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Legends doesn't skimp on content, with plenty of new worlds, old levels ported over from Origins, weekly challenges, and even a multiplayer soccer mini-game.
There's far too much focus on the family dynamic in Ghosts, with the theatrics laid on thick from the get-go, and with the strained relationship between Elias and his children acting as an unstable anchor for the remainder of the story.
The variation in objectives stretches past the typical bored-game rigmarole and into uncharted territory that frequently invites cruel, comeback-heavy sabotage.
It feels odd and slightly insulting to be given the option to rate missions, as it implies that the designers still don't know what works or, worse, that they want to better pander to gamers.
These mechanics aren't broken so much as literally insane, in the sense that each chapter requires you to do the exact same things, somehow expecting different results.
Save for the extremely rare glitch or two, nothing ever gets in the way of this pure, intellectual gameplay. Even after 50 levels, the puzzles still seem fresh and never tiresome.
The game treats its themes with such absurdity and reductive PSA qualities that there might as well be a planet named Glee.
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Even ignoring its gussied-up next-gen clothes, the game's strengths outshine its weaknesses as an experience, though its flaws outside of the visual realm remain impossible to ignore.
As befits a game funded through Kickstarter, The Banner Saga doubles down on risk/reward mechanics throughout its rather lengthy journey.
To dwell on the debacle that is Lightning Returns's ghastly storytelling is to deprive oneself of a rather fantastically constructed battle system, one that sporadically elevates the game from disastrous lows to dizzying heights.
A mostly linear experience that shuttles the player from scene to scene, with the slightly more open hub worlds being there for random LEGO stud hunts and little else.
Although the Wii U GamePad doesn't receive its due of customary prods and blows akin to SM3DW, there's more than enough ingenuity, and thoughtful nods to gaming trailblazers of old, in Tropical Freeze to forgive its lack of novelties.
If nothing else, Three Rings could have put in the extra man hours to salvage Romance Dawn from the germinating trash heap of poorly actualized One Piece games by at least paying tribute to Oda's spirited creation. Yet, since they abstain from doing so, apparently with almost every fiber of their being, they've put forth a product so systematically undercooked as to make even the most unflappable One Piece zealots question their faithfulness.
The less resilient player can and will die more than they have in quite some time; the good ones will be just as excited going back for more after the hundredth Game Over as they were at the first.
Plants vs. Zombies: Garden Warfare is the perfect antidote to Call of Duty and Battlefield fatigue, replacing the grim, decrepit, gray-and-brown battle zone with vibrantly colorful gardens and crypts, where unlikely nemeses face off in hilarious, and strategic, skirmishes.
Even basic exploration quickly becomes more trouble than it's worth, thanks to a scarcity of waypoints, overly lengthy transitions between areas, and the lack of an overall map.
The lesson to be learned from it is for anyone making this kind of game to find the beauty in simplicity. Also, to never, ever fart on another man's balls.
Year Walk is a minimalist point-and-click chiller that affectingly and disturbingly strains for meta-fiction.
The game is as across-the-board demanding as its predecessors, functioning on an ever more grandiose scale, dishing out excruciating beatdowns like Thin Mints at a Girl Scouts cookies sale.