(Played before 2023)
This story has been haunting me since I've played it. Tragically beautiful, and something that I think beats any Silent Hill story. It is a real shame that the gameplay is awful. The setting is really cool but it is one location that you go through multiple times in one setting, and the enemies are scary but there are definitely not enough. There are a lot of weapons that are all pretty much useless and the forced combat section made me want to quit the game. It is a shame that this game is so hard to find, as the only legal way to play it is by buying a secondhand copy.

This is the most expensive PS2 game of all time.

Don't buy it. Sail the open seas instead. But if you like tragic, beautiful stories this is the game. I love it so much I can't play it again because it is too good and upsetting.

A really fantastic game and experience. It has amazing visual style that makes the world so interesting to look at, upgrade mechanics that really make you feel stronger, and the combat feels great with every gun being useful that you can customize to your liking. There is a lot of exploration and visual themes that really make this game stand out. The music is also literally one of the best in gaming and has a shocking amount of variety that gives it a perfect flair. All the odes to the games that inspired it are wonderful and tasteful, and there is a lot of good exploration and puzzling. It isn't as immersive-simmy as I'd like, but to be fair Bioshock isn't really either and that was the main inspiration. The story was enjoyable, though I do have a couple of flaws with some of the writing and how cutscenes were presented. They all felt very awkward and didn't blend in. Additionally, Filatova looks like a Fallout 76 character and sticks out way too much in this world. She literally looks awful. I also think that the robots weren't used as creatively as they could've been and the organics were used too sparingly. But overall, this is a great game that is a labor of love and it shows. I'd recommend checking this out if you enjoy shooters.

This game is such a mixed bag. It has a fantastic destructible environment with great quality at first, but slowly descends as levels go on. The game has entirely been designed around it and they really don't show it off in later levels. The story is interesting enough at first and feels like a Hong Kong action movie until it doesn't, and after the climax the rest of the story is totally rushed. The music is mediocre for the most part with a few tracks that stick out and the shooting feels both really good and bad. The game's bosses are terrible almost universally, not really requiring much gimmicks other than shoot them a bunch. I played on the hardest difficulty and while the actual game felt fair, the bosses simply didn't and were absolute bullet sponges. Overall a mediocre game with some really good moments and really captures that feel of an action movie, but there isn't enough to carry it fully through to the end to be an enjoyable experience, especially with how short it is with not much to unlock or reasons to play it again.

Overall this is an early access survival game. Lots of missing features, a lame ending, and overall there is horrendous optimization and polish and it certainly needs work. But it is good, and promising. Lots of stuff to do and a lot of the caves feel cool to explore and fight in, with really awesome rewards for exploration because you can find some very unique tools. The building is both better and worse, because it is harder to use but also you can build more and have more creativity. The mutants are a little safer in design and not as freaky, a little too humanoid but the companions you get are really cool. The enemy AI of course is top notch and they feel like actual, breathing people that will run away or give up or ignore you depending on things. I hope they keep their promise of expanding on the game and updating it constantly but we will have to see. You certainly have to understand it is an early access game to enjoy it right now. I will update this review as time passes and I do more playthroughs and hours. If you don't mind early access or have friends, grab it. If you do mind early access you'll have to sadly wait a couple of months.

Great game. I think the environement is one of the best open-worlds with so many little details and nooks to explore with really good cover-based shooting. Story is serviceable, and I love seeing the settlements improve over time. The combat feels fantastic and all the enemies have an insane amount of unique variety which the DLC helps with, and there is so much content and builds and player choice that it feels really freeing with how much you can do. Some of the complaints I have is the music isn't the best and can feel generic as well as some of the characters. The world doesn't have as many people integrated with it outside of patrols like the first game did, and it doesn't feel like you are meeting a lot of natives to DC which is a shame. Another issue I have is that there isn't that much depth to a lot of the levelling content as this is a game with endgame focus, so it would've been better if they did more with levelling for build variety. It was pretty much just use whatever you got and you weren't really incentivized to farm anything low level with how quickly you levelled up. I would say this is the most detailed and amazing looking open world I've seen, and it really feels like you're walking through a real city and not a video game and I hope Heartland is just as good as this game in terms of the world.

A game with excellent shooting mechanics that is mediocre in almost every other aspects, except maybe for the music. The gunplay is great, and it makes combat feel great and fun to run around shooting everything in slow-motion. While that carries a lot of the game however, it isn't enough to make this a great game. The story is pretty mediocre and I feel didn't lean into the story aspects it should've, where they could've ran with a lot of interesting ideas. The scares and horror influence weren't used often enough outside of one mission, and the attempted 'scariest' mission literally used a PNG image jumpscare. The graphics are terrible and look like unity -bought models with visually different art styles between some objects and flat lighting, with that in-engine sheen that makes everything look pretty poor. The music was good, however I feel like it didn't fit the atmosphere of the combat at all. It was very DOOM influenced which didn't work with the slow motion, harsh brutality of the viscous combat. Some of the characters were interesting but didn't live up to their in-game, combat counterpart when they finally showed up. The game is also incredibly short too for the side mission/main mission format it has, and except for one side mission they were all pretty boring wave-based gameplay. That doesn't really work when you can count the amount of enemies the entire game has on one hand. I think it was a really good job from an indie studio and the developers clearly cared about the product, I just think they stumbled a little too much to make this any more than a 'decent' game.

Terrifying and wonderful. I really love this game a whole lot, and it just encapsulate almost everything that makes good horror. I don't think the other games aged as well in design, as I felt that this was always the scariest one. The dark world with fog, the sound design, the awkward angles from the pixels on the PlayStation. It is just sooooo god. The only issue I have is the boss fights and some line deliveries, with characters feeling one dimensional at times. Also the fact that a lot of enemies are... Animals. Which feels weird to be chased around by a monkey in this.

One of the best and most beautiful games ever and will go down as one of the best survival horror games in history. Fantastically wonderful music, a beautiful story and art style, and great combat that has all the positives of old school survival horror. The only game close to this is Rule of Rose in terms of emotion it drew from me, and this game is something that every single human being that plays video games should play. The only, only minor issue I have is interacting with some doors and items, but it is such a small negative that it doesn't even matter in the long run. Play this game. Even if you're terrified of horror. It is worth it.

A really good Soulslike. I don't really love these and I haven't heard good things about Spiders, but this game had an amazing setting, fun combat, and a great main character. Music and graphics were fantastic and I really enjoyed my time with it. The enemies and animatronics were wonderfully designed, but I felt like they could've done more with the idea as many of them seemed a little uninspired. Big guys, dogs, only a few like the Serpent really caught my eye and felt different enough. The levels were varied and beautiful, really capturing the unqiue beauty of Paris. I loved the weapons that they offer with their own unique details, and you are given plenty of opportunities to build different. The music I liked, but I wasn't really focused on it. My main issue is enemies eventually started to become a little redundant and had issues with creating variety that wasn't 'an old enemy with fire' and things like that. The mini-bosses were also somewhat boring as they were basically souped up common enemies, and the Titans were cool but didn't present much of a challenge. I think the game was just a teeny bit too easy but I am fine with that, since it isn't a requirement for soulslikes to be difficult. I also found the characters outside of a few to be quite boring and uninteresting, and I never really felt compelled to look into the world outside of a few characters. I think the game frontloaded me with too many good weapons as well, as I basically used the same weapons from start to finish and when I tried to include variety, it simply didn't work as well. But still, a really good game that exceeded my expectations!

Kind of the same problems I have with the Ringed City: didn't enjoy the environments (except the fishing hamlet), the new enemies weren't extremely interesting, but it has some of the best bosses in the entire series that really reward you for learning the mechanics of the game. It is insane how quality Maria, The Orphan of Kos, and Ludwig are. I love them, and the DLC also has insanely cool weapons that are super unique and interesting to use.

But seriously, FUCK the sharks. Genuinely the worst enemy in any Soulsgame.

Almost absolute gaming perfection. The story, the music, the setting, the cutscenes, the characters, the world, the exploration. Everything is absolute top-tier and makes Alan Wake 2 Remedy's Magnum Opus. I loved this game, but I do have a small flaw with the game: there is not nearly enough combat. A lot of areas that easily could've had enemies in them were empty, and I hope we get an update that includes more combat with enemy's dropping more supplies. I think if we had double the amount of combat encounters, maybe one extra enemy per encounter, it would be the perfect amount of balance. I also have played all of Remedy's games, and it really feels like you'll miss out a lot if you haven't played Alan Wake 1 or Control.