It is so hard to meet expectations as high as people set for Silent Hill 2, and for that game to meet them in 2023. Video games evolve so rapidly, especially in terms of aesthetics and storytelling, that a game from 2001 that leans heavily on those will inherently have an uphill battle.

Silent Hill 2 takes all that in its stride to deliver what is still a peerless, often imitated horror experience -- even in 2023. It's PS2 era vibe and feel have aged gracefully and almost enhance the atmosphere. The music is incredible; haunting and ethereal at times, mechanical and menacing at others. The story is fascinating and doesn't whiff with the ending like many.

The combat is stiff which in turn makes the boss fights feel mechanically basic, but that's thematically appropriate at least, and to knock points off this as some kind of box ticking exercise would miss the point.

A note on the Enhanced Edition; it is excellent. A superb way to play this classic game. The PS2 version has its emulation woes, the HD collection is a legendary fumble, and physical copies are extortionately priced - but thankfully the folks behind this project did some incredible work to the PC version. And it ran like a dream on Steam Deck. HD, widescreen, 60 fps.

Mortal Kombat 1 makes an incredible first impression; a gorgeous next-gen looking and feeling game with some fresh takes on classic characters, and what initially felt like their best story mode yet. Cutscenes were beautifully animated and well written, fleshing out characters and establishing power dynamics in the new MK world in a way the series really hadn't before.

But the more time I spent with it, the more the cracks started to appear. The grounded writing of the story's first half descended into extremely familiar territory in the second, as well as indulging in some pop culture trends that I won't spoil here but that I rolled my eyes at.

Outside of the story, the game is perhaps the buggiest (at launch) of any recent NRS game I can recall. It's not top five Most On Fire Launch of 2023, but it's definitely in need of some TLC and a few significant patches.

Invasion mode is also... okay, and a bit of a time killer - but it lacks the wackiness or big hooks of some of the franchise's more ambitious adventure modes.

I'll keep playing. The core is there, and it is great, but as of this writing, before any major updates, there is a sense of lacking here.

For about three-ish hours; I felt like this was a game of the year contender. It has some of the best, most viscerally satisfying shooting of any FPS I've played in a decade. The guns look and sound incredible, the feedback you get as enemies flail backwards because you've slide-tackled them before unloading dual pistols into their chest -- incredible. The bullet time, the cloak, the slick enemy A.I. - it all rocks.

While the story and nuts-and-bolts of the campaign aren't super important; I really can't overstate how bad the third act of this game is. It deviates from everything great in the first half, and indulges in some really terrible impulses.

There's an incredibly hokey, shoe-horned level that I won't spoil here, that basically tries to play off a popular internet horror trend, then there's two poor boss fights, followed by a cringey cutscene, and one more insane boss fight where half of the game's cool abilities are taken from you. It's a real shame, but it sapped my desire to replay the many many replayable sections.

Now that the dust has settled after launch, and most players have figured out the basic layout of the levels; the real game has begun.

It was very overwhelming at first because you have to dodge your enemies, while also trying to figure out what the hell you're doing. With the core mechanics down, the real game of cat and mouse is revealed, and I found the game somehow even more thrilling after getting to grips with the maps. The balance between killer and victim is pretty dang great; and I had numerous close calls as both, which I was actually able to recover from. Hiding in tall grass is shockingly effective, as killers have more to do than simply hunt, many don't take the time to comb an entire area - they don't have the luxury. So a well timed hiding can change the time of the game.

I can't wait to see how this continues over time. It's a bit light on content now, and sadly some cosmetics are already locked behind real money, but hopefully there will be a steady flow of updates.

Having a lazy Saturday, so I decided to work through my Game Pass backlog; including finally giving Redfall a spin.

Not going to slap a rating on this based off two hours of play, but as someone who loves Arkane's style of game this was kind of soul destroying. A current-gen only experience that looks this bad, runs at 30 fps, and has awful, storyboard animatics for cutscenes -- it doesn't put its best foot forward with presentation. The gameplay is just a ho-hum version of their infinitely better games which you can also play on Game Pass or grab on Steam with change from a tenner. When I died during the second mission and it sent me all the way back to the starting safehouse, I had my 'IM GOOD!' moment and uninstalled it. What a terrible bummer.

What I love about Dredge is that its little bag of tricks is a lot deeper than you might think. The sanity effects, which you'll see more of if you sail at night or use too many special abilities, are varied and unpredictable - removing the sense that they're just a set of enemies and visual effects on a rotation. Two hours into the game I was accosted by a GHOST SHARK but I never saw one again for the rest of the playthrough. It's constantly surprising you positively and negatively.

Creepy vibes, a tough but fair economy to grapple with, and tonnes of secrets. Well worth the humble eight hour run time.

Was perusing my Steam Deck storage today, looking to do a bit of a clean up. And after giving it a pass for a few weeks -- with no playtime -- I finally accepted that Fight Forever had outstayed its welcome, and simply has not grabbed my attention sufficiently. I have played more Here Comes The Pain in the last fortnight.

The very core of this game is good. They made a fun, accessible wrestling engine. But the embarrassing lack of features beyond that is inexcusable -- and in a roundabout way, that lack of features exposes that the core I mentioned is just that; good... but not great. Before release, I was adamant that a good enough gameplay experience would excuse a lack of other features, and I still believe that. But when a push comes to shove, there simply isn't anything bringing me back to Fight Forever on a regular basis.

The lack of a roadmap EVEN JUST FOR THE CONTENT THEY'VE ALREADY SOLD IN A SEASON PASS - is insane. This is not some plucky start-up company. This is Yukes and (Zombie) THQ. They've been to this dance dozens of times in their respective histories. The marketing and post-release communication for this game has been amateur hour.

Approximately half way through the story, and Dead Island 2 isn't really showing much in terms of changing up the mission design to keep it interesting; so I'll wrap up my time with it now.

To be fair; it's a very fun zombie-mashing simulator. In the spirit of a cool-but-flawed PS2 game, it has a gnarly gimmick but doesn't design an interesting enough game around it.

The gore and zombie mutilation tech on show here is genuinely impressive. Rather than having preset deform points (decapitate, chop arms off at the shoulder etc), every single enemy has a highly responsive, highly specific damage model based on how and where you attack. Blunt items hitting jaws will cause them to unhinged, blades will chop off hands at the exact place you strike, individual organs can be seen wobbling about after you explode a torso. It's a giddy thrill for any old school zombie film nerd, and a super impressive technical feat -- which are getting rarer and rarer in the modern graphical arms race.

There isn't enough of a game stitching it all together though. You walk, you smash enemies, you pick up mcguffins, you get stilted unfunny cutscenes, you repeat the process. The gore and weapon customisation (fire damage butcher knife!) keep you interested for a few hours, but not much beyond that.

Bonus points for having an Irish character who says actual Irish people things like bure, feen, gom, and so on.

Steam Deck notes: can play at a rock solid 30fps on a mix of medium and low settings. Can get to a locked 40 if you want to mess with the settings more, but I never bothered. Will chew through battery, obviously.

A tremendously accessible Xcom-like, for dumb babies like me who always get obliterated in actual Xcom games. There's tonnes of choice in terms of what you upgrade, what characters you use, and what relationships you form - it's a very malleable experience. I found myself pleasantly surprised at how much I enjoyed the story, and how much optional relationship building I did. It's hampered somewhat by extremely MCU-poisoned humour, but the core of the characters is there.

Shelving this for now as, 40 hours deep, I've sort of run out of steam with it and my desire to go back is waning. It doesn't help that the PC version on Steam Deck is still a little wonky, still doesn't remember my graphics settings, and the boot up and general loading times are just slightly too long.

But I will return! This thing is super neat.

Janky, chaotic, unbalanced -- and kind of charming, as a result. While this is obviously trying to target the Call of Duty audience, it also reminds me of a lot of mid-2000s online shooters in its endearingly unpolished manner. There's rampant camping, weapons don't feel balanced, the environments look like they could be from 20 years ago -- and it's still kind of fun!

The fake-COD feel is very well captured; movement is quick, weapons are snappy, time-to-kill is in the right ballpark.

As a free-to-play alternative, and one that works on Steam Deck, this is an okay time-killer.

Cool, stylish, and with the outline of a much better story than most Spider-Man games of this era. The story content is just too minimal for me to throw too many roses in that regard. It feels like there's about five minutes of combined cutscene in this game - and characters just sort of... Show up.

Gameplay wise it has the same highs and lows of all early 2000s Spidey games. Fun swinging, repetitive missions, and janky camera in closed settings.

Steam Deck notes: PC version runs beautifully with widescreen and 60fps fan patches.