Polygon
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Latest Reviews
Amnesia: The Bunker
These moments rival those of the best stealth games, when the slightest noise can mean revealing your position to much more powerful foes. Frictional has made a name for itself by creating these moments out of elegant yet terrifying systems. The Bunker’s standout achievement, then, is creating a nonlinear sandbox...
Humanity
Ultimately, focusing too closely on any puzzle solution misses what’s special about Humanity. In the days since playing, I’ve found myself most often thinking not about a specific mechanic, but what each level looks like once completed. By removing my ability to influence the stage, the completion screen presents the...
Rollerdrome
So, anyway, yeah, Rollerdrome is Tony Hawk’s Pro Skater with a gun, but it’s also a commentary on the capacity of violent entertainment to dull our senses to the violence in our actual lives. Good luck remembering that when you’re chasing an S-rank score.
It just comes across as Psyop being afraid that the player is laughing at them and not with them. The narrative is focused on preemptively reassuring you that the developer knows this is a joke, and is not taking this seriously, and yeah it would be pretty cringe if this...
For those that can enjoy the intense challenge of a multi-stage boss fight — and I count myself among them — Cuphead: The Delicious Last Course offers some of the best stages and artwork in the game. There’s no filler here, and every fight stands out as a memorable experience,...
13 Sentinels: Aegis Rim
There’s plenty more for me to tell you about this game, like how it stacks twists atop each other like a tower of turtles, without ever collapsing under all that narrative weight. Though reading more would spoil the fun – and trust me, you’ll be doing plenty of reading once...
Lost Ark
But still: With all of its endless intricacies, its variety of end-game content, and of course, its stylish action, Lost Ark feels like it’s destined to remain something of a phenomenon for quite some time. Getting to the endgame can sometimes feel like a chore, and the game’s economy can...
Gran Turismo 7
If it’s ever tempting to think that Polyphony has been left behind by the times, we should remember that the Sport mode is its greatest achievement of the past decade, and that it remains without peer in its field. And if it seems striking that GT and its closest current...
Horizon Forbidden West
In the end, this is Aloy’s story: She continues to be a headstrong protagonist, and I say that admiringly. In Forbidden West, she takes no shit — but she also learns valuable lessons about accepting help, and about acknowledging the grief that comes from growing up as an outcast. She...
Kena: Bridge of Spirits
Inspirations should always serve as a jumping-off point, something to build upon. But it often feels less like Kena: Bridge of Spirits was inspired by things, and more like it decided it could squish its beautifully realized world of magic and spirits into a ready-made mold. The result is a...
The care present in Ghost of Tsushima’s design makes its undercooked take on its own ideas harder to forgive. Take its themes seriously, and it becomes a story about a feudal landlord learning that maybe life isn’t about him, but centering on him anyway. The Jin Sakai that players engage...
Chicory: A Colorful Tale
Instead, Chicory asks, “What if there’s a better way?” A person’s worth is inherent, and it’s not chosen for us. If we tear down those systems and rebuild something new, we can shift legacies and choose them for ourselves — it’s no longer a gift bestowed upon us by some...