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So yes, all the hallmarks of what makes a good Doom game are fully on display in The Dark Ages: overpowered weapons, copious amounts of blood, chaotic combat, a blistering metal soundtrack. Hell. It’s all just been moved around a little bit, remixed to feel fresh. Like spring cleaning. The place may look different, but that doesn’t mean it’s not comfortable. After all, your chair is still your chair, and Doom is still Doom.
For a game so concerned with artists and their creations, and with the importance of light and sound, the sheer artistry on display feels not just impressive, but meaningful, too.
Puzzles are a divisive element in many Survival Horror games. When you need to justify and expand game time for an experience mostly driven by vibes and avoiding awkward combat, what else can you do? Clearly, one easy answer is to add backtracking in order to sniff out keys and doohickeys to fit into mysterious slots powering absurd door-locking mechanisms. It works for Resident Evil, at least. But there’s a balance in making this stuff actually work. A balance the subject of today’s review struggled with, to say the least.
There’s a lot of yelling about “politics” being involved in video games out there on the internet, but here’s an example of that actually happening in broad daylight – a cool video game being used as a glaringly unsubtle vehicle for propaganda to not just prop up some real life homies, but “sportswash” a deeply problematic reputation in the process.
After a swift 30 hours with the game, I will happily tell you how Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 exceeded my expectations and left me curious for more.
Blue Prince made me feel like a genius. It also made me feel like an idiot. The two experiences are intrinsically linked; the stumbling bewilderment making the moments of breakthrough all the more brilliant. If you’ve even a passing interest in puzzles, play Blue Prince. And do so resisting the urge to look up any of its answers. Because provided you’re willing to take notes, your perseverance will, tile by tile, piece together the solutions to one of the finest puzzle games I’ve ever played.
Bleach: Rebirth of Souls is a fantastic entry for both newcomers and older fans, and helps refresh players who haven’t kept up with Bleach, so that they’re ready for the final part of the Thousand-Year Blood War anime adaptation later this year.
South of Midnight is an early game of the year contender, but that’s not all. It’s one of the best games released in this generation, a game seriously vying for a place on my list of favorite games of all time, and an utter masterpiece that future developers will talk about.
The First Berserker: Khazan is frustrating – not necessarily because it's really hard. By far, it’s at its best when it wavers in its dogged quest to imitate the Souls games, yielding a distinct combat system that truly stands on its own.
Atomfall has a lot of interesting ideas and an admirable disinterest in playing by the usual gaming rules. But there are aspects that feel like an identity crisis, and those moments take up a lot more raw time.
The slower pace required to fully appreciate this world is a virtue that, as a reviewer with a deadline, I wasn’t properly afforded. As such, I envy those who possess the time and willingness to truly indulge themselves. Because for all its smaller blemishes, Assassin’s Creed Shadows paints a breathtaking canvas that, even after 50 hours, continues to captivate me.
WWE 2K25 is fun to play, fun to dig into, and it’s even kind of fun to disparage the parts carelessly thrown in to be “best for business.”
Calling Split Fiction a roller coaster of a game does it a disservice. We’ve yet to ride any real-life track that rebuilds its layout and even the attraction type more than a dozen types as you’re on it. Split Fiction is the entire theme park, condensed into an inventive, explosive, and unmissable experience for two.
As the announcer drones, "If something looks familiar, you've probably been here before," so fans of Two Point Hospital and Campus should know what's coming. It's also a ton of fun, though, for folks who just love getting lost in museums and want to see what it might be like to put together their own gallery show.
Monster Hunter Wilds is brilliant, but suffers from not showing players everything it has to offer until you've stomached the Low Rank portion of the game.
PGA Tour 2K25 is an adequate golf game caught under a current of technical weirdness. Regardless of how much I enjoyed being out on the golf course, watching the game freeze for the umpteenth time made me grit my teeth.
You know how everyone in the John Wick films is an assassin but nobody else seems to know about it, and how implausible that seems because the assassins are literally doing assassin things in plain view of everybody else, like shooting at each other on the subway? It’s like that, only with pirates.
We need more games like Avowed. It’s not impossibly huge, it doesn’t hold you hostage for hundreds of hours, and it doesn’t try to be the last game you’ll ever need to buy. Instead, Obsidian Entertainment has made another engaging addition to an existing lore-rich world that’s fun and rewarding to explore. It's filled with great characters brought to life with excellent writing.
I’m hooked once again on the market’s premier strategy franchise. I’m not sure if I like it more than the previous entry, but Civ VII reminds me why I love the genre...
Jumping into Sniper Elite: Resistance is a lot like seeing that one friend you haven't spoken to in months, but your conversations pick right back up where you left off. Sure, some things have changed, but the core of what you love is still there, and that familiarity is a nice thing to return to.