IGN's Reviews
Street Fighter 5 Arcade Edition marks the completion of a transformation from bare-bones fighting game with a rock-solid core to a fully featured example of the genre at its best. The new V-Triggers are sure to shake up the competitive scene, while the nostalgic new modes breathe new life into the single-player fighting.
As such an atmospheric, exploration-focused game to begin with, it makes sense that LA Noire would fit in well with VR. But Rockstar's done a great job of retooling it to make LA Noire: The VR Case Files feel less like a port and more like something that was always meant to be played this way, and the effort shows. There's not a ton of content in this version relative to the original game and some of the controls feel imprecise when trying to zero in on the part of a crime scene you're trying to investigate, but it has fun with it despite the deadly serious subject matter.
To distinguish itself from the MOBA crowd, Battlerite went for pure, skill-based action and hit the mark dead center. The fluid mouse-and-WASD-driven combat makes every move count and the quick pace of its 10-minute matches never lets off the gas. Even with its lackluster randomized progression system robbing it of momentum, Battlerite keeps me coming back to improve and add to my bag of tricks along the way. Stunlock's approach to MOBA combat creates a near-even playing field that makes each outplay feel earned, whether it was me or my foe picking up the win. These arenas are places I can see myself brawling for a long time to come.
PlayerUnknown's Battlegrounds has taken the military-sim gameplay popularized by games like ARMA and DayZ, boiled it down to its most exciting parts, and streamlined it into quick and accessible rounds of pure, hassle-free, survival-based action.
Underneath a forgettable campaign and unimpressive AI, Tiny Metal houses the seed of a really deep and entertaining multiplayer wargame. But until a head-to-head mode is added, it's not much more than a set of unchallenging training scenarios broken up by far too much overwrought dialogue. I had plenty of fun with it, but didn't get the kind of edge-of-my-seat decision-making moments that turned the tide of a difficult battle I could find in similar games. I'd recommend delaying your enlistment until all the pieces are in place.
The conclusion to Hell Is Empty didn't give me my runaway future, but the prequel nature of Life Is Strange: Before The Storm made that an impossible dream. Instead, another story shoves it aside, trying to find the difference between what is right for someone and what is good for them, but there isn't enough time in this episode to deliver this message and round out everything else. This pace leaves it rushed and somewhat tunnel-visioned. That said, characters I cared about and real, hard choices which often don't feel truly right or wrong kept my gut firmly wrenched throughout. Light puzzles break up the talking and drama but again serve to remind us that "correct” isn't necessarily “right.” Instead, there's a strong single theme that's delivered well in a story that isn't afraid to get in a few punches.
Dreadnought in many ways successfully brings the World of Tanks formula to outer space with sci-fi flair, and the vertical movements of the ships add some depth. It's often fun, but if you want to advance at a reasonable pace you'll have to deal with an unreliably active PS4 player population and an XP system that requires a lot of grinding to unlock new ships.
I can wholeheartedly recommend Bridge Constructor Portal as a rich, challenging puzzler with plenty of brain-twisters in store across its 60 levels. The pacing and methodical iteration it encourages meant it only ever taxed my mind, not my nerves. As a Portal fan's nostalgia piece, it's really not much better than a kitschy, amusement park gift shop recreation of the world many of us know and love – but the little nods serve well enough to enhance an already enjoyable puzzle game.
Fallout 4 VR lets you experience the post-nuclear future in a much more intimate way. Its adaptation to the Vive's hand-tracked Touch controls works fairly well for moving and shooting, but poorly for using the Pip Boy's clunky interface, and that's something you'll need to do frequently. But it's worth putting up with to come face to face with Fallout 4's characters, monsters, and settings.
Opus Magnum is a collection of brilliant puzzles that I want to endlessly replay and re-solve, subtly encouraging my creativity as I hunt for better solutions. It's also managed to create a community around itself, one that encourages both competition and collaboration while ensuring Opus Magnum has no shortage of new challenges even after I had my fill of its campaign. It feels one-of-a-kind, and is without a doubt one of the best puzzle games I've ever played.
Battlestar Galactica: Deadlock pleasantly checks a lot of boxes: Sci-fi tactics and strategy; good controls; proper Battlestar Galactica game with attention to detail. That it does so with enjoyable and challenging gameplay makes it easy to overlook the less-than-stellar graphics and interface issues in the strategy layer.
Hello Neighbor is a frustrating slog through a gauntlet of illogical puzzles that rely on persistence and thoroughness far more than cleverness, observation, or ingenuity. The stealth is hit-or-miss, alternating between feeling too punishing and borderline irrelevant from act to act. Some clever level design and a clear talent for making me feel creeped out eased the frustration, but don't present enough of a reason for me to recommend anyone put themselves through 15-20 hours of this. I wish I'd just stayed on my own side of the fence.
The Champions' Ballad isn't the extra dose of story for The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild that many fans were expecting, but it would be churlish to turn down another chunk of hours with one of gaming's greatest achievements. Even better, those hours are filled with new surprises, endgame-level challenges, and the weirdest post-game reward of recent years.
Curse of Osiris landed in Destiny 2 with a thud. Its campaign and story are a bust, its new content is mixed and buggy at best, and it does nothing to address the community's loud cries for fixes to the endgame. The few redeeming features are its more challenging and varied Adventures, and the Raid Lair's puzzles and tough boss battle.
WWE 2K18 for the Switch wasn't ready to be released, plain and simple. The degree of slowdown in any match type with more than two people in the ring at the same time is simply unacceptable. Add onto that the weird audio glitches and an overall lack of polish, and the underwhelming single-player modes that impact all versions of WWE 2K18, and you have a Switch port that even the biggest of wrestling fans should stay far away from.
Doom VFR is a brave shooter that proves that VR games don't have to be conservative with movement to work. Fast-paced action with a great stable of recognizable weapons and enemies makes it a challenging rush, once you find your VR legs. It's a shame VFR story didn't get the same self-aware treatment as Doom did, but even if it's all about warping and gunning, that's more than enough.
Rocket League's colorfully absurd cars-playing-sports concept works so well because the energy of its arcadey gameplay meshes with its deep team-based strategy and variety of modes. It's exceedingly rare to find a multiplayer game that's welcoming and approachable for new players and so intricate that the best players can earn a living by mastering its depths. Rocket League is a golden example of turning a good idea into something truly amazing.
Despite not adding anything new to the gameplay of The Surge or providing many rewards to returning players, A Walk in the Park provides more of the wickedly fun combat and detailed environments that we saw in the main campaign. The juxtaposition of the family-friendly funtime setting and technological horror is at times goofy and genuinely chilling, and even with a fairly basic set of objectives, exploring the ruined park was a fun way to spend a few hours back in this world.
Seven: The Days Long Gone feels like it's trying to break new ground at every turn, but in the process it makes some really bad choices and is executed poorly. Its action is acrobatic but almost immediately gets stale, climbing is only fun when the levels allow it, most crafting systems are needlessly obtuse, and its fast-travel system actively tries to kill you on a regular basis. Add to that the regular bugs, and Seven's days are numbered.
Xenoblade Chronicles 2 is a standout RPG that manages to keep its story, combat, and exploration interesting over the course of at least 70 hours of adventure through an impressively varied and rich world. Getting from place to place can be confusing, but outside of that and a multi-hour progression roadblock near the end this is an excellent game full of tough, memorable battles and a positive message.