Building worlds from dreams and securing futures with teamwork

Alien Isolation is one of those games that are made to be interactive movies and it excels in that realm, arguably more than any other movie licensed game because it does not take creative liberties that hinders the franchise. The appeal of horror and the Alien franchise, especially in games, is the atmosphere and sense of clausterphobia. The films themselves are akin to "Metroidvania's" on a cinematic level and in regards to expertly utilizing limited set pieces mixed with meaningful action. Tension done right can create the content and only the best horror films and games understand that.

Alien Isolation is the perfect example of that. You are the prey being hunted by "the" Xenomorph and you quite literally cannot make any noise, otherwise you will not survive. The game utilized a feature that is admitedly niche but all the same - surprisingly not utilized in many other games. In the settings you can enable voice detection which will enable your mic to be detected in the game and the Xenomorph will hear any and all of your real-world sounds.

Going back to my point about utilizing atmosphere and suspense to create content - horror is the ideal genre for this and over the years, games have surpassed films as the go-to immersive media, especially in horror. Alien Isolation still stands as the best example of this and rightfully has been used as a template for other horror games since in terms of confined gameplay, and proper use of the notion that games are interactive films, unlike other blockbuster gaming franchises that focus on cinematic quality that takes control away from the player.

Arma 3 introduced myself to the tactical/military/squad-oriented gameplay and its innovative custom content creation tools sparked my interest for modding. Since playing Arma 3 for the first time years ago, I have had a consistent itch for physics-oriented gameplay that seamlessly blends realistic animations, and tactical gameplay.

Other titles such as Rainbow Six Siege and now even Fortnite offer similar and, in ways, expertly evolved gameplay in those areas and integrated community driven content creation, through modding and other means such as UEFN, has continued to sky rocket since. Arma 3 in its current state has been overshadowed by other tactical and squad based games that have released over the years, but its Pubg-esque tactical gameplay combined with Crysis-esque graphics make it stand out as a unique, somewhat stylized tactical shooter.

Batman Arkham Asylum revolutionized the superhero action genre, bringing superhero and licensed games into a completely new, modern, and fresh era - spearheading and fast tracking the game industry as we know it due to its innovative physics, combat, visuals, and storytelling. To this day, no other game has been able to perfectly capture and balance the stylized nature of comic books and graphic novels while maintaining realism that doesn't conflict with a darker and more "illustrated" style.

Franchise reboots are often and movie sequels and spinoffs created as games are often regarded as a slippery slope, and most of the time that has been proven to be true due to a lack of enthusiasm, and resources within a company environment. Arkham Asylum was and still is the Batman 1989 and Sam Raimi's Spider-Man of gaming. It revived not only the Batman franchise in gaming, but felt like a spiritual successor and even soft reboot of the Bruce Timm Batman universe due to much of the original cast returning to reprise their iconic roles.

Although several games spawned after Asylum, no other entry in the series or superhero game have been able to capture the unique and groundbreaking blend of action adventure horror that Asylum brought to the table, in addition to having completely reshaped the gaming industry from a technical standpoint, and cementing games as the ideal multimedia storytelling format. Arkham Asylum's gameplay is clunky in comparison to its sequels, but in terms of atmosphere - no other title has quite been able to make you "feel" like Batman.

Ah, Batman Arkham Knight. What a beautiful perfect oddity. Looking Batman on Arkham Knight feels almost like a dream, because it's one those games that feels like it shouldn't exist. Aside from Red Dead Redemption 2, no other game since Knight's release in 2015 has pushed the visuals to the same insane level of quality, but this quality did not come without performance issues as Knight's release - specifically on PC - was a disaster for many. But since then, the issues have been resolved, at least for the most part, and the title continues to stand the test of time both visually and gameplay-wise.

Running on Unreal Engine 3, it pushed the engine to its absolute limits, and it is one of the very few games that cannot be remastered, because it is not only gorgeous, but looks better than practically all games that have followed its release. Straying away from the more stylized comic-esque style, Knight brings players into the first open world Gotham in its entirety since Lego DC Superheroes, and although it is not as vast, it makes up for that by offering unique, and easily differentiable sections of Gotham, each with a plethora of details and easter eggs that even after 10 years players are still discovering new details honoring the source material, and expanding on the universe.

Knight's story on the other hand was very bloated and although not the worst narrative from the persepctive of a casual fan, it was very generic and disappointing for those who could see the twist coming before the game even launched. But setting the direct writing aside, Knight excels in visual storytelling. Each area, structure, and creepy side quest bridges the gaps between all the history we did not get to witness and the present while honoring Batman's entire legacy by offering the largest amount of playable costumes, and for the first time, the Batmobile, the franchise has ever seen.

Knight perfected its free flow combat and yet again broke ground within the action adventure, and superhero gaming genres. Knight had an abrupt cut off of new content, aside from recently being released on the Switch where it very much struggles to run but is still fun to play nonetheless, and was accompanied by a surprise release of The Batman 2022 costume, but unfortunately without the new batmobile. Though, modders doing gods work as always, have added it and so much more content which has been giving Knight the extended lifespan it deserved. Overall, from a gameplay and graphical perspective, Knight was the perfect finale to the mainline Arkhamverse games, and it still contains an infinite amount of replayability after completing, and replaying the primary, and season pass content.

This game is an ADHD Transformers/racing/arcade gamers dream.

I'm someone who loves variety but also simple experiences (roguelites, metroidvanias, arcade shooters, racers), and as someone who grew up playing basically only those types of games, and especially combative racers like shrek racing, Mario Kart, Cars, and being a psychopath in EA Nascar by always intentionally driving in the opposite direction to destroy the other racers - galactic trials simultaneously satisfies my desire for a new Transformers game + arcadey/combative racer.

These types of games give me a nerdgasmic dopamine rush I just can't explain. Over the years I went from playing practically only RPG's and open world games to being bored or empty open worlds and racers with a singular core loop built on sports simulation. Galactic Trials doesn't have a ton of content but let's look at the facts - racing games and arcade shooters don't need much. These are games to pick up and play when you need a break and the almost constant switching between racing and combat satisfies my impulse to have a blend of both.

The Cybertron games deserve to be on steam (although emulation exists for a reason so, just saying) but for now this feels like a nice in between for those of us that grew up on those games and racers, and want something that feels like a spinoff, which this does. Transformers One made me want a transformers racer with the same combat and intensity so this is a good start. Yes the gameplay can slow down but it's mostly on the easiest difficulty. On higher difficulties, this stuff gets intense especially if you're trying to take down the other autobots or decepticons and avoiding being shot by them.So give it a shot and definitely get it when its on sale. 20 is honestly still a bit too much for this but it's better than the honestly agregious 50 dollars.

I'm mixed on this but overall have fun. I'm a massive rangers fan and love simple fighting games and unlike how sick I am of there being a multiverse film released every half a second, power rangers is one of the very few multiverse stories that I love because it's just pure fun.

I only have two negatives: as many others have noted, if you stay too close to the enemy for too long, you will be stun locked and gang banged until half or more of your health is gone and there is NOTHING you can do to get out of it or counter, even on the lowest difficulty. The other negative is the massive lack of rangers and locking the few that there are behind paywalls.

I don't understand why modern rangers games (albeit there being very few of them) ignore the majority of the expanded roster. the Mystic Force Rangers are my favorite and although mighty morphin are my second favorite, it's annoying seeing how they are the only ones being worshipped and adapted into games, series, and comics.

I love that they added Udonna and the forest from Mystic Force but it feels like such a painful tease to include 1-2 versions of each other type of ranger while the morphers are basically all there. Seeing the mystic force rangers illustrated then disappear was like nerdgasm denial for me.Overall it's fun and the iconic spark effects after hitting enemies makes the combat more satisfying.

Lego Batman 3 is an odd experience, but not because of anything to do with the game - for the most part. Coming off of the excellent and ground breaking Lego Batman 2, or as it's better known as; Lego DC Superheroes - TT Games' reinvention of their formula toward open worlds simultaneously saved and hurt their releases that followed because on one hand, gamers were thrilled to take a breather from the original, repetitive Lego gaming format, while on the other hand, TT have drastically lost sign of what made their pre-Lego Batman 2 titles so unique and memorable and that was the focus on puzzles and building. Exactly what Lego is known for.

Lego Batman 3 was a return to that formula and although severely littered with bugs that freeze gameplay, break objectives, and sometimes crash the game, it felt both refreshing and out of place to return to the fully linear, puzzle-focused formula. Overall Lego Batman 3 isn't a bad experience. It is just okay.

It has a variety of levels, characters, and pretty worlds that honor DC's lore more than any other game, especially out of TT's library, but I wonder had this game been released prior to Lego Batman 2, would it have been received with more interest and praise? This is a very large game when comparing it to older TT titles, but after the open world formula took over, it's a difficult game to want to revisit.