Thanks to the success of such games as Super Meat Boy and the Demon Souls / Dark Souls series, there’s been a lot of interest lately in video games that are intentionally hard. But there’s a big difference between challenging and infuriating. And it’s on the wrong side of things that we find Overpass (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch), an off-road racing game that’s decidedly more frustrating than fun.
It’s usually a good sign when a game studio lets members of the media play their game long before it’s out or it even has a release date. Which bodes well for People Can Fly’s upcoming shooter RPG Outriders. Slated to be released this holiday for Xbox Series X, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, and PC by Square-Enix, the third-person sci-fi shooter was the subject of a hands-on preview event last week in Los Angeles, where members of the game and geek press got a chance to play the game’s opening hours.
What follows are my impression of the game, which I played on a “high spec” PC, but with an Xbox controller. Suffice it to say, spoilers follow.
Facing defeat at the end of World War II, Hitler made a last-ditch attempt at victory by raising his dead soldiers from the grave. But while this led to his own death at the end of Zombie Army Trilogy, the new Zombie Army 4: Dead War (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC) shows that the war against the living impaired is still being waged. And while it may not be going well for those hoping to stay alive and free, those hoping to shoot lots of Nazi zombies from the third-person perspective will mostly enjoy this frantic shooter. Mostly.
In preparation for its Open Technical Beta On January 31st and February 1st, the good people of V1 Interactive recently held a Closed Technical Beta for their upcoming sci-fi first-person shooter Disintegration (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC). In it, members of the media and others had an opportunity to play two of the game’s three multiplayer modes, “Retrieval” and “Zone Control.”
What follows are my impressions of the game.
A few days after releasing the new trailer for the upcoming sci-fi first-person shooter DOOM Eternal (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, Switch, Stadia), the good people at Bethesda held at event in Los Angeles where they gave journalists a chance to play the first three hours of the game in anticipation of its March 20th release.
What follows are my impressions of the game’s opening levels, and will obviously contain some spoilers.
Like most years, 2019 had a handful of good games and a whole of lot of terrible ones.
Here, in no particular order, are the worst and most disappointing video games I played in 2019.
Like every year, there were far more bad games than good ones in 2019, especially when you consider all the crappy mobile game rip-offs. But there were also, as always, a couple that stood out.
Here, in no particular order, are the best video games I played in 2019.
One of the more difficult parts of video game design is finding the sweet spot of difficulty where it’s not too tough and not too easy but does get steadily more challenging as the game progresses.
It’s an issue that undermines Sniper Ghost Warrior Contracts (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), a realistic first-person stealth-action sniper game that shooter fans will either find engaging or punishing….and maybe both.
Four years after the disastrous self-titled reboot nearly destroyed it forever, and two years after somewhat redeeming itself with Payback, the Need For Speed series of open world street racing games has made a proper comeback with Need For Speed Heat (Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC), which is not only the best game in this series since 2012’s Need For Speed: Rivals, and the best installment on this generation of consoles, but the best racing game of 2019.