Sojum

This was a stellar game on PS4 and 4 years later it is still hands above most other games on the market, with a beautiful touch up on the PC release. Graphics are lush and detailed, and at 4K RTX I can’t stop taking photos of the landscapes. Gameplay is fairly smooth. Although jumping is a bit clunky and the ability to lock on to targets is sorely missing. Otherwise, performance and mechanics are all pretty solid and satisfying - fun to play. I don’t usually talk up the story on games - even the best game story usually pales in quality and creativity to other mediums (literature, film). Horizon is the exception to the rule. The story is compelling from the first exposition scene and manages to keep enough hidden to hold your interest throughout the course. Even on multiple play through, this balance is felt. Voice acting is overall very good, with dialogue that mostly manages not to be too cheesy. But RPGs gotta RPG, so the tropes and cliches are still found sprinkled throughout - the just tend not to be load bearing. Look, if you haven’t picked this up yet on sale for 30 bucks or leases, what are you waiting for? It’s twice that in gameplay hours, easily, and one of the finest gaming experiences of the past decade. The sequel, when it’s released, will be the reason to finally buy a PS5.

Interesting, SCP-like concept. And the PS4 Pro handles it just fine most of the time, there are some frame rate drops, but they are few and far between. The 2 biggest detriments to gameplay immersion are the live actors, who are NOT of the same caliber as Quantum Break. And the character models are also a big step back from QB. They don’t look like their human counterparts. The heads are weirdly big and misshapen and shadows make them look even worse. The security chief and the main character are the worst. Then there’s the constant inner voice-overs in whispery, cringe-worthy form, mixed with closeups of eyes that, don’t match the character models. And lastly the painful grind of having to go through rooms again, every time you die, filled with enemies, just to try to get to your destInation again - also filled with enemies. And any one of them taking you down, means starting over again and again. I’m seriously thinking about putting the game down because I’m stuck in one of these hateful loops. Wait for updates. Wait for a sale. The trailer looked soooo good, but that energy doesn’t translate and the artistry is diluted when there’s nothing but that same look over and over and it’s populated with bad distractions. So disappointed.

I never played the original series, so I have no context/ It's unneeded though. This game is a rare gem that stands on its own without need of having played prior games. The story is amazingly well crafted and told through brilliant dialogue and not through long, testing written histories or narration (though there is a journal available for added depth and interest, it is wholly unnecessary to the game's experience. This is one of only a few games that gave me genuine goosebumps and earned my tearing up in scenes throughout the game. The voice acting is superb. The characters are well developed. The facial and body animations and postures are spot on in sync with dialogue and emotion. The graphics are stunningly beautiful and not so repetitious that you ever get bored with them or feel that you are just seeing the same stuff, different region. The game mechanics are intuitive - and I'm not a hack-and-slash fan by any stretch, and the skill tree is short but powerful. Likewise, armor and inventory management is not at all overbearing and offers genuinely useful choices that matter for the battles you are about to walk into. Music by Bear McCreary. Jeremy Davies mat be the most famous name here, but everyone (arguably the mostly singly-deep-throated Kratos being a fairly one-note voice even though the superb facial and body animations convey emotions he is incapable or strongly reluctant to voice) is giving their A-game and just as worthy. The balance of the main character's also helps draw out emotions and motivations that might otherwise be lost. The mythology and fables shares during boat rides are interesting, accurate, well told, and often charmingly funny. In fact, that last point is important - the game knows how to throw just enough humor into the mix to not make it so dark and serious as to be completely heart=breaking or just hack-and-slash war-boy-fan material. There are only a few games that I would hold in as high regard as this one. So good I even let my daughter watch, despite the gore, because the story was so good. Bethesda wishes they had this tight of a presentation (and don't get me wrong, I love Elder Scrolls and Fallout, but they just do not have the same gravity and cinematic polish of GOW). Every PS4 owner should have this game in their collection. Everyone. Period. TEN STARS. I'd give it 11 if I had the choice. Put it proudly next to The Last of Us Remastered , Witcher 3. and Horizon Zero Dawn to show your friends and family the power of good, no - great, games.

Another solid entry from Naughty Dog, even without Nathan Drake. Everything is high quality and cinematic. Visuals are beautiful. Character movement is fluid and lifelike from facial expressions to overall movement. Controls are intuitive. Voice acting is simply the best, and the story is decent if somewhat simplistic. The campaign is not that long, but worth every penny. If you're looking for a shooter, you should probably look elsewhere. While the combat mechanics are just fine, this is a game about story and puzzles first. Guns and killing second. As with other Naughty Dog entries, this is essentially an action movie, complete with set pieces and staged sequences that are stellar. But if you're not interested in narrative, dialogue and feeling like you're in a film, go play Call of Duty or whatever. Comparisons to Lara Croft are inevitable and only prove that there are too few video game protagonists that are strong female leads. I would argue that the new Tomb Raider games borrow more from Uncharted than the flip. But it's hard for any game not to have elements of others without completely reinventing the controls and gameplay rulebook. An appearance by Sam Drake later in the game adds the only real male element other than the bad guys, and he's really not at all necessary to the plot. Highly recommended.

Under-rated game worthy of joining the ranks of Double-Fine in silly, clever adventure games. It's not laugh-out-loud funny, but plenty of the corn-y humor made me smile. It's not a "walking simulation" - an overused term referring to games in which you just wander about and catch snippets of story and nothing more. There's much more hands-on puzzle solving here. In fact you could skip the backstory altogether and still complete the game. The puzzles aren't too difficult - you may find yourself searching for a missed passage or item, but once you have them it's not too hard figuring out how to use them. Voice acting is good and the visuals are well enough done. Not for everyone, but if you're a fan of old Lucas Arts games, Monty Python, Douglas Adams and Terry Pratchet you'll find yourself right at home. Best Follow-Through on an English Muffin in a Video Game award 2016

Early on and the game is fine. Not sure why this one is attracting so many troll reviews. Yes there are bugs and some occasional weird animations. They are exceptions though - they don't persist constantly throughout the game. Anyone focused solely on them has is merely parroting what's popular on the internet. Did I hope for better? Yes. But I'm also just coming off of Horizon Zero Dawn which set an incredibly high bar. Follow the critics score on this one, not the troll score. Having now finished the game, I'll leave my original rating of 7. There's plenty to do here, and gameplay is much more satisfying than the negative reviews will acknowledge. It's not a stellar entry or the space exploration game I keep waiting for. But, it's so far from the 4.8 user average currently showing in metacritic that it's comical. I think it's time to start verifying that the people writing reviews have actual played the game (watched the movie/read the book/used the product/etc). I tell my kids to try things, truly try them, before they make up their minds about whether or not they like them. My sense anymore is that reviews are regurgitating popular sentiment on the Internet or expressing a dislike of superficial, easily observed, features of something without actually sampling it (i.e. ewwww, it looks gross therefore it must be gross).

I hate this game with a hot burning passion. For just a few reasons. First, it is damn near impossible, it seems, to get the visual and audio to synch without having to restart the game 20 times (it's too delicate to change latency without making you restart the whole thing). Second, I'm already a musician, just new to guitar. I know I'm in tempo and have the correct fingerings, but it still just says MISS so I can't figure out why it's failing my chord. Occassionally it will give me a little arrow indicating I am possibly out of tune. But would it be too much to ask to say it thinks I'm early? Late? Missed a string? Something. ANYTHING to help me determine whether it's an audio/video latency issue or an actual performance (mine) problem. Last. I just want to punch the voiceover guy. The point of the game is to learn, but if you do less than 70% or so, the feedback is very negative. "Not so good." "Poor performance." "Disappointing." You know what? F^&k you Rocksmith. I'm trying to learn and you're not encouraging me at all, your belittling me and that's a real **** approach to teaching. Great concept. Poor execution. And I'm crying BS to anyone who claims to have to learned to play well solely from this game. $2.99 for a single song in DLC is also highway robbery. It could be worse though - you could be playing the PS4 version which makes this look like a miracle of technology. I do not recommend this game for beginners. Go spend $20 - $30 bucks for a real lesson with real feedback and actual starter chords without the shame.

After putting the kids to bed and playing this for a couple of days now I feel safe in weighing in. I played the original Resident Evil back in the day, and .either the last one or RE 5 (I'm not sure - that's how die-hard a fan I am not). Both were good fun. I watched the first three RE movies. The first was B-grade entertaining, the second two were C-grade but with Milla Jovavich (so, C+?). Anyway, where I'm going with this is the thing those all had in common was Raccoon City, the evil corporation and their experiments (the horror is man-made), cheesy over-the-top characters. This game is not of that universe. So I can see where some folks are upset with a bait-and-switch. Now that the elephant in the room has been acknowledged, this is a pretty decent game and certainly a good VR one. It's touch to play for more than 30 - 60 minutes in the helmet though. Horror + VR definitely = motion barf. The play is fluid and fairly intuitive if limited in interaction. The graphics are touted as photorealistic. I would argue the lighting is, but sacrifices were made for CR and fluid motion - 3D models are less-refined and textures are large. The developers did a good job with the palette they had under the circumstances and so it's pretty easy to let your critical eyes and focus loosen a bit and feel more in a film. The scares so far are mostly jump scares with a lot of grim surrounding and tense mucking about. It definitely has more of an Amnesiac/Outlast/Blair Witch vibe to it, as a number of other reviewers have pointed out. The voice acting is just good enough to make you wish it wasn't bad. That is, it's bad. You'll wish it had been laughably bad though because it tries. Earnestly at times, it really does. But it's like a singer who just can't quite get that one note.... or twelve. Overall - 7 or 8 out of 10. Pretty on the eyes. Messes with your head. Short for a TV game, but long for a VR one. Pick it up at full price only if you have the VR headse. Otherwise wait for a sale unless you're a die-hard fan of the genre. Get Outlast to bide your time.t

Full disclosure - I don't generally play or favor sim games, but picked this one up after having fun with my daughter in **** Theme Park Tycoon. There are surprisingly similar concepts between the two. PC is pleasant looking. I haven't figured out yet what the point is in creating my own avatar if I can't walk him around the park, but there's that initial element to the game. From there, you get to plunge right into objectives or take your time in sandbox modes. Links to tutorial videos are available, but no actual in-game tutorials, where they are sorely needed. There's some intuitiveness to the interface thanks to my **** experience, but there are a lot of moving parts to the game that would greatly benefit from some early hand-holding. There are a ton of rides and pre-made coasters to choose from, and they're all well designed and animated. You can ride them virtually through camera changes. Watch from afar or up close. Even choose your seat. It's fun to watch the coaster riders from in front of the coaster looking back, as they throw their hands up on drops and scream. Passively observing bumper cars isn't quite as thrilling, but We'll overlook that. :) Once you get past the rides though, the game begins to suffer from a lack of materials to build from and populate your park with. Maybe they're expected users to supplement collections through Steam Workbench, but there is a disappointingly limited vision that boxes designs into one of only several categories: sci-fi, pirate, planet coaster, western, and fairytale. And none of the themes is very well fleshed up. You might find on choice in style of any given item at best. At worst, you'll be find your chosen them has squat in many categories. Sci-Fi in particular. The game does better with nature, but for a $45 game, I expect so many more landscaping options, path styles, not being tied down to a theme, etc. Still, there's satisfaction in laying it all out - what is available - and seeing the people coming and going. Even in sandbox mode, rides break down though (unless I'm missing a setting that requires another absent tutorial) even in sandbox mode, so don't think you're going to kick back and take her easy with an infinite wallet. Lastly, the navigation suffers from two different camera modes that are both awkward. Here's where being able to physically walk your avatar through the park to inspect it and test rides would have been a much better option. Instead, you can flightsim a camera through the park at ground-ish level. Once you figure out that you can switch between modes, that's half the battle. The default setting is a strange polevault-like arcing movement that has a bit of a learning curve. The game interface is also a learning curve and incredibly tiny. Quickly finding menus and buttons is out of the question until muscle memory kicks in. TLDR: Decent graphics and excellent rides and coasters are overshadowed by lack of other content and variety, and are presented in a tiny interface with awkward camera movement.

TLDR: LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG! Hurtful, shameful, grown man crying, LAAAAAAAAAAAAAAGGGG! **Updated after less split-screen play. Non split screen manages the space a bit better as far as trying to cram in all the PC UI. I'm adjusting a bit to the controller shortcuts, but they're still not good/intuitive. I think I have the visuals nailed down to some weird lighting or antialasing that makes the tree kind of glowy against the sky. It doesn't look right. And the FOV is too narrow - it's like wearing a hoody in the zombie apocalypse. Not a good idea. Oh - and have also had multiple save games fail to load again which really **** after hours of adventuring and building. But here's what's really keeping the score where it is (and lucky I don't bump it down): THE LAG! OH DEAR GOD THE LAG! 3 seconds of lag every 10 - 30 seconds of play. Right in the middle of EVERYTHING! It's enough to make a grown man cry and throw his controller at the television. It's goddamn horrible and shameful and makes the game almost unplayable. DID I USE ENOUGH CAPS FUN PIMPS/TELLTALE!!!?? LAAAAAAAAGGGGGG!!! First impressions are disappointing. I was expecting a next-gen console running a 2+ year-old pre-release game to have an amazing improvement in graphics and play over my middle-class PC. But my expectations were dashed. The game is buggy, appears to be an older version of the current PC release, makes little attempt to console-ize the interface (I now have to sit up against the screen of my 60 inch TV along with my daughter just to see what the tiny icons are), the inventory is a nightmare with no sorting or search, graphics are lower quality than my PC's and with very short draw distances. I could go on. The game needs a console tutorial, crafting especially (how to fly for example). The buttons and interface for placing/building is clunky and keyboard-oriented. Character customization has all sorts of flaws and glitches. Etc. Etc. I would go with, "well they ARE in pre-release." But how many years do you need in pre-release? At the least, it can't be an excuse for this level of disorder. The pros are a pretty broad set of building blocks and a good crafting system. I'm still waiting for it on PS4, but the game CAN look really good. The world interactions are satisfying (also glitchy though on PS4) and reasonably paced. Weapons selection is decent even if combat leaves much to be desired. Zombies are cool and 7 Days makes really good use of them visually and audibly. There's much to be said for the terror felt while crouching in the dark corner of a basement listening to a horde swarm by outside. That's core zombie game fun. I expect some quick sprucing up or I alas don't see the many hours that I had hoped would be spent on the console. Which is a shame, because this is a better game on PC, and still has the potential to be great if The Fun Pimps aren't just running out of money or attention span (the two not being mutually exclusive either).

Naughty Dog are the Pixar of PS games. Uncharted 4 is a tour de force of storytelling and action mixed with incredible game design and unparalleled beauty. These games will grip you emotionally (a game in which you truly care about the characters), while staying massively engaging in game play (I love feeling like I AM the lead in an blockbuster film). If all of that seems a bit vague and hyperbolic, you're right, as I would be stealing the experience from you if I discussed much more in detail. I generally have a rule that I don't pay more than a dollar per hour of play that I'll get out ****, but here I happily make an exception. It's worth every penny. Do your homework first. If you don't enjoy climbing, puzzles, or longer cinematics with A-grade acting and motion-capture, then go play DOOM and don't waste everyone else's time with a 0 rating review. There's a little thing called the Internet that has plenty of information to help you find out if this is your genre. This is the juncture between video games and movies, not exploding heads and over-the-top monsters. I can't wait to see Naughty Dog at the next intersection.

5 stars just for the beautiful environment, smooth gameplay and intuitive fighting and cover mechanics. From there it's a bit **** though. The story is hardly original, and the missions aren't exactly riveting. A lot of task-monkey repetition. The Division is like Dying Light without the zombies, parkour, and fun. I keep pushing through hoping that changes, but so far (at level 12) it hasn't. Wait for a sale.

Glitchy game that has trippy, weird mirror-like spots on the screen where the object painting doesn't render right. Parkour-ish features are clunky and gimmicky. Not the quality expected from a premium game.

7 Days is coming along very nicely. My OCD keeps me coming back by reflex. I think there's still a ways to go before it escapes Minecraft trajectory. Right now it looks nice but there's just a lot of collect, craft, build, kill zombies and wash rinse and repeat with no real reward for a job well done. I can't even sit on the awesome couches in my zombie-proof pad. That would really be an excellent reward - being able to interact 100% more with the world. Let me sit on my furniture, stream videos through my TV, actually SLEEP in my bed (does anyone else feel like this is 7 Days of Insomnia?). My character NEVER sleeps and that starts to mess with my non-virtual head after a while. :) Let me climb those trees and towers. Let them fall to the ground like actually trees and towers instead of bouncy Minecraft objects. Let me demolish whole building with TNT, and give me more of those buildings (bigger and with more variety) - exploring the city is one of the best and nerve-wrackingest aspects of the game. Give me more, less predictable, things to find there. Give me multiple spawn point options (bed or sleeping bag). I could go on (additional bag space?), but there are thousands of possibilities that would further separate this from Minecraft, bring it further into an RPG and still be more about building, crafting and exploring. This game has tons of potential and I fully expect to be back to increase my score as new Alpha releases come out.

I had to update my review after completing the game. It's a solid experience. I don't agree with complaints about graphics or driving. But the missions can get a little tedious and repetitious, and the hacking is not nearly as deep as it should be. The voice acting is top notch and the direction is well done too. Plot complaints are actually addressed as the story ends - there's more self-awareness of the double-standards of Pearce's vigilantism than the negative reviews would have you know. There are even some poignant moments. Maybe not worth full price, but certainly worth picking up when it hits the $30 - $40 range.

Brilliant execution on nearly all points. Lag/chop on XBOX showing the age of the system, unfortunately. But you'll quickly forget about that annoyance as you get lost in the hours and hours of things to do in a beautifully crafted environment. Voice acting is stellar, heists are phenomenal, and we can finally save the game without having to go home to bed. Multiplayer is actually fun and almost as engaging as the single player. If you can't get behind bad protagonists, you're in the wrong game to begin with (your first clue should have been the title), and if you're complaining about the graphics you need your eyes checked. A++ for Rockstar. Will be playing this for a long time.

Really a solid solo game. Clever, well-acted dialogue. Graphics and audio and mostly intuitive controls make for an immersive campaign. The soundtrack reeks of Serenity, but is a solid selection and the use of environmental effects in playing it is just one of the subtle details the game offers. Yes it's a different game than 1 or 2. But I like change and all of its imperfections. And this one isn't so off-the-rails as, say, Dead Space 3 is to its predecessors. Pros: Mechs! Giant enemies! Glowy spots for obvious shooting targets! Cons: Lots of walking. Awkwardly placed cutscenes. Limited arsenal... Wait for it to come down in price and pick it up at the 20 30 level. Money well spent.

I wanted to like this game more, just like the last one. It's a solid title, the graphics are the absolute best of the genre (atmospheric, creepy, great use of lighting and colors) as is the sound. Voice acting is good, but inconsistent. Gameplay is smooth and satisfying. But then, the plot is paper thin, game time is short, and the variety of enemies and fights is minimal. The biggest downer though is feeling like you're just following one tunnel after another. I know, I know the title is Metro, so what would I expect? Some illusion of free will at least, I guess. I felt like herded cattle in both games though. So, that said, definitely worth picking up on sale and still tops in the genre. So while it may not be a 10, it's an easy 7 or 8 (I'll round up here).

Amazing game. A mind-bending story, dialogue and locations. Graphics are beautiful and stylized to match the surrealist wonder of the game's conceit. Action is fluid and engaging and the music is a clever game of Name That Tune that will make you want to stay for the end credits for the answers. Hours and hours of gameplay in your first run and you'll likely want to play it again immediately. Awards have rightfully been won, ignore the trolls. This game is solid gold. Easily the best of 2013 so far.