Brodie Gibbons
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The Last of Us Part I is, for all intents and purposes, the same The Last of Us that you know. It doesn’t take liberties to completely reshape the experience and nor should it. It does, however, smartly enhance the original’s combat through A.I. advancements, and drags the original’s production values over the line to create a product that can stand unified with its more polished sequel. The Last Of Us: Part I is without doubt the most definitive version of The Last of Us on the market.
Venba is a sweet, short-lived episode that presents the place held by food and cooking within our lives and cultures as near-on divine. It explores familiar relationships, as well as the ones we keep, for better or worse, with food itself, and left me with plenty to ponder as the credits rolled.
Cryptmaster is a wickedly clever spin on the edutainment games of old. It combines good old fashioned typing with an underworld full up of gallows humour and eccentrics to meet, including its titular star. Spread the word, Cryptmaster is a must play indie.
Though it’s iterative in a lot of ways, Forza Horizon 5 is a near-faultless open-world racing experience that’s so sure of itself and its offerings that it goes the extra mile to sprinkle in the kinds of fan service that people go wild for. As a game it’s tremendous, but it’s also a brilliant, interactive postcard for a culture that is passionate about few things more than their country and their cars.
Dirt 5 isn’t at all the game I thought it would be. Far from a clinical rally sim, what it is is a simple, fun off-road racer that has a big personality. While it doesn’t dive too deep underneath the hood, it still tears up a huge number of tracks across a great number of race types—it does more than enough to keep players firmly in the driver’s seat.
As an homage to Akira Kurosawa’s contributions to Japanese cinema, Trek to Yomi is an unparalleled adventure to the shores of hell and back that meticulously encapsulates and delivers an experience through his lens. It’s when you look behind its eyes that you discover the game’s soul is missing in a disappointing case where a wellspring of style and authenticity is anchored by a sad lack of substance.
No Straight Roads has a laundry list of inspirations and it proudly pays homage to them all in one way or another throughout the journey. Though a few of the game’s ideas end up feeling underdeveloped, the game has a lot of heart, a slapping soundtrack and the best boss encounters you’ll see in a videogame this year. Just like Bunk Bed Junction in Vinyl City, I expect Metronomik to chart well within the indie scene.
Just like Rocksteady did for Batman, Arc System Works has carried Dragon Ball to the upper echelon, crafting a tag-fighting game that captures not only the series' distinctive style but its spirit. FighterZ stands alongside other versatile, yet accessible, games like Marvel vs. Capcom with ease in what is the best fighting game in recent memory. It's a shame the servers hamstring the experience so badly, rendering the game's online a bit of a mess.
Indiana Jones and the Great Circle delivers both high calibre adventure, story and performance in spades, to the point it feels as though it’s wading into “uncharted territory” for its publisher. The decision to bop a Nazi should be a foregone conclusion, however the lack of balance in stealth and combat systems kept me in limbo, and left Indiana Jones and the Great Circle just a stone stele’s throw from true greatness.
The product of a one man team, Olija is a tight and entertaining seafarer’s voyage that manages to be memorable despite not bringing anything particularly revolutionary to the table. Instead, it’s in the atmosphere and tone that Olija excels, proving that the deep blue sea isn’t full of just terrors.