I do think the overall shallowness is a shame, and a game that looks this interesting was begging for a photo mode. It is also great to see Sony release this title on PC and Nintendo Switch on day one, even if the console war gods still demand that Xbox be sacrificed on the altar of platform partisanship. Ultimately, Lego Horizon Adventures is a solid title for kids, or to play with kids, but it’s hard to escape the idea that those same kids are likely a little bit smarter than the challenges that are on offer here.
With a firm grip on GOTY, and a valid consideration for the best RPG of all time, Baldur's Gate 3 excels at every turn and enthralls with every twist.
The game has oodles of vision and ambition but not enough polish to make it truly inviting, especially when released into a stacked calendar.
Kratos and Atreus set off on yet another great adventure. This time the stakes manage to be even higher, and we get to watch both characters continue to develop into some of the most interesting and well-written figures in gaming. PS5 version reviewed.
Triangle Strategy is perhaps a little slow to start and is challenging for those who might struggle with cutscenes and too much dialogue, but for everyone else, you are in for a treat.
Elden Ring is just about everything that a player could want from a Soulsborne game with the scale turned up to 11. The areas in between dungeons, NPCs, and monsters all feel perfectly natural for the world, and allow FromSoftware environmental storytelling to shine, something that many open-world games fail at. When you are deep in the bowels of a castle or dungeon, you realize that FromSoftware’s excellent level design is still alive and well.
If it sounds like I am hard on Halo Infinite’s campaign, it is because I am. I expected a lot from 343 Industries and Microsoft, and I am left feeling somewhat disappointed. With the multiplayer being spun off into a free-to-play standalone with its own monetization, we are now paying full price for this campaign, and it doesn’t live up to the price tag. Yes, the actual gameplay is superb, but that alone cannot carry an entire campaign.
Ironically, despite trying to plow a very different furrow to the base game, that same rule applies to the Vaas: Insanity DLC that many folks use for Far Cry games in general. If you enjoy the combat then you will enjoy this. While it is interesting to see Far Cry explored through the lens of a roguelike, it all adds up to little more than a few hours of reasonably repetitive entertainment which is unlikely to bring any new players into the Far Cry fold.
Metroid Dread manages to do incredibly well by marrying moments of action with extreme tension and doing so from the flow of organic gameplay instead of using tools such as cutscenes and dialogue. In Metroid Dread, language is a kinetic thing. Samus Aran’s body is a moving sentence, and her weapons and abilities are punctuation. How you interact with the world you move through is how you tell your story. This is how the very best games in the series have always been and are true of all the best examples of the Metroidvania genre.
Far Cry 6 isn’t reworking the formula that has been developed over the years, but it is doing just enough to bring something fresh and new to the series. More importantly, where those elements don’t quite work is not detrimental to the game’s core experience. If you are in the mood for another action-filled story with lots to see and do, then Far Cry 6 is a solid investment.
Arkane, a studio known for designing extremely engaging and clever games, has elevated its art with Deathloop. Games like this are lightning strike moments, a combination of talent and ambition that is both rare and risky.