Mark Delaney Avatar Image

Mark Delaney

Portland
N0T PENNYS B0AT
Sudden_Departure
N0T PENNYS B0AT

Favorite Games:
  • Sea of Thieves

288 games reviewed
69.5 average score
70 median score
50.0% of games recommended

Mark Delaney's Reviews

Mark is an editor at GameSpot and a Boston transplant now biking across Portland, Oregon. He especially enjoys covering battle royale, horror, and sports games. He spends his free time with his family, marathoning HBO, and advocating for animal justice.
Sep 1, 2016

The Turing Test delivers not just a worthwhile game but an amazing story that will sit with you long after the credits.

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In traditional Telltale fashion, "Children of Arkham" ends on a high note and I'm already anxiously awaiting the next episode.

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Sep 22, 2016

Like all of the best first-person adventure games, or "walking sims", Virginia works better than its movie inspirations because of the inherent interactivity that comes with telling a story in this medium. It goes all in on delivering a surreal, Lynchian narrative and hits that nail of unreality on the head, all the way down to leaving you wondering what exactly you just witnessed.

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Oct 19, 2016

One Hundred Ways is a stark reminder that in this new age of consoles, not all indies are darlings and not all games on the Xbox marketplace are worthy of such a home. It's a game that might have been fun in waiting rooms or in transit someplace, but in a home setting on an Xbox One, I can't think of one good reason why anybody would want to play this. It's a boring, aesthetically nauseating slog through puzzles that more often annoy than challenge.

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"New World Order" is a slower episode that promises a lot of worthwhile story moments soon, but fails to provide many of its own. Character interactions are the best that they've been so far, but everything else is missing the drama that it needs to deliver a worthwhile standalone episode. If you've made it this far, you're likely in it for the long haul anyways, so if you just forgive Telltale for once again taking its foot off the gas pedal for its middle episode, it stands to reason that what's ahead will be both the Batman that players deserve and the Batman that players need right now.

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Nov 11, 2016

With better options for sale even in its own genre, it's more likely that SDB will sit in your digital library without a chance of ever actually taking up hard drive space.

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"Guardian of Gotham" is some of Telltale's best writing to date. It masterfully paces several dangling story threads into one tightly delivered penultimate episode while also seeming to build the greater Bat-verse for future seasons. It's exciting and uniquely theirs at this point.

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Westerado is a unique case of a retro-inspired game with the depth of something modern. Dialogue, combat, and the story are all free to explore in several ways, from pacifistic runs to trigger-happy bloodbaths with plenty more in between. The game's early era mechanics will be a joy to nostalgically-driven gamers while also making enough concessions to contemporary players that remove most (but not all) frustrations. If you don't mind the pixelized art and a few gripes that come with it, it's well worth it to saddle up for Westerado.

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Judged against its peers, this version of the Dark Knight is only average; DC's best hero has seen far better stories but he's seen far worse, too.

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If "Ties That Bind" is any indication of the level of acting, pacing, and writing to be seen this season, fans can rest assured that The Walking Dead will remain high atop their must-play lists.

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Sylvio is a lesson in not judging a game by its screenshots. While it looks like a low budget throwaway, the game's best features mostly come in how it sounds. The memorable music and legitimately unsettling EVP recordings go far to prove its legitimacy as a tool for scaring. If you've never played a horror game, don't start here as the game requires a few too many concessions from the player. If you're a genre veteran looking for something atmospheric, retro-inspired, and adding its own unique gameplay mechanics, Sylvio is worth the trip. It's a candlelit ghost story that leaves you not breathless or horrified, but disquieted, which is perhaps the most effective horror of all.

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Feb 3, 2017

No one said survival would be easy, but since it's still a game, it should ultimately be more fun than it is.

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Feb 18, 2017

Getting on the bike and trying again and again can be fun for a while, but eventually you may find it's best to put it back in the garage and find something that doesn't break your spirit as much as your avatar's body.

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Feb 23, 2017

Zombie Vikings takes an interesting premise and a beautiful art style and squanders them alongside a bulk of other issues.

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Feb 24, 2017

Minimal story, frustrating design, and a revival of all the bad things of which survival horror washed its hands years ago — these all crop up in Vaccine and combine to have the game miss its mark. Instead of a love letter to bygone scares, what we get is a tiresome endeavor for anyone but the most diehard fans for old school horror. What's worse, even such fans might be turned away by Vaccine's blatant ripping off of Capcom's renowned franchise.

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Speeding around colorful tracks launching missiles, dodging oil slicks, and earning coins is something we've seen countless times in the past, but TTR gets most of it right so it still feels like a race worth winning.

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- Kona
Mar 21, 2017

KONA wants to tell an interesting story within the construct of a survival-adventure hybrid game. It succeeds more greatly at doing the latter but even the story provides enough intrigue to merit seeing the brief game through to the end, as ultimately off-the-mark as it becomes. If you're a fan of either genre by which it's inspired then you'll find something to enjoy in the snow-topped Canadian forests of KONA, but pack lightly — it'll be a short and somewhat forgettable stay.

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A New Frontier seemed like a gamble, but less so after a great premiere. Now this third episode has even managed to overcome Telltale's usual middle episode slump and provide some of the best, most affecting character moments the series has produced across three seasons. It now becomes a bit nerve-racking to see whether they can close out the season so highly, because if they do, this may become Telltale's crowning achievement.

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Apr 4, 2017

It feels like Andromeda is worth exploring just once. In many important ways it's a small step for BioWare, but with regard to characters especially, it's hard to ignore the giant leap backwards.

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Apr 18, 2017

Doubt is understandable given the history of the full motion video game genre, but despite some glaring missteps, Late Shift is a step in the right direction for this presentation style. With a story that changes drastically on the way to many different endings, issues like stuttering after decisions and a hint of less than stellar production value can be somewhat forgiven.

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