Dustin Bailey's Reviews
Villagers is a promising game that doesn’t deliver on any of its potential. Its mechanics don’t provide much strategic depth and its lack of content means that there’s no reason to come back. I can say, in some faint praise, that it’s not broken, but it’s so completely dull and unremarkable that I can’t think of any reason to recommend it.
Is Dark Souls III great? Yes. Is it better than its predecessors? That's a debate that Souls fans are going to be having for years to come. Everything the previous games did well, this game does well, and the differentiator will be the game with the most varied character options and unique environments. If you're a Souls fan, you should play this game, and if you haven't yet dug into this nightmarish world, Dark Souls III is an excellent place to start.
Episode Two is better than the first, both because its featured level is a more varied, interesting location, and because it eases the uncertainty of the episodic release and sets a precedent for excellence going forward. The quality of future episodes isn’t a guarantee, but Square and Io Interactive have now delivered excellent releases back to back, and their staggered release has let their best elements shine in a way that might not have otherwise. Hitman is an increasingly appealing package.
Despite performance quibbles and a repetitive endgame for the campaign, Total War: Warhammer is an exciting strategy game that stands on its own. The four factions offer unique playstyles with compelling strategic options, and the hero units, fantastic creatures, and monstrous enemies make for spectacular battles that are almost as much fun to watch as they are to command.
If this turns out to be Geralt’s last adventure, it’s a worthy end
Overwatch is a fantastic game from top to bottom. The relatively small map selection does little to detract from a game where every character is fun, unique, and important, and every fight is a dynamic, constantly evolving game of battlefield control.
Hitman’s latest episode has some impressive moments, but Marrakesh feels limited compared to the sprawling, interconnected layouts of Paris and Sapienza. It’s part of an increasingly great game and still provides some solid stealth action, but don’t be surprised if you’re not coming back to this one for more than a few tries.
While lackluster combat and simplistic puzzles would prove a damning criticism for most games of this type, Headlander’s tone and aesthetic is so fully-realized that the whole package manages to be a groovy, retro delight.
Episode 4 is another terrific addition to Agent 47’s latest. After a less spectacular stay in Marrakesh and a fairly limited detour in the Summer Bonus Episode, Bangkok provides another terrific level for further murderous possibilities, and one I can’t wait to revisit as more targets make their unfortunate lodgings at the resort.
Attack on Titan is a good game, but not a great one. It does a tremendous job of adapting the anime's excellent action scenes to an exciting set of game mechanics, but struggles to extend that fun core into full-length game. Any given fifteen seconds of Attack on Titan is excellent, but those fifteen seconds are repeated again and again until they're no longer compelling.
No Man’s Sky has very clear problems. Its mechanics are insubstantial, with the crafting and inventory management systems being a particular exercise in tedium. Yet its scale and beauty is unmatched by any other game I’ve ever seen. It does things no other game ever has. It’s tempting to call No Man’s Sky “decent, but not great,” but that undersells both the game’s successes and its failures. No Man’s Sky is incredible, awe-inspiring, and profoundly disappointing.
Project Highrise takes obvious inspiration from a cult classic, but struggles to build compelling mechanics around a proven concept. Constructing a tower still offers its own simple pleasure, but there’s not enough depth here to keep you building a skyline’s worth of high-rises.
Pirate Pop Plus is a simple arcade-style action game with tight controls and a fully realized 8-bit aesthetic.
Robust tactics and elegant design ensure Artifact's often sublime strategy isn't complex. But a lack of long-term goals and a risky monetisation strategy leaves the game's future feeling uncertain.
Competent, with enough fun weapons and silly spectacle to make it inoffensive entertainment. While a half-decade of development hell could've ended with worse results, it's tough to muster much excitement for what's here.
A year of updates has helped fill out its light content, but the real magic was there from the start. Rare's take on cartoon piracy encourages you to behave as a cartoon pirate should: a little bloodthirsty, a little silly, and almost always drunk.Dustin Bailey
Obsidian's RPG fulfills its potential, but only in fits and starts. Sure, its worst moments are only ever as bad as workmanlike RPG-making, but they make the stretches between some instances of genuine greatness a little more disappointing.Dustin Bailey
Confidently serves as both a vindication for the magic VR can bring to gaming, and a satisfying new entry in the beloved Half-Life series.Dustin Bailey
A range of technical issues are holding it back at launch, but a combination of satisfying combat and likable characters has delivered the foundation of an excellent superhero game.
Richly realised systems and empowering abilities create a tremendously fun sandbox to dig into, but another toothless story ensures these flashes of brilliance never cohere, leaving Legion feeling less than the sum of its parts.