Though it started a bit slow, Star Wars Outlaws (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) was one of last year’s better games.
And now the third-person action / adventure game is getting even better (though only slightly) thanks to A Pirate’s Fortune, an add-on for Outlaws that gives our gal Kay Vess more to do.
In the first Avengers movie, Nick Fury asks a member of the Security Council, “You ever been in a war, councilman? In a fire fight? Did you feel an overabundance of control?” It’s a line that kept repeating in my head as I played — or maybe survived is a better word — DOOM: The Dark Ages (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC), a ridiculously frantic but also ridiculously fun horror- and fantasy-infused science fiction first-person shooter.
And while yes, you can say the same about 2016’s DOOM and 2020’s DOOM Eternal (and the best Call Of Duty games, the Gears Of War series, the Halo games…), there are things about DOOM: The Dark Ages that make it especially unhinged and, well, out of control.
Typically, when a video game company releases a remastered version of a game that only came out a few years earlier — as opposed to a remake of an older game — all they do is make it look and run a little better. They usually don’t add anything significant that might make it worth getting if you’ve already played the original.
But while that’s largely true for Days Gone: Remastered (PlayStation 5), a renovated version of 2019’s third-person open world zombie apocalypse action game Days Gone (PlayStation 4), Remastered has some additions that may make fans of the original consider getting this upgrade.
Well, the masochistic ones, that is.
In 2006, when the TV show 24 was in its fifth season, one of my fellow game journalists told me he’d gotten an opportunity to play the video game 24: The Game weeks before it came out. When I asked him how it was, he said something along the lines of, “Yeah, it’s good.”
But then he asked if I was a fan of the show, and when I said I was, he got very excited. “Oh, then it’s really good,” he exclaimed, “It totally feels like an episode of the show.”
This is the same reaction I’d give anyone who asks me about Indiana Jones And The Great Circle, which is now available on PlayStation 5 after first coming to Xbox Series X|S and PC. While it may not be what you want from a game starring the eminent Dr. Jones, it’s a great recreation of everything we love about his movies.
Games don’t exist in a vacuum. If you make games, the games you make will be influenced by the games you’ve played. The trick is to put your own unique spin on things.
It’s what the good people at Compulsion Games have done with their third-person action game South Of Midnight (Xbox Series X|S, PC), which is like Shadow Of The Tomb Raider…but only if Lara Croft was a Jedi who lived in a Southern Gothic world of magical realism.
So, y’know, not all that Tomb Raider-y after all.
At a time when some people worry they may never be able to afford a home, it seems cruel to make a video game in which a kid gets a free mansion.
But you won’t feel that way after you see what he has to do to get it. In the video game Blue Prince (PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, PC) a fourteen year old kid has to search his grand uncle’s massive estate for the secret 46th room in a 45 room mansion. But to do so, he has to get through what I can only describe as a cross between a board game, an escape room, and a sadistic puzzle game.
When we play such post-apocalyptic games as S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, Metro Exodus, or The Division 2, we expect them to be set in dark, moody places.
But in Atomfall (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, PC), an open world, first-person post-apocalyptic survival action game from Rebellion Developments, the decimated world has a sunny disposition, and is all the more interesting for it. If only other aspects were as engaging as the setting.
At a recent event held at Los Angeles’ City Market Social House, the good people from iD Software and Bethesda Softworks gave game journalists (myself included) an opportunity to play the upcoming sci-fi / fantasy first-person shooter Doom: The Dark Ages, which is slated to be released for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X|S, and PC on May 15, 2025.
What follows are my impressions of the game.
(Note: All screenshots were provided by iD Software and Bethesda Softworks.)
While some of mobile gaming’s less appealing aspects have been carried over to console and PC games — we’re looking at you, loot boxes — one that hasn’t that often, but should, is the idea that it’s okay to have a game you only play in short, quick bursts.
But that’s exactly where we find Mullet MadJack (Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PC), an over-the-top, cyberpunk sci-fi arcade first-person shooter on a timer that can be a bit much if played for too long, but is ridiculous fun in small bits.