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Chocobo GP offers up some fantastic core racing mechanics that are otherwise held back by a lacklustre offering of content. Hampered by tedious progression systems and typical microtransaction practices, Chocobo GP barely makes it past the finish line to be the best kart racer it could be.
Gran Turismo 7 is a car-lover's dream. Whether you love cars already or have just started your journey into being a car person, GT7 wants to welcome you to the community with open arms, get you up to speed and give you everything it can to help you enjoy cars in whatever ways it's able. It has a wealth of car history to share, incredible feeling driving and some of the best visuals I've seen in a driving game. There are some cars I wish were included (Mount Panorama and no Aussie V8 Supercars? Come on, mate!) and the always online requirement might be a deal breaker for some, but even with all that Gran Turismo 7 is the friendliest, most approachable driving simulation I've played with all the depth of options you'd expect for seasoned car enthusiasts.
While I enjoyed a fraction of my time exploring Martha is Dead's gorgeous Tuscan farmlands, the thing I'm most thankful for is how mercifully short the game is. The closing credits shocked me back into coherence like a bolt out of the blue to cap off what is-and I'm being generous-an interestingly imperfect experience.
While it feels like the impact of Breath of the Wild is waning as the open world genre starts to stagnate again, Elden Ring stands out as not only an achievement in FromSoftware's hall of fame, but also as an open-world RPG. Elden Ring is without a doubt, FromSoft's most ambitious undertaking yet, and like Dark Souls before it, I believe it will leave a permanent mark on both the open-world genre and the games industry in general.
Cyberpunk 2077's long-awaited next-gen console update is here, and the extended wait looks to have been worth it. The Performance Mode corrects all of the poor frame-rate issues in one fell swoop, not to mention the several thousand bug fixes that 14-months and change can bring. There's even some new stuff to discover, from the ability to purchase/rent apartments to an overhaul of enemy AI. As a reboot of sorts it's by no means perfect, but it's now a great foundation on which to deliver more Night City stories.
Horizon Forbidden West is an exceedingly clever sequel, a deep and addictive action RPG, a dense world that unfolds with an impeccable sense of pace, a visual tour de force and the masterful delivery of a promising concept.
Through neoteric ideas around what combat can be, many of which were conceived with Absolver, Sloclap has carried the classic beat 'em up into the present with Sifu. It might be brutal and unforgiving, but it never feels cheap and it's a pleasure to continually learn the complexities of kung fu while bathing in the world's surplus of flair and ferocity. So push through and persevere, because there's one hell of a game on offer here.
Courtesy of some really great hand-drawn art, it's hard not to adopt the game's most excellent and bodacious attitude through osmosis. But OlliOlli World's strength, as it has always been, is in its low barrier to entry and the fact it's just so damn fun to pick up and play.
Dying Light 2 Stay Human is a solid step-up from Dying Light in almost every way. Still, its increased emphasis on storytelling feels entirely misguided to the point where it's narratively worse than Dying Light. Despite this, Dying Light 2 has fantastic traversal, satisfying combat, and some great quest design and variety that makes it Techland's best.
While it might not provide the visual fidelity and exploration we might wish for in an open-world-esque Pokémon game, it does provide a satisfying and addicting gameplay loop, alongside a surprisingly enjoyable narrative to boot.
Whilst the price is a little steep, I can't deny the fact that the Uncharted: Legacy of Thieves Collection provides the best way to play two of PlayStation's best games. Naughty Dog's finest shine on the PS5 hardware and if you haven't played these games, you're in for an absolute treat, and if you're returning to these games, you can expect to be blown away all over again, if not for the enhanced visuals alone.
Tom Clancy's Rainbow Six Extraction thinks outside of the box to provide a well-realised PvE experience that builds upon Siege's already solid core tenets. While its longevity has yet to be proven or seen, Extraction's addictive blend of cooperative, rogue-like, and stealth mechanics offers an engaging Rainbow Six experience, even if it's a bit out there.
With an adventurous campaign, complete with a sandbox that'll still be there when your friends can join the fight, and a multiplayer suite that feels like a note-perfect revival of the Halo of old, Halo Infinite feels like the complete blockbuster sci-fi shooter we've been waiting for from 343 Industries. It hasn't happened overnight for the team, but the mantle passed to them, at last, feels earned.
Chorus does an admirable job of trying to carve out its own identity in a genre that deserves the attention, but it just doesn't stick the landing. If you're a fan of arcade spaceship shooters and narrative adventures there's probably enough here to chew over, but there's just not much that Chorus has to offer that hasn't already been done better elsewhere. Despite being set in a gorgeous pocket of space and offering up some interesting ideas it sadly misses the mark in just about every way.
By making Solar Ash radically different from Hyper Light Drifter, Heart Machine has avoided boxing themselves into a niche while being able to continue and build a universe they clearly care for. It wears its influences on its sleeve and comes together as a cosmic mix of a few games held dear by many, and as long as they continue to do this, I'll eat it up until I am far beyond full.
While it feels like Game Freak have been trying to find their footing with Pokémon over the last few years, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are a confident showing by ILCA that proves the series is far from dead. The classic formula is unchanged here, and still holds up, which will no doubt please long-time fans and newcomers alike. Smart new additions that feel like natural additions to the base game, coupled with a visual overhaul that captures the feel of the originals make for an experience that's as nostalgic and comforting, as it is fresh and reinvigorating for the franchise.
I'm a diehard fan of the GTA series, but I'm of two minds about this up and down port to the Unreal 4 Engine. The initial wow-factor of the visual upgrade is undeniable, but the more you play it, the more cracks appear in that pretty veneer. Some of those are legacy fissures that have not been repaired. Others are eyesore imperfections wrought by a new team of less-than-master craftspeople.
All in all, Vaas: Insanity paves the way for some stellar downloadable content for Far Cry 6 that is already more conceptually interesting than anything in Far Cry 5. Vaas' experience, while perhaps telling us a little bit too much about the ambiguous villain, co-opts the idea of a rogue-like competently to offer a new twist on the formula, but lead by a familiar face.
Bright Memory Infinite is a disappointing follow-up to a prelude that made its share of promises. It's a shame because a polished expansion on the original concept would have had a certain cult appeal, whereas Infinite feels watered down. It's a pretty game, and best of all it's free for those who lashed out for the prelude, but in the end, it plays like a game that got spooked by its own shadow and is a result of improbable ambition.
Shin Megami Tensei V is the best Shin Megami Tensei game thus far, without a doubt. It's incredibly stylish and delivers an intriguing plot filled with the philosophical and metaphysical concepts that fans have come to expect. Its battle system is every bit as engaging as it's contemporaries, and the fusion system remains as one of the best in the genre. And while it's got some strong art direction, technical issues and ho-hum dungeon design keep Shin Megami Tensei V from being as great as it could be.