When my editor asked me if I wanted to review the new Borderlands title, Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, my first instinct was that, for me at least, the frenetic looter shooter game style had worn out its welcome. As an FPS, Borderlands has always trended towards the arcade bulletstorm approach, with enemies dropping an Alabama Walmart store’s worth of guns, ammo, armor, cash, and other crap when they die until the entire game economy is hopelessly broken. Anything you could buy, anything you could find, was quickly surpassed by some other piece of equipment just a chest or two down the line. Today’s piece of epic or uncommon gear (which were only sort of epic and not very uncommon at all) could be replaced by a piece of better, common gear a few levels later. Borderlands suffers, not because it has too few rewards, but too many microscopically incremental ones. I didn’t really need to play more of that. But I’ll confess, I was sucked in by the trailer, which showed such a fresh, fun, whimsical world – it didn’t hurt that the story was set against the backdrop of a D&D game gone awry, and I’m an old graph-paper-and-dice D&D hound myself. So, I said, sure – it was that or more Elden Ring, right?

And the first ten or so hours were great fun. Really fun. So much fun. Getting away from the dreary post-apocalyptic world of Pandora is a superb idea. Will Arnett chews up a lot of dialog as the evil Dragon Lord, Andy Samberg hams it up as the Captain Valentine, and Wanda Sykes, well, I can’t deny her talent even as I personally feel that a little Wanda Sykes goes a long way. The jokes come fast and silly, I’m laughing out loud sometimes, and the gameplay really does feel like an old D&D game that the DM has lost complete and total control over (and I’ve played in a few of those myself, and what player hasn’t totally befuddled a DM by destroying an entire ocean?). Multiplayer makes it feel even more so. The overworld map, the way you travel from area to area, is a delightful mashup of tiny, intricate models and things like pushpins and bottlecap bridges, the villains are comic book villainy, and I’m enjoying myself.

Then, well, it’s Borderlands and over the past decade plus very little has changed in the world of Borderlands, and that tapestry is wearing more than a little thin. You kill enemies who explode in a ridiculous shower of loot, and then spend an inordinate amount of time debating between one weapon which gives you an extra 3% of accuracy vs one that shaves 0.07 seconds off the attack rate, and, at some point, you come to realize that 3% better accuracy doesn’t mean anything because you’ll find one that has 6% better accuracy in no time. You run across the same, tired vending machines selling stuff no better than what you find out in the world, and the game throws so much cash at you, and there’s really nothing worth buying anyway, so why bother even picking things up to sell them? So, at this point I’m really just playing for the silliness, and that just goes on too long, and heaps too many quests on top of quests (because of course you have to find a key to unlock that Cheeto before you can move it, right? – that line will make sense if you play it).

I love the color. I love the creativity. I love the intensity and the barely controlled mayhem. But over it all, there’s no denying that Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands is more or less a glittery skin thrown over Borderlands 3. As a DLC maybe (and when I told some of my friends that I was reviewing Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands, several of them asked, oh, is that the new Borderlands DLC?) something limited to the 10-15 hour or less realm (and the $20 or less price tag), this might work. But as a new thing, that really isn’t anything different from the old thing, Gearbox really needs to find something to freshen up this formula, and I don’t mean top-flight voice talent.

Reviewed By: Phil Soletsky
Publisher: 2K
Rating: 70%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Tiny Tina’s Wonderlands for the PC provided by 2K.

Also, you shoot headless schoolgirls with your finger lasers. That’s important too, I guess.

Ghostwire is an urban fantasy supernatural action game set in the Shibuya ward of Tokyo, which is overrun one night by a strange fog that seems to disintegrate everyone it touches. The lone survivor is Akito, a bike courier who got into a seemingly fatal crash moments before the incident, and he only lives due to the intercession of a spirit who calls himself “KK.”

With KK riding shotgun inside his head, Akito discovers that the attack on Shibuya was done by an unnamed guy in a Hannya mask and his four subordinates, who are capturing the spirits of Shibuya’s population for dark purposes.

Just to be a real dick on top of that, “Hannya” makes sure to specifically abduct Akito’s comatose sister Mari. That ends up putting KK and Akito on the same side, and together, they set out to free Shibuya’s people, save Mari, and kick Hannya square in the teeth while they’re at it.

From that description, you might think Ghostwire is a horror game, and it does have a lot of creative DNA from Tango Gameworks’ previous project, The Evil Within 2. Like TEW2, you’re isolated and outgunned against a big, open zone filled with monsters, where stealth and assassination are vital tools to help even the odds.

Unlike TEW2, Ghostwire is mostly playing in horror’s sandbox without quite going all the way into the genre. Its tone reminds me of Shin Megami Tensei, where it’s consistently creepy but not necessarily aiming to create fear or tension.

Here, you’re stuck in a haunting vision of Tokyo, ten seconds after the apocalypse. Everything still works, all the lights are still on, but the only moving things in the city are animals and monsters. Everywhere you look, you see what’s left of the humans who were touched by Hannya’s fog; they’ve simply vanished out from their clothes, leaving scattered shopping bags and unlocked phones in their wake.

The monsters, in turn, split the difference between urban folklore and Japanese myth. Some are the personified rage of repressed office workers, cops, or schoolchildren; others are new-jack legends courtesy of TV or the Internet. (There’s even one enemy, a murderous woman with garden shears, who’s a dead ringer for Lady Dimitrescu, but that’s *got* to be a coincidence of inspiration.)

Ghostwire paints a picture of a long-running, occult underground in Tokyo that’s suddenly and violently become real, and its worldbuilding is easily the best and most memorable part of the game. If fans don’t make this into a tabletop role-playing game by the end of Ghostwire’s launch weekend, they’re falling down on the job.

What keeps Ghostwire from being a horror game is that that you’re the scariest thing in the city. KK’s powers give Akito the ability to manipulate the elements as a weapon, and you eventually pick up a bow for stealth kills and a handful of traditional talismans to give you some extra edge.

Each of your elemental attacks can be charged up for extra effects, and reloading is a question of smashing various objects in your environment until candy comes out. You heal by eating whatever food you can buy, find, or steal, and Ghostwire’s good enough to throw plastic bags full of discarded takeout in your path at every opportunity. Resource scarcity is not a problem.

You’re generally only going to die in Ghostwire if you get backed into a corner and don’t have time to hit one of your half-dozen emergency buttons. If you’re looking for a challenge out of this game, start on Hard.

If you don’t, though, Ghostwire can still be absorbing. The combat’s a bit of a slog, and I found myself spending a lot of money and time that wasn’t strictly necessary in order to bypass fights by stealth, trickery, or sheer overkill.

It’s not exactly bad, but a lot of your go-to weapons in Ghostwire are either weak or scarce, so any situation where you end up in a stand-up brawl can be a little dull. Better to whip out your fire elemental attack, which is essentially the railgun from Quake II, and end every battle before it really starts.

I did get a lot of entertainment out of simply exploring the city, however. There are collectibles to find, outfits to unlock, filters and emotes to use in the game’s robust Photo Mode, and a general atmosphere of dread that kept me from ever feeling truly comfortable.

In fairness, there’s a lot about Ghostwire: Tokyo that was always going to hit me right in my particular weak spots. It’s an action game with horror trappings, a thoroughly evocative setting, and a likeable set of protagonists who never go over the line into either pointless conflict or treacly instant friendship.

In fact, the general deal with Akito and KK deserves some credit that I’m sure it’s not going to get. KK never softens up, but Akito rapidly overcomes his initial, understandable freakout to become a useful audience surrogate–he never quite knows what the hell is going on, and why would he?–and decent protagonist.

Most importantly, and this is key, you’re allowed to be genuinely heroic throughout the process. One of the biggest “collectibles” in Ghostwire is the ability to find and store the disembodied spirits of the people of Shibuya, then send them outside the city so Hannya can’t use them. You can casually save thousands of souls, if not lives, in Ghostwire, and it’s a nice twist on the general horror formula, like a Resident Evil game where you could opt to cure the zombies.

If I didn’t know better, I’d think Tango Gameworks made this game for me. If they had, though, the combat would feel a little better and the game would overall be a little more challenging.

This is basically an open-world first-person shooter that’s visibly inspired by and using a lot of the toys from survival horror, and it doesn’t quite manage that fusion with grace. However, Ghostwire is charming, interesting, and creepy enough that I’ve enjoyed my time with it.

Reviewed By: Thomas Wilde
Publisher: Bethesda Softworks
Rating: 85%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Ghostwire: Tokyo for the PlayStation 5 provided by Bethesda Softworks.

Bray Wyatt is gone, but Braun Strowman is intact as are many released stars that fans assumed would be gone. Karrion Kross, Keith Lee, Scarlett, and Jeff Hardy remain as do the former IIconics. The legendary “Nature Boy” Ric Flair is in alongside his daughter and hopefully he will remain a fixture in WWE games forever as it just feels odd to not have a game with him in it. The former Buddy Murphy is still in as are Shane “Swerve” Strickland and Mickie James. Mickie being in is less of a shock as she was featured in this year’s Royal Rumble as the Impact Knockouts Champion and adds a veteran female star to the in-game roster that doesn’t have much in the way of cross-generational talent.

WWE 2K22’s revamped gameplay feels pretty natural for much of the roster and allows brutes like Braun and Brock Lesnar to shine brightly with a redone grappling setup. 2K19 and 2K20 had more freeform action, while 2K22 brings things back to a bit of the Aki engine requiring a grapple to do most moves. It feels like a step back as Circle has to be pressed before doing any kind of grapple, while the Aki engine and Yuke’s later Day of Reckoning games allowed for both a hard grapple and the more traditional lighter moves to be done at any point without having to grab a foe first.

That method felt more organic to match the flow of matches, while this setup still allows for a similar amount of move variety with things like dragging foes around and tossing them from various holding positions like a fireman’s carry or powerbomb position. Unlike 2K19 and 2K20, players are stuck using one of every position instead of customizing the carry position alongside the stick press. This is an odd move as some wrestlers just wouldn’t use certain positions in a match – resulting in odd things like Hulk Hogan having to use moves that he never would just because there’s no way to give him something like all military presses for the carrying holds or loading up Brock, Lashley, or Braun with different carrying moves. It’s especially tough for someone like Brock, who would use different kinds of carrying moves depending on the era of his character you’re trying to have in the match.

Modern-day Brock would use more backbreakers and slams from a carry position, while trying to replicate an early Brock match in 2K19 could be done easily just by switching a carry position over to something that would allow a makeshift ringpost F5 using the fireman’s carry toss into the post. Having positions locked in without being able to tailor things just feels odd – but is something that can hopefully be addressed with a patch later on. Both grappling and striking have been revamped with light and heavy setups. Square indicates a light attack, while X is a heavy attack and using circle to initiate the grapple sets up light and heavy modifiers with square and X.

There is a logical flow to the controls with things like comeback and special moves with RT/R2 being the key and then the face button as the modifier determining whether or not you do a comeback move, a signature, or finisher. One big issue with the redone look of the comeback HUD is how tiny the icon is above the head of the person doing the move. Hopefully this can get an update because it’s incredibly difficult to see and it would be nice to have a menu option to choose between either the original comeback icons showing up more towards the center of the screen or the newer variant. The new version really suffers in larger matches like the chamber or cell with many competitors and a zoomed-out view being used.

The redone presentation goes for a tighter camera angle on moves and it’s great for singles matches more often than not. Moves like suplexes and big slams look more impactful, and it helps the player feel like their actions have big in-game consequences for their rivals. However, this zoomed-in view doesn’t work well at times due to it cutting off so much of the environment. Sometimes, it’s nice to get a sense for the setting you’re in and that’s really only possible when fighting outside and going onto the rampway or eventually going backstage for brawls there. WWE 2K22’s backstage area has been revamped after the prior few mainline games used roughly the same area with minor changes, and feels a bit more like what early SmackDown games had with highly-interactive areas. There isn’t as much here, but it is nice to tie things like carrying grapple attacks into slams off staging.

Playing as Brock and fighting Eric Bischoff before tossing him off an elevated platform that was created by breaking off panels reminds me of both playing Just Bring It on the PS2 and throwing Fred Durst off of balconies as the Undertaker, but also playing WrestleMania XIX on the Gamecube and throwing enemies around in the makeshift triple decker cage area or pseudo scaffold sections in the Revenge mode stages. It’s nice to see a return to form to increasing interactive elements backstage instead of the areas feeling kind of bland and reminding me more of WCW Mayhem’s backstage areas that were just differently-themed blocks of areas to attack people in. 2K22’s backstage area feeling like one large, organic area is good – but it would be nice to have a bit more to do in it.

The showcase mode focuses on Rey Mysterio this year and winds up being one of the most enjoyable selections of matches yet. There is some weirdness in it though, with some of it being legal and the other being a design choice. Hype videos for the showcase matches frequently feature blurring – which makes sense for things like the Slim Jim logo for the Halloween Havoc ’97 match, but looks really odd when done for referee’s faces in the video packages. The integration of real-life footage at various points during match objectives is nice, but the lack of commentary is odd as is the inclusion of dramatic music in matches for only showcase mode. It’s somewhat ill-fitting and winds up being a bit odd.

Luckily, the other aspects of the game’s visual presentation largely hit the mark. Graphically, everything looks a generation ahead on PS4 compared to prior games when it comes to reflective gear. This is evident right off the bat with the Havoc ’97 match and Eddie’s shiny gold gear looking stunning there and even better on PS5. The PS5 version does have faster loading than the PS4, but it’s not quite the same level of game-changer that it is on other recent cross-generation games like Gran Turismo 7 or GRID Legends. If you go with the digital high-end versions and get both, you’re fine with the PS4 version having the same overall quality of life and since the saves are different for each version, you can wind up doubling your creation roster and arena count – although it does make it a pain if you’re like me and enjoy tailoring the movesets for your roster as much as possible.

These kinds of things allow the game to have a longer tail, and combines nicely with the returning MyGM mode to offer up a more involved experience than prior entries. GM mode was a big want from a lot of fans and while it isn’t perfect right away, as you can’t customize logos and companies, it does still offer a lot of replay value and the Drew Gulak-led tutorials for this and especially the main gameplay are hilarious. Gulak essentially doing his goofy “Powerpoint Presentation!” act from 205 Live in another format is hilarious and reminds me a bit of Bret Hart doing the SNES Raw video and then later the WrestleMania Arcade Game ad where he is able to be serious, but also Russian Legsweep an arcade cabinet.

WWE 2K22’s sound design is fantastic and things like revamped weapon sound effects alongside more impactful strikes help drive home the in-ring action. The commentary has also been improved from prior games and is less stilted and does a better job at replicating the chemistry that the announce teams have on TV. The overall presentation of everything is very much like a WWE TV show – but one that has been streamlined a bit to avoid some elements that would translate poorly to a game, like camera cuts all the time.

WWE 2K22 is a fantastic game and one of the better offerings in the 2K era of the long-running franchise. The core gameplay isn’t quite as solid as it was in 2K19, but that’s something that can be improved upon later in some ways with things like a patch at least being able to do things like address locking in carry holds. The planned post-launch content map showcases a lot of legendary characters throughout WWE history and the launch DLC with the multi-era Undertaker and NWO content is excellent and makes recreating some of WCW’s most memorable feuds a breeze.

Reviewed By: Jeremy Peeples
Publisher: 2K
Rating: 90%

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This review is based on a digital copy of WWE 2K22 for the PlayStation 5 provided by 2K.

GRID Legends combines more kinds of racing than we’ve seen in prior entries while simultaneously at least trying new things from a narrative standpoint and making the racing faster-paced than before. In some ways, it winds up being the best entry in the franchise since the original because of how much it does and how streamlined it makes things. The original games were greatly-helped by having a racing team motif, but not overwhelming the player with minutia. GRID Legends takes the same idea of being on a team and adds live action faces to the fold in an effort to increase immersion. It’s a good idea in theory to add some credibility to the plot, and there’s nothing wrong with the acting, but the idea of teammates becoming rivals and then going through various twists and turns can only go so far.

The cinematics look good with real-world casting and are acted well, but the drama never quite works and always feels a bit forced. I do like the attempts at having races intertwine with the plot – so having issues with someone in a cutscene will result in being told to get along with them in the race to win as a team. It’s clear that a lot of effort went into the story and how to integrate it into the gameplay, but it never quite hits on all cylinders. Still, as a framing device for various racing types it’s fine and that’s all it really needs to be. The story is there to be a means to an end and add some spark to all the different races without making the game seem like a series of races, and it succeeds quite well there.

Thankfully, races are the bread and butter of GRID Legends and they’re top-shelf across the board. Whether you’re racing in open-wheel cars, electric cars, trucks, street race-style environments or anything else, GRID Legends does the job wonderfully. The game has a lot more content than prior entries, with over 100 vehicles to enjoy across environments like snow-caked outdoor areas or rainy nights that make the action a bit more daunting. Those wanting a bit of a challenge can find it by turning a lot of sim settings on or mixing things up with a few sim settings like damage retention, while those wanting a tougher game from start to finish can turn it into more of a full-on simulation if they like.

Players just wanting to have fun can keep things as the default and that will allow them to make progress fairly quickly, with the story mode enabling players to learn various racing disciplines and figure out what kind of race type and vehicle type they prefer. Elimination races are especially thrilling thanks to the story mode having the added objective of at least outlasting your racing rivals – and that felt like just the freshening up this kind of mode has needed after many years of being about the same from game to game. Races have a bit more excitement than other sim-style games thanks to small boost pads that help the race keep a quick pace and combines with the soundtrack to drive excitement home at all times.

It’s clear that a lot of effort went into making something that feels like a modern racing movie with the attempt at a larger narrative and dramatic music alongside excellent sound design as a whole. However, in a baffling move, the fast-paced action-style soundtrack is only in place for the story mode. The Split/Second-esque soundtrack keeps you engaged with its tunes at all times there, but can’t be heard in the longer career mode of larger races that could really benefit from the excitement; or any exhibition or online races for that matter. Hopefully this is amended with a patch down the line because the core design for things like the roar of engines around the player from a first-person view is incredible and makes close races so much more exciting than they already are.

Visually, GRID Legends is an impressive looking game – but one that doesn’t fully make use of newer technology. Going back and forth between the PS4 and PS5 versions, the PS5 version is sharper but doesn’t have any jaw-dropping lighting differences. Everything looks a bit nicer, but it doesn’t look more than maybe 10% better on the PS5 than the PS4. It does control a bit better on the PS5 thanks to the DualSense’s improved triggers, but the core racing experience is about the same across the board. It’s a great one no matter what platform it’s played on, and offered up the most fun I’ve had with the series since the first title – which was a game changer in its day.

Like the original, GRID Legends aims to not only offer many kinds of racing, but do them at a fairly high level. That is a lofty goal, but one that is largely achieved albeit with a few odd sacrifices. The exciting on-track action is undercut by only the story mode having a bumping soundtrack, and that’s just a bizarre move that I don’t recall saying in a modern-day racer. Franchise fatigue is a real thing and the GRID reboot was hurt by being a series of races with no framework, while everything in GRID Legends has a sense of purpose to it that helps keep a “one more race” mentality throughout each play session. It’s an outstanding racing game and one that fans of the genre should pick up.

Reviewed By: Jeremy Peeples
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Rating: 90%

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This review is based on a digital copy of GRID Legends for the PlayStation 5 provided by Electronic Arts.

Things like license tests were new to the industry and yet became somewhat standard with games like Project Gotham Racing turning them into core parts of the gameplay loop. Over time, the series has grown from being a fantastic gaming showcase for a larger variety of cars to something that morphed into being a bit too much for its own good. The first game was a great proof of concept, while the second was rushed out and incomplete until a revision. The third was an all-time classic, while the fourth pushed the PS2 in ways few thought possible. Gran Turismo 5 was a sea of garbled menus, but did things like adding NASCAR to the mix. GT 6 fixed a few of the problems of that game, but still felt bogged down with its presentation. The series as a whole was something I have always wanted to like more than I did – and Gran Turismo 7 feels like the formula perfected in a lot of ways.

The driving model has been improved with more realistic AI and that’s something that helps keep this entry feeling fresher than past entries. The Forza series always stuck with me more due to its aggressive AI that challenged the player and that is on display here in GT 7. GT 7 also does a lot to fix prior problems with clunky menus and there is a far greater sense of a driver’s journey being completed throughout the adventure in a way that injects some Forza Horizon-style fun into the mix. This is evident right away when the game loads up Music Rally and turns a normally sim-centric game into a checkpoint racer. The end goal isn’t just to hit checkpoints, but to finish the race by the time the song ends – with a bronze, silver, and gold medal awarded for exceptional play.

The addition of this mode is genius because it puts a greater emphasis on just enjoying the racing experience than we usually see while still teaching racing principles and getting the player used to how the game feels. It does a lot of teaching without making it evident and like the starting level of Mega Man X or Super Mario 1-1, it’s a masterclass in game design because it gives the player so much insight into the game without giving much away. Just having checkpoint races in the game helps further the “arcade” vibe that the series has had a mode for since day one, but hasn’t really capitalized on much until this kind of mode. Each music track brings with it a different course and vehicle, and that leads to players getting more comfortable with different vehicles without having to consciously think about trying out a different car.

The world map is still the main hub of the game and offers up a lot of different kinds of fun within it. The coffee shop acts as a mini-mission area and keeps the player engaged with micro-tasks like collecting a certain set of a kind of vehicles, or placing in a world circuit event. It takes the normally-daunting look of a map full of many options and offers up a guided way to tackle that giant map in smaller bite-sized chunks. It’s a fantastic way to keep the player engaged because you’re always trying out something new – much like Music Rally, only with a greater sense of purpose. Knocking out an objective allows the player to earn cars, currency, or “roulette wheel” spins.

The latter are loot boxes of sorts with a wheel-style approach to offerings – only limited to a handful of options when you spin. Some spins will result in currency, while others net vehicles and racing also nets XP and that nets more spins as well. It’s not quite as nice-looking as the Forza Horizon slot machine setup, but does feel like less of a shot in the dark to actually win a vehicle. GT 7 is generous when it comes to giving players a reward for their time spent and is a massive step in the right direction for the series. There are so many quality of life improvements with the menus alone, including not only a simpler layout, but having the option of either d-pad or stick movement to navigate. For most menus, the d-pad is a lot faster – but for larger-scale menus, it’s nice to have stick controls for areas with things very close together to help avoid hitting the wrong option.

The increase in sheer fun is infused in every mode. Beyond the world map area now feeling far more organized, challenges are put in beyond just the normal license tests. Project Gotham-style missions are available to test players in a way that goes beyond just a license test and puts a different kind of objective-based option in the mix. Every race in every different mode type feels a bit different even if the core goal is always to improve well enough for a podium finish. Having core game progress gated behind podium finishes is smart, and winds up being done in a way that is more fun than usual since the difficulty can be tweaked to a degree that isn’t usually seen in this series. If you’re struggling, the player can opt to either do car upgrades to see if that’s the issue or just tone the difficulty down a bit – but there are always options to keep the player moving forward.

The idea of a simulation-based racer can be daunting, but GT 7 makes everything a breeze thanks to on-screen explanations for everything that you’re tweaking. There’s also a greater emphasis on the photo mode than in prior games, with more thought going into teaching some core principles of photography while also teaching step-by-step how to frame shots better for a racing environment. It’s clear that a lot of love and care was put into every major part of the experience and Polyphony’s love of driving has translated into a game that allows the player to have a lot of fun – instead of feeling a bit like reading through a manual in playable game form.

DualSense implementation is fantastic and enables things like haptic feedback during Music Rally to time rumble with the music beats. For core gameplay, players can enjoy more intricate braking with the adaptive triggers. These allow for a greater level of immersion because a light touch on the trigger results in a light touch on the in-game brakes. However, like with using adaptive triggers on a shooting game, it can be a hit or miss prospect. The advantage of having the work is that it’s there for folks to enjoy, but given that there is a bit more of a learning curve compared to the usual usage of triggers for braking, it might not be for everyone. I liked using it for fun races like Music Rally, but greatly preferred a more normal trigger feel for competitive races. In both the PS4 and PS5 versions, the player can opt for face button braking and acceleration alongside using the gyroscope for steering – so no matter which console you have, you’ll be able to enjoy smooth controls.

Visually, both the PS4 and PS5 versions are impressive – but the PS5’s hardware is used to great effect to provide a better overall experience. PS5 users can choose to play at a higher resolution with lower frame rate or go with a lower resolution and higher framerate alongside ray tracing. That method produces the best overall look as it is smoother to race in and offers stunning environmental details. On the PS4, cars have a good reflection model in place – but it’s taken to a whole other level on the PS5. Chrome and sunlight collide in ways that replicate real-life far better there, while environmental reflections on tile in tunnels are incredible to see unfold in real-time.

Gran Turismo 7 is a stunning game, with a lot of trackside detail making it feel like the real-world. Tokyo especially just pops at night on the PS5, but it’s amazing just how much detail is retained on the PS4. Car models are quite impressive there and if you didn’t have the PS5 version to compare it to, it is still a gorgeous-looking racer on that platform. The presentation is hurt a little bit by the format of having a talking head in speech bubble form as the main method of dialogue. It feels a bit too much like a mobile game in that regard and the pseudo-lootboxes and ability to use real-world money to earn in-game credits for cars don’t help that feel either. That particular part of the game is something that will hopefully be addressed later on with a patch because it does feel like a pay-to-win mechanic.

The Gran Turismo series has always been known for having a diverse soundtrack, and it’s on greater display than ever before now thanks to Music Rally. Classical, dance, pop and just about everything is covered in some form to race to and it leads to no two races ever feeling exactly the same. Having the beat of music pulse through the controller on the PS5 in Music Rally is a fantastic little touch and one that adds a layer of immersion to the experience that couldn’t be foreseen. The sound design as a whole is strong too, with close races resulting in a thrilling engine roar as everyone jockeys for position – this really shines with a surround sound system or 3D audio headphones, but the point is still gotten across with standard speakers.

Overall, Gran Turismo 7 is the greatest entry in the series to date and the perfect gateway game for those who are lapsed fans of the series. It takes everything the series has done right while cutting back greatly on things that have bogged it down over the years and outside of the lootboxes, feels like about as perfect an entry in the series as one could imagine. The completely restructured career mode makes for a far more fun and engaging experience and the menu overhaul makes everything so much easier to do. It looks great, plays near-perfectly, and is the exact kind of game I always wanted from the series. Simply put, Gran Turismo 7 is a must-buy for racing fans.

Reviewed By: Jeremy Peeples
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Rating: 98%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Gran Turismo 7 for the PlayStation 5 provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

Reviewing a game like Elden Ring is both easy and hard to do.

Easy because people who are long time players of the Souls series already know what they’re in for: an open world with little direction given, the ability to wander into areas that will lead to a quick death, and dying about a million times along the way. Those people are going to love Elden Ring, which is among the finest open worlds I’ve ever seen, with breathtaking vistas, fantastic beasts, enticing ruins, and intricate dungeons. The enemies are quick, with complex fighting patterns that make combat a real joy. The bosses – whew, hard to describe – great shambling monsters, some of them giants, some of them with extra limbs, some with great, jagged weapons. I think the boss fights are even tougher now, and a new magic system is supposed to take the edge off of that (the reason I write “supposed to” for reasons I’ll discuss later). You can now summon and ride a spirit horse, which is fun, and brings a new dynamic to combat. You can also sneak (like in Elder Scrolls – Oblivion and Skyrim, for examples), giving you critical hits upon unaware enemies.

It’s also hard because how do you explain the allure of a game that wantonly kills you a bajillion times, the satisfaction of finally putting together enough pieces to build a character to go back and kill that boss who had killed you so many times? In a world where RPGs often keep you on some kind of rails that expose you to enemies that you can most probably beat, working your way up a leveling scheme to beat harder bosses later on, how do you describe an open world almost completely lacking in such safety systems?

That’s the conundrum that is the Souls series, and Elden Ring is no exception to that rule. For those people who enjoy banging their heads against the difficulty walls, there is a certain elation and sense of satisfaction and accomplishment in killing a really tough boss. It is confusing to me then why all the monsters respawn when you either camp or go into and out of a dungeon. It allows you to create the ultimate grind. There’s a sort of arboreal field early in the game loosely guarded by half a dozen or so soldiers. It’s a great place to try out the new sneak system. You can kill them, loot the bodies, pick up some equipment near them, collect those experience points, then camp and mow through them again. You can even collect duplicates of much of the same equipment to sell to the merchant. It does make some of the “good, I’ve killed him and now that guy is dead” satisfaction feeling less impactful. Same is true of you – if you die, you just come back having lost only the experience you hadn’t spent on upgrades, which you can actually go and collect if you can get back to where you died. For a game so much about death, it really does make death kind of meaningless. I’ll add that there are some janky difficulty spikes here and there. I cleared out a group of pretty easy soldiers outside a castle; just plowed through them. But inside that castle there is a guy who very nearly one shot kills me (unhelpful note on the floor: try summoning). I’ve tried it half a dozen different ways. My weapon doesn’t even do that much damage to him. I’d have to hit him a hundred times. Maybe I need magic I don’t have, which is probably a good place to write about that.

So, the magic system – here’s where I confess that the last Dark Souls I played was #2, and I don’t remember much other than dying early and often. In the intervening seven or eight years, I’ve probably played 300 other games. I don’t recall what magic was like in DS2 at all. The press materials for Elden Ring make much of the new magic system. I can imbue my weapons with ashes to give them skills. I can use other ashes to summon spirits to help me in battle. I can also memorize and cast spells. The problem came in that I couldn’t do much of any of that. All of the in-game tutorials and hints are given for a game pad, which is where you should probably know four important facts about me:

1) I suck at a gamepad.
2) I’ve never owned a console, and can’t seem to make my thumbs run two joysticks at once (I also suck as twin-stick shooters).
3) So I’ve never even owned a gamepad, because…
4) I suck at a gamepad.

I could imbue weapons with ashes, but couldn’t get the skills to work. I could use summoning equipment, like an enchanted bell, but even doing that was complicated because I had to do that out of my inventory because I couldn’t get the quick use items to work (I think it uses the d-pad on the gamepad). Another non-magic stuff thing couldn’t figure out how to do: fire anything other than standard arrows (I could equip them in my inventory, but they still wouldn’t shoot). So all of this is a long way of saying, Souls is a series with console heritage, and it’s very clear that a gamepad is the way it is intended to be played. Mouse and keyboard guys like me are going to suffer for it. Speaking of suffering, my frame rate dropped to a stutter sometimes – not often, but sometimes at critical moments like a big boss fight. It would also sometimes drop just running across a field (possibly passing between different regions?). In any case, at least on the PC, there is some optimization yet to do.

I also will admit that I don’t recall the DS2 world being so open. I’m up around hour 20 and have no idea where to find a spell to memorize. There’s a whole crafting system, and I have yet to run into anything that tells me how to use it, though I’m collecting bushels of ingredients and found a crafting pot hours ago. My suspicion is that I was supposed to use the weapon skill to kill a boss somewhere that I’m presently not able to kill straight out, and so have bypassed, and in doing so have missed out on the whole crafting angle. I’m sure I could look at a wiki or a walkthrough guide to figure it out, but in general I’m not a read a walkthrough kind of guy. I’ll add here that much has been made of the story being created by George R. R. Martin, but except for a brief narrative bit at the beginning, I’ve found little in the way of plot, though there are some very memorable creatures with poetic yet confusing dialog (which is kind of a Martin hallmark). Actually the whole game is filled with little confusing and often pointless messages and such (“hidden passage ahead” with no actual passage – that old Dark Souls knee slapper).

There is a small multiplayer component to Elden Ring. I can place a beacon in my world to summon another player for coop or PvP play, and other players can do the same. I’m frankly not sure if it is working. I mean, I can place the beacon, but I’ve never had anyone respond to it, and I’ve never seen a beacon show up in my world. So I don’t know. To be fair, much of the playing I did was during the early press release time, so maybe now that the game is for sale and more people are playing perhaps there is more beaconing going on. I might do some more playing around with that yet (though lacking magic I expect to be very bad at PvP).

So in conclusion, Dark Souls fans rejoice! Elden Ring is exactly the game you have been hoping it would be, I think, and it is created in grand style. I feel pretty frustrated that the keyboard controls are either so broken or so poorly laid out that I just couldn’t figure them out, and I spent a lot of time trying to (and where some things lie in the menu system are crazy counterintuitive), and I installed it on two different machines to see if it was a hardware problem (note: didn’t help). Elden Ring actually made me want to go back and play Skyrim again, because it always seemed to me that GUI was very well laid out and just made sense. But for you gamepad guys, sharpen up your sword and get in there. You have blood to spill (a lot of which may be your own).

Reviewed By: Phil Soletsky
Publisher: Bandai Namco
Rating: 95%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Elden Ring for the PC provided by Bandai Namco.

The follow-up takes place after the original game and features more deadly, large machines to tackle and a bit more of an emphasis on action. Aloy and her partner Varl are back and trying to figure out why a red fungus has spread across the land, killing humans and animals alike. The original game put the world on display in a manner that did a lot of heavy lifting and brought more characters into the fold, while Forbidden West acts as a logical successor with all of that work being done already and just throwing the player into the action faster and with more intensity.

From the moment the adventure begins, Aloy and Varl are taking out machines with a blend of stealth, action, and traps. Varl gets his own Focus tool like Aloy and gains a new perspective on the world by seeing it as she always has. As a result, their bond grows and we see her evolve more into what Rost was at the start of Zero Dawn. Aloy began that adventure fearful and apprehensive and Varl is more self-assured than she was then but is just as new to the Focus as she was to general combat. She is in the role of the teacher here instead of the apprentice and that did a lot to help show just how much Aloy has grown as a character. She has far more confidence and never fails to find a solution to an obstacle.

Combat is far better here than it was in Zero Dawn thanks to quality-of-life improvements making it more enjoyable overall. The original game’s light and heavy attack system with Aloy’s staff worked quite well and has largely been retained in the sequel. The staff itself works wonders at taking out enemies if you get surrounded as it’s possible to get spotted and get a sense of panic, but then put yourself in a tight area and attack the machines one by one and evade attacks whenever possible. This tactic works well because the enemies are so large, they can’t all fit into an enclosed space – so the player still has a way to pick them off one by one; it’s just a bit tougher. Ideally, you want to avoid being caught and the stealth gameplay is about the same as ever.

Players can use Focus to check out the walking paths of enemies and set traps to either stun them or possibly wipe them out completely in one shot. Traps have been expanded upon in volume and offer up a great way to attack in a stealthy method without having to really feel like you’re being stealthy. As someone who usually sucks at dedicated stealth games, the extra-approachable nature of the stealth in Forbidden West is perfect and having more options than before to take out foes helps immensely when it comes to enjoying the final product. My goal is always to avoid detection, but if that doesn’t happen, there are other ways to attack most enemies – with the bow and arrow being made better than ever as a way to survive.

The original game hit the PS4 and was fantastic – but also lacked gyroscopic aiming for the bow and arrow. This made precise aiming a bit tricky and thankfully, gyroscopic aiming is intact for both the PS4 and PS5 versions this time around. I would love to see gyro added into Zero Dawn later to give it another playthrough because it makes such a drastic difference to how combat flows. Gyro aiming enables far faster and more accurate aiming, and lets the player focus on taking time to charge up a powerful shot instead of trying to juggle that task alongside careful stick movements to land a perfect shot on a moving target. Gyro aiming is a game-changer when it comes to making combat fun and it allows the shooting mechanics to feel almost as fluid as the melee combat while still keeping a high level of precision intact for long-range combat. Horizon Forbidden West is a textbook example of just how gyro controls can make for a better aiming experience and it’s on-par with the best-ever versions of this alongside Splatoon and Splatoon 2.

PS4 and PS5 owners are in for a treat across the board. The default DualShock 4 setup is fine on PS4, while PS5 owners can enjoy things like haptic motor rumbling when machines are stomping nearby. It’s a small touch, but one that adds to the immersion of the world. Visually, the PS4 looks a step above the original and I would say delivers about 80% of the visual goodness of the PS5. The PS5 does have far better foliage and overall world detail, but the PS4 version is impressive, and neither is hurt by slowdown – although the PS5’s SSD does enable better streaming of assets and has better draw distance. Animations are the same across the board and remain as smooth as ever – offering enough detail to be realistic without taking forever to actually play out. Combat animations look incredible, but there are some janky jumping animations and collision problems from time to time.

As with the first game, the voice acting is incredible, mixing in a bit of light comedy alongside a lot of drama. Ashly Burch’s work as Aloy is even better than it was before and the cast as a whole does an incredible job at making sure the material is taken seriously. The soundtrack is epic and tops the first game, which is no easy feat. The sound design as a whole is stellar, with things like the machines stalking around and surrounding the player really shining with a great set of headphones or a surround sound setup and adding an extra layer of tension to the game.

As a whole, Horizon Forbidden West tops the original game even if it doesn’t reinvent the wheel in quite the same way. Much like how The Last of Us 2 had a lot to live up to and struggled to do so, but was a superior game technically, the same holds true here. The gameplay here is more exciting as is the moment-to-moment storytelling. The pacing is faster and with that comes a bit less time for the story to breathe at points. However, it’s still a great story overall and one that keeps the player engaged from start to finish. Forbidden West is a fantastic looking, sounding and playing experience that benefits from the addition of motion controls in way that few AAA-level games have showcased before. If you enjoyed the original game, be sure to pick up the sequel – although newcomers can enjoy the action just as much, as the story can be easy to get lost in without knowing the cast and the world.

Reviewed By: Jeremy Peeples
Publisher: Sony Interactive Entertainment
Rating: 96%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Horizon Forbidden West for the PlayStation 5 provided by Sony Interactive Entertainment.

The general idea behind DL2, in fact, seems to be to take the original Dying Light and add more of it, in almost every direction. The city’s bigger, the stakes are higher, the map is full of hidden objects, and your choices have significant enough consequences that a second run would, at least in theory, play out much differently from your first. It’s Dying Light, but with the sheer density of activities that’s more commonly found in an Assassin’s Creed or Grand Theft Auto game.

DL2 is set 15 years after the original DL. The Harran Virus, named after the city where DL was set, was initially treatable, but eventually mutated into a more virulent form. Cue the zombie apocalypse: nations crumbled, civilization fell, and the handful of survivors have been left clinging to hole-in-the-wall settlements. It’s not the end of the world yet, but you can see it from here.

You play as Aiden, who’s one of the few people who are brave/stupid enough to travel through the wilderness, who survive through speed, improvisation, preparation, and raw agility. In Aiden’s case, he’s trying to find his sister Mia, whether she’s dead or alive.

His investigation brings him to the city of Villedor, which is located in some indeterminate landlocked area within what I assume is continental Europe, and which may very well be the last city on Earth. The city, predictably, is a war zone, with multiple factions of survivors fighting against zombies and each other, and Aiden ends up caught up in its local politics almost before he realizes it.

DL2, like the original DL, is essentially an urban parkour playground with zombies. By day, most of the monsters on the ground are slow shamblers that are easy enough to avoid or outrun; by night, more powerful zombies hit the streets and it’s very easy to die.

Also like DL, you start DL2 at the very lowest end of the game’s power curve. The trick to enjoying DL was to understand and appreciate that you had no business fighting anything at all for the first couple of hours, and the same is more or less true of DL2. I thought it was frustrating until I was able to pick up a handful of upgrades, at which point the game slowly began to open up.

The biggest difference between the games, aside from DL2’s sheer size, is DL2’s focus on melee combat. It’s far enough into the apocalypse that guns and ammo are nearly impossible to come by, so axes, clubs, bows, and improvised bombs are back in style. As a result, fighting in DL2 is, more often than not, a messy, desperate exchange of parries, blocks, counterhits, and explosive decapitations.

DL2 wants to call this “Parkour Combat,” where you’re gently encouraged to use Aiden’s agility and tricks to gain whatever advantages you can. This can include vaulting off stunned enemies to dropkick their allies, throwing bricks or bottles, kicking somebody into local hazards like spike strips, or that old DL favorite of straight-up tossing zombies and people off of rooftops.

In practice, I tended to only notice most of my parkour options after I’d already won a fight, but they do occasionally lead to some cool, dynamic moments. You’ll never forget the first time you punt some poor bastard into open flames, or win a fight with a pack of bandits by luring them into a larger pack of zombies.

What I do like is that DL2’s combat, like most of the original game, is more interested in results than anything else. You aren’t forced to play DL2 in any particular way, aside from the occasional high-stakes duel, and even then you’re generally able to cheat as hard as you can.

You can go ahead and play the game like a grimy junkyard version of Ghost of Tsushima, or you can bring tripmines and poison to what’s ostensibly a sword fight. I had a lady run up on me with a katana and challenge me to an honor duel, so I set her on fire and stuck a brick of C4 up her nose. Ain’t no fair fights in the apocalypse, player. Zombie at the door shoulda told you.

That general atmosphere carries over into the game’s setting. DL2’s city is a massive, sprawling, lived-in ruin, which is just on the verge of tipping over into total anarchy when Aiden arrives. People are still going about their lives, but food’s dwindling, water’s scarce, and life is cheap.

Even then, DL2 does carry forward my single favorite part of the original DL. Despite the game’s name and the generally precarious state of its setting, DL2 isn’t interested in full-on nihilism the way that a lot of zombie stories (The Walking Dead, arguably Night of the Living Dead, any number of comics and novels) tend to be. Aiden is, most of the time, here to help, and many of the missions you undertake are primarily about making life better for the survivors around you.

Even so, DL2 does have a branching narrative, which lets you transform the city as you go to suit your needs. In the first neighborhood, for example, you can opt to side with the normal civilians, who are half-crazy and constantly making trouble for themselves but are generally keeping it together, or the self-appointed Peacekeepers, who are well-organized and intelligently run but very much want to impose a police state on everyone they can see.

Neither of them are entirely right, but neither are 100% wrong, and neither are the methods you’ll use if you opt to side against one over the other. It’s a bad, desperate situation, with no obviously superior path, and what you choose to do will affect who holds power within the city’s various districts. That, in turn, adds more facilities and features, depending on who’s in charge; the Peacekeepers litter the streets with tricks and traps, so it’s easier to fight off zombies when you travel at night, but the survivors provide more parkour options.

All in all, then, DL2 is a well-designed, broad, sweeping journey of a game that could keep you busy for the rest of the year. A lot of thought, time, and care has been put into it.

Even so, as seems to be Techland’s whole bag, DL2 is rough around the edges. It’s got a real problem, at least in the pre-release build I’ve been playing, with its systems not quite working as expected; sometimes you simply fail to grab a handhold or climb onto a ledge, and Aiden’s “survivor vision” gimmick doesn’t always fire when you hit the button. I’ve also hit a handful of genuine glitches, like an early sequence where I’m sure I just didn’t have enough stamina to accomplish what the game was asking me to do.

The gear system is also finicky and hard to work with. You can throw on up to six pieces of equipment – hat, shirt, pants, gloves, shoes, and bracers – to augment Aiden’s stats and armor rating, but the improvements are so incremental and scattershot that it’s often difficult to tell if it’s worth bothering with. It’s messy, and I often found myself ignoring it.

The biggest issue I have, though, is that DL2’s entire deal seems like it would only work better in any perspective other than first-person. DL2 is a rough assemblage of styles of gameplay that are typically better done in third-person, whether it’s melee combat, high-speed platforming, or acrobatics. I don’t generally have problems with motion sickness or headaches with first-person games, but every time I hit a breakfall in DL2 and Aidan does a forward somersault, it does turn my stomach a bit. It’s a testament to how hard Techland’s worked that DL2 is still entirely playable and even addictive, but the perspective’s holding it back.

I plan to keep playing DL2 and see how things develop. The original DL is a rare example of a 2010s game that did feel like it was saving the best for last, but at the same time, its DLC The Following left such a bad taste in my mouth that I’ve yet to revisit it. It’s left me wary of whether or not DL2 will stick its landing.

For now, though, I’d give Dying Light 2 a strong recommendation. You do need to put up with its first rough couple of hours before it really comes together, and it’s got some sore spots here and there, but it’s a solid, well-designed, surprisingly optimistic zombie game. I’ve enjoyed my time with it so far.

Reviewed By: Thomas Wilde
Publisher: Techland
Rating: 85%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Dying Light 2: Stay Human for the PC provided by Techland.

I’m going to come right out and say it – to me, bigger isn’t better. My Battlefield experiences, and I’ve played I think just about every game in the series, have always been with friends. Smaller engagements, 8v8 or 16v16, battles in which you could experience some level of teamwork and strategy. 64v64 is nothing but a bullet frenzy, a collision of aircraft and vehicles and infantry consisting of 128 lone wolves doing their own thing. They’ve done away with the classes which I think made players really consider their character choices and replaced them with a weak tea called specialists, and eliminated any single player content. The game also has a pretty limited set of multiplayer modes – four to be precise. Two are termed all-out war, which includes Conquest and Breakthrough modes, a game called Hazard Zone, and another called Portal.

Far and away the one I liked most is Hazard Zone. In it, teams of four are dropped into a map with up to 8 other teams. The object of the game is to retrieve data packs that appear periodically around the map and get them to an extraction point in time. The map is also populated with AI soldiers who will shoot at anyone approaching a data pack. You don’t know in advance where on the map the pack will appear, so there’s something of a scramble when it does, and there is strategy involved in recovering the pack, getting to the extraction. Rush towards the pack and you could be killed by a team lying in wait. Wait too long, and another team could get it first (though you can kill a team and take the packs they have recovered). And there are the enemy AI soldiers to worry about. Teams of four who do not learn to work together will quickly lose to teams that do – though overall there is a pretty steep learning curve, so be prepared to lose your first several matches just trying to figure it all out. I can’t help but think that Hazard Zone would have made a great game for either single players or a single team against a bunch of AIs. A missed opportunity there.

For both Conquest and Breakthrough games there is no match browser, so when you join a game, you join whatever game has an opening at that moment, I suppose. About half the time I joined a game just as it is starting. The other half I ended up joining a game in the last few minutes of play in which one team is just about to lose or well on its way to losing, and three guesses which side you end up on. What I suspect is happening is a lot of players on the losing team abandon the match, so the system plucks you out of the match queue and sticks you there. If you hang around until the match is over, when the next match starts, you’ll jump in at the beginning. In Conquest the object is to control key points on the map while trying to run out your enemy team’s reinforcement allocation. The maps are really, really big, and if you don’t manage to climb aboard one of the slim pickings of vehicles around, you could be in for a very long walk to get to the action, and by the time you get there, the action may have moved somewhere else, though sometimes you can find yourself in a pretty stacked fight around a single control point. Also, when you die, you can choose to deploy directly into a control point in conflict, though you may not last long if you do. More than once I’ve been sniped while hanging from my parachute to deploy, or appeared basically under the treads of an enemy tank. I will say that the maps on the whole are well-designed, with interesting features like Conex box stacks, cities in ruin, and skyscrapers (though the skyscrapers are kind of a cheat in that they have only a few floors of lobby, and then an elevator that takes you all the way up to a few floors at the top, and nothing in between). Breakthrough mode has a team of attackers trying to push defenders back, taking control points as they go. Of the two, this mode is more intense as combat is focused on a single point at a time.

Portal is an interesting game concept in which you get to set up new games using the maps, classes, and weapons from Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3. There is an online tool to help you configure these games, and the number of options is amazing. Want to make a game with nothing but medics driving tanks? You can! Want to give everyone nothing but grenades? Have at it. And here is the game match browser I wish the main game had, because you can look at all the crazy games other people have created and jump right in. Heaped with community content, this is the mode that I suspect will prove to have some legs, and would have made a great budget title release on its own, but jammed together into a $60 package, I’m not so sure.

There are no classes in BF anymore. I know! Don’t ask me, I didn’t design it. In their place you now have specialists. The easiest way to think of specialists is like weak, generalist classes. The key is that any specialist can carry any loadout, so if your medic wants to carry a sniper rifle, or your sniper carry a medkit, that’s OK. What makes specialists “special” is some specific gadget or ability. For example, any player can heal downed players, but the medic (named Maria Falck – I have no idea why) heals them to full health and does it a little faster and carries a secondary weapon that fires healing syringes. The assault specialist (Webster Mackay) has a grappling hook and can move faster while aiming. A ballistic shield, a recon drone, a sentry gun – it’s a grab bag of interesting though relatively minor tchotchkes. Maybe if this was a game that inspired teamwork rather than bullet storm, all these small parts could add up to something greater, but my instinct is that maps will ultimately devolve into grappling hook and sniper hell. Time will tell.

Pre-launch press materials made a lot of the new weather system, but in actually playing with it, I’m not that impressed. Sure, it rains sometimes and reduces visibility. OK. Ditto sandstorms. And on some maps a tornado can roll through, but all I can see that it does is throw everyone up in the air. You can just deploy your parachute and hover around until the storm passes, and then land back where you started if you so choose. It’s just not the vastly destructive storm that I had been hoping for. The press materials also made a lot of the destructive environments, and here I think they’ve met their promise. I’ve seen tanks blow holes in big buildings and completely level smaller ones.You can have a field day blowing out windows and glass partitions, and I’ve stood right next to a tree that was blown to pieces by I think a recoilless rifle. I’m not sure everything can be destroyed, but an astonishing amount of stuff can. I’ll also say that just having come off a review of Back 4 Blood, those guns were a lot more fun to shoot. Maybe these guns are more realistic – I’m not a gun guy and so can’t really say. I’ll add here that the coolest gadgets and bad-assiest guns are unlocked with higher player levels, so high level players have a considerable advantage in battle, both from having more battle experience, and better weapons, and it can be kind of a downer to be repeatedly shot dead by some lvl-74 sniper with a one-shot-kill rifle, a laser sight, and 60x zoom optics.

I don’t know. It could be that the audience is moving towards bigger and more chaotic gunfights, in which case, though kind of limited with the number of modes they offer, Battlefield 2042 may scratch that shoot-em-up itch. If so, then I’ve fallen out of touch with this franchise. I can say that the decision to switch classes for specialists has met with a metric crapton of criticism on the interwebs, and in that I’m in agreement with the masses – thus far, about 20 hours in, all the specialists play the same to me, though I think most people will gravitate towards either the wingsuit or the grappling hook as being the most fun to play with. I suspect more content is coming – at least more maps, but hopefully more modes, and maybe some AI opponents for single player opportunities – in which case this game may grow into something good (but you’ll have to buy the year one pass to get it). But as it stands, at the price it stands at, I can’t recommend it.

Reviewed By: Phil Soletsky
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Rating: 65%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Battlefield 2042 for the PC provided by Electronic Arts.

And really, it’s been more like 22 years (on a side note, wow I’m old), because I’ve always considered AOE3 in 2005 to be a fair step down from 1999s AOE2, and it is clear that AOE4 is more of a spiritual successor to AOE2 with a return to four collectable resources (food, wood, gold, stone) and the removal of the questionable card system of AOE3.

Whichever, RTS games have always been my go-to genre, and with the demise of Command and Conquer franchise and the seeming end of the AOE series and the stagnation of Starcraft (and argue with me if you like, but the whole Total War series I have always seen as too complicated to scratch my simple RTS itch), it was pretty much just Company of Heroes to sustain me (great series though that is), and I had been losing hope. So, I was pleasantly surprised when I heard AOE4 was coming out, and now that I’ve played it, I find it has a lot to offer. At a time when several games are abandoning single player content entirely (not an RTS, but I’m looking at you Battlefield 2042), AOE4 delivers an enormous single player campaign that spans forty missions (I had to look that number up online – after about 15 hours of playing, I’m apparently less than halfway done). The missions are introduced using real video footage with soldiers appearing as wire frames. Building construction uses that wire frame animation as well, and it’s neat. Civilizations still advance through ages as in previous AOE iterations, though in this instance players are given a choice of different special buildings to construct to advance which provide different advantages. There are 8 playable civilizations each with unique units and bonuses (and interestingly the Mongols have a portable city center and build no buildings), and their own voice work and theme music and unit graphics – very snazzy. Though I’m sure some will complain, I find the balance between them pretty good.

But there are some weird hinks, like it is easier for an army to breach a wall than a gate (the gate seems to have way more hitpoints), and from a tactical standpoint it is easier to just bust down stone walls with a battering ram than mount the walls with a siege tower and try to storm a city that way. I’m also surprised by how poor the pathing is at times when groups of units get tangled up moving past buildings, trees, and other unit formations. Also, when you command an attack against a group of units, as the enemy numbers dwindle, your units have difficulty finding a way to move into combat range with the few remaining soldiers. In general, things like a cavalry charge look great right up to the moment of collision, when they pull up short and then the units just kind of mill around poking each other with their various weapons.

I’ve also got some complaints about the enemy AI. Units have a very clear range of engagement, and you can have a group of archers plink a cluster of enemy units, and then run away – the enemy units will give up the chase and return to their original position after just a short distance. Wash, rinse, repeat, and it’s a very cheap way to kill a lot of enemies. I’ve also noticed on standard difficulty, that the enemy will try and breach your defenses with, say, six horsemen, and when that fails, they’ll try to breach them again with six more horsemen, and then for some variety try again with six more horsemen. At least on intermediate difficulty, the Ai doesn’t put up much of a fight. Your units need a lot of micromanagement as well, as the enemy can engage a long formation of archers and only some of the line will get involved, and pikemen told to stay in place to thwart a horse charge may wonder off their mark to do something else. Controlling big groups of different units remains just as much a pain in the keister as ever. Frankly that I saw these AI problems in AOE2 in 1999 and still see them today is disappointing.

Multiplayer is entirely skirmish, 1v1 through 4v4 where you fight for either military victory, be the first to build a wonder, or take and hold a number of sacred sites on the map. I had been hoping to see some new multiplayer modes, but alas not. There are some setup and function controls in the multiplayers screens that don’t do anything yet, like the choice of using a created map instead of one of the generated ones, but there aren’t any maps in that tab yet so presumably that map making tool is coming. You can also play the maps against a collection of enemy AI if you choose. It all feels like a weird throwback to C&C3.

So Age of Empires IV is well put together and polished to high hell. I wish that something new had been done to bring the RTS genre that has been sitting more or less idle for a decade or so into the modern era, but you can’t have everything, and I suspect that more stuff like a map editor will be added in the future. Beyond that, with the recently released AOE2 Definitive Edition, that title, now 22 years old and $30 cheaper, already comes with a map editor that AOE4 lacks, and roughly a trillion player-made maps, and is probably the better bargain for your gaming dollar, especially if somehow you never got around to playing it previously.

Reviewed By: Phil Soletsky
Publisher: Xbox Game Studios
Rating: 85%

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This review is based on a digital copy of Age of Empires IV for the PC provided by Xbox Game Studios.