Dalton Cooper
Dalton Cooper's Reviews
Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance is a solid pick for those who are looking for a nostalgia trip as well as anyone that missed out the first time and is needing a fun local co-op game to play. There are many aspects of the game that haven't aged well, but the fun factor trumps a lot of those issues. Plus, the game gives players plenty of bang for their buck, with a ton to do in the main story and some unlockable content, including a Gauntlet mode and fan favorite character Drizzt Do'Urden. Baldur's Gate: Dark Alliance was a great game in 2001 and it's still a ton of fun to play 20 years later.
Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a short but sweet action-adventure game with a heartwarming story and great graphics that make it feel like a Disney movie.
Extra bugginess aside, The Jackbox Party Pack 8 is otherwise another solid addition to the franchise and is well worth the investment for anyone looking for a new party game to play. Poll Mine, Job Job, and Wheel of Enormous Proportions are the standout games, though Drawful Animate and Weapons Drawn will likely have their fans as well.
Call of Duty: Vanguard will get better with time, but the launch game is still an impressive package. The Campaign is short but sweet and the Multiplayer is a blast, though Zombies fans will likely come away disappointed. Even with Zombies failing to live up to expectations, though, Call of Duty: Vanguard still has a lot to offer fans of the franchise and is very much worth the price of admission.
Time will tell how fans will react to Gran Turismo 7's microtransactions, but putting them aside, what's there is still a deep racing game experience that will keep fans of the genre busy for hours on end. It's a gorgeous racing game and while it's not going to be knocking down any boundaries to convert non-racing game fans, Gran Turismo 7 should greatly appeal to its target audience.
Kirby and the Forgotten Land is an adorable 3D platformer that feels like a major step forward for the long-running franchise.
MultiVersus is a fun, competitive twist on the Super Smash Bros. formula with an extremely bright future ahead of it.
The Winters' Expansion for Resident Evil Village is a must-buy for fans of the base game, with plenty of scares and classic Resident Evil gameplay.
High on Life is a fun first-person shooter game with a memorable and hilarious story as well as a couple of serious bugs that need addressing.
Even discounting the upcoming community creations, WWE 2K23 has so much content baked in that fans should be able to play for hours on end without even scratching the surface of everything the game has to offer. Whereas WWE 2K22 was a rebuilding year for the franchise, WWE 2K23 is all about building on that foundation, offering players more bang for their buck and taking everything a step forward. There is still plenty of room for improvement for sure, but WWE 2K23 is easily one of the best WWE games of the past decade.
Ravenlok is not for hardcore gamers that want to invest hundreds of hours into their games or who are looking for a challenge. It's a short, sweet, easy game that's perfect for sitting back and relaxing or as a good starter game for kids. It's totally at home on Xbox Game Pass and subscribers shouldn't miss their opportunity to check it out.
Co-op support like in other Soulslike games would have put Lies of P over the top, but even without it, the game will still greatly appeal to Soulslike fans. It has a lot going for it, and from a technical standpoint, it's basically perfect. It runs smooth as butter, looks fantastic, and has no glitches that we discovered. And while the writing can be clunky at times, the ending is legitimately wild and worth suffering through the worst bosses to reach. It's true that Lies of P gives in to some of the worst Soulslike instincts at times, but it can be extremely fun when the combat clicks. Just expect a significant time investment and a lot of frustration before that happens.
The Jackbox Party Pack 10 has three excellent party games in Hypnotorious, Time Jinx, and Dodo Re Mi, with Tee K.O. 2's only drawbacks being its familiarity and the occasional technical issue. Mileage with Fixytext will vary, but it will likely be the least-played out of the new batch of party games. This puts Jackbox Party Pack 10 on par with the other games in the series, which means it's a great party game experience that will become a fan favorite at game nights.
WWE 2K24 is a gorgeous wrestling game with hard-hitting fights that will keep players plugged in for hours on end. The series seems to be settling in to the annual release trap of small steps forward over major improvements, but hopefully next year's entry can provide the big leaps that modes like MyGM need to help the WWE 2K series reach the next level and finish the comeback story that started with WWE 2K22.
Fans of classic survival horror games don't need to think twice about picking up Crow Country. The game is a love letter to old-school horror titles from the 90s, and is one of the better attempts at recreating the feel of PS1 horror on modern platforms. It's a short, but sweet adventure with solid replay value and fun puzzles that perfectly captures the feeling of playing an old horror game on a PS1. The optional Exploration mode, which does away with combat to let players focus entirely on puzzle-solving, means that even horror fans who don't like 90s-era survival horror combat and ammo management can safely pick up Crow Country and have a great time.
It's a good thing that Braid's puzzles are hard enough for players to get stuck on, because otherwise, the game would be an even shorter experience than it already is. Back in 2008, some critics singled out Braid's short length as one of its flaws, and that rings true in 2024 as well. Even with the added content, Braid: Anniversary Edition is very short, to the point where most players will be able to finish it in about three hours. A consequence of its short length is that the time-manipulation gimmicks feel like they don't really reach their full potential. There are only a handful of puzzles for each gimmick, and then players move on to the next world and the next gimmick. It would have been great to see a bit more meat on the bones for the Anniversary Edition.
The Surge is a Dark Souls-style game with sci-fi trappings and a unique combat system that is held back by repetitive gameplay and frustrating controls.
Lumo is a charming throwback to the isometric arcade adventure games of the 1980s, but is held back by its short length and some frustrating platforming sections.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare delivers a strong campaign mode, and even though multiplayer and Zombies aren't as compelling, it's still one of 2016's best FPS games.
Knack 2 is an improvement on the original game across the board with a better balance between brawling and platforming, though it's not without its flaws.