Sniper elite 5 is a very solid WW2 3rd person shooter. It features great level design with some gorgeous vistas, level 3 "Spy Academy" in particular was phenomenal in this regard. The pacing and direction closely follows the recent hitman games. The areas are large with many areas to explore, different paths and starting areas can be unlocked. Much like the hitman games the perfect path can likely be found to speedrun through games. Where this game lacks a little for me is the amount of enemies and the difficulty in maintaining stealth. The levels, especially the later ones, are jammed full of enemies and the stealth options in this game are farily limited compared to other similar titles like Hitman or MGS5. Over and over again I ended up in all out gunfights, luckily the shooting and combat in the game is very fun, if standard, 3rd person combat. A fun game that took me around 13 hours to beat all 9 story missions 1 time. Will look forward to the DLC, thank you GamePass.

how does one go about creating a follow up to something like spelunky HD, a game which many would consider to be perfect, and which is arguably the most influential roguelike? well in Derek Yu's case, you simply build on top of that. Spelunky 2 is bigger and larger than the first game in almost every way. Levels are effectively twice as large due to the network of caves behind every level, there are multiple paths you can take through the game to get to the end, and the secret world after the "final" boss leads on to a gantlet of levels far longer than anything in the first game.

does it succeed as a sequel then? well i think that it's a pretty good crack at it. it's obviously a pretty tough task to create something as incredible as the original spelunky was, but Spelunky 2 has all of the charm of the original, in both its gameplay and secrets.

the main issue for me with spelunky 2 is its difficulty. now spelunky 1 was a difficult enough game alright (especially if you play the game the way it's intended and kill every shopkeeper you see, incurring their wrath) but spelunky 2 is definitely a notch tougher. and i would largely chalk this up to the increase in opportunities for being instakilled. spelunky 1 definitely had enemies and hazards that could instakill you and delete your 30 minute run, but they were used more conservatively, and you learned as a player to respect that. in spelunky 2, there are far more enemies, hazards and even your own items that can end your run instantly. this does make the game harder and adds more tension to your runs, but a lot of the time it just doesn't work. when you carelessly jump into spikes in spelunky 1, that was a learning moment, when a blob of lava falls on your head in spelunky 2, it just feels like bullshit.

despite this however, i enjoyed my time a lot with spelunky 1. i think it's one of those instances where a sequel is put out that perfectly captures the spirit of the original, and builds on it in meaningful ways. looking forward to whatever Derek Yu has next in store

Since we've already got like 4 Lego Star Wars games, I don't mind how short each of the individual missions feel. The pacing does feel mildly odd in comparison to the others, though, speed-running the 9-movie story. But the main feature of the game is its many worlds to explore, which are all pretty fun to explore. The gameplay is also an improvement on previous Lego games, with cover-shooting (like in the Force Awakens game), Souls-style boss fights, and spaceship dogfights. It's generally enjoyable, and slight step up from the typical formula, but it's still part of that formula. The puzzles are at a similar low difficulty but even less clever or fun to complete, I assume since the developers focused on getting more worlds included in the final product. I also didn't find it nearly as amusing as other Lego games. It had a few jokes now and then but the story and characters often went unspoofed. Decent, and probably the most comprehensive Lego Star Wars game, but not a huge improvement (at least for adults) if you're hoping for a totally new experience.

Discovering that Weird West is kinda jank is like learning that Snoop Dogg smokes weed. Like, no fucking way, the new, ambitious, semi-indie immersive sim/WRPG thing from the co-founder of Arkane is a bit rough? I'd almost be dissapointed if it wasn't.

Ambition is the real kicker here, and probably the game's greatest issue. Weird West is a reasonably short game but it's also vast, with dozens of locations, and it's also going for telling 5 character's stories, each of which with their own set pieces and locations and artwork. Barring a dev cycle that lasted until the heat death of the universe, something has to give, and it does.

There's just a real lack of stuff in Weird West. I appreciate that its a relatively short game, but even if you're rushing only the main quest, it's lack of breadth in nearly every department is stark. There's a real element of every area feeling like a procgen version of each other, with one template for town, dungeon, temple and fields put on different floor textures - with every story gets basically one location each that feels hand-made. Combat, whilst actually fairly fun and certaintly above most WRPGs, quickly becomes repetitive. Each character gets only 4 unique skills on top of about 20 shared ones, which only in the werewolf campaign feel very different - and otherwise behave mostly identical. Random events across the west get quite repetive to the end, and sidequests of any substance are extremely limited.

But again, if you're signed up for Weird West, if you know the context - you were probably expecting something along those lines. But the story and the worldbuilding will be good, there'll be some really cool shit to make up for it, the quest design will be great or something - right?

And there is, but there is a twist in the tale, and in my opinion it's what makes Weird West a game I think could be very divisive. Normally, good Western RPGs with a similar smorgasboard of problems actually make sure to do all they can to make sure you don't just miss the good stuff. Take New Vegas, a game that despite being ostensibly open world, funnels you in a general direction and makes most of it's really good questlines cross your path at some point or another.

Meanwhile, if you follow the path of least resistance in Weird West, do everything you're told to and keep an eye on that objective marker, you will have probably the most miserable time possible. You will experience the least interesting versions of the stories available, have the worst gameplay experience, because it'll all be pretty basic and the game wont really be responding to what you do.

To get the juice out of Weird West you need to squeeze it. Mess with the narratives, do weird shit like kill your husband for no reason, make vendettas, truly test how far you can push the narrative and choices until the game stops you. Usually, it'll go further than you think, and it's great. The game in general is extremely good at giving the player's actions long term consequences, both in major story decisions and in gameplay ones. Even in the next life, the actions of previous characters resonate through the west, leaving a world changed, be it in the ghost towns, or the peoples in it. This stuff is fantastic, especially as the events and people of the world itself is interesting - so getting to influence it in a noticeable manner that you get to interact with is satisfying.

Gameplay also benefits greatly from throwing a spanner into the works. Whilst the core systems are pretty basic - it's twin stick shooter with some stealth elements and skills basically - things like environmental effects, third party enemies/wildlife, friendly fire and such add up to make a system that quickly descends into chaos, which is where it thrives. Going into NPCs estate to negotiate for a thing, failing, deciding to steal it, getting caught and then quickly getting involved in a fireight that leads to a dozen dead, including the mayor and the rest of your posse, with you having gained a bounty and a vendetta - that's a good encounter. And when those posse members can be major NPCs, and these encounters can significantly change the world, it makes rolling with the chaos massively enjoyable and unpredictable. It helps that the flat out gunfights where everything is on fire is by far the best way to get fun out of the gameplay.

When the game's played like this - wild and chaotic - the world of weird west, story and gameplay and world, integrate so well. Far gone from those ten UE Marketplace assets placed over the map 90 times, it becomes a thick, cruel world, where death lies around every turn, stories come from nothing and the supernatural wraps around it all like a thorny rose.

The game ends well, to boot, with a satisfying conclusion that answers the right questions, even if the final Oneirist story is probably the weakest without it. And again, at about 12-15 hours, it knows when to end.

But you have to put your own effort in, and possibly stretch your sense of disbelief a bit, for it to work. And I think it is perfectly reasnable for the game's myriad problems to really not make that worth it for many. Hell, I myself am not really sure how to score or truly think about it, and i'm a veteran of enjoying kusoge through it's faults.

Ultimately it's miles better than anything Arkane have put out since dark messiah, and probably the best Western RPG since New Vegas - if you can put the legwork in to get the juice.

I think a lot of people exaggerate the problems with this game and hate it to an unhealthy level because at the end of the day it's just a weaker RE2R and that's not something to start riots over.

That said, it CAN'T be overstated just how much of a wasted opportunity Nemesis was. Instead of making the ultimate stalker enemy(something I think Capcom has still failed to truly do, despite trying it many times), they instead make Jill and Nemesis partake in a bunch of trite "set piece" moments that have zero tension and are too obviously scripted to be of any enjoyment. Instead of fearing Nemesis, I would just always dread seeing him appear in a cutscene because it meant I was gonna have to do another boring chase scene. This game was clearly made on a smaller budget than RE2R and they sure didn't make the best use of those resources.

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Resident Evil: Resistance is unironically the best part of this package. Shame Capcom gave up on it so quickly.

Played about 3 hours of this before putting aside. The Indian Mythology theme is very fresh and cool and would love to see more in that mythos. The art style is gorgeous and the art design across the board is great, especially for attack effects. Platforming is great and feels really fluid and fun. Audio and Music is great too, again really sweet to see Indian stuff in games, where it is not represented at all. Narrative is presented nicely but is fairly generic

Unfortunately despite having all this going for it the combat system is incredible repetitive and boring. Effectively what this leads to is every 20 seconds of walking round this beautiful world, you are forced to stop and spam a few buttons for 2 minutes. Extremely tedious to say the least. I'd have loved to explore that world, doing the platforming and experiencing the story, but having most of the playtime be something so boring isn't for me, would've preferred it to have the combat taken out

The Gunk is a rather awkward little game at times. While it does a lot right, it also feels like a game that needed just a little bit more mechanics to actually have it all work properly.

Take the core gameplay of using Rani's glove to hoover up the titular Gunk feels well realised but it all becomes a little too one note and you start wishing there was more active Gunk or more ways to destroy it.

The same goes with the enemies in the game, while there is combat and its perfectly functional, there just isnt enough variety in enemy type to really make them anything more than a bother. The resource collectables and upgrade systems suffer as a result as you never feel like you need any of them to progress.

Its a shame as its a very pretty game and unlike some of the other reviewers, I enjoyed hanging around with the leads a lot and while there was a lack of variety, this only really became a real issue as the game hit its endgame thanks to how short the game is. It feels perfect for gamepass because of this.

Overall its a game that has potential but be it through budgeting or scope, that potential never really is met.

NASCAR 2000 is a reasonably fun game that there is absolutely no reason to go back to past the date it was released. The biggest reason for this is simple: Lack of features. NASCAR 2000 has single race and season mode aaaand that's it. There's no Career or Franchise-style mode, which is the lifeblood of basically every sports game in my opinion, nor anything like race specific challenges, big time race recreations to play or what have you. All you can do is the bare minimum of racing around. Fun to waste some time with, but there is no depth or replayability which means there isn't a ton of a reason to come back to it. This is furthered by the fact that the game doesn't have a full selection of NASCAR tracks,

The gameplay feels very "arcade-y", looser than games like NASCAR Thunder 2003 or to use a contemporary racer F-1 World Grand Prix and more easily exploitable. Really, that's another major issue that NASCAR 2000 ends up having: The AI isn't very strong and therefor resorts a bit more to rubber banding than great racers, but with the arcade-y fun can still be nice to beat, with the end result being that popping it in for like two races can be fun but it isn't a long term experience and it isn't as fun as more modern games. The graphics are good for the time, making the cars fairly crisp and distinct and the courses feel fairly realistic for a Nintendo 64 experience, although I wouldn't say they look as good as F-1 World Grand Prix. Better draw distances on the cars, but that game had superior course detail and so on.

Overall, NASCAR 2000 was okay at the time and I have some fondness for it from my childhood, but even back then there were a ton of racers both simulation (F-1 World Grand Prix, Indy Racing 2000) and more "party" (LEGO Racers, Mario Kart 64) that stood out as superior to me. And as soon as NASCAR games evolved at all, this game became pretty outdated and meaningless. Not the worst experience but simply not worth checking out again.