Ungodly levels of slop. Still somehow better than Ark lmao.

The opening 5 hours are a joy... and then it just sort of peters out. Where's the plot fellas? You're meant to have a hook to keep me going. I'm not gonna sit here for a hundred hours just to get to the bottom of what's at the top of that very tall tower. Professor Layton did that shit 17 years ago and it only took like 10 hours to get to the bottom of that conundrum.

Very good for what it is. I wish it got a little bit weirder but can't really complain for the price.

Insanely good looking game, in 2017 and even today. Absolutely beautiful sound design too, and cutscene direction, and performances, every aspect of the presentation is stellar! 20 people made this and it stands right alongside God of War or Half Life: Alyx, it's fucking ridiculous.

I really hope the sequel does some more interesting stuff on the gameplay side to keep it interesting though. There's some flashes of fun design sprinkled throughout this (the fire maze! the beast!) but it's mostly just combat followed by puzzle followed by combat followed by puzzle. Understandable given the minuscule team size (AGAIN, 20 PEOPLE!), but I really hope that Microsoft budget gives them the juice to make the next one super fucking gorgeous AND super fucking fun.

I think I like Damacy more! The gameplay of this one is way better but I think the first one nails the tone absolutely perfectly. Music isn't quite as good here, the hub area isn't quite as good; there's just a couple little things that annoy me about this one. Final two levels are an absolute treat though.

Very good game. Not quite as good as Rayman Legends but when you're up against perfection I can't really blame you for falling a little short.

Cute. Doesn't do nearly enough with the concept but it's very charming.

Ignoring the elephant in the room for just a second (and let me tell ya, that elephant is one morbidly obese bugger), this actually does a lot of really cool things that I like a lot. Love the roundabouts, the upgradable buildings, the free terraforming, the new progression system, the new electricity and water system, the train yard, etc, I could just keep going. It feels like a proper sequel instead of what I was worried it was going to be: the same game with a 2 on the end. It plays a little differently; it's much slower paced and more focused on the smaller details than before. It's weirdly stripped back in certain aspects (where's all the landmarks, come on lads!) but for the most part it's improved for the better.

BUT, and jesus is that "but" doing a lot of heavy lifting: it's blatantly not finished yet. Not only is buggy, visually ugly and extremely unpolished (those tutorials are dreadful, chirper is not remotely helpful), it also runs like shit. For a game that often looks dramatically worse than the original, I don't really get how they managed to get it running this atrociously. But, y'know, paradox needed a big win for the quarterly earnings, so screw it, we'll fix it in a year, or two, or three.

Utterly magical in a way that only valve can pull off.

Such a breath of fresh air in a genre that was pretty content sniffing its own farts for the rest of time. Really fun, goofy and silly, without sacrificing what really matters: making you shit yourself.

Enjoyed this a lot more this time. The world building is ridiculously good; there's so many tiny little horror stories crammed into this thing, just lying around for you to read. Made me kind of wish I was playing through a bunch of those, instead of just reading about them, but I guess that's what Alan wake 2 basically is, so I can't complain too much.

Wish it was weirder, wish the story wasn't so underwhelming, wish Jesse was a more interesting protagonist, wish there was more Dr Darling. By all metrics Control 2 should be a banger.

The first 2 chapters are really cool, then it devolves into trial and error misery that I just don't have the patience for. Very happy that this exists though, I wish we got more weird PS1-esque stuff like this.

I love me some climbing in my video games and this is some gourmet-level climbing. I wish the world building and story were a little bit better though; exploring the ruins of a former civilisation built into the side of a massive mountain sounds awesome, but outside of a few moments, it's so rare to feel like that's what you're actually doing.

Sam Lake crept into my house, set up a full suite of cameras, and then for the next 13 years, meticulously analysed my day to day life. He jotted down my favourite game genres (Resident Evil-style survival horror), TV shows (Twin Peaks), the few bits of Control I liked (the live action bits and Ahti), my weaknesses (extremely pretentious stories about stories inside of stories), my fear of the elderly, "oh he likes Adult Swim style infomercials too, WE CAN USE THAT".

All so he could make the perfect game. Alan Wake 2 is that game.

He ripped me off!
I demand compensation!