Housed somewhere deep, down, inside the framework of XDefiant is the kernel of an interesting idea. Merge all our shooters. Could work. Doesn’t sound like an awful pitch. In practice though, it is a lesson in financial greed done wrong. XDefiant barely, if at all, wants to be an actual game. It’s yet another vehicle in a growing laundry list of them where it feels like the right way to play the game is to insert your credit card.
Open Roads is an engaging yet familiar road trip story, that makes the smart decision of banking most of that experience on the relationship between both leads. With good voice acting and exceptional art direction, I overall enjoyed my time on the open roads until the credits rolled.
Where the game excels, however, is in its combat which starts off slow but eventually builds to a fast-paced precision hack and slasher that is wildly fun to play. With incentives like a massive collection of outfits to collect and some side quests built on the world even more, Stellar Blade delivers on its key promises with gusto and doesn’t leave you disappointed.
TopSpin 2k25 had about 13 years of hype behind it for Tennis fans which, lets be honest, is unfair. Ultimately, it was not the return to form that many were probably hoping for. There are plenty of things that Hanger 13 got right with their first serve of the legendary franchise, the most important thing being that the gameplay is really good, and that matters most.
What you get is a brilliantly crafted world with tons of fun to be searched out on your quest. A narrative that delivers one of the best of shogunate politics, complete with engaging historical figures. A deep and customizable leveling and gear system that rewards experimentation
There is an enjoyable game here, buried, somewhere, wanting to break out, but it’s not highlighted even before you factor in those issues. The AI was bad and often hindered you, and there wasn’t much more than what the game promised on a base level. If you’re looking to unwind for an hour or two, here and there, Taxi Life: A City Driving Simulator might fit the bill.
This is the most complete version of Final Fantasy that has been released and it isn’t even the complete Final Fantasy VII story. There is so much here that should influence the franchise moving forward and, more importantly, to enjoy in the here and now, that I can’t wait to see where we go next.
Skull And Bones is a pirate game that cuts out almost every aspect of being a pirate. This isn’t horrible if you like ships but if you were looking for the complete experience you will need to look elsewhere. It features a bland repetitive gameplay loop, all dependant on a run where a player 10 levels above you doesn’t feel the need to shoot you just because they can. This means you can either spend way more time than is enjoyable completing a task because you can’t find the drops, or because you dropped them in death.
Yes, the gameplay can be tedious with combat that is repetitive and grindy, that’s less rewarding than I would like. However, the experience makes up for that with an interesting world that rewards you with an interesting narrative seeped into every aspect of exploration, and a more well-crafted than not Metroidvania.
Despite any flaws that the game does have, it succeeds far more than it fails and that is important. It makes me want to go the distance, the next floor, the next social link, the next day, till the world ends. I can think of many new features I hope to stay part of the series, and I even hope to appear in Metaphor Re:Fatazia, Atlus’ next title which will also be released this year.
All that being said, this is the best the franchise has been in a very long time. When it hits on the best elements of the series it does so with gusto and gravitas. I sake over 100 hours into this game and I just want to sink more and more. I want to see everything, I want to do everything. I feel like a tourist, which is always what Like A Dragon has done best. This is a great game.
Another Code: Recollection offers a flawed experience that in its core gameplay can come across as dated, which isn’t a bad thing if you are willing to accept that these games were released in the 2000s. It is harder to accept that, when you see just how much work went into updating it for a modern audience when they could have probably gotten away with half the work that went into it.
There have been 13 years between Alan Wake and Alan Wake II and Remedy has been perfecting their craft with each passing year, culminating in a Horror game that is everything you could ask for. Scary when it needs to be, outlandish when it wants to be, emotional when you least expect, this is Remedy at their absolute best.
Caught between the modern mechanics of the series and the traditional, It’s hard not to say, if you are an Assassins Creed fan, then Assassins Creed Mirage should have enough to keep you engaged.
The game is Unique, creative, and beautiful, with a great cast of characters. Its worst sin is failing to perfect a genre that there really isn’t anything to compare it too in.
Oxenfree II: Lost Signal had some pretty big shoes to fill so it's no wonder it falls short. In the end, however, I am not sorry I took the journey and that was really all the game needed to accomplish
There is something here, and maybe that’s the worst part about this. All I wanted was stupid fun mowing down dinosaurs but the game constantly gets in its own way.
In summation, as stated at the beginning, King of Fighters XV does little to reinvent the wheel. However, the wheel is pretty great and so is the game.
Sifu does two things extremely well. The first of those is its callback to the old school era of Kung Fu movies I grew up on, with the second being delivering a brilliantly crafted and breakneck-paced combat system that manages to be enjoyed long after other elements of the game wear thin.
Rainbow Six: Extraction manages to deliver a welcoming experience in the cooperative shooter category, differentiating itself from the other games on the market through its tight gunplay, challenges, and enemy encounters.