Like seconds of a good meal, add-ons for video games can sometimes be more of a good thing, sometimes just more of the same, and sometimes just too much. Thankfully, it’s the former category that we find Resident Evil 4: Separate Ways, an add-on for the recent and excellent remake of Resident Evil 4.
For some, fighting games are all about beating the crap out of their friends. Or complete strangers they meet online. For others, though, they’re about the challenge of taking on a computer intelligence, one that may even be more skilled than they could ever hope to be. It is for the latter group — of which I am a proud, paid up member — that I present the following critique of the new Mortal Kombat 1 (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, Switch, PC) from the perspective of someone who only played it — and only wanted to play it — as a single-player game.
There’s an old saying: The devil’s in the details. But when you’re making a massive game like the sci-fi space opera action role-playing game Starfield — which is out now for Xbox Series X/S and PC, and is easily one of the best games of the year — sometimes it’s the little details that get lost in the shuffle, especially when you have so many big details to worry about. But in playing Starfield, I noticed a couple little things that I wanted to applaud the good people at Bethesda Game Studios for including, things that won’t make a big difference to a lot of people, but things I noticed and appreciated.
Many of us aspire to greatness…and many of us fail. But sometimes, in failing, we still manage to do something good. It’s something I thought about while playing the ambitious but underwhelming and yet still engaging fantasy first-person shooter Immortals Of Aveum (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, PC). While it falls short of what would seem to be its lofty goals, what Aveum does offer is exciting combat in interesting places against competent enemies, and that’s enough to make it kind of fun.
While the modern military first-person shooter CrossfireX was an unmitigated disaster (hence its prominent place on my Worst Video Games Of 2022 list), the good people at Smilegate are not giving up on this series. After all, the original Crossfire is still big, especially in China and South Korea. Maybe that’s why Smilegate are bringing the series to VR with Crossfire: Sierra Squad, which will be released for PlayStation VR2 on August 29th, and later for Oculus and SteamVR.
And it’s because of the game’s impending release that, this week, some of those good people at Smilegate — who, for the record, are the not the people who made CrossfireX — came to Los Angeles to let game journalists have some hands-on time with the PSVR2 version of the game.
Note: The screenshots in this preview were provided by Smilegate, and not from my playthrough of the game.
At this year’s Summer Game Fest, which was held at City Market Social House in downtown Los Angeles on June 9th and 10th, the good people from NetherRealm Studios and Warner Bros. Games gave journalists — present company included — some hands-on time with the upcoming fighting game Mortal Kombat 1, which will be out September 19th for Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, PC, and Switch.
What follows are my limited impressions of the game.
Two weeks after unveiling an impressive new trailer for their upcoming third-person survival horror shooter Alan Wake II, the fine folk from Remedy Games gave journalists a deeper look at this scary shooter behind closed doors at this year’s Summer Game Fest, which was held June 9th and 10th at Los Angeles’ City Market Social House. And while we didn’t get to take the game for a test drive, the live demo did make this attendee even more excited for this scary game, which will be released October 17th for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC.
Expectations can be tough, especially when a lot of time has passed. Just ask George Lucas about The Phantom Menace. Or Axl Rose about Chinese Democracy. Or George R.R. Martin — no, don’t bother him. Or, you could just ask the good people at Blizzard who made Diablo IV (PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PC), which comes eleven long years after 2012’s Diablo III (and, well, a year after the wrongly convicted Diablo Immortal). Especially since Diablo IV is not a huge jump forward the way Diablo III was over 2000’s Diablo II. But while Diablo IV may be more of a refinement than a reinvention when it comes to this series’ third-person hack & slash / bow & arrow / magic spell action, it still ends up being as effortlessly addictive as the most recent installment. And Diablo III.
Like other game developers who’ve made co-op games in the vein of Left4Dead — including the people who made it and its spiritual successor, Back 4 Blood — the good people at Arkane Austin who made the vampiric first-person shooter Redfall (Xbox Series X/S, PC) assured us that we could play their game solo. So, as someone who doesn’t play well with others, I decided to test this theory, and found that while it has some issues, I actually had a lot of fun playing this supernatural shooter on my own.