As this generation draws to a close, I’ve found myself scrambling to play several exclusives and “AAA” games that – thanks to life or other games – got relegated to the backlog. Despite picking these games based on my personal tastes, review scores, and player opinions, it’s been an unexpectedly wild ride that has me questioning the structure of modern reviews from established games media – the reviews and opinion pieces that get the most exposure and, presumably, are most influential for consumers. It’s rare that my own opinion deviates too far from consensus, however, I’ve walked away from several recent games confused by the scores. The two games that really triggered this feature are 2017’s Horizon Zero Dawn and 2019’s RAGE 2. They both received extensive pre-release coverage, dozens of high-profile reviews and, if not for intense periods of work getting in the way on both occasions, I’d have considered them day-one purchases given my personal tastes. In hindsight, I’m glad I picked them up late and heavily-discounted, but the experience got me thinking about several other games I’ve played, the changing structure of modern video game reviews, and the problems those changes bring. Now it’s worth stating up front that you’ll never find an “objective” review from a critic (or any individual). An objective review would look a lot like the product listing: a brief outline of the premise or player motivation, a list of gameplay features, some bullet point details on the audio-visual settings, the devices you can play it on, and perhaps the controls schemes on offer. It’s informative and important for would-be buyers, sure, but it makes for dull reading and every media outlet would report the same basic facts. Scoring would make for even less interesting reading, as there would need to be some universal metric by which you compared and graded each feature. Would it be the amount of written or recorded dialogue equate to the narrative score? Would the number of mechanics equal the gameplay score? Does a higher resolution and framerate automatically mean a higher presentation score? Every critic’s viewpoint is ultimately informed by their own preferences and comparable experiences. The problem lies in trying to frame your own experience while still considering the ubiquitous elements that make up video games and – if the last generation has taught us anything – bigger is not always better. Horizon Zero Dawn has 5-6 fantastic opening hours that establish the state of the world, the tribes within it, and the threats they face, while provides tantalising clues as to what happened to “the old ones”. I’ll start off with the most recent game I played, Horizon Zero Dawn, which holds an impressive score of 89 on Metacritic and OpenCritic, with much praise lavished on the narrative, the machine combat, and the beautiful world. The average user scores are also overwhelming positive. When researching the game, I found I needed to dig deep to find any criticism within the positive reviews, or search for the outliers – so often disregarded as click-bait. Given the “monster hunting” premise and Aloy’s unique tracking abilities, I thought this would be a comparable experience to The Witcher III: Wild Hunt seeing as, in theory, the world design and quests would share a similar structure. However, unlike that game, I’m only just managing to drag myself through the core missions, finding it one of the most structurally-repetitive games I’ve played in ages. As the reviews and user opinions highlighted, unravelling the plot was the greatest hook, followed closely by the thrill of fighting against new and increasingly tough machines for the first time. However, as this is an open-world game, those narrative reveals – all too often exposition dumps that leave you standing around listening to audio logs – and those first challenging combat encounters account for a fraction of the total playtime. By far, the bulk of my time was spent trudging across a large, incredibly pretty, but ultimately static world, avoiding packs of machines I’d become bored of fighting after the third encounter. Even when tackling the core missions, 90% of that experience involved scanning an object, following a trail, defeating a group of smaller foes by stealth, and finally dismantling some big machine. Structurally similar to my beloved The Witcher III: Wild Hunt? Absolutely, but Horizon Zero Dawn lacks variation between missions, the thick atmosphere and sense of a living world, and the unexpected outcomes. It’s incredibly well put together but the design is blandly safe. Horizon Zero Bore. After the incredible opening Horizon Zero Dawn settles into a predictable and increasingly dull rhythm, with mission after mission that follows the same basic structure throughout (with far too much time spent crouching in waist-high grass) and the narrative dumped on the player en masse. RAGE 2, on the other hand, holds a more modest score of 67-73 on Metacritic and OpenCritic (“modest” in the context of modern review scores that range from 5-10 – a topic for another time) with middling user scores. With RAGE 2, the consensus is simpler and consistent: outstanding combat shackled to a barely-existent narrative, too few story missions, and a world packed with busywork (that you to grind to unlock further story missions). I can’t argue with that assessment, as the world of RAGE 2 often feels like an excuse to string together hours of on-foot or vehicle combat, with what few story missions there are providing rare hand-crafted experiences to push the simple narrative forward. That said, the minute-to-minute gameplay remained compelling enough that, even if I was simply cruising between yet another bandit camp and mutant den, I was never more than one button-press away from ejecting myself into the air from my vehicle, flinging several rounds into an unsuspecting horde while airborne, before power slamming into the ground and violently mopping up the survivors with an eclectic mix of weapons and powers. Combat in RAGE 2 is always fast, visceral, and visually spectacular – a good thing, seeing as it makes up the bulk of your playtime. RAGE 2 barely has a narrative that can hold your attention and the world, while visually diverse, is mostly full of copy-paste activities. However, as you’re constantly upgrading your vehicles, weapons, and powers at a brisk rate, the combat that makes up 80% of the experience remains engaging and provides several tools for murderous creativity. Both games are, in my subjective opinion, incorrectly scored, but I’d argue that holds true objectively if you breakdown the minute-to-minute experience, the “fun factor”, and consider the highs, the lows, and the amount of time spent at either end of the spectrum. The problem lies in how you work that information into your review or opinion piece in a palatable manner, so that even if the game caters to your specific tastes – and you’re willing to overlook several potentially glaring issues for others – you’re still accurately informing consumers who, unlike the reviewer, will be handing over their money. For years, there’s been a push from media outlets – including those that cover video games, movies, series, and music – to move away from rigidly-structured reviews (think: narrative, gameplay, presentation etc.). However, I find it’s essential to still have this framework in mind when writing to ensure your final thoughts encompass the entire experience. Too much time spent on highlighting your personal feelings or the way a specific sequence affected you can blind readers to faults (or positives) that are important to their decision-making. One could simply argue that you need to read around for multiple opinions, but with this near-universal move away from structured reviews, and some outlets even removing scores, this requires extensive reading – not a strong point of the current internet generation. Despite keeping a traditional framework in the back of my mind when writing, I too have scored games based on a holistic approach without considering the importance of the fun factor. Not necessarily “fun” in the traditional sense (The Last of Us is a prime example), but a quantification of the minute-to-minute experience and how engaging it is. An indie walking-sim can remain “fun” if that experience is kept to one or two hours and ensures the narrative beats come frequently enough you don’t realise your interaction with the world is negligible. Similarly, a 50-hour-long RPG can remain fun if frequent narrative choices and character upgrades provide constant feedback that noticeably impact the experience, giving you a sense of agency in the game-world. I scored Red Dead Redemption 2 highly, considering its epic narrative, intricate mechanics, and polished presentation. What bugs me now is how that score failed to convey just how dull the majority of the experience was, trudging from place to place. A prime example of where the holistic approach failed me would be Red Dead Redemption 2, which I scored 8.5/10 (albeit after some editorial back and forth). It’s difficult to argue against the ambitious narrative, intricately detailed world, and beautiful presentation but Red Dead Redemption 2 still suffered from several long-running Rockstar design choices coupled with a truly massive environment. Despite the openness of the environment, missions lock you into scripted and tightly-controlled sequences that punish you with failure for deviating from the prescribed path and repeatedly break established logic in the name of the narrative. Secondly, the world is massive and a chore to navigate, even after unlocking a basic form of quick-travel, and many missions force you to ride with your posse to a location, for up to 10 minutes in some cases, listening to banter. For all the emotional story beats and exciting scripted sequences, the majority of your time is spent riding between objectives or engaging in convoluted systems to improve your camp and equipment. There’s probably no perfect solution but as games have increased in size, with regards to both the environments and story length, players are asked to invest more and more time. These games, most often those that advertise their open-world as a selling point, begin to feel like a buffet – great at first with access to tons of options without limits, until you realise getting to the end will require you force all that content down, long after it has lost its appeal. As such, it’s increasingly important for critics (and gamers who enjoy giving their opinion on blogs/forums) to consider how much time the game asks of you, and whether the minute-to-minute gameplay remains compelling and engaging throughout. It’s natural to want to highlight exceptional aspects of a game (such as the visuals, animations, voice acting, and music) when so many games vie for our attention. However, video games are an active medium that thrive on engagement. No gamer wants to simply stand in one spot for an hour admiring the visuals and soundtrack or sit passively as another lengthy cut scene shows off the excellent writing, animation, and voice work. Games need to be “played” and the time you’re asked to invest needs to be “fun”, not a string of tedious busywork or traversal paired with the occasional highlight (no matter how impressive that might be). I think giving greater consideration to the fun factor, the minute-to-minute experience, would drastically alter how we score games, better inform players, and drive developers to create more focused experiences, ditching the filler that is so prevalent these days.

When it comes to suspenseful crime thrillers, there's no shortage of them in Hollywood. We've seen some of the best rise in the hall of greats (Se7en, Zodiac, No Country for Old Men) and some of the less fortunate sink into obscurity. With the world currently at a standstill due to the global pandemic, we've seen very few films of merit actually release this year or make their way to streaming platforms. Recently, Netflix released The Devil All The Time, a crime thriller that looked like it was also aiming for the hall of greats. With a packed, talented cast and a promising premise, this was shaping up to be something special, right? READ MORE: The Batman Resumes Filming After Pattinson's COVID-19 Quarantine The Devil All The Time takes place in mid 20th century West Virginia, sandwiched between World War II and the impending Vietnam war. It chronicles two generations of family: a father struggling with his faith in God, and a son who witnesses something traumatizing as a kid that leads him on a path of vengeance and madness. While this is the centerfold of the narrative, there are other events happening around it as well: a cop dealing with waist-high corruption; a preacher at a local church harbouring dark secrets; and a Bonnie and Clyde-like pair of killers on a killing spree across mid-America. The Devil All The Time throws a lot at you initially and for a vast majority of the film, none of these sub-plots and stories make sense until the very end when they all converge. Therein lies the brilliance of the film. Much like how Paul Thomas Anderson's movies (like Boogie Nights and Magnolia) feature multiple disjointed characters that all serve a purpose, The Devil All The Time tries its best to bring everything crashing down on the viewer in the last 30 minutes, leading to a harrowing and very intense finale that was both thrilling and maddening all at once. You get the sense that, much like No Country for Old Men, this is a location displaced from the rest of America... That said, the first act - which encompasses the first 45 minutes or so - can be a bit messy. The movie really takes its time setting up the characters, their backstories, and world surrounding them. You get the sense that, much like No Country for Old Men, this is a location displaced from the rest of America - completely isolated and alone in the middle of nowhere, with a bunch of unfortunate souls dealing with crimes beyond their understanding. The film's opening act really struggles to convey this tone, and it's not until we're finally introduced to Tom Holland (at least his character as a young adult) does the story begin to focus up and get fascinating. The Devil All The Time features one of the most impressive casts of the year, consisting of Holland, Bill Skarsgard (best known for playing the new Pennywise the Clown), Robert Pattinson, Sebastian Stan, and Jason Clarke, among many others - and they all bring their A-game to the performances. Holland and Pattinson are especially phenomenal in their roles, with Pattinson playing a creepy preacher very well. Watching Holland's descent into madness as the film progressed was quite bleak and brutal - and definitely not easy to watch - but due to the actor's extremely likable on-screen persona, he simply carried the movie and stole every scene he was in. It's dark, bleak, and void of any sense of humour - which may not always provide the most comfortable or enjoyable viewing experience. For the most part, The Devil All The Time is a slow burner with razor-sharp tension as the film slowly unravels itself. It's dark, bleak, and void of any sense of humour - which may not always provide the most comfortable or enjoyable viewing experience. The film largely succeeds because of its terrific cast. Without it, I don't think it would've nearly made the same impact. However, this also leads me to some of my negatives for The Devil All The Time. The most glaring issue is that it lacks originality. This is the kind of film you've seen made before by the likes of the Coen brothers or Paul Thomas Anderson. I've already mentioned it twice, but there's no denying just how thematically and tonally similar this movie is to No Country for Old Men - to the point where it's a bit jarring to watch without nitpicking the similarities. The generational storyline of "sins of the father" is something that was explored better in The Place Beyond The Pines too. Hell, the central murder plot is even something straight out of Fargo. I'd hate to keep harping on about comparisons, but The Devil All The Time, while still good to even great at times, struggles to find its own unique edge. That said, if you aren't familiar with the aforementioned films or don't mind the obvious similarities, The Devil All The Time has a lot to offer. It's an emotionally investing, disturbing, and harrowing look into the lives of a handful of individuals caught in a web of corruption, crime and murder. Holland breaks out of his shell and delivers a surprisingly mature and explosive performance, completely stealing the show, while Pattinson contrasts him with one of the most despicably brilliant villains of the year. Not everything makes sense until its last few moments, but if you stick with it, you'll come out having seen something that was just on the edge of special. *The Devil All The Time is now available for streaming on Netflix

Following a leak in August by Ubisoft who may have accidentally let slip that the PlayStation 5 won't be compatible with PS1, PS2 or PS3 games, it seems like Sony has now finally confirmed it. While Sony assures that "99%" of PS4 games will be playable on the PS5, the rumour of the console having backward compatibility as far back as the original PlayStation was always a hot debate leading up to the console's launch. Many were hopeful that Sony were saving the surprise announcement for the last minute, but we did get an announcement in the end - just maybe not the one everyone expected to hear. READ MORE: The Batman Resumes Filming After Pattinson's COVID-19 Quarantine In an interview with Famitsu (via Siliconera), PlayStation CEO Jim Ryan confirmed that the PS5 won't natively support PS1, PS2 or PS3 games. This was apparently due to the development team not having enough time to properly implement backward compatibility for the older PlayStation generations. Ryan elaborates that their focus was on providing compatibility with the PS4 library as the current-gen console still has over 100 million players, making the transition to PS5 a lot smoother if it included a vast majority of PS4 games. "While implementing [PS4 compatibility], we also focused our efforts on taking in the high-speed SSD and the new controller DualSense at the same time. So, unfortunately, we couldn't reach the implementation of such compatibilities," said Ryan, thus confirming that the PS5 will not support backward compatibility with PS1, PS2 and PS3 games. Meanwhile, the PS5 is ready to launch worldwide on November 19th, with price points in South Africa coming in at R11 999 for the standard console, and R9 999 for the Digital Edition. PlayStation Plus Collection also ensures that, for the same price of a regular PS Plus subscription, players get access to a wide selection of PS4 games including Resident Evil 7: Biohazard, Uncharted 4: A Thief's End, Bloodborne, and much more.

Earlier this month, it was reported that actor Robert Pattinson, who is set to play Bruce Wayne/Batman in Matt Reeves' upcoming The Batman, had contracted COVID-19, leading to the entire film's production shutting down in the UK. While Pattinson's representatives refused to comment, sources close to Variety confirmed the actors diagnosis of the virus. After a few weeks of quarantining by Pattinson, it looks like production on The Batman has finally resumed. READ MORE: Some PS5 Launch Titles Will Cost $70 After All Variety states that The Batman has yet again resumed production following Robert Pattinson's COVID-19 quarantine. It seems like the actor may have made a full recovery, and is back on set. "Following a hiatus for COVID 19 quarantine precautions, filming has now resumed on The Batman in the UK," said a spokesperson for Warner Bros. This is now the second time that the film had restarted production; first in late August following the global outbreak many months ago causing work to halt on all major Hollywood productions, and second right now. The Batman will star Pattinson as a younger Bruce Wayne/Batman, still in his early years as the caped crusader. A series of murders leads him to chase an elusive serial killer known as The Riddler, played by Paul Dano. Meanwhile, a greater conspiracy is brewing that could unravel the truth behind Gotham's elite and Bruce's lineage. The Batman will also star Colin Farrell as Oswald Cobblepot/The Penguin, Zoe Kravitz as Selina Kyle/Catwoman, Andy Serkis as Alfred Pennyworth, and Jeffrey Wright as James Gordon. The Batman releases on October 1st, 2021.