Kotaku's Reviews
Hearts of Iron IV is an incredibly rewarding strategy experience, letting you roll your sleeves up and re-fight the Second World War in a way that few other series have ever even attempted, let alone pulled off. Just know that to reap those rewards, you’re going to need to put in some work, and put up with a few quirks while you’re at it.
Blood and Wine is equal parts triumphant and somber, a reminder of all the great times we’ve had with Geralt and some of the shitty things we’ve done in his shoes. It’s about facing down the totality of Geralt’s in-game legacy and—instead of regretting or redoing it—coming to terms with it.
Ditching history has set this series free.
I could call the game bad for all its faults, but it doesn't even feel fair to call the game bad. It is a traditional game, featuring all the things typical games of its type feature. Glitches aside, there's little here that would convince me to tell you not to play it. I didn't enjoy most of my time with it, but I wasn't miserable either.
A breathtakingly intense shooter that drags a little towards the end.
There just isn't a lot of variety. It's a problem a lot of these MOBA-inspired hero shooters are going to run into. Traditional MOBA fans are fine with a small smattering of maps to play on. But this is a first-person shooter with MOBA elements, and first-person shooter players love their maps and modes. I know I do.
A fantastic space strategy game let down by some plodding sections.
Uncharted 4 may have problems at its edges, but its middle is phenomenal. It is a sufficiently wonderful finale for a studio that has made its own case that its next great step should be somewhere new.
Somehow makes the stock market fun.
Even after I found a way to wield its unwieldy controls, the game underneath those controls is a lukewarm retread. As a flagship Nintendo console release or even as a worthy sequel to a once-great franchise, Star Fox Zero just doesn't cut it.
The core gameplay of Star Fox Guard is nevertheless very good, very satisfying and very fun to play solo or with a person nearby shouting camera directions.
2016's turn-based Golden Age continues
Perhaps to put it more positively, play the first game if you haven’t! And then absolutely play this one.
It's often said that, as a medium, video games suck at storytelling. Stories feels like it's trying something rewardingly different, to do more than just ape the linear style of a summer blockbuster movie. It's embracing tried-and-true hallmarks of action game design and weaving them around interactive fiction elements. The result is both familiar and fresh.
As a sendoff to the series, Dark Souls 3 is a fine one. It's time for something new.
This is a game that can broaden an individual person’s horizons and that of the entire medium, as well. It’s definitely worth your time.
ADR1FT is a game torn right down the middle. It places the player in a position of imminent danger, but invites them to relax and enjoy the scenery. It gives you a fun way to jet around in 3D space, then gives you nothing to do with it but navigate corridors. It wrote and recorded an extensive backstory, but presents you little reason to care about it.
Despite how pedestrian some aspects of the game may be, I concluded Quantum Break feeling like something new had happened. Something special had happened that more than compensated for some of the flatness of the story and the mostly rote gunplay. A game simply never worked like this before, nor has a TV show. Because of that, what might have otherwise been ordinary feels extraordinary.
The Division's mechanical underpinnings are sturdy enough to make me forget how much of a bummer its story can be; its shooting and looting are slick enough to make me wonder if it still might evolve into something more inspired.
It's easy to see why so many people look back at this game so fondly.