The Jimquisition
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If you’re sick of all the military shooters vying for your attention but still want an honest, straightforward FPS experience, Hard Reset has the cure for your fever.
Despite my grumbles, I have to admit Sun and Moon gets its hooks in even if it’s tough to get into at first. Once it clicks, it can instill obsession as well as any prior game, and that’s before getting to the new minigames and features that only serve to make the adventure more rewarding.
In its current form, Resident Evil 7 is a damn fine game. Damn, damn fine. Although it initially looks like a desperate chase for Outlast‘s credibility, it slowly reveals itself to be more of a traditional Resident Evil adventure than one might believe, while taking successful elements from contemporary horror games and utilizing them effectively.
With three great games and additional content that some would say is even better, The BioShock Collection is worth picking up for pretty much anybody interested, be they existing fans of totally fresh to the series. Despite some annoyances, each game runs better and looks better than ever before, and the content to price ratio is more than favorable.
Despite a few missteps, Valley is an overall rush of an experience. Taking cues from BioShock with some Fern Gully on the side, there are few games that can claim to put players into the metal legs of an interdimensional necromantic freerunner, and be bloody infatuating while it does so.
Until Dawn: Rush of Blood may be a brief and silly spin-off, something far removed from 2015’s fantastic adventure game, but it’s the most fun I’ve had with a virtual reality game to date, and it’s just a brilliantly entertaining pop horror experience with enjoyable shooty-bang-bang combat.
RIGS: Mechanized Combat League joins Until Dawn: Rush of Blood as one of the very few virtual reality games I’ve truly come to enjoy. The head-track aiming system works great, the combat is engrossing, and it’s a remarkably comfortable experience even after extended periods of time with the PSVR clamped on.
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.
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.
Super Mario Bros. Wonder is like a rapid firework display of ideas that never stops dazzling, throwing curveball after curveball and never lingering on a single concept. There’s something to be said for gameplay that doesn’t outstay it’s welcome, but often is the case that Wonder’s twists and tricks barely make it through the threshold before they leave, never to return. I’m impressed by what Wonder does, amazed at its drug-like wackiness, and left with a longing for some of that stuff to stick around longer than it does.
Lords of the Fallen comes with some big caveats - it's designed to ambush the player in really snide ways, its boss distribution is erratic, and it really needs a proper map. Despite these annoyances, I’ve been utterly entrenched in a beautiful world, hooked on solid gameplay, and inspired by exquisite art direction. The persistent multiplayer is a treat, while the two-sided world makes for some clever navigation. It might be fundamentally unoriginal, but it heaps of ton of stuff onto that foundation.
Turnip Boy Robs a Bank is a very good thing. Adorable, silly, and quite funny indeed, this roguelite might be a big genre shift from its predecessor but it’s just as lovable. It hurries itself along a bit too much, but the fast pace of gameplay and swift progress at least ensures it never gets dull.
If you’ve been frustrated by the state of some retro horrors, or even if you haven’t, this is a fine addition to the genre that deserves to be ranked highly among the modern examples. Aside from those bastard traps, it’s a damn good bit of body horror.
The fact this prequel hasn't been phoned in, and actually improves upon the prior groundwork, only further demonstrates the care that has been put into this particular iteration of the esteemed shooter series. I, for one, hope Bethesda keeps MachineGames working on this property for many years to come, as it's quite clear the folks there know damn well what they're doing. And what they're doing is making nazi-killing fun again!
Sons of Winter continues the high quality set forth by the previous episode, as Game of Thrones now looks set to be on a consistent track. The plot's driving forth at an effective pace, the characters are each growing in their own unique ways, and things end in a way that promises a lot of huge things for episode five. If you've been following along with the series up to this point, you'll definitely be gripped by this one.
Gared's story culminates in a wonderful sequence that, again, I cannot detail without ruining things, but rest assured this is one of the finer climaxes Telltale's done. A stylishly paced scene of conflict that should definitely satisfy some need for justice – and lord knows this story could use some justice now and then.
It's a great game. One I almost hate. One I find spiteful and cruel and perhaps even somewhat abhorrent. A game that's beautiful as well as hideous, that makes me feel queasy while keeping me thoroughly fascinated. Like a bizarre medical experiment, or a mime silently eating its own hands.
Splatoon may not offer much "content" out of the box, but it does offer enough reason to keep coming back to it, hungry for more. Despite a simple idea and a handful of maps, this eccentric shooter does – as the game's irritating in-universe TV hosts declare – "stay fresh."
Captain Toad: Treasure Tracker isn't going to blow minds with its humble presentation and laid back puzzling, but it's still got plenty of imagination and some really sagacious architecture in its level structure. There are moments that tread water, but overall this is a smart puzzler that ought to appeal to most folks. You can't really say fairer than that.
It's a shame that there's such a reliance on cooldowns and it's an uphill struggle to keep resources growing, because RealmForge put together some real quality work here, and Dungeon Keeper fans have something well worth sinking their teeth into.