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After playing (and dying) a few rounds in a row, I started tinkering around with a few of the game's settings and literally cackled when I saw there was a hard mode—though that's probably just the space madness setting in.
Neither issue proves to be a game wrecker thankfully, but do keep Mario Tennis Ultra Smash from reaching the heights of pure fun it might have. Just the same, if you love Mario, tennis (or Pong for that matter), Mario Tennis is still an entertaining option. For social gamers, in particular, who enjoy a good game night in front of the TV, this is a perfect choice.
As long as you don't think too hard when playing Just Cause 3, there's still plenty to like. After three iterations, however, it's really time for the series to grow up a bit more and expand the nature of the world and its leading man. Just Cause 3 can be a ton of fun, but the lack of just a little more depth causes its appeal to burn out far quicker than it should.
While Telltale's other recent games have very broad appeal, most of them are decidedly intended for a more mature audience. Minecraft: Story Mode feels like it's aiming lower… in more than one sense. It's incredibly easy to underestimate the complexity of material that younger audiences can handle, and it's something that happens constantly.
Blizzard promises that this isn't the end of StarCraft, and there are already plans for more balance updates and story campaigns. And I'll probably end up playing more of it, just to see how those plans play out. I still think I like the series' characters and world enough to check in with them from time to time. I might even go back and play through the whole series in the future. But at this point, StarCraft will have to find a newer, weirder place to be in if it really wants me back.
As fun as popping zombies in beautiful environments is, it's not enough to save Black Ops 3 from being just a miserable little disappointment, a cobbled together version of Deus Ex and Syndicate that can't do right by its pop sci-fi leanings or the series' run & gun entertainment. As someone who's always been an apologist for the series, it makes me a little sad to see that Call of Duty might finally be the creatively bankrupt game everyone believes it to be, unsalvageable even by the grace of Christopher Meloni himself.
Its individual moments might not always stand on their own, but it's amazing that something with Fallout 4's scope and magnitude remains as bewitching as this game does. Bethesda's formula is overly familiar by this point, but from a story perspective these games exploit the freedom afforded by the medium more than almost any other notable examples. Fallout 4 is built on mystery and discovery. We can charge through the main storyline as quickly as we'd like, but the true power of this game comes from exploring at our own pace, uncovering its secrets in no certain order and at no set time. Unlike a book or a movie, we can follow a specific subplot as far as we'd like before switching over to another one. We can jump between stories as we see fit, focusing on what interests us the most while ignoring whatever bores us. We can bend the story around our own preferences and desires, at least to a point. This world might be dead and emotionally sterile, and this apocalypse might be just like every other one we've ever seen, but its stories can still surprise, and that's something you can't say about most games.
Ultimately, Rise of the Tomb Raider is akin to a direct-to-DVD sequel. It apes the look and style of the original but nothing comes together in a way that's nearly as impressive. I played the reboot four times over and it remains one of the few games I've reached 100% completion, going around and collecting every trinket just because I wanted to explore every inch of its fantastic world. I doubt I'll ever touch its sequel again. It's a decent action-adventure game with some nice moments but it's also lacking in the ambition and artistry embodied by its predecessor. In the end it's merely a fun but mostly forgettable time.
Whatever qualms I might have with his prose or approach to self-promotion, I can't disagree.
Cibele, I don't think, was supposed to make me cry, I don't think it wants me to linger on how things ended. It's supposed to help me let go. I hope that I will.
It's not the gamey aspects that are remembered, but the small, personal elements that make up a relatable narrative. It just all happens to involve time travel.
If you don't mind shelling out yet more money for the new figures, Superchargers is probably the best Skylanders game yet.
On the whole Syndicate is entertaining and good at providing an enjoyable time while you thoughtlessly grind away at the completion meter, checking off lists of items and missions as you go along.
But at the end of the day, there just isn't that much here for me, even as a casual-sometimes-hardcore Halo fan. If you think Destiny could scratch the itch you have for Halo, pick it up over this game. If not, buckle in for an underwhelming mechanical retread with a so-so story framing the whole experience.
Most purposely difficult games that have arrived in the wake of Super Meat Boy, Spelunky and Dark Souls are embodiments of a failure to understand that there's more to those games than just how hard they are, often making the only thing enjoyable about them the fleeting sense of achievement you get when you finally overcome a poorly-designed obstacle through luck or trial and error. Downwell, with its velocity and elegant simplicity, does not make that mistake. It's a difficult game, certainly, but it's also a generous one, likely providing its player with great heaps of joy for a ludicrously small time investment.
It's a hard balance to strike, thematic purity with mechanical accessibility, and for what it's worth I think Rising Tide does the best that any game could hope to do with those two opposing forces as stated goals.
As long as they're running and updating Guitar Hero TV, I'll carve out time for this game. It may not be the party machine that Rock Band 4 is, but it offers something no other game, and really, no other TV station, currently does: a powerful combo of play, nostalgia and discovery. I mean, I'd never buy a Darwin Deez record, but I'm glad I've seen that video, you know?
I believe that Armello has many of the pieces of an amazing game, but those pieces don't quite fit together just yet. I think that the development team, if given the chance, could iterate on this design to hit a perfect mix of computer mediation and boardgame excitement. While Armello misses the mark for me, I look forward to whatever they cook up next.
You're probably thinking this isn't cut out for anybody past a certain age, that it's just for kids. If you feel that way about games, well, bless your heart. This is a medium where the most acclaimed and best selling games feel like the idle doodles of a middle-school boy. I'll take my light-hearted joy where and when I can when dealing with videogames, and few games are as joyous or adorable as this one.
Undertale is a special game, the likes of which come along only once in a great while. It's a look into a parallel universe—one where videogames have realized a bit more of their potential than, say, the AAA industry has in our world. It's a game that can make you laugh while teary-eyed, where both competing emotions are natural and genuine. It's fun, it's sweet; it's an experience that will stay with you long after you've put the game away.