‣ 8/10 – Finally played the campaign.

‣ Thoughts: A few years back I played Warzone and enjoyed it, until I’ve decided to buy the actual game and do the campaign. Funny enough after completing my purchase and loading up the game I got permanently banned due to having unrevealed by Activision cheating programs on my pc. Turns out the fantastic Ricochet anti-cheat system thought my Logitech app and all the other RGB controlling files were cheats. So, they outright banned me and didn’t give a shit about my appeal. After that cursed day, I vouched to never purchase an Activision game again and move on with my life. Well things change, I guess.

After being blue balled for 4 years and unable to experience the now goated Call of Duty campaign I caved and attempted to play Modern Warfare again. Thank fuck I did not get banned and had a blast. So yes, fuck this company and everything they do, but goddamn it they made a great single-player fps experience. I’m not really invested in the characters and the lore of CoD: Modern Warfare, but what I did get was interesting enough to keep me engaged. We all know how fun and exciting the campaign is, but I did not expect it to have so much variety when it comes to gadgets and weapons you get to use.

Overall, this is just a simple campaign review, and I don’t think you need me to tell you how good it is. Everything is executed really well. I just expected a bigger and more cinematic ending with more fleshed out villains and characters. But seems like the developers had other plans to milk the franchise into the ground. Spoiler alert, they did.

‣ 5/10 – Stale of Decade.

‣ Thoughts: Fundamentally this is not a bad game. Single player might even be enjoyable and interesting. However, the co-op aspect is absolutely atrocious. How do you make a survival zombie game that has everything it needs to be a perfect co-op experience and fuck it up this bad?

Imagine you play Palworld with your friends and the host is the only person who can capture Pals and interact with the pal management box. How would that make you feel? I’d guess horrible. That’s how it feels to play State of Decay 2 with friends. The host of the server is the only one who can interact with the settlements, choose them, upgrade them, work with them to the fullest. He is the only person who can recruit new survivors and take quests from them. It is so ridiculous that you must stay in close proximity to the host in order to not get kicked. There is a literal visible radius on the map in which all the other players must stay to remain connected. It is borderline insane how bad the implementation of co-op is. On top of that, all the loot containers are marked for a specific player in the session. This means nobody else can open a yellow box but the yellow player. This limitation makes scavenging together just a chore. Eliminating plague hearts has the same problem, but it is even worse. Only the host can loot a destroyed plague heart and grab the rewards. Once he’s done then others can check what’s inside. This is all horrible and should’ve been fixed before the game even came out.

If you think I will have a paragraph detailing all the good parts of State of Decay 2, don’t get your hopes up. It might’ve been a decent zombie survival game but after 2 hours we all decided to stop playing. It is boring and does everything in its power to make multiplayer tedious. On top of that, the story is non-existent, and the characters are the most generic npcs ever. Don’t bother playing this.

‣ 8/10 – Follow the footprints: The game.

‣ Thoughts: Ghost of Tsushima might be one of the most underrated PlayStation titles ever. Many say it was robbed of the GOTY award and I can see why. It is unexplainably beautiful, breathtaking and impressive to play. The open world design and intuitiveness is probably one of the best in its genre. The story is emotional, impactful and set in a fantastic and loosely explored time period.

I can’t believe it took me so long to finally finish Ghost of Tsushima. I’m also quite glad I did it on a PS5 with the Directors Cut Edition and all its quirks. That way I got to experience the perfect version. The loading screens are quicker than blinking, the time to load is quicker than a bathroom break, the performance is smooth as butter and the game just looks magnificent all the time.

Secondly, the world building achieved in this title is truly exceptional. Everything is interconnected so well that the Island itself feels like a real and lived in place. Aside from its beauty the land is filled with shrines to explore, fox dens to find, vanity items to acquire and areas in which to relax and write. Luckily, all of that is revealed to the player in the most natural way I’ve seen in any open world game to date. Most landmarks have a distinct look and others guide you with nature itself. It is brilliant and makes the exploration very immersive. Couple that with the fantastic variety of landscapes and you will be engulfed in its magic.

With that said this game is not perfect. Even though I’ve enjoyed 100% Ghost of Tsushima the fatigue of repetition made the gameplay feel like a chore. The story moments were all great and usually lead to big scale events, but all the in-between segments felt so undercooked it became intriguing what went wrong. Almost all side quests and some main ones lack variety and always ask you to turn off your brain and just follow footprints. After you are done with said task two options based on context appear in front of you. Do the classic stealth routine, which is cool and usually fun, but too easy to be constantly interesting. Or go loud and massacre everyone. Sadly, every time your opponents will be Mongols and their variety diminishes quick. In any case, the story and its characters were well written and kept me engaged. I managed to ignore the obvious repetition and enjoyed other aspects way more.

Ghost of Tsushima isn’t perfect, but it’s a fantastic open-world game that excels in what it is meant to achieve. It manages to immerse you more than most titles can and keeps you hooked on its rewarding exploration. Here you get fantastic vanity items that are highly customizable and upgrades that make you unstoppable. So, if you do plan on playing this title, remember to take it slow and enjoy the scenery.

‣ 9.5/10 – An endless dopamine simulator.

‣ Thoughts: I never thought I would come back to finish this. The first time around I quit after more than 50 hours of playtime, because I simply felt overwhelmed and mentally tired of all the tasks that were thrown at me. Thankfully a random YouTube video that got recommended resurrected my interest in the game and I restarted my playthrough after 3 years.

I am so happy that I came back to Graveyard Keeper, because I truly think it is a fantastic game. There are a lot of fetch quests and random tasks thrown at you without any real guidance, but once you get into the rhythm of the gameplay your brain becomes an endless factory of perfectly calculated maintenance tasks. Imagine your daily routine in Stardew Valley: taking care of your animals, planting corpses, watering them, visiting your favorite villagers, buying supplies etc. but then quadruple that mind process and try surviving. Every task requires pre-planning and every execution of said task needs correct timing, resources and acquired supplies. Forget just one step, run out of food, leave an item and you might miss out on a quest and be forced to wait 7 in game days. It sounds brutal, but that timed week loop forces you to always think ahead which in turn rewards you every time.

The game is absolutely ridiculous in almost every aspect. It has the most unfair fetch quests, the most bizarre characters and a completely unhinged story that ends in the most generic way possible. However, getting to these moments has you doing so many varied tasks that are all equally rewarding that you just can’t stop. Every little item crafted, potion brewed, burger cooked is given with a beautiful pop up and flashy skill points that are all sucked up like a vacuum with amazing sound design. And that’s why Graveyard Keeper is a dopamine factory. I am genuinely surprised how memorable most characters in this story are. They have funny and serious dialogue and actually make you care. Sadly, there is no real input you as a player have besides just giving them what they ask for. After all the DLC’s I wonder if there’s more to see, because the developers seem to hint at that.

In any case, this was a wild ride and one of the most addictive games I’ve played in the last year. If you enjoy games like Stardew Valley or Animal Crossing even, this might be an interesting alteration of the genre. It doesn’t take itself seriously but has a lot to offer if care to dig deep enough. And I mean who doesn’t love communist donkeys?

‣ 8/10 – Why has this never been done before?

‣ Thoughts: Somehow a big soup of previous survival games thrown together managed to become a unique experience. If you described Palworld on a piece of paper, it would feel like the most generic survival game out there. But they achieved a near perfect early access title of its genre.

Yes, in terms of gameplay ideas, world design and visuals this is not unique. But it is crazy how twisting the Pokemon formula and adding more spice to it redefines the entire monster hunter gameplay loop. The developers clearly know how much they should push the grindy aspects of a survival game. Although some late-game areas are a complete wasteland with tons of useless empty space, the first 30 hours or so will be an addictive ride.

I think many have voiced their opinions about whether or not this game should exist, but I think some competition is always healthy. I hope they continue updating Palworld because it has some great fundamentals. As an early access title, it might be the best steam has ever had and stats back that up quite a lot. To those saying, it will lose players quick, you are probably correct. This game highly requires frequent updates and loads of bug fixes and patches. Under the cute, fluffy creature hood you can find so many gameplay breaking glitches that it is amazing I had so much fun regardless. And that just shows how well done the overall gameplay loop of this unexpected survival game is.

All in all, Palworld has clearly tapped into a market unforeseen by many other developers. In order to keep the flame toasty, they have to use the capital gained from the massive success and pour it back into the project. Only with passion and love will this blossom into a perfect Pokemon competitor. The foundation is amazing, but the endgame and lack of content in that area is dreadful. Iron, being the most dominant material for all of progression, is a big mistake and must be automatized in some capacity, like wood and stone. In any way, I will gladly keep revisiting the game if the developers throw big updates at a reasonable pace, but for now I am done. It was a fun ride.

‣ 9/10 – They took John’s pan away ;(

‣ Thoughts: I think Stardew Valley has permanently ruined how I approach cozy, farming games like this DLC. For just 5$ Eastward becomes a totally different game, that prioritizes relaxation and chill vibes. But that is not how I approached this expansion.

The game begins with an alternative version of John and Sam settling in an abandoned theme park with run down buildings. Your task is to put it all back together with the help of characters from the main game. There is no combat and serious stakes. It is all about cooking delicious looking meals, gathering ingredients, fishing, foraging, and helping out with various construction projects. Obviously, the biggest part of this DLC is farming. That is your main source of income and most ingredients. It is simple and quick to do and it is totally fine.

Everything starts out rather slowly and it takes a few good hours for you to start seeing progress. At times I felt like it was perhaps too slow, but that is undoubtedly because I played this expansion like Stardew Valley. Meaning, I tried to maximize my profits and work load every day, instead of just taking my time and relaxing like it is intended. It got so bad that I had to skip 20 days for the games story to catch up and roll credits. Of course, that is completely my fault, and I should’ve just slowed down, but that did not ruin the experience for me. It just simply made it feel sluggish at times.

Overall, it is incredible how different Octopia feels to the main game, and I think that was the point. It seems like the developers wanted to make a spin-off farming game, using assets from Eastward, but the scope was small enough to be an expansion. I truly wonder if we will ever see Eastward 2 or a full farming game like this, because they know exactly what makes these type of games so addictive.

Played from – to: (2024-02-01 – 2024-02-01) – PS5.
‣ 3/10 – When you ask your mom for P.T. but she says there’s P.T at home.

‣ Thoughts: Well, this was a sad and depressing experience. I have no idea why this demo? Game? Even exists. It does nothing new in terms of next-gen technology. There are no interesting ideas or twists that happen. The only thing that possibly happens is my controller speakers get fried from the static that plays when I get chased.

It seems like Konami gathered all the interns and just threw them at a wall asking to work on a silly school project. This walking simulator is roughly an hour long, extra 30 minutes on top if you read all the notes and die a few times. It runs at a steady 15 frames per second and has film grain so strong you will have it in real life as a fun parting gift.

Perhaps the idea of this experience flew by me, because I am not a suicidal teenager fueled by anti-depressants, but holy shit was this a sad game. For its length I wished it ended 3 times and for an hour-long game that is not good.

All in all, I truly don’t know why this is a thing, but hey… it is free. I’d look at this as a cheap horror movie to watch when you truly have nothing else to do with your time.

Played from – to: (2023-12-09 – 2024-01-29) – PC keyboard.
‣ 8/10 – That moment when a furry makes a good game.

‣ Thoughts: Grab your friends and piss yo’ pants would be the slogan of this game. Lethal Company is one of those rare random indie games that just appear and sweep the gaming space. Among Us was probably the last one to do this, where the YouTube/Streaming world all played it at the same time, making content and giving it universal popularity.

In the grand scheme of things, Lethal Company is more complex than I thought it could be. There’s a great variety of enemies, loot to gather, locations to explore and it all always changes. Logically this endless loop can keep you going for hours, but that is not something I feel. To me this feels like a board game you whip out once a year to entertain the guests. Everyone has fun, but then moves on with their life, leaving behind a fun memory.

There is nothing wrong with this game, but I think the fundamental structure of it gets repetitive and bland in 5 to 10 hours. By far the best aspect of Lethal Company is the in-game voice chat. It creates the most immersive atmosphere I felt in multiplayer games since Among Us. That feeling is also enhanced tenfold with walkie-talkies and other fun gadgets. Sadly, the core gameplay is very janky and gets annoying quickly. Fighting monsters to save yourself is a fruitless endeavor and usually leads to boring deaths. I think the game is best at its beginning hours and anything after that is just people clinging onto the hype they felt at the start.

All in all, Lethal Company has shown the gaming space how fun co-op horror games can still be. But I doubt this experience has longevity after the initial runs. Most people will have their honeymoon and move on. The only thing that can keep this going is constant innovative updates. With that said, it is still one of the best multiplayer experiences you can have.

Played from – to: (2024-01-16 – 2024-01-26) – PC controller.
‣ 7.5/10 – Ubisoft actually made a fun game.

‣ Thoughts: Prince of Persia The Lost Crown is a very fun but heavily flawed metroidvania game. It has incredible gameplay that is supported by fun level design. However, it fails to deliver in its story, exploration, and pacing.

Although the map is quite big and the whole game takes around 25 hours to complete. Most of the time you will be cockblocked from exploring due to a lack of traversal abilities and forced to backtrack late. For example, the double jump is an obvious ability you will unlock due to the level designs around, but you only get it after completing 60% of the main story, which is truly bizarre. Thankfully the traversal abilities and animations are fantastic and moving around is fun. Sadly, the fast travel points are scarce, and a big chunk of playtime will be spent running around the map.

With that said, there is a lot of parkour/puzzle jumping to do in Prince of Persia. I’d say half of the game is combat and the other is navigating Mount Qaf. It is a shame that most rewards for your painful attempts at parkour are unsatisfactory. Some of the hardest puzzle jumps I’ve completed only gave me a pesky skin or an item upgrade coin that I already had plenty of. This is a bad system and made later parkour segments just something I avoided. In any case, the combat of this game went hard.

When I saw that Ubisoft is behind this game, my expectations for the quality of this game were mid. I expected some generic exploration, bland story (which it kind of was) and sub-par combat. But what we get here is nothing but amazing. Some boss fights were a little cheesy and left me annoyed but most were beautifully telegraphed and animated. Combining all the Simurgh powers to take down massive monsters was exciting and rewarding. It showed me how far I’ve come as a player and how far Sargon has developed as a fighter.

All in all, I am surprised that this game isn’t talked about more, because it deserves attention. It is an exciting and incredibly well animated metroidvania game. Yes, it has predictable story moments, weak and forgettable characters, a dull protagonist, and questionable side content. But beneath all that is a rewarding, exciting flashy game.

Played from – to: (2024-01-07 – 2024-01-17) – PC controller.
‣ 8/10 – Smash my ass battle pass.

‣ Thoughts: Alright… this might be the best mobile game I’ve ever played. It has a lot of microtransactions, and borderline pay to win features. However, none of them are aggressive enough to make nobodies who pay half of their allowance beat you in a skill fight.

I am surprised to notice that almost all legends feel fair and have their counters. Only a few come to mind as unfair S tier characters. For the most part, every legend I picked was fun to play and enjoyable. They all have unique abilities, and none feel the same. But there is the question of depth. Since all legends have only 2 abilities aside from the basic attacks the game can feel simple and shallow, but that does not mean it is not addictive and fun.

Smash Legends as the name suggests involves something similar to Smash Bros. Your objective is to knock an opponent off the map and score points. Most game modes are simple but offer enough variety to keep you engaged for hours. Sadly, you can’t really play the game for hours because there are plenty of stopping measures. For example, you can only earn 1000 credits per day from playing anything. Your legends have an experience cap and do not net you rewards once you master them. Tasks that give you bonus rewards are all locked behind ads and finite battle passes etc. All this to say, Smash Legends is one of the most addictive arena multiplayer fighters I’ve played in years, but they have like 5 barriers stopping me from continuously playing throughout my day. Not to say I don’t, but at a certain point winning isn’t rewarding at all.

Lastly, I would like to mention the worst part of this game and that is ranked. It is only available at a certain time of day, which to me is late evening. Secondly, it is only one game mode, and it is perhaps the worst one. There are 8 maps, but somehow the game rolls the worst one with a 75% success rate. And finally, the respawn timers are so quick, most games drag out until the time runs out instead of the dominating team winning quickly.

All in all, Smash Legends is a fun and crazy mobile game that you can play on any platform and still have a chance. It is riddled with paid content, but there is a lot of meat to enjoy for free without any restrictions. I am just surprised it is this good.

Played from – to: (2024-01-02 – 2024-01-10) – PC keyboard.
‣ 6/10 – Where’s the dawn at?

‣ Thoughts: People who have played Vampire Survivors will know what this game’s about. It does feel similar in many aspects but has a unique take on the mindless slot machine shooting. It does, however, lack the colorful explosions Vampire Survivors brings. At times, I found myself lost and confused due to everything being grey and dark. The only saving grace were the red obvious projectiles.

By far the strongest parts of 20 minutes till dawn are the characters and how they change the runs. Every playable character has a unique ability that alters the way you should play. They also work best with certain upgrades and weapons while sucking with others. This creates a small choice restriction when it comes to weapons, but it also makes the meta runs fun and strong.

Overall, I found this game to be a nice way to spend some time while planning my next move in life. It is exactly something you’d want to play while trying to waste time and it’s great. Sadly, the choice to do everything grey and dark makes the visual experience quite dull. The gameplay offers loads of upgrades, but you’ll be surprised how quickly it becomes repetitive.

Played from – to: (2023-12-09 – 2024-01-04) – PC keyboard.
‣ 8/10 – It isn’t the finals if you never get to the final rounds haha…

‣ Thoughts: This game has certainly caught me by surprise. It may not be the hottest topic of the year or any gaming conversations, but there is something special here. Hell, I thought this was just another lame battle royal game with flashy characters and annoying voice actors. Thankfully it’ somewhat isn’t.

I review this game from the perspective of someone who is actively addicted to it. I may not play this game all day every day, but I like its basic concepts enough to ignore the problems and still find satisfaction in each round. First of all, the game is highly unbalanced. Some categories of characters you can play are significantly better than the rest. Some weapons are significantly better than others. This creates a sort of a meta bubble, where everyone plays with the same strategies and experimentation is avoided due to it being inferior 95% of the time. For example: there’s a class that has a sniper rifle. Combine that with a grapple hook and you become a deadly spider-man. Sadly, the weapon is extremely hard to use, because of the speed at which everyone moves. To use the sniper effectively you must be in close combat and exposed, which that class of characters can’t afford. The reason for this is: no team can fully function and hold a point of interest without sticking together. So, in order to use a sniper as any sane player would, you’d have to detach yourself from the team, effectively leaving them in a 2v3 fight. And sadly, this is just one example out of many, where class and weapon power inequality are present and easily noticeable. Perhaps it all comes down to skill issues, but after 50 hours I still dread the use of anything else but the main 3 meta weapons.

You might question why I still give this game an 8 out of 10 and the answer is already here. The game is a nice change of pace in the multiplayer shooter genre. It is addictive and has a great gameplay loop. The added destructibility, flashy and interesting map designs keep me entertained even if I do the same task every time. The monetization is definitely aggressive, but what you can earn for free in an already free game is enough to keep the casuals at bay. Weapons feel good to use and have punchy feedback you’d want once you hit your targets. Characters are fast and have their perks that can keep them alive against their counterparts. However, all the mentioned positives have their negative attributes but if I go and name all the problems, I’ve noticed then this will be longer than the bible.

In conclusion, The finals is a game that will only keep the hardcore fans active. It desperately needs updates to keep people engaged. 3v3 only is not optimal for smaller or bigger groups. The lack of maps is understandable for now, but the optimization isn’t. When will these new games get their shit together and make the frames stable is a question only God knows the answer to. But again, with all the disappointment I still love playing this.

Played from – to: (2023-12-21 – 2024-01-01) – PC controller.
‣ 7/10 – They truly had the need for speed.

‣ Thoughts: Although I think NFS: Unbound is a superior game to Heat in almost every way, I somehow had less fun with it in the end of the day. I thoroughly enjoyed it and found many aspects to be great fun, but the campaign part heavily overstayed its welcome due to some poor design choices.

At first, I found the weekly system to be a brilliant reason to be careful with your cash and cautions with your heat, but it quickly became evident that there is no need for that. Making enough for your vehicle upgrades and qualifiers wasn’t difficult and only took a few days without any real grinding. At the end the weeks simply became a repetitive task of doing a few top paying races and just getting over it for a little bit more story. Fundamentally NFS: Unbound provides a nice mix of different races to attempt and fun side hustles to complete, but all of them become boring when you are simply forced into repeating them against your own will. I think a simple day skip option could’ve helped with the pace of the story a lot.

Speaking more about the story I surprisingly loved it. Yes, it has cringy dialogue, odd characters, and a goofy protagonist, but underneath all that there is a deep and interesting story about confused racers, betrayal, and greed. The dialogue desperately tries to cling onto the vibes of the game which I would call gen Z. Funnily enough it does succeed and feels realistic but at times the cringe’o meter is too much. Besides that, it also lacks cutscenes. I know this might be a very stupid complaint but in the case of Unbound they could’ve shown more conversations happening in a simple cutscene instead of thrown at you through a radio. Reasons for that being the detailed character customization and look of the game. People look flashy, stylish, and just pleasant to the eye and it is a shame we barely get to see them outside their vehicles throughout 15-20 hours.

Lastly, I want to mention the speed in Need for Speed… The visuals and the art style of the game combined with fancy smoke effects make racing feel thrilling and exciting, which is what you want. The cars feel fast, the hype is real, and you are just constantly in it, but gods does it become difficult to drive the faster you become. Pile stupid traffic, insane cop spawn rates and just unfair bullshit on top and some races become a rage fest. Which is also fueled by great rivals that you just want to run off the road from pure anger and you have yourself a fun Need for Speed game that almost reminds me of the good old days.

Played from – to: (2023-12-23 – 2023-12-24) – PC controller.
‣ 3/10 – SnowRunners? More like SnowStuckers.

‣ Thoughts: This might be the worst driving simulator game I’ve ever played. At first it was a pretty interesting concept and a genuinely fun time, but the more I tried to play the game the less I could. The only reason why I stuck around for 6 hours was because of a friend that trucked along.

The whole grand idea of SnowRunners is driving a truck through difficult terrains and fixing up roads to make other missions easier. The thing is you can’t really drive through anything without getting stuck on everything. You start off with a limited amount of cash and can only afford a shitty first vehicle to work with. The problem is that truck is too bad and can’t drive anywhere that isn’t pure, perfect asphalt. And guess what, all those roads are closed off, and the game forces you to use mud filled shitty roads. It is absolutely insane how unfair and time-consuming the roads you are forced to use are.

I don’t really have anything positive to say about SnowRunners. It has interesting ideas but all of them are executed poorly and that is reinforced with a misleading tutorial. Thankfully this pile of shit was on Xbox game pass, and I only wasted my time.

Played from – to: (2023-12-21 – 2023-12-21) – PC keyboard.
‣ 4/10 – What was the point of the clown?

‣ Thoughts: I do enjoy Chilla’s Art games no matter how good or bad they are for example ,,Night Security” which was horrible but still a laugh. However, I think the developers need to slow down, gather their ideas, take the time, accumulated resources, and make something of higher quality both in storytelling and gameplay.

The Kidnap is not their worst game, I’d say it is one of the better ones, but that does not make it good. The story is sadly generic, the characters are predictable and one-dimensional. There is basically no suspense. All the intense scenes and jump scares come off as cheesy and lazy. Small gameplay sections are just conversations and provide no fun at all. Previous games had you playing basketball, singing karaoke, and interacting with other small games, but here even a video-game game mode is lazy and just a waste of time.

In conclusion, I think YouTubers are overhyping these games too much just because of their title. The developers should be encouraged to take their time and stop pumping these half-assed games out. 4-5 games a year is not a healthy thing. Quality over quantity…