Recent reviews by Zyphyne

If you are Dying Light player before, you should have this game!
It is awesome, more challenges and more parkour!

Glad this game nominated as Game Of The Year 2022

Overall it's a good game and the dev keep trying to improve this game :)

This game is very fun to play!
Recommended if you are looking for "chubby" game xD

Source : IGN

Assassin’s Creed Odyssey is a resounding achievement in world building, environment, and engaging gameplay with occasional problems throughout. Its incredible recreation of ancient Greece is something I’ll want to go back to long after I’ve finished its main story, and its excellent systems mesh together in a way that’s hard to beat. While there are definite rough edges, Odyssey sets a new bar for Assassin’s Creed games and holds its own in the eternal debate over the best open-world roleplaying games ever.

For the most part, however, Lara spends her time alone. The actual practice of tomb raiding takes the front seat here, and story missions feature fewer firefights than the past two games and more lonely traversal across cavernous, ancient architecture. In this regard, it feels more in step with the spirit of the original Tomb Raider games of the 90s and early 2000s, and it was a joy to feel so small and insignificant among such beautifully crafted spaces.

Perhaps more significantly, Shadow of the Tomb Raider’s impressive world features the best puzzles in the series. Its puzzle-based story missions, optional crypts, and nine challenge tombs are giant, intricate affairs where ideas are rarely reused, forcing you to figure out their rules afresh each time. Whether it be ‘light four mirrors’ or ‘climb this spindly tower of death’ or ‘explore a giant freighter’, each one has its own mechanics and personality and, most importantly, is genuinely tough. A number of times I thought I’d exhausted all options before adjusting my thinking just a little, only to have the solution snap into place

To make things even more challenging (or easier, should you have trouble) you can adjust the difficulty independently across the three main styles of gameplay: puzzle solving, environment navigation, and combat. Whenever I felt Lara’s voiceover or environment highlights were being too instructive and giving me clues to mysteries I’d rather solve myself I would up the difficulty and really lose myself inside the maniacal creations of developer Eidos Montreal.

The tombs deliver a wonderfully eerie atmosphere too. An omnipresent cult, an unnerving, string-based score, and an aggressive subterranean enemy type, The Yaaxil, mean Shadow of the Tomb Raider frequently feels like a horror game, which makes for wonderfully tense exploration as you wade through mountains of bodies or hear an animalistic growl in the distance. Once again, there’s that clever homage being paid to the 1996 original; in this instance to its weird, psychedelic heart.

Lara’s new overhang and rappel abilities give her a gratifyingly diverse set of movement options. Her rappel, in particular, allows for level design that’s much more vertical than anything this young Lara has seen before. The simple act of moving from one area to another is often a dizzying mix of up and down and side to side; swinging from one wall to another, catching yourself with your pickaxe at the very last second with animations that convincingly convey her struggle to hang on for dear life.

Swimming in large, three-dimensional environments is also, surprisingly, not too bad, thanks to tight controls that a handful of puzzles capitalise on. Though the fear of drowning is real, I never felt like I was being overly punished by turning in the wrong direction - a staple of all underwater levels - and instead felt tension rather than frustration.

Source : IGN

The best thing about playing Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor
is that it makes me feel over-the-top powerful without sacrificing the fear of defeat. It’s got great free-flowing combat and a good-sized, good-looking open world full of Lord of the Rings lore to find, but what makes it special is what’s going on in the background: an intriguing hierarchy of enemies that gives every victory and defeat extra meaning.

A brief and shocking opening scene sets a dark and brutal tone as Talion, a former Ranger of Gondor, is ritually executed along with his family. Talion’s spirit is then bound to an amnesiac elf ghost and returned to Middle-earth for vengeance against Sauron’s forces. It’s a story that doesn’t make total sense for hardcore Tolkien scholars, but it’s well-acted. It makes decent use of Gollum, and there are a couple of memorable new characters - particularly Ratbag the comic-relief uruk, who guides you through the process of infiltrating the enemy army.

My interest in the plot dwindled toward the end, but it does a fair job of explaining why Talion has such sweet supernatural powers with his sword, dagger, and bow. Much like in the Batman: Arkham games, you can choose to stealthily pick off enemies one at a time, or dive head-first into a brawl with dozens of opponents and beat the crap out of them with a smoothly animated series of attacks and counters. Unlike Batman, of course, Mordor’s involve great, gory decapitation and stabbing animations, and outside of the scripted story missions, there are few distinctly separated stealth and combat areas. It’s enticingly freeform.

Acrobatically slaughtering Sauron’s ugly minions feels as easy as it appears to be for Legolas in Peter Jackson’s movies, and it’s more fun to do than to watch. Sword combat feels pretty much just as good here as brawling does in Batman – which is to say it’s amazing. Mordor’s take on building up hit streaks to power up lethal takedowns is a bit more forgiving, in that you’re almost never locked into an animation. If you push the counter button, Talion will drop what he’s doing and counter instantly. It’s extremely responsive. A time-slowing power makes scoring a couple of headshots with the bow easy, whether in stealth or in the heat of battle, though it’s kept in check by ammo constraints and a limited (but upgradable) supply of time-slowing juice. And even though stealth gameplay is pretty basic, it’s great to have the option to thin the herd a bit before they know you’re there.

What really sets the feel of Mordor’s combat apart from the Batman games is that it’s really easy to get into trouble, especially early on. If you let the uruks raise the alarm in one of their strongholds, or just happen across a few large wandering groups on the densely populated map, you can quickly become overwhelmed by more enemies than you can hope to handle. Picking out the shield bearers and ax-wielding berserkers who are immune to frontal attacks and killing them first becomes tough to do when you’re completely surrounded, and it goes downhill from there. Health doesn’t recharge much on its own, and until you can upgrade your health pool, you may find yourself succumbing to death by a thousand pinpricks if you don’t retreat.

Things got a lot easier a few hours in when I’d leveled up and unlocked more of Talion’s skill tree so that I could build up combos quicker, execute two enemies for the price of one, and even fight mounted on a huge, rancor-like graug who pops uruks into his mouth like jellybeans. It feels powerful, but I still don’t feel invincible even with everything nearly maxed out.

And what’s really cool about Mordor is that whether you win or lose a fight, something interesting happens. If you kill an uruk captain, he drops a rune that can be slotted into one of your weapons for bonuses. Some of them changed the way I played, like the legendary rune that extended the amount of time I have to score another hit before my combo count resets by 10 seconds, and one that made me immune to poison attacks. If any uruk kills you, even if he’s a random grunt, he levels up and earns new abilities and some cooler armor. Maybe he gets promoted up the chain of command. You’ll definitely run into him again later to settle the score, and he’ll have a new introduction taunt about his victory when you meet. It makes each death feel meaningful.

Most uruk captains do tend to die too quickly to really become memorable, but some definitely did. (Sometimes they’ll survive being apparently killed by you and come back with a scarred face.) For that reason, and to identify the arrival of a significant threat, I never really got tired of the action-pausing cutscenes that play when a captain shows up. There are enough different voices and multiple possible lines that I rarely saw repeats, and the uruk faces are surprisingly well animated and expressive.

Even though the hierarchy is a pretty simple system when you understand what it’s doing, and realize that these uruk captains aren’t actually roaming the map in real time, it’s great to play with. Uruks have an internal power struggle for rank, and you can interrupt their duels, feasts, hunts, and more to pick fights and kill off Uruk captains and ultimately the powerful Warchiefs. Each captain has his own randomized strengths and vulnerabilities, so every fight is at least a little different. I ran into a couple of guys who seemed invulnerable to almost everything, which was a little annoying – one fight took me about 15 minutes of repeatedly chasing down a captain who was invulnerable to my sword and dagger and filling him with arrows trying to damage him faster than his health regenerated. Eventually, though, they all went down.

In the second act, you transition from the bleak, brown map to a refreshingly greener-looking area of Mordor. There, Talion and his elf-ghost buddy suddenly realize he can mind-control uruks and turn them against each other. (It feels like something might’ve been cut out there.) That’s even more fun, because the ability to “brand” an enemy gives you the choice of either killing a captain for a rune reward or controlling him and siccing him on one of his former allies. Taking an uruk alive can be trickier than lopping off his head, though, so it’s more challenging to accomplish the new goal of mind-controlling five Warchiefs. I love how you have the option to mind-control a Warchief’s lieutenants, then kill the Warchief, to watch your minion become the new Warchief. I did notice that the mind-control visual effect caused some slowdown on the PlayStation 4 version (the Xbox One version has yet to arrive for testing), but it didn’t interfere much with combat.

Charging through the decent but less-exciting story missions would probably take around 12 hours, but the goal of killing or dominating the Warchiefs is much more time-consuming and interesting. I spent around 25 hours to reach the end, and there’s still a lot of challenging side missions based around testing sword, bow, and dagger skills left to do. And, of course, lots of collectables and wildlife-hunting challenges.

- The Verdict
Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor stands out from other open-world action games by putting a great new layer on top of the trail that Batman blazed. I was surprised at how well it integrates its excellent combat with rewarding feedback and progression not just for me, but also for my enemies. I’ve had many more memorable and unpredictable battles with its randomized Warchiefs and captains than I did in the scripted campaign missions, and I expect those to keep on coming.

Source : IGN

Awesome explosions: Just Cause 3’s
got ‘em! The story would have you believe all of this spectacular demolition is about liberating the picturesque island nation of Medici from a mustache-twirling dictator. But considering it doesn’t even care how many civilians you blow up in the process, we all know what it’s really about: ridiculous over-the-top action, physics-based comedy, and impressive destruction in a vast sandbox world. In those areas, Just Cause 3 is at the top of its game.

The map is absolutely huge (reportedly its three islands span 400 square kilometers, but I didn’t have a tape measure on me to confirm), and how you choose to get from its sunny beaches and forests to its snowy peaks is a big part of the joy of it. There’s fast travel if you’re into the whole brevity thing, plus arcadey-feeling cars, planes, boats, and more, but learning to use Rico Rodriguez's unique combination of grappling hook, parachuting, and wingsuit to gracefully zip around is the most challenging and rewarding. There’s a real skill to it, and mastering techniques such as the no-parachute, no-wingsuit Spider-Man-style swinging takes some practice.

- Double-Dog Dare
I was driven to experiment with those methods because Square Enix’s servers are always tracking just about every move you make, popping up with alerts when you’re climbing the leaderboard in stats like longest freefall or highest parachute climb, constantly pitting you against your friends list to create countless tiny challenges. It even pops up with a notification when someone beats your score, seeming to ask if you’re going to let that aggression stand.

It’s also routinely hilarious, because all of this acrobatic movement can easily end in Rico performing a face-first slam into the ground or a building or a tree. That always makes me smile through a cringe, and especially spectacular ones made me glad I had ShadowPlay running in the background.

Combat shares in that violent slapstick humor because it gives you so many absurd tools that enable creative destruction. You can, of course, simply shoot guys in run-and-gun fights, but if you put in a little extra effort you can, among many other things, grapple-kick them, string them up to the nearest tall building, tie them together and conk their heads, or tie moving vehicles to the ground to create a spectacular end-over-end flip and crash. Another favorite of mine is running up to an unsuspecting soldier, slapping a sticky explosive charge literally on their face, backing away, and hitting the detonator. It’s doubly hilarious if you’ve unlocked the rocket-booster bombs, because the victim’s last few moments are spent writhing on the ground as the thruster throws them around before it explodes.

Wonky physics goofs like an enemy jeep launching through the air after a minor collision are generally a great time, especially since realism isn’t exactly the goal here so much as having crazy things happen. Rico’s also unbelievably durable to anything other than being inside a vehicle when it explodes, so having a whole building collapse on top of you is funny rather than tragic. It was only when those things didn’t work out in my favor that I was irked, such as when I had a fighter jet air-dropped to my location (you can do that once you’ve unlocked it, because Just Cause 3 is all about instant gratification) only to have it spontaneously explode before I could get in, as though it was

- Blow The Roof Off The Place
Blowing things up is what Just Cause 3 does best. Though not everything in this world is destructible (typical buildings are impervious to damage, for example) enough that Just Cause 3 has some of the best and most empowering explosions this side of Red Faction: Guerrilla. Your main targets are exploding stuff like fuel tanks and power generators, which are clearly marked in red and scattered liberally around most towns and military bases, but you can also collapse flimsy-looking structures like guard towers, gas stations, and, even more spectacularly, huge bridges. Combined with a good number of extremely potent weapons, ranging from machine guns and grenade launchers to an airstrike-targeting laser and a shoulder-mounted nuke, you can rain destruction down on everything in your path even while floating on your parachute. And of course, you can hijack virtually any enemy vehicle to obtain infinite ammunition. It’s a recipe for great moments.

Enemies bolster the illusion of being an over-the-top action hero by being as dumb as bags of rocks. They’re slow to react, usually terrible shots, and will often drive their vehicles into each other or over cliffs. That works out, because there are a ton of them and they spawn out of nowhere, so even with Rico’s ridiculous durability and recharging health, you can still get overwhelmed if you don't recognize when it's time to retreat. Also, a shout-out to the one advanced soldier who pulls some action-hero moves of his own, spinning around to dodge you John Woo-style as he fires pistols from both hands.

Just Cause 3’s main problem, which arises from its absolutely massive map, is that liberating the many towns, bases, and outposts across dozens of provinces on Medici’s three large islands becomes repetitive. You blow up everything with red on it, take over the police station, maybe kill a few specific enemies, knock over a statue of the dictator, then raise the Rebel flag, and you’re done. Most liberated villages reveal uninteresting challenges like race courses for cars, boats, and planes, and those in turn unlock some hit-or-miss new abilities for Rico. Then you do it again, and again, and again, sometimes as forced padding between story missions.

Military bases are more fun to take over, since many of them feel more custom-built and unique - they include locations like naval bases, air strips, military depots, army-controlled mines, and sometimes include heavy defenses. Plus, they’ll throw a lot more heavy military hardware at you, which gives you the opportunity to hijack powerful tanks, helicopters, and jets. They’ll also usually unlock more interesting challenges, such as rounding up precious ore stones using an oversized magnet you tow around or driving a car loaded with explosives into a cluster of enemies.

- The Verdict
Just Cause 3 is a playground where you get to be a physics-defying force of destruction, and its loop of liberating dozens of towns across this enormous scenic world would’ve gotten old much quicker if the combat wasn’t so full of options for free-form mayhem. Getting the most out of it requires some creativity and tolerance for performance bugs on your part, so come expecting to make at least some of your own fun.

Source : Trusted Reviews

IO Interactive’s Hitman remains the finest stealth title in recent years. It surpassed expectations with its vastly creative episodic format and wonderful range of locations. Playing as Agent 47 across the likes of Sapienza, Hokkaido and Paris was a joy, and continues to provide fuel for experimentation to this day. After parting ways with Square Enix, IO has now released Hitman: GOTY Edition, bringing all new content to the sleuthing adventure.

Hitman’s new iteration bundles together all episodes from the first season alongside Patient Zero, a new campaign that re-invents existing locations with new targets, equipment and outfits to discover. While shorter than I expected, it’s ripe with potential replay value and opportunities for endless murder. After wiping out a routine pair of targets, Agent 47 incidentally activates a slew of sleeper agents scattered across the globe. Conveniently, they’re all hanging around places you’ve visited before.

These personalities range from deranged cult-leaders to evil, mass-murdering authors. IO Interactive’s tongue-in-cheek writing is back in full force, providing us with brilliant moments of incidental humour as we try our best not to get caught. Hitman can be played however you like, whether it means going in guns-blazing or slowly working your way into an enemy stronghold with different disguises. The best thing is, it’s always fun and rewarding, with new challenges and equipment being unlocked as you begin to think outside the box.

Newcomers to Hitman have a ludicrous amount of content to dig into here. All locations can be played multiple times by chasing different opportunities or your own free-form style of assassination. You also won’t have to wait for episodic releases, getting everything in one, complete package without any of the hassle. I’d recommend playing through locations in order, as there is a surprisingly compelling story to be discovered between each level.

Every stage starts you in a static location complete with a new outfit and a limited load-out at your disposal. Agent 47 is expected to explore, find his targets and eliminate them by any means necessary. You could disguise yourself as a flower delivery man and murder someone at their mother’s grave or push someone off a mountain during an impromptu yoga session. Hitman is filled with great moments like this, both scripted and incidental.

- The Verdict
This is the ultimate Hitman experience, compiling a slew of excellent maps with an additional campaign that, while short, is terrific fun. IO Interactive has somehow managed to give players an immense sense of freedom without sacrificing the creativity so essential to Hitman. If you’re looking for something stealthy to dig into, you can’t do much better than this.

Source : IGN

No matter which part of the map you explore, Ubisoft’s in-game version of the South American country of Bolivia looks great. From the get-go, you’re free to roam the entire map, which includes jungles, mountains, deserts, salt flats, lakes, swamps, quarries, and caves. These biomes aren’t just eye candy; they have a major impact on how you play. Areas thick with foliage are perfect for hit-and-run guerrilla warfare. Deserts have little or no cover, so fighting from range works well and having an escape vehicle ready is imperative. In the mountains, with a bit of leg work, you can usually hike to the high ground and assault your enemies from above. Wildlands leaves the strategy up to you, and because vehicles and fast travel points are so plentiful, the wide-open Bolivian landscape feels like a land of opportunity, not a burden.

Speaking of vehicles, yes, the chatter is true: many of them don’t control well. Even on a bone-dry dirt road, some cars and jeeps feel like they’re skidding around on slick ice. After 15 or so hours I was able to pilot anything without much trouble, but it took far too long to nail Wildlands’ “feel.” Choppers, in particular, take a while to break in: once you’re cruising, you’re good, but building up to that speed requires a weird dance of tipping the nose up and down and easing up on the throttle. And, because the map is so large, you’re forced to spend a ton of time in vehicles to get to locations between fast-travel points. Also, it’s very common for high-priority targets to jump into a vehicle and flee, and if they get too far away you’ll often lose them and fail. These situations take an already uneven driving and piloting system and push it to its frustrating breaking point.

Wildlands’ main issue, however, is poor mission variety. For the first five or so provinces everything felt exciting. The next 15? Not so much. Until I switched to playing co-op, it descended deeper and deeper into repetition.

The cycle begins with a boss hunt. Each province has a boss, and to learn that boss’ identity and draw him/her/them out from hiding you need to complete four to six missions. That’s not a major ask, but the missions are usually a rote combination of the following: blow up an inanimate object (cocaine cache, equipment), extract and interrogate a high-value target (an assistant, a family member), steal or photograph something (a car, documents), or just kill some stuff. It doesn’t help that enemy variety that stands between you and your objectives is almost non-existent. There are standard enemies, heavily-armored enemies, and snipers – that’s about it. Even common video game mainstays like The Flamethrower Guy, The RPG Guy, and The Guy With The Big Shield don’t make an appearance. Sometimes you’ll face other obstacles, like an enemy chopper or a jammer that keeps you from using your drone. They definitely crank up the intensity, but you’ll quickly learn how to deal with them, too. Even the variety that comes from the diverse locations isn’t enough to mix it up.

These issues might have doomed Wildlands if not for its highly satisfying sandbox antics. When you’re a kid and you only have four action figures, what do you do with them? You fire up your imagination, go outside, and make your own ridiculous fun. The same goes for Wildlands.

Yes, you may be on your umpteenth extraction mission... but this time, what if you throw your target in the trunk of a car instead of lifting him out by helicopter? That seems like a good idea, but before you can get into the driver’s seat an enemy truck rams that car down a hill. Now you’re running downhill to check on your VIP passenger, all while shouting at your friends to find a new escape vehicle. In the distance, you hear mortar fire. A second chopper is closing in.

Then, maybe next time you’re on an extraction mission enemies may take out your escape vehicle and you’ll have to run through the woods at night, holding your target by the neck and taking out pursuing enemies with only a pistol. Just when you think you’re home free, you’ll get spotted. The chase continues.

Yes, the missions are too similar in design. You’ll undoubtedly feel the deja vu. But most of the time things don’t go the way you’d planned. The madness that ensues is what saves Wildlands, and what compelled me to keep playing well past the hours a human being should normally be awake. These are the moments I talk about when people ask me how I’m liking it.

Some of those moments are made memorable by the boss characters. Wildlands’ standard enemies may not be special, but it does a fine job of turning cartel bosses into more than just targets. None of them will join the pantheon of great video game villains, but in games like this, it’s often the case for underlings to simply feel like rungs on a ladder, something you just step on in order to move up. Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor got around this issue by imbuing its minibosses with personality, and so does Wildlands. These characters are outlandish, unnerving, and pulpy. Remember when Walt and Jesse dissolved bodies in barrels of acid in Breaking Bad? One of the cartel bosses does that too, but he also has a beloved stuffed animal and the mental capacity of a child. Another boss duo of former doctors plays weird sex games while they torture and interrogate the cartel’s enemies. It’s decidedly silly, and often more than a little bit on the nose, but they left a mark on me nonetheless.

- The Verdict
This huge, wide-open shooter constantly shows its flaws in its mission variety and vehicle physics, but its strong, sandbox-style gameplay and seamless co-op kept me coming back for more madness. If you must repeat experiences over and over, you could far worse than helicopter chases, assassination missions, or drug busts gone wildly wrong.

Source : IGN

After trading fisticuffs with a Transformer, cartwheeling around a bullet-spewing tank controlled by evil clowns, and using a moose to buck my way through killer robots, it’s safe to say that there are very few games – if any – quite like Nier: Automata. At different times it’s a hack-and-slash, an RPG, a shoot-‘em-up, a brawler, and even a text adventure. But no matter which style it is at any given moment, this dazzling hybrid delivers 30-plus hours of fantastically fun action, remarkable locations, and a story so weird I doubt I’ll forget it anytime soon.

Nier: Automata takes place in a desolate but stunning futuristic dystopia where humanity has fled to the moon after an extraterrestrial invasion, leaving behind an army of androids to fight the aliens’ more primitive but prolific machines. It’s a world where lush green tendrils of ivy coil around the massive skeletal remains of crumbling skyscrapers and tears of rust streak down the sides of old factories, with rotund buildings and looming cranes dominating the skyline.

Automata’s striking art style and enormous sense of scale are mesmerizing to look at on the PlayStation 4, but especially on the PlayStation 4 Pro. It doesn’t go above 1080p on the Pro, but colors appear fresh and vivid, while better lighting and shading bring the world into sharper focus. I did encounter a few hiccups that knocked the frame rate below 60fps and witnessed a fair share of texture pop-in, but they only pockmarked Automata’s lovely features ever so slightly. That, or I was too enchanted with the soaring, chorus-filled soundtrack to really notice; Automata will definitely be joining its predecessor’s score on my playlist.

The story that takes place amongst the tumbled remains of abandoned superstructures is bizarre and entertaining, if somewhat haphazard. First as an android named 2B and later as other characters experiencing the same events from different perspectives, your job is to fight the alien machines and bring an end to the war. The quirky, full-tilt drama that unfolds as you bounce between Earth and the moon is an intriguing one, touching on existential themes like the meaning of life and humanizing those on the other side of war. It works, for the most part, due to a couple of bonkers plot twist and well-done voice acting that helps sell the more outlandish bits of allegory.


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Nier Automata Official Release Date Announcement Trailer
Reviewed on PS4 / 6 Mar 2017
Nier: Automata Review
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If you've ever wanted to fight evil robot clowns, now you can.

By Meghan Sullivan After trading fisticuffs with a Transformer, cartwheeling around a bullet-spewing tank controlled by evil clowns, and using a moose to buck my way through killer robots, it’s safe to say that there are very few games – if any – quite like Nier: Automata. At different times it’s a hack-and-slash, an RPG, a shoot-‘em-up, a brawler, and even a text adventure. But no matter which style it is at any given moment, this dazzling hybrid delivers 30-plus hours of fantastically fun action, remarkable locations, and a story so weird I doubt I’ll forget it anytime soon.

Nier Automata Official Release Date Announcement Trailer
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Nier: Automata takes place in a desolate but stunning futuristic dystopia where humanity has fled to the moon after an extraterrestrial invasion, leaving behind an army of androids to fight the aliens’ more primitive but prolific machines. It’s a world where lush green tendrils of ivy coil around the massive skeletal remains of crumbling skyscrapers and tears of rust streak down the sides of old factories, with rotund buildings and looming cranes dominating the skyline.
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Automata’s striking art style and enormous sense of scale are mesmerizing.

Automata’s striking art style and enormous sense of scale are mesmerizing to look at on the PlayStation 4, but especially on the PlayStation 4 Pro. It doesn’t go above 1080p on the Pro, but colors appear fresh and vivid, while better lighting and shading bring the world into sharper focus. I did encounter a few hiccups that knocked the frame rate below 60fps and witnessed a fair share of texture pop-in, but they only pockmarked Automata’s lovely features ever so slightly. That, or I was too enchanted with the soaring, chorus-filled soundtrack to really notice; Automata will definitely be joining its predecessor’s score on my playlist.

The story that takes place amongst the tumbled remains of abandoned superstructures is bizarre and entertaining, if somewhat haphazard. First as an android named 2B and later as other characters experiencing the same events from different perspectives, your job is to fight the alien machines and bring an end to the war. The quirky, full-tilt drama that unfolds as you bounce between Earth and the moon is an intriguing one, touching on existential themes like the meaning of life and humanizing those on the other side of war. It works, for the most part, due to a couple of bonkers plot twist and well-done voice acting that helps sell the more outlandish bits of allegory.

Nier Automata PSX 2016 Trailer
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Like its predecessors Nier and Drakengard, Automata does have an unfortunate tendency to wander into uber-convoluted territory, and this is where problems start to arise. Try as I might, I couldn’t always understand what was happening, even after I played through several of Automata’s multiple endings. There are also some emotional moments that struck me as forced. It's as if the game's lead writer Yoko Taro wanted to make me cry and was casting about for ways to make that happen. (To be fair, one event did have me pretty darn misty-eyed.)

The bigger issue was the disconnect I felt from 2B and her fellow androids. Their personal dramas take too long to unwind, which prevented me from fully investing in their fates. Why should I weep or cheer for them if I’m not given a reason until 20 hours in? With that said, I was happy to see familiar faces from the original Nier pop up to help clarify the connection between it and Automata. Their presence brought about a welcome sense of nostalgia and helped bring closure to Nier: Gestalt's open-ended finale.

I didn’t feel much of a rapport with the heroes, but I definitely enjoyed playing as them. There’s an incredible sense of freedom that comes with effortlessly surfing sand dunes in the desert and shimmying up the concrete remains of office buildings in Automata’s open world. Parkouring plays a big role here, and it’s highly enjoyable thanks to ultra-fluid controls and a very smart camera that effortlessly tracks the action no matter how insane things get. And things get pretty nuts: Automata’s different flavors of combat are a maniacal, supersonic affair, and a total blast to play.

Automata is described as an action RPG, but it’s really an everything-but-the-kitchen-sink kind of game. In between hearty chunks of feel-good hack-and-slash, you’ll trade a fireworks display worth of projectiles with flying enemies, hack into robot mainframes, read a text adventure or two, and even brawl with a pair of psychotic twins. This radically changing gameplay makes for a thrilling roller coaster ride, and I mean that literally: in one of the craziest, most beautiful action sequences I’ve ever encountered, you’ll fight atop a moving roller coaster while racing full speed through the dilapidated remains of a sun-kissed boardwalk.

- The Verdict
Nier: Automata is a crazy, beautiful, and highly entertaining journey full of nutty ideas and awesome gameplay. It may not include the most sensical story or compelling characters, but its frenzied combat -- coupled with beautiful visuals and a stunning soundtrack – make it too much fun to pass up.