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607 games reviewed
82.1% of games recommended

Kotaku's Reviews

Oct 16, 2023

Even after completing everything there is to do in Marvel’s Spider-Man 2, I still feel the tug to return and hurl myself down the streets of its New York City one more time. Its serpentine comic-book drama and explosive set pieces might not stick with me for years to come, but I will forever hear the siren call of its bustling world and the effortless grace with which it pulled me through it.

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Oct 10, 2023

Detective Pikachu Returns isn’t setting up a sequel, and while I’m glad to have some closure, I am sad to leave Ryme City. Sometimes I get tired of sending Pokémon out for battle to knock each other out, and I just want to go on adventures with Pikachu by my side. Detective Pikachu Returns is imperfect, but lets me revisit the Pokémon world I’d most like to live in. I hope, even if this is the end of Tim and Pikachu’s story, it’s not the end of The Pokémon Company doing interesting, off-the-wall adventure games that can look at this universe in fresh ways.

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Oct 4, 2023

It’s nice, in 2023, to play a modern AAA open-world video game that doesn’t feel like a slog to work through. One which rewards stealth and non-lethal tactics, too. When I was finished with almost everything Mirage had to offer—after about 25 hours—I found myself hopeful that Ubisoft will continue making not just big “RPG” Assassin’s Creed games, but also smaller, stealthier entries, too.

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Unscored - How Fish Is Made
Oct 2, 2023

There are benefits to embracing a game like that, playing catch in your mind with how often you’ve chosen wrong, and why. Putting so much value in your actions can make you feel like you really are alive. There are consequences to it, sure, but there’s also relief you identify as grief. Or, maybe, the weird, free Steam game is only a weird, free Steam game. Either way, I’ll be thinking about How Fish Is Made for a long time.

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Unscored - Cocoon
Sep 28, 2023

The thing I loved most about playing Cocoon is how often I found answers without even seeking them. It’s so keen to share its secrets with you that it works harder at creating the illusion of being lost or stuck than it does at actually trying to stump the player or leave them feeling stranded. Like a complex sequence of sleight-of-hand coin tricks, its overwhelming layers are only there to disorient you long enough that you feel surprised and delighted when the object is revealed again. And Cocoon’s tricks are ones I won’t soon forget.

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Unscored - Starfield
Sep 28, 2023

In Starfield, many might see a time-tested, signature charm. Others might see a time-worn, laborious monotony. These are fair perspectives. A game this large is hard to distill into one set of strengths or one set of weaknesses. As in other Bethesda games before it, you’ll likely have to make your own fun here, but in giving us not just a swath of post-apocalyptic terrain or a fantasy realm but an entire galaxy to explore this time, Starfield makes all the flaws and shortcomings of its patchwork world all the more glaring.

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Sep 26, 2023

El Paso, Elsewhere is both a badass shooter and a study of how people handle toxic relationships. It walks that tightrope and sticks the landing so strongly that I ended the game and immediately wanted to play it again. And I probably will, because James needs me to help him once again save himself and the world.

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Sep 20, 2023

Phantom Liberty is a succinct summation of the best parts of Cyberpunk 2077 and all the strife it took to reach this point.

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But it’s also still this. Scarlet and Violet already showed major signs of technical stress, and the bulging seams are even more apparent in The Teal Mask. As much as I enjoyed this DLC, it remains disappointing that some of Pokémon’s best stuff is being dragged down by a game engine that feels like it’s just a slight breeze away from falling apart.

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Unscored - Eternights
Sep 11, 2023

Ultimately, those final moments are the ones I leave Eternights thinking about. Where often the game feels like it’s struggling to execute its own ideas, it’s clear that it at least has ideas. It gets in its own way with what feel like expected genre pressures to undermine itself, but it knows the emotions it wants the player to feel, and they aren’t as superfluous as the gags at characters’ expense it throws out along the way. It makes me hopeful about what this studio might make in the future, because while Eternights may be imperfect, it’s clearly made by a team that wants to create moments like this game’s finale, ideally supported by games that are fully deserving of them. It just needs to work on ironing out all the wrinkles that held this game back.

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Unscored - Fae Farm
Sep 6, 2023

I’m over seeing girls’ cuteness being understood as their obedience—to social expectations, to men’s interpretation, whatever—and I don’t need Fae Farm following suit by serving us hollow chocolate bunnies, something easy to eat. Other modern cozy games have already demonstrated that the genre can handle emotional depth, and I prefer that to the worn-out Harvest Moon picnic blanket. We can wrap ourselves in something more prickly, life sims’ primarily female audience is certainly capable of complexity. Women like more than flowers and marriage. We contain multitudes. It’s not a big deal.

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Unscored - Videoverse
Aug 28, 2023

Everything ends. But we take something from the times and places we’ve left behind and carry it with us as we move forward in life. I know that the countless hours I spent on forums in the early 2000s weren’t time wasted but a crucial part of my development as a person. I probably wouldn’t be here right now if it hadn’t been for those experiences. Videoverse is a beautiful exploration of how the online spaces we inhabit and the connections we form in them can shape our lives as much as anything.

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Aug 28, 2023

Aside from being constrained by dialogue—which, for my taste, sometimes relies too much on pain to get me invested (“I tried to kill myself so many times that I can’t even [...] look at myself in the mirror,” comes up as a choice for Fortuna more than once; “If we don’t dig into the intense stuff we might as well just have a normal conversation,” she says another time)—I am powerful in this game. But in its customizable cards and in its story, in which witches are obsessed with strength and disappointing each other, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood encourages me to think about this seriously. How selfish am I? What matters more, me or my community?

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Unscored - Fort Solis
Aug 23, 2023

Thinking back on my playthrough, there were positive times where I’d notice myself admiring some of Solis’ design details, like Jessica’s rubbery glove caught in her glinting headlamp as she shielded her face from the smoggy storm, or narrative decisions, like when Jack passed his hand over a murder victim’s open eyes to empathetically close them. But they don’t create a unified image; I can neither value nor reject what I’ve done here. I put Fort Solis down confused and disengaged, with half a mind on my email notifications.

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Aug 23, 2023

The central fantasy of every FromSoftware game is pretty much the same—that through close observation and relentless practice you too can bootstrap your way to greatness, slay the dragon, save the kingdom, or solve the puzzle to unlock the mysteries of the universe. In many of the Soulsborne games this means mastering the violent gauntlet ahead of you. In Armored Core VI it means changing yourself until that death march becomes a cakewalk instead. It’s a game about having faith in yourself, even when no one else does, and becoming an ass-kicking mech pilot in the process, not because it will save the world, but because it’s cool as shit.

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Aug 18, 2023

I’m only hoping that future added content and skilled players will help Texas become, as macabre as this is, a bit more fun. Dying and reviving under a searing, neon sun is a rare opportunity; from the safety of my console, I’d like to enjoy it.

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I’m enamored by Stray Gods’ writing and art, but the thing that makes it unique is the worst part about it. Whenever I was enjoying the writing, acting, or art, the music would kick in and I’d mutter “oh, okay, here we go again” until it was time to pick my choices and direct the song one way or another. It’s such a cool idea, but the foundation is so shaky that I sometimes wish it was just a standard adventure game so its best parts could shine through. It wouldn’t have been as eye-catching or original without its gimmick, but it would’ve been a better game.

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Unscored - Baldur's Gate 3
Aug 10, 2023

I can try a new playthrough and build things back up and game the system to get the “better” outcome where the dice roll in my favor every time. But there’s something kind of beautiful in a messy playthrough that you can’t experience more than once as each permutation becomes more apparent with each replay. For now, this imperfect outcome is mine, and I want to maintain that memory of my Baldur’s Gate 3 story. At least for a little while longer.

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Unscored - Overwatch 2
Aug 10, 2023

But the missions aren’t that long, especially if you’re playing on an easier mode, and their replayability is questionable. Though, its value is subjective—maybe you don’t want to spend $15 when you’ve already spent on skins or previous battle passes, or maybe you’ll buy this set of story missions and decide, whenever the next ones are released, to pass, or maybe you’ll love the missions and want to challenge yourself ot beat them over and over again on increasingly harder difficulties. It’ll be interesting to see how players react to this new PvE content.

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Unscored - Atlas Fallen
Aug 9, 2023

Deck13’s latest can’t get off the ground. Like the sandy ruins filling its world, the best parts of Atlas Fallen feel buried beneath the same open-world junk you’ve already done in a bunch of other games.

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