Whether it'll be worth it to you depends on how much you'd need to end up spending and how much you enjoyed your first time in Tsushima. If you've never played it, though, Director's Cut is the obvious choice whether you're on PS4 or PS5. It might be the filler of games, but it's some of the best filler I've ever played. Slap that on the back of the box, Sucker Punch.
It doesn't skimp on challenging action or a satisfying story, but it also doesn't expect us to devote dozens of hours to it. You can reach the end of the story in less than eight hours-roughly as long as the original Legend of Zelda. Its end is neither sudden and unexpected, nor long and drawn-out. If only we can all embrace our own end as gracefully as Death's Door does.
The story that should compel us to keep playing instead becomes an annoying digression from what the game does well. These environments, those puzzles, and the size-changing gimmick that lets you solve them comprise a unique and fascinating vision that depends on the kind of esoteric thinking familiar from classic point-and-click adventure games. Instead of pulling us in deeper, though, Michael and Kenzie's romance pushes us away. That's the real tragedy of Maquette.
It all comes down to the aesthetic-the muted color palette, the hushed tones when characters speak, the overarching sense of loss and despair that permeates the game. And most notably, those archaic visuals that look like they're from the latest Sierra game you and your friend play on his Tandy computer every afternoon after school. Olija roots its mysteries in the ever-distant, increasingly forgotten past, with all the warmth and sadness that implies.
Still, simply acknowledging real world problems isn't enough, even if most games refuse to even do that. If Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales is going to raise real-life issues, it needs to treat them with the respect and thoughtfulness that they deserve. As good as this game is, it could've been something genuinely special if it was as brave and confident as the comic book hero it stars.
If Bugsnax wants us to seriously question our relationship to animals, our food sources, and nature itself, it probably shouldn't turn its equivalent to our livestock into run-of-the-mill videogame bad guys who need to be killed. It shouldn't portray these characters' escape as success. It'd be a far bleaker and more depressing game than anybody ever would've expected from that first trailer if the Grumpuses wound up being punished for their hostility to nature, but if Bugsnax isn't willing to fully engage with these weighty subjects, it shouldn't bring them up in the first place.
The genius of Spelunky 2 is that it somehow adds new possibilities to a game that already had endless possibilities. That's legitimately impressive. And that's why I'm sure I'll be playing this for as long as I've played the original, both games coexisting blissfully together as one of the absolute best parent-child pairs in gaming.
Ghost of Tsushima just wants you to play a game you’ve basically already played many times, while also telling you about that cool old samurai movie it watched the other day. Which one sounds more interesting to you?
Maneater is a fantastic central concept around which an intermittently enjoyable game has been built. It might not be a classic, but it'll be hard to forget, and that's the kind of game that typically seems better as time goes by. Expect to see this absurd bit of bloody, barbaric business pop up on lists of cult favorites for years to come, and deservedly so.
If Found bridges the gaps between a handful of different mediums and artistic disciplines to create a sad, poignant, ultimately uplifting tale.
Panzer Dragoon: Remake barely makes an concessions to how games have grown over the last 25 years, and that makes it hard to care about it. The superior sequel will be getting a remake next year; this might be one of those situations where the first game in a series can easily be skipped over in the hagiography. Even the biggest members of the Dragoon Squad can sit this one out.
Whether you’ve played the original or not, you probably won’t forget Final Fantasy VII Remake any time soon.
Street Fighter V is more than capable of holding its own in a fight, especially the new Champion Edition; it’s just not an all-time great like its dad.
That head might naturally drift towards the hellishly contorted world we live in, and not the delightfully cartoonish one of Animal Crossing, but escapism is overrated anyway. I'd rather worry about every aspect of modern living while quietly reflecting on the rhythmic roar of a videogame ocean than while sitting slackjawed in a living room I won't ever be able to leave again. Give me these New Horizons—rigid, commercial, and staid—over the chaos of the last decade.
I ran, I jumped, I killed. And I died. A lot. And these days, that's enough.
By the end of A Plague Tale, its surviving heroes have earned their rest. It's hard to say goodbye to them, though, the same way it's hard to no longer spend time with the characters of a great book or TV show. A bittersweet post-credits sting hints at what might await the de Runes in the future; hopefully that's a story that players will be able to explore one day.
As an Assassin's Creed it turns Origins from an outlier into the start of the new status quo, sacrificing a bit of its identity in order to bring it more in line with Ubisoft's other open world games. It still captures much of what makes these games special, though, from the historical setting, to the dynamic action, to one of the few stealth combat systems that isn't too slow or frustrating to enjoy. Embark on this journey with confidence, but be prepared to lose a lot of your free time along the way.
This game understands why Spider-Man has been perhaps the most popular superhero of the last half-century, and does about as good of a job as the comics or movies at capturing the character's essence. It blends more than fifty years of Spider history together, molds it around a thrilling recreation of Spider-Man's trademark motion and fighting styles, and puts you in control of the whole thing. All together that makes this one of the most mechanically, narratively, and nostalgically satisfying big budget games of the year, and the best Spider-Man game yet.
It does take a half-hearted stab at commentary near the end, as you face off with the leader of the raccoons and his very American stance on (late) capitalism, but it's a little perfunctory and played more for laughs than anything else. If Donut County has contempt for anything, it's raccoons more than politics—it does not portray our furry, garbage-plundering friends in a positive light. Holes might wreck this town, but the reputation of raccoons suffer the greatest damage.
Not content with sheer novelty, Dead Cells importantly taps into the most significant aspect of both of the genres it fuses together. Few games are as addictive as those Metroid-style backtrackers, and perhaps the only thing that has come close this decade is the spate of roguelike platformers that flourished in Spelunky's wake. Dead Cells beautifully captures what makes both of those genres impossible to put down, uniting the “just one more” drive of a roguelike with the “must keep going” compulsion of a Metroid. It's a smart, confident piece of work that works perfectly with the Switch's portability, and anybody interested in either of the genres it builds on should consider checking it out.