Recent reviews by Trent

The Hitman games were always unique in the sense that they basically created their own subgenre. Where other stealth games expected you to remain unseen while carrying out your mission, Hitman games dropped you off in a neutral environment and demanded that you blend in with the crowd - hiding in plain sight, if you will. Assassinating a target was always the ultimate goal, but Hitman encouraged the player to fulfill this task as quietly and clean as possible while the environment provided several ways of getting close: Spiking the target's food with laxatives to seperate it from armed bodyguards, assuming the identity of an informant or simply using a sniper rifle from afar are only a few of the possibilities to tackle a single mission. Hitman games are notorious for their replayability.

Despite the vicious deeds the player is supposed to perform, the games were not without their own brand of black humor: You could drop a piano on your target like in a classic Roadrunner cartoon, or you could switch a fake gun for a real one and turn the pretend murder during a rehearsal of a stage play into an actual one without pulling the trigger yourself. There was also the main character’s habit of introducing himself as “Tobias Rieper”. Additionally, the games displayed a touch of class, which was reflected in the locations the player visited or even in the way the main character dressed.

In the past, Hitman: Blood Money perfected this formula and is widely regarded as the peak of the series. It was released in 2006 and the 2012 sequel, Hitman Absolution, was supposed to follow up on it, but fell short for several reasons: It was loud, it was vulgar and it offered only a fraction of the options usually found in a Hitman game. IO Interactive took the criticism to heart and promised to do better. And they succeeded for the most part.

Interesting level design has always been the main draw of the series and in that regard, the new Hitman truly is a return to form. The levels released so far are massive and offer so many ways of getting the job done, it will make your head spin. Just in terms of size alone they’re bigger than anything Blood Money offered.

Disguises were a key element of previous Hitman games and one of Absolution's gravest mistakes was devaluing them. If you disguised as a cop, somehow every other cop in the area instantly knew you didn’t belong and it required hitmana to weasel your way past every single one of them. Even though there are hints of this system still present in the latest Hitman, it’s nowhere near as rigid or illogical: Only a few non-player characters in strategic places will get suspicious if you approach them.

There’s a small online portion, too. Like in Absolution, Hitman players are able to create custom contracts with specified targets, victory conditions, leaderboards and everything. While Hitman games are notorious for their replayability, IO Interactive tries a new spin on the established formula: Every other week, there will be a an Elusive Target roaming the levels - a unique target that is only available for a short amount of time. If the timer runs out or if the player dies while carrying out the mission, the target is gone for good. No saves and no second chances. This approach heightens the tension in theory, but in reality it’s not as harsh as advertized. You can retry one Elusive Target as often as you want, as long as you are still in the time frame for completion and you haven’t killed the target or haven’t been killed yourself. Also, it’s quite obvious not the same amount of care went into the Elusive Targets as it did for the main missions. A nice idea, but certainly not a game seller.

Apart from a few optimization issues and a couple of logical inconsistencies, everything about the actual game is peaches and gravy. However, some of the decisions surrounding it sour the taste - most notably the business model and “encouraged” online.

When you think about it, mission-based games like Hitman are perfect for expansions, DLC and post-release support, yet none of the previous ones really approached the idea. Until now. However, the way this game realized the idea couldn’t be more awkward. Essentially, Hitman is an episodic game that drip-feeds the player a level each month until the number of promised levels is complete. Games like The Walking Dead have proven that an episodic model isn’t inherently bad and even Resident Evil: Revelations 2 - a game that isn’t story-driven - managed to make it work somehow. Though the main difference is that REv2 only made you wait for two weeks until a new episode would be released. Making the player wait an entire month between episodes for a mission-based game is not something you want to do as a developer. Hitman’s release model has an interesting side effect, though: Previously, you would reinstall a Hitman game after months and replay it to try out new approaches. While waiting for new levels to drop, you have few other things to do but replay existing levels and tackle them in different ways. The current release model ensures you undertake those future replays now.

The other main problem of Hitman is its “encouraged” online. Technically, it’s not forced online since the game remains playable even when you’re offline, but it locks you out of many options that enhance replayability. Completing different challenges as you replay a level unlocks equipment and starting positions that keep each new attempt fresh. Unfortunately, challenges are only available online. Same goes for user contracts and Elusive Targets. Plus, savegames for offline and online playthroughs are not compatible with each other. If you lose connection while playing or you get booted from the server, you won’t be able to resume where you left off.

While the servers are stable for me, my main concern with this approach is preservation. Let’s say I get the urge to play Hitman in three years, but the devs have pulled the plug on the servers in the meantime. Sure, the game would remain playable as the levels provide plenty opportunities to turn your target’s switch to “off”, but many many interesting approaches would be lost forever. Here’s hoping IO Interactive rethinks this decision.

So if you're a fan of Hitman and Absolution left a lot to be desired, you might be pleased with this one. Yet some of the decisions regarding distribution will make you scratch your head. Also, as high-quality as the levels are that have been released at the time of writing, there's still some room for the developers to drop the ball.

“Hello,” the old lady says as she spots me in the hallway, barely able to make eye contact. She forces a smile like someone put an invisible gun to her head, but she isn’t fooling anyone. Of course she heard it. Hell, the whole street must have heard it. Like all the other neighbours, she lives in mortal fear. Sometimes in the middle of the night, terrifying screams pierce the silence. Late at night, someone can be heard yelling profanity at the top of his lungs. Beastlike roars shake even the most confident residents, not sure whether they should call the police or an exorcist. Actually, do you want to approach someone like that? No, just smile and move along.

Surprisingly, the person in question is not a maniac requiring psychiatric attention, but an ordinary man. That screaming nutcase, that howling madman - well, that’s me. And the reason for the outbursts? You’re looking at it. The game’s motto is “Rise up”. It’s referring to your blood pressure.

Forget about salty - Street Fighter V will make you MAD. And there’s plenty to get mad about. But first things first.

Fighting games have always been rather niche. Sure, there have been a few smash hits over the years, but the reality of fighting games is that the genre is not very popular, neither in terms of sales nor players. The basic outlook of a martial arts video game in which two guys (or gals) beat the crap out of each other until one life bars depletes may not seem enough for the average “gamer” to shell out a fiddy on release and play for months. The usual modus operandi includes buying a fighting game, dabbling in arcade mode for a bit, mashing buttons with a friend, maybe even going online a few times before shelving the game indefinitely. Part of the reason for this is that fighting games are scary. As simple as the prospect of a one on one fist fight seems, the nuances to each new fighting game are overwhelming. For every character you can choose from, there are dozens of moves with different properties and applications. Depending on which character you are facing, the ways in which to counter them are just as numerous. Then you have the damaging combos requiring exact timing and precision. Of course, there’s also your opponent who is constantly trying to predict your next move while you are trying to do the same. Street Fighter is the series that embodies all of those principles as it pretty much put fighting games on the map. There were others before it, but ever since Street Fighter II, it has become the posterboy for the genre. Players who possess the drive to master a fighting game with all of its subtleties and keep competing are the exception, not the rule. Which is where Street Fighter V comes in.

Street Fighter V promised to be easier on beginners. In a way, it succeeded, but at the same time it did not. With the lowered execution barrier, SFV eliminated one of the most intimidating aspects of fighting games - hard-hitting combos are now significantly easier to perform. That doesn't mean they don't require any skill at all (Karin's Trial #6 says hi), but newbies will see results much quicker and drop combos less frequently. However, other factors have gained importance, such as spacing and mindgames. The outcome remains largely the same: A fighting game veteran will make quick work of a newbie - as it should be. Accessibility doesn't mean you have the chops to win tournaments after a couple of hours. A victory is largely the result of one player putting in more work than the other. No amount of tutorials will do that for you. Still, it feels like SFV didn't go the extra mile to ease beginners into the game, although the effort that was made is certainly appreciated. Some of the game's mechanics aren't that well-explained and new players will have to dig through resources online to find answers, experiment in training mode or learn things the hard way through lots of aggrevating defeats.

The matches themselves are an absolute delight to play: Hits feel meaty and satisfying and the match progression is very transparent, meaning you can always pinpoint the reasons why you lost. Unlike its predecessor, there’s not much weird tech you can master to play the game on autopilot - every move requires for the player to think beforehand and commit to it. After years of dealing with SFIV’s option selects, the honesty feels like a fresh breeze. Also gone are the damaging comeback moves with lots of invincibility. SFV does have comeback mechanics, but they require you to do the work yourself. If you land a comeback, you really earned it by outplaying your opponent and not because a mashed out Ultra took half of his health.

Exchanging blows with your opponent is a blast, but the same can’t be said of most things surrounding it. Especially not the online multiplayer. When it works, it’s great and barely differentiates from offline. When it doesn’t work, it’s a full on catastrophe. Due to the nature of the rollback netcode, whenever a faulty data package is being sent to the server it will appear as if your opponent is teleporting all over the stage, essentially rendering the match unplayable since you can’t reliably react to anything. Then you have random disconnects from the game server, sometimes even during the match. It’s the kind of stuff that makes you yell at your furniture. To be fair, those issues used to occur much more frequently and it’s great to see the game improving, but it’s still far from optimal. From personal experience, maybe every 10th player is a warping demigod.

Smaller complaints include the Capcom Fighters Network being unintuitive to use. To give you a taste: In order to watch a replay, you need to browse through your list of previous matches, select a match and add it to your replay queue; then you need to go back to the main menu and open your CFN profile from which you can actually watch the replay. It’s just needlessly convoluted. Plus, stat tracking is still broken four months after release. At the time of writing, I use a third-party site to keep track of my matches.

A neverending source of frustration are the players themselves: You outplayed your opponent and as you are about to deliver the final blow, the screen goes black - because the scoundrel closed the program. Some are just mad they lost for whatever reason and this is their attempt at getting some kind of fleeting sense of superiority, some are legitimate cheaters boosting their ranks. Right now, a premature disconnect is not counted as a defeat - no points are lost and players even retain their win streaks. The game will temporarily lock you out of multiplayer if you exceed a certain disconnect ratio, but so far it has done nothing to discourage that kind of behavior.

Singleplayer warriors will have a hard time finding value in their purchase. There’s a story mode now, but like all the other attempts at telling a story with Street Fighter as a vehicle, it’s cringe-inducing for the most part. Fans will probably enjoy the occasional reference or an unlikely cameo here and there. Apart from that, it’s a waste of time.

At the end of the day, SFV expects you to play online - whether you’re simply mashing it out in Bronze League or go against the tougher players in Gold League and beyond. Additional characters, stages and other goodies can (in theory) be unlocked simply by playing the game and serve only as an incentive to keep you going. It all plays into building a community that is interested in the game on a competitive level. Unfortunately, some aspects of online multiplayer aren’t as fleshed out as they should be for an online-centered game, which sometimes detracts from the experience. Whether you want to put up with it is ultimately decided by how much you enjoy the core of SFV - the back and forth between you and your opponent. I for one highly enjoy it. Otherwise I wouldn’t get as hotheaded about it as I do.

You know you’re getting old when companies try to resell the pop culture of your youth to a new generation. With all the reimaginings, reboots and sequels to stuff two decades old going on lately, you’d have to be a zen master to not experience a certain sense of weariness kicking in. It doesn’t help that those warmed up retellings tend to be utter crap.

The original Doom is the OG of first person shooters. While it wasn’t the first FPS to ever be developed, it certainly was the most influential one, popularizing both the genre and PC as a platform for games. Kids all over the world craved it like it was digital crack. Offices had to ban Doom because it decreased the productivity of the employees drastically. University networks were crippled under the sheer load of people downloading and playing the game. If you were young in the early ‘90s, you had heard of Doom. There was no way around it. And that was long before video games became as popular and common as they are now. Practically overnight, Doom made its creators millionaires.

The creators calling themselves id Software, those were just a handful of nerds fueled by their love for video games and heavy metal, both of which were reflected in their game. In Doom, the player rushed through sci-fi inspired, maze-like levels filled with hellish imagery while gunning down demons left and right. But not only your reflexes were tested: Secrets were sprinkled all over the levels. The game encouraged exploration in order to have an edge over the satanic spawn. Often it was flat-out necessary to advance since the keycards unlocking specific doors were hidden quite well. It was fast, it was gory and it was quite the looker - 3D graphics were still a novelty and Doom achieved visuals never seen before while still being relatively easy on the hardware. In a way, it started the arms race of each new game trying to one up the last one in terms of graphics that lasts to this very day.

Doom’s pop cultural impact was so huge, so undeniable, that the mere idea of a reimagining must seem like blasphemy. Much has changed since the early ‘90s. While Doom defined an entire genre in 1993, it’s just one of many first person shooters now. Other titles such as Call of Duty or Halo are considered the genre standard nowadays. The industry expanded, genre conventions changed a lot and so did the audience - not for the better, some would say. Storytelling is important now and a run and gun shooter like Doom may seem archaic in comparison. Plus, id Software is id Software in name only since none of the founding members are still working at the company. When the new Doom was announced, it had all the telltale signs of a cynical cash grab meant to sell by legacy only. Fans were worried that their holy cow would be turned into yet another generic first person shooter aping the conventions of other titles. But somehow, id Software pulled it off. They managed to do the original's roots justice.

Just so we’re clear here: id Software had some pretty big shoes to fill. So big, in fact, that nobody in his right mind could possibly expect them to make another game as revolutionary as the original Doom. The goal rather seemed to be to introduce the frantic playstyle of classic first person shooters to a new crowd possibly unfamiliar with the original. The speed, the gore, the key hunting - it’s all there. If you grew up playing FPS games in the ‘90s you will feel right at home since the progression is almost identical: You get dropped in a new area, blast every demon in sight into bloody chunks while gracefully dodging projectiles and avoiding melee attacks. Once the last demon has been slain, it’s time to search the area for ammo, health packs and everything else that might give you an edge in upcoming confrontations, or unlock that one door that’s keeping you from advancing. The levels are surprisingly layered due to a high amount of verticality - even if you use the automap frequently, chances are you will miss many secrets regardless. Then you run into the next demon horde and the cycle repeats itself. New are the designated arenas that will shower you with enemies at the push of a button, allowing for some careful planning that is pretty much mandatory at higher difficulties.

What’s in here is just as important as what’s not. There is no regenerating health, no iron sights, no limitation regarding how many weapons you can carry and no excessive amount of cutscenes. The new Doom drops you into the action and pretty much leaves you there for the entire duration of the game. However, the world has kept turning since 1993 and some adjustments are to be expected. For instance, Doom has canned instakill animations performed on stunned enemies that drop ammo and health packs, depending on how urgent you need them. And like every action game these days, it features upgrade mechanics. Most of them influence the weapons’ secondary firing modes, but some work like the bandolier pick ups from the Quake series and increase the maximum amount of health or ammo you can carry. This alone may be enough to scare off purists.

Legitimately underwhelming is the art department, be it enemies or levels. It’s by no means bad, just unremarkable. And for a game dealing with depictions of hell, the new Doom is surprisingly tame - not so much in terms of gore and more regarding disturbing imagery. Even the oh so scolded Doom 3 had twitching, vivisected men hanging from the ceiling. You will find nothing along those lines here. Also, I like to think that music played a part in the original’s success. It set the pace and pumped you up while you blew holes into the minions of hell. The new game’s industrial soundtrack is loud first and foremost and features many throwbacks to the iconic themes, but more often than not it sounds like it was created by discount Trent Reznor and loses itself in trivial creaking that doesn’t go anywhere. Additionally, the multiplayer is straight up deadweight.

So frag it like it’s ‘93? Not quite, but for the vast majority of it. Doom is definitely worth a look, whether you’re starved for a classic first person shooter or not. Apart from a few modern elements, it’s a rather accurate replication of that experience. It won’t leave a mark like the original did and it probably won’t revive oldschool twitch shooters, but it’s a fine game. Double so when taking into account how much worse it could have been.

Here we go again. The name says it all. It's Dark Souls for the third time and that's pretty much what you get: demanding melee combat reliant on timing, rewarding exploration, cryptic lore, fashionable armor and medieval-themed environments that are as beautiful as they are deadly. There are differences to previous games, however. But they're not nearly as striking as the similarities.

Dark Souls 2 received a lot of flak for its uninspired environments, its floaty, somewhat cheap combat and the lack of enemy variation. It's great to see that Dark Souls 3 improved on most of those complaints. Decrepit castles, dimly-lit chapels or moldy dungeons - as usual, the selection of areas sounds like fantasy standard, but the way in which they are presented certainly is outstanding. On many occasions the player will stop what he's doing to soak up the atmosphere.

Meanwhile, From Software has actually increased the combat's floatiness and it's easy to see why: Bloodborne happened - the game that took Dark Souls's formula and made it faster and more frantic, so of course Dark Souls needed to keep up. Enemies have shorter wind up phases resulting in much shorter windows for counter attacks, so combat in general requires you to be quick on your feet. It all plays into shields being kind of unimportant in Dark Souls 3. They're viable for fending off groups of smaller enemies, but when it comes to large enemies or bosses, you really want to master dodging since the stamina loss from blocking a hit is much more severe.

In terms of difficulty, Dark Souls 3 is demanding but fair for the most part. Still, some of the cheapness introduced in Dark Souls 2 remains. The attacks of some enemies cover easily 75% of the area around their bodies and they can attack seemingly without running out of stamina. However, enemies like these are few and far between. Also, the advantage you gain from leveling up or upgrading your weapon is noticeable, but barely enough to make a difference in the early stages of the game. I returned to an area after ten level ups and three weapon upgrades and it still took me three hits to down a common enemy. Also, sometimes enemies tend to be damage sponges.

Despite the differences, Dark Souls 3 plays like a greatest hits compilation. It features many callbacks to previous games, which is expected from a sequel to some degree, but it's arguable whether or not those callbacks were executed with grace. Often situations or characters are replicated with few variations, suggesting From Software is running out of things to show us. Even Demon's Souls gets referenced on some occasions. If you've played a Dark Souls game, barely anything this one throws at you will come as a surprise. A large swamp area where the water slows down your movement while gradually poisoning you? Never seen that before. Which is a bit disappointing considering that Bloodborne took the established formula and added its own unique twist to it, making the experience fresh anew.

Basically, Dark Souls 3 is more of the same. If you don't insist on it reinventing the wheel, you will have a grand time.

Some games are perfectly functional, and yet they leave you weirdly unexcited. They have few apparent flaws, but they don't really excel in any department either. Those games make it apparent that one important feature is missing from Steam reviews: the thumb pointing to the side.

The Mad Max movies popularized the post-apocalypse as a setting and left a stylistic imprint along the way. Many of the things you saw in the movies became a staple of post-apocalyptic fiction in general: vast and empty landscapes, moral decay, lack of resources and violence in all shapes or forms. Mad Max also gave the characters populating such an environment a distinctive look: Wasteland dwellers didn't just dress in torn up jeans or ripped shirts, they rather wore something between football gear, hardware store and BDSM fetish - something many fictional works borrowed from. In a way, games like Fallout, Rage or Borderlands are Mad Max games in spirit. Finally, the OG gets his own (current-gen) game and the result can be described as a big and resounding "eh".

Even if you never laid hands on Mad Max before, chances are you already played it. The game incorporates two of the most overused popular features of this generation: open world and Arkham Asylum style two-button combat. Since this is Mad Max, vehicular combat also plays a big role in this game. In fact, your ultimate goal is to acquire enough currency to turn Max's car into a spike-ridden monstrosity capable of defeating the local warlord. To do so, Max can engage in a multitude of activities, be it racing, attacking enemy convoys or taking down bandit camps. Plus, there are possibly hundreds of locations Max can loot for small rewards.

Mad Max is not just any sandbox game - it's THE sandbox game. With all of the genre's pros and cons amplified. To the max.

The big drawback of those games is that the large quantity of activities goes at the cost of their quality, leaving you with a large selection of missions that get repetitive fast and simply aren't that interesting in the long run. It doesn't help that you need to do them dozens of times.

Here's the thing: The game's mechanics are competent and don't have any apparent flaws apart from the lack of depth. After a while, you will develop a nice and steady flow, taking out one bandit camp after another, even though you don't enjoy yourself as much as you think you should. At some point, you will develop that MMO tunnel vision, eyes set on the next upgrade, which will be enough to keep you going. The mechanics are simple, but don't require any finesse, strategy or skill. As you play, your mind will wander off frequently. Maybe I should go swimming, you will think. You will catch yourself pondering life and its existential tribulations to the sound of exploding cars and cracking bones. Eventually, you will awaken from your trance.

The only times I stumbled over some honest fun was during the car chases, but even they got tiresome after common enemies received multiple layers of armor and started attacking in groups of three - often when I was in a hurry to get somewhere. Meanwhile, the missions in which you are supposed to attack a convoy are possibly the closest you will get to a breathless chase depicted in Fury Road.

Mad Max is by no means a bad game and more of an example of somebody trying excessively hard to play it safe. It's vanilla ice cream. It's Coldplay. It's jeans and t-shirt. Only the visuals manage to impress since the game is nice to look at and runs without any hiccups.

This may sound like a thoroughly negative review, but it comes down to what you want from the game. If you expect a strong movie tie-in, you will be severely disappointed. However, if you often find yourself with a couple of hours to kill, Mad Max is the game for you. It will keep you busy for hours upon hours.

Busy. Not necessarily entertained.

Hypothetical situation: You’re playing a videogame and in it, you’re walking through dimly lit, narrow hallways looking for the exit. Occasionally you stumble over a mangled corpse, listen to audio tapes and avoid disfigured creatures because you can’t fight back. Which videogame am I talking about? Answer: It doesn’t matter.

There’s a point when certain clichés used without a hint of irony become annoying and Soma marks that point. It plays like a checklist of every popular element featured in a horror game in the last eight years. Dark corridors? Check. Player vulnerability? Check. Puzzles? Check. Audio logs containing either exposition, terror or directions? Check. Side character that blabbers in your ear? Check. Being forced to take detours over Mordor? Check. It wouldn’t be that much of a problem if the game offered somehing more substantial beyond that, or at least something interesting for the player to do.

Soma is the fifth game developed by Frictional Games and it marks a shift from cosmic horror to science fiction horror. An underwater research facility serves as the backdrop for this horror adventure, but it’s not just monsters who are out to get you. Psychological elements were thrown in as well since the plot deals with existential themes like identity, self, reality, death, humanity and how technology influences our perception of those. While not badly executed, Frictional is so in love with their sci-fi concepts that they drastically overestimate their novelty. Unless you have willingly ignored all the works of science fiction conceived in the last fifty years, nothing Soma throws at you will come as a surprise. Again, which wouldn’t be a problem if the game had more to show you.

It’s noteworthy that traditional game elements take a backseat in favor of conventional storytelling. While Penumbra and Amnesia featured item management as part of their survival approach, Soma doesn’t even have an inventory. Instead, the game goes great lengths to dump more exposition on you via audio recordings or diary entries, which are always conveniently placed thanks to the mindful souls who create them even if the monsters are already feeding on their entrails. Sometimes Soma remembers it’s supposed to be a game and lets you perform a menial task, for which you will be rewarded with more exposition like the good boy you are. While none of the puzzles in Amnesia or Penumbra were too challenging, at least they made you stop and think for a moment. Despite the occasional underwater sections, Soma feels like an on-rails experience where you’re shoved from one exposition dump to the next.

To top it off, Soma commits the cardinal sin for any horror game: It’s simply not scary. One reason for this is the lack of player involvement. In Amnesia, you had to be mindful with your items. Failing to manage your resources properly resulted in a game over. To increase your chances of survival, you could explore Brennenburg Castle, but you risked running into more creatures. Amnesia was scary because the fear of failure amplified the fear of the game’s creatures and failure was always a result of the player’s longterm decisions. In Soma, it’s more like you’re just tagging along for the ride since there are long sections where it’s clear you are out of danger and you are not making any longterm decision at all.

Amnesia is genius because it does what all great works of horror fiction do: It lets your imagination do all the work. Before any threat is introduced, just through environments and lighting alone Amnesia makes it clear that you’re playing a horror game. You’re constantly expecting something in the shadows, afraid it might jump you in every new room you step into, but it never happens. When you’re almost getting bored, Amnesia drops the hammer. And even then, it tries to keep the threat as vague as possible for your imagination to fill in the blanks, because uncertainty is scary and nothing is scarier than what your own mind can come up with. To achieve that, Amnesia puts you through a chain of vulnerabilities: You can stock up on items, but you run danger of encountering another creature. You can eliminate your fear of what might be hiding in the darkness by lighting a lamp, but doing that too often will blow through your resources in no time and make them unavailable for when you might actually need them. And you might attract a monster. You can get rid of uncertainty by looking at the monsters, but you risk a game over since direct exposure to the supernatural horrors affects the main character’s sanity. So does hiding in the shadows since he is supposed to be nyctophobic. To cut a long story short: Every fear Amnesia tingles is backed up by a game mechanic. Soma features nothing along those lines. It takes you on a sightseeing tour and expects you to be scared just because it made the lights flicker a bit. The monster encounters are more tedious than scary and every bit of tension is destroyed because the game gives you enough opportunity to observe how sluggish and dumb they are.

Speaking of monster encounters: You better pray that the creatures kill you if they ever spot you. Soma has no health meter, so any damage you take is represented visually by gradually enhancing the amount of chromatic aberration in the picture. While the effort of having as little HUD as possible is appreciated, the effect is so excessive that it will make your eyes bleed. It is also applied whenever you relive someone else’s memories. Unless you’re really careful, your screen will be a blurry mess for a good chunk of the game.

Even the atmosphere isn’t as tight as it could be. Being stuck at the bottom of the ocean practically screams for evoking a sense of loneliness and desolation, but it’s ultimately ruined by the characters’ chattiness.

Soma does have its moments, though. Like a trip to the deep sea where all kinds of horrors might be lurking. But it takes way too long to get to those segments and they don’t compensate nearly enough for the whole lot of nothing that occurs beforehand. For the majority of its length, Soma remains a dull affair. As if there’s a much shorter game in here that has been stretched way too thin.

Frictional Games seem to have taken too many cues from The Chinese Room. If there’s a lesson to be learned here, it’s that your game better backs up what it’s aiming for through the game’s mechanics. And that telling a story by letting the player sift through audio logs and notes has been officially done to death. It’s time to take the old boy to the backyard and put him down.

To anyone who has never played a Way of the Samurai game, it's best described as a mix between 3rd person action, open world and visual novel set in feudal Japan.

The core revolves around swordplay, but at the same time the game allows you to shape the storyline through your choices. Several factions fight for power in the small town of Amihama and it's up to the player to decide whom to give an edge. Being a goody two-shoes is just as much of an option as aiding the bad guys or staying neutral. Simply sleeping the days away and thus skipping the majority of the game is also a viable option. It's entirely up to player.

When it comes to combat, WotS4 is your standard hacky-slashy affair, which is somewhat disappointing. In the West, samurai and their way of life were popularized by movies like Seven Samurai, Sword of Doom, Harakiri or the Lone Wolf and Cub movies, which all lay emphasis on the importance of a single stroke. Duels were often decided after one cut following a huge build-up. Meanwhile in WotS4, there's no tension - you just whack away at your foes until they drop dead. However, the fights are enjoyable for the most part and the game does a decent job of depicting different styles and their use.

Speaking of styles: The game practically showers you with customization options and items. For a game that small, WotS4 is crammed with ways to spend your time and customize your character. You can upgrade weapons, learn new fighting styles, shop for clothes, change your hairstyle, go fishing, create your very own fighting style, run a dojo or chase after ladies. And that doesn't even cover all of it. But here's the downside: In order to get your desired items, you will have to grind yourself stupid. To acquire certain styles or weapons, you need to meet specified conditions. And even then, most of those items seem to drop randomly, so there's a whole lot of reloading and replaying ahead of you. And if you happen to finally get your desired style, there's still the business of unlocking new moves by leveling it up. In order to max one style, you will have to kill 500 enemies at the very least. In case of weapons, upgrading them to the point of being actually useful will rob you of your lifetime as well since enemies tend to be damage sponges. Upgrades cost money and become progressively expensive up until a certain point where money doesn't cut it anymore. Then you have to farm for materials as well in order to upgrade weapons beyond the upgrade threshold. Depending on what you want and how hard you pursue it, WotS4 will keep you busy for dozens of hours. The question is if you will still be entertained at that point.

The game is rather short and can be completed within a few hours, minutes even, but it's impossible to see everything during your first playthrough. It's obviously designed with multiple playthroughs in mind and somewhat appealing in its approach, provided you can stomach some anime goofiness. To give you a taste: There's a character in the game called "Melinda Megamelons". While not particularly well-written, each new story branch adds another twist to the storyline you have experienced so far. It's like the videogame equivalent to Groundhog Day.

The Way of the Samurai series has always been rather unique in its approach and this one's no different. It's probably the most polished and most content-rich entry in the series yet, but it will take you a lot of time to customize your character to your liking. Experiencing new story branches should usually be enough to keep you playing. If you're a fan of chanbara, you will certainly get your kicks provided you don't expect something too serious.

Attempting to write about this game makes me run into the same problem I had when playing it - The Witcher 3 is overwhelming. In several ways.

If you have played one of the previous games, you can expect more of the series' staples: a highly detailed, rugged fantasy setting with a twist as it's borrowing heavily from Slavic folklore. Because of that, the setting manages to feel familiar and fresh at the same time. In said environment, you're forced to make non-binary decisions that have the potential to bite you in the ass later on. It's also nice to see that CDPR stepped up their writing game. Some of the main questlines could be among the best in a role-playing game so far.

While the combat system still leaves a lot to be desired, it's a clear improvement over its predecessor's. The action-oriented Arkham Asylum style fighting is back, but with less annoyances this time around. Meaning: more movement options, less weird hitboxes, less dying from an opponent jumping in from off-screen. There are nitpicks, however.

The potions enhancing Geralt's abilities were crucial to winning fights in previous games, but now they last barely long enough to make toast. They can be applied during combat now, but you only get two quickslots, meaning you have to open the inventory and apply new kinds of potions manually once your charges are depleted. And there is no way to switch between bombs other than the quick menu, which amounts to the same thing - it breaks flow.

Unlike its predecessors, The Witcher 3 is a bit of an open world game. The areas are massive and reward the player for exploring every nook and cranny. It really pays off since the best gear can be acquired that way. Additionally, optional quests, random encounters, treasures and monster contracts are sprinkled all over the world. There's also the card game for the times you want to take a break from monster slaying.

This is where the game's aforementioned overwhelming nature shows itself. At some point, the secondary quests just keep piling up and you don't know where to start. There's so much to do that at times you don't feel like making any progress at all, which is sometimes crippling the narrative. You get one cutscene in which Geralt proclaims that he needs to find someone asap only to ride off into the sunset, play cards and get drunk. Even without the optional tasks, the primary and secondary quests are enough to fill two games worth of content. The Witcher 3 is in dire need of a monster slayer itself because it is a content BEAST.

Unfortunately, making any game open world comes with certain downsides and The Witcher 3 is no exception. The tragedy about open world games is that the sheer amount of content they feature is usually bought by sacrificing direction. Where a more linear game would feature a few well-developed, splendidly paced quests, open world games go for sheer numbers, resulting in standardized, forgettable tasks that become menial. While The Witcher 3 tries its best to avoid this, you can’t shake the feeling of engaging in busywork at times. It doesn’t help that the rewards for doing monster contracts, for instance, are rather miniscule and mostly serve as an excuse to spend more time with the game.

Strangely enough, The Witcher 3 tends to be inconsequential about its open world aspect: You can explore, but all points of interest are already laid out for you on the map. You can do what you want, but quests have a level recommendation and attempting a quest maybe five levels higher than your own usually doesn’t end well. And the game doesn’t tell you which level is recommended unless you accept the quest. The absolute worst part is that gear has a level requirement, too. Which may lead to the following scenario: You’re stumbling upon a monster several levels higher than yourself, but for some reason you think you can take it on. After several tries and the exhaustion of all your resources you pull through. The prize for your effort? Top quality gear you're allowed to use after 10 level ups. Yay.

The implementation of an open world environment also comes at the expense of uniqueness. While the areas look gorgeous, they’re hard to tell apart sometimes as one grassy field with shaking trees chases after another. Still, maintaining that level of detail in an area as big as Velen with no loading times in-between is pretty damn impressive.

There are other nitpicks like the lack of item storage, overly enthusiastic weapon degradation, hefty falling damage or a certain glitchiness, another open world game staple, but it’s really just that: nitpicking.

The Witcher 3 is a fantastic game and among the best story-driven RPGs in recent years. Ayup!

Any more in-depth introduction would defeat its purpose since most of you probably spent your time with the original the same way I did: in a darkened room, nose glued to the screen, on the brink of wetting yourself. That was almost 20 years ago and the series changed quite a bit since then - depending on who you ask, not necessarily for the better. Resident Evil left behind its survival horror roots a long time ago in favor of a more dynamic, action-oriented approach. Ever since you had fans yearning for survival horror to make a return while others embraced the new ways, stating that tank controls and fixed camera angles simply wouldn't hold up anymore. But do they hold up? Short answer: Yup, sure do.

It's funny to see developers jumping through hoops to make their game feel "cinematic" when Resident Evil achieved that feat almost 20 years ago without sacrificing the actual game: Fixed camera angles offer the perfect balance between tension and field of view while the pre-rendered backgrounds provide the eye candy as you creep through the mansion and perforate the undead. And due to the control scheme, forward always remains forward when you move out of the picture. The scarce resources along with your limited inventory keep you on your toes and make sure each encounter stays tense. Resident Evil is a slow-paced game that is supposed to be played with foresight and the controls only emphasize that. All of this can be applied to the REmaster.

As a result, the REmaster also inherits many of the original's problems: Some camera angles don't offer as much visibility as they should and at times you find yourself awkwardly jerking around between pictures. And due to the drastically limited inventory the backtracking is strong in this one. You end up visiting the same locations at least twice since you often enter a new area only to realize that the item you need to solve the next puzzle is resting in your locker at the other end of the mansion. You only get six item slots (or eight respectively) where a piece of paper takes up as much space as a ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ shotgun. A more elegant item management system could have prevented many unnecessary trips to Mount Doom and back.

Essentially, REmaster is a tarted up version of REmake for Nintendo's Gamecube. If you're like me and never owned one, the REmaster will make the game feel fresh all over again. But if you already own it for Gamecube, the effect will probably not be as strong. Especially considering that the quality of the remade backgrounds is all over the place. There are times when REmaster will flex its muscles and show off its amazing new lighting, but there are other times when you drag your character through low-res, grainy areas that look like they have been chased through a lanczos filter in Photoshop.

In a way, playing REmaster is like spending time with an old friend you haven't seen in ages. It's been so long that you're not sure whether or not he's still cool or if he ever was cool in the first place. When you finally meet again for a drink, you can tell that he tries to give the impression that nothing has changed, yet you can't help but notice some wrinkles along with the receding hairline. Still, you spend some quality time together and you can confirm that he is cool, even now.

Some people would question whether or not it's worth paying for an HD remake that isn't that HD to begin with. Everyone else is already playing it. Like they should.

And ♥♥♥♥ spiders.

One could argue it's pointless writing a review for a game that is literally half-finished, but I like to think of Early Access reviews as reviews based on potential. And the potential for SNOW is immense.

While most winter sports games are about racing or chaining together ludicrous jumps, SNOW is a more level-headed approach focused on the actual riding. Not that it doesn't feature its own share of ridiculousness: Surviving a drop from 30 meters with both your legs intact is just another day at the office. And due to the game's open approach, it's up to the player whether he does alpine skiing or just ♥♥♥♥♥ around at the half-pipe.

Despite the game being in a very early stage, it already captures the sense of freedom and speed more than adequately. It's a blast just shooting downhill and dodging obstacles or finding new routes during freeriding, all while relaxing electronica is playing in the background. SNOW treats winter sports with respect and transports much of the fascination to the player.

It's needless to say that there's not much content at the moment and the little there is still requires a lot of work. Right now, a purchase would be less about your own pleasure and more about supporting the devs.

With that being said, the core of SNOW is rock-solid, which is why I believe the game deserves support. Even in its current state, SNOW offers a glimpse of greatness and I wish the team the best of luck for this project.