GamesBeat's Reviews
I admire a lot about The Witness. It is a beautiful game. It is a clever game. It is a big game. But all of its elements, mazes, exploration, and philosophy didn't really come together to express some greater theme. Unless I was meant to question why I hurt my brain to solve a series of difficult mazes for no real award.
Final Fantasy Explorers is a kinder, gentler take on Monster Hunter, and it's going to appeal to those who want to like that series — but don't care for its opaqueness or its hardcore gamer leanings. Final Fantasy fans are going to love the fan service, too.
I commend ACE Team for trying to come up with something that's authentic and clever. But the developer only got The Deadly Tower of Monsters halfway right. The excellent premise and likeable characters outshine the streamlined gameplay. ACE Team has something promising here, but it needs to nail the mechanics next time.
RE Zero is a great example of why old-school horror releases are beloved and special. With a few new technical upgrades, it has largely made a graceful return on current systems. The emphasis on resource management, exploration, and puzzle solving are enjoyable features I wish more modern horror games employed. But, RE Zero still isn't without its flaws, especially with the way it handles combat.
Oxenfree might just be a big next step for adventure games, particularly when it comes to the way it presents dialogue choices. Night School Studio has managed to execute an interactive story that treats player choice in a mature and subtle way. It's an emotional experience with wonderful characters and great writing, and it's one that masters its 70s and 80s influences.
How you feel about Tharsis probably depends on how you feel about board games, soul-crushing challenges, and shorter gaming experiences. If you love tabletop games, repeatedly dying while learning, or heavily micro-managing resources, Tharsis is a worthwhile way to spend an evening.
Controller incongruities aside, Amplitude works as both a look at what rhythm games used to be and as testbed for some interesting new ideas (even if they don't all work). It doesn't offer a new instrument you can pretend to play or change how we think about music games, but it doesn't have to do any of that. It's content to give you a solid, lasting sense of satisfaction from pushing buttons in the right order and hearing some good music.
The constant pull to repeat a set of activities to see numbers go up permeates every game like Devilian. Even now, I'm thinking about running a few more dungeons and seeing if I can't get some Heroic gear out of it. But almost any game with loot will make you want more of it, so hitting that part of the brain's reward center isn't enough to make for a good game.
Guns Up! will look familiar to a lot of players through its similarities to Clash of Clans. But, it has enough going for it to be unique and enjoyable. It is vastly more interactive than a lot of asynchronous multiplayer offerings that have proliferated on mobile, and it successfully brings some of the accessibility and simplicity of mobile games to the PS4 console.
I love that this game exists. It checks the boxes that it absolutely needs to hit.
At the very least, I happily recommend that everyone with a 3DS give it a shot. It's free to download, and you'll get an idea of whether you dig it long before you'll feel any pressure to spend money.
Just Cause 3 offers the tantalizing tease of a terrific open-world adventure, with weapons and tools that make blowing up the bad guys hilarious fun. The wide maps and great selection of missions, although fairly repetitive, means you always have something engaging to look forward to. Unfortunately, technical problems ranging from serious connection issues to NPC failures make the game nearly unplayable at times, and if the bugs don't drive you insane, the loading times will.
With a visible and oft-recited commitment to further balancing efforts and post-release content, Legacy is shaping up to be among the best games in the genre, and a fitting final performance for South Korea's would-be national sport. [OpenCritic note: GamesBeat separately reviewed the single player (73) and multiplayer (92). Their scores have been averaged.]
Star Wars: Battlefront is fun. It's a great Star Wars game. What I can't tell you right now, however, is if it has any longevity. Right now, the lack of map variety could mean that you get sick of the game faster than you would otherwise, and EA dividing the community in the future with paid DLC planets may not help the problem. Still, no other game has made me feel more like an actual participant in a legitimate Star Wars battle. I don't know if I'll ever get sick of that feeling I get when I take down a TIE Fighter, and I doubt that chill I get when I hear the main theme play as I run across a crowded battlefield will ever go away.
It's rare for a game to so ruthlessly and completely nail the altered reality games place us in the way Undertale does. Whether it's the nameless NPCs you always meet in RPGs or the hundreds of mooks you mow down with gunfire in games like Uncharted, Undertale brilliantly demystifies these conventions and questions why games are still codified this way. But even outside of its ambitious themes, it proves to be a compact, perfectly paced RPG experience with hilarious, tense writing and endearing charaters.
Mario Tennis: Ultra Smash is fun. I enjoyed my time with it - much more so than I did with Mario Tennis Open. It's a step up over the last iteration in some areas, yet still it manages to be a lackluster entry in a series that seems to be sadly suffering from continual decline.
Telltale has put together an incredible Game of Thrones story. I've said all along in my previous reviews that I am happier with this than the television show proper, and I stand by that. I still can't wait for HBO's next season to debut, but I'm far more interested in seeing what happens with this story.
The Wii U version of Rodea is simultaneously a game with a lot of charm and one that's difficult to love as much as you want to. When Rodea works and all of its gears are cranking along smoothly, it's an exhilarating joy to play. But everything can come crashing down at any time: an enemy encounter reliant on overly finicky aiming or a misplaced attack that sends you careening into the abyss can sour the sense of wonder in a flash.
I probably can't give a higher endorsement of Fallout 4 than this: I've spent around 50 hours playing between the console and PC versions, and I don't feel like I'm anywhere near quitting.
Rise of the Tomb Raider is an epic adventure, and it's a story well told and well played.