Tides of Tomorrow is the first single-player game I've played that desperately wanted me to stalk other human-controlled characters, and that sentiment alone was a compelling enough gimmick for me to jump into its consequence-driven story. While that story stumbles in a few places, and the gameplay never quite rises to anything beyond serviceable, Tides of Tomorrow does a great job of incentivizing you to participate in its "we're all in this together" apocalyptic fantasy and care about the ramifications of your choices and actions beyond how they impact you. If you're looking for a game that makes you feel good about helping others and being helped by others, there aren't many options that hit that sense of community like Tides of Tomorrow.

In Tides of Tomorrow, you play as a Tidewalker, an individual who can see glimpses of the past. These visions always involve the actions of other Tidewalkers, creating a network of individuals who can all learn from each other. Fished from the ocean, you find yourself in a world that's been flooded, restricting civilization to makeshift island towns and repurposed oil rigs. A sickness is also worming its way through the population, slowly causing people to transform into plastic. You count yourself among the infected, quickly learning that only the regular consumption of a medicine known as ozen keeps you from turning completely into plastic and dying.

You play through the game in first-person as a largely silent individual who only speaks when prompted to with a dialogue option. Other than your supernatural sight, you move through the world simply--running, crouching, jumping. In certain locations, you can open your sight to see what a Tidewalker--who, like your Tidewalker, is also controlled by another human player--did there, allowing you to lean on the knowledge you glean to better move through the world. A bouncer who welcomed in a Tidewalker the previous day will allow you inside the club if you also offer up to them the same alias, for example, and seeing a Tidewalker hide some ozen in a grate lets you then nab it for yourself.

These Tidewalkers that you see are always players who went through the level that you're currently on prior to you. Between each level, you're always asked which path you want to go to next, which puts you on the path behind a specific player. You can choose to follow that player all the way through to the end (assuming they have beaten the game), or choose to go in a different direction between levels to follow in the footsteps of another player. Whenever you make this choice to follow a player, you get a brief description of how they acted in that particular level. One player may have prioritized animals and nature in this increasingly plastic-filled world, while another could have opted to prioritize their own survival. Following a player who embodies your playstyle is obviously ideal, but sometimes you don't have that choice and simply must take the best option of those available to you.

Another player's choices can inform how the world reacts to you as well. A Tidewalker who was kind to citizens will create a welcoming atmosphere for you, while a more self-serving Tidewalker will cause NPCs to not want to help you without a bribe or favor on your part.

Community is the main throughline of Tides of Tomorrow. The game's story entices you to care about the community of characters you meet through character-driven storylines and relationship trackers, while its main feature invites you to care about your fellow Tidewalkers by bombarding you with messaging of how other players are affecting your playthrough and how your choices are subsequently impacting the playthroughs of players who follow you.

Between those two communities, the game better accomplishes making you care about the players both ahead and behind you on your journey, and it's better for it, as that's the aspect that differentiates Tides of Tomorrow from other single-player role-playing games. Bonding with an internet stranger through gameplay isn't novel--Dark Souls lets players help or hinder others with cryptic messages and invasions, for example, and Pokemon Go seemingly created world peace for one magical summer of pocket-monster catching--but that does nothing to diminish the emotional draw of Tides of Tomorrow.

I feel genuine appreciation when I'm scouring for enough scrap to pay for something, and NPCs around me help me out because the player I'm following made sure to treat them with respect. I'm shocked when I discover the body of a character I'll never get to meet because the player I'm following stole from them, leaving the character too poor to afford the medicine they needed to survive. And I'm frustrated when a stealth mission is filled with extra guards and more security because the player I'm following angered the kingpin in charge of the area, and so he's put his entire fortress on high alert for future Tidewalkers.

These emotional responses are driven by the knowledge that my lucky breaks and ill fortunes are primarily driven by real people out there. The kindness I've been shown came from someone out there being selfless when they didn't have to be, and the moments of irritation and struggle have primarily been the byproduct of another person's selfishness, desperation, or mistake. Given the desperate struggle your character is thrown into from the jump, it would be so easy to be a self-serving asshole, but the generosity of other players is a strong incentive to pay that kindness forward to any players that may be following in your footsteps.

Tides of Tomorrow doesn't tell you whether your actions have directly helped anyone--it's entirely possible that no one will follow your trail, and the consideration you've shown will ultimately be for nothing--but the encouragement to just be kind is there all the same. It felt good just doing all I could to help. Depending on the type of person you are, this might also add quite a bit of tension to each choice--if you're like me, the idea of making a mistake and royally screwing over another player might inject a level of pressure into every dialogue choice that you're not used to.

This same emotional draw doesn't quite come through with the main NPC characters. While I felt pity for the cute, trouble-making platinum-blonde rebel suffering from an illness slowly transforming her into plastic, and disgust for the tyrant keeping valuable resources from the populace, these characters felt largely like archetype tropes solely there to move me along through a by-the-numbers story of survivors in an apocalypse banding together to rise up against the cartoonishly evil villain. Tides of Tomorrow's story isn't bad, and its characters aren't awful, but it's not the strongest narrative backdrop.

The story and characters are also weakened by how Tides of Tomorrow works. Pretty much every part of the story is dependent on the actions and choices of the players who went through that particular chapter before you. A town loves you because another Tidewalker was kind, for instance, not because you've been kind to other characters leading up to that point. This can create bizarre fluctuations in an NPC's treatment of you, where you may have sided against them in an earlier argument or failed to do what they asked in an early mission, but they can still think you're amazing when you speak to them later because you choose to be on the path of a player who helped them out.

It's a bizarre disconnect that lessens the sense of agency that you have in your own choices. If anything, Tides of Tomorrow's story feels less like something that you're affecting and more like a linear tale that others have dictated for you, and then your responses to that story have a major impact on anyone who might be following your path.

Even if I wasn't always the biggest fan of the characters, I did love Tides of Tomorrow's world. The game has a charming, yet striking aesthetic. Visually, it has an almost cartoony vibe that's bright and vibrant, creating these sharp contrasts between the natural and manufactured, whether that's piles of trash floating in ocean water or plastic veins permeating human skin. That's accompanied by a soundtrack that leans into this almost beat-heavy funk during especially tense or action-heavy scenes. Developer Digixart's previous title, Road 96, was one of my favorite adventure games of 2021 primarily because of its stellar atmosphere, and it's awesome to see the studio devote that same level of care again, but for a very different game.

While I don't think Tides of Tomorrow rises to the same narrative highs as Road 96, its primary incentive is a great draw. It's a little weird to want to stalk other players through a digital world, watching and listening to their every move in order to better your own lot in life, but it's a compelling enough gameplay loop that I overlooked the shortcomings in the game's story and non-player characters. And even if I don't plan on playing the game again, it warms my heart to know that my digital ghost is now out there, potentially guiding other Tidewalkers that may need a little help.

Tides of Tomorrow is the first single-player game I've played that desperately wanted me to stalk other human-controlled characters, and that sentiment alone was a compelling enough gimmick for me to jump into its consequence-driven story. While that story stumbles in a few places, and the gameplay never quite rises to anything beyond serviceable, Tides of Tomorrow does a great job of incentivizing you to participate in its "we're all in this together" apocalyptic fantasy and care about the ramifications of your choices and actions beyond how they impact you. If you're looking for a game that makes you feel good about helping others and being helped by others, there aren't many options that hit that sense of community like Tides of Tomorrow.

In Tides of Tomorrow, you play as a Tidewalker, an individual who can see glimpses of the past. These visions always involve the actions of other Tidewalkers, creating a network of individuals who can all learn from each other. Fished from the ocean, you find yourself in a world that's been flooded, restricting civilization to makeshift island towns and repurposed oil rigs. A sickness is also worming its way through the population, slowly causing people to transform into plastic. You count yourself among the infected, quickly learning that only the regular consumption of a medicine known as ozen keeps you from turning completely into plastic and dying.

You play through the game in first-person as a largely silent individual who only speaks when prompted to with a dialogue option. Other than your supernatural sight, you move through the world simply--running, crouching, jumping. In certain locations, you can open your sight to see what a Tidewalker--who, like your Tidewalker, is also controlled by another human player--did there, allowing you to lean on the knowledge you glean to better move through the world. A bouncer who welcomed in a Tidewalker the previous day will allow you inside the club if you also offer up to them the same alias, for example, and seeing a Tidewalker hide some ozen in a grate lets you then nab it for yourself.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Saros might be a roguelite, but its definition of a "run" is definitely broader than most. The latest game from developer Housemarque shares plenty of similarities with the studio's previous game, Returnal--both are sci-fi third-person shooters with a bullet-hell tinge--yet Saros takes some bold swings that clearly differentiate the two. By flipping Housemarque's roguelite formula on its head, Saros builds and improves upon its spiritual predecessor in spectacular fashion, seducing you every step of the way with an enthralling marriage of mechanics and story that's not to be missed.

You're given very little to go on as Saros begins. On the planet of Carcosa, communication with the colony ships Echelon I, II, and III has been lost. Echelon IV and its emergency crew are sent to investigate. In addition to a pilot, crew commander, and engineer, the team also includes four armed Enforcers for reconnaissance and security purposes. Protagonist Arjun Devraj is one of these Enforcers, though that number has dwindled to two by the time you take control. With thousands of colonists missing, members of the emergency crew losing their minds, and Arjun able to come back from the dead, you're just as lost as the characters are when it comes to figuring out just what the hell is going on.

What you do know is that the Echelon program was sent to Carcosa by the Soltari corporation due to the presence of Lucenite, a compound with vast energy potential. Soltari is essentially Alien's Weyland-Yutani in all but name, placing Lucenite extraction above all else in the chase for trillion-dollar profits. This creates friction between the crew and those loyal to the company, especially Arjun, who also has personal reasons for being there. He knows someone who was on board Echelon I, so there's an impassioned determination behind his words and actions, even as he struggles to piece together the mysterious circumstances he finds himself in.

Even so, I was initially skeptical of this approach. A protagonist searching for their partner is a tired and overdone trope, yet Saros surprised me with the direction it takes. It's darker and more complex than I imagined it would be, while Arjun's character development over the course of the game proves captivating.

The entire cast is excellent, too, breathing life into characters you only encounter through audio logs and those you interact with each time you return from a run. Rahul Kohli (Midnight Mass, Gears 5), meanwhile, shines as Arjun, giving depth to his struggles and inner turmoil as he carries the weight of the game's narrative. The only misstep is that the character models during in-game conversations lack the fidelity to convey the same emotions as the voice performances. Usually, this isn't an issue, but there are a couple of hard-hitting moments where it veers into the uncanny valley.

Another thing I appreciated about Arjun's arc is the way it gradually folds into the planet's broader mysteries. You might be familiar with the name Carcosa. In Saros, it's a shape-shifting alien planet, but the name has appeared across media before in the likes of True Detective, Mass Effect, and the works of H.P. Lovecraft and George R.R. Martin. Each of these instances was inspired by the American writer Robert W. Chambers, who used Carcosa as a setting in several short stories featured in the 1895 book The King in Yellow. Saros is no different. In the book, Chambers describes Carcosa as a mysterious, ancient, and possibly cursed place, which is a fitting description for the hostile planet you find yourself stranded on.

There's more to it than just a name, although I won't delve any further into specifics. Just know that these allusions only add to the sense of unease. Saros might not be a horror game, but it quickly establishes an unnerving atmosphere that permeates throughout the entire experience.

You receive a drip-feed of information from run to run as you discover text and audio logs and converse with your fellow crew members each time you return to the game's hub. This lack of information creates a mystique around Arjun, the mission, and Carcosa, which Housemarque further blurs by showing you striking images and events for which you have no context. Even as the picture becomes clearer, the sense of dread doesn't dissipate as the game's mysteries slowly unravel, and the eventual context is all the more impactful.

Carcosa's aesthetic contributes to this feeling as well. Each biome evokes trepidation, whether it's the tumultuous nature of the planet itself or its ancient architecture--crafted at some unknown point in time by some unknowable entity. White marble walls are juxtaposed with statues and art installations that scream agony; there are large-scale depictions of arms clawing their way out of hell and poor souls forced to hold up structures like Atlas carrying the heavens on his shoulders. Underneath the earth is a sprawling network of pipes and metal, where fire spews out of whirring machinery, and H.R. Giger's influence is felt. There's a city, decimated by a long-forgotten war, where tight streets constrict your movement and ramp up the intensity of each firefight, while a murky swamp forces you to contend with toxic waters once the planet's eclipse fills the sky.

Saros builds and improves upon [Returnal] in spectacular fashion, seducing you every step of the way with an enthralling marriage of mechanics and story that's not to be missed.

Once you've left the relative safety of the hub and are exploring these biomes, that feeling of uncertainty in the pit of your stomach is also joined by a jolt of excitement. In Returnal, protagonist Selene dashed through incoming lines of explosive orbs, jumped over energy beams, and utilized a variety of weaponry to survive. In Saros, Arjun does the same, except he's not fighting just to survive; he's fighting to find his partner, and will kill whatever's in front of him to do so. While Selene was constantly on the back foot, Arjun plants his front foot firmly in the ground, and his arsenal reflects this.

You can jump and dash to avoid the barrage of enemy fire heading your way, but Arjun also comes equipped with a special shield that deflects damage and, most importantly, absorbs it, channeling this energy into Power that can be used to unleash your own devastating attacks.

Blue projectiles can be dashed through or absorbed, yellow ones can be dashed through but will rapidly destroy your shield, while red projectiles need to be avoided entirely--at least until you gain the ability to parry these attacks later on. This means readability is never an issue, though it's still easy to feel overwhelmed when the screen fills with a cacophony of bright energy beams and neon orbs. Not in a negative sense, but in a way that's challenging without feeling unfair.

It's a test of your reflexes and ability to position yourself so that you're not surprised by any unseen threats. It also makes sense that Housemarque rejects the bullet-hell moniker in favor of the more apt "bullet ballet." With active reloads and the way you weave into some projectiles while outright avoiding others, there's a rhythmic cadence to combat that feels somewhat like a chaotic dance.

Slipping into a flow state is incredibly easy, to the point where I often didn't realize how hard I was gripping the controller until the action had died down. It's thrilling stuff, mixing small-arms fire with melee strikes and a Power Weapon you can charge by absorbing projectiles, blasting away mobs, tough Alpha enemies, and the game's slew of fantastic bosses.

There are a few weapon types, such as assault rifles, shotguns, and crossbows, but, as with each procedurally generated biome, there are dozens of different permutations as well. One pistol might utilize burst fire, while another ricochets each bullet between multiple enemies. Every weapon has an alt-fire mode, too, letting you fire off shotgun shells with a more concentrated vertical spread, or add additional homing projectiles to a single crossbow bolt. I rarely found a firearm that wasn't satisfying to use, and they all feel viable, no matter the confluence of random modifiers and buffs.

You'll also find numerous Artifacts scattered across Carcosa. There's a limit to how many you can have equipped, but each one augments your abilities and grants different effects, such as automatic Power generation or a reduction in incoming damage. Unlike Returnal, you don't need a near-perfect mix of Artifacts and weapons to succeed. Saros is still a challenging game--and you can tinker with various modifiers to make it slightly easier or harder (within reason)--but it never feels like a successful run is predicated on which random pickups you receive.

This is also partly due to permanent upgrades that are more palpable and immediate. The Lucenite you collect by exploring and defeating enemies can be spent at the game's hub to purchase various upgrades from an exhaustive skill tree. Some of these are blanket improvements to attributes like armor integrity and maximum Power, and there's an instant sense of progression that stems from seeing your health bar expand or suddenly having more opportunities to use the Power Weapon. Other upgrades are more varied: You can add additional Artifact slots, start each run with keys to unlock doors and open locked containers, ensure that enemies drop more Lucenite, and boost your proficiency to gain access to higher-tier weapons earlier in a run.

That last upgrade is important, because Saros isn't structured like most roguelites. There's a throughline from one biome to the next that encompasses almost the entire game, but you can also travel to each biome individually from the game's hub. Obviously, you need to unlock an area first, but once you've reached a specific biome, you can fast-travel right back to it at the start of each run. This means you don't have to start from the beginning of the game each time and can pick up wherever you want, cutting out potential tedium while also giving you a ton of flexibility in how you approach the game.

Gallery

When a boss was giving me a hard time, I decided to begin my run from the first biome rather than teleporting straight to the boss's domain. There are risks involved in this strategy, since I could've died before even making it back, but starting from an earlier point allowed me to build up enough temporary upgrades that I had an easier time defeating the boss. Other times, I didn't feel like I needed to revisit past biomes again, so I teleported to where I needed to go and went from there. Add in the fact that you can suspend a run (provided you're not in the middle of a boss battle), and Saros is much more generous with your time than Returnal was.

It might not be a direct sequel, but decisions like this and others elsewhere address every issue I had with Returnal. Housemarque's previous game is fantastic in its own way. Yet Saros elevates the studio's roguelite formula to another level. Its structure is surprisingly malleable, combat is deeper and more rewarding, and I couldn't resist being wrapped around the finger of its mysterious and foreboding narrative. I find roguelites hit-and-miss, but it didn't take long before I was utterly infatuated with Saros. It's an incredible game that does more than just refine what worked before. Even after rolling credits, I can't wait to dive back in.

Saros might be a roguelite, but its definition of a "run" is definitely broader than most. The latest game from developer Housemarque shares plenty of similarities with the studio's previous game, Returnal--both are sci-fi third-person shooters with a bullet-hell tinge--yet Saros takes some bold swings that clearly differentiate the two. By flipping Housemarque's roguelite formula on its head, Saros builds and improves upon its spiritual predecessor in spectacular fashion, seducing you every step of the way with an enthralling marriage of mechanics and story that's not to be missed.

You're given very little to go on as Saros begins. On the planet of Carcosa, communication with the colony ships Echelon I, II, and III has been lost. Echelon IV and its emergency crew are sent to investigate. In addition to a pilot, crew commander, and engineer, the team also includes four armed Enforcers for reconnaissance and security purposes. Protagonist Arjun Devraj is one of these Enforcers, though that number has dwindled to two by the time you take control. With thousands of colonists missing, members of the emergency crew losing their minds, and Arjun able to come back from the dead, you're just as lost as the characters are when it comes to figuring out just what the hell is going on.

What you do know is that the Echelon program was sent to Carcosa by the Soltari corporation due to the presence of Lucenite, a compound with vast energy potential. Soltari is essentially Alien's Weyland-Yutani in all but name, placing Lucenite extraction above all else in the chase for trillion-dollar profits. This creates friction between the crew and those loyal to the company, especially Arjun, who also has personal reasons for being there. He knows someone who was on board Echelon I, so there's an impassioned determination behind his words and actions, even as he struggles to piece together the mysterious circumstances he finds himself in.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Two things can be said of Diablo IV leading up to the release of Lord of Hatred: First and foremost, as a series, Diablo has never been in a better or more promising place. Secondly, the game's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, was a bit of a letdown following a tremendous first act. With those things in mind, it's safe to say that there are very high expectations for the game's forthcoming expansion. And, if the stakes weren't high enough, Lord of Hatred also carries with it two promises: a first look at the long-teased and highly-awaited land of Skovos, and an epic conclusion to the game's ongoing Hatred Saga--one featuring a major showdown with the Lord of Hatred himself.

Oftentimes, expectations and promises only pave the way for disappointment. Fortunately, that's not the case with Lord of Hatred. Diablo IV's latest expansion triumphs at maintaining the series' momentum while also delivering a powerful gut punch of a third act--one that weaves together years of events and lore to create the series' most-compelling narrative to date. Lord of Hatred offers both a spectacular conclusion to the Hatred Saga and plenty of changes that grant it greater longevity than ever before, including two powerhouse classes, plenty of improvements, and strong endgame content.

Lord of Hatred picks up not long after the events of Vessel of Hatred, which ultimately saw Mephisto take over the body of Akarat--a messiah-like figure in the Diablo universe. Through using Akarat's kindly visage, his own manipulative tactics, and performing "miracles," Mephisto has quickly managed to convince much of Sanctuary's population that he is a force for good--one who possesses the power to not only purify their lands, but their very souls as well. Even the most cunning of warriors find themselves in his thrall, their desperation for a better world ultimately contorting them into gullible disciples. As such, you, The Wanderer, and your faithful companions, Lorath and Neyrelle, come to be viewed as dissenting pariahs. And the fact that a demon's blood flows through your veins certainly doesn't help your case against the fraudulent prophet.

With stakes this high and a literal hour of darkness--or rather, a massive eclipse--rapidly approaching, your party takes to the ancient islands of Skovos in search of aid and a weapon that might strike down Mephisto. As the birthplace of mankind and home to both the Amazons and the divine order of oracles, Skovos is a monumental location in the Diablo universe--one that has been teased since Diablo II and comes with sky-high expectations. Fortunately, Skovos lives up to them and provides a stunning backdrop for Lord of Hatred's events. The Mediterranean-inspired archipelago, with its clear waters, crumbling cliffsides, volcanoes, and massive temples, feels truly sacred, making its ongoing desecration all the more startling.

Mephisto's corruption extends to the environment and the enemies you'll face off against in Skovos. The reanimated Drowned trudge from the sea to throw themselves against the Amazonian guardians in wave after wave of devastation, while blighted creatures and golems ambush you in the forests. This all offers a nice break from your run-of-the-mill demons, though you'll certainly get plenty of those as well.

Combat in Lord of Hatred feels more or less unchanged, but this isn't unexpected or a bad thing, of course. Diablo IV's combat is already immensely satisfying and just the right level of overwhelming, so more of the same is high praise. Playing on Hard, I faced a bit of initial friction but then quickly acclimated and got my build up to a point where even the largest of waves became a relative breeze. However, all my crowd-control techniques and sheer ability to pump out damage meant naught to some of the expansion's brutal bosses.

Lord of Hatred's boss fights are among the most strategic and demanding in Diablo history. This is largely due to an increasing emphasis on what I'd describe as raid-like encounters; just like in the notoriously challenging Uber Lilith battle, simply where you're standing can mean the difference between life and death. One boss boasted lightning-quick reflexes, making placing down stationary abilities superfluous; a few bosses repeatedly went invincible, requiring me to navigate a chaotic battlefield and interact with the right items or areas to progress; another left me feeling utterly powerless, though that's all I can share without giving away too much. However, I wish I could share even more on what lies ahead--I'm certain a few of these bosses will be remembered as all-timers.

You'll find that wishing I could share more is a common theme in this review. It's both a blessing and a curse that I am unable to discuss the latter half of the expansion's story; a blessing, as it would be rude to ruin the twists and sheer spectacle of the experience, and a curse because I want nothing more than to describe in detail all the ways this story is the best the team has ever crafted. Though it takes a bit for things to really heat up and a couple plot points are slightly underbaked, the payoff is tremendous. Despite its sinister-sounding name and abundance of tragic moments, Lord of Hatred places great emphasis on love, sacrifice, and, above all else, the power of enduring hope. Though that might sound a bit quaint for Diablo, rest assured that all of these are explored through dark means, which ultimately makes their presence more impactful. After all, it takes darkness to appreciate the light.

Suffice to say, Lord of Hatred takes that idea to heart, weaving both light and darkness to create an unforgettable experience. This expansion transforms Diablo IV into a cohesive and shockingly timely celebration of the human spirit--a reminder that even against unfathomable odds, our compassion and grit make humans a force to be reckoned with. And though hatred and misinformation might be unrelenting, so are we.

Lord of Hatred's focus on the duality of light and darkness is further exemplified by its two new classes: the Paladin and the Warlock. As the Paladin class has been playable for the past four months for those who preordered Lord of Hatred (and we've already written up some of our thoughts), my focus here will be on the Warlock. However, it's worth noting that I've sunk a lot of time into the Paladin as well, and find the class to be a familiar take on the fan-favorite class that succeeds in delivering the holy knight power fantasy Diablo fans have come to love.

Though Warlocks have traditionally been depicted as magic-wielders who gain their powers through entering a pact with a dark entity or demon, Diablo IV redefines the class in the most Diablo way possible. Instead of bargaining with demons, which would arguably feel wildly out of place in Diablo, Warlocks hunt and bind the hellish creatures, forcing them to bend to their will and serve them. The Warlock class is then divided into four archetypes based on what type of demons the player controls: the Legion, the Vanguard, the Mastermind, and the Ritualist.

Initially, I built my Warlock up to be a bit of a Ritualist-Legion hybrid, focusing more on hanging back, summoning demons, and flooding the battlefield with hellfire. This was immensely fun, but I felt myself longing to be a bit more active and, perhaps counterintuitively, eager to lean away from the class's summoning. Though the Warlock feels different from the Necromancer or Spiritborn, I felt my itch to summon was properly scratched by those classes for me. I decided to pivot to something more dark and dexterous, with less emphasis on summoning minions and more emphasis on shadows and stealth. Though I gave myself the ability to summon Beholder-esque creatures and swarms of dark, leech-like creatures from the abyss, I focused on boosting my more direct attacks, debuffs, and trapping enemies with thick chains and an ability called Dark Prison.

In experimenting with my build, I found that--while the archetypes Blizzard suggests are a good starting point--the updates to the game's skill tree and increased level cap (70 instead of 60) make the process of building a tailor-made character far more fun and viable. Those who grind out endgame content and keep up with Diablo IV's seasonal content are probably well aware that there is a meta to the game; plenty of sites and creators focus intensely on nailing down and meticulously outlining very specific endgame builds, and I've appreciated and utilized them over the past few years. But while I'm confident there will still be a meta and folks out there doing the work to create the most effective builds possible, the greater amount of versatility and ability to invest up to 15 skill points in a single ability make things far more interesting.

Perhaps the most significant adjustment is that most abilities can actually change their affinity or typing once you reach a certain level. Previously, once I had committed to a set build, I largely ignored branches of the skill tree that did nothing to amplify it. But thanks to the capability to transform a hellfire-based ability into an abyss-based ability, for example, I was suddenly way more attentive to every pathway and every option. Somehow, this slightly more condensed skill tree feels far more unlimited, and that's an exciting prospect. Though I didn't get the chance to dig into the other classes, I am thrilled by what kind of builds await me and how this will reshape Diablo IV's meta.

Similarly, I am also looking forward to spending more time with Lord of Hatred's endgame content and updating this review with my thoughts a bit further down the road. So far, War Plans--a new feature that allows players to create a playlist of up to five endgame activities, such as nightmare dungeons or pit dives--feels promising, and certainly helps demystify running high-level content by making it more seamless and easier to jump into. The Horadric Cube upgrade system seems to solve a lot of issues folks have with Diablo IV's emphasis on equipment quantity over quality, allowing you to better shape your gear to your needs--even if the interface is a bit confusing initially. However, these are all features I feel I need more time with before I can properly weigh in on them.

Even without fully exploring everything the endgame has to offer, I believe Lord of Hatred is a must-play expansion. The final chapter of the Hatred Saga triumphs in amplifying all of Diablo IV's best qualities while also introducing fantastic quality-of-life updates, breathing life into the game, and providing players with the best narrative arc in Diablo history. All that plus the addition of two fantastic new classes, and you have a truly meaningful expansion that elevates Diablo IV as a whole. Though Blizzard thankfully seems to be keeping things open-ended, leaving me hopeful this isn't the end of Diablo IV, Lord of Hatred offers a satisfying conclusion to a truly great saga.

Two things can be said of Diablo IV leading up to the release of Lord of Hatred: First and foremost, as a series, Diablo has never been in a better or more promising place. Secondly, the game's first expansion, Vessel of Hatred, was a bit of a letdown following a tremendous first act. With those things in mind, it's safe to say that there are very high expectations for the game's forthcoming expansion. And, if the stakes weren't high enough, Lord of Hatred also carries with it two promises: a first look at the long-teased and highly-awaited land of Skovos, and an epic conclusion to the game's ongoing Hatred Saga--one featuring a major showdown with the Lord of Hatred himself.

Oftentimes, expectations and promises only pave the way for disappointment. Fortunately, that's not the case with Lord of Hatred. Diablo IV's latest expansion triumphs at maintaining the series' momentum while also delivering a powerful gut punch of a third act--one that weaves together years of events and lore to create the series' most-compelling narrative to date. Lord of Hatred offers both a spectacular conclusion to the Hatred Saga and plenty of changes that grant it greater longevity than ever before, including two powerhouse classes, plenty of improvements, and strong endgame content.

Lord of Hatred picks up not long after the events of Vessel of Hatred, which ultimately saw Mephisto take over the body of Akarat--a messiah-like figure in the Diablo universe. Through using Akarat's kindly visage, his own manipulative tactics, and performing "miracles," Mephisto has quickly managed to convince much of Sanctuary's population that he is a force for good--one who possesses the power to not only purify their lands, but their very souls as well. Even the most cunning of warriors find themselves in his thrall, their desperation for a better world ultimately contorting them into gullible disciples. As such, you, The Wanderer, and your faithful companions, Lorath and Neyrelle, come to be viewed as dissenting pariahs. And the fact that a demon's blood flows through your veins certainly doesn't help your case against the fraudulent prophet.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

"Okay, just one more run."

This is the phrase I've muttered at midnight--and then again at 2 AM--every day since diving into Vampire Crawlers. There are nights when it feels like it'd take an army to pull me from the clutches of its pixelated chaos. This deckbuilding spin-off to indie roguelike Vampire Survivors is every bit as gripping as that original outing, bringing both familiarity and freshness wrapped up into a first-person dungeon-crawling adventure.

I love that Vampire Crawlers maintains an undying commitment to the tone, characters, and retro visuals of its predecessor. It's evident even from the initial cutscene, which shows a returning character fending off hordes of attackers in the Mad Forest from Survivors' isometric view before transitioning to a first-person view of the area. Without using a single word, it proudly declares that a new perspective doesn't change the fact that this is still unquestionably Vampire Survivors at its core.

That being said, where Vampire Survivors was about quick reactions, Vampire Crawlers is about planning and execution. Its slow, grid-based movement is merely a means to reach the next turn-based battle in which you now use a deck of cards to perform gloriously ludicrous attacks against hordes of enemies. Vampires' items show up in the form of cards here, ranging from damage-based options like Knife, Whip, and Cross to support-focused options like the power-increasing Spinach or healing Pummarola. Evolutions even make their return, letting you combine two cards into a more powerful version that can further devastate your foes. New additions to the lineup are few and far between, but it's this dedication to serving up what players already know and love that helps the transition into a new format feel seamless.

This time around, you don't directly control specific characters so much as bring them along for the ride. Referred to as Crawlers, they each have unique starting weapons and passives, but they also present as cards that can be played from your deck to provide additional bonuses for a limited time, such as increased damage or XP boosts. Eventually, you can bring along up to three Crawlers at a time, so mixing and matching characters that complement each other helps you set the tone of your runs right out of the gate.

Choosing these Crawlers is a fun way to customize your loadout before ever visiting a dungeon, but it's also important since card acquisition is otherwise largely random. While you can banish, skip, or reroll cards a limited number of times once you've invested in some upgrades, luck still plays some part in the direction your deck takes during a run. Still, Vampire Crawlers is rarely too punishing with this, as it's more about knowing how to play the cards you've been dealt than it is about min-maxing your deck. Building a specialty deck no doubt improves your chances of victory, but I was surprised at how many times I managed to squeak by with a mismatched hand due to deft use of the game's combo system.

Each card requires a specific number of mana points to play, with most falling between zero and three, and playing them in numerical order creates a combo that powers up subsequent cards. This means you'll deal a lot more damage if you combo into an attack card, which is great for clearing away enemies--but it's leveraging this mechanic to improve buffs or stats that really make a run come together. It's very satisfying to use combos to power up a card that improves your max health over and over until you become a nigh-unkillable tank.

New cards are granted by leveling up or discovering unique loot spots throughout the game's multi-level dungeons. At least early on, it's vital to plan for how you want to tackle a level's enemy layouts to most easily reach potential loot opportunities. Choosing to take on a sub-boss before clearing other enemies on the floor may see you suffer from an underdeveloped deck, which could leave you with too little health to reasonably survive the run. Conversely, managing to eke out a win against these tougher villains could earn you exactly what you need to pummel every other group of monsters on the level. This risk-reward approach is what keeps early runs feeling enjoyably stressful.

That being said, a focus on strategic navigation peaks during the first half of Vampire Crawlers. Despite their random layouts, it doesn't take long to figure out the flow of dungeons and how to maximize your efficiency. Moreover, as with Vampire Survivors before it, you eventually progress far enough in stat upgrades and unlockables that you can start being bolder in your approach. Many enemies that once made you tremble become trivial, so older dungeons, should you revisit them, begin to feel like little more than laid-back coin farming spots--unless you toggle your upgrades off in the village, at least.

Even so, the game ensures your power creep doesn't get too out of control until you near the end of the campaign by locking certain major mechanics behind Relics found in later stages. While most of the core stat upgrades are pulled from the previous game and work the same--offering incremental increases to things like damage, total health, and base mana amount--Relics impact the complexity of the gameplay in more dramatic ways. There are over a dozen of these game-altering items to discover during the journey, and they frequently introduce entirely new features that change the way you approach exploration and building decks.

For instance, slotting gems into certain cards to get a variety of passive and active boosts can make or break a run. So, when you discover a Relic that adds a jeweller where you can increase or decrease the spawn rate of specific gems, the excitement of choosing between so many begins to give way to the realization that there's an advantage to limiting your options. When only the strongest (see: borderline game-breaking) gems are spawning, you can ensure you're virtually always reaching peak performance.

It's in that realization that Vampire Crawlers begins to reveal its true end goal: making you smile as you dispense pure carnage. In this way, it comes full circle back to Vampire Survivors, where you could leave your character idle and go eat dinner while it auto-farmed for a few hours. Here, once you've become a proficient deckbuilder, you can create an unstoppable stack of cards that lets you plow through dungeons while spamming the auto-play button to unleash anarchy without much thought. It's a sublime payoff for the 15-20 hours it takes to earn the necessary components to make it happen, and seeing just how far you can push things can feel like a whole game to master unto itself.

As a result, even with everything unlocked and nothing left to work toward, Vampire Crawlers still has its teeth in me, begging me to dive back in and decimate all who stand before me. Since I haven't come close to growing tired of mowing down baddies with the wackiest decks possible, I guess I'll give it just one more run.

And then maybe just one more after that.

"Okay, just one more run."

This is the phrase I've muttered at midnight--and then again at 2 AM--every day since diving into Vampire Crawlers. There are nights when it feels like it'd take an army to pull me from the clutches of its pixelated chaos. This deckbuilding spin-off to indie roguelike Vampire Survivors is every bit as gripping as that original outing, bringing both familiarity and freshness wrapped up into a first-person dungeon-crawling adventure.

I love that Vampire Crawlers maintains an undying commitment to the tone, characters, and retro visuals of its predecessor. It's evident even from the initial cutscene, which shows a returning character fending off hordes of attackers in the Mad Forest from Survivors' isometric view before transitioning to a first-person view of the area. Without using a single word, it proudly declares that a new perspective doesn't change the fact that this is still unquestionably Vampire Survivors at its core.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

There's no shortage of boomer shooters out there for those looking for some retro-style first-person action: Cultic, Ion Fury, Prodeus, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, just to name a few. Yet only one of these nostalgic shooters meshes the genre's arcade sensibilities with the black-and-white rubber-hose visuals of cartoons from the 1920s and '30s and the unmistakable trappings of film noir.

Originally released as a tech demo that quickly went viral in 2023, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is now a fully-fledged game--one that oozes style and doesn't lack substance either. It's both familiar and incredibly niche at the same time; an endlessly charming game that I found a joy to simply behold, even before the cartoon bullets started flying.

Unsurprisingly for a game about furry rodents, Mouse: P.I. is all too fond of cheese-based puns and wordplay, so it makes sense that you should slip into the stylish trenchcoat of one Jack Pepper. The titular P.I. is a former war hero-turned-private dick working on a missing-persons case. As is par for the course, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, escalating into a complex web of intrigue and corruption that spreads to every sleazy corner of the city of Mouseburg.

It's an enjoyable and authentically noir tale, full of twists, turns, and all the familiar hallmarks of the genre, with femme fatales, morally ambiguous characters, and a tangled plot among its defining elements. While it's not a straight-up parody like It's Always Sunny in Philadelphia's "The Janitor Always Mops Twice," Mouse: P.I. doesn't take itself too seriously either.

The writing is witty and lighthearted throughout, playing up the genre's clichés with a comedic tone befitting its cartoon art style. A few fun concepts are also implemented to fit its unique world and add some breadth, such as its dairy-based narcotics and black ink as a substitute for blood. You can also find old newspapers hidden within each level that give Mouseburg a sense of history, with news of ongoing worker strikes and emerging political parties, as well as exposés on mob bosses.

The voice cast is excellent, too, particularly Troy Baker, who embodies Jack Pepper's sarcastic stoicism with a performance that's both hardboiled and humorous--adhering to the film noir genre with a knowing wink.

As the investigation takes you across Mouseburg's seedy underbelly, including unscrupulous movie backlots, city docks, subways, wetlands, a highfalutin river boat, and more, you're met with opposition from a range of armed criminals looking to stop you in your tracks. Fortunately, Jack Pepper is just as handy with a firearm as he is with a corkboard.

With each fleet-footed step forward, double jump, and wall run, it's evident that 2016's Doom was a source of inspiration for Mouse: P.I.'s arcadey mobility and combat. Movement speed is high, and perpetual motion is key to surviving any scuffle while laying waste to the mobsters, crooked cops, and cultists trying to snuff you out.

Whether you're strafing to avoid enemy gunfire, dashing away from thugs wielding steel pipes and baseball bats, or sprinting around the environment to grab health and ammo pickups, there's an energetic sense of momentum punctuating each shootout. The game doesn't shy away from violence either. With your weapon firmly ensconced on your right hip, each press of the trigger has the potential to create the kind of slapstick chaos that would make Itchy and Scratchy proud.

While heads pop off from shotgun blasts and the rapid fire of Mouse: P.I.'s referential Tommy Gun, the James Gun, there are far more experimental weapons in Jack Pepper's arsenal that could've come straight from ACME. A few pulls of the Devarnisher's trigger, for instance, will coat your foes in turpentine, melting the ink off their bones until they're nothing more than terrified skeletons--their bones rattling together with the same distinctive sound heard in Walt Disney's 1929 short film, The Skeleton Dance.

You can pick up and throw explosive barrels that ignite on impact, burning anyone unlucky enough to be in range until they're reduced to a pile of soot. Grand pianos and comically oversized anvils are a frequent sight, hanging precariously from the ceiling to tempt you into quite literally flattening an enemy or three. Mouse: P.I.'s combat may not be genre-defining, but it's absurd, fast-paced, and extremely satisfying.

However, I am a tad disappointed that the investigative side of the game is merely window dressing. You gather clues to advance the case, then pin each one to a corkboard to link the evidence and build a better understanding of how everything fits together, but the entire process is automated. It feels superfluous, and I would've liked to at least link the evidence myself, to feel like I was impacting the investigation beyond mowing down enemies.

Either way, the levels are well-designed, alternating between wide-open spaces and cramped corridors that force you to approach combat differently. There's a ton of verticality in most areas for you to take advantage of, too, and a decent variety of enemy types, from big guys who rush at you headfirst to others who wield wooden shields.

Anyone with a keen eye for exploration will also find plenty of secret areas in each level, tucked away behind hidden vents and optional platforming challenges. This is where you'll find the aforementioned newspapers, along with comic-book pages and collectible baseball cards you can use in Mouse: P.I.'s own tabletop minigame. This spin on America's favorite pastime isn't exactly on par with the likes of Gwent or Queen's Blood, but I still had fun playing a game or two in between missions. With Daniel "The Ra-ta-Train" Cruz hitting dingers and Joel Blunt painting the corners, I'm not afraid to say that my team dominated the tabletop diamond.

There's a special reward for winning 35 games, although a more traditional progression system is also in play to dole out a steady stream of upgrades for Jack himself. You can improve each weapon's damage output, ammo capacity, and also unlock alternate fire modes, such as the James Gun's spray and pray--complete with an animation synonymous with gangsters of the era. There are a number of traversal abilities to gradually unlock, too, including the aforementioned double jump and wall run. This sense of progression keeps things feeling fresh throughout the game's 11 hours, though some abilities feel underutilized, featuring heavily during the level they're unlocked in only to fall by the wayside later on.

Even with some minor shortcomings, there's nothing here that takes away from Mouse: P.I.'s crown jewel: its incredible art style. Each and every frame has been lovingly hand-drawn, recreating the rubber-hose animation of classic cartoons like Steamboat Willie and Betty Boop's May Party with striking aplomb. Characters and items of importance bounce on the spot with a joyous elasticity, their heavy ink outlines standing out against the softer matte style of the environments. There are reverential nods to some of the game's inspirations, such as a power-up that sees you down a can of spinach to immediately bulk up like Popeye the Sailor Man.

Even smaller details you might not always notice are a treat for the eyes. The ammo counter in the bottom-right corner features a different sentient bullet depending on which gun you're using, with the little guys typically buzzing with excitement or laughing maniacally each time you pull the trigger. The reloading animations are hypnotic, too, whether you're haphazardly stuffing a handful of slugs into a shotgun or draining another bottle of liquid on the side of the portable freezer. At both the macro and micro levels, Mouse: P.I. is a visual marvel that's always delightful to look at. Not to mention, it's all complemented by an original big band jazz soundtrack that nails the era's vibe and noir aesthetic.

There aren't many other games that pull off the same distinct art style as Mouse: P.I. For Hire. Cuphead is the only one that comes to mind, which makes it easy to fall for the game's presentational charms. There's rarely a frame that isn't bursting with style and creativity, and it's none too shabby as a retro-style shooter either. Mouse: P.I. might not reinvent the wheel, but its arsenal of weapons is punchy and delightfully varied, while the fluidity of movement makes for some thrilling, high-speed shootouts. In this instance, you should have no qualms about handing over money to the mouse.

There's no shortage of boomer shooters out there for those looking for some retro-style first-person action: Cultic, Ion Fury, Prodeus, and Warhammer 40,000: Boltgun, just to name a few. Yet only one of these nostalgic shooters meshes the genre's arcade sensibilities with the black-and-white rubber-hose visuals of cartoons from the 1920s and '30s and the unmistakable trappings of film noir.

Originally released as a tech demo that quickly went viral in 2023, Mouse: P.I. For Hire is now a fully-fledged game--one that oozes style and doesn't lack substance either. It's both familiar and incredibly niche at the same time; an endlessly charming game that I found a joy to simply behold, even before the cartoon bullets started flying.

Unsurprisingly for a game about furry rodents, Mouse: P.I. is all too fond of cheese-based puns and wordplay, so it makes sense that you should slip into the stylish trenchcoat of one Jack Pepper. The titular P.I. is a former war hero-turned-private dick working on a missing-persons case. As is par for the course, the investigation quickly spirals out of control, escalating into a complex web of intrigue and corruption that spreads to every sleazy corner of the city of Mouseburg.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

You don't see games like Pragmata very often.

Big-budget single-player shooters aren't as common as they once were, and even more rarely do they launch new franchises. They often come with trade-offs--a game might nail the fundamentals, or have some surprising new hook, or have a resonant story, but rarely do you get all of them at once. Pragmata is the total package, a blend of tense and satisfying combat elevated by deep underlying mechanics and strategic choices, all in service of telling an impactful tale that spends time nurturing the relationship between its memorable characters. It's one of my unexpected surprises of 2026 so far and an early shoo-in for one of my favorites of the year.

You play as Hugh Williams, an everyman astronaut dispatched to a corporate medical research colony on the moon. There's an eerie stillness to the base that suggests something isn't quite right, but before you and your crew have any time to investigate, a moonquake rocks the base and leaves you as the only survivor. Now stranded and beset by legions of hostile robots, you're befriended by a mysterious android girl who helps you to survive by hacking the otherwise near-invincible robots. When she tries to give her alphanumeric name, Hugh calls her Diana to make it easier, and the two are joined at the hip from that point forward.

Pragmata is near-future sci-fi, which means all the technology is well beyond our actual capabilities, but mostly exists on a continuum of what we currently know is possible. Hugh's helmet is sharp and angular like a Destiny character, but his suit is white and bulky, as you'd see on a real NASA astronaut. The most magical piece of future-tech on this moon base, aside from the existence of Diana herself, is lunafilament, which can be used as the raw material to 3D print just about anything, thus making the base mostly self-sustaining. In fact, there's lots of recurring talk about 3D printing and how integrated it is into the base, which helps the setting feel futuristic but not unattainable. It's grounded, at least as these things go.

The tag-team of Hugh and Diana is the keystone not just of the story, but of Pragmata's core combat hook. Hugh wields his weapons, first a basic sidearm and then a progressively more varied and creative arsenal, like a traditional third-person shooter. But whenever you aim down your sights at an approaching robot, you also see the enemies through Diana's eyes, visualized as a hacking matrix floating next to the enemy. These grids, which start small and basic but grow increasingly complex, let you steer from a starting point to a finishing node with the face buttons, all while still leaving you free to move and shoot. The robots are almost impossible to kill with your basic weapons, as their armor is too tough, but once you've hit the green node on the hack puzzle, the hostile robots crack open like lobsters.

This inventive hook imbues everything in the game with a sense of tension. The need to fire at enemies while also juggling your hack recalls the best moments of Dead Space, when you would suddenly need to change the angular orientation of your gun's projectiles on the fly. Encounters become a dance as you determine whether you can spare just enough time to finish the hack before the robot reaches you, or if you need to create some distance. Dividing your attention between the hack and the advancing enemy means you have to quickly glance back and forth, making every hack frantic as you try to avoid danger you're not actively watching. The setting and enemies here are nowhere near the body horror creepshow of Dead Space, but I kept getting that familiar feeling of tickling several different parts of my brain at once during skirmishes. And as more- and different combinations of enemies get introduced, the on-the-fly decision-making ramps up in complexity.

Like the best of the genre, Pragmata rewards creative thinking to create your own immersive story about how you, personally, handled the rampaging robots. At one point I hacked a sizable bot and started to deal damage, but it regained its composure and cloaked, so I lost sight of it in the dark. Not sure what to do, or even whether it would work, I started blindly firing my broad grenade-like Riot Blaster--a tactical weapon usually built for incapacitating robots. Sure enough, its wide explosion caught the robot and exposed its location so I could begin hacking it again. It's the kind of fun, emergent moment that's possible when flexible systems interact.

Those qualities by themselves would make this a standout title in the genre, but on top of the satisfying fundamentals of combat, Pragmata stacks myriad options to personalize your tactics. You find more sci-fi weapons, some with analogs to familiar shooter arsenal like shotguns and grenade launchers, and others with more specialized uses like a Sticky Bomb that shrinks your enemies' hacking matrixes. Only your base weapon has limitless ammo, but it has a limited clip size. And rather than start fresh with a new clip, that base ammo regenerates over time, frequently forcing you to swap to secondary weapons. This maintains the tension of often feeling short on ammo, without ever leaving you completely defenseless. All of the other weapons can be brought with you into a stage or scavenged. As a result, you'll be hot-swapping between weapons a lot, often staying just on the edge of scarcity during larger combat encounters.

Pragmata

Diana's skill set is almost as robust. By default, robots will have exposed blue Open Nodes on their hacking grids, which grant bonus damage if you pass through them on your way to the goal. But you can find and equip various consumable yellow hacking nodes, which inflict different effects on enemies, like boosting your weapons damage or causing them to overheat. Those nodes will populate randomly in your hacking field, adding a tricky layer of decision-making in the heat of battle--if you don't want to use up a specialized node, that's one more block you need to maneuver around on your way to the goal.

And then there are Hacking Modes, which add a further layer of complexity. These can change the very nature of what your hacking minigame is meant to do, which can have massive benefits if you can incorporate the new strategy into your play.

I chose the Strike mode, which would switch the regular Open Nodes into Strike Nodes, making those deal extra damage to an already-exposed bot. The damage could be increased by firing with conventional weapons before hitting those nodes. So with that Hacking Mode equipped, my goal subtly changed from striking hard and fast with conventional weapons to firing off some shots and then going back into the hacking matrix again before it snapped shut on its own. It was a powerful new way of playing that rewarded me for reorienting my hacking strategy around this tool.

Pragmata

Those tools are equipped and upgraded in the Shelter, your safe haven and mission hub. As you complete missions and upgrade the space, you get access to more functionality, like a training center. This is also where you can gift Diana with keepsakes from Earth that you find around the base; upgrade your base stats for HP, basic weapon damage, and hacking; purchase new abilities; and upgrade the weapons and abilities you've already found. There's even a friendly robot who offers a series of bingo boards, which you can mark using special coins earned around stages and by bonding with Diana. The bingo rewards range from enemy models to look at, to cosmetic costumes, to some powerful hacking tools, so it all feeds into itself nicely and offers plenty to do in your downtime between areas.

The Shelter is more than just a hub, though. As you venture around stages, you'll often find checkpoints that offer you a trip back. You can go back at any time from one of these, respawning enemies in the process, but it's often worth it. I found that cashing in currency for upgrades, healing myself, and restocking restorative items was almost always worth the trip, and the respawning enemies system wasn't much of a drawback since the excellent stage design kept pushing me forward. The level structure, all accessible from the Shelter, is stage-based, but with exploration power-ups scattered throughout to encourage going back to pick up hidden secrets. You can't find everything your first time through a stage, so you're encouraged to go back later. Return trips will also likely include heading to the special red rooms, which are extra-tough combat challenges with significant rewards. These rooms require a keycard to open, however, so you'll need to keep an eye out for them too.

The Shelter is also an avenue for Hugh and Diana to interact and bond. The holographic projections of earth artifacts lets Hugh talk about life on Earth and how kids grow up there, and relate it to his own childhood experiences. The story trods familiar ground--a wolf-and-cub story with a world-wise father figure flanked by a gifted but impressionable youngster. Despite its familiarity, though, it packs an emotional punch. Pragmata almost exclusively follows just two characters for its entire playtime, which creates lots of opportunities for little moments of connection and to let the relationship grow organically. Diana is the heart of the story; charming and cute as a button and believably kid-like, she's curious and sharp but also naive and a little endearingly odd. Near the start, I thought that Hugh turned into a nurturing dad a little too quickly, but his anecdotes about own life experiences paid that development off in a satisfying way, too.

Pragmata Gallery

And within the basic framework of a familiar archetypal story, Pragmata finds ways to surprise with both broad turns and fine details that I didn't see coming. Holographic recordings and left-behind datapads enrich the worldbuilding in the ways you might expect, but they also cleverly seed plot revelations to come. On more than one occasion, I had started to formulate some ideas in my mind about the truth behind the mysteries happening in the facility based on the environmental storytelling I had found, only to be either satisfied with the payoff for my detective work, or surprised by the way it subverted the rabbit hole I had started to go down. Learning about the fate of the Cradle and why the base's AI seemingly went berserk, and what all of this has to do with Diana, reminded me of peeling back the layers in Horizon Zero Dawn.

This all led to a thrilling conclusion that tested my skills, stirred my heart, and left me wanting more. Pragmata offers a robust post-game with plenty to do, but I hope that's not the last I see of Hugh and Diana. This combination of sharp combat mechanics, rich strategic depth, and lovely storytelling doesn't come along often. Pragmata shouldn't be missed.

You don't see games like Pragmata very often.

Big-budget single-player shooters aren't as common as they once were, and even more rarely do they launch new franchises. They often come with trade-offs--a game might nail the fundamentals, or have some surprising new hook, or have a resonant story, but rarely do you get all of them at once. Pragmata is the total package, a blend of tense and satisfying combat elevated by deep underlying mechanics and strategic choices, all in service of telling an impactful tale that spends time nurturing the relationship between its memorable characters. It's one of my unexpected surprises of 2026 so far and an early shoo-in for one of my favorites of the year.

You play as Hugh Williams, an everyman astronaut dispatched to a corporate medical research colony on the moon. There's an eerie stillness to the base that suggests something isn't quite right, but before you and your crew have any time to investigate, a moonquake rocks the base and leaves you as the only survivor. Now stranded and beset by legions of hostile robots, you're befriended by a mysterious android girl who helps you to survive by hacking the otherwise near-invincible robots. When she tries to give her alphanumeric name, Hugh calls her Diana to make it easier, and the two are joined at the hip from that point forward.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Pokemon's turn-based combat can be best described as an inch wide and a mile deep. Its rock-paper-scissors style is easy to understand, but below the murky surface lies an entirely different game. Moves that may seem useless at first glance take on a different meaning in a competitive setting, where complicated stat spreads are tweaked ever-so-slightly to maximize a Pokemon's efficiency and a constantly evolving meta-game makes it hard to nail down which strategies are viable and which aren't. Toss in over 1,000 unique monsters that can be trained in hundreds of thousands of different ways, and you're left with arguably the most impenetrable competitive video game scene of all time.

For decades, Pokemon's competitive scene was just that: a near-impenetrable experience that requires hundreds of hours--and hundreds of dollars--to keep up with. Pokemon Champions is The Pokemon Company's attempt to bring white-knuckled, competitive battling to the masses. The financial barrier to entry, at least ostensibly, is low thanks to its free-to-play model, and the snappy stat-training mechanics reduce a lot of friction. However, Pokemon Champions lacks the necessary onboarding to captivate a new audience while also giving clear advantages to players who've invested in Pokemon Home. In its current state, Pokemon Champions falls just short of being the be-all and end-all of competitive play that I hoped for.

Despite Pokemon Champions' lackluster onboarding, there are a lot of tutorials. When you first start up the game, you're introduced to a cast of characters who teach you how to battle, obtain Pokemon, and build a team. Assuming you don't skip any dialogue, it takes roughly 30 minutes before you're set loose. From there, you can battle online, train Pokemon, build teams, or continue with supplementary tutorials. I opted to do the latter.

There are nine battle tutorials in total, and most of them barely scratch the surface of Pokemon's competitive depth. The one tutorial that focuses on weather, for example, showcases how water attacks deal more damage under rain and triggers certain abilities, but it fails to mention the other three weather states or other impacts rain can have. Another one covers Move Priority but glosses over how it actually works when multiple moves with different priority interact. There is an in-game glossary that goes a little more in-depth, but even that feels lacking. Not wanting to overwhelm a new player is reasonable, but I can't imagine jumping into competitive battles without fully understanding why an Incineroar is occasionally outspeeding my supposedly faster Jolteon. Sure, those resources are out there, but players shouldn't have to reach for external guides just to learn the basics of competitive battling.

Perhaps NPC battles could offset this by giving players a safe space to learn different interactions and try out strategies, but Champions lacks this as well. Casual matchmaking is your best bet, but I've found skill levels to be all over the place. Sometimes I'd get paired with a razor-sharp meta-relevant team that wiped the floor with mine, and other times I'd go up against a confounding assortment of Pokemon. The skill instability makes it hard to test whether a game plan is viable or not.

Ranked Battles fare much better. My opponents steadily got tougher as I ranked up, and now--at Ultra Ball Rank 3--I feel like battles can go either way. Whether I win or lose, most clashes feel like they come down to a few hair-raising turns where I either outplay my opponent or they outplay me. It's those highs that make competitive battling so exhilarating. Just because you know what a Pokemon does and the role it typically plays within a team doesn't mean you know how your opponent plans to utilize it. Success depends on a strong understanding of the game, sharp improvisational skills, and thinking multiple steps ahead of your opponent. Pulling out a hard-fought win by successfully reading an opponent, or pivoting strategies at the last minute is intoxicating, and it's easy to fall into that "one-more-battle" rabbit hole late into the night.

Compared to Scarlet and Violet, battling is snappier. Thanks to quick animations, streamlined battle text, and shorter connection times, bouts move at a steady pace. Most double battles I participated in were under 20 minutes, and if they went on longer it was because my opponent was using stall tactics to keep their Pokemon on the field. However, even those strategies have been de-emphasized due to balance changes making them harder to come by.

Champions also makes battling more legible than any mainline game before it by shedding light on obscure mechanics from the series. For example, if you look up the move Iron Head in Pokemon Scarlet and Violet, it simply says: "This may also make the target flinch." Champions says it "has a 20% chance of making the target flinch," while also showing how many targets it can hit and precisely how the move connects. For years, this has been information that players have had to infer through rigorous battling or by looking up details online. Having all this additional context front and center while training your Pokemon makes the whole process more efficient.

Pick a Pokemon to train, allocate its additional stat points, change the nature, swap out the moves, and switch the ability and you're good to go.

Training in general is also much easier in Pokemon Champions. Pick a Pokemon to train, allocate its additional stat points, change the nature, swap out the moves, and switch the ability and you're good to go. As long as you have the VP, Pokemon Champions' in-game currency, you can train a Pokemon as many times as you'd like. I had my first team up and running in minutes, something that would have taken hours in Scarlet and Violet.

Part of the reason team building is quicker is because Pokemon Champions is missing a lot of Pokemon and items that players have come to expect. Competitive staples in previous iterations, like Amoonguss and Rillaboom, are absent, as well as popular items like Rocky Helmet and Life Orb. I don't find these absences all that bad, though. Sure, I'm bummed some of my favorite Pokemon didn't make the cut, but putting these restrictions on players lets a new meta develop that isn't dominated by familiar strategies and overpowered Pokemon. It's abundantly clear that new Pokemon and items will rotate in and out in the future, so I'm perfectly happy working with what we have for the time being.

The only thing that can potentially throttle team building is VP. Like many free-to-play games, Pokemon Champions frontloads you with a ton of in-game currency to get you started, but once that dries up, your team building potential is limited. Recruiting Pokemon, training Pokemon, and buying battle items all cost VP, and because VP cannot be directly purchased, you'll need to battle, complete challenges, and advance the battle pass. Recruiting and training a Pokemon could cost as much as 5,000 VP, and one ranked win typically earns you a paltry 300 VP. This makes trying to assemble and train a team an arduous endeavor, unless you're willing to pay $6.99 for the Starter Pack which includes 30 Teammate Tickets and 50 Training Tickets. This offsets the cost, but it means that players who don't purchase the Starter Pack could be at a disadvantage.

Pokemon Home connectivity levels the playing field--at least for those who pay for the Pokemon storage service and have built up a respectable collection over hundreds of hours of playing other Pokemon games. As long as you have the box space in Champions, there's no limit to how many Pokemon can visit from Home. The catch is that box space is limited to 30 slots unless you buy the Starter Pack or subscribe to the $4.99/month subscription which ups it to 80 and a whopping 1,000 slots respectively. Additionally, you can buy the Premium Battle Pass for $9.99, which includes Pokemon, Mega Stones (all of which can be purchased from the store for VP), and a sad selection of cosmetics from Pokemon Legends: Z-A.

While I'm not necessarily averse to free-to-play games, Pokemon Champions' model alongside its Home support make for an unbalanced experience. Players who have a robust collection in Pokemon Home have immediate access to meta-relevant Pokemon, while players who don't must roll the dice with Champions' randomized recruitment. Despite having a massive collection tucked away in Pokemon Home, I opted to only use Pokemon Champions' recruitment mechanics for the first few hours to see if I could build a decent team. I did manage to pull a few staples like the Ghost- and Grass-type Pokemon Sinistcha, and the Water-type powerhouse Palafin, but those Pokemon alone were not enough to carry me past the Great Ball rank.

The free-to-play model makes it an obvious entry point, but it doesn't always give new players the resources to succeed.

After a dozen or so more pulls, I caved and plucked Incineroar and Sneasler from Home, the two most-used Pokemon in the doubles format according to the in-game stats. I also imported Floette Eternal Flower, a Pokemon Legends: Z-A exclusive that can only be obtained by completing the grind-heavy post-game, which just so happens to be the best special attacker in Pokemon Champions. Once I built a team around Floette, Incineroar, Sneasler, and Sinistcha, battles got easier until I started seeing more teams streamlined for the current meta. Right now, the only thing preventing casual players from getting blitzed by the best Pokemon in the game is the Ranked matchmaking, which, to its credit, is quite good. However, a quicker and more direct way to obtain specific Pokemon for players who may not have a wealth of Pokemon in Home could make for a more symmetrical experience.

This puts Pokemon Champions in a weird spot. The free-to-play model makes it an obvious entry point, but it doesn't always give new players the resources to succeed. When I purposefully withheld Pokemon Home access, I had plenty of ideas for teams but couldn't assemble any of them because I was missing a few key Pokemon. When I finally succumbed to Pokemon Home, I immediately pulled the most meta-relevant Pokemon simply because I could. That won't be an option for everyone.

While I have issues with Pokemon Champions' onboarding and recruitment processes, the foundation is solid. The punchy battles and added transparency for once-hidden mechanics make this the best official way to play competitive Pokemon. The lack of certain Pokemon and items may seem like a letdown, but the limited roster has allowed for some unlikely picks to flourish in fun ways. Assuming The Pokemon Company continues to support Champions with balance patches, new features, new Pokemon, and new items on a regular basis, it could live up to its potential as the premier avenue for Pokemon Battles.

Right now, though, Pokemon Champions provides two different experiences for seasoned players and newcomers respectively--and unfortunately for newcomers, it's an uneven one that will require a lot of their own dedication and time to improve. Perhaps the barrier to entry for competitive Pokemon can never be smashed entirely, but Champions wears it down, and those willing to push through it will find one of the most thrilling competitive games on the other side.

Pokemon's turn-based combat can be best described as an inch wide and a mile deep. Its rock-paper-scissors style is easy to understand, but below the murky surface lies an entirely different game. Moves that may seem useless at first glance take on a different meaning in a competitive setting, where complicated stat spreads are tweaked ever-so-slightly to maximize a Pokemon's efficiency and a constantly evolving meta-game makes it hard to nail down which strategies are viable and which aren't. Toss in over 1,000 unique monsters that can be trained in hundreds of thousands of different ways, and you're left with arguably the most impenetrable competitive video game scene of all time.

For decades, Pokemon's competitive scene was just that: a near-impenetrable experience that requires hundreds of hours--and hundreds of dollars--to keep up with. Pokemon Champions is The Pokemon Company's attempt to bring white-knuckled, competitive battling to the masses. The financial barrier to entry, at least ostensibly, is low thanks to its free-to-play model, and the snappy stat-training mechanics reduce a lot of friction. However, Pokemon Champions lacks the necessary onboarding to captivate a new audience while also giving clear advantages to players who've invested in Pokemon Home. In its current state, Pokemon Champions falls just short of being the be-all and end-all of competitive play that I hoped for.

Despite Pokemon Champions' lackluster onboarding, there are a lot of tutorials. When you first start up the game, you're introduced to a cast of characters who teach you how to battle, obtain Pokemon, and build a team. Assuming you don't skip any dialogue, it takes roughly 30 minutes before you're set loose. From there, you can battle online, train Pokemon, build teams, or continue with supplementary tutorials. I opted to do the latter.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

People of Note was clearly made with lots of love, but it is also a deeply silly game. Conflicts are resolved between musicians flinging music at each other, a simple country-wide road trip transforms into a battle to save all of reality, and somehow everyone is convinced that the power of friendship will somehow overcome an ancient eldritch-like power. If I didn't know any better, I'd think this game was an old-school role-playing game. And, to be fair, People of Note shares a lot of parallels with those games. While that means the strengths of those types of games are present in People of Note--notably the music and world design in its case--it also means that some of the shortcomings that can be found in the weaker installments of the genre are present in Iridium Studios' turn-based RPG too.

People of Note sees would-be pop star Cadence striving to fulfill her dream of winning a singing competition and getting propelled into fame. Worried that the pop song she's prepared isn't strong enough to sway the judges, she sets out through the land of Note in search of people who can add to her song. Her journey takes her to a desert where everyone is all about different kinds of rock music, a futuristic metropolis blanketed in perpetual night and inhabited by EDM-obsessed disc jockeys, a block-shaped party city that's all about rap and hip hop, and so much more. And all the while, repeated references to an event known as the Harmonic Convergence steel you for what will eventually be a sharp tonal shift away from road-trip comedy to dramatic high fantasy.

Your enjoyment of this story is really going to come down to how much you like puns and pop culture references--People of Note's humor is not unlike Borderlands 2 or Saints Row IV. The game rides the line between funny and corny well enough for me, save for one moment in the third act that made me cringe so hard, I contemplated simply not playing any more of the game that day. But I also enjoy games like Borderlands and Saints Row. If you're not a fan of the idea of a story that takes every single conceivable musical term and crafts a whole high-fantasy society and plotline with said terms, People of Note is probably going to grate.

Its humor aside, however, People of Note tells a solid story. Protagonist Cadence goes through an incredible arc, with the most prominent moments of transformation brought to life with animated musical performances that feel like they'd be right at home in a Broadway musical. The story's third and final act feels a tad too busy, with Cadence and her band contending with every villain in back-to-back conflicts--having a few of those storylines wrap up in Act 1 or 2 might have helped keep Act 3 from feeling so bloated and difficult to follow.

The final member of Cadence's party, rapper Vox, also feels like a notably weaker and less fleshed-out character in comparison to his peers, being introduced in Act 3 and not having the same level of characterization as rocker Fret or DJ Synthia. Having to share the limelight with half a dozen villains who all need closure on their own narrative arcs means Vox is left in this unsatisfying limbo of not really having much focus in the story.

Beyond the characters, and in terms of visuals and audio, the world of People of Note is incredibly well-realized, and uncovering the map and discovering which genre of music you're going to explore next is regularly entertaining. Each distinct area has its own musical theme, which transforms and evolves whenever combat kicks off. The music in battles that are set in rock-centric Durandis takes on a more country vibe when fighting members of the country-obsessed Homestead, for example.

Each turn of combat--referred to as stanzas--will also sometimes be affected by Cadence and her allies, creating turns where pop, rock, or another genre of music takes center stage. During these moments, the background music changes to incorporate that genre, and the member of Cadence's party that corresponds to that particular genre of music grows stronger.

The crux of People of Note is these turn-based battles. While Cadence and her allies automatically come equipped with a basic attack they can perform for free, they also have powerful abilities that require the use of a resource called Beat Points that slowly charge with every turn. These actions each have their own quick-time prompt--messing it up decreases the power of the move, while perfectly timing your inputs amplifies the ability's power. Have you played Clair Obscur: Expedition 33? If so, you have an idea as to how this works already.

It's a serviceable system, but it never feels all that natural, especially later on in the game when you unlock the most powerful abilities that require multiple quick-time inputs. That's because each ability has its own unique pattern that never changes, despite the music of each fight evolving turn to turn.

While this isn't game-breaking, it does lead to player mistakes throughout the game's entire story, as your muscle memory of how the quick-time pattern is supposed to go clashes with how good it feels to press buttons in response to the beat of music. Unfortunately for me, my beat perception won out more often than not, leading me to frustratingly mess up the quick-time inputs over and over in the latter half of the story. It eventually got bad enough that I just turned off the quick-time mechanic in the settings entirely.

I largely enjoyed the combat outside of those quick-time inputs. There's quite a bit of strategy to it, rewarding your commitment to creating builds and thinking ahead. Each character in Cadence's party takes on a specific role--Cadence is an all-rounder, for instance, while Fret is geared more toward healing and support. Each character can be customized with different stones that each grant a different ability, allowing you to curate each. You can double down on Fret's role and load him up with multiple abilities devoted to healing, buffing, curing debuffs, and reviving downed allies, for example, or make him a tough tank that endures multiple hits before unleashing a powerful headbang attack.

In addition, the flow of battle needs to be taken into consideration. Enemies can place modifiers on the turn order so that the first person to act on your turn always deals less damage, for example, or stun a member of Cadence's party so that they can't act for an entire turn. Early on, these considerations are just speed bumps that you have to work around, but unlocking Synthia and Vox are game-changers. Synthia can remix the turn order to delete modifiers, and Vox can hit enemies hard with his own collection of modifiers and debuffs. At that point in the game, People of Note becomes this deadly ballet of two groups of musicians battling it out, and all tricks are equal on each side. And while losing this battle of wits can be frustrating, successfully outmaneuvering your opponent is deeply rewarding.

People of Note's "dungeons" (for lack of a better word to describe the areas devoted to combat and puzzles and not talking to NPCs), also do away with random encounters and fully heal all party members after every fight. This keeps combat from overstepping everything else and ensures that each fight is solely a battle of wits, not an irritating gauntlet of survival.

Combat grows increasingly less enjoyable further into the story though, especially once you unlock Vox in Act 3. From that point onwards, People of Note primarily makes fights harder by giving enemies and bosses larger health bars, not a wider variety of actions or smarter strategies. For the last six hours or so of People of Note, combat just plateaus. The fights are no longer getting more difficult, but just becoming longer. It feels a lot like old-school Final Fantasy in that respect, and it's similarly quite dull. It's repeatedly annoying to figure out what a boss is all about, come up with a surefire strategy for beating them, feel the high of seeing your tactics work as intended, and then come to the realization that you've only been fighting the boss for 10 minutes or so and they still have over three-quarters of their health bar so you now just have to keep doing what you've already been doing for another 30-odd minutes.

In the same way People of Note has a setting that allows you to turn off the quick-time inputs, it also has one that lets you just automatically win the fight you're going up against. And as People of Note continued, I found myself using that feature more and more. Could I have just stuck with it and grinded through every boss as intended? Probably. But I really didn't want to, and I don't think I would have wanted to beat the game without that feature because grinding the same boss for almost an hour is tiresome.

The game does have a "crescendo" mechanic, where bosses and certain enemies grow stronger over time, but rarely did that transform the fight in a meaningful way that kept the battle exciting. More often than not, it just gave the enemy a stronger attack that they'd use every once in a while. But the extent to which that would change the flow of a fight was limited to me reminding myself to heal every once in a while during combat. And that's also just making the fight longer--I'm pausing my strategy to heal before going right back to what I've discovered works best. Prior to my decision to outright skip the latter half of most fights, People of Note's combat was beginning to make the game grind to a halt in Act 3, frustratingly stalling progress right when the story was getting really exciting.

Much of this is alleviated by People of Note's soundtrack, which is stellar. While the soundtrack primarily focuses on catchy pop music, it does dip its toes into other genres--rock, rap, boy band, and opera most successfully. These songs are brought to life with colorful and fully-animated cutscenes, each punctuating a major point in the story--a hero's motivations finally being revealed, for example, or a dramatic turning point that unveils the previously hidden machinations of a villain who has been scheming in the shadows. It aligns with the game's messaging that music is a powerful means by which to express oneself or pass along practices and traditions.

Most of the songs are also just catchy, the kind with a chorus that's designed to earworm into your brain and stick around for a while. The same can be said for the individual tracks that play in hub areas and during battles, all of which provide a tonal identity for the location and the specific enemy types that inhabit it.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G3DiPDYJniM

Oddly, while these background tracks provide several examples, the People of Note's songs that get the full cutscene treatment don't have much in terms of genre mixing beyond Act 1. Cadence's story is literally about her trying to add new sounds to her pop song, and this is tackled fantastically upon her meeting Fret and getting a song that combines pop and rock music. We only really see that again one other time in what's my favorite song of the entire game--one that blends pop with classical. This lack of genre mashups doesn't ruin the game, but upon finishing it, I did feel disappointment that the game about blending different musical genres together doesn't have more examples of the characters bonding by blending their different sounds together.

Between fights, each dungeon will offer puzzles for Cadence to solve. Over the course of the game, she unlocks musical powers that can only be used outside of combat, like Forte, which can be used to push heavy objects, or Harmonize, which links two objects together so whatever Cadence does to one is also done to the other. Early on, these are primarily used for simple puzzles, like using Forte to slowly blast pieces of a gigantic recorder together. But as the game continues, the puzzles grow increasingly complex, relying on knowledge you've gained from the earlier puzzles to create these intense gauntlets that rely on using all four of Cadence's powers in tandem to inch forward. Save for a few that stalled progress on the cusp of climactic moments near the end of the game--irritatingly keeping me from the drama I so desperately wanted to watch unfold--these puzzles were always delightful brain teasers that kept each dungeon from being a long slog of only combat.

People of Note has fun logic problems, too. While my favorite were the Weird Owl puzzles--all of which are multiple choice quizzes that test you on your knowledge of the in-game world of Note, like storefront locations or enemy attack names--there are a few other standouts. A whodunit mystery near the end of the game that sees Cadence grilling multiple suspects and tests you on your ability to pay attention to details and correctly object to falsehoods and deduce criminal intent is very fun, and I'm so bummed that the game only lets Cadence play detective that one time. There are a ton of delightful side activities and quests like this in the game. Between them and the incredible format for the credits that shout out individual members of the team in song, it feels like there was a lot of love poured into this game.

All said, even if we're not seeing the members of Cadence band blend their sounds together much in the story, we at least can see it happen during combat. And while that combat drags a bit in the last act of the game and messes with your mind by not matching the tempo of the quick-time inputs to the background battle music, the turn-based system that's there rewards creativity and strategic thinking. Plus, this game has awesome music and fun puzzle-filled dungeons. If you're down to immerse yourself in puns galore and tons of pop-culture references, People of Note is a delightful musical treat.

People of Note was clearly made with lots of love, but it is also a deeply silly game. Conflicts are resolved between musicians flinging music at each other, a simple country-wide road trip transforms into a battle to save all of reality, and somehow everyone is convinced that the power of friendship will somehow overcome an ancient eldritch-like power. If I didn't know any better, I'd think this game was an old-school role-playing game. And, to be fair, People of Note shares a lot of parallels with those games. While that means the strengths of those types of games are present in People of Note--notably the music and world design in its case--it also means that some of the shortcomings that can be found in the weaker installments of the genre are present in Iridium Studios' turn-based RPG too.

People of Note sees would-be pop star Cadence striving to fulfill her dream of winning a singing competition and getting propelled into fame. Worried that the pop song she's prepared isn't strong enough to sway the judges, she sets out through the land of Note in search of people who can add to her song. Her journey takes her to a desert where everyone is all about different kinds of rock music, a futuristic metropolis blanketed in perpetual night and inhabited by EDM-obsessed disc jockeys, a block-shaped party city that's all about rap and hip hop, and so much more. And all the while, repeated references to an event known as the Harmonic Convergence steel you for what will eventually be a sharp tonal shift away from road-trip comedy to dramatic high fantasy.

Your enjoyment of this story is really going to come down to how much you like puns and pop culture references--People of Note's humor is not unlike Borderlands 2 or Saints Row IV. The game rides the line between funny and corny well enough for me, save for one moment in the third act that made me cringe so hard, I contemplated simply not playing any more of the game that day. But I also enjoy games like Borderlands and Saints Row. If you're not a fan of the idea of a story that takes every single conceivable musical term and crafts a whole high-fantasy society and plotline with said terms, People of Note is probably going to grate.

Continue Reading at GameSpot

Darwin's Paradox takes the 2D puzzle-platforming sensibilities of a game like Limbo or Inside and makes it distinctly less creepy and unsettling. Whereas those games presented elements of light body horror and spooky high-contrast compositions, Darwin's Paradox evokes classic cartoons starring goofball protagonists in vibrant, colorful settings. The result is a pleasant little gem of a game with loads of variety that makes the most out of its relatively short playtime.

There's a core comedic premise to Darwin's Paradox that begins subtly and then slowly becomes more obvious as time goes on. Your eponymous little octopus, Darwin, just wants to get back home to the ocean. But on his journey he haplessly bumbles his way through what is clearly a full-scale alien invasion of Earth. In most games, the hero would steel their resolve to take on the alien menace, but Darwin is just an octopus. For all he knows, this is normal among land-dwellers, and he doesn't really seem to care either way. So he's less of a hero and more of a Mr. Magoo, with his own perception limited to the threats around him as he gets flung around a hostile world and just tries his best to survive. We as the (human) viewers understand what's happening in a different context than he does, and that makes the story work on two levels at once.

Though he's not a hero, Darwin certainly has an expansive move set, which makes the game's platforming feel natural and fluid. They all trace back to the behaviors and adaptations of real-life octopi, like suckers to stick to walls, shooting ink to escape predators, and camouflage to blend in with their environment. And like a real octopus, he's most mobile underwater, where you have full 360-degree freedom of movement. Though traversing your way through land environments feels good, going underwater is immediately more natural. It really accentuates the feeling that you're a fish out of water the rest of the time.

Continue Reading at GameSpot