at the end of chapters. This is just my own musical tastes speaking, but it's just not my style. The use of "In Dreams" by Roy Orbison in the first game was done perfectly and I was just waiting for that to appear again, or for another great classic song to be featured, but unfortunately there's nothing here. There's one in particular, "Lost At Sea" that I liked, which has a bit of a new-wave 80's sound, and the New Gods Of Asgard stuff, especially the stuff used in actual gameplay, is really really great, but the others, not so much. But that's just me!

Resident Evil 4 Remake earlier this year is my only other 5 star rating of 2023 (I found it hard not to give it 5 stars purely based on it being a remake to one of my fave games ever) but this is now the other. I couldn't help but compare the 2 as I played for obvious reasons; slow burn survival horror with frantic action set pieces, isolated environments, weird creepy cult shenanigans, memorable characters, they have a lot in common. The New York City sections even felt Resident Evil 2 inspired as well. Both game sequels do a funny thing where they changed to keep their series interesting as well - RE4 adapted a third-person action game feel, and Alan Wake 2 became more of a survival horror game. Ultimately, RE4 Remake brought me back to the glory days of the GameCube and reminded me of why I love RE4 so much, but Alan Wake 2, as a brand new and exciting weird horror experience, gets the upper edge.

Like I said earlier, it's just so much "my shit" in terms of gritty action, nightmarish horror, weird mind-bending sequences, great writing, and so much more, on top of being another wild Remedy experience (and actually making me love Control even more now). I got the Platinum trophy, which wasn't a grind at all; getting all the collectibles in this game is great and absolutely worth it and a lot of the trophies you'll get naturally.

If you made it this far: I fucking love this game and it's up there with Killer7 and Inscryption as some of the all-time best weird horror that video games can offer. A must play.

I find it hard not to give Hades a perfect 5 stars. I started playing this game right before Spider-Man 2 and Alan Wake 2 came out, and as much as I loved those games and every moment I spent with them, I kept thinking the whole time, I can't wait to dive back into Hades.

The game sucks me back in after every run, the chaotic action is dialed in so tight, all of the multiple builds and powerups you can chain together, it's madness. I rolled the credits but there's still so much to do and see, and if the game wasn't so freakishly fun I would have probably moved on to something else by now. In many many ways it's a perfect game.

Checked this one out cause it's on PS Plus and I saw some third person dual wielding dive shooting ala Max Payne so I got real excited. Unfortunately doing that move in this game is both pointless and clunky as hell. Your character is a guy who shoots bullets and doesn't need to ever stop, your enemies are hordes of bloodbags and levels are walk here, kill, repeat. Someone else on here said it's like a walking turret section, which nails it on the head.

Actually enjoyed myself the first couple levels due to how brainless and stupid it is, wacky ridiculous shit that I didn't pay attention to plot-wise (I actually skipped every cutscene I could in this game which I NEVER do). Eventually a few hours in enemies became bullet sponges and the clunk got worse, and I wasn't having an ounce of fun anymore. There's stuff to love here, but for myself, only for about an hour or two.