Clayton Moss (Mayo Moss)

If you have yet to play the space adventure No Man's Sky then I highly recommend you do so immediately. Anyone interested in sci-fi and the final frontier will love this game. Exploration? Infinite. Customization? Unmatched. Replayability? Of course. Developers that deeply care about their game and it's community? Absolutely. Need I say more? With every update, Hello Games adds to the thought provoking, perspective shifting, and mentally rewarding experience that is No Man's Sky.

Not worth the time or money (I would MAYBE pay $10 for this game knowing what I now know). Toxic player base (I get it, it's Sea of THIEVES but that doesn't excuse some of the treatment I received in my very brief playthrough). But the biggest criticism of all? Figuratively speaking, Sea of Thieves is 100 miles wide and one centimeter deep. At first glance, Sea of Thieves appears vast and expanding but, sadly, after a few hours of gameplay, the experience becomes tedious and repetitive. Add into the monotonous experience the fact that other players can attack you whenever and the game becomes unplayable at times. It doesn't happen often but when it does it's the nail in the coffin that immediately makes me want to play literally any other game. I know I am not the only one who really doesn't want to play a video game just to be annoyed and frustrated the entire time by griefers justifying their actions because "it's a pirate game".

Dragon's Dogma 2 has a very unique way of delivering its experience and I do believe that any fan of the single player fantasy RPG genre will enjoy this game. First off, this game refuses to hold your hand. Quest markers? Kind of. Fast travel? Sort of but not really. Who should I talk to? Everyone. If you don't have the patience to be a self-motivated problem solver then you probably shouldn't play Dragon's Dogma 2 unless you want to constantly be looking up walkthroughs. If you like games with rewarding exploration, difficult quests, and innovative combat then Dragon's Dogma 2 is going to scratch the heck out of that itch. This game is a ton of fun while simultaneously being challenging and immersive. The story and RPG aspects are fantastic as well. I spent a little over an hour in player creation and there are only two races to choose from so that should be a hint at how in depth the character creator is. Once I was done making my character, I was able to make an additional character called a "pawn", a non-player character that follows me around and aids me in battle/exploration. Speaking of pawns, you can spend real money to rent other player's super powerful pawns but there isn't really a point to doing this because the currency you use to rent other player's pawns is extremely easy to get in game for free. Spending real money on Dragon's Dogma 2 in game currency is basically just going to buy you two pawns that will do everything for you and show you where everything is. You will have zero advantage over other players though because it is a single player game and there is no PVP. Playing the game is a breeze and it is easy to get swept up in it. Story missions and side missions come in a variety and vary from what you would typically expect in other RPGs. There isn't so much "go here", "do this", "would you kindly", but rather the game wants you to figure it out for yourself which makes for a much more rewarding experience. Additionally, some quests and interactions are time based so if you don't finish them in time or don't accept them in time then it shifts the landscape of the rest of the playthrough. The graphics left me desiring at some points when frame rate lagged but then I started to realize the amount of explosions, magic, debris, and character animations all happening at once coupled with the environmental graphics and that's when I stopped being so picky about frame rates. The graphics are phenomenal at a stand still and during average gameplay but when the game is functioning on all cylinders the graphics can start to get choppy. I give the graphics the benefit of the doubt though because it only happens when there is a lot on screen for the game to process. For this reason, I did not deduct a star and maintained my rating of 5-stars.

I understand trying to set yourself apart from other game franchises underneath a particular IP but this game is absolutely awful and it's because they disgraced all of the amazing aspects from the Arkham franchise. They could have separated themselves from such comparisons if they had just focused on making a good game but instead they decided to push out a money grab as fast as possible. Sure, it's a decent game but anyone who defends this game is delusional. They lacked so much creativity that instead of thinking up a decent traversal method for each character, they just gave Red Hood bouncy green super powers and Nightwing got a Breath of the Wilds rip off glider. The graphics in this game don't even compare to Arkhams Knight (there is a video breaking down and comparing the graphics of the two games on YouTube. Go check it out), the fighting mechanics and animations are low grade, and the story direction and writing is as bad as the rest of it. When I saw this game was delayed I was excited, hoping it meant they were taking more time to make the game better, which they probably did, but how bad could the game have been at that point for it to be where it is at right now upon release? I don't mind them trying to break away from the Arkham franchise, they should do that. But this attempt was phoned in. They could have just pumped 10% more creativity into Gotham Knights and it would have been a hundred times better and actually worth spending money on. But they didn't. This is the Batman game for Batman fans that have a superficial understanding of the character and his family so if that's you then this game is perfect for you! One star.

I've never been one to trust critics and this time I am glad I didn't. Biomutant is basically Arkham Knight combat, Ghost of Tsushima open world, Breath of the Wild crafting, and Ratchet & Clank visuals but the similarities to those games doesn't stop this game from being an experience in and of it's own. The graphics are 1080p pushed to it's potential and are even more crisp on the PS5. On top of that, I already have high hopes for replayability because of the Light/Dark story choices, crafting versatility, and multiple character slots for seperate play throughs with different classes. Biomutant will only get better as they release updates, next-gen upgrades, and DLC.