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Maybe as a result of the sheer growing mass of Skylanders games, though, the level design here is particularly uninspired. Most maps are simple A-to-B affairs, with some simplistic puzzles dotting the landscape. It carries some legacy issues, like the frustratingly slow block-pushing puzzles, and the inability to easily read ahead when characters are slowly delivering their dialogue points. Plus the central hub, called M.A.P.S., is a bit more confusing than most of the past hub worlds, since it consists of several floating islands without obvious paths between them.
Ashes of Ariandel offers a satisfying blend of lore, boss fights, and exploration that Souls fans love, but fails to shake some of Dark Souls 3's problems.
WWE 2K17 expansive game systems represent possibly the most substantial update to the franchise in years. Most of the changes are small, but they add up to the most fun I've had with a WWE game in years.
Gears of War 4 is a fantastic addition to a great franchise. It introduces characters and paves a runway for future games. The Coalition Studio updated the series with a careful attention to detail that is clearly rooted in a deep respect for the history of the series. Gamers who have never played a Gears of War game will feel just as welcome as players who have logged thousands of hours killing grubs. This is one of the best games to be released this year, without a doubt. While the campaign may have felt a bit short with its abrupt ending, it left me itching for a sequel.
Aragami takes stealth games back into the shadows where they belong. That said, even diehard fans who wear pacifist-only runs like a badge of honor will find it brutally challenging. Those who prefer their get-out-of-jail-free cards come with an extra ammo clip might want to steer clear.
Paper Mario: Color Splash is the kind of simple, lightly enjoyable experience that I might have willingly gotten lost in at one point in my life. It's mostly inoffensive, usually charming, and a visual treat. The battle system is a drag, but it's emblematic of a larger problem that is also reflected in the quests: it simply doesn't respect the player's time. With more aggressive story editing and less desire to reinvent the wheel, this may have been something truly special. Instead it's merely fine.
I found Toy Odyssey to be, all in all, an enjoyable little romp evne if it wasn't something I probably would have picked up and played on my own. It still managed to be fun and exciting, with an impressive attention to detail and plenty of reasons to keep coming back, as long as you space out your visits to the toy room by a few days proper.
A mixture of quiet, reserved instruments along with dramatic strings and percussion give every moment of Virginia some levity, its change in tone, timbre, and style indicative of the weight of each scene in the game. When mixed with the camera’s specific framing the low-res polygonal visual design and clear progression delineation, Virginia is a marvel of sight and sound.
The biggest disappointment of the expansion comes in the form of the new social arena, the Archon’s Forge. Billed as a mix between the Prison of Elders and the Court of Oryx, Bungie made some unfortunate design decisions when putting the forge together. They’ve since fixed one of those, making it easier to get SIVA Offerings (which you need to activate the forge), but the instanced event still suffers from a lack of connected players. This is one event that feels like it would have been better used as its own instance in the game (like the Prison of Elders), but instead the Court of Oryx approach leaves a lot of players to tackle their Offerings on their own, which defeats the entire purpose of the encounter. This makes it tougher to take on the more difficult events in the Forge, which has been a huge turn-off for a lot of players so far.
Thankfully that slapdash treatment isn't indicative of the game as a whole. The story mode is well put together and serves as a faithful homage to the classic. It's loving to the point of almost fawning, and it feels a little too willing to play it safe at times, but it's an enjoyable nostalgia trip regardless.
Picross 3D 2 is what a sequel should be, especially for puzzle games. I would've been happy with more puzzles, but it went further. It iterated and engaged my brain in new and clever ways that I hadn't even considered, it revised its progression ramp in a way that I found more satisfying, and it gave and continues to give me dozens of hours of enjoyment. If you have any interest in logic puzzles and brain-teasers, this is a can't-miss.
A very basic and reductive way to describe Valley would be to say it’s a virtual jungle gym riddled with various toys and obstacles that are complemented well by the LEAF suit.
Forza Horizon 3 feels like the series grand crescendo as all of that work has lead up to the best Forza game I've ever played. I already was a big fan of the Forza series, but Forza Horizon 3 is beyond anything I could have ever imagined for the series and I can’t wait to discover more of its beautiful world.
All of this took a promising franchise introduction and just left a bad taste in my mouth. I genuinely enjoyed a lot of aspects of ReCore--the world, the nail-biting platforming challenges, the smart and fast-paced combat. But it comes with so many issues and reservations that it becomes hard to recommend. I liked ReCore enough to hope we'll see an improved sequel, but if we do, I'll recommend players skip to that one.
Pac-Man Championship Edition 2 is an amalgam of excellent new augments, though for the most part it stays the same and implements new looks and skins. I'm not sure there's enough that it actually changes from the other game, but there's still plenty here to enjoy and hungrily devour, like Pac-Man and ghosts, if you're a diehard fan or even have a passing interest in the game. Ghost trains are where it's at, and you'll most likely agree.
Mechanically the game is more than sound, it's awesome. Character-wise, however, you might want to make sure this isn't the Ace Attorney game you pick up first if you're looking to build relationships.
Bud is adorable, the world is visually stunning, and the game itself enticingly oozes whimsy. But those pure moments of bliss are undercut by Bud’s frustrating controls in a world filled with moments requiring his best precision.
Of course, all stories need an ending. To the point, Madden NFL 17 is a quality Madden game. It does a lot of things right, and fixes most of the major shortcomings of previous editions. If you’ve lapsed in the series or just want to know if you should grab this year’s game, go forward knowing that you will get a lot of mileage from it. It’s good. At the same time, however, it is still absolutely a Madden game, and in the 12th year of EA’s exclusivity deal with the NFL it’s hard not to pine for a little competition. Sunrise, sunset.
When you step back and look at No Man’s Sky you can actually see how well it shines, and just how much love and devotion was put into each piece of the universe. It’s a procedurally generated world, but that doesn’t change the fact that Hello Games breathed life into this world. While some mechanics can be grating, it succeeds fairly well at its vision of delivering an eerie galaxy and the sense of discovery in exploring it.
Metroid Prime: Federation Force is akin to games like LBX: Little Battlers' Experience or the Custom Robo games in that you get these powerful mechs to customize and traverse several different missions with, all the while able to bring friends to join in on the fun. It's chock full of Metroid lore, even if it's not the Metroid game you think you should have gotten after all this time. Had it been released under a different name, it'd be a perfectly serviceable mutliplayer mech adventure, but even with the Metroid name it's well worth picking up for a fun little weekend jaunt, especially if you're the type to return again and again to a game to best your previous scores and advance from there, you'll find an excellent entry in the Metroid series here.