This lack of variety in the style of play makes every run feel samey, and they begin to blur together. That leads to a roteness that made me want to put down the game when I was struggling with the difficulty. I like challenging games, but roguelites need to walk a fine line between familiarity and routine. Familiarity is the warm embrace of something that feels like home. Routine is boredom, and it is poison for a game like this.
The kindest thing I can say about the game is that it does make for an entertaining livestream. I broadcasted my play on Twitch, and my audience seemed to really enjoy watching me suffer. So I guess this is a great one for all those fans of masochism out there.
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.