Polygon's Reviews
When all is said and done, Shadows of Change is the most uneven outing in Total War: Warhammer 3’s DLC plans yet. The previous packs were giant leaps. Immortal Empires, Champions of Chaos, and Forge of the Chaos Dwarfs came into this massive fantasy world, and things felt irrevocably changed. I still remember the awe with which I first saw the four fearsome Champions tearing across the northern expanse, or the first time I struggled to hold off the wave of machine-minded dwarfs spilling out of the Dark Lands at the center of the map. Shadows of Change is less an evolution than a maintaining of the status quo. Are all three Lords powerful in their own way? Absolutely. Will I itch to play as them every time I see them on the Lord Select screen? I suspect not. Ironically, Shadows of Change may have done less to evolve Total War: Warhammer 3 than any of its DLCs yet.
Immortals of Aveum should be applauded for trying something unique and exciting. It’s not every day that a studio attempts to aesthetically reinvent the first-person shooter genre with its debut game, and it’s clear the folks at Ascendant Studios tried their damndest to make the “Call of Duty but with magic” concept work. But for all its overwhelming visual splendor and adherence to modern conventions like skill trees and stat-boosting equipment, Immortals of Aveum is just as soulless as the military shooters from which it takes inspiration. It’s a paint-by-numbers buffet of contemporary tropes, and even when regarded against the full scope of creative and moral bankruptcy in the AAA space, it somehow still manages to fade into the scenery.
Fort Solis has some impressive talent behind it, not least the artists and performers. But almost everything else drowns beneath a thick sludge of annoyance thanks to the stifling mechanics, such as the useless map, lack of sprint, and overreliance on QTEs for the underwhelming mystery. If Fort Solis had been a 4K YouTube video instead of a game, I imagine the experience would not have differed much. And maybe it should have just been a video. At least I could have fast-forwarded through the tedious walking sections that comprise most of the game.
I look forward to playing, and replaying and replaying, Baldur’s Gate 3 for possibly years to come. It’s clearly a role-playing game classic and has already been an overwhelming success for Larian Studios. It’s just unfortunate that I end up comparing the relatively limited power of a video game to the power of my own imagination — and it also feels like a problem the game can’t solve. Baldur’s Gate 3 is a masterpiece of a D&D game in every sense of the word, for good and, sometimes, for ill.
In the end, Blasphemous 2 is a strong union of narrative and function. Its gloomy world is full of nooks and crannies to explore, and its inhabitants have compelling stories to tell. Its boss fights — arguably the biggest piece of twine — may be frayed, but the slick mechanics and biting themes more than make up for any weakness in the braid.
I played through The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood once, but it’s clear that it’s a game with a lot of different paths and outcomes. Though fate may be determined, The Cosmic Wheel Sisterhood’s ever-branching story has many conclusions.
Stray Gods is ambitious in its goals, and while the road Summerfall and co. take to reach them is rough and uneven, I won’t be forgetting Grace’s tale anytime soon. It’s a clever format, and the unfulfilled potential makes me excited for future attempts to meld games and theater.
While the finale of the game may not capitalize entirely on the promise of its early hours, My Friendly Neighborhood is, on a whole, one of the satisfying new horror experiences in a year that’s had no shortage of terrific horror games to choose from. If you’re looking for a fun and unsettling survival-horror title that’s light on gore and heavy on spine-tingling thrills, I wholeheartedly recommend giving My Friendly Neighborhood a spin.
What remains to be seen is how the game’s meaningful choices will affect the story in later episodes. The plot of Episode 1: “Archer’s Paradox” doesn’t stray far from typical Expanse fare, but a revelation in a later episode seems poised to explore more of the show’s deeper themes of exploitation, injustice, and inequality.
I would have loved more Venba, with its vibrant sound, touching story, and mouthwatering food, and yet, I still feel like Visai Games has told a complete, focused story.
The Banished Vault is, if anything, a master class in the economy and cruelty of space survival where every movement matters. It is wholeheartedly uncompromising in bending the player to its will and vision, and it is right to do so. I realize that the intangible, interstitial faith holding my exiles together has become fused with my own confidence in what I’m doing; I don’t care about parsing the minutiae of their civilization as much I care about having the chutzpah and half-assed math to pull us through.
A seasonal live-service roadmap promises a time-based endgame mode, variant exosuits, and a Monster Hunter collaboration in the near future, which, as a player now caught in the game’s talons, is an exciting prospect. Exoprimal is rough around the edges, but hopefully, by the time these updates arrive, it will have found the nostalgic audience its compelling experimental narrative sorely deserves, rather than going the way of the dinosaurs.
I’m over the post-apocalypse, and it’s going to take one hell of a game to get me interested in such a bleak setting for the foreseeable future. Remnant 2 is not that game.
Pikmin 4 is a game for those who want to take small things too seriously.
Viewfinder is puzzle game heaven. You’ll never look at a Polaroid the same way again, if you’ve ever looked at a Polaroid at all.
Xenonauts 2 is not a revolutionary release. It’s a conservative modernizing of an old-school tactical predecessor. It sits comfortably in that weird little niche of a sequel to a love letter of a ’90s classic. The improved variety and demanding scenarios may not push the envelope much further than where it was in 2014, but it was already in a great spot to begin with.
In the end, I loved the idea of Oxenfree 2 more than the game itself. It’s a game that has the right pieces, but falls short of putting them together in a way that lives up to the innovative, classic experience of the original game. A more compelling story is frustratingly hidden within the game’s branching narrative system, and it’s a shame that some people will miss it.
Only the first volume of the game has been released on Steam so far, so the mystery is still unsolved. Yet it’s already skyrocketed to the top of my personal list of favorite games of the year due to the depth of its characters and the twisty, sometimes even supernatural, turns of its murder mystery.
I’m thrilled that the remaster has given Ghost Trick a new lease on life. But Sissel spends the whole game making sure that nothing falls through the cracks — and that just doesn’t square with his game’s now lonely survival.
At its core, Fight Forever is a love letter to the golden generation of pro wrestling video games. It is not perfect, and on the content side, it’s slightly dated — but most of my complaints wash away every time I pick up the controller and start a new match. The nostalgia and finesse of those old glory years emanates from so many angles that it’s hard to nitpick the places that fall short. AEW: Fight Forever is at once a faithful homage, and a promising signifier of the future.