Like The Simpsons, Family Guy, and other cartoons that have been on the air a long time, South Park may not be as good as it used to be, but it’s still funny and even occasionally has flashes of its old brilliance. What hasn’t changed, though, is how the South Park The Complete Eighteenth Season Blu-ray and DVD has the same shortcomings as The Complete First Season DVD and all the other seasonal sets in between.
When Rock Band 3 came out in 2010, its lousy song selection and unwillingness to let me play at the difficulty level of my choosing irritated me so much that I rage quit after just a few tunes and never looked back. But while the former problem continues in Rock Band 4 (Xbox One, PlayStation 4), I’m happy to say the latter has largely (though not totally) been excised, making this a rather welcome comeback.
Much like the Marvel Comics and Pixar films that inspired its earlier incarnations, the Disney Infinity games have always tried to appeal to adults as well as children, though with decidedly less success. In fact, it wasn’t until the Disney Infinity 3.0 Twilight Of The Republic playset, which was essentially a Clone Wars game, that it managed to pull it off. But while you might expect the same from the Disney Infinity 3.0 Rise Against The Empire playset, which is set during the time of the original Star Wars trilogy that adults love so much, it actually falls a bit short for lots of little reasons.
A few weeks before it came out, the executive producer of Afro Samurai 2 Revenge Of Kuma Volume 1 (PlayStation 4, Xbox One, PC) — one of a bunch people at Redacted Studios who also worked on the original Afro Samurai — confessed that, “No one on the team was really happy with how the first game turned out.” Unfortunately, I doubt anyone is going to be happy with how this new game turned out, either.
Since the explosion of mobile games began, there’s been a bunch that seem like they’d work just as well, if not better, on a game console, and with a controller. But while few mobile games ever make that transition, the 2D, side-scrolling, puzzle-driven platformer Leo’s Fortune is bucking this trend by bringing this iOS, Android, Windows phone, and Amazon Fire game to Xbox One, PlayStation 4, PC, and Mac. And though it took a year to make the trip, it seems that it was time well spent.
While Turn 10 Studios have repeatedly shown that they know how to make great racing games with their Forza Motorsport series, they were actually usurped last year when Playground Games absolutely nailed the controls (well, for arcade fans, that is) for the Forza spin-off Forza Horizon 2. But now Turn 10 have stolen the crown back by bringing those great controls, and a whole lot more, to Forza Motorsport 6 (Xbox One), which is not only the best Forza game yet, but one of the strongest games of the year as well.
In the years since Return Of The Jedi came out in 1983, and especially after Revenge Of The Sith was released in 2005, the writers of the Star Wars books, comics, and games have often explored what happened before and after the two trilogies, but have left the time between them largely untouched. Which is part of what makes Star Wars Rebels so compelling, since this cartoon explores the early days of the rebellion in the years leading up to the first movie, 1977’s A New Hope. But while Star Wars Rebels Complete Season One Blu-ray and DVD do a good job presenting the show, it doesn’t do as good a job in showing how it was made.
With a wide open world full of story-driven missions, random encounters, and even plants to collect, the third-person stealth-action game Metal Gear Solid V The Phantom Pain (PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PC) plays like a sneaky version of The Witcher III: Wild Hunt if you swapped magic for machine guns. But while that might sound like a big departure to fans on this long-running series, what this really does is adapt the classic Metal Gear Solid formula to a engaging new setting, one that helps make this one of the most compelling games of the year.
At a time when CGI spectaculars are the norm, the vehicular action movie Mad Max Fury Road stood out for largely using real stunt people and practical effects…and still being just as exciting as one of those CGI spectaculars. But while the Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, 3D Blu-ray/DVD combo pack, and DVD pair the film with some informative extras, they still come up a little short.