While it doesn't do everything perfectly, Hogwarts Legacy stimulates the imagination with a rich world to explore and gameplay that empowers and thrills the player. The Harry Potter films had the tough task of taking words on a page and creating a visual language for them. Hogwarts Legacy had the even tougher task of taking that visual language and making it interactive, ultimately expanding it all into something that is fun to play and immerse yourself in. Although there's still a long year ahead of us and tons of great looking games on the horizon, Hogwarts Legacy is already one of the best games of 2023.
Outside of some awesome action sequences, Spider-Man’s City That Never Sleeps DLC saga ends on more of a whimper than a bang. Sable’s characterization is jarring and odd, Hammerhead never rises above anything more than a C-tier villain, and it ends up feeling like a string of similar events repeating until you finally get to the end.
Turf Wars is by no means bad, it’s still really good it just takes away some of the things many people loved about both The Heist and the main story but hopefully, Silver Linings can end this DLC saga with a bang.
If you're looking for new Spider-Man content, this will definitely meet your standards despite it being part one of a three-part saga. It leaves you hanging as things get particularly interesting so this may be best experienced when all the DLCs are out by the end of 2018 but if you don't mind waiting a couple weeks, The Heist is a satisfying epilogue to the main story of Marvel's Spider-Man even with one annoying technical flaw.
After several games that seemed to be gearing Resident Evil back to the horror genre like RE: Revelations 2 or RE Remake, Capcom goes back to the action genre and fails miserably once again.
Pardon the pun, but playing Redfall really sucked the life out of me. It's a game that so desperately feels like it wants to be more than what it is, which is understandable. It's dreadfully dull, buggy, frustrating, and feels shackled to a genre that it doesn't really want to be part of. Far Cry with vampires sounds like a great idea, but ultimately, what we got feels like a shell of a prototype for such a concept.
Fallout 76 is Fallout on the surface in the sense it has the same art style, the lore, the gross critters lurking all over the place but it severely lacks what everyone loves about the post-apocalyptic RPG series. A world to spend dozens, even hundreds of hours getting lost in, moral dilemmas, interactions with characters, dialogue choices. Fallout 76 feels like buggy, mindless killing and looting none of which is even remotely fun to do, creating a serious identity crisis for one of gaming's most beloved franchises.
It's not as unsalvageable as Battlefield 5, but it's still hard to imagine this evolving into the definitive Battlefield game that DICE wants it to be. There is fleeting fun to be had here, but it's often spoiled by the game's blatant shortcomings. The maps are a slog, gunplay is bogged down by puzzling design choices, and there's no shortage of bugs that actively require the player to restart the entire game. It's a far cry from the 10-year-old Battlefield 3 and as it continues to age, the series strays further away from those glory days with no road to redemption in sight.
Cyberpunk 2077 isn't just a disappointment because it misses the mark for CD Projekt Red. It's a disappointment because it misses the mark as a video game from any developer. It lacks the fundamental basics of a good RPG. The best moments in its narrative are tucked away in side quests. Night City is a boring, lifeless illusion of something greater. Perhaps that's a good analogy for Cyberpunk 2077 itself: A boring, lifeless illusion of something greater.
The Dark Pictures: Little Hope is just a frustratingly dull horror game. The characters are unlikable, the story is poorly strung together, it feels dated, and much more. I have very few positive things to say about it. Little Hope isn’t a game I want to dislike because I wanted a good horror game for October but it failed to deliver.
Despite being a fun game at its core (even with some issues presented in gameplay), a number of bugs and glitches in Friday the 13th: The Game make it hard to enjoy.
SpongeBob: Krusty Cook-Off is fun, but has strange oversights.
If you're looking for something to tide you over until the inevitable Wolfenstein 3, Youngblood probably won't scratch your itch. It takes many steps back to the point where it feels like a lesser experience even when compared to shooters beyond this series. There's little of value added and it fails to even be declared average at best thanks to bugs and poor AI.
NBA 2K23 is bogged down in a lot of problems courtesy of predatory monetization and an overzealous RPG game taking priority over the actual basketball-ing, but it does have great qualities as well. There is plenty of content ensuring there's something for everyone to play and the game leans into its simulation aspects in a risky, but effective way. If the series can hone these good qualities and leave behind its outdated monetization schemes, 2K could garner another level of respect and become something that rises above the other sports games.
Ultimately, Saints Row may not be the grand return to the franchise that fans were hoping for, but that doesn't mean it's not worth giving a look. Despite a poorly-paced story with average characters, it still has a ton of content and a sandbox that is ripe for hours of co-op fun.
While it has its moments, Watch Dogs Legion doesn't have enough to feel like a fun place to escape to. The gameplay is too repetitive and too restrictive to allow for anything tremendously exciting over a long period of time. It's a game that shows all of its tricks within the first few hours and leaves you with nothing but jank for the remainder of your playthrough.
Like Mafia 3, Mafia: Definitive Edition is a game that works as a good movie. It's not a game that works as a good *game*. It's buggy, it's clunky, and is often just frustrating or unsatisfying. Hopefully, Hanger 13 is able to learn more lessons from this game because I'm not sure a fourth Mafia game can survive this sort of treatment.
Gear.Club Unlimited 2 isn't a bad game by any means. Like its predecessor, it's a competent racing game on a console that has a racing sim drought, but I was just expecting a bit more. As a big fan of racing games, both sim and arcade, it's hard to recommend at full price. And if the developers intend on making a third entry in the franchise, I hope that they take a long look at how to innovate this series, rather than iterate it.
Just Cause 4 is fun when you're unloading lead, dancing around lightning, and blowing things up but it lacks significantly elsewhere. Avalanche has released a very unpolished open world experience that feels outdated visually and mechanically. To add insult to injury, the story feels bland and continues to make Rico one of gaming's most uninteresting protagonists despite his wide array of skills and gadgets. Just Cause 4 isn't a really bad game, it just has a lot of shortcomings and issues that hold it back from being something more than average at best and really mediocre at its worst.
Hardcore fans of the survival genre may find it really fun to try and build a small empire in the exiled lands of the Conan universe but newcomers may find that it is uneven and janky.