IGN's Reviews
Lego Horizon Adventures reimagines Horizon Zero Dawn with a playful Lego twist, simplifying the story while keeping the heart of its key moments and characters.
It's gorgeous to look at and has some depth to its tiny battles, but a lack of modes and unit variety means Empire of the Ants's multiplayer isn't likely to have a lot of legs.
Pretty to look at but painfully dull and frustrating to play, Empire of the Ants's single-player campaign has none of the depth of the multiplayer and packages bad AI with boring missions and a meandering story.
Metal Slug Tactics lives up to its stone-cold classic namesake from SNK’s golden era with its painstakingly detailed pixel art, head-bopping soundtrack, and snappy structure. It magnificently translates the run-n-gun series into its first turn-based tactics game, but doesn’t sacrifice substance for cheap nostalgia, either.
Planet Coaster 2 may share the same problems as its predecessor, but it's even better at all of the things it was good at, with water attractions alone being reason enough to dive in.
Apart from its great battle system, Mario & Luigi: Brothership is an incredibly disappointing revival that suffers from boring gameplay and dialogue, a bloated runtime, shockingly bad performance, and a fundamental misunderstanding of what made the series great.
Like a bloody blade worn down by a few too many battles, Slitterhead grows increasingly dull over time and ultimately just doesn’t cut it.
Dragon Age: The Veilguard refreshes and reinvigorates a storied series that stumbled through its middle years, and leaves no doubt that it deserves its place in the RPG pantheon. The next Mass Effect is going to have a very tough act to follow, which is not something I ever imagined I'd be saying before I got swept away on this adventure.
After several attempts to recapture what made the original Life is Strange so enduring, developer Deck Nine Games really knocked it out of the park with Life is Strange: Double Exposure. This is a worthy sequel to a game that captured the hearts and minds of millions of people way back in 2015, myself included. The writing is great, the music is excellent, the cinematography and acting are top-notch, and Max’s new powers are a fun and intuitive fit for its murder mystery structure.
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.