Kirk Hamilton


41 games reviewed
72.2% of games recommended
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Oct 25, 2018

This game has heart; the kind of heart that is difficult to pin down but impossible to deny. It is a wonderful story about terrible people, and a vivacious, tremendously sad tribute to nature itself. There is so much beauty and joy in this expensive, exhausting thing. Somehow that makes it even more perfect—a breathtaking eulogy for a ruined world, created by, about, and for a society that ruined it.

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Sep 21, 2018

Most every task the game has set before me has been entertaining, challenging, and rewarding. Yet I feel my former student's weariness mixing in with my usual optimism. There's always something else to go do, but on the other hand, there's always something else to go do.

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Unscored - Dead Cells
Aug 6, 2018

When a game is as finely tuned as Dead Cells, that tuning is all it needs. I've found its punishing, live-die-repeat rhythm plenty engrossing without a narrative wrapper, to the point that more of a story might just be a distraction.

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Unscored - Hollow Knight
Jul 5, 2018

It does not reinvent; it refines. It does not rebuild; it polishes. It contains few ideas that I haven't seen in other games, yet it feels fresh all the same due to how much care has been put into every character, every battle, every frame of animation, and every square inch of its massively minuscule subterranean civilization.

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May 24, 2018

Detroit tells a story of robots who look and act relatively human, making their way through a nonsense world where everyone, even the humans, doesn't actually look or act human at all. It's a fragmented radio broadcast from a valley within the uncanny valley, so many layers deep in unreality that it could never hope to make it out intact.

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The Frozen Wilds doesn't revolutionize or even significantly expand on the best ideas introduced in Zero Dawn. It succeeds in a more straightforward way: by giving us more of an already fantastic game.

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Oct 26, 2017

Assassin's Creed Origins is ungainly and uneven, beautiful and frustrating, expansive and unexpectedly conservative.

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Unscored - Destiny 2
Oct 3, 2017

This is clearly a high point, the highest since The Taken King launched nearly two years ago. It's a red-carpet welcome for new players and a slightly bittersweet payoff for those of us who've been there from the start.

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Aug 17, 2017

Lost Legacy tells a winning tale of friendship set against a backdrop of gorgeous mayhem, and it might even teach you a thing or two about Indian history along the way.

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Unscored - Persona 5
Mar 29, 2017

This game will take many, many hours of your time. In exchange, you'll get a terrific, pulpy story told with style to spare. Persona 5 took nearly 100 hours of my time, and I gave it gladly.

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Jan 31, 2017

Arkham Knight almost certainly won't be the last great Batman video game, nor must it be. But after watching Bruce Wayne and his clown-faced nemesis wink out of existence one last time, I feel I've seen what I came to see. I can crinkle up my ticket stub and shrug into my winter coat, exiting the theater without a look back for whatever secrets or teases may await after the credits. It's over. This was the story of Batman, and it was good.

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Unscored - Gravity Rush 2
Jan 10, 2017

I can’t summon the necessary bile to truly dislike Gravity Rush 2, nor can I summon the necessary warmth to love it. In the aftermath of its grand finale I was exhausted in every way, happy to have gone on such an epic journey and just as happy that it was finally over.

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Unscored - Watch Dogs 2
Nov 17, 2016

A significant improvement over its predecessor, filled with challenges that tested my problem-solving skills. It compensates for its technical shortcomings with a raft of interesting new ideas and a near-endless supply of things to do.

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Hitman: Season One has it where it counts. Its ten missions consist of far more hits than misses, and its open-ended levels are able to sustain hours of obsessive repetition and mastery. The overarching narrative may be unimpressive, but each location is well-conceived and believable, full of fascinating details and hilarious overheard conversations.

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Nov 3, 2016

In some ways, Dying Sun reminds me of Gunpoint, the terrific single-developer stealth game from 2013. While the games share little in common in terms of style or mechanics, both take a couple of good ideas and expand on them in smart ways without adding flabby padding. Both feel guided by a single vision, and both left me wanting more when the credits rolled.

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Nov 3, 2016

In some ways, Dying Sun reminds me of Gunpoint, the terrific single-developer stealth game from 2013. While the games share little in common in terms of style or mechanics, both take a couple of good ideas and expand on them in smart ways without adding flabby padding. Both feel guided by a single vision, and both left me wanting more when the credits rolled.

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Sep 28, 2016

Rise of Iron is an arrival, a remix, and a remembrance. It puts a sloppy bow on the Destiny we’ve been playing for two years, introducing a final chapter that will stretch until Bungie wipes the board clean and starts fresh with Destiny 2. It’s fun, in a funereal sort of way.

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Aug 22, 2016

Despite its various shortcomings, Mankind Divided remains a worthy sequel to Human Revolution and one of the clearest signs yet that the immersive sim has returned to the top of the gaming heap. Whatever disappointment I felt about the limited narrative scope has been offset by the many surprises hidden in its wonderfully winding city hub.

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Unscored - No Man's Sky
Aug 17, 2016

First I didn't like it, then I did.

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Jun 7, 2016

Catalyst is at its fleet-footed best when it barrels forward and sticks to the rooftops, but it never manages to fully shake the cookie-cutter corporate nonsense its rebellious heroes claim to despise.

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