GamesBeat's Reviews
It’s not always a perfect combination. A few of the latter puzzles feel needlessly complicated, requiring you to place the objects at pixel-perfect angles to trigger the next area. But that doesn’t take away from how remarkable the game is. Like Portal before it, Maquette redefines what puzzle games are capable of, and I don’t think I’ll be forgetting about these characters any time soon.
Instead, Rise is all about hunting monsters. Which, you know, seems appropriate for a franchise named Monster Hunter. Capcom has done a great job bringing this series to Switch, and new features like the Palamute and wirebug make this a more fast-paced experience.
You can play a lot of 3D Mario games on your Switch. Super Mario 3D World + Bowser’s Fury is just as good as any of them. It contains makes the Wii U game feel better than you remember, and the bonus campaign makes the package one of the best ports Nintendo has brought to the Switch.
I’m not sure if you should call Persona 5 Strikers a spinoff or a sequel. Honestly, it feels more like the latter. But if you want to call it a spinoff, it’s the best one that the Persona series has offered yet.
When I think of games from Spiders, Cyanide, Piranha Bytes, or Reality Pump, I appreciate how often ambition overcomes limited resources. Their games (such as Gothic, Two Worlds, Greedfall, Of Orcs & Men) may have glitches and fall short of triple-A standards, but they tend to be fun, have good stories, and mechanics and systems that I enjoy interacting with. Werewolf: The Apocalypse has most of these. I enjoyed taking on an evil corporation, learning more about how the Garou fit into The World of Darkness, and tearing my foes about. I won’t hide from that.
Hitman is a world made up entirely of Chekhov’s guns, and it’s a blast finding out how to get Agent 47 into position to pull the trigger.
It’s fine to make a game like that — for many, that’s the promise of Cyberpunk 2077. It just wasn’t the promise to me.
Immortals is not a masterpiece like the game that it takes so much inspiration from, but it is ambitious and impressive in its own right. It feels good to play, and it gives you a lot to play with. It won’t be the unforgettable adventure that Breath of the Wild is so for so many, but Immortals still offers a journey worth taking.
Empire of Sin has its bugs and some rough cinematic moments. But Romero Games pulled this project off with a team of just 30 people. For a game of its ambition, that seems like a small team. It’s pretty much an indie project, or perhaps “double-A,” compared to other games that are more polished but have hundreds of developers — or even more — working on them.
If you’re a seasoned Souls-like fan, then it’s worth picking up a PS5 just for Demon’s Souls. If not, I still recommend having your passport stamped in Boletaria, but know what you’re getting into beforehand and proceed with caution … and plenty of Moon Grass.
But it’s not the best Call of Duty game I have played, and the specter of returning to Warzone battle royale games looms large over this game. That’s why I rate this game as 4-out-of-5 stars (and yes, I might rate it much closer to 4.5 stars out of 5, as it is a shade better than the Watch Dogs: Legion game I played recently). I don’t think it’s as good as last year’s Call of Duty: Modern Warfare, which was so disturbing and thoughtful and had an excellent and long single-player campaign.
I applaud Bugsnax’s creativity. It’s not the most stimulating puzzle game, but it’s worth checking out if you can’t get that theme song out of your head
I love 3D platformers. You don’t usually see this kind of charm and polish in the genre unless it has Mario’s name attached to it. Granted, Astro isn’t as acrobatic as our favorite Italian plumber. He has a simple move set consisting of a jump, a hover, and some punches. But Astro’s Playroom never feels dull for a second thanks to its unbounded creativity.
But now, I feel safe saying that Crash Bandicoot 4 is the new best game in the series. It captures that fun-yet-simple platforming from the original, but its creative levels, mask abilities, and clever bosses help it surpass the PlayStation trilogy
It doesn’t rely on stereotypes or tropes to find easy answers, and it could be a source of comfort to those who can empathize with these problems. That’s why I liked the tale. It treats all of its characters with a kindness and empathy that unsheathes their complexities.
For video games, Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater 1 and 2 still shows us what games are capable of. You’ll find sad dads in books. Movies will have equally moving stories. Music can show us that emotions are not necessarily tied to language. But only video games can re-create skateboarding.
In my review-in-progress, I said if I were to score it now, I’d give it a 5/5. More than a month later, I’m ready to do so. This is the best Crusader Kings release yet — and it’s Paradox’s best game release ever.
I’m somewhere between neophyte and sim veteran, and Microsoft Flight Simulator has won me over. It happened when I picked a flight path from a small, grass airfield in Brazil to an airport in São Paulo. It feels so good to learn the characteristics of your plane while watching the sunset give away to a purple sheet of stars. And I’m confident that most people will end up feeling the same way if they’re willing to give the game a chance.
So don’t sit this one out. Pick it up, play through it, complain about it with me, but then stick around for all of its joys.
The improvements that Naughty Dog made in gameplay and graphics showed that they were able to completely overhaul a system that wasn't all that bad to begin with, and the result was gameplay that kept me entertained even though it was the longest game that Naughty Dog had ever made. As I said, the action in this game is intense, grueling, and raw.