It’s really a shame that such a lovely and fun open-world sandbox is tied to stuff like a season pass, premium currencies, and expensive in-game purchases. Perhaps 2K will tweak some levers to make it easier to earn and unlock new cars—which would be nice—but until then the specter of greed will always be there, nagging at me as I build, smash, and race.

All the problems Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has are clearly and unsurprisingly tied to its ridiculous scope. There’s stuff piled on top of stuff, and not all of it feels substantial, fully baked, or in some cases functional. But the foundation Respawn laid in Fallen Order is still here, and everything about Survivor that’s connected really shines. The characters are more fleshed out and their conflicts are compelling and relatable. The level design is appreciably authored in that way that makes “Metroidvania” a stupid-looking word that means so much. And when it comes to combat, there are so many different ways to brutalize droids and Stormtroopers, the combo video community will feast for years to come. It’s a hearty stew, even if you still have to watch the sodium.

Through its skillful environmental design and indulgent combat, Dead Island 2 is one of the best, most disgusting playgrounds I’ve ever played in.

That it’s not a very good game, and one that desperately needed a lot more development before this seemingly premature release, will matter almost not at all. It’s stunningly pretty, it lets you make friends with the Creepers, and the cutscenes are brilliant. And it matches those new pyjamas. Should they ever finish Minecraft Legends, allowing you to instantly gather your spawned troops from anywhere, fixing the atrocious UI, giving your units some vestiges of pathfinding, and hugely increasing the mission variation, I think it could be a great place.

When I go back and replay Resident Evil 4 again one day in the not-too-distant future, I think it will be this new version that I’ll return to instead of the original. And I truly can’t think of higher praise to lay upon the remake than that.

But as someone prone to bouts of climate doom every time I read anything about carbon levels and ice sheets, Terra Nil was the ultimate form of video game escapism. A little diversion, no matter how unrealistic it is, that rather than asking us to live through the planet’s destruction let us try and recover from one instead.

Lightfall is definitely a slow burn. I can’t recommend it to people who aren’t already invested in the game in some way, unlike The Witch Queen, which was arguably the best shooter campaign of 2022...But I think, or at least I’m hopeful, that it will bear more fruit over the long run. Season of Defiance is already off to a really strong start compared to other expansion-adjacent seasons, quality of life is improving, a lot of the currencies and grinding is getting streamlined, and there’s room to tie up a lot of interesting loose ends before The Final Shape. [Ethan Gach]

Don’t get it twisted, this is still a very hard Soulslike.

In one delightful moment, my historical knowledge was used to mislead me, as the game both conformed to and subverted my expectations of what I expected a character to do based on her actions in actual history. Games often reward players for knowing their lore, and it was exhilarating to be punished for it. I’m not saying that you need to have a dozen Japanese history tabs open like I currently do. But playing the game while knowing the history gives you a unique experience.

It may have taken 17 years and one disappointing sequel along the way, but Relic are to be commended here for somehow managing to take tactical perfection and redefining it not just for old veterans, but for a whole new generation of armchair generals as well.

Remastered’s graphics look great, and while the game continues to, for the most part, translate well as an expansive, engaging shooter, I’m most struck by how the game allows Samus to be a person. Not a woman with her baggage, sexualized and discarded like a Grand Theft Auto: Vice City sex worker from the same year, and not relegated to the background the way 2023’s Dead Space does to its female characters.

The whole game is a tremendously satisfying experience. From the wonderful alien design, to the slow-burning storyline and its blank-faced staring astronaut, to the satisfying array of weapons, and perhaps most importantly, to the way the statues crumble when you hit them, this is something utterly solid, and eternally compelling. And unless my rig proves a fluke, finally a console-to-PC port to celebrate on day one.

But more than anything, I disliked Season’s belief in its own profundity. Its mysticism felt like cod-Buddhist leftovers, while its nonchalant efficacy of prayer undermined its attempts at agnostic universalism, all crushed under the weight of the sheer banality of all your actions being delivered as if creating a vital tome of historical significance.

I’ve always believed that mobile games are an approachable gateway for new fans to enjoy an otherwise esoteric IP, and Engage streamlines the gameplay in all the right ways. Unfortunately, though, the story falls short of what I’ve come to expect from any Fire Emblem game, and I’m still struggling to understand why. With Fates, the poor writing could be attributed to its sheer character bloat, but Engage has a reasonably normal-sized cast. The watered-down stories felt like an intentional appeal to capture new audiences. But at some point, I want to move on from the appetizer to the main course. With its disposable conversations, shallow handling of themes, and incohesive visual design, Engage is the chicken wing, rather than a full chicken dinner.

15 years later, we have more compelling protagonists to choose from, and even more interesting space zombies, like those in Dead Space creator Glen Schofield’s The Callisto Protocol, which is also mired by repetitive bosses, but at least looks and sounds incredible. The Dead Space remake accomplishes what it set out to do, it makes an old game compatible for modern consoles. But that’s all it does. 2008’s lightning stays in its bottle.

Assuming you don’t collect or do everything in every world, Cosmic Shake is about 10 hours long, which is similar to 2020’s remake. And while it crams a lot of good jokes and pretty levels into that runtime, it leaves a lot out, too, with the lack of multiple playable characters the most disappointing excision. I also found Cosmic Shake to be a bit less stable than Battle, though its technical issues never made it unplayable. Still, even if it isn’t quite the sequel I wanted to 2020’s amazing remake, I’m still very happy to get another colorful, fun, and light-hearted Spongebob action platformer in 2023.

Forspoken deserves better than what shipped on January 24. The strength of its story and protagonist do outpace its many problems, but much like Frey’s early struggles in seeing her own greatness, it’s clouded by unfortunate circumstances.

I’m still pretty early in HI-Fi Rush, but there’s something kind of magical about every fight feeling like it could be choreographed on a piece of sheet music. It excels in style and humor, has some great musical picks, and despite being a rhythm game, it doesn’t lose sight of the depth and skill that you need to play an action game. I’m excited to keep going and see where Chai’s silly story takes me. [Impressions]

For all of its strengths, Crisis Core is ultimately too obsessed with itself to serve as a perfect prequel. The game’s core narrative is an excellent half or three-quarters of a story. The final plot arc, however, fails to recognize that VII is its own story with its own characters. Crisis Core’s depiction of VII’s characters, and its refusal to stop shoving new characters into existing narratives, makes for a disappointing conclusion.

This is quintessential Roiland humor: Drag out something for so long it starts to make the viewer uncomfortable, then drag it out a little longer until they start to uncomfortably laugh, then drive that laughter home with a dash more discomfort—see, now it’s hilarious. But whereas this formula works (mostly) well in a 22-minute-long Rick and Morty episode, by the time I’m several hours into High On Life, every line of dialogue makes it clear that somehow, I am not high enough.

I consider The Callisto Protocol one of the most ambitious games I played this year, maybe even the most next to Elden Ring (though I think Elden Ring is in a league of its own—I don’t know if anything will be able to approach its depth and sophistication for a long time). Its thoughtful attention to environment, sound, and touch is what, I think, next-gen gaming should be like: an experiment with the senses and with story. The game has its issues, too, which can’t be ignored. But at least it feels human.

Scarlet and Violet’s story is also not going to blow you away. As usual, it’s just a means of motivating you into traveling the land to battle and collect every Pokémon out there. Allowing players to complete quests in whichever order they chose is unique to the Pokémon games, but it’s not innovative in the wider RPG genre. But Scarlet’s story is nonetheless an improvement over several previous titles because it focuses on the relationships between people, rather than people and their Pokémon.

I really hope that the performance issues don’t ultimately define how we talk about this generation of games. This isn’t just a game that needed more time in production—Paldea is fundamentally not designed to be pleasant to explore. The open-world mechanics might have felt more novel if I hadn’t also fallen off Pokémon Legends: Arceus earlier this year for similar issues with samey world design and unremarkable graphics. Scarlet needed to clear that low bar, and it did not. Maybe by the time the next generation comes along, the series will be able to recapture what makes Pokémon so thrilling in the first place.

For me, Evil West is the kind of game I miss these days. I’ll fully admit, I love games like Destiny and Fortnite, games that never end and are filled with battle passes, crafting, loot, etc. Those games can provide hours of fun and are great to play while chilling with friends or listening to a podcast. But I don’t want everything to be a complex, all-encompassing, time-monopolizing social experience that continues to grow and evolve as time goes on. And Evil West is a wonderful example of the kind of games I want more of moving forward. Not everything needs an endgame or a crafting table. Sometimes, I just want to move forward, hear some bad banter and punch some monsters in the face for a few hours. And Evil West gave me exactly that. No more. No less.

If you’re looking for a clever murder mystery with interactive narrative decisions, beautiful 2D art, and a wonderful historical fiction treatment, you owe it to yourself to check out Pentiment. [Review impressions]

Yes, the axe is cool. Sure, the fights are tons of fun. And I definitely enjoyed exploring every nook and cranny of the large worlds you get to visit. But what kept me glued to my PS5 for nearly 40 hours was the story of a son becoming a man and a father trying to figure out how he feels about that. I probably could have enjoyed this story a tad more with about half as many puzzles and skill menus, but even so, I found myself smiling, feeling satisfied, as the credits rolled. As I said at the start, God of War Ragnarök is very good.

After finishing the campaign, I found myself itching for more of the game’s combat. But sadly, all I was left with was a boring-as-hell opening set of levels that are only loosely made up for with level structures lifted from other AAA games later on. And I have little desire to play through the sequences where I’m shooting people who don’t feel like a threat. I guess there’s the multiplayer to look forward to, but this campaign is a wildly missed opportunity for those who enjoy military-themed first-person shooters. [Campaign Impressions]

Even the world itself is a bummer. Victoria 3's map is beautiful, even more than Crusader King 3's, a globe bristling with colour and variety and an ever-changing landscape as cities and railroads expand over the decades. But you rarely, if ever, actually use it. This enormous 3D recreation of the entire planet is sitting in the middle of your screen for almost the entire time you play the game, taking up huge amounts of real estate, and you almost never (there are a few exceptions) have to click on it, since the game’s primary interactions are all more quickly and easily handled via sidebars and buttons. It’s a real shame!