Dan Stapleton's Reviews
Being Batman in Akrham VR is a great way to more intimately experience Rocksteady's universe and to search for clues in this brief mystery. However, the world and characters around you are largely rigid and unresponsive to your actions, which leaves a lot on the table for a game about a character known as much for his brawn as he is for his brains.
It’s a shame these four games and one sightseeing trip aren’t sold separately, because as a mismatched hodgepodge it’s a lot harder to recommend as a whole than the good parts would have been on their own. The entertaining shooting gallery and drama of The London Heist carries the other three short and less interesting games and the passive Ocean Descent, and is likely the only one I'll remember.
Fallout 4: Nuka-World has a great setting that’s densely packed with spectacle, surprises, and tough battles (depending on your level), and the ability to conquer settlements back on the main map is a fun novelty, but the lack of meaningful decisions leave it feeling more like an actual theme park ride than a choose-your-own-adventure story. Next to Far Harbor’s intriguing storyline and moral decisions there’s not much nuance here.
No Man’s Sky has sci-fi spectacle of strange new worlds on its side, but not much else. Its gameplay is underdeveloped and repetitive, and in my dozens of hours played it’s introduced very few new ideas to mix up its crafting, upgrades, combat, or universe. The promise of limitless exploration ended up working against it when I lost faith that it had any more meaningful things to show me no matter how far I traveled. This ambitious game reached for the stars, but its reach exceeded its grasp by light years.
Human: Fall Flat’s slapstick controls and ridiculous animation do a great job of making repeated, frustrating, and unfair failure at physics puzzles seem fun for a while. And when that fun runs out, you can extend it by bringing in a friend and drawing silly things on your goofball character. If you don’t play it, watch someone play it.
The story mission of Shen’s Last Gift is briefly interesting for its new location and escape mechanic, but the real reason to get this DLC is the sixth soldier class that expands your squad composition options with super-durable mech troops.
Edge of Nowhere stands out in the current library of VR games only because it’s one of the longer and more polished games out there, but compared to the conventional third-person action-stealth games it closely emulates it’s competent but unremarkable. If you’ve played a game in this genre before, Victor’s platforming and sneaking will do very little to surprise you, other than the way the sense of isolation you get from putting on the Oculus Rift enhances the setting.
Fallout 4: Far Harbor adds a large amount of great quests and content within its gloomy but distinctive island setting. Thanks to some well-written, morally ambiguous characters, its choices are as gray as the weather, and much more interesting. Though the new companion isn’t the strongest and the supposedly ruinous radioactive fog is more annoying than threatening, all of the adventuring and new gear absolutely made it worth my while to return to Fallout 4 for Far Harbor.
Alien Hunters’ battles are by far the toughest, trickiest fights in Firaxis’ XCOM games to date, and the new weapons and abilities we get expand our tactical options in interesting ways. However, where XCOM 2 initially impressed me by making the equipment upgrades it doles out unpredictable, this expansion is a move that will make every subsequent game feel more similar instead of more different.
Relatively simple in concept but complex in the possible manipulation of the market, Offworld Trading Company manages to make a type of gameplay that’s traditionally slow into something fast and exciting. It’s a tad too easy to trip yourself up before you even begin, but once it gets rolling this multiplayer-friendly cold war of capitalism forces tough, rapid-fire strategic choices.
After spending many hours in virtual reality, I believe the launch of the Oculus Rift is the start of a new era. The first time you put it on is the closest thing to real magic you’re likely to experience anytime soon. It’s true that VR has a lot of maturing to do, but this amazing headset is a front-row seat to watch gaming history being made. Its current lack of motion controllers means these enticing experiences are mostly “look, don’t touch,” but even though it can’t live up to its full potential quite yet, the ability to so easily immerse ourselves in a game world or other virtual environment is worth every penny.
Getting by on strong atmosphere (no pun intended), scenic views, and an intuitive means of controlling full three-dimensional movement, Adr1ft's repetitive fix-it missions make its second half a chore to get through. Some strong pieces of voice acting would've been put to better use if the story weren't so vague.
Adr1ft doesn't pioneer any new types of gameplay with VR, which is a shame because it desperately needs some variety in that area. However, it does benefit greatly from blocking off the rest of the world, creating a feeling of isolation that aligns with what your character is experiencing. Floating out over the Earth and looking down from this perspective is truly impressive.
With a focus on variety and replayability, this sequel has an answer to most of my complaints about 2012's excellent XCOM: Enemy Unknown, and aside from some mostly cosmetic bugs, it comes together brilliantly. Thanks to a new spin on the same great tactical combat, plus unpredictable maps and randomized objectives and loot, XCOM 2 is an amazing game I'll easily put hundreds of hours into.
Darkest Dungeon is a grim and merciless tactical strategy game whose great tension comes from its many layers of complexity, unpredictable randomization, and willingness to put our fragile characters in mortal danger if we dare to venture into its depths in search of treasure and glory. Brilliant narration and stiff yet surprisingly expressive animation make it easy to be drawn into its vague but tantalizing world, though the end feels artificially out of reach.
Just Cause 3 is a playground where you get to be a physics-defying force of destruction, and its loop of liberating dozens of towns across this enormous scenic world would've gotten old much quicker if the combat wasn't so full of options for free-form mayhem. Getting the most out of it requires some creativity and tolerance for performance bugs on your part, so come expecting to make at least some of your own fun. It's a damn shame so many performance problems and punishing load times keep cropping up [on the PS4 and XB1 versions], because I love what Just Cause 3 does. But for game that's so heavily dependent on action to run this poorly is no laughing matter. [OpenCritic note: Dan Stapleton separately reviewed the PC (8) and PS4/XB1 (5.9) versions. Their scores have been averaged.]
We knew this wasn't going to end in happiness for the Forresters - if it had, I'd be crying foul that it didn't feel like Game of Thrones at all. The problem is that sense of inevitability mixes with the lack of resolution for major parts of the plot in an unappealing way. Most of what this uneven season finale has to offer is found in a few strong moments and continued hope for answers to questions in a hypothetical season 2.
The world, exploration, crafting, atmosphere, and story of Fallout 4 are all key parts of this hugely successful sandbox role-playing game. Great new reasons to obsessively gather and hoard relics of happier times, strong companions, and sympathetic villains driving tough decisions make it an adventure I'll definitely replay and revisit. Even the technical shakiness that crops up here and there can't even begin to slow down its momentum.
Kingdom initially impresses with striking pixel art and minimalist design, but later it proves complexity is necessary.
Cinematic starship combat and a (final) frontier atmosphere give Rebel Galaxy a great hook.