Travis Northup's Reviews
Despite a few interesting ideas, Unknown 9: Awakening is a bland and janky adventure with a generic story and dull combat.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is a stellar expansion that hits all the right notes, but only feels like the first act to a larger adventure.
Despite its name, Satisfactory is much more than merely adequate – its finely tuned loop of automation and escalating expansion is downright excellent.
Squirrel with a Gun is a uniquely amusing sandbox game, but it’s as shallow and short-lived as its goofy premise seems.
Concord is a very fun sci-fi hero shooter that shows real promise, but lacks both innovation and content at launch.
Earth Defense Force 6 delivers the campy series’ largest, silliest adventure yet, with all the usual jank and a little too much repetition.
The First Descendant has all the building blocks of a fantastic looter shooter, but they’re buried under a pile of monotonous quests, a terrible story, and an infuriating free-to-play model that has influenced its game design in the worst possible way.
Destiny 2: The Final Shape delivers on much of what this series has promised, bringing exciting new challenges and a satisfying ending to its decade-long story.
Clownin’ around in Killer Klowns From Outer Space: The Game is hilarious and action-packed, but runs its course rather quickly.
In 2024, Fallout 76 finally captures a lot of the post-nuclear experience I love. It trades roleplaying decision-making for multiplayer shooter antics, but it still needs more endgame content and a fair inventory solution.
Another Crab’s Treasure throws out dark themes and gratuitous violence in favor of talking cartoon crabs, and I love it.
No Rest for the Wicked is a compelling and unique action-RPG with a lot going for it, and lots of room still to grow.
An incredibly unique mix of FPS, RTS, and tower defense ideas, Outpost: Infinity Siege is absurdly complicated but a whole lot of fun.
Aggravating hack-and-slash combat and surprisingly sparse jokes make South Park: Snow Day! dull, toothless, and a big step in the wrong direction for South Park games.
Tribes 3: Rivals is a rocket-powered sequel that packs some serious horsepower, but its current Early Access options run out of fuel quite quickly.
Contra: Operation Galuga is an amusing run-and-gun that met my 2D shooting expectations, but rarely exceeded them.
The Outlast Trials is a bloody cooperative horror game that burns brightly, but fizzles after a few enjoyable hours.
Skull and Bones is a maritime RPG with a strong foundation, even if it feels like a live-service first draft.
Banishers: Ghosts of New Eden’s memorable story and inspired investigative cases help carry it across its rougher patches.
The version of Palworld on Xbox and the Microsoft Store might not be nearly as polished as the Steam version right now, but that doesn’t mean it isn’t still a ton of fun.