Chris Plante
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Writing For
PolygonLatest Reviews
There’s plenty more for me to tell you about this game, like how it stacks twists atop each other like a tower of turtles, without ever collapsing under all that narrative weight. Though reading more would spoil the fun – and trust me, you’ll be doing plenty of reading once you boot the game up anyway. I’ve written so much about why this game means the world to me. Now I leave y’all to decide whether or not to play it.
Is Bowser’s Fury the future of Mario? I doubt it. The formula has worked too well for too long to go too far down this antagonistic open-world path. But I hope we see similar diversions from Nintendo in the future, new ways for the familiar to surprise us.
But there’s little precedence for Untitled Goose Game. In each stage, I can sense the creators stretching, with great effort, to find new, fun things that don’t fall on old habits. The magic, when it really materializes, is punctuating a perfectly executed stealth maneuver with a quack.
From the start, Calloway’s biographer plans a hagiography not of the intoxicated man at the bar in the middle of nowhere, but of a gunslinger who never existed and a place fondly reimagined. Along my journey, I make time to visit his gang members. I don’t find heroes; I just find folks hustling out a life in a country that has no interest in whether they live or die, unless it’s published in a page-turner. I can talk with them or antagonize them or shoot them. It doesn’t really matter. Calloway’s book will end up the same. And it will sell a million copies.
I’ve come to love the game’s name, which describes its situation concisely. Lara Croft’s latest adventure lives in the shadow of Tomb Raider — the tacky marketing of the 1996 debut, the prestige of the modern trilogy. Eventually, Shadow of the Tomb Raider succumbs to the darkness, repeating many of the series’ usual mistakes, but along the way it shines a thrilling and refreshing light.
In fact, the most generous reading of The Frozen Wilds is not as a prequel or sequel, but as a collection of missing missions. I suspect those who skipped Horizon earlier this year and find time this holiday to play the game with The Frozen Wilds interwoven into the campaign will enjoy the offering more than those of us returning nine months later. They won’t have to relearn the controls, the value of so many items or the names of tribes and their leaders. The Cut will be just another beautiful stop in Aloy’s spectacular adventure.
Many of Contrast’s individuals parts are beautiful, special, funny and even a little profound. Viewed as a whole though, with a little distance, the end result is confusing and difficult to look at. Contrast is rushed, messy, and, just like that, it’€™s done.