Hayes Madsen
Game industry critic and reviewer
Latest Reviews
Playing Baldur’s Gate 3 is an exercise in wonder. How could anyone manage to make a game of this scope, execution, and quality? It’s thrilling, it’s emotional, and it’s incredibly wacky, all at the same time. The sense of freedom and reactivity is unlike anything I’ve played for years, maybe...
After every Eikon battle in Final Fantasy XVI, I kept asking myself “how can the next one be any better?” Only to be proven wrong each and every time.
Hi-Fi Rush
I simply can’t imagine not seeing Chai and 808 again, whether it’s in another game or some kind of animated spinoff. As triple-A gaming starts to feel more homogenized each year, Hi-Fi Rush is a stark reminder of how this industry was built on taking chances and experimenting. It’s a...
It’s abundantly clear that Forspoken’s story and setting are MacGyvered together by a committee of writers, but running around Athia is so much fun that it’s easy to overlook a lot of its shortcomings. The ambitious combat system and traversal are truly memorable and satisfying, I’m hopeful that a potential...
High on Life is nothing if not unique, though its writing and mechanics only go so far.
Floodland is a surprisingly complex survival sim with a unique aesthetic and setting, but is that enough to keep it afloat?
Nothing about Tactics Ogre: Reborn is simple, but therein lies the charm.
In many ways, Sonic Frontiers feels like a concept for the future of the franchise rather than a fully realized experience in its own right. The game’s disparate elements often push and pull against each other, but there’s still a good time to be had, even amid that friction. I’m...
CriticDB tracks 98 Hayes Madsen reviews, averaging 81/100. See the score distribution and their highest & lowest rated games below, or browse every Hayes Madsen score in the Reviews tab.
Hayes Madsen score distribution
- 90–10042
- 80–8928
- 70–7917
- 60–697
- 50–592
- Below 501

















