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I’ll give AEW Fight Forever this: When I was playing actual matches, many of my problems faded into the background. The actual wrestling is a good time and up to four players can throw down in a massive variety of ways with a huge roster or their own created characters. It’s when I came away from the squared circle and had to look at other parts of the game that its flaws were hard to ignore. Even so, I think THQ Nordic, Yuke’s, and AEW have a good start here. They’ve made a game that is at least fun to play and feels good in the ring, which is arguably the most important part. If there’s another AEW game, I’d like to see Create-a-Wrestler, crossplay, and the overall presentation of the game rise to meet the gameplay. For now, I’ll just try not to spend too much time outside the squared circle in Fight Forever.
This new version of Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective was a surprising delight to see out of Capcom. We’ve seen plenty of the Phoenix Wright games make a return, but Ghost Trick is quite the interesting spinoff. It offers a compelling narrative, a rather fun mystery-unraveling and time-twisting gameplay loop, and solid original and arranged soundtracks to accompany the journey. It doesn’t add much in the way of new content to visually and aurally upgraded package, but if you’re looking for another romp, or your first, through Ghost Trick: Phantom Detective, then this is an fantastic way to go about it.
Aliens: Dark Descent does a decent job of creating an interesting mashup of tactical action and strategy that suitably translates the tension and aesthetics of the popular movie franchise. Needing to stealth around the xenomorphs is a nerve-wracking experience, and the firefights against the aliens can be intense when they work. However, the plot and dialogue are lackluster, the enemies aren't as terrifying as they could be, and the flow between stealth and boss fights is abrupt. There's just one too many ideas in Aliens: Dark Descent, but it's still nonetheless a worthwhile adventure.
The latest marquee RPG from Square Enix goes for broke at every opportunity and then some.
While I feel the live service elements are out of place, I ultimately can't hate the final product. Crash Team Rumble is a blast, one that's easy to learn and hard to put down.
Though it is not without its fair share of flaws, the revamped Layers of Fear contains everything that fans enjoyed about the original series and elevates them with improved visuals and new gameplay mechanics that help alleviate some of the monotony. The writer’s story offers an intriguing through-line that sensibly ties together each narrative thread. Technical hiccups aside, Layers of Fear wraps up the series in a graphically enhanced package that is easily the best way for players both new and old to experience the franchise.
F1 23 is an improvement over last year's iteration, but not nearly as impactful of an upgrade. Here's hoping that the F1 series can continue to build on its successes and take a page out of Red Bull's recent Formula 1 dominance: incremental updates are more valuable than wholesale changes.
I had my doubts about two Riot Forge games coming out in such proximity to one another, but Riot Games is proving to be good at picking great developers to give new and interesting life to its League of Legends universe. Double Stallion didn’t just flesh out another corner of League of Legends lore with Convergence. It also built a metroidvania that I feel would be considered innovative and enjoyable whether it had the League of Legends name on it or not. I wish the enemies had more variety to them, and the time-shifting effects on voiced dialogue are sometimes very silly, but I would dare to say that whether you enjoy LoL or not, you’re in for a treat if you choose to spend time with this game.
Despite having predetermined outcomes, Harmony: The Fall of Reverie does a great job at giving players a true sense of agency over the direction of the story. Even when things don’t go as expected, the events that unfold are no less intriguing. The game raises the bar for what can be achieved through player choice, and those looking for a compelling narrative-driven experience have plenty to enjoy here.
There are lots of ideas in Amnesia: The Bunker that are truly intriguing. I love the World War 1 setting as a backdrop for a horror story, especially the way it intersects with technology of the era. But the way gameplay elements are introduced as friction meant to induce tension simply feel overtuned. I often felt like I was fighting the game just to get around, which was frustrating in a software kind of way rather than an atmospheric enhancement. I wasn’t scared because I was too busy squinting or yanking on the flashlight’s pull cord just so I could pull on doors and latches. No amount of spooky ambiance in the background could bring me back into the experience.
LEGO 2K Drive's solid Story Mode is mainly undone by uneven pacing and the inability to play it online with friends. Add in the game's comprehensive vehicle builder, and it all leads to a solid debut for the 2K/LEGO partnership, even if the microtransactions can feel like stepping on a square LEGO brick.
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I wanted desperately to find a good game underneath all the bugs in Redfall, and every now and then a tiny ray of light would shine through and give me hope. I took my time to give it a fair opportunity where others wrote it off only a few hours in. Unfortunately, they were right, and this will go down as one of the more disappointing games that I’ve played in recent years. All we can hope for now is that Redfall’s disastrous journey serves as a warning to Microsoft and its stable of development studios. Not because the world’s second-largest company can’t take the hits, but because players deserve better.
All-in-all, this game rekindled my love of the franchise, and I can’t wait to see how Street Fighter 6 grows over time.
Blizzard opts for refinement over innovation with Diablo 4, but it's still a devilishly good time.
Nightdive’s System Shock remake keeps much of its successful elements intact while doing away with a lot of its archaic issues that would drag down a modern game.
There’s no doubt in my mind that Lord of the Rings fans will appreciate a lot of what Gollum is offering. It’s genuinely cool seeing such a fascinating side character step into the protagonist role in a story that further expands on a universe teeming with secrets to discover. It’s a bummer that there isn’t much else to write home about. A dull gameplay experience and technical hiccups make The Lord of the Rings: Gollum just as much of a polarizing experience as its main character.
Despite the stark lack of context, Hello Neighbor VR: Search & Rescue has an interesting house to explore with fun environmental puzzles, an unnerving persistent threat, and an interesting dynamic between the kids all working to help each other move forward in the house by degrees. It’s just all gummed up in unreasonably janky interactions and contrivances. I’m also not thrilled that it does nothing to ease you into the game, making it an utterly confusing experience for anyone who hasn’t been on board with Hello Neighbor already. I would like to think this can be a starting point of what to do and what not to do for tinyBuild and Steel Wool Studios if they go for a VR Hello Neighbor again. The puzzle and environment design is good, but they need to put a lot more time into what makes both a comfortable and responsive VR experience.
After Us serves as a compelling reminder of the far-reaching consequences of environmental neglect. While there are stories to glean through memories, the game is primarily a tactile experience, emphasizing parkour and puzzle-solving over delivering a strong narrative. The game has approachable puzzles and straightforward controls that should be easy for most to pick up. Its engaging gameplay mechanics, stark visuals, and poignant message make for a satisfying puzzle-platformer overall.
Miasma Chronicles is a fascinating experience that aims for a narrow target and hits it, for the most part. Making a serious, tactical RPG a vehicle for compelling storytelling is a tough proposition because the broad appeal of the latter is often at odds with the brutal vibes of the former. But with its tailored difficulty options, stealth options outside of combat, and, of course, the solid weight of the storytelling itself, Miasma Chronicles succeeds in its mission.