Paul Tassi's Reviews
I have a feeling that Mass Effect fans will enjoy the game, but I don't think anyone will claim it outclasses the original trilogy, outside of maybe the very first game. If you could combine the story and memorable quests of the originals with the combat, visuals and scope of Andromeda, you would have the perfect video game, though I think what's offered here will satisfy most.
Prey has come out of relative nowhere to be a truly great campaign experience that succeeds despite some of the game's more muddled aspects. I'd recommend giving it a shot.
Agents of Mayhem is a strange game. I did enjoy much of my time with it, but I kept wishing it was a fully-fledged Saints Row sequel, not some alternate universe spin-off with less content. I didn't expect all that much going in, but by the end, I wanted more than I got.
While there's still room for improvement, and for this universe to live up to its full potential, Destiny 2 makes undeniable progress, and reinforces the idea that this is a series we'll be playing for at least an entire decade, when all is said and done.
Assassin's Creed Origins improves from its past few installments in almost every way, yet it never quite reaches the heights of the games it tries to emulate.
Again, it's more cake. Origins was delightful and Odyssey hits almost all the same notes, so there's a lot to like about it as well. But this series needs a bit of breathing room, and I hope it gets another bit of rest after this.
This is a huge, rare, total miss by Bethesda, and even if it’s improved in time, I can only judge it by the hours I’ve lost to it so far.
Anthem may thrive. Anthem may fail. It has the bones to be something great but I am tired of saying that about so many games in this genre and five years after Destiny 1, I can’t believe we’re here yet again. Get it right the first time, because everyone is losing patience.
This is a big win for Massive, Ubisoft and players themselves.
Borderlands 3 was worth the wait and will be a fixture in this genre for years to come. And I think few fans of the last two will be disappointed when they get their hands on it at last.
It’s remarkable, and it will stay with me a long while, just like the first.
It is easily one of the best games of the entire PS4 generation, and given its competition, that’s saying something.
I cannot recommend this game at full price. Again, as part of a free subscription it might be worth checking out and getting a few hours of slashy combat in. But I wouldn’t touch it unless the $70 asking price comes down by at least half, and even then, there are a half dozen other better games out this fall alone. I wanted to like Godfall. I never want to see games in this genre fail. But fail it does, and in a worse way than anything I have seen in a long while.
Outriders has surpassed my expectations in almost every way. Months ago, I figured this would be another looter flop, but now, it’s one of the best current entries in the genre, and even with no “live service roadmap” at hand, it’s clear you could potentially extract hundreds of hours from it regardless. I plan to do just that.
I suppose we can now venture into the old “is Guardians worth $60?” debate. If you miss hyper linear story games with no live service BS, and are a big Marvel fan, then this might be the game for you. If you are hoping for Devil May Cry level combat and God of War type puzzles and exploration within a linear story, you will be disappointed. But I can safely say this is probably a better end product than most people were expecting, and that alone is a pretty big win for a game that felt like a bit of a risk and like it’s been lacking in buzz leading up to launch here. It has issues, but it gets a lot right, and pushes storytelling in ways I haven’t seen in this genre before.
Halo Infinite might be the best campaign 343 has done, but considering I didn’t love the last two, I’m not sure how much weight that carries. Halo Reach remains the gold standard for me in that department, and while I had a lot of fun here zipping around the open world, and I can see the potential of the concept, something about Infinite feels small and unfinished to me compared to both other Halo campaigns, and other open world titles. I don’t need (or want) a sprawling Assassin’s Creed map that takes 200 hours to clear, but I think I need more diversity than what’s here, and a better story with better characters told within it.
I am incredibly impressed with the size and scope of Lost Ark. Even some of the later storylines started to resonate with me a bit, albeit there’s a ton of throwaway sidequest content that exists just to fill space. I am less impressed with the game’s loot system so far, but I know I have not fully mastered all its finer details at this point. But in a game like this I wanted to get excited about new drops, but other than things looking cool, that never really happened in the first 40 hours here. Another complaint is that because this is such a well established game that already got a number of updates over the years, dumping everything here all at once can feel overwhelming. It’s just a whole lot of stuff and systems and things to sort through, and it’s easy to feel lost.
I cannot call this a “return to form” for Bungie because Destiny has already been so good lately. But if you’ve been missing Halo-style campaigns with variable difficulty, gorgeous level design and impressive fights, Witch Queen checks every box. This is the best thing Destiny has produced in seven years.
Given that all my progress from the review build is about to be wiped, I’m not sure I’ll go through it all again to start re-grinding the endgame, but perhaps on a new class. Melee this time? That fact is what I really want to see is some substantial leaps forward for this series, as it’s starting to feel pretty dated in a lot of ways, but I also have to understand what Wonderlands is, a game Gearbox made from home during the pandemic that’s meant to be a stopgap before Borderlands 4. And I do think it succeeds at that job well enough to please most fans.
Elden Ring is a gaming achievement the likes of which we rarely seen, and you will be remiss to not pick it up and see what the hype is about for yourself.