I'm not a huge Harry Potter nerd but I started a new game on my GFs account to optimize the settings for her since she's playing on a low end rig.

Surprisingly, the game runs well with the Medium preset on a GTX 1060, i5-9100F. Put some things on high and it's still mostly a stable 60 FPS. Medium is still pretty, but I wish the TAA wasn't mandatory. It makes things blurry a bit.

As I've said, I'm not into HP that much, atleast I wasn't until this game. I only wanted to play a bit to mess with the settings but ended up being glued to the screen for 2 hours more than I wanted. There's rarely a game where I enjoy exploration as much as here. The environments are captivating and the NPCs are interesting. My character is dressed like an idiot and I love it. So, thanks Avalanche for giving a depressed guy a bit of unexpected joy.

"An entrance, whether literal or metaphysical, cannot be undone."

I might have heard enough electric guitar licking for a while. But honestly, it was a great experience. There's not much gameplay here, but there's still a fair amount of interactivity.
The art is just absolutely and undeniably stunning.
This is the most elaborate character creator of all time and to date my favorite space opera I've been a part of.
Anyway... Dialogue? Snappy. Glasses? Must have. Name? Guitar riff. Space turtles? Majestic.

"Yo, amigo! Post that footage on YouTube! It rocks!"

I think this is the best Codemasters arcade rally game. The cars handle well, the stages are interesting and memorable, there's a lot of cars, classes and locations. It's very accessible for new comers but gives enough space to hone your skills and grow. It's almost perfect.

However, I really don't like the Gymkhana and DC Challanges. I just wanted to rally, not do these stupid things. Those are the reason why I can't say that this game is perfect. I understand why they included the them. That was the hot new thing in the rally scene back then. Ultimately, even though I don't like it, in a way I'm glad that it's included as a piece of "rally history" and will be nice to look back on the Dirt series one day and say "Hey, remember when Gymkhana was all the rave? Even Dirt 3 had it.".

The Rally and Trailblazer stages are beautiful and they have a nice variety to them. I wish I could say the same about the Rally Cross and Land Rush tracks. Those are very same-y and kinda boring.

I also don't like that ugly colorgrading filter that PS3 era games had, but I mostly don't mind it anymore. The game is still pretty enough. The announchers are also annoying and unskippable.

I might sound like I don't like the game but I really do. None of the negatives I've listed take away from the amazing feeling of flying through the dirt in a Ford RS 200 in the straight then launching into a satisfying handbrake turn through the corner. Sometimes there are other drivers on the stage which lives up the otherwise lonely nature of stage rally.

I just wanted to fuel my current "rally phase" with some nostalgia not expecting to play more than like 15 minutes but it holds up incredibly well and I played through a championship. The car handling is super fun and engaging. The car slides just the right way. The tracks have a nice variation to them. The game looks really nice still even though I don't like playing old games anymore. It's a shame it's not available to purchase.
I tried out the PS1 version too and while that's the inferior version, it's still the best car game on the Playstation.
I highly recommend playing with an XBox kontroller which it somehow supports.
You also need SilentPatch and dgVoodoo on modern PCs. Just follow the pcgamingwiki article.

The story is a decent popcorn flick. It's obviously nothing extra but I enjoyed it. They even crammed some character development into the mix. However, maybe in the first time ever, I was annoyed by the ludonarrative dissonance. I mean, I come in 1st place every race and they literally call me the support driver... Come on!
The gameplay is nice and arcade-y. The cockpit view is nicely done as well.
I enjoyed it, but I only played it because it was cheap with Amazon Prime. I'd recommend picking it up on a sale if you want a chill, campy stroy mode with your arcade racing game.
Anyway... Name? Just a number. Music? Way too epic. First Woman's Champion? About that...

What an underrated gem. Sure, judging it as a successor of Race Driver: Grid, it doesn't hold up in many ways but as it's own entity it's really good. It's important not to view it as a simulator or even a simcade because it's very much an arcade game.
I've just finished the campaign and while it was mostly a grind fest and by the end I was sick of all the same locations and turns (especially Dubai) I'm still happy I stuck through it. The game really makes you feel like some viral racing star and I liked my organic rivalry with the other drivers on the track. Bruno Silva is really just a yellow-orange car that you only see on the track but everytime I had to fight with him for the first place it felt personal. Especially when he would ram me in the Face Offs.
The twisty hillside races were the absoluty highlights of the game. Halfway through I realized that I can just turn of the in-game music and blast some eurobeat from Spotify. Highly recommended for everyone.
The drifting mechanic is different from the predecessor. I'd say it's a step back but I didn't mind it. However, I straight up skipped the Drift races.
Overall, it's an initially flawed game that got better with age.

How did we make people do things for us before Hotline Miami invented threatening, mysterious phone calls?

Hotline Miami is a fast-paced top down shooter rocking a fitting retro pixel-art style and an iconic soundtrack. The music puts you in a trance-like state to enhance your focus, so you can mass murder Russian mobsters with maximum efficiency. The story is made up of multiple layers. On the surface it's a David Lynch-esque action thriller that both feels familiar and entirely unique. However if you dig deeper you can uncover a deep conspiracy involving nationalism and a critique on video game violence presented through a curved mirror. The game offers great replayability as you unlock different masks that you can use on any level to try a new play style.