A Plague Tale: Innocence has some clunky writing in places, and its play gets stale after a time, but it prevails with a compelling mystery and a beautiful world.
The Sinking City is well worth playing for the initial rhythm of its casework and the freshness of its setting, but its mechanics, like its mystery, end up flooded.
Control is Remedy at its best: pulpy, weird, and immensely satisfying to play. Its setting is a potent concoction of '60s brutalist style and wacky sci-fi. Performance issues hamper the shootouts, and the characters are a little cold, but it's the setting and atmosphere that win the day.
The fourth episode brings a welcome jolt of movement and energy, with an urgent pace and the introduction of a new, intriguing character. Some of the branching choices still feel shallow.
The Sojourn is a well-made puzzle game with a firm challenge and fresh mechanics layered in throughout, but the symbolism draped over it all is vague and boring.
I can't speak for anime fans, but die-hard FromSoftware devotees, as well as those who thirst for a really good vampire game – currently a malnourished bunch – are both parishes to which I belong. And I suspect both will wish for more bite.
It's easy to be skeptical of Ubisoft, but I happen to find much to revere in reliability. It's a solid shooter, with a happy churn of loot, elevated by Jon Bernthal. Fun for the few days it holds your attention.
Link's Awakening is happy to be history, and it defies you not to be, as well.
Luigi's Mansion 3 is a beautifully animated adventure with satisfying puzzles and gadgets; it suffers slightly for its length, but a deep well of charm and humour win the day.
Death Stranding is filled with things that must be seen, a sprawling, genre-spanning sci-fi adventure from a developer like no other. It's tackier clumps of writing and stunt casting seem overwrought, but its direction and its stars shine brightest
Star Wars Jedi: Fallen Order has a string of wisely chosen influences, and it delivers on the long-overdue promise of a fun Jedi action-adventure. Bugs and design wrinkles irritate.
With Shenmue III, we are offered a glimpse into a gifted mind, constantly turning the everyday into play.
It isn't that we miss the mists of Arcadia Bay specifically, or that we long to retread old ground; it's the slow etching of stories, scattered with care.
Wattam should be played, if for no other reason than to see a designer expressing ambivalence about his own ideas.
It's a game of MacGuffins, so to speak—what you're doing and why you're doing it is inessential to the joys and the juice on offer.
The mood wafts above it all, overpowering any laughable suggestions of plot or character—neither of which fuels Zombie Army 4.
Those intoxicated by the game's dreamy brew may argue that there are no detours—that, like the Zero, you're either on it or you're not. If you're anything like me and Conway, however, you'll be somewhere in-between.
In the beauty stakes and beyond, there are very few, in the rarefied realms of indie or AAA, who can challenge it.
Does it succeed? Well, I don't know—I'm not an astronaut—but I can report that it has a pleasing gravity.
John Wick Hex could have been a number of different games, none of them as strange and satisfying as this.