IGN's Reviews
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.
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.