HIGH The atmosphere is top tier.

LOW Repetition and recycled content.

WTF …Happened to my save file?

Like every games writer approaching the end of the year, I’ve started to compile a list of my top 10 games of 2025 in an effort to appease the algorithmic gods that give this writing hobby of mine some semblance of meaning. As someone who is less constrained by the new release schedule than many, I like to focus on my top 10 experiences regardless of release date, so I don’t have to overlook any titles that impressed me. With that being said, here’s a sneak preview:

Pacific Drive is likely going to take the gold.

Loading into the original title, I expected a narrative heavy driving adventure. What I experienced was an extraction-based survival challenge with a large splash of SCP and S.T.A.L.K.E.R.

The player’s time is divided between maintaining their car’s condition by avoiding dangers in an anomaly-filled forest and looting every resource they can find in order to upgrade the car for even deeper ventures into a mysterious place called The Zone. I’m not a car guy, but I loved every second of my time exploring and learning about how the world worked, and by the time I was set to leave my garage for the final time, I had an appreciation for a game that tried something different and nailed the atmosphere it was going for.

With the recent release of the “Whispers in the Woods” expansion, I took the opportunity to grab my car keys and hit the road for another journey… and I have thoughts.

As an overview, the DLC adds an 8–12 hour side story campaign to the main title alongside new anomalies, new mechanics and a fully voice-acted narrative. The original mix of cozy and unnerving from Pacific Drive‘s initial release has been replaced with a spookier, more sinister tone as we learn more and more about a fanatical cult operating within The Zone. 

For players who read “Pacific Drive but spookier” and are already sold, then feel free to stop reading here. For everyone else, I can happily report the atmosphere in Whispers in the Woods has been amped up and the visuals continue to look phenomenal. However, there were a few bumps in the road… I was initially taken with the DLC, but as I started to settle into the new, poorly-explained gameplay loop, cracks started to appear.

There are two new main systems to contend with. Instead of collecting energy to form an exit gateway as in the original Pacific Drive, the player now needs to collect a certain number of “artifacts” that will be sacrificed at an altar to open an escape route. These artifacts each have their own quirk that will apply to the player and their car, with the effects ranging from good to ‘get rid of this thing as fast as possible’. I do like the fact that the player can no longer tell where the level exit will appear. Previously the escape could be trivialized by plotting a clear route, now the player needs to adapt on the fly, leading to far tenser rides.

Secondly, holding on to too many artifacts will gradually increase The Whispering Tide. If it maxes out “they” will begin hunting the player across the map, I will not be elaborating further because that’s part of the experience, but thankfully, this aspect can be offset this by equipping the remnant with attuned parts which will help hide the player’s presence from “them”.

In theory these are both fine systems, leading to more varied escapes and encouraging veteran players to update their car. Sadly, these new attuned parts are just glowing versions of existing parts, so I was forced to unlock everything again, minus the joy of discovery and added frustration because they are harder to repair. While different artifacts do have slightly different impact levels, the player almost always has the ability to choose either a positive one or an ignorable negative effect. This leads to the gameplay loop feeling very similar to the original Pacific Drive — simply collect enough circular energy sources to escape through a portal.

This repetition is not helped by the story missions being essentially the same task repeated seven times. Go to a new area and find an audio file, listen to it to unlock a trial with a special gameplay condition, complete the trial to unlock a new area, and repeat. The areas each have their own quirks and the trials often come with substantial restrictions, but I was left wanting when it came to the diversity I had hoped for from an expansion. The new anomalies are interesting but I had encountered the majority within a few hours of play and none caused me to change my approach to the maps, which are still heavily filled with well-known anomalies.

When it comes to the actual narrative, I prefer the story of the main game. However, I do want to acknowledge that the DLC offers strong voice performances to accompany the player throughout their journey. I was a disappointed to see there was less environmental storytelling than the first go-round and that it was almost all contained to audio logs, but the characters are at least interesting. For newer players, the story is completely separate from that of the original Pacific Drive, so players can drop in and out without concerns of spoilers.

I wanted to be able to write this review and profess my love for Whispers In The Woods as a reason to revisit one of my favorite titles of the past few years, but it left me wanting. On paper it’s more Pacific Drive with a Halloween skin, but I wanted more from an expansion. If it had been marketed as a smaller ‘trials’ pack my expectations might have been more in line with the actual experience.

There is clear care put into this expansion and it’s easy to see the vision Ironwood Studios had, it just didn’t land with me. However, I do hope they continue trying to experiment because I would love this studio to create a new experience as much as I love the original Pacific Drive.

Rating: 5.5 out of 10

— Adam Sharman

Buy Pacific Drive: Whispers In the Woods — PC — PS — XB

Disclosures: This game is developed by Ironwood Studios and published by Kepler Interactive. It is currently available on PC, PS5 and XBX/S. This copy of the game was obtained via paid download and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 9 hours of play were devoted to the expansion, on top of 32 hours in the main game, and the game was completed. There is currently no multiplayer option.

Parents: The game has an ESRB rating of T due to Fantasy Violence and Language. Pacific Drive can be very unnerving when the player is unaware of the world around them and the expansion has a horror theme including ghastly enemies that can ‘charge’ the player as a mild jump scare, although their threat level is minimal. The visuals and soundtrack of the expansion further play into this horror element but no violence is shown to the player character.

Colorblind Modes: There are colorblind modes alongside a host of accessibility features.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game has subtitles for all dialogue, which is the sole way the story is conveyed. No audio is essential for gameplay and the subtitles cannot be tweaked beyond on/off. While some anomalies have audio cues, these are all accompanied by some level of visual cue. It can be helpful to hear certain anomalies without looking, but this has minimal gameplay effect. The car can develop quirks which include the horn being honked as an effect, which may be more difficult to identify for players with hearing difficulty, but this is a rare occurrence and there are ways to identify the quirk without hearing the sound.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls on both keyboard and controller.

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HIGH Think The Office, but with cults and the occasional demon.

LOW The combat mechanics feel floaty.

WTF A vampire priest purging demons — just another day in Poland.

I’ve always found the absurd to be wildly entertaining. Maybe that’s why Priest Simulator: Vampire Show pulled me in like an unholy sermon I couldn’t walk away from. It didn’t ask if I was ready, it just threw me headfirst into the madness.

This isn’t about quiet reflection or slow world-building. It’s about being a vampire-killing priest in modern-day Poland, armed with a cross, a shotgun, and an attitude problem. The world is bizarre, the humor dark and unhinged, and the gameplay a chaotic mix of first-person combat, exorcisms, and satire-heavy storytelling.

From the moment I loaded in, I knew Priest Simulator: Vampire Show was different. The aesthetic was grimy in the best way, like a cursed VHS tape found in a church basement. The mockumentary-style presentation, complete with character interviews and absurd cutscenes, only added to its unhinged charm. It’s a fever dream wrapped in a game engine.

It plays like a traditional FPS but with a religious twist. Instead of just mowing down enemies, I was purging them using holy relics and an arsenal of weapons that ranged from crucifixes to hammers. Telekinesis let me hurl objects at enemies, sending them flying across the room like an exorcism scene gone horribly wrong. That said, while the combat was indeed entertaining for a while, it did start feeling repetitive — apparently there are only so many ways to punch a demon in the face before it loses its charm.

I must also discuss the exorcism mechanics. Some moments were brilliantly chaotic, like wielding a massive censer to banish a demon before watching it erupt into a glorious burst of light. But at times, these sequences felt frustrating. Certain exorcisms required precise movement or interaction, and when clunky controls got in the way (like fumbling with weapon swaps mid-fight or getting stuck on debris) it turned what should have been intense moments into tests of patience.

When everything clicked, though, it was pure, ridiculous fun. One moment I was sprinting through a decrepit town, blasting vampires with holy energy, dodging fireballs, then leaping into a car to run down a demon mid-exorcism. It was the kind of over-the-top, “is this really happening?” gameplay that made me laugh out loud.

Despite the chaos, the story somehow managed to stay engaging. The writing is sharp, dripping with satire that pokes fun at organized religion, pop culture, and everything in between. One mission had me hunting down sacrilegious graffiti artists, while another involved illegally selling holy water on the side. The experience thrives on its irreverence, and it works because it never hesitates to go all-in on the absurdity.

It’s not all exorcisms and face-punching, though. PS:VS also let me renovate my own church, turning it into something more than just a place of worship. Upgrades range from practical restorations to, well, installing an aquarium or a DJ booth. It’s weird, but in a way that fits perfectly within this offbeat world.

Musically, Priest Simulator: Vampire Show leans into its eerie, industrial vibe. The soundtrack pulsed with a strange energy that made every moment feel just a little off-kilter. It wasn’t exactly pleasant, but that seemed to be the point. Haunting choirs mixed with distorted synths made it the background score to a church rave gone wrong, and anyone expecting angelic hymns was in the wrong place.

At its best, Priest Simulator: Vampire Show is an unapologetic, genre-mashing ride through the absurd. It didn’t hold my hand, and it definitely didn’t take itself seriously. On the other hand, the longer I played, the more the gameplay loop started to wear thin. The novelty of the premise carried me far, but the repetition and occasional mechanical hiccups chipped away at my enthusiasm. Even so, the sheer commitment to weirdness made it hard to walk away completely. For those who thrive on the bizarre, this one’s worth a trip to the confessional.

— Faiq Ilhan

Rating: 7.5 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Asmodev and published by Ultimate Games S.A. It is currently available on PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 6 hours was devoted to the game, and it was not completed. There is no multiplayer mode.

Parents: This game is unrated by the ESRB. In it, players will attack enemies with guns, blades, telepathic powers. The game also strongly parodies the topic of religion. There are swear words littered throughout normal dialogue.

Colorblind Modes: Colorblind Modes are not present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles, but subtitles cannot be altered and/or resized. Audio is needed to complete the game, but there are visual cues like highlighted items along with text hints on-screen.

Controls: Controls are remappable, with interchangeable hotkeys. It plays similarly to an FPS game where the left mouse click controls the left hand and the right mouse click controls the right hand.

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HIGH Tons of entertaining characters with lots to say.

LOW It’s too short. I want more!

WTF Live-action puppet shows? 

Before writing this review I tried to think of titles similar to Great God Grove, and came up with absolutely nothing. I’ve genuinely never played anything like it.

Great God Grove was developed by LimboLane, and is their third title. They describe themselves as “…an inclusive and queer-run games studio founded by Day and Yugo. We love to make things that squish and bounce! Our games feature all flavors of strange and compelling characters. Folks of all types and ages are invited into our weird and wacky worlds!”

It should come as no surprise, then, that Great God Grove is a quirky and character-driven game with a wacky world. I haven’t played their previous titles, Face Love and Smile For Me, but from the trailers I can see similar elements present in Great God Grove, like the art style and dialogue. My point being, they’ve had time to refine their style, and it’s paid off.

The story of Great God Grove follows a tourist visiting an island, who then gets wrapped up in a conspiracy. The island has a tradition of voting an outstanding individual to become a god, and said individual rises to godhood during an event called the Festival of the Rift. Unfortunately, the latest nominee has gone missing, but not before sending nasty letters to each god who ascended before them, throwing everything into chaos. It’s up to the tourist, named Godpoke, to fix things.

Gameplay-wise, it’s a linear, story driven puzzler. Every chapter had me walk around a map, and every puzzle was solved by talking to different characters and using their words on other characters.

Godpoke can vacuum up specific dialogue, which is the main gimmick of Great God Grove. Each chapter started out fairly restricted, but opened up as I talked to more and more people and solved their problems.

For example, in the second chapter I needed to give a baker an idea for a creative recipe. Earlier I had spoken to someone who said “…what if they had edible lipstick?”, and that was the solution. Even if I didn’t immediately know who to use the dialogue on, using the wrong dialogue on someone didn’t feel like a waste of time because they’ll have something to say about it.

The vibes of GGG‘s world are on point. The first god to appear is Ms. Mitternacht, a skeletal vulture in a nun outfit. However, before she appears, her presence is felt via her tears – they cause a downpour of rain in the starting area. In this way, every section of Great God Grove showcases the gods’ influence before the player talks to them. It’s an impressive way to build each of the gods up, and it also did wonders for worldbuilding, as it shows how each god influences their area.

If it wasn’t obvious, there’s a lot of reading involved. That isn’t usually my style, but I was curious about what each character would say in response to what I shot at them. However, my curiosity would mean nothing if the characters themselves weren’t interesting. Remember the part about strange and compelling characters? Great God Grove is full of them, especially the gods themselves.

Everyone on the island has some quirk that makes them stand out as a character. Take the Bizzyboys, for example. They’re green monkeys that follow the God of Leadership, and are faithfully dedicated to helping the grove. They all look similar (they even use the same 2D sprite, with slight differences in the form of accessories) but I was able to tell the difference between them because of their personalities.

What’s more, the connections between characters felt believable. Most of them have history with each other, and figuring out this history by being the middleman for tender moments was captivating. This kicked in, full-force, in chapter three, when two gods appear — Thespius, the god of love, and Click Clack, the god of storytelling. Usually, they work as a duo to create love stories, but their relationship has been strained. No spoilers for this situation, but using words from the story they wrote was touching.

What binds the whole experience together is the art style. It’s an interesting take on 2D, comparable to something like Paper Mario – colorful, expressive, and at times abstract. However, the most distinct visuals in all of Great God Grove aren’t 2D at all, but live-action puppet shows. Each chapter has a television that can be interacted with and run episodes produced by the Bizzyboys that explain some part of the world. I was not expecting these at all, but they were a nice change of pace and each episode filled in a piece of the overall story.

I was immediately hooked by Great God Grove because the mechanics of taking someone’s dialogue and using it on other characters is something I’ve never seen before, and so it fueled my curiosity. I went out of my way to see as many interactions as I could, and I’m glad I did. Everything in Great God Grove comes together to make a great (albeit short) experience that is well worth getting into.

Rating: 9 out of 10

— Zack Edwards

Disclosures: This game is developed by LimboLane and published by LimboLane and Fellow Traveler. It is currently available on XBX/S, Switch and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on PC. Approximately 7 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated E and contains Mild Fantasy Violence. It is safe for kids. There’s no objectionable content, as far as I can see.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes available. 

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/ or resized. There are no audio cues needed for successful gameplay. This game is fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Yes, this game offers fully remappable controls.

The post Great God Grove Review appeared first on Gamecritics.com.

HIGH The game’s aesthetics and visual style.

LOW The slow-paced start and abrupt ending!

WTF Why do I need a supercomputer to run this?!?

Alan Wake 2 is Remedy’s next and incredibly ambitious project, and it comes in the form of a third-person survival horror that nails it in some areas and misses in some others.

Alan Wake 2 starts 13 years after the events of the first. While the titular writer has been missing since then, a murderous group calling themselves the Cult of the Tree have killed many people in the Cauldron Lake area where both games were set. FBI agent Saga Anderson and her partner are assigned to the case, hoping to shed some light on these killings.

Just like the first, Alan Wake 2 is a third-person survival horror, with both action and puzzle-solving. In the action segments, the player will use a flashlight to make ‘dark’ enemies vulnerable before engaging in gunfights with them. Due to its narrative-focused nature, the world has a semi-open design. Players are
largely free to explore different regions, but a loading screen awaits them when transitioning between areas. Switching between Alan and Saga is only possible in safe rooms where the game can be saved.

While there are different types of upgradable weapons, the combat is nothing special. Enemies use ranged and melee attacks against the player and attacks can be dodged to stagger foes and earn some breathing room. That said, one twist during Alan’s portions are that not all entities in Dark Place are hostile. Because Alan never knows which of the shadows calling his name is his next adversary, the player will often find themselves on the edge of their seats when roaming.

More innovative than the combat is Wake 2‘s narrative. The script follows two interconnected stories and characters in two distinct worlds. In one we accompany Alan in his attempt to find a way out of the supernatural Dark Place he’s trapped in, and the other is Saga and her detective work in the real world. It seemed to me that it would be tough balancing both fantastical and ‘real’ elements while keeping the two narratives connected throughout, but Remedy nailed it.

During Alan’s portions in a nightmarish New York-like setting, everything relies on environmental storytelling. Billboards warn about the inevitable failure of Alan’s mission. Neon lights of the shops on corners act as waypoints, glowing in the darkness of the rainy night. Graffiti on the walls points towards hidden stashes or skill points. On Saga’s side, her detective’s intuition is used to guide the player. She can go through the pieces of evidence found throughout the world in her virtual “Mind Place” to reach a conclusion and plan the next place to go or the next person to find.

Saga’s Mind Place can be accessed at any time via the push of a button, and presents like a small hut in which she walks around and interacts with casefiles and pieces of evidence. For example, if she puts the right real-world evidence next to the right mental question she has about the case, the question is answered.

Though the idea of the Mind Place is great, it’s not well-rooted, as players can go through most of the story without consulting the pieces of evidence Saga finds, and as the story unfolds over time, Saga will automatically file them into correct cases and come to a conclusion saying “I already know how this ends”.

While Alan doesn’t use a Mind Place, he can change the world around him by writing about it in his “Writer’s Room”. He can turn a lively ballroom into a scene of grisly murder by adding cultists to the story and then following their bloody trail of blood to the next key object needed in his quest. The general mechanics of Alan’s Writer’s Room is like Saga’s Mind Place, with the only difference being that when Alan puts a theme (murder, for example) next to a place (let’s say “ballrom”) then the world around Alan changes and new paths or items are revealed.

In terms of pacing, Alan Wake 2 suffers from opening hours that are almost completely devoid of any action. Things starts with Saga examining a crime scene in Cauldron Lake, introducing the detective work mechanics and how the Mind Place works. By the time her introduction is finished, the story switches to Alan and his intro, which includes solving puzzles by changing the environment with the Writer’s Room. The need for two intros is inevitable based on Remedy’s basic structure and the differences between the two leads, yet, the way they’re set one right after another with a heavy focus on puzzles in both is questionable.

Unfortunately, without spoiling anything, I can say that the ending of the adventure is underwhelming. Though the plot is full of surprises, the last hour boils down to being a fetch quest, and most of the anticipated action is done via cutscenes which rob the player of feeling like they’ve gotten the job done themselves. 

Artistically, I have no doubt that Alan Wake 2 will frequently in any conversation about pushing boundaries. The game not only uses live-action cinematics in conjunction with CGI, but there are parts of gameplay when the Dark Place and the real world overlap. This is achieved by using a live-action sequence and overlaying it like a photo filter on the environment — not only a great idea to show how the two words (and narratives) affect each other, but it’s a truly unique visual experience. Character facial animations are also perfect, and it’s a rare treat to see a studio so committed to motion capture rather than auto-generating animations, as I found the performances far more realistic and emotionally engaging.

Combat also has some issues — things feel clunky in part due to the inventory management system. 

Weapons and usable items like med packs can be assigned to eight ‘quick select’ menu slots assigned to four physical buttons on the keyboard and controllers. In order to select an item, the player should push the corresponding button either once for the primary item or twice for the secondary. This single or double-clicking method of switching is a frustrating pain during combat that made me choose the
wrong weapon or item in the heat of the fight many times. It’s strange why the devs chose to not go with something more standard like a radial ‘weapon wheel’ or even an older-school solution such as a “next/previous weapon” button.

One final thing to discuss are the technical aspects of running Alan Wake 2 on PC, where I reviewed it. The game truly takes ray tracing to the next level with various notable effects like reflections within reflections. The benefit is hugely atmospheric, but these great visuals come with great costs.

It’s impossible to get a solid 60FPS with Ray Tracing (even on 1080p resolution) without using DLSS and frame generation on an RTX 4080. For people who don’t know what this means, take it as Alan Wake 2 certainly being the next Crysis when it comes to testing and benchmarking PC hardware in upcoming years. However, the sad truth is that other current games use the same top-notch Ray Tracing technologies while offering much better performance and demanding less investment on the hardware side.

Alan Wake 2 is a unique experience thanks to the innovative blending of photorealism and traditional visual design, as well as a narrative deeply entwined to gameplay mechanics to an extent rarely seen before. It is not a perfect experience, but it is innovative enough to inspire gamers and devs alike for years to come.

Score: 8 out of 10

Disclosures: This game is developed by Remedy Entertainment and published by Epic Games. It is currently available on  XBX/S, PS5 and PC. This copy of the game was obtained via publisher and reviewed on the PC. Approximately 18 hours of play were devoted to the single-player mode, and the game was completed. There are no multiplayer modes.

Parents: According to the ESRB, this game is rated M and contains Blood and Gore, Intense Violence, Nudity, and Strong Language. The official rating summary reads: Combat is highlighted by realistic gunfire, explosions, and blood-splatter effects; shooting enemies sometimes results in exposed entrails and large wounds. Cutscenes also depict instances of violence/blood… a character is depicted nude, with exposed genitalia and buttocks.

Colorblind Modes: There are no colorblind modes present.

Deaf & Hard of Hearing Gamers: This game offers subtitles. The subtitles can be altered and/or resized. There are some necessary audio cues in puzzle solving sections. There are some audio cues used in puzzle solving sections that are not accompanied by visual cues. This game is not fully accessible.

Remappable Controls: Controls can be remapped.

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