It's been almost 10 years to the day since Watch Dogs released and honestly? It's aged relatively well.

Well, for me it has anyhow.

That's mostly because when I first played it, I was still an impressionable teen hot off the heels of playing GTA for the first time with the 5th game and chasing that open-world sandbox high. Thankfully, Watch Dogs delivered just what I needed, and I proceeded to spend the next month doing every possible thing there was to do in it.

Now, ten years on and going into this again, there was some concern that my love of Watch Dogs was mired in teenage me being much more easy to please. Thankfully, that hasn't been the case, and Watch Dogs is still a good time.

Now, I will acknowledge off the bat that this game has a messy reputation and was kind of the Cyberpunk 2077 of its time (for entirely different reasons) for not delivering on the shiny next-gen visuals it had promised in pre-release material, even though the PC version smoothed this over somewhat, thanks to mods. That said, I would be lying through my teeth if I said that I gave a single shit about any of that, now and especially back then, though I obviously understand the outrage.

To give the elevator pitch, Watch Dogs is a cyberpunk thriller starring tall, dark, and handsome hacker-man Aiden Pearce as he uncovers those responsible for his six-year-old niece's accidental murder after an electronic heist gone wrong. To do so, Aiden must parkour, drift, shoot, beat the shit out of people with a nightstick and make like Jonny Lee Miller and 'hack the planet'. It sounds like I'm making fun of the overall premise, and I kind of am, but it's mostly light ribbing, as Watch Dogs does deliver a thrilling and fun story with a solid cast of characters, despite its ridiculous premise.

Near-future Chicago is also a decent GTA-like sandbox city to run around in, despite the mixed bag of side content on display here. For every cool puzzle where you have to find a hidden QR code in the environment, there are frankly too many 'criminal convoy' missions where you have to stop a motorcade of criminals from reaching their destination by whatever means necessary. It sounds like something that could be fun, but much like a lot of the side stuff in this game, there are between 3 and 20 too many instances of this with next-to-no variety between them.

Otherwise, when you're not on a mission, just roaming around the city, visiting the shops, doing parkour challenges, and so forth is a pretty good time, especially since you can listen to the licensed soundtrack through your phone even when you're not in a vehicle, which is a small touch I greatly appreciate. The citizens of Watch Dogs' Chicago are also quite impressive to watch and interact with; dare I say, perhaps even more so than GTA 5's NPCs? Perhaps that's part-and-parcel with the game's profiler function, which gives you basic stats and information on every single civilian in the game, with surprisingly little overlap, or so it might seem.

Many people take issue with Aiden Pearce as a protagonist, mostly being too edgy, try-hard, and too much of a sadboi, but honestly? I kind of liked that about him, although I definitely do not disagree with those descriptors. True, perhaps they overdid it at points with the flawed, morally-grey protagonist they built here, but I do like him as someone who perceives himself as a morally righteous modern-day Robin Hood type but who, in reality, is closer to Batman in that he uses his trauma as an excuse to brutalise people in the name of a flimsy moral compass.

For these reasons and more, I was not disappointed with Watch Dogs, having been away from it for around a decade, and despite it and Ubisoft's shaky reputation in the eyes of many, it, despite its flaws, is still just as fun and enjoyable now as it was to a teenage me back then.

8/10

Escape Simulator is honestly one of the most fun coop experiences I've ever had. It feels almost identical to real life escape rooms, with a lot of original ideas and themes. Some puzzles and the time given to complete them can be much more difficult than others, but that did not get in the way of having a good time.

The only thing that did get in the way of a good time were the tokens. Some of them are hidden in the weirdest and hardest to reach spots, to the point where some of them can only be accessed before or after a puzzle completion, making it possible to completely miss them.

The final aspect that makes this game so good is the fact that you can create your own rooms and play rooms of others. The developers even award specific rooms a "best of 20-something" title, so the greatest custom escapes can be easily found and played.

I highly recommend playing this with a friend or spouse, because some puzzles are designed to feel more accessible with cooperation, and the clunky character models are really funny to mess around with.

I've decided that from now on, I'm going to hook the reader with a clickbait title. Here's my title:

if you enjoyed Celeste, you might loveTrackmania Nations Forever.

Disclaimers: I'm not a fan of cars in real life. 2. I'm not a fan (at first glance) of simulation games. Luckily, Trackmania Nations Forever isn't a game for car enthusiasts or simulation fans. I'd go even further: it's not really a traditional racing game. You don't navigate the 65 tracks to beat opponents but to beat a time. The whole appeal of the game lies in this singular goal: a certain idea of perfectionism.

Everything surrounding this goal is far from perfect: TMNF's graphics are generally quite generic despite some nice lighting effects. The music is a kind of dull lounge house. There's no damage physics, all cars have the same characteristics. All tracks seem to have been made with the same level editor.

What makes TMNF a great game is the driving mechanics. The simplistic controls (accelerate, turn left, right, and sometimes brake) demand great precision. It's all about perfect timing. Revelation for me: I realize that racing games are mostly 3D games but with 2D game controls. Like a platformer, inputs could be articulated on a simple X-axis (left and right) and Y-axis (accelerate, brake). I'd struggle to say why this particular game has such exceptional control, but it's a feeling I've never had in any racing game before. It's both immediately easy to grasp but exponentially difficult to master.

You do need a certain mindset to get into this game: having the 'grind' culture. Being a bit obstinate to restart the same course dozens or even hundreds of times to get the medal you want (for me, I stopped at the gold medal). A bit like Celeste, we work on micro-segments (the average duration of a race is about 45 sec.) that we must master. Another totally unique element of this game is the ability to 'brake in the air' and decide on your trajectory (like a 2D platformer). It's physically totally improbable but very interesting in terms of gameplay.

There's obviously a highly competitive aspect and a ranking system on two scales: a local one (a bronze to Nadeo medal system (higher than Gold)) and a quite laughable global leaderboard system. It's always fun to be proud of one of these courses before realizing that you're just entering the top 100,000 worldwide. The somewhat comical patriotic or regional aspect, I'm quite proud to be in the top 100 of a part of Switzerland (which is not already a big country).

Anyway, play it, it's free

Walking simulators are something I really enjoy as they can focus mostly on the story, characters, and atmosphere. Sadly, it's also a big gamble as sometimes the story can be great, but the gameplay is awful or the story is awesome, but the ending sucks and pretty much makes the entire experience not worthwhile. The Chinese Room is notorious for its walking simulators, being almost exactly that, and this game is a spiritual successor to Dear Esther which looked great but was forgettable.

The game puts you in a small rural British town of Shropshire where there doesn't seem to be anyone around. All you know is to follow a ball of light floating around and it guides you around the town to activate cut scenes of the main characters talking about what happened at that moment. You will see the aftermath such as a wrecked car, a turned-over box, bloody rags, etc. There are no actual character models as they are just whisps of light in the shape of people acting things out on screen. This can make the game aggravating to play and pay attention to. A game with literally zero gameplay outside of an action button, and doesn't have any characters on screen better be damn good right?

As you walk around and follow the ball of light you will sometimes hear a numbers station playing on a radio or a telephone ring. These are extra tidbits of stories you can listen to. Each part of the town focuses on a specific character, but sadly I was often lost as to who was what as there were no faces to put to any of the voices. Once you see a cutscene play out your ball of light will stop and wait, sometimes. There were quite a few glitches in the game in which the ball of light would get stuck in the ground, not continue on, or just disappear somewhere never to be found. I had to restart the game to get the ball back on track.

Major cutscenes that actually advance the story are triggered by grabbing a ball of light and moving it left and right until it explodes. This was originally an excuse to use the then-new DualShock 4 touchpad. Here it's just a mouse drag and feels pointless. You know you are done with an area when you get a ball of exploding light that takes a few seconds to trigger. After this cutscene, the area goes dark and you follow a trail of lights on the ground to the next area. This is all there is to the game. It's pretty to look at, even today. The game uses CryEngine so it looks awesome and holds up well, but it's still forgettable. There's nothing memorable about a realistic-looking generic old English rural town.

I did eventually get into the story towards the end. However, the game just ends on a pretentious note and I felt deflated and annoyed. I really hate endings like this. This was four hours I will never get back and I won't take anything away from this game at all. No interesting gameplay, no memorable visuals, and no exciting story. The voice acting is great, but that's about it.

Sadly, Everybody's Gone to the Rapture is a game I've avoided for a decade and there's a reason for that. I knew that this game would be very forgettable and a waste of time. I enjoyed the idea of this strange apocalyptic infection that's passed around through phone and radio waves, but there's no pay-off in the end. That also doesn't take into account the aggravatingly slow walking pace that most people won't be able to put up with. Even if it was two times faster it would be more tolerable. It feels like you're crawling. That would be fine if there were more visuals to look at but there aren't.

Damn shame this one ngl, there's a really good 2-3 hour game here but the walking speed being set to fuckin 0.5% and half the PS trophies being "stand still for 5 minutes lol" make the whole game feel like a waste of time.

The story was genuinely interesting and the map is very well crafted, if I was able to move around it at human speed I'd have had a wonderful time exploring, but playing as what I assume was a 200lb camera being pushed around by a small child made it feel more like reading a picture book on a tablet with shitty internet.

It seriously takes almost a full minute to get from the front door of a house down the yard and across the road, bro has a fucking 3 hour commute to his shop half a mile away.
Anyway I'm sure everyone is as bored of walking-speed rants/complaints as they were being let down by what should've been a much better game.

Thanks for reading if you did, sorry for the moan but it's gone 4am now and this game would've been twice as good were it half as slow. Can't wait to speedrun it again tomorrow for the platinum! :D

Hope you all have a lovely December, hopefully I'll have a proper review before it's over but brief thoughts for now: Persona 5 Tactica was great, much better story than expected. Jedi Survivor has been really good so far, Ace Attorney isn't as good as TGAA was but it's a joy and Maya is 😌

This game holds an incredibly special place in my heart. It has resonated with me in a way no other game, except the original Xenoblade Chronicles, ever has. The story and characters while not being incredibly complex, have left an incredible lasting impression on me that I will never forget. The entire game is crafted so incredibly delicately and the areas are creative and interesting. The music is also wonderful and sets the tone for every scene. Not to mention the multitude of unique endings. I can't recommend this game to everyone, RPG Maker games are an incredibly niche genre. If you aren't drawn in by the extremely unique visual style and characters I don't think the relatively simple puzzle gameplay will be enough to keep you interested. However, this game has truly touched me on a level I can't explain. This is incredibly personal to me and I don't expect anyone else to have this experience, but this game will truly stay with me for the rest of my life.

This feels like the most competent RPGMaker game from a design standpoint. The puzzles feel genuinely well thought out. Yume Nikki primarily centers around watching things unfold and therefore doesn’t need to focus as much on those aspects, Ao Oni had really shit and nonsensical puzzle design and the gameplay in Deep Sea Prisoner games are like 9 times out of 10 of the time just mashing X until you win. So I guess what I’m getting at here is that this feels a lot more structured? Idk. It’s pretty good. You should play it.