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In the end, Constant C is a solid puzzle platformer that takes a few familiar ideas and mashes them together to create something partially new. The difficulty of the puzzles ranges from trivial to diabolical, with most falling somewhere in between. Its greatest sin is the repetition of certain puzzles, but if that is the worst aspect of Constant C, then it should still please fans of the genre.
Escape Goat 2 isn't the best puzzle game of the year. It's not even the best goat game of the year. But for the price, it's worth picking up if you find yourself craving a pleasant-enough puzzler.
The Wolf Among Us: A Crooked Mile isn't as interesting as episode two, but the undeniable charm of the world and the characters is still ever present. This series has not only inspired me to read the Fables comics line, but I'm also emotionally invested in practically all of the characters, and the wait between episodes has become almost unbearable. At this point it wouldn't be a bad decision to go all in if you were on the fence.
Kinect Sports Rivals has an inexcusable amount of wasted space with bowling and soccer, but the other four activities are engaging, and the world is charming and appealing enough to win over most of the gamers who enjoyed Wii Sports. If you have a family who likes getting together and play games like this, go ahead and pull the trigger -- all other curious parties should wait for a sale to compensate for the weak activities.
Instead, there's a merchant shop in every major location so you can get a charm that confers 4% faster running and you can't dig certain items out of the ground until you find a shovel way late in the game. I'd much rather see my character, in first-person, manically clawing at rocks, fingernails tearing off, punctuating lines of blood like the dot on an exclamation point. It would at least fit with the tone the rest of Betrayer is trying to set.
I'm really glad that Infinity Ward decided to model their DLC packs after Treyarch, and include an additional story-related component on top of the standard maps. $14.99 seems like a high price to non-fans, but I've played enough of Extinction mode to fit in the length of a few major releases -- the other maps are basically a bonus. I just hope they step it up next time and have every map match that level of quality.
If you haven't played a Dynasty Warriors game in a long while, picking up Xtreme Legends on your shiny new PS4 isn't a bad idea. It doesn't offer up anything mind-blowing that demands the attention of casual fans, but as a complete package it's a wonderful entry point.
Diablo III may have lost its allure after a first months of play, but Reaper of Souls has sucked me right back in again. Most of these additions should have been in the base game from the get-go, but there's no denying that they're welcome changes. Now that Diablo III has a new base to work from, I hope Blizzard keeps at it to make it the best they possibly can. Thankfully, Reaper of Souls gives me hope.
Irrational also went above and beyond with the implementation of 1998 Mode -- a new difficulty level that challenges you to complete the entire DLC without killing a soul. I never thought the core game's 1999 setting really added anything significant as it was basically the exact same experience, but with even more emphasis on stealth, playing 1998 felt like a whole new game. It was so fun in fact that I was compelled to go back for a second playthrough of Episode Two immediately -- a feeling I didn't experience with the first DLC.BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode Two blows Episode One out of the water. It improves upon nearly every shortcoming of the first outing, and with all of the lore additions it's a must-play for fans of the series. It's worth picking up the Season Pass just to see this story through to the end.
Blackguards is a wonderful tactics game with some rough edges. The core gameplay and character progression elements are easily some of the best in the genre, but as battles tend to drag on and more and more enemies scream "owAUGH," the interest tends to fade. The story is easy enough to follow and interesting enough to keep players interested, so fantasy buffs should feel engaged the entire time. Even if the sound effects weren't satisfying, the gameplay itself more than made up for that, and it's easy to see that Daedalic Entertainment has a bright future ahead of them in the strategy sphere.
Second Son is by far the best inFamous yet. If you're a fan of the series, then checking this one out is a no-brainer, and if you're not, consider jumping in with Delsin. You don't need any prior knowledge of the franchise to do so, and if you have any appreciation of open-world superhero games, you'll enjoy it.
Metal Gear Solid V: Ground Zeroes is not for everyone. I can't stress how underwhelming the game will be if you aren't a huge fan of the series, or you can't see yourself playing in the same sandbox enough to really get your money's worth. But for everyone else that can't wait to get even a taste of Phantom Pain, it's worth the budget price of entry -- especially on a current-gen console.
Considering that Dead Rising 3 was one of my favorite games of last year, this Season Pass collection is a real shame. Capcom cut corners at nearly every turn, and instead of putting up all four stories as one big expansion, the company charged for them individually. Save your money and just play the core game instead, or wait for a Game of the Year edition.
Fast fun and devilishly hard, Luftrausers shows once again that Vlambeer understands how to make classic arcade mechanics feel fresh and exciting. It's great in short bursts, the speed of each round often terribly brief, but lends itself to hour-long sessions of hammering on the controller to start a new game. While the pacing occasionally runs into a few issues, this is still a phenomenally fun shoot-em-up that will challenge players to meet its demanding difficulty.
Serving three masters as it does, Strike Vector might not have a whole lot of mass-market appeal, but what it lacks in that field, it more than makes up for by being a gorgeous, intensely competitive experience that matches its aesthetic appeal with pure shooter satisfaction. If you happen to be looking for that, Ragequit's new baby might send you soaring.
Overall Hearthstone is a lot of fun to play, and has potential to be a game that stays around for a long time. While it may not be as complicated as an actual collectible card game, or have the appeal of showing off your collection to your friends, it is a great videogame that has minimal issues and is in a neat package, so it would be foolish to try to compare it to something it's not trying to be.
Shadowrun: Dragonfall doesn't drastically change the mechanics or systems that were introduced in the main game, which is slightly disappointing as there could have been improvements made but the addition of the new save system is a big relief. The writing and story remains the same high quality from the main game and feels a bit more cohesive from Dead Man's Switch; that story took a lot of twists and turns but Dragonfall feels more focused by giving you a personal connection right from the start. If you enjoyed your first taste of Shadowrun, then Dragonfall should be an immediate purchase.
As you can probably tell from my time with it, Yoshi's New Island isn't a "must have," but that doesn't mean it's a bad game. It's very much by the books based on any genre standard, and there's pretty much nothing new here that you'll need to run out to experience. But even so, fans of the genre will still dig it.
Titanfall has all of the pieces to make a very nice FPS puzzle -- a wide variety of well crafted maps, a decent amount of familiar game modes, and a prestige system to hold the interest of veterans. In that sense, it's a very welcoming game that many disenchanted genre fans will enjoy. Just don't expect anything monumentally different, or a worthwhile world to enjoy while you're having fun shooting everything in sight.
When it comes down to it, Infested Planet is a fun spin on sci-fi real-time strategy that makes good use of tower defense mechanics in an offense-focused game. A little rough around the edges, it still manages to succeed in creating an experience that is challenging and unique every round while providing options which accommodate a wide range of skill level.