Spider-Man 2 is a phenomenal sequel to a game I already deeply loved. They took the already strong base of the first game and Miles Morales and managed to add even more variety. The story is fantastic and full of extremely cool surprises, and it manages to balance both Peter and Miles' stories really well. The gameplay has been given even more enhancements and options to the point where its almost overwhelming how much you can do.

On top of all of that, they managed to take the weakest aspect of the first game, the side missions, and improve them significantly. The first game had strong side missions, but these are on another level, as many of them feel just as high quality as some of the main missions. A couple of them genuinely made me tear up with their emotional storytelling, and others had me grinning from ear to ear at how cool they were. Easily one of the most enjoyable platinum trophies I have ever earned.

Bright Memory Infinite is an extremely enjoyable FPS campaign. The gameplay is extremely solid and fun with lots of combat options and solid movement throughout. There are a couple of sections that deviate from the core gameplay which is disappointing considering that this is such a short campaign.

That said, what is on offer here is very fun and I have now played through it three times and earned all of the achievements. I would definitely recommend this game considering its low price and high replay value.

High on Life is an extremely fun and hilarious first-person shooter with a suprising amount of heart and likable characters. If you're a fan of Rick and Morty, Smiling Friends, or RedLetterMedia, then you'll probably really enjoy the humor in this game. Even if you don't like the humor, the gameplay is surprisingly robust, with action sequences feeling like Doom Eternal with an even more creative set of weapons.

My favorite weapon, Gus, is a shotgun that can vacuum in enemies when you aim down the sights, and his alt fire launches a sawblade that bounces between enemies before flipping into the air. You can then parry the sawblade with your knife and launch it back out again, and with proper positioning, you can do this up to five times with the same sawblade. Once I found out I could do this, I knew this game was going to be more than just a generic FPS with talking guns.

The game ends a little abruptly, and there's some glitches that were annoying and ruined the second to last boss fight for me, but the game was still mostly functional. I would wait a bit for a patch to come out and clean the game up a bit, but if you have Xbox Game Pass, then this is absolutely worth giving a shot.

Project Warlock is the holy grail of boomer shooters. It takes everything good about classic FPS games like Doom and Wolfenstein and turns it up to 11. Better level design, more diverse enemies, and a whole lot more guns make every level feel like a wonderful and chaotic puzzle to solve as you blast your way through hundreds of enemies in every level. Not once was I bored playing this game, and the final boss had me fighting for my life constantly. It was a satisfying challenge from start to finish that is an absolute must play for anyone who enjoys classic FPS games.

Gungrave G.O.R.E is a fascinating oddity of a game that feels like something that would have come out early in the 7th generation of consoles. The story is poor, the English voice acting is mostly terrible, and the gameplay is very standard. The characters and world of Gungrave all seem pretty cool, but they are barely explored and ultimately don't amount to much outside of a few cool cinematics. That said, there was something about this game that just made me keep playing and finish all 31 stages and 2 bonus levels.

The gameplay of Gungrave G.O.R.E. is extremely simple but effective, tasking you with shooting your way through hundreds of enemies and trying to keep your hit counter going by destroying random objects in the environment. You automatically lock on to enemies and objects and the lock on is extremely responsive. There's a few special moves you can do and some genuinely horrible melee combat that thankfully isn't a huge part of the game, but otherwise it's very straightforward.

I think the fun comes from the varied locations, plethora of enemies and variations of them, and the thrill of moving through a shooting gallery while being careful to position yourself and dodge incoming attacks the best you can. It's simple but extremely effective, and it makes this the perfect example of a 6/10 game. It's solid and works well, but the production value is inconsistent and the game is too simple for a modern full priced release. I had my fun with it thanks to Game Pass, but I would have felt burned if I spent more than 20 bucks on it.

Upon seeing it was about to be removed from Game Pass on June 16th, I jumped into Chorus, knowing very little about it. Chorus is a space combat/dogfighting game that features Nara, a former elder in a cult called The Circle, who abandoned her post after she felt guilty from destroying an entire planet.

The story and lore in this game are shockingly engaging considering there are few cutscenes, and most of the other characters are shown through 2D portraits to deliver their dialogue. You are in the ship the entire game, and yet they are very creative with the way they deliver the narrative.

The gameplay is absolutely divine. I can not say I have ever controlled a ship that has felt this good or responsive in any video game ever. There are several weapons and a bunch of abilities that you earn throughout the game that are all extremely versatile, and the overwhelming amount of enemy variety means that you need to use your abilities to the fullest.

The game does have some issues, though. Some characters and plot points don't get enough time to breathe, and I encountered a few glitches that were annoying. There is also some instances where there is just too much going on to where it's a wonder I was even able to keep track of it all, although in a sense I do appreciate that they didn't hold back and really tested my skills.

Overall, Chorus is a hidden gem that I feel like barely anyone has played. It's a pretty big game that has a lot of production value and plays like a dream with an engaging story to boot. I will definitely be grabbing a physical copy to add to my collection because this is a game that I truly enjoyed playing.

Atomic Heart is a very frustrating game. For everything this game does very well, it has at least two things it does poorly and keeps it from being excellent.

The plot is the most interesting part of the game, and seeing it unfold is extremely rewarding. However, the dialogue is poorly timed at some scenes, and I often missed out on some of the story because I entered a room or a menu too quickly, and it didn't continue. The corpses you can talk to that are scattered around the game are exceptionally annoying, and there's so many pieces of reading material for extra lore that I didn't want to bother combing through it all.

The combat feels great, and you have a wide variety of weapons and abilities at your disposal. You also have to manage resources so you can craft new weapons and materials and upgrade the weapons you have. The problem is that most of the combat abilities feel useless outside of the mass telekinesis, which I realized was great way too far into the game. The enemy encounters also feel unbalanced because at a certain point it becomes more about filling a location with a ton of enemies rather than introducing new ones, and the difficulty comes from getting swarmed while also having just barely enough resources to make it out alive.

The linear segments of the game feel awesome. There's clear goals, some secrets, and some fun and engaging puzzles to solve. Thankfully, these make up most of the game because the open world areas are dreadful. There are enemies everywhere, and the game tells you that it's a bad idea to engage any of them because they will swarm you without end until you either escape or die. However, there's no functional stealth mechanics, and even if there were, there's so many enemies everywhere that you would have to be extremely competent at it to get by. It's as if the devs forgot the fact that stealth is basically the antithesis of the gameplay to begin with, when everything in your kit is meant for combat and the only stealth takedown in the game is extremely situational and takes a long time to do since you have to mash a QTE.

I could go on for much longer, but suffice to say I enjoyed Atomic Heart, but it frustrated me deeply. There's glimmers of brilliance here, as if they combined Doom Eternal and Bioshock into my perfect game, but sadly, there are too many issues stopping it from being as good as either of those. From the annoying game design issues, several bugs and glitches, and an ending that very clearly wants you to buy the Season Pass and play 4 expansions so you can get some closure, Atomic Heart is a good but misguided experience.

Since it's on Game Pass, I do recommend it, but I would have been a little upset if I had dropped $70 on this game.

Finally, I got around to playing this absolute gem of a game, and I adored every minute of it. I love rhythm games and action games, and this manages to blend both of them together seamlessly. Having to press the buttons to the beat of the music to do combos is the perfect way to teach the timing, and I could feel myself improving and doing better as the game went on.

The story is fun and charming with plenty of comedy and awesome moments. This game also has some of my favorite characters I've seen in a long time, and seeing them interact was always a treat. I felt compelled to read every log I found and go out of my way to explore for collectibles, and I was usually rewarded for doing so. I also really loved that after beating the game, there are still a ton of reasons to go back and replay the levels, and there's cool new modes to explore too. I definitely am not done playing this game, and this is an easy GOTY for me right now, although I am very behind on this year's releases.

Upon seeing this was about to leave Game Pass, I decided to try and finish Tinykin within the week it had left. It ended up being extremely easy to do because I played this game for 8.5 hours straight and got 100% completion because it was such a fun experience. Combining Pikmin with a collect-a-thon 3D platformer is a genius idea for a game and the levels are so densely packed with stuff to do that I adored every minute I spent in them (outside of scouring the levels for the last couple of sap pickups I was missing).

This was a blast from start to finish and my only real complaint is that I wish there was some sort of radar or something after finishing the game to help you find those last few collectibles a little easier. Otherwise, this was extremely fun and I really hope there is a sequel to this game.

This was another game that I wanted to finish before it left Game Pass this month, and I am extremely happy that I did. Immortality is best experienced blind, so I won't say too much, but this is an insanely impressive interactive movie that I loved going through. There's a really great narrative here with strong performances and I definitely have never played anything like it before. I will say it was a little tedious trying to 100% this game, and I finished the main story without realizing I was near the end, but that was just my experience and depending on how others interact with the game they might not feel that way.

Overall Immortality is something really special. While the gameplay itself isn't particularly gripping, the story and construction of it all definitely is.

I absolutely adore Until Dawn and I am a big fan of a lot of the actors in this so I was pretty excited to play it. I went through the game in couch co-op with a friend, with each of us playing as different characters. We got a terrible ending because I failed a couple of QTEs in the last couple chapters, and when we tried to go back and redo it, something even worse happened and it didn't feel worth the effort to finish the game again and go back to fix it.

I also feel like this game was just way too long despite it not being that much longer than Until Dawn. It might be a pacing issue or just a symptom of playing it with a friend, but things definitely felt dragged out to me. Not to mention playing this game for 9 hours only to get a lackluster ending that clearly isn't really the ending feels like a letdown. Overall, The Quarry is good and maybe someday I will replay it and get more out of it, but for now I can't say I wasn't disappointed.