WRC 10 FIA World Rally Championship is a solid all-around experience built on a reliable foundation.
Freakpocalypse moves the Cyanide & Happiness universe into the gaming sphere much more effectively than its predecessor. Its main story arc of finding a prom date for its hero Coop works well as a narrative thread to hold together all manner of tasteless nonsense. The game is being advertised as the first of a trilogy and has enough to see and interact with to satisfy its core audience. The relatively low price and time investment of around ten hours are inviting, but I suspect the subject matter and confounding frustrations brought on by genre design tropes will put off the general gaming audience at large.
Sumo Digital has done a wonderful job bringing the visual aesthetic of the LittleBigPlanet franchise into a 3D platforming world. The levels are a delight to look at and shine brightly when paired with a top-shelf display. The various outfits and visual customizations that can be sewn onto Sackboy also look fantastic. I ended up using a Yak outfit I bought early in the game for the rest of my playthrough as I simply couldn’t get enough of how delightfully stupid it looked. When it comes to gameplay and story, it is fair to say that we’ve seen it all before, and usually done better. The main appeal here is to rehash old material with a 4K, leather-and-corduroy-upholstered refresh. If that sounds like a good time, Sackboy is sure to please, but it will leave other PS5 owners wondering when next-gen will actually show up. 7/10 yak outfits
ScourgeBringer manages to work on the strength of its controls and the overall smoothness of its combat.
Equal parts fever dream and time-waster, Fight Crab may find a way to sidestep into your library.
For those who don’t have access to a PS4, Super Mega Baseball 3 still offers a solid overall package and will not disappoint anyone looking for a good time.
Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts launches with a budget-friendly price but still feels undercooked.
I can definitely recommend MXGP 19 to newcomers who are intrigued by the sport or are looking for a different kind of racing fix. It’s not the best racing I’ve done this year, but I found myself enjoying the time I spent working through the season mode (even if its structure was boring) and all the noodling around in Playground mode was entertaining.
I feel that GRIP will draw lots of strong opinions on either side of the spectrum and that the diehards will stick with it for the foreseeable future. It’s not likely to set the world on fire and will appeal mostly to the nostalgia of older PC gamers, but does enough to be more than a pretty paint job on top of old ideas.
Madden NFL 19 is a mixed bag.
While I have issues with a few parts of the game, mainly the lower-quality skill tree stuff and gripes related to rogue-lites and old shooters in general, the total package on offer is really strong. At the time of release, the game is only available for PC, which I think could be the biggest negative here. It’s clearly capable of running on less-capable hardware, but I worry that it may go unnoticed unless the team at Blazing Bit Games can find a way to make console ports work financially. If you are already smitten with boomer shooters or rogue-lites, this one is an easy recommendation.
Some movies work better in theaters. Some games work better on bleeding-edge hardware. The stars have aligned and a premium Crysis experience is available for the masses. There's never been a better time to put on the NanoSuit than right now. 8/10 8K roach shaders
Was everything perfect? Not at all. The biggest frustration came from the gamepad controls. I started playing with my preferred d-pad input but found that aiming the water hose was nearly impossible until I swapped to the control stick. The adventure also ends just as things were really getting heated up. Nuclear Blaze understands the value of not wearing out a welcome. Just when I had decided that I was smitten with the game, I reached its narrative conclusion. If the idea was to leave me wanting more, then the mission was successful. Because this is still a small indie project based on a game jam submission, potential buyers should understand that Nuclear Blaze does not burn for long, but it does, in fact, burn twice as bright.
The future of the F1 series is cloudy right now. EA is the new boss, but its influence probably won’t be seen until next year’s game. F1 2021 adds a few new fixins to the strong foundation of last year’s game, along with the misfire that is Braking Point. Having the option to add dynamic dramatic events to the existing Career mode would be preferable to bland pre-rendered cutscenes that come with Braking Point. There's a lot of fun to be had with F1 2021, even if a true next-gen leap may not come along until next year.
AAA-quality baseball is now available to all console owners (please Sony remember the PC in 2022) and the sun is shining on virtual big leaguers who are down for crossplay. MLB The Show 21 is once again an incremental step, but still an important one for the series moving forward.
Marvel’s Spider-Man: Miles Morales will appeal to loads of gamers and I suspect it will be a hit for PlayStation owners this holiday season. While there isn’t as much to do this time around and what is included is mostly recycled, the asking price is lower than normal. Being Spider-Man is still as fun as it was in 2018 (and potentially more fun now at 60Hz) and Miles Morales is a character that is more compelling than Peter Parker. Should the few technical hiccups get sorted out, this will be a solid inclusion for any game library. Anyone grabbing a PS5 at launch would do well to grab a copy.
If you are all hot and bothered by the thought of tearing past some United Kingdom pastures at 240+kph on a crotch rocket with the best visuals of any two-wheeled racing game yet, RIDE 4 for PC and next-gen consoles needs to be on your shortlist. While I found the first-person cameras lead me to slower lap times, they were my preferred way to crash the bikes. I’ve still yet to win at the Isle of Man on a modern bike, but hopefully, that time arrives soon. 8/10 Ninja wheelies
Star Wars: Squadrons manages to stand out by not trying to be larger than life. Simultaneously a franchise cash-in and love letter to the classic LucasArts PC space combat games of the 1990s, Squadrons sticks to its mission and comes out the other side of a warp-speed jump successfully.
Building on the foundation of last year's game, WRC 9 fleshes out the experience with new features and content.
Admittedly, I am starting to suffer Milestone motorbike game fatigue. It has affected some of the initial excitement I had for MotoGP 20, but I cannot deny that my time spent was mighty fine.