Hack

Interesting story, fantastic characters that were expertly voiced and gorgeous visuals, with unique gameplay to boot. The only major negative was performance, DLSS causes massive stuttering, while FSR worked much better, but still wasn't perfect. I'm honestly surprised at how badly it bombed, because it's a good game. Grab it on sale for less than £4, and enjoy it.

Overall I enjoyed Pragmata more than most games, and I can't recommend it highly enough.

I had no issues during my 10-hour playthrough, and I enjoyed almost every second of it, barring one section as Grace that gave me Alien: Isolation Medical flashbacks, which is not a good thing for anyone who hasn't played that game. Still, one frustrating section could not ruin what is otherwise a must-play.

I honestly can’t believe I’m giving a Borderlands game a 9. They’re usually a solid 6 or 7 for me, but Borderlands 4 was genuinely awesome. I’ve just finished the campaign and most of the side content after 53 hours and have started the endgame, which I’ve never bothered with in previous entries. This time, though, I actually want to keep playing because I’m still having fun. Performance was awful at launch, but it’s completely fine now, so I’m glad I waited. You do need to use upscaling and frame generation, but both are implemented really well in BL4. I was getting a rock-solid 260 FPS throughout the entire game with virtually no stutter over 50+ hours. It’s gone from one of the worst performing UE5 titles to probably the best one I’ve played.

The game had some incredible highs, with truly impressive, cinematic boss fights, smooth as silk combat, and it'll never stop impressing me how smoothly you can zip around New York. But it really felt like a game of two halves, with the first being quite boring at times, with spongy, uninteresting enemies that I got sick of fighting by the end. The second half of the game was considerably better and bumped up the score for me. I was very disappointed with the cutscenes though, which were filled with bugs, nearly all of them started with a stutter, some of them were sped up, some had missing audio, and they'd all continue to play with the game paused. And this is long after release, with all the patches. Overall, the game felt less polished than the previous entries, which is a shame and not expected from Nixxes & Insomniac.

There's something very special about Dispatch, it's one of those games that while you're playing it you get that tingle, signifying that you're playing a game that's truly a step above the competition. I was legitimately sad when I got to the end, as I was enjoying it so much. I'm hoping for a sequel and even a TV show, as long as the same creative team were in charge of it.

Overall, I enjoyed my time with Cronos: The New Dawn, and highly recommend it to fans of the genre. As with all UE5 titles, the game is demanding, so I would suggest that you try the free demo on Steam first, to see how the game performs for you. The demo sold me on the full game, and I’m sure it will you too.

You will encounter the best of humanity, and Russians while playing this game. Arc Raiders looks great, performs excellent and has a very moreish gameplay loop. The game is very solo friendly, but also takes care of duos as of the latest patch, the game will now always try to prioritise putting solos with solos, duos with duos and trios with trios. Solo play tends to be mostly friendly, duos is a mix and trios is always a bloodbath. There is something very special about Arc Raiders that will keep you coming back for more.

I thoroughly enjoyed my time with The Beast, and by the time I had finished all the content the game had to offer I was sad that it was over, because I wanted more, not to say the game lacks content, it’s just so good I wanted to keep playing.

Possibly the best Warhammer game ever made, and the devs are constantly adding more content to it.

Much more than just T&A, the game looks gorgeous and runs very well, which by itself is an achievement these days. The combat is fluid and fun, the boss fights are cool, with some of the best death animations I've seen, the soundtrack is banging, and the voice acting is solid, only let down by a not so great script. Overall, I really enjoyed my time with the game, and I'm definitely down for a sequel.

I went in expecting a 6 or 7 out of 10, but after finishing it, I’d give it an 8. The devs created a beautiful world, full of life and interesting characters. The voice acting was solid across the board. The story kept me interested, and I liked having multiple ways to finish the game. I didn’t try all of them, so I can’t say how much they actually change the **** RPG elements were pretty light, but honestly, that worked for me. Some games go too heavy with that stuff and it gets overwhelming. I do wish you could upgrade your weapons earlier. By the end, I had only upgraded my pistol and rifle. I also felt like I was short on talent points. The devs could have been a bit more generous there. I didn’t explore every inch of the map, but I did get around. I finished the game in about 20 hours, which seems about right.Combat was okay, but the enemy AI was really bad. That’s something I hope they focus on in a sequel. I’d also love to see a more in-depth weapon system next time, with things like scopes, larger mags, silencers, and other mods. Shooting felt decent overall, but the poor AI definitely took away from the **** the technical side, the game ran great. I was maxing out my 165Hz monitor on ultra settings and didn’t run into any stuttering, which is rare these days. I just wish the anti-aliasing was better, the jaggies were very noticeable, but increasing the render scale to 125 percent helped a bit.Overall, I’m walking away with a good feeling towards the game, and now I’m really interested in a sequel.

Enjoyable combat, but ultimately a very boring game due to too much filler content, extreme amounts of traversal and parkour and a story that didn't grip me at all. Performance has been improved greatly since launch, but it's still not perfect.

id8 is a marvel, it's everything UE5 should have been. It runs flawlessly, with almost non-existent loading times and no shader issues at all, even without a pre-compilation step. It truly lets The Dark Ages shine. TDA is definitely my favourite in the trilogy, with the best visuals, gameplay and story, the only area it's lacking is music, which was fine, but nowhere near a series high. I don't think it's worth £70 considering how short it is, with no real replayability, but subbing to Gamepass for a month is a no-brainer.

An absolute masterpiece, it's now my favourite game of all time. The story kept me guessing throughout, I genuinely cared about the characters, and the tweaks to the turn based combat formula made the gameplay so much more enjoyable. It really is just a beautiful game from top to bottom, with the best music I've ever experienced in a video game, incredible voice acting, captivating story, gorgeous visuals and engaging gameplay. The only gripes I have are very minor, and fall more into the QoL category. For example, I really wish we could place markers on the map, rotate our characters on the wardrobe menu to see outfits and hairstyles from the back and being able to convert or sell items you no longer need. It's a UE5 game, so I will mention performance. I played the game on a 13700KF and RTX 5080, and it ran wonderfully, there is some very minor stutter in the prologue area, but after that the game ran extremely well, with an unusually healthy frame time graph for a UE5 game. I would say it's by far the best performing UE5 game I've played, stutter is something that kills games for me, and I'm happy to say it wasn't an issue in Expedition 33, bar a few very minor blips throughout my 70+ hour playthrough.

A mixed bag, but overall I enjoyed it. It's definitely on the easier side of Soulslikes, and the last boss couple of bosses were laughably easy, but there was still some challenge here and there. The big downsides of the game were the lack of mob variety, weapon variety (move sets especially) and underwhelming bosses. If you're looking for a competent, cosy Soulslike you'll probably enjoy this. It's a massive step up from the original game, which was extremely clunky.

This is the most I've enjoyed a game in a very long time, the game is just so FUN, you can tell the devs put fun at the forefront as they removed a lot of friction and pointless mechanics RPGs always have, and it made for a better experience. I would call this a "cosy RPG". It's not the deepest RPG, but it is one of the most enjoyable, and that's not to say it's shallow either. I very much enjoyed the story and characters and I really didn't know what I was going to decide until the end. I tried both melee and magic combat and they were both great, not clunky at all like a lot of RPGs. My mine gripe would be I didn't hit the max level of 30, even though I did 99% of the content, the game is very stingy with XP, I would have liked to max out my character, instead of being stuck at 29 forever as there's no post game, so make sure you finish everything before entering the last quest (there's a warning). I have a high end PC and the game ran perfectly, I had it capped to 144 and it dropped under that maybe 5 times in 80 hours. The game is also stunning, the world is gorgeous and it's so rewarding to explore as there's always something there, be it a chest, locker, quest item etc, I never felt like it was a waste of time to **** you want a more streamlined RPG with legitimately good combat this is for you. Ignore the 0 reviews, you can tell they've never played it, and a 0 is never warranted unless the game is completely broken and awful, which this is not.

This is like playing a movie, there's very little in the way of gameplay apart from the basics, but that's absolutely fine as I enjoy these types of games and went in knowing that. The story was really interesting, the characters were likeable and at times hilarious, and the overall mood was suspenseful. The underwater segments were terrifying, I've honestly never felt like I was drowning in a video game before. The ending was perfect and I'm left feeling emotions, which is always a good sign when finishing a game. One thing I absolutely hated though was the use of "Update Rate Optimization" which made many of the animations run at 30fps or lower, anything flapping in the wind like rope, wires, cloth etc all looked awful running on a 165Hz display, it massively hurt the presentation and there's no way to turn it off. Developers need to learn this looks terrible and the meagre gains it offers aren't worth it, especially when I can run the game at 200fps+ anyway.

Overall the the game is bloody, visceral and a ton of fun, plus it's filled with waifus so if that's your thing, you'll be happy. My main complaint would be the camera, it really is atrocious and it made several fights harder than they needed to be, I can't overstate how bad the camera is. I also ran into an issue where certain textures wouldn't load, but that may be a Gamepass exclusive issue from what I've read.

Troy Baker does an amazing job as Indy, if I didn't know better I'd think it was Harrison Ford. For the most part the game runs and looks great, although it does have some issues. The cutscenes are locked to 60fps with improper frame pacing, character animation during cutscenes sometimes slows down and the game has some of the word LOD pop in I have ever experienced. Frame Generation is also broken on the Gamepass version of the game. My last complaint is the AI, they're so stupid that you can run up to them and bonk them on the head before their alert meter fills. Overall though I really enjoyed the game, the melee combat is especially fun, the story and characters were interesting, I loved Indy and the main villain and they hit the vibe of the movies.

Sadly the game suffers from a multitude of technical issues, including heavy traversal stuttering, capped cutscenes with improper frame pacing and stuttering, animation playback errors, audio cutting out randomly and probably more I missed, it honestly feels like a beta. Other than the technical issues the game also suffers from very clunky combat, with the melee lacking any weight at all, ranged combat being extremely floaty and dodging feeling very heavy and unresponsive. Monster design is also so boring, when you compare it to games like Dead Space, Resident Evil, Calisto Protocol and Silent Hill it's like amatuer hour. Nothing looked “cool”, and nothing was scary. Other than the two main characters the voice acting was very hit and miss, with more misses unfortunately. I was pleasantly surprised to find out that notes and journal entries were fully voiced, which isn’t often the **** story was pretty interesting and I did want to know how it ended, which pushed me to finish the game, despite its many problems. Although once again the gameplay ruined the ending as the final boss fight just highlighted how clunky the gameplay is. Overall I wouldn’t suggest buying Alone in the Dark as there’s nothing interesting or well done about it, the only saving grace is David Harbour, and even as much as I like him, he wasn’t enough to overlook the countless issues.

It's honestly one of my favourite games of all time, the open world is absolutely gorgeous, and it's filled with characters that I actually care about. The main story was fantastic, but so were the side stories, they really helped you bond with the main characters and they made the whole experience more personal. I have to say it was a pleasure to play, it ran at a locked 120fps, with maxed out settings and no stutter at all, after The Last of Us PC port left such a sour taste in my mouth with its performance woes I'm happy to say Ghost of Tsushima is the complete opposite.

First off ,the developers absolutely nailed the tone of the films, and getting Peter Weller to voice Robocop was a big part of that. This was an incredible Robocop game, and a good shooter.Visually the game was a mixed bag, at times it looked incredible and really showed off what UE5 is capable of, but at others, it looked quite bad. There was a ton of pop in, even on max settings and some textures were very muddy, hair also had a problem with aliasing and there was a bunch of other little things that hurt the presentation, but overall it was a good looking game.Performance wise I'm happy to report there was no stutter, which plagues UE games in general, and overall the performance was decent, although you will need a recent GPU to get the most out of it, I played the game using an RTX 3080 at 1440p and I wouldn't want to go much less than that, unless you're happy playing at lower settings with low frame rate. The game does support various upscaling methods including DLSS, which will help. Surprisingly the game also offers FSR frame generation, unfortunately, it causes the game to crash constantly, after checking around it seems to be a common problem and not something on my end. The gameplay is fairly simple, you get access to a skill tree which unlocks abilities, as well a “talent tree” for your pistol, which offers significant upgrades. The combat is feels good, you actually feel like Robocop just tearing through criminal scum with ease as bullets bounce off your armour. Don't go in expecting Doom levels of quality, but it's above average I'd say. One thing that really took me out of the game was the fact enemies would talk while dead, you'd kill them and they'd still say their voice lines “He shot my arm off”, “I'm hit” etc, it should have been fixed long ago. While I enjoyed my time with the game, and I'd give it 8/10, I did feel like it overstayed its welcome, by the end I was definitely ready for it to be over. I would have much preferred the game to lose a few hours and have that development time spent on optimisation, bug fixing and overall polish. In the end it took me around 23 hours to complete and I did pretty much everything. If I was the developers I would have aimed for around 15—18 hours as that's when the game started to drag. Overall it's a decent shooter, made better by the IP and if they make a second one I'd definitely buy it.

A mixed bag if I'm honest, the game starts very slowly but then picks up and becomes highly enjoyable, only to once again slow down and start to drag towards the end, when the credits rolled I was relieved, as I'd had enough. The biggest downside for me was the mind palace, it felt like a waste of time, and it just wasn't a fun mechanic, had that not been a thing I don't think I would have burnt out before the ending. Overall I enjoyed the game and do recommend it, but it's certainly not perfect, and you need a very strong PC to run it well.

And done, after 60 hours. Overall I'd say that I enjoyed it for the most part, but it wasn't the masterpiece I was hoping it would be. For me the biggest problem was the performance, I had a ton of stuttering and like everybody else a lower than ideal level of performance. Technical problems always kill games for me and Starfield was no different. I found the game actually started to perform worse the further I got, the frequency of stutters definitely increased. I really hope that both Nvidia and Bethesda can improve the situation, and if they do I'd be tempted to play NG+. My other major issue was the story, it just wasn't very interesting and I honestly didn't care about the characters, apart from one. And the big reveal at the end literally made me groan, let's just say it wasn't very original. I played Baldur's Gate III before Starfield and I was so invested into that world and the characters, it's what made that game so incredible and Starfield just never comes close to that level of storytelling or character building. I really tried to not compare it to BG3 going in, but with it so fresh in my mind it was hard not to. Other smaller gripes include the sheer amount of loading screens, how irrelevant mining and gathering is, how the majority of the planets feel completely empty as they often have no life on them, and the landmarks become familiar very fast. The UI is another sore spot, for so many reasons, why can't I eat food instead of having to loot it, open multiple menus and then eat it? The game is filled with stuff like that, little QoL features that are missing which makes for a poor experience. On the more positive side I really enjoyed the combat, it's by far the best combat Bethesda have ever pulled off. The variety of weapons was incredible and they all felt different and punchy, with solid sound effects. It was nice to see that enemies react to being shot, although there was definitely some Bethesda jank with enemies standing still behind corners or instantly running away, the AI definitely brought the gameplay down a notch, but I still enjoyed it. The overall feel to the movement was also a high point, and again a big step up from what Bethesda usually manages. I also enjoyed the voice acting, I found it to be very high quality throughout, and I had no issue with the lip syncing or facial animations, they were more than fine IMO. I could see myself playing NG+ in the future, but the game needs a lot of patching before I do that.

I've just finished the game after 115 hours (with a fair amount of AFK time). Going into act 3 the game was a rock solid 10/10 for me, but after finishing the game I have to amend that to a 9/10. Act 3 is noticeably lacking in polish, I had multiple quests bug out, some of which I couldn't complete at all and others that were ruined as a result. And the performance is really bad, with an RTX 3080 and 13700K I lost about 50fps going from acts 1 & 2 to 3, which made for a choppy experience. And while there were some great quests, the act starts off so slowly, I spent hours just exploring which was made less enjoyable because of the aforementioned performance issues. The start of act 3 is the first time I've felt bored playing the game. The length of some fights is another sore spot for me, especially when you add CC into the mix, waiting two minutes for your turn only to get stunned thus skipping it just feels awful, this really became a problem in act 3 with so many enemies on screen at once, the combat became a chore that I had to do in order to get more story content, which was incredible. This was made even worse due to certain friendly NPCs bugging out and not moving/attacking, which caused the game to pause whenever it was their turn (I had this happen on the final fight and others). I think a lot of little things had just started to really grate on me by this point, especially things like the dodgy camera movement and fighting in buildings which was so cumbersome. And I can't count the amount of times the camera bugged during dialog so I ended up looking at a door or wall instead of the character. I know I'm being a bit negative but overall it's still an incredible game, with the best story and voice acting that I've ever experienced. I rarely get so invested into characters, but the character development was so so good. And the attention to detail was top class, everything in the game world felt connected, sometimes in unbelievable ways. My friends and I are planning to start a MP campaign now that we've all finished it, which should be fun, but I do hope that Larian can work on fixing some of the issues I mentioned before we make it back to act 3.

One of the most frustrating, unfun games I have ever played. I got about halfway through and turned it off and put it onto eBay. It just has zero redeeming features, nothing about Metroid Dread made me want to continue playing but the constant one-shot deaths, obscure puzzles and backtracking certainly made me want to turn it off. Don't go in expecting rewarding difficulty like Dark Souls, it's just pure BS that will infuriate you. I feel like the game just assumes you've played every Metroid game which I haven't, and that made it a terrible experience as someone new to the franchise.

A decent foundation but a serious lack of end game content means that you'll get bored fast, and the first season was a disaster. The developers have lost my trust with some truly bizarre discussions but I honestly hope that they can make the game great one day.

Another solid port from Nixxes, bar a couple of minor issues which I'm sure they'll fix. I had a solid 60fps throughout with ray tracing enabled, and I'm happy to say there wasn't any stuttering at all. Rift Apart arrives in an infinitely better state than The Last of Us port which was a dumpster fire. The game itself boosts incredible visuals, brilliant voice acting, enjoyable humour and just a real feel of quality from top to bottom. The combat is fast, fluid and varied, with tons of different weapon options. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game and I'm not a massive fan of the genre, so if you are I'm sure you'll love it even more.

Another cracking remake, with the combat taken to 11. If you enjoyed RE2R & RE3R then you'll love RE4R as it's possibly their best remake yet. I just wish Ashley would stop panting like an 80 year old woman with 20 cigarette a day habit, it became very annoying.

Dead Island 2 is better than it has any right to be, after years of delays and multiple different developers I went in expecting very little and boy was I wrong. The first thing you'll notice is that the game runs great, after so many terrible PC ports as of late it was extremely refreshing to play a game that looks incredible, with some of the best asset quality I've ever seen, whilst also performing brilliantly. With an RTX 3080 & 13700K I was able to hit a locked 120fps at native 1440p, and a locked 120fps at 4K with FSR 2.0 on the balanced preset, this was on max settings as well. I did crash maybe 5-6 times though, so hopefully that's fixed. One of the big highlights of the game is the new F.L.E.S.H system, it's without a doubt the best gore system I have ever witnessed, it's disgusting and beautiful. Zombies peel like an onion, first their clothes and skin, then muscle and fat and finally bone, everything can be hacked and slashed. The slow motion and special kills really show the system off the best. Dead Island 2 has a big focus on melee combat but you do unlock guns further into the campaign, and both have a role to play. I saved my firearms for bosses and tougher enemies as ammo can be a little sparse. You can add mods to any weapon and there's a ton of them, you'll never be using the same weapon type for long (but you can if you want to, you can match any weapon with your level if you find one you love). Adding mods also changes the guns look, which I thought was a nice touch. The devs have done a fantastic job building the world, everything looks great and there's a ton of flare and attention to detail, whether you're in a hospital, police station or shopping mall, every area is packed full of little details that make it feel lived in during better times. I only played as Jacob but his voice actor did a very good job, and the script wasn't too cringe with some truly funny one liners. Overall the game is just fun and it's put together well, with no major performance issues, bugs or stutter. It's a big upgrade over the original and I'd put it on the same level as Dying Light 1, so if you enjoy that series I'm confident you'll enjoy Dead Island 2.

A very special experience which reminded me why I enjoy gaming so much. High on Life is an absolutely insane game, with some of the weirdest characters and dialogue you'll ever encounter in a video game. The humour won't be for everyone, but I found it hilarious, and it's definitely one of the main selling points of the game, but it's far more than that, High on Life's attention to detail is top notch and made the whole game feel polished to a degree a lot of games simply don't get to these days. The visuals are stunning, with an incredible art style and the audio doesn't disappoint either, with a frankly ridiculous amount of top quality voice work, I often found myself standing still for minutes at a time listening to NPC conversations, the world feels so alive. The gameplay while simple was very enjoyable, and there's just enough depth to keep it interesting, with a ton of upgrades to unlock for your weapons, which just happen to be wise cracking aliens BTW. Performance was solid for me, a locked 120fps was possible at 1440p with an RTX 3080, and everything worked how you'd expect it to, no nasty surprises or weirdness. I was a bit surprised the game lacked DLSS and FSR though, those would have been nice additions. Overall I enjoyed my time with High on Life immensely, and I would recommend it to anyone. It had me laughing throughout and one scene in particular was probably the funniest thing I have ever seen in a video (the dying moplet).

I just finished the game, and it was okay. I would give it a generous 7/10, with how bad the PC port is it a 6/10 would be fair too. The combat did a lot of heavy lifting as it was very enjoyable, although pretty basic. My main issues were mostly technical (30fps cutscenes with improper frame pacing, frequent crashes during cutscenes, fire & lightning particle effects tanked performance, terrible KBM controls, no DLSS/FSR, barebones graphics menu, ambient occlusion caused flickering, muddy, blurry textures, graphics settings reset themselves, compilation stutter and just an overall low level of fidelity with lots of shimmering). I don't think games should be released and sold in this state, if I had bought the game I would have refunded it, but I played it on Game Pass. I also found the script and voice acting laughably bad at times. If they can get the PC port up to scratch it would be a solid 8/10 for me.

A solid effort by a new studio that puts some AAA studios to shame when it comes to performance, for the most part Atomic Heart runs incredibly well on PC, with only some minor traversal stutter outdoors and some wonky, low frame rate animations here and there. The majority of the game is spent indoors where the game runs flawlessly. The game is let down by a very unlikeable protagonist, an outdoor area that's so full to the brim with enemies that you're never given a chance to explore and a confusing, poorly written script. The game also has the most puzzles I have ever experienced in a video game, they're non stop and repeated throughout the entire game, it felt like every door had a locking mechanism that required you to do another puzzle, it became very tiresome. Gameplay was solid for the most part, with plenty of upgrades and unlocks to hunt for, but at times the game liked sending an overwhelming amount of enemies your way which just felt odd, at times it felt like a horde shooter which Atomic Heart definitely isn't. Overall I enjoyed my time with the game and I appreciate how well it runs after playing a slew of AAA titles that suffer from stuttering and poor optimisation. With a little work a potential sequel could be truly great.

Overall I enjoyed my time with the game, the story and setting were interesting and the characters were all voiced well. My main gripe was the performance, the game suffers from stuttering in both DX11 and DX12, and the frame rate in certain areas absolutely tanks for no obvious reason. I really feel like the game needed another performance pass as it's not up to snuff right now.

The worst entry in the series by far. The game is filled with gimmicks, annoying puzzles and worst of all you don't play as Bayonetta for half of the game, I didn't buy a Bayonetta game to play as some rando character.

This is more of a tech demo than a game, made by a single developer. First the good, the combat is actually pretty enjoyable, with weapons feeling good and being satisfying to use. The visuals are also decent considering the budget and team size, so no complaints there. Where the game really falls flat is the length, the game only took me 1 hour 36 minutes to finish, I'm a fan of short games, but this is obviously extreme. Another major problem is stuttering, the game suffers tremendously with the dreaded asset streaming stutter that is plaguing the PC scene currently. My last major complaint is the amount of screen shake as it is excessive, I can't actually think **** with more intense screen shake and there's no option to disable or reduce it and by the end of the game it had given me a headache.

I don't give out 10s often but Sunbreak definitely deserves it. They have taken the base game and made it bigger and better in every way, whilst also adding a ton of much welcome QoL tweaks. A big complaint in base Rise was the lack of end-game but that has been remedied with hard, rewarding hunts post credits. They have also upped their game in the fashion department with some truly incredible sets to unlock for you and your buddies. My only gripe is you still can't layer/transmog your non Rampage weapons, so I hope this is added at some point. Simply put, if you enjoyed Rise you will love Sunbreak, it's better in every way you can imagine, and then some.

EDIT: The latest patch has fixed the stuttering for me, as well as made some important balance changes so I have changed my rating from 9 to 10. I have just finished the game for the second time, once as a full caster build and once as a full strength build, so I think I can finally say that yes, I definitely do recommend Elden Ring. This is without a doubt FROM's most accessible game ever, you can tell they've put a lot of effort into the new player experience. They have also added a ton of quality of life changes which are very welcome even to a veteran player. That's not to say the game is easier though, because it's not, and some bosses are without a doubt some of the most challenging they've ever created. The move to open world was risky but I would say it paid off for the most part, although the game being so open and especially vertical did make for some frustrating moments when you were left thinking "how the hell do I get over there?", and sometimes the answer was extremely convoluted. The gameplay feels fresher than ever, with more ways to play and more viable builds. Magic has never felt so good, even a little too good at times. You also have weapon ashes which are like weapon special moves which add a ton of customisation to your build. On top of all that you have Incarnations which are like spells but more holy (faith) focused. There are many end-game builds which are all very different and all viable, which gives the game a lot of replayability. And speaking of replayability, you'll almost certainly want to do at least a second playthrough as you will miss a ton unless you're following a guide, it's impossible not to as the game has so much content that is off the beaten patch. So far I have been extremely positive but the game isn't perfect and the issues need to be brought up. First and foremost the game suffers from stuttering, regardless of your hardware, this is a fundamental game issue and you will experience it (whether you'll notice it or not is a different matter). If you are sensitive to performance problems you will definitely notice this issue as it's very prevalent in certain areas. The online co-op is also massively broken, you will be met with "unable to summon co-operator" errors all the time, it doesn't work more often than it does, so if you're planning to play with friends or just like to summon help from random players you may have a bad time. The later portion of the game is also a bit of a let-down, with several of the bosses being overwhelming difficult, as a veteran I struggled, so if this is your first time playing a FROM game just prepare yourself for the fact the difficultly dials up to 11 very rapidly towards the end, more so than any other FROM game. I also found the final boss extremely underwhelming, I won't spoil it but it's not a fun fight IMO. For the most part the game is a massive success, the amount of content is unbelievable, the world they've created is gorgeous, thematically the bosses are incredible and it has never been easier to jump into a FROM title. Most of the issues can be fixed, but only time will tell if they are. The bottom line is, if you're a fan of FROM games you will love Elden Ring, and if you're not, there has never been a better time to jump in as a new player.

The game released in a terrible state on PC with some of the worst stuttering I've ever experienced, how the developers thought it was OK to release a game in that condition I will never know. Thankfully this has been mostly fixed with patches, so if this put you off at release it's mostly safe to try again. Shadow Warrior 3 isn't a bad game, it's just not particularly good in any area, it's a completely forgettable experience that mercifully only lasted about 5 hours, although charging £35 for a 5 hour game is disgusting. I was a big fan of Shadow Warrior 2 but sadly 3 just feels like a downgrade in almost every area, you can tell it had a much lower budget and major cut backs were made as a result. There just needed to be more, more enemy types, more weapons, more customization and just more wang in general. And speaking of wang, the voice actor was replaced because he wasn't Asian which is just being woke for the sake of being woke. Shadow Warrior 3 reminds me of Doom 2016 and Eternal but without the oomph, it lacks punch in every aspect, weapons don't have any impact, glory kills lack weight and there's so little variety in animation. The gameplay is also very repetitive, mostly because the levels are all exactly the same. Little bit of parkour > cutscene > big room > kill enemies > cutscene > more parkour > big room > kills enemies etc etc. And speaking of cutscenes, there are a lot of them, it feels like half the game is cutscenes and they're very intrusive, often going back and forth between gameplay and cutscene in an unpleasant way. Overall Shadow Warrior 3 is fine, but ultimately a game I will never think about again after this review, and I definitely wouldn't recommend it at full price, this is a wait for a deep sale.

In some ways a step back from the first game, but definitely improved in others. If you enjoyed the first game you'll no doubt enjoy the second, but it's different. Techland have promised 5 years of support, and I fully expect them to deliver on that as they did with the first game, which improved massively over the years.

I never played the original and with Elden Ring coming out soon I thought that this was the perfect time to experience the first game. Completing DS2, DS3 and Bloodborne before reaching this Remaster definitely hurt it, it really does look and feel like a first draft. I found it had glimpses of that Dark Souls magic but the developers hadn't quite nailed the formula yet. The Soulsborne games I previously played are fun, challenging but fair, whereas I found DS1R quite frustrating and downright tedious at times. It was also extremely convoluted, I have no idea how you'd figure certain things out without a guide, and again that's not something I felt with the newer games. Overall I'm glad I finished it, but I didn't massively enjoy it, if anything it has given me a new appreciation for the later titles, so that's something I guess.

After putting in 60 hours into the beta and 150 into live I feel I can finally give an honest review. The developers have created a fantastic foundation, the world is brimming with life and feels lived in, the audio is incredible, visually it's by far the best-looking MMO on the market and while not perfect the combat is a refreshing change of pace from the more dated TAB target system. But as with any new MMO, it's not perfect and for the most part that's OK, there's nothing fundamentally wrong with New World that can't be fixed with time, something every MMO needs to fully mature. First I'll take about the elephant in the room and the reason for the majority of the bad reviews which are the servers. Now the servers themselves are almost perfect, once you're in there's no lag whatsoever. However, there are queues on certain servers, at the time of writing this not many servers have queues and if you're a new player there are tons of populated servers without queues so this will never be an issue for you. AGS are working on offering free transfers to everyone which should be available in a week or so, making it possible to join friends. As an MMO veteran, I can honestly say this is one of the best MMO launches I've experienced, queues do not make a bad launch, WoW Classic had queues and suffered from horrible lag even once you finally made it in, which is not the case with New World. After reaching the max level I will say this, it's not for everyone, this is a grindy, often difficult MMO that requires some level of skill and commitment, it will come as quite a shock to some people who are only used to easier MMOs. And that's OK, not everything needs to be spoonfed to the player, but just be aware this isn't retail WoW before you jump in. New World currently feels very much barebones, what's there is enjoyable but there's not that much of it, which is often the case with a new MMO, they generally need 1-2 years to mature. The later levels are extremely difficult to earn because the quests start to dry up, you can tell they ran out of time. And once you hit max level pretty much everything requires a group. The basic gameplay loop at max level is to farm outdoor 5 man dungeons, Expeditions (instanced dungeons) and slowly build your gear score, which works very similarly to the Division and Destiny 2. Obviously, this isn’t everything New World has to offer, it also has an incredible gathering and crafting system and a wealth of PvP modes. Speaking of the PvP, you might not get to do it as Company/Guild leaders get to pick who they want in their Wars and Invasions, this is a sore spot for me as I do not believe paying customers should be able to gate content from other paying customers. The whole system needs to be reworked IMO. As a new MMO New World is also missing a ton of QoL features, and some larger features, for example, a transmog system which is completely absent. There are 1001 QoL issues that I won’t go into, but you will often be left wondering “Why can’t I do that?” “Why doesn’t it work like this”?. Several features feel like they’re still in beta, most notably the chat system and auction house which are both woefully inadequate. Overall New World is a solid MMO and I’m very excited to see where it is in a years time.

A fantastically crafted world that feels alive and looks stunning. Filled with believable characters who are all voiced to a very high standard. The overall presentation of the game is extremely cool and goes a long way to making the game enjoyable. Gameplay wise it’s a top down shooter, which I’m generally not a massive fan of but it works well in The Ascent. You can choose from countless abilities and weapons, all of which change up how you approach missions. Do you want to go full damage? Sure, or maybe you want to take a ton of defensive and healing abilities, that’s viable too. On a more negative note the game does suffer from a lot of bugs right now, especially in co-op, my friend and I ran into issues such as our UI just disappearing, or not being able to break from NPCs dialog options, as well as hard crashes to desktop. Performance is also not great, I am using a high end PC and the frame rate was all over the place, with DX11 being playable and DX12 being completely broken, the devs are aware of these issues so I’d maybe wait until the game is fully patched as it did hurt my experience. Overall I enjoyed The Ascent a lot, it’s a great game with a few fixable technical issues. I finished the campaign in just over 10 hours, and I had a lot of side quests left to do so I’d estimate about 15 hours if you did everything.

A weak start, but a strong finish. I found myself underwhelmed at the start, but the game gets better and better with time, so I'm glad I stuck with it. The performance issues caused by anti-piracy DRM are finally fixed, it took them 3 months and a lot of bad PR to patch the game but they finally have, and now it runs flawlessly. The RE engine always looks and runs great, which is why it was so disappointing that Village initially had problems with stuttering. I finished the game in around 12 hours and I didn't explore 100%, so it's not as short as some people would have you believe.

There aren't many good Warhammer games, but this could have been one of them with more time in the oven. In the end, it falls short in most areas and just becomes yet another average Warhammer game. One of the biggest issues with the game is the performance, whilst it ran at a high frame rate, it was plagued by constant stuttering, this is a game issue and is well documented, it is caused by enemies spawning into the map, which happens all the time. It completely ruined the feel of the game. Other issues include very poor AI, limited enemy types, poor visibility (enemies blend into the map far too much), lack of weapons, lack of currency during the campaign so you can't upgrade yourself, dog or weapons even halfway by the end of the game, endlessly spawning enemies, both the male and female voice actors weren't great, the story was fragmented into 12 missions, it didn't feel cohesive. Gameplay-wise it was OK, even bordering on fun at times, once you get a few extra tools like the grappling hook the gunplay is actually decent and it was one of the highlights of the game, just don't expect Doom level combat, which the game tries hard to emulate, but never manages to get close. Overall it's an OK shooter, with a weak story, and quite a few bugs and performance issues. I would personally wait until it's patched before buying it.

One of the most immersive worlds ever created, it just feels so alive. This is mainly down to the fantastic voice work, of which there's a ridiculous amount, absolutely everything is voiced and voiced well. The story is also interesting and engaging, and the missions are enjoyable, even side quests are worth doing for upgrades and just fun interactions, you never know who you're going to meet along the way. I can't name many games where you can pay to have sex with a goat, but you can in Wasteland 3. Gameplay-wise it's solid, nothing innovative but it does the basics well. Switching to team-based turns was a good idea, the combat plays out much smoother this way. The game also has a ton of content, you're looking at 60+ hours at least, and there's no way you'll see everything in one playthrough. Where the game really falls down is performance, stability and lack of polish, the game is riddled with bugs. I would describe it as a great game that's not in a great state, it needed to be delayed at least 3 months IMO. The loading times are also very long, probably the longest I can remember in recent memory, and they're frequent. The frame rate is generally OK whilst travelling the world but it really chugs in combat as the Unity engine just can't cope. There are also several bugs relating to performance, for example, every time you hit shift to highlight objects the game freezes and haemorrhages frame rate, these aren't problems unique to myself, everyone is suffering from them regardless of hardware. Co-op is another big issue, there are countless bugs and crashes related to this mode, so if you want to play with a friend you may wish to wait for a few patches. My advice, in general, would be to wait, this is a game that will only get better with time and I really do feel it's worth waiting for.

The gunplay is enjoyable, it's definitely fun to just shoot stuff but there's not much else going for Hellbound sadly. The biggest issue is it's extremely short, about 2 - 3 hours at most. There are also only about 3 or 4 different enemy types so they get old fast. The performance was solid for 99% of the game, I was hitting 144fps no problem until the last (and only) boss fight which seemed very broken as the frame rate was dropping as low as 15fps and never recovered, even after closing the game and reopening it.

Great soundtrack, fast and fluid gameplay, good humour, incredible boss battles and mob design and just a ton of fun to play.

Without a doubt the best kart racer on the market, with tons of unlockables, racers, tracks and modes. Visually beautiful and still running at a rock solid 60fps which is so important for racing games.