James Carr
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GameSpot 
KeenGamer Latest Reviews
Forza Horizon 6 continues Playground Games’ stellar streak of best-in-class racing games. The rich setting of Japan offers an abundance of biomes and areas to race through, while providing a unique car culture to highlight. While the racing itself is still excellent, some oddities in the way the game is constructed and a few uncompelling additions keep it from pure racing perfection.
Pragmata is an emotional story, driven by earnest and human depictions of its main characters, Hugh and Diana. The narrative pairs perfectly with the frenetic, tense, and rewarding combat loop of fast-paced puzzle mazes and heavy third-person shooting. A constant evolution of enemies and tools keeps the combat exciting throughout, and the journey is surprisingly touching in between bouts with giant killer robots.
Screamer builds upon the impressive racing chops Milestone has developed with recent titles like Hot Wheels Unleashed, introducing a unique control scheme and focusing on an in-depth story. While some elements of the story drag or spin their wheels, there are enough strong character moments to propel you to the credits, even with some odd pacing. The side modes don’t have the depth I wanted, but what is there still features excellent racing mechanics.
Resident Evil Requiem is the culmination of everything Capcom has done with the series since Resident Evil 7 Biohazard. It offers some of the best survival horror action gameplay in the series, while finding ways to keep the more horror-focused sections still feeling tense. The story requires you to be all in on the series lore, but Leon and Grace both offer plenty of fantastic character moments to keep anyone engaged.
Romeo Is A Dead Man takes style over substance beyond its breaking point. A game that features cool and outlandish ideas at every turn, with a 2D pixel hub space ship, a maze navigating upgrade minigame, and outlandish sci-fi ideas, like the Space-Time FBI. Any surprises it might hold or fun ideas it has are dulled over the course of the experience, undermined by dull combat and characters that don’t get the love they need.
Octopath Traveler 0 has a strong start, with a combat system that feels like a huge improvement over the previous entries and a powerful narrative set up. The story loses steam after the opening narrative branches, and the combination of a silent protagonist and no static party members makes it hard to get invested in the rest of the game’s narrative beats. The combat also starts to grow stale as the game progresses, with the focus on having tons of party members limiting the depth of each ...
Call of Duty: Black Ops 7 is a low point for the series, sacrificing the improvements made in Black Ops 6 for a directionless, boring co-op focus. The campaign fails to balance its conflicting tones while sacrificing the kinetic nature and creativity of previous entries. Multiplayer and Zombies both lean far too heavily on nostalgia, while featuring the noisiest UI in recent Call of Duty releases.
Morsels provides a ton of moments of surprise and delight through its chaotic art style and surprisingly weird mini-games, but an uneven difficulty and overly obtuse items leave a bad aftertaste. While the selection of Morsels you can wield contains some incredibly fun options, there are just as many misses, and far fewer than I initially expected.
Ninja Gaiden 4 feels plucked out of time in the best way possible. An action game in the same vein as the first three entries in the series, Ninja Gaiden 4 smartly makes the fast-paced combat the star of the show. Linear levels drive home this focus, never asking you to take a break from the action for some unfortunate mini-game or collectible hunting, instead placing you directly on the roller coaster track with no signs of slowing down. Combine that with a simple but well-executed story and...
Towa and the Guardians of the Sacred Tree wears its Hades inspiration on its sleeves, and while the gorgeous art style and colorful cast of characters are quite enjoyable, the rest of the experience is lacking. The combat system is overstuffed with far too many systems and currencies, while the different characters vary widely in their usefulness in combat. The biggest flaw is the two-character system, which actively drags down the experience both in single-player and co-op.