never have i expected to love this game as much as i did, but oh boy, here we are. i played the first game for about 3 hours a few years ago until i decided that it's not really my cup of tea, even though i have always been intrigued by its concept + a lot of people in my bubble were raving about how great it was but i guess it was not the right time to pick it up.

now, when the second game got announced, i was hooked immediately by the amazing animations and overall art design and gave it a try. and yeah... i kinda disliked it within the first 5 hours or so. but i gotta admit that i was mostly just a little bitch, when it comes to the games mechanics and design philosophy. and i also gotta say that most people criticizing the game for allegedly keeping the player from getting fast travel items because they are supposed to buy them for real money, are also mostly little bitches. not saying you can’t criticize the game at all. because you can. and i'm also not going to defend the micro transactions. because they (obviously) suck in any game. but i think a lot of people, including me, expected a different game.
but dragons dogma 2 does not give a single flying fuck about the player and is very ignorant, when it comes to it's game design. and that’s what i've learned to appreciate.

at the beginning i thought it’s similar to botw or elden ring where i see some interesting looking place, travel there, and get a reward. but especially during the first 5-10 hours, you know so little about the mechanics, and you die so quickly, that you have to plan every step ahead. it's a masterclass in adventuring. because it makes you feel incredibly vulnerable, in a dangerous world, where 2 harpies can kill you easily, if you leave your pawns behind (trust me, this happened to me one time.. fuck those harpies). and if you play by the games rules, you will quickly realize how rewarding it can feel, having explored a cave, having killed a huge enemy, and then resting safely at a camp fire.

besides that, i just love that the villages in this game are not just a place for you to upgrade your gear and talk to npcs, but they provide interesting secrets as well. sometimes the game can feel like a little jump n' run where you jump from roof to roof and in the end there is a chest, waiting for you to be opened.

only thing that i have to criticize is the lame main quest.
the story sucks ass and has no coherent writing at all.
some characters get introduced, only for the game to forget that they exist, 5 minutes later. also, most of the main quests are super lame and boring and basically the weakest part of the game.
e.g. the missions where you have to sneak inside a castle felt like they were trying to rip off the witcher 3 but had no idea how to pull it off.

but overall, i love this game to death. and i mean it's obvious that exploring the world is the star of the game and also plays the most prominent role. i guess almost no one gives a fuck about the story.

okay, I’m actually struggling a bit when it comes to the rating, as i do have a few issues with this title. at least when it comes to the gameplay. for example the whole mind palace thing is a neat idea of structuring the events for the player and you really get a sense for how saga thinks. but it requires 0 skill. it doesn’t matter if i know which picture belongs to which headline. the only thing that happens is a dumb comment from saga. in deadly premonition you don’t have a system like that, but the game asks you out on the events that took place in the previous chapter. it’s not a big deal but requires at least some attention to the story.
another downside is the combat. i like, that the game goes more in a survival horror direction, but it never really does anything with it. there are only a few enemy types and there are barely any encounters that check your skill or require a smart usage of your limited resources such as the re2 remake. in that department, i just see a lot of room for improvement, which is weird, because remedy games usually have a solid combat. even the predecessor wasn’t perfect at all but offered more encounters.

as negative as this all may sound, it doesn’t change the fact, that this game might be my second favorite of the whole year. and this is because of the amazing writing. i definitely didn’t understand everything that was going on, but i think its way more important to pay attention to the meta commentaries the game has to offer. it’s so full of smart references and talks about so many interesting topics.
it is heavily inspired by twin peaks the return which you can tell at any given moment. obviously, it doesn’t reach the genius of the return, but it still has so many new and interesting characters. saga for example is amazing and tragic at the same time.
on top of that, the game is charming af. let alone the lunch boxes make you smile every time you read the silly note they leave. the puzzles in general are never too challenging but feel logical and are fun to solve. visually this game is a dream as well. the way it works with lighting and how effortlessly it looks when you change your environment is pretty stunning.
one of the most beautiful photo-realistic graphics i have seen so far. great art direction.
yeah, i'm pretty much in love with alan wake 2.
i got so immersed in this world, that i have read every script page, watched every tv spot and so on. it’s all so well made (besides the annoying bugs such as sound glitches). if this was a movie it would have been produced by a24, just because it’s so insane and unconventional and thus won't be enjoyed by everyone. some might expect clear answers to all the questions and don’t care about meta story telling (which is totally fine) and some might expect more action. but i personally am amazed to see how boundaries get pushed and the medium going into new directions.

i know, some might this rating consider a crime.
and i understand that. because there is nothing inherently wrong with the game. and i actually enjoyed my 20 hours with the game until i realized that it just is not my thing.
i mean on the surface it sounds exactly like the game i would i enjoy. you explore a world and in every corner, there is a secret that will blow your mind? sounds fucking amazing.
but compared to other games like totk or elden ring, that i really enjoy, that do the same thing, there is just nothing in between. i dont feel like for one second in the game i can just run around, soak the atmosphere in and chill out.
in baldurs gate 3, there is an interesting and optional dungeon EVERYWHERE. and if there is no dungeon to explore, then there are 1000 npcs running around that you can talk to.
and the issue is, that im not interested in 90% of the games dialogue. i am not the kind of player that reads through every text message, through every line of dialogue and thinks carefully which option to choose.
so i'm glad, that the game is doing what it's supposed to do, for most people. and i understand why it's blowing up so hard right now. i mean, it looks gorgeous too. besides the character models that sometimes look like bad cosplayers.
but anyways, maybe i will keep playing it and enjoy it more.
so far the dog is my favorite aspect about the game.

wow... actually feeling almost a 9/10 on this one.
never played any armored core game before, which probably goes for a lot of people. and i gotta say this is the best thing, from software has released since dark souls 1.
i enjoyed bloodborne and sekiro (kinda) but this is something else and shows me, that those guys are also capable of making super fast paced action games, so i would like to see more in that direction from them in the future.
so this game is polarizing right now for a lot of things.
and one of them are the difficulty spikes.
because at the end of chapter one, which overall is a pretty easy chapter, there comes a boss, that will demolish you.
and yeah, he's tough. especially when you don’t do anything with your build, like me. and i see that a lot of people criticize, that some of the hardest bosses come out of nowhere.
some people even say it's harder than sekiro (wtf?).
and i get, why people are frustrated by that, but i think after the second chapter, it's easy to get used to this structure.
and it also throws a lot more bosses at you, than before.
but overall there aren't even that many bosses that are so hard that you have to change your build.
and even if a very hard boss occurs, you will get rewarded by changing your build.
for example, near the end of the game there is a boss, that i found to be pretty hard. was way to slow and overwhelmed with my build and i also didn't do enough damage, in order to be really aggressive, which is key in this game.
so i equipped dual gatlings and fucked him up immediately.
but most of the game i played with only one build, because i'm a lazy fuck.
another criticism that i heard a lot, would be the mission design, which i think is actually fine. you got some missions that change things a little bit up. one for example has a short stealth segment, which was neat.
but most of the missions consist of destroying something or killing someone, and i don’t really see the problem with that.
the game keeps its focus thanks to that and stays fast paced until the end.
it also doesn't get enough love for how great it looks.
especially some cutscenes at the end have genuinely good cinematography. so, overall top 5 of the best games this year for me. doing a boost midair towards an enemy and doing a perfectly timed melee attack will always feel satisfying.

any one who is seriously praising this game for having an ingame shop that only provides cosmetics should reconsider their opinion.
this game uses so many shady tactics in order to keep people playing and wasting their time. for example that literally anything from lvl 50 on takes ages. or their shitty lvl scaling thing where it can literally happen that you fight one of the world bosses with lvl 60+ but in your team most players are lvl 20. so you wait at least 10-15 minutes in order to even fight the boss and then you waste another 15 minutes for actually fighting but you have no chance since your team is hopelessly underleveled.

besides that the open world is as shallow as you can imagine with the same dungeons and side quests the game wants to waste your time with. notice how "wasting time" is a huge part of this game? and it all stems from poor and lackluster design choices but also from the lack of quality.
tbh i'm also not a fan of most what the game is doing by design such always equipping new gear because the new one has +2 armor and +1,325435 fire resistance.
so your previous armor becomes absolutely obsolete.
but i can look at least beyond that because diablo has always been a cool mindless game where you just listen to a podcast while slaying a lot of enemies.
and i mean the sound design and overall visual presentation is pretty great. killing enemies is satisfying and has something pretty meditative.
so, i can 100% person understand why a lot of people on my twitter timeline are poking fun at diablo 4 but i'm kind of sympathetic towards it and i enjoy playing it. however, i also think its important to not only criticize the obvious bullshit, blizzard has implemented to keep people playing in order to waste their time in a video game, but also some fundamental flaws such as the open world design that could basically come from from any other ubisoft title in terms of what it actually has to offer. or how redundant pretty much every dungeon is.
tending more towards a 4/10 but like i said, in its best moment its a very competent mindless game. and thats something i can appreciate a lot.

on my 2cnd playthrough currently and it feels like as if this game doesn't wan't to be played.
fun is just not allowed.

jokes aside, fc 2 absolutely demolishes the player and if you're not in the right mood for this game you won't enjoy it.

it does a lot of things that might come across as some of the most annoying bs in any fps ever and while i myself often feel this way when playing it, i think it makes the world what it is. it's cruel and everthing in it tries to fuck you up.
even when you think you killed an enemy, he grabs his gun and shoots you. you thought this one stupid mf was gone?
hahaha, no. he gets in his car and follows you until either of you dies.

it's a game i hate to play. everytime i start a mission and enemies shoot my car until i can't drive anymore i doubt my whole life. why am i playing it? but then i pull out my silenced shoutgun and feel like anton chigurh from no country for old men.

edit: if you play it as aggressive as possible it becomes THE playable action movie and you want the gun fights to never end.

edit (2): this is the ultimate "literally me"-game!!

god, the combat in this game feels so intuitive and satisfying.
and visually it looks so amazing.
but i just wish that it was a bit more mature.
of course, this heavily depends on what you expect from a game like this, but for my taste the story and its characters were way too bright and friendly.
for example the cyber punk anime (which is by no means perfect) did a much more interesting job in terms of characterization and the violence. it wen't much further and thus felt more refreshing. almost like something you would find on cartoon network early in the morning.
hi-fi rush feels in that sense like a much, much, much worse version of that.
the music was pretty good for the most part, but i definitely prefer the licensed music over the normal songs.
but all in all i think its great. love to finally see a game again, that follows this kind of structure with a thight ending.
plus, there is no stuff like forced rpg elements and its heavily combat based, with some plattforming here and there.

closer to a 4 than a 6 + its the longest game ever made.
the game looks amazing but the pacing is horrible with puzzles that are uninteresting, tedious, repetitive and just feel like work. combat is fine, animations look great and have a lot of charme. death as a character is really cool and well portrayed but they dont really do much with him. the rpg-elements feel forced and boring such as the loot system which is just unnecessary.
overall there is just too much in this game that is uninteresting. for example the side quests that really fit the whole structure of the game.
go to character x because you need object y.
character x tells you that they have the object you need to progress and that they have no use for it at all but they will only hand it to you if you find 3 other objects for them. and each of these 3 objects is in a different dungeon. so now you spend hours and hours finding something you dont care about for someone you also dont care about. its hilarious.
or take a look at the fights.
the game lets you fight one new enemy and after you have defeated him you have to fight the same enemy twice with a few additional enemies.
same goes for the puzzles. they repeat the same puzzles so many times that werent even hard and/or interesting in the first place.
this game is an absolute mess and like i said probably the longest game ever made. at least thats what it feels like. the last time i played it was 9 years ago. back then i was 11 and i loved darksiders 2. but playing it now was so annoying and there were so many moments where i thought about quitting.
but i beat it and i can say its alright but i dont know if i can recommend it.

pretty alright if you have the gamepass
but it gets sooo tedious after like the third or fourth mission.
you repeat the same shit over and over again without getting new or interesting stuff to work with.
although the game looks pretty good, most of the missions just look the same, which is super disappointing, because imo one of the most interesting parts of these sandbox-stealth games is getting to see the next level and what it looks like.
so yeah, play the first 3 missions or so and then go on with your life, and i think you will have a pretty good time. especially the first mission is surprisingly good.
the first half of the game took me so damn long, just because i really wanted to explore the levels but near the end i rushed every mission to finally see the end.

strong 4 to a light 5
too much talking, the hitboxes are trash, there are skills that you have to unlock that in my opinion should be available from the start (sliding, wallrunning, etc.), the writing is stupid, and i could go on forever
so even though theres quite a lot of negative stuff in this game that kept me from enjoying it for the most part, i still had some fun here and there
especially the first few hours felt really satisfying to play, as the game went pretty much straight forward

+ i liked this one a lot more than the first game