David Purcell
Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 gets it right in all the areas that matter. Its storytelling carries emotional depth, and the characterization makes you care about everyone you meet on your journey through this beautifully imagined world. Throw in a combat system that puts mastery above grinding, and you’ve got a classic RPG that, like Baldur’s Gate 3 before it, should appeal beyond its target audience, so much so that a game of the year nomination feels inevitable.
FIFA 23 makes history as the most realistic football simulator in the series and with HyperMotion technology getting increasingly more impressive, the future looks bright for EA SPORTS FC. Some gameplay fine-tuning is needed to streamline things and the SBC change in Ultimate Team won't be a welcome one, but there's no denying it's the best on-pitch action in years.
Overall I would say the game accurately portrays WWE programming at the moment. What do I mean by that? Well, the emphasis is all on the ring work, but the ability to tell a story lets it down.
Don't be fooled, the positives might have outweighed the negatives in terms of word-count on the previous page, but FIFA 16 still has room for improvement.