Warhammer 40,000: Darktide has a solid foundation that just needs more built atop it. Slaughtering legions of Chaos freaks is fun for a while, and the in-game chatter between characters is surprisingly funny to the point I was invested far more than I otherwise would’ve been. Sadly, the unbalanced classes and poorly paced missions, plus a complete lack of incentive to play after hitting the level cap stop it short of what one wants from a horde shooter.
El Paso, Elsewhere does nothing new as a videogame - the whole point of it, in fact, is to do everything old. Despite revolving around the nucleus of a Max Payne homage and flatly refusing to flesh out the mechanics of a game from 2001, El Paso manages to transcend its skeletal concept thanks to an arresting presentation and brilliant story. Incredibly written with themes that speak to me on a deeply personal level, it compensates for its weaknesses as a game by simply being a brilliant piece of media.
Baldur’s Gate 3 is truly exemplary, one of the few videogames in history that wholly deserve the universal acclaim heaped so freely upon releases above a certain marketing budget. The choices offered to the player in terms of both crafting an adventurer and influencing the story do an incredible job of translating Dungeons & Dragons to a form of interactive software that surpasses the loftiest expectation. The script is incredible, the gameplay beneath it downright luxurious. There won't be another like this in a long, long time.
Mythforce is shallow and inauthentic, hiding its creative mundanity behind the insincere promise of retro silliness. This lack of artistic integrity is matched by a lack of quality control, awkwardly bolted together as it is with unrefined controls, dreadful performance, and archaic gameplay. At its very best, we have a boring and bland dungeon crawler of a distinctly unrewarding stripe, but it’s almost always far worse than that.
This is a game that features the line, “It’s quieter than a mute nun’s pussy on Christmas,” and by the time you hear it you’ve been exposed to so much wildness it’s simply par for the course.
I love Lies of P until I don’t, but those less adoring moments are always followed by something that ropes me right back in. A slickly directed, beautifully presented game that takes the absurd concept of marrying Bloodborne to Pinocchio and commits so earnestly that it transcends the silly and just plain works. Difficulty spikes and dodgy pacing undermine it at key points, and some systems aren’t as useful as they should be, but none of that takes away from the high quality and the amount of imagination poured into what could’ve been just another Soulslike.
Starfield is a shallow ocean, hiding its lack of creative ambition behind the physical size of a universe that’s minuscule where it counts.
Immortals of Aveum is so derivative as to make me question the accuracy of the word “uninspired” - this game absolutely is inspired. It’s taken so much inspiration from so much existing media there’s not a single unique element. Less of a story and more the creative slag oozing from a smelter full of adventure tropes, its narrative is matched in banality only by its gameplay. A bog standard, repetitive shooter that offers nothing new and does none of the old stuff well enough to justify doing it.
My Friendly Neighborhood offers a unique execution of a conceit that’s otherwise become trite among horror games. Taking the “spooky kiddy thing” idea and pulling it onto a framework built from equal parts BioShock and Resident Evil smartly separates it from the ocean of similar concepts in the genre, even if none of its individual components are particularly original. It’s sadly let down from a lack of variety and consequently runs too long, unable to stay fresh or surprising enough to sustain its runtime. However, it’s a fun ride while it lasts, and it’s story is charming enough to be worth seeing through to the end.
The fact it’s also a really fun game about punching stuff is a bonus on top of an experience that’s just… well, I’ll say it again - Clash: Artifacts of Chaos is truly beautiful.
It’s cheap from both a visual and combat standpoint, it’s unpleasant to control, and the incentives for enduring multiple “runs” are among the worst rewards and unlocks I’ve ever seen. All it accomplished was getting me to replay Shredder’s Revenge and Streets of Rage 4, two games that completely embarrass this sorry little thing.
It’s Jurassic Earth Defense Overwatch War Z and it looks like it should be bad but it isn’t. I can’t be anything but impressed by that.
Aliens: Dark Descent is well designed and badly built. At once a brilliant collection of wonderfully presented ideas and a defective debacle, it could have genuinely been a Game of the Year contender were it not such a shambles. I love this game to the point of being enthralled. I’m angry at this game for costing me hours of progress. I adore what it so often is. I despise what it so often does.
Final Fantasy XVI is all over the place. It’s a game of incredible highs and distasteful lows, boasting such a narrative trainwreck of disarranged ideas it’s borderline incompatible with itself. Endeavoring to tackle themes of fascism and slavery would be laudable if the result wasn’t inelegant at best and offensive at worst. The frustrating, exhausting nature of XVI’s miserable narrative is countered by notably enjoyable combat, impressive setpieces, and truly stunning boss encounters. When it’s not boring, it’s exhilarating. When it’s not exhilarating, it’s insulting. When it’s not insulting, it’s delightful.
Street Fighter 6 has made me the happiest I’ve been with a game in quite some time. As somebody who always wanted to play fighting games but whose neurodivergence prevented them, the new Modern controls and consistent approachability is simply joyous. Brimming with personality, immensely gratifying, and packed with a shocking amount of content, I’m still rather shocked by exactly how hooked I’ve become. It’s just a shame Capcom’s insistence on pernicious monetization lets the welcoming effort down, because besides that I have no notes. Street Fighter 6 is the fighting game I needed.
Amnesia: The Bunker is a pleasant step up from its predecessor Rebirth, but it all too often falls into the problem many horror games have - resource management and monstrous harassment are balanced in such a way as to inspire annoyance more readily than fear. For much of its campaign, The Bunker is an absorbingly gloomy experience with a nice sense of rhythm to its progress and an effective illusion of dynamism in both its monster and environment. This is somewhat offset by enforced backtracking, a piddling inventory, and an embarrassingly rubbish flashlight. If it had expanded its promising ideas and balanced its threat-to-tedium ratio better, this could have been a fantastic experience. But, y’know, it didn’t do that.
Daedalic had an opportunity to prove the cynics wrong when so many people wondered what the hell the point of a Gollum game would even be. Instead, they handled this with such utter clumsiness they likely ensured a game like it will never happen again.
I’m thrilled Respawn gets to make full, single-player Star Wars games. I want to see more, and I want more Jedi installments, but I desire a far more compelling baseline experience, and I bloody need the official cantina game that Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has inadvertently filled me with a longing for.
The Legend of Zelda: Tears of the Kingdom is indeed a game with two faces - one welcoming and the other viciously hostile. While it features a wealth of content, brilliant innovation, and genuine incentives to play with its toys, the spectre of its predecessor’s pernicious encroachment on fun is dispiriting in its ubiquity.
Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun absolutely delivers on its promise of 40K-meets-Doom. Its guns are deliciously punchy, the chainsword is a consistent thrill to wield, and everything is presented with fantastic period graphics and a suitable riff-heavy soundtrack. The game’s overzealous commitment to one single note is a sadly undermining affair, eventually transforming an exciting experience into one that runs out of content long before it runs out of levels. Nevertheless, it’s fundamentally entertaining for as long as one remains invested, and I definitely had enough of that entertainment to feel like I got what I wanted out of it.