Reviews Archives - Page 46 of 129

Valkyria Chronicles 4: The Kotaku Review

Valkyria Chronicles 4 is a game of extremes. Its romantic attitude towards soldiers clashes with a desire to tell a tale of mass violence and corpse-laden battlefields. It is as intimate as it is loud, and each moment captivates even if the parts are often greater than the whole. This post originally appeared 9/10/18. We’ve…

By Heather Alexandra Published September 25, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Destiny 2: Forsaken: The Kotaku Review

Destiny 2’s new expansion, Forsaken, turns the game into something that people can play as much as they want without running out of things to do. If anything, its tantalizing new pursuits, designed to satisfy the appetites of the series’ most voracious players, may be too life-consuming. Viewed from the outside, Destiny 2 looks largely…

By Kirk Hamilton Published September 21, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Shadow of the Tomb Raider: The Kotaku Review

The new Tomb Raider’s freshest idea is the floating of a question: What if all this tomb raiding that Lara Croft does indicates that she is a treasure-plundering jerk who wrecks other people’s cultures and, worse, their lives? This piece originally appeared 9/10/18. We’re bumping it today for the game’s release. Despite the navel-gazing self-reflection…

By Stephen Totilo Published September 14, 2018

ReviewsPS4

Spider-Man: The Kotaku Review

Insomniac Games’ new Spider-Man adventure on the PS4 is a fun comic book brawler with some good story beats elevated by a system of acrobatics that features some of the most intuitive and exhilarating movement I’ve ever experienced in a game. It’s extremely fun, if you’re okay with a version of New York City that…

By Ethan Gach Published September 7, 2018

ReviewsPC

World Of Warcraft Battle For Azeroth: The Kotaku Review

“Well, it’s more of the same” is generally my answer when people ask me how I’m enjoying World of Warcraft’s seventh paid expansion, Battle for Azeroth. Then I spend several minutes explaining why that’s not a bad thing. Blizzard has spent the past six years transforming World of Warcraft from a tired massively multiplayer online…

By Mike Fahey Published September 4, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Dragon Quest XI: The Kotaku Review

Dragon Quest XI is the best game in the 32-year-old series. It wasn’t until watching a rough cut of my 36-minute video review of the game on my television at midnight on Sunday night that I decided to make this declaration. I had grappled with saying it in the script I wrote for the purpose…

By Tim Rogers Published September 4, 2018

ReviewsBoard Games

Captain Sonar: The Kotaku Review

Captain Sonar is a board game about submarines, but it’s also so much more than that. There are boards (several, in fact), and rules and competition and cooperation, but to call Captain Sonar a board game would be to massively undersell the experience. It’s a crucible for friendships. It’s a drunk gamer’s worst nightmare. It’s…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 27, 2018

ReviewsBoard Games

Flamme Rouge: The Kotaku Review

Flamme Rouge is a game about early 20th- century bicycle races, and I promise you, it is a lot more fun than that sounds. While unable to actually use the words, since it doesn’t have the license, Flamme Rouge—a “Red Flag”, waved when a race is one kilometre from the finish—is based on early Tour…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 22, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Guacamelee 2: The Kotaku Review

Guacamelee 2 feels great to play. It’s a demanding platformer with elements drawn from the beat ‘em ups of old but executed with such precision they feel modern. The way throwing a punch can be intertwined with hoping over a pit of lava transforms every obstacle into a puzzle. Despite surface similarities and homages to…

By Ethan Gach Published August 21, 2018

Reviews

Halo 5: The Kotaku Re-Review

Each new Halo game since 2007’s Halo 3 gets some praise, then fades, and then is pointed to as a sign that the Xbox’s once-unstoppable franchise is hitting a wall. Halo 5, released in 2015, deserves a different reputation. The first new Halo game on Xbox One got the accolades three years ago, then faded as…

By Ethan Gach Published August 16, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Monster Hunter: World: The Kotaku Review

Video games often deal in illusions, proffering the fantasy of control and power even when your meaningful influence is minimal. Monster Hunter: World, the new third-person action game from Capcom, absolutely deals in fantasy. It plucks you from reality and sets you in the domains of exotically imposing monsters that you must hunt. In this…

By Keza MacDonald Published August 9, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Dead Cells: The Kotaku Review

In my first game of Dead Cells, I died after about four minutes. In my most recent one, I lasted almost an hour. The time difference between those two attempts says a lot about how Dead Cells evolves as you play it, and how you evolve alongside it. That first game went something like this:…

By Kirk Hamilton Published August 6, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

The Banner Saga 3: The Kotaku Review

The Banner Saga 3 is the final entry in a Kickstarted trilogy of strategy games. It’s the culmination of four years of fantasy adventuring, in which the decisions you make on the battlefield are almost as important as those you make in the middle of a conversation. It’s a series that divides its design between…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 2, 2018

Reviews3DS

WarioWare Gold: The Kotaku Review

The first time I ever played a WarioWare game, I was drunk. Even so, I remember it pretty well. It was March of 2003, and I was living in Kyoto, Japan, about a 20-minute walk from the building where they made WarioWare. Every so often, I’d take the train down to nearby Osaka to meet…

By Chris Kohler Published August 2, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Chasm: The Kotaku Review

I went into Chasm searching for something that would knock me on my ass. What I found was entertaining, but nothing more. Plenty of secrets, hidden dangers, and mysterious evils lurk deep within Chasm’s side-scrolling labyrinth, which is made lively and vibrant thanks to some truly amazing pixel art. Halfway through 2018 though, there’s almost…

By Ethan Gach Published August 1, 2018

ReviewsPS4

Yakuza 0: The Kotaku Review

You no longer have an excuse not to play a Yakuza game. I’ve been telling people for years to try this series, all the while knowing deep down that I was asking the impossible. I mean…jumping into such a lore-heavy franchise at its 4th and 5th entry, hundreds of hours deep into conspiracies and personal…

By Luke Plunkett Published August 1, 2018

ReviewsSwitch

Octopath Traveler: The Kotaku Review

Eight people gather in a tavern, swapping stories and preparing for adventure. It’s not clear why they’re traveling together—there’s a pious cleric and a murderous dancer in this odd crew—but they’ve united nonetheless. As they wander across the world, each of these people gets their turn to take the reins. In one city the hunter…

By Jason Schreier Published July 12, 2018

ReviewsMultiplatform

Hollow Knight: The Kotaku Review

In Hollow Knight, looks can be deceiving. A sad little lamplit town may hide the entrance to a beautiful buried kingdom. A towering knight might turn out to be a sad, small thing in outsized armor. An onrushing green beast may actually be a wee creature disguised by a pile of leaves. And a simple-looking…

By Kirk Hamilton Published July 5, 2018

ReviewsBoard Games

Terraforming Mars: The Kotaku Review

Mars is inhospitable. Let’s change that. Terraforming Mars is not a new game, having been released in 2016, but I still thought it was worth reviewing here in 2018 because a) I just played it and b) it’s so damn good A game for 1-5 players, Terraforming Mars puts players in control of futuristic corporations…

By Luke Plunkett Published June 28, 2018

ReviewsBoard Games

Giant Killer Robots: Heavy Hitters: The Kotaku Review

I’ve played plenty of board games that are better than GKR, but I don’t think I’ve ever played one that’s cooler than GKR Giant Killer Robots: Heavy Hitters is the first board game designed by the guys at WETA, the art and effects house you probably know from stuff like Lord of the Rings, Mad…

By Luke Plunkett Published May 31, 2018