LordOMO

Horizon Forbidden West is a really good sequel and improves on the first game in many ways. Not everything is better mind you but overall I think it's a net positive. I'll start with the Pros and then move on to the Cons: + combat is more weighty and has been expanded greatly with new machines, gear, status effects, abilities, etc. + traversal has been improved. I won't spoil anything but there are more and really fun options to get around the game world. And if you want to fast travel that stuff loads super fast on PS5 + the graphics look amazing. Not just the lush environments but also the massive upgrades to character rendering as well as character and facial animations. Dialog sequences no longer look awkward like they did during the first game. + The writing and performances are improved compared to the first game. I enjoyed the story and characters a lot in this game. It's of course tough to follow up the mysteries that were established and uncovered during the first game but I really liked what they did in the sequel and it was only elevated by the performances. Even side quest had great production value. + They did a lot to switch things up in the open world to prevent things like the Tallnecks or Cauldrons from becoming stale. However not everything has been improved and in some cases it is clear they tried to improve things but unfortunately missed the mark. So here are the negatives: - Combat is more weighty but almost to the point of feelings sluggish. While traversal has been sped up, combat has been slowed down. Some of the windups and staggering animations on Aloy are overdone in my opinion. Particularly annoying to me was how long the focus requires to scan enemies and reveal their weaknesses. The game is harder as a result of these things. - The game leans more into being an RPG and can be kinda overwhelming and confusing with all the new stuff it throws at you. Unlike the first game I feel like you need a guide before starting the game to learn about all the new stuff and how to engage with it. - The open world is great but exploration is progression locked. Do not make the mistake I made: don't go exploring the game world before you have unlocked 4 important quest items from the main story. You will know what I'm talking about once you have started playing. Without these items you will constantly run into quests and places that you can't actually access because you are missing those items. - The game is slightly overwritten. There is a lot of dialoge and you can typically skip optional dialoge options because they don't add much other than dragging the conversation on even longer. -the climbing has changed but still ****. It's still super inconsistent what can and can't be climbed and the climing itself can feel awkward. Overall a fantastic open world game with great combat, a well directed story and some minor nitpicks.

Always online (the game has been unplayable for two days now thanks to servers being down) and making the game increasingly grindy to sell microtransactions. GT7 represents the very worst aspects of modern gaming. The fact that this is a Playstation exclusive makes it double disappointing and really harms their reputation as a publisher of quality products. This needs to be fixed immediatly: remove pay to win microtransactions and make the singleplay content playable offline. Until then 0/10 because I literally can not play the game right now.

There are many highs and many lows in Mortal Shell. Overall the game has a solid foundation with regards to its look and gameplay but also some major shortcomings with balancing and level design. The art is beautiful, the graphics are serviceable and most importantly the core combat loop works well: attacks feel good and are weighty, "shells" are an interesting twist to add more personality to your character build and hardening is a unique blocking mechanic that negates damage at the cost of freezing you in place. This stuff is cool and elevates the core combat on a similar tier as other popular Soulslikes. However, there is also a lot to criticise. The game world and map layout can be incredibly frustrating for two reasons. For one the overworld is hard to navigate. A new player will definitely get lost and be confused. This is on a completely different level than for example a Dark Souls game because there are so few landmarks to help you figure out where the hell you even are. Secondly the difficulty curve. The game is very non-linear. You can basically go everywhere at any time and as a result difficulty balancing is all over the place, resulting in a tough as nails early game whereas the late game is almost trivial. Another issue I have is with items and healing. The rate at which you obtain these items is not well balanced in my opinion. Again, the early game will be brutal with barely any healing or helpful items being available whereas in the late game you can get an overabundance of healing and other items when you really don't need it anymore anyways. Finally there is one dungeon that I really disliked. The other ones are fine but that one in particular just feels like an overly long and tedious gank fest.

Edit: the severe loading issues have been fixed, elevating the score from a 7 to an 8. This one is hard to judge because the game itself is legitimately a 9/10 or even 10/10. A fantastic combination of RPG and murder mystery game as long as you are OK with lots of dialoge. The technical side of things is a lot rougher though. I don't mind that the Switch version has regular framedrops because I honestly don't think it matters for this type of game. But what genuinely bothers me are the load times, the buggy controls and occasional crashes. The loading is not great but OK in isolation. However there are times where you go through several long load screens in quick succession and that stuff really adds up. Wish they had found a less intrusive solution. The controls don't always do what you want them to do. I don't know if it's pathfinding issues but sometimes you need to repeat inputs in order for the character to actually do the right thing. It's not game breaking but annoying when your character just wanders off in the opposite direction of where you wanted him to go before you course correct and he actually performs the intended action. The crashes are self-explanatory. Sometimes you loose several minutes of progress and have to go through several loading screens to get to where you were before. It doesn't happen too often but when it does it really ****. So all in all this is a very good game that's bogged down by its poor technical state on Switch though I heard some of these problems like ridiculous loading or crashes even carry over to other platforms as well. So this may just be a very buggy game in general. I still recommend it though if you can handle the issues I brought forward. I'll give it a 7/10 for being a 10/10 experience that is brought down by three technical issues which each knock a point off my rating.

Calling Demon's Souls a prototype to Dark Souls 1 would not be doing the game justice but is lowkey true. The core Souls gameplay and atmosphere is already there and works shockingly well for being the first entry in such an influential series. The massively upgraded visuals and some minor QoL improvements only add to the excitement of playing Demon's Souls. It definitely still holds up. However, a few elements of later Souls games aren't fully there yet. - different areas are accesed through a level select in the hub world rather than being intertwined in one big world. - The estus flask is missing in favor of more traditional healing items which might force struggling players to grind for healing whereas skilled players can carry absurd amounts of healing -There is also a quite devilish gameplay system called world tendency and character tendency which is poorly explained and makes the game even harder if you die in human form - levels are actually on the harder side due to a lack of bonfires Conclusion: a lot of stuff from Demon's Souls might not be completely new to someone who played Dark Souls. That doesn't take away from the quality of the game though. Especially now that it is playable at 60fps with next gen visuals. Will a new player enjoy the game? I think it is as good an entry point as pretty much any Souls game. All of them have the same entry to barrier in that they can be quite obscure and the risk-reward aspect of the game not immediatly clicking if initially all you do is die repeatedly without being able to celebrate any successess inbetween.

The gimmick of the game is that just like the game Portal you can teleport yourself around the map using portals that you can place on specific surfaces. The result is an easy to learn, hard to master experience. The gunplay is simple and snappy with portals allowing skilled players to dominate the match via 5head plays that allow them to surprise players, escape danger and flank enemies. There are still some shortcomings though. First of all this PS5 version that is listed here on metacritic doesn't actually exist as of me wiriting this user review. Instead you are stuck with only 60fps, no Dualsense features and very low resolutions like on a base PS4. Secondly the game has awful art direction. It kinda looks like a fake game you see in movies sometimes. There is a battle pass and lootboxes and while I dislike the latter in general because it incentivises gambling there isn't even anything worthwhile to be unlocked. All skins look ugly as hell. Thirdly: crossplay between mouse and controller players is cancer. I am all for input based matchmaking because you encounter so many unfair feeling situations otherwise. Controller players will complain about mouse aiming and mouse players will complain about aim assist. There are also only limited options for fine tuning controller aiming and no support for gyro aiming. Finally, this is not a negative but more of a question, I wonder if it's smart the way the game handles game modes. There are so many of them that for one it is hard for new players to keep track of what their objectives are when there is something other than regular Deathmatch being played and secondly it makes it hard to find players if you are looking to play one specific game mode. Final verdict: 8/10. They nailed the gameplay which is the most important part and already a big win for a f2p game but kinda stumbled with regards to everything else.

Rogue Company is a f2p 3rd person shooter that takes the basic gameplay ideas of Counterstrike and throws all the modern trends in shooters into it. You have distinct characters instead of classes, it's 3rd person (probably so you can see your skins in action), has you drop into the map like Apex Legends etc. And for a f2p game I think it's pretty decent. There is a native PS5 version with support for 120fps and gyro aiming, there is an active playerbase, regular content updates and the core gameplay is rather solid. Is it the most original or innovative game? Nah, not really. Does it have bugs, yep definitely. And also leavers are still an issue if you play with rando's, often leaving you fighting 3v4 if you don't forfeight the match. In the end it's the same complaints as always with games developed by Hi-Rez: they make a f2p version of stuff that's already out there which is usually pretty fun to play but also fairly buggy. So, if you are looking for f2p shooters and are sick of Battle Royales like Warzone this might be a good game to pick up and just play for a while.

This one is tough to rate. On its own I'd say the Switch version of Rogue Company is probably an 8/10. The best competitive shooter on Switch apart from Splatoon. Rogue Company blends Counterstrike type gameplay with the current trends in shooters like different characters with unique abilities instead of class systems. There are regular content updates and it's free to play with an active player base. The game can definitely get bogged down by technical issues though, such as bugs and game crashes (especially common after a new content update). There have been instances where I just left the game for a while when it was particularly broken. As I said this would make it an 8/10 experience for me. But another thing to consider is crossplay which is active in this game. While the Rogue Company runs great for a Switch game it obviously doesn't compare favorably to say a PS5. In fact as far as I know the Switch version is even missing an entire game mode, probably for performance reasons. So from the lens of this being a competitive online shooter with crossplay enabled it naturally makes the Switch the worst place to play the game. It's not unplayable by any means but I imagine a PS5 running the game at like 4 times the resolution, probably less crashes and visual glitches, a better controller, 120fps etc. is going to have a competitive advantage. So I will award the Switch version only 7/10 points for being an overall good and well populated online shooter that has technical issues and a competitive disadvantage against Xbox and Playstation

Tetris Effect is getting perfect scores from both users and critics and I don't quite get why. This is certainly a solid Tetris game but compared to other versions of Tetris the only standout feature is that you get a dynamic soundtrack which adapts to the gameplay. It's a nice gimmick if you like the music but is it worth spending $30 if you already have another decent Tetris game like e.g. Tetris 99? Probably not. Another minor issue is that some of the visual effects can be distracting and lack the visual clarity that it so imporant in a Tetris game. Overall, Tetris Effect is a full package with different singleplayer and multiplayer modes. If this is your first Tetris game on Switch this is a good choice. If you already have access to other Tetris games that offer a singleplayer and multiplayer mode this will not add much value.

This is a really solid Switch port, especially for Crysis 2 and 3. Crysis 1 was already released ahead of its inclusion in the trilogy and is definitely the weakest of the three in terms of technical performance (lower resolution, unstable performance) while in my opinion also being the least polished of the three games. Especially the open world sandbox with its destructible environments is still entertaining for a few hours though. What really shines on Switch though is the port of Crysis 2 and 3. These games were actually designed with console in mind and run beautifully on Switch. Compared to the original release on Xbox 360 we are looking at a cleaner image and significantly better performance. Gyro aiming is also an option (enabled by default). I'd go as far as saying that Crysis 2 and 3 are some of the best looking games on Nintendo Switch to date and alongside Doom Eternal they are the best single player shooters on the platform. Crysis 1 is not quite as great from both a technical and gameplay perspective in my opinion and knocks my rating of the complete package down from a 9/10 to an 8/10 but it's still a solid inclusion and something you might consider also playing even if it doesn't have the same wow factor as it did back in 2007 with its next generation graphics and destructible open world.

It was clear from the start that a Nintendo Switch port of the popular FPS Battle Royale "Apex Legends" would be a massive undertaking and come with many compromises. Nonetheless the end result is shockingly rough, in part due to different reasons than expected. Let's break it down: The game runs at 720p in docked mode and 576p in handheld mode while targeting 30fps here. No surprises here considering how much weaker the Switch is compared to other consoles. The bad news however is that the game rarely ever hits its target framerate. It can vary from match to match but often the framerate chuggs along in the twenties and drops even lower during combat. What's surprising then is the choices that the developers of the port (Panic Button) made when it comes to the graphics downgrade of the game. In screenshots it actually looks better than expected. Reflections are reduced but still present, asset quality has been downgraded but still looks fairly detailed, characters and objects cast dynamic shadows and so on and so fort. And while playing you can see trees and foliage swinging in the wind and creatures moving around far in the distant background. Why they decided to keep all of this for the Switch version is a mystery to me. Thanks to really aggressive LODs and lots of pop-in this results in a very unclean looking image that actually looks worse than other games with simpler graphics. This game desperately needs to offer a performance mode that cuts out all of the unnecessary visual effects and focuses on a clean image and good framerates. Playability should have been the number one priority! Trees swinging in the wind and casting dynamic shadows not so much. There are also other issues present right now: motion controls in handheld mode are broken, handheld mode also has a lot of input lag, the game has crashed on me 3 times already, Switch players get matched with Xbox and Playstation players by default and there is a game breaking bug in the tutorial area. All in all I feel like Panic Button blew it with this port. I don't know what happened behind the scenes but at least from the outside this looks like it was either rushed or they didn't have their priorities straight. Getting the game in a playable state should have been their number one goal and they missed it. Panic Button needed to be bold in making some drastic graphical cuts and downgrades rather than giving us something that looks mostly the same as the XBox One version but much blurrier and with terrible framerates. That being said I am hopeful that they can at least somewhat fix this mess in post by optimizing their code even further and providing players with the option to turn down or deactivate graphical effects in order to get less pop in and better framerates. Panic Button have been known to be forthcoming in that regard so hopefully they work extra hard on this one. As of now however this is the worst performing online shooter I've ever played.

If it hasn't been clear so far let me get it out of the way: This is not a golf game. Instead it's a surprisingly fun mini game collection that you can play alone or with a friend. The typical mini game has you traverse some kind of obstacles to reach a goal. These obstacles are often hilarious and physics based. As such I am reminded of games like Happy Wheels, Goat Simulator and Wario Ware. Not every mini game is great: some feel to easy or can be cheesed while others might be frustrating (though usually you can skip those). But overall this game is a lot of stupid fun which you can either play in bursts by yourself or share with friends as it is easy to pick up and makes for a great party game.

Groundbreaking but not flawless Pros: audio and the core gameplay mechanics Audio in this game is some of the best I've ever heard. Plug in a pair of headphones and immediatly get immersed in the world. The more somber music does a great job of delivering a few accents here and there without overpowering the amazing sound design. Core Gameplay: This includes so many aspects, but most importantly the movement system and Link's abilities. Breath of the Wild gives the player all the tools they need for near limitless exploration and experimentation. The fact that you can climb every mountain or swim through every river as long as you have enough stamina (which can be buffed via gear and consumables!) makes similar games feel archaic in comparison. Looking at other open world games like Horizon Zero Dawn it is laughable how many invisible barriers you come across and how limited the climbing system actually is. Link's abilities are amazing for the fact that they are physics based and can be utilized in every situation you can think of. There is a lot of depth in how you can interact with those abilities and use them in creative ways. Another interesting but not perfect gameplay mechanic is that even most of your gear functions as a consumable. By forcing you to constantly switch up your load out the game encourages experimentation and prevents players from snatching up high level gear early which would trivialise all of the low level areas. You can of course still do that but when your weapon breaks after two combat encounters you are back to using level appropriate gear. However, there are some faults in the execution of this system, which leads me to the games weaknesses. Cons: inventory management and a lack of motivators. Inventory management is a hassle. Every time you want to heal or want to switch weapons or when your weapon breaks or if you want to use an ability you got to pull up some kind of menu. The Nintendo Switch simply doesn't have enough buttons to cycle through all the stuff you'll need during gameplay efficiently. As a result the controls are surprisingly complex and gameplay doesn't always go as smooth as I like. Within one combat encounter that takes maybe 40 seconds it is not unusual for me to pull up some kind of menu 6 times or more. That's me pulling up a menu screen every 5-10 seconds. This absolutely needs to be streamlined in future entries of the Zelda series. The biggest weakness however is the lack of motivators. Breath of the Wild is a game that has its core mechanics built entirely around exploration. So how come the game world is so empty and has little reward? I understand that people might be motivated to explore for different reasons. Some may explore to collect loot, some may explore to find content (e.g. lore or side quests) and some may explore simply to appreciate the game world. In my opinion Breath of the Wild nails none of these motivators. Let's look at loot: most of the loot you will find are basically just consumables to replace the consumables you spent or to increase your inventory to store said consumables. To actually grow permanently stronger it is recommended to complete shrines and quests which have a lot of empty space inbetween. OK, so how about content? Let me be quite frank. There is very little chance that you might stumble across a quest giver or some interesting story event by accident. Yet again, most of the areas are empty except for some cookie-cutter enemies and consumable items here and there. So, if there is no story reward or rare loot to be excpected when going off the beaten path then surely there must be some beatiful/interesting vistas to be discovered that make the journey worth it, right? This is of course very subjective but I don't think Breath of the Wild is a particularly pretty game. It has a good art style that can hide some of the technical shortcomings. But the game still remains barren and rarely impresses visually. And the most impressive stuff is usually part of the main quest anyway. All in all I believe Breath of the Wild is an innovative approach to exploration and experimentation in video games. However it is a bit held back by the technical limitations of the Wii U and Nintendo Switch. I can only assume that they needed to spread out the content over so much empty space because the consoles would not have been able to handle a more dense and complex game world. As a result the strong core mechanics hace to carry the game through some of the more boring parts while traversing the game world

It really hurts to say this but I didn't enjoy my time with Ninjala at all. The game really has a lot going for it: it looks clean and runs well, it has good menu structure and decent settings to customize controls etc. The game also has a surprising amount of complexity in its combat system: you can parry, dodge, use special moves, use different weapons, camouflage etc. However, the big issue is that gameplay fell completely flat for me. I'm sure that Pro players will be able to make sense of this mess but as a more casual player it is absolute chaos where winning or loosing feels like pure luck. It was immediatly unfun and unexciting and didn't get any better for me. I was also surprised how strongly they leaned into the child-like aesthetic. To me it seems like this is clearly targeted towards really little kids. But at the same time the game is really complex which will propably be overwhelming for most kids. Something like Mario, Yoshi or Kirby seems more age appropriate from a difficulty standpoint. As it stands I can at most see this game attracting a very niche audience that actually masters the game mechanics whereas many kids will propably try it out, experience complete chaos and soon give up in favor of other games.

I was looking forward to playing a blend of pinball and a dungeon crawler. The actual gameplay experience was very disappointing though. I'd much rather have played regular Pinball instead as that would've been much more exciting and motivating. Creature in the Well gets old really fast. It lacks the thrill of reaching high scores in Pinball and it lacks the depth and loot that you'd find in a dungeon crawler. There is also nothing else to do in the game except for moving from one room to the next while trying to hit targets so you can move to the next room and so on. This became immediatly apparent in the opening sequence where your character wakes up in the desert. I naturally tried to explore the area but immediatly got reset to the starting position whenever I moved too far from the intended path, which caused a lot of confusion as well as trial and error within the first 5 minutes of playing. Also the graphics, while being stylised, are so incredbibly minimalistic that at times it makes it hard to navigate and differentiate which objects are in the foreground or in the background. All in all, the game delivers exactly what it advertised. The actual gameplay experience however was quite disappointing.

The good news about this port of Borderlands 1, 2 and the Pre-Sequel is that it has been properly optimised for Switch. It runs at 1080p30fps and even keeps a stable framerate in splitscreen mode which makes it far superior than the PS3/Xbox360 versions of these games. However there are two major issues that in my opinion cannot be overlooked: First of all there is the poor way 2K handled the physical release of the game. I could have accepted if it required additional downloads since not all 3 games would've fit on one cartridge. But instead all they did was put half of the first game on the cartridge (which therefor requires and additional download) and only provided a download code for the other 2 Borderlands games. This means that if you want to trade or share your copy of the Borderlands collection you will only actually be able to do that with the first game since the other games are now strictly tied to your account. This is unacceptable. My second gripe with the Borderlands Legendary collection is that nothing has been done to improve the very floaty and unresponsive controls. I don't know if improving this is simply impossible on a engine level but nonetheless this results in the controls feeling almost as bad as the original console release for Xbox360/PS3. Even the inclusion of gyro aim can't remedy that since it also suffers from being very unresponsive and floaty. It is straight up the worst gyro implementation I've experienced on Switch so far. All that being said, if you just want to experience the old games as they are with some upgraded visuals this is a fantastic way to play Borderlands. Also it's fantastic that with the Borderlands collection there are finally some high profile shooter finding their way to Nintendo Switch. It's a good port of 3 quality games which unfortunately retains a lot of the issues from the original release.

The Bioshock Collection brings the complete Bishock package with all 3 games and DLC to Switch. These are fantastic games that hold up really well even today thanks to their unique art style, story telling and thick atmosphere. Also I'm very happy to tell you that this is a good port of the games. Switch runs Bioshock at a solid 1080p 30fps. The graphical fidelity is much closer to the PS4 version than the original PS3 version. At some points (for example with certain fire effects) it looked like there were compression artifacts but otherwise tje image was very clean. A few minor issues that Switch owners should know is that there is no gyro support, some text and hud elements being quite small in handheld mode (as these games were originally developed for home consoles) and that all games require additional downloads as only parts of every game have been stored on the cartridge. Overall this is a quality port of a quality game but the developers didn't go the extra mile to consider Switch specific features.

This is a review I'm hesitant to write because while I managed to get to the end credits I propably have only seen 30% of what this game has to offer. But then again I think it can be valuable to present my opinion as a more casual player of this game. What's really good about Celeste is how incredibly responsive and satisfying it is to play (which is absolutely crucial in plattformer). The game also does a great job of contextualising the levels with a neat story while also providing a clear goal of wanting to reach the top of a mountain. The game is also very strong from an audio-visual standpoint. The music is nice and the visuals are simple but pretty while also being very functional in giving the player a good understanding of the level layout. Celeste is a very difficult game and lots of level sections will propably require mulitple attempts to get through. Thankfully you will respawn quickly and usually only have to retry the current obstacle that you are struggling with. The only exception was the last big level before the credits roll which had brutal checkpoints in my opinion. I struggled a lot during that section. But in the end I got to the credits with almost 3000 deaths on the counter. This shows how tough the game is but also how motivated I was to finish it. I don't think I would've put up with that in any other game. However, this is pretty much how far I was willing to go. There are endgame levels, as well as remixes of earlier levels and additional challenges like collecting items. I tried to play further. However, I didn't meet the required criteria to access a lot of that content and trying to unlock it or finish the remixed levels proved very challenging and at that point I also wasn't as motivated anymore. In the end I'm still very happy with what I got out of this game and just playing the main story already was worth the money. I'd like to add that thankfully the game offers assist modes which basically function like cheat codes to make the game easier. I find using them to be very unsatisfying. But if someone was seriously stuck I think these might provide a way to make levels more doable. Overall I had a great experience even if the endgame content wasn't for me. The story alone is worth playing and I recommend it to anyone who has a decent skill level in plattformers.

Looking at the game objectively I think it's hard to deny that Fortnite offers good value. It's free and has multiple game modes (the most popular being Battle Royale as solo players or in teams), allows for custom game modes and is constantly being updated with new content. From a technical standpoint I think it looks fine on Switch and I give them credit for having a lot of settings you can tweak (including gyro aim which I really like). However, the poor Nintendo Switch can't really handle the more demanding parts of the game (intense battles between multiple players with lots of destruction for example) which will result in framerate dips below 30fps and can really hinder your ability to play properly. Another issue I have is how cheap the main menu looks and how much the game spams you with awful looking items it wants you to buy (for real money!). I get that they have to monetize the game but this is basically the equivalent of pop-up ads. A more subjective problem I have with this game is its core gameplay: I really don't care much for the movement and the weapons in this game. Compare this to Apex Legends and the difference is night and day. Whereas Apex feels fluid and powerful Fortnite feels slow and like playing with toys (weapons lack punch). And then there's the building aspect of Fortnite. As you all propably know you can mine ressources and use them to build structures which can provide protection as well as giving you a positional advantage. Now this is obviously just my personal opinion but I really dislike this aspect of the game. I'd much rather have a smartly designed map that allows for smart positioning and provides sufficient cover. And finally I'm very torn on the items that you can loot during gameplay. Items come and go but some are just weird. For example you can loot a fishing rod that you than use to fish for items in lakes or rivers. This just seems so stupid to me. There is so much stuff like this that has nothing to do with actually battling other players and are just there to make you waste your time. In the end I understand that a lot of people apparently really enjoy Fortnites gameplay loop. And admittedly it's propably the best battle royale shooter on Switch right now and at the end of the day it works and it's free. But it definitely isn't for me.

Hyper Light Drifter is a fantastic game, albeit a little rough around the edges. One thing everyone looking to play this game should know is that it is a very "mysterious" game: It's heavy on exploration and there is zero text or speech except for a short tutorial in the beginning. In that way it is quite similar to Dark Souls which also has this mysterious vibe to it and rewards players who explore levels carefully. Also similar to Dark Souls is that combat is quite methodical eventhough it is much quicker in Hyper Light Drifter. As the player you have to pay attention to the enemy attack patterns and react accordingly otherwise you will die in a matter of seconds. With bosses or multiple enemy encounters this leads to a careful dance of dodge and attack while keeping other enemies at bay with guns. Successfull combat encounters and exploring the levels will reward you with green healthpacks and yellow "upgrade points" which you can spend on vendors for various upgrades. I found myself being immediatly enthralled by this game. It's stylish visuals and beautiful dark synth soundtrack set the atmosphere well and progressing to the game was very rewarding. However, I already mentioned that the game is a little rough around the edges. I have two main issues with the current state of the game: - everything being very cryptic can leave the player confused in the beginning. Thankfully the core gameplay and the progression system of the game is quite simple to understand. But some of the "hints" the game gives you are simply so cryptic that I'm sure a number of players will completely miss them - exploring the levels can include a lot of trial and error. There are lots of hidden areas and finding them at times feels like luck since it isn't always communicated which parts of the level you can interact with. Sometimes there are secrets hidden behind what looks like solid walls. In the end this means you have to be prepared to basically run into every suspicious wall and search every cliff for invisible walkways. This can in fact be fun and it feels great to find new hidden secrets during the second or third playthrough. However, if you are NOT into this type of trial and error exploration you will find navigating the levels quite frustrating and you will be at a disadvantage since you'll be missing out on a lot of upgrade points that are hidden away. All in all Hyper Light Drifter is a 9/10 experience to me. It's a beautiful game and if you are part of the niche audience that enjoys fast but methodical combat as well as hunting for secrets this is a must have game for you. The only real disappointment is that the game is a little inconsistent in communicating to the player which areas are accessable and which are not, resulting in trial and error.

This is a solid port of the original Doom 3 from 2004. It's mostly a solid 60fps and it runs at 1080p when docked (eventhough the textures don't quite hold up at that resolution). Unfortunately it lacks any new features as far as I know. This also means no gyro aiming like modern Nintendo Switch shooters. As for the game itself, I found it to be a little bit of a disappointment and see it as the weakest entry in the Doom series. Not having played the game when the game originally released I was still well aware that Doom 3 is a departure from the usual high octane action one usually expects from a Doom game. Instead, they went for an atmospheric corridor shooter with lots of horror vibes. Unfortunately I think that this doesn't translate well into a good gaming experience. There are more scary and atmopsheric games out there and there are also better corridor shooters out there. So if someone is looking to replay this game the Switch port is perfectly fine. People looking for a great Doom game or a great horror game should look somewhere else instead.

Thronebreaker is a fantastic The Witcher spinoff game with some flaws. In my opinion it is a diamond in the rough that could've been a 10/10 with a bit of extra polish. However it is not sold as a $60 dollar game which makes it hard for me to judge the game fairly. In my opinion if they ironed out the kinks this should have been sold at $40. But let's get to the review. Thronebreaker is played form an isometric perspective and doesn't have cinematic cutscenes. Instead a "dialog screen" pops up. Also combat and puzzles take place in form of a strategic card game instead of real time third person combat like in the main series. Thronebreaker has lots of strengths: The story is well written and the voice actors do a fantastic job delivering their lines. There are also lots of interesting quests and decisions you can make along the way. Thronebreaker definitely upholds the high standards of storytelling we know and love from the Witcher video game series. Also the combat is fantastic in this game. Gwent is a really fun card game and they made lots of interesting changes to the formula in order to make for more exciting and strategic combat that is oftentimes more thrilling than the real time combat in the original Witcher series. The developers also found interesting ways to incorporate Gwent into puzzles and side challenges you can find in side quests. In general most of the stuff in this game feels very premium with neat details like good lip sync on the characters, beautifully animated and voiced cards and fantastic music to top it off. Unfortunately the game lacks a bit of polish which is where two big negatives come in: 1. moving your character through the game world feels very sluggish, which is mildly annoying as soon as you leave the beaten path to search for loot and hidden quests and as a result get stuck in every corner. 2. the puzzles in this game can be very annoying and frustrating. I like the concept of these puzzles: while using a predefined deck of cards you have to achieve a very specific goal (for example destroy a unit that wants to capture your caravan). The problem however is that usually there are only one or two correct solutions to solve the puzzle. I would've wished for an "undo" button so you don't have to restart the entire puzzle after making one single mistake. Most of these puzzles are side content and can be skipped but nonetheless this is just unnecessary frustration in what otherwise could've been very enjoyable content. In summary: it's really hard for me to judge the game. It's great value but I would've much preferred to pay more for a game that had fixed the two main issues I just mentioned. With some polish it could've been 10/10 and easily be sold at $40. But as it stands I have to reduct 2 points for its two major problems that could've easily been fixed: 8/10. Still a solid recommendation even if it didn't live up to its full potential

The main reason to play Warface on Switch is that it is free to play and that there is no proper Call of Duty game so far. With no real competition you could go so far as arguing that Warface is the best military shooter on Switch. That doesn't make the game particularly good though. The graphics are OK at best. I can deal with the lower resolution and bad texture filtering. But unfortunately the performance is terrible in a lot of matches. There is a lot of microstutter which will absolutely ruin your game if you are playing at a high level where you can kill or be killed in a matter of miliseconds. The game is also buggy and has bad netcode. There have been so many instances where I got shot through walls or where shots that should have 100% landed were not registered by the game. Also the game is pay to win. You are constantly encouraged to buy better items and weapons which oftentimes you can only buy with real money. The game is still mostly playable as a casual game but if you are playing at a high level this is terrible if your enemy has a weapon and armour that is superior to your own. PvE missions are quite hard (propably to sell microtransactions) and can be dreadfull if you get teamed up with a bad squad. All in all: Warface is the only proper military shooter on Switch right now and therefor is the go-to Nintendo Switch shooter to play some quick rounds of PvP. But I personally will leave this game as soon as a proper CoD or another alternative releases on Switch.

Unfortunately I don't get the appeal of this game. It is a very simplistic and short puzzle game with bland visuals. The music is OK but can get repeltitive. There is pretty much no story in the traditional sense but you can get some of the lore if you pay careful attention to the scenery. Gameplay is quite clumsy which was propably on purpose. All in all this is a game that relies entirely on its atmosphere to get you hooked into the experience. That never happened for me though. I waited three hours for the game to get good until the credits rolled. I guess if the trailers look exciting to you then go ahead and grab it but don't expect it to have any more depth than the trailers show.

As a free to play game Warframe is fantastic. The Switch conversion is also very solid even if performance isn't always up to par with frame rate drops below 30fps. The biggest strength of the game is its movement and combat system (look up gameplay on Youtube, it's insane!) and the massive amount of content it provides. The game is absolutely huge with thousands of hours worth of content available. Not all of that content is great mind you (for example PvP is dead and Archwing missions ****) but once you know what parts of the game you like most you can usually avoid the bad stuff for the most part. As a free to play game there is obviously a lot of stuff you can buy with real money. I find the monetization to mostly be very fair, you can easily play through the game without spending a single penny. It also thankfully doesn't have lootboxes. However I didn't like that you can quickly run out of space in your inventory and then are encouraged to buy more inventory space with real money. That just felt like **** But all in all, Warframe is one of the best (if not THE BEST) looter shooter / looter slasher out there and the Switch port manages to deliver the full Warframe experience for portable play

Furi is a boss rush game with elements from bullet hell shooters and arcade fighting games. It's overall a good game. Albeit a game with some issues. The boss fights are challenging and interesting. The controls are quick to learn and hard to master. The music is amazing. So far so good. But then there are also weird design decisions. For example you have to literally play a walking simulator between boss fights which is very boring and unskippable. It's mostly there to provide some downtime and present the story. But the story is just meh in my opinion. Another issue for me was the "easy mode" of the game. Furi is a very hard game, which is perfectly fine. However this means that a number of players will need to play the easy mode to complete the game. And quite frankly the easy mode ****. They basically just made the game easier by cutting out large parts of content and giving you a bunch of extra lives. The result just feels terrible to play. I'd much rather have seen an easy mode where maybe the enemies were a little slower so you have more time to react. And last but not least the performance of the game is great in handheld mode but not so much in TV mode. I could really see the framerate drop once the screen got more busy. All in all Furi is a good game that lacks a little bit of polish. If they fixed the easy mode and performance issues and made the walking simulator parts skippable it would propably be a 9/10. I should also note that the game is rather short (anywhere between 1 and 7 hours depending on your skill level). But that's ok in my opinion since the game is cheap and has a lot of replay value

A fantastic game and a good port for the most part. Graphics and performance are significantly upgraded from the PS3 version. However there is one massive issue with this port that may very well completely ruin the experience for some players: THE AUDIO HAS BEEN COMPRESSED TO HELL AND BACK. Seriously, depending on the sound system you are using the game can sound absolutely dreadfull. It's fine if you use the internal speakers of the Switch, or maybe if you use cheap headphones. But try playing it on TV with a good sound system or try using good headphones: it will sound really really bad. I can only assume that this was done to fit the game on a cheap 4gb cartridge. But then they didn't even decide to make the proper audio files available as a download. All in all this really hurts the experience of playing an otherwise fantastic game.

There is a lot of good to say About Paladins: it's free, it has gyro aim, it runs at 60fps and it is a decent take on the Overwatch/TF2 type gameplay. Unfortunately there is some bad either: The game is highly instable and crashes regularly, which is even more annoying when taking into account the long load times so it takes forever to get back into the game. Playing this game on ranked mode was not quite satisfactory either. I guess the player base isn't large enough: you get highly unbalanced matches despite having to wait in que for a long time. Then there are some quality of life issues like for example not being able to type in chat during matches. I would still recommend this game for everyone that is interested in this genre but that is mostly due to the lack of alternatives. Splatoon 2 is the only better alternative I know. Overwatch is also on Switch but the port isn't that good either and only runs at 30fps.

Grid Autosport is the best racing Simulator there is on Nintendo Switch period. It's one of the best Looking games on the Plattform and delivers great value with it's $40 price tag. While racing may not be as realistic as lets say Gran Turismo with a real steering wheel I think that this is the best possible compromise you can get on a handheld. I'm having a lot of fun and I appreciate that the game gives you many options to customize graphics and input Methods (Motion controls, Gamecube Controller support etc)

This is such a fantastic and impressive port of the game. On Nintendo Switch we are used to seeing ports making heavy compromises to get everything running on Nintendo Switch. Alien Isolation however feels like the full on PS4 experience running on a handheld system. No idea how Feral Interactive accomplished this feat but the game looks absolutely stunning. It's the most visually impressive game I have seen on Nintendo Switch so far. I don't have much to add on the game itself since its 2014 release on PS4/XOne: Alien Isolations is a fantastic horror game that captures the essence and the atmosphere of the Alien franchise.

This game doesn't deserve its high review score as it is unplayable for anyone with more than one user per system. The game doesn not, I repeat, DOES NOT allow for individual save states. And it doesn't allow for Cloud saves or exporting save states to other consoles. This means that, as it happened in my case, you may forever be a mere visitor in your own Island. A Family member started playing the game before me and is therefor by default the main account. Everyone else, including me, is just a simple resident with a lot of handicaps compared to the main account. This is a game about developing your own town on a deserted island yet everyone except the main account practically has NO SAY IN HOW THE ISLAND SHOULD BE DEVELOPED. Therefor the game is unplayable and absolutely deserves zero points. This might have been a fun game IF I HAD THE CHANCE TO ACTUALLY EXPERIENCE THE GAME. Go to hell Nintendo. I'm so sad and angry and disappointed. There isn't even a way to export a save file so I can't even throw everyone else off the island and start over.

There is a lot of stuff to like about this game. For example the smooth movement and combat, the veritcality of the open world, a solid soundtrack, the way the camera adjusts to the situation (top down during bullet hell sequences, sidescrolling for platforming, free floating during sword combat etc.). However many people have pointed these things out already so i'm going to leave it at that and move on to the negatives. - load times feel to long - i don't find any of the main characters in this game particularly interesting or likable (however they are not obnoxious either) - after I saw the credits rolling for the first time I was a little disappointed. The ending felt unsatisying and rushed, especially since I found many themes in the story to be quite promising. It also took me only 12 hours to get to the credits. Not a great first impression. New game plus added some interesting gameplay and story content. However the story content only added more to my confusion. A lot of stuff was added but it didn't explain the "Why" for me. At the end of the game i feel like i still don't know anything about YorHa or the robots on earth. And the main characters and their motivations only become less tangible throughout the game - graphics. I'm playing on a base PS4 and quite frankly was shocked by how ugly the game looks. Resolution is sub 1080p with heavy aliasing and despite targeting 60fps the game drops frames heavily quite often. Also texture quality is quite low. The art style doesn't help either, making for a bleak and overall rough looking image. It's laughable when you consider that games like Horizon which are similar in scope and released around the same time just look generations ahead. If you leave this game on the menu screen for a while a trailer will start playing and I feel like the trailer is how the game should have looked: it's a much smoother and clearer image with more vibrant colours. I don't know how the PS4 Pro image compares but on base PS4 graphics are a massive disappointment. All of this being said i think that Nier Automata is an overall good game. I would recommend it to people who want a "hard scifi" game mixed with fluent combat and are willing to look past the games superficial "ugliness". Otherwise there are a bunch better looking games to play. The game, especially the story is really overhyped in my opinion so i'd also recommend drastically lowering your expectations for the story and the music

The game is very overrated in my opinion. This game may have surprised me if I discovered it myself without any prior knowledge but since everyone hyped this game up for me i was a little diappointed. The most obvious complaint is how incredibly ugly this game looks (at least on base PS4 where I played it). If you played something like Horizon Zero Dawn prior to this it looks like it's a generation behind visually. And still the framerate dips at weird instances. My second complaint is the story which is supposed to be great but i didn't get it at all. The "first" ending feels very rushed and i was shocked by how little was done with the main characters and villains. I then dove into the new game plus content where a lot of stuff is fleshed out more but even after getting the ultimate ending i still don't feel like i understood the story. Sure, lots of stuff happened but the why is missing for me, as if i skipped through half of the game. That's why I enjoyed the side quests much more especially when they were little self-contained stories. The combat is really weird but mostly good. There is depth to the role-playing elements and the music is ok. Overall a good Action-RPG with sub-par visuals and a disjointed and confusing story

I have a love/hate relationship with this game. On the one hand i can appreciate it as a massive and atmospheric dark fantasy role playing game, on the other hand i can't overlook its shortcomings (some being imherent to the dark souls series and some affecting specifically this game in the series). At its best you get the pure Dark Souls experience: mystic medieval castles with hidden paths, challenging enemies and a large set of tools to overcome the challenges on the way. But to get there you have to deal with clumsy controls and huge variances in quality which effects visuals sound and unfortunately also gameplay. I've put many hours into the game but always have to deal with frustration along the way to get to the good parts (especially the DLC areas are 10/10 high quality but its a chore to get there). Here are all my gripes with the game: - controls ****. Especially in the beginning of the game everything feels bad because you actually have to level up a stat that improves your dodges. But even later on there are issues with the targeting system and with inputs seemingly not being read. Also movement in general feels clunky - some of the level design and enemies are very questionable (e.g. enemies that can snipe you from the other side of the map, or levels with blocked paths that you can never open) - graphics and sound have some very bad moments. Sound design often feels fake as in "oh yeah this is a footstep soundeffect" rather than actually feeling real. And while the visuals can be stunning in some parts despite geometry and vegetation being on the lower end (especially the castles look great), other areas are just plain ugly, e.g everything looking flat and greyish without any interesting details. - there is an overabundance of items and weapons in this game with little differentiation between them. I'd much rather have less but more unique stuff than a lot of junk (e.g. 10 different healing items) cluttering my inventory - some enemies and bosses are very forgetable

Apex Legends is the best Battle Royale Shooter on PS4 Right now. Here are the pro's and con's i noticed after playing for a few hours: Pro: + movement and gunplay is really, really good. Fortnite feels slow and sluggish in comparison + the map is well designed with lots of verticality and variety + the game is great at creating hype and generally has more action going on than pubg or Fortnite Apex Legends is played in teams of three and you really feel that it was designed with teams in mind: + the ping System is the best i've ever seen and it makes you wonder why other games haven't done it already, since you can easily communicate everything with just a press of a button, no microphone or chat required (I've had pretty much whole conversations going on by just using the ping system + also the revive System is brilliant, as it means if you die you can be respawned (with no loot) and are not doomed to just spectate for the rest of the match + the heroes (or legends as they call them) have decent abilities that allow for complex strategies where for example the tank, healer and damage dealer can be devestating when smartly combining their abilities + during drops a leader is appointed who can coordinate the team while landing Now with all the pro's out of the way, let's get to the cons: Since my friends don't play Apex i have to play with randoms, which led to some unpleasant experiences: - despite being a team shooter you will find a number of idiots who will abandon the squad and go on solo trips, who will never mark items and enemies or communicate what they are doing and will never go out of their way to help you and just leave the match if they get downed. These people who are playing it like a solo game are ruining the fun for everyone. Maybe the developer should include a solo mode just for these egomaniacs eventhough solo would be much less fun - sometimes there is server lag and connection issues - new players being placed in squads with experienced players is a problem since they usually have no idea what's going on and at best get carried along and at worst sabotage the whole team. The game needs are more in depth tutorial (currently it's only 5 minutes long) or a dedicated starter map or starter server for noobs to get accustomed to the game. - Apex has lootboxes with cosmetics similar to Overwatch Overall Apex Legends has massive potential and a really solid basis. It's the best battle royale game despite being free to Play. However, as great as the team play is, having a trash team can completely ruin the experience and will most propably get you killed (having to solo against a team of three is not really a fair match up). The developer needs to adress this in some way or form. Update: by now they have added the option to remain in squads after a match, which makes it much easier to find and stick with good team mates. Unfortunately season 1 hasn't received great content so far. The only worthwhile thing about season one is a new playable character. I feel like the developer needs to do more to keep players engaged

I very much enjoyed the first Hotline Miami but Hotline Miami 2 unfortunately was a massive disappointment for me. To be frank, i wasn't able to finish the game because it was simply to hard and frustrating. Here are some of the reasons why: Playable characters are worse than in Hotline Miami. Ash is completely broken with the companion getting stuck in every corner. Map design and enemies make the game significantly harder than Hotline Miami 1. The maps are massive and enemies have guns more often while also being able to snipe you from off screen throughout the giant levels, as well as windows. You are much more limited in the weapons you can use. Enemies are much more brutal than the first game, some of them being almost unbeatable for me since they were tanks + incredibly fast + had to be killed with a specific weapon + it usually means you would aggro other enemies with guns. The levels are too large with no option to save the game in the middle of a session. This leads to you having to replay huge chunks of the game when rebooting. For me this meant that near the end of the game i was so stuck that i quit because every time i rebooted the game i had to beat a boss and clear multiple giant maps with tough as nails enemies. I had to quit because I often wasn't even able to get to the part I was actually stuck at in the time I had available for gaming. In conclusion I have to say that Hotline Miami 2 feels really off. It is much more frustrating than the first game. I'm used to challenging games but this feels like the worst kind of **** that you would maybe find in an old NES game. I had to finally give up because it simply wasn't fun and I have no clue how on earth you are supposed to finish the game. There is so much going on that you can't possibly plan the whole stage ahead and even then the combat is challenging already. 90% of the time i was just praying for good RNG and retrying until I somehow made it through a map until, well, at some point I didn't and had to give up

I don't care if "Her Story" is technically a game or not. What's important is wether it delivers on its premise. The general idea is that you play detective by watching interrogation tapes related to a crime. However, you can only access files by searching for the correct keywords. In theory that's an interesting concept, allowing the player to slowly unravel the story as you figure out more and more plot points. In execution this won't always work. I think the very mixed user reviews of this game reflect that one player may have a vastly different experience from another player, depending on the order in which they "unravel" the video clips. In my playthrough (no spoilers) I had a great time for the first 20 minutes or so as I discovered all kinds of "storylines" and clues. Then I ran out of keywords to search for, so for an hour I was backpedaling to old videos or blindly searching for keywords to get access to new videos. I barely made any progress in that time, since many of the videos I found were completely redundant/pointless and didn't provide any new clues at all. Then suddenly (it felt like it was by accident) I got to the end of the story: For me it fell completely flat, while still leaving many plot points unanswered. There are statistics in the game that show how many clips you uncovered and it seems like I jumped wildly in the database, while having huge chunks of videomaterial missing in between. I could try to go back and figure out the missing parts of the story but it seems like way to much effort as I already solved the case and I haven't found the right keywords. The great flaw of the game is that there is no pre-planned pacing. A player may "solve" the case in 5 minutes without knowing any of the backstory or characters. Another player might spend hours uncovering every detail, knowing exactly how it will resolve but lacking the right keyword to get to the ending. Oh, and also the acting is pretty mediocre

I don't care if "Her Story" is technically a game or not. What's important is wether it delivers on its premise. The general idea is that you play detective by watching interrogation tapes related to a crime. However, you can only access files by searching for the correct keywords. In theory that's an interesting concept, allowing the player to slowly unravel the story as you figure out more and more plot points. In execution this won't always work. I think the very mixed user reviews of this game reflect that one player may have a vastly different experience from another player, depending on the order in which they "unravel" the video clips. In my playthrough (no spoilers) I had a great time for the first 20 minutes or so as I discovered all kinds of "storylines" and clues. Then I ran out of keywords to search for, so for an hour I was backpedaling to old videos or blindly searching for keywords to get access to new videos. I barely made any progress in that time, since many of the videos I found were completely redundant/pointless and didn't provide any new clues at all. Then suddenly (it felt like it was by accident) I got to the end of the story: For me it fell completely flat, while still leaving many plot points unanswered. There are statistics in the game that show how many clips you uncovered and it seems like I jumped wildly in the database, while having huge chunks of videomaterial missing in between. I could try to go back and figure out the missing parts of the story but it seems like way to much effort as I already solved the case and I haven't found the right keywords. The great flaw of the game is that there is no pre-planned pacing. A player may "solve" the case in 5 minutes without knowing any of the backstory or characters. Another player might spend hours uncovering every detail, knowing exactly how it will resolve but lacking the right keyword to get to the ending.

Life is Strange is a hard to judge objectively, especially because I don't want to spoil the story of this game. With all the positive feedback it has received from critics and fans alike you might think it is a flawless masterpiece or something, but it is not. I really had a great time with the game but it definitely has some glaring issues you should keep in mind before buying: This game follows the "Telltale Adventure Game" formula with all its flaws. For example really subpar graphics, clunky controls or the "illusion of choice" when in reality the story has been completely mapped out and you only have influence over minor details, rendering pretty much every choice you make inconsequential. Some might argue if you could call this a game at all since it practically plays itself. Now on top of that add some cringy dialoge and a story that starts out rather underwhelming and you can totally relate to the lower user reviews from People who were obviously really taken aback by these issues. Nevertheless, I (and most other people) still enjoyed the game, so why is that? Well, let's start with gameplay, because the game introduces a really fun mechanic: the ability to turn back time and reset the last few choices you made. I think it fits perfectly into this video game genre as it allows for interesting puzzles and also you can just fool around with all the dialoge options and then settle with the one you like best. Then there is the very unqique atmosphere of this game. I would describe it as somewhat dreamy and melancholic. This is mostly due to the amazing music and the artstyle (which despite the subpar graphics manages to create many beautiful images) but of course the story plays a major role in creating this vibe as well. The, in my opinion, really cool vibe was also what mostly kept me playing for the first few hours, because unfortunately, as I already mentioned, the game starts off kind of slow and underwhelming. I didn't really relate to the characters yet and felt like I was mostly just wandering around and talking to people without anything really being at stake or motivating me. In hindsite it makes sense in the bigger picture of the storyline but I really wish they had thrown in some more interesting puzzles and choices to keep you more interested for the first few hours. Somewhere between Episde 2 and 3 of this game was when it really took off for me (there are 5 Episodes in total). Thankfully the story starts shifting focus from highschool drama to mystery/crime and it starts ramping up the stakes dramatically. At this point I realy started caring about the characters, as they showed a lot more depth than I initally anticipated. The game also starts makeing more radical use of your time travel powers. The game gets really dark and trippy the further you progress. Thanks to the great characters and the Illusion that you are responsible for what is happening, I was completely hooked as the stakes were being raised higher and higher. It all culminates in an incredibly tragic and emotional ending that really caught me off guard. Conclusion: To me Life is Strange was a very memorable and emotional experience, despite all its issues. I really liked the vibe/atmosphere the game has going and the story, while starting out a little weak, really gained momentum as it fleshed out its characters and grew bolder with its storyline. If the positives caught your attention, chances are you are going to have a great experience. Just don't expect a perfectly polished game or something that will revolutionize the genre.

Horizon doesn't reinvent the wheel, in fact most of it's elements are pretty obvious rip-offs of other succesfull Open-World games. However for the most part everything comes together pretty nicely, resulting in a decent Open-World game that has been streamlined for the PS4 to deliver a sleek user interface and stunning graphics. That's the short version, for extra detail here are some pro and cons (no spoilers) Pro: +the game world and the monsters look stunning and hold up even on close-ups +the game world has the perfect size and provides enough content for 60 hours +many tools and approaches to deal with different types of monsters +great graphics, sound and music +some interesting side quests & side stories +the story has interesting mysteries to uncover (why the hell are there machines prowling through the ruins of an old civilization) Con: -eventhough the story itself is interesting i don't quite like the way it is presented. A lot of standing around while watching holograms or listening to audio (in the main quests!!) -Aloy is a boring character. As a player you don't get a lot of choice during dialoge and story beats, since Aloy is a predefined character. That would be okay with me, but unfortunately she is presented like Superman (or rather a Superwoman) who can do everything and has a flawless character (so she is pretty much a Mary Sue in this game). This kept me from really connecting and relating to her character). -the progression system feels broken. There are one or two insane difficulty spikes pretty early in the game. This is due to the Open World design, since there is no incremental increase in difficulty, just two huge leaps. As an inexperienced low level player the enemies the game threw at me were incredibly overwhelming. I was constantly low on ressources and went through the game in stealth mode but still died countless times. At level 50 however, with better stats, skills and equipment i didn't feel challenged at all. Because the game world pretty much has the same difficulty wherever you go it gets really hard for a while and then easier and easier and my inventory was cluttered with ressources. -facial animations ****. dialoge scenes and cutscenes in general are rather weak -some quests i really didn't like. There is some filler in there and other quests feel broken (e.g. the Hunter trials, where you have to perform timed trials and then get rated. Unfortunately they usually go like: best possible rating on first try or they feel close to impossible) -many gameplay mechanics are ripped off from other games but not build upon, sometimes they also don't really fit into the game world (e.g. Aloy can do incredible Uncharted-style climbing, but only in specific areas, in other areas she can't even get over a small fence. Pretty frustrating in an Open World) -the skill tree felt rather bland to me) All in all not really a must buy, but if you are looking for a Open-World game with pretty graphics and cool monsters this is a good pick

Hellblade is a unique but maybe rather niche game. Some people set themselves up for disappointment, since Hellblade was made by the same developers as for example the recent Devil May Cry game. So let this be said. Hellblade is not Hack and Slash, but rather an immersive Action-Adventure with psychological horror elements. You are playing Senua, trapped on an island, suffering from mental disease(causing her to hear voices and twist her perception of reality in a very dark way). There is no hud, as you try to overcome obstacles, solve environmental puzzles and engage in combat to get closer to the goddess Hella. If you didn't know already: Hellblade was developed on a tight budget with no big pubkisher interfering, and it shows (in a good way). The game doesn't follow many of the missteps of recent triple A games. There are no useless collectibles and the game feels very streamlined to it's core elements. While gameplay maybe could have been expanded on a little bit, it's completely sufficiant to emtertain for the 8 hours it takes to complete the story. Also the graphics are really impressive(maybe except for a few low res textures), especially when taking the limitations into account that they had to work around due to budget constraints. Audio is unique and very immersive (but sadly only if you play on headphones). All in all Hellblade may not be a huge innovator gameplay wise, but it is a very immersive and streamlined experience that reminds me of some of the great games from the PS2/PS3 era, where games didn't need to be 60 hours, open world, multiplayer and filled with stupid content just for the sake of it. Hellblade is just a nice concept that was fleshed out into an 8 hour game with no season pass or other crap. Plus it is priced fairly at half the price of other AAA titles. Due to it's unique presentation i think it is also a game that i'd really enjoy replaying maybe once a year (so overall playtime may end up closer to 15 hours or even 20, rather than 8)

I've heard so many people say that What remains of Edith Finch is so much more than a walking simulator, so i gave it a try. Unfortunately i discovered that in fact IT IS JUST A WALKING simulator, and a really short one at that. You get 2 hours of gameplay (that you will never want to re-experience because the game is incredibly linear) for $20, which quite expensive. Gameplay feels clunky (escpecially movement). The story presents itself in very unique chapters, each with their own visual style and way of storytelling. However i'm not really that fond of the story itself either. It's good, don't get me wrong, but definitely not a masterpiece or must see. In fact it has a few problems, so without getting into spoilers let's just say that: 1. I have no idea what tone they were going for, the overall story seems to be rather sad and melancholic, but then there are (supposedly tragic?) moments that are just hilarious and silly. 2. Also has to do with 1. but in general the story lacked weight in my opinion. That has to do with tone issues but also with the fact that this feels more like a colorful book rather than a game. Most of the story is just being told to you. Other games make so much more use of their medium by having you experience a story through interaction and gameplay. I have a hunch that this could have easily just been a book or 60 minute movie (except that reviews then propably wouldn't have been so kind). All in all: Good enough story 8/10 Gameplay/controls **** 2/10 Decent graphics with very unique presentation for different chapters 8/10 Too short for 20 bucks