Latest Reviews
Strider
This reimagining of the original Strider establishes developer Double Helix’s firm grasp on the essence of the joy of movement that makes Strider Hiryu such a great character. It lacks environmental variety and a sense of fairness when it comes to some of the boss battles, but it shows great...
Earth Defense Force 2025, a game about fighting giant bugs, has been dragged down by significant performance bugs. I can forgive (and even enjoy) the quirky physics and awkward voice acting EDF is known for, but the terrible frame rate turns this fast-paced action game into a slow-motion chug-fest when...
Donkey Kong Country: Tropical Freeze is a great platformer full of tense sequences and tough levels. Boss battles are a huge highlight, and it’s packed with hard-to-find secrets and collectibles. Multiplayer could use some improvement, but I found myself laughing whenever my teammate and I wiped out on some of...
Though fairly expensive and perhaps not as long as we could have hoped, Left Behind is a beautifully-realized foray back into the dangerous world Joel and Ellie inhabit in The Last of Us. With a bunch of collectibles to find, Trophies to earn, and memorable moments to experience, Left Behind...
Strike Vector
Strike Vector is a good online dogfighting shooter with floating industrial levels that look great. The developers – aptly named Ragequit – focused on the big picture, which is wonderfully captured dogfights between megabots, but they've neglected to tie all its complex pieces together with a useful tutorial.
Lightning Returns: Final Fantasy XIII is a strange end to Square's trilogy. Its fresh combat system is a great success, and the well-designed world provides more than enough reason to play through the end of Lightning's journey. At the same time, the incredibly inconsistent tone and underwhelming plot caused any...
Loadout
Loadout attempts to compete with Team Fortress 2 at its own game, and it performs admirably thanks to great weapon customization options, strong map design, and a generous free-to-play setup that charges mostly for cosmetics. But the matchmaking system is straight-up broken, leading to frequent frustrating mismatches, and its four...
Jazzpunk sets out to makes us laugh, and unless you're the sort of person who can't appreciate a well-executed fart joke, there's a good chance it'll do just that. It starts out strong with dozens of hidden gags hidden among the scenery, but unfortunately it loses its momentum once minigames...
Smoke and Mirrors is a great second act to The Wolf Among Us. Its 90 minutes are packed with memorable characters and scenes, as well as some of the most agonizing decisions Telltale has ever forced me to make. And despite being a tad bit disappointed that the overall plot...
The Castle Doctrine is a brutal, minimalist depiction of urban paranoia that brings out the worst in its players, and I struggled to find value in it. That doesn’t mean that nobody will, but as a gameplay experience it is bleak, brief, and terribly frustrating. It certainly makes you think,...
Unepic
Unepic is an unabashed homage to classic 8-bit adventure and role-playing games. Its sharp wit and bevy of nerd-culture references offset the frustration that arises from an unrelentingly challenging dungeon crawler. Uneven character balance and some exploitable enemy AI limit the ways you can play enjoyably, but there are still...
Fable Anniversary’s personality has proved truly ageless, even if some of its mechanics haven’t. Inevitably, its doesn’t feel as fresh today as they did in 2004, but the strange and beautiful world of Albion, with all its weird idiosyncrasies and wildly varied accents, is as absorbing and lovably, peculiarly British...
