With that, we're back where we started. VROOM KABOOM has big ideas, but I don't think it's a matter of execution. I think these ideas are just disparate enough that it makes putting them together naturally problematic. It's sort of like the opposite of peanut butter and chocolate. Putting a gun on a car is a pretty good idea, but trying to drive three cars while managing a card deck, paying attention to what the opponent is doing, and accomplishing objectives is just too much. I would happily play a Mad Max-inspired tower defense, or a competitive, on-rails car combat game, but both at the same time is not a great fit.
Overall I'm not as firm in my feelings about Madden 19 as I was last year. Madden 18 had a thesis statement, something that it felt confident in declaring to the gaming world. It was easy to throw myself into that message and find ways to have fun, almost as if Madden itself was cheering me on. Longshot was also an interesting and compelling addition that made it feel like the world was changing a little bit. Now, while the new foundational changes are awesome and it's more fun than ever to play Madden, it almost feels like it isn't enough in comparison. It especially stings that the Longshot sequel feels so unsure of itself, despite its high production values. It's easy enough to recommend Madden 19 to sports fans, but if I'm trying to get someone new started, it feels like last year's game is required reading to get the most out of this year's entry.
It was tragic to see something as great as Tempest fall into obscurity, only to have the spiritual successor taken away before it could really make its mark. As weird and whiplash-y as it is, it's just as great to see the same developer get to make a comeback and do an officially branded sequel. It feels like a dream come true, and I can't imagine how exciting this is for the folks at Llamasoft. Sure, it could have benefited from some more bells and whistles, but Tempest 4000 is the real deal, a new version of a remarkable arcade classic that isn't spoken of nearly as much as it deserves today. It doesn't feel cheap or old; it's pure game design boosted by badass music and a distinct visual style that settles comfortably into high definition. If we continue to get stuff like this from the new Atari, then sign me up.
At is cheap price point, with lenient difficulty, solid teaching tools, and accessible mechanics, I think Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai could be a great way for people who slip into the anime fan/fighting game novice venn diagram to get their feet wet in the genre without having to dive in too deep. As most of the game is about landing single, solid hits (although there are some linkable moves), players can focus on learning the basics, then on learning the very user-friendly Hougeki system to get a feel for things like juggling and wall-bouncing. From there, they can graduate to things like more complicated super motions, cancelling, and all the extra fun stuff that seasoned fighters get into, and Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai also supports to a degree. Koihime Enbu RyoRaiRai is not a game that will be challenging Dragon Ball FighterZ or Street Fighter V for top spots at EVO any time soon, but it is a smaller, simpler, and cheaper title that fighting game upstarts and fans can use to effectively spread the good word of the quarter-circle.
Defiance 2050 is a game I can get lost in and enjoy several hours in at a time, but it's mindless shooting and grinding that is the least difficult kind of gaming experience to locate in 2018. Sure, this game is free, but I can find a copy of The Division for not much more than free and get a similar, much more substantial experience.
Even the cool opening sequence, in which the world literally bends itself into a new state as you swap vehicles, doesn't carry over to the game. You just press a button and morph to the other type, and perhaps fall with a big clunk from the air before driving off as if nothing happens. It's like banging hot wheels together, if the rest of the cars in the box you aren't playing with hate you. I was kinda hoping for a more mature Diddy Kong Racing with some more hardcore trappings. Instead, I got a headache from squinting ahead for turn arrows and playing with loot boxes.
The Lost Child is like that car your friend really likes but is hideous to look at. It's made of different parts, some of them from a different kind of car entirely. It makes funny sounds, and the sound system is a disaster. But they've had that car for years, and it still somehow runs without any problems. This visual novel/dungeon-crawler/monster-catcher is a whole lot of stuff mashed together, sometimes to awkward results. But the real meat and potatoes, the monster-catching, is not only the glue that holds The Lost Child together, but it's also a big ol' can of elbow grease that pushes the whole package forward. It's not always fun to read or look at, but I can get lost in grinding, evolving, and purifying more demons for hours.
God of War feels ambitious in the best kind of way: the messy kind. It's not afraid to get its hands dirty digging at something it thinks is interesting, while knowing it might not find it at that moment. It's fine with not telling you everything, or with dialing back on the usual tropes of loud music, brutal violence, and hamfisted emotional manipulation. Sometimes, God of War just wants you to take some time and think about how you feel, and compare notes with Kratos as he struggles through his trauma to relate to his kid. And sure, sometimes you beat group of monsters to death by juggling them in the air with a magic axe and a pack of wolves made of lightning fired from a bow. It's still a video game about a violent, hulking bald man, but it's thoughtful and, most importantly, genuine.
Metal Gear Survive feels like a prototype, an idea on paper that was quickly turned into a game and strapped to a retail rocket without proper consideration of what the Metal Gear name means to people. Konami has every right to use the IP and FOX Engine tool of course, and frankly there's no reason not to. Kojima didn't make all the Metal Gear games by himself. But this feels like the team dumped a bunch of menu-based systems on top of the mechanics, without figuring out why and how they should all work together. It is like they were looking to other games in the genre for ideas, then adding extra complexity for the sake of standing out a bit. It's part dull, part frustrating, and part utterly confusing. In short, Metal Gear Survive is just another middling survival game, with a name-drop that doesn't do it any favors.
UFC 3 feels the most like a video game in the pool of big sports simulations. Being a one-on-one combat sim, it still feels like you're at the mercy of your own ability even though there are stats. A punch is a punch, and while some chins are more durable than others, patience and care can help you overcome the odds. It feels like a different kind of fighting game for folks interested in real-life martial arts, with a cumbersome grappling system and some branded bumbling with numbers and menus to appeal to the core audience. UFC 3 is fun and exciting, and I can see it acting as a potential entry point for its real-life counterpart.
Since Persona 4 Arena, it has been obvious Arc System Works has been searching for ways to make its anime-style fighting games less obtuse on entry. Each try feels more successful than the last, with a few caveats here and there. Dragon Ball FighterZ feels like it hits a sweet spot, retaining the look and feel of a versus fighter while reining in the complexities that make fighting games still so hard to get into. The mechanical streamlining is supplemented with a story mode that is a silly love letter to the license, that takes its time to let the player learn how to play the game while still having fun and enjoying a new story. It's a full, hearty experience that fans of Dragon Ball will go nuts over, and fighting games on the outside won't be able to resist diving into either.
Star Wars: Battlefront II feels like a big step forward, but instead of following that with a number of steps back, it's actually a trip-up leading to a sprained ankle. This is a beautiful, fun game with huge ambitions for being an important part of the Star Wars universe as it is today.
Overall what we have here is another Call of Duty, which means exactly what you think that means. Going back to basics will likely please the fanbase, which was vocally growing tired of the sci-fi stuff. The gameplay loops online are much less complicated, heading back to the “freeze tag with guns” and away from the more complex movement systems. The campaign feels like a greatest hits of Call of Duty moments, but falls short of standing out on its own, despite looking nice and being well-produced. Headquarters feels like an unstable attempt at Destiny-fying Call of Duty, but the amount of online multiplayer content available will help people overlook flaws and perhaps allow for future iteration. Call of Duty: WWII is a solid entry, but it feels more safe and standard than it should, especially standing next to its peers that took similar ideas and did more.
Super Mario Odyssey feels like a new glove that fits like an old glove, the new high point of a decades-long evolutionary process that is so smooth, so finely-tuned, that playing it nearly feels like an extension of yourself. It creeps up on you, the scale and design of it all, in a way that often doesn't dawn on you just how purely grand it is until you stop playing and reflect on your experience. In a year full to bursting of huge, great games, Super Mario Odyssey stands out by acknowledging what's cool and works about games today. It trims all the fat and doubles-down on not a gameplay loop, but a gameplay flow that feels effortless the whole way through. Even when you lose, when a challenging bit sends you sailing into the Nintendo-y abyss, you just keep going. Super Mario Odyssey is here to remind us how uniquely compelling jumping and flipping around a colorful video game space is and lets us indulge as long as we can stand it.
By the end of Wolfenstein II; The New Colossus, I felt overwhelmed. It was a lot to take in, so much so that 15 hours felt like so much less. It was like going to a rock concert, riding a roller coaster, and reading a thinkpiece condemning the alt-right all at once. When I jumped in, I wasn't sure what to expect, especially with so much of the marketing playing up the comedic elements. What I got was more of what I liked in The New Order, but on a much larger scale, with ambitions that cared little for AAA conventions and comforts. Wolfenstein II: The New Colossus is a project that wears its heart on its sleeve, and that sleeve is on a bright yellow motorcycle jacket with a red devil on the back that is being worn by a Texan Terminator who finds great joy in hacking away at Nazi soldiers with a hatchet.
South Park: The Fractured but Whole feels dated, shallow, and lacking in the purpose or self-awareness needed for a work of satire to hit its mark. It feels like it's trying too hard to recapture that edge. It is as if it believes that if it makes fun of black and queer people enough, it'll stir up those old headlines and controversies that made South Park feel like something more than another multi-million-dollar intellectual property pushed through a corporate conveyor belt.
Hopefully the novel I just wrote offers some perspective on where I came from going into Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite. As a set of fighting game mechanics, Marvel vs. Capcom: Infinite is hovering somewhere around brilliance, with a fascinating set of mechanics that respect the appeal of the series while dialing back on complexity for complexity's sake. At the same time, it feels like half the appeal of this series, the bright, colorful visuals, and high-energy, sometimes experimental soundtrack have all gone out the window in favor of a more generic, brand-friendly Marvel house style. Smooshed in-between is the game's story mode, which still managed to make me smile as a lifelong Capcom nerd. Despite the Marvel vs. Capcom brand power, the Capcom portion is absolutely the most important, but this time feels like it's fetching Marvel's coffee. But this isn't a kitschy mobile game, it's a Capcom fighter, and that Means Something – and I can't shake the feeling that the Marvel Machine doesn't care.
Ultimately there's a ton of content in NBA Live 18 for basketball and NBA nuts. While it doesn't have something comparable to Madden's Longshot, making it more accessible and distinct, there's still a ton here to do and enough variance that different kinds of players will probably find something to latch onto. For me, it was The One for sure, with its hodgepodge mix of RPG elements, character customization, and a more casual style of play. When I ran into issues, it usually felt like I had the deck stacked against me in a nasty cocktail of RNG, tough opponent AI, and bumbling teammate AI all working together to take my pride down a notch. A more integrated set of learning tools would have been nice, but the game is simple enough at the beginning to make ergonomic, video game language-style sense, which is a plus compared to the much more complex stylings of Madden or NHL. There's an uphill battle for this one to stand up to the NBA 2K Juggernaut, but it has a chance this time for sure.
If you don't know what you're doing, play Longshot and figure out if you're into it or not. Maybe go through some tutorials, maybe get a more knowledgeable friend to walk you through the basics, and play some couch co-op together. Once you get your feet wet, get into MUT Squads and let your buddies play offense and defense, while you pick head coach and continue learning. Or you're already familiar but you aren't great, so you set the game to arcade mode, play Longshot a few times, then build up your MUT game to a huge OVR rating. Or, of course, you're a huge Madden nerd and you're tweaking the minutia in the options for hours before you even start playing. Madden NFL 18 wants to be a Madden for everyone, and it's built to allow a player of any skill level to mold their experience around themselves.
LawBreakers is a mess, but a good mess; it is one that tries to hit a ton of marks all at once and only misses a few. I worry about its meager content offerings in a crowded, already saturated genre. If LawBreakers can coast for a while on its solid core, hopefully its intended audience will find it and stick around.