Paul Sullivan

“Writing this review exhausted me. I was hoping a new saga of Destiny 2 might get me excited for what’s next. Instead, I’m tired. The skill to make cool stuff still exists at Bungie, but it’s being catastrophically misused. Design and mechanical changes need to be more thoroughly considered, and the entire player base needs to be brought along for the ride. If Bungie leadership is reading this part: please. Give your people the time, space, and freedom to create something incredible. They have the capacity, and they need your support. This franchise can find its footing again, but Bungie needs to get out of its own way to do so.”

“So who is this DLC for? It’s for the Stellaris veterans. For extreme micro-managers. For those who like to live dangerously, and won’t be too upset if they get wrecked through none of their own doing. Like I said, it’s a wrinkle. And Cosmic Storms might be – for some of us – the wrinkle that pushes our fun, stressful, management sim too far. There’s fun to be had if you’ve perfected the art of conquering the galaxy, but Cosmic Storms as a set of mechanics may push getting into Stellaris from challenging into not worth it territory.”

“What Bungie has accomplished with The Final Shape in the face of tremendous hurdles and unreasonable expectations is nothing short of remarkable. It’s a powerful and satisfying story, with the mechanics, art, design, and polish to back it up. This is Bungie’s best work in the Destiny era, and sets a lofty new bar for live service expansions. In a challenging market, Bungie have proven they’re still among the best in the business. I can’t wait to see what’s next.”

“This PC release is the definitive version of Horizon Forbidden West. It looks fantastic, runs brilliantly, and tells one of the more compelling action RPG stories I’ve yet played. Aloy and friends are great characters, and the Horizon world is enticing by design. It’s not smashing through genre barriers by any means, but the systems are expertly balanced and exciting to engage with. It stands toe to toe with the best open world games of all time, and Guerrilla’s trajectory suggests their next effort will be even better.”

“Fort Solis is a moderately successful first effort from Fallen Leaf. It scores points for atmosphere and good voice work, but suffers from clashing tonality. Tension is often severed before it takes hold, and the experience wraps up before exploring threads sufficiently. I understand why the scope is limited mostly to the critical path, but there were numerous threads along the way I wanted desperately to be able to tug at. Fort Solis isn’t exactly blazing any new trails, but there’s an entertaining few hours to be had here for fans of narrative adventures.”

“Lightfall as a whole package falls short of the standard set by The Witch Queen last year. The story is shaky and tangential, and the gameplay changes are few and far between outside of the underwhelming Strand powers. Neomuna isn’t nearly as memorable, and difficulty changes make it more challenging to engage with Destiny’s bread and butter content. Thankfully, overall quality of life improvements and the rock solid bones of the gameplay save the package as a whole. If you’re after more Destiny 2, Lightfall is certainly that, but as the most expensive expansion yet ($100 USD with the annual pass), I expected to have my hair blown back a bit more.”

“At the end of the day, The Walking Dead: Saints & Sinners is a satisfying action RPG with reasonable writing, fun scenarios, and the opportunity to hit zombies with barbed wire baseball bats.”

“Cadence of Hyrule is the Legend of Zelda game I didn’t know I wanted, and now can’t live without. It’s perfect for both bus rides and extended eyebleed caliber play sessions has the raddest soundtrack of the year, and is randomly generated to ensure infinite replayability. It’ll be in my rotation for a good long while, and deserves a place on your Switch wishlist, Zelda fan or not.”

“If you love a great story told with devastating style, you need to play through Nier Automata several times.”

“At about 5 hours long The Thin Silence isn't a huge time investment, but a big chunk of that time is the mechanical segments that only distracted from the more interesting and important story.”

“________________________ “Every action needs to be carefully considered in Surviving Mars”

“_____________________________ “The game doesn't manage to create anything resembling tension as you play”

“It misses the thrill of slamming a quarter down on a cabinet in some dimly lit arcade and throttling some jerk who thinks they're a pretty radical Windjammer.”

“The Lion's Song is a game that leans hard on its storytelling and pulls it off in fine fashion.”

“________________________ “I didn't feel much motivation to try new things when old solutions were still perfectly serviceable.”

“Don't like grey areas? Just become the Borg via the hive mind belief system”

“the ability to make the gun point at the right spot is the difference between gaming nirvana and controller chucking rage. Go ahead and ask my controller where this experience leaned.”

“When punch, punch, launcher kick, jump, insane piledriver is an option, I tend to get creative whenever possible.”

“The translation is unbelievably, hilariously bad.”

“_____________________________ Exploration and empire expansion are genuinely captivating.”