Andrew Todd's Reviews
Like the terrific TV miniseries The Staircase that appears to have inspired it, Her Story is less about determining guilt than growing to understand a set of characters. That's more interesting than a guilty or not guilty verdict anyway: a verdict closes the book, while understanding leaves it open for further contemplation. And as a narrative and as a game, Her Story is worthy of much contemplation indeed.
Despite its charm, Sierra's episodic reboot isn't winning any tournaments.
If you think walking slowly around an empty village sounds like a load of bollocks, this probably isn't the game for you. It's more of an immersive narrative than an action-packed piece of entertainment, and if the PS4 wasn't already struggling with frame rates in this version, I'd say it's ideal for virtual reality.
About as exciting as watching the tide come in.
A unique infusion of roguelike mechanics into a surprisingly directed game, it's still got everything it had going for it back in 2012. Even that gamebreaking glitch.
There are moments when I f***ing adore Mad Max, and it feels awkward to attack it for trying too hard. But I really think The WB Open World Game is the wrong genre for the license, or at the very least the wrong application of genre.
Between its graphics, its storytelling, and its character-driven gameplay, Until Dawn represents many of the things that truly excite me about this generation of gaming.
Metal Gear Solid V is riddled with flaws - the story makes no sense and is paced woefully inconsistently, the menu systems could be a lot more intuitive, and as previously mentioned, its treatment of women could stand to improve (sigh). But damn it, the core stealth mechanics and sense of progression are so strong, it's compulsive playing.
Destiny: The Taken King is a testament to game-as-service that feels richer, less random, and more fun than the game Destiny started out as. It's telling that the base game is being phased out in favour of a "complete" package: this is much closer to what Destiny should have been from the beginning.
Pacing issues and minor quibbles aside, I had a lovely time with Tearaway Unfolded. The variety in environments and platforming mechanics, the music, the puzzles, the gibberish speech, and the sheer exuberant fun of it all bring to mind classic platformers like Banjo-Kazooie, which is a serious compliment coming from me.
Star Wars: Battlefront is a simplified online shooter for a broad audience that delivers on its promise of Star Wars battle fantasies.
Fallout 4 keeps surprising and delighting me. Few other games have the depth or idiosyncratic character to get me consuming their content this greedily or obsessively. Clearly made by a passionate team, it's my favourite Bethesda game to date, and one of the finest games of the year, warts and all - one whose likely destruction of my already-struggling social life I welcome with open arms.
Together, Mad Max and Just Cause 3 demonstrate that Avalanche is great at making games feel great. If it could just make the stories and gameplay less dull and repetitive, it'd have an all-timer on its hands. Because god damn - at its best, this game really is that much fun.
Mixed political messages and microtransactions aside, Rainbow Six Siege is a terrific, well-tuned multiplayer game. It's just hard to get the most out of it without friends.
You might not relate to everything the Greens have to say, but you won't forget it.
It's a triumph of writing, atmosphere, and dialogue design, let down by a story that builds up such an ungainly weight of entertaining strangeness that it can't quite stick its landing.
Firewatch pushes the still-forming first person exploration genre ahead several steps, with wonderful dialogue, sumptuous design, and a story that examines loneliness in unique ways.
If you liked XCOM: Enemy Unknown, you'll be right at home in XCOM 2. Frankly, Firaxis doesn't seem interested in bringing non-fans along for the ride - the lack of console support and the in-the-deep-end story and gameplay confirm that.
EA/Coldwood's charming adventure comes apart in the gameplay.
If only The Division's visual design was so memorable. While its 1:1 recreation of a slice of Manhattan is achieved with stunning accuracy, its devotion to realism is also one of the game's biggest problems. For one thing, it dictates that the overworld, while enormous and detailed, is samey and uninteresting. But worse, it makes the gamier elements stick out awkwardly, and actually renders some of them boring.