Miranda Sanchez
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Writing For
IGNLatest Reviews
Overall, the campaign is Call of Duty: Modern Warfare’s strength. Its well-designed missions make for excellent weapon testing grounds and feature a slew of interesting mechanics that wouldn’t work anywhere else. Some of its best parts come about because of the secretive nature of this war, and that includes some heavy moments that are generally done well. The multiplayer, meanwhile, maintains its smooth gunplay and has great weapon customization to go with it, but those don't matter when having to play on this disappointing batch of launch maps. Still, Modern Warfare’s gorgeous new Realism mode, the large-scale Ground War, and quick and dirty Gunfight help mix things up for a good time.
My time at Portia is, first and foremost, a game about building, and I've had a great time doing it. From mining to taming wild llamas to dating, there’s a lot to do here, and I’m still discovering and unlocking new and usually interesting things. While each of its parts is lacking in some way or have annoying audio bugs, when you put them all together they bolster each other to add up to something fun. I look forward to seeing how My Time at Portia continues to evolve in the future.
Each aspect of Black Ops 4 introduces some great new ideas that continue to evolve the series. Active healing in multiplayer gives players more control and, paired with Specialists, it makes for a great tactical experience. The new heist mode is a wonderful palate cleanser, too. Zombies thrives from having more than just two launch maps; the beginner mode is a fantastic way to ease in to the tense action, while Rush keeps the maps feeling fresh. Blackout is the most exciting of the three, though. Instead of bringing some crazy twist to battle royale, Treyarch smartly uses the format to combine past Black Ops offerings into a fun, hectic mode that entices us to jump in over and over again. Black Ops 4’s rough edges do hold it back from an even better execution of its best moments, but when you’re not experiencing those technical issues, any of Black Ops 4’s three modes make for an enjoyable shooter experience that feel distinct and personalized.
Stardew Valley is a beautiful, fun game that, when all of its parts are pulled together, make for a wonderful countryside adventure. Whether it’s rainy, sunny, snowy, or dusted with pollen drifts through the air, each day offers an abundance of great activities ready to be collected or mastered and new friendships waiting to be made. Even 100 hours in with three in-game years in the books, I still feel like I have so many mysteries to discover, and plenty of items to collect. New items, goals, and events from all the updates since its launch make Stardew Valley more welcoming for new players and extends its life for seasoned farmers, too. The fantastic multiplayer is just the cherry on top of the cake to this marvelous farming RPG.
It’s a shame to see the trend of poor game-to-movie adaptations continue with a character as great as Lara Croft. In this new Tomb Raider origin story, Lara’s singular drive to find her father falls flat because their relationship isn’t interesting, and that failure is compounded by a lackluster story and characters. The MMA-style fight scenes and her more adventurous action sequences do give Alicia Vikander a great chance to show off her physical prowess, but without a convincing motive, Lara comes across as shallow. A few interesting puzzles and death traps are too little, too late to save Tomb Raider from mediocrity.
Tacoma successfully overcomes the challenge of featuring eight characters and making them all interesting in a relatively short game. Using the out-of-sequence AR recordings to learn about the exciting events on Tacoma is a unique way to see every side of a conversation, and it’s one I hope to see catch on. I would have appreciated more time and events that'd have given me a reason to explore more of the beautiful station, but the time I did have in this fascinating hypothetical future was great.