Janine Hawkins
Sunless Sea's contemplative pace and reams of text won't appeal to every player, but if you have a little patience, and an appreciation for atmospheric story telling, then it'll be hard to pass this one up.
Believe it or not my biggest problem with The Sims 4 Get to Work isn't that my bakery was a bust. It's that pretty much everything it adds to the game is one-sided. As far as I can tell I can't send my sims to the hospital or the police station or the lab to look around. It's interesting enough to work in these locations, but how much more interesting could it be with outward-facing interactions?
Toren shoots for the moon but lands nowhere special.
Board gaming come to life, with none of the missing pieces.
While Telltale's other recent games have very broad appeal, most of them are decidedly intended for a more mature audience. Minecraft: Story Mode feels like it's aiming lower… in more than one sense. It's incredibly easy to underestimate the complexity of material that younger audiences can handle, and it's something that happens constantly.
Paper Jam's cute and punchy moments are offset by its frustrating repetition
Devilian doesn't ask for much, and delivers just enough to pass the time.
Moon Hunters has a good story to tell, but grinds it to dust in the process.
Bravely Second takes after its predecessor almost to a fault
In a tide of games trying to capitalize on Hearthstone's success, Duelyst still stands out.
Even with robot armor, Kirby retains his charm
Tokyo Mirage Sessions is a spirited, fun blend of two great RPG series
With or without friends, Metroid Prime: Federation Force is a slog
Spirit of Justice's confident story outweighs its clumsy moments
Yo-kai Watch 2 keeps you busy without becoming tedious
I can lean back and pick out plenty of things about Owlboy that frustrated me, but its failings shrink in the face of its triumphs. I have no excess of affection for the 16-bit genre retreads but even as Owlboy lacks the tightness or consistency of many of the games it sits alongside, it’s far more approachable, far more endearing, and far more unique.
Sword Art Online is built on high-stakes drama and a compelling premise--Hollow Realization delivers on neither.
Yakuza 0 has heart, despite some significant shortcomings
If that's my biggest problem with it after clearing each of the game's five core endings, that should say everything. Nier: Automata is a game that's more than willing to make players feel small, both physically and conceptually. It wants to swallow them whole, and it succeeds. Nier demands patience with its antics — not to mention its definition of "ending" — but it's patience was rewarded.
With core systems opaque and unnecessarily limited, all I ever felt equipped to do in Rain World was fail.