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My partner played this game in 2021 and completed it, I helped her with a few sections and even though I had also planned to play this game at some point, I did not have an idea of when that would actually be. Fast forward to the beginning of 2022 and I decided to finally scratch this one off the list, especially knowing that a sequel is due to arrive later in the year. Story - The plot itself is interesting enough to pull you along, the land of France has been infested with a plague of rats and it is about a Sister and Brother who has their world, their home and their family torn upside down due to this which leads to a fight for survival. What really sells me is the relationship between Amicia and Hugo, Sister and Brother, their relationship growth is rather predictable but I loved these two together and I wanted nothing more than to ensure Amicia protected Hugo. You also run into other characters as you go and a lot of them are very likable, even though some got more development then others, because it was so hard to find characters that Amicia and Hugo could trust, latching onto these guys was very easy. Again, the overall plot is all good, but the absolute winner is the characters, especially Amicia and Hugo. Gameplay - You are looking at very limited combat here, stealth is the focus, for some they would say that is not acceptable (and some negative reviews clearly do), but I will say it loud and clear, don't go into this game expecting intricate combat because that is not the purpose here. You are playing as a young adult who is there to look after her little brother, so your job is to sneak passed enemies, distract them, and use crafting materials at your disposal to survive. There are elements of combat here like a dodge mechanic and using a sling to attack enemies with rocks and such, but this is not a game where you are all powerful. Your enemies are war trained knights, as well as rats who you also need to evade, puzzle elements are implemented here which you need to solve to get by, doing so unsuccessfully usually results in an instant death to Amicia or whoever is accompanying her, there is no health bar, you might think that makes the game very hard, but if you go in with the mindset of sneaking and not trying to brute force your way through, you will have a much easier time. I think what the game wants you to do is done well and I didn't have any major complaints on the gameplay side of things. Graphics - It is a very beautiful game, the game takes place in a 1300s France so you get some beautiful landscapes but the darker stuff is very dark, you may be trying to slip paste a horde of bloodthirsty rats to then walking along a battlefield riddled with dead bodies all over the place, this is a dark game and intended for mature audiences only. Collectibles and customization - You do have customization in this game like upgrading your sling, or certain items you can use to get by, you find crafting materials as you go and I did manage to upgrade everything except one thing by the end of the game. On top of that, you do have several pieces of collectibles that you can pick up like flowers that Hugo loves, these include fun little descriptions and information which I really enjoyed. Performance - I played on a fairly decent custom built PC and no major issues here, I had only frame drops whenever I got an achievement but that is about it. Final Rating - I had a wonderful time with this game, felt connected to the story and it's characters the whole way through, the gameplay is exactly what I expected to be, its about survival and protecting the ones closest to you (especially Hugo). It is a beautifully dark game with some a really impressive soundtrack, and with a sequel on the way, there is no better time to play the game than right now.

I bought Unity when it first came out and I really wanted to like it, unfortunately the game was plagued with glitches and bugs, and overall it felt like there was a lot of ambition put into the game that either wasn't completed or perfected, had this game been cooked in the oven a little longer, I feel it would've been better. But I never finished the game when I first played, I also went back several years later and tried again but due to other games, I stopped playing it again. Finally I decided to commit and finish it, I am very much happy I did. Story - It isn't really anything mind blowing here. You play as Arno who gets roped up in a murder and is a suspect for it, after landing in prison for a while, he gets involved with someone who introduces him to the Assassin Order and he himself becomes one. The rest of the game is essentially about solving the murder and linking everything together. Not the best AC story but passable. Arno himself is fine, but he lacks charisma once he is an Assassin, prior to this he is a bit of a jokester, something you'd see with Ezio, though his development as an Assassin is entirely different, he sheds all of that and basically becomes what feels to be a shell of someone who obviously has an interest in Elise (childhood friend) but is mostly obsessed with solving the murder that he was accused of committing, he is not a bad Assassin, just not a memorable one. Combat & Stealth - Being that this was the first real AC game that was developed primarily for the new generation of consoles (at that time), it had been re-worked with very high ambition, this will branch out to other things in the game besides just gameplay but combat feels very new, you are put into situations where going up against multiple enemies is a genuine challenge at times and you need to either risk the death and fight, or do the smart thing and run. There is a levelling system introduced here so as you upgrade your gear, the more powerful you get, after doing main missions, you will accumulate points to increase your skills which will help also. The combat was fun but I found the stealth to be very hit or miss, most of the time I got caught and whether due to a lack of ability on my part, or just the game not having what I need to get the stealth portions done correctly, that is up to debate, but I did feel I lacked heavily in this area. Movement - The climbing mostly felt the same but there is a new feature for descending downward and this was a welcome inclusion and made getting about a bit easier, however there are times where it seems obvious that Arno can make certain leaps upward or downward but it just doesn't happen, or requires several clicks of the same button to make happen. This again felt like a big leap in the right direction, just not executed very well. Customization - I loved the different options to upgrade Arno in this game, you are given so many choices to make him feel like your own creation and I really appreciated that. You can change his clothing in pieces which holds individual benefits, you have a wide variety of weapons to choose from from one handed to heavy to guns etc. This was the first AC game to utilize customization to this scale and I applaud them for the inclusion. Graphics and Performance - From the first time I played the game to now, there is some improvements but there are bugs present, you will see objects floating in the area, pop in, among other things. The look of the game is incredible though, on PC, this game could have come out this year and be accepted. Paris is gorgeous and so many times I just had to stop and look. Crowds are another thing, there are a lot of NPCs and sure they might not be doing a whole lot, or aren't very well programmed, but it makes the world feel bigger and despite the glitches I mentioned, it is incredible how many can be on the screen at once without a massive drop in performance. I didn't experience it a whole lot but there are some frame rate drops from time to time, but not enough to ruin the experience. Multiplayer - This was a big sell for Unity, a huge part of the marketing and I remember playing it when it first came out and it was downright unplayable, frequent bugs, lots of lag and doing certain things just wouldn't work. I have played some multiplayer missions more recently as a duo and a team of four, there is a delay noticeable like killing an enemy, they take a while to drop and you never know if they actually died, there are disconnections, bugs that prevent you from finishing. I recommend trying it out but don't expect much. Collectibles - There is a lot of them, I feel too much and should've been dialed back a bit. Final Rating - I think AC Unity was hit hard with poor reviews due to how it released, since then I feel some of this has been corrected and runs better, and I hope people give it another chance as it is a fun game, it has it's issues but deep down there is a fun game here.

My partner and I do not play co-op games too often, but I am always on the look out for one that might get us snuggling up on the couch for some video game fun, so when It Takes Two was shown it was immediately added to my list, it wasn't until seeing the game win Game of the Year for the VGAs 2021 that pushed me to finally download the game and what a great decision that was. Story - The story is quite simple, it is about a married couple named May and Cody who have fallen out of love and are organizing their divorce, this takes quite a toll on their young daughter - Rose who wishes for them to stop fighting and becoming close again, due to this wish, both May and Cody are transferred into the dolls that Rose made of them, and they are now on a journey to rebuild their broken marriage. My partner and I had a lot of fun with this, even though its predictable, seeing both May and Cody work together, starting as quite cruel to one another and gradually learning to care for each other again was really nice. Gameplay - This is a platforming game for the most part with co-op, but I have never seen a more diverse game in my life. There are 7 chapters overall, and the variety of gameplay elements here is truly outstanding, you will go from your usual platforming to riding Frogs, to controlling a flying machine made of underpants, to flying around in jetpacks fighting to steal keys from devil-like bat creatures, it is endless. I honestly stopped and looked at my partner very often and just said "This game is incredible, there are so many new things they keep throwing at you". Each chapter also gives May and Cody different items/weapons to use to help each other out throughout the game which just adds so much more to it. Cooperation - This is very much a cooperative game so if you don't have someone to play with whether it be locally or with a friend online, then you will not be able to play this game as it is strictly cooperative, this may be a barrier for certain people and that is a shame, that is probably my only negative but for this game to be as great as it is, it needs to be strictly a cooperative game, it is very much designed with this in mind and having a single player option would not provide the experience that is intended and might even sour the co-op experience if single player is being accounted for in the gameplay as well. I will say that there are a variety of gameplay elements here to that keep things fresh, neither my partner nor I ever felt like we were more in control of a situation when compared to the other, and we both felt like we had our parts to play to progress and help each other, it is so well designed and I cannot credit this amazing development team enough, they knocked this out of the park completely. My girlfriend and I would regularly clear a section and give each other a high 5 to celebrate, it really brought us a lot of joy. Difficulty - Now for me personally, the difficulty is fine but if you are like me and you have a partner or a person you are playing with that isn't super big on games, or is a casual gamer then there may be moments of struggle here, there are a lot of fun changes in gameplay that will require both of the players to be ready to change it up. Luckily for me, my partner handled everything mostly fine, there was one section where I had to grab the controller from her, but otherwise, aside from occasional moments to pause and explain, she was fine when playing. The game is not hard, but if you are playing with someone who doesn't play games often then you will need to be patient and assist them from time to time. Graphics & Level Design - All of the levels are so well made, May and Cody are dolls so everything is on a big scale compared to them, you get a nice balance of levels that look like something you'd recognize in a real life, but there are changes made to make it more like out of a kid's imagination and fantasy which works very well and makes the levels memorable. On Series X, the game is absolutely gorgeous and I just had to stop and stare multiple times, as did my partner. Competitive - There are mini games throughout each chapter that you can find and play with the 2nd player, these are competitive games so if you both want to take a break from working together and put your skills to the test against each other than this game has you back, like the levels, all the mini games are very different and there are 25 to find, of course my partner and I had to find them all. Final Rating - There is more I wish I could say about the game but the character limit.. Just know that there is a very good reason why It Takes Two made Game of the Year in the VGAs for 2021 and it should be enjoyed by more people. Of course without a 2nd player, this may be tough for you to do so, but if you can find someone, whether it be a partner, friend, or family member, then definitely do so, you won't regret the time spent with May and Cody.

I have been playing the Halo series since Halo 2 came out and though I look back on 1, 2, 3 and Reach very fondly, 4 and 5 (though enjoyable) wasn't hooking me like the other games, don't get me wrong, it was still a blast to play but it just didn't have that same effect as the original trilogy and Reach. However I was quite hyped for Infinite and I am very much impressed with the game. Story - Halo has a very deep story with lots of lore found in all forms of media from games, to shows, to novels, to comics, trying to keep up to date with everything can be quite difficult. The story here does follow a very simple path from start to finish which is great, but among it is a lot of detail that can be found, and audio logs are scattered everywhere to add to the story. My only real concern comes from what happened after 5, I could be wrong but I feel like I was missing parts of what happened, and that Infinite tried to explain some of it, but I was a little confused at points. It may be that some of the story after 5 was explained in Halo Wars 2 or in something else, but hard for me to say. I felt caught up by the end for the most part, just felt a little confusing at first. Graphics - Some might say its a little dated but I have absolutely no issues with the look of the game, I played on my PC with settings cranked to as high as possible and I thought it looked gorgeous all the time, I didn't feel the game was lacking anywhere. Being out in the open world can be breathtaking at times, especially with the day and night cycle doing it's thing. Maybe not the prettiest game to some, but I loved it. Gameplay - It feels very much like Halo, but more traditional Halo with some abilities thrown it that you can use throughout the campaign or multiplayer from a grapple hook to a deployable shield to sensor that reveals enemy locations, all of which could be upgraded as you play. You get a wide variety of weapons to play with, and not once did I ever feel I was completely returning to the weapons I was familiar with, in some situations I was using whatever I could get my hands on and trying to make the absolute best of it. 343 smashed this one out of the park, not one time did I feel bored with the shooting. Campaign - We are moving into an open world game here and for the better I think, it changed the formula a bit which is nice for Halo as it has been going for so long. This may not appeal to everyone but if you are familiar with open world games, expect to see similar traits found in those, such as respawning enemies when returning to areas, a variety of points of interest you can go to, capturing outposts, finding upgrades around the map, its all here and I get **** into map completion in games like this, and Halo Infinite was no different. I played on Heroic for my first run and felt the game was quite challenging, you cannot just run into enemy locations and expect to come out with your life and for the most part I felt the AI was quite smart. Grunts were typically not the brightest as you'd expect but I found Brutes charging at me, Jackals slowly creeping up on me to box me in, Elites shooting from afar only until I would get close and then try to take me down with a sword, very good stuff here. Overall I felt the campaign was a very positive experience and completing it in around 20-23 hours was not a drag at all. Multiplayer - I have only played the Multiplayer prior to the full game release so I am not entirely sure if anything else was added but there was Quick Play, Big Team Battle and Ranked modes, all of which you could not not choose your specific mode to play like Team Slayer, Swat, Capture the Flag etc, not sure if this has since changed but I would've like that option to choose. I am not huge into multiplayer but I loved my time with it here. it feels completely different to how I felt with Halo 4 and 5, this one felt more like I remember from 3 and Reach. Maps have a good amount of variety and all weapons from the campaign were in here too. The progression system was lacking a bit, you have a levelling system, as you level you gain access to certain rewards but it mostly seems littered with xp boosts, challenge swaps, player banners etc while a few are armour pieces, I know that this will be improved over time but it does feel like this is lacking and that they want you to spend real money for the better stuff. I hope they change this over time. Also making it so you earn xp just from playing games and not just from doing challenges would be nice too. It has some growing to do but still good! Music - A very good chunk of classics and new here, you will not be disappointed! Final Rating - There is so much more I could say about this game but 5000 max character limit. I don't feel its my game of the year but I can assure you its close to the top of the list. 343 has given us a few good Halo games, but this one is definitely a huge improvement and feels familiar yet fresh. Play it!

Was always intending on playing this game after my time with Resident Evil 1 HD, with my plan to complete all the main line RE games within the next year or two. I was highly anticipating this game in the series based on the incredible reception it received in 2019 when it released. I should mention also that I never played the original game, so I don't have a comparison for you here. Visuals - This game is absolutely gorgeous, the character models look great whether it be your human characters such as Leon, Claire, Sherry or Ada, or the zombies which I spent some time looking at their character models in the menu, there is a lot of detail put into the visuals and you will notice this almost immediately, the atmosphere of each section in the game is great, from the police station, to the sewer, the lab etc. Combat - I played on standard difficulty, there are options to play Hardcore but you will be limited in saves which I wasn't a fan of from the first RE game so opted out for this one. It is a survival horror so avoiding combat is helpful to you when you can, but when it is needed, I felt very much in control of what I was doing. The shooting mechanics work great, you cannot just spam your shooting otherwise your accuracy will suffer and headshots are very important, shooting zombies is a treat as you can see sections of their body tear off as you take your shots and it is visually very pleasing. Other sections of combat would be your boss battles and felt they were all fun, following a similar format to zombies, shoot and run, the only thing I would have wished for was a dodge button of some sort, as sometimes it was difficult to avoid getting attacked, this was introduced in later RE games, but yeah would've been nice to have it here, not necessary though. Combat is a big plus for me and a big step up from the RE1 remake where I mostly felt I had very little control of what I was doing in combat. Story - You have a choice between playing as Leon or Claire, after a google search, it seemed most people were recommending to play as Claire first and then do Leon in the 2nd Run section as that concludes the story completely. I have played as Claire in full, but Leon I am currently in the middle of my 2nd Run with him. I cannot give a full view of the story, but just from Claire's story, I was very much satisfied, sibling of Chris Redfield, who I know very well, I am not as familiar with Claire so this was a real treat for me. Both characters head into Racoon City together to find it overrun with zombies and the plan is rather simple, seek help, but when that fails, get out, though both find alternate goals along their tale. Overall, happy with the story, nothing too complex, just what I wanted. Performance - Rather quick thing to go over but played on my relatively decent gaming PC at max settings for most things (or close to max settings), You get a lot of options in selecting how you want the game to look and perform which is really nice as you can limit certain things you don't care for to improve performance and the ensure your PC can handle it. During my gameplay, I didn't encounter a single issue, no crashes, no major framerate issues, no glitches, was a 10/10 performance experience. Scary - For me personally, not really, but I am a fan of horror and can handle it quite well, the atmosphere of the game is fantastic, it does create the vibe of being cautious of what is around certain corners, what is really dead, and it does contain some jump scares but nothing too major. I definitely felt creeped out during parts but I was mostly impressed with just how well designed it is, the police station feels relatively simple and you may encounter a zombie falling from a higher floor which may startle you, but when you move to locations like the sewers or the lab, you will find different enemies that may get a reaction out of you. Expoloration and Item Management - Not much to say here, but it was difficult to do this in the first RE as the game is not designed with modern gameplay styles and it was kind've a slog to get through, but for RE2, you will be balancing out weapons for combat, to keep you alive and to solve puzzles. Expect to explore around each location and grab whatever you can to help you, if you like to look in every nook and cranny, this will be your cup of tea, I loved it in this game, was great to find different items and never once got stuck where I needed a walkthrough. You will be going back to save rooms to swap out items often, but you do come across pouches that increase your carry capacity which is so welcomed from me. Final Rating - I only have minor issues in relation to the game, I never felt that I was having a bad time, it was a complete reverse with how I felt about RE1, this game took everything I loved from RE1 and perfected it into a modern game for the 2nd in the series.

I still remember close to 15 years ago when I got my hands on a copy of Pearl, was only a teenager at the time and didn't have a DS so I borrowed my Cousin's DS to play it. On the first night I was up until 5-6am playing it in bed rather than going to sleep, I had an absolute blast. When I heard of the remakes, I was excited to return to Gen 4, but as with any Pokemon game that releases, I will definitely play it, because even the rough ones, they are still great games. Graphics - Well they have definitely been changed up a bit! At first I was against the new design, but over time it grew on me and I found it to be very cute, as did my partner who was playing Brilliant Diamond alongside me. It felt very much like the original, no major changes in terms of the layout of the game, but the graphical improvements made it feel somewhat new and refreshing which I enjoyed. The Pokemon battles themselves reflected the newer games being in a 3D environment which is what I would have expected, I will always cherish the sprite based battles but these 3D battles is the way it should be and remain from now on. Changes - There isn't a whole lot of changes besides a few things such as an exp share that cannot be turned off so your Pokemon will level up despite not being in battle and this can make the game pretty easy, early on I was training up to 25 different Pokemon (no lie) to keep their levels lower and have a bit more of a challenge, you can also access your PC box from anywhere after a certain point in the early game much like the newer games, so that will feel similar to the younger crowd or newcomers who are familiar with these recent Pokemon games, it doesn't bother me necessarily, it is more convenient, I just wonder if its better to have an option to turn EXP share off. You have the Poketch app as well, playing docked makes the app a little difficult to manage as it was used a 3DS tool with the touch screen in the original, so that can be a bit annoying but if you are playing handheld, no major issues besides having to load it up on screen to use it. Not many other changes really come to mind, it feels very much like the originals for the most part. Bugs and glitches - There were some minor issues, occasions where the screen would take a while to load, and even a situation where my partner was in a battle and she clicked on a move to use but the screen just stayed still and she could not doing anything other than close the game and re-open, having to start where she last saved, I didn't experience this issue myself but it did feel like the quality we'd expect from this series was lacking just a tad but not enough to ruin the experience. Common complaints - Lets just put this on the table because I am seeing negative scores purely based on these reasons - There are no major changes in this remake, there is no national desk, they didn't base it on the Platinum version etc etc. This seems to be a review bomb of negativity that will forever plague the Pokemon series because people are unhappy they are not being given exactly what they want despite clear signs of what the game is from trailers and such. I personally am most fond of my time with Pearl, but also Pearl was made with the new pokemon in mind, and the Platinum version expanded on the pokemon a bit more including ones from previous games, but I don't need them to include the whole pokedex, Pearl and Diamond was there as an introduction to a new world, a new generation of pokemon and this is the first experience people had with generation 4 so giving that experience to newcomers of Pokemon is not a bad thing. There is also the complaint that there is no major changes in the remake but I can guarantee if there were major changes, then people would complain about them changing too much. Its my personal belief that people are expecting way too much from these games at times when this is nothing more than a remake of a classic, just because it isn't based on your favourite one (Platinum) then I don't think its fair to give it a 0, you knew what to expect when you saw the names of the games advertised. So if you are like me and just want to return to Pearl and Diamond, or you are new to the series, then definitely pick this up, you will have a great time, and I never really have a bad time playing Pokemon, its always good fun. Final Rating - For Pokemon fans like myself who wanted to go back and play the original with updated graphics and some minor changes, this is great and I finished the game in less than 10 days just because it is so easy to play and have a good time. If you are wanting more from the remake then I would suggest maybe skipping this one as it doesn't do anything overly different to the original.

So I finally got around to this very popular game. Have heard about it quite a bit for the last few years, also heard it was quite difficult, have always been interested in it but games with high levels of difficulty are usually chosen carefully by myself, as it really is dependent on the mood I am in at that time. Despite having some moments of frustration, I am glad to have completed this one and ready to give my thoughts. Story - Lets start with the more simple side of things, you play as a female character, who you can name, though I went with the default which is Madeline, and she wants to climb Celeste mountain, her motivations for this aren't very clear to us nor even her but you embark on this journey with Madeline and see some growth in her character as she makes the dreaded climb. I was happy with the overall outcome, yes it's simplistic, but the story is nice and the characters are in short supply but very memorable. This is the perfect balance of story for this type of game in my view, it doesn't overstay its welcome in any way. Gameplay - Its a 2D platforming game where you are tasked with clearing 7 chapters for the base game, using only 3 main buttons to do so, that being a jump, a dashing move and a climbing button, this is all you get throughout the game and its all you need really, each Chapter has a different look, and a different gimmick, some type of new platforming mechanic or a unique puzzle idea, I loved it. Some levels are better than others, I disliked Chapter 5 towards the end thanks to some enemies called Seekers who would painfully chase you down throughout most of the level, but I loved pretty much every level for their unique design. I had a great time with the game despite some frustrating moments due to difficulty which I will follow up with below... Difficulty - Tis a hard one. I played all 7 Chapters and yes there is more to the game, but it is mostly the same thing with higher levels of difficulty and slight differences in the story from what I have heard. I was happy to stop after the credits, and felt the game was difficult but as you access different screens of the game, if you die there, you will just be warped back to that starting area of the screen so you never feel very punished for failing, which only encourages you to keep at it. The game is rewarding with the screen progression, every time I encountered a tough part, nothing felt better then getting the screen to change to a new area as I knew I was making progress. My partner also got the game and despite her being a very casual gamer, she is enjoying the game a lot, and seems to have the same feeling I do when she gets passed a difficult part. So if the difficulty scares you, give it a go if you can, you may be surprised by how enjoyable it is despite the difficulty. Controls - I started using a keyboard and even after doing some personal key binding, it just did not work for me, so I switched to a controller. Because you need to make some precise moves in the game, using the analogue stick can lead to many mistakes, where you mean to go straight left, you might shoot diagonally up to the left which can be a little annoying. You won't have this issue with the keyboard as you are pressing individually keys (not a stick) but again, I just couldn't get into using a keyboard. I would occasionally switch to using my D-Pad on the controller but only for the more complicated sections. This is a nit pick really though, ultimately I got around this without too much issues. Graphics - Pixel graphics! You cannot go wrong, you don't get facial features or anything on our characters, its not gonna be super detailed, but I enjoy games that look like this. Very simple but charming all at the same time. There character expressions in the dialogue screen are fantastic though, there is a few different versions for each character and all of them are adorable. Music - Loved it, very catchy and beautiful tunes to listen to as you play, some are better than others but this is a definite positive in my book. Final Rating - I had a great time with this game. It definitely is difficult and did lead me to some groans of anger, but for the most part I was having such a fantastic time, I beat the game in just two days because I could not stop playing it, only thing that would stop me was my personal life or work (mostly work). Definitely worth giving this game a try, you can find it for a reasonably cheap price as it isn't a very long game if you just play the base game (about 10-15 hours), but you can do all the additional stuff which will definitely extend your playtime by quite a bit, but yes, definitely give it a go!

With Aragami 2 recently coming out, I decided to pick up the first game as it was on sale for Steam and I have heard good things about it. You play as a character known as Aragami, you are summoned to help collect several talismans for somebody who needs to be rescued, along the way you will sneak passed a multitude of enemies, getting scrolls to help you gain more abilities and utilizing these to best assist you when you make a mistake and get spotted which happened to me a bit... Visuals/graphics - Want to start with this as it was the thing that drew me to the game at first. It is a cel shaded style game and I think it looks really good, not Breath of the Wild good but still really pretty to look at. There are a lot of enemies that look the same but this is just a minor thing, and to be honest, the detail of the game was never really something I was overly interested in. Story - It is predictable in my view, but I still enjoyed it, it isn't anything overly different, it won't change your life. You get cutscenes here and there, with some dialogue throughout gameplay and flashback scenes, but they are sprinkled fairly lightly throughout and you will not be plagued with long drawn out scenes. For the simplicity of the story, the amount of it that they give is perfect in my opinion. Gameplay - I had a good time here with gameplay, its also fairly simplistic (much like the story), you need to stay in the shadows to remain hidden, you can either avoid enemies entirely or go out of your way to kill them all. I personally was middle of the road, sometimes I would pick apart some enemies, other times I would just sneak my way through, the game is more difficult if you intend to go for the scrolls. Being detected means trouble as you die with one hit, this may sound unfair but I played on Normal difficulty and I really didn't have much of an issue with it, whenever I failed, it was mostly because I was careless, and even though there are complaints about this game with it's checkpoint system, I don't think the checkpoints are that cruel. Abilities - You obtain about 5-6 scrolls each level that are scattered around the map, I would suggest immediately investing in the ability to be able to locate these scrolls in your surroundings as they will give you access to more abilities to have more fun with the game. Once I had this ability, I obtained every scroll in the game and when you get towards the end, there is so much fun to be had with utilizing all these skills in different ways. One of my favourites was setting a trap on the ground, calling 3 guards over by ringing a bell and then activating the trap to see them get **** into a shadow ball of death, very cool. Some skills are better than others but it is up to you to find out what works best for you. You can obtain all abilities in one playthrough so there isn't much reason to go back and play the chapters again aside from getting a higher ranking. Technical issues - Not much to say here other than some frame rate issues on PC, was VERY minor though. This isn't really a technical issue but you have an ability where you can create a shadow on the ground and then use that to warp to it, it wasn't always clear where you could do this, in some areas outside the shadows you could do it but other locations you just couldn't, there is definitely some roughness to the game but it is a newer developer so I give them a pass. Music - There is some nice background music while you play and I really love the theme for this game, if you haven't heard it then look it up, it sounds absolutely gorgeous. Final Rating - Lince Works is the developer for this game and they have only ever made Aragami 1 and 2, so you need to keep that in mind when judging the game, its not gonna be some grandiose adventure. However for their first attempt at a game, I enjoyed this one, its not perfect, a lot of the gameplay and story is simplistic but I am still impressed and mostly what I care about is having fun, which I most definitely did. Great job to them. This game may not be for everyone, but if you like stealth games and aren't expecting Metal Gear Solid levels of stealth, then give this one a go.

Controversial review incoming! My experience with the RE series is not very deep. I have played RE 5 (not completed), RE 6 (Completed) and RE7 (Completed) but never any of the originals or the more recent. I have always been interested in the series so with a little nudge from one of my favourite streamers, I decided to buy the first game and start a journey on the RE series. A disclaimer here, my opinions are my own and though they may conflict with yours, please do know that I understand why this game is so popular and loved, and if you haven't played the game yourself, I would urge you to give it a try. Visuals - Well its very dated xD, even the HD remake, obviously its not gonna look like the games we have today, the graphics have been made to look much more appealing but don't expect a top of the line experience in this department. However, I still think this game is gorgeous, the atmosphere as well is just so good and really captures the creepy nature of the game. I personally had no issues with the visuals and was happy just the way it was. Camera - You do not control any camera at all in this, the backgrounds will shift as you move and though this is not a fun killer, it is most definitely irritating at times when you are walking and the camera cuts but your controls don't correct themselves so you kinda waddle in place changing the background back and forth as you do so. This is especially irritating when you need to see what is ahead of you to defend yourself. It definitely can make the game more scary, and some of the shots of the camera are really cool, but from a gameplay perspective, I was not a big fan of this one. This brings me to the combat.. Combat - I don't know about this one, its a survival horror so its mostly about preserving ammo and avoiding conflict but this isn't always possible and it can lead to some annoying situations, you don't get direct control of where you are shooting, you just need to point in the direction of the zombies and fire, but as mentioned above with the camera, this can be hard to do as you sometimes need to run back to turn yourself around and take a few shots before the enemy can get to you. This can also make the camera change which takes the enemy out of your sight so you have to shoot them off camera and hope you are hitting them, there is nothing fun about this, I am sorry. Don't even get me started on the dogs, just health munchers, they latch onto you and just chomp down on your itty bitty life. Again, I am completely aware the combat isn't the biggest focus here but it is sometimes mandatory to take out the enemies, and this was never fun for me. Puzzles - I actually enjoyed the puzzles for the most part, I thought they were quite fun and interesting to work out, though I have a bit more about to say about that below. But I am a big fan of exploration and just finding little bits of lore to learn about, and sometimes you will need to explore to find certain items to solve puzzles or obstacles. Sometimes it isn't always very clear what you are supposed to do so you may need a guide handy. Inventory management - I hate this so much. I have nothing against inventory management, I recently played Dead Space 2 and the game is all about that. But here it is just frustrating, going through doors has a little cutscene of the door opening which just takes time, and it slows the game down quite a bit. You get access to certain rooms with storage cupboards but they are not common enough which means a lot of backtracking. You are never always sure what you need without a guide, so it can be a lot of trial and error here. Story - I enjoyed the story a lot, I loved learning about the mystery of the mansion and what was going on there. The voice acting is silly for sure but if you can look passed that, you can enjoy what is being told, lots of mystery and fun to be had in figuring it all out. Difficulty - Time to confess, I played the first half of this game without a single guide, but then I got frustrated by the game. I understand you get quite a bit of saves you can do but the fact they are limited had my anxiety going through the roof the whole way through, dying could mean 30 minutes of catching back up which is infuriating, I have not been this angry when dying in a game for a very long time. Eventually I decided to use a walkthrough to carry me through the rest of the game and I honestly didn't feel bad about it. I may not be looked at too fondly for this but I want to be completely honest in how the game affected me to the point that I just had to use a guide. There are a lot of strategies that can be used to make the game easier and a lot of things I found in this guide I feel I never would've figured out on my own. Final Review - I understand this won't be a popular review but I wanted to be completely honest. This game was not my cup of tea. I most definitely will continue the series, but I am happy to move on from this one.

My history with the Mario Party series is not that deep, I have memories as a kid of playing the N64 games but never played the Gamecube or Wii games. I did play the recent Super Mario Party for Switch which got about 60-70 hours of game time shared between me, my girlfriend and our friend group, and as fun as that experience was, there was definitely some stuff missing from that game. But here is Mario Party Superstars, a blast from the past and full of all that goodness that can cause the ultimate betrayals among the people you play with! Mario Party Superstars includes 5 total boards from the original 3 Nintendo 64 games. There is 2 boards from the first game, 2 from the second, and 1 from the third. Graphically, the game has been updated and all the boards look amazing, if you were a fan of the original games, this will be special for you. The boards themselves haven't changed in terms of how you play on them, aside from some differences here and there, it definitely has the newer Mario Party feel when compared to the more recent Super Mario Party and some additions that wasn't there in the original, like the lucky spaces, there is a lot of them though I feel this was to give casual and/or newer players more of a chance against the veterans who know their Mario Party. For the most part, it feels like the same boards as you remember. There are a total of 100 minigames, all taken from games across Mario Party from 1-10 which is pretty awesome. There was a lot of recognizable games here and some may have made me glance at the palm of my hand, I am still recovering from my N64 injuries of playing Tug o’ War, which is included here but also comes with a warning to NOT use the palm of your hand which got a giggle out of me. Overall I am happy with the game inclusions, I am sure there are people out there who didn't get their favourites but you aren't going to please everybody. There is a lot of variety in the games and plenty to enjoy. My time has only been spent playing it with my girlfriend at the moment with 2 CPUs. We have both played all the boards now and have had an absolute blast. I have not had the chance to play online yet though my girlfriend most definitely has, she is quite into the game and plays it against people online each day since it was released, to the point where I had to buy her the game for her own Switch as she kept using mine. Online inclusion is great and you can play full boards with other people from across the world, with stickers to help you communicate with them. Online play with the full boards was something that was missing from the last Mario Party so its great to see it in this one. For the performance online, even watching her I can see some regular lag during mini games especially that probably will be a little difficult to make the experience incredibly enjoyable, but overall it still seems playable. Final Rating - This is a fantastic game for a group of people to play or even just by yourself (though most fun with people), it brings you such a huge amount of nostalgia but is also great for newcomers too. Online being included is also a necessary and highly welcomed feature as there are people who are still in lockdown or have restrictions on groups of people in one place so props to Nintendo for that, its not something they typically do well. Definitely a game to pick up, you will have a lot of fun!

I am a big fan of horror games and it was in 2020 that I decided to finally work on the Dead Space trilogy, I had played both Dead Space 1 and 2 prior but never made it very far, probably around Chapter 4-6 for each of them but I struggled with these types of games back then, however now I am not only much better but I love these types of games now. I completed Dead Space 1 in 2020 and aimed to complete Dead Space 2 in 2021 which I have done. Also just a side mention, I played on PC but I used my Xbox controller, did not experiment with the keyboard and mouse so not sure how that is for some people. Story - We left the first game with quite the cliffhanger, was a really awesome ending that made you wonder what happened, we got the answers to that here. The story is all good, just a little standard, you take control of Isaac Clarke once again who has been kept in a facility for several years, having his mind experimented on before the station it is overrun by Necromorphs once again. The whole plot isn't anything all that amazing, aside from some new information, it mostly feels like Dead Space 1 again. Regardless of that, I still enjoyed it and the ending was a nice little nod to the ending of the first game. Gameplay - Not much to say here, felt like the first game also, I found myself mostly sticking with 3-4 weapons and not experimenting much, early on I was going through my supplies rather quick and didn't feel like risking credits on a new weapon when I didn't know if I would take to it or not. My suggestion would have been to just have guns accessible to you as you play through the game, not locked behind in-game money that you needed to spend. The enemies this time around were familiar yet had some fresh stuff too, I did struggle a little more with this one than in the first game, not sure why but it felt like they throw multiple enemies at you from time to time and it was a little hard to deal with when Isaac doesn't have any means of dodging or blocking attacks, once a few enemies gang up on you, you are done. If you enjoyed the gameplay for Dead Space 1, you will be right at home here, I loved it despite the difficulty being a little harder. Scares - I am pretty tough when it comes to horror games, I loved the atmosphere of the first Dead Space, definitely got some good jump scares outta me, much like this one, though I definitely found myself to be less creeped out this time around, I was able to go from room to room without freaking out or looking at every corner. I don't know if that was just me, or if others felt the same, still has some truly spooky moments though. One of the creepiest moments for me was a scripted section where you can peek through a window and you see a woman call an infected baby to her, they cuddle for a moment and the baby just explodes, it was a intense and awesome! Love that stuff. Graphics - The game look fantastic on my PC. Cannot believe it is over a decade old! Still looks incredible. You can definitely see the age in faces and such, but the environment is great and doesn't feel nowhere near dated to play. The overall look of the game I am a big fan of, even if it does feel very similar to the first game. Music - Not much I can say in terms of score, but the ambient noises felt a little lacking here, which is something that was super common in Dead Space 1, it really built some tension, it wasn't like it was gone completely in this one but just felt like it had been dialed back a bit. Whoever is responsible for either game in terms of the sounds though, they are amazing, some of the creepiest sounds you will ever hear in a video game, mad props to those people. Final Rating - I am so happy to mark Dead Space 2 off my list of games, and I will most definitely be jumping into Dead Space 3 in 2022 to wrap up the trilogy completely. If you enjoyed Dead Space 1, definitely play this one, it is very much similar but still a lot of fun!

To begin, I just want to say that I have played FarCry 3, 4 and 5 with my personal favourite being 3, these games are most definitely fun however I was going to delay myself in playing this one until next year purely because I feel most of these games are the same type of thing and I just didn't want to jump back in right away, but after seeing a favourite streamer of mine play the game, I bit the bullet and got the game. Gameplay - Well if you have played FarCry 3, 4 or 5, then you will feel right at home here. Nothing has changed in the mechanics of the combat really, you get guns, upgrade the guns and shoot enemies. It is most definitely a fun time but if you have played all the entries of the series that I have, then you might be feeling a little burned out from it after a certain time playing this one. I adopted a stealth approach in this game and killed mostly with a suppressed sniper rifle, I found going all out combat made the game much more difficult so did my best to avoid it. Differences - This game is mostly the same as the others. The new additions are backpacks called Supremos that have certain effects like missile launches or health packs, plus Resolver weapons which are quirky guns you can use, I honestly didn't care for this feature too much. There are also Amigos which are pets who can travel alongside you and fight with you, but again, didn't care much for it. Visuals - This is a big win for me, I played on a fairly high end PC and felt the game looked absolutely gorgeous at times, particularly the landscapes which is when FarCry looks its best. Take a helicopter up into the sky and just look around, your jaw will drop, it is a stunning game. Everything on the ground looks good too. Crashing - I wanted to follow with this as I mentioned having a high end PC but I did experience regular crashes, probably every few hours I would play, I would experience at least one crash and as frustrating as it was, it didn't completely sour my experience of the game. I am not sure how the consoles differ but it is something to just look out for if you are playing on PC. Story - The story is basically the exact same thing, you will be doing everything that you were doing in the last games, which is try to free sections of land from a 2nd in command-type leader and taking them out, before eventually going up against the big baddie. In this case it is Anton Castillo who is played by the amazing Giancarlo Esposito, he steals the show whenever he is on screen and I immediately found myself becoming super focused whenever he would appear. I don't think its fair to compare him to other villains of FarCry as he is great in his own way. A big surprise is the main character - Dani, I played as the female version and she was fantastic, she has a great voice actor, is a bit cheeky and a badass, she was probably one of my favourite things from this experience, even just little things like her singing along to the radio music in the car was enough to win me over, very cute. I do feel we get a lot of time with other characters and not nearly as much time with Castillo, they are fine but nothing really to go crazy about, even the other main characters like Juan and Clara weren't all that interesting to me. Side Quests - There are a lot of these. You will be doing outposts, artillery takedowns, ambushes and a variety of other things and I did all of these, it will take you a lot of time and I don't recommend doing this if you have played previous games unless you really want to, because I got burned out rather easily after a while because it is mostly the same in this game, and it is the same for all the previous games too. As for other side quests, like side stories, there are those as well and some are really fun and interesting, like a mission where you have to escape from a massive amount of juiced up roosters for example, however in the later end of the game the side quests felt very lazy, you get a few photos on your phone with no marker and you just got to go find a multitude of these particular things to complete it, it becomes very frequent on the third island and wasn't overly fond of it at all. There are also treasure hunts which were my favourite type of side quests, felt like Indiana Jones hunting through caves while finding lore along the way, good stuff. Collectibles - There is a lot of stuff to collect, there are hundreds of chests to find that give guns and crafting items, there are roosters to obtain for **** fighting (didn't really care for that), plenty of sheets of paper containing lore etc. It will take you quite a long time to get everything and I didn't bother with the chests to be honest, it just wasn't worth the effort. Final Rating - It is a fun game but my biggest complaint is that it just feels more like the same thing and I am a little over the formula. After 52 hours of game time, I am very much ready to move onto something else.

What an absolute journey this is! I got my PS5 this year and despite always having a PS4, I had never got around to Detroit: Become Human, with the excitement of having a PS5, I got PS Plus and found that Detroit was included for free with this subscription so felt like a sign almost that I need to play the game. Story - I will avoid spoiler territory of course but I have never seen a game have this many branches in how it can play out. I felt very attached to our main 3 characters in Marcus, Kara and Connor as well as their individual journeys. Each of the actors who brought them to life did an amazing job and I truly was behind them the whole way. There are certain moments in the game where you need to use quick time events and doing something incorrectly enough times could lead to an outcome you don't want, and making any kind of mistake while doing these quick time events filled me with so much anxiety and that was because I truly cared about getting the best possible result for these characters, I cared that much. My only real complaint from this is that while Marcus and Kara had a goal I was behind, Connor was pretty much the opposite of what they and I wanted, and because of the conflict between these, I found it hard to play as Connor just because his ambitions didn't match those of the other two that I agreed with. Not a big problem, just something that I felt left me failing some of Connor's "missions" whereas I could've passed should I have done what the game wanted me to do. Outside of the story, just the world itself is incredible, I love how they tackle some pretty serious issues using their story elements as a way to do so, it is so interesting just to look around at everything. Graphics and Performance - Its hard to deny that this is easily one of the more beautiful games you will see, even just the faces of each character, so much detail is in them and you can easily detect when certain characters might be feeling a certain way based on their expressions. The overall look and design of the world is outstanding too. As for performance, I didn't have any major issues aside from one crash and some framerate problems when the game started to have some more action oriented scenes, it was a little irritating just because you had to make some quick time event moves here that led to some bad outcomes if you failed, but other than that it was fine. Music - A very beautiful soundtrack can be found here and if you have played games like Heavy Rain or Beyond: Two Souls then you will know already how much care and attention is put into the music that goes with the story and world, it is pulled off really well here, maybe not as memorable as Heavy Rain but still some truly amazing scores that hit real hard during the more intense moments of the game. Replayability - Just a little side section here but the branching paths for the story are pretty incredible, after each chapter you are shown this huge tree of branching storylines that indicate where it could've gone, yet they leave those blank as to encourage replayability. I will say that I am not currently interested in going back and playing the game again, mainly due to me having plenty of other games to play, but for those of you who do want to have a game where so many outcomes are possible, this is the game for you. I went on Reddit after finishing the game and just had so much fun reading over other people's story outcomes. There are cases where main characters die quite early on and it is wild to see how these events could happen differently to my own. I am mostly satisfied with the ending I received, I feel that the game truly had consequences based on the decisions I made which is a great thing. Final Review - I enjoyed this game so much that I would very much be down for a tv series based on this world, or even a set of novels. There is so much more to this that I want to explore and learn. Throughout the whole game we learn about a war between the US and Russia but it isn't the focus point of the story, just a side thing you can read about on various magazine articles, but there is clearly a lot that can be taken from this idea and put into something else. This game is highly recommended from me, especially if you really enjoy story based games like this.

Before we begin, just something to keep in mind, this game was developed by Ember Labs and it was the first game they made so not everything is going to be amazing, but if you look at this as a developer's first game, its actually quite impressive. Story - I had no complaints with the story to be honest, but I didn't feel like it was anything that truly hooked me. It is easy to follow and tied in well with what you were doing in the game, just wasn't anything overly special. Still enjoyed it though. Graphics and Performance - It goes without saying but this is one of the more beautiful games on the PS5 right now. It feels like an interactive Pixar movie. The idea of clearing out the corruption and allowing the area to look beautiful is a great idea too as the game is just so gorgeous that it feels really nice to accomplish this goal. Performance had some issues here and there, just some framerate drops which typically occurred during some fight scenes but nothing to ruin the game. Combat + Difficulty - These two I wanted to address in the same section because this game leads you into a false sense of security. The game starts off very easy, a lot of the enemies being a piece of cake, to the point where I started to believe this game might be focused more to children which would make sense with the graphics and cute characters... but nope. I played on the normal difficulty but this game gets hard real quick, when you start taking on some of the stronger enemies(mostly boss fights) they can really do a number on you. I genuinely felt the sudden shift in difficulty was a result of me just being bad at the game, so I turned to google and reddit to see if others expressed the same thoughts and a lot of people did feel the same. Is it a bad thing? No, I think the difficulty was fine and I appreciated the challenge, but it was just hard to wrap my mind around how abrupt how difficult the game suddenly became and definitely could've been handled better, that alone could be enough to turn people away from playing this as it is quite the shift. Luckily there is a story difficulty which will help the people who struggled with the standard difficulty but just something to keep in mind, this game does not go easy on you. The final boss definitely took me a few tries. As for the combat itself, I felt it was good fun, you don't get a whole lot to work with, its a fairly basic game compared to others of this style, but with the difficulty being at what it was, I felt I got to better know how to use what I had to help me beat them, this might not be a positive for others though. Upgades + Collectibles - Upgrades are ok, they don't dramatically change what you can do, some might be as simple as allowing you to shoot an extra arrow from your bow before it needs to cooldown, while another might add a charge based heavy attack to your offense. The collectibles are nothing all that special though, you level up your character by finding these cute little creatures called Rots who help you in battle so they are a collectible themselves really and feel good to find as the serve to upgrade your skills, but then you have hats and gems that you can find as well, the hats are there purely for cosmetic purpose which your Rots wear, and the gems are to buy those hats, it is cute but not all that exciting and doesn't change anything in the gameplay. You can also do certain things with the Rot that will earn praise-like points from them which can earn you upgrades which I discussed above, these are things like feeding them or fixing up statues that had fallen over, clearing corruption etc. I didn't go through and collect everything, but I felt this was just a little shallow, aside from the rots, I didn't feel a huge need to collect all this stuff. Music - I legitimately got Ori and the Blind Forest and Ori and the Will of the Wisp vibes from the music in this game, it is very beautiful and lends itself so well to the story, which is fitting because in Ori games there are elements of that where there is corruption around an otherwise beautiful world and you can clear it up. Final Review - I had such a fun time with this game and was surprised by how challenging it could be. One thing I need to mention again, but this was the first game made by this developer, you can definitely feel that it had some great ideas but not all of them were used in the best way, but I still had a genuinely good time and truly would love to see more from them. It might not be for everyone but I think it is worth giving a shot, just keep in mind the difficulty might be a little rough depending on your skill level but can always turn the difficulty down should you want to just enjoy the story.

My History - Have only ever played the NES game without completing it, and have completed Super Metroid earlier this year for the first time, that is my entire history with the series. Story - You are given story in little sections and with some cutscenes in the more intense moments, it is not heavy in any way and very easy to follow, even giving you a little recap of the story up to this point at the beginning of the game which is nice. I enjoyed it overall, I loved how simplistic it was and had some nice twists. Graphics & Performance - I only played the game while docked and the game ran fantastic for me, only stuttering that occurred was in loading screens, otherwise was nice and smooth. Graphics were fantastic as well, a lot of the levels were very atmospheric, you could see a lot of care and attention was put into the backgrounds as you could see enemies leaping around in the background or the local habitat doing their thing. The game looks dark and beautiful. Combat - If you are a fan of Super Metroid then I see a lot of similarities here but more refined, a lot of the power ups you tend to pick up are from Super Metroid but has some cool new additions as well, I loved the parry move which you can use on certain enemies to get some additional energy and ammo, this for boss fights was typically used as a quick time event which wasn't something that I cared for, but I had a wonderful time with the combat, never felt like your standard enemies were very difficult. Boss Fights - This game has had a lot of attention for being difficult and yeah I can agree that it is not an easy game, but I played Metroid Dread before reading any reviews and I am not particularly fond of mean and very difficult games, but not once did I feel this was beyond my skill level. Boss fights is where your skills are put to the test, but even if you die, you will always spawn right outside the room you did the fight in, you won't respawn from the last save point, that is something different from Super Metroid and is a big game changer for me. I could jump straight back in and do the fight again, even if I were to die a few times, each time I would progress further and learn their move patterns and the counter attacks for them, if this is something you are not interested in doing in a boss fight then I would suggest sticking with more lighter games. The final boss took me 6-7 times to defeat and yes there was some frustration but each time I did better and better once I learned the moves and I felt so satisfied when I beat it. This is all dependent on your skill level but I feel the difficulty may be getting too much of a negative view when it really isn't as bad as other games I have played. EMMI - The first few are fun, the more it goes on, the more annoying it becomes. The first few it is more fun to get caught and just run across the level and parkour your way to the exit, I found so much enjoyment in this, but later you encounter far less paths to avoid them, EMMI can appear right in front of a door you enter, the counter window to avoid instant death is not very forgiving, and I just wasn't a fan of having to sit there and wait for EMMI to go away, only to move a little and then have EMMI detect my movements again. This is probably the weakest point of the game in my view, luckily you don't have to deal with them too much and as I said, it is only the later few that really bother me. Exploration - I really enjoyed this, some reviews I have seen have suggested that the game never gives tips on where you need to go so you get lost easily, but I disagree completely, there is only 1-2 times I got confused on where to go, but for the most part the game is very clever about leading you on a path of where you need to go, if you get a certain item then odds are there is a place nearby to use that item to progress, its about studying your surroundings and reviewing the map from time to time, and that is what Metroidvania-type games are all about. I thought the developers did a good job of not telling you where to go but leaving you with enough to still figure it out without any major issues. Level design is great in that aspect. Music - Some really dark and ominous tunes play during this game, plus some classics from the Metroid series. Enjoyed the music overall and am hunting for that soundtrack. Final Review - I think this was a fantastic game, had about 9 hours of playtime with it and completed it within 3 days between work and my personal life. I probably enjoyed this one more than Super Metroid but that is mostly because I felt Super Metroid had some elements that were a little dated or I needed a walkthrough to help me out, while this one I felt more in control of what I was doing and more satisfied with how I progressed. Give it a shot!