Latest Reviews
Treasure Tracker takes the core concept of Captain Toad and runs wild with it. It’s a smart, adorable puzzle game that presents some awesome locales and really rewards you for taking the time to unpack them. Despite the control issues and menu problems, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker proves that you...
Randal’s Monday has a clever premise that deserves better treatment than it does in this crude, baffling adventure. Though its visuals and acting perfectly fit its ‘90s-era slacker aesthetic, Randal’s Monday lacks the sharp writing necessary to make its odious hero amusing. But it fails the most at being a...
Any of Tales from the Borderlands Episode 1: Zer0 Sum’s minor setbacks feel like nothing when put up against the strength of the characters, the caliber of the writing, and the charm of the world. With only a brief introduction to Rhys and Fiona, they have already become a pair...
A Bird Story
With its focus on visual narrative, A Bird Story challenges many of the ideas of basic game design, sometimes in ways that limit player freedom. But its amazing attention to visual detail, laser-focused narrative beats, and evocative soundtrack make it a neat, tightly-constructed story that says much without ever saying...
The time I’ve spent with Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has been non-stop fun and surprises, with just a tad too much frustration when I lose a rare item. But even when it slaps me down harder than I’d have liked, starting again is always a treat, because I’m likely to...
If you set This War of Mine’s theme aside, you'd have a tough and demanding survival and resource-management game – but it never lets you forget that it's about a serious and sad subject. It's full of thorny problems, and that just makes your small gains all the sweeter. As...
I like Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, but I don’t love it as much as I’ve loved previous games in the series. It definitely delivers on the promise of letting me play with charmingly realized versions of many of my favorite DC heroes and villains, and it even presents a...
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault is an adept interweaving of the strategic, tactical, and personal facets of warfare. A clever campaign with hard, meaningful decisions to make at every turn is hindered only by how zealously it insists you live with the consequences of those decisions – even if...
LittleBigPlanet 3 is an enormous - and, at times, unruly - game. It’s Adventure mode is beautifully designed, and new power-ups and character abilities switch up the usual bread-and-butter platforming gameplay, but it’s let down by limited options for co-operative play and most significantly, a number of game-breaking bugs on...
Seeing an island paradise brutally corrupted is unsettling; seeing our lead character’s mind fall to pieces, even more so. While Escape Dead Island’s workmanlike combat and ho-hum zombies fail to fully capitalize on this unoriginal but respectably executed premise, it does manage to punctuate its enjoyable filler with some genuinely...
Rogue has the most interesting story of any recent Assassin’s Creed game. It’s fascinated by its own history, and introduces a level of ambiguity which changes how we look at the formerly simple conflict between Assassins and Templars. So it's all the more disappointing there's so little to do while...
Far Cry 4
Diversity is one of Far Cry 4’s strongest assets, and it overwhelms the mostly disappointing story with countless opportunities for free-form adventure and fun. Visual variety, tons of distinct side-quests, and a dense world with plenty of options always gave me something I wanted to do, and its satisfying economy...
