"Hours of Darkness" Far Cry 5 DLC 1 Review

An exhilarating gameplay loop with minimal story to tell

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on PlayStation 4

“Hours of Darkness” takes what made “Far Cry 5” so much fun to play and incorporates it into a beautiful Vietnamese land.

My time with “Far Cry 5’s” first DLC, “Hours of Darkness” concluded in under four hours; however, as a mere expansion to a large-scale game, I found it to be a justified run through a visually appealing creation of Vietnam. The gunplay in both stealth-driven and the most action-packed situations left me very happy to have more of that “Far Cry” feel but the lack of any push for a real narrative made it fall short.

Just Cause 3 Review

Technical issues galore hold back a joyous action movie experience

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on PlayStation 4

Avalanche Studios’ goal to let players explode everything in sight makes “Just Cause 3” an extremely fun game to mess around in yet the developer’s failure to fix plentiful bugs and glitches create a less than stellar experience post-opening despite that exciting gameplay.

“Just Cause 3” was always too ambitious with its ideas of triggering explosions in every possible way, causing ultimate destruction to everything from vehicles to water towers. The game at its best is like living out your favorite action movie, playing as a charming killing machine in Rico Rodriguez. At its worst however, “Just Cause 3” will lose your interest through lengthy loading screens, significant frame rate drops and bugs in general, all far too unfortunate due to the quality in sheer entertainment Avalanche Studios offers in its gameplay.

Hitman Review

Diverse, open-ended level design makes for one of the most exciting stealth games to date

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on Xbox One

“Hitman” (2016) allowed IO Interactive to bring back the sandbox style of missions for the stealth series, allowing players to make several choices in how to complete their objectives and succeed at making it a deep and memorable gameplay experience.

With a bevy of choices in how to execute the many assassinations presented, “Hitman” wonderfully uses its sandbox level design in each of the episodic missions to provide a surprisingly lengthy experience, one that is as nerve wracking and entertaining as ever before. Its story is far from important or compelling, with the exception of one or two moments, making the gameplay take full priority. “Hitman” ultimately uses the risky episodic format to full effect in terms of that gameplay, providing players with several open-ended experiences, each worth a revisit.

Transformers: Devastation Review

Exciting combat and style suffer from confusingly useless ideas

By: Ryan Ramakrishnan

Reviewed on PlayStation 4

Both the voices and visuals of the “Transformers” cartoons of the past make their way into Platinum’s “Transformers: Devastation,” making for an iconic experience, one that has plenty of fun action to partake in, despite a repetitive nature.

“Transformers: Devastation” comes packed with impressive visuals, music and voice acting, all of which delightfully re-create the likes of cartoons in the “Transformers” franchise. Gameplay is quite good too thanks the action packed, combo-based combat Platinum Games is known for. Unfortunately, the game suffers from a little repetition in its combat and its ambitious systems fall short.

Nintendo E3 2018 Predictions Analysis

These are the predictions I had made for Nintendo's E3 2018 press conference prior to the show. Let's look at how close or off I was.

Sony E3 2018 Prediction Analysis

These are the predictions I had made for Sony's E3 2018 press conference prior to the show. Le's look at how close or off I was.

Ubisoft E3 2018 Prediction Analysis

These are my predictions I had made for Ubisoft's E3 2018 press conference prior to the show. Let's look at how close or off I was.