Donovan Erskine
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ShackNewsLatest Reviews
The 2025 Major League Baseball season has begun and just a couple of weeks ago we got the latest installment in San Diego Studio’s baseball sim series. MLB The Show 25 not only continues the Negro Leagues for a third straight game, but it also makes meaningful improvements to Diamond Dynasty and Road to the Show.
Avowed delivers where it matters: an interesting world with memorable companions and a rich combat system that rewards experimentation. Pillars of Eternity fans will feast on the various nods and references to the beloved CRPGs, but newcomers to Eora will still find plenty to enjoy with Obsidian Entertainment’s latest RPG.
I enjoyed New World: Aeternum as an action RPG with relaxed character-building and challenging content but was never motivated to stick around and grind out an insane amount of hours. This almost feels intentional, with the quickened road to endgame and retooling of the campaign. The game certainly feels more fleshed out than it did three years ago and has settled into being a perfectly decent online game that I can drop into and enjoy in short bursts when the MMO itch comes around.
On the other hand, it’s impossible to make your way through Life is Strange: Double Exposure without performance issues interfering with the experience. It’s ironically right in line with the game’s theme of duality, with the Living and Dead worlds serving as metaphors for what it’s like playing through the newest Life is Strange game.
Metaphor: ReFantazio is, in the simplest of terms, a Persona game in a fantasy setting. While it would have been exciting to see a few more risks taken to separate itself from that beloved franchise, I can’t deny how thoroughly enjoyable this game is. Studio Zero bundles its world-class narrative and combat design to create an immersive RPG experience that I wished would never end.
One hang-up I had was with the way you transition between levels. When you clear a level, there is no option to immediately start the next one, only to replay the current level again. It was tedious having to back out and manually select the next cutscene so that I could play the following level. This feels like the result of the emphasis on speedrunning, as players are encouraged to perfect levels. I appreciated this aspect but would have enjoyed some other design philosophies mixed in there.
Harry Potter: Quidditch Champions is niche in the fact that Harry Potter fans, specifically those with fond memories of 2003’s Quidditch World Cup, will adore it. It knows exactly who its audience is, and makes sure to serve up Harry Potter references and nostalgia berries on a silver platter. The gameplay foundation is solid, but there just isn’t much done on top of it. The available modes grow generic and the lack of variety or unique challenge caused me to put the broom down and walk away much faster than I was expecting.
NBA 2K25 is in the same place as most modern sports franchises. There are iterative changes and refinements that improve existing modes, but so many of the game’s issues—several of which have existed for multiple games now—remain unchanged. The hardcore base knows what they’re getting and will appreciate the incremental changes, but if you’re still having fun on 2K24, there’s no pressing reason to upgrade.
The Casting of Frank Stone feels like a Dark Pictures Anthology game with a Dead by Daylight theme. It lacks the scope and sharpness of a game like The Quarry, but its tight story and creepy vibe will be enough to get the job done this spooky season. The real winners are the Dead by Daylight obsessives who will glean all sorts of lore from this game, enhancing the experience of the most successful horror multiplayer game.
The areas between towns and major points of interest are large zones that you can freely explore, fighting random creatures and collecting treasures. You’ll spot various collectible items and shiny areas to interact with for loot. Chest locations appear on the map, which makes some of the exploration feel more like a checklist than rather, well, an exploration. In general, the explicit barrage of items tossed into the open areas felt more like busywork than an encouragement to explore, and I even found myself passing up on some of the loot in the later portions of the game. I would have loved more puzzles and emergent moments that piqued my curiosity.