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Shadows: Heretic Kingdoms is the second entry in the ARPG series, that that switched its focus from experimentation to combat. While it removes one of the most unique systems the previous game had (earning skills by using different weapons and armour) which rewarded you for trying different things it has double downed on the action and gives you a wide variety of playable characters which all function and play differently. The game is fun but I can’t recommend purchasing it or giving it a positive review as it has been superseded by Shadows: Awakening, and for the same price you get the complete game (not just the first 3 chapters) with a newer game engine, more quests, reworked music and a more polished experience. It does provide a window into how time and feedback can improve a game when acted upon (Shadows: Awakening has substantial differences to gameplay that make it more tactical).

S:HK puts the story is a weird place. Kult: Heretic Kingdoms had an expansive lore which built the world up, spent a lot of time explaining the last 700yr history of the Heretic Kingdoms, the different races and really drove home how important the key players were to the in game universe. By the end of Kult, you had 3 earth shattering choices to pick from, with none of them relying on the usual moral compass (good, bad or neutral) and more do what you thought was best (as 2 of the 3 options had been tried before and led to dark ages). S:HK sort of continues the story while not explaining any of it. Some of the main characters were NPCs and have been changed or some events have been completely redesigned. The main antagonists were heavily involved with the previous PC, and have had a lot of their backstory removed (why they were infighting). Quests have been replicated (these can be explained as the first game’s character didn’t fulfil them), though she is only mentioned once (for the earth shattering events she triggered I expected a little more). Story wise it seems the first PC died before completing her quest, but was able to get the Godslayer sword to her mentor so he could destroy it, which had unforeseen consequences that has set the world on its path. Usually I would advise against playing a newer entry in a series before playing previous games (so you aren’t jumping into a story 1/2 way), but in this instance and it might be easier to start fresh (unless you are a major fan of the story from the first game).

This game functions slightly differently from others as you have a choice of 4 characters (who all have their own health pools) you can switch between at any time (even mid combat), with one being a demon and tied to the shadow world (which is now a nightmare realm and full of hostiles compared to the previous game). This does allow you to switch to more advantageous characters and abilities when needed, and is pretty good. There are parts in the game where only one of the characters can open the area to proceed, though these are all optional). The roster of playable characters expands as the game goes on, and not all of them can collected one play through. The loot system doesn’t differentiate for this, as chests have the same equipment in them no matter if you have the characters in your team (or if they are available at all). Most of the enemy drops are either money, or crafting items (there are a lot less items to pick up from enemies). The range in which you pickup items is really small (you have to be on top of the object, and even turning on auto pickup doesn’t really stop you from missing things). The storage system has been massively overhauled, and now you have decent storage, but it’s shared amongst every type of object you pick up (quest objects take away space from regular inventory, as do crafting items). This can have the unfortunate effect that important objects are left on the ground until you start dropping other older items.

The characters that you start with are all quite different and function in their set roles (melee fighter, ranged combat, mage) and it’s good that magic seems to have been toned down from how it was in the previous game. The shared characters that you find during gameplay have much more explicit roles and seem to be wildly unbalanced. The ironclad golem is a tank with stupidly high resistances and a large health pool, while some weapons for the Trent increase attack speed by crazy amounts (700%) and the added benefit of life steal which leaves you with a combination that is unbeatable. Some characters have a quest tied to them, while others are just a body you can control and seem to have no unique purpose in the grand scheme of things (no plot driven story, quests or stand out features).

Combat has moved more in line to the Diablo series, its much faster paced than in the previous game and is much more frequent in both the real world and shadow world (there’s no more hiding in it to recover or use it to bypass enemies). Each character has a selection of active abilities that have fixed cool down rates that deal larger damage and might apply debuffs to the enemies, but aren’t auto cast now. Enemies do respawn after returning to a map, which pads the game a fair amount. I did enjoy the fact that many enemies have alternate forms in the shadow world (only the Penta Nera had these in the first game), and the abilities of the enemies are locked for a set time if you defeat the shadow world version before fighting in real space (which is often a key mechanic for winning tougher fights). Some enemies continue spawning stupid amount of summons so when you drop back to real space there are 30 enemies on screen to kill. Crafting and upgrading weapons has also been overhauled, but it’s very clunky – you need to get the instructions on how to make what you want, and then collect the parts. Many weapons follow a very large chain of sidesteps (only elements are changed on the weapon), before actual upgrading to the next tier of weapon, in which case it’s cheaper to just purchase the upgrade.

The maps and environments are very well done, and each is fairly unique. Puzzles now span multiple maps (some go across chapters) and they take a bit of thinking to work out. You are left with having to search and break everything as some quest objects are stuck in pots that you would normally bypass. Each chapter seems to focus on a terrain type (desert, woodland, forest) but they each look very nice and do a good job of expanding the world of the previous game. Being a game that didn’t have the second half released some quests can’t be completed. The shadow world looks good - I liked the green ghostly archways and light seeping up through the floors, however there aren’t very many rewards for exploring it other than more optional enemies to kill. Other than a few sections of the game where you are forced to go into it (to cross non-existent bridges or to kill enemies that are controlling other puppets like you are) you could completely ignore it.

I thought the voice acting was hit and miss. The mage you can start with sounds good throughout the entire game, as did most of the merchants. When you get to the werewolves you would expect them to roll sounds (as they aren’t human and that’s what their text did in the previous game) and instead they are all speaking perfect English. The romance quest you can undertake with Zaar has some humorous dialogue if you fulfil the conditions. The music however is very well done (performed by Budapest Scoring Symphonic Orchestra) and I would highly recommend picking up the DLC because of this.

If you are chasing 100% achievements, then it’s a tall order. While doable I had to abuse a quest (purposely stalled or failed) that has unlimited waves of enemies for you to kill which is the only way to really boost XP.

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Two Point Hospital is a spiritual successor to Bullfrogs Theme Hospital, and has you battling a variety of wacky diseases and fighting to keep staff happy while turning a profit. I highly recommended it for anyone who likes management games, or was a fan of the original Theme Hospital as it hits all the right notes, with a wide variety of illnesses to cure, random events and emergencies that need to be dealt with, excellent voice work and music tracks while really expanding on the options for hospital setup in a comical way. While it might be a morbid time to play this during a global pandemic, it’s quite cheery and does a great job on not being very serious.

Gameplay is simplistic but ramps up in complexity as you progress through the missions. The base game has 15 hospitals for you to manage, and while the first few hospitals are more like tutorials, they are designed well enough that you will soon have a well-oiled machine. The game likes to throw spanners in the machine whenever it can, and its arsenal improves the further you progress. Even in the last stage, you are learning something new. The heart of the game is a constant battle between getting patients into the hospital quickly (reception) having enough doctors available to consult (GPS), having enough rooms to raise the diagnosis levels and having enough staff on hand to cure the patient while still making a profit and keeping everyone happy and alive. You unlock the next hospital as soon as you have earnt at 1 star in the hospital you are playing (with your progress always on the screen), but each hospital has a max star rating of 3 that generally awards some hospital improvements which would otherwise be locked behind the special Kudosh (K) currency. This gives you a very good reason to perform all the extra little tasks like dealing with emergencies and pandemics successfully, doing the multiplayer challenges and generally trying to succeed. Many of the improvements are purely visual and just raise happiness, but some do increase performance in a room and are worth trying to unlock. It’s not just locked to room improvements, as you can (for a price) change the coats staff wear, which can help make it easier to find staff with set skills.

Hospital design (hence room placement) is a large part of the game and a well designed hospital is one that doesn’t block patients (wide hallways), has enough amenities to keep guests and staff happy, and where space isn’t unnecessarily wasted. Other than minimum room sizes you have total control over where the rooms are placed and what is inside each room (some items are required, others help increase a rooms prestige or treatment values). I like how they added a template feature after release, so once you have a room setup nicely you can template it and use that throughout every other mission so save yourself redesigning the same room every time. There are a lot of overlays you can put on your hospital to see problem areas, from cleanliness, heating, boredom ect, so improvements can be made quickly. Little things like this go a long way in making the game more enjoyable to play. You can cheese prestige and happiness values with objects in rooms, however it costs a fair bit of money and early in any stage its usually not something you can afford to do. I chuckled at the dig at public health systems- the public service hospital has you being awarded money for watering a set amount of plants or unblocking toilets (not curing patients), which completely flips the game on its head (and is something I think any public servant could relate to).

Staff training and management is also a large part of the game, and you are usually always trying to train so staff to higher levels to improve their skills or expand the roles they can take while managing the budget on staff. Again you have full control over each room they can work in (its generally better to either focus on treatment or diagnosis, not both). Staff earn XP for every task they do, but can’t progress until they have been promoted (where their stats increase) which then can’t happen again until they have been trained. The flipside to this is they cost more once trained. There are quite a few personality types, and it’s a somewhat regular occurrence to see an unhappy staff member threaten to quit if the issues bugging them aren’t resolved. Happy staff work faster, with unhappy staff performing poorly. Throwing money at them usually helps, but hurts the bottom line. You do have full control over hospital prices (you can change prices for anything on the fly, but this affects customer happiness and might leave them refusing to pay). Each year you are rated on your hospital over different categories, and its tied to one of the hardest achievements to get (to take out all of them in a single year).

The game does an excellent job with its music and voice acting. The tunes it plays are all upbeat and just slot into the background and don’t tear your focus away from what’s happening, while the two radio hosts are quite interesting to listen to, with Harrison Wolff sounding like a mellow Alice Cooper, and Sir Nigel Bickleworth constantly bemoaning to state of affairs and talking up the opposition. The general announcer also chimes in frequently, and a lot of her messages are quite humorous.

The game does have co-op multiplayer features of a sort, where you can send challenges to other in your steam list. These award very small amount of K, and the best part is they don’t need to even own the game or be online. There are more proper co-op challenges where you can form teams with friends that own the game, and you need to work together to complete set tasks to unlock rewards (much larger amounts of K and new items). These were fun, but if you don’t have friends who are actively playing you won’t be able to progress these (which are required for some achievements).

For a game that has been out a few years they are still releasing DLC missions, each pack seems to contain 2-3 new hospitals to help or challenges modes to survive. While I can’t comment if they are worth purchasing (as I don’t own them) they all look interesting and seem to add not just new illnesses to cure, but items to unlock and other things to watch out for. There are also extra item packs (I would personally give these a miss) and the soundtrack you can purchase. The steam workshop has 1000’s of user created items available, the TV show Scrubs items do make a large viewing here.

If you are aiming for 100% achievements then this is likely going to be one of the harder games to do it with as and you are required to purchase all the mission DLC and get 3 stars across everything, as well as perform quite a few online tasks with others (they need to be active players).

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Jurassic World Evolution is a park management game based on the popular movie franchise. It’s very good, but more focused on park management than dinosaurs. I recommend it if you like management games, have kids that love dinosaurs or have always though you could do a better job of stopping the dinosaurs from eating tourists than those in the movies do.

There isn’t much of a story, you have been hired to manage the islands of Jurassic World after the previous failures, and need to get a functional parks up and running and mitigate damage from the dinosaurs, weather events and corporate sabotage while staying profitable. The heads of the scientific, entertainment and security divisions offer advice and missions that help you work towards new unlocks for your parks and act somewhat as a test on your parks functionality and survivability. Characters from the movie franchises do pop up every now and again and offer their input and advice.

Gameplay is pretty polished, but can become predictable once you know what you are doing. The game does a great job in teaching you how to manage a basic park, and from there you are on your own. Each of the campaign islands has a major issue (one island has a lack of starting funds, another is limited on space to build) that leads you to design in a certain way. Most of the game seems to be around making sure the guests are happy and needs are met, rather than building dinosaurs which is a shame. Each operational building has a set role, while guest building increase certain satisfaction levels, requiring a few different types. Most operational buildings show the area they cover, but guest ones don’t which makes it harder to ensure facilities have the correct coverage levels.

The fun part of the game is actually unearthing dinosaur fossils, getting a viable genome and hatching it into a pen where it lives. Each dinosaur has different needs, with attention needing to be paid to how many of the same type are required to keep the herd happy, and max population which determines how many dinosaurs can be in the same pen, along with other environmental factors. Mixing carnivores and herbivores together can work however the size and types need to be carefully selected otherwise you usually spend a lot of time replacing eaten dinosaurs. Unhappy dinosaurs rampage, break out of enclosures and eat guests, so getting the mix correct is important. Being able to edit the dinosaurs is very cool, and allows you to edit every stat other than the 2 most important ones.

Being more of a management game the UI is designed very well, and there are plenty of areas to check park satisfaction to see what needs improving, overlays to see problem areas or missed coverage zones. Building tools are intuitive, though connecting buildings to walkways is a pain, and while the game will landscape to a degree for you to place a building it won’t remove bodies of water or raise/lower the land so there is some manual process involved. I loved the option of driving the helicopters and ranger teams around the dinosaur pens to perform the maintenance required or healing sick dinosaurs. Most of the dinosaurs and buildings are locked behind reputation rewards (even the DLC), so you do have to work hard in the missions to ensure you can progress. Having the latter stage buildings makes building parks much easier (they tend to generate more satisfaction or allow for greater island improvements), so taking the time to unlock them is worth the effort. You do have full control over how the island looks, from building layout and placement, height, landscaping, terrain types which allow you to have a great deal of customisation and variety, though again these are limited at the beginning as they need to be unlocked.

Aside from the campaign, the game does offer plenty of replay value with challenge islands and the sandbox mode, with the sandbox mode being the goal. Again you need to play the campaign to unlock it and everything inside it to use it in this mode, but this is where the fun starts. Once an island is unlocked you can choose to just play with unlimited money, or go to town and change everything, and I mean nearly everything. No more dinosaur escapes if you don’t want it. No more tornado’s (or maybe constant twisters if that’s your thing). No more dinosaurs fighting, no minimum herd size. You can actually build the park you want, from the era you want (Jurassic Park or World), and focus on dinosaurs without worrying about the park management. If you want a Dinosaur pit fighting championship where you don’t have to worry about the guests being the food, you can have it. If you want to just cruise around in a jeep and take pictures, you can. The challenge mode is for those who want to try something different, with the game giving you criteria you need to meet, while deducting money from you every so often with a par time for completion based on the difficulty. You are rewarded with new dinosaur skins for your effort.

All the dinosaurs look great, and being able to view them free range, either through the eyes of guests, ranger teams, free roam camera or the actual dinosaurs themselves is a highlight of the game. All the dinosaurs have unique animations and some do have specialised kill sequences if they get into fights. The roars and grunts the dinosaurs are also good, a sound like they have come from the movies. For the characters who aren’t unique to this game majority of the voice actors are the from the movies franchise (Owen Grady is the exception here).

The game has a range of available DLC, which can be categorised as either fully voiced expansion packs (which contain new dinosaurs, missions, islands and buildings), dinosaur packs (which just contain extra dinosaurs) that are unlocked throughout the single player campaign, or skin packs. If purchasing the dinosaur packs, I highly recommend getting them before you start the game, as they are set reputation rewards across the islands which you will need to spend additional time unlocking again if purchased later. As they are trickle fed to you in the campaign they are really only worth it if you are going for all the objectives on an island.

If you are going for 100% achievements then you are going to need all the DLC campaign expansions (the dinosaur packs would likely help as well), along with 100’s of hours to fully flesh out each park and finish the challenges.

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Kult: Heretic Kingdoms is an isometric ARPG that was released in 2004 and plays as a mix of Bauldur’s Gate and Diablo, though has enough changes and innovative systems in place that it’s not a simple clone of either. While the graphic resolutions haven’t aged well the game is still playable, has a great story and I would recommend to anyone who likes isometric RPG’s.

The story takes a little while to get into, but ends in a really good place and gives the player plenty of motivation to make their own choices. The setting is in a world that over the last 700 years has seen its unjust god killed by the Hero Arkor, with his sword inheriting the dead gods power and being sealed away (only his descendants are able to wield the sword). With the gods death magic is born into the world, with those who can cast it being marked by the dead god at birth and able to access the dreamworld. The country that housed the Godslayer sword is eventually invaded and conquered. After centuries one of Arkor’s descendants tricked the resistance into allowing him to wield the Godslayer, granting him immeasurable power and allowing him to implement a theocratic rule, and extend his life by sacrificing other descendants by employing a selective breeding program. The Inquisition is formed in secret to overthrow his rule, and is eventually successful and implements a ban on all religion. You play as Alita, one of Arkor’s descendants who also has the mark of the old god, and novice of the Inquisition. You are tasked with recovering the Godslayer, and the whole game revolves around this. Each of the characters you meet have a genuine reason for their action and the game does a remarkable job of staying away from too many tropes, with all characters being morally grey (there’s no shining white knights in this world).

Character development and stats start off very basic- the only stats you can manipulate are melee, ranged and magic which are directly tied to their weapon types while speed increases the attack rate of all. Stats start at F and can eventually be increased to S (going through the – to + scale before increasing). What makes the character really customisable is the attunements you earn for using weapons, armour and rings in certain ways, which are always available when unlocked, and can be changed when resting. This encourages you to constantly try different weapons and armours, as well as play styles to earn more attunements, and unlock better buffs. Magic seems to be the clear winner in damage output, though some enemies do have certain elemental resistances so it’s clearly intended that you carry a few different types of weapons.

Combat is real-time, and as long as you hold down on the attack button you will keep attacking. At any point in the game you can jump into the dreamworld, which contains spirits, demons and other magic users, which when used correctly can give you a large advantage in battle as you can use hit and run tactics on enemies that can’t follow you. Magic spells are autocast when available, but have a cool down period, need to be selected when resting and take up limited attunement slots. All physical weapons can be categorised as either fast, heavy or ranged, with ranged having unlimited ammo. It is slower paced than both Diablo and Bauldur’s Gate as you don’t usually see more than 2-3 enemies on the screen at once, and the last thing you want to do is have them mob you. The only UI components you have to watch are your health, which you can heal in an unlimited fashion if you have a healing item, and blood points, which are used for healing but decrease your maximum life each time used.

The game does a poor job with inventory management and this is the largest gripe I have with the game. Your inventory fills very quickly, and it’s a constant struggle between keeping items you have to still unlock attunements for, spare weapons (even one or two to change damage types) and enough space so you can pick up new things. There are bags that can fit more items into them, but all but the end game bags only offer very limited additional space compared to the amount of drops you receive from enemies. Quest items that are placed in the bags aren’t recognised as being on the character, sometimes causing a reshuffle when trying to hand them in. I know the character isn’t a pack mule, but it slows game progression down considerably if you want to make money to sell items, which is something you want to do as there are plenty of houses to purchase, as well as attunements and newer weapons. The mini map is very limited (it only shows a small area around you and any hostiles/allies in it) and there is no area map, which means to have to manually search and talk to everyone (like a true adventure game). The quest journal doesn’t update with newer information so if you forget where you are in a quest then you have to think hard to remember, though all quests are read out to you by the narrator which was something different.

In 2004 I think the graphics and character customisation would have been excellent (all items equipped change the character’s appearance), however it is starting to age now. The highest resolution 1600 x 1200 would be played in a window on all but the oldest screens, and with character models being made for 1024 x 758 everything has a pixel edge. There is an option to run full screen, but it does make the game look worse. Corpses sometimes have a tendency to look like they are floating, and some item drops can be incredibly hard to see (I had to run my mouse over everything to see if anything was missed). There is a large variety of enemies to kill and there aren’t very many reskins (though all enemies of a set type will look the same). There are also a large variety of environments to traverse through, and they do look good, with all of the villagers showing a lot more animation than games of this genre usually show.

The soundtrack is fairly decent, and a lot of effort was put into the voice acting. All quests have speech which can be listened to in the quest journal, and all major events have their own separate movie that plays. The game does boil down to choosing 3 separate options for different endings, but does make it very clear that the last boss fight is about to start so you have plenty of warning to finish up anything that still needs to be done.

The game doesn’t support achievements.

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The Borderlands 3 season pass 1 consists of 4 separate DLC all that are great fun to play, and a cosmetic mod for your weapons. While the base game is often on sale and quite cheap the DLC comes at a premium price, and I highly would recommend picking it up when it’s on sale. Only Bounty of Blood introduces completely new characters, with the others revolving around NPCs and playable characters from previous games, showcasing changes in the 7-year time gap between games. There is a fair bit of content for each DLC if you finish off the side quests - about 5-15 hour’s worth though Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is much shorter and has less replayability.

Moxxi's Heist of the Handsome Jackpot DLC has you helping Moxie take over the Handsome Jackpot, Handsome Jacks Casino which has been in lockdown since his death. It also serves somewhat as a redemption story for Timothy Lawrence, who has been missing since the end of the Pre-sequel. I found the story quite good, especially the banter between the above 2 characters as the script is quite well written. Jacks comments as you move to new areas are quite funny and in line with previous games. All of the side quests deal with gambling related topics, or how the trapped civilians either fell into banditry after being sealed inside or tried to build a new home. The enemy roster has been expanded by quite a bit, with lots of reused assets from the previous games reappearing (loader bots and other Hyperion enemies, or new variants). The environments are quite detailed for a ruined casino, though don’t really add anything new. The soundtrack however is very good, and the Quest for Digby (jazz vs heavy metal) was a highlight for the music.

Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC has you attending the wedding of Sir Hammerlock and Wainwright Jakobs, with Gaige presiding over the nuptials as the celebrant on the cursed world of Xylourgos. It’s less Halloween festival (zombies and skeletons) and more possessed by otherworldly beings (there’s a heavy Cthulhu theme if the tentacles didn’t give it away). Again the story is very well written, with the primary focus on exploring both the groom’s anxiety in the lead up to their wedding, among the backdrop of the tortured history of the possessed antagonists, and the cursed inhabitants of the planet. The side quest cold case trades in the usual humour of the series for a very sad and serious conclusion, but fits the theme perfectly. There is a large proportion of new enemies, most which have new move sets. The environment is set on an icy world this time, though it does a good job of having different icy locales, from snow dusted swamps, frozen lakes and ice covered towns. The environment gets very creative when you start traversing through an inter-dimensional stomach to its heart, which was very well designed. The voice acting of the NPCs Burton and Mancubus was especially good, and they nailed the soundtrack for this DLC.

Bounty of Blood is a first for the series, having a wild west theme but infused with Japanese influence and a fully voiced narrator (in 3rd person). The result is quite unique, and something I really enjoyed. The whole story is narrated like an old western, with each minor step forward (area entered, action unlocked, mini boss disposed) continuing the story by the narrator. I have to admit I really enjoy this, and the voice acting by the narrator is really well done. You are hired by the sheriff of Gehenna to collect the bounty put on the Devil Riders, an outlaw gang of saurian riding bandits who terrorise the town of Vestige. I was hoping to be able to ride a saurian as the new vehicle, and while isn’t an option the jet bike you do end up with is good, however the weapons are very poor on it (a dinosaur would have been cooler)! Side missions have more of a western feel (hunting has been replaced with skinning), finding buried treasure, claiming bounties, missing journal entries of the previous sheriff and other such quests. I really liked how the town became more alive as you progressed in the story, with new shops opening up as things progressed. The maps and environments are very well designed, with a heavily influenced Japanese structure (a bath house is the stage for a boss fight, there’s Tori gates everywhere winding up a valley, all building in town used the same design as Athena from the base game. Separating all that is open plains with traditional western tropes such has military forts, wooden lumber mills and railways systems. Enemies are split between reused assets from previous games and reskinned enemies from the base game, though they all have a mixture of cowboy and Asian appearance which looks wholly unique. The soundtrack is also fairly unique, in that most of the battle music is violin based with the tempo increasing. The singer that eventually appears at the saloon in town also plays the best song in this DLC.

Psycho Krieg and the Fantastic Fustercluck is somewhat a mixed bag (I still enjoyed it). It has a great story that explores how Krieg became how he is and how his split personality disorder has changed over time, but the DLC is fairly short, relies heavily on multiple enemies spawning in waves in every location (which quickly becomes boring), and the side quests are non-existent (at most you have to talk to someone standing next to the quest giver and its finished). The stages function somewhat like claptraps DLC from the Pre-sequel with a safe hub area in which you explore different memories. However, because it’s Krieg’s mind (and the psychotic side) the environment is quite messed up, with it being a fusion of imagination and his experiences as a test subject. While majority of the enemies are reused assets there are a few new ones, and I loved the bandits riding bullets. The train boss was quite unique (as it attacks you as you are making your way to it) and final boss was quite good. The timed reward vault at the end is a nice wink to the first game. The voice acting for Krieg was expertly done, and the soundtrack is a mix of haunting, sombre piano work and frantic, high paced riffs and drum work.

If you are chasing 100% achievements, then all the DLC is required. Unlike the main game, these aren’t bugged, and are easily attainable.

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My friend Pedro is a slick and stylish platformer that was released in 2019 with heavy emphasis on flashy kills, slowing time to control the pace of battle and completing stages in the shortest time. While its relatively short to complete at around 4 hours and only offers substantial replay value to those who are hunting achievements or trying to get high ranks on the leaderboard it is well worth playing as its gameplay is extremely polished, it looks great and is fairly causal to play though difficult to master. I would highly recommend picking it up when it’s on sale.

You play as an unnamed character who takes advise from Pedro, a floating sentient banana who helps you escape from a basement where you are about to becomes todays mystery meat and aids you in tracking down your abductors and making them pay. The story gets weirder from there, but has a few funny moments and quite a good surprise ending though any more would spoil the plot. It gets bonkers very quickly.

Gameplay is extremely polished, and the highlight of the game along with the music. Typically, in each stage you are trying to get to the exit as quick as you can to earn a higher score. Each stage introduces a new puzzle element, from switches, ropes, environmental hazards or tougher enemies, which impede your progress. While none are difficult they help showcase the characters acrobatic flare, as you pivot and dodge bullets, parkour across the environment, backflip off walls while traversing the stages and figuring out the puzzles to proceed. Some stages mix the formula up with boss fights, or completely break the mould of the previous stages and are more evoking of large scene car chases (or gunfights from The Matrix). Gun control is tight, with you being able to shoot at 2 enemies at the same time as you charge in into combat guns blazing, with the ability to slow time allowing you to control the action as long as you don’t over use it, or spin to avoid damage. There are a variety of guns to choose from (some allowing you to dual wield), each with their own benefits and additional actions. Killing enemies and keeping the score multipliers while performing flashy kills is the only way to get a high score, as the multipliers slowly resets if an enemy isn’t killed within a time period. The controller scheme is well thought out, though does require patience as you need to use both sticks, the dpad and the shoulder toggle buttons for moves with is difficult if you aren’t constantly using a controller. I’m not sure if the game supports playing without a controller, but I wouldn’t recommend it.

Enemies come in a few different variants (each new one is usually a tougher bullet sponge), though some do have a few tricks or wield different weapons. Each weapon can kill enemies in different ways, with headshots from weapons completely removing the head, or the shotgun which snaps enemies in two at the middle or explosive barrels that can gib them entirely. You have full control over how you fire your guns so aiming correctly quickly becomes an important focus. Dead bodies act as meat shields for enemies behind them until they fall to the ground so changing targets is more efficient than pumping bullets into a body that’s still falling.

The environment and stages are quite detailed, though most of that details are in the backgrounds, with important objects in the foreground like switches, hazards, pickups and enemies highlighted or made to stand out. You always stick out in your classy yellow and black suit, and I didn’t run into any sections that are overly dark. A lot of the stages have great finishing touches, like glass panelling you crash through (which alerts the enemies) but looks great as you start firing, tables you can flip over to hide behind or crates that get destroyed by errant gunfire. The muzzle flash when firing weapons looks spectacular. I especially liked how the game has a gif creator inbuilt, so you can make a gif you your sweat scenes of carnage at the end of each stages, though it would have been nice to manually select which sections gets nominated for gif creation.

The music is very good, filled full of short synth songs that match the action on screen and are pumping. The more random stages deviate from the usual style, but still fit the stages perfectly. The guns sound solid and meaty when they are fired and bullets ricocheting off reflective panels have a nice ping sound.

If you are a competitive sort, then there is a leaderboard to compare scores against friends and others who own the game. While the game doesn’t take long to complete, if you want to master the game to earn 100% achievements then be prepared to spend a while playing rush through each stage to get the best score.

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Borderlands 3 is a high point in the series in some aspects, being just as engaging as Borderlands 2 while expanding the gameplay options and quests especially for solo players, but not without its fair share of controversy and problems. The game is great fun if playing solo or with friends, and I highly recommended it as long as you aren’t chasing achievements or playing with others who aren’t geographically close to you. The base game price is fairly cheap now (the DLC is another story).

Continuing the story from after the events of Tales from the Borderlands and the fight for sanctuary DLC from Borderlands 2, Handsome Jack has been defeated and a few years have passed, but a new threat has arisen to destroy Pandora in the shape of the Calypso twins, obnoxious siren streamers who have united the bandit clans and are trying to open the grand vault. The story itself is good (though not as good as BL2) and takes a fair few unexpected paths. Lots of long standing NPCs and previously playable characters return, and It isn’t afraid to pull punches by sacrificing long standing characters to move the story along. You can play the game without having played the previous entries, but large swathes of the plot and personal character history will be lost as they aren’t really revisited. Each of the new vault hunters are fairly unique, and while they all have similarities to previous character classes, they are different enough that they feel fresh. Lots of outstanding questions that have riddled the series have been answered in BL3, while new ones have been introduced.

Gameplay has been tweaked, with lots of the features carrying over from previous games with the more annoying ones having being removed. The biggest change is to the unique ability of each character, with each vault hunter having the option of 3 to pick from that can be switched at any time, and each of these unique abilities can be further upgraded, changing the effects. Each character doesn’t feel shoehorned into a set role or using certain weapons, and these changes make combat much more enjoyable. This also makes the game much more rewarding for solo play, where certain abilities would lock each character to certain play styles. Sliding has also been introduced and while it isn’t any faster in it feels like it. You can also grapple for edges when jumping, which helps with exploring as there is slightly more focus on that this time around. Higher quality loot drops seem to have been dramatically increased, in previous games I was lucky if I saw legendary drops, BL3 hands them out like candy. All the elements are back (sludge has been replaced with radiation which also does DOT) and can “infect” other enemies. Each weapon manufacture really focuses on a few gimmick which I thought was cool, all Atlas weapons now have homing functionality, while Jacobs now ricochet on critical hits, COV never need to reload but overheat, and you can have an army of Tediore guns acting like turrets or walking\flying around you. Just like previous games you don’t tend to get to attached to certain weapons as better ones come along very quickly, and it doesn’t stop until you hit max level.

The amount of side missions has drastically been reduced, with many tasks changed to map specific objectives (like killing certain boss enemies, finding claptrap parts or vehicles to steal or shutting down radio stations). Traveling between planets is now included (the action has moved off of Pandora) and the map for each area shows what’s left to collect. Traveling in the spaceship (Sanctuary 3) is now a major part of the game, and is fairly unique- for a hub city everything is quite close so it’s good that you can do what you need to and get back into the action. Fast travel can be done from anywhere on the map as long as you aren’t in combat. Slaughterhouse missions (25 waves of progressively harder enemies) return, but now have breaks every 5 rounds so you can rearm and prepare, and having Mr Torgue voice them is the best thing ever. There are only 2 raid missions in base game, and now require you to fight through a gauntlet of enemies before you can even take on the raid boss, and the tax on dying at the raid bosses seems to have been drastically reduced compared to the base game). Once the base game is finished you can start again in True Vault Hunter mode and play again for higher quality drops, or jump into mayhem mode, which is an adjustable slider of difficulty and applies modifiers to mix gameplay up with better rewards. Co-op also offers a few different modes now, with a new option of scaling enemies to each player’s levels and instancing loot, or play with the standard settings - loot/enemies levels are a few higher than the host and everything is a free for all, leaving weaker players to struggle.

The game still uses the same cell artwork as previous entries, but it looks a lot more detailed and the environments are a lot more varied now. The alien planets look amazing, and the variety is great, though each planet focuses on a set element (jungle, desert ect) which is a shame. Some cover is now destructible which helps get enemies out in the open (or forcing you to keep moving) and looks great as it splinters apart under weight of fire. Enemies are a lot more varied (with both male and female being encountered), take cover a lot more and seem to dodge a lot more fluidly now. Customisation is also expanded, with gun trinkets (in additional to all the previous customisations that were available).

The voice acting was good, and the replacement voice actors sound very close the originals. I wasn’t a fan of the twins dialogue other than the superfan comments, but that’s down to personal preference. The stupid humour is still riddled throughout the game, but it seems to have been toned down somewhat compared to previous games. Marcus’s vending machine comments are quite funny, and Mr Torgue is still the best.

All of the above is good, but there are still a fair few issues the game needs to work out. If you care for them, achievements are utterly broken, and challenge tracking is horrendous. I don’t know if they just forgot to update values since new DLC has come out, but it looks very lazy to have these 1 year on. Whoever implemented the counter for which area you have visited needs to be taken outside and shot. Multiplayer seems to suffer from the peer mode it uses (if you are playing over long distances or with more than 1 person than latency becomes an issue, I was having issues getting the game to recognise what keys I was pressing to use abilities), though it benefits crossplay with people who bought the game early on Epic. Gearbox replacing sound actors because they didn’t want to pay them for additional work (or ensure all VA’s were paid a standard market rate) doesn’t sit right with me. If you bought the “ultimate” edition and were expecting to not have to pay for any more DLC then your out of luck, and the Season Passes are quite pricey.

Season Pass which contains the first 4 DLC can be found here https://gtm.you1.cn/id/Carrionjr/recommended/1233062?snr=1_5_9__402

Achieving 100% in the achievements requires to purchase both DLC season passes, and as content is still coming out will likely have you revisiting the game in the future. The collection achievements are bugged, requiring you to perform all of them without returning to Sanctuary in one sitting. That said, actually performing them is easier this time (there’s nothing outrageous in there)

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Edit* DLC review link added

Frostpunk is an amazing resource & city management game where every choice matters and where inaction is just as deadly as incompetence. Even if you aren’t into city builders, I highly recommend giving Frostpunk ago.

Set in an alternative steampunk 19th century the world has found out that an impending global ice age is about to occur due to volcanic eruptions (think of the Arctic snap but globally). You arrive at one of the few generator city’s, giant heat producing furnaces and are ordered to govern the people, protect the furnace and weather the storm while keeping the citizens needs met and discontent at a minimum. It doesn’t seem so difficult at first, extract coal to keep the fires burning, make food to keep everyone fed and get enough of the other resources to be able to build new building. Then the cold starts to hit and you are scrambling to keep people warm and fed, heal the sick and deal with the ever increasing disasters that start to plague your city.

I like to think of myself as a relatively nice and collected person, but Frostpunk brought out the inner dictator that would have made humanity’s worst proud. Your actions are measured by what laws you pass and decisions you make throughout the game. By the end I had people eating sawdust meals, with cripples freezing to death in abandoned care homes, citizens brainwashed into reporting fictitious crimes about their neighbours with their children working the coal mines. Not only did I cross that line, I returned, did another lap and crossed it again and have never felt more proud at only saving a few people. Surviving in Frostpunk is hard, and until you know the inner workings of good building placement and have a solid plan in place failure will likely involve every inhabitant freezing to death, the generator exploding or you being exiled into the unforgiving cold. It forces you to compromise on your morals, the rights and safety of the few vs the many. Benevolent actions may cripple you, and tragedy can strike at any time. Being utterly pragmatic will lower your approval so quickly that you are turfed out of office, so it’s a fine line to walk.

Mismanaging resources will lead to a quick game over, but poor city building will lead to long drawn out failure and makes all the difference. This is explored more in one of the DLC’s, but the whole game is about efficiency (the citizens are stupid). The city is built around the generator in a circle, and heat can be increased at the cost of coal consumption. Some buildings can function in very cold weather, but others can’t and the colder your population is the sicker they get. Your population is split into 3 types, with adults forming 2 categories - general workers and a few being specialised into engineers who can do the fancy jobs like being a doctor or researcher, and the rest who are children who can’t work (unless you pass laws that make them work). Do you spend time on getting the children out of the cold, and in care centres, where they might have a chance at helping the doctors, or have them working the coal mines earning their keep, or ignore them completely to focus on more pressing needs?

The game looks great, and certainly captures a steampunk vibe and while covering everything in ice and snow it looks gritty, with coal mines scattered everywhere, fires constantly burning and more snow constantly dropping. Giant automations can be used that replace the workers and look like something out of war of the worlds.

Frostpunk has quite good replay value as there are a few scenarios to play after you have finished the first one, all which add different challenges and tell a different story. There is now an endless mode to play which removes any of the major events and lets you tweak starting resources to help get a better grip on the game.

The DLC lets you try and recover a poorly run city instead of building from the ground up, which adds a new layer of complexity. There is also a scenario of actually building the generator pre ice age which adds a completely different dynamic to the game (as the population isn’t quite as willing to work hard for a threat they can’t see) or missions that revolve around helping a floundering neighbour city at the cost of your own scare resources.

If you are chasing 100% achievements then you will need to purchase the DLC and practise, as some of the achievements require a perfect run (no civilian losses), or are quite specific in what you need to do.

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Total War: Warhammer 2 is a direct sequel to 2016’s Warhammer release, and I recommend it even if you don’t own the previous game. While being more of the same from a Total War viewpoint, it is amazing and you are doing yourself a disservice by not playing it. If you have to choose between the previous game and this one, get Total War: Warhammer 2.

The new vortex campaign is based around 6 races, with Skaven, Lizardmen, High Elves and Dark Elves fighting over control of the Vortex, and the DLC race Tomb Kings ignoring the Vortex and recovering the books of Nagash, and DLC Vampire Coast (undead pirates) trying to capture the great Merwyrm and turn it into an undead beast. Other races are limited to NPC factions in this campaign. You have set objectives this time around that slowly worsen relations with opposite races (though each ritual performed will increase relations of the similar race). You have the option of ignoring the ritual and if you do the end battle changes to you being the challenger which I thought was very cool. The campaign is still long, but having invading armies that you pay to instantly invade the enemy lands to wreck havoc and interfere with their ritual was fun (even if you can’t control them), and was a great way to capture enemy territory early on if you can get an army of your own over there in time. The standard domination campaigns are still available and if you own the first game then you have the option of playing a new campaign called the Mortal Empires, which merges the 2 maps together (the previous game map has been condensed) with all the races from both games (including any DLC races you own). It’s a much larger version of the TW:W normal campaign, with even the short domination campaign taking a much longer time to play.

The new races that have been added are very cool and follow their table top counterparts well. The lizard men are filled with blocks of armoured troops, and big monsters which make the enemies panic. The Skaven are a weak hoard army of rat men who rely on numbers and warp fuelled. weapons to tear their foes down. Both the factions of elves are filled with specialist units and have long range archers that tear through armour like paper. The tomb kings play like the vampire kings of the first game, but have a lot more archer units and heavily rely on their armies being re-raised. Magic still dominates, and can be abused if you know what you are doing.

Gameplay has been tweaked, instead of races being unable to occupy certain territory you are now affected by climate bonuses with some of the debuffs being atrocious. You can own the entire world, but will be paying much higher upkeep and building costs to do so. Confederation seems to be easier to do than in TW:W, but is still limited to what DLC you own (no more taking ownership of units you haven’t purchased). Otherwise gameplay is exactly the same as the previous TW entries, with you much better off taking ownership of every battle (the auto resolve gives you significant losses if used), and there are a less enemy agents linked to enemy armies. There are a lot more unique factions that all have different objectives in the mortal empire campaign.

The game looks stunning (it still uses the same engine as the previous game), and if you have a powerful enough machine can be great fun zooming right in to watch the action, though in big battles with hundreds of bodies it can be very difficult to see singular hero’s unless they are riding a big creature. The previous game introduced a few big monsters, but now you can go berserk with them.

The only downside is the cost, and amount of DLC. There is tons of DLC (across both games), and it doesn’t seem to get cheaper over time. While some of the DLC and unique commanders are free, majority is locked behind a paywall, so even if you want to unite an entire race you have to pay for that. The game also seems to suffer with the amount of factions it has to process, end turn times can be long. There is a rumoured 3rd game coming that will utilise the current paid DLC (much how the existing DLC added that race to the game), though no release dates have been posted and at least 2 new series have been released since this game.

There is a ton of workshop content available, from new units, campaigns, textures, voices, maps, UI tweaks so if there is something in the game you don’t like, you can likely change it.

If you are chasing 100% achievements you would have to be a Total War Junkie, or masochist. Playing the game on hard for each race requires a devotion I couldn’t endorse.

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Watch Dogs 2 improves upon all gameplay aspects of the first game, being one of those rare instances where the sequel is better than the original. If you haven’t already played it or bounced off the first game I highly recommend giving it ago. Looking back it’s a game that was ahead of its time (2016), and the concerns that the game raises about data manipulation and risk, health care and insurance, media control, drone and AI use against civilians, corporate corruption, voter manipulation and political influence are now mainstream, and in the news almost everyday.

All story elements have been improved upon in WD2. Set is a fictionalised San Francisco, you control Marcus, a young black American hacker who has been branded a high risk (low score) by the intrusive ctOS system that predicts he will become a problem in the future (and hence life is worth less). It can now make these predictions because it has expanded from what it once was, collecting data on all facets of everyday life and activities. Marcus joins Decsec, the hacker collective from the first game but instead of trying to destroy the system, you are trying to expose the flaws and corruption to gain followers and swing popular opinion against bloom. Instead of playing as an angry protagonist who refuses to learn and acknowledge his mistakes, Marcus and co are actually fun to follow and listen to them quip and nag each other, while pulling off stunts and more outrageous hacks against corporate bloom partners and affiliates. The hacks start out small and relatively tame but escalate into breach’s (both physical and virtual) and are great to participate in and epic in scale.

Gameplay has been massively improved as well, with their being a host of lifestyle enhancements, as well as additional things to do other than main missions and unlocking fast travel points. It plays more like a GTA game now, with plentiful side missions, races and sights to take a selfie at, all of which increase your follower count (XP bar), and having fast travel unlocked at the start makes traversing the city much easier. Multiplayer missions have also been expanded, with a larger variety and some allowing co-op, and the invasions can be disabled if you find them annoying. Marcus is far less concerned with breaking into every home and invading personal privacy, with the group starting with low lever pranks but then becoming more focused on exposing flaws in corporate systems and exposing corruption with their hacktivist activities. Marcus has access to a 3D printer, in which you can print your own weapons and gadgets, with a drone and buggy extending the groups espionage capabilities. The upgrade tree allows you to improve many different skillsets (all very similar to the first game), however later upgrades require a unique part to acquire before being purchased. Car chases have been majorly overhauled from the first game, and it is now possible to hide without having to destroy everything in sight. It is still handy to use the environment to escape, but enemy vehicles aren’t moving pillboxes now, and the driving itself has vastly improved. The hacking mini games puzzles are still a large part of the game, but not as much as the first game and don’t dominate every mission. I noticed alternative ending lines for at least 1 mission (I didn’t use the zip line Wrench setup to escape a late game mission).

Visually the game is great and was surprisingly glitch free for my play though. I didn’t encounter any invisible objects that blocked my path and graphically the game looks stunning. While there isn’t a day/night cycle, it does seem to change from morning to evening (with some missions being set to night). This did change some of the NPC locations. Marcus has plenty of customisation options with some unlocking during missions, as well as paint options for weapons and gadgets (there are a lot of additional DLCS you can purchase for these as well). It comes with an optional 4K texture pack that’s a separate free DLC in case you aren’t playing in that resolution and don’t need the files (running the game in 4K without the texture pack still looks great).

The soundtrack and vocals are all top notch, from the main cast right through to the conversations you can listen to hacking bystander’s phones. The available soundtrack for the cars (and what you can steal from other phones) is pumping, with enough different choices to keep most people happy, though there isn’t an option to play your own music. I loved on how some missions Beethoven starts blaring as the mission comes to a close. I didn’t notice any audio glitches, though I wished after a quick travel the music would continue playing (it is annoying having to constantly load the phone, restart the music to continue). Having the system menu button the same as the skip button was unfortunate as I missed a few conversations because if it.

I thought the 2 DLC missions were worth it (they only provide a few hours each), though they do add new cars, outfits and multiplayer missions, though they are pricy if not purchased on sale. I thought Human Conditions was better bang for buck as you get 3 side missions from it, all of which play differently from the main game, but if you can get the season pass or gold edition for cheap they are included. The rest of the DLC depends on how much you like costume options in game, and will come down to personal preference. You do need to play a certain way through the game for the DLC missions to unlock.

There are no steam achievements, but plenty on Uplay, and it requires an active Uplay account. All of the Uplay awards start unlocked (as they are changing that system), so you can start the game with a fair few bonuses.

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