Brian Shea
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Game Informer Latest Reviews
The 2D fighting genre, once thought to be a dying category, now flourishes thanks to major franchises and underground hits. Invincible VS straddles the line of those two classifications, bringing a red-hot IP into the space by way of a new studio made up of fighting-game veterans. The result is a 3v3 tag fighter with rock-solid mechanics, strong production values, and a fun, if flawed, story mode, enabling Invincible VS to go blow-for-blow with many of its contemporaries right out of the gate.
The 3DS release of the charming Tomodachi Life exceeded my expectations. The Nintendo-developed product provided a fun sandbox life-sim experience where things often ended up at their silliest and strangest possible outcomes. It felt like a fun one-off experiment for Nintendo, but I always held out hope for a new entry. Tomodachi Life: Living the Dream revives the franchise, and though the technology is vastly improved and it doubles down on the weirdness, Nintendo strips any meaningful socia...
Most sports teams ebb and flow from season to season; a championship one year is often followed by a sharp downturn a few years later. However, some teams always seem to have a higher baseline of performance than others. For much of my life, my Orioles have floundered in mediocrity, with just a few standout years throughout the last few decades. Conversely, my least favorite team, the Yankees, haven’t had a losing season since the Super NES was the hottest console on the market. Similarly, ...
Since its inception, the Pokémon franchise has been about checking boxes; after all, the famous tagline is “Gotta Catch ‘em All!” Pokémon Pokopia evolves the checklist concept beyond collecting gym badges and catching Pokémon, stripping conflict of any kind from the experience and instead giving you nearly endless tasks to improve your various towns and the overall happiness of the Pokémon therein. And it does so with a loop that mixes elements from Dragon Quest Builders, Animal C...
In the two-and-a-half decades since its debut, the Mario Tennis franchise has introduced countless gamers to the sport of tennis. In that same stretch, the series has enjoyed its fair share of highs and lows. Mario Tennis Fever continues the momentum of 2018’s Aces by introducing a fun, balanced gimmick and a feature-rich suite of modes in which to compete.
In the '90s and '00s, vehicular combat games were commonplace. Franchises like Twisted Metal, Burnout, and Carmageddon were instrumental in establishing the brand of high-octane, aggressive driving that is much rarer in 2026. Though Twisted Metal and Burnout have been dormant for years, Carmageddon: Rogue Shift introduces a roguelite right turn to the genre, proving that while the vehicular combat genre often feels like a relic from a bygone era, it still has some gas left in the tank.
As video game franchises go, few have a more fascinating history than Mortal Kombat. Emerging from a ragtag team at an arcade-first developer, the blood-soaked fighter quickly became a phenomenon that rivaled one of its chief inspirations, Street Fighter, before being embroiled in controversy that reached the U.S. Senate. Digital Eclipse, a studio that has emerged as the preeminent compilation team, delivers an incredible collection of early-era Mortal Kombat titles along with a documentary t...
Longtime Pokémon fans more or less know what to expect with the series’ mainline RPGs, which is why the proposition of the Legends spin-off franchise is so enticing. With 2022’s Pokémon Legends: Arceus, players were treated to a sprawling adventure in the wide-open Hisui region, tasked with filling in the area’s first Pokédex. Outside of doubling down on exploration, Pokémon Legends: Z-A has little to do with its predecessor, instead establishing the Legends spin-offs as places for ...
When I was a child, I rushed to get my chores done so I could fire up my favorite video games. Never in my wildest dreams did I imagine I would devote so much time to a game about doing chores. PowerWash Simulator 2 expands on the gameplay and map design of FuturLab’s surprising 2022 hit, creating an experience that is at once arduous, time-consuming, and repetitive. But as I watched the dirt and grime melt away from the various surfaces over tens of hours, I had a constant feeling of satis...
The Sonic and Mario franchises have been intertwined since the dawn of Sega’s flagship series, so it’s only fitting that Sonic’s kart-racing return occurs the same year as Mario’s. However, much like how Sonic brought a different flavor to the platforming genre in the ‘90s, the Blue Blur approaches the kart-racing genre from a different angle than Nintendo’s mascot. The result is a much more streamlined, yet still ambitious product that sits alongside Mario Kart World as the best ...