Travis Northup's Reviews
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare 2 is addicting, charming, and packed with more content than you can shake a husk of corn at. If you didn't play the first Garden Warfare, now is the time to give it a go.
Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam excels at RPG combat, but is bogged down by tedious minigames and a disappointing story.
Halo 5: Guardians is a masterpiece, and quite possibly the best Halo game so far. The campaign is top-notch, even as Master Chief shares the spotlight, and the multiplayer is largely a return to everything that has made the franchise so beloved to begin with.
Yoshi's Woolly World is a charming, yet unchallenging platformer that succeeds at being an amusing way to pass the time.
Destiny: The Taken King made me a believer. It is an enormous step in the right direction for Destiny, and improves upon Destiny in almost every regard.
Megaman Legacy Collection sets out what it aims to do–provide longtime fans, and a new generation of gamers, with the opportunity to play through some of the most iconic Megaman games ever made.
F1 2015 feels like a step backwards for the series, which is disappointing given the new EGO engine, and the current generation of hardware. The core experience, however, remains one of the most realistic racing simulators available.
With a $30 price tag, Rare Replay presents an amazing value. You likely have enjoyed these games before, at least in part, and there is no better way to experience them now than in Rare Replay.
The Escapists is an entertaining open-ended puzzler that delivers plenty of challenge for those possessing the patience to overcome it.
Project CARS is a meticulously-crafted love letter to automobiles. Developer Slightly Mad Studios has put driving cars front and center, and created a simulator that is one of the most realistic than any game to-date. Project CARS certainly isn't for everyone, but it cuts out a lot of fat that is prominent in driving simulators and gives players pure, unhindered cars.
Mortal Kombat X improves upon a classic franchise in nearly every way. From its surprisingly impressive story, to its great new characters, to its expansive amount of new content, Mortal Kombat is a must-play for any fans of the series.
Dark Souls 2: Scholar of the First Sin improves upon Dark Souls 2 in nearly every category, and is the Souls game that current-gen console owners deserve.
Borderlands: The Handsome Collection is the victory lap that every Borderlands fan will enjoy, and packs a tremendous value into one disc. Some performance issues hold it back from being flawless, but all the ingredients are here to sate your chaotic sweettooth.
DmC: Devil May Cry Definitive Edition keeps all the things that made DmC: Devil May Cry great and improves them for the current generations of consoles. While there isn't a terribly large amount of new content, Ninja Theory's gritty Universe is excellent enough to warrant a second playthrough.
Ori and the Blind Forest sets a new standard for the platform/adventure genre, by managing to handily surpass the games that inspired it in terms of storytelling, gameplay, and presentation.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse is excellent fan-service and has a ton of potential, which makes it frustrating as hell to see it held back by technical issues and repetitious combat.
While the gameplay in Professor Layton vs Phoenix Wright: Ace Attorney consists of each series’ respective experiences, neither feels like the full experience fans would expect from each of the series on their own. The Layton-style puzzles are dumbed down to the point of being overly simple and even boring at times, while the Ace Attorney courtroom battles are shorter and more straight-forward than fans will be used to.
LEGO Batman 3: Beyond Gotham is a worth addition to the LEGO Batman series, but while all that is good about these games has returned, all of the glaring issues with the series are worse than ever.
Lo Wang returns with a glorious vengeance in Shadow Warrior, in a hilarious, violent experience that no player should miss.
The good news is that fans can now play a new Worms game on their new consoles; the bad news is that Worms Battlegrounds does almost nothing to advance the series and so makes it hard to justify yet another Worms entry to begin with.