Recent reviews by Warsmith

This game has succeeded in being the scariest game I have ever played... Seriously. I can only describe it as an unending fever dream as you force yourself to go against your instincts and face your fears.
Resident Evil's finest asset is how it invigorates exploration by making every room you unlock an enigma. Behind every door are glimpses at the mansion's history, hints of experiments gone wrong, and bizarre contraptions coated with an occult veneer. Solving a puzzle is to wipe away some of the fog that obscures your understanding. The game is an epitome of survival horror, when attacked by a foul monstrous creature the fear didn't come just from the haunting screams and throaty snarls, but from knowing that I was practically defenceless. By giving you the bare minimum to survive and a meagre carrying capacity elevated the dread causing you to constantly question each decision and journey. Adding to the fear you don't freely control the camera during your endeavours, every viewing angle enhances the claustrophobia. Some of the most dangerous places are also given the most limited screen space, causing you to keep your head on a non-stop swivel; you hear the growl of a living corpse behind you, but all you see is the dingy carpet, the peeling wallpaper. The environment design is so delightfully devilish, each scene feels ripped straight from a horror movie from a haunted mansion, spooky woodland cabin to a forgotten evil laboratory. Everything felt so finely tuned to induce blissful terror from an engrossing adventure to tense exploration and clever environmental puzzles; a true gem of fear.

Itchy.
Tasty.

Armoued Core VI Fires of Rubicon is a masterpiece, from its gameplay to the story and artistic design.
The combat is extremely fun, just flying a huge 10-meter tall steel mech through levels while bombing and shooting everywhere. Honestly, the levels themselves are kind of like an appetizer for the battles against similar hulking machines. Strategically dodging while timing my shoulder bazookas to stagger the enemy, then charging in and punching them with a chainsaw was always fun. You really feel the speed and ferocity in these pirouettes of metal against metal with flash-fast reflexes and dodges, accompanied by incredible voice acting that heightens the tension. The story brings intrigue constantly drawing you in, notably the way you build a reputation, so enemies scream and panic when they recognize you. The finale is menacingly epic and really pays off, feeding you with glory/heartbreak/vindication only aided by the raw soundtrack intensifying the conflict further. Character customization, and AC6 let you equip all sorts of guns; explosives, laser swords, laser rifles, etc, equipping up to 4 weapons at any given time. The game has so much variability, you can change your entire gameplay, from a tanky brute to a swift striker.

I’ve seen some complaints about the game’s graphics, but I think the graphics look solid enough, especially with some of the spectacles this game has to behold. The sense of scale gets reflected so well with bee-sized helicopters and shoe-box-sized skyscrapers.



Feed the fire, 621. Let the last cinders burn

Lies of P undeniably echoes the gameplay style and mechanics of Bloodborne and Sekiro to a significant extent. From the challenging visceral combat system, where precision and timing are crucial to the ominous atmosphere and grotesque enemy designs. However, despite the blatant similarities, Lies of P does manage to carve its own identity.

The narrative, although shrouded in mystery, introduces unique lore and a captivating world leaving you hooked throughout. The incorporation of different environments and level designs paired with an extraordinary soundtrack showcases the developer's creativity and ambition. There is so much tactical acumen allowing for meticulous fine-tuning with tons of weapons options offering unique pairing options for each weapon head and handle in addition to a diverse and useful range of legion arm abilities. The weapon-grinding & weapon-break mechanic plays into an interesting dynamic, acting as a secondary battle to keep your weapon from breaking before the enemy's weapon. The grindstone also allows you to imbue your weapon with a variety of really useful effects. The bosses are magnificent, never failing to carry weight or momentum behind them paired with perfect music and entertaining fast paced move sets. The last boss of the game was truly incredible, a wonderful song of metal clashing metal with an astonishing zenith in the narrative to suit. One thing I would've wished is that your individual decisions had a greater impact on the story, it's rather the culmination of choices that has any significance.
Overall I would thoroughly recommend this game if you're looking for a challenge and beautiful story.


You're special, son.

Wolfenstein The Old Blood has some funny moments and pretty punchy gameplay but compared to it's equally priced counterpart Wolfenstein The New Order, this game feels more like a protracted prequel DLC. Large sections of this game feel tedious with poorly implemented stealth sections, the boss fight at the end was poor and there's a lot more weapon variety in The New Order. The game is undeniably fun but largely fails to meet the standard of other instalments in the series therefore I'd recommend this game on a heavy discounted sale or skip it entirely.

Wolfenstein The New Order is a ferocious game of relentless bloody assault against the Nazi regime, the game play is engaging, and its story is hooking. It makes you feel constantly on edge having you evading the brutal totalitarianism of the New Order. Whilst the game takes itself lightly it certainly does not shy away from hammering home the moment-to-moment interactions, disturbing imagery and thematic content of life under occupation, this serves to enhance your righteous retribution complimenting perfectly with the intense gore during combat. The variety and aesthetic of enemies is amazing from normal Nazi troops to giant robot dogs, huge tripod robots that shoot lightning bolts and jet fighters with a myriad other mechanical monstrosities. Killing each type of enemy never really expands beyond filling them up with lead and lasers, but the sheer fun of the combat more than makes up for it. The arsenal of weapons and tools is expansive from the classic assault rifle and shotgun, Tesla grenades which explode into electrical clouds, laser rifles and a precision laser tool allowing you to cut through fences and chains to traverse the environment. Every weapon can eventually be upgraded and can also be dual wielded for devastating effect. Enemies will aggressively hunt you attacking your flanks, sliding into cover as they leapfrog from position to position, and every sizeable encounter will take place in an area that has multiple potential pathways and approaches including surprisingly... Stealth. The main area of contention I have with the game is that you must manually pick up ammunition and armour which can often get you killed in higher difficulties. Although from the engaging story full of strong characters to the open combat that allows you to play your own way, this game is certainly worth the price.

Batman Arkham Asylum is a remarkable game with an incredibly eerie atmosphere and satisfying addictive combat. The voice acting is phenomenal with titans such as Mark Hamill & Kevin Conroy bringing life to such well established characters, every sentence felt iconic. The relationship between the Joker and Batman felt organic and fleshed-out here with the dialogue weaving this beautiful tale of chaos vs order maintaining suspense throughout the story. The game has you feeling hopeless, desperately containing an increasingly bigger threat reflected in the environment and new enemies keeping the gameplay evolving. The hand-to-hand combat feels so satisfying and crisp split up with engaging invisible predator segments allowing you to exploit Batman's diverse equipment and abilities. The easter-eggs and backstory to Amadeus were incredibly expansive showing the level of detail and love from the creators, adding so much content. The Supervillain bossfights were unique, memorable and in some cases outright terrifying, although some of these fights did get repetitive after a while. Arkham Asylum encapsulates the feeling of Batman, play this game.

You don't want to miss this. Really! It'll be a blast!

Boltgun is a fantastic polished shooter, it's combat is satisfying and addicting whilst it's alternate retro art style places it amongst the best Warhammer 40,000 games. The sound design is gripping with each foot stomp feeling bulky and destructive [akin to a hurtling refrigerator], the landscapes are beautiful to traverse with incredible set pieces (Vast sprawling Cathedral gothic interiors, Forgeworld foundries and that escher-inspired room etc..) and the weapons are each suitably unique and useful. The constant dashing, clanging and barging forward makes you feel like an unstoppable whirlwind of purity and vengeance. Now the game attempts to keep it's ferocity throughout and for the most part, it achieves it. However during the mid game it's momentum drags as the frequency of new enemy types and weapons drops off entirely. Additionally the soundtrack here is an outlier to other Warhammer video game titles as it never really elevates the gameplay or has any particular weight.
But overall due to it's smooth fast-paced combat, art style and satisfying sound design I would highly recommend this game to fans of the genre.


Suffer not the heretics to live

Let me start by saying this game is pretty... pretty mediocre.
Graphically this game is very impressive (Although the eclipse imagery was heavily underutilised) with lighting and environmental design, especially underwater, looking really good. Stealth mechanics have had a major upgrade and now feel very responsive. It's always fun to be covered in mud, buried in thick fauna of the jungle with a knife out rambo style. Additionally I like the new rappeling and overhang abilities which allow for tense vertical sections. However this game is just soulless. The story isn't very interesting, there wasn't any enticing mystery and most of the dialogue makes me want to fall asleep. It's so superficial and average with no real twist or turns to keep you hooked, just isolated side quests around Paititi. The game is buggy, there are game breaking glitches that have not been patched at key areas in tombs and the main story (pillars and levers not operable) and the controller doesn't stop vibrating. Hunting was pretty non-existent in this game and artifacts were uninteresting.
Shadow of the Tomb Raider is the worst game of the Tomb Raider trilogy. I would't recommend this game alone.

Rise of the Tomb Raider is an enjoyable continuation of the series, some mechanics have been improved although the story did stagnate slightly. The climbing elements are fluid and the graphics are awesome. I enjoyed the diversity of the combat mechanics here and the stealth system has had an overall improvement. Additionally the maps are incredibly rich with things to do in this game; optional tombs, relics, documents, hunting etc. I felt like the puzzles in this game were worse than the previous instalment, they were easy and felt repetitive.

Furi is an incredible masterpiece of carefully crafted combat, soundtrack and character design. Your journey will begin daunting and unconquerable but with time and effort, you will get better and reap the rewards. "Perfection is not a state of being, it is a state of striving".

This game presents a spectrum of raw emotions lending, especially to its soundtrack (which is phenomenal) as you learn more about the beautiful story with each trial and hardship. There is a huge skill ceiling to this game with a higher difficulty mode and an even more challenging DLC. I would wholly recommend this game to anyone looking for the satisfaction gained only from self-improvement


On a scale of 1 to 10, Furi is an 11. And I'd give it a 12.