Black Ops has never been my flavour of choice for Call of Duty; the story just never did anything for me (I didn't even finish this one -- but what I played was okay), and I have NO time for zombies, at all.

BUT! After buying and getting my money's worth out of two battle passes in Cold War, I can safely say it was a perfectly fun suite of multiplayer maps and modes. Some of the tweaks from Modern Warfare (2019), one of my favourite FPS games ever, were kind of annoying, but it was a tough act to follow.

I would love to revisit this thing later in the year, in the hopes it has been patched and improved. Because the core idea here is awesome, and actually did get its hooks into me. The many, many facets controlling a mob family during the prohibition era made for a very addictive management sim. So addictive that I was able to look beyond the many bugs and shortcomings to still have a lot of fun in 15ish hours of play.

But the issues just stacked too high and I can't keep going with it. The bugs are numerous, and I currently have two story quests that I can't finish because the relevant NPC didn't spawn. UI elements hang and glitch frequently. It just feels very unfinished.

It's not just bugs though. The core management mechanics are good, but some other mechanics feel undercooked. The XCom like combat is poor. With dumb AI, unresponsive controls and tight interior locations, the fights just feel like a slog. A recent patch did add an 'autoplay' feature to skip fights, which is helpful because there's so many, but also sort of defeats the point of playing the game at all.

Going free on PS+ was probably the smartest move possible for this game. It's a little feature-light with a fairly grindy economy that wouldn't have sat well with me if it was a full price release. But as a freebie, it's a very fun time waster.

The idea is tonnes of fun, and the execution is pretty solid. It looks and sounds good as a native PS5 game; the characters aren't on the level of something like Overwatch, but they're nicely designed and there's a great flare to distinguish them (such as unique riffs on the main menu theme, depending on who you are highlighting).

The cars feel arcadey and satisfying, although destruction detail and the general physics of how the game feels could be a bit more weighty. It is, after all, a game about crashing into other players first and foremost. The modes are all solid but more of them, and more maps, would go a long way.

If it has decent post-release support, I will definitely jump back in.

Another fabulous collection of maps, with tonnes and tonnes of room for experimentation. As with previous entries in the series, the first time I entered every map there was a giddy sense of awe. The size and scope of open world games continues to balloon, but basically no one can touch IO in terms of tantalising players with how densely packed its levels are. There's more creative mischief to be had in one countryside mansion in Hitman 3 than in entire sprawling cities in other games. This was also the first game in the series where, in my initial playthrough, I was able to off the targets without the guided 'mission stories' and still get a perfect score. It doesn't get more satisfying than that!

There's just the right amount of fresh ideas in Hitman 3 -- with some unique level design choices to differentiate from previous games, but not so drastic that the core appeal of the franchise is diminished. Only the final level is a gigantic departure, and while I can see that irritating some folks, I appreciated it as a dumb little novelty to round out the trilogy. My only gripe is the story, which has never really grabbed me -- in the older games or this new trilogy. Hitman 3 leans into the overarching plot a lot more and I don't think it benefits from it. It's convoluted but not in an intriguing way, and told via very ropey looking cutscenes.

Once again there are small quality of life improvements, most notably on the PS5 versus the PS4. Load times are zippy, performance is super smooth. I look forward to revisiting this for the rest of the year, to complete challenges and check out the always fun post release content from IO.

One of the most visually impressive games ever made. Every hill you crest in the open world leads to another jaw dropping vista -- and the more focused story scenes are beautifully constructed too.

The rest of the game? Pretty damn excellent also!

The controller definitely feels like it is overstuffed and struggling to contain everything this game wants to do -- I maybe could have lived with a mechanic or two being cut. But the individual parts are all just so satisfying to use. Great combat, fun stealth with lots of tools to experiment with, and some nice quality of life innovations in the open world navigation.

The story is a surprise hit. While it won't surprise you too often, the writing is solid, especially for the side characters, and really excellent voice acting across the board.

An excellent addition to the ground work laid down by 2016's Hitman. While some of the maps in that first game are better (Paris and Sapienza will probably be the franchise peak forever) I would argue this is a more consistent set, across the board. Just wonderfully ambitious clockwork sandboxes that you can play over and over and over again and still find something new.

Plus, what this game lacks in the wow factor of 2016's arrival, it makes up for with the wonderful refinements IOI has made over time. Everything from graphical spit shines to subtle UI enhancements make this the new best way to experience Hitman.

[I played the Xbox 360 remaster via Series S backwards compatibility]

Still fun in its simplicity, and cheesy spy genre stylings, but too many of-the-era frustrations to finish the campaign. Objectives and navigation are just a little too obtuse, with insta-fails meaning you have to quit to the menu to start again -- not even a restart option in the pause menu! That feels like something that would have been sorted by the N64 era, but I guess such quality of life touches are more recent than we realize.

May boot this back up for some splitscreen multiplayer, in the event this plague eventual passes.

Too hard, man. TOO DAMN HARD!

It may seem salty to knock this game solely for its difficulty, but in the closing few hours I really found myself playing purely to satisfy the completionist in me and not just give up. There wasn't a drive to learn it's nuances and master them; I just hate being beaten.

It lacks the 'thats on me, not the game' quality that something like a Super Meat Boy or Hotline Miami has. While there are some genuinely great levels here that walk the line a bit better (boss battles in particular are all really good), so much of this feels like a chaotic Mario Maker level, where the user has just added one or two more enemies than needed -- just to be a dick. To that end, a lot of this game feels like trying to get jumps absolutely pixel-perfect (shades of the very first Crash game) and not very fluid or satisfying in a meaningful way, despite the bevy of cool tricks it has (time manipulation, gravity flipping etc).

Groussing aside, Crash 4 gets a lot right, and does feel like a more worthy sequel to the original Naughty Dog games than anything that came sinse. A great art style and fun writing channel the Saturday morning cartoon vibe that first made Crash one of my childhood favourites. There's a bevy of optional and replayable content if you're a sadist - although non-Crash playable characters are better on paper than in practice. Tawna boasts a wall jump and grappling hook, two of the sweetest traits a video game character can have, but both are stiff as all hell and not any more fun to use than the basic actions Crash can do. The same goes for the unique traits of other side characters I won't spoil here.