標籤彙整: reviews

Rage 2 is a disparate experience. The shooting and arsenal are top-notch, allowing players to wield great weapons like a kickass shotgun that dishes out deadly spreads and potent focused fire with an alternate attack. That combat is enhanced by an overdrive mechanic that lets you cut loose and absolutely destroy hordes of enemies in a psychedelic bloodbath as you gain more powerful attacks and serious life regeneration during these berserker states. But outside of the heat of battle, Rage 2 has serious flaws including weak characters, boring activities and enemies, and an absolute snoozer of a shallow open world.

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You play as Walker, last of the rangers, on a mission against General Cross and the evil Authority. The world serves up deserts, houses, swamps, sewers, and more, but the areas all blend together in sort of a grayish mush that simply serves to house by-the-book bland activities that get monotonous fast. Stopping to kill your fifth Authority tower for a couple of bucks and some upgrade points hardly gets the pulse pounding, and going off-road to explore rarely feels rewarding, because there’s simply nothing exciting out there to find.

You encounter all kinds of completely forgettable wasteland denizens as enemies and allies, mutants and townsfolk. Everyone is trying as hard as possible to be edgy and failing, delivering swear words with all the enthusiasm of a sleeping accountant. You fight the same dumb mutant mini-boss over and over. You unlock some cool vehicles to cruise around the world, and even get to drive a tank, but going from point to point and taking on the occasional convoy feels like mundane filler. While you engage in a variety of activities during your romp through the wasteland, almost everything boils down to slaughtering a slew of enemies. Which is fine on a basic level, because that’s Rage 2’s strong point.

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You can upgrade your weapons for significant power boosts, like incredibly fast reload times, speedier shooting, and armor breaking. The weapons feel great, and mowing down a sewer full of mutants or a roadblock of goons is a blast. Chaining kills and working into the berserker state is fun, as you unleash hell on wave after wave of mutants and desert dwellers. Some of the longer encounters of the game have you in a constant state of overdrive, where you can feel a glimmer of the uncontrolled bloodlust from which the game gets its name. Moments like these are what save Rage 2 from its otherwise monotonous shackles, combining the great gunplay with nano-fueled abilities that let you crash into the ground from above or revive yourself after death.

While traversing the land, tons of various landmarks and side destinations await discovery, but they’re all lackluster diversions that lose their luster after you’ve done each type of encounter a few times. Whether you’re blowing up a turret or going sewer-crawling to smash some pods, you can see the vast majority of what the side content offers after a few hours. While the critical path takes about 8 to 10 hours, Rage 2 has tons of optional content to explore – you just won’t want to do it. Outside of the obvious perks like unlocking new weapons and abilities, it all starts to feel samey, bland, and boring.

For all of its attempts at garish glitter, Rage 2 is a muted, clichéd, and uninspiring experience propped up by spectacular shooting and neverending battles that sometimes live up to the promise of a carnival of carnage.

Score: 7

Summary: Classy combat and great guns carry an otherwise forgettable experience

Concept: Shoot and drive your way through hordes of enemies in defiance of the Authority

Graphics: For such an “extreme” vision of the post-apocalypse, the visuals feel muted and sometimes drab

Sound: The sporadic F-bombs seem like they are trying too hard to be edgy, and they never land with impact. The crunchy blasting of bullets and heavy metal during overdrive massacres carries some oomph, though

Playability: Shooting your weapons and zipping around in various vehicles through the open world is easy, though navigating through multiple menus can be a slog

Entertainment: Rage 2 fails to deliver any interesting characters, environments, or activities. Solid shooting and cool weapons lift up the other elements of this title

Replay: Moderate

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The doctors of Elizabethan England had treatments that seem ridiculous and terrifying by modern standards, incorporating leeches, herbal remedies, and general superstition. In that era, imagine how dubious and outlandish a doctor’s methods would need to be in order to be ostracized and branded a fraud. In Astrologaster, you live on this medical fringe as Simon Forman, looking to the stars (and your own self-interest) to determine how to advise your patients. The idea is fun, but like the bizarre remedies of Forman’s time, Astrologaster doesn’t quite work.

The story attempts to weave strands of history and fiction together via vignettes of Forman’s consultations. You have a variety of regular patients with funny dialogue, including a struggling actor, a nosy neighbor, and a woman whose husbands keep dying. The presentation of these visits is the highlight of Astrologaster, with a neat paper-cut-out aesthetic and amusing songs that herald the arrival of each character. After they explain their medical issue or life crisis, you turn to astrology to diagnose and guide them – but that’s when things start getting hazy.

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The star-gazing initially seems to have a deductive or puzzle-solving element; one of the first readings has you drawing parallels between the signs in the sky and the name of a vessel in order to recommend a ship to invest in. However, that falls by the wayside quickly, and you rarely need to decipher anything. The celestial elements influencing your choices (like “Uranus represents a change in fortune”) are technically present, but they feel extraneous since each option you’re presented with has a pretty clear interpretation summarized at the top of the screen. All you need to do is read them and decide which one to select, so the astrology becomes more of an aesthetic trapping than a mechanic you actively engage with.

This means the core of Astrologaster is mainly selecting dialogue options, but it falls short in making that impactful. I appreciate how often the choices make you weigh telling the patient the “correct” thing instead of what they want to hear, but the consequences are rarely satisfying either way. If you tell a woman she has evil digestion when she is actually pregnant, the number quantifying your relationship with her takes a hit, but she doesn’t stop coming to see you. If you give an explorer bad coordinates, he still comes back later looking for advice after a mild verbal reprimand. In my second playthrough, I resolved to keep a relationship together that I had sabotaged my first time around, only to discover that it falls apart no matter what Forman says. While rare encounters can have more significant outcomes, most of your selections just change a few lines of dialogue, which conveys the sense that you have no influence on the events.

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Some of these situations are set in stone because of developer Nyamyam’s desire to achieve a degree of historical accuracy. Outside of Forman’s interactions with real people, the studio says that even the star positions are correct for the dates of his consultations. While that kind of faithfulness requires a lot of ambition and research, it doesn’t necessarily translate to fun. The details surrounding an event may be technically correct, but that isn’t much comfort when your choices as a player feel insignificant.

Astrologaster has a unique premise, clever presentation, and funny writing. Those elements all work in its favor, but the longer it goes on, the duller it gets. The story fails to make most characters interesting, and the illusion of choice (but without meaningful consequences) creates a sense of futility. It is worth checking out if you want to learn more about Elizabethan history and medicine, but those looking to increase their dosage of compelling narrative experiences should seek treatment elsewhere.

Score: 6

Summary: Astrologaster is worth checking out if you want to learn more about Elizabethan history and medicine, but it doesn’t provide a compelling story.

Concept: Assume the role of a “doctor” who employs astrology and questionable remedies to treat his patients

Graphics: Visuals have a cool pop-up-book flair, which compensates for the sparse details and animation

Sound: Voice performances are well done, but skipping text often results in characters talking over each other

Playability: A simple interface makes it easy to select your responses and advance the story

Entertainment: Despite a fun concept at its core, the characters and story don’t pull players in as events unfold

Replay: Moderately Low

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Today’s gaming world has no shortage of tactical RPG experiences from XCOM to Fire Emblem, but Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark goes all-in on adhering to the nostalgic inspirations of one of the genre greats, Final Fantasy Tactics. As an unabashed tribute to the legendary title, Fell Seal hits all the right buttons in terms of combat and customization, but is held back by repetition and an uninteresting story.

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Character customization is at the core of everything great in Fell Seal, with tons of classes to unlock and explore. Combining different abilities and movesets is a joy, stacking powerful passives with active abilities. You create gun-toting assassins, hybrid mages that blast and heal, and debilitating debuff masters. In addition, you have a wealth of powerful crafted gear and consumables to seek out, further adding to your arsenal. If you feel like really diving in and doing many extra battles and hunting down secret badges, you unlock special secret classes and monsters to add to your retinue. Character abilities, item usage, and combat all feel religiously true to Final Fantasy tactics, and fans will love every fight as they constantly progress and open up new avenues of advancement. Finding new shops, new items, and new classes stays exciting and fulfilling the whole game through.

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Watching your off-the-battlefield decisions play out in combat is great, setting up big plays to kill enemies for bonus resources with special abilities, preparing massive area-of-effect spells to punish weaknesses, and getting the edge by taking advantageous positions. Despite mixing and matching moves to your heart’s content and experimenting with class compositions, combat can get tiring. You are often chopping up the same bandits repeatedly to level up your characters in order to change classes and create the perfect combo of skills. The game is deft at attempting to challenge the repetition by offering special random enemies that show up as you engage in these “patrol” missions that are essentially farm grinds, but you still feel the repetitive crunch if you are adequately preparing yourself on the standard difficulty or above.

The story is straightforward and forgettable, but is used as a vehicle to add even more class diversity to the game. As the story progresses, your core cast of characters unlocks special unique classes based on what’s happening in the world and their plotlines, giving you exceptionally powerful abilities that fit in with the lore, like one of your characters unlocking a hidden well of demonic rage or the main character tapping into the ancient powers of the chosen one. Some aspects of the graphics are neat, like setting your character outfits to fit the class, but something just doesn’t sit right about them; the visuals are like a Gobots-to-Transformers comparison, with amateurish sprite-based art and animations.

While Fell Seal: Arbiter’s Mark might lack graphical style and an enthralling story, the combat loop is the stuff dreams are made of for fantasy tactics devotees. If you’re a fan of strategy battles and a plethora of interesting unlocks, this is the game to take you back 20 years, when you met Ramza and Delita for the first time.
 

Score: 8

Summary: Create the perfect team of adventurers for this strategic journey.

Concept: Form a collection of adventurers to take into a ton of tactical fantasy battles

Graphics: The art and animations don’t do justice to the action on the field, and even majestic spells play out as unimpressive poofs of pixels

Sound: Simple sound effects convey an adequate sense of the world around you with a solid (if limited) soundtrack

Playability: A variety of difficulty modes allow you to tailor the experience to your level of familiarity with the tactical RPG genre, so anyone can dive right in

Entertainment: Adheres to the tradition of Final Fantasy Tactics admirably, but repetitive encounters and lack of an interesting story drag the experience down

Replay: Moderate

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Your empire is crumbling. These darn kids aren’t renting videotapes anymore. Brick and mortar? More like brick and mortared, now that online shopping with free shipping has reduced a thriving retail presence to rubble. And who wants to wait around for a taxi like a chump, when an app will summon a driver at a moment’s notice? Things aren’t looking great for Shakedown: Hawaii’s aging CEO, but he’s not ready to throw in the beach towel. Over the course of his hilarious journey, you reclaim his position on the big island and thrive while sticking it to his rivals in the process.

Shakedown: Hawaii takes the essence of classic top-down GTA and arcade shooters and infuses it with a wry comic sensibility that hits its mark with the same degree of accuracy as its arcade-precise weapons. You primarily step into the flip-flops of the CEO, but you also take to Hawaii’s streets as his idiotic son (and wannabe DJ) Scooter and business associate Al. Their goal is simple: Build up an open-world business empire as quickly as possible while also catering to the outlandish whims of these darn kids and their newfangled ways.

Getting back on your feet isn’t easy at first. You’re free to explore the pixelated world, but your company is feeling the squeeze from unhappy shareholders and a business rival. Early missions quickly highlight the arsenal of weapons, which are just another tool for this cutthroat businessman. There are run-of-the-mill pistols and machine guns, as well as less orthodox tools of destruction, such as scissors, hair driers, and Contra-like spread guns. The island is teeming with life and detail, and even if you miss a shot, it’s likely to result in a satisfying amount of destruction. Indulging in open-world chaos is reliably fun, but sooner or later you’re going to need to get to business, in more ways than one.

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The titular shakedowns are a low-hanging source of income when you’re first getting back on your feet, and they’re also home to some of the silliest moments. Before you can get your cut of profits from businesses, you need to intimidate the workers to show them how serious you are about forming a new “partnership.” Sometimes that means punching a mannequin until the owner agrees to your terms. Or you might have to flush some paper towels down the office commode until the pipes burst. That barber has a nice head of hair – it sure would be a shame if someone cut it all off. I quickly settled into a rhythm of scouring every block for these opportunities and was pleasantly surprised at how many different ways there were to show these civilians who’s boss. You have dozens of these shakedowns to discover, and even though scenarios repeat, they’re quick and fun enough to prevent them from feeling like a chore.

You can spend your cash on cosmetics, weapons, and a handful of character upgrades, but that’s short-term thinking. The real money is in real estate, which is also where the game shines during its first few hours. You can purchase a variety of different properties on the island, from homes and businesses to larger things like malls and an airport. Most of those acquisitions generate cash, too, which in turn allows you to buy even more. Eventually you can purchase upgrades for each property, which further multiply the amount of revenue your corporation earns from each location. The interface isn’t quite up to the task, however. I loved watching the numbers climb, but multipliers have to be purchased individually – a significant detail, considering there are more than 400 different locations you can potentially invest in. It’s tedious, and it starts to feel like, well, work.

Most of these multipliers are tied to story missions, in which your aging CEO encounters a contemporary frustration like in-store credit cards or multilevel marketing. Told through animated vignettes, these moments tackle modern life with a scathing wit, whether they’re setting their sights on artisanal foods, medical quackery, or – in one particularly great sequence – the video game industry. Even though the CEO does some cartoonishly awful things in the game, his “get off my lawn” attitude is endearing and made me look forward to every beat of the lengthy story.

Unfortunately, the game’s stingy economy quickly gives way to an overabundance of cash. It feels like a weird complaint, but in the last third of the game my company’s value had ballooned to the point where money didn’t have any meaning. Once you’re satisfied with the way your CEO’s sprite looks and have maxed out each of the easily affordable character upgrades, you have nothing else to look forward to in the economic layer. When my scheming opened up new buying opportunities in the campaign, I was able to buy buildings immediately and max out each upgrade chain without even bothering to look at the price tags. It fits into the riches-to-more-riches story, but the lack of aspirational purchases flattens out an otherwise fun system by the end.

Burying your nose in your portfolio isn’t all you can do. The island has loads of challenges to partake in, where you’re free to indulge in some of the game’s crazier elements. Each weapon in your respectable arsenal has an accompanying activity to try out. Getting gold rankings in these are an easy way to blow off some steam, and leaderboards let you show everyone how good you are at rocket jumping or tossing Molotov cocktails. It’s violent but not gratuitous; enemies die in a bloodless flash, accompanied with a hilarious lo-fi scream – even when you run them over with a steam roller.

Shakedown: Hawaii does a great job overall of recognizing what it does well and regularly delivering those moments. Taking out a plantation of goons or clearing out gang strongholds can be challenging, but it never feels punishing. True to its arcade-style inspirations, enemies drop new weapons at a steady clip, and I never felt outgunned no matter how crazy the action swelled.   

The economy might be a little wonky, but Shakedown: Hawaii delivers a nice blast of classic arcade action and some solid laughs. A wealth of entertaining missions and a generous overall structure show that while the game’s CEO might be out of touch, developer VBlank most definitely isn’t.

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Score: 8

Summary: Shakedown: Hawaii delivers a nice blast of classic arcade action and some solid laughs.

Concept: Rebuild your “legitimate” business through intimidation, fraud, and old-school GTA-style beatdowns

Graphics: Whether you’re exploring the open world or watching one of the many animated cutscenes, the visual style is a pixelated wonder

Sound: The synthwave soundtrack is a perfect accompaniment to the onscreen carnage, and it has enough variety to keep you from pressing mute right away

Playability: The story might be amusing, but the controls are no joke. The action is quick and precise, with few moments of frustration

Entertainment: Bite-sized missions and an engaging empire-building layer make Shakedown: Hawaii a great destination – whether you have minutes or hours to spare

Replay: High

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Star Wars fans will soon get the chance to travel to the Galaxy’s Edge theme park to live out a fantasy of being a Jedi, smuggler, or more likely a collector of expensive toys and plastic cups. If you don’t have the funds for a pricey Disney vacation, Vader Immortal is another way to achieve an intimate Star Wars experience. In this first episode of a three-part series, you spend time on a starship, get your own lightsaber, and learn just how bad of shots the stormtroopers really are. You also come face-to-face with Darth Vader.

Being in the presence of Vader is a fascinating moment, as it reinforces what an imposing figure he is. I took a step back when he entered the room and crowded my location. This series, penned by David S. Goyer (one of the writers behind The Dark Knight trilogy of films), gives the player a voyeuristic look inside of Vader’s world. When the episode begins, you are on your ship, the Windfall, enjoying a quiet moment with your co-pilot, a droid named ZOE3. This new character is voiced by actress Maya Rudolph who is bubbling with personality and wit, making her a great addition to the Star Wars universe.

In this tranquil moment of play, you can walk around your ship (either using the analog stick for fluid movement or a warp system) and interact with various objects in your living quarters. You can hold up and examine an interesting relic from Jedha, check your travel log to see what planets you’ve been to, and also throw on a helmet, which appears visually around your head. As you conduct diagnostic work on your ship, you are pulled out of hyperspace and down to the planet Mustafar. The Empire wants you for something.

Your vessel flies along the planet’s molten surface and eventually come to rest inside of Vader’s fortress. The amount of visual detail provided in this opening sequence is impressive. If you look up when standing in your cockpit, you see a massive star destroyer moving into position overhead. As you dock in Vader’s lair, stormtroopers are everywhere, many raising their guns to greet you. The first few minutes of play deliver the feeling that you are a part of a legitimate Star Wars adventure.

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I don’t want to give away too much, as the little moments and interactions are the true joys that come from this experience, but I will say I wasn’t fond of my character being a silent protagonist. I understand ILMxLAB’s desire to make players feel like they are present for this journey, but it’s a choice that makes the adventure feel more like a Disney World ride than a legitimate Star Wars story. Even if your character doesn’t end up having a voice, being able to communicate in some way with your hands would have helped create a connection to the world and story.

Big revelations about Vader and his power-hungry crusade are made as this short 40-minute tale unfolds, and I adore where it ends up. It goes places I didn’t expect, and dives deep into Mustafar’s history along the way. This planet has plenty of secrets to tell, and some are delivered in this first episode; others are teased for future episodes. You learn that your character is also important to both the planet and Lord Vader. As far as story setups goes, this one is dripping with intrigue in great ways.

Igniting a lightsaber is as cool as you would hope it to be in VR. Seeing the blade extend is mighty satisfying, as is hearing it hum as you wave it around. The saber will also leave scorch marks on the floor. Again, the little touches are great. Just don’t expect much from the lightsaber when combat ensues. You are mostly asked to use this powerful weapon for countering techniques. You need to time your saber movements to knock back laser blasts and block saber strikes from robots. Though you can’t die, some skill is involved in blocking two to three strikes in a row, which exposes an enemy and allows you to strike them down. Moving the saber quickly into position is fun, but you don’t really feel like you are a threat at this point; which could be a story beat ILMxLAB is building up to. As bare-bones as this combat is, battling eight-foot droids that are right in your face is exhilarating.

Some of the better moments in this episode are when you don’t have to use a lightsaber at all, and instead are asked to figure out ways to open doors. I know that sounds boring, but these little puzzles use your hands in clever ways, and make you feel like you are actually interacting with the environment. You are also asked to climb a few ladders and shimmy along pipes. These are the only two interactions that didn’t go off without a hitch; my hand grabs sometimes weren’t recognized, and I sometimes had problems dropping from a ladder to the floor.

Outside of an odd tutorial sequence that completely derails the experience for a few minutes, the action and story flow nicely from moment to moment, creating a fun ride into the inner workings of the Dark Side. The lack of involvement you may have as a character is a minor quibble in an otherwise fascinating Star Wars story that puts its iconic villain in the spotlight more than I expected. I can’t wait to see where this series goes next, as the tease at the end implies the Force will be explored in big ways.

Score: 7.75

Summary: Standing face-to-face with Darth Vader is a powerful moment in this fun story driven adventure.

Concept: A satisfying introduction to a three-part series that brings you into the heart of Darth Vader’s world

Graphics: Standing next to Vader is an awesome moment. Being blinded by the lightsaber in your hand is equally satisfying. High levels of detail are presented in both the characters and environments

Sound: The voice work is excellent, with the highlight being Maya Rudolph as ZOE3. She helps set up the narrative in a fun way

Playability: As fun as it is to swing the lightsaber around, it’s mostly used for defensive techniques and doesn’t deliver on the fantasy fans are likely hoping for. General movement and environmental interactions are handled well

Entertainment: Combat is a weak spot, but the story is engaging to the point that I didn’t want this episode to end

Replay: Moderate

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In Supraland, you are the prince of the red people tasked with figuring out why the blue people are tampering with your water supply. Your whole world exists in the sandbox of a child who, according to the lore, built the elaborate environment over the course of six hours. Zooming out even further (by watching the end credits) you learn that much of the game was created by a single developer, David Münnich. As a result of the small team, the seams show occasionally and the production values are underwhelming, but Supraland overcomes those shortcomings by offering fantastic puzzle design and a big world that rewards exploration at a steady clip.

You explore a series of interconnected areas in first-person, solving puzzles and acquiring new items that help you get past previously impassable doors and blockades. In this way, it feels similar to the Metroid Prime series. Upgrades range from boosting your sword strength to getting a special magnet that lets you climb metal objects with ease. Even the smaller stat-boosting upgrades feel significant, and they’re tucked away in just about every nook and cranny, which makes exploration worthwhile and consistently rewarding.

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Supraland shines brightest with its puzzle design. You can generate a block out of thin air to help you platform or activate switches, but that’s just the beginning. Puzzle mechanics rarely repeat, and have you jettisoning yourself and bullets from jump pads to hit switches, using paint to re-color certain objects, and directing electricity currents through water. Up to the final boss, I was always stretching my arsenal of puzzle-solving tools in interesting and unexpected directions.

Combat falls short compared to the exploration and puzzle solving, but it only occupies a small portion of the total experience. You have a sword and a gun, but it wasn’t until I was about halfway through and had acquired a healthy collection of upgrades that I started feeling powerful enough to look forward to conflict.

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In the context of the story, the narrative is being directed by a young boy overlooking the sandbox. With that understanding, I suppose the bad dialogue and constant references to pop culture could be considered a purposeful choice, but I mostly found it distracting. At one point, a character dressed like Marty McFly from Back to the Future appeared to give me some help, but his outfit had no bearing on his character or the story. Even if the juvenile story is supposed to be coming from the mind of a child, the boy isn’t enough of a presence in the narrative (or physically in the environment) to reinforce that concept.

The dialogue and combat shortcomings ultimately make up a small portion of Supraland’s total experience. Exploring, tracking down upgrades, and solving the puzzles are where the game flexes its creativity and fun, and it leans on those strong elements with most of its weight to create a consistently compelling experience.

Score: 8

Summary: Supraland’s production values are underwhelming, but it overcomes those shortcomings by offering fantastic puzzle design and a big world that rewards exploration at a steady clip.

Concept: Play as a little guy in a big world as you explore a series of interconnected areas filled with enemies, upgrades, puzzles, and secrets

Graphics: The environments look good and subtly point you in the right direction, but the designs of the characters, both friendly and deadly, are underwhelming

Sound: The music does little to stand out and the sound effects are generic

Playability: Moving, platforming, and solving puzzles in first-person feels great, but it takes a few upgrades before the combat feels satisfying

Entertainment: What Supraland lacks in production value, it more than makes up for with fantastic puzzle and level design

Replay: Moderate

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BoxBoy never seemed like the kind of game that would develop into a series. When HAL Laboratory debuted BoxBoy on the 3DS back in 2015, this quirky puzzle platformer with low-fi graphics seemed like an experimental one-off that had somehow squeaked through the greenlight process. Since then, this little square-jawed hero has proven he’s more than a one-hit wonder. For his fourth outing, BoxBoy is joined by BoxGirl and the tall box, Qudy, for a couch co-op friendly adventure filled with some of the most creative and diverse puzzles in the series.

BoxBoy’s mechanics are deceptively simple. You are asked to string together a limited number of boxes to use as stairs, bridges, and other makeshift tools that allow you navigate an austere and obstacle-riddled world. BoxBoy’s plain aesthetic puts a spotlight on HAL’s puzzle design. Early puzzles start off a little too easy, assuming players haven’t engaged with the series before. However, as you slowly unlock new abilities, the puzzles become significantly more captivating and inventive.
 

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Many of BoxBoy + BoxGirl’s puzzles require some out-of-the-box thinking, but I was rarely stumped for more than a few minutes. If you ever get completely stuck, a hint system readily shows you the solution and can keep you from pulling out your hair. I also appreciate that you often have multiple ways to approach each objective. But if you really want to challenge yourself, you can tackle each level with a limited number of boxes, which earns you coins that can be redeemed for oddball cosmetic items. These cosmetics don’t affect the gameplay, but I had a lot of fun dressing up my boxes as cat detectives and balding vampires.

Some old power-ups return. For example, you can still chain boxes together like a grappling hook and zip to new areas, which is always fun. I was particularly surprised by BoxBoy’s new skills, like his ability to fling boxes across the room or pound them into the ground. These new talents seem deceptively simple at first, but their merits are more apparent as you use them and each new level encourages you to use your abilities in novel ways. Every time I unlocked a new set of puzzles, I was surprised by the level of creativity and the unique solutions I was able to engineer from BoxBoy’s offbeat toolset.

But BoxBoy is only one of the stars of this show. A second campaign starring both BoxBoy and BoxGirl allows two players to solve puzzles together. Many of the mechanics and themes from the single-player campaign return, but they are given new life since you have two sets of boxes at your disposal, and you can build increasingly unusual shapes. Some puzzles even ask you to navigate certain characters to specific points in the level, which is a neat twist. You can play through this campaign by yourself, switching between characters on the fly, but I had the most fun coordinating my box stacking with another player.

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A third unlockable campaign stars an extra tall box named Qudy. Since Qudy’s boxes are double-sized, he is able to quickly scale tall platforms and can practically vault over vast gaps. Qudy can rotate horizontally or vertically, which affects the orientation of his boxes. Again, this sounds like a simple change, but it has far-reaching consequences, and I was often left scratching my head trying to figure out how to squeeze Qudy’s awkward body through a series of relatively simple-looking obstacles.

Despite consistent performance over the last several years, this blocky franchise remains relatively obscure, which is a shame because BoxBoy’s adventures are engaging. HAL Laboratory does a great job shaking up the mechanics from one set of levels to the next so the action never grows stale, which seems extra impressive after four entries. We’ve already been given more BoxBoy games than I ever expected, but I hope they don’t stop coming anytime soon.

Score: 8.5

Summary: BoxBoy returns with a couch co-op friendly adventure filled with some of the most creative and diverse puzzles in the series.

Concept: Use simple boxes to create complex shapes and solve a series of clever puzzles

Graphics: The stark, black-and-white world is endearing, and the simple visuals put a spotlight on the stellar puzzle solving

Sound: HAL Laboratory knows how to create light and cheerful background music, and that skill is evident here. Get ready to have the main theme stuck in your head

Playability: The controls are simple, and a few new mechanics add a welcome twists to the puzzle solving

Entertainment: BoxBoy + BoxGirl hits the sweet spot with a series of puzzles that aren’t too hard, but occasionally make you think

Replay: Moderate

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The pause menu of Days Gone keeps track of the time since Deacon St. John was separated from his wife, Sarah, who was helicoptered away during the chaotic zombie outbreak. Since that day, he’s been living a life similar to his old one as a biker, eschewing mandated responsibilities and trusting his own code above all else.

However, no man is an island, and as the remaining human settlements fortify themselves against the zombie hordes and each other, Deacon is more tethered than he first thought. He might not totally buy into the anti-government paranoia, militaristic, nihilistic, or rigid philosophies of those around him, but he’s not entirely selfish, either. 

Like Deacon, Days Gone sets off on its own path, landing between being a dynamic open world and a linear, physically constrained story. While its gameplay systems create fun and harrowing scenarios, the way Days Gone straddles the line between two extremes leaves me wanting more from both the story and open world.

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Resources are scarce in the ruined landscape, affecting almost everything you do. You have to maintain repairs on your bike, you can craft lots of equipment, and your melee weapons break frequently. The situation isn’t all grim, however. Days Gone does a good job making you feel desperate but not frustrated, leading to improvisation like making the most of your equipment. If I ran out of ammo for my favorite weapon, I might use a sound emitter 
to attract zombies to enemies’ location. What about the subsequent zombie rush that inevitably follows? That’s a problem for another time. Hopefully 
I have some ammo by then, or maybe I switch to stealth or my crafted melee weapon – a baseball bat modded with a saw blade.

Dealing with hordes – massive gatherings of zombies – is its own tense, terrifying challenge that requires you use more of your environment to survive since you can’t simply shoot your way clear of the throng before they tear you apart. You have to use their rage against them, funneling them into choke points where you can set explosives or shoot flammables to take out chunks of them before running away and regrouping. The unpredictable horde A.I. adds intrigue in successive tries since you can’t always predict where they’re going to go. 

You can buy better equipment and some supplies through human camp settlements, but only by earning their trust first by doing missions for them. These tasks, like clearing out a camp of Marauders or PCP-addled human Rippers aren’t novel, but Deacon’s dealing with the camps and their leadership help define him by juxtaposing him with each camp’s views on survival, such as Copeland’s anti-government conspiracy mindset. These camps also figure into your open-world activities; when you save survivors in the wild, you earn a big trust boost with the camp you send them to. 

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Rescuing survivors, hunting, and collecting random plants suggests an open-world structure ripe with possibilities, but Days Gone’s landscape is more dull than it appears. The map has a lot of land on it, but it’s not filled with intriguing side stories, characters, and situations. Instead, it contains prescribed missions and anonymous people to kill – and these tasks were not tempting or rewarding enough to draw me away from the main story.

Days Gone’s narrative is standard and sufficient, but it trips up when it leans on minor characters at multiple points for important and/or dramatic turns in the plot. This strains credulity, makes the world feel too small, and pads out the experience with filler missions using otherwise boring stealth gameplay mechanics. My least favorite was being asked to search for a guy’s MP3 player as the story was all coming to a head.

On the technical front it’s also worth mentioning that Days Gone lacks polish for a first-party title. The framerate can vary, and the loads are surprisingly long and frequent on the standard PS4 – something that shouldn’t be necessary at this stage.

Days Gone has good gameplay foundations. The scarcity of supplies and ever-present threat of zombies put me on edge as much as it gave me options to escape by the skin of my teeth. But the inability to fully deliver on either the story or open world fronts makes it a title of both possibilities and limitations. 

Score: 7.75

Summary: Bend Studio sets up compelling and sometimes terrifying survival scenarios, but the story and open world don’t come off as well.

Concept: Deacon St. John is a drifter in an open world where different embattled groups of survivors fight the zombie hordes and each other

Graphics: Characters’ faces convey a range of emotions, but the framerate is unstable

Sound: Sam Witwer puts in a good performance as Deacon St. John, and the game’s squishy guts and sloshy gas cans provide lots of ambiance

Playability: Some small things are annoying, like the camera during melee fights leaving you blind (it doesn’t affect your performance) and item pickup being finicky. Otherwise the controls are up to the challenge

Entertainment: Surviving the zombie throngs can be a thrilling experience, but the story and open-world structure come in second

Replay: Moderately High

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In each new Mortal Kombat installment, we look on in horror as combatants are dismembered, mutilated, and devoured in disturbing and comedic ways. Even when their bodies are reduced to unrecognizable heaps of flesh and bone, most of these characters find ways to bounce back into fighting form for a sequel, making it seem like the war between realms will never end.

Mortal Kombat 11 repeats this bloody dance, and is even more ridiculous in its narrative setup than previous entries. A new character named Kronika is messing with the timestream and wants to rewrite history, so characters don’t just kill their enemies – they also kill the past versions of their enemies. The champions of each realm are divided; good guys turn bad, bad guys stay bad but unite with their past selves to do even more ambitious bad things, and all kinds of glorious chaos erupts. Key characters die, some come back from the past, and it all ends up being a hell of a ride. It’s silly in the best ways.

This time-travelling narrative is sharply written, offering a number of clever era-specific jokes, such as an older and wiser version of Johnny Cage having a serious chat about decency with his younger self. The story also slows down to have heartfelt moments, and I’m not just speaking about a freshly squeezed heart beating in someone’s hand (although that does happen). This dramatic tale is huge in scale, powerful in its surprising twists, and appears to be written with the words “The End” in mind. This story delivers a legitimate conclusion to the saga. If another sequel ever come to fruition, it will likely begin from a clean slate. NetherRealm Studios does a nice job of wrapping up character arcs and bringing this epic battle to a close.

The concept of retreating to the past dovetails into the combat, unlockables, and modes. Plenty of modern ideas are woven into the combat, like customizable move sets and gear to level up, but the flow of the battle hits more of a classic Mortal Kombat tone. Characters generally move faster than they did in Mortal Kombat X, but the removal of the run button results in a slower and more nuanced fray. Creating combos and managing space are still at the heart of combat, but new offensive and defensive meters offer up strategic choices mid-fight, such as cashing in energy to amplify a special move. Using Crushing Blows to increase damage based on meeting certain conditions is another strategic layer. If you’re on the verge of death, a powerful last gasp comes in the form of the ridiculously violent Fatal Blow (replacing the X-Ray move), which chips away at your enemy’s health as their body is shredded. The Fatal Blows are a little too long, but increase the tension and can give you a shot at a match that may not have started well.

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The combat absolutely hums, and NetherRealm does a fantastic job of communicating every little facet of it through extensive tutorials. The idea of spending time in tutorials may not sound fun, but they are excellently crafted and break down everything from frame data (how long it takes to start a move) to character-specific lessons (like teaching you how to master Scorpion’s Hell Port). Spending 15 minutes in them for your character of choice will help you immensely, especially in figuring out which moves you bring into battle. Being able to customize your move set is an awesome addition that gives you ownership over your characters.

Finish a tutorial and you may get a new costume for that character. Complete a Tower of Time and you could be showered with coins, consumables, and augments. Players are rewarded for almost every action they make in Mortal Kombat 11, but the gathering of goods isn’t satisfying most of the time. The vast array of unlockables ends up being a problem considering how low the odds are of getting what you want. Most rewards are hidden in chests that offer a random selection of stuff. Not all chests are random, but most are. You are at the game’s mercy, hoping it delivers something of note for a character you use. On one hand, you can sink a ridiculous number of hours into this game and continue to earn new things. On the other hand, if you just want to unlock gear for Sonya Blade, it’s a crapshoot with terrible odds.

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The chests you open are all located in the Krypt, a sprawling maze that you explore from the third-person perspective. Just navigating the Krypt can be confusing, but you encounter a number of interesting (albeit simple) puzzles along the way, and I love the nostalgic trappings (like Goro’s Lair, complete with the corpse of the big guy). The Krypt is a fun little game in itself, pushing you to hunt down items to progress. As you do this, you come across those damn chests. One chest may require 6,000 coins, another demands 250 hearts, and a third 100 souls. The abundance of currency types is an annoying aspect that needlessly dilutes your earnings and leads to far too much grinding. Even if you get a mask you want for Sub-Zero, you may not have augments that fit it, which requires more grinding.

NetherRealm fully anticipated this, and incorporated Injustice 2’s A.I. battle systems to allow players to earn stuff without even touching the controller – but only five times per day (outside of their general use in the Towers). This is completely optional, but oddly, some character skins can only be unlocked through A.I. battles, which again offer random rewards. Pushing you to earn rewards by having the A.I. play the game for you is a bad idea.

You have no easy paths to the loot you want, unless those items show up in the premium store. This marketplace uses its own currency type that is doled out in minimal quantities, but (you guessed it) can be obtained in bulk with real money. The entire loot system has a disgusting feel to it, which is a shame because the combat and variety of challenges are damn good.

The Towers of Time embrace more of an old-school design (in showing you exactly what you’ll be rewarded most of the time), and deliver rotating challenges over the course of a day. You just have to move quickly to get what you want before the Tower disappears. The challenges in the Towers are good fun, and throw different fighting conditions at you in each match. In the first bout, an opponent may summon Kabal to lend a hand for a hit or two, and the next match may take place in an arena with fire shooting out of the floor. To overcome the increase in difficulty these fights bring, you can use consumables to create combat augmentations of your own, like giving your punches electrical properties, or the ability to recover 50 percent of your health. The challenges can be a workout, but they offer an incredible amount of depth and are legitimately enjoyable to play. Sadly the consumables you use are gone after one use, so you have to ration them.

The Towers also reward you for finishing matches with Fatalities and Brutalities. I can’t emphasize just how violent and crazy these finishers are. NetherRealm clearly put a lot of thought into making them as ridiculous as possible, and you can’t help but laugh at just how over-the-top they end up being.

A variety of versus modes are offered for offline play, and you can also battle online casually, in private lobbies, or in ranked matches. The online play was mostly stable, but I did run into matches that were nearly unplayable due to my opponent’s terrible connection. I also ran into a few instances where I would be kicked out of modes (even the Krypt) when my online connection was lost.

Mortal Kombat 11 may have loot issues, but the combat has never been more rewarding. You can finish the entertaining story mode in one sitting, but getting the gear for the character you want could end up being more of a time-stealing tale than the one the game tells.

Score: 8

Summary: Mortal Kombat 11 shines in its combat and story, but struggles in its delivery of loot.

Concept: The past and present unite to create one of the deepest and most satisfying Mortal Kombat experiences to date

Graphics: We used to gawk at the blood and gore, but Mortal Kombat 11’s eye-stealing qualities are the detailed facial animations and colorful backdrops

Sound: Ronda Rousey doesn’t click as Sonya Blade, but most of the voice work is solid or appropriately campy. The sounds of violence and agony may also be a little too good

Playability: Signature Mortal Kombat special moves and combos with customizable move sets and plenty of challenges to complete. The flow of combat is fantastic. Easily the best playing in the series

Entertainment: Most of the content is amazing and fun, but the loot issues and microtransactions come close to being a self-inflicted Fatality for NetherRealm

Replay: High

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The fantasy/steampunk SteamWorld Quest: Hand of Gilgamech offers a streamlined and highly accessible foray into a genre known for complexity and strategy. While this classic, turn-based affair hinges on cards and decks, anyone who’s ever leveled up and explored a dungeon has everything they need to dive right in to this adventure. SteamWorld Quest is a colorful and fun (if woefully linear) dive into the new age of deck-building, role-playing fare.

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You assemble of a team of three characters from a larger pool to take on chapter after chapter of straightforward dungeons and puzzles. With little room for exploration and deviation, the dungeon-crawling does little to impress – but the characters, combat, and cards carry the experience. Deciding who to place in your lineup and what abilities to use forms the core of the decision making, and you have enough options there to keep things fresh. Rather than just simply playing an attack or a heal, your cards form ability chains that trigger special moves, employ special combos that work with your other characters, and keep a healthy balance of buffs, debuffs, swings and skills in order to craft the best possible turns. Destroying a chapter boss after selecting the perfect selection of skills is satisfying, even if the trappings surrounding the encounter leave something to be desired.

The story is forgettable if you can even be bothered to follow it, but you’re free to go back and replay earlier chapters to make sure you don’t miss any rare cards. You can also head to an arena with unique challenges and rewards, but most of the game is a straight line with simple puzzles. You may have to grind depending on your difficulty selection to increase your base stats and collect resources for new cards, but it never feels overbearing. Coming up with new ways to use various moves together is refreshing, like creating a sustaining regeneration team, or using powerful abilities that may take a crew member out of commission in exchange for dealing insane damage.

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While the environments may lack punch, your crew is a smorgasbord of charm and engaging skill baskets. One your party members is a blast, bringing a synergy of axes and arcane damage that completely steals the show with powerful debuffs and devastating attacks. Other characters, like the buff-based robo-frog and mask-swapping samurai, add enough flavor to keep the card-swapping and switching compelling to the end. 

Seasoned deck-builders will lament a lack of options for more advanced strategy like distilling decks down to a few potent cards via card removal, but the game deftly dips into more advanced territory via a few abilities that let you stick cards in your opponent’s deck or add special ones to yours. On the flip side, players who enjoy pure RPGs shouldn’t feel any trepidation at the card-fueled gears, as it’s highly accessible for anyone that enjoys a light-hearted adventure.

SteamWorld Quest plays it too safe to satisfy hardcore card-crawlers, but the campy characters, gratifying combat, and splashy synergies make it an enticing option for those looking for a traditional turn-based RPG that’s easy to wade into.

Score: 8

Summary: Campy characters and a cache of cards carry this traditional RPG.

Concept: Pick the perfect team of adventurers and cards to hunt down a dark presence and the mysterious Necronomicog

Graphics: The colorful visuals are cute and light-hearted, though many enemy assets are overused

Sound: The music and effects don’t stand out, but they’re not bad either

Playability: Easy to pick up and play, with a lengthy onboarding process that makes sure you understand what’s going on

Entertainment: Cobbling together the right assortment of cards, combat, and characters is fun. However, shortcomings in progression, story, and complexity create a sterile experience

Replay: Moderate

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