What a weird thing. So many genres and inspirations, meshed together by a studio that I love but has never done anything like this before. And it's mostly pretty great! The combat is ultimately the star, because some of the more platform-y Uncharted-ish sections feel a bit clunky -- but when you're fighting? It's great. Deep, challenging, and once you unlock enough tools you can really tap into that Jedi power fantasy and do some really neat tricks.

The story is really great -- like shockingly so given the minefield that is Star Wars. Likeable characters, fantastical settings, and tie-ins to the universe that are interesting and not forced or unnatural. The final act is awesome; it's a shame certain parts were spoiled by the games own marketing.

The value proposition of VR games is still kinda weird. This is a very 'show your friends' basic VR experience. All the Star Wars bells and whistles are there and you can do some basic lightsaber combat, but it's only about 40 minutes of game plus a replayable training thing. So on the one hand, €7 for that seems like bad value -- grading on the scale of normal games. But VR is just weird. Everything is more expensive than you expect and an episodic game at €7 a chapter is at least a lower cost to buy in.

The story here is shockingly alright, as it attempts to bridge all three (!) eras of Star Wars. It was enough to hook me. Some of the backgrounds looked a little flat, but in general it's a good looking and sounding Star Wars experience with some novel interactions. The combat is so basic, but the turning on and swinging a lightsaber in VR is certainly a cool novelty.

The first thing I bought when I got my Oculus Quest -- still feels like the quintessential VR thing. Bullet dodging, dual wielding, even swapping hands mid-fight to suit your preference -- it's a slow motion power fantasy that challenges you and makes you feel like Neo from The Matrix all in one. The closing hour is so damn intense, I was sweating like a damn pig and fogging up my headset.

Also, for what it's worth, I was never able to finish this on PSVR because of the tracking woes -- whereas Quest was seamless.

A powerful, ambitious sequel. Tells a compelling story all its own, while also doing right by the ending of the first game -- which many would argue should have been left be. Its biggest failing is probably that same ambition that makes it feel so special; at times the pacing feels a bit drawn out and the lengthy run-time keeps you guessing.

Probably the best playing Naughty Dog game ever, as the marriage of their animation, AI systems, sound design, level design, and variety of play styles mesh beautifully.

A fantastic game with the best of both worlds; fun VR interactions (combat, climbing, messing around with physics), as well as more traditional game trappings like exploration, upgrade trees, inventory management, and a quasi-open world element. The story isn't half bad either!

The only negative here is the performance, and the general visual fidelity. Playing this on a launch Oculus Quest, it feels like a miracle port -- which is a good and a bad thing. It's very well fleshed out and ambitious for a game on the little standalone headset, but some of the textures are downright hideous, and chugs in performance are far too common, and below what I'd say is a tolerable level in VR. Coupled with some other minor gripes (bad checkpointing, no manual saving) and this is just a hair below true perfection. But nonetheless, one of my favourite VR games to date, and a 2020 GOTYC.

While it may seem like a simple re-skin of Xcom, there's enough changes to make Gears Tactics a bit more approachable for the likes of me. By ditching the metagame (you simply assign gear to soldiers, no elaborate base building), and tweaking some of the game rules (move, shoot, reload in any order, so long as you have the action points to do it) - I found Tactics to be a well balanced, challenging but not discouraging turn based shooter. As an interesting balance, the game has a handful of story characters who can't die permanently, so rather than having to limp back to base without them, you simply have to restart at your last checkpoint if they die.

The campaign is a bit too long with too many repetitive side quests, but they at least give you plenty of opportunity to experiment with the various different units. To my surprise, the more glaring issue is the ugly, buggy presentation. I started playing on a low end PC and chalked it up to that, but moving over to an Xbox Series S it wasn't much better. Every level starts with about five seconds of textures popping in, and once in they are grimy and unappealing. When showing you mission critical events (enemies moving, characters arriving, bosses attacking etc) the camera often gets stuck in the environment and the screen is a mess. It's a really surprising showing from an Xbox first party game, especially one listed as 'optimised' on the new machines.

The biggest frustration was an hour deep into the final boss, a story character died, and when I selected 'load checkpoint' it restarted the whole mission from the beginning. Pretty frustrating, and capped off a surprisingly unpolished experience for a Microsoft game. Nonetheless, I'd check out a sequel for sure.

A great addition to this fledgling series, with a more tightly packed and better characterized story than the 2018 original. It's really interesting to see an open world game, which still has tonnes of optional content, keep its main story focused and to the point. The final few missions are fantastic.

On the gameplay side, it's very familiar. It's a welcome 'more of the same' with some tweaks and changes to the formula established in the last game. The real must-see aspect is the story, and the eye-melting fidelity of this game on PS5. As beautiful and bustling a representation of a big city like New York as we've seen so far.