Justin Woo
- Planescape: Torment
- Dragon Age: Origins
- Life Is Strange
I've never laughed this much while playing a game. Well-read, nihilistic, dark, and intellectual, Disco Elysium is like your favorite poli-sci professor huffed paint and ran naked through the quad.
Forza Horizon 4 is a tremendous achievement and will most likely displace Gran Turismo Sport as my racing game of choice. Yes, even without a racing wheel. With hundreds of cars and dozens of race tracks and more to come, I won't run out of stuff to do any time soon. See you in Scotland!
Speaking as someone who has never been heavily invested in racing games, Project CARS 2 blew me away. It won't hold your hand and it isn't afraid to challenge you, but it will reward your hard-earned success.
Squadrons is a Star Wars experience I've been looking for since the '90s. A two-decade quest has come to an end. I'd happily pay for a bit more single player content, and I hope the devs have some tricks up their sleeves to expand the multiplayer. I'd love a PvE horde mode of some kind.
At its $40 price point, this is a great value for anyone wanting to dip a toe into the skateboard game genre. If you're an old hand, it won't disappoint. If you're brand new, get ready to fall in love. With the addition of the skate park editor, this is truly an infinite skating machine.
If you want to dive deep into the genre of racing simulation, Gran Turismo Sport is a great place to start.
The Crew 2 transforms America into a high speed sandbox with unmatched variety. Terrorize New York's West Side Highway? Check. Buzz the Pentagon in a prop plane? Check. Leave tread marks in New Mexico desert? Check. There's a lot to do here, and it feels great to do it, particularly for casual racing fans, while sim fans who want to just chill out and go fast in their home city will also enjoy themselves. The Crew 2's minor flaws could easily be ironed out with a few quality of life patches.
After Dontnod's ambitious but deeply flawed Vampyr, it's great to see them return to form with Captain Spirit. E3 is a whizbang explosion of PR hype for huge titles sporting adrenaline-pumping action. In the midst of all that, it was easy to miss Captain Spirit's heartfelt trailer about childhood wonder. But this free title is a must play.
Tropico 6 is not the hardest of hardcore simulation games, but for folks looking for something more casual, it's a blast. It's entertaining and addictive, and its minor interface flaws only stand out because the rest of the game is so polished and enjoyable.
I hope this series persists as long as Telltale's Walking Dead series has. I'd love to see how their interpretation changes and grows as they have more time to work with the characters.
If Iron Danger was the third game from a veteran indie studio, I'd be impressed. It's Action Squad Studios' first outing. I'm blown away. While it can occasionally be rough around the edges, I can't wait to see what they do next.
While Battletech won't convert gamers looking for their latest twitch fix, fans of the source material and the strategy genre will find a lot to like here. Fans of the Shadowrun series in particular should give Battletech a look.
It's not often that a game opens you up to a whole new sport, but if you give F1 2018 some time, it will do that. Fans of sim racing should give this one a look, even if they're more into street cars and exotics. Why wait to unlock the most amazing cars in the world when you can start behind the wheel?
Done Running isn't perfect, but nothing TWD-related ever is. This game remains the best incarnation of the IP, and long-time fans won't be disappointed.
This is an excellent start for the second season of a game with big shoes to fill. We may have lost Telltale Games forever, but you can dry your tears with Dontnod's big-hearted adventure of a story game.
Man of Medan is a promising start to the Dark Pictures Anthology. I'd be happy to play more of these b-horror movie simulators, full of pretty people desperately trying to survive.
Trials Rising isn't trying to be realistic, it's trying to be simple fun, and at that it excels. It looks good, it will make you laugh, and most importantly, it's entertaining.
I'm hoping that Coteries is the first modern step forward for an IP long overdue for mass recognition. Vampire: The Masquerade fans will enjoy this, and fans of vampire fiction in general might want to give it a whirl, as this is an easy introduction to an awesome universe.
I've spent the last few thousand words explaining why RE3 isn't as good as RE2, but it's still a very good game. It's like a big, six-hour expansion pack. If you liked last year's RE2, you would enjoy this. Experienced players will want to give it a go on hardcore, as normal is pretty easy.
I was hoping for an original take on the open-world genre, but I got Assassin's Creed in samurai drag. If that sounds like a blast to you, it will be, especially if you go into it with the knowledge of the game's design missteps. It's not that it's bad - it's just bad for me.