The Marvel’s Wolverine Battle Yellow DualSense, Claw Marks and All

Hardware Review · Purchased September 16, 2026 · $114.99 CAD via EB Games

DualSense Wireless Controller, Marvel's Wolverine Battle Yellow Limited Edition — Photo credit: PlayStation.com

The Setup

I need to correct myself here: I originally had my eye on a third-party pro controller for this slot, but then Sony dropped the Marvel’s Wolverine Limited Edition DualSense lineup to coincide with the game’s launch, and that plan went out the window immediately. The Battle Yellow version, styled after Wolverine’s Battle Reborn suit with slash marks torn across the shell like his claws just raked across it, was too on-the-nose for me to pass up. I picked it up at EB Games about a day after launch, once the initial pre-order rush had died down.

Living With It

Underneath the paint job it’s a completely standard DualSense, adaptive triggers, haptics, the works, and it performs exactly as well as any other one I own. What sells this edition is purely the aesthetic: the claw-slash graphic cuts diagonally across the whole shell in a way that actually looks like damage rather than a printed decal slapped on top, and the bold yellow really does pop next to the muted grey and white controllers that make up the rest of my collection. It’s a genuinely striking piece sitting on a shelf even powered off.

Being a limited-run licensed controller, it commands a premium over a standard DualSense for zero functional upgrade, which is the same complaint I have with basically every special edition I buy and somehow never stops me from buying the next one. Stock also moved fast; by the time I got to a store a few of the other regional retailers carrying it were already sold out of the yellow version, so if a specific colorway catches your eye, don’t wait around.

Close-up of the claw-slash detail on the Marvel's Wolverine Battle Yellow DualSense — Detail of the claw-slash graphic. Photo credit: PlayStation.com

What I Liked

Claw-slash graphic looks genuinely sharp in person, not like a printed sticker
Bold Battle Yellow finish stands out on a shelf full of standard controllers
Same excellent adaptive trigger and haptic feedback as any other DualSense

What I Didn’t

Premium price for zero functional difference from a standard DualSense
Limited run means popular colorways can sell out fast

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A great-looking tie-in controller if the design speaks to you, and it landed at exactly the right moment to catch me off guard and empty my wallet.

Where to Buy

The Astro Bot Joyful DualSense, Round Two of Buying a Controller for the Paint Job

Hardware Review · Purchased September 12, 2026 · $114.99 CAD via PlayStation Direct

DualSense Wireless Controller Astro Bot Joyful Limited Edition — Photo credit: PlayStation.com

The Setup

I already own the original Astro Bot DualSense from the game’s 2024 launch, so buying the newer Joyful Limited Edition when it showed up on PlayStation Direct this month was purely a case of not being able to resist a second colorway. This one leans into a brighter, more playful palette than the original’s launch design, tying into the game’s ongoing post-launch content rather than the base release itself.

Living With It

Functionally it’s identical to every other DualSense on the market, which is exactly what you’d expect and exactly what you want from a cosmetic special edition. The adaptive triggers and haptics work as well as ever, and the only real difference between this and my existing Astro Bot controller is the paint job and the accompanying box art. The new design does read as more vibrant and toy-like in person than the original’s cooler blue-and-white scheme, which fits Astro Bot’s tone better if I’m being honest with myself about which one I actually like more.

Buying essentially the same controller a second time purely for a different paint job is not a purchase I can really defend on practical grounds, and I’m aware of that. But between this and the original, I now have a small matched pair that looks great sitting side by side on my shelf, and sometimes that’s just the whole point of a purchase like this.

What I Liked

Brighter, more playful colorway than the original Astro Bot DualSense
Same excellent adaptive trigger and haptic feedback as any other DualSense
Looks great displayed alongside the original as a matched pair

What I Didn’t

Zero functional difference from a standard DualSense, purely a style purchase
Hard to justify owning two Astro Bot controllers on any practical grounds

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A great-looking controller if you’re already invested in the aesthetic, but there’s no pretending this was a necessary purchase.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Direct

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead, a Horror Game Built Entirely Around Shutting Up

Game Review · Purchased September 5, 2026 · $13.19 CAD via PSN

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead key art — Photo via PlayStation Store

The Setup

A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead has been sitting on my wishlist since it launched a couple years back, and a PSN sale in September finally got the price low enough to pull the trigger. Developed by Stormind Games, it’s a third-person survival horror game built directly around the film franchise’s whole gimmick: stay quiet, or the things hunting by sound will find you.

Living With It

The sound-based stealth mechanic is genuinely well realized as a core system. Every action, from walking to opening a door to knocking over a can, generates a visible sound radius, and learning to move through environments while consciously managing your own noise output creates a very different kind of tension than most horror games bother with. There’s a real discipline to it: rushing through a section almost always gets you caught, and the game rewards a slow, deliberate pace in a way that fits the film’s whole ethos perfectly.

Where it wears thin is repetition. Once you understand the sound mechanic, which happens fairly early, the game doesn’t introduce a lot of new wrinkles to keep that same core loop feeling fresh across its full runtime, and by the back half I found myself going through the motions of the same sneak-and-hide pattern rather than being surprised by it. The atmosphere and sound design carry a lot of weight throughout, and the asthma mechanic tied to the protagonist adds a nice extra layer of tension on top of the noise system, but as a whole experience it’s a shorter, mid-tier horror game rather than something with a ton of replay value.

What I Liked

Sound-based stealth is a genuinely well-realized central mechanic
Strong atmosphere and sound design throughout
The asthma mechanic adds a clever extra layer of tension

What I Didn’t

Core loop gets repetitive once you’ve mastered the sound mechanic
Doesn’t introduce much new to keep the back half feeling fresh

The Verdict

Rating: 3.5/5

A clever central mechanic that doesn’t quite have enough behind it to fill its own runtime, but a good pickup on sale for fans of the films.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Store

The Wolf Among Us, Revisiting Fabletown Before the Remaster Takes Over

Game Review · Purchased August 5, 2026 · $9.99 CAD via Steam

The Wolf Among Us key art — Photo via Steam

The Setup

With a full remaster of the original Wolf Among Us confirmed for the end of October, and an actual sequel finally in the works after years of uncertainty following Telltale’s collapse, I decided it was finally time to play the original 2013 game before either of those arrive and change how I experience it. A deep Steam sale made the decision easy.

Living With It

Even more than a decade later, the noir-fairytale premise still holds up remarkably well: Bigby Wolf, the Big Bad Wolf himself, working as the sheriff of a secret community of exiled fairytale characters hiding in 1980s New York, is a genuinely great hook, and the game leans hard into hardboiled detective atmosphere rather than playing the fairytale angle for cheap laughs. The writing and voice work, especially Bigby’s world-weary delivery, carry a huge amount of the experience.

The choice-driven Telltale format shows its age more than the writing does. Frame rates stutter in a few of the more effects-heavy sequences, and the quick-time combat prompts feel exactly as clunky as I remembered from other games of this era. Knowing a remaster is imminent made some of these rough edges easier to forgive going in, since I was essentially treating this as one last look at the original before a cleaner version presumably fixes a lot of it. Even with the technical warts, the story pulled me through all five episodes in a way very few choice-based games have managed since.

What I Liked

Exceptional noir-fairytale premise and writing that still holds up
Bigby Wolf is one of the better protagonists Telltale ever wrote
Genuinely gripping episodic structure that’s hard to put down

What I Didn’t

Technical rough edges and dated quick-time combat prompts
Frame rate stutters in some of the more effects-heavy scenes

The Verdict

Rating: 4.5/5

A genuinely great piece of writing wrapped around some dated tech. Worth playing now, and I’ll be curious to see what the remaster fixes.

Where to Buy

Steam

PowerWash Simulator 2’s Star Wars Pack, Cleaning the Millennium Falcon One Panel at a Time

DLC Review · Purchased July 25, 2026 · $13.49 CAD via PSN

PowerWash Simulator 2 Star Wars Pack key art featuring the Millennium Falcon — Photo via PlayStation Store

The Setup

Given how much money I’ve thrown at both the original PowerWash Simulator’s Star Wars content and pretty much every other piece of Star Wars merchandise that’s crossed my path over the years, buying this the week it launched was never really in question. The pitch alone, hosing carbon scoring and grime off the Millennium Falcon, is exactly the kind of licensed crossover this franchise seems built for.

Living With It

Cleaning the Falcon is every bit as satisfying as the concept promises. The ship’s iconic silhouette and greebled panel detail give the cleaning tools a lot to chew on, and there’s a genuine sense of scale working your way from the cockpit down through the boarding ramp and out to the mandibles. The pack also includes a couple of other iconic locations and vehicles beyond just the Falcon, giving it more variety than a pure one-ship gimmick would have had.

Where this pack pulls ahead of the original game’s Star Wars content is the sequel’s added verticality tools; the cherry picker in particular makes reaching the Falcon’s upper hull sections feel like an actual task rather than an awkward camera-angle fight. It’s not doing anything the format hasn’t done before structurally, but the fidelity on the ship models themselves is a clear step up, and as someone who’s now cleaned this specific ship in two separate games, I can say the sequel’s version is the better-looking one by a wide margin.

What I Liked

The Millennium Falcon’s panel detail and greebling give the cleaning mechanics real texture
Sequel’s verticality tools make reaching the ship’s upper sections much better than in the original game’s Star Wars content
More than one location included, not just a single-ship gimmick

What I Didn’t

Structurally, it’s the same format as every other crossover pack at this point
Licensed packs like this keep landing at a similar price point regardless of content depth

The Verdict

Rating: 4.5/5

The best-looking Star Wars content this series has put out yet, and an easy pickup for anyone who liked the original’s crossover packs.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Store

Disney Dreamlight Valley’s Honeyglow Woods, a Solid New Realm to Get Lost In

DLC Review · Purchased July 15, 2026 · $16.99 CAD via PSN

Disney Dreamlight Valley Honeyglow Woods key art — Photo credit: disneydreamlightvalley.com

The Setup

Dreamlight Valley has been a reliable well of relaxing, low-stakes content for me ever since I picked up Wishblossom Ranch, so I jumped on the Honeyglow Woods Adventure Pack the week it launched in July without waiting to see reviews first. At this point I trust Gameloft’s paid content packs more than I trust most full-price releases to actually deliver what they promise.

Living With It

The new realm itself is a genuinely lovely piece of environment design, all soft amber lighting filtering through dense tree cover, with a warmer, cozier color palette than a lot of the Valley’s other biomes. It leans into a woodland-at-dusk mood that feels distinct from the areas that came before it, rather than just being a new coat of paint on the same exploration loop. New characters and story content are woven through it at a decent clip, and the pack does a good job of giving you enough new material to chew through in a single dedicated weekend without feeling padded.

Where it starts to feel familiar is the actual moment-to-moment gameplay: it’s still the same gathering, crafting, and light farming loop Dreamlight Valley has always run on, and Honeyglow Woods doesn’t really try to reinvent that formula so much as give it a new backdrop and a new story to dress it in. For a series I keep coming back to specifically because that formula works, that’s not really a complaint, but if you were hoping for a mechanical shake-up, this isn’t it.

What I Liked

Genuinely distinct, cozy visual identity for the new realm
Good pacing on new story and character content for the price
Reliable, comfortable gameplay loop that I keep coming back for

What I Didn’t

No real mechanical changes to the core gathering/crafting loop
Starting to feel a bit formulaic across this many Adventure Packs

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Another solid, cozy expansion for a series that knows exactly what it’s good at, even if it’s not pushing the format forward.

Where to Buy

LEGO’s Slinky Dog Bookends, the Most Novel Piece in My Whole Collection

Lego Review · Purchased June 5, 2026 · $189.99 CAD via The Lego Store

LEGO Toy Story Slinky Dog Bookends set 43301 — Photo credit: LEGO.com

The Setup

This is easily the strangest concept LEGO has put out for the Toy Story license: a brick-built Slinky Dog paired with two functioning bookends, released as part of the May 2026 Disney/Pixar wave. I don’t actually keep enough physical books around to need bookends in any practical sense, but the idea of a hidden Woody minifigure tucked inside one of the books, revealed by turning a little knob, was more than enough to get me to order it the moment it went live.

Living With It

At 1,311 pieces, this is a genuinely substantial build, and easily the most mechanically interesting set in my collection. Slinky Dog himself has an articulated head and paws along with fabric ears, and actually looks and poses like the character rather than a static brick sculpture. The two book pieces that function as the actual bookends are where LEGO’s design team really showed off: one has a brick-built spine worked into a Slinky Dog motif, and the other hides a small rotating mechanism behind its cover that reveals a Woody minifigure tucked inside when you turn the knob on the spine.

It’s pitched at the 18+ adult collector audience, and it shows in the build quality: nothing about the bookend mechanism feels flimsy, and the whole thing sits solidly enough on a shelf that I’ve actually started using it to hold up a small stack of art books, which was never really the point but is a nice bonus. The build itself took me the better part of a weekend, split fairly evenly between the two bookend structures and Slinky Dog’s own more fiddly articulated body. It’s not a difficult build technically, just a long one, and the payoff of finally turning that knob and seeing Woody appear made every hour of it worth it.

The hidden Woody minifigure mechanism in the LEGO Slinky Dog Bookends set — The hidden Woody reveal mechanism. Photo credit: LEGO.com

What I Liked

Genuinely novel concept with a real, working mechanism rather than just a static display
Slinky Dog’s articulated body actually captures the character’s look and poses
Solid enough construction to double as functional bookends

What I Didn’t

Expensive for a set most people will still just display rather than use as bookends
The build, while satisfying, is long without ever being particularly challenging

The Verdict

Rating: 4.5/5

One of the most genuinely inventive LEGO sets I own, and worth the price for the hidden Woody reveal alone.

Where to Buy

LEGO.com

Still Wakes the Deep’s Siren’s Rest Expansion, a Worthy Return to the Beira D

DLC Review · Purchased June 20, 2026 · $13.99 CAD via PSN

Still Wakes the Deep: Siren's Rest key art — Photo via Steam

The Setup

Still Wakes the Deep was one of my favorite horror games from a couple years back, a tense, claustrophobic story set on a North Sea oil rig, so when The Chinese Room announced a story expansion in Siren’s Rest last summer I made a mental note to circle back to it once I had a free weekend. That finally happened in June, about a year after the DLC actually released.

Living With It

Siren’s Rest is set roughly a decade after the base game’s events, and returning to the Beira D with that much narrative distance gives the whole thing a different flavor than the original: less about surviving an active crisis and more about investigating the wreckage of one, both literally and emotionally. The rig itself is in a genuinely different state of decay compared to the base game, and the sound design team clearly had fun finding new ways to make familiar corridors feel unfamiliar again.

It’s shorter than the base campaign, which makes sense for a story-focused add-on at this price point, but it doesn’t feel rushed. The investigative framing gives you more room to piece together what happened than the original game’s more linear survival-horror pacing did, and as someone who wanted more time in this specific setting, it scratched exactly the itch I was hoping for. If you didn’t love the base game’s slow-burn pacing, this won’t change your mind, but it’s a genuinely worthwhile return trip for anyone who did.

What I Liked

Investigative framing gives a fresh angle on a familiar setting
Strong sound design continues to carry the atmosphere
Meaningful time jump gives the rig a genuinely different feel from the base game

What I Didn’t

Noticeably shorter than the base campaign
Same slow-burn pacing as the original, which won’t win over anyone who didn’t like that the first time

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

A worthwhile, atmospheric return to one of the better horror settings in recent memory, even if it’s over quicker than I wanted.

Where to Buy

PowerWash Simulator 2’s Adventure Time Pack, Scrubbing Down the Land of Ooo

DLC Review · Purchased April 20, 2026 · $10.99 CAD via PSN

PowerWash Simulator 2 Adventure Time Pack key art — Photo via PlayStation Store

The Setup

After spending most of last year buying nearly every crossover pack for the original PowerWash Simulator, I was genuinely relieved when the sequel finally started getting its own special packs this spring. The Adventure Time Pack was the first one out the gate in April, dropping players into the Land of Ooo to hose down locations and vehicles pulled straight from the show.

Living With It

The Adventure Time aesthetic translates surprisingly well to the grime-and-suds format; the show’s candy-colored, slightly off-kilter art style gives the level designers a lot to play with, and the caked-on filth clashing against Ooo’s bright pastel palette is a nice visual gag on its own. The pack carries over the sequel’s added verticality tools nicely, with the abseiling rig getting real use scaling some of the taller, more vertical Ooo architecture in a way the original PowerWash Simulator’s crossover packs never really attempted.

It’s a shorter pack than some of the meatier crossovers from the original game, and the character cosmetics included feel like a smaller offering compared to what some of the bigger licensed packs used to include. But the core cleaning loop is exactly as satisfying as ever, and being one of the first crossover packs for the sequel, it’s a promising sign that PowerWash Simulator 2 is going to get the same steady stream of content that made the original such good value over its lifetime.

What I Liked

Adventure Time’s bright, off-kilter art style works surprisingly well against grime
Good use of the sequel’s new verticality tools like the abseiling rig
Signals a promising ongoing content pipeline for PowerWash Simulator 2

What I Didn’t

Shorter than some of the bigger crossover packs from the original game
Character cosmetics feel like a smaller offering than past licensed packs

The Verdict

Rating: 3.5/5

A fun, if slightly light, first crossover pack for the sequel. A good sign of things to come rather than a must-own on its own.

Where to Buy

PlayStation Store

7 Days to Die, a Decade-Long Early Access Survival Game That Finally Grew Up

Game Review · Purchased April 14, 2026 · $32.99 CAD via PSN

The Setup

7 Days to Die spent roughly eleven years in Early Access before finally hitting its 1.0 release in the summer of 2024, and that same update marked its first proper console launch on PS5 and Xbox Series X|S rather than staying a PC-only curiosity. I’d heard about the game for years without ever touching it, mostly through friends describing it as “Minecraft crossed with a zombie horde night,” which was intriguing enough that I finally grabbed the console version this spring once the post-launch patches had settled down.

Living With It

The base-building and crafting systems are genuinely deep in a way that surprised me. Every structure can be reinforced, upgraded, and defended with traps and fortifications, and the game rewards thinking like an actual survivalist rather than just building the biggest box you can. That depth pays off hardest on the seventh in-game day, when a horde night throws a sustained wave of zombies at whatever base you’ve built, and watching a carefully planned kill-zone actually work as intended is one of the more satisfying moments I’ve had in a survival game in a while.

Where it shows its age is in presentation. The animations and voxel-based visuals are functional rather than good, and there’s a rough, DIY quality to a lot of the UI and menus that betrays just how long this game spent in development limbo. The console port is solid, not spectacular; load times are longer than I’d like and the controller mapping for the deep crafting menus takes some getting used to, but nothing about it feels broken or rushed for a 1.0 release.

A horde night battle in 7 Days to Die — A horde night in progress. Photo via Steam.

What I Liked

Deep, rewarding base-building and fortification systems
Horde nights are a genuine highlight, tense and satisfying when your defenses work
A huge amount of crafting and progression depth for the price

What I Didn’t

Dated presentation and rough UI that show its long development history
Console load times and menu navigation are clunkier than PC

The Verdict

Rating: 4/5

Rough around the edges but genuinely deep, and the console port makes a decade-plus of development finally worth checking out if you missed it on PC.