Paul Sullivan
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COGConnectedLatest Reviews
Destiny 2 is a complicated topic. People who love the game – raiding, doing daily bounties, and min-maxing armour mods – are also its biggest haters. Bungie can hardly breathe without getting Nova Bombed by the community. So the challenge in releasing an expansion like The Final Shape, and tying up 10 years of history, is stouter than a Titan’s Bubble Shield.
If you ask someone who grew up in the nineties what the best game ever made is, there’s a good chance they’ll confidently say Chrono Trigger. And for good reason: the game was made by a dream team composed of the key figures behind both Final Fantasy and Dragon Quest and oozed heart. All to say: making a game inspired by Chrono Trigger and that era of RPGs carries inherent risk – there’s a huge reputation to live up to. Sea of Stars rises to the challenge, not only living up to lofty expectations, but shattering them. Friends, Sea of Stars is one of the best RPGs, nay, games I’ve ever played.
The notion of what defines a game is constantly in flux. A decade or two ago, games as narrative vehicles were very much in their infancy. Today, the so-called Walking Simulator is an undeniable part of the story of gaming. Are they ‘games’? Yes. Not in the same way Baldur’s Gate 3 is a game, mind you, but games nonetheless. Fort Solis is absolutely a walking simulator. The first effort from new studio Fallen Leaf, Fort Solis tells the story of Jack Leary and Jessica Appleton: two engineers working a Martian colony 50 years in the future.
After parting ways with Halo and Microsoft in 2007, Bungie began work on a new adventure: Destiny. 15 years later Destiny’s second iteration is still going strong, and in fact, it has never been better. For a former Destiny lover, Destiny 2: The Witch Queen is the expansion that has truly drawn me back in. Bungie has impactfully deepened Destiny’s already unfathomably complex lore. They’ve added scads of new content and ideas, and deliciously set the stage for what’s to come. Oh, and it’s still the best playing shooter on the market.
The feeling of true speed is something video games often get wrong. 200 mph should feel completely unhinged. As though every minor correction to your path is riskier than jumping out of a plane without a parachute. Forza Horizon 5 absolutely nails that feeling.
Truly great stories – those that stand the test of time – work for a singular reason. Regardless of setting, inciting events, and world building, stories connect with audiences because of characters. Readers and players need a strong sense of who characters are and plot points that agree with those characterizations. Failing that, audience connections are vague. You roll your eyes, or worse they glaze over. Ultimately, the story becomes forgettable. Games can skate around that with gameplay mechanics, but for story-driven content, it’s an unforgivable sin.
A wise person once said: with age comes revision, or in the case of video games, remasters. The most successful of these – take Shadow of the Colossus for example – work because the source content remains excellent. Even years on, the loops, mechanics, and content hold their own. With Mass Effect Legendary Edition, we’ve got the opportunity to see how Commander Shepard’s epic tale stands the test of time.
Think back to a few years ago. Long, solitary adventures once stood stoically across from competitive multiplayer games, with a no man’s land of mostly empty space between them. That void was co-op gaming. The resurgence of couch co-op games since then has been intense, though most efforts have felt tacked on. Games that truly succeed are those that embrace cooperation as a core design component, and that’s exactly what Josef Fares and Hazelight Studios have cut their teeth on. It Takes Two is their most refined effort yet, sporting Pixar caliber polish and a shockingly dynamic set of gameplay mechanics.
Good morning, 47. After 2 games across 15 locations, IO Interactive returns to wrap up the World of Assassination trilogy in Hitman 3. More of the same in the best possible way, Hitman 3 is a fantastic way to spend a few dozen (or hundred) hours this winter.
The classic 3D platformer is something of a lost art. Sure, there are fantastic examples from the past few years like Super Mario 3D World, but games like Voodoo Vince or Rocket: Robot on Wheels just aren’t greenlit anymore. It’s a real shame. Not happy with the state of the market, Sony tapped Sumo Digital to send one of their most charming characters on his biggest adventure yet. The result is Sackboy: A Big Adventure, an enhancting and visually magnificent game the whole family will adore, even if it’s not much of a challenge.