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Party Animals presents an overall fun and chaotic experience that will have players laughing with their friends. The characters are cute, the boards are fun and the multiplayer aspect is a plus. However, since the release date, not much has been added which makes the game short-lived with content and can demotivate players to pick this title up again.
Despite its incredible art direction and pixelated visuals, The Last Faith fails to encapsulate what makes its inspirations so brilliant. The plethora of poor and frustrating game mechanics and design choices, combined with technical performance issues and lack of accessibility options, makes this one of my biggest gaming disappointments of the year.
With four playable factions, excellent writing, and a compelling setting, Warhammer Age of Sigmar: Realms of Ruin delivers a solid RTS, albeit one that takes little risk. A handful of bugs and design choices may hamper the fun, but it hits stride when it lets you be powerful and unrestrained.
While the UI takes a huge step backwards, new ways to play are a step forward, making Just Sing 2024 is a marked improvement over both predecessors.
Tales of Arise - Beyond the Dawn might not be the most necessary followup ever made and you've seen this kind of story told in RPGs many times before, but it's still delightful nonetheless. Combat remains a blast, the story is thoughtful with a fantastic final boss, and the world feels like a realistic impression of what a year after global slavery would be like. Beyond the Dawn is exactly what it should be, nothing more and nothing less.
A showcase of what's possible in VR, Assassin's Creed Nexus VR delivers a completely unique foray into the world of Templars and Assassins, but in a first person perspective, and frankly, there's nothing quite like it. While the Quest 3 isn't up to the task, making for some wobbly frame rates, the game is thankfully a nausea-free experience you'll want to experience.
Teardown has some cool tech and ideas behind it but is too structured and restrictive to give the player the freedom they crave.
Although a lackluster campaign and reused content holds it back, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare III has a few great tricks up its sleeve. The multiplayer engages in a way its predecessor missed the mark, and open-world Zombies is exactly as entertaining as it sounds. There's more to be desired as a whole, but as rushed as it was, MWIII has solid elements that can be enjoyed.
In summary, Persona 5 Tactica offers a great story with engaging factors, vibrant colors, dynamic art styles, new characters, and music. It masters a compelling story while also presenting older and nostalgic characteristics of Persona 5. With a fresh new coat of paint, Persona 5 Tactica is worth it to suit up as a Phantom Thief and liberate the worlds of the Metaverse.
Everything about Move It! feels like it should work, and when it does it's a lot of fun. The problem is that doesn't always work. Some rotten apples in the microgame selection and the Joy-Con hardware's awkward fit with the overall concept muddy up an otherwise good time. Given the discombobulating nature of WarioWare, some muddying can be acceptable up to a point, but Move It! occasionally crosses the line from being playfully antagonistic to frustrating for the wrong reasons.
Fashion Dreamer dives into the deep end of sandbox gameplay and loses a lot of charm in the process. Having everything available from the get go is nice, but it lacks any motivation to keep playing after the first few hours. Making outfits is a ton of fun, there's just not much to do or see outside of that.
Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is a huge step up from the original. While far from perfect, it's an incredibly fun and silly time especially online with friends. When playing solo, there's still a wealth of things to do too - it's just an all around good time, despite the jank or perhaps because of it.
Red Matter 2 builds on the solid foundation established by its predecessor, giving us even better visuals, more interactivity, and all new devious puzzles to solve. It's a true showcase of Sony's PSVR2 platform, and a fantastic sequel to boot!
PowerWash Simulator is a perfect fit for VR, and incredibly relaxing. It has more than a few flaws, like difficult to read text and some minor movement issues, once you get in the zone you'll be there until you take the headset off.
Like a Dragon Gaiden: The Man Who Erased His Name is a great interlude before Infinite Wealth comes out next year, with its throwback to the franchise's classic real time beat 'em up combat in the shoes of Kiryu. The narrative does take a step back, and the new characters aren't as memorable, but there's plenty of bizarre and addicting side activities to partake in on the streets of Sotonbori or at the Castle.
Conrad Stevenson's Paranormal P.I. immerses players in New Eidolon's numerous haunted locations and history. Although hunting ghosts can be tedious, the game always excels with its ghost stories and they always finish in a satisfying manner. However, if you just glanced at the Steam page and thought it looked like Phasmaphobia, then you're going in with the wrong expectation. It'll be like expecting milk and getting orange juice.
Achilles: Legends Untold is a serviceable indie Soulslike experience with an isometric camera angle that doesn't introduce anything revolutionary. Don't be fooled by the Diablo-esque visual style either, because this is not a dungeon crawling looter. There's no doubt that the game is in a much better state than it was in Early Access, but it still suffers from some core issues with its gameplay mechanics.
The Talos Principle 2 is a philosophical puzzle adventure game that's also thought-provoking and has a deep narrative. It takes the foundation laid by the first game and expands on it in every way possible.
Star Ocean The Second Story R is a wildly inconsistent package, with the ending portions falling off greatly in quality, but still a mostly fun game. Battle and its surrounding systems can have a lot of variation depending on your party and how you choose to play. However, it lacks polish in many areas making it very difficult to want to finish.
Just like RoboCop himself, Rogue City is only human, but it's still pretty great. With an intriguing narrative and stellar side missions, exploring Old Detroit is a real treat. Gunplay feels heavy, and engaging your friends and opponents with words as well as bullets is satisfying. In a year filled with blockbusters, this is a cult classic.