The Sojourn is a well-designed, thought-provoking first-person puzzle title, with colorful scenery and magical soundtrack.
It feels like Spiders is on the verge of greatness. The narrative is strong, and the world-building is quite remarkable, but the execution isn't quite ready for prime time.
The Sojourn is a well-designed, thought-provoking first-person puzzle title, with colorful scenery and magical soundtrack. The guiding narrative about self-reflection and discovery told through blindfolded statues, and the scrolls are subtle enough to get the point across and profound sufficient if you look inward upon yourself while playing. The slow pacing of the game is almost metaphoric to life, giving you a reason to slow things down, take it all in, and live in the moment.
Devil's Hunt's battle between the forces of Heaven and Hell can be visually stunning, but highly unpolished at times.
NASCAR Heat 4 without a doubt should be in contention for one of the better racing games of the year.
Men of War: Assault Squad 2 - Cold War feels like a regression instead of an evolution for the franchise. Instead, it sloppy reuses elements from different games and mashing them together without fixing the parts that remained broken.
Darksiders III: Keepers of the Void is an enjoyable, classic feeling piece of content that gives an added touch of freshness to the game.
The Blackout Club is at its best when coordinating efforts to complete objectives with friends using voice chat, and everyone focuses on an established plan.
After years of development and a handful of delays, Koji Igarashi’s highly anticipated return to gaming is perfection personified, or close to it. It is one of the finest side-scrolling action-RPGs that you’ll play, with beautifully stylistic and colorful visuals that work wonderfully with the 2.5D presentation. The endgame grind may be too much of an investment, but I love every moment of it, especially considering how much I enjoy the hack-and-slash gameplay and being able to swap between my customized presets at any moment. It may feel quite familiar to his previous work but sets the bar for the series moving forward.
Judgment proves that Ryu Ga Gotoku Studio's gameplay approach works with a new set of realized and charismatic characters. While it was a shame to see Kiryu's journey came to an end last year, Yagami and his former Yakuza buddy Kaito may be my new favorite duo. The narrative is highly engaging, and whether you use the Japanese or the English voices, the performances are outstanding. There is so much to see and accomplish between main story missions, that it is hard to list even a small portion of what you can do.
A Plague Tale: Innocence is one of the most compelling adventures I’ve experienced not only this year but this entire generation
Rise of Industry is such a delight and a much deeper experience than I was expecting. Almost every aspect of your budding empire can be maintained and tweaked to your personal preference, although you’ll have to give the customers what they want. Competition is fierce, and not only is the AI cutthroat, but you’ll have to properly build a transportation network to ensure traffic doesn’t slow down your profit margin. On top of that, pollution becomes a concern, and when you throw the random events and auctions into the mix, there is so much that you have to track to keep your business flourishing. While I may have built my empire on wool, nothing came between me and my desire to become the ultimate supplier of potato chips and berry pies. The game launched with Steam Workshop support, ensuring the game has a bright future due to the endless possibilities.
Fade to Silence does leave its mark on the survival genre, namely the terrific use of a dynamic weather system. However, everything else in the game is slightly cumbersome, from combat to item management. With player inventory being limited, your only option is to transfer items to your stash at the camp. However, the only options are to place items one at a time, or everything you happen to be carrying. There isn’t any way to transfer individual stacks of items. The game needs a better introduction to many of the game’s mechanics, especially when playing on the harder difficulty that can leave you with starting over with nothing, outside of the permanent unlocks.
Desert Child has its moments, but most of the experience feels shallow. The repetitiveness of wandering through the town after each race was more of a distraction than anything. The retro-inspired pixel art is enjoyable, and most of the game's music works within the racing setting, but I had to mute the game when walking through the town.
Tropico 6's evolution and depth take the series into new heights, or in this case, new islands, stretching your nation across multiple islands with the inclusion of advanced traverse options.
Override: Mech City Brawl, while clunky and cumbersome, is an enjoyable, casual party fighting game.
Monster Boy and the Cursed Kingdom is everything that you'll want in an official sequel to the Monster World franchise. Regardless of the late game frustrations and spike in difficulty, it is one of the best modern day platformers I have ever played.
The well-designed and vibrant post-apocalyptic world of Darksiders III is simply a joy to traverse. The narrative is well-written, and the boss encounters, including the interactions between characters, before, during, and after encounters are quite enjoyable. Although the game takes its inspiration from new titles and genres, it still feels like it belongs in the series I've been playing for the past eight years. On the technical front, the game suffers from occasional hitching and slowdown, even on an Xbox One X.
Speed Brawl has a lot more to offer than standard beat ‘em up titles. I certainly dig the unique and colorful stylized animated characters. The game features satisfying local and online multiplayer for the game's 50+ events. There weren't any joinable open online parties while testing, but I was able to invite a friend without issue. There are global leaderboards for each of the events if you are into that type of competition as well.
Steel Rats may be the surprise I've been looking for as we get into the busy (and crowded) holiday season. It combines a rather robust motorcycle combat system with a slick movement system. The developers even threw in massive boss encounters that utilize all of your abilities. It wasn't apparent at first that you can freely switch between biker members, but once realized, you can tackle any situation. Each biker has their own set of skills, but regardless of who you use, the game is simply fun and engaging. There are also unlocking bike and character skins for each of the four characters. Playing on a PlayStation 4 Pro, however, textures seem to take forever to pop-in, which is disappointing as the rest of the game is mostly impressive visually.