IGN's Reviews
The Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles DLC for Injustice 2 is one great fanservice filled package for TMNT fans, and fits right in with Injustice 2's star-studded cast of heroes and villains. Their four distinct sets of abilities and playstyles make it feel like four characters for the price of one.
Fe is a short-lived platformer that still manages to outstay its welcome in some regards. Its platforming is okay but unimaginative, and its best ideas, like the tree jumping and singing affecting the world, remain underused. It can be a beautiful game at times, especially with regards to its music and audio design, but not so much so that it hides its rougher edges and undeveloped concepts.
After the resounding success of Dynasty Warriors 8, Dynasty Warriors 9 feels like a major step back. What's lost in the move towards an individually-centered story spread across a massive open world far outweighs the minor benefits that are gained. While the excellent button-mashing gameplay stays intact with great tweaks and additions, it wasn't enough. The lack of multiplayer, missing alternate game modes, and emptiness of ancient China left me far from satisfied.
Without the Nemesis system driving its battles and creating consequences for failures, Middle-earth: Shadow of War - Blade of Galadriel feels smaller and less interesting than the main game. Its short story missions are creative and its colorful uruks are good splashes of personality, but the repetitive battles against more than a dozen Legendary uruks get old, even with the promise of new gear sets.
The Resistance DLC adds needed map variety to multiplayer and introduces another fun Nazi Zombies map. The tighter, dense map Valkyrie gives the new Resistance Division a chance to shine with plenty of close combat opportunities, while Anthropoid offers snipers space to work their magic. Even though Operation Intercept is a new map for the wonderful War Mode, it feels like a known quantity with its repeated objectives from previous operations. On the other hand, the new Zombies map Darkest Shore has plenty of challenging (if sometimes convoluted) puzzles to uncover.
Civ 6: Rise and Fall's new Golden Age and Governor systems add new and interesting decisions while Loyalty largely bogs it down.
Dissidia Final Fantasy NT tries to spin too many plates at once. As a team-based arena combat game, it creates some interesting battles but comes up short against the depth and accessibility of something like Overwatch. As a fighting game, it fails to find a balance between the challenging execution of a Street Fighter and the pick-up-and-play chaos of a Super Smash Bros. And as Final Fantasy fan service, it ticks some boxes but has some glaring omissions in its lineup and surrounding features. Even those who consider themselves Final Fantasy completionists aren't going to have enough story content to keep them playing for long. That's frustrating, because when its various parts all come together in harmony it is a fun, unique team fighting game.
A lot of what The Hidden Ones gets right is its ability to take familiar concepts from Assassin's Creed Origins and make them feel new again by means of a new purpose, a new story, and a new creed. A new direction to the story that makes Bayek more relatable, high-level combat keeps quests challenging even when you're fully leveled up, and a more rewarding pace of loot provide an opportunity to feel something new without straying too far from what I loved about Origins in the first place.
EA went back to the gym with UFC 3 to work on many of the weaknesses that had the previous two games struggling to find their footing. A fantastic new striking system and a much-improved career mode lead the charge, but UFC 3 is still hamstrung by a cumbersome ground game, weird collision issues, and the straight-up terrible Ultimate Team Mode. It's still not a knockout, but Round 3 is UFC's best yet.
Iconoclasts' combination of clever Metroid-inspired design and lush art offers more than enough incentive to stick with it, even when the ambitious plot doesn't always connect. This is a strange, complex game that – refreshingly – doesn't play quite like any other work in the genre. Iconoclasts offers a welcome reminder that they don't all have to play the same way.
Gorogoa crafts its inventive, sliding-tile puzzles and magical world with a graceful simplicity across a compact but fulfilling adventure. The excitement of solving each puzzle may be lost on a repeat playthrough, but its hand-drawn art and clever payoffs are no less satisfying to watch unfold again and again. Gorogoa manages to say so much without uttering a single word, endowing it with a mystery that invites a more attentive, thoughtful revisit — and one that I was more than happy to accept.
The true definition of a classic, the gameplay and story of Shadow of the Colossus are every bit as great and emotional today as they were in 2005. This outstanding remaster skillfully enhances those qualities with improved controls, performance, and sheer graphical beauty. It remains one of the best PlayStation games ever made, and it's wonderful that Sony has brought it back to the fore so a new generation of gamers can experience it without having to look past its aged facade.
'What Ails You' takes The Enemy Within's biggest and boldest step yet toward redefining the Joker's role in the Batman universe – should you choose to push him in that direction (which I did). It's the other characters whose final impacts on Bruce Wayne/Batman's life have yet to be determined.
Subnautica is a template for what open-world survival games should strive to be. It’s fantastical, fresh, and frightening from surface to seabed, with a story that kept on surprising me and a cast of sea monsters that quite literally haunted my dreams.
Bold and newly beautiful, Monster Hunter: World demands to be played on its own terms and rewards you with an amazing RPG.
Celeste is a surprise masterpiece. Its 2D platforming is some of the best and toughest since Super Meat Boy, with levels that are as challenging to figure out as they are satisfying to complete.
Even if it falls short of becoming a worthy successor to the likes of Chrono Trigger, Lost Sphear really does capture the essence of classic role-playing games in a lot of ways. When it's not bogging itself down in overwrought mechanics, this RPG really can spark a sense of nostalgia. Its writing, environments, battle system, and music all evoke the best moments of bygone days. And even if it doesn't quite hit the heights it aspires to, it does a fine job of rekindling some fond memories.
Between the accessible auto combos, homing attacks, and simplified command inputs, Dragon Ball FighterZ is an inviting gateway into the world of fighting games for newcomers — whether you're a Dragon Ball fan or not. Those easy controls can open the door to some spammy behavior, but just as often it's satisfying in a way that does right by the Dragon Ball name. Dragon Ball FighterZ has enough depth and complexity to glow as brilliantly as a Super Saiyan.
Rainbow Six Siege's focus on teamwork and strategy over just aiming prowess sets it apart in exciting ways, and the constant stream of new maps and operators have made it a wonderfully varied FPS. All that new content has made it harder for new players to catch up, and I wish more work had been done to address this, but smart play and good communication will still win you more games than having the newest operator. It's got some growing pains to sort out, but the future continues to look bright for Siege.
At its best, AO Tennis is a clumsily controlled simulation of the sport. At its worst, it's underdeveloped, under-featured and entirely broken in certain areas. It could well be improved in the weeks and months ahead via dedicated developer support, but as far as first serves go this one has landed with a thud, well wide of the service box.