This is the first game I ever had preordered and I could not be happier that I decided to break my one rule of never preordering just for this game. After GOW 2018 it was clear that its sequel was going to be outstanding, but GOW Ragnarok managed to surpass the expectations I had built up for nearly 4 years. Everything about this game, its story, soundtrack, world design, graphics, performances, gameplay and gear systems are fantastic.
Combat has a few quality of life changes over GOW 2018, which make it feel familiar yet give it small improvements that make it feel even better. Enemy types have also increased, meaning that combat now has more variety and new enemies provide new challenges in combat. One of the biggest complaints of GOW 2018 was its lack of variety in its mini boss fights, which Ragnarok takes complete care of. There are so many new different bosses, all with unique attacks which means each one can provide a challenge with you slowly learning the best ways to fight each one, adding a real sense of progression and achievement as well as fun unique challenges with each mini boss you face. Combat is fast, fluid and brutal just like god of war players are used to and a variety of enemy types and attacks creates a combat system that is interesting and most importantly requires skill and thought.
Sound and world design is perfect, with everything from Kratos’ footsteps to the sound of your weapons sounding incredible and environments and creatures look amazing. Paired together, they make each realm feel both real and rich with life, adding a source of wonder and excitement to exploration not many other games can match. Enemies also look and sound great, with unique designs heavily inspired by the games Norse mythology setting and fit into the realms perfectly.
The story here is pretty much perfect, with wonderful performances from the entire cast that really bring this character driven story to life. Each of the main characters is developed here beautifully, with their progression feeling natural. Having a real focus on the characters, just like GOW 2018, allows an even deeper connection than we already had with them previously and each character retains their pre-established personalities, with some changes as they progress through their respective arcs. The real stand out performance here is of course with Christopher Judge as Kratos. Judge delivers such a raw, emotional performance rarely seen in any media and Kratos’ character is wonderfully explored through this performance. There are some great twists in the story and some really interesting narrative choices that all relate to the themes of family and being better.
The soundtrack is also beautiful, with the music perfectly setting the mood and heightening the emotional moments in the story, it could not have been done better.
God Of War Ragnarok is a truly beautiful game and has more than earned the spot as my favourite game of all time.

While by no means perfect, this is a fun arcade-style racer with easy to pick up controls and a lot of different short races to do. The controls and handling feel right for a racer featuring hot wheels cars and there are some fun ideas with the different tracks, however it does feel like the developers held back while creating some of them, as they at times feel too simplistic. For a racer that relies so much on speed, it’s a shame that some courses don’t require the skill to make them really interesting and fun to play; at times, it can feel like there is little challenge. There are also a lot of things that didn’t really need to be here, and some cars are completely unviable if you want to reach the top spot, essentially making their additions pointless. Overall, this is still without a doubt a fun racer, however I probably wouldn’t recommend playing for too long each time.

A definite step up from limbo, with more interesting puzzles and a much more intriguing and chilling atmosphere throughout. Right from the start, the level and sound design makes you feel very alone and small in the world and both create a looming sense of dread throughout the game. It always feels like there is a threat, be it from an unknown machine or a living creature and you are left feeling watched and hunted throughout. The puzzles are also interesting, with solutions you have to really think about sometimes, but I would have liked to see some puzzles be a bit bigger, as there are lots of interesting ideas that are only used once or twice and then never again. It would have been nice to have bigger puzzles that used your knowledge from previous ones in order to complete, as there were only a few small puzzles which reused ideas in different ways. Overall, Inside’s biggest strength it’s its ability to create its atmosphere through its sound and level design and although I would have liked to see more from the puzzles, there were enough ideas throughout to keep me interested all the way to the end.

My Friend Pedro is a decent shooter/platformer with gameplay that is fun and satisfying to play and has a weird meta story to go along with it. Where it falters though is in it’s fairly uninspired levels which feel all very samey within each chapter, a few awkward platforming sections that should really have been removed and certain level design and enemy placement that hold back the potential for lots of satisfying kills. My Friend Pedro does seem to understand where it falls into the same tropes and weaknesses as other games within similar genres, with self referential jokes throughout, however the fact the developers were clearly aware of this makes the inclusion more disappointing. While you can get some really satisfying kills on enemies, especially as you collect different weapons as you progress, most of the time the level design and placement mean either that there is no interesting way to take out the enemies or you’ll be taking them out the exact same way you have dozens of others already. Overall, My Friend Pedro is still a good game, using new and borrowed ideas together well for fun gameplay, however its other aspects hold it back from being truly great.

I never got to play the original as a kid, having parents who wouldn’t let me get any game with an age rating anywhere above 15, but I honestly think in this instance they did me a favour. I get that humour changes over time, and internet culture only quickens every change, but even for it’s time the humour was awful. Ultra-cringe, random-equals-funny type humour that especially today gives me second hand embarrassment, mixed with the poorest imaginable take on celebrity gangster culture, it’s almost unbearable how bad it is.
World design is really lacklustre, there isn’t much of interest anywhere on the map, with identical stores placed randomly around the map. The story also kinda just jumps from one thing to the next, with no real cohesion or discernible developing plot threads, everything is almost mashed together, lots of different ideas with no real thought as to how any of them fit together.
Luckily gameplay isn’t quite as bad as the 4th game, but that isn’t exactly a plus. Everything is incredibly easy, which can sometimes be quite fun if everything is balanced correctly and some effort is required to make the player character so OP, but it’s so easy right from the offset that it never feels satisfying. There are a few gimmick weapons, but they are only really fun for the first couple times and then you’ll probably never use them again.
I’m terms of cosmetics, this game really shines, with a ton of outfits, weapon skins, a character creator surprisingly good for its time and the ability to have your character be voiced by either Troy Baker, Laura Bailey, or if that doesn’t suit you you can give them a lovely racial stereotype accent instead.
Okay, that’s the actual game out of the way, now what do I think about the quality of the remaster?
Well, graphically it’s stuck back in the early 2010s. Red Dead Redemption 1 looks better than this and that came out all the way back in 2010. It’s really disappointing to see yet another remaster that promises such large scale improvements to the graphics provide the graphical quality you could find easily on the PS3 and Xbox 360. Driving and shooting feel satisfyingly acardey, but ultimately the gameplay still feels lacking and weak.
Overall, this game really fails to provide quality in most of its aspects, I’m glad I didn’t have to pay money for it.

A fun little game, with an immersive, well crafted world. There are some nice little touches with the gameplay, allowing you to interact with certain things as a cat would, and movement and level design are heavily structured around being a cat. Sound design is really great here, with lots of little details that make everything sound real. The game also looks fantastic, but unfortunately this emphasises the odd thing which the developers seems to have cut corners on, like missing stair animations for the robots and occasional clipping. Objects also don’t seem to have a realistic weight to them, so jumping into them can cause them to fly away. In a game that really focuses on realism, the few aspects that were neglected were a little disappointing. While there is nothing particularly groundbreaking gameplay wise, unravelling the story and interacting with the world and the robots which inhabit it is the main focus here. It is interesting to see a world in which robots mimic human behaviour and see how they have developed their world around this. Through collecting memories more is revealed about humanity before and also the world as it currently is. There are quite a few things that remain a mystery however, such as exactly why the humans first created the shelter and why they disappeared; while there are hints as to what happened we never know for sure. The story also takes an interesting look at modern day issues (class divide, capitalism and police states), however I feel like these things could have been developed and focused on a little more.
Overall this is definitely an indie title worth a playthrough. It’s simple gameplay and immersive world make for a fun short game that’s easy to enjoy.

Like the first game, Spider-Man Miles Morales is really fun to play. Traversal is still exciting and feels much smoother here and combat has a few upgrades that make it really fun. Unfortunately though, stealth remains relatively boring, with not much changed from the first game except you can now go invisible. Batman Arkham Knight really set the gold standard for stealth sections back in 2015, so I really hope that in Spider-Man 2 these sections are fleshed out much more than they are both here and the first game. The game looks amazing and feels really great to play, and the characters are played by their actors brilliantly. The story is pretty good, although it’s short length makes its pacing a little weird, as it begins to rush around the halfway mark in order to get to its conclusion, but the characters we see during it are used well for the most part. The side missions aren’t as tedious as the first game and honestly I’d rather we get a similar amount in Spider-Man 2. There are also no boring, low quality stealth missions with MJ which was a great change. I would have liked to see maybe 1 other villain to have a fight with, but the fact that we didn’t get any boss fights like Mr Negative on the train was a welcome change. Overall, Spider-Man Miles Morales is a really fun game, with excellent combat, characters and traversal, but does still have some of the same gripes I had with its predecessor, mostly being the stealth sections and a couple uninteresting side missions.

Lego Batman 3 is definitely a mark above Lego Batman 2 for me, however it fails to quite reach the heights of the first game. Character designs have improved drastically from the previous games and all the characters look really great here. Unfortunately a lot of abilities are shared between characters, making some characters feel useless compared to others. It felt like a lot of the times there wasn’t much point in a character being there, as a different one shared all the abilities needed for a level.
The level design is also much tighter, with everything packed into a much smaller space, which is nice to see after everything felt a little too spread out in some of the levels in previous games. Some levels are also not as fun to play through, especially during the last section of the game, but I’d say this is more the minority. There is also a nice variety of different settings, something the second game was really lacking.
The story is pretty good; although I’m not really a fan of brainiac as a villain he is used quite well here. The classic Lego games humour is more successful here than in the second, with the different jokes and gags landing much better and more frequently.
The thing that really holds this game back though is that the open world is split is separate planetoids (each of the different lantern characters), some of which have a really awkward sphere mechanic (like the one in Mario Galaxy, but bad). A lot of these planetoids are also quite barren, more empty wasteland than thriving planet. Empty wastelands mixed with awkward planetoid mechanics make exploring the open worlds feel pointless and frustrating. After having the city of Gotham as the previous open world, it would have been much nicer to just have an improved version of that here, perhaps with some other superhero’s home cities mixed in.

Trial of the sword was maybe my favourite part of the dlcs. Having to fight through multiple floors of different enemies with only the weapons and armour you collect along the way was really fun and challenging and the reward for beating the trials, a fully upgraded master sword, really feels like a true reward.
Champions ballad was also fun, adding in some new shrines and challenges. I really liked the puzzle solving in the main game so it was nice to see more of it here. The boss fight at the end was also really fun and again the reward of the master cycle felt like a true reward. It’s just a shame that we still aren’t given much of a backstory for the champions or more importantly a proper connection to them.
The most disappointing part of the dlc is the armour. Since upgrading the dlc armour isn’t allowed, it becomes useless not that far into the main game.

Breath of the wild is one of the best open world adventure games I’ve played. It does a great job at giving the player freedom to do what they want to do while also providing a clear, ever present end goal.
The open world is massive and unlike some other open world games, content is spread out across it nice and evenly. Variation in the content is also very good, which helps keep things fresh and provides further incentive to explore as the side missions you can stumble upon all feel unique. Being able to move through the game at your own pace and never having to complete quests in a certain order really adds to the feeling of freedom when exploring, as while hints may be given as to where the player should go to complete missions, they are never told when they have to go. Content may also just be stumbled upon while exploring the world, which makes the exploring feel rewarded.
The sound and world design work together very nicely, creating a sense of wonder and calm and the music provides a perfect backdrop for the world design, creating an appropriate sense of excitement, relaxation or danger.
Traversal is one of the most solid parts of the game. The player is given a choice of running, climbing, gliding or riding a horse to move around and all these methods can be used together in a way that feels natural to traverse the map.
The combat, while lacking in some areas, works really nicely here. Although it’s simplicity means that combat encounters can’t really be approached in many unique ways, it also means that it never distracts too much from exploration. The powers Link acquires at the start of the game do offer some variety, allowing the player to bomb, freeze, or drop objects on enemies.
Despite how much I enjoyed breath of the wild while playing, there were some some gripes I had with it. For starters, the English voice acting was at best mediocre and at times was immersion breaking. Like previous Zelda games, it can also at times be difficult to determine where to go or what to do next. While there are some points of the game where this works, unfortunately there are also some that are made more tedious than they had to be.
Despite this, I still thoroughly enjoyed my experience playing breath of the wild and it’s definitely one of my favourite gaming experiences.

I had so much fun playing this. Everything, from the level design to the soundtrack, is so polished and fun. Being able to go to each level without being taken out of the action is something Nintendo has been clearly building towards in mario for a long time now and bowser’s fury gives us a glimpse at what that concept fully realised may look like in future titles. Progression feels natural, with more areas opening up over time and moving between each of them is quick, simple and easy. The mechanics from 3D world are utilised wonderfully here, to make for some interesting and challenging platforming. Fury bowser appearing makes you consider the levels from a defensive standpoint, which is something new for mario games, and his appearances are implemented without taking you suddenly out of whatever you were doing, as you are able to still collect shines freely during them. This game is a great example of quality over quantity and I really hope Nintendo develops the ideas seen here in future titles to combine both quality and quantity.

Celeste is the most challenging yet rewarding platformer I’ve ever played. Celeste manages to get its difficulty just right, making it tough but fair. A range of different mechanics which are introduced over the course of each chapter mixed with puzzles and challenging platforming make for some difficult sections, however regular checkpoints mean failing doesn’t set you too far back and the solution for each section was never too hard to determine. Celeste also features beautiful pixel art which makes its platforming settings look wonderful, and a variety of settings, each with their own mechanics, keep the game feeling fresh over its duration. Each character in Celeste is perfectly used, adding to the story that is told without taking the player out of the action for too long.
Celeste has one of the best portrayals of mental health, it’s effects and coping with mental health I’ve ever seen in any form of media. The subject is approached carefully and interestingly and the game offers a unique insight into mental health I haven’t seen before in a game.
Overall Celeste is one of the best games I’ve ever played, with challenging, fun platforming and puzzles and an impactful story.