THE WITCHER 3: THE WILD HUNT REVIEW (WITCHING HOURS)

Unlike its predecessor, The Witcher 3: The Wild Hunt doesn't exactly come screaming off the starting line. Compared to The Witcher 2, where you're immediately plunged headlong into a sexy story of intrigue and betrayal, this main quest can seem mundane, even perfunctory at times. But each time I stepped off the well-beaten path to blaze my own trail, it turned into a wild, open, exhilarating fantasy roleplaying experience, rife with opportunities to make use of its excellent combat. Even after over 100 hours with The Witcher 3, it still tempts me to press on – there’s so much more I want to learn, and hunt.

The Witcher 3 is as dense and deep as the other two games in the series in terms of RPG mechanics, and the overwhelmingly massive open-world environment has at once made that depth more intimidating, and in the long run, more rewarding. It’s difficult to express just how huge and open this world is: verdant, rolling fields liberally dotted with swaying foliage of every shape and size fill the space between loosely connected, ramshackle townships where people struggle to scrape by. A full day/night cycle and dynamic weather pull it all together, cementing The Witcher 3’s landscape as one of the most authentic-feeling open worlds I’ve ever seen. A handy minimap points you where you want to go, which might seem like a crutch, but honestly, without it, I’d have been hopelessly lost. That a world this size still feels so purposeful, and full of things to do is quite an achievement.

Continue Reading.

Read more »

DUNGEONS 2 REVIEW: UNDERWHELMING OVERWORLD

There’s just one slight issue with Dungeons 2: one half of it is bad. Any time a game attempts to split its attention between two entirely different modes, it runs the risk of having one side drag the other down. In this case, the entirely competent dungeon mode of Dungeons 2 is tied to a poorly made real-time strategy anchor and thrown out to sea, with no chance to swim home.

In theory, this is idea was clever! Moving into the endgame of a Dungeon Keeper-like management game has never been satisfying, so replacing it with an RTS battle might’ve been a good payoff--thematically appropriate too, as it connects the idea of an underground evil corrupting a totally different surface. The central idea of Dungeons 2 is a good one. As a personification of Ultimate Evil, you’re playing a Dungeon Keeper-like strategy game belowground — indirectly controlling your creatures to build rooms for efficiency, sending little imps out to find caves and gold, managing entertainment for bored creatures —all this stuff works. When you’ve got a decent little army, you send them above the ground, where it’s a conventional real-time strategy game in the Warcraft vein: direct control over troops, right-click to move and attack, and so on.

Continue Reading.

Read more »

MORTAL KOMBAT X REVIEW - NEW BLOOD BY THE GALLON

Let’s just get this out of the way: Mortal Kombat X is the best Mortal Kombat, period. It’s deeper, mechanically richer, and more fully featured than any of the nine games before it, hands down. On top of that, developer NetherRealm Studios has taken a bunch of risks by adding eight entirely new characters to the MK roster, while introducing fun, distinct variations to returning ones. Each of these risks pays off to varying degrees, but they also serve to highlight some of the ways in which the franchise is stuck in the past. As a whole, Mortal Kombat X is an excellent fighter, and the most fun I’ve ever had with a Mortal Kombat game.

The first thing MKX does to make itself feel new and exciting to both old series fans and casual fighters is a major roster shakeup. Before DLC ever enters the picture, MKX sports a respectable 24 fighters, and a whopping one third of those are honest-to-goodness new characters; not palette swaps or tweaked alternate versions of existing ones. Few fighting games with such a deep vault of fan-favorite characters have cleaned house so completely, and MKX is so much the better for it. Sure, I go way back with guys like Kabal and Smoke, but fresh faces like Takeda and Kung Jin bring so much novelty to the table gameplay-wise that it’s hard to be sad about their absence.

Continue Reading.

Read more »

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious Review

Forza Horizon 2 Presents Fast & Furious is a short yet cleverly executed little crossover package that combines the beautifully balanced driving dynamics of the genre-leading Forza Horizon 2 with a smattering of some of the cars from Fast & Furious 7.

It’s a fun way to spend an evening, although I noted it’s an experience largely built by repurposing wholesale slabs of Forza Horizon 2 content rather than doing much new or interesting with the movie license.

Unlike last year’s Storm Island expansion, FH2 Presents Fast & Furious takes place on part of FH2’s main map but is an entirely standalone game (although this means a confusingly hefty download, even if you already have FH2 installed on your Xbox One). It’s basically a chunky, themed demo for FH2.

Continue Reading.

Read more »