Equally compelling character and narrative direction. But succeeds more than the base game under the weight of smaller scope and tighter focus, sort of ala Witcher 2. Just the opening premise alone as an Escape from New York homage was enough to hook me more than the rest of the game. I think 3 years removed from the release hype does this justice. Gone are the expectations of it being a GTA killer. Welcomed are every other little thing it does well, namely the way it focuses on dialogue and character. It lacks the polish of a Rockstar game but it shines brighter with more heart and humanity. I also just think the city looks dope as fuck and in the years since I've grown to appreciate open world games more for using their locations as backdrops than fully interactive environments and Cyberpunk's world just kind of owns pretty much every open world game I've played since.

Good effort. Not unfairly maligned. It's still a game that tries too hard to be cool. It's still way too interested in impressing the wrong crowd. Cyberpunk 2077 shouldn't a showcase game for people who like shiny things and 'freedom in RPGs'. It should concern itself more impressing people who like narrative and human stories. That's its best assert. Hopefully the sequel improves on that.

Human beings in a mob
What's a mob to a king?
What's a king to a God?
What's a God to a non-believer
Who don't believe in anything?

Hidetaka Miyazaki and George R.R. Martin join forces and collaborate to create the video game form of Kanye and Jay-Z's Watch the Throne - a high piece of art created of excess and opulence. A video game just dripping in swagger. Oozing out of the corner of every frame is decadence squared; cubed. It's one mammoth region after another; one behemoth after another.

I took a 19 month sabbatical from Elden Ring and honestly never thought I'd properly finish it. But its insurmountable reputation is nothing but mental gymnastics. The whole game, and perhaps From Software's oeuvre, can considered an exercise in patience and humility. Every challenge can be faced. Every obstacle overcome. Sekiro in its stripped down and combat-focused nature taught this lesson the clearest. But Elden Ring teaches it too, it just decides to threaten you with shear scale.

I managed to step back months fresh and after realising what the L2 button and Ashes of War do, defeat the Godksin Duo before stomping my way through to the game's finale two showcase challenges - the optional Malenia and endgame Radagon/Elden Beast.

"Now we gon' take it to the Moon, take it to the stars
You don't know what we been through to make it this far
So many scars"

I chose Fia's Duskborn ending over Ranni' actual starry ending but nevertheless felt a humongous sense of accomplishment and relief and a twinge of sadness that after all that I'm a literal king of ashes. At least unlike Game of Thrones this was a compelling ending.

From a glance it's an exciting action throwback to the PS2/PS3 era of janky Japanese hack n slash.

The actual product is a clumsy, clunky often tortuous experience in either bad or just plain stupid game design. Frustrating in ways that feel incongruous to the propulsive momentum the gameplay promises, with no real intrinsic reward other than relief from not having to battle the same nauseating wave of enemies again and again for an hour.

Still. The wrapping is okay and every few minutes I'd exclaim, "that's sick" to my lonely room.

the death of call of duty. a game where the player themself is fully subsumed, fed into a never-ending loop of simulated war. the only way out is to let go, stop playing. walk away. but if you choose to play, your psyche is trapped.

it's kind of the perfect answer to Spec Ops: the Line. Except not nearly as preachy about its messaging. Maybe because here the metatextual is even more incestiously about the very nature of the series itself. not neceassily video games but just Call of Duty; how it will never end and just keeping going on and on, from its roots as a WWII game, feeding the player a narrative about courage and and bravery all that bullshit. it views WWII as the original sin of the franchise, that inevitably cannibalises itself, twisting and transforming into a frankestein'd monster of various online game modes; zombies; stories about confusing US interventionism; future warfare about drones and robots. you're not even playing war any more. you've transcended beyond history and you're literally shooting AI bots. by Black Ops 4, you don't even need story. only multiplayer and zombies; endless war. the way the single player in this has a scorecard and stats not unlike the multiplayer further blurs the line between game and reality. you're just a clog in the machine.

fun game.

The technological leap from Quake to II in the span of a year seems evident even 26 years later. But gone is the unique neo-industrial Egyptian inspired atmosphere and in its place a generic sci-fi goo of mostly browns and dumb looking enemies.

Still. Peak shooter game design. Just the perfect blend of guided exploration, puzzles and shooty parts. A Quake in the vein of nuDoom would be hella sick (so long as they don't go all Eternal with it). Games theoretically never got better than this really.

kind of underrated. it's a step down from 2 and 1, the shooting and actual in-game visceral quality feels nerfed and turned down significantly. thematically the game has shifted from trying to trick and gaslight and question Isaac Clarke's sanity. it's a much more straightforward story which kind of works although makes it feel more isolated and detached from what came before. I enjoy the ice setting and some of the zero gravity space stuff. it is overlong though. i played half the game close to 10 months apart. the last couple of hours are a real slog. i feel like writing my superficial thoughts nearly a month after finishing it was probably a bad idea because I am not sure it's a good game or if i even liked it but just appreciated the direct John Carpenter homage and the potential of the game based solely on concept art.

I'd be intrigued to see if the remake this down the line after the new remake because I think there's great potential to rewrite and reshape this installment; improving the gunplay and plot while maintaining the ice planet setting would be pretty cool

Even after playing the two sequels first, I didn't realise until reflecting back on the whole experience as a whole after finally playing the first entry - perhaps now aided by a comfortable familiarity with the series' core design ethos in mind - how fundamentally these games are about infiltrating lavish, opulent hidden dens of power and using disguises to perform elaborate and cruelly entertaining assassinations because the rich and few - the very 1% - simply do not fear the rest of us. How easy it is to blend in to a crowd when from the elites' POV the working class have no identity. How they are merely their job,
that is all they see. And so then howa it's Agent 47's job to assume these various identities to enact striking acts of working class revenge against the most powerful (and always unabashedly evil). And yet despite all this, there's always more targets. The system never breaks or faults in finding its own ways to fill up the holes you left behind, because no matter what it's not just a few rogue evil doers wreaking havoc on the world - it is a capitalist, power hungry system that Agent 47, despite his best efforts, still cannot bring down.

Anyway, the Sapienza map ruled. Those Italian goons had sick fits and killing the dude disguised as a plague doctor while he watched vhs clips of his dead mum scored to some Italian pop song was dope af. The Paris fashion show also sick.

Firmly in the pantheon along side games like DOOM and Bloodborne that meld intricate level design and god-tier art direction into narrative and thematic cohesion. Just beautiful.

Agent 47 is simultaneously no one and everyone. He can assume many disguises and remain and undetectable even if he is a rather noticeably tall, pale bald man with a barcode tattooed on his neck who would stand in any function. He is both a player avatar and distinct character himself. He is a paradox and an example of having your cake and eating it too. He has no real personality within the game but he definitely has a soul. He doesn't merely exist to serve as a player fantasy. His lack of distinction is a product of narrative necessity. He is an assassin, the titular hitman - why would he be a guy you want to get to know more. He is his profession, and his profession is the game. It's beautiful.

Part of me wishes the plot of these games held more depth but I am not totally sure every espionage story needs that. Even the work of John LeCarre is purposefully dense until it comes out the end leaving you as puzzled and bewildered as the characters. To me what's important in Hitman is that the story is told with earnestness. Not necessarily seriousness. You can dress up as a clown and throw fruit at people. But no one is cracking quips and the characters themselves communicate seriously. Tonally it's just right and kind of rare for a modern AAA video game. It's also a game that takes place in the real world. In a lot of ways it's everything I've been looking for for years now. There are secret labs and stuff bit no space mines or sci-fi/fantasy bullshit. Grounded in reality is another rare quality I really admire.

As an individual game I just want to say Hitman III is a slight step above what I played in 2. To open the game with an Agatha Christie inspired murder mystery is stunning. As is the refreshing idea to give Agent 47 the option to assume an identity fully and be able to interact with people for a change. That kind of deviation is amazing to me even if it's just a simple point and click murder adventure it's a cool twist on a formula. To follow that level up with a bare bones thrown into the wolves den Berghain inspired level is otherworldly. Just that back to back sensation of those two levels rocked my world.

Hitman III felt like a spectacular culmination of all the Bond inspired levels IOI wanted to make. More than any Bond film actually, Hitman III really opens your eyes to diverse and cool as fuck staging areas all espionage cinema from True Lies to Mission Impossible to even John Wick aspire to. I want an old mansion on the Moors; a Berlin nightclub; a train; neon-lit streets; and a vineyard that simultaneously feels like a wedding. Pump this shit into my veins.

This one will live with me for a while. I'm glad I still have Hitman 1 to play; disappointed no new Hitman/or OI game for a while. I'm sure their Bond will be dope. Hopefully they keep it as streamlined and non-microtransactionary as this series.

Haven't finished this game yet. Don't think I need to. I want to. I will. I just don't need to. The plot and story feel inconsequential. It's a little like Doom in that it's all about level design, art direction, gameplay and vibes. Hitman 2 is a game that understands what a game is. It's choice but with limited freedom. A game is only a game when there are limits and rules. Choice in any game is only ever an illusion. Within Hitman 2's constraints you're free to get as creative as you like with the tools at your disposal. When I first started this game three years ago, I tried playing it like a shooter. That's not what it is. It's not quite a stealth game completely either. In my experience it's been a game where you're dropped in these little, beautifully and delicately detailed little environments and forced to blend and observe... and then kill some guys. It reminds me a lot of Snowrunner - you're a guy with a job to do. Feasibly the job could be anything. Agent 47 could be a movie star agent making deals. The artifice of playing as a hitman is but one more disguise the player wears.

I'm not surprised the same studio made Kane & Kynch 2, because that game's highlights to me were also the environments. The storytelling was more purposeful but who knows where Hitman's story will take me. I'm not too sure I'll be bothered it, frankly.

there's some neat immersive sim elements. i like the npc interactions and how they have names. i like the little hub worlds. i like the analog nature of navigating story via beeper messages and pay phones. the overall look and feel of this particular kind graffiti-filled, crime-laden realistic festering new york hellhole is quite rich in its narrow pov. i like the interstitial literal underworld WWII sections. they are bland if striking.

i absolutely despise the fucking story. dumb ass comic book hoodlum crap. all the themes walking with the darkness i couldn't care less. the monster is stupid. all the characters suck bar one, and gee i am shocked at what they did with them. i hate the gameplay too. this should FEAR/Max Payne bullet time dual-wielding mayhem and instead it's some of the most boring shit i've ever played. there's no cover. the extra powers are useless. the signposting sucks too. just an incredibly stupid and frustrating game to play. fuck this shit.

empty repetitive spectacle crossed with a french extremity/torture porn sensationalism that never clicks into place one way or the other. Lara Croft's design feels very inspired by The Descent, down to a copycat scene where she literally rises out of water drenched in blood.

those horror elements makes for an interesting set dressing, especially in comparison to the lightweight, frolicking Indiana Jones inspired adventuring in the Uncharted series. gone is a quest for treasure. welcomed marooned on an island of supernatural worshiping Russian pirates. when Lara has to kill her first man, there's a compelling dramatic weight to the moment. but the game does nothing with that, says nothing about it. quickly moves on and sets her on a bloodthirsty, revenge-seeking rampage that would make 80s Schwarzenegger jealous.

the quick turn to action doesn't bother me. i can accept it as a convention of the genre. i just don't think this game pulls it off very well nor infuses it with the horror very well. it is a very paper thin game with no real concrete base. at least in the Uncharted games there is some characterization, some dialogue and banter and quiet moments between all the action. the game gives something to care about. and i guess i can accept straight action and a thrilling non-stop tension but i can only watch Lara fall off a ledge and not break any bones so many times before I grow incessantly bored with the trick.

i also think, you know in film, with horror specifically, there's a tactility to everything that brings it to life. in a game where every movement is carefully designed and manufactured, there's something extra gross about watching them animate this character into moments where she's constantly being impaled, or threatened with assault... there's like no humanity to it. but you know as a movie this would only be 2 hours long not like 7. i would rather have watched either the Angelina Jolie or Alicia Vikander Tomb Raider movies on repeat all day than have played this really. at least one has a shirtless Daniel Craig in it.

the Alien Covenant to Dead Space's Alien. everything is more modern and sleek, the rusted over hard-laboured charm of the original has been sanded smooth. there are very edges to this game. everything about the first Dead Space made you feel like you'd a tetanus shot just playing it with a controller.

conversely, The Callisto Protocol feels like a smooth-edged, highly developed completely sterile tech demo. You will spend more time shimmying through loading screens disguised as nooks and vents, and QTE'ing your way through more tightly scripted, if crisply designed linear corridors. this uncharted level of game design is catnip to me but even I grew bored of this and it's only about an 8 hour game.

creative director Glen Schofield clearly has one idea: Resident Evil 4 but what if in a space mine. and to his credit, it's a nice idea. but it's kind of laughable to play through all the exact the same shit again. same basic controls, enemies, settings, and weapons - except this time there's an added emphasis on brutal melee combat that leaves your guy covered in blood. again, nice. but leaves you bored after a while.

this started as a PUBG tie-in of sorts. i remember playing Remedy's CrossfireX tie-in shooter campaign, and exactly as was the case with that game, this game's script has the distinct feel of having been knocked out in 3 hours during a toilet break. feels like one idea stretched too far, which is in line with the rest of the game, tbf.

still didn't hate it. nice gore.