Nuka-World is big and impressive and flashy, but just like any theme park, it’s all a facade. Peek behind the curtain and you can see the struts and wires that animate the mascots. In Nuka-World’s case, that’s a scaffolding made of bones and spent magazines. It’s up to you if that’s a park you feel like visiting.
For whatever it is worth (and the value of Fallout 4's Season Pass is still very dubious) Vault-Tec Workshop is the best of the Workshop packs.
If you can find four people who are willing to sign a blood pact to convene for a ritual night of Evolve once or twice a week, then by all means enjoy the hunt (and where do I sign?). If not, you have to ask yourself if you are really prepared to deal with the peaks and frequent valleys of the experience. Personally, I think there are better ways to spend your time than gambling on a decent match, hoping one or two of your friends can make it on sometime over the weekend.
Saying "You should play this game, but don't expect to enjoy it" makes it sound like homework. It's homework of the human spirit that I think will enrich your life and broaden your horizons, but still homework. It's up to you if that seems like something you want to take on.
Yet, despite my many complaints, Rebel Galaxy did put a smile on my face. It's an ambitious little game that regrettably tries too hard to grab something out of its reach, but what it does get its hands on is excellent. The combat is spectacular, the atmosphere is charming (prolonged exposure to the soundtrack aside) and while there isn't as much depth to the game's systems as it would like you to believe, they are fun to poke and prod at when you get tired of blasting people with your lasers. Rebel Galaxy is the kind of game I'd want save for a rainy day when all I want to do is set my brain on auto-pilot and lose a few hours watching pretty colors and dreaming about being Han Solo.
People who have followed the Fazbear saga up to this point will likely want to close out the story, and they'll find enough to enjoy about Five Nights 3 to make it worth their time. New players curious about all the hype and considering a visit to Fazbear's Fright would be ill-advised to choose this as their jumping-on point to the series.
And really, pleasant surprises are what we're talking about with Styx: Shards of Darkness. Don't let the reduced price tag or the fact that Styx's previous titles aren't exactly household names fool you. Once you get past the slightly budget look of the UI and occasional control jank, there is a solid core of a pretty damn good stealth game here. Give him a chance, and Styx might just steal your heart (only to pawn it at a fraction of its value, the little bastard).
The Bethesda Pinball pack is an odd proposition. The tables are spectacular looking and all the little touches and gameplay twists are ambitious and creative in a way I really enjoy thinking about. But, both the Skyrim and Fallout tables are held back by small annoyances and wonky design choices that just make them less fun to play than they should be. Doom ended up being my favorite of the pack, which in a way is disappointing since it is also the most traditional of the tables offered. Maybe I'm just a pinball purist. Or maybe that pinball devil has a hold on me.
I would love to be able to give XCOM 2 my unreserved recommendation, but I can't ignore the elephant in the room. If you don't intend on playing on Ironman mode, and have enough patience to deal with (not so) occasional glitches, it's excellent. If you were looking forward to a hardcore playthrough, or can't stand it when technical issues get in the way of a good time, you'll definitely want to wait for a patch or two before deploying.
Strike Vector EX is a small game with a lot of heart. While the campaign is sub-par and it doesn't offer the depth or longevity or other titles, what's there is fun, fast, and wild. Released at a discount price, this is definitely a game to rope one or two friends into buying with you so you can always have a wingman (or nemesis) on call on and seed some multiplayer action.
I admire the sheer artistic bravery of Matt Gilgenbach. It isn't often that a game developer will tear his heart out and lay it down for everyone to see. Despite its flaws, Neverending Nightmares offers a striking and unforgettable horror experience, combined with an uncomfortably intimate look into the true torment of mental illness. However, its lack of content and uneven pacing prevent it from being the classic it feels like it could have been.
Death shouldn't be something we don't talk about and the death business isn't something that should exist in the shadows. A Mortician's Tale provides an excellent way to join that conversation while shedding some light on a mysterious business that would prefer to stay cloaked in darkness. It's a short game, only an hour or so long, but it leaves an impact far beyond its runtime. Give it a chance, and it might just change the way you think about death.
If you're new to the dungeon or it's been a long time since you ventured into its depths, do yourself a favor and get your sea legs ready before wading into the bloody pools of The Crimson Court. If you're an experienced delver looking for a new challenge, then by all means, step into the moonlight and find out what the night has in store for you.
Outlast 2 is harrowing. It is a horror game that will make you want to take a shower after you're done with it. It's a horror game that will make you want to hold your loved ones just a little tighter next time you embrace them. It's a horror game that will scare you in the moment with shock and gore, then haunt you in the middle of the night with its ideas. And isn't that what the best of horror strives for?
Fingered is a pinky-sized bit of fun. It's not hard to get everything you need from the game in a single night of sleuthing, but at the bargain price of $1.87, it feels worth it. A wonderfully weird, smart little game for less than the price of a cup of coffee: you could call it steal or five-fingered discount if that kind of wordplay tickled you.
Drawful 2 is a phenomenal vehicle to waste away an entire evening with your friends doubled over in fits of laughter. It's hard to care about the lack of real innovation when tears are blurring your vision and you can't catch your breath from laughing so hard.
Aliens vs. Pinball is great, both as a novelty and as a serious set of tables. Whether you're just a fan of Aliens stuff and like the idea of a fun way to kill a few minutes here and there, or the kind of fanatic that will obsess over a table, playing over and over again to complete all the objectives and set a massive score, you can't go wrong.
Quiplash is a drum-fed machine gun of jokes. It's quick, it's snappy, and I'm hard pressed to think of a better time one could buy for $10 without breaking a few laws.
Despite the grind, despite the perhaps undue commitment to brutality, and despite what I feel is a joke at the player's expense at the end, Darkest Dungeon still manages to be one of the most engaging and intriguing roguelikes I've ever played and I'll probably still be diving dungeons and trying new party compositions weeks from now. After all, it would be madness to stop at this point.
At the end of the day, you probably already know if this game is right for you. If you couldn't get enough of Super Meat Boy and have spent the past seven years fiending for more punishing platformers, than The End of Nigh is something you should immediately inject into your veins. If you are usually iffy on super-challenging platformers, but curious if this is the one that will turn you around, keep on walking.