Ryan McCaffrey
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IGNLatest Reviews
Overcoming its deserved reputation after a notorious launch, today the Halo Master Chief Collection is a polished, super-deluxe package of content that successfully links three generations of amazing Halo games together in a way that feels like it was made by and for people who care deeply about this legendary shooter franchise. The enhancements to the campaigns make it a joy to replay Master Chief’s story (and two other UNSC tales as well), but it’s the now-smooth multiplayer that’s worth coming back to over and over again. It’s not just a collection of some of the best first-person shooters ever made, it’s a great redemption story, too.
Mario, it turns out, isn’t the only plumber in Nintendo’s employ who can carry his own great game. Luigi’s Mansion 3 is so much fun, so charming, and so smartly designed that, moving forward, I really hope we get more than three of these games every 20 years. It’s absolutely the best Ghostbusters game ever made – it just happens to star Mario’s scaredy-cat brother rather than Peter Venkman and Ray Stantz.
RAD is a lot deeper than it looks at first glance, and a lot more challenging too. Both are good things, and the procedurally generated layouts and mutations guarantee that variety will always be served. Sometimes you’ll play for minutes and other times for hours – I’m about eight hours deep so far – but the more time you spend with RAD, the more likely you are to click “New Run” when you finally die.
Hitman 2 doesn’t add much of note to the structure of its predecessor and thus feels more like Hitman 1.5 than a full-blown sequel. But that’s not a bad thing. By offering more of the deepest, fullest stealth sandboxes in gaming in one single package rather than six episodic ones, it earns its keep. The inclusion of Hitman (2016) is a bonus for those that didn’t catch the reboot initially. Here’s hoping they put more effort into the plot next time.
If you go into A Way Out thinking its mandatory two-player co-op is a gimmick, you’ll likely come out of it realizing that it couldn’t have been done any other way. Vincent and Leo’s journey will have you and a friend performing tasks together both mundane and dramatic, and the result is a memorable, variety-packed cinematic adventure that feels like what Telltale’s games might’ve evolved into if they’d leaned into game mechanics instead of phasing them out.
Mario’s games have been around for almost as long as game consoles have been a thing, but thankfully, he’s always evolving. We rarely get the same Mario twice. Super Mario Odyssey delivers on that ongoing promise of originality and innovation: It distills the venerable series’ joyful, irreverent world and characters and best-in-class platforming action, and introduces a steady stream of new and unexpected mechanics. It’s all spun together into a generational masterpiece.
Though Black deserves credit for adding new puzzle mechanics along the way, it could’ve easily seen its 6-8 hour runtime chopped in half and still gotten its message across. That entire time I found myself wondering if, like Inside, Black would have anything to say. When I finally discovered its message at the end of the campaign, it did inspire me to look up the real-life issue it was drawing attention to and learn more about it. I applaud it for that. Sure, it could’ve done so with a bit more subtlety – it's a bit heavy-handed at the very end – but at least Black does have a point to make. It’s just a shame that it wrapped that in a game that’s so shamelessly and distractingly derivative.
100ft Robot Golf is a game whose title paints a much prettier mental image than what’s actually delivered. The very basic golf gameplay is full of frustrating moments without high points to balance them out, the graphics are rudimentary without stylistic charm, and the jokes in the goofy story and commentary don’t land often enough to save it. And if you’re going to play it I’d suggest staying away from the VR mode – it only makes things tougher and uglier.
I never expected to compare Gears of War 4 to The Force Awakens, but I couldn’t be happier to do so. Like the latest chapter in the story from a time long ago in a galaxy far, far away, Gears of War 4 is directed by a new generation of creators, shares a lot of similar narrative structures to the beloved first piece of the trilogy it succeeds, and is an experience you’ll walk away from with a big smile on your face – in campaign, Versus, and Horde modes alike. It’s about as good of a franchise reawakening as I could’ve hoped for. J.J. Abrams would no doubt appreciate what Gears 4 accomplishes.
The staples of Mirror’s Edge remain refreshing and unique in the first-person genre in 2016, but Catalyst’s attempts to keep up with the open-world Joneses don’t always jive with its design strengths of movement and momentum. On top of that, muddy-looking console versions and a lame story filled with unlikable characters doom Mirror’s Edge’s return to fall short. I was so happy this game was being made, but in the end I’m just as disappointed in how it turned out.