Latest Reviews
I completed my first circumnavigation of the Earth in just over 80 Days' time limit, but only barely. If we hadn’t taken a boat headed for Hawaii, if I didn’t gamble with the ship's engines by pushing them to the brink of explosion, perhaps I could have made it. I...
Geometry Wars 3: Dimensions is a good reason to revisit a classic arcade game. New 3D maps add depth and ideas to a tried-and-true formula, but they aren’t taken far enough to make this feel like a real sequel. Adventure mode’s poor pacing and repetition didn’t hold my interest, but...
The Crew deserves credit for the frankly staggering size of its open world, and the fact that it’s absolutely filled to the brim with racing, challenges, a fat multiplayer offering, and exploration potential. This scope, however, has resulted in some noticeable visual concessions, the racing itself is too often hamstrung...
Treasure Tracker takes the core concept of Captain Toad and runs wild with it. It’s a smart, adorable puzzle game that presents some awesome locales and really rewards you for taking the time to unpack them. Despite the control issues and menu problems, Captain Toad Treasure Tracker proves that you...
Randal’s Monday has a clever premise that deserves better treatment than it does in this crude, baffling adventure. Though its visuals and acting perfectly fit its ‘90s-era slacker aesthetic, Randal’s Monday lacks the sharp writing necessary to make its odious hero amusing. But it fails the most at being a...
The time I’ve spent with Binding of Isaac: Rebirth has been non-stop fun and surprises, with just a tad too much frustration when I lose a rare item. But even when it slaps me down harder than I’d have liked, starting again is always a treat, because I’m likely to...
A Bird Story
With its focus on visual narrative, A Bird Story challenges many of the ideas of basic game design, sometimes in ways that limit player freedom. But its amazing attention to visual detail, laser-focused narrative beats, and evocative soundtrack make it a neat, tightly-constructed story that says much without ever saying...
Any of Tales from the Borderlands Episode 1: Zer0 Sum’s minor setbacks feel like nothing when put up against the strength of the characters, the caliber of the writing, and the charm of the world. With only a brief introduction to Rhys and Fiona, they have already become a pair...
If you set This War of Mine’s theme aside, you'd have a tough and demanding survival and resource-management game – but it never lets you forget that it's about a serious and sad subject. It's full of thorny problems, and that just makes your small gains all the sweeter. As...
I like Lego Batman 3: Beyond Gotham, but I don’t love it as much as I’ve loved previous games in the series. It definitely delivers on the promise of letting me play with charmingly realized versions of many of my favorite DC heroes and villains, and it even presents a...
Company of Heroes 2: Ardennes Assault is an adept interweaving of the strategic, tactical, and personal facets of warfare. A clever campaign with hard, meaningful decisions to make at every turn is hindered only by how zealously it insists you live with the consequences of those decisions – even if...
LittleBigPlanet 3 is an enormous - and, at times, unruly - game. It’s Adventure mode is beautifully designed, and new power-ups and character abilities switch up the usual bread-and-butter platforming gameplay, but it’s let down by limited options for co-operative play and most significantly, a number of game-breaking bugs on...
