Felt in the mood to replay this after finishing New Vegas again (I was put in the mood for that after finishing the show). While I'm not finished this playthough, I highly doubt my opinions will change as I know this game pretty well.

This playthrough is heavily modded, using the Welcome to Paradise Wabbajack list as a base. I added the Be Exceptional progression rework, as well as True Damage and SCOURGE to re-balance the combat. I also installed miscellaneous weapons and armors from the previous games.

I think it's important to preface with this because I think this Fallout 4 is the best example of Bethesda's games getting exponentially better through mods.
What Bethesda is consistently amazing at with their games is world and atmosphere, and they have always been world class in this regard. I haven't played Starfield so I can't comment on it, but Skyrim and Fallout 3 are both incredible at developing a setting. Both those games are carried by this.

Why I love this game despite its myriad of notable flaws is that it combines their deftness at creating worlds with their best gameplay loop. An unusual quirk of Bethesda games is that almost every item in the world is interact-able in some way. In Fallout 4 this is given a new purpose, as literally every item that can be picked up can be used in crafting. Quests often revolve around completing dungeons, like all Bethesda games, but the new crafting system adds so many more personal sub-objectives to the dungeon crawling. If you're eyeing a particular upgrade for your power armor or your favourite gun you can just tag the required parts and go hunting.

The exploration is also boosted by the beautiful world and music. This is a great example of art direction > graphical fidelity. Even without graphics mods the game still looks good, and with a few tweaks it can look legitimately breathtaking. The soundtrack is also great. As always with Fallout, the radio stations add great classic songs from the 1930s-60s. My favourite in this game is probably "End of the World". The original score is also great. My favourite ambient track is easily "Rebuild, Renew". It just sounds incredibly soothing and hopeful, a powerful contrast against the destroyed world around you.

I won't deny the games main story is heavily flawed, especially compared to New Vegas' complexity, but there are still bright spots worth commending.
Nick Valentine might just be my favourite fallout character. His inner struggle with what it means to be a digital copy of a dead man is very compelling, and his voice performance is perfection. He's also a sick ass android detective.

I truly love this game, warts and all. New Vegas zealots can suck a fat one.

Preface: this review comes from a massive spider-man fan with around 250 hours logged across ps4, ps5, and pc. Story discussion at the end because spoilers.

The best part of this game is definitely how it improves the already excellent core gameplay from the first game. The web swinging is mostly similar to the first game with a few tweaks that make it feel more fluid. There are 2 new abilities learned throughout the game, venom jump and venom dash, which feel really good to use. The lackluster trick system from the first game is greatly expanded upon, with many more tricks and combos to do while swinging, with all animations flowing into each other near seamlessly. Another change I appreciate is the buff to mid air dodging while swinging. In the first game this animation cut off the swing and left Peter awkwardly floating for a second. In this game it is much more fluid and can be used to quickly turn while maintaining all momentum. The level of fluidity also expands to the combat system. This game maintains all of the fundamentals from the first game while adding substantial new combo potential with Miles’ venom abilities. This game has one of my favorite combat systems in any game. Stealth is also much more viable now, with the addition of Miles’ camouflage as well as wall and ceiling takedowns. This game makes me so excited for Spider-man 2 given how many small changes were made to enhance the experience in a game this small scale.

The main missions in this game cut the fat from the first game and also improved in some areas. First things first, there are no more missions where you don’t play as spider-man. In fact, I don't think there's a single main mission in this game that isn't fun to play. The main area improved in the story is the boss fights. There are less than the first game, but all 4 major boss fights are great and allow for a bit more freedom in combat than the first game.

This game is insanely short. More of an expansion to the first game than its own game worthy of full price. I was able to 100% the game on steam in about 15 hours, while the first game took about 40 when including all dlc. I would advise waiting for a sale unless you’re like me and are a massive fanboy.

Overall, this is a very well made game that serves well to bridge between the first game and the upcoming sequel. Super excited to see how the gameplay further evolves with both improvements to Miles' moveset and Peter's new Symbiote abilities

SPOILER ZONE
The story is more of a mixed bag. Unfortunately the villains don’t work nearly as well as the first game for me. The Tinkerer starts off fine but as the story goes on she loses all logic processors in her brain, not realizing Miles was telling the truth about the nuform reactor until literally the last second. She also constantly rails on Miles for lying to her and it gets insanely annoying. I find her especially disappointing after the legendary depiction of Doc Ock in the previous game. The secondary antagonist, Simon Krieger, is entertaining purely because of how much of a mustache-twirler he is. Problems with the writing aside, voice acting is pretty great across the board. Even the low points of the writing are still tolerable because the VAs do an excellent job. In particular, I think this game’s version of Prowler is really good. He is a middle ground between his very sinister comic counterpart and the more sympathetic Spider-verse version. He’s only an antagonist because of his own fear of losing Miles like he lost his brother. Great work with him.

As time has gone on I've really soured on this game honestly, which is disappointing given my love for this franchise. I totally understand why the people who love this game love it. This game is a technical marvel. I think I've just changed as I've gotten older. What was once exciting about BOTW isn't really present in TOTK. The magic of discovery isn't nearly as powerful this time around since I've already spent hundreds of hours on the above ground map. I'd just really hoped there would be more new settlements and characters to make it feel starkly different to BOTW's vast emptiness.

The story is easily my least favourite 3D zelda story. The story of the old formula are just so much more impactful to me because of their pacing. This game really screwed up by reusing the same story formula as BOTW. I was never in love with BOTW's memories but I've grown to accept the story structure as it fits the game's themes of discovery. TOTK's dragon tears try to replicate this but in reality they just take all of the story's interesting events, place them eons in the past, make it so you can't play them, tell them out of order, and destroy any dramatic tension or investment in the story. This, combined with the literal copy paste cutscenes at the end of the dungeons and an ending which reverses any sacrifice the characters made led to a story I did not enjoy at all. Compared to any other 3D zelda stories, where the end was often the most impactful part, this is honestly laughable.

I know this review has seemed very negative, but there are still high points in this game. there are two moments I legitimately love and have stayed with me since playing it. Firstly, the entire Hebra section was fantastic. The ascension to the heavens as you approach the dungeon is a legitimately fantastic set piece, and the boss fight is really great. The second is the pilgrimage to thunderhead isle. The constant thunderstorm and obscured path led to a really satisfying moment of clarity and an incredible view once you reach the end, topped off with an incredibly soothing piece of music once you get to the isle. The rest of the soundtrack is also fantastic.

I really hope Nintendo changes course and focuses on story more with the next game, because those are the parts that have stuck with me the most from the old games.

I struggle to articulate how I feel with this game. For the first few hours I was mildly disappointed with how same-y it felt to BOTW, even though BOTW is one of my favourite games of all time. After playing for about 8 hours, I think something clicked with how the game was intended to be played. I don't have much to say about the gameplay. In short, this is one of the finest open world games ever made and everything I could have hoped for. It iterates upon BOTW's foundation and adds an insane amount of new mechanics you can use in basically any way you want. I can't imagine how much time and effort went into this. In terms of gameplay, this is one of the deepest sandbox games you could play.

My biggest complaint with BOTW was the execution of the story. TOTK rectifies this in some areas. What I was not a fan of with BOTW was how unimportant the story felt, as most of the events were from the pre-calamity era with no effect on the present day. I found myself bored by these sections, as I already knew what had transpired before I saw those memories. I also really don’t care for the voice acting in both of these games, with one exception. TOTK's story, while far from perfect, feels a lot more active than BOTW. Another thing I preferred in TOTK's story is that Ganon is much more of a presence in this game. BOTW's Calamity Ganon is purely a force of nature, which I personally didn’t care for. However, Ganondorf in TOTK has much more presence throughout the narrative and I think is a much better antagonist than the calamity. His presence in the memories also made those more interesting this time around, as they set up the very real threat you are going to face as well as explaining Zelda’s whereabouts. He is also the one exception to my problems with the voice acting. I just love Matt Mercer’s performance in this game. However, compared to the previous 3D Zeldas the story is still just ok. The writing is much more flat than previous entries, and doing the memories before the other story beats kind of broke logic, as everyone is wondering where Zelda is while Link already knows the answer and just doesn't tell anyone.

The biggest reason TOTK is rated lower for me than BOTW is not the game’s fault at all. In fact, I’d say that TOTK is overall a better game in basically every way. BOTW just hit me at the perfect time and place, and was much more exciting when it came out than this was since it was the first to go in this direction. 9/10 - this is definitely winning game of the year.

This is definitely my game of the year. Insomniac has perfected open world traversal. Story is a bit less cohesive and consistent than the first game but still excellent. Combat is incredibly satisfying and deep with plenty of enemy variety and insanely cinematic special moves. The side content is engaging and surprisingly really touching at times. Only reason the game isn’t actually perfect in my opinion is because of a few quality of life features that could be added in patches (namely switching time of day post game, NG+, mission and base replays, as well as a few other small visual gripes that I can’t say without spoilers). Overall, with a few updates this will absolutely the best spider-man game ever made and a must play in my opinion.