[Bethesda] hammered and hammered and hammered and finally forged Fallout 76 into not only a better game, but one that deserves a second chance—from me, from you, and from all the naysayers.
Maybe it will win me over yet. It’s running out of time though.
As someone who’s already sold on VR, I think Alyx is a hell of a good time. I put in four or five hours straight on Saturday (thanks to Dramamine) and few VR games manage to hold my attention that long. But I don’t think it’s the revolutionary new experience that people might expect, particularly people who owned a Vive or a Rift and have been living in this future for a while.
Doom Eternal kicks ass. It's smarter than it looks, faster than it looks, and somehow even more fun than it looks. A triumph—except for the platforming.
the Wisps is more than the sum of its parts. Is it just another Metroid homage, one among many? Absolutely. I think it’s one of the best-playing, sure, but it’s still well-trod territory of late.
Above all, Kentucky Route Zero is an argument that games can be more. That argument isn’t nearly so revolutionary now as it was in 2011 when development began, or 2013 when the first act released. We’ve (thankfully) made some decent progress in the years since. People bought Kentucky Route Zero, and those people did go start their proverbial bands.
Jedi: Fallen Order borrows liberally from other games, but a strong supporting cast, clever level design, and a cute little droid companion make Respawn's Star Wars story more than the sum of its parts.
Need for Speed: Heat is probably the best series reboot EA's put out this generation, though it arrives just as the open-world racing formula is running out of gas.
Planet Coaster was already excellent at release, but an entire game’s worth of content has been built atop it in the ensuing years.
Call of Duty: Modern Warfare tries to be a serious commentary on present-day conflicts, but is mostly just another Call of Duty game by nature of the series's longstanding blind spots.
Overall I really enjoyed Man of Medan though and I’m looking forward to replaying it—and to whatever comes next for the series, as it’s pitched as an anthology.
Ancestors: The Humankind Odyssey is an impossibly ambitious game, attempting to summarize the whole of human evolution into the span of a few hours—and succeeding to a surprising degree.
Dinosaur-soldiers, character customization, and strong storytelling help Age of Wonders: Planetfall get over the early-game onboarding hurdles and micromanagement woes.
Tetris Effect is gorgeous, and I only wish it cost less so that people wouldn't see $40 for a Tetris game and scoff. It's not that it doesn't deserve $40. Quite the contrary. It's merely difficult to convince people.
Layers of Fear 2 doesn't have many scares to offer, but visual panache and a multitude of classic film homages make for an extraordinary journey—for the right person.
Observation is grander than Stories Untold, more ambitious by half, but equally fascinating and inventive.
Yakuza Kiwami 2's soap opera story doesn't have quite the same impact as its predecessors, but a much-needed engine upgrade catapults the series into the modern era and makes for a much smoother experience.
Suffice it to say, Mortal Kombat 11 is excellent if you’re in it for the story, and a solid fighting game underneath as well, but the experience is marred by rough edges. Given the state of NetherRealm’s last few games on PC, I’m not sure we could’ve expected much more. If anything, this is an improvement.
Heaven's Vault is rough around the edges, but its sense of discovery and self-fulfillment are unparalleled thanks to its commitment to player agency and its unique language-translation mechanic.
Anno 1800 brings its hybrid of city-building, trade, and diplomacy to the Industrial Revolution with a show of technical brilliance, but it's hindered by a cumbersome interface and other quality-of-life issues.