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As a "director's cut" or a "take two" of the original games, these Ultra revisions really do hit the mark, and directly address some narrative and mechanical flaws that Sun and Moon had.
Doom for Nintendo Switch is a technical feat. Come for the shooting, stay for the heavy metal.
The Frozen Wilds is a fine example of quality post-release content
The key to games is what they do in response to our actions. We put ourselves into these things through button presses and the decisions that we make, and how we feel about them is dictated by what we receive in return. Ideally, that receipt will be something we can classify as fun, no matter how vague that term is. Like so many Nintendo games, fun is definitely the primary product of Super Mario Odyssey, and the sole reason it exists. Cool: The Mario game is good.
Ultimately, while I hope that the writers at MachineGames continue to think about how the narrative of the series might be refined in the coming years, Wolfenstein II is a superb and impeccably designed shooter. I have my misgivings about some of the finer points of its message and how it is delivered, but nonetheless it's a masterfully balanced blend of action, heart and campy extremes that make it one of the strongest virtual entertainment experiences of 2017. Wolfenstein II is a masterpiece.
Like real life, this game will overwhelm you. The key is to find your own way through it as best as you can, whether it's beelining straight to the next key milestone or taking the time to wander and discover both your neighbors and yourself. It's a familiar adventure, but not a forgettable one.
One thing that The Evil Within has done right so far? Improved with its second game. Let's hope that's one element of the formula that repeats with the inevitable third installment.
It ain't perfect, but it's the best Jackbox has to offer.
I wasn't surprised to find that the game had little to offer after the credits rolled, and that's fine. A South Park game doesn't need to be Skyrim; it only needs to spout ass jokes and politically incorrect caricatures at any given frame, and in that, The Fractured But Whole succeeds wildly, with tight, coordinated scripting from Parker and Stone. If watching a near-day's worth of an interactive adult cartoon isn't your bag, literally any other competent RPG will fill that crack, though.
If you played Metroid on the NES, Super Metroid in the early '90s, or any of the other two-dimensional Metroid games made for Nintendo's handhelds over the years, Samus Returns will be an instant jolt of history, an immediately recognizable old friend that might have picked up a few new tics and traits but is still largely the comforting presence you've known for decades.
Ultimately the game provides too much nostalgic satisfaction for me to be upset by its conventions, no matter how punishing or familiar they may be. Style may not always offer substance, but in the case of Cuphead, I'm satisfied.
But unless it's another one of the game's lies, Killing Harmony ends definitively enough that I'm content viewing it as more of a deconstruction of the killing game and perhaps a commentary on Danganronpa as a franchise than the beginning of a new story. It's not quite as profound, but it is daring. For that, Killing Harmony earns my respect, if not necessarily my adoration.
While new content will drip in over the next couple years, right now you really have to take seriously that Destiny 2 is like a microwave: you know exactly what it does, and it does it well, but you can't expect it to do more than that. It's very hard for me to look at the past five or six years of console and PC games, and then the things that are announced for the next six months, and think that I want to fully integrate Destiny 2 into my life as my primary entertainment appliance. It would be so easy to do so, but the cost of committing to this thing over any other thing seems so high.
Ultimately, I want to enjoy Before the Storm as much as I did Life is Strange, but I think some serious shifts will have to take place between this episode and the next in order for me to really get onboard.
"Easy to learn, hard to master" is the worst cliché possible, but Windjammers really evokes that feeling for me. I feel very comfortable handing the controller to anyone with a passing interest in games, or no interest at all, and knowing that they will figure out how frisbee tennis works. They'll also have a good time.
At its core, Nidhogg 2 is still Nidhogg. And you can turn off the new weapons and still fence your way across a castle stage if you so desire. But unless you're a hardline hater of Nidhogg 2's sludgy aesthetic, the sequel enhances the formula across the board. Don't be put-off by Nidhogg 2's rainbow slop, there's still a silly white-knuckle, slay-your-friends action game underneath the mess.
Borrowing from roguelikes, your character has one life, and the game is mostly about preserving yourself and leveling efficiently so that you can defeat the appropriate bosses so that you can win the game. This was not something that I found particularly interesting in itself, but I tend to not be super excited about games that are fundamentally concerned about making numbers go up. Lots of people are, and if you're one of them, you should try out Kingsway immediately.
As a spin-off and follow-up to Saints Row 4, Agents of Mayhem is an imperfect start that wields enormous potential. The agent-switch mechanism is so effective in encouraging player strategy that I'm not willing to write it off yet. But if there's anything to learn from Volition's past, it's that the pressure to reinvent and outdo itself is still very much on, and even more so now with Agents of Mayhem's future.
From the beautiful and lively opening animation to the start screen, it immediately felt both comforting and fresh like putting on a pair of brand new pajama pants. I'm glad they took a chance on getting developers who originally started work on Sonic ROM hacks because they really nailed the feeling. This is what nostalgia should feel like and hopefully this leads to more excellent reboots of Sega properties.
My sole criticism is its length. Given how tied up I was in the suspense, Tacoma's short play time seemed almost merciful, but I would have liked to have spent more time with each of the characters (even the AI, Odin), or get a more thorough exploration of the game's intriguing conclusion. That being said, Tacoma is remarkable and I look forward to the impact it will have on narrative devices in videogames.