Ewan Roxburgh
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LEGO Builder's Journey is a spectacular, absolutely gorgeous puzzle-platformer, with a surprisingly touching story the explores parenthood and creativity in a delightfully minimalist way. Stunning aesthetics enhanced by ray-tracing and DLSS combine with a soundtrack that amounts to one of the most beautiful games in recent memory. A little more commitment to the possibilities afforded by interlocking bricks would have completed the picture, but regardless is remains a game not to be missed by fans of LEGO, puzzles and a good, wholesome narrative.
Gone are the days where Call Of Duty sets the trends, but Black Ops 4 does a great job of keeping up. Choosing which mode to play first every time I launch the game is a struggle, with each being unique and impressive in their own way. Black Ops 4’s individual components may not be groundbreaking, but as a package, it’s one of the most refined Call Of Duty games. Black Ops 4 is a complete and polished package with Treyarch’s deft touch of quality.
Bar a rather unexciting story, a little lack of nuance in the combat and a couple of misgiving regarding couch co-op, there is a hell of a lot to love and enjoy about Minecraft Dungeons. Rather miraculously, it's managed to pull off being both a game for all types of Minecraft fans and those seeking a challenging dungeon crawler. At launch, it's a little concise sure, but chasing that new loot means I'm not done with it yet, and likely won't be for a while still.
I can’t really level any complaints at the UI thankfully. It manages a lot of information and special attack timers relatively well, which is not an easy thing to pull off. Rather frustratingly, matchmaking was a little patchy, I almost always lost connection after every round of multiplayer, and it took a few attempts to reconnect every time.
Soldiers deaths on the battlefield are permanent. You can only recruit more back at base, assuming you have supplies spare, and they begin again at the lowest rank. It was particularly soul destroying to lose a soldier who had scraped through long enough to acquire skills that were coming close to rivaling that of the enemy’s.
Most of the gameplay revolves around destroying various things and there is a insanely wide variety of inventive ways to cause destruction, using weapons, vehicles, explosives and of course, your tethers. Simply put, it’s fun. Systematically tethering fuel tanks together and strategically placing rocket powered C4 translates to a substantially different experience from piloting a fighter jet over an enemy base and bombing the hell out of it.
Forza Horizon 4 offers racing fans endless, ever-changing amounts of fun. Few racing games are as dense with a seemingly infinite amount to do and collect. It's immensely liberating too, allowing you to play through it however you like. The open-world might have been better populated with environmental features and I wish the menus had been a little faster and easier to navigate, but it's a small price to pay for a game with so much under the hood.
It tells a beautifully crafted, character-driven, engaging story with impeccable pacing. It’s deeply reflective and thought provoking, not only in the context of its characters and their situations, but in a broader context of player interaction with video games. It involves and engages players to greater affect than many of its predecessors in the experiential sub-genre, and does so with astonishing presentation.
Iterating on what Call of Duty diehards know and love, Vanguard has the potential to stand up alongside some of the series' best. Whether it be a bombastic, action-flick inspired campaign, endlessly addictive multiplayer or now-staple zombies mode, the game feels like comfort food. However, I remain doubtful that the game's new and updated modes will do enough to win over anyone that wasn't convinced with earlier iterations.
This is the definitive Crash Team Racing experience. Nitro-Fueled is everything I hoped it would be, a faithful recreation of the classic game with added flair and personality. A lack of custom race settings and some superficial gripes are not enough to dissuade me that this is among the best kart racers available. Crash is absolutely back, baby!