Far exceeds its predecessor in pacing and gameplay variety. Each chapter is distinct in aesthetic, gameplay motifs, weapon usage, and enemy patterns. No section overstays its welcome, unlike some of the parts of Half Life (and even Black Mesa). Truly a pinnacle of FPS design.

Also, shouts out to the sound design! Love that the Combine enemies have a flatline sound when they die. Really great non-visual kill confirmation that reminds me of the original DOOM's use of sound, though with a more minimal style.

The open-world sandbox vs. mission dissonance is the realest its been for a Rockstar game, but goddamn are each of those halves of the game really really good. Most of my problems stem from Rockstar's unwillingness to let go of your hand in the missions, and their insistence on including a beautiful open world in a game that kind of doesn't need one.

That being said, the game is beautiful, the story and characters are incredibly engaging, and every other superficial detail in this game is flawless. Unfortunately, all of Rockstar's issues are central to their archaic formula.

A sincere--and sometimes corny, in a charming 50s-60s sci-fi TV way--story! Despite being remade in Unreal Engine, it feels like a Bethesda game in the cute ways (bad face animations, sticky player movement, an extensible dialogue tree system) and in the regrettable ways (boring combat, which in this game feels like an unnecessary formality). Content-wise it's short and sweet, and made up of enough great twists to keep you intrigued to see each ending. If you liked Disco Elysium, or even just the clever RPG dialogue of New Vegas, The Forgotten City is for you.

Incredibly tight action gameplay here. Overall an astronomical improvement from Alan Wake. Tonally interesting but the way aspects of the world were chosen to be revealed or kept obscure felt a little haphazard. I feel like with something like this, you need to either go full abstraction and surreality--a la Jeff Vandermeer's Southern Reach Trilogy or Twin Peaks: The Return (both obviously massive influences here)--or truly leave enough hints and easter egg hunting for internet sleuths to piece together a coherent timeline. I'm partial to the former method, and I think Remedy is leaning towards that direction as well. However, there wasn't enough pathos to get me to care to parse whatever allegorical elements were in fact present.