Aaron Riccio's Reviews
Temple of Osiris is best when it remains focused on the action-oriented gameplay, shining brightest in boss battles that combine puzzles and gunplay.
If you embrace the tactical nature of its combat, which is rarely resolved on a single battlefield, then Shadow of Mordor stands largely without flaws.
As in Bastion, you'll gain the option of increasing the difficulty in exchange for more experience, and the soundtrack and narration is surprisingly on par with the previously high bar set by Supergiant Games.
All the requisite violence of the genre is there, but there's a well-considered style and grace that elevates it beyond its mindless, dime-a-dozen brethren.
Unsurprisingly, the game runs as well on consoles as its predecessors, and its tried-and-true combat is a clean fit for the MMO format.
Save for the extremely rare glitch or two, nothing ever gets in the way of this pure, intellectual gameplay. Even after 50 levels, the puzzles still seem fresh and never tiresome.
There are still plenty of thorns, but it manages to address and improve nearly every aspect of the original 1.0 release.
Dark Souls III is the most evolved and accessible entry in the series.
It leaves the combat to speak for the story and trusts its murderer's row of cool ideas to, well, murder players.
Tales of Zestiria relies entirely upon its entertaining, colorful cast of characters to distract players from anything even remotely tedious or derivative.
When Darksiders II sticks to the actual essentials of the main story and not its so-called Deathinitive features, it's a solid action-adventure-RPG hybrid.
It lives up to its title, as players will be glued to it all night, exhilaratingly racing to one of the many potential endings.
An impressive epic, even if it falls several steps shy of the open-world grandeur realized by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
It's the mix of the mundane and the mercurial that makes Life Is Strange worth living.
This revival of the 2003 cult classic is a rhythm game driven by the synesthetic idea of physically interacting with sound.
The game earns its beauty, though the narrative isn't always as tightly knitted together as it needs to be.
The game renders its gory images in detailed and creative ways, never hinging on generic jump scares.
Its methodical, stop-motion approach to gameplay forces players to be as economical as possible.
Once you crack the 20,000 rhythmia mark, Curtain Call interrupts whatever you're doing in order to introduce one final medley that celebrates the history and evolution of the series.
The game is almost literally built for those who, as kids, couldn't help playing with their food.