Senaste recensioner av Nightserg

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Ghostwire Tokyo is a very mixed bag of goodies and baddies, a decent first-person shooter with a huge emphasis on atmosphere, while everything else feels undercooked.

👍 The good parts:
+Amazing atmosphere
+Decent story

👎The bad parts:
-Gameplay mechanics are boring

The story starts with you, the protagonist riding a bike in Tokyo and getting caught in an accident. Shortly after you get possessed by a spirit and everything around you goes to sh.t, people start to vanish and the whole area gets engulfed by a strange fog that comes with all sorts of evil spirits that are straight out of all the Japanese lores you can imagine.

As you awake, you realize you have new powers and the spirit tells you you have to stop this generic bad guy that wants to do bad things, which I can't say for spoiler reasons. Sadly, it's not just you who got caught in the disaster, but your sister as well who is in the hospital. Fast forward, the story is basically you stopping this evil dude and saving your sister.

I honestly did not expect to enjoy the story much, based on what a lot of people commented/reviewed, but it was actually the second-best thing about the game. It's not a complicated story, it's as simple as it can be, but it has some, not-so-happy themes that I enjoyed. There are also some cool side quests that can be interesting to do lore-wise, but sadly they are very few and the rest are just meaningless tasks. Characters, including the generic evil dude, are decent enough for you to keep pushing forward, but don't expect a top-grade story-telling.

Story rating: 7.5/10

Sadly the gameplay is not so great. It's not bad, don't get me wrong, it's just that it never clicks with you. It feels very mechanic and very boring. The gist is, you have spiritual abilities which allow you to cast elemental attacks from your hand, fire, water, and air. You will also later acquire a bow and some talismans that may reduce the boredom a bit.

Now of course, you do not simply just attack with the elements, you also have a skill tree that can improve those attacks of yours, such as allowing you to launch a fireball at the enemies or freeze them all around you. It sounds cool on paper, but believe me, it's very poorly implemented. There is no fluidity to the combat, it feels rather mechanical, stiff, and very limited. You'll understand more once you play it. The first few hours are cool, but it overstays its welcome.

If you were not aware, the game is in an open-world environment which you gradually unlock by cleansing specific gates scattered around the map. As you unlock parts of the open-world more generic objectives will pop on your map, which are as bad as any other Ubisoft game, such as: finding shrines, finding statues, magatamas, and so on and so forth. They're all boring, which is a huge shame because the amount of work that went into creating the level, which I'll talk about later, must've been insane. Why have this amazing-looking city and simply have no incentive to explore it? No amazing side-quests, no unique mysteries, nothing but garbage collectibles.

The game offers nothing to provide excitement for the player which is why the game is not very well received. As you play, you can tell this was supposed to be something else, but something went horribly wrong in the development phase and they decided to make it all as generic as possible.

Gameplay rating: 6/10

No idea if there is an English dub since I play all Japanese games natively if they offer that option. The voice acting is pretty good, the main character is a bit of a sissy and complains all the time, but the rest of the cast plays well.

The music is not bad, but it is very bland and you'll hardly notice it. The sound effects are cool though, a lot of work went into that aspect, for example, music still plays around shops or other locations and they are all unique, if it's a bar it plays the kind of stuff you'd hear in a bar, and these are not locations you can enter which makes it even more insane that they've added small and attentive details to the world. Huge props to the sound fx guys.

Audio rating: 8/10

I'll start with the best aspect of the game, which is the atmosphere. No one can argue, Ghostwire Tokyo has an insane level design. You'd think that they wouldn't bother considering how boring the gameplay mechanics are, but the world feels so disconnected from the gameplay mechanics, it's crazy. I've never been to Tokyo, but every place you explore is genuinely unique and it feels like it's a perfect rendition of the actual Tokyo. The interiors are well designed with tons of details, you'll see clothes all over the floors, and so much more that I never expected designers to bother with. The verticality of the game is also crazy, as you can go all the way on the buildings and even explore the tallest buildings in the city.

It's such a huge bummer that exploration is not rewarding, but visually, it's awesome. The people who worked on the sound design and the level designs are very talented. As for performance, the game runs really well without the use of raytracing. If you do use raytracing, well, expect some big frame drops in certain places, but in this particular case, at least when it comes to reflections, they're kinda worth it. As for bugs, I've encountered quite a few of them in regards to enemies and combat, but nothing major.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10

Overall I will still recommend Ghostwire Tokyo, maybe not for the gameplay, but for a decent story and exceptional visuals and level design. Not really worth the full price though, so get it when it's on a big sale.

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Life is Strange True Colors, another story in the LiS franchise made by Deck Nine, is a surprisingly enjoyable adventure, especially after the abomination that was Before The Storm. Expect twists, emotions and all the dramas that you're used to in the Life is Strange universe.

👍 The good parts:
+Great cast of characters
+Pretty good main story
+Nice tunes

👎The bad parts:
-A bit short, could've used more character development, more story events
-Gameplay mechanics

True Colors stars Alex Chen, a woman who had a very rough childhood and decided to finally move to a new town where her brother lives. As you'd expect, there can't be a Life is Strange game without the main character not having a unique power. In this case, Alex has the ability to sense the emotions of people around her and determine what they are thinking if they are strong enough. It's not a very amazing power, it feels very gimmicky, but the main story and the events are built around it and based on how you use it in certain scenarios, story aspects may change.

Speaking of choices, they do not matter as much as you think, at least not in regards to the main events that push the story from start to finish. They impact certain characters and how they'll perceive you and that's about it. The characters you meet are very well written and I did not find any perceivable flaw in each of their stories.

As for the main story, without spoiling much, you can expect all the ingredients of a Life is Strange game, assuming you played the previous ones. A lot of drama, cheese, humor, and other events that I can't talk about. It's not a huge budget story like the second game had or the first, but it's still a good drama for you to finish in two days or so. Wish it was a bit longer, with more events going on, more mystery, more focus on the bad parts of the community, and all that. It's a bit too safe. Also if you're wondering, unlike LiS 2, the game is not political at all and you have multiple romance options.

Story rating: 8/10

I've said this a million times but this genre needs to evolve in the gameplay department. There are a million things they can add or create based on the main characters' powers, but every time they just pick the cheap route.

Just like in previous games, you basically walk up to a character or highlighted objects and interact with them to start a dialogue. The power mechanic in True Colors barely has any gameplay impact other than just moving the story forward. You right-click on certain characters, read their emotions and mind, and decide if you want to help them or not through dialogue choices. It's kinda boring.

I do have to applaud them for at least trying to make something unique which was the roleplay bit. Small spoilers here, but at some point in the game, you get to roleplay and you wander around town collecting potions and items and spells as well as fighting "monsters", but obviously in a childish manner. It was unique, funny, and had a lot of charm. They could've done much more with it though.

Overall, the gameplay is not something you play the Life is Strange games for, but I can't excuse the devs for not trying to improve it after so many times.

Gameplay rating: 6.5/10

Story-focused game so obviously the voice acting is the most important thing. Luckily, unlike Before the Storm which had one of the worst voice actings ever, True Colors is great. Every actor does a wonderful job at portraying their character and I did not find a single one that was cringe or bad.

The soundtrack, while not my kind of music, is also pretty chill and great. Fits extremely well with the whole atmosphere and narrative the game has going. As for the other sound effects, they're all pretty standard.

Audio rating: 8/10

Not a very demanding game, even with raytracing settings on, due to it having a very limited area of exploration and interactivity. The game looks pretty ok overall, nice chill atmosphere, but other than the main town and some interiors, you won't see much else. The budget was clearly lacking in this aspect compared to the second game for example where you explore a ton of cool locations.

Character models look pretty good considering the art style, and even if the interiors are few in numbers, they are brim with details such as your room, the bar or the music shop.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10

Overall it's a fine adventure game, good story, chill characters, chill atmosphere, some drama here and there, all too safe with a few exceptions. Price is way too much for what the game offers so get it on sale, when it's at least half the price.

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Do you know what people love about the Batman universe? Batman, and some of its villains. So when you decide to make a game in the Batman universe, without him, the stakes are incredibly high and almost impossible to nail. Did Gotham Knights succeed? Hell no. They had the right ingredients but still failed spectacularly.

👍 The good parts:
+The combat is nice
+Barbara's ass

👎The bad parts:
-RPG mechanics and sponge enemies in a brawler were a dumb idea
-A technical mess
-Garbage story

Alright, I have to talk about certain parts of the game which are heavy spoilers if you really care about a trash story so skip the story part if you want to play this game.

So the game starts with Batman dying and his cape-crusading teammates, Batgirl, Robin, Red Douche and Nightwing take up his mantle of protecting the city. Did Batman die gloriously at least? Nope. There were absolutely 0 chances in hell, Batman would simply kill himself just like that. It was idiotic from the very beginning. So anyway, they try to figure out what was Batman doing in the first place and pick up from where he left his final investigation.

Now, things get a bit interesting here for a few minutes, cool secret society controlling Gotham for hundreds of years? Hell yeah! Then you find them and their leader whos hiding behind an owl mask and it's the most obvious thing in the world who that person behind is. Are they a real threat? Nope, they are just a bunch of rich snobs and you stop their plan and the end. Well almost. Between stopping the Court of Owls the only good thing about the story was the actual side quests where you deal with Mr Freeze and Harley. They are entirely separated from the main story and you can easily miss them.

Anyway, huge ending spoilers here, but be warned it's dumb as hell and I have to talk about it so you can avoid this trash: the twist was that the League of Shadows were trying to get rid of the owls and take control of the city, and shockers, Talia was behind it all. At this point you're like wow, that's it? No way the final boss is her right unless....you know...they have..this water that revives and brainwashes dead people? Yeah...you know where this is going at this point. They revive Batman and he's bad and you fight him and he dies again, killing himself again lmfao.

It's a huge travesty to Batman as a character and its universe. The writers handled it poorly. It's all bad.

Story rating: 5/10

So how difficult it is to have good and fun combat when we had like 4 games in the Arkham series that perfected the brawling formula, and one of them was made by the same devs that developed Gotham Knights. Not too hard right? Well, they still managed to fk it up.

The melee combat for each character is good, they nailed that because honestly, wasn't that hard to do, but these trashy, greedy devs decided, hey, you know what is popular with kids these days? Loot! RPG mechanics! Enemies with tons of HP! Check out that generic purple weapon you just got with the most uninteresting stats ever but they look cool! Yep, they basically copied The Division and stapled it on a brawler. You're going to be hitting and shooting enemies an hour before they go down and you're going to "LOVE" it. But you know what they did focus on? DIVERSITY! Yep, you now punch and shoot more gang women than actual men because women are just as bad, right devs? It's great when you have to fight a generic 200-pound strong woman 85% of the time!

This generation of gamers are a bunch of idiots. Even Ragnarok got infested with useless clothing items that give Kratos generic stats that no one cares. This industry is going to hell. Anyway, back to The Division, ugh, I mean, Gotham Knights, it's very much a game focused on you doing nonstop generic missions on the map, crafting and getting better and better loot, instead of actually focusing on what made the previous Arkham games amazing. Nothing clicks in this game. Remember the amazing stealth missions in the previous games? It's trash here.

The only good things that I enjoyed were the side-boss fights. There are no main mission boss fights btw besides the ending one. You can tell that the game was meant to be very online-focused, it even has this end-game raid thing where you spend hours in a generic cave fighting enemies for better loot.

Oh right, remember collectibles in the previous games, the riddler ones? How incredibly creative they were and actually made you want to find them? Well, say goodbye to that as well and say hello to finding random batarangs on the map randomly placed with the only indication of them being there is seeing a glow when you explore and that's not all, but I won't bore you any longer. It's all bad.

Gameplay rating: 6/10

Is there anything good in this game you may be asking yourself? Well, nope. Voice acting is probably the cringiest thing you'll ever hear. None of the characters sound good, and it's like none of them ever acted before. The Penguin which was voiced by a person I generally like, Elias, who also starred in the modern Deus Ex games, was the most bored and uninteresting character in the entire game. I'm pretty sure they knew from the start based on the writing that this was going to be a huge trash fire and they just did not bother.

The sound effects and the soundtrack are all as uninteresting as everything else in the game.

Audio rating: 6/10

Luckily I waited a few months and most of the performance issues were fixed, but it's still not good, at all. I have a high-end gaming PC with a 4070TI and the game would still drop to low 50's at 1440p in a lot of scenarios. Maybe you're thinking, well it's a next-gen game surely it's because it looks amazing right? Wrong. Arkham Knight looks ages ahead of GK in terms of everything. There are PS4 games that look better than GK.

The atmosphere is so uninspired and generic, no more gothic architectures, that Gotham City is meant to have, no cool interiors to explore, nothing. It's lifeless which is ironic considering Gotham Knight city was empty of citizens and GK is full of them.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 6/10

Skip it even if you have friends to play with.

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South Park returns with a new game and a sequel to the fantastic RPG Stick of Truth. The Fractured But Whole changes quite a few things compared to its predecessor, but the combat, the characters and the humor still remain top-notch.

👍 The good parts:
+The humor
+Awesome soundtrack yet again
+Satisfying combat

👎The bad parts:
-Very easy
-RPG mechanics are far less than in the previous game

The game continues after the events of the first. You still play as the new kid in town, but Cartman decides that playing as elves and sht is too lame and decides to change things in South Park. Now every kid is a superhero and Cartman tasks you to find a missing cat so they can get the reward money and start their own superhero franchise.

As it's typical for South Park games, in a hilarious manner things go bad for you and the plot thickens. I jest you not when I say, the game has some amazingly funny twists that you'll never see it coming. The creative beauty of it was nuts. You'll get to explore the same South Park you are used to just in the show and previous game but with a lot of new locations. You'll meet familiar and new faces and they're all perfectly written for comedic purposes.

There are also two main stories DLCs that I highly recommend you get because they are ♥♥♥♥♥ hilarious just like the main game. Overall I never expected a show like South Park to work as a game, nor did I expect them to have such a random, funny, and serious story all in the same package. Matt and Trey are geniuses.

Story rating: 8.5/10

Just like in the previous game, combat is turn-based, however, a few things are different now. It's now grid-based, with a huge emphasis on where you move. You initially pick one of three superhero classes that Cartman gives you, but as you progress in the game more will unlock and you'll be able to customize and combine skills as you see fit. The skills can vary from controlling the combat zone such as placing turrets, and crowd control to pure damage. Each skill also has its own grid pattern, which is why I said, there's a huge emphasis on where you position yourself as you can no longer directly target enemies or allies.

Most of the classical leveling up and skills are gone and instead now as you gain levels you unlock slots where you can place artifacts that will boost your skills and certain skill stats, such as dealing more damage when you push an enemy into another, or how fast you recharge your ultimate. The ultimate mechanic is a bar that fills the more damage you do or take or time passes each round as well as other modifiers that can impact it. Once the ultimate is filled up, your character or your teammates can use their ultimate ability which can greatly shift the tide of combat. The game, even on the hardest difficulty isn't that hard tho there will be certain boss fights where you have to really think and use the proper team combos or else you'll never succeed.

Your teammates have their predefined skills and you won't be able to change them, so it's very important to pick the perfect mates for your own skills. The equipment menu is now just for visuals, they no longer offer stats, though there is a crafting mechanic now, albeit very barebones. Overall Fractured But Whole does a few things better than the previous and a few things worse. Ideally, it would've been if they improved the formula without nerfing other things, but alas developers changed. It's still a fun gameplay and hardly something I would not recommend. Exploration remains tedious though, and you'll have to backtrack a lot in town, but nothing really major bad. Also, the difficulty outside of certain bosses is very easy.

Overall I think I enjoyed the gameplay a bit more than in Stick of Truth, mostly because the grid-based combat had some tactical depth to it and the bosses actually pose a challenge for me.

Gameplay rating: 7.5/10

The music, just like in the prequel is awesome. The combat tunes, the boss tunes are straight out of a high-budget game and fit so well with whatever is happening on the screen. Here's a sample

https://youtu.be/0GqzHWiq_Bs

Voice acting, it's exactly as you'd expect, hilarious and entertaining, and as for everything sound related, all good.

Audio rating: 8.5/10

The game is no longer locked to 30FPS so hooray for that! It runs incredibly smooth, and it's a perfect rendition of the TV show. The atmosphere is great, if you love the show and enjoyed the previous game, you'll love this one as well.

There are a few bugs here and there but nothing major.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10

Just like Stick of Truth, highly recommended, no point beating around the bush. It's a hilarious game and the combat is pretty fun even if a bit too easy.

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There are a lot of mixed and negative feelings towards Back 4 Blood, which wanted to be a spiritual successor to Left 4 Dead, and most of them are accurate, however, I played this game on day one on Game Pass and recently on Steam, both times with friends, and I really enjoyed it.

👍 The good parts:
+Gunplay is satisfying
+Card mechanics can greatly impact a run
+Pretty damn good locations

👎The bad parts:
-Difficulty is all over the place, too easy or impossible in certain scenarios/difficulties
-The story or lore is pointless

Not much I can talk about here, it's your generic zombie apocalypse, but instead of zombies, they are aliens who invaded Earth. You are one of the tough and cringe survivors, each with a particular set of skills.

Just like in similar games such as World War Z or Left 4 Dead, you meet up with your crew and you have to reach your destination and of course survive. In this particular game, you have a base where most of the survivors are and this is where you're going to keep going back and forth throughout the game.

Other than just pushing forward, surviving, and trying to deal with the alien invaders, there really isn't much going on story-wise or lore-wise. Not much is known about the invasion, about the aliens, and the DLC that continues the already barebones story is about a cult that worships these aliens. You deal with everything and everyone, have a cool cringe cinematic, and the end.

The devs clearly wanted more to do, but looks like the game bombed just like their previous work so all is left in the air. Don't jump in for the story, that's all I can say. Left 4 Dead barely had any story either, but it was a product of its age, now developers have much better tools and budget, they should've done better. Character banter is not really good storytelling.

Story rating: 6/10

Now obviously you're not going to play a zombie...sorry, alien killing coop game for the story. Let's be real here. The meat of Back 4 Blood is the gameplay. Is it good? I personally think it was great!

Shooting the "zombies" and the specials is really satisfying. Clearly whoever worked on the gun's mechanics either worked on L4D or was a fan. I have around 30 hours on Steam plus another 30 on Game Pass so yeah I can clearly state, despite being a linear game, I really enjoyed shooting sht. I doubt anyone can say otherwise. Most of the complaints are about the game pricing, being abandoned, and a general lack of content as one would expect from a modern coop game. If you're okay with a one-and-done coop experience like so many others, you won't have any issues with the game.

Besides the shooting, the game has a cool card system, where you can build your own deck and use it to improve your experience. Each character you play has their own special skills, for example, the doc can heal once per level each character. The card system improves your stats and gameplay mechanics for example you can build a deck that benefits the doctor, such as increased healing, or when a teammate goes down, everyone heals or gets buffed. There are a ton of cards for each and every one and can greatly impact the way you play. But that's not all, there are also "zombie" cards that are randomly spawned each level which will increase the challenge and modify gameplay elements such as the zombies exploding and damaging you when you kill them.

The only negative aspect is that they listened to the worst feedback and the worst kind of players which ultimately made them fail the game. People complained about the game being too hard and unfair, but I loved that about it. It's what made Left 4 Dead and WWZ great, the challenge. Sadly they nerfed the difficulty so much that it became a cake-walk unless you played on the final difficulty which is meant for 4 real players. I also have to give them credit for having really great AI teammates in case you want to solo or have no friends.

Gameplay rating: 8.5/10

The audio design is pretty good, the levels have a nice ambiance, and the aliens, especially the special ones have their own unique sounds so you can adapt to each encounter. The voice acting is also decent, a bit cringe, but nothing really bad, the banter you hear while exploring can be funny sometimes and the guns sound really nice, I love the shotguns. As for the soundtrack, it's decent as well, amps up when sht hits the fan, and it's chill when not much is going on.

Audio rating: 8/10

Visually the game looks great, lots of blood and goo everywhere when you kill an alien, guns get dirty, and the baked lighting is really nice to look at. The character models and aliens are all very detailed, tho not as much as a huge triple A game, but enough to please you.

Level design is honestly good, very linear and straightforward, but it has some open areas that you can explore. It's nice to take a break from all the open-world games we keep getting these days.

As for performance, the game runs beautifully, it has quite a few bugs and you may get stuck and have to restart, but nothing really major.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8.5/10

The game has really huge replay value and a very fun combat loop, but I'm not sure I'd pay full price for it. If you can get it on sale or on gamepass, then go for it. Highly recommended to have friends to play with, because I doubt you'll find active people playing it.

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Many ages ago I was never a Resident Evil fan, the 5th being the only one I actually finished when it was released. Years later, they rebooted the franchise, sorta, and the 7th one came in first-person, and it was amazing, so amazing that I started to read more on the lore of the franchise. Shortly after, Capcom gave us another huge surprise, Resident Evil 2 Remake, a game I liked so much that I replayed it 4 times. Then the third and 8th ones came, and while the former was not that good, the latter was exceptional.

And now here we are with Resident Evil 4 Remake, a fantastic survival horror/action game that surpassed all the previous ones in every way, and my game of the year so far.

👍 The good parts:
+Fantastic linear level design
+Great atmosphere
+Combat is incredibly satisfying

👎The bad parts:
-The voice acting is not that great


You play again just like in the second game, as Leon, now a few years older and more trained in combat. He is tasked with saving the president's daughter, Ashley, who was somehow kidnapped by a mysterious cult in Spain. As it's the case with any Resident Evil, things start to go very bad from the start as you have to survive an onslaught of angry and seemingly possessed villagers.

As you progress, you start to uncover more about this village and its cult leaders and how they connect with Umbrella Corporation. You'll also meet some new and familiar characters on the way. It's a pretty straightforward typical Resident Evil story, won't blow your mind if you haven't played the original or if you're familiar with most of the franchise lore. The cool dude has to rescue a pretty girl from zombie-like creatures, the end.

Resident Evil games will never truly shine in the story department, but that's not a bad thing either, as the saying goes: variety is the spice of life, and sometimes we love cheesy zombie horror flicks in our lives with cheesy lines and cheesy villains. It's all part of the charm, and I enjoyed it. Resident Evil 4 is the peak of the franchise, better than the second one and the third.

Story rating: 8/10

Just like its predecessors, Resident Evil 4 Remake is a third-person survival/horror/action game with very tight control and combat mechanics. It's a game where ammo is scarce most of the time and you'll have to adapt to your enemies and surroundings, craft ammo appropriately, and overall play smart while trying not to waste ammo. I have to emphasize on the ammo part, it's not a call of duty shooter, you will run out of ammo in a lot of parts of the game if you're not careful. Shooting enemies is a tactic in itself, you can preserve ammo by shooting multiple enemies with one bullet, or you can even finish them off with the knife. This ongoing loop is certainly not for everyone, but I loved it.

Besides ammo management, you also have to take into account inventory management as it's a limited space, and you cannot carry everything. The game has a lot of weapons, but at the end of the day, even if you upgrade your inventory space, ideally you won't carry more than 4 or so weapons.

Besides carefully and tactically shooting enemies and preserving ammo, there's also crafting in which you can combine several components and craft the type of ammo you need. Just like ammo, and guns, crafting components also take space in your inventory.

Not much else can be said about the gameplay, you progress through mostly linear environments, shooting whatever tries to kill you and carefully preserving ammo unless you want to run around like an idiot. It's a very fun imo and mechanical combat rather than most of the third-person games you might be familiar with that rely on cover or dodge. Resident Evil 4 Remake proves that the classical aim-and-shoot style is still incredibly satisfying.

Gameplay rating: 9/10

Regarding voice acting, there were a lot of complaints about Ada's voice though I personally did not find it bad at all, it was just okay, just like everyone else to be honest. It's probably due to the corny lines they had to read and so most of them adjusted to them just like in the original I would assume. Again, you probably won't play the Resident Evil games for the "amazing Oscar-winning story and dialogue" so not much else I can comment on them.

The sound design is fantastic though. Each environment sounds amazing and detailed and just adds a ton to an already exceptional atmosphere. The soundtrack is pretty decent too, nothing to complain about there.

Audio rating: 8.5/10

Visually the game looks great, nothing truly next-gen, but enough to please your eyes. The environments, the effects, and the character models are all filled with tons of details which should be the case for any quality AAA product. The game is also one of the few recently released games that runs phenomenally on PC. We're at the start of next-gen only games and just like the previous-gen start, PC ports were absolutely bad, but Resident Evil 4 shines bright among them.

Level design is as you'd expect, linear with certain parts of the game that are more open and where you can backtrack. In the age of open-world games with tons of icons on the map, Resident Evil 4, again, proves that people still love linear level designs. The length of the game is also exceptionally matched, as it took me around 24 hours to finish which is not too short and not too long for its genre.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 9/10

Resident Evil 4 Remake is a fantastic game, one you should not skip regardless of its price. A quality product from start to finish and currently my game of the year.

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Member when games and shows were not worried about offending? I member. South Park was always pulling no punches when dealing with real-world dramas and dumb stuff, and they still are, though I noticed they have been toning down the edgier stuff recently, which is quite a shame. That is why I decided to replay The Stick of Truth and Fractured But Whole, which I'll review separately.

I never thought classic turn-based RPG would ever work well with South Park, but Obsidian proved everyone wrong. The Stick of Truth is a hilarious and enjoyable rpg that no one should miss, even those who have not seen the show.

👍 The good parts:
+Typical and classic South Park humor
+Great rendition of the show as a game.
+Awesome soundtrack

👎The bad parts:
-The game offers almost no challenge in combat
-Exploration can get tedious

You play as a new kid that just recently arrived in South Park, with some mysterious background and hidden powers that his parents have not revealed to him. Shortly after your arrival, you get to meet the main kids of South Park role-playing as warriors, wizards, and the like fighting between them to control the ultimate weapon, the stick of truth.

As you battle elves and deal with a hilarious turn of events, things start to get weirder in South Park with every day passing, from alien abductions to government shenanigans. I won't go deeper into what you're going to deal with, as most of the stuff going around relies on comedic surprises, which you'll get plenty of.

The best thing about all of it, even if the game has many references to the show, you can go in blind without ever seeing the TV show and you're still going to laugh your ass off. The story is obviously a comedy and as such, it does an incredible job at making you laugh.

Story rating: 8.5/10

The Stick of Truth is a turn-based rpg where you control your main character in real-time outside of combat and battle in turns while in combat alongside your chosen companion. The exploration part can be a bit annoying, as it's all in 2.5D, and traveling back and forth between the town locations will wear itself off soon enough.

As you explore the town, you'll find loads of familiar places if you've seen the show, lots of secrets to uncover, tons of items, weapons, armors, and upgrades to discover for your own character. Some locations will only be accessible as you unlock story upgrades and if you plan on finding all collectibles and whatnot, be aware that there are a lot of missable ones and locations you cannot go back to.

The problem is, most of the weapons you find as well as the armors, feel rather useless, as the combat is incredibly easy even on the hardest difficulty. Before starting your real adventure you are of course going to be able to pick your class that you won't be able to undo or change later so choose wisely. The classes are your standard tropes, warrior, rogue, wizard, but also one very unique one, the jew, because it's a South Park game. Combat is very straightforward, you can use an item and an attack per turn which can be melee/ranged or one of your skills. Every companion is unique and they come with a range of funny and useful skills to decimate your opponents.

I mentioned the game is very easy, but be warned, some boss encounters, especially late game, might destroy you if you did not bother upgrading your skills or changing your weapons/armors. Overall, Obsidian did a fine job creating a working and enjoyable rpg experience considering the tone of the game, but it was a bit too safe overall, nothing really special or out of the ordinary if you played any rpg.

Gameplay rating: 7/10

As I mentioned in the story part, you don't really need to have seen the show to laugh and enjoy the game. Voice acting is as perfect as the show, and it's almost impossible not to laugh. Trey and Matt are comedic geniuses.

The surprising part was the soundtrack. I honestly did not expect such a game to have an incredible music. You'd think I jest considering the game but hear it for yourselves: https://youtu.be/eRIRSljV0WY

As for all the sound effects, they're all just as good and familiar as you'd normally hear in the show.

Audio rating: 8.5/10

Sadly they chose to lock the game at 30FPS because they thought it would be a good idea for the game to run and feel just like the show's animations. It takes some getting used to, probably best to play with a controller, but still not a fan of that decision.

The game is a perfect rendition of the TV show and it's extremely loyal to it visually. Every location and every character is the same as you see them on TV and as such, the atmosphere will feel incredible if you're a huge fan.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10

Fan or not, it's a hillarious game that no one should skip. Just buy the damn thing.

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Initially played it at launch on PS4, I decided to revisit this on PC because I really loved it, it's the best work David Cage has ever made that is consistent from start to finish without any cringe/goofy stuff we've seen in his previous work. Detroit Become Human is a fantastic story-focused game and one of the best in its genre along with the first Life is Strange.

👍 The good parts:
+Incredible visuals
+Excellent story
+Your choices have a big impact on the story

👎The bad parts:
-Annoying depth of field that cannot be removed properly
-Weak and with a lack of variety gameplay

If you played David Cage's previous works such as Heavy Rain or Beyond Two Souls, you'll know what to expect in Detroit Become Human, more or less anyway. You play as 3 main characters, all of them being androids in a futuristic Detroit where thanks to a scientific genius, androids have become the most common and used workforce for humans. Yes, if you're thinking about slavery, it is a nod to it, a twisted version. Most androids are treated as objects to carry human's stuff and clean for them but some of the more unique ones are also used in the police force.

You start off with Connor, a special android tasked with dealing with cases of deviants, which are androids who have gone past their programming and no longer obey humans and may even hurt or kill them. Most of the Connor parts are him and his detective partner, played by the awesome Clancy Brown, dealing with all sorts of crime cases done by these rogue androids. You'll also have to deal with your partner as well, as he hates androids and your relationship with him will matter in the long run.

The second android you play is Markus, a caretaker for a rich but kind painter. Without spoiling much, things don't go so well for Markus and he ends up having to deal with all sorts of androids where his choices may greatly impact the story, more so than the rest.

The third android you are given control of is Kara, who is hired as a housekeeper for a dad and his daughter. As you might expect, things are not as good as they seem for Kara either and things will escalate greatly. Kara's side has the least amount of impact on the main story.

Overall, I liked every character in the game, and the main story really delivers on what it set to do. Some choices that may seem minor can have a huge impact so be careful what you do. Even if things do not turn out as you expected or wanted, the game has a huge replay value, and even the bad choices are well done. It's not a perfect story, it has some pacing issues but overall it's almost impossible to dislike it and some might even tear up a bit.

Story rating: 9.5/10

Sadly as you might expect, the gameplay mechanics are extremely weak and there's not much you do besides pressing the right button prompts in quick-time events or just going forward most of the time.

There are no puzzles to boggle your mind, no inventory system, and absolutely nothing to keep you engaged besides the story which is a huge bummer. I understand that the aim is to provide a huge story with tons of choices, but some gameplay variety would've put the game on top of everyone's list. Developers should stop being afraid of adding puzzles or some forms of interactions that require the player to think for more than a second.

Be warned though, failing quick-time events, can have severe impacts on the story, so make sure you are always on your toes.

Gameplay rating: 6.5/10

It's a story-focused game so naturally, voices need to be good towards great, and luckily in Detroit Become Human's case, they are great with a few misses here and there. Connor's voice may take getting used to, but in the end, I liked him more than the rest, mostly because his story side also has the amazing Clancy Brown which is always great to hear/see.

The soundtrack is pretty good too, very minimalistic most of the time, but when sht hits the fan, it does fit well with the events happening on the screen. As for the rest of the sound effects, they're all standard, nothing bad or out of the ordinary.

Audio rating: 8.5/10

Visually the game is phenomenal when it comes to character models and environmental details/effects. Every location you visit is unique, and they were crafted with a lot of care and attention.

Sadly for some stupid reason, they decided to add a very aggressive blur and depth of field to absolutely everything around your characters, and the worse part is you cannot disable them by any normal means. You will eventually get used to them, but that doesn't make it better.

As for performance, well, it's locked to 60 FPS and it runs perfectly fine. Not a demanding game since most of the scenes are in enclosed spaces and I had no bugs whatsoever in my entire playthrough.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8/10

I see no reason why anyone should avoid Detroit Become Human even if you are someone who prefers gameplay over anything else, I'd still say give the game a try because the story and the choices you are given will capture anyone's attention. Recommended on any price.

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Every time someone mentions Bloodlines you'll want to replay it and so I did, along with the unofficial patch, but more on that later. Vampire The Masquerade Bloodlines is quite a classic action RPG, with a lot of ups and a lot of downs but with a consistently great atmosphere.

👍 The good parts:
+Incredible atmosphere
+Sexy soundtrack
+Pretty good story

👎The bad parts:
-Even with the unofficial patch, it's a huge buggy mess
-Poor and janky combat

Bloodline is without a doubt a very underrated game in regards to its main and side stories. Even to this day, I enjoyed it so you can imagine what some of us felt almost 20 years ago when it launched.

The game starts pretty chaotically, you become a vampire, illegally, and you are sentenced to death. However, that is shortly interrupted by the Brujah vampire gang leader which is in opposite of the way the prince of LA does things and thus you get spared and are employed automatically by the said Prince LaCroix to do his bidding.

After a brief tutorial, you arrive at your place in Santa Monica where your whole story begins. It's a huge political plot full of war and mystery between the vampire clans and you are in the middle of them all. How you choose to deal with it, who to trust, and who to help is up to you, and that is where the beauty of Bloodlines is found. You'll meet a lot of interesting vampire leaders, interesting humans as well, and some not so much, but everything is well crafted to present you a gripping dark story of vampires which we never actually saw in video games.

That's what makes Bloodlines special despite its many flaws. The choices you make will have consequences so be certain of what you pick or whom to help when the time comes. There is no pure good in the land of vampires. Remember that.

Story rating: 8/10

This is where the bad parts of the game are found and which turned off a lot of people from it. Bloodlines is a mix of first-person shooter and third-person melee depending on how you play. It's also an RPG in which you can create your own character by picking the vampire clan you wish to be as well as putting points in your character stats.

The RPG aspect is decent, you have a ton of things to develop, such as lockpicking or hacking as well as upgrading your specific clan skills which are unique for all clans with the exception of 2-3 basic skills. Sadly nothing is made equal and a lot of stats will become rather useless toward the mid-end game. My advice is to just focus on something rather than spending it all around and always go for lockpicking. It's a mandatory stat to increase in my honest opinion.

The other aspect is the dialogue which I'll talk about briefly. There are certain characters and story aspects where picking the right dialogue choices may have pretty different outcomes. The game never tells you this, but there's a hidden karma system or something like that for some of the characters. Ultimately the main story won't change much and you'll still have several options at the end regardless of what you did with some of the more...unique individuals.

The final and worse part of the game is the combat. There's no nice way to say this but it's utter sht. Wanna play melee? Enjoy watching and missing and hitting enemies in the jankiest way possible. Wanna shoot things? Good luck aiming because it's bad as hell. There is nothing about combat that works well. It all boils down to using your clan skills, if they are overpowered, you just spam those, or you resort to cheesing your way most of the encounters. You could potentially stealth, as that is also an option but it's the worse stealth mechanics ever made. If your clan does not have any stealth-related spells, no matter how many points you have in sneaking, it's a coin toss because of the AI.

Gameplay rating: 6/10

Luckily things shine here just like in the story. Voice acting is pretty good, there's some obviously bad voices due to it releasing 20 years ago but even by Today's standards, some of the more important ones are still good.

The soundtrack is what builds the game's atmosphere and pushes it to eleven. Every location has its own unique music and they are incredibly atmospheric and moody, and fit well with the vampires and the whole night city vibes.

As for the rest of the sound effects, from guns to ambient, they are below average, sad to say. Very low quality and muffled but I suppose that's part of the game's age.

Audio rating: 8/10

Let me start with the great, the atmosphere. It's perfect and it aged like a fine wine. The different places you visit are all unique and oozing with night time atmosphere. It's always great to explore and the game always feels varied in this regard. Whoever designed the maps clearly had talent and knew what he was doing.

Visually it looked fine 20 years ago, though I don't think it has aged very well, at least, characters-wise. The biggest problem though are the bugs. At launch, it was a huge mess, so big that people could not even finish the game for many years until someone decided to fix what the devs abandoned. And those people have been fixing the game ever since. Sadly, some things will forever remain broken and even if you're using the unofficial patch, expect a ton of issues.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 7.5/10

If you never played this, you probably should give it a try keeping in mind that it is a very old game with a lot of things that have not aged very well and a lot of technical issues but if you can get past those, expect to be immersed in one of the best and unique atmospheres ever made.

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Atomic Heart is a rare and rough diamond found among all the turd nuggets that are more common in modern-day gaming. A good, but not without flaws immersive-sim, that takes huge inspiration from Bioshock and other similar games.

👍 The good parts:
+Great atmosphere and visuals
+Awesome soundtrack
+Gun combat is satisfying

👎The bad parts:
-Extremely janky overall
-AI and general difficulty is poor
-Puzzle mechanics are uninspired and easy

You play as a mysterious agent P-3 tasked with finding out and stopping a scientist that is trying to sabotage to release of Kollektiv 2.0 which essentially allows humans to communicate with one another wirelessly and control their robots as well just with their minds. This all happens in an alternate Soviet society where human evolution has peaked thanks to a famous scientist named Sechenov.

As you arrive at the main facility where the new technology is being developed, things go bad and the AI robots go berserk attacking all humans on sight. Alongside you, there is an AI called Char-les who is attached to your glove which offers more insight into what's going on around you.

Without going deeper into spoiler territory, all I can say is, weird things start to keep happening around you, more and more stuff starts to make less sense, and you start to question what is even going on anymore. It's pretty standard for immersive sims, you've seen it in Bioshock, you've seen it in Prey and similar twists are bound to shock you, more or less, here as well and yes, overall the story is good.

The main problem with how the devs chose to convey the story compared to Bioshock or Prey, is that it was annoying as hell. Most of the lore is found on computers with a ton of emails dumped in your face overwhelmingly. Moreover, your AI partner and yourself talk NONSTOP, so much that it ruined immersion every single 5 minutes, without exaggerating. Char-les and your character never shut up and they feel the need to explain everything, every detail, and dump a ton of information in your ears.

Story rating: 8/10

The gameplay is a bit of a mixed bag sad to report. It gets its inspirations correctly and even uses them adequately, but it also tries some not-so-good things which not only makes the game annoying at times, but it also wastes a lot of your time.

For starters the shooting is great, no doubt about it, the shotgun which in my opinion should be the main weapon at all times in these games feels great and punchy, but so do the other weapons. Shooting robots and other things is fun, but it does get a bit stale towards the end mostly due to the game being very easy even on the highest difficulty. Sadly the difficulty problems are also obvious in boss fights which are basically just HP sponges and as much as the devs tried to give them cool attacks and patterns you should avoid, it was still, a huge cake-walk.

The game also has a crafting system which is your main source of getting weapons, ammo, and upgrades. Exploration is important due to this because crafting and upgrading can be demanding. You also have access to certain skills and powers, much like Bioshock, but on a more weaker/useless scale. For example, you can get the shock ability which does exactly as you imagine it. Very useful vs almost everything in the game, but lacks mechanics like you used to shock water in Bioshock and whatnot.

The other major part of the game is the exploration and the puzzles. They're very weak sadly. Instead of making a huge facility or a place that easily connects all the main zones to one another as Prey did, the devs opted to make a large open map that you'll have to drive or run through from one facility to another, basically padding the game for no reason. Between the main areas and the optional ones, there is nothing worth exploring or doing, no unique or interesting event or story-related aspects, nothing. The optional areas are the puzzle parts of the game where you can obtain parts for your weapon upgrades. They offer almost no challenge, and they practically repeat over and over, shock the wall open up some platforms, and keep walking forward. Most of them don't even have enemies, essentially making them walking sim zones.

Huge potential here, but they bit more than they could chew with half the gameplay being satisfying and the other half feeling just kinda meh.

Gameplay rating: 7.5/10

The audio design is great, but for a lot of people it's not going to be great as I've seen a lot of complaints, and that is mostly due to the English voice acting. I will admit, Char-les and P3 are incredibly annoying because they essentially talk way too much than they should, but P3 is also generally a douchebag. A lot of people hated him, but I actually enjoyed his dumb ramblings. I genuinely laughed quite often at the two arguing and talking. Everyone else also does a fine job, the horny upgrade machine, Sechenov, etc. I had no issues with the English VO.

The music is fantastic though, it's mostly Russian songs remixed into hardcore metal or electronic stuff that fits incredibly well with the combat and atmosphere. As for the sound effects and everything else related to them, they are all great as well, with no issues whatsoever.

Audio rating: 8/10

We're at the start of the next-gen with games finally not releasing on old consoles anymore and just like the start of the previous gen when PS4 was released a lot of PC ports were abysmal. The same thing is happening now as well, with a lot of PC ports having huge stutters, VRAM requirements, and just being overall bad. Atomic Heart, on the other hand, runs incredibly well on PC. The visuals the game offers and the performance cost ratio is crazy. They did a miracle considering this is their first big game. Every location is visually breathtaking and the Sovietshock design of the game works great.

Speaking of visuals the game uses baked lighting and it looks insane and it's proof that with patience and talent, artists can still make games look crazy even without stapling some badly unoptimized RT effects. The level design also has signs of brilliance but as I mentioned before, they tried something new that didn't really work out well imo, but the main zones you do explore are great even if a bit too linear.

Performance wise as I said runs great and smooth, only had a few crashes and a small number of annoying bugs where I kept getting stuck in the ground which forced me to reload.

Graphics, performance and tech analysis score: 8.5/10

If you're a fan of games like Bioshock or Prey, there's no reason not to buy Atomic Heart. Runs great, looks great, and the combat is fun. There's a ton of room for improvement, but I am confident they can pull an amazing sequel if they want to.