Rivals is quite charming and, at only an hour or two long, doesn’t wear out its welcome. If Return of the Obra Dinn is the chart-topping hit of this growing little genre, Rivals is the local garage band album that gets a glowing write-up in the alt-weekly: small, messy, lovable. Rivals is seemingly built with one audience in mind: older weirdos like me who don’t mind a little more Wilco-style music in their detective games.
This isn’t a sequel. It’s yet another chance to play Spelunky with fresh eyes; everything is just a little different, another stroke that proves perfection is imperfect. Even the best can get better.
Destroy All Humans! is a damn fine B-game from an era when publishers bothered to fund such things.
M2 provides the necessary context to enjoy the experience without changing the actual game.
All in all, life in the waters is good these days. I swim with the grace of a dolphin and the speed of a cheetah. However, when it comes to attacking fish and humans and itty-bitty baby seals, I will confess I am quite clumsy.
But Streets of Rage, as a series, is a time capsule from a different, simpler era. While it's blunt and repetitive, it also manifests a relaxing social space with ease. Call it video games as loitering. The music is as good as it's ever been in the series. The stages and characters are beautiful, reimagining the original trilogy's '90s locales and punk-inspired band of baddies in a way that stands up to those games without scarring modern eyes. The action itself is so simple that you can get lost in a conversation about, well, anything as you play.
Every so often, The Foundation produces a spark of what made the original campaign so memorable.
Doom Eternal’s power fantasy is funny, playful, and a welcome break
The magic, when it really materializes, is punctuating a perfectly executed stealth maneuver with a quack.
Astral Chain is the best new Nintendo franchise since Splatoon