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There are still plenty of thorns, but it manages to address and improve nearly every aspect of the original 1.0 release.
An unusual fusion, not just because it's a platformer with fighting, but because it's a party game for the hardcore.
An impressive epic, even if it falls several steps shy of the open-world grandeur realized by The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt.
It asks us to buy Max as a wasteland messiah whose life consists of spending his most sane years playing fetch.
The premise and its presentation, along with a generous difficulty curve, ultimately, if barely, saves the game.
If Tearaway was a diamond in the rough world of Vita gaming, it's an exceedingly polished masterpiece on the PS4.
It lives up to its title, as players will be glued to it all night, exhilaratingly racing to one of the many potential endings.
Think of Rare Replay like an entire Criterion Collection for video games in one package.
As with Dear Esther before it, it offers up an admirable and atmospheric experience that simply isn't all that much fun to play.
The channeling of art nouveau not only impacts the look of the characters and settings, but complements the curves that fighters draw with the motion of their attacks.
Great presentation coupled with shallow gameplay means it works better as a film than a video game.
Even at only three-to-four hours in length, Submerged feels padded.
Its anecdotes function as mawkish indicators of social status, as the Internet crowd often forgets that being online is a privilege for more than a few.
Worst of all, unlocking the new monsters involves trekking through the tedious campaign over and over again, grinding for experience.
Creators like Chmielarz need an obvious symbol of false hope to sell (not articulate) their trendy nihilism that, if anything, should vanish.
It's not the polishing of the old that makes it worthy of the current gen, but how far the game is willing to present a twist on mythology.
If only the developer's care could have graced the poorly drawn cutscenes that lack the vitality of those in 1988's Ninja Gaiden. These sequences don't communicate the emotional sincerity needed to fulfill the potential of a story that humanizes its white-man villain while calling attention to the contemporary impact of his racism.
Its most tangible accomplishment is how it responds when your priorities clash and intermingle with those of the playable character.
Even with all the gadgets, all the exhilaration of success, its greatest achievement is in making it feel like it just might not be enough.
Neither the artificial screen glare nor actress Viva Seifert's performance lend credibility to the game's lady-psychopath clichés.