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There is artistry behind The Last Guardian's concept, but in stumbles in execution, creating a journey that is far less fascinating than the relationship that lies at its story's core.
Overall, BioShock Infinite: Burial at Sea Episode 1 is solidly OK. In the end, it's much more of what we have come to expect from BioShock Infinite, awesome pieces of story broken up by uninteresting sections of combat. It's not a reimagining of the series. It's not a grand departure that examines BioShock's past. It's really not much more than some more BioShock Infinite with a Rapture coat of paint slapped over it. If that's what you are looking for, then the 15-dollar price of entry isn't bad. For everyone else, there is always BioShock 4.
For its price, Kholat is a pretty enjoyable experience, and I'd certainly recommend picking it up if you can find it on a Steam sale, but do note that Kholat is one of those games that requires willpower to keep playing. It's easy to put down, but a work of art of a horror game when you don't.
The problem is justifying an NBA Live 14 purchase when NBA 2K14 is on store shelves. As a newbie, I had fun with NBA 2k14, but I didn't have nearly as much fun with NBA Live 14. I felt like it assumed I knew more about basketball and basketball video games than I actually did. It just dropped me into the deep end and asked me to figure it all out, and all I could really do was button mash and hope for the best. It's a good foundation for a franchise that could prosper in the future--after all, I've been saying that sports games should use live updating stats via the Internet for years now--but at this very moment, it just pales in comparison to its competition.
So once again, I can only recommend Dynasty Warriors Xtreme Legends 8 to people who haven't yet bought the original Dynasty Warriors 8 but this creates a weird situation. As I said before, the Dynasty Warriors formula really hasn't changed and at this point really only appeals to die-hard Dynasty Warriors fans. As such, most die-hard fans will have already picked up the original Dynasty Warriors 8. So one has to wonder, who is Xtreme Legends 8 actually marketed for? The best answer that we can come up with is Lu Bu fanatics, and you'd be surprised how many of those actually exist.
Where 2K15 overwhelms me still with its plethora of gaming modes and malleability in almost every respect, Live 15 underwhelms as a ho-hum basketball title that continues to ride the coat tails of its competitor and its past. Whether this should spell the end of hoops games from EA or not I'm not able to say here, but I do believe one thing—if people were hoping that this would be the game to strike fear into the hearts of 2K developers, they inevitably will be disappointed.
I expected the next-gen version of WWE 2k15 to offer a lot more than the last gen version that came before it. While the differences are noticeable, the extra features aren't exactly mind-blowing. If you have both a next-gen and a last-gen console, you might as well pick up the next-gen version if you plan on picking up WWE 2k15. However, if you already picked up the last-gen version, there's not a whole lot of reason to double up. In the end, I stick to the same opinion I had when I played the last-gen version, which was that the game is competent, but you aren't missing much if you decide to skip over it. Maybe WWE 2k16 will bring make the features we loved from years past.
I was more than a little disappointed in the lack of challenge and overall content in Yoshi's New Island. The features that are included lack cohesion, and the bare bones multiplayer is laughable. Nintendo could argue that the design of the series is meant for a younger audience, yet I was twenty-seven when I played Yoshi's Island DS and thoroughly enjoyed it. Yoshi has had some grand adventures of his own, but sadly this is not one of them.
The whole game just feels like it's incomplete. The sci-fi setting is not fully fleshed out. The story is a nice touch by falls flat. The tracks can be innovative but become generic. The mini-games are interesting but shallow. Everything in Trials Fusion is just an inch away from being awesome but, much like a botched motorcycle jump, ends up falling into a pit instead… a pit called mediocrity. Trials Fusion is fun enough, if only because it gives you a chance to return to the Trials gameplay you know and love, but it's easily the weakest of all three Trials titles. Maybe this will change when Ubisoft updates the game for team and tournament modes, which were not working at time of writing, but for now, the game falls just short of greatness.
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The premise is solid, the graphics are great, the voice casting is excellent, but in the end you have to ask yourself, are we buying games to watch them or to play them? This is something you need to ask yourself before picking up The Order. It's a shame, too. Werewolves are always getting a bum wrap in entertainment, and this game isn't going to help their cause.
Mario Sports Superstars could appeal to multiple demographics, but might not hold the attention for any of them. Each sport is fun, but the lack of variety in games and their respective courses wears thin.
So I think, when all is said and done, I still recommend this game to anyone, whether you played Last Light originally or not. It certainly rides on the coattails of 2033 Redux's release, but it's still incredibly fun. If anything, it's a testament to how much fun Last Light was to begin with.
At the end of the day, The Sims 4 is a core game, pure and simple. It is made specifically so that more content can be pumped into it via DLC. The overall functionality of the game is fine, with no real breakthroughs, just a little simplification and minor tweaks. Nothing groundbreaking here. It wasn't entirely unenjoyable, even for someone like me who doesn't really play The Sims normally. But it didn't convert me either. The Sims 4 is certainly not deserving of the fan backlash it's currently receiving on the internet, but it's not the revolutionary leap forward you would expect from a game that has had years to develop.
So don't let this weak conclusion turn you off. If you already got to Episode 3, you might as well pick up this episode just to play through the ending and unlock all of Raid mode. Just be aware that Resident Evil Revelations 2 Episode 4 is probably the weakest episode the game has to offer.
Overall, Slender: The Arrival was pretty well done. It has issues. Make no mistake. There were a lot of glitches (unintentional ones), a lot of scaling and framerate issues, as well as limited controls, vast amounts of dead space, and a story that could still be fleshed out more before being a contender. It needs a graphics update and some good voice actors as well. Again, this game is ten bucks and two hours long, so I wasn't really expecting a massive surprise of awesomeness. But even my innate fear of the Slender Man mythos wasn't enough to keep me invested enough in this game to want or even try a second playthrough. I am a huge fan of psychological thrillers. But for what this game has in its psychological scare tactics, it totally lacks in the things that make a game one that you'd want to come back to and play again and again. So as the title implies, this game truly is thick on scares but slender on everything else.
I understand that it would have been difficult to keep free-roaming intact in a few of the levels without developing a dynamic split-screen system, but that would have been really nice to see and I can't help but feel like Platinum missed a huge opportunity there. Be that as it may, this is still a game that you'll love to play with your buddies. It's a mindless, campy, action-packed, Saturday morning cartoon that you get to control, and that's exactly what we want in a Ninja Turtles game. Rent this one first and see how you like it, or else wait for a sale - it's hard to pay $50 for a game that you can beat (on normal) in less than 7 hours. If you have even one friend who might like to play with you, though, it's totally worth it, and all of the upgrades and secrets will keep you occupied for months.
[T]he force is weak with Star Wars: Battlefront.
The open-world/sandbox RPG genre that Bethesda helped create has moved on and done some amazing things. It's even spread into and influenced other genres like action-adventure and MMORPG-shooter. My hype to see how Bethesda would interpret all these innovations and incorporate them into the Fallout setting turned to disappointment when I stumbled through a game that features the same poorly-implemented combat and all the same old Gamebryo engine annoyances and glitches we've been dealing with for years. Fallout 4 will provide some good old-fashioned fun for players who are looking for a prettier Fallout 3 (now with Minecraft!), but it could have and should have been much, much better than that.
When it comes to the complexity of gameplay and strategic versatility in a collectible card game, nothing comes close to Magic: The Gathering. While the digital version of the series is considered by most fans as a utility to test various deck builds and aid newcomers, it's still more than a little disappointing to see the focus aimed completely at the deck building process, while stripping away game modes we have enjoyed from past versions. Though it's still fun to battle opponents without having to fray my cards, dish out game night snacks, or use up gas to go where the in-person action is, I'll likely return to my Magic 2014 stock, and hope next year's entry provides more sustenance.