Travis Northup's Reviews
Styx: Blades of Greed is a sequel that mostly delivers the same stealth gameplay as its predecessors, with all the good and the bad you might expect from that.
High On Life 2 is a fun sequel that expands on the original’s best ideas, but an underwhelming story and even sloppier gunplay means it also takes a step backward in plenty of areas.
Highguard’s compelling gunplay makes its unique raid mode quite memorable, even if the version we have right now feels a bit like a rough draft.
Destiny 2: Renegades is a Star Wars-flavored expansion that’s cringey and light on content, but what’s there works surprisingly well.
As the hardcore pioneer of the extraction shooter, Escape from Tarkov is still quite compelling, but it's also saddled with issues that range from technical problems to pay-to-win monetization.
ARC Raiders raises the bar for extraction shooters pretty much across the board, with an incredibly gripping progression grind, tense fights against NPCs and other players that make for memorable matches, and loot that feels completely worth all the work and stress it takes to obtain it. The fact that it manages to also run well and look amazing all the while is just downright impressive, even if a few bugs here and there lead to the rare rage quit. For years I’d been wondering when someone would take the awesome promise of this genre to the next level, and ARC Raiders is without question what I’ve been waiting for.
Once you get past a weak first act, The Outer Worlds 2 sharpens Obsidian’s RPG formula with smarter writing and better combat.
Yooka-Replaylee works a little better in this remixed iteration, but introduces all sorts of new wonkiness along the way.
Baby Steps is an infuriating ordeal of intentionally awkward physics that’s brutal, unbelievably stupid, and downright awesome.
Dying Light: The Beast is a goofy, bloody sequel with a monstrous twist, but doesn’t do much else to mix things up.
Borderlands 4 gives the series the massive kick in the pants it has needed, with a fantastic open world and greatly improved combat, even bugs and invisible walls can sometimes throw off that groove.
Grounded 2’s early access debut is a stellar starting point, despite a rocky technical performance.
Wildgate’s 4-player mayhem makes for a wild ride, but it currently feels like a proof of concept for something really great.
Despite an incredibly promising premise, Tales of the Shire is dreadfully boring and extremely buggy to boot.
Destiny 2: The Edge of Fate isn’t the worst expansion the looter shooter’s been given, but it’s a major step back from The Final Shape in almost every regard, mixing content that’s simply more of the same with a few experiments here and there that don’t always work out.
Dune: Awakening is an excellent survival MMO that brilliantly captures life on Arrakis, usually to its benefit.
Even if it’s clearly dancing on the same old strings, Lies of P: Overture is an excellent expansion that adds a whole lot more to a game that was already great.
Fantasy Life i: The Girl Who Steals Time is an excellent blend of cozy life sim and action-adventure RPG that rarely stops surprising throughout its 50+ hour runtime.
Palia is a fantastic multiplayer life sim with strong characters to bond with, engaging activities to grind, and a nearly endless chase for more resources to build your perfect home in the world’s kindest village.
AI Limit is a soulslike without any soul, offering a few interesting but unimpactful new ideas and a whole lot of bugs across its entirely unremarkable adventure.