Super Mario 3D World is a damn good Mario game. It may have some issues with gauging distance due to its oddly placed camera angle, it still excels at offering a wide range of variety across its many stages. The game’s newest addition, Bowser’s Fury, on the other hand, is without question one of the best Mario experiences ever, making this a damn impressive package overall.
Ys IX: Monstrum Nox takes a few bold steps into innovating the series by offering up a pretty spacious open-world to explore in the Prison City of Balduq, and its partially connected outskirts. While the graphics engine the series is running on is likely working off fumes at this point, it does just enough to offer up a fun and enjoyable adventure.
The Medium is aptly named, whereas it exists between small and large, it is in much the same way that good exists between bad and great. While there are certainly a lot of fantastic ideas here around this “good” game, it sadly doesn’t capitalize on them as much as it could have. This Silent Hill inspired game can certainly entertain, but it lacks the impact Microsoft needed for its first big exclusive.
Turrican: Flashback as it is, allows new and old players to experience these games on new hardware in a way that allows the authentic experience to shine with a few modern fixes like save states and the ability to rewind a bad jump, or when you’ve pushed into enemy territory a bit too hastily. Unfortunately, the lack of it being a complete collection of the entire series or anything to honor its legacy does hurt the overall package, especially at the $29.99 USD price.
Scott Pilgrim vs. The World was, at the time, an incredibly challenging and solid beat’em up. While the original game was pulled from digital storefronts a few years ago, it’s back and playable on current and next-gen consoles. While the game is certainly still a great time, the genre has seen several amazing games released since that have caused the title to feel just a tad bit dated.
Controlling a group of mindless minions isn’t a new concept to videogames. Pikmin and Overlord are just a few examples of having hordes of small creatures do your bidding. Teratopia is the latest title to pull this off, a charming blend of creature beat’em up and platformer that has a very Conker’s Bad Fur Day look to its cast of characters, mixed with the parody aesthetic of a Rabbids game.
The Pillar: Puzzle Escape does have some good ideas, but many of them come too little too late. The world itself is set to be mysterious but lacks that sense of mystery to be so. While the game has several different puzzles, a single type simply dominates too much of the game, making for too much of a been there done that design.
Sense: A Cyberpunk Ghost Story is a visually pleasing and mostly entertaining adventure-horror game, one that unfortunately doesn’t take advantage of its cyberpunk setting enough. While many of the stories that the game tells are enjoyable, the backtracking, convoluted item puzzle order, and combat, hold the game back from being something I can truly recommend diving into.
Godfall is exactly how I remember most launch games being for new hardware; an incredibly basic premise, visually striking, but dramatically shallow. That said, Godfall still does a lot right, offering a fairly enjoyable 10-15 hour experience while it lasts, but its story and world did absolutely nothing to keep me engaged on even a basic narrative level.
Cyberpunk 2077 is certainly not without its flaws. While the game is largely broken and unplayable on various platforms, my time with it on the Series X has been nothing short of well.. breathtaking. The long-awaited follow-up to CDPR’s Witcher 3 is here, and it’s a true cinematic masterpiece. Prepare to jack-in.
With Breath of the Wild 2 set to release some time next year, it wasn’t too much of a surprise that when Hyrule Warriors 2 was announced, that it would be connected to this newest storyline as a prequel, telling us of the events that transpired before we suited up as Link in 2017’s acclaimed Breath of the Wild.
Immortals: Fenyx Rising is a charming romp through Greek Mythology that is often more impressive than it isn’t. Exploring the world at your leisure is very satisfying, as are the puzzles you’ll encounter nearly everywhere. The combat is fast-paced and engaging, with a variety of weapons and abilities that you’ll work towards through a pretty in-depth progression system.
While Valhalla maintains many of the franchises most glaring issues in more ways than one, as well as some pretty severe technical problems at launch, I still found it to be a largely compelling entry in the series for its captivating gameplay, engaging characters, and a world that kept rewarding me around every corner.
To bridge the gap until Insomniac debuts a sequel to Peter Parker’s story from 2018’s Marvel’s Spider-Man, the developer has offered up a side-story, one centered on Miles Morales becoming his own version of Spider-Man. While the game can often look and play largely similar to what we’ve had before, Miles adds his own flair to combat, as well as a deeply personal story that dives into the heart of who Miles is, and will become.
While the game itself is charming enough, its presentation, level design, and overall feel certainly make it feel very different than that of what we’ve had in the past. While I still certainly prefer the original to this modern adaptation, I still feel it earns its place in the series as a decent enough to often enjoyable entry.
Watch Dogs: Legion is impressive. It doesn’t always hit the mark with variety to its missions, but the gameplay itself, combined with the ability to recruit literally anyone, makes for a very engaging and sometimes unique experience. London itself is a joy to explore, an ever-sprawling location that honestly doesn’t get enough love in video games.
Left alone with your brother on your birthday, Clea ventures out into the dark hallways of her home, tasked with wondering what has happened to her parents, and her nanny, Florine. Clea is a paper-doll style horror game with stunning visuals, a decent enough story, but its gameplay is sadly not as good as it could be.
Maid of Sker is loosely based on actual events, a story made popular through author R.D. Blackmore’s 1872 novel of the same name. While the game has some fantastic audio and video work to create a moody and downright eerie atmosphere, the save system and lack of being able to hide when discovered does run counter to the pacing and feel of the game.
