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Latest Reviews
Atomfall
Atomfall is committed to creating friction. It's an open-world survival shooter that wants you to struggle to make success feel sweeter, but it does so with varying levels of effectiveness. When tuned correctly, it's a blast. The survival elements, exploration, and quest structure are positive examples, but poor skill progression...
MLB The Show 25
Sports video game series, much like real-world sports franchises, tend to ebb and flow throughout the years. A stretch of a few consecutive good campaigns can be abruptly interrupted by an unexpected downturn plagued by unforced errors or a full-on rebuilding year. As you look at the sports gaming landscape,...
I hated my first 10 hours with Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2. I then realized I wasn’t meeting it on its terms; I was trying to morph what is clearly a realistic immersive sim-like digital LARP into the Skyrim-esque experience I figured it would be as yet another open world RPG....
As a child raised in the ‘90s, few TV shows brought me and my friends together for playground hijinks more than Mighty Morphin Power Rangers. Assuming the roles of our favorite Rangers (often contentiously) and poorly imitating martial arts moves was a blast. The franchise’s many co-op beat ‘em up...
The 2011 release of Sonic Generations was one of the best games the series had received in years and served as an effective celebration of the Blue Blur’s 20th anniversary. Though the 33rd anniversary is much less of a milestone birthday, Sonic Team carried forward that legacy with a solid...
For the first time since The Legend of Zelda’s inception in 1986, the series’ namesake is finally the playable protagonist. Echoes of Wisdom is not a spin-off or a non-canon entry in the ongoing legend but rather a proper Zelda game filled with dungeons and puzzles. Getting to explore a...
Batman: Arkham Asylum
The Arkham series has earned the prestige of being a fantastic and consistent video game franchise without any licensed game asterisks. Nearly all the Arkham games are great in different ways and perhaps the most surprising compliment to pay Arkham Shadow is that it stands up in that lineage, despite...
Citizen Sleeper 2: Starward Vector uses an explosive beginning to rip the amnesiac Sleeper protagonist away from any familiarity, forcing them to endure a journey through the stars riddled with stress, unrest, and a foe constantly on their tail. But it’s those feelings, that unavoidable discomfort, that push Sleeper into...
Dragon Age: The Veilguard is more than just another release in a beloved role-playing franchise. It’s also the first single-player RPG from BioWare, a team whose bread and butter was once this exact type of game, in over seven years. With a beautiful collection of hub worlds to explore, fun...
Silent Hill 2
The original Silent Hill 2 released in 2001, which was an impressive time for the medium. The year was not without other forward-thinking games tackling complicated emotional subjects (Metal Gear Solid 2 and Ico, for example), but James Sunderland’s journey into the titular town continues to stand out as arguably...
For as much as Indiana Jones has influenced video games, the franchise doesn’t have many standout games to its name. Wolfenstein: The New Order developer Machine Games rectifies this by not only giving Indy the video game he’s long deserved but in many ways the film sequel fans have wanted...
After primarily focusing on the Persona franchise for the last two decades, director Katsura Hashino and his team decided to craft an all-new IP that retains many of the core tenets of their most well-known work. Though Metaphor: ReFantazio’s fantasy backdrop differs vastly from Persona’s real world, the adventure feels...