Halo Wars 2’s compromise between strategy and speed leaves a system without a functional amount of either. Its story bears the hallmarks of the world Bungie first crafted 16 years ago without any of the melodrama or myth. Missing so much of what makes an RTS work and what makes Halo a fiction so many choose to escape into, it’s easy to wonder who Halo Wars 2 is even for.
Ubisoft's Werewolves Within is an exciting demo of VR's social capabilities, even if the final product is somewhat bare bones.
If the game asks you to wander around in a confused haze for hours at a time, it rewards you with breathtaking vistas and new wrinkles to your understanding of its world that constantly goes deeper and stranger than you think.
When a location in No Man’s Sky isn’t being observed, it doesn’t exist. It’s just the potential in its formula in a program (possibly on a disc). When we play it, it becomes a tiny thread in an actual vast universe.
Breached wants to evoke the sci-fi survivalism of The Martian but fails to get off the ground.
Into the Stars delivers intense Roguelite space strategy, but reveals all of its cards too soon.
The Deadly Tower of Monsters contains countless odes to the golden age of sci-fi B-movies, but its gameplay is rote to the core.
Devoid of the character and personality that makes wrestling fun, WWE 2K16 continues to fail to deliver the spectacle of pro wrestling while further muddling the game's core mechanical experience.
Satellite Reign allows you to create the cyberpunk team of your fantasy, but the game's broken pathfinding and enemy AI are too easy to exploit.
Mega Man Legacy Collection is a fascinating peek into the 8-bit roots of one of gaming's most beloved franchises', but it can be unforgiving for a modern audience.
Massive Chalice can create hilarious moments of eugenics disasters, but other elements leave a lot to be desired.
Magnetic: Cage Closed's reliance on imprecise platforming and nondescript storytelling makes the game's prison setting an unintended and accurate metaphor.
Windward is less of a high seas adventure and more of a soporific cruise for the geriatric crowd.
Inside My Radio's synesthetic experience is hypnotic.
Broken Age: Act II solves nearly all of the sins of the first half of the game while stumbling into a fair share of new ones.
State of Decay still hasn't become the game it wants to be.
Mario vs. Donkey Kong: Tipping Stars takes too long before it truly tickles your brain.
A game where its most tolerable moments are tedious at best, Raven's Cry is a shipwreck of poor decisions and atrocious execution.
Gravity Ghost combines gorgeous art with haunting themes in a slick physics platformer that is over far too soon.
Switch Galaxy Ultra provides a thrilling sense of speed, but a lack of meaningful incentives dulls the fun.