Every death feels fair, and the design philosophy is fine-tuned in such a way that feels intentional and deliberate. Salt and Sacrifice, on the other hand, achieves difficulty with clunky design, which completely misses the point of what makes a good challenge worth the time. Instead, the sacrifice of wasted time here is more than enough to make you salty.
Modern Warfare 2 is one of the most baffling Call of Duty games in years. It caters to newcomers, punishes veterans, and alienates everyone with overcomplicated menus. The campaign and Ground War are worthwhile. But Modern Warfare 2 still needs a lot of work to live up to its predecessors, and may not be worth your money just yet.
The Callisto Protocol succeeds as a desolate and brutal survival horror experience in its opening hours. But the second half is hindered by massive difficulty spikes and clunky melee combat.
Warzone 2.0 tries to cater to a wider audience by borrowing ideas from its competition, but it delivers a hodgepodge of ideas that seems to forget what made the original Warzone so iconic.
Although Atomic Heart is fun to play for its combat encounters, it’s packed to the brim with frustrating platforming and horrendous writing, making it tough to recommend. Ultimately, Atomic Heart feels like a Ubisoft game made by edgelords who love BioShock and Russia in equal measure. It’s a jack of all trades and master of none, which lands it somewhere near “decent.” The end result is an uneven gaming experience that has fun moments sprinkled throughout a marathon of cringe.
'Dead Island 2' is very much so a blast from the past. It looks pretty, but it’s a phoned-in first-person action zombie adventure with oddly unpolished combat, horrendous writing, and overly linear stages that lack depth.
Ultimately, Blair Witch is an intriguing story plagued by unsatisfactory gameplay, with a few neat ideas sprinkled throughout. Your canine companion presents some interesting mechanics, along with altering time through the camcorders, but in the end, even these features aren't enough to save Blair Witch from being a chore to play. There's still some to appreciate like the characters and story, which make Blair Witch almost enjoyable.
Ultimately, Zombie Army 4: Dead War is an amalgamation of tropes you’ve seen before, but it never quite nails any of them in a meaningful way.
Why take one of the games that set the benchmark for graphics in video games, present it as a remaster, and release it on a system that does a disservice to it in nearly every way?
"Extraction is a game that was clearly stuck in development hell for a reason. Ubisoft eventually came to the realization that it was time to get this game out the door, and the result is a jumbled pile of ideas you’ve seen before, executed in a wildly uninteresting way."
MADiSON is simultaneously one of the most tantalizing, yet enraging horror experiences I’ve ever played. The atmosphere and story are rich and engaging, and the scares are turned up to 11. But the puzzles are so baffling that it’s tough to recommend this game even to devoted horror fans. That said, I’d love to see Bloodious Games take another stab at a horror project with more streamlined gameplay.
Redfall isn’t the game anyone wanted it to be, and what is there is just OK. It’s a freak show, a roadside attraction, inviting you and your friends to come and gawk at one of god’s failed designs for an evening or an afternoon. The longer you stay, the less fun it gets, but curiosity and the low cost of admission (for Game Pass subscribers anyway) is likely enough to keep up a slow trickle of players.
The Lord of the Rings: Gollum is a messy and frustrating action platformer set in Middle-earth. ... Most of the gameplay involves platforming and stealth, though neither works very well. Gollum is full of technical problems that make an otherwise unpleasant experience even worse, and the game’s boring story makes it hard to recommend, even to the most hardcore Lord of the Rings fans.