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247 games reviewed

The A.V. Club's Reviews

Unscored - Knack
Nov 19, 2013

The chapters are so long, they become tedious, even on the surprisingly vicious "Normal" difficulty setting. The challenge of the game could be a draw, but when coupled with the nonsensical morass of Knack's fantasy, there's no good reason to keep pushing forward. Without a clear center, Cerny's game feels as hollow and vulnerable as its hero, a pile of disparate parts all too ready to crumble at a moment's notice.

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Nov 25, 2013

Super Mario 3D World isn't some perfect fix for the aging game maker, but it is Nintendo's tomorrow.

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Nov 25, 2013

And so in the absence of any new ideas, Killzone: Shadow Fall exists as worshipful paean to the technical power of the PlayStation 4, not as a game to actually play and enjoy.

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Unscored - Peggle 2
Dec 12, 2013

This is a bigger, bolder Peggle, but it's the little musical details that end up making the difference.

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While it's not the strongest Walking Dead chapter we've seen—the episode's final choice, in particular, is somewhat baffling—it's prudent to withhold final judgment until the rest of the game is in.

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Jan 9, 2014

Few games involve this much personal reflection, both in and out of playtime. Doki-Doki Universe may start as a story about cartoon wackiness, but it ends as a story about you.

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Unscored - The Banner Saga
Jan 15, 2014

If anything, the game's limitations—the wooden conversations, the nonsensical and uneven means of resource management, the repetitive combat, the lack of real agency in determining your fate, the possibility of game-ending failure—become more glaring as it goes on, but unaccountably, they all add up to a coherent whole.

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Jan 21, 2014

The completed Broken Age could well be an excellent game, and I'll be back when it's finished to review it in its entirety. But the better the game turns out to be, the more of a disservice it is to play the first act now. To play it now is to be a part of a process. To play it later is to, well, play it.

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Feb 4, 2014

The game stumbles, though, when it focuses more on the "octo" and less on the "dad."

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Episode 2 presents a potential pitfall for The Wolf Among Us to avoid as it goes forward. When the choices are too easy, it's hard for Bigby's story to pack an emotional wallop. Instead, it descends into choosing for choosing's sake.

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Unscored - Jazzpunk
Feb 11, 2014

Jokes fly at the player like angry hornets from the hive, hinging on intimate knowledge of games like Warcraft II or Quake, and the references swarm and sting. There are more than enough punchlines, but there's too little setup.

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Mar 3, 2014

The game is as confused as its protagonist, and it's hard not to wish that the studio could have conquered its inner conflict and found its wings.

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Mar 4, 2014

Park: The Stick of Truth is South Park. Even coming back to it after years of not watching the show, there was something for me here. That something was good comedy, which is rare in games or anywhere, and never gets old.

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Unscored - Dark Souls II
Mar 14, 2014

Dark Souls II wants you to play it—all of it. Each dimly lit room and crumbling bridge offers a chance to die but also a chance to fight for your life. You'll still run across messages of encouragement left by other players, but now the game itself is quietly rooting for your success. It's still a hell of a journey, but unlike your character, Dark Souls II isn't soulless.

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Unscored - Titanfall
Mar 18, 2014

[I]nstead of expending energy on the bells and whistles, Titanfall saves it all for the moment-to-moment thrills, like slamming your titan's eject button at the last second and shooting down an enemy pilot while you rocket hundreds of feet into the air.

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Mar 19, 2014

It is just a polished spy game that has something to say, but not too much and not for too long. It speaks well. But for those of us who spent years tuning ours ear to Metal Gear's strange language, this is the first small sign that it might soon be time to throw all that work away.

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Mar 20, 2014

Second Son wants players to experiment and decide what kind of hero they want to be, and it gives them plenty of leeway to do so.

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Apr 16, 2014

Yes, plenty of compromises were made to create this hybrid of a traditional Elder Scrolls game and a traditional MMO. Those compromises will leave purists on both sides disappointed, but this is an ambitious and exciting epic that promises to only grow with time. It's a sandbox worth sharing, provided everyone is willing to play nicely with others and Bethesda keeps it clean.

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Unscored - FRACT OSC
Apr 22, 2014

[I]t's not just about exploring a lost civilization but also about giving back in some way to ensure that ours is not left to the same fate.

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Unscored - Child of Light
May 6, 2014

Child Of Light is a joyous story about how tragedy, be it in achievement form or otherwise, shapes the strongest of us, how the only way to measure love is through pain. Aurora's coming-of-age is disguised as a righteous fight. There is a lot of tragedy in Child Of Light, but she chooses to see the triumph.

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