Polygon's Reviews
For some, these temporal limits will no doubt be the cause of much stress and anxiety, which is why many will appreciate that the game allows you to toggle them on or off at any time. Personally, I feel something is lost without the aggressive march of time, which adds a genuine sense of finitude to this post-apocalyptic tale. Without this extra dimension, Unsighted becomes a duller and more quantifiable thing - just another Zelda-like or Metroidvania that time is likely to forget.
Ruined King is a fun romp through gorgeous environments with a team of likable misfits. Airship Syndicate doesn’t reinvent the wheel, but it didn’t need to — Ruined King still manages to serve as a great on-ramp to both League of Legends lore and RPGs in general.
More than anything else, playing this trilogy in 2021 forced me to consider what a "remaster" is on a fundamental level. Is is just juicing up the graphics and making the main characters a little more detailed? Or could there be something more to it? I've been living with these games since they were first released. They each fueled moral panics in their own way. GTA 3 and Vice City were at the center of a resurrected set of arguments about video game violence, and how it would turn kids into mass killers. The spectacular nature of these claims propelled lawyer Jack Thompson into the limelight, and turned him into a special kind of video game culture villain, the bogeyman who still gets invoked when people are afraid anyone is going to touch their video games. San Andreas' Hot Coffee fiasco, produced when developers accidentally left the scripts for a sex minigame in the game files on release, ended with a class-action lawsuit settlement that allowed offended players to collect $35.
It’s rare that a single feature adds both accessibility and depth, but Hextech Mayhem stands out as a unique title capable of generating creativity on what otherwise seems like a linear path.
I’ve spent years — the better part of a decade, since the Ruby and Sapphire remakes on 3DS — going through the motions with new Pokémon games, trying desperately to fight through superfluous features and recapture the magic of my childhood. But the Diamond and Pearl remakes’ simple, derivative, and basic formulas helped refocus my love for a franchise almost as old as I am.
If first-person self-violence sounds like too much, approach this game with discretion.
What makes Animal Crossing an appealing franchise is that I’m able to meet it on my own terms — even if those terms are the polar opposite of the ones I brought to the game in 2020. New Horizons is no longer my “global living room,” as Bijan Stephen described Fortnite in 2018. It’s more like my secret clubhouse, a space that’s mostly just for me, and maybe the kind of friends that feel comfortable sitting in silence. Coming back to the game this time — alongside all of its new content — means doing things differently, but it’s still just as satisfying.
Happy Home Paradise is, ultimately, a chance for anyone who favored the game’s home design to dive into it without all of the hassle. It’s also the perfect solution for anyone who has core island fatigue — whether from having an already full island or being unsure of how to proceed with design. It’s also great for anyone looking for a structured way to play New Horizons post update. Happy Home Paradise streamlines New Horizon’s intimidatingly open-ended gameplay so well that it’s made it even easier to chill out. Though it may be presented like a job, it really does feel like a vacation.
There’s still nothing quite like being in the middle of a massive firefight with dozens of players, while jets strafe the ground around you, and a tank rumbles over a hilltop only 50 feet away. DICE has been in search of that old Battlefield magic for more than a decade, and Battlefield 2042 comes extremely close. But 2042, at least so far, rarely manages to be much more than that. It doesn’t feel like a real step forward for the franchise, or a meaningful update on a 20-year old formula. As of now, I’m still waiting for that next big leap.
It will feel familiar to anyone who has picked up a controller and jumped into any of the past two dozen iterations of the franchise. More importantly, though, Vanguard is a Call of Duty game because of the role it proudly plays as a mythmaking vehicle.
The message of the movies is that you can’t control nature, but Jurassic World Evolution 2 hits back by saying, “We’ll let you try anyway.” And I succeeded numerous times over nearly 20 hours with this park builder. Jurassic World Evolution 2 let me correct the sins of the past by corralling loose dinosaurs and building one of the most famous movie settings in history. And it let me do it my way while also making me feel like I’d succeeded where others failed.
Even now, though, I can feel myself tightening up in my shoulders and chest thinking about everything in Forza Horizon 5, and the difference between everything I have — with a V sound — and everything I have — F sound — to do. It’s the difference between opportunities and obligations. The only area in which Forza Horizon 5 stumbles is when it gives me so much of the former that they become the latter.
There are more quality-of-life updates that go beyond combat. While roaming through areas, you will now stumble upon orbs that can recharge your health, SP (mana for magic attacks), or Magatsuhi gauge. The return pillar allows you to return to the last checkpoint you interacted with on a whim without any penalization (perfect to save your game, restore health to your party for a small fee, visit the merchant, or fuse demons). Loot is fairly generous as well; a companion character who follows you around pinpoints item spots that sometimes lead to fights, but more often than not just grants you an item.
But in the end, despite its value for video game preservation and appreciation, Mario Party Superstars is more than that. It’s a collection of Mario Party’s best work, perfect for veteran partiers, newcomers, and everyone in-between.
The slow pace and gentle yet solemn storytelling — with lots of bright, joyous moments, too — is delightful, and I’m eager to learn more about Moonglow Bay and its people, in a town shaped as much by fishing as it is by grief.
House of Ashes doesn’t make any great leaps in gameplay or structure, but in terms of narrative, it relentlessly swings for the fences. There are times when the writing doesn’t quite land, but the awkward moments rarely stick around for long thanks to the game’s expert pacing. It’s a fantastic horror social experience, just in time for Halloween, and it’s enough to get me back into the deep lore and hidden secrets of the Dark Pictures Anthology.
Riders Republic is more than a revision of Steep than it is a rewrite, a creative team taking all of the lessons learned from a rough draft and starting over from the beginning. It has more extreme sports, sure, but more importantly, it’s a profoundly more social experience. It oozes joy, without relying on the fundamentals of its contemporaries, like combat, winner-takes-all competition, and melodramatic linear storytelling.
Age of Empires 4 revives the series’ brilliance
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No single one of these games are worth the cost alone — there are Party Packs that I own as a Tee K.O. or Quiplash machine, and none of the games in this Pack have that same stickiness and ease to pick up for me. But there are no stinkers, either — everything here is something I’d feel comfortable recommending to a friend or bringing out at a gathering. That’s a valuable resource, and I figure wherever I go, at least I can liven it up with some Job Job.