Nathan Grayson
EA UFC 3 is closer to nailing this whole UFC video game thing than the comparatively thin EA UFC 2, but while this one has plenty of meat on its bones, it lacks connective tissue.
Pillars of Eternity II could've been brilliant were it more focused. It has a lot of good ingredients—scraps of interesting narrative, clever characterizations, a complex faction system, and pirate-themed spins on the RPG tropes of yore. The game's got so much unfulfilled promise that, even though I think it's a plenty enjoyable game on the whole, I can't help but feel disappointed by it.
Exodus isn’t content to just be one kind of first-person shooter. After an open first half focused on survival and exploration, the latter portion plays much more like its linear predecessors, to mixed results. The final two of Exodus’ four major locations suffer from their own particular issues, as well as more exasperating versions of issues that pop up all throughout the rest of the game.
I don’t see Untitled Goose Game being as replayable as close genre relatives like (bear with me on this one) the Hitman series of stealth sandbox games. But I also don’t think it needs to be.
Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.
A multifaceted story that unfolds based on how you play, sublime combat that rewards experimentation, challenges that are only as difficult as you want them to be, all the good feelings of roguelikes without a lot of the hassle.