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Overall, you could do far worse than The Caligula Effect, but you could do far better as well. Due to its myriad of issues both technical and otherwise - and despite the solid story and music - there's little reason to check out this RPG until it's deeply discounted.
Owing to the shift in development course, Champions of Anteria comes off as a confused title. It’s got its fingers in two completely different pies, and it can’t pull off even one of them properly. Its cookie-cutter approach to battles, along with the highly constrained city building elements, make it a rather forgettable experience.
Avoid it all together, if we're being honest. If you do want some delicate bike physics action, you're much better off with the previous major entry: Trials Fusion.
Regardless of your inclination towards Nintendo's mascot, it's safe to say that you can avoid Mario & Luigi: Paper Jam. It's a soulless crossover with a penchant for mission design that frustrates more than it should.
Sony is quickly making the PS4 the de facto place for mid-tier gems with the likes of Alienation, Firewatch, Helldivers, and Transistor available on the PlayStation Store. Shadow of the Beast simply doesn't pass muster. A little more time spent tweaking its controls and technical issues may have resulted in a better game but as it stands, it's one you can safely avoid.
While moving to an open-world worked for the likes of Ghost Recon Wildlands, and Forza, Sniper Ghost Warrior 3 feels like it made the switch in order to classify as a current generation game, than an actual necessity.
Plainly put, ACC Russia is just not enjoyable on the whole.
Lego Marvel's Avengers is likely to impress no one except diehard Marvel fans, ones that have adorned their walls with posters of Captain America and wear Iron Man costumes for Halloween. And if all you're looking for is a bit of Lego-infused action, there are unmistakeably half a dozen better entries to choose from; the game's own predecessor - 2013's Lego Marvel Super Heroes - one of the more entertaining options.
At the moment, we'd recommend waiting this one out until it gets a few more updates. Underneath a myriad of technical muddles lies a serviceable RPG, although right now, it's nowhere close to what it could be.
All in all, while Wasteland 2: Director's Cut for the Nintendo Switch gives you a new way to experience the post-apocalyptic desert, it's far from the best option thanks to its poor presentation.
Perhaps the most baffling fact is that it took Rocksteady, a famed developer whose past games are considered undeniable classics that are being played to this day, took nine years to make a game that falls abysmally short of the studio's own high standards. Suicide Squad isn't a terrible game — some of the negative attention could perhaps be attributed to marketing misfires, and some of the criticism is perhaps too harsh, even if not unwarranted. But it constantly pales in comparison to Rocksteady's Batman: Arkham games in every aspect that matters. There are seeds of ideas, systems, and story here that could have delivered a legitimately fun and distinctly unique shooter. But as the self-destructive game that it chooses to be, Suicide Squad: Kill the Justice League only shoots itself in the foot.
FC 24 is new, but only skin deep. It brings cosmetic updates to the same old formula, while ignoring more important issues on the pitch. Sure, the gameplay gets refined little by little each year, but much remains missing in the core experience. EA prioritises its money-spinning Ultimate Team mode, but stubbornly refuses to bring new ideas to the Career mode. It's telling that FC 24 recycles the same cutscenes for transfer negotiations that we've seen in FIFA games for past three to four years. When the franchise had to move away from its FIFA branding, it presented EA a rare opportunity to forge a new identity for a series that's fast getting frustratingly familiar. That will have to wait. EA Sports FC 24 could have been so much more than what it is — the same dish with new dressing. It does not come as a surprise, though. In a rapidly changing football landscape, EA Sports FIFA has found success in consistency. And in its consistent, familiar approach, FC 24 remains preoccupied with dribbling the ball along the same lines, too scared to take a shot at goal and glory.
Drawing from the refined toolkit that powered Batman: Arkham and Marvel's Spider-Man, WB Games Montréal has produced a cookie-cutter superhero experience that's not looking to push any boundaries.
In a monopoly, you are the default choice. That's great for FIFA 23, but football fans are paying the price.
Just like Ubisoft's mega-hit franchise, Horizon Forbidden West has a lot of the right ingredients but it's let down by the pitfalls of AAA game design.
All 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.
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.
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.