Don't get me wrong I fuck with LEGO® Batman™ 2: DC© Super Heroes as much as the next guy, but I do think it's a massive shame that the main LEGO games barely incorporate building stuff into the gameplay loop. Yeah Harry Potter or Chase McCain or Batman get to wiggle their arms a bit and summon an entire shelving unit into existence but I don't do jack shit! I want to build something, I want to be creative, I want to have a minigame where the batmobile breaks down and I have to reassemble the engine from a set of instructions.

I haven't played a new LEGO game in like 7 years so I don't know, maybe LEGO engine maintenance is a thing now. I know they tried to make a LEGO Minecraft clone a couple years ago and it looked like shit. I guess the technology for emulating the full LEGO experience wasn't there yet...

I'm rambling but point is, I thought this was really cool. The most authentically LEGO 'LEGO Game' I've ever played. Made me feel like a little kid snapping together my LEGO Creator 3 in 1 house all over again, and I didn't even have to take out a mortgage to afford all the pieces!

I'd congratulate Housemarque for making the second ever roguelike I actually reached the credits of, but this is barely even a roguelike. It's barely even a roguelite honestly, the frequent checkpointing and overall lack of build variety means that this is really just a bullet hell shooter that forces you to replay its levels a bunch. And I'm fine with that. I don't enjoy the roguelike formula that much anyway, so it's cool to walk into this expecting to hate it and come out the other side resoundingly not miserable.

It helps that the combat loop is as fun as it is, especially once you get towards the end and everything is moving at a million miles an hour. It's so satisfying to walk into a room, filled with enemies, absolutely demolish the place, and walk out with barely a scratch. I wish the game shook up the formula more though, there's loads of weapons and items to play with, but most of them are dreadful, or situational to a fault. Hades is brilliant because it's so varied AND all of the content is top notch. Returnal has about two guns that are good, a ton of items that I got about one use out of, and a gambling system that more often than not can be ignored entirely.

The story is easily the worst part though. I think the ideas it plays with are really cool, but the direction it goes with them is so underwhelming. The house sequences are unapologetically shit; slow, clunky, uninteresting PT knockoffs that feel so out of place and barely develop anything. Every part of the storytelling is so drenched in metaphor and symbolism you can barely even work out what the writers were even trying to say, when really the story they were telling is laughably simple. Actually cackled when the credits rolled, could not believe it ended as abruptly as it did.

Is fun though. I'll give em that.

Deathloop shines when you fuck up and are forced to deal with the awful situation you've just put yourself in. Ducking and diving through windows, zipping around to different vantage point, taking a pot shot at an enemy before blasting everyone with a shotgun is so satisfying in a way only Arkane can pull off. These levels are a playground for goofy shit, beautifully designed to facilitate every possible approach you can think of, and adapt based on your own abilities.

It is a shame then that everything that isn't the core gameplay or the level design feels so half baked. Tutorials are the worst offender, which dump so much fucking text on you it's like you're playing a grand strategy game. Multiplayer invasions are a fun concept (and can be brilliant with the right opponent) but end up feeling more like a tacked-on gimmick than something integral to the structure of the experience. The way quests work is poorly explained and took me hours to realise that following them as closely as possible is the only sane way to get anywhere substantial. And the story, which should really be one of the highlights, is delivered so crudely you'll be lost for the entire first half and underwhelmed for the second.

I should emphasise again though: the game is still really really REALLY fun. No one does stealth like Arkane does stealth, and the core gameplay is so buttery smooth it feels effortless to play. It's just annoying seeing how close this comes to perfecting that formula before faltering right at the finish line.

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!

I kinda resent this exact genre (don't know why I keep playing them honestly). They're not even really games, they're movies with little mini-games sprinkled in, and even then, the mini-games are barely even games, they're on the same level as those sliding ball things that kids play with in a waiting room. It's such a glorified waste of the medium, if you're going to make a game, make a game; if you want to make something that's story heavy, use game mechanics to help tell that story (or just make a fucking movie). Don't hand me a pixar short film and then "enhance" it with the very gripping 'clear the screen for the 10th time' mini-game.