Sebastian Ruiz
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The EscapistLatest Reviews
Overall, the content within the DLC pack is phenomenal and well worth its price tag. The only issue is you may not always feel as if you’re getting your money’s worth because you have to grind through some obtuse progression to play with what you purchased.
For lack of a better word, Atomic Heart is weird. The intro has almost no real gameplay for 30 minutes and plays out like a poorly scripted political ad, the story feels like a military thriller fever dream, and the characters have surely all gone mad — but it works. From the talking corpses to the mustachioed crash test dummies, everything feels like it belongs. Atomic Heart’s biggest strength is that it’s artistically bold and bizarre from start to finish.
However, I’m well aware that this game got its start on YouTube and has a cult following. At the risk of alienating everyone else, Hello Neighbor 2 is clearly made for MatPat and his lore finder fans to feast upon. This game’s sprawling world of lore is clearly for the Game Theorists, and I truly believe they will love every open-ended question and every inch of insight this game lays out before them.
Evil West does nothing new or innovative for the hack-and-slash adventure game genre, but its vampiric Old West reimagining, pristine combat, and faithful foundation of older hack-and-slash design philosophies marks it as perhaps my favorite action adventure title of 2022.
The additional features you’d expect from this genre are there — extra lore, visual guides, a grading system, and increasing difficulty levels — but the extra trimmings don’t offer much in the way of redemption. While Gungrave G.O.R.E. began as great to watch and okay to play, its approximately 13-hour playthrough finishes off for me as a viewing pleasure unfortunately attached to a gaming displeasure. Honestly, you’re better off watching the anime.