TechRaptor
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Zen Studios haven't faltered yet, and their Pinball FX series continues to be a bright spot in the digital pinball landscape. Outside of licensing troubles and new tables featuring less than accurate presentation, there's a great game of skill to be had here.
Hand of Fate 2 manages to take everything praiseworthy about the previous installment and make it even better. The challenges players face never look alike and the improved combat system manages to elevate the weakest parts of the original.
X-Morph: Defense is what happens when you design and implement a modern arcade twin-stick shooter mixed with a tower defense from the ground up. The cheesy style of dialogue and story is mixed with a feeling of masterful power as you navigate a beautifully constructed game world. This is a highly recommended experience.
When Bubsy: The Woolies Strike Back is at its best, the words I would use to describe it include "soulless", "mediocre", and "annoying". Somehow the game is rarely at its best, leading to a total disaster.
Super Mario Odyssey will easily rank as one of the best Mario games ever made. It's pure fun, plain and simple.
Wolfenstein II's combat is as intense as ever, and MachineGames can craft FPS story beats like few others, but something just feels askew about this sequel. Like a follow-up to a Hollywood blockbuster, everything is a little looser and the game suffers for it.
Zwei: The Ilvard Insurrection might not be amazing like some other Falcom games I've played, but it's still more than worth checking out.
A solid vision is spoiled by shaky implementation. The visual and art team deserves awards, but the confusing interface, bad translations, missing parts, and bad bugs make this feel like an early access game. Fun weapons, few enemies, and a huge number of "side mission" style quests make the otherwise beautiful world feel like empty filler.
The Evil Within 2 combines a great open world with some fun gameplay and smart design to really improve upon the original game.
A rather flawed follow-up to a fantastic first episode. There's plenty here to like, but it loses its momentum due to some weak writing and stiff animation that felt as if the episode was released too early. The relationship between Rachel and Chloe is the most interesting thing in this episode and it makes it easier to stick with it even with the dialogue being sub par in places.
Middle-Earth: Shadow of War like its predecessor is built upon the dynamic "Nemesis System." While the sequel offers an interesting story, it often becomes convoluted between the various arcs it wants to go in. Thankfully, the second by second gameplay has never felt better. With the addition of Shadow Wars, the best parts of the game will continue long after the story ends.
Megaton Rainfall is the first video game that genuinely made me feel like Superman. It just has a few rough edges to work out.
Age of Gladiators II is certainly not for everyone, but it will sooth the simulation itch by being a well-made, stat-heavy game with a strong thematic backdrop.
Charming until the end, Jettomero is a gorgeous, if short, experience. It may be entirely too easy to blow through in an afternoon, but that afternoon will be filled with soothing music and a lovely sense of style.
Raiden V is just as good on PlayStation 4, though this rerelease doesn't quite add enough to justify picking the game up a second time.
ECHO tries to reinvent the wheel with its new take on enemy AI. While the game ultimately succeeds in doing so, the end result is having a fancy new wheel on an otherwise mundane sedan. The rest of the game simply doesn't do the enemy AI system the justice it deserves.
The Mummy Demastered is the perfect kind of filler game between bigger titles; and one that is damn fun to play despite its few shortcomings.
Code 7's first two episodes are an almost absurd success, combining powerful story telling with creative gameplay into one of the most exciting episodic game launches I've ever seen.
The world of The Solus Project is totally worth exploring thanks to an interesting story and great art direction. It's just not much fun to actually play.
The best episode of Marvel's Guardians of the Galaxy: The Telltale Series yet, Who Needs You has a few good moments but still can't pull the season out of its general under performance.