John Wick Hex is a fantastic game. It combines real strategy in a gameplay that feels truly unique in the RTS genre. It really captures the world of John Wick and brings the character from the silver screen faithfully onto the PC. There is a fluidity to the combat, but one that falls ever so slightly short of the effortless slickness that we've come to love about the title character. Missing that trick takes a near perfect game to just a notch below, but puts it squarely in good company as a top game of the year.
It won't convert a casual fan of the sport into a rabid follower of the series, but it is one that will take anyone who wanted to live the fantasy of managing a football club and give them every opportunity to find their heart's content.
Urban Flow is the best kind of puzzle game: one that is easy to pick up, difficult to master, and lovingly developed exactly for the hardware on which it runs. It's not perfect, but has so much to offer and it so well done in places it's easy to overlook the few warts. It is a welcome addition to the Switch library and a great example of why this console is so good at what it does.
The gameplay of Faeria is top notch, adding a whole new layer of depth to the Collectible Card Game genre in bringing the map itself in as a critical piece of the strategy.
Apart from the humor, the well done mechanics, the unique presentation, the sanitation, the medicine, education, wine, public order, irrigation, roads, the fresh-water system, and public health, what have Here Be Dragons or the Romans ever done for us? My only real criticism is that while there is little to fault on that first go, the game does struggle to offer real replayability. It's an excellent strategy game. So play it once through for that good trip and let that be enough.
Looks good, plays good, a nice use of souls-like mechanics to penalize players for dying but still lets you run freely and enjoy the game at your own pace; there is a lot to like about Foregone. It lands itself squarely near the top of the 2D action platformer pyramid. A little more depth in the skill tree and a little more oomph in the special abilities could take it to that next level, but it stands on solid footing and offers a class leading experience.
This is the type of game that needs two scores. One for the diehards of the genre and one for the newbies. The development team catered to their core group, and I feel they made the game that they wanted to play. But ultimately I also feel I have to hold them responsible for making a game that feels inaccessible in so many ways. Once you get over the learning cliff, there is a better game out there than this score represents. Pillars of Eternity is like a speakeasy. If you know the dirty, dark alley you need to go down and have the password for the doorman, there is a wonderful, vibrant, and robust world on the other side filled with dancing girls, jazz music, booze, and cigarettes.
A brilliant world is offset by some cheap level design, a fantastic toolset and movement is offset by some terrible throw mechanics when left tooless. However, Budget Cuts 2 takes two long strides forward for every half step back and does deliver on its promise. It hits the mark this time around to provide a really good VR experience and would be recommended to anyone with the gear to run it.
It's rude, it's crude, and until Rockstar decides to port something better than LA Noire over or Sucker Punch stops being a Sony studio, it is the most fun you're going to have in an open world crime or mayhem type game on the Switch.
The AWE expansion is a fantastic addition to the Control base game. Everything about it is just that shade better than the original content. It delivers a horror experience that is a step above, a new weapon that offers something really unique, and a final showdown that is bigger and badder than anything you've done in this game yet. It's a few more hours of a good game, that this time around takes a slight step forward to be even better.