Grady Penna
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COGConnectedLatest Reviews
I’m going to be honest: What the Golf? is not a very good golf game. But that’s okay because it’s not really a golf game at all. Instead, it takes the concept of golf and subverts your expectations of what that should be. Though it borders on being too simplistic at times, What the Golf? is one of the silliest and most entertaining games I’ve played all year.
The Surge was generally well-received among fans and critics alike but didn’t add a whole lot to the souls-like formula besides a fresh coat of sci-fi paint and a satisfying dismemberment mechanic. If you are expecting The Surge 2, then, to be a reinvention of the series and a bold new direction for the genre, you’ll likely be disappointed. Instead, The Surge 2 tweaks and adds to the relatively solid foundation it already had in place. The result is a game that is more ambitious and still enjoyable, but certainly not revolutionary.
There are times playing Outward when you feel lost, both literally and figuratively, but it’s almost never a bad thing. On the contrary, getting lost in Outward can result in some of its most rewarding moments. This sense of adventure and discovery is key, and Outward achieves this by placing realistic restrictions on what your character can do, so that what you do accomplish feels all the more monumental. Unfortunately, for all the ingenuity Outward takes, it is also plagued by a host of issues from bugs, to outdated graphics to peculiar voice acting. But taken as a whole, Outward is still an engrossing experience.
If you’re looking for a deep retelling of Naruto’s story, or new chapter in the saga all together, Shinobi Striker is not for you. In fact, there isn’t really a “story” at all. Instead, Shinobi Striker focuses on online multiplayer battles and a batch of unlockable solo missions. You get the solo missions by talking to characters from the series in the small hub-world, with most of them being prefaced by a short cutscene introducing the mission. The core of the game is its multiplayer, so the lack of a full-fledged campaign isn’t too disappointing, but I can’t help but admit it would have been awesome to see my custom avatar take part in a unique story told in the Narutoverse. As for the solo missions, they are a fun diversion from the PvP and are used to unlock new masters and, in turn, new jutsu and abilities for your character. They do tend to get repetitive after a while, however, as many of the missions are merely repeats of earlier ones with a slightly altered objective or harder difficulty.
When LA Noire first released in 2011, it was a one-of-a-kind game. The facial capture technology had never been seen before in a video game and its interrogation system made it stand out not only from every other Rockstar game but from everything else, period. After diving back into this gritty recreation of 1940s Los Angeles on the Nintendo Switch more than six years later, I realized there is still nothing else quite like it.
It seems like nowadays every developer wants to make an open-world game. In the case of a studio like Guerrilla Games, a company previously known almost exclusively for the first-person shooter franchise Killzone, their foray into open-world games was this year’s Horizon: Zero Dawn, which has been one of the biggest critical successes of the year. But when it comes to new open-world games, most aren’t as unique or successful as Horizon, and it’s led to an overwhelming feeling of homogeny within the genre. Enter Yonder: The Cloud Catcher Chronicles, an open-world exploration game built by just a handful of people at indie developer Prideful Sloth. It’s a modest game, but Yonder immediately sticks out from many others in the same genre due to its striking visuals, charming world, and complete lack of combat.