Recent reviews by Haas

Excellent vehicle for emergent storytelling. If you enjoy carefully managing skill trees, food requirements, repairs etc. for a custom group of mercenaries with a lot of interesting things to find and atmospheric areas to explore, you'll have a great time here.

Very promising third-person MOBA. Great impact, plenty of depth. Just needs a lot more content.
Very faithful to Paragon.

Songs of Conquest is the single best torchbearer for the Heroes of Might and Magic franchise we have ever seen to date. A game that relies thoroughly on classic design, but innovates in key areas to reduce tediousness and improve specialization and build opportunities. Although it stumbles with some elements, leading to less enjoyable exploration and faction asymmetry than its spiritual predecessors, it is a very competent title with a massive amount of potential going forward!

Full review/critique: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AWjYhAT2jn0

Although Total War: Warhammer 3 is certainly not perfect (with the most prevalent issue being the ill prepared Siege AI), the third entry into this series plays into the strengths of a Total War game more than any of its predecessor. I wholeheartedly see this as Creative Assembly's best game to date.

With the largest launch roster of unique factions, plenty of quality of life upgrades, updated diplomacy, and an incredibly gorgeous map, I can see myself spend hundreds upon hundreds of hours with this title.

Chaos Gods preserve me.

Full (lengthy!) review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=FUSnZw_v308

Full (spoiler-free) review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eaGGm-n80OI

BIOMUTANT has a gorgeous, vibrant and charming world. Interacting with the wacky characters is entertaining, and traveling from one end to another has a great sense of freedom. However, BIOMUTANT is also very repetitive and lacks a sense of progression making the latter half of the title (which took about 25 hours to finish it) rather tedious. Enjoyable, recommendable, but certainly repetitive and flawed.

If you have any interest in a roguelike, deckbuilding experience then Monster Train offers a fantastic one. Five different clans with plenty of variety and strategic depth, a solid control over RNG due to being able to gauge what is coming ahead and a unique combat element in the form of three different floors.

Easy recommendation. Full (pun filled) review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IVsWTjyQNzs

A tentative recommendation, Crucible is a game in need of massive polish, but there's potential and enjoyment there to give it a proper attempt.

The map (which the different game modes share) has a good layout, allowing for a lot of exploitation through proper mobility and good map awareness. Although hero balance is far from perfect, each allows for mastery and is competent in a fight without having obvious, overwhelming counters. That said, hero design itself is quite uninspired and severely lacking in talent variety.

Full review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=N9-uCOQYskU

Total War: Warhammer 2 is second-to-none when it comes to atmosphere. Incredibly flavorful and meticulously crafted in both world campaign map and individual battle maps.

The strategy is held back by the underwhelming diplomacy and the optimal playstyle of doomstacks is by far the biggest hurdle Creative Assembly will have to overcome in the future, but beyond that Warhammer 2 is a massive improvement over everything that was great in Total War: Warhammer 1.

In 2020 this game features a plethora of DLC options and two very enjoyable campaign options. Mortal Empires is genuinely one of the best strategy experiences with a huge selection of vastly different factions.

Full review (which includes a rapid overview of all the current DLC at the end): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OjpcpR9OOpI

Disco Elysium is a unique title with a ton of flavor. Being entirely dialogue based, it's all fundamentally about your 24 skills ranging from your hand/eye coordination to your logic. Each of these skills will frequently appear in dialogue giving you a different interpretation and narrative experience based on your chosen skill investments. A tad overwhelming at first, Disco Elysium's writing is stellar and delivers a consistently stylish experience. Easy recommendation!

Full spoiler-free video review (9/10): https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i7zZ57_GcIE

I didn't like The Surge 1. Luckily for me, The Surge 2 is a massive upgrade in most respects and I'm officially a fan (of the Spark) now. Although it suffers from a lack of aesthetic identity and poor story, the robust combat more than carries it throughout rewarding both deliberate and aggressive play through clever combos, directional parries and plenty of new weapons and gear to chop off.

Full (video) review: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TWWuDRcoOug