Joey Thurmond's Reviews
Just like Ico and Shadow of the Colossus, many will grow fond of and be inspired by The Last Guardian for years to come. It's a fairy tale that pulls on the heart strings with a whimsical world, provoking childlike wonder at every corner. After being in the stream of development for so long, it surfaces with dings and wear in the form of an unrefined camera and controls. Some unclear objectives and strange puzzles may be evident as well, but with a profoundly intriguing and lovable AI companion, stirring score, and captivating scenery and animation, it's easy to see why this anachronistic anomaly was far too unique and precious to stay under forever.
[Hyper Light Drifter] imaginatively exudes...personal ruminations on loneliness, pain, and temporality across its story, visuals, and audio. However, silver linings of beauty and perseverance can be found between the dark lines of its thematic consistency. Further substance comes from its full world that will quicken your heart rate with its hyper combat or lower it with calming treks and views that captivate. This is an adventure that may feel too safe and even aimless for differing reasons, but you'll never want to lose sight of the light on the horizon that compels you to keep wandering…drifting onward.
Minor conversion issues aside that can likely be solved, Darksiders: Warmastered Edition has the intrinsic fortune of being a timeless looker with its distinct visuals, which benefits from appropriate resolution and performance buffs that bring it up to speed. A fantasy world that retains its wonder and gracefully aged gameplay easily ensure that this game's horseman can confidently cometh again.
Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare has a lofty reputation, and aside from some telltale signs of age, it remains thoroughly impressive even today. This game remains a legend to be revered for its grounded, focused gameplay that will scratch an itch for anyone longing for simpler, purer shooters. Modern Warfare Remastered celebrates this legacy with updated visuals and sound that really go above and beyond the call of duty, sprucing up an old care package for a more modern age to near-perfection.
The patient, cunning mindset Aragami puts you in with its strictly stealth gameplay is something we long for with more titles. With simple yet smart level design and mechanics, it proves to be a focused title with heart and soul that has learned much from its old masters. But the game does lack polish in its performance and appearance, and the AI can be irritating at times. Fortunately, the release's story, visuals, and sound design ultimately help lift it out of the darkness.
Jotun: Valhalla Edition is an epic to experience, but more for its memorable destinations than the journeys to get to them. The gorgeous sceneries and animation combined with the amazing, authentic audio make its bosses something that should be hoarded like Fafnir's gold. Even though the gaps between bosses leave more to be desired with disappointing exploration, Thora's tale is one that manages to enter Valhalla's gates with an adequate amount of flying colors.
It's an accomplishment in itself that Attack on Titan: Wings of Freedom is a robust, sensible game that does the beloved show justice, and it should be the groundwork guiding potential sequels. Commandeering any character is an absolute joy with the excellent control scheme and host of activities that fight for your attention on the battlefield, but this initial depth gives way as the title runs low on gas several hours in, failing to refuel and catch up with your sustained interest. Initially, fans will eat this one up – the story and visual presentation acting as delectable dressing – but even the best of meals lose their allure over time if that's all there is to swallow.
Metrico+ is one of the smarter puzzle games we've touched in a while. Its brainteasers will force you to think outside the box with a steady flow of fresh challenges, which illustrate the clever creativity that powers it through and through. Its spick-and-span art style and appealing soundscape also manage to divide and conquer, with small yet noticeable improvements across the board that round it out well.
I want this franchise to excel, but just as the first game struggled to get off the ground, Catalyst struggles to soar as well. The core gameplay and artistic direction have vastly improved for this entry, and while it explores new territory with an open world and a grander narrative that act as solid foundations, they're squandered since little is built atop them to make this game tower above its peers. Despite these letdowns, DICE now has an even better framework to construct a phenomenal sequel, and I earnestly hope it will seize and run after this opportunity. I have faith in Faith's future, but her time to shine hasn't been struck just yet.
The game does boast high production values with its show and captivating graphical effects, which are aided by a thoughtful story that tackles time travel with a logical, thematic bend. However, most of this obscures half of the boring characters and the show's focus on mostly uninteresting side characters. The audio may be great all around, but the fascinating visuals and gameplay are marred by unfortunate limitations, respectively from a technical and imaginative standpoint.
You aren't just a cog in the machine here. You act and feel like an essential piece of the puzzle to victory [in Overwatch], which produces a sense of belonging to teams and thrill I haven't had with any sort of multiplayer game in a long time, especially one that manages to be uncannily accessible. It contains oodles of replayability with a gorgeous, charming art style and animation, superb sound design, and modes that never grow stale. This is easily one of my top contenders for 2016's game of the year. Let alone this generation of consoles.
Umbrella Corps is a brain-dead mess of good ideas gone wrong. It partially hides its flaws underneath a veneer of pretty graphics and promising gameplay concepts, but it can't hold up under its own weight in execution. Patches may iron out some of our grievances, but conflicting mechanics, dumb level design choices, balancing issues, technical problems, and shallow content plague this shambling title to the core, ensuring a quick burial with single-player missions that are a mere afterthought. This isn't just a bad Resident Evil game, but a disappointing multiplayer shooter; a spin-off that feels like little more than a lazy cash grab.
DOOM may become repetitious near the end and doesn't take needed risks with mission variety, but it boasts some of the finest shooting mechanics and thoughtful levels we've seen in a first-person shooter in years, pushing it to the very fringes of excellence. The campaign's a head-banging, heavy metal hoot with a surprisingly good backstory, striking visuals, and two decent multiplayer-minded modes to back it up. We'd dare say this could be the Dark Souls of its genre, gripping you with its nonconformity while unleashing its own kind of glorious Hell upon you. However, where this illustration falls apart is how you can raise Hell in return, going on the power trip of a lifetime to rip and tear through legions of demons.
[This is] a game I admire yet refuse to sugarcoat because of its deep flaws. There's no question it's visually and aurally excellent with its balanced performance and graphics, confident aesthetics, persistent sound effects, and phenomenal score. It may also feel perfect to play, but the seams fall apart when examining the lack of objective diversity, bosses, and standout moments that rarely raise the execution of gameplay to creative or clever lengths. [...] That sounds damning, doesn't it? Yet I can't help but highly recommend this game because I had a blast with it.
Broforce is everything awesome about action films amplified to a satirical degree that will leave you grinning non-stop. The tight run and gun gameplay never outstays its welcome with a steady stream of fresh bros, locales, and challenges. Fine-tuned visuals and audio serve to make its patriotic bent all the more entertaining, and even though performance issues knock the game down a peg for now, there's not much else that keeps this guilty pleasure of a game from resounding triumphantly like fireworks on the Fourth of July.
In Too Deep is a stepping stone to introduce Michonne that detrimentally plays it safe. There aren't any advances in Telltale's formula or notable sequences that we haven't seen in other forms before, but the miniseries can be a cut above its predecessors if it takes advantage of the brutality and moral centre of the protagonist by embroiling her in more memorable confrontations with both the infected and the living.
Whether you act upon fight or flight, the restrictions imposed on the moment-to-moment gameplay never fail to make sneaking or making a scene filled with excitable tension. While some design choices, a lack of diverse objectives, minor issues with the controls, and passable characters will contribute to varying bouts of boredom, it's more than worth to see Amanda through to aurally and visually absorb every second of the distinct retro-futurism that Creative Assembly perfectly replicates and improves upon.
We extend our sympathies toward Frozenbyte since Trine 3's weaknesses are due to unforeseen costs that exceeded its budget, but this doesn't alter the reality of the game's state. While it may surpass expectations as a picturesque fairy tale come to life with a lovely score and promising tale, your childlike wonder will fade and be cut short due to abrupt closure, trite puzzle-solving, and dumbed-down gameplay that spells a fumble for this middling entry.
Darksiders II was one of the more memorable titles from the previous generation, with breathtaking, mythical settings supported by interesting characters, fascinating lore, and snappy gameplay. This very decent Deathinitive Edition includes all of the DLC and commendably improves the assets and lighting effects, but it gets slightly cut down by our scythe of criticism for minor glitches and framerate woes.
Super Meat Boy is an exercise in patience. You may in fact deplore it in the first one or two hours due to its unforgiving gameplay and level design, but if you take the time to consume much of what it has to offer, you may just acquire a taste for it.