Over the holiday season of 2023 and into the beginning of 2024 I borrowed the Hypertext PlayStation 5 to play through all the big exclusives that Sony has to offer on its latest console.
While I do have a fairly capable gaming PC, and Sony has actually been kind of good at porting their exclusives over to that platform, I was getting a little impatient to play some of the titles from the last few years. PC is where I experienced both Days Gone and Horizon Zero Dawn so if you’re wondering why any of these titles aren’t included in this article, it’s because I already played them.
On top of that, my little endeavour to play through Sony exclusives with a borrowed PS5 is not something new. A few years ago I did exactly that to experience Marvel’s Spider-Man, Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales, God of War (2018), Ghost of Tsushima and the then newly released Destruction AllStars.
With sequels making up the entirety of this list of exclusives I was very interested to see if Sony had managed to continue making the PS5 enticing for someone without the console, especially for someone like me who mainly does their gaming on PC and Nintendo Switch.
Marvel’s Spider-Man 2
After Spider-Man: Across the Spider-Verse ended on a massive cliffhanger and left me with a hunger for more Spider-Man akin to only J. Jonah Jameson himself, I started my playthrough with Insomniac and Marvels’ Spider-Man 2.
And, well, I was left a bit disappointed. The problem is that the original Insomniac Spider-Man game made such a splash and introduced the public to such a complete version of spidey with its web swinging, combat and story that both Miles Morales and now this sequel have failed to replicate that new spider excitement.
It’s a bit of a contradiction because Spider-Man 2 is better than both previous games in pure mechanics and player choice (maybe not in the story department though) and it seems that Insomniac has given players everything they could possibly want from a Spider-Man game. In isolation Spider-Man 2 is the best Spider-Man game ever, but its tricks and massive positive impression can’t be replicated for those who have played the previous titles.
Despite my misgivings I put a lot of hours into Spider-Man 2. I played through the game on the harder “Spectacular” difficulty because I remember the original game and Miles Morales being a bit too easy. Spectacular was extremely difficult at the beginning with just a few hits killing both my spideys but things got easier as I unlocked more of the game. Chasing these unlocks and playing through most side missions left my playthrough at 95 percent.
While I am the farthest from the kind of person to 100 percent games, I was having a fun enough time to boot the game up every day to complete some tasks. I would have knocked out that last five percent but a combination of that being some boring collectibles and time running out with the borrowed PS5 lead me to my next game, but the final word is that Spider-Man 2 is a hell of a lot of fun even though it doesn’t have the massive impact of its original game.
Read our launch review of Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 here.
God of War Ragnarök
God of War Ragnarök is an almost perfect ten out of ten game that is dragged down into eight, seven, six or even five out of ten territory by three things: its puzzles, its pacing and the existence of God of War 2018.
Let me explain.
Firstly those puzzles. At some point in the story players are given a range attack that creates a bubble which will amplify elemental damage. Cool. This attack then becomes the basis for seemingly endless boring and frustrating puzzles. Not so cool. While I initially thought that was just my general disdain for most puzzles, I felt vindicated in seeking help for some of the more challenging ones. Under the comments for almost all guides and walkthroughs you will find the comments chock full of people discussing how much they dislike these puzzles and how badly they affect the overall experience of Ragnarök. While it’s sometimes a bad look to side with internet comment sections, I am in full agreement here.
I refuse to believe that the sheer dreck of these puzzles wasn’t brought up during playtesting of this game. Either Santa Monica Studio didn’t take this feedback to heart or, even more horrifying, the puzzles were even worse originally. Either way what we have here is a massive drag.
Some may come to this game’s defense by pointing out that most puzzles in the game are optional and can be skipped. Fair enough. The problem is that a huge amount of the game’s upgrades and story are locked behind puzzles. I played Ragnarök on the second highest “Give Me No Mercy” difficulty because, like Spider-Man, I remember the original game being too easy. While that was less of the case here (Ragnarök was pretty damn tough through most of the experience on Give Me No Mercy), I desperately needed the resources locked behind puzzles to have any chance of success in this game. On top of that I was invested enough in this world to want to know more of the story, so suffer through the puzzles I did.
The pacing problem in Ragnarök isn’t as bad as the puzzles but it’s still a major detriment to it. Things just aren’t as sharp or well-balanced as God of War 2018. Without spoiling anything it’s frustrating how many characters keep having the same cyclical conversations and arguments with seemingly no end. While that is kind of the point of this story as the cast tries to tackle a seemingly insurmountable problem, it’s just not as good as it could be.
Also many characters simply don’t get enough screen time and feel shortchanged once the credits roll around.
Finally, there’s the existence of God of War 2018. Like we discussed with Spider-Man 2 the first game in this new series was so new and fresh that it managed to wow from start to finish. All of the surprises in both games simply couldn’t be matched in their sequels despite both trying to pull out every trick they could to recapture the magic. Also like Spider-Man 2, Ragnarök is likely the best God of War ever but it’s missing that shock and awe factor from the reboot.
And again like Spider-Man 2, I finished most of Ragnarök and put dozens of hours into it. I did every side mission with only some of the tedious collectibles left once my credits rolled. For these first two entries here I feel like I underplayed the good and overplayed the bad, so let me just say that both are the cream of the crop of the AAA game space and you can’t go wrong playing either, I just had my problems with them.
Read our launch review of God of War Ragnarök here.
Valhalla (God of War Ragnarök DLC)
Valhalla came as quite the surprise for the gaming industry as a free addition for Ragnarök. Even more surprising is that Valhalla is an epilogue to the main game, a roguelike and essentially a huge therapy session for gaming’s angriest man.
Starting up Valhalla and the game recommends finishing the main story of Ragnarök which is why I played it only after tying up that playthrough.
I won’t spoil anything here but Valhalla sees Kratos and Mímir traveling to Valhalla where they will battle and die over and over for a purpose that is revealed as the DLC goes on.
I was impressed by a lot of what Valhalla has to offer as free DLC as there’s definitely enough content here to ask for an entry fee. That being said this is, technically, an epilogue to the story, so players would have been cheated of part of the experience if this was paid DLC.
That aside I have a special connection to the roguelike genre so this was seemingly made for me, especially because this DLC was combat focused and I felt that the combat in the main Ragnarök game got a bit too complicated for its own good. By going down the roguelike road, Valhalla could strip some of this complexity away from the player and introduce it back in a temporary form.
And that’s exactly what Valhalla did. Really this DLC did exactly what it set out to do and I have little to no complaints. The story is great, the combat takes the best parts of the main game and slims it down some and the thrill of the random roguelike is in full show here.
My only real complaint is that I didn’t feel much desire to keep doing runs once I finished the story. Valhalla gives you many unlocks and challenges to chase once the story is over, but the drive just wasn’t there. I’d love to see Valhalla be given more story and missions as either paid or free DLC but for now, my time with Ragnarök and Valhalla has come to a close.
The Last of Us Part II Remastered
The “newest” game on this list I actually played this one for a main feature that you can read separately here. That feature goes into more detail but I’ll give you a summary.
I am technically a newcomer to the Last of Us franchise. I hadn’t played either game before this remaster but I wasn’t clueless either. I watched the amazing show based on the first game and the internet completely spoiled the plot of this second game.
Going into this remaster Naughty Dog had to not only justify this game as a remaster of a game that is still quite recent, and for someone who knew almost all the twists and turns of the plot.
Naughty Dog pulled this off quite successfully but, again, go read the longer article on this. For now I will say that The Last of Us Part II Remastered is rather amazing but if you have already played the base game it is very difficult to recommend going back, unless you are an absolute The Last of Use diehard.
Since releasing my article the fine folks over at Digital Foundry also published their deep dive into the technical changes that went into the new version of the game which I also recommend watching.
Jumping around chronologically between the writing of this article and myself actually playing these games, and I’ve had some time to sit and think about the story in The Last of Us Part II and how it’s kind of limp. This game has fine enough storylines and individual moments, but it really lacks a central theme or thesis it wants to convey to the player. What does Naughty Dog (or more specifically, Neil Druckmann) actually want to tell players with this game? That violence is bad? That revenge is bad? Are humans the real monsters and not the zombies?
Are these high school, intro to literature, storytelling 101 ideas the best that the AAA gaming space has to offer? Well not really because all the other games on this list have their central ideas nailed down. Spider-Man 2 is about self-improvement despite the challenges of the world. Ragnarök is about fighting fate and even Horizon Forbidden West, which I played after The Last of Us Part II, has more solid ideas of the hero’s journey and combating expectations.
Let me be clear here: I am not one of the endless internet idiots who have a problem with The Last of Us Part II because of shock deaths or female protagonists or anything simple like that. It’s more in a metanarrative sense that this game fails to leave a lasting impact on me. It feels like Naughty Dog fell back on easier routes like shock value and the impressively rendered gore to insight emotion, instead of better writing.
This game is also one of the worst offenders of the trope where the protagonist will kill endless droves of lesser characters and nameless goons but stops right at the end and doesn’t make the final kill against the “big bad”. This decision even makes the rest of the story worse because those attempted themes around violence and revenge become even more muddied.
All my thoughts aside I cannot wait for the second season of the show and the internet at large – especially the large amount of people who are clueless about the actual games – to see where this story goes after that first season.
Read our launch review of The Last of Us Part II (sans remaster) here.
Horizon Forbidden West
Forbidden West is already confirmed for a PC release and has had a Steam / Epic Games Store page since September 2023.
Because of this closer release for PC, and the fact that I was running out of time with my loaner PS5, I left this game for last. While robot dinosaurs are near the top of my personal list for outright coolest concepts, Forbidden West is ironically near the bottom of the list in terms of anticipation.
The first game in the series, Horizon Zero Dawn, was a decent enough experience but it’s enjoyment has almost entirely left my mind. I remember snippets of the story being rather interesting and the hopelessness of the situation that leads to the main story of the game, but the specifics of both the story and the gameplay weren’t striking enough to stick around after I played that PC port back in 2020.
Despite all of this I wanted to put some hours into Forbidden West before I gave back the PS5 and, not to be too mean to Forbidden West, this really is a case of last and least.
Maybe my misgivings with Forbidden West would have been assuaged if I had put in more hours and let it grow on me, but if a game can’t pull me in to convince me to put in those hours, well then we have a problem. I also think that a dozen hours are a fair shake for any game.
My inner child would kill me for being so harsh about a game with such a cool concept, hell even adult outer me is, but there’s so much friction in the enjoyment in Horizon Forbidden West. The stealth sucks but it’s a huge part of the gameplay (there’s a dedicated skill tree for it), the writing is even worse but it’s an even bigger part of the game, Aloy gets rag dolled by most enemies like someone is making a funny Garry’s Mod video, the terrain and camera fight you more than the robot dinosaurs do, the RPG elements are too complex for their own good and several more niggles I don’t have time to add here.
If I ragged on Ragnarök for bad puzzles I can’t let Horizon Forbidden West get away because it has some real offenders. I knew I was done with puzzles in this game when the solution to one was to, brace yourself, start a fire underwater. My sincere apologies to Guerrilla Games, no one told me we were using SpongeBob logic today.
Oh and don’t even get me started on the endless climbing. This article isn’t a Naughty Dog hit piece but I will truly never forgive that company for making climbing a central mechanic for modern games. Uncharted 2 may arguably be the best game ever made, but that series has poisoned the well with nonstop climbing.
All of this is a real shame because the core of the combat, the unique world and the endless cool factor of fighting robot dinos and shooting off parts of their body are all top notch. The rest of the game seemingly exists to weigh that down and I can’t say I will be playing this when it comes to PC.
I also just want to end off by saying that this game has the worst explanation I have ever seen as to why the player character has been downgraded in the sequel after players spent all of the previous game upgrading and improving. Near the start of the game a character states that they notice Aloy is “travelling light these days” and Aloy simply responds that she simply lost her equipment. You know what, videogame makers? I’d actually just prefer if you gave no explanation about why the player character lost all their upgrades between games. That’s much better than being fed that kind of explanation.
