Kotaku's Reviews
Planet Coaster is best when treated as a giant LEGO set. A sunny, cheery tabula rasa, lying there waiting for you to go nuts in a never-ending quest to make yourself as happy as the grinning faces of the people lining up to take your rides for a spin.
For 20 years now, Pokémon games have presented fantasies where people live, battle, and grow alongside powerful monsters. In Pokémon Sun and Moon, that wistful reverie invites you take a holiday, leave your worries behind, and grab yourself a lei. As it happens with all good vacations, Pokémon found itself again.
A significant improvement over its predecessor, filled with challenges that tested my problem-solving skills. It compensates for its technical shortcomings with a raft of interesting new ideas and a near-endless supply of things to do.
The edges are rough but the core is solid. Dishonored 2 may not redefine the formula set by its predecessor, but it is still one hell of a game. The game stumbles but always manages to recover. Like a bumbling assassin that somehow gets the kill, Dishonored 2 manages to succeed in the face of almost unassailable odds.
Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare is three very different games. It’s a character-driven military sci-fi action adventure with spaceship battles and a villain carved from the finest cedar. It’s a lighthearted co-op survival game with a bitchin’ period theme and some classic tunes. And it’s Black Ops III’s competitive multiplayer with a fresh coat of paint. I suppose it’s easier to push boundaries if you take them one at a time.
Hitman: Season One has it where it counts. Its ten missions consist of far more hits than misses, and its open-ended levels are able to sustain hours of obsessive repetition and mastery. The overarching narrative may be unimpressive, but each location is well-conceived and believable, full of fascinating details and hilarious overheard conversations.
In some ways, Dying Sun reminds me of Gunpoint, the terrific single-developer stealth game from 2013. While the games share little in common in terms of style or mechanics, both take a couple of good ideas and expand on them in smart ways without adding flabby padding. Both feel guided by a single vision, and both left me wanting more when the credits rolled.
In some ways, Dying Sun reminds me of Gunpoint, the terrific single-developer stealth game from 2013. While the games share little in common in terms of style or mechanics, both take a couple of good ideas and expand on them in smart ways without adding flabby padding. Both feel guided by a single vision, and both left me wanting more when the credits rolled.
Bold enthusiasm for a game often summons skeptic or contrarians. Pay them no heed. Titanfall 2 is impressive. Its influence will ripple through video games in the same way that titles like Half Life or Halo managed in their time. Beautiful and bold, Titanfall 2 is the pinnacle of first person shooters.
What we’ve got here is a strategy game that, while preserving most of the series’ longtime fundamentals, has also found new and surprising ways—through an investment in player choice and more hands-on time with your people—to keep things interesting.
A trip back to Final Fantasy's roots with many of the friends and enemies we've made along the way
A compellingly honest look at World War 1.
After a dozen hours romping around the Skylands with Faemily, Seamusbot, Archer Rex, Bird Kirkilton and Dadcat Robot, it feels like I’ve made the game my own. This is my Skylanders.
Gears of War hasn’t changed, not really. I’m left wondering what a true metamorphosis of Gears could look like, how this series could go about defining a new generation of video games. It’s a lot to ask. Gears of War might continue as on as it has, a single revolution followed by a lifetime of refinement. It’s enough.
An occasionally frustrating open-world experience that's greater than the sum of its parts.
Color Splash is so damned imaginative and beautiful, though, so colorful and confidently funny. Even when it annoyed me, it was only fleetingly. It makes the abstract world of Mario so personable. Its gentle, playful weirdness and irreverence contrast so positively with the prevailing seriousness of fall’s big games
Arkham VR might prove to be an amusing evolutionary dead-end, a one-time theme park attraction that used the best tech available to let us pretend, however awkwardly, to stand around as Batman. It may also represent a step toward a more deeply interactive virtual reality Batman game, one that will allow us to more literally step into the impressive Batman universe that Rocksteady has built. Either way, it’s a start at best. It’s not a destination.
I like what 2K have done with this year’s MyCareer. They’ve recognised that Spike Lee’s joint was maybe too big a reach (or just the wrong man for the job), and in getting hold of talent that’s more at home with the tone and grind required for something like this, have crafted a career story that might not revolutionise the little sub-genre they’ve carved out for themselves, but is a definite improvement on 2K16's misfire.
Rise of Iron is an arrival, a remix, and a remembrance. It puts a sloppy bow on the Destiny we’ve been playing for two years, introducing a final chapter that will stretch until Bungie wipes the board clean and starts fresh with Destiny 2. It’s fun, in a funereal sort of way.
If you can handle a little (or a lot) of frustration and aren’t too hung up on visuals, Sonic Boom: Fire & Ice isn’t too bad. It manages to combine the wit and charm of the Sonic Boom animated series (your mileage may vary there) with the speed and simplicity of old school Sonic the Hedgehog in a way that doesn’t completely miss the mark.