Austin Wood
Stellar Blade is more ambitious and varied than expected, but also about as clunky as expected, resulting in a stilted action RPG with a level of jank that you just have to accept. Meet it on its terms, and either tune out or embrace the odd sexual veneer, and it's a solid 20 to 30 hours of fun.
Traverser is a stunning experience that got put in the washer with a woefully average one. As a puzzler, it's truly top-shelf stuff, replete with player agency. But it's washed out by a generic frame.
A joy to view but sometimes a chore to play, Last Day of June delivers a touching story that's worth finishing.
Code Vein's lackluster combat is held up by great character customization, and its boring world is driven by a memorable story. It's clunky and uneven, but fun.
Munin delivers striking, if a bit crude, visuals and a pleasant soundtrack but is ultimately dragged down to the dragon's roots by technical hitches and design oversights outnumbered only by our titular protagonist's lost feathers.
Windforge is a mess. The game's only redeeming quality is buried under so many obvious and unforgivable technical oversights that it's not even worth pursuing. Between game-breaking mechanics and game-ending bugs, there are plenty of reasons to spend your time with one of the many better examples of sandbox crafting.
Lightfall needs Strand to be good, and the new raid coming March 10 had better be a banger.
My latest match was textbook CCG fun: I managed to barely scrape by in an unfavorable matchup, only to win at one health on the back of a few lucky top-decks on my end and two weak evolutions from my opponent. In that brief moment, I was over the moon about Shadowverse, and sometimes that's enough.
Destiny did not need all of its innumerable growing pains, and many of its scars will never fade and should rightly never be forgotten. But The Taken King is proof that it wasn't fruitless. This is the game we were excited for back in 2013, and that we were struggling to find over the past year. The Taken King is what Destiny should be and should have been all along.
Resident Evil Zero HD is Resident Evil Zero in a prettier dress. I hope that's what you wanted to hear going into this review, because if not, I suggest you swiftly move on. I thought I spoke Resident Evil, but revisiting Zero 14 years after the fact feels like reading cuneiform. The only way I can possibly imagine enjoying the game is viewing it through glasses so thickly rose-tinted that any bit of nostalgia bait would seem a hidden gem. And in those circumstances I'd sooner recommend playing a dated game that's actually fun.