Chris Carter
- Skies of Arcadia
- Demon's Souls
- Devil May Cry 3
Described as "Dark Souls underwater," this tactical action game is a brief, but fun little journey.
This wonderful looking Spider-Man simulator in the sky doesn't live up to its full potential.
Arc System Work's staunch dedication to the retro aesthetic for Double Dragon IV is admirable, but still falls short of the mark even when juxtaposed to several of the series' own entries. Punch and kicking dudes as Billy and Jimmy still works, but many elements of IV just feel a little too off-brand for my liking.
As usual the new zombie map feels like the main event, but Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare: Sabotage is a mostly successful injection of new stuff to do. I'll be combing forums for days trying to figure out all of Rave in the Wood's tiny secrets, and at this point, I think we've solidified that the gang is coming back for three more add-ons. Tubular!
Resident Evil returns to its horror roots, and is all the better for it in a game that was designed to be played in VR.
While the new engine doesn't sport a consistent framerate and you can pretty much skip the Chi movie, Kingdom Hearts HD 2.8 Final Chapter Prologue is a healthy enough serving of what's to come in Fragmentary Passage, and bundles in one amazing core entry that everyone should play. It's a massive risk if you aren't already invested in this wacky series, and as always, all eyes are on Kingdom Hearts III at some nebulous unknown time.
A little platformer that offers new mechanics in a graduated, character-centric fashion.
I might not be as hypnotized with Stardew Valley as a lot of other folks, but it's pretty much the Harvest Moon follow-up I've been waiting for since the SNES and Nintendo 64 days.
Gravity Rush 2 is the kind of game that makes me want to do everything. If there's more DLC beyond the upcoming free Raven campaign, I'll play it. If there's some uncovered secret or time trial I haven't done yet, I'll find it. Now that the series is unchained from the ill-fated Vita, I hope it gets the recognition it deserved the first time around.
Superhot VR is one of the best virtual reality games you can buy right now.
Wild Guns Reloaded is a treat. Whether you're the type of score-attack addicted player who wants to rocket ahead in the leaderboards, or you have three other friends/family members ready for co-op, it's worth digging into.
While I didn't have any trouble seeing this season through per se -- as the amazing action choreography helped -- City of Light did run out of gas once most of the major players bowed out. But truth be told, Telltale has created a strong universe to keep expanding on, and as long as it can keep supplanting well-known characters in the future, I can see an excuse to keep making this series more than any of its other projects to date.
Werewolves Within is a cool experiment wrapped into an above-average game. It's limited and laser-focused, but it's good at what it does.
I can really get lost in the world of Let it Die, and I think I'll be playing it off and on for the next several weeks at the very least. It begs you to come back, and given the platform in which it's been distributed, it's something that can easily evolve into a better game in the future.
Like Team Ico's past work, talking about The Last Guardian too much inherently drifts into spoiler territory, but we have years to unpack this. For now, I'm confident in saying that although it isn't their best work, there really aren't too many directors out there like Fumito Ueda, and I hope for our sake, he continues making games.
For those of you who have been scared off by Dead Rising in the past, maybe this is your time. No, I'm not happy about a lot of the design changes, but the fact of the matter is Capcom Vancouver has created an amazing world to slice and dice in, even on par with my favorite setting so far -- Fortune City. If you absolutely abhor the idea of changing Dead Rising, I would stay away from 4, but coming in with an open mind will serve you well.
As I'm typing this up now, I'm seeing a future where people buy Final Fantasy XV due to some of the more positive assessments (like this one), and walk away disappointed. Because if you loathe JRPGs, XV is not going to make you a believer. In a way it's silly that Square spent 10 years making this, and it feels like a really shiny version of something it would have actually made 10 years ago. While a complete overhaul of the genre would certainly suit someone's needs, XV suits mine just fine.
A King's Tale: Final Fantasy XV isn't anything special, nor is it essential to understanding the main game you're buying into, so don't bust the doors down tonight trying to get a pre-order in. But at the same time, proponents of old school beat-'em-ups will enjoy a few hours of fun, which counts for something.
Despite the abrupt ending in Guardian, Batman: A Telltale Games Series has been one of the most consistent works the developer has put out to date. I still get the occasional audio or jerky animation issue on PC, but at least on my machine, nothing in the first four episodes rang any major alarm bells. With just one chapter left, I think you're in the all clear for going all in on this.
When I'm looking at VR games I often ask myself one question -- "does this need to be VR to work?" With titles like Feral Rites (also from Insomniac) providing alternative camera angles, the answer is usually "no." But with the advent of the Touch you're going to have a lot more experiences that really do feel like they can't be done anywhere else but on the PSVR, Vive, or Rift, and The Unspoken falls into that category.