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While it doesn't do everything perfectly, Hogwarts Legacy stimulates the imagination with a rich world to explore and gameplay that empowers and thrills the player. The Harry Potter films had the tough task of taking words on a page and creating a visual language for them. Hogwarts Legacy had the even tougher task of taking that visual language and making it interactive, ultimately expanding it all into something that is fun to play and immerse yourself in. Although there's still a long year ahead of us and tons of great looking games on the horizon, Hogwarts Legacy is already one of the best games of 2023.
All of this makes Winters' Expansion a decidedly mixed bag of tricks, though the same could be said about Village, too. It's a bit frustrating to see just how little it moves the story forward once all is done, but one wouldn't expect Capcom to give up too much in a DLC anyway. While it's true it'll offer you a different in-game perspective, it's more effective overall at shaping perspectives of this saga's characters and the future of their storyline.
I've enjoyed my experience in Pokemon Unite, and I feel that the core 5v5 matches are definitely something that players can sink a lot of hours into. The gameplay is a bit more forgiving than League of Legends to newcomers, but you'll still have to work to figure out how to master a particular Pokemon's skills and fit them into a wider team strategy. The pay-to-win criticisms lobbied by the fans are valid and are concerning given the Pokemon franchise's younger demographic. If Tencent can tweak their revenue strategy to make it so that players don't need to pay money in a free-to-play game in order to compete, than Pokemon Unite should have a long shelflife and could be Nintendo's first successful foray into the MOBA competitive scene.
Unfortunately, Private Division did not have times available for console reviewers to participate in the game's online segments. It's easy to see how the gameplay would lend itself to a strong online component, but it's impossible to say for certain without getting a chance to participate. Due to this, we have decided not to give the game a final review score right now. Disintegration's gameplay is enjoyable, but it's difficult to accurately judge what might actually release next week. Between the game's pre-release bugs and the inability to partake in multiplayer, our review remains incomplete. This review will be updated, however, once the game has launched.
Marvel Heroes 2015 is, now, an excellent game, and a great way for Marvel Fans to live in-universe (oh, they even explain the several hundred versions of the same character running around in the story). With enough character variety from all corners of the universe, easy ways to play with friends and strangers alike, and an ever-evolving backend that makes the game more fun each time, it's easy to recommend this free-to-play action-RPG for all comers.
Overall, it seems NetherRealm decoded how to both make a fighting game with a great story, and also keep players coming back for more. While the learning curve is steep, its intention – making the game fun and challenging for all comers – is clear; as long as you can get over the stigma of playing on "very easy" if you must, that is. With so many fun new characters to master, longtime fans of the franchise may surprise themselves with how little they use their classic "mains" for the first several hours they play outside storymode. For newcomers, this also puts them on relatively equal footing, making it advantageous for both. If you've enjoyed any past Mortal Kombat games, or came into this style of fighter via Injustice, you'll find plenty to like here.
Overall, Batman: Arkham Knight saw the series' regular features perfected, with a solid story, and a hit-or-miss new component. While the story itself didn't surprise as often as I (or like Rocksteady) would've hoped, it did surprise me in the range of emotions I felt because of it. I certainly look forward to the (non-Batmobile) DLC, and whatever Rocksteady comes up with next, and the future of the DC Universe in high-end games like this. A must-play for Batman fans, a great action-adventure game for all, and a satisfying (if slightly predictable) conclusion to an outstanding series of games, Batman: Arkham Knight is a highly recommended buy.
Halo 5: Guardians is a must-buy for fans, and will probably make a lot of new fans, too.
Disney Infinity 3.0 is a special and awesome achievement in video games. This game, like its physical component that brings your favorite characters into the digital world, is a portal that lets you become a part of Disney's incredible multi-faceted family. I legitimately cannot wait to see what they come up with next, but in the meantime I feel like I have years of entertainment to enjoy here already.
We didn't need a new Call of Duty game in 2020. Modern Warfare and Warzone could have sustained the franchise for another year until the next-gen systems are more widely available, but that was never going to happen. Fortunately, Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War isn't the rushed placeholder that many feared it would be, and it might just turn out to be one of the more enjoyable Black Ops games when all is said and done.
Balan Wonderworld feels like an early PlayStation 1 platformer that has been given a next-generation splash of paint, a game that is as needlessly confusing as it is irritatingly simplistic. The gameplay is counter-intuitive to everything that you've been taught by other games over the years, which shockingly feels lazy, rather than ambitious. Balan Wonderworld is a lesson in how a video game can go completely wrong, missing every target it attempts to hit.
Pardon the pun, but playing Redfall really sucked the life out of me. It's a game that so desperately feels like it wants to be more than what it is, which is understandable. It's dreadfully dull, buggy, frustrating, and feels shackled to a genre that it doesn't really want to be part of. Far Cry with vampires sounds like a great idea, but ultimately, what we got feels like a shell of a prototype for such a concept.
Dynasty Warriors 9: Empires is a niche version of an already divisive game and provides very little innovation to the musou formula. It honestly feels like a half-baked game, as if developer Koei Temco felt the need to keep the Empires spinoff line of games going simply because it has done it in the past. There are better musou games out there and better strategy games out there, and I honestly can't recommend this game to fans of either type of game. Ultimately, Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires won't hold your interest for any extended period of time unless you're already a fan of the franchise.
Battlefield 2042 absolutely should have been pushed back by EA and DICE to some point in 2022. Instead, the version of this game that is currently available has been virtually unplayable for me at times since first releasing. Even beyond this, though, some of the key design changes that DICE has made in Battlefield 2042 don't feel for the better. Rather than improving on the core Battlefield experience that fans loved with Battlefield 3, 4, or Bad Company 2, 2042 is a bloated husk of its former self that is trying to recapture some semblance of its previous glory. As a fan that has been playing this series for well over a decade, Battlefield 2042 is a massive disappointment that I struggle to think is even worth saving.
If you're looking for a trip down memory lane, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition can definitely give you a hit of nostalgia that you have been looking for. Once those rose-tinted glasses begin to fall away from your face, though, what you'll be left with is a bundle of three remastered Grand Theft Auto titles that are really starting to feel their age. Even if you still find great enjoyment in these titles from the dawn of the open-world gaming era, the other bugs and lingering problems will surely begin to rip you out of the experience. In simplest terms, Grand Theft Auto: The Trilogy – The Definitive Edition is a mess of a release and isn't anything close to the level of quality that we have come to expect from the Rockstar Games name in the past.
The Good Life, for better or intentionally worse, is full of hardships. It might be the kind of experience you're looking for if you wanted a reflection of just how laborious life can be sometimes. That might not make for a very good life, though.
Monster Energy Supercross 4 is a game seemingly made for die-hard fans of the sport and the simulation series. The sheer depth of customization options, a massive roster, the new skill-point system, and a robust track editor provide several reasons for them to keep coming back for more sessions. Newcomers, however, will first have to spend several hours learning the systems and grinding to earn enough money and points to improve their rider and bike before finding much enjoyment.
Twin Mirror has some elements of it that can't help but be admirable; its concept is intriguing, its voice cast is compelling, and it could have easily been the next buzzworthy photorealistic video game. But, in execution, it comes across as a dated, surface-level experience, one that isn't sure whether to be a complex character study or an open-world mystery, and is nowhere near as rewarding as the time and effort it asks you to put into it. Twin Mirror will undoubtedly find an audience of some who want to dive into its ambiguous mystery, but it's far from the most engrossing or well-executed title that video game fans could pick up right now.
There are also numerous graphical issues, flare-ups, and technical difficulties that show that Remothered: Broken Porcelain could have definitely benefited from more time in the oven. If you're looking for some survival horror for this Halloween season, look elsewhere.
Torchlight III gets the fundamentals of action RPG well enough. When it comes to clicking on tiny monsters to murder them, the game does that as well as any other, but it offers little in the way of innovation or depth. I didn't see everything that Torchlight III has to offer, but my time spent left me feeling that I'd seen enough and ready to move onto something else with more to offer. Torchlight and Torchlight II showed that ARPGs had life beyond Diablo. In a way, Torchlight III is a victim of its predecessors' success in breathing such vibrant life into the genre. Torchlight III's simplicity might position it as a decent introduction to the ARPG genre. For most players, it's hard not to suggest they direct their attention elsewhere.