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5 (5) 4 (15) 3 (10) 2 (5) 1 (2) 3.4 starsAverage score of 37 user reviews
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Though there are some missteps, Detroit: Become Human succeeds in some pretty bizarre and interesting ways 0
Like it or lump it, Quantic Dream only makes one kind of game these days, and Detroit: Become Human is no exception. All your favorites are here: using the right stick for contextual actions, QTE button prompts, dialogue choices floating by your character's head, people sounding like things that are only pretending to be human instead of actually sounding like people, etc. For the first time in their history that at the very least might be intentional as Detroit looks to tell the tale of the nea...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
As well as being another 'dad game', God Of War proves it has something to say about growing from past mistakes 0
Without the context of the initial reveal trailer and gameplay to go along wit it, there probably wasn't a sentence I could have cared less about a couple short years ago than "there is a new God of War game starring Kratos coming". To tell the truth, I actively disliked the early games in the series, admittedly only ever playing the first two on the PlayStation 2, but I never saw anything to bring me back in with the third game or God Of War Ascension. The latter itself had already been a sourc...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Rarely does a game speak so much while having nothing to say as much as here in Far Cry 5 0
Hoo boy, tale of two cities here... The Far Cry loop remains largely intact as it's been known for last several years worth of games, and for some, I'm sure that's all the review they need (whether to sell them, or turn them away). In fact, the progression has been changed in some meaningful ways, and I usually don't complain about a known franchise or property trying something new, even if it's a mixed bag of positive and negative. An attempt was made to try and steer the series in at the very ...
2 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
A gamble that paid off, Mario + Rabbids is another great example of something I never knew I wanted 0
For all the classic - or "traditional" - Mario games that there have been over the years, there are also a lot of projects that are comparatively pretty out there. He's taught typing, he's painted, he's been paper, but to my knowledge he's never taken cover behind a block and used a gun to shoot his enemies. Well fear not, because now he has, and the world is the better for it. Mario + Rabbids Kingdom Battle is both a new avenue for Mario, as well as a new direction for the Rabbids of Ubisoft an...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
Clever environmental puzzles and a thrilling sense of discovery make The Sexy Brutale a cool experience... once 0
The ideas found in The Sexy Brutale were always up my alley from word one. An adventure/puzzle game where you learn about the environment and behaviors of it's inhabitants to move past obstacles is typically a great pitch to get my attention. And while the game is good, and the puzzles are neat, the formula is very one-note. Where I was hoping for a Dishonored-like experience where my path could look very different compared to someone else's, The Sexy Brutale's only got one answer for you, and t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
While reinventing the series, Breath Of The Wild also re-establishes new standards for Zelda 0
The childlike joy that's found in the basic movement and exploration of The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild even within the first five minutes was a pretty good indication that this was going to be a great time. More than fifty hours later (and that's even coming in a little lean), that early feeling was well-founded. Previous core console entries in the franchise had - while never being bad - left the entire Zelda franchise in a state of malaise and stagnation. Something had to change about...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The only reason they went with "Odyssey" is because "Super Mario 64-2" sounds stupid 0
Do you like joy? If you answered yes (and if not, who hurt you?) then you'll probably like Super Mario Odyssey and I could stop right now. Unless someone had a childhood trauma involving Mario that still scars them to this day, or they have an acute allergy to video game gold coins, I can't think of a reason I wouldn't at least recommend this game to anyone, let alone actively preach about it. For something as old as the Mario franchise is, it's hard to keep it fresh and exciting from game to ga...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
As difficult as it is gorgeous, Cuphead was worth the wait 0
Cuphead is a game that as soon as you see it for the first time, you can't take your eyes off of it. The first glimpse of it's fluid Walt Disney and Max Fleischer inspired animation in motion leaves you wanting to see more of it and for years all we had were glimpses. This look that couldn't be beat, coupled with the the knowledge that it was intended to be a game comprised largely of boss fights caused some concern that the game couldn't live up to the lofty expectations that we were placing on...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
The third time really is the charm as Danganronpa V3 finally reaches the heighest peaks yet 0
I thought I knew what I was getting myself into booting up Danganronpa V3 the first time. And to be fair, I was mostly right. What makes Danganronpa tick is a very specific list of qualities that can't be changed without someone somewhere decrying it as "not a real one", so by this third main game (and fourth overall) not much has changed mechanically. As well, the same bombast and style are still present (read: right up in your face) so it may seem hard to differentiate this third game from it'...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Little Nightmares has good ideas as well as some clunky ones in a marvelously dark journey through a hungry Hell 0
The trope of "seemingly innocent youth trapped in a world that forces them to make harsh choices to survive" has found it's way into being one of the most prominent narrative threads for smaller or "indie" games over the last ten or so years, give or take, largely stemming from the success of Playdead's Limbo, and then again with Inside. Tarsier Studios absolutely take inspiration from these games and others like it, but with varying degrees of more or less ambiguity. By eschewing the straight 2...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A cult classic worthy of the pedestal it finds itself on 0
In a time where Grand Theft Auto is one of the biggest brands on the planet, the idea of a non-American developer making a game depicting a skewed approximation of America is nothing crazy. However Nintendo, Ape, and HAL Laboratory put out a product like EarthBound years ahead of this curve that was equally as re-inventive to it's genre that lives as a cult classic that stands out like nothing else. And outside from the other games in the as known in Japan Mother series - of until recently dubio...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
While a neat idea, Hey! Pikmin is stretched a little too long for it's own good 0
Spin-offs don't fall into this trap exclusively, but oftentimes when an existing thing tries a new style, I just find myself wishing I was playing more of the "real" thing. A debate over what "real" means could take an eternity in some cases, and there are absolutely examples where I've enjoyed the spin-off more than the core series, but this problem is exactly where Hey! Pikmin finds itself. Hey! Pikmin isn't a bad game - it's okay - but when you find yourself longing for something else while p...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A tragic personal story with style to make up for it's missteps 0
For a Ninja Theory jam, a studio most well-known for their fast-paced character action games, Hellblade: Senua's Sacrifice is a surprisingly slow moving game. That's not a knock against it, there would be no need to artificially increase the speed of what's going on here, but it is noteworthy - and interesting - to see something so fresh. It's rare that games like this tend to lean on the slower side of things, but when you're dealing with the heavy subject matter of mental illness, a steady fee...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Actual fantasy sports and visual novels come together to create a one-of-a-kind experience 0
Supergiant Games, with their third game since bursting on to the scene in 2011, are proving themselves to have all the best qualities of the greatest artists in any medium. They constantly reinvent themselves and their games, jumping from one genre to another, leaving them better than when they found them, all the while containing a distinct and unmistakable style that obviously connects their disparate games as one impressive body of work. Whether it's the art style, the music and sound, the cl...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Environmental exploration done right 0
Well it only took eleven years, but there's another Prey game. This one is called... Prey- look, I could go on about dumb names for things all day, it doesn't really matter anymore. This is a game that's less concerned with continuing the story or 'legacy' of the previous game, and more about defining what the Prey series is going forward, if it is to be a series. And I hope it does continue, Bethesda and developer Arkane Studios have created something that's really quite great. A combination of...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Less like Mass Effect: The Next Generation and more like Mass Effect: Voyager 0
Just as much as there's a tremendous value in a game - or an example of any medium - that excels at everything it sets out to do, there's also something to be said for a good old fashioned trash fire. Certainly not for everyone, but sometimes it's gratifying to wallow in the worst and have a good time. Between these two extremes, unfortunately, there exists that awful middle ground of indifference, and sadly that's where Mass Effect: Andromeda, bearer of the vaunted Mass Effect legacy, has foun...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
One of the greatest games to somehow be less than the sum of it's parts 0
I love Persona 5... I think. One thing I'm certain of is that this title was, for years, the one game I was most anticipating, so to say hopes were high is gross understatement. And maybe that's the issue right there, my dreams were too grand to ever be reasonable. There was a popular formula that the series had adopted since the third game that Persona 5 was always going to stick heavily to, and stick it did. There was also room for growth and change in this template, and there were changes and...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
The full potential is farther in the horizon than you'd hope 0
For their first new product from a new IP since 2004, there's been a lot of buzz around Guerilla Games' Horizon: Zero Dawn since it's reveal almost two years ago. A studio known for making first person shooters moving into third person action, and an RPG at that was an exciting new direction to see explored. Although those RPG elements end up being very light, and more akin to the recent Tomb Raider or Far Cry games, Guerilla has created a lush open world full of inventive and cool looking robot...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Succeeding just as much as she stumbles, Lara Croft is back on the case 0
With a title like Rise Of The Tomb Raider, you might think this would be the first game in it's series, however you would be mistaken. As a sequel to the 2013 surprise hit (at least for me, personally) Tomb Raider, the second game seeks to build on the new direction for stalwart video game icon Lara Croft. Back are voice actor Camilla Luddington as Lara and Rhianna Pratchett as the lead writer, back are the white ledges letting you know where to climb, back is the gravitas and weight given to ta...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Heck of a thing, ain't it? 0
A good game is one thing, but there's just something special to a thing you had little hope for exceeding far past your wildest dreams. As far as the expectations-to-final-product ratio goes, this one is a wild success. Even removed from the shock of seeing a long-running franchise like this come back into former glory, Resident Evil 7 (man, that is a great logo) is just such a well put together game it's almost astounding. It's not perfect, and the first half is noticeably stronger than the sec...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Hello insanity 0
After the way the first game in the series - Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc - ended without any proper resolution for our survivors, I was eagerly awaiting the answers to just what was going on out there in the world after the much ballyhooed "most biggest, most awful, most tragic event in human history". And I got those answers... quite a bit later. For better or worse, Danganronpa 2: Goodbye Despair spends the vast majority of it's time completely removed from the events of the first game an...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Mind is software, bodies are disposable 0
Although it's often used this way, the phrase "there's nothing else like it" isn't an inherently positive thing. Mentioning something as unique does not specifically tell anyone if that thing is any good, however, when I say that there's really not a whole else like Superhot, I want to make sure that I add that as well being different, that the game is pretty great. Starting from a weird browser-based prototype into a Kickstarter project into a full-fledged release, Superhot has finally seen the...
1 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
A boy and his bird-dog 0
One thing you can certainly say about 2016 is that it at least gave the world a lot of long-gestating, often borderline mythical games. Projects like The Witness, DOOM, Final Fantasy XV, and now, finally, The Last Guardian have become reality. Better yet, it may be the best of them all. The Last Guardian is a remarkable triumph for a game that feels so dated and rough in spots, but the parts of it that stand out - the intangibles - make the final product so much more than the sum of it's parts. ...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
While surely not final, this is one disappointing fantasy 1
The wait doesn't matter. I have to get this out of the way, because there's always someone who will say "I waited X amount of time for THIS?" the same way there's always someone who will complain "I paid X amount of dollars for THIS?" when they want to tread the incredibly murky and subjective waters of price versus length or quality. The fact of the matter is the game would be just as amazing or disappointing at the end of the day if it had come out five years ago as it is having finally releas...
3 out of 3 found this review helpful. -
Fourth time's the charm for Naughty Dog 0
As the de facto main PlayStation exclusive franchise for the past decade more or less, I'd always felt the Uncharted games to be fairly overrated, even going so far as to say I didn't like them at all. The idea of them was always appealing, a pulpy, globe-trotting action romp, a modern day Indiana Jones, but I never had them land for me in the execution. Whether it be the shooting or the exploration and platforming, something had always put me off, no matter how much I dug the characters and nar...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Strap in for tense ride. A very long, very tense ride. 0
On paper, Alien: Isolation shouldn't be as good as it is. Big budget "AAA" horror games had not been faring well in the years leading up to it's release, The Alien franchise in general hadn't seen a good entry in any form for decades, and it was developed by Creative Assembly, a talented developer to be sure, but not the immediate name one would associate with a first-person survival horror game. In some regard, the factors working against the game almost serve to make it shine ever brighter in ...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Complex Motives 0
Pop culture criticism would have you believe that the third entry in a trilogy often tends to be the weakest, and while something like this is obviously just about as subjective and determined by taste as humanly possible, there are a number of generally excepted examples of this ranging from The Godfather Part III to Spider-Man 3. Games are no exception from this stigma, with recent titles like Batman: Arkham Knight and Mass Effect 3 receiving chillier receptions than either of the two (or in t...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Just Original Enough To Not Be Lost Time 0
From the outside Lost Dimension looks like one of dozens of generic strategy JRPGs featuring inexplicably capable teens fighting to save the world, and as far as most of the minute-to-minute gameplay actually goes, you wouldn’t be wrong. However, the Mafia-like hook that’s also present helps to set this game apart from the masses just enough to be noteworthy and worth at least a look, as the real fun comes in the form of figuring out just who amongst you is not on the up-and-up. A my...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Truly Evil 0
Before directing The Evil Within, the last horror game Shinji Mikami had directed or been involved with was the undeniable classic Resident Evil 4 in 2005 – not counting (the awesome!) Shadows Of The Damned collaboration with Suda51 and Grasshopper, as that was a borderline parody of the genre more than it was truly a horror game – and having now finished his latest offering, it seems like what the genre has become has noticeably escaped him. That’s not to say he’s the o...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Slice Through The Cramps To Get To The Fun. 0
There are very few Vita exclusive games these days, especially from third-party studios, so it's easy to commend DrinkBox Studios for making a title for a somewhat starved player-base (although there are plenty of other things to play on Vita that can be found elsewhere as well). As exclusives dry up, and many other games lose their announced Vita versions, support for the system sadly feels like it should be celebrated, doubly so when they use the features of the Vita, like it's touch screen, i...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Yet Another Ubisoft Open-World, But One That At Least Still Has Something To Offer. 0
Following up the surprising hit that was Far Cry 3 was always going to be an interesting push-pull for Ubisoft Montreal (and the handful of other studios that chipped in). On the one hand, it was innovation that brought the previous game such acclaim over the earlier installments in the franchise (which isn’t to say Far Cry 2 doesn’t have it’s fans, it absolutely does). However, on the other hand, the comfort of something that works was an alluring idea as well. Ultimately Far...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Compelling And Effective Horror On The Ocean Floor. 0
Set at the bottom of the ocean in a place the playable protagonist has never been to before and played in first-person, Frictional Games' SOMA seems like it has a lot of similarities with BioShock. And while both have complex narratives centered around philosophical and ideological debates, those similarities start to wane as your journey presses on and instead of getting more powerful and capable, you become more vulnerable and ill-equipped. And that's not a bad thing at all. SOMA's strength li...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
More than just a clone, Axiom Verge is something special. 0
The ways in which Thomas Happ's Axiom Verge are similar to the Metroid series seem like an easy justification to dismiss it as a knock off. However, even after playing it for only an hour, it becomes obvious that there's much more to this package than the Metroid game you may never get again. There is an obvious inspiration, that's undeniable with the way it wears it's influences on it's sleeve, but Axiom Verge does enough different to demonstrate why it is it's own thing. The most important thi...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
A fun, zany experience that can't help itself from tripping over it's own language and mechanics. 0
In Spike Chunsoft's visual novel-like Danganronpa: Trigger Happy Havoc, you assume the role of a new student at Hope's Peak Academy, where along with your fellow new classmates, you are forced into a game where the only way to win and leave the school that has become your prison is to kill one of your peers and get away with it. There are so many books, movies and other video games that this elevator pitch could allude to that it's not even worth it to try and write them all down, but what shoul...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Fun While It Lasts. 0
The new console generation was a chance for new series to emerge as the go-to standards, or to at least freshen up the existing offerings with a new coat of paint. Sucker Punch opted for the latter, with a third entry in their Infamous franchise that was meant to feel like a new jumping on point, and Infamous: Second Son comes across as just that; something that does not require you to have played the previous two games, but can reward veterans of the franchise in subtle ways for doing so. By mo...
1 out of 1 found this review helpful. -
Responsibiltiy And Agency In Until Dawn. 0
There's a love of the "teen slasher" sub-genre of film that is extremely obvious in Supermassive Games' Until Dawn, as it tells the horrifying tale of one night that eight friends find themselves trying to survive as they are trapped in the woods in the mountains of Alberta in Winter. The stereotypes found in these films are all present in Until Dawn; among the characters there is the obligatory "funny guy", the "popular guy", the "bitchy girl" and, of course, the "slutty girl". As well, the usu...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful. -
A Compelling Narrative Not About Scaring You, But About Being Scared. 0
Firewatch is not a horror game. This is something I knew – or at least thought I knew – going in, and it’s something I can confirm coming out of it. However, I wouldn’t be surprised by anyone who were to see portions of it, or even someone who was halfway through it’s four to five hour narrative, reaching the conclusion that this was a game instead to scare or frighten. Instead, it’s a game more about being scared than it is scaring the player. This may seem l...
2 out of 2 found this review helpful.
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