From the second you power on the game, its entire toy chest is open to you, no strings attached.
The most powerful statement the game winds up making is that work is worthwhile, even at the bitter end.
Living in America as a kid with brown skin has never been harder, or more frightening, and Life Is Strange 2 is a harsh primer in that fact. Nevertheless, there’s light and beauty in this journey, as this is a game that values the boundless hope of the two young men at its center, and without invalidating America’s darkness.
The game displays a thorough, haunted understanding of what cruelty for cruelty's sake can do to the soul.
Along with being one of the most gentle and soothing games of the year, Haven is also gaming at its most compassionate.
Bowser's Fury finds Nintendo again pushing the envelope of Super Mario Bros. in exciting directions.
Strikers is still a well-earned vacation for our heroes, an emphatic, energetic punctuation mark to a much larger experience.
This set makes the galaxy that you'll gallivant across for 90-plus hours feel so much more immersive, beautiful, and tangible-seeming.
There are dozens of stories across Horizon Forbidden West that are every bit as cool, engaging, and thoughtful as that one. That makes it somewhat disappointing that the main story doesn’t quite hit the same heights in the end, as there’s a sagging middle that takes a little of the wind out of the finale. But it’s not something that’s worth sweating over, as the company that Aloy keeps consistently makes the trek work taking every step of the way.
And it all leads to a new available ending for the entire game that’s both a more subtle, sad ending for V than some players may be willing to run with and a strong final statement on the game that was Cyberpunk 2077. It’s an ending with more depth than expected, about the nature of the power that this type of open world grants—both to V and the player controlling them—and the immense, soul-crushing work involved in wielding it responsibly. CD Projekt RED knows that better than any developer would now. Like all of Night City’s heroes, Cyberpunk 2077 had to be torn apart and rebuilt before it could become legendary.
Every step of the way is littered with details big and small that absolutely sing, from the way that you can see the solution for a problem reflected in a puddle at your feet, to the ways the aphids and fireflies floating through these strange new worlds coalesce into funny little helpers along the way. Even with a phobia of everything this world was made to embody, it’s hard to not become transfixed by the beauty and enormity of it all.
In practice, Remedy has seemingly harnessed every game design trick in the book to present Alan and Saga’s fractal realities in all their abstract and frightening glory.
Nostalgia is its own genre of film, TV, and music these days, which isn't necessarily a good or bad thing, with enough creativity employed. 'Shovel Knight', however, is a better kind of nostalgia, the kind that proves there's still plenty of life in a concept rather than trying to remind an audience the concept was good once. 'Shovel Knight' isn't an attempt to remind us of better games; it IS the better game.
Telltale's riff on the Fables series is far from child's play.
In Her Story, an old game mechanic has been put to captivating new use.
Chuck E. Scream.
Guild of Dungeoneering is deceptively simple but full of fun.
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.
Republique comes to PS4 as a complete package, and the game is all the better for it.