Kotaku's Reviews
Pillars of Eternity II could've been brilliant were it more focused. It has a lot of good ingredients—scraps of interesting narrative, clever characterizations, a complex faction system, and pirate-themed spins on the RPG tropes of yore. The game's got so much unfulfilled promise that, even though I think it's a plenty enjoyable game on the whole, I can't help but feel disappointed by it.
Detroit tells a story of robots who look and act relatively human, making their way through a nonsense world where everyone, even the humans, doesn't actually look or act human at all. It's a fragmented radio broadcast from a valley within the uncanny valley, so many layers deep in unreality that it could never hope to make it out intact.
For as much fun as I had with the game, I expected a bit more polish.
Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is a Smash where Zelda is all of the Bros. It is bursting with the ghost of Nintendo's sweetest past.
Given the technological advances made here, and its breezier outlook on life with a cast freed from the confines of Yakuza's dense lore, I'd prefer to look at this as the first of a new breed of Yakuza game.
Even in its current seemingly incomplete state, Sea of Thieves is still rewarding.
Far Cry 5 is a flashier iteration of the past games whose newfound relationship to reality is really just another sideshow.
It is a game full of smart moments, perfect for bringing together dedicated gamers and curious onlookers alike.
Ni no Kuni II is a very good role-playing game, one full of satisfying mechanics and fun battles
I'm not angry at Kingdom Come, I'm just… disappointed. It was touted as this grand historical representation, an abandonment of fantasy for a true medieval setting, a game that would let us live the middle ages. But the game we got is just this busted, inconsistently ambitious RPG that shines in points, but falls apart in most others.
Even when completion of the game unlocks more challenging modes, Star Allies mostly serves as a reminder that Kirby games seem to function as reflex for Nintendo as natural as breathing is for you or me. This one just checks the box.
If someone expressed an interest in playing Secret of Mana, I'd first encourage them to buy a SNES Classic.
Metal Gear Survive's team managed to make a game both bad to play and fascinating to examine. Survive finds itself in small moments but is lost to grinding, mindless gameplay.
It may be a hard game, but the temptation to improve was irresistible. I didn't want to stop playing.
Battles were raging and allies were calling for help, but for once the game offered me the option of deserting the fray and contemplating the larger world around it. It's a shame that everything else in the game works so emphatically against it.
The Longest Five Minutes presents its basic fantasy tale as a series of flashbacks experienced by its amnesiac main character during the game's final battle. It takes an otherwise generic retro turn-based RPG and turns it into something special—but it could have been so much more.
The game's Minecraft trappings are somewhat misleading. Dragon Quest Builders is less about creativity and more about strategy. It's a hand-crafted, charming video game that starts off slowly but never stops feeling delightful.
Rise & Fall gets its hooks in deep, showing that the enlarged game's greatest strength may not be its scale or its history, but the sense of togetherness it inspires, and the way it drags the player down to the surface of its gorgeous world.
EA UFC 3 is closer to nailing this whole UFC video game thing than the comparatively thin EA UFC 2, but while this one has plenty of meat on its bones, it lacks connective tissue.
The things that have been simplified are things that were needlessly time-consuming in the first place...What hasn't changed is hunting monsters with beautifully balanced weaponry, and that was always the point.