Travis Northup's Reviews
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.
Avowed is a perfectly competent RPG that showcases Obsidian’s writing and worldbuilding chops, but has little else to distinguish itself among swords-and-sorcery adventures.
Alien: Rogue Incursion is a compelling first crack at bringing Alien to VR with lots of room to grow.
Path of Exile 2’s redefined action and surprisingly fleshed-out endgame have gotten this sequel off to an exciting start, even in its predictably rocky early access state.
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.