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Football is played on the field and this is clearly where the development team focused with Madden NFL 25. The changes to the physics are meaningful and can create opportunities that weren't previously available in the series thanks to BOOM Tech. Getting a perfect hit with Hit Stick 2.0 can be satisfying thanks in part to sound of the pads and the visual cue. Receiver and defender interactions when going for the ball are engaging and the offensive line play is fantastic. The steps EA has taken to make Madden look and sound like Sunday are clear. The holdback comes down to the same experience with the modes in the game, albeit some surface level changes. The new broadcast options and the presentation updates help Madden NFL 25 to feel different.
Black Myth: Wukong is a phenomenal, enthralling and imaginative experience that’s a must-play for anyone who enjoys Chinese mythology.
While the more randomized elements of The Crush House can make it frustrating at times, this "thirst-person shooter" still delivers quite the unique and fun experience. After all, how many games can claim that they provide a challenge in seeing if players can find a way to capture three butts on camera at once while also getting a glimpse of the Success Slide in order to please both the Conspiracy Theorists and Mega Fans? Throw in a good spoof of reality shows with a memorable cast and some bright '90s Malibu visuals, and you have something worth toasting over with a nice glass of Crush Juice...
Deathbound is a game that has a lot of great ideas that seem amazing on paper, but few of them actually end up hitting the mark. The clear high points of this game pretty much all relate to the setting, the story, and the characters presented, but even this is marred by the goofy vocal performances and the frequency of the swearing in a bid to seem edgy and cool. But in the end, the game is dragged down by a wonky multi-character combat system, a messy health system, an all-round unresponsiveness, which is a death warrant in a Souls-like such as this, and the fact that the game's performance is enough to make you throw in the towel before you even have a good reason to write the game off. It feels like a game that would have benefited from pivoting to an all-out hack-and-slash format because, despite labeling itself as one, Deathbound simply doesn't have the polish or the attention to detail needed to truly call itself a Souls game.
While the writing is a little generic and the voice acting isn’t perfect, Eden Genesis still has a considerable amount of charm. Some voice acting is much better than the rest, so most characters' voices will be hit or miss. It's still fun to see the story unfold, but during some periods of the game, the writing can start to be a drag or might just not click for you. Eden Genesis is still a fun game to play and the gameplay loop is top-notch. The trials we are given to complete start easy, but grow into legitimate challenges that will take many tries when you're looking to get the best rank possible.
Ticking all the right boxes to keep one engaged, yet doing little else to stand out even in the confines of its own series, Cat Quest III provides a competent, at times charmingly so, quest for better loot and better opportunities to use it all on. How well you fair on that latter objective will depend on how detrimental you rate a kind of simplistic combat, whose only true barrier to entry are the gear numbers the game ends up dictated by. Yet even with this reliance on player levels and hidden numbers to deducw, what it may lack (or deliberately ignore) in depth, it makes up for with a sufficient loop of activities to hunt down and well-implemented visuals on top. Whether a fan of the series prior or entirely new to what The Gentlebros usually cook up, Cat Quest III still manages to make its island-hopping adventure, a curious one all the same.
Thank Goodness You're Here is a resounding triumph that showcases how comedy and gaming can thrive in perfect harmony. This ability to be at the heart of this interactive comedic experience enhances the belly laughs, the surreal silliness is a joy to behold, and the level design, ever-changing environment and exquisite animation all play their part as well. It's a title that captures the essence of small-town British life and then pushes the stereotypes to the nth degree to offer over-the-top characters and gags that will live long in the memory. It is an admittedly short experience, but it's one that serves as a blueprint for anyone who wants to create a game where humor is the USP.
The updates to gameplay make Bounty Hunter feel modern, fluid and accessible, though the legacy controls are still there for purists. It would have been nice to see a remaster or remake that fixed additional quirks and greatly improved the presentation, but as a $19.99 port, Aspyr has delivered enough changes and updates to make Star Wars: Bounty Hunter feel like the game it always should have been at launch. Star Wars: Bounty Hunter is one bounty you’ll want to bring in alive.
Nintendo World Championships: NES Edition is an interesting idea for a compilation, but it's hard to enjoy when so much of it reveals a game that blatantly feels rushed, be it in its weak online modes or the uneven spread of challenges with little variety. There are definitely nice challenges here to tackle that put up a good fight, and hints of clever inclusions like the Classified Information guides, but there's too little here at the moment to keep anyone hooked beyond a few hours at best. Sorry Nintendo, but this won't even get you the bronze.
The Star Named EOS delivers on creating a world basking in colorful delight, but is shadowed by a lack of gameplay direction. For those who don’t mind the look past that, the game is sure to please those who love an atmospheric experience within the world. With captivating music and animation, The Star Named EOS brings forth a story that's told through its character and design.
The heart of the game, though, is that it just feels good to tinker with electronics, with almost no penalty for experimentation aside from the bomb levels that run on a generous timer. A few hours with its logic and you'll be putting together intricate machines while prodding at the shape of a solution, hooking up multiple components of varying complexity with only a bit of rewiring when it doesn't quite go to plan. The dozens of parts and change in puzzle style for each chapter of the story keep Linkito moving along from start to finish, and it's hard to stop before every last bit of stray content is fully solved.
The Operator is a thrilling and fast-paced debut into the indie simulation scene. While the game may initially appear to be a simple investigation simulator, its snappy pace and intriguing narrative quickly draws players in within the first thirty minutes. While the alien parts of the game feel disconnected from the rest of it, it's not enough to draw away from its better elements.
Hot Lap Racing succeeds far more than it fails as a more serious racing game on the Switch. It's hurt a framerate-wise by the hardware, but still manages to control nicely with digital inputs being recognized on either controllers with purely digital inputs or analog. Controlling the cars feels natural and that plays into the harder-than-usual difficulty that makes the player get better to excel and doesn't offer as many options as other modern-day racers to ease the burden. Veteran racing fans will probably appreciate that approach to an extent, while the inclusion of many kinds of driving challenges evoked more of the fun of Project Gotham Racing than the more laborious classic Gran Turismo license tests. It's a flawed, but fun racing excursion on the Switch and offers far more racing variety than its contemporaries in the Gear Club Unlimited series.
EA put all of its chips into College Football 25, and it truly paid off. People are buying consoles just to play this game. It's a cultural phenomenon and the experience that's provided isn't replicated anywhere else. All the new additions to help make the game stand out including Wear and Tear, Turbo Mode, different coverage shells and added hot routes for pre-play, and basically everything added isn't just a gimmick, it's a substantial change. While some bugs and logic need to be addressed, College Football 25 is undoubtedly the most fun football game to come out in years. Everything College Football is here.
Final Fantasy XIV: Dawntrail excels in its promise to bring exciting new jobs and combat scenarios to the New World. Unfortunately, it falls short of expectations when it comes to the narrative, which ends up being a mess of issues.
An easy-to-grasp premise coupled with a campaign with an abundance of clever twists and turns, Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess stands as one of Capcom's most interesting ventures into smaller-scale experiences yet. A game that doesn't shy away from its smaller stature, yet never feels like it's sacrificing the quality of production we've come to expect and praise Capcom for. Some great artistic use of color and lighting on top, only emboldening further a game that feels miniature yet grand at the same time. The surprise isn't that Capcom can excel just as well on newer, smaller-scale projects. It's that for a premise revolving around a combination of combat, real-time tactics, overhead management and tower defense-style adaptation, Capcom and Kunitsu-Gami: Path of the Goddess have found a way to make such anxieties of the Strategy genre a still-perilous but altogether more exciting and interesting path worth taking.
Bō: Path of the Teal Lotus is, plain and simple, one truly superb and expertly-crafted metroidvania game. The cast of colorful characters ends up leading to quests that feature impressive gameplay that encourages exploration as you eventually discover more of the world, the action is superb and challenging with a lot of fun movement, and it all looks dazzling as you take in all of the sights of Japanese mythology, depicted here in such a charming style. If you're a fan of the genre, you need to check it out. And if not, consider Bō a good place to start.
SCHiM is a game that initially shows a lot of promise with a truly unique concept that is realized through expert-level design and makes the world around you feel believable and dynamic. It's a blast to hop around and enjoy the lazy afternoon tunes as you experience a quaint, if rather unremarkable, silent narrative. In the end, however, the game fails to squeeze all the juice out of this fantastic concept, offering far too much filler content to pad the experience and not enough unique puzzles, engaging platforming challenges, and environmental gimmicks to justify the number of levels present. The optional challenges and collectibles will appeal to some who are able to make their own fun, but overall, SCHiM feels like a wonderful proof of concept that fails to achieve its true potential.
Unfortunately, Flock is hard to recommend. The game design is repetitive and confusing, not leading players enough to where they're supposed to go or what they should be doing. There's a lot of beauty to be had with Flock, which will attract many, but don't expect a fun game behind its beautiful exterior. This is a game I wish I could have liked more but found myself scratching my head, even raising my voice for a few moments.
While there's a chance that Anger Foot might not make a perfect first impression, it's recommended that any players keep at it, as what lies within is very well one of this year's best FPS games. A twisted gem of caffeinated action that never lets up and finds new ways to challenge players while still keeping things accessible to all, this is one shooter that plays like bizarre dream that's filthy and candy-coated at the same time, with great humor, visuals and an intense soundtrack to boot. One way or another, metaphorically or literally, you'll get a terrific kick out of it.