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This is a must play for fans of the genre or anyone looking for a solid scare.
Even for those who haven't experienced Pokemon fever first-hand, Ultra Sun and Moon still manage to convey the sense that they was lovingly-crafted for a highly-dedicated demographic. Everything from the availability of Z-Moves to the Pokemon Snap-esque photo function serves as a reminder that Ultra Sun is just as much for experienced players as it is for series newcomers, and additions like the ability to groom and heal Pokemon after battles presents a subtle touch that provides both utility to the player as well as a way to feel a deeper connection to the game's numerous pocket-sized companions.
This game should not be fun. It has almost everything except its phenomenal mud and vehicle physics working against it. Often unfriendly to the point of misery, Mudrunner asks a lot from those who chose to engage it, but like many classic tough games, success simply feels sweeter. The music choices and achievement prompts are straight out of a PS1-era extreme sports title, but hearing the faint sound of butt rock as you near a lumber mill with your final load of logs re-invigorates you like seeing light after eons of darkness. This is the closest we'll ever get to a video game based on William Friedkin's classic thriller Sorcerer. If you are a fan of non-conventional PC games, I cannot recommend Spintires:Mudrunner enough. 9/10 mudcaked super swampers
This is truly the best Dragon Ball fighter I've played since the Super Famicom imports.
God of War was never the deepest experience, especially with what feels like limited enemy types. But the PlayStation 4 makes up for this in spades with an incredibly vast world and a heartwarming story. Beyond Kratos and Atreus, the game is filled with some surprisingly lovable characters. On top of that, finishing the main story doesn't truly feel like the end. While previous games made it feel like treading old territory to find everything, the post-game in this God of War makes it feel like the world has truly opened up.
Dark Souls Remastered manages to capture the essence of the Dark Souls experience, primarily because this is exactly the same game that debuted way back in 2011, just this time everything is in gorgeous 4K, and everything runs at 60fps – even Blighttown.
There's so much to love about Pit People, it's hard to nail its single best quality. The simple-to-pick-up strategy gameplay is fantastic, as are the options to make it tougher through the Insane Difficulty toggle or through enabling Permadeath. There's the off-the-wall humor, filled with one-liners, anachronisms, and even the gibberish voices that sound like the Canadians from South Park invaded. There's the mind-blowing amount of recruitable allies and the room for experimentation. And there's the co-op aspect of the game, which leaves room for a friend.
The original Pillars of Eternity is a tough act to follow, but Obsidian has knocked it out of the park once again.
What makes Detroit: Become Human a great game, though, is that even after going back through alternate narrative branches and winding down my play time, I'm still invested. The world that Quantic Dream gave me to explore is only a short leap from the one we're living in now, and the ideas presented have left me contemplating the role AI could play in our lives sooner rather than later.
As long as everyone knows what they're getting into though I would definitely recommend this game to fans of the Dynasty Warriors franchise regardless of their familiarity with Zelda. I'd also give a thumbs up to fans of the Zelda games that are into arcade-style action every now and again.
It's the best the series has seen in years, and that's saying something for this tennis fan. If you're looking for one of the best sports games the Switch has to offer, look no further. You've found it.
Marvel's Spider-Man is at once a fantastic action game, a dramatic story-driven adventure, and a love letter to fans of Marvel's ever-endearing wall-crawler. It's also one of the strongest titles in Insomniac Games' catalog, and will no doubt be counted not only among the best games of 2018, but also among the best PlayStation 4 exclusives ever released.
Sonic Mania Plus cranks the game up to eleven with its new content and it is a must-play for fans of the original Sonic the Hedgehog 2D platformers.
I played the PC version of Conan Exiles for the purposes of this review. From the perspective of a fairly demanding PC nerd, I found the game to be more than adequate. While it has lots of the classic rough edges common to survival games, it can be outright beautiful at times. I encountered no performance issues on my machine during play and the game has all the graphical options and settings you'd expect from a competent PC release. The game works well with high resolutions, ultrawide configurations, and high refresh rates. I found it to be very playable with the Xbox One S controller, though I used a mouse and keyboard for the majority of my time. The game runs on Unreal Engine 4, so users can expect the usual strong point or quirks common to games that license this popular engine.
The true heart of Runner3 once again comes down to how well its gameplay suits rhythm game and platforming fans with a knack for perfecting their craft. Getting a Perfect or a Perfect+ on a level involves learning the patterns for its various obstacles — and this is particularly true for the game's three different knight variants — but players truly driven toward perfect runs will have to use their ears to get a feel for when to execute different maneuvers. Every jump to a gold pile or slide beneath a box feels deliberately synced with the music, and finding the groove introduces sometimes-subtle, sometimes-obvious musical cues that help keep the player on track.
Just Shapes and Beats is a hidden gem in this year's long list of video game releases. Its appeal transcends fans of specific genres as it borrows inspiration from various iconic game franchises.
If you're a fan of the JRPG genre, especially classics Final Fantasy 6, Chrono Trigger, or any of the original Dragon Quests I would heavily encourage you to check out Dragon Quest XI: Echoes of an Elusive Age.
Hitman 2 will undoubtedly serve to define the stealth genre for years to come, and I can't wait to see where IO Interactive takes the series next.
Smash packages don't come any better than this. It may not be perfect, but it sure feels Ultimate.
I'm not a big Metroidvania guy, but Dead Cells managed to conjure up the same feelings I had when I played Super Mario World, Portal, and Stalker: Shadow of Chernobyl.