Assassin’s Creed was a masterpiece of its time: Eidos Montreal developed a brand new engine just to capture Altair Ibn La-Ahad in his truest form, directed his story in beautiful detail, and gave gamers their first taste of being part of the brotherhood and taking up the creed.

I’m a huge fan of the AC games, having played through most of them, but I cannot, in earnest, recommend you play this game. A masterpiece once but for the standards of 2023, it will merely frustrate you every time you want to take it seriously. The revolutionary free-running movement system is unforgiving at the best of times; incredible direction is met with generally wooden dialogue; and a fulfilling target hunting experience is met with painfully repetitive information-gathering experiences and assassination experiences.

If you want to tap into what amazon Altair’s story has, Oliver Bowden’s novelisation of this game (with bits taken from later games) is a brilliant read, and you’ll enjoy it far more than the miniscule detail this game gives you.

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.

You can always count on the Dead Space franchise to provide you a horrifying atmosphere with blood-curdling screams at every corner you turn. Dead Space 2, however, is an unfortunate example of how a sequel can do it's story a disservice.

While Dead Space 2 packs in new mechanics, more upgrades, and enough save points to keep your heart rate down. It's also got plenty of dry dialogue, emotional moments that don't resonate, and a plot that is stretched across fifteen chapters rather than the five it probably fills.

If you wanted a Dead Space game and not a Doom clone, this isn't the one.

This is hands-down one of the best games I've ever played. Disclaimer where it's due: this game is a jack of all trades. It does everything really well, but nothing perfectly. It looks stunning, feels awe inspiring, and captures the tone of the franchise within which it is based incredibly, but it definitely has flaws, even if they can be ignored.

Guardians of the Galaxy takes you on an adventure across the stars. I honestly can't impression any more of the plot without spoiling it, and trust me, there is so much I'm holding back on. The narrative behind what is ultimately a superhero game, kept me guessing at every turn, and never failed to impress. The action, while a tad repetetive, felt as satisfying as ever and moreso when you adjust to intuitively creating your own combos. The characters had their own place in this story and chemistry with one another, and developed equally. The boss fights were fair, far and few between. The soundtrack, like with everything in this franchise, was incredible and genuinely helped the immersion. Shooting baddies while listening to The Final Countdown by Europe has never been so insanely cool.

This game is genuinely just fun to play, and has a format that I can see going really far, but also allows the game to stand on its own two feet should this be all we are to expect from Marvel's future gaming endeavours. Being a Marvel fan already just made it even better.

Riding on the tailcoats of 2033 and Last Light, Metro: Exodus aims to explore the world outside the metro, said to be a baron wasteland. Turns out it's not empty, shock horror. It's definitely still a wasteland; an extensively boring, dull-coloured, Anakin-Skywalker-sand-levels, wasteland.

I adore the Metro franchise, and I went into this game knowing that I should've expect a lot given the majority of the reviews capture how poor it is, but I cannot express how true that is. It's a fine game, and there are definitely points that feel very Metro, but as soon as you reach the half-way point, it turns really, really monotone. I couldn't even be bothered continuing.

A deeply upsetting, but profoundly spellbinding, take on a journey through paradigm-shifting grief surrounded in mythological themes, intense battles, and an unforgettable experience.

Packed with extensive cinematics that hook you right into Senua's world, immersive scenes that question life through a schizophrenic's eyes in an entirely sensible fashion, and an utterly satisfying combat mechanic you'll never want to put down -- even for such a short game, if you don't have it completed: you're missing out.

Ratchet & Clank was a big part of my introduction to video games. I can never remember what edition I had on PS2, but I always remember constantly replaying through a particular mission where you had to jump around on trains and then getting stuck when you finally got your ship back. I always remember the random weapons with particular ammo, the quirky Captain Quark, and Clank's mischievous laugh. Sony delivering such an iconic piece of intellectual property has helped it survive over twenty years.

Rift Apart is an incredibly good call back to those days. You get a whole host of weapons, you get a ship, and you get Clank's mischievous laugh. In fact, you get a whole lot more: the beautiful remaster you can witness in a modern resolution, the brilliant cut scenes and charming characters, and a story missions that really do their best to remain original and remove too much focus from those repetitive aspects.

I'm not sure this is the best Ratchet and Clank game I've ever played, nor Sony one, but this is another release that goes to show that Sony is doing a brilliant job of bringing really good experiences to gaming. That they release them on PC now too is honestly golden.

I've had a lot of fun with Control over the past couple days. Primarily, I have to give this game credit for it's genuinely intuitive controls/mechanics. They make this game worth playing solely to run from area to area smashing everything up and getting to grips with how you like to fight best. You can upgrade your whole load-out, articulate your abilities however you like, and craft different weapons to suit your approach.

Besides that, though. this game is fairly mediocre. It runs poorly, looks fairly average, and delivers the narrative pretty anemically. Very few characters feel anything more than dry and lacking chemistry with the main character, and the fighting can get very repetetive if it weren't forgiven for how purely satisfying it is to throw boxes at enemies like you're some kind of Jedi.