Death's Door Review – Reaping The Rewards

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Acid Nerve

Rating: Everyone 10+

Reviewed on: Xbox One

Also on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Switch, PC

Death is one of the few things we all have in common. We all experience death sooner or later, and that can be terrifying because we don’t truly know what awaits us on the other side. Salvation? Oblivion? Death’s Door offers an amusing interpretation of death by framing it as a boring, day-to-day business run by crows. While some of the crows may not find much enjoyment in their work, playing Death’s Door couldn’t be further from their dull reality. It’s an entertaining and engrossing action-adventure romp that you’d do well to enjoy before your time is up. 

As a young crow and a rookie reaper working for this morbid organization, your task is to retrieve one particularly large soul. Once you do, however, it’s promptly stolen by a mysterious figure. The soul’s recovery is paramount because while the crows are immortal in their home dimension, traveling to the living realm leaves them vulnerable to aging and death, and they can’t return home for good until the job is done. While this recovery mission of why your soul was taken is a good hook on its own, the story quickly expands into a larger, more compelling mystery revolving around figures who have cheated death for ages and the true meaning behind your work.

Relieving bad guys of their souls is a fun, strategic dance of dealing simple close-range combos and rolling to evade, all while chipping away at their health from afar using your bow and ranged spells such as a fireball. When it comes to attacking at a distance, you have a limited number of shots, but ammo refills with every successful melee strike. I love this system as it kept me from leaning on ranged attacks as a crutch and forced me to get my hands dirty. It also rewards that aggression by renewing your chances to back off. Tight controls allow for smoothly dealing attacks after making split-second dodges, and that maneuverability becomes swifter by upgrading your abilities. 

That sense of risk versus reward extends to refilling health. Throughout the environment, you collect flower seeds, and when you plant them in scattered pots, they bloom into permanent health stations. However, you have a limited number of seeds, depending on how thoroughly you explore, so deciding which pots to plant requires serious thought. The choice of healing now or waiting until I visit a pot I’m more likely to frequent gives the design a fun element of risk and improvisation as I’m effectively creating my own safe zones. 

You can mix up combat by finding hidden weapons such as daggers that trade power for slightly speedier combos or a mighty hammer that channels electricity. While these alternatives feel fine in battle, the differences between them and your standard sword are negligible. I happily stuck with the sword for much of my adventure. Thankfully, the same can’t be said for your arsenal of spells, all of which feel useful. A chain hook attaches to foes so you can quickly zip in their face and close the gap. I smiled every time I lobbed a bomb-like fireball and watched it obliterate multiple targets in short order.

Combat encounters are often challenging, especially when an assortment of baddies swarms you, forcing you to use every trick you have to survive. That includes using their own abilities and the environment against them. Many projectiles can be deflected back to the sender or to their buddies. Arenas sometimes contain hazards such as laser turrets or plants that fire mortar-like exploding gas bubbles that, with the right positioning, can easily clear entire mobs. Death’s Door does a great job encouraging players to work smarter and not harder to overcome its occasionally overwhelming combat challenges. 

The handful of major boss battles against beings who have lived far beyond their natural life cycle are fantastic and are my favorite confrontations in the game. These epic bouts pushed me to use my full suite of abilities, and the giant armored frog who gradually destroys your small platform with each hop was a particular standout. The final boss battle, in particular, plays out as a neat amalgamation of every obstacle you faced before, offering an entertaining final exam of everything you’ve learned. In a great touch, enemy bodies accumulate scratches and cracks to indicate damage status, which is way cooler than a plain old health bar. 

Your journey to retrieving your wayward soul involves exploring pretty, visually distinct areas such as seaside docks, an eerie-yet-opulent mansion, and a forest-covered temple. I also like how the living world’s color contrasts with the noir-esque greyscale of your otherworldly headquarters. Areas are littered with enemies, tons of secrets, and hidden paths that lead to goodies such as new weapons, flower seeds, collectibles, and vital souls used to purchase stat upgrades. You can even find hidden bosses that bestow powerful upgrades to your spells. 

Many areas are ability-gated; I’m sure you can connect the dots on what a cracked wall or unlit torch requires. Other environmental puzzles and secrets require more observational skills, such as spotting discreet hedge maze entrances or using a bathroom floor’s reflection to find a concealed door. Death’s Door’s world feels like a living puzzle that I was always chomping at the bit to fully unravel. Plus, some of its coolest mysteries don’t reveal themselves until after the credits roll. 

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Despite their long association with death and the macabre, crows are clever animals known for their funny behavior; the game’s tone sports a similar playfulness. Your quirky co-workers include a typing-obsessed data entry worker elated to generate all of the paperwork your adventure creates. A passionate bard tags along for a period in search of inspiration for a wacky song, the quality of which I’ll leave you to judge. A jovial knight cursed with having a stewpot for a head is bluntly, but hilariously, named Pothead. 

Death’s Door is more lighthearted than it looks, and that’s to its benefit. These amusing moments complement weightier themes about respecting the dead (no matter how terrible they were in life), the fear of death’s inevitability, and whether anything we accomplish truly matters when our time is limited. Death’s Door isn’t the most profoundly written story, but it handles these sensitive topics well. My favorite moments, outside of the moment-to-moment action and exploration, are when it reminds us that death isn’t something to be feared. Rather, it’s just a necessary step in the cycle of life; a cycle that cannot exist without it.

Score: 9

Summary: Death's Door marries fine-tuned hack n' slash action with a cool world ripe with secrets to unravel. The result is an entertaining, densely-packed trip to the other side.

Concept: As a reaper of souls working for an organization of crows, you must recover a stolen soul while unraveling a mystery surrounding figures who’ve lived for centuries

Graphics: The black-and-white headquarters contrasts nicely with a colorful world, and Death’s Door biomes are distinct visual treats

Sound: Pleasant piano melodies and epic boss music perfectly suit the ebb and flow of combat and exploration

Playability: I love the strategic loop of executing melee attacks to refill ranged abilities, and exciting boss fights push an otherwise simple combat system to enjoyable limits

Entertainment: Death’s Door presents a compelling world begging to be explored until every secret is found alongside satisfying combat and intriguing lore

Replay: Moderate

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Inscryption Review – Engraved Secrets

Publisher: Devolver Digital

Developer: Daniel Mullins Games

Rating: Not rated

Reviewed on: PC

You wake up in a dark cabin, chained to a worn table. A mysterious man sits on the other side of the room. You can't see the details of his face through the darkness, but his crazed eyes pierce the shadows. Something under your belly lurches as he invites you to play a card game. The rules seem simple; you summon creatures to attack your opponent's army of foes, and you easily win the first few hands. Still, you can't shake the anxiety of what might happen if – no – when you lose. You play on, the eyes on the other side of the table slowly burning a hole in your stomach.

Inscryption is an incredible tone piece that taps into horror themes while telling an engaging and ever-evolving mystery. While those horror elements are important to the narrative, they are also just a backdrop to this adventure. I loved Inscryption’s moody atmosphere, but I also appreciate that it doesn't force any jump scares on the player, making it a fairly approachable horror experience.

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At the center of the adventure is a robust card combat system that has you summoning creatures into lanes on a battlefield. Your creatures deal damage to the critters on the opposite side of their lanes and, ultimately, directly to your opponent. The basic setup should be familiar to fans of games like Hearthstone and Magic: The Gathering, but Inscryption puts several fun twists on the formula that kept me coming back for more. For starters, some creatures require a sacrifice to enter battle. This means that when you want to summon a powerful creature like a bear, you'll have to kill several beasts that you already put on the field. I liked the push/pull of trying to get your strongest creatures into the fray without thinning your ranks too much.

Inscryption's deck-building system is also much deeper than it first appears. For example, some creatures can be summoned into battle only if you have a certain number of bones acquired through fallen allies. This allowed me to turn my defeats into victories; even if all my creatures were wiped from the board, I often felt like I had an ace up my sleeve or could tap into another strategy to turn the tide in my favor.

As you continue to take down opponents, you move along a gameboard and encounter random events à la titles like Slay The Spire. Some encounters give you new cards, buff existing cards, or grant additional tools to use in combat, such as a fan that allows your creatures to fly over their opponent's heads. You also have the chance to affix sigils to your cards that offer unique powers, such as the ability to transform into stronger creatures over time or attack multiple lanes at once. These elements give Inscryption's card system a unique flavor, and I loved experimenting with my deck to find new card synergies or create brand new cards that almost felt overpowered.

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Between card battles, you can stand up from the table and explore your cabin. This space is full of locked drawers and other puzzle boxes. Solving these adventure-game-like mysteries earns you new cards and brings you one step closer to unraveling Inscryption's larger mysteries. You eventually reach some startling revelations about who you are and why you're trapped in this cabin, but the less I say about those revelations the better. However, Inscryption successfully flipped my expectations multiple times before the journey was over, and I couldn't wait to see its satisfying narrative conclusion.

Inscryption is an oddity of the best order. It's a horror game that isn't aggressively trying to scare you. It's also a clever card system wrapped around a compelling mystery that plays with video game conventions. Like a bat out of hell, Inscryption came out of nowhere and quickly became one of my favorite games of the year.

Score: 9

Summary: A horror-themed deck-building experience that evolves in unexpected ways the more you play.

Concept: A horror-themed deck-building experience that evolves in unexpected ways the more you play

Graphics: Inscryption's low-fi art style and dark atmosphere sends chills up your spine

Sound: A moody soundtrack helps sell the horror theme, but it's subtle and largely unmemorable

Playability: The card system has clearly defined rules, so playing cards is simple. Building an overpowered deck is highly rewarding

Entertainment: The card combat is engaging, and the larger narrative elements make Inscryption incredibly hard to put down

Replay: Moderately High

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Battlefield 2042 Review

Publisher: Electronic Arts

Developer: DICE

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Battlefield has always been the largest and loudest multiplayer experience in the business. It’s the video game equivalent of Texas, and its bombast cannot be overstated. Battlefield 2042 offers a variety of ways to participate in simulated near-future warfare. Whether you prefer to fight via land or sky, you can experience dizzying on-screen explosions, tense firefights, and more vehicles than teammates who know how to drive them. Unfortunately, Battlefield 2042 is full of almost as many bugs as bad pilots, dragging down an otherwise solid online shooter.

If nothing else, Battlefield 2042 is familiar. It continues the series’ trend in delivering multiplayer maps with the largest player count possible and a range of reliable character archetypes that have become standard in first-person shooters. The newest addition to Battlefield’s long-standing formula is a weather system that lets you ride lethal tornados alongside the vehicles and debris they pick up on their route across the map. These storms are a neat touch and add a sense of panic to already-tense battles, but their inclusion feels inconsequential in the grand scheme. The 128-player matches and large maps guarantee dramatic moments, but there’s a thin line separating spectacle and chaos, and 2042 often devolves into the latter.

There’s never been a Battlefield game released without Conquest, the signature mode which tasks two opposing teams to capture and defend objective zones across the map. Each side has a limited number of reinforcements that slowly drain according to how many sectors the team controls. The popular format is alive and well in 2042, but unfortunately, it’s my least favorite way to play. For the first time, Battlefield hosts too many players in each match. Without the presence of Commanders to take charge of assaults, Conquest feels disorganized and incoherent at times since there’s no good way for all 64 players on each team to communicate and focus their attacks. Also, respawns frequently place you in the middle of a contested area only to be immediately killed by an enemy from somewhere off-screen.

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Even if the larger picture is occasionally blurred, the moment-to-moment gameplay loop is fun. Gunplay is solid even though hits don’t always seem to register when they should, and the wide array of vehicles are equally entertaining to pilot when running on foot becomes tiresome. I was disappointed by the lack of naval warfare, which is notable considering its importance in the series and the fact that several maps are surrounded by large bodies of water.

Breakthrough is the second mode in the game’s multiplayer suite, and it provides more focused engagements by separating maps into multiple segments, each containing two Control Points. If the attacking team successfully captures all of the objectives in a zone, they can force the defending team to retreat to the next area. While Breakthrough still suffers from an inflated player count, it is undoubtedly the best path to participating in a traditional Battlefield experience.

Hazard Zone, a brand new multiplayer format introduced in 2042, pits eight squads of four against one another and tasks them with retrieving data drives located in satellite crash sites scattered across the map. Each location is guarded by opposing AI forces that attack your team on sight. Hazard Zone has no respawning unless your teammates have a Redeploy Uplink. The only way to win these matches is to extract in a highly-contested Helicarrier, which only visits the map twice throughout the game. If you miss the flight or die before making it onboard, it’s game over, and you lose the credits you spent in the pre-match munitions shop. However, if you successfully extract, you’re rewarded with Dark Market Credits, a meta currency that persists between games, which you can spend to purchase better gear before your next match. Hazard Zone is tense and strategic, and the white-knuckle firefights at the end of each game make it my favorite way to play Battlefield 2042.

Another new addition to the series is Battlefield Portal, a community-driven platform that players can use to make custom games or play others’ weird creations. For example, there’s a free-for-all rockets-only mode in which the only way to reload your launcher is to jump five times. Watching rockets fly across the screen in such a ridiculous scenario is hilarious, but like most of the games in Portal, the fun fades after a match or two.

In theory, Portal is an opportunity for players to create inventive spins on Battlefield, especially since the Battlefield Builder is easy to grasp and is accessible via a web browser. Portal lets you customize the game mode, map rotation, arsenal restrictions, and you can program advanced rulesets with visual scripting in the Logic Editor; however, the latter is less approachable to beginners. As a fan of past creative suites like Halo Forge and Fortnite Creative, I’m not compelled to interact with Portal’s tools since they’re designed for modifying existing game settings and don’t allow you to design your own original levels. 

Portal also includes remastered versions of classic maps, and you can augment their rulesets or play them in their original form in a developer-featured playlist. I love this inclusion and am very happy to have a convenient way to return to beloved locations like Valparaiso, Caspian Border, or the Battle of The Bulge. These are effectively remastered versions of the series’ best maps, and I’m interested to see which ones DICE adds next.

Whether you’re grappling above the competition like Spider-Man, flying through a deadly tornado with a wingsuit, or sniping enemies from behind mobile barricades, each Battlefield specialist offers a unique way to participate in the battle. The title launched with ten specialists, and each of them falls into one of four classes: Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon. You can fine-tune these characters in myriad ways (including being able to use any weapon). Still, my favorite customization feature is the option to swap weapon attachments mid-fight without needing to respawn. My go-to sniper lens is the 6X scope, but I found it convenient to switch to a different optic on the fly with the press of a button. This new feature vastly improves the multiplayer experience and should be adopted by other first-person shooters.

Battlefield 2042 includes seven maps at launch. Hourglass features an isolated city reclaimed by the neighboring desert, Discarded hosts colossal shipyards along India’s western coasts, and Breakaway is nestled amidst the icy mountains of Antarctica. The other maps – Manifest, Kaleidoscope, Orbital, and Renewal – are standard fare but still feature landscapes worth exploring. Every map is affected by violent weather systems that are exciting to navigate, but I wish more maps hosted unique elements like Orbital’s rocket launch and Breakaway’s explosive silos that permanently augment the map mid-match. Regardless, there aren’t any bad maps, and I enjoy playing on each of them.

Unfortunately, Battlefield 2042 currently feels underbaked due to an abundance of bugs. While most bugs I encountered are minor, each one dilutes the fun I have when playing. For example, the grappling hook’s zipline clipping through the front of the device during its animation or not being able to call in air support on a map like Hourglass because of an issue with the sand’s navmesh. More serious glitches can negatively affect gameplay, like when sniper scopes lose their magnification after interacting with gadgets like Irish’s mobile barricades. While playing on PC, the game also hard crashed to my desktop once during a week spent playing the game. One of my friends wasn’t as lucky and experienced several crashes in one of our play sessions. These crashes left me especially disadvantaged in Hazard Zone. 

Don’t get me wrong: Battlefield 2042 is playable, packed with content, and often really fun. The title’s seven maps are distinct from one another, its bevy of customization options make it easy to play how you want, and I love the extreme weather systems and the quick-equip weapon feature. Portal hasn’t reached its full potential, but it introduces a convenient way to access six beloved experiences from Battlefield 3, Battlefield 1942, and Bad Company 2. Battlefield 2042 is an easy recommendation for existing fans or players looking for a modern war game, but I struggle to fully endorse it due to its current lack of polish. As long as DICE continues to publish hotfixes and patches as they have, Battlefield 2042 could eventually become a go-to online shooter, but it’s a shame it was released like this.

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Battlefield 2042 was reviewed on PC with a code provided by the publisher for review purposes.

Score: 7

Summary: An otherwise solid online shooter bogged down by an abundance of bugs.

Concept: Battle for objectives across large-scale maps via land, sky, and in the middle of tornados

Graphics: The visuals are sacrificed in modes with larger player counts, but environments are rendered beautifully in smaller modes like Hazard Zone

Sound: Deep bass, large drums, and guttural synths comprise a familiar but compelling modern combat soundscape

Playability: Myriad customization options and approachable combat make for a varied first-person shooter

Entertainment: Each weapon has a unique feel that is fun to master and contested objectives always keep you busy

Replay: Moderately High

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Pokémon Brilliant Diamond And Shining Pearl Review – Refurbished Gems

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Publisher: The Pokémon Company

Developer: Ilca, Game Freak

Rating: Everyone

Reviewed on: Switch

Originally released in 2006, Pokémon Diamond and Pearl ushered in a new generation of Pokémon games onto the Nintendo DS. With the themes of evolution and creation woven throughout the story, the upgraded designs of the new Pokémon found throughout the Sinnoh region, as well as newly discovered evolutionary lines of fan-favorite monsters, these games felt like a notable step forward for the franchise. In remaking these classics new Pokémon developer ILCA proves it can handle recreating the crucial tenants of the franchise.

For the most part, Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl are “faithful remakes” – as The Pokémon Company likes to call them – of their namesake DS games. The skeleton is there, with the same towns, routes, trainers, and Pokédex of monsters found throughout the adventure. You still start from humble beginnings in Twinleaf Town, where starry-eyed trainers receive a Pokédex from Professor Rowan and their choice of starter Pokémon. From there, you meet your friends and rivals, Dawn and Barry, and set off along your journey to conquer eight Gyms and become champion of the region. You’ll also uncover Team Galactic’s plans to harness the energy of evolution and the legendary creation duo of Dialga or Palkia. Nothing in the story is new or surprising, but I found that acceptable – and preferable – after being away from Sinnoh for over a decade.

ILCA opted to recreate the DS games’ chibi characters in 3D and keep the world’s top-down perspective, which accentuates the feeling of these remakes remaining faithful to the source material. This is a deviation from how previous remakes have modernized their graphical styles and feature sets. That’s not to say the visuals look dated. New graphical enhancements to lighting, shadows, and water look great. The abundance of reflections on surfaces throughout the world and especially during Pokémon battles is also impressive. Unlike characters in the overworld, fights utilize full-size Pokémon and trainer models with unique environments determined by your location in the world. These scenes look great and are mostly free of framerate drops or the slowdown that plagues other 3D entries in the series.

Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl deviate from the mechanical blueprint, with varying degrees of success. Newer innovations like autosave or the ability to view the strength and weaknesses of moves in battle are great additions, which I always like to see.  Pokémon also no longer need to be taught HMs to utilize moves like Rock Smash or Cut to navigate puzzles or obstacles in the world, something that would have taken up a move slots in the original titles. EXP Share is, on its face, a great way to cut down on unnecessary grinding to ensure your lesser-used Pokémon are battle-ready. However, the developers haven’t taken any measures to balance this feature, and there isn’t a way to turn EXP Share off. As a result, my teams felt over-leveled as the game progressed, making big matches against Team Galactic or any of the Gym leaders feel easy and insignificant. I steamrolled through challengers on the surface of Sinnoh and had to find more formidable foes elsewhere.

My favorite place to explore has been the Grand Underground, a massive subterranean cave system lying beneath the surface of Sinnoh. I mean it, this place is enormous and spans just about the size of the main map. Here you dig for countless gems, fossils, and statues in the walls and Hideaways. These Hideaways are larger areas found within the Grand Underground, complete with biomes and higher-leveled Pokémon you wouldn’t normally find above ground, many of which aren’t a part of the standard Sinnoh Pokédex. I found the challenge I craved above ground in these Hideaways as I captured new, exotic creatures to diversify my team. Players can create Secret Bases by digging customizable rooms in the cavern wall. Placing special Pokémon statues inside these rooms altered which monsters I found within the Hideaways. Those looking to catch ‘em all should spend a lot of time in the Grand Underground, excavating precious items and tweaking statue combinations to fill out the Pokédex.

Other activities include the Pokémon pageants called Super Contest Shows, which I liked more than I thought I would. You’ll wow judges with a simple rhythm game and unleash a pre-chosen attack at the perfect moment to score points. I also loved customizing my Pokéballs with the Ball Capsule system. With an expanded system from Diamond and Pearl, you can slap various stickers on the capsules to create unique animations and earn extra points when tossing a Pokémon into these Super Contest Shows. Stickers add cool flames, bubbles, sparks, or musical notes to give an extra bit of flash and flourish, granting a level of personalization absent in the DS games. Even better, your Ball Capsule animations show up in battle but won’t affect how fights play out in any way.

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While Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl don’t move the needle in terms of what Pokémon games will look and play like moving forward, they mostly hit the mark in being faithful to the originals. I’ve really enjoyed my time re-exploring Sinnoh, despite my qualms with the lack of critical path difficulty. They’re a welcome throwback to a simpler time when I felt completing a Pokédex was a somewhat realistic task to undertake. Veteran trainers will find plenty here to scratch a nostalgic itch, and new trainers who missed out the first time around have a solid adventure to embark on.

Pokémon Brilliant Diamond and Shining Pearl have online features which were not accessible during our time playing the game for review. These features allow players to trade, battle, compete in Super Contest Shows and gather in the Grand Underground with other trainers over the internet. Our review currently does not reflect any online functionality and may be updated if the multiplayer modes significantly add or detract from the experience.

Score: 8.5

Summary: Pokemon's debut DS games have been remade on Switch with welcomed quality of life changes while staying close to the vision of the originals.

Concept: Pokémon’s fourth-generation games, Diamond and Pearl, are recreated with new visuals and modern conveniences while retaining the core story and world of the originals

Graphics: Pokémon, trainers, and environments in head-to-head conflicts look great, using detailed models you’d expect from a modern Pokémon game

Sound: The remastered and rearranged soundtrack is as catchy as ever. Minor additions and changes to the sounds and cries Pokémon make are also neat touches

Playability: EXP Share makes the main-line fights a tad too easy over time, but other quality of life changes like constant access to Pokémon storage boxes and adjustments to the HM system are welcome improvements

Entertainment: Catching, training, and trading Pokémon remains a blast, and Sinnoh is a great region to explore

Replay: Moderately High

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Moncage Review – Think Outside The Box

Publisher: XD Inc.

Developer: Optillusion

Rating: 4+

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: iOS, Android

In a dim, empty room, on a small table, lies a cube. Moncage dumps players right into the action with a few quick notes on how to manipulate this multi-faceted object. It tasks you with connecting similar objects found on the box’s different planes by spinning the cube and looking at things from unique perspectives. At first, the challenge seems simple. However, as the game progresses, puzzles grow more sophisticated, and the seemingly unconnected scenes reflected on the cube’s sides begin to weave into a narrative. I only wish that narrative had more substance.

Each side of Moncage’s six-sided cube displays a distinct vignette – like a window into various environments. Objects in one scene align with objects from another if the player rotates the cube to the right perspective. My first goal in Moncage is to open a suitcase displayed on one side. Inside is a teddy bear, toy truck, and various child’s playthings. The minimalistic aesthetic presents the shape of each object, but not the fine details, which sets a dreamlike tone that compliments the surreal gameplay. The simplistic appearance is also crucial in allowing the optical illusions players need to piece things together and progress through the experience.

With nothing left to do in the first panel, I rotate the box to the left, finding a broken dump truck stalled in front of a factory. Since the trucks in both panels have the same coloring and lines, I twist the cube so that the front half of the child’s toy in the first scene lines up with the vehicle’s back half on the other side of the cube. That does the trick, and the newly fixed truck moves down the road.

Even though this initial solution isn’t difficult, it leaves me feeling accomplished. Moncage replicates this feeling over and over again in new and imaginative ways, making it a really rewarding puzzle game. For instance, in my favorite section, I have to move from one side of the cube to the next, quickly matching up bits of benches, water containers, tanks, and more into a Rube Goldberg machine to allow a tiny object to roll through every vignette without stopping. Stringing this all together and getting the timing correct was gratifying in a vein similar to beating a giant boss from an action game.

However, some answers are not apparent. Like many puzzle games, overlooking some small detail occasionally left me beating my head against the wall. For example, in one level, I could tell a radio antenna fit perfectly with an electrical post, but I didn’t realize for some time that I had to light up one scene for the objects to be the same color before they could match up. Thankfully, there's a creative, effective, and robust hint system. At any point during the game, you can hit a button to make important objects glow. The guidance is subtle and feels more like a nudge in the right direction than a direct line to the solution. If that isn’t enough, the next hints offer written clues, and once you burn through those, the game offers a short video clip showing the puzzle’s solution. This was very helpful in situations where I had the right idea but wasn't precise enough to register the solution. I find this hint system really appealing. It effectively combats the frustrations of typical puzzle games but doesn’t make asking for help feel like defeat.

As I make my way through the game, I find that what had, at first, seemed like random, unrelated tableaus, were actually bits and pieces taken from a bigger, overarching story. Typically, this kind of storytelling fascinates me, but Moncage’s narrative didn’t capture my attention. Overall, the story is too nebulous to be impactful. It doesn't help that much of the narrative is told through photographs carefully hidden throughout the game, meaning players can easily miss significant plot elements. There are undoubtedly evocative moments – several pictures are dedicated to the subject’s wartime experiences, both good and bad. One image, for example, captures a fun outing to the fair seemingly marred by the veteran’s traumatic reaction to fireworks. There are also some interesting moments when the pictures allow me to understand something new about a location I visited as part of an earlier puzzle, especially at the end. However, I walked away from the game wishing I knew a little more about the underlining story and didn’t have to piece together the ambiguous events myself.

Moncage is an intelligent puzzle game, and its perspective-based riddles stretched my imagination as each scene flowed beautifully into the next. The narrative could have hit harder, and it sometimes felt like I had to align things perfectly for the game to accept the correct answer, but Optillusion’s title is a challenge worth picking up.

Score: 7.5

Summary: Though its narrative could have hit harder, Moncage is an intelligent puzzle game.

Concept: Solve puzzles by rotating and connecting images on a cube and discover how each scene connects to an unfolding story

Graphics: The imagery serves both an aesthetic and practical purpose; environmental objects act like puzzle pieces, but their design also highlight’s Moncage’s surreal nature

Sound: The audio design is subtle and unobtrusive, but each scene has its own pleasing soundscape

Playability: With only a few mechanics, Moncage is easy to start. However, overcoming the increasingly challenging puzzles is anything but straightforward

Entertainment: Solutions are often clever and make the player feel smart, even if they call on the robust hint system for guidance. In a delightful surprise, the unfolding narrative connects to the seemingly random puzzles, though the story could be more impactful

Replay: Moderately High

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Shin Megami Tensei V Review – Beauty In An Unforgiving World

Publisher: Sega

Developer: Atlus

Reviewed on: Switch

The Shin Megami series has always reflected the darkness and cruelty of the world we live in, offering a reminder that the odds are often stacked against us, and unfair circumstances can cause great loss. But it also captures the beauty of rising up against those daunting challenges to stand tall – even when things seem impossible, we somehow persevere. That’s what makes the Shin Megami Tensei franchise shine, but the road to these victorious highs is filled with demoralizing lows. Voluntarily putting your energy into something that requires extra fortitude, commitment, and patience may not seem that appetizing at first glance, but no game has made me feel the rush of victory and satisfaction of testing my skill quite like Shin Megami Tensei V. 

SMT V sticks close to the franchise’s roots, meaning if you’ve played any entry in the series, you know what to expect: confronting a world in ruin, taking on extremely challenging bosses, and feeling the rush of getting more powerful by recruiting demons to fight at your side. Shin Megami Tensei V is content giving fans more of the same while making a few improvements along the way, mainly in the scope of the world and customization available for your protagonist and demons’ skill sets. These are worthwhile enhancements, and the core formula remains wildly entertaining, but I’m disappointed that Atlus didn’t take more risks and shore up more of the series’ weaknesses, such as confusing map layouts, archaic save points, and maddening difficulty spikes. 

Even with these frustrations, the stellar gameplay and progression loop kept me engaged. The turn-based combat is at its best in SMT V, and it’s reminiscent of III’s Press-Turn system. It requires a lot of thought to optimize your turns, which comes down to a mix of buffs/debuffs and exploiting elemental weaknesses. Watching your bonus actions pile up each turn by landing critical strikes or hitting an enemy’s weaknesses is a delight. Special “Magatsuhi skills,” which can be used once you fill a gauge by doing things like blocking or landing attacks, only add to the fun. These special skills drastically change the tide of battle, doing everything from refilling your party’s MP to guaranteeing critical strikes. I experimented more than I ever have with finding complementary skills to increase damage, and I loved coming up with new tactics based on my demons’ powers. 

SMT V is a challenging game. At times, you will likely die and ultimately lose progress. I relished the tension of trying to stay one step ahead of the enemy and improving at every turn. A lot of your success hinges on demon recruitment and creating an ideal party for each area. Demon negotiation, which has you selecting dialogue options and presenting gifts to sway enemies to your side, is a guessing game at times, as demons can be fickle and unpredictable, and I found it hard to anticipate their desired responses. You can eventually unlock a skill that gives you a second chance if you fail, but the moon phase also alters their behavior and likelihood to join you. For instance, a full moon may be too bright for them, so they won’t negotiate. Other times, a new moon offers the chance to give them less money or items to join my side, or they may join on the spot, unprompted. Getting demons felt less like a hassle than in previous entries due to these additions. 

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Demon fusion, which allows you to combine the demons you recruit for better ones, is extremely satisfying. I love besting my last creation and deciding which skills to pass on to them. Atlus added more customization here, with a new feature called essences. Once you gain a demon’s essence, you can transfer its skills to other demons or your protagonist. The latter can also gain a demon’s affinities. For example, if you find a demon’s essence that blocks or reflects multiple elements, your main character can inherit those for the upper hand in battle. It seems like a small thing, but it can make a big difference in difficult fights. I also enjoyed how it allowed me to pass on skills to newly-recruited demons who only had a few abilities.

The demon fusion system is what makes the grinding tolerable, as there’s great reward for leveling up in battle. Whether your demons are gaining powerful abilities or your main character opens up new fusion options, I enjoyed the thrill of reaching these milestones. However, this doesn’t excuse SMT V’s nasty difficulty spikes toward the end of the game, and I felt forced to put my progress on hold just to grind. But there is something to be said about the satisfaction of coming back stronger. What SMT V does really well is provide satisfaction when you fuse a highly powerful demon that just crushes a boss. However, in the next big battle, they may be utterly useless. You can never depend on one demon and must constantly fuse to get the best, most balanced party possible. 

Another area that impressed me was the expanded exploration, with a newfound verticality to the world that has you platforming your way to discoveries. I was compelled to scour every inch of each area and found worthwhile rewards for doing so, such as statues that raise all your demons’ levels and special bosses/quests. In addition, hidden throughout the world in hard-to-reach places are creatures called Miman. Collecting these little fellows grants you some of the best items in the game for improving your party. I just wish the areas you explored were more visually impressive and easier to navigate. I often felt like I was searching for a needle in a haystack to find a well-hidden path. The game has a few short dungeons, but they’re hit-or-miss. I hated one that required you to use fans to blow your character to certain ledges as a missed ledge meant starting from the beginning, but I enjoyed a later dungeon that had you figuring out a path by stopping time and entering doors in the right order.

The narrative is another area begging for improvement. I love the compelling subject matter of SMT games, as they present philosophical conundrums about the world, but the execution often feels haphazard. Shin Megami Tensei V is no different. You play as a modern-day student who gets transported to an alternative apocalyptic version of Tokyo called “Da’at” after an earthquake. From here, you earn special powers to survive in this dangerous landscape and learn that not only is the future of Tokyo in jeopardy, but there’s a war waging between the angels and demons. 

It could be the end of the world as you know it, and like past SMT games, the power is in your hands to save it and also decide how it should function going forward. Do you maintain the status quo, shake up the current structures in place, or tear it all down to create a superior society? These are interesting questions, but the game presents them in such a humdrum way, with sparse, cryptic exposition and painfully slow pacing. Characters represent different philosophies, spanning law and chaos alignments, on how you reshape the world, but they don’t offer much explanation or reasoning. In fact, by the time I got to this big decision, I didn’t feel like I had a compelling choice to make. Everything in the game leads to this pivotal moment, and I felt like I was blindly throwing a dart at a board when selecting my answer. At the very least, the path I selected had some interesting revelations. I like how SMT V never wavers from its dark tone and tries to be more succinct, but for all you go through in besting the highly formidable bosses, more rewarding scenes would go a long way. 

If one thing can be said for SMT V, it’s that it demands the player give their best at all times. There is no sleepwalking or blindly spamming attacks through battles; you must think through every move and constantly weigh risk versus reward. For someone who plays a lot of RPGs, this is a refreshing challenge, but it is also exhausting. Still, I can’t deny the feeling that washed over me as I saw the credits roll, especially after taking on a seemingly endless spawn of bosses to get there. I felt on top of the world, like I had earned the right to define it; I wish making the actual choice was a little more satisfying. Still, Shin Megami Tensei V makes smart improvements to its already strong core, creating an entertaining and rewarding journey I won’t soon forget. 
 

Score: 8.25

Summary: Shin Megami Tensei V makes smart improvements to its already strong core, creating an entertaining and rewarding journey.

Concept: Recruit demons and gods to withstand great challenges and save Tokyo from ruin

Graphics: The striking demon designs look the best they ever have, oozing with creativity. The bigger backdrops and added verticality are welcome additions but aren’t that impressive to explore

Sound: Minimal voice acting gets the job done, but the music often feels repetitive. That being said, the different demon noises add great tension, keeping you on high alert

Playability: Multiple difficulty levels make the journey more approachable, but the game doesn’t onboard new players well. The mechanics seem simple on the surface, but have a lot of intricacies to master

Entertainment: Shin Megami Tensei V enhances its formula with expansive areas and more ability customization. The result is a mostly entertaining ride, albeit with a few bumps along the way

Replay: Moderate

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Bright Memory: Infinite Review – Finite To A Fault

Publisher: Playism

Developer: FYQD Studio

Rating: Mature

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: PlayStation 5

Bright Memory: Infinite feels like an interactive cheesy sci-fi action movie, for better or worse. It boasts incredible – and wonderfully improbable – action sequences propelled by a story that barely qualifies as narrative. Infinite even has a run time that is comparable to some films. Unfortunately, Bright Memory: Infinite burns out before it fades away, peaking early and showing great promise before concluding sooner than expected.

Bright Memory doesn’t have a story as much as it has a series of events that just happen. You’re Shelia Tan, an emotionally wooden but capable soldier specializing in supernatural phenomena. A black hole appears in the sky, consuming anything within range and causing catastrophic weather. This void is somehow connected to an ancient mystery in which an ostensibly evil organization – led by the blandest villain in years – has a vested interest. Your goal is to stop these guys and figure out what the heck is happening. When you’re not tangling with high-tech soldiers, you’re battling centuries-old warriors and otherworldly demons for reasons that are not adequately explained. The plot barely tries to make sense of its events, only telling you enemies are bad and must be shot and/or stabbed in the face. Even after telling my brain that its services weren’t required for this story, I was still floored by its horribly abrupt ending. Just when it seems like the second half is kicking off, the story pulls the plug with hardly any resolution. This whiplash is jarring, and I’m still shaking my head in disbelief.

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I care less about the story wrapping up quickly and more disappointed that I couldn’t play more of the game itself. Playing Bright Memory: Infinite is thrilling thanks to its silky smooth, fast-paced combination of sword and gunplay. Slicing apart foes with Shelia’s sword feels incredibly satisfying. So does a parry that deflects bullets and stuns foes, allowing you to launch and air-juggle them Devil May Cry-style. Even better is an upgrade that fires energy beams with each swing, essentially turning the sword into another long-range weapon. The four firearms – an assault rifle, shotgun, handgun, and sniper rifle – feel good in their own right, and each has a fun alternate firing mode, some of which are delightfully silly. I’m not sure why a sniper rifle would also fire a sticky grenade, but I loved using it to blow apart multiple targets.

Shelia’s Exo Arm offers another fun tool, letting you manipulate gravity to pull enemies toward you, then blow them apart with an EMP blast. This is great for dealing with distant threats and becomes practically broken (in a good way) once fully upgraded. Thanks to a very generous cooldown, I constantly plucked foes from the other side of the map, with little consequence at times. Odds are you’ll obtain this power and others much sooner than later. The game showers players in collectible upgrade points easily found across the linear environments. I fully upgraded half of the available abilities within the first 90 minutes. Parkour-style traversal and a grappling hook make exploration enjoyable, but the platforming challenges themselves are basic and don’t take full advantage of your maneuverability.

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As entertaining as Bright Memory: Infinite is, the action peaks early. Expect to confront limited combinations of the small batch of enemy types during the roughly two-and-a-half-hour adventure (you read that right). Some battles unfold within a temple courtyard, others atop passenger airplanes careening into the black hole. No matter the ridiculous backdrop, confrontations eventually plateau since enemy encounters don’t get enough time to evolve. In turn, neither did my approach after a while, which is a shame. I loved mixing up my abilities in awesome ways but eventually settled into a familiar rhythm, though the entertaining boss fights against equally capable swordsmen or a mythical colossus provided the challenge I desired. Bright Memory: Infinite ended just as I’d gained a firm grasp on my basic capabilities; a disappointing payoff to its enjoyable learning curve. 

In many ways, Bright Memory: Infinite feels like an extended tech demo. The jaw-dropping action and stellar graphics would serve as a great selling point for any new platform and almost appear too good to be true. Developer FYQD Studio proved some killer concepts but didn’t evolve them across a more complete adventure. Short games aren’t inherently bad, but Bright Memory: Infinite leaves me wanting so much more and is full of unrealized potential.

Score: 7

Summary: Bright Memory: Infinite boasts dazzling and entertaining combat but its full potential goes unrealized thanks to a largely flat design and an insultingly brief runtime.

Concept: When a black hole appears on Earth, you must discover its origin while stopping an evil military force from reaping the rewards of its power

Graphics: In terms of pure graphical fidelity, Bright Memory: Infinite is gorgeous. The art direction is largely generic but has enough creative flourishes around the edges to make it interesting

Sound: A satisfying “shing!” sound effect accompanies parries, but you can play this game on mute and miss absolutely nothing

Playability: The well-crafted blend of solid gunplay, stylish sword attacks, and powerful support abilities make you feel like an overpowered ass-kicker. A fast tempo means little downtime between skirmishes

Entertainment: Bright Memory: Infinite is a stupidly written good time spoiled by a way-too-brief runtime and insultingly abrupt ending

Replay: Low

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Riders Republic Review – A Missed Opportunity

Publisher: Ubisoft

Developer: Ubisoft Annecy

Rating: Teen

Reviewed on: PlayStation 5

Also on: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Stadia, PC

I have never hated a game that I also find immensely fun, but somehow Riders Republic pulled this off. Ubisoft's open-world action sports game begins with a promising premise: you, a voiceless action sports aficionado, arrive at Riders Ridge, a mecca for shredders everywhere. Somehow, against all laws of national parks and state regulations, multiple states' worth of national parks –  including Mammoth and Yosemite – have been reappropriated by the action sports industry for the explicit purpose of hauling ass. 

Rider's Republic's map looks about as great as any other Ubisoft open world – which is to say it's visually easy on the eyes, but without much meaningful or interesting depth. Giant mountains and deep valleys consume the map, giving the entire game a great sense of varying verticality.  Multiple biomes – forest, desert, snowy, et cetera – do a decent job of adding visual variety as you go back and forth between objectives. 

And, you go back and forth a lot. While Rider's Republic offers a bunch of collectibles throughout its map – such as discovering landmarks or popping balloons (... for some reason?) –  the world isn't all that engaging. I rarely felt the need to go off the beaten path, because my curiosity was never rewarded with anything other than menial collectibles – ways to cross off never-ending boxes on various checklists. After a while, I grew bored going from place to place and started fast-traveling to save time. Riders Republic's map is really big, so going from one end to the other for a race can take 10-plus minutes. Since that journey is always boring, I felt it was best skipped. This beautiful world was just set dressing rather than something I wanted to engage with. 

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Whether I was in time trials or in its 64-person mass races, barreling down the open-world's numerous roads and pathways at breakneck speeds, sometimes down what feels like a 90-degree decline, captures a sense of speed that few games have. Every time I blazed through a race, I felt I was barely in control, that one wrong move would send me to disaster, and it was thrilling. This was especially true of wingsuit and rocketsuit races, where you navigate through the air trying to get through checkpoints. During these intense races, you fly up and down at wildly different altitudes, creating constant near-misses and collisions with the ground and mountains around you. I loved taking on the races in the game, testing my skills as Riders Republic slowly increased the challenge. Coming in first place always felt great.  

I also enjoyed the races that mix Riders Republic's various action sports together. Many long races force you to alternate between your bikes, snowboards, wingsuits, and rocketsuits on the fly, testing your skill and punishing every mistake. As I got better at the game, these races pushed my understanding of Riders' mechanics in constantly satisfying ways. I always jumped at the opportunity to do a new multi-sport race when it unlocked. 

Trick challenge races, where you try to rack up a score of points by completing aerial maneuvers, aren’t nearly as engaging. Pulling off these tricks doesn't feel rewarding and you're not incentivized to master complex maneuvers because you can get by simply performing the same basic tricks over and over again. I often button-mashed my way through these races, so I rarely knew what trick I was going to pull off when hitting a ramp. Trick challenge races failed to test my knowledge or skills with the trick systems, leading me to largely ignore the system. Especially considering the number of these various trick races there are in Riders Republic – dozens or more for each sport – this eventually became a repetitive slog when I'd run out the more standard race events to play. 

After nearly every race, you gain some new bike or vehicle. With this constant stream of new equipment, I never grew attached to any one piece of gear. As such, I wasn’t compelled to search through my gear. I just picked the one with the biggest number and went about my day. These are small complaints in the grand scheme of things, but in a game as long as Riders Republic these little issues wore on me. 

Riders Republic’s biggest issue is how it betrays everything good about the gameplay with non-stop obnoxiousness. This game is desperate to make you think it's cool. At all times, it bombards you with its endlessly long script, full of unbelievably annoying characters, spouting a neverending slew of irritating jokes and one-liners. A few choice standouts include, "You're working these events like a pork rib! Nummies," and you're breaking out "a whole new level of steeze," repeated constantly in unskippable dialogue prompts that play every time you scroll over a certain part of the game's map or traverse the world. These lines aren’t cool the first time; they’re unbearably insufferable after a dozen times. 

The soundtrack has the same problem, which unbelievably features a cover of Coolio's song "Gangsta's Paradise," softly performed by Les Ukulélés Girls, featuring the artist Zita. This is truly one of the worst songs I have ever heard. Sprinkle choice cuts from Green Day's latest record, "Black and Yellow" by Wiz Khalifa, and you have a soundtrack completely out of touch with music popular today. The soundtrack is such a big sticking point for me because Riders shoves it down your throat. There is an in-game radio with different genres and stations, but once you enter the race, the game has a predetermined soundtrack. Play a dozen races and there's a really good chance you're going to listen to the same three songs a dozen times. 

Rider's Republic offers an experience that, while fun and exhilarating, gets under my skin in ways no other game has. It does one or two things that I think are great, but that doesn't outweigh the things I can't stand. In the end, Riders Republic dies by a million cuts. I can only hear the same song or dialogue so many times before it stops being annoying and becomes infuriating. Riders Republic is a missed opportunity at a unique and fun action sports game – a genre I grew up on that I sorely miss. It's a game I don't see myself returning to anytime soon. 

Score: 6.75

Summary: Even though I liked the racing in Riders Republic, overall, I can't say I enjoyed my time with it. It's a missed opportunity of a game, focusing on all the wrong things, making for an experience worth skipping.

Concept: Race on bikes, snowboards, wingsuits, and more in a massive open world that amalgamates a handful of the United States' national parks

Graphics: The world is beautiful and its sheer sense of scale is impressive, even if its largely boring. The character models look bland

Sound: The game's licensed soundtrack is one of the most grating elements of Riders Republic. There are four songs by The Offspring in this game, showing a clear lack of variety or creativity in song choice

Playability: Racing is the true highlight in Riders Republic – and it's where the game absolutely excels. Barreling at breakneck speeds down a mountain captures a terrifying sense of speed in a way no other game has

Entertainment: Riders Republic has some great moments – namely its dozens upon dozens of races – but all of that is cut down by an impressively obnoxious script, unskippable dialogue, and predetermined soundtracks that play ad nauseam

Replay: High

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Jurassic World Evolution 2 Review – A Dynamic And Deadly Park-Building Experience

Publisher: Frontier Developments

Developer: Frontier Developments

Rating: Teen

Reviewed on: Xbox Series X/S

Also on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC

Dr. Wu is Jurassic World's Dr. Frankenstein – a mad scientist who creates new life by sewing together the DNA of different dinosaurs. His hybrids are more capable hunters, better suited to handle harsh climates, and are far more terrifying than the Tyrannosaurs rex. In Jurassic World Evolution 2, we see Frontier Developments taking a cue from Dr. Wu. The dinosaurs players interact with are more aware of their surroundings, can find their own food, and even learn to hunt in packs. The skeletal framework that brings this simulation to life is the same as its precursor, but everything around it is evolved or changed. These changes make for more dynamic and challenging play, but not always for the better.

Set after the events of Jurassic World: Fallen Kingdom, dinosaurs are now a part of the United States' ecosystem, and we're learning if we can live with them. The player works with the Department of Fish and Wildlife to deal with dinosaur issues, such as Pteranodons migrating too close to the Canadian border, or worse yet, hungry predators posing a threat to society. This setup provides an excellent variety in maps, from snow-colored fields and arid deserts to lush forests and sprawling lakes. The change in scenery adds an element of excitement and helps the experience feel somewhat new again.

As wild as it is to see an Allosaurus running through the snow, this campaign experience lacks bite and comes across as a glorified tutorial that doesn't last long. I enjoyed the difficulty of Jurassic World Evolution 1's campaign and how it pushed the player to excel in theme park development to reach new islands. This campaign never goes in that direction and instead focuses too heavily on herding dinosaurs like cattle, much like the disappointing missions in Evolution 1's lackluster Claire's Sanctuary DLC. Hearing Ian Malcolm (voiced again by Jeff Goldblum) issue grave and sarcastic warnings about the future is good fun, but it's not enough to save the experience.

The fact that the campaign doesn't last long is a blessing in disguise as another mode takes the spotlight and truly embraces the park-building experience. This mode is called Chaos Theory, a fun "What if…?" exploration of all five Jurassic movies. You get the chance to rewrite history, beginning with John Hammond turning to you to help build the first Jurassic Park. All of these scenarios embrace the look and feel of the films, not to mention the dinosaurs. Playing through each mission is an excellent way of unlocking dinosaurs for other modes, including the new marine and flying types, which are fully fleshed out and fun to watch.

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The dinosaurs are rightfully the stars of this experience. These thunder beasts are highly detailed, animated in fun ways (especially when on the hunt), and offer decent customization through cool-looking skins. They have a bit more life than the first game, and one of the best touches is how they find their comfort zones within an enclosure based on their food's location. You can now safely have a more comprehensive selection of dinosaurs in one enclosure, which reduces the need to clutter the park with fencing. This design is a nice touch that frees up room for other guest-related destinations.

The enhanced dinosaur realism also means you have to care for them more – which is a bit of a drawback. Each dino is a little fragile and can break bones, get gashed up, and force you to tranquilize and airlift them to the new medical facility. Making them more resilient through research is possible, but the early stages are rough in terms of dino care, especially given how much of a hassle park management is at this point.

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Quality of life improvements accompany most of the park-building gameplay and menus. Players can now speed up time whenever they want, a change that removes the frustration of waiting for a meter to fill. Feeding electricity to structures is also much easier through the new generator, which powers everything around it and doesn't require powerlines. All creation aspects are tied to another excellent addition: scientists, who you manually hire and assign to tasks given their specialties. One scientist can speed up egg incubation, whereas another reduces the price of a fossil expedition. All of these elements sing together and make the game far better.

They also make it worse. That supposed hassle-free generator runs on fuel that you have to resupply frequently. The price for a full tank of gas can be over $400,000. If you have many generators (which you likely will), you'll need to ensure you have over a million banked for fuel. It's something you need to keep thinking about.

Those brilliant scientists grow tired and need to sleep often. Every time they hop in bed, it costs you $75,000. Additionally, when the more impressive dinosaur species are unlocked, such as the Tyrannosaur, the scientists you have on hand may not have the expertise to incubate them, which means you'll need to fire a few and find new help.

The micromanaging gets intense and can be outright annoying when a storm hits, and you suddenly have dinosaurs outside their enclosures, power outages, dinos with broken bones, and finances spinning into the toilet. Diseases also run rampant and can be headaches. Stretches of play can feel like you are plugging hole after hole. Making money to keep things afloat can be challenging, but weathering these issues leads to research options that reduce the frustrations. If you stick with it, the entire experience gets better with time.

For instance, the player can research energy enhancements, which, in a strange twist, are the classic power stations and power lines from the first game. It's almost like Frontier realized players would not like the generators and offered the old solution as a fallback. Other options include finding more dinosaur fossils, additional skill points for scientists (which is a game-changer), and more attractions for guests. You must earn most of these boosts by raising your park's star level.

The park-building process is identical in terms of flow of play, yet it offers a higher degree of personalization. Each shop's exterior can be fully designed, right down to its architecture, coloring, and props. The surrounding area can also hold a variety of decorations, such as outdoor seating for a restaurant or fun dino-themed items like a giant skull. Each of these establishments offers a variety of interior attractions that lure in different types of guests. If you play your cards right, you'll make money hand over fist, but there will undoubtedly be frustrating stretches along the way.

Jurassic World Evolution 2 makes as many giant steps forward as it does back but has enough going for it to deliver a fun and rewarding theme-park experience. Like its predecessor, Sandbox Mode is the most fun, and this avenue of play combines everything the player has unlocked while removing all of the stresses. Collecting every dinosaur takes time and effort, but it's worthwhile, especially since you can experiment to see what happens when every dinosaur roams freely in the same space.

Score: 8

Summary: The sequel delivers more awe-inspiring dinosaurs, including marine and flying types, but still struggles with making park management fun.

Concept: Bigger but not always better, Jurassic World Evolution 2 offers more dinosaurs and park-building options that sometimes lead to headaches

Graphics: The dinosaurs look fantastic and offer a variety of new skins. The environments also look great, but some shadows pop in when the camera turns

Sound: The familiar Jurassic melodies blend beautifully with the frightening predator roars. Jeff Goldblum and Bryce Dallas Howard also reprise their movie roles

Playability: The building controls work well and allow for many things to be in motion at once. Not every new idea is successful. Power and employee management can be pains

Entertainment: This is a game that is worth struggling with to unlock new dinosaurs for the freeing sandbox mode

Replay: High

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Call Of Duty: Vanguard Review – A Tumultuous Trinity

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Publisher: Activision

Developer: Sledgehammer Games

Rating: Mature

Reviewed on: PC

Also on: PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox One

Call of Duty: Vanguard is a tale of three games. As is sometimes the case, several of the pillars lift up the package – and one brings it down. Vanguard’s campaign is weak, but multiplayer and zombies carry the title to victory. Let’s break down each experience.

It is important to keep in mind what is going on within Activision Blizzard at this time regarding ongoing allegations about the work culture. The ongoing lawsuit from the California Department of Fair Employment and Housing (DFEH) against the company is over reported toxic workplace culture. The bulk of the suit focuses on "violations of the state's civil rights and equal pay laws," specifically regarding the treatment of women and other marginalized groups. To learn more about the proceedings thus far, including details listed in the lawsuit against Activision Blizzard, please check out our previous coverage here.

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We’ll get the rough bit out of the way first; The campaign is ambitious and beautiful in scope, taking players to multiple key locations, including Stalingrad, the Pacific, and even North Africa. While this showcases some excellent environmental diversity and its throbbing soundtrack begs to get the blood pumping, everything around these elements remains in the doldrums. Since the narrative jumps around from scene to scene, none of the characters carry any weight. They are chunks of lifeless cardboard that fail to reach even the one-note action movie tier.

These characters are placed into boring segments that are as dull as possible and formulaic, without real opportunity to shine. While big arenas full of opponents to fight are nothing new for Call of Duty, it's even more tiresome engaging in the non-arena segments. There's no cool subterfuge mission to break up the humdrum, only tasks that will leave you begging to just clean out another kill room. It’s a shame, because some of these scenarios and characters feel like they should have been slam dunks. 

Vanguard has all the trappings of a ready-made Enemy At The Gates sniper vs. sniper scenario. Unfortunately, it drops the ball and delivers one arena after the next full of trash to kill without ever realizing that sniper fantasy. You must run under desks, fighting a never-ending slog of light flashes, as you climb up rocks and walls. Unbelievably annoying trial-and-error stealth segments are shockingly juxtaposed against bombastic action sequences. I found it puzzling that one of the characters in the game basically has superhero powers, allowing them to see enemies through sight obstructing scenery and auto-aim on-demand with a combination of god-sight and bullet-time. The multitude of scenarios and segments look gorgeous, but the good looks can’t save this journey. 

The narrative never decides if it wants to stay grounded in the harsh realities of World War II or go hard on the ham, with absurd caricatures of sniveling villains who would be more at home in a bad comic book. This dissonance is pronounced, bizarre, and runs through the lifeblood of the entire experience. Call of Duty campaigns tend to run from strange to spectacular to emotionally resonant – this one is none of those and easy to skip. I will marvel at how this campaign made a revenge-fueled badass sniper scenario feel like being stuck in traffic for years to come.

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Multiplayer succeeds, but not due to the addition of any gun, super-slide, or jetpack mechanic. The key to the online offering is some highly impactful decision tools on top of its already best-in-class shooting and customization. The most impactful device to the core systems is the addition of a Combat Pacing dial. With Combat Pacing, you can influence the player count and time-to-engagement of all the activities you favor. This probably seems like a small thing, but it’s great because you can select exactly the kind of multiplayer matches you want, on top of the core game modes like Kill Confirmed, Hardpoint, or Domination. When I felt like lobbing a bunch of grenades while packing a shotgun loaded with incendiary ammo, I dialed into Blitz mode, which caters to instant action with an almost immediate time-to-engagement. When I wanted something where I might not see a player immediately and had time to aim a rifle before getting shot, Tactical pacing was perfect. Even if you don’t want to turn dials, Assault is a great standby for the standard-issue Call of Duty multiplayer. 

Combat Pacing is subtle but a bigger deal than any of the new multiplayer offerings. Still, Vanguard has a handful of new modes. Patrol offers a moving Hardpoint to protect, but it “patrols” around a map, and Champion Hill gives players some small-scale shenanigans to engage in. Champion Hill is sort of an evolution of Gunfight mode, with more player choice and many teams all playing tournament-style at the same time. Selecting your path to victory via purchases in the hub and taking on other teams for lives and cash has a different feel in terms of small-scale skirmishing, and I enjoyed it. Of course, the gunsmith provides a host of options to explore for multiplayer, allowing you to tweak every weapon to your heart’s content, up to and including ammunition types for a little extra bang.

Last but certainly not least is Zombies, which Treyarch designed. The studio’s undead intuition rarely misses the mark, and Call of Duty: Vanguard is poised to take zombies down a fantastic road. This iteration is a bit like a roguelike zombie dungeon crawl, and that’s pretty awesome. Featuring hints of the recent Outbreak mode, players are tasked with taking down a demonic entity while wielding otherworldly powers of their own, including rings of fire and icy doom, which lets you summon a blizzard. All of the fun Zombies trappings like Pack-A-Punch, Mystery Box, and other upgrades are served up hub-style in a base where players hang out between missions. Don’t be fooled thinking you’ll get a break in town; Zombies mode is as fast-paced as ever with a neon arcade-action glow and streamlined upgrades that keep you in the action. 

With your team, pick from a selection of classic shooter activities where you’ll escort a magic object, survive until the clock runs out, or slaughter enemies for drops. Many of these elements we’ve seen before, but they’re arranged in an incredibly potent way. For instance, I appreciated the lack of tedious travel time found in Outbreak – click on a portal, and you’re on to the next task. Special abilities acquired and leveled up after portals that can change your kit substantially. Essentially, Vanguard distills a lot of the cool stuff about Zombies into a compact package and then spreads cool quips and dialogue throughout. Thankfully, you can still throw monkey bombs. However, none of the story beat Easter egg stuff was in the version I played; those are expected to arrive with Season 1.

Call of Duty: Vanguard’s campaign misses the mark, but multiplayer and Zombies do the heavy lifting to get the title to a good place. If you’re most invested in the single-player experience, you can pass on this year’s entry, but if you’re into the other modes, Call of Duty remains an excellent choice for some shooting, looting, and zombie executing.
 

Score: 8

Summary: Call of Duty: Vanguard brings three distinctly different experiences to the table.

Concept: Experience a World War II-themed shooter in a cross-theatre campaign, multiplayer, and zombie modes

Graphics: The visuals are great, from epic stormy skies over the Pacific to moonlit evenings over North African encampments

Sound: The sound effects punctuate the combat, with a soundtrack that highlights rising and falling intensity depending on the situation

Playability: It’s as easy as ever to pick your settings and engage in whichever core pillar of Call of Duty that interests you

Entertainment: Vanguard is an overall solid pick with a lackluster campaign, a nascent but incredibly promising zombies experience, and multiplayer with a few critical new aspects.

Replay: High

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