An original gameplay mechanic is hard to come by, and these shapeshifting puzzles feel like nothing else. The parts of the game that are derivative aren’t bad, just second best. The parts of the game that are original are extraordinary.
The world is not our own, but the fantasy of it allows the game to dig really deep, and I considered political views I hadn’t had to confront in years.
By committing to the wonderful setting, Six Ages has more to say than a dozen fantasy RPGs.
You won’t mistake Deliver Us The Moon for a bleeding edge graphical powerhouse, but it looks very good. At least as good as other hit games in the genre. It’s amazing how good a relatively small dev team can get a 3D exploration game looking.
The Long Journey Home is bound to drift to the far left side of my Switch home screen, but I hope it’s not forever. I will keep my eyes peeled for an announcement promising “drastic changes.” In the meantime, I will dream of a better game.
That’s what I like most about DC Universe Online. While all the components are very familiar, the game is well-designed to be what it is. If a certain feature is derivative, that’s because it works for the story and gameplay experience. You can tell that this game is a labor of love, and it is maintained by a team that not only loves the source material, but loves fun games as well. And since my Switch is portable, I can grind for levels wherever I go, and take the Amazing Flamefist to the levelcap and beyond.
All nitpicks aside, there’s a clarity of purpose in Marvel Ultimate Alliance 3. Along with the recent Spider-Man game, it really feels like a return to form for the entire universe of Marvel games.
Catan is a classic and being able to play it on the go is a gift.
. If you have a community of fighting game aficionados or some pals who love over the top Wu-Tang movies, there’s a lot to be found in Samurai Shodown.
Diehards of the genre will find a love letter to all things big and clanky, and if your dream is to pilot something big and fast and humanoid shaped, Project Nimbus will make you feel great.
For good and bad, Octopath Traveler evokes the games of the past, and for a lot of us, we miss the bad as much as we do the good.
The slowness of the growth and the beauty of the end result, and the intervening moments, make Green Planet a wonderful game to unwind and relax. But the challenge means you’ll also be engaged. It would have been easy to add a few new projects to the research track and call it a day, but the terraforming is so integrated into the existing game, you’ll constantly find yourself marveling at the design.
This is the exact lack of interaction that makes games bad. This is the recipe for failure, and in the future, it should be used as a road map of precisely what not to do in game design.
For the real gamers out there, the ones who want to consider the whole history of the medium, this collection is a wonderful gift. To people looking for classic design, for inspiration, for history, there’s a lot to like here.
There’s a lot to unpack there, right? But it’s about something fundamental to gaming. A transcendentally beautiful or superlatively fun game can overcome storytelling weaknesses.
Despite being loads more forgiving than the first brutal installment, Sunless Skies is wicked hard.
Caveblazers is a sharply put together game. If I had received it as a birthday present for my Gameboy in the late 90s, I would have played it on every long car ride.
I’m an easy mark for a new Civilization, but I have no fear in saying that Gathering Storm is one of the most creative and significant expansions a Civilization game has ever received.
After discussing it for a few minutes, I feel like I want to thank you all for coming to my TED talk. That’s because it’s so impressionistic, existential, philosophical … all the things people invoke when they want to convince you that video games can be art. But Everything has a leg up on a lot of those art-installation-as-games. Everything is also a lot of fun!
Its gameplay is familiar and fun, but its world is like nothing you’ve ever seen. You have to work to see it all, and you’ll want to.