Kyle Gratton
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You play as Skif, who is drawn to the Zone because it practically requested his presence by mysteriously destroying his house with an Artifact, a fist-sized, anomalous object that has lost its reality-warping powers precisely because it is now located outside the Zone. Seeking a way to restore the Artifact's power, Skif ultimately begins the life of a Stalker, a title given to eclectic loners who broadly seek personal enrichment via the Zone's mysteries, whether that be monetarily or spiritually. In the STALKER universe, the Chornobyl Exclusion Zone suffered a second disaster in 2006, mutating all life within and manifesting an untold number of physical, meteorological, and geological phenomena.
It's hard to knock any Call of Duty title too terribly, especially one with as much polished content as Black Ops 6. This one simply aims to optimize and deliver on the pillar experiences of small-to-medium sized multiplayer maps with smaller player counts, core round-based zombies with a focus on rapidly powering up, and a beefy campaign which the last few franchise entries under-delivered on. The gameplay itself feels very good and Black Ops 6 is deserving of the series' legacy, knowing what players want and giving it to them, even if that means playing it a little safe regarding gameplay innovation. That legacy also weighs it down, though, especially since it's one of many games contained in the cumbersome Call of Duty launcher. Time will tell how Black Ops 6's perks, gear, Wildcards, and omnimovement affect the Warzone experience when season 1 launches next month.
Helldivers 2 excels in a wildly entertaining duality, frequently swinging between incredible power fantasy and chaotic hilarity. Arrowhead Game Studios' third-person co-op shooter, playable with up to four people online, comes nearly a decade after the first Helldivers, a top-down shooter which was released in 2015. While the original garnered a small, dedicated player base, Helldivers 2 is already off to a blistering start, having so many concurrent players in its first weekend that the game's maximum server capacity was hit. It only takes a handful of missions to see the innate brilliance of Helldivers 2, and a couple dozen hours have revealed a satisfying depth in its gameplay synergies, but the game's longevity remains to be seen, despite genuinely fascinating use of its always-online, live-service nature.
Of the utmost importance to Assassin’s Creed Mirage is its notoriety gauge, which quantifies the crimes Basim has publicly committed in order to provide a measured response from Baghdad’s guards. With so many tasks urging you to comb the city, a never-ending game of cat and mouse underpins the entire experience. Getting caught pickpocketing, assassinating a guard in view of the public or the slain’s comrades, or trespassing in restricted areas heightens the danger, which can subsequently be relieved by tearing down wanted posters or bribing criers. Combined with combat better left avoided, the notoriety system promotes in Mirage one of the unadulterated joys of classic Assassin’s Creed – assassinating, from above and without warning, a long-sought-after target, and subsequently fleeing from the scrambling guards, breaking line of sight through deft parkour before finding a hiding place to slip once more back into the crowd.
The intervening years between games have resulted in changed characters that provide a gravitas to Survivor that the naïveté of Cal in the first game could never approach. Jedi: Survivor deftly balances a cast of characters all carrying their separate baggage. Cal has been relentlessly fighting the Empire hoping to avenge the massacre of the Jedi Order, but teeters on the edge of disillusionment with his cause; Cere Junda strives to preserve what she can of the Jedi tradition in the face of the Sith's overwhelming dominance; Greez Dritus struggles to recover both physically and mentally from the loss of his arm between Fallen Order and Survivor; and Merrin searches for a purpose in an unfathomably large galaxy where she's one of the last of her kind.
The speed at which the game begins hardly lets up, and it doesn't take long to beat Burning Shores, which is the expansion's most glaring fault. Certainly, its open-world gameplay gives the player plenty of opportunities to meander, but the story itself unfolds very quickly. In absence of the central mystery surrounding Aloy's birth from Zero Dawn, Forbidden West found a compelling new avenue for the character - one that hinged almost entirely on her relationships with her comrades. Burning Shores continues Aloy's arc in learning what it means to truly care for others (and to have others care for her), but the DLC's small handful of main quests has her confront and address new, confusing feelings inorganically fast.
Metroid Prime Remastered sees Samus exploring the expansive Tallon IV, a planet in the same solar system as the original Metroid's Zebes, after encountering genetically modified creatures aboard a derelict Zebesian Space Pirate ship in Tallon IV's orbit. Hoping to thwart the Space Pirates and discover the source of Phazon, the material being used to rapidly increase the size and strength of various creatures, Samus scours the planet's surface, magma-filled caverns, abandoned ruins, research facilities, and more. Though the series' signature story progression remains largely intact, Metroid Prime Remastered is distinct from the quick, occasionally terrifying side-scrolling of Metroid Dread, instead giving players a more methodical but still electric experience.
As protagonist Sam Porter Bridges makes his way from the east coast to the west, he delivers all manner of supplies to people who have been living underground in order to avoid the Beached Things (BTs) that are invading from the other side of death. With a Bridge Baby in a pod attached to his suit -used to detect the near-invisible BTs - Sam interacts with a large cast of characters to unlock the secrets of the Death Stranding during his journey. In the midst of the ongoing global pandemic, Death Stranding Director's Cut weaves a meaningful tale sympathetic to the hardships of seclusion, and offers an optimistic view of overcoming such circumstances through belief in a collective solution.