IGN's Reviews
Call of Duty: Black Ops 6 plays it safe but is otherwise exactly what Call of Duty multiplayer should be: fast, fun, and a little on the ridiculous side. An excellent string of missions that offer variety and flexibility come together to make Black Ops 6 the best Call of Duty campaign in many, many years. Call of Duty: Black Ops 6’s Zombies mode is absurd and campy fun in all the right ways, with two interesting maps and a welcome return to round-based gameplay. [OpenCritic note: IGN separately reviewed the multiplayer (8), single player (9), and zombies (8) game mode. Their scores have been averaged.]
Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Mutants Unleashed looks the part, but its button bashing action quickly becomes boring thanks to its slim selection of enemies and its constantly reused levels.
The Lake House DLC is a tightly paced slice of psychological horror that serves as an absorbing addendum to Alan Wake II.
Batman: Arkham Shadow makes most of the Arkham series' defining gameplay work respectably well in VR, and its mystery story pays off.
A Quiet Place: The Road Ahead does a commendable job of taking the uniquely silent scary movie series and spinning it into an interactive adventure, even if its methods for sustaining stress seem a bit too clearly contrived at times. I greatly appreciated the many handcrafted human touches that made its evacuated spaces so evocative, and the safety net of its consistent auto-save meant that my numerous instant deaths never became a source of frustration.
Unlike its towering cast of kaiju cameos, Kong: Survivor Instinct is an unremarkable Metroidvania-style adventure that simply doesn’t measure up.
Sonic X Shadow Generations takes an already excellent game and spring jumps it to new heights with a creative Shadow campaign and an appreciable graphical upgrade.
In the Space Imperialist vs Alien war for your attention, Starship Troopers: Extermination brings a knife to a nuke fight. It’s a shooter you and some friends can find fun in, especially in its tough Horde mode using its simple-yet-distinct classes that help focus the overall large-scale bug-blasting vision. But you’re doing so in spite of how long it takes to unlock all the more interesting gear and abilities those classes have in store, how uncoordinated some of the multiplayer modes are, how downright bad the single-player campaign is, how barren the handful of available maps feel, and the lack of biodiversity in the bug swarm. It’s a serviceable battle that can get frantic in the thick of it, but there are far more noble causes to give your virtual lives for in 2024 than this.
Despite a few interesting ideas, Unknown 9: Awakening is a bland and janky adventure with a generic story and dull combat.
MechWarrior 5: Clans has some bugs it needs to work out, but this is still an excellent campaign carried by a thoughtful story, fantastic mech combat, and all of the customization you could want.
Super Mario Party Jamboree is the series’ newest superstar, with fantastic boards, minigames, and customizable rules that return to the classic formula while also confidently improving upon it.
Dragon Ball: Sparking! Zero is a final flash from the past, sometimes to a fault, but the feeling of traveling back to a simpler time when games didn’t have to be balanced or competitive to be fun is still a good one.
Until Dawn is an overpriced and under-featured remake that seems less like a must-have bit of moonlit murder and something closer to a case of daylight robbery.
Refining the Atlus RPG formula of weaving tough turn-based combat into compelling social sim mechanics, Metaphor: ReFantazio doesn’t just send a powerful message across its political drama, it becomes a beautiful expression of the real impact storytelling can have on all of us.
Undisputed does a lot of new and interesting things in the boxing genre, but also fails to connect in several key areas.
Silent Hill 2 is a great way to visit – or revisit – one of the most dread-inducing destinations in the history of survival horror.
Diablo 4: Vessel of Hatred is a stellar expansion that hits all the right notes, but only feels like the first act to a larger adventure.
There’s no denying that the action on the ice looks better than ever in NHL 25, and it’s nice to see Franchise Mode get some welcome changes that help it feel more authentic for those interested in the sim experience. But when I look at this year's entry as a whole it's quite lackluster.
Starfield's Shattered Space expansion ably fills in the Va'ruun-shaped hole in the main campaign, but doesn't shatter conventions with new abilities that would make a replay more exciting.
EA Sports FC 25 delivers a few bright spots, like the fun and refreshing Rush mode, but stagnating gameplay and incremental improvements leave it feeling like EA continues to play it too safe.