Hitman is a world made up entirely of Chekhov’s guns, and it’s a blast finding out how to get Agent 47 into position to pull the trigger.
It’s fine to make a game like that — for many, that’s the promise of Cyberpunk 2077. It just wasn’t the promise to me.
For video games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 still shows us what games are capable of. You’ll find sad dads in books. Movies will have equally moving stories. Music can show us that emotions are not necessarily tied to language. But only video games can re-create skateboarding.
I’m somewhere between neophyte and sim veteran, and Microsoft Flight Simulator has won me over. It happened when I picked a flight path from a small, grass airfield in Brazil to an airport in São Paulo. It feels so good to learn the characteristics of your plane while watching the sunset give away to a purple sheet of stars. And I’m confident that most people will end up feeling the same way if they’re willing to give the game a chance.
So don’t sit this one out. Pick it up, play through it, complain about it with me, but then stick around for all of its joys.
Clubhouse Games is the kind of game that actually makes a platform for me. The Switch wouldn’t be the Switch without Zelda and Mario, but this is the kind of release that fills out a library. Clubhouse Games is something that you will look back on years from now, and get to say, “oh, yeah — I love that game!”
SnowRunner is all I want to play right now.
The best thing I can say about New Horizons is that I think it's going to win over some players who previously bounced off the franchise. And it will do so without losing any longtime fans in the process. Those players will find more to love than ever before.
It is the kind of achievement that is only possible when one of the best developers in the world puts all of its might into making something special. And I hope we get more just like it in the future.
I really like the way the RingCon feels. I also enjoy leveling up and running through the environment. But the core mission of Ring Fit Adventure is to make you forget that you’re exercising, and I think it’s only partially successful at that.