If you haven't played this before - stop reading and just go play it, it costs 0 of your local currency, is available on the most widely distributed platform and doesn't need too powerful of a rig to run, it isn't terribly long either, what are you waiting for. And if you aren't yet convinced:

Cry of Fear is one of the best survival horror games I've ever played, and is bar none THE scariest one, and it's thanks to all the great decisions the developers made when working on this.

Like the choice of the engine! Cry of Fear is using GoldSrc, same as the first Half-Life game - convenient for the developers, as their previous project was a Half-Life conversion mod (Afraid of Monsters, also a survival horror game), but also adds to the game, as the quirks of that engine add to the oppressive atmosphere of the game.

And I'm in love with the atmosphere of this game. Some random town in Sweden, where every step is a different graffiti on the wall and you have to make way home through cramped rundown apartment complexes, empty subways and a shitty forest - all pretty familiar places, so it made me genuinely unnerved seeing them get creepypastad. Most notable to me is the entirety of the first apartment building you crawl into to save somebody that sent you an sms begging for help earlier. And that's where shit really hits the fan - the lights are turned off everywhere, the whole complex is completely barren save for random piles of stuff blocking your way, that one door blocked by a shitload of police tape and chains where you know nothing good is happening, and when you reach your destination - a flat, whose front door is totally drenched in blood - you immediately get a message: "Come in :)". And I just, stood there, paralyzed from fear, it's that effective. That apartment complex is also where you get a real taste of GoldSrc, namely the flashlight. It sucks. And that rocks. The flashlight of your phone only illuminates the area you're directly looking at, but it is the only thing saving you from complete darkness. And whenever your flash of light hits an enemy, they're illuminated in that very specific way that only adds to their creepiness.

And boy are the monsters here creepy. Distorted, twitchy, sometimes screaming and sometimes completely silent, and sometimes just bizarre, these goons are everywhere, and I absolutely adore them. One of them is guy strapped to a flying bed that spits blood, another is literally facebook and it hurts to look at, and one is a guy wearing a sack on it's head packing heat that shoots himself if you get too close. But the aspect I like them for the most is how they're all a real threat, and one you have to deal with yourself: they’re all EXTREMELY fast, unlike your run of the mill survival horror monster, meaning the bigger problem here are the enemies, and not the controls.

And you deal with them either in close-range or long-range combat, both being more robust than you'd think. Most of the foes here specialize in close combat, so resorting to a knife can be very dangerous, but oftentimes necessary. Thankfully, Simon is a nimble guy, and can dodge away from oncoming attacks, while still delivering blows if you time things right - pretty cool. As for your long-range options, you have a bunch of weapons at your disposal: pistols, shotgun, a hunting rifle, and even an AR. You'll have to be careful when you use these, though, as ammo leans in the scarce side of things. But a big layer of added depth comes from the dual-wielding system they've got going on. In Cry of Fear, you can dual-wield pretty much anything you can hold in one hand: pistols, mobile phone, police batons, needle shots - you name it, and that has it's major upsides and downsides. The upside is obvious - you can have the necessity of the flashlight in one hand with the raw firepower of the glock in the other, or you can have an answer for opponents both too close and too far by having both a gun and a knife out, or you can become a movie hero and pull out two guns at the same time. The downside is that you cannot ADS or reload at all, because, go figure, your other hand is occupied, and there's nothing worse than running dry while there are a bunch of monsters still trying to gnaw at your ankles - and that ROCKS. Reloading your gun is still a major problem even without a ketamine shot in your other hand, it takes a deliberately painfully long amount of time to do so, and if you decide to go for a tactical reload - you're giving up every bullet you had in your currently loaded mag, Simon isn't a keeper. But don't think you can turn yourself into a walking arsenal, as Simon can't fit much into his pants.

Inventory management in this game is pretty simple, but a perfect fit for a survival game. You get six slots - that's it. One of them is always taken by your phony, so you actually get five spaces to juggle your stuff in, which means you'll always have to give up something to carry an important item, or a weapon you really like. Thankfully, whatever you drop on the ground stays there - forever, so if you change your mind at any time, you can make your way back to that spot and pick that thing back up, or even use the ground as a storage - which is pretty neat.

I haven't touched on the story at all so far, so let's change that. It's alright. The most interesting thing it does, I feel, are the two other major characters present: Sophie and Dr. Purnell. Or rather, SPOILERS I GUESS, the way they're portrayed in Simon's mind vs the way they are in real life. Dr. Purnell here is a mysterious weirdo psychopath that kills people and gets in your way sometimes, but knowing that this whole game essentially takes place in Simon's thoughts - that isn't the real Purnell, that's the image of him Simon perceives. Same with Sophie: she's shown to be interested in Simon and having a normal conversation with him etc etc, which is later juxtaposed with what actually happened in reality: Simon, on his knees crying and sobbing and shitting, in the most pathetic way telling her how much he loves her, while she's trying her hardest to leave. So Purnell is a maniac because Simon sees him that way for what he feels like not helping him at all, and Sophie's that way because he still has strong feelings for her, even though he got hard dumped. And, I don't know, this specific topic, of how you perceive people and how people perceive you compared to what things really are, is something I think a lot about, and that’s at least one topic the game brought up. Outside of that? Oomfie’s gotta hit up a therapist.

There were a lot of cool setpieces I didn’t talk about, like the school and the maintenance area in the subway, so go see them for yourselves, it’s totally worth it. It even has side modes a la Resident Evil, including a co-op mode. This game raw.

I've heard positive opinions about this game from people normally disinterested in mainline Borderlands titles. I thought it might've had something to do with improvements in gameplay - I was wrong.

Other than the change in narrative style and a new art theme, this is just another copy-paste of the first borderlands with no major improvements - weapons are still weak and gimmicky, there's too much loot to juggle, combat is basic and monotonous, enemies are uninteresting, there's tons of walking between places, levelling up doesn't carry a tangible increase in power and is too slow, the abilities are too shallow to carry the core gameplay.

An enjoyable romp in typical Borderlands fashion. The new mechanics kept me engaged enough to see it through, but I definitely lost steam about 3/4 of the way in. The random encounter design was surprising and a bit annoying, but the gun variety and solid mechanics kept the dice rolling. Overall it was satisfying and only slightly overstayed its welcome. I'd be happy to head back into the Wonderlands for a part 2. I just wish Gearbox would fix some of the bullshit that has plagued the game since Borderlands 1 like the horrific maps, inventory management being an absolute slog, and the weird way to deal with cosmetics.

TL;DR: An incredibly well made Tekken experience for everybody, whether brand new to the series or a long time fan and competitor.

Tekken will always hold a special place for me (so obviously I am a little bit biased here) I grew up going to the local arcade/pizza place with my best friends JUST to play Tekken 3 for hours on end.

Tekken 8 feels like the next step for Tekken. It's hard to put this into words because I loved Tekken 7 and I believe I put something close to 800 hours into that game (at least 100 of those hours were spent in Tekken Bowl, but I digress) Tekken 8 is very clearly, to me, the Super Smash Bros Ultimate to Tekken 7's Super Smash Bros For Wii U/3DS.

Everything that felt like it was expanded on (just a little bit) in Tekken 7 feels fully fledged out in Tekken 8. The single player experience is INFINITELY better: The Dark Awakens is a VERY well done campaign AND Arcade Quest is an incredible way to teach new players the works of the game without forcing them into a training room or combo challenge. (Doing combo challenges and the very in-depth training room are still fully available though, as always)

And the Heat mechanic, while frustrating to play against at a lower level, becomes one of the most intricate and interesting pieces of playing the game, making the purchase of Tekken 8 worth it just to see the new combo routes that the heat dashes and openers offer.

Also, Kuma has an EWGF and they made Heihachi into a super cool chick with purple hair, so that's super cool for me (Kuma(and Panda)/Heihachi main)