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The remade “Resident Evil 4” feels more vibrant and present than just another rerelease of a technical product. It’s like reliving a fond memory. It’s like coming back to your childhood bedroom after all these years. Fittingly, the original series started as a remake, of the 1989 role-playing game “Sweet Home.” And even if some of the pieces are moved around, the new version still feels like home, sweet home.
Ultimately, the lore isn’t the main attraction, and isn’t the reason the Zelda series has endured for almost half a century. What’s more compelling is the game’s nod to the collective story of how human imagination pushes us through our toughest challenges, and sometimes sends us soaring to heights unseen.
The technology may fail, but the human experience as a messy, impetuous thing remains. Because of that, “Starfield” makes the right sacrifices.
In a sea of exemplar video games released in 2023, “Alan Wake 2” is the work most interested in pushing the boundaries of its franchise, its genre and even its medium.
Final Fantasy VII Rebirth is so good, it nearly wrecked my life.
The PlayStation 5′s ecstatic new platformer matches childlike wonder with high-fidelity visuals and physics
While I’m playing “Death Stranding 2,” I keep thinking how it is the latest in a proud tradition of art that expands horizons and helps you identify with the beauty in life and living things, even as the truth of it all eludes us. If you care about that, consider this review an urging but friendly recommendation. Trust me, you’ll love this.
Its world is deceptively large, too, with dozens of side adventures and locations to explore. “Clair Obscur: Expedition 33” is a must-play for anyone who appreciates turn-based RPGs, and it’s an immediate entry to the upper echelons of the genre.
Final Fantasy XVI remains an eloquent, sturdy work that achieves almost everything its creators hoped. It is not the most innovative Final Fantasy ever made. It’s just one of the best.
The problem arises when you may realize what I did: I’ve felt all this before.
The game is truly a combination of work hard, play harder — sounds a lot like college.
To get a game this innovative, charming and polished just over a year after the remarkable “Tears” is miraculous. I can’t wait to see what the next Zelda game learns from this one. Its echoes will ring long after the credits roll.
Mortal Kombat doesn’t need to and probably shouldn’t “grow up.” Eternal adolescence is the point. But to stay young, it just needs to shed the old.
Here is “Stellar Blade,” an authentic slice of Korean cyberpunk, like Eve, beautiful in its own absurd way.
A strong reminder why the Ubisoft formula became so influential, so reliable and so popular.
At $50 and about six to eight hours of play total, “Hellblade II” is worth a peek if you’re interested in what games could look like in the future. Imagine an “Elden Ring” that looks like this! Will I live long enough to see it? So I’m grateful “Hellblade II” exists today to give me a glimpse. I just wish it had a little more to say, and gave us a little more to do.
Studio MDHR’s “Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course” provides players with a five-star meal. As I picked my teeth, let out a final sigh of relief and felt full from my experience, I can only hope that the DLC’s name was just a play on words — and that there’s still room left for dessert.
For a dystopian narrative, “Stray” isn’t interested in preaching to the player. It doesn’t try to make grand statements about mankind’s hubris or shortsighted innovation. Instead, it walks you through a living, breathing city where robots have molded their own society from the ashes of another, and lets players make of humanity’s self-destruction what they will. And that impression will stick with you long after the game ends.
After playing for more than 40 hours, I’m still mesmerized by the core gameplay loop of building up my tool kit and adjusting my approach to take on new, more powerful machines. More than that, though, I’m mesmerized by the world.
This pairing of humans and the natural world up against a common antagonist, not necessarily as allies but as common victims, makes it clear how intimately Norco is tied to the swamps, valleys and fields that surround it. This interconnection between individuals with little in common on the surface but a shared place and history is where “Norco” locates the possibility for hope, a provocation that might offer those of us playing a model for our own local responses to corporate encroachment and environmental devastation. Through these mutually affecting connections between humans, nature and technology, “Norco” creates its own robotic story, disturbing, personal and fresh, an experience that should not be missed.