The Jimquisition
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Overall, the core of Marvel vs Capcom Infinite is there, but it feels significantly held back by its adherence to only use MCU marvel characters. It hampered the roster and character design, two constant elements of the experience, and it's hard to overlook those and see the strong fighting system underneath.
Overall, I must say, I was really impressed by my time with Mario + Rabbids: Kingdom Battle. It's a polished X-Com style game that removes some of the obtuse layers to ensure the early gameplay curve is accessible, uses humor very well, and kept me coming back for more.
Sonic Mania is a brilliantly staged celebration of the past that acts as a true sequel to the Genesis line of games.
Ultimately, I can only say I had fun going back to Crash Bandicoot, even if I found myself wanting to toss my controller at certain points and that notorious sky bridge level is still one of the absolute worst pieces of interactive crap you could ever suffer.
Perception is miles better than the myriad "me too" horror games saturating Steam, but it's certainly not exceptional. Underneath the visual style – and it's ultimately just an aesthetic choice – is regular ol' walk-and-talk horror game that manages a little panache but contains no material of substantial value, be it narratively or interactively.
Arms is a really weird game. At its core it's a simple, accessible fighting game with a really strong gameplay loop and room for player growth competitively, but a pair of fundamentally flawed control schemes, a lack of decent modes and a glacially slow random unlock system for items that fundamentally change how characters can function make it a really tough package to recommend.
While that core combat is still strong, I'm personally getting a bit weary of Tekken relying on it's barely changed core combat to keep it relevant in a world where fighting games are fast evolving into vastly more rounded products. Tekken 7's combat isn't bad, it's just a bit stagnant, and I don't know how much longer it can get away with that reliance on not fixing what ain't broke.
If it had controlled better and its "emotional" bullet points didn't come off like "sad indie game does a sad thing" convention, the potential is there for this to be an all-time great. As it is, RiME offers a fantastically designed world with some neat obstacles and a superb linear flow, held back by technicalities and instances of the banal.
Overall, Injustice 2 takes a strong fighting game, delivers an incredibly rewarding and lengthy single player that feels like a priority rather than a tacked on afterthought, and considerably increases the scope of the game by adding in a vast number of well made additional characters to the mix. Sure it hits the uncanny valley a bit, and I'm not keen on the loot boxes or their DLc plans, but it's hard to deny how much fun I had with the game at launch.
It's good to see the back of Prey.