There remains about Pokémon Brilliant Diamond the glint of something far gone, and there is something warmly reassuring about the place.
Indeed, if, like me, you have a weakness for the zombie-hued, and for the sway and flail of first-person platforming, then Dying Light 2 is easy to recommend.
Whether OlliOlli World charms you or chafes at your patience will depend on your appetite for such whimsy.
Most potent of all, there is a strain of urban fear running through its design—not of monsters but of the city itself as an isolating entity, rendering you unreachable.
Not that this is something that has to be endured. The underworld may be outglowed by the freaky fogs above, but so what?
In the end, Gotham Knights is, like the studio’s earlier contribution to the saga, Batman: Arkham Origins, a decent game haunted by the notion of not being the main event.
Nonetheless, even when the trappings are more traditional, as they are in Return to Dreamland Deluxe, Kirby is Kirby.
Frankly, it’s a relief to see real neck-biters treated with the proper pulp care. Arkane Austin gets right to it: teeth, claws, and clear agendas.
Lords of the Fallen is enough to tide you over until the next Soulslike, and it has some arresting sights, but it lacks a focus of its own.
Fluid platforming and frenetic combat, with some lovely spectacle and a dull story.
A Legofied open-world racer of bright humour and drift-heavy handling, scuffed by baggage and busywork.
An open-world Hawaii and a generously spirited racer, chafed by always-online irritations and a lack of originality.
With the license gone this is the beginning of a new era, but it feels like business as usual - for better and for worse.
Faced with a declaration as longing and impatient as "It's About Time," I can't help but think, Is it?
It was clearly forged from a love of Solitaire, and even its failures feel like restless, riffled expressions of that love.
Sadly, that string of hours, spent clambering up towers and defogging the map, bounding across the fields in a hopeful, happy loop, was the last of the fun on offer.
Far more than the combat-whose charm ebbs away on a tide of repetition after the first few hours-the draw of The Falconeer is its suggestion that, while we may be shaped by our stories, they don't pin us down, that the mere act of living is to take flight from the past.
The puzzles compel, while the narrative stalls, and there is something worthy in that mismatch. I only wish that breakup at its core yielded something worth holding on to.
In that image lies the appeal-and for some the off-putting twinge-of Oddworld: a bleak and black-hearted concoction, laced with snickering humour and shot through with hope.
Taro's approach is of a restless rarity; he swaps genres as though trying to scratch an itch.