Oz_Momotaro

A generally enjoyable (and relaxing) walking simulator+environmental puzzle game. Lots of good graphics/characters - and some interesting puzzles (though some are sort of annoying if you miss the one clue that solves it easily). What stops this being an 8+ game is that the PS5 version is clearly broken. The penultimate chapter suddenly introduces a very challenging combat sequence that needs you to have just the right build and/or resources to complete - and the game doesn't allow you to really back-track or change your build type. Most importantly however, the aim-assist is broken on PS5 here - it literally doesn't work as it should, making it possible to take hours to get through this section if you're unlucky. It's not skill, it's actually broken. Not only that, but their autosave stops before an unskippable sequence that slows everything down. I think this combination of poor level/save design and an unforgivable lack of care makes it lucky to get even a 6. Many people quit and delete the game due to frustration on what is otherwise a very easy enjoyable adventure. How does that make sense? And how does it honour the players?

This is a technical marvel - with some uncharacteristic bugs (even 4 months after release). The action is amped up, as is the web-slinging (and web-winging), and the numbers of enemies gets impressive - as do some of the set-pieces. The moves themselves seem a little nerfed however from the first two games (but compensated in other ways - especially once the symbiote aspects come into play. While the story is reasonably solid - it is unfortunately both predictable and quite safe. Some of the villains have surprising little to do, whereas others appear somewhat unexpectantly. I never really felt invested in the villains however - even the ones I was supposed to. I think the splitting between two spider-men contributes to this, with a dilution of the character moments - combined with what I felt was just looser and less-impactful writing. Some of the scenes just felt fake, and written by different writers (and apparently a lot were just ad-libbed). I would say that a lot of the story beats were undermined by constant "messaging" that whilst not bad in themselves, were just non-stop and almost became meme-able in how on-the-nose they were. They are meant to be inclusive, however I found them kinda tokenistic (which defeats the purpose). Finally - I will say that I think the series is coming to an end... I actually just started getting bored and wanting to finish off the final third (which just goes over-the-top to the point of ridiculousness.... just imagine the end of the world, and you're still seeing people driving around, or calling for taxis as people are literally being (INSERT NASTY THING HERE). Talk about ludonarrative dissonance... That and the boss fights (which were weak in the first game) have been turned into these 3/4 phase slog-fests. I play Spider-man to feel like a super-hero, not because I want chip painfully away at some re-generative punch-pillow. They should be exciting, not draining IMHO. The balance is off. Overall - it's fun as another Spider-man game, but the least engaging of the 3 games, and a worry for where the game will go next...They need to change some core elements of the gameplay; and stop the preaching.

The game is a daring continuation into the Remedy multi-modal experiment (gaming, movies, music, writing); and is definitely a good game... but it's problems tend to be overlooked. And those problems are big. If it didn't have such a stand-out artistic vision I'd have dropped this to a 7 for me. Pros: the graphics are good (but not excellent) on PS5, with not a great difference between performance and quality modes for day-to-day gaming (but noticeably poor frames on quality). The fusion of styles is amazing, and there are some truly inspiring parts. The overall level of imagination and artistic endeavour make for an amazing "experience"... though perhaps not the most enjoyable gaming. Cons: the controls and control-scheme are lack-lustre if not broken (case in point, the quick turn is painfully inconsistent); there are way too many bugs (even months after release) where you can't back-track out of certain parts (soft-locked); or it just breaks; the puzzles go from basic to all of a sudden stupidly obscure; the characters are meh or 2D (it's more about the vibe than them as real characters). I think the worst part is the combat however - it feels so poor, and the systems don't work well together... the last boss-fight was one of the most annoyingly poor fights (just seemed stupidly planned, and poorly executed) which left me with a frustrating and disappointing after-taste. The asynchronous pathing between the two characters was overall pointless, and missed many opportunities for something interesting to happen. Too many jump-scares. The hidden items are so arbitrary when you find them, and ultimately pointless.

This isn't a perfect game, but it's damn close (and if it had come out this year, fully formed, it would be a GOTY top3, if not winner). Did 100+ hours in a single run/character... and never got bored. I played female Corpo V... and enjoyed every bit of it. I am still to play the DLC; but can't wait to dive back into the steamy techno-cess-pit that is Night City. The good - great graphics, and very solid performance. Started on fidelity mode, but performance mode is so smooth (and a joy). The characterisations are amazing; and the writing is absolutely first class and totally believable for the plot. There's so much variety in quests and side-quests. The city is so believable - it's one of the best characters. The non-traditional (cyber) aspects make this a very different sort of game. I think there's just so much freedom to play the game how you want to play it... It may not be TOTK or Baldurs Gate 3 level, but I found it super rewarding to do things differently. The bad - it starts slow (before triggering event a few hours in) - and in this time the city feels a bit limiting... and not very interactive. After it opens out, it's a totally different experience. The role playing is good - but not sure if the differences are significant; but I would say it's leaning more into action RPG territory - though there are plenty of deep systems to use, if you want to. I wish you could romance who you want to, but this isn't critical. I thought the final sections of the main story were a bit weak (and I got to the main fight for my choices and either I was totally OP, or it was a bit disappointing). I also surprised not to really get into a real hunted state (I had imagined the big Corpo armies would be tearing the city apart looking for me, but everyone seemed pretty chill about what happened). Some of the deep systems really need more on-boarding.

When I first bought this at the start of PS5 gen, I bounced thinking that it just didn't work. However, having come back 2 years later, I had a much different reaction. The 'gimmick' is that you recruit all your party from **** the perma-death. For me personally, I preferred to not use perma-death, but create a kick-ass crew; with a lot of effort to customise looks vs backgrounds. I enjoyed jumping between about 5-10 different characters. The story is a bit sci-fi cliche, but there were some good elements in there. I thought the last 10-20% of the game was a bit redundant - and anti-climatic in the end. However, I really enjoyed the majority of my time. Pros: Great experience of virtual London - with a great open-city vibe. Combat / missions had a good feel / difficulty Very good ray-tracing based hybrid graphics for platform Ambitious creative cast of home-chosen characters Lots of content; especially loved the variety in the region 'liberations' Great clothing options - fun to customize characters. Good variety in solving bases Cons: Would be good to have more prominent 'important NPCs' in the story The upgrades seem less important than I would like Story elements tend to be centred around the same locations; could have more variety Driving is fun, but lack of importance in main game. There aren't as many differences between characters that I would like.

So I loved this game - but only gave it an 7/10. I have lived for many years not far from Shibuya, and have spent many years prior to that travelling to Tokyo. The one thing I wanted was a game to give me the open world experience of Tokyo. I can 100% guarantee that GhostWire gives a very specific feel for Shibuya... admittedly without people. Still, I loved exploring and searching. Even without people - which is a downer. The downsides are the mechanics - and for me, it was the controller mechanics - I would often press the right combination of buttons, but it would suddenly disconnect (the more I played, the more this was an issue). That could be a Sony thing, but if so, QA should have addressed it in their prep-phase. I know a lot of people are down on the lack of variety of foes - and that's fair... what i don't understand is why they hid a lot of different enemies behind random (side-quest) encounters. Just silly IMHO. The game is not hard, but I think some of the resourcing decisions (on ammo) are just wishful thinking - I never once found water (shot-gun) ammo to be that useful, yet there's a crap tonne of that compared to fire elemental ammo. I also wished they had some more different areas - I know how samey Tokyo can be, but the design decisions meant they were constrained to the most grey looking version. As I said - I loved it, but if you don't know the area you might be thinking this is a lot of the same. Edit - I would also say that there are some Control-level cinematics here that are well worth the price of admission. The problem is - a lot of people bee-lined the game, and they didn't see as much as they should have. Also, it helps if you know your Japanese folk-lore.

This is just a very simple - low stress game. Perfect for chewing up some time in a reasonably polished (and mostly bug free) experience. I'm playing in Jan 22, so perhaps they fixed a lot of bugs? The environment is well made and believable - and combat is open-ended and free-flowing. It's not a perfect game, and to be honest my main complaint is that you really don't need to use much variety of guns/supremos - and can complete the game with a simple strategy of distance + head-shots (with armour piercing rounds). So the fun comes if you want to try something else; or if you just like the puzzle aspect of who to take out first. Nothing cerebral, and the RPG elements are mostly lacking in this game (and for me that improves it). Like most Ubisoft games, it does have that 'lots of dots on maps' feel; and if you're into the slow grindiness, this has a good vibe. I haven't played a FarCry game for a long time, so for me while it's quite derivative, and the story isn't earth-shaking... I really enjoyed my time with the game.

This is a classic game that really **** you in. It has a relatively slow (on rails) start, and it takes a while to have access to (and understand) the overall mechanic. There's so many wonderful things about the way the levels are constructed that I can see having a long tail - the story is one thing, but it's actually the fun of being creative, or trying to find new secrets. The graphics are deceptive (they aren't technically great), but there's a completeness in it's creative/artistic vision is impressive. And like a lot of Arkane games, it feels wonderful to play... and great to go loud. I just feel sorry we won't have another Arkane game on PS5.

Pro: peaceful game, cut with occasional relaxing music. The core concept is interesting, and some puzzles satisfying Cons: the narrative isn't that interesting or engaging - and the voice acting/script made me feel I had stumbled on a community stage show. The puzzles are hit and miss - with some being easy, and others being unnecessarily obtuse (unless you look in the right place, you could end up wasting a lot of time wandering a fairly uninspiring landscape). There are few if any PS5 advantages - and there are often glitching and frame drops/holds in some areas; and there are some truly awful collision errors allowing you to go inside meshes. Also, some of the controls (moving objects around) felt like it was borderline unusable. Overall: it's low stress - low pay-off game, which has a tendency to fall into frustration depending on your ability to sync with the game devs view of things. There just isn't enough engaging about the game to make me enjoy it.

A brilliant game - fantastic feel, and amazing to see a AC-like game actually set in Japan (maybe better than an AC game). Great technical masterpiece, and fun to play. The combat is freely guided, and lots of different options. There are a few things that stop this from being perfect: firstly too many similar encounters on road (gets tiresome by end), lack of a lock on, and for me the worst thing is that dying in combat often lead you re-starting with almost no health (what’s the point - if the encounter was hard before, it then becomes impossible... especially in the boss fights. Wasted my time having to quit and reload from a prior save point. However the story was great - though it ends to suddenly (though the game is also too long if 100% ing). I really preffeeed the Japanese VO... couldn’t play with English. The game just had a fun and engaging flow/mechanic. And perfect at 60FPS on PS5!

A truly impressive game - even on base PS4. It really is fun to play, and the mechanics are almost always spot on. It’s an amazing experience - the characters, the story, the humor, mocap, voice acting, graphics, attention to detail, scale and sheer liveliness is so fantastic. The only negative I had is the basic construct of the game in terms of the type of combat can feel pretty repetitive... especially during the endgame. However, even if it feels like you fought the same battle 100 times, it’s still fun... and you can’t beat the traversal feels swinging in New York City!

I will critique this as a game - not a flight simulator. Overall this game has a lot of promise - and will undoubtedly become a GameAsAService - with already landmarks being able to be purchased. The thing that I think it lacks is a drop in mode - where you set up exactly where/how you want to start. And I would suggest a sight-seeing mode that allows you to just 'fly the camera' around - and they really need to be able to pin more landmarks from their Bing Map dataset. It is clearly aimed at both the flight sim and more casual users (hence the heavy streaming) but I don't think there's enough content to keep casual gamers interested. Also - for a game that focuses so much attention to "the world" then you have to accept that people will expect a basic level of realism in the places you can travel - and I wonder if such enhancements will be purchase-only (such as with XPlane 11). It's an easy way to spend your time - but I'm not sure that you will feel you have achieved much when you finished. I have a similar experience with Google Earth - great virtual tourism, but in the end, the separation from the places you're virtually visiting makes it feel coldly frustrating. Still it is a game for the times, and it may be popular for what it represents, and not what it is. As a flight simulator, it will undoubtedly be a great sandbox for wonderful (and expensive) add-on experiences. Pros: great concept of a 'virtual world' version of a flight sim - ambitious in scope and multiplayer aspects. This can be quite meditative in the right mood. The graphics fidelity is good in general, and it does feel great to watch the planes flying around. Yes - it does capture the magic of flight (though for most of us, it's the arriving rather than the transit that is the fun part of air travel). Cons: The launcher is poor - and overall main UI is poor - overly complex and unclear as to how to use. In-game controls are also mixed bag (it may be great for sim-players, but is downright un-intuitive to casual gamers). The ML-based building construction is very limited - making city-tourism downright generic (it's a harsh criticism, but don't play this game at this stage to "see what a city looks like". Also, if I look at my own home cities of Melbourne, Adelaide, or Tokyo - they really don't look that realistic. The landscapes are better. There are unusual LOD issues in the game which gives random quality issues, as well as occasional tile-tearing. The 'live' elements miss obvious things such as radio comms (you know how that would go wrong though). Also there are simple things that would have helped - like being able to adjust settings using mouse when using an external view). Playing in the cockpit is more challenging, and where the flight simmers will want to mess around most. For me however, it was not as enjoyable as a casual experience. I also experienced stutter and frame drops when there are a lot of other players in the sky.

Possibly the best application of the PSVR I have played. Great fun, very addictive, and very easy to get into. There are a reasonable number of songs available for free - though they obviously relying on people buying new songs.... which there doesn’t seem to be that many available on PS4. The only complaints I have is that there is too much of a jump between easy and normal on many songs - and it would be better if there was a more intuitive way to record times by different users when playing casually in solo (and sharing in a family). My wife who doesn’t like game consoles jumped straight into and loves it.

Possibly one of the most over-rated games I've ever played - a hot mess **** that doesn't work, and is actually painful to play. The premise of SotC may be interesting - but at the end, becomes a hollow, pointless technical demonstrator. As with Team Ico's "The Last Guardian"... SotC presents a potentially interesting take on the 3d puzzle/platform game, but ultimately in the same way it just becomes annoying with frustratingly bad controls, especially the temperamentally aloof Agro (I felt very agro when interacting with this horse, who seems about as intelligent as a bag of bricks); the cringey character mechanics that often end up seeing Wander lurching around as if drunk; the woeful camera that seems to have been programmed by someone suffering autism (avoiding focusing on the important things), the vacuous story (more on that); and the at once impressive open-world landscape that seems to have been for a completely different game, and at the end just becomes a vast riding simulator arena; the map and locator mechanic that often has you inadvertantly going off down a dead-end; pointless side-missions that add nothing relevant to the game; and finally the Colossi themselves - poor AI, meaningless combat dynamics where you rarely need to die if you can be bothered to just leave the arena and wait the 2-3 minutes to rejuvenate health... not to mention the completely contrived design that turns them in to basically just moving platforms. Even if the mechanics had been sorted in the PS4 re-master, the game itself is empty... a lot of people praise the minimalist story line - but essentially there is no story until you complete the game, and when you get there, it really isn't worth the wait. Also many people are impressed with the meta-meaning of 'who is the monster'?... and we're meant to feel sorry for the Colossi... but in the end, I felt nothing for them except a hairy (angry) platform environment - they express no more sentience than an angry fart. As for the protagonist - he is essentially a moving emotionless mannequin - with no real emotion, no motivation, no real impact from all the killing he does. And if he can't be bothered caring, then neither can I. The problem is that this is lauded as a PS classic - and perhaps on the PS2 it was truly impressive, but to modern sensibilities and expectations, this is only a so-so game at best, but elevated to a shocker given the unjustifiable love for the game (especially by critics). If you're wondering whether to buy it - and thinking it sounds pretty simple with only 16 Colossi to dispatch when some of them can be killed in 5 mins, or 1 hour (due to the poor programming and crap controls that force you to repeat so many things) - it is all over too quickly. The only thing that gives it any length is the ridiculous riding of the horse to your next opponent... and it's not like you'll be doing anything on the journey except wondering why this was a feature of the game at all. That and the very contrived and repetitive gameplay when you get there. Got this as a PS+ freebie, and was actually going to buy it. Glad I didn't. Incredibly disappointing game that just comes across to me as one of those technical demonstrators that was turned into a ill-conceived and poorly executed (almost) game.

This is a really hard game to rate - as it's a love-hate thing for me. The game is technically amazing - beyond comparison. So much care and love has gone into it - and it has pushed my poor PS4 to its limits. There are so many amazing experiences in the game. So many hours of fun and exploration. However, there's also a lot of banal time-wasting in a sea of nothingness. The real problem with the game is as a sandpit experience it's brilliant. You could live this life and never feel discontent. However, the game forces you (literally) to take an extremely linear 'scripted' approach to playing that it becomes a war of wills - if you submit to the 'my way or the highway' approach, then you will enjoy... otherwise you will never get to enjoy what this game offers. For a vast open world game - the 1P experience downright punishes you for being bold. As a result it is programmed for the weakest players to complete - which means you feel like you're playing a TT game more than an open world game. What I found particularly egregious was that you would start an innocuous sounding mission only to find that you are now embarked on a 4 mission marathon... without any opportunity to save or take a pause. Great if you're the only one using the PS4, but like most people you need to share, which doesn't work well when you can't save progress or pause between missions. I undestand the narrative pace part... but please... we live in the real world. The other thing that was annoying about this game was that there's never any real increase in difficulty - it's only more and more enemy. To the point where I seriously doubt anyone could keep track of the number of people that Arthur guns down... which is at complete odds with the whole redemption arc that is forced upon the character. So there's a lot I didn't like (in fact hated) about this game... however, I WAS one of those that was prepared to just invest my time in the 'experience' and go along for the ride. Oh - but if you've not played it... the one advice I would give is that don't worry about money - or how to spend it. This is perhaps the most badly designed part of the game as it completely undermines the entire premise of the story. Stoopid. Just completely stoopid. As a I right this - I wonder why I gave it a 9... but it's for all those moments of joy... and just cringe-worthy fantasy-living experiences. Edit - on reflection, I actually think the limitations and constraints imposed on the 1P game really detract from the experience - in an otherwise brilliant game: dropped from 9/10 to 8/10

An amazing example of what good game development can achieve on the PS4... it’s an amazing game, with the beat start to any game I’ve played.graphically brilliant, fantastic mo-cap and vo-cap - and great story beats. The combat is more slow paced than the original GoW series and for those wanting to customise their gameplay then there’s plenty here. Many praise the ‘one-cut’ approach, but what I loved most was the snappy reload times (RDR2 this is how it should be). Some down sides however: while the addition of Atreus generally works, it is often annoying to have to constantly spam square to get him to fire... he should have greater autonomy to fight. Also he is basically invulnerable to attacks, so I wonder why you need to armour him. For me the RPG elements were superfluous... an embellishment that I know expands the interest base, but perhaps isn’t that well suited. Also the wide/open linear style is nice, but the map is almost useless.final criticism was the bosses seemed a little underwhelming compared to say GoW3... and the end was a little rushed and anti-climactic. However despite its few issues this I definitely a MUST OWN game, and was worthy a GOTY title. Edit - after finishing the game, I’ve been having much more fun going for achievements... lots of fun after finishing the main story

I've enjoyed quite a few of QD's games, and I know this was well received - so had high hopes. However I can't get past both the clunky living-mannequin feel for the control ( seriously which decade are we in) or the over-the-top emotional manipulation with a sledge-hammer. This game sunk with me within the first 3 hours. It's the gamer equivalent of pessimist-porn... how grim can you make someone's world by totally f'ing up their life while you don't let them have any agency to control it. It's not a narrative device, it's a narrative rufie. I liked BTS for its story beats, but couldn't get past this stories heavy-handidness. Surpised how much I disliked it.

Two games for the price of one... that's both a good and bad sign. The gameplayis like watching a so-so quality Netflix horror-drama -combined with Telltale-like button prompts. It's fun, and you'll enjoy reaching the end, but there's some frustrations that will have you ready to throw away the controller along the way. A lot of praise has gone towards the 'cinematics' and the character design... but I'd have chewed off my left arm for the ability to actually run around the game rather than shamble, zombie like, throughout the environment. Given the 'fear factor' of the story (especially the 2nd half) the almost leisurely pace of movement I found very immersion-breaking. The acting (from 'REAL' actors is a mixed bag... I found Rami Malik's character work particularly annoying (and surprisingly 'b grade') towards the end, and was really wanting to kill him off - no matter the cost. The one thing that annoys me however in these types of games is when you are given the choice where the outcome could not have been anticipated... 1 + 1 = 0. Randomness is fun when you can correct for it - not when it's in a turn-based experience with no repeats (other than starting the level again). It means you don't feel like the outcomes are earned - or deserved. Overall... very simple... enjoyable enough... but perhaps best played drunk with friends.

This is one of those experiential games that you'll either love or just not get. It's got brilliant graphics and mo-cap on the main character (she comes alive, almost literally in front of your eyes) - and is supported by some excellent writing and voice acting. The story is at once soft and personal - exploring the deep recesses of a persons' soul (with all its colour and texture) - but at the same time its a good ol combat slasher. It features some novel environmental and pattern recognition problem solving, as well as a basic exploration aspect - though it is quite limited being a very linear game. The combat is simple enough that anyone can pick it up quickly, though has its own nuances. Perhaps the only downside to the combat is that the enemies are relatively repetitive - once you know their patterns and weak points, its just a matter of combating more of them simultaneously. It would have been better if they had more dynamic AI. What knocks a further few points off is the game size - its relatively small,. In someways this is a blessing as it means you don't need to invest 50+ hours into it to complete it - and the platinum is quite easy. However it also feels like part of the game was pulled out - perhaps because of the cost of development. There is also a bit of a pacing issue - at some points you'd swear that you were nearing the end, only to be dropped back into the same old foes for prolonged 'grinding' (without the incentive of collecting **** the ending, while perfect within the confines of the story, still leaves you wanting something more. Overall - this is an amazing game - with lots of quality in almost every part. Senua such a strong character - perhaps let down only by some lacklustre 'sword fodder' for foes.