A multifaceted story that unfolds based on how you play, sublime combat that rewards experimentation, challenges that are only as difficult as you want them to be, all the good feelings of roguelikes without a lot of the hassle.
Half-Life: Alyx reaches some astoundingly high heights while also managing to be both too ambitious and too conservative for its own good.
I don’t see Untitled Goose Game being as replayable as close genre relatives like (bear with me on this one) the Hitman series of stealth sandbox games. But I also don’t think it needs to be.
Exodus isn’t content to just be one kind of first-person shooter. After an open first half focused on survival and exploration, the latter portion plays much more like its linear predecessors, to mixed results. The final two of Exodus’ four major locations suffer from their own particular issues, as well as more exasperating versions of issues that pop up all throughout the rest of the game.
Pillars of Eternity II could've been brilliant were it more focused. It has a lot of good ingredients—scraps of interesting narrative, clever characterizations, a complex faction system, and pirate-themed spins on the RPG tropes of yore. The game's got so much unfulfilled promise that, even though I think it's a plenty enjoyable game on the whole, I can't help but feel disappointed by it.
EA UFC 3 is closer to nailing this whole UFC video game thing than the comparatively thin EA UFC 2, but while this one has plenty of meat on its bones, it lacks connective tissue.
I'm far more invested in War of the Chosen than I was XCOM 2, and I thought XCOM 2 was fantastic.
Maybe it was that little touch, or maybe it was the fact that I was a bleary-eyed mess playing the game at 4 AM, but I felt so connected to… everything.
It is, on so many levels, an incredible achievement, packed with enough heart, intelligence, and confidence to sustain ten lesser games. It’s a testament to its form, even as it’s held back by it in places. It still feels premature to declare Original Sin 2 an all-time classic, as some have, but I imagine plenty of future games will borrow ideas from it. It’ll be a crying shame if they don’t.
A worthy successor to Planescape.
Starbound is full of whimsy, surprise, and strange little interactions. It’s a universe unto itself, just begging to be explored.
Blood and Wine is equal parts triumphant and somber, a reminder of all the great times we’ve had with Geralt and some of the shitty things we’ve done in his shoes. It’s about facing down the totality of Geralt’s in-game legacy and—instead of regretting or redoing it—coming to terms with it.
A fresh, fast tactical strategy game that makes 2012's XCOM feel ancient.
Being a hero has consequences, and Darkest Dungeon lays them bare.
An occasionally frustrating open-world experience that's greater than the sum of its parts.
Here's hoping, however, that [the series] hasn't lost sight of the smaller threads that made its previous epic yarn great. The moments that forced players to care about characters who weren't technically extensions of themselves.
It might seem like I'm really down on a lot of this game, but I'm actually not. I just can't help but complain about Revengeance's lows because they contrast so starkly with some brilliant (though poorly explained) base mechanics and positively amazing moments. I think a few precision-targeted snips here and there would've made for a much stronger experience, but Raiden and co still pack serious punch where it counts.
The game accidentally became a perfect metaphor for itself. It's often charming and it really does mean well, but it has a bad habit of tripping over its own four feet when it really counts. I want to love my Octodad. I really do. But I don't think he really understands me, and – worse – I don't think he really understands himself.
I do not believe Transistor is everything it could've been, but it's still close enough that I won't hesitate to recommend it to basically anybody. I critique because I love, and that second part is especially true in this case. Transistor's got brains, heart, and a knack for always knowing just what to say and when to say it. And also, perhaps more importantly, it knows precisely when it's better to say nothing at all.
Combat feels good at times, but overall the game is alternately bland and frustrating.