The final nail in 'Slender: The Arrival's coffin is the simple fact that it's been uprezzed and cleaned up for the wrong gen, a generation where Hideo Kojima/Guillermo Del Toro's 'P.T.' has many of the same ideas, executed with maturity and expert dread, where progression isn't dependent on escaping the horror, but being forced to walk up and let it terrorize you face to face, and most importantly, it's an experience that's 100% free. 'Slender' offering something a similarly unique experience, but undoubtedly lesser, predicated on the success of successive, telegraphed jump scares and repetitive exploration can't hope to compete, and couldn't even if 'P.T.' wasn't in the picture. The result is a game that feels, pun unintended, thin on content.
As a whole, 'Battlefield Hardline' manages to reinvent 'Battlefield' as a goofy cop drama, and as a successful one, though its ambitions and advancements are few. It does, however, succeed in freshness, a much-needed course correct away from its grim wartime roots into something far more likely to warrant repeat binge viewing ahead of the next season--er, game, even beyond its ever-lively multiplayer.
A mix of Musou, strategy, and pure insanity, Bladestorm ends up missing the mark with all three.
Deathtrap is a solid genre mash-up that goes on the (tower) defensive.
A cynic would be justified in thinking this edition still has its work cut out for it trying to bring back DmC fans who held the reboot in contempt.
Shelter returns, bigger than before, yet somehow lesser for it.
The game is our best example that we can play a movie. The fact that the movie in question is a leaden, unimaginative waste is almost incidental.
All the energy that should've gone into giving players a good reason to want to survive in Harran went toward an uninvolving multiplayer.
Citizens of Earth wins hearts and minds, but still loses in a few key states.
A love letter to where it came from and an advancement of its best ideas into something bigger, more cohesive, and infinitely more fun.
For a time, revisiting Resident Evil was good. And just as quickly as I was hooked in, I played P.T.
There's only two questions that matter: "Do you love Nintendo?" and "Do you enjoy hitting things 'til they go flying off into the stratosphere?"
Saints Row rides onto new platforms, and a good standalone expansion follows with it.
Destiny gets darker with its new add-on, but the game itself isn't better for it.
There's a good game buried here, and when they finally plant the headstone, the cause of death will be chiseled as "trying too hard."
Telltale's riff on the Fables series is far from child's play.
There's no avatar here; it's your hands causing the violence now, your eyes staring directly at victims, and you facing down being shot dead, run over, blown up, or falling from insane heights.
This War of Mine is survival horror game of a very different, very literal kind.
A Bird Story is a short but bittersweet tale that uses sparse interaction to great effect.
The glue holding it all together as more than just a stale repurpose of the previous games is the story.