Not that I have anything riding on this game or even an interest to play it, but that IGN review sounds like it was written by someone who was pissed off/hurt by CM and is still bitter about it so some of those feelings carried over into the Isolation review. Something tells me they had some unrealistic expectations…

I still remember predicting this game way back when Colonial Marines launched, a year before Isolation was even announced.

This popped up on my feed. Basically video game reviews in a nutshell.

Sounds interesting. Nice to see a game that builds horror through something other than jump scares. A 21 hour length is pretty impressive.

Home of the boulder Punchers!

Oh no! The QTEs seemed pretty minor to me and the regular ones didn't irk me too much (I personally liked the way that it gives you one fairly easy chance to counter a killing blow, then a second much less easy one). But I'm sorry that you're disappointed!

I'm not sure how the back-end works tbh, but the situations I've described here feel very organic, even in the weird moments like the extended chase sequence—which DID take place in real time. He was in a "scared" state, which means he was just trying to run away but he can't actually "escape" unless he gets a certain…

It's robust, but only if you want it to be, if that makes sense. It's like Arkham, again—there are plenty of different skills and abilities to unlock, especially to get more powerful combos and better moves, stuff like that. I prefer the way it works here because the game felt more challenging to me, and more…

"...the most memorable moments of the original trilogy are those during which Aragorn is wading into the crowd swinging Narsil."

Destiny is SO overrated...imo. No variety at all, at least for now, other than the awesome combat and multiplayer mechanics.

Thanks for this brilliant review, Yannick. The nemesis system sounded ambitious in the developer videos, but I was concerned about whether they could actually pull it off. Sounds like they managed to do just that.

If anything, I love SOM because it's the first LOTR game I've played that's bold enough to not give a shit about what it "should" do!

That's an interesting question. It's more of an open-world than Asylum, but it also feels...smaller than the one City, but I think that's partly because it's so self-contained and well-realized.

So basically, if I am a fan of Arkham Asylum (because the second one was awful, imo) and Assassin's Creed this is a no-brainer?

Like a $60 no-brainer? Because I spent $$$ on Destiny (w/ the DLC pack) and I'm seriously regretting that purchase. And Titanfall.

OH also sorry I forgot about the upgrading: the loot in this game is actually one of my favorite parts—again, because of how it works within the nemesis system. Every time you killed a ranked orc you get a "rune." There are three classes of these for the three main weapons (dagger, sword, and bow), and they vary in…

Side-quests are very similar to Arkham and Assassins Creed...lots of collectible treasure-hunt type things and audio logs for extra lore. There are also these sort of liberation missions where you can help the human slaves fight back against orcs, which I found more enjoyable (I'm not into the completionist,…

I was definitely on the fence too. This game was one of the most wonderful surprises of 2014 for me!