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I had a really great time making my way through Resident Evil 7. It was a smart move to borrow from the last decade of horror-ass horror game design. Distancing it from its recent action game past gave me anxiety, but ultimately made me happy.
Yakuza 0’s overarching faithfulness to its time and place in history provides fascinating insight into the time, and its over-the-top cutscenes and climactic fights quickly endeared me to the series. A hefty batch of side-games and engaging, well-paced combat roped me in and sold me on my first ever Yakuza experience, but the vibrancy of its semi-fictional Japan will be what I remember most. Yakuza 0 doubles-down on series’ signature combination of hyperbolic action and self-aware comedy, while providing an honest window into a major period in recent Japanese history, and does so flawlessly.
Rise & Shine has all the markers of a hit indie game. The gun’s add-ons, a series of upgrades that include a special curve-the-bullet ability, give the game an individualistic “hook”, and the art style is funky and appealing. If you approach it with the expectation of being entertained, you probably will be. But if you’re looking for a game that will reinvigorate your passion for the innovation of the indie game scene, look elsewhere.
Ultimately, these first couple episodes show a promising beginning, and I’m excited to check out the rest of the season when it appears.
While I found myself frustrated at points few and far between, I enjoyed my time with Dead Rising 4. It’s a charming, fun romp through a zombie wasteland who sets itself apart from other zombie stories with a sense of humor while still paying homage to those that came before it. If you’re looking for a merry time this holiday season, don’t be caught dead not checking out this Christmas slay ride, as Frank West would probably say.
Regardless of a few messy puzzles, the way The Last Guardian communicates this message is worth paying attention to.
If you’ve messed about on the Wii U game and simply need to make 2D Mario Levels on the bus or in your bathroom, the 3DS version fits the bill. Otherwise, you’ve seen most of this circus before. If, however, you have never participated in the glory that is mucking about in an interactive toolkit for one of gaming’s most revered franchises, Super Mario Maker on 3DS becomes something like an essential backpack, or deserted island, companion. Long may you run.
There is no doubt Final Fantasy XV will be divisive, but in not playing it safe, the game earns a bit of my heart back with each errant monster hunt or one-off gameplay section. It's messy, but earnestly so, like that high-school mirror selfie. Recalling all the good and bad, the moments that make you cringe and a warmth that makes you smile, you know not everything was perfect. You can only say you're glad you chose to make the journey.
At the highest points, Call of Duty has evoked the flavors of films like Sicario. They show you the shape of things, and they present a messy world that soldiers make their way through. Sadly, the narrative of Infinite Warfare is closer to something like White House Down, a series of black and white tropes that merely tell us the same stuff that we knew already: we’re good, the enemies are bad, and we can murder the world into the shape we want it to be.
Alola has been a restorative psychic retreat for someone in need of such a virtual vacation, though. A part of me has donned a lei and swim trunks, sipped a Pinap Juice on the beach, and stroked the soft fur of a tiny, purring machine of violence as I flipped through my Pokédex and thought with some satisfaction at its relative completeness. Even for someone who didn’t know a Snorlax from a Smeargle, it has been a much-needed balm.
I think that Watch Dogs 2 wants to say a whole lot about the contemporary world, but it never moves away from generic statements like “information good” and “military-industrial complex bad” to say anything specific. In fact, it has some profound convictions about not saying much at all. The positions it lays out remind me of competitive debate: forcefully presented but never all that convincing.
Titanfall 2 is a constant delight. There were many points in the game where I audibly exclaimed how cool and awesome something was. I am hyped to play more of it and I definitely want to play through the campaign again. With a glut of first person shooters being released this season, Titanfall 2 stands out as something that should be played with its fantastic campaign and enjoyable multiplayer.
For now, it’s safe to say that Civilization VI represents a golden age for the series.
If you’re like me, a thirty-something long-time Final Fantasy fan looking to recapture some of the magic you once felt around pretty teens and saving the world, there’s a game coming out for you next month, and it’s called Final Fantasy XV. Fingers crossed.
Eventually you have to let go of that life, like a mother bird watching her chick leave the next, and find a new frontier to conquer. I mastered my domain, but my clockwork castle will continue without me. Where Minecraft leaves you as Ozymandias, a lonely king overlooking an empty empire, Dragon Quest Builders finds joy in the journey, and provides all the right nudges and motivations to keep you moving on, to build a legacy that will outlast your presence in it.
Its developer is afraid of settling down for even a moment, worried that players will grow bored with even a second of necessary peace. This approach works in the meat-grinder of multiplayer and the series of American corpses of its opening moments, but fails elsewhere. The result is a game pulling in all directions, aesthetically coherent, but with a muddled design ethos that allows it to come near something extraordinary without ever quite achieving it.
But comfort breeds complacency, and I hope that as The Coalition gains confidence in their take on the franchise, they continue to push. Gears of War 4 reinvents my favorite game type, plays cheeky at the best times and gives me a cast I can get behind immediately, rather than gradually. This isn’t a grand departure, but it’s a start; for now, that’s enough to keep me coming back game after game, wave after wave for more of what only Gears can do.
I would say it's best to enjoy this game as a slow burn. It's presented as a documentary and I think it's best to be enjoyed as a documentary series where you take control of the action and play for a few hours here and there. The message that it has to say about blackness, revenge, and racial tension in America is a nice change of pace from the bloated landscape of other open-world games, and a vital one in 2016.
My favorite moments in Reigns came from making a critical mistake and watching my regime crumble before my eyes. The knowledge that no error would bring my experience to an end kept me entering every situation with an open mind, rather than trying to preserve my kingdom. I sent a lot of good men to their deaths in Reigns, but I still feel better about myself than if I had spent that time on Tinder.
Pac-Man, Dark Souls, the best Metroids and Marios and Zeldas—the true classics, the cornerstones of the medium that have made an indelible impact on how we play and think about games. Thumper is right up there alongside them. It is an essentially perfect realization of its own unique goals and concerns, and a game we’ll be playing and celebrating for decades, even if it leaves us afraid and confused.