Mafia 2 is a Goodfellas skin over Grand Theft Auto 4 that hasn’t aged so well, but hits all the right notes even today.

We follow Vito Scaletta, an American-Italian from a poor Sicilian family trying to make an honest life in Empire Bay’s poorest neighborhood. After Vito’s father drowns while drunk, Vito becomes frustrated and resorts to petty crime in tandem with his best friend, Joe. Petty crime begins to escalate towards Vito and Joe making made men of themselves.

Vito’s story is a great hook into the era of The Great Arrival of 1910, where many Italians fled to America toe scale the internal conflict as Itaity worked towards becoming a unified nation. Many of these families came without a.cent to their name, and would take up any work. This back breaking work would keep workers alive, but not out of poverty, and many Italians looked to organized crime to enjoy the American dream. Take2 Czech did a fantastic job of taking such rich history and making it into a world you could become part of.

That story can get you through this game alone, especially when you include all the fun driving around you can do in 1940s cars, the 1900s weapons of the time, and even experience the same Wanted System from Rockstar’s more famous titles. What took five stars from this game for me is that the more grounded mechanics this game experimented with was often at odds - one time I had to restart a chapter because my car was out of fuel and the mission was time based - and another time because the car the game gave me wasn’t fast enough — and its these things that quickly grind your gears.

Generally, I think this a great game, but not one I would go out of my way to play again.

Taking strides since Horizon Zero Dawn, Forbbiden West brings that same quasi-futuristic take on the world where humanity as we know made way for something far more dangerous.

If a game can keep me in a ‘I need to complete it’ kind of mood, you’ve sold me. I was so engrossed in the details of this game: from how beautifully it appeared, to the story that expanded from Zero Dawn’s ending, and all the the theatrical and mechanical elements that come with it.

I can’t consider this a full blown improvement from Zero Dawn, but it does so many things well that It was an absolute blast.

Jedi: Survivor is the best Star Wars game to date: an vast improvement on Fallen Order, and an experience just as rich.

Cal's second adventures sees him fighting against the Empire with Saw Garrerra, seperated form Greez, Merrin and Cere. When a mission to capture intel from a senator's ship sees Cal facing an increasingly desperate fight against the Empire. This video game follows Cal's development into a mature, seasoned Jedi Knight.

Respawn have done such a good job of making this game feel so damn good. Starting with the original moves from Fallen Order, and including some new tools that help you traverse the world in different ways, creates a degree of momentum I felt Fallen Order was grasping at. Running from a wall, grappling to a zip wire, floating through the air -- this what being a Jedi in his prime is supposed to feel like. There are definitely still kinks in the way that Cal latches on surfaces when you're jumping between anything without a method to attach (like grapple, or the walls you can climb around), but hopefully they work this out in the future. There's also lots more customisation too, with plenty of new lightsaber looks, more than just poncho's for Cal and plenty of new ways to style BD-1. Respawn deserve every credit they get for not making all this DLC and charging you for it. All this together gives me the impression we've got a lot to look forward in the future of Star Wars video games.

The only thing that really grated me about this game - apart from the numerous performance issues on every platform (though Performance Mode on PS5 saved it for me) - was the RPG-esque inclusions. I like that Respawn are trying to create an expansive world - i definitely feel like I didn't even scratch the surface of the content in this game with the time I invested into this initial play through - but It did get a little overwhelming with the amount of different currencies for different extra items and you definitely started to feel the pull of not playing it like a typical RPG when your 5 stims aren't enough to defeat a side boss. Add on that some of the bosses in this gave have some seriously aggressive moves that aree difficult to avoid even on Jedi Knight difficulty, and it got quite frustrating at times. There was a point nearer the end that I switched to Story Mode difficulty, but equally felt underwhelmed by how incredibly different it was. Story Mode makes Cal overpowered, and he just mashes everyone in three slices which doesn't really live up the story.

I love this game as much as Fallen Order, and I definitely see myself revisiting.

Taking on the history of renaissance era Italy in its stride, Assassin's Creed 2 - along with its rather charming protagonist, Ezio Auditore da Firenze - on an adventure to avenge the murder of the Auditore family.

This must be the fourth time I've played this game. First playing in 2010 gave me the adrenaline hit I needed - hitting the right notes with alternate history, a cool protagonist, and a thicker plot going on in the background. Over ten years later, and having read Oliver Bowden's novelisation, I'm definitely starting to see the cracks.

I still stand by this game being one of the best games in Ubisoft's line up, not just the Assassin's Creed franchise. It has all the good markings of a brilliant game and it serves us with a greatly paleatable experience. Having played other games from Ubisoft amongst many other modern titles over the last decade, the nostalgia is beginning to wear off.

This will always be a game I'll reccomend, but in faith of writing these reviews for myself in the future, I don't think I'd play it again. Perhaps I've grown out of it four times in, perhaps I just see there are better stories to relive. After having read the book and seeing the effort Bowden puts into embellishing Ezio's first forty years, my experience in-game greatly contracts. I begun to saw how little the game tries to embellish that story, and it all becomes a little anemic and repetitive. Assassin's Creed 2 is a very traditional heroes journey and has very little nuance compared to Assassin's Creed 1. Altair's story was of something greater than himself or Desmond, and Ezio's story feels driven for forty years for the sake of blood lust. Bowden clearly had more opportunity to represent both Altair's and Ezio's feelings in the respecting novelisations, but there is where the video games suffer.

Tack on some great additions such as blending, far more weapons, and varying enemies weaknesses, and some frankly interesting Assassin's tombs; you still have to contend with a pretty boring fighting system (mash those buttons! counter kill!), a map design where I'm not convinced the designers really chose to distinct between what is scalable when climbing and what isn't beyond the blatantly obvious, and an aggressive amount of collectables that don't really add to the experience. Don't get me started on that Savonarola mission....

All in all, if you like the Assassin's Creed titles and want something a little more on-rails than the post-2020 titles, this is the game for you. Make sure you're feeling patient though.