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.
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.
Ever since the release of Journey back in 2012, there’s been an insatiable appetite for whimsical, exploration driven adventures set in a magical and awe inspiring landscape. Giant Squid’s Abzu was one such effort, and one of the more successful at that. The Pathless follows a similar formula, but replaces the relaxed vibe of Abzu with one of tension. The world is in peril.
Deep beneath Mt. Olympus, and far from the influence of Zeus, the god of the underworld rules supreme over the souls of the dead. His rule is cold and stern, with a vicious bite prepared for those who defy his will. Prince Zagreus has never felt he belongs among the damned. Though he lives comfortably and with considerable prestige among the riff raff of hell, he longs for more. Intrigued by the decadence of Olympus and its denizens, he decides to escape. To do that, he’ll need to die. Repeatedly. Welcome to Hades.