Dave Letcavage
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Pure XboxLatest Reviews
Dark Souls III improves on its predecessors in nearly every way, making for the most masterfully-crafted, tautly-paced entry in the series. The combat is faster and more flexible, the world design is complex but never bloated, and the atmospheric presentation makes you feel like you're completely engulfed in the unsettling sights and sounds of this volatile fantasy world. Should this truly be the last time we seek respite in the warm glow of a bonfire, we can rest easy knowing Dark Souls III is a deserving and satisfying end to a phenomenal series.
While it doesn't quite reach its full potential, Star Wars: Battlefront harnesses the power of the Force to make for a multiplayer experience that's more concerned with fun and authenticity than deep mechanics and impeccable balance. DICE has absolutely knocked the presentation out of the park, making you feel like you're smack dab in the middle of your favorite action scenes from the classic Star Wars film trilogy. For many Star Wars enthusiasts, that's going to be more than enough to justify the price of admission. For everyone else, however, a limited amount of content and a few missteps will potentially diminish long-term appeal. This is a strong return for the Battlefront moniker, but there's much room for improvement.
With reinvigorated mechanics, Halo 5: Guardians ushers the series into a new era with confidence. The core gameplay has never been better and more involving, and it benefits all areas of the package. While the multiplayer components are the best since Halo 3, the campaign disappoints in a few key areas. It's still enjoyable and exciting on the whole, but it lacks the narrative concentration and the memorable gameplay scenarios to stand neck and neck with the best entries in the series. Halo 5: Guardians still gets a massive recommendation from us for many reasons, though there's certainly room for 343 Industries to improve and evolve the campaign formula next time around.
Mad Max's frame may be built from familiar parts, but that doesn't mean there aren't enough surprises under the hood to make for a furiously enjoyable ride. We've spent over 40 hours crusading through the most inhospitable regions of the Wasteland and don't yet feel ready to retire the Magnum Opus to the garage, which might just be the ultimate compliment. Mad Max isn't a perfect game, and it probably won't win over anyone tired of the open-world formula, but this is an instance where we feel pure fun trumps any minor disappointments. Hit the road and find out for yourself.
While we weren't particularly impressed with Battlefield Hardline's multiplayer offering, we did like the intense ride that the campaign took us on. The story might be fairly throwaway, but the environments, set pieces, and the gameplay scenarios you'll often find yourself in are memorable and make up for the clichés and nonsensical plot details. When it comes to multiplayer, Hardline's slight mode shakeups don't mean much when the respawn system is such a mess. Granted there are maps and modes that don't suffer from this issue, but even at their very best, the various selections feel like minor tweaks on the usual formulas.
Ori and the Blind Forest isn’t just a magnificent video game with impeccable mechanics and brilliant design, it’s a work of art. What could’ve easily been a journey so wrapped up in delivering its poignant narrative that it squandered away its gameplay potential, ends up being a Metroidvania that can hang with the greatest the genre has to offer. This is a powerful experience that we expect will be remembered for a long time to come, and it's, without question, one of the best games available for the Xbox One. That's a big statement, we know, but Ori's got more than enough spirit to back it up.
Rockstar North has gone above and beyond to transplant Grand Theft Auto V from the Xbox 360 to the Xbox One, and their efforts pay off in a big way. Thanks to a long list of additions and improvements, what was already a genre-defining masterpiece has been lifted to all new heights, proving that such an epic vision feels more at parity with the current wave of hardware than it did with the last. It doesn't matter if it's your first time visiting Los Santos or if you're thinking of booking a return flight, we give GTA V our highest recommendation. This is simply a marvelous game.
Want to know how to make a truly great game? Provide players with a liberating and energetic method of traversal, create an eye-popping urban environment that serves as a massive playground, and do everything you can to promote uninhibited fun within that space. That’s the essence of Sunset Overdrive, and it’s why we think this is arguably the best new IP so far this console generation.
That's right — you can add Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor to the growing list of stellar licensed games that deserve your consideration. While it does blatantly borrow from both Arkham and Assassin's Creed, there are enough meaningful and innovative layers — like the Nemesis System, wraith abilities, and mission freedom — piled upon familiar mechanics to keep things feeling fresh. And with a dark fantasy setting based on the Lord of the Rings universe, the open world has a distinct presence, even if there isn't much environmental variation. We can easily recommend Shadow of Mordor to fans of either aforementioned franchise, action-adventure lovers, and to anyone that won't mind spilling gallons of Orc blood. It's one of the year's biggest surprises.
Destiny feels like the key elements of an FPS and an MMO gently resting shoulder to shoulder, instead of being fused together in a truly creative way. It plays and looks great, and offers many, many hours of entertainment to anyone okay with repeating the same tasks, but it isn’t exactly the game-changing science fiction epic we felt it was aspiring to. Fortunately, that doesn’t diminish the fact that there’s a fantastic social experience here, one that we hope will only improve further with future events and DLC. In our opinion, Destiny is at its absolute best when the odds stacked against you require teamwork to overcome, and there’s no shortage of those moments.