On the rare occasion I play mobile games, it's usually this, and it used to be a pretty solid game. Used to, because now it's filled with microtransactions and softlocking requiring you to either buy coins to progress or wait 1-2 days for things to reset.

No clue why they did this, but I guess at some point every ongoing game gets that treatment sooner or later. Real shame, used to be really fun, now I can't even progress the third levels naturally.

Almost awful gameplay accompanied by a less than interesting narrative that makes the first game look like an undisputed masterpiece. While I had my issues with Road 96, I overly enjoyed it's narrative, concept and atmosphere, which this game almost completely takes a giant dump on.

I think the conceptual approach is what really breaks this game. The first wasn't that heavy in the gameplay department, whilst taking place mostly in it, it was the almost episodic feel of each new and different adventure that made it feel refreshing and didn't overstay it's welcome. Road 96: Mile 0 completely looses that substance and feels like a single journey stretched out for 7 hours too long. Digixart tries something almost drastically different with tedious platforming that does not bode well for the game overall and serves as an episodic ending to the structure that is not that satisfying at all, hence the tediousness.

Narratively, it didn't gripe me as much as the first at all. What sold me on the original game was the intrigue of mystery, which is obviously completely lost here. If I cared about Zoe in the first game, maybe I would have cared about the narrative here, but Zoe kind of annoyed me initially and annoyed be doubly so here. As for Kaito, I am not familiar with this character at all so there wasn't much to work with. Adam unironically was my favourite character throughout the whole thing, that was how dull everyone else felt to me.

A definite fall from grace, even if the first game wasn't the best either. I honestly have a newfound appreciation for Road 96, though, so I guess this game had at least one positive thing to say about it.

As a New Zealander, I was pretty ecstatic to play this game, there aren't too many games that I know of that are developed in my country aside from Ashen, Path of Exile and apparently the Bloons series, so my enjoyment of this had a little bit of patriotic bias.

Aside from that, it's a very relaxing, slow game that is nice to just chill to. The world isn't too big, it basically is what it says it is, but the atmosphere it presents is quite unique and eerie in it's own way. It definitely has a type of Lovecraftian feel about it whilst also feeling original to itself. It's essentially a fishing game, but with a twist, and probably one of the better ones in the genre. A great debut for an indie developer too, the soundtrack itself was very well done and added to the tone exceptionally well.

Whilst the gameplay can be simplistic, it has a certain level of depth as well. Very few games motivate me to grind, Dredge being the rare exception. Searching for different species of fish to upgrade your boat or even just doing random side quests was often at times more engaging than the overarching questline, which itself was very short, but with the added side content, feels like a complete experience regardless. The art style also constantly draws you back.

Praise for independent kiwi developers aside, on it's own it's a good experience and definitely worth the while.

Master Collection version

Still an amazing experience, even better with an opened third eye and a better understanding of the mechanics. Absolutely deserving of it's praise and it has actually aged pretty well for it's time. I think that there are still some rough edges that needed polishing, and I'm quite excited to see how that is done in the remake. There are a lot of sections of this game that intrigue me to see with fresh eyes in the remake in general, this game is so great that I'm eager to see whether they improve on or fuck it up.

In any case, one of my favourite games of all time. I feel like, even if the story isn't as complex or as much of a mindfuck as Metal Gear Solid 2, it's still pretty solid for what it sets out to be. The narrative does it's job and it's still very emotional, Naked Snake is the best protagonist in the series, better than even Solid Snake, so that also gives this one an edge over it's predecessors and it's successors. For me, it's the best in the series, pending revision once I replay the others.

This was a really solid experience pretty much all-around and was insanely good for the genre of game it comes from.

Going into this, I was pretty skeptical. I'm not that familiar with card games, or even turn-based ones for that matter, so I really wasn't sure at all whether I'd enjoy it or not. Almost pretty much instantly though as soon as I got my hands on the characters and gained control, I was having a really good time. It's actually, surprisingly, a very complex strategy game that combines the turn-based, card elements of the gameplay with a simplified RPG aspect that makes pretty much every faucet of the game really fresh. You can either grind encounters, grind encounters for resources to upgrade your abilities or the currency to tailor your heroes' appearances to your liking or, perhaps one of my favourite parts of the game, literally sit and chat with the roster of heroes.

I really enjoyed trying to get onto the good side of some of my favourite characters and getting to know them (Wolverine, Deadpool, Iron Man, Captain America) as well as doing the most random as fuck activities with them to make them even more powerful in combat. The game has a very unique way of approaching encounters given which heroes you use and certain combinations are a lot better than others, so it's not really just mindlessly picking whoever to take with you nor does the game reward you for not putting effort into upgrades or tools used to give you an advantage. All of those factors actually make the gameplay a lot more satisfying than you'd think, so grinding in this game isn't nearly as draining especially given most of the grinding really is the core of the gameplay outside of the story missions, it didn't feel repetitive at all.

The narrative, although, is pretty subpar. It's not great but it has it's moments and in the end was pretty enjoyable for the most part, I think it was honestly leagues better than Square Enix's attempt at an Avengers game, (I even preferred some of the voice acting.) It get's the job done, basically, as Magik would say. It doesn't outstay it's welcome nor does it try to take itself too seriously, though given whether you have the DLC addition of Deadpool or not, that probably changes things, but overall I think it does a really good job of utilising each character to their fullest, despite Hulk not getting as much screen time as a Midnight Sun at the end.

As said, it's a really solid experience, even more so if you're into Marvel. It's a very fresh, unique take on the franchise in darker waters that has such a great atmosphere and ambience, it's nice seeing the characters in a different light and I'm interested to see where the series goes next with who I can assume to be is Dr. Doom (and the addition of the Fantastic Four.)

Thought this was gonna be mindless fun like it's predecessor, ended up being mindless sludge. Really bad bosses that are basically just glorified button smashers, spamming square is the only mechanic, no puzzles at all required to defeat them like in the previous game. The characters talk to you like an idiot, constantly telling you where to go and what to do, how to solve puzzles and what the mission task is. I get these games are catered towards a younger audience but it drove me absolutely insane.

Basically mindless fun. Classic game in the lego video game franchise, at one point, my favourite, which was dethroned by PotC and Skywalker Saga. The open world isn't too much to froth at the mouth over but it's interesting, especially if you're a fan of the source material. There's a lot of reward to be had in unlocking your favourite characters (Daredevil in my case.)

Overall it's a very relaxing experience with simplistic puzzles and gameplay, a really nice game to just bury your head in and switch off to reality into.

Coming back to this game after so many years was a nostalgic treat and I was surprised how well certain aspects of this game still held up very well, from the visuals to the gameplay and even to the open world itself, it's definitely one of the better games from the 7th generation and a great "remaster" of a timeless classic. However, there were some drawbacks...

Structurally, Red Dead Redemption falls victim to the age old Rockstar syndrome of occasional repetitive mission/story structure pertaining to doing chores endlessly for different characters. Although not as tedious as certain predecessors such as Bully or the classic GTA trilogy, the age still slightly shows in the game design. As to be expected with a 2010 game, too, there were still a bit of jankiness in some of the gameplay control/mechanics. While the horse mechanics are honestly better and more arcadey than Red Dead Redemption II, there was also a sense of tediousness as well, or maybe just RDR2 spoiling me on the responsiveness specifically of being able to u-turn on horseback without my horse constantly heading straightforward and not even slowing down. But, making up for it is the gunplay, which utilised dead eye a little bit more than the sequel in the sense that it almost feels like an absolute necessity in pretty much every gunfight encounter you'll have, which really was a good thing. A nice, fresh, innovative approach to third person shooters, which felt like it took some inspiration from the Max Payne series.

Narratively, first time around, it's really great. The approach of not knowing anything about John Marston or his past or even the general world really sold the story, it kept things mysterious and often the repetitive mission structure reaped rewards of pieces of knowledge you really wanted to get your hands on to better understand John as a character. First playthroughs without any knowledge of the series prior would really make this game and it really did back when it was fresh. Unfortunately for me, I've already played this game and in specific, I've played the sequel at least three times over. The sense of mystery as you can imagine isn't there for me anymore, I'm not really as awestruck about the story as I used to be, it felt a little bit more hollow than anything. I feel like if you played this series in chronological order, went from RDR2 to RDR1, you probably would not enjoy this game as much. The answers would already be there, so a lot of the twists in the story would have zero weight to them so I really beg anyone NOT to play the sequel first because it will most definitely ruin the experience a little. In any case, there were still some really cool moments and some really funny ones too. John Marston is still a great protagonist and a complete badass, I really enjoyed being able to play as him again.

But, what I loved about this game the most wasn't it's gameplay or the narrative but rather the atmosphere and the world in general. For a 7th generation title, I was surprised just how well the open world still holds up. NPCs reacting to things was something I had become so accustomed to with PS4-PS5 titles that I completely forgot that RDR1 was one of the first games to implement this kind of thing. It feels just like real life, it's really immersive. One moment that really got me was not long after I had cheated and been caught in a poker game, I dueled the guy that caught me and won. Few days later, some random NPC said to me "Good to see you're still in one piece after that poker game" and I was really surprised the NPCs were even able to remember what had happened. I also thought in the right light, the game looks visually stunning for it's time, unless I'm mistaking some remaster magic happening.

Red Dead Redemption is still a solid 7th generation game and I think it'll still hold up well for a few more years to come as it does now. Extremely well aged, especially for first timers to the series and it's really interesting seeing how different certain aspects of both games in the series are and how far it has come since 2010. Definitely play this one first.

"Hope springs eternal in the human breast. We can be better."

An insane follow-up to Deliver Us the Moon, excelling above it and having some really interesting, rich storytelling compared to the first.

I think this game blows it's predecessor out of the water. I really enjoyed the first one, I didn't expect much out of this when I heard it was coming out and even getting ready to go into it, but it really put into perspective how far this indie developer has come since the first. It's visually stunning, the puzzles aren't as tedious and the story is really well done. It could've been an amazing game if everything was as well executed as these aspects were, but unfortunately I think there's still some things to be improved upon.

While, yes, the puzzles are less tedious, they are also too watered down and a little too far and in-between what was standard in the first. I think they sacrificed a lot of the puzzles for other things, which is fine. Stuff like traversal and the like, which wasn't that bad either, or even exploration which I felt unfortunately wasn't as grandiose as the moon, but still looked visually stunning in comparison. But regardless, given puzzles being somewhat the main precipice of the gameplay in this series, it under delivered and felt a little lazy. They were good puzzles, but there's only two puzzle mechanics and one of them (encrypted holograms) were kind of a chore after awhile, but the holograms themselves were worth it at least.

Which brings me to the narrative, something I surprisingly really enjoyed. The first was presented well, but there just wasn't much going on in the way of stuff like voice acting or even character moments, there were holograms still where the story was told, but I didn't feel connected to the actual character you were playing as until the end. Here, I really enjoyed the voice acting and how the story developed, I almost didn't want it to end because how could I ever want to leave space? 😭 Without spoiling though, there were some really wholesome, depressing and heartfelt moments, so the story was really worth the while, even if the character models looked a bit off at times (excusable given the caliber of game this is.)

Overall, a really solid sequel, a step up from it's predecessor in almost everyway and I'm really interested to see if the story gets a continuation or not.

"The trouble with wanting something is the fear of losing it, or never getting it. The thought makes you weak."

God, this turned out to be such a relatable game and also a great follow up to the original Max Payne. It had been years that I had been familiar with the first game, it was the first game I ever played as a kid and I eventually went back to it, enjoyed it and had a sense of nostalgic bias for it. It made me fall in love with Sam Lake as a writer and an industry icon. I had heard from certain corners of the internet that it's sequel was a "fall from grace" and quite literally "the fall of Max Payne," but having played it now... where were they even coming from?

It goes above and beyond what the first did, the narrative is much more hard-hitting, the gameplay is an insane improvement over the first and the style is so refined that it's very easy to notice the birth of Remedy's signature in gaming. Fragmented answers, mind fuckery and some ambitious level design that would go on to solidify Remedy's identity.

I think that, overall, this is a very important shooter, a milestone in the third-person shooter genre. While sometimes bullet time can be a broken mechanic and some of the design choices are a bit questionable, I think that for it's time it was ahead of it's time. The ragdoll physics are really good, Max Payne feels even more unstoppable than in the first, the weapon selection is pretty good and the atmosphere is genuinely amazing. The world feels so lived in, the NPCs have these long conversations that seem never ending that really adds depth to the world and the dialogue is genuinely really good when it comes to the NPCs and of course, the overall writing. Payne is still as dark, gritty and serious as he was in the first, reciting things in metaphors never gets old. I don't know if I can even go back to the original Max Payne, even when I had nostalgic bias for it, Max Payne 2 just completely dethroned it in every aspect.

A great sequel, something Sam Lake seems to have a knack for considering how good Alan Wake II turned out to be, and this marks probably the last Remedy game I will be able to play for awhile so I'm really hoping that Control 2 holds out this insane trend of Sam Lake and sequels.

A really nice callback to classic Doom while also being it's own thing and incredibly artistic with it's retro art style. It's a little bit hard to follow what's happening sometimes, narratively, and the ending was very anti-climatic literally ending with a shortly paragraphed text, but this is how most of the story is explained to the best of it's ability anyways.

I really enjoyed the first half of this game, it was a little repetitive in areas I guess, but the enemy types weren't all that bad. I got annoyed in the second half, it felt like the game should have ended already and was really dragging out pulling me into a different dimension with the worst bits of the game but I liked how it kind of went back to form at the end and the final level was like a test of your ability which was really fun.

I liked it, but I don't have much to say about it, because it is what it is from start to finish. It tries to make things feel different and becomes more of an annoyance than a breath of fresh air.

For a standalone expansion, it's substantially well done. With low expectations and being well aware of it's general scope, not being a direct sequel to Alan Wake at all but instead a small detour, it does what it sets out to do pretty well.

It feels like the same old Alan Wake but with enemy types that are just really variations of what we already saw in the first, they don't actually expand much on the gameplay at all and are more so just bullet sponges than anything else. It was incredibly easy in comparison too and the puzzles weren't really head scratches.

But I think, overall, the narrative as lackluster it is definitely scratches the itch of an Alan Wake experience, even a dumbed down one at this size. You have to remember that it's a standalone DLC, not a full blown experience and with that in mind, I think it's very hard to actually be disappointed.

What made this worthwhile for me was the inclusion of Mr. Scratch, the worldbuilding/getting to know what happened to Barry Wheeler and Alice Wake, the overall interesting, laid back town vibe of what I assume is supposed to be Night Springs and being able to see what ideas were picked up, better developed and maybe even teased for Alan Wake II.

As an Alan Wake fan, it's a passable experience, a pretty decent way to spend 4 hours, but if you looked at this outside of the "I love Alan Wake" lenses, then I guess it wouldn't be too much of an experience at all.

Peak DLC, my introduction to rougelikes that makes me want to explore more of them and it's free. Surprisingly some pretty in-depth and rich storytelling for a free DLC of this caliber, too, and a pretty lengthy one that doesn't overstay it's welcome. It is an exceptional trip down memory lane, revisiting Kratos' youth and sort of feels like a teaser for a remaster? remake? of the original series, which would be super fucking cool if so.

The combat isn't too different from the base game, but it reminded me how intense and amazing it felt to fuck shit up as Kratos, even more so here with the constraints and unlimited variety of skills that made it feel more like a sandbox of experimentation for the combat especially with the arenas too.

A huge improvement on both Spider-Man and Spider-Man: Miles Morales, making them pale in comparison in pretty much every way from gameplay to narrative, becoming THE definitive Spider-Man video game experience.

When it comes to the gameplay, many people playing this one will tell you that they don't think that they could ever go back to the previous games and I couldn't agree with a fanbase more. Spider-Man 2 is such an innovative step in a better direction, I remember having huge issues with repetitiveness and bloated traversal that got really old after awhile, but here's that's like... barely an issue. The open world and it's crime activities (that gave me fatigue in the first) are such an improvement, there's a lot more variety and it's super satisfying, too. I really liked the approach to bosses, it feels a lot more like how video game bosses should do. I always had a slight issue with the older bosses, they felt way too easy and cinematically scripted for my liking so I was very pleased to actually face a challenge on spectacular difficulty for once and be able to sandbox a little with the bosses, which were some of the best I've ever seen in a video game and the best in the superhero genre (so far.) The little combat moments are super good, too. Combos are way more satisfying with the additions of power skills as well as some extra little tidbits like kicking the absolute shit out of an enemy against a wall which scratched a little bit of a Yakuza itch for some reason. The level design overall was really well done, the first didn't disappoint there but they went and topped it without even much of an effort.

A very emotional and heartbreaking story, it starts a little slow but with some awesome moments already, the pacing is absolutely perfect. Not sure why this game gets a lot of hate for it's narrative in certain corners of the internet, because it was perfectly fine. It's still not the best narrative games have to offer, and by no means do I think it's at "best PlayStation exclusive" status just yet, but compared to the first game? The stakes are so, so much more higher and the story does not nearly feel as generic as the first. There was maybe some rough dialogue here and there, but given Spider-Man is also catered towards a younger audience, that's totally acceptable, there were still some really well written moments regardless and I think a lot of the excess hate for this narrative just comes from weird ass bigotry towards Miles and Mary Jane (typical for the community, though)

I really liked how ominous the narrative started to feel and seeing how far certain characters would go to get what they want. There was a perfect blend of wholesomeness with stakes so high even the player starts to become hopeless if there really is a good turning point for any of the characters involved. It really pushed the boundaries for the superhero genre in games I think and could be pretty hard to top for the upcoming Marvel releases. I was also surprised by some of the side missions, specifically the one concerning Howard. A lot of effort were put into some of those that really gave the open world a sense of character the first didn't achieve on the same level. It made things much more personal and down to earth and I would have liked to have seen more of that, I really hope Spider-Man 3 goes absolutely balls out with the world building and smaller things.

It's a really solid sequel in a year of very solid games, definitely a step in the right direction for Insomniac's Spider-Man and I'm really eager to see how they'll improve on the franchise next.

At first, I wasn't exactly sure what to think of this one. The first few hours of the game were pretty solid and it felt good to be back in the world of Yakuza, but around the latter half of the game I honestly felt like the pacing was a bit too slow but... hard to judge for, because there were some engrossing and solid moments to boot as well and the closing chapter was pretty decent, too.

What I disliked the most about this installment in the franchise was the gameplay, and not just the combat, the combat itself was actually pretty solid, the best yet on the Dragon Engine. Everything else was just... kinda draining, very repetitive and often times unnecessary. I absolutely despised the tailing missions, no clue why they put that into a Yakuza game, and they were pretty poorly designed too, felt more like unnecessary time padding. Mortal wounds is one of the absolute, if not, the worst additions to this series they've ever cooked up. It made things so much more unnecessarily harder than they really had to be, it was such a pain having to scrounge up enough money to be able to get rid of mortal wounds (because I regrettably often blew a lot of it), but this should NEVER be an issue. I shouldn't have to struggle with keeping my health bar in check, it's such a tedious design that I hope is done away with in Lost Judgment. The combat, while the best this engine has seen, also felt a little dumbed down in the way of heat actions, didn't feel like there was as much of a variety both in what heat actions I could previously use in the series and even what weapons I could use. No sharp objects, no guns... I get trying to take the series a bit more serious, Yagami not being killer, removing the ludonarrative dissonance but in all honesty... who actually really cares? It's Yakuza, I'm sure no one actually takes Kiryu in the other games "killing" people that serious lmfao, but I digress. Combat as I mentioned was really nice, though. Style switching coming back was what I needed so much in this series again, it made it a lot less repetitive than it was, even though I ended being absolutely fed up running into street thugs in free roam for the first time in a Yakuza game.

This might be the second best narrative in the series, behind 0, it was really intriguing, engrossing and really grounded too, which is a first. I really enjoyed the new cast of characters, Yagami and Kaito were really great and Hamura was a great antagonist for what little screen time he had. Really enjoyed the narrative overall, what I didn't enjoy though was the unnecessary main story time padding they had in between a few chapters. Honestly really stupid shit like "omg, who ate Saori's cake?" or having to save Kaito from an old childhood friend, though I did like the one where Kaito had to babysit a kid for a bit and sure, some of these are nice character moments but... would have been much more appreciated as side content instead of being stuck in my face every so often. It was jarring when something really big would happen and then the time padding would just kind of ruin the whole vibe, was not a fan. But a great story, nonetheless, even if I got a bit restless in some of the latter chapters, the final chapter really took it home overall.

What else can I say really? It's like any other Yakuza game, but better. It's a great experience and probably a really good introduction to the series too. I just wish RGG would learn to stop putting bad things in good games, ever since I've played 0 it's been impossible for it to be topped because every other game just always has something that brings it down a notch, they always get a great formula and taint it somehow, it's such a weird trend. More and more it makes me feel like Yakuza 0 may have been their lightning in a bottle, but I still have a small chunk of the series to go... I really hope there's another title that blows me away.