Dennis Scimeca's Reviews
Toy Soldiers: War Chest is a delightful take on tower defense
The story feels as confused about its direction as Until Dawn feels confused about its identity.
The idea of Super Mario Maker continuing into the future is wonderful, because this is a game that can bridge generations. When I was a kid, my dad and I had no idea how Nintendo created a Super Mario Bros. game. Now, I can sit down with the next generation of my extended family and not only show them what Super Mario Bros. is through Super Mario Maker, but also peel back the curtain and figure out together how video games work.
[I]f you're deciding whether or not to buy Rock Band for the very first time, I wish I could convey just how much I wish the instruments had been this high-quality and the song library this deep when I first started playing Rock Band eight years ago.
The new, ocean-based mechanics breathe some fresh life into Beyond Earth, but perhaps not as much as the new diplomacy and affinity systems introduced by Rising Tide.
If you're a Transformers fan who grew up with the original 1980s universe, Devastation is gold. Everyone else should take this game under advisement.
Other than this potential flaw, I can't think of any shortcomings (though it should be repeated that this is my first Yoshi game, so any repetitiveness from previous installations isn't accounted for). Yoshi's Wooly World is a challenging yet accessible platformer that weaves a venerable Nintendo icon into a fresh aesthetic.
Maiden of Black Water is decidedly an example of a game where genre experience and fandom has everything to do with its appeal. Games like this are fan service at this point, and Maiden of Black Water strikes all the correct notes.
I had expected Tales from the Borderlands to be just a side story, something inconsequential in the grand scheme of the Borderlands franchise, but there are events within Tales from the Borderlands that will have substantive effects on the Borderlands universe should they bleed over into any further games set on Pandora.
Guardians is a disappointingly uneven experience
If skill challenge is your motivation, Guitar Hero Live will demand much more of you by default. If you're looking for a party game consider the regulars on your guest list and their level of frustration tolerance.
I have spent more than 60 hours in the Xbox One version of the game and don't feel anywhere close to having tackled most of the content. Fallout 4 could be the only game you buy for the next six months, and you might never get bored. It's everything that Fallout fans were hoping for. When it comes to game releases in 2015, the best was truly saved for last.
That's not an uncommon motivation for a lot of Game of Thrones fans—and the same goes for many of the characters in the story. I can therefore think of no finer way to describe just how authentic a Game of Thrones experience Telltale has crafted.
That nostalgia, much more than the current depth offered by Battlefront is going to drive adoption of this game. You'd probably be better off waiting to see what the expansion packs are going to offer, and then getting the total package for much less than the $110 it's going to cost you if you buy everything on release. Then again, who wants to wait for their Star Wars video game pew-pew fix when it looks and sounds this good?
That Dragon, Cancer is a family's beautiful tribute to faith, loss, and love
In traditional adventure games, even if the experience amounts primarily to dialogue choices and walking through the story, the action is also punctuated with cutscenes. Oxenfree lacks this element, so a second playthrough to experiment with different choices will require a lot of slogging through the same wide-angle shots and simple interactions with the environment that I doubt would change the second time around.
I also can't be upset about how hostile The Witness often felt, because the game taught me a lesson that was worth the pain—about how intimate puzzle games are. I think they represent a more direct relationship between creator and participant than most genres, and that's an aspect of puzzle games that I've never really appreciated before.
XCOM 2 has everything you could want in a sequel to XCOM: Enemy Unknown
Firewatch delivers a forest adventure that never really ignites
Far Cry Primal takes the series in a strange and satisfying direction