Don't get me wrong, Octodad is a ton of fun. It's got a self-aware irreverence—call it the Katamari factor—that you usually only find in indie games. That being said, with games like that, I usually focus on the stand-out moments, like the big reveals in Gone Home, the progressive decay of Limbo, or even the silly mysteries of something as slight as Frog Fractions. Octodad doesn't have anything like that. It's a giddy little glide full of heart and genuine goodwill, but never manifesting into anything more than a distraction.
How ironic is it that by making their storied franchise an online experience, Bethesda has somehow created a less immersive Elder Scrolls game? I used to feel like The One, now I'm just a customer.
A perfectly good 4X game with an innovative combat system that feels a bit bland when framed against the richness of its setting.
Rust is a malicious experience rife with betrayal, cruelty and greed. That can make it both frustrating and sublime in equal doses.
Terraria promises an experience of infinite possibilities. Miraculously, it somehow pulls it off.
Madden 19 offers a fascinating single-player story, but the rest of the game largely falls into the same tropes you experienced a decade ago.
It's still good to have Madden back on PC, but a stagnant odor is creeping in.
Surgeon Simulator 2 is a clever, funny puzzle game that renders its "surgery" mechanics almost ancillary to the final product.
Noita combines classic roguelike progression with complex RPG-style spellbuilding and sets it in an incredibly dynamic environment.
Torchlight 3 does a great job with its class design, but the world feels barren and unfinished.
It's hard to play El Hijo without wishing for a little more flair in its stealth system.
It's shocking how much depth Dead By Daylight packs into its systems.
A bold genre shift, but not a completely successful one.
Quality point-and-click puzzles link a gallery of impeccable artwork.
Maquette has enough interesting ideas to push any adventure gamer past the finish line.
Oddworld: Soulstorm's charm, characters, and sincere narrative are imprisoned within buggy, erratic software.
An excellent combat system buffers a classically unhinged anime story in an action RPG whose ambition outpaces execution.
Death's Door boils modern action-adventure game design down to its fundamentals, and the reduction is excellent.
Beneath the beautiful new look and smart innovations, this is the same Diablo 2 that came out in 2000.
A surprisingly good time when you're not forced to reload your checkpoint after a game-breaking bug.