MannWithNoEyes

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

[SPOILER ALERT: This review contains spoilers.]

In my opinion, Dark Souls III is the ultimate Dark Souls game to play, and is one of my favorite games not just in the Dark Souls series, but in gaming in general. Dark Souls II for me was boring. While it was fun for a short while, the lack of creativity in design and area layout began to frustrate me. The original Dark Souls was very good and important in many ways, however was exceedingly frustrating due to how awkward the combat was. Hallways and arenas were designed so tightly that the walls would constantly interrupt weapon attacks, the camera constantly gets stuck on unimportant objects, and there are many areas which instead of feeling tough yet manageable, have their odds stacked so far against the player that the difficulty stops being an obstacle to overcome, and instead becomes a wall to slowly chip apart. Often the original game feels lackluster due to how often the player will repeat the same area after dying, with no enemy encounter standing out above the rest. Dark Souls III fixes the issue of having an underwhelming combat system by changing the hallway-based design, and complements this with enemies which will absolutely annihilate any careless player. Battling an enemy is now much more dynamic. Enemies have a larger moveset, however there are almost always many weaknesses to exploit and various ways to take down any challenge in the game. While there were certainly many areas which were weaker than others, I was never let down by the cunning way each enemy was designed and placed to make each area a pain in the neck for the player. The bosses are outstanding as always, and with the improved combat are probably my favorite, above Dark Souls I and Dark Souls II. The Abyss Watchers are my favorite due to their gorgeous music and the unique feeling of teamwork present throughout the first phase of the fight. The Dancer of the Boreal Valley is another phenomenal boss due to the slippery way it moves throughout the fight. The Nameless King, while hopelessly frustrating, was intensely satisfying to finally defeat, and stands as an extremely strong optional boss. The optional areas themselves are often not too far out of the way, yet I was consistently impressed by how naturally the game guides the player through the levels, pointing out optional areas and shortcuts along the way by using enemies as a trail of breadcrumbs, moving the player from one to the next sequentially. This type of design leads to a feeling of pride by the player in discovering an optional area or an important item as they feel as though they've earned it by exploring the paths, which have been naturally laid out by the game designers. The optional areas themselves are all worth playing as well, with Archdragon Peak being one of the highlights of the game for me. There are of course frustrations as there are with any outstanding game. There are a few unpolished moments where enemies will get stuck in walls. Certain battles, especially those with two or more enemies feel a bit unfair in how enemies will double-team the player and overwhelm them with attacks which which will guard-break the player, and trap the player in inescapable damage stuns. For someone like me, who is the absolute worst at Dark Souls, these moments were intensely frustrating, and often would result in myself cheating the enemy AI in order to progress, exposing the cracks in an otherwise extremely well-designed game. I dislike how the invisible walls encourage running around blindly smacking every wall in sight in order to access huge optional areas, I dislike how the camera is still a little finicky and can sometimes be an obstacle itself to overcome. However, like all other things in Dark Souls III, adapting to this is possible, though difficult. The highlights in the game far outshine the issues, and as of right now this is the Dark Souls game I will recommend to anyone after Bloodborne. So I'm going to give Dark Souls III a 9 out of 10.

Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 is a slow, monotonous, slog **** which not only fails to live up to games within its own genre, but also to its predecessor, which despite the dialogue had a few emotional moments in which Life is Strange: Before the Storm fails to deliver either because of the dialogue, because of the obnoxiousness of the symbolism, or because of the illusion of reality being broken. The game opens with a concert, introducing the player to the general gameplay of Life is Strange: Before the Storm. Similar to a point-and-click adventure game, in every area Chloe can walk around and interact with random objects, most of them with very little significance until she interacts with the right object and the story progresses. The issue with this comes with the fact that there is no flow to any of the conversations, and can lead to extreme examples of ludo-narrative dissonance while in a supposedly tense conversation, there can be five minute pauses where the player thinks of what to say. The pacing of the story is too easily disrupted without the player doing anything in order to disrupt it. The illusion of reality is too easily ****, and the player doesn't even have to do anything to break it. The backtalk challenges fix this by adding a timer, however, even by fixing the unnatural pacing of the conversations, the game reveals another flaw: the dialogue. The performances are passable, for example I think Chloe's voice actor despite not having a lot to work with did a decent job of capturing the voice of a the apathetic, unhappy, shallow character Chloe is. Which leads to the flaw that Chloe and her interactions with the other characters lack emotional weight and any sort of reliability, because all the characters and relationships are all very surface-level. While understanding that Chloe is not necessarily meant to be likable, the way she interacts with the different objects in the world certainly reinforce her bitterness and her frame of mind, they never expand upon her character beyond reiterating that she is unhappy. The player never learns how her mind works, or how she approaches situations other than that she approaches them from a cynical point of view, and that is it. It's not fun to play as this character because it is impossible to understand how she thinks, and therefore getting engaged with her plight is borderline impossible. For example, the player does not learn anything by clicking on the objects in David's garage. Chloe simply restates that she hates David until the player decides to progress the story. She has no emotional connection with any character besides Rachel and to an extent David, so it isn't just Chloe who feels shallow, it's the world around her, and almost every character in the game. The dialogue, like the first game, is out of touch and unnecessarily forced. The reason the slang in Life is Strange feels so unnatural is because even to the people this game is aimed towards, it ages very quickly. Now especially, things become outdated faster than ever, and by putting references to internet culture into their game, Dontnod is ensuring that the older this game gets, the worse its biggest flaw will be. Before the end of this review, I want to note that the symbolism between this game and the Tempest is an interesting touch. For as much as I dislike this episode, it does have its appeal. I understand why people enjoy watching Chloe and Rachel's relationship evolve while it is still fresh, and I feel as though this is the best the game gets in terms of visuals. So I'm going to give Life is Strange: Before the Storm Episode 1 a 4 out of 10.

Excluding the egregious use of microtransactions and the exploitative nature of many of the practices surrounding this game, Star Wars Battlefront II is a mediocre shooter game, with occasional set pieces which keep it from failing in the same ways Star Wars Battlefront did. The story does a good job getting me to care about the characters, however there were moments that felt like they were missing due to how the story constantly shifts between character perspectives and emotions. Iden Of course, the visuals and audio are both stunning, and as a result, Battlefront II feels like a very authentic Star Wars experience. At points, the aesthetics were able to sell moments in which mechanics were very unimpressive, which can only be achieved through some top-notch design. However there were certain moments when even they failed to keep my interest, for example in the beginning of the campaign. In my opinion, this is one of Battlefront II's weakest moments. The first few minutes **** are some of its most important, and should demonstrate to the player exactly how the rest of the game is going to play out. For example, take a look at how Bloodborne handles its first moments of gameplay. After grabbing basic weapons, the player is immediately forced into a fight against an extremely aggressive enemy. This not only teaches what is important about the game, (the combat), but also teaches the way enemies will fight and how they as the player will have to retaliate if they're going to survive this grueling experience. The first minutes of Battlefront II have the player flying a droid around a ship, which is a mechanic which never resurfaces in later chapters. This lasts for five minutes, after which the player is encouraged to use stealth, which is not a viable strategy in later chapters due to the positioning of enemies. These beginning moments are boring, disconnected, and do a terrible job establishing the rest of the game. The flying mechanics introduced in Chapter 2 are more involved than the first game, however the controls feel slightly clunky which resulted in a few deaths that I thought weren't entirely my fault. The game doesn't demonstrate what it does best until Chapter 3. This chapter and the others like it do a good job putting a unique spin on the mechanics typically used in these games, and as a result there are some moments that are unique to only this game, which fixes one of my biggest complaints about the first Star Wars Battlefront reboot. These sections do get a bit too disconnected at times, Chapter 12 feels extremely out of place, but as a whole they are a very positive addition to the game. Unfortunately, their inclusion means that no mission with Iden stands out in my mind. They weren't technically bad, however they're all very interchangeable, bland, and basic, mostly due to the fact that they're all very linear. There are a few collectibles to pick up along the way, however there are no branching paths to explore, and only a few of the gun battles have an interesting layout. They almost entirely take place on flat ground with cover strewn evenly throughout the arena, as opposed to something like Uncharted 4, which not only had a unique style due to how the hide-and-seek mechanics worked, but also had sections of level that could be grappled, there were slides, and there was some depth to the levels not present in Battlefront II. The abilities somewhat address this issue, but none of them are expanded upon enough or necessary enough to be excusable. The final campaign mission is also interesting because it's interconnected, and is the only stage to actually have a boss during its finale. Admittedly, the boss is very underwhelming and the mechanics are never anything more than the ship combat used in the rest of the game but it was more than I was expecting, which is a sentiment that can be applied to most of this game. It may not be great in any way, however it's enough of an improvement for its existence to be justified in my opinion. The microtransactions are obviously manipulative, and the multiplayer may not be worth playing with them, and the campaign overall felt lackluster and disappointing. So I'm going to give Star Wars Battlefront II a 4 out of 10.

As much as No Man's Sky is an easy target simply because of how bad it is, I feel as though it is worthwhile to review just so it's possible to isolate exactly what is important to oneself in an open-world game. Exploration, discovery, adventure, and variation have always been the four aspects I deemed essential to an open-world experience, so while looking at No Man's Sky, a game which technically tries to deliver on all four of these aspects, I want to determine what differentiates this game from something like Breath of the Wild or Red Dead Redemption. Both of which I believe are the best of the best in all four of these areas. In terms of variety, I think where No Man's Sky fails is how it executes its variation with gameplay. The fact that it is procedurally generated means that this game will undeniably have easily distinguishable wildlife and environments, so in this area above all others, I thought the game would be able to execute it correctly. However all the variation is completely surface level. None of it changes the way you approach the game or traverse an area, and all it does is make some areas cumbersome to navigate. Now look at Breath of the Wild, the complete opposite of No Man's Sky in this perspective. Most of these shrines may look the same, but the variety in the micro-challenges and small puzzles they present you with work wonders to make them fresh and constantly surprising. The environments aren't just designed that way because that looks the best, their variation forces the player to make different preparations or use different gear and weapons depending on which they plan on venturing into. Traversing mountainous areas is completely different from traversing Hyrule Field because they're both laid out completely differently and require different techniques to move through them. This helped by the large selection of rewards one can hope to find. This directly ties to No Man's Sky's hours upon hours of exploration. Exploring is the very purpose of No Man's Sky, and is the core gameplay from which everything else stems. In this, No Man's Sky fails because, the only goal in the game is to mine for materials. Occasionally there will be a new creature or environment that may be visually interesting, however they all act essentially identically to every other creature and environment in the game. There is no purpose to simply exploring and looking for things of interest in No Man's Sky, because there will never be anything out of the ordinary to find. Nothing that offers anything more than a new sky-box to mine things in. Nothing ever feels new or surprising, so the discovery aspect completely fails as well. Red Dead Redemption, by contrast, differentiates every town and landmark due to the activities one is able to do there. No Man's Sky, however briefly, does understand this. The first hour of this game easily delivers one of the strongest feelings of exploration in any game as the player is able to go wherever they wish and do whatever they wish, until they realize that wherever they go, everything they do is a carbon copy of whatever it was they were doing before. The sheer fact that mining is the core gameplay mechanic in No Man's Sky simultaneously hinders the game's feeling of adventure, which requires a feeling of progression and journey. The easiest way for a game hoping to achieve this feeling is to demonstrate that the player is strong enough to take down foes that were deadly at the beginning of the game. With a goal in mind, a player can feel a sense of adventure by taking their own steps to accomplish that goal. The very purpose of Breath of the Wild is to deliver an adventure. The player can nearly constantly see Hyrule Castle, and thus are always reminded of their goal as they go about preparing for it in whatever way they deem necessary. In terms of what I value in an open-world game, No Man's Sky is an abject failure, and despite how amazing the initial half-an-hour to an hour was, I still cannot justify giving No Man's Sky any score higher than a 2 out of 10.

Batman: Arkham Knight is a passable finale in the best video game superhero franchise yet. In terms of story, while it does try to attain a darker tone than the rest of the Arkham series, in my opinion I don't think it went all out in doing so, so its story was never as engaging as the more insane but still more emotional and intriguing story from Arkham City. Similarly, despite the skill tree seemingly implying a more in-depth and complicated combat system, the combat is still extremely simplistic, but it's still flashy enough to be engaging for a few hours. However the end of the game is hindered by the amount of health the enemies have, or by the sheer numbers of enemies in an area, which results in certain fights lasting too long for this very simple and easy combat system. This is not to say that I hate when games are easy, but for me, issues surface when lack of difficulty is caused by or amplified by shallow mechanics. For example, Horizon: Zero Dawn's dinosaur combat is pretty easy, but keeps itself fresh through consistent changes to the enemies throughout the fight, where Batman's combat drones on and on without ever feeling the need to change anything based on environment, enemy health, or enemy numbers. The detective segments are hit-or-miss as well. These rarely work, so they often feel disjointed because they go on for longer than they should, and are very restrictive because there's no room for the player to come to conclusions on their own. In one segment, Batman has to determine where a car which holds his friend is going, so the process is to click on the square with the guy holding his friend, and then click on the car he went to. This is just way too simple to be entertaining. On the other hand, the stealth segments are very well crafted. In this aspect I think this game really benefits from having an open world. Due to the fact that every area is an actual place in the world it allows these segments to feel really interconnected with the rest of the game, instead of just separate challenges. Furthermore, due to the fact that there is more variation in terms of architectural structure than nearly every other open-world game with a city as its backdrop, there is real variation in the layout of most segments, which I thought was amazing considering how many games set in a city play the same no matter where mission takes place. Watch Dogs 2 is a great example of this. Also the side quests are all pretty great and entertaining even without extensive rewards. Despite its numerous improvements, however, there are still many areas in which this game fails as an open-world game. The Batmobile combat is as simplistic as the hand-to-hand combat, but lacks the aspects which made the hand-to-hand combat effective. It's repetitive and is used extremely often, which makes entire segments stale and boring. Besides that, multiple main story missions have these really annoying moments where all you do is follow these trails laid out by the game. These are never as satisfying as finding out which way to go on your own. Even in small amounts the Riddler Trophies don't offer the convenience that Breath of the Wild's Korok seeds do. No doubt, Breath of the Wild's Korok seeds are too abundant to actually be called anything but a nuisance if trying to collect all of them, but they're forgivable because in small doses these mini-challenges offer a short diversion from whatever it is the player is doing. They make the world constantly engaging, and reward exploration in all areas of the map because they're so abundant. What separates them from the trophies, however, is how they offer periodic rewards. There is no reason to collect all 900, because with 100, your inventory is large enough to make it through the game with minimal issues. The Riddler Trophies do not encourage exploration because they're all marked on the map, and do not function as short diversions because in order for them to be worth anything, all 400 need to be collected. This is so tedious that the reward, which is an underwhelming boss, is by no means worth the effort. Despite in my opinion having numerous flaws which considerably worsened my experience, there were enough moments which were entertaining or creative that the result is a game that gets a pass, but not much more. So Batman: Arkham City gets a 5 out of 10. I'm still looking forward to Insomniac's Spider-Man PS4, even if Rocksteady demonstrated here the shortcomings it may have.

The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is my favorite open world game, and as of right now is tied with Hollow Knight for 2017 game of the year. Due to the enormous amount of freedom the player is given, the game is an extremely organic experience, and one that has set the standard for open-world games I hope to play in the future. From the very beginning, this game establishes its hands-off approach both in story and in gameplay. The Great Plateau gives very little instruction or direction, and just says: go, and lets the player figure out every mechanic for themselves, which is much more rewarding than any tutorial. Granted, there are way-point markers to guide direction, but because the world is designed so well, with paths being marked with signposts, NPCs giving direction to the player by telling them important locations and their general direction, and mountains and hills adding organic structure to the world, there is very little need for the way-points. Luckily, on pro-hud mode, everything is deactivated except Link's hearts, which delivers an extremely nonlinear experience. By making every area accessible from the very beginning, and by providing many different environments in its tutorial, Breath of the Wild naturally teaches the player the extensive amount of systems in place, each important in its own way. Enemies will be lured away from their camps by boars and other meat. Fire not only hurts the player but also creates an updraft the player can exploit using their glider. Lightning will strike the player during a thunderstorm if they have metal weapons or armor equipped. Rain forces the player to stay on the paths, and pushes the player into more encounters with enemies. The different environments have different temperatures and types of enemies, which forces the player to use different weapons in order to be the most effective in every scenario. These extensive systems allow for so much variation in terms of combat that every single encounter with each enemy feels unique. Nearly every quest area and self-contained level uses a combination of all the systems in the game in order to keep itself unique and distinguished. There are so many options for movement across the world that every journey and voyage feels different, and just as exciting as the last. On the other hand, all but a few of the sidequests are repetitive, but the shrine quests are so varied in terms of gameplay that the flaws with the sidequests are negated. Eventide Island, the Spring of Wisdom, and many of the quests with environmental puzzles are some of my favorite sidequests in any games. The main quests for all intents and purposes, are more extensive sidequests, but all were unique and interesting, offering up new environments with unique obstacles to tackle in every one. The only quest I didn't enjoy was Divine Beast: Vah Medoh. It was too short in my opinion, so when the Divine Beast was eventually brought back under Link's control, it was underwhelming. The Zora area had amazing characters and quite a few touching moments, and the Goron area probably had the most variety in terms of mechanics, but the highlight of the main quest in my opinion was Divine Beast: Vah Naboris. Riju in particular was given quite a bit of depth as a character, mainly due to her diary. The Yiga Clan Hideout section was fun, and did a good job adding humor into an otherwise basic stealth mission. The Divine Beast chase segment was probably the most challenging in the game, but because the game does such a good job introducing the sand-seals to the player on their first trip into Gerudo City, the mechanics used are familiar to the player. The Divine Beast distinguishes itself through its use of electrical currents, and often used one part of the Divine Beast to influence puzzle-solving in a different part, which made the whole area feel cohesive. As a whole, the story on its own is pretty weak, but the item descriptions and ancient ruins add history and depth to the world. Also in my opinion the game implements the best incarnation of Zelda thus far. Skipping the story may seem like a bit of a cop-out, but I love the way it compliments the rest of the game. In other open world games the stories are often far removed from the player's actions. For example in the Witcher 3 there is a serious sense of urgency and necessity from the story, which resulted in me either running past all side quests or breaking the pacing and tone of the story in order to do them, which sort of stopped me from enjoying the game as much as I would have had the tone not been so urgent. Breath of the Wild manages to get around these flaws in a very clever way, however. By allowing the player to skip the story entirely, it removes the barrier between the story and the gameplay, which made the game feel more focused than its companions in the open-world genre. I hope this game is imitated for years to come, so the Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild is gets a 9 out of 10

Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker is a unique puzzle game weighed down by a stiff control scheme and bland, basic puzzles. The issues of this game surface a few levels after the game starts. These first puzzles do a great job establishing all the mechanics, but have very little depth to them, and as the game progresses, they hardly get more involved. I do not hate easy games, however puzzle games in which the puzzle has very little depth or nuance are unappealing. This main problem wouldn't be so much of an issue in my opinion if the puzzles were made with an open-ended nature in mind. I enjoy some of the easier puzzles in puzzle games because they're so approachable and can be solved in a myriad of different ways. The puzzles in Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker almost all amount to moving the camera to find an object that was invisible previously, then using that object to progress. These can hardly be called puzzles, because there is no input by the player. There are occasional levels that consistently avoid this problem, but the vast majority of levels unfortunately use this tactic quite a bit, and as a result can get stale fast. There are, however, things about this game that I enjoyed. I thought the artstyle was beautiful. The more childish, plump, and nonthreatening enemy designs are complimented perfectly by the toy-like levels with the artstyle from Mario 3D World. When the game presents interesting puzzles instead of the puzzles which mostly rely on camera movement, the game can be really fun. Unfortunately, however, there are not enough creative moments such as these to make up for the overall basic puzzles and level design, so I'm going to give Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker a 4 out of 10. It certainly has appeal, but for me, the appeal is too niche to recommend unless you really like easy puzzle games.

Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is a disappointing sequel to a cult classic, and one that had its own death sentence the moment it was announced that it was releasing directly prior to E3. The original Mirror's Edge in my opinion was rough in a few spots, but I admired it for giving the player a streamlined experience that focused on being entertaining rather than trying to be the biggest and the best, and this entire aspect was completely reversed with Mirror's Edge: Catalyst. For whatever reason, Mirror's Edge Catalyst is actually an open-world game, which adds nothing to the experience save repetitive sidequests. Not one sidequest in this game stands out in my memory. Compare any of these sidequests with those of more developed open-world games. The Witcher 3's and Horizon: Zero Dawn's sidequests may not be extremely varied in terms of gameplay, but all of them remain interesting because of their engrossing stories. Final Fantasy XV may have had mediocre sidequests in general, but at least it made a few that felt substantial and taught the player something legitimately important about the game. Breath of the Wild had sidequests that were often boring, with a few exceptions, the most prominent one being From the Ground Up. However, the game more than makes up for the lackluster sidequests with the addition of Shrine Quests, each of which provides unique puzzles and encounters. The Elder Scroll's series's sidequests are often the reason to play the game. So many open world games provide useful and interesting optional content, but Mirror's Edge Catalyst uses an unnecessary volume of sidequests as a checklist to give the player. There is so little of the simple fun the original Mirror's Edge had that its sequel can't help but feel watered down. The best moments of the original in my opinion came from the concentration it took to speed through these streamlined levels. The addition of an open world and more open-ended levels in Mirror's Edge: Catalyst detracts from the experience of moving efficiently and fluently through a level because the game openly discourages you from doing such a thing by giving out constant distractions and alternate activities like they're going out of style. The combat also detracts from that experience because the consistently locks Faith in a room with twenty enemies who she takes out within a minute by pressing one button on the controller. The original game's combat was extremely flawed as well, but locking Faith in a room and forcing her to fight a group of enemies is exactly counter to the strengths of Mirror's Edge. This isn't to say there aren't high points. At certain times Catalyst manages to deliver moments which stand up to the original, for example the free-running, still feels fluid and natural, and does a good job making movement more interesting than it would have been otherwise. By no means was the original Mirror's Edge a flawless game either. I'd have a hard time saying that for me it should be given anything higher than a 6 out of 10, but Mirror's Edge: Catalyst is such a misunderstanding of what made the original great that I can't help but feel disappointed. So I'm going to give Mirror's Edge: Catalyst a 3 out of 10.

Just Cause 3 is a very frustrating experience, in the sense that I should like it much more than I do. My biggest gripes with open-world games are their focus on story at the cost of gameplay. A very nice example of this is the Witcher 3's story, which, because it is so emotionally driven, requires constant attention. If the player decides they want to explore the world more or put more focus on the side content of the game instead of following the main quest for the majority of their playtime, the pacing of the story is broken and the magic is ruined. No matter how good that side content is, the story and main quest is ruined because the sense of emergency and realism is ruined. On the other hand, if they player decides to follow the story and ignore most of the side content, they will be unprepared for the more difficult moments of the story, and as a result their experience will contain a lot of harsh difficulty spikes. Furthermore, their experience will be a very limited one, as they are only following this one path in a sea of branching paths. In my opinion, the best open-world games purposefully create an environment where anything the player does feels like the right thing to be doing. Everything feeds into the experience instead of being their own separate entities. That is why, despite the universal criticism of it, I desperately wanted to like Just Cause 3, and in some ways I do. I like the amount of freedom the player is given from the very beginning of the game despite the fact that not everything is unlocked, which gave me the impression that this game was confident in its world for entertainment, and that gave me hope that the game would use its environment and its world to always keep things fresh. I like the movement mechanics, because the variety of ways to traverse the world allowed familiar areas to feel fresh. The movement on the ground, by contrast, feels restrictive and stiff by comparison. For example, it's weird that the game doesn't allow Rico to scope. I get that it was going for the 'arcade-style shooter vibe, but then why do the guns all have limited ammo? If their ammo was infinite, but the reload times were made more extensive, I may have overlooked this, but to me this minor flaw is a little jarring. The explosion effects are obviously pretty, if only because they're so over the top. The loading screens start acceptably, as they never break the flow to an unforgivable extent and mostly stay below forty-five seconds each, however they seem to increase in time throughout the game, and by the end go for a minute and a half. Another persistent flaw is how unpolished the game feels. In thirty hours, this game crashed about seven times, each of which signaled the end of a play session for me, which brings me to the most egregious part of the game: it cannot keep my attention. Despite the fun superhero-esque movement controls and expanse of beautiful fields, everything in this game is exactly what has already been seen. The environments are very bare in terms of variation, ninety percent of the environments are fields and snowy mountains. Sometimes the layout of the environment changes, which can really keep the game fresh, but that is all the game does to demonstrate its varied locals. Compare this to Horizon: Zero Dawn or Breath of the Wild. In both of these games there were a variety of environments, each with their own effects, enemies, and hazards. In Just Cause 3, there's no purpose in exploring because all there is to find is enemy camps and more fields. Despite the initial promise of an open-world game with focus on the world itself, exploring gets dull very fast. There's nothing to find and nothing but repetitive missions to do. This would be excusable if the main story was fun to follow, but almost every single mission ends up using the same mechanics, and instead of using the wingsuit, most of the missions use either the mediocre driving controls, or the simplistic shooting mechanics. Despite the fun that can be had through grappling up mountains or soaring through the skies, Just Cause 3 tries to place its focus on a world without variety, and as a result the whole game lacks variety as well, so I'm going to give Just Cause 3 a 4 out of 10.

Battlefield 1, the game which was supposed to surpass Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare in every single way may have indeed done such a thing, however that's not saying much, considering that Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare was surpassed by almost every other game in 2016 as well. The story of Battlefield 1 cannot decide whether it's embracing the moral gray area of World War 1 or trying to be about good guys and bad guys. There may be a moment of two soldiers spotting each other from a distance and each simultaneously deciding not to kill each other, followed by a mission where it is necessary to mow down countless German soldiers in order to complete the objective. The gameplay, however, is on the complete opposite end of the spectrum. If the story was tonally inconsistent and incoherent, the gameplay never strays from monotonous, boring, and dull. There are very few changes to structure or form between this game and other generic, by the numbers FPS games. The shooting mechanics are very simple games of whack-a-mole, but in this aspect I do feel as though Battlefield 1 is superior to Infinite Warfare. It doesn't have the messy, over-the-top wall running or jump pack mechanics, so it's more simplistic. This results in the moment to moment gameplay being cleaner than Infinite Warfare's messy and chaotic battles. However, this works against the game in another aspect because despite not having the lows of Infinite Warfare, it cannot embrace the highs. When the movement mechanics and more frantic gunplay in Infinite Warfare work together, it can be fun and entertaining, despite how little time is spent in which the mechanics do work together. Similarly, instead of many missions being terrible and one or two being decently fun and providing some interesting moments, Battlefield 1 pumps out consistently mediocre missions without fail, and never delivers anything beyond the most basic experiences required of a shooting genre. Interlocking mechanics and physics allow for some magical moments that can be entertaining, until the repetitive missions and unoriginal story sink in. Really it's up to personal preference which is worse. I personally believe that Infinite Warfare is the inferior game because for the first few hours of the game, Battlefield 1 can be pretty fun, but for me, it got old way too fast for me to give it anything more than a 4 out of 10.

(I SPOIL THE NAMES OF SOME MECHANICS IN THIS REVIEW, BUT NOTHING STORY RELATED). Above all else, Ori and the Blind Forest is a beautiful game, with occasional moments that elevate it beyond most games out at this time. The visuals are beautiful and make the Metroidvania style world very gripping to explore. Not to mention, they also perfectly complement the surreal moments in the story and more outlandish things in the game itself. Nothing to me is more jarring than a gritty and realistic game attempting to sell a completely unrealistic mechanic or story moment. The only game I can think of which successfully uses a realistic artstyle while also managing to ground the ridiculous things in its world feel grounded and real is Horizon: Zero Dawn, however that is one game in thousands which does it correctly. Similarly, the soundtrack in this game can bring even the dullest moments to life. The strongest moments in this game, come at the beginning and at the end, but in the middle is really where the game started to fumble for me. In the very beginning it's simple and uncluttered, and allows the thematic beauty, quality platforming, and exploration to shine through. The Ginso Tree is a perfect example of this. The player starts the level with extremely simple mechanics and controls, but the 'bash' ability completely changes the dynamic of the level, and introduces an incredible new aspect to the combat and to the platforming. By the end of the game, on the other hand, the controls are more complex, but they are easier to handle because the player has been using them all game, and this allows for more complicated level layout and design that doesn't feel as chaotic as certain parts in the middle of the game. After the player learns a few new abilities, Ori begins to lose that simple and pure aspect that it used so well early on. The new moves learned throughout the game lose the impact that learning the earlier moves had because they are so plentiful, and there is barely enough time to learn Ori's current set of abilities. Each button does something unique as opposed to a more simple Metroidvania like Hollow Knight, with one button to attack and another to jump, and it forces the player to earn new moves slowly, instead of constantly throwing them at the player one after another like they mean nothing. Despite the hiccups caused by the cluttered controls and over-saturation of mechanics, by the end of the game, Ori and the Blind Forest regains its focused, tight feeling, and in the absence of trying to remember all of the controls, I once again found myself absorbed into the world and engrossed into the experience of this game. All in all Ori and the Blind Forest, despite feeling a bit messy at times, delivers an experience that I look forward to playing again. After playing this I am beyond excited for Will of the Wisps, and I’m going to give Ori and the Blind Forest a 7 out of 10.

Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare isn't the embodiment of everything wrong with the Call of Duty model, but it absolutely suffers from the Call of Duty fanbase realizing how off the rails this franchise has gone in recent installments. When comparing this to the impressive amount of fun and enjoyable shooters in 2016, this Call of Duty seems to really struggle to stand out among them, despite the fact that it has the biggest name in videogames right now plastered on it, which is why I will be comparing all the elements of this game to other games and talking about why this Infinite Warfare is worse. In terms of story, this game is hopelessly outmatched by the silly action movie fun of Titanfall 2. While Titanfall 2 uses its ridiculous premise to its advantage and tells a story that just wants to make the player have a good time, Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare struggles with its own tonal consistency. For example, the game tries to portray the antagonists as in a gray area between good and evil, but instead of having a main villain that compliments these features, they just made a black and white simply evil villain. In terms of mechanics, DOOM crushes Infinite Warfare every time. Infinite Warfare made some interesting movement mechanics that could work if they were implemented well into the story and missions, but instead of doing that, the game doesn't really take advantage of them by using them to create unique level design layout, or do anything with them besides include them. DOOM, on the other hand, uses each of its mechanics to create the feeling of stomping through hell annihilating everything in your path. If the player was forced to stop every few seconds to hide behind cover it wouldn't feel like a rampage, and the game wouldn't have the same sense of power as it does by using the glory kills to keep the player constantly moving forward and smashing everything. Not to mention that in DOOM there are actual variety in environments and level layout, instead of in Infinite Warfare where only one mission does anything remotely interesting in terms of variety, and it's Operation: Dark Quarry. I like it because the enemies fight differently than all other enemies in the game. Instead of shooting from a distance, they constantly run at the player, which means that this mission involves learning how the enemies attack before getting good enough to effectively destroy them. The space combat in Infinite Warfare is fine, but gets stale quick and this is an issue because a lot of the game is spent in these ships. There is no reason to play Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare because there are superior shooters from 2016, so I'm going to give this game a 3 out of 10.

Uncharted 4 is one of the better triple A games in recent years, and is one of the very few scripted, story driven games that can hold my attention. Through clever writing, fun characters, and a story that rejoices in a sense of globetrotting adventure, this game is extremely good at being entertaining until the very end. At its best, Uncharted 4 hits memorable story beats and follows it up with over-the-top fun and unique gun battles with unique hide-and-seek style mechanics. The worst moments, however, force the game to slow down to a crawl. For me, these were all during the climbing segments. These segments have never been, and will never be fun for me. Hitting one button to jump up a cliff is hardly anything more than a quick time event, but these climbing segments often go on for over a minute. I can understand how these are meant to slow down the pacing of the game, after all if the only moments in Uncharted 4 were the intense action sequences, the magic would ware off after a while. Yet that still doesn't excuse how boring the climbing is. Nothing happens during these segments. There's no sense of danger, and no skill necessary to progress. Noticeable improvements have been made in this aspect with the grappling hook, which adds a depth to climbing that isn't there in most other games with similar mechanics. However despite the promise of a more entertaining and complicated climbing system, there are very few areas that take advantage of the most interesting aspects of the grappling hook. I always wanted to string two to three grapples together, but the game only lets you do that a few times, which I found very disappointing. The story itself is extremely intriguing, and very clever at points, but there are points where the characters stop acting like real people for the sake of the plot, especially in the final chapters of the game. The levels, despite having a few branching paths, very rarely reward exploration with anything tangible, and as a result, some of them feel very restrictive. In this aspect, chapter four is the strongest the game has to offer. Every corner of the map has some sort of significance and exploration is always rewarded. Despite, in my opinion, having a few shortcomings, Uncharted 4 is still a very enjoyable experience. Anyone who owns a PlayStation 4 should pick this up, and I'm going to give this game a very strong 6 out of 10.

Star Wars: Battlefront has to be the biggest disappointment in gaming in a long time. The original version is one-third of an actual game, and the Star Wars Battlefront: Ultimate Edition is still unacceptable at full price. My biggest issue with this game is its lack of a story-mode. Online never has appealed to me, so the only gaming experiences I am interested in are single-player driven. I honestly wouldn't mind the fact that this game has no story mode had it not taken the classic Battlefront franchise, both of which had excellent single-player campaigns that were intriguing and fun to play through. The fact that EA and DICE thought that a campaign mode was unnecessary really shows far removed this game is from the original two games. The game is unpolished, with a number of animation glitches happening within the first few hours of the game. The heroes, while fun to play as, feel stupidly overpowered while playing with bots, and as a result the biggest thing Star Wars: Battlefront had going for it added thirty minutes of playtime, only ten of which were refreshing. I can guess that the heroes are more fun to play as in the online mode, but I've read that people will just hang back and steal the hero tokens so nobody except a few people will every play as heroes. The other single-player modes are fine, but there is so little substance here that they all feel stale, boring, and repetitive. There's nothing of interest on these linear, barren maps, so no match feels distinct, not to mention the fact that everything in this game is so limited in terms of substance. There are no open-ended systems to use to your advantage, and no clever physics. This game is so limited, and I think that is the root of all the problems here. Yes the aesthetics have been nailed, and everything looks and sounds authentic to the Star Wars universe, but nothing about the gameplay actually reinforces the visuals, and as a result Star Wars: Battlefront lacks any sort of depth or interest. There is so little that appeals to me in Star Wars: Battlefront, that I could not excuse myself for giving this game anything more than a 2 out of 10.

The most engaging and engrossing parts of the Division come from the trailer, and that, as well as the repetitive missions make this game the perfect example of Ubisoft games in the last few years. With a few notable exceptions, every mission plays out exactly the same as the previous one, due to of the reuse of bosses and lack of distinct locations, which is one of my main issues with this game. The Division doesn't do anything that feels new or unique or interesting. The best open-world games will put some sort of interesting twist on the usual formula, like in Horizon: Zero Dawn there was an excellent combat system for the dinosaurs. In Breath of the Wild there were a lot of creative interlocking mechanics that resulted in tons of moments that were very organic, not to mention being able to run straight to the end of the story mode added a sense of realism to an otherwise very whimsical world. The Witcher 3 added branching story mechanics that aren't often seen in open-world games, and as a result, the story itself felt very vast. The Division really doesn't try to do anything extremely ambitious, and as a result the game ends up suffering because it sometimes feels like it could be any other Ubisoft sandbox game. It plays out every trope that's been used in every other game and does those all acceptably well, but then forgets to add anything new. It has the base **** game but fails to do anything more than the very basics, yet the base is still there, and despite its numerous shortcomings, the game at points does improve upon the usual formula. The overworld is extremely detailed and even if the rewards are very surface-level, it does feel much more exciting to explore than other games. Even some very old mechanics are improved here, for example the gun mechanics are simple, but add an element of strategy through the turrets the player can set up, and this really brings life to the more played out aspects of the game. Also, I've never played it, I've heard that playing with friends is good. This game is extremely recycled, but due to the small improvements it makes, I didn't end up thinking the game was a complete waste of time, more just a slight improvement on a genre that's been beaten to death by greedy corporations, so I'm going to give the Division a 5 out of 10.

Hyrule Warriors is one of the strangest Zelda spin-offs ever, and has very little right existing. Essentially it amounts to Dynasty Warriors with a Zelda skin, which is an interesting idea, but it doesn't fixe any of the problems with the very samey Dynasty Warriors combat. Despite many characters having different combos and special skills, there is no reason to learn them or ever use anything besides the standard attack. A few bosses and situations with tense time limits will force the player to get experimental with the combat, which in my opinion is where the extent of the combat shines through, and proves itself to be actually quite fleshed out, but due to the relatively easy nature of the game on the two easier difficulties, there is no reason to ever attempt to exploit the combat to your advantage. Even on the two harder difficulties, the AI is extremely lazy, and will barely force the player to use many of the systems involved in the combat, and as a result the game felt very surface-level to me. There is something to be said, however, for the ridiculous fun of slicing through hordes of enemies one after another. The characters never seem to take anything too seriously, which I like because it adds an element of cheesiness that this game uses to its advantage extremely well, through the monotone narration that I thought was hilarious, to the amazing rock remixes of classic Zelda songs. That's not to mention the amount of fan service there is. From references to key characters, to the menu icons, there's a lot of little details for Zelda fans to notice. Watching the Deku Tree crush a horde of Bokoblins to death is hilarious and something that no Zelda fan should go without. Yet in doing this, the game isolates non-Zelda fans. People who don't know much about the Zelda franchise or chronology won't nearly like this game as much as Zelda fans, and my problem with this game is that it relies too heavily on the 'Zelda' in its name for enjoyment. For fans of the series, this game could be a hilarious combination of everything they love with some simple, satisfying combat to back it up, but for people who don't care about the franchise, then this game is dumb fun for a few hours before they put it down and never pick it up again, so Hyrule Warriors is going to get a 4 out of 10.

Horizon: Zero Dawn may not be a flawless game, but it absolutely is a game that was needed for the open-world genre. With an outstanding new combat system, gorgeous world, and by putting an immense amount of thought and care into the tropes it implements into its world, this game has thrown itself into stark contrast against most of the open-world genre. The game itself is split between indoor and outdoor areas, with the latter being the superior of the two. The lighting in the outdoor areas is stunning, and the excellent work with shadows grounds even the more ridiculous creatures in the forests and grassy plains they're in. In terms of aesthetics, this game is untouched by any in terms of quality except for possibly Uncharted 4. This especially works in favor of this game when it comes to the more basic mechanics like the stealth. Despite it being extremely limited, the grass is the only thing possible to hide in, the visuals stop the mechanics from becoming unforgivable. It's much easier to get **** into the experience in this game rather than a game with less polished visuals and audio. However, despite the visuals doing their best, the stealth mechanics do get stale eventually. They function virtually identically every time they're introduced, and due to their simple nature, feel inferior to the more open-ended stealth mechanics of games like Metal Gear Solid V. The combat, on the other hand, needs no outstanding visuals to sell itself. Against the robots, this combat system is one of the greatest systems ever made. By giving each weakpoint a functional use, and removing that use with each weakpoint Aloy knocks off, it gives every battle a unique ebb and flow, and when the battle shifts to Aloy's favor, it feels like you're overpowering a giant titan. The human combat is much less impressive, the humans don't take advantage of the game's systems or do anything interesting in terms of attacks or strategy, yet the combat still simple fun in its own right. The worst moments of the combat, are never unforgivable. Walking down a hallway and stopping to shoot a few mindless human enemies may not be technically impressive, but can be fun for the brief periods of time its introduced. Luckily, multiple story missions do use the robots as enemies, leading to many unique moments rarely seen in other games. The Point of the Spear is extremely good at giving the player the freedom to experiment with the game's mechanics on their own, which makes everything the player learns feel organic, and the Mountain that Fell is an outstanding mission because it puts the player in new environments to fight the robots, instead of the regular tight corridors and hallways. The cauldrons, while being an interesting idea, often fall short of being anything special, due to the basic nature of their puzzles. Often in 3D games, and even in extremely recent ones such as Breath of the Wild, the nature of puzzles will be introduced slowly, so the mechanics feel familiar and difficult puzzles never feel overwhelming. Early in Breath of the Wild, the player is taught that freezing gears will result in the platforms they're connected to to stop moving. Later, there's a shrine where the player has to figure out which gear is connected to which platform and when to freeze the platforms to get the chests and still be able to get to the end of the shrine. Similarly, there is a puzzle in Horizon, where the player has to figure out how to get from one platform to another using cogs, yet the puzzle isn't built up much at all, as this is the only time where the game brings up being able to switch the direction of the cogs by hitting the light in the middle. Despite the lackluster puzzles, however, the cauldrons are amazing at creating an atmosphere, and the battles at the end of them are always top notch and outstanding at getting the player to think quickly in tight spaces, so the experience evens out. The side quests all have interesting stories, but they unfortunately fall into the same trap of following the trail of purple on the ground, so in my experience they are quite repetitive to complete one after another. The main story is intriguing, and makes the player always want to experience more, thanks to how well it controls information. For every piece of information revealed, there's a new question asked, always a new mystery to solve. This is almost a downside, however, because the story requires constant attention, doing anything besides following it breaks its pacing. There is very little downtime in the story and therefore the player will either follow the story and not do what they wish, or they will do what they wish, such as explore or do side quests, and it will break the flow of the story and remove the dramatic tension. This never ruined my enjoyment however, and despite its flaws, in my opinion Guerrilla has made an outstanding game, and a must-play for PS4 owners, so I'm going to have to give this game a strong 8 out of 10.

Sonic Mania is the only Sonic game to immediately grab my attention and nearly always keep it. Despite having a few flaws, the developers of Sonic Mania made one of the most consistent experiences of this year. The creativity and originality in the visuals is awe-inspiring, and I loved how animated and beautiful each of the levels were. Every single one had an original premise, with the only one I didn’t like being Hydrocity. No path took advantage of the great pacing mechanics, it was either fast or slow, with very few moments that crossed over. The rest of the game, however, worked extremely well. Every path demonstrated how well the levels were designed, and the branching paths gave the game a great sense of exploration with the rewards being completely worthwhile. Despite the speed sometimes launching Sonic into hazards that were unavoidable, the game is a remarkably controlled and thought out. Through pacing the speed, the developers show immense confidence in how their levels are designed, and rightfully so. Every level has unique mechanics and feels distinct and memorable. Akin to the classic Sonic games, they force Sonic to go slow and build up to speed. They make the player earn the speed they gain, which is infinitely more rewarding than being forced to go a certain speed like in the more modern games. Each level feels connected to the last, as certain levels use neglected mechanics from previous levels, and the end result is a game that feels cohesive and very smooth in terms of difficulty. On the other hand, a few bosses were frustrating and there were a few moments that I felt were unfair, often due to the speed throwing Sonic into unavoidable obstacles, which contradicted the otherwise extremely well-paced difficulty curve and brilliant level layout of the game, however as said previously they didn't ever frustrate me to the point of wanting to stop playing. This is the first Sonic game that still makes me want to replay it, and I cannot wait to do so. I’m going to give Sonic Mania an 8 out of 10.

Watch Dogs 2 is repetitive and boring, but an absolute improvement on the original Watch Dogs. For such a good idea, however, Ubisoft seems to miss what exactly is so great about it. In my opinion what makes the idea of a hacking vigilante appealing is the idea that the player doesn't need guns because the environment is their weapon. Watch Dogs 1 missed the opportunity to do something truly special the moment it decided to include guns, and Watch Dogs 2 is not much better in this regard. The story, on the other hand, is clearly improved from the original. In my opinion, a major positive is the fact that they chose to focus on crafting more lighthearted characters and themes, so they used the cheesy, dialogue to their advantage while crafting the story. The nonlinear missions allow for a more unique approach to the story, yet it negatively effects the pacing, and does not work nearly as well as if they allowed the entire story to be avoidable and blocked the final mission with a skill barrier rather than an arbitrary number of followers. That would have undoubtedly been the optimal way to experience Watch Dogs 2, because every mission in the game is extremely similar to the one before it. Very few use unique mechanics or structure to distinguish themselves, instead they use songs to set a tone. It's an interesting idea because it gives each mission a unique style, but it can't mask how repetitive the format of the mission is. Most of the missions essentially amount to sneaking around an area, pressing a button, and waiting for a progress bar. As a result, the main story got old extremely quickly, and because there was very little structure to the level progression, nothing feels like it's changed from the beginning of the game to the end. Even the final mission hardly changes the formula. It simply puts the player in a different environment that functions and effects the player in exactly the same way as all other environments. It can be fun to arrest the gang members or order a hit on security guards and sneak past while the mayhem is unfolding, however this can be easily exploited to remove every enemy from the mission. As a result, many missions can be cleared with very little challenge. The only other aspect of the game is the overworld, which is in essence there to put to put space in between the missions and pad the game out. There is nothing organic to find in the world, and no purpose to exploring. The only reward for looking through the city is money, which can be obtained from any person walking down the street. I can understand the appeal that this game has, but it has very little of what I look for in an open-world game, so I'm going to give this game a 3 out of 10.

1-2 Switch is one of the laziest party games of all time. Very little of this game stands up to the Nintendo Party games of past consoles. Past titles were essentially tech demos for Nintendo's newest system. The developers of these games were forced to make a game to fit the gimmicks of the system, thus, the games were extremely unique at launch, and were always the best use of the system's more unusual mechanics. Wii Sports, at the time, was a very unique way to introduce motion controls to a more casual audience, and Nintendo Land was the only game on the Wii U to (in my opinion) utilize the motion controls, touchscreen, and second screen in a way that didn't feel messy or broken. Mobility and portability being the Switch's main features, I was excited to see how these aspects would be used in their newest party game. Even if the developers couldn't think of interesting ways to use the portability aspect of the Switch, I thought that taking advantage of the many different control styles of the Switch would be much easier than making a game to fit the obscure game pad functions. However, 1-2 Switch does not use any of the mechanics unique to the Switch, and instead focuses on the motion controls. This game might as well be for the Wii for all the difference the console makes. This would hardly be of complaint if the motion controls worked and the mini games were fun, but the motion controls almost always feel choppy and unresponsive, and the mini games are simplistic and repetitive. For example, the wizard mini game is the most confusing mini game ever created, and the quick draw game is remarkably imprecise. Without friends, this game is absolutely abysmal, and playing solo is the only thing that interests me in video games. There is so little happening on the TV screen that this game could be from three console generations ago, and there would be no difference in resolution or frame rate. Taking into account Nintendo's track record of simple party games, it's beyond clear than an inexperienced development team worked on this, and it was extremely rushed. I am very disappointed, and this is currently one of my least favorite games I've played this year. It also costs full price, so in no way is this game worth purchasing even to witness how much of a letdown it is. 1-2 Switch is a joke, and deserves nothing more than a 2 out of 10.