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A combination of fun, fairness, beauty and joy, Mario Kart 8 is absolutely brilliant. A botched battle mode and some missing online features stop it short of perfection, but it's hard to imagine any Mario Kart game looking, playing, or sounding better.
While its concept is unique, its execution leaves an incredible amount to be desired. Unfortunately, the mystery of Ronan's murder is not nearly as thought-provoking as the mystery of when Murdered: Soul Suspect will be offered at a discount.
The strongest aspect of Richard & Alice is how it manages to tell an engaging story in a fairly compact amount of time. Although players start out as total strangers to the duo, they find themselves quickly interested by their plight.
The Fall is the beginning of an intelligent and engaging sci-fi story, one that'll keep you on the edge of your seat throughout every tricky brain teaser of a puzzle. With an excellent cast, a visceral, thought-provoking story and some great voice acting, the narrative has plenty of drive and it'll keep you guessing all the way to its tease of an ending.
There is some initial appeal in Squids Odyssey and its simplicity is mildly entertaining if played in bite sized sessions. Ultimately, however, both the strategy and RPG elements of this strategy RPG fall flat.
I don't regret playing Always Sometimes Monsters. It gave me a bit of perspective on what it's like to live without some of my privileges, and also gave me cause to think about who I am, what I value, and where my life has gone so far.
Treated like the Second Coming, Watch Dogs has arrived riding a tidal wave of hype and has turned out not to be a momentous event in gaming, but instead just a great game. In some ways, Ubisoft has done it a disservice by creating expectations it could never live up to, as this is a wholly entertaining experience on its own terms. The campaign is massive and full of enthralling missions, the voice acting and characterization (outside of Aiden) is impeccable and it's jam packed with enough content to keep gamers satisfied until Grand Theft Auto VI.
What Monochroma gets right, however, is tone and gameplay. The puzzle platforming is fun to solve once you get the feel for character movement, there's a lot of variety in puzzle design, and some very clever level layout ties everything together.
The crux of the problem with In Sheep's Clothing is that we're still not getting much in the way of payoff. A lot of questions are answered, sure, but the episode presents itself as one final buildup to the confrontation with The Crooked Man.
Until the rest of the game is released in the form of DLC, at least, it's hard to imagine a good reason to go with Tropico 5 instead of Tropico 4 unless the addition of a tech tree gets you excited.
Though it can be vague, strange, and inaccessible, Transistor is one of the strongest games of 2014 so far. Its unique take on standard video game practices make it feel undoubtedly fresh. With strong combat, great enemy design, and a lovely story, Transistor will reward those who put in the time. Its parts are solid, but as a whole, it's a wonderfully sound, beautiful RPG that will stick with players for a considerable amount of time.
"We in the killin' Nazi business. And cousin, business is a-boomin'.
At $10, Scram Kitty and His Buddy on Rails is a solid buy if you love retro gaming and have an affinity for slightly strange game concepts. This shooter/platformer/collect-a-thon is a lot of fun, even if its mechanics take some time to get used to.
As adventure games go, The Tesla Effect is pretty average. The story and characters are quite entertaining, but the puzzles are mostly boring, and the gameplay visuals could use another coat of polish.
The amount of content, style and polish in BattleBlock Theater is incredible and puts the efforts of many AAA developers to shame. The story and writing alone could fill a comedy club, but the accessible, addictive gameplay demonstrates a mastery of platformer fundamentals.
The best game on the Xbox One is not a heavily mo-capped Roman battle simulator; it's not car porn, nor is it a parkour-filled first-person shooter. No, the flagship title on Microsoft's shiny new console is a pixelated, 2D bullet hell game, combining shades of Contra and Braid to make something incredibly special.
The Walking Dead Season 2: Episode 3 – In Harm's Way is another strong addition into an already compelling universe. While the new setting is shallow and lacks much exploration, it's the phenomenal storytelling and new characters introduced that help compel the player to move forward.
As far as games featuring bores working as gem miners go, this is by far the best one I've played. And even without that strict qualifier, Full Bore is a very entertaining puzzle game worth your time if you don't mind a more cerebral experience.
[W]hile Bound by Flame has heart, it ends up being a forgettable dull experience.
MLB 14: The Show was a great game a month ago when it came out on PlayStation 3, and it remains so on PlayStation 4. MLB 14 on PS4 is a rare year one sports game on a new console that is both significantly better looking and feature complete with the last generation version.