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Overall, Adventures of Chris is a perfectly pleasant, charming and nostalgic trip for anyone who grew up in the 1990s.
That is about all there is to Nioh 2: The First Samurai: a few new missions, a few new skills, and endgame content geared almost exclusively for the top 1% of players. The Season Pass of the game is worth it for the first two DLCs, but the third DLC is so incredibly limited that you have to be a Nioh die-hard. If you are a Nioh die-hard, The First Samurai gives you more things to test your skills on and more ways to optimize your builds, and it's good at that. If you just want to put your Nioh 2 skills to the ultimate test, there is a lot here to potentially kill the heck out of you.
What a wild ride it is. I didn't want Yakuza: Like a Dragon to end. A part of me wonders if I grinded out battles and business minigames more than was intended, simply because I wasn't ready to say goodbye to Ichiban and friends. Fortunately, the story wraps up nicely and leaves the door open for a possible sequel - even though it wavers a bit near the end. This isn't farewell to Ichiban. With a new cast of charming characters, Like A Dragon feels like the start of a new saga in the Yakuza franchise. Until next time, Kasuga-kun.
G.I. Joe: Operation Blackout is messy. The presentation is inconsistent, while the story is serviceable at best. The addition of local multiplayer outweighs the lack of online play, and the game is lengthy enough. However, the poor combat mechanics drag down the experience heavily, and on a platform that's absolutely bursting with more competent third-person shooters, this is one that you can easily pass on.
Spirit of the North: Enhanced Edition is a beautiful remaster of an average game. If you enjoy wandering around pretty environments and solving some light puzzles, then this is a fantastic "chill out" game, but anything beyond that is somewhat forgettable. Add on some frustrating bugs and the lack of meaningful improvements over the last-gen version beyond visuals, and it isn't a must-buy for anyone who has played the original title. It's worth experiencing if you haven't played it before, but you should perhaps wait for a price drop, since the $35 price tag isn't worth it when you can purchase a last-gen copy for $20.
I may be done with this review, but I'm not done with Tetris Effect: Connected. I may not be seeing tetrominos during my day job, but I do have a newfound obsession with Tetris. Since starting this game, I've gone down YouTube rabbit holes learning about t-spins, tips, and tricks to improve my Tetris game. I've replayed modes to beat my previous high score, which I don't normally do in games. Even after this review, I'm eager to jump back into Journey mode to hear some of my favorite songs before booting up another title. As an added bonus, the multiplayer options make for a solid package that should offer players tons of hours of Tetris.
Empire of Sin has potential, and I look forward to revisiting it after six months of patches that will hopefully address some of these issues. As it stands today, the game is buggy, poorly balanced, and blatantly half-finished. The initial strong presentation quickly fades to frustration as playing correctly is a fool's errand and cheating the system is the only way to play. That might be appropriate for a Mafia game, but not for this title.
It may not sound like it, but I enjoyed many aspects of Cyberpunk 2077. It doesn't hit the highs of The Witcher 3, but it still has a lot going for it. However, it was released in such an unfinished state that it's hard to give it a positive review. It's an 8.0 game hiding in a 4.0 game wrapper.
Haven is a cute and enjoyable mix of light survival, light RPG, and serious romance novel. It's exactly the kind of game to play if you want to relax for a few hours and see adorable people being adorable. The surprisingly enjoyable RPG combat and gentle survival mechanics make the game feel more like a game, while at heart it is closer to a visual novel. If you like warm and fuzzy feelings, Haven is a great choice, as long as you don't mind the occasional risqué dialogue.
In the end, Wildfire is a solid stealth title that plays well on the idea of restricted power. The various uses of your three elemental powers works well in adding a puzzle element to the stages and makes each stage feel chaotically fun, while the stealth emphasis and lack of focus on killing makes the endeavor feel fresh. The journey is a long one, but it doesn't feel like it drags on, thanks to the various objectives thrown your way. Wildfire is a wildly enjoyable romp that genre fans will absolutely enjoy.
The Falconeer's simplistic but captivating visuals are representative of the game as a whole. There's a simplicity to its gameplay and narrative, but there's something intriguing about the lore. The game doesn't stick the landing on its unique concepts, though. Clocking in at around 10 hours, the four chapters feel like the start of something really special - before the game abruptly ends. The first two chapters offer little in the way of diversity, and just as you come to grips with the game mechanics and start finding some engaging environments in the final hours, it ends. I wanted to learn more about the game world. I wanted to get in more exhilarating battles now that my falcon was competent enough to fly around without draining its energy meter, but the game wraps up just as I started getting into it. With a distinct art style, gorgeous animations, and intriguing lore, there's enough in The Falconeer to justify a playthrough, but most of its enjoyment doesn't shine through until the last couple of hours.
It may sound like I've been constantly ripping into Assassin's Creed Valhalla, but it's more complicated than that. I love the world and exploration, and I love that Ubisoft made a concerted effort to address many people's issues with Odyssey. I love that I don't get constantly blindsided by over-leveled mercenaries, I love that assassin missions have death cut scenes, and there are so many side stories to explore. It just doesn't come together as well as it could. It feels like the development team has branched out to try new things, but none of the good ideas and changes were followed through, making them feel like shallow attempts to change things. This would likely not have been a criticism if we were talking about a runtime of fewer than 30 hours. With a runtime of 50+ hours, though, these sorts of things eventually come crashing down as player fatigue sets in. I still enjoy Valhalla for what it does, but it hurts to know that this could've been a tighter, greater game that delivered on its ambitions rather than merely hinting at them.
Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity is an incredibly successfully follow-up to Hyrule Warriors, and in my opinion, it's the best Warriors title to date. It may lack the sheer unbelievable amount of content that Hyrule Warriors: Definitive Edition has, but what's available plays excellently enough that I didn't mind one bit. The only thing holding it back is the inconsistent frame rate and the innate repetitive nature of a Warriors game. If you liked Hyrule Warriors, Warriors games, or Breath of the Wild, then Age of Calamity is a must-have.
Chicken Police: Paint It Red is a thoroughly engaging detective romp. The investigation elements, like the interrogations and clue linking, are fun in their own right, but the rest of the package proves to be quite enticing. From the story and atmosphere to the characters and dialogue, this is a strong adventure title with a compelling film noir style. For adventure game fans, Chicken Police is a must-have.
West of Dead does most things right as far as roguelites go. The random nature of almost every element of every run can cause some large difficulty spikes, but the overall difficulty evens out in the end. The premise works fine even if it means having to hear it countless times over multiple runs, and while the measured combat feels fresh for a Western, the zoomed-out camera angle doesn't help you appreciate it. Overall, West of Dead is a solid roguelike for those who aren't burned out on the genre yet.
Sam & Max: Save the World Remastered is a welcome sign of life for a classic adventure IP. It feels like it's the start of an effort to properly revive the series in small steps, and that would be great news on its own. The remaster is handled decently, and it achieves what it sets out to do. It updated everything that it needs to, and it looks decent enough on modern systems it. While certainly small in scale, it shines with some good writing and humorous stories that I still enjoy every time I play through it, and that's the lifeblood of any strong adventure experience.
Fans of the franchise and many gamers of a certain age, especially those who have a next-gen console in the hopper, will still find enough to like in Call of Duty: Black Ops - Cold War. I personally still replay the mission with the arcade shootout just to get a little '80s cheeseball energy going, but I think the strategy of overwhelming people with as much content and as many shooter modes as possible might be starting to wear thin. We're not there quite yet, but I'm hoping the next Black Ops might have just a bit more than poking at my childhood memories of a culturally iconic president.
Overall, Immortals: Fenyx Rising is a good game. It's a shameless clone, but it's fun, and it's clear that Ubisoft's take on the formula was done with enthusiasm. If you were disappointed that this year's Breath of the Wild game was a Dynasty Warriors title, then Immortals might scratch that itch. It's always going to live in the shadow of the games that inspired it, but sometimes, all you want to do is climb some cliffs and slay some monsters, and Immortals provides exactly what it promises.
Much of Kandagawa Jet Girls is done incredibly well. The gameplay is varied and interesting, allowing the player to explore how to best approach races and competition, while also offering fun and upbeat music and visuals along the way. It's all strung together by a well-defined aesthetic, from the menus to the loading screens and the UI. What cannot be forgotten - and what takes away the most from this game - is the obsession with these teen girls' bodies in the design. It's cheap and gross, and it completely detracts from the experience. While the races sometimes become bland with ease, the most glaring point that I took away from the experience is how girls' bodies are depicted and designed in media. When it comes down to it, you can make a game that knocks it out of the park in every way, but if you can't show your teen characters without highlighting their massive cleavage or design them without massive breasts in the first place, then frankly, it's not a respectable product that should be taken seriously, and therefore it isn't good.
At the end of the day, Godfall is a game with a dull story, boring world, uninteresting loot, and simplistic combat, but it looks pretty and feels nice to play. It's not a bad game for a quick playthrough, but it's not something that is going to keep your attention for very long, despite theoretically being designed for loot-grinding fun. Considering the new game price of $70, it's difficult to recommend Godfall, even if you're very hungry for a new game for your PS5. Once it comes down in price, it'll be easier to justify picking it up for a mindless hack-and-slash weekend, but at the moment, it doesn't do enough to really be worthwhile.