Arthur Gies
This author account hasn't been claimed yet. To claim this account, please contact the outlet owner to request access.
Writing For
PolygonLatest Reviews
(Ed’s note: score updated on May 10, 2016 to reflect additional impressions of the game in progress.)
The Talos Principle joins an unlikely pair of creative forces in a way that succeeds far beyond my expectations. It's a smart game that doesn't punish you for it, a puzzle game that allows a sense of creativity. And while it isn't the most upbeat thing out there, there's a vein of hope that runs through it — and ties it all together neatly at the end.
But it might be too much to ask for that to change too. For whatever minor missteps Advanced Warfare makes with its story, it more than compensates with vision and remarkable execution. The latter has never really been Call of Duty's problem — Ghosts notwithstanding — but Advanced Warfare adds enough and moves far enough forward with its new abilities to feel like a risk. Turns out, that's just what the series needed.
I won't guess why the blatant over-sexualization is still there, often more intensely than before. But it causes an otherwise great game to require a much bigger mental compromise to enjoy.
Titanfall is the rare game that feels like it came out on top of the few compromises Respawn has had to make. Sliding the spectacle and holy shit moments of an epic campaign among bold, fast multiplayer that steals unlikely elements, Respawn has made them shine like they belonged there all along. Titanfall may not mark the same kind of sea change that Modern Warfare started but the pieces are all there in a game that delivers on its potential as the next big thing.
There are elements of a better game in Thief — maybe even a great one. I enjoyed Garrett's adventure when it was about stealing, when it was about getting into a structure creatively and sneaking away, about accumulating and spending loot. But I wanted much more of that breaking and entering than it was willing to give me. Thief never quite pulls it together. Instead, too often, I felt like a mouse in a narrow hallway filled with cats.
That absence of meaningful evolution might be Killzone: Shadow Fall's biggest sin. For all the next-gen bluster of its visuals and the repeated blunt-force attempts to ram a message home, Guerrilla's first shot on the PS4 retreads shooter cliches, and poorly. In a launch lineup crowded with shooters, Killzone: Shadow Fall sits at the bottom.
And that’s the thing. Remember Me suffers when it pushes its design beyond the capabilities of its mechanics, when its gameplay ambitions exceed its capacity to meet them. Most games would falter under the weight of those mechanical complications, and Remember Me eyes trouble the most pointedly when it falls prey to overused video game conventions. But Remember Me’s fiction and world-building make it more than just another running, jumping and climbing-oriented beat-‘em-up — they make it a future worth exploring.