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HomepageAll of this is precisely why Call of Duty: Vanguard is a missed opportunity for Sledgehammer Games, Treyarch, and Activision. The game suffers from an uncomfortable contradiction: the campaign and its visual cues favour newbies, while its multiplayer and its cranked-up pace is a veteran extravaganza. The single-player campaign is also unsatisfyingly short, while Zombies barely qualifies as a full game mode.
By ditching the campaign mode in Battlefield 2042, EA Dice has made the game a tiny bit more confusing and difficult for new players trying to get into the franchise. Veterans and die-hard (pun-intended) lovers of Battlefield will love it for the way it stays true to the gameplay of the older titles. The chaos of the 128-strong lobby isn't something I look forward to whenever I start the game, and I feel that may be true for most players.
Playground Games can offer up an iterative experience and rake in the money, because Forza Horizon 5 is in a world of its own. It's wonderful, but it's also sad.
[Far Cry 6] is happy in its groove, delivering a fun and immersive Latin American experience, an open world sandbox you can mess around in, and giving you the tools to do what you want. Better yet, it lets you enjoy all of that with a friend.
But even if EA does get its head out of the pile of gold, it's got troubles on the pitch too. FIFA doesn't feel like football anymore to me. To be fair, it never really was — thanks to pitch size, pace dominance, and all that — but now it just seems to be going away from the sport it claims to represent each year. Maybe a new challenger can shake things up. We badly need it.
Ultimately, Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a by-the-numbers 3D action-adventure game. It might look like a modern Zelda game but doesn't play like one. It's largely just a series of arena-based combat routines, stitched together by long stretches of traversal, and cutscenes that are well-designed but feel like a forgotten Hollywood B-movie. Too often, Kena: Bridge of Spirits reminds you of better games you've played and that it's borrowing from — which is not a good sign. There's no harm in learning from others, it's certainly well made, but it's lacking in originality. There's little personality to Kena: Bridge of Spirits, for it's adopting the sheen of others. For a debut title, this is undoubtedly a good effort — but I fear Ember Labs have played it too safe.
It's been a polished experience otherwise, yet again proving that games are better delayed than rushed. Psychonauts 2 has faced a long uphill battle, but its release is proof that some battles are worth the slog.
Skate City takes being casual a little too seriously. If you have the money to spare, but don't wish to splurge on an Apple TV, you can fire up Skate City on a big screen with its release on consoles and PC later this week. You'll probably enjoy the relaxing visuals with some lo-fi music playing in the background. If it were up to me, I'd just boot up Tony Hawk's Underground 2 instead.
When it all comes together, Outriders can be good fun. The gunplay felt a little stilted and laboured to me early on, but I've found it to be really satisfying at times, especially when you empty a volcanic-charged cartridge into an enemy's head — and they plop to the ground. And Outriders keeps you on your toes as you're constantly balancing various elements: where to find cover, dodging grenades, when to jump back out, who to target first, how to maximise your powers, and working with your squad. Outriders was built with co-op in mind and that's when it comes alive. It's nice to have a friend to lean on, and that goes for Outriders too, as they can help revive you. In fact, some of our most intense conversations have come out of debating when it's a good time to attempt to revive someone.
The era of the PlayStation 5 and the Xbox Series X has arrived, but Cyberpunk 2077 is currently running on those next-gen platforms via backwards compatibility. A true next-gen update isn't due until sometime in 2021. That means CD Projekt Red developed a game for three platforms, and it's running on an acceptable level on just one (PC), provided you have the hardware. That is just plain ridiculous.
For all the deserved flak coming Immortals Fenyx Rising's way for delivering a brazen Zelda clone, the Ubisoft game deserves some praise for executing most of the ideas well — and even adding to them.
Assassin's Creed Valhalla is too much of the same thing, and it's not nearly engaging enough.
If the sticker price isn't a concern, in Spider-Man: Miles Morales, you'll find a game that is lacking in originality but thankfully built on a solid core that needs a few tweaks. It's a successful expansion of Insomniac's Spider-Man universe, but it's a new paragraph, rather than a new chapter. Hopefully it will give us the latter next time around. And though it's also good for representation, it still has a ways to go. (Though the game wasn't anything special, Marvel's Avengers gave us a Muslim-American lead in Kamala Khan / Ms. Marvel.) Hopefully we can get Spider-Gwen from Insomniac next, or a Spider-Verse game, though given the lack of setup, either seems unlikely. For now, Miles continues his upward trajectory. He walked in 2018, so he could fly in 2020.
Watch Dogs: Legion lacks a soul. It's also a passive game, since there's no active push-and-pull. Albion took over London, and now you push them out one borough at a time.
FIFA 21 is full of goals. With FIFA, EA Sports is constantly engaged in a balancing act between attack vs defence. And it's a process that continues after release, with some FIFA titles transforming into a whole new beast by the time we're ready for the next annual iteration. At launch, FIFA 21 is a goal fest. I've had a lot of high-scoring games on FIFA 21 where the result looks more like cricket scores, and I've also broken my personal best scoring record, with a final score of 20-0.
Mafia: Definitive Edition is crying out for a stronger hand at the wheel and a deeper rethink, for in its current state, it's oblivious of the fact that it's been 18 years since the original. That's a long time for any piece of entertainment, more so in video gaming, and Mafia: Definitive Edition is a long way from what it needed to be.
Ultimately, Tennis World Tour 2, with its steep learning curve and stocky animations, is a game that will largely appeal to the hardcore tennis fan. It's nowhere at the level it needs to be, but it's also operating in an environment without any competition.
It's nowhere as annoying as the problems with combat though. If you can look past the latter — and it's not easy — you'll find a story that's largely well done, especially when it comes to Kamala's role in it. Its best moments are the narrative interludes, be it the early fun, charming, and giddy moments she shares with the Avengers or the quiet moments
For a debut effort, ... it's proof that Indian studios with the right push can deliver titles for major consoles, and not be stuck in the free-to-play mobile mess that dominates Indian game development.
The Alto Collection is a great way for newcomers to visit the dual worlds of Alto's Adventure and Alto's Odyssey, and a welcome return for those who have been here before, especially at a time when we need something to forget our worries and escape more than ever.