IGN's Reviews
Thumper’s brutal, breakneck speed and precision-based musical action kept me entranced for all nine of its bizarre, nightmarish stages, which contained enough nuanced high score-chasing tricks to demand several replays already. To really master Thumper’s many layers of rhythm-based mechanisms would take much more time than the 10 or so hours it takes to complete the first time – and that’s a challenge that I eagerly accept.
Rise of the Tomb Raider hasn’t lost its luster a year after its initial release. Bundled together with all of the content released so far, Lara’s already-packed adventure is now even bigger. And while Playing the new non-combat story mode, Blood Ties, with PlayStation VR was enjoyable (when I was in Comfort Mode, at least), and played normally it’s an interesting character study. The co-op enabled Endurance mode is also a new highlight.. For PS4 players just getting their first opportunity to play Rise of the Tomb Raider, 20 Year Celebration is a complete and amazing package.
Dragon Quest Builders is totally, thoroughly engaging. Its gameplay is accessible to kids while its dialogue offers enough sly references to keep Dad or Mom amused. Collecting, crafting, and building all sounds familiar, but this package encapsulates so much of the best parts of this creative process and wraps it in light roleplaying progression and storytelling. It doesn’t matter that there isn’t a multiplayer component, because it wouldn’t have contributed to the world. So that means this is a gold-standard RPG for the non-connected gamer to flex all their cerebral muscles wherever they want it to go.
You have to admire where The Tomorrow Children does innovate—particularly its look and social engineering—but it overly burdens you and bogs down progression with dragging resource collection and bureaucratic manipulation. Even though you immediately progress from a Prole to the ranks of the papered Bourgeoisie you're still tediously grinding for the man.
Warhammer 40K: Eternal Crusade's big multiplayer battles create some fun combat that captures the feel of the Warhammer 40K universe enough, but it currently doesn't offer the amount of content I'd expect from a $50 game. Balance and optimization issues also complicate the fun, as do missing elements in the shop and unfinished features that all suggest Eternal Crusade was released a bit too soon.
Paper Mario: Color Splash is a step in the right direction for the series after the 3DS’s Paper Mario: Sticker Star, continuing its shift from RPG to action-adventure game while also introducing some smart changes to its battle system. The beautiful Wii U graphics and playful humor stay true to the spirit of the Paper Mario franchise, but the story is straightforward and a bit bland. Inventive level design in the second act offers some much needed diversity to some of Color Splash's otherwise linear gameplay before the disappointing third act regresses into simple and uninteresting battles. Though Color Splash still isn't back to the high points of the first three games in the Paper Mario series, it's a strong step in the right direction.
Being Batman in Akrham VR is a great way to more intimately experience Rocksteady's universe and to search for clues in this brief mystery. However, the world and characters around you are largely rigid and unresponsive to your actions, which leaves a lot on the table for a game about a character known as much for his brawn as he is for his brains.
Sadly, even loading an MP3 of ‘90s favorite “Mr. Jones” by Counting Crows didn’t make any of these four music mini-games and passive experiences any less boring or more bearable. If my friends came over to check out my new $400 VR headset, Harmonix Music VR is the last thing I’d want to show them.
It’s a shame these four games and one sightseeing trip aren’t sold separately, because as a mismatched hodgepodge it’s a lot harder to recommend as a whole than the good parts would have been on their own. The entertaining shooting gallery and drama of The London Heist carries the other three short and less interesting games and the passive Ocean Descent, and is likely the only one I'll remember.
Even as a mere horror-flavored rail shooter lacking in any serious scares, Until Dawn: Rush of Blood isn’t terrible. Responsive, arcade-style shooting, the frequency of collectibles, optional side passages that add some sense of exploration to the linear rollercoaster, and an end-of-level letter grade system offer plenty of casual replayability. Coupled with its smooth, motion-based controls, and barring some of its weaker stages, Rush of Blood actually makes for a decently fun ride.
Thumper’s brutal, breakneck speed and precision-based musical action kept me entranced for all nine of its bizarre, nightmarish stages, which contained enough nuanced high score-chasing tricks to demand several replays already. To really master Thumper’s many layers of rhythm-based mechanisms would take much more time than the 10 or so hours it takes to complete the first time – and that’s a challenge that I eagerly accept.
Superhypercube is simple, but thankfully the comprehensible premise doesn't confuse simplicity with shallowness. As your skill improves and the challenge increases, rotating and dropping the ever-changing three-dimensional shapes gets ever more engaging. When I eventually, inevitably crashed, I was always hammering restart the moment the prompt appeared. That’s the mark of an amazing puzzle game.
Battlezone looks good and controls well, but offline there’s nothing to think about besides shoot, shoot, shoot, which in this case just doesn’t provide enough of a good time to be enjoyable for long.
Wayward Sky is a good example of how well suited VR is for point-and-click style adventures. It uses perspective and gesture-based gameplay to immerse you in a world that is, on its own, a well made and inviting one. Though I’ll most likely forget forget much of its gameplay sooner than later, Wayward Sky’s setting and ambiance will stay with me long after.
Yo-kai Watch 2 isn’t lacking in soul or spirit, and certainly not in expansions to its well-built world. But what can be said about the original still holds for its sequel: the world can be fun to dive into, but actually playing Yo-kai Watch can shift from tedious to outright boring. For every new story idea or impressive blend of humor and pathos in its writing, Yo-kai Watch 2 fails to breathe life into the act of actually playing it, and until something’s done about all the issues with combat, no amount of delicious doughnuts can cover up its problems.
Rise of Iron has just enough new content to keep me coming back for a while, but it feels like the bare minimum. When I wasn’t absentmindedly grinding against reskinned enemies until I couldn’t do it anymore, I was falling down the rabbit hole of side quests and trying out new weapons while patrolling the Plaguelands. The satisfying but still not groundbreaking raid is a decent reward at the end. I wish this expansion had focused more on fixing Destiny’s repetition problems, because it has a few good ideas — but with all its pitfalls, this is just Destiny going through the motions.
While Fire and Ice’s art direction and music are woefully generic, the well-constructed level layouts create a solid arcade-style experience that accomplishes a sense of extraordinary speed while accommodating a reasonable degree of control. Sonic Boom successfully draws from much of what makes the best of classic Sonic game play satisfying, sprinkles in a better-conceived exploratory structure, and remixes it into an intelligent, cohesive, and rewarding package.
System Rift does an admirable job of tying Breach mode into the main story while starting to fill in the gaps between Human Revolution and Mankind Divided, but it doesn't feel complete unto itself. You’ll get two to four hours more of excellent Deus Ex gameplay, and a glimpse of what the future may hold, but not much more, which is just a bit of a tease.
Virginia shows instead of tells, with a raw, understated power and a calculated nuance that make even the smallest, most mundane details brim with narrative and emotional significance. While I never found a way to impact or change significant story events, the tale of family, friendship, career, and identity that Virginia tells (without uttering a single word) was enough of a reward for my limited input. The mysteries that remain by the end especially justified a second and third visit, and even now I can feel the secrets of Kingdom, Virginia and the two women whose lives changed there luring me back for another.
Mount & Blade: Warband may not have a carefully guided plot or even reasonably attractive graphics, but it recreates the sensation of living in a medieval world like few other games by allowing freedom to decide your own approach to carving out your destiny in a dynamic world of rapidly changing alliances. Controls are awkward at best, making it tough to appreciate how good the combat is, but there's a lot of fun here, especially in the eight multiplayer modes for up to 32 players. As a veteran of the PC version, which I love, I feel bad not being able to recommend the console version more highly, but this port doesn’t fully allow Mount & Blade’s charm to shine through.