IGN's Reviews
Ezio’s trilogy helped build Assassin’s Creed into the giant franchise it is today thanks to its fantastic storytelling, amazing characters, and gorgeous world building. And while all of that is still here in The Ezio Collection, the lack of meaningful improvements and any sort of substantial bonus content make it a tough compilation to recommend.
While this is the weakest episode in Batman’s Telltale series yet, my investment in the unpredictable, multi-layered plot hasn’t wavered, thanks to the critical state of each of Bruce Wayne’s relationships. Episode four’s first act felt like it was just filling in time for the season finale, but some conflicts have still been built upon, including showcasing how the people of Gotham are reacting to the intense political climate. I’m still excited to jump into the season finale - especially to see the consequence of the series’ weightiest decision.
A lot of effort was clearly put into Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization, because almost every aspect of its gameplay has an underlying set of properties and nuances to come to grips with. While I usually love that kind of complexity, here it rarely felt meaningful or even coherent. Paired with a story that lacks the stakes and urgency of the source material, it leaves Sword Art Online: Hollow Realization feeling pretty tepid aside from its enjoyable combat.
After 20 years of slow but steady evolution, Pokemon gets a bit of a reinvention in Sun and Moon. An engrossing and rich new region makes the Alola journey — along with all the changes Sun and Moon make to the existing formula — enjoyable throughout the main adventure, and small interface and variety of upgrades along the way make a few of the things that stayed the same feel better than before.
With two unique sets of skills to play with across 10 themed chapters that keep things interesting and a gorgeous, evocative world that feels alive, Dishonored 2 is a remarkable experience.
Eagle Flight surprised me with how quickly I felt at home flying and fighting with other birds above Paris. It features some of the best and most responsive and comfortable gameplay available on the PSVR, though like most current VR games its appeal may be short-lived if you’re not a completionist who’s crazy about collectibles or high scores. This is a weird idea, well executed, that soars high.
Escalation succeeds at making Ashes of the Singularity a bigger, better, sleeker RTS that allows you to play its great new content alongside just about everything from the base game (including the lacklustre original campaign missions).
Tyranny is a memorable RPG that looks great and feels fresh, even while largely working in the confines of the old Infinity Engine style. It's also the rare sprawling RPG that invites you to replay it, as its comparatively short running time and significant changes based on choice greatly change the experience from playthrough to playthrough, and combat is deep enough to last. With Tyranny, the old feels new again.
Modern Warfare Remastered brings a significant graphical upgrade to the classic shooter.
Frustrating controls keep Robinson: The Journey from being much more than a pretty dinosaur exhibit.
There's a massive amount of content in Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, though especially if you played Black Ops 3 last year there’s little of it that’s particularly impressive. The campaign is ignorable and the multiplayer needs a little technical work to be as good as last year’s, but the overly silly Zombies mode keeps me coming back. It may not stand out in a year that’s been crowded with great shooters, but it still produces that familiar Call of Duty action.
Owlboy shines thanks to surprisingly varied, Metroidvania-style gameplay and a charming cast of unlikely heroes whose bittersweet journey is among the best I’ve experienced in recent years. Its remarkably detailed pixel art makes every scene more breathtaking than the last, but it’s the relationships between characters in both story and gameplay that makes Owlboy something truly special.
Hitman Episode 6: Hokkaido is one of the best levels this season and a great mission to end the year on. The map itself is very good, the atmosphere is excellent, and the hits are challenging. Tricky and more than a little James Bond-esque (the snowed-in private clinic has a real SPECTRE / On Her Majesty’s Secret Service vibe to it), Hokkaido is vintage Hitman at its most creative.
If you’ve never experienced Skyrim, the Special Edition is certainly an adventure you can’t afford to miss.
It’s rare that a sequel evolves on every part of the original concept so consistently for the better, but Titanfall 2 is that exception. Its feelgood movement is the foundation for both the engaging action and platforming gameplay of its strong campaign and its over-the-top competitive multiplayer. With bolstered progression, customization, variety, and a fleshed-out story, Respawn has made good on its original vision with Titanfall 2. And bottom line, it’s just damn fun to play.
Dragon Ball Xenoverse 2’s ambition is admirable, and though it’s riddled with a lot of silly little inconveniences, it mostly succeeds in giving DBZ fans an authentic-feeling world to dive into for the long haul. Though no individual element of its roleplaying or brawling gameplay is overly complex, taken as a whole there’s a surprising amount to consider while progressing your character, and enough to do to keep it from getting stale to soon.
Civilization VI will go down in history as the most fully-featured launch version in the series. Many of those are smartly revamped versions of Civ classics, buy it finds its own identity with great new ideas like spread-out cities, customizeable governments, research boosts, and leader agendas. And even though the AI has some improving to do, it can put up enough of a fight to make world domination a challenge.
Rigs: Mechanized Combat League brings fast, intense multiplayer action to the PlayStation VR, but with a few notable caveats. While there was enough variety in the mechs to keep me playing through a full season of matches, the sub-par visuals distract, and big matchmaking issues made online wait times unbearable. It’s fun to play with friends, but try to take it for a spin before committing, if only to make sure your stomach can actually handle it.
It’s a tribute to Telltale that the intricate, multi-layered plot and diverse cast of intertwined villains and madmen makes episode three’s lack of consequence and gameplay shortcomings excusable. I did encounter some brutal performance issues, but the writing has significantly improved from episode one, the voice acting is at its highest quality yet, and Gotham feels dense, detailed, and alive. The detective missions are starting to feel a little redundant, but the combat direction and animations that follow are so swift that it’s like watching a well-choreographed dance. Above all else, the elaborate plot has me utterly hooked.
There's a lot to love in the way Clockwork Empires attempts to break up the construction sim framework with Lovecraftian creatures and almost assured destruction, but it often takes too long to get to the best parts and fills that time with dull busywork. For most of the hours spent, it's largely a standard colonization simulator that's hampered with an unwieldy user interface and weak AI.