Playstation 5 Reviews P-R

This has got to be the most effortless golf game I've ever played. PGA Tour 2K23 is so smooth and polished, with precise controls, beautiful courses, and negligible load times. It begins by prompting for your control preference. I opted for the default analog swing mechanism which EA pioneered two decades ago, but you can also opt for the old-school button-press method.

I should let you know up front this is an offline review. My Comcast Xfinity internet has been on the fritz, so I'm glad PGA Golf 2k23 plays fine right out of the box. You can play as your own custom character or choose from several pros including Tiger Woods, Jon Rahm, and Bubba Watson. Best of all, you can select from literally dozens of readily-available scenic courses.

The quick tutorial is relatively painless save for one glaring oversight. The instructions happen to be displayed on a panel covering the left third of the screen. That would be fine if there weren't hiding the damn swing meter! It's kind of a big deal, and quite an embarrassing mistake on 2K's part.

The action on the links is beyond reproach. You can hold the triangle button to view a "fly by" of your current shot, and you can also hold the triangle to expedite your rolls. This means you can play a full 18-hole round in under 15 minutes! It's like speed golf and I love it! The load times are practically non-existent. A second after you sink your putt you're already lined up for the next hole.

I'm hooked on the analog swing mechanism. Not only does it require you move the thumbstick smoothly back and forth, but the speed in which you do so dramatically affects your shot. As with real golf, if your form is a little off it makes a big difference. When putting, pay close attention to the slope, as even a small dip can have a dramatic effect. You need to be precise because the holes are extremely tiny and unforgiving.

The amateur skill level sets you up on the tee with a reasonable club pointing in the correct direction. Pressing the O button brings up an overhead map, but the map always consumes the same amount of screen no matter how long it is, which is confusing.

The course scenery looks very beautiful with tranquil ponds, wooden bridges, and sea views. I love the shadows of trees creeping over the greens. The music is very serene and relaxing. Wow - a sports game without rap music! The commentator isn't exactly Jim Nance but he's likable enough, providing gentle encouragement.

Trying to make par on any course is a fun challenge, and you can play your friends locally. The one thing missing from offline play is user profiles and stat tracking. It would be nice to know my best score for a given course but 2K doesn't have the technology at this time. Feel free to take the game online if you want a career and all the tedium it entails. Personally I prefer the casual experience and PGA Tour 2K23 has that covered. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.

We've been seeing a resurgence over the past few years of what I like to call "quiet horror." Games like Song of Horror (PS4, 2021) and the Silent Hill 2 Remake rely on atmosphere, tension, and uncertainty instead of monsters jumping out. I'm all for it, but it won't matter if you can't enjoy it as a game. That's the situation Phasmophobia finds itself in.

You're a ghost hunter sent out on jobs to investigate reports of haunted houses. You begin with small suburban houses but eventually unlock more interesting locales like abandoned castles and insane asylums. You're given a wide assortment of tools like blacklights, night vision video cameras, dot matrix lights, and thermometers. Each house is haunted by a single ghost. Your goal is to use tools and the process of elimination to deduce what type of ghost is haunting the house and get out alive.

These ghosts aren't friendly and if you piss them off they'll turn on you. You can hide in places like lockers and closets, but the ghosts caught me every time. Watching an apparition reach around from behind you is a creepy experience, but with twenty-four different types of ghosts, couldn't they have more than one death animation?

Still, this game is freaking scary! The dark, abandoned houses are creepy enough on their own, but when you start hearing whispers and seeing things out of the corner of your eye, it's easy to forget you're just playing a game! The spirit box lets you ask the ghost questions (you can use the controller microphone) and I got genuine chills when I asked the ghost where it was, and it answered "behind you."

For the first couple of hours Phasmophobia is the greatest horror game ever. But the longer you play, the more routine it becomes. You'll methodically cycle through each of your tools, filling out your checklist like you're just doing your day job. The ghosts also aren't as lively as they seem at first, and it won't take long before you start recognizing their patterns.

It also doesn't help that this may be the buggiest game I've ever played! Half the time your tools don't even work. The thermometer refuses to go below 32 degrees and I can hardly even get ghosts to respond to the spirit box. Maybe I'm just blind but I swear the dot matrix tool is flat-out broken. It reminds me of one of those "magic eye" pictures. I went on at least thirty hunts, but only guessed the ghost right once!

Phasmophobia has a lot going for it like atmosphere, a unique premise, and a penchant for getting under my skin unlike any other game. But presentation can only carry it so far, and when judged as a video game it fails in just about every way imaginable. It's a shame too, because the devs could have had something really special here if they had dotted their I's and crossed their T's. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

If you're looking for a good Halloween title, look no further than Pumpkin Jack. It has a distinctive headless horseman/Ichabod Crane vibe with pumpkin patches, twisted trees, bubbling cauldrons, glowing lamps, witches, horse-drawn carriages, gorgeous autumn foliage, and an operatic soundtrack that elevates the production to Nightmare Before Christmas status.

The 3D gameplay owes a lot to Medievil (PS1, 1998), being equal parts platforming and combat. The platforming demands good timing as you leap between rickety wooden platforms and bounce between mushrooms. Fortunately, the controls are responsive - almost to a fault! The double-jump move covers a great distance, but the camera has a tendency to auto-adjust mid-jump, which can throw you off.

The combat is largely button-mashing but you'll want to focus on the portals that generate the skeletons, bats, and rats. Unfortunately Jack has a way of lunging in the wrong direction when performing combos. Available weapons include a shovel, scythe, sword, and even a shotgun. I love how you can tap L1 to send out your crow sidekick to pick off enemies from afar. It can also be used to shatter barriers and unlatch bridges.

The scenery looks properly spooky thanks to eerie green and purple lighting effects. There's really not much detail in the scenery however, and certain areas may have you asking "have I already been here?" The dialog is a little verbose, but funny in a self-aware way. Wild bonus stages include run-away minecarts and a ghostly horse ride.

Pumpkin Jack is easy to pick up and play, and with brisk pacing and a silky-smooth framerate you can get into a nice rhythm. It's always satisfying to reach the next bubbling green cauldron which refreshes your life and saves you progress. And even if you die, you're resurrected right where you left off. I played this game until my wrist was sore. If it's anytime near Halloween, bump up the grade by a letter. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

Raiden has been a popular vertical shooter series since 1990, but Nova takes an entirely new approach. Instead of heading straight up the screen you're flying around a city that scrolls in every direction. The left stick propels your ship and the right lets you fire independently. This twin-stick approach is not new, dating all the way back to Robotron 2084 (Atari 5200, 1982).

I appreciate the simplicity of the main menu, consisting of an arcade mode and survival mode. The rankings only appear when online, but the game does record your local high score at least. There are shop screens, but I suspect these are there for gamers willing to pay extra money.

Nova is confusing to play because the screen is so busy. The colorful city is so detailed with buildings, streets, and parks that your little red ship gets lost in the mix. Likewise when tiny enemies begin to converge they tend to blend in with the scenery.

Periodically you're prompted to "upgrade" via the L2 button. This lets you view available weapons and power-ups, and you can equip about a dozen at a time! Most of these are passive in nature. Some increase your armor, others increase your firepower, and others outfit you with "options" that orbit your ship and fight by your side. Experimenting with various power-up configurations is half the fun.

Actually more than half, because the shooting action falls flat. Enemies can absorb so many shots that you find yourself in perpetual retreat mode! Sure your weapons gradually become more powerful, but so do enemies! You only get a single ship and its health bar does not replenish between stages.

The stages are long and arduous. First you're instructed to destroy 30 enemies, which seems reasonable enough. But as soon as you see "mission successful", it's immediately followed by further instructions "destroy 100 enemies". So I do that and it tells me to "destroy 600 enemies." Really?? And we haven't even gotten to the boss yet!

I was tempted to write off the first stage but the second wasn't much better. The orange desert makes for a cleaner backdrop but it tends to hide all the orange missiles floating around. To be honest, even with no enemies my ship alone would clutter the screen with so much crap shooting out of it.

It took me a long time to figure out where my health meter was; it was a thin line underneath my ship! I still can't figure out where my remaining bombs are displayed. Raiden Nova is unlikely to push the franchise in a new direction. I can see why they might attempt a new approach, but this just doesn't work for the franchise. © Copyright 2025 The Video Game Critic.

I've enjoyed this series since the original Ratchet and Clank (PS2, 2002), and this latest chapter is quite the spectacle. It opens with a parade flying over a bright futuristic city honoring our heroes. When all hell inevitably breaks loose, the game looks even more impressive, maintaining a smooth framerate as a million objects are flying in every direction!

The premise is that our lovable little robot Clank has created a "dimensionator" gun allowing dimensional travel. Inventing it seemed like a good idea at the time, but would you believe it fell into the wrong hands? Is it just me or does Ratchet look like a furry version of Chris Hemsworth? You'll also play as an alternate dimension version of Ratchet who's a girl. The villain Emperor Nefarious is so over the top, he's practically begging to be played by Jim Carrey in the big screen adaptation.

Rift Apart takes full advantage of the PS5 controller. There's a lot of cool sounds that emanate through the controller speaker and the adaptive triggers are also used to good effect. You can squeeze them half-way to unleash a normal shot, or harder to go full-bore. It's cool how your finger feels the resistance at the half-way point. Holding in the trigger for rapid-fire causes the controller to spasm, making you feel as if you truly are unleashing bolts of energy!

The action is pretty straightforward as you warp between alien planets looking for parts or whatever. I appreciate how certain missions are marked as "optional", in case you just want to advance the story. There are some very cool locations including a rainy, Blade Runner-esque futuristic city. Adding variety are puzzle stages for Clank that feel like a 3D version of Lemmings (SNES, 1992). The game saves automatically, which is pretty sweet.

The shooting is fun thanks to ample firepower and thunderous explosions. Your standard gun fires five missiles at a time in a wide configuration. Another weapon discharges a blast of lightning that destroys anything in close range. Another deploys a robot ally to fight for you. There are tons of weapons to choose from and experimentation is half the fun.

The controls could be better. Using the directional pad to toggle weapons is a little awkward, as I never knew what weapon had ammo at a given time. The game uses every button on the controller, and at times it twisted my fingers into knots! The jet boot "speed runs" are especially tricky, forcing you to use combinations of four buttons.

The new ability to travel through portals - while a nice visual effect - gets a little tiresome and confusing. Fighting in the expansive arenas is fun, but it's hard to maintain a sense of your surroundings. I often find myself backing into enemies. It's easy to forget you also have melee attacks, which are also quite effective.

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart is a satisfying combination of exploration, puzzles, and combat. The game looks pristine, although I did get stuck in the scenery once upon respawning. There's nothing revolutionary or even particularly memorable it, but if you're looking for offline action this is good, clean fun. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.

Resident Evil Requiem stars two very different characters with intertwined storylines. FBI investigator Grace Ashcroft embarks on intense, brooding missions played from a first-person perspective. Leon Kennedy, who first appeared as a rookie police officer in Resident Evil 2 (PS1, 1998), is a wise-cracking bad-ass who bears a striking resemblance to the late David Bowie. His third-person stages are more action-oriented, punctuated with hand-to-hand combat.

Requiem's storyline and cinematography is superior to just about any horror flick you'll find on Netflix or Prime. The game opens with Grace investigating a dilapidated hotel, and the atmosphere is so thick you can cut it with a knife. The emotive characters and aged scenery look photorealistic, making the blood-splattering violence all the more disturbing. When you die in this game, it doesn't hold back the gore.

Grace's primary nemesis is "the girl", a grotesque, lanky creature with an aversion to light. Her pursuit is an unrelenting attack on your nerves, not unlike the xenomorph in Alien (1979). Grace spends much of the game in a traditional Resident Evil-like mansion, with all the usual puzzles like finding a crank or fuse. But it's so well done, I love it. The game lures you into alarming predictaments, and I fell into its trap every time.

The creepiest creeps in this game are female. The male enemies tend to be dumb brutes, but the females offer an extra layer of psychosis. There's a zombie maid who feverishly cleans blood. There's a moaning woman in white who will send chills down your spine whenever she is near. And the "experimental" little girls will tap into your darkest childhood fears.

The second half of the game focuses on Leon, and it's a breath of fresh air - literally! Instead of being stuck in a dark, claustrophobic mansion, you're basking in the daylight ruins of Racoon City, traversing rooftops and blasting zombie soldiers. Leon takes on so many powerful creatures, it feels like a perpetual boss battle. At least he's got enough ammo to handle it, and the violence is gratuitously awesome.

The PS5 controller has some issues. I like the concept of audio emanating from the controller like rain drops or your radio, but it's too loud. During the heat of battle I would accidentally push in the right thumbstick, causing my character to crouch. On the other hand I would mash that stick when trying to run, because this game has the slowest "run" ever!

The difficulty stands on a razor's edge. You're provided enough ammo and health to complete your missions, but only by the skin of your teeth! The puzzles are expertly-designed and I even enjoyed the crafting element. Being able to inject health with the tap of the R1 button is a great feature. You can save your progress to typewriters an unlimited number of times. The game feels substantially long, partly because each time you expect the credits to roll, the story takes another dramatic turn.

Sitting down to play this game always provoked an uneasy mix of dread and excited anticipation. I always felt like I was making steady progress however, partly because whenever you die the game a helpful hint is displayed. I should also mention the game runs beautifully out of the box with no updates, so yes, it can be done. With Resident Evil Requiem, Capcom gives us the best of both worlds, serving up a potent combination of visceral action and psychological terror. © Copyright 2026 The Video Game Critic.

The original Secret of Monkey Island (Sega CD, 1993) was a charming point-and-click pirate adventure rife with odd predicaments, offbeat humor, and an acerbic wit. I was saving Return to Monkey Island for the summer knowing it would have an easy-going, tropical vibe. I was right!

"Return" is apropos, as this game reuses many of the same island locations and characters from the original game. The new characters offer a glaringly-diverse and highly unlikeable cast of personalities. Even Threepwood himself comes off as whiney and lame.

The appealing scenery is rendered with deep color, moody lighting, and a nice sense of depth. Characters are composed of angular shapes that look artistic but can be hard to make out. The steel drum music does a fine job of capturing that caribbean vibe. When on the pirate ship, excellent jaunty tunes are ominous and haunting.

The game however is weak. For a dialog-heavy title, you'd expect a lot of fun, quirky banter. Instead the conversions come off as watered-down and playing-it-safe. The prose is so predictable you won't want to bother chatting with strangers. The "jokes" not only tend to fall flat but drag on and on. Whenever you have a conversation with Carlita (governor of Melee island) you have to engage in a swordfight, and it's just tiresome.

I've never been keen on the puzzles in the first Monkey Island game, as they always had the most bizarre, roundabout solutions. Return to Monkey Island doubles down on that formula, so I didn't feel the least bit guilty about consulting the ever-present hint feature. That said, it felt satisfying to complete quests that required collecting items or performing a checklist of tasks.

Although it's easy to navigate between locations (love the run button), selecting items to examine is surprisingly awkward. Each object worth examining on the screen has a white circle around it. This not only looks bad but demystifies the exploration element. And trying to select the correct circle can be a real pain in the ass.

The game does offer plenty of fan service, with frequent references to the previous Monkey Island games. And while its leisurely pace may appeal to some, its gameplay feels like it's treading water. If they fed all the previous Monkey Island games into ChatGDP, it would probably spit out something like Return to Monkey Island. File this one under D for Disappointing. © Copyright 2024 The Video Game Critic.

Returnal is a game that actually looks like a next-generation title, and it's about damn time! The woman in the opening cinematic is so lifelike I mistook her for a live actor! The plot is straight out of the movie Aliens. An astronaut named Selene is traveling alone in a small spacecraft when she decides to investigate a "familiar" signal from a nearby planet. After crashing onto the surface she finds herself in a haunting, ominous world.

While venturing through expansive, damp caves, Selene is forced to battle tentacled alligators, screaming pterodactyls, and other freaky aliens. After clearing each area you'll want to collect all the glowing items before heading to the exit.

Selene is prone to dying, and when that happens a few scenes flash before her eyes before she's returned to her ship. You then head back through the same caverns. It's not exactly the same thing over and over, but damn close! The fact that she continues to return is the mystery at the heart of the story. It soon becomes evident that she is indirectly interacting with versions of her past self. Trippy!

The action is intense and I like how you run instead of walk. The controls are silky smooth and the shooting is satisfying. The aliens are properly slithery and their tentacles move with uncanny realism. The audio is jarring. When that loud music kicks in, you know [expletive] is about to get real. When you die, Selene's realistic shriek is unnerving! I really like all the high-tech weapon sounds that emanate from the controller.

But there are so many annoyances. Portals will have you hopscotching all over the place. The extreme darkness makes it hard to determine if you're about to step on solid ground or plunge into an abyss. It's hard to make out all those tiny symbols on the map. And then we have a fabrication area that lets you make useful items but you never have nearly enough "obolites" to do so.

I played Returnal nightly for several weeks. There were times when I was so riveted I forgot to blink! Still, I can't imagine playing this for hours on end. It's too redundant. If I felt like I was making progress, that would be one thing, but this is the Groundhog Day of video games, and I have my limits. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.

I picked this one up on a whim while perusing Amazon. The game beckoned me with its old-school, 2D fighter aesthetic. I had never heard of Rumble Fish before, but apparently it was a popular anime series in Japan that spawned a line of games. Rumble Fish 2 was originally released in 2005.

I love the artistry of this game. The fighters are cell-shaded and the backgrounds convey a semi-digitized 3D appearance. I'm a sucker for a good city skyline and this one boasts a few. That said, most stages feature bland industrial environments like a generator room, shipping docks, or a junkyard.

The 13 fighters are a colorful bunch. Boyd looks like Santa Claus on vacation in Hawaii. Garnet is a sexy nurse with an impressive rack. Lud is a punk with a rooster haircut and Orville is a wrestler. Bazoo is a scary, towering zombie. Four of the characters are scrappy little kids, and while you'd think they wouldn't stand a chance, they are quick and block everything you can dish out.

The buttons include strong and light punches, strong and light kicks, and a dodge. Shoulder buttons trigger combinations of these, but I found those to be more bark than bite. They trigger flashy effects that do minimal damage. In my experience the low kick is the most lethal move in the entire game. Dual meters fill for offense and defense, but I don't know how to use them.

The fighting is pretty exciting with torrid pacing and action-packed matches where fortunes can turn at the drop of a dime. There are a limited number of special moves but flashy visual effects add pizzazz. In addition to the arcade mode there's are time attack, survival, training, and two player versus modes.

It's a shame this package is so barebones. There's no instructions and the training mode is worthless. When defeated in versus mode, there's no retry so you have to exit out for a rematch. There's no local saving of high scores or best times; the "ranking" menu option is online only. You could play the game of your life only to be presented with "Game over. Thank you for your participation." Yeah, it actually says that! The Rumble Fish 2 deserved a first-class treatment, not this slap-dash port. © Copyright 2023 The Video Game Critic.