nateandrews
Member since Dec 6, 2025
Recent Reviews
All reviewsDeath Stranding 2: On the Beach2025
4 out of 5 starsThis is a review of a Normal difficulty playthrough of Death Stranding 2 . I mention this specifically because I suspect a lot of players who really enjoyed the tedious-by-design step-by-step delivery process of the first game will have a better time with the sequel’s Brutal difficulty. This is because Death Stranding 2 ’s Normal difficulty—the third highest of its four settings, by the way—feels noticeably smoothed…
Metaphor: ReFantazio
4 out of 5 starsKatsura Hashino certainly had a lot of time to reflect on the state of the world between the founding of Studio Zero in 2016 and the release of the Persona team offshoot's first game, Metaphor ReFantazio . This spin on the Persona formula may have the appearance of a fantastical story, but its narrative themes feel very much in line with contemporary topics-- Metaphor deals outwardly with issues regarding collective…
Silent Hill 22024
4 out of 5 starsIf the mixed reception to Bloober Team ’s recent output signified anything, apparently it was that they were due for a hit. Silent Hill 2 is terrific, easily able to stand among the benchmarks of big budget horror games, with an unconventional story, tight combat, and some truly outstanding sound design. It’s a home run for a team that had become somewhat beleaguered in the public eye over the last few years, a…
Assassin's Creed Mirage2023
3 out of 5 starsIn hindsight it maybe seems inevitable that Assassin’s Creed would move back to its roots after it reinvented itself in 2017 with the excellent Assassin’s Creed Origins , a game that restructured the series around gigantic open-worlds and 100 hour playtimes. Origins and the two games that followed were exhaustively huge, and while I dearly loved Origins and Odyssey , I could feel myself craving a return to form…
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All articlesBeta Report: The Finals
Nov 9, 2023
I spent 20 hours with The Finals over the last week and my dominant thought by the conclusion of the beta was this: could I reasonably fit a game’s pre-release playtest onto my game of the year list? That would be crazy, wouldn’t it? The Finals is competitive first-person shooter from Embark Studios , a Swedish game development outfit founded by former DICE developers. It is not a battle royale...
Satisfactory Satisfaction
May 11, 2021
The home base, in an earlier time Nuclear power is finally in my sights in Satisfactory , but it's still so far away . Between myself and what I can only assume is the be-all and end-all of power generation: more milestones of increasing complexity and the realization that my facilities are absolutely going to need significant expansion to pull it all off. And I couldn't be more excited. My ste...
Half-Life is a platformer, and other things people didn't tell me about the 1998 classic
Jan 9, 2021
One of the side effects of discussions about Half-Life Alyx this year has been a forced reexamining of the series on my part. That’s a long-winded way of saying that I had never played the first Half-Life game until now, and I felt I needed to correct that. It’s one of those gaps in my video game history that I always knew I’d address someday, especially considering that the first-person shoote...
Ubisoft is looking to redefine Rainbow Six Siege as it enters its fifth year
Feb 16, 2020
The Six Invitational 2020 wraps up today, and Ubisoft held its annual panel detailing the year ahead for Rainbow Six Siege. This time, they revealed roadmaps for Years 5 and 6 and detailed a load of new features coming to the game over the next 12 months. I came out of the Six Invitational last year thinking that 2019 would be Siege's best year, but it ended up being fairly standard. The additi...
Rediscovering the mysteries beyond the sea
Oct 14, 2019
"I came to this place to build the impossible. You came to rob what you could never build. A Hun, gaping at the gates of Rome. Even the air you breathe is sponged from my account. Well, breathe deep ... so later you might remember the taste.” Often I think that exploring the mysteries of a piece of fiction, be it a video game, a film, or novel, is only an excellent experience the first time thr...
Being a bastard, a maker, and everything in between
Jul 1, 2019
Busy! Over the last few weeks I have installed games, uninstalled games, finished games, and written about games. Most of them were excellent. Here are some words about them. Finished and Written Void Bastards What an amazing surprise this was . I knew nothing of Void Bastards' existence until a recent Beastcast, and thanks to its availability on Game Pass I was able to easily give it a shot. I...
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