The vibrant use of color and warm, stylistically varied score elevate the retro aesthetic beyond mere homage. Although the game's story feels slightly hampered by the practical necessities of its play, it's still a touching and occasionally insightful depiction of what it's like to live with anxiety and depression. And the mountain, as in every work of art that has ever featured a mountain throughout the history of human expression, remains a metaphor.
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.
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.
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.
B-12's memories are a kind of collectible you'll have to search for, and a few optional side-quests require scrounging up assorted bric-a-brac, but Stray doesn't make you wander about examining every nook and cranny for something you may or may not actually need. That's a good thing for a videogame, but if you were hoping to really just play as a cat doing cat-like things, "pointlessly searching for stuff you don't need" would be exactly what you wanted. The cat game might be less about the cat and more about the existential crises facing mankind and the artificial intelligences that will be left behind, but at least there's a dedicated meow button.
Titan Souls is an example of a game that successfully uses nostalgia as a jumping off point and not as a central reason to exist. The name and art style might make it seem too familiar, but if you can play through that you'll see it quickly establishes its own identity. It's still a bit of a novelty, but at least it fully commits to that novelty, much like you'll probably commit yourself to defeating every titan once this game sinks its hooks into you.
Assassin's Creed IV owns its corniness. It might lack self-awareness, but it has no shortage of confidence, and that's as exciting as getting your own boat and pirate hat.
You're probably thinking this isn't cut out for anybody past a certain age, that it's just for kids. If you feel that way about games, well, bless your heart. This is a medium where the most acclaimed and best selling games feel like the idle doodles of a middle-school boy. I'll take my light-hearted joy where and when I can when dealing with videogames, and few games are as joyous or adorable as this one.
There might be rough patches, but the friction falls away when I'm locked into the core of Ori and the Blind Forest. We here at Paste Games believe that Metroid is pretty much the best game to emulate. Unlike games with concrete missions or levels, a great Metroid-style game never gives the player a reason to stop. They pull us through on a steady current of gradually expansive play that makes us never want to put the controller down. Ori expertly nails that rhythm, timing out its revelations and offering enough unique ways to navigate its world to maximize the player's engagement.
The ability to muck about with our most powerful memories and experiences is bewitching and almost unthinkable, but that's the core of Super Mario Maker. It's exactly as good and as bad as you think a Super Mario level editor would be, and that's entirely subjective upon your own thoughts and opinions.
Uncharted 4 cares about its characters, but not as much as it cares about its thrills, and it doesn't quite unite these two goals as seamlessly as Uncharted 2 did. The game tips its hand when, early on, Sam asks Nathan about the best thing to happen to him in the 15 years they were apart, and the options on display focus on Drake's adventures and don't even let you mention falling in love with and marrying Elena. As good as Uncharted 4 is at being the type of game it aspires to be, it also seems to argue, unwittingly or not, that no matter the budget and number of designers and amount of development time you devote to them, this type of game can't be much more than the sum of its thrills.
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.
Of course Harmonix will need more than just the diehards to make this game a success, and that's the biggest problem the game faces. Five years is a long time, but it doesn't seem like it's been long enough to jumpstart the kind of nostalgia needed to make these games feel fresh again. The game itself is everything you'd expect from Rock Band, but are enough people expecting anything from Rock Band in 2015?
It's what you feel as the story unfolds like a short story on your television screen, visiting the private grief of others who can struggle to communicate just as torturously as all of us in the real world can. And although this dual character study can feel a little slight, and has a few improbable notes that are struck seemingly just to enhance a sense of mystery, that central friendship between Henry and Delilah is powerful. It feels real, and important for both of them, and it would be wrong to change or weaken it by playing the game again.
It's a minor part of the game—Chibi-Robo will find snacks during his clean-up duties, and can give them to his hungry plane friend for a useful return—but it's so weird to see real products in a game like this that it stands out more prominently than it should. Here's a fictional game world, devoid of all people and recognizable buildings, filled with stuff you'd buy at Wawa during a road trip. Actually, that might make it the most ingenious thing about Chibi-Robo! Zip Lash: it's not just trying to sell you something, it's trying to sell you something you'd buy to kill time in the back of a car, just like the game itself.
By the end any notion of nature versus nurture is long forgotten. Tragedy falls on both sides of this war no matter what you or your hero do. Friends and family die or permanently retreat with regularity. Fire Emblem is both an adorable game about cute anime kids becoming friends and lovers, and also one of the cruelest and most unforgiving virtual death marches you'll ever play. Don't hold all that death against Fates: it's the game's birthright.
By the end any notion of nature versus nurture is long forgotten. Tragedy falls on both sides of this war no matter what you or your hero do. Friends and family die or permanently retreat with regularity. Fire Emblem is both an adorable game about cute anime kids becoming friends and lovers, and also one of the cruelest and most unforgiving virtual death marches you'll ever play. Don't hold all that death against Fates: it's the game's birthright.
I can't argue with the logic behind a handheld Smash Bros—people will buy it, people will love it, Nintendo will make money and everybody will be happy—but I might have to wait for the upcoming Wii U version, where even the secondary screen that I hold in my hands will be significantly bigger than the one on the 3DS. It's not the game's fault, of course. The game is big. It's the picture that got small.
Like a great novel or a TV show that you're binging, you'll start to think about Chronicles when you're not playing it. You might even dream about it.
Minit is an adventure with a twist—an adventure that turns into work, and a twist that turns into as much of an anchor as any unfulfilling day job.