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Everything in Requiem is bigger, bolder, and better than Innocence was. There's more variety in which players can approach situations and it plays and looks great. It offers a fantastic narrative with bigger stakes and conflicts, as well as a bigger cast of characters and complementary tools. And it only leaves you wanting more, which is good, because by the end of the game, you'll wonder where A Plague Tale goes from here. After the events of Requiem, the possibilities seem abundant.
Alternatively, players might be drawn in by the challenge, the unwillingness to be bettered by a videogame. And, moreover, there are lots of difficulty/accessibility settings, though the game will still require your focus. Like golf itself, PGA Tour 2K23 is deeply challenging and requires a great deal of patience; like every good golf videogame, it's a technically competent recreation that captures the spirit of the real thing.
This game is more than just trying to cater to nostalgia. It is one of my favorite games of the year, and if you do have $30 to spend, I assuredly recommend Disney Dreamlight Valley.
I can't recommend Metal: Hellsinger enough. Its badass presentation, satisfying gunplay and genre-defining soundtrack prop up an otherwise solid rhythm game to new heights. Sure, the cracks that come from a limited budget and small team show here and there, but those cracks are so hair-thin that its ripping score and tight loop cover them up in style.
Allowing it to weather or crumble under your second guesses is part of the process, but what remains after all that is probably something true and real. That is the care of being a critic. Even detestable homage deserves that respect.
Despite some gaffes, one of its biggest strengths is that it achieves exactly what many AA titles set out to do by delivering on a somewhat uncommon genre that has largely fallen out of favor. Soulstice may not reach the highest echelons of character-action bliss, but when its art direction, mechanics, and score are in harmony, it scratches an itch that only this brand of stylish spectacle can.
If you do play 2K every year, you'll be treated to gameplay improvements in fluidity of motion, shooting physics, and defense. It's a prettier, better-handling game than last year with the awesome addition of MyNBA Eras. It feels like a major step up after some years of critical backsliding. Here's hoping they can maintain the momentum.
It might not nourish your body, but it nourishes your soul, each taste leaving yet another joyful memory. The wrapper may be different, but the insides are still the same consistent and sublimely tasty treat. You don't mess with the perfect junk food; they changed the flavor of Coke once and it almost caused national riots.
From kinetic combat to the occasional fun Easter egg, it gets so much about the genre right. Unfortunately, the game severely lags in the elements that most other games in the genre get right. If you've already burned through Sifu, TMNT: Shredder's Revenge, and Streets of Rage 4 and want another action game to tide you over until Bayonetta 3, Midnight Fight Express' richly-animated brawls will satisfy, though probably not as much as those before or after. However, if you're looking for over-the-top action that toes the line with comedy, interspersed with cheesy dialogue and twists pulled from an old pulp thriller, you owe it to yourself to play Midnight Fight Express.
Is it a repetitious, randomized roguelike that rewards a player's persistence, or an optimized golf simulator that promotes patience and planning? It's not really either one, instead standing in the middle of the two options: a golf game that simultaneously wants you to be efficient with your swings while also taking as many as possible. And if you really want to get out of hell, you will be swinging a lot. To that I only have two things to say: Godspeed and fore!.
The Last of Us Part I is the best version of one of the best games of all time.
You look through the film, and while a lot of it seems unimportant, you slowly begin to see a world larger and deeper than Marcel herself. Without spoiling anything, all I will say is that once the narrative emerges, it's one that you can't pull yourself away from. Given the complete control the player is given, it's a feat of execution Half Mermaid deserves all the credit for.
Maybe a release every other year with DLC and roster updates in between? You can still charge for that stuff. My greatest sadness is that this product makes me anxious about what EA Sports College Football will be like. If it's anything like the new Madden, it'll be a decent time on the field and a slog in the dynasty mode, with everything geared toward getting players to pay for digital trading cards.
I even kind of care about "the True Ending" that's tucked away behind social links. Soul Hackers 2 is graceful and breezy enough, while still being a meaty monster-collecting dungeon crawler that I've been thinking about my return to Amami City the entire time I've been writing this review. Maybe this is the game I actually make good on that impulse.
Reinvention can just as easily be a prompt for a bold new swing, and while Saints Row feigns one or two, it could stand to commit more fully to them. This retooling/reboot/reenvisioning doubles down on the past in an intentional, if short-lived, nostalgia play, but there has to be more there, right? If we should see more of these Saints-and I earnestly do want to-I would hope it would be with something fresh to say or show. Until then, Saints Row still has some growing to do.
Monolith has come a long way since Xenogears and Squaresoft, and Xenoblade Chronicles 3 is evidence they're still going to have places to go without needing to find a new developmental process or bosses, too. Whether it's the "best" Xenoblade or not doesn't matter as much as the fact that it fits in wonderfully with what already existed, and ensures that we should be looking forward to whatever those next steps for the series end up being, too.
It's fitting, then, that the championship's final subverts the expectation of the long, silent stroll through the hall by kicking the music in as soon as you start moving forward. This time the nerves are left in the dressing room. She's revisited her footsteps time and time again until she's ready for the grand finale. After tonight, everyone in the crowd is going to remember Kara Hassan's name.
The game itself is also incredibly fun. It presents a tight gameplay loop that's enthralling and welcoming for newcomers and refreshing for fans of the genre. Compare it to Smash all you want, but Multiversus seeks to innovate rather than imitate, and it does so with aplomb.
It drops all pretenses and weaves conquest and violence of various forms (spiritual, physical, and systemic) into its systems and simple story very satisfyingly. At the end of the day, your cult leader is little but an avatar for destruction masquerading as a hero. How much more of a videogame could you be at that point? And for that frankness alone, Cult of the Lamb is more than deserving of high marks.
How much you enjoy South of the Circle will be determined by how much you like to engage with games on an intellectual and emotional level. It's a tricky balance to strike, but once it's beyond the first scene, South of the Circle has a lot more substance than its first impression lets on. It might be light on traditional gameplay, but it knows what it wants to say, and stays focused on that throughout.