Trenk2009

One of gaming's greatest comeback stories, transforming an empty universe built on broken promises into an astonishingly dense sandbox that feels almost like technological black magic. Context: 400+ hours played. Evaluating the game as both a solo and multiplayer experience. Critique: No Man's Sky is an extraordinary example of what passion, hard work, and long term commitment can accomplish. Hello Games took one of the most infamous launches in gaming history and turned it into an experience that delivers on an incredible amount of its original promise, while expanding it far beyond what anyone could have reasonably expected. The sheer density of its systems is astonishing. Space exploration, base building, resource gathering, crafting, fleet management, expeditions, multiplayer activities, and countless other mechanics coexist in a relatively lightweight package. It is both a solo adventure and a shared universe, offering an almost absurd amount of freedom and content. Even after hundreds of hours, there is always something else to discover or work towards. Pros: - Space Exploration: The dream of exploring an effectively infinite universe, packed into a game of roughly 30 GB. The sheer technical ambition behind No Man's Sky is difficult to comprehend. - Content and Systems: An incredible variety of activities and interconnected systems that can easily provide hundreds of hours of entertainment. It is one of the most feature rich sandboxes in gaming. - Developer Support: Hello Games has gone above and beyond in supporting the game, delivering years of substantial updates without relying on the kind of monetization that usually accompanies this level of continued development. - Multiplayer: An excellent implementation of multiplayer that complements the game's identity without compromising its appeal as a solo experience. Exploring the universe and building alongside other players feels entirely natural. - Freedom: The ultimate space sandbox. Whether you want to explore, build, collect, craft, trade, fight, or simply wander through the universe, the game gives you an incredible amount of freedom to play your own way. Cons: - Storytelling: The main narrative is cryptic and abstract, serving more as a framework for exploration than a particularly compelling story in its own right. - Tutorials: The sheer number of available systems can overwhelm newcomers. The game does not always do a good enough job of explaining its mechanics or helping players understand how everything fits together. - Uneven Depth: Although the variety is phenomenal, not every system receives the same level of attention. Some activities remain relatively shallow or feel more like optional distractions than fully developed gameplay loops. - Presentation: The visuals can be impressive in scale and atmosphere, but the graphics and soundtrack are not particularly remarkable in isolation. The game's greatest strength is what it allows you to experience, rather than the technical or artistic impact of any individual element. Conclusion: No Man's Sky is living proof that hard work and genuine passion can turn an ambitious failure into something extraordinary. Hello Games accomplished what few studios would even attempt: transforming one of gaming's biggest controversies into a redemption story that demonstrates an incredible commitment to the medium and its players. I genuinely struggle to express just how impressive this game is in terms of freedom, content density, and sheer ambition. Its flaws are real, but they barely diminish what Hello Games has achieved. No Man's Sky is much more than a good space exploration game. It is a remarkable example of what a video game can become when its developers refuse to abandon their vision. Final Verdict: 10/10. The ultimate space sandbox and one of gaming's most impressive redemption stories.

Context: 122 hours clocked in. Critique: Starbound takes the familiar sandbox formula and gives it a compelling space exploration identity. Procedurally generated planets, spaceship progression, base building, and a proper story provide a solid foundation, while additional systems like mechs, creature capture, colonization, and bounty hunting offer plenty of potential. The problem is that most of these features never receive the depth or polish needed to truly shine. Pros: - Space Exploration: Exploring a seemingly endless universe of procedurally generated planets is a fantastic concept that gives the game a strong sense of adventure. - Spaceship Customization: Upgrading and decorating your ship is one of the game's most enjoyable features, providing a satisfying sense of progression and a personal home between expeditions. - Content and Systems: A proper storyline, memorable bosses, building, colonization, mechs, creature capture, bounty hunting, and repeatable endgame activities provide a decent range of features. Cons: - RPG Progression: The RPG systems feel considerably less developed than those of other Terraria likes, with less satisfying progression and character customization. - Gameplay: Combat and movement feel slower, heavier, and less responsive than they should, making the moment to moment experience less enjoyable .- Underdeveloped Mechanics: Many of the game's systems feel underutilized or practically irrelevant, with interesting ideas that never develop into meaningful gameplay loops. - User Interface: The interface is cumbersome and unintuitive, adding unnecessary friction to an experience built around inventory management, crafting, and exploration. - Lack of Developer Support: Perhaps the game's greatest tragedy. Starbound has the foundations of something genuinely phenomenal, but its systems remain underdeveloped and its potential largely unrealized. With more substantial updates and continued development, it could have become one of the defining games of its genre. The 2D equivalent of No Man's Sky Conclusion: Starbound is a charming and ambitious sandbox that scratches a very specific itch through its sci-fi setting, space exploration, and spaceship customization. Those strengths make it an easy recommendation for the right audience, but its shallow RPG systems, clunky gameplay, and underdeveloped features prevent it from competing with the best Terraria likes. More than anything, it feels like a game that never came close to fulfilling its own potential. Final Verdict: 7/10. A good space sandbox with an excellent premise, but one that feels like only 10% of what it could have been with proper long term development support.

A fun social deduction game built around lies, betrayal, and paranoia, with an enjoyable core concept that unfortunately struggles to maintain its appeal due to a lack of content and mechanical depth. Context: Primarily experienced through multiplayer sessions with friends. 125h clocked in. Critique: Deceit offers a genuinely entertaining twist on social deduction, combining deception and teamwork with resource management and sudden bursts of combat. Its atmosphere works well, and the uncertainty surrounding other players creates plenty of memorable moments. Unfortunately, the game quickly reveals its limitations, with too few mechanics and gameplay variations to keep the experience fresh over time. Pros: - Atmosphere: A creepy setting that reinforces the paranoia and mistrust at the heart of the experience. - Multiplayer: Deceiving your friends, exposing liars, and turning against each other makes for some genuinely entertaining sessions. - Map Items: Scavenging for resources and deciding how to use the available items adds an interesting strategic layer to the gameplay. - Gunplay: Simple but effective, providing satisfying combat when deception inevitably turns into violence. Cons: - Lack of Content: The game is ultimately quite simplistic, with too few monster types, abilities, and items to create enough variety between matches. The limited selection of tools and mechanics quickly becomes apparent. - Antidote Balance: The syringe is far too influential in determining the outcome of a match. Its importance can overshadow the game's other mechanics, making many encounters revolve around a single item rather than the broader deception and deduction systems. - Repetitive Gameplay: The core loop is fun, but the lack of mechanical variety means that matches gradually start feeling too similar. The concept has plenty of potential, yet the game does not develop it enough to sustain long term engagement. Conclusion: Deceit is a genuinely fun multiplayer experience with a strong atmosphere and an entertaining foundation built around deception and betrayal. However, its limited content and overreliance on the antidote syringe prevent its gameplay from evolving beyond its initial appeal. Final Verdict: 7/10. A fun social deduction game that delivers memorable moments with friends, but lacks the depth and variety needed to remain engaging in the long run.

A masterclass in open world RPG design, offering an incredibly immersive adventure that remains relevant 15 years later, largely thanks to one of the greatest modding communities in gaming. Context: Experienced the game with its modding scene in mind, which considerably extends its longevity and replayability. Critique: Skyrim is one of those games that perfectly captures the magic of open world exploration. Its world feels dense, full of secrets, and constantly invites you to venture off the beaten path. Combined with its immersive RPG systems and extraordinary modding scene, it offers an experience that can be enjoyed for hundreds of hours, even decades after its original release. Pros: - Open World: A rich, immersive world filled with dungeons, quests, secrets, and memorable locations that reward curiosity and exploration. - RPG Immersion: The freedom to develop your character, choose your playstyle, and explore the world at your own pace makes for an incredibly engaging role playing experience. - Modding: One of the best modding communities in gaming, allowing players to overhaul virtually every aspect of the experience and extend its lifespan almost indefinitely. - Music: Do I need to say anything here? Cons: - Combat: The combat system is relatively shallow, with limited mechanical depth and fairly simplistic interactions. While the variety of builds helps keep things interesting, the moment to moment fighting rarely feels particularly engaging on its own. - Balancing: Some builds, particularly stealth archers, can become ridiculously powerful, undermining the challenge. - Level Scaling: The relatively crude level scaling system can make progression feel inconsistent, occasionally undermining the sense of growth and accomplishment. Conclusion: Skyrim remains a landmark open world RPG that excels at exploration, immersion, and player freedom. Its combat lacks depth, and its balancing can be questionable, but its incredible world and unparalleled modding potential make it an experience worth revisiting for years to come. Final Verdict: 10/10. An essential open world RPG and a timeless classic. N.B: Hard to not give a perfect score with all the modding. Virtually any flaw can be fixed with a quick install. Regardless, the game was still widly impressive for 2011.

A classic Grand Theft Auto experience that improves on its predecessor in almost every way, yet feels more like an iterative upgrade than a meaningful evolution of the open world genre. Context: Completed the game. Evaluating it primarily as a single player open world experience. Critique: It's Grand Theft Auto. The formula is proven, the production values are excellent, and the sheer amount of content makes it difficult not to have a good time. GTA V offers a bigger, more detailed world than its predecessor, a memorable cast of characters, and the familiar freedom that has made the franchise so successful.However, I find it difficult to consider it a masterpiece when its open world feels so underutilized from a gameplay perspective. Los Santos is an impressive place to explore, but much of that freedom feels superficial. The world is enormous, yet the missions frequently funnel you into tightly scripted sequences that leave surprisingly little room for player creativity. Rather than fundamentally evolving the formula, GTA V often feels like GTA IV++, offering more of everything without necessarily rethinking what the experience could be. Pros: - The Grand Theft Auto Formula: Sometimes, a proven formula is all you need. The combination of driving, shooting, exploration, criminal activities, and an open world remains inherently entertaining. GTA V understands what makes the franchise work and delivers a polished version of that experience. - Production Values: Los Santos is visually impressive, the presentation is excellent, and the overall scale of the game remains remarkable. Rockstar's attention to detail helps create a convincing world, even when its gameplay systems do not fully capitalize on it. - Content and Variety: There is plenty to do, from the main story and side activities to the various distractions scattered throughout the world. The game offers a substantial package, even if not all of its content feels equally meaningful. Cons: - Superficial Open World: For a game released in 2013, I expected more from the way its open world interacts with the gameplay. Los Santos is impressive as a setting, but too often it feels like a backdrop rather than a world that meaningfully expands the player's possibilities. The distinction between having a large world and having a truly interactive one matters, and GTA V does not always get it right. - Underutilized Gameplay Freedom: The open world promises freedom, but the missions frequently restrict it. Many objectives rely on heavily scripted sequences, with the game expecting you to approach situations in specific ways despite giving you an entire city to explore. More opportunities for creative problem solving and alternative approaches would have made the experience significantly more engaging. - Missed Opportunities Between Single Player and Multiplayer: Several mechanics and activities introduced or expanded through GTA Online would have benefited the single player experience as well. The distinction between the two modes makes the campaign feel more limited than it needs to be, particularly when the multiplayer component demonstrates how much more could be done with the game's foundations. - Limited Evolution: GTA V feels more like a larger, prettier, and more feature rich version of GTA IV than a genuine leap forward for the franchise. Improvements are certainly present, but the underlying design philosophy remains largely unchanged. For a series with this much ambition and influence, I would have liked to see a more substantial evolution of its open world and mission design. Conclusion: GTA V is a very good game, but its status as a Grand Theft Auto title arguably carries it further than its actual innovations justify. The world is impressive, the production values are excellent, and the familiar gameplay loop remains entertaining. However, its open world often feels disconnected from the missions themselves, and its approach to player freedom is more restrictive than the setting initially suggests. It improves on GTA IV in many ways, but rarely feels like a radical reimagining of what an open world game can be.Looking ahead to GTA VI, I hope Rockstar takes the opportunity to create a genuinely more reactive and interactive world, with activities that meaningfully integrate into the gameplay and missions that allow for greater freedom in how objectives are completed. In 2026, an enormous open world should be more than an elaborate backdrop for linear missions. It should actively enrich the experience. Final Verdict: 7/10. A solid and highly polished Grand Theft Auto that delivers more of what already worked, but never quite pushes the formula far enough to justify a higher score.

A legendary co-op shooter that delivers an exceptional amount of fun, blending over the top action in the vein of Left 4 Dead with tactical heists and stealth gameplay. Unfortunately, its shallow mechanics and questionable long term progression prevent it from reaching its full potential. Context: Experienced the game primarily through multiplayer, with an appreciation for both its loud, action packed heists and its stealth oriented approach. 446 hours on record. Critique: Payday 2 is one of those games that understands a fundamentally simple concept and executes it brilliantly: robbing banks with your friends. Whether you are carefully coordinating a stealth operation or fighting off endless waves of police in a chaotic shootout, the game delivers an incredibly satisfying co-op experience. Its endgame build variety also provides plenty of room for experimentation, making character progression genuinely enjoyable. Unfortunately, the experience becomes less compelling once the initial discovery wears off. The core mechanics remain relatively shallow, the progression systems lack meaningful long term rewards, and the sheer volume of paid DLC makes the complete experience unnecessarily expensive. Payday 2 is an incredibly fun game, but one that could have done much more to sustain that fun over time. Pros: - Co-op Gameplay: There is something uniquely satisfying about pulling off a bank robbery with friends. The combination of teamwork, improvisation, and chaotic situations creates memorable moments that few co-op games can replicate. - Gameplay Variety: The contrast between carefully planned stealth heists and chaotic horde shooter encounters gives the game two distinct identities. Both approaches can be incredibly entertaining, depending on your mood and the people you play with. - Character Builds: The endgame offers a surprisingly rich selection of builds, skills, weapons, and equipment to experiment with. Finding a setup that suits your preferred playstyle adds a satisfying layer of customization to the experience. - Pure Fun: At its core, Payday 2 is an excellent video game for simply having a good time. It does not need particularly sophisticated mechanics to deliver satisfying shootouts and hilarious multiplayer moments. - Replayability: The different approaches to heists, combined with difficulty levels and build customization, provide plenty of reasons to revisit missions and experiment with different strategies. Cons: - Shallow Mechanics: Despite the variety of available builds and missions, the underlying gameplay systems are relatively simple. The game is enjoyable largely because of how well its basic formula works, rather than any particular mechanical depth. - Monetization and DLC: The sheer quantity of paid DLC is one of the game's biggest drawbacks. Accessing the complete experience can become expensive, and the fragmented content offering makes the overall package less appealing than it should be. - Lack of Meaningful Progression: The game does a decent job of making early progression feel rewarding, but its long term progression lacks the same appeal. Once you have established your build and acquired the equipment you want, there are fewer meaningful goals left to pursue. - Underutilized In Game Money: Money feels useful during the early game, when it helps you purchase equipment and progress through the ranks. Later on, however, it becomes increasingly pointless, with relatively few meaningful ways to spend it beyond experimenting with different weapons and loadouts. For a game centered around pulling off lucrative heists, this feels like a particularly missed opportunity .- Repetitive Gameplay Loop: The core mechanics have not evolved enough to keep the experience fresh indefinitely. Eventually, most of what you do comes down to repeating the same fundamental gameplay loop across different maps. Mission variety helps, but it cannot entirely compensate for the lack of deeper mechanical evolution. Conclusion: Payday 2 is an exceptionally fun co-op shooter that delivers on the fantasy of pulling off heists with friends. Its combination of tactical stealth, chaotic firefights, and extensive build customization makes it easy to recommend, particularly for multiplayer sessions. However, its shallow mechanics, underwhelming long term progression, and excessive reliance on paid DLC prevent it from maintaining the same level of engagement indefinitely. The foundation is excellent, but the game never quite develops it as much as it could have. Final Verdict: 8/10. A fantastic co-op experience with an incredibly entertaining core loop, held back by limited mechanical depth and progression systems that struggle to keep the fun going once the novelty wears off.

Context: Casual player. 369 hours on record. Critique: PUBG is a game that can feel like a 9/10 during its first few hours. The gunplay is distinctive, the tension is incredible, and every encounter feels genuinely dangerous. Its combination of huge maps, a very low time to kill, and the constant threat of getting eliminated creates an intensity that few other battle royales can replicate. Unfortunately, that initial excitement does not last forever. Once the novelty wears off, the game's slow and cumbersome mechanics become increasingly difficult to overlook. Between the lengthy preparation before each match, the time spent looting, the clunky movement, and the frustrating randomness, PUBG gradually loses much of its appeal. What initially makes it so immersive eventually becomes what makes it exhausting. Pros: - Gunplay: PUBG has a distinctive gunfeel that becomes incredibly satisfying once you get used to it. Weapons feel impactful, firefights are tense, and winning an encounter can be genuinely exhilarating. - Tension and Immersion: Few battle royales capture the feeling of being hunted quite as well. The huge maps, low time to kill, and constant uncertainty create an atmosphere where even moving between locations can feel dangerous. Every encounter matters, and survival often feels like an achievement in itself. - Multiplayer Experience: Playing with friends can produce some genuinely hilarious and memorable moments. The unpredictability of each match makes for excellent stories, and the shared tension can turn even a disastrous game into a great time. Cons: - Slow and Cumbersome Gameplay: This is the game's biggest weakness over the long term. Getting into a match takes too long, looting can become tedious, and the sheer number of attachments and equipment pieces adds unnecessary friction. Movement also feels heavy and lacks the fluidity needed to make the overall experience consistently enjoyable. What initially contributes to the realism eventually becomes exhausting. - Server Performance and Hit Registration: Inconsistent server performance can make certain deaths feel completely incomprehensible. Getting eliminated by someone who barely seemed to be aiming at you is incredibly frustrating, especially in a game where a single mistake can end a match that you have spent twenty minutes preparing for. - Excessive RNG: Randomness is an inherent part of the battle royale formula, but PUBG can sometimes take it too far. Loot distribution, equipment availability, and other random factors can give certain players substantial advantages before a fight even begins. When a victory or defeat feels determined more by circumstances than by your decisions and mechanical skill, the experience becomes considerably less satisfying. - Pacing: The combination of lengthy looting phases, slow rotations, and unpredictable encounters means that a significant amount of time can be spent waiting for something interesting to happen. When the actual firefights are so enjoyable, it is frustrating that the game makes you work through so much downtime to experience them. Conclusion: PUBG delivers some of the most intense and satisfying battle royale experiences on the market, with exceptional gunfeel and an atmosphere that makes every firefight feel consequential. Its first hours can easily feel like a 9/10 experience. However, once the novelty wears off, the cumbersome movement, excessive downtime, inconsistent server performance, and frustrating RNG become increasingly difficult to ignore. The core gameplay remains excellent, but the experience surrounding it often gets in its way. Final Verdict: 7/10. An outstanding concept with exceptional moments, held back by a slow, cumbersome gameplay loop that gradually turns excitement into frustration. A game better enjoyed in phases.

Context: Completed the game. Critique: Life is Strange is one of those games whose reputation becomes increasingly difficult to understand the more you examine what it actually offers. Strip away the interactive elements, and what remains is a painfully clichéd teenage drama with awkward dialogue, shallow characters, and a plot that relies on contrivances rather than coherent writing. Its supernatural premise could have supported some genuinely interesting storytelling and meaningful moral dilemmas, but the game consistently squanders that potential. The gameplay is hardly any better. While the time manipulation mechanic initially sounds promising, it is severely underutilized, and the choices rarely offer the kind of complexity or lasting consequences that would make the experience compelling. Compared to a game like Detroit: Become Human, which builds entire branching scenarios around player decisions, Life is Strange feels remarkably shallow. Pros: - Soundtrack: Easily the game's strongest element. The music does a lot of heavy lifting in establishing the atmosphere, and some of its tracks genuinely manage to elevate scenes that otherwise struggle to make an emotional impact. - Atmosphere: The game occasionally succeeds in creating a specific mood through its music, visual presentation, and small town setting. There are moments where the overall aesthetic works, even when the writing fails to deliver. Cons: - Writing and Dialogue: The game's biggest failure. Its characters are painfully clichéd, its dialogue often feels embarrassingly unnatural, and its attempts at emotional depth frequently come across as forced. Rather than developing believable characters, the writing leans heavily on familiar teenage drama tropes without bringing enough originality or nuance to make them work. - Story and Plot: The narrative is riddled with contrivances and questionable decisions. The identity of the killer is far too predictable, while the supernatural anomalies caused by Max's powers barely provoke meaningful reactions from the people around her. The story routinely prioritizes dramatic convenience over internal consistency. - Underutilized Time Manipulation: Max's powers are the game's central mechanic, yet they are rarely used to their full potential. The supposed moral dilemmas often lack meaningful complexity, and the ability to rewind time frequently feels more like a convenient narrative device than a mechanic that fundamentally transforms the experience. - Artificial Emotional Manipulation: The final dilemma is particularly frustrating because it feels engineered to force an emotional response rather than emerging naturally from the story. The game wants its conclusion to carry enormous weight, but the writing does not sufficiently justify the emotional investment it demands. - Inconsistent World Rules: The game's supernatural mechanics seem to change whenever the plot requires them to. Sometimes Max retains objects after rewinding time, sometimes she does not, and the boundaries of her abilities are never established consistently enough to make their use feel logical. At certain points, the game even relies on what amounts to a teleportation mechanic to move Max through the environment, further muddying the rules of her powers. - Meaningless Choices: For a game so heavily marketed around player choice, the actual decision making is surprisingly shallow. The consequences are often limited, the dilemmas rarely offer genuine moral complexity, and the narrative frequently funnels the player toward predetermined outcomes. Compared to Detroit: Become Human, where exploring environments, finding information, and making decisions can dramatically alter entire storylines, Life is Strange feels like a missed opportunity. - Gameplay: Ultimately, this is a walking simulator with basic environmental interaction and occasional puzzles. That is not inherently a problem, but when the narrative fails to engage and the central mechanic is underdeveloped, there is very little left to carry the experience. Conclusion: Life is Strange is a deeply disappointing narrative adventure that mistakes teenage melodrama for compelling writing and superficial choices for meaningful interactivity. Its characters are clichéd, its plot is riddled with contrivances, and its central time manipulation mechanic is nowhere near as thoughtfully integrated as it should be. Games like Detroit: Become Human demonstrate how much depth and complexity interactive storytelling can achieve, making Life is Strange's shortcomings all the more apparent. The soundtrack is genuinely good, but it cannot compensate for an experience that fails on almost every other front. Final Verdict: 2/10. An overrated, poorly written narrative adventure whose only saving grace is its soundtrack.

Context: 164 hours played. Completed the base game from beginning to end, with both DLCs included. This review focuses exclusively on the base game. (Played before the Remaster) Critique: The Witcher 3 is an exceptional RPG that demonstrates just how much great writing and quest design can elevate an entire experience. Its world is breathtaking, its characters are memorable, and its quests consistently deliver some of the best storytelling the genre has to offer. The role playing elements and meaningful choices further reinforce the experience, making the journey feel personal and rewarding. Unfortunately, the gameplay itself does not quite reach the same heights. While there is plenty to appreciate in the overall experience, the combat is ultimately rather forgettable, and certain aspects of the game's mechanics feel clunkier than they should. As someone who prioritizes gameplay above all else, I cannot quite bring myself to give it a perfect score, despite everything it gets right. Pros: - Writing and Quest Design: The game's greatest strength by far. The writing is phenomenal, its characters are incredibly well developed, and even seemingly minor quests can deliver memorable stories with meaningful consequences. The Witcher 3 consistently demonstrates an understanding of storytelling that few RPGs can match. - Open World: A spectacular world that feels rich, atmospheric, and worth exploring. Its landscapes are beautiful, its locations have plenty of personality, and the overall sense of adventure is exceptional. - Visuals and Art Direction: Despite its age, the game remains gorgeous, with beautiful environments and a distinctive artistic identity that brings its dark fantasy setting to life. - Role Playing: A satisfying RPG experience that gives you meaningful ways to shape Geralt's character through equipment, abilities, builds, and progression. - Meaningful Choices: Decisions often carry genuine weight, with consequences that extend beyond simple dialogue variations. The game regularly puts you in morally ambiguous situations without offering easy answers. Cons: - Controls and Movement: Geralt can feel a little clunky to control, particularly when navigating tight spaces or trying to move precisely. It is far from a dealbreaker, but the movement could certainly feel more responsive. - Roach: Geralt's horse is useful in theory, but the actual experience of riding and controlling it can be inconsistent. Between its occasional awkwardness and the limitations of mounted travel, Roach is not always as convenient as you would expect. - Combat System: This is where the game falls noticeably short. Despite the variety of enemies, abilities, signs, and equipment, the moment to moment combat can become repetitive, often boiling down to alternating between attacks and dodges while keeping Quen active for extra protection. It gets the job done, but it lacks the depth and satisfying mechanical execution that would have made the experience truly exceptional. - Map Completion: The open world is spectacular, but clearing its map is considerably less rewarding. Many points of interest feel like repetitive filler rather than meaningful discoveries, making exploration less engaging when approached as a checklist. Conclusion: The Witcher 3 is an extraordinary RPG carried by some of the best writing, quest design, and world building the genre has ever seen. Its characters, meaningful choices, and spectacular open world make it an unforgettable experience. However, its combat system is nowhere near as impressive as its narrative strengths, and the abundance of repetitive points of interest can make map completion feel like a chore. As someone who values gameplay above all else, I cannot quite justify a perfect score, even for a game this exceptional. Final Verdict: 9/10. A landmark RPG with phenomenal storytelling and an incredible world, held back only by gameplay that never quite matches the brilliance of its writing. N.B: After the remaster, the grade reaches 9.9/10.

Context: Played the original Control and consider it a solid 8/10. Critique: Control Resonant takes what made the original enjoyable and pushes it even further, particularly when it comes to gameplay. Combat feels even better, with a more developed and engaging gameplay loop that could have easily carried the game to a 9/10. Unfortunately, the overall experience is held back by a frustrating tendency to prioritize quantity over quality, turning what could have been an exceptional sequel into a considerably more uneven experience. Pros: - Gameplay: Easily the game's biggest strength. The improvements over the original make combat even more satisfying, with a stronger gameplay loop that feels like a genuine evolution rather than a simple rehash. This is the kind of sequel that understands how to build upon its predecessor's strongest foundations. - Combat: Fighting remains incredibly enjoyable, with enough depth and variety to keep encounters engaging. The core gameplay is strong enough that you genuinely want to keep playing, which makes the game's shortcomings all the more frustrating. - World and Atmosphere: The distinctive supernatural identity that made the original so memorable remains a major part of the experience, preserving much of what makes this universe so appealing. - Potential: At its best, Control Resonant demonstrates just how much further this formula can go. With more focused content and better pacing, the improved gameplay could have supported a genuinely outstanding sequel. Cons: - Artificial Playtime Extension: The biggest issue is how much additional content seems designed to increase the game's overall runtime rather than meaningfully improve the experience. More content is not inherently a bad thing, but here, the quantity often comes at the expense of quality. - Formulaic Quest Design: The sequel feels considerably more repetitive in how it structures its quests and open world exploration. What initially feels like a welcome expansion of the original's formula gradually becomes a predictable cycle of objectives and encounters. - Repetitive Open World: Exploration loses some of its appeal as the game increasingly relies on familiar activities and repetitive objectives. The additional space and content do not always translate into meaningful discoveries or memorable experiences. - Artificial Difficulty: This becomes particularly noticeable towards the end, when the game starts throwing increasingly difficult encounters and seemingly nonstop fights at the player. Rather than feeling like a natural escalation of the challenge, the constant combat begins to feel like an artificial way of extending the experience. - Pacing: The combination of repetitive content, formulaic quest design, and excessive fighting becomes increasingly difficult to ignore as the game progresses. What should have been an increasingly rewarding journey instead starts feeling like a checklist of activities to complete before reaching the conclusion. Conclusion: Control Resonant is a frustrating sequel because its core gameplay is genuinely excellent, arguably even better than the original. That alone could have made it a 9/10 for me. Unfortunately, the decision to expand the experience with increasingly formulaic quests, repetitive exploration, and artificially prolonged combat undermines much of that potential. The problem is not that the game offers more content, but that too much of it feels designed to fill time rather than deliver meaningful experiences. By the end, the repetition becomes difficult to overlook. Final Verdict: 7/10. A sequel with gameplay good enough to deserve a 9/10, held back by a bloated and repetitive experience that struggles to justify its additional content.

Context: Casual player. Focused primarily on the main experience. Critique: Control is a great example **** that knows what it wants to be and executes its vision with confidence. Its combination of supernatural abilities, satisfying combat, and an unsettling, deeply original universe makes for a memorable experience. The game also strikes a good balance between challenge and progression, constantly making you feel more powerful without overstaying its welcome. Pros: - Gameplay: Combat feels fantastic, especially once you unlock more supernatural abilities. Throwing objects around, combining powers, and tearing through enemies makes every encounter satisfying. - World and Atmosphere: Easily the game's biggest strength. The Oldest House is an incredibly original setting, with a strong SCP inspired identity that makes exploration feel genuinely mysterious and unsettling. - Character Progression: Unlocking new abilities and becoming increasingly powerful provides a satisfying sense of progression throughout the adventure.- Difficulty: A well balanced challenge that keeps combat engaging without becoming unnecessarily frustrating. - Pacing: The game knows when to stop. Its relatively short runtime allows it to deliver a complete experience without dragging things out just for the sake of adding more hours. Cons: - Navigation: The map can be frustratingly difficult to navigate, and it is surprisingly easy to lose your bearings while trying to reach your next objective. - Storytelling: The plot is understandable enough to follow, but its deliberately cryptic presentation can occasionally go a little too far. The ambiguity fits the game's identity, although it sometimes makes the narrative harder to engage with than necessary. - Value for Money: Depending on the price, the relatively short 15 to 20 hour runtime might feel a little expensive compared to longer games. This is less of an issue on sale, but still worth considering. Conclusion: Control is a polished, distinctive action game carried by excellent combat, satisfying progression, and one of the most memorable settings in the genre. Its navigation issues and occasionally over cryptic storytelling hold it back slightly, while its relatively short runtime makes the asking price worth considering. Still, it delivers a focused, high quality experience that knows how to make the most of its time. Final Verdict: 8/10. A great supernatural action game with a unique identity, satisfying gameplay, and an atmosphere that stays with you long after the credits roll.

A timeless classic that practically pioneered its own genre. You really can't go wrong with Terraria, and with the right mods, it easily becomes a 10/10 experience.

Context: Casual player. Played primarily for exploration, boss fights, and character progression, with a particular appreciation for the multiplayer experience. Critique: Core Keeper is a very solid Terraria like that manages to offer a satisfying mix of survival, exploration, combat, and progression. Its charming visuals hide a surprisingly substantial adventure, with plenty of secrets to uncover, challenging bosses to overcome, and character builds to optimize throughout the endgame. Pros: - Exploration One of the game's biggest strengths. Exploring the underground world is genuinely exciting, with new areas, resources, secrets, and bosses constantly giving you reasons to venture further. - Boss Design Generally excellent encounters that provide a satisfying challenge and serve as meaningful milestones throughout progression. - Character Progression Building your character is particularly rewarding in the endgame, where equipment, skills, and optimization give you plenty of room to improve your build. - Multiplayer The game becomes even more enjoyable with friends, making exploration, resource gathering, and boss fights a more engaging shared experience. - Visuals and Atmosphere A charming pixel art style that gives the world plenty of personality without compromising its sense of mystery and adventure. - Content and Variety A surprisingly complete package that offers much more than simple survival and crafting, with a satisfying progression loop and plenty of content to explore. Cons: - Resource Gathering Some crafting processes, particularly ore smelting, involve excessive waiting times that can interrupt the overall gameplay loop. - Endgame Exploration While exploration is one of the game's greatest strengths, it can become unnecessarily tedious once you reach the post credits bosses. Optimizing your character often requires finding rare, unique resources hidden in very specific areas, which can lead to exhaustive searches across the map with little guarantee of success. - Skill Progression: Leveling certain skill trees, particularly Mining and Running, can become repetitive over time. The progression system is satisfying overall, but some skills demand more grinding than their rewards justify. Conclusion Core Keeper is an excellent survival RPG that delivers a rewarding adventure built around exploration, challenging bosses, and satisfying character progression. Its charming presentation and especially enjoyable multiplayer make it easy to recommend, although some endgame resource hunts and repetitive skill grinding can become tedious. These issues are relatively minor compared to everything the game gets right. Final Verdict: 8/10. A very respectable Terraria-like with plenty to offer, especially if you have friends to share the adventure with.

Context: Played since Technical Test 1 in 2016. Nearly 10 years of experience, around 4,000 hours played, mostly in duels. Former Grandmaster multiple times, still always play at overall "top" level. Critique: An incredibly unique fighting game that combines satisfying melee combat, mind games, and high skill ceiling into an experience that very few games can replicate. It's unique, and it's why it's still alive 10 years later. Pros: - Combat system Easily the game's greatest strength. Directional attacks, parries, feints, guard breaks, dodges, and character specific mechanics create an incredibly satisfying system that rewards both mechanical skill and mind games. Few games make every interaction feel as personal and intense. - A unique take on fighting games For Honor's slower pace puts a much greater emphasis on reaction play than most traditional fighting games, creating a distinctive combat experience that is easier to grasp as a beginner while remaining incredibly rewarding to master. - Character roster An impressive selection of heroes with unique weapons, animations, strengths, and playstyles. - Visuals and animations Excellent art direction, satisfying weapon impacts, brutal executions, and fantastic character designs. The attention given to weapons, armor, and combat animations makes every fight feel weighty and impactful Even 10 years later, the game still looks good. - Game modes Duels offer the purest expression of the combat system, while Dominion adds team coordination, objective control, rotations, and strategic depth. Both modes offer distinct experiences that complement each other well. - Customization An extensive selection of armor, weapon parts, executions, effects, and ornaments makes creating a distinctive look for your favorite hero genuinely enjoyable. - Business model I've spent nearly 10 years playing a game I bought for €40, barely spending anything extra despite a decade's worth of content and updates. The game's content has practically tripled since release, yet I've barely paid more than the original price. That's genuinely impressive for a live service game. - Clearly pasionated dev team Even after 10 years, the team continues to introduce unique heroes and push the boundaries of the game's combat system, with additions like Sohei, Virtuosa, Khatun, Juren and Arakure. The quality isn't always consistent, and the team certainly makes its fair share of mistakes, but For Honor is fortunate to still have Ubisoft Montreal working on it. Cons: - Balance philosphy One of the game's biggest recurring problems. Although the overall balance is and has been in a decent state for a while now, Ubisoft still refuses to balance 1v1 and 4v4 separately. As a result, balancing a hero for both modes can be extremely difficult, often forcing compromises that leave one mode worse off than the other. - 4v4 frustration For Honor's core gameplay is fundamentally built around 1v1 combat, as expected from a fighting game. Unfortunately, its most popular mode is 4v4, which introduces a lot of frustration. Getting ganked, interrupted, or caught in an unfavorable team fight can feel unfair, especially when revenge fails to provide meaningful protection. Even with years of experience and a deep understanding of the game, I still find the overall 4v4 experience considerably less compelling than duels. Conclusion: For Honor is one of the most unique and rewarding multiplayer games I've ever played. Its combat system has a depth, personality, and skill ceiling that very few games can match. Even after thousands of hours, there is still something satisfying about learning a matchup, outplaying an opponent, or pulling off a hard fought victory. It has plenty of flaws and came a long way from his long life time, but none of the issues ever erased what makes it special. For Honor could have been even better with smarter design decisions and more consistent support, yet its core gameplay remains exceptional. Almost ten years later, I still haven't found another game that scratches quite the same itch. A solid 9/10 overall. It would be a 10/10 if the game released in a better state, but it's better late than never I guess.

Context: Casual player, Gold skill level at best overall, potentially a bit higher in terms of pure micro. Barely played ranked. Critique: League of Legends is one of those games that's almost impossible to review because it has practically become its own genre. A more accessible alternative to DOTA, with excellent core gameplay and an incredibly rich universe that has grown far beyond the game itself. Pros: - Addictive gameplay - Beautiful art direction - Deep and complex, with an incredibly high skill ceiling - Constantly evolving, for better and for worse - Excellent alternative game modes. Arena, URF and the recently released ARAM Mayhem add a lot of variety, with the latter alone being worth an extra point - A thrilling competitive scene - A pioneer of competitive gaming on such a massive scale - Completely free to play, with no gameplay affecting purchases - Great cosmetics and champion designs Cons: - A notoriously toxic community, far worse than average - An awful launcher and client experience - Tanks - Significant differences in skill requirements between roles and champions Conclusion: League of Legends is one of those games that can easily consume thousands of hours without ever really running out of things to learn or master. Its gameplay is incredibly addictive, its depth is almost unmatched, and its constant updates keep the experience fresh, even when they occasionally make things worse. The sheer variety of champions and game modes also makes it much more than just a competitive 5v5 experience. Unfortunately, the game is held back by its community, questionable balance decisions and an increasingly frustrating client. Still, few games offer such a compelling combination of mechanical skill, strategic depth, team coordination and sheer replayability. Even as someone who barely touches ranked, I can appreciate just how much League has to offer. An easy 8/10, even if the experience surrounding the actual game can sometimes make you question why you're still playing.

Context: CS is CS. Critique: Timeless classic for sure. But there's a lot of better options available in nowaday's gaming landscape. Pros: - It's CS Cons: - It's CS Conclusion I mean, it's CS.

Context: Casual on and off player. Diamond when in a good period. Not many hours. Critique: Valorant combines Counter Strike's gunplay with hero abilities that add a much appreciated layer of strategy and fun to its matches. Positioning, aim, economy management and team coordination all matter, creating a high skill ceiling that rewards practice and game knowledge. PROS - Excellent gunplay with satisfying, mostly skill based shooting. - Agent abilities add strategic depth and team synergy. - A clean, restrained art style and excellent visual design ensure clear readability even in the heat of combat. CONS: - Limited gameplay variety outside its core competitive loop. - Outrageous balance decisions. Even six years after release, Riot still seems uncertain about the direction it wants to take the game. Entire character kits can be gutted from one patch to another, while maps enter and leave the competitive rotation with little apparent consistency. - Fragile competitive integrity Six years in, Riot still lets players choose their preferred matchmaking server in a tactical shooter with a sub 5ms time to kill, where precise hit registration and consistent networking are absolutely critical. The implications for competitive fairness should be obvious, yet this system remains in place. - Valorant is a competitive team based multiplayer shooter, with all the toxicity and frustration that comes with it. It shouldn't necessarily count as a flaw of the game itself, but it's such an integral part of the experience that it's hard to ignore. Much like League of Legends, Valorant is arguably 50% a video game and 50% social interaction. Conclusion: Valorant is a solid competitive FPS built on excellent gunplay, strategic depth and a high skill ceiling. However, questionable balance decisions, limited variety and the frustrations inherent to its competitive environment hold it back from being truly great. A good game with a strong foundation, but one that comes with enough flaws to keep it from reaching the next level.

CONTEXT: F2P+ (light occasional spender) / Controller player / Casualish, rarely affected by FOMO and never playing optimally / Almost 7k hours played / 1.5k hours on my first character / Main currently 1775 with 6k CP. CRITIQUE: Lost Ark is one of those games that makes it incredibly easy to understand why people get hooked, while making it painfully obvious why so many eventually quit. PROS: - Combat and class design Easily the game's strongest asset, leaving every other MMO I've played behind, and it's not even remotely close. Every class has its own identity, and mastering its rotations, animations, positioning and timings is incredibly satisfying. - PvE Encounters Some of the best encounters I've experienced in any video game, let alone an MMO. Learning patterns, improving execution and eventually making bosses look easy, to the point of running raids purely to improve your performance, is immensely rewarding. I simply cannot oversell how much the gameplay carries this title. - Presentation Despite its outdated engine, Lost Ark offers excellent visuals, animations, music and production quality. The sound design alone deserves a mention for how ridiculously good it is. Playing this game with the sound off feels borderline criminal. - Top tier levelling experience Despite being fairly straightforward, leveling is carefully designed to feel smooth and well paced, avoiding frustrating backtracking while maintaining a steady rhythm. It's still an MMO leveling experience, but among the best in the genre. - Build variety and progression Experimenting with different classes, optimizing builds and gradually growing stronger is incredibly satisfying. Despite the shortcomings of its progression systems, the theorycrafting and feeling of evolving your class over time remain excellent. - Content Variety Beyond raids, there is an incredible amount to explore, collect and discover. The way the game opens up after North Vern is breathtaking. Hundreds of islands, thousands of collectibles, world events, NPC rapport, stronghold management and PvP intertwine with a surprisingly varied endgame loop of Chaos Dungeons, Guardian Raids, Abyssal Dungeons, Boss Rushes, Cube challenges, Ghost Ships and Chaos Gates. The sheer sense of progression and discovery throughout T1 to T3 was remarkable, making the game feel almost endless. For a while, there was always something new to discover, another island to explore or another system to engage with. Looking back, it's hardly surprising that Lost Ark maintained over 100k players for two years. - Accessibiliy & F2P friendliness Lost Ark has come a long way. Solo raids, matchmaking, progression events and catch up systems make its content more accessible than ever. Experiencing virtually all of it entirely for free is now achievable within a couple of weeks of casual playtime, provided you're not chasing server dominance or world first clears on the highest difficulty. - Alt-friendly A double edged sword, but worth mentioning. Playing multiple characters in LoA is easy, offers more content, progression opportunities and ways to enjoy the game's excellent combat, even if it also comes with its own drawbacks. CONS: - The endgame loop & Time-gating Too much of the experience revolves around repetitive daily chores, weekly raids and progression systems. After five years, Lost Ark is still adding content to the same endgame treadmill without delivering a proper expansion. Small updates introducing a new raid or progression system are fine, but they need to be complemented by substantial new tiers with enough content to break up the repetitive grind. There's only so much great gameplay can do to keep things fresh. Time gating also makes the endgame incredibly shallow for single character players, who can run out of meaningful content in just 2 to 4 hours per week. A 6 character roster offers a much more respectable 20 hours. - Progression and monetization Lost Ark's progression systems lean heavily on RNG, often making upgrades feel more like gambling than meaningful progression. This ties directly into its predatory monetization. The game is pay to win, full stop. Spending isn't necessary to enjoy it, but it undeniably affects progression. Someone willing to spend enough money will have a stronger character than yours, or at the very least reach that point much faster. CONCLUSION: Lost Ark remains my favorite MMO of all time, largely because its combat, classes and boss encounters are simply that good. Even though there is more to love here! However, its repetitive endgame, frustrating progression and monetization hold it back from being something truly exceptional. There's an incredible game here, but after almost 7k hours, I can't help feeling Smilegate could do so much more with what they've built. A 9/10 for the gameplay and wolrd I love, despite the systems that constantly get in its way.

Context: Played day 1. CRITIQUE: An incredible adventure that builds upon its predecessor with clever new mechanics, an expanded world, and an impressive amount of freedom and creativity. PROS: - Tears of the Kingdom manages to make BOTW's world feel fresh again, with new areas to explore and plenty of secrets to uncover. The sky islands and underground depths add welcome new layers to exploration, even if not all of them are equally interesting. - The new building mechanics are incredibly creative, offering a great deal of freedom in how you approach puzzles, combat, and traversal. Experimenting with the tools at your disposal is often just as rewarding as reaching your destination. - The new abilities are a great addition to BOTW's already solid gameplay foundations, opening up new possibilities and making progresison feel even more organic (fuse power). - The art direction remains fantastic, with a charming visual style that gives Hyrule plenty of personality. - Great music and sound design, once again contributing to the overall sense of adventure. - A satisfying amount of content and discovery, with better dungeons, plenty of opportunities to experiment, get sidetracked, and simply enjoy exploring at your own pace. CONS: - Performance issues remain, particularly when things get hectic on screen. - The world, despite its new additions, can occasionally feel a little too familiar, and some areas don't quite live up to the novelty of exploring Hyrule for the first time in BOTW. - Came out 6 whole years after the game it improves upon. - Nintendo. CONCLUSION: Ultimately, Tears of the Kingdom builds upon an already exceptional foundation and introduces enough meaningful gameplay innovations to stand on its own. Not every addition is equally successful, but the sheer freedom and creativity at the heart of the experience make it an easy 10/10 for me. It's basically BOTW 2.0, and because of that, TOTK simply can't be lower.

CONTEXT: 316 hours into the game. This critique takes into account the state of the game as the DLC just released. CRITIQUE: Crimson Desert is honestly ridiculous in the best way possible. The sheer amount of content, unique mechanics, combat options, puzzles and environmental interactions makes it feel like several games mashed into one, yet surprisingly little of it feels like filler. It definitely isn't perfect, but its ambition and mechanical variety are genuinely impressive. It's the kind of game that makes most open world releases feel a little undercooked by comparison. PROS: 1. An exceptionally detailed open world Rewarding exploration, always something to find, secrets in every corner, and an absurd amount of content. The strongest suit of the game by far. Pywell is Pearl abyss's magnum opus. 2. Combat's huge amount of mechanical variety Combat can feel spammy at first, but once you realize you're playing a fighting game rather than a Soulslike, it becomes ridiculously addictive. Combos, animation cancels, and the sheer number of techniques to master give it incredible depth. Few games let you go from getting bullied by bosses to absolutely destroying them through nothing but combat mastery. That alone speaks volumes about how expressive and rewarding this combat system is. 3. Strong systemic and environmental interactions A true sandbox in the best sense of the word. There are so many ways to approach and solve different situations that the game rarely feels restrictive. It's a genuine ode to player freedom, creativity, and experimentation. 4. Outstanding presentation and technical ambition Character models, animations, landscapes, lighting, effects, and environmental detail are consistently impressive. And the scale of the game is all the more notable because its visual ambition is accompanied by substantial gameplay functionality. 5. A strong sense of freedom and discovery The game regularly encourages you to deviate from your objectives, experiment with unfamiliar mechanics, and investigate places simply because they look interesting 6. Pearl Abyss's post launch support Too big to ignore, that's how much Pearl Abyss cooked here. The game's launch experience was rougher than its current state, and the studio has demonstrated a nothing short of PHENOMENAL willingness to keep improving it. CONS: 1. A story that struggles to match the world Although the Enhanced Edition did an incredible job improving the original story, I still wouldn't consider it Crimson Desert's strongest suit. The writing is good enough, and the characters are more fleshed out, but the narrative rarely reaches the same heights as the gameplay. The update does a much better job telling a story, which isn't quite the same as having a brilliant story to tell. Ultimately, the narrative is good enough to keep you invested, but the real reason to play Crimson Desert is everything you get to experience along the way. 2. An Inconsistent Experience By far the worst con of the whole game. For all its ambition, Crimson Desert can be surprisingly inconsistent in how it handles player freedom and content design. Some main story missions restrict mechanics that are otherwise fun to use (summoning allies, mechas, dragons, other characters...). Certain side quests rely on tedious errands and repetitive objectives that feel more like busywork than meaningful content, clearly simply meant to give you an excuse to explore, as if devs weren't confident enough in your own willingnes to just wander around (Bounty hunting). But most importantly, exploration can also feel unnecessarily restricted, with many areas of the open world tied to specific quests for seemingly no good reason (Spider infested castle, some towers...). It's frustrating because the game is at its best when it lets you experiment, explore and approach situations on your own terms, yet it occasionally gets in its own way with arbitrary restrictions and uninspired design. 3. Uneven boss design Boss design can be a bit hit or miss, with some encounters feeling genuinely memorable while others rely on frustrating mechanics or awkward pacing (Tenebrum boss, bounty hunting bosses ...). 4. Underutilised playable characters At the end of the day, it's Kliff's story, and the other playable characters sadly take a backseat despite their amazing gameplay kit. Quite a shame. CONCLUSION: Crimson Desert isn't without its flaws, and some aspects could certainly use more polish or consistency. But when you look at the sheer amount of content, mechanical depth, and freedom it offers, those shortcomings feel relatively minor. Few open world games manage to be this ambitious while delivering on so much of that ambition. For me, the result is an easy 10/10, flaws and all.

Context: F2P with subscription only, single character, started on release on October 5th. Currently 104 hours played, 2700 GS, 130k CP, and every piece of content cleared at least once. CRITIQUE: Basically MMO slop. Possibly the most generic MMO you will ever play. This game does nothing new, nothing extraordinary, and nothing particularly special. It's as formulaic as an MMO can possibly get. And it screams "mobile game" at every corner, because that's essentially what it is: a mobile game trying to disguise itself as a PC game. PROS: - Good visuals and decent performance. The game looks good and runs reasonably well. - Fluid gameplay. Movement feels responsive, and combat animations are snappy. - Excellent character creator. Easily one of the game's strongest features. - Crafting actually matters. It's integrated into pretty much every aspect of the game and is worth engaging with. - Expeditions and Transcendence Dungeons are mostly enjoyable. - Satisfying progression. There are plenty of different systems that contribute to your character's power, making progression feel rewarding. Granted, this is largely a benefit of playing at launch, when there's still a ton of progression to go through. - A reasonably utilized open world. Not everything is locked behind instanced content, which is nice. CONS: - Horrendous monetization. Let's be real, this game is not free to play. The $15 subscription is effectively mandatory if you want to keep up with gear progression. Yet even then, the game remains blatantly pay to win. With a credit card, you can buy your way to pretty much any level of power, with very few meaningful limitations. - Ridiculously simplistic combat. Gameplay gets painfully unengaging after a few hours. Most of the time, you're holding down a macro, dodging when necessary, and trying to maintain as much uptime on the boss as possible. That's pretty much it. The combat quickly becomes stale and repetitive, with very little mechanical depth to keep you engaged. - Terrible class design. When the combat itself is this simplistic, class identity suffers as well. Most classes end up playing relatively similarly, with little to distinguish their moment to moment gameplay. - Absurd levels of repetition. If you thought doing 18 raids a week in Lost Ark was too much, despite its incredible combat and class design, you're not ready for this game. Aion 2 expects you to run 30+ raids per week despite having far less engaging gameplay. And if you don't pay for the subscription? That number can go beyond 60. The core endgame loop with combat this lackluster simply cannot revolve around running the same raids over and over again. - RNG everywhere. Almost every progression system boils down to farming the same content repeatedly and praying for a good roll. It's a lottery at every turn. If you get unlucky, reaching pity can take an absurd amount of time, with some systems requiring 42 runs of the same dungeon. The energy system makes the whole experience feel even worse than Lost Ark or WoW. Crafting is probably the biggest offender here. - Awful UI/UX. The mobile game DNA is painfully obvious throughout the interface. Menus, systems, and overall usability feel like they were designed around mobile first and adapted to PC as an afterthought. - Terrible leveling experience. It's entirely solo, with plenty of unnecessary backtracking, especially during side quests. It's tedious, poorly paced, and does very little to encourage playing with friends, despite a decent productioin value (cinematics). - Abysmal PvP. There is virtually no population balancing or gear equalization, making PvP a complete pay to win mess. And yet, because this is Aion, PvP remains an important and very rewarding part of the game. Good luck competing with people who can simply outspend you. Not to mention the negative amount of skill expression in PVP due to the combat system being mobile-tier. - You can't play the game without a support in parties. And nobody plays support. This results in lobby finder simulator lasting for hours, in a game where you need to do 50 dungeon runs a week. Terrible design. CONCLUSION I'd say Aion 2 is worth playing for around 100 to 200 hours at launch. Beyond that, I struggle to see much of a reason to stick around. The combination of predatory monetization, excessive repetition, RNG driven progression, and lackluster combat makes it hard to imagine this game holding my interest in the long run. My advice? Hop in, spend a few weeks enjoying the launch experience with your friends, explore as much of the content as you reasonably can, and then move on. There's some fun to be had here, especially while everything is still fresh. Just don't expect a particularly deep or sustainable MMO experience once the honeymoon phase wears off.

Elden Ring is one of the most overrated games of recent years, carried almost entirely by FromSoftware’s reputation and the built-in hype of the Souls franchise. Strip away the name, and what’s left is a mediocre experience — a dated RPG formula stretched into an “open world” that mistakes poor design for deliberate choices. In any other series, this level of clunk would’ve been trashed with a 3/10 score. To its credit, the world itself is breathtaking, with stunning art direction, the fighting feels good, and the item pool is incredibly rich as every chest hiding something unique. But the game squanders that potential with endlessly recycled dungeons and bosses, a rigid stat and upgrade system that kills any sense of rewarding exploration, messy balancing filled with over-agressive bosses, and an inability to tell a compelling story. (Because lore is not story, and Elden Ring never bridges that gap.) Beautiful and ambitious on the surface, Elden Ring ultimately feels hollow once you look past the hype.

An absolutely amazing journey carried by organic gameplay diluted in a charming world, giving an incredible sense of wonder and adventure! Pros: - Zelda BOTW world manages to embody to almost perfection the "less is more" concept. Traversing the new open-world Hyrule has never been as rewarding and refreshing, as everything seems to have been crafted with such care. - Solid, simple, yet efficient traversal mechanics; allowing for a great deal of freedom to explore that vast world. - Creative, complex, and organic gameplay mechanics overall, allowing for a load of player expression when it comes to fighting, solving puzzles, or interacting with the world itself. - Visually charming, with efficient cell shading effects and great art style overall. - Music themes and the overall sound design are great. - A decent deal of difficulty, especially early on. Cons: - Performance issues in some parts of the world. - The overall narrative (even if it never was a strong suit of the Zelda franchise) is very barebone for the most part. Ofc, it's not as convoluted or cryptic as a Souls Game, but it still lacks a bit of depth imo. Revolutions need to be achieved in more places than just gameplay and world design.

The Quarry is a very bad Until Dawn. The writing is horrible, with terrible dialogues, characters' ridiculous reactions/actions repeatedly taking you out of the game, and very few meaningful choices that never feel intricate or complex whatsoever. The interactivity overall is very low with absolutely nothing to do outside of following the main story (no object to collect to change the outcome of anything, etc, etc ...), and finally, even in retro "slasher" standards of the genre, the game is never particularly scary or unsettling, only getting you very few times with cheap "jump scares". The cherry on top: character deaths in a "normal" playthrough never feel deserved at all; often coming out of the blue at random moments with almost 0 way to tell in advance that it would happen. Overall it's a very disappointing title.