Througout my play throughs this year, i have thouroghly enjoyed each adventure i set out upon. From killing creepy Russian robots in Atomic Heart, to saving Valisthea in Final Fantasy 16, to swining in the skylines of New York in Spider-Man 2 and then trying to escape the Dark Place in Alan Wake II. But just like Kraven the Hunter in SM2, i wanted a challlenge, something new, something that would give me a great sense of achievment once completed. Elden Ring was exactly that.

Elden Ring was my very first souls game and just my 2nd FromSoftware game, and man... it put me in a blender of emotions, fury as i was beaten down by Malenia, exhilaration when i finally overcame the Elden Beast, and annoyance when i was randomly transported to a unknown place where my sword did 1 damage. If you're like me who had never played a souls game in their life, you go into this game a boy and come out as a man.

Elden Ring serves as a testament to open world video game design. There is a true sense of accomplishment once that brutal enemy has been slain and, something that compels a player to relentlessly do it over and over again until they succeed is truly rewarding. The world is humongous and an epitome of how exploration should be encouraged, by intriguing players to see what is over the hill. You're a Tarnished, a forgotten warrior tasked with ascending to the role of Elden Lord, to repair the Elden Ring. Of course, that's what you're told to do... learning what's really going on and what other paths exist is the real treat of this game. The lack of detailed yet amazing lore creates a great sense of mystery and excitement. The fact that it's almost impossible to answer the simple question "what is an Elden Ring?" at the game's start speaks volumes for its intentions. i can't tell you how many times i have been on reddit trying to piece together some of the question marks behind the story and seeing fans create their own interpretation of it all. There is no in-game journal or database for characters lore (which there really should be) but nevertheless, it is a story that i really enjoyed trying to piece together by myself. Set in "The Lands Between" exploration and curiosity in this vast open-world game are rewarded yet also punished, sure you'll end up with a powerfull new sword or inantation when you explore a powerfull new dungeon...that is after spending 30 minutes on the boss battle there. In the Lands Between, "freedom" is an understatement, from the minute you start the game in Limgrave you're free to travel and explore anywhere you want. Which is, of course, not a new concept for an open world game at all, but the way it is handled in this game is truly amazing. You can spend hours upon hours in the game's first region, doing every every mini-dungeon, talking to every NPC (which i did) or you could alternatively follow the Light of Grace, which is as close to a main mission waypoint you get in the game, and head straight to the first main boss battle castle. You can even traverse to regions meant for higher level players as soon as you start to pick up some strong weapons, which i also found myself doing quite a bit. You don't just play Elden Ring, you live in its world for hours at a time. It will consume you, but you'll willingly throw yourself into its maw with fervour.

As far as the gameplay goes, it is apparently just how all the other souls games are but with some improvements. You need to strategise every boss fight and ask yourself questions like "what are they weak to?"... "how can i punish this attack?" The fundamentals are pretty much managing your stamina and picking when to strike your opponent, if you try to play this like a God of War game you are in for a rude awakening. The pleathora of builds you can make and experiment with in this game is astonishing, the amount of weapons, sorceries, incantations and talismans along with many element effects, the character builds you can make to suit your playstyle knows no bounds. This also plays into the replayability factor which honestly surprised me so much, i can see why this is such a replayed game now due to respecing for different builds on NG+, PC mods which provide great YouTube content, and the 6 different endings which all involve helping out various NPCs. The online PvP also plays a part in this however i have not explored that part of the game yet, but something which i thought was a great and possibly even an essential part to the game was the messages left on the floor by other players, genuinly been saved more than once from destined death thanks to those those messages alone.

However i did have a few question marks about this game also. The first one is the fact there is no sidequest markers, nothing that tells you where to go, what to find, who to talk to, you just need to explore and figure it out for yourself. These sidequests involve NPCs who you will natuarally meet on your journey with their own agendas and goals, whose stories are impacted based on your own actions or inactions. As a newcomer to souls games i had no idea that you had to continually exauhst dialogue with an NPC to continue a quest. I understand why they made it this way to encourage exploration, but at the same time i just found myself on google, searching how to progress a sidequest a good chunk of the time. Another small thing that annoyed me was the fact you cannot pause the game, i know this is pretty insignifcant but come on man... people have friends or family who live with them... if you're in an intense boss fight and someone walks into your room, or even calls your phone, the thing you naturally want to do is pause the game so you give them your full attention... but you're simply unable to do that with Elden ring. The last small thing that shocked me more than anything was no transmog in Elden Ring, going into this game i fully expected transmog to be present. Again, i understand the decision not to include this but it did surprise me.

What i was treated to in Elden Ring can easily be held up as one of the best open-world experiences yet. From fighting General Radahn in the rotting region of Caelid, to surviving Astel in the star-filled skies of the Eternal city, to facing off against the dreaded blade of Miquella, Malania, each time i was more and more in awe of this beautiful game. I have never felt more rewarded after each brutal boss i faced and 110 hours later i can say that my challange has been completed. I feel i can take on any game now, which i don't think a game has ever made me feel before. A deep, wide, and absolutely packed with adventure, Elden Ring's immense, deadly open world is nothing short of game-changing.

Like a plethera of developers Supermassive's previous games, The Quarry is obviously made both by and for people who are into horror movies. From the very start of the prologue, it slowly builds tension and atmosphere, and attempts to deliver a creepy teen 80's horror vibe. A thriller, a horror, a spoof 80's horror game, call it what you want, but during my first time playing this game, i was constantly invested as the game continually asked you to make decisions. By the time the blood was splattering across werewolf scratched cabins and eerie forest woods, every decison felt like one more step in a misadvent disaster that made it almost impossible to put down. However, when i went back to replay it again, it was pretty hard to ignore just how non-interactive much of The Quarry actually is. As a follow up to the huge success 'Until Dawn', The Quarry is a great movie, but it's a worse game.

The Quarry is a good cinematography and storytelling (despite some predictable sequences), lost in its medium of choice. The gameplay elements arent particulary fun, i would say they are pretty bland actually. The second time playing this game felt like a chore at times. Most of the voice actors and acrtress deliver a solid, believeable performace but some were meh, you could say that about the score too for a horror experience. Another thing that annoyed me about the whole playthrough was the 'clues' that you could come across during your frightneing night exploring Hackett's Quarry, although they gave insight and some backstory to the lore of the game, they do not impact the story or any decisions you make whatsoever. When you don't give the players an option to run/jog in a pretty large open space to search for pointless clues, it pretty much defeats the purpose for having these clues in the game at all.

The Quarry is a fun, entertaining experience that fans of the gengre will revel in, but does not live up to the expectationas of the PS4's exclsuive 'Until Dawn'. It is worthwile playing this 10 hour experience at least once, but apart from that, The Quarry is the definition of a weekned rental.

Alan Wake II is a single-player adventure that seamlessly shifts from a slow burning psychological terror to frantic survival-horror action. Entering the tail end of the year where 2023 has already been packed with banger after banger, Alan Wake II still manages to burn as brightly as a freshly fired signal flare.

Alan Wake II is not only a gaming marvel but it's also a cinephile dream come true with the most creative story-telling and cinematics. This game transcends what i thought was possible in terms of narrative delivery and presentation. Filmic art direction, mechanics altering enviroments, and tense traversal came together to create a mind bending survival horror masterpiece. The game feels like a reflection of so many art forms...its a careful dance of theatrical storytelling, melodramatic rock musicals, farce comedy to deliver meta narratives and the whole canvas of noir cinema the entire game is crafted on, i would go as far as saying it is a one of a kind video game. The story is purpossly difficult to follow, it leaves you knowing less at the end of the game than you did at the start...it is a fourth wall breaking story that is truly a mind bender.

The opening couple of hours of mostly combat-free procedural investigation give the story a realistic grounding. Saga Anderson, one of 2 controllable players in the game, seems like on surface level another FBI agent, but comes to realize as reality is transforming around her, the livelyhood of not only herself but everyone around her is at stake. The story isn't something to motor you along a course of shooting 'Taken', the games main enemies, the story is the game.

The graphics are intelsey detailed from the trees to the characters to the city in Alan's section of the game. So many moments you're just taking in your surroundings because of how beautiful it all looks. The Character animations are also well done to evoke the emotions theyre trying to portray even when it's an in-game regular player to NPC conversation. The audio in this game is also among the best, being able to pin-point audio origins very well, further building up the tension of the game.

The gameplay is very comparebale to a game like The Last of Us series, which can explain the somehwat lackluster boss fights. Alan's mental health isn't the only thing here that isn't as strong as it could be, although the different arsenals of the two playable characters each boast their own advantages, their individual skill trees seem somewhat lopsided in their implementation. Furthermore, and in contrast with Alan's impressive enviromental remixing, Saga is regularly given the task with a few too many survival-horror stereotypes, like fuse boxes to repair and combination locks to solve. Still, Alan Wake II is one of the best games to ever implement live action actors and gameplay into one in my opinion, any issue i had with the game i mentioned above, or the poor framerate performance at times, sank without a trace like an out-of-town tourist into Cauldron Lake.

Not only is this one of the best games i have played in 2023, but one of the best of all time. The magnum opus of modern psychological horror. A masterful artistic direction that blows away any mainstream standard. I would wait 13 years again if i had to, Remedy truly knocked it out of the park.

P.S - The "We Sing" musical chapter is amazing lol.