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Kratos is here to contemplate his future purpose and learns to forgive himself for his past deeds while still acknowledging and learning from them, making for a potent mix of the Greek and Norse sides of the franchise with some returning characters, locations and other bits that I wouldn’t want to spoil. It’s a treat for longtime fans as well as a very appreciated bit of history for those who jumped on in recent entries.
Somewhat appropriately, Echoes of the Fallen feels like a vague echo of CBU III's epic RPG, faintly calling back the game's excellent combat and intriguing Fallen lore in mostly expected ways. With The Rising Tide promising a substantial new chapter with plenty of content and the final piece of the Eikonic puzzle, fans will have to wait until Autumn 2024 for a deeper return to Valisthea, though for now this serves as a brief but welcome last check-in before the year's end.
Arizona Sunshine 2 is a bloody, pulpy and, most importantly, meaty experience that turns undead dismemberment from a somewhat dated trope into a fun workout that gives you more than enough toys to play with. And with a loyal pup at your side, this sequel is not only a blast but it feels like the killer app the platform has been needing.
Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora successfully brings the world of Pandora to video games in a big way. It's lush and vibrant and without a doubt one of the most luxuriant open worlds that Ubisoft has ever created. Its gameplay, on the other hand, is lacking the spark that makes great open worlds sing. Fans of the franchise will absolutely adore exploring everything this previously unexplored side of Pandora has to offer, just don't expect it to reinvent the wheel.
Assassin's Creed Nexus VR is a great way to experience the series' most iconic gameplay pillars from a whole new perspective. It's not without some of the awkwardness inherent to VR, but it's a visual showpiece for the Meta Quest 3 that deftly places players into the shoes of three iconic assassins while feeling incredibly authentic.
SteamWorld Build is another feather in the series' cap and another great distillation of genres into a friendly and wholly addictive package. The city building and mining halves come together effortlessly thanks to a pitch-perfect campaign, though with just a single scenario there's not a heap of longevity. The console version's awfully-small text also threatens to undo the good done by its superb controls, but in the end it remains another banger SteamWorld game.
Andy Brophy's Knuckle Sandwich will likely go down as the year's strangest and most endearing video game. It takes the framework of past icons such as Mother and Earthbound and injects a little bit of ocker into the mix to create an off-the-wall roleplaying game that'll play to both the nostalgia harboured for our sunburnt country as well as the genre's decades-long history.
This year's Call of Duty is a mixed bag. Series veterans looking for a great multiplayer experience will find a lot to love thanks to the game's faithful recreation of some of the franchise's best maps and excellent gunplay. However, Modern Warfare III's campaign is one of the worst in the series' history.
Super Mario RPG is a strong remake of an already stellar game. It successfully focuses on improving the original in all the right places: a faster and snappier battle system, strong quality-of-life improvements and more difficult optional content. These improvements combine with the game's already quirky charm to offer an experience that easily eclipses the original. While it's overly simplistic compared to other RPGs, that's ostensibly the point. Super Mario RPG is an oddball piece of Nintendo's history like no other, and that alone makes it worth experiencing.
Teardown is a fun and ballistic sandbox for people intent on watching the world burn. Its war chest of tools and curated mods offer near limitless possibilities in the coolest game of its kind since Minecraft.
It certainly doesn't reinvent the wheel, but offers a more than competent tactics experience within a framework that's sure to please any Persona fan.
KarmaZoo is a charming and cute platformer that places co-operation and togetherness at the forefront of an experience that, without a keen community, could be a fleeting one. And that'd be a shame, because both Loop and Totem serve up an undeniably fun way to stay on the universe's right side.
Super Crazy Rhythm Castle makes a bold attempt at fusing basic rhythm gameplay with the kinds of asymmetrical co-operative chaos of something like Overcooked, wrapping it up in a deeply funny and genuinely inventive campaign. Sadly it undermines the fun at every turn with wild difficulty spikes, anaemic gameplay customisation and a frustrating lack of explanation of its own mechanics. There's something good here, it's just thoroughly underdeveloped.
Tales of Arise: Beyond the Dawn is a great way to come back to the excellent 2021 RPG, giving fans the chance to revisit familiar places and faces while also taking a good look at a side of the classic world-saving hero story we don't alway see. It treads a lot of familiar ground, and it's somewhat awkwardly implemented, but it's well worth seeking out for franchise fans and anyone that enjoyed the main game.
I'll admit that it's been quite some time between drinks for me with platform fighting games like this, but Nickelodeon All-Star Brawl 2 is a fairly good mix of nostalgia, new ideas and inoffensive fun. While it may not reach the sky-high standard of something like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate it gives 90s kids like me another way to beat up our friends while reminiscing about the good old days of racing home to watch your favourite cartoons and arguing about which of them could take the others.
While The Man Who Erased His Name is a very safe Like A Dragon experience, longtime fans are sure to relish its smaller scope and renewed focus on Kiryu. It might lack some of the suspense and unpredictability of prior entries, but more than makes up for it in its more intimate exploration of one of the most legendary characters in gaming.
Overall, the five games on offer in The Jackbox Party Pack 10 represent a nice variety of experiences with some genuinely interesting innovations and ideas. Crucially there's no total stinker in the mix, with only Timejinx feeling a touch bland. FixyTest holds up the stupid, pointless chaos end of the bargain while Tee K.O. makes a fantastic comeback and Dodo Re Mi proves that Jackbox can do real-time gameplay. Just give yourself time to properly figure out Hypnotorious before you write it off entirely.
The Talos Principle II's expertly designed puzzles are kept interesting and engaging throughout a lengthy thirty-hour runtime by the incremental introduction of consistently intriguing mechanics. Pairing well with pragmatic problem solving is a story that delves into ancient Greek philosophy and mythology that effectively asks unimaginably important questions that can't possibly be answered. It's common to find an experience that makes you feel, and equally common to find one that makes you think, but The Talos Principle II is a rare cross-section that allows you to do both simultaneously.
The Invincible brings Stanislaw Lem's work to life in a faithful adaptation that plays out as if it were ripped directly from retro-futurism art of the 1950s. Starward Industries have gone to great lengths to craft an experience that is visually appealing and makes great strides to maintain Lem's philosophical concepts while being grounded in hard science fiction. But where the game excels in some areas, it loses its way in others, falling victim to pacing issues and hollow choices, resulting in hurried endings that may leave you feeling lost in space.
WarioWare: Move It! is a return to form (pun intended) for the WarioWare series that feels long overdue. It cleverly utilises the unique capabilities of the Joy-Con in ways that haven't been done before, all while remaining both endearing and funny. While the simplicity of Party Mode is both its greatest strength and weakness, WarioWare: Move It! is easily WarioWare at its best and the most fun you'll have looking goofy.