The game’s roguelike structure mostly exacerbates the sense of “been there, done that.”
Throughout, going through the same motions hardly dulls the sheen of Cosmo D’s latest clever and wholly invigorating gaming experiment.
Xenoblade Chronicles 3 just cannot get out of its own way.
Immortality impressively accommodates so much uncertainty without collapsing in on itself in a heap of frustrating dead ends.
The Saints’s whole idea of how to break the system in the first place simply reinforces all the old ideas that originally screwed them over.
The cutesy art style of Cursed to Golf obscures just how punishing the game can be.
Massive Monster’s Cult of the Lamb plays like an inventory of half-understood mechanics from other games.
The game’s biggest triumph is in accomplishing so much with the most basic of dramatic tools.
Stray is most fun when you allow yourself to, well, stray from its narrative path.
The game is a compelling introduction to “pixel pulp,” though it’s a mixed success for the degree to which it leaves us wanting more.
The game isn’t just a nostalgia-driven throwback, as it also marks the evolution of a genre.
Where the similarly ambitious Until Dawn felt relatively seamless, The Quarry often feels as if it’s bitten off more than it can chew.
Neon White’s setting thrillingly liberates it from the pesky rules of gravity and the boring old architecture of humans.
Size isn’t just a matter of square footage when it comes to the games that have awed us this year.
Hardspace: Shipbreaker is a game that, over time, requires you to feel out your own ideal working method.
When you’re not performing exactly as instructed, the game’s narrow and inconsistent margin of error is just frustrating.
The game’s faithfulness to its brutal and campy source material isn’t enough to make up for a litany of bugs and problems.
Elden Ring is FromSoftware taming the monster they created by giving players the weapons and armor to endure it.
The Stanley Parable: Ultra Deluxe isn’t just recycling old content and adding new dialogue to it.
Citizen Sleeper works very hard to ensure that it remains a story of perseverance rather than failure.
The line between a leisurely atmosphere and an aimless one is quite thin, and Sephonie often drifts across it.