USgamer's Reviews
Sony San Diego overhauls almost every single aspect of MLB The Show with this update, with the outstanding March to October and Moments modes leading the way. At least for right now, it seems destined to go down as the best baseball sim of the generation, and maybe as one of the best sports sims as well.
Outer Wilds is easily my game of the year thus far, and continues to move up the list of my personal favorite games of all time. It's an experience I genuinely cannot stop thinking about, managing to encompass everything I love about the adventure gaming genre and the smart sci-fi musings of my all-time favorite authors. The few negatives brought on by the time loop at the game's core are universally outweighed by the pioneering spirit cultivated throughout. I urge you to seek out Outer Wilds if you can, if only to try out what is surely one of the greatest adventure games ever created.
The Legend of Zelda: Link's Awakening remake for the Switch improves most of the flaws from the original game while maintaining (or enhancing) everything that makes Link's Game Boy adventure a classic. Its shiny new coat of paint suits it well, even if slowdown issues pop up from time to time. A few hours of play is all it takes to remind you why Zelda fans love Link's Awakening so very much.
All considered as the sum of its many, equally magnificent parts, Kentucky Route Zero is a game I won't forget for a long, long time.
A great PvP game that offers some of the most intriguing and nuanced team combat around. As with all multiplayer games, sometimes the enjoyment can be marred by less considerate players, but when everyone is giving it their all, DOTA 2 is intense, challenging, and hugely enjoyable.
Project CARS features an excellent roster of cars and tracks, and delivers some of the most exciting and visceral racing action money can buy. It's not for everyone, since driving the game can be quite tough, even with all the assists turned on, but for those who are up for a challenge, few other racing games are as involving and potentially rewarding as this.
Refreshingly, Bloodborne knows what it is, and doesn't stray too far from the Souls formula—but its few alterations make for a fresh experience that will challenge even the most hardened Souls veterans. If you're looking to justify the purchase of a PS4, I can't think of a better reason.
DmC Definitive Edition beefs up the excellent original with better graphics, all the DLC, retuned combat, and a host of difficulty modes. If you loved the original, Definitive is better. If you were avoiding it because you're a Devil May Cry purist, Definitive is closer to the original series than ever before.
OlliOlli 2 will test you. The controls are simple and straightforward, but success requires precision. Across 50 levels and five worlds, you will trick, you will combo, you will fail, and finally... you will succeed. OlliOlli 2 is a wonderfully tight zen experience from beginning to end. It's worth the price of admission.
Without doubt the definitive version of Super Stardust. Some might be disappointed about the fairly limited new additions, but regardless, it's still one of the greatest arcade shooters around.
Guilty Gear Xrd -SIGN- is a triumphant return for a fighting series that stayed in hiding for an entire generation. Arc System Works has laid a visual salvo with 3D models that animate like 2D art. Combined with the amazing soundtrack and technical gameplay, Xrd is a great fighter. The only thing that holds it back is an obtuse online match system and a relatively lean roster. If you're a guilty Gear fan, it's definitely worth a purchase.
Dragon Age: Inquisition is a graphical showcase for the next-generation consoles—a sprawling, beautiful open-world RPG with a deeply satisfying exploration loop and just enough in the way of mechanical depth to keep hardcore adventurers happy. At more than 50 hours for a single run through the story, it packs in a tremendous amount of content across a wide number of locations. After stumbling a bit of their past few releases, BioWare has recovered to deliver a truly excellent piece of epic fantasy.
Despite some occasionally frustrating difficulty spikes, Never Alone tells a fascinating, evocative tale that leaves a deep impression. A terrific platform game, despite its flaws.
Rockstar Games revisits last year's heist-filled romp with a new version on PS4, Xbox One, and PC. With the new power, the developer has added more depth and life to the world of Los Santos. It's the same game, but the new visual effects and first-person mode provides a strong experience. It's not completely worth a double-dip if you tore through the original GTA V, but it's definitely worth a second look.
NBA 2K15's scope and ambition as a sports sim is admirable; and though its execution doesn't always match its vision, it's still an altogether polished and impressive package. Even if you don't care much about basketball, it's worth checking out for its highly entertaining MyPlayer mode alone. Once again, Visual Concepts has nailed what makes the NBA so appealing to a wide swath of people.
While it has a few rough patches and may prove too slow and drawn-out for some players, Isolation does an amazing job of capturing the essence of a classic film and recasting it as a video game. It can be a little too easy to see the man behind the curtain at times, but this is nevertheless one of the finest film-to-game adaptations ever... and a fantastic stealth adventure in its own right.
Shadow of Mordor is a great first step into the open-world action-adventure genre for Monolith. It up-ends what's come before with the Nemesis System, which brings the player closer to the game with personalized foes. The game isn't perfect - resurrecting foes can be frustrating - but those issues won't hold you back from enjoying yourself.
FIFA 15's improvements don't jump out right away, but they rapidly manifest themselves in smarter teammates, livelier stadiums, and more tactical gameplay. Beyond that, FIFA 15 is still a remarkably polished and complete experience, boasting excellent career modes and a variety of touches like Seasons mode and Match Day Live that remain unmatched by other sports sims. NBA 2K may yet challenge it for supremacy, but for now, FIFA remains the best all-around sports sim on the market.
There's not really enough distance between the PS3 version of The Last of Us and this new Remaster to make it worth double-dipping, unless you're simply that fixated on counting lines of resolution. If you missed out the first time around, though, you really shouldn't let it slip past again. While it often works better as a movie than a game, it still stands at the state of the art. And the writing is good enough to enjoy even if you hate zombie genre fiction (like I do). The Last of Us is about refinement, not innovation, and this version takes the art of refinement another step forward.
As fun in this beefed-up incarnation as in its original release, Guacamelee Super Turbo Champion Edition offers one of the best-designed and most original takes on the well-worn metroidvania phenomenon you'll ever find. The new material may not quite bring enough to the table to warrant a second purchase, and the game doesn't exactly push PS4 or Xbox One to the ragged edge of their capabilities, but once again excellent game design has less to do with technical specs and more to do with creativity and thoughtfulness: Features Guacamelee possesses in spades.