While it was nowhere near as creative in terms of gameplay as It Takes Two, I really enjoyed the story and the way it was told, with beats borrowed from various prison escape movies. The mechanics are fairly simple, but they kept me invested in the characters and curious to see what comes next.

There's quite a bit of swearing and some violence, especially towards the end. I played it with my son who is 13 and he could handle it, but unlike It Takes Two, this is definitely not a young kids game.

It's a pretty short experience, that we finished two seatings, which I really appreciated.

This was one of the games that I was most excited about, but that I kept postponing. My extremely high expectations combined with its lack of a checkpoint system, its stiff dialogue moments, and my inexplicable mistake of not leveling up when I should have almost ruined the experience for me.

Luckily, I got used to saving more often and came to terms with the fact that not many games will be able to match the seamless cinematic masterpiece that is God of War, the game I played before it.

Horizon Zero Dawn has been an unusual experience, combining moments of frustration and exhilaration. Still, I ended up spending 40+ hours in what is probably one of the most exciting open-world games I ever played.

And although I should know better by now... I'm super excited to play Forbidden West!

The first time I tried playing this game was on the PlayStation 4, but it didn't grab me, so it got lost in the shuffle. Last year I picked up a Vita and thought I would give it a try, thinking playing it on the go might help. It didn't, so I abandoned it once more.

Finally, when I bought a Steam Deck this was one of the games I was most excited to try. I just couldn't come to terms with the fact that this well-beloved game didn't click with me.

I managed to roll credits, but I can't say playing it was the experience I was hoping it would be. The gameplay did little for me, with the only things pulling me toward the end being the interesting visuals, the awesome soundtrack, and my stubbornness to see it through this time. The story was just ok, but the storytelling was pretty good.

This was the first game by Supergiant Games that I played and it was kind of nice to see where they got their start. Hopefully, this will help me appreciate their later titles a lot more, especially Hades!

God of War is an impressive technical achievement, a triumph of game design, and a masterclass in what it means to truly revive and reinvent a franchise. On a personal level, this was the culmination of a story arc that began with a younger version of myself playing the original God of War on the PlayStation 2, my very first console game on my very first console. Almost 15 years later, here I am with a boy of my own, receiving valuable lessons in fatherhood from an axe-wielding Kratos. Who would have thought?