IGN's Reviews
More often than not, Ancestors Legacy showed me a good time watching my berserkers, Teutonic knights, and Slavic tribesmen hack their way through forests, marshes, and the occasional open field. The weakness in the core infantry combat, which tilts a bit too much away from quick, tactical thinking and into correctly guessing how the enemy line will be arranged, was the main issue that kept me from really coming to love it. Historical inaccuracies aside, though, it scratched my itch for a traditional RTS in a way that will probably keep me coming back.
The prospect of playing such a lovingly crafted tribute to the vintage heyday of Konami's seemingly abandoned Castlevania series more than makes up for a few out-of-place boss fights and a slightly too punitive death penalty. Bloodstained: Curse of the Moon delivers a brief but effective burst of nostalgia, and thanks to its many creative modifiers it contains enough replay value to engage (and challenge) anyone who pines for gaming's bygone days. And this isn't even the "real" Bloodstained! As appetizers go, it's substantial — nearly satisfying enough to be its own main course.
Yoku's Island Express is a novel Metroidvania-pinball hybrid that stands out as something wholly unique. It blends those clashing genres with a beautiful island style, and its satisfying flippers and bumpers make uncovering its wide island a ton of fun. Retreading completed areas while hunting for secrets can occasionally get stale, but Yoku's Island Express has a refreshingly positive attitude that kept me smiling the whole way through.
Detroit: Become Human is a poignantly pulpy interactive sci-fi drama where your choices can impact events to a greater and more satisfying degree than in most games of this type. Though I wish its story had been handled with a softer touch, especially considering the subtlety that can be conveyed through its tech and performances, its well-written and acted central trio were vital enough to me that I found myself feeling genuine distress when they were in danger and a sense of victory when they triumphed. Most importantly, Detroit offers a multitude of transparent branching paths that entice further playthroughs, and choices have a permanence that raise the stakes throughout.
Dark Souls Remastered does a fair job of bringing the brutal but fair essence of the original Dark Souls up to the standards of current-generation consoles, including running an almost locked 60 frames per second and the option to play at 4K resolution. A few muddy textures and some slowdown in the most intense and fiery moments are noticeable, but still a vast improvement. Now that Dark Souls Remastered exists, there's no reason to play any other version, whether this is your first run through or your 100th.
Conan Exiles is often slow and arduous, but even after 70 hours – 40 since launch – the idea of returning to the Exiled Lands still holds some allure. Crafting is largely a tedious grind, especially the higher up you get in the crafting tiers, and it's surprising that in a world about brutal combat, Conan Exiles falls flat there. However, the beautifully realized world is a joy to explore and it nails the atmosphere of the source material.
Runner 3 is a fun, challenging experience with a weird, charming aesthetic brought down by out-of-date graphics.
State of Decay 2's zombie-infested maps are good places to scavenge, fight, and survive in. Combat is satisfyingly brutal and the special zombies inspire some real fear of permanent death, even though the Blood Plague turns out to be more of a sniffle. But the bugs are just as persistent as the zombies, and after a dozen or so hours the repetition of both eventually take their toll, making the appeal of replaying feel more limited than I'd expected for a sandbox RPG.
Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition is a good-quality port of the Wii U game, but outside of much more stable performance and better local co-op it doesn't add enough new content to make replaying the story mode interesting again if you've already tried it. Luckily, the Adventure Mode maps and 16 of the 31 unlockable characters are available from the start.
Player choice is at the heart of what makes Paladins tick as a hero shooter.
When it's all said and done Warmind left me feeling mixed.
Baranor's new toys and helpful mercenaries give Middle-earth: Shadow of War - The Desolation of Mordor a fresh take that does its best to shine despite the lack of a complete Nemesis system. Without a gripping story or interesting protagonist, it settles on being a fun but short challenge mode.
I've never been terrorized, stalked, or fascinated by enemy AI quite like I was in The Forest. It's a harrowing survival ordeal that knows how to play with tension and create the sense of a real world with complex inner workings and mysteries I was eager to discover. It's I Am Legend told in the depths of the hinterlands, with a meaningful story progression that doesn't overstay its welcome. Disregard the warnings on the walls and hidden between the trees at your own peril – and if you want a unique and memorable survival horror experience, then you should absolutely dare to do so.
Pillars of Eternity 2: Deadfire improves upon the Pillars of Eternity formula in nearly every way, creating an RPG loaded with both strong combat and important, character-defining choices that frequently have an impact on your numerous and deep side-story adventures.
There's no doubt that City of Brass is meant to be punishing. But between its ungainly controls, its inability to stave off a sense of tedious repetition, and spirit-breaking lack of progression, it feels far less fair and more painful than its rogue-lite brethren. Its superficial use of the Arabian Nights folklore, combined with its monotonous design and reliance on exotic cliche, make it as uninteresting to experience as it is excruciating to endure.
Intuitive, authentic, and surprisingly realistic, Killing Floor: Incursion emphasizes the physical dimension of its virtual world, delighting in the tactile qualities of VR and making the most every little object. Whether you're staring down the scope of a remarkably believable sniper rifle or clobbering enemies with the dismembered arm of one of their own fallen comrades, you never fail to have a clear, satisfying sense of how every item, weapon or body part feels.
Donkey Kong: Tropical Freeze's addition of Funky Mode makes it more accessible without reducing the formidable platforming difficulty to a walk in the park. There's still a lot of challenge, even with the extra help Donkey's Funky uncle affords. But the Switch version manages to take just enough of an edge off a punishing game to let the fun platforming outshine its difficulty.
The first Total War Saga game tries a lot of new things, succeeding at about half of them. It improves on a few areas historical Total War games have struggled with, but at the same time falls back into some bad, old habits that other games in the series were able to rise above. The overall tapestry reads as more than competent, and I could watch hardened huskarls with their massive axes crash into a Saxon shield wall all day. But there are too many blemishes for me to place it alongside some of its truly great peers like Attila and Warhammer.
Super Mega Baseball 2 is a grounded baseball simulation wrapped in an arcade-style look and feel. An accurate physics engine generates realistic hits, and it keeps stats and models fatigue and morale in interesting ways. This realism is betrayed by a few control issues that affect the timing when batting and an AI that doesn't always behave as you'd expect. However, the unique Ego system allows you to tweak the difficulty of batting and fielding individually until you find the perfect challenge. And while it lacks the MLB license, you could use the accessible customization tools to recreate the entire MLB if you wanted to.
Frostpunk deftly mixes a variety of thematic ideas and gameplay elements into an engaging and unique, if occasionally unintuitive, strategy game.