Recent reviews by Vhaen

» Playing Sleeping Dogs kept me on the edge of my seat, but not for the reasons you might expect. Sure, its melee combat and gun-play provide plenty of thrills, the driving is extraordinarily fun in all of its arcade glory, and there’s a lot to do in the version of Hong Kong that developer United Front Games created. But at the end of my nearly 20-hour experience, none of that mattered to me as much as the story did. It’s that story, coupled with rock-solid mechanics and a task-heavy world, that sets Sleeping Dogs apart from its competition.

» See, Sleeping Dogs isn’t your typical Grand Theft Auto clone. Unlike other titans of the genre -- Grand Theft Auto IV, Red Dead Redemption and Saints Row: The Third -- your character, Wei Shen, doesn’t have roguish, violent tendencies just because he’s a criminal looking to make a few bucks. Rather, Shen is a calculated and complicated figure, an undercover cop with plenty of experience in both the United States and Hong Kong who returns to his native land in order to help get the city’s thriving criminal enterprises under control. But as Shen gets sucked further and further into the Triad underworld he initially wants to unravel, his motives – and which side he’ll end up falling in line with – become increasingly blurred.

» Sleeping Dogs’ blurred lines come to the fore as soon as you’re introduced to the game’s unique levelling system, which allots Shen experience points in three specific areas: Cop, Triad and Face. The experience points are, in turn, used to unlock new, unique abilities. Cop and Triad points often intermingle with one another as you complete the game’s primary missions, rewarding you for how careful you are with innocents and personal and private property (Cop) while simultaneously challenging you to brutalize your enemies with as much reckless abandon and gore as you can muster (Triad).

‘Face,’ on the other hand, has everything to do with how the citizenry of Hong Kong feel about you, making it not only the most abstract of the experience meters, but perhaps the most interesting as well. Doing all kinds of favours for the anonymous masses net you ‘Face’ experience, so whether you’re assisting a merchant, chasing down some drunks or otherwise generally helping out the working class folk (and the occasional two-bit criminal) of Hong Kong, expect your Face meter to rise steadily.

A unique, multi-faceted experience system like this makes Sleeping Dogs a more deliberate affair than its contemporaries. On most main story missions, for instance, you will be docked police points for ramming into street lights with your car, accidentally striking a civilian or letting stray bullets seep into a storefront. But this is balanced by your brutality with Triad members. Using the game’s array of exceptionally gory kills is a great way to build that Triad meter to its maximum level as quickly as humanly possible. The experience system’s dynamics will keep you on your toes, and because you can replay missions once they’re completed, you could always go back to try things a little differently if you’re unsatisfied with the outcome as it currently stands.

» Sleeping Dogs’ version of Hong Kong is purportedly influenced by and designed after the real city. Its four districts are distinct, and the map sprawls considerably, although it’s probably not quite as big as Liberty City or Steelport. What makes it stand out, however, is how alive and well-populated it is. The AI in the game is smart, the passing chatter of NPCs well-executed, and the ebbs and flows of the city as it vacillates between day and night make it a believable setting worthy of exhaustive exploration.

Stellar voice acting simply adds to this emphasis on realism and believability. The game employs a unique mixture of Chinese and English that doesn’t sound corny or ill-executed. Characters openly change things up depending on the nature and cadence of conversation, and you can follow along, when necessary, via subtitles. This approach is bold and risky, but it’s also top-notch and worth commending. The graphics, on the other hand, are good, but they certainly won’t blow you away. There are definite draw distance problems to be had with the game and some texture loading issues as well.

» At its heart, Sleeping Dogs does many of the things its top echelon competition in the genre already does pretty well, but where the game really shines is in the handful of things it does decidedly better. Hand-to-hand combat, for instance, is button-mashy and simple – almost Arkham City-like -- but works really well and makes Grand Theft Auto IV look subpar and archaic by comparison. This is good, as you’ll be relying on hand-to-hand combat with the occasional weapon thrown in – such as a kitchen knife, a pipe or a nightstick – for a majority of the game. Likewise, Sleeping Dog’s driving mechanics are immaculate, outclassing its closest competition. In other words, expect to be surprised by how much better Sleeping Dogs does certain things than games you’d, at first glance, think completely outshine it.

» Then again, the game’s single biggest issue is with its camera. The camera often repositions itself towards centre, even when you’re using the analog stick to maneuver it while driving. This can significantly complicate navigating tight quarters or getting a look around your vehicle in open spaces. The camera can also be frustrating in some combat situations, though this is far less pronounced. The camera’s real deficit rests almost solely in conjunction with driving around Hong Kong, but this problem shouldn’t be overblown. You won’t always – or even often – encounter situations where this is a problem, and it generally doesn't detract from how fun it is to drive around. But it’s still worth noting.

» All in all, Sleeping Dogs did things that wowed me from the moment I started playing, and it never really stopped. A few finicky issues aside, Sleeping Dogs has proven itself worthy of joining the top class of open-world sandbox games revolutionized by the likes of Grand Theft Auto IV and currently topped by more recent additions like Saints Row: The Third. But don’t be confused; Sleeping Dogs does some things better than even the cream of the crop, and its story will be what keeps you focused on playing. The fact that the game happens to play well is simply icing on the cake.


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» If there’s one genre that lends itself to boom or bust, it's the online shooter. For every success like Call of Duty, Halo, or Apex Legends, it seems like there are at least a dozen other games that have come and gone with barely a spark before they fizzle. With so many good competitive shooters in play, what makes one stand out? After dozens of hours, I’m beginning to see how The Finals answers those questions: with an excellent gameshow-infused style and a brilliantly destructible playground.

» There are currently two main modes: the first, Quick Cash, has each team vying to collect a vault of coins and deposit it at a designated spot on the map, which tends to result in the bloody convergence of all three squads at those points. This effectively keeps the action going, and because taking over the deposit doesn’t reset its progress, rounds move steadily and avoid momentum-killing stalemates altogether.

Meanwhile, the Bank It mode focuses a bit more on direct PvP battles, but they also tend to be more scattered. Here, each player carries coins in their virtual pockets, all of which is gathered either from vaults around the map or by eliminating enemies. The on-the-fly strategizing of going for kills one second and then needing to deposit your loot before it all goes to waste the next is exciting, and it’s pretty fun to eliminate someone right in front of the bank so you can deposit all their coins yourself.

Individually, both modes are well-designed and generally very fun. The fact that The Finals is limited to just those two options, however, is a red flag. If the player base starts to grow tired of these game types and there aren’t any other options, there is a real possibility of people moving on before too long. While I didn’t find that to be an issue during my time playing, that does present a potential concern for the long-term health of this community that I hope is addressed with new modes in future updates.

Once you’ve played a few matches you’ll unlock tournaments, and this is where the competitive attitude of The Finals really shines. The primary tournament mode puts you and seven other teams in a bracket playing modified versions of Cashout. Two games of four teams each run simultaneously, with the top two squads from each game advancing to the second round. The top two teams from that game then face off in a direct 3v3 match to determine the overall winner. It does a great job mixing the high-stakes nature of actual competition with rounds that are fast and satisfying enough to elicit that “just one more game” feeling after each tournament. There’s a ranked version, where players can move up in leagues based on their performance.

» You can choose from three different weight classes for your character, and they all play very differently from each other. The Light build, for example, focuses on mobility, trading stopping power for a grappling hook to quickly get to high or far places. The Medium, meanwhile, is an all-rounder and has abilities that focus on support, such as its healing beam. Finally, there’s the Heavy, which could have been taken straight from Rainbow Six: Siege, as it alternates between controlling the battlefield with heavy weapons and smashing through walls like the Juggernaut.

There’s a solid variety of equipment for you to choose from before each match, and they can have a major impact on the battlefield if used properly. There are standard choices, like frag grenades and deployable cover, and those are tried and true options that do what you’d expect – but they hardly stand out when you can instead drop jump pads that launch you high into the air, or goo grenades that can seal large spaces with an expanding foam. Some options are universal, like the pyro grenades, while others are restricted to specific classes like the Medium builds’ defibrillator that instantly revives downed teammates.

» Each character archetype also has a litany of cosmetics that can be unlocked through XP progression or by spending real-world money. There’s a pretty solid assortment to choose from right out of the gate, though the amount of time it takes to unlock good-looking items (without taking out your wallet) requires major retuning. After 20 hours, the best I could afford was some fanny packs and tights on one character, which makes getting the whole squad glammed up feel like a pipe dream.

That slow progression is also true of VRs, the in-game “cash” you earn for playing that’s used to unlock non-cosmetic things like different abilities, weapons, and gadgets. I get that there needs to be a balance between giving you everything too soon, which can take away the joy of progression, and making it take too long to earn things, but right now The Finals skews a bit too much towards the latter. It’s hard to experiment with builds when all the pieces for each character are locked behind dozens of hours of matches.

» The destructibility of each stage is the real star of The Finals. Sure, you can enter a room from the door or window. But taking the less obvious path of crashing right through the ceiling is a thrilling way to get the drop on unsuspecting teams, and you haven’t played The Finals until you’ve stolen the vault by blowing a hole in an upper floor and had it drop right in front of you. By the end of a tense match, the battlefield is often littered with debris from entire buildings beginning to collapse.

There’s a lot more to that system than some cool rubble and an ad hoc door, too, as the strategic impact is huge. One map is high atop skyscrapers connected by sky bridges, and I sat in stunned silence the first time I saw a team destroy the section where a bridge met a building, causing the entire thing to collapse to the ground below. Split-second judgment calls when buildings fall around you about whether to jump off or ride the debris down can make or break firefights and create unforgettable moments – like when my entire team was dead in the final seconds of a match, and the only thing that stopped another team from stealing the bank for the win was the amount of rubble they had to dig through to reach it.

» There will always be an element of luck in the quality of teammates you are matched with, which is a big part of why The Finals (as with most team-based shooters) is better across the board with people you know. It’s so much fun to coordinate an assault with friends or to seize the bank and then protect it with mines and defensive structures. It’s also a huge advantage to work together. A flamethrower wielding Heavy supported by a healing beam from a Medium can wipe an entire team, and the strategic element of choosing complementary builds and kits is very engaging. When someone dies, they leave an action figure behind that can be used to revive them, and scooping one up so you can find a safe place to bring them back is as useful as it is hilarious.

» The Finals does a great job standing out from the competitive shooter crowd thanks to its fast-paced action, excellent environmental destruction, and gameshow-meets-squad shooter vibes. The way flying through the battlefield with a grappling hook or hulk-smashing through buildings mixes with its strict, objective-based modes is a breath of fresh air. It’s a concern that there are only two of those modes total right now, and it definitely feels like both in-game balance and the overall reward economy need some adjustments. But those are small critiques relative to the outrageous fun and breathtaking spectacle of buildings crumbling around you.


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» Dead Cells is a triumph of shockingly good game design: the ever-changing guts of its beautifully illustrated levels, a staggering array of game-changing weapons and gadgets, and its breakneck motion fuse into an engrossing loop. It’s so engaging that even after dozens of hours clawing through its island fortress, I’m still discovering and devouring new morsels.

» The heart of Dead Cells is its layered commitment to risk and reward. At its surface, you’re a decapitated prisoner reanimated for some unknown reason to run through a dozen levels that are gorgeously detailed — even though they’re procedurally generated — only to die and use what you’ve learned and collected to get a little farther the next time. This loop is at the core of what makes progressing through Dead Cells so special. Each new zone you reveal, each new artifact or weapon or skill you uncover, it all spurs that bittersweet, rewarding sense you’re slowly peeling away a great mystery.

The placement and order of its levels are Dead Cells’ skeletal frame, but the ever-changing layouts and enemy and item placements are the blood that pumps through its heart. It’s what makes every run different enough to be consistently tense and surprising and what challenges the notion you’ve seen it all when you’re dozens of runs through. You simply don’t know what you’re going to find, because it could be anything from a huge pool of equipment that’s delivered with perfect pacing. And just when I thought I’d dredged the best from that pool, in the very next run a shiny new toy would drop with glittering fanfare and I’d race to bank it with The Collector.

And though it may sting when you have to say goodbye to those perfect turrets that helped you progress further than ever before — the ones that set victims ablaze and do double damage to burning enemies in tandem — or the tens of thousands of gold you’ve collected on a particularly bountiful run, the actual progression comes from unlocking buffs, skills, and weapons between each run that never go away — no matter how often you thrust your face into walls of spikes while trying to set a new land speed record in the Ancient Sewers.

But through that constant repetition, like being trapped in some kind of gothic-horror Groundhog Day, you’ll scrape together money, blueprints for new items, and Cells you can spend to unlock blueprints and buffs for future use. Each small bit of persistent power you pick up propels you forward like a bloody snowball careening down a mountain until you feel unstoppable.

» Momentum is where Dead Cells really shines. Its slick system of running, jumping, dodging, and pounding through these dungeons feels so good that the desire to move and attack quickly overrides a lot of the caution that comes with a game where death sends you back to the beginning.

Motion Twin’s subtle design pushes you forward through ingenious touches. You’re rewarded for multi-kills with a burst of movement speed to keep propelling you forward. You don’t take damage from colliding with enemies, only their attacks inflict harm, and that grants a sense of safety even in the presence of diverse and deadly foes. If you’re wily enough, move fast enough, or jump precisely enough, you’re untouchable.

Dead Cells’ movement and combat encourage you to put it all on the line to get a little farther. It’s meant to be replayed dozens of times, unlocking another small but significant fragment of the broad skillset with each new artifact you earn. Once you’ve unlocked all of the clever Metroid-style abilities you’re eventually able to move unrestricted through Dead Cells’ darkest recesses to uncover its skimpy, but fun, bits of story and cleverly hidden game references in secret areas.

There’s a genuine sense that the secrets hiding near the end of Dead Cells’ journey are as potent as those you’re able to unlock near the start. Finding a rune in the acidic pits of the Toxic Sewers changed my first 15 minutes of every run thereafter. I now had access to a hefty portion of new equipment, secret areas, and alternate routes that were once unreachable. There was almost a rush in dying because it meant I could dive back into the opening minutes to uncover something I previously couldn’t. That feeling carries over with each new artifact, especially after discovering what’s on the other side of the final boss.

» The real diversity in each run comes from an excellent set of choices in how you want the second-to-second gameplay to work. Perhaps you’ll blitzkrieg through with speed and fire and sword — you’ll be rewarded for your reckless pace with access to timed locking gates that only open if you reach them in their stingily allotted times. Or maybe you’ll go through Dead Cells methodically, using ranged weapons, traps, and turrets to safely pierce, poison, burn, or butcher enemies and thoroughly explore every inch of each level for treasure. You’ll be stronger for it.

These playstyles are changeable on the fly, too, thanks to Dead Cells’ smart system for powering up throughout a run by collecting Scrolls of Power. In the beginning, you’re weak and fragile, but as you collect these scrolls you’ll be able to choose a build based on your style and items. The catch is that building an aspect buffs its associated weapons and skills and it’s also how you increase your maximum health pool.

The more scrolls you dump into a specific aspect, the less overall health you get for each consecutive one, so if you want to play a headless beefcake capable of taking a blow, it’s wise to spread your points out. However, doing so means you’re not particularly powerful with any one set of items, so your damage likely won’t be enough to whittle down the ever-inflating enemies in the later levels. I love that in Dead Cells you are free to experiment, but you don’t quite know how it will all shake out. Your starting weapons, the items you pick up, and their modifiers are always different. It keeps you improvising.

After all of the experimenting, the one overarching strategy I discovered was that you can’t always go for the throat. My first 10 runs in Dead Cells were all aimed directly at the final boss, but I quickly realized spending over an hour to get there only to immediately die because I hadn’t properly prepared was a waste of effort. My revised strategy was to focus on extracting blueprints for new gear in some runs, and on harvesting Cells to unlock those items and buffs in others. And every once in a while, I’d just run like a madman with a death wish and explore as much as possible.

For a more dramatic change of pace, there’s a daily dungeon outside of your main campaign that tosses you into a random map with random pickups to see how fast you can kill the boss. And, like all things in Dead Cells, this mode also rewards permanent progression (in the form of blueprints) for consecutively clearing these challenges each day. It’s a fun distraction and gives you the chance to test out gear you’ve yet to find in your game.

» Overall, Dead Cells is rewarding in its flexibility in a way few games are. Each easily digestible run through its beautifully detailed and shifting levels instills a feeling of discovery and familiarity. It goads you to push the limits of your ability and mercilessly crushes you when you get too comfortable. There are layers of strategy and tactics buried not only in the immediate choices you make, but in the grander metagame each run builds toward. It resembles a triumphant union of instinct, forethought, fun, and failure.


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» There is no shortage of great ninja-centric video games out there, from Metal Gear Rising to more recent gems like Katana Zero. But even among those, Ghostrunner stands out by being 100% committed to delivering that fantasy of becoming a super fast and deadly assassin. This is a game where you run fast, slide fast, kill fast, and if you can’t do those things fast enough, you die fast. It can be very demanding and requires pinpoint platforming precision and split-second decision-making, but it’s rarely ever frustrating thanks to instant respawns, mostly generous checkpointing, and most importantly, open-ended combat encounters that offer multiple methods of approach.

» Taking place in a cyberpunk-themed post-apocalypse, Ghostrunner tells the story of a cybernetically enhanced swordsman who awakens after getting thrown out of a tower with little memory of what happened to him, who he is, or why he feels compelled to immediately plunge a sword into the poor soul waiting below him. Guided by the disembodied voice of an old man known as The Architect, the Ghostrunner gets wrapped up in an ongoing power struggle between the supposed rulers of this broken world, the efforts of a dying resistance, and the mystery of who he is.

» It’s a predictable tale, but the story is nonetheless well told and respectably voice-acted. What’s especially great though is how the storytelling rarely slows down the fast pace of this six to eight-hour campaign. There’s a lot of well-acted dialogue in Ghostrunner, but it all plays out via conversations that happen in the head of the main character. That gives you the choice to either stop and listen intently to what’s being said or to just push on through the various parkour-heavy platforming challenges that typically accompany any long exposition dumps.

» Of course, the action is what you’re here for – and if you’ve got a thing for lightning-quick, reflex-intensive, high-risk/high-reward combat that gets decided with just a single strike, then Ghostrunner was made just for you.

The only main weapon in Ghostrunner is a sword, though your speed and mobility options are weapons unto themselves. The Ghostrunner can run along walls, slide down slopes with great speed, and also utilize a quick dash that can be held down to slow down time and alter the direction of his momentum in mid-air. Chaining all of these abilities together created a wonderful flow of movement that allowed me to nearly effortlessly close the distance between me and the more basic enemies before satisfyingly slicing them in half.

» Those basic enemies aren’t your only foes for long though, and one of the best things about Ghostrunner is how your adversaries always rise to meet your growing skills and abilities. Just when I got comfortable dodging and deflecting the bullets of the single-shot pistol-wielding enemies, I had to deal with machine gun-wielding soldiers who forced me to keep moving if I wanted to survive long enough to be able to hit them while they were reloading. After I got used to dealing with those, I had to learn how to deal with shielded enemies that could only be hit from behind.

Ghostrunner does an amazing job of always keeping its action fresh, and not just by periodically adding in new enemy types. Pretty much every level introduces something new into the mix, whether it’s an environmental mechanic like grind rails that completely change up how you navigate through a level, a temporary powerup such as a slow down that allows you to deal with a group of enemies that would otherwise be nearly impossible to take on without dying or a shield battery that must be destroyed first to deal with the rest of the enemies in an encounter. Ghostrunner rarely stays on one theme for too long, and as a result, the combat feels impeccably paced and never feels like it's running out of ideas.

Best of all is the amount of flexibility each combat scenario offers. There are often multiple entry points to any given encounter and each comes with its challenges. You might take the right side and have to deal with a machine gun enemy and a long path before you can get to him. Or you could take the left path, take down a ninja guarding a shuriken powerup, and then grind on a rail sniping enemies as you go. I felt like I was always rewarded for checking out different routes whenever I hit a wall.

» While its platforming portions are much more linear, they still benefit from a ton of variety in their challenges. Sometimes you’ll have to hack something to freeze it in place while you navigate through or around it, other times you’ll have to quickly throw shurikens at power plates to open a door and dash through it before it closes, and you’ll often find yourself using dash in creative ways to get through tricky obstacles. The deep well of ideas Ghostrunner uses to power its short campaign is not quite Titanfall 2 levels, but it’s extremely deep nonetheless.

However, sometimes these ideas do overreach a bit and don’t quite fit with Ghostrunner’s controls. One section, for example, has you collecting 13 items scattered all around a constantly rotating object. It’s an awkward area with physics that feels off and frustrating mantling issues that send you flying towards your death when all you meant to do was pull yourself up to a ledge.

» Ghostrunner also uses an interesting, albeit slightly gimmicky, upgrade system that allows you to alter and enhance your abilities. You earn upgrades automatically as you progress, which take the form of Tetris-like blocks that can be rotated and placed onto a grid. Space is limited, and the better upgrades take much more of the grid, so you’ll have to pick and choose which upgrades you want to have active at any time. The upgrades themselves are pretty good, and I found myself largely keeping space reserved for deflection-based options since I loved being able to bounce bullets back at enemies. That said, I found myself not caring about rearranging puzzle pieces to try and find an “optimal” placement, especially since any unused spaces on the grid will speed up your regeneration of a resource called focus.

Focus can be used to power one of your four special moves that function as a limited and situationally dependent ace in the hole. Blink, for example, can cut straight through shielded and otherwise tough to bring down enemies with one strike and keep your momentum going; Tempest, on the other hand, can be used to reflect projectiles that are otherwise extremely tough to avoid; and Surge is an anime-style sword energy slash that can take out multiple enemies from a distance. The last special move is a bit of a spoiler, but also has its situational advantages.

It’s also impressive that Ghostrunner’s sights and sounds are no slouch either. This is a gorgeous-looking game with an equally excellent synthwave-inspired soundtrack that will keep your head bumping throughout.

» With its breakneck pace and skill-heavy gameplay, Ghostrunner is a speedrunner’s dream. But even beyond that demographic, this is a great first-person action game that feels punishing but fair. You may die hundreds of times, but instantaneous respawns and generous checkpointing ensure that Ghostrunner’s challenging combat and platforming never become a chore. More than all of that though, Ghostrunner is jam-packed with a great variety of enemies, mechanics, and special powers that constantly changed up how I approached its many unique encounters. That meant it always felt fresh, and by the end of its six to eight-hour campaign, I was all too eager to jump back in for seconds.


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STEP 1: Buy a steering wheel and shifter
STEP 2: Install Shutoko Revival Project
STEP 3: *VROOOM STUTUTU*

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Me: 18 kills in Warzone
Players: This mf is cheating *Spam report*
Ricochet: Thank you for submitting your report
Me: *Gets shadow banned*

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» What Remains of Edith Finch stands tall as one of the finest magical-realism stories in all of video games. A first-person, story-driven experience akin to Gone Home and Firewatch, it tells the incredible, tragic, and constantly surprising multi-generational history of the Finch family. As you explore the gorgeous labyrinthine home, you’ll go on a guided history of each family member, delve into what may or may not be a familial curse, and ultimately learn how each one succumbed to it. Developer Giant Sparrow has once again created something truly remarkable.

» In the two hours it took me to fully explore I ran the emotional gamut from feeling completely devastated to full of an energetic light to annoyed by noticeable performance dips, especially when I approached the house for the first time. The only challenge is finding a way into each locked room of the house, generally through the use of secret passages that make the whole thing exude the charm and imagination of a pop-up book. While exploring the house, the last living member of the Finch family, Edith, narrates stories of the house, her family, and how the incredible lives they lived untimely came to an end.

» While the whole thing is pretty much devoid of any friction preventing you from progressing (there are even fewer puzzles here than in the aforementioned Gone Home), the joy of Edith Finch is in fully immersing yourself in the final moments of each Finch’s life. Once you find a specific memento in each of their rooms, you’re treated to a story of their death, told through fantastical allegories. Each one is presented through a completely different gameplay experience that continually subverted my expectations. With each one, nothing is safe when it comes to the art style, perspective, or gameplay genre. I don’t want to spoil them because I got so much joy out of never knowing where the next memory would take me. Except for one awkward sequence where you control animals from a first-person perspective, there’s a dreamlike nature to the way these sequences not only bend the rules but completely obliterate them.

While each story is ultimately about death, it’s wonderful how full of life every tale is. Even something as heart-wrenching as the death of a child is presented with such exuberant creativity and magic. While experiencing the final moments of their lives is unquestionably tragic, the way they embrace it and welcome whatever might come next fills each story with light. The eccentric family reminded me of The Tenenbaums from Wes Anderson's The Royal Tenenbaums or the Glass family from J.D. Salinger’s various works. Learning how they were all related and how the various deaths impacted each surviving member is something that I won’t soon forget.

» One thing I love about the house itself is how incredibly lived-in it feels. It doesn’t come across as a set designed around the idea of a video game level, but rather a home that a dozen members of an impossibly creative family lived in over several generations. Part of this comes at the cost of interactivity – there’s very little in the house you can touch or manipulate. Like a museum, there’s a “look, but don’t touch” policy here. But honestly, this didn’t bother me given how much I enjoyed the act of meticulously looking at every beautiful detail of the world.

» Though it only took just under two hours to complete, the second the credits stopped rolling I immediately restarted What Remains of Edith Finch. Each of the vignettes is so distinct and surprising that I didn’t have enough time to absorb and dissect what I had just played before being whisked away to the next one. But after fully piecing together the threads of the family and sifting through the allegories of their final moments, I was left with a beautiful, heartbreaking mosaic that exudes life, even when mired in death.


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TL;DR
For a game that is nearly seven years old, NFS 2015 offers one of the most pleasing aesthetics of any of the franchise’s previous and modern releases with a strong focus on JDMs. However, it falls short with limited support for controls and difficult car handling (issues with both keyboard and mouse, and controllers as well), a missing pause menu, and mandatory online play, raising concerns about long-term server support. That said, it's great fun for tuner car enthusiasts but prepare for some quirks.

PLEASE NOTE: For anyone who is planning to use a controller, ensure that you unbind all keybinds for the keyboard and steering wheel through the options menu. Keep the binds for CONTROLLER ONLY, otherwise, the game will be unplayable.

» Need For Speed 2015 has the series coasting back over familiar turf, resurrecting the spirit of 2003 and 2004’s successful Underground games. It is, at least, a more clearly distinct game than the last few NFS installments were from one another. It looks incredible, and sounds fantastic, and while the handling is still standard arcade fare, developer Ghost Games has added a welcome dose of nuance by letting us tune our cars for either grip or drift. However, the single-player component is over too soon, the multiplayer underdelivers, the cut-scene dialogue often had me wincing, and the game is stung by the side-effects of being online-only.

» First things first, It is immediately extremely pretty. There are dark and gritty instances where it feels a little like the whole thing has been shot on Michael Mann’s iPhone, but racing at speed through the soaked streets here (particularly in bumper cam) is really something else. The cars glisten with beaded water droplets and the streets gleam, a shiny tapestry of mirror-like asphalt reflecting artificial light from all angles. Need for Speed also sounds nearly as good as it looks; the throaty burble of performance-tuned engines is well-realised and the crackle of exhaust overrun and the ker-chunk of slamming gears is similarly respectable. However, the sudden, jarring transitions from the dead of night to pre-dawn, and then back to night again are horribly ill-conceived. These transitions seem to be baked into parts of the environment so they can actually happen multiple times over the course of a single race.

» The eclectic roster of cars is only a fraction of what’s on offer in, say, Forza Horizon 2, but it has a little something for most gearheads. Garage spots are limited to five but the focus here isn’t collecting; it’s perfecting. I completed most of Need for Speed in a single car, constantly cramming upgrades into it to keep it ahead of the competition.

Performance customization is the basic kind (bolt in everything you’re eligible to purchase and your car will go faster) but there’s a little more to visual customization. You can sweep around your car, swap external panels, add flair to fenders, install canards, adjust stance, and more. There’s also a freeform livery editor, which definitely beats having to make do with simple, pre-set designs and wraps. You can’t modify everything, though; after I completed the story mode I splurged on a classic Ferrari F40 but was disappointed to discover I could barely do anything to it. I couldn’t even change the rims. It seems at odds with the game’s philosophy.

It’s still good to have customization of any sort back in Need for Speed, and with it comes several basic tuning options you can use to alter your car’s driving characteristics. The main slider adjusts all settings, nudging your car towards a drift setup or a grip setup, but you can dive deeper and massage certain steering, tire pressure, and braking power settings individually to fine-tune your ride. I much preferred the drift setup for all race types because I found it far easier to get around corners by poising my Focus in a slide via a bootful of throttle and liberal use of opposite lock, rather than navigate the bends with a grip tune. The latter feels too twitchy at low speeds and too prone to understeer at higher ones, and I found myself getting frustrated trying to find the balance. Odd is the fact that, while Need for Speed has brought back tuning in a big way, the option for a manual transmission is horribly optimized for this game.

» Need for Speed’s light narrative plays out in a series of short, live-action cut-scenes, brimming with slang I don’t understand, excessive energy drink consumption, overuse of the word “hashtag”, and a slightly comical amount of first-person fist-bumping.

There are five main characters who, when they aren’t speaking to each other like living, breathing internet memes, each represent a different one of Need for Speed’s five themed racing threads. All of these threads lead to an encounter with a real-life automotive icon; an idea which I genuinely like.

The best thread is ‘Outlaw’, which is really just a mix of all the game’s race types with the cops on your tail. The cop action is scaled back from Hot Pursuit and Rivals but I certainly appreciate how the police AI seems a lot more fair and bound by the in-game physics than it ever did in Ubisoft’s The Crew. Considering it was the standout mode in the old Underground games, the lack of any drag racing in Need for Speed seems like a misguided omission.

It’s not an especially long story, though. There are 79 main events, but I blasted through them in just two days. The often shameless rubber band AI screwed me out of a few wins here and there but, for the most part, there were only a handful of races I needed to repeat. This modest length might be less of a problem if the multiplayer was more robust, but it isn’t.

» Like The Crew, Need for Speed requires a constant internet connection to play – even if you want to play solo. Unlike The Crew, you can’t just simply opt into multiplayer and rely on the game to take care of matchmaking and enlist you into a series of events. This really didn’t need to be an always-online game, and because it is, you can’t even pause the game, which I found extraordinarily annoying. Plus, without decent PvP, the only thing left after the brief campaign is hunting down Need for Speed’s frankly boring collectibles. Exactly why are we collecting photographs of plain, dimly-lit parking lots and anonymous warehouses?

» Overall, Need for Speed looks the part, sounds the part, and is surprisingly reverent to real-world car culture. The direction Ghost has taken here is the right one, but beneath its flashy exterior, it feels as if it is not quite firing on all cylinders.


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» Phantom Liberty showcases the full potential of Cyberpunk 2077 with a new, captivating story about the faults of loyalty, reckoning with your past and its consequences, and self-preservation in a tech-fueled dystopia. These are familiar themes, for sure, but Phantom Liberty is intimate, raw, and earnest--all told through the lens of a strong cast of characters elevated by poignant writing and delivered through sharp performances. It is able to execute these narrative ambitions because, more often than not, the missions that drive the plot feature top-tier action set pieces that let the revamped RPG mechanics sing, then break the pace with a variety of tense and well-crafted non-combat scenarios, which gives the experience a constant and steady momentum. While you can jump straight into the new content or use a save far enough in the base game, those starting fresh will have to make it to what's roughly the halfway point, right when the original story gives you parallel main questlines.

» Let's begin with the stellar voice performances, with Idris Elba lending his talent to the commanding and enigmatic Solomon Reed, and Songbird, the world's top net runner, providing depth and contrast to the story. Their shared history as long-time FIA agents adds intriguing tension, especially with V caught in the mix. On the other hand, Keanu Reeves's Johnny Silverhand offers relief from the tension, becoming surprisingly introspective as he relates to the events of Phantom Liberty. His character, always lurking in the background, provides sobering perspectives and a comforting, if unconventional, presence. This blend of exceptional voice acting, motion capture, and animation brings these characters to life and makes them unforgettable figures in Cyberpunk's world.

» The new physical piece to that world is Dogtown, an independent district within Night City that's been overrun by a militia acting as the de facto government. Sprawling slums and abandoned buildings make up most of Dogtown, along with a few luxurious establishments and the lively black market within the football stadium. It is smaller in scale than the main Night City map, making it easier to familiarize yourself with the streets. But when looking across the district from the rooftops, it still gives the impression of an expansive open world. Although the harsh realities on the ground are sad to see, like a post-apocalyptic society barely scraping by, Dogtown has a distinct identity separate from Night City. Part of it is a lawless warzone, but there's another side that's genuinely human with people trying their best to eke out an existence in spite of it all.

» Phantom Liberty capitalizes on Dogtown’s design, smartly embedding much of the main story and side missions within its streets. The absolute banger of an opening mission is emblematic of this design philosophy. As Songbird leads you through the stadium’s black market, you get an immediate sense of the town's vibe before all hell breaks loose. Whether you're wading through battling factions in tense firefights or making elaborate plays at stealth, you can quickly see how Dogtown was made to naturally support a variety of missions and combat sequences that feel curated and intentionally designed, and that synergy is a mark of a good open world.

Gigs and side missions also litter the streets, and Phantom Liberty prioritizes quality over quantity here as well. While they are side-content, gigs play an important role in the flow of the main mission since your fixer, Mr. Hands, is a crucial contact for favors that advance the story. What's more, is that each gig is an elaborately designed mission rather than an objective to check off a list. These are action-packed to give them a satisfying gameplay challenge, and they're always accompanied by a heavy decision in the end, which needs to often be made in the heat of the moment. With only incomplete information about the situation at hand, the moral conundrums become more interesting as choices are rarely ever black and white. These stories paint a vivid picture of what life is like in Dogtown, where the desperation to escape poverty clashes with the very system that people rely on; a system that exploits them, grinds them, and spits them out. The results of your decisions may not lead to major revelations, but every single gig and side mission is absolutely worth doing.

However, Phantom Liberty's standout achievement lies in its concluding hours, featuring two exclusive story paths that take bold and rewarding narrative turns. Unexpected twists leave you questioning your choices, evoking feelings of empowerment and powerlessness. It's a compelling experience that begs players to explore both routes for their distinct and genre-defying gameplay sequences. Additionally, the new ending for the original story, earned through specific conditions in Phantom Liberty, redefines the Cyberpunk journey in a potent and emotionally charged manner. CD Projekt Red has outdone itself with this one, delivering the type of ending that very few games are able to achieve.

» Phantom Liberty also embraces the 2.0 Cyberpunk update, revitalizing combat with explosive set pieces that showcase the enhanced RPG systems. The revamped perks and skill trees enable tailored character builds, fostering dramatic effectiveness in combat through hybrid approaches. Features like the Hack Queue bolster net runner-style strategies, while lightning-fast air dashes and blades offer nimble, lethal versatility, even allowing you to deflect bullets. The game encourages inventive hybrid builds to conquer its intense battles, and the diverse abilities in the skill trees facilitate enjoyable experimentation.

The new cyberware system adds another layer to create an effective build, letting you fine-tune your character with specific stat buffs, additional abilities, and quickhacks. Phantom Liberty introduces the Relic skill tree as well, and while it isn't particularly deep, it adds a wrinkle to the formula with new cyberware like the quickhack-infused Monowire melee weapon or additional perks that give an upper hand for stealth or hitting enemy weak spots. Cyberpunk 2077's RPG identity is much stronger now than it was previously and Phantom Liberty's combat scenarios substantially benefit from this reinvented foundation. Together, it all results in a uniquely satisfying gameplay experience.

Combat isn't the sole highlight of Phantom Liberty; it seamlessly weaves spy thriller elements into its narrative. Tense missions require navigating conversations under duress, such as infiltrating extravagant rooftop parties to gather vital information. Making sound dialogue decisions and second-guessing yourself become integral experiences.

» That said, Phantom Liberty is Cyberpunk 2077 at its best. CD Projekt Red has taken the lessons from the original release and focused on the parts that mattered most to deliver a thrilling and impactful experience that doesn't overstay its welcome. And although it fits into the original story, it leaves a lasting impact that rewrote my perception of Cyberpunk's world. From a gameplay perspective, Phantom Liberty takes full advantage of the fantastic overhaul of the RPG systems for combat, then elevates the intimate dialogue-driven elements that make it unforgettable--and does so in spectacular and inventive fashion in its conclusions. Beneath the violence and edginess, the actual cyberpunk world is always going to be about the toll on human life, and Phantom Liberty largely understands that. It's cruel, sobering, and bittersweet, and it'll stick with you well after V lays down their weapons.


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» Red Dead Redemption 2 is a sprawling Western tale of loyalty, conviction, and the price of infamy, chronicling the inevitable collapse of a motley crew of Wild West holdouts kicking against the slow march of civilization and industrialization. Set in Rockstar’s most authentic and lived-in open world ever, there are so many things to do, so many people to meet, and so many places to explore it is giddily overwhelming. RDR2 isn’t just Rockstar’s greatest achievement to date; it’s a game so lacking in compromise it is tough to know where best to start discussing it.

» It is 1899, and American outlaws are an endangered species. Dutch van der Linde and his gang are on the run after a botched heist in the growing town of Blackwater and they’ve retreated high into the mountains where an atrocious blizzard is covering their escape. We slip into the spurs of Arthur Morgan, an exceedingly cool and capable outlaw who was found by Dutch as a boy and raised on the wrong side of the law, and settle in for a roughly 60-hour story.

It’s a self-contained and linear introduction but it’s a clever one. The slick cinematics make a hell of a first impression, embedding you in the gang and bringing you right up close to the characters who are doing their best to bellow over the howling wind. It also placed me in a distraction-free bubble while I learned some of RDR2’s early controls and systems, which heightened the impact of having the full map open up to me a few hours later. The conditions on the mountain are almost claustrophobic, with visibility at a premium and thick snow trapping Arthur’s feet. Being set loose in the true open world after toughing it out in this intentionally oppressive environment really underscores the incredible feeling of freedom the full map offers.

» And what a world it is; broader, more beautiful, and more varied than the one we explored in 2010’s Red Dead Redemption by a massive margin (though parts of that game’s map are also included). There are snowy peaks and dank, alligator-infested swamps. Thick forests and open plateaus. Quaint homesteads and grand plantations. Narrow streams and great lakes. Dusty gulches and dim caves. There’s the muddy livestock town of Valentine, with its wooden buildings and rustic charm, and then there’s the imposing city of Saint-Denis, a grimy and growing metropolis full of modern extravagances like electric trams, paved roads, and Chinese restaurants. The vast assortment of ecosystems and environments seamlessly stitched together here is nothing short of remarkable.

Red Dead Redemption 2 is an undeniably pretty game across the board. The lighting is fantastic, particularly in dark, misty situations where shafts of moonlight stab through the trees, and I love the way it handles Arthur leaving weakly-lit interiors into the temporarily blinding sun outside. The sunsets are especially spectacular and seem to vary depending on the weather system. Some are harsh and beaming while others are warm and soft.

» The missions themselves are a cocktail of high-stakes heists, deadly shootouts, desperate rescues, and thrilling chases, mixed with a lengthy list of other activities. Many of those function as organic ways to teach us about new side hustles and activities that can be undertaken, from selling stolen horses to playing poker or fishing.

Shootouts are supremely cinematic thanks to plenty of gun smoke and the same style of on-the-fly, ever-changing death animations that have characterized Rockstar games since GTA IV. You can even shoot off people’s hats and pick them up later for yourself. I love the close-range clashes, hunkered down behind bits of cover exchanging lead with enemies often just yards away, or slugging it out in bare-knuckle scraps. The combat from horseback is equally well-handled and it’s always a grisly highlight to watch unfortunate saps go limp and tumble from the saddle in a seemingly endless number of ways.

Dead Eye also makes its return, naturally, as it’s been part of the series since Red Dead Revolver. It’s had some upgrades this time, the most useful of which highlights critical hit areas on a target (handy for clean kills while hunting). It’s still a very effective way to make you feel like an unstoppable gunslinger and the gruesome ballet of slow-motion death-dealing remains disturbingly satisfying.

Two new elements I did take quite seriously were horse bonding and the honor system. The former is an inspired method of making you treat your horse with realistic respect instead of riding the poor thing off cliffs or parking it on train tracks for giggles. All horses are unique, and only the ones that trust Arthur can be relied upon to stay calm and not kick him off in the face of a predator or in a gun battle, and that trust is built by riding, brushing, and feeding it. It makes it feel real and establishes a physical-to-digital bond between you two.

Meanwhile, Arthur’s personal honor is something that’s in the background at all times, rising and falling based on his actions in the world. In practical terms, being an outlaw who refrains from killing in cold blood and who helps regular folk around the world gets you discounts in shops and generally means you won’t have to look over your shoulder quite as often for bounty hunters and lawmen. Playing through as a vicious monster is also possible, although it’s not entirely clear to me whether there’d be some dissonance between that approach and Arthur’s actual story.

» Equally impressive is the audio, from the sound effects to the voice work to the huge library of music. Whether you’re expecting the satisfying metallic crunch of a reload, the iconic twang of a Hollywood Western ricochet, or the subtle squeak of a hotel floorboard, it’s all there. Bullets fired on mountaintops ring with cracking echoes, completely different from the sound of bullets fired indoors. Woody Jackson’s original score is top-notch – an evocative mix of jangling Ennio Morricone-esque guitar and more soulful pieces better suited to patiently trotting through the world absorbing its mixture of beauty and ugliness. There are also a few occasions where non-instrumental tracks are used to excellent effect; one artist, in particular, was a big surprise to me and sings an impactful track during a key moment late in the story.

» All in all, Red Dead Redemption 2 stands shoulder-to-shoulder with Grand Theft Auto V as one of the greatest games of the modern age. It’s a gorgeous depiction of an ugly period that’s patient, polished, and a huge amount of fun to play, and it’s combined with Rockstar’s best storytelling to date. This is a game of rare quality; a meticulously polished open-world ode to the outlaw era. Looking for one of this generation’s very best single-player action experiences? Here’s your huckleberry.


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