An outstanding remake of a game that, if you asked me a year ago, I would have told you didn't need a remake. Dead Space isn't like Resident Evil 2 where the original was a ps1 survival horror that would push most modern players away in it's opening minutes. No, Dead Space is a game that you can puchase on Steam and largely feels pretty modern to this day; so how do you successfully remake it?

The answer is by adding... more. There's more story, a completely re-written script that overhauls character arcs and makes every character much more pertinent in the story, as well as adding voice acting to isaac, making him feel like he's actually participating in the story. There's more gameplay, the zero-g segments have been expanded and redesigned to better fit the later entries in the series, and the ishimura now allows you to go back wherever you like, whenever you like, and by giving you security passes as the game goes on it adds a metroidvania-esque element to exploration. It even has more of the great art design that the first boasted (though of course, like the gameplay, it's not on the level of the sequel).

And what does all of this 'more' result in? This is easily THE way to play Dead Space, and considering that it comes with the second game, which is my favorite game of all time, you can't lose! I just hope that this works as a good proof of relevance and EA let's them make an all-new Dead Space.

If you want to know more of my thoughts check out my review video:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-qqPVNoEYkg&ab_channel=PCGamer

It's FINE, good even! But only when it wants to be.

First, technicals, I played switching between a Steam Deck and a PC running an RTX 4090 Ti, surprisingly I feel like I had a better time on deck, this game is not well optimised for PC, stuttering that I assumed was the deck not being able to run the game turned out to just be something present in the game, it's constant and random and any time you're not in combat the game will stutter and pause, it's a real issue. On deck with some quick settings tweaks the game runs between 30-60 frames really consistently. I was adamant about playing this on deck as I planned to use it as a litmus test for Deck's longevity, if it can run this new AAA title then it surely has at least a couple of years ahead of it. And the deck passed! What a score.

Now, the game, The Callisto Protocol wildly flies from unbearable to pretty great, and I can tell you where that occurs. The cutscenes in this game are borderline embarassing, with flat, empty characters who have no arcs, outside of the main character who has an arc in the final 20 minutes of the game that comes across as entirely hollow because it's based on something he did that he actually didn't do and the game doesn't address that. The script is a dull amalgam of the worst of resident evil and Dead Space 3, some of it genuinely being laughable even in the final moments. The story and characters of this game would not feel out of place in a resident evil light gun game or call of duty side-mode story, it's really underwhelming, especially considering the big selling point of this game was being a follow up to Dead Space 2, which has great, interesting characters, a storyful and meaty world, and a story that keeps you on the edge of your seat. It does not help that this game really tries to ape that game, multiple times just taking scenes verbatim directly from it.

When you're not suffering through the story, though, this is actually alright! Albeit marred by some design issues. I actually like what they've done with the combat. Once I learned the timings on the dodge, proper times to block, when to use ranged and melee attacks and adjusted my perception of what the kinesis module (sorry, GRP module) is used for, it all really clicked. The problem is that it's entirely designed for one-on-one enemy encounters. The weapons all pack a punch, feel satisfying to use, as do all the combat mechanics, and the upgrades all feel meaningful and ask you to choose your playstyle a bit, but it can't avoid the overwhelming fact that the combat just isn't designed for the game it's in. When one on one you get just enough time to find a place to heal, switch weapons (takes longer than you think) or pick up items, but with more than one you don't get a moment, if you didn't have the right weapons already equipped and full health before an encounter you're already f*cked. And it doesn't help that this game is TOUGH. I played through on normal and it was brutal, frustratingly brutal, sometimes detracts-from-the-game hard.

It's strange, I'd actually recommend this, I'd you don't care about the story and for the love of god play on easy mode, but do wait for a sale, or better yet, just play Dead Space 2, one of the best games of all time.

I'm going to replay this at Christmas and see if I feel any different, here's hoping the season pass makes a difference.

Signalis is my favorite game this year, at a glance it looks like just another PS1/PS2 style horror game like the multitude we've seen the last few years, but this is an entirely different beast altogether.

Gameplay:
A pitch perfect mix of old and new, it feels exactly like playing Resident Evil on the PS1, albeit with the perspective of MGS, but with a slew of modern conveniences, quality of play improvements and a masterful knowledge of balancing. The enemy encounters ratchet up in difficulty at a perfect pace, the exploration becomes more and more complex but never throws too much at you, and the puzzles are challenging but never feel unfair; staying true to the spirit of the classics whilst not being afraid to add unique interactions or gimmicks. This game will have you scratching your head but never quitting out of frustration, it feels great to play but never sacrifices the characteristic 'clunk' of a classic survival horror game.

Story:
Taking place in an interesting sci-fi world, with well-developed and engaging characters, and finely balanced surrealist elements interwoven throughout; this is psychological sci-fi horror at it's best. The story is where the inspirations for the game really rear their heads; the king in yellow is directly referenced in the first moments of the game. And whilst the writing shows a lot of literary influence more than anything else; the structure of said writing and the presentation of the characters narrows down the video game influence from general survival horror to a very specific selection; Silent Hill and Silent Hill 2. The way characters are treated and appear in the world, the way the world acts as an extension of the characters psyche, and of course the true surrealist machinations of everything that happens reek of those first two games; I'll say no more here, but if you know, you know.

Art:
Where to start... from the striking and affecting direction of cutscenes, to the beautiful anime-inspired artstyle characters within them are rendered in - to the fantastic character animations and environments that drip with atmosphere. Every character design is perfect and every location feels distinct and storied. Moreover there's more to it than that; having dreams be told through a first person perspective helps them stand out and almost feel more real and present than reality, making you wonder what is keeping Elster outside of her body and wowing you with more amazing visuals. The pixelated yet detailed look of the game makes for a unique look even amongst it's PS1-inspired contemporaries, and the way puzzle areas look and how the puzzle zones reflect back out into the 2D art in the game proper is genuinely impressive. Every puzzle feels like it's had unique mechanics made for it and every room oozes with steamy, fleshy, dark atmosphere.

I could go on for days about this game, I've been chipping away at it for a week now and even before some of the late-game events I was already sure this is easily one of my games of the year. Signalis does everything right, and it's two-person dev team should be proud of and adulated for this achievement.

As a preface, I would not have ever purchased this game, I was given a copy of it in order to do parts of my job and decided to then play it in my own time out of curiosity. If you are interested in playing this game then I implore you; I don't ever condone piracy of new, readily available games, but I believe you have a moral imperative to pirate this game. Support the quality of the product without financially supporting a game that lines the pockets of a transphobe and touts the disturbing rhetoric that this game does. I am a huge supporter of trans rights, trans rights are the social issue that I care about the most and it is awful that the creator of an integral part of the childhoods of much of the consumer base in the western world aggressively and blindly spouts hate towards transgender individuals. However, I would never tell someone not to play a game (simply not to spend money on it), but as I will get into in the review proper it will become apparent that the text of this game reflects none of JKs trans ideologies, likely as they weren't present in the original books, but it does spout some equally damaging and at times horrifying messaging.

Gameplay:
Hogwarts legacy was controversial well before it's release, and whilst the team at portkey games and avalanche software did everything they could to distance themselves from the game, JK does still get royalties, but what of the game itself? is it any good to actually play?
Avalanche have almost exclusively made tie-in games, with their biggest endeavor being Disney Infinity, a game I am personally a fan of, but could not sing its praises. Most of Avalanche's library consists of games like Cars 3 the game or Bolt the game, generic and uninteresting cash grabs made by cynics who think gaming is a novelty, so surely hogwarts legacy is just another pit-stop on the Avalanche tour of mediocrity, right?
Well, somehow, they managed to pull it out of the bag. This game at no point reinvents the wheel, every gameplay system you can see having been taken from other places, but every system the game employs is really good, from the fun and engaging combat (despite some bullet sponge enemies and lack of enemy variety), to the farming sim/home builder room of requirement, which links out to a pokemon arceus style beast catching system. Every one of the systems, mechanics and minigames is really good, never great mind you, but a game chock full of really good and varied systems and activities that are all consistently really good is not something to turn your nose up at. Sure, there's a criminal lack of enemy variety and some elements (like the owl post) feel a tad superfluous, these end up being minor qualms in the face of a grand and great beast. The closest comparison I can give to the experience of playing this game is playing the witcher 3; with it's beautiful, expansive and detailed world bursting with things to do, where you just want to sit and watch all the crazy little things play out (especially in the castle) before heading out to a minigame to beat a high score or beat some bandits in a mission. This is a good game in the gameplay, in fact I am almost relieved that I am now in the post game as I no longer have to engage with the frankly concerning writing that carries this game's narrative.

Writing:
A little bit after this game was announced, and after JK had begun her descent into her concerning obsession with stranger's genitals, it was uncovered that the lead designer of the game had, at one point, run an 'anti-sjw' channel on youtube, but hey, he's not writing the game, who cares, right? Well, this should have been our first red flag; fool me once, shame on you. A few months go by once again and the game hires Greg Ellis, who has ammassed enough controversy of his own, some of it in relation to supporting Rowling, over the years. Fool me twice...
No, we should not have ignored these warning signs. It has already been pointed out that, within the text, the Goblins of the Wizarding World are extremely antisemetic, and here that is dialed up to 11.
It's all well and good that you have a super diverse cast of characters, in fact that's great, there's every kind of person here you can imagine, there's even a prominent trans woman who is never needlessly clocked and deadnamed and demands respect around her; but what's the point of all of that if the plot of your game is that the hook nosed bankers who control the economy, based on a historically known antisemetic symbol, decide to rise up against the fact they are treated as slaves and are upset that their cultural artefacts have been stolen and locked away from them for hundreds of years, and they are treated unequivocably as the villains.
There are so many opportunities presented to this game where it could turn things around, the only 'good goblins' want nothing to do with the rebellion, no one ever questions if maybe stealing another race's cultural artefacts and putting them in places enchanted so goblins can't enter could be bad, no one ever even suggests that enslaving an entire race and treating them as lesser could be bad. Moreover, the general stance of this game is that rising up against those in power is inherently a bad thing to do, as the player if you choose dialogue options that go against doing as your teachers say you are told things like 'I wouldn't have expected that from you', all but telling you that you are behaving out of character. It even employs some familliar right wing rhetoric, of course the people rising up to try and justifiably gain what is theirs just want to 'wipe out all of wizard kind', this kind of rhetoric is sadly all too familliar from the real world politics of 2023, especially following certain protests in the last few years.
More concerning, still, is the treatment of life within this game. It's a strange thing, when you are punished for using the 'unforgivable' killing curse with a mere 'I'd rather you didn't do that', and then are allowed to use the explosion spell to kill someone, or burn someone to death slowly, and no one bats an eye. Let me be clear, there is no hyperbole in play here, this isn't Spider-Man or Arkham where in-universe you're just knocking people out. Over the course of this game you murder dozens of innocent humans, and you are congratulated for it. At first I believed this to be some kind of huge oversight on behalf of the developers, but toward the end of the game I was getting a little bored of the boss battle with rockwood and decided to use the killing curse on him. He exploded into a cloud of dust, never to be seen again. Shortly after professor fig confronted me about it, I expected a harsh telling-off for my callousness and the coldness with which I dispatched a named character. Instead I was told that he was a dangerous man, and I did what I had to, I did the right thing. And this was right next to another boss that I merely incapacitated and had arrested. I was told that my erasure of this man's life, a human life, was the right thing to do. And this was in and among the slaughter of hundreds of goblins over the course of the game.

So, to review; this game, based on a children's series and likely being played largely by children and young people, presents an oppressed group rising up against subjugation and the stealing of cultural artefacts as a threat to 'our kind', and tells you that you are free to indiscriminately murder these people, as well as humans; in fact if you think it is the right thing to do you are always justified in killing human beings. What am I to do with this plot? How can one ignore the frankly disturbing rhetoric on display here?

Conclusion:
I'm going to have to stop here, I have other things to do with my day, but I do think that, despite it all, I will come back to this game. As I mentioned earlier, now that I'm in the post game I don't have to encounter the horrifying messaging of this game anymore.
The bottom line is that this is a good game, it's really fun, has so much to do, and is really visually pleasing, I would even go as far as recommending it, but please, I beg you, do not spend money on this game, not a cent. Rowling has said that every penny from this game will go to anti-trans causes and the racist rhetoric on display in the actual game is frankly disgusting. Pirate this game, steal it digitally, There are many multitudes of places where you can acquire this game without funding the people who made it. Think about what you're consuming. You can support high quality products without supporting awful people and awful ideologies.
This game should be an 8/10, but I simply can't bring myself to do it.

Holy shit, what an incredible experience. With just the right level of gameplay to compliment the writing, the only things I can think to compare this to are other dialogue-heavy adventure games like Night in the Woods or Oxenfree, but this is entirely different beast.

On the level of writing, subtext and dialogue this was made explicitly for me to love it, with a perfect mix of surface narrative and visceral metaphorical surrealism. It's a story of delivering antiques, but also of loss, working class struggle, modern pastoral industrialisation fears and how the world late stage capitalism creates forgets and leaves behind the people who build it, amongst so many other things.

On the front of art and music this game blows you away, gameplay perfectly joins with stunning visuals that perfectly mix with music into this fantastic stew of a game that's everything I love in film and literature, with a pure, concerntrated southern gothic aesthetic over so many visual styles and locations.
However, I do say 'film and literature' because normally I do ask for a little more game from a game, but that's likely just my being spoiled by my love for fast, deep action games, and anything more than what it's doing simply would not work here.

The story of Conway especially really drives home the commentary on corporate debt in the lower classes, losing his very body in surprisingly literal ways, and being so downtrodden he does nothing about it, it's subtly pulled off but still has the emotional impact you'd want.
Shannon's story displays how the harmful effects of this awful cycle can go down through generations, affecting them forever.

The end of the game shows us this rotten society, destroyed by forces beyond it's control, and something new, 5 Dogwood Drive, that just maybe we can make something better from. The Zero itself is a loop, metaphorically representing the awful cycle of capitalist and corporate greed, and the only way out is by literally escaping. Conway represents this old world perfectly, and the scene in the factory was gut-wrenching, what should be a personal hell for a recovering alcoholic who hates his delivery job (delivering whiskey) but he is numb to it, and he is swept up and lost. The rest of our characters, young and willing to find the new; especially Ezra, who also represents a connection with this strange new world and all of it's... strangeness, are the only ones who can forge a new way.

This game has the same subtextual depth I'm always looking for in literature and film, but it's so rare to see this level and this well executed a version of that in a video game, and I'm so glad we're moving into a world where that is becoming the norm. This was an astounding experience and one of the finest video games I've ever played, once again part of me wishes there was more game, but I can't dock points for my childish need to have action action action jump hit boom.

Damn, saw a friend play part of this and finally got around to it, absolutely don't regret it.

There aren't games like Killer 7, and there absolutely shouldn't be.

This is my first proper Suda51 game and holy shit, the story was great, the imagery and direction was great, so much about this game is so unique, there has never been a game like this before.
This is a game that always slips under the radar, it even slipped under mine until I saw it played.

I don't even know how to describe it (which isn't a problem I normally have), it's so atmospheric, has such a unique look mixing it's horror imagery, sci-fi premise, and something else that I don't even think has a name.

The only problems I have is that the game is a little longer than it needs to be, maybe it's because I've spent the last two months playing six hour games, but this game being almost double that hit me hard, but I still finished it in just under three days (helped by the game's more-ish-ness) and that the game's story can sometimes feel heavy-handed, but that's just a taste thing. I also found the menus a little clunky, especially the character screen, recovery always felt like a chore, but again that might just be a me thing. Finally, some of the bosses could have been more interesting, I remember one specifically where I just stood there and shot, occasionally switching characters so as to not die, it felt challenging but unengaging, but that was one of my only real negative moments with the game. (I was going to mention the constantly repeating voice lines on killing enemies but honestly it's not as annoying as it feels like it should be.)

This is a batshit crazy game that won't leave you the same;

and I think I recommend it? It's surprisingly approachable if you're open-minded about gameplay, and even more open-minded about story (but I'd say that about a lot of Japanese action titles).