I really don't understand what people see in this title. The psychosis representation is well done and the pattern identifying gameplay is interesting because it's indicative of paranoia - but that doesn't make the game any better.

I could rant about just about every section of the game, but in the interest of my own time I'm going to keep my critique brief:

- The graphics are technically nice, yet every area looks the same and the whole game is far too dark.
- I didn't care one bit for Senua, her journey or any of the other "characters" in the plot. The narrative was entirely ungripping to me.
- The puzzle design is loathsome. I know it's subjective but I never had any clue what the game wanted from me, and when I eventually fumbled my way to a solution it still made no more sense. It's all so obscure and poorly informed to you.
- The combat sucks. I have the feeling that's the point, but it didn't need to be so plentiful if it was meant to be bad. I did, however, like the final boss encounter (the music and the "let go" solution was cool).

I know this game is entirely unique (excluding the existence of the sequel) and that the developers should be praised for their creative vision, but I really didn't get on with this game at all. It is a very short game and yet I spent most of it just begging for it to end. I know it's a representation of Hel and that it isn't supposed to be fun, but I don't think that's an excuse for being just plain not very good.

This isn't the type of game that I usually play. It isn't a title with a lot of substance, but I enjoyed it for the simple and heartwarming little adventure that it's meant to be. It's quite a lot like A Short Hike, which I also quite enjoyed for what it was, and I can't say which of the two I really enjoyed more. So I won't bother wondering about it - they are both good games to just chill and relax playing. Do I recommend Lil Gator Game? I can't say that I do really, but it's very sweet and inoffensive and there are worse ways to spend a few hours. The graphics are charming, the soundtrack is upbeat, and the dialogue is snappy enough that it never became a slog to sit through. There's some good pieces of writing in here - the part where the sister buys the ice creams is my favourite.

This isn't the type of game that I usually play. It isn't a title with a lot of substance, but I enjoyed it for the simple and heartwarming little adventure that it's meant to be. It's quite a lot like A Short Hike, which I also quite enjoyed for what it was, and I can't say which of the two I really enjoyed more. So I won't bother wondering about it - they are both good games to just chill and relax playing. Do I recommend Lil Gator Game? I can't say that I do really, but it's very sweet and inoffensive and there are worse ways to spend a few hours. The graphics are charming, the soundtrack is upbeat, and the dialogue is snappy enough that it never became a slog to sit through. There's some good pieces of writing in here - the part where the sister buys the ice creams is my favourite.

Mirror's Edge excels at two things: art style and first-person parkour. This fictional world is full of bright colours contrasted against harshly bright whites and it looks amazing. This does not look like a game from 2008. However, the cutscenes do not look anywhere near as good. The 2D animation looks terrible, frankly. They are a tiny portion of the game, but they look so awful I have to wonder why they even bothered.

The free form parkour is the game's main selling point, of course, and it works very well. I can tell it does because there is a lot of room for error. Only towards the end of the game did I feel like I'd acquired any sort of skill with the systems, and that allowing for genuine player skill growth and learning was refreshing.

However, outside of these two points I find little to recommend about Mirror's Edge. I think the level design, while looking nice, doesn't adequately inform you of where to go sometimes. Even with the button that jerks your head towards your destination, sometimes I found that the route to get there is unnecessarily confusing. This is highlighted best by the big tower climb section in Chapter 8, which begins by having you go to a small dark corner of the room and doing a backwards wall jump to an equally dark area you can't even see. Optional collectable areas are sometimes better telegraphed than the critical path, and that is a problem.

The other big problem is that these levels almost always take place in small cramped buildings instead of outside. The game is at its peak when you're jumping from rooftop to rooftop, but that makes up a surprisingly small amount of playtime compared to the hours of navigating vents, elevators and corridors.

The game's biggest flaw is the story. It's just so uninspired and boring. Nothing happens; all the allies and villains alike are equally dull; the plot twists don't land because they're incredibly obvious (the masked killer is so obviously Celeste that I'm not even going to put a spoiler warning on it, and if you care then I am sorry but no one in the game's plot does so I wonder why you do) and it ends with nothing being achieved and everything being exactly the same it was at the beginning - minus a few characters being dead. It was terrible. I get that this is a game that is meant to be replayed a bunch, that's why it's about 5 hours long at most, but they could have put something better than this together...

All in all, Mirror's Edge is flawed. But I liked it all the same. The gameplay loop is strangely addicting. For all my critique, I can definitely see myself revisiting this - this time skipping every cutscene so I can enjoy the parkour as much as possible. The combat in this game sucks too by the way, but I think it's meant to so it hardly matters.

Having just played the entirety of Dead Space 2 in a single sitting, I'm willing to admit that it was a fantastic game. Also the fact that I beat it in about 7 hours might have helped that. It's a short game to be sure, even compared to the original which clocked in closer to 12 hours if memory serves. It's 7 hours of pure quality though, so I can forgive the brevity.

It's basically the exact same gameplay loop that made the original so strong. I never actually played the 2008 release, only the 2023 remake, but Dead Space 2 holds up so well that I barely noticed that the game is nearing thirteen years old. It's a good thing that the original had such fun gameplay, because honestly there really is nothing new added. There may have been some new weapons in there but the saw blade gun is just as powerful as ever and therefore I never found any reason to clog up my inventory space with anything else. Whoever was in charge of the gun balancing may have had a little oversight when it came to that weapon...

The environments are beautiful and much more diverse than the original. You even revisit the Ishimura, which was a fun surprise. The narrative is very simple, but it works. Again, just like the original, the plot is mostly that Isaac's plan to escape / destroy the marker is constantly hindered in every way imaginable to comical degrees - making a simple plot last an entire games length. I personally don't mind. What little there was had me invested enough.

I could gush much further about just how great Dead Space 2 is, but I don't feel the need to. PLAY THESE GAMES (if you can). Maybe skip the third one but the original two are such great experiences I cannot recommend them highly enough to anyone who plays videogames and can handle a bit of horror.