Terence Wiggins
With an excellent story and cast and a reinvigorated combat system, Tales of Arise is the shot in the arm the long-running Tales RPG series needed to recapture its best moments.
Battletoads not only revives the long-dormant beat 'em up franchise, it makes it fun to play for everyone instead of only ultra-hardcore masochists. And if they made a TV show about these hilarious characters, I'd watch it.
Waking tries to take the best of many different genres but creates a horrible mess of clashing, ugly parts.
From the beautiful and lively opening animation to the start screen, it immediately felt both comforting and fresh like putting on a pair of brand new pajama pants. I'm glad they took a chance on getting developers who originally started work on Sonic ROM hacks because they really nailed the feeling. This is what nostalgia should feel like and hopefully this leads to more excellent reboots of Sega properties.
If you want to play an “old school” stealth game, you have many options that aren’t the price of a new game. If you want crude humor, there are far better options in games and other media to enjoy. If you want to get berated by an ugly creature who thinks he’s better than you, well, Twitter is free.
That’s true of Berserk and the Band of the Hawk overall—it’s a supremely disappointing mess. It still feels like a Musou game, for what that’s worth, but at a $60 price point I couldn’t suggest it to even the hardest of hardcore fans. It adds nothing to the story, adds nothing to the Musou series, and you’d be better served by playing any other Dynasty Warriors game.
I wanted Desync to be good. I’m fan of games that actually test your reflexes and mettle but so much of this title just feels unfair.
While I found myself frustrated at points few and far between, I enjoyed my time with Dead Rising 4. It’s a charming, fun romp through a zombie wasteland who sets itself apart from other zombie stories with a sense of humor while still paying homage to those that came before it. If you’re looking for a merry time this holiday season, don’t be caught dead not checking out this Christmas slay ride, as Frank West would probably say.
Titanfall 2 is a constant delight. There were many points in the game where I audibly exclaimed how cool and awesome something was. I am hyped to play more of it and I definitely want to play through the campaign again. With a glut of first person shooters being released this season, Titanfall 2 stands out as something that should be played with its fantastic campaign and enjoyable multiplayer.
With a big cast of characters, colorful scenery, fairly clever joke writing, and pick-up and play gameplay, Skylanders: Imaginators feels like a playable Saturday morning cartoon where you can insert your own hero into the fray.
I would say it's best to enjoy this game as a slow burn. It's presented as a documentary and I think it's best to be enjoyed as a documentary series where you take control of the action and play for a few hours here and there. The message that it has to say about blackness, revenge, and racial tension in America is a nice change of pace from the bloated landscape of other open-world games, and a vital one in 2016.
Crush Your Enemies claims to harken back to the time when RTS games were more popular but misses the mark on many levels.
Destruction is a fun time. Dangerous Golf should be, but it isn’t.
Enter the Gungeon is a wonderful, demanding but rewarding, roguelike twin-stick shooter.