robomartion

As far as games go, Silk Song is not necessarily a bad game, its made with attention to detail, has an expansive world, high quality assets, music and thought about Metroid style upgrades, character customization and multi-stage boss fights that are just as good as in other platformers. Where Silk Song falls down is in how hard it tries to be a 2D Dark Souls, whilst taking nothing that makes that formula work. In Dark Souls you have a rewarding game loop that goes like this - explore an interesting new area, fight through enemies until you find a checkpoint (often with a shortcut that you unlock) that gives a sigh of relief and satisfying sense of progression that makes the slog all the worth while. After this checkpoint you have the second stage of the level where it leads up to the boss fight. Now once you beat the boss fight you are rewarded with a whole new area and a new bonfire. This bonfire > boss run > bonfire with genuine threats in between - whilst holding onto your souls makes the whole dynamic of the game a constant ebb and glow of tension and release as you progress through the game. In Silk Song, on the surface the have taken this formula and used it with benches and elevators. However the positioning and pacing of the shortcuts and levels in Silk Song is neither satisfying nor rewarding. Exploration is punished at every turn. Its really just an endless slog to see whats around the corner. Silk Songs version of souls - beads are easily (but tediously) farmed close to checkpoints so losing them doesn't really matter, because you will never need them until you can just farm them for whatever you need to buy. Therefore there is no tension created from losing your currency, just annoying areas you can speed through while you brute force your way into an area that is actually interesting. However nothing interesting will actually come. After 10 hours of this slog you realise that Silk Song is just more endless identical rooms, more enemies and more bosses and nothing in between. No interesting areas, no reward for exploration. Silk Song may be hard, but its not at all what brings it down. What brings it down is there is nothing here that makes the challenge or the punishment for exploration worth it. If Silk Song focused more on the Metroidvania and platforming aspects and forewent the whole idea of being 2D Dark Souls or otherwise lent more in the other direction and had a more appropriate level layout that actually worked with the Metroidvania concept. Silk Songs map and exploration is not satisfying enough to make it work for a Metroidvania nor a 2D Dark Souls, so it just ends up being a painful middle of the road, frustrating and unforgiving. Right now, deaths feel altogether too cheap and the reward for persistence almost nonexistent to justify a person thinking they are actually spending their time wisely playing this 2D Dark Souls platformer.

This is a game I keep coming back to year after year. Some may find the controls hard to muster but once they are mastered the platforming sections, with a deadly drop just a misstep away, become skill based and exciting. Sparse save files make the gameplay feel risky and immersive. The puzzles are very satisfying if you solve them without a walkthrough and there is enough gameplay to last for weeks. The story, characters, and world-building with a creepy and intriguing atmosphere, rival or even surpass the films. Hal Barwood's Infernal Machine is an undeniable gaming gem. The design and graphics do reflect the technology at the time but without the limitations, the gunplay and platforming might end up too streamlined and automatic - a trap Infernal Machine's great grand-son, Uncharted has fallen into. It is not graphics that make a game, but the gameplay and atmosphere.

I never realized it before, but replaying this venerated classic, beneath its advanced visuals for the time, the gameplay of Half-Life 2 is brutally repetitive and simplistic. The only way I could handle it was to rush through it as fast as humanly possible. It is fairly simple to explain why Valve does not release any new games that are worth their salt, it is a myth that they ever did in the past.

Awful looking washed out blurry graphics than run like a potato even on a 4070. Dialogue is like chalk on a nail board and the gameplay is just total crap. All the characters faces look like they are randomly generated in metahuman with no personality. NPCs say random lines that make no sense if you listen to their conversations. Areas don't load seamlessly and it feels worse than every previous Harry Potter game, even the PS1 version. The worst performance of game I have ever played on a PC. Its not even a game just a buggy mess and hodgepodge of random cutscenes and glitches.

So many weird design choices with this game. Gameplay **** and the camera is annoying as all hell. Makes me think they don't really understand what made 3D platformers popular in the first place and just think its all about nostalgia with cute characters, pretty graphics and music, although even the graphics in this game are kind of glitchy and ugly to look at. Level design is sparse, controls are downright awful, there's this weird thing where you press shift and the whole screen goes black to show a small circle of where to go so you can't see anything which you will constantly press trying to roll. There's automatic wall climbing and she wants to grab onto anything and everything in sight then the camera locks onto this girl you are supposed to chase with no warning whatsoever. Its like you being pulled in a million different directions. I honestly lasted a grand total of 30 seconds after the first level loaded before I quit. Terrible game. Just from a technical standpoint needs much longer in the oven before it is really even playable. Then they can work out everything else like the level design, game-play mechanics and graphics.

I mean its just kind of boring. This is not how you do turn based combat. Every turn should feel like your making some important decision and you have to strategise whether to heal or reload or run away. It just feels like real time combat but instead they decided to make it turn-based add to that you have so many characters you have to tell what to do it just gets tedious. Fallout 1 and 2 or HOMM or MTG is how turn-based games are supposed to work. Or Warhammer. This is just tedious and feels like a waste of your time.

I feel like Path of Exile is heavily skewed for hardcore players and all the content that leads up to that is kind of boring compared to Diablo III or Diablo II.

It's an enjoyable experience but is badly hamstrung by its mechanics. What it does well it does really well: the the graphics, story. What it doesn't do well is the combat which drags on. The platforming is the same as previous games where it is all automatic and the puzzles are not exactly very puzzling. Drake makes for some fun commentary and voice acting and production value is superb. Something else to note is how Drake's face design has been changed to be more serious and glum, which is kind of reflected in the story but not so much that it is a deal breaker.

Owlboy captures what gaming is all about - being immersed in another world. It harkens back to the golden days of getting cosy and playing Zelda.

Its rough around the edges but its more Zelda than Breath of the Wild is. The puzzles are actually head scratchers and the gameplay is quite challenging if at times unforgiving. The non linearity and no-hand holding and mechanics driven progression as opposed to just going through the motions make the game addicting to play, something I haven't truly experienced in a game in some time. The graphics especially in doors and around towns are at times AAA tier and look just as good as Ni No Kuni. With a bigger budget to fix some of its peculiarities, Baldo would easily be counted amongst the all time Zelda greats, but then it might just lose its soul in the process and end up just like every other game today, so I am content with it the way it is: a rough diamond.

Dead Cells' philosophy is just more more more and because everything is impermanent: the levels, weapons and talents the whole thing ultimately feels pointless. Also considering the amount of effort that went into the art and technology there is too much going on on screen and too many extra effects and the whole thing becomes a pixelised smear.

I have nostalgia for this game, so much so, that I thought it was turn based? The game is charming and the art-style is brilliant but whats with the controls? They are downright **** Can't these things be fixed in remasters?

Wtf? The controls are downright awful. Why does he run so slow and jump so unresponsively while randomly switching direction? Its like they've gone out of their way to make this ****

Totally boring with needless retreading of steps to go back and forth to the shop etc, the fast travel train is out of the way and doesn't even speed up the process. Even the boss fights you can just spam attack unlike Cuphead where you would be quickly punished. The atmosphere feels very shallow and rather than being mysterious or creepy it is just dull and depressing. There is no worldbuilding or feeling of immersion. A lot of time spent running around aimlessly and there no impetus or something of interest to keep going. Cuphead is a more action packed version of Hollow Knight with no filler and more challenge. Salt and Sanctuary or Vigil the Longest Night, or Bloodstained have better atmosphere and worlds and more rewarding and engaging gameplay with reward for exploration and they draw you further in. Every area in Hollow Knight is just boring and repetitive to traverse. The platforming is boring and you can just literally switch off and have go through the motions especially when you have already been through that section 10 times already. Rayman Legends has much better levels than this. The levels are much more dense in that game and actually have effort put into making them fun with variety. When you buy the key at the start you open a door all there is inside is literally a person that tells you that she can't help you. Wow that was worth buying. Then you finally get the wings and go all the way across to a once locked area and its just another shop. Again no reward. The dialogue is cringeworthy gibberish. Dirtmouth, Greenpath? That should tell you how stupid the writing is in this game. And don't get me started on the annoying sounds the characters make. Totally boring game with stiff controls, repetitive gameplay and stale graphics. Only saving grace is the music which is OK but also just a drone in the background and isn't evocative of anything and doesn't build the world or tell any sort of story.

If you like constantly being chased this is the game for you. Bring back Metroid Prime.

This is what results when you follow trends. I don't even know how you could make a game so bad

Gran Turismo has always been massively overrated and overpriced and GT7 is no exception. One simply has to see they are using rotating 2D tree textures in a 2022 game to give this game a miss. As far as gameplay goes GT is the same old stupid 1 minute long mini-games with a horrible user interface that is designed for some reason for a computer mouse. I would think it wouldn't be too hard to make a decent racing game but apparently in the case of Polyphony Digital that is not so. GT is more like an expensive brand-name product like a Gucci handbag that has poor quality seams and cheap zippers but you buy it because it has the brand. It has Japanese weirdness through and through it and in the worst ways. There are far better racing games without the GT moniker.

Bad performance on PC right now and mouse and keyboard and mouse controls are not ideal. As for gameplay and graphics it is nothing special either. A rehash of previous games, particularly in boss fights, without much that is new, especially in regards to models and animations. I do hope this lazy formula is on the way out for future from software games. Ironically it seems the remaster of From software's first Souls game, Demon's Souls is the companies benchmark to beat. I would like to see something more along the lines of the first half of Dark Souls 1 with 80+ hours of slow burn and perfect gameplay, perfect graphics, refined level design and a heroic journey. No warping, big lead up to bosses and high stakes. Fromsoftware keeps nearly making a great game but is every time an unfulfilled promise. Dark Souls was almost this but the second half was obviously rushed. Demons Souls, Dark Souls I and II are still the best games they have made and FromSoftware is still to top them. They must take the best successes of all their previous releases and make something great. To me, Elden Ring is not this. The horse platforming is a kind of fun mini game but overall the open world is tedious and doesn't feel like you are really exploring anything. When the game goes back to the original dark souls style in Stormfront castle the game feels much better and after seeing what it had to offer, to me the open world aspect with a huge influence from Breath of the Wild, of the game is a big waste of resources when they could have been designing a much more dense linear environment. Fighting is overwhelmingly tedious compared to previous games and rushing past enemies to the bosses or checkpoints is the best strategy which seems like a flaw in the design. Killing enemies does not reward enough souls to make it worthwhile. Boss fights no longer have a strategy you can learn over time so you can eventually outsmart them and fights become a war of attrition and based on luck as opposed to feeling like you are actually fighting the enemy in a meaningful way as for example they were in Sekiro. Elden Ring overall feels like it is spread too thin trying to have too much content.

What a failure. The maps ****, the graphics ****, the gameplay ****, the match selector ****, the menu ****, the game modes ****. There is nothing good about it.

Very dull gameplay, combat, environments, bosses. Meh game on all accounts. Yawn.

The Studio Ghibli influence is strong and that at least adds up to fantastic sense of place in the game and a beautiful art style. The story is very charming, and starts off very strong, however, after the intro and the revelation that you run around as a mini version yourself on the map the game quickly goes downhill. With a mix of turn-based and realtime gameplay you would think this would be an improvement however it just ends up being a mind numbingly slow grind. Overall the combat is badly designed and boring and the battle music is extremely bad and that combined with the downgraded over-world once you leave the first town (the first in the fantasy party of the game) the game is just not worth playing after the beginning - which is a very beautiful and promising beginning to be sure. The gameplay in dungeons and areas outside of the overworld are just far too linear and Ni No Kuni never feels like it lives up to its own promises. Dragon Quest VIII is a far superior game and the artstyle and gameplay even holds up today and I think the challenging combat and depletion of mana and HP is to thank for that. If Ni No Kuni simply had DQVIII gameplay and world traversal with a Studio Ghibli aesthetic it would be an absolutely hit title for sure. I'm sure this game will hold a special place in many peoples hearts and the story and world is more charming than nearly any other game out there but the gameplay just doesn't make it worth while. As it stands they made too many changes to the formula and it just doesn't end up being any good.

You know what? Despite the body type A, body type B instead of male and female bull**** and black characters replacing previously non black characters for no reason other than assumedly the PC culture we have to put up with in the modern day and age, and the distinct lack of atmosphere from the original game, and the fact that a PS5 seems to be restricted for only the who's who of society, not available to the lower peons, Demon's Souls graphics look absolutely fantastic and its absolutely refreshing to see a game in 2020 with graphics that actually look like they are from 2020 - so, despite it ticking everything that is wrong with the modern gaming industry today off the list, I've decided I'm not going to **** on it. One thing I will say however is why is this the one and only exclusive launch title for a $749 console. Feels suspiciously like the big first party studios aren't actually working on a lot of games these days. Still waiting on Deep Down.

Diablo II Resurrected is Diablo II ad verbatim with better graphics, and insanely well-realised remade cinematics. No tinkering with the gameplay, no microtransactions. Exactly what you all asked for and you pull down your pants and take a great giant **** on it. Good on you you **** fools.

I don't know of it's because I am playing an updated version but I have had none of the problems others are speaking of. Baldo is the first decent new game I have played in years. And I mean almost a decade. I just think it's sick and sad that a beautiful game with genuinely satisfying gameplay with challenging puzzles that is the closest thing to a real Zelda we have got in more than 10 years and gets absolutely panned by critics and gamers alike. I see no connection to Dark Souls whatsoever here and have played every single one of them. If you think this game is even remotely difficult you are just bad at video games. The only glaring flaw in the game is the user interface which looks very placeholderish. Other than that the music is superb, the graphics are sharp and have a very strong aesthetic and the dungeon gameplay is better even than Link's Awakening with puzzles actually being difficult and don't just feel like going through the motions. That Is an achievement in itself that shows this developer actually has an eye for gameplay and game design which is something that seems to have been forgotten in this day and age. I think you all need to take a look at yourselves in the mirror and wonder why all you get today is remake after remake when you absolutely trash a brand new 3D adventure like this from a new developer because of some bugs (which now seem to have been fixed) or because you failed to pick up on obvious game cues and kept dying. "I died because I ran off the edge of a cliff "(what did you expect morons?) Speaking of remakes why did you all absolutely **** on the Diablo II remake after begging for it for 10 years? You guys are so terminally allergic to the slightest hiccup in a game that you have the knee jerk reaction of laying a great big turd on the whole thing in its entirety and then would rather polish and play that turd instead of dealing with a glitch or a bug in an otherwise brilliant game. This is the same reason Prey failed and the developer quit the studio he founded altogether. I just have to shake my head at you people. Since you couldn't possibly play this absolute train wreck **** I can recommend Hot Wheels Unleashed. That might be more your speed.

Of all the recent Dark Souls inspired games from Mortal Shell, to Hollow Knight, to Dead Cells, to Blasphemous and of course Salt and Sanctuary, Vigil the Longest Night best captures the essence and gameplay that are vitally important to making a game like this work. The bosses feel challenging but not drawn out and the distance between check points is fair. The atmosphere and music is top notch and what Vigil: The Longest Night lacks in production value and polish it makes up for in really capturing what Dark Souls is meant to be: frightening, challenging and in the end rewarding For me it was considerably better than Death's Gambit and Blasphemous which although they have the polish don't have the gameplay or atmosphere to successfully drive home the Dark Souls experience. Vigil the Longest Night is on the opposite end of the spectrum where the polish is barely passable but has the gameplay and atmosphere which ultimately ends up being more important. I personally would rather this grittiness at the cost of polish to the sleek but cartoonish nature of Hollow Knight in a Dark Souls inspired game. The character progression is also intriguing and makes you feel like you are playing something like Diablo at times. The save system lets the game down somewhat as rather than resetting like in Dark Souls you will be going to back to previous save file and starting all over. Although this works it means that the only thing you take with you from your previous attempt is your personal experience and making progression in the game such as finding items or opening shortcuts that carry over after death won't be a thing. There are also some bugs and criticisms of responsiveness for example when rolling to avoid enemies that could possibly be improved. There are also some spelling errors in items names and the dialogue is bog-standard so you might just end up skipping through it. Where Dead Cells had the polish and responsiveness it didn't have the allure of what's around the corner or the RPGness (the attachment to your character) to keep you playing which Vigil: The Longest Night undoubtedly has. If you enjoyed Salt and Sanctuary and didn't mind the lack of production value of that game and are dying to dive into a similar experience again, Vigil: The longest Night will not disappoint. I think it is one of the best Dark Souls inspired games we have seen as it really knows what the formula is and how to make it work where other titles in the business of 'Souls-likes' have (even if perhaps knowingly or intentionally) deviated.

If you were to review Crysis merely on its own merit, the game is as good as it ever was albeit with a performance hit for not much in return. However considering one can buy and play the original game there is absolutely no reason to get Crysis Remastered for PC. In many areas, particularly water and lighting the original Crysis has certain stylistic decisions that make it the visually superior offering. Overall the graphics were polished and they worked. In Crysis Remastered textures are higher resolution (but also different and so don't necessarily look better), draw distance is drastically improved and the detail of models in the distance (such as mountains) is also improved while the game is also overall brighter and higher contrast. Everything metal is also shiny thanks to the ray-tracing trend. However with worse performance across the board the visual improvement is not totally worth it. Add to this the alien models are significantly less detailed and lighting effects simplified it is hard to recommend playing the remaster over the original. In the end the improvements don't make up for the parts that are worse. At the end of the day even Crysis Remastered can't beat Crysis. This is another in a slew of recent remasters that serve to make developers and publishers lazy by rehashing old games. Crysis 4 is the game we need, Crysis Remastered it seems is the game we deserve. The more titles like these are re-released for each platform the less we will see of brand new experiences such as Crysis 4.

Combine Overwatch and CSGO and you get a winner right? No. Valorant comes off as a mobile game with mobile graphics, animations and mechanics. At best the abilities interfere with the gun-play. At worse they serve no purpose. You can just get the sniper and play it like CSGO, and headshot everyone, making everything else pointless. The aerial strikes, invisibility and blinks feel out of place in a game with CSGO gunplay. Is this game Overwatch or CSGO? It can't be both. It feels like you should choose one or the other. There is no synergy. in the end you will just wish you were playing either of the superior games. Maybe it would work better on console or mobile device where you can't aim so precisely.

I don't get it. What's the point of emulating a game when you don't even understand what makes it good? The combat is awful, delayed, buffered crap. Get that right first and then make a game out of it. If the game is about combat and the combat isn't even satisfying or rewarding there's no point in playing it! Get it through your ****ing skulls! Other than that the writing is cringe-worthy and strange and the art direction is boring and uninspired. And it's also got that blurred look Unreal Engine is known for. 2 points for trying. Back to the drawing board guys.

Waste of time!!!!! Zero reason for exploration. Would probably be better as a movie, but an odd and strange one at that with dialogue akin to the Room.

Good graphics plus utterly boring as **** game play do not make a good game. Sorry. I bought this game to check out the wild west but so far I have been in a blizzard for at least 2 hours. After watching about 15 minutes of cut scenes with game play sprinkled in between, if you can call it that, I have someone shouting orders at me over and over to hitch my horse on the post. Did anyone think maybe the player isn't interested in hitching his horse on the post in a VIDEO GAME. Anyway now we sit and watch for a bit more and then there's a gun fight. With possibly the worst control scheme I have ever experienced I manage to wield my gun and take out some people who I have no idea why we are killing and then we explore the house they were living in. We find out they killed some guy and I go to check out the barn and then some guy jumps on me and after an extremely drawn out fight I have to interrogate him by choosing whether to talk to or hit him. Now all of that done with, some more cut-scenes and now we are free to do as we please. Wild west here come. Or so I think. That however won't be the case because there's missions to be done. In fact it would seem the game is primarily about doing missions. So we start the next mission. Now we are walking/riding at nought miles an hour trying to shoot a bow while our character cant keep the bow still to save his life. Oh and then the aim-assist kicks in when the target starts moving. Which is it going to be noodle arms or auto aim? Keep in mind this isn't while it's drawn back just holding it he can't keep it still. He seems to be able to hold the gun still just fine. So now I've killed the deer with no help from the wildly inconsistent controls and now I have to wait for my horse to return while I hold the deer on my shoulder. Wouldn't you just wait until your horse returned and then pick it up? What's the point in making an open-world game where you utterly on rails and the game play is utterly laborious? Do Rockstar only play their own games so they've never heard of a thing called an RPG? Don't they realise players aren't horses and don't need to be led by a rope to their hitching post? The environments and graphics are good but what's the point if you can't actually explore them of your own volition. This is too much like GTA with cowboys instead of the open world exploration game it should be with actual freedom. Seriously so much work and effort into this game so I can what, hitch the horse to its post?

Team ICO (or whoever is left of them) has taken the clunkiness of their games to the extreme with this title. While it is at times beautiful, the frustrating gameplay just cannot be excused. I'm sure a lot of love and man hours went into this game and it is beautiful, as is the beast, but at the end of the day, for what we have in our hands, for the consumer, for the person that actually has to play the game I cannot really say any of it was worth it.

Although nice to look at at first, the photogrammetry used in place of the original hand made assets really take away some of the atmosphere present in the PS2 and PS3 version. The environments become samey very quickly and don't have that sense of world to them. The frame rate on the standard PS4 leaves a lot to be desired and its as if you're playing with an incredible amount of input lag. I do remember it being somewhat hard to control originally and having a low framerate on the PS2 but perhaps these problems were worse than I remembered. That said controlling the game is NOT an enjoyable experience in any way shape or form and in my honest opinion these are problems that should have been fixed or revised for a brand new release. I think the controls are not acceptable and that's that. Some have said that they are intentional and that is were the challenge lies but I think these are controls that could have been improved by leaps and bounds. Seeing the Last Guardian has exactly the same problems I'm more inclined to think it doesn't matter that much to the developers or they are simply incompetent in that aspect. But saying it is an gameplay design decision to have clunky controls doesn't hold up to me. I honestly think the controls of the original PS2 games were not this bad but I could be wrong. Having enjoyed the original game and actually being enthralled with it and played many many hours of it, coming back to it in this remaster doesn't evoke the same feeling I originally had.

Half:Life Alyx is nothing special, and that's really what it needed to be. It lacks the atmosphere cohesiveness and the character that made the Half:Life the series what it is. Fun VR mechanics such as throwing and smashing bottles are a great tech demo and proof of concept but behind these gimmicks is a an empty and often frustrating experience. Valve still has the skills to make high fidelity, polished experiences but do they still have the soul to make engaging, memorable games that leave an impression on the player and stand the test of time? Whether it's a sign of the times or a hint at a deeper change within Valve itself, frankly, I don't think so. As for the VR experience, I am more inclined to see games that utilise the VR environment to create highly atmospheric, tangible, immersive experiences that play on the senses such as fear, awe or something in between rather than highly interactive ones where the VR experience amounts to a lot of fiddling with objects and puzzles as opposed to being immersed and convinced you really are in another world. It's a shame that Valves offering focuses so heavily on carrying broomsticks around and throwing bread rolls at pigeons and not really much on the actual virtual experience itself. The environments of Metro Exodus are more detailed than Half: Life Alyx, its atmosphere more compelling and the sense of urgency and agency far more heightened resulting in an engaging experience that's far beyond what is seen in Half-Life Alyx - and thats all in a game that is not even in virtual reality. It shows that just because you use a VR to experience a game won't make it more immersive without the care and attention on the game's atmosphere. It might sound comical but I see Until Dawn: Rush of Blood as a vastly more compelling VR experience. Heck many of the Playstation VR experiences from just a couple of years ago, including titles like Ocean Descent, I believe were on a better track to creating the VR experiences we dream of. Half Life Alyx could easily have been a game which is controlled with mouse and keyboard and experienced on a 2D screen. A lot of work went into perfecting Half-Life Alyx's interaction and it's a shame as they largely fail to incite the feeling of immersion you get even from comparatively introductory experiences such as Ocean Descent. It's also a shame that Half Life Alyx is only now bringing attention to VR when previously it was more of a niche experience even when there are already many highly realised virtual reality games. It is good however that Half-Life: Alyx is bringing the spotlight back to what was quickly again becoming a disregarded technology. I personally would like to see a PT like experience in VR or another immersive ocean experience with high fidelity graphics. As for purely interactive VR experiences that are pushing the boundaries with what is possible within a VR environment I think Boneworks goes far above and beyond Valve's offering here. All-in-all like Half-Life Alyx just doesn't live up to the promise or expectations of a truly immersive virtual reality experience. Does it have innovative interaction in high fidelity environments? Yes. Is it an immersive, memorable experience worthy of the Half-Life universe? No.

Fallout 76 performs poorly, most of the gameplay is boring, but the environments and exploration is the best the Fallout series as ever offered. Compared to Fallout 3, Fallout 76 is most of the time a questionable buggy mess but compared to ANY game made in the last 5 years, on that scale, Fallout 76 is a 9/10. And the fact the game has been **** on as much as it has, says more about the current state of the game industry than how good or bad Fallout 76 actually is. We are ignoring how much this game has to offer in exploration and immersion because of glitches, poor performance and janky gameplay. But what if we had a game the exact opposite, no immersion, no exploration, no soul but utterly perfect performance, smooth gameplay and zero glitches? It would be rated extremely highly (see DOOM, HL:Alyx, Outer Worlds, et al.) This is a problem because we as gamers are saying we are incapable of putting up with a few engine problems and want utterly seamless experiences even if they are are empty and devoid of soul or creativity. We are saying we prefer a polished turd to a rough diamond. And that says more about our puerility as gamers than the gaming industry itself. We are the problem because they can only sell us what we are buying. People prefer lack of friction over elevating gaming experiences because of a few small problems. Instead of putting up with a few issues to experience something that will inevitably fill us with a feeling of elevation, we want totally sterile, clinical games that more or less turn our brains to mush. If people boycott the only even slightly good game that has been made in years because of engine problems and are now retro-actively ****ting on all of Bethesda's previous games as if 'Oh I never really liked those games anyway' then the future of gaming is very grim, and that's why I am rating game 9/10 because Bethesda to me is the only big game developer left still capable of making games full of any semblance of soul. And the day Bethesda stops making games is the day AAA gaming dies.

INSIDE it seems is cursed with the cursed all sequels have. Everything seems to be there, but something just doesn't sit right. While LIMBO was atmospheric and engaging as if it were a living breathing world, INSIDE's atmosphere is lacking and you can nearly just run through it's 'puzzles' without much thought. INSIDE is too fast and what is there doesn't give you enough information bout what this world is all about. It is surprising when LIMBO's graphics were basically simple as could be yet somehow tell you so much more. Another thing that disappointed me about INSIDE is it's quite empty and not full of any surprises. While I have played through LIMBO multiple times I still can't remember the steps to complete some sections, yet playing INSIDE again even once feels like you're just watching the events unfold rather than actually playing any part in them. When LIMBO does a bit of backtracking and gives you some breathing space INSIDE is always, always pushing toward the finale, and toward a finale that seems so random, so pointless giving you no closure whatsoever on what is going on this world they had built up. If INSIDE only slowed down a little and gave you some reason to slow down, it might actually be able to exhibit some semblance of a narrative and more importantly an interactive game. While I want to give INSIDE a higher score, based on how much I liked and still enjoy LIMBO, I just can't justify it. When Playdead's next instalment comes around it can only be expected that it will be more like INSIDE and less like LIMBO.

Bloodbornes combat feels floaty and too spammy, far way from the typical gameplay that put Fromsoftware's mark on the map. The environments are grey and samey and world-building and storytelling is all but nonexistant. The hub level is an unnecessary dilution to an already overwhelmingly un-grounded, directionless experience. Bosses and monsters all blur together in this hazy, gloomy gothic nightmare one from which you might just wish you'd wake up.

For a game that is supposed to be fast and satisfying Doom: Eternal, like its 2016 predecessor is surprisingly boring and poorly-paced. What's happening on screen rarely lives up to the whirring guitar distortion and drums coming from the speakers. Out of the mindless but oddly satisfying killing there is no reason to keep going. Finisher moves are jarring as they cut in at times from meters away as if you teleported toward the enemy and with the blinking/rushing and grappling and auto ledge grabbing all-in-all there is just too much time spent where the game is controlling you for the sake of fluidity as opposed to the other way around. There is a point where you feel you may as well be in an on-rails shooter or a quick-time event cut-scene, where you just want the game to ease off a little and give you back control - or at lest some semblance of it. Moreover the environments seem still, sterile and stale as do the enemies, as if they are plastic figurines as opposed to being real bloody demons from hell. So if you like killing for killings sake, over and over and over, Doom Eternal might be your kind of game, but if you are looking for a meatier (pun intended) experience look elsewhere.

Had this been a traditional platforming experience (like Ratchet and Clank) without the forced check-pointing system and pseudo Sekiro combat, and mostly on rails pseudo platforming, this would perhaps make for a great game. But as it stands it takes too many cues from Uncharted and failed attempts to be like Sekiro (or Dark Souls), bringing it down to a an ultimately grating experience that has some fun moments. Enormous potential but dashed in an attempt to follow trends and perhaps rush the release in time for the Mandalorian. You can't rate a game on what it could be, only what you have in front of you. Unresponsive combat, a lack of polish on certain environments, poor level design, and a boring protagonist only add to its irks. Positives are the poncho collection, light-saber and storm-troopers. The cut scenes are mildly entertaining with good framing/angles normally reserved for the theatre and some of the set-pieces make for a good view. The orchestral music occasionally reminds you that this is indeed a Star Wars game.

Not quite Bioshock. A lot of the atmosphere is totally absent and any of the intrigue that made the original games what they were is utterly gone.

A self-indulgent point-and-clicker that forces its unsolicited ideology on you every chance it gets. The only real choice you get is when you've had enough...

A great game but the atmosphere just isn't there as it is in Fallout 3. Personally not a fan of its fixation with factions, nor the fan-following that seems to ignore all its faults simply because it was made by Obsidian. Choices in this one don't seem to matter as much as in 3 and the characters and story are not very compelling. Overall it's got some nice elements that make it a serviceable sequel but is leaps and bounds behind its predecessor.

While interesting at first the social dialogue 'save the people from the corporations' type thing gets a kind of tired after a while. Dialogue and writing is a bit too cute at times and there is no real choice only to use your special skills/traits for certain options. Listening to NPCs without a cancel button can get a bet tedious at times, although it is necessary because the game is essentially on rails. No really memorable characters, even the old guy I forgot the name of already. Combat kind of ****, the open areas and monsters are a bit generic. The graphics have this awful haze-like quality like you're looking through a camera. I like the load screens (my favourite part is the load screens actually) and the opening cinematic is quite good. Not quite the Fallout alternative the Bethesda hate train will tell you it is. I'm glad we finally got this one out of the way. Enough of the hype!

Lacks the atmosphere of Fallout 3 and the main mission gets in the way, but improved game mechanics, graphics and some interesting side missions make it at least worth playing.

Can still be very fun depending on the players you get in your matches but the underlying game has totally devolved over the years.

Whether your're a troll, filthy casual or a god-gamer Counter-Strike: Global Offensive offers hundreds to thousands of hours of good old fashioned multiplayer fun.

When its being COD this is the best COD since MW2. The maps that riff off Battlefield aren't too special. and I'm not too partial to the game-modes that borrow from Counter-strike/Rainbow Six (I personally prefer old-school deathmatch) but there are game modes for everyone. Graphics, sound and gun play are really top-notch. Didn't play the campaign and never have in a COD game.

Just another overrated indie. Nothing to see here. Hopefully the voice acting will be enough to deter you before you experience the bare bones gameplay. Art is somewhat decent but nothing special.

This game makes for some very nice screenshots but beyond that it's just a really just an uninspired Zelda clone without any of what makes Zelda good. Also don't think you're getting a full console gaming experience, this is still very much a mobile game in every sense of the word. After the intro island and first dungeon being somewhat promising the game got worse as it went on. The gameplay just plain **** and the character designs couldn't really be much more generic. This is to Zelda what Skylar and Plux is to Jak and Daxter. Take from that what you will. Also the technology/medieval overlap doesn't do it any favours. + Voice acting + Great graphics, especially for iOS + Nice music - Throwaway story, characters, world - Garbage combat - VERY simple dungeons - Poor gameplay cues/design (this ones important) - Totally uninspired, came out of a factory Was hoping for more but some things are too good to be true.

SKY: FLYING FRIENDSHIP SIMULATOR While its ambiguous gameplay doesn’t much impress, and its idea that friendship can be bought questionable, Sky sets a new high for social interaction and visual and audio fidelity, in both a mobile game and gaming in general. Where in Journey social interaction was sparse and limited, Sky seems bustling and you are very much sharing the same space with at times five or so other players. The feeling of shared experience this created was a very wholesome one. I can see other games adopting this, where the community and shared experience enhances the gameplay and gives a feeling of camaraderie in-game. The natural social interactions that occur as you play were very interesting and exciting, almost serendipitous, however as you progress you are expected to sort of ‘make friends’ by giving someone an offering. This singling someone out to make friends with, and making them offerings to you to grow your friendship felt quite false. The more candles you offer your friend (and they pay you in return) the more quickly you can grow your friendship ‘tree’ full of new interactions like high-fives that only work between you and that player. You have to start all over again with a different friend. All in all quite questionable. Maybe the free to play model is to blame for this (you do earn plenty of candles as you play however). Of course making friends is totally optional, but you might feel a bit left out if you don’t when everyone else is flying around together, holding one another’s hands. If that image makes you sick, don’t worry it makes me sick too. I haven’t mentioned the gameplay much, because If I’m completely honest there is none - it’s just flapping your wings about and proposing to one another and ****ing eachothers ****s. I’m a sure a new audience will enjoy it (i.e. children), and will be making some ‘friends’ as well as some phoney people who will find it deep and moving, but although the premise is interesting, I personally am not currently in the market for a game that summed up is about flying around aimlessly while making virtual candlestick buddies. Long time Journey fans will probably be disappointed with this one, but overall it’s a very unique experience that does admittedly break new ground, that someone else can do something ultimately more useful with. Perhaps if Sky gets a re-release on consoles at a set price, without the MTX, the game will drop the bad parts keep the good parts and come out on top. SCORE: 6 + Beautiful graphics + Beautiful soundtrack + Interesting social experience - Questionable portrayal of what friendship is (possibly damaging) - Other than giving each-other candles and high-fives and going 'whoa' at the scenery while you flap through it there is effectively no gameplay PLAYED ON IOS 13 ON IPAD PRO WITH DUALSHOCK 4

Act I shows glimpses of what Diablo III could have been, too bad it isn't that. Compared to other games of it's genre Diablo III holds its own, compared to Diablo II it doesn't hold a candle. I've rated it a 7 because I did get some enjoyment out of it, but it is a disappointment nonetheless. We're not rating it against Diablo II we're rating it against other games and so I think it deserves a fair score The story isn't worth the clicks it takes to skip and Acts II-IV are pure garbage. A good game, not a good Diablo game. The game-play itself and loot mechanics, kitting out your character, and fighting legendary mobs on high difficulies is very rewarding, it's a shame the story and acts beyond the first are so gosh darn garbage.