The lack of challenge is a touch disappointing but doesn't detract from the sheer joy I got from bouncing along to the music, or the sadness of watching a man try to save his friend from inevitable death. When the main problem with a game is that you just want more, that's usually a good sign. The Sexy Brutale is absolutely worth your time. If I had Boone's powers, I'd rewind time and play it all over again.
Horizon Zero Dawn hits the trifecta. Incredible combat, story, and characters. It’s also polished and doesn’t outstay it’s welcome. I can’t imagine I’ll play it again anytime soon, but the fifty hours I spent with Horizon were some of the best I’ve ever had.
Mass Effect: Andromeda offers the dream of exploration in a distant galaxy, but every time the dream looks like it’s within reach, it’s snapped from your grasp by poor quest design, performance problems, or simply mediocre writing.
Many have accused Battlefield 1 of being a WW2 shooter with a WW1 skin. I can’t argue with that, but I also can’t get that upset about it either. I love running out of the trenches with a group of teammates, as we charge towards the enemy and get mowed down by turrets and sub-machine guns. If we survive, there’s a good chance we’ll end up choking on mustard gas as we try to claim a control point. I’ve not experienced this in any modern FPS, and it does make a difference, regardless of historical accuracy. And that whistle. Holy crap, that whistle.
Rise of the Tomb Raider represents a graphical leap forward from its predecessor, but the rest of the changes are merely minor tweaks and refinements to a formula that is starting to feel rather tired due to a certain other series having done this many times before.
Fallout 4 represents a huge leap forward from Fallout 3 in terms of visuals and combat, but it somehow delivers an even worse story, and the reduced role-playing mechanics mean that a Fallout game has never been this shallow. Bethesda Studios Games needs to completely revise how it approaches stories in its games or Fallout 5 won't be worth playing.