Christopher Teuton
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Screen RantLatest Reviews
There's an art to making early PC, PS2, and Xbox 360 environments look the way players remember them. You don't want to drastically change too much unless you are going for an all-out remake like Silent Hill 2, and you don't want to change too little (or too wrongly) and end up like the odd-looking Grand Theft Auto: Definitive Edition. Dead Rising Deluxe Remastered sits somewhere between the non-Xen portions of the Half-Life remake Black Mesa and the slavishly loyal Metal Gear Solid Delta, with the level design and structure remaining mostly unchanged but containing a number of quality-of-life (QoL) improvements and detailed, beautiful environments.
Elden Ring: Shadow of the Erdtree is a victory lap in the form of DLC, bringing in elements from past FromSoftware games without losing what made the original great. Check out Screen Rant's 4.5-star review!
As a video game, playing South Park: Snow Day feels more like playing a re-skinned version of Back 4 Blood with even more edges sanded off. Players begin in the Kupa Keep, a cordoned-off section of backyards behind Cartman's house which acts as a hub where you can purchase upgrades or outfit changes, swap out weapon loadouts, and select which string of missions you want to go on. Snow Day is built around co-op play, although bots will appear to fill the empty roster if you prefer to play offline, and while there is a story which acts as a through-line it's clear these "plot" missions are meant to be replayed more than once. There's also a horde mode which Henrietta unlocks after the second mission, which players can attempt as many times as they want for extra rewards and replay value.
For a free game that shows the first glimpse of what Konami is truly going to do with the franchise, Silent Hill: The Short Message is absolutely worth experiencing. That's not to say it's perfect. The "walk around and find the only interactable object in the room" gameplay brings nothing new to the table, and after being caught by the monster two or three times the escape room segments become far more tedious than they do scary (especially the final one). The dialog is a bit too on-the-nose, and all the social media references that seemed pretty important in the beginning are quietly shoved to the side once the real story reveals itself. That all being said, it's a far better start than it could have been, and it is undeniably the best new Silent Hill media since 2014.