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Sea of Thieves is often at its best when it devolves into chaos. After raiding a skeleton ship and loading up your brig with loot, suddenly, a player galleon appears from behind an island, turning its broadside cannons in your direction for a sneak attack. Returning fire, repairing your ship, and desperately turning your sails to make an escape--or firing a crewmate over to the enemy to lay waste to them and steal their stuff--are the moments that make Rare's pirate adventure live game so memorable. But don't discount Rare's ability to make deep, brainy story content, either. Since its launch, Sea of Thieves has come to encompass Tall Tales, lengthy voyages centered on solving riddles and learning about non-player characters that make up the game's lore. It's in this more directed, narrative-driven realm that the game's latest expansion, A Pirate's Life, lies as well. Tying in with Disney's Pirates of the Caribbean film franchise, the expansion provid...

Scarlet Nexus takes us to a world where humans have developed psionic powers and the ability to connect their minds to each other. This has dramatically transformed life as we know it, allowing for a new era of connected consciousness and advanced technology. However, things aren’t all sunshine and roses for humanity--the populace lives in fear of the Others, grotesque brain-consuming monsters that randomly emerge from a mysterious belt that surrounds the planet. Their destructive impulses have rendered many areas uninhabitable, forcing humans to congregate in cities under the protection of the Other Suppression Force--an army of elite psionics trained to handle Other attacks. Yuito and Kasane are two fresh-faced recruits to the OSF, and they find their skills quickly put to the test during attacks. When a mission goes awry, they will be forced to take sides and fight to expose disturbing truths lying under the surface. The setting of Scarlet Nexus is an intriguing mix of cyberpunk i...

After hitting an approach shot that landed a few feet from the hole, I dashed down the fairway, hopped over the lip of the bunker and settled over my tap-in for birdie. I wound up making a double bogey. Chargin’ Chuck smacked a Bob-omb on the green, blasting my ball into the rough. Then Boo unleashed its special shot, sending my chip woefully right of its target. From there, I frantically missed my long bogey putt and finally tapped in for my lousy score. When Mario Golf: Super Rush is at its best, chaos is what makes it tick. These unpredictable moments are hilarious, adding a new dimension to Camelot’s long-running sports series. Zany courses designed to look more like 3D Super Mario levels and a pair of new fast-paced modes turn the typically leisurely sport of golf into an action game. But for all of the exciting moments and innovation Mario Golf: Super Rush offers, it still feels slim on content and lackluster at times. Super Rush tries to add to its variety even in its pair of ...

Game Builder Garage isn't Nintendo's first foray into game creation software, but its previous efforts have all been narrowly focused. Super Mario Maker and its sequel gave you the tools and freedom to create your own Mario levels, while WarioWare DIY for the DS let you create and share brief microgames. Game Builder Garage, on the other hand, seems to have grander ambitions. Nintendo has billed it as a way to "learn to make games from the minds at Nintendo." While it doesn't quite live up to that sky's-the-limit pitch, it's nonetheless an impressively flexible toolkit and a charming introduction to the basics of game creation. Fundamentally, Game Builder Garage is an expanded version of the Toy-Con Garage mode from Nintendo's Labo kits (as evidenced by the various Labo assets featured in the software). Just as in Toy-Con Garage, "programming" in Game Builder Garage is handled by stringing input and output nodes together; connecting a B but...

Final Fantasy VII Remake 's tone often slides between light, funny moments and dark, tragic drama. But from the first moments of Intermission, the DLC mission added to the game with its Intergrade PlayStation 5 upgrade , it's clear this new episode is mostly a comedy. In jumps Yuffie, one of the original game's optional characters, and immediately her dangerous espionage mission to infiltrate the evil Shinra Corporation in Midgar is played like a kid goofing off. It's a vibe that really works for the DLC, trading on the fact that Remake continues to be great about establishing fun, eccentric characters. Taking place in the middle of Remake's story, during the portion in which Cloud is separated from his compatriots, it follows Yuffie as she embarks on a mission to steal a secret Shinra weapon on behalf of her homeland, Wutai. Though the mission is dangerous, Yuffie approaches it with all the seriousness of a kid playing pretend--even though she's on her way to ...

Guilty Gear Strive is, like so many of its predecessors, the pinnacle of a certain kind of fighting game. The series, known for its highly technical (read: complicated) set of systems, rewards players for investing time to master both its universal systems and the nuances of its individual characters in a way that few other series have. Strive maintains that tradition and throws in a couple new ideas that bolster its bold anime-inspired flash without making the game any harder to learn. While the core fighting experience has only improved, many of the game's less savory tendencies remain in place, including its non-playable story "mode" and yet another set of kludgy Arc System Works-style avatar-based matchmaking menus. As in most fighting games, those problems are secondary: Players, particularly veterans, who want to put in work will find Guilty Gear Strive to be a wild time. If you're counting, Strive is the eighth primary entry in the Guilty Gear franchise, so i...

Editor's note : In June 2021, developer Square Enix released an upgraded version of Final Fantasy VII Remake for PlayStation 5, which included improved visuals and technical performance, as well as some new features, including a photo mode. Our impressions on how the improvements impact Final Fantasy VII on PS5 are written by Phil Hornshaw. The original review of Final Fantasy VII Remake was first published in April 2020 and is written by Tamoor Hussain. In the opening of Final Fantasy VII , Cloud Strife, a mercenary and former member of an elite private military group called SOLDIER, takes on a job with an eco-terrorist cell named Avalanche. Their mission is to blow up a reactor that siphons Mako, the lifeblood of the planet, and uses it to power the sprawling industrial metropolis Midgar. The group infiltrates, braves resistance from Shinra Electric Company's forces, and sets off an explosion that renders the reactor inoperable. In the 1997 original, what followed was a hop...

When Stonefly promises a chill and tranquil adventure it's not telling the whole truth. Annika, a capable young pilot searching for her engineer father's stolen mech, finds herself under frequent attack from the bugs that protect the resources she so desperately needs. Much of Stonefly is spent propelling your insectoid mech through an arboreal maze, hopping from leaf to leaf and catching the breeze to higher layers of canopy. But the various minerals you must extract to craft mech upgrades are fiercely protected, and so the game's rhythm becomes one of sedate exploration punctuated by frantic skirmishes. While Annika can modify her mech for combat, improving existing functions and installing new ones, the pattern remains the same throughout. While airborne, she can shoot at enemies directly below her; damage them sufficiently--basic enemies take only one hit while the toughest will require multiple strafings--and they flip over onto their backs. Once vulnerable, enemies ...

Ratchet & Clank: Rift Apart is a game about counterparts. In this strange new setting, everyone has a doppelganger who looks almost identical to the one we know, but their circumstances have changed them. Ratchet's new alternate dimensional counterpart, Rivet, may have had a harder life than him, and it's shaped her personality in surprising ways, but she's still the same heroic person at heart. The same can be said for Rift Apart. The new generation of hardware has made some dramatic changes for the better, but in a very welcome and comforting way, this is still the Ratchet & Clank you've come to know and love. The title may be "Ratchet & Clank," but Rivet is the real star here. Ratchet and his robot buddy Clank are the template that helps inform what we learn about Rivet and her own journey, and the vast majority of Rift Apart takes place in her universe. She also seems to get slightly more playtime, even if the stages are split roughly evenly a...

While Virtua Fighter has gotten attention in other games, such as guest characters in Dead or Alive 5 and as minigames in various Yakuza titles, the once-venerated 3D fighter seemed to be forgotten for a very long time. But with Virtua Fighter 5 once again revamped and re-released, does this star of the fighting game world still shine as brightly? Yes... but, speaking as a veteran Virtua Fighter fan, there are a few issues that keep Virtua Fighter 5 Ultimate Showdown from claiming its crown as an all-time champion. Considered the granddaddy of 3D fighting games, Virtua Fighter sparked revolutions in visuals and gameplay and, even now, it holds a great deal of respect among fighting game fans. Its simple three-button control scheme and comparatively small character roster hides an incredibly complex and rewarding game--provided you're willing to put in the time to learn and improve at it. Some games in the series--such as the excellent Virtua Fighter 4 Evolution--are known for amaz...