I’m still very conflicted on how I feel about Yo-Kai Watch 2. It’s the only one in the series that I would call derivative of one of its predecessors.
And while I can see it being an overall improvement over the first Yo-Kai Watch game, I did still not enjoy it as much; as I believe most of its improvements can be summarized by saying that there is a lot of stuff in this game; you will basically not be able to do everything there is in this game.

The version I played “Psychic Specters” is the definitive Version of Yo-Kai Watch 2, combining the contents of both Bony Spirits and Fleshy Souls, but unlike the Pokémon equivalents, which may mix and match aspects or even add some, this game gives you the choice of which versions content you want to engage with at certain points in the story, which is as interesting as it is flawed, because if you want to truly experience everything there is in this game you now have to either write down every choice you take, to do the opposite on your second playthrough, or basically just play through the base versions one after another on this fancier cartridge.

When it comes to your gameplay loop, this is basically a rehash of the first one. You might expect QoL changes, but I believe it to actually the other way around, as Mirapo, these games fast-travelling system, and the bike will be locked away from you for way longer, the latter you for some reason only unlock at around 85% through the main game. So most of your (early) game will be spend learning the ins and outs of the Yo-Kai Watch train-network, which takes you station by station (makes sense), it will ask you whether or not you want to exit every station, during the rides you will either be encountering people/Yo-Kai that basically tell you nothing, give you an item or battle you.
Another Mirapo related issue is when you travel to the past, you won’t be able to use them at all, with one exception (which doesn’t count), meaning you will have to walk everywhere, in these maze-like past versions of the city, which at least has some of the greatest music of the already great OST.

Speaking of which, the soundtrack while brief is as good as in any other Yo-Kai game. The only problem with it being that most of it is taken straight from its prequel, with most new tracks being restricted to the past areas. The most egregious example of old music being used is during one moment where the villains of the chapter show up and the Final Boss theme of the first game just starts playing for some reason.

One change I was really waiting to see is how they fixed how you befriend Yo-Kai, as it is my biggest gripe with the first game and it was (somewhat) fixed in the third one and color me shocked when I found out it’s the worst it has ever been. Now don’t get me wrong here, it’s roughly the same as the first in theory, but this game forces you to befriend Yo-Kai way more than that game. There is one point where you enter a cave, where you must use your Yo-Kai to change the water levels to progress. When I got there my playtime was at around 8 hours, the water can be at three different levels, and you need one specific Yo-Kai per level. Luckily you can encounter them in that cave, but remember if you beat them, it will take a seemingly random amount of time for them to respawn, and they might just not do so at all. So, you better pray that the RNG for them befriending you is in your favor, as the item that guarantees befriending does not exist yet, and guess what happened to me.
One of them, this guy right here, just hates me for some reason, and I spend a bit more than two hours in that cave just hoping that they would befriend me. Well at least you can get the Yo-Kai at the same place where you need them.
A bit later in the game you will hunt down some documents the protagonists dad lost on his way to work, which first forces you to ride the train multiple times, after doing that Whisper tells you to get a Yo-Kai called Flushback which will be able to go through the memories of you father and find out where he left the documents. Now guess three times where you might find such a Yo-Kai. The cave of course and if you didn’t get them last time, have fun walking from one side of the map to the other, if you didn’t activate the Mirapo and do all that encountering in the cave once again, just for that to not give you a clear answer as to where he left the documents.

Now to the thing I was the most disappointed with. The combat system is the same from the first game with two small changes. 1: When charging your soultimate attack, there is one new method of doing so and 2: if you click the center of the Yo-Kai Watch you have two new options, being a stronger soultimate (I think) and the option to spam-click the opponent and either deal damage, steal their soul-charge, or giving you a higher chance to befriend them, which does not solve my previous complaint as you have to first inspirit the enemy, it being random as to which effect it will have on them and it still not guaranteeing it.
Back in 2022 I wrote a review for Yo-Kai Watch 3, in which I called this combat system of Yo-Kai Watch 1 more of an annoyance than fun to mess around with, which is a sentiment I still mostly agree with, and guess what, these two minor changes don’t change much. This is magnified by the fact that I didn’t even like the boss fights in this one as much as I did in the others. There are some winners, but most of them are just bland and don’t require much strategy.
Let’s go back to the tidal cave (with the most minor spoiler warning I can give out), which I’ve spend so much time complaining about. At the end of your first excursion through it you will encounter some pirate-Yo-Kai-boss-guy (I think he is from the early-game of 1), whose name I can’t remember. The only thing I did was using all of my front three Yo-Kai’s soultimate-attack and he was basically already defeated, and this happens here more often than I hoped it would.
I will now talk a bit about the final boss, without spoiling who or what their attacks are, but if you feel unsafe you may skip to the next paragraph. I was really looking forward to seeing if they fixed the difficulty curve of the first one, where it is easy for all of the game, only for the final boss to suddenly become impossible to beat at your current level, which you thought to be over leveled, but in a funny twist of events that didn’t happen at all. This game is so derivative of its predecessor that it even copied the two-hour grind for the final boss.

My last point is on the writing of this game. Now don’t get me wrong these games are not known for their groundbreaking storytelling, with the story basically only existing to give you a reason for why you are now suddenly in an all-out Yo-Kai war, with some funny quips thrown in to lighten the mood, but I found this one in particular to be lacking in the latter. The main villains of these games usually don’t have a presence before the game is already basically over and while they are handled better here than in the first one, this is still mostly the case. My problem however isn’t that they did that again, that was expected, but much rather how they handled the new tribe of Yo-Kai, the Wicked-Tribe), which you can see on the box-art. They also only show up during the end of the game and do nothing, outside of being mini bosses that you can dispatch with two attacks, showcasing maybe the biggest wasted potential in this series. At least they give out around 700 experience points.

Now I spend most of this review being critical of the game but remember that is still an overall improvement over the first game, which is also flawed, but a good game in its own right. I’m just disappointed that it didn’t change more. This is also the end of my journey across the Yo-Kai Watch series, at least until this materializes into something, which started all the way back in 2021, or maybe even 2015 if you count my time with the demo-version of the first one and I don’t want to end it on such a downer, as this is such a great series and definitely worth experiencing, especially the third one, which I was so lucky to buy before the 3DS eshop closed down and has since become one of my favorite games of all time. My final ranking is 3 > 4 > 1 > 2.

I had a lot of hope for Tyler Model 005 as the game looks very nice graphically and has an above average soundtrack considering that this is Reversed Interactives first game. This game was published by Maximum Games, which is a name I knew, but didn't really remember from where. If you are currently facing the same situation or haven't heard of them before, Maximum Games have also published a game called Troll and I, which would've been a red flag and turned me away from buying this game, but obviously this didn't happen.

As I already mentioned, I do not have any problems with this games graphics or soundtrack. My real problems lay in the controls and mechanics.
At it's core Tyler Model 005 is a 3D action platformer with RPG elements. Unfortunately none of these elements are implemented in any sensical way.
I'm pretty sure Tylers jumps aren't physics based, meaning that they just move you up and forward by a bit. Tyler also has the ability to move objects with the left bumper. As I already mentioned there isn't really a physics engine, meaning that objects won't fall down whatever is beneath them as long as they touch that other object. I should also mention that this ability is only needed to be used during the tutorial.
Tyler has two abilities when holding the A button. The first one is an auto jump to a ledge, which is fairly well implemented and whose only problem lays in it needing the same input as another ability, leading to a misinput.
The second ability situated on holding the A button is a wall-run. This only works in theory as it sometimes just decides to stop working. Another problem with it is that you can use it against sloped objects. This builds up infinite speed and creates a backwards long jump situation where you are able to clip through floors, which allowed me to skip a whole section of the game.

This game also just happens to be home to one of the worst combat systems I have ever had the displeasure of experiencing. Tyler has a knife which can be used by first pressing Y to actually equip the thing and then the right trigger to use it. Now you can also not use the knife, but due to doing way less damage without it, this is never practical. Now my problem with this stems from Tyler sometimes just randomly unequipping the knife for no reason. But even when you hit an enemy, there is no indicator, that you have actually hit them. Combat is also, with one exception, entirely optional.

The only reason why you might want to attack an enemy is them dropping experience points, leading to Tyler leveling up.

Most of the abilities you can get by leveling up either make the game even worse or are almost useless, but there is just one ability, that only attempts to make the game a bit less insufferable, which is increasing Tylers battery life, which gets me to talk about the main gimmick of the game.
Tylers battery will continuously drain, when he isn't in close proximity to a light source. Not only does this mechanic not add to the game, but it rather gets worse because of it. For example, I died around 5 seconds after starting the game while reading the tutorial, because it starts you off in a dark area. This mechanic frankly is nothing more than an annoyance and has no reason to exist. As I already mentioned, you can upgrade Tylers battery life to last up to 40% longer which does fix this problem for the most part, but leads to a whole new problem, as it lead to me forgetting about the mechanic a few times and then randomly dieing when I put my controller down due to getting bored of this game.

While this game is graphically impressive for such a small game studio, the actual environments look very boring. You basically move around rooms of a run down house during the 1950s and later the 1970s. The rooms themselves look mostly the same. The enemies and other models also tend to look like Unity stock assets and after looking up the developer Reversed Interactive online I found out that they are mostly known for creating and selling said assets, which is not at all surprising.

This games story is unsurprisingly mediocre. To summarize it a bit, Tyler basically wants to find out what happened to his creator. This is an alright basis, but they didn't really do anything with it. After meeting a second robot called Conrad you basically only do what he says and things just happen around you for no reason. About halfway through the story shifts to suddenly be about time travel and I don't have to tell you that they didn't manage to create and subsequently follow a ruleset for this.
The game ends with one last filler mission where you have to find four switches, two of which require to be powered (so you have to find out how to do that too), which are hidden randomly around the house. Finding these switches was anything but fun.

Overall Tyler Model 005 was one of the greatest wastes of money and time I've had to endure in my life. I basically only beat it because it being only about 4 hours long. I would not advice you to ever consume this game in any significant way. Please stay away from it.
I only didn't give this game half a star because of it's small length. The rush of positive emotions I experienced when the credits rolled are yet to be matched by anything else.

For most of my Star Fox Adventures playthrough I didn’t feel like reviewing it. I definitively look upon it more fondly than most, but even then, I didn’t think I would have much to add to the discourse.

The starting hours of Star Fox Adventures were a blast, with very few hick-ups. I really enjoyed the gameplay-loop of finding a Gatekeeper making it able for me to get to a dungeon, finding a SpellStone which makes me able to find a Krazoa Spirit and then finding a SpellStone and so on.
Gameplaywise Star Fox Adventures brought with it an eerie feeling of familiarity.

Now I’ve never been interested in the mainline games, as I’m not big into on-rail- or any kind of shooter, so this feeling took me a while to understand, but after thinking about it for a while Star Fox Adventures really felt like a proto-Kameo, which makes more and more sense the longer I think about it.

You visit pretty much the same settings in both games, the combat system can feel similar at points (though not as fleshed out here) and these are only a few of the similarities between both games, which makes sense as it’s mostly the same people working on them.

Now unfortunately this game really takes a dive in the final stretch and starts decreasing in quality around the half-way point, which is around when you have seen all Dinosaur Planet has to offer and must start backtracking. They probably had to rush the game out, considering it came out a day before Microsoft announced its acquisition of Rare and it shows.

You will have to revisit old dungeons, which repeat their previous puzzles, but a little harder, one of the Gatekeepers is just a random guy and it all accumulates (slight naming spoiler for this 21-year-old game) Dragon Rock.

Dragon Rock is the worst thing any game has ever made me suffer through and this isn’t meant as some kind of metaphor, no! It is the worst part of any game I’ve ever had the displeasure of going through and me beating it should only show you how much I liked the rest of the game before it. I should probably say that at least some of my criticism of this part of the game is partly made worse by my controller being a bit overresponsive and having a few blind spots, both of which only becoming a problem when I had to do more precise movements.
Dragon Rock doesn’t start of all to bad. You had to shoot at some turrets using the Fire Blaster, which might be the wort controlling thing conceivable, but it isn’t too bad.
After a bit you get told to save a HIghTop and this is where it all falls apart and I started to embark on a journey. This funny little guy is trapped by four fire-blaster-targets, two in the back, two more to the front, symmetrical to the HighTop in the middle. It is your task to shoot all of these 4 points within around 10 seconds. When I got to this part of the game my in-game timer showed ~15 hours.
This task doesn’t sound too bad after all, but let’s talk a bit more about the Fire Blaster.
First of the Y-Axis is inverted, which at least for me didn’t mesh well with quick thinking, the controls are already overresponsive, which only got worse with my controller, the targets are far away enough to make it really hard to exactly line up your shots and if you miss the HighTop will start stomping and shake the screen, making you miss more and making him stomp more. He is also a big moving hitbox, sometimes blocking the targets.
Now the worst aspects of the Fire Blaster. When you stop moving the cursor it will snap back to the middle of the screen and when you want to turn forget it. Fox will accelerate in a way I don’t yet fully understand and then snaps back to some position like 3 screens away. The only way to kind of understand where your camera ends up is to look at the map, which has its own problems.

I tried for around 1 hour, when I got there on April 30th, to do it the intended way, but had to give up and started to investigate if I were the only person with troubles here and unsurprisingly, I wasn’t. Look at any comment-section of this part of the game and you will find complaints.
Not too long after I found positions on both the right and the left, where I can hit two targets by only looking further up. The one on the left is more finnicky as the target on the back-left is more towards the middle than its right counterpart.
I tried it using this knowledge for 2 more hours and went to bed after, thinking about giving up, or spending a lot of money to buy a more or less new first party controller, which was when I had an idea.
Why didn’t I try creating consistent set ups using visual cues to hit the targets, so I would only have to turn to said point, aim up and shoot.
On the next day I found out, that the soot-detailing could be used for such a set-up and the ledge get-up can be used to always shoot from the same position.
Using my amateur picture-editing skills I created my first consistent set up tutorial. After printing it out I noticed that I forgot one crucial point, the turning. As I said I was kind of able to look at the map, but this wasn’t by any means optimal. This set-up was also way to slow. This whole process took me another 3 hours.
Then I had another idea, the position on the right. I had written it off, as I couldn’t make it possible to always stand on the same position, but then I had another idea after looking at my stack of transparent paper. I think you know where this is going.
Unfortunately, I wasn’t ever able to draw out a 1:1 copy of the map, and I now could only use it to know where I had to shoot to hit the other two targets, but it was better than nothing. I tried this method for around 2 and a half hours, it was still to slow and hell to set up after using all your energy and having to run out of the building to replenish.

After 5 and a half hours of trying and failing miserably at what should be an easy task I reconsidered quitting and thought to myself that I might as well go for the whole 6 hour mark. My next strategy was to do it the intended way, but to shoot from the position I tried before, rather than the middle and to my own surprise I got it, not very confidently, but still. I think I just missed the 6-hour mark. But it wasn’t over yet, because what followed was a 3-minute long auto-scroller, which if you fail it you must free the HighTop again.
I luckily did it first try and saved a dozen times.

Dragon Rock doesn’t get much better after. Luckily I found out, through watching the speedrun of the game, to see if you could skip the part somehow, that you can skip a lot of the next by lining up Fox with a line on the wall, looking a bit to the left and throwing the barrel through the wall.
What follows is another (uncapped) auto-scroller and what many say is the actual hardest part of the game, even without a non-assuming third party Wave-Bird-Controller making you struggle even more.
This time I bit the bullet and got myself a controller with turbo-functionality as my fingers started to hurt after not too long.

This is Dragon Rock. I only completed it to finish a game I had thoroughly enjoyed before it and was it worth it? Unfortunately, I don’t think so. The only thing you might be missing is the best Krazoa-Spirit task after the most lackluster Krazoa-shrine.
I should also mention that my game crashed at the final boss, setting me back half an hour, as the game apparently ceased to auto-safe after big, ingame events.

A lot of people have already talked a lot about the let’s say “interesting” final confrontation with General Scales. I personally think it would’ve helped a lot as now the last two boss fights are on-rail shooters which is a really undercooked mechanic, which is only there to remind you that you are playing STARFOX Adventures.

At the end of the day, I still enjoyed most of Star Fox Adventures, but I will never replay it completely. The TV my Gamecube is hooked up on will now forever tell the tale of Dragon Rock with its glue residue.
Play it on an emulator with some kind of Fire Blaster fix, if that exists.

" Heard the bosun ain't doin so well after Morocco "
X " Aye, what does he have? "
" 'Perantly is something called Ligma "
" среди нас самозванец | sredi nas samozvanets "
X " Who's that Stevay Jobs?"
" ME BALLS "
gun shot

Honestly it's kinda good
It's the exact opposite of PoE, it's like the least complicated game ever, and i appreciate that a lot as a break from all the other CBT-tier games i like to play
You have 3 equipment slots (Melee, Bow, Armor - you end up being able to upgrade each in a lot of neat ways which dedicate your playstyle) and 3 artifact slots (All kinds of things to help you, from an extra heal to a forcefield to a Loki cube that just lasers everything in your way).
Instead of having a class and a skill tree so long it feels like you're doing taxes, you just kinda have a freeform character based on what you mix and match equipment-wise and what works for ya.
Honestly the game didn't seem like much but it gets pretty fun and hectic. Needless to say though, if i couldn't play it co-op then i wouldn't be interested much.
Also it has this season pass thing where you can unlock dab dances and such, at least you can pay a one time fee to keep unlocking some cool lil things through gameplay instead of being charged per dab emoji like in most games.
And yeah i generally like the minecraft aesthetic a lot, i'm suuuuuuuuch a blockhead lol.

Telltale Games teamed up with Gearbox Software to deliver an original tale set in the Borderlands universe. They went all out and delivered one of their best games thus far. Second only to the critically acclaimed first season of their Walking Dead series. From the very first episode you can see the improvements made to the presentation brought on by the more cinematic camera angles and how the essence of the Borderlands series was perfectly captured, even with such a wild change in genres taking place.

We may be interacting with Pandora point-and-click style as opposed to the usual FPS/RPG structure the franchise is known for, but that doesn't mean the action is gone. These are the best quick-time events, set pieces, and action sequences of any Telltale title I've played thus far. They wouldn't seem out of place in a big-budget film and are backed by the absurdity one would expect from Borderlands.

What really makes this such a special and memorable experience though is primarily the writing. The story is great and the decisions you make here actually have real, complex consequences. Once again there is a set ending, but the path you take to get there could look quite a bit different than someone else's. There are several moments where I struggled with what choice to make. The majority of your time though is dedicated to managing your relationships with the other characters. The people who make up the cast were forced to work together when their schemes to get ahead in life failed right before their eyes. You can choose to keep up the mistrust or come together and become family. These are hands down the best characters Telltale has ever created and I would be hard-pressed to believe we'll see them come up with others this good in the future. The voice acting is nothing short of flawless.

This being Borderlands, expect plenty of familiar faces and plenty of laughter. This is one of the funniest games I have played to date. It's's sense of humor is varied and befitting of the Gearbox series. There's also no lack of sentimentality because of this. You grow to love this group of swindlers, and while it's a much happier game than Telltale's previous efforts with The Walking Dead and Fables brands, there are moments of heartbreak. You'll go through a whole range of emotions. It's an incredible ride.

Not everything is perfect. The game uses a two protagonist system where you'll jump back and forth between different perspectives throughout the course of the game. The issue arises from the fact that I only took to one of the playable characters. I loved Rhys right from the get go. Fiona on the other hand often left me irritated. I was fine with her when I was allowed to flesh her out and control her actions, as I could make her much more likable. When I wasn't in control she could be quite the jerk. There are also the occasional technical issues. While quite less frequent than other Telltale games, we still get a few glitches here and there, as well as those awkward loading times that lead to choppy scene transitions.

Outside of those flaws, which feel quite minor when actually playing it, this is one heck of an excellent experience. Telltale really took some efforts to challenge themselves here and they really paid off. Before I conclude this review I have to take a second to praise each episodes opening credits. They are incredibly clever and backed by licensed music. They serve as just one example of the little treasures in store for you that add up to the wonderful adventure available to you. You may not be hunting down rare guns and other loot, but the story, characters, and humor all provide more than enough of a reason to return to Pandora. So I highly recommend that you do.

9/10

Chrysalis is a solid introductory episode to developer DONTNOD's take on the Telltale formula. It's less concerned with setting up the overall plot right out of the gate, and is instead focused more on introducing players to the gameplay mechanics, world, and characters that inhabit it. Much like other modern episodic adventure games, player choice in the main driving force behind the experience. Your actions have consequences, not all of which are obvious. Where Life Is Strange stands out from its contemporaries is in its time manipulation mechanics. Don't like the immediate consequences of a certain decision? The game gives you the opportunity to go back and change that while still leaving the long-term effects a mystery. You can even go back and alter seemingly minor dialog choices or random events. It's a novel and exciting mechanic that allows for more freedom than, say, a Telltale game.

There's ultimately not too much going on in this first episode. The bigger story at play here is only revealed right at the very end of this chapter's story, and it's not quite clear how everything else is going to tie in together, if at all. We still get to meet some cool characters, watch our lead go through a sort of coming of age tale complete with time-traveling powers, and it's all brought to life with a kind of hipsterish indie-drama vibe. It's compelling and I can already see this going to be an emotional ride.

It might not be the most action-packed start, but the time travel mechanics provide a nice new spin on the concept and I'm curious to see how my choices will affect the story going forward. The amount of decisions to make here already give this episode a high-amount of replay value by itself. I can only imagine the number of possibilities when all of the content is together in the full game. Some very minor glitches are present and while the stylish graphics do help cover up a lot, it's easy to see flaws in things like lip syncing and character animations. I also think the lead actress doesn't always show the appropriate level of emotion in certain scenes. I get she's a hipster, but come on. Most of the issues go away in the face of some truly great decision making and the novel mechanics though. So overall Chrysalis is good and worth trying out to see if the story is for you. It's free so won't even have to put money down on it until you decide to branch out to the rest of the content or not.

7.8/10

It's been evident for a while now that the people at Frogwares are really big Lovecraft fans. Something that can be seen in the crossover they made with their long-running Sherlock Holmes series and the cyberpunk-infused Magrunner. The Sinking City stands as their deepest dive into the Cthulhu mythos yet, and right from the get-go you can see what a marked improvement it is over their previous works. Presentation is something the developer has often struggled with and for the first time a game of theirs actually looks pretty great. It also represents an evolution in their approach to gameplay as they branch out into the realm of open-world survival-horror, while still retaining the sleuthing mechanics they've built their reputation on.

There certainly isn't any handholding going on here. The title forgoes a lot of the comforts of modern day gaming in favor of a more realistic approach. The only way to restore your health or refill your guns is to craft first aid kits and bullets yourself, making searching every container you come across for supplies an absolute must. You also often have to figure out where your next objective is by looking up street names on the map and combing the area for the right building when you get there. It's decidedly old-school in a very charming way that also serves to up the challenge. You can even disable helpful icons in the character's journal to make things require further deciphering on your part.

Not all of the ways it hearkens back to the PS1/PS2 era of horror are great however. Expect a lot of backtracking to and fro between a few key locations without so much as a mini-map to help you get your bearings, forcing you to constantly bring up the pause menu. Fast travel points do alleviate some of the tedium, but they must first be discovered and even then there's still a fair amount of distance you have to cover on foot most of the time. The real annoyance with this though is that it reveals the game's technical limitations. You'll frequently run into random loads when walking around or entering a building. That's because sections of the city are regularly only spawning into existence as you approach them. The latter of which is especially surprising given how often the mere handful of interior layouts are reused.

I think the real dated aspect the majority of people are going to take the most issue with though is the combat. Just like protagonists from previous console generations, our leading man is slow and somewhat clunky to maneuver. This of course makes aiming at the fast moving enemies when shooting rather unreliable, and your only melee attack option is an awkward swipe of a shovel that also runs into trouble when foes begin to circle you. You're given tools like traps, molotovs, and homemade explosives to help out, but they take a second to use. As someone who's introduction to the genre largely consisted of the original Silent Hill titles none of this was too big of a problem for me personally, but at the same time I would be lying if I said there weren't a few tedious encounters as a result of all this.

Luckily, just about everything you do grants you experience that unlocks "knowledge points," which in turn can be spent on new abilities. I'm hesitant to call this a true RPG as while there are side-quests, story decisions that give a whole new meaning to the term "morally grey," and skills to invest in it honestly just never truly feels like one. You're not really increasing stats so much as you are just gaining the ability to carry more items or use weapons more effectively. So these systems come off as being implemented solely as a way of adding a little extra depth as opposed to anything else.

It's the writing and setting that ultimately make this worth playing. The team at Frogwares didn't just focus on the tales of the Great Old Ones alone, but actually pulled from the wider array of Lovecraftian fiction and the contributions made by other authors to the universe as well to create something truly unique. It contains all of the themes you would expect and implements them in interesting ways, such as the creative visual effects that appear onscreen any time your character's mental state begins to slip which I don't think I've ever seen another game try before. I don't know what it is about this mythos, but as with Cyanide's Call of Cthulhu before it I once again jumped right back in after completing it the first time to see all the other outcomes. The amount of freedom you have is genuinely surprising. There are some options tied to the trophies that you could only find out on your own if you were some kind of sadistic weirdo. Or CallMeKevin (kudos if you know who that is). Sure it's not exactly scary in the traditional sense and some of the original creature designs are more Silent Hill than Lovecraft, but faults aside this is a standout piece of cosmic horror that is sure to be a treat for anyone who knows their Dagons from their Idh-yaas.

8/10

While Red Faction did take something of a step back with this entry of the series by moving away from the open-world destruction of Guerilla in favor of more traditional and linear 3rd-person shooting action, Armageddon still has a lot to offer thanks to strong action and some of the coolest weapons a video game has to offer. You won't find yourself part of rebellion to liberate Mars this time around. Instead you're humanities best hope as a mysterious alien menace rises up from underground, making it more like Gears of War than a typical Red Faction game. The tone is much lighter than it's predecessors and the writing can be quite funny. The franchise really does go in an entirely new direction here. However longtime fans will notice returning features.

While the destruction has been toned down to fit the more confined corridors of Mars you'll find yourself exploring, it still plays a key role in the experience. It's as satisfying as ever to shred through the environment. Especially since that's how you get most of the needed salvage. The ability to rebuild anything you destroy right before you eyes is just as impressive and fun as the destruction itself. It can also get you out of a jam should you accidentally blow up a bridge you needed to cross or restore cover during a firefight. It proves to be an integral part of the experience and is something no other game has done before.

The action itself feels great. The weapons are powerful and each one of them is unique and exciting to use. A powerful upgrade system genuinely makes it feel like you're getting stronger and doles out helpful new abilities and boosts in exchange for your hard earned salvage. Armageddon could have used some more enemy variety and there are those who will find the repetition of fighting through wave after wave to be monotonous even with the vehicular sections there to break up the pace. Especially since it is structured in a way that offers you few chances to get off the beaten path to search for salvage. I, for one, still found it to be a lot of fun. The enticing new game plus mode that unlocks after you beat it as well as some other new features should prove incentive enough to dive right back in after the credits have rolled.

Once the campaign has been completed, Armageddon offers a four player survival mode reminiscent of Gears of War's classic Hoard Mode for you and some buddies. There's also the "Ruin" mode, although that requires a special code that came with new copies of the game. That is where it really gets in touch with its destructive roots as it's all about amassing as many points as you can in the time limit by destroying everything in sight. It's good, cathartic fun.

Ditching the open-world and bringing aliens to the red planet did cause the series to loose a little something. I can see why it disappointed longtime Red Faction fans, especially after the incredible Guerilla. Despite taking a more traditional approach in terms of the core gameplay, Armageddon still manages to stand out thanks to rock solid, if repetitive, action and several innovative supporting features. Plus there's enough content to keep you coming back should you find things as satisfying as I did. It might not be Red Faction as we remember it, but it's got enough of the old magic to keep things going.

8.9/10

Ubisoft's latest open-world series puts players in the role of a hacker fighting crime as a vigilante in a city where everyone and everything is connected by technology. With the help of your trusty cellphone the world becomes your playground, allowing you to interact with various parts of the environment around you in new ways. You can do some nifty stuff, but unfortunately Ubisoft Montreal failed to come up with any new, inventive scenarios to capitalize on this. At the end of the day the game just boils down to another open-world experience filled with tailing missions and bland side-activities.

There's a lot of content here. However, I found none of it to be very interesting. The side-activities are dull and the story missions are the same chase and infiltration challenges we've seen time and time again. To make matters worse they rarely make good use of your cool hacking abilities. I do appreciate how outside of a few mandatory stealth levels you are given the freedom to approach objectives however you would like. Both the sneaky and guns blazing approaches feel great. Choosing to go all stealthy is where the hacker theme really shines. Systematically taking out enemies by hacking cameras from a distance and screwing with the environments is a lot of fun and encourages smart thinking and creativity. It's a lot like the Batman: Arkham games. Combat is smooth and even features a bullet time ability that feels ripped right from Max Payne.

This sort of brings me into my next point. You'll notice that Watch Dogs is borrowing from a lot of better games. You can feel traces of Grand Theft Auto in the world and even Ubisoft's own Assassin's Creed series in the very structure and activity design. This all leads to a sense of déjà vu and over familiarity that keeps Watch Dogs from ever really taking off. You've seen a lot of this before and it was better there. Especially since the game gets a lot of little things wrong. For example, driving is loose, awkward, and imprecise making chases and tail missions a pain. Getting chased by the police is a much too aggravating experience due to how annoyingly persistent they are and how long it takes to for them to loose interest once you finally due manage to slip out of their view. Oddly enough, there's also a reputation system that seems to serve no purpose at all. It's inclusion is a mystery that only seems to be in place because other open-world games have had them. Despite high production values and excellent work from the voice actors, the story is bland and uninteresting.

To go with the always connected theme the game carries, you have the ability to jump into multiplayer content at any time while playing. You can access this stuff from your phone or stumble upon it randomly while exploring. Like the rest of the side-content I gave it a try but just wasn't compelled to actually do any of it. That's the game's real problem. There's nothing that actually hooks you.

Ubisoft Montreal chose to stick to the standard open-world tropes. There are some good ideas here and fun moments, but the majority of my enjoyment came from just randomly walking around the incredibly detailed and well-made city and hacking people's implants for free stuff. The actual missions and challenges left me wanting as they usually failed to take advantage of the hacking abilities the game gifts to players. A shame, because when you are using them Watch Dogs can be pretty fun because that's when it's at it's most original. As it stands, this is an overly familiar experience that gives you cool hacking abilities and largely fails to make them feel special at all. It's not bad, but you simply have a lot of better options out there.

6/10