Recent reviews by ARTHUR THUCKSAKE

Amazingly cerebral experience, with minor technical issues thanks to UE5

8 hours in, coming to the end of act 2 at the time of review.

Absolutely incredible experience. All fans of the original Talos Principle should pick this up immediately. Perhaps a bit easy if you have successfully mastered Road to Gehenna but the satisfaction of conquering each puzzle remains unparalleled, making you feel like an absolute genius. I found the optional exploration aspects to be more rewarding than the original game, with secrets littered around to award your curiosity and even more coherent meta-puzzles than previously. The advancements in gameplay elements and puzzle structures are above and beyond the original.

Negative aspects of the game all stem from the engine being used. As advanced as UE5 is, it still feels very immature, with stutters galore and a necessity to enable some form of upscaling and/or frame generation to get a decent framerate. Being a single player experience I can forgive some of the performance and technical problems but it feels like a lot of the game's visual beauty is being hindered by such a bloated engine. Perhaps future patches will help with performance.

For the price it's an absolute steal. Forget idiot publishers charging $60+ for overhyped and incremental improvements of the previous Product(tm). This is how gaming should be, with no shady practices or predatory microtransactions.

From the ashes of depravity rises the phoenix of quality. How else to describe The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe? Such a revolutionary step forward in the lineage of one of the most beloved video game properties of all time!

The additions and changes made to this expansion will surely resonate in the annals of the history of all media ever made. It is perhaps true to say that no mistakes are forever etched in stone, for the stone into which The Stanley Parable was carved has itself been transmuted, offering a message of hope to those who have ever erred in their judgement.

You are not beyond redemption. You may change, and you may become more, so much more than you were before. If there is any message to be taken from The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe it is this: What a fortune, a privilege, a joy it is to have had such an experience it leaves me hopeful that as a community - as a world - there is time for us to become our greatest selves, as great as we ever could dream of in our wildest, most ambitious visions for a brighter future.

Many moons ago, I bought a Dreamcast just so I could play Rez. With breathtaking visuals, simple gameplay and one of the best interactive soundtracks ever produced, I immediately bought the surprise Steam release.

I never got round to playing the remasters on console but I"m glad to report that the PC version is even more visually stunning thanks to modern hardware. It's a shame Rez Classic is capped at 60hz because Area X is
a magnitude more beautiful at 144hz. I really hope there's a patch that unlocks the frame rate in the future.

Playing with a mouse feels like the way it was intended all along. No more slow, clunky movements with the awful Dreamcast controller. Mouse control actually makes the game a lot easier now, especially some of the later boss fights that could unfairly punish the slow reticule movement.

The soundtrack is as timeless as ever. The aural feedback from shooting down your foes is as satisfying as ever although I'm not convinced that there's any surround sound effects.

Overall, if you haven't played the remasters this is well worth the price of entry. Area X may be a little disappointing as it feels like a short tech demo of one stage but it's still a great experience.

As a time-travelling super soldier, I'm glad that my primitive, barely-evolved ancestors can finally get a taste of life in the future.

Getting one-shotted by some jerk with pinpoint accuracy and panther-like reactions need no longer mean the end of your life when you can roll back time and summon another gun-toting Forcer to exact revenge on the aforementioned jerk and continue to blast through the levels.

If you have ever been a fan of side-scrolling shooters like Contra and Midnight Resistance, this game will be perfect for you. The sheer satisfaction of watching 30-odd versions of yourself complete a mission (a la Super Meat Boy), smashing and exploding the living heck out of everything is brilliant.

The time-travel mechanic introduces subtle puzzle-like elements into the mayhem, and by picking the right soldier for the right job can shave precious seconds off the clock, especially if you are a completionist like me and need to beat the tough Watcher challenges.

Each level is perfectly designed for a quick 5-minute blast and the boss fights are extremely gratifying. Although the campaign is only a few hours long if you rush through, the medals and challenges in each stage add more replay value on top of the more cerebral Helladeck content.

Overall, a great price for one of the most entertaining games of the year.