by extintor
2021 scores
5/5 - The Forgotten City, Life is Strange: True Colors, House of Ashes
4/5 - Control Ultimate Edition, Outriders, Resident Evil Village, Subnautica: Below Zero, Final Fantasy VII remake. Intergrade, Guardians of the Galaxy, Deathloop, Returnal, Halo Infinite
3/5 - The Ascent, The Medium, Hitchhiker, Lacuna
All scores
1. Dark Souls 3 (Series X) 5/5
2. AC Unity (Series X) 4/5
3. Generation Zero (Series X) - abandoned
4. Hitman 2 (Series X)
5. Gears Tactics (Series X) 4/5
6. Control Ultimate Edition (Series X) 4/5
7. Attack on Titan (Series X) 2/5
8. The Medium (Series X) 3/5
9. No Man's Sky (Series X) 4/5
10. Death Stranding (PC) 4/5
11. Outriders (Series X) - not including post-game (4/5)
12. Hitchhiker (Series X) 3/5
13. Yakuza: Like a Dragon (Series X) 4/5
14. Resident Evil Village (Series X) 4/5
15. Destiny 2 (Series X) 5/5
16. Subnautica: Below Zero (Series X) 4/5
17. Judgment (Series X) */5
18. Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Series X) */5
19. Days Gone (PC) 5/5
20. Dry Drowning (PC) */5
21. Lacuna (PC) 3/5
22. Mass Effect Legendary Edition (Series X) 5/5
23. Final Fantasy VII remake. Intergrade (PS5) 4/5
24. The Last of Us (Part 2) (PS5) 5/5
25. Fallout 3 (Series X) 5/5
26. Demon's Souls (PS5) 4/5
27. The Ascent (Series X) 3/5
28. The Forgotten City (Series X) 5/5
29. Life is Strange: True Colors (Series X) 5/5
30. Guardians of the Galaxy (Series X) 4/5
31. House of Ashes (Series X) 5/5
32. The OuterWorlds DLC (Series X) 3/5
33. Back 4 Blood (Series X) 3/5
34. Returnal (PS5)
35. Deathloop (PS5) 4/5
36. Halo Infinite (Series X) 4/5
37. Chorus (Series X) 3/5
38. Gamedec (PC)
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Another playthrough. This time on Series X. Smooth like butter. 5/5
The power of the series X, in combination with the many patches that this game has received over the years, makes for a genuinely smooth and enjoyable game play experience. Perhaps it is fair to say that seven years after release, the hardware power finally matches and indeed exceeds the ambition. While less intriguing and narrower in scope than the more modern AC titles (Origins, Odyssey, Valhalla), there is a greater focus on stealth in Unity than in those games, and here the combat has a less chaotic rhythm to it. More deliberate... but on balance, slightly less enjoyable perhaps? While the story is passable it certainly doesn't get close to utilizing the historical speculation on templar involvement in the French revolution in the way that it might have. Instead, we get a Romeo and Juliet type of tale that never quite convinces on its own merits let alone carry the story overall. Overall the game is enjoyable but it is the co-op multiplayer that stands out. Even now, so long after the game was released, there are still people playing and during my playthrough, I had a good number of very fun experiences. It isn't revolutionary (no pun intended) but it definitely adds to the value of Unity. If you didn't play this before because of all the bad press and valid criticism of performance, but still hold some interest in the AC series and have a current-gen console, then I'd say that this might be the best time to play AC Unity (especially as we wait for new games to arrive on Series X and PS5). 4/5
A few hours in and I'm rather enjoying the pace and premise of this game. 10 hours in and as a single-player experience I'm tired of it. This might be more interesting as a co-op experience so I'm dropping this until that option comes along.
The bullet spongey third-person cover shooter combat of gears is, unsurprisingly perhaps, a very good fit for a rework into an X-COM turn-based strategy game. Graphically this is very polished and the game gives you a zoom option that appears to serve a primary function of showing you that polish from closer up. The game play and the strategy layer is satisfying also. 4/5
(Control Ultimate Edition). Playing through this on series X in both graphics and performance mode was a treat. Such a solid and fascinating game that I enjoyed more on this playthrough than my initial one in 2019. A very, very high 4/5
Some interesting core gameplay mechanics relating to the incapacitation and killing of Titans keep things intriguing for the first few hours of play. There's not much else going on here though and things get dull after a while (especially if you've already seen the anime and know where the story is heading). 2/5
Silent Hill meets Alice in Wonderland adventure game with a fixed camera. Set in a crumbling communist spa/research facility in a Polish forest. Featuring creepy foreboding children, time looping, and alternate dimensions. The gimmick here is that in certain sections, the game is played simultaneously in both dimensions. The visual polish level is high. The world-building is fascinating. The story is convoluted and while it coheres toward the end, it leaves residual questions unanswered. The Medium has plus points and is worth playing through to the end. Ultimately though, there's not a great deal here that hasn't already been done elsewhere. Worth the time to complete (10 hours or so - 3/5)
Heading back here again. This game became so enjoyable after all the post-release fixes. I ended up sinking a couple of dozen more hours in. Still not a 5/5 game but still so damned impressive in so many ways. 4/5
This is quite something. Bonkers and melancholic at the same time. The product of some very metaphorical musings on concepts of existence and death, meaning and meaninglessness... and in particular where the edges to these ideas might exist and overlap with each other. Absolutely absorbing and unique... but also sometimes bloated and unnecessarily long in a way that only detracts from the experience. 4/5
