While a marked improvement over its predecessor, this installment still struggles to maintain consistent pacing and that keeps it come achieving greatness. The haphazard structure consists of extravagantly orchestrated set pieces strung together by awkward combat/shooting sections and dull platforming/puzzles. The game is at its best when these otherwise negative attributes are tied intrinsically into the fluidity of a constantly progressing sequence of increasing stakes and ensuing chaos (the Tibetan village siege and the Nepal city portion come to mind). This is where Naughty Dog's "blockbuster" illusion is most seamless. However, the inherent instability all leads to a final act that's disappointing and only highlights the issues listed above. For every downright electrifying moment, punctuated by the game's terrific dialogue and charm of its protagonists (plot itself is nonsense but whatever), is yet another shootout and then another after that and then some yellow bricks to climb and some colors to match to some tile. It's a formula that's steadily easier to predict and subsequently stales even if it might "work" on surface level terms. I sound much more negative on this than I really feel but this gets enough praise as it is.

Side Note: I wish Chloe was better utilized as a side character but I adore her dynamic with Elena so I'll take it.

Dollhouse voyeurism. The DLCs aren't as polished and don't add much to the base game outside of extraneous surface level lore but what's here otherwise is an incredibly composed and crafted narrative experience with some of the best lighting I've seen in a game. Some of its puzzles and encounters can feel cheap and fall into classic "trial and error" gameplay cliches but the sequences that do work are as thrilling and virtuoso as they come. It's a horror game that emits a sinister atmosphere first and foremost and it succeeds at that without bloating itself.

Forgot to review this back in August when I played and thinking back it's easy to see why. It's a perfectly realized and tuned experience that knows exactly what it wants to be and what it's going for. A goofy exercise in cruel irony and societal disruption that doesn't stray beyond surface level theatrics and childish power moves. However for that its existence feels petty and without lasting value. At least for me. Outside of some moments of genuine amusement that I recall I fail to see why its cacophony of noise deserves any retrospective thought beyond the cute meme that it was upon release.

As clumsily executed as it is transgressively playful. Nonetheless remains an intensely harrowing experience headlined by breathtaking sound work and a deliciously grimy visual framework. It's a striking showcase in visceral, hard hitting scares even if it doesn't really have any impact beyond the moment. There are stretches of masterful horror craft here (the mines, the river, blood rain, and the school) but there are more than enough traces of disappointing design choices (wonky level layout, tedious notes/lore bits, useless microphone option, janky controls) that only elicit frustration as the game progresses. For something built and reliant on thrilling chases and an encompassing dread filled atmosphere, issues like those can be detrimental. While it thankfully doesn't think itself to be a deeply profound statement on the innate hypocrisy of religious institution, there is something amusing about a game like this treading into those waters with such earnest pulpy flair. It's certainly a special game; one I could see myself calling great at some point.

While the visually muted aesthetic and catchy character ensembles of these games remain as enticingly interesting as ever, this is unfortunately more of the same in basically every regard. Offering increased accessibility in its gameplay than Man of Medan with alerts for button prompts, I had hoped for more diversity and building of its usual formula however outside of slight adjustments such as that there was nothing much else of note. What's left is a rushed, self-important narrative containing jumbled timelines and a complete lack of genuine tension; the jump scares here are a complete joke and it is hard to tell if it's deliberately that way anymore. Any sense of ambition is swiftly choked out by the rigid and predictable structure of the story and for something that takes 4-5 hours to complete it nonetheless feels twice that long. It's everything we have seen before. Front to back like Man of Medan this exudes mediocrity in most aspects. It is a shame they won't just take the extra time to craft a truly fleshed out, imaginative sequel to Until Dawn. What we have now are these third-party seeming, churned out, hack rip offs of their own IP. Over time I do not imagine the novelty turnout for these games will last. Hopefully horror games will have moved on to greener pastures by then.

While the scrambled narrative is more ambitious and dramatically effective than Heavy Rain that fact also makes this all the more dull to power through even if it has a semblance of experienced maturity in how it handles its characters and storyline. Trade-offs, I guess. It loses the cornball excitement of Heavy Rain but gains one of my favorite protagonists in video games with Elliot Page's Jodie, who plays the role with such intimate rawness and emotional range that despite the game's overwrought melodrama left me near tears multiple times throughout from his performance alone. It's a character that's properly lived in and the game gives plenty of development (albeit perhaps a bit too schematic for my liking) for her to be feel fleshed out. She stands as a refreshingly flawed, vulnerable, but empowered PS3-era icon and I admire Cage's commitment to dressing the structure with emotional stakes rather than cheap thrills. The game certainly indulges itself in more ways than one with said structure, with the majority of child Jodie's chapters feeling superfluous. I wish the game was more episodic hijinx such as "Homeless", "The Dinner" and "Navajo", which showcased the game's strengths as it develops Jodie through her interactions with others rather than just feeding the player forced chapters where we actively partake in the trauma she underwent as an adolescent ("The Party" and "Like Other Girls" are eyerollingly OTT). Dafoe's Nathan is also woefully underdeveloped but an interesting foil to the game's thematic exploration of the afterlife and the spiritual connections that keep these characters tethered to sanity. Wish it went farther with these ideas but as a whole this was more focused on Jodie than anything else so in that I appreciate what's here despite how shaky the end product ended up being. I cannot deny the things that work and the moments that do hit are among Cage's most endearing as a visual storyteller.

I mean what can I say? It's everything. A work of art that attempts to quantify existence and the triviality of "things" and "beings" and the relationship between them and the player and yada yada yada. The possibilities and interpretations are endless and the developers play into that idea to its fullest potential. Balancing humor and poignancy, the game is self-serious in its aspirations to the point of parody but understanding the limitations of the medium, is aware of that. I see myself, like when I first played upon release back in 2017, returning to this every so often to collect more "things" and listen to more Alan Watts excerpts because it remains an immensely hypnotic and relaxing comfort. Something to escape to for bits at a time and with that I imagine my appreciation of this will only grow.

Certainly not a complete waste of time but nonetheless a chore to get through. Can’t call this outright bad because the chief concept is novel enough and it’s executed with sufficient earnest panache that I found myself pleasantly amused by it at times. The art direction is pretty and the characters and “genies” charming enough to at least get through the story but the second I saw this relied on motion controls I switched that shit to manual and prayed the choppiness of the gameplay let up (which it didn’t lol). This might just be a case of me not being the intended player base however for this being a free PS+ title, I can’t complain too much.

Idyllic, eerie bliss. It has a steady learning curve in understanding the rhythm but it's captivating to witness unfold for that reason. A game that hints at your objective but never outright gives you the answer. Voice talents are somewhat lacking and a late game section (if you've played it you know) felt out of place but the radiant visuals and soundtrack do more than enough to compensate for any stiffness in execution. There's plenty boldness to be found here and the game knows for the most part when to curb back and allow the player's imagination to take hold.

Another Mikami masterpiece. Like what he does with God Hand, The Evil Within and to a minor extent Resident Evil IV, Mikami blows up its respective genre, finding unique manners in which to pay earnest homage to overplayed tropes while subverting them with wacky self-aware humor, innovative cinematic flair, and challenging if at times indulgent gameplay. Vanquish works beautifully as a hilarious satire and mockery of Western third person shooters but stands just as well as a brilliant piece of pulp sci-fi with its nonsensical story, rousing set pieces, and electrifying visual spectacle. It's just gorgeous; zipping through its balletic warzone for six hours made for a surprisingly exciting experience. It feels like the prototype to what Titanfall II would eventually elaborate on with gooey sentimentality and a tighter structure but what Vanquish lacks with looser pacing it makes up for with its almost hypnotic pull. It's a trance-like dance of speeding bullets, pumping testosterone, ardent Russophobia, and endless rocket boosts. Front to back, it never lets up. Verhoeven would be proud.

Lingers. Could have gone for another hour or two without a hiccup but the beauty of something like this is that it ends without any concrete answers to the established character/narrative arcs. Such are waning memories. Only the moments of implied catharsis shine brightest. The smaller, possibly even more meaningful gestures, fade away with the mist of moonlit waves. Before you know it the vacation ends, the recollection simply that. A pocket in time that existed for a short while. There are no stakes but to simply observe playful interactions coated with minimalist nature designs. It's simple and cute and occasionally touching, and that's all it needed to be.

While it may not be saying much from what I've played, this is Bloober Team's most accomplished work yet. Still need to play The Medium and Observer but here we see their minor (but nonetheless valid) talent for crafting ravishing and atmospheric environments utilized to maximum effect thanks to their dedication in making the player truly feel lost within this cursed forest. There are moments that unlike anything in both Layers of Fear titles where I felt mildly unsettled, which I'll take at this point. While it builds off of an established IP (the Blair Witch mythology demands to be further explicated apparently), they interestingly explore how the titular witch's influence enables inherent traumas and makes one act on their most morbid impulses. The game feels more Book of Shadows in that way than it does the original classic. It's messy storytelling overall because of Bloober Team's insistent lack of nuance and bludgeoning of capital T themes and in the end doesn't quite stick the punch line to these ideas but at least it has a basic minimal understanding of what constitutes as "psychological horror". Bloober Team is giving me tasty scraps and I guess I ate (mostly in part to the dog tbh), but I feel once they get over their obsession with PT they can deliver something truly idiosyncratic to the horror medium. There are traces of it here beyond the terrible enemy encounters and shoddy dog AI because otherwise, I had fun.