Recent reviews by Aspect

This game has had its fair share of controversies, and some of the business practices of those at Creative Assembly have been rightfully criticised in the wake of several DLC launches. It's important to speak up as a community and let companies know when they're crossing lines or taking the wrong approach, and CA's negligence and greed at times has been outrageous, and does seem to have been genuinely recognised and tackled by the developers - albeit more slowly than it should have been.

That being said, at its core, Warhammer 3 - and in particular Immortal Empires - feels much like an 'Avengers: Endgame' scenario: the culmination of years of work, build-up, adjustment, and growth. Seeing the many, many diverse races become more and more fleshed out across the trilogy, watching entire mechanics come and go as others are refined, experiencing something so ambitious in scope gradually become realised... it's been quite amazing.

I'm a long time fan of the Total War series, with one of my first ever PC games as a kid being Rome: Total War. I've seen the highs and lows of the franchise, I've put thousands of hours into these games over two decades. The Warhammer Total War trilogy (and therefore this current, ultimate iteration) has, in my opinion, blown the entire series out of the water in a transformative way. Not necessarily in polish, in fact it's been one of the jankier rides in the franchise's history. But marrying the Total War formula to a fantasy setting has been like unlocking a new power level. The freedom provided has led to the kind of scale, variety, creativity, originality, outlandishness, and spectacle that is simply not possible in a historically grounded setting. That's not to say their historical games suck, but I have genuinely found it difficult to enjoy them since this particular genie has come out of its bottle.

Such spectacle and variety have made the Warhammer trilogy of Total War games feel infinitely more replayable, refreshing, and downright fun that any other entry in the series for me personally. In fact, I'd go as far to say it may be the single most replayable strategy game I've ever played, rivalled only by Civilization V.

It isn't perfect, and CA should continue to be held accountable for their slip-ups. A recent bug made the game unplayable for me for four whole months before it was finally fixed, and that just isn't good enough. But I also believe this is one of the current gold standards in strategy gaming, and has set several bars that will be VERY difficult to surpass. I could see myself clocking in 3-4 thousand hours before I even begin to get bored. My only hope for this game is that the developers see their vision through to completion before moving onto the next fictional Total War project (Warcraft please), and that includes revisiting the idea of including Araby, as well as potentially Nippon, Albion, and/or Ind. Regardless, I can't call this a masterpiece, but I would call it a stunning accomplishment.

There's a LOT I could say about this game so I'll try to keep it brief.

Persona 5 completely changed my life. That's not hyperbole. I played it for the first time in July - only five months ago. I adored it so much, that since then I have not only attempted to absorb all Persona-related media I can find, but it GOT ME INTO ANIME BIG TIME, and I have spent THOUSANDS of pounds on manga, as well as bought many anime-or-Persona related figures, gotten four different anime-or-Persona related tattoos, and even went on holiday to Tokyo, with one of the main reasons being to visit Akihabara.

For almost ten years, my favourite game of all time has been The Witcher 3. Yet the gap between this game and it, in my mind, is colossal. Not to the detriment of TW3, simply because P5 is that good. I did not expect to EVER enjoy a video game this much. Everything about it is incredible. This is the most astoundingly stylish media experience I've ever had. It's overflowing with charm and warmth, the gameplay loop is immensely engaging, the pacing is (with the exception of one small arc in the mid-game) phenomenal, the music is gorgeous... I could go on.

Unfortunately all of my screenshots were rendered inaccessible before I had the chance to upload them, as the Steam Deck I used to play the majority of it on broke, prompting me to buy an upgraded one. When I inevitably play through New Game Plus, I intend on making up for that.

I love this game. It's entirely possible I'll never find a game I wholeheartedly love more than this. It feels like it's become a part of my own identity, that's how much I love this game. To me, this is a true masterpiece and one of the greatest pieces of media of all time.

This game is absolutely fantastic...when it works.

When I say, 'when it works', I don't mean the usual technical or framerate issues; I mean how it has some of the worst, most frustratingly stupid friendly AI ever put into a video game; how party members will consistently take the least effective actions available to them; how familiar pathfinding feels like it was intended to actively sabotage you and cause your familiars to do less damage; how the friendly AI never, EVER uses Defend, even when you use 'All Out Defence' and even if that means they get one hit KO'd.

As a relevant side note, I never got the Steam achievement for defeating the final boss. Why? Because after scraping through three fights in a row over the span of 20+ minutes, spamming provision after provision in a desperate attempt to play damage control for my two utterly inept party members whilst weaving bouts of damage in between, the familiar that was about to land the killing blow got stuck on the spiritual aura that must have been resonating from a nearby enemy and creating an invisible hitbox, refused to step around it, got blasted to 1hp by a move the boss was charging, and then the PAINFULLY SLOW animation for using a healing item couldn't go off in time before I got tapped by a smaller mob. Very frustrating, but whatever, I'll just do it again...except no, I'm taken ALL THE WAY BACK TO BEFORE THE FIRST BOSS FIGHT, EVEN THOUGH (SMALL SPOILER) THE THIRD 'PHASE'/FIGHT IS AGAINST AN ENTIRELY DIFFERENT ENEMY TO THE FIRST TWO . So instead I just looked up the ending cutscenes and called it there. A horribly sour way to end what was overall a lovely journey.

Despite everything I've said there, I genuinely do recommend this game - the janky mechanics don't make enough of a difference on a moment-to-moment basis to hamper the fun, and pretty much everything else is great. Engaging, at times surprisingly challenging, combat; decently fleshed out progression systems; absolutely spectacular visual direction; writing full of charm and humour; and more.

The game deserves your time, as long as you play it with the understanding that there will be the occasional moment where some total ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ makes you groan and roll your eyes.

I absolutely hate this game, but it's in the top 10 games I've ever played. Maybe top 5. It's genuinely difficult to describe how the game makes you feel, only that it makes you feel strongly. Prior to playing this game, I would've said that a game 'fails' at its core if it isn't fun - that's what video games are, in the many things that can mean to different people. However, I can't honestly say Fear & Hunger is even a little bit 'fun', and yet it was absolutely worthwhile and enjoyable upon reflection, which has made me question the very nature of video games. Behind the frustration of being thrown into a world with many punishing systems and intentionally left to figure them out for yourself, there is an endlessly compelling atmosphere and awe-inspiring world building, as well as a game that is very rewarding of experimentation - something more games should strive to be. Everybody that is comfortable with extreme content (and I do, seriously, mean extreme, with not-uncommon depictions of graphic SA among the constant gore) should play this, as it's a unique gaming experience, albeit a necessarily miserable one. Fear & Hunger is genuinely special in the gaming landscape, a bizarre-yet-important milestone in gaming culture that I'm glad is receiving its recognition.

Kingmaker is an absolutely fantastic (if somewhat buggy) experience with noticeable rough edges, but it suffers from some infuriating design choices throughout, especially in the final act, where what should be an engaging and spectacular finale to a great story is overshadowed by gruelling mechanics. Despite deeply enjoying the rich systems and expansive world for over 150 hours by the time I got to endgame, I found myself rushing through the last few hours just to get relief from the endless Wild Gaze, Swarm, and bullet sponge enemies. Whilst it didn't ruin the overall experience for me, it was a real shame and blotted what was otherwise a charming, rewarding experience of a game.

Look, all things considered this game is a masterpiece of storytelling, gameplay loops, enemy design, and many other things. It's incredible, that's not new news. But I need to use this space to say three things: firstly, ♥♥♥♥ every thrall, every man-serpent, every corvian knight, and every judicator; ♥♥♥♥ the nameless king, ♥♥♥♥ sister friede, and ♥♥♥♥ slave knight gael. Secondly, my kindest thanks to the mysterious "DON QUIXOTE XVII" for helping me end my two hour nightmare with the sister friede fight. Thirdly, the Spear of the Church fight is the worst designed boss fight I've ever played through, it's a genuine abomination. On most attempts I was spending thirty minutes being kited by somebody with bad internet, so barely any of our hits were registering any damage, despite visibly connecting, spilling blood, and playing the sound effects as though having hit. It was the only time that I was forced to go offline in order to progress, because the fights were so buggy that they literally couldn't end unless I gave up. I don't think PvP bosses are inherently bad (assuming the PvP aspect is optional), but if you don't have a solution in your netcode for things like this, then you shouldn't include them. This experience was somehow worse than Bed of Chaos, and not by a small margin. Anyway;

Dunk head in wax.

Ghostwire: Tokyo is criminally underrated, and easily my GOTY 2022. Gorgeous, engaging, and with an innovative combat system that felt fluid and immersive after getting over the learning curve, it's unfortunate that it was overshadowed on the landscapes of both RPGs and gaming overall by Elden Ring (which is in itself a great game). The writing here is genuinely funny and characterful, the story, whilst predictable at some points, features some expertly designed boss fights and impactful emotional beats, and the city itself is coloured in by a vibrant, mystic art style tying it all together.

What can be said that hasn't been said already? Not many games have been able to stand the test of time like Oblivion. It is and likely always will be one of the quintessential RPG experiences.

Visually stunning, exceptionally intriguing, and thoroughly fun, Control may drag its feet at times with story pacing, but its abundance of charm and atmosphere more than make up for it.

One of the best RPGs of all time featuring one of the best voice acting casts of all time. There are undeniably some slow periods and some frustrating technical issues, but overall this game is phenomenal, and ambitious even by modern standards.