Kotaku's Reviews
Microsoft Flight Simulator is as much a platform as a game
Even with all its changes, THPS1+2 perfectly captures a moment in time. It’s a damaged Polaroid photo scanned, digitized, and lovingly retouched. It’s gravel picked out of a scraped knee. It’s a night of sleep untouched by nightmares and insomnia. It is, as it always was, just what I need in this moment.
Crusader Kings III may begin in what we used to call the Dark Ages, but it’s a Renaissance for strategy gaming in 2020.
Most importantly, Carrion’s smart. It’s an extremely finely crafted game, so much so that you’re essentially playing a meat-smeared Metroidvania without a map, and you won’t even miss it. That’s quite something.
Origami King might not be the successor to Thousand-Year Door for which fans have been clamoring, but this time the formula works, allowing the series’ great writing and worlds to shine through.
At its core, it’s just another open-world game.
Iron Man VR would have been better off being smaller, focusing the game on telling a story and using the suit in interesting and fresh ways. Instead, it focuses on being a big combat simulator that’s too clumsy to enjoy.
So many people worked on this game for so long and at such cost, that I want The Last Of Us II to be more than the experience I had.
I enjoyed a lot of Maneater, even if the repetitive missions grated on me.
If Found… does a beautiful job of letting me vicariously experience Kasio’s life while inspiring me to contemplate similar moments in my own life as well. The beautiful illustrations, framing, and score make this game truly special and well worth checking out.
I will continue to play an absurd amount of this game in the years to come, and I’m glad to fit it into rotation when deciding which in the series I want to dive into with friends.
This isn’t a gimmick or reskin of XCOM. This is something great that stands on its own.
Final Fantasy VII Remake is not what I expected. It’s a grand, ambitious, beautiful experiment, a bold new take on a game that millions of people remember fondly. It sometimes feels shackled by the weight of two decades worth of expectations, but it handles those restraints with aplomb. I certainly can’t wait to see what’s next.
It takes last year’s Resident Evil 2 remake and hones it into something meaner and more intense. Embracing the chaos leads to an intense and confidently executed Resident Evil experience.
The ripping and tearing is as good as it has ever been.
Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.
This sequel does enough to justify standing on its own merits, though, finding a cozy spot between its rival’s offerings. I’m normally always playing a game like this in my spare time, and I’m confident that this is the one I’ll be playing a lot more of through 2020.
I know this can’t last forever. But in the meantime, I’m going to absorb as much from my time here as possible in the hopes of taking at least a little bit of Aurora back with me.
With Will of the Wisps, the Ori series’ focus has widened. While some of the details have blurred in the process, the result is a game that’s much more expansive while even more magical and heart-wrenching than the original. That’s coming from someone who just spent 15 hours with a bug-riddled early review copy. I’m guessing it’s even better fixed.
Nioh 2 is a big improvement on an already impressive initial outing. With more weapons and powers, combat expands into something truly special, while the story holds more emotion and impact.