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Part Persona, part The Sims, and part Fight Club, Punch Club is deceptively deep, with a rewarding life simulation and RPG systems. It’s bursting with personality, (though regrettably very little of that is its own) reliant on bygone eras and pop-culture references to establish its lighthearted and fun tone. Punch Club is tedious at times, thanks to an unfortunate level-down systems that artificially extend the road to the championship with grinding repetition, but its upgrades, stat growth, and more compensate with satisfying depth.
Star Wars Battlefront captures the essence of Star Wars beautifully, harnessing the most exciting and memorable pieces of the universe for a unique and spectacular combat sandbox. Aside from awkward performances and a poor original score, Battlefront is a master class in aesthetic authenticity. Beyond a few essential modes built for casual competition, however, Battlefront is unfocused, relying on excess game types to compensate for an absent single-player campaign.
Life Is Strange — Episode 5: Polarized is a fascinating exploration of a teenager deeply affected by loss, trauma, suffering, and failure. This is not the coming-of-age story Life Is Strange pretended to be early on, though. Polarized is destructive, unquestionably the bleak climax of the murder mystery that’s been dormant during most episodes, and it only somewhat works by the time Max Caulfield arrives to her ending. It’s disappointing to see Life Is Strange lean into its angrier story threads to complete its otherwise-touching human story, but its emotional closure and character resolutions make this a more memorable ending than its unnecessarily dark plot twists.
Dark Room is the most complicated, conflicting episode of Life Is Strange yet. It sets up a finale that could be a genuine stunner, but there’s a lot resting on its shoulders. That finale will need to even out the drastic and disappointing change in tone established in Dark Room, which compromises its characters for the sake of a cool mystery. An emotional intro and devastating outro show how well Dontnod can handle both separately, but the hours in between leave so much to be desired in terms of marrying these people to their story.
This isn’t just a good MOBA for phones tablets, it’s a great MOBA that happens to play well on iOS machines, and suffers from the big communication problem no one’s figured out how to solve yet. Vainglory hits the highest highs of a great MOBA, but only when playing locally with friends against a team that’s doing the same. Queuing into a random game with strangers spotlights massive communication problems that get in the way of Super Evil Megacorp’s smart level and character design. It’s accessible for first-timers looking to get their feet wet, while offering enough depth to satisfy those with hundreds of hours of experience on more complex PC strategy games. Just make sure to bring friends.
I completed my first circumnavigation of the Earth in just over 80 Days' time limit, but only barely. If we hadn’t taken a boat headed for Hawaii, if I didn’t gamble with the ship's engines by pushing them to the brink of explosion, perhaps I could have made it. I eagerly started again immediately, with a whole new set of text-based adventure decisions -- Fogg’s enthusiasm, and 80 Days’ absence of punishment or actual sense of failure, had me excited to do it all over again. I had a spectacular, unforgettable adventure story to show for my three-hour adventure, and couldn’t wait to learn more about the world, its characters, and the human desire to discover.
I completed my first circumnavigation of the Earth in just over 80 Days' time limit, but only barely. If we hadn’t taken a boat headed for Hawaii, if I didn’t gamble with the ship's engines by pushing them to the brink of explosion, perhaps I could have made it. I eagerly started again immediately, with a whole new set of text-based adventure decisions -- Fogg’s enthusiasm, and 80 Days’ absence of punishment or actual sense of failure, had me excited to do it all over again. I had a spectacular, unforgettable adventure story to show for my three-hour adventure, and couldn’t wait to learn more about the world, its characters, and the human desire to discover.
Diversity is one of Far Cry 4’s strongest assets, and it overwhelms the mostly disappointing story with countless opportunities for free-form adventure and fun. Visual variety, tons of distinct side-quests, and a dense world with plenty of options always gave me something I wanted to do, and its satisfying economy had me obsessing over completing every side-quest. It’s a little safe, overall -- its competitive multiplayer stands out as a gamble that paid off -- in that it has many familiar elements from Far Cry 3 transplanted to an amazing new place, but those elements are incredibly empowering and rewarding.
Project Spark is a commitment, and a huge time investment to really make something substantial. It’s also a worthwhile endeavor for anyone who’s ever wished to make games. Learning the obtuse and complicated systems is surprisingly enjoyable, because you’ll see satisfying results instantly when you conquer a problem. So far, there are few games I’d actually recommend playing on the Project Spark marketplace, but the engine itself is an enormous amount of fun to use. It’s rich with possibility, primed for your creativity, and capable of bringing your imagination to life.
The more you put into République, the more you’ll get out of it. Retracing steps can be tedious, but the story payoff and gameplay rewards make it worth the trouble. Leaping from one camera to the next is a fulfilling, oddly voyeuristic way to explore this superb, deep world, too. Its sense of omniscience felt empowering, while the remaining mystery of who I am, and where I’m taking Hope, adds convincing intrigue. République is off to a great start, and I hope it can keep this refreshing momentum going for the rest of its episodes.