A classic title, I’m still impressed by its presentation today so I can’t imagine how mindblowing it was in 1998. But the presentation isn’t all that’s still impressive, the game is still fun as ever. The controls are different from what we’re used to today but they work for what the game is going for. The areas are well designed and a joy to sneak around in, you’re well rewarded with new items if you bother to go everywhere your current keycard will take you.

The bosses are a highlight, each employing unique mechanics and forcing you to use all those weapons that are too loud to use elsewhere.

The only parts of the game that felt terribly dated are the two backtracking segments, two pace killers in an otherwise relatively snappy game.

9/10

Extremely fun game, controls very well and has a nice variety of content. It’s charmingly of its time, couldn’t be made today as it’s basically a police brutality simulator with some questionable presentations of minorities.

Brutally difficult as it goes on, don’t think I would’ve finished it without the rewind feature on PS5.

7/10

Lovely little game, a brisk 4 hour journey of mecha goodness. Controls extremely well and you get a variety of fun to use sub-weapons and even different mech forms at the end. Good variety of missions too, wish there were more enemy types tho. Plenty of bosses at least, tho you fight one 3 times (with a different strategy each time).

The story is kinda whatever, the part of the cutscenes that I enjoyed the most was the extremely cheesy early-2000’s dub. Haven’t heard a voice actor have to speak very quickly to keep up with the Japanese speech pace in a long time, very nostalgic. The graphics are great, especially in this remaster, and the mech designs are awesome (outside of the COCKpits, which is certainly. A choice.)

I liked the final bosses a lot but disliked how they took away all your sub-weapons, those things are half the fun of the game imo.

8/10

This game disappointed me, despite what it promised in the beginning. At first, it’s a better John Wick game than the actual John Wick game, a beautifully fun dance between hand-to-hand combat and shooting. I liked it more than Hotline Miami at first.

However, the game goes on too long and it adds in unnecessary unfun gimmicks to the combat after the halfway point. Devs, just let games end while they’re in their prime. Please. Also the story was tonally inconsistent with kinda cringey dialogue and I also clipped out of bounds during finisher animations twice. Lol.

5/10, unfinished

My first ever COD campaign, figured I should try them at some point. This game pleasantly surprised me, though my expectations were extremely low, despite the praise I’ve heard.

First off, the gunplay is immaculate. Each gun feels different and satisfying to use, as it should. The level design and difficulty are also good, enemies are smart enough to force you to keep moving from cover to cover and the variety of objectives is decent, I died a good handful of times, each time I knew it was my fault and had to change strategy. The story is okay, I like the British squad guys and the nuke scene was well done.

The remaster is great, brings the game up to date perfectly.

7/10

Lisa: The Joyful is kind of a disappointing followup, it lacks the openness and variety of Painful, and seemingly only exists to answer questions about the characters and setting that don’t need to be answered.

Underneath all that is still the great foundation Painful built, so definitely worth a play if you enjoyed Painful.

7/10.

Good ass game, haven’t bothered playing it since Generations released because I thought it would overshadow this game but it stands on its own.

Bad writing tho.

8/10

Goofy ass story that ends spectacularly well, with a charming lead. The gameplay is great fun but the game is horrifically unbalanced, it has the easiest normal mode I’ve ever encountered and the hard mode simply makes the enemies as overpowered as you are. No nice middle ground, I switched between the two modes often.

I would say it’s a must play for FF7 fans, simply to get to know Zack Fair and explore more of the original game’s setting (like seeing Sephiroth pre-madness). The remaster is almost on the level of a remake, pretty superb.

8.5/10

My GOTY for sure. I knew I’d like it but even by the end of the first chapter I was blown away by it. It controls perfectly, there were moments I was so in the zone that I felt like a Newtype. Customization is deep but drip-fed at the ideal pace to make it understandable. Builds feel truly different. The aesthetic and scale of the levels is absolutely insane. The difficulty is incredibly engaging, each boss checks your understanding of the mechanics and tests your ability to make proper builds and the normal missions have a nice variety of objectives.

I’ve seen some reviews dismiss the story, which I couldn’t disagree with more. From Software knows how to make an endearing cast even in the bleakest of settings and here they do it again. The voice cast is unanimously incredible, they make these characters burst with personality while they’re all completely faceless.

3 endings, chasing after S ranks, losing hours to decaling your mech and adjusting the paintjob, all along with a PVP mode give this game incredible value.

10/10

It took 3 years, but Cyberpunk 2077 is finally the game it should have always been. When I played through the launch version in 2020 on a base PS4, I already thought highly of the game’s story and world and ideas, but the execution was tarnished by bugs and the game being blatantly unfinished. I considered it a 7/10 that could be a 10/10 with some polish. That day has come.

2.0 fixes just about everything about the gameplay. Progression is more satisfying and interesting, the gameplay feels smoother and facilitates different playstyles much better. I actually pumped up the difficulty to max after my build became so good that I was annihilating the enemies on normal, very hard made the game appropriately challenging after that. The game is not completely bug free, no game of this scale can be, but they’ve squashed everything that isn’t a laughable visual glitch that you move onto after a moment instead of the game-breaking, literally-seizure-inducing bugs of 2020’s version. The final boss is actually good now, holy shit.

As for Phantom Liberty, what made the base game already good is made even better. The quests are insanely well designed and all have a variety of options of how to handle them, even the sidequests. The story is even more nuanced and heartbreaking than the base game. The government secrecy and conflict between your new allies is so my shit, man.

Idris Elba’s performance is good but Keanu Reeves still steals the show, love having more of his character thanks to this DLC. Also, the ending that the DLC adds to the base game is extremely good and gave me an existential crisis in a good way.

10/10

I 100%’d this game, which I practically NEVER do, which should tell you how good this game is alone. To put it in words, the combat and traversal are refined to perfection, in the past games in this series I thought the enemies were a bit spongy but now they’re just right (or rather, maybe your abilities are powerful and varied enough to deal with them better?) and lowering the swing assist makes swinging even more engaging and using the web wings to glide and attain greater speed feels immaculate. Stealth got a little left behind, which the devs even admitted, but is still there for variety's sake if you want it. Peter and Miles both have specific abilities that make both of them equally fun to use, tho truthfully they don’t feel THAT different and I’m glad for that, honestly.

That would be great enough but I also think the story is top-shelf, this universe is really shaping into its own with an ever-changing status quo and well developed versions of these iconic characters. Peter and Miles are great as they’ve always been, but their supporting characters are treated even better here, MJ and Harry Osborn are probably my new favorite versions of their characters. Inserting Miles into the black suit storyline is a banger and this game made me actually like Kraven. Venom is arguably underdeveloped but his host being who he is underneath made this version more compelling than usual, in my opinion.

Special mention to the side content in this game, it has both snappy little activities that are a joy to detour to while swinging through the city and more involved multi-mission storylines that all end with a deeper understanding of this universe or excellent teases for the future.
10/10