Fire may have rained from the skies and wiped out entire nations, but the action in Far Cry New Dawn is pretty much the same as it ever was, only less so. A few interesting new tweaks to the series' formula are overshadowed by a cut-rate campaign, a story that gets colossally dumb in the third act, and a resource system that feels both unbalanced and pointless.
Project Cars 2 may do a great many things exceptionally well, but it's hard to look past the mountain of gaffes that quickly pile up on and off the track. Racing, after all, is about results, not potential.
Donut County isn't really bad at what it sets out to do, but its ambitions are so meager that you can't help but feel the concept hasn't been explored to the fullest extent. This is indie game design at its most disposable. I'd be shocked if anyone is still talking about—or even remembers—Donut County a year or two from now.
Driveclub's social features help elevate an otherwise unexceptional racer, but the dearth of content and some curious design choices keep it from rising too high.
Despite delivering an impressive playground that captures the spirit of America, The Crew struggles to build out a worthwhile game experience around it, resorting to frustrating missions, insipid storytelling, and off-putting microtransactions.
The Crew 2‘s digital recreation of American remains as inviting as it was in the first game, and the diverse event types and new air and water vehicles mix things up in a good way. Eventually, however, the aggressively grindy loop of replaying races to upgrade your vehicles will leave you feeling like a theme park custodian: You're surrounded by attractions that should be such fun, yet you're stuck doing mindless chores instead.
That Danger Zone's core design works is unsurprising, given that it's been borrowed wholesale from a different series, but Three Fields has done little to build out the concept into anything worthy of a full game. You'll enjoy what's here well enough, but don't expect it to last very long—or to dazzle much beyond the explosions and sparks.
Snake Pass is a competent and boldly innovative take on the classic 3D platformer, but the game suffers from an overly fiddly control scheme that doesn't match the inviting, pick-up-and-play fun of the genre.
Harmonix bills Rock Band 4 as a platform that will grow and improve with the future, but for now, the new game offers little reason to upgrade from Rock Band 3, with a weaker soundtrack, fewer modes, and more promises of exciting features than actual, demonstrable ones.
A promising but not-quite-there effort from indie newcomers Spearhead Games, Tiny Brains offers decent couch co-op fun, but suffers from technical issues and some uneven design.
With a lifeless world, a hazily plotted, repetitive campaign, and an endgame that quickly resorts to a slow grind for marginally better loot, Destiny fails to deliver on the promise of its concept and the enormous potential of its gameplay systems.
Hotline Miami 2: Wrong Number still sits atop the same solid, brutally violent core that made the first game a success, but it inherits all of its predecessor's flaws as well, and buries them within a bloated, altogether less satisfying experience. While the sequel isn't without its occasional charms, there's no doubt Hotline Miami would be destined for a greater legacy had it called it quits after the first spree.
What Remains of Edith Finch masterfully shows that narrative-driven games can tell stories in creative ways without sacrificing gameplay. Ultimately, though, the experience is let down by the story itself, which doesn't do much of anything interesting with its characters or subject matter.
From a mechanical standpoint, Zoo Tycoon works quite smoothly, but a ridiculously low agent cap severely detracts from the game's longevity.
If you're measuring with the typical genre yardstick, Affordable Space Adventures isn't a particularly great or noteworthy puzzle game, but as an exercise in designing to the Wii U's strengths and delivering an entertaining, one-of-a-kind co-op experience, it's a pretty solid success.
While the driving is superb and the visuals are stunning, the inherent limitations of Rivals' AllDrive concept begin to hamper the experience near the end. The result is a game that's three-quarters great fun, one-quarter miserable, frustrating slog.
Uncovering the secrets of Don't Starve's oppressive world is gratifying, but the basics of gameplay get too mindlessly repetitive once you've figured out what you're doing.
Imaginative, cleverly integrated online play helps to bolster Watch Dogs' less exciting single-player offering, which fails to capitalize on its ambitious hacking concept in any truly memorable way.
If Slightly Mad Studios wanted to prove they could build an engine to compete with the likes of Gran Turismo and Forza Motorsport, Project CARS is a definite success, with driving that feels as realistic as anything else out there. If they wanted to compete with the polish and robustness of those bigger titles, though, they've come up slightly short.
Spider-Man's three-part DLC, The City That Never Sleeps, feels a bit like it's trying to have it both ways by telling a story set after the main game without changing up too much for the sake of anyone who might not play it. It might not be entirely fair to complain that an add-on doesn't feel like a true next chapter, and the gameplay certainly remains satisfying and tacks on some welcome challenge, but the full package is an unquestionable letdown after the soaring heights of the original campaign.