An absolute joy of a game that I finally got around to playing nearly 8 years after it released. This game nails the mood and feel of the early Alien films, and every corridor and environment is beautifully lit and designed to evoke those same feelings we all had when we watched those classic films.

The sound design is also spot-on, and is constantly upping the tension either through a well-used score or through the wonderful sound effects of the Alien as it stalks you through the space station.

The game plays great too, and never does Ripley feel too powerful, or too capable in any one situation. You're constantly reevaluating your situation, and scrounging for materials (please play this on Hard), and just when you think you've seen everything, the game throws a curve at you and introduces a couple of new encounters in the back third of the game.

The game's design feels confident, and nothing happens by mistake. My only real gripe with this game is that it really is too long. A survival horror game that is nearly 20 hours long is pretty darn rare, and for good reason. Maintaining that tension for such a long period of time is quite difficult, and even here in this great game, it can't manage it for the full 20 hours. Perhaps the developers felt that some of these slower Alien-less sections were necessary to allow the player to breathe and relax a bit (despite their still being other dangers in these sections), but there are two instances of this kind of sequence occurring in the game, and it isn't really necessary the second time.

Great presentation featuring strong environments, good voice acting, and a great score. Unfortunately, that's pretty much the end of the good things I have to say about this game. Like a few other Bloober Team games, this one falls into the "walking simulator" category. They attempt to mix things up by adding this second spirit world that can be explored simultaneously with the material world, but it never is really fully explored as a gameplay mechanic, and usually amounts to you just switching over to it so you can flip a switch or gather some energy.

The other "gameplay" is collecting trinkets and letters, finding keys a few feet from their doors, and the occasional clunky stealth segment that only takes about 15 seconds to clear.

Everything about The Medium as a "game" is decisively unimpressive. It's too bad, because it often looks great and sounds great, and in the most fleeting of moments can even remind me (aesthetically) of classic survival horror games of years past. If only Bloober Team would actually take the time to design more "game" around these stories they want to tell. Not necessarily saying they need to add combat encounters, but needs to be something that evokes the fear and dread their environments and characters are telling me that I should feel.

A likable protagonist (Kassandra only), and a big beautiful world make for, perhaps, Assassin Creed's best entry since AC4. Building on the systems from AC: Origins, Odyssey gives us an even larger world, and even more fantastical combat system. Your character never really feels that "grounded" as you can pull off all sorts of crazy moves in this one, but it works with the story, and it makes the combat a bit more entertaining than in previous entries. The story plays well, and you get to meet all of the famous names of the ancient greek world, and also further push the modern day story along.

The big issues with this game (and they may be deal-breakers for some) are that it's just so damn big, and the content stops being fresh after probably 20 hours. You can barely make a dent in the game's overall story before you have probably actually done all of the activities the game has to offer. Now you just need to keep doing them for another 80 hours to complete everything. For some, this is not gonna happen, and they will bounce off the title immediately. For others (like me), I enjoyed the gameplay loop well enough to see it through to completion. The added RPG elements (a dialogue system, but very minimal) help, along with an expanded gear system to keep you hunting for that next piece of better gear. I will say though, this game is the zenith of Ubisoft-ness, so beware, if you are not already a fan of this style.