A game that recklessly engages with the impossible through pure Spielbergian bombast, embodied as a cacophonous display of constantly moving variables. Unwieldy in its power and scope but undeniably contains some of the most breathtaking visual/aural spectacle ever devoted to the medium. Despite the Emporia section feeling mostly superfluous, this fixes Bioshock's drab third act dilemma and finds creative ways to open up its combat in a manner that feels intuitive and increasingly chaotic (despite some tiring enemy types). Those looking for concrete answers with its flimsy politics or consistency with its maze like plot logic may as well move on because Levine and his team are more fascinated with how these thematic devices feed into the machinations of an indelibly romantic and contemplative blockbuster mold. It feels boundary pushing in every regard and its a shame its reputation has been diminished over the years. For every bit as brutally wonky and ostentatious as it is, it's just as much genuinely poignant with its fixation on gradual world building from beginning to end. For any misgivings I may have right now its pleasures feel like the stuff of dreams.

A game of immeasurable power and relevancy. Undoubtedly something that deserves a sincere reevaluation given our contemporary woes and social unrest. With the luscious visual designs borrowing from Romanticist values and a breathtaking score by Jessica Curry, in ways this feels ahead of its time, achieving an overwhelming sense of isolation through the usual tropes of the "walking sim" genre. It's the massive scope that makes all the difference. What's told here is a richly drawn tapestry of a town populated by complicated people reckoning with complex events; the chief being the apocalypse itself. Or at least the end of "their" world as they know it. This game engages with annihilation as it is happening, and the intimate traumas and regrets and buried revelations that are unearthed when civilized society is pushed to the brink of oblivion. It is an expressively funereal and thunderous experience. My only qualms fall on what was probably time/budget restrictions; the interior designs becoming a bit monotonous and the way some of the areas bleed together can be disarming. Needless to say the game is consistently enthralling, finding various methods of connecting dread and beauty together through its aesthetic and voice talents, entwining them in poetic fashion.

An ethereal dance of light and darkness, cosmic by definition. It's rare to see a game take such a brave yet absolute trek into the unknown. Encompassing feels like the correct word.

Has no business being as long as it is and a game like this doesn't quite need QTE events as constant as they are but the sheer chaotic energy present in almost every element of its design from beginning to end makes the entire journey worth it. It's beautiful, garish, and provocative in its world building, extrapolation of characters and unfolding of plot. There are times when I thought I was playing a masterpiece and other times I was dumbfounded by the difficulty and occasional jankiness. It's a heavenly plunge into nonsensical titillation and makes no excuses for its narrative but that's the only way something like this could function. I adore it with slight reservations.

I took dozens of screenshots during my play through of this just out of momentary instinct. Afterwards, sifting through them, I realized that like its predecessor, these images meant nothing. They stood for no greater or fulfilling purpose outside of thin, superficial aesthetic. With all its black and white filters, sepia tones, ornate set dressing, and cruise ship surroundings, Bloober Team has the talent to create visually stimulating games, but beyond that surface level appeal it falls dead in the water in literally every other department from its half baked retread in Amnesia/PT-esque gameplay tropes to its banal exploration of "themes". Somehow this rings even more hollow than its predecessor despite its attempt at this surreal profundity, opting for a more slow burn build than the first. While I can take Layers of Fear's constant lame jump scares if only for how they livened the otherwise deadening pacing, the glacial unfolding of plot (and exceedingly overlong length) here only exacerbates Bloober Team's lack of talent in creating suspense and manifesting tension. For something that is otherwise this developer's most creatively ambitious title from what I've played, the lack of focus, tact and originality to back up the thinly striking images they present only continues to expose Bloober Team as a hack exhibitor of empty aesthetics. If something like this is the future of psychological horror gameplay, god help us.

This is more like it. Motion controls here are far more intuitive and typical of thatgamecompany the soundtrack is lush and feels beautifully in tune with what's going on in the game. However's there has got to be a better way of incorporating a sense of progress in a game besides "light every plant up". Especially when you end up having to scour an entire area over and over again in search of that one petal buried in the fields of grass you missed. That kind of shit bogged an otherwise pleasant game down to bits along with the preachy attempts at profundity in its second half. I just wanted chill vibes. I don't need to be taught the ugliness of industry; especially when its this hammy and obvious. Thankfully with Journey the developers learned to craft these atmospheric titles without having to contain themselves to "gamey" formulas in the process.

Something I'd definitely try on VR at some point.

The little (big) engine that could. It's been said but it bears repeating; this game eats the Call of Duty formula, chews its up, and spits out what that entire franchise could only dream of being. What Respawn does here is insane because it is aware of the surface level comparisons that would inevitably be made and actively subverts every one of the typical tropes found in those games- the corny camaraderie and cringe-worthy banter, the swelling booms and sweeping heroism of the soundtrack, the banal linearity of the level design and bacon crisp gunplay. It's all here sure, but Respawn injects gorgeous attention to detail into the visual atmosphere, boundless creativity in each and every level of its five-six hour campaign, propulsive pacing that pushes this roller-coaster narrative, brutally diverse mech combat, and most importantly, a warm earnestness that permeates every facet of its creation. The game balances a serene and almost ethereal natural landscape with a heavily industrial aesthetic that wouldn't be far off from a James Cameron film. And such as the likes of Aliens and Judgement Day, Titanfall II is as much a story about surfacing imperialist forces weaponizing extraterrestrial technology for further bloodshed as it is a tale of ardent brotherhood; no matter how artificial the links between them are. The first half introduces a couple outlandish gameplay mechanics and gimmicks that keeps things consistently fresh as the relationship between BT and Cooper builds but it's the barreling second half where the weight of cosmic stakes take both literal and metaphorical flight. Cumulatively, it never skips a beat and is just constantly satisfying. It remains silly enough to have fun and not take it too seriously but I won't lie when I say some parts gave me flutters in my heart from the utter immensity of the spectacle (shit looks amazing for 2016 and runs like a dream) and the handling of the dynamic between the two protagonists. For something that was so prone to failure at launch, I was pleasantly surprised by how much returning to this bolstered my previous playthrough and will probably continue to stand the test of time from here on out. Simply put, the apex of blockbuster gaming.

Innovative but also toothless as it relies on smug meta-commentary to get across its theme of the malleability of bodies in the video game medium. Something that is bound to date itself real quick as this angle is one of the most overplayed ideas in games. Its central gimmick becomes tired by game's end BUT makes for some really effective moments of genuinely badass excitement. Cannot deny its a very well crafted experience with an eye for acute visual detail and sound design. The best kind of minimalism, as it strips down FPS tropes down to its minute essence. Can't say I loved it but I admire what it does and I see great things for the studio with whatever they have coming next.

The conceit behind Supermassive Games’ body of horror games was a noble one to begin with. The simple idea of a playable slasher film pushed to the extreme; taking after the likes of “choose your own adventure” novels but most notably the interactive dramas of David Cage- which at this point stand as some of the most potent pieces of camp entertainment the medium has seen (that’s another conversation though). With Until Dawn they delivered on this promise with a game that was effectively curated in its tone and pacing, balancing between the joyful excesses of the genre with some genuinely visceral gnarliness (no doubt borrowing influence from Larry Fessenden who has a starring role in the game and had a pronounced hand in the writer’s room). After the game’s success, Supermassive went on to produce “The Dark Pictures Anthology” which was in essence a collection of ‘Until Dawn’ clones with what essentially felt like half the budget, production time, and length. The ambition had me excited but within the first hour of playing ‘Man of Medan’ I realized just how short it falls from their potential after how good Until Dawn was. Fast forward to now and we’re on ‘episode four’ of ‘season one’ of this project and its safe to say that Supermassive is utterly washed. I think I gave a lot of credit towards the bigger vision they were aspiring to but at this point I simply don’t have the patience for this brand of lazy, copy-paste development anymore- especially after seeing the refreshingly moderate effort placed into their spiritual successor to Until Dawn, 'The Quarry'.

Much of the appeal of horror to me is its sheer devotion to sensory affect and how far it can tease the participator, whether it be a film, novel, or video game. I believe with the latter medium we’re able to gauge the most potent application of the genre and what it can accomplish regarding the player’s interaction with the environment as well as other characters. There is literally so much you can do within the genre, so it makes it frustrating that Supermassive skimp and stumble away achieving the bare minimum almost every time. The typical slasher runs about eighty to ninety minutes so it’s shocking to me that these Dark Pictures games are en masse paced so poorly and proceed to take up an interminable six hours. It’s over an hour of gameplay for ‘The Devil In Me’ to reached its primarily location and half of that time is spent on a pointless opening set piece that acts as a tedious tutorial and also bears no real significance to the overarching story. The rest of this hour is its own dirge of setting up the ensemble’s dynamics and basic plot points in the blandest, most expositional manner possible- and rest assured reader, this is the worst and most cynical band of personalities Supermassive has conjured yet. Unfortunately, if not even Ashley Tisdale can sell the dialogue and development her character was given in House of Ashes, then Academy Award nominated Jessie Buckley certainly won’t here.

What's left beyond the uncanny valley-ass performances and the expressionless blocking in the cutscenes is a game that never moves at a natural pace; instead playing like being trapped in the apathetic body of a rusting tin man at all times as well as littered with jittery camera angles and glitches and lacking any sense of motivated lighting to add visual flourish or at the very least helpfully guide the player. As all these Dark Pictures titles go, once the violence ramps up its silly attempts at raising the pulse of the player get slightly more fruitful but as in the case of all the Dark Pictures titles, it's hollow thrills with no lasting resonance. No intricacies, nothing for the inquisitive player to glean or discover of its characters or setting that won't be explained away by the dialogue or needlessly made obvious in the lore newspaper clippings cluttered around the map. At the end of the day, there really was no point in me spending time writing about this prime example of dubious corporate horror when there's no shortage of real darkness in the world, but it's defeating when these small pleasures could be crafted to be so​ much better. If anything I feel as though this is a personal epitaph for a developer that suggests I may not be returning for 'season two'.

Exquisite grand guignol steampunk vibes withstanding, this game’s departure from the bare-bones survivalist elements of the first game into something a little more patient was quite refreshing for a while. Unfortunately that means that all the enemy encounters that DO occur are so awkwardly stitched into this atmospheric and anti-capitalist narrative that they sort of negate the questions of empathy that are posed by the narrator (one of the strangest attempts at a redemption arc if you ask me). I found myself more haunted by the demonizing portrayal of the pig-human atrocities and wondered how much of this is meant to be read as actual thoughtful social critique versus the occasionally goofy and simplistic trashy exploitation that it ends up being. If anything it feels more like empty fan-service to have these monsters loom over every second of the gameplay.. echoing pig squeals and earth shattering booms clouding up much of time you spend navigating the factories, sewers, muggy streets and reading clumsily littered journal entries explaining everything to the player. Per usual, The Chinese Room craft something quite luscious to look at and listen to (Dear Esther and EGTTR are both masterful) but it’s hard to shake the lack of clarity when it comes to the cumulative vision here. It felt most apparent in the chaotic climax when the camera would frequently and violently shake, making the muddy colors of the interiors bleed together into unintelligible masses for periods at a time, or when our “protagonist” would slowly slip into a dark area to hear the fiftieth voiceover monologue and for some reason the game takes away your lamp to make it SpoOkY, or when I fell through the map and bugged out of game’s space for the third time. It’s a beautiful mess I don’t regret playing, but TCR is capable of making bigger and better things than what felt like little more than a franchise sell-out here.

The most cynical cartoon. For a game so brisk it feels like an eternity to get through. After the promising first hour, introducing the iconic trio of characters with charming banter, the game devolves into an endless barrage of enemy spawns, poorly designed arenas, and clunky gunplay with little respite. The game's attempts of being self-aware about these shortcomings with Nathan's quips come off as flaccid and cowardly. It's in the "platforming" sequences where the game shines the most but even then the intense linearity makes these moments bland and uninspired. Enemy design is lazy at best and vaguely racist at worst. For as lavish as its presentation is, I'm baffled by most the decisions made by the developers here. I can only hope its successors hold up as well as I remembered.

A tedious Greatest Hits collection of Batman villains and shallow mythology encased in an impressive tech showcase. Without inherent context there is no poignancy so as a result the plot progression is hollow, mostly existing to pander to focus-tested players and comic book fans. For all of its issues at least Asylum was efficient gameplay wise (combat here remains stiff) and had a focused narrative. For not having a lengthy campaign it still took me weeks to power through this due to the bland mission design and how inconsequential the plot felt. The open world here may be refreshingly succinct compared to what we get nowadays but it's nonetheless crammed with the endless noise of radio chatter, objective markers, and menial clutter to get distracted with. It's an overbearing mother of a game that never learns to shut up and allow the player to soak in the visually rich atmosphere without having to scream it in our face and hold our hand in every which way. As much as I despise the term "style over substance" I feel as though I can can truthfully apply it here. It's a massively ambitious AAA title for its time but most of that ambition derives from surface level attributes that feel as thin as the ice that Batman treads on. Something that ultimately skirts on sheer mediocrity.

For as lush and often striking as its imagery is, can’t help but feel this is as thematically empty and hollow in its horror as I remembered it being. Whatever’s not a lame and cynical jump scare cribs directly off of better and more nuanced horror games (PT for obvious reference). Starts off promisingly enough with its slow build and atmospheric mansion setting but falls apart as soon you realize that the thin gameplay loop consists of enter room-an object flies to wall-painting dissolves-loud noise. It is that tedious cycle rinse and repeat for three and half hours leading to its dreadfully paced finale and Bloober Team's lacking direction in creating tension in any tangible manner kills any sense of fear or anxiety the game is meant to produce. On top of that the "Inheritance" DLC grossly screws over any kind of thematic resonance this is meant to have as it doubles down on the base game's "tortured artists are people too despite being abusive, gaslighting, narcissistic assholes :)". It's an occasionally gorgeous mess of a game with nothing of value to say or add to the medium. Its merits are entirely fabricated and that fact unsettled me more than any of the grotesque visuals or cringe-worthy voice acting ever could.

Come for the breathtaking vistas and immaculately detailed environments, stay for the fascinating probing of the delusions of grandeur from the American middle aged man and the rousing hijinx that ensue. Quite easily the strongest in the franchise, something I wasn't expecting at all, thanks to quality of life improvements with the shooting/combat and extrapolation of core narrative elements. It's such a fluid and coherent experience that I was left agape by how much genuine fun I was having traversing the comprehensively decorated settings and navigating the vast arenas to mark my enemies. While it doesn't pack the punch of Last of Us' narrative, by smoothness of execution this has it beat in spades despite the slight bloat in the latter half. Structurally, this is Naughty Dog's most ambitious work thus far (when this was written in 6/3 at least). Borrowing from Last of Us' novelistic approach, the first half of this weaves in flashbacks and stuffs an immense amount of information within the first several hours that leaves the player's head spinning by how quickly it progresses without skipping a beat. Once it slows down leading into the second half in Libertalia, we are presented with some of the finest character work Naughty Dog has done with the near crumbling and renewal of Nathan and Elena's marriage, acting as the true climax to the story.

This section is nuanced in how it employs a hushed sentimentality in lieu of outright melodrama and it's bold to see the throes of domesticity being engaged with so explicitly. This is a game less so about the ramifications of violence (which is ideally where I'd wanted the series to mature but LOU has us covered there) than it is about a mid-life crisis on candy coated adrenaline. Ditching the supernatural elements of the previous games, this entry follows an innate obsession with capturing glory as a means of validating existence and the subsequent thrills of "adventure" in all its forms that arise from that yearning. Following Last of Us' acclaim, some of this also feels like a meta commentary on "good fortune" and attaining humility in the midst of resplendent yet dilapidated splendor (exploring Libertalia in particular). Its thematic value is based in Nathan's relationships with others and how his actions and lack of honest communication potentially jeopardize these binding ties. The stakes are entirely emotional and surpass any idea of "death" that the franchise can conjure up at this point. Throughout the series Nathan's allies have been concerned for his mental well being and not Nate himself, who continued his adventuring without any thought to the possible harmful outcome.

Here, his brother Sam is an outright enabler of his shitty habits and Sully/Elena are subsequently exhausted by these antics by this point. Everybody here is just tired and the game suggests that the boisterous cartoons of yesterday have run their course and must be buried for good. The subjects are now drawn to the pull of reality and feel the sting of mortality with every push forward. While it's valuable to see Naughty Dog finally take the time to deeply explore any semblance of themes in these games, it doesn't get quite as complicated and messy as I'd hope; specially since it deals with the consequences of emotional duress. The exploration of these ideas is as broad as they come but it's okay. For what it is, a tour-de-force blockbuster epic that adopts that term to its fullest capacity, it intensely satisfied me and assisted in helping me escape from the reality of the turbulent world we live in now. At least for the 15 hours it took to complete its sweeping campaign. Despite my disappointment with the previous entries and my hesitance in approaching this, that's all I could ask for.